Silence of the Lambs Pt 1: The Grisly Case and a Hustling Rube.

For the 25th anniversary of the influential horror classic Silence of the Lambs, winner of 5 Oscars for 1991 (Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, and Adapted Screenplay), Team Experience is revisiting the picture, tag-team style all week long.

Cue: opening credits.

Pt 1 by Keiran Scarlett

00:00:01 – Howard Shore’s score always transports me into the mood of this film. It’s at once simple, yet incredibly evocative and iconic. 

00:00:24 – Seeing the Orion logo calls to mind Jodie Foster’s Oscar speech where she thanked Orion Pictures “as it used to be and how it will always be in [her] heart”. Amen, sister.  Seriously, check out the slate of Orion releases. There are some true gems in there.

00:01:31 – The opening montage of young FBI trainee Clarice Starling in the woods near Quantico, Virginia (thanks, super!) I love how Jodie Foster plays Clarice Starling as incredibly enthusiastic, but not naïve. That little look of “let’s do this thing” that she gives when she climbs that rope into the clearing. This performance is a great assembly of perfect little details.

more after the jump...

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Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

This review originally appeared in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad...

Lily James, from Cinderella to Zombie Slayer

“Pride and Prejudice,” Jane Austen’s classic novel about the Bennet sisters and their suitors, has one of the most famous opening lines in all of literature.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an adaptation Jane never could have seen coming despite her gifts, twists the opening line so that we’re no longer talking courtship but hunger; zombies in want of brains. So let’s twist the line again. ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that pop culture, possessed by the love of fanfic, must be in want of works in the Public Domain!’

more...

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Happy Birthday, Linda Blair!

Happy Birthday to horror legend and Oscar nominee, Linda Blair! The actress and activist's signature role as Regan in The Exorcist is as iconic as it comes, but she never landed another role as significant. Later years saw her winking at and spoofing her legendary demonic turn, but we will always be terrified by her icy stare behind the makeup.

Blair's Best Supporting Actress nomination remains one of our youngest nominees (though she was defeated by the even younger Tatum O'Neal) and one of the few honored performances in a horror film. Her Oscar chances were sidelined due to perceptions of Mercedes McCambridge's vocal contributions to the possessed Regan, but put the film on mute and Blair still stuns. The performance is as terrifying as it ever was - primal, physical, and unflinching. (If you missed last year's Smackdown which really dived into her work, check out the Smackdown and its companion podcast.)

Here's to one of the rare Oscar-approved Scream Queens!

Podcast: Anomalisa & Great Films to Stream Right Now

Previously on Pt 1: The Hateful Eight and Comedy Performances of 2015

Pt 2 is here now. Joe, Katey and Nick --soldiering on awesomely without Nathaniel at this week's recording session -- are talking Anomalisa, and streaming recommendations to complete your film year. I hope you enjoy their conversation as much as I did! 

36 minutes 
00:01 Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson's Anomalisa has attracted obsessed fans. Do Katey, Joe and Nick number among them? Find out. 
14:40 Reader Question: Great performances in not so great films? When actors do all the work themselves. 
20:10 Catching up with 2015 films we missed. Streaming recommendations!
34:30 Goodbyes & Plugs & Happy New Year

Films discussed include but are not limited to: Phoenix, The Man From UNCLE, Blackhat, and Goodnight Mommy  

Further Reading: 
Joe's Decider column on future cult classics
Nick's new giant Actress project 

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. 

Anomalisa, Phoenix, and More...

Best of '15: Most Memorable Scares. Boo!

Jason from MNPP here for more Year in Review madness.

Truth be told 2015 was not the best year for horror movies. There were some smaller successes but only a couple of classics born, and out of those only one - David Robert Mitchell's It Follows would classify entirely as a genre exercise. But there were plenty of Scary Scenes, whether inside the horror genre or knock knock knocking on the door, and that's what we're here to celebrate.

The following moments aren't necessarily in hard order, save the top few, because What Scares Us is subjective to not just each individual person but to each individual moment that person is experiencing -- I might feel like "No thank you, Bugs" today but tomorrow it might be all like "I said NO THANK YOU, Cannibals!" instead. Fear's a funny thing like that.

Anyway beware spoilers below, as we'll be discussing in a little bit of detail the money-shots of the year in "Boo!"

The 15 Scariest Scenes of 2015
from all sorts of films after the jump... 

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