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Reviews & Commentary by Adam Groves
THE POLAR EXPRESS
This 2004 movie has problems, but it’s still the most interesting entry in director Robert Zemeckis’ post-2000 filmography
A BILTMORE CHRISTMAS
A shocker: a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie that’s actually good (and not so-bad-it’s-good)
INTERROGATION
This politically minded 1982 film has assumed legendary status in its native Poland, but for American viewers its allure is much simpler: it fits quite snugly into the Women in Prison subgenre
GO AND GET IT
No, it wasn’t the “first” man-in-a-monkey suit film, but this 1920 programmer was quite the oddity
THE SUBSTANCE
Body horror and Hollywood: a true match made in Hell.
VAMPIRES: STORIES OF THE SUPERNATURAL
This anthology contains four tales of the supernatural, written by Leo Tolstoy’s cousin Alexis
A DOG’S HEAD
A sui generis example of big-hearted fantasy spiced with unsentimental magic realism
COYOTE
COYOTE may be an extended hallucination or an eccentric first-person crime saga; either way, it’s a deeply chilly and upsetting book
SICK
A promising but not entirely successful horror novel that debuted at the wrong time
GHOSTS IN THE SWAMP
A long-forgotten German horror-science fiction-fantasy epic, translated by indefatigable Joe E. Bandel
TIME, A FALCONER: A STUDY OF SARBAN
The first and only book devoted to the life and literary output of England’s John W. Wall, a.k.a. Sarban
OPPOSABLE THUMBS: HOW SISKEL & EBERT CHANGED MOVIES FOREVER
The first book about the ultra-combative, never-to-be-repeated Siskel & Ebert dynamic
NAKED THEATER AND UNCENSORED HORROR
The long-in-coming memoir of filmmaker Stuart Gordon (1947-2020), a book he spent a great deal of his final years writing
THE AMAZING STORY BEHIND THE LEGEND OF BILLY JACK
An unabashed puff piece that nonetheless emerges as the definitive resource on all things BILLY JACK
HALLOWEEN 3–“WHERE THE HELL IS MICHAEL MYERS?”
A history of “horror’s most misunderstood film,” written by that film’s own writer-director
Donald Sutherland: 1935-2024
In the category of underappreciated actors, the recently deceased Donald Sutherland looms rather hugely
On A FELADAT and BLINDPASSASJER
It’s a fact that much of the world’s most vital televised science fiction emerges from outside the US, and here are two examples
Roger Corman: 1926-2024
R.I.P.
JE T’AIME JE T’AIME vs. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
Was ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004) directly inspired by JE T’AIME JE T’AIME (1968)? Most likely.
Ray Garton: 1962-2024
All about the recently deceased horror scribe Ray Garton, a guy who knew what he was doing