Online Film Critics Society Ballot 2018

Below is my December 27th ballot for the 22nd annual Online Film Critics Society Awards honoring movies released domestically in the United States during the 2018 calendar year. Each category is ordered according to my preferential rankings. Group winners are labeled in red. (No option to abstain was supplied this year.)

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REVIEW: Suspiria [2018]

Of what do you ask? I’m no big fan of Dario Argento‘s Suspiria. It’s a gorgeous film overflowing with mood and aesthetic that ultimately becomes the poster child for style over substance before gradually revealing more to offer upon subsequent viewings. In the end, however, it still doesn’t add up to much besides its place as a prototypical entry in the horror genre that’s inspired countless works in the four decades since release. So I got excited when a remake was announced. If ever a “classic” movie deserved a new…

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REVIEW: Yellow [2013]

“You have a right to be here” I can’t help but conjure images of the over-the-top, campy horror atmosphere in Dario Argento’s Suspiria when hearing the word ‘giallo’ as it’s probably the only film of the Italian genre I’ve seen. As such, anything I say on the subject is of course nothing but my own opinion and taste trying to reconcile my lack of appreciation for the style with what its fictional aesthetic of crime and mystery entails. The term itself was derived from a series of cheap Italian paperback…

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REVIEW: Suspiria [1977]

“You have just watched Suspiria” One of the characters sums up Suspiria quite concisely at the start of the film. She says, “It’s all so absurd, so fantastic” and I can’t think of a better way to begin describing it. Sure the gore factor is fake and overkill, the horrible dub job is laughable, and the story is just a jumbled mess that gets loosely tied together by a witch subplot with fifteen minutes left, but there’s a lot to like here regardless. The absurdity works for it by creating…

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