Comrade Courant Culture Critic

Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham (2023): A Lovecraftian Missed Opportunity Wrapped in Decent Animation "A cursed prophecy, a bat-shaped god, and a film that should’ve been far more terrifying." — 3/5 Stars Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham (2023) arrives with a tantalizing premise: a 1920s Batman, cosmic horror, and a Gotham City built on occult bloodlines. Based on the cult-favorite Elseworlds comic of the same name, the film leans hard into H.P. Lovecraft’s mythos—specifically echoing The Doom That Came to Sarnath —and reimagines Bruce Wayne not as a detective, but as a reluctant avatar of primordial dread. It’s certainly better than most straight-to-video animated superhero fare —more ambitious in scope, more atmospheric in tone. But let’s be clear: it doesn’t hold a candle to DC’s animated high-water marks like Batman: Under the Red Hood , The Killing Joke , or Gotham by Gaslight...

Cloverfield (2008): A Found Footage Post-9/11 Kaiju Nightmare "An American kaiju movie shot like a home video—and somehow, that makes it scarier." — 5/5 Stars Let’s settle this upfront: Cloverfield is a kaiju movie. Not a “sort of” or a “loosely inspired by”—it’s a full-blooded, city-stomping, ocean-rising kaiju film, filtered through the trembling lens of a handheld camcorder. Directed by Matt Reeves (years before he’d don the cape for The Batman ) and produced by J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, the 2008 thriller arrived not with fanfare, but with silence: a cryptic teaser in theaters showing only chaos in New York and a date— 1-18-2008 . No title. No explanation. Just raw, disorienting footage that felt less like marketing and more like a distress signal. That teaser was just the tip of the iceberg. What followed was one of the most innovative marketing campaigns in modern film his...

Crimes of the Future(2022): Cronenberg Returns with a Visceral Vision of Human Evolution "A chilling, visually audacious provocation that lingers long after the credits roll—just maybe not in the way you’d want it to." — 4/5 Stars For devotees of cerebral body horror and those unafraid to stare into the abyss of biological obsolescence, Crimes of the Future is a singular, unforgettable experience—grotesque, brilliant, and defiantly Cronenbergian. Let’s be clear: if the words “written and directed by David Cronenberg” don’t make your stomach flutter with a mix of dread and anticipation, you haven’t been paying attention. With Crimes of the Future (2022)—a film that shares only its title with Cronenberg’s obscure 1970 debut of the same name (the two are completely unrelated)—the legendary auteur returns to his roots with a slow-burning, surgically precise meditation on art, mutation...

  'The Monkey': A Delightfully Twisted Take on Stephen King’s Cursed Toy "Osgood Perkins delivers a darkly comic, surprisingly heartfelt horror that defies expectations—and makes a killer toy feel fresh again." — 4/5 Stars For fans of Stephen King’s stranger tales and those who appreciate horror with a wicked sense of humor, The Monkey is a rare adaptation that not only honors its source but elevates it. I went into The Monkey with cautious curiosity—after all, how do you turn a wind-up toy that claps cymbals into a credible engine of terror? Yet Osgood Perkins pulls off the near-impossible: a horror film that masterfully blends pitch-black comedy with genuinely gruesome set pieces, all anchored by emotional depth and razor-sharp direction. Far from a gimmick, this cursed monkey becomes the beating (and clapping) heart of one of the most inventive King adaptations in year...

  'Borgman': A Sinister Masterpiece That Deserves Wider Recognition "Dutch auteur Alex van Warmerdam crafts a haunting surrealist thriller that's been criminally overlooked" — 5/5 Stars "And they descended upon the Earth to strengthen their ranks." Borgman (2013) review: As it opens we are met with those eerie biblical words (in Dutch), and van Warmerdam pulls us into a world of equally eerie images. We see a hunting party, looking like they've stepped out of another century, moving through the woods. They're armed with spears, accompanied by a barking dog, and one of them—a priest, no less—carries a shotgun. It's immediately clear they're hunting something wicked, and that this thing lives underground. It's a fever dream beginning that immediately signals we're not in familiar territory—and it's only the tip of the iceberg in what stands as one ...