Horror Fuel
Category

Reviews

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
Movie Reviews: “Cult Hero” and “The Breach” (Fantasia)

Movie Reviews: “Cult Hero” and “The Breach” (Fantasia)

Cult Hero Canadian horror comedy Cult Hero finds disgraced cult deprogrammer, reality television star, and self-described “cult buster” Dale Domazar (Ry Barrett of The Chamber of Terror) living off the grid a few years after an episode of his series featured him leading to the suicide of several cult members. It’s hard to tell whether his mannerisms are an affectation based on his favorite action heroes of yore or if he really lives his schtick. When high-strung, ill-mannered real estate agent Kallie (Liv Collins of Creep Nation) begins to suspect that the male retreat at which she dropped off her beta-male husband Brad (Justin Bott) may actually be a suicide cult, she contacts Domazar, who sees the paid gig as his potential comeback for a second series of his Cult Buster program. Director Jesse Thomas Cook, whose previous works include Monster Ball, The Hexecutioners, and The Hoard, delivers a fun, goofy feature that delivers plenty of laughs along with some

Continue reading →
Aug 2, 2022
Blu-ray Review: YellowBrickRoad (2010): Updated Special Edition

Blu-ray Review: YellowBrickRoad (2010): Updated Special Edition

One fine morning back in 1940, the citizens of Friar, New Hampshire walked into the wilderness, en masse, and got their asses slaughtered (minus one “lucky” fellow) by who the piss knows what on a trail named Yellow-brick Road. Flash forward to the amazing future year of 2008 and enter Teddy Barnes (Michael Laurino) who just so happens to be the leader of a group of adventurous sorts who trek off to that rural town in search of answers to the distant tragedy. They bring a rad-ass lil’ land rover/dune buggy thing with them too if you are keeping score at home… which you lot never are… Once there they encounter un-cooperative townies (minus one loquacious lass who actually provides some info) before trekking off on the same path as the citizens of yore. Speaking of those folks, as the (seemingly endless) “road” goes on and ever fuckin’ on, they find themselves more removed from civilization (no matter how un-civil

Continue reading →
Jul 30, 2022
4K-UHD Review: Candyman (1992)

4K-UHD Review: Candyman (1992)

Helen (Virginia Madsen) and her friend Bernadette (Kasi Lemmons) are just a couple o’ ladies on their way to complete a thesis at the college they attend… a thesis revolving around the local urban legend of a supernatural menace known as the Candyman (the legendary Tony Todd) who has been rumored to stalk the absolute living nightmare of the tenements of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green if anyone is foolish enough to utter his name five times before a mirror. And why wouldn’t they strut right on into the horribly depressed an violent projects? I mean besides the dangerous fellows out front, there’s the matter of the very real titular grotesquery; a son of a slave that was murdered for falling in love with a white woman who has come back from the dead with a real hatred for… well, everyone. Add in his meat hook hand, and belly full of bees guaranteed to take your ass out like My Girl-style Macaulay Culkin,

Continue reading →
Jul 29, 2022
Review: HalloweenCostumes.com Haul

Review: HalloweenCostumes.com Haul

There are only 94 days left until Halloween, and if you are like me, I go BIG every year. The neighbors have come to expect a show. So it’s time to start planning and stocking up on spooky decorations. I stumbled across HalloweenCostumes.com and ordered a few things to get me started. The website is massive, featuring everything you could need for a killer Halloween, including props, decorations, costumes, and spooky decor, but let’s be honest, you don’t need a holiday to have cool horror-themed items around the house. So, I ordered four items, a ghost, a floating witch, a standing witch, and a wreath. They arrived in a matter of days. You may be wondering if the items look like they do on the site. The answer is yes. You get exactly what you ordered and they come ready to go, with all animatronics coming with batteries already installed. The wreath ($19.99) features a skull and pale yellow/white flowers

Continue reading →
Jul 28, 2022
Advertisement
The Final 'The Reef: Stalked' Trailer Features Real Sharks!

Movie Review: ‘The Reef: Stalked’ Is Worth Diving Into

Nic, struggling with PTSD after finding her friend murdered, joins her friends for a day of kayaking. While having fun, a rogue (one more aggressive than usual) great white begins to hunt them, and the children that are playing in the water. After one of them is killed and a child injured the women, which have landed on an empty, secluded island must enter the water again to get help. That’s the premise of The Reef: Stalked, the sequel to The Reef. Unlike most killer shark movies with terrible CGI, Stalked features live sharks, like the 2009 original. And for that I am thankful. As a shark lover, I can’t stand to see those fake AF sharks. The movie turns a stunning, big, beautiful great white into the villain. I will say this, I don’t like to see sharks turned into villains. They aren’t murderous, they don’t form grudges, and they don’t have motives. They simply are what they are,

Continue reading →
Jul 25, 2022
Netflix Review: Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Will Entertain The Whole Family

Netflix Review: Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Will Entertain The Whole Family

Netflix’s animated series “Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous” has just debuted its fifth action-packed season. You may be thinking, why is she reviewing a kids’ show? The simple answer is, that it’s a great series. The series follows a group of six teenagers chosen for a once-in-a-lifetime experience at Camp Cretaceous, a new adventure camp on the opposite side of Isla Nublar who must work together to survive after things go very wrong. Camp Cretaceous goes beyond just entertainment, teaching viewers about the dinosaurs that the teens come in contact with, survival tips, and more. It also deals with very serious themes such fear and death. As for the characters, they aren’t one dimensional like in most children’s series. They have depth, they are sympathetic and relatable, and are pretty realistic. They are voiced by Paul-Mikel Williams as Darius; Jenna Ortega as Brooklynn; Ryan Potter as Kenji; Raini Rodriguez as Sammy; Sean Giambrone as Ben; and Kausar Mohammed as Yaz. Returning

Continue reading →
Jul 23, 2022
Movie Review: He’s Watching

Movie Review: He’s Watching

He’s Watching, the latest feature from director Jacob Estes (Mean Creek; Don’t Let Go) is bound to frustrate some viewers while keeping others glued to the screen. I fell toward the latter; this film that started out as a family project filmed during COVID-19 lockdown has its share of slow moments and found-footage tropes, but it also delivers an effectively eerie atmosphere and believable performances from two real-life siblings, Estes’ teen daughter Iris Serena Estes and his younger son Lucas Estes. Iris and Lucas are left to their own devices when a virus that affects only adults puts their parents in the hospital. The kids send messages to Jacob and their mom (Gretchen Lieberum) that go unanswered but are seemingly being watched by the parents. The siblings think that each one is being pranked by the other, with tension and incidents escalating and lots of bickering going on, but soon enough they realize that something called The Closet Creeper has

Continue reading →
Jul 23, 2022
Movie Review: Jurassic World: Dominion Isn't Perfect But Its Good Enough For Us

Movie Review: Jurassic World: Dominion Isn’t Perfect But Its Good Enough For Us

Fans of the Jurassic franchise have been eagerly awaiting the final film, Jurassic World: Dominion and it’s finally out On Demand and VOD. I’m a huge fan of the franchise and I’m a bit of a dinosaur nerd (and not ashamed of it). So I was pumped to kick back and watch it last night. Jurassic World: Dominion plays heavy on nostalgia as they bring all of the main characters/actors from the previous films together, Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern, Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Isabela Sermon, and BD Wong. We also see some of our favorite dinosaurs including Rexy and Blue, who have somehow given birth to a baby, Betta. It was a great idea, especially seeing that this is supposedly the final film of the franchise. A ton of new characters join the film including DeWanda Wise, Mamoudou Athie, Campbell Scott, and more. One of the main characters, Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) has grown quite a bit,

Continue reading →
Jul 23, 2022
Blu-ray Review: Lux Aeterna (2019)

Blu-ray Review: Lux Aeterna (2019)

Lux Aeterna begins with legendary French actress Béatrice Dalle (Betty Blue) playing herself (or writer/director Gaspar Noé’s version of her anyway) having a lengthy conversation with the star of her upcoming witch trial flick God’s Work, Lars von Trier muse Charlotte Gainsbourg. The fireside chat steers towards the perils they have faced in the entertainment industry (and seems agonizingly authentic even if it was faked for film), and as the conversation progresses we can’t help but think of the parallels between the way women are treated in a male dominated world and the witches of old… yeah man, this is an art house flick with plenty on its mind, and the point is hard to dismiss right down to the usage of sequences from Benjamin Christensen’s 1922 cinematic treatise on the evolution of witchcraft, Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages during the film’s opening. Naturally, the production goes slightly off the rails when a bunch of clueless dudes (an American director,

Continue reading →
Jul 23, 2022
Blu-ray Review: The Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee Collection 2 (1959 - 1988)

Blu-ray Review: The Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee Collection 2 (1959 – 1988)

Sir Christopher Lee had one hell of a run, and while being one of the greatest screen Dracula’s of all-time he also found time to star in some of the biggest film franchises in cinema history such as Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings… he also found time to star in all-manner of seriously bizarre shit, such as the 1983 superhero parody The Return of Captain Invincible (which I reviewed right here) and much of the material that comprises The Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee: Collection 2 from those delightful devils at Severin Films! Kicking off this creepy collection is 1959’s Uncle Was a Vampire… Always one to get down with a fang bang, Lee stars as Baron Roderico, a vampire… imagine that! Anyway, Baron R picks up stakes (not literally, that would kill the auld fellow) and arrives at the castle of his broke as a joke nephew… only to find it has been converted to a hotel

Continue reading →
Jul 22, 2022

More from Reviews

Movie Reviews: “Cult Hero” and “The Breach” (Fantasia)

Movie Reviews: “Cult Hero” and “The Breach” (Fantasia)

Cult Hero Canadian horror comedy Cult Hero finds disgraced cult deprogrammer, reality television star, and self-described “cult buster” Dale Domazar (Ry Barrett of The Chamber of Terror) living off the grid a few years after an episode of his series featured him leading to the suicide of several cult members. It’s hard to tell whether his mannerisms are an affectation based on his favorite action heroes of yore or if he really lives his schtick. When high-strung, ill-mannered real estate agent Kallie (Liv Collins of Creep Nation) begins to suspect that the male retreat at which she dropped off her beta-male husband Brad (Justin Bott) may actually be a suicide cult, she contacts Domazar, who sees the paid gig as his potential comeback for a second series of his Cult Buster program. Director Jesse Thomas Cook, whose previous works include Monster Ball, The Hexecutioners, and The Hoard, delivers a fun, goofy feature that delivers plenty of laughs along with some

Continue reading →
Aug 2, 2022
Blu-ray Review: YellowBrickRoad (2010): Updated Special Edition

Blu-ray Review: YellowBrickRoad (2010): Updated Special Edition

One fine morning back in 1940, the citizens of Friar, New Hampshire walked into the wilderness, en masse, and got their asses slaughtered (minus one “lucky” fellow) by who the piss knows what on a trail named Yellow-brick Road. Flash forward to the amazing future year of 2008 and enter Teddy Barnes (Michael Laurino) who just so happens to be the leader of a group of adventurous sorts who trek off to that rural town in search of answers to the distant tragedy. They bring a rad-ass lil’ land rover/dune buggy thing with them too if you are keeping score at home… which you lot never are… Once there they encounter un-cooperative townies (minus one loquacious lass who actually provides some info) before trekking off on the same path as the citizens of yore. Speaking of those folks, as the (seemingly endless) “road” goes on and ever fuckin’ on, they find themselves more removed from civilization (no matter how un-civil

Continue reading →
Jul 30, 2022
4K-UHD Review: Candyman (1992)

4K-UHD Review: Candyman (1992)

Helen (Virginia Madsen) and her friend Bernadette (Kasi Lemmons) are just a couple o’ ladies on their way to complete a thesis at the college they attend… a thesis revolving around the local urban legend of a supernatural menace known as the Candyman (the legendary Tony Todd) who has been rumored to stalk the absolute living nightmare of the tenements of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green if anyone is foolish enough to utter his name five times before a mirror. And why wouldn’t they strut right on into the horribly depressed an violent projects? I mean besides the dangerous fellows out front, there’s the matter of the very real titular grotesquery; a son of a slave that was murdered for falling in love with a white woman who has come back from the dead with a real hatred for… well, everyone. Add in his meat hook hand, and belly full of bees guaranteed to take your ass out like My Girl-style Macaulay Culkin,

Continue reading →
Jul 29, 2022
Review: HalloweenCostumes.com Haul

Review: HalloweenCostumes.com Haul

There are only 94 days left until Halloween, and if you are like me, I go BIG every year. The neighbors have come to expect a show. So it’s time to start planning and stocking up on spooky decorations. I stumbled across HalloweenCostumes.com and ordered a few things to get me started. The website is massive, featuring everything you could need for a killer Halloween, including props, decorations, costumes, and spooky decor, but let’s be honest, you don’t need a holiday to have cool horror-themed items around the house. So, I ordered four items, a ghost, a floating witch, a standing witch, and a wreath. They arrived in a matter of days. You may be wondering if the items look like they do on the site. The answer is yes. You get exactly what you ordered and they come ready to go, with all animatronics coming with batteries already installed. The wreath ($19.99) features a skull and pale yellow/white flowers

Continue reading →
Jul 28, 2022
The Final 'The Reef: Stalked' Trailer Features Real Sharks!

Movie Review: ‘The Reef: Stalked’ Is Worth Diving Into

Nic, struggling with PTSD after finding her friend murdered, joins her friends for a day of kayaking. While having fun, a rogue (one more aggressive than usual) great white begins to hunt them, and the children that are playing in the water. After one of them is killed and a child injured the women, which have landed on an empty, secluded island must enter the water again to get help. That’s the premise of The Reef: Stalked, the sequel to The Reef. Unlike most killer shark movies with terrible CGI, Stalked features live sharks, like the 2009 original. And for that I am thankful. As a shark lover, I can’t stand to see those fake AF sharks. The movie turns a stunning, big, beautiful great white into the villain. I will say this, I don’t like to see sharks turned into villains. They aren’t murderous, they don’t form grudges, and they don’t have motives. They simply are what they are,

Continue reading →
Jul 25, 2022
Netflix Review: Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Will Entertain The Whole Family

Netflix Review: Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Will Entertain The Whole Family

Netflix’s animated series “Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous” has just debuted its fifth action-packed season. You may be thinking, why is she reviewing a kids’ show? The simple answer is, that it’s a great series. The series follows a group of six teenagers chosen for a once-in-a-lifetime experience at Camp Cretaceous, a new adventure camp on the opposite side of Isla Nublar who must work together to survive after things go very wrong. Camp Cretaceous goes beyond just entertainment, teaching viewers about the dinosaurs that the teens come in contact with, survival tips, and more. It also deals with very serious themes such fear and death. As for the characters, they aren’t one dimensional like in most children’s series. They have depth, they are sympathetic and relatable, and are pretty realistic. They are voiced by Paul-Mikel Williams as Darius; Jenna Ortega as Brooklynn; Ryan Potter as Kenji; Raini Rodriguez as Sammy; Sean Giambrone as Ben; and Kausar Mohammed as Yaz. Returning

Continue reading →
Jul 23, 2022
Movie Review: He’s Watching

Movie Review: He’s Watching

He’s Watching, the latest feature from director Jacob Estes (Mean Creek; Don’t Let Go) is bound to frustrate some viewers while keeping others glued to the screen. I fell toward the latter; this film that started out as a family project filmed during COVID-19 lockdown has its share of slow moments and found-footage tropes, but it also delivers an effectively eerie atmosphere and believable performances from two real-life siblings, Estes’ teen daughter Iris Serena Estes and his younger son Lucas Estes. Iris and Lucas are left to their own devices when a virus that affects only adults puts their parents in the hospital. The kids send messages to Jacob and their mom (Gretchen Lieberum) that go unanswered but are seemingly being watched by the parents. The siblings think that each one is being pranked by the other, with tension and incidents escalating and lots of bickering going on, but soon enough they realize that something called The Closet Creeper has

Continue reading →
Jul 23, 2022
Movie Review: Jurassic World: Dominion Isn't Perfect But Its Good Enough For Us

Movie Review: Jurassic World: Dominion Isn’t Perfect But Its Good Enough For Us

Fans of the Jurassic franchise have been eagerly awaiting the final film, Jurassic World: Dominion and it’s finally out On Demand and VOD. I’m a huge fan of the franchise and I’m a bit of a dinosaur nerd (and not ashamed of it). So I was pumped to kick back and watch it last night. Jurassic World: Dominion plays heavy on nostalgia as they bring all of the main characters/actors from the previous films together, Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern, Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Isabela Sermon, and BD Wong. We also see some of our favorite dinosaurs including Rexy and Blue, who have somehow given birth to a baby, Betta. It was a great idea, especially seeing that this is supposedly the final film of the franchise. A ton of new characters join the film including DeWanda Wise, Mamoudou Athie, Campbell Scott, and more. One of the main characters, Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) has grown quite a bit,

Continue reading →
Jul 23, 2022
Blu-ray Review: Lux Aeterna (2019)

Blu-ray Review: Lux Aeterna (2019)

Lux Aeterna begins with legendary French actress Béatrice Dalle (Betty Blue) playing herself (or writer/director Gaspar Noé’s version of her anyway) having a lengthy conversation with the star of her upcoming witch trial flick God’s Work, Lars von Trier muse Charlotte Gainsbourg. The fireside chat steers towards the perils they have faced in the entertainment industry (and seems agonizingly authentic even if it was faked for film), and as the conversation progresses we can’t help but think of the parallels between the way women are treated in a male dominated world and the witches of old… yeah man, this is an art house flick with plenty on its mind, and the point is hard to dismiss right down to the usage of sequences from Benjamin Christensen’s 1922 cinematic treatise on the evolution of witchcraft, Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages during the film’s opening. Naturally, the production goes slightly off the rails when a bunch of clueless dudes (an American director,

Continue reading →
Jul 23, 2022
Blu-ray Review: The Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee Collection 2 (1959 - 1988)

Blu-ray Review: The Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee Collection 2 (1959 – 1988)

Sir Christopher Lee had one hell of a run, and while being one of the greatest screen Dracula’s of all-time he also found time to star in some of the biggest film franchises in cinema history such as Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings… he also found time to star in all-manner of seriously bizarre shit, such as the 1983 superhero parody The Return of Captain Invincible (which I reviewed right here) and much of the material that comprises The Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee: Collection 2 from those delightful devils at Severin Films! Kicking off this creepy collection is 1959’s Uncle Was a Vampire… Always one to get down with a fang bang, Lee stars as Baron Roderico, a vampire… imagine that! Anyway, Baron R picks up stakes (not literally, that would kill the auld fellow) and arrives at the castle of his broke as a joke nephew… only to find it has been converted to a hotel

Continue reading →
Jul 22, 2022