Relic could be reductively described as “Hereditary” meets “Dark Water” with traces of “The Babadook.” The last reference might be due to this being a dour Australian horror involving an old-style house and maternal issues, but it’s a fine connection, nonetheless. While it also features small and sinister objects as well as strained family relationships,…
Slasher movies have an effective formula. A killer murders victims, evades detection, has a final showdown, gets bested, maybe escapes. It’s an established formula and it has worked for decades. The film may feature absurd situations, narrative conveniences, stupid characters, gratuitous nudity and, of course, gory kills. None of this necessarily makes these films bad….
After his first-ever published article — Forbidden Fruit: Erotic Secrets of the Modern Witch — hits the newsstand, Joe (John Thacker) is visited at his home by high priestess Evie (Samantha Moorhouse, “Marrok”) who bursts his bubble, accusing him of writing an under-researched article that slanders her coven and furthers the bigotry and hatred that…
Robin Wood’s “The Wicker Man” casts a giant, well, wicker man-shaped shadow over horror cinema, especially folk horror. From “Deliverance” to “Get Out,” from “The Blair Witch Project” to “Kill List,” the conceit of confident people from “mainstream” society going to a distant location and regretting it has yielded great results for horror filmmakers. Director…
How many readers and cinema aficionados have a strained relationship with their parents? Maybe a there’s a neglecting mother to be ashamed of? Or how about daddy issues stemming from some form of abuse? Well . . . the animated horror story, To Your Last Death, introduces viewers to four siblings, all of them seriously…
What we find scary will vary enormously. For some it’s the supernatural, for others the psychological. We may be revolted by physical suffering or horrified by social oppression. The Owners is a film that capitalizes on multiple registers of fear to create an unsettling space, both within the framework of the film and more widely,…
A zombie outbreak has hit the world pretty hard in Jeff Barnaby’s gnarly apocalyptic horror thriller Blood Quantum. Well, except for the isolated Mi’kmaq reservation, whose inhabitants appear to be immune the virus. As the Native peoples are beset by townies and tourists alike who stream to their lands seeking refuge and possibly a cure,…
