★★★ out of ★★★★★
Monsters! The rest of the movie is a mess, but man those monsters are cool!
Archive for ‘Reviews’
Joseph’s Review: The Vigil
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
The Vigil puts a unique cultural spin on evil entity horror and boasts an incredible lead performance.
The Vigil puts a unique cultural spin on evil entity horror and boasts an incredible lead performance.
Robert’s Review: Sacrifice (2020)
★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
Barbara Crampton steals the show in this Norwegian folk-horror affair replete with vivid nightmares, tentacles, and the sea.
Eric’s Review: Synchronic (2019)
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
The latest offering from the collaborative team of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead once again delivers a philosophical, slow burn of a movie. This film about two paramedics in New Orleans uncovering the truth of a new synthetic drug that has time travel properties is grim and heady material. Brooding and moody can be a good thing if anchored properly, and Anthony Mackie holds this film down with a fine acting performance.
Mike’s Review: Grizzly II (2021)
★★ out of ★★★★★ It’s everything you’ve ever wanted! It contains film footage likely derived from 10 different film shoots over the course of nearly 40 years. It’s got Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (Louise Fletcher). It’s got Indiana Jones pal Salah (John Rhys-Davies). It’s got the super crooked hillbilly cop from Rambo, Galt (Jack Starrett). It’s sort of got a couple scenes with a grizzly bear. But just don’t be fooled, there’s not a whole heck of a lot of Charlie Sheen, Laura Dern, and George Clooney.
Mike’s Review: Deadwax (2018)
★★★★ out of ★★★★★ It should come as no surprise that record collectors are an awfully weird and obsessive bunch. They perseverate over every possible pressing, color, variation, and vinyl release of individual artists. Their search is endless and somewhat pointless. They fixate on whether to open a sealed copy of a rare record. Most importantly, record collectors won’t stop until their search is complete. Dead or alive.
Eric’s Review: Gretel and Hansel (2020)
★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
Osgood Perkin’s horror take on the children’s fairy tale is a brooding and moody spin on the most familiar of stories. It has some gorgeous art direction, and a winning performance by Alice Krige, but the plodding script tries to mask the intent of the story. It tries very hard to provide new wrinkles to the old fable, but ends up feeling over-long even at a fairly short run time of 82 minutes.
Eric’s Review: The Witches (2020)
★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
A worthy reboot of a much-beloved gateway horror fan favorite. Anne Hathaway chews up the scenery in the Robert Zemekis helmed adaptation of the Roald Dahl dark fantasy classic.
Liz’s Review: Saint Maud
★★★★★ out of ★★★★★
Prepare to have your horror prayers answered by Saint Maud!
Mike’s Review: La Llorona (2020)
★★.5 out of ★★★★★ A stunningly beautiful film that follows a not so beautiful period of time in Guatemala’s tumultuous and unfortunate history. This horror film, that’s awfully light on the horror, shows audiences that sometimes the scares don’t come from ghouls, but they come from right-wing juntas.
Robert’s Review: Wer (2013)
★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
Sometimes cheesy, occasionally nonsensical, but kept solidly on the rails by an interesting story and some splattery goodness. Werewolves get all scientifical!
Joseph’s Review: PG: Psycho Goreman (2021)
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
This super-fun, highly absurd horror comedy twists a family adventure movie with a gory tokusatsu vibe and delivers the mind-blowing goods.
Directed by Steven Kostanski
Joseph’s Review: La Casa (2021)
★★★ out of ★★★★★
This Chilean haunted house shocker may follow some familiar beats, but its unique filming shoot, solid lead performance, and dark psychological elements help it stand out from the pack.
Mike’s Review: Goal of the Dead (2014)
★★★.5 out of ★★★★★ One medium with possibly more sub-genres than horror is futbol, AKA, football, AKA soccer. There’s so many villains, tales, rivalries, and subtext to the beautiful game. Much like horror its a bottomless barrel of impossible possibilities. The other medium with more sub-genres than futbol and horror? Zombies.
Joseph’s Review: Bright Hill Road (2020)
★★★ out of ★★★★★ Bright Hill Road traverses some familiar territory but is worth the trip at least once. Directed […]
Mike’s Review: Images (1972)
★★★★ out of ★★★★★ When true film auteurs wander outside of their staid and classical lines and in to the horror genre there’s always the potential for some serious magic. Kubrick with the Shining, Freidkin with the Exorcist, Spielberg with Jaws, and even Danny Boyle with 28 Days Later. All these major film think-o-logists had a crack at horror and walked away proud at what they had accomplished, or so ashamed at the terror they had brought to the cineplex, they never came back to the genre. One of the greatest film auteurs of all time, Robert Altman, wandered in to horror with aplomb, but sadly his seminal effort has been forgotten in the sands of time.
Robert’s Top 10 Horror Films of 2020
We wouldn’t have survived the ridiculousness of 2020 without our favorite genre. Here are my Top 10 favorite movies of last year.
Mike’s Review: The Pale Door (2020)
★★ out of ★★★★★ Witches are a tricky lot. Literally. Filled with deceit and deception. They conjur up horrible thoughts in your tiny little brain. They’re always on the hunt for a new (or renewed) sacrifice. Most importantly they travel in unrelenting satanic packs of malice. The Pale Door has more fiends than you can shake a stick at, but, unfortunately, doesn’t do a whole heck of a lot with this spooky pile of occult weirdos.
Joseph’s Review: Shadow in the Cloud (2021)
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
Prepare for a big dose of fun, and a very cool-looking monster, in this creature feature/action movie mash-up about a young female officer on a danger-filled mission.
Eric’s Review: #Shakespeare’s Shitstorm (2020) (Another Hole in the Head Film Festival)
★1/2 out ★★★★★ If you have a conventional sense of social norms.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★ if you are a Troma fan and appreciate trashy and depraved satire.
Lloyd Kaufman and team Troma return to their Shakespearean roots and turn this loose-bowel take on The Tempest into a skewering of the social norms of today’s culture. This is the strongest, funniest, and most consistent Troma film I have seen since the ’80s Troma glory days but it also pushes the censorship limbo bar so low that there may not be room to go more lowbrow than this.
Mike’s Review: Victim of Love (Another Hole in the Head Festival)
★★1/2 out of ★★★★★ A super stylish and exceptionally well-scored film that’s partially in Danish and partially in English and…wait for it…features a character who’s half Danish and half American.
Liz’s Review: An Unquiet Grave (Another Hole in the Head Festival)
★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
A grieving widower performs a dark ritual with consequences that lead to An Unquiet Grave
Mike’s Review: Alive (2020)
★★★★ out of ★★★★★ Just when you thought the zombie genre had plumb run out of ideas along comes a pretty interesting and pretty inventive take on on a concept that’s…uh…dying.
Liz’s Review: Beasts Clawing at Straws (Another Hole in the Head Film Festival)
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
More fun then you can stuff in a duffle bag!
Joseph’s Review: From the Depths (Another Hole in the Head Film Festival)
★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
Sharks, rotting corpses/ghosts, and a survivor guilt haunt a young woman in this psychological horror.
Eric’s Review: Murder Bury Win (Another Hole in the Head Film Festival)(2020)
★★★★★ out of ★★★★★
After failing to crowd-fund their board game “Murder Bury Win”, three young game designers get the opportunity of a lifetime to present their ideas to a scion of the game industry and finally get the big break they have been looking for. After initial fun and games, their dream pitch turns into a nightmare with tragic (and comic) consequences. Great characters + unique concept + greed motives = cinema gold!
Mike’s Review: Scare Me (2020)
★★★★ out of ★★★★★ How’d you like a little Chekhov with your Texas Chainsaw? A little Edward Albee with your Conjuring? Or even a dash of Ibsen with your Insidious? Sound too good to be true? Well it’s not.
Joseph’s Reviews: Female Voices Rock Film Festival Short Films: “Clan”, “The Doe”, “Ingenue”, “Beauty Juice”, and “Subject 3”
From supernatural horror to the immediacy of pandemic terror, Female Voices Rock Film Festival’s After Midnight block offers a unique selection of remarkable fright-fare shorts.
Joseph’s Review: Minor Premise (2020)
★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
A troubled neuroscientist unwisely experiments on himself and creates a deadly dilemma when 10 different fragments of his personality vie for dominance in this intriguing science fiction outing.
Eric’s Nightstream Review: Boys from County Hell (2020)
★★★ out of ★★★★★
Boys from County Hell is a slice of blue-collar Irish horror-comedy, where a road construction crew is tasked with the removal of a stone cairn marking the grave of a vampire that gave inspiration to Bram Stoker. Why is it that characters in Irish comedies always want to leave the isle? It might be the vampires.