The Oscars are not generally considered a crucial event for genre lovers; the inclusion of such films is often limited, and often ghettoized, relegated to technical awards only. This year there are several films in requisite categories like Makeup and Hairstyling, and Visual Effects (whose nominees include The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Avengers, Snow White and the Huntsman, and Prometheus). Another good category where one can snoop out genre fare is in Best Animated Film, and 2013 doesn’t disappoint, with the lovingly crafted and decidedly Gothic take on suburbia in ParaNorman and Tim Burton’s tale of a boy and …

Imagining a future in which celebrity worship has become the new world order hardly strains the brain, but first-time filmmaker Brandon Cronenberg’s Antiviral creates this scenario with such casual logic and vivid detail that very little imagination is required to make the leap from current reality to future absurdity. In this world, we no longer want to hear, as a society, that stars are just like us, we want them to be other, god-like. There is also a yearning to be close to them; the ritualistic collection of autographs or buying Kim Kardashian’s used hair dryer on eBay has morphed …

As the writer of a genre column, I spend an inordinate amount of time contemplating the balance between “classic” and “updated” when it comes to monster movie tropes in vampire, werewolf, and zombie fare. How much can a new offering stick to the proscribed strictures of, say, werewolf lore without feeling stale or, at best, adequate? How far can a new film stray from those details without sacrificing the pleasing familiarity we all love, a dependence on immutable truths like zombies are slow, and vampires go poof in the daylight? Every film should have the opportunity to make its own …

A mainstream production with a mainstream star, Sinister employs such horror movie tropes as a nice family moving into a new house with a past, the supernatural traveling through photographs and movies, and suspiciously troubled children. Yet despite its potentially cliché setup, the film feels unexpectedly fresh; a mash-up of ghost story, serial killer thriller, and Ringu-style photo-phobia that is more than the sum of its parts. The film is anchored by a story of believable domestic strain, and probes slightly deeper than many films in its exploration of the primal idea that images, like the film itself, represent a …

The most important thing to know about V/H/S is that it is more than the sum of its gimmicky-on-paper parts, which include found footage film, genre anthology, and snuffy homage to the recent history of lo-fi horror. Although it is not entirely free of the inherent unevenness of the omnibus film, V/H/S works surprisingly well as a whole because of consistency in the aesthetic, clever writing, and tongue-in-cheek humor across multiple directors’ vignettes. The setup involves a group of 20-something delinquents whose primary activity is shooting prank videos of a slightly racier nature than the likes of Jackass. When they …

It often feels as though a solid 75% of film industry members that I meet in New York have filtered through the IFP at some point; as a long ago employee, intern, or volunteer, or as a patron of the film market, which has gone by various aliases over the years. These days it falls under the umbrella of Independent Film Week, which I had the opportunity to attend this year as my film Remote Area Medical—which my partner Jeff and I are deep in the process of editing—was accepted into the Spotlight on Documentaries section. As I proudly told …

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation was created in 1934 by the then head of General Motors to bestow grants related to science, technology, and economics, and to make these subjects more appealing to the general public. Part of a shift towards doing so via the arts can be attributed to Doron Weber, who runs the Public Understanding of Science and Technology program. Weber introduced the concept of providing sometimes sizable grants to narrative films, dealing with science or the science community, over a decade ago, when the idea was relatively novel and returns were a total question mark due the …

Trailers have the ability to psyche us up, freak us out, turn us off, and lead us very, very astray, but the heightened anticipation is part of the fun, regardless of how accurate a representation of the film that cleverly constructed little bugger ends up being in the end. Recently there’s been a spate of trailers for horror-themed animated children’s films, starting with ParaNorman (pictured above), which opened today. So which of these flicks is most likely to either give your kids nightmares, or send them down a lifelong path of genre appreciation? Let’s judge a book by its cover …

Although I’ve been recently reminded of the fact repeatedly, it always shocks me anew to hear that Battle Royale, Kinji Fukasaku’s stunning, blood-soaked film adaptation of the novel by Koushun Takami, has never officially had U.S. distribution. After a spate of festival bookings, a 3D release of the film in honor of its 10-year anniversary, and a DVD and Blu-ray release from Anchor Bay, Battle Royale, original flavor, is starting to see theatrical premieres in the U.S., like the one at the Cinefamily Theater in Los Angeles in December 2011, and the New York premiere starting at the IFC Center …