Reviews

X is a welcome return to the horror genre for director Ti West. After years of assorted television work and the underrated Ethan Hawke western, In A Valley of Violence, the man behind House of the Devil is back to his roots with a gritty, wild ride of a slasher …

This year’s SXSW film festival is an exciting one, and once again, the task of picking a handful of movies to cover is difficult. With so much genre goodness available to experience, it’s nearly impossible to see everything you want. Yet one film in particular, Sissy, piqued my interest from …

What do you get when you cross Steve Railsback (post Helter Skelter and pre Lifeforce) with a darker, 1970s version of Thirtysomething? You get Scott Mansfield’s Deadly Games. I have to call it a slasher because it has a masked killer and it came out in the sweet spot of …

It’s a spooky summer night around the campfire. The beers are flowing, the party is wild, and it’s time for a scary story to change the lives of some unfortunate, trespassing teenagers. This setup sounds like the perfect backdrop for a nostalgic horror movie, but very few do it like …

Martyn Pick’s Heckle follows the lives of two comedians, Joe Johnson (Guy Combes) and Ray Kelly (Steve Guttenberg), who suffer at the hands of a psycho heckler. Heckle: to interrupt (a public speaker) with derisive or aggressive comments or abuse. “You’re nothing! This is a fucking lesson! You will remember …

A young couple is desperate for a child in award winning playwright Hamza Zaman’s directorial debut, The Institute. This microbudget feature utilizes relatable, pervasive unease and fears to endear its main characters to us. Most of the film’s 90ish minute runtime is a slow burn, but a handful of relatively …

I recently had the chance to watch the wildly bizarre yet entertaining mockumentary, Adventures in Success and it was a blast. Jay Buim’s Adventures in Success had its virtual world premiere at the CinequestFilm and Creativity Festival and went on to screen at Nashville Film Festival, Vail Film Festival, and …

Clint Howard just doesn’t get enough credit. I had almost forgotten how far back his horror career actually goes. When the Comet Channel started showing Night Gallery episodes, I found one he did one titled “The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes.” He shows up in the most unlikely of places, like …

Released in the US on February 3, 2012, The Innkeepers is one of my favorite films. The premise is simple but I love the psychological thrills of this film. It’s one I revisit quite often, and even though I know what happens, the film still manages to freak me out. …

On February 12, 1992, a dead fetus bent on vengeance was unleashed upon the world in Francis Teri’s The Suckling. Early in my horror fandom, I stayed within the borders of mainstream horror. I never ventured out too far, but when I got older, I began to explore more obscure …