Author: Ezra Stead
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Hubie Halloween
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Read more: Hubie HalloweenIf you are familiar with Adam Sandler movies, this is exactly what you have come to expect. Whether that means you will enjoy it, or how much that is even possible for you, may vary. Less familiarity might actually equate to greater enjoyment, as you will be less annoyed and distracted by the references and…
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Fargo
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Read more: FargoTHIS IS A TRUE STORY. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it “occurred.” With these words Joel and Ethan Coen open their unassailable masterpiece (one…
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Silver Bullet (1985)
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Read more: Silver Bullet (1985)At the risk of gaining a reputation as some sort of lunatic who insists on reading way too much into the subtext of popular 80s movies, the 1985 werewolf movie Silver Bullet is about priests molesting children. The “priest” in question here is actually a Reverend, which indicates he is not in fact a Catholic…
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Earth Girls Are Easy (1988)
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Read more: Earth Girls Are Easy (1988)A few years after enacting a disgustingly doomed romance in The Fly, real-life husband-and-wife Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis went on to play a similarly weird but much less doomed couple in Julien Temple’s 1988 cult classic Earth Girls Are Easy. Unlike The Fly, which was dark and deep enough to warrant speculation about its…
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The Fly (1986)
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Read more: The Fly (1986)David Cronenberg’s remake of the (also very good) 50s giant bug movie The Fly added a lot of nuance and subtlety to the themes of the original. “Subtlety” might seem like a strange word to describe a movie in which a gradually decomposing man vomits on his food before eating it, but when it is…
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A Serious Man (2009)
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Read more: A Serious Man (2009)After the success of their rightly acclaimed, Oscar-winning 2007 hit No Country for Old Men, the Coen Brothers made two dry, dark comedies in a row, neither of which has garnered the same level of praise as their brooding Texas masterpiece. Though Burn After Reading (2008) has developed a substantial cult following since its release,…
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Suspicion (1941)
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Read more: Suspicion (1941)“Gaslighting” is the use of psychological manipulation to make a person doubt their own sanity, and even to lose it. The term derives from the 1938 British play Gas Light and its 1940 and 1944 film adaptations from Britain and Hollywood, respectively. It is somewhat surprising Alfred Hitchcock was not at the helm of the…
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Ricochet (1991)
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Read more: Ricochet (1991)Tagline: “He’s a cop accused of murder. And the only man who knows he’s innocent is the killer who framed him. This is one case that’s going to be settled out of court.” Entire Story In Fewer Words Than Are In This Sentence: Homicidal maniac obsesses over hot black sex cop. Homoeroticism: It is perhaps…
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Scream, Queen! My Nightmare On Elm Street (2019)
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Read more: Scream, Queen! My Nightmare On Elm Street (2019)A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge rivals even Top Gun and Commando as the gayest movie of the 80s, and therefore of all time. While the glistening classics of 80s Action are awash in (perhaps) unintended homoeroticism, 80s horror movies such as Elm Street 2 and Sleepaway Camp have at the core of…
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The Birds (1963)
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Read more: The Birds (1963)In his excellent nonfiction book Danse Macabre, Stephen King posits that the horror story is essentially conservative, a chronicle of the battle between Apollonian and Dionysian forces. These are the Light and Dark sides of the Force, respectively, if you prefer that terminology (obviously it is not only horror stories that utilize this formula). The…