Original Cinemaniac

Movie Reviews by Dennis Dermody

Dumb Dinosaurs

            Most kids love dinosaurs. I remember when I was very young being dazzled by an ad on the back of a comic book that offered a 6 ft. Tyrannosaurus Rex. I sent in my money and weeks later a thin…
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WTF Film Festival 2

            A while back I wrote an article about a series of movies I call WTF Cinema– films that are so whacked-out and weird they defy quick characterization. But since then, I realized there were plenty of titles I forgot. Movies…
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She Dies Tomorrow

Director Amy Seimetz’s eerily relevant, visually trippy nightmare fable begins with Amy (Kate Lyn Sheil), who suddenly becomes convinced that she will be dead tomorrow.  Unfortunately, her morbid “idee fixe” has a communicable effect on her friends, and this overwhelming…
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The Painted Bird

            Director Vaclav Marhoul’s harrowing and beautiful adaptation of Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird is a nearly 3-hour, black & white, Hieronymus Bosch-like hellscape.  Petra Kotlar hauntingly plays the young boy Petra, sent to a rural village in Eastern Europe to…
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Relic

            Director Natalie Erika James’ first feature-length film is the most terrifying, and surprisingly moving, film you’ll see this year.              Emily Mortimer plays Kay, who drives from Melbourne with her older daughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) because a neighbor reports to the…
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The Ballad Of Dwight Frye

            A mysterious ship sails into a London port, seemingly without a crew. Authorities apprehensively board the vessel to find countless bloodless bodies. They approach a hold, hearing a demonic cackle, and up rises Renfield, the doomed, possessed slave of Count…
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