The Forecast: 100% Chance of Regret Every so often, a horror movie emerges from the mist of obscurity and makes you wonder if the fog itself was trying to warn you not to watch it. Fog Warning (2008), written and directed by Christopher Ward, is one such meteorological disaster — a film that promises psychological … Read More “Fog Warning (2008): A Thick Cloud of Confusion, Pretension, and Bad Lighting” »
Resurrection of the Beard, Death of Subtlety You’ve got to hand it to José Mojica Marins—literally, because by the time you finish Embodiment of Evil (2008), your hands will be too busy covering your eyes to applaud. This third and final chapter in Marins’ long-running Coffin Joetrilogy brings back Brazil’s most diabolical undertaker after forty … Read More “Embodiment of Evil (2008): Coffin Joe’s Comeback Tour—Now with Extra Entrails” »
A Cruise You’ll Wish You’d Missed There are bad vacations, and then there’s Donkey Punch (2008) — a horror-thriller so tone-deaf and joyless that it makes Gilligan’s Island look like The Odyssey. Directed by Olly Blackburn and written by Blackburn and David Bloom, this British “holiday gone wrong” story wants to be The Descent on … Read More “Donkey Punch (2008): The Yacht Trip Straight to Hell (and Not in the Fun Way)” »
A Horror Movie So Gross It Makes You Miss Algebra Some horror movies make you uncomfortable. Deadgirl (2008) makes you wish for brain bleach and a time machine to warn your past self. Written by Trent Haaga and directed by Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel, this film tries to be a dark coming-of-age story about … Read More “Deadgirl (2008): The Necrophilia High School Musical Nobody Wanted” »
The Curse of the Boring Witch There are haunted house movies that chill you to the bone, and then there’s Conjurer (2008), a supernatural snooze-fest that barely manages to chill a cup of lukewarm coffee. Directed by Clint Hutchison and written by Hutchison and David Yarbrough, this film asks the question: What if we made … Read More “Conjurer (2008): A House So Haunted Even the Plot Tried to Leave” »
The Holidays, Family, and Your Worst Nightmare Ah, Christmas. The season of love, laughter, and apparently—filicidal panic. The Children (2008), directed by Tom Shankland, is what happens when you mix the family dysfunction of Love Actually with the apocalyptic doom of 28 Days Later and garnish it with a dash of Home Alone brutality. It’s … Read More “The Children (2008): When the Kids Aren’t Alright—And That’s the Fun of It” »
Reflections of Fear — and Style Every now and then, a horror movie doesn’t scream at you — it whispers. The Broken (2008), Sean Ellis’s sleek and unsettling French-British mind-bender, is one of those rare whispers. It doesn’t rely on jump scares, exploding heads, or cheap shocks. Instead, it stands quietly in the corner, staring … Read More “The Broken (2008): A Mirror Cracked, and Beautifully So” »
Welcome to the Woods — Abandon Hope, Logic, and Budget There are bad horror movies, and then there’s Backwoods (2008) — a film that makes you nostalgic for mosquito bites and bear attacks. Directed by Marty Weiss, this Spike TV “original movie” (three words that should strike fear into any viewer’s soul) tries to combine … Read More “Backwoods (2008): A Hike Through Hell With a GPS Set to “Bad Movie”” »
The Setup No One Asked For There’s a special kind of horror movie that makes you question not just the director’s choices, but your own life decisions that led to pressing “play.” April Fool’s Day (2008), the straight-to-DVD remake of the 1986 cult favorite, is one of those cinematic pranks that goes too far. Directed … Read More “April Fool’s Day (2008): The Joke’s on Us — and It’s Not Funny” »
The Opening Curse If the first Alone in the Dark (2005) was a cinematic séance gone wrong — an Uwe Boll-led ritual that summoned the spirit of bad filmmaking — Alone in the Dark II is what happens when the curse spreads. Directed by Peter Scheerer and Michael Roesch, this 2008 sequel staggers through its … Read More “Alone in the Dark II (2008): A Sequel Nobody Asked For and Everyone Deserved to Avoid” »