Category: horror
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Marrowbone [2017] ★★
How do you promote a great looking misfire these days? You tell people that it was written and directed by the same man who wrote the superior Spanish film “The Orphanage”. As much as I wanted to like his latest effort, “Marrowbone”, I have to be honest in evaluating this film: it’s a disappointment. I…
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Jigsaw [2017] ★★
I can picture a studio meeting in Hollywood: “hey why don’t we revive the “Saw” franchise? It’s been 7 years since “Saw VII” (supposedly “The Final Chapter”) hit theaters and it’s time to bring back Jigsaw to the big screen. That’s a brilliant idea! The suckers who paid money to see all the forgettable sequels…
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Happy Death Day [2017] ★★★
Movies like “Happy Death Day” are so easy to get wrong, but director Christopher Landon (who wrote “Disturbia”) has managed to pull it off. It’s best to describe his movie as a cross between “Groundhog Day” and basically any slasher film you can think of (the movie even pokes fun of that and I loved…
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Amityville: The Awakening [2017] ★
In a genre that suffers from extreme tiredness, filmmakers like James Wan are still delivering solid scares with such movies as “The Conjuring” and “Insidious”. Not the case with “Amityville: The Awakening”, a dreadful “kind-of-a” sequel to the 1979 movie. Even the actors make fun of the 2005 remake, unaware that the movie they’re in…
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Gerald’s Game [2017] ★★½
I’ve been spending a lot of time watching Netflix shows. Every now and then they drop a new movie (avoid “Death Note” at all costs), so naturally I was intrigued when Stephen King’s “Gerald’s Game” was up next. This isn’t an easy movie to endure, mainly because the story’s main character Jessie (Carla Gugino) spend…
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Flatliners [2017] ★
It’s the end of the summer, a time where some studios start preparing for Oscar season, while others dump their summer leftovers. Case in point: “Flatliners”, a truly awful thriller (if we can call it that), that ranks among the worst films of the year. A remake of a 1990 movie directed by Joel Schumacher,…
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IT [2017] ★★★
Movies based on Stephen King’s novels tend to range from terrific (“The Shawshank Redemption”) to just plain awful (“Cell”), but being one of his scariest and most popular stories, I approached “It” with high expectations. Filmmaker Tommy Lee Wallace had already adapted the story into a mini-series back in 1990, but the new film never…
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It Comes At Night [2017] ★★★
If you’ve seen Joel Edgerton in “Warrior” and “The Gift”, you probably know he’s an actor who means business. In “It Comes At Night”, an indie horror film that distances itself from the multiplex formula, Edgerton sinks his teeth into the complex role of a family man who keeps his family secure within a safe…
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The Mummy [2017] ★★
It wouldn’t be completely unfair to call the new “Mummy” movie pointless. After all, if you want to reboot a series, at least do it right. I’m a sucker for the original Universal monster films, made famous by Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in the early 1930’s. That’s not to say that these movies are…
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Berlin Syndrome [2017] ★★★
“Berlin Syndrome” is terrifying because it feels real. I can’t remember the last time I liked a character in a horror movie from the get-go and then found myself rooting for her to survive. So props to director Cate Shortland and her lead actress Teresa Palmer for turning the familiar into something bracingly fresh. I hadn’t…
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Alien: Covenant [2017] ★★★
I don’t pretend to understand everything that goes on in the “Alien” universe, but having enjoyed most of these films (including 2012’s underrated “Prometheus”), I couldn’t wait to see what director Ridley Scott had in store for us this time around. Indeed, I wasn’t wrong: “Covenant” is a first-rate sci-fi/horror movie in every aspect, and…
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A Cure For Wellness [2017] ★★½
I approach every psychological movie with a combination of excitement and apprehension, and “A Cure for Wellness” is no exception: it’s a visual feast, courtesy of director Gore Verbinsky, featuring a superior performance from its leading man, Dane DeHaan. How to describe the story? I’d say it’s a cross between Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island” and…
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Get Out [2017] ★★★
It came out of nowhere. First time director Jordan Peele, working with a tight budget (around $5 million), has managed to craft one of the year’s most profitable horror/slasher/comedy/satirical movies ($149 million at last count). So what’s all the fuss about? On the surface, it sounds like a mix between “Guess who’s coming to dinner”…
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Rings [2017] ★½
It’s the curse of the horror sequels and reboots. You get one or two decent films and the studio decides to fuck it all up by releasing one pointless sequel after the other (I’m looking at you, “Saw” and “Final Destination”). I’m a huge fan of the original Japanese film “Ringu”, and I welcomed its…
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The Autopsy Of Jane Doe [2016] ★★★
Up until the crazy climax, this horror movie starring Emile Hirsch and Brian Cox allows Norvegian director Andre Ovredal to earn his stripes as a master of terror. He does a fine job at creeping the hell out of us, telling the story of a father and son who work as a team of coroners…
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Incarnate [2016] ★½
Aaron Eckhart plays a man haunted by his past. Is he haunted by how much his career has fallen since starring in Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight”? Na, nothing that interesting. He’s playing a scientist with the ability to heal possessed people by entering their subconscious mind. His latest subject? A young boy (David Mazouz from…
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Underworld: Blood Wars [2016] ★½
I don’t know what Underworld purists (if any) would make of this fifth (and hopefully last) installment, but personally, I couldn’t wait for it to end. And when it was finally over, I breathed a sigh of relief. “Blood Wars”, once again starring Kate Beckinsale as the vampire death dealer still fighting the war between…
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Ouija: Origin Of Evil [2016] ★★½
If you saw the horrible first movie back in 2014, then you’re probably trying to avoid this prequel, and understandably so. But to be completely honest, “Origin of Evil” is a much scarier film. For one, it has a decent story to tell and a genuinely creepy atmosphere. Sure it borrows a lot from “The…
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Blair Witch [2016] ★½
Originally promoted as “The Woods”, the people behind this piece of shit of a movie later on revealed the “shocking” news: this was indeed a sequel to the surprise hit “The Blair Witch Project”. Clever stunt. I just wish the movie itself lived up to its hype. In trying to replicate the success of the…
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Don’t Breathe [2016] ★★★
From the trailer and the poster you would think this is (God forbid) yet another slasher film. It’s not. Instead, it’s a cross between “Wait Until Dark” starring Audrey Hepburn and David Fincher’s underrated “Panic Room”. The result? A thriller that pumps out suspense from the word go. The premise is simple: three clumsy burglars decide…
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