Amanda Waltz

[Fantasia Review] On the White Planet

South Korean animator Hur Bum-Wook isn't afraid to dive head first into some dark subject matter - in his 2011 short City of Good People, abstract images and a ...

[Review] Bound to Vengeance

Rape-revenge thrillers aren't new to cinema, with such titles as Last House on the Left (the original, not the remake), I Spit On Your Grave (again, the origina...

[Review] Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party

Based on his resume, filmmaker Stephen Cone displays a penchant for juxtaposing Christianity with the fast progressing modern world - he wrote The Wise Kids, a ...

[Review] Madame Bovary

Due to their public domain status, literary classics are subject to potentially endless film adaptations. Why make an original work when you can drape a top-rat...

[Review] The Stranger

Throughout my high school and college career, I plowed through multiple novels by British horror author, Simon Clark. The supermarket paperbacks were hardly lit...

[Review] Dark Star: H. R. Giger’s World

"This is the oldest skull I have," says Hans Rudolph "Hansruedi" Giger, displaying his macabre prize as the Oscar he won for Alien sits off-camera, collecting d...

[Review] Monsters: Dark Continent

Before Gareth Edwards brought Godzilla back to life, he made his directorial debut with the 2010 indie hit Monsters. The revisionist monster movie – for which E...

[Review] Appropriate Behavior

When Desiree Akhavan first appears onscreen in her feature debut Appropriate Behavior, one thing is for sure: she's a stunner. With a statuesque figure, dark ca...

Amanda Waltz’s Top 10 Films of 2014

I'm happy to report that 2014 was a year brimming with standout blockbusters, worthy festival favorites, and surprising sleeper hits. I was most struck by the...