Author Archives: Budd Wilkins

About Budd Wilkins

Budd Wilkins is a writer, film critic and instructor. He is a Staff Critic for Slant Magazine, and his work has also appeared in the Nordic Issue of Acidemic Journal of Film and Media. He is currently writing a chapter for an anthology on international horror directors to be published by Intellect Press and distributed by University of Chicago Press. Mr. Wilkins was born and raised in Hollywood, Florida. He attended Penn State for several years before moving to North Carolina in 1994, where he earned his Bachelor's in Religious Studies and a Master's in Liberal Studies with a concentration in Film Studies from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His primary focus is film history, film literacy and criticism, with the goal of bringing obscure, foreign and films that are labeled "difficult" to the attention of film aficionados of all kinds. Other interests and focus of critique include comparative religion, black humor, 19th century European literature, horror and graphic novels. Mr Wilkins lives in Greensboro, North Carolina with his wife, Tina. Follow @buddwilkins on Twitter.

Scarecrow (Jerry Schatzberg, 1973)

Posted on May 16, 2013

“Scarecrow embraces sprawl of both the narrative and geographical variety with freewheeling abandon.” Read my entire review of this lesser known New Hollywood masterwork, playing for one week starting tomorrow at the Film Forum in NYC, at Slant Magazine.

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The Telephone Book (Nelson Lyon, 1971)

Posted on May 14, 2013

“A brilliant and lamentably neglected gem of early-’70s underground filmmaking, The Telephone Book gets the deluxe Blu-ray treatment from Vinegar Syndrome, with a sterling high-definition transfer as well as some choice extras.” Read my review of this subversive nugget, out … Continue reading →

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Dead Man’s Burden (Jared Moshé, 2012)

Posted on May 1, 2013

“A ruminative study in character and environment, writer-director Jared Moshé’s debut feature, Dead Man’s Burden, feels closer in spirit to Kelly Reichardt’s Meek’s Cutoff than Quentin Tarantino’s flashy, namedropping spaghetti-western pastiche Django Unchained.” Read my review of this solid first … Continue reading →

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Night’s Black Agents: Jean Rollin’s The Grapes of Death and Night of the Hunted

Posted on April 30, 2013

“The most recent Jean Rollin films to make their Blu-ray debut from Kino and Redemption Films mark a significant departure for the filmmaker. Forced by financial exigencies to eschew the timeless fairy-tale quality of his early-’70s vampire films, Rollin sets … Continue reading →

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The Duellists (Ridley Scott, 1977)

Posted on April 25, 2013

“An obsessively detailed chronicle of obsession, The Duellists gets a sumptuous Blu-ray transfer from Shout! Factory, along with a solid new supplement, as well as some choice carryovers from the earlier DVD, even though there are one or two lamentable … Continue reading →

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Metaphor and Symbol in Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995), Spirit of the Beehive (1973), Salaam Bombay! (1988) and Los Olvidados (1950)

Posted on April 15, 2013

The four films under consideration – Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995), Spirit of the Beehive (1973), Salaam Bombay! (1988) and Los Olvidados (1950) – all develop what could be called a “root metaphor” for their vision of childhood and the … Continue reading →

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“Mere Surmise, Sir”: Uncertainty in the Coen Brothers’ The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) and A Serious Man (2009)

Posted on April 12, 2013

Both The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) and A Serious Man (2009) utilize Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle as an organizing metaphor. Knowledge, according to this quantum mechanical interpretation, is fundamentally imprecise: the more we know about one property, the less we … Continue reading →

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Something is Rotten: A Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven, 1984)

Posted on April 11, 2013

“According to Shakespeare, there was something operating in Nature, perhaps inside human nature itself, that was rotten. ‘A canker,’ as he put it. Of course, Hamlet’s response to this, and to his mother’s lies, was to continually probe and dig … Continue reading →

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Perishing Dreams, Forgotten Deliriums: Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977)

Posted on April 10, 2013

Before discussing Argento’s film, it might be illuminating to put it in the context of its source material. It is a widely known fact that Argento drew inspiration for his films (the so-called “Three Mothers” series) from the writings of … Continue reading →

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Eddie: The Sleepwalking Cannibal (Boris Rodriguez, 2012)

Posted on April 9, 2013

“The ramifications of killing for art’s sake have long been fair game for film treatment, especially in movies that tap the horror-comedy vein, whether the target of the humor is the reception of the resultant artworks (Roger Corman’s A Bucket … Continue reading →

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