CategoryReviews
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 FestivalsMoviesReviews
Director Jill Gevargizian’s sophomore feature Ghost Game is an effective offering that uses home invasion in a unique way and serves up some intriguing surprises. Vinny (Zaen Haidar) discovers some disturbing footage on his girlfriend Laura’s (Kia Dorsey) laptop — without her permission — in which she and a man named Adrian (Sam Likowski) botch a home invasion and injure a woman. Laura explains that it is a sort of filmed challenge called Ghost Game, in which the participants live in houses without being detected by homeowners — phrogging, as it is called — and prank them, leading the residents to believe that the supernatural is involved. And it just might be, as Vinny insists that Laura get rid of Adrian and take him with her instead to her next assignment: a long-abandoned, reputedly haunted house in which a family has just moved in. The stage for real ghostly occurrences is soon set, as young daughter Samantha (Vienna Maas), who
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesReviews
The Ceremony Is About to Begin (2024) Director Sean Nichols Lynch follows up his vampire comedy Red Snow (2021) with faux documentary horror The Ceremony Is About to Begin, which he cowrote with stars Chad Westbrook Hinds and John Laird. The film starts with black-and-white interview footage with former members of the Osiris Collective, a commune/cult based on ancient Egyptian culture, including each member taking on a name from that culture. The leader was a man named Father Osiris (Raul Delarosa), who disappeared mysteriously during a mountain hike with a new member who took the name Anubis (Hinds). Documentarian Keith Evans (Laird) has a very personal reason for wanting to interview the members of the Osiris Collective, as his ex-girlfriend Maddy (Michelle Westbrook Hinds) left him for the cult. Anubis, who took over leadership of the group and whose negative behaviors drove members away, invites Evans to the Collective grounds to conduct interviews. With the film having earlier changed to
Continue reading →
GamingProductReviews
Winner of the Official Selection category of Fear Fest Black Summer 2023, and scoring massive positive ratings on STEAM, Troglobytes Games, and 3D Realms’ dark management game The Kindeman Remedy has made its way to consoles to challenge a new wave of players to push science beyond its ethical limits! The Kindeman Remedy takes players to a prison where they take on the roles of Dr. Carl Kindeman, a disgraced doctor who is shunned by the scientific and medical community for his unethical research into a “Cure-all” medicine, and Sister Anna, a zealous Nun who wants nothing more than to free the inmates from their suffering by hand delivering them to the Lord. Now, onto the game itself! The Kindeman Remedy is a “Clicker” game, a point-and-click game where the characters only move or perform actions on something in the environment as long as you click on it with the curser. Surprisingly using a controller is not so bad. Audio-wise,
Continue reading →
ForeignHistoryMoviesReviews
It’s the 1600’s and things are looking rather shitty for local witches ‘round ol’ London-town thanks to Judge Jeffreys (the legendary Sir Christopher Lee (who has appeared in so many things, I’m just going to do this) who hates them as much as he does rebels against the King… which is to say a lot. I mean sure he’s still willing to fuck the witches (this is a Jess Franco film after all), but he’s just as willing to burn them alive (doubly so if they fail to put out). His presence makes life truly a pain in the ass for young Harry Selton (Hans Haas Jr.), a rebel engaged to a witch named Mary (Franco regular Maria Rohm, Marquis de Sade’s Justine, Venus in Furs to name a few), and when they are incarcerated the Joltin’ Judge may face a full-on revolution! Brimming with a large number of costumed extras, battle sequences, and some ornate sets, it’s obvious that
Continue reading →
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Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsThrillerTrailers
Red Rooms (Les chambres rouges; Canada, 2023) Pascal Plante’s French-language Canadian chiller Red Rooms deftly combines character study, psychological thriller, and courtroom drama. The film follows the obsession of two women with a serial killer suspect on trial for the gruesome murders of three teenage girls, which were broadcast for pay on the titular dark web outlet. Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy in a riveting performance) is a fashion model who sits in on the trial of accused murderer Ludovic Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos) at the Superior Court of Quebec. Sitting near her is Clementine (Laurie Babin), a young woman also obsessed with Chevalier, believing that he is innocent and being framed. The pair are accused of being groupies by the mother of a victim. Kelly-Anne is aloof and quiet, and she lets the talkative out-of-towner Clementine stay with her in her high-rise apartment. Kelly-Anne is also something of an expert on the internet, making large sums of money playing online poker and
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Russia, 1966: a lady, who has been fatally wounded, drives pell-mell onto a farmers property where she up and croaks… but the jeep she hauled ass in contains two other, very much alive, passengers… twin infants… Before you can say “What the fuck?” we flash forward 40 years and California-based film producer Marie Jones (Anastasia Hille, The Awakening) travels to Russia to seek answers about her true family after growing up with adoptive parents. Of course Marie is one of those twins mentioned up yonder, and soon she schleps her way to her ancestral home; a secluded, severely dilapidated, haunted-looking as all fuck, arcane abode which is home to a soggy, ghost version of Marie that appears from time to time. After some horror biz, our heroine discovers her long-lost brother Nicolai (Karel Roden, Hellboy, Orphan) has also made the scene, and together they begin to piece together the mystery of their past while dealing with the ghost versions of
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieMoviesReviews
Professor Alan Whitmore (Roland Wybenga) is sent to Budapest by the cadre of totally not up to no-good folks that funded the top secret Intextus project (which involves the interconnection of all religions or some such jazz), to check on a colleague who has not turned in his data on time. Said colleague appears to have gone completely insane, but it doesn’t matter much as he’s soon found hanging by his neck by spider webs… which turns a fact hunting trip into a murder investigation… a fucking real hum-dinger of one in fact… The longer Whitmore stays in town, the more sinister things become with dire warnings being delivered left and right, near constant mood setting thunderstorms… oh yeah, and the continuing murders… that’s some truly sinister shit. But all of that pales in comparison with the downright preternatural insanity that awaits as our hero continues the amateur sleuth biz! Will Whitmore solve the murderous, monstrous mystery, or will he
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
Our pals at Severin have unleashed a duo of wicked westerns from exploitation maestro Lee Frost (Love Camp 7, The Black Gestapo) and today we are fixin’ to set our sights on them both! First up is 1968’s Hot Spur… A group of cowpokes get it in there sleazy heads to poke something else, which leads to them sexually assaulting a local saloon girl (while the sounds of the Martian ships from George Pal’s War of the Worlds adaptation plays in the background exactly as one would expect… and that shit comes back too). The assault sets off the woman’s meek brother, Carlo (James Arena)… who has witnessed these same events play out years earlier, and he begins to journey down Revenge Road… but the travelling is hornier than one would reckon. Anyway, Carlo goes and gets himself a job as a stable hand at the nearby ranch owned by Jason O’Hara (soap opera mainstay Joseph Mascolo), where those sex-addicted
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Following is a roundup of seven of the short films that screened at San Francisco’s Unnamed Footage Festival 2024, shot mostly in found footage or verité styles. Homebody Home surveillance cameras provide the footage for writer/director Andrew J. Paulsen’s Homebody, in which Hannah (McKenzie Jo Frazer) lives in fear of a hooded man who stands outside her house. The proceedings are a bit predictable, but the execution of the plot is well done. Extreme Gravity (Extrema gravedad) Writer/director Lorenzo Ayuso’s darkly comic Spanish short Extreme Gravity focuses on a suicidal man whose recording of his farewell video is interrupted by a naked stranger who appears on his windowsill. Irreverent humor is the order of the day with this one, with Álvaro Márquez giving a fine performance as the suicidal individual and David Blanka providing fine voice acting support. Kelly Brazilian short Kelly finds a man (writer/director Luiz Lapin) building a new plastic-bag–headed companion. This short shocker is a true creepfest,
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsSci-Fi
The Becomers (2024) Writer/director Zach Clark’s science-fiction comedy The Becomers is one of the more unique offerings in the subgenre of alien-body-snatchers cinema. It follows the travails of two genderless extraterrestrial lovers who have left their home planet for hopefully better lives on Earth. They must inhabit human bodies, with plenty of reasons to change them, as they try to grasp the language, mannerisms, and mindsets of Americans. The film touches on a variety of current social issues in the post-pandemic United States while avoiding becoming overly didactic, and the cast members — led by Molly Plunk, Mike Lopez, and Keith Kelly — give earnest performances that give the proceedings a grounded yet humorous feel. Bonus points from me for the fact that the film is narrated by Russell Mael, vocalist for one of my all-time favorite rock bands, Sparks. Omen (Augure; Belgium/The Democratic Republic of Congo/Netherlands/Germany/France/South Africa, 2023) Omen deals in magical realism and African mysticism, with horror-adjacent elements
Continue reading →
More from Reviews
Film FestivalsMoviesReviews
Director Jill Gevargizian’s sophomore feature Ghost Game is an effective offering that uses home invasion in a unique way and serves up some intriguing surprises. Vinny (Zaen Haidar) discovers some disturbing footage on his girlfriend Laura’s (Kia Dorsey) laptop — without her permission — in which she and a man named Adrian (Sam Likowski) botch a home invasion and injure a woman. Laura explains that it is a sort of filmed challenge called Ghost Game, in which the participants live in houses without being detected by homeowners — phrogging, as it is called — and prank them, leading the residents to believe that the supernatural is involved. And it just might be, as Vinny insists that Laura get rid of Adrian and take him with her instead to her next assignment: a long-abandoned, reputedly haunted house in which a family has just moved in. The stage for real ghostly occurrences is soon set, as young daughter Samantha (Vienna Maas), who
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesReviews
The Ceremony Is About to Begin (2024) Director Sean Nichols Lynch follows up his vampire comedy Red Snow (2021) with faux documentary horror The Ceremony Is About to Begin, which he cowrote with stars Chad Westbrook Hinds and John Laird. The film starts with black-and-white interview footage with former members of the Osiris Collective, a commune/cult based on ancient Egyptian culture, including each member taking on a name from that culture. The leader was a man named Father Osiris (Raul Delarosa), who disappeared mysteriously during a mountain hike with a new member who took the name Anubis (Hinds). Documentarian Keith Evans (Laird) has a very personal reason for wanting to interview the members of the Osiris Collective, as his ex-girlfriend Maddy (Michelle Westbrook Hinds) left him for the cult. Anubis, who took over leadership of the group and whose negative behaviors drove members away, invites Evans to the Collective grounds to conduct interviews. With the film having earlier changed to
Continue reading →
GamingProductReviews
Winner of the Official Selection category of Fear Fest Black Summer 2023, and scoring massive positive ratings on STEAM, Troglobytes Games, and 3D Realms’ dark management game The Kindeman Remedy has made its way to consoles to challenge a new wave of players to push science beyond its ethical limits! The Kindeman Remedy takes players to a prison where they take on the roles of Dr. Carl Kindeman, a disgraced doctor who is shunned by the scientific and medical community for his unethical research into a “Cure-all” medicine, and Sister Anna, a zealous Nun who wants nothing more than to free the inmates from their suffering by hand delivering them to the Lord. Now, onto the game itself! The Kindeman Remedy is a “Clicker” game, a point-and-click game where the characters only move or perform actions on something in the environment as long as you click on it with the curser. Surprisingly using a controller is not so bad. Audio-wise,
Continue reading →
ForeignHistoryMoviesReviews
It’s the 1600’s and things are looking rather shitty for local witches ‘round ol’ London-town thanks to Judge Jeffreys (the legendary Sir Christopher Lee (who has appeared in so many things, I’m just going to do this) who hates them as much as he does rebels against the King… which is to say a lot. I mean sure he’s still willing to fuck the witches (this is a Jess Franco film after all), but he’s just as willing to burn them alive (doubly so if they fail to put out). His presence makes life truly a pain in the ass for young Harry Selton (Hans Haas Jr.), a rebel engaged to a witch named Mary (Franco regular Maria Rohm, Marquis de Sade’s Justine, Venus in Furs to name a few), and when they are incarcerated the Joltin’ Judge may face a full-on revolution! Brimming with a large number of costumed extras, battle sequences, and some ornate sets, it’s obvious that
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsThrillerTrailers
Red Rooms (Les chambres rouges; Canada, 2023) Pascal Plante’s French-language Canadian chiller Red Rooms deftly combines character study, psychological thriller, and courtroom drama. The film follows the obsession of two women with a serial killer suspect on trial for the gruesome murders of three teenage girls, which were broadcast for pay on the titular dark web outlet. Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy in a riveting performance) is a fashion model who sits in on the trial of accused murderer Ludovic Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos) at the Superior Court of Quebec. Sitting near her is Clementine (Laurie Babin), a young woman also obsessed with Chevalier, believing that he is innocent and being framed. The pair are accused of being groupies by the mother of a victim. Kelly-Anne is aloof and quiet, and she lets the talkative out-of-towner Clementine stay with her in her high-rise apartment. Kelly-Anne is also something of an expert on the internet, making large sums of money playing online poker and
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Russia, 1966: a lady, who has been fatally wounded, drives pell-mell onto a farmers property where she up and croaks… but the jeep she hauled ass in contains two other, very much alive, passengers… twin infants… Before you can say “What the fuck?” we flash forward 40 years and California-based film producer Marie Jones (Anastasia Hille, The Awakening) travels to Russia to seek answers about her true family after growing up with adoptive parents. Of course Marie is one of those twins mentioned up yonder, and soon she schleps her way to her ancestral home; a secluded, severely dilapidated, haunted-looking as all fuck, arcane abode which is home to a soggy, ghost version of Marie that appears from time to time. After some horror biz, our heroine discovers her long-lost brother Nicolai (Karel Roden, Hellboy, Orphan) has also made the scene, and together they begin to piece together the mystery of their past while dealing with the ghost versions of
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieMoviesReviews
Professor Alan Whitmore (Roland Wybenga) is sent to Budapest by the cadre of totally not up to no-good folks that funded the top secret Intextus project (which involves the interconnection of all religions or some such jazz), to check on a colleague who has not turned in his data on time. Said colleague appears to have gone completely insane, but it doesn’t matter much as he’s soon found hanging by his neck by spider webs… which turns a fact hunting trip into a murder investigation… a fucking real hum-dinger of one in fact… The longer Whitmore stays in town, the more sinister things become with dire warnings being delivered left and right, near constant mood setting thunderstorms… oh yeah, and the continuing murders… that’s some truly sinister shit. But all of that pales in comparison with the downright preternatural insanity that awaits as our hero continues the amateur sleuth biz! Will Whitmore solve the murderous, monstrous mystery, or will he
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
Our pals at Severin have unleashed a duo of wicked westerns from exploitation maestro Lee Frost (Love Camp 7, The Black Gestapo) and today we are fixin’ to set our sights on them both! First up is 1968’s Hot Spur… A group of cowpokes get it in there sleazy heads to poke something else, which leads to them sexually assaulting a local saloon girl (while the sounds of the Martian ships from George Pal’s War of the Worlds adaptation plays in the background exactly as one would expect… and that shit comes back too). The assault sets off the woman’s meek brother, Carlo (James Arena)… who has witnessed these same events play out years earlier, and he begins to journey down Revenge Road… but the travelling is hornier than one would reckon. Anyway, Carlo goes and gets himself a job as a stable hand at the nearby ranch owned by Jason O’Hara (soap opera mainstay Joseph Mascolo), where those sex-addicted
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Following is a roundup of seven of the short films that screened at San Francisco’s Unnamed Footage Festival 2024, shot mostly in found footage or verité styles. Homebody Home surveillance cameras provide the footage for writer/director Andrew J. Paulsen’s Homebody, in which Hannah (McKenzie Jo Frazer) lives in fear of a hooded man who stands outside her house. The proceedings are a bit predictable, but the execution of the plot is well done. Extreme Gravity (Extrema gravedad) Writer/director Lorenzo Ayuso’s darkly comic Spanish short Extreme Gravity focuses on a suicidal man whose recording of his farewell video is interrupted by a naked stranger who appears on his windowsill. Irreverent humor is the order of the day with this one, with Álvaro Márquez giving a fine performance as the suicidal individual and David Blanka providing fine voice acting support. Kelly Brazilian short Kelly finds a man (writer/director Luiz Lapin) building a new plastic-bag–headed companion. This short shocker is a true creepfest,
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsSci-Fi
The Becomers (2024) Writer/director Zach Clark’s science-fiction comedy The Becomers is one of the more unique offerings in the subgenre of alien-body-snatchers cinema. It follows the travails of two genderless extraterrestrial lovers who have left their home planet for hopefully better lives on Earth. They must inhabit human bodies, with plenty of reasons to change them, as they try to grasp the language, mannerisms, and mindsets of Americans. The film touches on a variety of current social issues in the post-pandemic United States while avoiding becoming overly didactic, and the cast members — led by Molly Plunk, Mike Lopez, and Keith Kelly — give earnest performances that give the proceedings a grounded yet humorous feel. Bonus points from me for the fact that the film is narrated by Russell Mael, vocalist for one of my all-time favorite rock bands, Sparks. Omen (Augure; Belgium/The Democratic Republic of Congo/Netherlands/Germany/France/South Africa, 2023) Omen deals in magical realism and African mysticism, with horror-adjacent elements
Continue reading →
