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
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
I’ve seen at least a hundred exorcism movies, and they were all pretty much the same, and the majority were just plain terrible, always featuring the same recycled ideas shuffled around to try and make a plot look new. When I sat down to watch The exorcism of God I just assumed it would be another low-budget trash version of The Exorcist (no offense). What I got, was shock, it was a new twist on the supernatural that left me impressed. I should probably tell you a little about it before we go any further. In the film, from director Alejandro Hidalgo, who co-wrote The Exorcism of God along with Santiago Fernández Calvete, comes the story of a priest, Father Williams, who while conducting his first exorcism briefly became possessed and did something terrible. He has spent his life trying to find forgiveness within himself while striving to be the best priest he can be. His life seems ideal until
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Talisman One person’s belief system is another person’s superstition, and director Reangsei Phos’ Talisman (Canada) finds school-age Yi (Sean Lu) torn between those two schools of thought. His family has just moved into a new house, and as his mother (Qingqing Yang) tries to protect the home against ghosts, his father (Danny Liang) admonishes her not to fill the young boy’s head full of nonsense. Strange things are indeed happening inside the house, which leads to shocking acts of violence. Phos balances solid family drama with well-paced suspense, including some blink-and-you’ll-miss-it occurrences which should keep viewers’ eyes glued to the proceedings. The cast members, including Pascale Behrman, all turn in solid performances. Wendigo The animated short Wendigo (Ireland, 2021) is an intriguing take on the North American First Nations mythological creature combined with other eldritch occurrences. Charlie (voiced by Marc-Ivan O’Gorman) is an inquisitive young man who wants to investigate first-hand what remains of the Olsen manor, site of some
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Upurga Director Ulges Ote blends blends folk horror, eco horror, surrealism, and absurdism to mystifying, eerie effect in his Latvian narrative feature debut Upurga. Andrejs (Igors Selegovskis) is a river rafting guide haunted by his inability to save a young woman from drowning. When his sister Mara (Elvita Ragovska) and her boyfriend Matiaas (Rihaard Sniegs) plan a trip to the wilds to shoot a vegan sausage commercial — along with videographer Oskars (Reinis Boters) and director/project manager Eva (Inga Tropa) — Andrejs insists on coming along to ensure everyone’s safety, though the others are far less concerned about that and more intent on having a good time and creating a worthy advertisement. Inspector Salins (Morten Traavik), the local park ranger, warns the group to respect nature and leave his jurisdiction within 30 minutes, but naturally the group members ignore his warnings. That turns out to be a poor decision, as exposure to the local flora makes them act in aggressive
Continue reading →
MoviesReviewsShudder
For those unfamiliar with the V/H/S series , here’s the eerie elevator pitch: an anthology of period terror tales is presented in the found footage format, more specifically via VHS tapes. I can safely say that V/H/S 94 sticks to that formula (which doubtless comes a shock to some of you lascivious lot). Moving on, V/H/S 94 begins with a woman in a strange compound huffing fumes from some sort of demonic jizz or another, before she begins a countdown with her eyes gouged out. Meanwhile, a SWAT team raids said compound finding all manner of ghoulish goings-on before a news broadcast begins… Written and directed by Jennifer Reeder, this is a nice, tension filled way to kick out the jams and get this fright flick rocking n’ rolling (as are the segments of the tale that appear between each story proper)! The above leads into Chloe Okuno’s Storm Drain, which tales the tale of Channel 6 news reporter Holly
Continue reading →
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GamingIndieProductReviews
I’m nearing a major milestone of reviewing over 100 games for you the Horror Fuel reader but this review, in my opinion, is more important as it’s been both humbling and surreal. The game reviewed today comes to us from Sengi Games a Ukrainian-based indie game developer, even though their home country is in the middle of a war in which many of their countrymen have been murdered for simply being Ukrainian, they still worked on the game so it will be ready in time for its release date, the game: The Serpent Rogue. I want to thank Team 17 and Sengi Games (I hope you guys see this!) for the reviewing opportunity! The Serpent Rogue is a third-person adventure where players are in a dark world and play as The Warden, a plague doctor-looking alchemist tasked with saving the world from a corrupting dark force that reawakened and is taking over the lands. Now onto the game itself. The
Continue reading →
From the CryptMoviesNewsReviewsSci-FiTrailers
Ten years ago Patrick Wilson‘s (The Conjuring franchise) Brian Harper, an astronaut, was disgraced after claiming to see something strange in space. Now, Brian, along with Halle Berry’s Jocinda Fowler, and John Bradley’s JC. is the world’s only hope after the moon leaves its orbit, threatening the complete destruction of the earth in Moonfall. Directed by Roland Emmerich, who penned the script along with Harald Kloser and Spenser Cohen, Moonfall is a part disaster movie and part sci-fi flick and features out-of-this-world special effects including everything from giant waves taking out cities, pieces of the moon pelting the world, and amazing outerspace structures. Here’s where the spoilers start. The reason the moon is out of orbit is that it isn’t made of rock as we believe. Instead, it is a superstructure built by the ancestors of man to find planets where they could resettle after a war with AI gone bad. Now, one of the giant, biomechanical creatures has found
Continue reading →
GamingIndieProductReviews
It might be spring but the chill of winter can still be felt in the air for most people, but for the topic of this review, winter has just begun in Winter Ember, an isometric stealth sandbox action game taking players to the city of Anargal where they can lurk in the shadows as a former Nobel turned vigilante. A big thank you to Blowfish and Skymachine Studios for making this review possible! In Winter Ember you play Arthur, a Nobel playboy turned hooded vigilante after going into hiding leaving others to assume you met the same fate as your family after your mansion was destroyed. Arthur returns to the city he once called home to exact revenge and uncover a growing conspiracy involving cults, street gangs, and other wicked foes. Now onto the game itself. There are only a couple of issues with the game I’ll address first before getting into what I like about the game. There seem
Continue reading →
Reviews
Writer/director Brendan Muldowney expands his 2004 short film The Ten Steps into a feature length treatment with The Cellar (Ireland; 2022). The result is an interesting watch that doesn’t offer a lot in the way of originality, but is bolstered by a solid performance from Elisha Cuthbert (House of Wax; Captivity). Cuthbert plays Keira Woods, who is moving into a house with her family — husband Brian (Eoin Macken of The Forest), teen daughter Ellie (Abby Fitz), and preteen son Steven (Dylan Fitzmaurice Brady) — that just happens to be riddled with strange symbols and, of course, a creepy cellar. When Keira and Brian are at a late work meeting one night and the power goes out at home, Keira talks a petrified Ellie down the darkened stairs by candlelight over the phone, only for the girl to disappear. Though some write off Ellie as a runaway, Keira believes she is alive and that her disappearance has something to do
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
Odds are you’ve had a friend that you really don’t like, but you kept around for some reason or another. That’s the kind of friendship that the two couples have in Barbarians, the new home invasion thriller from writer-director Charles Dorfman. Adam (Iwan Rheon, “Game of Thrones”) and Eva (Catalina Sandino Moreno, Maria Full of Grace) have been gearing up to sign on the dotted line for their new home, sold to them by their bully of a friend Lucas (Tom Cullen). Lucas and his girlfriend (Inès Spiridonov) join Adam and Eva for dinner in their new home. After listening to Lucas be an asshole all night, Adam and Eva learn Chloe is pregnant, which is a problem. Things come to a head when blows are exchanged between Adam and Lucas. Then the situation is suddenly made worse when three home invaders crash the party. Barbarians is wild, featuring constant drama and action, and gives viewers a story that will
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Two Roman soldiers saunter up and proceed to take the biggest of info dumps all-over the place… thus are we introduced to the atrocities Emperor Gaius “Caligula” Caesar has been committing since taking control, and thus begins 1981’s Caligulasploitation fracas, Caligula and Messalina. Following that we get things started in the tackiest way possible as Caligula has consensual sex with his sister, before we segue into a softcore orgy… but bear with me, things are about to go off the rails in a fantastic way… See, Caligula and Messalina is directed by none other than Bruno Mattei (Rats: Night of Terror, and Shocking Dark, to name but a few… ), and one thing ol’ Bruno digs is stock footage (I’m looking at you Hell of the Living Dead) and he uses it here to spectacularly ridiculous effect with large patches of this film being culled from 1961’s The Colossus of Rhodes, and to say it was integrated seamlessly would be
Continue reading →
More from Reviews
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
I’ve seen at least a hundred exorcism movies, and they were all pretty much the same, and the majority were just plain terrible, always featuring the same recycled ideas shuffled around to try and make a plot look new. When I sat down to watch The exorcism of God I just assumed it would be another low-budget trash version of The Exorcist (no offense). What I got, was shock, it was a new twist on the supernatural that left me impressed. I should probably tell you a little about it before we go any further. In the film, from director Alejandro Hidalgo, who co-wrote The Exorcism of God along with Santiago Fernández Calvete, comes the story of a priest, Father Williams, who while conducting his first exorcism briefly became possessed and did something terrible. He has spent his life trying to find forgiveness within himself while striving to be the best priest he can be. His life seems ideal until
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Talisman One person’s belief system is another person’s superstition, and director Reangsei Phos’ Talisman (Canada) finds school-age Yi (Sean Lu) torn between those two schools of thought. His family has just moved into a new house, and as his mother (Qingqing Yang) tries to protect the home against ghosts, his father (Danny Liang) admonishes her not to fill the young boy’s head full of nonsense. Strange things are indeed happening inside the house, which leads to shocking acts of violence. Phos balances solid family drama with well-paced suspense, including some blink-and-you’ll-miss-it occurrences which should keep viewers’ eyes glued to the proceedings. The cast members, including Pascale Behrman, all turn in solid performances. Wendigo The animated short Wendigo (Ireland, 2021) is an intriguing take on the North American First Nations mythological creature combined with other eldritch occurrences. Charlie (voiced by Marc-Ivan O’Gorman) is an inquisitive young man who wants to investigate first-hand what remains of the Olsen manor, site of some
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Upurga Director Ulges Ote blends blends folk horror, eco horror, surrealism, and absurdism to mystifying, eerie effect in his Latvian narrative feature debut Upurga. Andrejs (Igors Selegovskis) is a river rafting guide haunted by his inability to save a young woman from drowning. When his sister Mara (Elvita Ragovska) and her boyfriend Matiaas (Rihaard Sniegs) plan a trip to the wilds to shoot a vegan sausage commercial — along with videographer Oskars (Reinis Boters) and director/project manager Eva (Inga Tropa) — Andrejs insists on coming along to ensure everyone’s safety, though the others are far less concerned about that and more intent on having a good time and creating a worthy advertisement. Inspector Salins (Morten Traavik), the local park ranger, warns the group to respect nature and leave his jurisdiction within 30 minutes, but naturally the group members ignore his warnings. That turns out to be a poor decision, as exposure to the local flora makes them act in aggressive
Continue reading →
MoviesReviewsShudder
For those unfamiliar with the V/H/S series , here’s the eerie elevator pitch: an anthology of period terror tales is presented in the found footage format, more specifically via VHS tapes. I can safely say that V/H/S 94 sticks to that formula (which doubtless comes a shock to some of you lascivious lot). Moving on, V/H/S 94 begins with a woman in a strange compound huffing fumes from some sort of demonic jizz or another, before she begins a countdown with her eyes gouged out. Meanwhile, a SWAT team raids said compound finding all manner of ghoulish goings-on before a news broadcast begins… Written and directed by Jennifer Reeder, this is a nice, tension filled way to kick out the jams and get this fright flick rocking n’ rolling (as are the segments of the tale that appear between each story proper)! The above leads into Chloe Okuno’s Storm Drain, which tales the tale of Channel 6 news reporter Holly
Continue reading →
GamingIndieProductReviews
I’m nearing a major milestone of reviewing over 100 games for you the Horror Fuel reader but this review, in my opinion, is more important as it’s been both humbling and surreal. The game reviewed today comes to us from Sengi Games a Ukrainian-based indie game developer, even though their home country is in the middle of a war in which many of their countrymen have been murdered for simply being Ukrainian, they still worked on the game so it will be ready in time for its release date, the game: The Serpent Rogue. I want to thank Team 17 and Sengi Games (I hope you guys see this!) for the reviewing opportunity! The Serpent Rogue is a third-person adventure where players are in a dark world and play as The Warden, a plague doctor-looking alchemist tasked with saving the world from a corrupting dark force that reawakened and is taking over the lands. Now onto the game itself. The
Continue reading →
From the CryptMoviesNewsReviewsSci-FiTrailers
Ten years ago Patrick Wilson‘s (The Conjuring franchise) Brian Harper, an astronaut, was disgraced after claiming to see something strange in space. Now, Brian, along with Halle Berry’s Jocinda Fowler, and John Bradley’s JC. is the world’s only hope after the moon leaves its orbit, threatening the complete destruction of the earth in Moonfall. Directed by Roland Emmerich, who penned the script along with Harald Kloser and Spenser Cohen, Moonfall is a part disaster movie and part sci-fi flick and features out-of-this-world special effects including everything from giant waves taking out cities, pieces of the moon pelting the world, and amazing outerspace structures. Here’s where the spoilers start. The reason the moon is out of orbit is that it isn’t made of rock as we believe. Instead, it is a superstructure built by the ancestors of man to find planets where they could resettle after a war with AI gone bad. Now, one of the giant, biomechanical creatures has found
Continue reading →
GamingIndieProductReviews
It might be spring but the chill of winter can still be felt in the air for most people, but for the topic of this review, winter has just begun in Winter Ember, an isometric stealth sandbox action game taking players to the city of Anargal where they can lurk in the shadows as a former Nobel turned vigilante. A big thank you to Blowfish and Skymachine Studios for making this review possible! In Winter Ember you play Arthur, a Nobel playboy turned hooded vigilante after going into hiding leaving others to assume you met the same fate as your family after your mansion was destroyed. Arthur returns to the city he once called home to exact revenge and uncover a growing conspiracy involving cults, street gangs, and other wicked foes. Now onto the game itself. There are only a couple of issues with the game I’ll address first before getting into what I like about the game. There seem
Continue reading →
Reviews
Writer/director Brendan Muldowney expands his 2004 short film The Ten Steps into a feature length treatment with The Cellar (Ireland; 2022). The result is an interesting watch that doesn’t offer a lot in the way of originality, but is bolstered by a solid performance from Elisha Cuthbert (House of Wax; Captivity). Cuthbert plays Keira Woods, who is moving into a house with her family — husband Brian (Eoin Macken of The Forest), teen daughter Ellie (Abby Fitz), and preteen son Steven (Dylan Fitzmaurice Brady) — that just happens to be riddled with strange symbols and, of course, a creepy cellar. When Keira and Brian are at a late work meeting one night and the power goes out at home, Keira talks a petrified Ellie down the darkened stairs by candlelight over the phone, only for the girl to disappear. Though some write off Ellie as a runaway, Keira believes she is alive and that her disappearance has something to do
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsTrailers
Odds are you’ve had a friend that you really don’t like, but you kept around for some reason or another. That’s the kind of friendship that the two couples have in Barbarians, the new home invasion thriller from writer-director Charles Dorfman. Adam (Iwan Rheon, “Game of Thrones”) and Eva (Catalina Sandino Moreno, Maria Full of Grace) have been gearing up to sign on the dotted line for their new home, sold to them by their bully of a friend Lucas (Tom Cullen). Lucas and his girlfriend (Inès Spiridonov) join Adam and Eva for dinner in their new home. After listening to Lucas be an asshole all night, Adam and Eva learn Chloe is pregnant, which is a problem. Things come to a head when blows are exchanged between Adam and Lucas. Then the situation is suddenly made worse when three home invaders crash the party. Barbarians is wild, featuring constant drama and action, and gives viewers a story that will
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Two Roman soldiers saunter up and proceed to take the biggest of info dumps all-over the place… thus are we introduced to the atrocities Emperor Gaius “Caligula” Caesar has been committing since taking control, and thus begins 1981’s Caligulasploitation fracas, Caligula and Messalina. Following that we get things started in the tackiest way possible as Caligula has consensual sex with his sister, before we segue into a softcore orgy… but bear with me, things are about to go off the rails in a fantastic way… See, Caligula and Messalina is directed by none other than Bruno Mattei (Rats: Night of Terror, and Shocking Dark, to name but a few… ), and one thing ol’ Bruno digs is stock footage (I’m looking at you Hell of the Living Dead) and he uses it here to spectacularly ridiculous effect with large patches of this film being culled from 1961’s The Colossus of Rhodes, and to say it was integrated seamlessly would be
Continue reading →
