A Psychic, a Pond, and a Whole Lot of Trouble Sam Raimi, fresh off coating Bruce Campbell in buckets of blood and making Tobey Maguire cry in spandex, decided to try his hand at something more grounded: a supernatural thriller in rural Georgia, written by Billy Bob Thornton about his mom’s psychic visions. What could … Read More “The Gift (2000) – Southern Fried Ghosts and Keanu Reeves’ Scowl of Doom” »
The Deal With the Devil Nobody Asked For Brian Yuzna is no stranger to weird horror (Re-Animator, Society). So when he tackled a violent cult comic about a man who sells his soul for revenge and turns into a clawed anti-hero named Faust, you’d think we’d get something wild, grotesque, maybe even groundbreaking. Instead, we … Read More “Faust: Love of the Damned (2000) – Hell Hath No Fury Like a Spanish Comic Book Adaptation” »
A Killer Clown Walks Into the Woods… Slashers have always thrived on simple formulas: horny teens, remote locations, masked maniacs, buckets of blood. Brad Sykes’ Camp Blood understands the checklist—he just forgot to make it entertaining. Instead, we get 80+ minutes of a killer clown skulking around the woods with all the menace of a … Read More “Camp Blood (1999) – The Clown That Killed Slashers (and Audiences’ Patience)” »
From Groundbreaking to Ground-in-the-Dirt The first Blair Witch Project (1999) was lightning in a bottle: tiny budget, big scares, found footage that tricked audiences into thinking they might actually be watching a documentary about three goof balls lost in the woods. The sequel, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, is what happens when a studio … Read More “Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) – When found footage wasn’t broken, but Hollywood “fixed” it anyway” »
Unearthing the Wrong Kind of Curse There are bad mummy movies, and then there’s Ancient Evil: Scream of the Mummy, which isn’t so much a horror film as it is an endurance test in the art of watching people wander around hallways until someone finally remembers there’s supposed to be a killer mummy somewhere in … Read More “Ancient Evil: Scream of the Mummy (2000) – A tomb so empty even the mummy looks bored” »
Firestarter… But Make It Boring There are few things in cinema more exciting than a pyrokinetic protagonist. After all, who doesn’t want to watch someone torch their enemies with the flick of a thought? Unfortunately, Pyrokinesis (aka Crossfire) takes this premise and manages to smother it under two hours of damp newspaper. This is a … Read More “Pyrokinesis (2000)” »
Welcome to the Worst Ride in Town If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if an Italian filmmaker watched Jurassic Park, read the back of a VHS copy of The Mummy, and then decided, “Yes, but what if the dinosaurs were animatronic corpses wrapped in gauze?”, then congratulations: you’ve just described The Mummy Theme Park. … Read More “The Mummy Theme Park (2000)” »
Introduction: Full Moon, Half Effort If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if someone tried to make IT on a shoestring budget, filmed it in somebody’s cousin’s garage, and then said “screw it, good enough,” the answer is Killjoy. Directed by Craig Ross, with a script that feels like it was cobbled together during a … Read More “Killjoy (2000)” »
Introduction: When Horror Becomes Homework In the Light of the Moon (released under the bluntly obvious title Ed Gein in some regions) is a 2000 horror-crime film that asks the question: what if we took one of America’s most notorious murderers, drained all the horror out of him, and presented him like a sad farmhand … Read More “In the Light of the Moon (2000)” »
Introduction: Ice, Ice, Maybe There are bad horror movies, there are boring horror movies, and then there’s The Flying Dutchman (aka Frozen in Fear), a film that manages to be both while also starring Eric Roberts, Catherine Oxenberg, and Rod Steiger—actors who all deserve hazard pay for participating. Directed by Robin P. Murray, this low-budget … Read More “The Flying Dutchman (2000) – Or, Frozen in Fear and Frozen in Audience Indifference” »
