Tag Archives: cult-movies

Once upon a time in 1970s Texas, a group of filmmakers traveled to a remote farmhouse to shoot what they hoped would be the Citizen Kane of porno flicks. Only one of them would leave that quaint rural residence alive. Cut to: that same “Final Girl” close to a decade …

“Hi. I’m going to kill myself if you don’t come and get me.” It’s hard to gauge the seriousness of the threat, given that the speaker is an 11-year-old girl named Lacy (Zoe Ziegler), the delivery is simultaneously end-of-the-world apocalyptic and stunningly casual, and the time and location is a …

When you get to be an actor of a certain age, you have the option of a lucrative career pivot into action movies. Just ask Liam Neeson, or Denzel Washington, or any of the other A-listers who’ve reinvented themselves as late-act ass-kickers. We’ll confess that we did not have June …

May 1985 was a good moment to be a hot, young actor. You had filmmakers like John Hughes presenting the teen experience in a way that resonated with teen audiences. You had studios who were suddenly happy to make films that catered to this lucrative, 14-to-24 demographic, so work was …

Imagine the Dardenne brothers got very high one night on some primo hash, then directed a slasher flick. That may be the best way to describe In a Violent Nature, and yes, we admit that this review has already drawn battle lines: You can sense jump-scare purists scoffing, arthouse habitues …

Do androids dream of electric sheep? A better question: What if their R.E.M. cycles were filled with the same wish-fulfillment scenarios and sweaty-palm nightmares that the rest of us have, as thoughts of love and loneliness and hopes and fears danced through their metallic heads? Based on Sarah Varon’s 2007 …

Imagine a kindly grandfather-type figure sitting by an open hotel window, staring out at the sea on the French Riviera. The early sun hits his shock of gray hair in a way that almost makes it look like there’s a halo above it. The black-on-black ensemble suggests he’s arrived in …

Every superhero gets an origin story. So, for that matter, do most supervillains. The Apprentice drops viewers into New York circa 1973, when a 34-year-old resident of Queens walked in to the upper-crust establishment on the Upper West Side known as Le Club. He went there in an attempt to …

Imagine a world in which Stephen Sondheim made Sicario. Yes, that Stephen Sondheim; yes, that 2015 thriller about the world of Mexican drug cartels. Got that? Good. Now add in Selena Gomez as the wife of a narco who, in a moment of deep grief and remembrance, utters the line, …

Those lucky enough to have discovered Yorgos Lanthimos right as he was establishing himself as a world-cinema weirdo — we’d carbon-date the initial who-the-fuck-is-this-guy?! moment as mid-2009, when his breakthrough film Dogtooth was worming its way through the festival circuit — remember what a shock it was to encounter the …