Train to Busan Is A Poignant Ride You Won't Want To End

Our current golden age of horror movies doesn't just apply to American horror features like Get Out, A Quiet Place or Hereditary, plenty of recent pieces of foreign horror cinema have also contributed to the onslaught of modern-day high-quality horror fare. Among the very best of those horror films, foreign or otherwise, is Yeon Sang-ho's Train to Busan, a 2016 zombie tale that I finally got around to watching for the first time last week. I'll be forever kicking myself for not discovering this title far sooner. It's been so long since a movie left me so constantly holding my breath in sheer dread and terror. Why did I waste time watching CHiPS when I could have been experiencing Train to Busan??

Mikey and Nicky Dives Headfirst Into A Grim Tone With Exceptional Results

We begin Mikey and Nicky in media res. Something has gone horribly wrong. Nicky (John Cassavetes) is alone in a hotel room profusely sweating after learning a hit has been put out for him. There's only one person he can turn to: his life-long friend Mikey (Peter Falk). Considering they've been pals since childhood, Nicky gives Mikey a ring and asks him to come to the hotel room and help him out of this jam. It isn't long before Mikey arrives and tries to talk Nicky down from his hysterical state. The two proceed to create a plan for Nicky to leave town, but before he can do that, Nicky insists the two friends spend the rest of the night in New York City doing whatever comes into his head.

Us Only Gets More Terrifying The More One Thinks On It

It's time for the Wilson family to get a little beach vacation in Santa Cruz. The four members of this family, Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o), Gabe (Winston Duke), Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex), who serve as the protagonists of Us, are simply looking for a little bit of R&R in their beach house even as Adelaide grapples with this unyielding feeling of despair that Santa Cruz brings out in her. But everything changes when a seemingly ordinary evening is interrupted by the arrival of four strangers in their driveway. It isn't long before it's revealed that these strangers are actually far more familiar than expected, they're doppelgangers of the four family members known as The Tethered. Led by a version of Adelaide known as Red (also played by Lupita Nyong'o), these doubles are set on one thing and one thing only: killing the Wilsons.

White Dog Is an Unflinching And Powerful Look At Racist Violent Behavior

Back in the early 1980's, Paramount Pictures financed a fully completed $7 million budgeted feature film that they proceeded to tuck on a shelf and not release. Such a bold move rarely ever occurs to major movies in Hollywood but then again, White Dog was not a typical motion picture. Hailing from writer/director Samuel Fuller, White Dog was a movie entirely focused on a dog who had been trained by a racist human being to specifically attack black people and such a premise had executives worried about reactions from all kinds of groups ranging from members of the NAACP to charters of the Klu Klux Klan. Thus, the studio behind Monster Trucks canceled its original 1982 theatrical release and the film would not see the light of day (save for a handful of TV airings) until 1991.

Come Sunday Isn't An Enlightening As It Could Have Been

Going against the norm is always a risk in typical societies and that's especially true when one is trying to buck traditional theological norms. As a practicing Christian in Texas, I can tell you first hand that religious communities can be heavily wary, at best, to the prospect of new practices that upend traditional customs. Even recognizing how daunting the process is, it can be important for us as individuals to challenge the status quo, something preacher Carlton Pearson (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the main character of the new Joshua Marston directed drama Come Sunday, is very much reminded of after he causes quite the stir in declaring that Hell does not exist in one of his Sunday morning sermons.

Believe The Hype Folks, Get Out Is Sublime Horror Movie Cinema

Hollywood absolutely loves to imitate whatever's popular and making money and the genre of horror is no stranger to this rule. Because horror movies tend to be made on the cheap, it's way easier to crank out films in this genre that imitate whatever spooky motion picture is raking up big bucks. Thus, slasher movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday The 13th begat numerous slasher movie knock-offs in the 80's while Paranormal Activity spawned countless found-footage movies that heavily featured possessed people. Lately, it feels like The Conjuring, and its emphasis on old-timey objects being creepy and chilling sound effects, has been the one many recent horror fare have been imitating.