CineNiche

“Well you came and you gave without taking. But I sent you away, oh Mandy. And you kissed me and stopped me from shaking. And I need you today, oh Mandy” – Barry Manilow  So what do Barry Manilow and a coke-snorting, dirty-acid taking, Nicolas Cage in full Cage-Rage have in common? You guessed it, MANDY . There are a lot of reviews out there for the new Panos Cosmatos film. And, they’re all right. The bottom line implied by all critics and hometown reviewers is: this is must-see cinema. See it in a theater if you can, and if not, VOD will work. But above all else, see this film.   Whether you’re a viewer who takes notes while partaking in any visual media or you’re a viewer that is struggling with a Bachelor’s In Paradise habit, this film will grab you, rip you apart, and glue you back together. Additional assembly may be required after the destruction of your psyche.   The film plays out as a normal, lets put that in quotes, “normal,” revenge film. Lumberjac...

Poster from Alamo Drafthouse Reviews and essays abound for Drew Goddard & Joss Whedon's Cabin In The Woods . Some compare Cabin to Scream while others are convinced that Cabin exceeds Scream as a post-modern text. We belong to the latter camp. If you haven't seen Cabin then you shouldn't be looking at reviews so long after the the film's release. In 1996 Wes Craven along with a brilliantly written script by Kevin Williamson breathed new life into the slasher film. They took all of the archetypical constructs of the slasher sub-genre and directly exposed them to the audiences while staying within the confines of the genre. This was not new, parodies had done this in the past, but Scream kept a straight face and managed to produce fear. Spoof and parody of horror has been around since the days of Abbot & Costello, but more direct to our discussion is the 1982 classic Student Bodies . Made in the midst of the early 80's slasher boom, Stu...

Brad Anderson the brilliant director behind The Machinist , Session 9 , and Transsiberian has created a new realm of fantasy terror with The Vanishing On 7th Street , the only problem is how unevenly all the elements come together. We've been avid fans of Anderson's work since his psychological breakthrough Session 9.  In his first film he revamps the twist ending by throwing a curve ball no one sees coming and makes it work because the film has an atmosphere and mood that aids in the development of the twist.  The same can be said with The Machinist.  Again he creates a wonderfully told story of a man's guilt that haunts him to the point of his own death.  With Christian Bale becoming a pure method actor and loosing too much weight, they created a world of madness that gave them the buzz they both deserved.  Then we come to Transsiberian, which was another fantastic acting spectacle.  These three films put forth the idea that Anderson is...

Tom Six's film The Human Centipede: The First Sequence is a well done first feature from a filmmaker, but is it the most disgusting film ever made?  Simply put, no.  The biggest problem with this film is the hype machine behind it.  "A friend of a friend saw it and nearly threw up,"  or "people walked out of the theater because it was too disturbing."  We've seen this happen before, more recently with Eli Roth's oeuvre from Cabin Fever to Hostel 2 or with the Saw  series.  Torture porn is made to feed the darkness within, the unconscious or conscious part of ourselves that wants to see the body opened up and put through ghastly horrors.  The thirst for this type of horror is not new only the special effects that make them possible are.  Torture porn is a direct reflection of our social climate since the Iraq war began and we started seeing leaked decapitation videos streaming online.  It is humanities ability to ...

After the anger receded from the horrible viewing of He Knows You're Alone, we had to go back to an overlooked classic: The Burning .  It did the trick.  Again this is another slasher from the mold of Halloween, but this one definitely has more of a Friday The 13th feeling - it's another summer camp slasher film.  Released in 1981 along with: Bloody Birthday ,  Don't Go In The Woods ,  Evil Dead ,  Friday The 13th 2 ,  Funhouse ,  Halloween 2 ,  Happy Birthday To Me ,  Hell Night ,  House By The Cemetary ,  My Bloody Valentine The Prowler  It's easy to see why this wasn't the blockbuster success it may have been.  There are a lot of hidden gems here, we get a script by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, Jason Alexander's first role, a young gangly Fisher Stevens ( Hackers and Super Mario Brothers ), a brief Holly Hunter, music by Rick Wakeman of Yes, and t...

TOP ANTHOLOGY HORROR FILMS 1. Creepshow 2. Trick R Treat 3. Tales From The Darkside Notice how FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM (THE OFFSPRING) is not on this list, this is no coincidence. So, it doesn't make the top three or the top ten, but there is still something worthy here. First and foremost it is "hosted" by Vincent Price who plays an old superstitious librarian. This fact alone makes this blood drenched piece of macabre worthy. There are four stories here and if they were all as good as the first I may have given this a special number six slot in a top ten list. Our preamble is a woman receiving a lethal injection and a reporter documenting her death rattle. After the cheap prison cell set we are whisked away to a mansion only to find out its an ancient library. While the exterior is a vast colonial mansion, its interior is one simple room filled - but not to the brim - with dusty archaic books and a similarly clad librarian. The reporter tells ...