Poché Pictures

When people talk about French cinema, they usually wax poetic about Godard, Truffaut, and the delicate art of making ennui look sexy. Then there’s Belphegor, Phantom of the Louvre (2001), which reminds us that even the French are capable of producing a film so bad it feels like a crime against both horror and ancient … Read More “Belphegor, Phantom of the Louvre – A Mummy Movie That Should’ve Stayed Buried” »

Anime fans like to whisper about Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust in hushed, reverent tones. They’ll tell you it’s a gothic masterpiece, an operatic blood-soaked ballet of anime elegance. But let me tell you what it really is: ninety minutes of a pouty half-vampire cowboy mumbling while riding a horse that deserves a better agent. This … Read More “Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000) – A Goth Western Where Everyone Forgot the Plot” »

Real estate agents lie for a living. That’s just science. But Terror Tract—a 2000 anthology film directed by Lance W. Dreesen and Clint Hutchison—imagines the one poor agent who tries honesty. John Ritter, sitcom saint of the dad joke, plays Bob Carter, a realtor who insists on “full disclosure” about every single murder, haunting, and … Read More “Terror Tract (2000) – John Ritter, Murderous Monkeys, and the Most Cursed Housing Market” »

There are bad slashers, and then there are bad German slashers set in a Czech water park with James McAvoy in pre-fame purgatory. Swimming Pool (a.k.a. The Pool in the US, a.k.a. Der Tod feiert mit in Germany, which roughly translates to “Death Crashes the Party”) is the kind of movie that makes you wonder … Read More “Swimming Pool (2001) – The Slasher That Drowns in Its Own Chlorine” »

Most haunted house stories go for the easy stuff: flickering lights, jump scares, maybe a ghost in a nightgown humming a lullaby. Session 9, Brad Anderson’s underdog cult horror from 2001, doesn’t need those parlor tricks. It gives you something much worse: asbestos, unpaid overtime, and the creeping realization that your boss is not just … Read More “Session 9 – When Your Renovation Crew Gets Renovated” »

If you’ve ever stared at your laptop at 3 a.m., watching the spinning wheel of doom while wondering if your soul has already departed your body, congratulations: you’ve basically experienced Pulse without subtitles. Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2001 techno-horror cult classic is revered in cinephile circles for its atmosphere and existential dread. Me? I think it’s a … Read More “Pulse (2001) – When Wi-Fi Gives You Depression and Ghosts Eat Bandwidth” »

There are horror movies that sneak up on you, and then there are horror movies that barrel down a desolate Florida backroad in a rusted truck the size of Satan’s U-Haul. Jeepers Creepers falls firmly into the latter category. Directed by Victor Salva and blessed (or cursed) by Francis Ford Coppola’s producer credit, the film … Read More “Jeepers Creepers (2001) – Road Trip From Hell, Complete With Freshly Laundered Socks” »

Ah, Cinemax in the early 2000s. That magical time when you tuned in expecting some soft-focus late-night nonsense, and instead you got Randy Quaid pretending to be a scientist while Nastassja Kinski stares into the middle distance, probably wondering how her career went from Paris, Texas to “alien dad issues on cable.” The Day the … Read More “The Day the World Ended (2001) – The Day My Patience Ended” »

There are bad horror films, and then there’s Crack in the Floor. This is the kind of movie that makes you long for the sweet release of the end credits, or possibly a frontal lobotomy to speed things along. On paper, it sounds like your standard “city kids in the woods” slasher. In practice, it’s … Read More “Crack in the Floor (2001) – A Crack You Shouldn’t Look Into” »