George A. Romero's masterpiece. A subversive anti-capitalist manifesto, spot-on indictment of consumerist culture and desensitization, and an exploration of the social construct vs. human nature debate, masquerading as a nail-biting zombie apocalypse thriller with some of the greatest gore effects of all time, Dawn Of The Dead is not just one of the best horror films ever made, but also one of the greatest artistic statements from a filmmaker at the top of his game.

I'll break all that down…

I award a lot of films five stars, because my criteria is based on relative perfection attained with respect to what the filmmakers are attempting to convey. In other words, any film has the ability to be awarded five stars; no film is denied the potential solely based on subject matter. But when I look back at my time spent in a darkened theatre I honestly can count the number of transcendent film experiences I’ve had on one hand, maybe…

The Redemption of Rick Rosenthal

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I still like this more than I like Halloween II, because where the earlier sequel pales in comparison to the original's subsequent countless imitators, betraying its desperation to keep up with the genre a mere three years later, Resurrection's narrative at least remains in conversation with where we are at almost twenty-five years later. It's thrilling to watch action unfold between two completely different locations, as Deckard messages Sara about Michael's location, from…

The first post-Scream Halloween film was destined to be terrible, unable to resist the campus setting, the grotesque slickness to the pacing, and the wannabe Kevin Williamson writing, and no doubt a paycheck to director Steve Miner, the man who helmed the scariest Friday the 13th film, and who must have bristled in a dark corner of his creative imagination at submitting to a series where every installment has to have a revisionist cold opening. A bolt of lightning can…

It's easy to sit back and judge Zoë for dragging her kids to the pub and forcing them to wait outside all night, while she goes on a date inside with an old high school crush, and he has no idea. But to do so is to react to the situation and ignore the film itself. Director Andrea Arnold understands the life or death urgency for Zoë to feel desired again, "normal" again, just one more time, the way it…

Martyrs seems to be the goto film whenever someone mentions the new wave of French extreme horror, so imagine my surprise when I found out it sucks. The film is really three films for the price of one. There's a home invasion film, and a ghost story, and a pretentious, pseudo-philosophical bullshit story about a quest for the state of euphoria some people feel after they've been tortured long enough. Yay! Something for everybody, except those of us who enjoy…