★1/2 out of ★★★★★
This Final Destination rip-off is cliché, derivative, and predictable. You’ve got better things to do with your time.
Archive for ‘Reviews’
Joseph’s Review: The Wave (2019)
★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★ The Wave bends time and film genres, and it is bound to bend viewers’ minds, too, […]
Joseph’s Review: The Numbers (Horror-on-Sea Film Festival)
★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★ Fans of classic British horror anthologies should find plenty to admire in independent chiller The Numbers. […]
Eric’s Review: Underwater (2020)
★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★.
Underwater is a furiously paced movie that applies the pressure early (pun intended) and rarely lets you up for air (pun intended again). The familiar setting and lack of character arcs are overcome by a strong cast, great production values, and a simple but well-executed plot.
Joseph’s Review: A Serial Killer’s Guide to Life
★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★ This dark comic take skewers (pun intended) self-help gurus and followers alike as a murderer and […]
Eric’s Review: Ruin Me (2017)
★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
What’s the worst thing somebody just coming out of rehab should do to relax and find peace in the world? Go to a slasher camp re-enactment! This film telegraphs its moves like a brass band marching through the forest.
Eric’s Review: Nekrotronic (2019)
★★★ out of ★★★★★
This crazy mash-up cyberpunk-comedy-horror really shouldn’t have worked. Surprisingly, it did. A movie that should have felt derivative comes out feeling like it has fresh ideas and has you on board for this Australian comic-bookish Satanic techno ride.
The Scariest Things Podcast Episode LXXXVI: The Best Horror Movies of 2019
The Golden Era of Horror films shows no signs of letting up if judging by the quality of features offered up in 2019. Now it’s time to talk about our favorites!
Eric’s Review: The Head Hunter (2019)
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
A stark and haunting minimalist horror-fantasy, about a vengeful father fulfilling his oath to bring down the monster that killed his daughter.
Joseph’s Top 10 Film Festival Horror Movies of 2019
For my The Scariest Things “best of 2019” list, I decided to do something a little different and focus on […]
Joseph’s Review: Black Circle (Another Hole in the Head Film Fest)
★★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★ An esoteric recording from the 1970s finds two sisters pitted against the physical manifestations of their […]
Eric’s Review: The Banana Splits Movie (2019)
★★ out of ★★★★★
Tapping into the hipster zeitgeist, The Banana Splits Movie looked to provide nostalgic psychedelic infused wackiness with ironic ultra-violence layered on top. Instead, it’s a depressing morass filled with unlikable characters.
Eric’s Review: Brightburn (2019)
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
Lex Luthor was right. This alien may look like us, but he is here to destroy us. This VERY dark take on the Superman parable is the very violent flip side of the Man of Steel, right down to the swing set and the waving wheat of Kansas.
Joseph’s Review: Rot (Another Hole in the Head Film Fest)
★★★★ out of ★★★★★ An evil entity is loosed, bringing death and terror to a graduate student, her ex-boyfriend, and […]
Mike’s Review: Haunt (2019)
🤡🤡.5 out of 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡 Writing is a struggle. Too much exposition gives the appearance of being a churlish jerk who sucks all of the oxygen out of a room. While too little exposition has the air of being aloof, uncaring, and unwilling to let the audience in on the scares. Weirdly, Haunt vacillates between both words, but manages to tell this spooky story in the most ineffective way possible.
Eric’s Review: Bloodsucking Bastards (2015)
★★★ out of ★★★★★
You might hate your job, but at least your supervisor isn’t a vampire transforming your colleagues into thirsty minions. Bloodsucking Bastards is a fun but inconsistent horror comedy populated with colorful office characters, that in the end feels like an R-rated TV sitcom.
Robert’s Review: The Piper (2015)
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
An emotionally brutal and physically bloody South Korean take on the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
Mike’s Review: Tenebre (1982)
🔪🔪🔪🔪1/2 out of 🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪 The rules surrounding Giallo have been firmly established. Beginning somewhere around 1964 with Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace and continuing to the present with such color-soaked homosexual freakouts as 2019’s Knife+Heart, Giallo has been around the block.
Robert’s Review: Hidden (2015)
★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
The debut feature film by writing/directing team Matt & Ross Duffer — a.k.a. The Duffer Brothers — shows they knew what they were doing even before they took over the world with Netflix’s Stranger Things.
Joseph’s Review: The Odd Family: Zombie on Sale (London Korean Film Festival 2019)
★★1/2 out of ★★★★★ The latest zombie movie offering from South Korea focuses on family squabbles and humor, aiming more […]
Mike’s Review: Eli (2019)
★★ out of ★★★★★ Hey Netflix, we see you over there! Yeah, you. Trying your darnedest to jump on that horror bandwagon, peer in to the abyss, produce that oh-so-perfect horror film, and reap the ghoulish accolades of horror fans everywhere. Just so you know, it’s not working. While 2019’s Eli is awfully close to being a solid film you still have a lot of work to do to make in the fast-paced world of horror.
Joseph’s Review: Mark of the Beast: The Legacy of the Universal Werewolf (Buried Alive Film Festival 2019)
★★★★ out of ★★★★★ An engaging look at lycanthrope cinema from its earliest days to recent years, Mark of the […]
Joseph’s Review: The Shed
★★★★ out of ★★★★★ Two friends find themselves at odds when a vampire holes up on one of the boy’s […]
Eric’s Review: The House With a Clock in its Walls (2018)
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
Eli Roth proves that he has a gentler comic touch with his tone-perfect gateway spook-fest The House With a Clock in its Walls, featuring Jack Black, Cate Blanchett, and young Owen Vaccaro.
Eric’s FilmQuest Review: To Your Last Death (2019)
★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
To Your Last Death is a unicorn of a movie. A gory R-rated 2-D Western animated film. It’s a rowdy romp that uses familiar themes but takes full advantage of the unusual animated medium. It feels like an animated comic book on steroids.
Eric’s FilmQuest Review: Finale (2019)
★★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
This savage and grisly new Danish production features a carefully threaded story line that follows two young women, stuck working at a lonely rural gas station, who are subjected to what at first appears to be creepy pranking turns into something wholly sinister. This movie will reward hardened horror fans. Not for the faint of heart!
Robert’s Review: EndZeit (2018)
★★★ out of ★★★★★
A beautifully shot zombie-adjacent fable about nature, death, guilt, and self-determination.
Joseph’s Review: Red Letter Day (2019)
★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★ Red Letter Day’s uniquely Canadian spin on “mob rules” horror adds a helping of humor to […]
Robert’s Review: The Drone (2019)
★1/2 out of ★★★★★
It’s the same team from Zombeavers (2014), but they’re not playing in the same league any more.
Eric’s FilmQuest Review: Making Monsters (2019)
★ ★ ★ out of ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
A young couple who have achieved minor celebrity status through a YouTube jump-scare pranking show, and find themselves victims of their own success as their weekend getaway finds them terrified and trying to escape a wicked and deadly plot against them and, curiously, a ghost.