Right-wing paranoid fever dream, aesthetic predecessor of all man-against the elements films to come, anti-and-pro-Vietnam, a concrete vision of raw, wounded masculinity, made in a time of retreat in America, when even Captain America would resign. Perfectly of its time, yet also timeless. The cinematography perfectly sets the emotional tone as guided by the landscape; a rainy mountainside community, run by a petty tyrant sheriff and a band of cackling, soft-bellied and cold-hearted deputies (including a whelping David Caruso!) -…

I suppose you could call it workmanlike. I call it boring. It's the negligence of horror, a thing that is neither hot not cold, a meandering mess that prolongs the inevitable, exhibits the same tropes it mocks and worst of all fails to deliver anything above the same kind of "boo!" scares we've been inundated with in the horror genre since the American remake of The Ring. The only dread I felt was in waiting for the exceedingly amateur lead…

I can think of few other examples of such an idiosyncratic approach being applied to a major franchise film, much less to the first film in a series. It's a bit obvious to state that 2001: A Space Odyssey had an important influence on the thematic concerns and visual motifs of this film. If 2001 feels cold and detached from humanity, then you might say that this film is about a detached, isolated humanity that rediscovers the natural state of…

A young girl with latent psychic powers is trapped in a mysterious new-age therapy compound and is subjected to constant psychological torture at the hands of the sinister Dr. Nyles. As time goes on more is revealed about the origin of the compound, Dr. Nyles true nature and the identity of the girl. This film seeps inside you until you feel a cold, clammy lump in your chest. It's something of a misnomer to call this an exploitation film, or…