CategoryReviews
Honest horror reviews of films, series, games and books — no hype, no spoilers, just whether it is worth your time and your nerves.
3,430 stories
MoviesReviewsThriller
Director Sophie Kargman’s mystery thriller Susie Searches is a fun ride that offers an engaging main character and several surprises as it examines how far some people will go to become famous. Susie (Kiersey Clemons) is a university student with a part-time job at a burger joint, an internship at the local police station, and a true-crime podcast devoid of listeners. Susie takes her lifelong talent of guessing whodunit correctly when her mother — who currently suffers from MS — begins to read her mystery novels to try and solve the disappearance of popular fellow student and meditation influencer Jesse (Alex Wolff), who has been missing for about a week. Susie cracks the case, rescues Jesse and even names a suspect — and then things start going south. Kargman, who cowrote the smart screenplay with William Day Frank, paces the suspense nicely while serving up humor that ranges from the delightful to the dark. Clemons is terrific as the fame-hungry
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AdaptationComic Books/Graphic NovelsMoviesReviewsSci-Fi
Deep in the humid green hell of the Louisiana bayou, Dr. Alec Holland (Ray Wise, Twin Peaks) toils with his sister Linda (played by Nannette Brown… and changed from his wife in the DC Comics source material upon which this film is based) in a government-funded high tech lab hidden in an abandoned church. Because of that whole “government-funded” biz, Washington wants to keep the duo’s experiments involving rapid plant without soil under close scrutiny so they send Agent Alice Cable (Adrienne Barbeau, Escape From New York, The Fog, Creepshow… and gender swapped from the comic’s Matthew Cable, an ally/foe of Alec’s) to give it all the ol’ look-see. Unfortunately the Holland’s work has also fallen under the ghoulish gaze of suave villain Anton Arcane (Louis Jourdan) who plans on using the resulting chemical to make himself immortal, and he just up and steals the formula for that shit with the help of his private army lead by the sadistic
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviewsShort Films
In the middle of nowhere, a man, Holden by name (Joshua Shea), waits for seemingly an eternity for his bus to arrive as he tries to cope with the problems life has thrown his way. Suddenly he is joined by a mysterious woman (Poppie Boyes) who seems to have materialized out of the aether… a woman who fluctuates between playful and threateningly serious with shocking ease. To make matters worse, our hero sees a pale man in a gold suit (Mike Kelson) hovering in the darkness, as well as a pointing woman (Olivia Post) just beyond the bus stop, though his companion seems not to notice. What is the true meaning behind the mysterious goings-on at the shadow-surrounded bus stop, and how will these mysteries effect Holden? Written & Directed by Zora Cielle Anri (based on an idea from producer Ivan Veselov), Bus Stop is presented not unlike a one act play; we have one, nearly expressionistic locale (the fluorescent
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviewsSci-Fi
Some Sherpas actually manage to kill a giant yeti, and the corpse is promptly shipped overseas to be studied by renowned anthropologist Dr. Claire Collier (Juliet Mills) who discovers something strange… this yeti was purposefully mutated into existence, but by who… or what… is unknown. Enter: Matthew Connor (Richard Joseph Paul); Claire’s former student and shit-hot anthropologist as well. Matt is flat-out amazed by all things yeti-corpse, as one would imagine, and before you know it, he’s recruited into the ranks of Claire’s Himalayan excursion… along with hard-ass, big game huntin’ mother fucker Rondo Montana (Leon Russom), Sherpa guide Siku (Tai Thai), and yet another anthro-thusiast, Kathleen (Walker Brandt). So off these cats trek, all fired up to retrieve a living specimen… which they find, along with an entrance to a hollow earth paradise/living hell chock-full of ape-like cavemen, lizard people, U.F.O.’s, and aliens. Sounds like my kinda party cats n’ creeps! Will our intrepid heroes survive their ordeal and
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Writer/director Paris Zarcilla’s U.K. feature Raging Grace (2023) combines social commentary about class divisions with classic elements of both British horror and British farce. Joy (Max Eigenmann) is a Filipina working illegally as a house cleaner in London, sleeping in different houses with her young daughter Grace (Jaeden Paige Boadilla) when she knows the owners are away. Joy is trying to raise money for a man to supposedly get her U.K. citizenship, and he is getting impatient with her inability to come up with the amount he demands. Meanwhile, while checking in on an elderly man named Mr. Garrett (David Hayman) as a favor to her pastor, she is offered a live-in job by Garrett’s niece Katherine (Leanne Best) that pays a high rate, with the expectation that Joy will keep mum about the goings-on in the abode. Joy sneaks Grace — who has a decidedly naughty and curious streak about her — into the house in a suitcase, and
Continue reading →
DocumentariesMoviesReviews
Filmmaker Ryan Meade’s Invaluable; The True Story of an Epic Artist presents a look at the life and career of artist Tom Sullivan, the Michigan-based creator that many of you fine cats n’ creeps may recognize as the man that brought much of the iconography of our beloved Evil Dead franchise to screaming, biting life! Speaking of Evil Dead, during the course of this demonic doc we get talkin’ head footage of many of the frightful franchises’ luminaries including the likes of Bruce Campbell, Ted Raimi, Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker, Danny Hicks, Theresa Tilly, Hal Delrich, and Josh Becker… and let me tell ya; there are plenty of anecdotes that I can pretty much guarantee many of you fine fiends have never, ever heard before… and to that end I’m going to stop this revoltin’ review in it’s tracks to share something I learned watching this flick… I have always wondered why Scotty has a frickin’ dog nose in a
Continue reading →
ProductReviews
As a writer, I’m constantly writing things down in notebooks, but I also feel that I need a pen that fits what I do and looks great, and feels comfortable, that’s where Bastion comes in! Bastion makes bolt-action pens that really stand out in the world of writing implements, and I was honored to get the chance to check out possibly the most badass-looking pen I’ve ever seen, The Shipwreck Force Patina Copper Pen. Bastion was also kind enough to offer a discount code to YOU the reader, just keep on reading to learn more! I would also like to give a big thank you to Mike and the other awesome folks over at Bastion for helping make this review possible! The pen looks like it was pulled from a doomed ship that met an unfortunate sunken end under mysterious or malevolent circumstances, the lone survivor. Regardless of its appearance, the pen is quite comfortable to hold. The first thing
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
I watch A LOT of horror movies; it’s one of the best parts of my gig. So you can understand that I’ve become a bit jaded, hard to impress, and even harder to scare. But once in a while, a movie will come along that, by some miracle, can get under my skin. That’s the case with director Samuel Bodin’s new horror Cobweb. In the film, “A mysterious, constant tap plagues, Eight-year-old Peter taps from inside his bedroom wall – a tapping that his parents insist is all in his imagination. As Peter’s fear intensifies, he believes his parents (Lizzy Caplan and Antony Starr) could be hiding a terrible, dangerous secret and questioning their trust. And for a child, what could be more frightening than that?” The film and the cinematography look absolutely fantastic. The movie has a rich look that plays off shadows and hidden spaces. The special effects, which were surprisingly mostly practical, were really well done, especially
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
From writer-director Luke Paradise comes Sympathy for the Devil. The film stars Nicolas Cage (Renfield) as an unhinged psychopath who kidnaps a man (Joel Kinnaman) at gunpoint, taking viewers on a wild ride during a night filled with action and insanity. While en route to the hospital where his wife is in labor, a man is taken at gunpoint by a red-headed stranger and is forced to drive him to various locations where the stranger takes out his anger by killing innocent people. The stranger is played by Nicolas Cage, who comes off like a sadistic asshole with zero f*cks to give. He’s clearly unhinged, but not in a good way. It’s just weird. Maybe I expect too much out of Cage, I mean, he’s usually an expert at playing crazy. As for Joel Kinnaman, who starred as the driver, a worried husband, and father, he did a fine job. However, his character is lackluster and a bit boring. We
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesParanormalReviewsThriller
Lovely, Dark, and Deep (2023) Followers of Fortean phenomena and aficionados of surreal and sylvan horror should find plenty to admire in writer/director Teresa Sutherland’s slow-burn creeper Lovely, Dark, and Deep. Ranger Lennon (Georgina Campbell [Barbarian] in an engaging lead performance) has finally been assigned a job she has long waited for: being in charge, for 90 days, of a backcountry area that requires being taken there by helicopter and that leaves her virtually cut off from civilization except for communication by walkie-talkie and contact with hikers, campers, and fellow rangers. Riffing on what is discussed in David Paulides’ Missing 411 books and videos, the forest in which Lennon works is the site of many missing-person disappearances and occasional solved cases. Lennon’s backstory and motivation for being assigned to the remote spot she has requested involves that scenario, and giving away anything more about the plot would be traversing into spoiler territory. Sutherland, who wrote the screenplay for The Wind,
Continue reading →
More from Reviews
MoviesReviewsThriller
Director Sophie Kargman’s mystery thriller Susie Searches is a fun ride that offers an engaging main character and several surprises as it examines how far some people will go to become famous. Susie (Kiersey Clemons) is a university student with a part-time job at a burger joint, an internship at the local police station, and a true-crime podcast devoid of listeners. Susie takes her lifelong talent of guessing whodunit correctly when her mother — who currently suffers from MS — begins to read her mystery novels to try and solve the disappearance of popular fellow student and meditation influencer Jesse (Alex Wolff), who has been missing for about a week. Susie cracks the case, rescues Jesse and even names a suspect — and then things start going south. Kargman, who cowrote the smart screenplay with William Day Frank, paces the suspense nicely while serving up humor that ranges from the delightful to the dark. Clemons is terrific as the fame-hungry
Continue reading →
AdaptationComic Books/Graphic NovelsMoviesReviewsSci-Fi
Deep in the humid green hell of the Louisiana bayou, Dr. Alec Holland (Ray Wise, Twin Peaks) toils with his sister Linda (played by Nannette Brown… and changed from his wife in the DC Comics source material upon which this film is based) in a government-funded high tech lab hidden in an abandoned church. Because of that whole “government-funded” biz, Washington wants to keep the duo’s experiments involving rapid plant without soil under close scrutiny so they send Agent Alice Cable (Adrienne Barbeau, Escape From New York, The Fog, Creepshow… and gender swapped from the comic’s Matthew Cable, an ally/foe of Alec’s) to give it all the ol’ look-see. Unfortunately the Holland’s work has also fallen under the ghoulish gaze of suave villain Anton Arcane (Louis Jourdan) who plans on using the resulting chemical to make himself immortal, and he just up and steals the formula for that shit with the help of his private army lead by the sadistic
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviewsShort Films
In the middle of nowhere, a man, Holden by name (Joshua Shea), waits for seemingly an eternity for his bus to arrive as he tries to cope with the problems life has thrown his way. Suddenly he is joined by a mysterious woman (Poppie Boyes) who seems to have materialized out of the aether… a woman who fluctuates between playful and threateningly serious with shocking ease. To make matters worse, our hero sees a pale man in a gold suit (Mike Kelson) hovering in the darkness, as well as a pointing woman (Olivia Post) just beyond the bus stop, though his companion seems not to notice. What is the true meaning behind the mysterious goings-on at the shadow-surrounded bus stop, and how will these mysteries effect Holden? Written & Directed by Zora Cielle Anri (based on an idea from producer Ivan Veselov), Bus Stop is presented not unlike a one act play; we have one, nearly expressionistic locale (the fluorescent
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviewsSci-Fi
Some Sherpas actually manage to kill a giant yeti, and the corpse is promptly shipped overseas to be studied by renowned anthropologist Dr. Claire Collier (Juliet Mills) who discovers something strange… this yeti was purposefully mutated into existence, but by who… or what… is unknown. Enter: Matthew Connor (Richard Joseph Paul); Claire’s former student and shit-hot anthropologist as well. Matt is flat-out amazed by all things yeti-corpse, as one would imagine, and before you know it, he’s recruited into the ranks of Claire’s Himalayan excursion… along with hard-ass, big game huntin’ mother fucker Rondo Montana (Leon Russom), Sherpa guide Siku (Tai Thai), and yet another anthro-thusiast, Kathleen (Walker Brandt). So off these cats trek, all fired up to retrieve a living specimen… which they find, along with an entrance to a hollow earth paradise/living hell chock-full of ape-like cavemen, lizard people, U.F.O.’s, and aliens. Sounds like my kinda party cats n’ creeps! Will our intrepid heroes survive their ordeal and
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Writer/director Paris Zarcilla’s U.K. feature Raging Grace (2023) combines social commentary about class divisions with classic elements of both British horror and British farce. Joy (Max Eigenmann) is a Filipina working illegally as a house cleaner in London, sleeping in different houses with her young daughter Grace (Jaeden Paige Boadilla) when she knows the owners are away. Joy is trying to raise money for a man to supposedly get her U.K. citizenship, and he is getting impatient with her inability to come up with the amount he demands. Meanwhile, while checking in on an elderly man named Mr. Garrett (David Hayman) as a favor to her pastor, she is offered a live-in job by Garrett’s niece Katherine (Leanne Best) that pays a high rate, with the expectation that Joy will keep mum about the goings-on in the abode. Joy sneaks Grace — who has a decidedly naughty and curious streak about her — into the house in a suitcase, and
Continue reading →
DocumentariesMoviesReviews
Filmmaker Ryan Meade’s Invaluable; The True Story of an Epic Artist presents a look at the life and career of artist Tom Sullivan, the Michigan-based creator that many of you fine cats n’ creeps may recognize as the man that brought much of the iconography of our beloved Evil Dead franchise to screaming, biting life! Speaking of Evil Dead, during the course of this demonic doc we get talkin’ head footage of many of the frightful franchises’ luminaries including the likes of Bruce Campbell, Ted Raimi, Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker, Danny Hicks, Theresa Tilly, Hal Delrich, and Josh Becker… and let me tell ya; there are plenty of anecdotes that I can pretty much guarantee many of you fine fiends have never, ever heard before… and to that end I’m going to stop this revoltin’ review in it’s tracks to share something I learned watching this flick… I have always wondered why Scotty has a frickin’ dog nose in a
Continue reading →
ProductReviews
As a writer, I’m constantly writing things down in notebooks, but I also feel that I need a pen that fits what I do and looks great, and feels comfortable, that’s where Bastion comes in! Bastion makes bolt-action pens that really stand out in the world of writing implements, and I was honored to get the chance to check out possibly the most badass-looking pen I’ve ever seen, The Shipwreck Force Patina Copper Pen. Bastion was also kind enough to offer a discount code to YOU the reader, just keep on reading to learn more! I would also like to give a big thank you to Mike and the other awesome folks over at Bastion for helping make this review possible! The pen looks like it was pulled from a doomed ship that met an unfortunate sunken end under mysterious or malevolent circumstances, the lone survivor. Regardless of its appearance, the pen is quite comfortable to hold. The first thing
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
I watch A LOT of horror movies; it’s one of the best parts of my gig. So you can understand that I’ve become a bit jaded, hard to impress, and even harder to scare. But once in a while, a movie will come along that, by some miracle, can get under my skin. That’s the case with director Samuel Bodin’s new horror Cobweb. In the film, “A mysterious, constant tap plagues, Eight-year-old Peter taps from inside his bedroom wall – a tapping that his parents insist is all in his imagination. As Peter’s fear intensifies, he believes his parents (Lizzy Caplan and Antony Starr) could be hiding a terrible, dangerous secret and questioning their trust. And for a child, what could be more frightening than that?” The film and the cinematography look absolutely fantastic. The movie has a rich look that plays off shadows and hidden spaces. The special effects, which were surprisingly mostly practical, were really well done, especially
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
From writer-director Luke Paradise comes Sympathy for the Devil. The film stars Nicolas Cage (Renfield) as an unhinged psychopath who kidnaps a man (Joel Kinnaman) at gunpoint, taking viewers on a wild ride during a night filled with action and insanity. While en route to the hospital where his wife is in labor, a man is taken at gunpoint by a red-headed stranger and is forced to drive him to various locations where the stranger takes out his anger by killing innocent people. The stranger is played by Nicolas Cage, who comes off like a sadistic asshole with zero f*cks to give. He’s clearly unhinged, but not in a good way. It’s just weird. Maybe I expect too much out of Cage, I mean, he’s usually an expert at playing crazy. As for Joel Kinnaman, who starred as the driver, a worried husband, and father, he did a fine job. However, his character is lackluster and a bit boring. We
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesParanormalReviewsThriller
Lovely, Dark, and Deep (2023) Followers of Fortean phenomena and aficionados of surreal and sylvan horror should find plenty to admire in writer/director Teresa Sutherland’s slow-burn creeper Lovely, Dark, and Deep. Ranger Lennon (Georgina Campbell [Barbarian] in an engaging lead performance) has finally been assigned a job she has long waited for: being in charge, for 90 days, of a backcountry area that requires being taken there by helicopter and that leaves her virtually cut off from civilization except for communication by walkie-talkie and contact with hikers, campers, and fellow rangers. Riffing on what is discussed in David Paulides’ Missing 411 books and videos, the forest in which Lennon works is the site of many missing-person disappearances and occasional solved cases. Lennon’s backstory and motivation for being assigned to the remote spot she has requested involves that scenario, and giving away anything more about the plot would be traversing into spoiler territory. Sutherland, who wrote the screenplay for The Wind,
Continue reading →
