Heavily indebted to Poe, Argento's filmography consistently inhabits spaces of unreason, disorder, and perverseness. This is certainly true of Dark Glasses, which sees capacity for randomness and destruction both within and outside the human (see the solar eclipse, the pit writhing with vicious snakes, the cruel murders). More surprising is that this film offers such a hopeful and empathetic tribute to social outsiders, the sorts of people that Argento rightfully recognizes at the core of horror (a genre whose best…
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Diary of a Madman 1963
In a lot of ways this is crudely executed, there's no denying it; it's definitely got nothing on, say, Terence Fisher or even Roger Corman (two directors I would have loved to see adapt this story). Still, I was sold on the interaction between internalized Catholic guilt and the occult mythology of the Horla, an invading external possessor-entity of pure, unreasoning evil. The primary narrative/thematic threads play interestingly into the film's depiction of artistic creation, specifically in the problems of artists claiming ownership of subjects, in ways both metaphoric and literal. Above all, though, it's just an excellent example of Vincent Price's inimitably powerful screen presence.
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Kaili Blues 2015
As I was exiting the theater, I heard a man tell the woman beside him, "Y'know, this was directed by the guy who made Uncle Bowie."
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Old 2021
In their third collaboration, director M. Night Shyamalan and cinematographer Mike Gioulakis offer a seamless merging of their visual sensibilities—this film showcases some of the most exciting camera direction and beautiful compositional intuitions in the auteur's career. In an era so staunchly focused on episodic, brutally message-driven media, it is almost indescribably refreshing to watch a film with a real sense for the power of well-crafted images.
The film's far-reaching thematic ideas are its most interesting, but as with all…
