REVIEW: Carrie [1976]

Sin never dies. As a Maine resident trying his hand at literary horror, it shouldn’t be surprising that Stephen King would gravitate towards a New England topic such as witchcraft so early in his career. Carrie was his fourth novel (first to be published) and showed the potential for the skewed gaze on common tropes he possessed. The titular character isn’t a witch per se, but a young girl with newfound telekinetic powers and an abused background with which to foster a seething rage beneath her shyly sweet demeanor. Rather…

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REVIEW: Unsane [2018]

Your life slips away from you, you know? The tagline to Steven Soderbergh‘s Unsane reads as follows: “Is she or isn’t she?” Its context stems from Sawyer Valentini (Claire Foy) being presented as an unreliable narrator. She’s picked up her life and moved it from Boston to Pennsylvania to escape the troubles of her past—namely a stalker whose lack of boundaries instilled enough fear to make her see him in places he wasn’t. We understand this struggle is real due to a one-night stand ending with her scream after the…

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REVIEW: Adam [2009]

“You are a part of me” **Spoilers Included** Right from the get-go, I knew that Adam was going to be an enjoyable, smartly told tale of love despite humanity’s predilection for preconceptions. Just the fact that the film was about a young man with Asperger Syndrome who meets a young girl across the hall of his apartment complex tells you that this won’t be your run-of-the-mill rom-com. You have to believe that filmmaker Max Mayer will treat the material with compassion and intelligence; this is not a laugh-out-loud vehicle to…

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