#Matt Craven

[filmreveries]

Jacob’s Ladder (1990) dir. Adrian Lyne

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[esqueletosgays]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (1981)

Director: J. Lee Thompson Cinematography: Miklós Lente

[spookytuesdaypod]

spooky tuesday is a (now not so new!) podcast where we’re breaking down all of our favorite slashers, thrillers, monster movies and black comedies on the new scariest day of the week.

where were you that april if you weren't seeing disturbia (2007) in theaters? it was the year of shia, and a new creepy classic was emerging out of the mid-aughts. this flick is a quintessential millennial movie, an updated take on hitchcock's rear window (though legally we should warn you that we're not speaking literally, because there's like legit drama there). it also shares a name with an iconic rihanna song that'll get stuck in your head faster than you can ask, “what's wrong with me? why do I feel like this?" on our latest episode of spooky tuesday, we're doing our best not to break into song too much as we throw it back to our earlier horror days.

give spooky tuesday a listen on apple podcasts, spotify, iheart radio, or stitcher

[warningsine]

[creepynostalgy]

Tim Robbins in Jacob's Ladder (1990)

[brokehorrorfan]

Devil will be released on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray on October 8 via Scream Factory. The 2010 supernatural horror thriller is produced by M. Night Shyamalan, who also conceived the story.

John Erick Dowdle (As Above So Below, Quarantine) directs from a script by Brian Nelson (30 Days of Night, Hard Candy). Chris Messina, Logan Marshall-Green, Geoffrey Arend, Bojana Novakovic, Jenny O'Hara, and Bokeem Woodbine star.

Devil has been newly restored in 4K from the interpositive with Dolby Vision. Special features are listed below.

Disc 1 - 4K UHD:

Audio commentary by film critics Emily Higgins and Billy Dunham (new)

Disc 2 - Blu-ray:

Audio commentary by film critics Emily Higgins and Billy Dunham (new)

The Story

The Devil's Meeting

The Night Chronicles

Deleted scenes

Trapped in an elevator high above Philadelphia, five people discover that the Devil is among them — and no one can escape their fate.

Pre-order Devil.

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WATCHLIST 2023: Justified: City Primeval

[cantsayidont]

Hateration log, supplemental:

BULLETPROOF HEART (1994/1995): Very peculiar film noir (sometimes entitled KILLER on home video releases), directed by Mark Malone from a script by Gordon Melbourne, about a soulful hitman named Mick (Anthony LaPaglia), whose assignment to kill a woman named Fiona (Mimi Rogers) becomes the world's weirdest first date. Mick and his half-bright assistant Archie (Matt Craven) soon discover that, far from trying to hide or escape, Fiona — who has stolen a lot of money from the mob and is now threatening to go to the D.A. — is positively desperate for someone to put her out of her misery, responding to her putative assassin with alternating fits of morbid fascination, glib taunting, sadomasochistic seductiveness, weary melancholy, and at least one catatonic fit. Mick finds himself increasingly reluctant to go through with the job, much to the frustration of both his target and his boss (Peter Boyle).

The odd scenario and repeated tonal shifts are strange enough to hold your attention throughout, but the story never really finds its groove: It might have worked as either a sexy black comedy or as a tragic romance, but it keeps trying to do both and thus not entirely succeeding as either. It doesn't help that the eventual explanation of why Fiona is so keen to die is unpersuasive, or that the ending seems to be setting up an additional twist that's not ultimately forthcoming. CONTAINS LESBIANS? Nope. VERDICT: Memorably odd, but it can't quite decide what it wants to be.

[estefanyailen]

[babadork]

[rickchung]

Under the Bridge (prod. Quinn Shephard).

Hulu's miniseries adaptation of novelist Rebecca Godfrey's non-fiction true crime book chronicling the 1997 beating death of fourteen-year-old Indo-Canadian teenager Reena Virk in Saanich conjures up bad memories of moral panic from British Columbians who remember the lurid details of the shocking murder. While both trying to maintain fidelity to the real-life tragedy, the series plays with the timelines, characters, and chronology to make the events more dramatic and neat despite the inexplicable circumstances. Godrey as a character (played by Riley Keough) plays a key role in understanding the young perpetrators' motives while looping in the the police investigation led by Lily Gladstone as a composite Indigenous cop character.

[letterboxd-loggd]

Lou (2022) Anna Foerster

January 21st 2023

[warningsine]

[corikane]

The Dark Academia Horror Movie

Happy Birthday to Me (1981) by J. Lee Thompson Here’s the story: when I was much younger – too young to watch horror movies – my mom fell asleep on the couch one night and I watched at least part of a horror movie. And I LOVED it. All I remember of this movie (since I didn’t look up the title back then) is that it played in a house with a long dinner table, and by the end, the two final girls…

[adamwatchesmovies]

Masterminds (1997)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

“What if we made Die Hard PG-13, and set it in a high school?” That sums up 1997's Masterminds. It’s as bad an idea as it sounds.

Cool dude hacker man “Ozzie” Paxton (Vincent Kartheiser) is caught trying to sell bootlegs by his father (Matt Craven) and step mom (Annabelle Gurwitch). As punishment, he has to bring his step-sister Melissa (Katie Stuart) to her prestigious school. There, he stumbles upon a plot by Race Bentley (Patrick Stewart) to hold the children of the richest families ransom. With the police unable to access the building and all the youngsters held hostage by terrorists, a lone teen must take the villains down.

Let me make things clear. Masterminds is not LIKE Die Hard but in high school. Aside from the deaths and a few differences (notably, the quality of the film), it IS Die Hard set in high school. The foreign villain with an accent taking everyone hostage who claims to have one motive but secretly has another which hides his escape plan, a scene of the hero crawling through air ducts while minions search for him, a lone confidante on the outside of the school who communicates with our hero through a walkie-talkies, a hostage related to the protagonist (but with a different last name) praying she won't be discovered, the bad guys impersonating security guards, the villains predicting the authorities’ every move and integrating them as part of their plan… it’s all here! The rating, actors and shorter running time -“only” 105 minutes” rather than the 132 minutes of Die Hard - along with the change of scenery are all that prevent Masterminds from being a litteral carbon copy.

This movie is so ’90s, it makes your teeth hurt. For a while, laughing at the hair, lingo, extravagant use of skateboards and computers will be entertaining. You’ll have fun throwing your own lines at the screen ("Now I know what a lunchables feels like!"). Director Roger Christian makes the disdain come naturally. There’s nothing to endear you to the protagonist. He’s trying too hard to be cool instead of just being cool like Ferris Bueller. You learn nothing about his sister so if she gets saved or not doesn’t feel like it matters. The other hostages? They're heirs to super rich families in the middle of a $100 million dollar deal. This makes them nearly impossible to relate to. As a teen, I would’ve killed for some of the laser grid security systems Ozzie has in his room in lieu of… a door knob that locks. Eventually, however, the utter lack of imagination makes you realize what a waste of time this is. There isn't a person alive who wouldn't rather watch Die Hard.

Masterminds is a film whose audience has disappeared. Even at the time it was made, I think people would’ve seen through it and dismissed this knock-off without hesitation. You can find its best scene - a moment in which Patrick Stewart’s character pre-eminently celebrates his victory with a silly dance - on YouTube. If you can’t, it’s no big loss. (December 6, 2019)