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
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
How far would you go to save your child? That’s the question posed in writer-director Ivan Kavanagh’s horror-thriller Son. In the film, a young boy contracts a mysterious illness, experiencing horrific pain and seizures. His mother, Laura (Andi Matichak) must decide how far she will go to protect him from terrifying forces in her past. I can’t imagine how terrified Laura was throughout the film, but I do know how well Andi Matichak played the role. She really put her heart into making Laura feel authentic and the emotional chaos Laura experiences feels real. Laura is a strong character with an interesting and horrific backstory. She’s a character you can both find sympathetic and see her strength. And her character development was nicely done. As for detective Paul, Emile Hirsch had me fleeced up to the last moments of the film. I did not see that twist coming, and I should have and it was a great idea. Hirsch did
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieReviewsThriller
Ex-Vietnam vest/small time conman Bob Kowalski (Peter Winter) arrives down Athens way where he reconnects with his ol’ chum Ches Gilford (Hristos Nomikos); a real sufferer of what I like to call “Buckaroo Banzai Syndrome”… in other words he’s great at all sorts of rando and ridiculous things including karate, race car driving, and being a fuck toy for old rich broads (though his wandering eye and rampant horniness fuck that up six ways to Sunday right quick). Anyway, these two cats soon find themselves balls deep in capital “T” Trouble when they meet a woman named Geraldine Steinwetz (Jessica Dublin) and her looker of a daughter Christina (Maria Aliferi)… who just so happens to be a bonafide psychic. Long story short, ol’ Xtina witnessed a touh of the assassination biz ‘round aul Poland Towne, and Geraldine wants out two slacker heroes to watch over her. This leads to all manner of psionic shenanigans, busty assassins, clandestine organizations, raunchy synth
Continue reading →
Reviews
David Charbonier and Justin Powell are making waves as a cowriting/codirecting duo with their single-location cat-and-mouse horror thrillers. They made a big debut splash with last year’s excellent The Boy Behind the Door and have followed it up with their terrific supernatural sophomore effort The Djinn. In The Djinn, young Dylan Jacobs (Ezra Dewey), who is mute, has just moved with his radio personality father Michael (Rob Brownstein) into a new home after the death of Michelle (Tevy Poe), Dylan’s mother and Michael’s wife. The father and son are grieving Michelle’s loss, but their obviously strong bond is helping them work through matters. Dylan discovers a large tome entitled The Book of Shadows in a closet and tries out one of the spells contained in the book in hopes that it will grant him one of his fondest wishes. This unleashes the titular supernatural being, which can take on different human forms. Dylan must escape the djinn’s deadly wrath for
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsStreaming TV
I hold in my hand a copy of “The Alienist: Angel of Darkness“, which serves as the second season of the crime-thriller series from TNT, set to be released on May 18, 2021. Let me start with the box itself which has an almost metallic sheen and features an image of the three main stars, Daniel Brühl (Rush), Luke Evans (Midway), and Dakota Fanning (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), flanked by red wings dripping with blood. The box is quite beautiful and honestly, pictures don’t do it justice. It would make a fantastic piece for any collection. “Angel of Darkness” features eight one-hour episodes on three discs. The season picks up a year after the team’s first investigation where Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, a pioneer in forensic psychiatry, tracked down the brutal serial killer John Beecham with the help of a team of trusted companions and a revolutionary application of the principles of his discipline. Kreizler and his friends–high-living crime
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Affable, nonchalant, and totally sleepy-AF Hercules (Reg Park, in his debut in the role) sets sail (along with his son Hylas… who looks to be the same age as our star, and Timoteo the comedy-relief dwarf… who at the least is considerably shorter than our star) and to find out why the skies of Greece are occasionally redder than a baboon’s ass. One nasty storm later, and our heroes find themselves on an island where women are fused with stone walls, and within seconds Hercules has to tangle with a snake, a lion, a vulture, and a lizard man… like every other Tuesday. Anyway, Herc soon finds himself at the bee-hived mercy of Antinea the Queen of Atlantis (Fay Spain) who is making a race of eyebrow-less Aryan super-men thanks to a magic rock (which contains the blood of Uranus, which will undoubtedly prove to be a real pain in the ass)… do you people reading these things ever stop
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsIndieMoviesReviews
If you are in the mood for something decidedly different and altogether intriguing, give writer/director Alexander Roman’s neo-noir mystery The Black Market: San Francisco (ASMR) a whirl. It’s a modern take on classic mysteries using autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) elements to engage viewers deeper into the proceedings. Besides offering what the store name promises, San Francisco business O’Hara’s Art Gallery & Rare Books also sidelines in hot items and organ transplants. Elsa (Christina Ros) is the face of the retail business, and works the behind-the-scenes illegal businesses with Jess (Stevie Vallejo) and Ava (Max Reeves). When Jess’s father, ringleader Boss Joe (David L. Klein), finds himself needing an organ transplant quickly, he finds it isn’t easy locating a donor as forces work against him. Side plots include a retired judge turned writer and someone he sentenced to jail time, and a detective suspicious of the goings-on at the bookstore who takes a personal interest in Elsa. Briefly, ASMR is
Continue reading →
Amazon Prime VideoReviews
Plot This book in incredibly fun! But don’t be fooled by that, it is also a legitimate and scary horror. Based in 1994 and focusing on a tabloid magazine called Weekly World News, this plot has everything in it. It is scary, funny, gripping, entertaining, original, unique, fascinating and mysterious. The tabloid is the type of magazine that I used to always want to buy at the grocery store because the cover revealed a brand new sighting of Bat Boy or some other fantastical story…but what if one of those stories was true? The plot truly takes us on an adventure that starts out as a light-hearted creepy (albeit funny) tale, and dives quickly into the terror and fear that satiates even the most tough-skinned horror fan. Characters Dial M For…Mutants focuses on Buck and Betty. As usual, I won’t give you too much detail about the specifics in my review (I like laving that up to you as a
Continue reading →
GamingProductReviews
A big thank you to CAPCOM for making this review possible and allowing me to get the chance to head off into the village, what awaits me in Resident Evil: Village? Let’s take a Spoiler-Free look! Resident Evil: Village takes place after the events of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard where Ethan and Mia have settled down and have had a daughter, Rose, after moving to Europe. The peace is ruined when Chris Redfield comes takes Rose away. Ethan then wakes to find himself in a strange village where horrors and Rose awaits. Now onto Resident Evil: Village itself! It’s safe to say that if you have not played RE7 yet, you really should as it will get you up to speed story-wise as well as the controls. The controls in this game pretty much handle the same but there are some changes, good changes I’ll add, that’s a step up from the previous, I’ll go into that later. Graphics-wise, I’m
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
Why? that’s the new film from director Corbin Timbrook. I’ve got some thoughts, so bear with me as I try my best to express them properly in this review. Starring Natasha Henstridge (Species), Emma Bell (“The Walking Dead”), and genre staple Lance Henriksen (Aliens), Why? could best be described as a slasher. The story centers on a writer who takes off to a rental cabin, where she will stay until her boyfriend arrives a few days later not knowing she is being stalked by a killer. Where to start? You could say that some of the acting was decent (sometimes). But that’s about as far as the compliments are going to go in this review. Sorry. Here’s my problem with Why?, the entire time I was watching this movie I kept feeling like I have seen it before, then I realized, I had, sort of. If you took scenes and troupes from the main slashers, the classics, reshot them, and
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsThrillerTrailers
Chino Moya makes his directorial debut with Undergods, an anthology with a unique style of its own, is out this May from Gravitas Ventures. The official synopsis goes like this, “in a futuristic, post-apocalyptic world, K and Z roam the streets on the lookout for corpses and something even more valuable – fresh meat.” Several families linked by common elements. Undergods is laid out as stories told either by the two men or a father weaving a tale for his daughter at bedtime. While we learn much about the families, we only get glimpses into the post-apocalyptic world which I wish we would have learned more about. The bleak film is about family more than anything but not as you would expect. Most of the families are in turmoil and have elements of oppression, depression, and infidelity. Each segment comes off a bit strange, slow, and we are given no reason to feel empathy for the characters, they’re just unlikeable,
Continue reading →
More from Reviews
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
How far would you go to save your child? That’s the question posed in writer-director Ivan Kavanagh’s horror-thriller Son. In the film, a young boy contracts a mysterious illness, experiencing horrific pain and seizures. His mother, Laura (Andi Matichak) must decide how far she will go to protect him from terrifying forces in her past. I can’t imagine how terrified Laura was throughout the film, but I do know how well Andi Matichak played the role. She really put her heart into making Laura feel authentic and the emotional chaos Laura experiences feels real. Laura is a strong character with an interesting and horrific backstory. She’s a character you can both find sympathetic and see her strength. And her character development was nicely done. As for detective Paul, Emile Hirsch had me fleeced up to the last moments of the film. I did not see that twist coming, and I should have and it was a great idea. Hirsch did
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieReviewsThriller
Ex-Vietnam vest/small time conman Bob Kowalski (Peter Winter) arrives down Athens way where he reconnects with his ol’ chum Ches Gilford (Hristos Nomikos); a real sufferer of what I like to call “Buckaroo Banzai Syndrome”… in other words he’s great at all sorts of rando and ridiculous things including karate, race car driving, and being a fuck toy for old rich broads (though his wandering eye and rampant horniness fuck that up six ways to Sunday right quick). Anyway, these two cats soon find themselves balls deep in capital “T” Trouble when they meet a woman named Geraldine Steinwetz (Jessica Dublin) and her looker of a daughter Christina (Maria Aliferi)… who just so happens to be a bonafide psychic. Long story short, ol’ Xtina witnessed a touh of the assassination biz ‘round aul Poland Towne, and Geraldine wants out two slacker heroes to watch over her. This leads to all manner of psionic shenanigans, busty assassins, clandestine organizations, raunchy synth
Continue reading →
Reviews
David Charbonier and Justin Powell are making waves as a cowriting/codirecting duo with their single-location cat-and-mouse horror thrillers. They made a big debut splash with last year’s excellent The Boy Behind the Door and have followed it up with their terrific supernatural sophomore effort The Djinn. In The Djinn, young Dylan Jacobs (Ezra Dewey), who is mute, has just moved with his radio personality father Michael (Rob Brownstein) into a new home after the death of Michelle (Tevy Poe), Dylan’s mother and Michael’s wife. The father and son are grieving Michelle’s loss, but their obviously strong bond is helping them work through matters. Dylan discovers a large tome entitled The Book of Shadows in a closet and tries out one of the spells contained in the book in hopes that it will grant him one of his fondest wishes. This unleashes the titular supernatural being, which can take on different human forms. Dylan must escape the djinn’s deadly wrath for
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsStreaming TV
I hold in my hand a copy of “The Alienist: Angel of Darkness“, which serves as the second season of the crime-thriller series from TNT, set to be released on May 18, 2021. Let me start with the box itself which has an almost metallic sheen and features an image of the three main stars, Daniel Brühl (Rush), Luke Evans (Midway), and Dakota Fanning (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), flanked by red wings dripping with blood. The box is quite beautiful and honestly, pictures don’t do it justice. It would make a fantastic piece for any collection. “Angel of Darkness” features eight one-hour episodes on three discs. The season picks up a year after the team’s first investigation where Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, a pioneer in forensic psychiatry, tracked down the brutal serial killer John Beecham with the help of a team of trusted companions and a revolutionary application of the principles of his discipline. Kreizler and his friends–high-living crime
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Affable, nonchalant, and totally sleepy-AF Hercules (Reg Park, in his debut in the role) sets sail (along with his son Hylas… who looks to be the same age as our star, and Timoteo the comedy-relief dwarf… who at the least is considerably shorter than our star) and to find out why the skies of Greece are occasionally redder than a baboon’s ass. One nasty storm later, and our heroes find themselves on an island where women are fused with stone walls, and within seconds Hercules has to tangle with a snake, a lion, a vulture, and a lizard man… like every other Tuesday. Anyway, Herc soon finds himself at the bee-hived mercy of Antinea the Queen of Atlantis (Fay Spain) who is making a race of eyebrow-less Aryan super-men thanks to a magic rock (which contains the blood of Uranus, which will undoubtedly prove to be a real pain in the ass)… do you people reading these things ever stop
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsIndieMoviesReviews
If you are in the mood for something decidedly different and altogether intriguing, give writer/director Alexander Roman’s neo-noir mystery The Black Market: San Francisco (ASMR) a whirl. It’s a modern take on classic mysteries using autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) elements to engage viewers deeper into the proceedings. Besides offering what the store name promises, San Francisco business O’Hara’s Art Gallery & Rare Books also sidelines in hot items and organ transplants. Elsa (Christina Ros) is the face of the retail business, and works the behind-the-scenes illegal businesses with Jess (Stevie Vallejo) and Ava (Max Reeves). When Jess’s father, ringleader Boss Joe (David L. Klein), finds himself needing an organ transplant quickly, he finds it isn’t easy locating a donor as forces work against him. Side plots include a retired judge turned writer and someone he sentenced to jail time, and a detective suspicious of the goings-on at the bookstore who takes a personal interest in Elsa. Briefly, ASMR is
Continue reading →
Amazon Prime VideoReviews
Plot This book in incredibly fun! But don’t be fooled by that, it is also a legitimate and scary horror. Based in 1994 and focusing on a tabloid magazine called Weekly World News, this plot has everything in it. It is scary, funny, gripping, entertaining, original, unique, fascinating and mysterious. The tabloid is the type of magazine that I used to always want to buy at the grocery store because the cover revealed a brand new sighting of Bat Boy or some other fantastical story…but what if one of those stories was true? The plot truly takes us on an adventure that starts out as a light-hearted creepy (albeit funny) tale, and dives quickly into the terror and fear that satiates even the most tough-skinned horror fan. Characters Dial M For…Mutants focuses on Buck and Betty. As usual, I won’t give you too much detail about the specifics in my review (I like laving that up to you as a
Continue reading →
GamingProductReviews
A big thank you to CAPCOM for making this review possible and allowing me to get the chance to head off into the village, what awaits me in Resident Evil: Village? Let’s take a Spoiler-Free look! Resident Evil: Village takes place after the events of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard where Ethan and Mia have settled down and have had a daughter, Rose, after moving to Europe. The peace is ruined when Chris Redfield comes takes Rose away. Ethan then wakes to find himself in a strange village where horrors and Rose awaits. Now onto Resident Evil: Village itself! It’s safe to say that if you have not played RE7 yet, you really should as it will get you up to speed story-wise as well as the controls. The controls in this game pretty much handle the same but there are some changes, good changes I’ll add, that’s a step up from the previous, I’ll go into that later. Graphics-wise, I’m
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
Why? that’s the new film from director Corbin Timbrook. I’ve got some thoughts, so bear with me as I try my best to express them properly in this review. Starring Natasha Henstridge (Species), Emma Bell (“The Walking Dead”), and genre staple Lance Henriksen (Aliens), Why? could best be described as a slasher. The story centers on a writer who takes off to a rental cabin, where she will stay until her boyfriend arrives a few days later not knowing she is being stalked by a killer. Where to start? You could say that some of the acting was decent (sometimes). But that’s about as far as the compliments are going to go in this review. Sorry. Here’s my problem with Why?, the entire time I was watching this movie I kept feeling like I have seen it before, then I realized, I had, sort of. If you took scenes and troupes from the main slashers, the classics, reshot them, and
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsThrillerTrailers
Chino Moya makes his directorial debut with Undergods, an anthology with a unique style of its own, is out this May from Gravitas Ventures. The official synopsis goes like this, “in a futuristic, post-apocalyptic world, K and Z roam the streets on the lookout for corpses and something even more valuable – fresh meat.” Several families linked by common elements. Undergods is laid out as stories told either by the two men or a father weaving a tale for his daughter at bedtime. While we learn much about the families, we only get glimpses into the post-apocalyptic world which I wish we would have learned more about. The bleak film is about family more than anything but not as you would expect. Most of the families are in turmoil and have elements of oppression, depression, and infidelity. Each segment comes off a bit strange, slow, and we are given no reason to feel empathy for the characters, they’re just unlikeable,
Continue reading →
