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 FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsThriller
Sundance Film Festival is absolutely killing it with its horror selections! Following are capsule reviews of two absolutely bonkers, can’t-miss features. Hatching Finnish/Swedish coproduction Hatching (Ruva, 2022) finds pre-teen gymnast Tinja (Siiri Solalinna in a captivating debut performance) trying to live up to the expectations of her domineering mother (Sophia Heikkilӓ), who vlogs about the wonderful life of their seemingly perfect family. Naturally, the online presence is merely an illusion, as evidenced earlier on when Tinja captures a bird that flew into their house, only to see her mother break its neck. Soon after, Tinja finds a bird’s egg near her home, and promises to take care of what will hatch from it. Big mistake, what with this being a horror film. It would be a shame to go into too many details here about Hanna Bergholm’s astonishing directorial debut Hatching, so suffice it to say that there are some amazing creature and body horror effects on display of both
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsStreaming TVTrailersTubi
Tubi’s new original Horror Hellblazers takes us to a tiny remote town. Deep in the woods at dark a cult dances around a fire, led by a shaggy-haired Billy Zane. With a chant, the cult raises a demon and lets it loose to cause chaos and death. The town’s only hope of salvation is their new big city Sheriff, Joe (Ed Marrone), his two deputies (Crash Buist, Paige Sturges), and a trigger happy. ill-tempered old man (Bruce Dern). In the movie, the town must come together to try to survive the demon as well as the cult members who are hellbent on killing them all. There’s a ton of action as the residents of the town use anything they can find as weapons, guns, knives, bats, explosives, and even a chainsaw to fight to survive or they’ll end up on the demon’s menu. When I first reported on Hellblazers it was the cast that caught my attention, starring actors such
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Mona (Gro Swantje Kohlhof) heads to a hotel in the remote village of Stainbach after her mother, flight attendant Marlene (Sandra Hüller), falls victim to a severe mental episode while staying at the same location… a location that has been plaguing her chronic nightmares. Once there, Mona finds herself in a seeming fever dream filled with boars, ancient houses in the woods, and visions of suicides past that took place on those putrid premises… not to mention the hotel’s owners acting weird as all fuck… and those “sex” dreams… Will our hero uncover the town’s dark secret and how does it relate to her family? If there’s one thing director Michael Venus’ (who co-wrote the picture with Thomas Friedrich) Sleep is it’s dour… and weird… and a slow burn… alright, it’s a lot of fuckin’ things, including Grade-A fuckin’ excellent! Adding to the positives here is a stellar performance from Kohlhof who travels through this surreal misadventure in a perpetual
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesReviews
Director Mimi Cave’s debut feature film Fresh is destined to be one of the absolute best horror films of 2022. It is also the most difficult type of film to write a review about, because it is the type of movie that first-time viewers need to go into as, well, fresh as possible. My review will be spoiler free. Fresh starts out as a dark satire on modern dating, an anti–rom-com that shines a spotlight on the pressures of meeting new people on dating apps and the benefit of having friends who know how to cyberstalk strangers. Then it heads headlong into some of the most nail-biting, uncomfortable fear fare imaginable. Daisy Edgar-Jones gives a superb performance as Noa, a young woman tired of swiping on dating app photos, receiving unwanted pictures of men’s genitalia, and first dates that lead nowhere. When she has a meet cute in the produce section with a plastic surgeon named Steve (Sebastian Stan in
Continue reading →
NetflixNewsReviewsStreaming TVTrailers
Over the past few years, Netflix has really expanded the genre library, bringing us both great horror films and series. One of their latest offerings is the James Wan-produced series “Archive 81”. If you are wondering if it’s worth the watch, we will answer that in this review. Mamoudou Athie stars as Dan, a quiet and slightly odd man, burdened by the death of his entire family when he was just a child. He is hired by the mysterious Virgil Davenport (Martin Donovan) to restore the tapes made by Melody (Dina Shihabi) at Virgil’s remote compound, which contains many secrets. As he watches the videos he discovers that the tapes chronicle her investigation of a cult that resides in the Visser apartment building in 1994. With every tape that he restores, he becomes more infatuated with Melody and is determined to find a way to rescue her from the other world connected to the cult, while also seeking answers of
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Director Christian Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil (Gæsterne; Denmark/Netherlands, 2022) may be the most uncomfortable horror film in recent memory, as it puts social niceties, including acting “correctly” and politely, under a microscope and plays with the ideas of what horror is before delivering an absolutely harrowing third act. Danish family Bjørn (Morten Burian), Louise (Sidsel Siem Koch), and their young daughter Agnes (Liva Forsberg) meet Dutch family Patrick (Fedja van Huêt), Karin (Karina Smulders), and their young son Abel (Marius Damslev) during a trip to Italy. The two families strike up a casual friendship during the trip, and a few months later, Patrick and Karen invite Bjørn, Louise, and Agnes to spend a weekend with them at their home. Things start off a bit uneasily when Patrick insists that vegetarian Louise taste the wild boar he has prepared for their first meal together, and things get increasingly uncomfortable from there. Speak No Evil starts off as pitch-black comedy of manners
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
After a serious case of credits with training montage we get down to the meat n’ potatoes of Disciples of Shaolin; namely the arrival of Shaolin-style kung-fu bumpkin Kuan (Alexander Fu Sheng, who tragically died at age 28 from injuries sustained in a car accident in 1983) who arrives in town in the hopes of obtaining work at the local textile mill via his friend/fellow Shaolin kung-fu disciple Huang (Chi Kuan-Chun). Spoiler: Kuan obtains a job at the textile mill. And, what a job it is; fuckin’ around with looms and blatantly showing off his marital arts prowess exactly as Huang asked him not to do. Good thing too, as it’s just this kind of ass-kickin’ showboating that quickly results in our hero becoming the right hand man to the boss of the factory himself! Now, why would the boss need someone with those skills so damn bad in an industry based on thread count and long-lasting fabric durability? Because
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
After a work place accident in which he just stood idly by as a man went up in flames, delusional psycho/flame enthusiast Donny Kohler (The Soprano‘s Dan Grimaldi) returns home to find his beloved (not to mention horribly abusive) mother dead. It’s at this point the voices in his head take over and tell him he can both enjoy loud disco music (hey, I said he was a psycho) and should really consider making a flame proof room where he can burn women alive… as one does. Donny takes to that advice like a mother fucker, and begins piling up the BBQ… which he dresses and arranges in a room… but hey, he kept his Mom’s corpse too, so it’s kinda his thing… Speaking of dear ol’ mama, her voice soon begins a competition with the other voices in Donny’s deranged dome, and it isn’t long before our “hero” begins seeing visions of the walking dead! While definitely knowing which
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesReviews
The Changed Director Michael Mongillo takes the basic premises of such classic paranoia-driven horror and science fiction fare as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and The Monsters are Due on Maple Street (1960) from the original The Twilight Zone series, and gives them a fresh, current spin with his feature The Changed (2021). The result is a finely acted, taut chiller that puts today’s social climates under a gripping cinematic microscope. Mac (Jason Alan Smith) has anger issues that he is trying to work on, but that won’t be easy as he notices that his neighbors and others with whom he comes into contact are acting differently, in a way that he can’t quite figure out. His neighbor Bill (Tony Todd) tries to offer him some subtle reassurance over a morning cup of coffee, but as the day progresses, things get increasingly stranger — and more dangerous. When fellow neighbor and high school student Kim (Clare Foley) comes to
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
If you’re in the mood for a testosterone-fueled fright-fare outing in which World War II soldiers battle a coven of shape-shifting witches, complete with not one, but two scenery-chewing officers including one such portrayal by Mickey Rourke, you’re in luck. Warhunt delivers in those departments, and though it has its setbacks, it’s entertaining throughout. Rourke plays Major Johnson (that name has to be intentional humor), an eyepatched U.S. officer who has a group of soldiers go into enemy territory to retrieve the secret contents of a downed aircraft in 1945 Germany. The sergeant (Robert Knepper) in command of the troops is leery of Johnson’s handpicked proxy to accompany the group, surveyor Walsh (Jackson Rathbone). He is also skeptical when rumors of witchcraft start sifting through his troops. Meanwhile, Johnson is on safer ground, working with codebreakers on cracking an archaic Germanic code. If it is seduction by witches and plenty of bloodletting and nightmarish illusions you want, it is plenty
Continue reading →
More from Reviews
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsThriller
Sundance Film Festival is absolutely killing it with its horror selections! Following are capsule reviews of two absolutely bonkers, can’t-miss features. Hatching Finnish/Swedish coproduction Hatching (Ruva, 2022) finds pre-teen gymnast Tinja (Siiri Solalinna in a captivating debut performance) trying to live up to the expectations of her domineering mother (Sophia Heikkilӓ), who vlogs about the wonderful life of their seemingly perfect family. Naturally, the online presence is merely an illusion, as evidenced earlier on when Tinja captures a bird that flew into their house, only to see her mother break its neck. Soon after, Tinja finds a bird’s egg near her home, and promises to take care of what will hatch from it. Big mistake, what with this being a horror film. It would be a shame to go into too many details here about Hanna Bergholm’s astonishing directorial debut Hatching, so suffice it to say that there are some amazing creature and body horror effects on display of both
Continue reading →
MoviesNewsReviewsStreaming TVTrailersTubi
Tubi’s new original Horror Hellblazers takes us to a tiny remote town. Deep in the woods at dark a cult dances around a fire, led by a shaggy-haired Billy Zane. With a chant, the cult raises a demon and lets it loose to cause chaos and death. The town’s only hope of salvation is their new big city Sheriff, Joe (Ed Marrone), his two deputies (Crash Buist, Paige Sturges), and a trigger happy. ill-tempered old man (Bruce Dern). In the movie, the town must come together to try to survive the demon as well as the cult members who are hellbent on killing them all. There’s a ton of action as the residents of the town use anything they can find as weapons, guns, knives, bats, explosives, and even a chainsaw to fight to survive or they’ll end up on the demon’s menu. When I first reported on Hellblazers it was the cast that caught my attention, starring actors such
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Mona (Gro Swantje Kohlhof) heads to a hotel in the remote village of Stainbach after her mother, flight attendant Marlene (Sandra Hüller), falls victim to a severe mental episode while staying at the same location… a location that has been plaguing her chronic nightmares. Once there, Mona finds herself in a seeming fever dream filled with boars, ancient houses in the woods, and visions of suicides past that took place on those putrid premises… not to mention the hotel’s owners acting weird as all fuck… and those “sex” dreams… Will our hero uncover the town’s dark secret and how does it relate to her family? If there’s one thing director Michael Venus’ (who co-wrote the picture with Thomas Friedrich) Sleep is it’s dour… and weird… and a slow burn… alright, it’s a lot of fuckin’ things, including Grade-A fuckin’ excellent! Adding to the positives here is a stellar performance from Kohlhof who travels through this surreal misadventure in a perpetual
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesReviews
Director Mimi Cave’s debut feature film Fresh is destined to be one of the absolute best horror films of 2022. It is also the most difficult type of film to write a review about, because it is the type of movie that first-time viewers need to go into as, well, fresh as possible. My review will be spoiler free. Fresh starts out as a dark satire on modern dating, an anti–rom-com that shines a spotlight on the pressures of meeting new people on dating apps and the benefit of having friends who know how to cyberstalk strangers. Then it heads headlong into some of the most nail-biting, uncomfortable fear fare imaginable. Daisy Edgar-Jones gives a superb performance as Noa, a young woman tired of swiping on dating app photos, receiving unwanted pictures of men’s genitalia, and first dates that lead nowhere. When she has a meet cute in the produce section with a plastic surgeon named Steve (Sebastian Stan in
Continue reading →
NetflixNewsReviewsStreaming TVTrailers
Over the past few years, Netflix has really expanded the genre library, bringing us both great horror films and series. One of their latest offerings is the James Wan-produced series “Archive 81”. If you are wondering if it’s worth the watch, we will answer that in this review. Mamoudou Athie stars as Dan, a quiet and slightly odd man, burdened by the death of his entire family when he was just a child. He is hired by the mysterious Virgil Davenport (Martin Donovan) to restore the tapes made by Melody (Dina Shihabi) at Virgil’s remote compound, which contains many secrets. As he watches the videos he discovers that the tapes chronicle her investigation of a cult that resides in the Visser apartment building in 1994. With every tape that he restores, he becomes more infatuated with Melody and is determined to find a way to rescue her from the other world connected to the cult, while also seeking answers of
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Director Christian Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil (Gæsterne; Denmark/Netherlands, 2022) may be the most uncomfortable horror film in recent memory, as it puts social niceties, including acting “correctly” and politely, under a microscope and plays with the ideas of what horror is before delivering an absolutely harrowing third act. Danish family Bjørn (Morten Burian), Louise (Sidsel Siem Koch), and their young daughter Agnes (Liva Forsberg) meet Dutch family Patrick (Fedja van Huêt), Karin (Karina Smulders), and their young son Abel (Marius Damslev) during a trip to Italy. The two families strike up a casual friendship during the trip, and a few months later, Patrick and Karen invite Bjørn, Louise, and Agnes to spend a weekend with them at their home. Things start off a bit uneasily when Patrick insists that vegetarian Louise taste the wild boar he has prepared for their first meal together, and things get increasingly uncomfortable from there. Speak No Evil starts off as pitch-black comedy of manners
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
After a serious case of credits with training montage we get down to the meat n’ potatoes of Disciples of Shaolin; namely the arrival of Shaolin-style kung-fu bumpkin Kuan (Alexander Fu Sheng, who tragically died at age 28 from injuries sustained in a car accident in 1983) who arrives in town in the hopes of obtaining work at the local textile mill via his friend/fellow Shaolin kung-fu disciple Huang (Chi Kuan-Chun). Spoiler: Kuan obtains a job at the textile mill. And, what a job it is; fuckin’ around with looms and blatantly showing off his marital arts prowess exactly as Huang asked him not to do. Good thing too, as it’s just this kind of ass-kickin’ showboating that quickly results in our hero becoming the right hand man to the boss of the factory himself! Now, why would the boss need someone with those skills so damn bad in an industry based on thread count and long-lasting fabric durability? Because
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
After a work place accident in which he just stood idly by as a man went up in flames, delusional psycho/flame enthusiast Donny Kohler (The Soprano‘s Dan Grimaldi) returns home to find his beloved (not to mention horribly abusive) mother dead. It’s at this point the voices in his head take over and tell him he can both enjoy loud disco music (hey, I said he was a psycho) and should really consider making a flame proof room where he can burn women alive… as one does. Donny takes to that advice like a mother fucker, and begins piling up the BBQ… which he dresses and arranges in a room… but hey, he kept his Mom’s corpse too, so it’s kinda his thing… Speaking of dear ol’ mama, her voice soon begins a competition with the other voices in Donny’s deranged dome, and it isn’t long before our “hero” begins seeing visions of the walking dead! While definitely knowing which
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesReviews
The Changed Director Michael Mongillo takes the basic premises of such classic paranoia-driven horror and science fiction fare as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and The Monsters are Due on Maple Street (1960) from the original The Twilight Zone series, and gives them a fresh, current spin with his feature The Changed (2021). The result is a finely acted, taut chiller that puts today’s social climates under a gripping cinematic microscope. Mac (Jason Alan Smith) has anger issues that he is trying to work on, but that won’t be easy as he notices that his neighbors and others with whom he comes into contact are acting differently, in a way that he can’t quite figure out. His neighbor Bill (Tony Todd) tries to offer him some subtle reassurance over a morning cup of coffee, but as the day progresses, things get increasingly stranger — and more dangerous. When fellow neighbor and high school student Kim (Clare Foley) comes to
Continue reading →
MoviesReviews
If you’re in the mood for a testosterone-fueled fright-fare outing in which World War II soldiers battle a coven of shape-shifting witches, complete with not one, but two scenery-chewing officers including one such portrayal by Mickey Rourke, you’re in luck. Warhunt delivers in those departments, and though it has its setbacks, it’s entertaining throughout. Rourke plays Major Johnson (that name has to be intentional humor), an eyepatched U.S. officer who has a group of soldiers go into enemy territory to retrieve the secret contents of a downed aircraft in 1945 Germany. The sergeant (Robert Knepper) in command of the troops is leery of Johnson’s handpicked proxy to accompany the group, surveyor Walsh (Jackson Rathbone). He is also skeptical when rumors of witchcraft start sifting through his troops. Meanwhile, Johnson is on safer ground, working with codebreakers on cracking an archaic Germanic code. If it is seduction by witches and plenty of bloodletting and nightmarish illusions you want, it is plenty
Continue reading →
