OK, technically this should be a Midnight Rec. Also technically, the fucking high school I work with should be able to foot the bill to get the high school play's programs run off at the same print shop that does 5000+ football programs every year that never even get passed out at games because they forget. I'm not exaggerating on the number. I've seen the invoice. Film Rec: Cigarette Burns Cigarette Burns is arguably the single greatest film John Carpenter has ever made. And that's because two up and coming horror writers penned a fantastic script about a killer film. And no, it doesn't really kill people. It's not cursed, either. It's completely different from any film you've seen recently. An eccentric millionaire who collects the rarest of rare film memorabilia wants the final piece of his banned cinema puzzle: a film that only played at one festival. The ensuing bloodbath was enough to have the film confiscated by the police and destroyed. But he knows a copy still exists. So his freelance detective has to travel all over the world, interviewing people who are progressively closer to having witnessed the whole film for themselves. A horror film about finding a film? How can that be scary? It's not. It's utterly disturbing, terrifying, and haunting. It's smart. It's funny. It's bloody. It's gorey. It's subtle. It's excessive. It's even a little blasphemous. It's everything that can but shouldn't be combined in a horror film put to good use. If you don't want to call it a horror film, then say it's a thriller. Call it a high stakes noir romance if it makes you feel better. It's worth watching. Believe it. FYI: It's technically a short film that's also an episode of the TV series Masters of Horror. Those are arguably films collected under a TV banner, but I'm iffy on the Made for TV's mixing with the cinema releases. This is the exception that proves the rule.

Labels: film rec