Apocalypse Now… on a Budget Woo Ming Jin’s Zombitopia sounds like it should be a blast—a Malaysian Mad Max meets The Walking Dead, with emotional trauma, viral doom, and high-octane survival. Instead, it plays like a school play performed during an actual pandemic lockdown, lit by flashlight, and written by someone who’s only seen zombies … Read More “Zombitopia (2021) — The End of the World, Now Featuring Bad Lighting and Worse Dialogue” »
Welcome to the Appalachian Airbnb from Hell The Wrong Turn franchise has never been known for subtlety. Six movies of hillbillies, cannibals, and improbable dismemberment have made it the cinematic equivalent of gas station jerky—cheap, greasy, but oddly satisfying. And yet, 2021’s Wrong Turn reboot dares to do something blasphemous: it grows a brain. Director … Read More “Wrong Turn (2021) — The Hills Have Ethics (Sort Of)” »
The Gospel According to the Damned Every family has secrets. The Grahams, however, have enough skeletons to fill a Walmart-sized mausoleum. Vincent Grashaw’s What Josiah Saw is a bleak, beautifully twisted slice of Southern Gothic horror that feels like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre went to therapy and started quoting Faulkner. It’s the kind of … Read More “What Josiah Saw (2021) — The Family Reunion from Hell (and the Catering’s Human Remains)” »
Lights, Camera, No Crew If there’s one good thing to crawl out of 2020’s lockdowns—besides sourdough and existential dread—it’s Untitled Horror Movie, Nick Simon’s delightfully chaotic found-footage horror comedy about actors who can’t stop acting, even when they accidentally summon Satan. Filmed entirely through Zoom during the pandemic, this is a movie that could’ve gone … Read More “Untitled Horror Movie (2021) — Zoom, Doom, and a Dose of Meta Mayhem” »
When Hex Marks the Plot Hole Some movies make you believe in magic. Two Witches just makes you believe in Advil. Pierre Tsigaridis’ 2021 horror film promises “two loosely connected tales of witchcraft and terror.” What it delivers instead is a cinematic séance gone wrong—a mess of clichés, screaming, fake blood, and scenes that feel … Read More “Two Witches (2021) — Double, Double, Toil, and Boring” »
The Sweet Symphony of Psychosis If Mozart had been a slasher killer with a soundboard fetish and a minor god complex, Sound of Violence would be his biopic. Alex Noyer’s 2021 debut is what happens when Whiplash, Saw, and a synesthesia TED Talk get together in a warehouse full of blood and MIDI cables. It’s … Read More “Sound of Violence (2021) — When Art Really Hurts” »
The Witch Is Back — and She’s Had Enough Charlotte Colbert’s She Will isn’t your typical revenge horror film. It’s not here to chase you down a dark hallway with a knife or pop out of a mirror to yell “boo.” No, this one seduces you. It floats into your psyche, pours a cup of … Read More “She Will (2021) — Revenge Served Cold, With a Side of Witch Ash and Class” »
The Desert Has Wi-Fi but No Mercy Sam Walker’s The Seed is the kind of movie that reminds you humanity’s extinction might not be such a bad idea. Three influencers go to the desert for a meteor shower and end up being seduced, corrupted, and digested—physically and spiritually—by a slimy alien meatball from the cosmos. … Read More “The Seed (2021) — Influencers, Aliens, and the Apocalypse of Good Taste” »
The Great Gay Escape That Could’ve Been Pat Mills’ The Retreat arrives with a mission nobler than most horror flicks — to subvert the “bury your gays” trope and give queer characters a fighting chance in a genre that usually treats them like expired milk in a haunted fridge. Admirable goal. Problem is, the execution … Read More “The Retreat (2021) — A Cabin in the Woods Where Logic Went to Die” »
The Gospel According to Mammootty Every once in a while, Indian cinema gives us a priest who doesn’t just bless the sinners—he hunts them down with style, smarts, and a glare sharp enough to send Lucifer into early retirement. The Priest, Jofin T. Chacko’s supernatural horror mystery, gives us exactly that. Mammootty, looking like he … Read More “The Priest (2021) — When God, Ghosts, and Guilt Share a Confession Booth” »