The Postman (1997) Review
The Postman (1997) rates 5 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Costner turned a satirical novel about a con man into a three hour sincere epic about American institutions, and ended it with a statue of himself. It took…
Tag: Plague
Plague stories are pressure tests for civilization, and fiction ran the scenarios long before the headlines did. This tag collects reviews of plague and outbreak stories in film and fiction, and what they get right about people.
1920sNosferatu (1922)
Murnau's 1922 Nosferatu invented vampire cinema and still frightens a century later. The estate sued anyway and won, and a court ordered every copy destroyed.
1970sNosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Werner Herzog remakes Murnau as a tragedy, and Klaus Kinski's Dracula is the genre's saddest monster. The vampire here is not merely frightening.
2020sNosferatu (2024)
Robert Eggers brings obsessive period craft to the third great Nosferatu, with a ferocious Lily-Rose Depp at its center. Nosferatu earns its 8 as the most beautiful and uncompromising vampire film in years, Robert Eggers bringing his obsessive period craft…
HorrorInvasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, 1978, 1993, 2007)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers exists in four major film versions across fifty-one years, each of which reflects the political anxieties of its era while. Don Siegel directed the 1956 original.
1960sThe Day of the Triffids (1962)
The Day of the Triffids is the British apocalypse film about ambulatory carnivorous plants invading a world that has been blinded by a comet. Steve Sekely directed most of the film, with Freddie Francis uncredited for the lighthouse subplot.
1950sThem! (1954)
Ted Sherdeman wrote, from a story by George Worthing Yates. The film made approximately two million dollars at initial release on a two hundred thousand dollar budget.
1950sThe Seventh Seal (1957)
The Seventh Seal is the foundational arthouse film and one of the great works of the twentieth century. Max von Sydow plays Antonius Block, a knight returning from the Crusades to a Sweden in the grip of the Black Death.
2010sBlack Death (2010)
Black Death is a small British medieval horror film that wants to be a serious meditation on faith and plague and mostly succeeds. Sean Bean plays Ulric, a knight commissioned by the church to investigate a village in the marshes…
1950sThe Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is the film that invented the modern atomic-age monster movie. The third act involves the rhedosaurus, a fictional dinosaur, attacking lower Manhattan and eventually being killed at Coney Island.
1970sInvasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) Review
The 1978 Body Snatchers remake improves on the 1956 original in one key respect: it doesn't flinch at its own ending. Philip Kaufman follows the premi.