Antichrist, Lars von Trier, 2009

Antichrist is a veritable black hole of psychological tumult and visceral eruption oddly married with cabin-in-the-wood slasher film conventions. Lars von Trier's characters, however, are too narrowly drawn to bear the weight of such ravenous activity. The director's own staging of Euripides' Medea is a far more fully realized portrait of unfettered, vindictive angst.

Trash Humpers, Harmony Korine, 2009

Korine's is a baldly experimental, near-confrontational primal scream of a film. The director commits wholly to a primitivist film-as-found-object conceptualization, relentlessly suppressing the notion of artifice throughout, and, in turn, producing a highly artful and expressive work.

Das weisse Band (The White Ribbon), Michael Haneke, 2009

Haneke turns a sharply critical (and sumptuous) eye on pre-War Germany in this deliberately paced cultural indictment. The director's austere relation of severe, near-Calvinist village life is exacting, but at times undermines his film's narrative tension in its coldness.

The Roost (with Prey), Ti West, 2005

West's first feature length foray into horror, The Roost has an undernourished narrative and is noticeably hamstrung budgetarily, but nonetheless showcases the director's deft handling of real-world thrills. Likewise, West's student film Prey (included in The Roost's DVD issue) is a more than capable execution of a single, terror-filled sequence.

The House of the Devil, Ti West, 2009

In an era of garishly over-styled horror films, West's satanic chiller is endlessly refreshing. The film wrings its near-constant restless mood from an unsettling scenario, efficient plotting, and smart, loaded compositions.

Pocket Cinephile - Horror 2009

As we've done before, Pocket Cinephile has taken much of this month off to catch up on some of our favorite horror films, both old and new. Here's a list of what we've been watching while the leaves turn and the air crisps.

Carrie, Brian DePalma, 1976.

Poltergeist, Tobe Hooper, 1982.

Night of the Living Dead, George Romero, 1968.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Tobe Hooper, 1974.

The Children, Tom Shankland, 2008.

The Changeling, Peter Medak, 1980.

Day of the Dead, Georeg Romero, 1985.

Near Dark, Kathryn Bigelow, 1987.

Evil Dead II, Sam Raimi, 1987.

The Children, Tom Shankland, 2008

Shankland's film is taut, intense, and genuinely chilling. While certainly underwritten and suffering from some muddled story logic, this snowbound terror mounts enough moments of legitimate, well-wrought fright to make it worth the effort and Shankland a director to watch.

Sneak Peek - Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans

This is the second clip we've seen from Werner Herzog's forthcoming re-imagining of 'Bad Lieutenant.' Suffice it to say that both clips are high on intensity and long on lunacy, with Cage channeling his inner Kinski. In short, we can't wait.

Stellet licht (Silent Light), Carlos Reygadas, 2007

Invoking by turns Malick's painterly compositions, Bergman's stark solemnity, and Dumont's agrarian primitivism, Reygadas' metaphysical domestic tale is a striking, singular, and difficult work.