1987 / Spain / 86m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Zelda Rubinstein, Michael Lerner, Talia Paul, Àngel Jové, Clara Pastor, Isabel García Lorca, Nat Baker, Edward Ledden, Gustavo Gili, Antonio Regueiro
“With this film I get the feeling of having got two different film for the price one and the whole thing is definitely greater than the sum of it parts. I loved the over-the-top melodrama of The Mommy with its grisly eye horror, vengeful madwoman and deeply trippy hypnosis scenes but I also thought Anguish itself was nice tense thriller film too all framed nicely together to form a wry and entertaining examination of the relationship between the audience and the film. This film had me gripped me right up until the old man in the cloth cap got up and left the cinema.” – Peter Anderson, Nameless Horror
Genres:
2006 / France / 94m / Col / Black Comedy | IMDb
Vincent Cassel, Olivier Barthelemy, Roxane Mesquida, Nico Le Phat Tan, Leïla Bekhti, Ladj Ly, Julie-Marie Parmentier, Gérald Thomassin, Quentin Lasbazeilles
“With its continued display of gross-out behaviour, Satan is clearly not going to cater for all tastes. Whilst there are certainly horror elements within the story it isn’t a particularly gory picture, preferring to shock the viewer instead through the nature of the community’s relationship and the way they interact with their new arrivals. For me though, it works perfectly. Cassel’s over-the-top performance coupled with Chapiron’s wild approach produce a fresh, invigorating film which makes for ideal late night viewing. At the same time, it’s also one of the most unconventional Christmas movies you’re ever likely to see!” – Eat My Brains
Genres:
2010 / USA / 91m / Col / Found Footage | IMDb
David Bierend, Brian Boland, Molly Ephraim, Katie Featherston, Seth Ginsberg, Sprague Grayden, William Juan Prieto, Jackson Xenia Prieto, Micah Sloat
“Following the series’ conceit of presenting edited found footage, “Paranomal Activity 2” consists of house surveillance videos and some interactions caught by camcorder. Much of what’s captured on tape and hard drives is mundane, but it’s precisely the ordinariness and long takes in these scenes that can make them so unnerving when the supernatural element disrupts the tranquility… It’s in this manner that “Paranomal Activity 2” consistently succeeds at constructing jump moments with deliberation during routine home settings. The scares in “Paranomal Activity 2” aren’t as frequent or always as well built as the original film’s, but those that exist are still pretty effective.” – Mark Pfeiffer, Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema
Genres:
1985 / USA / 87m / Col / Black Comedy | IMDb
Michael Moriarty, Andrea Marcovicci, Garrett Morris, Paul Sorvino, Scott Bloom, Danny Aiello, Patrick O’Neal, James Dixon, Alexander Scourby, Russell Nype
“The Stuff should be an awful film, it should cause anger and upset for wasting your time with an inconsequential plot and terrible characters. Liking a film because “it’s so bad it’s good” has become such an irritating ironic pastime these days, but it’s hard to knock when a film like The Stuff shuffles into view. It’s like the mad friend of a friend who shows up at your party, sicks up on the cat, knocks over the telly and wanders off. It’s stupid, badly put together, and often infuriating, but yet – somehow – oddly engaging and, well, entertaining.” – That Film Guy
Genres:
2007 / USA / 105m / Col / Zombie | IMDb
Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodríguez, Josh Brolin, Marley Shelton, Jeff Fahey, Michael Biehn, Rebel Rodriguez, Bruce Willis, Naveen Andrews, Julio Oscar Mechoso
“Planet Terror – Robert Rodriguez’s contribution to his Grindhouse collaboration with Quentin Tarantino – is a first-rate homage to the schlocky, sleazy B-movies of decades past, loading on the gore, clichés, and self-referential dialogue like there’s no tomorrow with a cascade of influences from John Carpenter, James Cameron, George A. Romero and Lucio Fulci (just to name a few), all the while topping off its gimmicky (though totally effective) construction with countless scratches, blips, audio/visual inconsistencies and even a carefully placed “missing reel” in its loving ode to the almost lost end-of-the-line theater experience.” – Rob Humanick, Projection Booth
Genres:
1999 / USA / 92m / Col / Comedy | IMDb
Devon Sawa, Seth Green, Elden Henson, Jessica Alba, Vivica A. Fox, Christopher Hart, Jack Noseworthy, Katie Wright, Sean Whalen, Nicholas Sadler
“”Idle Hands” is a delirious, no-holds-barred attempt at creating a slasher movie with lots of campy and outrageous humor. While some of it fails (including the whole subplot dealing with Mick and Pnub, who return from the grave), much of it really is funny, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of the so-bad-they’re-great ’80s horror flicks that this film obviously gets its inspiration from. Back in those days, there were very few redeeming qualities, just gory killing after gory killing, intermingled with a helpful dosage of gratuitous nudity.” – Dustin Putman, The Movie Boy
Genres:
1968 / France / 121m / Col / Anthology | IMDb
Brigitte Bardot, Alain Delon, Jane Fonda, Terence Stamp, James Robertson Justice, Salvo Randone, Françoise Prévost, Peter Fonda, Marlène Alexandre, David Bresson
“This tryptich is notable for sporting three of the most recognizable names in 1960s European cinema: Roger Vadim, Louis Malle, and Federico Fellini. Each director was tasked with visualizing an obscure Poe story, translating Poe’s dream-like prose poetry to the movie screen. The results could hardly be more mixed… Roger Vadim starts us off with a plodding gender-bending retelling of Poe’s “Metzengerstein”… Malle’s episode is an engaging enough entry, but in the end it doesn’t amount to much and leaves too many plot holes unfilled… Episode 3, however — this is the one people talk about when they talk about Spirits of the Dead. Federico Fellini’s “Toby Dammit” stars Terence Stamp in a piece that’s a Fellini film festival in miniature… stylish, dense, hypnotic, and a perfect 40-minute introduction if you’ve been wondering what “Fellini-esque” means. By itself this makes Spirits of the Dead worth a look.” – Mark Bourne, DVDJournal.com
Genres:
1985 / USA / 87m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Mark Patton, Kim Myers, Robert Rusler, Clu Gulager, Hope Lange, Marshall Bell, Melinda O. Fee, Tom McFadden, Sydney Walsh, Robert Englund
“Viewed strictly on the surface, “A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge” is a well-made and suspenseful possession-laden thriller that drops some of the rules distinguished by the first “A Nightmare on Elm Street” in order to avoid being a mere lazy redux […] For its underlying message about sexual oppression in a cynical world, though, the film endeavors to go one step deeper. Psychology majors could have a field day with “A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge.” So much is left to open-ended interpretation that it couldn’t have possibly been by accident that the picture plays not only as slasher fantasy, but as poignantly-felt coming-of-age story in which the hero’s complicated struggles to find himself and be accepted by others aren’t so easily wrapped up with a tidy ribbon.” – Dustin Putnam, The Movie Boy
Genres:
2011 / UK / 88m / Col / Science Fiction | IMDb
Jodie Whittaker, John Boyega, Alex Esmail, Leeon Jones, Franz Drameh, Simon Howard, Maggie McCarthy, Danielle Vitalis, Paige Meade, Gina Antwi
“On the action side of things, Cornish display’s a talent and confidence rarely seen in a first time director, ratcheting up the frights and the thrills every time the exceptionally designed and rather terrifying looking aliens – realized terrifically through a combination of costume and CGI – give chase. Jump scares abound, while a sequence along a dimly lit smoke filled corridor is fraught with tension. The rest of the time, chase scenes pulsate with intensity, backed by a stylish score by Steven Price and Basement Jaxx that mixes orchestral music, R&B and electro, as well as classic UFO sound effects. The violence, when it happens, is deliciously grisly.” – Tom Clift, Movie Dex
Genres:
2010 / Serbia / 104m / Col / Exploitation | IMDb
Srdjan Todorovic, Sergej Trifunovic, Jelena Gavrilovic, Slobodan Bestic, Katarina Zutic, Luka Mijatovic, Ana Sakic, Lena Bogdanovic, Miodrag Krcmarik, Nenad Herakovic
“The escalating incidents of pedophilia, incest, and necrophilia that follow reflect a country traumatized by otherwise unspeakable acts of violence committed under the auspices of war. We witness the disgusting underbelly of a broken civilization where human values no longer exist. There are no degrees of separation from a communal psychosis that affects every citizen. By putting the narrative in a psycho-sexual-cinematic context Spasojević invites the viewer to compare his made-up pornography of death to the similar underlying nature of capitalism’s commercial cinema of the West and its attendant sponsors. In order to see the message of Srđan Spasojević daring work of filmic art you need only consider the capitalist aspect that makes it possible.” – Cole Smithey
Genres:
2003 / USA / 98m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Jessica Biel, Jonathan Tucker, Erica Leerhsen, Mike Vogel, Eric Balfour, Andrew Bryniarski, R. Lee Ermey, David Dorfman, Lauren German, Terrence Evans
“The main problem with the film is that it feels like a cynical repackaging of an already established classic. However, as remakes go, it’s very well made and decently acted and it never approaches ‘bad movie’ levels – even the script is pretty good… It is, however, much gorier than the original – the violence and pain on display here is worse than anything in Kill Bill. Legs get chainsawed off (chainsawn?), people get hung on meat-hooks (as in the original), people get chainsawed in the back, and so on – it’s pretty much non-stop terror from the moment the first one of them disappears and you’re more or less guaranteed to end up hiding behind your hands at some point.” – Matthew Turner, ViewLondon
Genres:
2001 / USA / 113m / Col / Mystery | IMDb
Jake Gyllenhaal, Holmes Osborne, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Daveigh Chase, Mary McDonnell, James Duval, Arthur Taxier, Patrick Swayze, Mark Hoffman
“Maybe Richard Kelly’s fate is to be the cult circuit’s Michael Cimino — forever admired for one great film amid subsequent missteps, including a director’s cut of the same movie. Kelly has yet to match the mysterious mood or magnitude of his filmmaking debut, 2001’s “Donnie Darko” — a collision of time-travel sci-fi, commentary on ’80s Reaganomics malaise and teen angst that’s simultaneously witty and poignant… And what works as nervy comedy also foreshadows Donnie’s burden and reinforces Kelly’s thematic idea that teens can be capable of amazing, world-changing things. Concluding with compassionate nobility and an unforgettable epilogue, “Donnie Darko” represented the one moment when Kelly’s eccentricities weren’t extraneous and ambition matched his grasp.” – Nick Rogers, The Film Yap
Genres:
1956 / USA / 79m / BW / Werewolf | IMDb
Steven Ritch, Don Megowan, Joyce Holden, Eleanore Tanin, Kim Charney, Harry Lauter, Larry J. Blake, Ken Christy, James Gavin, S. John Launer
“The Werewolf is horror noir and why shouldn’t it be? It’s the 1950s. Lots of front lighting and carefully picked camera angles, showcasing the outdoors beauty against the supernatural, and Sears knows better than to turn this thing over to blatant carnage. The beast kills off-screen, like in the prison cell scene where it offs the doctors. The screams and mashing are happening just below frame, almost inviting us to lean over and look down to see what’s happening. Sears leaves the details to our imaginations, playing off the tried-and-true trick of what we don’t see scares us most.” – Anthony Moretta, Out of the Gutter
Genres:
1983 / USA / 95m / Col / Fantasy | IMDb
Jason Robards, Jonathan Pryce, Diane Ladd, Royal Dano, Vidal Peterson, Shawn Carson, Mary Grace Canfield, Richard Davalos, Jake Dengel, Jack Dodson
“In the end, “Wicked” likely proved too edgy and existential for what was ostensibly meant as a slightly more dangerous Disney film. But it does what all of Bradbury’s greatest works do — shine a harsh light on the consequences of choices, the inevitability of aging, and the true cost of shame, greed, vanity, anxiety and other very human fears… Bradbury spikes a rarely tapped vein of paternal dread here, and uses it as a powerful, lyrical entry point to pit Charles against Mr. Dark. Theirs is an inclement battle of ideals rather than one of physical violence. Furthermore, the stakes are perfectly high for a father who feels powerless to protect his son but must summon the strength to save the boy from the devil himself” – Nick Rogers, Suite101.com
Genres:
2003 / Japan / 129m / Col / Surrealism | IMDb
Yûta Sone, Shô Aikawa, Kimika Yoshino, Shôhei Hino, Keiko Tomita, Harumi Sone, Renji Ishibashi, Ken’ichi Endô, Kanpei Hazama, Masaya Katô
“There is an intense emphasis on the sexual, especially on the interplay between imported Western taboos and the traditional (but now largely suppressed) explicit sexual celebrations of the spring fertility festivals. Boldly, Takashi has sidelined phallic imagery to concentrate on various aspects of feminine reproductive sexuality, especially lactation. From this he derives much of his trademark crude humour, but the female characters are never diminished by it. His unrelenting camera draws viewers in to the complex psychology of his virginal hero, at once attracted and repelled by the possibilities inherent in sexual contact, waiting for the remorseless supernatural to liberate him from his mundanely violent life.” – Jennie Kermode, Eye For Film
Genres:
2009 / Ireland / 90m / Col / Supernatural | IMDb
Aidan Gillen, Eva Birthistle, Timothy Spall, Ella Connolly, Ruth McCabe, Brian Gleeson, Amelia Crowley, Dan Gordon, Tommy McArdle, John McArdle
“Wake Wood is the latest evidence that new-model Hammer is harking back to a less atrocity-driven style of horror, built on an accumulation of creepy atmosphere rather than the systematic subjection of disposable teenagers to gruesome ordeals – though there’s no shortage of splatter here… [Keating] directs with a merciful lack of such modern horror tropes as herky-jerky editing and overemphatic score – the soundtrack here leans towards a peculiar pagan-like percussion, echoing the equally peculiar village ritual of banging sticks together. In fact, it’s the oddness of the rituals that provides the film with its most original aspects, combining elements of blood, earth and fire with the caesarean process” – Anne Billson, The Arts Desk
Genres:
2010 / USA / 101m / Col / Zombie | IMDb
Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Joe Anderson, Danielle Panabaker, Christie Lynn Smith, Brett Rickaby, Preston Bailey, John Aylward, Joe Reegan, Glenn Morshower
“Don’t be afraid of the horror remake stigma here; be afraid of The Crazies’ constant, electric hum of dread. Be afraid of the unpredictable bursts of violence and well-earned jump scares. Be afraid of director Eisner’s unexpected mastery of the material — he seems to have been a standout horror filmmaker-in-waiting all this time, and The Crazies shows that off in a huge way. He understands timing and mood and how important a good score is to a horror film (Mark Isham’s synth score is noticeably great, like a quiet callback to John Carpenter’s way of scoring horror). He gets the actors to take the material seriously, he’s not afraid to go bleak and nasty, and he knows how to build suspense (a talent too rare in studio horror).” – John Gholson, MovieFone
Genres:
1998 / USA / 104m / Col / Science Fiction | IMDb
Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Laura Harris, Josh Hartnett, Shawn Hatosy, Salma Hayek, Famke Janssen, Piper Laurie, Christopher McDonald, Bebe Neuwirth
“Scream writer, Kevin Williamson, has teamed up with Robert Rodriguez, the director of Tarantino’s Mexican vampire gorefest, From Dusk Till Dawn. The result is far more intelligent than you might dare suppose. As a teenage take on Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, it combines strong characters with paranoid thriller techniques – can I trust her? Is she one of them? – and wicked special effects. The film succeeds so well in a genre, where pastiche is the norm, by accepting absurdity as real. Rodriguez is less showy than he was with From Dusk Till Dawn and Desperado. He takes it seriously, as do the young actors, all of whom deserve praise. It makes the difference between shlock horror and interesting fear.” – Angus Wolfe Murray, Eye for film
Genres:
1991 / Italy / 112m / Col / Supernatural | IMDb
Kelly Curtis, Herbert Lom, Mariangela Giordano, Michel Adatte, Carla Cassola, Angelika Maria Boeck, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Niels Gullov, Tomas Arana
“As much as I usually champion self-indulgence, I have to say that The Sect’s high standing in Argento and Soavi’s oeuvre seems to have more to do with the restraint they show in all respects. As I mentioned, the oil painting-like visuals never take over and the cinematographic techniques aren’t just techniques; they’re storytelling aids. In the same vein, the Goblin-like score doesn’t sound like you accidentally left an early-70s Pink Floyd disc blasting on the stereo while you try to watch a movie-instead it’s understated and always perfect. The gore doesn’t seem intended only to earn a prominent placement in Fangoria-it always serves some other purpose. The surrealness isn’t an excuse for the lack of a coherent script. Etc. Best of all, perhaps, The Sect has the properties that many horror fans think define the genre-it’s creepy and scary.” – Brandt Sponseller, Classic-Horror
Genres:
1980 / Italy / 84m / Col / Zombie | IMDb
Ian McCulloch, Alexandra Delli Colli, Sherry Buchanan, Peter O’Neal, Donald O’Brien, Dakar, Walter Patriarca, Linda Fumis, Roberto Resta, Franco Ukmar
“The writing is so weak and flimsy that you wonder why they bothered to begin with… But the beauty is that by the end of it, you won’t care. Everyone knows that it’s going to be exploitative but you will never guess at how badly. From having lead actress Alexandra Delli Colli get stripped full-frontal and placed onto a large sacrificial rock (which looks suspiciously like the one Ursula Andress got strapped to in The Mountain of the Cannibal God) to the copious amount of intestines on display, Zombie Holocaust punches for the lowest common denominators to hook its audience. Combining the two bloodiest sub-genres going promised that Zombie Holocaust would be a messy ride and it was certainly that. From open skull brain surgery to a zombie getting a motor boat propeller right to the face, there are plenty of gory set pieces on display.” – Andrew Smith, Popcorn Pictures
Genres:
2012 / USA / 116m / Col / Anthology | IMDb
Calvin Reeder, Lane Hughes, Kentucker Audley, Adam Wingard, Frank Stack, Sarah Byrne, Melissa Boatright, Simon Barrett, Andrew Droz Palermo, Hannah Fierman
“Remarkably, given the premise, only one of the five short segments that make up V/H/S is an outright failure. The others — from such US indie darlings as House Of The Devil director Ti West, mumblecore luminary Joe Swanberg and fledgling YouTube collective Radio Silence — share an experimental bent, a knack for well-timed twists and they don’t pander to the squeamish. It puts these spooky miniatures head and shoulders above the bulk of this year’s featurelength horror fare… Forever chasing scares both cerebral and visceral, the filmmakers leave little space for cynicism and plenty for admiration — an invaluable accomplishment in a film form that’s so susceptible to weak spots.” – Charlie Lyne, Little White Lies
Genres:
1978 / USA / 118m / Col / Thriller | IMDb
Kirk Douglas, John Cassavetes, Carrie Snodgress, Charles Durning, Amy Irving, Fiona Lewis, Andrew Stevens, Carol Eve Rossen, Rutanya Alda, Joyce Easton
“Despite its flaws, The Fury is a fascinating and unpredictable film, darker and more difficult than Carrie with a flashy, unexpected conclusion designed to shock and disorient. There are plenty of cartoonish and over the top moments, but they seem to work for the film, namely the outrageous ending where De Palma shows us a person exploding over and over again from a variety of angles. There is something comic book-like about The Fury and I can’t help but think of some of the darker X-Men story lines where characters struggle to live with their superhuman powers.” – Samm Deighan, Diabolique Magazine
Genres:
1990 / UK / 91m / Col / Fantasy | IMDb
Anjelica Huston, Mai Zetterling, Jasen Fisher, Rowan Atkinson, Bill Paterson, Brenda Blethyn, Charlie Potter, Jane Horrocks, Anne Lambton, Sukie Smith
“Based on Roald Dahl’s 1983 children’s fantasy, executive produced by Henson and directed by Nicolas Roeg, it’s the kind of literate, imaginative children’s fantasy we see too rarely… Forgetting the new, questionably “upbeat” ending, Roeg and Scott have served Dahl well, embellished him intelligently… But what [Roeg has] also done is put disturbing flesh on Dahl’s fancies, visualize the witches with such revolting detail, and the mouse-eye view with such horrific vividness, that the movie takes on an unnerving pulse and threat. The setting becomes overwhelming, the evil palpable; Dahl’s book with its light, ironic tone, candy-coated the fear.” – Michael Wilmington, Los Angeles Times
Genres:
1989 / USA / 83m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Elizabeth Cox, Renée Estevez, Dan Hicks, David Byrnes, Sam Raimi, Eugene Robert Glazer, Billy Marti, Burr Steers, Craig Stark, Ted Raimi
“While Intruder follows much of the slasher film formula, it truly stands out from the ilk of that time for many reasons, the first being Speigel’s amazing style. As one of the guys behind the first two Evil Dead movies, Director and co-writer Scott Speilgel brings that same kinetic look to this movie. There are some crazy angles and snake-like movements, including some of the most innovative POVs, you’ve ever seen. Ever wonder what it would be like to see the POV of a bucket, telephone, or floor? Well, you’ll see it here. Add in the tight and ingenious editing and you have a movie that is technically superior to many of the stalk and slash that were out at that point in time. Speigel knows how to build up the tension. Intruder takes it’s time setting up the place, situation, and, more or less, the characters. The climax is pretty exciting and highly suspenseful.” – Giovanni Deldio, Best Horror Movies
Genres:
2009 / USA / 100m / Col / Fantasy | IMDb
Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Keith David, John Hodgman, Robert Bailey Jr., Ian McShane, Aankha Neal, George Selick
“You know from the very first sequence that Coraline is an extraordinary movie that is going to rattle the bejeezus out of young audience members and – the truth be told – their fathers as well… the most imaginative film in memory, a carnival of wonders – magical gardens, a charmingly choreographed circus of mice, a couple of old actresses who get together to put on a fairly lewd but very funny variety show – that at the same time seems to come directly from your nightmares. Seeing Other Mother change from button-eyed ideal to long-necked witch with steel-needle fingers and a hunger to keep you prisoner, is a deeply shaking transformation that isn’t easy to throw off once the show is over. Coraline will haunt you.” – Jay Stone, Canada.com
Genres:
1967 / UK / 86m / Col / Science Fiction | IMDb
Boris Karloff, Catherine Lacey, Elizabeth Ercy, Ian Ogilvy, Victor Henry, Sally Sheridan, Alf Joint, Meier Tzelniker, Gerald Campion, Susan George
“”How long do you think all this can last?” asks a bored Mike at a swinging 60s happening. And this throwaway line becomes the central thread of Michael Reeves’s stunning second film The Sorcerers, the movie that would pave the way for his masterpiece Witchfinder General in 1968. While on the surface offering a seemingly carefree world of mind altering drugs, free love and promiscuous sex, Reeves instead probes deeper and suggests a darker side where moral laxity leads not to joy, but to destruction. For the characters who abandon responsibility, death is waiting.” – Tom Fallows, Classic-Horror
Genres:
2007 / USA / 95m / Col / Zombie | IMDb
Michelle Morgan, Joshua Close, Shawn Roberts, Amy Lalonde, Joe Dinicol, Scott Wentworth, Philip Riccio, Chris Violette, Tatiana Maslany, Todd Schroeder
“Diary may initially struggle to get up to speed as it reprises business from the earlier films, but Romero has lost none of his wild inventiveness. This film has more left-field weirdness and edgy suspense than Land, with unexpected characters (a deaf, dynamite-throwing Amish farmer), grim jokes (the zombie birthday clown who bleeds when his red nose is pulled off) and horror scenes you have never seen before (in a crowded, gloomy warehouse, amid reserves of gasoline, a single, hard-to-find zombie mingles with jittery, well-armed folk). It turns out that despite decades of experiment, there are still spectacular new ways of killing zombies on screen (a slow acid-dissolve of the skull), while presenting state-of-the-art make-up effects vérité-style recalls the impact of the gruesome intestine-gobbling scene in 1968.” – Sight and Sound
Genres:
1982 / Italy / 91m / Col / Giallo | IMDb
Jack Hedley, Almanta Suska, Howard Ross, Andrea Occhipinti, Alexandra Delli Colli, Paolo Malco, Cinzia de Ponti, Cosimo Cinieri, Daniela Doria, Babette New
“The ugly duckling and the slashed nipple, a Géricaultian composition. A bald steal from Friedkin’s Cruising introduces the view under the Brooklyn Bridge, the credits roll over a freeze-frame of a purplish, severed hand gripped by an old man’s dog. One young woman is slaughtered while trapped in the belly of the Staten Island Ferry (the cityscape vanishes in the distance, the switchblade fills the screen), another is mutilated backstage at a 42nd Street sex club (green and scarlet neon bathes the splayed corpse), two of the pit-stops in Lucio Fulci’s American Sodom Tour… Fulci’s most corrosive vision. What comes in from Fleischer’s The Boston Strangler goes into Fincher’s Seven.” – Fernando F. Croce, CinePassion
Genres:
1982 / USA / 95m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Dana Kimmell, Paul Kratka, Tracie Savage, Jeffrey Rogers, Catherine Parks, Larry Zerner, David Katims, Rachel Howard, Richard Brooker, Nick Savage
“This is the movie where the series first fully realized its true DNA as a slasher with atmosphere fantastical enough that siding with the masked maniac was okay. More importantly, it was wiling to add fun to its frights. If at all possible, see the film in 3-D at a revival screening with a live audience and what the film accomplishes will be thoroughly evident. With Jason’s character and behavior relatively settled at this point, and with the familiar mask finally adorning his face, “Friday the 13th” was free to be more comfortable in its identity and surer of its stride as the saga continued to develop. There is definitely a sense of déjà vu with the third chapter, in both the kills and in several mundane moments. But entrenched in its own formula, there is enough blood, enough brutality, enough comedy, and enough “Friday the 13th” to make “Part III” one of the most memorable installments, and the first real benchmark for everything that fans would come to expect from the series.” – Ian Sedensky, Culture Crypt
Genres:
2006 / UK / 83m / Col / Psychological | IMDb
Leo Bill, Roger Lloyd Pack, Kate Fahy, Sarah Ball, Neil Conrich, Richard Wills-Cotton, Alan Perrin, Richard Syms, Hilary Hodsman
“A bizarre psychological study of degeneration and dependency, “The Living and the Dead” is a horror movie only in the most literal sense. Skirting genre conventions, Simon Rumley’s twisted feature inhabits shores where the gore is minimal and the demons unseen — neither of which makes it any less disconcerting… The travails of Britain’s inbred aristocracy have long been mined by its filmmakers, but rarely with such eccentricity or unrelieved ruthlessness. As James darts around the house, chased by Richard Chester’s increasingly dissonant score, the movie suffers lapses of looniness that strain credulity. Yet by plunging us visually and aurally into outright madness, the director — whose own mother died after a lengthy illness — finds the tragedy in deterioration. Sometimes that’s horror enough.” – Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times
Genres:
2016 / USA / 86m / Col / Mystery | IMDb
Brian Cox, Emile Hirsch, Ophelia Lovibond, Michael McElhatton, Olwen Catherine Kelly, Jane Perry, Parker Sawyers, Mary Duddy, Mark Phoenix, Sydney
“Integrating elements of body horror, Agatha Christie and, least interestingly, contemporary horror films, Autopsy has both a cheeky simplicity (the production design of the morgue is at once devilishly eerie and cleanly pragmatic) and Carpenter-inspired formalism: Øvredal lingers on things like hallways and blood dripping down a funnel while familiarizing us with the spaces in the underground morgue. Less a subversion of genre conventions than a relatively effective repackaging of them, The Autopsy of Jane Doe is made up of established pieces that it repositions in a manner ranging from the obvious to the dexterous.” – Josh Cabrita, Cinema Scope
Genres:
2002 / France / 97m / Col / Drama | IMDb
Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel, Albert Dupontel, Jo Prestia, Philippe Nahon, Stéphane Drouot, Jean-Louis Costes, Michel Gondoin, Mourad Khima, Hellal
“What we have here is a genuine outlaw work of art. They are to be treasured. From Louis-Ferdinand Celine’s twisted tales of the perverse in ’30s Paris to Henry Miller’s examination of the extremes of heterosex and John Rechy’s of the extremes of homosex, and Jim Thompson’s bleak, nihilistic noir fables, to Sam Peckinpah’s blood-spattered Götterdämmerungs, they are tough to sit through and impossible to forget. They get way deep inside, to the reptile walnut of brain still in the center of the head…. it seems to be Noe’s first philosophical position, that natural man is a monster.” – Stephen Hunter, Washington Post
Genres:
2010 / USA / 103m / Col / Werewolf | IMDb
Simon Merrells, Gemma Whelan, Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Mario Marin-Borquez, Asa Butterfield, Cristina Contes, Anthony Hopkins, Art Malik, Malcolm Scates
“Universal’s update of one its iconic monster properties, like most of director Joe Johnston’s work, solidly gets the job done as a brisk, bloody entertainment… if this film perhaps strongly recalls another, it’s Tim Burton’s 1999 take on Sleepy Hollow, what with its touches of macabre humor and giddy torrents of bloodshed… For all the gore, though, this doesn’t quite qualify as horror, for the film is never really scary and maybe fleetingly creepy, but then atmosphere has never really been Johnston’s strong suit; what has always been, however, is staging exciting set pieces, and the action sequences deliver.” – Michael Dequina, TheMovieReport
Genres:
2003 / Japan / 92m / Col / Supernatural | IMDb
Noriko Sakai, Chiharu Niiyama, Kei Horie, Yui Ichikawa, Ayumu Saitô, Emi Yamamoto, Erika Kuroishi, Kaoru Mizuki, Shinobu Yûki, Takako Fuji
“Many of the scares have clearly been designed as stand-alone set-pieces and you can almost imagine the script meetings where new ways of unleashing Toshio and (especially) Kayako on the cast were devised, giving the film a somewhat inconsistent supernatural logic, if such a thing can be said to exist. But countering this is the fact that many of these scenes are skin-crawlingly creepy, and on the second and third viewing, by when I had joined all of the narrative dots, I found myself more appreciative of Shimizu’s undeniable imagination and skill as a horror director.” – Slarek, Cine Outsider
Genres:
2007 / USA / 157m / Col / Crime | IMDb
Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards, Robert Downey Jr., Brian Cox, John Carroll Lynch, Richmond Arquette, Bob Stephenson, John Lacy, Chloë Sevigny
“Running almost three hours, without much action, it’s hard to think that David Fincher’s Zodiac would be as gripping as it is. Fincher employs a strong visual style that doesn’t draw attention to itself right away, but as you sit there you slowly realize that Fincher is indeed flexing is creative muscles. The end result is a complex crime drama that limits its action, opting to save it for the times that bring the greatest impact… It’s subtle and doesn’t jump out and grab you at first. But when you dwell and contemplate it, the fine craftsmanship of Fincher is clearly apparent.” – Ryan Cracknell, Movie Views
Genres:
1971 / UK / 92m / Col / Supernatural | IMDb
Strother Martin, L.Q. Jones, Charles Bateman, Ahna Capri, Charles Robinson, Alvy Moore, Helene Winston, Joyce Easton, Debi Storm, Jeff Williams
““TBOS” starts off odd & disquieting with a couple of kids turning toys into real weapons and for a short while you might not understand what the hell is going on but trust me…give the film a little time to work it’s way into your head and you won’t be able to take your eyes off of the screen. McEveety’s direction paints every scene with an ambiance of dread & despair from the first frame on & after you get your bearings that dread jumps off of the screen and into your soul. It’s a seriously unnerving atmosphere that he’s created and it really gets to you after awhile.” – Victor De Leon, Vic’s Movie Den
Genres:
1976 / Canada / 100m / Col / Mystery | IMDb
Jodie Foster, Martin Sheen, Alexis Smith, Mort Shuman, Scott Jacoby, Dorothy Davis, Clesson Goodhue, Hubert Noël, Jacques Famery, Mary Morter
“One of the things that make Nicolas Gessner’s film crazier than most ‘70s killing sprees, is that it’s a 13-year-old girl murdering everybody. This, alone, should disturb us – but it doesn’t. Because all the people that die by Jodie Foster’s hands – or rather, in Jodie Foster’s house – had it coming. We don’t know these people that well, but what we do know about them would certainly make us want to kill them too (perhaps not us now, but us in the ‘70s). They are intrusive, harassing, irritating and arrogant, self-involved and out-of-touch. We should be disturbed every time someone dies in the little girl’s house down the lane, but all we can really find in us to do is cheer for her. We don’t disapprove of what she does, we’re just taken aback with how mature and matter-of-fact about it all she is.” – Angeliki Coconi, Unsung Films
Genres:
1979 / USA / 82m / Col / Exploitation | IMDb
Dan Grimaldi, Charles Bonet, Bill Ricci, Robert Osth, Dennis M. Hunter, John Hedberg, Ruth Dardick, Johanna Brushay, Darcy Shean, Mary Ann Chinn
“Think of Don’t Go In The House as a modern-day take on Psycho, and replace knives with flamethrowers and you’ve got the idea. In fact, it shares more with Psycho than a lot of the gorier slasher films from the era like The Prowler and My Bloody Valentine in that much of the film is more a psychological study of a severely disturbed individual irredeemably harmed by his mother, and that the film doesn’t really wallow in the explicit gore that other slasher films like Maniac did at the time. That’s not to say Don’t Go In The House isn’t unsettling or disturbing – it most certainly is, most notably in the film’s most infamous scene where Donny roasts his first victim in his self-made crematorium. The scene is chillingly clinical in its coldness, and the effects are surprisingly – and nauseously – well executed.” – Stuart Giesel, Digital Retribution
Genres:
2009 / USA / 90m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
William Prael, Diane Ayala Goldner, Juan Fernández, Josh Stewart, Michael Reilly Burke, Andrea Roth, Karley Scott Collins, Madeline Zima, Haley Pullos
“Writer/director Dunstan, emerging from the ‘creative’ team behind a bevy of the Saw films, takes this relatively simple conceit and milks it for maximum chills. That said, much of the film’s gut-level effectiveness comes from his staging of some truly hideous moments; scenes involving fish-hooks, cockroaches, Alsatian guard dogs and bear traps go pretty close to crossing the line, as does the involvement of pre-teen actress Collins, who is party to several particularly heinous acts. (And cat owners…trust me, avoid at all costs) […] Collaborators on the film all seem at the top of their game – the film benefits from atmospheric, dreamlike lighting; Jerome Dillon’s music nods to electro-soundtrack maestros, Tangerine Dream; and restrained, precise editing, especially of scenes shot in slow-motion, adds to the overall ‘waking-nightmare’ impact.” – Simon Foster, Screen-Space
Genres:
1964 / Brazil / 84m / Col / Supernatural | IMDb
José Mojica Marins, Magda Mei, Nivaldo Lima, Valéria Vasquez, Ilídio Martins Simões, Arildo Iruam, Genésio de Carvalho, Vânia Rangel, Graveto, Robinson Aielo
“Because it is inextricably tethered to a madman, At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul envisions the world as a skewed and nightmarish place. In terms of production design, Zé’s apartment looks as if were decorated by a mental patient; creepy hand sculptures jettison out from nearly every wall, reaching out as if they were lethal extensions of their owner. The film’s editing style is completely fragmented by insane transitions, including wipes that spin the frame upside down and animated cross-dissolves. Not only is the narrative under Zé’s control, it appears that the filmmaking process has been hijacked by him as well. Taking this into consideration, it’s clear that Marins wants to blur the line between artistic form and character, inhabiting both with the same tenacious verve for the grotesque.” – Glenn Heath Jr., Not Coming To a Theater Near You
Genres:
1988 / USA / 97m / Col / Fantasy | IMDb
James Le Gros, Reggie Bannister, Angus Scrimm, Paula Irvine, Samantha Phillips, Kenneth Tigar, Ruth C. Engel, Mark Anthony Major, Rubin Kushner, Stacey Travis
“Angus Scrimm is a valuable asset, too. As the Tall Man, he’s deeply menacing. The perpetually grimacing Scrimm looms over the other actors, speaking his dialogue in a booming, quiver-inducing voice. And then there are those glorious orbs, which inflict gruesome damage upon helpless victims. Their sheer unlikeliness as instruments of death makes them sinister, while the film devises ingeniously nasty things for them to do. Phantasm II’s special effects team does magnificent work showing the ghastly results of a ball attack. Phantasm II has plenty of these moments, and that’s what makes it fun, in spite of a half-baked plot. There’s even a subtle sense of humor displayed; a briefly-seen bag of cremated ashes lists the them as being the body of “Mr. Sam Raimi,” a nod to the director of The Evil Dead. I don’t know whether you could accurately call Phantasm II “good” or not, but as a gore-filled piece of ’80s horror with a premise unlike any other in the genre, it’s completely enjoyable.” – Mike McGranaghan, The Aisle Seat
Genres:
1979 / USA / 87m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Rebecca Balding, Cameron Mitchell, Avery Schreiber, Barbara Steele, Steve Doubet, Brad Rearden, John Widelock, Jack Stryker, Thelma Pelish, Tina Tyler
“While not the bloodiest ’80’s slasher piece, The Silent Scream offers genuine tension with a distinctive and offbeat feel. There’s plenty of atmosphere for a small budget (but well-produced) ’80’s horror flick and a few stylishly shot, memorable scenes that will stick with you… Not so much a horror story as a thriller about a seriously dysfunctional family, The Silent Scream’s plot falls a bit short in that it misses out on some chances to include more twists and turns, but it’s still a good ride for nostalgic ’80’s horror fans.” – Pamela De Graff, 366 Weird Movies
Genres:
1989 / USA / 90m / Col / Supernatural | IMDb
Paul Le Mat, William Hickey, Irene Miracle, Jimmie F. Skaggs, Robin Frates, Matt Roe, Kathryn O’Reilly, Mews Small, Barbara Crampton, David Boyd
“The puppeteering while ancient is still rather eye catching as Schmoeller saves time and money by picture most of the puppets through point of view shots and roaming angles through the hotel while relying on stop motion to do the rest of the work vividly painting a picture of the characters and their own innovative defense mechanisms. Including the Tunneler and his steel drill atop his head, and Blade whose own hook and knife combo would become a trademark of the series. “Puppet Master” ends as a fairly Frankenstein-ish film that meshes dream like paranoia with classic monster movie tropes to bring us the first of a lasting money fueling legacy for the Full Moon collective.” – Felix Vasquez Jr., Cinema Crazed
Genres: Supernatural Horror, Slasher, Evil Doll
1964 / USA / 83m / Col / Gothic | IMDb
Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Richard Pasco, Barbara Shelley, Michael Goodliffe, Patrick Troughton, Joseph O’Conor, Prudence Hyman, Jack Watson, Redmond Phillips
“Of all the Hammer Horror films, The Gorgon features some of the most straightforward debate between science and faith, with the analytical minds challenged by the appearance of the Greek mythological creature appearing in a village and turning citizens into solid stone… Finding this type of conflict in one of the minor Hammer Horror films certainly is a surprise that elevates the material, but it’s not the only reason to see it. The gothic mood that made Hammer a household name is present, along with the excitable Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, who both provide a good mix of dread and discovery in their performances… While it’s not one of the tent poles of Hammer Horror, The Gorgon still has enough engaging elements to make it a memorable and unique member of the Hammer canon.” – Jae K. Renfrow, Sound on Sight
Genres:
2018 / USA / 121m / Col / Action | IMDb
Nicolas Cage, Andrea Riseborough, Linus Roache, Ned Dennehy, Olwen Fouéré, Richard Brake, Bill Duke, Line Pillet, Clément Baronnet, Alexis Julemont
“One could catalog all the awesome things in “Mandy” — the dueling chainsaws, the Cheddar Goblin, the nightmarishly enveloping score by the late Jóhann Jóhannson, Nicolas Cage at his screaming-in-his-tighty-whities best — without quite penetrating the awesomeness of “Mandy.” Suffice to say that Panos Cosmatos’ metal-to-the-max revenge thriller is more than just the sum of its deranged set pieces, choice as they are: Its slow-drip blend of hardcore pulp and demonic fantasy has a patience and all-consuming conviction that simply cannot be faked. Pulverizing though it may be, “Mandy” isn’t an assault; it’s an immersion, and one that demands the attention of a big screen.” – Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times
Genres: Vigilante, Horror, Splatter, Surrealism, Cosmic Horror
1997 / Japan / 81m / Col / Psychological | IMDb
Junko Iwao, Rica Matsumoto, Shinpachi Tsuji, Masaaki ôkura, Yôsuke Akimoto, Yoku Shioya, Hideyuki Hori, Emi Shinohara, Masashi Ebara, Kiyoyuki Yanada
“This striking picture… [pulls] off the rare trick of telling a story worth doing in live action while managing visual effects only possible in the cartoon medium… Though it’s a neat woman-in-peril thriller, this is most striking as a look into the life of a Japanese media sensation, used up at the end of her teens, and squashed into a tiny apartment with her goldfish and too many ghosts. The film even goes so far as to expose the bizarre streak of paedophilia in Japanese pop culture, whereby it’s all right for a doll-like girl child to be a fantasy object but a sexual woman is shockingly transgressive. Perfect Blue is scary, funny, poignant and thoughtful, but also delivers thriller set-pieces that rank with the best of De Palma or Argento” – Kim Newman, Empire
Genres:
1995 / USA / 82m / Col / Vampire | IMDb
Lili Taylor, Christopher Walken, Annabella Sciorra, Edie Falco, Paul Calderon, Fredro Starr, Kathryn Erbe, Michael Imperioli, Jamal Simmons, Robert W. Castle
“Shot in b/w, with an effectively murky jungle/funk/rap score, this is the vampire movie we’ve been waiting for: a reactionary urban-horror flick that truly has the ailing pulse of the time. AIDS and drug addiction are points of reference, but they’re symptoms, not the cause. Ferrara’s chiaroscuro imagery is as striking as anything in Coppola’s Dracula, while the voice-over narration often recalls Apocalypse Now. Scary, funny, magnificently risible, this could be the most pretentious B-movie ever – and I mean that as a compliment.” – Time Out
Genres:
1942 / USA / 67m / BW / Monster | IMDb
Lon Chaney Jr., Cedric Hardwicke, Ralph Bellamy, Lionel Atwill, Bela Lugosi, Evelyn Ankers, Janet Ann Gallow, Barton Yarborough, Doris Lloyd, Leyland Hodgson
“Overall Ghost of Frankenstein is a better movie than if often gets credited for. While this might be the weakest of the series (ignoring the crossover movies) it’s still a pretty good movie with solid characters and solid acting. While Lon Chaney isn’t anywhere near the level of Karloff as the Monster, Chaney still delivers an excellent take on the Monster and with a strong cast Ghost of Frankenstein is a fun B-Movie and while it may not reach the epic of heights of past Frankenstein films it does provide a fun time.” – Last Road Reviews
Genres:
1990 / UK / 96m / Col / Drama | IMDb
Viggo Mortensen, Lindsay Duncan, Jeremy Cooper, Sheila Moore, Duncan Fraser, David Longworth, Robert Koons, David Bloom, Evan Hall, Codie Lucas Wilbee
“Ridley’s debut film is clearly reminiscent of Lynch, but the differences reveal more than the similarities. Ridley’s sense of humor is less flamboyant than Lynch; he also tends to handle his bizarre touches with more subtlety. Most significantly, for better or worse, The Reflecting Skin has a literary sensibility missing in Lynch. It feels like a adaptation of an out-there experimental novella. That’s precisely what we might expect from a first time director whose previous career was as a novelist and playwright… What this web of symbols all may mean, if anything, is left to the viewer to decide… Obviously, there is a theme of loss of moral innocence, and also a theme of encroaching age and decay. But, for the most part, Ridley fills the screen with unresolved metaphors that seethe and boil just below the surface of the narrative.” – Greg Smalley, 366 Weird Movies
Genres:
1983 / USA / 101m / Col / Anthology | IMDb
Dan Aykroyd, Albert Brooks, Vic Morrow, Doug McGrath, Charles Hallahan, Rainer Peets, Kai Wulff, Sue Dugan, Debby Porter, Steven Williams
“TWILIGHT ZONE THE MOVIE was a slick, randomly creepy and easy watch. When hit the mark, it did it from fair to great. When it missed, it did by a yard. With a stronger wrap around story, more variety to Landis’ tale and Spielberg’s sissy, stops the flick dead in its tracks entry taken out, the movie would’ve been tighter and stronger if you ask me. But when all was stabbed and bled dry, there was enough groovy-groove-groove stuff in here to warrant a sit down.” – Arrow in the Head
Genres:
1986 / USA / 93m / Col / Vampire | IMDb
Chris Makepeace, Sandy Baron, Robert Rusler, Dedee Pfeiffer, Gedde Watanabe, Grace Jones, Billy Drago, Brad Logan, Lisa Lyon, Jim Boyle
“[T]he make up effects are fantastic with Grace Jones taking on the form of clawed monster with grotesque results, while every vampire has their own distinct personality and form allowing them individual bouts of horror with every lunge at our characters. Sandy Baron is a considerably excellent reluctant hero who becomes a vampire hunter as the film progresses, learning to survive among the rats in the sewers who desperately want to kill him to save their goddess Katrina. “Vamp” is a wonderful trip down memory lane and a horror comedy that still holds up to this day with vampires who were actually horrifying at one point in time.” – Felix Vasquez Jr., Cinema Crazed
Genres:
1970 / UK / 91m / Col / Vampire | IMDb
Christopher Lee, Geoffrey Keen, Gwen Watford, Linda Hayden, Peter Sallis, Anthony Higgins, Isla Blair, John Carson, Martin Jarvis, Ralph Bates
“While all of the Hammer Dracula films emphasize the physical and psychological lasciviousness and decay that accompanies a vampiric plague, an infection that in many ways only represents the unlocking of hidden desires, Taste the Blood of Dracula is unusual in that it keeps Dracula somewhat on the sidelines. He is more the force behind a kind of twisted moral retribution rather than just the aggressor in a struggle between good and evil. Even the film’s proscriptive title indicates a temptation to ingest that which is forbidden.” – Josh Vasquez, Slant Magazine
Genres:
1974 / UK / 83m / Col / Vampire | IMDb
Peter Cushing, David Chiang, Julie Ege, Robin Stewart, Szu Shih, John Forbes-Robertson, Robert Hanna, Shen Chan, James Ma, Hui-Ling Liu
“By the early ‘70s, the beloved English horror and science-fiction studio Hammer was losing it. After about 15 years spent turning out distinctive, entertaining films made on modest budgets, the studio tried to stay relevant by resorting to desperate variations on classic horror themes… One of the more bizarre developments was Hammer’s decision to team up with Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers, the production company behind numerous kung-fu hits… It’s pretty much as ridiculous as it sounds, but there’s something inherently entertaining about make-up-splattered vampires, distinguished British actors, and martial artists squaring off in periodic eruptions of kung-fu fighting.” – Keith Phipps, The Onion A.V. Club
Genres:
1946 / France / 96m / BW / Fantasy | IMDb
Jean Marais, Josette Day, Mila Parély, Nane Germon, Michel Auclair, Raoul Marco, Marcel André, Janice Felty, John Kuether, Jacques Marbeuf
“Blissfully free of the PC feminist leanings of the animated version, this black-and-white fantasia revels instead in grandiose medieval settings and technical trickery. Marvellous surreal effects live on the mind’s eye long after the lights go up: the beast’s smoking paws; a living mantelpiece; the billowing white drapes as Belle is carried along a castle corridor, seemingly without moving her feet; and ethereal human arms brandishing candelabra. Cocteau uses wispy strands of lighting to magical effect and, to his credit, never attempts to fashion anything but a fairytale, inducing a childlike wonder rather than some cerebral reaction — the subtitles are of a limited nature. Even the warm comedy of the sleeping footmen in the farmyard and Belle’s spiteful sisters’ bickering still rings true. Years have not dulled the lustre of this classic, the impact of a big screen viewing is nothing short of astonishing.” – Louise Brealy, Empire
Genres:
1977 / USA / 85m / Col / Zombie | IMDb
Peter Cushing, Brooke Adams, Fred Buch, Jack Davidson, Luke Halpin, D.J. Sidney, John Carradine, Don Stout, Clarence Thomas, Sammy Graham
“Director Wiederhorn allows his camera to act almost voyeuristic as it creeps through the trees to spy on the zombies that pop up from the murky water. They are presented as paranormal specters that are silhouetted by the blinding sun reflecting off the water. At times, we see them from an extreme distance, marching in formation and turning to barely acknowledge their gaunt commander as he pleads with them to stop their meaningless slaughter. It was these scenes that made me fall in love with Shock Waves, the film just subtle enough while every once in a while, getting right in our faces so we can see its soggy decay. We never see any scenes of mass carnage, the zombies preferring to drown their victims instead of gnawing at their flesh and sucking on their entrails. That fact that the film remains eerily tranquil throughout, never getting frantic or hurrying is what really makes this film such an effective little adventure.” – Steve Habrat, Anti-Film School
Genres:
1982 / UK / 81m / Col / Science Fiction | IMDb
Philip Sayer, Bernice Stegers, Danny Brainin, Maryam d’Abo, Simon Nash, Peter Mandell, David Cardy, Anna Wing, Robert Fyfe, Katherine Best
“The narrative is somewhat incoherent and this is not a film that could ever be praised for its strong storytelling. Many questions are left unanswered, frustratingly so at times yet in an absurd way this all seems to click due to the sequence of utterly ridiculous events that are depicted in ‘Xtro’. A man is mauled by a panther, an Action Man figure comes to life after growing to lifesize proportions and a woman ends up trapped in a bizarre cocoon – and this is just the edited highlights. There are a copious number of wacky and bewildering events to occur in this low-budget piece of insanity.” – Chris Austin, Cult Reviews
Genres:
1992 / USA / 114m / Col / Science Fiction | IMDb
Sigourney Weaver, Charles S. Dutton, Charles Dance, Paul McGann, Brian Glover, Ralph Brown, Danny Webb, Christopher John Fields, Holt McCallany, Lance Henriksen
“Fincher’s early exterior landscape of Fury 161 has an apocalyptic gorgeousness that’s in tune with the pessimism of his story, which replicates many elements of Alien and Aliens (more the former than the latter) while seeming intent on killing the series off. The much-ballyhooed revelation about Ripley’s physical condition struck many in ’92 as unforgivably mean but, in retrospect, it plays like the natural evolution of the franchise’s running birth-mother-child subtexts, downbeat thematic threads well-suited to Fincher’s gloomy, cynical Christ-like conclusion.” – Nick Schager, Lessons of Darkness
Genres:
2006 / USA / 90m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Amber Heard, Anson Mount, Whitney Able, Michael Welch, Edwin Hodge, Aaron Himelstein, Luke Grimes, Melissa Price, Adam Powell, Peyton Hayslip
“Mostly, though, the film works — or doesn’t, depending on your point of view — because Levine hasn’t figured out that he’s directing a genre film, despite the boatload of cliches handed to him by Forman’s script. What ultimately made the movie click for me is that it doesn’t pander, avoiding as many stereotypes as it indulges. Thoughtful viewers may detect thematic whiffs of Columbine, blended with “Carrie,” that darken and complicate the film’s aroma of stale blood. Thoughtful viewers? What kind of teen slasher movie is this? Too dumb for the arthouse, but too smart for the mall multiplex, the movie satisfies, paradoxically, precisely because it doesn’t deliver on expectations.” – Michael O’Sullivan, Washington Post
Genres:
1944 / USA / 70m / BW / Fantasy | IMDb
Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph, Ann Carter, Eve March, Julia Dean, Elizabeth Russell, Erford Gage, Sir Lancelot
“Though very different in purpose and tone to Cat People, Val Lewton’s ‘sequel’ is far more closely tied to its predecessor than is commonly believed. For one thing, all the main characters remain very much the same as they were in the earlier film, to which there are many specific references; for another, both films concern the way that guilt, fear and fantasy can arise from isolation and misunderstanding. In this case, it’s a small girl, lonely and repeatedly scolded by her parents and shunned by her friends for indulging in day-dreaming; when she populates her solitary world with the ghost of her father’s dead first wife (Simon, heroine of Cat People), her imagination (or is it?) gets her into serious trouble. Far from being a horror film, it’s a touching, perceptive and lyrical film about childhood, psychologically astute and occasionally disturbing as it focuses entirely on the child’s-eye view of a sad, cruel world.” – Geoff Andrews, Time Out
Genres:
2006 / USA / 101m / Col / Thriller | IMDb
Ron Perlman, James Le Gros, Connie Britton, Zach Gilford, Kevin Corrigan, Jamie Harrold, Pato Hoffmann, Joanne Shenandoah, Larry Fessenden, Oscar Miller
“The Last Winter, like many great horror movies, builds upon existing conventions within its genre – the creature feature film – but injects into its narrative contemporary anxieties and tensions that should force horror fans to re-evaluate that genre’s template, meaning, and aesthetic value. With a potent dose of realism – the film’s themes and dialogue echo reports on the evening news – The Last Winter is one of those unique horror films that makes the genre so hauntingly relevant. After watching The Last Winter, viewers will not only gain a newfound respect for classic 1950s creature feature films, and particularly those set in polar regions, but they’ll also gain important insights into some of global society’s most daunting challenges: namely, global warming, climate change, and human ecology.” – Chris Justice, Classic-Horror
Genres:
1982 / USA / 104m / Col / Haunted House | IMDb
James Olson, Burt Young, Rutanya Alda, Jack Magner, Andrew Prine, Diane Franklin, Moses Gunn, Ted Ross, Erika Katz, Brent Katz
“[Director] Damiani forgoes any authentic connection to the actual DeFeo case and opts for a very loose fictional retelling more suitable for grindhouse theaters. That’s not a complaint, but a compliment. Continuity and originality be damned, Amityville II: The Possession is so off the rails crazy that it’s fun. Bolstered by great effects and a higher budget, this sequel is not only better than the first film, but it’s the best in the series.” – Meagan Navarro, Bloody Disgusting
Genres:
2000 / Germany / 103m / Col / Thriller | IMDb
Franka Potente, Benno Fürmann, Anna Loos, Sebastian Blomberg, Holger Speckhahn, Traugott Buhre, Oliver Wnuk, Arndt Schwering-Sohnrey, Andreas Günther
“Anatomy starts off great, with Potente’s arrival at the school interspersed with sequences involving soon-to-be-operated-on victims awaking in a sinister-looking metallic room. There’s also some good stuff with Potente’s classmates, and their relationships with each other. But after a fairly intriguing explanation for the odd method of medical research, the film essentially turns into another Scream-type flick – with Potente running around trying to escape a psycho killer. Still, Potente is good and the atmosphere is effectively creepy, so Anatomy just might be worth a look.” – David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews
Genres:
1943 / USA / 74m / BW / Monster | IMDb
Ilona Massey, Patric Knowles, Lionel Atwill, Bela Lugosi, Maria Ouspenskaya, Dennis Hoey, Don Barclay, Rex Evans, Dwight Frye, Harry Stubbs
“By 1943, the steam was mostly out of the second phase of Universal horror movies, even in their new cheaper, B-picture incarnation, and if the cycle was going to keep on going, something bold and splashy had to be done, for then as now movies made their money from a snappy advertising campaign more than because of their inherent quality. The solution, in retrospect, seems inevitable; but who can say how many harried meetings it took until some Universal executive hit upon the idea of putting two of their A-list monster into a movie together. The result was titled, with all due shamelessness, ‘Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man’, and that was pretty much the end of Universal’s horror line as a home for even the vaguest kind of serious filmmaking until 1954.” – Tim Brayton, Antagony & Ecstasy
Genres:
1945 / USA / 71m / BW / Mystery | IMDb
Boris Karloff, Ellen Drew, Marc Cramer, Katherine Emery, Helene Thimig, Alan Napier, Jason Robards Sr., Ernst Deutsch
“Lewton’s signature, of course, was atmospheric spookiness, not shocks. A couple of good jumps aside, his movies have endured because of his remarkable talent in fusing the eerie with the melancholy. But whether it was by design or pressure from Gross, Isle of the Dead offers both the unsettling and the truly startling as it reaches its climax. The fear of being buried alive gets its ultimate expression here. At first that fear is played out in indelibly understated creepiness — the camera slowly moving in on a closed casket, wrapped in the shadows of tree branches swaying in the wind. And then… a noise. It builds from there when Thea slowly walks through the same area later. Obscured by heavy darkness and aided by a strikingly modern use of flash frames, a figure appears so fleetingly you are not sure you’ve seen her at first. But then she makes her presence definitively known. Taken together, these scenes rank among the most bone-chilling moments from any era of horror cinema.” – Joel Wicklund, Classic-Horror
Genres:
1943 / USA / 92m / Col / Drama | IMDb
Nelson Eddy, Susanna Foster, Claude Rains, Edgar Barrier, Leo Carrillo, Jane Farrar, J. Edward Bromberg, Fritz Feld, Frank Puglia, Steven Geray
“Universal’s big, splashy Technicolor 1943 remake (made on the same set) of its 1925 hit Phantom of the Opera is often dimissed as “too much opera” and “too little Phantom.” There’s some truth in that, but it’s still a good — and certainly good-looking — thriller with its fair share of jolts. In its own way, this film added to the basics of the narrative by providing the Phantom with a backstory, which has found its way into many subsequent tellings of the tale.” – Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress
Genres:
1994 / Denmark / 107m / Col / Thriller | IMDb
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Sofie Gråbøl, Kim Bodnia, Lotte Andersen, Ulf Pilgaard, Rikke Louise Andersson, Stig Hoffmeyer, Gyrd Løfquist, Niels Anders Thorn, Leif Adolfsson
“Tightly scripted, with just a drop of wicked black humour, the film delivers creepy hints of necrophilia, visceral shocks and heart-racing suspense. The one unconvincing note is the parallel between these murderous events and rehearsals for an amateur theatrical production of Mephisto. Otherwise, this is the kind of superior genre movie-making where the eerie fluttering of moths in a glass lampshade is as chilling as the screaming, hysterical violence that follows.” – Time Out
Genres:
1979 / USA / 96m / Col / Exploitation | IMDb
Abel Ferrara, Carolyn Marz, Baybi Day, Harry Schultz, Alan Wynroth, Maria Helhoski, James O’Hara, Richard Howorth, Louis Mascolo, Tommy Santora
“Do not approach Driller Killer expecting a shocking parade of exploitation and horror because you will only be disappointed and miss the sublime squalor of Ferrara’s early artistic sensibilities. It isn’t an exploitation film that attempts to shock and horrify through contrived indecencies, but rather acts as an examination of urban squalor as both a subject matter and an aesthetic sensibility. The film is ugly because the realities of inner city life are ugly, and Driller Killer examines these unexposed realities with macabre fascination.” – Matthew Blevins, Next Projection
Genres:
1993 / USA / 109m / Col / Science Fiction | IMDb
D.B. Sweeney, Robert Patrick, Craig Sheffer, Peter Berg, Henry Thomas, Bradley Gregg, Noble Willingham, Kathleen Wilhoite, James Garner, Georgia Emelin
“What’s strange about Fire in the Sky is that it’s based on a true story. That’s what the makers of this movie want us to believe, anyway. On Nov. 5, 1975, in northeastern Arizona, Travis Walton was abducted by aliens. In the small fragment that he remembers of the five days and six hours that he was missing, he saw humanoids perform experiments on him… The movie is intentionally like a dramatized documentary. The producers want us to share their belief in Walton’s story. To make the story appear more believable, they use the real names of the loggers, shy away from fancy special effects that would distract the audience from the plot (the UFO looks like two pie-pans taped together, like Walton said it did), and, besides James Garner, don’t use any celebrity actors.” – John Jacobs, The Tech (MIT)
Genres:
2003 / USA / 90m / Col / Thriller | IMDb
John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet, John Hawkes, Alfred Molina, Clea DuVall, John C. McGinley, William Lee Scott, Jake Busey, Pruitt Taylor Vince
“The great thing about a movie like this is that it only reveals knowledge when it expects its own characters to be on the same page; if they are out of the loop, we are stuck right alongside them. And perhaps that’s what identity itself is all about, too: learn things as they come to you rather than have everything implanted in your head ahead of schedule. Watching the film is one of the most engaging experiences you will have at the movies; it is a taut, intelligent and fresh hybrid of a thriller that has as many effective ideas as a mind has brain cells. It tells a story not unlike the conventional murder mystery on the surface, but one very much stimulating and challenging once its skin has been ripped away.” – Peter Anderson, Nameless Horror
Genres:
1944 / USA / 71m / BW / Monster | IMDb
Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr., J. Carrol Naish, John Carradine, Anne Gwynne, Peter Coe, Lionel Atwill, George Zucco, Elena Verdugo, Sig Ruman
“House of Frankenstein may be one of the weaker entries in Universal’s horror series, but this doesn’t prevent it from being fun. Even when the screenwriters were happy merely to regurgitate old ideas and reinforce the famous cliches, there is still some magic to be found in that eerie black-and-white Gothic fantasy world that Universal created for us. The plots may be as well-worn as the floor coverings at Hampton Court Palace, the later films may have been made for the most cynical of motives, but who can fail to take delight in the sight of the old horror icons as they emerge from their shadowy cobwebbed lairs to chill and thrill us?” – James Travers, Films de France
Genres:
2001 / France / 101m / Col / Drama | IMDb
Vincent Gallo, Tricia Vessey, Béatrice Dalle, Alex Descas, Florence Loiret Caille, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Raphaël Neal, José Garcia, Hélène Lapiower, Marilu Marini
“Denis’s films have always been shot through with a current of menace just waiting to be made explicit: it’s present in their off-balance close-ups, faintly unstable camera moves, obsessive attention to the texture of hair, clothes, and skin, and habit of letting the camera slide caressingly around actors’ bodies when they’re at their least self-conscious and most exposed. Where other Denis films seem to circle and drift around indecisively, Trouble Every Day itches with a kind of nervous forward momentum. It’s an extended come-on, full of teases and hints and come-hither gestures, finally climaxing — in every way — with two scenes of gruesome sexual violence.” – Max Nelson, Film Comment Magazine
Genres:
1953 / USA / 80m / BW / Science Fiction | IMDb
Paul Hubschmid, Paula Raymond, Cecil Kellaway, Kenneth Tobey, Donald Woods, Lee Van Cleef, Steve Brodie, Ross Elliott, Jack Pennick, Ray Hyke
“Like all movies of this kind from this period, you can probably read into The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms the fear of imminent destruction, but the spectre of the Cold War isn’t so pronounced that it gets in the way of being a fleet thriller: the destruction of New York is decidedly far from thorough, and there’s not a scrap of hand-wringing about nuclear energy or anything. It’s pure survival horror, with a punch of people we like being faced with an implacable, unstoppable force, and if that makes the film a bit shallower than a lot of the other classic monster pictures, it’s also a huge part of the reason that it’s so much better than all but a tiny number of the films it influenced.” – Tim Brayton, Antagony & Ecstasy
Genres:
1953 / USA / 85m / BW / Science Fiction | IMDb
Gene Barry, Ann Robinson, Les Tremayne, Robert Cornthwaite, Sandro Giglio, Lewis Martin, Houseley Stevenson Jr., Paul Frees, William Phipps, Vernon Rich
“The special effects were state-of-the-art for the time, and they remain impressive today. If a few wires are visible to discerning eyes, at least the images are interesting in design and colorful in execution; something about the smooth, sleek look of the Martian hovercraft make them fascinating to watch, even if their miniature origins are sometimes apparent. Although subsequent films (such as INDEPENDENCE DAY) would outdo WAR OF THE WORLDS in terms of depicting mass destruction, this film retains its classic status thanks to the dramatic conviction with which it portrays its characters helplessly fighting against an unstoppable enemy bent on driving humanity into extinction.” – Steve Biodrowski, Hollywood Gothique
Genres:
1993 / USA / 127m / Col / Adventure | IMDb
Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Bob Peck, Martin Ferrero, Joseph Mazzello, Ariana Richards, Samuel L. Jackson, BD Wong
“A true movie milestone, presenting awe- and fear-inspiring sights never before seen on the screen. The more spectacular of these involve the fierce, lifelike dinosaurs that stalk through the film with astounding ease… They appear only for brief interludes, but the dinosaurs dominate “Jurassic Park” in every way. Amazingly graceful and convincing, they set a sky-high new standard for computer-generated special effects. But thoughts about how those effects were achieved aren’t likely to surface while the film is under way. The most important thing about the dinosaurs of “Jurassic Park” is that they create a triumphant illusion. You will believe you have spent time in a dino-filled world.” – Janet Maslin, The New York Times
Genres:
1980 / USA / 82m / Col / Splatter | IMDb
Suzanna Love, Ron James, John Carradine, Nicholas Love, Raymond Boyden, Felicite Morgan, Bill Rayburn, Llewelyn Thomas, Jay Wright, Natasha Schiano
“The film has an effectively Southern gothic atmosphere to it and even the stiff performances and unnatural dialogue help to give the film a certain dream-like atmosphere. I know quite a few people who argue that Ulli Lommel is the worst director of all time but he actually comes up with some effectively surreal and disturbing images… Whether by intentional design or not, these flashes of genuine fright and oddness are all the more effective because they’re surrounded by such mundane material. The end result is a film that’s either brilliant or terrible depending on which point you actually start watching it.” – Lisa Marie Bowman, Horror Critic
Genres:
1979 / USA / 109m / Col / Vampire | IMDb
Frank Langella, Laurence Olivier, Donald Pleasence, Kate Nelligan, Trevor Eve, Jan Francis, Janine Duvitski, Tony Haygarth, Teddy Turner, Sylvester McCoy
“This film is not a standard horror film, though there are some horrific moments. It plays up the notion that Dracula is a sensual, smoldering, sexual creature rather than an animal with no soul. In that respect, Frank Langella (who played the role on stage) plays it up to the hilt and delivers – using his body language and his fluid lines with the mark of a real actor. He is a tall, charismatic and towering presence and brings Dracula alive with more relish and attitude than most others who have attempted the role.” – Jerry Saravia, Jerry Saravia on Cinema
Genres:
1976 / USA / 84m / Col / Splatter | IMDb
Seamus O’Brien, Luis De Jesus, Viju Krem, Niles McMaster, Alan Dellay, Dan Fauci, Helen Thompson, Ellen Faison, Ernie Pysher, Carol Mara
“A bizarre and irreverent plot which is seemingly just an excuse to exploit every taboo in a movie and take it to its distasteful extreme, [it] has to be seen to be believed. With the usual histrionic characters that are expected in a Troma movie and the excessive lengths that the plot evolves to shock and disgust, this is not a movie to take seriously. Fans of hardcore exploitation movies such as Last House on the Left and I Spit on your Grave may find Bloodsucking Freaks a bit difficult to digest with its campiness and farcical interpretation of the genre but would have to appreciate the depths of distaste that the movie is willing to sink to in order to achieve the desired reaction from the audience. A definite cult classic and a defining moment in Troma history in the guise of a sadistic and torturous voyage into the brainwashing and slavery industry where women are used as dartboards before being fed to their feral sisters.” – Pazuzu Iscariot, Horror Extreme
Genres:
1960 / USA / 72m / BW / Black Comedy | IMDb
Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph, Mel Welles, Dick Miller, Myrtle Vail, Tammy Windsor, Toby Michaels, Leola Wendorff, Lynn Storey, Wally Campo
“Though it lacks the gloss and sophistication of its successor – in places, the sets actually shake, and the quality of surviving prints is universally dreadful – this is still a stylish piece of work. Denied colour, Roger Corman plays with light and shadow like a master of film noir. This adds a creepy edge to scenes where Seymour is skulking round the backstreets of the city, an atmosphere which emphasises the agony of his moral dilemma. It’s a darker film in every sense, but this is alleviated by some brilliant comic performances from various minor stars of the time, patched together in a quirky style which is positively surreal.” – Jennie Kermode, Eye For Film
Genres:
1955 / USA / 80m / BW / Natural Horror | IMDb
John Agar, Mara Corday, Leo G. Carroll, Nestor Paiva, Ross Elliott, Edwin Rand, Raymond Bailey, Hank Patterson, Bert Holland, Steve Darrell
“Riddled with clichés and populated by cardboard cutout characters spewing the most obvious lines (“I’ve never seen anything like this!”) and daffy dialogue (“Did you ever see your best friend die in your arms?”), Tarantula lumbers along to its inevitable end (U.S. armed forces to the rescue!) set to urgent, super-dramatic music and gasp-inducing special effects. Actually, the f/x — for the period, and the B-factor — are pretty impressive. The ambling arachnid set against the desert dunes looks almost plausible, even as its furry feet occasionally seem to glide above-ground. Also sublime is the sole female lead, a bullet-brassiered Stephanie “Steve” Clayton (Mara Corday, who was also in The Giant Claw), a grad student who steps into the fray with high heeled pumps and 50s femme fearlessness (punctuated by the occasional girly scream).” – Staci Layne Wilson, Horror.com
Genres:
1958 / USA / 69m / BW / Science Fiction | IMDb
Marshall Thompson, Shirley Patterson, Kim Spalding, Ann Doran, Dabbs Greer, Paul Langton, Robert Bice, Richard Benedict, Richard Hervey, Thom Carney
““IT, The Terror from Beyond” is a fun B picture that only Ed Cahn could have delivered back then. It has cheap scares, a foreboding atmosphere and loads of close calls and action. It is a genuine slice of pulp pie that satisfies and entertains. It has tension that is masterfully provided by Cahn, the story and the actors. It is intelligent and has like-able characters who deliver some quick and sometimes sophomoric dialog that fits the proceedings nicely. The film sports some dated but respectively nice looking special effects and Chan makes good use of shadows which do not let us see IT in it’s entirety for many of the confrontation scenes.” – Victor De Leon, Horror News
Genres:
1965 / Italy / 105m / BW / Gothic | IMDb
Barbara Steele, Paul Muller, Helga Liné, Marino Masé, Giuseppe Addobbati, Rik Battaglia
“Largely written by the director, Mario Caiano, based on his love of Poe, Nightmare Castle is an archetypal Gothic Horror film with all of the requisite elements from the mad scientist to the setting in the late 19th Century castle. Fortunately, although it does not boast anything that has not been done before, the script comes together particularly well, giving us plenty of well written storyline and witholding the horror sequences, which although perhaps disappointing thrill-a-minute audiences, does make the scenes particularly potent when they do appear. One amazing sequence as Stephen tries to electrocute someone is almost unbearably tense. The pacing is usually on the slow side but the film never drags and it builds up to a very effective (if slightly unexplainable) conclusion.” – Timothy Young, Mondo Esoterica
Genres:
2004 / USA / 96m / Col / Comedy | IMDb
Alexander Brickel, Katheryn Winnick, Stephen Graham, Amanda Plummer, Wass Stevens, Dan Ziskie, Melisa McGregor, Joshua Annex, Joyce R. Korbin
“With a solid cast lined up and a strong script, the film exhibits how much can be achieved with limited resources. The autumnal atmosphere of Halloween in New England is effectively established, especially considering that the movie was shot in the summer, and the tone never oversteps its boundaries between what is meant to get laughs and what is meant to disturb the viewer. “Satan’s Little Helper” is an uncompromisingly wicked, subjectively brave chiller practically crying out to be discovered.” – Dustin Putman, DustinPutman.com
Genres:
2019 / USA / 95m / Col / Thriller | IMDb
Samara Weaving, Adam Brody, Henry Czerny, Andie MacDowell, Melanie Scrofano, Kristian Bruun, Elyse Levesque, Nicky Guadagni, John Ralston, Liam MacDonald
“At times, you may have to suspend your disbelief, but the joy of Ready or Not is its willingness to be outlandish without compromise. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett create a harmonious blend of genres that can too often feel at odds with one another: the elements of horror become the catalyst for comedic relief and vice versa. Weaving comes alive as a hilarious and deeply macabre play on the “final girl” archetype, and it’s nothing short of cathartic to cheer her on and echo the rage that quickly consumes and empowers her.” – Cody Corrall, Chicago Reader
Genres:
1969 / Mexico / 99m / Col / Thriller | IMDb
Marga López, Joaquín Cordero, Norma Lazareno, Aldo Monti, Lucy Buj, Rafael Llamas, Ada Carrasco, Lilia Castillo, Manuel Dondé, Jorge Mateos
“The Book of Stone carries the echoes of an MR James story with its premise of ancient evil and suggested rather than depicted horror… Bit by bit the story unravels, piling on one little disturbing incident after another, till it places itself firmly in the realm of the supernatural. [The statue] ‘Hugo’ is revealed to have a sinister history and will resist all attempts made to uproot him from his pedestal. Even here, there is far more reliance on the play of light and shadow (cinematographer Ignacio Torres), and juxtaposition of circumstance than any elaborate flashy effect.” – Suresh S, Un-kvlt Site
Genres:
1964 / UK / 81m / BW / Evil Doll | IMDb
Bryant Haliday, William Sylvester, Yvonne Romain, Sandra Dorne, Nora Nicholson, Alan Gifford, Karel Stepanek, Francis De Wolff
“Devil Doll may not be a work of dazzling brilliance, but it’s got enough going for it to earn my commendation nonetheless. I like the fact that the living dummy isn’t really the monster here, and I think Bryant Haliday’s performance as Vorelli is a minor gem of celluloid villainy. He’s so shamelessly slimy, acting as though he hasn’t a single give-a-fuck to spare for the possibility that anyone might find him out and oppose him. You get the feeling this arrogant bastard reckons himself so much smarter than everyone else around him that there isn’t even a point to pretending not to be evil. It’s a great way to get around the potential problem of a script that never once depicts Vorelli as doing anything to cover his tracks outside of engineering an alibi for the hour of Magda’s murder; he just goes ahead and does whatever he wants, relying on the seeming impossibility of his deeds to protect him from any negative consequences that might ordinarily follow from them.” – Scott Ashlin, 1000 Misspent Hours
Genres:
2011 / Canada / 92m / Col / Found Footage | IMDb
Ben Wilkinson, Sean Rogerson, Ashleigh Gryzko, Merwin Mondesir, Juan Riedinger, Shawn Macdonald, Arthur Corber, Bob Rathie, Fred Keating, Max Train
“The crew for a fake TV ghost-hunting show has an unfortunate brush with genuine supernatural phenomena in “Grave Encounters.” Debut feature for duo Colin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz, who’ve dubbed themselves the Vicious Brothers (not to be confused with fellow horror helmers the Butcher Brothers), treads by-now-familiar scary-mockumentary terrain… Still, pacing is taut, the setting eerie, and eventual scares are fairly effective if never particularly original. If a somewhat formulaic air hangs over whole enterprise, it’s nonetheless creepier and less cookie-cutter than your average mainstream slasher. Tech/design factors are polished within the faux-verite concept.” – Dennis Harvey, Variety
Genres:
2010 / USA / 88m / Col / Natural Horror | IMDb
Richard Dreyfuss, Ving Rhames, Elisabeth Shue, Christopher Lloyd, Eli Roth, Jerry O’Connell, Steven R. McQueen, Jessica Szohr, Kelly Brook, Riley Steele
“Sometimes a title can tell you everything you need to know. Such is the case with Piranha 3D, a film in which prehistoric piranhas fly out of the screen at your face. If that sounds like a good time at the movies then run to the cinema immediately. Filled with recognisable faces, packed with excessive blood and gore and jokes as corny as they are hilarious, Piranha 3D is, if nothing else, the most honest and unpretentious piece of filmmaking of 2010… Aja has found a wonderful mix of horror and laughs and even manages some scenes of tension that’ll have you gripping your armrest. Piranha 3D is a pure, unadulterated fun.” – Glenn Dunks, Trespass Magazine
Genres:
2013 / USA / 96m / Col / Anthology | IMDb
Lawrence Michael Levine, Kelsy Abbott, L.C. Holt, Simon Barrett, Mindy Robinson, Mónica Sánchez Navarro, Adam Wingard, Hannah Hughes, John T. Woods, Corrie Lynn Fitzpatrick
“More tales of terror are unearthed from another pile of dusty old videos in this slick sequel to the 2012 horror anthology. Like the original, the top-and-tail story takes place in an “abandoned” house where, on this occasion, it’s two private investigators on a missing-persons case who come across the cassettes. But whereas the first film’s quintet of stories were of varying quality, the calibre of the four shorts here is consistently higher… the pick of the bunch is Safe Haven, co-directed by Timo Tjahjanto and The Raid’s Gareth Huw Evans, in which a film crew’s visit to the compound of an Indonesian cult turns decidedly nasty. The deceptively sedate beginning soon gives way to a cornucopia of artery-rupturing gruesomeness, which will assuredly have some viewers all a-splutter.” – Jeremy Aspinall, Radio Times
Genres:
1974 / Australia / 91m / Col / Black Comedy | IMDb
John Meillon, Terry Camilleri, Kevin Miles, Rick Scully, Max Gillies, Danny Adcock, Bruce Spence, Kevin Golsby, Chris Haywood, Peter Armstrong
“With echoes of Nabokov and Ballard, this is the story of an ordinary man drawn into a world where nothing is as it seems, and where the logical rules he has followed all his life can only lead him down the wrong road… Effortlessly employing surrealist and fantasy tropes in a story that is, ultimately, never very far from the possible, Weir steers us on a dizzying journey through autophilia, survivalist politics, and the darker side of human nature. Above all, the town’s very special cars will stick in your memory. Modified into something ferociously unnatural and yet curiously animal, they are at once works of art and deadly killing machines.” – Jennie Kermode, EyeForFilm.co.uk
Genres:
1997 / USA / 144m / Col / Supernatural | IMDb
Keanu Reeves, Al Pacino, Charlize Theron, Jeffrey Jones, Judith Ivey, Connie Nielsen, Craig T. Nelson, Tamara Tunie, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Debra Monk
“You don’t go into a movie called The Devil’s Advocate (Warner Bros.), starring Al Pacino and his gleaming teeth, expecting to see a finely calibrated portrait of evil. You go in expecting a brazenly hokey, in-your-face portrait of evil, and that, I’m happy to say, is just what you get. Directed by Taylor Hackford, The Devil’s Advocate is a schlock-religioso legal thriller — The Firm meets Angel Heart — and it’s at once silly, overwrought, and almost embarrassingly entertaining.” – Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
Genres:
1998 / USA / 99m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Jared Leto, Alicia Witt, Rebecca Gayheart, Michael Rosenbaum, Loretta Devine, Joshua Jackson, Tara Reid, John Neville, Julian Richings, Robert Englund
“The notion of a new horror film devoted to urban legends is somewhat redundant, given that horror films routinely mine urban legends and arguably represent them. Urban Legend, a first feature directed by 26-year-old Australian Jamie Blanks, places the modern-day folktale at the center of what might otherwise be yet another Scream offshoot… As horror movies and first directing efforts go, Urban Legend offers decent suspense and a few genuine jolts; it has a kind of loud, insistent charm, which eventually grinds down. James Chressanthis’ wide-screen cinematography is attractive and assured, but Silvio Horta’s screenplay scarcely breaks new ground, content instead with serving up stock characters in familiar settings.” – Ed Kelleher, Film Journal International
Genres:
2019 / USA / 109m / BW / Psychological | IMDb
Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe, Valeriia Karaman, Logan Hawkes, Kyla Nicolle, Shaun Clarke, Pierre Richard, Preston Hudson, Jeffrey Cruts, Robert Pattinson
“Though it proceeds at a slow pace appropriate to its subject matter, The Lighthouse is good fun throughout. The film has a wonderful texture and tactility. You can practically feel the cold spray of sea air lashing against the weathered faces of the two leads. Eggers and his cinematographer, Jarin Blaschke, shot in black-and-white using archaic film equipment to achieve an authentically antique veneer, and the effect is reminiscent of the poetic horror films produced by Val Lewton in the 1940s, or Curtis Harrington’s Night Tide, to cite a slightly more recent example.” – Nathaniel Bell, L.A. Weekly
Genres:
2003 / Canada / 97m / Col / Slasher | IMDb
Robert Englund, Ken Kirzinger, Monica Keena, Jason Ritter, Kelly Rowland, Chris Marquette, Brendan Fletcher, Katharine Isabelle, Lochlyn Munro, Kyle Labine
“Two dead horror franchises and two one-note jokes combine their burnt-out story lines and collective myths in “Freddy Vs. Jason,” and the result is a horror movie that’s better than it has any right to be… The Jason (‘Friday the 13th’) and the Freddy Krueger (‘Nightmare on Elm Street’) series were limp self-parodies long before they went dormant. But something in the combination of the two villains wakes things up. The presence of Freddy liberates this Jason entry from the monotony of a guy lumbering about with a ski mask and a sword, while the presence of Jason liberates this Freddy film from the monotony of the usual endless dream sequences… Director Ronny Yu… keeps it as light as possible.” – Mick LaSalle, SFGate
Genres:
2008 / USA / 98m / Col / Splatter | IMDb
Bradley Cooper, Leslie Bibb, Brooke Shields, Vinnie Jones, Roger Bart, Tony Curran, Barbara Eve Harris, Peter Jacobson, Stephanie Mace, Ted Raimi
“As a horror picture plain and simple (though Midnight Meat Train is too convoluted to be called simple), there’s certainly no reason to complain here. The film delivers the goods in terms of graphic, bloody and quite brutal horror. This is one of the bloodier films in recent memory, and yet it is never goes into the area of torture porn. The film doesn’t linger over pain for its own sake and isn’t in the least sadistic in the manner of so much that passes for horror these days. Oh, it’s nasty enough—make no mistake. This is not a film for the squeamish, and I can easily imagine people who would be offended by its in your face bloodiness. I can also imagine a good many viewers who would be turned off by its occasional outbursts of dark-hued splattery comedy, especially the fate of the Jurgis character. Put bluntly, if bloody horror and the occasional flying eyeball aren’t your flagon of grue, this isn’t your movie.” – Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress
Genres:
1968 / USA / 42m / Col / Supernatural | IMDb
Michael Hordern, Ambrose Coghill, George Woodbridge, Nora Gordon, Freda Dowie
“To a modern audience, who have come to expect a big twist at the end of their ghost stories and are accustomed to being told loudly through music and editing when it’s time to feel scared, the more subtle and uncluttered narrative of Whistle and I’ll Come to You may at first glance feel a little primitive. But this simplicity allows Miller and Horden the scope they need to develop the film as a character study, with Dick Bush’s immaculately framed camera observing [the protagonist] Parkins with almost microscopic precision… With the pared-down plot and only one major character, [Miller] is able to really get inside Parkins’ head, using his lead actor and some striking locations to create an unnerving sense of a disrupted normality in which undefined dangers are stalking us even in daylight.” – Slarek, Cine Outsider
Genres:
2008 / USA / 89m / Col / Zombie | IMDb
Jennifer Carpenter, Steve Harris, Jay Hernandez, Johnathon Schaech, Columbus Short, Andrew Fiscella, Rade Serbedzija, Greg Germann, Bernard White, Dania Ramirez
“Spotlights constantly flashing into the building’s windows from buzzing helicopters, police sirens wailing outside, and blaring bullhorn announcements create an relentless feeling of discomfort. The constant drone nearly irritates. And a lack of light — the electricity is cut to the building — coupled with the hand-held camera’s narrow field-of-vision give us an extreme sense of claustrophobia. Despite its lack of originality, the film’s script is actually quite tight and plays a huge part in the effectiveness of the film. The writers managed to avoid the oft-traversed pitfalls that slap the viewer back to reality with situations that don’t seem real… or with people who don’t behave as we’d expect. Here we’re totally convinced and find ourselves completely absorbed in the tragic situation at hand. Especially in a post-911 world, it’s not unrealistic to think we could find ourselves abandoned by authority. Now more than ever, we realize that every man for himself can be the difference between life and death.” – Frank Wilkins, Reel Talk
Genres:
2007 / USA / 85m / Col / Thriller | IMDb
Kate Beckinsale, Luke Wilson, Frank Whaley, Ethan Embry, Scott G. Anderson, Mark Casella, David Doty, Norm Compton, Caryn Mower, Meegan Godfrey
“There is no gore to be found in Vacancy, and while the script sets up many opportunities for “boo!” type scares, he doesn’t really take advantage of them. Instead, he uses a simple assortment of techniques to keep our POV yoked to David and Amy’s, and he plays up the suffocating closeness of the spaces both interior and exterior, bringing a terrifying claustrophobia to the goings-on (I couldn’t list every instance in which one or both of the protagonists are “caged,” by Antal’s frame, or an element of framing within the mise en scène, but car mirrors, doorways, phone booths, and decorative fencing are all used at some point to increase that claustrophobia). In effect, he turns the characters into trapped animals, aware that they’re being watched and aware that there’s no way to escape. It’s worse than scary, it’s stifling; and that is terrifying, to me at least.” – Tim Brayton, Antagony & Ecstasy
Genres:
2015 / USA / 119m / Col / Gothic | IMDb
Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam, Jim Beaver, Burn Gorman, Leslie Hope, Doug Jones, Jonathan Hyde, Bruce Gray
“To absorb the extraordinary details, colors, shapes and situations that are rife with layered danger is to witness this director’s fierce commitment to his own vision of what life could, or should, be. Del Toro’s latest, “Crimson Peak,” is a case in point. Set in the early 20th century, the action takes place almost entirely in the confines of a dark, decaying, sprawling manor house in northern England called Allerdale Hall. The hall sits atop a mine of red clay that brings about all kinds of building stress: red liquid oozing from walls, thick red water clogging the pipes and trickling down faucets, as if the whole place is in a permanent state of menstrual seizure… But del Toro has always trafficked in very expensive, well curated yuck. And as a result, “Crimson Peak” is all sexy gothic decor mixed with dungeon-like discomfort.” – Kaori Shoji, Japan Times
Genres:
2011 / USA / 83m / Col / Found Footage | IMDb
Lauren Bittner, Christopher Nicholas Smith, Chloe Csengery, Jessica Tyler Brown, Hallie Foote, Dustin Ingram, Johanna Braddy, Katie Featherston, Sprague Grayden
“This paradox—the less you see the more you think you see, or the more you think about seeing—is what used to make horror go. Before Tom Savini and Dan O’Bannon, and before the essential redundancy of torture porn, scary movies depended on viewers’ imaginations. The Paranormal Activity films return to that low-budget idea, with an exponentially high profits pay-off. Their plots are rudimentary, and this third installment’s architecture is both banal and ludicrous (as it elucidates how the sisters came to know the demon plaguing them in the first two films, it wades into hoary-old-witches waters). But you don’t go to horror movies for story. You go for sensation, to be moved. Paranormal Activity 3 not only gets that, it also asks you to get it, to be aware of how you’re being moved, and your part in the moving.” – Cynthia Fuchs, Pop Matters
Genres:
1997 / USA / 90m / Col / Black Comedy | IMDb
Tammy Lauren, Andrew Divoff, Robert Englund, Chris Lemmon, Wendy Benson-Landes, Tony Crane, Jenny O’Hara, Kane Hodder, Tony Todd, Ricco Ross
“A well directed, extremely gory, funny romp. It grabs you in the beginning with an over the top slaughter fest set in old Persia and never lets go. This flick has enough imagination for three movies and is not ashamed to also borrow elements from previous genre films . A little bit of “Hellraiser” here, a pinch of “Elm Street” there…hey…it never hurts. This film is a throwback to 80’s vibe horror with jaw dropping special effects, weird dream sequences, funny one liners and a wonderful nasty villain.” – The Arrow, Arrow in the Head
Genres: