Archive for the ‘Horror’ Category
Monday, January 27th, 2025
If DRACULA UNTOLD isn’t forgotten, then it’s kind of notorious. From what I remembered it was the start of the Dark Universe, the planned shared universe of action-oriented Universal Monster reboots. The public scoffed at that whole idea, then everybody (besides me) hated THE MUMMY and the whole thing got scrapped and became a punchline.
But it wasn’t originally intended to be part of that anyway. The script had been around for a while. I remember reading about it years earlier when it was gonna be an Alex Proyas movie called DRACULA: YEAR ZERO. Sam Worthington was to star. It wasn’t about starting anything, it was about prequelizing Dracula as a thrilling 21st century fantasy adventure character – to give the iconic cape-wearer a heroic backstory, or at least good intentions and motives. Basically it asks what if before he was the Count we all know, he was what I call a Fantasy Sword Dude: the pretty cool, unevenly charismatic hero of a digital era studio b-movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Art Parkinson, Burk Sharpless, Charles Dance, Dark Universe, Dominic Cooper, Dracula, fantasy sword dudes, Gary Shore, Luke Evans, Matt Sazama, Sarah Gadon
Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Horror | 23 Comments »
Wednesday, January 22nd, 2025
WOLF MAN is an event not just because it’s a new wolf man but because it’s the fourth movie directed by Leigh Whannell, the last two being UPGRADE and THE INVISIBLE MAN. As with the latter, he’s working with Blumhouse to do a mid-budget modern take on one of the classic monsters (this time co-writing with his wife Corbett Tuck).
His version takes place in a mountainous part of Oregon where very few people live. In 1995, a hiker disappears there, and the locals claim to have spotted him suffering from some kind of disease. (I like that this turns him into a local legend like the Wild Man of the Navidad or the North Pond hermit.)
Grady Lovell (Sam Jaeger, LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN) is a serious hunter, possibly survivalist, definitely very intense, living off the grid in a little cabin in the woods. He brings his son Blake (Zac Chandler) hunting and is always yelling at him to pay attention to his lessons about how dangerous the world is and shit. They get separated chasing a deer and Blake gets a glimpse of… well, you know. They end up hiding in a deer blind listening to an unseen beast tearing up their deer. That night Blake hears his dad talking to someone on the CB about what he saw. He told his kid it was a bear, but he knows it was something else. Or maybe he’s crazy. That would be fair to assume. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Blumhouse, Christopher Abbott, Corbett Tuck, Julia Garner, Leigh Whannell, Matilda Firth, Sam Jaeger, werewolves
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 23 Comments »
Friday, January 17th, 2025
I checked around, and unless somebody’s lying to me it seems nobody asked for there to be a straight-to-Paramount+ prequel to ROSEMARY’S BABY. But it’s okay – nobody asked for a prequel to THE OMEN, they did one anyway, and it was quite good. Sometimes there is still decency in the world, and sometimes in religious-themed horror late-prequels as well.
APARTMENT 7A is directed by Natalie Erika James (RELIC), screen story by Skylar James, screenplay by Natalie Erika James & Christian White and Skylar James, and it’s technically a Platinum Dunes production because they tried to do a remake in 2008 but honorably bowed out when they couldn’t come up with a good concept. Eventually this new batch came up with the idea of telling the story of Terry Gionoffrio (Julia Garner, SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR), the young neighbor Rosemary talked to in the laundry room. You may remember that Terry later experienced a major, uh… event, portending bad things for Rosemary (and gaining her a new necklace). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andrew Buchan, Broadway, Christian White, Dianne Wiest, Jim Sturgess, Julia Garner, Kevin McNally, Marli Siu, Natalie Erika James, Platinum Dunes, prequels, Rosy McEwen, Skylar James
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 12 Comments »
Tuesday, January 14th, 2025
The original 2022 Danish film SPEAK NO EVIL is such a merciless wringer of discomfort that late in the movie I still wasn’t sure if it would end up being a horror movie, and it didn’t matter. In fact, it’s almost a relief when things get dangerous because at least it ends the relentless social torture.
It’s about a couple with a young kid who meet another couple with a young kid while on vacation, they have some laughs together and later, back at home, one couple gets a letter from the other inviting them to come visit. They know it’s kinda crazy because they barely know them, but they decide to be spontaneous for once. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aisling Franciosi, Alix West Lefler, American remake, Blumhouse, Dan Hough, James MacAvoy, James Watkins, Mackenzie Davis, Scoot McNairy
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 23 Comments »
Tuesday, January 7th, 2025
If Stephen Norrington had only ever been a special effects guy he still would’ve made a mark. He worked under Dick Smith, Rick Baker, Stan Winston and Jim Henson. He did the Grand High Witch makeup in THE WITCHES, and designed creatures for Jim Henson’s The Storyteller. He played the Gump in RETURN TO OZ. He helped make the aliens in ALIENS and ALIEN 3, the robot in HARDWARE, the creature in SPLIT SECOND. I only know about him, though, because he later directed four movies, one of which was motherfuckin BLADE.
But the first one was DEATH MACHINE (1994), a low budget killer robot movie I watched once about a quarter of a century ago when I found out it was by the guy who did BLADE. I think I thought it was okay, but I retained no details in my memory, so now I have returned to it via the fancy-ass special edition blu-ray from Kino Lorber. I watched the director’s cut (which is 106 minutes, as opposed to the 100 minute U.S. version or 122 minute foreign version), which may or may not have been why it went over a little better this time. I don’t think it’s a great movie, but it’s an interesting one with a cool robot puppet, a cyberpunk world and a hell of a look for a ‘90s b-movie that went straight to video. Cinematographer John de Borman is the guy who did THE PASSION OF DARKLY NOON and THE FULL MONTY, but from the look of it I’d have assumed he was a music video guy, somebody that would’ve worked with the Scott Brothers or Russell Mulcahy or even David Fincher.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andreas Wisniewski, Brad Dourif, Ely Pouget, John Sharian, killer robot, Martin McDougall, Rachel Weisz, Richard Brake, Stephen Norrington, William Hootkins
Posted in Reviews, Horror, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 25 Comments »
Tuesday, December 31st, 2024
102 years after F.W. Murnau’s illegal copyright violation classic, here’s writer/director Robert Eggers following up THE WITCH, THE LIGHTHOUSE and THE NORTHMAN with THE NOSFERATU.
Nosferatu? Yesferatu. Absolutelyferatu.
In many ways NOSFERATU is pure Eggers: the meticulous attention to old timey visual, linguistic, and folkloric detail; the dreary natural lighting like you were sent hurtling to the past and forced to deal with a lack of electricity; the emphasis on mood, atmosphere and performance over modern horror tropes. The biggest way it’s different comes from being an adaptation (of an adaptation): while he maintains his trademark of presenting deeply researched superstitions of the past as reality, he has to do it with the more conventional horror set up that only the protagonists believe in the supernatural, and the others around them don’t buy it until it’s too late. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bill Skarsgard, Bram Stoker, Christmas horror, Dracula, Emma Corrin, Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Ralph Ineson, Robert Eggers, Simon McBurney, Willem Dafoe
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 27 Comments »
Monday, December 23rd, 2024
Like all modern horror movies, CARNAGE FOR CHRISTMAS – a 2024 indie that came to Shudder on the 15th – is about a true crime podcaster who experienced trauma. But it does not feel like it’s trying to be “about trauma,” and the true crime aspect works because the protagonist, Lola Darling (Jeremy Moineau) is treated as a straight up detective character like Nancy Drew, Jessica Fletcher or somebody there’d be a BBC mystery series about. She’s very self-possessed, observant and knowledgeable, has an interest in the morbid, sneaks around crime scenes with a flash light, brings her own latex gloves.
She’s nervous about returning to the small town she left when she was 16. Yes, it’s the site of the aforementioned trauma (discovering the skeletal remains of someone murdered by a killer called “The Toymaker”), but also she hasn’t been back since she transitioned into a woman. I like that this overlaps a horror trope with a common coming out experience, but again, other than many of the characters/actors being trans I don’t think this is primarily “about” trans issues, but maybe it’s just over my head like I SAW THE TV GLOW was. The credits do label it as “A Transgender Holiday Film by Alice Maio Mackay.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alice Maio Mackay, Alison Star Locke, Anna Gunn, Annalise Basso, Australian cinema, Chrissy Metz, Christmas horror, Connor Paolo, Damien LeVeck, Janeane Garofalo, Jeremy Moineau, killer Santa, Linus Roache, Scout Taylor-Compton, Shannon Wells, trans, Vera Drew
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 1 Comment »
Thursday, December 19th, 2024
If you knew there was a new Hellboy movie this year – the fourth live action one – chances are you weren’t thrilled about that fact. For most people, it seems, HELLBOY was two movies directed by Guillermo Del Toro and starring Ron Perlman and since those guys aren’t making a third one that’s it, end of story, no further questions your honor.
That was the response in 2019 when there was a third one made on not much more than half the budget of HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY, with a different tone, directed by Neil Marshall and starring David Harbour as Hellboy. The makeup just isn’t as good, it’s jokier than I wanted, but hell, it won me over. It’s less reverent than the Del Toros, more in the style of 2000s CG-driven studio b-movies, and even has Milla Jovovich as the villain. In some ways I thought it was more in the spirit of the comics by Mike Mignola than the Del Toro movies were, though with a whole bunch of different stories crammed into one movie, so it feels pretty hectic.
Before greenlighting HELLBOY: THE CROOKED MAN they must’ve checked around and found out I was the only person who liked the 2019 one. So they started over with a new Hellboy (Jack Kesy, DARK WEB: CICADA 3301), a new director (Brian Taylor, MOM AND DAD), and less than half the budget of the previous lower budgeted one. In the U.S. it went straight to V.O.D. with an ugly poster and publicity stills that made it look like a fan film.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adeline Rudolph, Anton Trendafilov, Brian Taylor, Christopher Golden, Hannah Margetson, Jack Kesy, Jefferson White, Joseph Marcell, Leah McNamara, Martin Bassindale, Mike Mignola, Suzanne Bertish, witches
Posted in Reviews, Comic strips/Super heroes, Horror | 21 Comments »
Monday, December 16th, 2024
When I was slasher searching on Tubi in October I was surprised how many wrestling-themed horror movies I was coming across. And now I went looking for Christmas horror on Shudder and the first one I watched turned out to have a pro wrestler character in it. I guess the whole world is wrestling now anyway. We can’t escape it. At least it’s fun in movies.
THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT is a Canadian movie from 2023, and once I started watching it I understood why its plot description (“A lone man with the Christmas Spirit trapped in his head must kidnap a teenage girl on order to save Christmas”) was so vague. Its strength is that it’s odd and doesn’t really follow any of the usual formulas. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alexander Nunez, Bennet De Brabandere, Brad Austin, Chris Handfield, Christian Potenza, Christmas, Christmas horror, Enzo Campa, Jacklyn Francis, Jordan Kronis, Matia Jackett, Nicolas Grimes, Samantha Espie, Tavaree Daniel-Simms, Zion Forrest Lee
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 6 Comments »
Monday, December 9th, 2024
Just when you thought it was safe to get back into the holiday spirit, the cozy, crackling fire is back. ADULT SWIM YULE LOG 2: BRANCHIN’ OUT is a sequel to the brilliant 2022 Christmas surprise ADULT SWIM YULE LOG. If you’ve never heard of that, it was a yule log video that aired without explanation at midnight on Adult Swim, now viewable on [HBO] Max or on a special edition blu-ray from Dekanalog. As you watch the fire in the fireplace you start to hear conversations in the cozy cabin where it takes place, and someone comes to the door and there’s a murder. It becomes a found footage horror movie slowly zooming out to show more of the cabin and eventually changing format as the story turns increasingly absurd and surreal.
And now, in secret as far as I know, writer/director Casper Kelly (Too Many Cooks, the Cheddar Goblin commercial in MANDY) has made a continuation with a totally different, but still very impressive, Christmas/horror/comedy conceit. It centers on part 1 character Zoe (Andrea Laing, Step Up: High Water), revealed to have survived the massacre at the cabin (though her fiance did not). She wakes up in a hospital, haunted by hallucinations of the ultimate villain of the first film – the cursed yule log that flies around bashing people to death. Her failure to adjust to the trauma ends up costing her her job, so her fun gay friend Jakester (Chase Steven Anderson, “Ticket Booth Operator,” THE COLOR PURPLE [2023]) convinces her they should go to Cancun to get away from it all. But their car breaks down at the exit to a picturesque little town called Mistletoe, in time for “the festival.” You know – the annual yule log festival. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adult Swim, Andrea Laing, Casper Kelly, Chase Steven Anderson, Christmas, Jesse Malinowski, Jonathan Snipes, Michael Shenefelt, Sharon Blackwood, Susan Savoie
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Horror | 7 Comments »
