Woof. State of Emergency is the kind of film you want to be much better than it is. It’s not some throwaway cashgrab with no concept and poor execution. The bones are there to have been a solid throwback zombie film. Really. It’s just so…whatever you want to call this. Mixed up? Confused?
Horror Thursday: State of Emergency
When I was reorganizing my records I use to keep track of what I’ve written about online, I came across a fact that disturbed me like no other. My film reviews since relaunching Sketchy Details a couple years ago have been overwhelmingly dominated by the 2000s. I do a lot more new release reviews than I did at the start of this back in 2004, but back then, I covered a lot of black and white films. I think it’s a shame that I’ve unintentionally abandoned classic cinema and will work on rectifying that in 2014.
Reviewing films like The Haunted Strangler is a good start. This Boris Karloff mystery/horror (oh, how I miss the mystery/horror as a genre) is so beautifully nuanced in a way that modern horror can never get away with. It’s not perfect (it just stops at the end instead of actually reaching a satisfying conclusion), but it’s a whole lot of fun to watch and dig into.
Horror Thursday: The Haunted Strangler
This month at The LAMB, we’re looking for writing on all things French cinema. The deadline is Wednesday, 5 March 2014, with the post going up on Thursday, 6 March.
Announcing Foreign Chops #20: France
I’m a wealth of book reviews this week. This is the third Georgina Kincaid book I’ve read for Cannonball Read and it had a lot to chew on for such a fast read. Richelle Mead knows how to write good characters and isn’t afraid to let a monster from folklore or mythology actually be a monster.
Dream a Little Dream (A Robert CBR6 Review)
My 4th review is up for Cannonball Read 6. I looked at John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War and didn’t hate it. Really. The review focuses on the negative stuff because I could address it without spoiling the whole novel. It’s good. A little tepid, but good. Easy to read hard sci-fi like this is hard to find.
Larry Stu and the Deadly Space War (A Robert CBR6 Review)
Any chance I get to speak the good word of The Happiness of the Katakuris is a chance I’ll take. The new edition of Foreign Chops is up and it was a whole lot of fun to put together. I asked LAMB members to submit their choices for the best non-English films since 2000 and they delivered. Only three films–Amour, Let the Right One In, and The Raid: Redemption–appeared in multiple submissions. Every other title was heralded one time as the best of the best of global cinema. I have so many films to catch up on.
Foreign Chops #19: Best of the 2000s
Happy Waitangi Day, everyone. Click on over to The LAMB to check out our Waitangi Day celebration, looking at great films from New Zealand. The list is a little heavy on Peter Jackson films for my tastes, but I’m happy with the variety of films covered.
Waitangi Day (New Zealand) at The LAMB
Dream Home took me for a bit of a loop. It’s a Hong Kong horror film about a female psychopath doing anything to buy her dream home. I used this review to breakdown the discomfort I had with a traditionally male character type in horror being applied to a female character. It’s a bold film, that’s for sure. They didn’t skimp on the blood or on casting just the right actor to play this murderer.
Horror Thursday: Dream Home