Welcome. Many of you might know me from my books, including Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento, Filmmaking on the Fringe: The Good, the Bad, and the Deviant Directors and Movie Lust. I’ve been reviewing and writing about movies since, well, since I was a teenager, scribbling my thoughts on index cards — and no, I didn’t keep them and that’s probably for the best. As reviewer/feature writer and, later, senior movies editor at TV Guide, I helped shape its website’s movie coverage for more than a decade, while also writing my popular Ask Flickchick column.
Alternately, some of you might know me from my work in Film Comment, Film Journal, The New York Times, Fangoria, Time Out New York and other periodicals, or from my teaching film at Brooklyn College and Hunter College. Whatever brought you here, I’m glad you’re here. Like you, I’m sure, I still love the moment when the house lights go down and the screen lights up — whether in a theater or in my home.
”Maitland on Movies” — a somewhat self-aggrandizing but nicely alliterative title — is your weekly review of (or essay about) horror movies and thriller films … primarily, at least. I’ll occasionally mix in dramas, action pictures, international releases and yes, the occasional comedy or animated movie — which on the whole I don’t love quite as much, but then along comes a Delicatessen (1991) or Perfect Blue (1997) and, well, there you go. Every Thursday, generally at 9 a.m. Eastern Time.
The best thing about movies is that no matter how many you’ve seen, you’ve never seen them all, and the next might be the best one yet. Here you will find something to read every week, with recommendations for what’s new and what’s good, as well as thoughts on why something might not be worth your time. All for five dollars a month.
We open with two free posts on Thursday, Feb. 1: A review of the documentary Dario Argento Panico, premiering Feb. 2, and an interview with that film’s director, Simone Scafidi.
I hope you like my work. And I hope you subscribe. Your support means everything.