Let’s be honest — by 2007, Dario Argento was no longer the cinematic bogeyman who haunted your dreams. He was more like the eccentric uncle who used to scare you with ghost stories, but now mostly just yells at the espresso machine. But then, out of the fog of cinematic memory, came Mother of Tears … Read More “A Witchy Swan Song: Dario Argento’s Mother of Tears Brings Back the Gore, the Glamour, and the Glorious Madness” »
There are two kinds of movies about killer animals: the ones that make you afraid to go outside (Jaws, The Ghost and the Darkness), and the ones that make you afraid to turn on the Syfy Channel after 10 p.m. Maneater (2007) proudly, defiantly, belongs to the latter. It’s a film so un-scary, so clumsily … Read More “Maneater (2007): When the Real Monster Is the Script” »
If Alfred Hitchcock had ever directed Rosemary’s Baby on a bender of espresso and human despair, it might have looked something like Inside (À l’intérieur), the 2007 French horror nightmare from Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo. This isn’t your grandmother’s home invasion movie — unless your grandmother happens to keep scissors by the bed and … Read More “Inside (2007): The Bloodiest Baby Shower in France” »
By the time Hostel: Part II rolled into theaters in 2007, Eli Roth had achieved the kind of notoriety usually reserved for reality TV contestants and plague rats. His first Hostel film was a sweaty, gruesome little shocker that tapped into post-9/11 paranoia and backpacker dread — or at least pretended to. Audiences fainted, critics … Read More “Hostel: Part II (2007) — Eli Roth’s Torture Tourism: Now with 30% More Genital Mutilation and 100% Less Purpose” »
Ah, Headless Horseman (2007). The Sci-Fi Channel (back before it was “SyFy”) must have looked at Sleepy Hollow and thought, “What if we remade it, but with none of the atmosphere, none of the budget, and all of the acting ability of a local haunted hayride?” And thus, this TV-movie was born—an abomination that gallops … Read More “Headless Horseman (2007): The Pumpkin Spice Latte of Horror—Lukewarm, Artificial, and Mostly Foam” »
There’s a moment, deep into Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007), when you realize something terrible: the movie isn’t about fear, or suspense, or even Halloween. It’s about Rob Zombie’s lifelong desire to see how many people he can cram into a trailer park before someone picks up a kitchen knife. What John Carpenter did with quiet … Read More “Halloween (2007): Rob Zombie’s White-Trash Symphony of Screams and Poor Decisions” »
Some horror movies are scary because they show us monsters, killers, or ghosts. Gone (2007) is scary for a much simpler reason — because you realize, halfway through, that nothing interesting is ever going to happen. It’s a film about being trapped in the Australian outback, but it feels like being trapped in a slow-motion … Read More “Gone (2007): A Sunburned Psychological Horror That Forgets the “Psychological”” »
There are bad movies, and then there are cinematic séances that accidentally summon the ghost of bad taste — and Ghost Son is firmly in the latter category. Directed by Italian horror legend Lamberto Bava (yes, that Bava — the man who once made Demons), this 2007 supernatural misfire is a movie that feels like … Read More “Ghost Son (2007): Love, Loss, and One Very Possessive Baby” »
There are bad horror movies, and then there’s Freakshow — a cinematic crime scene smeared with fake blood, bad intentions, and the lingering smell of dollar-store latex. Made by the schlock factory known as The Asylum — the same company that brought the world Snakes on a Train and Transmorphers — this 2007 disaster dares … Read More “Freakshow (2007): A Travesty in Tent Poles and Trash Bins” »
There’s something perversely impressive about taking one of the most disturbing true crime stories in American history and making it boring. Michael Feifer’s Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield manages to do just that — turning a real-life nightmare of psychosis, necrophilia, and taxidermy into what feels like a rejected episode of Criminal Minds: Wisconsin … Read More “Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield — When Even Grave Robbing Feels Phoned In” »