REVIEW: Alien [1979]

“What is Special Order 937?” When you hear the title Alien, images are conjured up of Bill Paxton having a mental breakdown, Lance Henriksen rapidly stabbing a knife through his fingers, and Sigourney Weaver‘s Ripley inside a mechanical forklift suit engaging a slobbering, hulking monster. The most fascinating thing about this comes not from how iconic the franchise has become, but instead the realization that none of these moments occurred in the original film. Somehow James Cameron‘s action-packed sequel has usurped its predecessor’s slow, cerebral horror in our consciousness to…

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REVIEW: Splice [2010]

“I guess we’ll find out from the autopsy” If you play with science you might get burned. Or is that fire? I guess the former is just as appropriate, especially when concerning a sci-fi horror flick such as Splice. Science can be very dangerous and absolutely uncontrollable like the flame scorching all in its path. Vincenzo Natali’s film may on the surface appear to be a message-driven story dealing with the moral quandaries of genetic manipulation, but it’s truthfully more a psychological study in growing up within captivity and what…

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