★★★★ out of ★★★★★ Horror movies really are the ultimate glimpse in to the soul of man. Society’s reflection upon itself. Our most base thoughts, visions, hopes, dreams, and fears all laid bare for the universe to see. The historic period of time is largely irrelevant to the equation, because the result is always the same — man’s continued inhumanity to man.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★ So close. Not quite. Just about there. One more try. Close but no cigar. You’re right in the ballpark. Just. One. More. Inch. This is the prevailing and effectively repeated trope in the 2019 (U.S. release) Thai film, the Pool.
★★ 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 ★★★★★ Young women. Adventurous young women. Genetically perfect adventurous young women. Impossibly tight spaces. Blind killing creatures who’ve not seen the light of day for millennia. It’s the Descent for the tween generation! Plus, did we mention the forever hunky John Corbett?
Our universal fav’ film from 2019 gets its official release on March 6! Prepare to laugh, cry, and get 👻 spooked.
★★★.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 ★★★★★
Is the ultimate test of a director the ability to grow, mature, and evolve? Pick up new tricks, devices, and viewpoints? Create new and unique takes on the film medium? OR, is it the director’s job to figure out what formula works, stick with that, and never grow, mature, and evolve. Sort of a “greatest hits” approach to filmmaking.
★★1/2 out of ★★★★★ Word has it that the kids are in to mash-ups. Girl Talk, Danger Mouse, a little Jay Z, a little Beatles. Throw it all together and see what sticks. 2020’s the Marsh (originally released in 2018 in Australia) does just that — but maybe a little too much.
2019 was as year that was awfully similar to its most recent astrological brethren, 2018. There were some awfully big, earnest, and well-heeled horror offerings – while at the same time, 2019 served up the weird, the indy, and the quirky in spades!
🤡🤡.5 out of 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡 Writing is a struggle. Too much exposition gives the appearance of being a churlish jerk who sucks all of the oxygen out of a room. While too little exposition has the air of being aloof, uncaring, and unwilling to let the audience in on the scares. Weirdly, Haunt vacillates between both words, but manages to tell this spooky story in the most ineffective way possible.
Who were they running from? What do they fear? What have they seen!?!?! Quartermass and the Pit, AKA Five Million Years to Earth, AKA Les Monstres de l’espace!!! So many names, but just ONE great piece of artwork.
🔪🔪🔪🔪1/2 out of 🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪 The rules surrounding Giallo have been firmly established. Beginning somewhere around 1964 with Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace and continuing to the present with such color-soaked homosexual freakouts as 2019’s Knife+Heart, Giallo has been around the block.
★★.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 🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪
Siamese Twins at Birth: What the Devil hath joined together let no man cut asunder.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
The joy of youth. The post-college road trip. Finding your way in vast spaces. Unconstrained, unconfined, uncontrolled. The world is your oyster, until it isn’t.
Well, we’re not sure who asked for this, but it’s on the way. On December 13, 2019, we’ll all get a chance to sit down and ingest the latest spooky offerings from Blumhouse in the form of the re-re-re-make of Black Christmas.
★★.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.
🐷🐷.5 out of 🐷🐷🐷🐷🐷
The planet is running out of animals. Literally and figuratively. Hollyweird has given us sharks (Jaws 1-4), rabbits (Night of the Lepus), bears (Grizzy), fish (Piranha), and man’s best friend (Cujo). There’s even been birds, wolves, snakes, rats, and gators, and whatever the hell a sharktopus is supposed to be. One of the things that Hollyweird hasn’t gotten its money-grubbing paws on is the pig, javelina, or boar – until now.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★ Are you looking for that something extra to jolt you out of life’s day-to-day doldrums? That little something to shock your system in to a complete state of hysteria? Something so odious and vile that your mind won’t know how to process the capital “G” grisly-gore? Your pals at the Scariest Things Podcast have found just the thing. Enter…Green Inferno.
ZOMBIE ALERT: Two decidedly different performances (well three, technically) from the same actor in two horror films in the same year? Say it ain’t so!
🌸🌸🌸 out of 🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸 This is the true story, of nine strangers, picked to participate in weirdo cult hapennings, work together, and have their lives destroyed. Find out what happens, when people stop being polite, and start getting real…its a world of real cults!
★★ out of ★★★★★
Now with 30 percent less jump scares!
★★.5 out of ★★★★★ Is this really too good to be true? Too bad to be believed? So ridiculous we all laugh with it? Or so horrible we curl up in a cringe-worthy ball of shame? Answer: All of ‘em.
👽👽👽👽 out of 👽👽👽👽👽
UFOs are real! Well, they might be real. Or, they’re probably imagined. Rather, we’re all crazy and we’re collectively imagining them. Or, maybe, just maybe, they really are real and the space aliens are making us crazy in an attempt to make us believe/not believe that they’re real/not real. All are real possibilities and 2019’s The Vast of the Night lays all of them on the table for us to sort out.
Horror is a big, broad, wide, deep and inviting genre. Everybody is welcome to hang out, have some chips, try […]
We’ll just park this over here in the What the What!?!?!? category. Apparently, and justifiably, unsatisfied with the 2006 remake […]
❄❄❄❄❄ out of ❄❄❄❄❄
2017 gave us Get Out. 2018 gave us Heriditary. 2019’s dive in to intellectual terror is the Lodge. Just as its forefathers were dark, brooding, thought-provoking, and terrifying, so is this year’s entry in to the new age of thinky-horror. Note: thinky-horror is not yet an industry-accepted term, but you heard it hear first.
★★★.5 out of ★★★★★ The new wave of horror cinema is officially upon us all. Gone are the jokey and […]
★★★ out of ★★★★★ Yes. Dolls are creepy. You know this. We know this. They just have a creep factor […]
★★★.5 out of ★★★★★
Say it ain’t so! A real life ghost story that just might be about real life GHOSTS! Not only is this a solid little flick with a gaggle of ghostly misdirection, it’s also a film that features THE Janeane Garofalo. Sadly, while Ms. Garofalo isn’t in the film too much, her absence is made up by lots and lots of strange and ghoulish apparitions — or not.
