Noir

CHICAGO – One of the finest genre filmmakers from Chicagoland is releasing her latest horror epic. Writer/director Jennifer Reeder has created “Perpetrator,” her fourth feature film, and it will have a run at select theaters, including Chicago’s Music Box Theatre (LINK HERE) as well as streaming on SHUDDER beginning September 1st.

CHICAGO – TONIGHT (12/13/19) is the Chicago release date of writer/director Jennifer Reeder’s “Knives and Skin,” a noir mystery that contains more than what’s on the surface. The historic Music Box Theatre is the locale (7:15pm), and there will be numerous opportunities to see Reeder in person (click the link below).

CHICAGO – A local film puts a spotlight into the popular “After Dark” series on DAY FOUR of the 55th Chicago International Film Festival. The “Knives and Skin,” by director Jennifer Reeder expressed many genres, and will screen on October 19th, 2019 (9:45pm) at the AMC River East 21 in Chicago.

CHICAGO – The dark, mysterious film genre of noir has been a hand-in-glove for most of the cinema’s epic history. Director Kevin Epperson’s latest short film, “The Courtship,” uses all the familiar tools within the noir theme… the use of black&white, plus the roles of the hapless mark and the mysterious dame… to showcase the story of online dating gone awry. Epperson will be screening “The Courtship” at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema in Chicago, on Thursday, June 21st, 2018, at 7pm (click link below for more details).

CHICAGO – Very few movies are as wonderfully weird as “Kiss Me Deadly,” a film that clearly influenced decades of work that would follow from “Blue Velvet” to “The Adjustment Bureau.” Recently released in a beautiful Criterion edition, “Kiss Me Deadly” is a film that history almost forgot but that found its way to the right people who recognized this unique gem as something worth cherishing. It’s a perfect choice for the most important collection of films released on Blu-ray and DVD as it’s a classic less-heralded than some that will now be brought to a wider, adoring audience.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Michael Winterbottom’s ’50s-era neo-noir “The Killer Inside Me” creeps up on you in the creepiest possible way. Just as I was ready to write it off, I ended up caving in to its charms, or lack thereof. This film often seems as utterly cuckoo as its central antihero, and that’s what makes it so darn mesmerizing. Sure, it’s sort of a mess, but boy is it engrossing, with a strong emphasis on the gross.