CategoryReviews
Honest horror reviews of films, series, games and books — no hype, no spoilers, just whether it is worth your time and your nerves.
3,462 stories
MoviesReviews
Paramedic Steve (Anthony Mackie… ol’ fearless Falcon from the MCU) and his partner Dennis (Jamie Dornan) tear ass around a nocturnal New Orleans saving lives n’ shit… but soon that gig turns a bit ‘weird as all fuck’ when they begin responding to calls with ever-increasing outre elements… all of which seem to lead to the new designer drug, Synchronic. Soon Dennis finds himself in dire straits, and Steve attempts to lend a helpin’ fucking hand… which results in him taking Synchronic himself… a fact that leads to all manner of fresh hell since a tumor on his pineal gland makes him ultra-receptive to the drug’s unique effects… but also puts a deadline on his efforts to aid his partner’s plight… emphasis on the word dead, what with that tumor biz and all… Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (who also served as the film’s cinematographer) take what could be a mean streets procedural and turn it into a psychotronic mind
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesNewsReviews
George James Fraser, the director behind Happenstance and Gore Theater is back with his short film Scaring Sheri, the first installment of the upcoming horror collection United States of Horror, featuring a massive fifty films from all over the US. Shot at the world-famous Haunted Overload in Lee, New Hampshire, Scaring Sheri stars Sheri Lee (Doll House) and Johnny J. Gordon who is making his film debut. Scaring Sheri plays out against an absolutely amazing backdrop featuring hundreds of lit pumpkins and monsters making it spooky AF and adding to the tension because you’re on guard not knowing when or where a scare is going to come from. The cinematography for the eight-minute, fifteen-second long film is fantastic. With a rich look, a nice pace, and good effects, watching Scaring Sheri was a pleasure. And the fact that we get a feisty lead character that actually has some fight in her is a major bonus. The soundtrack is pure metal
Continue reading →
Reviews
Hotel horror is a well established subgenre in fear-fare cinema, and with classics such as The Shining (1980) and Psycho (1960) leading the pack, followed by worthy entries and a share of also-rans and outright bombs, it isn’t easy to put an original spin on new films in that category. Director Kourosh Ahari tries to do just that with The Night, and although many tried and true tropes are present, he serves up enough atmosphere and fine performances to make his film well worth a watch. The Night focuses on Babak Naderi (Shahab Hosseini) and his wife Neda (Niousha Noor), who have moved from their native Iran to the United States. After leaving a small dinner party with friends and showing off their brand new tattoos randomly chosen out of their tattoo artist’s book — one of the early red flags for this ill-fated couple — they leave with their baby girl, with a stubborn Babak insisting on driving even
Continue reading →
DocumentariesMoviesReviews
Director David Gregory (Blood & Flesh: The Reel Life & Ghastly Death of Al Adamson, Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau) sets his sinister sights on the wicked world of arcane anthologies with his latest documentary effort; Tales of the Uncanny, which comes to us on Blu-ray courtesy of those crafty lil’ minxes o’er at Severin! Gregory, along with author and founder of The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies Kier-La Janisse, take a chronological journey through the putrid plethora of anthology-style fright flicks that have tickled the fiendish fancy of horror hounds world fuckin’ wide… from the silent era, to the truly suburb Amicus flicks of the shockin’ seventies (and the pictures created by Milton Subotsky after the legendary studio folded), to television (The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, et al.), to Creepshow and it’s descendants… all is paid heed (though some all too briefly, such as one of yours cruelly’s fav anthology films; Joseph
Continue reading →
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MoviesNewsReviews
While Ferris wheels can be a lot of fun, they can also be frightening as proven in Nikhil Bhagat’s fantastic short horror film The Wheel, set to be released this February. The film finds a woman (Molly Buecher) alone in a big empty house while her husband is on a trip shopping for antiques to sell in their shop. When he sends home an old toy Ferris wheel he has no idea of the terror it will unleash on his wife. The first thing I noticed right off to bat about The Wheel is its fantastic cinematography, rich look, and great camera work, which is top-notch and better than we usually see in short films. The acting from Molly Buecher was great and she really sells her fear which feels authentic. The dark entity who appears in the film is creepy as hell and has a killer look and design that we haven’t seen a million times before. This terrifying
Continue reading →
DocumentariesMoviesNewsParanormalReviewsStreaming TV
The tragic and terrifying events that occurred at the two-story house located at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York have long been the subject of true crime fans and paranormal studies. There have been many investigations of the rumored haunting as well as many documentaries, so what makes “Shock Docs: Amityville Horror House” special? A lot. Discovery+’s “Shock Docs” series sets out to delve into the history of the most haunted house in America in their new special. It takes viewers back in time to November 13, 1974, at 3:15 am, when 23-year-old Ronald J. DeFeo Jr. brutally slaughtered his family in the middle of the night with a .35 Marlin rifle. He took aim and put a bullet into each of them as they slept. He then got dressed and went to work as nothing had happened then went to a bar pleading for help screaming that an intruder had wiped out his entire family. But it didn’t
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
Enola Penny (Virginia Newcomb) enters a ramshackle theater where a human-sized puppet (horror legend Udo Kier) offers up strange tales of… well strange-ass shit (all loosely fitting the gore-packed French theater tradition of Grand Guignol… shows comprised of short horror vignettes containing copious bloodshed and gore) in what serves as the framing segments of off-the-rails horror anthology The Theater Bizarre, one of the newest Blu-ray offerings from those delightful devils over at Severin! Kicking of this creepy collection of terror tales is Richard Stanley’s The Mother Of Toads, which concerns the misadventures of young travelers Martin (Shane Woodward) and Karina (Victoria Maurette) who, as fate would have it, encounter Mere Antoinette (Lucio Fulci regular Catriona MacColl)… a mystic jewelry seller who claims to have a copy of the fabled Necronomicon, which interests Martin to no fuckin’ end! Karina soon pisses off to the spa, leaving Martin to explore all of Antoinette’s wicked wonders… which results in a glimpse at the
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsShudderStreaming TV
Writer-director Edoardo Vitaletti makes his feature debut with the religious thriller The Last Thing Mary Saw, starring Stefanie Scott (Insidious: Chapter 3), Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan), Rory Culkin (Scream 4), Shane Coffey (“Pretty Little Liars”), Carolyn McCormick (“Law & Order”). and Judith Roberts (Dead Silence). Set in Southold, New York, in 1843, Mary is interrogated about the death of her family and the events that led up to it. As she recounts her tale we watch it play out. The film begins when it is discovered that Mary is in possession of a forbidden book and her family’s discovery that she and their maid are in a forbidden love affair. The family, religious zealots, put the girls through torture in an attempt to break their bonds, instead, it leads to death for many. Insidious 3 actress Stefanie Scott stars as Mary who, no matter how she tries, can not hide her love for Eleanor, played by Isabelle Fuhrman. The two have
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviewsTrailers
Director Mauro Iván Ojeda’s supernatural, haunting Argentinian film The Funeral Home is set to premiere later this month. I got the chance to watch it. Here are my thoughts. The film is set at the home of Bernardo (Luis Machín), his new wife Estela (Celeste Gerez), and her daughter Irina (Camila Vaccarini), which doubles as a funeral home. Neither Estela nor Irina like this place, you see it’s haunted, but they have nowhere else to go. That’s not the only problem the family has, young Irina is still mourning the death of her father. She’s also a moody teenager that seems to think everything her mom does is wrong. It only took me a couple of minutes to discover the film’s first flaw. Even reading at a fast pace I found the subtitles evaporating before I could get to the end of a sentence before the next line popped up. It’s a little hard to watch a movie and enjoy
Continue reading →
Amazon Prime VideoBooksReviews
Plot This had potential to be a very confusing and unconnected book. There is a lot going on with a lot of characters and a lot of back stories. However, author Antony J. Stanton has it so well organized, so well written that it all fits perfectly together in a plausible, entertaining and fictionally-realistic way. Even the way that vampires, zombies and humans are all intertwined makes sense within Stanton’s world. We have a bevy of apocalyptic stories, zombie stories, and vampire stories, but this one is a plot full of depth, action and exceptional gore. Characters There are a lot of characters in his book. Luckily, Stanton recognizes that and gives a great glossary of characters in the beginning of the novel. His section entitled The Players organizes everyone in a tangible way that really benefits the readers of his novel. Having mentioned the number of characters, it becomes even more impressive that they are all deep, full of
Continue reading →
More from Reviews
MoviesReviews
Paramedic Steve (Anthony Mackie… ol’ fearless Falcon from the MCU) and his partner Dennis (Jamie Dornan) tear ass around a nocturnal New Orleans saving lives n’ shit… but soon that gig turns a bit ‘weird as all fuck’ when they begin responding to calls with ever-increasing outre elements… all of which seem to lead to the new designer drug, Synchronic. Soon Dennis finds himself in dire straits, and Steve attempts to lend a helpin’ fucking hand… which results in him taking Synchronic himself… a fact that leads to all manner of fresh hell since a tumor on his pineal gland makes him ultra-receptive to the drug’s unique effects… but also puts a deadline on his efforts to aid his partner’s plight… emphasis on the word dead, what with that tumor biz and all… Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (who also served as the film’s cinematographer) take what could be a mean streets procedural and turn it into a psychotronic mind
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesNewsReviews
George James Fraser, the director behind Happenstance and Gore Theater is back with his short film Scaring Sheri, the first installment of the upcoming horror collection United States of Horror, featuring a massive fifty films from all over the US. Shot at the world-famous Haunted Overload in Lee, New Hampshire, Scaring Sheri stars Sheri Lee (Doll House) and Johnny J. Gordon who is making his film debut. Scaring Sheri plays out against an absolutely amazing backdrop featuring hundreds of lit pumpkins and monsters making it spooky AF and adding to the tension because you’re on guard not knowing when or where a scare is going to come from. The cinematography for the eight-minute, fifteen-second long film is fantastic. With a rich look, a nice pace, and good effects, watching Scaring Sheri was a pleasure. And the fact that we get a feisty lead character that actually has some fight in her is a major bonus. The soundtrack is pure metal
Continue reading →
Reviews
Hotel horror is a well established subgenre in fear-fare cinema, and with classics such as The Shining (1980) and Psycho (1960) leading the pack, followed by worthy entries and a share of also-rans and outright bombs, it isn’t easy to put an original spin on new films in that category. Director Kourosh Ahari tries to do just that with The Night, and although many tried and true tropes are present, he serves up enough atmosphere and fine performances to make his film well worth a watch. The Night focuses on Babak Naderi (Shahab Hosseini) and his wife Neda (Niousha Noor), who have moved from their native Iran to the United States. After leaving a small dinner party with friends and showing off their brand new tattoos randomly chosen out of their tattoo artist’s book — one of the early red flags for this ill-fated couple — they leave with their baby girl, with a stubborn Babak insisting on driving even
Continue reading →
DocumentariesMoviesReviews
Director David Gregory (Blood & Flesh: The Reel Life & Ghastly Death of Al Adamson, Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau) sets his sinister sights on the wicked world of arcane anthologies with his latest documentary effort; Tales of the Uncanny, which comes to us on Blu-ray courtesy of those crafty lil’ minxes o’er at Severin! Gregory, along with author and founder of The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies Kier-La Janisse, take a chronological journey through the putrid plethora of anthology-style fright flicks that have tickled the fiendish fancy of horror hounds world fuckin’ wide… from the silent era, to the truly suburb Amicus flicks of the shockin’ seventies (and the pictures created by Milton Subotsky after the legendary studio folded), to television (The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, et al.), to Creepshow and it’s descendants… all is paid heed (though some all too briefly, such as one of yours cruelly’s fav anthology films; Joseph
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviews
While Ferris wheels can be a lot of fun, they can also be frightening as proven in Nikhil Bhagat’s fantastic short horror film The Wheel, set to be released this February. The film finds a woman (Molly Buecher) alone in a big empty house while her husband is on a trip shopping for antiques to sell in their shop. When he sends home an old toy Ferris wheel he has no idea of the terror it will unleash on his wife. The first thing I noticed right off to bat about The Wheel is its fantastic cinematography, rich look, and great camera work, which is top-notch and better than we usually see in short films. The acting from Molly Buecher was great and she really sells her fear which feels authentic. The dark entity who appears in the film is creepy as hell and has a killer look and design that we haven’t seen a million times before. This terrifying
Continue reading →
DocumentariesMoviesNewsParanormalReviewsStreaming TV
The tragic and terrifying events that occurred at the two-story house located at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York have long been the subject of true crime fans and paranormal studies. There have been many investigations of the rumored haunting as well as many documentaries, so what makes “Shock Docs: Amityville Horror House” special? A lot. Discovery+’s “Shock Docs” series sets out to delve into the history of the most haunted house in America in their new special. It takes viewers back in time to November 13, 1974, at 3:15 am, when 23-year-old Ronald J. DeFeo Jr. brutally slaughtered his family in the middle of the night with a .35 Marlin rifle. He took aim and put a bullet into each of them as they slept. He then got dressed and went to work as nothing had happened then went to a bar pleading for help screaming that an intruder had wiped out his entire family. But it didn’t
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
Enola Penny (Virginia Newcomb) enters a ramshackle theater where a human-sized puppet (horror legend Udo Kier) offers up strange tales of… well strange-ass shit (all loosely fitting the gore-packed French theater tradition of Grand Guignol… shows comprised of short horror vignettes containing copious bloodshed and gore) in what serves as the framing segments of off-the-rails horror anthology The Theater Bizarre, one of the newest Blu-ray offerings from those delightful devils over at Severin! Kicking of this creepy collection of terror tales is Richard Stanley’s The Mother Of Toads, which concerns the misadventures of young travelers Martin (Shane Woodward) and Karina (Victoria Maurette) who, as fate would have it, encounter Mere Antoinette (Lucio Fulci regular Catriona MacColl)… a mystic jewelry seller who claims to have a copy of the fabled Necronomicon, which interests Martin to no fuckin’ end! Karina soon pisses off to the spa, leaving Martin to explore all of Antoinette’s wicked wonders… which results in a glimpse at the
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsShudderStreaming TV
Writer-director Edoardo Vitaletti makes his feature debut with the religious thriller The Last Thing Mary Saw, starring Stefanie Scott (Insidious: Chapter 3), Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan), Rory Culkin (Scream 4), Shane Coffey (“Pretty Little Liars”), Carolyn McCormick (“Law & Order”). and Judith Roberts (Dead Silence). Set in Southold, New York, in 1843, Mary is interrogated about the death of her family and the events that led up to it. As she recounts her tale we watch it play out. The film begins when it is discovered that Mary is in possession of a forbidden book and her family’s discovery that she and their maid are in a forbidden love affair. The family, religious zealots, put the girls through torture in an attempt to break their bonds, instead, it leads to death for many. Insidious 3 actress Stefanie Scott stars as Mary who, no matter how she tries, can not hide her love for Eleanor, played by Isabelle Fuhrman. The two have
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviewsTrailers
Director Mauro Iván Ojeda’s supernatural, haunting Argentinian film The Funeral Home is set to premiere later this month. I got the chance to watch it. Here are my thoughts. The film is set at the home of Bernardo (Luis Machín), his new wife Estela (Celeste Gerez), and her daughter Irina (Camila Vaccarini), which doubles as a funeral home. Neither Estela nor Irina like this place, you see it’s haunted, but they have nowhere else to go. That’s not the only problem the family has, young Irina is still mourning the death of her father. She’s also a moody teenager that seems to think everything her mom does is wrong. It only took me a couple of minutes to discover the film’s first flaw. Even reading at a fast pace I found the subtitles evaporating before I could get to the end of a sentence before the next line popped up. It’s a little hard to watch a movie and enjoy
Continue reading →
Amazon Prime VideoBooksReviews
Plot This had potential to be a very confusing and unconnected book. There is a lot going on with a lot of characters and a lot of back stories. However, author Antony J. Stanton has it so well organized, so well written that it all fits perfectly together in a plausible, entertaining and fictionally-realistic way. Even the way that vampires, zombies and humans are all intertwined makes sense within Stanton’s world. We have a bevy of apocalyptic stories, zombie stories, and vampire stories, but this one is a plot full of depth, action and exceptional gore. Characters There are a lot of characters in his book. Luckily, Stanton recognizes that and gives a great glossary of characters in the beginning of the novel. His section entitled The Players organizes everyone in a tangible way that really benefits the readers of his novel. Having mentioned the number of characters, it becomes even more impressive that they are all deep, full of
Continue reading →
