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DanXIII

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Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Head Count (2018)

Evan (Isaac W. Jay) and his older bro Peyton (Cooper Rowe) are spending some quality time together, now matter how disparate their personalities. You see, Evan is a college party dude, and Peyton is a clean livin’ type, balls deep into New Age bullshit who resides in a trailer in the desert…so fun is in short supply. Before long our heroes soon cross paths with a group of students on a hike…and that group contains a comely lass named Zoe (Ashleigh Morghan) who Evan gets an instant case of the hornies for…so it’s “later bro” to ol’ Peyton…even though our boy is awkward A.F. around Z-dawg. So what do these gang of goofs do for funsies? Why get loaded and read rando terror tales from a Creepypasta-esque website…which summons a shape-shifting Hisji, a demon totally all up in the number five and as is always the case, the fight to survive this preternatural menace is well and truly on! Let’s

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 12, 2019
Horror Fuel

Movie Reviews: Dances with Films Festival premieres: Driven, Would You Like to Try Again? and Wowzers

In this creep column, I’m focusing my putrid peepers on three vastly different flicks that will be prancin’ across the sinful silver screen this month at the Dances with Films Festival! Playing Saturday, June 15th at 11:45 pm at TCL Chinese Theatre is: Driven (2019) Ride share fright flicks are en vogue these days; and as a relatively new phenomena they are ripe for exploration and fresh ideas, and Driven exemplifies this fully! Emerson (Casey Dillard who also wrote and co-produced the film) is havin’ the usual ass-pain of a night schlepping around various annoying fares, but things take a turn for the batshit when she picks up Roger (Richard Speight Jr.). You see Rog-baby is lookin’ to dump off a curse handed down through the generations, and now he and E-dawg are in for a night of supernatural shenanigans as they attempt to confront a preternatural evil. Sounds like a Tuesday to your’s cruelly… The lions share of what

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 11, 2019
Horror Fuel

Audiorotic Set to Fill Your Eerie Earholes With Arcane Audio!

Recently I had the pleasure of surrounding myself with a musical miasma most dark and lascivious! I’m speaking of the sinister sounds of the new electronic outfit getting ready to rocket forth from the fog and rain choked graveyards of Seattle Washington…Audiorotic (comprised of members William Wilson and Michael Guillory)…and what a moonless midnight hued blackness that filled my soul as I listened to their demonic digital wizardry ! Want a taste my fiends, head here…I’ll wait for your return… I know you dug that the most…but if you need any further reason to follow these monstrous musicians, they have recorded their own version of David Bowie’s theme song to Paul Schrader’s 1982 remake of Cat People, and if that doesn’t sell ya on these dudes, nothin’ fucking will! I urge all of you boils n’ ghouls to soak in these sinister sounds as soon as inhumanly possible…and be sure to follow Audiorotic on Facebook! Tell ’em XIII sent ya!

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 11, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: The Andromeda Strain (1971)

The US Air Force’s Project Scoop deploys a small unit to retrieve a satellite that has crashed back to Earth near Piedmont, New Mexico. Sounds easy enough; except the entire town is now dead A.F. and the folks sent to investigate end up the same thanks to something that hitched a ride on said satellite. Enter: Dr. Jeremy Stone (Arthur Hill) who warned this type of shit would go down years previous and was ostracized for his trouble. Now Uncle Sam comes practically begging for his assistance; and that of his team; Drs. Dutton, the brassy Leavitt and Hall (David Wayne, Kate Reid, and James Olson, respectively) and ships them off to the high tech underground facility known as Wildfire. Once there the work begins (after a series of wacky…and hilarious tests and decontamination protocols) to isolate the lethal life form (which of course is mutating) while determining why two people from Piedmont (an old drunk and a six-month-old baby)

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 9, 2019
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Terror In The Skies (2019)

Following an absolutely gorgeous opening sequence set in 1948 where a young boy who dreams of being a pilot is confronted by a gigantic bird of prey he can scarcely believe, we begin our journey into the investigation of preternatural beings who have made their home in the skies over Illinois for decades in Terror in the Skies; the latest cryptid-focused documentary from Small Town Monsters and their resident demonic director (and writer too) Supernatural Seth Breedlove (okay…maybe he isn’t supernatural, but he sure does talk about the creepy side o’ life quite a bit. Don’t believe me? Check out my revoltin’ reviews of some of his past docs here, and here)! First up we learn the history of this monster-laden land; including chit-chat about the Thunderbirds (called the Piasa Bird in this region) that tormented the Native Americans indigenous to ancient Illinois, and supposedly resided in a deep cave littered with human bones (a cave that some dude in

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 6, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Trapped Alive (1988)

One cold and frosty night; two comely lasses, Robin and Monica (Sullivan Hester and Laura Kallison) are making their way to a soiree when they are carjacked by a terrifying trio (well, two of them are scary anyway) of escaped convicts (one of whom is so strong he can keep a vehicle from moving simply by holding on it’s bumper). Now you may say to yourself “Hey, that could make for an okay fright flick…a bit overdone perhaps, but solid nonetheless.” Well, you may say that, but Trapped Alive certainly isn’t listening…I mean it can’t “listen” really; it’s a movie filmed over three decades ago, and…where the fuck was I? Oh yeah; so that vehicle goes of the road and crashes into an abandoned mine shaft…well, not really “abandoned” as it’s home to a cannibalistic mutant, as is the way (and definitely spices up the proceedings). Thankfully for our heroines, the local sheriff (Randy Powell) is on the case…and by

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 4, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Lords of Chaos (2018)

Ol’ Øystein “Euronymous “Aarseth (Rory Culkin) lives a rather bland existence in late ’80’s Norway doing the typical teen biz; drinking, smoking, starting Mayhem…a legendary Satanic Black Metal band…the usual. The days are filled with fun, gifts of crucified mice from fanatical fans, and endless practice sessions. Enter: new vocalist Pelle ‘Dead’ Ohlin (Jack Kilmer)…a real ray of sunshine that brings with him a heavy cloud of darkness and depression…and a real move forward for the band musically and visually. Of course tragedy soon follows and things begin to really go off the rails once the eager-to-please Kristian ‘Varg’ Vikernes (Emory Cohen) makes the scene along with some radical ideas (read: fucked-up) that soon have him and Euronymous at odds and things falling desperately out of control (to put it mildly). First things first; does Lords of Chaos fuck with the facts surrounding Mayhem? Sure it does…but this is a movie version of reality, not a documentary…and what a movie

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 1, 2019
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Silhouette (2019)

Jack and Amanda Harms (Tom Zembrod and April Hartman respectively) are dealin’ with that ultimate fright flick family buzzkill; a dead kid…namely their young daughter. As is often the case in films like this, the couple haul ass to the most secluded spot they can find and move into a seemingly nice abode (which of course is anything but). Of course that tyke won’t stay dead and soon begins appearing to our heroes which increases their marital woes roughly a billionity (it’s a real number) percent! What is this kreepy kid’s endgame, and will our protagonists make it long enough with their sanity intact to find out? Writer/Director Mitch McLeod has worked a bit of magic with Silhouette; while the flick is definitely well-stepped in horror biz tropes tried and true; his film is elevated by a stellar cast and a keen visual sense. Tom Zembrod and April Hartman really knock it out of the putrid park as the troubled

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 1, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Earthquake (1974)

Ahh…the classic, star-studded disaster movie; they sure don’t make them like that anymore…well, sure they do make star-studded movies that are disasters, just not specifically about disasters. This seems like a long reach for a chuckle from you lot, so let’s just jump into my revoltin’ review of 1974’s Earthquake! Our story begins with Graff (Charlton fuckin’ Heston baby) getting nagged by his wife Remy (Ava Gardner)…because that’s what the kids dig; hen pecked husbands and their pill-poppin’ wives. Following that we get a “high speed” police chase (complete with Zsa Zsa Gabor’s bush…technically a hedge) and that heart-warming ol’ chestnut; a dead child, a mustachioed Marjoe Gortner giving a lady with a sky-high perm (Dallas‘ Victoria Principle) a big slab of his free meat (it involves store credit), Richard Roundtree sportin’ the slickest motorcycle threads/Black Vulcan costume known to mankind and doing his best Evel Knievel bit, Walter Matthau dressed like a pimp sipping booze…pretty much every rando (and

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 1, 2019
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Isabelle (2018)

Larissa and Matt Kane (Amanda Crew and Adam Brody) move on down to the bucolic town of Sarasota Springs where the livin’ is easy and nothing could ever possibly go wrong. And they lived a quiet happy life… The fuck they did…you see in among the whole “getting ready to start a family” bullshitery, Larissa meets her creepy as balls neighbor Ann Pelway (Sheila McCarthy) as her even creepier daughter Isabelle (Zoë Belkin) glowers down from a window above, and then immediately has a late-term miscarriage right there in the driveway (following which she sees her dead baby return to demonic life in her fevered dreams…seriously tacky movie, seriously tacky). Time passes, Larissa keeps imagining her baby is alive, and Isabelle keeps playing her staring contest long game…I mean she has fuck-all else to do being a satanic presence confined to a wheelchair…which makes the fact that L-dawg starts seeing her in her own abode pretty damn shocking (those glowing

Continue reading →
DanXIII
May 24, 2019

More from DanXIII

Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Head Count (2018)

Evan (Isaac W. Jay) and his older bro Peyton (Cooper Rowe) are spending some quality time together, now matter how disparate their personalities. You see, Evan is a college party dude, and Peyton is a clean livin’ type, balls deep into New Age bullshit who resides in a trailer in the desert…so fun is in short supply. Before long our heroes soon cross paths with a group of students on a hike…and that group contains a comely lass named Zoe (Ashleigh Morghan) who Evan gets an instant case of the hornies for…so it’s “later bro” to ol’ Peyton…even though our boy is awkward A.F. around Z-dawg. So what do these gang of goofs do for funsies? Why get loaded and read rando terror tales from a Creepypasta-esque website…which summons a shape-shifting Hisji, a demon totally all up in the number five and as is always the case, the fight to survive this preternatural menace is well and truly on! Let’s

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 12, 2019
Horror Fuel

Movie Reviews: Dances with Films Festival premieres: Driven, Would You Like to Try Again? and Wowzers

In this creep column, I’m focusing my putrid peepers on three vastly different flicks that will be prancin’ across the sinful silver screen this month at the Dances with Films Festival! Playing Saturday, June 15th at 11:45 pm at TCL Chinese Theatre is: Driven (2019) Ride share fright flicks are en vogue these days; and as a relatively new phenomena they are ripe for exploration and fresh ideas, and Driven exemplifies this fully! Emerson (Casey Dillard who also wrote and co-produced the film) is havin’ the usual ass-pain of a night schlepping around various annoying fares, but things take a turn for the batshit when she picks up Roger (Richard Speight Jr.). You see Rog-baby is lookin’ to dump off a curse handed down through the generations, and now he and E-dawg are in for a night of supernatural shenanigans as they attempt to confront a preternatural evil. Sounds like a Tuesday to your’s cruelly… The lions share of what

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 11, 2019
Horror Fuel

Audiorotic Set to Fill Your Eerie Earholes With Arcane Audio!

Recently I had the pleasure of surrounding myself with a musical miasma most dark and lascivious! I’m speaking of the sinister sounds of the new electronic outfit getting ready to rocket forth from the fog and rain choked graveyards of Seattle Washington…Audiorotic (comprised of members William Wilson and Michael Guillory)…and what a moonless midnight hued blackness that filled my soul as I listened to their demonic digital wizardry ! Want a taste my fiends, head here…I’ll wait for your return… I know you dug that the most…but if you need any further reason to follow these monstrous musicians, they have recorded their own version of David Bowie’s theme song to Paul Schrader’s 1982 remake of Cat People, and if that doesn’t sell ya on these dudes, nothin’ fucking will! I urge all of you boils n’ ghouls to soak in these sinister sounds as soon as inhumanly possible…and be sure to follow Audiorotic on Facebook! Tell ’em XIII sent ya!

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 11, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: The Andromeda Strain (1971)

The US Air Force’s Project Scoop deploys a small unit to retrieve a satellite that has crashed back to Earth near Piedmont, New Mexico. Sounds easy enough; except the entire town is now dead A.F. and the folks sent to investigate end up the same thanks to something that hitched a ride on said satellite. Enter: Dr. Jeremy Stone (Arthur Hill) who warned this type of shit would go down years previous and was ostracized for his trouble. Now Uncle Sam comes practically begging for his assistance; and that of his team; Drs. Dutton, the brassy Leavitt and Hall (David Wayne, Kate Reid, and James Olson, respectively) and ships them off to the high tech underground facility known as Wildfire. Once there the work begins (after a series of wacky…and hilarious tests and decontamination protocols) to isolate the lethal life form (which of course is mutating) while determining why two people from Piedmont (an old drunk and a six-month-old baby)

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 9, 2019
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Terror In The Skies (2019)

Following an absolutely gorgeous opening sequence set in 1948 where a young boy who dreams of being a pilot is confronted by a gigantic bird of prey he can scarcely believe, we begin our journey into the investigation of preternatural beings who have made their home in the skies over Illinois for decades in Terror in the Skies; the latest cryptid-focused documentary from Small Town Monsters and their resident demonic director (and writer too) Supernatural Seth Breedlove (okay…maybe he isn’t supernatural, but he sure does talk about the creepy side o’ life quite a bit. Don’t believe me? Check out my revoltin’ reviews of some of his past docs here, and here)! First up we learn the history of this monster-laden land; including chit-chat about the Thunderbirds (called the Piasa Bird in this region) that tormented the Native Americans indigenous to ancient Illinois, and supposedly resided in a deep cave littered with human bones (a cave that some dude in

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 6, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Trapped Alive (1988)

One cold and frosty night; two comely lasses, Robin and Monica (Sullivan Hester and Laura Kallison) are making their way to a soiree when they are carjacked by a terrifying trio (well, two of them are scary anyway) of escaped convicts (one of whom is so strong he can keep a vehicle from moving simply by holding on it’s bumper). Now you may say to yourself “Hey, that could make for an okay fright flick…a bit overdone perhaps, but solid nonetheless.” Well, you may say that, but Trapped Alive certainly isn’t listening…I mean it can’t “listen” really; it’s a movie filmed over three decades ago, and…where the fuck was I? Oh yeah; so that vehicle goes of the road and crashes into an abandoned mine shaft…well, not really “abandoned” as it’s home to a cannibalistic mutant, as is the way (and definitely spices up the proceedings). Thankfully for our heroines, the local sheriff (Randy Powell) is on the case…and by

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 4, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Lords of Chaos (2018)

Ol’ Øystein “Euronymous “Aarseth (Rory Culkin) lives a rather bland existence in late ’80’s Norway doing the typical teen biz; drinking, smoking, starting Mayhem…a legendary Satanic Black Metal band…the usual. The days are filled with fun, gifts of crucified mice from fanatical fans, and endless practice sessions. Enter: new vocalist Pelle ‘Dead’ Ohlin (Jack Kilmer)…a real ray of sunshine that brings with him a heavy cloud of darkness and depression…and a real move forward for the band musically and visually. Of course tragedy soon follows and things begin to really go off the rails once the eager-to-please Kristian ‘Varg’ Vikernes (Emory Cohen) makes the scene along with some radical ideas (read: fucked-up) that soon have him and Euronymous at odds and things falling desperately out of control (to put it mildly). First things first; does Lords of Chaos fuck with the facts surrounding Mayhem? Sure it does…but this is a movie version of reality, not a documentary…and what a movie

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 1, 2019
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Silhouette (2019)

Jack and Amanda Harms (Tom Zembrod and April Hartman respectively) are dealin’ with that ultimate fright flick family buzzkill; a dead kid…namely their young daughter. As is often the case in films like this, the couple haul ass to the most secluded spot they can find and move into a seemingly nice abode (which of course is anything but). Of course that tyke won’t stay dead and soon begins appearing to our heroes which increases their marital woes roughly a billionity (it’s a real number) percent! What is this kreepy kid’s endgame, and will our protagonists make it long enough with their sanity intact to find out? Writer/Director Mitch McLeod has worked a bit of magic with Silhouette; while the flick is definitely well-stepped in horror biz tropes tried and true; his film is elevated by a stellar cast and a keen visual sense. Tom Zembrod and April Hartman really knock it out of the putrid park as the troubled

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 1, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Earthquake (1974)

Ahh…the classic, star-studded disaster movie; they sure don’t make them like that anymore…well, sure they do make star-studded movies that are disasters, just not specifically about disasters. This seems like a long reach for a chuckle from you lot, so let’s just jump into my revoltin’ review of 1974’s Earthquake! Our story begins with Graff (Charlton fuckin’ Heston baby) getting nagged by his wife Remy (Ava Gardner)…because that’s what the kids dig; hen pecked husbands and their pill-poppin’ wives. Following that we get a “high speed” police chase (complete with Zsa Zsa Gabor’s bush…technically a hedge) and that heart-warming ol’ chestnut; a dead child, a mustachioed Marjoe Gortner giving a lady with a sky-high perm (Dallas‘ Victoria Principle) a big slab of his free meat (it involves store credit), Richard Roundtree sportin’ the slickest motorcycle threads/Black Vulcan costume known to mankind and doing his best Evel Knievel bit, Walter Matthau dressed like a pimp sipping booze…pretty much every rando (and

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 1, 2019
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Isabelle (2018)

Larissa and Matt Kane (Amanda Crew and Adam Brody) move on down to the bucolic town of Sarasota Springs where the livin’ is easy and nothing could ever possibly go wrong. And they lived a quiet happy life… The fuck they did…you see in among the whole “getting ready to start a family” bullshitery, Larissa meets her creepy as balls neighbor Ann Pelway (Sheila McCarthy) as her even creepier daughter Isabelle (Zoë Belkin) glowers down from a window above, and then immediately has a late-term miscarriage right there in the driveway (following which she sees her dead baby return to demonic life in her fevered dreams…seriously tacky movie, seriously tacky). Time passes, Larissa keeps imagining her baby is alive, and Isabelle keeps playing her staring contest long game…I mean she has fuck-all else to do being a satanic presence confined to a wheelchair…which makes the fact that L-dawg starts seeing her in her own abode pretty damn shocking (those glowing

Continue reading →
DanXIII
May 24, 2019
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