Archive for the ‘Horror’ Category
Wednesday, December 21st, 2022
Whether Christmas is a religious holiday for us, or just a way to celebrate giving, or whatever, we can all agree that it’s mainly about trying to find more movies we haven’t seen that are about a killer Santa or some shit. That’s the true and sole meaning of Christmas, is what it says quite clearly in the Bible, and if you don’t believe me I challenge you to tell me which verses it’s not in. You can’t do it, can you? Case closed. Anyway the point is this year I saw CHRISTMAS BLOODY CHRISTMAS but for those of you who would prefer to have the same title but shorter there’s also CHRISTMAS BLOOD (Juelblod), a Norwegian one from 2017.
IMDb lists it as a horror comedy. It really doesn’t read as one to me, but maybe it’s an exceedingly dry sense of humor – there is certainly some absurdity to it, which is what I liked about it. It’s very openly a Santa Claus version of HALLOWEEN. It opens in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve, 2011, when a little girl and her parents get killed by a guy dressed as Santa. The police show up in time to shoot the Santa, and Detective Thomas Rasch (Stig Henrik Hoff, THE THING premaquel), who’s been chasing this guy for 13 years, unloads his gun into him while he’s down. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ben Rock, Bonita Friedericy, Christmas, Christmas horror, Daniel Myrick, David Simkins, killer Santa, Philip Newby, Raw Feed, Reinert Kiil, slashers, Sondre Krogtoft, Stig Henrik Hoff
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, December 20th, 2022
CHRISTMAS BLOODY CHRISTMAS is the new one from writer/director Joe Begos. I previously reviewed his first two features, ALMOST HUMAN (2013) and THE MIND’S EYE (2015), but I’ve been sleeping on his 2019 double whammy of BLISS and VFW. Nevertheless I had to see his new one as soon as it hit Shudder because it’s Christmas horror. There’s a timeliness factor.
It’s a low budget movie but seems huge and lush compared to those other two I mentioned. It continues in the same tradition of filtering a specific ‘80s horror aesthetic through Begos’ brain, now with more dialogue and humor. But I wouldn’t call it a comedy. After the comical advertisements that open the movie and introduce the absurd horror premise, there aren’t really jokes. The laughs come from the characters themselves being funny. Otherwise it comes across as very serious – an odd choice that I like. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christmas, Christmas horror, Dora Madison, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Joe Begos, Jonah Ray, Josh Ethier, killer Santa, Riley Dandy, robot, Sam Delich
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 11 Comments »
Monday, December 19th, 2022
I do believe this is my first review where just telling you the movie exists is kind of a spoiler. But I had to have it spoiled to know to watch it myself, so now I’m passing that information on to you. This is a horror movie that was designed to be found on accident, originally promoted like this: “ADULT SWIM YULE LOG: Get in the holiday spirit with this cozy, crackling fire,” and airing at 11:30 pm after the season finale of Rick & Morty. Now it can be found on Home Box Office Maximum under “Adult Swim Yule Log – a.k.a. The Fireplace.”
It starts off as a normal Yule Log or fireplace video. Just footage of a fire with some Christmas music playing. But after a few minutes of that we start to hear something going on outside of the frame. The owner of the cabin containing the cozy, crackling fire is talking about getting the place cleaned. We see her walk past the fireplace a few times. Then there’s a knock on the door, a woman (Tordy Clark, GLORIOUS) talking about her car breaking down, and introducing her son… a hulking, grunting Leatherface type (Brendan Patrick Connor, JOKER) wearing a plastic Halloween mask of a Ken-doll type character. He bursts in and attacks as his mom reminds him to “Say nice things to her, women like that.” It’s off camera, but we get the implication, and this is a really fucked up thing to have on as holiday background ambience. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adult Swim, Andrea Laing, Casper Kelly, Christmas, found footage, Jonathon Pawlowski, Justin Miles, long takes, Mark Costello, Tordy Clark
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Horror | 9 Comments »
Monday, December 5th, 2022
note: This is a great fuckin movie and this review has spoilers, so if you’re planning on seeing it anyway, I suggest doing that first and coming back.
I’m not fully up on the films of director Luca Guadagnino. He’s done several I haven’t seen, including A BIGGER SPLASH, which I know some people love. I did see CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, which I didn’t officially review but did write a little about in a 2018 Oscar preview. I concluded that, “My main feeling about CALL ME BY YOUR NAME was that it was pretty good but just not for me. But I did continue thinking about different aspects of it for days afterward, making me think I liked it more than I realized at first.”
Since that was my only impression of Guadagnino it seemed kind of crazy that he was the one to finally do a remake of SUSPIRIA! Or as I called it in my review, “SUSPIRI… uh…”
Actually I liked that one, and will watch it again, though I didn’t understand what it was trying to say about German politics of the ‘70s. As I wrote in my review, “It is possible that this Italian director and American writer have something very important to say about the post-WWII generational shift that was happening in Germany when they were 6 and 8 years old, respectively, and that it adds greatly to the story of these dancing witches. If so it’s way over my head, so for me it dilutes what could be a far more intense experience if the horrific parts weren’t so spread out.”
With those mixed feelings in mind, I’m thrilled to say that Guadagnino’s new one BONES AND ALL is the first one I’ve seen by him that I unreservedly loved. This is another horror one that will get some of the more finicky genre purists in their feelings about it being pretentious or whatever, but I think it’s a real fuckin knockout. It’s a cannibal road movie romance. You’re gonna love it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andre Holland, Atticus Ross, Chloe Sevigny, David Gordon Green, Jessica Harper, Luca Guadagnino, Mark Rylance, Michael Stuhlbarg, Sean Bridgers, Taylor Russell, Timothee Chalamet, Trent Reznor
Posted in Reviews, Horror, Romance | 12 Comments »
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2022
I always keep an eye out for new films from Lucky McKee, because he’s the director of my official Favorite Horror Movie of the 2010s, THE WOMAN. Even your average individual who knows who Lucky McKee is may not have heard of his young-people-find-some-stolen-cash thriller BLOOD MONEY or his Lifetime Channel domestic thriller KINDRED SPIRITS, but you bet I’ve seen and reviewed them. He has a new one that came out on VOD recently called OLD MAN, and I didn’t review that one because it’s so simple I didn’t really know how to write about it. It’s pretty much like a two person play with two actors I like – Stephen Lang (BAND OF THE HAND) and Marc Senter (BRAWLER) – having a long, increasingly strange conversation/confrontation in a remote cabin. I didn’t feel like I totally understood where it ended up, but I enjoyed the experience.
Before Halloween I rewatched Tobe Hooper’s THE TOOLBOX MURDERS, which stars long time McKee collaborator Angela Bettis, and I read in an old Fangoria that McKee himself almost played the toolbox murderer in it, and that he hooked up Hooper with cinematographer Steve Yedlin, who’d shot his first film. That inspired me to revisit MAY and also reminded me that despite all my bragging in the first paragraph there were two other McKee/Bettis joints from the aughts that I hadn’t actually seen. What the fuck dude. So I did a triple feature.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Angela Bettis, Anna Faris, Erin Brown, James Duval, Jeremy Sisto, Jesse Hlubik, Kristen Bell, Lucky McKee, Marcia Bennett, Nectar Rose, Sean Hood
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 7 Comments »
Thursday, November 17th, 2022
Friends, I am here to announce that I have officially transitioned from guy who intellectually respected and sort of liked THE WITCH to card carrying Robert Eggers Fan Club member and honorary district captain. The dominos that fell were first viewing of THE NORTHMAN —> second viewing of THE NORTHMAN —> second viewing of THE WITCH —> finally getting it together to watch THE LIGHTHOUSE. Eggers has a unique style and approach and I’m tuning more and more into his frequency. This one is interesting because it’s clearly the work of the same director, except his sophomore movie here has some humor in it. Actual laughs. And I’m not counting the farts.
The time and location for this one is 1890s New England, on a tiny lighthouse island, and mostly inside the lighthouse. Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson, THE ROVER) is a young rookie contractor just starting a four week gig as a lighthouse keeper with veteran “wickie” Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe, LIGHT SLEEPER, SPEED 2). The style is black and white, square 1.19:1 aspect ratio, appropriate for a movie set in a claustrophobic vertical structure. I’d seen pictures and it looks so old-timey with Pattinson’s giant mustache and Dafoe’s upside down pipe that I pictured it as one of those stylized retro movies mimicking old silent film techniques. But no, it’s all very raw, filmed largely in remote locations with harsh climates, and a lighthouse they constructed. Looks fuckin stunning. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: A24, Mark Korven, Robert Eggers, Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe
Posted in Horror, I don't know, Reviews | 30 Comments »
Tuesday, November 15th, 2022
I don’t know why it took me so long to see A CURE FOR WELLNESS. I guess I missed it at the time and kept putting it off due to mediocre reviews, but what the fuck, Vern? You’ve liked this director since fucking MOUSE HUNT, you were won over by his remake of THE RING which you were ready to hate, you loved all three of his PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movies (even that third one, after everyone turned on them), and you especially loved his widely hated (and now harder to vouch for for external reasons) THE LONE RANGER. Why would you care what anybody told you about this one?
Not that I liked this as much as most of those. But it’s a pretty good movie, it’s definitely a distinct one, and I’m disappointed in myself for neglecting the principle that a director who has already proven interesting is worth keeping track of even after everybody else dismisses them. Among other things, because of his lingering clout in the industry at the time this stands out as one of the rare modern horror movies done with lavish studio production values. It cost about $40 million (more than IT) and because it’s Verbinski every set and prop seems designed and built from scratch to fit into this world. We don’t need all or most horror movies to be this detailed, but it’s a treat to get one every once in a while. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Benjamin Wallfisch, Bojan Bazelli, Carl Lumbly, Dane DeHaan, Gore Verbinski, Harry Groener, Ivo Nandi, Jason Isaacs, Justin Haythe, Mia Goth
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 11 Comments »
Thursday, November 10th, 2022
This year I celebrated Halloween by taking the day off of work and watching a witch-themed triple feature. This is not something I ever thought I’d do, because I’ve always had that issue with historical witch movies where it kinda bothers me to pretend there’s a such thing as witches, since that’s the superstitious bullshit that real life tyrants used as an excuse to torture and murder many innocent people in this country and elsewhere. But there were a couple witch-related movies I’d been thinking I’d like to rewatch, and at the same time I’d been thinking about my late mother, who loved to dress as a witch every Halloween. She painted her face green and glued on a warty latex nose with spirit gum. Some of the younger kids in the neighborhood were terrified of her, but she got a kick out of it. So I dedicate this witch-a-thon to her.
I chose to view them in order of when they take place: first Rob Eggers’ THE WITCH (1630s), then George A. Romero’s SEASON OF THE WITCH (1970s), and finally Robert Zombie’s THE LORDS OF SALEM (twenty-teens). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: A24, Anya-Taylor Joy, Bill Hinzman, Blumhouse, Bruce Davison, Dee Wallace, George Romero, Harvey Scrimshaw, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Judy Geeson, Kate Dickie, Ken Foree, Maria Conchita Alonso, Meg Foster, Patricia Quinn, Ralph Ineson, Rob Zombie, Robert Eggers, Sheri Moon Zombie, Torsten Voges, witches
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 22 Comments »
Monday, November 7th, 2022
THE DEADLY INTRUDER (1985) is not a very good horror movie, but it’s a pretty good Slasher Search find. It’s an obscure only-on-VHS one from not-prolific filmmakers, but watchable due to okay production values, competent acting, a catchy synth score by director John McCauley (whose only other directing credit is a 1976 snake movie called RATTLERS), and a pretty fun (but very easy to see coming) twist. It’s fairly low rent, but it does have a Hollywood veteran (Stuart Whitman, EATEN ALIVE, THE WHITE BUFFALO) as the police chief and a TV star (Danny Bonaduce, H.O.T.S.) as one of the main characters, so I’m sure it fulfilled its modest intent of putting those names on the ads, circulating drive-ins for a while, and making a few bucks from people with nothing else to do.
It uses the most generic premise of post-HALLOWEEN slashers: a maniac has escaped from a mental hospital and is on a killing spree that intersects with the lives of random residents of a small town. They don’t bother with any type of holiday, anniversary or backstory besides some cops saying he killed his wife and kid. He escapes at night, and the next morning he walks up to a random house and murders a woman (a disturbing and sleazy scene where her breasts pop out of her bathrobe as he dunks her head in the kitchen sink) and steals some clothes. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ben Dover, Christopher Holder, Danny Bonaduce, Molly Cheek, slasher, Slasher Search, Stuart Whitman, Tony Crupi
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 4 Comments »
Friday, November 4th, 2022
I only managed to do one Slasher Search entry in October of ’22, SAVAGE LUST a.k.a. DEADLY MANOR. In that review I mentioned that I didn’t know if there was much of anything left that fit the qualifications I was looking for in a Slasher Search title: a slasher or slasher-esque movie, preferably from the subgenre’s heyday in the ‘80s, that has never had much of a reputation or been rediscovered. Over the years I’ve mostly found these by looking at the dwindling number of titles that are still only available on VHS, but Arrow, Vinegar Syndrome and other great blu-ray labels have diminished that pool even more than I have myself.
I’d like to thank everyone who encouraged me to continue the series in some form, even if it meant changing the type of titles I cover. I’m happy to hear that there are people besides me interested in spelunking through the splatter, so I’m gonna take your advice. Today I’d like to share with you a selection of no-name slashers of the 2000s I tried out.
I’ll start with the one I got the most out of: AXE (2006), a.k.a. AXE – KILLER BIKER GANG, a.k.a. GREED. It is not a remake of AXE (1974), a.k.a. LISA, LISA, though I believe both have people being terrorized by fugitives. This one starts out pairing decent atmosphere with the narrative bluntness of a porno: a couple is making out outdoors on a car seat next to their trailer, the radio they’re listening to reports that there’s been a prison break, they joke about it for a minute, and just then the escaped prisoners in question walk right up to them.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andrea Bogart, Chloe Boreham, Darlene Tejeiro, Fiona Loewi, Jason London, Joe Dante, Joe Goodrich, Nathan Anderson, Robert Picardo, Ron Wolotzky, slashers, Thomas Crnkovich, Tim Sitarz
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 16 Comments »
