Category: Reviews

Some films are psychological thrillers.Some films are social commentaries.And then there is Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cloud, a movie so aggressively depressing that by the end I wasn’t sure if I’d watched a film or been emotionally mugged by an accountant. If you ever wanted to see a man become the final evolutionary stage of a toxic … Read More “Cloud (2024) A Bleak Capitalism Horror That Proves Japanese Cinema Can Also Make You Hate the Internet, Yourself, and Anyone Who’s Ever Sold Something on Mercari” »

Some films are made by teams of wildly talented people working together toward a shared vision. And then there’s C.202, which appears to have been written, directed, edited, scored, and possibly catered by Munna Kasi, a man who looked at filmmaking as a group sport and said, “Nah, I’ll solo this raid.” The result?A horror … Read More “C.202 (2024) A Supernatural Horror Film That Proves the Scariest Thing of All Is Letting the Director Do Literally Everything” »

Some horror-thrillers are tense.Some are gritty.Some are so bleak they’re basically cinematic self-harm. And then you have Blood Star, a film so committed to punishing its audience that by the halfway point I began to suspect the screening was part of an elaborate moral lesson I didn’t sign up for. You could screen this movie … Read More “Blood Star (2024) A Movie So Obsessed With Misery It Might Actually Be Sponsored by the Desert Sunburn Association” »

Every year, British cinema gifts us one horror film that feels like it was developed after someone found a crumpled napkin scribbled with, “What if The Babadook had less subtlety and more mud?” In 2024, that honor belongs to The Beast Within, a brooding, moody, sometimes-beastly, mostly-baffling film that tries to be a psychological thriller, … Read More “The Beast Within (2024) A Movie So Confused About Werewolves It Might Actually Be About Divorce” »

Every generation deserves a horror movie so catastrophically misguided that future anthropologists will dig it up, hold it to the light, and whisper, “So this is why society collapsed.” For 2024, that movie is #AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead — a film that feels like it was crowd-sourced from the worst parts of TikTok, … Read More “#AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead (2024) A Film That Proves Influencers Shouldn’t Be Allowed Near Festivals, Airbnbs, or Cameras Ever Again” »

There are two types of people in this world: those who hear “ballerina vampire child murders hardened criminals in a mansion” and say absolutely not, and those who say inject that into my veins immediately. Abigail is proudly, exuberantly made for the latter group. Directed by Radio Silence duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett — … Read More “Abigail (2024) A Ballet-Dancing Child Vampire Bloodbaths Her Way Into Instant Horror-Comedy Icon Status” »

There’s something wonderful about a horror film that works with almost nothing: two actors, one tiny caravan, and a storm that may or may not exist outside. You’ll Never Find Me, the Australian psychological horror debut from Indianna Bell and Josiah Allen, thrives on that minimalism like a feral cat thriving on chaotic energy and … Read More “You’ll Never Find Me (2023) A Two-Person Horror Stage Play in a Caravan… and It’s Better Than Most Big-Budget Thrillers” »

There’s a sacred place in the horror ecosystem reserved for European gothic films — specifically Italian ones — where logic is optional, atmosphere is mandatory, and someone is always restoring a cursed painting in a castle that’s definitely violating zoning laws. Federico Zampaglione’s The Well proudly enters this tradition like it’s clocking in for a … Read More “The Well (2023) A Deliciously Deranged Italian Gothic Throwback Where Art Restoration, Demonic Wells, and Crossbows All Make Perfect Sense” »

Every year, a handful of horror films arrive at festivals with the same reputation: “beautiful,” “dreamlike,” “haunting,” “meditative,” and — let’s be honest — “you may fall asleep, and that’s okay.”The Vourdalak is one such film. Adapted from an 1839 vampire novella and directed by Adrien Beau, this French drama-horror strolls into the genre like … Read More “The Vourdalak (2023) A Gorgeous, Gothic, Slow-Motion Fever Dream Where Even the Vampires Seem Bored” »

By the time you hit the sixth entry in a found-footage horror franchise, you expect certain things: glitchy cameras, screaming, gruesome deaths, questionable acting, and an overall vibe of “We made this in a weekend, please clap.” V/H/S/85 delivers all of that in spades, along with a sense of creative exhaustion so powerful it should’ve … Read More “V/H/S/85 (2023) A Found-Footage Frankenstein That Proves the ’80s Weren’t the Only Thing Full of Bad Decisions” »