CategoryReviews
Honest horror reviews of films, series, games and books — no hype, no spoilers, just whether it is worth your time and your nerves.
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MoviesNewsReviewsShudderStreaming TVTrailers
One of the year’s biggest and most highly anticipated horror films, Late Night with the Devil, has landed on Shudder. The movie’s advertising has gone hard, often a sign that a film isn’t really that good. But is it everything they said it would be? Let’s explore that in this review. The Story The film takes us back to 1977, on a seemingly innocent Halloween night. Jack Delroy (played by the captivating David Dastmalchian), a late-night talk show host known for his program “Night Owls,” decides to make his Halloween special unforgettable. Little does he know his decision will unleash unimaginable horror. Jack welcomes several guests before introducing a parapsychologist and the subject of her latest book – a young teenager, the sole survivor of a mass suicide in a Satanic church. As the interview begins, evil is unleashed, transforming the lighthearted atmosphere into a terrifying spectacle. The Cast David Dastmalchian is fantastic. He is charismatic as the host, but
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ForeignMoviesReviews
Hot-shit photog Daniel (Claudio Cassinelli, who you may recall was Zeus in Luigi (Starcrash) Cozzi’s mid-’80s Hercules pictures, but was also in The Island of the Fishmen from this film’s director, Sergio (2019: After the Fall of New York) Martino) is hired by a resort mogul (Mel Ferrer, Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City) to snap publicity pics to advertise his new jungle-set, disco-tastic vacay hot spot, Paradise House, along with his model/muse Sheena (Geneve Hutton). Once there, he meets anthropologist Alice (Barbara Bach, also from The Island of the Fishmen, but perhaps best known for her turns in 1977’s James Bond flick The Spy Who Loved Me, and 1981’s prehistoric romp, Caveman, co-staring her hubs Ringo Starr) who fills our main man Dan in on the deets concerning the Kuma tribe, the indigenous people of the region who are paid in American blue jeans to huck dynamite at trees to clear land for further expansion… oh and their god is able
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MoviesReviews
Like most teens at the ass-end of the eerie ‘80’s, Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) is adjusting to life with a new stepmother… the obnoxious and self-obsessed Janet (a delightfully over-the-top Carla Gugino)… and stepsister, the cheery, popular Taffy (Liza Soberano)… a family she has been blended into lickety-fuckin’-split because her Dad got rather horny pretty much directly after mother was hacked to pieces by an axe-wielding psycho practically in front of her… As those of a certain age well and truly know, was often the way in those days… So yeah… new family, dead mom, fuckin’ sucks… and while Taffy does her level-headed best to invite Lisa into her world, our heroine would rather spend her time in the local cemetery… the same one she ends up in after a disastrous party experience makes her wish she could be with the dead-as-a-doornail Victorian gent who’s grave she plops down next to… and while she simply wished to be deceased, a
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Film FestivalsMoviesReviewsSci-FiThriller
A serial killer who murders on the beach is running amok in an otherwise quiet coastal town, but that’s not the strangest thing going on in writer/director Neal Dhand’s science fiction thriller Dark My Light (2023). Detective Mitchell Morse (Albert Jones) seems to be losing his grip on reality, and that could lead to even more mayhem. Morse is assigned to the case with new partner Dreyfus Trier (Tom Lipinski), who has returned to his home town from the big city after a controversial incident on the force there. Morse is also going through a separation with his wife Emily (Keesha Sharp). He has a lot on his mind, which seems to be overloading. To give away more of the plot than the above would be doing a disservice to Dark My Light because it deals in mystery. I found myself wondering exactly what was happening once Dhand laid out some of the first puzzle pieces, then I started trying
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Film FestivalsMoviesReviews
The Buildout (2024) Aficionados of enigmatic cinema and high strangeness should find plenty to like about writer/director Zeshaan Younus’ The Buildout. After the death of one of their sisters, friends Dylan (Hannah Alline) and Cameron (Jenna Kenall) go on a motorcycle and camping excursion in the desert before Dylan leaves her old life behind and joins a religious group there. Cameron is skeptical of what she believes is actually a cult but tries to support her friend. Viewers see hints of danger involving members of the religious group. Younus leaves much of the proceedings open to interpretation as Dylan and Cameron begin opening wounds about their relationship. Cinematographer Justin Moore captures both the beauty and eeriness of the desert setting wonderfully. Alline and Kenall give top-notch performances, and Younus does a fine job of providing enough information for viewers to become invested but only enough so that we are left with some tantalizing puzzle pieces for our imaginations to fill
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GamingIndieProductReviews
The Growing Stones and Valkyrie Initiative came together to tell a macabre story about a village inhabited only by children. Life in this village will soon turn to death if their local pariahs, the witches, fail at an upcoming ritual. This is The Mildew Children. The Mildew Children follows Kyrphel, a young witch plagued by omens relating to the fate of the village, her fears grow after one of her fellow witches dies, bringing the number of witches in the village down to three. This would not be a problem if not for the fact that there needed to be four witches to carry out a ritual on a certain night to prevent doom from coming to the village. Now Kyrphel must find the fourth witch. Now, onto the game itself! Depending on how you plan on going about playing The Mildew Children, controls are relatively simple. The game is side-scrolling so there’s not much to the controls. The art
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Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsShort Films
Following is a capsule review roundup of six of the short-film shockers that screened at this year’s edition of New Orlean’s Overlook Film Festival. Bookworm Bookworm (Ratón de biblioteca; Spain, 2023) from director Javier Yañez envelops viewers in a phantasmagorical vibe before suddenly ramping up the visceral shocks. Irene (Aria Bedmar in a wonderful performance) is a young librarian in 1979 Spain who wants to become a writer, much to her mother’s dismay. Irene and her fellow librarian often see the ghost of a young man — though they can’t quite catch a glimpse of his face — browsing books. Determined to try to make contact with this potential soulmate, Irene sets out to find out what his visage looks like. With beautiful set design and cinematography, Bookworm both charms and chills. Hevel In writer/director David Grace’s Hevel, devout Jewish woman Edra (Mor Cohen) begins a Shabbat service. A dybbuk has other plans for her, however, in this demonic possession
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MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
From the writing and directing duo of Alexys Paonessa and Matthew Festle comes the no-budget horror film Isleen Pines. The film centers on a group of friends gathering together for their annual Halloween get-together. The horrors of this indie flick kick off when one of the friends discovers a strange creature. It doesn’t take long for things to turn into a nightmare when a snake-like creature forces its way through his urethra, basically making his dick explode. Not a great way to go. Things go down quickly from there, with the friends being killed off one by one as they discover that another type of creature, bigger, badder, uglier, and it is killing everyone in its path. I did not see the dick alien coming. Needless to say, it got my attention. In all, there are three forms of alien creatures. You can tell that thought went into their design. It’s surprising what they created with the budget restrictions. The
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Blind Cop 2 (2024) A sequel to a film that doesn’t exist, director Alec Bonk’s Blind Cop 2 follows the tropes of movies depicting good cops kicked off the force for using excessive violence and seeking redemption without having a badge — and then there’s the trusty new sidekick, too. Imagine Marvel’s Daredevil as an alcoholic police officer wearing a bulletproof vest rather than a superhero costume and you’re only partially on your way to getting an inkling about how this irreverent title character (played with verve by George Fearing) goes about his business. You can’t forget Blind Cop’s name, either, as just about every person who addresses him calls him that. Using those aforementioned tropes, Bonk, who cowrote the screenplay with Augustin Huffman and Isaac McKinnon, directs with flare, deftly balancing the humor with plenty of dramatic elements and bloody action. Fearing is fantastic in the title role, and McKinnon makes for a fine sidekick-in-training as Schmidty. The humor
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AdaptationBooksMoviesReviews
Remember back in 2013 when there was a new cinematic version of Stephen King’s Carrie released to theaters? Well, I sure forgot it… hell, I’ve never even seen it! Anyway, those fine fiends at Scream Factory were kind enough to fling a copy of their new 4K/Blu-ray combo release of that very title my way, so let’s dig in! Poor Carrie White (Chloe Grace Moretz); she’s decidedly the most unpopular kid at her New England High School, and things go from bad to really fucking bad after she freaks out in school about her first period… not like a class, her menstrual cycle… because, and get this, teens can be mean as shit. Things aren’t much better at home, as her religious wing-nut of a mother, Margaret (Julianne Moore, routinely abuses the hell out of her in the name of Jesus feeling everything Carrie does is a sin. If she thought a period is a sin, wait until Mags gets
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More from Reviews
MoviesNewsReviewsShudderStreaming TVTrailers
One of the year’s biggest and most highly anticipated horror films, Late Night with the Devil, has landed on Shudder. The movie’s advertising has gone hard, often a sign that a film isn’t really that good. But is it everything they said it would be? Let’s explore that in this review. The Story The film takes us back to 1977, on a seemingly innocent Halloween night. Jack Delroy (played by the captivating David Dastmalchian), a late-night talk show host known for his program “Night Owls,” decides to make his Halloween special unforgettable. Little does he know his decision will unleash unimaginable horror. Jack welcomes several guests before introducing a parapsychologist and the subject of her latest book – a young teenager, the sole survivor of a mass suicide in a Satanic church. As the interview begins, evil is unleashed, transforming the lighthearted atmosphere into a terrifying spectacle. The Cast David Dastmalchian is fantastic. He is charismatic as the host, but
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Hot-shit photog Daniel (Claudio Cassinelli, who you may recall was Zeus in Luigi (Starcrash) Cozzi’s mid-’80s Hercules pictures, but was also in The Island of the Fishmen from this film’s director, Sergio (2019: After the Fall of New York) Martino) is hired by a resort mogul (Mel Ferrer, Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City) to snap publicity pics to advertise his new jungle-set, disco-tastic vacay hot spot, Paradise House, along with his model/muse Sheena (Geneve Hutton). Once there, he meets anthropologist Alice (Barbara Bach, also from The Island of the Fishmen, but perhaps best known for her turns in 1977’s James Bond flick The Spy Who Loved Me, and 1981’s prehistoric romp, Caveman, co-staring her hubs Ringo Starr) who fills our main man Dan in on the deets concerning the Kuma tribe, the indigenous people of the region who are paid in American blue jeans to huck dynamite at trees to clear land for further expansion… oh and their god is able
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
Like most teens at the ass-end of the eerie ‘80’s, Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) is adjusting to life with a new stepmother… the obnoxious and self-obsessed Janet (a delightfully over-the-top Carla Gugino)… and stepsister, the cheery, popular Taffy (Liza Soberano)… a family she has been blended into lickety-fuckin’-split because her Dad got rather horny pretty much directly after mother was hacked to pieces by an axe-wielding psycho practically in front of her… As those of a certain age well and truly know, was often the way in those days… So yeah… new family, dead mom, fuckin’ sucks… and while Taffy does her level-headed best to invite Lisa into her world, our heroine would rather spend her time in the local cemetery… the same one she ends up in after a disastrous party experience makes her wish she could be with the dead-as-a-doornail Victorian gent who’s grave she plops down next to… and while she simply wished to be deceased, a
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesReviewsSci-FiThriller
A serial killer who murders on the beach is running amok in an otherwise quiet coastal town, but that’s not the strangest thing going on in writer/director Neal Dhand’s science fiction thriller Dark My Light (2023). Detective Mitchell Morse (Albert Jones) seems to be losing his grip on reality, and that could lead to even more mayhem. Morse is assigned to the case with new partner Dreyfus Trier (Tom Lipinski), who has returned to his home town from the big city after a controversial incident on the force there. Morse is also going through a separation with his wife Emily (Keesha Sharp). He has a lot on his mind, which seems to be overloading. To give away more of the plot than the above would be doing a disservice to Dark My Light because it deals in mystery. I found myself wondering exactly what was happening once Dhand laid out some of the first puzzle pieces, then I started trying
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesReviews
The Buildout (2024) Aficionados of enigmatic cinema and high strangeness should find plenty to like about writer/director Zeshaan Younus’ The Buildout. After the death of one of their sisters, friends Dylan (Hannah Alline) and Cameron (Jenna Kenall) go on a motorcycle and camping excursion in the desert before Dylan leaves her old life behind and joins a religious group there. Cameron is skeptical of what she believes is actually a cult but tries to support her friend. Viewers see hints of danger involving members of the religious group. Younus leaves much of the proceedings open to interpretation as Dylan and Cameron begin opening wounds about their relationship. Cinematographer Justin Moore captures both the beauty and eeriness of the desert setting wonderfully. Alline and Kenall give top-notch performances, and Younus does a fine job of providing enough information for viewers to become invested but only enough so that we are left with some tantalizing puzzle pieces for our imaginations to fill
Continue reading →
GamingIndieProductReviews
The Growing Stones and Valkyrie Initiative came together to tell a macabre story about a village inhabited only by children. Life in this village will soon turn to death if their local pariahs, the witches, fail at an upcoming ritual. This is The Mildew Children. The Mildew Children follows Kyrphel, a young witch plagued by omens relating to the fate of the village, her fears grow after one of her fellow witches dies, bringing the number of witches in the village down to three. This would not be a problem if not for the fact that there needed to be four witches to carry out a ritual on a certain night to prevent doom from coming to the village. Now Kyrphel must find the fourth witch. Now, onto the game itself! Depending on how you plan on going about playing The Mildew Children, controls are relatively simple. The game is side-scrolling so there’s not much to the controls. The art
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsShort Films
Following is a capsule review roundup of six of the short-film shockers that screened at this year’s edition of New Orlean’s Overlook Film Festival. Bookworm Bookworm (Ratón de biblioteca; Spain, 2023) from director Javier Yañez envelops viewers in a phantasmagorical vibe before suddenly ramping up the visceral shocks. Irene (Aria Bedmar in a wonderful performance) is a young librarian in 1979 Spain who wants to become a writer, much to her mother’s dismay. Irene and her fellow librarian often see the ghost of a young man — though they can’t quite catch a glimpse of his face — browsing books. Determined to try to make contact with this potential soulmate, Irene sets out to find out what his visage looks like. With beautiful set design and cinematography, Bookworm both charms and chills. Hevel In writer/director David Grace’s Hevel, devout Jewish woman Edra (Mor Cohen) begins a Shabbat service. A dybbuk has other plans for her, however, in this demonic possession
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
From the writing and directing duo of Alexys Paonessa and Matthew Festle comes the no-budget horror film Isleen Pines. The film centers on a group of friends gathering together for their annual Halloween get-together. The horrors of this indie flick kick off when one of the friends discovers a strange creature. It doesn’t take long for things to turn into a nightmare when a snake-like creature forces its way through his urethra, basically making his dick explode. Not a great way to go. Things go down quickly from there, with the friends being killed off one by one as they discover that another type of creature, bigger, badder, uglier, and it is killing everyone in its path. I did not see the dick alien coming. Needless to say, it got my attention. In all, there are three forms of alien creatures. You can tell that thought went into their design. It’s surprising what they created with the budget restrictions. The
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Blind Cop 2 (2024) A sequel to a film that doesn’t exist, director Alec Bonk’s Blind Cop 2 follows the tropes of movies depicting good cops kicked off the force for using excessive violence and seeking redemption without having a badge — and then there’s the trusty new sidekick, too. Imagine Marvel’s Daredevil as an alcoholic police officer wearing a bulletproof vest rather than a superhero costume and you’re only partially on your way to getting an inkling about how this irreverent title character (played with verve by George Fearing) goes about his business. You can’t forget Blind Cop’s name, either, as just about every person who addresses him calls him that. Using those aforementioned tropes, Bonk, who cowrote the screenplay with Augustin Huffman and Isaac McKinnon, directs with flare, deftly balancing the humor with plenty of dramatic elements and bloody action. Fearing is fantastic in the title role, and McKinnon makes for a fine sidekick-in-training as Schmidty. The humor
Continue reading →
AdaptationBooksMoviesReviews
Remember back in 2013 when there was a new cinematic version of Stephen King’s Carrie released to theaters? Well, I sure forgot it… hell, I’ve never even seen it! Anyway, those fine fiends at Scream Factory were kind enough to fling a copy of their new 4K/Blu-ray combo release of that very title my way, so let’s dig in! Poor Carrie White (Chloe Grace Moretz); she’s decidedly the most unpopular kid at her New England High School, and things go from bad to really fucking bad after she freaks out in school about her first period… not like a class, her menstrual cycle… because, and get this, teens can be mean as shit. Things aren’t much better at home, as her religious wing-nut of a mother, Margaret (Julianne Moore, routinely abuses the hell out of her in the name of Jesus feeling everything Carrie does is a sin. If she thought a period is a sin, wait until Mags gets
Continue reading →
