With its first scene set at a little league baseball game in a small town on the outskirts of 1978 Colorado (knowing that some frightful elements will emerge throughout the film), The Black Phone may feel eerily similar to one of your favorite Stephen King novels. And if it does, it should, as the movie is based upon a novel by King’s son, Joe Hill. In addition, director Scott Derrickson (Doctor Strange, The Exorcism of Emily Rose) reunites Ethan Hawke for the first time since 2012’s well-received horror Sinister.
Category Archives: Suspense
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
It feels rare when the same person likes an original movie and its remake. Often, it seems as if a person likes the original, they are resistant, even disgruntled, to giving the remake a chance. I am the first to say that I fall into this group. Two of the biggest ones are the remakes of Point Break (2015 – 11% critics, 29% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) and Flatliners (2017 – 4%, 32%), both of which are among my all-time favorite movies. Likewise, there are times when we watch the remake without ever having seen the original. We like the remake so much that we don’t want to see the original because we either don’t feel the need or think it can be compared.
Titane (2021)
French filmmaker Julia Ducournau’s (Raw) wildly uneven yet highly ambitious Titane is a frenzied, are-you-able-to-suspend-your-belief, adrenaline-pumping film that is not for the faint of heart or those who don’t handle queasiness in their filmgoing. With Rotten Tomatoes Scores of 89% (critics) and 85% (audiences), I find it ironic that I couldn’t identify ten people to whom I might recommend this film. Yet for the film purists who crave the originality that mainstream movies too often fail to deliver, you’ll find a bizarre take on humanity, richly laced with stylistic metaphors, that begins as a slasher flick before transitioning into something far more intimate.
Who You Think I Am (2019)
Obsessive catfishing 101. This could be the easiest way to describe the Juliette Binoche (The English Patient, Chocolat) character-driven vehicle, Who You Think I Am. Adapted from the novel of the same name, Safy Nebbou (Mark of an Angel) crafts a taut romantic drama with just enough suspense and twists to keep us actively engaged as we follow Claire (Binoche) navigate her way through the very real world of catfishing.
Riders of Justice (2020)
In a year when movies have been the worst of my lifetime, I have been pleasantly surprised by the originality of the three most recent films I have seen. Jockey, A Hero, and Anders Thomas Jensen’s Riders of Justice gave the year a late jolt of hope that it could amount to something more. However, it may be too late with only a dozen or so movies left to see (and even fewer than I am excited to see). Unlike the first two movies, Riders of Justice, while a neat little film, won’t make my end-of-year top ten, which I believe Jockey and A Hero will.