Home invasion has been a part of horror movies practically from the beginning. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Nosferatu (1922), Dracula, and Frankenstein (1931) all included moments of attackers entering homes uninvited and terrorizing unsuspecting victims.
Home invasion as a sub-genre unto itself came a bit later, as the suburbs sprung up and a false sense of security rose in the United States along with fears of “the other” that have always been a key aspect of horror movies.
These ten movies may not all be the best of this sub-genre, but they all bring something different to the table and pushed it, in large and small ways, in new directions.
The Desperate Hours (1955)
It is practically impossible to pinpoint the exact moment that started any new genre or movement within film but a good candidate for the foundation of the home invasion movie is William Wyler’s The Desperate Hours. The...
Home invasion as a sub-genre unto itself came a bit later, as the suburbs sprung up and a false sense of security rose in the United States along with fears of “the other” that have always been a key aspect of horror movies.
These ten movies may not all be the best of this sub-genre, but they all bring something different to the table and pushed it, in large and small ways, in new directions.
The Desperate Hours (1955)
It is practically impossible to pinpoint the exact moment that started any new genre or movement within film but a good candidate for the foundation of the home invasion movie is William Wyler’s The Desperate Hours. The...
- 5/13/2024
- by Brian Keiper
- bloody-disgusting.com
From the moment the film was announced a year ago, “Abigail” has been marketed as a remake of “Dracula’s Daughter,” the 1936 Universal Pictures curio. So it’s no spoiler to say that the title character of “Abigail” is…Dracula’s daughter. Yet if you went in not knowing that, it might be the only real surprise in the movie, apart from what a brutally monotonous blood-vomiting genre mashup it is.
For a while, we think we’re watching a standard kidnap thriller. It opens with Abigail (Alisha Weir), who is 12, on the ballet stage rehearsing “Swan Lake,” a most definite vampire homage, since Tchaikovsky’s gorgeous heart-swelling score is the same music that played over the opening credits of the 1931 Bela Lugosi “Dracula.” That lyrical entré ends in about three minutes, as the kidnappers, all overstated profane synthetic crudeness, jam themselves into a van and abscond with Abigail, who they...
For a while, we think we’re watching a standard kidnap thriller. It opens with Abigail (Alisha Weir), who is 12, on the ballet stage rehearsing “Swan Lake,” a most definite vampire homage, since Tchaikovsky’s gorgeous heart-swelling score is the same music that played over the opening credits of the 1931 Bela Lugosi “Dracula.” That lyrical entré ends in about three minutes, as the kidnappers, all overstated profane synthetic crudeness, jam themselves into a van and abscond with Abigail, who they...
- 4/18/2024
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
As many a therapist’s coach has witnessed, in favour of running day to day as a cohesive unit many a family opt for the (perhaps not healthiest) strategy of pushing the simmering tensions they hold against one another to the background. But what if there was a way for you to have a much need cathartic vent, free from the worry of hurting the feelings of those you hold dearest? Filmmaker Daniel Turvil may have found a possible solution with This Much, So Far, his short film about a suburban dad who gathers a stand in cast of life-like dolls so he can deliver a torrent of unflattering home truths to his kin. It’s a film that does a great job of deploying the talents of actor Adam James, whose frenzied performance of Turvil’s high concept script is just as terrifying as it is captivating. Dn is...
- 4/14/2023
- by Sarah Smith
- Directors Notes
Collateral meets The Desperate Hours against the backdrop of issues of Vietnamese immigration and assimilation in this Orange County-set thriller that marks the feature directorial debut of music video director Sing J. Lee. Below, editor Yang Hua Hu discusses his work in cutting this Sundance 2023 premiering thriller, in which an elderly Vietnamese cab driver is taken hostage by three recently escaped prisoners. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? […]
The post “The Awkwardness in the Air is the Spirit We Want to Capture”: Editor Yang-Hua Hu on The Accidental Getaway Driver first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “The Awkwardness in the Air is the Spirit We Want to Capture”: Editor Yang-Hua Hu on The Accidental Getaway Driver first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/31/2023
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Collateral meets The Desperate Hours against the backdrop of issues of Vietnamese immigration and assimilation in this Orange County-set thriller that marks the feature directorial debut of music video director Sing J. Lee. Below, editor Yang Hua Hu discusses his work in cutting this Sundance 2023 premiering thriller, in which an elderly Vietnamese cab driver is taken hostage by three recently escaped prisoners. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? […]
The post “The Awkwardness in the Air is the Spirit We Want to Capture”: Editor Yang-Hua Hu on The Accidental Getaway Driver first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “The Awkwardness in the Air is the Spirit We Want to Capture”: Editor Yang-Hua Hu on The Accidental Getaway Driver first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/31/2023
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Collateral meets The Desperate Hours against the backdrop of issues of Vietnamese immigration and assimilation in this Orange County-set thriller that marks the feature directorial debut of music video director Sing J. Lee. Below, cinematographer Michael Fernandez discusses his work in filming this Sundance 2023 premiering thriller, in which an elderly Vietnamese cab driver is taken hostage by three recently escaped prisoners. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Fernandez: I had a built a relationship with the director over the last […]
The post “What Would the Spirit of These Influences Feel Like in Orange County?” Dp Michael Fernandez on The Accidental Getaway Driver first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “What Would the Spirit of These Influences Feel Like in Orange County?” Dp Michael Fernandez on The Accidental Getaway Driver first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/26/2023
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Collateral meets The Desperate Hours against the backdrop of issues of Vietnamese immigration and assimilation in this Orange County-set thriller that marks the feature directorial debut of music video director Sing J. Lee. Below, cinematographer Michael Fernandez discusses his work in filming this Sundance 2023 premiering thriller, in which an elderly Vietnamese cab driver is taken hostage by three recently escaped prisoners. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Fernandez: I had a built a relationship with the director over the last […]
The post “What Would the Spirit of These Influences Feel Like in Orange County?” Dp Michael Fernandez on The Accidental Getaway Driver first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “What Would the Spirit of These Influences Feel Like in Orange County?” Dp Michael Fernandez on The Accidental Getaway Driver first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/26/2023
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
The third ‘Essential’ noir collection is easily [Imprint]’s best, with two genuine classics of the style plus two excellent and equally entertaining thrillers. The directors are first-rank: Lewis Milestone, Mitchell Leisen, William Dieterle and William Wyler. Top stars are present too: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lisabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas, William Holden, Alexis Smith, Edmond O’Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Fredric March. The high-quality suspense and jeopardy are uniquely noir: The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, No Man Of Her Own, The Turning Point and The Desperate Hours. [Imprint] taps bona fide experts for the xtras.
Essential Film Noir Collection 3
Blu-ray (Region-Free)
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, No Man Of Her Own, The Turning Point, The Desperate Hours
Viavision [Imprint] 148, 149, 150, 151
1946 – 1955 / B&w / 1:37 Academy (3), 1:78 widescreen (1) / 411 min. / Street Date August 31, 2022 / Available from Viavision [Imprint] / au 139.95 , Amazon / 136.64
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lisabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas; Barbara Stanwyck, John Lund, Lyle Bettger; William Holden, Alexis Smith,...
Essential Film Noir Collection 3
Blu-ray (Region-Free)
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, No Man Of Her Own, The Turning Point, The Desperate Hours
Viavision [Imprint] 148, 149, 150, 151
1946 – 1955 / B&w / 1:37 Academy (3), 1:78 widescreen (1) / 411 min. / Street Date August 31, 2022 / Available from Viavision [Imprint] / au 139.95 , Amazon / 136.64
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lisabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas; Barbara Stanwyck, John Lund, Lyle Bettger; William Holden, Alexis Smith,...
- 9/10/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
A well-heeled young couple arrive for a weekend away at their Ojai country pad, only to find it already occupied by a criminal drifter out to take not just their money, but their happiness too, over the course of a tense, tetchy overnight hostage situation. But our sympathies aren’t directed exactly as you might expect in “Windfall,” a tightly wound sunshine noir that borrows from hardboiled classics like “The Desperate Hours,” while revisiting the kind of chilly, compressed relationship anatomy that director Charlie McDowell essayed in his debut “The One I Love.” Blending the oddball sensibility of McDowell and regular co-writer Justin Lader with the nastier genre smarts of “Se7en” scribe Andrew Kevin Walker, this low-key Netflix holds to its intriguing promise for a crisp 90 minutes, though even its climax is muted by design.
A trio of stars all playing effectively against type will be the chief draw for...
A trio of stars all playing effectively against type will be the chief draw for...
- 3/18/2022
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
October’s here and it’s time to get spooked. After last year’s superb “’70s Horror” lineup, the Criterion Channel commemorates October with a couple series: “Universal Horror,” which does what it says on the tin (with special notice to the Spanish-language Dracula), and “Home Invasion,” which runs the gamut from Romero to Oshima with Polanski and Haneke in the mix. Lest we disregard the programming of Cindy Sherman’s one feature, Office Killer, and Jennifer’s Body, whose lifespan has gone from gimmick to forgotten to Criterion Channel. And if you want to stretch ideas of genre just a hair, their “True Crime” selection gets at darker shades of human nature.
It’s not all chills and thrills, mind. October also boasts a Kirk Douglas repertoire, movies by Doris Wishman and Wayne Wang, plus Manoel de Oliveira’s rarely screened Porto of My Childhood. And Edgar Wright gets the “Adventures in Moviegoing” treatment,...
It’s not all chills and thrills, mind. October also boasts a Kirk Douglas repertoire, movies by Doris Wishman and Wayne Wang, plus Manoel de Oliveira’s rarely screened Porto of My Childhood. And Edgar Wright gets the “Adventures in Moviegoing” treatment,...
- 9/24/2021
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Screenwriter Ed Solomon joins hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante to discuss a few of his favorite movies.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) – Alex Kirschenbaum’s Bill & Ted character power rankings
Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)
Bill And Ted Face The Music (2020)
Men In Black (1997)
The French Connection (1971) – Dennis Lehane’s trailer commentary, Mark Pellington’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairings
No Sudden Move (2021)
A Night At The Opera (1935) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary
Mosaic (2018)
Take The Money And Run (1969)
Bananas (1971) – Robert Weide’s trailer commentary
Sleeper (1973)
Love And Death (1975)
Annie Hall (1977) – Robert Weide’s trailer commentary
Manhattan (1979)
And Now For Something Completely Different… (1971) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary
Blazing Saddles (1974) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Dennis Cozzalio’s Blazing Saddles Thanksgiving
Klute (1971) – Katt Shea’s trailer commentary, Charlie Largent’s Criterion Blu-ray review
The Parallax View (1974) – Karyn Kusama’s trailer commentary,...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) – Alex Kirschenbaum’s Bill & Ted character power rankings
Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)
Bill And Ted Face The Music (2020)
Men In Black (1997)
The French Connection (1971) – Dennis Lehane’s trailer commentary, Mark Pellington’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairings
No Sudden Move (2021)
A Night At The Opera (1935) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary
Mosaic (2018)
Take The Money And Run (1969)
Bananas (1971) – Robert Weide’s trailer commentary
Sleeper (1973)
Love And Death (1975)
Annie Hall (1977) – Robert Weide’s trailer commentary
Manhattan (1979)
And Now For Something Completely Different… (1971) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary
Blazing Saddles (1974) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Dennis Cozzalio’s Blazing Saddles Thanksgiving
Klute (1971) – Katt Shea’s trailer commentary, Charlie Largent’s Criterion Blu-ray review
The Parallax View (1974) – Karyn Kusama’s trailer commentary,...
- 7/6/2021
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
Steven Soderbergh’s No Sudden Move is deviously sexy. Not in that sweaty between the sheets way best enjoyed up against a wall. The subtle eroticism comes from what’s under the sheets and behind the walls. Every character has something to hide, and nothing to say about it. Secrets are like mascara, alibis are fedoras. Everybody wants something, but they won’t say what it is. The biggest villains want things to disappear, and they certainly don’t want anybody talking about it.
No Sudden Move is a heist film, but don’t go in expecting Ocean’s 11, in spite of the all-star cast. This is a theft worth savoring, and Soderbergh gives the players room to breathe. Of course, any of those breaths can be a character’s last, which becomes apparent very quickly. Most of the other information trickles out like blood from exit wounds, as the...
No Sudden Move is a heist film, but don’t go in expecting Ocean’s 11, in spite of the all-star cast. This is a theft worth savoring, and Soderbergh gives the players room to breathe. Of course, any of those breaths can be a character’s last, which becomes apparent very quickly. Most of the other information trickles out like blood from exit wounds, as the...
- 7/1/2021
- by John Saavedra
- Den of Geek
Steven Soderbergh is a fantastically eclectic filmmaker (you never know where he’s going to go next), but if you look back over his roughly 30 dramatic features it’s telling to consider how many of them are some variety of tricky old-school thriller or film noir powered by suspenseful screw-tightening. I’m talking about the “Ocean’s” trilogy, the ebullient Elmore Leonard adaptation “Out of Sight,” the redneck heist thriller “Logan Lucky,” the deconstructed gangster mystery “The Limey,” the brooding noir “The Underneath,” the small-town grunge noir “Bubble,” the sex-industry noir “The Girlfriend Experience,” and the true-life-bumbler noir “The Informant!” Soderbergh has a prankish side, but the truth is he would have been right at home in the ’40s or ’50 churning out moody black-and-white thrillers like Robert Siodmak or Joseph H. Lewis.
His latest, “No Sudden Move,” makes that connection all the more explicit. Opening on a gorgeous vintage version of the Warner Bros. logo,...
His latest, “No Sudden Move,” makes that connection all the more explicit. Opening on a gorgeous vintage version of the Warner Bros. logo,...
- 6/19/2021
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Forget it, Jake — it’s late-stage capitalism. Director Steven Soderbergh has been following the money throughout his career, going at least as far back as the “Ocean’s” movies, where financial institutions take a hit at the hands of the strivers and scrabblers. Since returning from his “retirement” from movies, he’s offered stories as disparate as “High Flying Bird,” which suggests the possibility of labor wresting control from management, and “The Laundromat,” a messy exposé of shell companies and offshore tax shelters that at least tries to gin up audience outrage over a seemingly unsolvable dilemma.
Now he’s back with “No Sudden Move,” which allows the director to revel in his love for dark comedy, criminal capers, period detail, and all-star ensembles, and while all of those elements make the film entertaining, the story ultimately feels like a hopeless recitation of doom: The rich and powerful will always be rich and powerful.
Now he’s back with “No Sudden Move,” which allows the director to revel in his love for dark comedy, criminal capers, period detail, and all-star ensembles, and while all of those elements make the film entertaining, the story ultimately feels like a hopeless recitation of doom: The rich and powerful will always be rich and powerful.
- 6/19/2021
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
George Segal, whose long career included playing Albert “Pops” Solomon on “The Goldbergs,” and garnering an Oscar nom for supporting actor for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” died Tuesday. He was 87.
His wife Sonia announced his death, saying, “The family is devastated to announce that this morning George Segal passed away due to complications from bypass surgery.”
Segal’s longtime manager Abe Hoch said, “I am saddened by the fact that my close friend and client of many years has passed away. I will miss his warmth, humor, camaraderie and friendship. He was a wonderful human.”
Some of the top directors of the 1960s and ’70s, including Robert Altman, Mike Nichols, Paul Mazursky and Sidney Lumet cast Segal for his gently humorous everyman quality, and he often played an unlucky-in-love professional or a writer who gets in over his head.
In Nichols’ 1967 Edward Albee adaptation “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,...
His wife Sonia announced his death, saying, “The family is devastated to announce that this morning George Segal passed away due to complications from bypass surgery.”
Segal’s longtime manager Abe Hoch said, “I am saddened by the fact that my close friend and client of many years has passed away. I will miss his warmth, humor, camaraderie and friendship. He was a wonderful human.”
Some of the top directors of the 1960s and ’70s, including Robert Altman, Mike Nichols, Paul Mazursky and Sidney Lumet cast Segal for his gently humorous everyman quality, and he often played an unlucky-in-love professional or a writer who gets in over his head.
In Nichols’ 1967 Edward Albee adaptation “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,...
- 3/24/2021
- by Pat Saperstein
- Variety Film + TV
Two films released, another film shot, and Steven Soderbergh managed to still watch and read a decent amount in 2019. (Note to self: barely using his Twitter account probably helps.) So a favorite tradition continues with today’s release of his annual viewing and reading log on Extension 765, which has a surprise, oddity, or some-such at nearly every turn.
Favorites include: making it through all 181 hours of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Too Old to Die Young in seven days but taking nearly four months to finish Sergei Bondarchuk’s War and Peace; Chinatown and Richard Lester movies appearing on yet another list; he, too, watching Fleabag; seeing a version of his next movie, Let Them All Talk, just under a month after principal photography commenced. And so on and so forth.
All caps, bold: Movie
All caps, bold, asterisk: Short*
All caps: TV Series
Italics: Book
Quotation marks: “Play”
Italics, quotation...
Favorites include: making it through all 181 hours of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Too Old to Die Young in seven days but taking nearly four months to finish Sergei Bondarchuk’s War and Peace; Chinatown and Richard Lester movies appearing on yet another list; he, too, watching Fleabag; seeing a version of his next movie, Let Them All Talk, just under a month after principal photography commenced. And so on and so forth.
All caps, bold: Movie
All caps, bold, asterisk: Short*
All caps: TV Series
Italics: Book
Quotation marks: “Play”
Italics, quotation...
- 1/7/2020
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
By Fred Blosser
In Michael Cimino’s “Year of the Dragon” (1985), now available in a handsome Blu-ray edition from the Warner Archive Collection, gang war threatens to erupt in New York’s Chinatown when the city’s elderly Triad kingpin is spectacularly murdered by a young Chinese thug. Police Captain Stanley White (Mickey Rourke) is brought in to crack down before more blood is spilled, as long as he doesn’t crack down too hard. As far as the NYPD and the neighborhood elders are concerned, things are fine the way they are in Chinatown under the Triad. All that’s needed is to bring the suddenly upstart youth gangs under control. But Stanley knows that the only way to really clean up Chinatown is to wipe out the underlying corruption of the Triad itself. To that end, he plunges into his assignment with a zeal that even Dirty Harry Callahan might find excessive.
In Michael Cimino’s “Year of the Dragon” (1985), now available in a handsome Blu-ray edition from the Warner Archive Collection, gang war threatens to erupt in New York’s Chinatown when the city’s elderly Triad kingpin is spectacularly murdered by a young Chinese thug. Police Captain Stanley White (Mickey Rourke) is brought in to crack down before more blood is spilled, as long as he doesn’t crack down too hard. As far as the NYPD and the neighborhood elders are concerned, things are fine the way they are in Chinatown under the Triad. All that’s needed is to bring the suddenly upstart youth gangs under control. But Stanley knows that the only way to really clean up Chinatown is to wipe out the underlying corruption of the Triad itself. To that end, he plunges into his assignment with a zeal that even Dirty Harry Callahan might find excessive.
- 10/23/2019
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Psycho killers long ago lost their novelty, but in 1956 Budd Boetticher and Wendell Corey gave us Leon ‘Foggy’ Poole, a screen original with limitless appeal. Imagine a time when ‘normalcy’ was so taken for granted that any weird behavior was enough to give us the chills? Foggy carries this crime potboiler with a refreshing new idea: his dangerous maniac looks more normal than normal people.
The Killer Is Loose
Blu-ray
ClassicFlix
1956 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 76 min. / Street Date June 13, 2017 / 29.98
Starring: Joseph Cotten, Rhonda Fleming, Wendell Corey, Alan Hale Jr., Michael Pate, John Larch, Dee J. Thompson, Virginia Christine.
Cinematography: Lucien Ballard
Original Music: Lionel Newman
Written by Harold Medford, story by John & Ward Hawkins
Produced by Robert L. Jacks
Directed by Budd Boetticher
A smartly directed mid-fifties noir with a sensational central performance from the overlooked Wendell Corey, The Killer is Loose shows director Budd Boetticher at ease with a modest budget,...
The Killer Is Loose
Blu-ray
ClassicFlix
1956 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 76 min. / Street Date June 13, 2017 / 29.98
Starring: Joseph Cotten, Rhonda Fleming, Wendell Corey, Alan Hale Jr., Michael Pate, John Larch, Dee J. Thompson, Virginia Christine.
Cinematography: Lucien Ballard
Original Music: Lionel Newman
Written by Harold Medford, story by John & Ward Hawkins
Produced by Robert L. Jacks
Directed by Budd Boetticher
A smartly directed mid-fifties noir with a sensational central performance from the overlooked Wendell Corey, The Killer is Loose shows director Budd Boetticher at ease with a modest budget,...
- 10/24/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Political terror scenarios were a bit simpler in the 1950s, and movies about them fairly rare. Frank Sinatra gives a strong performance as the villain John Baron, in a tense tale of presidential assassination by high-powered rifle. Suddenly Blu-ray The Film Detective 1954 / B&W / 1.75 widescreen / 75 min. / Street Date October 25, 2016 / 14.99 Starring Frank Sinatra, Sterling Hayden, James Gleason, Nancy Gates, Willis Bouchey, Cinematography Charles G. Clarke Art Direction Frank Sylos Film Editor John F. Schreyer Original Music David Raksin Written by Richard Sale Produced by Robert Bassler Directed by Lewis Allen
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Some disc companies do well by refurbishing movies in the Public Domain, using various methods to bring what were once bargain-bin eyesores nearer the level of releases made from prime source material in studio vaults. As I've reported with efforts by HD Cinema Classics and Vci, the results vary dramatically -- did the company do a professional job,...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Some disc companies do well by refurbishing movies in the Public Domain, using various methods to bring what were once bargain-bin eyesores nearer the level of releases made from prime source material in studio vaults. As I've reported with efforts by HD Cinema Classics and Vci, the results vary dramatically -- did the company do a professional job,...
- 10/8/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
If you’re looking for a great killer snake movie, you may find 1982’s Venom to be a disappointment. If you’re looking for a showcase of competitive overacting, Venom is your huckleberry.
Imagine the 1955 Humphrey Bogart/Fredric March movie The Desperate Hours if it were invaded by a killer black mamba. That’s Venom, only instead of Bogart and March, it’s Klaus Kinski and Oliver Reed, two incredibly talented but famously difficult actors, attempting to devour both the scenery and one another. Though it went into production with Tobe Hooper as director, he left the film fairly early on (with vague reports of “it just wasn’t working” as an explanation) and was replaced by Piers Haggard, the British filmmaker responsible for Blood on Satan’s Claw. He found himself in a difficult and unhappy situation, guiding a movie that wasn’t his and run roughshod over by his actors.
Imagine the 1955 Humphrey Bogart/Fredric March movie The Desperate Hours if it were invaded by a killer black mamba. That’s Venom, only instead of Bogart and March, it’s Klaus Kinski and Oliver Reed, two incredibly talented but famously difficult actors, attempting to devour both the scenery and one another. Though it went into production with Tobe Hooper as director, he left the film fairly early on (with vague reports of “it just wasn’t working” as an explanation) and was replaced by Piers Haggard, the British filmmaker responsible for Blood on Satan’s Claw. He found himself in a difficult and unhappy situation, guiding a movie that wasn’t his and run roughshod over by his actors.
- 6/24/2016
- by Patrick Bromley
- DailyDead
A detective from the year 2077 finds herself trapped in present day Vancouver and searching for ruthless criminals from the future. Starring: Rachel Nichols, Victor Webster, Erik Knudsen and Stephen Lobo. Continuum "The Desperate Hours" airs tonight on Showcase (Canada) tonight at 9Pm and next Friday on SyFy (USA). Season four consists of just six episodes. Continuum has also been released in comic book form as Continuum The War Files; an eight part mini series.
- 10/2/2015
- ComicBookMovie.com
There you are, tucked away sound and snuggly in your little bed. Counting sheep and drifting off to dreamland. The next thing you know, a stranger is in your house with nothing but bad intentions. To celebrate the release of Mischief Night, we bring you the Top 11 Home Invasions in Horror.
We could go on forever with the list of honorable mentions in this category. Films like The Desperate Hours, Kidnapped and High Tension (Haute Tension) come immediately to mind. As do Panic Room, You're Next, The Purge, The Aggression Scale and Funny Games. Hell, even Macaulay Culkin got terrorized by Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci in Home Alone. Some on the list are traditional assaults and some are more unique, but we think we've got it narrowed down to...
Black Christmas (1974)
All is calm, all is bright. Except for the fact that you've got a raving lunatic holed up in your attic!
We could go on forever with the list of honorable mentions in this category. Films like The Desperate Hours, Kidnapped and High Tension (Haute Tension) come immediately to mind. As do Panic Room, You're Next, The Purge, The Aggression Scale and Funny Games. Hell, even Macaulay Culkin got terrorized by Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci in Home Alone. Some on the list are traditional assaults and some are more unique, but we think we've got it narrowed down to...
Black Christmas (1974)
All is calm, all is bright. Except for the fact that you've got a raving lunatic holed up in your attic!
- 12/16/2013
- by Scott Hallam
- DreadCentral.com
The independent Canadian movie-maker Guy Maddin has been ploughing his own avant-garde furrow out there in Winnipeg for some years now, and rarely more weirdly than in this parodic thriller about a gangster taking over a middle-class, midwestern household at some uncertain time in the 1930s or 40s. Specifically it invokes three Bogart classics – The Petrified Forest, Key Largo, The Desperate Hours – with twists: first the antihero is called Ulysses Pick and this is a version of the homecoming in The Odyssey; second, the house is haunted, and half the characters are ghosts. Shot in black-and-white, Keyhole is a genuine curiosity, rather less interesting perhaps than I've made it sound, and an example of that narrow sub-genre, whimsical noir.
DramaIsabella RosselliniPhilip French
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds...
DramaIsabella RosselliniPhilip French
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds...
- 9/15/2012
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
"Whispers that the latest from Winnipeg's favourite son had been rebuffed at European festivals before landing on Toronto's doorstep engender a suspicion towards it, as if it's typically Maddinesque gestures were just that: typical, tired, by the numbers." John Semley in Cinema Scope: "Granted, Maddin is once again working through his favorite hang-ups here: memory, family, and odes to forgotten film genres so consigned to oblivion that they never existed at all (in this case the Joycean gangster-haunted house picture). But Maddin finds new footing here, and his best leading man since Careful's Kyle McCulloch in Jason Patric, whose classic, rock-jawed good looks and tendency to play the silliness and surrealism totally straight, as if he's just happy for the job, make Keyhole feel like considerably more than another exercise in Maddinalia."
James Rocchi for the Playlist: "Maddin's usual fondness for the (soap) operatic and the melodramatic are both in play here,...
James Rocchi for the Playlist: "Maddin's usual fondness for the (soap) operatic and the melodramatic are both in play here,...
- 9/12/2011
- MUBI
Hollywood actor who shot to fame as Marlon Brando's girlfriend in The Wild One
Co-starring with Marlon Brando in his prime is a bonus for any actor's filmography. The fame of Mary Murphy, who has died aged 80, was boosted considerably when she played his love interest in The Wild One (1953). Tame by today's standards, it was the film in which the brooding, rebellious, black-leather-clad Brando, as the leader of a motorcycle gang, emerged fully as a sex symbol.
The pretty, clean-cut Murphy, never considered a sex symbol herself, served as an excellent foil to Brando who, when asked what he is rebelling against, replies: "What've you got?" As the sheriff's daughter, she immediately attracts the attention of Brando when he comes in for a beer at the diner where she works. Gradually, the attraction becomes mutual as he rides his large, phallic motorcycle with her clutching his waist, her...
Co-starring with Marlon Brando in his prime is a bonus for any actor's filmography. The fame of Mary Murphy, who has died aged 80, was boosted considerably when she played his love interest in The Wild One (1953). Tame by today's standards, it was the film in which the brooding, rebellious, black-leather-clad Brando, as the leader of a motorcycle gang, emerged fully as a sex symbol.
The pretty, clean-cut Murphy, never considered a sex symbol herself, served as an excellent foil to Brando who, when asked what he is rebelling against, replies: "What've you got?" As the sheriff's daughter, she immediately attracts the attention of Brando when he comes in for a beer at the diner where she works. Gradually, the attraction becomes mutual as he rides his large, phallic motorcycle with her clutching his waist, her...
- 6/3/2011
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Actress Mary Murphy has died at the age of 80.
She passed away at her Los Angeles home after a long battle with heart disease, according to the Associated Press.
Murphy was perhaps most famous for starring opposite Marlon Brando in the 1953 hit The Wild One, but she was also cast among other popular leading men including Humphrey Bogart in The Desperate Hours and Tony Curtis in Beachhead.
Murphy, who retired from the acting industry in the 1980s, was also featured in a variety of TV series including I Spy, Dr. Kildare and Ironside.
The actress died on 4 May.
She passed away at her Los Angeles home after a long battle with heart disease, according to the Associated Press.
Murphy was perhaps most famous for starring opposite Marlon Brando in the 1953 hit The Wild One, but she was also cast among other popular leading men including Humphrey Bogart in The Desperate Hours and Tony Curtis in Beachhead.
Murphy, who retired from the acting industry in the 1980s, was also featured in a variety of TV series including I Spy, Dr. Kildare and Ironside.
The actress died on 4 May.
- 5/16/2011
- WENN
Mary Murphy -- who was famously discovered at a coffee shop and cast opposite Marlon Brando in " The Wild One " -- died of heart disease in her Beverly Hills home on May 4. Murphy was working as a package wrapper at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills when a talent scout from Paramount Pictures spotted her in a coffee shop. She went on to star in several films during the 1950's -- including "The Desperate Hours,...
- 5/16/2011
- by TMZ Staff
- TMZ
After his impressive debut with London to Brighton, Paul Andrew Williams took a backward step with the rural horror comedy The Cottage, but recovers somewhat with this cool family jeopardy thriller in a tradition that stretches from Wyler's The Desperate Hours to Haneke's Funny Games. The 40-ish middle-class couple, Christine and Mike, are having a rather tense time in their home in the eponymous north London street when three menacing working-class teenagers (two black, one white) break in to take the pair hostage and await the return of their son who has grassed a drug-dealing friend to the cops. Class resentments are stirred, social misunderstandings are revealed, violence steadily escalates, more or less in real time, and the action remains claustrophobically within the house. It's an effective piece, well acted, not entirely convincing in its plotting and more predictable than inexorable.
DramaHorrorThrillerPhilip French
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited...
DramaHorrorThrillerPhilip French
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited...
- 9/4/2010
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
In the early 70s, directors of giallo, the Italian horror genre, made a few tentative trips to England, producing at least one classic
When one thinks of giallo, the bloodsoaked Italian horror genre of the 1960s and 70s, one imagines axes through heads, rooms full of naked corpses, massive bloodshed, pioneering gore special effects, zany psychology, imported has-been leads, spooky music, far too many zooms, and terrible post-synched dialogue. The last thing that crosses your mind is England.
And yet in the early 70s, giallo directors made a few tentative trips to England, producing at least one classic of the genre, Lucio Fulci's Lizard in a Woman's Skin. There's also an enjoyable lesser effort, Jorge Grau's The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, which lives up to its splendid title (one of no fewer than 15 titles it has had worldwide).
Living Dead, made in 1973, features a mini-army of...
When one thinks of giallo, the bloodsoaked Italian horror genre of the 1960s and 70s, one imagines axes through heads, rooms full of naked corpses, massive bloodshed, pioneering gore special effects, zany psychology, imported has-been leads, spooky music, far too many zooms, and terrible post-synched dialogue. The last thing that crosses your mind is England.
And yet in the early 70s, giallo directors made a few tentative trips to England, producing at least one classic of the genre, Lucio Fulci's Lizard in a Woman's Skin. There's also an enjoyable lesser effort, Jorge Grau's The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, which lives up to its splendid title (one of no fewer than 15 titles it has had worldwide).
Living Dead, made in 1973, features a mini-army of...
- 7/8/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
Editor's Note: Originally hailing from the capital of Venezuela, writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez has had a strange cinematic trip to where he is today. Starting in 1998 with the solid thriller Judas Kiss starring Carla Gugino, Gutierrez got an unexpected bump in popularity after writing a little film called Snakes on a Plane. The man has been involved with a couple pulpy films about undead reporters and mermaids, but he's made a truly fantastic (and strange) film with Women in Trouble, and he did it by calling up a few friends and filming on the weekend. The sequel Elektra Luxx is already in post, and he's working on a third installment as we speak. In November, American audiences will get to see Women in Trouble, so we thought it would be fun to have Gutierrez share his Top 5 Films with us. The parameters aren't exactly defined, like most things here at Fsr, so...
- 9/2/2009
- by Guest Author
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
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