A Film Studies graduate with a very healthy obsession with all things Kubrick, here I am surfing an internet awash with opinions to add mine to the ocean.
Ah, the simple joys of the family vacation. The great outdoors. The open road. The company of loved ones. The mobile home haunted by the superpowered spirit of a homicidal madman. Charles (Greg Violand, “Carol”) is the owner of the “Toybox” — a ramshackle RV — and he’s joined by his son Steve (Jeff Denton,…
Caught between action flick thrills and hefty existential drama, Timothy Woodward Jr.’s film, Silencer, ends up in an unconvincing purgatory which neither excites or provokes. We open with a squad of US Marines in Iraq. It’s all radio banter and “Copy that!” and it looks like it’s been filmed with sunglasses over the lens, so…
Tonal balance can be an esoteric, intangible concept: An alchemy of ingredients which depends upon a fluency in film language, particularly when attempting to combine ostensibly conflicting elements. Comedy-horror films rarely get the balance right, and in this Age of Meta it’s arguably even more difficult. Blessed with an intriguing setting, but cursed with a…
A Taste of Phobia never threatens to touch greatness. But, like all horror anthologies, there are inspired moments and passable individual efforts. You just need to filter out the hairs in the soup. Thankfully, I’ve brought my sieve. This is a collection of 14 micro-movies, mostly pertaining to body horror. Each short is named for…
I know how it looks. Ari Aster’s “Hereditary” is just becoming this year’s classy horror breakout hit, and here’s a lousy, straight-to-VOD knock-off with a conspicuously similar title, right? Well, there are no coincidences in marketing, but it turns out that Inheritance is actually a decent psychological thriller: Atmospheric, well-played and well-made, and dead serious….
“Scribbled, shot and cut by Giorgio Serafini,” read the titles at the end of The Executioners, as Tim Polecat’s jaunty song “Another Word for Hate” bounces on the soundtrack, as if what we just saw was all a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun. But there’s nothing fun about Serafini’s hateful home invasion horror movie. Four twenty-something…
Gogo (Michael S. New, “Night Kill”), a wacky Bangkok taxi driver straight out of a “Hangover” sequel, picks up Jim (James Landry Hébert, “Gangster Squad”) and Julie (Scout Taylor-Compton, “Halloween”) from the airport. They’re a happy-go-lucky American couple who unfortunately haven’t seen the prologue for Ghost House, in which a homeless witch shoves her fist…
