Horror
HorrorWhen down-on-his-luck cubicle drone Evan starts to suspect his new boss is a vampire, even his best friend Tim doesn’t believe him. But as their colleagues get paler and keener to work the night shift, it’s clear the company is no longer demanding blood, sweat and tears. The first one will do just fine. This ..
Horror
HorrorWhat better way to close out #Dractober than with a brand new interpretation of the legend of Bram Stoker’s celebrated vampire from the visionary director of “Suspiria”? Well, as it turns out, probably quite a few things. During the Walpurgis Night celebrations in the Carpathian village of Passo Borgo, a young couple sneak off into ..
HorrorAfter the slightly tedious and unnecessary detour to the dim(ly lit) and distant past that was “Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans”, normal service is resumed as Beckinsale squeezes back into the corset and catsuit for “Underworld: Awakening”. The world has woken up to the presence of Vampires and Lycans and the humans are hell-bent on ..
HorrorPreviously on “The Santa Clarita Diet”: Joel (Timothy Oliphant) and Sheila (Drew Barrymore) Hammond are real estate agents in a sleepy Santa Clarita suburb when Sheila suddenly transforms from mousey middle-class soccer mom of Millennial teen Abby (Liv Hewson) to an undead zombie that must regularly feast on the living to remain ‘alive’. The Hammonds ..
Horror“Evil Aliens” is something of a Ronseal movie: it does exactly what it says on the tin. A gleefully grisly grindhouse indie sci-fi horror movie, it’s a shlockfest that revels in its sophomoric humour and vulgar splatter-movie aesthetic. Heavily – and obviously – influenced by Peter Jackson’s “Braindead” and Sam Raimi’s “The Evil Dead”, it ..
HorrorI remember when I first saw “Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone” in the cinema, it was one of the strangest cinema experiences of my life. I didn’t feel like I’d just watched a film of the boy wizard’s adventures, I just felt like I’d re-read the first book in two and half hours, so ..
HorrorA quick, contemporary #MonthOfSpooks detour, looking at “The Ritual”, released in UK cinemas on Friday 13th. Based on the novel by Adam Nevill, the movie takes us into the woods for a chilling supernatural survival horror that would put even Bear Grylls off his grubs. When a group of friends’ lad’s night out ends in tragedy ..
HorrorI like M Night Shyamalan’s work. I really do. But sometimes he makes it so difficult and OLD sees him plumb new cinematic depths of what-the-fuckery, as he again adapts somebody else’s work and presents me with my biggest challenge yet. When a group of holidaymakers are told of a secluded beach by their hotel ..
HorrorSome feature films run out of ideas and potential long before they run out of time. Some short films manage to deliver a perfectly formed story in their fleeting time on screen. Then there are shorts like DEAD AIR which really only serve to whet the appetite and leave you hungry for a full-length feature, ..
HorrorCanadian horror SLAXX might introduce a goofy high-concept new cinematic serial killer – a homicidal pair of possessed designer jeans – but the whacky high concept hijinks never quite hit the catwalk they’re looking to strut their stuff on. When a possessed pair of jeans begins to kill the staff of a trendy clothing store ..
HorrorTypical. You wait five years for a monster to show up and then four come at once. Following the events of “Godzilla”, secretive megacryptid management organisation Monarch has been working diligently to discover, catalogue and contain the various Titans which slumber across the globe but when eco-mercenary Alan Jonah (Charles Dance) gains control of the ..
HorrorI have to say, I honestly thought the first real foray into ‘social networking’ horror movie would be some form of Snapchat exchange movie, where the plot unfolds in a series of 10 second vignettes building up to some shocking twist. [Actually, that’s not a bad idea for a cheap and terrible horror movie. Hollywood, ..
HorrorAfter a surprising and largely unsuccessful revival of the traditional tombstone gags, The Simpsons Halloween special XXIX invokes the spirit of the Great Old Ones to introduce 2018’s trilogy of terror. It’s Homer who ends up answering the call of Cthulu only to challenge the Priest of the Old Ones to an eating contest. It ..
HorrorRenfield is a horror comedy you can sink your teeth into. After the portentous self-importance of the DARK UNIVERSE announcement and the subsequent Cruise-led catastrophic misfire of THE MUMMY, how was Universal to take advantage of its storied back catalogue of horror icons? I doubt anyone could have guessed that the answer would have been ..
Horror“Vampire Academy” is something of a pioneer in the oversaturated young adult adaptation field. Using nothing but a derivative rag bag assortment of tropes and gimmicks from other, better works, it manages to achieve a near-perfect awfulness that almost guarantees it a picture in the dictionary next to the definition of ‘nadir’. Based on the ..
HorrorUniversal have been trying to resurrect their Dark Universe for a lot longer than you may think. Back in 2004, emboldened by the quick one-two hits of “The Mummy” and “The Mummy Returns”, they decided to give director Stephen Sommers the whole Universal Monster toy box. Unfortunately, what he came up with was a textbook ..
Horror
HorrorLast seen getting all skeletal over his coffin on a roadside knoll, Drac’s back and in rude health, although that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to consult his physician… Count Dracula (Carradine), posing as Baron Latos (a step up, at least, from Count Alucard) arrives in Visaria to visit the castle home of Dr Franz ..
HorrorInitially reluctant to do a sequel to the smash hit “Frankenstein”, director James Whale finally relented when Universal agreed to give him full creative control. With the studio out of his way, the only thing standing between Whale and his ultimate vision was Joseph Breen and the Hays Code. Having survived the inferno at the ..
HorrorThe Simpsons Halloween Special XXV sees the series in celebratory and self-congratulatory mood . The titles are announced over a gallery of clips from previous (and as yet unaired Halloween scenes) while a galaxy of announced celebrity guest stars are dismembered to spell out the name of the show. School Is Hell “I want to ..
HorrorTi West puts the X in extremely authentic Out on DVD and Blu-Ray today, there’s an authenticity to the 1970s aesthetic of Ti West’s X that’s so meticulously well-observed that it’s only the presence of recognisable contemporary actresses such as Mia Goth, Brittany Snow and Jenna Ortega that prevent you from assuming you’re watching some ..
HorrorGrungy and Lo-Fi, Director David Robert Mitchell’s “It Follows” takes place in the bleak and desolate suburbia of a decaying Detroit of yesteryear or tomorrow or maybe today. There’s an artfully obfuscatory approach to the era in which the film is set, lending it an unsettlingly dream-like quality and providing a fertile environment for the ..
HorrorIt’s always fun to take the hallmarks of a genre and subvert them but rarely is it done as successfully and to such great effect as it is in “Tucker & Dale vs. Evil”. When Tucker and Dale’s trip to their newly purchased holiday cabin coincides with a group of college kids camping out in ..
Horror
HorrorThe Simpsons Halloween Special XXIII opens with another attempt at topical humour but this time it’s not a dated political reference (although there’s a lame Obama gag thrown in) but a joke that’s been millennia in the making. We’re in Mayan times, prophesying the end of the world at the close of the thirteenth baktun. ..
ArticlesHorror’s Having Quite A Year, Isn’t It? Horror’s having quite a moment, isn’t it? I mean, obviously it being October the genre’s enjoying its usual annual renaissance, rising from its dormant phase to chill us to the core much the same way Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas” does every December (and, let’s be ..
HorrorI’ve a confession to make: sometimes I can be a bit of a wuss when it comes to horror films. It all stems from a time when I was 12 years old and my cousins decided it would be fun to show me the original “A Nightmare On Elm Street”. I spent that night sleeping ..
HorrorYou know that scene in “Fast & Furious 8” when Dom, vacationing in Cuba, is forced into racing his nephew’s clapped out motor against the local street racing kingpin? Before the race, they strip that jalopy of every ounce of unnecessary weight, stripping it down to the bare essentials creating a lean, efficient racing machine. ..