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.

It’s the witching hour, and we’re just in time to serve you our final frightening dish in our Halloween-themed horror banquet. We’ve discussed the best of the genre from the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, and this century, the best foreign-language horrors, and some of the most visually stunning on-screen nightmares we’ve ever seen. Now it’s time to shine a spooky light on 25 riveting performances in horror films. Ranging from as early as the 1930s all the way to the present, the men and women who populate this article have kept us awake on many nights, sent currents of chill down our spine, and, in a few cases, made us laugh just as readily as they made us scamper to the nearest blanket.

Continue reading The 25 Best Performances In Horror 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.

Continuing our onslaught of horror features in the name of Halloween (here’s The 15 Best Found Footage Horror Films Ever; Best Horror Films of the 1970s; Best Horror Films of the 1980s; The 25 Best Foreign Language Horror Films Ever and there’s much more to come), today we celebrate an element that often gets overlooked in genre films: the look. Through meticulous production design and foreboding cinematography, the imagery in a horror film illuminates the fear of the unknown and the psychological tremors felt by the humans (or non-humans) to a level that can make us whimper just that bit louder or feel our blood run just that bit colder.

Continue reading 15 Visually Stunning Horror Films at The Playlist.

Being a filmmaker can sometimes be a bit like being a medieval parent. The smart thing to do is to have as many children as possible, because the growing-up process is so fraught with danger that not all of them are going to make it to adulthood. It’s why, when directors get some heat, you’ll often find them developing or becoming attached to more projects than they could ever make, in part because they’re overflowing with ideas, and in part just in the hope that one gets through the system the next time they have a free slot.

Continue reading The A-Z Of The Lost & Unmade Movies Of Guillermo Del Toro 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.

Continue reading Mark Pellington Still Attached, And Getting Tired Of Waiting Around To Direct ‘The Orphanage’ at The Playlist.

During our lengthy interview, he discussed the now-dead collaboration with Guillermo del Toro, a remake of “The Orphanage” that he has since departed. The issues? Evidently the same struggles scores of filmmakers point to when working on remakes.

Continue reading Exclusive: Larry Fessenden Talks Aborted ‘Orphanage’ Remake; Hopes To Work With Guillermo del Toro Again at The Playlist.

Continue reading ‘The Thing’ Prequel Shoots In March; ‘The Orphanage’ Remake Gets A Director; Punch Is ‘Earthbound’ & Bergman Gets Biopic at The Playlist.

2007 was another near spectacular year and basically everything from 2005 on is some damn fine cinema.

At Cannes in ’07, Cristian Mungiu ‘s Romanian abortion drama “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” won the Palme d’Or, Gus Van Sant’s “Paranoid Park” won the special 60th anniversary prize and Julian Schnabel would take Best Director for “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.”

The Oscars were finally getting their heads out of their ass in 2007.

Continue reading Best Of The Decade: The Playlist’s Best Films Of 2007 at The Playlist.

Continue reading Larry Fessenden Abandons ‘The Orphanage’ at The Playlist.

He’s also been a major player in the indie film scene, his Glass Eye Pix producing fare like “Wendy And Lucy” and shepherding the work of neophyte helmers like Ti West (“The House of the Devil”).

Continue reading Larry Fessenden, Guillermo Del Toro Form Horror Voltron, Remake ‘The Orphanage’ at The Playlist.

For thirteen year olds and those that care, directors James Mangold (of the very underrated “3:10 To Yuma” remake) and Juan Antonio Bayona (“The Orphanage”) are already circling the the third installment of the “Twilight” franchise according to Anne Thompson.

Titled “Eclipse,” Summit are insisting that no meetings are scheduled with directors yet, but they’re obviously shady bastards not be trusted for an inch.

Continue reading New Directors Already Circling ‘Twilight’ Threequel, ‘Eclipse’? at The Playlist.