Horror Fuel
☰ Browse the Crypt
Author

DanXIII

1,300 stories
Horror Fuel

Short Film Review: octOber (2018)

Two friends, Alex and Jeremy, stroll along some train tracks under a steel grey sky. Alex discusses the disappearance of his sister, and the toll it has taken on his family…and he also explains that he thinks he knows who did it…a local man named Mr. Whitman whom he claims he has seen bump off other townsfolk. Well, our erstwhile heroes get to investigating, and Jeremy is slaughtered, while Alex makes like a fuckin’ banana and splits. Of course his meddling sets of a whole lot of horror biz…biz he may not be able to survive! Stylish, super slick, and possessing a strong story (of which this is but one part of an over reaching narrative…this is part 2 for those keepin’ score at home), octOber is a mini-masterpiece of suburban horror and taught tension. It’s the type of flick that as you watch you just know something horrible is going to happen, but just what or more importantly when

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 8, 2018
Horror Fuel

Album Review: Ghosts in the Graveyard: The Last Halloween: Remix Album (2018)

I’ve been following Seattle Washington’s Darkwave shock rockers Ghosts in the Graveyard since the beginning (I’m like a fuckin’ horror hipster now, minus the beard and mason jars…and everything that makes a hipster a hipster), and I was excited as all unholy hell when the leader o’ this gang o’ ghouls Byron C. Miller reached out to your’s cruelly and asked him to check out a new arcane album full o’ revoltin’ remixes of some of the best terror tunes from the group’s debut Monsters for the Masses! Featuring remixes from Idoless, Dead Animal Assembly Plant, Patrick Fears, Pill Brigade, Blakk Glass, The Labrynth, Kain Kinetic, and Endless Sunder; The Last Halloween takes the already creeptastic pitch black New Wave stylings the band is known for, and rips them open and blows them up into sonic assaults that sound even more melodic, layered, and downright “huge” then they did on their first go around! Standout re-mixes for me include Thirteen

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 8, 2018
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Diane (2018)

Stage actress/singer Diane (Carlee Avers) is discovered in the back yard of hard luck disabled war vet Steve (Jason Alan Smith)…well, her semi-clothed body is anyway along with a bloody screwdriver. After an intense, and off-kilter, grilling by the local authorities, Steve is returned home where he becomes obsessed with Diane…so much so that he begins to hear her voice late at night and has strange fever dreams involving her (tinted a strange crimson hue, or taking place in nebulous white spaces)…while his days find him even more ostracized from his community than we was previously. Before long, Diane’s appearances become rather sinister, and find that things aren’t as they appear to be! Boasting a unique and surreal aesthetic, Diane is definitely not your run of the mill police procedural/murder mystery. Every character is perfectly nuanced and acted (with Smith’s leading man performance a true standout…but Margaret Rose Champagne, Dick Boland, and Jim Thalman as the police assigned to his

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 7, 2018
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: The Girl in the Crawlspace (2018)

Ever wonder what psychological toll being the “final girl” of a mass murdering psycho would take on a soul? Well the new film from first time director John Oak Dalton titled The Girl in the Crawlspace shows us just that scenario. Jill (Erin R. Ryan) is the lone survivor of the Crawlspace Killer; a real sick ticket that keeps his victims bound in a crawlspace and engages them with psychological torture. Jill wanders the town, homeless and wraith like…a broken porcelain doll in human form. Enter psychiatrist Kristen (Joni Durian), who has recently moved back to town, along with her unsuccessful screenwriter husband Johnny (John Hambrick), who soon takes on trying to integrate Jill back into normal society at the behest of the town sheriff , as her husband tries to fit in with the locals by joining a local Dungeons and Dragons group out of desperation for human contact. Time passes and Jill begins to be integrated into the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 4, 2018
Advertisement
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Schlock (1973)

Schlock begins in the aftermath of a mass killing by the Banana Killer, so named because he leaves a banana peel at the scene of every crime. Experts predict that the murders will only increase, and police don’t have a clue as to the killer’s identity. Meanwhile, a group of teens explore a cave and discover just what is committing the crimes; a violence prone missing link, more ape than man! Once discovered, the brute terrorizes the countryside leaving murder and mayhem in it’s wake! From the description above, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Schlock is a straight up fright flick, but let me assure you it is anything but! Full of sight and running gags, corny jokes, ridiculous characters, and a fantastic creature suit by a young Rick Baker (with writer/director John Landis crammed inside); Schlock may be one of the most ludicrous, and hilarious horror comedies (a genre Landis would return to eight years later with 1981’s

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 4, 2018
Horror Fuel

Short Film Review: Candle Cove (2018)

Candle Cove tells the story of two adults remembering a childhood fav; a silent televised puppet show called Candle Cove. As fate would have it, they find a box which contains recorded episodes of the show, including the finale…a finale that featured the puppets screaming in terror for the duration. As they examine the tapes, all they see is static…until they pop in the finale and the screaming starts! Based (loosely) on the creepypasta of the same name (which also served as the basis for the first season of SyFy’s Channel Zero), Candle Cove is a very brief distillation of what made the original tale so memorable. Short though it is, this version still manages to maintain the same eerie vibe, but I personally would have liked to see more of what made the story so effective (i.e. the original yarn features horrifying pirate based puppets, while this one features silent Punch N’ Judy like characters, and was presented a

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 3, 2018
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Mara (2018)

After a man is strangled in his sleep, and twisted into a knot like one of those massive-ass mall pretzels, the police immediately blame the dude’s wife, no matter who vehemently their daughter blames someone called ‘Mara’. Enter criminal psychologist Kate Fuller (Olga Kurylenko) who investigates the claims of the accused and before you can say “Frederick Krueger” she discovers that ol’ Mara is a demon that murders people in their sleep. As our heroine presses on she discovers the deceased attended a support group for sufferers of sleep paralysis, and when she takes it upon herself to attend a meeting she finds that the participants all seem to be haunted by Mara (who marks her prey with one hell of a case of pink eye) who is offing them one by one while they get their snooze on. Sure as shit, ol’ Fear Fightin’ Fuller finds her self marked by our sleep stalker and the race is on to

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 3, 2018
Horror Fuel

Short Film Review: The Confined (2017)

A duo of young architects are shown the inside of a large, dilapidated building; once the home to a suicide cult, but now being eyed as the site for upscale condos. However, they are not really sold on the vision for the building’s future, due in no small part to its dark history. Before long however our heroes realize much too late that the malevolent forces that inhabited the building are very much still present. The main thing The Confined has in its favor is it’s world-building. The idea of a property that was once the home of an evil cult now being turned into residential property is one rife for further exploration…and the taste of the premise that we get with this short is definitely enticing. Also of note is a nice bit of business involving an old movie projector that was suitably creepy. On the downside, The Confined wasn’t lit very well; sequences are very dark, and not

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 3, 2018
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: The Baby (1973)

Ann (Anjanette Comer) has had a rough go; her husband recently bought the farm, and now her job as a social worker has presented to her a new challenge; the case of “Baby” (David Mooney in a performance that is both tragic and face punch inspiring) a 21 year-old with the mind of a baby (dude crawls, bawls, and shits his overalls if you catch my drift). Anyway, Baby’s momma (clever, right?) is none too pleased about Ann’s interference, and her two off-the-rails daughter feel much the same. Well, the sit well and truly hits the fan when Ann has designs on liberating the man-child from his wicked wardens which could lead to her demise! Demented, bizarre, filled with mounting tension, and equal parts entertaining and annoying, The Baby is definitely unique that’s for sure. As mentioned, the main character of Baby definitel grates on the nerves at times, but the Wadsworth clan (as played by Ruth Roman, Marianna Hill,

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 2, 2018
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Horrors of Malformed Men (1969)

Hirosuke Hitomi (Teruo Yoshida) finds himself confined to a drab sanitarium seemingly filled to the brim with psychotic, half naked women. How did he come to be in that predicament? Well read on dear fiends… As Hitomi revisits his past in his thoughts we learn of a bizarre, animalistic figure he met on a beach, and the store room in which he was imprisoned after encountering said being. While imprisoned he has bizarre hallucinations (or are they?) of a beautiful woman whose face transforms to that of a deformed man and back again. He also continuously hears a haunting lullaby, and has to contend with a strange, violent bald man, and abusive guards. After escaping his room one night, our hero meets a young woman who has no recollection of her past…and we learn Hitomi doesn’t as well. While on the lam, he ends up implicated in the murder of a circus performer (the girl he met previous) and takes

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 2, 2018

More from DanXIII

Horror Fuel

Short Film Review: octOber (2018)

Two friends, Alex and Jeremy, stroll along some train tracks under a steel grey sky. Alex discusses the disappearance of his sister, and the toll it has taken on his family…and he also explains that he thinks he knows who did it…a local man named Mr. Whitman whom he claims he has seen bump off other townsfolk. Well, our erstwhile heroes get to investigating, and Jeremy is slaughtered, while Alex makes like a fuckin’ banana and splits. Of course his meddling sets of a whole lot of horror biz…biz he may not be able to survive! Stylish, super slick, and possessing a strong story (of which this is but one part of an over reaching narrative…this is part 2 for those keepin’ score at home), octOber is a mini-masterpiece of suburban horror and taught tension. It’s the type of flick that as you watch you just know something horrible is going to happen, but just what or more importantly when

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 8, 2018
Horror Fuel

Album Review: Ghosts in the Graveyard: The Last Halloween: Remix Album (2018)

I’ve been following Seattle Washington’s Darkwave shock rockers Ghosts in the Graveyard since the beginning (I’m like a fuckin’ horror hipster now, minus the beard and mason jars…and everything that makes a hipster a hipster), and I was excited as all unholy hell when the leader o’ this gang o’ ghouls Byron C. Miller reached out to your’s cruelly and asked him to check out a new arcane album full o’ revoltin’ remixes of some of the best terror tunes from the group’s debut Monsters for the Masses! Featuring remixes from Idoless, Dead Animal Assembly Plant, Patrick Fears, Pill Brigade, Blakk Glass, The Labrynth, Kain Kinetic, and Endless Sunder; The Last Halloween takes the already creeptastic pitch black New Wave stylings the band is known for, and rips them open and blows them up into sonic assaults that sound even more melodic, layered, and downright “huge” then they did on their first go around! Standout re-mixes for me include Thirteen

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 8, 2018
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Diane (2018)

Stage actress/singer Diane (Carlee Avers) is discovered in the back yard of hard luck disabled war vet Steve (Jason Alan Smith)…well, her semi-clothed body is anyway along with a bloody screwdriver. After an intense, and off-kilter, grilling by the local authorities, Steve is returned home where he becomes obsessed with Diane…so much so that he begins to hear her voice late at night and has strange fever dreams involving her (tinted a strange crimson hue, or taking place in nebulous white spaces)…while his days find him even more ostracized from his community than we was previously. Before long, Diane’s appearances become rather sinister, and find that things aren’t as they appear to be! Boasting a unique and surreal aesthetic, Diane is definitely not your run of the mill police procedural/murder mystery. Every character is perfectly nuanced and acted (with Smith’s leading man performance a true standout…but Margaret Rose Champagne, Dick Boland, and Jim Thalman as the police assigned to his

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 7, 2018
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: The Girl in the Crawlspace (2018)

Ever wonder what psychological toll being the “final girl” of a mass murdering psycho would take on a soul? Well the new film from first time director John Oak Dalton titled The Girl in the Crawlspace shows us just that scenario. Jill (Erin R. Ryan) is the lone survivor of the Crawlspace Killer; a real sick ticket that keeps his victims bound in a crawlspace and engages them with psychological torture. Jill wanders the town, homeless and wraith like…a broken porcelain doll in human form. Enter psychiatrist Kristen (Joni Durian), who has recently moved back to town, along with her unsuccessful screenwriter husband Johnny (John Hambrick), who soon takes on trying to integrate Jill back into normal society at the behest of the town sheriff , as her husband tries to fit in with the locals by joining a local Dungeons and Dragons group out of desperation for human contact. Time passes and Jill begins to be integrated into the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 4, 2018
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Schlock (1973)

Schlock begins in the aftermath of a mass killing by the Banana Killer, so named because he leaves a banana peel at the scene of every crime. Experts predict that the murders will only increase, and police don’t have a clue as to the killer’s identity. Meanwhile, a group of teens explore a cave and discover just what is committing the crimes; a violence prone missing link, more ape than man! Once discovered, the brute terrorizes the countryside leaving murder and mayhem in it’s wake! From the description above, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Schlock is a straight up fright flick, but let me assure you it is anything but! Full of sight and running gags, corny jokes, ridiculous characters, and a fantastic creature suit by a young Rick Baker (with writer/director John Landis crammed inside); Schlock may be one of the most ludicrous, and hilarious horror comedies (a genre Landis would return to eight years later with 1981’s

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 4, 2018
Horror Fuel

Short Film Review: Candle Cove (2018)

Candle Cove tells the story of two adults remembering a childhood fav; a silent televised puppet show called Candle Cove. As fate would have it, they find a box which contains recorded episodes of the show, including the finale…a finale that featured the puppets screaming in terror for the duration. As they examine the tapes, all they see is static…until they pop in the finale and the screaming starts! Based (loosely) on the creepypasta of the same name (which also served as the basis for the first season of SyFy’s Channel Zero), Candle Cove is a very brief distillation of what made the original tale so memorable. Short though it is, this version still manages to maintain the same eerie vibe, but I personally would have liked to see more of what made the story so effective (i.e. the original yarn features horrifying pirate based puppets, while this one features silent Punch N’ Judy like characters, and was presented a

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 3, 2018
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Mara (2018)

After a man is strangled in his sleep, and twisted into a knot like one of those massive-ass mall pretzels, the police immediately blame the dude’s wife, no matter who vehemently their daughter blames someone called ‘Mara’. Enter criminal psychologist Kate Fuller (Olga Kurylenko) who investigates the claims of the accused and before you can say “Frederick Krueger” she discovers that ol’ Mara is a demon that murders people in their sleep. As our heroine presses on she discovers the deceased attended a support group for sufferers of sleep paralysis, and when she takes it upon herself to attend a meeting she finds that the participants all seem to be haunted by Mara (who marks her prey with one hell of a case of pink eye) who is offing them one by one while they get their snooze on. Sure as shit, ol’ Fear Fightin’ Fuller finds her self marked by our sleep stalker and the race is on to

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 3, 2018
Horror Fuel

Short Film Review: The Confined (2017)

A duo of young architects are shown the inside of a large, dilapidated building; once the home to a suicide cult, but now being eyed as the site for upscale condos. However, they are not really sold on the vision for the building’s future, due in no small part to its dark history. Before long however our heroes realize much too late that the malevolent forces that inhabited the building are very much still present. The main thing The Confined has in its favor is it’s world-building. The idea of a property that was once the home of an evil cult now being turned into residential property is one rife for further exploration…and the taste of the premise that we get with this short is definitely enticing. Also of note is a nice bit of business involving an old movie projector that was suitably creepy. On the downside, The Confined wasn’t lit very well; sequences are very dark, and not

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 3, 2018
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: The Baby (1973)

Ann (Anjanette Comer) has had a rough go; her husband recently bought the farm, and now her job as a social worker has presented to her a new challenge; the case of “Baby” (David Mooney in a performance that is both tragic and face punch inspiring) a 21 year-old with the mind of a baby (dude crawls, bawls, and shits his overalls if you catch my drift). Anyway, Baby’s momma (clever, right?) is none too pleased about Ann’s interference, and her two off-the-rails daughter feel much the same. Well, the sit well and truly hits the fan when Ann has designs on liberating the man-child from his wicked wardens which could lead to her demise! Demented, bizarre, filled with mounting tension, and equal parts entertaining and annoying, The Baby is definitely unique that’s for sure. As mentioned, the main character of Baby definitel grates on the nerves at times, but the Wadsworth clan (as played by Ruth Roman, Marianna Hill,

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 2, 2018
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Horrors of Malformed Men (1969)

Hirosuke Hitomi (Teruo Yoshida) finds himself confined to a drab sanitarium seemingly filled to the brim with psychotic, half naked women. How did he come to be in that predicament? Well read on dear fiends… As Hitomi revisits his past in his thoughts we learn of a bizarre, animalistic figure he met on a beach, and the store room in which he was imprisoned after encountering said being. While imprisoned he has bizarre hallucinations (or are they?) of a beautiful woman whose face transforms to that of a deformed man and back again. He also continuously hears a haunting lullaby, and has to contend with a strange, violent bald man, and abusive guards. After escaping his room one night, our hero meets a young woman who has no recollection of her past…and we learn Hitomi doesn’t as well. While on the lam, he ends up implicated in the murder of a circus performer (the girl he met previous) and takes

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 2, 2018
Next →