2024-04-12 14:57
Raising twin teen boys is a harrowing enough proposition, but when you have to raise twin teen boys in the middle of an end-of-the-world scenario, it’s even more fraught with peril. An… Read More
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The Last Thing I See Blog
thelastthingisee.com
A long-running film blog for fans of movies where things explode, people get kicked in the face, and genre cinema of all stripes.
2024-03-20 16:24
A big part of the charm of Rowdy Harrington’s 1980 cult classic Road House is, aside from Patrick Swayze kicking all the ass and being cool as hell while doing it, how straight-faced i… Read More
2024-02-23 17:48
There’s nothing quite like watching a movie missing much of the connective tissue between scenes to make you appreciate that facet that so often goes unnoticed and underappreciated. Yo… Read More
2024-02-16 18:25
Lights Out knows what you came to see. (And it's not the horror Lights Out.)You came to see Frank Grillo throw down. And throw down he does. Constantly. It’s also precisely the movie i… Read More
2024-02-14 21:12
In Land of Bad, Liam Hemsworth plays Kinney, an inexperienced communications officer embedded on an op with a hardened Delta Force team. Unqualified and in far over his head, he’s only… Read More
2024-02-02 17:35
“Let me tell you about the days of high adventure.” If your first impulse upon hearing this line from Conan the Barbarian was to giggle and go, “heh, high,” then have… Read More
2024-01-26 20:32
Say what you will about writer/director Jade Halley Bartlett’s debut feature, Miller’s Girl, and we’ll get to that in a moment, this movie truly understands the cinematic p… Read More
2024-01-18 18:10
The hardest movies to write about are the ones that are fine, the ones that are just kind of okay. Where there’s nothing specifically wrong with them, where there aren’t glaring… Read More
2024-01-11 20:36
We’re barely into 2024 and so far, the new movie releases have twice returned to the guy-with-a-mundane-job-who-used-to-be-a-government-agent well. First came Renny Harlin’s The… Read More
2024-01-05 20:35
When you have a checkered past, a new, idyllic life complete with a pregnant wife and newly minted hopes and dreams, and are a badass fighter, you know you’re utterly, absolutely screw… Read More
2024-01-04 20:32
It makes a great deal of sense that Renny Harlin’s The Bricklayer was once earmarked as a Gerard Butler vehicle. Butler remains a producer, while Aaron Eckhart takes the role of former… Read More
2024-01-03 20:04
Since we’ve already taken the time to look back on the year that was 2023, it only makes sense to now turn our gaze forward, toward the cinematic future. With that in mind, here are my… Read More
2023-12-26 19:00
It’s that time of year again. 2023 has wound down, the holidays, whatever that looks like for you, are here, and this is the natural moment to look back at the last 12 months and talk… Read More
2023-12-01 20:01
John Woo is arguably the greatest action director of all time. So, you better believe when the master drops a dialogue-free Christmas-themed revenge movie, I am all over that. Silent Night s… Read More
2023-11-10 17:51
For his first two features, writer Michael Kennedy has used essentially the same strategy. He takes an iconic movie plot and asks, but what if it was a slasher? There’s 2020’s Fr… Read More
2023-10-26 15:35
Epic scope and scale on a bargain-basement budget. That might be the best way to describe DTV action auteur Jesse V. Johnson’s newest film, Boudica: Queen of War, starring Olga Kurylen… Read More
2023-09-22 14:22
I think I love the way Brian Duffield’s brain works. Spontaneous is easily one of my favorite and most re-watched movies of the last few years; Love and Monsters, which he wrote but di… Read More
2023-08-11 18:04
A young woman, frantic and covered in blood, flees unknown pursuers. An older woman, a fixer with an as-yet-undefined degenerative condition, is tasked with tracking her down and stopping he… Read More
2023-07-28 19:07
What if you could save your life at a certain point and, if you die unexpectedly, can then reset to that moment, like a video game? That’s the general idea of director Robert Hloz&rsqu&hell…Read More
2023-07-27 17:11
The easiest, most obvious comparison point for director Kim Jae-hoon’s Devils is John Woo’s 1997 Face/Off. While not an exact one-to-one correlation, the two are similar enough t… Read More
2023-07-26 15:29
It’s hard to make a movie about two people alone in a car compelling. It’s been done, but unfortunately for Sympathy for the Devil, that’s not one of the film’s stron… Read More
2023-07-21 20:29
After messing with vampires and Frankenstein, in Habit and Depraved respectively, indie horror fave Larry Fessenden returns with his take on werewolves in Blackout. Set in a small town in up… Read More
2023-07-17 20:13
Wait, it’s been a year already? I guess that’s what happens when time loses all meaning. The good news, however, is that since a year has passed it’s already time for the 2… Read More
2023-07-07 16:41
If you’re a fan of action movies, you owe it to yourself to dive into the filmography of no-budget Ugandan film studio Wakaliwood. Shot in a slum, with budgets that top out in the hund… Read More
2023-06-22 19:12
When a Satanic cult murders his ex-wife and abducts his teenage daughter, small town detective Bob Hightower (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), more of a housecat than a badass lawman, must team up wi… Read More
2023-06-16 16:52
You’ve seen this opening countless times in an endless parade of Lifetime movies. It’s the day of the big wedding. Everyone is at the church. The handsome groom hangs out with hi… Read More
2023-06-08 19:16
“Death is a disease,” begins writer/director Bomani J. Story’s The Angry Black Girls and Her Monster. “And if death is a disease, there’s a cure.” And tha… Read More
2023-06-01 17:25
By the time you get to the third installment of a franchise, you often know what to expect. Sometimes that can be repetitive and stale, but when it comes to The Roundup: No Way Out, the sequ… Read More
2023-05-25 16:59
As the protagonist of The Night of the 12th says, every investigator has one case that haunts them, that they never solved and can’t let go. They let you know from the jump exactly how… Read More
2023-05-25 13:29
What if Romeo and Juliet but with warring small town Italian farm mob families? That’s the basic conceit of Pippo Mezzapesa’s Burning Hearts, where a forbidden romance shatters a… Read More
2023-05-24 17:56
You ever have a friend that trouble just seems to find no matter what? They’ll be walking down the street or riding the bus, minding their own business, and someone always talks shit o… Read More
2023-05-23 16:24
When a pair of criminal brothers on the run attempt to find shelter from a storm in an isolated farmhouse inhabited by a reclusive family, they get much more than they bargained for as the… Read More
2023-05-22 16:49
Nowadays we think of the Satanic Panic of the 1980s as almost quaint, forgetting how it decimated countless lives and gripped the country in a destructive frenzy. One talking head in Satan W… Read More
2023-05-19 12:45
Well, Egghead & Twinkie is freaking adorable. In Sarah Kambe Holland’s twee, lo-fi indie comedy, when trans-racial adoptee Twinkie comes out to her conservative parents it doesn&rs&hell…Read More
2023-05-19 12:45
When a young orphan nurse takes a job caring for an ailing baroness at a remote estate, you know spookiness is about to happen. And filmmaker Marie Alice Wolfszahn’s Mother Superior do… Read More
2023-05-18 19:02
Last time they went to freaking space. In a Pontiac Fiero! So, the biggest question about Fast X, the tenth chapter in the Toretto-centric saga of Southern-California-car-enthusiasts-turned… Read More
2023-05-18 12:58
Among fans, the Star Wars Holiday Special is a kind of myth, an artifact some have seen but that’s spoken of as a fable. In reality, it’s an ill-advised lunatic oddity aimed to c… Read More
2023-05-17 16:35
Comedians making horror movies or otherwise moonlighting in the genre is nothing new. And then there’s the oft repeated adage about the fine line separating the two—just look at… Read More
2023-05-17 12:44
To viewers of a certain age, the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow holds an infamous spot in our collective memory. For many ‘90s kids, it was our introduction to an updated carnival geek/freak… Read More
2023-05-16 17:30
In certain circles, experimental metal band Earth is revered with a sense of mythic awe. Heavily influential, especially to the early grunge era and continuing today, Clyde Petersen’s… Read More
2023-05-15 19:48
A sucker for documentaries that explore the most niche, off-the-beaten-path slices of life, Abby Hagan’s film, Punderneath it All, about the world of puns, punning, and pun slams, is f… Read More
2023-05-15 19:47
Douglas Sirk was the master of American melodrama, his films commercial juggernauts while being largely panned critically. Roman Huben’s documentary, Douglas Sirk—Hope as in Desp… Read More
2023-05-12 12:58
Set in 778, director Paul Urkijo’s Irati follows a young man and woman tasked by a witch to travel deep into a strange, remote forest to retrieve a corpse and claim a birthright. Been… Read More
2023-05-11 17:07
Falcon Lake fronts like a horror movie. Grainy 16mm presentation calls to mind early slashers, a genre-esque score layers suspense and tension, a teen girl obsesses over a legendary death, a… Read More
2023-04-28 17:02
What’s worse than dealing with a shark attack? Dealing with a giant shark attack. And what’s worse than dealing with a giant shark attack? Dealing with a giant demon-shark attack… Read More
2023-04-27 20:02
Young martial artist Ria (Priya Kansara) wants to be a professional stunt performer. Her older sister, Lena (Ritu Arya), has dreams of being an artist, though she’s dropped out of art… Read More
2023-04-25 17:11
If John Wick was a sparse Finnish spaghetti western, one full of brutal, graphic carnage and a grizzled, silent protagonist absolutely eviscerating Nazis, it might look quite a bit like writ… Read More
2023-04-20 16:31
Even in the best of circumstances, weddings are stressful as hell. Sure, they’re lovely, joyous occasions, but you’ve got a monumental logistical task, simmering family drama, tr… Read More
2023-04-19 17:54
This is the place where I was going to make a crack about how it’s spring and of course what we really want to do is spend a beautiful weekend day sitting in the dark watching horror m… Read More
2023-04-06 17:54
When a filmmaker sets out to make a movie with a specific political message, all too often the result plays didactic, blunt, and heavy handed, practically screaming, “This is our movie… Read More
2023-03-30 16:30
Fugue, Polish director Agnieszka Smoczynska’s follow up to her coming-of-age mermaid-horror-musical The Lure, originally premiered in 2018, but is just now receiving a U.S. release. An… Read More
2023-03-29 13:47
When star Marko Zaror and writer/director Ernesto Diaz Espinoza team up, you damn well better believe we’re paying attention. When this Chilean duo gets together, we get movies like Ki… Read More
2023-03-13 13:39
It doesn’t always happen, in fact it’s pretty rare, but every once in a while my movie tastes line up with the Oscars. This just so happens to be one of those years. Everything E… Read More
2023-03-01 17:28
Writer/director Shal Ngo’s feature debut, The Park, is a tale of opposite forces, both colliding and pulling against each other. Playfulness crashes into sadism, goofiness bangs heads… Read More
2023-02-09 20:37
There are certainly examples I like quite a bit—Trollhunter, the Rec films, a few others—but for the most part, I don’t and never have enjoyed found footage as a cinematic… Read More
2023-02-07 19:29
Ah, summer camp, where generations of teens have gone to learn outdoor skills, fall in love, lose their virginity, and subsequently be murdered by either psychotic killers or supernatural fo… Read More
2023-02-03 17:54
There are two kinds of Frank Grillo movies, Frank-Grillo-gives-a-shit and Frank-Grillo-doesn’t-give-a-shit. Essentially projects he cares about and jobs he takes for a paycheck, and it… Read More
2023-01-25 20:19
A lazy, layabout slacker, a missing brother, and a pack of anthropomorphized cats bent on executing sketchy pet shop owners. That’s the basic premise of writer/director Reiki Tsuno&rsq&hell…Read More
2023-01-24 17:01
The 95th Academy Award nominations are here…and that’s all I really have to say on the matter. Some of these are great and I agree with them. Others, as usual, are absolute head… Read More
2023-01-23 20:40
Horror, particularly some version of an internalized monster, as a metaphor for emerging sexuality, burgeoning romantic feelings, and family life engulfed in turmoil is nothing new. In My An… Read More
2023-01-20 17:55
If you’re ever a criminal and think to yourself, “I’m out after this one last job,” just walk away. Right there. Right then. Seriously, nothing good will come from yo… Read More
2023-01-19 16:49
All the important bits are right there in the name: Kids vs. Aliens. There are kids, there are aliens, and they fight. That’s the gist of director Jason Eisener’s first feature s… Read More
2023-01-17 19:11
Children are creepy. The woods are creepy. Children in the woods? Creepy. This fact, above all else, is what There’s Something Wrong With the Children, the new movie from Roxanne Benja… Read More
2023-01-09 20:23
Movies are pretty cool. A bold statement, I know. One of the perks (responsibilities that require additional work) of this job is that at the end of the year I get to shout out my favorite f… Read More
2023-01-05 18:46
If you look at M3GAN, the new dancing uncanny valley murder doll movie from Blumhouse, writers Akela Cooper and James Wan (the duo behind Malignant), and director Gerard Johnston (Housebound… Read More
2023-01-03 19:13
It’s that time again. The time of year where we pour over what we’ve watched in the past year and whittle it down to our favorites. Not my preferred activity; as I’ve said… Read More
2022-12-29 17:46
As 2022 winds to a close, what better time to look forward? This year has been another fantastic one for film. (People who decry any year as a bad movie year blows my mind, because there&rsq&hell…Read More
2022-12-20 17:53
Damien Chazelle’s latest opus, Babylon is a lot of movie. It might be the most movie of any movie of the year. At three-plus hours it’s a bloated and overflowing; an ode to … Read More
2022-12-16 17:11
To be completely honest, outside of extant fans of the great Michael Jai White, his latest, As Good As Dead, probably has limited appeal. However, those who dig the world of low-budget ass-k… Read More
2022-12-14 20:22
Remember to tip people who work in restaurants, and tip them well. Not only is it polite, but they have also unfettered access to do unspeakably vile things to your food should the need aris… Read More
2022-12-07 19:01
Military technology repurposed as family-friendly holiday entertainment, what could possibly go wrong? That’s the basic premise of Joe Begos’ Christmas Bloody Christmas, the late… Read More
2022-11-11 18:02
So…I like Don’t Worry Darling, Olivia Wilde’s much-discussed tabloid-fodder sophomore feature, well enough. At its best, this modern iteration of a Stepford Wives-style dy… Read More
2022-10-20 16:35
Kids in small towns spend a lot of time wishing for something, anything to happen. In Nyla Innuksuk’s feature directorial debut, the sci-fi horror Slash/Back, a group of friends g… Read More
2022-10-14 16:27
A long-lost documentary about an isolated Peruvian penal colony directed by a long-time collaborator of Werner Herzog? You had me at hello, Sepa: Nuestro Senor de los Milagros (Sep… Read More
2022-10-06 17:05
“How come you’re always covered in blood?” This single line of dialogue between characters accurately encapsulates Project Wolf Hunting, the new action movie… Read More
2022-10-03 20:46
The Elderly, from Spanish co-directors Raul Cerezo and Fernando Gonzalez Gomez, taps into a number of primal, deep-seated fears. Ideas of our bodies aging and betraying us touch on body horr… Read More
2022-09-30 15:48
At a glance, the story of Ana Lily Amirpour’s Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon is relatively straightforward. When Mona Lisa Lee (Jean Jong-seo, Burning) escapes a mental in… Read More
2022-09-29 16:53
In the opening scene of Walter Hill’s new western, Dead for a Dollar, bounty hunter Max Borlund (Christoph Waltz) visits outlaw Joe Cribbens (Willem Dafoe) as he’s about to… Read More
2022-09-28 18:32
From the jump, A Wounded Fawn, the latest from director Travis Stevens (Girl on the Third Floor, Jakob’s Wife), flaunts its Italian influences, from the grainy, shot-on-16mm… Read More
2022-09-28 00:30
A title like All Jacked Up and Full of Worms evokes certain images and anarchic feelings. But I’m here to say that Alex Phillips’ movie by that very accurate name invol… Read More
2022-09-26 18:49
Is there intelligent alien life out there? It’s a question that’s dogged humanity since we first looked up at the stars. And it’s also the central question in the life of A… Read More
2022-09-20 17:16
There’s a lot going on in Section 8, a lot. Director Christen Sesma (Paydirt) and writer Chad Law (Daylight’s End, Close Range) and Josh Ridgway (Howlers) crafts a hodg… Read More
2022-09-13 19:24
You have to love a good rock and roll vanity project. Usually in these situations, a single band or musician is the driving force, but in the case of The Retaliators, it’s finance… Read More
2022-09-12 15:12
D23, which his essentially Disney’s version of Comic-Con or similar pop culture brouhahas. It was a massive unveiling of news, trailers, casting, release dates, and all the related acc… Read More
2022-08-08 18:25
I’m a sucker for documentaries about punk, metal, or really any other musical genre popping up in places you don’t normally expect. Death Metal Angola, Los Ultimos Frik… Read More
2022-08-04 20:17
A frenetic action movie about a tired-of-life assassin that begins with a hatchet fight? From the director and star of The Swordsman? Uh, that’s a big old hell yes from around the… Read More
2022-08-03 17:28
Yoo Min-ho (So Ji-seob, A Company Man) is arrested for killing his mistress, but released on bail as his trial is in progress. Fleeing the prying eyes of the media, he retreats to an is… Read More
2022-08-01 16:15
With Dark Glasses, his first film since 2012’s Dracula 3D, horror legend Dario Argento wants to remind you that, even at 81, he can still make a Dario Argento movie. Most, or… Read More
2022-07-26 17:38
Just a heads up right out of the gate, Paid in Blood has been marketed as a fast-paced action film, which it is decidedly not. Despite a few quick flurries, there’s really on… Read More
2022-07-22 19:16
If you’ve spent any time on the road, you probably know highway rest stops can get weird. Sometimes very weird. What director Rebekah McKendry’s (All the Creatures Were Stirring)… Read More
2022-07-22 16:56
Do you like empty posturing and stylistics, faux clever banter, saccharine emotional manipulation, dubious (meaning nonexistent) character motivation, wannabe cool needle drops, and a series… Read More
2022-07-20 16:23
As a concept, writer/director Park Dae-min’s Special Delivery plays like a riff on stories like Drive or The Transporter. A solitary, hot-shot driver, against… Read More
2022-07-19 12:53
Ma Dong-seok, also known as Don Lee, just wrecking dudes, is a true thing of beauty. That single fact is more than enough reason to watch a movie; I’ve watched movies for far, far less… Read More
2022-07-12 14:18
The past few years, Canada’s Fantasia International Film Festival has become one of my favorite cinematic showcases on the calendar. Probably because it caters to all manner of genre w… Read More
2022-07-07 21:23
Take four people with intricately overlapping personal histories, drop them in a remote location, and stir. It’s a classic horror cocktail, simple, straightforward, and effective when… Read More
2022-07-06 20:35
Do you have one of those friends who tells a joke, and when you don’t laugh, they proceed to poke you in the ribs, like, “Huh, right, get it? Get it?” If you know this pers… Read More
2022-07-01 17:23
It’s entirely understandable if you don’t automatically assume a movie about a teenage member of a royal family titled The Princess, released by a Disney property, features… Read More
2022-06-16 20:47
Park Hoon-jung’s The Witch: Part 1—Subversion is a deliberately paced, gradual build toward a brutal, bloody action/horror/sci-fi hybrid. It takes its time to lay the g… Read More
2022-05-31 17:32
“Fuck the rest of them, fuck ‘em all but us.” So goes the refrain in a song written by Simon (Kyle Gallner, Veronica Mars) and Patty (Emily Skeggs, The Mise… Read More
2022-05-16 16:36
A group of college friends on a drunken spring break excursion “borrow” a pair of jet skis for a fun, alcohol-fueled jaunt into unfamiliar waters where no one knows they’re… Read More
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