A horror haunts Hart House …
As part of an architectural case study examining a local landmark through a specific cinematic lens, this film uses The Shining as its model for a tongue-in-cheek look at a historic campus building.
A summation of how I feel about movies.
I’d been reading Peter Bogdanovich’s Who the Devil Made It? and Andrew Sarris’ The American Cinema when I thought: why don’t I do that? I felt the immediate urge to grab a camera and share my own perspective on the films I was seeing and the directors that had made an impact on me. Consequently, this introduction to the Film Files (and 20 subsequent movie reviews) resulted.
A little movie about a little boy facing one big fear.
The image of a closet light turning on of its own accord to reveal a pair of feet hiding behind the door was a sudden and exciting one. From there, the story of a kid supposedly all alone at night fit with the “home movie” means of production — a DSLR, a light, and a (semi-reluctant) younger brother.
A letter written to no one, discovered in the middle of nowhere.
What began as a low-stakes exercise between two friends and a camera became a genuinely meaningful film capsule. This is a movie that really came alive in the edit, considering there was no story or plan prior to shooting (which took place in the course of a few hours on a gloomy December day).
The host of a fictional crime anthology show introduces tonight’s episode; the entire film is staged as this retro prologue to a murder mystery — a mystery that turns out to be far more personal than its teller would have us believe.
