Forums of Filth

You KNEW this was coming... the major success of James DeMonaco's THE PURGE last year guaranteed the sequel would be out by now... and at least it was written and directed by the same guy (although the copyright infringement battle has just begun... here we go again...). THE PURGE: ANARCHY is about ...

This documentary on the life and death of critic Roger Ebert proved to be one of the more difficult films for me to review objectively; moving into my personal world as often as it did (without ever truly intending to). Sure, I had the love/hate relationship many a horror fan had with this half of t...

I shouldn't have to go into a lot of detail about an unquestionable summer blockbuster that just about everybody here is going to see anyway, but the PLANET OF THE APES franchise in particular has always been near and dear to me. Tim Burton, of course, made a fine-looking and perfectly watchable &qu...

Director Scott Derrickson arrived on the scene with the compromised HELLRAISER: INFERNO, which needed Pinhead about as much as it needed a... er... pin in the head. The actual film was one of the very few pseudo-HELLRAISER sequels to prove actually worth watching on its own and established Derrickso...

I hadn't even heard of this film two weeks ago and then all of a sudden it was the rage... the first English-language film of Korean director Bong Joon-ho (THE HOST, which had some great stuff but which was ultimately over-rated in my book; and MOTHER, which I still haven't seen) is now here, and wh...

I never did get to see JERSEY BOYS on the stage, but some sixteen years ago I got to take my wife to see Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons for real... and from the real-life KRML to PLAY MISTY FOR ME to BIRD, you know that our local celebrity director Clint Eastwood loves his music... so, even thou...

Okay, before I launch into this review, I should spell out my disclaimer/defense ahead of time. When it comes to the Marvel Universe in comic book form, I am not, repeat, NOT an "X-Pert." In the past, I've been chastised for not thinking the third X-MEN movie was as bad as all that and (es...

As a (almost literally) life-long G-fan, I looked forward to Gareth Edwards' take on the Toho phenomenon with perhaps more curiosity and anticipation than any other film in G-history. We were more than familiar with what happened when the Devlin/Emmerich team tried to give us Godzilla (I knew we wer...

Okay, before I rip this movie a new one (and you can rest assured that that's exactly what I'm going to do) I'm going to talk about the things I liked about it. Nobody in the cast gave a "bad performance," as far as I'm concerned. They're all talented actors and they fit their characters w...

Most viewers drawn to this movie in the first place were no doubt lured by its status as the final completed film of Paul Walker. I must confess that when I first saw the TV spot I didn't notice Walker at all... I immediately recognized this as a remake of the Luc Besson production DISTRICT 13 (whic...

Oxford professor Joseph Coupland (Jared Harris) is convinced that "supernatural" phenomena can be directly traced to telekinetic energy stored in the human brain... and to that end he's carrying out a series of dangerous experiments on a willing young subject by the name of Jane Harper (Ol...

Let's get a little potential wire-crossing resolved first: the RAID films come to us from director Gareth EVANS, who is not to be confused with Gareth EDWARDS of the upcoming GODZILLA redux! Apparently, the title THE RAID: REDEMPTION sounded like a sequel itself, so the sequel comes to us with a mer...

Sorry for the somewhat delayed review--I've been just a little bit busy these days! But look at it this way, by now all the "Hail Hydra" memes must be making sense to you, right? For the record, I haven't followed the TV series AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. and have no insight as to how "stu...

I thought THE CALL was pretty good (if not perfect)... but now the truth comes out... WWE had nothing to do with MAKING the film--they very shrewdly BID on distribution rights when they caught it at a film festival...

Well, we're a quarter of the way into the year and so far the horror genre has only given us a couple of "found-footage" leftovers... one utterly wretched (DEVIL'S DUE) and one that surprised me by NOT being utterly wretched (P.A.: THE MARKED ONES). But NOW we've got our first serious cont...

I find it amusing that after one amazingly successful weekend, Paramount is still pushing NOAH to the SON OF GOD audience as a pure Biblical epic, despite director Darren Aronofsky's assertion that it's "the least Biblical Bible movie ever!" Well, with Aronosky at the (sorry) helm, of cour...

Bill Marks (Liam Neeson) sits in his car and stares at a bottle of Scotch before he reluctantly makes his way to his flight (we soon learn that he's an armed Federal Marshal). Along the path, he encounters a variety of supporting characters, any of whom might be a suspect in the drama to come (excep...

And just like last week, the opening studio logo goes "sputter-fitz" as we herk and jerk into the second consecutive "camcorder" horror film of the young year. Why am I here? Because last week I caught PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES in spite of myself and was surprised to f...

When I wrapped up my "year in review" post for 2013, I allowed that while I had sworn off any further PARANORMAL ACTIVITY entries after the dismal fourth installment, I was under the impression that P.A.: THE MARKED ONES was merely using the franchise title to sell a new movie with new cha...

Oh, come on... this isn't fair! It's only JANUARY... we've got ALL YEAR to find the worst film of 2014... why are you starting your lineup off with your unbeatable champion??? Look, I knew this wasn't going to be great. In fact, I had planned to skip it completely. But I found myself with unanticipa...

1/1 (stroke of midnight) NINJA III: THE DOMINATION (Blu-Ray) 1/4: A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (DVD) 1/5: A DAY AT THE RACES (DVD) 1/7: ROOM SERVICE (DVD) 1/8: AT THE CIRCUS (DVD) 1/9: GO WEST (DVD) 1/10: THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (theatre) PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES (theatre) 1/15: THE BIG STORE (DV...

Wow... when you look back and actually count on your fingers, 2013 was one of the sparsest years in a while for the "horror film," at least as far as the big screen was concerned. I normally dive straight into the "horror" category and then sum up the rest of the movies I caught ...

Well, here's the perfect companion feature to the under-appreciated BULLET IN THE HEAD... another Deep South action thriller in the spirit of the 1980s: and it's no coincidence that Sylvester Stallone himself wrote and produced this as a vehicle for his EXPENDABLES sidekick Jason Statham. And while ...

Spike Lee vs. Spike TV. Spike Lee vs. Clint Eastwood. Spike Lee vs. Quentin Tarantino. Spike Lee vs. the fans (the Kickstarter thing). Spike Lee vs. The World. I'm weary of it. The man has a chip on his shoulder a mile wide and I highly doubt that we'd get along in person. But he DOES make very good...

Here's what we all already know: Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) don't get to rest on their laurels after co-winning the Hunger Games (much to the displeasure of the Capitol). Not only do they face a lifetime as Mentors ahead of them, but they first have to t...