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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ForeignMoviesReviews
Michele Soavi’s directorial debut Stagefright (AKA Aquarius; Italy, 1987) is already well known as one of the craziest entries in the slasher genre, and now it looks super thanks to Shameless Films’ terrific 4K restoration. The film combines giallo elements with the slasher approach and — a stage musical! Alicia (Barbara Cupisti of Soavi’s later directorial features The Church and Cemetery Man) is an actress in a destined-to-bomb musical called The Night Owl, which is about a murdered prostitute who comes back to life to rape the man who killed her. Things only get more lurid from here, so hang on as the musical’s director Peter (David Brandon) goes off on a megalomaniacal trip after Alicia sneaks off to a nearby hospital to have her sore ankle checked with wardrobe mistress Betty (Ulrike Schwerk) — it’s a psychiatric hospital, and the young ladies unknowingly bring back to the theater Irving Wallace (Clain Parker), a psychotic former actor who has killed
Continue reading →
GamingHoliday HorrorProductReviews
The gaming industry surely made up for lost time this year and horror games were among them. I’ve reviewed a lot of games this year and there were quite a few horror titles among them. going through my lists I picked out all the horror titles and broke down the list more to pick out games that were fun, had good scares, and were just overall good horror games. So without further ado, here’s the Top 5 Horror Games Reviewed in 2021 starting off from good and working our way up to best! 5: The Medium Bloober Team is no stranger to making good horror games but The Medium was on another level with its amazing artwork showing the world of the living and the dead through the eyes of a psychic. The game follows Marianne, a medium who visits an old soviet resort in 1999 Poland after being called upon to investigate. Marianne soon learns that something very wrong
Continue reading →
NetflixNewsReviewsStreaming TVTrailers
After nearly a two-year wait, season two of Netflix’s hit series “The Witcher” finally made its premiere earlier this month much to the joy of fans, including this one. The series picks up with monster slayer Geralt (Henry Cavill) fighting to protect his “Child Surprise” Princess Ciri (Freya Allen), who is now technically his daughter, from both monsters and men as she is hunted by multiple kingdoms who want to use her to claim her throne or to kill her because they are threatened by her immense power. Ciri is also the target of Geralt’s love interest Yennefer (Anya Charalto) who lost her powers in the first season. Yennifer aims to deliver Ciri to an ancient witch with the hope of trading her to get her powers back. The season we get a deeper story and we get more insight into the characters as well as into the world of Elves as they suffer and try to secure a new
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
Director Scott Cooper’s highly anticipated horror Antlers got hit with delay after delay but it is finally available on VOD. The question is, was it worth the wait? I will answer that in this review. The film centers on the 12-year-old boy Lucus, who after his father and brother come in contact with a mythological creature, a Windigo, is left to care for the two as they begin to morph into one themselves. After Lucus’ teacher notices signs of abuse she sets out to rescue the kid, not knowing what she’s about to face. Keri Russell plays the role of Julia, the teacher who is struggling with the memories of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father. When she recognizes the same signs in Lucus she will stop at nothing to protect him. While Keri did a fantastic job, the true star of the film is Jeremy Thomas, who plays Lucas. He is absolutely incredible. I have
Continue reading →
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Film FestivalsForeignIndieMoviesReviews
This year was an outstanding one for horror films making the film festival rounds, which is where I see most of my movies each year. Thankfully, many films are making it to wider release quicker than in the past — for example, my #1 film of 2021 is already available on VOD, and several of my honorable mentions are on streaming services or on DVD or Blu-ray. Keep the following films in mind because some of them just may be future favorites for you in 2022! 1. The Feast (Wales) Director Lee Haven Jones’ Welsh outing The Feast — a blend of folk, psychological, environmental, and supernatural horror — instantly became my favorite film of the year, regardless of genre, when I saw it as part of SXSW Online 2021 in March. In my Horror Fuel review, I said that The Feast is an “eerie slice of horror cinema that jangles the nerves and does a beautiful job of slowly
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Remember like 5 fuckin’ days ago (give or take) when I reviewed the first edition of Arrow Video’s new Giallo Essentials collections (that one dubbed “red”)? If not head here… All caught up? Peachy. Let’s dive in to the sinister selections present in round two… the “yellow” set (fitting as how “giallo” literally means “yellow”… but I’ll let you discover the German origins of that one on your own… ), if you will… First up comes 1974’s After a naked pregnant woman is found hung from the rafters in an attic (and not unlike an overcrowded submarine, she is packed to the gills with semen), Inspector Silvestri (Claudio Cassinelli) and Assistant District Attorney Vittoria Stori (Giovanna Ralli) spring into action. As the duo dig deeper they discover the victim was part of an under-age teenage prostitution ring whose “clients” (read: abusers) are some of your garden variety high society perverts. As the search widens, the bodies begin piling up…thanks to
Continue reading →
GamingProductReviews
Turtle Rock Studios is made up of the same folks who made the legendary FPS zombie kill fests Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 so when it was revealed that they were making Back 4 Blood you bet your ass I was excited as I played the hell out of the L4D games! So when I got the chance to review this game I was excited… then things went sour (more on that in a few). Unfortunately, things did not get better but I still want to thank Turtle Rock and Warner Bro Games for the opportunity for this review. Back 4 Blood follows a group of survivors known as Cleaners who venture out as a sort of kill squad that goes after the Ridden, people infected by parasitic worms that turn them into zombie-like creatures, with some mutating into monsters. Onto the game itself. When it comes to the controls they’re…OK. it’s your standard FPS control scheme
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
After we see a hairy-handed mystery figure commit murder by straight up throwing snakes at women, we get down to brass tacks with the main narrative of long-time Gamera series director Noriaki Yuasa’s 1968 supernatural shocker, The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch. Sayuri (Yachie Matsui) has lived most of her life in an orphanage, but that’s about to change as she is reclaimed by her estranged (emphasis on strange) family, and sent off to live with them which makes her pretty damn happy. That’ll change. You see, the family has secrets… even among themselves… for instance, Sayuri has a sister named Tamami (Mayumi Takahashi) that lives exclusively in the attic after her death was faked two years previous in a mental institution, where she was being treated for her snake obsession. Add to the mix Sayuri’s perpetually missing father, her mentally addled mother, and the governess that is supposed to be taking care of the children (yet she’s seldom
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
After a doozy of an opening sequence where a priest, Father George (David Brandon) hears a death row confession from a child murdering, bald headed follower of an evil deity known as Ameth as she’s led away to the electric chair followed by the ghosts of her victims, we get into the monstrous meat and putrid potatoes of Beyond Darkness. A priest, Peter (Gene LeBrock… the community theater Christopher Reeve with just a dash of Tom Cruise for funsies), and his family; wife Annie (Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan‘s Barbara Bingham), son Martin (that hospitality pissing mother fucker from Troll 2 himself, Michael Paul Stephenson), and their daughter Carole (Theresa Walker), a fart lovin’ girl that has a desire to dry her hair, but can’t remember the name of a hair dryer… you know what, Carole may have some sort of juvenile Alzheimer’s as she also can’t find her mouth in the dark… move into a house
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
Suicidal artist George Miller (Dennis Lipscomb, who gives the frowniest performance since Mark Frost in Brian Yuzna’s Faust: Love of the Damned) takes a swan dive off a tall building, but after a brief stay-over in The Who’s laser-light tunnel (previously utilized for fucking by Frank Langella in John Badham’s 1979 adaptation of that grand-pappy of all vampire whoppers, Dracula)… which is populated by a screaming, floating zombie head… our hero is revived and sent to stay in an institution. Once there he gets wellish (minus those nightmares where he’s a murderous lunatic) and soon returns to his apartment in the same shitty building he jumped off when this whole debacle began! So about those “nightmares”… George keeps getting involved with random people… and he makes them kill themselves with his newly-acquired glow-y green eyes and evil-ass voice… in-between attending a “welcome home” party in his honor where hookers and little people in fireman’s helmets cavort to records that were
Continue reading →
More from Reviews
ForeignMoviesReviews
Michele Soavi’s directorial debut Stagefright (AKA Aquarius; Italy, 1987) is already well known as one of the craziest entries in the slasher genre, and now it looks super thanks to Shameless Films’ terrific 4K restoration. The film combines giallo elements with the slasher approach and — a stage musical! Alicia (Barbara Cupisti of Soavi’s later directorial features The Church and Cemetery Man) is an actress in a destined-to-bomb musical called The Night Owl, which is about a murdered prostitute who comes back to life to rape the man who killed her. Things only get more lurid from here, so hang on as the musical’s director Peter (David Brandon) goes off on a megalomaniacal trip after Alicia sneaks off to a nearby hospital to have her sore ankle checked with wardrobe mistress Betty (Ulrike Schwerk) — it’s a psychiatric hospital, and the young ladies unknowingly bring back to the theater Irving Wallace (Clain Parker), a psychotic former actor who has killed
Continue reading →
GamingHoliday HorrorProductReviews
The gaming industry surely made up for lost time this year and horror games were among them. I’ve reviewed a lot of games this year and there were quite a few horror titles among them. going through my lists I picked out all the horror titles and broke down the list more to pick out games that were fun, had good scares, and were just overall good horror games. So without further ado, here’s the Top 5 Horror Games Reviewed in 2021 starting off from good and working our way up to best! 5: The Medium Bloober Team is no stranger to making good horror games but The Medium was on another level with its amazing artwork showing the world of the living and the dead through the eyes of a psychic. The game follows Marianne, a medium who visits an old soviet resort in 1999 Poland after being called upon to investigate. Marianne soon learns that something very wrong
Continue reading →
NetflixNewsReviewsStreaming TVTrailers
After nearly a two-year wait, season two of Netflix’s hit series “The Witcher” finally made its premiere earlier this month much to the joy of fans, including this one. The series picks up with monster slayer Geralt (Henry Cavill) fighting to protect his “Child Surprise” Princess Ciri (Freya Allen), who is now technically his daughter, from both monsters and men as she is hunted by multiple kingdoms who want to use her to claim her throne or to kill her because they are threatened by her immense power. Ciri is also the target of Geralt’s love interest Yennefer (Anya Charalto) who lost her powers in the first season. Yennifer aims to deliver Ciri to an ancient witch with the hope of trading her to get her powers back. The season we get a deeper story and we get more insight into the characters as well as into the world of Elves as they suffer and try to secure a new
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
Director Scott Cooper’s highly anticipated horror Antlers got hit with delay after delay but it is finally available on VOD. The question is, was it worth the wait? I will answer that in this review. The film centers on the 12-year-old boy Lucus, who after his father and brother come in contact with a mythological creature, a Windigo, is left to care for the two as they begin to morph into one themselves. After Lucus’ teacher notices signs of abuse she sets out to rescue the kid, not knowing what she’s about to face. Keri Russell plays the role of Julia, the teacher who is struggling with the memories of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father. When she recognizes the same signs in Lucus she will stop at nothing to protect him. While Keri did a fantastic job, the true star of the film is Jeremy Thomas, who plays Lucas. He is absolutely incredible. I have
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignIndieMoviesReviews
This year was an outstanding one for horror films making the film festival rounds, which is where I see most of my movies each year. Thankfully, many films are making it to wider release quicker than in the past — for example, my #1 film of 2021 is already available on VOD, and several of my honorable mentions are on streaming services or on DVD or Blu-ray. Keep the following films in mind because some of them just may be future favorites for you in 2022! 1. The Feast (Wales) Director Lee Haven Jones’ Welsh outing The Feast — a blend of folk, psychological, environmental, and supernatural horror — instantly became my favorite film of the year, regardless of genre, when I saw it as part of SXSW Online 2021 in March. In my Horror Fuel review, I said that The Feast is an “eerie slice of horror cinema that jangles the nerves and does a beautiful job of slowly
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Remember like 5 fuckin’ days ago (give or take) when I reviewed the first edition of Arrow Video’s new Giallo Essentials collections (that one dubbed “red”)? If not head here… All caught up? Peachy. Let’s dive in to the sinister selections present in round two… the “yellow” set (fitting as how “giallo” literally means “yellow”… but I’ll let you discover the German origins of that one on your own… ), if you will… First up comes 1974’s After a naked pregnant woman is found hung from the rafters in an attic (and not unlike an overcrowded submarine, she is packed to the gills with semen), Inspector Silvestri (Claudio Cassinelli) and Assistant District Attorney Vittoria Stori (Giovanna Ralli) spring into action. As the duo dig deeper they discover the victim was part of an under-age teenage prostitution ring whose “clients” (read: abusers) are some of your garden variety high society perverts. As the search widens, the bodies begin piling up…thanks to
Continue reading →
GamingProductReviews
Turtle Rock Studios is made up of the same folks who made the legendary FPS zombie kill fests Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 so when it was revealed that they were making Back 4 Blood you bet your ass I was excited as I played the hell out of the L4D games! So when I got the chance to review this game I was excited… then things went sour (more on that in a few). Unfortunately, things did not get better but I still want to thank Turtle Rock and Warner Bro Games for the opportunity for this review. Back 4 Blood follows a group of survivors known as Cleaners who venture out as a sort of kill squad that goes after the Ridden, people infected by parasitic worms that turn them into zombie-like creatures, with some mutating into monsters. Onto the game itself. When it comes to the controls they’re…OK. it’s your standard FPS control scheme
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
After we see a hairy-handed mystery figure commit murder by straight up throwing snakes at women, we get down to brass tacks with the main narrative of long-time Gamera series director Noriaki Yuasa’s 1968 supernatural shocker, The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch. Sayuri (Yachie Matsui) has lived most of her life in an orphanage, but that’s about to change as she is reclaimed by her estranged (emphasis on strange) family, and sent off to live with them which makes her pretty damn happy. That’ll change. You see, the family has secrets… even among themselves… for instance, Sayuri has a sister named Tamami (Mayumi Takahashi) that lives exclusively in the attic after her death was faked two years previous in a mental institution, where she was being treated for her snake obsession. Add to the mix Sayuri’s perpetually missing father, her mentally addled mother, and the governess that is supposed to be taking care of the children (yet she’s seldom
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
After a doozy of an opening sequence where a priest, Father George (David Brandon) hears a death row confession from a child murdering, bald headed follower of an evil deity known as Ameth as she’s led away to the electric chair followed by the ghosts of her victims, we get into the monstrous meat and putrid potatoes of Beyond Darkness. A priest, Peter (Gene LeBrock… the community theater Christopher Reeve with just a dash of Tom Cruise for funsies), and his family; wife Annie (Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan‘s Barbara Bingham), son Martin (that hospitality pissing mother fucker from Troll 2 himself, Michael Paul Stephenson), and their daughter Carole (Theresa Walker), a fart lovin’ girl that has a desire to dry her hair, but can’t remember the name of a hair dryer… you know what, Carole may have some sort of juvenile Alzheimer’s as she also can’t find her mouth in the dark… move into a house
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
Suicidal artist George Miller (Dennis Lipscomb, who gives the frowniest performance since Mark Frost in Brian Yuzna’s Faust: Love of the Damned) takes a swan dive off a tall building, but after a brief stay-over in The Who’s laser-light tunnel (previously utilized for fucking by Frank Langella in John Badham’s 1979 adaptation of that grand-pappy of all vampire whoppers, Dracula)… which is populated by a screaming, floating zombie head… our hero is revived and sent to stay in an institution. Once there he gets wellish (minus those nightmares where he’s a murderous lunatic) and soon returns to his apartment in the same shitty building he jumped off when this whole debacle began! So about those “nightmares”… George keeps getting involved with random people… and he makes them kill themselves with his newly-acquired glow-y green eyes and evil-ass voice… in-between attending a “welcome home” party in his honor where hookers and little people in fireman’s helmets cavort to records that were
Continue reading →
