Breaking Dumb. THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA is not one of those horror movies where the first Act is ominous and it falls apart as it reels toward a dumb climax; no, this movie breaks dumb from its opening frames, with the very event that defines its curse – in 1673, a Mexican mother drowns her two children, after discovering … Read More
BUNNYMAN VENGEANCE
Hare-Brained. Bunnyman is back. For BUNNYMAN VENGEANCE on the people who made him Bunnyman. With a backstory and arc retconned untidily into this third bunny-bonkers slasher dumb-fest. Writer-director Carl Lindbergh is trying (oh lordy! He tryin’!) to learn the art of filmmaking during the making of his artless films. It’s not just a bunny mindlessly roaming the American Midwest chainsawing … Read More
BUNNYMAN
I Tawt I Taw A Puddy Twat. BUNNYMAN will kill you with cuteness. Literally kill you. In the middle of Nowhere, America, six abysmal actors on a road trip are stalked and killed by a guy wearing a cute bunny suit. Good. Full marks to filmmaker Carl Lindbergh for writing, producing, directing and editing this cult slasher film, but NO … Read More
OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL
Devil: 1. God: 0. Again. A charlatan spirit medium discovers her daughter can actually contact spirits through a Ouija board. And all, uh, hell breaks loose. OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL is a prequel to 2014’s OUIJA; set in the late ‘60s, we meet the young family that would become the ghosts of the 2014 film, and we experience their harrowing … Read More
BLAIR WITCH 2016
True Horror: no originality! By 2016, the “found footage” craze had run outa steam. But someone forgot to tell director Adam Wingard, as he dives deliriously into BLAIR WITCH, using supposedly “found footage” to construct this thriller (woooow! So revolutionary!) from five different shaky-cams of doomed 20-somethings hiking the Burkittsville woods, trying to find the girl from the first movie. … Read More
BOOK OF SHADOWS: BLAIR WITCH 2
True Horror: no acting! THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999) was such a phenomenon that its sequel, BOOK OF SHADOWS: BLAIR WITCH 2 could afford to be set “in the real world” and regard that first film as if it was an actual film phenomenon in their world – a world in which everyone from Roger Ebert to MTV’s Kurt Loder … Read More
MIDSOMMAR 2019
Ain’t no cure for the Sommartime Blues. MIDSOMMAR will break you. Five college kids travel to Sweden for a midsummer festival. Oops! It’s a pagan cult. A good way to get yourself killed. Or to break up with your boyfriend. – – – – S P O I L E R S – – – – – You have been … Read More
HEREDITARY
New Horror from Old Trope. HEREDITARY inherits its DNA from THE EXORCIST and THE OMEN. Writer-director Ari Aster’s feature film debut is a brutal masterpiece, drenched in dread, an eerie thriller about a fractured family that ends in a different genre altogether. Movie’s opening scene is a study in creativity: camera pushes in on a room filled with paraphernalia, then … Read More
SINISTER 2
Less Sinister than before… With no stars to speak of, a vanilla leading man and a leaden story, SINISTER 2, the unfocused sequel to 2012’s SINISTER (starring Ethan Hawke) relies on jumpscares and morbid deaths to register any heartbeat at all. The Deputy from SINISTER (mourning-faced James Ransone) is traveling the United States, burning down the houses where the supernatural … Read More
SOUL TO KEEP
Possessed by Mediocrity. After inheriting a rambling old country house from their grandpa, Josh (Tony Spitz) and sister Erin (Aurora Heimbach) invite a gaggle of their Millennial friends over for a par-tayyy. Grandpa “died in the lake; his body was never found…” And if you think that will yield further plot, you haven’t seen one of these barely-written modern kid-possession … Read More
THE HERETICS
Seemin’ Demon. A young girl is pursued by heretics to sacrifice to their demon, and is saved by a heretic to the heretics. I have a beef with the title, THE HERETICS. Heretics are classified as such when they go against established religious dogma; the term is especially applicable to baptized Catholics who believe anything other than the “truth” established … Read More
BLEED 2016
Bleedin’ ‘orrible. BLEED opens with the hallmarks of a well-constructed thriller – in 1979, a young girl with a rune-like birthmark is hunted in a small American town for being able to talk to ghosts; in the present day, a pregnant woman with the same birthmark moves to that town. As a child, she and her twin brother regularly saw … Read More
THE BYE BYE MAN
Horror? Buh-bye. Don’t say it. Don’t think it. Say what? THE BYE BYE MAN. D’oh! The more you think about him, the closer he gets. You see things that aren’t there. You don’t see things that are there. He makes you kill people. Or kill yourself. Or something else might kill you. So, basically, just whatever then… “And you die … Read More
WOLF CREEK 2
Oz goes La La. Greg McLean’s WOLF CREEK (2005) was a good movie for a number of reasons, one of them being, it was a body-horror thriller removed from the “Hollywood” system. It oozed Made in Oz. But WOLF CREEK 2, even though helmed by the same director-writer, looks and feels like La La Land. Maybe because it took eight … Read More
WOLF CREEK
Tourist hotties. Psycho ocker. Unconscionable Strine. Three young backpackers visit WOLF CREEK meteorite crater in Western Australia, on a killer vacation. Two British girls, Liz (skinny, square-jawed Cassandra Magrath) and Kristy (blond busty Kestie Morassi) team up with low-education-taut-abs Sydney surfer-boy Ben (Nathan Phillips), to drive across Australia in a shitbox he just purchased, hitting tourist hotspots along the way. … Read More
DARKNESS RISING
Terrifying Inadequacy. Three 20-somethings explore a decrepit house and die from ghosts. So it’s a happy ending. Because we started rooting for the ghosts about five minutes in. Blond valley girl Madison (Tara Holt), drags her non-actor boyfriend Jake (Bryce Johnson) and bestie Izzy (Katrina Law) to the cranky old house of her youth, which is scheduled for demolition. Madison’s … Read More
US 2019
Comes at us with wild rabbit teeth. Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them. — Jeremiah 11:11, King James Version A vacationing family find themselves terrorized by another family, whom they discover – is … Read More
THE CONJURING
Paradise by the Jump-Scare Light. If this movie didn’t have jump-scares, it wouldn’t have any scares at all. Clichéd Haunted Houses Monthly awarded THE CONJURING its highest honor: “Best Movie With A Middle-American Family Moving Into An Obvious Haunted House Where Murders Were Committed.” The movie was also given a plaque by the Organization For Jump-Scares And Orchestra Stabs, with … Read More
BIRD BOX
What You Don’t See… sure can bird you. BIRD BOX is the movie M. Night Shyamalan tried to make with THE HAPPENING. When an unseen entity causes people to kill themselves, a lone woman and two kids brave the rapids to a refugee destination. Blindfolded. The hook in this compelling thriller is so audacious it works: “something” that can’t be … Read More
THE RITUAL 2017
Swedish meat and balls. Four British friends on a hiking trip through Sweden encounter an elemental evil that crucifies people and eats their innards. This ain’t your daddy’s Swedish Chef. The hook in THE RITUAL is its crescendo of fear. With a chilling soundtrack that is disturbing all by itself, when added to the morbid events that bedevil the four … Read More