Nocturna: Side A — The Great Old Man’s Night ★★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★ Director Gonzalo Calzada takes two decidedly different...
Latest
Reviews
★★★.5 out of ★★★★★
Come for the insane 1970s Italian gore! Stay for the superb Goblin soundtrack! It’s all here! Frankly, is there anything more you could ever ask from a horror film? Well, maybe.
We have decided to do something a little different, this time: A single film analysis. We look back at one of our favorite independent horror films of the last 20 years: The House of the Devil (2009), by Director Ti West. It's a near-perfect exercise in horror story development and execution, and you can hear our rationale in this bonus podcast episode!
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
British featureThe World We Knew combines a gangster film with supernatural and psychological horror elements. The result is a sharp-as-nails outing that delivers plenty of eeriness along with solid direction and crackerjack performances.
John Darneille invites readers to move into the Devil House.
★ out of ★★★★★
It’s always disappointing when someone takes one of your favorite horror sub-genres and brutally bastardizes it. The “we’re trapped in a secret military base and there’s only one way out” storyline takes some care and feeding. The situation is made even worse when it’s given the ham-fisted SyFy treatment. Little attention, little point, and little effort.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
Last year brought us engaging septuagenarians battling it out the save their decrepit community center in VFW. Earlier this year saw the posthumous release of George Romero’s frightening PSA, Amusement Park. concerning the oft forgotten repugnance of elder abuse. Now, Amazon Studios is treating us to the latest in elder horror, Bingo Hell. The golden (girls) age is upon us with a new subgenera of horror, AARP horror. You heard it here first!
★★★ out of ★★★★★
Bashira is an artistically ambitious and technically accomplished feature debut film from special effects auteur Nickson Fong. As much as it is a treat for your eyes and ears, though, the film's plot is overly complex and the execution of the work sometimes over-shoots the target. The story often feels like two competing stories going at the same time.
Big studio productions, festival gems and a TV series- they're all on my list of the best of the best in 2021.
In 2020, the global pandemic gave us an interesting dynamic in film. Stripped down productions. The re-rise of independent horror. Big budget films either shelved, delayed, or cancelled all together. Last year’s horror scene definitely had a peculiar and, well, dystopian quality.
Enter 2021! The big budget films that coldly sat on the shelves for the last year, or in some cases years, or in other cases almost a half century, are now out in the theaters for us all to enjoy. And enjoy them we did! It shouldn’t be a terrible surprise that (often) the more money, time, energy, and talent you ply to your project the better quality you’ll receive in return. Mostly.
Here's some of the best from another spooky year...
It's that time of year again! This is what's been stewing in the cauldron all year long. Welcome to my Top 10 for 2021.
What a great year for horror films! I hope some of your current and future favorites are on my list!
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
To be clear, horror is the human condition. Sure there’s ghosts, robots, cannibals, witches, and Jason Voorhees, but all these finely finessed sub-genres are really just an extension of the human condition. Much ink has been poured over this subject, but rarely does a horror documentary get at this hyper-simple truism.
★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
A remarkably nuanced slice of horror at work, from a 19-year-old writer/director that poses the question as to how far would you be willing to go to unearth and expose the dirty secrets at your place of employment. The movie is probably twenty minutes too long, but the plot has a solid mystery backbone to tell a good story, and it is graced with great characters and snappy dialogue.
★★.5 out of ★★★★★
There’s no telling if 2021’s My Cherry Pie qualifies as Oz-spoitation, but it sure looks, sounds, and feels like something straight off of 42nd street. It’s not the pastoral Picnic at Hanging Rock, nor is it the ever-haunting Lake Mungo. Think Wolf Creek with little-to-no-budget, an extra bit of nastiness, and a pinch of grindhouse.
Joseph reviews two films from Another Hole in the Head Film Festival: "The Last Frankenstein" and "Night, Knight Teddy."
★★★ out of ★★★★★
Do you miss goofy '80s era R-rated monster movies? Crabs! is one of those cheesy nature-gone-wrong films that doesn't take itself too seriously and manages to deliver some good gory entertainment. It's inconsistent, but there's enough here to have a good night with a bag of popcorn and a B-movie creature feature.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
If V/H/S was done in Spanish, that would be Apps, an Argentinian horror anthology that is filled with plenty of shocks and bloody mayhem. Each chapter is really well executed and continues to prove that Argentina is a major player in the horror movie market.
★★★.5 out of ★★★★★
It’s always fascinating to see how something of little-to-no-value can bring out the worst in people as soon as they realize that someone else is interested in the same valueless item. This dynamic is made all the worse when it’s families fighting over the same scrap of trash. Worse yet? When that scrap of trash is the site of a 1979 horror film, the Whooper.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
Stylish, creepy and strange. Begin the countdown to Christmas with The Advent Calendar.
★.5 out of ★★★★★
Alright. Move along. Move along. There’s nothing to see here. Really, there’s nothing to see. A sad commentary on what should have been one of the most celebrated films this side of Halloween Kills. But, it’s true. The reimagining of the Slumber Party Massacre is a dull and uneven homage to its predecessor.
Joseph reviews two fine films from Australia's Monster Fest film festival: sylvan horror short "Button Man" and Ozploitation feature "Scam."
San Francisco’s Another Hole in the Head Film Festival, which runs online and in the theater from December 1st–15th, 2021,...
★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
Super Hot is a film that has been popping up on my recommended list on Amazon Prime, so I gave the little nerds vs. vampires movie a shot. Kandace Kale is solid as the goofy deadpan lovelorn lead, and at its best, the movie has its fun and silly moments. On the whole, though, it's a pretty pedestrian production. (Shrugs)
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
Shepherd eschews jump scares and gore in favor of an unrelenting creepiness as its main character finds that the isolation he seeks may be a terrible choice.
★1/2 out of ★★★★★ Directed by Neill Blomkamp Way back in 2009, Neill Blomkamp burst onto the genre scene with...
👻👻👻 out of 👻👻👻👻👻
Now 37 years in to the franchise you probably have a good idea of what to expect from the latest installment of the Ghostbusters, AKA Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Every thing that you think you’re going to see is guaranteed to be seen. There are some sly and not so sly references to the original 1984 Ghostbusters film. But, at the end of the day, Ghostbusters: Afterlife is largely an exact duplicate of its 1984 grandfather.
Along with Sweden’s Lund International Fantastic Film Festival’s fine selection of genre feature films, the fest boasted a fine selection of fright fare in short form. Here are more capsule reviews of some of those short-length shudder inducers.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★ With a wooded setting as bleak as the situations in which Woodland Grey’s two main characters...
👻👻👻 out of 👻👻👻👻👻
The go-to move for horror filmmakers in the modern era is the tortured family dynamic. It’s creepy, hidden, sinister, and above all tragic. When you mix in a heaping dose of the death of a child, tragic can take a very dark complexion and make it, well, darker.