Simon's Movie Reviews

If you want horror movies that are psychologically disturbing and scratch the surface of the human psyche, go back to the 1970s when you had filmmakers who explored what made people tick. Although Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973) does feature a serial killer and an explicit sex scene (for the time) it deals with themes of grief, the otherworldly, and the impact the death of a loved one can have on a relationship. This is one of those thrillers with a twist that make you rethink everything you have seen before, and because it is so famous it was spoiled for me before I got to see it. I saw the ending as part of those 100 Scariest Movie Moments list, so it wasn’t as scary or powerful when I saw the film in its entirety last year on Netflix, but I was still impressed by the technical achievement. Also given the story deals with premonitions, you could say it is slightly appropriate to know the fate of one character as the big moment approaches. Right from the beginning you...

Nowadays the movie branch of the National Lampoon magazine is mostly associated with straight-to-DVD comedies that the general public will barely notice. However between the late 1970s and 1980s they were responsible for two classic Chevy Chase films and for National Lampoon’s Animal House , the king of gross-out comedies. Starring a cast of then unknown actors and directed by John Landis, it tells, not so much the story, but the antics of the craziest fraternity to ever be allowed on a college campus. The point of this film is to deliver laughter on a minute-by-minute basis and boy does it deliver. Is there any better place to watch a movie like this than on a university campus? I watched it as part of a double feature organized by the film club at the University Sherbrooke and I believe the other half of that double feature was The Kentucky Fried Movie . Suffice it to say we laughed our asses off that Friday night. I also realized how tame my university experience was. How com...