A Load Of Pointless Computer Effects Trickery Can't Boost The Serviceable But Substance-Free Beowulf

For a good chunk of the first decade of the 21st century, Robert Zemeckis devoted himself to being the first filmmaker to dabble in the world of full motion-capture animation (a process whereby actors wear special suits and have their movements put onto CGI characters) movies, a subgenre that basically died off after 2011, though motion-capture animation itself has become quite the frequent presence in live-action movies like the two most recent Star Wars movies. Two of those three efforts were The Polar Express and A Christmas Carol, a duo of family-skewing Christmas movies. Naturally, in between those movies, Zemeckis also used the motion-capture animation artform to create one of only four American computer-animated movies to get an MPAA rating harsher than PG: Beowulf.

What Lies Beneath Review

What Lies Beneath is a departure for Robert Zemeckis, a director whose inhabited many different genres in his multiple decades as a filmmaker, but only delved into the world of horror two other times in his career, with the 1992 horror/comedy Death Becomes Her and the feature that traumatized me as a youth, The Polar Express. What Lies Beneath may not be as terrifying as his 2004 Christmas-themed motion picture, but hey, it works on its own merits as a spooky ghost story with some appropriately bombastic twists that feel like they should be told around a campfire via an adult holding a flashlight under their face.

My Most Terrifying Cinematic Experience? Why, The Polar Express Of Course!

Here's another exciting entry in this Holiday themed column, 25 Days Of Christmas Pop Culture! From now until Christmas Eve, I'll be tackling one piece of Christmas pop culture! It could be a book, movie, TV special, song....so long as it's festive for this time of the year, it'll be checked out in this daily column!

We all have that one movie we watched as kids that terrified the living hell out of us. When you're 6, it's terrifying, but when you're older it's not only good material for a compelling yarn but a testament to the kind of power film can have over a person. Some have The Goonies, my brother has Gremlins, but me? I've got the scariest movie of them all: The Polar Express.