From the very beginning, The Lost catches you off guard and lets you know you’re in for something different from the usual teenage psychopath movie.  While “different” is something to be admired and should be encouraged more often, it hardly qualifies the film for masterpiece status.  The Lost is a mixed bag; one with some unsettling performances and shocking violence, but it also has paper-thin characters and performances as well as a mix of drama and horror that doesn’t work.(read more...)

It takes an unnatural (oftentimes supernatural) occurrence to send mankind teetering into a state of mass paranoia, and films about such situations often follow the same paths as their characters. At first, there is much running around, little explaining, and even less reasoning. During these tumultuous times, the characters are scared and frenzied, and often make irrational decisions, and the film, much the same, is all over the place, focusing on too much at one time while being swept up in all the commotion. But then, as the characters calm themselves down and begin to make sense, the film finds its focus and hones in on a common thread that ties all the events and all the characters together under one theme. Here is such a film.(read more...)

The Dead Zone is a rare film that manages to be both a great literary adaptation, and a strong film on its own terms.  Adapted from a best-selling novel by Stephen King and directed by David Cronenberg, one might easily expect the film to be extremely disturbing and unrelenting in its depiction of graphic violence and bodily horrors, making it marketable only to hardcore horror fans.  Instead, The Dead Zone is an understated piece of work with a near absence of violence and gore that still manages to be compelling, thought provoking, and accessible to mainstream moviegoers. (read more...)