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J uly 27th, 2007: twenty-five days after her milestone 21st birthday, Lindsay Lohan’s latest star vehicle—the intriguingly titled, mid-budget brainfuck I Know Who Killed Me—was laid bare upon 1,320 North American screens. In a statement issued to gutter rag TMZ almost a month to the day afterward, the erstwhile Disney princess candidly declared: “I am addicted…

V ery few performers nail neurosis like Julianne Moore. Between her stupefying embodiment of a housewife on the brink in Todd Haynes’ terrific Safe (1995), tightly-wound turns in a sprawling pair of PT Andersons (Boogie Nights, 1997; Magnolia, 1999), the contemptible social climber at the core of Tom Kalin’s Savage Grace (2007), a nuanced metamorphosis of…

[Candy is currently available to stream on Hulu in the U.S. Other territories to be confirmed.] T he concept of a “perfect crime” may well be best suited to the lurid pages of hardboiled fiction, but if ever a bona fide baddie has gotten away with murder, it’s Candy Montgomery. Accused of thwacking to death—forty-one…

[The screenplay excerpts contained herein are my own creation; it was not my intent to imitate the work of Brian De Palma/Robert J. Avrech—I have not read their script for Body Double.] A great set piece is to the suspense film what fresh air is to oxygen: imperative. More so than story, dialogue, or performance,…

I f there’s a mentality to which every single one of us can relate, it is that of not having accomplished enough in our adult lives. There appears to be a customary juncture, somewhere around the age of thirty, at which you are expected to “have it all”: successful career, busy social life, marriage, a…

T he relationship between psychiatry and the movies has long been fraught with failure. For every well-intentioned cinematic dive into the catacombs of mental illness, there are countless stories that have bypassed authenticity for the glamour of tone-deaf sensationalism. The setting of an asylum, particularly, has proved time and again to be a prosperous fount…

I f there was one thing that hounded me in the weeks and months following the miseries I endured whilst in the ensnarement of a manipulative abuser, it was the fear of not being believed. A fear so scorching it made me question my own sanity. Had these heinous acts of emotional violence really occurred?…

F or those who subscribe to such theories, the 1st of November marks the advent of the Feast of All Saints: a day upon which Roman Catholics commemorate the saints and martyrs who, throughout Christian lore, have been granted celestial residency. Log on to Twitter-dot-com at 00:00 this same day, however, and you will see…

“M u-uum! Pur-leaaase!” I remember it like it was yesterday: our local independent video shop, its sharp fluorescent ceiling lights flooding down over twelve-year-old me and mother dearest, whose stern visage told that she was decidedly unimpressed by the ‘15’ rated videotape I was waving about in front of her. This was far from the…

“I mitation is the sincerest form of flattery”, the brilliant Oscar Wilde once affirmed. An irrefutable game changer for big-screen scares, it’s no real surprise to spot the narrative crux and mesmeric visual witchery of 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby—Roman Polanski’s insidious reading of the satanic Ira Levin page-turner—looming palpably over The Perfume of the Lady in…