SXSW 2021: ‘WITCH HUNT’ Explores a World Where Witches Are Real and Illegal

March 17, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Abigail Cowen, Echo Campbell, Elizabeth Mitchell, Elle Calahan, Gideon Adlon, Horror, SXSW, SXSW 2021, Witch Hunt 1 Comment

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 forced into deep-cover and permanent hiding; their only hopes being smuggled south to the Mexican border where freedom from institutionalized prejudice looms. Read More

SXSW 2021: Floral Horror ‘GAIA’ a Nightmarish Reckoning with Nature

March 17, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Most Popular Tagged Alex van Dyk, Carel Nel, Gaia, Horror, Jaco Bouwer, Monique Rockman, Reviews, SXSW, SXSW 2021 1 Comment

Eco-horror is having a resurgence of late, as are psilocybin mushrooms as a visual language in film. Jaco Bouwer’s formidable woodland creeper Gaia fits snugly into a recent wave of psychedelic folk horror, a subgenre that binds Ari Aster’s Midsommar, Alex Garland’s Annihilation, Ben Wheatley’s In the Earth (a recent Sundance release that would make a pitch perfect double feature with Bouwer’s entry) and even Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God. Sparked by an increasing awareness of humanity’s abusive relationship with nature, eco-horror pits the survival of man and earth against one another and in the light of a global pandemic, those themes have never been as prescient. Read More

Nightmares ‘COME TRUE’ in Genuinely Scary Sleepwalk Through the Subconscious

March 10, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Anthony Scott Burns, Come True, Daniel Weissenberger, Horror, Julia Sarah Stone, Landon Liboiron, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Tedra Rogers Leave a comment

A few nights into a mysterious university sleep study, Sarah finds herself perusing a bookshop, pulled towards the Phillip K. Dick entries on the shelf. Jeremy, her primary researcher and maybe-stalker, suggests she give Dick a read, referring to his work as “hauntingly sad”. This description – hauntingly sad – accurately captures the weirdly affecting (and low-key terrifying) tonality of Come True, a descent into sleep paralysis and ancestral nightmares coming to life. Vividly tragic, but always in a darkly unspeakable way, Come True captures that in-between realm separating sleep and dreams and twists it into a malevolent manifesto about the collective terror that lingers in the mysterious netherworld of slumber. Read More

‘WRONG TURN’ Director Mike P. Nelson Talks ‘Temple of Doom’ Nods and Cuts to Avoid an NC-17 Rating

February 22, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews Tagged Horror, Interviews, Mike P. Nelson, Talking With..., Wrong Turn 1 Comment

It’s sometimes in the strangest places that the sweetest things lurk. Or such is the case with Mike P. Nelson’s 2021 sequel/reboot of the Wrong Turn franchise, a film series which began in 2003 and went on to spawn five sequels. Despite a dedicated fan base, the backwoods inbred cannibal horror franchise never managed any notable critical or commercial success but in flipping the script and starting basically from scratch, Nelson and writing partner Alan B. Elroy have breathed new life into a series that now shows no sign of running out of gas and a whole new highway of ideas to explore. Read More

Sundance 2021: ‘IN THE EARTH’ Combines Axe Slashers and Lovecraftian Horror With Hallucinogenic Style

January 29, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Most Popular Tagged Clint Mansell, Ellora Torchia, Hayley Squires, Horror, In the Earth, Joel Fry, Reece Shearsmith, Sundance, Sundance 2021 2 Comments

Creating horror has been and will always be a sociopolitical act and with In The Earth, British auteur Ben Wheatley reflects the reality of the pandemic back at us in startling, disorienting fashion. The result has notes of all kinds of horror, but most distinctly a tent-in-the-woods slasher crossed with Lovecraftian cosmic horror, all set to the backdrop of some airborne viral infection that’s driven the population into quarantine and starved them for a cure. Read More

Brutal ‘WRONG TURN’ A Hugely Enjoyable Franchise Detour into Wild Backwoods Schlock

January 25, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Adian Bradley, Alan B. McElroy, Bill Sage, Charlotte Vega, Dylan McTee, Horror, Matthew Modine, Mike P. Nelson, Movies, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Wrong Turn 2 Comments

A spin-off in name only, Wrong Turn (2021), from relative newcomer director Mike P. Nelson, takes the cult inbred-cannibal horror franchise in a totally new direction, pivoting away from the signature cornerstones of the slasher series towards something just as unflinching, addictive, and brutal but one that’s meant to be taken more seriously. And with no apparent cannibalism. Read More

The Cinematic Equivalent of the Phrase “Spooky Season”, ‘COME PLAY’ A Scare-Free Dud

October 28, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Azhy Robertson, Come Play, Gillian Jacobs, Horror, Jacob Chase, John Gallagher Jr., Out in Theaters, Reviews 1 Comment

Continuing in the not-so-grand tradition of horror shorts adapted into feature films, Come Play attempts to breathe more life into its premise of a gangly boogeyman named Larry. Operative word being “attempts”. Jacob Chase writes and directs, stretching his five-minute viral short “Larry” into 100 minutes of humdrum haunting. Stretching and pulling to fill it with air but not necessarily more flavor, Chase works his material like taffy. And like the sugary confection, Come Play is little more than horror empty calories, another slickly-made PG-13 studio dud that fails to scare up much reaction or leave much of an impression. Read More

Benson and Moorhead’s ‘SYNCHRONIC’ A Grizzly, Drug-Induced Time Travel Mission

October 20, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Aaron Moorhead, Aaron Morehead, Ally Ioannides, Anthony Mackie, Horror, Jamie Dorian, Justin Benson, Katie Aselton, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Science Fiction, Synchronic 1 Comment

Hard-drinking New Orleans EMT Steve (Anthony Mackie) is having a hard go of it. In addition to a recent brain terminal cancer diagnosis, his line of work keeps putting him face-to-face with a series of strange and horrific accidents, such as a guy run through with a ceremonial sword, a raving woman with an anachronistic snake bite, and a man found dismembered down an elevator shaft with a grin stretched across his face. A stark reminder of his impending demise, the series of grizzly deaths seem connected to a new designer drug called Synchronic, from which the new film from visionaries Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead takes its name. Read More

NIGHTSTREAM 2020: Revenge Served Cold in Well-Acted ’ROSE PLAYS JULIE’

October 11, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Aidan Gillen, Ann Skelly, Christine Molloy, Horror, Joe Lawlor, Nightstream, Nightstream 2020, Orla Brady, Reviews, Rose Plays Julie, Stephen McKeon, Tom Comerford Leave a comment

Writer-director team Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor put a new twist on the rape-revenge fantasy, pivoting away from the usual hot-bloodedness of the subgenre and the gory justice that often ensues. Instead, Rose Plays Julie follows in the Irish tradition of dreary realism; it’s a brooding, emotionally-charged, bluntly and quietly brutal affair. You probably will want a hot steamy shower once it’s all over. Read More

NIGHTSTREAM 2020: Bugged Out ‘QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC’ a Pitch Black Supernatural Slasher

October 10, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Adhisty Zara, Ari Irham, Hannah Al Rashid, Horror, Indonesia, Kimo Stamboel, Muzakki Ramdhan, Review, The Queen of Black Magic Leave a comment

Three childhood friends return to the orphanage where they were grew up to pay their respects to the dying director who raised them in Kimo Stamboel’s brutal and gory supernatural slasher The Queen of Black Magic (also known as Ratu Ilmu Hitam). This Indonesian import has no qualms dialing up the blood and guts as the screenplay from Joko Anwar (Impetigore) immediately sets its stock of characters up for encounters with dark magic, free-flying viscus and so. many. CGI. bugs. Read More