What do you get when you mash up Alice in Wonderland with Rosemary’s Baby, add in hint of Midsommar, and include the American sister of the most famous scream queen, with an Italian writer and director for a film that’s shot in Germany? Why you get The Sect — AKA The Devil’s Daughter.
In the latest installment of the Breakfast Club meets Final Destination we’re treated to a modern fixation that clumsily follows a gaggle of hyper-stereotypical teens. This one has it all. The stoner (Rel), the loner (Chrys), the brain (Ellie), the jock (Dean), and the beauty queen (Grace). More miraculous? They’re all best friends. Even more miraculous? The loner is a former drug addict who is new to the school and everyone is dying to hang with her.
There are certain things in life worth obsessing over. In fact, there may be a direct correlation between the importance of the obsession and the meaninglessness of the object of fascination. Your favorite soccer club. The hunt for the perfect slice of pizza. The original pressing of the 1971 German prog LP that no one — except for you — has ever heard of. All these things and many more deserve your undivided and undying attention.
What if a film tried to mash up the Oedipus complex with vampires, Crips, Bloods, crooked cops, not-so-crooked cops, vampire cops, mother/son tensions, father/son tensions, and African mysticism? Not possible, right?
Truth be told Dolly is a pretty boring affair. That said, the film is punctuated with some pretty exceptional pieces of gore — including one moment that may not have ever been laid down on celluloid.
If the new A24 film Undertone is considered to be “liminal horror” then count me as a true blue liminal horror fan. Operating in between the spaces, notes, and shadows, this is a film that evokes surreal and unsettling perspectives from — the nothingness.
If staring at video game for an hour and fifteen minutes is your idea of a swell time, then this might be the found footage film you’ve been waiting for all these years. The chaos isn’t too terribly chaotic. It’s far more controlled than any film in the VHS series, but not as staid as the now bland nature of the Blair Witch Project.
A film that roils in equal parts gore, humor, and the paranormal, Silent Night Deadly Night is a true Yuletide crowd pleaser. By playfully pulling apart the most sacrosanct holiday figure of all time — Ol’ St. Nick — this film manages to have something for the entire family to enjoy on Xmas morning.
Chain Reactions is an incredibly intellectualized love letter to one of the most gruesome films ever laid down on celluloid. Unlike the varied nature of many of Alexandre O. Philippe films — save for Leap of Faith William Friedkin on the Exorcist — the film is a straight forward and linear affair.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way. This is a bad film. You knew this going in. You were fully aware and your eyes were wide open. The question is why you decided to watch this?
It should come as no surprise, or for some of you it will come as massive surprise, but the Toxic Avenger is a great film. Not just a fun romp at the movies, but a true-blue brilliant piece of horror wrapped in some of the best satire seen in years!
Intensity: 🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
When a film becomes so firmly ensconced in our nation’s, nay the world’s, cultural zeitgeist there’s often nothing left to say about it. The film score, the triad of perfectly perfect actors, one of the best villains of all time, and more metaphorical subtext than you can shake a stick at.
Intensity: 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
This is a BRUTAL film with the biggest capital B that there ever was. Revenge with a capital R and blood with another capital B. NOTE: This film is not for the faint of heart!
Intensity: 🩸🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
28 Years Later is an exceptional cinematic achievement replete with iPhone footage, goat cams, and lots of drone footage. The problem is Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s non-sequitur approach to the film has audiences ending up feeling like they’ve watched three films instead of one. Each act of the film ends up almost being an entirely different film.
Intensity: 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Companion is one big love triangle. Literally and figuratively. It deftly balances a series of human and non-human relationships, while at the same time trying to thread a very delicate needle between comedy, horror, and the sci-fi thriller genres.
Intensity: 🩸 🩸 🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
There’s only question that needs to be asked about 2024’s remake of Speak No Evil. Why?
Intensity: 🩸 🩸 🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
This is the first horror film in 2025 that you can safely skip. To be clear, it’s a good looking production with a great soundtrack, but The Wolf Man is one of the poorest excuses for a werewolf you’ll ever lay your eyes on.
Intensity: 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
This one’s a real puzzler. On the one hand it’s a full-on gross-out B-movie, with questionable acting and an equally questionable plot. On the other hand Terrifier 3 is a real achievement. The gore is certainly like nothing you’ve ever seen before — unless you already watched Terrifier 1 and 2 -- and the mean-spirited depravity is something to behold. This is a film that would have Herschell Gordon Lewis, Tom Savini, and Lucio Fulci hunched over a stain-soaked toilet.
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Be. Careful. What. You. Wish. For. The most quaint and playful of all the horror tropes is on full display in this masterful piece of body horror. Not your run of the mill body horror either. This is capital “B” body horror that would even make David Cronenberg blush.
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
While there’s a surprising lack of Rottweilers, The First Omen is chock full of reproductive rights, secularism, mental health, religious repression, and a gang of scares — most of them well deserved. Most importantly, The First Omen is a GREAT horror film that will make even the most hardened horror heart thump.
Intensity 🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Is it a thriller? A sci-fi abomination? A psychedelic mishmash? A video game? An affront to Toho’s original vision? A horror film? Seriously, what the hell is this? Truth be told, it’s really of all these things crammed together in a gargantuan hodgepodge of CGI lunacy. Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire is a wildly chaotic film with an equally wild plot that makes little to no sense. Scratch that…no sense.
