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 4 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 2 Comments

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 2 Comments

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

‘IT: CHAPTER TWO’: The Miniseries: The Movie

September 5, 2019 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Andy Muschietti, Bill Hader, Gary Dauberman, Horror, Isaiah Mustafa, It, It: Chapter Two, James McAvoy, James Ransone, Jay Ryan, Jessica Chastain Leave a comment

It: Chapter Two, the highly anticipated sequel to 2017’s mega breakout hit It, is that impossibly rare horror sequel that is quite simply too big to fail. And you can damn well bet that the suits at Warner Bros are doing a high-kneed happy dance considering that, taken as a stand-alone film, It: Chapter Two is a bit of a slop-fest. Its unwieldy size and lack of editorial prowess makes for a patience-testing but scare-pocked horror odyssey better suited to the long-form narrative afforded by the small screen. In feature film form, It is more bloat than float. Read More

Over-The-Top Horror-Comedy ‘READY OR NOT’ A Bloody Hoot

August 20, 2019 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Adam Brody, Andie MacDowell, Guy Busick, Henry Czerny, Horror, Mark O’Brien, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Nicky Guadagni, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Ryan Murphy, Samara Weaving, Tyler Gillett 1 Comment

And you thought your in-laws were bad. Ready or Not, the splatter-tastic, tongue-in-cheek horror comedy from directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (Southbound) is a subversive little slice of late summer mayhem that doubles as a masterclass in how not to welcome a new addition to the family. Grace (Samara Weaving) is marrying into the Le Domas family, a wealth-stricken collection of gaming barons, but her vows come with the unexpected consequence of a mandatory midnight game. When she draws a card that demands a ritualistic, bloody bout of hide and seek, the Le Domas’ playful inner world reveals itself to be one as sinister as it is opulent. 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