PETERSON REVIEWS
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‘Ichi the Killer’ Gets Old Fast
There comes a moment where we realize that it might be better for our sake to stop engaging and simply leave the room.
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‘The Black Hole’ is Better Than a ‘Star Wars’ Ripoff
It’s still a failure, but it’s an interesting failure.
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I Think, Therefore You Are
Horror mavens John Carpenter and Wes Craven took risks in the 1990s with ‘In the Mouth of Madness’ and ‘Vampire in Brooklyn.’
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‘The Raven’ is the Most Charming of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe Series
This is a rambunctious horror-adjacent movie frequently operating at the fever pitch of a farce.
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‘Messiah of Evil’ is Unforgettably Bone-Chilling
‘Messiah of Evil’ grabs a hold of one’s fear of the unknown and squeezes and squeezes.
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‘Cuadecuc, vampir’ Improves On Its Source Material
It’s a little misleading to call ‘Cuadecuc, vampir’ a making-of documentary.
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Splat!
On ‘Zombi 2’ and ‘The House by the Cemetery,’ gore classics from Lucio Fulci
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‘Mad Love’ Finds Peter Lorre at the Peak of His Powers
This is a horror movie that delights in the macabre as much as a comedy luxuriates in a good laugh.
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Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Three horror-omnibus movies.
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On ‘Viy’
Based on an 1800s horror novella by Nikolai Gogol, ‘Viy’ is frightening in a what-if-this-happened-to-me kind of way.
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‘Stranger on the Third Floor’ Wouldn’t Amount to Much Without Peter Lorre
‘Stranger on the Third Floor’ is also frequently touted as the very first film-noir movie on account of its story and visual style.
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You Want ‘Phantom Lady’ to Get Weirder Than It Does
‘Phantom Lady’ has a decent climactic twist, but it’s whodunit 101 — too straightforward for a movie that practically invites us to imagine alternative, more nightmarish scenarios.
APRIL 2026
The Theme is ‘High Anxiety’
ASDFJHGSD
The Unrelenting Grimness of ‘Frozen River’
Misty Upham and especially Melissa Leo are excellent in this frostbitten drama.
March 27, 2026
February 4, 2026
November 6, 2025
Superheroines
On Julia Loktev’s towering, terrifying ‘My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow.’
March 30, 2026
Everything Everywhere
William Greaves’ ‘Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One’ is almost 60 years old and still feels ahead of the curve.
March 11, 2026
Next Big Things
Gregory La Cava’s ‘Stage Door’ is often at once hysterically funny and brutally pragmatic about the personal toll a career in entertainment can take.
March 4, 2026
Peterson Reviews 