Articles By Laura Di Girolamo
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Reviews
Blood in the Snow Review: 'She Never Died' Is a Fun Feminist Revenge Flick Directed by Audrey Cummings Published Nov 26, 2019She Never Died, the third feature from Canadian director Audrey Cummings and the followup/flipside to 2015's horror-comedy He Never Died, is...
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Features
'Doctor Sleep' Director Mike Flanagan Reveals the Pressure of Adapting His Hero Stephen King Published Nov 06, 2019This week, director Mike Flanagan's adaptation of Stephen King's continuation to The Shining, Doctor Sleep, hits theatres. The novel is spra...
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Reviews
'Doctor Sleep' Is a Successful Stephen King Adaptation That Nods to Kubrick Too Directed by Mike Flanagan Published Nov 04, 2019Director Mike Flanagan has made a career out of emotionally intense, thrillingly atmospheric ghost stories, from the classic horror throwbac...
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Reviews
Toronto After Dark Review: 'The Wretched' Maximizes Its Low-Budget Creepy Potential Directed by Brett Pierce and Drew T. Pierce Published Oct 28, 2019The Wretched's style harkens back to late '90s / early 2000s horror that revels in moments of corny, deranged, gleefully freaky fun, like a...
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Reviews
Toronto After Dark Review: '8: A South African Horror Story' Offers Tropes Unfamiliar to Western Audiences Directed by Harold Hölscher Published Oct 24, 20198: A South African Horror Story is a welcome respite from cookie-cutter possession films, owing in large part to its commitment to highlight...
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Reviews
Toronto After Dark Review: 'Paradise Hills' Is Visually Stunning and That's Nearly Enough Directed by Alice Waddington Published Oct 22, 2019Director Alice Waddington's feature debut, Paradise Hills, is the very definition of style over substance — but that's not necessarily a bad...
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Reviews
Toronto After Dark Review: 'Making Monsters' Fails to Exploit Its Influencer Premise Directed by Justin Harding and Rob Brunner Published Oct 22, 2019Making Monsters is a case study in an excellent premise stretched too thin, and a concept that doesn't have enough legs to sustain an entire...
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Reviews
Toronto After Dark Review: 'The Odd Family: Zombie On Sale' Is an Absurd but Fresh Zombie Take Directed by Lee Min-jae Published Oct 21, 2019The Odd Family: Zombie On Sale is the type of film that's a mainstay at the Toronto After Dark Film Fest: a gleefully silly, constantly movi...
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Reviews
'Harpoon' Is an Amusing Three-Jerks-on-a-Boat Horror Directed by Rob Grant Published Oct 07, 2019A bottle movie is hard to pull off, and even more so when you're imbuing that tense energy with gleefully gory black comedy. But Harpoon man...
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Features
'IT Chapter Two' Director Andy Muschietti and Producer Barbara Muschietti Share How Stephen King's Epic Became Two Films Published Sep 05, 2019Stephen King's It is an epic behemoth of a book. Both the 1990 It miniseries and the present film iteration split their adaptation into two...
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Reviews
'IT Chapter Two' Is an Appropriate Conclusion but Lacks Spark Directed by Andy Muschietti Published Sep 04, 2019Stephen King's IT is a colossal book, in more ways than one. Over the course of a thousand pages, King tracks the nature of evil, violence,...
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Reviews
'Ready or Not' Is a Fun Horror About Games the Stupidly Rich Play Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett Published Aug 21, 2019It's been over 30 years, and no film has been able to capture the same frantic energy and dark, campy humour as the original Clue, a box off...
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Reviews
'The Peanut Butter Falcon' Is a Familiar Road Adventure With a Fresh Perspective Directed by Michael Schwartz and Tyler Nilson Published Aug 21, 2019It would have been easy for The Peanut Butter Falcon to fall prey to all the most egregious inspirational indie film stereotypes, and end up...
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Reviews
'The Kitchen' Is a Not-Quite-Satisfying Revenge Fantasy Directed by Andrea Berloff Published Aug 09, 2019The Kitchen is not a subtle film; it's messy, unfocused, and occasionally paints characters in broad caricature. But elevated by fantastic p...
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Reviews
'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark' Tones Down Its Paranormal Adventures Directed by André Øvredal Published Aug 08, 2019When the announcement came that the André Øvredal and Guillermo del Toro-helmed film adaptation of Alvin Schwartz's classic kid's book serie...
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Reviews
'Midsommar' Lays Humanity Bare at a Swedish Hippie Festival Directed by Ari Aster Published Jul 01, 2019There's a scene early on in Midsommar where our central cast of blissfully unaware tourists are driving to a once-in-a-century Scandanavian...
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Reviews
'Annabelle Comes Home' Has Fun with Its Closet of Horrors Directed by Gary Dauberman Published Jun 26, 2019Annabelle Comes Home isn't much more than spooky funhouse nonsense, but that's all it needs to be — and for the third film in a spinoff fran...
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Features
'Godzilla: King of the Monsters' co-star Thomas Middleditch on Family Drama, Monster Fights and Striving for an Environmental Message Published May 30, 2019Everyone's favourite Japanese dinosaur, Godzilla, since his 1954 debut, has represented society's fears about apocalyptic destruction as a r...
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Reviews
'Godzilla: King of the Monsters' Nods to Climate Crisis, But Thrives on Monster Carnage Directed by Michael Dougherty Published May 29, 2019Everyone's favourite giant Japanese lizard, Godzilla has always represented, since his 1954 debut, society's fears about apocalyptic destruc...
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Reviews
'Thriller' Wastes Its Opportunity to Tell a Different Slasher Story Directed by Dallas Jackson Published Apr 12, 2019Thriller's cool grindhouse-inspired poster and predominantly black cast could hint towards a sly sendup of a formulaic genre, a revisionist...