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.

3,462 stories
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: He Came from the Swamp: The William Grefé Collection (1966 – 1977)

Exploding from the Everglades of Florida comes William Grefé; a dude that has directed an impressive array of schlock… but alas schlock I’ve never set my eerie eyeballs on. That’s something I aim to fix right quick… and what better way to do it than with the new Blu-ray collection from Arrow Video (along with MVD Entertainment); He Came from the Swamp: The William Grefé Collection! Disc one begins with the creature feature Sting of Death (1966), and what a doozy this putrid picture is my cats n’ creeps! College gal Karen (Valerie Hawkins) spends her vacay visiting her marine biologist father (Jack Nagle, who possesses a seemingly magic headwound that grows and shrinks throughout the picture) in his remote island laboratory cum home deep in the Florida Everglades, along with her cadre of comely female friends. Everything is absolutely keen as beers are downed and everyone gets their collective rocks off doing the hot new dance craze “The Jellyfish”,

Continue reading →
Feb 7, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: “Reunion”

Familial horror has been a hot subgenre the past few years, and the New Zealand chiller Reunion is a fine entry into that category. Although the film is rich with the dark arts and the supernatural, it is bolstered by fine drama with performances focusing on a highly tense mother-and-daughter relationship and a secret that threatens to drive their troubled family even further apart. Ellie (Emma Draper), heavily pregnant and recently separated from her abusive fiancé, returns to her childhood home — fittingly, a large, dark gothic dwelling — after her grandparents pass away to finish a book she is writing about science and the occult. Unbeknownst to her, her estranged mother Ivy (Julia Ormond) is there, ostensibly to work on preparing the house for appraisal while taking care of family patriarch Jack (John Bach), who is suffering from dementia. Ellie’s old flame Gus (Cohen Holloway) is doing restoration work on the house. Ellie and Ivy are at odds from

Continue reading →
Feb 6, 2021
Horror Fuel

Short Film Review: The Ghost of Weatherton Hall (2021)

Under perpetually dark, and oft times stormy skies, sits Weatherton Hall; the former Gothic abode of a clan of aristocratic misanthropes and know the dread dwelling of paranormal perils that gather in the dark shadows of the walls of the manse. We soon learn of the source of the festering malignancy; one of the lords of the arcane abode (himself a rather vampiric fellow) decides his sister must be put to an end for her cruelty and does the act one winters night via the cruel blade of an axe! Utilizing an impressive array of authentic props, elaborate miniatures, silent film techniques, and puppetry (which will bring to mind the ghostly glory of the old ViewMaster Dracula reels… ans that is a wickedly wonderful thing indeed my cats n’ creeps!); writer/director Mark Dickinson has truly created a bite-sized monsterpiece that is a feast for the eerie eyeballs through and through! As our marionette cast (created by the artisans at Czech

Continue reading →
Feb 6, 2021
Horror Fuel

‘Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood’ Game Review

If I told you there’s a game about environmentalist werewolves that fight big oil/pharma, you would say that I’ve strolled too long on the dark web, well guess what, there is a game like that, and thanks to the folks at Cyanide Studios and Nacon have brought the tabletop RPG by World of Darkness and White Wolf Publishing to life in the game Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood. Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood is based on the tabletop RPG from the 90’s that takes players to a world where spirits affect worldly events and from the shadows are the Garou, a race of werewolves who fight to keep the order and balance but have their work cut out for them as one of these spiritual forces known as the Wyrm has become hell-bent on the complete and utter destruction of the world and influences corporations such as the fossil fuel industry. In Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood the story follows

Continue reading →
Feb 4, 2021
Advertisement
Charlotte Kirk Set to Star in Neil Marshall's Cat-and-Mouse Horror-Thriller 'The Spiral Down'

Movie Review: Neil Marshall’s ‘The Reckoning’ Will Cast A Spell On You

Neil Marshall is a name you should be very familiar with. He’s the director behind movies such as The Descent, Dog Soldiers, and Tales of Halloween. He’s back with a new film, The Reckoning. Set in England in the late 17th century, the Great Plague is raging as the witch trials cause hysteria, people begin to fear their friends, neighbors, and family, may be witches. During this time in history in real life, over 1,000 innocent people were imprisoned, tortured, and killed with ninety percent of the victims being women. All it took was a whisper for these people to be condemned. This is a key element in The Reckoning. In the opening scene, we see Grace (Charlotte Kirk), an exhausted mother kiss her baby before retrieving a sword from a chest. Struggling, she drags the Scottish Claymore through the mud as she stumbles across her yard. That’s when we see him, her dear husband hanging from a tree. Clawing

Continue reading →
Horror Fuel

‘The Medium’ Is The Psychic Noir Horror You Didn’t Know You Needed

A big thank you to the hardworking folks at Bloober Team who came in clutch at the last minute to make this review possible, this game almost flew under the radar for me and I’m glad it didn’t! There are two sides to everything, even our world in The Medium. The Medium takes place in 1999 in Poland and players play as Marianne, a woman who has the gift of being a medium, someone who can communicate with spirits of the dead as well as those from the spirit world which she can travel to. Marianne is called by a mysterious man to go Niwa Workers’ Resort, an abandoned Soviet-era resort. Once Marianne enters the grounds of the resort, it becomes clear to her that something VERY wrong happened there. Now onto the game itself! The Medium’s controls, look, and feel is very reminiscing of the old school survival horror games, in this case, Silent Hill (which was a big

Continue reading →
Jan 31, 2021
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: The Mary Millington Movie Collection (1977 – 2015)

Mary Millington, the saucy queen of England’s swingin’ sexploitation (hardcore and otherwise) scene of the late ’70s/early ‘8os, set hearts a-flutter… and the crotch of men’s pants a-tightening… lived a mere 33 years, but her legacy continues to flourish… which brings us to the latest Blu-ray release from Arrow Video (along with MVD Entertainment); The Mary Millington Movie Collection! The Collection contains five main features; Come Play with Me (1977), The Playbirds (1978), Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair (1979), Queen of the Blues (1979), Mary Millington’s True Blue Confessions (1980), as well scads of extras, and the documentary Respectable – The Mary Millington Story (2015). Come Play with Me concerns two codgers (Alfie Bass and George Harrison Marks… the latter of which wrote, produced, and directed the picture), forgers by trade, who decide to lay low at a health facility… a facility packed to the brim with horny nurses! While not the star per se, Millington definitely stands out

Continue reading →
Jan 31, 2021
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Mean Man: The Story of Chris Holmes (2021)

Chris Holmes, the legendary guitarist on the first four studio releases from 1980’s shock-rockers W.A.S.P. (whom I bet more than one of you horror hounds out there were major fans of), and he of the vodka-drenched pool-set interview in Penelope Spheeris’ documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years gets the solo spotlight in the latest Blu-ray release from Cleopatra (along with MVD Entertainment); Mean Man: The Story of Chris Holmes! Immediately we learn Chris is alive and well (a miracle in and of itself), married, living in Southern France, and touring with his latest band Mean Man (for which he performs vocal and guitar duty). As we follow the band on tour we get to see a great slice of “life on the road”… but of course stories are soon told of Holmes’ tumultuous days in W.A.S.P., and his near constant battles with frontman Blackie Lawless (who both screwed him over constantly, and got him on

Continue reading →
Jan 30, 2021
Horror Fuel

Book Review: Flash Gordon: The Official Story of the Film (2020)

Back in December of 1980, my desire to see Flash Gordon was at an almost unbelievable level…and my parents blew my mind and agreed to drive me, and the prettiest girl in the second grade who agreed to be my date, many towns over (yes, I grew up in the literal middle of nowhere) to see the film… but mother nature had other plans; and a nor’easter (to those not in the know; Upstate New York has about 14 months of winter per year… at least it did back then) kept us in town, and Altman’s Popeye was what it had to be (and for the record, that is a charming film and a ton of fun… but it sure as hell isn’t Flash Gordon). Flash (pun intended) forward a bit to the traditional Sunday dinner at my grandparents, and after an amazing fried fish dinner courtesy of my Nana, we all gathered around the TV to catch the HBO

Continue reading →
Jan 30, 2021
Horror Fuel

4K Ultra HD Review: Tremors (1990)

Valentine McKee (Kevin Bacon) and Earl Bassett (Fred Ward) are two shit-kickin’ handymen kickin’ shit around the near non-existent desert town of Perfection. But all doesn’t stay broken fences and tumbleweeds for our heroes, as soon they are up to their asses in missing people, of which the town truly doesn’t have any to spare! The boys soon find out the culprit behind it all… the totally reasonable answer of giant mutant earthworms (nicknamed Graboids), as one would have surely guessed. Now it’s up to them, along with graduate geology student Rhonda LeBeck (Finn Carter) and survivalists Burt and Heather Gummer (Family Ties‘ Michael Gross and country-crooner/sit-com star Reba McEntire respectively) to save P-town and end that wicked worm menace once and for fuckin’ all! With it’s desert setting and ‘nature gone amok’ antagonists, you may make the assumption that the creators of Tremors may have been channeling the fright flick drive-in fare of the 1950’s when creating this putrid

Continue reading →
Jan 30, 2021

More from Reviews

Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: He Came from the Swamp: The William Grefé Collection (1966 – 1977)

Exploding from the Everglades of Florida comes William Grefé; a dude that has directed an impressive array of schlock… but alas schlock I’ve never set my eerie eyeballs on. That’s something I aim to fix right quick… and what better way to do it than with the new Blu-ray collection from Arrow Video (along with MVD Entertainment); He Came from the Swamp: The William Grefé Collection! Disc one begins with the creature feature Sting of Death (1966), and what a doozy this putrid picture is my cats n’ creeps! College gal Karen (Valerie Hawkins) spends her vacay visiting her marine biologist father (Jack Nagle, who possesses a seemingly magic headwound that grows and shrinks throughout the picture) in his remote island laboratory cum home deep in the Florida Everglades, along with her cadre of comely female friends. Everything is absolutely keen as beers are downed and everyone gets their collective rocks off doing the hot new dance craze “The Jellyfish”,

Continue reading →
Feb 7, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: “Reunion”

Familial horror has been a hot subgenre the past few years, and the New Zealand chiller Reunion is a fine entry into that category. Although the film is rich with the dark arts and the supernatural, it is bolstered by fine drama with performances focusing on a highly tense mother-and-daughter relationship and a secret that threatens to drive their troubled family even further apart. Ellie (Emma Draper), heavily pregnant and recently separated from her abusive fiancé, returns to her childhood home — fittingly, a large, dark gothic dwelling — after her grandparents pass away to finish a book she is writing about science and the occult. Unbeknownst to her, her estranged mother Ivy (Julia Ormond) is there, ostensibly to work on preparing the house for appraisal while taking care of family patriarch Jack (John Bach), who is suffering from dementia. Ellie’s old flame Gus (Cohen Holloway) is doing restoration work on the house. Ellie and Ivy are at odds from

Continue reading →
Feb 6, 2021
Horror Fuel

Short Film Review: The Ghost of Weatherton Hall (2021)

Under perpetually dark, and oft times stormy skies, sits Weatherton Hall; the former Gothic abode of a clan of aristocratic misanthropes and know the dread dwelling of paranormal perils that gather in the dark shadows of the walls of the manse. We soon learn of the source of the festering malignancy; one of the lords of the arcane abode (himself a rather vampiric fellow) decides his sister must be put to an end for her cruelty and does the act one winters night via the cruel blade of an axe! Utilizing an impressive array of authentic props, elaborate miniatures, silent film techniques, and puppetry (which will bring to mind the ghostly glory of the old ViewMaster Dracula reels… ans that is a wickedly wonderful thing indeed my cats n’ creeps!); writer/director Mark Dickinson has truly created a bite-sized monsterpiece that is a feast for the eerie eyeballs through and through! As our marionette cast (created by the artisans at Czech

Continue reading →
Feb 6, 2021
Horror Fuel

‘Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood’ Game Review

If I told you there’s a game about environmentalist werewolves that fight big oil/pharma, you would say that I’ve strolled too long on the dark web, well guess what, there is a game like that, and thanks to the folks at Cyanide Studios and Nacon have brought the tabletop RPG by World of Darkness and White Wolf Publishing to life in the game Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood. Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood is based on the tabletop RPG from the 90’s that takes players to a world where spirits affect worldly events and from the shadows are the Garou, a race of werewolves who fight to keep the order and balance but have their work cut out for them as one of these spiritual forces known as the Wyrm has become hell-bent on the complete and utter destruction of the world and influences corporations such as the fossil fuel industry. In Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood the story follows

Continue reading →
Feb 4, 2021
Charlotte Kirk Set to Star in Neil Marshall's Cat-and-Mouse Horror-Thriller 'The Spiral Down'

Movie Review: Neil Marshall’s ‘The Reckoning’ Will Cast A Spell On You

Neil Marshall is a name you should be very familiar with. He’s the director behind movies such as The Descent, Dog Soldiers, and Tales of Halloween. He’s back with a new film, The Reckoning. Set in England in the late 17th century, the Great Plague is raging as the witch trials cause hysteria, people begin to fear their friends, neighbors, and family, may be witches. During this time in history in real life, over 1,000 innocent people were imprisoned, tortured, and killed with ninety percent of the victims being women. All it took was a whisper for these people to be condemned. This is a key element in The Reckoning. In the opening scene, we see Grace (Charlotte Kirk), an exhausted mother kiss her baby before retrieving a sword from a chest. Struggling, she drags the Scottish Claymore through the mud as she stumbles across her yard. That’s when we see him, her dear husband hanging from a tree. Clawing

Continue reading →
Horror Fuel

‘The Medium’ Is The Psychic Noir Horror You Didn’t Know You Needed

A big thank you to the hardworking folks at Bloober Team who came in clutch at the last minute to make this review possible, this game almost flew under the radar for me and I’m glad it didn’t! There are two sides to everything, even our world in The Medium. The Medium takes place in 1999 in Poland and players play as Marianne, a woman who has the gift of being a medium, someone who can communicate with spirits of the dead as well as those from the spirit world which she can travel to. Marianne is called by a mysterious man to go Niwa Workers’ Resort, an abandoned Soviet-era resort. Once Marianne enters the grounds of the resort, it becomes clear to her that something VERY wrong happened there. Now onto the game itself! The Medium’s controls, look, and feel is very reminiscing of the old school survival horror games, in this case, Silent Hill (which was a big

Continue reading →
Jan 31, 2021
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: The Mary Millington Movie Collection (1977 – 2015)

Mary Millington, the saucy queen of England’s swingin’ sexploitation (hardcore and otherwise) scene of the late ’70s/early ‘8os, set hearts a-flutter… and the crotch of men’s pants a-tightening… lived a mere 33 years, but her legacy continues to flourish… which brings us to the latest Blu-ray release from Arrow Video (along with MVD Entertainment); The Mary Millington Movie Collection! The Collection contains five main features; Come Play with Me (1977), The Playbirds (1978), Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair (1979), Queen of the Blues (1979), Mary Millington’s True Blue Confessions (1980), as well scads of extras, and the documentary Respectable – The Mary Millington Story (2015). Come Play with Me concerns two codgers (Alfie Bass and George Harrison Marks… the latter of which wrote, produced, and directed the picture), forgers by trade, who decide to lay low at a health facility… a facility packed to the brim with horny nurses! While not the star per se, Millington definitely stands out

Continue reading →
Jan 31, 2021
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Mean Man: The Story of Chris Holmes (2021)

Chris Holmes, the legendary guitarist on the first four studio releases from 1980’s shock-rockers W.A.S.P. (whom I bet more than one of you horror hounds out there were major fans of), and he of the vodka-drenched pool-set interview in Penelope Spheeris’ documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years gets the solo spotlight in the latest Blu-ray release from Cleopatra (along with MVD Entertainment); Mean Man: The Story of Chris Holmes! Immediately we learn Chris is alive and well (a miracle in and of itself), married, living in Southern France, and touring with his latest band Mean Man (for which he performs vocal and guitar duty). As we follow the band on tour we get to see a great slice of “life on the road”… but of course stories are soon told of Holmes’ tumultuous days in W.A.S.P., and his near constant battles with frontman Blackie Lawless (who both screwed him over constantly, and got him on

Continue reading →
Jan 30, 2021
Horror Fuel

Book Review: Flash Gordon: The Official Story of the Film (2020)

Back in December of 1980, my desire to see Flash Gordon was at an almost unbelievable level…and my parents blew my mind and agreed to drive me, and the prettiest girl in the second grade who agreed to be my date, many towns over (yes, I grew up in the literal middle of nowhere) to see the film… but mother nature had other plans; and a nor’easter (to those not in the know; Upstate New York has about 14 months of winter per year… at least it did back then) kept us in town, and Altman’s Popeye was what it had to be (and for the record, that is a charming film and a ton of fun… but it sure as hell isn’t Flash Gordon). Flash (pun intended) forward a bit to the traditional Sunday dinner at my grandparents, and after an amazing fried fish dinner courtesy of my Nana, we all gathered around the TV to catch the HBO

Continue reading →
Jan 30, 2021
Horror Fuel

4K Ultra HD Review: Tremors (1990)

Valentine McKee (Kevin Bacon) and Earl Bassett (Fred Ward) are two shit-kickin’ handymen kickin’ shit around the near non-existent desert town of Perfection. But all doesn’t stay broken fences and tumbleweeds for our heroes, as soon they are up to their asses in missing people, of which the town truly doesn’t have any to spare! The boys soon find out the culprit behind it all… the totally reasonable answer of giant mutant earthworms (nicknamed Graboids), as one would have surely guessed. Now it’s up to them, along with graduate geology student Rhonda LeBeck (Finn Carter) and survivalists Burt and Heather Gummer (Family Ties‘ Michael Gross and country-crooner/sit-com star Reba McEntire respectively) to save P-town and end that wicked worm menace once and for fuckin’ all! With it’s desert setting and ‘nature gone amok’ antagonists, you may make the assumption that the creators of Tremors may have been channeling the fright flick drive-in fare of the 1950’s when creating this putrid

Continue reading →
Jan 30, 2021