Horror Fuel
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DanXIII

1,295 stories
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Ahockalypse (2018)

Ahockalypse begins with The Prairie Kings hockey team scoring a major victory on the ice, but the highfalutin celebrating is short lived as the city becomes ground zero for one of those zombie apocalypses that all the kids are into these days. Now the team has to tear ass all over the damn place in a desperate race to survive the night as gut munchers clash with team mascots, kung-fu vixens, and pepperoni obsessed goof-balls! As you can surmise from the sinister synopsis above; Ahockalypse is light on story, but that should come as no real surprise, as this is a fright flick filled with as many laughs (attempted anyway…more to come there) as lacerations, and one where the absurd rules the day…but that too is a tad lacking. First off, the cast are extremely game for the free wheeling nonsense at hand, and all are fun to watch, but unfortunately the material they are given more often than not

Continue reading →
Aug 18, 2018
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (2018)

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich, a re-imagining of the popular and ubiquitous Full Moon fright franchise of the halcyon days of video stores, begins with it’s version of series mainstay (and the eponymous puppet master) Andre Toulon (this time brought to life by genre legend Udo Kier)…a scarred French/German ex-pat who fled World War II Europe (when the allies defeated his Nazi pals) after committing countless atrocities with his magical menagerie of living killer puppets…atrocities he continues to engage in in late ’80’s rural Texas..living in a mausoleum peppered with iron rods that conduct arcane energy which he uses to control his creepy creations. Flash forward to Texas of the present day and recently divorced comic shop employee Edgar (Thomas Lennon) discovering one of Toulon’s puppets in a box of rando shit in his parent’s house (a hold over possession of his dead brother which he acquired at camp in his youth). Edgar decides to sell the puppet (series regular

Continue reading →
Aug 17, 2018
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: In The Mouth of Madness (1995)

Insurance investigator John Trent (Sam Neill) has found himself locked away in an insane asylum as the world turns to shit outside it’s walls. How in the hell did he end up here? Well, for starters he never should have taken on the case of investigating the disappearance of celebrated horror novelist and H.P. Lovecraft surrogate Sutter Cane (Jurgen Prochnow); a huge cash cow for Arcane publishing. Said investigation takes our no-nonsense hero, an Arcane employee Linda Styles (Julie Carmen), to the small New England town of Hobbs End…a central location in Cane’s fiction. Once there they discover that not only are the characters in Cane’s stories real, but Cane himself holds the town in a grip of eldritch evil, as what he writes comes to demonic life! Will our hero escape from the madness alive? Okay, we already know he will…but what of the insanity he faces after? Filled to the brim with ancient evil, cursed villagers, and creatures

Continue reading →
Aug 15, 2018
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: The Grand Son (2018)

Tod (Rhys Wakefield…who we interviewed right here) and his sister Lani (Fabianne Therese) live a life of decadent excess high in the Hollywood hills within the walls of their grandmother Judy’s (an aging starlet who know hosts a home shopping show) mansion. Things are all wine and roses until ol’ Tod (accidentally?) busts a cap in Judy’s ass making her as dead as her movie career. With Judy gone, how can the siblings charmed lives continue on as before? Well Tod is as good at hatching schemes as he is at murdering his relatives, so he seduces the producer of the shopping show and sets Lani up as the host in the wake of Judy’s “absence”…which actually improves the ratings, ‘cuz Lani is hot as the Devil’s balls and all. Things of course escalate, and our “heroes” must go further and further to maintain their ruse! The Grand Son is a great example of a slow burn thriller done right!

Continue reading →
Aug 13, 2018
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Summer of ’84 (2018)

Remember the days when kids looked at girly mags, swore a lot, and went on neighborhood adventures that got them BD in danger with the quickness? I sure as fuck do, and so does RKSS (the directorial team that brought us post-apocalyptic ’80’s homage Turbo Kid), and boy are horror hounds all the better for it! Summer of ’84 begins with four neighborhood chums (all archetypes; the fat kid, the nerd, the average Joe, and the leather-clad bad boy) playing a modified hide and seek game…a childish diversion in an environment that has the dark cloud of a rash of missing children hanging over it like a pitch black cloud. The “average Joe” of the group, Davey Armstrong (Graham Verchere), begins to suspect that something is amiss with his police officer neighbor Wayne Mackey (Rich Sommer)…an outwardly friendly sort that just so happens to have a padlocked room in his basement. Now it’s up to our heroes to put the

Continue reading →
Aug 10, 2018
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Dead Shack (2017)

A family heads out to the woods for a lil’ camping R&R with their pal, the meek Jason (Matthew Nelson-Mahood), in tow. Once there the kids, Summer (Lizzie Boys), Colin (Gabriel LaBelle), and the aforementioned Jason go on a trek through the woods while the former’s parents get trashed. As they press on, they discover a house deep in the woods…a house inhabited by a seductive woman (Lauren Holly) who just so happens to feed unsuspecting victims to her zombified husband and kids. After a series of misadventures…i.e. shitty sleuthing involving Summer and Colin’s massively inebriated father (Donavon Stinson), the gang find themselves BD in the horror biz as the zombie plague spreads and they are the only thing standing in it’s way. Yeah, two teens with ‘tude and one nerd against the forces of the undead…we may be fucked here folks! Dead Shack is one hell of a horror comedy my creeps! The cast o’ “kids” in the lead

Continue reading →
Aug 9, 2018
Horror Fuel

Short Film Review: Nepenthes (2018)

Max (Ariel Slack) sits in a cafe doing the things one does (sitting for hours soaking up the free Wi-fi while ordering one small cup of coffee) at such establishments. Suddenly her phone comes alive and displays an interested party on her dating app; an beautiful and enigmatic woman named Venus (Tristan Risk). Alex being the curious (read: horny) type, she treks out to Venus’ pad, but of course what awaits her is not quite what was advertised! I’m always amazed at what folks can do in the fright flick biz on a low budget and short run time, and Nepenthes was no exception! Filled with choice, and well executed, practical effects, a strong lead in Slack, and confident writing and direction from Ariel Hansen, this flick packs a putrid punch my creeps! And talk about your surprise ending…well, let’s just say you won’t believe your eerie eyeballs at the outcome of this lil’ terror tale! Nepenthes is currently doin’

Continue reading →
Aug 7, 2018
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Along Came the Devil

Ashley (Sydney Sweeney) returns to the hometown where her mother bit the big one and her days and nights were spent living with her abusive ass hat of a father (and his bristling beard). Rekindling a her friendship with her gal pal Hannah (Madison Lintz), Ashley partakes in a sinister seance (aided and abetted by a cell phone app…fuckin’ kids these days, always on fleek and shizz, amirite…) and within a millipube (it’s real…us reviewers know things) has a creep-tacular visitation from Mommy Dearest that leaves her experiencing supernatural shenanigans six (six, six) ways to Sunday! Before long ol’ Ash is in a battle for her very soul, and no one around her is safe from the demons at her door! Man-o-man, Along Came the Devil is one slick-ass supernatural shocker! Featuring beautiful cinematography by Justin Duval, razor sharp editing by Evan Ahlgren, kinetic directing by Jason DeVan, and a surprisingly effective YA take on the whole possession/seance bag courtesy

Continue reading →
Aug 7, 2018
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Elizabeth Harvest (2018)

Elizabeth, recently hitched to brainiac science whiz Henry (played with equal parts charm and menace by Ciaran Hinds), finds herself living the high life in H-dawg’s opulent mansion, eatin’ fancy grub and generally havin’ a real princess style good time. Soon ol’ hubby has to skedaddle off on some business thing or anther and he leaves Elizabeth in the care of the servants; blind Oliver (Matthew Beard) who digs on flower arranging (as one does), and vaguely ominous Claire (a many nuanced turn from Carla Gugino)…and he also tells her there is one room in the house she must never enter. She of course does this a mere p.h. after he leaves and discovers a strange experiment…and when Henry discovers that she’s disobeyed he hacks her to pieces with a rather large knife. And then things get very, very strange…but to say more would give too much of the story away as nothing is as it seems or predictable! With

Continue reading →
Aug 6, 2018
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Bram Stoker’s Shadowbuilder (1998)

A flock of Satanic priests summon a demon made of shadows and charge it with taking the soul of a young boy, Chris (Kevin Zegers) destined to be a saint. Without his soul that lil’ tyke will fling open the doors to hell with wild abandon and unleash all manner of destruction upon our big blue marble. Fret not though because pill-poppin’ Father Vassey (Mary Poppins…err, Michael Rooker), a cross between The Punisher and a preacher, is on the case and after puttin’ a murder on those cray-cray cultists does his damnedest to stop that preternatural blackness from taking his prize…but at least he has time on his side as our murderous monster begins working his way through the citizens of the town in which Chris lives leaving light adverse walking dead and folks(and the occasional dog or two) gone rabid, in his wake as he searches for his prey. Will Vassey, along with the town’s sheriff (Shawn Thompson) and

Continue reading →
Aug 6, 2018

More from DanXIII

Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Ahockalypse (2018)

Ahockalypse begins with The Prairie Kings hockey team scoring a major victory on the ice, but the highfalutin celebrating is short lived as the city becomes ground zero for one of those zombie apocalypses that all the kids are into these days. Now the team has to tear ass all over the damn place in a desperate race to survive the night as gut munchers clash with team mascots, kung-fu vixens, and pepperoni obsessed goof-balls! As you can surmise from the sinister synopsis above; Ahockalypse is light on story, but that should come as no real surprise, as this is a fright flick filled with as many laughs (attempted anyway…more to come there) as lacerations, and one where the absurd rules the day…but that too is a tad lacking. First off, the cast are extremely game for the free wheeling nonsense at hand, and all are fun to watch, but unfortunately the material they are given more often than not

Continue reading →
Aug 18, 2018
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (2018)

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich, a re-imagining of the popular and ubiquitous Full Moon fright franchise of the halcyon days of video stores, begins with it’s version of series mainstay (and the eponymous puppet master) Andre Toulon (this time brought to life by genre legend Udo Kier)…a scarred French/German ex-pat who fled World War II Europe (when the allies defeated his Nazi pals) after committing countless atrocities with his magical menagerie of living killer puppets…atrocities he continues to engage in in late ’80’s rural Texas..living in a mausoleum peppered with iron rods that conduct arcane energy which he uses to control his creepy creations. Flash forward to Texas of the present day and recently divorced comic shop employee Edgar (Thomas Lennon) discovering one of Toulon’s puppets in a box of rando shit in his parent’s house (a hold over possession of his dead brother which he acquired at camp in his youth). Edgar decides to sell the puppet (series regular

Continue reading →
Aug 17, 2018
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: In The Mouth of Madness (1995)

Insurance investigator John Trent (Sam Neill) has found himself locked away in an insane asylum as the world turns to shit outside it’s walls. How in the hell did he end up here? Well, for starters he never should have taken on the case of investigating the disappearance of celebrated horror novelist and H.P. Lovecraft surrogate Sutter Cane (Jurgen Prochnow); a huge cash cow for Arcane publishing. Said investigation takes our no-nonsense hero, an Arcane employee Linda Styles (Julie Carmen), to the small New England town of Hobbs End…a central location in Cane’s fiction. Once there they discover that not only are the characters in Cane’s stories real, but Cane himself holds the town in a grip of eldritch evil, as what he writes comes to demonic life! Will our hero escape from the madness alive? Okay, we already know he will…but what of the insanity he faces after? Filled to the brim with ancient evil, cursed villagers, and creatures

Continue reading →
Aug 15, 2018
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: The Grand Son (2018)

Tod (Rhys Wakefield…who we interviewed right here) and his sister Lani (Fabianne Therese) live a life of decadent excess high in the Hollywood hills within the walls of their grandmother Judy’s (an aging starlet who know hosts a home shopping show) mansion. Things are all wine and roses until ol’ Tod (accidentally?) busts a cap in Judy’s ass making her as dead as her movie career. With Judy gone, how can the siblings charmed lives continue on as before? Well Tod is as good at hatching schemes as he is at murdering his relatives, so he seduces the producer of the shopping show and sets Lani up as the host in the wake of Judy’s “absence”…which actually improves the ratings, ‘cuz Lani is hot as the Devil’s balls and all. Things of course escalate, and our “heroes” must go further and further to maintain their ruse! The Grand Son is a great example of a slow burn thriller done right!

Continue reading →
Aug 13, 2018
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Summer of ’84 (2018)

Remember the days when kids looked at girly mags, swore a lot, and went on neighborhood adventures that got them BD in danger with the quickness? I sure as fuck do, and so does RKSS (the directorial team that brought us post-apocalyptic ’80’s homage Turbo Kid), and boy are horror hounds all the better for it! Summer of ’84 begins with four neighborhood chums (all archetypes; the fat kid, the nerd, the average Joe, and the leather-clad bad boy) playing a modified hide and seek game…a childish diversion in an environment that has the dark cloud of a rash of missing children hanging over it like a pitch black cloud. The “average Joe” of the group, Davey Armstrong (Graham Verchere), begins to suspect that something is amiss with his police officer neighbor Wayne Mackey (Rich Sommer)…an outwardly friendly sort that just so happens to have a padlocked room in his basement. Now it’s up to our heroes to put the

Continue reading →
Aug 10, 2018
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Dead Shack (2017)

A family heads out to the woods for a lil’ camping R&R with their pal, the meek Jason (Matthew Nelson-Mahood), in tow. Once there the kids, Summer (Lizzie Boys), Colin (Gabriel LaBelle), and the aforementioned Jason go on a trek through the woods while the former’s parents get trashed. As they press on, they discover a house deep in the woods…a house inhabited by a seductive woman (Lauren Holly) who just so happens to feed unsuspecting victims to her zombified husband and kids. After a series of misadventures…i.e. shitty sleuthing involving Summer and Colin’s massively inebriated father (Donavon Stinson), the gang find themselves BD in the horror biz as the zombie plague spreads and they are the only thing standing in it’s way. Yeah, two teens with ‘tude and one nerd against the forces of the undead…we may be fucked here folks! Dead Shack is one hell of a horror comedy my creeps! The cast o’ “kids” in the lead

Continue reading →
Aug 9, 2018
Horror Fuel

Short Film Review: Nepenthes (2018)

Max (Ariel Slack) sits in a cafe doing the things one does (sitting for hours soaking up the free Wi-fi while ordering one small cup of coffee) at such establishments. Suddenly her phone comes alive and displays an interested party on her dating app; an beautiful and enigmatic woman named Venus (Tristan Risk). Alex being the curious (read: horny) type, she treks out to Venus’ pad, but of course what awaits her is not quite what was advertised! I’m always amazed at what folks can do in the fright flick biz on a low budget and short run time, and Nepenthes was no exception! Filled with choice, and well executed, practical effects, a strong lead in Slack, and confident writing and direction from Ariel Hansen, this flick packs a putrid punch my creeps! And talk about your surprise ending…well, let’s just say you won’t believe your eerie eyeballs at the outcome of this lil’ terror tale! Nepenthes is currently doin’

Continue reading →
Aug 7, 2018
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Along Came the Devil

Ashley (Sydney Sweeney) returns to the hometown where her mother bit the big one and her days and nights were spent living with her abusive ass hat of a father (and his bristling beard). Rekindling a her friendship with her gal pal Hannah (Madison Lintz), Ashley partakes in a sinister seance (aided and abetted by a cell phone app…fuckin’ kids these days, always on fleek and shizz, amirite…) and within a millipube (it’s real…us reviewers know things) has a creep-tacular visitation from Mommy Dearest that leaves her experiencing supernatural shenanigans six (six, six) ways to Sunday! Before long ol’ Ash is in a battle for her very soul, and no one around her is safe from the demons at her door! Man-o-man, Along Came the Devil is one slick-ass supernatural shocker! Featuring beautiful cinematography by Justin Duval, razor sharp editing by Evan Ahlgren, kinetic directing by Jason DeVan, and a surprisingly effective YA take on the whole possession/seance bag courtesy

Continue reading →
Aug 7, 2018
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Elizabeth Harvest (2018)

Elizabeth, recently hitched to brainiac science whiz Henry (played with equal parts charm and menace by Ciaran Hinds), finds herself living the high life in H-dawg’s opulent mansion, eatin’ fancy grub and generally havin’ a real princess style good time. Soon ol’ hubby has to skedaddle off on some business thing or anther and he leaves Elizabeth in the care of the servants; blind Oliver (Matthew Beard) who digs on flower arranging (as one does), and vaguely ominous Claire (a many nuanced turn from Carla Gugino)…and he also tells her there is one room in the house she must never enter. She of course does this a mere p.h. after he leaves and discovers a strange experiment…and when Henry discovers that she’s disobeyed he hacks her to pieces with a rather large knife. And then things get very, very strange…but to say more would give too much of the story away as nothing is as it seems or predictable! With

Continue reading →
Aug 6, 2018
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Bram Stoker’s Shadowbuilder (1998)

A flock of Satanic priests summon a demon made of shadows and charge it with taking the soul of a young boy, Chris (Kevin Zegers) destined to be a saint. Without his soul that lil’ tyke will fling open the doors to hell with wild abandon and unleash all manner of destruction upon our big blue marble. Fret not though because pill-poppin’ Father Vassey (Mary Poppins…err, Michael Rooker), a cross between The Punisher and a preacher, is on the case and after puttin’ a murder on those cray-cray cultists does his damnedest to stop that preternatural blackness from taking his prize…but at least he has time on his side as our murderous monster begins working his way through the citizens of the town in which Chris lives leaving light adverse walking dead and folks(and the occasional dog or two) gone rabid, in his wake as he searches for his prey. Will Vassey, along with the town’s sheriff (Shawn Thompson) and

Continue reading →
Aug 6, 2018