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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Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
French comedy/thriller Stéphane from filmmakers Timothée Hochet and Lucas Pastor is a mockumentary about aspiring short-film director Timothée (Bastien Garcia) and Stéphane (Pastor), the unaware subject of Timothée’s documentary about “a loser.” The pair meet randomly while Timothée is shooting a short film, with Stéphane volunteering to provide some pyrotechnics. One red flag after another about Stéphane goes up and eventually Timothée finds himself staying the night on Stéphane’s private boat before sailing to the latter’s island home. Why Timothée would want to get further involved with the obviously strange Stéphane is a valid question, but this being both a comedy and a thriller, poor decisions make sense to advance this story, and to send things into weirder and more disturbing territory. Both characters are full of themselves in different ways, and lines are blurred about just who is in charge of the crazy wartime-themed short that Timothée wants to complete for a film festival. Hochet and Pastor deliver a
Continue reading →
HuluMoviesNewsReviewsStreaming TVTrailers
While scrolling through Hulu’s “Huluween” section I stumbled across a movie titled Grimmcutty. The art caught my attention so I decided to give it a try. Here’s what I thought. Warning, there maybe a few spoilers. First, let me fill you in on what the movie is about. Written and directed by John Ross, Grimmcuttry centers on a teen and her little brother who must find a way to stop a monster brought to life by the hysteria of their parents. After the kids’ parents find out about Grimcutty, which they believe is a social media challenge, they go into overdrive and believe the answer is taking away the kids’ devices. The more concerned the parents get the angrier they become, which drives Grimcutty to attack. The movie speaks to two points. The first is the world’s obsession with social media challenges and how dangerous they can be, remember the Tide Pod Challenge? The second is the lack of trust
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Codirectors Johannes Hartmann and Sandro Klopfstein have unleashed on the world Mad Heidi (Switzerland, 2002), the first Swissploitation film, and it is a bonkers blend of horror, action, and comedy, filled with blood, bare breasts, and cheese of both the comedic and edible kinds. Casper Van Dien chews up scenery like the ubiquitous cheese in the film as dictatorial President Meili, who has dreams of global domination and who owns the only legal cheese factory in Switzerland. His henchmen are developing a new type of cheese, which they discover turns men into mighty mutants — perfect for building an unstoppable army. Meanwhile, mountain girl Heidi (Alice Lucy in a super comic and physical performance) sees her boyfriend Goat Peter (Kel Matsena) — who got his nickname from his, ahem, special way with goats to produce superb cheese — and her grandfather slain by Kommandant Knorr (Max Rüdlinger), ruthless leader of Meili’s Nazi-like army. After some high-level training, Heidi is prepared
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Your Love Is Mine Aficionados of “But is it horror?” films should find plenty to like about the Australian feature Your Love Is Mine, cowritten and codirected by Luke J.S. and Luke Wijayasinha-Gray. Emotionally distant bartender Violet (Senie Priti) and her mechanic boyfriend Sam (Lester Ellis Jr.) are in a troubled relationship, though both dream of escaping the doldrums of their small-town lives and moving to the big city. Violet is the more pragmatic, and pessimistic, of the couple, while Sam is more of the dreamer. When tragedy strikes one of them — no spoilers here — the other person comes up with a decidedly unusual and even bizarre plan, sending the film from romantic drama into more chilling territory. Your Love Is Mine certainly serves up some fear-fare overtones, but treads more in dark drama and even fantasy territory. Priti and Ellis Jr. are splendid in their lead roles, and the film’s supporting players provide added depth with solid
Continue reading →
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GamingParanormalProductReviews
It’s no secret that I was a big fan of A Plague Tale: Innocence with its gripping story, intense puzzles, and of course the large hoard of rats. You can imagine my excitement when I found out that this beautifully twisted coming-of-age story had a sequel. I want to give a big thank you to Asobo Studio and Focus Entertainment for letting me give A Plague Tale: Requiem a try! A Plague Tale Requiem picks up where the last game’s story left off with the De Rune siblings, Amicia and Hugo, who are now away from their home region escaping the inquisition that wanted to take Hugo to use his mysterious powers in their favor. Hugo’s condition which seemed to have gone away six months prior has come back, and so have the rats, and Amica must now protect Hugo once again in order to find a way to save him. Now onto the game itself! The controls for Requiem
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MoviesReviews
CIMIM Writer/director Cody Mobley’s short shocker CIMIM left me wanting more, more, more in the way of a feature-length version. A group of friends is sitting around talking and drinking during a desert camping trip when one of them (Laura Jenkins) goes to retrieve something from her vehicle and returns to the group to find herself — or something that looks exactly like her — sitting in her place. Mobley uses eerie sound design and classic off-screen terror to heighten the tension in this highly effective, great-looking horror short. Witchy In Witchy, Ken (John Ross Bowie) wants to go trick or treating with his teenage daughter Winter (Morgan Bastin) on the first Halloween after the passing of Ken’s wife and Winter’s mom to keep up a family tradition, as Halloween was the woman’s favorite time of year. Winter isn’t thrilled with the idea because she feels that she is too old to dress up in costume, she wants to go
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Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
The classic fright-fare movie tagline “Not for the squeamish!” deserves to be resurrected for the horror comedy Feed Me (U.K., 2022), cowritten and codirected by Adam Leader and Richard Oakes (Hosts, 2020). This tale of a cannibal and his willing meat supply provides a good deal of gags of both the humorous and queasy varieties. Jed Freeman (Christopher Mulvin) is depressed to the point of ending it all after his wife succumbs to an eating disorder. Lionel Flack (Neal Ward), who knows of Jed’s grief, introduces himself at a bar and tells Jed that he can make all of his troubles disappear. Jed eventually agrees to being eaten by Lionel, and their extremely weird relationship begins. Ward is terrific as the deeply disturbed Lionel, stopping just short of scenery chewing at times, and at others, giving harrowing emotional performances. He goes all in, and he and Mulvin play off each other superbly. Production Designer Amy Lucas (as Amy Lukas), Propmaker
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
Jordon Peele has made a name for himself in horror following the release of his brilliant films Get Out and Us. His latest piece of cinema is simply titled Nope and after watching it I know why. Both writing and directing, Peele branches out into the sci-fi genre while keeping elements of horror with Nope in which residents of a lonely gulch in inland California bear witness to a chilling discovery. Warning Spoilers! The film centers on a brother and sister, played by Oscar® winner Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out, Judas and the Black Messiah) and Emmy® Award winner Keke Palmer (Hustlers, “Scream Queens”) who run a dying horse ranch. Oscar® nominee Steven Yeun (Minari, “The Walking Dead”), Michael Wincott (Basquiat, What Just Happened), and Brandon Perea (“The OA”) also star. The brother and sister couldn’t be more of opposites. Kaluuya’s OJ is quiet and hard-working while his sister is a free spirit who comes across as loud and often obnoxious.
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GamingProductReviews
We had the toys, we used vacuum cleaners as proton packs, we bought toy slime out of capsule machines to pretend it was ectoplasm and wore swimming goggles pretending they were Nightvision headsets. We did whatever we could to feel like a Ghostbuster. May you be a fan of the films or cartoon series growing up, nothing felt more awesome than pretending to hunt ghosts and duel out supernatural justice… well now Illfonic has brought this childhood nostalgia to life in Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed! A big thank you to Illfonic for making this review possible as well as fulfilling the dream of seven-year-old me that’s still deep inside. In Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed players take on a role of a new recruit that was just hired by Winston Zeddemore (voiced by Ernie Hudson), who has bought back the old firehouse HQ to bring back the Ghostbusters to help rid NYC of ghostly troubles. Winston is not the only Ghostbuster that came
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MoviesNetflixReviewsStreaming TV
Last night I was trying to find something to watch on Netflix and came across Old People. The trailer looked decent so I figured why not, and I honestly, I was sick of scrolling. The German film, dubbed in English, is from writer-director Andy Fetscher and centers on a family reunited for a wedding. A couple who recently divorced and their two kids and the father’s new girlfriend are the main characters. After the wedding, the town is besieged by old people from a nearby rundown facility. While there’s plenty of family drama to make us feel empathy for the characters, the action is what is up front and center, and it’s non-stop. These old people somehow have renewed strength and drive, which is never really explained. There is an ancient statue briefly shown but it isn’t explained clearly if it has anything to do with the old people’s sudden drive for revenge or not. But after seeing how they
Continue reading →
More from Reviews
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
French comedy/thriller Stéphane from filmmakers Timothée Hochet and Lucas Pastor is a mockumentary about aspiring short-film director Timothée (Bastien Garcia) and Stéphane (Pastor), the unaware subject of Timothée’s documentary about “a loser.” The pair meet randomly while Timothée is shooting a short film, with Stéphane volunteering to provide some pyrotechnics. One red flag after another about Stéphane goes up and eventually Timothée finds himself staying the night on Stéphane’s private boat before sailing to the latter’s island home. Why Timothée would want to get further involved with the obviously strange Stéphane is a valid question, but this being both a comedy and a thriller, poor decisions make sense to advance this story, and to send things into weirder and more disturbing territory. Both characters are full of themselves in different ways, and lines are blurred about just who is in charge of the crazy wartime-themed short that Timothée wants to complete for a film festival. Hochet and Pastor deliver a
Continue reading →
HuluMoviesNewsReviewsStreaming TVTrailers
While scrolling through Hulu’s “Huluween” section I stumbled across a movie titled Grimmcutty. The art caught my attention so I decided to give it a try. Here’s what I thought. Warning, there maybe a few spoilers. First, let me fill you in on what the movie is about. Written and directed by John Ross, Grimmcuttry centers on a teen and her little brother who must find a way to stop a monster brought to life by the hysteria of their parents. After the kids’ parents find out about Grimcutty, which they believe is a social media challenge, they go into overdrive and believe the answer is taking away the kids’ devices. The more concerned the parents get the angrier they become, which drives Grimcutty to attack. The movie speaks to two points. The first is the world’s obsession with social media challenges and how dangerous they can be, remember the Tide Pod Challenge? The second is the lack of trust
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Codirectors Johannes Hartmann and Sandro Klopfstein have unleashed on the world Mad Heidi (Switzerland, 2002), the first Swissploitation film, and it is a bonkers blend of horror, action, and comedy, filled with blood, bare breasts, and cheese of both the comedic and edible kinds. Casper Van Dien chews up scenery like the ubiquitous cheese in the film as dictatorial President Meili, who has dreams of global domination and who owns the only legal cheese factory in Switzerland. His henchmen are developing a new type of cheese, which they discover turns men into mighty mutants — perfect for building an unstoppable army. Meanwhile, mountain girl Heidi (Alice Lucy in a super comic and physical performance) sees her boyfriend Goat Peter (Kel Matsena) — who got his nickname from his, ahem, special way with goats to produce superb cheese — and her grandfather slain by Kommandant Knorr (Max Rüdlinger), ruthless leader of Meili’s Nazi-like army. After some high-level training, Heidi is prepared
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Your Love Is Mine Aficionados of “But is it horror?” films should find plenty to like about the Australian feature Your Love Is Mine, cowritten and codirected by Luke J.S. and Luke Wijayasinha-Gray. Emotionally distant bartender Violet (Senie Priti) and her mechanic boyfriend Sam (Lester Ellis Jr.) are in a troubled relationship, though both dream of escaping the doldrums of their small-town lives and moving to the big city. Violet is the more pragmatic, and pessimistic, of the couple, while Sam is more of the dreamer. When tragedy strikes one of them — no spoilers here — the other person comes up with a decidedly unusual and even bizarre plan, sending the film from romantic drama into more chilling territory. Your Love Is Mine certainly serves up some fear-fare overtones, but treads more in dark drama and even fantasy territory. Priti and Ellis Jr. are splendid in their lead roles, and the film’s supporting players provide added depth with solid
Continue reading →
GamingParanormalProductReviews
It’s no secret that I was a big fan of A Plague Tale: Innocence with its gripping story, intense puzzles, and of course the large hoard of rats. You can imagine my excitement when I found out that this beautifully twisted coming-of-age story had a sequel. I want to give a big thank you to Asobo Studio and Focus Entertainment for letting me give A Plague Tale: Requiem a try! A Plague Tale Requiem picks up where the last game’s story left off with the De Rune siblings, Amicia and Hugo, who are now away from their home region escaping the inquisition that wanted to take Hugo to use his mysterious powers in their favor. Hugo’s condition which seemed to have gone away six months prior has come back, and so have the rats, and Amica must now protect Hugo once again in order to find a way to save him. Now onto the game itself! The controls for Requiem
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
CIMIM Writer/director Cody Mobley’s short shocker CIMIM left me wanting more, more, more in the way of a feature-length version. A group of friends is sitting around talking and drinking during a desert camping trip when one of them (Laura Jenkins) goes to retrieve something from her vehicle and returns to the group to find herself — or something that looks exactly like her — sitting in her place. Mobley uses eerie sound design and classic off-screen terror to heighten the tension in this highly effective, great-looking horror short. Witchy In Witchy, Ken (John Ross Bowie) wants to go trick or treating with his teenage daughter Winter (Morgan Bastin) on the first Halloween after the passing of Ken’s wife and Winter’s mom to keep up a family tradition, as Halloween was the woman’s favorite time of year. Winter isn’t thrilled with the idea because she feels that she is too old to dress up in costume, she wants to go
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
The classic fright-fare movie tagline “Not for the squeamish!” deserves to be resurrected for the horror comedy Feed Me (U.K., 2022), cowritten and codirected by Adam Leader and Richard Oakes (Hosts, 2020). This tale of a cannibal and his willing meat supply provides a good deal of gags of both the humorous and queasy varieties. Jed Freeman (Christopher Mulvin) is depressed to the point of ending it all after his wife succumbs to an eating disorder. Lionel Flack (Neal Ward), who knows of Jed’s grief, introduces himself at a bar and tells Jed that he can make all of his troubles disappear. Jed eventually agrees to being eaten by Lionel, and their extremely weird relationship begins. Ward is terrific as the deeply disturbed Lionel, stopping just short of scenery chewing at times, and at others, giving harrowing emotional performances. He goes all in, and he and Mulvin play off each other superbly. Production Designer Amy Lucas (as Amy Lukas), Propmaker
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
Jordon Peele has made a name for himself in horror following the release of his brilliant films Get Out and Us. His latest piece of cinema is simply titled Nope and after watching it I know why. Both writing and directing, Peele branches out into the sci-fi genre while keeping elements of horror with Nope in which residents of a lonely gulch in inland California bear witness to a chilling discovery. Warning Spoilers! The film centers on a brother and sister, played by Oscar® winner Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out, Judas and the Black Messiah) and Emmy® Award winner Keke Palmer (Hustlers, “Scream Queens”) who run a dying horse ranch. Oscar® nominee Steven Yeun (Minari, “The Walking Dead”), Michael Wincott (Basquiat, What Just Happened), and Brandon Perea (“The OA”) also star. The brother and sister couldn’t be more of opposites. Kaluuya’s OJ is quiet and hard-working while his sister is a free spirit who comes across as loud and often obnoxious.
Continue reading →
GamingProductReviews
We had the toys, we used vacuum cleaners as proton packs, we bought toy slime out of capsule machines to pretend it was ectoplasm and wore swimming goggles pretending they were Nightvision headsets. We did whatever we could to feel like a Ghostbuster. May you be a fan of the films or cartoon series growing up, nothing felt more awesome than pretending to hunt ghosts and duel out supernatural justice… well now Illfonic has brought this childhood nostalgia to life in Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed! A big thank you to Illfonic for making this review possible as well as fulfilling the dream of seven-year-old me that’s still deep inside. In Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed players take on a role of a new recruit that was just hired by Winston Zeddemore (voiced by Ernie Hudson), who has bought back the old firehouse HQ to bring back the Ghostbusters to help rid NYC of ghostly troubles. Winston is not the only Ghostbuster that came
Continue reading →
MoviesNetflixReviewsStreaming TV
Last night I was trying to find something to watch on Netflix and came across Old People. The trailer looked decent so I figured why not, and I honestly, I was sick of scrolling. The German film, dubbed in English, is from writer-director Andy Fetscher and centers on a family reunited for a wedding. A couple who recently divorced and their two kids and the father’s new girlfriend are the main characters. After the wedding, the town is besieged by old people from a nearby rundown facility. While there’s plenty of family drama to make us feel empathy for the characters, the action is what is up front and center, and it’s non-stop. These old people somehow have renewed strength and drive, which is never really explained. There is an ancient statue briefly shown but it isn’t explained clearly if it has anything to do with the old people’s sudden drive for revenge or not. But after seeing how they
Continue reading →
