Luke Y. Thompson

Even if it were not for the fact that Mean Dreams has become Bill Paxton's penultimate picture, Nathan Morlando's thriller would be worth recommending entirely on its own merits. Start with cinematographer Steve Cosens (The Tracey Fragments), who uses sharp focus and the occasional faded Polaroid-style filter to lovingly caress......

Maybe it's a just a sign of the Blumhouse-era horror-movie world we find ourselves in, but there's something refreshing about a scare flick that (a) actually shows you its monster occasionally and (b) gives you a definite reason to be afraid of it. Hiding things in shadows to enhance audience......

Before he started throwing hippies to crazed rednecks with chain saws, Tobe Hooper was actually celebrating the Peace and Love Generation, as seen in his long-unreleased and recently rediscovered first feature Eggshells, from 1969. Short on plot but heavy on experimentation, Hooper’s movie could easily serve as a prequel not......

It may be a sign of trying times for horror that this year’s Screamfest Horror Film Festival includes a few selections that don’t really belong to the genre at all: The misbegotten Ed Wood parody Mutant Swinger From Mars is funny for all of 10 minutes, while the ponderous Bajo......

Two years ago, as I was writing for the Weekly about the Screamfest Horror Film Festival, an unhyped, unknown movie without familiar names caught my eye. Simply shot with two lead actors and a single location, it was not only the most economical movie of that year but also the......

It’s been no small frustration for feature animation fans that, in a year which saw radical leaps and bounds for the form, from the French horror compilation Fear(s) of the Dark to the Israeli war memoir Waltz With Bashir, the Animated Feature Film Oscar went to the Pixar-produced, kid-friendly WALL-E,......

Fandom is a tricky thing for Bruce Campbell. He’s been referred to as a “man-god” by Ain’t-It-Cool-News’ Harry Knowles, able to fill the halls at Comic-Con based on his iconic role as the slapstick, deadpan hero Ash in Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy. Yet, as much as Campbell’s fans adore......

Horror movies are generally preferable when they deliver escapism and catharsis, substituting supernatural monsters for our real fears; but as the world outside grows ever scarier, the new generation of horror filmmakers isn’t so anxious to let us off the hook. At this year’s Screamfest, the villain in any given......

This past Sunday marked the finale of the first Downtown LA Film Festival, closing five days of spectacular centerpieces, freely flowing booze, and the occasional glitch. As a coherent festival to be enjoyed as one large mega-event, it was hampered by the distances between venues (too far too walk, too......