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Thriller

Psychological thrillers, dark crime and slow-burn suspense — films and series that get under your skin without a single monster.

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Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Celebration of Fantastic Fest): The Boy Behind the Door

No exaggeration: The horror thriller The Boy Behind the Door, from the writing and directing team of David Charbonier and Justin Powell, is one of the most tense, gripping films I have seen in ages, and it had me squirming in my seat and shouting advice and encouragement at its young protagonists throughout the film. It’s a sure bet for my list of top 10 horror films of 2020. Bobby (Lonnie Chavis) and Kevin (Ezra Dewey) are best friends, preteen boys who harbor dreams of someday escaping their smalltown existence to go to a sunny place like California together. While tossing a baseball around in the woods, the two are abducted. Bobby escapes from the trunk of the car where he was left to die and starts to run away from the property where they were taken. Then he hears Kevin’s screams and breaks into the kidnapper’s house to try to rescue his friend. That’s all you should know in

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 3, 2020
Horror Fuel

Writing/Directing Duo Ruckus And Lane Skye Discuss ‘The Devil To Pay’

With the release of the southern gothic thriller The Devil to Pay, I sat down with the husband and wife writing, directing, and producing duo Ruckus and Lane Skye to talk about the film and their writing process. The Devil to Pay centers on an Appalachian woman named Lemon (Danielle Deadwyler) who must fight to save herself, her son, and her home after her husband disappears and a powerful family demands her husband’s debt be paid, or else. Horror Fuel: “I love the location you chose for your film. There’s just something about the mountains. And they also seem sort of like a character in the film. It’s great cinematography. How did you go about capturing that?” Ruckus: “We shot in Hiawassee, Georgia, about two hours north of Atlanta. It’s actually a pretty town. We had to erase some houses and powerlines out of the footage. It’s a little movie magic.” Lane:” We had a guy come in and do

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Oct 3, 2020
Horror Fuel

This October Witness ‘The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw’

Writer-director Thomas Robert Lee takes viewers on a dark journey filled with religious paranoia, horror, and revenge set against the autumnal palette of the harvest season in 1973 in The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw. The film explores the disturbing bond between Audrey, an enigmatic young woman, and Agatha, her domineering ‘mother’, who live secretly as occultists on the outskirts of a remote Protestant village. As the community is besieged by a pestilence of unknown origin: children, fields, and livestock begin to die — yet the Earnshaw farm remains strangely unaffected. As mass hysteria sets in the village, the townsfolk commence accusations against Audrey and Agatha of witchcraft. Catherine Walker, Jared Abrahamson, Hannah Emily Anderson, Geraldine O’Rawe, Don McKellar, and Sean McGinley star in The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw, featuring Jessica Reynolds in the titular role of Audrey Earnshaw. I wanted to tell a story about legacy, and to specifically explore it within the context of a folk horror narrative,”says writer-director

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Oct 1, 2020
Horror Fuel

Blu-Ray Review: The Silencing – Starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, best known for his role in “Game of Thrones,” stars as Rayburn, a reformed hunter who now manages a wildlife reserve named after his missing daughter in The Silencing, from director Robin Pront. While checking his game cameras he notices something odd, a man in a gili suit hunting a young woman. Quick to his feet, Rayburn heads out on a mission to save the woman (Annabelle Wallis) not knowing that it would be the first step in his journey to find the truth of his daughter’s disappearance. As you watch The Silencing, written by Micah Ranum, mysteries, crimes, murders, and motives unfold. While some have selfish motives to keep their silence and their distance Rayburn is relentless where his daughter is concerned. He is not giving up. When it comes to the movie’s villain, there’s a twist, which I won’t ruin for you. This isn’t some bumbling moron with a rifle. This killer is calculating, smart, well-armed,

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Sep 30, 2020
Horror Fuel

Road Rage Puts A Woman’s Life At Risk In ‘Unhinged’ – Starring Russell Crowe

Academy Award winner Russell Crowe stars in Unhinged, a timely psychological thriller that explores the fragile balance of a society pushed to the edge. Rachel (Caren Pistorius) is running late to work when she has an altercation at a traffic light with a stranger (Crowe) whose life has left him feeling powerless and invisible. Soon, Rachel finds herself and everyone she loves the target of a man who decides to make one last mark upon the world by teaching her a series of deadly lessons. What follows is a dangerous game of cat and mouse that proves you never know just how close you are to someone who is about to become unhinged. Solstice Studios and Ingenious Media present the Derrick Borte film that stars Russell Crowe, Caren Pistorius, Gabriel Bateman, Jimmi Simpson, and Austin P. McKenzie. Guy Botham, Crystal Bourbeau, Mary C. Russell, Christopher Milburn, Gareth West, Peter Touche, and Anders Erden serve as Executive Producers. Unhinged is produced

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Sep 30, 2020
Horror Fuel

Zac Efron Set To Star In The New ‘Firestarter’ Adaptation

Zac Efron (Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, The Greatest Showman) has signed on to star in Firestarter, the upcoming film adaptation of Stephen King’s classic sci-fi thriller, from Universal Pictures, Blumhouse, and Weed Road Productions. The film centers on a young girl who develops pyrokinetic abilities and is abducted by a secret government agency that wants to harness her powerful gift as a weapon. Keith Thomas (The Vigil) will direct the film that is being adapted by Halloween Kills writer Scott Teems who will also executive produce. Jason Blum and Academy Award® winner Akiva Goldsman will produce. Firestarter reunites Goldsman and Blum who have previously collaborated on the Paranormal Activity franchise. Martha De Laurentiis, who was an associate producer on the 1984 adaptation of Firestarter starring a young Drew Barrymore, will executive produce. Efron, who currently is the host as well as a producer for Netflix’s docu-series “Down to Earth,” is represented by CAA, Alchemy Entertainment, Viewpoint, and Felker,

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Sep 30, 2020
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Daddy’s Girl (2018)

Sick ticket John (Costas Mandylor) gets his rocks off by doin’ the sex with his step-daughter (if PornHub is to believed, so is everyone else in the known universe) Zoe (Gemma Dallender), who is kinda/sorta his prisoner, as well as an accomplice in his game of luring young women into his private torture chamber. Zoe acts as a sort of angel of death as well as she offers some victims a choice of suicide in lieu of her father’s abuse, though it’s possible she’s excited by setting up these scenarios rather than being altruistic. But soon deputy Scott Wallace (Jesse Moss) gets hip to their horror biz, but will he be able to stop the deadly duo before they kill again? Daddy’s Girl really caught me off guard, let me tell ya cats n’ creeps! What seems like your average, everyday torture porn affair ends up being anything but, as we delve into heady territory of gender roles and their

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 29, 2020
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: The Deeper You Dig (2019)

Ivy (Toby Poser, who also co-wrote and co-directed along with John Adams) is a psychic who has lost her supernatural spark, but the show must go on if her teen daughter Echo (Zelda Adams) is gonna eat, so she just kind of wings it going forward. Speaking of Echo, drunk driver Kurt (the aforementioned Adams) swerves to miss a deer and instead gets Echo under his wheels. This of course forces him to throw Operation: Save Ass into high fuckin’ gear, and he chucks Echo in the back of his truck and heads off to cover up his crime! With Echo missing, Ivy goes all-in on re-opening her third eye to solve the mystery… meanwhile ol’ Kurt is dealing with the vengeful ghost of Echo! The Deeper You Dig manages to convey both Ivy’s journey, and Echo’s horror biz in a way that makes for a film part tripped-out spirit quest, and full on ghost story supernatural shocker with neither

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 28, 2020
Horror Fuel

Bella Thorne Is Out For Revenge In The Thriller ‘Girl’

Screen Media announced today that they have acquired Chad Faust’s feature directorial debut, the thriller Girl, with plans to release the film this November following its premiere at Fantastic Fest. In the film, a young woman (Bella Thorne) returns to her small hometown to exact revenge on her abusive father, only to discover someone murdered him the day before. As the girl searches for answers, she soon finds herself prey to a sinister sheriff (Mickey Rourke) and discovers a family legacy more disturbing than she could have ever imagined. Faust also stars in the film alongside Bella Thorne (“Scream,” The Babysitter, The Babysitter: Killer Queen), Mickey Rourke (Iron Man 2, The Expendables, Sin City), Glenn Gould ( In Order of Disappearance, “Cardinal”), Lanette Ware (Taken, “The Wedding Planners”), and Elizabeth Saunders (“Alias Grace,” IT). The film is produced by Thomas Michael, Shayne Putzlocher, and Sara Shaak. It is executive produced by Jason Moring, Joe Ferraro, Dave Duckett, Jean Pierre Magro,

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Sep 24, 2020
Horror Fuel

One Woman Is Out To Serve Justice In The Revenge Thriller ‘Guilt’

I think we’ll all agree that pedophiles should be given harsher punishments, with the sorry excuse for humans frequently getting off light. But in directors Karl Jenner and Lyndsay Sarah‘s revenge thriller Guilt, one woman is out to serve justice. In the film, written by Sarah and Janet Shay, and starring Janet Shay, Hayley Flowers, and Sandra Stock, “angered by all the child abuse in the world, a child psychologist goes vigilante, targeting child sex offenders who escaped severe sentences.” Karl Jenner and Lyndsay Sarah produce alongside Cobalt Media, Digital Realm, and Rogue Entertainment. Guilt seeks revenge in now in select theaters and On Demand from GVN Releasing.

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Sep 23, 2020

More from Thriller

Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Celebration of Fantastic Fest): The Boy Behind the Door

No exaggeration: The horror thriller The Boy Behind the Door, from the writing and directing team of David Charbonier and Justin Powell, is one of the most tense, gripping films I have seen in ages, and it had me squirming in my seat and shouting advice and encouragement at its young protagonists throughout the film. It’s a sure bet for my list of top 10 horror films of 2020. Bobby (Lonnie Chavis) and Kevin (Ezra Dewey) are best friends, preteen boys who harbor dreams of someday escaping their smalltown existence to go to a sunny place like California together. While tossing a baseball around in the woods, the two are abducted. Bobby escapes from the trunk of the car where he was left to die and starts to run away from the property where they were taken. Then he hears Kevin’s screams and breaks into the kidnapper’s house to try to rescue his friend. That’s all you should know in

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 3, 2020
Horror Fuel

Writing/Directing Duo Ruckus And Lane Skye Discuss ‘The Devil To Pay’

With the release of the southern gothic thriller The Devil to Pay, I sat down with the husband and wife writing, directing, and producing duo Ruckus and Lane Skye to talk about the film and their writing process. The Devil to Pay centers on an Appalachian woman named Lemon (Danielle Deadwyler) who must fight to save herself, her son, and her home after her husband disappears and a powerful family demands her husband’s debt be paid, or else. Horror Fuel: “I love the location you chose for your film. There’s just something about the mountains. And they also seem sort of like a character in the film. It’s great cinematography. How did you go about capturing that?” Ruckus: “We shot in Hiawassee, Georgia, about two hours north of Atlanta. It’s actually a pretty town. We had to erase some houses and powerlines out of the footage. It’s a little movie magic.” Lane:” We had a guy come in and do

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Oct 3, 2020
Horror Fuel

This October Witness ‘The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw’

Writer-director Thomas Robert Lee takes viewers on a dark journey filled with religious paranoia, horror, and revenge set against the autumnal palette of the harvest season in 1973 in The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw. The film explores the disturbing bond between Audrey, an enigmatic young woman, and Agatha, her domineering ‘mother’, who live secretly as occultists on the outskirts of a remote Protestant village. As the community is besieged by a pestilence of unknown origin: children, fields, and livestock begin to die — yet the Earnshaw farm remains strangely unaffected. As mass hysteria sets in the village, the townsfolk commence accusations against Audrey and Agatha of witchcraft. Catherine Walker, Jared Abrahamson, Hannah Emily Anderson, Geraldine O’Rawe, Don McKellar, and Sean McGinley star in The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw, featuring Jessica Reynolds in the titular role of Audrey Earnshaw. I wanted to tell a story about legacy, and to specifically explore it within the context of a folk horror narrative,”says writer-director

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Oct 1, 2020
Horror Fuel

Blu-Ray Review: The Silencing – Starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, best known for his role in “Game of Thrones,” stars as Rayburn, a reformed hunter who now manages a wildlife reserve named after his missing daughter in The Silencing, from director Robin Pront. While checking his game cameras he notices something odd, a man in a gili suit hunting a young woman. Quick to his feet, Rayburn heads out on a mission to save the woman (Annabelle Wallis) not knowing that it would be the first step in his journey to find the truth of his daughter’s disappearance. As you watch The Silencing, written by Micah Ranum, mysteries, crimes, murders, and motives unfold. While some have selfish motives to keep their silence and their distance Rayburn is relentless where his daughter is concerned. He is not giving up. When it comes to the movie’s villain, there’s a twist, which I won’t ruin for you. This isn’t some bumbling moron with a rifle. This killer is calculating, smart, well-armed,

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Sep 30, 2020
Horror Fuel

Road Rage Puts A Woman’s Life At Risk In ‘Unhinged’ – Starring Russell Crowe

Academy Award winner Russell Crowe stars in Unhinged, a timely psychological thriller that explores the fragile balance of a society pushed to the edge. Rachel (Caren Pistorius) is running late to work when she has an altercation at a traffic light with a stranger (Crowe) whose life has left him feeling powerless and invisible. Soon, Rachel finds herself and everyone she loves the target of a man who decides to make one last mark upon the world by teaching her a series of deadly lessons. What follows is a dangerous game of cat and mouse that proves you never know just how close you are to someone who is about to become unhinged. Solstice Studios and Ingenious Media present the Derrick Borte film that stars Russell Crowe, Caren Pistorius, Gabriel Bateman, Jimmi Simpson, and Austin P. McKenzie. Guy Botham, Crystal Bourbeau, Mary C. Russell, Christopher Milburn, Gareth West, Peter Touche, and Anders Erden serve as Executive Producers. Unhinged is produced

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Sep 30, 2020
Horror Fuel

Zac Efron Set To Star In The New ‘Firestarter’ Adaptation

Zac Efron (Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, The Greatest Showman) has signed on to star in Firestarter, the upcoming film adaptation of Stephen King’s classic sci-fi thriller, from Universal Pictures, Blumhouse, and Weed Road Productions. The film centers on a young girl who develops pyrokinetic abilities and is abducted by a secret government agency that wants to harness her powerful gift as a weapon. Keith Thomas (The Vigil) will direct the film that is being adapted by Halloween Kills writer Scott Teems who will also executive produce. Jason Blum and Academy Award® winner Akiva Goldsman will produce. Firestarter reunites Goldsman and Blum who have previously collaborated on the Paranormal Activity franchise. Martha De Laurentiis, who was an associate producer on the 1984 adaptation of Firestarter starring a young Drew Barrymore, will executive produce. Efron, who currently is the host as well as a producer for Netflix’s docu-series “Down to Earth,” is represented by CAA, Alchemy Entertainment, Viewpoint, and Felker,

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Sep 30, 2020
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Daddy’s Girl (2018)

Sick ticket John (Costas Mandylor) gets his rocks off by doin’ the sex with his step-daughter (if PornHub is to believed, so is everyone else in the known universe) Zoe (Gemma Dallender), who is kinda/sorta his prisoner, as well as an accomplice in his game of luring young women into his private torture chamber. Zoe acts as a sort of angel of death as well as she offers some victims a choice of suicide in lieu of her father’s abuse, though it’s possible she’s excited by setting up these scenarios rather than being altruistic. But soon deputy Scott Wallace (Jesse Moss) gets hip to their horror biz, but will he be able to stop the deadly duo before they kill again? Daddy’s Girl really caught me off guard, let me tell ya cats n’ creeps! What seems like your average, everyday torture porn affair ends up being anything but, as we delve into heady territory of gender roles and their

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 29, 2020
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: The Deeper You Dig (2019)

Ivy (Toby Poser, who also co-wrote and co-directed along with John Adams) is a psychic who has lost her supernatural spark, but the show must go on if her teen daughter Echo (Zelda Adams) is gonna eat, so she just kind of wings it going forward. Speaking of Echo, drunk driver Kurt (the aforementioned Adams) swerves to miss a deer and instead gets Echo under his wheels. This of course forces him to throw Operation: Save Ass into high fuckin’ gear, and he chucks Echo in the back of his truck and heads off to cover up his crime! With Echo missing, Ivy goes all-in on re-opening her third eye to solve the mystery… meanwhile ol’ Kurt is dealing with the vengeful ghost of Echo! The Deeper You Dig manages to convey both Ivy’s journey, and Echo’s horror biz in a way that makes for a film part tripped-out spirit quest, and full on ghost story supernatural shocker with neither

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Sep 28, 2020
Horror Fuel

Bella Thorne Is Out For Revenge In The Thriller ‘Girl’

Screen Media announced today that they have acquired Chad Faust’s feature directorial debut, the thriller Girl, with plans to release the film this November following its premiere at Fantastic Fest. In the film, a young woman (Bella Thorne) returns to her small hometown to exact revenge on her abusive father, only to discover someone murdered him the day before. As the girl searches for answers, she soon finds herself prey to a sinister sheriff (Mickey Rourke) and discovers a family legacy more disturbing than she could have ever imagined. Faust also stars in the film alongside Bella Thorne (“Scream,” The Babysitter, The Babysitter: Killer Queen), Mickey Rourke (Iron Man 2, The Expendables, Sin City), Glenn Gould ( In Order of Disappearance, “Cardinal”), Lanette Ware (Taken, “The Wedding Planners”), and Elizabeth Saunders (“Alias Grace,” IT). The film is produced by Thomas Michael, Shayne Putzlocher, and Sara Shaak. It is executive produced by Jason Moring, Joe Ferraro, Dave Duckett, Jean Pierre Magro,

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Sep 24, 2020
Horror Fuel

One Woman Is Out To Serve Justice In The Revenge Thriller ‘Guilt’

I think we’ll all agree that pedophiles should be given harsher punishments, with the sorry excuse for humans frequently getting off light. But in directors Karl Jenner and Lyndsay Sarah‘s revenge thriller Guilt, one woman is out to serve justice. In the film, written by Sarah and Janet Shay, and starring Janet Shay, Hayley Flowers, and Sandra Stock, “angered by all the child abuse in the world, a child psychologist goes vigilante, targeting child sex offenders who escaped severe sentences.” Karl Jenner and Lyndsay Sarah produce alongside Cobalt Media, Digital Realm, and Rogue Entertainment. Guilt seeks revenge in now in select theaters and On Demand from GVN Releasing.

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Sep 23, 2020
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