I know what you’re thinking. Liam Neeson trudging through the Alaskan wilderness in a humdrum January survivalist thriller flick. Looks kinda like Alive and certainly doesn’t have a whole lot to offer horror fans. But what promotional materials only hint at, wild wolves watching the every move of these men as they battle for survival amidst the harshest conditions, is actually the central struggle of this surprisingly engaging tale from writer/director Joe Carnahan. More

You may recall a terrible horror flick from a few years back called Stay Alive. It was a very typical slasher flick copycat that showed up at the tail-end of another slasher cycle. That happens a lot to rip-offs: they arrive just a bit too late to steal much money. That forgettable film came from the writing/directing team of Matthew Peterman and William Brent Bell, a duo that promptly vanished once Stay Alive hit the screens. But now Matt and Will are back, and they’re up to the exact same trick: copycatting something that was popular over a year ago, and doing a really terrible job of it. Their shamelessly derivative The Devil Inside is nothing more than generic and tiresome concepts stolen whole from The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Last Exorcism, and, of course, The Exorcist. More

As any astute horror fan knows by now, Eli Roth’s Hostel (2005) and Hostel Part 2 (2007) took place in a sleazy and hopefully fictional version of Slovakia. This setting afforded the writer/director ample opportunity to explore concepts like xenophobia, cultural egocentricity, and American provincialism — but explore them in a decidedly creepy, disturbing, gory, and occasionally amusing fashion. While some are content to dismiss these horror films as “torture porn” (an ignorant term if ever there was one), those who take horror cinema a bit more seriously may appreciate the way Hostel and its sequel try to use cross-cultural discomfort as a springboard to some decidedly extreme payoffs. More

The astute fan of indie horror cinema may recall a not-half-bad offering from 2004 called Malevolence. Written and directed by Stevan Mena, it told the story of a bank robbery gone (seriously) awry when the criminals choose the wrong patch of woods to hole up in. And that’s an understatement. A clearly low-budget and scrappy indie, to be sure, but one with a few fresh ideas in its head – and an impressive commitment to not softening its blows. Mena came back a few years later with the horror farce known as Brutal Massacre, which earned some fans on the festival circuit, and now he’s returned to “straight” horror with Bereavement.

More

Last year’s quiet treat known as The Woman in Black proved that there’s still a little energy left in the horror sub-genre we’ll call “old-school British creepiness” for the time being, and while the inclusion of Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) was no small part in that film’s success, the end result was an admirably old-fashioned, low-key yet creepy, and visually impressive piece of work. And yes, there is a sequel on the way. Until that flick shows up, here’s another slice of 1920-ish “things go bump in the night” sort of horror tale. More

There’s something almost quaint about the new occult thriller from Darren Lynn Bousman, and not just because it’s a low-key departure for the guy who directed three Saw sequels, a Mother’s Day remake, and one of the craziest cult musicals since Rocky Horror. At times the somewhat dry, somewhat comfortably familiar horror tale known as 11-11-11: The Prophecy feels like a late-era Hammer feature (admittedly not one of the best ones) and, more often, it starts to feel a lot like a mid-’80s religious thriller. The movie 11-11-11 reminds me of most is Carl Schultz’s The Seventh Sign. Yep, that goofy yet well-remembered piece of church-related horror starring Demi Moore that hit screens in 1988, promptly vanished, and lives on in the hearts of serious horror geeks. More

Note: this review may contain mild spoilers that deal with personal and frequently smelly bodily functions.

The already-infamous horror film The Human Centipede was a gimmick the second it was born: by telling people what the film is about (a man who grafts three people together, ass-to-mouth) you were already doing marketing. Many people recoiled at the very concept, and with good reason, but for the most part the original film takes a very novel approach to some very basic genre movie conventions. While I’d never call it a masterpiece, I appreciated The Human Centipede for combining a slasher flick with a mad scientist story with a visual idea that is, quite simply, very disturbing. The film earned its expected parcel of outrage and controversy, which explains why nobody is surprised at all to see The Human Centipede 2 come lurching into view. More