Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan is one of those rare horror films that feels less like a movie and more like a spell. Four eerie tales unfold in ravishing colour and painterly compositions, each drawn from Lafcadio Hearn’s Japanese ghost stories. It’s an anthology drenched in atmosphere, but less blood and thunder, more moonlight and melancholy, proof…
Tag: Fantasy
Belle (2021) – Review
Somewhere between a fairy tale, a therapy session, and a full-on digital spectacle, Mamoru Hosoda’s Belle manages to be both dazzling and emotionally raw. It borrows the bones of Beauty and the Beast and then wires them into a glowing, algorithm-driven world where identity is fluid and trauma has a username. The result is messy,…
The Raven (1963) – Review
Few films manage to blend the macabre and the ridiculous with such cheerful abandon as Roger Corman’s The Raven. A Technicolor romp through Gothic castles, candlelit laboratories, and magical duels, it’s part horror, part farce, and all campy charm. With Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Boris Karloff hamming it up in the best possible way,…
Beastly (2011) – Review
There’s a special kind of confidence required to take one of the most durable fairy tales ever told and run it through a 2011 teen drama filter, complete with glossy lighting, questionable tattoos, and emotional beats that feel like they were focus-grouped by people who think irony is a personality trait. Beastly tries to drag…
Beauty and the Beast (2009) – Review
Somewhere along the line, someone looked at Beauty and the Beast, a story that has survived centuries of retellings, and decided it needed to be dragged through a bargain-bin fantasy filter. The 2009 adaptation arrived with the cinematic grace of a dropped cinder block, armed with bad acting, worse effects, and a script that felt…