★★★★ out of ★★★★★

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Director Cristian Ponce's terrific Brazilian chiller A MOTHER'S EMBRACE weaves an eerie nursing home filled with mysterious residents, something weird winding through water, and trauma from childhood into a suspenseful, mysterious work with a riveting third act.

★★★★ out of ★★★★★

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The Daemon was a perfect vessel to be unleashed at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. The debut feature from Devino and Yohe taps into all of the key tropes of Cosmic Horror: coping with inner demons, battling psychoses and grief, dreams from the underworld, and elder gods rising from the deep. Add in some wonderfully grotesque body horror and you get a banger of a movie. Plus: we get Azathoth. If you know, you know.

★★★★ out of ★★★★★

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This is not a dream, this is really happening...Apartment 7A , a prequel to the 1968 horror masterpiece Rosemary's Baby, is GOOD!

Dead and SudBuried poster.
Back for its 8th year of frightening delights, Dead And SudBuried Horrorthon film festival has a weekend of horror coming up fast. Featuring 9 brand new festival circuit features including a UK premiere, 9 classic movies, and 18 new horror shorts plus Director/Cast Q&A’s and much, much more!
★★★★★ out of ★★★★★

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Strange Darling is a masterclass in story narrative, full of breathtaking surprises and harrowing thrills. JT Mollner applied the non-linear storytelling cinema rules from Tarantino and Nolan to the horror genre and succeeded brilliantly. In a year that thus far has struggled to impress horror fans, Strange Darling is destined to be a classic. A fair warning, though: as impressive as this movie is, its use of sexual violence may be severely triggering for some audiences.

★★★ out of ★★★★★

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In The Bunker, an alien fleet has arrived on Earth. Dr. Michelle Riley has been assigned to work in a deep underground bunker to find a bio-weapon that will kill the invaders and save Earth's human population. Isolation, alien schemes, and team dysfunction threaten to ruin the project's success. Some nifty effects and visuals offset a script that sometimes drifts into melodrama. The Bunker had its world premiere at the Popcorn Frights Film Festival.

★★.5 out of ★★★★★

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Booger is a body horror/comedy treatise on grief and loss. Anna's best friend Izzy has just died in a tragic bicycle accident. The only remnant from their relationship is Booger, a cat that the two Brooklyn roommates took in. When Booger bites Anna and runs away, Anna becomes the proverbial crazy cat lady in more ways than one. Grief and comedy are a tough pairing, and this story struggles to marry the two competing themes. Booger just played at the Popcorn Frights Film Festival.

★★★.5 out of ★★★★★

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Birthrite is a slow-burning American Folk Horror tale of a pregnant woman who inherits a New England home with a hidden occult legacy. She and her girlfriend struggle to start a family with the specter of a curse hanging over them. Birthrite had its world premiere showing at the Popcorn Frights Film Festival 2024.

★★★.5 out of ★★★★★

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Repeat after me: Nothing good comes from conducting a séance! In Scared to Death (2024), a horror film crew conducts field research by invoking a seance in an abandoned orphanage with a sordid past. Bad idea! This breezy fun film is full of familiar seance tropes and charming characters. Though it doesn't introduce anything groundbreaking to the genre, it is solid entertainment from front to back. Scared to Death had its world premiere at Popcorn Frights Film Festival in Fort Lauderdale.

Popcorn Frights Second Wave is here! Highlights include the inaugural Golden Skull Award presented to Horror Legend Tony Todd at a Special Presentation of CANDYMAN; an “Up All Night with Freddy” Closing Night marathon featuring all seven ELM STREET films presented overnight; and the unveiling of the Festival’s Virtual Program premiering 20 feature films
Wooden Man in Oddity
Oddity is the scariest horror movie of 2024. It crushed the film festival circuit, drawing acclaim at SXSW, Overlook, BiFan, and Fantasia Fest. The director, Damian McCarthy, took some time to talk with The Scariest Things to tell us about how he crafted the surprise horror hit of the year.
Highlights include the World Premiere of BEEZEL as well as STRANGE DARLING starring Kyle Gallner on Opening Night; 11 feature film World Premieres including SCARED TO DEATH starring Lin Shaye; a 35th Anniversary Presentation of SOCIETY and the First Showing of the “Lost First Cut” of RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3 with director Brian Yuzna; a Right “2” Remain Silent Double-Bill of MANIAC COP 2 and PSYCHO COP RETURNS with William Lustig and Adam Rifkin; a 25th Anniversary Presentation of Martin Scorsese’s BRINGING OUT THE DEAD; and a Special Presentation of IFC Films’ SKINCARE starring Elizabeth Banks.
★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★

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In Ghost Game, a trio of mischief-makers stakes out an old manor with a dark legend surrounding it. Their goal: stay in the house without the new residents discovering them. Internal relationship conflicts, a disturbed resident family, and the potential of a supernatural haunt upend their Ghost Game efforts. A solid cat-and-mouse thriller with fun haunted house tropes propels this film, which was the centerpiece of the Portland Horror Film Festival.

★★★★ out of ★★★★★

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The Complex Forms is a master achievement in visual design. Everything, from the stunning black-and-white cinematography to the conceptual creature designs to the stark splendor of the sets and the pulsing orchestral score, pushes the envelope for an independent film budget. The story, however, though narratively simple, is very difficult to digest in one sitting. Multiple viewings may be required to understand the plot. And even then, you may be left scratching your head in confusion.

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