Movieline Online

The horror genre demands a constant influx of new blood. From writers, directors, cast and special effects crew, the genre is a springboard to bigger and better things. But, like working at McDonalds, no one is really expected to make a career out of it. So you have to give those continue to stay scary by choice a bit of grudging respect…if might be the last they ever get. Director Brett Simmons had momentum on his side after turning his short film Husk into a feature in 2011, debuting as part of the AfterDark Film HorrorFest. His fast-paced, slick story about killer scarecrows made an impact with fans and proved he had a talent for making the familiar frightening. Three years and two films later, Simmons is still working in familiar territory with Animal (2014), an old-fashioned body count monster movie, but has a more difficult time upping the fear factor. Alissa (Keke Palmer) and her closest pals hike to their secret family campground but lose track of the trail and wind u...

A project that grew out of his lengthy interviews with Alfred Hitchcock (published in book form in 1967), director Francois Truffaut subjugates his more artistic tendencies in The Bride Wore Black (1968), a hypnotic revenge story that incorporates many of Hitch’s trademark cinematic tricks and is even set to a matching Bernard Hermann score. But the end result is more than a sycophantic homage; it’s an in vitro thriller that plays to the cheap seats and art crowds alike. With no preamble, the story introduces us to Julie Kohler (Jeanne Moreau) as she murders the first of her five planned victims: Bliss, a self-confessed playboy who she shoves off a balcony during his own engagement party. Coral, a failed romantic, Morane, a callous politician, Delvaux, a common criminal, and Fergus, an arrogant artist are all next on her list of targets. The reason for Julie’s mercilessly methodical act of retribution springs from the tragic death of her husband on their wedding day, shot dead on ...

You’ve got classic auteurs like Bergman, Truffaut and Ford. Modern guys like Kubrick, Scorsese and Coppola. Even the quirky independent minded fellas like Cronenberg, Lynch, and Wes Andersen. But what the hell do you do with someone like Larry Cohen? Here’s a guy who arguably has put up just as impressive a body of work, but gets none of the credit. Laboring on genre pictures like blaxsploitation, shoot-em-ups, and monster-on-the-loose flicks, just to name a few, that garner little or no respect from mainstream critics. While the big names walk away with all the awards, Larry Cohen’s work is more subversive, changing the genre from within, adding a twist where another director would walk a straight line. And God Told Me To might just be the perfect example of what his unique style of guerilla filmmaking is capable of; a high-concept story of gods, demons, and extraterrestrials that most filmmakers with triple the budget would be wary of attempting. As the film beings, NYC is under sieg...

Everyone loves an underdog…especially the Academy Awards. And Breaking Away (1979), the story of a tight-knit group of Bloomington, Indiana townies who go toe-to-toe against a well-trained team of frat boy bicyclists, is a perfect companion piece to Rocky , which won Best Picture just three years earlier. So even if the film’s five nominations weren’t exactly unprecedented (it took home only Best Original Screenplay), director Peter Yates’ production still feels like a breed apart from all the sports films that came before and after. Obsessed with all things Italian, Dave Stoller (Dennis Christopher) dreams of racing at the highest level, despite his “son of a stone-cutter” background in an economically depressed small-town. He and his other “Cutter” buddies (including Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern and Jackie Earle Haley) face an aimless future after high school, a fact that the local college jocks are only too keen to rub in their faces. But Dave’s remarkable racing ability gives ...