By John H. Foote Sure, when I was a kid, the old Universal monsters – Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Phantom of the Opera, and The Wolfman- scared the beejeezus out of me. Imagine sitting in a dark old house, my father in the middle of the couch, my brothers and I are on either…
By John H. Foote The first time I saw Lorena MacKenzie, like most, I was at once struck by her exotic beauty. Nearly black eyes that danced when she smiled, she was beautiful, mischievous with drop dead gorgeous movie star looks. I was a first year acting student soon to discover I had no interest…
By Alan Hurst If you’re into Christmas, then you probably have a favourite Christmas movie (mine is 1947’s The Bishop’s Wife) or a favourite Christmas episode from an old sit-com (the 1970 episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show to name one). But Christmas can also pop up in a film that really isn’t about…
By Melissa Houghton Home Alone 2, Lost in New York (1992) I’ve added this Home Alone sequel to my list of essential Christmas movies. A great escape film and a joy to see New York gussied up during the holidays. Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) does it again and accidentally boards a flight to New York while his family is Florida-bound. With…
By Craig Leask Who doesn’t like a good old black and white monster movie, especially around Halloween? My other half and I pull them out each year to help us get in the mood for the annual night of haunts. I guess they’re all somewhat simplistic today, but they really are a weird kind of…
By Melissa Houghton As a child I was terrified of vampire movies. I’d only seen Dracula (1931) starring Bela Lugosi and later Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) with Klaus Kinski, but it was enough to keep replaying in my mind, plus feeling sheer terror recalling shadowy images of the walking dead. My cure for embracing vampires…
By John H. Foote Mummies, vampires, witches, werewolves, ghosts, and zombies truly can be frightening. Yet for me the single most terrifying creature I have experienced in a film was a human being, Dr. Hannibal Lector. Scariest moment? A rubber ball comes bouncing down a flight of stairs, still wet from having been tossed into…
By Alan Hurst Witches have always intrigued me. Whether it was watching the TV series Bewitched as a kid, touring the sites of Salem, Massachusetts (home of the infamous Salem witch trials) on a road trip, reading Arthur Miller’s The Crucible in school, or a first viewing of Rosemary’s Baby (1968), the mere idea of…
By John H. Foote Remember the ritual of going to the movies from our youth? As a film critic and 59 years old, I consider my youth the seventies when I discovered cinema as the most important art form on the planet. You lined up, perhaps purchasing your ticket first. The line snaked around the…
By Nick Maylor Following suit after Craig, Alan, and John , it’s my turn to recommend some films for St. Valentine’s Day. This puts me in a bit of a conundrum for two reasons: I care very little for the February 14th holiday The only film romance I can really strongly recommend right now is A…