Being Film #17 for Hooptober 2021 For a director with some many bonafide horror classics under his belt, including one of the greatest horror films of all time, Tobe Hooper got a bit of a bad break. By the time the 90s arrived he was relegated to smaller and smaller films with little opportunity to... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 8.0 – The Wicker Man (1973)
Being Film #16 for Hooptober 2021 You'd think after so many years of being in the public consciousness as well as the insane meme-machine that is the 2006 remake with Nicolas Cage that I would know what I was in for with The Wicker Man. Ladies and gentlemen...I was not. What director Robin hardy and... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 8.0 – Candyman (2021)
Being Film #15 for Hooptober 2021 The new Candyman is a lot of things. Reboot, sequel...sure. But it's also a clever, brutal investigation into the nature of narrative. So much of a story is shaped by who tells it, who owns it. Watching Nia Dacosta take the original story and twist it into not only... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 8.0 – House on Haunted Hill (1959)
Being Film #14 for Hooptober 2021 After a rough week I decided I needed a break for all the modern gore and guts and decided to turn to a campy favorite I hadn't seen in a while. William Castle was maybe known more for his gimmicks to pack theaters than the quality of his films,... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 8.0 – Jakob’s Wife (2021)
Being Film #13 for Hooptober 2021 We've had several vampire films where the theme of empowerment was front and center, so I'm surprised it took this long to get a film that grounds that in the framework of traditional gender and marriage roles. I'm doubly surprised that Jakob's Wife not only uses this framework well,... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 8.0 – Creep (2004)
Being Film #12 for Hooptober 2021 Another day, another horror debut from someone who went on to bigger and better things. This time it's writer/director Christopher Smith, whose Triangle was a sweet little mindf--k of a film I need to revisit. Despite a game cast in Franka Potente Sean Harris, Creep (not to be confused... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 8.0 – Mulberry Street (2006)
Being Film #11 for Hooptober 2021 It's a super low-budget reworking of a zombie idea by two film students that is about plague carrying rats that infect the city and turn people into ravenous were-rats that's also a commentary of gentrification. Sound good? What if I told you those two students were Jim Mickle and... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 8.0 – Caveat (2020)
Being Film #10 for Hooptober 2021 Horror proves time and again to be a great testing ground for talent. The debut from writer/director/editor Damien Mc Carthy, Caveat is a tense and frightening low-budget film that may feel a little like a short film concept stretched to feature length, but there is more than enough meat... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 8.0 – Uzumaki (2000)
Being Film #9 for Hooptober 2021 Like a lot of people I fell into the world of Asian horror with Hideo Nakata's Ringu. After being thrilled by the imagery and concept I read the trilogy of novels by Koji Suzuki: Ring, Spiral, and Loop. I knew there was a filmed adaptation of the sequel, but... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 8.0 – The Amusement Park (1975)
Being Film #8 for Hooptober 2021 It can be a blessing or a curse to discover a "lost" work from a treasured artist. Often a work is lost for a reason: maybe it was never meant to see the light of day, or maybe it just didn't work the same way as time went on.... Continue Reading →
