Movie thoughts and fiction updates.
There really is an advantage to watching all of the works of an individual filmmaker from beginning to end, and it's because it gives the viewer greater context for the types of stories and how the stories are told from one film to the next. Specific decisions and directions become more purposeful and explainable. However,… Continue reading Exorcist II: The Heretic: A Second Look
#4 in my ranking of the Scream franchise. This franchise simply will not let go of the idea that its rule breaking. It's not. It may not bend to every rule of the slasher genre, but it bends to every rule of the Scream franchise that have been established since the first film. That explicit… Continue reading Scream VI
#31 in my ranking of the Classic Universal Monster movies. Whose bright idea was it to change the design of the Gill Man to *checks notes* remove the gills? Seriously, I can understand the half-baked ideas about science taking shortcuts around Nature, the uninteresting love triangle thing that barely exists, or even the meandering story.… Continue reading The Creature Walks Among Us
#22 in my ranking of the Classic Universal Monster movies. The first Creature from the Black Lagoon was something of a hodgepodge of quality with a central monster that seemed accidentally sympathetic. I wasn't expecting that kind of happy accident in the sequel. What I got was a more standard monster movie with more boring… Continue reading Revenge of the Creature
#14 in my ranking of the Classic Universal Monster movies. Finally, a new monster. The Universal Monster franchise had gotten to the point where the serious thrills of the early films had been replaced by outright and intentional comedy. There was room in the market for more straight horror, but the Frankenstein monster just wasn't… Continue reading Creature from the Black Lagoon
David Vining, Author 