In theory, creating an effective folk horror movie shouldn’t be too difficult; there’s a wealth of myth and lore to pull into making a film that both haunts and mystifies. But in practice, modern scary movies tend to fumble this easy bag with dull writing and worse plots. Writer-director Brit Chainey falls into that same camp with Rabbit Trap, his feature debut that premiered at Sundance Film Festival. The movie tries to capitalize on the wild and weird beauty of Wales to create a folk horror story with a strong emotional tenor, but clever visual tricks and an evocative setting can’t save Rabbit Trap from its own incoherent plot.
Read MoreIn her directorial debut Seeds, which won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary, Brittany Shyne offers an intimate look at the fate of Black farmers in the American South. Shooting in black-and-white with a single-minded focus on her subjects, Shyne creates what feels like an elegy for a way of living on the brink of dying out.
Read MoreThe first installment of Riverdale is Cinema, our new, Patreon-exclusive column!
Read MoreIn this latest Apes Retrospective, we dig into Matt Reeves’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes.
Read MoreIf this is your first Gamera, Super Monster is as satisfying as any other entry point you could choose.
Read MoreIn School of The Holy Beast, director Norifumi Suzuki and the Toei film studio bring a nunsploitation that challenges the audience through the shocking nature of its story juxtaposed with its beautiful imagery.
Read MoreNearly 45 years on, Altered States sparks synaptic connections rarely felt in big-budget movies with its operatic emotions and theatrical dialogue.
Read MoreTrain Dreams breathes life into ordinary moments that make up the meaning of one’s life. It’s a welcome reminder during these all too chaotic times, that the journey is not marked by the memories we often think it will be.
Read MoreJoe Johnston’s The Wolfman is messy and a bit scattered, but more of it works than it doesn’t.
Read MoreIn her directorial debut Oh, Hi!—which premiered this year at Sundance Film Festival—Sophie Brooks takes the decline of modern dating and mixes it up in a frothy rom-com.
Read MoreTouch Me is for the weirdos who want to be shocked and confronted with a deliciously campy, sensory overload fever dream that happens to include a few hentai scenes. Oh, and it’s a very horny movie.
Read MoreSeptember 5, directed and co-written by Swiss filmmaker Tim Fehlbaum, is a tricky movie to talk about. But, he makes his point clear: this is the world’s first televised terrorist incident and ultimately a failure of journalism.
Read MoreIn her new film Sugar Babies, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival, Rachel Fleit charts the trajectory of a TikTok sugar baby influencer.
Read MoreIn this latest Apes Retrospective, we dig into Battle for the Planet of the Apes and the 2001 reboot of the original Planet of the Apes.
Read MoreIn The Lawnmower Man, virtual reality is more imaginative and worse rendered than we have ever conceived of it.
Read MoreLeigh Whannell’s Wolf Man is a movie at odds with itself, too quick to take the time to delve into fraught family history and too narrowly focused to let its Wolf Men really cut loose and get monstrous.
Read MoreIn this latest Apes Retrospective, we dig into Escape From the Planet of the Apes and Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.
Read MoreThe Brutalist achieves its greatest emotional potency when it examines the precariousness of life’s balance.
Read MoreThe best parts of Y2K weave together the absurdity of its situation into the absurdity of life in the United States on December 31, 1999.
Read MoreIt is a film that is a film and that's all it could ever be. Made by humans, poorly, created for crass and financial goals, visibly, and released to a public who could only hiss and mock it. It is exactly what it is, and I love it dearly.
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