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.
Unpleasant without being scary, and full of style sans substance, Brian Visciglia’s feature debut, Ryde, comes off as a kind of misogynist “American Psycho.” There’s a hint of Christian Bale’s Bateman in David Wachs’ pristinely chiseled psychotic, but none of Bret Easton Ellis’ satire. Wachs (“The Last Hurrah”) plays Paul, an elusive loner who one…
Otherwise known as “Interstellar Civil War: Shadows of the Empire,” or “Star Warfare Rangers and the Cyborg Witch of Endor.” The final details are being nailed down as I type. The cut to which I was exposed was unfinished, with a basic sound mix and filler shots in place of what we assume will be…
The one useful purpose that Night of Something Strange may provide is as an interesting counterpoint to another horror contemporary, “WTF!.” Both are modern takes on the 1970s and 1980s teen slasher model, and both depict shallow, reprehensible heroes getting slaughtered. But while “WTF!” succeeds as a critique of its protagonists’ vacuity, Night of Something…
It might not bode well when a film’s title is a text message initialism (compounded with a nonsensical exclamation rather than a question mark), but Peter Herro’s debut feature, WTF!, is a surprisingly enjoyable micro-budget slasher with an old-school sensibility. After a nifty credits sequence, which sees the camera prowl around a grisly crime scene,…
A found footage slasher which doesn’t add anything to a highly variable subgenre sounds eminently skippable, but Altar is at least short and sharp, reasonably gripping, and has good characterization. A slightly unconvincing and unnecessary prologue presents a married couple spending their wedding night in a remote hotel. For some reason they choose to go…
It’s hard to believe that Road to Hell is Albert Pyun’s 50th movie, and even harder to believe that he still can’t make a decent film. Originally shot in 2008, it’s surely a labor of love for the micro-budget auteur, although I’m not sure how much love it’s likely to receive beyond the initiated. Heavily…
Delivering this week’s cautionary social media commentary (there’s more to life than Likes, kids!) with the subtlety of an internet meme, here’s a wholly unoriginal horror about unlikeable idiots being tortured by a cookie-cutter movie maniac. There’s a reason why jock douchebags don’t tend to get the horror limelight, and Don’t Hang Up is the…
