Beyond his attention to aesthetic detail, filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has a way of imbuing objects with meaning through their relationships with characters. The most minute, diegetic details become part of the story and play vital roles in the manifestation of character actions and destiny. Nothing in his films are ever done without thoughtful reason or purpose. Del Toro’s use of objects is a meaningful way by which we can explore this mode of mise en scène.

Continue reading Guillermo del Toro’s Everyday Objects & Miraculous Contraptions at The Playlist.

This weekend, eclectic indie filmmaker David Lowery‘s quirky “A Ghost Story” will start heading into cinemas. Starring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck, “A Ghost Story,” shouldn’t work. A moving and existential movie about longing, love, sadness and the immensity of time, it’s about a man that dies, but lingers as an apparition as his wife eventually moves on with her life. But it’s a movie where the ghost is simply a white sheet over Casey Affleck’s head, but nonetheless, the experience is still deeply emotional and profound, creating a spellbinding picture about loss told from the point of view of silent, motionless ghost.

Continue reading Essentials: 20 Of The Best Ghost Movies 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.

It’s the beginning of the spookiest month of the year, so it’s no accident that this week will see the release of one of the best horror films of the year, Babak Anvari‘s “Under the Shadow” (our review). It was well received at Sundance and throughout the year at its various festival berths, but if you haven’t heard as much about it as you did about, say, “The Babadook” or “The Witch,” there’s a simple reason: although it’s a U.K.

Continue reading The 25 Best Foreign Language Horror Movies Of All Time at The Playlist.

By the pricking of my thumbs, a holiday-themed list feature this way comes. Yep, All Hallow’s Eve is almost upon us, and while the temptation to do some kind of “Before I Go To Sleep“-themed feature was a great one, we thought we should put together something appropriately spooky to get you in the mood for tomorrow night’s festivities.

So, during a break from making our costumes for the annual Playlist Halloween party (popular choices this year: the Babadook, Kevin Feige, Alexander from “Alexander and The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” box-office receipts for “Sin City 2,” a GamerGater), we’ve been considering the state of recent horror.

Continue reading The 25 Best Horror Films Of The 21st Century So Far at The Playlist.