When Found Footage Should Have Stayed Lost If The Blair Witch Project taught us that fear lies in what we don’t see, then Cult (2013) proves that showing everything—including your film crew, your lack of budget, and your creative bankruptcy—can be far scarier for the wrong reasons. Kōji Shiraishi’s Cult is a found-footage horror film … Read More ““Cult” (2013) — Found Footage Found Boring” »
Death, Decay, and an Awkward Doctor Visit There are body horror films that make you squirm in fascination, and then there’s Contracted (2013), a movie that makes you want to immediately bathe in bleach and call your therapist. Directed by Eric England, Contracted bills itself as a metaphor for decay, trauma, and the fragility of … Read More ““Contracted” — The STD That Time (and Taste) Forgot” »
Revenge, Religion, and a Really Good Hair Straightener Stephen King’s Carrie has been drenched in more fake blood than a slaughterhouse prom. First there was the 1976 Brian De Palma classic — a perfect cocktail of teenage cruelty, Catholic guilt, and supernatural payback. Then came sequels, TV remakes, and now, the 2013 version, directed by … Read More ““Carrie (2013)” — The Prom Queen of Pain Returns, Wi-Fi Enabled and Bloody Fabulous” »
The Sequel That Refuses to Die (Literally) If there’s one thing you can say about Bunshinsaba 2 (2013), it’s that it doesn’t believe in subtlety. This Chinese-Korean hybrid horror flick—directed by the ever-committed Ahn Byeong-ki—takes the supernatural tropes of Asian ghost cinema, injects them with caffeine and melodrama, and serves them with the intensity of … Read More ““Bunshinsaba 2” — Ghosts, Guilt, and Glamour: A Sequel That Kills Softly (and Sometimes Spectacularly)” »
When Global Warming Melts Your Brain There are bad environmental horror movies, and then there’s Blood Glacier (2013), a film that proves the real threat to humanity isn’t climate change — it’s European scientists with zero survival instincts. Directed by Marvin Kren, this Austrian import promises The Thing by way of An Inconvenient Truth, but … Read More ““Blood Glacier” — Nature Fights Back, And You’ll Wish It Hadn’t” »
A Creature Feature That Crawled Out of the Wrong End There are movies that make you laugh. There are movies that make you scream. And then there’s Bad Milo! (2013), a film that makes you question every life choice that led you to watching a movie about a murderous hemorrhoid with abandonment issues. Directed by … Read More ““Bad Milo!” — A Butt Monster, Daddy Issues, and 85 Minutes of Digestive Regret” »
Lumberjack Logic (or Lack Thereof) There are bad horror movies, and then there are movies like Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan (2013) — the cinematic equivalent of a rotted tree falling in the forest while everyone involved pretends it made a sound. Directed by Gary Jones, this low-budget wonder tries to take an … Read More “Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan” — Tall Tales, Short Brains” »
Welcome to the Warhouse There are bad days, and then there’s Armistice (2013) — 90 minutes of one man’s endless bad day stretched so thin it could be used as barbed wire. Directed by Luke Massey on a shoestring budget, this supernatural war drama stars Joseph Morgan as a Royal Marine trapped in what looks … Read More ““Armistice” — Groundhog Day for Masochists” »
When the Apocalypse Goes Online Antisocial (2013) is one of those movies that tries to be clever about technology but ends up feeling like your grandma’s Facebook post about “the dangers of TikTok.” It’s a Canadian horror flick directed by Cody Calahan, who clearly watched The Ring, 28 Days Later, and one too many TED … Read More ““Antisocial” — A Virus, a Wi-Fi Signal, and Absolutely No Chill” »
The Family That Gaslights Together, Stays Together Every family gathering has its share of awkwardness — the cousin who won’t stop talking about crypto, the aunt who’s “just asking questions,” the father on his deathbed accused of conducting human experiments on his adopted children. You know, the usual. In Altered Minds (2013), writer-director Michael Z. … Read More ““Altered Minds” — Daddy Issues with a Nobel Prize” »