As we've already opined aplenty, 2024 was something of a bell curve year. Lots of horror films fell right in the middle. Not too hot and not too cold. Just moderate chills with a hint of terror.
Turns out the graphic designers and the studios were largely on the same trajectory with with their fav' hype tool -- the HORROR MOVIE POSTER! Some good, some bad, but a whole lot of them parked smack-dab in the middle of the spooky bell curve.
If "meh" was a year...it'd be 2024. Post pandemic, political strife, the lingering effects of the writer and director's strikes, the rise of AI, and the violation of the most sacrosanct American icon -- Mickey Mouse.
While there was a lot of great genre content being churned out in 2024, the highs weren't really high and the lows weren't terrible low. This year sat right in the middle of a rather tepid bell curve.
Back for its 8th year of frightening delights, Dead And SudBuried Horrorthon film festival has a weekend of horror coming up fast. Featuring 9 brand new festival circuit features including a UK premiere, 9 classic movies, and 18 new horror shorts plus Director/Cast Q&A’s and much, much more!
★★ out of ★★★★★
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Is it a thriller? A sci-fi abomination? A psychedelic mishmash? A video game? An affront to Toho’s original vision? A horror film? Seriously, what the hell is this? Truth be told, it’s really of all these things crammed together in a gargantuan hodgepodge of CGI lunacy. Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire is a wildly chaotic film with an equally wild plot that makes little to no sense. Scratch that…no sense.
★★★ out of ★★★★★
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As we’ve said before, pulling off a horror comedy is one of the most precarious feats a director can attempt. The feat is made all the more difficult when it’s done on a micro-budget with limited to no resources. Easter Bloody Easter manages to walk this tight rope with aplomb, while pulling in one of the coolest Black Sabbath horror references since the semi-eponymous Black Sabbath in 1963.
Can there ever be too much gore? Too many guts? Too much depravity? Rest assured Damien Leone and crew will be back to answer these questions and take us on another tortured-filled adventure with Art the Clown.
While last year’s the Black Phone brought vans fully back into our collective psyche’s focus, vans and their association to serial killers have been around forever. Sometimes the fears are warranted and sometimes they’re not. Sometimes the fears are a highly inflated statistical figment of our imagination and sometimes they’re rooted firmly in…the truth.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
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You know the story. You’ve got the gist of the Catholic Church’s involvement in exorcisms. Little kids probably freak you out. You either terrified of demonic possession or you’re not. Point is, you probably have a well-defined idea of what the Exorcist: Believer is going offer.
★★.5 out of ★★★★★
What’s the scariest thing you can include in a horror film? Why the unknown and the unfamiliar, of course. What’s more unknown and unfamiliar than the darkest musical art form, Black Metal? Well, really nothing. That is as scary as music gets.
It's been 16 long years, but the wait is over! Eli Roth teased us with some exceptional grindhouse glee in 2007 when he cobbled together a faux trailer for Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse.
★★.5 out of ★★★★★
In the latest installment to the cringe-inducing horror sub-genre, Home Invasion Horror, we get a fair-to-midland entry with a little heart. Think Funny Games, but less terror, suspense, and sadism. Just some light torture and some fun cameos.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
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Skinamarink with real scares! Found footage follies! The year of Australian horror! Puzzle Box is the complete horror spook show!
If you haven’t been paying attention 2023 really is the year of Australian horror.
The creators of the Final Destination franchise are back and this time it's forever!
★★★ out of ★★★★★
Do weird-looking albino kids give you the chills? What about oddball kids that have been indoctrinated into a religious fervor? What about strange kids set in a 1980s Giallo-esque Spanish village? Well, Tin and Tina has all this and more.
★★ out of ★★★★★
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This is a film that is definitely on the right side of history. It also contains a sharp and laser-focused social commentary around LGBTQ+ justice. T Blockers also puts forth a poignant and editorialized storyline that sadly is undone by a wild lack of focus. Even at an hour and 14 minute run time, and with a varied series of storylines, the film still felt long.
★★★ out of ★★★★★
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This one’s a real puzzler. On the one hand it’s a full-on gross-out B-movie, with questionable acting and an equally questionable plot. On the other hand Terrifier 3 is a real achievement. The gore is certainly like nothing you’ve ever seen before — unless you already watched Terrifier 1 and 2 -- and the mean-spirited depravity is something to behold. This is a film that would have Herschell Gordon Lewis, Tom Savini, and Lucio Fulci hunched over a stain-soaked toilet.
★★★★.5 out of ★★★★★
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Be. Careful. What. You. Wish. For. The most quaint and playful of all the horror tropes is on full display in this masterful piece of body horror. Not your run of the mill body horror either. This is capital “B” body horror that would even make David Cronenberg blush.
★★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
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While there’s a surprising lack of Rottweilers, The First Omen is chock full of reproductive rights, secularism, mental health, religious repression, and a gang of scares — most of them well deserved. Most importantly, The First Omen is a GREAT horror film that will make even the most hardened horror heart thump.
As we’ve said before, pulling off a horror comedy is one of the most precarious feats a director can attempt. The feat is made all the more difficult when it’s done on a micro-budget with limited to no resources. Easter Bloody Easter manages to walk this tight rope with aplomb, while pulling in one of the coolest Black Sabbath horror references since the semi-eponymous Black Sabbath in 1963.
Easter Bloody Easter is the new horror film from first time director, Diane Foster.
Going back to where it all started, director Lorenzo P. Adams takes some very fun liberties and a poke a the Michael Myers mythos. Make no mistake Halloween '63 is not a comedy, but a bone chilling black and white adaptation of the night where it all began.
★★.5 out of ★★★★★
An exceptionally silly film that breathes some new life into a rather (un)dead horror sub-genre — zombies. As We Know It takes a couple interesting pokes at horror comedy, zombies, and the process of getting to know people that you might really hate.
Cosmic Horror screenwriting legend Dennis Paoli joined Eric Li to discuss his collaborations with Stuart Gordon, Barbara Crampton, and the new film Suitable Flesh. The master storyteller is not surprisingly a real fun interview. Enjoy this special Podcast Extra!
★★★ out of ★★★★★
If a film title contains the word “haunting” does that automatically qualify it as a horror film? Horror has a deep and weird history with “The Haunting of…” films. Haunting in Connecticut, The Enfield Haunting, Haunting of Bly Manor, Haunting of Hill House, the Haunting of Julia, and even the Haunting of Sharon Tate. So many hauntings.
★★.5 out of ★★★★★
A quiet and ethereal film about and equally quiet and ethereal creature. The Wendigo may be the most ill-defined creature in all of horror. Not just because the Wendigo pulls directly from many different tales of Native American lore, but the fact that the perfect Wendigo film has yet to be made. Antlers from 2021 is close, but that’s a whole other story.
★★.5 out of ★★★★★
We know them. We love them. They’re little rapscallions, religious zealots, and outcasts. But that’s why we love them! That said, the question is not whether we love them, but rather do we need to go back to the exact same Children of the Corn story 11 times. Really, it’s been 11 times and we’re not even counting the TV series.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
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Imagine if Terrance Malik directed a horror film. This isn’t the start of a bad joke with an equally bad punchline. Would it have gore? Chainsaws? Over the top supernatural happenings? Or would it be a somber and contemplative affair? If you know the films of Terrance Malik then you know the answer.
What do we now know? Well, we now know we have a trailer and we have three pretty decent, if not a little odd, posters. The other thing we know is that Pazuzu is back to inhabit the bodies of not one, but two little girls. Take that Regan MacNeil!
★★★.5 out of ★★★★★
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It’s not a sharksploitation film unless someone yells “get out of the water!"
★★★ out of ★★★★★
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As uber-auteur Stanley Kubrick once famously opined “Everything has already been done. Every story has been told. Every scene has been shot. It’s our job to do it one better.” Christmas horror has been done. Space alien zombies have been done. Christmas and zombies have been done. Have they been done together under the banner of the worst holiday there is? May be not.
★★★ 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.






























