★★★★ 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.
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This film doesn’t make a damn bit of sense, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad film. Au contraire.
★★★.5 out of ★★★★★
Nearly 1,000 pages of creepy thoughts, actions, and psychic happenings were laid out between the Shining and its murderous offspring, Dr. Sleep. It seemed impossible that 1) the Shining would be made in to a film, 2) that Stephen King would be so dissatisfied in one of the true horror greats, 3) that it would deserve a remake, 4) the story would evolve in to a 500 page psychedelic mishmash, and 5) that mishmash would be made in to its own celluloid opus. Seem fantastical? Well it is.
★★★ out of ★★★★★
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Make no mistake, 2023’s Enys Men will fall into the annals of polemic filmmaking. Much like its recent brethren, Skinamarink, this film will have people talking, shouting, and even throwing a couple haymakers. Truly a "love it or hate it" outing at the movies.
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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.
★★★.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.
★★ out of ★★★★★
Like all hyper-beloved franchises there’s no way to end them in a satisfactory way. Save for MASH and the great Hawkeye Pierce, every last franchise has fumbled, bungled, and tied themselves in the most Gordian of Gordian Knots. Sadly, even with a stellar writing and directing crew, Halloween was not able to properly end.
★★★.5 out of ★★★★★
It is oft said that being a parent is the most unique and rewarding experience one could ever have. Simultaneously it’s the most dull and common experience among us. There are highs and lows to be sure, but most of the relationships are spent having a meal, doing laundry, and trying to figure each other out.
Hellbender spends the large majority of its hour and 26 minute run time focused on the more mundane aspects of the parent child relationship, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a wild and peculiar odyssey.
★★★.5 out of ★★★★★ The new wave of horror cinema is officially upon us all. Gone are the jokey and...
★★.5 out of ★★★★★ College isn’t for everyone. There’s peer pressure, there’s social acclimatization, there’s the freshman 15, there’s the daily grind of keeping one’s grades in check to maintain that almighty scholarship, and then there’s the relationships. The social bond that’s created can be a lasting and spiritually satisfying affinity, but the bond can go so deep that it’ll eventually turn collegiate relations sour and crazy.
★★★★ 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.
★★★ out of ★★★★★
This hop, skip, and jump down memory lane provides an incredible gory realization that horror films from the 1980s were silly, confusing, and nasty bits of business. Sure they were rather amateur-ish, but they were also exciting jumping off points for the masters of horror for decades to come! There’s Sam Raimi, Ted Raimi, Greg Nicotero, Bruce Campbell, Renée Estevez, and even famed Tarantino producer, Lawrence Bender. Some parts are smaller than others, but rest assured, they’re all there!
★★★★★ out of ★★★★★ There exists this exquisite location somewhere right between a documentary, a dramatization, found footage, a fictionalized accounting of events, and a full on horror show. This venn diagram of a locale is a rather tough place to pinpoint and few films ever wandered there. That was of course until 2008 when Lake Mungo was released.
★★ out of ★★★★★ The tweens are taking over! Hollyweird has handed over the castle keys to a gaggle of focused-grouped 13-year olds. Scary films are now purposely trying to not be scary. All is lost.
★★ out of ★★★★★
The CW made a found footage horror movie! Well, not really, but it sure feels like it. Too perfect kids. Too beautiful actors. Too perfectly clean footage and technology. Replete with a rag tag group of Scooby Doo-esque paranormal researchers!
★ 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 ★★★★★ A Wicker Man rip-off with some surprising and enjoyable twists and turns. Directed by Richard Rountree. Allegedly Dogged...
★★ 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.
★ out of ★★★★★
Because of money grubbing, legal hassling, and Hollywood head-butting, we haven’t seen a Friday the 13th film since 2009. Word on the street is that the 1980 Friday the 13th originator Sean Cunningham is BACK. Just like Jason never died!!! He’s teaming up with the writer and the director from a new horror flick, the Night Driver, and they’re making a reboot/sequel/requel happen.
★★.5 out of ★★★★★ As we’ve all come to learn in the horror game, a haunted house, no matter how haunted, does not a movie make. For that matter, a bunch of spooky trappings within a haunted house, also does not a movie make.
★★ 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.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
As demonic crooner Ronnie James Dio once famously opined “when you listen to fools, the mob rules.” Maybe this prescient piece of advice was being plied to the January 6 insurrection, maybe it was being plied to Halloween Kills, but just maybe Dio’s magical ways were sorting out many future truths.
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You either love the Cenobites or you don’t. You’re either interested in freaky BDSM emo-demons or you’re not. You either like non-linear otherworldly sci-fi based horror or it holds little interest to you. It’s possible there’s a third category — indifference — and that’s probably where I fall on the Hellraiser spectrum.
★★★.5 out of ★★★★★
Since Netflix recently teased out a new Mike Flanagan series based upon Edgar Allen Poe’s haunting short story, the Fall of the House of the Usher, we decided it was high time to jump in the way-back machine and give its 1960 forefather a discerning look. Turns out Flanagan may be on to something by following this chilling story.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
Hypochondriac is really a film that hits the right place and the right time. Mental health, familial relationships, concern about physical health and well being, and our collective sense that we just might be lost in the universe. Hypochondriac delivers on all these fronts and manages to sneak in a couple legitimate scares!
★★★ out of ★★★★★
Influencer is the newest, hottest, and most hyped term of the last several years. Meaning many things to many people, including those that self-identify as influencers. For the rest of us it’s met with derision, disgust, and discounted as a cynical millennial side-hustle. All these things, and more, are modern truisms that we've all unwittingly had to learn about.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
🩸🩸out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸 for mild gore.
If you’ve even run across Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, or Dinah Shore you’ll know that they all roiled in a very specific talk show space in the 1970s. Talk shows were smarmy, boozy, and informal affairs that gave audiences time each day to let their hair down and forget about the doldrums of the Viet Nam War and the crushing presence of socio-economic injustice in America.
These talk shows were also incredibly competitive. Johnny Carson was king, but there was a lot of room under him to vie for advertisers and Neilson ratings. Late Night with the Devil follows that exact story line, by exploring frustrated talk show host Jack Delroy played pitch perfectly by David Dastmalchian.
★★★ out of ★★★★★
Andrew Borden : You're an abomination, Lizzie.
Lizzie Borden : And at last, we are on equal footing, father.
★★★★ 1/2 out of ★★★★★ Vampires have been around for a long time (read: possibly forever?) and their story has been told in a weirdly limitless number of ways. Sexy vampires. Gory vampires. Child vampires. Deaf vampires. Suffice it to say, the votes are in and humanity LOVES its vampires!






























