Fright Night (1985)

Since today is the 3th anniversary of the Super Mario Brothers franchise, I wanted to review a movie from 1985. Two films immediately came to mind. The first is a cult classic which I have seen twice, and honestly have never cared for, though I will inevitably review it at some point. The second I’d …

The Turning (2020)

I’ve actually been dreading this one a bit. Floria Sigismondi has been one of my favorite music video directors, making incredible videos for artists I’ve loved like The White Stripes and Muse. Her video for the opening track of Sigur Ros’ brilliant 2002 album ranks among my favorite of all time. So seeing her as …

M20: In 2014, my new life in Columbia began, only to come down in flames

Welcome to M20, a personal recollection of the most important albums of my life, starting in 1999. I will choose an album released that year that had the most impact on me. This is not necessarily the best of the year, and they may not necessarily continue to hold up. This is about the journey. …

Who I Am Now

So it’s been about a week since I started this little introspective tangent, and I guess now we’re getting into what one could term “the good stuff”. Here’s where I deal with the big realities, in the order they came. I’m not straight. I only allowed myself to believe this near the end of my …

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)

There was a time where I did not like horror movies at all. I remember a time when Halloween was my least favorite holiday, because the very idea of taking a whole month to celebrate fear was absurd. Why would anyone want to be a part of that? But during my last few years in …

Come to Daddy (2020)

Elijah Wood has had a very interesting film career. He started as a child star in the 90’s renaissance of child stars, acting alongside Macaulay Culkin, Christina Ricci, and Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Then he played Frodo in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, giving him the freedom to basically do whatever he wants for the …

Candyman (1992)

I consider myself extremely knowledgeable about horror as a genre, but I would be remiss in suggesting that I’m necessarily an authority on how horror has addressed race over the years. I’m a suburban white guy, so the majority of horror has been aimed at me, and in very few cases have I felt like …

The Legend of Hell House (1973)

Like most people, I don’t read enough books. Unfortunately, compared to other activities like watching movies or listening to music, reading requires a real time investment. Everything else in your life takes a momentary backseat while you process what you’re reading. And generally on the rare occasion that we get a moment to ourselves, even …

Underwater (2020)

Just one week after the atrocious update of The Grudge, 2020 got its second big horror release. And you’d be excused for thinking that it would be garbage. But Underwater, while not reinventing the wheel, does prove that though January is a dumping ground for movie studios, it doesn’t always mean that the movies are …

Dreamscape (1984)

One of the easiest ways to tell that I’m having trouble getting good titles for a year is when I start dipping into stuff that’s merely horror-adjacent. This was a huge problem in the early years of cinema, particularly in the early 40’s, and I ended up reviewing a bunch of thrillers. Last time this …

The Grudge (2020)

Any other year, I would be embarrassed by how long it’s taken me to watch a release from the same year. Of course, this has been far from an average year. January is an absolute wasteland for new releases, and February is not much better, so I expected to really get started on the year’s …

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

As we’ve seen, the Friday the 13th franchise pretty much immediately started its drop in quality, becoming nothing more than a showcase for a relentless killer to dispatch attractive “teenagers” in interesting ways. The 1980’s in particular were full of such movies, with varying degrees of clever kills and interesting killers. But if you were …