Review: The Killer (dir. by David Fincher)

Posted on December 2, 2025 by Arleigh

“Stick to your plan. Anticipate, don’t improvise. Trust no one. Never yield an advantage. Fight only the battle you’re paid to fight. Forbid empathy. Empathy is weakness. Weakness is vulnerability.” — The Killer

David Fincher’s The Killer lands like a perfectly aimed shot: clean, methodical, and laced with just enough twist to make you rethink the whole trajectory. At its core, the film follows an elite assassin—brilliantly played by Michael Fassbender—who suffers a rare professional failure during a high-stakes hit in Paris. After days of obsessive preparation in a WeWork cubicle, complete with hourly surveillance checks, yoga breaks, protein bar sustenance, and a nonstop loop of The Smiths, he pulls the trigger only to miss his target entirely.

This one slip shatters his world of ironclad redundancies and contingencies. Retaliation soon hits close to home, striking his secluded Dominican Republic hideout and drawing in his girlfriend. What begins as a routine job quickly escalates into a personal cleanup mission, spanning cities like New Orleans, Florida, New York, and Chicago. Fincher transforms these stops into taut, self-contained vignettes, layering precise bursts of violence over the protagonist’s gradual psychological fraying—all while keeping major reveals under wraps to maintain the film’s coiled tension.

The structure dovetails perfectly with Fassbender’s commanding performance. He embodies a man radiating icy zen on the surface, while a relentless machine churns underneath. His deadpan voiceover delivers self-imposed rules like a deranged productivity gospel—”forbid empathy,” “stick to your plan,” “anticipate, don’t improvise”—even as he slips seamlessly into civilian guises: faux-German tourist, unassuming janitor, casually ordering tactical gear from Amazon like it’s toothpaste.

The result is darkly hilarious, conjuring a corporate bro reborn as high-functioning sociopath, where bland covers clash absurdly with lethal intent. Yet as stakes mount, subtle cracks appear: split-second hesitations, flickers of unexpected mercy that betray buried humanity. Fassbender nails this evolution through sheer minimalism—piercing stares, economical gestures, weaponized silence—morphing the killer from untouchable elite into a flawed, expendable player in the gig economy’s brutal grind.

These nuances echo the film’s episodic blueprint, quintessential Fincher territory. On-screen city titles act as chapters in a shadowy assassin’s handbook, with tension simmering through drawn-out prep rituals: endless surveillance, gear assembly, contingency mapping that drags just enough to immerse you in the job’s soul-numbing tedium. The Paris mishap ignites the chase—he evades immediate pursuit, sheds evidence, and races home to fallout, then pursues leads through handlers, drivers, and rivals in a chain of escalating confrontations.

Fincher deploys action sparingly but with devastating impact. A standout brawl erupts in raw, prolonged chaos—captured in extended, crystal-clear shots with improvised weapons and no shaky-cam crutches—perfectly embodying the killer’s ethos even as it splinters around him. Each sequence builds without excess, from tense interrogations to standoffs that flip power dynamics, underscoring how the world’s rules bend unevenly.

This kinetic progression meshes flawlessly with Fincher’s visual command. Cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt crafts a hypnotic palette of cool desaturated blues, sterile symmetries, and digital hyper-reality, evoking unblinking surveillance feeds into an emotional void. Tactile details obsess: the rifle case’s satisfying zip, suppressed gunfire’s sharp snick, shadows creeping across WeWork pods, dingy motels, and gleaming penthouses—all mirroring the killer’s frantic grasp for order amid encroaching disarray.

Sound design heightens every layer, sharpening ambient clacks of keyboards, hallway breaths, and gravel footsteps to a razor’s edge. Integral to the immersion is the minimalist electronic score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Fincher’s trusted collaborators from The Social Network to Mank. Their eerie ambient drones and ominous rhythmic pulses bubble like a suppressed heartbeat—swelling subtly in stakeouts, throbbing through violence, threading haunting motifs into voiceovers. It mirrors the protagonist’s inner turmoil without overwhelming the chill precision, turning silences between notes into weapons as potent as any sniper round.

This sonic and visual restraint powers the film’s bone-dry irony, which methodically punctures the protagonist’s god-complex. He preaches elite status among the “few” lording over the “many sheep,” yet reality paints him as sleep-deprived, rule-bending, and perpetually improvising—empathy leaking through denials in quiet, humanizing beats. Fincher weaves these into his signature obsessions—unmasked control freaks, dissected toxic masculinity, exposed capitalist churn—but with playful lightness, sidestepping the heavier preachiness of Fight Club or Seven.

The killer’s neurotic Smiths fixation injects quirky isolation amid globetrotting nomadism; their melancholic lyrics (“How Soon Is Now?”) punctuate stakeouts and flights like wry commentary on his fraying detachment. It all resolves in a low-key homecoming: no grand redemption or downfall, just weary acknowledgment that even “perfect” plans crack under chaos’s weight.

This sleight-of-hand elevates The Killer beyond standard assassin tropes into a sharp study of elite evil’s banality. Supporting roles deliver pitch-perfect economy: Tilda Swinton’s poised, lethal rival in mind-game restaurant tension; Arliss Howard’s obliviously entitled elite; Charles Parnell’s wearily betrayed handler; Kerry O’Malley’s poignant bargainer; Sala Baker’s raw, physical menace. Under two hours, Fincher packs density without bloat—layered subtext, rewatchable craft everywhere.

Gripes about its procedural chill or emotional distance miss the sleight entirely: this is a revenge thriller masking profound dissection of a borderless mercenary world, where pros prove as disposable as their untouchable clients. Fans of methodical slow-burns like Zodiac, The Game, or Gone Girl will devour the razor wit, process immersion, and unflinching thematic bite.

Ultimately, The Killer crystallizes as a sly late-period Fincher gem, fusing pitch-black humor, visceral horror, and surprising humanism into precision-engineered sleekness. It dismantles mastery illusions in unforgiving reality, leaving Fassbender’s killer stubbornly human: loose ends mostly tied, slipping back to obscurity as a survivor adapting. In a flood of bombastic action sludge, it offers bracing cerebral air—proving restraint, dark laughs, and surgical insight remain the filmmaker’s deadliest tools. For obsessive breakdowns of the human machine at its breaking point, it’s Netflix essential.

Review: The Hunt for Red October (dir. by John McTiernan)

Posted on November 30, 2025 by Arleigh

“I’m a politician. Which means that I am a cheat and a liar, and when I’m not kissing babies, I’m stealing their lollipops.” — Dr. Jeffrey Pelt, National Security Advisor

The Hunt for Red October glides into the tail end of Cold War cinema like a stealthy sub cutting through midnight swells, packing a smart mix of spy intrigue and nail-biting underwater showdowns that keep you locked in from the opening credits. Directed by John McTiernan, fresh from helming Die Hard, this 1990 adaptation of Tom Clancy’s doorstopper novel smartly distills pages of naval geekery into a taut, propulsive thriller where Soviet skipper Marko Ramius—Sean Connery in full brooding mode—pilots the formidable Red October, a behemoth sub with a hush-mode propulsion system that ghosts past detection like a shadow in fog.

McTiernan shines in wrangling the script from Clancy’s tech-heavy tome, slicing through the babble to propel the story with crisp momentum and unrelenting suspense, turning potential info-dumps into pulse-quickening beats that hook casual viewers and sub nerds alike. The premise grabs fast: Ramius’s bold maneuvers ignite a transatlantic frenzy, with U.S. and Soviet forces locked in a paranoid standoff over what looks like an imminent crisis. That ’80s-era distrust simmers perfectly here, crammed into a runtime that pulses with fresh urgency decades later, amplified by those dim-lit sub corridors in steely teal tones that squeeze the air right out of the room.

Alec Baldwin embodies Jack Ryan as the reluctant brainiac from CIA desks, sweaty and green around the gills yet armed with instincts that cut through official noise like a periscope through chop. Pulled from family downtime—teddy bear in tow—he injects everyday stakes into the global chessboard, proving heroes don’t need camo or cockiness, just smarts and stubbornness. Connery’s Ramius dominates as a haunted vet with a personal chip on his shoulder, steering a tight-knit officer corps including Sam Neill’s devoted second-in-command, their quiet bonds hinting at deeper loyalties amid the red menace.

Standouts fill the roster seamlessly: James Earl Jones lends gravitas as the steady Admiral Greer backing Ryan’s wild cards; Scott Glenn commands the American hunter sub with laconic steel; Jeffrey Jones brings quirky spark to the sonar savant whose audio tricks flip the script on silence. The dialogue crackles with shorthand lingo and understated jabs, forging a crew dynamic that’s as pressurized as the hull plates, pulling you into hushed command post vibes without a whiff of cheesiness.

McTiernan elevates the genre by leaning on wits over blasts—thrilling pursuits deliver without dominating, letting mind games and split-second calls drive the dread, all while streamlining Clancy’s minutiae into seamless propulsion. Gadgetry gleams without overwhelming: the sub’s whisper-quiet tech sparks clever cat-and-mouse in hazard-filled depths, ramping uncertainty to fever pitch. Pacing builds masterfully from war-room skepticism—Ryan battling brass skepticism—to heart-in-throat ocean dashes, every frame taut as a bowstring. Practical models and effects ground the peril in gritty tangibility, no digital gloss, evoking Ice Station Zebra‘s frosty traps but streamlined into a relentless machine that dodges the older film’s drag. It’s a clinic in balancing spectacle and smarts, where tension coils from isolation’s cruel math: one ping too many, and it’s lights out.

On the eyes and ears front, the movie plunges into submersed nightmare fuel—consoles pulsing crimson in battle stations, scopes piercing mist-shrouded waves, silo bays looming like sleeping leviathans. McTiernan tempers his action flair for thinker-thrills; Basil Poledouris’s great orchestral score surges with iconic power through the chases—those brooding horns, choral swells, and rhythmic pulses echoing engine throbs have etched into legend, pounding your chest like incoming cavitation and elevating every dive. Audio wizardry seals the immersion: hull groans, ping echoes, bubble roars craft a metallic tomb where errors echo eternally. Flaws peek through—early scenes drag with setup chatter, foes skew broad-stroked—but the core hunt erases them, surging to a sharp, satisfying close that nods to Ryan’s budding legend without overplaying the hand.

’90s tentpole lovers and thaw-era history fans find a benchmark here, as the film plays the long con of trust amid torpedoes, fusing bombast with nuance that reboots chase in vain. It bottles superpower jitters spot-on—frantic commands clashing with strike debates—yet softens adversaries via Connery’s world-weary depth and Neill’s subtle conviction. Endless rewatches uncover gems: crew hints dropped early, sonar hacks foreshadowing real tech leaps. Baldwin’s grounded Ryan—chopper-barfing, suit-clashing, chaos-navigating—earns triumphs the hard way, contrasting Das Boot‘s bleak grind with upbeat ingenuity that feels won, not waved. Poledouris’s motifs linger post-credits, a symphonic anchor boosting replay pulls.

Endurance stems from mastering sub-horror’s essence: solitude sharpening choices, where flubs invite apocalypse. Ramius embodies defector realism—war-weary idealist mirroring history’s turncoats—while Clancy’s specs (sub classes, velocities) anchor without anchoring down. McTiernan sidesteps flags; zero flag-waving, pure operator craft in dodges and climactic finesse that blends brains with boom. Quirks delight—the premier’s bluster, aides’ cool calculus—padding a 134-minute gem that exhales you surfacing, amped. Expands on score’s role too: “Hymn to Red October” choral rise mirrors Ramius’s quiet rebellion, threading emotional undercurrents through mechanical mayhem, a Poledouris hallmark outlasting the film.

Bottom line, The Hunt for Red October captivates via cerebral kick—shadow games in fluid physics, intellect over muscle, audacious plays punking empire folly. Sparks post-view chin-strokes on allegiances and risks. Connery’s gravelly “One ping only, Vasily” endures as gold; storm-watch it, trade sofa for sonar station—raw thrill spiked with savvy. Sub saga staple? This silent stalker nails every target.

Review: Straw Dogs (dir. by Sam Peckinpah)

Posted on November 25, 2025 by Arleigh

“Violence can be the only answer sometimes.” — David Sumner

Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs is a raw, compelling dive into the breakdown of civility and the primal instincts bubbling underneath. The story follows David Sumner, a mild-mannered American mathematician, who moves with his wife Amy to her rural English hometown. The couple’s plan for a quiet life takes a sharp turn when tensions with the locals spiral out of control, resulting in a violent showdown. At its core, the film examines how far a person can be pushed before the veneer of civilization peels away, revealing something much wilder underneath.

The tension starts subtly, as David’s intellectual and pacifist nature clashes with the rough, territorial mindset of the local men. This brewing conflict isn’t just about cultural difference but taps into deeper themes around masculinity, power, and identity. Straw Dogs asks difficult questions about what it means to be a man, exploring how fragile male identity can be when confronted with real or perceived threats. David’s journey is less about heroism and more about the psychological and emotional transformation forced upon a man who initially seems ill-equipped for the violence unleashed around him. The whole film operates as a kind of symbolic stage where primal instincts and societal expectations collide, forcing each character to confront their own limits.

Amy’s role in the film is both pivotal and deeply complex. Her experience of assault, handled with subtle but unflinching attention, adds emotional and thematic weight without dominating the narrative. The film portrays her trauma through its impact on her and the shifting dynamics in her relationship with David, inviting reflection on resilience and struggle for control. Amy is depicted not merely as a victim but as a layered character navigating vulnerability and strength amid the hostile environment. This approach challenges viewers to consider the nuanced and often contradictory responses to trauma, avoiding simplistic victim narratives while emphasizing its profound consequences.

The rural setting of Straw Dogs is more than just a backdrop; it becomes a character in its own right. The close-knit, insular community embodies a microcosm where social order teeters and violence hides just beneath the surface. Law enforcement and authority figures seem ineffective or indifferent, which heightens the sense of isolation and lawlessness. The hostility from some village locals, including Amy’s ex-boyfriend Charlie, feeds into a toxic masculinity that sees David as weak and out of place. Peckinpah carefully stages this clash, using tension and silence as expertly as physical violence, making viewers feel the pressure ramping up until it finally snaps.

Dustin Hoffman’s portrayal of David is quietly brilliant in its subtlety. He plays David as a man trapped between worlds—intellectual and physical, passivity and aggression—with a restrained but deeply affecting performance. Hoffman’s ability to convey complex emotions beneath a calm exterior makes David’s eventual transformation all the more gripping. Susan George delivers an equally powerful performance as Amy, capturing the mixture of fear, defiance, and heartbreak her character endures. Their dynamic feels authentic and layered, making the viewer invested in their peril. The supporting cast, including actors like Peter Vaughan, add a layer of authentic menace, embodying the grim rural antagonists with convincing grit and intensity. The performances overall ground the film’s explosive themes in believable, relatable humans.

Themes in Straw Dogs extend beyond just personal violence to address ideas about identity and societal breakdown. The film explores the notion of the “symbolic order”—how individuals fit into and negotiate the rules and roles imposed by society. David’s identity crisis and his uneasy place within the village spotlight questions of power, emasculation, and rebirth. Peckinpah uses psycho-sexual imagery—such as symbols of emasculation and phallic power—to deepen the psychological stakes of David’s journey. The film conveys how deeply fragile human identity is and how violence can act as a brutal yet transformative force pushing individuals to redefine themselves. At the same time, the portrayal of Amy complicates these themes by challenging traditional gender roles, making the film as much about female agency as male dominance.

The film’s violence is famously brutal and unsettling. Peckinpah does not shy away from showing the full consequences of escalating conflict, culminating in an intense and chaotic finale where the line between victim and aggressor blurs. This isn’t violence for spectacle but a narrative and thematic necessity that Peckinpah uses to strip away pretenses and reveal the raw human instincts beneath. It’s this uncompromising depiction that both shocked audiences at the time and continues to provoke discussion about the nature of power and survival. The film is also notable for its innovative editing, with Peckinpah’s use of jump cuts and slow-motion heightening the emotional intensity and pacing the violence with a rhythmic, almost visceral punch.

Ultimately, Straw Dogs is a challenging film that forces viewers to confront disturbing truths about human nature, relationships, and societal order. Its exploration of violence and masculinity is complex and often uncomfortable, presenting no easy answers. The film remains a significant piece of cinema for its bold themes, outstanding performances, and the way it captures the frailty and ferocity of its characters. Peckinpah’s direction melds tension, psychological drama, and physical action into a gripping, unforgettable experience. Though controversial for its content, Straw Dogs endures as a powerful work that asks what truly happens when the thin line between civilization and savagery breaks down.

Horror Review: From Beyond (dir. by Stuart Gordon)

Posted on October 25, 2025 by Arleigh

“You’re diving deeper than any sane man ever should.” — Dr. Katherine McMichaels

Stuart Gordon’s From Beyond (1986) stands as a darker, moodier follow-up to his breakout Lovecraft adaptation, Re-Animator (1985). At its core is the Resonator, a bizarre scientific contraption designed to stimulate the pineal gland—allowing its users to glimpse eerie creatures and dimensions normally invisible to the naked eye. When Dr. Crawford Tillinghast (Jeffrey Combs) activates the device, it unleashes horrors not just upon the world but also within the minds and bodies of those involved, blurring the line between reality and nightmare in a way both terrifying and hypnotic.

Just like with Re-Animator, Gordon used H.P. Lovecraft’s short story From Beyond as a foundation but expanded the narrative significantly by injecting his own creative vision and filling in what Lovecraft left unexplored. Lovecraft’s original story is a brief, eerie vignette about stimulating the pineal gland to perceive alternate dimensions and terrifying alien creatures—minimalistic and atmospheric, leaving much to the imagination. Gordon reimagines this premise into a fully fleshed-out narrative, adding complex characters like the obsessive Dr. Edward Pretorius and the rational yet vulnerable Dr. Katherine McMichaels. He enriches the story with body horror, psychological torment, and a deeper thematic exploration of sexuality, obsession, and the fragility of the mind. This creative expansion transforms the story into something far more personal and tangible, blending cosmic horror with primal human fears and desires.

This tonal shift stands in stark contrast to Re-Animator, which thrives on anarchic gore, slapstick comedy, and a playful mad-scientist energy. From Beyond trades much of the humor for a somber, unsettling atmosphere drenched in slime, grotesque transformations, and claustrophobic dread. The characters are more grounded in psychological trauma, and the film’s pacing emphasizes creeping unease rather than chaotic spectacle. Gordon’s use of stark, hallucinatory lighting and saturated colors enhances this otherworldly feeling, while practical effects bring a tactile horror to life that heightens the visceral and emotional impact. The horror isn’t just external—it’s internal, a fracture of reality and self.

One of the most notable ways From Beyond separates itself from Gordon’s earlier work is in its overt intertwining of sexuality and horror. The Resonator doesn’t just expose alien creatures; it unlocks primal lust and repressed desires in its users. Scenes imbued with uneasy erotic tension, especially involving Barbara Crampton’s character, make sexuality a core source of vulnerability and terror. This blend of eroticism and nightmare adds depth and psychological complexity, exploring how intimate human experiences can be distorted into something terrifying. It’s a thematic boldness that would become highly influential beyond Western cinema.

Indeed, the film’s fusion of sexual subtext, body horror, and psychological unease foreshadowed themes embraced by late 1980s and early 1990s Japanese horror hentai anime. Works such as Angel of Darkness (Injū Kyōshi) combined explicit eroticism, grotesque body transformations, and supernatural horror in ways reminiscent of From Beyond’s style and tone. This synergy helped define a subgenre of adult horror anime where the boundaries between pleasure and terror, desire and monstrosity, are constantly blurred—cementing From Beyond not only as a cult classic in horror but also as an inspirational bridge to pioneering adult animation in Japan.

Visually and atmospherically, the film is a masterpiece of practical effects and immersive storytelling. The slime-drenched creatures, anatomically warped bodies, and constant visual flow between nightmare and distorted reality create a hallucinatory experience. The climax offers a frenetic, visceral battle that embodies the film’s core themes of madness, transformation, and cosmic terror, leaving viewers with a lingering sense of unease and wonder.

Stuart Gordon’s direction also employs incredibly effective subjective perspectives, with many scenes shot from the characters’ points of view. This technique immerses viewers in the unfolding madness and heightens the sensory overload that defines the film’s experience. There is a famously unsettling point-of-view shot from the mutated Crawford as he perceives a brain inside a doctor’s head and gruesomely attacks. Such moments amplify the film’s exploration of altered perception and the treacherous expansion of human senses.

Despite these strengths, the film is not without flaws. Ken Foree’s character, Bubba Brownlee, while providing moments of grounded streetwise humor, sometimes comes off as a caricature that leans into stereotypical portrayals of Black men as taboo or outlier figures in horror cinema. This portrayal feels somewhat jarring against the film’s otherwise nuanced tone and may evoke discomfort.

Additionally, From Beyond can feel comparatively stiff and sluggish next to Re-Animator, lacking some of the earlier film’s darkly comic energy. The story often relies on a series of increasingly grotesque set pieces that feel more like shock showcases than a cohesive narrative arc. Some performances, including Jeffrey Combs’ lead, occasionally seem overly intense without sufficient emotional variation, and the film sometimes slips into melodrama that undercuts its impact. Furthermore, although ambitious in visualizing Lovecraftian horrors, budgetary constraints are occasionally evident, diminishing some of the awe those moments seek to inspire.

Ultimately, Gordon’s From Beyond is a significant Lovecraft adaptation that showcases the power of expanding upon source material with bold creativity. Moving beyond Lovecraft’s sparse prose, Gordon infuses the story with rich characters, psychological depth, explicit body horror, and mature explorations of sexuality. This results in a haunting, distinctly unsettling film that not only stands as a high point in Gordon’s career but also resonates far beyond its American horror roots, shaping international horror aesthetics and inspiring future genres. It is a disturbing, thrilling journey to the dark spaces just beyond human perception—a cinematic experience that lingers in the mind long after the screen fades to black.

Horror Review: The Dead Zone (dir. by David Cronenberg)

Posted on October 21, 2025 by Arleigh

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I had the power… and I tried to prevent what I saw.” — Johnny Smith

In 1983, David Cronenberg adapted Stephen King’s The Dead Zone with a distinctive emphasis on mood, morality, and psychological depth rather than traditional horror spectacle. The film follows Johnny Smith (Christopher Walken), a small-town schoolteacher whose life transforms irrevocably after a traumatic car accident leaves him in a five-year coma. Upon awakening, Johnny discovers he possesses psychic abilities that allow him to see the past and future by touch. Rather than a gift, this power becomes a heavy burden, isolating him and forcing him into wrenching moral choices.

Cronenberg’s direction is meticulous and deliberately restrained. The film’s muted color palette and stark winter landscapes visually echo Johnny’s emotional isolation and the fragility of human existence. His careful, often gliding camera movements create a mounting sense of quiet dread, while minimalistic sound design underscores moments of revelation with haunting subtlety. This subdued style elevates the film’s psychological impact, transforming it into a thoughtful and melancholy meditation on the cost of harrowing knowledge.

Significantly, The Dead Zone marks a departure from Cronenberg’s signature body horror. Instead of the grotesque physical transformations and visceral mutations that characterize much of his other work, here Cronenberg turns inward. The real horror lies in the malleability of the mind and the elusive nature of perception—how reality, memory, and the future are unstable constructs that can shift and fracture under psychic strain. This thematic focus on the impermanence and distortion of mental reality touches on some of Cronenberg’s deepest artistic fascinations.

The restrained treatment of body horror in The Dead Zone previews the director’s later, more psychologically driven films such as A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, and A Dangerous Method, where character studies and narrative depth take precedence over startling visuals. In this early pivot, Cronenberg demonstrates that his mastery lies not only in visual spectacle but in probing the profound emotional and moral dilemmas faced by his characters. The vision-focused horror here is cerebral and grounded, rooting supernatural phenomena in human frailty and ethical complexity.

Christopher Walken’s nuanced portrayal is the emotional heart of the film. He captures Johnny’s vulnerability, weariness, and profound solitude, portraying a man burdened by a cursed knowledge that isolates him from the world. Martin Sheen plays Greg Stillson, the ambitious and morally bankrupt politician whose rise Johnny must foretell and who embodies the film’s central threat. The supporting cast, including Brooke Adams as Johnny’s lost love Sarah and Tom Skerritt as Sheriff Bannerman, delivers compelling and authentic performances that humanize the film’s intimate, small-town environment.

Several changes from King’s novel sharpen the film’s thematic focus. The novel’s sprawling plot, including a serial killer subplot and a brain tumor storyline symbolizing Johnny’s mortality, is pared down or omitted. Despite this trimming, the serial killer element retained in the film remains chilling and effective. It highlights the darker repercussions of Johnny’s psychic gift and injects a tangible sense of dread, reinforcing the psychological weight Johnny carries. This subplot grounds the supernatural within a disturbing reality, illustrating the violent and tragic circumstances Johnny must grapple with as part of his burden.

The concept of the “dead zone” itself shifts in meaning. Originally, the term referred to parts of Johnny’s brain damaged by the accident, blocking certain visions. Cronenberg reinterprets it as a metaphor for the unknown and unknowable parts of the future—the gaps in psychic clarity that allow for free will and change. This subtle shift reshapes the narrative toward a more ambiguous, hopeful meditation on destiny and human agency.

Compared to King’s novel, Cronenberg’s Johnny is more grounded and isolated. The novel frames Johnny’s struggle within a broader spiritual and fatalistic context, highlighted by the looming presence of a brain tumor and a nuanced exploration of hope versus resignation. The film, by contrast, focuses on the emotional and moral fatigue induced by Johnny’s psychic gift, emphasizing his loneliness and reluctant responsibility rather than supernatural destiny.

Walken’s restrained, haunting performance strips away mythic grandeur to reveal a deeply human character. The film’s narrowed narrative tightens focus on Johnny’s internal anguish and his difficult ethical choices, making his plight intimate and richly relatable.

On a thematic level, The Dead Zone contemplates fate, free will, and sacrifice. Johnny’s psychic abilities act as a draining, almost chthonic force, transforming him into a reluctant prophet who is tasked with intervening in grim futures at great personal cost. The film’s bleak winter setting visually reflects Johnny’s alienation, while its deliberate pacing highlights the exhaustion and heartbreak that comes with such knowledge.

Ultimately, Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone goes beyond supernatural thriller conventions. It is a profound meditation on empathy, sacrifice, and the human condition—where the greatest horrors are internal, and the cost of knowledge is both psychic and emotional. Johnny Smith emerges as a tragic, flawed figure wrestling with unbearable burdens.

Cronenberg’s direction and the impeccable performances make The Dead Zone a standout in King adaptations. The film’s enduring impact lies in its rich thematic texture, its moral ambiguity, and its unflinching exploration of human frailty, all conveyed through a director shifting skillfully from physical body horror to psychological and existential terror. The film remains as haunting and resonant now as it was upon release, a testament to the synergy of Cronenberg and King’s extraordinary talents.

Review: By Dawn’s Early Light (dir. by Jack Sholder)

Posted on June 17, 2025 by Arleigh

1990’s By Dawn’s Early Light is a film adaptation by HBO of William Prochnau’s novel Trinity’s Child. The film, when it first aired on HBO, seemed dated since the Soviet Union was ultimately going through its death throes as the military build-up initiated during the Reagan Administration crippled the USSR economically (they too tried to match the build-up in conventional and nuclear forces). Yet, despite the ending of the Cold War, recent events domestically and around the world has shown that the world never truly left behind the shadow of nuclear war.

The film is simplicity in the way the plot unfolds. A failed coup by dissident Soviet military commanders fails, but it’s after-effects of creating a “hot war” between the US and the USSR succeeds as both US President and Soviet Premiere make mistakes in their decisions. Decisions heavily influenced by their military commanders who see only black and white in how their respective nations should respond militarily. By Dawn’s Early Light shares some similarities to the classic 60’s Cold War films like Dr. Strangelove and Fail-Safe. Both films deal with the human frailties and flaws helping influence events that could lead to nuclear Armageddon for the whole planet. By Dawn’s Early Light concentrates on several storylines to highlight the stress and difficulties individuals must face to either follow their orders to their inevitable conclusion or allow their conscience to help make the moral decisions in trying to stop the madness spiraling out of control. Though some people’s decisions are left wanting, the film ends with a glimmer of hope that may just bring the world from the brink of annihilation.

The acting by the cast of Rebecca DeMornay, Powers Boothe, James Earl Jones, Darrin McGavin, Martin Landau and Rip Torn are well done. Rebecca DeMornay and Powers Boothe anchor one of the subplots as romantically involved B-52 crew pilots whose conflict comes from their own intimate closeness affecting command decisions and from the stress of families lost by the rest of the bomber crew. Darrin McGavin, Rip Torn and Martin Landau anchor the other subplot of competing Presidents. One a physically incapacitated US leader trying to avert escalating the conflict to the point of no return with another recently sworn in who fears of losing a nuclear war and thus wanting to strike back full and hard. In between these two leaders is the diabolical performance by Rip Torn as a warmongering Army colonel who sees only winning the war as the only objective. At times, the performances do become hampered by the simplicity of the script, but the cast power through to the end.

In the end, the film might look a bit dated in its production design (this was 1990 and many years before HBO became known for premiere television production) but the story itself is very current and relevant. What might have been a nice Cold War relic fairy tale when it first aired in 1990 on HBO has taken on more of a cautionary tale as more nations begin to acquire nuclear weapons with some of these nations not just enemies of the US and the world in general, but also led by men whose hold on sanity seem tenuous at best. By Dawn’s Early Light is a great piece political “what if” that hopefully remains just that and not a prediction of reality to come.

Horror Review: Hold the Dark (dir. by Jeremy Saulnier)

Posted on October 1, 2018 by Arleigh

Jeremy Saulnier, writer and director of Blue Ruin and Green Room, invites the brave and the curious to experience his latest creation steeped in the dark, foreboding Alaskan wilderness with a hint of the supernatural and folklore mysticism.

One could never accuse Saulnier of being timid when it comes to on-screen violence. While there’s countless other filmmakers who can and have put on the screen much more dynamic and violent sequences, Saulnier is more of the Peckinpah school of film violence instead of the Michael Bay. His films portray violence at its most unglamorous. His study of the sort of violent means man can inflict on another man are neither titillating or exploitative.

He sees man’s tendency towards violence as primal and something inherent in every man with the veneer of civilization the only thing holding it back. Man, in how Saulnier sees him, is not a civilized species but one playing at one and who feels more at home practicing such violent means.

Whether it’s as an itinerant caught up in an old school blood feud or a hardcore punk band fighting to stay alive against some Northwest backswood Neo-nazi skinheads. They all dig down deep to find that inner primal self that revels in the bloodletting even when they try to hold on to that small slice of civilized behavior they’ve been taught was necessary to survive.

With Hold the Dark, Jeremy Saulnier veers away from the much more straightforward narrative of his last two films and more like an ambiguous campfire tale that may seem obtuse for some. The very ambiguous nature of the plot will definitely confound some viewers who prefer their thrillers to be easy to follow with well-defined roles of protagonist and antagonist. While Hold the Dark veers from that very linear narrative focus of Saulnier’s last two films, it does share those films study of the blurred lines of who is good and who is bad.

The film starts off with retired naturalist Russell Core (played by Jeffrey Wright) being summoned by grieving mother Medora Slone living in a remote village in the northern reaches of Alaska. She’s just lost her young son to what she says are a pack of wolves who have also taken two other children prior to her own. She knows that he is also a wolf expert and has hunted and put down wolves in his past. She wants the animals who killed her son found and killed in order to have an answer and closure for her husband who is currently deployed in Iraq.

From the moment Russell arrives in Medora’s village of Keelut, Alaska the film slowly, but surely moves from being a man-vs-nature story to something that’s more a dark fairytale whose ending will definitely not be happily ever after. This is where Hold the Dark will either grab a viewer and tell them to just hold on and experience the violent, albeit sometimes confusing, happenings in this grim and dark corner of the world or they will fail to hold on and remain confused to what’s transpiring. Wanting to know whats going on in concrete, by-the-numbers facts and story beats.

Like Saulnier’s previous two films, Hold the Dark doesn’t shy away from showing how brutal man can be when it comes to inflicting pain and damage on another human being. The violence comes sudden, brutal and horrifically efficient in how a body can fall apart.

The screenplay, this time written solely by fellow collaborator Macon Blair, does bring some very interesting questions as to whether violence (or darkness) is inherent in man that is held at bay by the “light” of civilization or is it something that is learned, picked up like disease and passed on from generation to generation. Is violence a natural cycle that is just part of what makes humanity human or is it one that can be broken and left behind and cured of. These are some questions that sometimes has no easy answer and that lends the film’s obtuseness that may frustrate some viewers. Yet, it’s the film’s very ambiguousness that allows the viewer to marinate on the questions and ideas proposed. Whether there’s an answer to these questions will be up to the viewer.

Where the film’s story may frustate, the performances by the cast is excellent from start to finish. Whether it’s Jeffrey Wright’s Russel Core who is the stand-in for the viewer and one who also shares some of the viewers befuddlement at the situation he has found himself in but unable to break free from. Then there are Riley Keough and Alexander Skarsgard playing the Slone’s. One the grieving mother and the other the husband away at war whose reaction to news of his son’s death pushes the film’s narrative from a whodunit and straight into horror territory (some would say slasher film trope with creepy mask included).

Hold the Dark may not be a straight progression from what Jeremy Saulnier has done before with Blue Ruin and Green Room, but it is one that shares similar themes and ideas. It’s a film that allows for Saulnier to dabble in the more esoteric but nonetheless still keep his signature style as an auteur of raw, primal violence. There’s nothing light or hopeful in this latest dark fairytale from Jeremy Saulnier, but then again fairytales were never happy and hopeful to begin with, but tales to try and explain the encroaching darkness and something to help one hold it at bay.

The Girl With All The Gifts Gives A Glimpse of A Hungry, Dystopian Future

Posted on June 26, 2016 by Arleigh

Several years ago, a video games was released for the PS4 that took on the zombie survival horror genre and put a new twist on it. The game was called The Last of Us. It was a game set in a post-apocalyptic Earth where an unknown fungal infection had decimated the world’s population by turning those it infected into mutated creatures with a taste for living flesh.

There’s been talk of turning the game into a live-action film, but things never progressed beyond the concept and pre-development stage. The game’s narrative does lend itself well into being a live-action film.

Now let’s move up a few more years. The year 2014 to be exact and we see comic book writer and novelist M.R. Carey release a novel titled The Girl with All The Gifts. It’s a novel which shares the detail of a fungal infection creating zombie-like creatures (called “hungries” in the book and film) from those who become infected. Outside of that important detail the novel and the game only share the post-apocalyptic setting.

The novel was so well-received by critics and readers alike that plans to adapt the book into a live-action film was made soon after it’s release. While the live-action plans for The Last of Us languishes in development hell, it looks like we’ll finally be able to see something similar with the soon-to-be released film The Girl with All The Gifts.

The film stars newcomer Sennia Nanua as the titular girl with all the gifts with veteran actors such as Glenn Close, Gemma Arterton and Paddy Considine backing her up. As the so-called zombie fatigue (maybe for some general audiences but definitely not to most horror fans) begin to set in, it’s stories like The Last of Us and The Girl with All The Gifts that continues to breathe in new life into a sub-genre of horror storytelling to keep it going strong.

The Girl with All The Gifts is set to hit the theaters on September 23, 2016.

Guilty Pleasure No. 30: Wolfen (dir. by Michael Wadleigh)

Posted on May 28, 2016 by Leonard Wilson

Wolfen_1981 A guilty pleasure is a film that we might enjoy, but isn’t as loved by others overall. It’s the kind of film that you can watch on any given day, but to speak of it may cause raised eyebrows among your peers. Everyone has at least one film or two that they treasure in this way.

My Guilty Pleasure pick is 1981’s Wolfen, directed by Michael Wadleigh. Loosely based off the novel by Whitley Strieber, the film focuses on two homicide investigators who learn that the case they’re working may actually be caused by animal attacks. Often mistaken as a werewolf film, I really wouldn’t group Wolfen into that category. It’s supernatural in some ways, yes, but you won’t find any serious werewolf activity in it. Surprisingly enough, Wolfen was released in the theatre just a few months after Joe Dante’s The Howling. This makes me wonder how audiences took to Wolfen after seeing all of the make-up effects in Dante’s work. From an effects standpoint, Wolfen’s big claim to fame is the negative photography used to showcase the animals’ point of view. I can’t imagine it was incredibly amazing when comparing the two, but on it’s own, it’s not bad. It’s one of the few movies I’d like to see get a remake, if only to have the story match Strieber’s book better.

When a millionaire land developer and his wife are found brutally murdered in Battery Park, Detective Dewey Wilson is brought on to investigate. Albert Finney (Miller’s Crossing, The Bourne Ultimatum, Skyfall) easily carries the film as Wilson, feeling a lot like the owner of your favorite corner deli. Wilson’s detective work is subtle in the film, and Finney plays to that with a relaxed alertness. He comes across as calm, questioning, but you get the sense that if it came to blows, he’d be ready to react. I suppose most detectives are that way. When the murder is believed to be a possible terrorist attack, a Security Agency brings in a psychological expert named Rebecca Neff, played by Diane Venora (Heat, William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet). Wolfen was Venora’s first film and she’s good in this, though the screenplay is written in a way where it’s more Dewey’s tale to tell. The book did Neff’s character more justice than the movie, overall. Rounding out the casting is Gregory Hines (Running Scared, The Cotton Club – also with Venora) as a forensics expert, Edward James Olmos (Miami Vice, Battlestar Galactica) as a Native American worker who may know more than he says and Tom Noonan (Manhunter, The Last Action Hero, F/X – once again, with Diane Venora) as a Zoo Worker who’s just a little to into wolves in general. That’s just my opinion, though Noonan’s been known to play creepy very well. The performances here are all pretty good. No one is really out of place here, as far as I could tell.

If Wolfen suffers from any major problem, it’s in the writing. In adapting the novel, they had the chance to really bring the terror from the novel on screen. In the book, we’re given an understanding of what the Wolfen are – creatures older, faster and more terrifying than your typical canine. They came complete with their own way of communicating with one another, and Strieber’s novel even referenced his other story about Vampires, The Hunger. The final standoff of the book was a fight similar to From Dusk Till Dawn, with the hope that our heroes could maybe hold off what was coming. The movie decided to go a different route. Not terrible in any way, but it could have been really good if they stayed on track.

I could be off here, but I believe the film elected to try to make the story more relevant for its time by circling the murder around terrorism and using the Security Agency. The Security Agency has so little to do with the film outside of bringing Neff on the case, it’s incredible. About every 20 minutes, the film cuts back to this crew of personnel at their computers, watching footage of attacks (that have little to do with the original victim) in an attempt to piece together why this death happened. Meanwhile, Wilson walks into bar and gets the whole solution handed to him in a short story over a beer. I wonder if Wadleigh (who co-wrote the script) was trying to say that with all the technology at their disposal, all it really took to solve a crime was just regular legwork. To quote Olmos’ character “It’s the 20th Century. We got it all figured out.” That’s just my speculation on that.

From a Cinematography viewpoint, Wolfen has some impressive scenes, particularly those of the Manhattan landscape. For a city that doesn’t sleep, the streets as they’re filmed here are barren, with lots of shadows. One scene in particular has Finney and Olmos’ characters talking on top of a bridge, and I have to wonder not only how they were able to get that shot, but how the actors maintained their composure. One wrong slip and either of them could have fell. I also love seeing New York City in the early 80’s, where most of the Bronx and Brooklyn looked like warzones. Both Wolfen and Nighthawks (also released in the same year) are great examples of how bad the city really was during that time.

Wolfen was also one of James Horner’s first scores. Listening to it, you can hear elements of what you’d find in Aliens, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and his other pieces.

Overall, Wolfen is a good film if you find yourself running into it late at night and there’s nothing else to catch. I watch it on purpose, but that’s just me. We all have our tastes. If at all possible, consider reading the novel as well.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

The Jungle Book Super Bowl Trailer

Posted on February 7, 2016 by Arleigh

A month before we marvel at Captain America: Civil War we shall be treated to the latest film adaptation of Disney’s animated film The Jungle Book which itself is an adaptation of the Rudyard Kipling of the same name.

This film has such an impressive pedigree. In the director’s chair is Jon Favreau who is the man who help begin the massive Marvel Cinematic Universe with Iron Man. The cast is a who’s who of some of the most recognizable actors working today: Idris Elba, Ben Kingsley, Scarlett Johansson, Lupito Nyong’o, Christopher Walken, Giancarlo Esposito and Bill Murray.

The Jungle Book is being touted as the next step in visual effects in filmmaking with everything except the young Mowgli being computer-generated. The film’s sizzle reel trailer wowed everyone at this past summer San Diego Comic-Con and this Super Bowl trailer does everything to help make that sizzle turn into a full-blown firestorm of hype.

The Jungle Book is set to come out on April 15, 2016.