REPENT/THE END IS/EXTREMELY/FUCKING/NIGH
Tag Archives: Danny Boyle
Prometheus (2012)
2 Jun
Revisiting the Alien universe was always going to be a risk for Ridley Scott. Alien was the film that cemented his reputation as a visionary auteur and is rightly regarded as a classic, a sublime example of atmospheric horror. Three sequels of varying quality established a sprawling world, one that Scott had long hinted that he was interested in exploring further, his interest particularly piqued by the mysterious Space Jockey, whose fleeting glimpse in his original work posed questions that have never been answered. Whilst Prometheus puts that quandary to bed, its ambitions and scale are far loftier than merely acting as a prequel to the series, which proves to be a refreshing yet frustrating approach.
The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
12 Mar
Five years ago in a review of 28 Weeks Later I extolled the virtues of Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, describing it as “genre busting” and praising it for reviving and redefining the horror genre, even going so far as to call it “ a wakeup call” to the industry. Well, if Boyle’s intelligent and sophisticated zombie romp did indeed succeed in doing that, then Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s The Cabin in the Woods can only be described as a landmark, watershed moment in film history, because this is such an innovative, brave, inspired and original entry into the horror oeuvre that nothing will ever be the same again.
From the Archives: 28 Weeks Later (2007)
16 Feb
By the mid to late 1990s the genre of horror had threatened to become a cruel parody of itself. Wes Craven’s wonderfully tongue-in-cheek self-referential 1996 feature Scream typified the malaise that the genre found itself in. It wasn’t until Danny Boyle’s genre busting 2002 feature 28 Days Later that horror was taken seriously again. Dispensing with outdated zombie movie clichés, Boyle’s measured direction revived and indeed redefined the entire genre. Intelligent, sophisticated and very scary, 28 Days Later served as a lesson and a wake up call to the film industry into how horror could and should be done. As a result, films such as Saw, Wolf Creek and Hostel have all subsequently enjoyed critical and commercial success, and in the case of Saw and Hostel spawned franchises. Given the success and influence of 28 Days, it seems surprising that a sequel has taken five years to emerge.
crash/burn 