CategoryReviews
Honest horror reviews of films, series, games and books — no hype, no spoilers, just whether it is worth your time and your nerves.
3,465 stories
IndieMoviesReviews
Beast From Haunted Cave begins the only way it could; with skiing, day-drinking, and an opening credit shout-out to South Dakota as we are introduced to smarmy criminal Alexander Ward (Frank Wolff) and his gang, who’s ranks include his boozy-floozy gal pal Gypsy Boulet (played to rum-soaked horny… yet tragic and sympathetic perfection by Sheila Carol), who plan on robbing a nearby bank vault containing some gold bars. In order to get that goal accomplished, our villains pose as cross-country skiers and hatch a plan to set off an explosion in a nearby gold mine to create a diversion for their heist. Of course this being a creature feature, the setting of said explosive unleashes a pissed off long-legged spider thing which pursues them to their hiding spot… namely the remote cabin of ski guide Gil (prolific anime voice over artist Michael Forest) who becomes both an unwitting pawn in the evildoer’s plan, and horny for Gypsy… a lot of
Continue reading →
Apple TVReviewsStreaming TV
Terrific acting, well-written drama, and beautifully crafted kaiju attacks highlight Apple TV+’s series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, based on Legendary’s MonsterVerse, taking place after the battle between Godzilla and the Titans as seen in Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters combines conspiracy thriller, family intrigue, and monster movie mayhem elements deftly, though viewers may find the time- and location-hopping a bit jarring at first. Obviously, the narrative is a nonlinear one, and even once some initial timelines are established, new ones are introduced. Viewers who can keep track of this approach will be kept on their toes, while others who just give into the flow of the proceedings shouldn’t find themselves too lost. After a kaiju-riffic cold open to the first episode, we are introduced to Cate Randa (Anna Sawai), who travels from San Francisco — she was an extremely up-close witness to Godzilla’s 2014 emergence in San Francisco — to Tokyo to deal with her recently deceased
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieMoviesReviews
Director Garry Walsh’s genre-bending Irish feature Wickedly Evil (AKA Bad Things in the Middle of Nowhere, 2023) finds gangsters Frankie (Joseph McGucken), Dancer (James Farrelly), and Gaz (Darryl Carter) hiding out in rural Ireland after pulling off a heist. The robbery was not without its problems, though, as Gaz is bleeding out from a gunshot wound, he and Frankie have kidnapped Clare (Louise Bourke), the daughter of a local crime family, and a woman who lives next door to the hideout named Sadie (Cat L. Walsh) just might be on to the men. The worst of their problems is yet to come, though. Wickedly Evil is billed as a horror comedy and although there is plenty of tension on tap, viewers expecting horror throughout — like with the 2020 U.K. holed-up criminals vs. the supernatural feature The World We Knew, for example — will likely come away disappointed. Blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shots of something unusual going on in the background are peppered
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MoviesNewsReviews
Saw X is making waves at box offices, bringing in more than $100 million. Ahead of its November Blu-ray release, I got the chance to watch it, and I have some thoughts. The sequel is being hailed as “one of the best installments” by fans of the franchise, but is it really? Warning Spoilers! Saw X sees John Kramer participate in a medical trial that promises a cure as he suffers more and more from the cancer growing inside his skull. When he learns it is all a scam, he sets out to play a game with those involved. Not only does Tobin Bell return as Jigsaw, but so does Shawnee Smith, who has appeared in several installments as Jigsaw’s apprentice, Amanda. Directed by Kevin Greutert, Saw X is bloody and brutal, with audiences seeing victims doing things like cutting off their limbs and smashing bones to survive. Things fans have come to expect. Of course, there are a ton
Continue reading →
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GamingProductReviews
The night is cold and wet as rain thrashes at the window of a roadside tavern. You’re seated by the window while enjoying the warmth of the hearth and the growing warmth in your stomach from mead. Suddenly, you are joined at your table by a peculiar individual who’s two goblins in a trenchcoat. At their request, you keep your hand from picking up your weapon as they have an offer, more like an opportunity to aid in your adventure, so they offer you a bag of dice, but it’s a mystery to what they are. Do you take it? That’s what it’s like with Mystery Dice Goblins! I want to give a big thank you to Lee for contacting me and offering me this adventure! Mystery Dice Goblins is a DnD shop out of the UK that supplies adventurers with game night accessories, with their mystery dice packs being their top sellers. They were awesome enough to send me
Continue reading →
GamingProductReviews
Sometimes, you want to put a hole in the wall… then now, you have a hole in the wall you have to fix or get into a lot of trouble. That’s why destructive maps in games have always been popular and sadly are not used more. Thankfully Tuxedo Labs have created a game where pretty much everything is destructable! Teardown has made quite the splash on PC and has a devoted Mod community. Now Tuxedo Labs and Saber Interactive are bringing the destructive world of Teardown to console! This is Teardown Ultimate Edition! Teardown is a sandbox-style voxel game where players can either play the campaign/story where you can plan heists and manipulate the map for a quick escape or sandbox where you can explore and destroy to your heart’s content. Teardown‘s controls are easy to master, allowing you to get right into the game and let loose! When the game does have music, it’s good, I just wish that
Continue reading →
GamingProductReviews
Activision is back with another installment in the biggest game franchise in history, Call of Duty, this time with the remake of Modern Warfare 3 that pits everyone’s favorite black ops team, Taskforce 141 against the infamous Vladimir Makarov. I had some gripes in my review of the Modern Warfare 2 reboot, especially about how the levels were laid out. Did things improve? Meh, kind of? Maybe? Let’s talk about it. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has good graphics, sound, and voice acting. The controls are the same as they have always been, so returning COD vets like me will have no issue picking up the sticks. Overall when it comes to the game’s story, players familiar with the originals will be both surprised and not when it comes to the main story. There has been some improvement when it comes to the levels, in MW2 I felt there was no freedom to play as it was pretty scripted
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
Back in March director Roxanne Benjamin’s horror film There’s Something Wrong with the Children was released on multiple streaming platforms. While scrolling through Prime Video last night the film caught my attention. So I decided to check it out. In the film, When Margaret (Wainwright) and Ben (Gilford) take a weekend trip with longtime friends Ellie (Crew) and Thomas (Santos) and their two young children (Guiza and Mattle), Ben begins to suspect something supernatural is occurring when the kids behave strangely after disappearing into the woods overnight. The film started out good, with an interesting story. However, that wouldn’t last. In a time when we desperately need new stories and strong characters, we get dumb characters who constantly make dumb decisions. Let’s start with the two main characters, Margaret (Alisha Wainwright) and Ben (Zach Gilford). Gillard gives a nice performance and a character the viewers can find empathy with. He’s struggling with mental health issues (aren’t we all), so when
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
Buckle-up cats n’ creeps, because if you’ve never heard of 2008’s Deadgirl you are definitely in for a raised fuckin’ eyebrow or two, to say the very least… One hot day, high school chums Rickie (Shiloh Fernandez) and J.T. (Noah Segan) take a powder from school, and decide to hang out at Ye Olde Abandoned Psychiatric Hospital. Once there they find a naked, mute woman (Jenny Spain) lashed to a table. Naturally J.T. near-immediately wants to rape the woman, but Rickie is wisely none too keen on that particular action and books… but later J.T. reveals the girl is an undead creature as he attempted to put a murder on her to no avail. Still with me… if so, you can probably already gauge if this particular flick is your cup of terror tea or not. Moving on… Soon J.T. is inviting others to have a go at Deadgirl, which eventually involves local bully Johnny (Andrew DiPalma)… the paramour of
Continue reading →
AdaptationBooksGamingReviewsSci-Fi
Stanisław Lem’s novel The Invincible explores humanity’s relationship with life on other planets and how the evolution of life on Earth does not mean it’s superior. Starward Industries and 11 Bit Studio have brought Lem’s work to life in the appropriately named game adaptation, The Invincible. The Invincible follows astrobiologist Yasna, who is struggling to regain her memories while at the same time trying to figure out what happened to her crewmates on the planet of Regis III and the mystery behind these strange organic metal structures the crew was investigating. The controls for The Invincible are thankfully not complicated as the game keeps prompting you of what button does what. The soundtrack and sound design are stellar! The soundtrack catches the retro sci-fi mood with a modern twist. The thing I love about The Invincible is the art. The atompunk look of the equipment and tools, and the interior of the ship and vehicles. When it comes to the
Continue reading →
More from Reviews
IndieMoviesReviews
Beast From Haunted Cave begins the only way it could; with skiing, day-drinking, and an opening credit shout-out to South Dakota as we are introduced to smarmy criminal Alexander Ward (Frank Wolff) and his gang, who’s ranks include his boozy-floozy gal pal Gypsy Boulet (played to rum-soaked horny… yet tragic and sympathetic perfection by Sheila Carol), who plan on robbing a nearby bank vault containing some gold bars. In order to get that goal accomplished, our villains pose as cross-country skiers and hatch a plan to set off an explosion in a nearby gold mine to create a diversion for their heist. Of course this being a creature feature, the setting of said explosive unleashes a pissed off long-legged spider thing which pursues them to their hiding spot… namely the remote cabin of ski guide Gil (prolific anime voice over artist Michael Forest) who becomes both an unwitting pawn in the evildoer’s plan, and horny for Gypsy… a lot of
Continue reading →
Apple TVReviewsStreaming TV
Terrific acting, well-written drama, and beautifully crafted kaiju attacks highlight Apple TV+’s series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, based on Legendary’s MonsterVerse, taking place after the battle between Godzilla and the Titans as seen in Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters combines conspiracy thriller, family intrigue, and monster movie mayhem elements deftly, though viewers may find the time- and location-hopping a bit jarring at first. Obviously, the narrative is a nonlinear one, and even once some initial timelines are established, new ones are introduced. Viewers who can keep track of this approach will be kept on their toes, while others who just give into the flow of the proceedings shouldn’t find themselves too lost. After a kaiju-riffic cold open to the first episode, we are introduced to Cate Randa (Anna Sawai), who travels from San Francisco — she was an extremely up-close witness to Godzilla’s 2014 emergence in San Francisco — to Tokyo to deal with her recently deceased
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieMoviesReviews
Director Garry Walsh’s genre-bending Irish feature Wickedly Evil (AKA Bad Things in the Middle of Nowhere, 2023) finds gangsters Frankie (Joseph McGucken), Dancer (James Farrelly), and Gaz (Darryl Carter) hiding out in rural Ireland after pulling off a heist. The robbery was not without its problems, though, as Gaz is bleeding out from a gunshot wound, he and Frankie have kidnapped Clare (Louise Bourke), the daughter of a local crime family, and a woman who lives next door to the hideout named Sadie (Cat L. Walsh) just might be on to the men. The worst of their problems is yet to come, though. Wickedly Evil is billed as a horror comedy and although there is plenty of tension on tap, viewers expecting horror throughout — like with the 2020 U.K. holed-up criminals vs. the supernatural feature The World We Knew, for example — will likely come away disappointed. Blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shots of something unusual going on in the background are peppered
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviews
Saw X is making waves at box offices, bringing in more than $100 million. Ahead of its November Blu-ray release, I got the chance to watch it, and I have some thoughts. The sequel is being hailed as “one of the best installments” by fans of the franchise, but is it really? Warning Spoilers! Saw X sees John Kramer participate in a medical trial that promises a cure as he suffers more and more from the cancer growing inside his skull. When he learns it is all a scam, he sets out to play a game with those involved. Not only does Tobin Bell return as Jigsaw, but so does Shawnee Smith, who has appeared in several installments as Jigsaw’s apprentice, Amanda. Directed by Kevin Greutert, Saw X is bloody and brutal, with audiences seeing victims doing things like cutting off their limbs and smashing bones to survive. Things fans have come to expect. Of course, there are a ton
Continue reading →
GamingProductReviews
The night is cold and wet as rain thrashes at the window of a roadside tavern. You’re seated by the window while enjoying the warmth of the hearth and the growing warmth in your stomach from mead. Suddenly, you are joined at your table by a peculiar individual who’s two goblins in a trenchcoat. At their request, you keep your hand from picking up your weapon as they have an offer, more like an opportunity to aid in your adventure, so they offer you a bag of dice, but it’s a mystery to what they are. Do you take it? That’s what it’s like with Mystery Dice Goblins! I want to give a big thank you to Lee for contacting me and offering me this adventure! Mystery Dice Goblins is a DnD shop out of the UK that supplies adventurers with game night accessories, with their mystery dice packs being their top sellers. They were awesome enough to send me
Continue reading →
GamingProductReviews
Sometimes, you want to put a hole in the wall… then now, you have a hole in the wall you have to fix or get into a lot of trouble. That’s why destructive maps in games have always been popular and sadly are not used more. Thankfully Tuxedo Labs have created a game where pretty much everything is destructable! Teardown has made quite the splash on PC and has a devoted Mod community. Now Tuxedo Labs and Saber Interactive are bringing the destructive world of Teardown to console! This is Teardown Ultimate Edition! Teardown is a sandbox-style voxel game where players can either play the campaign/story where you can plan heists and manipulate the map for a quick escape or sandbox where you can explore and destroy to your heart’s content. Teardown‘s controls are easy to master, allowing you to get right into the game and let loose! When the game does have music, it’s good, I just wish that
Continue reading →
GamingProductReviews
Activision is back with another installment in the biggest game franchise in history, Call of Duty, this time with the remake of Modern Warfare 3 that pits everyone’s favorite black ops team, Taskforce 141 against the infamous Vladimir Makarov. I had some gripes in my review of the Modern Warfare 2 reboot, especially about how the levels were laid out. Did things improve? Meh, kind of? Maybe? Let’s talk about it. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has good graphics, sound, and voice acting. The controls are the same as they have always been, so returning COD vets like me will have no issue picking up the sticks. Overall when it comes to the game’s story, players familiar with the originals will be both surprised and not when it comes to the main story. There has been some improvement when it comes to the levels, in MW2 I felt there was no freedom to play as it was pretty scripted
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
Back in March director Roxanne Benjamin’s horror film There’s Something Wrong with the Children was released on multiple streaming platforms. While scrolling through Prime Video last night the film caught my attention. So I decided to check it out. In the film, When Margaret (Wainwright) and Ben (Gilford) take a weekend trip with longtime friends Ellie (Crew) and Thomas (Santos) and their two young children (Guiza and Mattle), Ben begins to suspect something supernatural is occurring when the kids behave strangely after disappearing into the woods overnight. The film started out good, with an interesting story. However, that wouldn’t last. In a time when we desperately need new stories and strong characters, we get dumb characters who constantly make dumb decisions. Let’s start with the two main characters, Margaret (Alisha Wainwright) and Ben (Zach Gilford). Gillard gives a nice performance and a character the viewers can find empathy with. He’s struggling with mental health issues (aren’t we all), so when
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
Buckle-up cats n’ creeps, because if you’ve never heard of 2008’s Deadgirl you are definitely in for a raised fuckin’ eyebrow or two, to say the very least… One hot day, high school chums Rickie (Shiloh Fernandez) and J.T. (Noah Segan) take a powder from school, and decide to hang out at Ye Olde Abandoned Psychiatric Hospital. Once there they find a naked, mute woman (Jenny Spain) lashed to a table. Naturally J.T. near-immediately wants to rape the woman, but Rickie is wisely none too keen on that particular action and books… but later J.T. reveals the girl is an undead creature as he attempted to put a murder on her to no avail. Still with me… if so, you can probably already gauge if this particular flick is your cup of terror tea or not. Moving on… Soon J.T. is inviting others to have a go at Deadgirl, which eventually involves local bully Johnny (Andrew DiPalma)… the paramour of
Continue reading →
AdaptationBooksGamingReviewsSci-Fi
Stanisław Lem’s novel The Invincible explores humanity’s relationship with life on other planets and how the evolution of life on Earth does not mean it’s superior. Starward Industries and 11 Bit Studio have brought Lem’s work to life in the appropriately named game adaptation, The Invincible. The Invincible follows astrobiologist Yasna, who is struggling to regain her memories while at the same time trying to figure out what happened to her crewmates on the planet of Regis III and the mystery behind these strange organic metal structures the crew was investigating. The controls for The Invincible are thankfully not complicated as the game keeps prompting you of what button does what. The soundtrack and sound design are stellar! The soundtrack catches the retro sci-fi mood with a modern twist. The thing I love about The Invincible is the art. The atompunk look of the equipment and tools, and the interior of the ship and vehicles. When it comes to the
Continue reading →
