Witney Seibold Presents The Best Horror Films of the Millennium!

Movies are only a century old, but they've shaped our perspective of history by turning the past into a living, breathing reality. And that reality is often terrifying.

In his latest article for Bloody-Disgusting, Witney Seibold presents The Best Horror Films of the Millennium, highlighting the greatest scary movies that take place every century, from A.D. 1,000 to A.D. 2000!

Read: Witney Seibold Presents The Best Horror Films Set Within Each Century at Bloody-Disgusting!

Top Photo: Criterion

William Bibbiani Compares 'Midsommar' to Larry Cohen's 'A Return to Salem's Lot'

Ari Aster's acclaimed new horror thriller "Midsommar" is impressing audiences all over the world, but there's something familiar about its story of morally compromised anthropologists getting suckered into a deadly cult. No, it's got nothing to do with "The Wicker Man" or "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," but it's eerily similar to Larry Cohen's forgotten and underrated "A Return to Salem's Lot!"

In his latest editorial for Bloody-Disgusting, William Bibbiani looks back at the "Salem's Lot" sequel to figure out what it does better than "Midsommar," and why "Midsommar" seems destined to be remembered instead.

Read: William Bibbiani Writers "Larry Cohen's A Return to Salem's Lot and Its Surprising Parallels to Midsommar" at Bloody-Disgusting!

Top Photo: Warner Bros.

William Bibbiani Picks the Best 'Hellraiser' Straight-To-Video Sequel!

For nearly 20 years, every film in the "Hellraiser" horror movie franchise has had almost nothing to do with "Hellraiser." The straight-to-video sequels have mostly been original screenplays, hastily retrofitted to include some of Clive Barker's iconic, sadomasochistic monster, whether or not it makes any sense for them to be there.

And, arguably, none of them are particularly good. But which one is the BEST?

William Bibbiani explores the unpleasant nether-regions of one of the best known, but most mistreated horror franchises in his latest article at Bloody Disgusting!

Read: William Bibbiani Picks the Best Straight-To-Video "Hellraiser" Sequel!

Top Photo: Dimension

'PAW Patrol': A Dark Randian Fantasy

My son is 4, which means, as of this writing, I have watched several dozen hours of "PAW Patrol," Nickelodeon's current cash cow. While "PAW Patrol" isn't a terribly nuanced or sophisticated piece of children's entertainment - it's yet another nondescript object in a long, long line of friendly, color-coded crime-fighting animal shows - I constantly thank my lucky stars that, as a parent, it could be so much worse. My son, for instance, could have chosen something truly intolerable, forcing a wedge between us, causing a schism in our lives that would never be bridged until a tearful reconciliation 30 years later.

William Bibbiani Picks The Avengers' Greatest Horror Hits!

We get so wrapped up in franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe that sometimes we forget to let these blockbusters introduce us to worlds outside themselves. For example, if you wanted to see some amazing horror movies, all you have to do is check the filmographies of the cast and crew of "Avengers: Endgame!"

In his first article for Bloody Disgusting, William Bibbiani guides you through the best horror movies starring the cast of "Avengers: Endgame," including terrifying ghost stories, badass monster flicks and modern camp classics.

Read: William Bibbiani Picks The Avengers' Greatest Horror Hits at Bloody Disgusting

Top Photos: MGM / Warner Bros.

UPN's Lying Promos to 'Star Trek: Voyager'

[The following article was sponsored and assigned by our Patreon subscriber Canadian Keith. To learn how to sponsor and assign articles to William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold for publication at Critically Acclaimed, visit our Patreon page.]

Trekkies in the 1990s remember UPN quite well. Paramount's wildly unsuccessful network, which lasted for 11 years and lost the studio nearly $800 million, only ever produced a small handful of hits. Over the years, show after show opened and closed on the network, some of them called the worst of all time (UPN was responsible for 1998's “The Secret Diaries of Desmond Pfeifer,” a tasteless sitcom set in the Lincoln White House). By the time of the great Viacom split in 2005, the UPN was a walking corpse, forced to merge with the equally beleaguered WB Network. The resulting network, The CW, was only slightly stronger than the two of them combined.

Absurdism in Film: An Overview

[The following article was sponsored and assigned by our Patreon subscriber R. Clay Johnson. To learn how to sponsor and assign articles to William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold for publication at Critically Acclaimed, visit our Patreon page.]

What do a bicycle and a duck have in common?

They both have handlebars, except for the duck.

For the rebellious, for the contrarian, for the playful adolescent punk, absurdism is an appealing philosophy. For those eager to playfully circumvent the status quo – to subvert the dominant paradigm, as the saying goes – absurdism can be wielded as an ideology as well as a category of humor, both intended to confront the listener with a simple philosophical truth: That nothing has any meaning and everything can be deconstructed and reduced down to the point where its base elements appear to have no connection at all.

William Bibbiani Tackles Orson Welles' Last Film: 'The Other Side of the Wind'

One of the most important movies in years, maybe even in modern memory, has finally been released this weekend, and not a lot of people noticed. Orson Welles, the iconoclastic director of "Citizen Kane" and "Touch of Evil," completed filming "The Other Side of the Wind" in 1976, but the film wasn't finished until this year, and audiences only get to see it now.

In his latest article for IGN, William Bibbiani invites you to look at the history of "The Other Side of the Wind," and grasp with the film's unbelievable history and invaluable context within Welles' filmography and the artistic climate of its era.

Read: William Bibbiani Explains "The Other Side of the Wind" at IGN

Top Photo: Netflix

Witney Seibold Says the 'Super Mario Bros.' is Just Like 'Orpheus'

25 years ago, there was a film about brothers. Mario brothers. And they were super. But the "Super Mario Bros." movie, based on the iconic video game, was a bizarre and extremely loose adaptation that ticked off the fans, tanked at the box office, and confused film critics around the world.

But not all critics hate "Super Mario Bros." Our very own Witney Seibold argues in favor of the strange artistic qualities of this unsung cult oddity by comparing it, believe it or not, to "Orpheus," as iconic a myth as has ever been told.

Yes, really. You're going to want to read this one, folks!

Read: Witney Seibold Equates "Super Mario Bros." and "Orpheus" at SMBMovie.com!

Top Photo: Buena Vista

William Bibbiani Decides: Is 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' a Christmas Movie or a Halloween Movie?

There was a time when "The Nightmare Before Christmas" was considered too odd to categorize. The stop-motion animated film sprang from the mind of Tim Burton but came to the big screen courtesy of Henry Selick, and tells the story of a skeleton named Jack, who lives in Halloweentown, but who gets burnt out on the spooky holiday and decides to take over Christmas instead. The songs were bizarre, the imagery was ghoulish, and although it had obvious kid appeal it was considered too freaky to be family-friendly when it first came out 25 years ago.

Nowadays, long after people finally got used to "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and embraced its harmlessly eerie oddness, the only issue we seem to have is whether it's technically a Christmas movie or technically a Halloween movie. Debates rage every year whether it's more of one or more of another, and in his latest article for IGN, William Bibbiani examines both sides of the argument and comes to a decisive conclusion.

Yes, obviously it's both, but if you really think "The Nightmare Before Christmas" has to be more focused on one holiday than the other, Bibbs has the answer.

Read: William Bibbiani Decides If 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' is a Christmas Movie or a Halloween Movie

Top Photo: Disney

Witney Seibold Declares 'The Death of FilmStruck is a Terrible Thing'

The unexpected demise of FilmStruck, a digital streaming service offering high quality art house, classic and cult films from The Criterion Collection and Warner Archive, has left the motion picture industry and its fans reeling. Touted as the streaming service for real connoisseurs, which could act as a proper archive for important motion pictures, FilmStruck seemed likely to become a valuable, permanent institution.

But... no more. In his latest editorial at IGN, Witney Seibold bemoans the loss of FilmStruck and considers just how difficult it's going to be for film fans to access these films in the future.

Read: Witney Seibold Declares 'The Death of FilmStruck is a Terrible Thing'

Top Photo: FilmStruck

Witney Seibold Dares to Defend 'Venom'

Critics hated "Venom," the standalone superhero movie about Spider-Man's greatest nemesis, starring Tom Hardy as a newspaper reporter who becomes attached to an alien symbiote and eats living lobsters. But audiences have flocked to the film in droves, making it an enormous box office success.

Witney Seibold, film critic though he is, finds himself in the interesting position of defending "Venom" for many of the same reasons why other critics deride it. In his latest editorial at IGN, he praises the film's modest scale, oddball humor and 1990s nostalgia value.

Read: Witney Seibold's "In Defense of Venom"

Top Photo: Sony

William Bibbiani Declares 'Venom is More Interesting Without Spider-Man'

"Venom" is tearing his way through the box office, in a film that many people said would never work without Spider-Man. But although Venom was created to be Spider-Man's arch-nemesis, as a character, his connection to Peter Parker was always holding him back.

In his latest editorial for IGN, William Bibbiani explores how Venom's most interesting qualities have nothing to do with Spider-Man, and argues that he's far more intriguing on his own.

Read: William Bibbiani Says "Venom is More Interesting Than Spider-Man"

Top Photo: Sony

William Bibbiani Looks Back at 'The King of Comedy,' the Film That Inspired the New Joker Movie

The upcoming movie about the comic book supervillain The Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix, has its roots in one of the most disturbing motion pictures of the 1980s. Martin Scorsese's "The King of Comedy," starring Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis and Sandra Bernhard, was released to positive reviews and disappointing box office numbers in 1983, but eventually became one of the filmmaker's most celebrated accomplishments, a disturbing satire of celebrity adulation and delusional fandom.

In his latest article for IGN, William Bibbiani looks back on one of Martin Scorsese's masterpieces, and explores how it already plays like a Joker movie to begin with.

Read: William Bibbiani Explores "The 1980s Cult Classic That Inspired the Joaquin Phoenix Joker Movie" at IGN

Top Photo: 20th Century Fox

William Bibbiani Explains Why 'Predator' is the Most Subversive Action Movie of the 1980s

John McTiernan's "Predator" is often considered a shining example of the kind of musclebound, brainless and badass action movies that the 1980s had to offer. But what if this sci-fi classic was actually about tearing down the entire action genre, and was covertly undermining everything that action movie fans liked about it?

In his latest article for IGN, William Bibbiani runs down the many subversive elements of the original "Predator," and celebrates the film for taking the macho cheese genre down a peg.

Read: William Bibbiani Explains Why "Predator is the Most Subversive Action Movie of the 1980s at IGN

Top Photo: 20th Century Fox

Witney Seibold Reviews 'Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business'

[The following article was sponsored and assigned by our Patreon subscriber The Salem Horror Fest. To learn how to sponsor and assign articles to William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold for publication at Critically Acclaimed, visit our Patreon page.]

As a young man,
I plug into the tube,
But the stench of all that pretense
I cannot muddle through.

I lay on my back
And scan the radio
All that comes out my speakers
Is a steady syrup flow.

I suck information through the holes in my skull
As my belly gurgles hungry, my mouth is always full.

          "Antipop" by Primus

In 1984 – when Ronald Reagan was president, when Macintosh was posed to take over the tech world, when pop entertainment was poppier than ever – there naturally arrived a wave of essays and thinkpieces on George Orwell's eponymous novel. 

Up until that point, A.D. 1984 had previously been associated with political dystopia and governmental control of a citizen's unconsciousness, all thanks to Orwell's frantic – and all too plausible – warning. When the year itself finally arrived, pundits and thinkers all around the world – writing in the pages of political rags and entertainment magazines – began to compare the dark future of Orwell's imagination to the actual present state of the world, offering compare/contrast articles, both to the positive and to the negative. 

How powerful wast he government in the actual 1984? How much were we being spied upon or controlled? How did the real world's news language resemble Orwell's Newspeak? How much was cultural rebellion tolerated, and how much was silenced?

The Evolution of the Romantic Comedy: The 1980s/1990s vs. The 2000s/2010s

[The following article was sponsored and assigned by our Patreon subscriber Alexandra Mendez. To learn how to sponsor and assign articles to William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold for publication at Critically Acclaimed, visit our Patreon page.]

Trends, by definition, must come and go. Certain film genres, directing and editing styles, the careers of certain performers, they must wax and wane in the public consciousness like so many phases of the moon. And while the tides of popular opinion wash in and out, one thing remains frustratingly persistent: the endless string of online nostalgic thinkpieces, wistful essays, and halcyon retrospectives reminding us of the lost trends that have died in the recent past. 

Whether or not the trends in question are, indeed, deceased – I can't tell you how many times some film wonk has dared to posit that horror is finally dead – said essays tend to crop up with a maddening regularity.

One common subject of such thinkpieces is that of the romantic comedy, and, just as quickly, its demise.

Witney Seibold Calls the New 'Most Popular Film' Oscar a 'Terrible Mistake'

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced this week the addition of a new Oscars category, for "Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film." Although the exact criteria for the award has yet to be explained, the inclusion of an award specifically created to appeal to mainstream audiences is a major change for the awards ceremony, and a lot of people aren't happy about what it represents.

Writing for IGN, Witney Seibold says "these ideas are unilaterally terrible and threaten the very integrity of the Academy Awards themselves," and explains why the Academy is "essentially giving up any pretense of authority they had in dictating a film's quality."

Read: Witney Seibold Argues "The Oscars' New Popular Film Category is a Bad Idea" at IGN

Top Photo: Paramount Pictures

William Bibbiani Explains Why the Plot Holes in "The Dark Knight" Don't Matter

This week marks the ten year anniversary of Christopher Nolan's iconic, celebrated, Oscar-winning superhero classic "The Dark Knight." But while everyone else is singing the film's praises, film critic William Bibbiani takes the opportunity to explore some of the film's more notorious flaws: its plot holes.

But in his latest editorial for IGN, William Bibbiani argues that whatever gaps in storytelling logic "The Dark Knight" has, the majority of the film's plot holes are there for a reason, and solve other, more immediate problems from which the film might otherwise have suffered.

In other words, yes, practically ever movie has at least one plot hole. But the great ones are doing so many other things that the plot holes are either forgivable or, as Bibbiani argues, even necessary

Read: William Bibbiani Explains "Why the Plot Holes in The Dark Knight Don't Matter" at IGN

Top Photo: Warner Bros.

William Bibbiani Argues "The Incredible Hulk is the Most Underrated MCU Movie"

It's the ten-year anniversary of "The Incredible Hulk," the second film in the immensely popular Marvel Cinematic Universe, but also the most overlooked film in the franchise. Critics and fans frequently dismiss the film, directed by Louis Leterrier ("Transporter 2") as a straightforward action movie, featured that would later be explored more satisfactorily in "The Avengers," and that Mark Ruffalo would ultimately give a superior performance to "The Incredible Hulk's" Edward Norton.

But in his latest article at IGN, William Bibbiani says "The Incredible Hulk" achieves many dramatic goals that frequently elude many of the more popular MCU movies, telling a complete narrative, embracing the darkness inherent to the character, exploring a rich love story, and organically integrating the character into a larger universe.

Read: William Bibbiani Argues "The Incredible Hulk is the Most Underrated MCU Movie" 

Top Photo: Universal Pictures / Marvel Studios