Sequels are a tough sell in the horror genre. While there are some great ones every once in a blue moon, most of them are pretty terrible, including the recently released “Halloween Kills.” So, in honor of the terrible sequel issue, this episode of The Playlist Podcast is devoted to talking about horror films that didn’t get a sequel (and didn’t need a sequel) because they’re perfect just how they are.

Continue reading Upset With ‘Halloween Kills?’ Here Are Some Great Horror Films That Weren’t Ruined By Sequels [The Playlist Podcast] at The Playlist.

Pulling off a worthwhile comedy sequel is a monumentally difficult task: after all, for every “Gremlins 2: The New Batch,” there’s a “Hangover Part II.” On March 5, the world will be reunited with Eddie Murphy’s Prince Akeem, the hero of “Coming To America,” one of the most beloved and most-quoted comedies of the 1980s. In order to be considered a success, Amazon’s “Coming 2 America,” directed by Craig Brewer (“Dolemite Is My Name”), has to achieve the impossible: the film must, somehow, satisfy the original’s legion of fans; at the same time, Brewer’s latest has to stand on its own two feet, as its own movie, over three decades after the John Landis-directed first chapter.

Continue reading Eddie Murphy: The Essential Performances at The Playlist.

The 2010s saw the return of a number of forgotten trends: tiny sunglasses, hating “Star Wars,” and – most importantly – the word “horny.” The once juvenile, decidedly-male word has shifted into something greater: more gender-woke, more surreal. “Horny” still refers, of course, to sex, desirous hunger, thirstiness, and this image (and this one too). But it has also evolved to feature many more implications and describes any number of feelings – excitement, transgression, titillation, and intrigue.

Continue reading The Horniest Movies Of The Decade [2010s] at The Playlist.

The 2010s felt like a banner decade for the horror genre. It’s difficult to say that definitively as time is the only thing that can really make that distinction, but as the decade comes to a close, it feels like one that is going to be held up as a “golden era.”

READ MORE: The 25 Best Foreign Language Horror Movies Of All Time

It’s easy to understand why. After a decade filled with remakes, cheap, careless gunk from the likes of Dark Castle and Platinum Dunes, and the “torture porn” movement that metastasized from taking the extreme violence out of the “French New Extremity” (at least in mainstream horror), audiences were yearning for something more adventurous, and filmmakers were more than happy to oblige.

Continue reading The Best Horror Movies Of The Decade [2010s] at The Playlist.

If you took a shot every time you read “Hollywood has a misogyny problem” in 2017, you would be long dead. That doesn’t mean it’s not a point worth belaboring — on the contrary, if the past year of entertainment news has taught us anything, it’s that silence around systemic misogyny only breeds more of the same. You may have heard them before, but the facts are these: men disproportionately dominate the filmmaking industry. Women rarely direct films, and are hardly ever recognized or lauded when they do.

Continue reading 52 Movies Directed By Women In 2017 That You Should Know at The Playlist.

2017 might be done with us, but we’re not exactly done with it. In traditional Playlist form, it’s never quite clear if the world has moved on from the last year during the early days of January, but regardless, we seem to exhaust all possibilities examining, breaking down and parsing the previous year in film.

It might have been a shit show of a year, but movies and quality Peak TV provided us riches and escape.

Continue reading The Best Films Of 2017 You Didn’t See at The Playlist.

While it’s been a rough 2017 overall, It’s been a phenomenal year in film. With that being said, below is a list ranking what I believe are the top 20 films of 2017. It was painstakingly difficult cutting my list of 100 to 50, but even harder from 50 to 20. Some notable films that barely missed the cut include: “Wakefield,” “The Lovers,” “Wonder Woman,” “Baby Driver,” “Super Dark Times,” “It,” “Split,” “Personal Shopper,” “Columbus,” “Menashe” “and yes, I left out the fan favorite, “Dunkirk.” I also want to mention that there are films that I have excluded because I have yet to see them, such as: “Phantom Thread,” “The Darkest Hour,” “BPM,” and  “Molly’s Game” just to name a few.

Continue reading Kyle Kohner’s Top 20 Films Of 2017 at The Playlist.

As we drag ourselves, bloodied and limping across the finish line of 2017, there’s little to celebrate at year’s end in the world outside the movie theater, except for Fyre Festival which is still the greatest and funniest thing ever. But inside the popcorny passageways of our local multiplexes and the hallowed halls of our local arthouses, it’s been a different story — one that may not have led to the kind of clear consensus winners of previous years (even awards season seems unusually open) but that points to a general breadth of quality that is, we believe, reflected here in our Best Films of the Year poll.

Continue reading The Best Films Of 2017 at The Playlist.

The horror films resurgence of the last few years has been a remarkable thing to watch: some of the most exciting new filmmakers to emerge have been working in the genre, and plenty of masters have been doing some of the best work of their careers. And, unsurprisingly, given that waking up every morning in 2017 has been like stepping into a John Carpenter nightmare, the last 12 months has seen the horror boom bigger than ever.

Continue reading The Best Horror Films Of 2017 at The Playlist.

There’s a moment early in “Kissing Candice” that recalls a fake trailer Andy Samberg made for his 2013 Independent Spirit Awards hosting gig, mocking the sort of movies that get nominated for Independent Spirit Awards. The trailer, “Bottlecap,” sells the inspirational story of Bottlecap, whose only desire is to stick her arm out of car windows and roll her hand in the wind. She’s stymied by her father, J.K.

Continue reading ‘Kissing Candice’ Is A Beautifully Shot Female Coming-Of-Age Story [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

We’re firmly into June now, and fast bearing down on the midpoint of 2017, a year that’s shaping up to be the longest goddamn year in history (fun fact: at the start of 2017, Barack Obama was President of the United States!). Fortunately, in between the insanity of the news, it’s been a pretty strong film year on the whole.

Sure, not all of the blockbusters have been great (*side eye to “The Mummy”*), but some have been terrific, and we’ve also seen several great and unexpected movies get their due at the box office.

Continue reading The 25 Best Films Of 2017 So Far at The Playlist.

On this episode of Adjust Your Tracking, Joe and I discuss the importance of going out to the movies and preserving the theatrical experience (especially as streaming outlets are seemingly devaluing it). Then it’s onto the main discussion of new genre mashup films “Personal Shopper” (the ghost story and mystery starring Kristen Stewart from director Oliver Assayas) and “Raw” (the cannibal coming-of-age horror), with the latter film already an early AYT favorite for 2017.

Continue reading Podcast: Adjust Your Tracking Talks Preserving Theatrical Experience, Poly-Genre Films ‘Personal Shopper’ & ‘Raw’ at The Playlist.

One mighty monster conquered the box office this weekend, but whether or not it’s an actual success will be determined in the weeks ahead, and by the number crunchers at Warner Bros.

“Kong: Skull Island” launched with $61 million domestic, beating studio estimates, and added another $81.6 million abroad, for a total global haul of $142.6 million. Whether or not this is a winning debut depends on if you’re looking at the glass half empty or half full.

Continue reading ‘Kong: Skull Island’ Brings A Mighty Roar To The Multiplex [Box Office] at The Playlist.

You better learn to remember the name of French filmmaker Julia Ducournau, who made a big splash last year at Cannes with her take on the cannibal movie, “Raw.” The film, which premiered as part of Critics’ Week, justly won the FIPRESCI prize and set her on the map for cinematic stardom. A new, unique voice was born.

In “Raw,” the 32 year-old writer-director shows surprisingly sharp command and, more importantly, indelible restraint for the usually over-the-top genre.

Continue reading ‘Raw’ Director Julia Ducournau Talks About Her Bloody & Brutal New Horror Film [Interview] at The Playlist.

This is a reprint of our review from the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.

We’ve all known vegetarians who have decided to change their diet out of concern for animal rights or the environment or based upon religious beliefs. And to those who forgo meat, it’s usually a deeply held conviction. Those same people might not be very kind to 32-year-old writer-director Julia Ducournau‘s “Raw.” In it, we meet bright-eyed Justine (Garance Marillier), who follows in the footsteps of both her parents (Laurent Lucas and Joana Preiss) and older sister (Ella Rumpf) by attending her first year at veterinary school.

Continue reading Horror ‘Raw’ Earns Its Bloody Good Buzz [Review] at The Playlist.

Hey, did you hear about the already infamous Best Picture Oscar blunder? Of course you did, since it’s all everyone can talk about in the movie world. That is completely understandable, of course, given the monumental victory by “Moonlight” in the top category, and the immense confusion and awkwardness of the mistake on live television.

But now that March is upon us and spring is not far away, we wish to remind you that 2017 at the movies is in full swing, with a wide array of new releases for any taste or viewing habit.

Continue reading 10 Films To See In March at The Playlist.

There are few genres as enduringly popular — and profitable — as the horror flick. Superheroes and disaster movies and spy actioners and movies based on a holiday featuring Julia Roberts as part of an ensemble cast come and go, but since the silent era, people have consistently liked to go to the movies to have the shit scared out of them.

READ MORE: What Will Be The Biggest Box-Office Blockbuster Of 2017?

Continue reading The 20 Most Exciting Horror Films Coming In 2017 at The Playlist.

It’s been a pretty good year for horror movies with audiences able to turn to both indies like “The Witch” and mainstream fare such as “Don’t Breathe” to get their fix. And one movie that’s already primed to cause a stir in 2017 is “Raw,” especially if the reception on the festival circuit across this summer and fall is any indication. Bursting out of the gate at Cannes Critics’ Week and then reportedly causing people to faint at TIFF, “Raw” has been turning heads, and now you’ll get a taste of what it’s all about with the first trailer.

Continue reading Sate Your Appetite For Horror With The First Red Band Trailer For ‘Raw’ at The Playlist.

Well, here we are, in the brave (terrifying) new (still terrifying) world of 2017. Whatever else we have to expect in the 363 days to come (and actually, the first 48 hours have been pretty good on the whole), it promises to be a good year for the movies, as you might have seen from our 100 Most Anticipated Movies piece a month or so back. But somehow, that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Continue reading The 20 Best Movies Of 2017 That We’ve Already Seen at The Playlist.

I promised my editors that I’d ease off on the ‘2016 was awful’ intros to our year-end features. That said, fuck 2016, right in the eye. It’s been a crappy twelve months personally and politically (though happily not professionally), and for the first six months or so, cinematically too.

But fortunately, the movies came through, and the late summer and fall pulled things back to, if not a classic year of film, at least one with a variety and diversity of great movies of every kind.

Continue reading Oli Lyttelton’s Top 15 Films Of 2016 at The Playlist.

We’ve been having a bit of a horror-fest at The Playlist this month (terrifying Halloween party costumes of choice at Playlist Towers include: Mike Pence, the ghost of the never-made second season of “Vinyl” and Vin Diesel in the high-frame-rate sequences from “Billy Lynn’s Long Half Time Walk”), with the last few weeks serving as something of a potted history of the last half-century or so.

Continue reading The 50 Best Horror Movies Of The 21st Century So Far at The Playlist.

I’ve been going as a punter to the BFI London Film Festival, the biggest and most high-profile in the UK, since 2002. I’ve been covering it for The Playlist since 2009. But I’ve never seen it with a line-up as stacked as it was with the festival that came to an end yesterday, with virtually every major movie from every other festival across the year, plus a bunch of gems and discoveries too, appearing on the slate.

Continue reading The 5 Best Films Of The 2016 BFI London Film Festival at The Playlist.

A few days into October, and we’ve already been spoiled by a fine festival season, from one of the best Venice line-ups ever to a stacked Telluride and TIFF to an NYFF that’s started strong with Ava DuVernay’s tremendous “The 13th.” And across the pond, things are gearing up too: the 60th BFI London Film Festival kicks off on Wednesday.

The festival doesn’t always have the big world premieres that some of the U.S fests do, but the last few years have seen it unfold some of its strongest line-ups ever, and this year might just top them all.

Continue reading 10 Films To Look Out For At The 2016 BFI London Film Festival at The Playlist.

The pedigree of the TIFF People’s Choice Award speaks for itself. Past years has seen films like “Room,” “The King’s Speech,” “The Imitation Game,” “12 Years A Slave,” and “Slumdog Millionaire” earn the coveted prize and go on to awards-season success. Now, in 2016, one of the most buzzed-about movies of the fall has earned the stamp of approval.

Continue reading ‘La La Land’ Wins Coveted TIFF People’s Choice Award, ‘Free Fire’ & ‘Jackie’ Take Top Prizes at The Playlist.

We’ve all known vegetarians who have decided to change their diet out of concern for animal rights or the environment or based upon religious beliefs. And to those who forgo meat, it’s usually a deeply held conviction. Those same people might not be very kind to 32-year-old writer-director Julia Ducournau‘s “Raw.” In it, we meet bright-eyed Justine (Garance Marillier), who follows in the footsteps of both her parents (Laurent Lucas and Joana Preiss) and older sister (Ella Rumpf) by attending her first year at veterinary school.

Continue reading Cannes Review: Julia Ducournau’s Arthouse Horror ‘Raw’ Recalls ‘Suspiria,’ ‘Carrie’ & David Lynch at The Playlist.