This gothic folktale, about a bunch of moonshine-making hillbillies who make periodic human sacrifices to a mud pit, sounds like a laughably ridiculous idea for a horror film. But that very absurdity, combined with surprisingly good acting and a well-honed sense of dread, makes this indie flick believably good. If you are looking for a […]
Lily Tomlin is Elle, a cranky, free spirited writer coping with being dumped by her much younger girlfriend when along comes teenage granddaughter, Sage (Julia Garner) who’s pregnant and looking for money to pay for an abortion. So off they go, in search of cash from an assortment of friends and past loves, learning about each […]
Sinister was the uber creepy tale of a boogeyman who corrupted preteens into killing their families in creatively gruesome fashion while recording their crimes on home video. Predictably, the Super 8 projector is the star of this sequel, and despite a few scenes of horribly bad acting, some tacked-on cheap jump scares and juxtaposition problems, […]
True crime novelist Ethan Hawke discovers a box of super-creepy home movies in the attic after moving his family into a house whose prior inhabitants were victims of a gruesome murder. Sinister delivers several truly scary moments, although the somewhat far-fetched story sputters out towards a predictable ending. The scariest part was the home movies, […]
Denzel Washington plays a drunk pilot who uses his extraordinary skills to crash land a doomed flight near Atlanta. The heart-pounding crash sequence is one of most terrifying ever seen on film – guaranteed to generate nightmares for the more nervous fliers among us. (I’m still wigged out.) The rest of the film, focused on […]
This slow burning creeper, VERY loosely based on the Stephen King short story “Gramma,” is about a single mom and two boys that move in to take care of her ailing, bedridden mother. While the rest of the family is convinced Grandma Mercy is suffering from dementia, a series of events leads grandson Chandler Riggs […]
Brilliant! With Ridley Scott at the helm, The Martian is one of the smartest, most realistic, and most visually-captivating science fiction films ever made – a compelling story of an astronaut (Matt Damon, in a career-defining role), who, stranded on Mars, exhibits amazing problem solving skills to overcome seemingly impossible odds to survive. Underscored by […]
A farmer making peat bricks out of a bog in the remote Irish countryside unknowingly unearths a slumbering vampire, unleashing a night of horror for a young couple stranded with car trouble nearby. This clever, low budget horror flick from writer/director Conor McMahon is a real hidden gem – it is well-acted, intense, realistic and […]
Set up as a prequel that lays out how Vlad the Impaler became the famous vampire, the film has nice effects and visuals. The story, however, is just sort of blah.
A middle-aged couple grieving the recent death of their adult son moves into a formerly abandoned house in a small New England town, soon discovering that it, and the town, have a sinister past. The film is a surprisingly well done homage to vintage 1970s B-grade horror films, complete with a super spooky setting (that […]