Sean McClannahan

After the poor critical and box office reception of Psycho III, Universal found themselves in a tight predicament. Opting not to follow up with screenwriter Charles Edward Pogue ‘s follow-up pitch that would have seen Norman escaping from a mental institution to sabotage a tourist attraction made out of his

A sharp example of dreadful atmosphere with minimal production design, Brad Anderson‘s Session 9 is an acute psychological horror film that takes advantage of it’s bare narrative formula and successfully for the most part relies on character and mood to let the tension and creepy setting get under your skin.

Like a failed monster experiment running around in nihilistic rage, confused about it’s own identity and rapidly falling apart at the seams, Suicide Squad is a sight to behold. David Ayer’s monstrous creation seems to have been stolen from his lab and you can see that outside experimentation has created

If Paul Feig has proven anything in his previous work, it’s that he knows how to build characters and he understands comedy. Working strongly in Feig’s Ghostbusters are the appealing characters and the powerful chemistry that they all have with one another. There’s also some great world building here that

[tps_header][/tps_header] Lpickell@wcgworld.comAfter X-Men: Days of Future Past turned out much better than I expected, imagine my disheartened surprise to learn that director Bryan Singer happened to land a hail mary pass, because X-Men: Apocalypse shows me that even though Singer is still suiting up to earn his paycheck – his

It’s been another great year for movie releases this past year and though it pains me to say that I didn’t have the opportunity to review some titles that could have made this list such as Anomalisa, there were enough good times at the movies last year to make doing

Exactly how I would describe Star Wars: The Force Awakens is that I immediately felt something familiar and exciting just after the opening scrawl of text prepared me for an brand new galactic adventure set 30 years after the Return of the Jedi. Yes, Disney and J.J. Abrams are purposefully retreading the same beats as the

Saoirse Ronan wears her heart on her sleeve as young hopeful Irish immigrant Eilis Lacey in Brooklyn, an adaptation of the Colm Toibin novel by screenwriter Nick Hornby and directed by John Crowley. Ronan’s charm and vulnerability adds up to the strongest performance of her career, and Crowley’s poetic vision

It’s becoming more and more rare these days that movies don’t pander or insult my intelligence. Then Spotlight comes along like a blessing and completely restores my faith in modern cinema. Bouncing back from that awful Adam Sandler dud earlier this year, director Tom McCarthy not only delivers the most thrilling and

There are many good things one could mention about Black Mass: the stellar direction by Scott Cooper, the chilling performance by Johnny Depp supported by a phenomenal supporting cast — Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon, Corey Stoll, Peter Sarsgaard, Julianne Nicholson, Adam Scott, Juno Temple, Jesse Plemons and Dakota Johnson — cinematographer Masanobu

The late Wes Craven wasn’t pleased with how New Line Cinema originally treated him on the A Nightmare On Elm St. deal, and it was due to Craven’s frustration that in 1989 he created one of the most bizarre horror movie characters of the 80s. The maniacal Horace Pinker was

It’s no easy task to overcome the trappings of the familiar biopic formula that’s caused the genre to fall victim to it’s own predictability. The best example of avoiding such tired clichés would be the brilliant Coal Miner’s Daughter, and that was 35 years ago. Thankfully, even though it hits familiar

There are several reasons why Fox’s reboot of Fantastic Four fails to be a satisfying superhero flick, but there are just as many moments of creative ambition that get lost in an incoherent mess that make this movie even more frustrating and disappointing. There’s a schizophrenic nature in Josh Trank’s movie that is

Over the past (nearly) two decades the Mission Impossible franchise has been getting better with each installment, with the exception of the second film directed by John Woo, delivering thrills and excitement. In many ways, they rival the cinematic outings of 007. With a crowded slate of spy movies this year — Spy, Kingsman: The

In 1983, when Harold Ramis and John Hughes created National Lampoon’s Vacation, there was a fading sense of a wild west approach to their comedy that lingered from Saturday Night Live’s rebellious spirit in the late ’70s. The sceenplay that Hughes wrote balanced Ramis’ unruly approach to the disfunctional family dynamic

Trainwreck’s Amy Schumer has really inspired a spark in Judd Apatow. Based on her heartfelt, witty screenplay and vulnerable performance it’s not hard to understand why. This is the first movie to be directed but not written by Apatow, something that definitely sets Trainwreck apart from his previous work. Furthermore, he also collaborated