The ghost story is common in the cinematic output of many countries. From the Mexican “The Devil’s Backbone” to the Spanish “The Orphanage” to the Japanese “Dark Water” and the British/Iranian “Under The Shadow,” as well as the renowned classics “The Haunting” and “The Innocents,” the ghost story has proven itself versatile and adaptable to…
The Funeral Home, “La Funeraria” in its native tongue, is a gloomy and moody Argentinian haunted house tale. Written and directed by Mauro Iván Ojeda, the film pervades both its atmosphere and characters with gloom and moodiness. The titular domicile is the home and business of undertaker Bernardo (Luis Machín, “The Moneychanger”), a man crushed…
Christopher Smith is a modern-day horror maestro. From his feature debut “Creep” through “Severance” and “Black Death,” with forays into other genres, he has demonstrated his ability to make effective genre films. The Banishing is a very fine horror: A slow burn, drip feed delivery of menace and dread that also explores issues of repression…
The mission brief to Ghosts of War is simple: Five American soldiers must defend a chateau in 1944 Normandy, that, as luck would have it, is apparently haunted. Sadly, however, this trope-laden plot is the only pillar of stability in an incomprehensible mess of a film, which burns like a ragged bullet-wound to the stomach….
Kate Mandell (Mackenzie Davis, “Terminator: Dark Fate”) leaves her teaching job and the coziness of a shared apartment with her friend Rose (Kim Adis, “Krypton” TV series) to take on the role of “personal tutor” to a young girl, Flora (Brooklyn Prince, “The Florida Project”). Her role is emphasized as that of “tutor” as opposed…
Haunt was written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, writers on “A Quiet Place”; and while this is similarly high concept, it couldn’t be more different in tone. It aims for brisk, bloody and blackly comedic, and on those terms it delivers. The conflict in “A Quiet Place” was as much psychological as…
Reinert Kiil is the Norwegian director responsible for the sort-of-okay slasher “Christmas Blood” (“Juleblod”). If that film was a brooding modernization of “Silent Night, Deadly Night” then The House (“Huset”) must be his re-imagining of “The Conjuring.” On the surface it’s an interesting new twist on the familiar, demon-possessed madhouse setup. Two Nazi soldiers are…
