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.
Do you know everything there is to know about the Boston Strangler? Really?!?! The Boston Strangler is an incredibly complicated tapestry of lies, mistruths, deception, greed, murder, and avarice. Using beautiful early 1960s Boston as its backdrop, this story is the pure embodiment of truth always being weirder than fiction.
To celebrate this year’s most recent take on the Boston Strangler, aptly titled the Boston Strangler, the Scariest Things went back and looked at each and every film adaptation of the Boston Strangler story and ranked ‘em all!
This year’s “it” horror film is upon us! Sorry, Halloween Ends, you’ll have to wait your turn. The Black Phone is the long awaited horror opus directed by Scott Derrickson (Sinister, Exorcism of Emily Rose, and Deliver us from Evil) and written by Joe Hill (Locke and Key, Creep Show, and NOS4RA2).
All the horror provenance is certainly there, but is the Black Phone any good? As we often do, the Scariest Things Podcast team is bringing our collective thoughts to the table to look inside this big budget spook show.
Fingers crossed — firmly. We here at the Scariest Things Podcast wish nothing but goodwill towards one of, and possibly, the greatest horror directors of all time. But, sadly, Dario Argento Dario has slipped in recent years. Mother of Tears, Dracula 3D , Giallo, and, well, you get the idea. Contrasted with his earlier work you get the maddening sense that father time has finally caught up with this giallo genius.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★ Right around the corner from Horror Street, just next to Parallax View Way, and right near Marathon Man Drive, is a fascinating analog look at the lengths obsessives will go to in feeding their obsessions.
★★★ out of ★★★★★
Seann William Scott's first leading role in a horror movie puts family first.
★★★★★ out of ★★★★★ By Oyinkan Braithwaite My Sister, the Serial Killer is the story of Korede, an organized, highly...
★★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
With a complex multi-story plot featuring an alien in a basket, a serial killer, sister assassins, a failed Yakuza strongman, and a discount ninja instructor, the BiFan showcased feature Life of Mariko in Kabukicho is a delightful slice of life in sleazy Tokyo that Quentin Tarantino could admire. The story complexity is grounded by the clever and stalwart young detective Mariko (Sairi Itô) who investigates all sorts of strange goings on in her neighborhood. This is only horror adjacent, and is more of a storytelling collage featuring several genre types. It is intoxicating, Go see it when you get a chance.
★★.5 out of ★★★★★
An evocative film name for an equally evocative true story. Pig Killer should not be taken lightly and nor should the horrible tale of Willy Pickton who killed and killed until he made his way in to Canadian history books as the most prolific serial killer in the country’s history.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
When a likable protagonist goes horribly, horribly wrong and the movie turns out to be very, very, right. The Dutch film, The Columnist, is an adult study of cyberbullying and the drastic measures that a journalist will go through to exact a pound of flesh from her trolls. The mix of emotions watching a character you like descend so far is palpable.
🔪🔪🔪🔪 out of 🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪
Just when you thought it was safe to go to the movies, or watch a horror film, or be a woman, along comes a nasty bit of business courtesy of Frodo Baggins.
★1/2 out of ★★★★★
It's the same team from Zombeavers (2014), but they're not playing in the same league any more.
★★★★ 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.
★★★★out of ★★★★★
A cab driver witnesses a serial killer murdering one of his victims, and finds herself his next target. She's much tougher than she looks though, in this smartly scripted thriller with strong statements about culture, family, responsibility and raw courage.