Picked Clean: Reviews from The Realm of The Carrion Crow

  By Stephen Pytak Since her breakout role in Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015), Daisy Ridley has continued working steadily before the camera, struggling to prove she is truly a force to be reckoned with. After seeing her doing her best with what she was given to work with in Episodes VIII and IX , the English actress found a few interesting opportunities. They included her work in  Magpie (2024) and Young Woman and the Sea (2024), Sometimes I Think About Dying (2023) and The Eagle Huntress (2016). In 2025, she played the lead in a post-apocalyptic film in which she has a few run-ins with some animated corpses. Called We Bury the Dead , it's more arthouse fare than splatterfest.  That doesn't mean you can't watch it in a marathon with films like Jean Rollin's The Night of the Hunted (1980) or George A. Romero's Day of the Dead (1985). Actually, it would fit nicely sandwiched between those two films. But the filmmakers seem to be more concerne...

  By Stephen Pytak While watching Primate (2025) at a sneak preview on Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, I kept wondering what kind of monkey wrangling Dario Argento and his crew had to deal with 40 years ago. See, back in 1985 Argento released Phenomena , a flashy giallo with comic book sensibilities and heavy MTV vibes. One of the supporting characters in it is a chimpanzee. Real name, "Tanga." Character name, "Inga." It's a fun idea. And at one point during this thriller, the chimp gets to wield a straight razor. The image of the money with the weapon inspired some great poster art for the film. But I figured it couldn't have been easy for Argento and his crew to get a performance out of the chimp. And I don't think actress Jennifer Connelly talks all that much about her experiences on the film. That's probably because Tanga reportedly bit off part of her finger at some point and it had to be surgically attached. I have a feeling the makers of Primate (202...