Horror – Cultural Revue

HUMMEL Review: Karen (2021)

I have a lot of friends, on the right, who genuinely despise Jordan Peele’s Get Out. I get the emotional gut reaction to the movie. It’s the most politically charged blockbuster of our generation. I just think it’s worth remembering that Peele is a genuinely talented director. He’s funny, and humanistic and seems to actuallyContinue reading “HUMMEL Review: Karen (2021)”

HUMMEL Review: A Quiet Place – Part II

John Krasinski really broke out into the mainstream in an major way in 2018 with his directorial debut A Quiet Place. While not necessarily the most original or logical film in the world, it was one heck of a display of his dramatic bonafides that immediately raised him to a place of distinction among aContinue reading “HUMMEL Review: A Quiet Place – Part II”

HUMMEL Review: Possessor (2020)

David Cronenberg remains one of Hollywood’s most prolific masters of cinematic violence of the last half century. His entire body of work, including films like The Fly, Videodrone, Scanners and Naked Lunch, consists of films driven by body horror, gore and the horror of the desecration of the human body and mind. It’s no surpriseContinue reading “HUMMEL Review: Possessor (2020)”

HUMMEL Review: The Vigil (2021)

When I wrote recently about An American Pickle, I said that I was disappointed that the story couldn’t find an interesting way to address the core tensions of the Jewish-American life experience. The movie felt cheap and dishonest. The secular Jewish filmmakers, like Seth Rogen, couldn’t translate the life experience of modern Jewry without overtlyContinue reading “HUMMEL Review: The Vigil (2021)”

HUMMEL Review: Alone (2020)

For some reason, there have been a lot of lo-fi indie thrillers in the past year using the premise of “woman stalked by aggressive man”. Russell Crowe’s Unhinged was the big, dumb Hollywood version of this story and played up its scenario as a trashier version of the Joker premise where the aggrieved man isContinue reading “HUMMEL Review: Alone (2020)”

GUG Review: Hunted (2021)

My review for Shudder’s newest original film went live at Geeks Under Grace! The film in question is a post-modern retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood story that reframed its archetypal fairy tale as a revenge story about the power dynamics between a violent rapist and his would-be victim. This film was a bluntContinue reading “GUG Review: Hunted (2021)”