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Don't Go in the... Never Mind: Sarah Paxton (left) and Pat Healy probe where novice ghost hunters shouldn't probe in THE INNKEEPERS.

There are compelling reasons why, when traveling, one should skip the chain lodgings and stay at one of America’s classic hotels. There’s the friendly and courteous staff, the opportunity to experience a true piece of Americana, and the chance that you’ll encounter a spectral manifestation that wants to rip your immortal soul from your still-screaming body. (Disadvantage: no wi-fi.) In THE INNKEEPERS, a pair of slackers (Sarah Paxton and Pat Healy) are put in charge of an aging hotel in its last days and — when not attending to the needs of such guests as Kelly McGillis as a sympathetic psychic and George Riddle as Quiet Creepy Guy — decide to play GHOST HUNTERS by investigating the myriad tales of hauntings that the institution has acquired. To quote a classic, American aphorism: “Big mistake.”

With films such as THE ROOST and THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, director Ti West has managed to deliver old-school, atmospheric chills on a limited budget, and he’s pulled the same feat off with THE INNKEEPERS, creating a ghost tale that’s both witty and scary, with a valuable lesson for us all (i.e. continental breakfast shouldn’t be the only consideration when choosing a hotel). Click on the player to hear my interview with him.

THE INNKEEPERS
Trailer

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Official Website
www.magnetreleasing.com/theinnkeepers

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We Blame Slytherin: Daniel Radcliffe unearths the secret of a hostile spirit in THE WOMAN IN BLACK.

The balmy days of February have triggered an uncommon sense of renewal, nowhere more so than in the cinema, where, after a customarily dismal January (we’re looking at you, THE DEVIL INSIDE), there now come glimmers of hope in the entertaining and atmospheric THE WOMAN IN BLACK. Featuring a post-Potter Daniel Radcliffe as an emotionally ravaged lawyer trying to redeem his career in the British countryside, instead discovering a village where children spontaneously take their lives and an isolated mansion houses a malign spirit and a terrible secret, the film’s a refreshing invocation of the classic ghost story, all the better for coming from British horror-home Hammer.

beabetterbooktalker.com’s Andrea Lipinski joins Cinefantastique Online’s Steve Biodrowski, Lawrence French, and Dan Persons to stir up the spirits and measure the film’s ability to generate scares and creeps. Plus: The gang delivers capsule reviews of CHRONICLE, THE INNKEEPERS, and KILL LIST. Also: What’s coming in theaters and home video.

GOING TO STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE THIS WEEKEND?
TWEET YOUR #WalkAwayReview TO @cfqspotlight
(Please don’t tweet during the movie!)

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Descending Into the Depths: Neil Maskell (left) and Michael Smiley get in over their heads in KILL LIST.

What starts out as common, garden-variety crime thriller turns… bizarre, and then frightening, in director Ben Wheatley’s twisty new film, KILL LIST. The tale of middle class hit-man Jay (Neil Maskell), who with colleague Gal (Michael Smiley) goes out for one more job and discovers blood oaths, strange rites, and disturbingly grateful targets have been thrown into the bargain, the film allows Wheatley to hook the rough-edged shooting style he explored in his debut effort, DOWN TERRACE, to a world that has room for both examinations of a tempestuous home life and the graphic shocks of classic horror. Think IN BRUGES meets THE WICKER MAN, then forget about all that and prepare to get righteously freaked-out.

Click on the player to hear my interview with Wheatley.

UNFORTUNATE TECHNICAL NOTE: Our usual podcast host has started giving us agita, apparently because we are just that popular, so we’ve temporarily switched to another service and had to downgrade our audio quality as a result. We’ll get this snag patched up and be back to the rich, beautiful sound you expect from MMP as soon as possible.

KILL LIST
Trailer

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Facebook Page
www.facebook.com/KillList

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You May Feel a Burning Sensation: Brittania Nicol discovers the secrets of THE WICKER TREE.

A story as relevant as yesterday’s headlines, or too late a tale? Some thirty years ago, Cinefantastique hailed Robin Hardy’s THE WICKER MAN as “the CITIZEN KANE of horror,” lauding the Anthony Shaffer-scripted story of a god-fearing police detective trying  to solve a mystery within a community of Scottish pagans for its bold eroticism and cunning narrative. Now, Hardy has taken his own novel, Cowboys for Christ, and brought it to the screen as THE WICKER TREE, billing it as a “reimagining” of his original triumph.

Cinefantastique Online’s Steve Biodrowski and Dan Persons take a look at this tale of a couple of present-day evangelical missionaries who find they may have bitten off more than can chew in trying to convert the “heathens” of a Scottish village, and discuss how the film fares in its three-plus decade transition. Plus: Oscar 2012 nominations, and what’s coming to theaters and home video.

SEEING THE WOMAN IN BLACK THIS WEEKEND?
TWEET YOUR #WalkAwayReview TO @cfqspotlight
(Please don’t tweet during the movie!)

Continue reading »]]> In the spirit of international cooperation comes INTRUDERS, a new film that kicks it old school in its tale about two children — a boy and a girl — in two, different countries who find themselves menaced by… ssssssomething… that visits them in the middle of the night with intentions that extend well beyond just tucking them in.

Clive Owen and Carice Van Houten star as the girl’s parents, Pilar Lopez De Ayala as the boy’s, and the project was helmed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, whose previous efforts include the well-regarded zombie sequel 28 WEEKS LATER. Hey, we’re just glad this isn’t another entry in the well-worn “found footage” genre — we’re so sick of wildly shaking cameras that we’ve started popping Dramamine before entering the theater.

The film’s opening in UK on the 27th and will be getting to the US in April. Meantime, get your creep on with the trailer below.

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Mother and Child Reunion?: Fernanda Andrade (top) learns the risks of reconnecting with Suzan Crowley in THE DEVIL INSIDE.

What kind of film is worthy of the sacrificial lamb slot that is the first release of January? What sort of slipshod storytelling does it take for audience members to start hurling epithets at the screen as the credits crawl? How disposable is the project when the host of a podcast devoted to genre film repeatedly gets the title wrong? Why, that would be THE DEVIL WITHI… ’scuse us… THE DEVIL INSIDE, yet another attempt to recast horror through the blurry lens of the mockumentary.

Cinefantastique Online’s Steve Biodrowski and Dan Persons ring in the New Year by exploring DEVIL’s flawed theology, shallow characterizations, and ambiguous narrative gambits. And, with the help of input from theofantastique.com’s John W. Morehead, they discuss whether the recent rebirth of the exorcism genre is an accurate reflection of these anxious times. What’s revealed in discussion may surprise you — maybe even more than the film itself.

Also: Steve gives his capsule thoughts on the alien-invasion-in-Moscow flick, THE DARKEST HOUR, and Dan provides takes on THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN and the imaginative fantasy short,  A GOBLIN’S TALE. Plus: What’s coming in theaters.

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A Break for Books: Tintin (Jamie Bell) pauses amidst all the action in THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN.

Time to close the year off with some rip-roarin’ adventure, so why not throw in a little, continental flair in the process? Steven Spielberg has decided to take that route, and make his debut in the animation field, with THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN, a cg-animated film using AVATAR’s performance-capture process and based on the charmingly audacious comic books by the artist Hergé. Starting with a mysterious message found in a model boat and spinning out into grandiose tapestry of action that includes pirate raids, fictional Arabian kingdoms, motorcycle chases, and talented opera singers, the story takes the classic boy reporter/detective (performed and voiced by Jamie Bell) and gives him the kind of adrenaline-filled exploits that only Spielberg can orchestrate.

Click on the player to hear the press conference featuring Steven Spielberg (who fields most of the questions), producer Kathleen Kennedy, stars Bell and Nick Frost, and WETA effects master Joe Letteri.

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN
Trailer

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Official Website:
www.tintin.com

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A Justified War: Robert Downey Jr. (right) faces down Jared Harris in SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS.

Abandon all propriety, ye who enter here. Once again, under the direction of Guy Ritchie and as embodied by Robert Downey Jr, the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes shakes off his tweedy cobwebs and gets down, dirty, and flat-out physical in SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS. Centered around the inevitable confrontation between Holmes and the formidable criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris) — with world-wide stakes — the film takes the consulting detective and his steadfast friend Dr. Watson (Jude Law), plus Noomi Rapace as a self-reliant gypsy, on an epic tale of murder, conspiracy, and life-or-death chess games.

Come join Cinefantastique Online’s Steve Biodrowski, Lawrence French, and Dan Persons as they weigh the merits and demerits of this further retooling of a literary classic. Also: Dan delivers his opinion on the new documentary, CORMAN’S WORLD: EXPLOITS OF A HOLLYWOOD REBEL. Plus: What’s coming in theaters.

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Spies spying on spies spying on spies: Gary Oldman explores an elaborate conspiracy in TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY.

Long for the heady, Cold War days of espionage, when spies were spies, ideologies were economics-based, and there wasn’t all this religious brouhaha muddying up the motivations? (Enhanced interrogation, though, was still pretty much the same thing.) Well, director Tomas Alfredson (LET THE RIGHT ONE IN) takes us back to that furtive, paranoia-laced era in TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY, the big-screen adaptation of John le Carré’s celebrated novel.

Set in the early 70′s and centered on the search for a mole in Britain’s MI6, otherwise known as the Circus, Alfredson rallies a stellar cast — including Gary Oldman as le Carré’s canny spy George Smiley, John Hurt, Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, and Tom Hardy — to tell a tale deception and conspiracy, where friends may not be what they seem and secret masterminds may not be as secret as you might expect. It’s dark, it’s tense, it makes James Bond look like Maxwell Smart’s less-incisive brother.

Click on the player to hear my interview with Alfredson.

TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY
Trailer

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Official Website:
www.tinkertailorsoldierspy.com

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Wagner Moura in ELITE SQUAD: THE ENEMY WITHIN.

Like DIRTY HARRY with a social conscience, the Brazilian film ELITE SQUAD: THE ENEMY WITHIN manages to kick all kinds of righteous ass while delving into the pernicious effect of corruption on those allegedly pledged with looking after the public welfare. The follow-up to 2007′s ELITE SQUAD, ENEMY WITHIN picks up Rio de Janeiro’s hard-line Special Operations Captain Nascimento as he’s kicked upstairs to become the city’s Sub-Secretary of Intelligence and committed to upending the city’s cycle of crime by waging all-out war on the gangs who rule the slums.  Problem is: the war is too successful, and Nascimento finds his victory has released a wave of official corruption that puts him into conflict with his own colleagues.

Director José Padilha built his reputation with the incredible hostage documentary BUS 174, and here demonstrates that the skills that turned news footage into riveting drama are well suited to telling a fictional story that delves into the dark corners of Brazilian society while keeping the audience riveted with intense action.

Click on the player to hear my conversation with Padilha.

ELITE SQUAD: THE ENEMY WITHIN
Trailer

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