CategoryReviews
Honest horror reviews of films, series, games and books — no hype, no spoilers, just whether it is worth your time and your nerves.
3,432 stories
ForeignMoviesReviews
Five minutes into Beyond the Door you get narration from ol’ Satan himself, Jesus with tits n’ bush, a basic premise that manages to combine The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby, a funk song about the devil (which the musicians are told isn’t as good as their fap sessions), and a kid drinking mother fuckin’ Campbell’s soup straight from the mother fuckin’ can like a mother fuckin’ boss. I feel like “5 skulling” this bad bitch right here and now, but there is so very, very much more… Anyhow, Jessica (Juliet Mills) and her music producer beau Robert (Gabriele Lavia)… a man that loves reading about fish fucking and whom the children lovingly refer to as “asshole”… have found themselves with a new baby on the way, even though Jess is on the pill. Speaking of that finicky fetus, it’s growing at an accelerated rate and Jess is lossing her ever-lovin’ mind in various and sundry violent ways! Meanwhile that soup
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
A young couple moves into a house as suspended autumnal leaves hang in the air… and let me tell you cats n’ creeps, that is but one odd occurrence that’ll be plaguing these folks in the immediate future. Add to the mix a set of neighbors that definitely know there is some sort of shocking secrets within those wicked walls, a set of glowing eyes, a bizarre board game that reveals intimate details of the player’s lives… so yeah, odd to say the least… It’s that strangeness that runs throughout writer/director Matt Rasmussen’s The Leaves that makes this sinister short a wicked winner! Everything from the dialog, to the acting, to the narrative plays out like a fever dream. Hostilities rise and the possibility of other existences are explored while characters deliver lines that seem weighted with an arcane knowledge we as the viewer do not possess. All of the above gives the entire affair a style and flavor all
Continue reading →
MoviesReviewsShudderThriller
The central conceit of director Brad T. Gottfred’s Confessional is an updated, low-budget approach to the old chestnut of a mysterious host inviting people to a certain location and having them crack under pressure, or killing them — think The Beast Must Die (1974), The Cat and the Canary (1939), or Ten Little Indians (1965). In the case of Confessional, a group of college students come to a specially built booth that records their deepest, darkest secrets, to which they have been invited by an unknown host after the death of two mutually known fellow students. The film is an exercise that stays true to its technique, but it gets convoluted and has the issue of not presenting any characters for viewers to truly get solidly behind. Film student Amelia Lincoln (Mia Xitlali) and star swimmer Zach Turner (Brandon Larracuente) both die puzzling deaths. Seven students from their university are blackmailed by an unknown person into revealing what they know
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesNewsReviews
As elegant as it is disturbing, the indie horror film The Dinner Party invites viewers to witness a gathering they’ll never forget. From director and star Miles Doleac who co-wrote the film along with Michael Donovan comes the film that follows a playwright and his wife who have been invited to a dinner at a patron’s home. What the couple doesn’t know is that they’re on the menu. As always, Doleac’s films continue to please. The Dinner Party has an heir of sophistication and beauty but also the intensity and horror that will keep viewers intrigued. The cast of The Dinner Party includes Doleac, Jeremy London, Bill Sage, Sawandi Wilson, Lindsay Anne Williams, Alli Hart, and Mike Mayhall who did wonderfully in their roles, especially our heroine played by Hart who captures both innocence and strength. The Dinner Table takes a stab at the elite, bringing the thought that the affluent can get away with murder, and often do. It
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
This June Saban Films’ horror flick We Summon the Darkness will be unleashed on Blu-ray. From My Friend Dahmer director Marc Meyers comes this dark tale of satanic murder and mayhem. “On the way to a heavy metal concert, Alexis (Alexandra Daddario) and two girlfriends hear a news report of a local murder believed to be tied to a series of satanic killings. After the show, the girls invite three guys to join them at the estate owned by Alexis’s father, a fire-and-brimstone preacher (Johnny Knoxville). What starts as a party suddenly turns dark and deadly in this devilishly entertaining thriller.” Alexandra Daddario (Baywatch, San Andreas), Johnny Knoxville (Bad Grandpa, Jackass), Keean Johnson (Midway), Maddie Hasson (“Impulse”), Logan Miller (Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse), Amy Forsyth (Hell Fest) and Austin Swift (Live by Night) star in the film written by Alan Trezza (Burying the Ex). We Summon the Darkness, which we called “badass, bloody, and fun” in our review,
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
The one and only Izzy Lee (Innsmouth) is back with her latest short film Disco Graveyard; a stock footage soiree swan diving into a fever dream! Created in a punk rock, found art style, Disco Graveyard could be boiled down as such; it’s a commencement speech intended for the Children of the Damned. As each carefully selected image flashes before our putrid peepers, it is Izzy herself (if you’re keeping score at home; Lee wrote, directed, produced, and stars in this flick) that delivers strangely comforting platitudes (for example: “Don’t be dead, the dead are dumb. Be weird”) that espouse how it is a good thing to be a complete weirdo (a parable your’s cruelly surely takes to my lil’ ol’ black heart). Also on hand is an excellent score by Lee’s long-time composer Shayne Gryn, and some impressive editing courtesy of Michael J. Epstein (Blood of the Tribades). To sum it up, these are the words of wisdom folks
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
After rescuing the prez from the penal colony of New York city in John Carpenter’s 1981 masterpiece Escape From New York, grizzled anti-hero Snake Plissken (a returning Kurt Russell) finds himself on the opposite end of the nation in the fantastic future year of 2013. Of course shit has truly hit the fan in the West as well, and Snake finds himself on another suicide mission, this time involving the retrieval of a doomsday device stolen by the President’s unhinged daughter, Utopia (A.J. Langer), from deep within the bowels of L.A., which has become the new home for anyone the prez deems immoral. Before long S.P. is B.D. in maniacs, madmen, and other assorted lunatics united under the rule of revolutionary nut-job Cuervo Jones (George Corraface) who just so happens to have shacked up with Utopia! Now all Plissken has to do is stay alive, retrieve the device, and do it in a timely fashion before the disease the powers
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignIndieMoviesReviews
Skull and The Wanting Mare are part of Chattanooga Film Festival’s 2020 virtual edition, which runs May 22–25, and these films may be viewed anytime during those dates. For more information, visit chattfilmfest.org. Please note that the festival is open to residents of the United States only. Fest badges can be purchased at www.chattfilmfest.org/badges. Skull If a demonic monster/slasher mashup sounds right up your alley, don’t hesitate on catching Skull (AKA Skull: The Mask), a grue-filled, giddy romp that delivers action and carnage at a frenetic pace. This Brazilian fright flick centers on the excavated Mask of Anhangá — the executioner of Tahawantinsupay, a Pre-Columbian God — which viewers learn during a jaw-dropping cold open is a deadly false face, indeed. Police officer Beatriz Obdias (Natalia Rodrigues) gets tangled up with mysterious creep Tack Waelder (Ivo Müller of The Devil Lives Here) after a double murder in which the killer ripped out the victims’ hearts, because Waelder wants the mask
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsThriller
The Fanatic…where do I start? John Travolta stars as “Moose”, an autistic man who collects autographs and movie memorabilia. Obsessed with actor Hunter Dubar (Devon Sawa), “Moose” will stop at nothing to get close to his favorite actor. Travolta, rocking a terrible mullet, mimics what I assume he thinks is the way an autistic man would talk and act. Within the first few minutes I felt gross just for watching it. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not the fact that Travolta impersonates an autistic person, it’s the way that he did it. It just feels off and it is extremely one dimensional. For example, Leonardo Di Caprio in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape was brilliant. That’s how that’s done. Written and directed by Fred Durst (yes, that Fred Durst, the one from Limp Bizkit) the movie left me wondering what Durst’s original vision was and if this is close. Maybe he did it all for the nooky. Sorry, that was
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
Let’s face it when a movie gets a lot of hype ahead of its release we usually find ourselves left disappointed. That is not the case with writer-director Brandon Christenson and co-writer Colin Minihan’s spooky AF film Z. I was not prepared for this frightening flick. I was expecting a decent movie, but Z is so much more. I’ve been a horror fan for so long that I’ve become pretty jaded, but Z reminded me of why I fell in love with the horror genre in the first place. As horror fans, we are always in search of the next high, that moment when we feel like our heart will jump out of our chest, the times when we flinch in fear and are left with thoughts of a story swimming around in our heads. Z does that. The film follows a family whose son has become dangerous. He blames everything on his invisible friend Z, but it doesn’t take
Continue reading →
More from Reviews
ForeignMoviesReviews
Five minutes into Beyond the Door you get narration from ol’ Satan himself, Jesus with tits n’ bush, a basic premise that manages to combine The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby, a funk song about the devil (which the musicians are told isn’t as good as their fap sessions), and a kid drinking mother fuckin’ Campbell’s soup straight from the mother fuckin’ can like a mother fuckin’ boss. I feel like “5 skulling” this bad bitch right here and now, but there is so very, very much more… Anyhow, Jessica (Juliet Mills) and her music producer beau Robert (Gabriele Lavia)… a man that loves reading about fish fucking and whom the children lovingly refer to as “asshole”… have found themselves with a new baby on the way, even though Jess is on the pill. Speaking of that finicky fetus, it’s growing at an accelerated rate and Jess is lossing her ever-lovin’ mind in various and sundry violent ways! Meanwhile that soup
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
A young couple moves into a house as suspended autumnal leaves hang in the air… and let me tell you cats n’ creeps, that is but one odd occurrence that’ll be plaguing these folks in the immediate future. Add to the mix a set of neighbors that definitely know there is some sort of shocking secrets within those wicked walls, a set of glowing eyes, a bizarre board game that reveals intimate details of the player’s lives… so yeah, odd to say the least… It’s that strangeness that runs throughout writer/director Matt Rasmussen’s The Leaves that makes this sinister short a wicked winner! Everything from the dialog, to the acting, to the narrative plays out like a fever dream. Hostilities rise and the possibility of other existences are explored while characters deliver lines that seem weighted with an arcane knowledge we as the viewer do not possess. All of the above gives the entire affair a style and flavor all
Continue reading →
MoviesReviewsShudderThriller
The central conceit of director Brad T. Gottfred’s Confessional is an updated, low-budget approach to the old chestnut of a mysterious host inviting people to a certain location and having them crack under pressure, or killing them — think The Beast Must Die (1974), The Cat and the Canary (1939), or Ten Little Indians (1965). In the case of Confessional, a group of college students come to a specially built booth that records their deepest, darkest secrets, to which they have been invited by an unknown host after the death of two mutually known fellow students. The film is an exercise that stays true to its technique, but it gets convoluted and has the issue of not presenting any characters for viewers to truly get solidly behind. Film student Amelia Lincoln (Mia Xitlali) and star swimmer Zach Turner (Brandon Larracuente) both die puzzling deaths. Seven students from their university are blackmailed by an unknown person into revealing what they know
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesNewsReviews
As elegant as it is disturbing, the indie horror film The Dinner Party invites viewers to witness a gathering they’ll never forget. From director and star Miles Doleac who co-wrote the film along with Michael Donovan comes the film that follows a playwright and his wife who have been invited to a dinner at a patron’s home. What the couple doesn’t know is that they’re on the menu. As always, Doleac’s films continue to please. The Dinner Party has an heir of sophistication and beauty but also the intensity and horror that will keep viewers intrigued. The cast of The Dinner Party includes Doleac, Jeremy London, Bill Sage, Sawandi Wilson, Lindsay Anne Williams, Alli Hart, and Mike Mayhall who did wonderfully in their roles, especially our heroine played by Hart who captures both innocence and strength. The Dinner Table takes a stab at the elite, bringing the thought that the affluent can get away with murder, and often do. It
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
This June Saban Films’ horror flick We Summon the Darkness will be unleashed on Blu-ray. From My Friend Dahmer director Marc Meyers comes this dark tale of satanic murder and mayhem. “On the way to a heavy metal concert, Alexis (Alexandra Daddario) and two girlfriends hear a news report of a local murder believed to be tied to a series of satanic killings. After the show, the girls invite three guys to join them at the estate owned by Alexis’s father, a fire-and-brimstone preacher (Johnny Knoxville). What starts as a party suddenly turns dark and deadly in this devilishly entertaining thriller.” Alexandra Daddario (Baywatch, San Andreas), Johnny Knoxville (Bad Grandpa, Jackass), Keean Johnson (Midway), Maddie Hasson (“Impulse”), Logan Miller (Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse), Amy Forsyth (Hell Fest) and Austin Swift (Live by Night) star in the film written by Alan Trezza (Burying the Ex). We Summon the Darkness, which we called “badass, bloody, and fun” in our review,
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
The one and only Izzy Lee (Innsmouth) is back with her latest short film Disco Graveyard; a stock footage soiree swan diving into a fever dream! Created in a punk rock, found art style, Disco Graveyard could be boiled down as such; it’s a commencement speech intended for the Children of the Damned. As each carefully selected image flashes before our putrid peepers, it is Izzy herself (if you’re keeping score at home; Lee wrote, directed, produced, and stars in this flick) that delivers strangely comforting platitudes (for example: “Don’t be dead, the dead are dumb. Be weird”) that espouse how it is a good thing to be a complete weirdo (a parable your’s cruelly surely takes to my lil’ ol’ black heart). Also on hand is an excellent score by Lee’s long-time composer Shayne Gryn, and some impressive editing courtesy of Michael J. Epstein (Blood of the Tribades). To sum it up, these are the words of wisdom folks
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
After rescuing the prez from the penal colony of New York city in John Carpenter’s 1981 masterpiece Escape From New York, grizzled anti-hero Snake Plissken (a returning Kurt Russell) finds himself on the opposite end of the nation in the fantastic future year of 2013. Of course shit has truly hit the fan in the West as well, and Snake finds himself on another suicide mission, this time involving the retrieval of a doomsday device stolen by the President’s unhinged daughter, Utopia (A.J. Langer), from deep within the bowels of L.A., which has become the new home for anyone the prez deems immoral. Before long S.P. is B.D. in maniacs, madmen, and other assorted lunatics united under the rule of revolutionary nut-job Cuervo Jones (George Corraface) who just so happens to have shacked up with Utopia! Now all Plissken has to do is stay alive, retrieve the device, and do it in a timely fashion before the disease the powers
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignIndieMoviesReviews
Skull and The Wanting Mare are part of Chattanooga Film Festival’s 2020 virtual edition, which runs May 22–25, and these films may be viewed anytime during those dates. For more information, visit chattfilmfest.org. Please note that the festival is open to residents of the United States only. Fest badges can be purchased at www.chattfilmfest.org/badges. Skull If a demonic monster/slasher mashup sounds right up your alley, don’t hesitate on catching Skull (AKA Skull: The Mask), a grue-filled, giddy romp that delivers action and carnage at a frenetic pace. This Brazilian fright flick centers on the excavated Mask of Anhangá — the executioner of Tahawantinsupay, a Pre-Columbian God — which viewers learn during a jaw-dropping cold open is a deadly false face, indeed. Police officer Beatriz Obdias (Natalia Rodrigues) gets tangled up with mysterious creep Tack Waelder (Ivo Müller of The Devil Lives Here) after a double murder in which the killer ripped out the victims’ hearts, because Waelder wants the mask
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsThriller
The Fanatic…where do I start? John Travolta stars as “Moose”, an autistic man who collects autographs and movie memorabilia. Obsessed with actor Hunter Dubar (Devon Sawa), “Moose” will stop at nothing to get close to his favorite actor. Travolta, rocking a terrible mullet, mimics what I assume he thinks is the way an autistic man would talk and act. Within the first few minutes I felt gross just for watching it. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not the fact that Travolta impersonates an autistic person, it’s the way that he did it. It just feels off and it is extremely one dimensional. For example, Leonardo Di Caprio in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape was brilliant. That’s how that’s done. Written and directed by Fred Durst (yes, that Fred Durst, the one from Limp Bizkit) the movie left me wondering what Durst’s original vision was and if this is close. Maybe he did it all for the nooky. Sorry, that was
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
Let’s face it when a movie gets a lot of hype ahead of its release we usually find ourselves left disappointed. That is not the case with writer-director Brandon Christenson and co-writer Colin Minihan’s spooky AF film Z. I was not prepared for this frightening flick. I was expecting a decent movie, but Z is so much more. I’ve been a horror fan for so long that I’ve become pretty jaded, but Z reminded me of why I fell in love with the horror genre in the first place. As horror fans, we are always in search of the next high, that moment when we feel like our heart will jump out of our chest, the times when we flinch in fear and are left with thoughts of a story swimming around in our heads. Z does that. The film follows a family whose son has become dangerous. He blames everything on his invisible friend Z, but it doesn’t take
Continue reading →