Movie Reviews

The Story: A suburban married couple, bored with their marriage, discover their new neighbors are spies. The Lowdown: A flat, rote little comedy that, while mostly harmless, has nothing to recommend.

In Brief: Just when you thought it was over, the AFS extends its grisly reach into November for one last Halloween horror film. Join us for a very special Budget Big Screen ticketed presentation of Alfred Hitchcock's perennial classic, Psycho. It's a definitive work in both Hitchcock's oeuvre and the genre as a whole, and opportunities to see it…

In Brief: Halloween is upon us, which means it's time for the Asheville Film Society's month of monstrosities to draw its dying breath with one last double feature, and in memoriam I've scheduled an undisputed classic alongside a heavy dose of classic camp. First up we have the final Hammer pairing of Christopher Lee's Dracula with Peter Cushing's Van Helsing,…

In Brief: The Hendersonville Film Society will be hosting a double feature this week starting with John Huston's second foray into Frank Capra's Why We Fight series of WWII documentaries, The Battle of San Pietro. If you've never seen any of Huston's documentary work this is great place to start, and it might have been seasonally appropriate had…

In Brief: It's the X-rated classic where Dracula becomes spectacularly unwell whenever he drinks the blood of anyone who's not a virgin (prompting the magnificent outburst, "The blood of these whores is killing me!") — and if that appeals to you (and it should), this movie is right up your alley. It's all about Dracula going…

The Story: A working-class immigrant rescues a retired plow horse bound for the dog food factory, and together they take the aristocratic world of competitive horse jumping by storm. The Lowdown: This straightforward documentary showcases the touching partnership between a unique man and his remarkable horse as they overcome long odds, a genuinely moving story that will inspire even…

The Story: An American professor of Jewish history must confront a Holocaust denier in the British legal system, where the burden is on her to prove that his denials are false. The Lowdown: Based on a true story, Denial boasts a few outstanding performances but doesn't quite do its subject justice.

The Story: An autism-spectrum assassin with a knack for numbers finds himself between a rock and a hard place when a routine job goes awry, while federal agents close in on his carefully concealed identity. The Lowdown: An action flick simultaneously worse than it could've been and better than it has any right to be, The Accountant is fun but…

The Story: Comedian Kevin Hart's latest stand-up film, shot in front of 50,000 people. The Lowdown: A perfectly fine, mostly needless comedy feature that's really for fans only.

The Story: Teenager awakens his superpowers and embarks on a quest to find out what happened to his deceased father and the scientific work that killed him. The Lowdown: Predictable, almost humorless superhero movie that is neither super nor heroic.

In Brief: The Asheville Film Society keeps on creepin' on with our October schedule of historic horror. Next up is Georges Franju's poetic masterpiece of fairy-tale fright, 1960's Eyes Without a Face. A film of almost unparalleled aesthetic beauty (within the genre, at least), this is possibly the best-remembered work of Cinematheque Française co-founder Franju despite being almost…

In Brief: The Asheville Film Society enters the final week of its month-long horror retrospective with Herk Harvey's under-seen cult classic, Carnival of Souls. This gem of low-budget ingenuity wrings every last drop from its almost laughably minuscule $30,000 budget, creating an intensely eerie atmosphere through its minimalistic style. The film's plot places it squarely on the existential…

In Brief: I was surprised to find that this is the first talkie ever made of The Merchant of Venice, though television — mostly the BBC — has offered it up several times. The reason for the lack of actual films of the play is not hard to fathom, since the inherent anti-Semitism of the subject matter…

In Brief: My entire familiarity with Patrice Chéreau prior to seeing Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train (1998) rested on seeing the video presentation of his famous (or infamous, depending on whom you ask) 1976 staging of Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle at Bayreuth. In terms of his talents as a filmmaker this told…

The Story: A young Guatemalan peasant girl is torn between an arranged marriage and her dreams of a life with her lover in America. The Lowdown: A devastating story of youthful ignorance and cultural exploitation, Ixcanul will haunt audiences with its beauty and brutality.

The Story: An young girl clinging to her childhood is drawn into a bizarre fantasy world when her parents host a party for her fifteenth birthday. The Lowdown: Girl Asleep pulls off a delicate balancing act between fun and poignancy, dealing with a sensitive subject without condescension or cloying sentimentality.

The Story: A young gay man struggles with accepting his sexuality in the face of past trauma and an unwelcome family life. The Lowdown: A occasionally fascinating piece of filmmaking that's both flawed in its general execution and lacking a firm emotional center — two things that stunt its impact.

The Story: Artistic teen dealing with the death of his brother rebels against the oppression of his creativity by the principal at his new middle school. The Lowdown: Like the age it attempts to chronicle, this film is too juvenile and immature to fully embrace some of the issues it creates to be considered fully formed.

The Story: A deeply disturbed divorcee fantasizes about the life of a perfect couple she sees on her daily commute, but the disappearance of the young woman she's been watching drags her into the middle of a possible murder mystery. The Lowdown: A tepid take on a best-selling novel, The Girl on the Train hits rote genre notes with passionless execution.

In Brief: The Asheville Film Society's October reign of terror marches on with our second double feature of the month. First up, we have Tod Browning's 1932 classic Freaks. Browning's most well-known work outside of Dracula and arguably his best (I might make the case for some of his work with Lon Chaney, though few others do), Freaks was derided by…

In Brief: Jacques Tourneur’s Night of the Demon (1957) — originally released in the U.S. with 12 minutes cut and under the title Curse of the Demon — is this wonderful oasis in the midst of the general run of bad horror movies from the 1950s. And there’s virtually no reason it should have been.…