In honor of Spring Break, I decided to be a lazy bitch and take last week off. Sorry, loyal readers and c’est le vie! In recompense, I’m offering you a morbid, Spanish orphan extravaganza. First up is 2001’s The Devil’s Backbone.
Read MoreFirestarter (1984) #BluRay
As I’m writing this, countless fans the world over are going to say goodbye to the original X-Men Franchise with Logan, the story of Wolverine’s trek across America with a young mutant girl capable of great destruction. While it’s a fantastic film, and one that every superhero fan should definitely see, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that Logan is, in fact, the latest installment in a minor subgenre of sci-fi action films that’s slowly been trickling back to life: people-on-the-run-with-a-super-child. In addition to Logan, we saw it only recently with Midnight Special, which saw Joel Edgerton and Michael Shannon attempting to transport a psychic child to a special destination in Florida; and last year’s Netflix phenomenon Stranger Things was entirely built around this archetype, with the usual adult protector role switched out for the D&D boys.
Read MoreBloodrunners (2017)
Bloodrunners just might be the greatest horror comedy yet unleashed on 2017. I don’t know if that’s a point for or against the movie, but, in either case, it’s pretty damn hysterical. Set in the dying days of prohibition, Bloodrunners nominally focuses on Detective Jack Malone, a hardboiled cop in a sleepy East Coast town whose main jobs seem to be collecting protection money from speakeasies and hanging out at the local whoremansion, where he drowns his memories of World War I in an endless supply of booze and flesh.
Read MoreCapture Kill Release (2016)
I’ve been married nearly a decade now, and occasionally someone will ask me what I think makes a successful marriage. Of course, I have a barrage of criteria--things you would probably expect like a sacrificial attitude, patience, shared political and religious sentiments. But for me, the biggest predictor of a couple’s longevity is the degree to which both parties take an interest in the other’s hobbies.
Read MoreAt Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (1964)
After having too much fun celebrating Women in Horror Month here at CineDump, I’ve decided to keep that sweet thematic train rolling with my own mini-celebration of Hispanic-Latino films. To start things off in style, I bring you none other than Coffin Joe, the villainous undertaker, aspiring Nietzschean Superman, proto-Jigsaw torture master, and sharp dresser extraordinaire. That’s right, America, Brazil was doing misogynistic bastards with killer fashion sense long before Freddy “Welcome to Primetime, Bitch” Krueger and his iconic sweater.
Read MoreLogan (2017)
I like to pride myself in having a pretty accurate understanding of movies based off of their trailers. I will generally see the first trailer and know whether or not the movie will be good. I’m not always right; sometimes they’re better than I ever thought they would be, i.e.: John Wick or La La Land.
Read MoreProxy (2013) #WiHM
When we here at CineDump first conceived the idea to profile 28 amazing women and films during Women in Horror Month, I immediately blurted out, “We have to cover Proxy.” If you haven’t seen Proxy, don’t feel bad, a lot of people didn’t. Released in 2013 by IFC Midnight, Proxy, like the lost and lonely souls in the movie, has never gotten the love it needed.
Read MoreThe Box from XX (2017) #WiHM
Jovanka Vuckovic’s “The Box” operates on horror’s oldest premise: what you don’t see is the worst thing of all. That’s not to say that this sinister short feels dated or old fashioned--on the contrary, its assault on the viewer’s sense of the uncanny feels fiendishly new. Rather than rely on gore, “The Box” maintains a clinically cold detachment, allowing the dread to mount until the haunting ending leaves the viewer hoping for that oh-so-comforting sense of closure we’ve been trained to need from horror films.
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