Expelled Grey Matter

Ring 2 is the official sequel to Ringu , the 1998 adaptation of Kôji Suzuki's novel of the same name.  It wasn't the first, with the original version being a Japanese television movie and, to make things even more confusing, Ring 2 isn't the first sequel to the feature film version.  That was a movie called Spiral .  Released at the same time as Ringu , it failed at the box office, resulting in writer Hiroshi Takahashi and director Hideo Nakata, who made the first film, being tapped to make a quick sequel.  Shortly after Sadako's (Rie Ino'o) body is found in the well her father Takashi (Yôichi Numata) is brought in to identify the body.  It is soon confirmed through facial reconstruction.  The only thing is that the police are baffled by the fact that it appears she had been alive in the well for 30 years.  Meanwhile, they are continuing to investigate the death of Ryûji Takamara (Hiroyuki Sanada) and disappearance of Reiko Asakawa (Nanako Matsushima) ...

M is one of the most influential movies ever made.  Released in Germany in 1931 as the Nazis were slowly gaining more and more control, it is probably the one most film students know by director Fritz Lang other than Metropolis .  It was one of the transitional films from silent to sound and a milestone in German cinema, so much so that it became a cult film in the U.S., facilitating both Lang and its star, Peter Lorre, to get out of a worsening situation at home and come work in Hollywood. Of course, Hollywood wouldn't let such an intriguing story go without a remake, and an American version was made in 1951, although not directed by Lang.  Two years later a second remake was made, not in Germany or the U.S., but in another country that had a burgeoning cinema movement that unfortunately was cut short by domestic strife.  El vampiro negro, or The Black Vampire , was an adaptation of the story by renowned Uruguayan/Argentinian director Román Viñoly Barreto. ...

Unfortunately, when one mentions The Wicker Man , many think of the viral clip of Nicholas Cage yelling about bees in the remake rather than the small budget treatise on blindly following religion that the original film is.  Part police procedural, part horror film and part musical, The Wicker Man is unique in both its jarring unevenness and its ability to create a sense of unease with little going on through most of the movie, climaxing in a heart wrenching manner.  Sgt. Howie (Edward Woodward) is a Scottish police officer who travels to the isolated community of Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of a young girl named Rowan (Gerry Cowper).  Upon arrival he finds that no one on the island will admit to ever having seen the girl, including her mother May (Irene Sunters).  Blocked at every turn, the devoutly Catholic Sgt. Howie finds himself pursued by Willow (Britt Ekland), the daughter of the local innkeeper, and perplexed by the fact that the community app...

The City of the Dead , also known by its more lurid U.S. title Horror Hotel , was the first production for the British Studio Vulcan Pictures.  That may not sound like much but Vulcan would soon become Amicus, a low-budget but successful competitor to Hammer, the studio that produced the most famous British horror films for nearly two decades.  While Hammer had all the big names from Universal, Amicus produced a number of popular anthology series as well as feature films based on two stories from the BBC series Doctor Who .  Though made a bit over a decade earlier The City of the Dead shares some plot elements with The Wicker Man , with the main character leaving modern society to go to an isolated community ruled by ancient ways.  The two films are quite different in tone, but many of the elements are there, as is Christopher Lee.  This, however, doesn't contain the vague respect for paganism like the later film.  Professor Allan Driscoll (Lee) teaches a c...

Not all movies hit the same for all people.  1408 , for instance, was a much-talked-about film when it came out in 2007, right in the middle of one of the worst decades for horror films.  Another in a long line of PG-13 fright flicks, this one was adapted from a Stephen King short story that had started out as an exercise on writing drafts as part of King's non-fiction book, On Writing , published in 2000.  The story came out as an audio file before that and eventually the written version appeared in the collection Everything's Eventual in 2002.  Keeping in mind that the story itself was an afterthought is key to approaching the movie.  Mike Enslin (John Cusack) is a writer that specializes in paranormal travel guides.  A failed serious novelist with family issues, his books are successful but bring him no joy.  In fact, despite staying in numerous places purported to be haunted, Mike does not believe in the paranormal.  While writing a new book o...

Luis Buñuel is a director pretty much everyone has some familiarity with.  For students of surreal cinema (and fans of Pixies) there is Un chien andalou , a short film from the 1920s made in partnership with Salvador Dali.  For the serious film student there is Simon of the Desert , another short movie that explores the fine line between devotion and hubris.  For most, especially the art film crowd, there is Belle du jour , his stab at the French New Wave.  The latter is probably his most well-known, although I like it the least of his works, largely because of my frustration and dislike for that particular film movement.   He had different phases of his career with one being a long stint beginning in 1946 making films in Mexico.  Buñuel enjoyed the freedom he had there as well as working internationally.  Although he spent a good deal of the 1950s making movies outside of Mexico, Simon of the Desert and The Exterminating Angel, two of the final f...