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Reviews

Need a recommendation? We consume as many movies, TV shows, and books as we possibly can and let you know what we thought of them!

Eric’s Review: Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)

★★1/2 out of ★★★★★ Spiral: From the Book of Saw attempts a fresh start to a somewhat tired franchise, and packs in A-list celebrities into a pedestrian plot, that ties itself up with too much exposition and not enough of the tricks and traps that made Saw such a draw.
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Mike’s Review: Things Heard and Seen (2021)

★ out of ★★★★★ Serious question. Are horror movies required to be scary? Can they just pass off a sense of dread and doom in other less frightening but equally provocative ways? Answer: it sure makes horror more horrifying if there’s some actual horror in the horror film.
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Joseph’s Review: Initiation

★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★ Slasher-film fans should have a great time with this whodunit thriller — set on a present-day university campus — that shines a light on some ugly social issues.
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Mike’s Review: Deadhouse Dark (2021)

★★ out of ★★★★★ The horror anthology is one of the true staples of the horror genre. Always clever, always engaging. As we’ve said before, anthology horror is the traditional extension of gathering around ye' ole campfire and scaring the hell out of each other. They hearken back to the oldest root forms of scary storytelling. It’s always frightening to hear a scary story, until it’s not.
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Joseph’s Review: The Banishing

★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★ The Banishing serves up several haunted house tropes, but it looks good while doing so, with solid performances and conspiracy angles.
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Mike’s Review: Offseason (2021) (SXSW Festival)

★★.5 out of ★★★★★ Pulling the perfect Lovecraftian film is a feat like no other. It’s been tried again and again. You might even say film makers repeated attempts to crawl inside Mr. Lovecraft’s tortured brain is rife with peril, failure, and madness. Or more to the point, it’s a cursed mission. Many have attempted to bring Lovecraft to the silver screen and most have failed. In the case, of 2021’s Offseason, it’s not so much a failure, but a dull attempt.
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Joseph’s Review: The Power

★★★★ out of ★★★★★ The Power is a riveting U.K. supernatural horror film set in a hospital during that country’s 1970s rolling blackouts, following a nurse on her first night on the job. Real-world horrors are exposed by an otherworldly force in this first-rate chiller. Directed by Corrina Faith
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Joseph’s Review: Sound of Violence (SXSW Online 2021)

★★★ out of ★★★★★ A young woman who saw her family murdered tries to recreate through music the feeling that occurred at that time in this horror outing that is heavy on human suffering but light on logic. Directed by Alex Noyer
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Eric’s Review: The Spine of Night (2021) (SXSW Film Festival)

★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★ The Spine of Night channels its inner Frank Frazetta and Ralph Bakshi in this bloody rotoscoped production. This is dark high fantasy, with a touch of horror, and though it mines very familiar fantasy tropes for its plot, it does find an original voice. The whole presentation feels more like a curiosity than a revelation.
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Scary Radio Plays: A Garden of Terrible Blooms

Award-Winning playwright Sharon Yablon taps into her noir sensibilities for a new podcast of genre radio dramas, A Garden of Terrible Blooms. Prepare for the surreal one-act dramas that touch on elements of mystery, horror, and true-crime centered around L.A.'s famed Sunset Boulevard.
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Eric’s Review: Alien on Stage (2021) (SXSW Festival)

★★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★ Alien on Stage is a documentary about a troupe of bus drivers turned community theater actors who got the opportunity of a lifetime to perform their production on stage in a theater in the famed West End of London. Though you sweat out whether these charming neophytes can pull it off, there is enough of an inkling that they've got something special that this endeavor is so crazy that it just... might... work!
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Mike’s Review: The Feast (2021) (SXSW Festival)

★★★★.5 out of ★★★★★ Don’t. Turn. This. Movie. Off. Seriously, it’s a slow burn in grand tradition of slow burn horror films, but the payoff off is so deliciously evil and filling. If you stop after the aspic and the salad course you’ll miss a rather grisly desert.
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Joseph’s Review: Witch Hunt (SXSW Online 2021)

★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★

Teen horror and social commentary make for a fine union in this feature about a deadly U.S. government clampdown on witchcraft and the women who practice it. Directed by Elle Callahan
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Jakob’s Wife (2021) Review (SXSW Festival)

★★★★ out of ★★★★★

Intensity 🩸🩸 for vampiric violence

Jakob's Wife is an essay on a mid-life menopausal crisis, by way of vampirism. Jakob's Wife delivers great character arcs and engaging acting. Barbara Crampton has been given a meaty role, and she delivers perhaps her best screen performance in memory. Larry Fessenden also is stellar as the well intentioned minister Jakob.

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Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1982)

★★★★.5 out of ★★★★★ To describe this film, one must invoke the voice of Bill Hader's Saturday Night Live character, Stefon. The audience cheers as Stefon slides in from stage right. Hands rise to face. Breathe deep. And release.
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Eric’s Review: Gaia (2021) (SXSW Festival)

★★★★ out of ★★★★★ Mother Earth just may have it in for us, according to the South African Eco-Horror showcase Gaia, which had its World Premiere at the SXSW film festival. It's beautiful, quiet, creepy, and full of spores. (Cough! Cough!)
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