PAN'S LABYRINTH (2006) - Guillermo del Toro's Dark Fantasy Classic Turns 20!!

PAN'S LABYRINTH (2006) d. Guillermo del Toro (Mexico/Spain)

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Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Ofelia whose father had died, leaving her and her Mother all alone. The world was a dark and scary place, with war and death everywhere, and so, to save herself and her child, the Mother remarried an Evil Captain to keep them safe. Once the Mother as with child, the Captain sent for her to live with him in the forest where he commanded his troops, stamping out anyone that threatened his power. The Mother was sad, as was Ofelia, but the imaginative young girl had a special gift: she could see and talk to creatures that grown-ups couldn’t see, such as the Faun and the Pale Man (both played brilliantly by expert suit performer Doug Jones). She soon learns she is a Princess with a Destiny to fulfill. And so, her great adventure begins....

THE SHAPE OF WATER (2017) movie review

The Shape of Water (2017) d. del Toro, Guillermo (USA)

This “adult fairy tale” sees Sally Hawkins’ mute cleaning woman falling in love with an unworldly beast after it is captured in the Amazon and spirited away to a generic top-secret research facility, with scientist Michael Stuhlbarg and government thug Michael Shannon vying for proprietary rights. What follows is a Visually Stunning Effort, with all creative collaborators working overtime to deliver a heightened urban landscape of the early 1960s (we hear references to JFK, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement), and the inimitable Doug Jones (Hellboy) donning arguably the most elegant rubber monster suit to grace the silver screen.

PAN'S LABYRINTH (2006) movie review

Pan's Labyrinth (2006) d. Guillermo del Toro (Spain)

Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) whose father had died, leaving her and her Mother (Ariadna Gil) all alone. The world was a dark and scary place, with war and death everywhere, and so, to save herself and her child, the Mother remarried a General (Sergi Lopez) to keep them safe. But the General was a selfish and brutal man, who only cared for the Mother as long as she could bear him a son. Once the Mother as with child, the General sent for her to live with him in the forest where he commanded his troops, stamping out the rebels that threatened the Evil King’s power. The Mother was sad, as was Ofelia, but the imaginative young girl had a special gift: she could see and talk to creatures that grown-ups couldn’t see, such as the Faun and the Pale Man (both played brilliantly by expert suit performer Doug Jones). She soon learned from the Faun that she was a Princess with a Destiny to fulfill.  And so, her great adventure began....

RAZE (2013) movie review

Raze (2013) d. Josh C. Waller  (USA)

Two attractive women clad in white tank tops and gray sweatpants stand opposite one another inside a cylindrical brick room. The blinking red lights of surveillance cameras flicker in counterpoint to their panting as each sizes the other up. Then, without warning, they proceed to pound, punch, kick, pull, choke, slap, bite, and savage one another’s bodies until one lies dead and bleeding on the dirt floor. This scenario plays out over and over (and over) again in director Josh Waller’s feature debut, a film that resembles a live-action 90-minute Mortal Kombat video game session, only with more blood, tears, camera angles, and flash cuts (and only slightly more exposition).

MEN IN SUITS (2012) movie review

Men in Suits (2012) d. Woodward, Frank H. (USA)

As any discerning horror fan knows, practical effects will always rule the day over those plinked out on a keyboard. There’s something about the physical impact of a space-occupying element that cannot be denied, and one of the best examples comes in the form of a genuine monster on set. Be it a Predator, the xenomorphs from Alien, or even Robot Monster’s awesome diving-helmeted lovelorn extraterrestrial, there is nothing quite like a guy-in-a-suit flick.  Now, at long last, filmmaker Woodward, who cut his documentary teeth on Anchor Bay’s Masters of Horror behind-the-scenes featurettes, has created a fascinating and compelling 90-minute lovefest for the unsung heroes beneath the fur, flippers, fangs and zippers of some of the genre’s most memorable creations.

JOHN DIES AT THE END (2012) movie review

John Dies at the End (2012) d. Coscarelli, Don (USA)

The writer/director of Phantasm, Beastmaster and Bubba Ho-Tep is finally back behind the camera with a deliciously dark and hilarious adaptation of David Wong’s novel about a couple of self-anointed demon hunters who uncover (and accidentally partake in) a dangerous street drug from another dimension. Having not read the source material, I’ll assume that Coscarelli has taken his freewheeling cues from there; the result being a well-suited artistic blend where the delightedly off-kilter viewer has no chance of anticipating where the next paranormal curve ball will come from.

ABSENTIA (2011) movie review

Absentia (2011) d. Flanagan, Mike

Seven years after the disappearance of her husband, grieving widow Courtney Bell is in the process of legally finalizing his “deceased in absentia” status when he begins to appear to her in increasingly disturbing visions. At the same time, her drifter sister Katie Parker has a number of strange encounters with individuals (including genre fave Doug Jones) in and around a creepy underpass tunnel. Writer/director Flanagan conjures an intriguing horror story with some serious smarts and well-conceived characters going for it, mostly balancing out any obstacles that accompany its clearly diminutive budget.