Of all the scary things we poor humans have to deal with, putting our lives in the hands of someone else has to rank among the most terrifying. We hope, pray, and trust that if we’re stricken by something life-threatening, our attending medical professionals are among the world’s smartest, purest, and most talented. In most cases, fortunately, we won’t need a miracle worker, and, let’s be fair, most doctors are pretty damn good at their jobs. In the case of Lance Daly’s ironically-titled The Good Doctor, however, we’re dealing with a subtly but insidiously deranged medical practitioner. Not Dr. Giggles-style lunacy, but something much worse… More

There are several colors in the “horror/comedy” spectrum. Some films, like John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London is a horror film with sly wit, whereas on the other side of the scale we have Scary Movie, which is little more than a broad spoof that happens to focus on cliches and stereotypes found in horror flicks. Somewhere right in the middle, of course, is Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead, one of the very rare films that finds a way to succeed at horror and comedy at the exact same time. Ever since the success of Shaun, we’ve seen a lot of zombie comedies from around the world, and the newest one from the UK, entitled Cockneys vs. Zombies, is most assuredly a farce first and a horror film second. Fortunately it’s also a farce with quick wit, a few clever ideas, a nice brisk pace, several amusing actors, and (logically) some gore-laden zombie massacre mayhem. More

When someone says a new movie is “made for horror fans,” what they usually mean is that it’s fun, fast-paced, nostalgic, and probably pretty self-deprecating or subversive. Movies like Scream, Slither, and The Cabin in the Woods are “made for horror fans” in that way.

Then there are films like Berberian Sound Studio, which is made for horror fans who take the genre very seriously. Not only does this movie hearken back to an era and location that means a lot to the history of horror films, but it also knows what seasoned viewers expect from a conventional terror tale — and then it messes with those expectations in a series of highly compelling ways.
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There’s broad comedy, there’s wacky stuff, and then there’s the Japanese version of non-stop silliness. Throw all three into a blender and you’ll get a bizarre (and kinda tasty) concoction known as Dead Sushi, a horror / action / ultra-goofy slapstick farce from the man who brought us RoboGeisha, Mutant Girls Squad, and Zombie Ass. Yes, those are all actual films, and yes they all sprang from the mind of the cinematically insane Noboru Iguchi. How much you enjoyDead Sushi will rely on your tolerance for overt silliness combined with martial arts nonsense and loads of over-the-top gore-geysers, but while Dead Sushi runs a bit longer than it really needs to, it’s tough to imagine being bored by the lunacy on display here. More

Virtually every film festival in the world has a handful of charming little Irish movies hiding in the fringes. And if they don’t, they should. Sincere drama about little but real characters; light comedy that almost always brings some heart and sweetness to the fore; tough stories about violent histories; and dark thrillers based on myths and legends that barely register with an American audience. So clearly I’m a fan of films made in Ireland. 

And now they’ve made a new monster movie! More

“A boy who can talk to the dead must come to the rescue of his unfriendly town when a bunch of zombies and an evil witch rise from the dead and start to raise holy hell.”

Doesn’t exactly sound like a “kiddie flick,” does it? Not really. And that’s only one of the reasons that the fantastic new piece of feature-length stop-motion animation known as ParaNorman is such an unexpected treat. Here is a family-friendly horror/comedy that treats both genres with a lot of respect, and achieves a masterful balancing act between PG-rated chuckles and material that’s, well, morbid, creepy, and sometimes pretty gross. In other words, your 10-year-old son may now have a new favorite film. And you’ll probably have a damn good time, too. More

One day (very soon) I’m going to write an article about the large number of surprisingly insightful male directors who make horror films about women. On that list I’d mention films like May, The Descent, Teeth, Grace, and recent Sundance flicks like Excision (reviewed here) and Eduardo Sanchez’s Lovely Molly. That’s not to say that these films offer any definitive answers on the various mysteries of the female animal, but that I find it very cool and highly provocative when a film like Inside, for example, comes from writer/directors who are men. (The flip-side to this equation is that, unfortunately, well, we need to see more female horror directors. Period.) More

As is often the case with interesting indie horror films, The Facility proves that you don’t need much to deliver something worthwhile. Here we have a straightforward story that offers A) a simple premise, B) an effective location, and C) a handful of characters worth watching for 90 minutes. The Facility never comes close to re-inventing bio-horror themes or suspense thrillers, but there’s always something to be said for a movie that knows what it is, knows what it wants to do, and gets it all done with some craftsmanship and efficiency.  More