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horror movie

December 8, 2021

Mike’s Review: My Cherry Pie (2021) (Another Hole in the Head Film Festival)

★★.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.

December 3, 2021

Trailer Alert: Studio 666

When we caught wind of this (assuredly) horror comedy last month we weren't entirely clear if we were looking at an elaborate album hype, a hoax, or an actual film.

November 20, 2021

Mike’s Review: Ghostbusters Afterlife (2021)

👻👻👻 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.

November 8, 2021

Movie News: Studio 666 Coming Soon!

As ideas slowly become more and more (re) used and reworked filmmaking has progressively embraced the meta. In fact, things have become so meta sometimes it’s difficult to tell when one concept ends and the next begins. Enter the recently announced horror offering featuring…the Foo Fighters?

October 18, 2021

Mike’s Review: Halloween Kills (2021)

★★★★ 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.

August 30, 2021

The Scariest Things Review: Candyman (2021)

★★★★1/2 and ★★★★ out of ★★★★★ A powerful sequel of a beloved classic slasher movie that establishes that this franchise is perhaps the headiest and most nuanced of all the slasher movies. Director Nia DaCosta shows real visionary talent, and with co-writer Jordan Peele, adds updated depth and texture to an already fascinating urban legend.

August 17, 2021

Mike’s Review: Dashcam (Popcorn Frights 2021)

★★★★ out of ★★★★★ The son of De Palma’s Blow-Out! The grandson of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up! A new vision of paranoid conspiracy theories as told through the latest fandangled piece of technology! Or in this case technologies.

August 7, 2021

Mike’s Portland Horror Film Festival Review: The Stairs (2021)

★★★★ out of ★★★★★ Straight outta the Pacific Northwest comes another joint from the same team that brought you 2018’s Big Legend. A far more daring, if not a little less linear, than their first outing with Bigfoot, 2021’s The Stairs is a complex bit of business wrapped up in a cautionary camping tale.

July 4, 2021

Mike Review: The Fury (1978)

★ out of ★★★★★ It looks like a horror film. It acts like a horror film. It’s directed by cinema great and heir to the Hitchcock throne. Its promotional materials portend horror is just around the corner. But don’t be fooled, this super-star-packed 1970s telekinetic hype machine is nothing but a boring and unnecessarily long after-school special.

June 10, 2021

Mike’s Review: The Amusement Park (1973/2021)

★★★★ out of ★★★★★ Everyone gets old. It’s no more complicated than this little horrifying truism. The world of horror is filled with ghosts, homicidal nutcases, Pazzuzu, creepies, crawlies, and robot-monsters. But, nothing, repeat, nothing, is more frightening at the prospect of losing your mental and physical faculties and facing the sad and potential finite end of life.

May 5, 2021

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.

April 8, 2021

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.

March 18, 2021

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.

February 7, 2021

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.

December 22, 2020

Mike’s Review: Victim of Love (2019)

★★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.

December 6, 2021

Mike’s Review: The Whooper Returns (2021) (Another Hole in the Head Film Festival)

★★★.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.

November 30, 2021

Mike’s Review: Slumber Party Massacre (2021)

★.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.

November 17, 2021

Mike’s Review: Martyrs Lane (2021)

👻👻👻 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.

November 3, 2021

Mike’s Review: Basket Case (1982)

★★★ out of ★★★★★ Everybody had to start somewhere. Alien ripped off The Green Slime. Child’s Play ripped off Magic. Piranha ripped off Jaws. And everyone ripped off Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It should come as no surprise that this year’s weirdo “it” film Malignant is a ripoff, but we’re here to tell you it is.

October 13, 2021

Mike’s Review: Boarding House (Nightstream Festival, 1982)

★ out of ★★★★★ or ★★★★★ out of ★★★★★ A five star film that’s also simultaneously a one star film? A film that occupies an incredibly rare space. It’s loved. It’s hated. It’s revered. It’s reviled. A film that’s poorly shot, conceived, and acted, but its legendarily awful veneer gives way to a blood soaked interior that’s impossible not to LOVE.

August 17, 2021

Mike’s Review: The Last Matinee (Popcorn Frights 2021)

★★★★ out of ★★★★★ The Last Matinee is a loving homage to film. More to the point it’s a loving homage and exploration of Argento, Fulchi, grindhouse cinema, slashers, grimy movie theaters, and quite possibly the great Lamberto Bava film Demons. Don’t be fooled though. While The Last Matinee pulls from many of the classics, it’s got its own unique style and flavor, and it’s cram-packed with EYEBALLS.

August 9, 2021

Mike’s Portland Horror Film Festival Review: Red River Road (2020)

★★★★ out of ★★★★★ It’s fair to say that we might not know the full impact of the global pandemic tragedy for years or even decades. Some have been tragically impacted by the pandemic, some have wandered in a face-covered fog, and others have irresponsibly stuck their heads in the sand. Everyone has had choices to make during the pandemic and those choices have manifested in the horrible, but they’ve also been used for creativity and good.

July 7, 2021

Trailer Alert: Night of the Living Dead 2

Well, it's sort of a trailer.

June 14, 2021

Mike’s Review: Begotten (1989)

★★★ out of ★★★★★ Umm what just happened? Was that a dream? Did I just have a stroke? Did my ego and id simultaneously implode? Unclear on all fronts. One thing is certain. This is a film like no other and it’s not something you can ever unsee.

May 16, 2021

Trailer Alert! Forever Purge

In light of all the insurrectionist lunacy that we faced in early 2021, it's an incredible stroke of kismet that the horror gods would be throwing us the Forever Purge in the very same year. But they are.

April 30, 2021

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.

March 21, 2021

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.

February 17, 2021

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.

January 10, 2021

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.

December 14, 2020

Trailer Alert! Grizzly II

If you know anything about the Scariest Things Podcast it's that we love MONSTERS. Monsters of all kinds. Creatures beneath the sea, behemoths that lurk in the dark, and even the occasional URSUS HORRIBLUS! The grizzly bear.

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