Once Upon a Midnight Dreary, I Was Bored and Kinda Weary Ryan Connolly’s Tell (2012) is a short horror film based on Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart — or at least that’s what the description claims. In reality, it’s more like The Tell-Don’t-Show Heart, because for fifteen minutes, all this movie manages to show … Read More ““Tell” — A Short Film That Should’ve Stayed Quiet” »
Family Road Trip: Brought to You by the Department of Supernatural Tourism Nothing says “bonding experience” like a road trip that ends in cannibalistic bloodshed and generational curses. The Strangers (2012), directed by Lawrence Fajardo, takes the classic Filipino family outing — the one where everyone fights in the car, the food gets cold, and … Read More ““The Strangers” — A Family Vacation to Die For” »
A Dead Clown Walks Into a Party… If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if It, Weekend at Bernie’s, and a bad birthday party collided, the answer is Stitches — a 2012 Irish horror-comedy so gleefully deranged that it somehow manages to make decapitation feel like a punchline. Directed by Conor McMahon and starring stand-up … Read More ““Stitches” — The Funniest Funeral You’ll Ever Attend” »
“I Did It for the Lulz” — and Immediately Regretted It If movies could be reported for cybercrimes, Smiley (2012) would be serving a life sentence without parole. Directed by Michael Gallagher — the YouTube auteur behind Totally Sketch — this digital-age slasher tries to mash up Scream, The Ring, and an AOL chatroom from … Read More ““Smiley” — The Slasher That Killed the Internet (and My Will to Live)” »
Yuletide Cheer Meets Chainsaws and Flamethrowers It’s the most wonderful time of the year — for murder. Silent Night (2012), Steven C. Miller’s unapologetically gory remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night, is what happens when Christmas spirit, small-town corruption, and a flamethrower-wielding Santa Claus collide in a snowstorm of carnage and candy canes. This isn’t … Read More ““Silent Night” — A Bloody Good Christmas Carol” »
A Holiday to Dismember In Sightseers, Ben Wheatley takes the most British of pastimes — the modest caravan holiday — and turns it into a blood-soaked, darkly hilarious travelogue of madness, codependency, and littering-related homicide. Written by and starring Alice Lowe and Steve Oram, this 2012 black comedy asks a simple question: What if Natural … Read More ““Sightseers” — Love, Murder, and the Open Road (UK Edition)” »
When Self-Help Turns into Existential Horror There are few movies that start out like an intervention and end up feeling like an eldritch therapy session run by an angry, invisible god—but Resolution pulls it off beautifully. Directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, this 2012 indie horror masterpiece manages to take a simple premise—a guy … Read More ““Resolution” — Rehab, Cosmic Horror, and the World’s Worst Airbnb” »
Down the Rabbit Hole and Straight into Trauma If Lewis Carroll had spent a weekend bingeing Silent Hill, reading Bruno Bettelheim, and unpacking a lifetime of unresolved childhood trauma, the result would be Red Kingdom Rising. Writer-director Navin Dev’s debut feature takes Carroll’s whimsical absurdity and smothers it in candle wax, dust, and Freudian dread. … Read More ““Red Kingdom Rising” — Alice Goes to Therapy, and It’s Beautifully Disturbing” »
Love in the Time of Infection If you’ve ever thought, “You know what would make weddings better? Zombies,” then [•REC]³: Genesis is your champagne-fueled fever dream come true. Director Paco Plaza, clearly inspired by both The Evil Dead and every disastrous reception he’s ever attended, takes the claustrophobic terror of the original REC films and … Read More ““[•REC]³: Genesis” — Love, Chainsaws, and Holy Matrimony Gone to Hell” »
When Nazis, Puppets, and Terrible Dialogue Collide There are bad movies. There are so-bad-they’re-good movies. And then there’s Puppet Master X: Axis Rising — a cinematic fever dream that feels like someone accidentally set their history homework on fire and filmed it. Directed and produced by Full Moon legend Charles Band, this tenth installment in … Read More ““Puppet Master X: Axis Rising” — Strings Attached, Logic Not Included” »