Campfire Tales (1996)
Aug 25, 2002Horror Anthology
A solid revival of the horror anthology, this tells three stories that all work well. The film also features several before-they-were-known faces
Ron Livingston
The Cooler (2003)
Jul 5, 2004Man with Very Bad Luck
Drama with standout performances. William H. Macy is a loser with perpetual bad luck who is employed by Las Vegas casinos to cool tables that have a winning streak - only for his luck to change when he meets a woman
Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King (2006)
Dec 16, 2008Stephen King Anthology
TV mini-series that adapts eight Stephen King short stories. As with any anthology, the stories vary in quality but are generally quite reasonable
The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009)
Oct 20, 2009Time Travel Romance
Film adaptation of the best-selling story about a romance between a woman and a man with the ability to travel through time. Nicely made if not quite holding the emotional involvement the book did
The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)
Aug 14, 2012Magic Child Appears Out of the Garden
On one level, this sets out to be a warm-hearted fantasy about the appearance of a magic child to a childless couple. On another possibly unintentional level, it is a rather unlikeable film about how two parents continually force a child to conform to the social expectations of those around them
The Conjuring (2013)
Jul 19, 2013Haunting/Possession/"True Story"
Supposedly based on a true story account of a haunting and a possession. A film that feels written entirely by cliches taken from every other haunting and exorcism film, while at the same you cannot deny that Saw and Insidious director James Wan generates a more than fair degree of spooky atmosphere
The 5th Wave (2016)
Jan 31, 2016Alien Invasion/Young Adult
Wannabe in the fad for Young Adult films that turns up dead on arrival. An alien invasion story that takes place without any drama or engagement in anything that happens – indeed, it seems more interested in its teen love triangle than actually combatting the alien threat
The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot (2018)
Mar 15, 2019Aging Assassin's Secret History
Full marks for one of the great deliberately ridiculous titles of all time. The film itself is an oddity that almost seems intended to confound your expectations of it
The Flash (2023)
Jul 29, 2023Comic-Book Superhero
Despite a poor box-office performance and a troubled production behind the scenes, it is a surprise what a good film this is, easily outstripping the last half-dozen MCU films put together