Introduction: When Moo Goes Wrong There are many reasons to fear the countryside—bad Wi-Fi, suspiciously cheerful locals, and now, thanks to Billy O’Brien’s Isolation (2005), cows that double as incubators for toothy monsters. Marketed as “Irish horror with brains,” the film is really just 95 minutes of mud, mooing, and misery. If you ever wanted … Read More “Isolation (2005): Cows, Calves, and Cinematic Calamity” »
Introduction: Welcome to Slovakia, Population: Dumb Tourists Eli Roth’s Hostel (2005) is the kind of movie that makes you nostalgic for the golden days of Faces of Death. At least those weren’t pretending to be high art. Marketed as Quentin Tarantino-approved (a sentence that, in retrospect, should set off alarms), Hostel was hyped as a … Read More “Hostel (2005): Tourism for Idiots, Torture for Dollars” »
Introduction: The Movie Nobody Asked For There are films that redefine a genre, and there are films that remind you that direct-to-video was a mercy invented for mankind. Hellraiser: Deader (2005), the seventh installment in Clive Barker’s once-prestigious horror franchise, falls squarely into the latter category. A Romanian-shot, script-butchered, budget-gutted piece of supernatural hokum, this … Read More “Hellraiser: Deader – The Kari Wuhrer Experience” »
A Cloud of Mediocrity When John Carpenter made The Fog in 1980, it wasn’t exactly The Exorcist, but it was at least spooky. You had atmosphere, a radio DJ narrating doom, and fog that felt alive. The 2005 remake, on the other hand, is like being trapped in an air-conditioned room with a broken smoke … Read More “The Fog (2005): A Shipwreck in Every Sense” »
Demi Moore vs. The Ghost of Career Choices There are bad movies, there are boring movies, and then there is Half Light, a film so indecisive that even its ghosts look confused. Written and directed by Craig Rosenberg, this 2006 “romantic thriller” (a genre hybrid that should’ve been illegal) stars Demi Moore as Rachel Carlson, … Read More “Half Light (2006): When Ghost Stories Deserve to Stay Dead” »
The Ride of Your Life… and Death’s Too Every slasher franchise has its high point. Friday the 13th had The Final Chapter. A Nightmare on Elm Street had Dream Warriors. And Final Destination? It had Final Destination 3—a film that made tanning beds scarier than Freddy Krueger and reminded us that weightlifting isn’t just dangerous … Read More “Final Destination 3 (2006): Death Rides the Devil’s Flight, and He Brought a Camera” »
Hop Into Hell There are movies you watch because they’re good. And then there are movies you watch because you want to see a man in a floppy Easter Bunny mask eviscerate a pack of degenerates with power tools while a motherly nurse takes familial revenge into her own blood-soaked hands. Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill! … Read More “Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill! (2006): A Bloody Basket of Trashy Brilliance” »
A Gothic Tragedy Told in Grainy Glory Some films arrive in a blaze of marketing hype, explosions, and CGI. The Death of Poe (2006), an indie shot mostly in black and white, arrives like a coughing, delirious man in a tattered coat knocking on your door at 3 a.m. asking for laudanum. Which is fitting, … Read More “The Death of Poe (2006): A Beautifully Miserable Swan Song” »
Indiana Jones and the Bargain Bin of Destiny Every so often, a made-for-TV movie crawls out of the sands of time to remind us why SyFy and the Hallmark Channel should never touch ancient mythology. Enter The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb (2006), a Russell Mulcahy “epic” that manages to make mummies boring, pharaohs unscary, … Read More “The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb (2006): The Real Curse Was Watching It” »
Once Upon a Time, in a Land of Botched Plastic Surgery Some horror movies are scary. Some are funny. And some, like Cinderella (2006), are horrifying only because you realize you spent nearly two hours watching a plot about haunted plastic surgery masks and family trauma that even the Brothers Grimm would’ve tossed in the … Read More “Cinderella (2006): When Fairy Tales Should Have Stayed in the Attic” »