movie review
Movie reviews for horror fans; from gruesome bone-chillers to dark horror thrillers, a showcase for frightful films that seek to entertain and to terrify.
For Fans of Bad Movies So Terrible, They're Actually Good
The internet today is teeming with “if this, then that” type of articles. They come in a close second to the top “x” number of <insert random countdown topic here>. While I find nothing wrong with countdown articles, I enjoy the if/then pieces more. I find such articles give a better idea of what the writer is promoting. If done well, by the time you’ve read such an article you know if you want to view “that” by how you feel about “this”. The countdown articles or the “best way to view such and such” articles are opinions without context and often rely on the click next format meant to squeeze in more ads for better profits. I would liken them more to click bait. When a writer gives you an example of the sort of movie, music, television show, etc. that will be used as comparison, one knows almost instantly if they want to read further and should they finish the article and it is written well, they’ll know if the suggested medium is something for them. I can’t count how many times I’ve attempted to watch several movies from a list of “top 20 X of 2020” or “of all time” lists and didn’t care for many of the entries listed. I hope that helps clarify the approach I want to take with this suggestion.
By Tom Stasio5 years ago in Horror
Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Blood Vessel' (2019)
A Russian, an Aussie, a Brit, and an American, bord a ship... Idontfuckingknow, maybe don't start your movie like a bad bar joke? It doesn't even make any god damn sense. On what ship, would American, Russian, and Aussie soldiers be together with British Intelligence? It's a small complaint, and really, the movie was pretty good, so it was also a complaint that I can forgive. It just annoyed me for some reason.
By Reed Alexander5 years ago in Horror
FOR THE LOVE OF ZOMBIES!
Okay, so if you love Zombie movies like I do, I would say we’ve come a long way since George Romero’s, “Night of the Living Dead” in 1968. Socially and racially, this movie was groundbreaking in so many ways. I could go on and on, but considering Covid 19, made us all 20 th century Zombies; whether we wanted to be or not, I’ll just go with that for now. I mean, I could even make comparisons to Leopards, if you want to go the biblical route. However, I’ll stick with Zombies. Strange, when Covid 19 first plagued us, I didn’t want to see a Zombie apocalyptic movie, if you paid me too. And I really love them. However, when it comes to movies, the classic Zombie formula still works.
By Nichelle S. Montgomery5 years ago in Horror
Shaun and Martin vs. the Dead
'Shaun of the Dead (2004)' is one of those movies that you don't dare criticize or contrast pleasantly without risk of incurring the wrath of its avid 'cult-base'. Despite being a lampoon of various zombie adventures, and especially George A. Romero's zombie adventures, it adeptly straddles the fence of appreciation and satire with such grace that zombie fans treasure it. Even George A. Romero approved of it. Where do you go after that to find your un-dead fix mixed with spot-on mocking? The obvious answer is to suggest the other 2 films in Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's so-called Cornetto Trilogy ('Hot Fuzz' and 'The World's End"), but both of those parody other genres. If you are sticking to strictly reanimated corpses, then I would like you to consider the merits of 2014's 'Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead'.
By Ron Kretschmer5 years ago in Horror
‘Wrong Turn’ (2021) Movie Review
In this revamp of the 2003 fan favorite, original screenwriter Alan McElroy returns to tell an all-new story about a different group of twentysomethings (Charlotte Vega, Adain Bradley, Emma Dumont, Dylan McTee, Vardaan Arora, Adrien Favela) who venture into the Appalachian backwoods and encounter an independent tribal society deep in the forest. After they disappear, one of the women’s fathers (Matthew Modine) decides to come looking for them.
By Will Lasley5 years ago in Horror
The Lure of the Deviant: Queerness and Subversion in Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator
From black and white vampire movies of the 1930s to the slasher boom of the 70s and 80s to even the polished, well-respected movies today, horror has always thrived as a subversive, chaotic genre. This aspect shines brightest in the B-movies of the 1980s, made with big ambitions and shoestring budgets. Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator (1985) is one of these films, a modern adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s series, “Herbert West - Reanimator.” The film tells the story of an ambitious experiment gone wrong, then attempted again, and again, and again, going wrong each time. Herbert West moves to New England to study medicine at Miskatonic University after leaving the University of Zurich, where he studied previously, after something terrible happened to the man he worked with. West is not just a dedicated medical student, however; he mainly focuses on a strange personal project: a serum he calls “Re-Agent” which brings the dead back to life. Needing a space for this work, he moves in with fellow medical student Dan Cain, who needs help with rent because his fiancé, Meg Halsey, will not move in with him yet. Though Herbert does not set out to find an assistant, he unexpectedly finds one in Dan, who he convinces of the importance of his work, and they begin to do experiments together. The film devolves into chaos, with reanimated corpses consistently becoming violent and every side character quickly becoming wrapped up in the collateral of Herbert’s work. This chaos centers entirely on Herbert: a small, dark, gaunt figure with no concern for social niceties or much human emotion. Herbert disrupts all sense of normalcy any character may have had in their education, job, relationships, and existence. He destroys families, relationships, and lives with a plunge of a syringe and shows no care or concern about any of it. Every time he subverts order and creates chaos, his queerness shows itself. I also assert that Herbert, and specifically his queerness, must be evaluated through a horror-specific lens, as the genre must be viewed from a perspective that differs from how we view other genres.
By Charlie Penney5 years ago in Horror
