Category: Movie Reviews

Movie Review: SPRING

On By ANDREW HOPEIn Movie ReviewsLeave a comment

spring

It’s not often that a movie comes along and creates its own genre.  Spring, written by Justin Benson and directed by Benson and Aaron Moorhead (who also created the Bonestorm segment of V/H/S Viral, actually does just that: RomHor!  Does that sound dumb or overhyped?  Probably both, but I feel it’s true.  I’ve seen many a romantic drama, and many a horror movie, and this is absolutely a successful fusion of both in that neither element feels half assed.  The movie poster describes it as Richard Linklater meets HP Lovecraft – not a terrible mashup, but not completely accurate, to me anyway.  This is clearly the movie that Benson and Moorhead set out to make, and I mostly liked it.

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Movie Review: JUG FACE

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Jug Face

I totally avoided Jug Face when it was streaming on Netflix – neither the title, nor the poster appealed, and I read a bad review – but I took a chance with it tonight on the strength of a great performance by Lauren Ashley Carter in Darling, and I wasn’t let down this time either.  Indie horror is definitely hit or miss, but unlike Big Studio horror that’s only concerned with how many teens they can open with on Friday night, the indie scene is more concerned with telling stories, and often some real talents emerge.

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Movie Review: ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE

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only lovers

You might know from reading my review of A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (if you haven’t, go!  Now!) that I appreciate a good vampire movie, so, enthusiastic about said movie, I fast-tracked Only Lovers Left Alive written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, a movie-maker whose body of work I actually have very little experience of.  I know the name, of course, and I know he’s made a lot of movies, but any previews I’ve seen have never interested me too much.  I came to this movie because of the subject matter, expecting it to be arty and somewhat pretentious, and that’s exactly what I got.

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Movie Review: WHEN ANIMALS DREAM

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when animals

I’m quite fond of foreign language horror movies.  Mostly, they haven’t succumbed to the slick move toward PG-13 irrelevance, which isn’t to say an R (or 18) rated movie is full of blood and guts and everything that’s superficial about the genre.  No, I’m mostly talking about the fact that character-driven stories are the keys to good horror.  I know, I know, many people are all about the serial murders of a youthful cast within 120 minutes.  Whatever floats your boat, I won’t judge.  Especially because my own character-driven snobbery doesn’t necessarily produce great movies either.

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