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
Police Officer Fui-On Shing (Tsu Hsiang, The Killer, A Better Tomorrow) is having himself quite the day. After visiting a Buddhist temple that forewarns him of ill luck headin’ his way sooner rather than later, he ditches his pregnant wife Chu (Siu-Fung Wong) to follow up on a lead on a bank heist supplied to him by his teenage orphan sidekick/ridiculous individual par excellence Power Steering (Wai-Kit Tse). After a chase, Shing gets the drop on the criminals at a construction site, but ends up getting a palette of rebar dropped on him instead. Left for dead, a magic cat sits on him (I have no idea) after which he is struck by lightning. As it would with anyone, both of those things result in his super-powered zombie resurrection… and he’ll stay a member of the walking dead as long as he keeps shocking himself with electric jolts. Along the way he gets mixed up with Power Steering’s kinda girlfriend
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
Cocaine Cougar and Zombeavers move over; there’s a new creature feature on the scene, and it’s a killer. I’m talking about Slotherhouse. In this fun flick, a sorority takes in a sloth as a makot, not knowing that it is a psychopath with a taste for blood. The whole point of the movie, besides entertaining, is poking fun at how truly ridiculous the obsession with social media is, which is hammered home by the constant like counts shown for every character. The whole story is driven by a girl trying to up her likes to become the president of her sorority. To do so, she steals a sloth and makes it the sorority’s mascot. The Characters: Directed by Matthew Goodhue, Slotherhouse stars Lisa Ambalavanar, Sydney Craven, Andrew Horton, Bianca Beckles-Rose, Olive Rouyre, and Tiff Steveson as the house mother. All of the characters are stereotypical of horror movies; you’ve got the girl desperate for likes, the devoted boyfriend, the eco-warrior,
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
I’m a very hard sell on new zombie movies. In a subgenre of horror films that I personally feel is growing ever weaker on originality, I’m open minded, however, in finding new discoveries with a unique take on things. Director Thea Hvistendahl’s Norwegian feature Handling the Undead — adapted from Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist’s (Let The Right One In) novel, with a screenplay cowritten by the pair — is one such film, a remarkable dramatic take on the undead. Handling the Undead focuses on grief rather than gore as three families who have lost loved ones find that their deceased members have returned to life — in a sense — after a mysterious phenomenon occurs. The returned ones are weak, barely breathing and sometimes barely moving. The hope from their family members and lovers is felt along with confusion and unease. They have already been grieving, and some now fear that they may lose their loved ones once again.
Continue reading →
AdaptationBooksMoviesReviewsThriller
Corpulent lawyer Billy Halleck (Robert John Burke, Dust Devil, Robocop 3) spends his days drinking smoothies in an effort to shed some pounds, fucking that up by eating massive quantities of food, and getting mafioso-types off the hook legally… while not starring at the asses of the more comely members of the group of wandering Romany folk that have rolled into town. Speaking of those folk, Billy manages to run over one of them with his car while getting a blow job from his wife, Heidi (Michael McDowell)… and since he’s buddy-buddy with The Man he gets off scot-F’n-free… but not before the tribe’s elder, Tadzu (Michael Constantine), touches Billy. Before you can say “Slimfast” ol’ Billy-boy begins shedding pounds lickety-split, even though he hasn’t curbed his eating a damn bit… and get this, other folks the Elder touched have been afflicted with horrible maladies six ways to Sunday! Will are hero find a way to remove the curse, or
Continue reading →
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Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Writer/director Jon Bell combines post-pregnancy horror with social commentary in his Australian feature The Moogai, the 2024 expansion of his 2021 short film. The result is a mixed bag, as Bell addresses the tragic aspect of Australia’s infamous “Stolen Generations” — when thousands of mixed-race children of Australian Aboriginal descent between 1910–1970 were forcibly taken from their homes by the white government in an assimilation effort — using a monster as a metaphor. Expectant mother Sarah (Shari Sebbens) has recently come into contact with her Indigenous birth mother Ruth (Tessa Rose). She feels she has nothing in common with Ruth and is short-tempered with her and dismissive of her traditional beliefs. Sarah’s husband Fergus (Meyne Wyatt) and their young daughter Chloe (Jahdeana Mary), however, are very affectionate toward Ruth. After the birth of the couple’s son Jacob, Ruth attempts to ward off the coming of the child-stealing spirit called The Moogai in her daughter’s home using traditional rituals, which is
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
Nurse Faith (Chrissy Metz) lives with her daughter Charm (Annalise Basso, Oculus), who suffers from an unnamed malady that requires her to soak in a tub filled with ice cold water in order to keep her ever-rising body temperature down… when she’s not locked in her room behind a rather imposing door. While that biz is going down, Missionary Liz (Scout Taylor-Compton, Rob Zombie’s Halloween) and her brother Kory (Connor Paolo) just break right on in to Faith’s house seeking shelter from the snowstorm that rages outside. Eventually they end up being invited, begrudgingly, to stay… but not before Faith fucks up Kory’s leg with a spike-studded baseball bat. I guess it’s always good to keep a steady supply of potential victims around, because as the title of the film would suggest… or more accurately flat-out tells you… there’s a creature roaming this feature, and it’s a real demonic doozy and a fuckin’ half, believe you me! Who will survive
Continue reading →
DocumentariesForeignIndieMoviesReviews
Jess Franco made himself an adaption of Bram Stoker’s classic fang bang terror tome Dracula back in 1970 (refresh your memory on that release, the Christopher Lee starring Count Dracula, right here) and hired Spanish filmmaker Pere Portabella to film a lil’ behind-the-scenes action for what was supposed to be turned into a documentary concerning the film’s creation… but it wasn’t and here we are… Instead, Portabella conjured forth 1971’s Cuadecuc, Vampir; a black and white, hour-and-change, nearly silent (there is ambient (frequently not very) musical accompaniment, and closing remarks from Lee however) experimental film that certainly does present a fly-on-the-wall glimpse (no matter how impressionistic) into the film’s production along with it’s own loosey-goosey narrative. To that end we get a visual tone-poem showcasing cast and crew toiling away… and it is a fascinating, if unconventional viewing experience. Additionally, viewing Franco’s footage in stark, crisp (sometimes purposefully over-exposed) chiaroscuro gives it that classic Universal monster movie vibe! But wait,
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
It is January 22, 2024 as I write this review, and I have my first strong candidate for my list of best films of 2024: writer/director Fabio D’Orta’s genre-blending Italian chiller The Complex Forms. With his film, which he himself lensed in luscious black-and-white, D’Orta uses for inspiration classic cinema both Italian and international, investing these inspirations with a modern sensibility and a maverick vision. The budget may have been low, but the look of the film — including fantastical, beautifully rendered creature design — belies that fact. Christian Del Ben (David White) is down on his luck to the point that he has agreed to sell the use of his body to a mysterious entity for a sum of money that will help him get back on his feet. This takes place in a mysterious villa, the location of which none of the men who have made the pact know about. Del Ben is roommates with the affable Luh
Continue reading →
ForeignGamingIndieParanormalProductReviews
This may be the first published game review of 2024 from us but this is actually the second with the official first review on its way on February 6th, so keep an eye out for that one! Let’s get to some exorcising with QU Byte Interactive and Mr. Skull Game Studio’s Devil Inside Us: Roots of Evil. Devil Inside Us: Roots of Evil is about Father August Heylel, a Vatican-recognized Exorcist who is penning a letter describing his most haunting exorcist case that began in 1984 where he failed to save the family but was able to banish the evil within the house. Over the years he’s been watching over the house and the families that moved in who all have lived in peace till in 2020, the evil returned. The controls for the game are limited and easy to remember. One of the things I wish you had in this game are meters letting you know how much health
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesReviewsShort Films
THE LOOMING So often in horror films the elderly are portrayed as scary or creepy subjects, something to fear, run from, or even kill. Occasionally, they are treated with more reverence and respect than usual in fright-fare cinema, such as in director Natalie Erika James’s Relic (2020). Writer/director Masha Ko’s new short The Looming is another such film that examines the plight of the aged and lonely, delivering heartbreak along with horror. Seventy-year-old Chester (Joseph Lopez in an absolutely amazing performance) begins to hear terrifying noises in his home, where he lives alone, and his fears are dismissed both at his job and by his adult daughter, who refuses to come to his home to discuss the matter. Something is indeed, as the title says, looming around Chester, though. Ko has crafted a superb-looking, emotionally charged work that draws attention to the importance of the fears of the elderly, and to how they deserve our attention. I give The Looming
Continue reading →
More from Reviews
ForeignMoviesReviews
Police Officer Fui-On Shing (Tsu Hsiang, The Killer, A Better Tomorrow) is having himself quite the day. After visiting a Buddhist temple that forewarns him of ill luck headin’ his way sooner rather than later, he ditches his pregnant wife Chu (Siu-Fung Wong) to follow up on a lead on a bank heist supplied to him by his teenage orphan sidekick/ridiculous individual par excellence Power Steering (Wai-Kit Tse). After a chase, Shing gets the drop on the criminals at a construction site, but ends up getting a palette of rebar dropped on him instead. Left for dead, a magic cat sits on him (I have no idea) after which he is struck by lightning. As it would with anyone, both of those things result in his super-powered zombie resurrection… and he’ll stay a member of the walking dead as long as he keeps shocking himself with electric jolts. Along the way he gets mixed up with Power Steering’s kinda girlfriend
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
Cocaine Cougar and Zombeavers move over; there’s a new creature feature on the scene, and it’s a killer. I’m talking about Slotherhouse. In this fun flick, a sorority takes in a sloth as a makot, not knowing that it is a psychopath with a taste for blood. The whole point of the movie, besides entertaining, is poking fun at how truly ridiculous the obsession with social media is, which is hammered home by the constant like counts shown for every character. The whole story is driven by a girl trying to up her likes to become the president of her sorority. To do so, she steals a sloth and makes it the sorority’s mascot. The Characters: Directed by Matthew Goodhue, Slotherhouse stars Lisa Ambalavanar, Sydney Craven, Andrew Horton, Bianca Beckles-Rose, Olive Rouyre, and Tiff Steveson as the house mother. All of the characters are stereotypical of horror movies; you’ve got the girl desperate for likes, the devoted boyfriend, the eco-warrior,
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
I’m a very hard sell on new zombie movies. In a subgenre of horror films that I personally feel is growing ever weaker on originality, I’m open minded, however, in finding new discoveries with a unique take on things. Director Thea Hvistendahl’s Norwegian feature Handling the Undead — adapted from Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist’s (Let The Right One In) novel, with a screenplay cowritten by the pair — is one such film, a remarkable dramatic take on the undead. Handling the Undead focuses on grief rather than gore as three families who have lost loved ones find that their deceased members have returned to life — in a sense — after a mysterious phenomenon occurs. The returned ones are weak, barely breathing and sometimes barely moving. The hope from their family members and lovers is felt along with confusion and unease. They have already been grieving, and some now fear that they may lose their loved ones once again.
Continue reading →
AdaptationBooksMoviesReviewsThriller
Corpulent lawyer Billy Halleck (Robert John Burke, Dust Devil, Robocop 3) spends his days drinking smoothies in an effort to shed some pounds, fucking that up by eating massive quantities of food, and getting mafioso-types off the hook legally… while not starring at the asses of the more comely members of the group of wandering Romany folk that have rolled into town. Speaking of those folk, Billy manages to run over one of them with his car while getting a blow job from his wife, Heidi (Michael McDowell)… and since he’s buddy-buddy with The Man he gets off scot-F’n-free… but not before the tribe’s elder, Tadzu (Michael Constantine), touches Billy. Before you can say “Slimfast” ol’ Billy-boy begins shedding pounds lickety-split, even though he hasn’t curbed his eating a damn bit… and get this, other folks the Elder touched have been afflicted with horrible maladies six ways to Sunday! Will are hero find a way to remove the curse, or
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Writer/director Jon Bell combines post-pregnancy horror with social commentary in his Australian feature The Moogai, the 2024 expansion of his 2021 short film. The result is a mixed bag, as Bell addresses the tragic aspect of Australia’s infamous “Stolen Generations” — when thousands of mixed-race children of Australian Aboriginal descent between 1910–1970 were forcibly taken from their homes by the white government in an assimilation effort — using a monster as a metaphor. Expectant mother Sarah (Shari Sebbens) has recently come into contact with her Indigenous birth mother Ruth (Tessa Rose). She feels she has nothing in common with Ruth and is short-tempered with her and dismissive of her traditional beliefs. Sarah’s husband Fergus (Meyne Wyatt) and their young daughter Chloe (Jahdeana Mary), however, are very affectionate toward Ruth. After the birth of the couple’s son Jacob, Ruth attempts to ward off the coming of the child-stealing spirit called The Moogai in her daughter’s home using traditional rituals, which is
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
Nurse Faith (Chrissy Metz) lives with her daughter Charm (Annalise Basso, Oculus), who suffers from an unnamed malady that requires her to soak in a tub filled with ice cold water in order to keep her ever-rising body temperature down… when she’s not locked in her room behind a rather imposing door. While that biz is going down, Missionary Liz (Scout Taylor-Compton, Rob Zombie’s Halloween) and her brother Kory (Connor Paolo) just break right on in to Faith’s house seeking shelter from the snowstorm that rages outside. Eventually they end up being invited, begrudgingly, to stay… but not before Faith fucks up Kory’s leg with a spike-studded baseball bat. I guess it’s always good to keep a steady supply of potential victims around, because as the title of the film would suggest… or more accurately flat-out tells you… there’s a creature roaming this feature, and it’s a real demonic doozy and a fuckin’ half, believe you me! Who will survive
Continue reading →
DocumentariesForeignIndieMoviesReviews
Jess Franco made himself an adaption of Bram Stoker’s classic fang bang terror tome Dracula back in 1970 (refresh your memory on that release, the Christopher Lee starring Count Dracula, right here) and hired Spanish filmmaker Pere Portabella to film a lil’ behind-the-scenes action for what was supposed to be turned into a documentary concerning the film’s creation… but it wasn’t and here we are… Instead, Portabella conjured forth 1971’s Cuadecuc, Vampir; a black and white, hour-and-change, nearly silent (there is ambient (frequently not very) musical accompaniment, and closing remarks from Lee however) experimental film that certainly does present a fly-on-the-wall glimpse (no matter how impressionistic) into the film’s production along with it’s own loosey-goosey narrative. To that end we get a visual tone-poem showcasing cast and crew toiling away… and it is a fascinating, if unconventional viewing experience. Additionally, viewing Franco’s footage in stark, crisp (sometimes purposefully over-exposed) chiaroscuro gives it that classic Universal monster movie vibe! But wait,
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
It is January 22, 2024 as I write this review, and I have my first strong candidate for my list of best films of 2024: writer/director Fabio D’Orta’s genre-blending Italian chiller The Complex Forms. With his film, which he himself lensed in luscious black-and-white, D’Orta uses for inspiration classic cinema both Italian and international, investing these inspirations with a modern sensibility and a maverick vision. The budget may have been low, but the look of the film — including fantastical, beautifully rendered creature design — belies that fact. Christian Del Ben (David White) is down on his luck to the point that he has agreed to sell the use of his body to a mysterious entity for a sum of money that will help him get back on his feet. This takes place in a mysterious villa, the location of which none of the men who have made the pact know about. Del Ben is roommates with the affable Luh
Continue reading →
ForeignGamingIndieParanormalProductReviews
This may be the first published game review of 2024 from us but this is actually the second with the official first review on its way on February 6th, so keep an eye out for that one! Let’s get to some exorcising with QU Byte Interactive and Mr. Skull Game Studio’s Devil Inside Us: Roots of Evil. Devil Inside Us: Roots of Evil is about Father August Heylel, a Vatican-recognized Exorcist who is penning a letter describing his most haunting exorcist case that began in 1984 where he failed to save the family but was able to banish the evil within the house. Over the years he’s been watching over the house and the families that moved in who all have lived in peace till in 2020, the evil returned. The controls for the game are limited and easy to remember. One of the things I wish you had in this game are meters letting you know how much health
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesReviewsShort Films
THE LOOMING So often in horror films the elderly are portrayed as scary or creepy subjects, something to fear, run from, or even kill. Occasionally, they are treated with more reverence and respect than usual in fright-fare cinema, such as in director Natalie Erika James’s Relic (2020). Writer/director Masha Ko’s new short The Looming is another such film that examines the plight of the aged and lonely, delivering heartbreak along with horror. Seventy-year-old Chester (Joseph Lopez in an absolutely amazing performance) begins to hear terrifying noises in his home, where he lives alone, and his fears are dismissed both at his job and by his adult daughter, who refuses to come to his home to discuss the matter. Something is indeed, as the title says, looming around Chester, though. Ko has crafted a superb-looking, emotionally charged work that draws attention to the importance of the fears of the elderly, and to how they deserve our attention. I give The Looming
Continue reading →
