Exhilarating ‘WEAPONS’ Unloads a Doozy of a Horror Story

August 20, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Alden Ehrenreich, Amy Madigan, Austin Abrams, Benedict Wong, Cary Christopher, Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Weapons, Zach Cregger 6 Comments

Prepare the crown, there’s a new king to be anointed. Zach Cregger, formerly of the sketch comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U Know, burst onto the horror scene in 2022 with Barbarian. That film was a masterful, devilishly fun “something’s in the basement” thriller that tapped into audiences’ fear of negative space and relationship dynamics, all while embracing the over-the-top camp that made ’80s and ’90s horror so unserious and so much fun. Barbarian was a killer debut, promising a new horror voice less concerned with using the genre as a Trojan horse for social issues (Peele), plumbing mythic universalisms and medieval tonalities (Eggers), or turning grief into bone-chilling metaphor (Aster, and his knockoff army), and more into being a little scary, a little funny, and a whole lot of fun. His follow-up, Weapons, which WB declined to screen for most critics for some inconceivable reason, is both a worthy continuation of Cregger’s voice and a clear step up in craft. This guy may just be the horror prince the 2020s were promised. Read More

‘SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK’ Features Frightening Ghouls, Lame Teenage Acting

August 8, 2019 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alvin Schwartz, André Øvredal, Austin Abrams, Austin Zajur, Dan Hageman, Gabriel Rush, Guillermo del Toro, Horror, Kevin Hageman, Michael Garza, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Zoe Colletti Leave a comment

Growing up in the 90’s, scholastic horror was all the rage. A generation cut their teeth on R.L. Stine’s ‘Goosebumps’, devouring forbidden stories of devious child heroes and things that go bump in the night, before graduating to Steven King works. Few threaded the needle between Stein’s adolescent-aimed novellas and King’s more mature themes better than Alvin Schwartz with his 1981 shorts collection “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark”. A dark mirror reflection of Shel Silverstein whimsy and optimism, Schwartz’s bleak poems were outlandish and spooky, often eliciting Cronenbergian body horror and a sense of cruel recompense to disturbing effect. Coupled with Stephen Gammell’s drawings, a splattering of acid-influenced black-and-white gothic art pocked with American splotches of red, white, and blue, “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” were OG nightmare fuel for a whole generation of kiddos looking to get their kicks with a good bedtime scare. Read More

Out in Theaters: PAPER TOWNS

July 23, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Austin Abrams, Cara Delevingne, Halston Sage, Jake Schreier, John Green, Justice Smith, Nat Wolff, Paper Towns 1 Comment

Paper Towns is as infantile as it is pointless; a sloppily rendered, paint-by-numbers filmic blunder that celebrates femininity and the free spirit without understanding either. It’s a glossy venture through teenagedom (emphasis on “dumb”) that both takes itself too seriously and is too fantastical and inconsequential to be taken seriously. As such, it simply fails to grasp anything of value, though its fingers remain greedily extended. Though acted with suitable gusto by its young cast, Paper Towns is the movie equivalent of a rambling troglodyte, spouting words and ideas without having much to say at all. Read More