When Bad CGI Happens to Nice People There are bad monster movies. Then there are Syfy Originals. And then, at the bottom of that food chain—beneath the mutant shark hybrids and time-traveling tarantulas—you’ll find Mega Python vs. Gatoroid (2011). Directed by Mary Lambert (yes, the same woman who gave us the genuinely creepy Pet Sematary), … Read More “Mega Python vs. Gatoroid — A Cold-Blooded Disaster Wrapped in a Warm Blanket of 1980s Nostalgia” »
Welcome to Another Episode of “Is She Crazy or Just Badly Written?” There’s a fine line between psychological horror and two hours of watching someone have a nervous breakdown while covered in deer guts. Lovely Molly (2011), directed by The Blair Witch Project’s Eduardo Sánchez, manages to trip over that line, fall into a pit … Read More “Lovely Molly — A Horse of a Different, Much Worse Color” »
Welcome to the House of the Undead and Unnecessarily Stylish Every so often, a horror film comes along that makes you question whether you should scream, applaud, or take a sip of red wine and pretend to understand French existentialism. Livid (2011), the second feature from French horror duo Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo — … Read More “Livid — Ballet, Blood, and the Art of Looking Beautifully Dead” »
The House Always Wins Haunted house movies are like real estate agents — they keep showing you the same property, but with slightly different wallpaper. Fertile Ground (2011), directed by Adam Gierasch and starring Leisha Hailey, takes that familiar premise — couple moves into a creepy house, things go bump in the night — and … Read More “Fertile Ground — A Haunted Womb and a Hell of a Good Time” »
Abandon Hope, All Who Pump Here There are bad horror movies, and then there’s Exit 33 (2011) — a cinematic pothole so deep it might just connect to hell. Directed by Tommy Brunswick and starring Kane Hodder, this is a film about a man who kills motorists for their eyeballs and makes jerky out of … Read More “Exit 33 — The Eye Gouging That No One Asked For” »
A Slow Burn That Creeps, Crawls, and Eventually Stabs You in the Soul If you’ve ever stared blankly at your coffee mug in the morning and thought, “What if my crushing ennui turned into a home invasion?”, then Entrance (2011) is your cinematic soulmate. Directed by Dallas Hallam and Patrick Horvath, this minimalist horror-thriller takes … Read More “Entrance — The Banality of Fear, Served with Latte Foam and Existential Dread” »
Hell Invades the Channel Islands (and It’s Delightful) You’d think by 2011, filmmakers would’ve exhausted every possible “Nazis dabbling in the occult” story. Between Indiana Jones, Hellboy, and that one History Channel documentary that airs at 2 a.m., we’ve seen the Third Reich summon everything from ghosts to golems. And yet The Devil’s Rock, a … Read More “The Devil’s Rock — Nazis, Demons, and Kiwi Commandos, Oh My!” »
The problem isn’t that the film is shocking; it’s that it’s boringly shocking. You can admire films that push boundaries when they do so with purpose. Little Deaths just licks the boundary and snickers like a 13-year-old who discovered the word “fetish.” Final Autopsy Anthology horror can be brilliant — Trick ‘r Treat, The ABCs … Read More “Little Deaths — Big Regrets” »
Welcome to the Yankee Pedlar, Where the Coffee’s Lukewarm and the Dead Never Leave In a horror landscape obsessed with jump scares, gore, and shaky cameras that could make NASA’s footage from the moon landing look stable, The Innkeepers (2011) arrives like a soft whisper in an empty hallway. Written, directed, and edited by Ti … Read More “The Innkeepers — A Ghost Story That Haunts You, Then Offers You Coffee” »
The Circle of Life… or Maybe Just a Traffic Circle If there were an award for “movie that most resembles a fever dream you’d have after eating gas station jerky,” Hyenas(2011) would take home the gold. Written and directed by Eric Weston—who must’ve made a bet to see if he could out-bore actual wildlife documentaries—this … Read More “Hyenas — When the Real Predator Is the Script” »