CategoryReviews
Honest horror reviews of films, series, games and books — no hype, no spoilers, just whether it is worth your time and your nerves.
3,463 stories
ForeignMoviesReviews
Somewhere in director Lars Janssen’s Underground (U.K., 2023) is a good horror short, but at feature-film length, the project feels heavily padded. Ella (Maaike Tol) is about to get married, and her friends Riley (Charlotte Dawn Potter, who cowrote the screenplay with Janssen), Ziggy (Sapphire Brewer-Marchant), Claire (Nadia Dawber), and Jessica (Caitlyn Barber) are throwing her a hen party (a bachelorette party, as it is called in the U.S.), with plenty of drinking as part of the festivities. Their wacky (to this point) evening gets them kicked out of a taxi cab by the driver, and the friends are left to their own devices on a dark road in the middle of nowhere. Armed only with their smartphones, the quintet gets into further trouble when one of them falls down a hole, and the others come to her aid and find themselves trapped in a bunker. Underground starts off by introducing us to the protagonists, which at first is a
Continue reading →
MoviesReviewsThriller
Opening like a live-action adaptation of the classic video game Paperboy, the daily news is shown kissing pavement accompanied by the sound of a sack of bricks hittin’ a dirt road. Why do I mention it? Well One, it comes back later loud n’ proud to signify all manner of things getting tossed to the ground, and Two I found it funny as balls. What does any of that have to do with the plot synopsis of the film that usually appears ‘round these parts? Absolutely nothing. Moving on… Oh wait, yes it does… said newspapers contain a headline about a local boy being released from ye olde asylum and apparently a killing was involved… we’ll get back to that one soon, believe you me! Coincidentally, District Attorney William Carson III (Martin Mull, Clue) is murdered on a camping trip. This is of course unbeknownst to his daughter Paula, portrayed by popular late ‘80s scream queen Jill Schoelen (The Stepfather,
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsShort Films
THE FOREBODING: FRACTURED (U.K., 2024) In director Kemal Yildrim’s short The Foreboding: Fractured, four university friends go camping in the woods, which is never a good idea when it comes to horror movie characters. Neither is telling scary stories by the campfire, but that happens here too. The elements are set for some forest-bound fear fare, and though I will avoid going into spoiler territory, suffice it to say that what the quartet runs afoul of is not a slasher nor a cryptid, but something of the supernatural variety. The ensemble cast — Eve Kathryn Oliver, Alexander Staunton-Hill (who also wrote the screenplay), Olivia Bennett, Peter Tilley, and Sienna Shih — all turn in fine performances playing believable characters, and Yildrim does an admirable job of setting an eerie atmosphere and building suspense. SOUR MILK (U.K., 2024) A homeless shelter offers a terrifying choice for a young woman in writer/director Joe Duncombe’s Sour Milk. Cassie’s (Molly Grainger) first night at
Continue reading →
GamingProductReviews
Eye strain is a big part of gaming, unfortunately. Hours in front of a screen, may it be a TV, monitor, or laptop can cause you to call it quits too early. This happens because of the unseen blue light coming from your screens that causes it. Thanks to companies like GUNNAR, gaming and working with your computer won’t put stress on your eyes. Since 2024 is the year of the dragon, GUNNAR teamed up with tokidoki to celebrate with the Year of the Dragon glasses! I want to thank both GUNNAR and tokidoki for sending me a pair to check out! If you’re not familiar with tokidoki, they’re a Japanese-inspired lifestyle brand that focuses more on Kawaii fashion. So as you can guess, the glasses are, well… Kawaii (meaning cute). The lens of the glasses is designed to block 98% of blue light and after putting them on, I did notice a difference while sitting in front of my
Continue reading →
Advertisement
ForeignMoviesReviews
Director Andrew Cumming’s U.K. feature Out of Darkness (originally titled The Origin) is a magnificent-looking slice of survival horror set in the Stone Age, complete with a language devised just for the film (with English subtitles provided). There’s no denying the power of the majority of the film, but its climax and aftermath will surely leave audiences divided. Adem (Chuku Modu) is the leader of a small group of prehistoric people who have been wandering in search of a safe place to live that provides abundant food. The group — which also includes Adem’s young son Heron (Luna Mwezi), Adem’s pregnant mate Ave (Iola Evans) and his brother Geirr (Kit Young), elderly Odal (Arno Luering), and stray Beyah (Safia Oakley-Green) — is near starving, and some are beginning to doubt Adem’s ability to lead. One night, a mysterious, as-yet-unseen presence grabs Heron, and Adem becomes solely focused on finding his son, though the others feel that leading them into the
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
A man, let’s just call him The Janitor (Nicholas Cage)… since that’s about it as far as names go for this fella, gets stranded in a rural town after a set of misplaced spike bars, owned by the towns rather intense Sheriff (Beth Grant), blows out the tires of his super-charged sports car. This poses a problem as the silent stranger is low on the dough, so the town’s “cash only” mechanic takes our hero to meet Tex Macadoo (Ric Reitz), the proprietor of the soon-to-re-open Chuckie Cheese surrogate, Willy’s Wonderland, and he has a proposition for ol’ “Jan”; namely if he spends the night cleaning up the place he can have the tires free of charge. Small problem with that particular task; Tex fails to mention that Willy Weasel and all of his putrid pals come to life and these arcane automatons are out for blood! Credit where credit is due; The Janitor can definitely take care of himself,
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsShort FilmsThriller
Following are reviews of four of the offerings that screened as part of the 2024 Final Girls Berlin Film Festival’s Folk Horror short-film block. Nian Short chiller Nian (U.S., 2023), finds a Chinese American schoolgirl (Lauren Mei in a delightful performance) standing up to a racist bully with the help of a Chinese demon mask and the supernatural assistance of the titular mythological punisher of naughty children. Director Michelle Krusiec delivers a crisp commentary on racism and bullying that nails its fantasy aspects, with a nice amount of heart behind it. Days of Spring Writer/director Arianne Hinz’s Days of Spring (Netherlands, 2022) is a disturbing peek into the secretive world of a small group of young Dutch girls who surrender their individual wills to the group. Eleven-year-old Roos (Anoek Neervort) has invited her friend Ella (Maeve Hickey) to join the group but begins to question herself when the demands of the girls grows increasingly extreme, including animal sacrifice. Beautifully lensed
Continue reading →
GamingParanormalProductReviews
What would you do for the one you love? Would you forsake your oath to keep a promise and sacrifice others? This is what players will face in Focus Entertainment and DON’T NOD’s action-rpg Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden. When I first heard of this game and saw its trailer, I” admit I was stoked and could not wait to check it out. That day has come, and I was not disappointed! I want to give an enormous thank you to Focus Entertainment and DON’T NOD for this reviewing opportunity! Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden takes place in an alternate world where ghosts haunt the living is a fact and follow two Banishers, Antea and Red. Banishers are people who hunt ghosts that torment the living. The ghosts are either banished into the void to suffer their torment or are ascended, being allowed to pass on and become free of their suffering. Antea and Red come to the settlement of
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
Old man Pete Jensen performs one of those Satanic ceremonies that are all the rage with the ladies in the Bridge Club… or apparently with crazy ol’ coots who spend their days living off the grid, performing Black Masses, and absolutely pissing off a sizable portion of the population of Furnace Flats down New Mexico way. Anyway, Pete dies and before you can say “Faustian Deal” his young nephew Nick Richards (Ed Nelson) blows into town and takes up residence in Pete’s rustic shit shack… where he almost immediately meets and gets the hornies for Nell Lucas (Jean Allison), the daughter of the town’s doctor, Doc Lucas (Edgar Buchanan). Although smitten with the lass, Nick is cock-blocked by her beau, auto-mechanic David Simpson (Richard Crane), so he does what any sane, rational individual would do… he performs a magic ritual which causes David’s German Shepard to go completely insane and brutally maim him. Get this, Nick also commits other magic
Continue reading →
GamingIndieParanormalProductReviews
The first official Horror Fuel game review of 2024! Let’s check out Casper Croes and Top Hat Studios’ love letter to late 90’s survival horror games, this is Alisa: Developer’s Cut. Alisa: Developer’s Cut takes players into a maddening world where Alisa, a royal agent in the 1920s is hunting a notorious thief and ends up in a strange Victorian-like mansion where mechanical oddities lurk and Alisa must try to escape and keep her mind intact. The Controls for Alisa: Developer’s Cut by default are the old-school “tank controls” which, I have not used in a long time, but thankfully, you can switch the controls to “modern”. The graphics for Alisa: Developer’s Cut are nostalgic with pre-rendered backgrounds and low poly character models. The soundtrack for the game really hits deep inside with callbacks to the very first Resident Evil along with the horrible voice acting, which at first I thought was bad for this game till I remembered how
Continue reading →
More from Reviews
ForeignMoviesReviews
Somewhere in director Lars Janssen’s Underground (U.K., 2023) is a good horror short, but at feature-film length, the project feels heavily padded. Ella (Maaike Tol) is about to get married, and her friends Riley (Charlotte Dawn Potter, who cowrote the screenplay with Janssen), Ziggy (Sapphire Brewer-Marchant), Claire (Nadia Dawber), and Jessica (Caitlyn Barber) are throwing her a hen party (a bachelorette party, as it is called in the U.S.), with plenty of drinking as part of the festivities. Their wacky (to this point) evening gets them kicked out of a taxi cab by the driver, and the friends are left to their own devices on a dark road in the middle of nowhere. Armed only with their smartphones, the quintet gets into further trouble when one of them falls down a hole, and the others come to her aid and find themselves trapped in a bunker. Underground starts off by introducing us to the protagonists, which at first is a
Continue reading →
MoviesReviewsThriller
Opening like a live-action adaptation of the classic video game Paperboy, the daily news is shown kissing pavement accompanied by the sound of a sack of bricks hittin’ a dirt road. Why do I mention it? Well One, it comes back later loud n’ proud to signify all manner of things getting tossed to the ground, and Two I found it funny as balls. What does any of that have to do with the plot synopsis of the film that usually appears ‘round these parts? Absolutely nothing. Moving on… Oh wait, yes it does… said newspapers contain a headline about a local boy being released from ye olde asylum and apparently a killing was involved… we’ll get back to that one soon, believe you me! Coincidentally, District Attorney William Carson III (Martin Mull, Clue) is murdered on a camping trip. This is of course unbeknownst to his daughter Paula, portrayed by popular late ‘80s scream queen Jill Schoelen (The Stepfather,
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsShort Films
THE FOREBODING: FRACTURED (U.K., 2024) In director Kemal Yildrim’s short The Foreboding: Fractured, four university friends go camping in the woods, which is never a good idea when it comes to horror movie characters. Neither is telling scary stories by the campfire, but that happens here too. The elements are set for some forest-bound fear fare, and though I will avoid going into spoiler territory, suffice it to say that what the quartet runs afoul of is not a slasher nor a cryptid, but something of the supernatural variety. The ensemble cast — Eve Kathryn Oliver, Alexander Staunton-Hill (who also wrote the screenplay), Olivia Bennett, Peter Tilley, and Sienna Shih — all turn in fine performances playing believable characters, and Yildrim does an admirable job of setting an eerie atmosphere and building suspense. SOUR MILK (U.K., 2024) A homeless shelter offers a terrifying choice for a young woman in writer/director Joe Duncombe’s Sour Milk. Cassie’s (Molly Grainger) first night at
Continue reading →
GamingProductReviews
Eye strain is a big part of gaming, unfortunately. Hours in front of a screen, may it be a TV, monitor, or laptop can cause you to call it quits too early. This happens because of the unseen blue light coming from your screens that causes it. Thanks to companies like GUNNAR, gaming and working with your computer won’t put stress on your eyes. Since 2024 is the year of the dragon, GUNNAR teamed up with tokidoki to celebrate with the Year of the Dragon glasses! I want to thank both GUNNAR and tokidoki for sending me a pair to check out! If you’re not familiar with tokidoki, they’re a Japanese-inspired lifestyle brand that focuses more on Kawaii fashion. So as you can guess, the glasses are, well… Kawaii (meaning cute). The lens of the glasses is designed to block 98% of blue light and after putting them on, I did notice a difference while sitting in front of my
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Director Andrew Cumming’s U.K. feature Out of Darkness (originally titled The Origin) is a magnificent-looking slice of survival horror set in the Stone Age, complete with a language devised just for the film (with English subtitles provided). There’s no denying the power of the majority of the film, but its climax and aftermath will surely leave audiences divided. Adem (Chuku Modu) is the leader of a small group of prehistoric people who have been wandering in search of a safe place to live that provides abundant food. The group — which also includes Adem’s young son Heron (Luna Mwezi), Adem’s pregnant mate Ave (Iola Evans) and his brother Geirr (Kit Young), elderly Odal (Arno Luering), and stray Beyah (Safia Oakley-Green) — is near starving, and some are beginning to doubt Adem’s ability to lead. One night, a mysterious, as-yet-unseen presence grabs Heron, and Adem becomes solely focused on finding his son, though the others feel that leading them into the
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
A man, let’s just call him The Janitor (Nicholas Cage)… since that’s about it as far as names go for this fella, gets stranded in a rural town after a set of misplaced spike bars, owned by the towns rather intense Sheriff (Beth Grant), blows out the tires of his super-charged sports car. This poses a problem as the silent stranger is low on the dough, so the town’s “cash only” mechanic takes our hero to meet Tex Macadoo (Ric Reitz), the proprietor of the soon-to-re-open Chuckie Cheese surrogate, Willy’s Wonderland, and he has a proposition for ol’ “Jan”; namely if he spends the night cleaning up the place he can have the tires free of charge. Small problem with that particular task; Tex fails to mention that Willy Weasel and all of his putrid pals come to life and these arcane automatons are out for blood! Credit where credit is due; The Janitor can definitely take care of himself,
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsShort FilmsThriller
Following are reviews of four of the offerings that screened as part of the 2024 Final Girls Berlin Film Festival’s Folk Horror short-film block. Nian Short chiller Nian (U.S., 2023), finds a Chinese American schoolgirl (Lauren Mei in a delightful performance) standing up to a racist bully with the help of a Chinese demon mask and the supernatural assistance of the titular mythological punisher of naughty children. Director Michelle Krusiec delivers a crisp commentary on racism and bullying that nails its fantasy aspects, with a nice amount of heart behind it. Days of Spring Writer/director Arianne Hinz’s Days of Spring (Netherlands, 2022) is a disturbing peek into the secretive world of a small group of young Dutch girls who surrender their individual wills to the group. Eleven-year-old Roos (Anoek Neervort) has invited her friend Ella (Maeve Hickey) to join the group but begins to question herself when the demands of the girls grows increasingly extreme, including animal sacrifice. Beautifully lensed
Continue reading →
GamingParanormalProductReviews
What would you do for the one you love? Would you forsake your oath to keep a promise and sacrifice others? This is what players will face in Focus Entertainment and DON’T NOD’s action-rpg Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden. When I first heard of this game and saw its trailer, I” admit I was stoked and could not wait to check it out. That day has come, and I was not disappointed! I want to give an enormous thank you to Focus Entertainment and DON’T NOD for this reviewing opportunity! Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden takes place in an alternate world where ghosts haunt the living is a fact and follow two Banishers, Antea and Red. Banishers are people who hunt ghosts that torment the living. The ghosts are either banished into the void to suffer their torment or are ascended, being allowed to pass on and become free of their suffering. Antea and Red come to the settlement of
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
Old man Pete Jensen performs one of those Satanic ceremonies that are all the rage with the ladies in the Bridge Club… or apparently with crazy ol’ coots who spend their days living off the grid, performing Black Masses, and absolutely pissing off a sizable portion of the population of Furnace Flats down New Mexico way. Anyway, Pete dies and before you can say “Faustian Deal” his young nephew Nick Richards (Ed Nelson) blows into town and takes up residence in Pete’s rustic shit shack… where he almost immediately meets and gets the hornies for Nell Lucas (Jean Allison), the daughter of the town’s doctor, Doc Lucas (Edgar Buchanan). Although smitten with the lass, Nick is cock-blocked by her beau, auto-mechanic David Simpson (Richard Crane), so he does what any sane, rational individual would do… he performs a magic ritual which causes David’s German Shepard to go completely insane and brutally maim him. Get this, Nick also commits other magic
Continue reading →
GamingIndieParanormalProductReviews
The first official Horror Fuel game review of 2024! Let’s check out Casper Croes and Top Hat Studios’ love letter to late 90’s survival horror games, this is Alisa: Developer’s Cut. Alisa: Developer’s Cut takes players into a maddening world where Alisa, a royal agent in the 1920s is hunting a notorious thief and ends up in a strange Victorian-like mansion where mechanical oddities lurk and Alisa must try to escape and keep her mind intact. The Controls for Alisa: Developer’s Cut by default are the old-school “tank controls” which, I have not used in a long time, but thankfully, you can switch the controls to “modern”. The graphics for Alisa: Developer’s Cut are nostalgic with pre-rendered backgrounds and low poly character models. The soundtrack for the game really hits deep inside with callbacks to the very first Resident Evil along with the horrible voice acting, which at first I thought was bad for this game till I remembered how
Continue reading →
