30 Best Movies To Watch After Eyes Wide Shut (1999) (Page 2)

The Last Voyage of the Demeter feels like a movie from a different era. To a point, it is—writer Bragi Schut first drafted his adaptation of the 'Log of the "Demeter"' sequence in Bram Stoker's Dracula in the early 2000s. It's a capital letters Hollywood Creature Feature—a grimmer straight horror cousin to 2004's action/horror hybrid Van Helsing. At its best, it's an admirably gnarly monster flick—bolstered by sturdy craft from director André Øvredal and consistently good performances from a game ensemble. At its worst, it loses confidence and resorts to bumbling attempts to guide its audience by the hand—most notably in its prologue and epilogue. Continue Reading →

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn't exist. Continue Reading →

Okay, fine, Bird Box Barcelona isn’t exactly a sequel. It’s more of a continuation, as Netflix gets a belated start on making a franchise out of 2018’s Bird Box, a perfectly fine but unremarkable film that inexplicably became a smash hit. Smash or not, five years is a long time, so you might need a refresher course. Much of Earth’s population has been decimated by malevolent beings with visages so emotionally overwhelming that anyone who looks at them immediately commits suicide, and the survivors are forced to navigate what’s left of the world with their eyes covered, lest they see whatever “they” are. That’s really all you need to remember. Continue Reading →

Just as no one ever claims that Millard Fillmore was our greatest President, or that Atlantic City is superior to Las Vegas, you’re not likely to ever encounter anyone who names Children of the Corn as the best horror franchise. Yet, an astonishing 11 movies, most of them barely connected to the 20 page Stephen King short story of the same name, have been released (the majority direct to video or streaming), each one cheaper and duller than the last. As opposed to Halloween or Friday the 13th, it can’t even be said that the original is good. At best, it has its moments, thanks entirely to teen antagonists Isaac and Malachi, who at least give it some creepy juice. Even then, Isaac returning in the sixth movie (creatively titled Isaac’s Return) couldn’t save this series from being dead in the water from nearly the beginning. Continue Reading →

The modern age of sequels, spin-offs, and all other franchise extensions has amplified complaints about how derivative follow-ups can be. As a result, sequels have garnered a bad reputation, and it’s not unearned.  Continue Reading →

This review was originally written as part of our coverage of the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival; we're reposting it now that the film is available in theaters and VOD. Continue Reading →

The legendary filmmaker's last bow is a fascinating misfire starring Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon (and a bonkers Klaus Kinski). There are some movies that receive critical scorn and commercial indifference upon the time of their initial release, only to find their reputations rehabilitated with the passing of time and reevaluation. That hasn’t been the case with Billy Wilder’s 1981 dark comedy Buddy Buddy; if anything, its reputation has actually gotten worse over the years — and it wasn’t exactly starting off from a high point. When it was released as part of the crowded 1981 holiday season, it was slaughtered by critics as a vulgar and cheap-looking exercise in tedium from a legendary filmmaker who seemed profoundly out of touch with contemporary cinema. Audiences pretty much completely ignored it. To make things worse, the film proved to be the finale of Wilder’s long and celebrated career (though he would at one point make an attempt to adapt Schindler’s List before Steven Spielberg made it). On the rare reappraisal of Buddy Buddy —mostly in biographies and retrospective articles on Wilder—it’s generally decried as a sad ending to a brilliant career, a prime example of the perils of working long past your prime. Continue Reading →

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Sean King O'Grady directs a claustrophobic horror film that has a lot of potential, but just misses the mark. We Need to Do Something, the debut feature from Sean King O’Grady, is a horror film that can easily be read on two different levels, though your mileage with it will vary depending on which one you choose to follow. As a straightforward horror yarn, albeit with moments of grotesque black humor thrown in from time to time, it contains a few interesting elements but never finds a way to pull them together into a completely satisfying whole. On the other hand, if one regards the whole enterprise on a more overtly symbolic level, it gains a little more in terms of power and effectiveness. Yet, even then it also tends to lose its way especially once the fairly potent central metaphor gives way to less interesting instances of bloodshed. In either case, it ends on such a clunky and ineffective note that viewers may get the sense that O’Grady and screenwriter Max Booth III have just been screwing with them, a feeling enhanced by the all-too-apt choice for a key musical cue towards the end. Continue Reading →