The Horror of Bad Decisions Let’s begin with a universal truth: if someone ever suggests performing a mysterious ritual to “stay friends forever,” run. Don’t walk. Just bolt. Especially if you’re in a Japanese high school horror movie. Corpse Party (2015)—directed by Masafumi Yamada and based on the cult video game of the same name—takes … Read More “Corpse Party (2015): When Friendship Charms Go Wrong and Logic Dies Screaming” »
When Infection Becomes a Franchise Ah, sequels — the gift that keeps on giving… and in this case, festering, oozing, and refusing to use protection. Contracted: Phase II picks up right where the 2013 original left off, which is to say: in a puddle of pus, confusion, and poor life choices. Directed by Josh Forbes … Read More “Contracted: Phase II (2015): The STD That Wouldn’t Die” »
Till Death Do Us Part… and Then Some Love can be hard. Breakups can be harder. But dating a clingy ghost who won’t take “it’s over” for an answer? That’s Clinger, a 2015 horror-comedy that dares to ask: what if Ghost (1990) and Mean Girls had a paranormal baby raised on Red Bull and grave … Read More “Clinger (2015): When Love Dies, but Refuses to Leave the House” »
Welcome to Hell’s Group Therapy Session If 12 Angry Men explored the moral complexities of justice, Circle explores what would happen if 12 Angry Men were multiplied by four, dropped into a dark room, and forced to vote each other to death while arguing about social issues like a really bad Reddit thread. Directed by … Read More “Circle (2015): Fifty Shades of Existential Nonsense” »
When YouTube Meets Hell If Dante had lived long enough to experience YouTube influencers starring in horror movies, he probably would’ve added a tenth circle of Hell just for this. The Chosen (2015), starring internet personality Kian Lawley, is the cinematic embodiment of a clickbait title: “We Summoned a Demon at 3AM—Gone Wrong!” Directed by … Read More “The Chosen (2015): The Demon, The YouTuber, and The Utter Lack of Choices” »
Volcano Zombies: Because Apparently Sharks and Tornadoes Weren’t Enough Every now and then, a movie comes along that boldly asks, “What if zombies… but hot?” Enter The Burning Dead (a.k.a. Volcano Zombies), a 2015 horror film that answers that question with the cinematic grace of a science fair project powered by duct tape and despair. … Read More “The Burning Dead (2015): When Lava and Logic Both Melt Away” »
Love Thy Neighbor—Or Don’t If The Boy Next Door were a person, it would be that sweaty middle-aged man at a PTA meeting who keeps saying, “I swear, it gets good after the first act.” Directed by Rob Cohen (The Fast and the Furious, somehow), this 2015 “psychological thriller” stars Jennifer Lopez as a divorced … Read More “The Boy Next Door (2015): Fifty Shades of Cringe” »
Revenge, Reheated and Overcooked If Bound to Vengeance teaches us anything, it’s that revenge is a dish best served with a migraine. This 2015 horror-thriller, which premiered at Sundance for reasons that likely haunt the selection committee to this day, wants to be a feminist revenge fantasy but instead plays like a Lifetime movie filmed … Read More “Bound to Vengeance (2015): Chained to Mediocrity and Torture Porn Logic” »
A Boarding School for the Damned and the Depressed Osgood Perkins’ The Blackcoat’s Daughter (also known as February, for those who prefer their horror films to sound like indie poetry slams) is what happens when you mix Catholic guilt, teen angst, and a light seasoning of Satanism. The result is a slow-burn psychological horror film … Read More “The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2015): Satan’s Sad Girl Winter” »
The Madness of Method There’s a fine line between “method acting” and “please call the police,” and Adrian Țofei’s Be My Cat: A Film for Annesprints across it in a catsuit, hissing all the way. Marketed as Romania’s first found-footage horror movie and hailed by some critics as “revolutionary,” this 2015 descent into narcissistic chaos … Read More “Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (2015): When Found Footage Should’ve Stayed Lost” »