BUG (2007)
It’s been awhile since director William Friedkin made anything to match his seventies masterworks THE FRENCH CONNECTION and THE EXORCIST, but BUG handily accomplishes that task
BRUISER
After an eight-year absence George Romero, one of the horror film’s grand masters, returns. BRUISER doesn’t live up to Romero’s best work but it’s not a complete disaster, either
BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA
A quest for the eponymous head becomes a deranged trip into blood-soaked psychosis in this, the late Sam Peckinpah’s most personal and outrageous film
BLOOD SIMPLE
A quintessential American independent film from the eighties, and still a one-of-a-kind masterpiece
A BELL FROM HELL
A vaguely surreal, darkly comic and deeply shocking exercise in Euro-styled anti-bourgeoisie subversion, the Spanish production A BELL FROM HELL is a one-of-a-kind gem
EVIL WORDS
Good mystery-horror from Quebec that mixes crime, detection, hallucination and the supernatural to satisfying effect
ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW
This is the already-infamous indie that was filmed surreptitiously at Walt Disney World. The film is fairly affecting, although the crummy final third does it in
EL NOMINADO
Yet another take on the reality TV craze, EL NOMINADO is disturbing because it seems quite plausible in terms of its setting (an enclosed space deep underground) and outcome (a contestant goes violently insane). Too bad the film just isn’t very good
STRANGLER VERSUS STRANGLER
There’s no other movie quite like this loony comedy-chiller from Serbia, which never takes an expected turn and has a cheesy yet curiously elegant style that’s very much its own
STOKER
This, the first-ever English language film by South Korea’s Chanwook Park (of SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE and OLDBOY fame), is an outrageously stylish and fascinating work