Till Death — or Possession — Do Us Part Ah, weddings. The champagne, the vows, the strategically hidden flasks. For most couples, the worst-case scenario is a drunk uncle or a DJ who thinks “YMCA” counts as a slow dance. For Hank and Doreen, the lovebirds at the center of Devil in My Ride (2013), … Read More “Devil in My Ride (2013): Love, Las Vegas, and Lucifer” »
A Love Letter to the Age of Goo and Gore Every once in a while, a movie comes along that feels like it was dug up from a VHS graveyard behind a comic book store, polished with fake blood, and proudly handed to you with a knowing grin. The Demon’s Rook (2013) is that movie … Read More “The Demon’s Rook (2013): Heavy Metal, Homemade Hellfire, and Heart” »
The Dead Inside… And So Was I Somewhere deep in rural England, a group of filmmakers got together, scraped together £15,000, and decided to make a zombie movie. That movie was The Dead Inside (or Infected, if you’re feeling continental). The result isn’t so much The Walking Dead as The Wandering Aimless — a micro-budget … Read More “The Dead Inside (2013): When Even the Zombies Look Bored” »
A Haunting of Hormones and Heartache Irish horror doesn’t get nearly enough credit for how good it is at making you feel both terrified and vaguely Catholic-guilty at the same time. Dark Touch (2013), written and directed by Marina de Van, takes that tradition and cranks it up to eleven—literally, since its heroine is an … Read More “Dark Touch (2013): When Puberty Hits Like a Poltergeist” »
The Horror of Sleepless Parenthood Forget ghosts and monsters — the real horror is sleep deprivation. Dark Circles (2013) understands this on a primal level. Written and directed by Paul Soter (yes, the Broken Lizard guy from Super Troopers), the film doesn’t so much redefinehorror as it does exhaust it — in the best possible … Read More “Dark Circles (2013): Parenting, Paranoia, and the Perils of Country Living” »
When the Doll Gets His Groove Back Every horror franchise eventually hits that point where you expect it to die quietly — like a forgotten slasher villain retired to Florida. And then, out of nowhere, it claws its way back out of the bargain bin to remind everyone why it was scary in the first … Read More “Curse of Chucky (2013): The Little Plastic Bastard Grows Up (Again)” »
The American Dream, Now With Extra Murder Ah, suburbia — that sacred land of open houses, fresh paint, and the faint smell of old blood in the crawlspace. Crawlspace (2013), directed by Josh Stolberg, is the kind of horror movie that takes the classic real estate fantasy — “We finally bought our dream home!” — … Read More “Crawlspace (2013): Home Is Where the Psycho Hides” »
Daddy Issues, but Make It Supernatural If you’ve ever wanted to watch a horror movie that feels like an exorcism of family therapy gone wrong, Compound Fracture (2013) is your jam. Co-written by and starring Tyler Mane — yes, the towering brute who once played Michael Myers in Rob Zombie’s Halloween remakes — this movie … Read More “Compound Fracture (2013): Family, Ghosts, and Generational Trauma with a Body Count” »
DIY Horror Gone Horribly, Horribly Wrong Some movies are scary because of what’s on screen. Others are scary because they exist. Coffin Baby (2013) falls squarely into the latter category — a cinematic car crash you can’t look away from, but wish you had. Originally conceived as Toolbox Murders 2, this film was supposed to … Read More “Coffin Baby (2013): The Toolbox Broke — and So Did the Movie” »
When Horror Goes Celibate There are bad horror movies, and then there are movies like Chastity Bites, which feel like a group project where everyone turned in a different genre and the editor just stapled it together. Directed by John V. Knowles and written by Lotti Pharriss Knowles, this 2013 “horror-comedy” promises a satirical feminist … Read More “Chastity Bites (2013): Abstinence, Arrogance, and Absolute Agony” »