The Sky Is Falling—And So Is the Acting If you’ve ever stared at the night sky and thought, “What if the end of humanity looked like a Windows 98 screensaver?”, then Meteor Apocalypse is the film for you. Directed by Micho Rutare and released straight to DVD (because even cable said “no thank you”), this … Read More ““Meteor Apocalypse” (2010): When the End of the World Deserves Better Special Effects” »
Once Upon a Time in a Discount Asylum Every once in a while, a movie comes along that makes you appreciate the simple pleasures in life: indoor plumbing, functioning lighting, and films that end before you develop Stockholm syndrome. Medium Raw: Night of the Wolf is not one of those movies. Written, directed by, and … Read More ““Medium Raw: Night of the Wolf” (2010): A Howling Good Time—If You Hate Yourself” »
Welcome to the Jungle (Please, Go Home) There are bad horror movies, and then there’s The Lost Tribe—a film so misguided it makes Anaconda 3 look like Apocalypse Now. Directed by Roel Reiné, who’s apparently never met a cliché he didn’t want to invite to dinner, this 2010 disaster takes the concept of “lost” very … Read More ““The Lost Tribe” (2010): The Island of Misfit Tropes” »
Heaven Help Us “God has lost faith in humanity.”So begins Legion, and somewhere in the audience, so have we. Directed by Scott Stewart, this 2010 action-horror film asks a question nobody wanted answered: “What if The Terminator had been rewritten by someone who just discovered the Bible and Red Bull?” The result is a celestial … Read More ““Legion” (2010): When God Sends His Worst Soldiers” »
Welcome Back to the Swamp of Diminishing Returns If you ever wondered what would happen if Jaws mated with a Syfy Channel original movie and raised its offspring on expired Mountain Dew, the answer is Lake Placid 3. Directed by Griff Furst (who sounds like he was born to direct movies about giant reptiles) and … Read More ““Lake Placid 3” (2010): When Crocodiles Attack… Your Brain Cells” »
Haunted by Mediocrity There are horror movies that chill you to the bone, that make you rethink the dark corners of your home, that whisper to your subconscious: “Don’t look under the bed.”And then there’s Kill Katie Malone, a movie that whispers: “Don’t press play.” Directed by Carlos Ramos Jr. and written by Mark Onspaugh, … Read More ““Kill Katie Malone” (2010): A Box of Regrets, Cheap CGI, and Dean Cain’s Mortgage Payment” »
The Eyes Have It If Alfred Hitchcock had gotten lost in a Spanish wine cellar and Guillermo del Toro had wandered in with a flashlight, Julia’s Eyes might be the result. Directed by Guillem Morales and produced by del Toro, this 2010 Spanish horror-thriller peers into darkness—literally and metaphorically—with enough tension to make you reconsider … Read More ““Julia’s Eyes” (2010): A Love Letter to the Blind and the Damned” »
“White Trash, Dog Cages, and the Death of Cinema” There are bad horror movies, and then there’s Jessicka Rabid—a cinematic experience so vile, so confused, and so visually cheap that it makes The Human Centipede look like Citizen Kane. Directed by Matthew Reel, this 2010 “film” (a term I use generously) promises a shocking tale … Read More “Jessicka Rabid (2010): A Film So Bad, It Should Have Been Put Down” »
“The Horror Movie That Brought Class Back to Creeping You Out” If Paranormal Activity was the cinematic equivalent of hearing bumps in the night, Insidious is like getting slapped in the face by the thing making them. Directed by Saw mastermind James Wan and written by his equally mischievous partner-in-crime Leigh Whannell, Insidious proved that … Read More “Insidious (2010): The Haunted House That Finally Got It Right (and Red-Faced About It)” »
“The Horror Film That Couldn’t Scare a Power Outage” Let’s start with the headline here: Help is a horror movie that desperately needs some. Rajeev Virani’s directorial debut tries to merge Bollywood melodrama with supernatural thrills, but the end result is less The Conjuring and more Kabhi Kabhie Kya Horror Hai. Released on Friday the … Read More “Help (2010): When Even the Ghosts Want a Refund” »