Reviews

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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Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews

Spoiler-Free Review: “House of Sayuri” (Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival)

If you watch J-horror, you have likely heard of director Kôji Shiraishi. He has 95 directing credits on IMDB, with his most well-known film to Western audiences perhaps being the 2016 phantom face-off Sadako vs. Kayako. With his latest feature House of Sayuri (AKA Sayuri; Japan, 2024), he pulls off remarkable magic with tonal shifts to deliver a wholly satisfying haunted house spookfest. Head of the household Akio Kamiki (Sen Kajihara) has worked hard to move his wife, three children, and parents from a cramped city apartment into a spacious house all their own. Alas, the angry spirit of Sayuri, a girl who was murdered there, isn’t as happy about the situation as the new residents, and she would just as soon see them dead. Teen son Norio (Ryoka Minamide), his grandmother who suffers from dementia (Toshie Negishi), and his new school friend Sumida (Hana Kondo) — who happens to have a special sense about supernatural occurrences — need to

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Joseph Perry

Jul 15, 2024

ForeignMoviesReviews

Box Set Review: Danza Macabra Volume 2 – Severin 4K/Blu-ray

Remember way back to like last year when Severin released their collection of Italian Gothic fright flicks in a handy box set called Danza Macabra? Well, they went and released a second volume (and because I’m woefully behind, a third set as well… review coming soon) so lets do the film by film bag, shall we? First up is Antonio Margheriti’s (Yor: The Hunter From the Future) and Sergio Corbucci’s (1966’s Django) Castle of Blood from 1964, doubtless an answer to then-popular Edgar Alan Poe adaptations coming from legendary producer Roger Corman… hell, Poe even appears as a character in this very narrative (played by The Bloodstained Butterfly’s Silvano Tranquilli)! Speaking of Poe as we are, he’s balls deep into describing the final act of his story Berenice to his chum Lord Thomas Blackwood (Umberto Raho, The Last Man on Earth) when they are joined by journalist Alan Foster (Georges Rivière) who believes that the supernatural is a load of

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DanXIII

Jul 13, 2024

Reviews

Maxxxine’s Star Dims in the Third Act – Mia Goth Shines Throughout!

The third film in Ti West’s trilogy, MAXXXINE, starring Mia Goth (as Maxine), Kevin Bacon, and Simon Prast, was… okay. It’s wonderfully shot, with a slick, totally 80’s, neon noir vibe. I was intrigued, fully engrossed by the seedy underbelly of 1980’s Hollywood. There’s porn stars, cocaine, some cool kills, and a great soundtrack. I liked it – until it all fell apart in the third act. Slight spoilers ahead, but I won’t ruin the film. Maxine Minx is a long way from where we last saw her in “X.” Now a famous adult film star, and living in Hollywood, she finally lands a role in an upcoming horror movie. When her friends become the latest victims of a serial killer stalking the area, she runs into a shady, slick talking P.I., played by Kevin Bacon, who threatens to reveal her murderous past. Of course, as we all know, it’s a very bad idea to threaten Maxine Minx. The set

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Joshua Scafidi

Jul 13, 2024

AdaptationBooksMoviesReviewsSci-Fi

Movie Review: Phantoms (1998) – Scream Factory 4K/Blu-ray combo

Hey, it’s Joe Chappelle’s (Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers) adaptation of horror author Dean R. Koontz’s (who also wrote the screenplay) Phantoms… a movie I have seen exactly once upon it’s release (now considerably more thanks to this review) and couldn’t get into (mostly because I was too busy making out with my ghoul-friend at the time). Now, some of you cats n’ creeps may only know this flick as the subject of a punchline in one of Kevin Smith’s anecdotal tales (although him making fun of anyone’s picture is the glassiest of glass houses considering the cinematic shits he’s delivered as of late), but at it’s core, Phantoms is a solid- enough supernatural shocker. M.D. Jennifer Pailey (Joanna Going) decides to bring her troubled sister Lisa (Rose McGowan, Scream, Planet Terror) on a sabbatical to the remote Colorado town she calls home, but as is the way, most of the town is dead… not like in a “slow

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DanXIII

Jul 11, 2024

Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsShort Films

Spoiler-Free Reviews: “Indera” and “Help, I’m Alien Pregnant” (Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival)

Indera (Malaysia, 2024) Although Malaysian horror Indera is, according to the official film description, “set against the backdrop of the violent Memali Incident in 1985,” director Ming Jin Woo’s feature should work fine for viewers with little-to-no prior knowledge of the event. Handyman Joe (Shaheizy Sam) does his best to raise his young daughter Sofia (Samara Kenzo) after her mother (Ashira Shafinaz) — who was also his wife — died in a tragic accident. Penniless and evicted, Joe takes on the position of caretaker for an older Javanese woman (Ruminah Sidek) who is raising three young orphans. The locals give the woman a wide berth for mysterious reasons. Fans of supernatural cinema should find plenty to be impressed with here, with top-notch performances from the main cast members, and although Indera contains some tried-and-true horror tropes, it puts an intriguing local flavor on matters, and Woo directs with a fine sense of building mystery and delivering chills. Help, I’m Alien

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Joseph Perry

Jul 11, 2024

ForeignMoviesReviews

Spoiler-Free Reviews: “Whale Bones” and “Six Singing Women” (Japan Cuts 2024)

Whale Bones (Japan, 2023) Horror-adjacent Japanese feature Whale Bones delivers social commentary about the fickleness, loneliness, and desperation of life on social media apps, along with a good deal of mystery. Salaryman Mamiya (Motoki Ochiai) is unceremoniously dumped by his fiancée. On the advice of a coworker, he uses a dating app to meet someone for a hook-up, who turns out to be a young lady named Aska (Ano, who also has a singing career). Aska commits apparent suicide in Mamiya’s bed, after which he attempts to bury her body in the woods — only to find it missing from the trunk of his car. Director Takamasa Oe crafts a vibe heavy on the unease as an increasingly paranoid Mamiya then encounters many people who are obsessed with Aska’s online life and are doing their best to learn why she hasn’t added new video posts for some time. The world of Whale Bones exists somewhere between the real, surreal, and

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Joseph Perry

Jul 11, 2024

GamingIndieParanormalProductReviewsSci-Fi

Game Review: ‘Lifeless Moon’

The moon is mysterious, true we’ve sent men to it and are planning to go back soon. Mystery awaits humanity but, what if, there’s something there, something man-made? That’s what Lifeless Worlds and Serenity Forge offer players in Lifeless Moon. Lifeless Moon puts players in the boots of an Astronaut on one of the Apollo Moon Missions. While exploring the moon with your crewmate, you discover a rip in space and time that sends you to another world, or are you still on the moon? Now, onto the game itself! when it comes to Lifeless Moon‘s controls, there is not a whole lot as the game is mainly exploration and platforming. One issue that annoyed me to no end while playing was the inventory and notebook mechanic, as from time to time the notebook’s pages seem to glitch. When it comes to the game’s sound, it’s OK but what I liked was the soundtrack even though at times the music

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Daniel S. Liuzzi

Jul 11, 2024

ForeignIndieMoviesReviews

Movie Review: Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein (1972) – Severin Blu-ray

Drac (Jess Franco regular Howard Vernon, who’s appearance here proves my words, as this too is a Franco flick) is back, and he’s doing his fang bang schtick on ye local comely lasses… an action that really sticks in the ass of Dr. Jonathan Seward (Alberto Dalbés)… here filling the traditional Van Helsing role… so much so that he takes a carriage ride to Dracula’s castle and straight up stakes the mother sucker turning him into an ex-bat! Well, nightmare over… right? Wrong. Before the pillow is even cold, Dr. Frankenstein (Dennis Price, who would return to the role in Franco’s The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein a year later in 1973), and his unfortunately horny assistant Morpho (Luis Barboo) slide their asses on into the castle, and immediately reawaken the Doctor’s Monster (Fernando Bilbao) whom they’ve conveniently brought along. Said Monster then ambles into town and abducts a showgirl (who’s eventual corpse is the only thing to quench Morpho’s unholy

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DanXIII

Jul 10, 2024

IndieMoviesReviewsThriller

Movie Review: Tormented (1960) – Film Masters Blu-ray

Apparent chick magnet Tom Stewart (Richard Carlson, The Creature From the Black Lagoon) is a jazz musician who just got a slight crimp in his plans to marry his fiancée Meg Hubbard (Lugene Sanders) in the form of jealous ex-lover Vi (Juli Reding), who shows up at a lighthouse next to Tom’s Cape Cod residence and informs his ass there is no way she is letting him get hitched. Things start coming up Tom when Vi falls to her death from the lighthouse, and although he could easily save her life Tom watches her plummet to the icy waters below. Well, problem fuckin’ solved I guess… Of course Tom’s shitty ways soon catch up with him, as the preternatural goings-on begin to mount, which isn’t helped much by the lore spun by the locals that only accentuates the supernatural shenanigans experienced by our hero… unnatural events that leads one to believe Vi is back from the dead and ready to

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DanXIII

Jul 5, 2024

AdaptationBooksComic Books/Graphic NovelsIndieMoviesReviewsSci-Fi

Movie Review: The Guyver (1991) – Unearthed 4K/Blu-ray/CD combo

So dig this; in prehistoric times aliens visited the Earth and created mankind along with a race of monstrous mutants named Zoanoids. They also created a way of destroying the Zoanoids called a Guyver unit; a suit of bio-mechanic armor that encases it’s user from head to toe and gives them amazing ability as well as deadly weaponry. We learn this via on screen text before we cut to a scientist named Dr. Tetsu Segawa (Greg Joung Paik) haulin’ ass away from the Chronos Corporation, pilfered items in tow… items he hides before turning into a fish monster and battling Chronos’ security goons, who’s ranks include Jimmy “JJ” Walker (from beloved ’70s television sitcom Good Times… and yes, he says “Dy-no-mite” in the film at least once, and raps throughout) and The Hills Have Eyes‘ Michael Berryman. As if it isn’t strange enough, Berryman’s character Lisker… in truth a Zoanoid, as are all the Chronos cronies… turns into a monster

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DanXIII

Jul 5, 2024

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