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

SUNDANCE 2020: ‘POSSESSOR’ Is A Blood-Soaked Murder Inception That Continues The Cronenberg Legacy

January 29, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Most Popular Tagged Andrea Riseborough, Brandon Cronenberg, Christopher Abbott, Horror, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Reviews, Sean Bean, Sundance 2020 3 Comments

The King of Venereal Horror has begat a true Prince of Pain. Brandon Cronenberg, the 40-year old offspring of Baron of Blood David Cronenberg, takes up his pops’ mantle circa the turn of the century, when the elder Cronenberg began to pivot away from visceral science-fiction-tinged horrors (Videodrome) and bodily transformations (The Fly) and towards more dramatic affairs (A Dangerous Method) and electric thrillers (A History of Violence). As one sun sets, another rises and with Possessor, a movie that marries the chilly intersection between technology and humanity and some absolutely spine-tingling visual depictions of bloodshed, the younger Cronenberg has come into his own. Read More

SUNDANCE 2020: Character-Driven U.K. Horror ‘AMULET’ Takes Time But Packs Punch

January 27, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Alec Secareanu, Amulet, Carla Juri, Horror, Imelda Staunton, Reviews, Romola Garai, Sundance 2020 Leave a comment

An atmospheric slow burn that has no qualms really stretching out the burn, the first feature film from director Romola Garai is a deliberately-paced, well-acted and artful horror chamber piece fastened to a real whopper of an ending. Movies live and die by their ending; a great ending can make an otherwise okay movie great and a terrible ending can make an otherwise great movie terrible. This, fortunately, is a case of the former. To Garai’s credit, she absolutely nails the ending, delivering the kind of capstone that makes you go back and reconsider the rest of the film through new eyes and newly discovered context. My mind was racing trying to piece together things as the credits began to roll, certain things not snapping into place until my drive home. (You’ll have to excuse the slower processing power of my brain at the time. It was 2AM after all.) Read More

SUNDANCE 2020: Rebecca Hall Is Next Level Good in the Scariest Ghost Story in Years: ‘THE NIGHT HOUSE’

January 26, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Most Popular Tagged Ben Collins, David Bruckner, Evan Jonigkeit, Horror, Luke Piotrowski, Rebecca Hall, Reviews, Sundance 2020 2 Comments

On darkness, Nietszche offered, “He who fights monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes back into thee.” The Night House, an expertly-crafted, terrifying ghost story with a towering lead performance from Rebecca Hall, takes this sentiment to heart. Hall is Beth, a widow hoping to understand her husband Owen’s (Evan Jonigkeit) shocking suicide, diving into the dark recesses of his cell phone and discovering more than she bargained for. Glimpsing the abyss beyond, Beth confronts a terrifying, mutually exclusive truth: either ghosts exist or there truly is nothing waiting for us beyond this mortal coil. Read More

Trippy ‘COLOR OUT OF SPACE’ Makes Technicolor The Bad Guy

January 20, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Brendan Meyer, H.P. Lovecraft, Horror, Joely Richardson, Julian Hilliard, Madeleine Arthur, Nicholas Cage, Richard Stanley 1 Comment

H.P. Lovecraft has cast a long shadow over cinematic horror and the industry at large. With an entire subgenre dedicated to the unknown cosmic horrors that the late sci-fi author gained notoriety depicting, the fears of Lovecraftian horror are found in those things beyond human perception. Though Lovecraftian horror can be difficult to translate to film, since the phenomena described in his writing is often beyond human comprehension, that has not stopped filmmakers since the 1960s from borrowing from Lovecraft’s bread and butter: alien entities driving people crazy. Read More

Contemplative and Dour ‘DOCTOR SLEEP’ Deserves the Patience it Requires

November 6, 2019 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Ewan McGregor, Horror, Kyliegh Curran, Mike Flanagan, Out in Theaters, Rebecca Ferguson, Reviews, Stanley Kubrick Leave a comment

39 years ago, Stanley Kubrick played a game of chicken with Stephen King’s novel “The Shining”, redefining the term “loose adaptation” as he bent the source material to his will. In the process, Kubrick created not just one of the greatest horror films of all time but one of the very best films regardless of genre. Ever an industry maverick, Kubrick swung an axe at King’s IP (“Here’s Johnny” indeed), hacking the story into one more befitting the film medium and his own vision. This meant stripping away the more abject supernatural horrors (though there’s no shortage of rotting bathers and ghost furry lifestylers) and replacing them Jack Torrence’s descent into catacombs of his own inner madness. Read More

Roommates are Awful, Especially in Eggers’ Brilliant ‘THE LIGHTHOUSE’

October 8, 2019 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged A24, Horror, Robert Eggers, Robert Pattinson, The Lighthouse, Willem Dafoe 1 Comment

In the rundown of worst roommate habits, persistent flatulence has to rank pretty highly. But I can’t imagine even the gnarliest gas could possibly compete with the sour stench of stale pee stewing in a bedpan in a tight communal space. Which brings us to The Lighthouse, a film wherein, from the first moments, odors assert themselves. The celluloid reeks of old piss, beefy farts, caked-up spunk, “rotten foreskin”, man musk, and drinkable kerosene. This is a movie that would tear down the house in Smell-O-Vision. Fortunately, we do not have to endure its reek. Read More

Scuzzy ‘HARPOON’ a Stripped-Down Malevolent Dark Comedy At Sea

October 1, 2019 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Brett Gelman, Christopher Gray, Emily Tyra, Harpoon, Horror, Munro Chambers, Rob Grant Leave a comment

Aristotle posits that there are three types of friendships, those based in utility, pleasure or virtue, but Harpoon’s narrator (Stranger Thing’s Brett Gelman) would like to add a fourth: the friendship of history. These are friends by virtue of having been friends. Turns out that these friendships aren’t always the most healthy. Especially when you’re out to sea and uncover a love triangle of infidelity and have a harpoon (or speargun rather) at your immediate disposal. Read More