the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On “Scream 2” as the Perfect Slasher Sequel…

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist last week. With the film’s 25th anniversary approaching and Halloween coming up, it seemed like a good time to talk about Scream 2, Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven’s underrated slasher sequel.

Scream 2 is in many ways the perfect sequel to a smash success like the original Scream, despite its rushed and troubled production. Scream 2 is a movie that manages to both double-down on what made Scream so compelling, while also honing in on the emotional heart of the story being told. It’s the rare sequel that manages to heighten an already heightened premise, without ever losing sight of the characters within the story. It’s clever, it’s funny, but it’s also very sharply observed.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: academic, escapist, film criticism, halloween, horror, in the frame, meta, Scream, Scream 2, self-aware, slasher, tragedy, trauma, wes craven | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “She-Hulk” Relates To Its Audience…

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist yesterday. With the show wrapping up its first season this week, it seemed like a good opportunity to talk about She-Hulk, and the show’s interesting and provocative relationship with its audience.

Setting aside the fact that big villains of She-Hulk are arguably a bunch of internet trolls, She-Hulk is engaged in a literal and constant ongoing conversation with its audience. However, what’s fascinating about that dynamic is the tone of it. Jen often seems to feel trapped by the expectations of the audience for fan service and continuity references, and the need to shape her show in such a way as to hit all of the beats expected of a Marvel Studios project.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: audience, comic books, fandom, fourth wall, jen walters, marvel, mcu, plotting, she-hulk | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! On “Andor” as a Show About Loving “Star Wars”…

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Darren

We’re thrilled to be launching a fortnightly video companion piece to In the Frame at The Escapist. The video will typically launch every second Monday, and be released on the magazine’s YouTube channel. And the video will typically be separate from the written content. This is kinda cool, because we’re helping relaunch the magazine’s film content – so if you can throw a subscription our way, it would mean a lot.

This week, we took a look at Andor, the new Star Wars streaming show. There are a lot of interesting things about Andor, including how good it is. However, the show also feels like a meditation on Star Wars as a cultural phenomenon. Showrunner Tony Gilroy has talked candidly about how he was never a particular fan of Star Wars, and ended up working on the franchise almost by accident. As such, Andor feels like it is, in some small way, about learning to love Star Wars and to understand what Star Wars is capable of.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: andor, escapist, fandom, in the frame, star wars, streaming, the escapist, Tony Gilroy | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! Vampire Videos – “Shadow of the Vampire (2000)”

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Darren

I was thrilled to be invited to join the great Dan Owen and Hugh McStay for an episode of their new podcast, Vampire Videos.

It was a thrill to get to talk about, and revisit, Shadow of the Vampire. It was the first time I had watched the meta horror commentary in decades, so it was fascinating to return to it with new eyes and a deeper understanding of the film’s historical context. It’s a movie that ties together the history of the vampire and origins of cinema as a medium, constructing a pitch black horror comedy about the paradox of the movie camera as an instrument that both steals life and grants immortality.

You can listen directly to the episode below or by clicking here.

Filed under: Movies, Podcasts! | Tagged: comedy, Filmmaking, horror, Movies, Nosferatu, podcast, shadow of the vampire, vampire videos, willem dafoe | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “The Green Council” Captures the Intimacy of a Coup…

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Darren

I am doing weekly reviews of House of the Dragon at The Escapist. They’ll be dropping every Sunday evening while the show is on, looking at the Game of Thrones prequel as it progresses from one episode to the next.

The Green Council is an interesting episode of House of the Dragon because it very deliberately fragments the shows already tight ensemble. Unfolding in the immediate aftermath of Viserys’ death, The Green Council is an episode about the mechanisms of securing power while trying to minimise the chaos in the aftermath of such an event. It’s an episode that cleverly foregrounds all of the show’s core themes in interesting and ambitious ways.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: alicent, coup, house of the dragon, Misogyny, paranoia, patriarchy, Succession, the green council, thriller, violence | Leave a comment »

308. feardotcom (-#67)

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, with special guest Diamanda Hagan, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.

This time, William Malone’s feardotcom.

Detective Mike Reilly has spent the past few years in pursuit of the online serial killer who goes by the name of “the Doctor”, a murderer who streams his crimes on the internet for all to watch. Reassigned after failure to show any results, Reilly finds himself investigating a seemingly unrelated case of contagion that is spreading through New York City. However, Reilly soon discovers that the two cases are more closely linked than he could have imagined.

At time of recording, it was ranked 67th on the list of the worst movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Continue reading →

Filed under: The Bottom 100 | Tagged: diamanda hagan, feardotcom, film, Found footage, franchsie pictures, frankenstein, halloween, horror, internet, Jeffrey Combs, luxemberg, Moral panic, Movie, Natascha McElhone, podcast, prurient, puritanical, review, se7en, serial killer, stephen dorff, Stephen Rea, The 250, The Bottom 100, torture porn, Udo Kier, william malone | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! “Halloween Ends, Thank Goodness”

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Darren

I’m thrilled to be launching movie reviews on The Escapist. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be joining a set of contributors in adding these reviews to the channel. For the moment, I’m honoured to contribute a five-minute film review of Halloween Ends, which is in cinemas and on Peacock now.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: david gordon green, escapist, halloween, halloween ends, michael myers, Movie, nightmare, review, slasher, universal | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the Meanness and Meaninglessness of “Halloween Kills”…

Posted on October 10, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the upcoming release of Halloween Ends, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at the last entry in the horror franchise.

Halloween Kills is a divisive addition to the slasher movie canon, a grubby and nihilistic horror movie that completely lacks a central ordering principle. Halloween Kills is a movie without a hero. Instead, it is just a monster and his victims. The result is a surprisingly brutaly and bloody slasher movie from a major studio, at a point in time where these films are becoming increasingly homogenised by the logic of intellectual property brand management. Halloween Kills is a film in which there is no reason or logic for the horror that unfolds, and that only serves to make it more scary.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: brutality, escapist, halloween kills, Hero, horror, horror franchises, in the frame, laurie strode, meaninglessness, michael myers, murder, nihilism, slasher, slasher movies, studio horror | Leave a comment »

307. The Grapes of Wrath (#232)

Posted on October 9, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, with special guests Aoife Martin, Jason Coyle and Ronan Doyle, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.

This time, John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath.

Released from prison after serving four years, Tom Joad returns to his family’s farm in Oklahoma to discover that it has been utterly changed by the Great Depression. He joins his family on a road trip westward, towards the new opportunities waiting for them in California. However, the Joads very quickly discover that their push westward may not deliver them to a promised land.

At time of recording, it was ranked 232nd on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Continue reading →

Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: american, aoife martin, California, dustbowl, Great Depression, henry fonda, immigration, jason coyle, John Ford, john steinbeck, migration, new deal, okies, ronan doyle, the grapes of wrath | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! “Werewolf by Night isn’t a Total Transformation for Marvel, But a Fun One”

Posted on October 6, 2022 by Darren

I’m thrilled to be launching movie reviews on The Escapist. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be joining a set of contributors in adding these reviews to the channel. For the moment, I’m honoured to contribute a five-minute film review of Werewolf by Night, which is on Disney+ from tomorrow.