News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Thursday July 23rd 2026
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from the series Movie Corner…
5/5 Stars
2026
Horror/Psychological Thriller/Supernatural Horror
A24
By HOWARD MCQUITTER II
One says there is no shortage of horror or psychological thriller films in recent years. Just in the last four or five weeks two very good to excellent horror films have come to theaters: Obsession and Backrooms. This review will be on the latter.
Backrooms is receiving tremendous buzz and deservedly so, with its ability to put the unknown, the unfamiliar, and the uncanny into the heads of the viewers. Behind this project is 20-year-old director Kane Parsons who provides his audiences with anxiety and mystery. Backrooms is a stupendous A24 studios project.
The setting is the 1990s and focuses on Clark, the owner of a furniture store who is an alcoholic going through a recent separation from his wife. To his surprise (and ours too) he enters into a strange realm of seemingly never-ending office rooms which are often empty or with furniture piled up. As he explores he encounters unexplained dangers and unintentionally lures his therapist Dr. Mary Kline into the twisted, risky adventure.
Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor (Clark), Renate Reinsve (Mary), Mark Duplass (Phil), Finn Bennett (Bobby), Lukita Maxwell (Kat), Avan Jogia (Naren Warne), Robert Bobroczkyi (Pirate Clark), Ember Ambrose (Young Mary), Natalie Moon (Phil’s Wife), Calix Fraser (Phil’s Child), Sawyer Fraser (Phil’s Child ), Peter New (Big Wayne), Philip Granger (Meterman), Krista Kosonen (Nora) , Katherine Isabelle (Robin).
Keep citizen journalism alive!
Democracy Defense Networks Loom
from the series Raise Your Voice!…
By PETER MOLENAAR
To begin once again on a personal note: subsequent to his having a stroke, the writer here continues to reconnect a broken brain to a broken body, a body broken by 35 years of heavy labor at Smith Foundry, an enterprise which famously polluted the lungs of children (now totally absent from the zone near Cedar Ave. and 28th Street). Which is to say: he will continue to march with the masses, with a cane in hand, but the rapid-response mode is not in his future.
Even so, he took part in a UNIDOS assembly held at El Colegio (4137 Bloomington Ave.) where, in keeping with the rapid-response networks that engaged the ICE occupation, democracy-defense networks were envisioned.
Naturally, our polling places will be defended, while a list of triggering possibilities is pondered, such as: cancellation of mid-term elections, or perhaps another violent episode of election result denial.
PETER MOLENAAR advocates a broad united-front, even as he describes socialism as the future solution.
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