MOVIE REVIEW
Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Steve Wilkie/Lionsgate
“Repo! The Genetic Opera”
essentially consists of bad, campy torture porn interspersed within an incessant
string of overwrought musical numbers. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that
the burden of filming the stage play by Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich
should fall on Darren Lynn Bousman, heretofore best known for directing the
middle three “Saw” installments. “Repo!” deserves credit for its go-for-broke
ambition but offers little more than 98 minutes of pure cacophonic excess. In
many respects, it is as brutal an experience as the low-grade horror fare it
apes.
Continue reading “Music of the Night” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Splinter (2008)
Magnet Releasing
Let’s forgo the exposition and come right out with it: Anyone looking for a horror movie fix at the multiplex this Halloween will find every bit of what he or she is looking for in “Splinter.” Or he or she would, were the movie actually opening on more than four screens nationwide. I’ve given up trying to understand how these decisions are made, but surely the folks at Magnet Releasing could have done more with this brutally efficient genre exercise than they have. The film lacks star power and comes from a first-time director, but it’s an ideal antidote to both the glossy PG-13 horror fluff that so often manages to get a wide national release and the tired brutality of the “Saw” franchise.
Continue reading “Spikes at the Gas Pumps” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Let the Right One In (2008)
Magnet Releasing
Leave it to the Swedes to revive the now predictable conventions of the vampire genre with their unique brand of existential depth and stark aestheticism. To say that “Let the Right One In” is a modern horror classic may be true but understates the magnitude of its success as an unflinching take on the sometimes harrowing rites of passage of adolescence and a touching tale of first love.
Continue reading “My Blood-Thirsty Valentine” »
