The Religious Right is also (apparently) a breeding ground for predatory hucksters, grinning matchstick men who Get Religion so long as it gets them into your wallet. What The Last Exorcism does with that stereotype is rather refreshing. Cotton Marcus’s journey of rediscovering faith by confronting the forces of darkness isn’t really anything new, but it is something special. What I think the film communicates, rather than these simple explanations, is that when the chips are down, people have a surprising capacity for nobility. Even people who make a mockery of faith or the credulity of their trusting flock can find the courage to hold a candle to the darkness. There’s heroism in that.

Paranormal Activity 2 is, for the sake of descriptive brevity, The Exorcist meets Big Brother. The new film is a Hollywood sequel, for better and worse. Bigger budget = more elaborate effects. For a couple scenes, that works in the film’s favor. Unfortunately, it also means that the craft of the first film has been largely jettisoned in favor of thuddingly obvious setups, a higher body count, and a much more crass sense of what is considered creepy.

Part of the fun of watching a Scorsese film is being surprised by the brio with which he stages and edits his sequences; his camera roams fluidly or the composition pops like a flashbulb perhaps the narrative even takes an unexpected turn that doesn’t feel like a prosaic “twist.” Shutter Island, however, looks and feels exactly like you’d expect it to for any film with this synopsis: “U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his partner arrive at an isolated psychiatric facility for the criminally insane in the mid-1950s to investigate the disappearance of a patient who murdered her children. As ominous clues are raised that suggest a deeper, darker mystery, Teddy begins to question the motives of everyone around him, and perhaps his own sanity…” Guess the twist. Go ahead. Guess.

I had always wanted to read Stephen King’s Cell.  Despite the intriguing central concept of cell phones turning people into zombies, I somehow never took the plunge and bought it.  This is probably due to the fact that the book was slightly larger than most paperbacks, which, I am convinced, was done solely to artificially inflate the price of the book. So I was quite excited when my editor, the living breathing anachronism, plopped an audio version of it onto my desk. 1
“Kid,” he said, a lit cigarette dangling from …

As a horror fiend, I’ve made my fair share of trips to the movie theatre this year. I am especially lucky to live in a city like Montreal, because I was able to see every single one of these on the big screen, thanks to smaller independent theatres and Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival (which I can’t recommend enough). This being the time of year for the spooks, and when most people want to get their horror fill, I thought I’d lend my own experiences to help people choose what to …