There’s dripping water. Leaking water. Spraying water. Swirling water. Flooding water. Even a water tower. And what does it all add up to? Unfortunately, not much. Dark Water is another American remake of a successful Japanese suspense film that barely misses the mark and stumbles over its own intent to thrill. And it’s a shame. Filled with engaging performances, a moody New York atmosphere, and a suspenseful second act, the film completely derails around the sixty-minute mark and clumsily screeches to a halt with a misguided climax. A climax, I might add, that goes on for scene after bungled scene.(read more...)

Universal horror's "second wind," first set in motion by Son of Frankenstein, was just beginning to muster force when the studio decided to release a sequel to James Whale's 1933 hit The Invisible Man. The result, The Invisible Man Returns, although possessed of a certain gusto and some fine acting, often plays like a flatter imitation, substituting Whale's anarchy for a more standard tragic romance.(read more...)

It's a typical scene from a typical horror film: a vampire romances his unwilling victim before finally attacking them, leading to a chase sequence. Except in Roman Polanski's The Fearless Vampire Killers, the vampire is gay, the "damsel" is also the ostensible hero (and male), and the chase sequence involves slick floors that cause both pursuer and pursued to slide crazily as they run.

Another director might play up the slapstick of the sequence with exaggerated angles and silly sound effects. Polanski avoids such clichés, pointing his camera as a documentarian would, observing the behavior of comedy in the wild. There is an implicit acknowledgement that, yes, this is humor we're watching, but Polanski refuses to cajole us into accepting it as funny. That is our own decision to make.(read more...)

Sam Raimi has put his stamp of executive producer approval on a vast number of television series - most of them very silly (Cleopatra 2525, anyone?). Of all of these programs, perhaps the most worthy is the short-lived American Gothic. Airing on CBS in the 1995-96 season, the show ably explored the problematic relationship between good and evil, posing some incisive questions despite some narrative muddle.(read more...)