The episode of Wtf Happened to This Horror Movie? covering The Vanishing was Written and Narrated by Mike Holtz, Edited by Juan Jimenez, Produced by Andrew Hatfield and John Fallon, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.
Expectations can be a funny thing when it comes to movies. Go into a theater with absolutely no inhibitions about what you’re about to witness and you’re likely to have a far better time than if you were watching a sequel you’ve built up expectations for in your mind. Remakes? Forget it. One would wager that the likelihood of you enjoying a remake of a film that you already enjoyed in its original packaging is a considerable amount lower than had you never seen the original. For obvious reasons. This brings me to today’s topic: a 1993 American remake of the French-Dutch film Spoorlos that was attacked by many for being...
Expectations can be a funny thing when it comes to movies. Go into a theater with absolutely no inhibitions about what you’re about to witness and you’re likely to have a far better time than if you were watching a sequel you’ve built up expectations for in your mind. Remakes? Forget it. One would wager that the likelihood of you enjoying a remake of a film that you already enjoyed in its original packaging is a considerable amount lower than had you never seen the original. For obvious reasons. This brings me to today’s topic: a 1993 American remake of the French-Dutch film Spoorlos that was attacked by many for being...
- 5/20/2024
- by Cody Hamman
- JoBlo.com
The religious horror movie Immaculate, starring Sydney Sweeney and directed by Michael Mohan, wears its horror influences on its sleeves. Neon’s new horror movie is now available on Digital and PVOD, making it easier to catch up with the buzzy title. If you’ve already seen Immaculate, this companion watch guide highlights horror movies to pair with it.
Sweeney stars in Immaculate as Cecilia, a woman of devout faith who is offered a fulfilling new role at an illustrious Italian convent. Cecilia’s warm welcome to the picture-perfect Italian countryside gets derailed soon enough when she discovers she’s become pregnant and realizes the convent harbors disturbing secrets.
From Will Bates’ gothic score to the filming locations and even shot compositions, Immaculate owes a lot to its cinematic influences. Mohan pulls from more than just religious horror, though. While Immaculate pays tribute to the classics, the horror movie surprises...
Sweeney stars in Immaculate as Cecilia, a woman of devout faith who is offered a fulfilling new role at an illustrious Italian convent. Cecilia’s warm welcome to the picture-perfect Italian countryside gets derailed soon enough when she discovers she’s become pregnant and realizes the convent harbors disturbing secrets.
From Will Bates’ gothic score to the filming locations and even shot compositions, Immaculate owes a lot to its cinematic influences. Mohan pulls from more than just religious horror, though. While Immaculate pays tribute to the classics, the horror movie surprises...
- 4/24/2024
- by Meagan Navarro
- bloody-disgusting.com
Stars: Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets, Johanna ter Steege, Gwen Eckhaus, Bernadette Le Saché, Tania Latarjet, Lucille Glenn, Roger Souza | Written and Directed by George Sluizer
Adapting Tim Krabbé’s novel The Golden Egg, writer/director George Sluizer begins The Vanishing with Dutch couple Rex (Gene Bervoets) and Saskia (Johanna Ter Steege) enjoy a biking holiday in France. That all changes when they stop at a gas station where Saskia enters to get drinks, only to vanish without a trace. Three years later, Rex remains as obsessed with finding his wife as he puts up posters and pleads his case on television. He is eventually approached by Raymond (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu), an unassuming chemistry teacher who claims to know what happened.
What could have been a bog-standard thriller instead subverts the expected structure to answer the big questions early on, before taking the psychological route to focus on Rex’s tortured obsession...
Adapting Tim Krabbé’s novel The Golden Egg, writer/director George Sluizer begins The Vanishing with Dutch couple Rex (Gene Bervoets) and Saskia (Johanna Ter Steege) enjoy a biking holiday in France. That all changes when they stop at a gas station where Saskia enters to get drinks, only to vanish without a trace. Three years later, Rex remains as obsessed with finding his wife as he puts up posters and pleads his case on television. He is eventually approached by Raymond (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu), an unassuming chemistry teacher who claims to know what happened.
What could have been a bog-standard thriller instead subverts the expected structure to answer the big questions early on, before taking the psychological route to focus on Rex’s tortured obsession...
- 2/13/2024
- by James Rodrigues
- Nerdly
Dear Jassi arrives with echoes of Madonna’s 1989 hit “Dear Jessie” and its sugary promise of pink elephants and lemonade, but none of that turns out to be forthcoming in Tarsem Singh Dhandwar’s beautiful and brutal sixth feature. Instead, we have perhaps the most disturbing bait-and-switch since George Sluizer’s original iteration of The Vanishing, a Punjabi Juliet-meets-Romeo story that’s much harsher that any so-far-filmed version of West Side Story and a whole lot funnier. This dissonance takes a while to reveal itself, but when it does, the shock is visceral. The fact that almost everything is true is the killer blow, and the shockwave of that reverberates through the poignant final credits, a static shot that forces the audience, or maybe just simply dares them, to think about what they’ve just seen.
Immigrant stories have been big in 2023, but the troubling core of Dear Jassi is actually an emigrant story,...
Immigrant stories have been big in 2023, but the troubling core of Dear Jassi is actually an emigrant story,...
- 10/9/2023
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
Little Roadstop of Horrors: 10 Horror Movie Pit Stops and Roadside Attractions to Avoid At All Costs
Buckle up, horror fiends, as we embark on a spine-chilling road trip through the most dreadful pit stops and roadside attractions ever depicted on the silver screen! From eerie gas stations to ominous wax museums, these horror movie locations will make you think twice before stopping for a break. So forget about stretching your legs, fasten your seatbelts, and get ready for a terrifying journey through “Little Roadstop of Horrors: 10 Horror Movie Pit Stops and Roadside Attractions to Avoid At All Costs.”
Miramax The Titty Twister – From Dusk ‘Till Dawn (1996)
Located somewhere along the desolate highway just south of the Mexico/US Border, The Titty Twister appears to be your typical roadside strip club. However, when the sun sets, the establishment undergoes a horrifying transformation. It becomes a sanctuary for vampires in search of fresh blood to satiate their insatiable thirst. The unsuspecting travelers who dare to step foot inside...
Miramax The Titty Twister – From Dusk ‘Till Dawn (1996)
Located somewhere along the desolate highway just south of the Mexico/US Border, The Titty Twister appears to be your typical roadside strip club. However, when the sun sets, the establishment undergoes a horrifying transformation. It becomes a sanctuary for vampires in search of fresh blood to satiate their insatiable thirst. The unsuspecting travelers who dare to step foot inside...
- 7/22/2023
- by Kimberley Elizabeth
Very rarely do filmmakers helm the remakes of their own films. In these cases, they are movies like 1993’s The Vanishing, in which director George Sluizer remade his original 1988 international thriller of the same name for an English-language adaptation in the United States with American stars Jeff Bridges, Kiefer Sutherland and Nancy Travis. Action legend John Woo would do the same, albeit to a smaller degree, as he remade his 1991 film, Once a Thief, into a TV movie in 1996.
The guns-a-blazing maestro is at it again. This time, with the movie that many regard as his best film, 1989’s The Killer, which starred his frequent collaborator, Chow-Yun Fat. According to World of Reel, Woo has already started production on the remake of The Killer, which will be taking place in France. The film is set to star Nathalie Emmanuel and Omar Sy. Emmanuel has had little slivers of action displayed...
The guns-a-blazing maestro is at it again. This time, with the movie that many regard as his best film, 1989’s The Killer, which starred his frequent collaborator, Chow-Yun Fat. According to World of Reel, Woo has already started production on the remake of The Killer, which will be taking place in France. The film is set to star Nathalie Emmanuel and Omar Sy. Emmanuel has had little slivers of action displayed...
- 7/17/2023
- by EJ Tangonan
- JoBlo.com
Kathryn Bigelow’s vampire movie Near Dark – the best vampire movie released in 1987 – has been famously hard to find on streaming over the years, but we’ve learned that it’ll soon be available to stream once again this Halloween season thanks to the Criterion Channel!
Beginning October 1, Criterion’s streaming service will have the “80s Horror Collection” up for grabs, a 30-film collection that includes Near Dark among several other horror classics.
The collection includes films from Dario Argento, Kathryn Bigelow, John Carpenter, Larry Cohen, David Cronenberg, Tobe Hooper, Michael Mann, Ken Russell, Paul Schrader, and more.
The full “80s Horror Collection” lineup includes…
Inferno, Dario Argento, 1980 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne, Walerian Borowczyk, 1981 Dead & Buried, Gary Sherman, 1981 The House by the Cemetery, Lucio Fulci, 1981 The Funhouse, Tobe Hooper, 1981 Strange Behavior, Michael Laughlin, 1981 Wolfen, Michael Wadleigh, 1981 Scanners, David Cronenberg, 1981 Road Games, Richard Franklin, 1981 The Fan,...
Beginning October 1, Criterion’s streaming service will have the “80s Horror Collection” up for grabs, a 30-film collection that includes Near Dark among several other horror classics.
The collection includes films from Dario Argento, Kathryn Bigelow, John Carpenter, Larry Cohen, David Cronenberg, Tobe Hooper, Michael Mann, Ken Russell, Paul Schrader, and more.
The full “80s Horror Collection” lineup includes…
Inferno, Dario Argento, 1980 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne, Walerian Borowczyk, 1981 Dead & Buried, Gary Sherman, 1981 The House by the Cemetery, Lucio Fulci, 1981 The Funhouse, Tobe Hooper, 1981 Strange Behavior, Michael Laughlin, 1981 Wolfen, Michael Wadleigh, 1981 Scanners, David Cronenberg, 1981 Road Games, Richard Franklin, 1981 The Fan,...
- 9/23/2022
- by John Squires
- bloody-disgusting.com
If you’re a horror fan with a subscription to the Criterion Channel, you’ve got a hell of a month to look forward to. The streaming service will kick off the Halloween season with a collection of thirty of the best ’80s horror movies out there. With movies from Dario Argento, John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, Tobe Hooper, and more, there’s something for everyone, from Amy Holden Jones’ sleazy slasher The Slumber Party Massacre to Kathryn Bigelow’s cult classic vampire thriller Near Dark.
Mark your calendars: '80s Horror—our 30-film collection featuring films by Dario Argento, Kathryn Bigelow, John Carpenter, Larry Cohen, David Cronenberg, Tobe Hooper, Michael Mann, Ken Russell, Paul Schrader, and more—is coming to the @criterionchannl on October 1! pic.twitter.com/QIIyFaEO20
— Criterion Collection (@Criterion) September 22, 2022 Related The Best 80s Vampire Movies
This collection of ’80s horror was curated by Clyde Folley and will...
Mark your calendars: '80s Horror—our 30-film collection featuring films by Dario Argento, Kathryn Bigelow, John Carpenter, Larry Cohen, David Cronenberg, Tobe Hooper, Michael Mann, Ken Russell, Paul Schrader, and more—is coming to the @criterionchannl on October 1! pic.twitter.com/QIIyFaEO20
— Criterion Collection (@Criterion) September 22, 2022 Related The Best 80s Vampire Movies
This collection of ’80s horror was curated by Clyde Folley and will...
- 9/23/2022
- by Kevin Fraser
- JoBlo.com
One of my great memories from the, put one way, debatable year of 2020 was Criterion Channel’s “’70s Horror,” a program that did what it said on the tin while offering discoveries aplenty—Texas Chain Saw next to Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, Deathdream given equal prominence as The Wicker Man. It is of course a delight to see they’re picking up their own baton with next month’s “’80s Horror,” which again runs a canon-to-obscurity gamut. Scanners, Near Dark, and Prince of Darkness will of course appear, but I’d just as soon direct people to Wolfen, Society, and The Keep—which made my jaw drop just a bit, given how averse Michael Mann seems towards any exhibition of it.
Criterion have released a nifty trailer encapsulating the spooks and scares to come. Find it below, as well as the full list of titles and more on the Criterion Channel.
Criterion have released a nifty trailer encapsulating the spooks and scares to come. Find it below, as well as the full list of titles and more on the Criterion Channel.
- 9/22/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Few remakes feel necessary, but English-language versions of international horror films have an especially difficult time justifying their existence. We certainly didn’t need George Sluizer or Michael Haneke to remake their own “The Vanishing” and “Funny Games” for the benefit of subtitle-averse audiences, nor was anyone asking for a “Let the Right One In” remake when it was first released. “Need” and “want” are two different things, of course, and it’s hardly unheard of for one of these remakes to be quite good — just ask Naomi Watts, who followed her star-making turn in “Mulholland Drive” with “The Ring.” The two-time Oscar nominee now finds herself as the face of Matt Sobel’s remake of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s “Goodnight Mommy.” Well, maybe not the face exactly — as in the original, her head is obscured by surgical bandages for reasons that aren’t immediately made clear.
Few remakes feel truly necessary,...
Few remakes feel truly necessary,...
- 9/15/2022
- by Michael Nordine
- Variety Film + TV
After a fairly quiet summer––outside of a few gems––the fall movie season is near and there’s much to anticipate. As we do each year, after highlighting the best films offered thus far, we’ve set out to provide an overview of the titles that should be on your radar––and while some dates will certainly shift and some films added, it’s quite a promising lineup.
Featuring 40 films, the below preview includes both the best we’ve already seen (with full reviews where available) and the anticipated with (mostly) confirmed release dates over the next four months. A good amount will premiere over the next few weeks at Telluride, Venice, TIFF, and NYFF, so check back for our reviews.
The Cathedral (Ricky D’Ambrose; Sept. 2)
What makes the fabric of our upbringing? The memories we’ll reflect on after those years have passed are often not what we...
Featuring 40 films, the below preview includes both the best we’ve already seen (with full reviews where available) and the anticipated with (mostly) confirmed release dates over the next four months. A good amount will premiere over the next few weeks at Telluride, Venice, TIFF, and NYFF, so check back for our reviews.
The Cathedral (Ricky D’Ambrose; Sept. 2)
What makes the fabric of our upbringing? The memories we’ll reflect on after those years have passed are often not what we...
- 8/25/2022
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
One of the most viscerally affecting films coming out of Sundance Film Festival this year was Christian Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil. Following a family who accepts an invitation to the rural home of another they met on holiday, they soon find their lives altered in an unexpected, deeply horrifying way. With a streak of dark humor and insightful commentary on humanity’s eagerness to accept one another, Tafdrup has crafted quite a singularly haunting experience. Ahead of a theatrical and Shudder release next month, the first trailer has now arrived.
Christopher Schobert said in his review, “Speak No Evil is terrifying, shocking, and deeply, deeply unsettling. There’s no getting around the upset factor. Audiences who catch this Sundance entry from Denmark should be warned: this one’s gonna hurt. The latest from Christian Tafdrup has the brutal shock value of George Sluizer’s The Vanishing and gut-punching, visceral...
Christopher Schobert said in his review, “Speak No Evil is terrifying, shocking, and deeply, deeply unsettling. There’s no getting around the upset factor. Audiences who catch this Sundance entry from Denmark should be warned: this one’s gonna hurt. The latest from Christian Tafdrup has the brutal shock value of George Sluizer’s The Vanishing and gut-punching, visceral...
- 8/18/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Welcome to the return of Intermission, a spin-off podcast from The Film Stage Show. Led by yours truly, Michael Snydel, I invite a guest to discuss an arthouse, foreign, or experimental film of their choice.
For the thirteenth episode, I talked to Susannah Gruder, a New York-based film critic with bylines at outlets including Reverse Shot, Bright Wall/Dark Room, Indiewire, Mubi Notebook, and Hyperallergic. On today’s episode, we talked about George Sluizer’s 1988 French/Dutch existential procedural, The Vanishing (available on the Criterion Channel). An adaptation of Tim Krabbé’s The Golden Egg, the film’s premise is familiar: A couple is on vacation (Gene Bervoets and Johanna ter Steege), they stop at a crowded rest stop, and one of them seems to disappear into thin air. But while Sluizer’s sleek but collected approach nods to mind game masters like Alfred Hitchcock and suggests the forensic obsessions of latter-day crime thrillers,...
For the thirteenth episode, I talked to Susannah Gruder, a New York-based film critic with bylines at outlets including Reverse Shot, Bright Wall/Dark Room, Indiewire, Mubi Notebook, and Hyperallergic. On today’s episode, we talked about George Sluizer’s 1988 French/Dutch existential procedural, The Vanishing (available on the Criterion Channel). An adaptation of Tim Krabbé’s The Golden Egg, the film’s premise is familiar: A couple is on vacation (Gene Bervoets and Johanna ter Steege), they stop at a crowded rest stop, and one of them seems to disappear into thin air. But while Sluizer’s sleek but collected approach nods to mind game masters like Alfred Hitchcock and suggests the forensic obsessions of latter-day crime thrillers,...
- 8/2/2022
- by Michael Snydel
- The Film Stage
Ali Abbasi’s Border, an adaptation of a short story by Let the Right One In author John Ajvide Lindqvist, put its director on the map as one fluent in a dark genre idiom, and possessing transnational potential capable of enticing festivals and more commercially oriented fields. But Holy Spider returns him to the country of his birth with an even more direct statement on prejudice and repulsion than Border, and also, maybe, as much of a determination to upset and freak people out.
It’s based on a fascinating real-life case that would easily be fodder for more conventional “true crime” depictions in the podcast or TV arenas. In 2001, the film’s subject, Saeed Hanaei, embarked on a killing spree of 16 female sex workers in the holy city of Mashhad, Iran. His motive chimed directly with Iran’s cultural attitudes towards women: his avowed motivation was to wage a...
It’s based on a fascinating real-life case that would easily be fodder for more conventional “true crime” depictions in the podcast or TV arenas. In 2001, the film’s subject, Saeed Hanaei, embarked on a killing spree of 16 female sex workers in the holy city of Mashhad, Iran. His motive chimed directly with Iran’s cultural attitudes towards women: his avowed motivation was to wage a...
- 5/24/2022
- by David Katz
- The Film Stage
Speak No Evil is terrifying, shocking, and deeply, deeply unsettling. There’s no getting around the upset factor. Audiences who catch this Sundance entry from Denmark should be warned: this one’s gonna hurt. The latest from Christian Tafdrup has the brutal shock value of George Sluizer’s The Vanishing and gut-punching, visceral impact of Haneke’s Funny Games. Speak No Evil does not reach the level of ingenuity and freshness found in those similarly potent antecedents. But what it lacks in originality is compensated in chilling execution.
It’s the third feature from Tafdrup, a Danish writer-director who co-penned Evil with his brother, Mads Tafdrup. And it’s a smart, deceptive script. For more than half the film, Speak No Evil plays as dark comedy of manners, Ruben Östlund-style. Its tone slowly shifts, growing darker and stranger. Evil is ultimately revealed to be a horror film rooted in some key societal issues.
It’s the third feature from Tafdrup, a Danish writer-director who co-penned Evil with his brother, Mads Tafdrup. And it’s a smart, deceptive script. For more than half the film, Speak No Evil plays as dark comedy of manners, Ruben Östlund-style. Its tone slowly shifts, growing darker and stranger. Evil is ultimately revealed to be a horror film rooted in some key societal issues.
- 1/26/2022
- by Christopher Schobert
- The Film Stage
Hybrid edition has shifted industry showcase online.
The 40th Netherlands Film Festival (Nff) gets underway today as a hybrid event spearheaded by a bold new screening strategy.
The Utrecht-based festival, set to run September 25-October 3, will see selected films screening simultaneously not just in the Dutch city but in hundreds of cinemas across the Netherlands. There will also be drive-in screenings. However, all industry activities will take place online.
“We have managed to set up a huge collaboration with cinemas all over the Netherlands,” acting festival director Doreen Boonekamp said of the plan to show eight Nff titles “in over...
The 40th Netherlands Film Festival (Nff) gets underway today as a hybrid event spearheaded by a bold new screening strategy.
The Utrecht-based festival, set to run September 25-October 3, will see selected films screening simultaneously not just in the Dutch city but in hundreds of cinemas across the Netherlands. There will also be drive-in screenings. However, all industry activities will take place online.
“We have managed to set up a huge collaboration with cinemas all over the Netherlands,” acting festival director Doreen Boonekamp said of the plan to show eight Nff titles “in over...
- 9/25/2020
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
George Sluizer’s 1988 thriller The Vanishing is releasing on Est, DVD and Blu-ray 8th June as part of Studiocanal’s Vintage World Cinema Collection. To celebrate the release, we have a Blu-ray copy to give away to two lucky winners!
This original brilliant and disturbing George Sluizier masterpiece is regarded as one of the best suspense thrillers ever made. Based on the novel ‘The Golend Egg’ by Tim Krabbe, The Vanishing is the ultimate tribute to Alfred Hitchcock with the ending to prove it.
Whilst touring in France, a young couple (Rex and Saskia) stop for a break at a roadside service station. Saskia (Johanna ter Steege) leaves Rex (Gene Bervoets) to browse around the shops and vanishes leaving no clues as to her whereabouts. Three years later Rex begins to receive taunting postcards from Saskia’s supposed abductor and is drawn into a terrifying battle of cat and mouse...
This original brilliant and disturbing George Sluizier masterpiece is regarded as one of the best suspense thrillers ever made. Based on the novel ‘The Golend Egg’ by Tim Krabbe, The Vanishing is the ultimate tribute to Alfred Hitchcock with the ending to prove it.
Whilst touring in France, a young couple (Rex and Saskia) stop for a break at a roadside service station. Saskia (Johanna ter Steege) leaves Rex (Gene Bervoets) to browse around the shops and vanishes leaving no clues as to her whereabouts. Three years later Rex begins to receive taunting postcards from Saskia’s supposed abductor and is drawn into a terrifying battle of cat and mouse...
- 5/31/2020
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Three lighthouse keepers make an astonishing discovery on a remote Scottish island in this tense and powerful thriller
Plenty of beards, glowering stares and the distant susurration of surf in this serviceably tense drama-thriller from screenwriters Joe Bone and Celyn Jones, directed by Kristoffer Nyholm. It has nothing to do with George Sluizer’s horror classic and is based on a true story: the mystery of the Flannan Isles lighthouse in the Outer Hebrides.
In 1900, three lighthouse keepers simply disappeared from that remote island. No one could find any explanation. The apparently supernatural event entered into popular culture, and was the subject of Peter Maxwell Davies’s 1980 opera The Lighthouse, a mystical evocation of suppressed guilt cosmically rolling in with the fog – not a million miles from some ideas in this movie.
Plenty of beards, glowering stares and the distant susurration of surf in this serviceably tense drama-thriller from screenwriters Joe Bone and Celyn Jones, directed by Kristoffer Nyholm. It has nothing to do with George Sluizer’s horror classic and is based on a true story: the mystery of the Flannan Isles lighthouse in the Outer Hebrides.
In 1900, three lighthouse keepers simply disappeared from that remote island. No one could find any explanation. The apparently supernatural event entered into popular culture, and was the subject of Peter Maxwell Davies’s 1980 opera The Lighthouse, a mystical evocation of suppressed guilt cosmically rolling in with the fog – not a million miles from some ideas in this movie.
- 3/28/2019
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Stars: Liam Neeson, Laura Dern, Micheál Richardson, Michael Eklund, Bradley Stryker, Wesley MacInnes, Tom Bateman, Domenick Lombardozzi, Nicholas Holmes | Written by Frank Baldwin | Directed by Hans Petter Moland
Liam Neeson stars as a grizzled snow plough driver on a bloody revenge spree in Hans Petter Moland’s English-language remake of his 2014 Norwegian thriller, In Order of Disappearance. As such, Moland sticks closely to the template of his original film (even the running times are identical), but some of the jet-black humour appears to have been lost in translation.
Neeson plays Nels Coxman, a humble snow plough driver in Kehoe, who’s recently been voted Citizen of the Year. When his adult son Kyle is killed by a vicious drug gang, Nels embarks on a violent revenge quest, murdering his way up the Kehoe crime hierarchy until he has druglord Trevor “Viking” Calcote (Tom Bateman) in his sights. Meanwhile, Nels unwittingly...
Liam Neeson stars as a grizzled snow plough driver on a bloody revenge spree in Hans Petter Moland’s English-language remake of his 2014 Norwegian thriller, In Order of Disappearance. As such, Moland sticks closely to the template of his original film (even the running times are identical), but some of the jet-black humour appears to have been lost in translation.
Neeson plays Nels Coxman, a humble snow plough driver in Kehoe, who’s recently been voted Citizen of the Year. When his adult son Kyle is killed by a vicious drug gang, Nels embarks on a violent revenge quest, murdering his way up the Kehoe crime hierarchy until he has druglord Trevor “Viking” Calcote (Tom Bateman) in his sights. Meanwhile, Nels unwittingly...
- 2/22/2019
- by Matthew Turner
- Nerdly
Matthew Schuchman Feb 8, 2019
Liam Neeson and the Cold Pursuit filmmakers talk the dangers of seeking vengeance in Cold Pursuit and how "it can lead you into trouble."
Americanized remakes of foreign films and television series are not a new concept in any stretch of the imagination. Long before Liam Neeson in Cold Pursuit, Christopher Nolan was shooting his version of Insomnia with Al Pacino and Robin Williams. However, what constitutes the designation of “American” in a remake if the new version’s director is the same man who made the original? It has happened before; Dutch filmmaker George Sluizer remade his instant 1988 classic Spoorloos (The Vanishing) for the American market in 1993, and of course Takasji Shimizu brought his vision overseas with a remake of his original Ju-On (The Grudge). Now Hans Petter Moland is bringing the new version of his hit dark comedy thriller Kraftidioten (In Order of Disappearance) to...
Liam Neeson and the Cold Pursuit filmmakers talk the dangers of seeking vengeance in Cold Pursuit and how "it can lead you into trouble."
Americanized remakes of foreign films and television series are not a new concept in any stretch of the imagination. Long before Liam Neeson in Cold Pursuit, Christopher Nolan was shooting his version of Insomnia with Al Pacino and Robin Williams. However, what constitutes the designation of “American” in a remake if the new version’s director is the same man who made the original? It has happened before; Dutch filmmaker George Sluizer remade his instant 1988 classic Spoorloos (The Vanishing) for the American market in 1993, and of course Takasji Shimizu brought his vision overseas with a remake of his original Ju-On (The Grudge). Now Hans Petter Moland is bringing the new version of his hit dark comedy thriller Kraftidioten (In Order of Disappearance) to...
- 2/8/2019
- Den of Geek
Movie buffs left out in the cold by FilmStruck’s demise will soon get a new streaming service stocked with over 1,000 classic and contemporary art-house films this spring: The Criterion Collection announced that the Criterion Channel will launch April 8 in the U.S. and Canada.
The Criterion Channel will be regularly priced at $10.99 per month or $99.99 for an annual subscription. Customers who sign up now as charter subscribers will receive a special discounted rate of $9.99 per month or $89.99 per year — pricing the company says will be locked in “for as long as you stay active” — as well as a 30-day free trial.
The Criterion Channel (criterionchannel.com) will be available on computers, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, iOS, and Android devices.
Criterion didn’t reveal specific titles that will be available on Criterion Channel but said the subscription VOD service will include access to Criterion’s entire streaming library...
The Criterion Channel will be regularly priced at $10.99 per month or $99.99 for an annual subscription. Customers who sign up now as charter subscribers will receive a special discounted rate of $9.99 per month or $89.99 per year — pricing the company says will be locked in “for as long as you stay active” — as well as a 30-day free trial.
The Criterion Channel (criterionchannel.com) will be available on computers, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, iOS, and Android devices.
Criterion didn’t reveal specific titles that will be available on Criterion Channel but said the subscription VOD service will include access to Criterion’s entire streaming library...
- 1/31/2019
- by Todd Spangler
- Variety Film + TV
Revenge is a dish best served cold — ice cold in the case of the snowplow operator turned vigilante played by Liam Neeson in Hans Petter Moland’s “Cold Pursuit.” This remake of his Norwegian crime-thriller “Kraftidioten” (released stateside as “In Order of Disappearance”) about a father avenging his son allows Moland to join the ranks of directors like Michael Haneke (“Funny Games”), George Sluizer (“The Vanishing”), and Takashi Shimizu (“The Grudge”), all of whom made English-language versions of their own foreign-language features.
Moland’s offering, however, finds renewed vigor within the additional changes and tonal adjustments. By pumping up the darkly comedic undertones, augmenting the frigid chill of the original, Moland’s terrific, riveting noir-tinged picture distinguishes itself from other rote, reductive remakes.
Having recently won Kehoe’s “Citizen of the Year” trophy, upstanding family man Nels Coxman (Neeson) is a pillar of the community. He’s the guy that...
Moland’s offering, however, finds renewed vigor within the additional changes and tonal adjustments. By pumping up the darkly comedic undertones, augmenting the frigid chill of the original, Moland’s terrific, riveting noir-tinged picture distinguishes itself from other rote, reductive remakes.
Having recently won Kehoe’s “Citizen of the Year” trophy, upstanding family man Nels Coxman (Neeson) is a pillar of the community. He’s the guy that...
- 1/28/2019
- by Courtney Howard
- Variety Film + TV
The Festival de Cannes has announced the lineup for the official selection, including the Competition and Un Certain Regard sections, as well as special screenings, for the 71st edition of the festival:COMPETITIONEverybody Knows (Asghar Farhadi)At War (Stéphane Brizé)Dogman (Matteo Garrone)Le livre d'images (Jean-Luc Godard)Netemo Sameteo (Asako I & II) (Ryūsuke Hamaguchi)Sorry Angel (Christophe Honoré)Girls of the Sun (Eva Husson)Ash Is Purest White (Jia Zhangke)Shoplifter (Hirokazu Kore-eda)Capernaum (Nadine Labaki)Burning (Lee Chang-dong)BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee)Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell)Three Faces (Jafar Panahi)Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski)Lazzaro Felice (Alice Rohrwacher)Yomeddine (A.B. Shawky)Leto (Kirill Serebrennikov)Un couteau dans le cœur (Yann Gonzalez)Ayka (Sergei Dvortsevoy)The Wild Pear Tree (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)Out Of COMPETITIONSolo: A Star Wars Story (Ron Howard)Le grand bain (Gilles Lelouch)The House That Jack Built (Lars von Trier)Un Certain REGARDGräns (Ali Abbasi...
- 4/25/2018
- MUBI
Despite Netflix removing all of its films from the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, Orson Welles will still be represented on the Croisette next month. The festival has announced the official lineup for this year’s Cannes Classics sidebar, and included on the list is the FilmStruck-produced documentary “The Eyes of Orson Welles,” from British documentarian Mark Cousin.
Netflix had originally been set to bring Welles’ unfinished film, “The Other Side of the Wind,” to the festival’s Out of Competition section, but the streaming giant announced it would not be attending the festival in any capacity after Cannes reinstated a rule preventing films without French theatrical distribution from competing for the Palme d’Or. The rule would not have affected “The Other Side of the Wind,” but Netflix wasn’t going to make an exception.
“The Eyes of Orson Welles” includes access to a lifetime of private drawings and paintings by Welles,...
Netflix had originally been set to bring Welles’ unfinished film, “The Other Side of the Wind,” to the festival’s Out of Competition section, but the streaming giant announced it would not be attending the festival in any capacity after Cannes reinstated a rule preventing films without French theatrical distribution from competing for the Palme d’Or. The rule would not have affected “The Other Side of the Wind,” but Netflix wasn’t going to make an exception.
“The Eyes of Orson Welles” includes access to a lifetime of private drawings and paintings by Welles,...
- 4/23/2018
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Orson Welles will be featured at next month’s Cannes Film Festival. It still won’t be via his previously unfinished The Other Side Of The Wind, which recently got caught in the scrum between the festival and Netflix. Rather, Welles will be represented in The Eyes Of Orson Welles, a new documentary from Mark Cousins that’s part of the Cannes Classics selection.
The festival today unveiled its full roster for the Classics sidebar which includes tributes and documentaries about film and filmmakers, and restorations presented by producers, distributors, foundations, cinemathèques and rights holders. Among the attendees this year are Martin Scorsese, Jane Fonda, Christopher Nolan and John Travolta.
The Eyes Of Orson Welles is a journey through the filmmaker’s visual process. Thanks to Welles’ daughter Beatrice, Cousins (The Story Of Film) was granted access to never-before-seen drawings, paintings and early works that form a sketchbook from his life.
The festival today unveiled its full roster for the Classics sidebar which includes tributes and documentaries about film and filmmakers, and restorations presented by producers, distributors, foundations, cinemathèques and rights holders. Among the attendees this year are Martin Scorsese, Jane Fonda, Christopher Nolan and John Travolta.
The Eyes Of Orson Welles is a journey through the filmmaker’s visual process. Thanks to Welles’ daughter Beatrice, Cousins (The Story Of Film) was granted access to never-before-seen drawings, paintings and early works that form a sketchbook from his life.
- 4/23/2018
- by Nancy Tartaglione
- Deadline Film + TV
Simon Brew Jul 19, 2017
Spoorloos - the original The Vanishing - led to the Academy having to change its ways...
People sometimes come to this site in search of a film to watch, that they’ve not heard of. Sadly, the late George Sluizer’s stunning thriller Spoorloos has been infected by its tepid 1993 Hollywood remake, that Sluizer himself directed. But the original is one of the best, darkest thrillers of the 1980s. It’s an amazing piece of work.
It’s also a piece of work that led to the Academy having to rewrite the rules for one of its Oscar categories.
The film’s country of origin was the Netherlands, and when it came to Oscar time, it was put forward as the Dutch entry for the Best Foreign Language Feature Academy Award. Yet the film was deemed ineligible, in spite of the fact that not a word of English is spoken in it.
Spoorloos - the original The Vanishing - led to the Academy having to change its ways...
People sometimes come to this site in search of a film to watch, that they’ve not heard of. Sadly, the late George Sluizer’s stunning thriller Spoorloos has been infected by its tepid 1993 Hollywood remake, that Sluizer himself directed. But the original is one of the best, darkest thrillers of the 1980s. It’s an amazing piece of work.
It’s also a piece of work that led to the Academy having to rewrite the rules for one of its Oscar categories.
The film’s country of origin was the Netherlands, and when it came to Oscar time, it was put forward as the Dutch entry for the Best Foreign Language Feature Academy Award. Yet the film was deemed ineligible, in spite of the fact that not a word of English is spoken in it.
- 7/18/2017
- Den of Geek
A spurned mistress takes her married lover’s child for quite a ride in Detour, the slick and effective genre debut from German filmmaker Nina Vukovic, who earlier co-wrote the screenplay for the fairytale Nevermore, which won a student Oscar in 2007. There are superficial echoes of superior nail-biters like George Sluizer’s The Vanishing in this story that’s largely set in a vehicle and at a gas station, and which fuses suspense and thriller elements with a relationship drama featuring a handful of elusive and volatile characters, as well as an innocent child. A superb calling card for Vukovic, this Munich...
- 7/3/2017
- by Boyd van Hoeij
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Editor’s Note: This article is presented in partnership with FilmStruck. Developed and managed by Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in collaboration with the Criterion Collection, FilmStruck features the largest streaming library of contemporary and classic arthouse, indie, foreign and cult films as well as extensive bonus content, filmmaker interviews and rare footage. Learn more here.
Last week, IndieWire asked our readers to name their favorite movies in the Criterion Collection, which resulted in hundreds of responses that pretty much covered every nook and cranny of Criterion’s massive library. It was great to see many readers listing dramas as diverse and polarizing as Robert Altman’s “3 Women,” George Sluizer’s “The Vanishing” and Fritz Lang’s “M,” but at the end of the day, our survey revealed which 10 titles our Criterion subscribers can’t get enough of.
An intriguing mix of reliable film landmarks and a few surprises, below is...
Last week, IndieWire asked our readers to name their favorite movies in the Criterion Collection, which resulted in hundreds of responses that pretty much covered every nook and cranny of Criterion’s massive library. It was great to see many readers listing dramas as diverse and polarizing as Robert Altman’s “3 Women,” George Sluizer’s “The Vanishing” and Fritz Lang’s “M,” but at the end of the day, our survey revealed which 10 titles our Criterion subscribers can’t get enough of.
An intriguing mix of reliable film landmarks and a few surprises, below is...
- 11/23/2016
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Mark and Aaron cover the Dutch and French horror/suspense classic, The Vanishing. Having experienced this film numerous times before, we are able to explore the foreshadowing and narrative structure that led us on a wild journey to an even wilder ending. We talk about obsession, control, that harrowing ending, and yes, we even get into the American remake.
About the film:
A young man embarks on an obsessive search for the girlfriend who mysteriously disappeared while the couple were taking a sunny vacation trip, and his three-year investigation draws the attention of her abductor, a mild-mannered professor with a clinically diabolical mind. An unorthodox love story and a truly unsettling thriller, Dutch filmmaker George Sluizer’s The Vanishing unfolds with meticulous intensity, leading to an unforgettable finale that has unnerved audiences around the world.
Buy The Films On Amazon:
Episode Links & Notes
3:10 – October Horror Schedule
5:00 – Short Takes (The Tin Drum,...
About the film:
A young man embarks on an obsessive search for the girlfriend who mysteriously disappeared while the couple were taking a sunny vacation trip, and his three-year investigation draws the attention of her abductor, a mild-mannered professor with a clinically diabolical mind. An unorthodox love story and a truly unsettling thriller, Dutch filmmaker George Sluizer’s The Vanishing unfolds with meticulous intensity, leading to an unforgettable finale that has unnerved audiences around the world.
Buy The Films On Amazon:
Episode Links & Notes
3:10 – October Horror Schedule
5:00 – Short Takes (The Tin Drum,...
- 10/26/2016
- by Aaron West
- CriterionCast
Told in flashback over 30 years of guilt and grief, this tender melodrama based on three Alice Munro short stories is Pedro Almodóvar’s best film in a decade
Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar’s latest, his most moving and entrancing work since 2006’s Volver, is a sumptuous and heartbreaking study of the viral nature of guilt, the mystery of memory and the often unendurable power of love. At times, the emotional intrigue plays more like a Hitchcock thriller than a romantic melodrama, with Alberto Iglesias’s superb Herrmannesque score (the director cites Toru Takemitsu, Mahler and Alban Berg as influential) heightening the noir elements, darkening the bold splashes of red, blue and white. Three short stories from the Canadian author Alice Munro’s 2004 volume Runaway provide the source material, but the spirit of Patricia Highsmith looms large as strangers on a train fuel the circling narrative (one character even observes that...
Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar’s latest, his most moving and entrancing work since 2006’s Volver, is a sumptuous and heartbreaking study of the viral nature of guilt, the mystery of memory and the often unendurable power of love. At times, the emotional intrigue plays more like a Hitchcock thriller than a romantic melodrama, with Alberto Iglesias’s superb Herrmannesque score (the director cites Toru Takemitsu, Mahler and Alban Berg as influential) heightening the noir elements, darkening the bold splashes of red, blue and white. Three short stories from the Canadian author Alice Munro’s 2004 volume Runaway provide the source material, but the spirit of Patricia Highsmith looms large as strangers on a train fuel the circling narrative (one character even observes that...
- 8/28/2016
- by Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
- The Guardian - Film News
My guest for this month is Herb van der Poll, and he’s joined me to discuss the film I chose for him, the 1988 Dutch–French film The Vanishing. You can follow the show on Twitter @cinemagadfly.
Show notes:
The director, George Sluizer, didn’t really direct much else besides this film and its remake The soundtrack definitely has a Tears for Fears vibe to it, which is 100% ok with me Herb checked with his Dutch parents to make sure we pronounced Spoorloos correctly Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu is basically perfect as the villain in this film If you enjoy this film, you’d probably also love Alfred Hitchock’s The Lady Vanishes The actress who plays the second girlfriend Lieneke, Gwen Eckhaus, was randomly in a television series in the Netherlands called Spoorloos verdwenen, which I assume is unrelated Getting a compliment on your film from Stanley Kubrick is a big...
Show notes:
The director, George Sluizer, didn’t really direct much else besides this film and its remake The soundtrack definitely has a Tears for Fears vibe to it, which is 100% ok with me Herb checked with his Dutch parents to make sure we pronounced Spoorloos correctly Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu is basically perfect as the villain in this film If you enjoy this film, you’d probably also love Alfred Hitchock’s The Lady Vanishes The actress who plays the second girlfriend Lieneke, Gwen Eckhaus, was randomly in a television series in the Netherlands called Spoorloos verdwenen, which I assume is unrelated Getting a compliment on your film from Stanley Kubrick is a big...
- 6/18/2016
- by Arik Devens
- CriterionCast
Julia Roberts out-acts and upstages Nicole Kidman and Chiwetel Ejiofor in this muddled film, making its central relationships look implausible and extraneous
And so, yet another great film gets a pointless and slightly wrong Hollywood remake, and this one tiptoes sheepishly into cinemas while everyone is looking the other way – preparing for the Academy Awards. It does, however, have the remake’s beneficial effect of enhancing the original’s prestige: after all, no self-respecting cinephile ever talks about George Sluizer’s cult chiller The Vanishing without first establishing his or her good taste by attacking the inferior English-language remake that Sluizer himself directed. This will now be the fate of Juan José Campanella’s terrific Argentinian drama-thriller El Secreto de Sus Ojos, or The Secret in Their Eyes. The foreign-language Oscar-winner from 2009 is now given a retrospective connoisseur’s boost by this unsatisfying remake, set in modern-day Los Angeles, with...
And so, yet another great film gets a pointless and slightly wrong Hollywood remake, and this one tiptoes sheepishly into cinemas while everyone is looking the other way – preparing for the Academy Awards. It does, however, have the remake’s beneficial effect of enhancing the original’s prestige: after all, no self-respecting cinephile ever talks about George Sluizer’s cult chiller The Vanishing without first establishing his or her good taste by attacking the inferior English-language remake that Sluizer himself directed. This will now be the fate of Juan José Campanella’s terrific Argentinian drama-thriller El Secreto de Sus Ojos, or The Secret in Their Eyes. The foreign-language Oscar-winner from 2009 is now given a retrospective connoisseur’s boost by this unsatisfying remake, set in modern-day Los Angeles, with...
- 2/25/2016
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Aaron Glenane and Aaron Pedersen in Killing Ground.
Writer-director Damien Power describes the writing process on his thriller, Killing Ground, in one word: "long".
"I was working with producer Joe Weatherstone on another script. With that project we went to the then-afc's IndiVision lab, which was a workshop for low-budget features: a million or less. It's a workshop so we kind of pulled it apart, and I don't think we ever really put those pieces back together again"..
"But while I was in that process I had an idea for something that I thought we could make quickly and cheaply. And then eight years later, I got to make it" (laughs)..
Power's debut feature stars Aaron Pedersen, Harriet Dyer, Ian Meadows, Aaron Glenane, Maya Strange, and Tiarnie Coupland, and was inspired by an image that floated into the filmmaker's head: of an orange tent in the bush, abandoned.
The production...
Writer-director Damien Power describes the writing process on his thriller, Killing Ground, in one word: "long".
"I was working with producer Joe Weatherstone on another script. With that project we went to the then-afc's IndiVision lab, which was a workshop for low-budget features: a million or less. It's a workshop so we kind of pulled it apart, and I don't think we ever really put those pieces back together again"..
"But while I was in that process I had an idea for something that I thought we could make quickly and cheaply. And then eight years later, I got to make it" (laughs)..
Power's debut feature stars Aaron Pedersen, Harriet Dyer, Ian Meadows, Aaron Glenane, Maya Strange, and Tiarnie Coupland, and was inspired by an image that floated into the filmmaker's head: of an orange tent in the bush, abandoned.
The production...
- 1/29/2016
- by Harry Windsor
- IF.com.au
Each week, the fine folks at Fandor add a number of films to their Criterion Picks area, which will then be available to subscribers for the following twelve days. This week, the Criterion Picks focus on 8 mystery films.
Secrets, lies, clues and questionable motives: follow these films as they insist on (or resist) throwing light on the dark corners of human nature.
Don’t have a Fandor subscription? They offer a free trial membership.
Confidentially Yours, the French Crime film by François Truffaut
When a real estate agent is framed for the murders of his wife and her lover, it is up to his faithful secretary to solve the mystery.
The Element of Crime, the Danish Crime film by Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier’s stunning debut film is the story of Fisher, an exiled ex-cop who returns to his old beat to catch a serial killer with a taste for young girls.
Secrets, lies, clues and questionable motives: follow these films as they insist on (or resist) throwing light on the dark corners of human nature.
Don’t have a Fandor subscription? They offer a free trial membership.
Confidentially Yours, the French Crime film by François Truffaut
When a real estate agent is framed for the murders of his wife and her lover, it is up to his faithful secretary to solve the mystery.
The Element of Crime, the Danish Crime film by Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier’s stunning debut film is the story of Fisher, an exiled ex-cop who returns to his old beat to catch a serial killer with a taste for young girls.
- 12/8/2015
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
Cinematographer Edward Lachman may not be a household name, though he undoubtedly should be. One of the most highly regarded directors of photography in the business, Lachman has collaborated with some of the best filmmakers of his generation: Steven Soderbergh, Todd Haynes, Todd Solondz, Paul Schrader, Sofia Coppola, Robert Altman, Werner Herzog, George Sluizer, Wim Wenders, Mira Nair, Ulrich Seidl, and Andrew Niccol — to name a handful.
His career began in 1975 by photographing the infamous Sylvester Stallone–Henry Winkler Brooklyn gang cult-fave, The Lords of Flatbush. In the last 40 years, he’s carved out a truly varied résumé. For example: in 2002, Lachman co-directed Ken Park with filmmaker Larry Clark, before moving onto direct the exercise video Carmen Electra’s Aerobic Striptease in 2003.
Lachman’s most recent feature, Carol — his third partnership with Haynes, and perhaps his finest work — just entered a limited release, so there’s no better time to...
His career began in 1975 by photographing the infamous Sylvester Stallone–Henry Winkler Brooklyn gang cult-fave, The Lords of Flatbush. In the last 40 years, he’s carved out a truly varied résumé. For example: in 2002, Lachman co-directed Ken Park with filmmaker Larry Clark, before moving onto direct the exercise video Carmen Electra’s Aerobic Striptease in 2003.
Lachman’s most recent feature, Carol — his third partnership with Haynes, and perhaps his finest work — just entered a limited release, so there’s no better time to...
- 11/23/2015
- by Tony Hinds
- The Film Stage
Coming to theaters, VOD, and iTunes tomorrow with the gas pedal to the floor and one eye on the rearview mirror is Wrecker, a new road trip horror film from XLrator Media. For our latest Q&A feature, we caught up with Wrecker co-writer/director Micheal Bafaro.
Thanks for taking the time to converse with us, Micheal. How did you come up with the idea for your latest film, Wrecker?
Micheal Bafaro: I’ve always been inspired by the open road. For me, it’s the ultimate embodiment of freedom, adventure, and optimism. However, it can also be unpredictable as one moves away from familiar surroundings into the unknown. I’ve got an active imagination and I’m always having story ideas pop into my head. Highways themselves are an iconic part of the North American landscape and culture, and I felt that it was time to do a road film of my own.
Thanks for taking the time to converse with us, Micheal. How did you come up with the idea for your latest film, Wrecker?
Micheal Bafaro: I’ve always been inspired by the open road. For me, it’s the ultimate embodiment of freedom, adventure, and optimism. However, it can also be unpredictable as one moves away from familiar surroundings into the unknown. I’ve got an active imagination and I’m always having story ideas pop into my head. Highways themselves are an iconic part of the North American landscape and culture, and I felt that it was time to do a road film of my own.
- 11/5/2015
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
–
20. The Innocents
Directed by Jack Clayton
Written by William Archibald and Truman Capote
UK, 1961
Genre: Hauntings
The Innocents, which was co-written by Truman Capote, is the first of many screen adaptations of The Turn of the Screw. If you’ve never heard of it, don’t feel bad because most people haven’t – but The Innocents deserves its rightful spot on any list of great horror films. Here is one of the few films where the ghost story takes place mostly in daylight, and the lush photography, which earned cinematographer Freddie Francis one of his two Oscar wins, is simply stunning. Meanwhile, director Jack Clayton and Francis made great use of long, steady shots, which suggest corruption is lurking everywhere inside the grand estate. The Innocents also features three amazing performances; the first two come courtesy of child actors Pamela Franklin (The Legend of Hell House), and Martin Stephens (Village of the Damned...
20. The Innocents
Directed by Jack Clayton
Written by William Archibald and Truman Capote
UK, 1961
Genre: Hauntings
The Innocents, which was co-written by Truman Capote, is the first of many screen adaptations of The Turn of the Screw. If you’ve never heard of it, don’t feel bad because most people haven’t – but The Innocents deserves its rightful spot on any list of great horror films. Here is one of the few films where the ghost story takes place mostly in daylight, and the lush photography, which earned cinematographer Freddie Francis one of his two Oscar wins, is simply stunning. Meanwhile, director Jack Clayton and Francis made great use of long, steady shots, which suggest corruption is lurking everywhere inside the grand estate. The Innocents also features three amazing performances; the first two come courtesy of child actors Pamela Franklin (The Legend of Hell House), and Martin Stephens (Village of the Damned...
- 10/31/2015
- by Ricky Fernandes
- SoundOnSight
Our look at underappreciated films of the 80s continues, as we head back to 1988...
Either in terms of ticket sales or critical acclaim, 1988 was dominated by the likes of Rain Man, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Coming To America. It was the year Bruce Willis made the jump from TV to action star with Die Hard, and became a star in the process.
It was the year Leslie Nielsen made his own jump from the small to silver screen with Police Squad spin-off The Naked Gun, which sparked a hugely popular franchise of its own. Elsewhere, the eccentric Tim Burton scored one of the biggest hits of the year with Beetlejuice, the success of which would result in the birth of Batman a year later. And then there was Tom Cruise, who managed to make a drama about a student-turned-barman into a $170m hit, back when $170m was still an...
Either in terms of ticket sales or critical acclaim, 1988 was dominated by the likes of Rain Man, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Coming To America. It was the year Bruce Willis made the jump from TV to action star with Die Hard, and became a star in the process.
It was the year Leslie Nielsen made his own jump from the small to silver screen with Police Squad spin-off The Naked Gun, which sparked a hugely popular franchise of its own. Elsewhere, the eccentric Tim Burton scored one of the biggest hits of the year with Beetlejuice, the success of which would result in the birth of Batman a year later. And then there was Tom Cruise, who managed to make a drama about a student-turned-barman into a $170m hit, back when $170m was still an...
- 5/6/2015
- by ryanlambie
- Den of Geek
Nostromo Pictures/Twentieth Century Fox/Janus Films
It’s hard to ever imagine landmark movies such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane or Elia Kazan’s On The Waterfront (to name a few), missing from the cinematic timeline. But what of the many potential classics that never even made it to the screen? Cinema history has given birth to countless movies that were never allowed to come into fruition, or were otherwise delayed for an eye-wateringly long time.
Like George Sluizer’s Dark Blood, some films make compromises just so that it can see some form of release years down the line (twenty years on, the remnants of River Phoenix’s final performance was cobbled together). However, in doing so, the film sacrifices its integrity and results in being only a loose representation of what great thing it was originally meant to be.
In a bid to...
It’s hard to ever imagine landmark movies such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane or Elia Kazan’s On The Waterfront (to name a few), missing from the cinematic timeline. But what of the many potential classics that never even made it to the screen? Cinema history has given birth to countless movies that were never allowed to come into fruition, or were otherwise delayed for an eye-wateringly long time.
Like George Sluizer’s Dark Blood, some films make compromises just so that it can see some form of release years down the line (twenty years on, the remnants of River Phoenix’s final performance was cobbled together). However, in doing so, the film sacrifices its integrity and results in being only a loose representation of what great thing it was originally meant to be.
In a bid to...
- 3/11/2015
- by Anthony Lowery
- Obsessed with Film
"The Loft" is a new thriller that comes out this week, and it is a remake of a 2008 Belgian film of the same name. The original movie's director, Erik van Looy, returns to helm the redo, and Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts reprises his role from the earlier film. He is joined by Karl Urban, James Marsden, Wentworth Miller and Eric Stonestreet in the story of a group of five married men who decide to share a loft together for extramarital affairs, only to one day find a dead woman laying in their bed. They try to parse together the details of who the girl is and how she came to meet such a grisly fate. Each man denies any wrongdoing, but it is clear to all that one of the men in their midst had to have been involved in the crime, as they were the only keyholders to the apartment,...
- 1/30/2015
- by Daniel W. Tafoya
- LRMonline.com
In the decades of cinema that have transpired since Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1960 film L’avventura, one cannot overlook its seminal status not only within the auteur’s own priceless filmography, but as a milestone in developing cinematic language. Greeted with a divisive response at the Cannes Film Festival, where a group of thirty-five renowned critics were able to turn the cultural tide after the film’s second screening (in that influential way that criticism can’t quite muster in contemporary arenas), it would go on to be awarded the Jury Prize, tying with Kon Ichikawa’s Odd Obsession, and beaten out by Fellini’s iconic La Dolce Vita. It’s hard to believe that such titanic masterpieces were competing against one another, all relishing unprecedented renown in the years to come. Antonioni’s is, truly, the harder film to love, its grasp residing somewhere within its own banality as an...
- 11/25/2014
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
The slasher movie, if we'll admit it to ourselves, is about our fears of teen sexuality. Whether you're a teen made nervous by your own hormones or a parent afraid of what trouble those hormones will get your kid into, the slasher-movie villain is your fears made flesh. But with the release 30 years ago this week (November 9, 1984) of Wes Craven's "A Nightmare on Elm Street," the slasher film entered a new dimension.
With the creation of Freddy Krueger (played indelibly by Robert Englund), who could kill teens in their dreams, the slasher villain proved there was no place that was safe, not even the subconscious.
In retrospect, the genre may have peaked with the release of this film; after all, how many other slasher villains since have been anywhere near as memorable? Unlike his predecessors, Jason Voorhees (of the "Friday the 13th" movies) and Michael Myers (of the "Halloween...
With the creation of Freddy Krueger (played indelibly by Robert Englund), who could kill teens in their dreams, the slasher villain proved there was no place that was safe, not even the subconscious.
In retrospect, the genre may have peaked with the release of this film; after all, how many other slasher villains since have been anywhere near as memorable? Unlike his predecessors, Jason Voorhees (of the "Friday the 13th" movies) and Michael Myers (of the "Halloween...
- 11/10/2014
- by Gary Susman
- Moviefone
Top 100 horror movies of all time: Chicago Film Critics' choices (photo: Sigourney Weaver and Alien creature show us that life is less horrific if you don't hold grudges) See previous post: A look at the Chicago Film Critics Association's Scariest Movies Ever Made. Below is the list of the Chicago Film Critics's Top 100 Horror Movies of All Time, including their directors and key cast members. Note: this list was first published in October 2006. (See also: Fay Wray, Lee Patrick, and Mary Philbin among the "Top Ten Scream Queens.") 1. Psycho (1960) Alfred Hitchcock; with Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam. 2. The Exorcist (1973) William Friedkin; with Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Jason Miller, Max von Sydow (and the voice of Mercedes McCambridge). 3. Halloween (1978) John Carpenter; with Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Tony Moran. 4. Alien (1979) Ridley Scott; with Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt. 5. Night of the Living Dead (1968) George A. Romero; with Marilyn Eastman,...
- 10/31/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The 1988 Dutch thriller The Vanishing hit Blu-ray this week, thanks to the good folks at Criterion. Without a drop of gore, it’s the perfect centerpiece for an All Saints’ Eve frightfest that shivers the soul but doesn’t turn the stomach. And why not round out that scare-a-thon with four more examples of great, relatively bloodless movies that go for your soul instead of your jugular? Here's a list of suggestions. (And if you're looking for more traditional horror flicks, consider perusing our carefully-curated Horror Quintessentials lists.) The Vanishing (1988) The horror genre tends to be about as subtle as...
- 10/30/2014
- by Keith Staskiewicz
- EW - Inside Movies
Today's top stories: Agnès Varda will receive the European Film Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award this year. Roman Polanski went to Poland and the Us tried to get authorities there to detain him. They refused. Nick Broomfield's Tales of the Grim Sleeper, Marshall Curry's Point and Shoot, John Maloof and Charlie Siskel's Finding Vivian Maier, Laura Poitras's Citizenfour and Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado's The Salt of the Earth have been nominated by the International Documentary Association for Best Feature Awards. Plus Scott Foundas on George Sluizer's Spoorloos (The Vanishing) and more. » - David Hudson...
- 10/30/2014
- Keyframe
Today's top stories: Agnès Varda will receive the European Film Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award this year. Roman Polanski went to Poland and the Us tried to get authorities there to detain him. They refused. Nick Broomfield's Tales of the Grim Sleeper, Marshall Curry's Point and Shoot, John Maloof and Charlie Siskel's Finding Vivian Maier, Laura Poitras's Citizenfour and Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado's The Salt of the Earth have been nominated by the International Documentary Association for Best Feature Awards. Plus Scott Foundas on George Sluizer's Spoorloos (The Vanishing) and more. » - David Hudson...
- 10/30/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
Remastered just in time for Halloween, Criterion dusts off George Sluizer’s classic psychological thriller The Vanishing for a Blu-ray release. The Dutch-French co-production stands as the filmmaker’s most internationally renowned and enduring work, its sterling reputation still managing to overshadow Sluizer’s own ill-conceived English language remake from 1992 with a cast headlined by Jeff Bridges, Kiefer Sutherland, and Sandra Bullock (plus a fresh faced Nancy Travis, a name that often gets neglected in flippant references to the production). With Sluizer’s passing in September of 2014, it’s an eerily timed re-release of his signature work.
A Dutch couple on a road trip, Rex (Gene Bervoets) and Saskia (Johanna ter Steege) run out of gasoline. A heated argument leads to reconciliation, and they properly refuel at a gas station rest stop packed with tourists due to the Tour de France. Saskia goes into the store to get drinks and never returns,...
A Dutch couple on a road trip, Rex (Gene Bervoets) and Saskia (Johanna ter Steege) run out of gasoline. A heated argument leads to reconciliation, and they properly refuel at a gas station rest stop packed with tourists due to the Tour de France. Saskia goes into the store to get drinks and never returns,...
- 10/14/2014
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
The man who made Spoorloos, one of the best thrillers of the past few decades, has died at the of 82.
Here's some sad news. George Sluizer, the director of Spoorloos, has died at the age of 82. He had been ill for many years, and the Dutch filmmaker reportedly passed away on Saturday.
Sluizer leaves behind one of the most chilling thrillers we've ever seen in the shape of Spoorloos. The kind of film where the less you know the better, Sluizer himself directed the English language version, The Vanishing, although the Hollywood version was a pale imitation of the stunning original.
Sluizer also directed River Phoenix's final movie, Dark Blood, which has been seeing the light over the past year or two. He also had a rich background in documentary feature making.
Rest in peace, Mr Sluizer. And thanks for leaving behind one of the best thrillers we've ever seen.
Here's some sad news. George Sluizer, the director of Spoorloos, has died at the age of 82. He had been ill for many years, and the Dutch filmmaker reportedly passed away on Saturday.
Sluizer leaves behind one of the most chilling thrillers we've ever seen in the shape of Spoorloos. The kind of film where the less you know the better, Sluizer himself directed the English language version, The Vanishing, although the Hollywood version was a pale imitation of the stunning original.
Sluizer also directed River Phoenix's final movie, Dark Blood, which has been seeing the light over the past year or two. He also had a rich background in documentary feature making.
Rest in peace, Mr Sluizer. And thanks for leaving behind one of the best thrillers we've ever seen.
- 9/23/2014
- by simonbrew
- Den of Geek
Dutch filmmaker George Sluizer, the man behind psychological horror The Vanishing, has died. He was 82. Sluizer cut his teeth with an award-winning short called The Low Lands in 1961, before graduating to the longer form with 1972’s João And The Knife, a haunting drama set in the Amazon basin, and Twice A Woman seven years later. But it was The Vanishing, a landmark horror in 1988, that made his name.The film, which was released under the title ‘Spoorloos’ (‘Without A Trace’) in Sluizer’s native tongue, was adapted from Tim Krabbé’s novella The Golden Egg and charts the efforts of a man to uncover his fiancée’s fate after she disappears at a motorway service station. No lesser a figure than Stanley Kubrick was moved to describe it as, “the most horrifying film I’ve ever seen”. As a portrayal of obsession, it boasts shades of Hitchcock; as a record...
- 9/23/2014
- EmpireOnline
The Dutch filmmaker best known stateside for The Vanishing and the River Phoenix Western Dark Blood died Saturday in Amsterdam. George Sluizer was 82. He won a Silver Bear at Berlin for his 1961 debut, the documentary short Hold Back The Sea, and returned to the festival four more times in the ensuing decades. Three of Sluizer’s films were nominated for the Golden Bear: The Commissioner (1998), John, The Knife And The River (1972) — both of which he also scripted — and Utz (1992). The latter won three awards at the Berlinale, including Best Actor for star Armin Mueller-Stahl. “We mourn the loss of a great filmmaker, who has been equally active in fiction and documentary film,” Berlin fest Director Dieter Kosslick said. “With his passion for filmmaking and exceptional versatility, George Sluizer will live on in our memories forever.”
Sluizer’s best known film remains The Vanishing (1988), about a man whose girlfriend goes missing...
Sluizer’s best known film remains The Vanishing (1988), about a man whose girlfriend goes missing...
- 9/22/2014
- by The Deadline Team
- Deadline
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