Picked Clean: Reviews from The Realm of The Carrion Crow

 By Stephen Pytak Eli Roth's "Thanksgiving (2023)" is a little better than I thought it would be. It was inspired by a faux trailer he made in 2007 for the Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino cinema experience called "Grindhouse."  But instead of trying to incorporate new footage to extend that 16-year-old short into a full-length feature, Roth and company decided to do a remake in the spirit of that classic parody of slasher movie trailers. In the process, Roth has given us something new which stands on its own. Sure, it's filled with nods to movies like "Happy Birthday to Me (1981)," "My Bloody Valentine (1981)," "The Prowler (1980)" "Friday the 13th (1980)" and John Carpenter's "Halloween (1978)." But the filmmaker has also managed to give the project its own identity, and has given us a boogeyman who's just as intriguing and formidable as, say, "Michael Myers" or "Harry Warden....

By Stephen Pytak Fans of fantasy slasher flicks like "Happy Death Day (2017)" and "Freaky (2020)" are in for a treat this holiday season. It’s called “It’s a Wonderful Knife (2023).” It’s more than just a stabathon with a gimmicky title. It's more than just a clever spin on "It's a Wonderful Life (1947)."  And it’s a lot better than the Tomatometer suggests (It's at 56 as of this writing). The gist: A masked psycho dressed as an angel tree topper is racking up a body count in a small town called Angel Falls on Christmas Eve. He meets his match in a run in with a teenage girl who looks like a young Barbara Crampton (The resemblance isn't part of the plot. It's just one of my observations). One year later, this girl, "Winnie (played by Jane Widdop)" finds herself with a case of the holiday blues. And in a fateful moment, she wishes she was never born. Next thing you know, she finds herself in a parallel universe where that is in...