Ten years of movie reviews. How do you pick the best? Our theory from the very first day of publishing borg has been reviewing only those things we like, things we think are fun, imaginative, or just plain cool—because if we think they’re cool, maybe you will, too. What makes a great movie? #1 for us is great writing—great storytelling. #2 is re-watchability. Lots of movies are good, but if every time you watch it you enjoy it all over again and maybe find something you didn’t see before, then you likely got far more value from the movie than the price of a movie ticket. #3 is innovation—there’s nothing to top off a good story like new technology surprising us. Finally, the experience must be fun—why else would you devote two hours or more of your valuable time?
So in Casey Kasem style, here are the Top 40 movies we recommend, spanning 2011 to 2021. These are our favorites. How should you use lists like this? If you like what we talk about at borg, you’re probably going to like these movies. If you’ve missed any, odds are you have some new movies to take a look at. Let’s start at #40 and move our way to #1. As with everything borg, we’re stressing genre movies, so don’t expect to see strict dramas or a lot of Best Picture Oscar winners here. Title links are to our original borg review.
Wizards of the Coast and G4 are partnering for D&D Live 2021, a special two-day streaming event on July 16-17 and continuing with four all-new limited-run campaign series to premiere on G4 this Fall. The two-day event will feature four games with star-studded casts playing with expert DMs, as well as hosted content featuring games, interviews, special product announcements, a Dungeon Master roundtable, and exclusive giveaways. Watch the Wizards of the Coast website for more details.
A new sourcebook is heading your way next week: The new Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition campaign sourcebook Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft may just be the D&D your mother warned you about. Okay, not really, but it is the darkest exploration yet of horror in the world’s most popular roleplaying game. But it’s not for younger kids, going beyond R.L. Stine horrors and skipping ahead from the dark corners of Stephen King to the gorier realms of Clive Barker… slasher realms and beyond… but only if your gaming group so chooses. It’s all part of the mysteries of Ravenloft, mist-shrouded lands where infamous Darklords lurk among ageless vampires, zombie hordes, cosmic terrors, and bloodier things. Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloftis still a place for heroes to succeed, but not without mucking their way through terrors on their journey. It all arrives next week. You can pre-order the standard library cover here from Wizards of the Coast at Amazon now, or order the alternate shimmering, soft-touch edition from your local game shop.
In many ways Stephen King’s new supernatural crime novel Later is a natural follow-on to his two earlier Hard Case Crime novels, Joyland, which I loved, and The Colorado Kid, which will have me revisiting it for years to identify what I am sure is a hidden story beneath the obvious one. Joyland follows a coming of age vibe for an older character and King pulls from a similar quiver of creepiness in Later as he did for The Colorado Kid. Yes,Laterwill get the obvious comparison to the “I see dead people” kid from The Sixth Sense–a few updates and this could be its sequel, one as good or better than that great M. Night Shyamalan shocker (a character even calls out the comparison, and King doesn’t try to shy away from it). But even more than that, this story is a perfect launch pad for a television series, a series that should be written and directed by Shawn Piller as a natural follow-up to the King-Piller partnership’s successful series Haven and The Dead Zone. The slow-simmering pacing reflects the perfect make-ready four season series centering on a boy burdened with an ability he cannot walk away from. Later easily could be the next Medium, Prodigal Son, orTru Calling—just as dark, with a bit of Fallen thrown in. It’s a highly recommended read, available for pre-order now here at Amazon, scheduled for release March 2.
It’s no secret that here at borg, we’re big fans of Victorian mysteries—from Netflix’s Enola Holmes to Crimson Peak, to my own Myrtle Hardcastle Mystery series, we are always on the lookout for the next great historical whodunnit to share with you. Thanks to our friends at Minotaur Books, we have a new series to recommend. Erin Lindsey’s third “Rose Gallagher” novel, The Silver Shooter, is not only a cracking good Victorian mystery, it’s a paranormal mystery, and set in the Old West, to boot (ahem). Readers are plunged straight into an adventure with Pinkerton Special Department agents Rose Gallagher and Thomas Wiltshire as they take on a case for ranch owner Theodore Roosevelt (yep, that TR!).
Like an episode of Monk or Murder She Wrote, the next film from writer/director Rian Johnson (Looper, Star Wars: The Last Jedi) is a straightforward mystery. Knives Out comes in on the heels of the similar looking Ready Or Not, and it’s a mash-up of sorts, aiming to have that ensemble cast variety of the last Thanksgiving movie release mystery, Murder on the Orient Express, while trying to bring back the nostalgia of the famous comedy whodunnit movie, Clue. It’s the 85th birthday of the family patriarch and the families of his three children arrive to celebrate. The next morning the patriarch is found dead. Arriving in theaters next week and marketed toward the Thanksgiving holiday crowd, Knives Outturns out to be a mixed bag.
The reason to check it out is as you’d expect: the cast. The cast choices would be a dream assemblage for any film. James Bond Daniel Craig facing off against Captain America Chris Evans? Legend Christopher Plummer delivering a performance as good as his last Oscar-winner? Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, and Toni Collette playing against type? And top it off with Don Johnson, poised to have his own career second wind as a leading man. But the real star performance comes from Ana de Armas(Blade Runner 2049). de Armas, a ringer for a Tru Calling-era Eliza Dushku, plays a nurse to Christopher Plummer’s character. Incredibly charming and engaging, de Armas is also given the biggest opportunity to show the most emotional range in the film. A plus for Bond fans, this movie will serve as a preview of sorts for movie audiences of No Time to Die, as de Armas plays the next “Bond girl” opposite Daniel Craig’s master spy in theaters next spring.
Not a recommended movie for taking on a date, and ultimately a questionable choice for Thanksgiving, one of the conceits (which may take viewers outside the realm of reality) is a character who vomits with each lie. By the end of the film it becomes an in-your-face gross-out, making viewers watch one character… covered… for an entire scene. As a story element this “human lie detector” is also a writers’ crutch, a trick that skips over some story challenges viewers would normally be able to work through on their own.
An exciting new Gothic suspense thriller has arrived in the new Netflix series Requiem. Like any great mystery–and it seems even more so in this sub-genre–you never can tell what kind of story you’re in until the very end. Clues are everywhere if you only look at what is right in front of you. Call it a psychological thriller, call it a ghost story, call it a police procedural, call it another X-Files entry, call it outright horror, Requiem is a British production that, unlike so many past British series, it’s arrived for American audiences as quickly as it premiered in England. And one of the great things about Netflix is it’s now bridging that gap of time that has so often taken British television series years to arrive in the States. We don’t know their trick but we love it. Requiem is as creepy, as atmospheric, and as chilling as anything you’re going to see this year.
Fans of the original The Watcher in the Woods will appreciate Requiem for many reasons, including getting that obligatory British estate nestled in the far-off woods so very right. Viewers familiar with the Gothic genre will find themselves transfixed, scrabbling to follow clues and guess before the final episode the true nature of the darkness in the story. The beauty of the script, acting, and setting is that you probably won’t be able to figure it all out. It’s that good. Expect a few “I didn’t see that coming” utterances and a satisfying ending. Is this just another procedural crime drama about a missing child? Something like The Missing,Thirteen, Broadchurch, Hinterlands, Shetland, or this year’s Netflix release, Collateral? Or something with a more supernatural twist like British series Marchlands, Lightfields, The Secret of Crickley Hall, or a litany of creepy ghosts, haunts, and other fears from the big screen across the decades, like Otto Preminger’s Bunny Lake is Missing, Gaslight, The Lady Vanishes, or The Woman in Black, like the film adaptations of the Daphne du Maurier novels My Cousin Rachel, The Birds, and Rebecca, or adaptations of Gothic classics Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Turn of the Screw, or Great Expectations? Maybe this is a modern horror tale wrapped in Gothic dress, like The Boy, The Ring, The Sixth Sense, The Shining, The Others, The Fog (and other John Carpenter classics), Skeleton Key, the Oscar winner Get Out, this year’s film Winchester, or Guillermo del Toro’s modern creation inspired by the classic Gothic thriller, Crimson Peak. Or maybe it only has the atmosphere of the above productions.
Virtuoso cellist Matilda Grey (Star Trek Beyond, Black Mirror, and Never Let Me Go’s Lydia Wilson) is readying a London premiere with her musical partner Hal (Game of Thrones’ Joel Fry). But her world falls apart when her mother Janice (Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams and Spaced’s Joanna Scanlan) commits suicide. At her mother’s home she finds a hidden box of secrets that reveals her own past may not be what it seems, and she and Hal find themselves trying to come to terms with Matilda’s loss in the seemingly unpronounceable Welsh town of Penllynith. Something wicked this way comes, or does it? Is everyone just caught up in an old missing persons case from years ago and the quirky lore of an old village?
For “truth is stranger than fiction” it’s difficult not to stumble over the story of Sarah Winchester. Mysteries of the Museum, America’s Castles, and every series that has ever taken viewers on an excursion to America’s supposedly haunted houses has covered the story. Heir to the Winchester rifle fortune, Sarah Winchester became one of the world’s wealthiest women of the 19th century. Her husband died in 1881 and she then proceeded to spend her fortune on a sprawling mansion over the next 38 years, a mansion that was never finished. And why? Because Sarah Winchester thought the ghosts of those killed by Winchester rifles were haunting her. She built extra room after room on her mansion to trick them into not finding her. And she had new rooms added to the mansion until she died. And this story is all true.
Next month the great Helen Mirren (RED, Hitchcock, The Queen) steps into the shoes of Sarah Winchester in the new drama horror film, Winchester. One of genredom’s pervasive actors, Jason Clarke (Terminator: Genesys, Farscape, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Everest) plays a doctor looking into Winchester’s outlandish claims for the Winchester business.
The mansion still exists and is now a tourist attraction called the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California. Check out the website here. For fans of Supernatural–show creator Eric Kripke gave Sam and Dean their last name because of Kripke’s interest in the Mystery House.
The film adaptation appears to take the ghost story into the realm of Guillermo del Toro’s ghost story Crimson Peak. Check out previews for the new movie, Winchester, after the cut:
Last seen in the theater 62 years ago, author Daphne du Maurier’s novel My Cousin Rachel is returning to theaters next week in a new adaptation. Although the title may sound like a somber, pastoral story you might see from the likes of Jane Austen, get ready for a psychological thriller that could only come from the pen of the author of Rebecca and The Birds. Film adaptations of both of those films would become thriller classics for director Alfred Hitchcock, with Rebecca as the 1941 Best Picture Academy Award winner. The original 1952 adaptation of My Cousin Rachel starred multiple Oscar winner Olivia de Havilland, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance as Rachel, a beautiful Englishwoman believed to have murdered a man under her care. de Havilland’s sister, Oscar winner Joan Fontaine, had been nominated for an Oscar for Rebecca.
This time around Roger Michell (Hyde Park on Hudson, Notting Hill) wrote a new adaptation of du Maurier’s novel and directs the film. He cleverly cast an Oscar-winning Rachel for the role of Rachel–Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener, The Mummy)–whose performance looks quite convincing in the first trailer released for the film. Sam Claflin (Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides, The Huntsman: Winter’s War) plays Rachel’s cousin, the role originally played by Richard Burton.
The overall look and feel from the film’s trailer is similar to other Gothic novels made into movies: dark, creepy, and mysterious, particularly in the romance between the two lead actors, like that found in Rebecca, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and more recently, Crimson Peak. Check out this trailer for My Cousin Rachel:
One of the most fascinating tidbits about fantasy/horror director Guillermo del Toro in the new hardcover book Guillermo del Toro: At Home With Monsters is that del Toro grew up in a collecting home. His father had won the lottery. The details aren’t discussed, but after reading this book, which focuses on one of del Toro’s homes where he displays a collection of fantasy and horror memorabilia, any read would ask where would someone get the money to buy all these things. The closest comparison would be Michael Jackson’s purchase of oddities like Joseph Merrick’s bones. Jackson had billions, but del Toro, whose career has only taken off since the 1990s, has amassed a collection that doesn’t reflect that extreme level of purchasing yet. But he’s on his way.
Guillermo del Toro is known for his visions of fantasy horror as seen in his Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, Mimic, Crimson Peak, and even the beginnings of The Hobbit trilogy. Many are unaware of his creepy home full of fantasy and horror relics that he calls Bleak House. Think of the beginning of an episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater or Friday the 13th TV series or that shop where an old man found a Mogwai for his son in Gremlins and you’ll have an idea of the oddities to be found.
No, that’s not the actual Ray Harryhausen with del Toro (we hope), but you have to wonder if Vincent Price had something to do with getting this frozen fellow into del Toro’s collection.
Some of the purchases on display are unique, some rare, but most appear to be mass market items, books, toys, statues, action figures. They cram the rooms of his house much like many people you know who have an obsession with collecting. Sure, del Toro’s house may be creepier than most–custom mannequins of horror greats like H.P. Lovecraft, Ray Harryhausen and Edgar Allen Poe appear to be living in this lair–but Bleak House does not look like anyone actually lives there. A retreat for storing research materials seems more likely. Could anyone, even a fan of all these monsters, wake up everyday to a gigantic head of Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s monster?
An unusual art exhibition premiered this month in Los Angeles at the L.A. County Museum of Art, and it is being expanded into a book available later this month. Director Guillermo del Toro is known for his visions of fantasy horror as seen in his Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, Mimic, Crimson Peak, and even the beginnings of The Hobbit trilogy. Many are unaware of his creepy home full of fantasy and horror relics that he calls Bleak House. Think of the beginning of an episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater or Friday the 13th TV series or that shop where an old man found a Mogwai for his son in Gremlins and you’ll have an idea of the oddities to be found.
Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters is a companion to the exhibition of artworks purchased by del Toro and featured in his strange home. The book includes photographs, pages from his journals, and interviews with the director and other art connoisseurs. The book promises to provide an engrossing look into the mind of one of the truly unique storytellers of today.
Below, after the break, is a preview of pages from At Home With Monsters. It is available now for pre-order here from Amazon.com.
