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Julian Singleton

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

Julian Singleton is an Austin-based film critic with a borderline irresponsible love of storytelling in all its forms. In 2024, he recorded the audio commentary for Arrow Video’s debut Western release of Noroi: The Curse (2005). When not indulging in awards-season speculation or curating Letterboxd lists, he enjoys chipping away at his ever-growing watchlist and discovering new favorites from around the globe. He currently writes for Cinapse and serves as the producer of the YouTube video essay series "Back of the Shelf."

Publications:

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
About a Place in the Kinki Region (2025) EDIT “Dense with cosmic and emotional horrors lurking at the edges of the frame, Kinki pairs Shiraishi’s signature found-footage frights with confident traditional narrative filmmaking, revealing a bolder formal and thematic ambition than ever before.” – Cinapse Dec 20, 2025 Full Review The Abyss (1989) 76% EDIT “It’s a riveting, reflective parable about trust in human goodness–and our universal potential to be better than the environments and emotions that threaten to limit our progress.” – Cinapse Dec 5, 2025 Full Review Queens of the Dead (2025) 83% EDIT “Tina Romero’s Queens of the Dead riotously fuses sharp scares, biting social commentary, and a joyfully silly sense of humor.” – Cinapse Oct 27, 2025 Full Review Frankenstein (2025) 85% EDIT “By honoring not just the iconic spectacle but the aching original thematic substance of Shelley’s text, Guillermo Del Toro reverently crafts the best Frankenstein adaptation to date.” – Cinapse Oct 20, 2025 Full Review Nightmare Alley (2021) 80% EDIT “[Del Toro's] reverence for noir—and the fading idealism flickering beneath its suffocating shadow—is what makes Nightmare Alley such a bewitching experience.” – Cinapse Oct 14, 2025 Full Review The Curse (2025) EDIT “If Pulse and Ring feared technology’s doorway to the unknown, The Curse fixates on how networked life leaves us exposed to the casual malice of complete strangers–and how the average person can be even more horrifying compared to any yurei of yore.” – Cinapse Oct 1, 2025 Full Review Luger (2025) EDIT “Powered by the irresistible bromance of David Sainz and Mario Mayo alongside Bruno Martín’s insightful eye for comedy, chaos, and social critique, Luger is a fast, ferocious caper that tackles weighty topics without ever losing its stylish swagger.” – Cinapse Oct 1, 2025 Full Review Body Blow (2025) EDIT “Body Blow is a feverish, full-body genre grind, provocatively twisting beloved tropes of action thriller cinema to unabashedly hilarious and unashamedly erotic ends.” – Cinapse Sep 30, 2025 Full Review The Holy Boy (2025) EDIT “Paolo Strippoli’s third feature may be as visually sparse as the tiny village that cages the film’s narrative, but The Holy Boy remains an emotionally potent and deeply unsettling work of folk horror.” – Cinapse Sep 29, 2025 Full Review The Restoration at Grayson Manor (2025) 100% EDIT “Grayson Manor [is] a gleefully gory crowd-pleaser that deserves to be as much a Pride Month ritual as a late-night horror favorite.” – Cinapse Sep 26, 2025 Full Review Weapons (2025) 93% 9/10 EDIT “Cregger’s masterful Weapons needles a universal neurosis: no matter how well we think we’re protected, or how capable we believe we are as protectors, something in the deep, dark unknown is just as ready to prove us wrong.” – Cinapse Aug 10, 2025 Full Review undertone (2025) 86% 4.5/5 EDIT “The Undertone...weaponizes our instinct to pair sound and image, delivering a slow-burning, sound-driven nightmare that is as immersive as it is diabolically terrifying.” – Cinapse Aug 4, 2025 Full Review Mother of Flies (2025) 96% 4/5 EDIT “Mother of Flies is a visceral experience—equally potent as an emotional reckoning as much as a horror film—confronting the terror of impending death with a fierce intimacy and a bold, joyfully confident sense of formal experimentation.” – Cinapse Jul 30, 2025 Full Review Rewrite (2025) EDIT “Rewrite is a witty, welcome reinvention of time travel stories...showing how easily characters mistake their limited perspective for the center of the story – when in reality, they’re just one small part of countless others.” – Cinapse Jul 21, 2025 Full Review Noise (2024) 67% EDIT “Noise may borrow the notes of Korean horror past, but Kim Soo-Jin orchestrates them into something deeply unsettling, formally inventive, and well worth listening to.” – Cinapse Jul 20, 2025 Full Review Little Women (2019) 95% EDIT “By investing [Gerwig's] audience in the internal lives of major and minor characters with equal compassion and dexterity, it’s almost impossible to not find some facet of Little Women to fall in love with — if not the whole film outright.” – Cinapse Jul 12, 2025 Full Review Bombshell (2019) 67% EDIT “The end result...massively fails its own subject matter, with a compelling story streamlined and simplified to oblivion.” – Cinapse Jul 12, 2025 Full Review The Lighthouse (2019) 90% EDIT “While a similar slow-burn to his last effort, [The Lighthouse] taps into the even weirder sides of human nature, as gritty, gnarly, and gut-bustlingly hilarious as they may be.” – Cinapse Jul 12, 2025 Full Review Les misérables (2019) 88% EDIT “Les Misérables examines the valid reasons why those without a social voice turn to violence for expression, while acknowledging that violence as part of a cycle of retribution that must be broken at all costs.” – Cinapse Jul 12, 2025 Full Review Weathering With You (2019) 91% EDIT “Makoto Shinkai’s latest anime melodrama features truly dazzling spectacles with off-key consequences.” – Cinapse Jul 12, 2025 Full Review Knives and Skin (2019) 69% EDIT “What makes Knives and Skin stand out from the shadow of its influences is in frustratingly short supply.” – Cinapse Jul 12, 2025 Full Review Sátántangó (1994) 100% EDIT “Sátántangó is a dance throughout time between disparate moments of human suffering and hunger for control, one that shows us how universally comic and tragic these experiences are.” – Cinapse Jul 12, 2025 Full Review The Report (2019) 83% EDIT “The Report is a bitterly rewarding dose of cinematic medicine — one where entertainment comes as a side effect of its visceral yet sobering examination of our all-too-recent history.” – Cinapse Jul 12, 2025 Full Review Doctor Sleep (2019) 78% EDIT “As a whole, Doctor Sleep acknowledges and reveres The Shining’s film and novel while at the same time refusing to live in either work’s shadow, working best when it’s neither King nor Kubrick, but wholly Mike Flanagan.” – Cinapse Jul 12, 2025 Full Review Kundun (1997) 76% EDIT “It’s fascinating to see how Scorsese explores the Dalai Lama’s faith...reckoning his steadfast belief in non-violence with the encroaching non-religious, unapologetically brutal forces that approach Tibet in the wake of World War II.” – Cinapse Jul 12, 2025 Full Review
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