Movie thoughts and fiction updates.
Fritz Lang is one of those directors who is largely known for a single film. For him, that's Metropolis. Like many other directors, he had a much wider and deeper body of work than that one film implies. Where Lang is different is the direction his career had to take when he fled Germany in… Continue reading Fritz Lang: The Definitive Ranking
The Scream franchise thinks it's far smarter than it actually is. The first film in the entry seemed to understand that it actually wasn't that clever, its meta elements being introduced late and almost as a joke, but the franchise became completely enthralled to its own conventions. There will never be any room for any… Continue reading The Scream Franchise: The Definitive Ranking
I was really disappointed in Wes Craven's career. I knew of the highlights before embarking on the whole journey, but I didn't expect pretty much everything outside of those highlights to be something close to dreck. What makes it most frustrating is that his earliest films, horror films made because they were the only things… Continue reading Wes Craven: The Definitive Ranking
I'm not exactly a student of the three major slasher franchises of the 80s and 90s (Halloween, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street), but I've seen enough of all three to pretty solidly conclude that the Nightmare films are, on average, my favorite. Nothing in any of the three approaches the solid… Continue reading The Nightmare on Elm Street Franchise: The Definitive Ranking
I decided to discover the complete works of Masaki Kobayashi for two reasons: I loved Samurai Rebellion, and I had purchased The Human Condition a couple of years ago (after having seen it years back) and was simply not getting around to the nine-and-a-half hour long feature film, especially when I’m filling most evenings with… Continue reading Masaki Kobayashi: The Definitive Ranking
David Vining, Author 