Critic's Notebook

DVDS
Trick ’r Treat (2009)

By MATT BARONE

Joe Lederer/Warner Bros. Entertainment

Loyal to a genre constantly attacked for its dependency on remakes and generally uninspired fare, horror fans won’t hesitate to rally behind a good film when one is mistreated. The outcry process unfolds in three stages. The first takes places at film festivals, where too-hardcore foreign films and executive-worrying studio projects enthrall critics before beginning their flights under the commercial radar. Then, a waiting period (average duration: one year at least) leaves fans hungry and agitated, placing question marks on when they’ll see those festival darlings. The third and final stage can go two ways, either with an unceremonious dumping into a minor number of theaters or the straight-to-DVD dispatching of said films. Drivel such as “The Unborn” earn 2,000-plus-screen releases.

Continue reading “Spooking Door to Door” »

MOVIE REVIEW
Donkey Punch (2008)

By ROBERT LEVIN

Magnet Releasing

“Donkey Punch” is a nasty little thriller that might have worked had it tempered its propensity for outrageous brutality. Gruesome violence certainly has its places in the movies, but only in a very particular context. Here, the bursts of it come completely out of nowhere, and are rendered in such an over-the-top fashion that one would be forgiven for confusing Olly Blackburn’s suspense tale with Peter Jackson’s “Dead Alive.” It’s an odd, atonal combination that torpedoes the pointless picture.

Continue reading “Packing, Something Besides a Punch” »