REVIEWS IN A HURRY Back to First Page & Alphabetical Index
				Northfork (2003, 103 min, PG13) ***1/2 – Directed by Michael and Mark Polish, starring James Woods and Nick Nolte.  A small Montana town about to be flooded to make way for a reservoir is turned into a magical meditation on life, death, and progress.  Big stars Woods and Nolte are quiet and restrained as a member of the evacuation committee and the parish priest, in a movie that freely mixes fact, fantasy, metaphor, and angels. Nosferatu: A Symphony of Terror (1922, 64 min, B&W, NR) **** - Directed by F.W. Murnau, starring Max Schrek and Greta Schroeder.  This famous (and unofficial) adaptation of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” unfolds with all the inevitable and inarguable logic of a smothering nightmare.  The cadaverous and creepy Count Orlok (Schrek) comes to London in search of his beloved and nothing will stop him.  The silence, jittery stop-motion, and scenes that are neither day nor night create a mesmerizing, otherworldly atmosphere.
	The New Gods (1997, 97 min, NR) *1/2 – Directed & written by James Boyd, starring Doug Burch and Parker Lee.  This combination of bohemian artists and a noir-ish story lacks the depth of the first and the juiciness of the second.  A troubled rock musician (Burch) gets his girlfriend and his poet best friend, who may be in love, in over their heads and incurs the wrath of a corrupt police detective (Lee).  Pretentious, heavy-handed, and woodenly acted, the movie is more concerned with getting the right look—haircuts, trendy clothes, smoking pot—than with any substance.  Still, the surreal and silent poetry readings are clever. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993, 76 min, PG) ***1/2 – Directed by Henry Selick, starring Chris Sarandon and Catherine O’Hara.  Stop-motion animation and clay figurines tell how Jack Skellington and the residents of Halloweentown commandeer Christmas and try to make it scary.  Gorgeous to look at and filled with genuine emotion, even if everyone’s a ghoul, a goblin, or a zombie.  The movie’s stroke of genius is that, even as severed heads and garish jack-o-lanterns are being stuffed into Christmas presents, everyone in Halloweentown honestly thinks this will be the best Christmas ever because they don’t know any better. Night of the Hunter (1955, 93 min, B&W, NR) **** - Directed by Charles Laughton, starring Robert Mitchum, Shelly Winters, and Lillian Gish.  Freakishly creepy and gorgeously shot nightmare about a fiendish preacher (an absolutely brilliant Mitchum) pursuing a pair of children for a bag of loot, and the shotgun-toting Bible thumper (Gish) out to stop him (Old Testament law vs. New Testament mercy?).  The masterstroke is director Laughton’s decision to style the entire thing like a children’s movie or a Grimm’s bedtime story, as if a child’s entire world has turned against him.  Just try to hear “Shall We Gather at the River” again without shuddering. Night of the Living Dead (1968, B&W, 96 min, NR) **** - Directed by George Romero.  Few movies feel so much like a nightmare, from the grainy black-and-white, to the bad sound, to the sensation of being trapped by unreasoning danger.  A small group of ordinary men and women hole up in a house surrounded by zombies and try to survive the night.  A groundbreaking independent film and a drive-in classic.