film review

A collection of 371 posts

Film

Scare Package Review (Film, 2020)

Scare Package is a bit of a different beast. The stories are connected by the idea of film itself. The cold open sets up the film as a meta horror, with a man dissatisfied with his career as a cold opener character in a horror film. His job is to flip the street sign or plant the cursed object in th

Film

Fat Girl Review (Film, 2001) The Archives

Fat Girl is the exception that proves the rule. Breillat presents the masterpiece of the New French Extremism in this unnerving suspense/horror about two young sisters exploring their sexuality on vacation. The older sister, Elena, is a beautiful young woman who falls head over heels for a college s

Film

Eli Review (Film, 2019)

Eli suffers from a rare chronic illness. His family is not sure exactly what triggers it, but exposure to the outside world causes his body to react as if he’s being burned alive. They travel to the remote treatment facility of Dr. Horn who promises a cure through her own method of gene therapy. She

Film

The iMom Review (Short Film, 2016)

“The iMom” is a satirical horror/sci-fi short by writer/director Ariel Martin. It opens with an infomercial advertising the benefits of a a digital mother surrogate (including actual footage of one of the increasingly realistic androids being developed in laboratories) before shifting to an overtaxe

Film

Our House Review (Film, 2018)

Ethan believes he has invented a device that can provide wireless electricity. After a failed test run at the college campus and a tragic loss in his family, Ethan discovers that his invention has an alternate purpose. This wireless electricity generator actually creates a portal between the world o

Film

10 Cloverfield Lane Review (Film, 2016) The Archives

10 Cloverfield Lane is the giant monster attack/apocalypse horror film we deserved when the original Cloverfield came out in 2008. That film was an ambitious but messy shakycam disaster film with the bones of a good intimate horror/survival film trapped inside.

Film

Confessional Review (Film, 2020)

This film is meant to leave you feeling angry about injustice in the world. It’s also an unrated horror film that has no content warning or parental advisory on it. The provided plot description is intentionally vague to avoid spoiling anything.

Film

The Falling Review (Film, 2015)

The Falling is, quite honestly, one of the strangest horror films I’ve ever seen. After the death of their close friend Abbie (Florence Pugh), a group of young women in a boarding school begin to experience uncontrollable fainting spells and mass hysteria. Is it the spirit of Abbie speaking through

Film

Head Count Review (Film, 2019)

In Head Count, Evan goes to visit his brother in the middle of the desert. He runs into Zoe and her friends, who invite him to join them for a party at their rental house. They take turns reading scary stories around the campfire. Evan pulls up a poem from an anonymous story website that warns of wh

Film

Hush Review (Film, 2016) The Archives

Hush is a home invasion horror film about a deaf novelist being tormented by a total stranger for no reason. I could also say that Hush is a modern home invasion horror film and be accurate enough.

Film

Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made Review (Film, 2019)

Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made takes it a step further. The first 10 minutes and closing credits of Antrum are short documentaries about the history of a lost horror film called Antrum. Film historians and critics describe the legacy of a tiny, independent, barely-released horror film. Apparen

Film

The Den Review (Film, 2014) The Archives

The Den is a horror film inspired by the rise of Chat Roulette and similar random video chatting sites on the internet. Elizabeth receives a grant from her university to study the impact of relative anonymity on conversations in The Den, the film’s cipher for Chat Roulette. She stumbles into a world

Film

Polaroid Review (Film, 2019)

Polaroid is a paranormal slasher film about a haunted camera. Bird is a high school student who loves photography. Her friend Tyler gifts her a rare instant camera from the 1970s, which she gleefully uses to start taking photos of her classmates. Then her friends start dying one by one under mysteri

Film

Mandy Review (Film, 2018)

Mandy is a lot. This is a horror/sci-fi/revenge film defined by excess on every level. It is something wholly unique in the world of modern cinema.

Film

Subspecies Review (Film, 1991) The Archives

Director Ted Nicolau and writers Jackson Barr and David Pabian do not touch on much new ground in Subspecies. That’s not always a bad thing. If you a going to retread well-worn horror ground, you need to tell a good story and tell it well. Subspecies is a prime example of this.

Film

Sweetheart Review (Film, 2019)

Jenn wakes upon the beach after surviving a shipwreck. The only other survivor has fatal injuries and passes before she can save him. She is alone on a deserted island and the only signs of life she can find are evidence of her deadly circumstances—a molded cooler, a bag with expired medicine, and r

Film

The App Review (Film, 2019)

The App is an Italian sci-fi/drama/romance/thriller hybrid from writer/director Elisa Fuksas. The title of the film is not a metaphor or some grand symbolic play; it is the substance of the film. Fuksas commits to a story about a new kind of dating app and her vision is quite fascinating.

Film

The Silenced Review (Film, 2015) The Archives

The Silenced is a South Korean horror film inspired by the Japanese control of Korea during World War II. Shizuko (really Joo-ran) is forced into a boarding school for unwell teenage girls in Seoul by her father and stepmother as they leave for Tokyo in 1938. The headmistress promises to help Shizuk

Film

The Collector Review (Film, 2009) Take Two

The Collector is one of the tamer horror entries in this time period. Arkin, a handyman, gets caught up in a murderer’s deadly game when he tries to rob his newest employer’s house. The family is about to go on vacation and someone has set up the house with deadly traps. The Collector leaves a red t

Film

The Fury Review (Film, 1978) The Archives

I don’t know why, but I’ve yet to see what I would consider a particularly successful genre film about government forces attempting to weaponize psychic abilities. It seems like a small niche, but quite a few horror and science fiction films have played with this concept for decades. It’s just a har

Film

Ghost Stories Review (Film, 2018)

Ghost Stories is the rare stage play adapted to film by the original playwrights. Directors/screenwriters Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman adapt their own stage play into a feature length film and it works beautifully. The entire conceit of the play is very cinematic, an 80 minute horror show with jump s

Film

The Torment of Laurie Ann Cullom Review (Film, 2014) The Archives

The Torment of Laurie Ann Cullom likes to play with genre expectations. The opening credit scroll is reminiscent of the recent wave of found footage/this is a true story films that overtook horror for quite a few years. The throwback 80’s period styling and sense of humor feels like the rise of meta

Film

Rattlesnake Review (Film, 2019)

Katrina and her daughter Clara are starting a new life with a cross-country move. Katrina has to stop to fix a flat tire in the desert. Clara wanders away from the car and is bitten by a rattlesnake. Fortunately, there is a trailer right off the road. The woman inside promises to help Clara while Ka

Film

American Mary Review (Film, 2013) The Archives

American Mary is a wild film. It’s a quiet character study of a poor medical student turned extreme body modifier. It’s a modern spin on Frankenstein with multiple Doctor/Monster connections. It’s a revenge/exploitation film from a distinctly feminist perspective with only one clear villain turned i

Film

Deadcon Review (Film, 2019)

In the early days of the Internet, a struggling inventor makes a deal with an independent personality in his computer program to make his work a success. He needs to bring real life friends over so the computer program can make itself a success. Jump to the present and a social media convention is h