Skipping theaters and debuting on DVD free of digital bells and whistles, the Dark Castle Entertainment thriller exactly lacking in famous faces, with John Cusack and Jennifer Carpenter in the leads as partnering police detectives in snowy Buffalo, N.Y. Mike Fletcher (Cusack, The Raven) is an 18-year veteran of the force obsessed with a longtime […]
horror
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Lake Placid: The Final Chapter
I’m so kidding. However, it appears to pick up from where LP3 left off — I haven’t seen it — with crocodile hunter Reba (Yancy Butler, Shark Week) surviving a tussle with a giant croc … only to have it not be as dead as she first thought. “You again? You really wanna do this?” […]
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Kill for Me
For Hailey, it’s her dad (Donal Logue, Silent Night). For Amanda, it’s a stalkery ex-boyfriend. But problems can solved and, you know, you scratch my back, I scratch yours. In other words, Kill for Me, I kill for you. Director Michael Greenspan’s follow-up to the disastrous Wrecked is a marked improvement. It’s like a gender-swapped […]
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The Perks of Being a Wallflower
That’s what makes The Perks of Being a Wallflower so impressive. New to Blu-ray and DVD, it understands the excess of feeling that characterizes being a teenager, and it doesn’t prettify or minimize the trials faced by the shy and socially awkward kid sitting alone in the school cafeteria. Written and directed by Stephen Chbosky, […]
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Mimesis
Look, at least it’s not the new Night of the Living Dead 3D: Re-Animation, but that’s another review. There’s not much to Mimesis beyond the one-line summary above. Various attendees at a horror convention are invited to an exclusive, super-secret party that turns out to be the “game” — one in which they are stuck […]
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Citadel
Infected by the syringe the hoodlums plunge into her, she ends up in hospice, but doctors are able to save the baby, a girl who’s happy and healthy — basically, everything Tommy is not. In fact, the trauma has turned him into a barely functioning agoraphobe. Not only is he afraid to leave the house, […]
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Cherry Tree Lane
Likely, that film opens with an unspeakable act that calls for retribution, and ends with said retribution being achieved. And in the middle are cat-and-mouse games and close calls and rounds of table-turning to keep conflict chugging. Cherry Tree Lane, however, removes that midsection, condensing the story to assumedly real time. In between its bookends, […]
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The Thompsons
Personally, I went in to The Thompsons relatively cold, having heard of its big brother, but never having caught up with it. In doing so, I felt like I had jumped onto a sitcom in its second or third week: I could immediately get into its groove without knowing the backgrounds of the players. All […]
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The Possession
Now that the former has followed the latter onto Blu-ray and DVD, the difference is startlingly clear: The Possession is by far the superior ghost story. I’d expect nothing less from Evil Dead mastermind Sam Raimi, who produced it under his Ghost House Pictures banner, which has brought some of the better entries in the […]
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Wake in Fright
Gary Bond (Zulu) works wonders as John Grant, the only teacher in the Australian desert town of Tiboonda, where the tiny, single-room schoolhouse is surrounded by sand and dust. On Christmas break, Grant heads for Sydney, but must spend a night in Bundanyabba before catching a flight the next morning. At least that’s the plan. […]