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Movie Reviews: “Apparitions,” “Crow Valley,” and “The Dunes” (Monster Fest)

Apparitions Combining psychological horror with a couple of other styles of fright fare that I don’t want to spoil here, Apparitions (Australia, 2021) is a well-crafted shocker from the cowriting/codirecting team of Perri Cummings and Paul Anthony Nelson featuring admirable performances and a good amount of intrigue. Lily Stone (Cate O’Connor) has just graduated from university but what should be a high point in her life so far is overshadowed by the fact that she was the only survivor of a family slaughter that she witnessed as a young girl (as revealed very early on in the film). She returns home to what locals consider a haunted house to find out more about her past. Lily fails to contact her best friend Alice (Shanon Kulupach), who goads serious-minded cop Jane Wilkes (Cummings) into taking her along to find out what is wrong. Deadly mayhem ensues as long-buried secrets are uncovered. Cummings and Nelson run protagonist Lily through the wringer both

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Dec 7, 2021

Movie Review: “Silent Night” 

Silent Night (the U.K., 2021) is a gut-punch of a film. What seems to be a traditional British Christmas gathering of family, friends, and frenemies turns into a harrowing ordeal that plays on emotions in a taut, chilling manner, with dark humor added to the mix to make matters even more mind-boggling. Nell (Keira Knightly) and her husband Simon (Matthew Goode), parents of eldest son Art (Roman Griffin Davis) and their younger twins Thomas (Gilby Griffin Davis) and Hardy (Hardy Griffin Davis), host a Christmas feast for a diverse bunch. Nell’s stuffy sister Sandra (Annabelle Wallis) and her kinder, gentler husband Tony (Rufus Jones) arrive with their mordant young daughter Kitty (Davida McKenzie); Nell’s other sister Bella (Lucy Punch) brings along unsuspecting significant other Alex (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), and longtime friend from school days James (Sope Dirusu) arrives with younger girlfriend Sophie (Lily-Rose Depp). While the adults bicker and open up both new and festering older wounds, the children run around

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Dec 4, 2021

Blu-ray Review: Creepshow Season Two

Shudder, AMC’s streaming service for horror and thrillers continues to kill it with original movies and shows including their hit anthology series “Creepshow” whose second season is heading to Blu-ray and DVD this December. Season two takes horror to a whole new level with episodes starring some of the biggest names in the genre including Ted Raimi (“Buddy Thunderstruck”, “Ash vs Evil Dead”), Ali Larter (“House of Haunted Hill”), Josh McDermitt (“The Walking Dead”), Ashley Laurence from the Hellraiser franchise, Keifer Sutherland of The Lost Boys. and so many more. Taking a look at the Blu-ray cover, by artists Sanjulián and Rich Hilliard, we see “Creepshow’s” iconic ghoul along with several of the monsters that make an appearance this season. This season we get five terror-filled episodes featuring everything from classic monsters to deadites, with each episode featuring two twisted tales. As always, horror is front and center in the series along with laugh-inducing escapades, and buckets of gore, but

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Dec 3, 2021

‘In The Land Of Dead Horses’ is A Supernatural Western That Will Terrify And Excite You

Plot Just right off the bat: What an amazing plot! Author Bruce McCandless III has created a masterpiece with In the Land of Dead Horses. A supernatural horror, gory, western, whodunit novel wrapped in history and mystery. Mayan descendants, in Pre-WWI Texas, resurrect one of their ancient gods to take vengeance and restore their lands and people. Their plot is stumbled upon by a Texas Ranger named Jewel T. Lightfoot and a supernatural battle between good vs. evil begins. It is a heart-racing-read that will keep you racing through the pages and guessing what will happen next…but you will guess wrong. This novel really could stand on its own as a Texas cowboy action-mystery, but when you add in all the other chilling elements, the novel becomes so much more. Not only does the plot have depth and intensity, but how it is presented by McCandless is phenomenal. Characters Texas Ranger Jewel T. Lightfoot, aging silver miner Ernesto Zavala and

Continue reading →
Greg Kershaw
Dec 3, 2021

Movie Review: “Cats of the Bayou (ASMR)” (Another Hole in the Head Film Festival)

Writer/director Alexander Roman returns with another feature to warm the hearts of viewers who appreciate old-school occult movies and noir films with some modern twists, Cats of the Bayou (ASMR). Like Roman’s previous features, it deals in style and elegance, eschewing graphic gore and violence in favor of good storytelling and leaving certain elements to the imagination of viewers. Members of a group called The Cat Society meet in New Orleans to listen to a tape from Egyptologist Horace, and then learn that one of their members has been found dead, with scratches all over his face and body. A few months later, a young woman named Jacqueline (Max Reeves) returns to the city, where she had lived as a child before being moved to an abbey. As she begins to become increasingly intrigued about the secretive Cat Society and its members, and as she starts to unearth shocking clues about the death of her parents, esoteric mysteries begin to

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Nov 30, 2021

Movie Review: “Motherly” 

Canadian feature Motherly is a slick horror thriller full of intriguing twists and turns. Though savvy viewers may have a strong inclination early on as to the big, climactic reveal, director Craig David Wallace — working from a screenplay that he cowrote with Ian Malone — makes the full ride worth taking nevertheless. Kate (Lora Burke) is trying to give her daughter Beth (Tessa Kozma) a happy ninth birthday party, but Kate isn’t having it. She wants to be with her father, who is in prison for killing a child. The mother and daughter are staying in a safe house located in the woods with her daughter, with law enforcement agent Hal (Colin Paradine) as their contact with the outside world. Kate investigates around the house when she thinks she hears a noise, maybe even seeming a little paranoid, but it turns out someone really is out to get her . . . Let’s leave the plot information at that,

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Nov 29, 2021

Blu-ray Review: 1974: La posesión de Altair (2016)

Newlyweds Manuel (Rolando Breme), a camera buff, and school teacher Altair (Diana Bovio) are just two crazy kids who are high on life, a life that couldn’t be a more typical blend of birthday parties, puppies, and boudoir role-play. Of course that shit begins to go south rather quickly as odd occurrences begin happening such as birds turning into ape-shit cannibals (much more than they normally already are), phone calls that only contain strange noises, and bad dreams with onset nosebleeds and sleepwalking (never a good sign in our beloved horror biz). Oh, about those “dreams”… well, they begin to tell Altair to do things… admittedly seemingly random tasks like painting bricks that arrived mysteriously one day out of the blue… and soon our heroine is acting 100% fuckin’ Grade-A bizarre… or is she? A little detective work from Manuel, along with his pal Callahan (Guillermo Callahan) reveal a troubled past, but are those events at all responsible for the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Nov 27, 2021

Blu-ray Review: Elvira’s Haunted Hills (2001)

After an uproarious intro from the Mistress of the Dark herself, we dive right into the meat and potatoes (and what potatoes they are) of Elvira’s Haunted Hills; her second frightful feature film (following 1988’s Elvira: Mistress of the Dark) now available on Blu-ray thanks to those delicious devils o’er at Scream Factory! Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) and her maidservant/comedic foil Zou Zou (played to absolute perfection by Mary Jo Smith) are on their way to Paris (where our titular heroine can perform in a can-can revue) via the Carpathian mountains in the year 1851. After a disagreement with an innkeeper our heroes et off on foot where they are soon picked up by a carriage occupied by Dr, Bradley Bradley (Scott Atkinson in the Price role) who is en route to a nearby castle occupied by the intense-as-fuck Lady Ema Hellsubus (Mary Scheer) and her sound-adverse husband Lord Vladimir Hellsubus (Rocky Horror Picture Show mastermind Richard O’ Brien in the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Nov 27, 2021

Blu-ray Release: Dark Shadows and Beyond: the Jonathan Frid Story (2021)

You lot know I love me some Dark Shadows; Dan Curtis’ ground-breaking 1960’s soap opera filled to the brim with Gothic atmosphere, witches, werewolves, and of course vampires, and it’s with that last denizen of the creature feature that the series featured it’s most enduring icon, the undead Lord of Collinwood, Barnabas Collins… played by to suave perfection by Jonathan Frid… speaking of which… Dark Shadows and Beyond: the Jonathan Frid Story, the new Blu-ray documentary release from MPI Pictures will either delight you with tales of showbiz and theater, or aggravate you if you want to know the man himself. What this film does right is explores in great detail the entire breadth of Frid’s work, from stage, to television, to movies, and back again; the man was an impressive actor with dozens of memorable performances under his belt before he even slipped in those enamel canines and set about putting the bite on Collinsport, Maine. Of course much

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Nov 27, 2021

Blu-ray Review: Sailor Suit & Machine Gun (1981)

Since the head honcho of a local Yakuza family just shook hands with the ol’ Grim Reaper, the next in line to take the reigns is none other than his estranged daughter… spunky, goofy, pretty fuckin’ ridiculous in every respect, high school student Izumi Hoshi (idol singer Hiroko Yakushimaru)! Cue stupid-ass record scratch sound effect here. Izumi is more than ready to become a delinquent, and immediately abandons school (though the sailor suit remains… and yes, she weilds a rather angry machine gun as well at times)… though at first she isn’t sure that livin’ in a gangsta paradise is for her… but soon she actually takes to the role and ,along with a quartet of henchmen, begins to become a presence in the underworld… but will she manage to keep ahead of the game, or be swallowed by it? I have to tell you, reading that above synopsis I wouldn’t blame you for expecting a wall-to-wall, live-action anime style

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Nov 27, 2021

More from Reviews

Movie Reviews: “Apparitions,” “Crow Valley,” and “The Dunes” (Monster Fest)

Apparitions Combining psychological horror with a couple of other styles of fright fare that I don’t want to spoil here, Apparitions (Australia, 2021) is a well-crafted shocker from the cowriting/codirecting team of Perri Cummings and Paul Anthony Nelson featuring admirable performances and a good amount of intrigue. Lily Stone (Cate O’Connor) has just graduated from university but what should be a high point in her life so far is overshadowed by the fact that she was the only survivor of a family slaughter that she witnessed as a young girl (as revealed very early on in the film). She returns home to what locals consider a haunted house to find out more about her past. Lily fails to contact her best friend Alice (Shanon Kulupach), who goads serious-minded cop Jane Wilkes (Cummings) into taking her along to find out what is wrong. Deadly mayhem ensues as long-buried secrets are uncovered. Cummings and Nelson run protagonist Lily through the wringer both

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Dec 7, 2021

Movie Review: “Silent Night” 

Silent Night (the U.K., 2021) is a gut-punch of a film. What seems to be a traditional British Christmas gathering of family, friends, and frenemies turns into a harrowing ordeal that plays on emotions in a taut, chilling manner, with dark humor added to the mix to make matters even more mind-boggling. Nell (Keira Knightly) and her husband Simon (Matthew Goode), parents of eldest son Art (Roman Griffin Davis) and their younger twins Thomas (Gilby Griffin Davis) and Hardy (Hardy Griffin Davis), host a Christmas feast for a diverse bunch. Nell’s stuffy sister Sandra (Annabelle Wallis) and her kinder, gentler husband Tony (Rufus Jones) arrive with their mordant young daughter Kitty (Davida McKenzie); Nell’s other sister Bella (Lucy Punch) brings along unsuspecting significant other Alex (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), and longtime friend from school days James (Sope Dirusu) arrives with younger girlfriend Sophie (Lily-Rose Depp). While the adults bicker and open up both new and festering older wounds, the children run around

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Dec 4, 2021

Blu-ray Review: Creepshow Season Two

Shudder, AMC’s streaming service for horror and thrillers continues to kill it with original movies and shows including their hit anthology series “Creepshow” whose second season is heading to Blu-ray and DVD this December. Season two takes horror to a whole new level with episodes starring some of the biggest names in the genre including Ted Raimi (“Buddy Thunderstruck”, “Ash vs Evil Dead”), Ali Larter (“House of Haunted Hill”), Josh McDermitt (“The Walking Dead”), Ashley Laurence from the Hellraiser franchise, Keifer Sutherland of The Lost Boys. and so many more. Taking a look at the Blu-ray cover, by artists Sanjulián and Rich Hilliard, we see “Creepshow’s” iconic ghoul along with several of the monsters that make an appearance this season. This season we get five terror-filled episodes featuring everything from classic monsters to deadites, with each episode featuring two twisted tales. As always, horror is front and center in the series along with laugh-inducing escapades, and buckets of gore, but

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Dec 3, 2021

‘In The Land Of Dead Horses’ is A Supernatural Western That Will Terrify And Excite You

Plot Just right off the bat: What an amazing plot! Author Bruce McCandless III has created a masterpiece with In the Land of Dead Horses. A supernatural horror, gory, western, whodunit novel wrapped in history and mystery. Mayan descendants, in Pre-WWI Texas, resurrect one of their ancient gods to take vengeance and restore their lands and people. Their plot is stumbled upon by a Texas Ranger named Jewel T. Lightfoot and a supernatural battle between good vs. evil begins. It is a heart-racing-read that will keep you racing through the pages and guessing what will happen next…but you will guess wrong. This novel really could stand on its own as a Texas cowboy action-mystery, but when you add in all the other chilling elements, the novel becomes so much more. Not only does the plot have depth and intensity, but how it is presented by McCandless is phenomenal. Characters Texas Ranger Jewel T. Lightfoot, aging silver miner Ernesto Zavala and

Continue reading →
Greg Kershaw
Dec 3, 2021

Movie Review: “Cats of the Bayou (ASMR)” (Another Hole in the Head Film Festival)

Writer/director Alexander Roman returns with another feature to warm the hearts of viewers who appreciate old-school occult movies and noir films with some modern twists, Cats of the Bayou (ASMR). Like Roman’s previous features, it deals in style and elegance, eschewing graphic gore and violence in favor of good storytelling and leaving certain elements to the imagination of viewers. Members of a group called The Cat Society meet in New Orleans to listen to a tape from Egyptologist Horace, and then learn that one of their members has been found dead, with scratches all over his face and body. A few months later, a young woman named Jacqueline (Max Reeves) returns to the city, where she had lived as a child before being moved to an abbey. As she begins to become increasingly intrigued about the secretive Cat Society and its members, and as she starts to unearth shocking clues about the death of her parents, esoteric mysteries begin to

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Nov 30, 2021

Movie Review: “Motherly” 

Canadian feature Motherly is a slick horror thriller full of intriguing twists and turns. Though savvy viewers may have a strong inclination early on as to the big, climactic reveal, director Craig David Wallace — working from a screenplay that he cowrote with Ian Malone — makes the full ride worth taking nevertheless. Kate (Lora Burke) is trying to give her daughter Beth (Tessa Kozma) a happy ninth birthday party, but Kate isn’t having it. She wants to be with her father, who is in prison for killing a child. The mother and daughter are staying in a safe house located in the woods with her daughter, with law enforcement agent Hal (Colin Paradine) as their contact with the outside world. Kate investigates around the house when she thinks she hears a noise, maybe even seeming a little paranoid, but it turns out someone really is out to get her . . . Let’s leave the plot information at that,

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Nov 29, 2021

Blu-ray Review: 1974: La posesión de Altair (2016)

Newlyweds Manuel (Rolando Breme), a camera buff, and school teacher Altair (Diana Bovio) are just two crazy kids who are high on life, a life that couldn’t be a more typical blend of birthday parties, puppies, and boudoir role-play. Of course that shit begins to go south rather quickly as odd occurrences begin happening such as birds turning into ape-shit cannibals (much more than they normally already are), phone calls that only contain strange noises, and bad dreams with onset nosebleeds and sleepwalking (never a good sign in our beloved horror biz). Oh, about those “dreams”… well, they begin to tell Altair to do things… admittedly seemingly random tasks like painting bricks that arrived mysteriously one day out of the blue… and soon our heroine is acting 100% fuckin’ Grade-A bizarre… or is she? A little detective work from Manuel, along with his pal Callahan (Guillermo Callahan) reveal a troubled past, but are those events at all responsible for the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Nov 27, 2021

Blu-ray Review: Elvira’s Haunted Hills (2001)

After an uproarious intro from the Mistress of the Dark herself, we dive right into the meat and potatoes (and what potatoes they are) of Elvira’s Haunted Hills; her second frightful feature film (following 1988’s Elvira: Mistress of the Dark) now available on Blu-ray thanks to those delicious devils o’er at Scream Factory! Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) and her maidservant/comedic foil Zou Zou (played to absolute perfection by Mary Jo Smith) are on their way to Paris (where our titular heroine can perform in a can-can revue) via the Carpathian mountains in the year 1851. After a disagreement with an innkeeper our heroes et off on foot where they are soon picked up by a carriage occupied by Dr, Bradley Bradley (Scott Atkinson in the Price role) who is en route to a nearby castle occupied by the intense-as-fuck Lady Ema Hellsubus (Mary Scheer) and her sound-adverse husband Lord Vladimir Hellsubus (Rocky Horror Picture Show mastermind Richard O’ Brien in the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Nov 27, 2021

Blu-ray Release: Dark Shadows and Beyond: the Jonathan Frid Story (2021)

You lot know I love me some Dark Shadows; Dan Curtis’ ground-breaking 1960’s soap opera filled to the brim with Gothic atmosphere, witches, werewolves, and of course vampires, and it’s with that last denizen of the creature feature that the series featured it’s most enduring icon, the undead Lord of Collinwood, Barnabas Collins… played by to suave perfection by Jonathan Frid… speaking of which… Dark Shadows and Beyond: the Jonathan Frid Story, the new Blu-ray documentary release from MPI Pictures will either delight you with tales of showbiz and theater, or aggravate you if you want to know the man himself. What this film does right is explores in great detail the entire breadth of Frid’s work, from stage, to television, to movies, and back again; the man was an impressive actor with dozens of memorable performances under his belt before he even slipped in those enamel canines and set about putting the bite on Collinsport, Maine. Of course much

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Nov 27, 2021

Blu-ray Review: Sailor Suit & Machine Gun (1981)

Since the head honcho of a local Yakuza family just shook hands with the ol’ Grim Reaper, the next in line to take the reigns is none other than his estranged daughter… spunky, goofy, pretty fuckin’ ridiculous in every respect, high school student Izumi Hoshi (idol singer Hiroko Yakushimaru)! Cue stupid-ass record scratch sound effect here. Izumi is more than ready to become a delinquent, and immediately abandons school (though the sailor suit remains… and yes, she weilds a rather angry machine gun as well at times)… though at first she isn’t sure that livin’ in a gangsta paradise is for her… but soon she actually takes to the role and ,along with a quartet of henchmen, begins to become a presence in the underworld… but will she manage to keep ahead of the game, or be swallowed by it? I have to tell you, reading that above synopsis I wouldn’t blame you for expecting a wall-to-wall, live-action anime style

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Nov 27, 2021
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