You don’t realize how hard it is to make a scary haunted-house film till you see one that isn’t. The problem with the genre is that horrors confined to particular domiciles or environs are, in theory, easy to evade, as Eddie Murphy pointed out in his famously succinct critique of Poltergeist: “There’s a ghost in the house? Get the fuck out.”... Read more

If there’s one thing we’ve learned at the cineplex, it’s that hell hath no fury like a teenage outcast with telekinetic powers. First-time director Josh Trank brings us this variation on the Carrie theme updated for the age of faux found footage. Working from a smarter-than-average script by Max (son of John) Landis, he tells the story of three high school students who pretty much become their own science projects.... Read more

If you live along Lake Champlain, you’ve heard the periodic warnings to stay out of the water. In a state known for its eco-consciousness, how did our largest lake get so polluted? And what can we do?... Read more

When I had cable, one of my guilty pleasures was a show called “I Shouldn’t Be Alive.” From the producer of the 2003 survival doc Touching the Void, each episode featured reenactments of real people battling sharks, cold, heat, avalanches and other mighty natural forces. The point wasn’t finding out who survived but watching people grapple with the realization that they might not. Who would be paralyzed by the imminence of death? Who would fight to the end?... Read more

This is an odd little movie about an odd little man. Directed by Rodrigo García (Mother and Child) and based on a story by George Moore, the film portrays life in a late-19th-century Dublin hotel from the vantages of multiple characters of different classes, but never seems to decide what it wants to say. The odd thing about Albert Nobbs, of course, is that he’s a woman.... Read more

When arty directors make genre films, sometimes they do it for the money. Sometimes they do it for fun. And sometimes they do it to find out how much they can warp the conventions of a given genre and still sell it as routine entertainment.... Read more

In David Cronenberg’s latest film, Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortensen play Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. Ed Harris costars as a one-eyed Victorian miscreant who threatens to besmirch their reputations by revealing their violent criminal pasts.... Read more

Ready for a shocker? Down deep, civilized people are not that civilized! They may even be egotistical monsters eager to savage their fellow humans in a quest for supremacy. For anyone who read Lord of the Flies in high school, has watched reality TV or lives life observantly, the message of Yasmina Reza’s 2006 play God of Carnage isn’t surprising, or particularly enlightening.... Read more

Two Vermont filmmakers could generate a lot of buzz at the Sundance Film Festival, which starts Thursday, January 19, in Park City, Utah.

On the narrative side, Burlington’s Colin Trevorrow is presenting his directorial effort Safety Not Guaranteed, a romantic comedy about a loner who may or may not be building a time-travel device. Indie favorites Aubrey Plaza and Mark Duplass star.... Read more

I’m not sure French writer-director Michel Hazanavicius’ love letter to the cinema is, in fact, the most outstanding movie of last year, as many maintain. But who would deny that it stands out from the motion-picture pack? A black-and-white, mostly silent film set in the 1920s and early ’30s and starring people most Americans have never heard of? Not exactly the formula for box-office success. And yet The Artist is indisputably winning.... Read more