The lightning rarely strikes twice, as we can see
Argentine filmmaker Démian Rugna was the festival circuit sensation a few years ago with “Aterrados” (“Terrified” in the US), a small 2017 independent horror film shot in Buenos Aires. Just before COVID-19 happened and postponed several projects, the director was scheduled to travel to the United States to reshoot “Aterrados” in an English version produced by none other than Guillermo del Toro!
Obviously, this is not the first case of a filmmaker who has been allowed to redo his own movie for American audiences. …
The movie made by Edison Co. has been lost for 50 years
The horrifying creature was born on January 1, 1818, when small London publishing house Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones first released a new book called “Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus”. It tells the story of a medical student who decides to build a creature and give it life, starting a series of unimaginable horrors. Nobody knew at the time, since the work was published anonymously, but the author of such a horrible story was a 20-year-old girl named Mary Shelley.
In the 19th century, women writers were still associated with romantic, tear-jerker novels. Therefore, many female authors chose to…
The author didn’t write only about bloodsucking vampires
Today everyone knows or at least has heard of a certain vampire named Dracula. The character is so rooted in pop culture that you don’t need to have read the book of the same name, or seen any of its countless film adaptations, to know what it is about.
In fact, Dracula became such a well-known name that eclipsed its own creator, Irish author Abraham “Bram” Stoker (1847–1912), whose work ended in the shadow of his most famous book — or character.
They know how to scare and also how to shoot music!
Horror films are often associated with punk rock or heavy metal. Some hard rock celebrities have even written and/or directed their own horror movies — like Rob Zombie, Bruce Dickinson, and Dee Snider, among others.
But who would have guessed that the same guy who made “The Exorcist” actually directed a sexy music video for a singer with no relation to horror cinema at all? That a filmmaker well-known for his Hitchcockian thrillers would direct a beautiful music video with Bruce Springsteen? …
An account of two months looking for a freelancer job
Looking back on my life as a writer, I realized that I already have an extensive curriculum with 16 years of experience as a journalist in a Brazilian newsroom, and at least twenty years of writing in Portuguese, Spanish, and English for websites and blogs — in addition to some book chapters, folders, and catalogs of film festivals.
But all my experience was of no use when I recently tried to work for content mills as a freelance.
For those who don’t know, a content mill (also called content farm) is the company responsible for creating tons of ghostwritten articles…
They even show the ex-president as a badass chosen by God
January 20, 2021, marked the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States Joe Bidden, and the end of the infamous Trump Era. For the days to come, historians will have an inexhaustible source of controversy from the former president to properly analyze and contextualize.
For us moviegoers, the dubious legacy of the Trump Era is a series of absurd and almost unbelievable pro-Trump films, in which the former President of the United States is often represented as a big badass hero, sometimes even as God’s envoy to Earth!
In short, something so ridiculous that the guys from the…
And one or two good reasons for you to see them in 2021
One of the most anticipated moments for people who love cinema is the publication of those lists with the 10 best films of the past year, made by critics, magazines/newspapers, and even by great filmmakers (Quentin Tarantino loves to do it).
While they often generate hatred and controversies, these lists also provide good tips by mentioning titles that may have been ignored.
2020 was an atypical year in many ways, with closed movie theaters and canceled festivals. …
Shots and explosions are as traditional as Santa Claus
Some time ago, Christmas was that day of the year when the whole family gathered in the room to see one of the numerous adaptations of “A Christmas Carol/Scrooge”, or maybe “Santa Claus: The Movie” (1984); with some luck, you could catch any of the first two “Home Alone”.
More recently, people started to realize that “Die Hard” (1988) is also a typical Christmas movie. After all, it tells the story of a police officer facing a group of terrorists in a luxury building during a Christmas party and brings every kind of joke with the holidays — from the…
They are still alive and kicking, in case someone is still following
Popular wisdom used to profess that “nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes”. Judging by 2020 and the announcements already made for 2021, I believe that we can also include “…and movie sequels” in this statement.
New episodes of endless, big Hollywood franchises like “The Fast and Furious”, “Mission Impossible”, “Jurassic Park” and even “Predator” and “Indiana Jones” are coming. And I don’t particularly agree that some of these franchises deserve to last that long, but I fully understand that there’s a huge fanbase that keeps them alive.
On the other hand, there are other long…
There’s a lot to be seen and discovered in this masterpiece
The first and only horror film directed by genius filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, “The Shining” hit theaters 40 years ago, in May 1980. Originally, its reception was not the best. Stephen King, the author of the 1977 novel that inspired the film, was one of its greatest critics, complaining about the adaptation. The audience might have hoped for another kind of horror and did not understand Kubrick’s approach — let’s remember that a cheap horror film like “Friday the 13th”, released in the same year, was much more successful. …
Felipe M. Guerra
Journalist, independent filmmaker and a sick person. I write about cinema at https://filmesparadoidos.blogspot.com, and in here about films, books and comics.
