Decent ‘VOYAGERS’ Is Teenaged Outer Space ‘Lord of the Flies’
A teenaged crew of astronauts grows up on a mission to a new Earth in 'Voyagers' but the journey can be a rocky one. There's philosophical intrigue about the ethics…
REVIEW
REVIEW
Geriatric Horror ’HONEYDEW’ Serves Hospitality With a Heaping Side of Hostility
Old farm people are supposedly scary as sin in Devereux Milburn’s hostage-horror film 'Honeydew', a debut handicapped by lacking performances and an unjustifiably elongated runtime that fails to offer much…
REVIEW
He Did It, He Actually Did It: The Journey of ‘ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE’
A breathless ode to the frighteningly almighty power of fandom, 'Zack Snyder's Justice League' has finally seen the light of day and, against all odds, it's a fairly riveting four-hour…
REVIEW
Gratuitously Fun ‘NOBODY’ a Reverse John Wick Where Bob Odenkirk Kicks All the Ass
‘Nobody’ delivers exactly what it promises to with Bob Odenkirk proving himself a beefy blood-addicted badass when the time calls for it. Gratuitously violent, with clean action choreography and expertly…
FESTIVAL
SXSW 2021: ‘SOUND OF VIOLENCE’ Is the Ultra-Campy ASMR Slasher You Didn’t Know You Needed
There is a scene early on in the absolutely bonkers horror camp-fest Sound of Violence where murderess-musician-mistress Alexis (Jasmin Savoy Brown) kidnaps a homeless man and rigs him up like an electric drum set. Part-hardware, part-flesh, done up as if Kevin Mcalester and Jigsaw were there to help perfect the evil mastermind mechanics. A meat...
FESTIVAL
SXSW 2021: Urgent School Shooter Teen Drama ‘THE FALLOUT’ is the First Defining Movie of Gen-Z
We’re only minutes into The Fallout before the carefree world of 16-year old Vada (Jenna Ortega in a star-making role) is turned upside down by a school shooting. Up to that point, her biggest concerns were nagging parents, knowing the answers to an upcoming quiz, and which flavor cake-pop to get at the Starbucks drive...
FESTIVAL
SXSW 2021: Goretastic ‘JAKOB’S WIFE’ Is the Most Fun Vampire Movie in Years
According to Biblical etymology, the name Jakob as found in Genesis is derived from the word for “heel”. In Jakob’s Wife, the eponymous Jakob (Larry Fessenden) is indeed a heel; an old-fashion minister who looks down his nose at his parishioners and town’s hoi polloi and treats his wife as a subservient inferior. When an...
FESTIVAL
SXSW 2021: Dead in the Water ‘OFFSEASON’ A Bloated, Shambling Corpse of a Seaside Haunter
A featherlight folk horror from Mickey Keating (Carnage Park), Offseason fails to conjure much of a reason for its existence, plundering the corpses of similar seaside folklore horror stories but bringing zero new ideas or visual intrigue to the table. At only 83 minutes, the barebones haunted town horror tale still majorly drags, a problem...
FESTIVAL
SXSW 2021: ‘THE FEAST’ Is Scrumptiously Unnerving Folk Horror
High in the Welsh hills, an elemental force awakens. This land is sacred and foreign; a far-flung neverland where verdant hills and the marble-mouthed language both prove striking and ancient. A place where helping neighbors lend a hand and whisper of mythical no-no’s. The first shot of Lee Haven Jones’ gothic folk horror juxtaposes man’s...
FESTIVAL
SXSW 2021: ‘WITCH HUNT’ Explores a World Where Witches Are Real and Illegal
America never got past its Salem period in Elle Calahan’s allegorical social horror movie Witch Hunt. The only difference is, in Calahan’s world, witches actually do exist. The United States is a perilous place for those magical few; the practice of witchcraft has been banned and is punishable by death; families of convicted witches are...