Giallo Essentials (Smile Before Death, The Weapon, The Hour, The Motive & The Killer Reserved Nine Seats) (Blu-ray) by Ian Jane The Movies:Arrow Video compiles three more giallo pictures in one convenient boxed set titled, appropriately enough, Giallo Essentials Volume 3. Here's what is contained in the set…Smile Before Deathirected by Silvio Amadio (the same man who gave us Amuck), who co-wrote with Francesco Di Dio and Francesco Merli, 1972's Smile Before Death introduces us to a photographer named Marco (Silvano Tranquilli) and his wife Dorothy (Zora Gheorgieva), a husband and wife who are in an open marriage that isn't quite going as smoothly as maybe they'd hoped that it would. This complicated situation is made to be even more complicated as Marco has taken Dorothy's best friend, Gianna (Rosalba Neri), as his lover.Soon enough, Dorothy is dead, and although it looks like she killed herself (she was found dead with her throat slit in a ro...Read the entire review »

NOPE by Oktay Ege Kozak At least this much can be said about NOPE: When it comes to the suspense-heavy and cryptic alien attack on a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere movies, it's better than Signs. Writer-director Jordan Peele made a name for himself as one of the only, or perhaps the only, filmmaker in contemporary cinema whose marquee name is enough to put butts in seats. His signature tone of elevated horror works as impeccably constructed and paced straight genre exercises mixed with Rod Serling-esque explorations of dense and complex social issues. Unlike zeitgeist setting masterworks like Get Out and Us, which gave distinct and unique commentary on race relations and the class system, NOPE is content with just being a thrilling, terrifying, and ultimately fun-filled 1950s B-movie style alien attack flick. There are some themes floating underneath the surface here and ther...Read the entire review »