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The Myth of the Great Ghost Story
It’s Halloween and with that comes a certain degree of obligation. It’s one thing to post about horror throughout the month of October but on the day itself, a day that this year falls on my regular...
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“It’s my blood. I gave it to you.”
Unlike some of my fellow Morlocks who often express their disappointment in modern horror films (I’m winking at my good pal Greg Ferrara who recently complained about the lack of good ghost movies) I...
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Halloween regrets
Remember how excited we were when September yielded to October and Halloween was 31 days away? Now it’s November 2nd and hard to believe another All Hallows Eve has come and gone. But I think it is a...
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Hammer does Hitchcock
For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been looking at secret Hitchcock remakes—movies that may or may not have taken direct inspiration from Hitchcock’s classics, but at least pretended they didn’t....
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Sing a song, quote-along, and be a part of the party – at the movies.
Going to the movies has long been considered a mostly passive experience where you quietly sit in darkness to be carried off by a visual experience. A growing number of small exhibitors, however, are...
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Bring Out the Permed Hair: Remembering the 1980s
I have been an ardent film-goer my entire life, but I think I reached a peak during the 1980s. At the time, I was finishing my doctorate at Northwestern while working as a book editor, and I looked...
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Twin Killing: The Dark Mirror (1946)
In 1946 the German emigre Robert Siodmak directed a trio of brooding hits that lifted his Hollywood pay grade from programmers to prestige pics, earning him a rare share of fame for a director of the...
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When You First Knew Them by Name
As a small boy, years ago, three decades removed from the impending 21st century, I began to nurture my love for film in ways that far exceeded simply watching movies. I read about movies, I studied...
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Ralph Nelson’s DUEL AT DIABLO (1966)
As soon as the credits start to roll in Ralph Nelson’s DUEL AT DIABLO (1966) you know you’re in for something very different. A knife suddenly appears to cut through the screen and immediately starts...
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Shoot the Berkeley to me, Hector: A Defense of Ghost Catchers (1944)
The way I have it figured, if I can make a persuasive case for GHOST CATCHERS (1944), I can pretty much write my own ticket in this cruel, cruel world. The movie has a lousy reputation, abysmal, about...
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Warren Beatty Is (Not) James Bond!
I am writing this before having seen Skyjack, so I can’t talk directly about the latest James Bond film, but I can flirt about its edges. I am one of those who have greatly enjoyed the rebooted series...
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It takes a long time sometimes: Fifty years of To Kill a Mockingbird
NCM Fathom Events, Turner Classic Movies, and Universal bring Robert Mulligan’s TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962) back to select cinemas on Thursday, November 15th, in celebration of 100 years of Universal...
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What I Didn’t Know About John Wayne
I recently drove by one of those roadside sales that are occasionally set up at gas stations or abandoned parking lots in which vendors hawk kitschy items such as velvet paintings, pictures of...
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Frame Up: New Widescreen Films on Blu-Ray
From the multiplicity of locations to place a camera, the director and his collaborators have to settle on one. This decision, born of practical training and on-set instinct, can turn a routine shot...
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The Art House Film: Hollywood Style
Hollywood, and even independent cinema, here defined as an independent producer financing a film and then cutting a deal with a studio for distribution rights, has rarely made the type of film that one...
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Art Meets Artifice in Shohei Imamura’s A MAN VANISHES (1967)
“I’d like to destroy this premise that cinema is fiction.” – Shohei Imamura “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in...
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Fear itself: To Kill a Mockingbird’s nightmare legacy
Perhaps due to Elmer Bernstein’s stirring score and to its own final notes of reconciliation and the healing power of love, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962) encourages you to forget the horrors that are...
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James Bond vs. Dr. Mabuse
Speaking of faux-James Bond thrillers of the 1960s. . . didja hear the one about the British secret service agent, his slutty girlfriend, the death ray, and the man who could cheat death? Sounds good,...
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It’s not easy being green.
As a bi-monthly blogger my next post is scheduled for December 2nd. A few days before that, on November 30th, you will be able to see four Morlocks on TV courtesy of TCM. The idea for putting some of...
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Dreams of a Rare Animator
While D.W. Griffith was innovating the language of cinema in dozens of one-reelers in the first decade of the 20th century, Winsor McCay began developing the foundations of American animation in a...
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