In the past month or so, to much local acclaim, two Australian telemovies based on mystery novels by Golden Dagger-winner Peter Temple introduced an interested populace to former criminal lawyer and current gambler/enforcer/cabinet maker/detective Jack Irish. Played on screen by Guy Pearce, Irish is a rakish, rumpled, damaged soul seeking redemption in all the wrong…
Needless to say, not safe for tender ears. This brilliant piece is from Silence! The Musical by Jon and Al Kaplan, and is animated with Legos by Pete Levin. If you live in L.A. or NYC, you can even see the show live—though it’s probably not quite the same without the Legos.
Psychos: Serial Killers, Depraved Madmen, and the Criminally Insane, edited by John Skipp, is a crime anthology featuring stories by master storytellers including Neil Gaiman, Lawrence Block, and Ray Bradbury (available September 25, 2012). As we read in John Skipp’s cheerful introduction: This just in: SOME PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE! It’s the hideous headline heard daily,…
Two of the best directors for crime fans are William Friedkin and Michael Mann. Hollywood in the ’8os wasn’t big enough for the both of them. Between them, they brough us what would be (in my arrogant opinion) the two best crime films of the ’80s: Michael Mann’s Thief, and William Friedkin’s To Live and…
We’ve got a few nibbles of news to share: 1) They’re not calling the new movie based upon Lee Child’s novels One Shot anymore. They’re calling it Jack Reacher. Makes sense to us. Star Tom Cruise recently said he’s bringing to the part “everything but the height.” 2) The first part of the Hatfields &…
When a crime is committed a balance is upset and with that comes a sense of unease and perhaps even dread, especially if the perpetrator of the crime renains at large. It’s like a monster has been set loose into society and sometimes that’s exactly what’s happened… because the crime and horror genres go together…
Ever find yourself wondering, “Where could I possibly get more of that homicidal mad man I love, Hannibal Lecter?” I know I do. Good news for all the fans of Thomas Harris’s most famous serial killer. Hannibal is coming to the small screen. The genius-turned cannibalistic serial killer is making his way to TV in…
Here on Criminal Element there’s been talk about horrific casting decisions (Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher) and ones that make you go “hmm” (Jason Statham as Richard Stark’s Parker), but there’s also another class of casting decisions that gets less notice, those that just absolutely work. In fact, this post was inspired by one of…
Last year author Neil Gaiman decided that people should give away books more often. Instead of competing with the gift-giving craze of the winter holidays, he began the idea of All Hollow’s Read. On Halloween, he wants us all to find our favorite spooky or creepy stories and give them to our friends and family…
This is the third installment in our Death Brackets: Toughest Dicks vs Baddest Thriller Heroes. In the intro, you learned the rules and met the contestants. In Part 1 of the First Round, we gave you the first four matches of our Savage Sixteen. Today, the last four. And then the competition gets really stiff!
