Tag: thriller

‘Rojo’ is an unconventional, smoldering slow burn

Jeff Mitchell

“Rojo” – It’s 1975 in Argentina.  Looking back at history, but looking forward within writer/director Benjamin Naishtat’s film, a right-wing coup will overthrow Argentina’s President Isabel Peron in a move called the “National Reorganization Process” in March 1976. So, in 1975, the country’s politics are uncertain, but life still goes on.  Adults work.  Kids learn in school.  Families enjoy harmony and also fall into disagreements.  Households pay their mortgages. Couples go out to dinner. It’s a lovely early evening, and Claudio (Dario Grandinetti) – a prominent lawyer who everyone in…

‘The Lighthouse’ is a mesmerizing visual feast…and a rudderless waste of time

Jeff Mitchell

“The Lighthouse” – Robert Eggers’ follow-up to his eerie, creepy horror film “The Witch” (2015) (4/4 stars) is an equally eerie, creepy drama about two weathered men watching over a lonely lighthouse. There’s little doubt that this visual feast sets a disturbing tone, as “The Lighthouse” has an Ingmar Bergman-“Hour of the Wolf”-thing working greatly in its favor.  Filmed entirely in black and white and almost exclusively with a 1:1 aspect ratio (or very close to it), Eggers delivers a horrible sense of doom on a teeny, tiny island near…

31 Scary Movies: ‘The Vanishing’

Jeff Mitchell

“The Vanishing” (1988) – An attractive Dutch couple Rex (Gene Bervoets) and Saskia (Johanna ter Steege) are taking a holiday and traveling to France.  With a pair of bikes on the roof and plenty of snacks in the back seat, this loving pair seem to have plenty of bright years ahead of them.  Their trip and lives, however, become ripped apart, when Saskia suddenly vanishes into thin air during a random gas station stop. This is the ghastly premise for director George Sluizer’s thriller “The Vanishing”, and he weaves his camera…