Jake Paltrow and Noah Baumbach’s 2016 documentary, De Palma, stands among my 10 favorite films of last year, with my only criticism being that it stops after 93 minutes. Anyone else who was left wanting more (and more and more) may find that itch somewhat scratched by Douglas Keesey’s Brian De Palma’s Split-Screen: A Life … Continue reading Reading Material: Short Ends 4/30/17
Bryan Senn’s latest book, The Werewolf Filmography: 300+ Films, covers every lycan-centric movie you can think of, and scads more you otherwise never would have heard of. But maybe you should — at least the ones that are good. In this Guest List for Flick Attack, Senn tracks down seven little-known were-flicks well worth your … Continue reading Guest List: Bryan Senn’s Top 7 Unsung Were-Gems
If a mystery exists in Jules Verne’s Mystery on Monster Island — one does not — the characters are not cognizant of it. Please forgive them, for they are very, very stupid. And so is their movie, for which Pieces auteur Juan Piquer Simón pillow-smothered Verne’s 1882 adventure novel Godfrey Morgan into a live-action cartoon. … Continue reading Jules Verne’s Mystery on Monster Island (1981)
Officially or not, The Unliving (aka Tomb of the Werewolf, in a shorter cut) is the 12th and final entry in the cycle of films starring Spanish-horror icon Paul Naschy as the lycanthropic Count Waldemar Daninsky. We say “or not” because Naschy neither wrote nor directed it. Hell — and this is not a complaint … Continue reading The Unliving (2004)
Spanish filmmaker Víctor Matellano’s Wax bears more similarity to 1953’s classic House of Wax than 2005’s official remake. With one foot planted firmly in horror cinema’s past, Matellano uses his other to sidestep between the decidedly more contemporary subgenres of found footage and torture porn. There’s room for all — perhaps even too much, as … Continue reading Wax (2014)