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SXSW 2015: ‘Room 237’ director Rodney Ascher explores the horrors of sleep paralysis in ‘The Nightmare’

It starts with a tingling sensation, almost like an electric jolt to the body. A heavy weight presses down upon the chest, rendering you immobile. You sense a presence in the corner of the bedroom. It moves closer and closer to your bed. You try to move or scream, but nothing happens. The shadow man just keeps lurching forward. Soon he’ll be upon you, and there is no telling what damage he’ll inflict.

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Fantastic Fest 2014: ‘ABCs of Death 2’ is always watchable but rarely memorable

It seems only natural for an expansive anthology like ABCs of Death 2 to offer up such a mixed bag
of short films. There are 26 in total, each running for approximately four to five minutes. Such the-abcs-of-death-2-stills-3time constraints act as a hindrance to many of the directors involved in the project. A large number of the shorts are either underdeveloped or conventional in terms of their story. However, there are a handful of standouts that make the viewing experience worthwhile.

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Strange Interpretation: Why ‘The Shining’ is Subliminal Genius, Not Cryptic Confession

Films have been made, thousands of hours have been spent pouring over every detail, and lives have been changed by the pursuit of a holy grail within the subtext of Kubrick’s horror masterpiece. In short there is clearly ‘something’ going on within The Shining…

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Essential Viewing: The Best Documentaries of 2013 (part two)

Leviathan Directed by Lucian Castaing-Taylor & Verena Paravel USA, 2012 The Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab is slowly out to reshape the way you see cinema and the world. Rather than set out to document the world via a recitation of facts and experiences, they’re strapping the cameras right at the edge of life – in …

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‘Room 237’ a fascinating exercise in the obsessive nature of the modern man

Room 237 Directed by Rodney Ascher USA, 2012 A blessing and curse of being human is that we grasp for meaning in all things. If something is not spelled out for us directly, we have to get to the bottom of it, our curiosity unable to be sated until we’ve gotten to the bottom of …

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‘Room 237’ Movie Review – little more than the various youtube or geocities web 1.0

Room 237 Directed by Rodney Ascher With Bill Blakemore, Geoffrey Cocks, Juli Kearns It’s inevitable really. Whenever you get a gaggle of film fanatics together soon the impenetrable argot of a celluloid subculture will come to the fore, with fiery debates on the merits of diagetic sound or Academy ratios, dolly zooms and chiaroscuro lighting …

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Fantastic Fest 2012 Wrap Up: The Best of the Fest

Fantastic Fest is over but that doesn’t mean we should stop promoting the incredible line-up of movies programmed. It has become a Sound on Sight tradition that once the event has finished, we post a festival wrap-up highlighting our favourite films. Here are the top three picks from four of our writers. You can check …

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Fantastic Fest 2012: ‘Room 237’ a one-of-a-kind exploration into fanaticism

Room 237 Directed by Rodney Ascher USA, 2012 Room 237 is a potent, one-of-a-kind exploration into obsession and fanaticism that calls into question the underlying value of art and those who seek to unearth it. Whether or not you’re a fan of Kubrick and his films is moot. Rodney Ascher’s documentary serves up mind-boggling theory after another, absorbing the …

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