NIGHTSTREAM 2020: ’BLOODY HELL’ Crosses Australian Horror and ‘Iron Man’ to Excellent Effect

October 9, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Most Popular Tagged Alister Grierson, Ben O’Toole, Bloody Hell, Horror, Nightstream 2020, Reviews, Robert Benjamin 1 Comment

Australian horror movies have no qualms pushing buttons. Sean Byrne’s underrated classic The Loved Ones took teenage romantic obsession to new extremes. Wolf Creek toyed with audiences accustomed to a sense of justice within the slasher genre. Even The Babadook featured one of the most grating children in cinematic history. Buttons. Were. Pushed. Bloody Hell, the brainchild of writer Robert Benjamin and director Alister Grierson, follows proudly in the grand tradition of Australian horror, remarking upon the genre in irreverent fashion while adding a more-than-worthwhile entry to its growing legion. Read More

NIGHTSTREAM 2020: Atmospheric Horror Game Adaptation ’DETENTION’ Left Me Cold

October 8, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Chinese, Detention, Fu Meng-po, Gingle Wang, Horror, John Hsu, Nightstream, Nightstream 2020, Reviews, Tseng Ching-hua Leave a comment

John Hsu’s Detention gives a horror movie makeover to Taiwan’s darkest moment in history. Taking place during the country’s period known as the “White Terror”, a 38-year period of martial law where 140,000 alleged “political dissidents” were jailed and countless others executed by the state, Detention attempts to mix dark fantastical elements in with real-world political histories much like Guillermo del Toro did with the Spanish Civil War in Pan’s Labyrinth. The end result here is much, much less effective. Read More

NIGHTSTREAM 2020: Rancid ‘HUNTED’ A Sadistic Episode of Pointless Cruelty and Unchecked Misogyny

October 8, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Christian Bronchart, Horror, Lucie Debay, Nightstream, Nightstream 2020, Reviews, Vincent Paronnaud Leave a comment

French writer-director Vincent Paronnaud’s (Persepolis) fetid attempt to pair art house with meat grinder results in one of the worst films of the year: Hunted. An impotent rape-revenge fairy tale, which borders on snuff with its malignant streak of cruelty and misogyny, Hunted takes form as a woman (Lucie Debay) is chased through the woods by two psychopathic men. Issuing threats to “f*ck her to death”, the sexually violent antagonist (played with deranged glee by Christian Bronchart) spends the feature screaming at our heroine that she’s a “f*cking whore” or “f*cking slut”. Charming.

Trailer for Sundance Immigrant Horror ‘HIS HOUSE’ Fears Racism, Ghosts

September 30, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Trailers Tagged His House, Horror, Remi Weekes, Trailers Leave a comment

One of the most anticipated debuts of Sundance 2020, first-time UK filmmaker Remi Weekes’ His House centers around a Sudanese couple seeking asylum in a small English town. The film was met with critical adoration at the fest, earning an unblemished 100% Rotten Tomato score with many critics pointing out the thematic similarities to Jordan Peele’s cultural conversation pieces Get Out and Us. This first trailer looks to explore the intersectionality between the immigrant experience and traditional horror settings, using a mandated “stay at home” order to cement the long standing issue from horror audiences questioning why “X character doesn’t just leave.” Read More

‘ANTEBELLUM’ Connects the Dots Between Black Past and Present

September 17, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Antebellum, Christopher Renz, Gerard Bush, Horror, Janelle Monáe, Out in Theaters, Reviews 1 Comment

It was all a dream. A nightmare rather. But co-writer and director Gerard Bush ran with the nightmare nonetheless, developing his vision of a slave named Eden with co-writer and director Christopher Renz into the provocative, pointed and somewhat problematic dystopian thriller that is Antebellum. Antebellum, which refers to the period right before a civil war (especially the American Civil War), is a movie with a lot on its mind. Read More

Trauma (and Push-Pins) Are Buried Deep in Cringy ‘SWALLOW’

March 2, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Austin Stowell, Carlo Mirabella-Davis, Elizabeth Marvel, Haley Bennett, Horror, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Swallow Leave a comment

An experience that’s both lurid and cathartic, Swallow is not the movie you think it’s going to be and yet its unpredictable journey is one that’s well worth taking. Focused on sedate young housewife Hunter’s relationship with her family, old and new, and her newfound habit for swallowing non-food objects (a psychological disorder called ‘pica’ that gives people an appetite for normally ”inedible” things like cat hair or pins and needles), Swallow is a delicately-told, well-acted, and often-cringe-inducing tale of identity and reclamation at death-defying costs. Read More

Believing Women and The Power of ‘THE INVISIBLE MAN’

February 26, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Aldis Hodge, Elisabeth Moss, Harriet Dyer, Horror, Leigh Whannell, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Storm Reid, The Invisible Man 3 Comments

The idiom of the wolf in sheep’s clothing is a particularly terrifying one. By virtue of his unassuming appearance, the predator becomes non-threatening. He can hide in plain sight and hunt with all the privilege of inconspicuousness. If looks could kill. The only thing worse than a predator in sheep’s skin is one with no skin at all. Those who lurk not in the shadows, but in the light of the lord. Luring the unsuspecting into their hidden traps. Predators do live among us but thankfully they are visible. With visibility comes consequence, accountability. The hunters have to at least make an effort to conceal their predatory behavior. We can, at the very least, see their fangs. And we can fight back. Read More

First ‘SPIRAL’ Trailer Reboots the ‘SAW’ Franchise With Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson

February 5, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Trailers Tagged Chris Rock, Darren Lynn Bousman, Horror, Josh Stolberg, Samuel L. Jackson, Saw, Spiral, Trailers Leave a comment

In 2010, Saw VII was touted as “The Final Chapter” only for a Jigsaw movie to emerge 7 years later. As the Iron Islanders say, what is dead may never die and in 2020, a franchise twice put to bed reemerges once more to concoct elaborate death machines. In the sparse first look at Spiral, Chris Rock plays a detective joined by a rookie partner played by Max Minghella. Playing Rock’s father, Samuel L Jackson pops in to say “motherfucker” because Sam Jackson’s gotta Sam Jackson. Spiral looks to direct the grudge and gore a different direction this go-around the circular saw, with the intended target (at least in this first glimpse) to be police officers rather than people who have bungled up their lives in the eyes of a deranged cancer patient. Could make for an interesting fresh take or could be yet another rehash of mindless torture porn. Read More

Frosty Cabin in the Woods Horror ’THE LODGE’ Preaches the Hell of Child-Rearing

February 4, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alicia Silverstone, Goodnight Mommy, Horror, Jaeden Martell, Jia McHugh, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Richard Armitage, Sergio Casci, Severin Fiala, Sundance, The Lodge, Veronika Franz 2 Comments

Austrian screenwriting and directing duo Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala either have terror children or were terror children. They love staging a good the-children-will-be-the-death-of-us yarn, pivoting from a story about two young mischievous twins torturing their mother (who’s recently undergone facially reconstructive surgery and, consequently, her children now refuse to believe is actually their mother) in their celebrated German-language debut Goodnight Mommy to a tale of two young mischievous siblings torturing their soon-to-be stepmother in their English-language horror show The Lodge. Read More

SUNDANCE 2020: ‘RELIC’ and the True Horror of Senility

January 30, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Christian White, Emily Mortimer, Horror, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Erika James, Relic, Reviews, Robyn Nevin, Sundance 2020 Leave a comment

Relic, an old-folks-being-creepy offshoot of midnight squirmer, explores the true-to-life horrors of a matriarch’s deteriorating mental state. Dementia is scary enough before you add in family curses, labyrinthine structures, and ghouls under the bed and in her impressive debut, director Natalie Erika James filters her own traumatic experience confronting her grandmother’s Alzheimer’s through the prism of horror cinema, allowing for an emotionally rich and impressively eerie slice of dramatic horror that speaks to real-life terrors. Read More