Aug 31, 2007
A movie based on a Stephen King novel about a haunted hotel? And the main character is a frustrated writer? And it’s all about latent horrors, undead specters, and the gradual unraveling of a man’s psyche? Heck, I’ve seen this movie before. It was called “The Shining,” and even though it deviates quite a lot(…)
Aug 26, 2007
Monsters, demons, and knife-wielding psychos might make for a suitably creepy movie, but if you really want to be chilled to the bone, just turn on the evening news and witness something really horrifying: The evil that men do to one another for no good reason. One of the most infamous crimes in American history(…)
Jul 6, 2007
I suspect that a lot of horror fans will dismiss, dislike or just plain old avoid James Wan’s Dead Silence, and that’s kind of a shame. The gorehounds who walk in expecting yet another example of Saw-style lunacy may walk out sorely disappointed, while those who were raised on the quick-cut hyper-stylized horror flicks of(…)
Jul 1, 2007
It’s not just that mounting a remake of Robert Harmon’s cult classic “The Hitcher” is a bad idea; it’s that this slapped-together afterthought of a remake doesn’t even come close to capturing what made the original such a ferociously refreshing piece of genre filmmaking in the first place. Basically it’s just another example of a(…)
Jun 22, 2007
From the garish early advertising, the “accidental” firestorm that hit when the MPAA was not amused, the rating embargo, the release delays, and the “hushed tones” that inevitably arise whenever an allegedly ultra-nasty new horror flick hits the scene, After Dark and Lionsgate’s “Captivity” has been the recipient of tons of free press. If only(…)
Jun 8, 2007
What I find most amusing about the “torture porn” flicks like Saw, Hostel, and The Hills Have Eyes is this: The outraged and the intimidated choose to dismiss these films as mindless gore-fests, when in fact they’re all a pretty effective bunch of psychological horror movies. It’s the threat (and eventual arrival) of the red(…)
May 22, 2007
If you’ve got a soft spot for trashy pulp thrillers like Malice, Arlington Rd., and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, then save a place in your weekend for Bruce Evans’ “Mr. Brooks,” a high-budget psycho-thriller that lets two of our more “sedate” leading men cut loose with some entertainingly juicy performances. The flick’s got(…)
Mar 30, 2007
The Hills Have Eyes 2 takes place in the same patch of rock-strewn desert that we visited in the recent remake. This time around, instead of a generally helpless family being terrorized by a group of man-eating mutants, we get a crew of amazingly clueless National Guard soldiers who venture into the wrong patch of(…)
Mar 16, 2007
It’s a zombie flick, a broad comedy, a clever satire, and a bizarrely touching “coming of age” story all at once. No, it’s not the sort of zombie movie that’ll have you hiding your eyes in fear, but if you’re a big fan of the undead sub-genre, you’ll probably find a lot to like in(…)
Feb 9, 2007
I don’t know who it was that said “OK, look. Anthony Hopkins is too old (and expensive) at this point, but damn this Hannibal Lecter series just oozes money from every pore. Let’s get that Harris guy to bang out another book, which we can release a month before the movie comes out.
Jan 26, 2007
The vampire has been a powerfully tenacious movie villain for the past century or so, and every once in a while there comes a new flick that adds some much-needed creativity to the classic creature. Veteran of hundreds of movies both half-decent and entirely rotten, the vampire doesn’t get to star in all that many(…)
Jan 6, 2006
Both Hostels and all three Saws; I actually dig ‘em all. There must be something wrong with me, right? Possibly, but if being shocked and jolted by some “big boy” horror flicks is wrong, then I don’t want to be right. But just because I consider the original Hostel to be a damn fine horror(…)
