Reviews

A young woman moves to a strange city with her husband and starts to suspect the strange man who's been watching her from across the street is the same person decapitating women around the city.

Watcher is bare bones and simplistic in its storytelling. We learn just enough about our main characters to be invested in their plight without loads of exposition. This gives the film more room to breathe during it's well-orchestrated suspense sequences which are full of tension. When this film wants to be scary, it delivers.

A disturbed former soldier named Charlie is used as a tool to take care of corruption and he snaps and ends up killing anyone in sight, especially pretty women who threaten him.

Even with a shorter runtime, it's hard to recommend Delirium to anyone besides those with a morbid curiosity for bad movies. Everything about it feels amateur which could be forgiven if the script were any better, but there's no one to pull for and the attack/kill scenes are more unpleasant than scary or suspenseful.

After her husband is mysteriously murdered, a woman invites her two friends over to watch over her, thinking the killer might still be out there and could be one of the creepy Hittites who live a little ways away from her.

Deadly Blessing isn't one of Wes Craven's most acclaimed films, but it does have a few moments and images that are hard to forget, especially Sharon Stone's creepy nightmare involving a spider and the double-whammy rollercoaster of an ending.

Members of Crawford Academy's "top ten" are being murdered one by one and it all has something to do with Virginia's birthday and a trauma from her past.

The novelty of seeing Little House on the Prairie's Melissa Sue Anderson in full slasher mode is fun and the kills are creative, but there's so much thrown into the movie that it starts to feel like it's about to burst at the seams at any moment which causes some moments to drag. By the time it gets to the absolutely insane finale, all has been forgiven.

A jilted soldier returns home to find his lover has shacked up with someone else, so he kills them both and, many years later, has another psychotic break and kills teenagers at a spring dance.

If special makeup effects were the only thing you were to judge a movie on, The Prowler would be considered a masterpiece. Every time Tom Savini gets to showcase one of his bloody creations, The Prowler comes to life. Unfortunately, it feels as if the entire script was structured around these effects and not a compelling story. None of the characters are memorable and the film slows to a crawl 45 minutes in only to rebuild steam in the last 10 minutes.

Fun-loving teenagers break into a carnival funhouse for an overnight spree and discover that there's a bloodthirsty and deformed murderer inside waiting to pick them off one by one.

The Funhouse can't help but be unfavorably compared to director Tobe Hooper's triumph, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It doesn't quite hold a candle to that film and it's intensity, but all the candy colors of the funhouse corridors aren't a terrible place to lounge around for 90 minutes and the makeup effects for the main bad guy are impressive.

After a city wide event causes all the women to pass out, they discover that they're all pregnant. Once the children are born, they all look alike and have the same cold and creepy disposition besides one. Before long, all sorts of horrifying accidents and mysterious deaths occur whenever they're around.

This Carpenter film isn't mentioned among his best or most appreciated work, but it's an entertaining film on its own that deserves a little more love. The cast featuring Christopher Reeve, Kirstie Alley, and Mark Hamill work overtime in trying to make this silly story make sense and Carpenter brings his trademark atmosphere and mood to every scene.

A woman moves to the big city for work and is harassed by someone across the way from her apartment building who keeps spying on her and leaving her creepy phone calls.

This early effort by horror legend, John Carpenter, might have been made for TV, but thanks to his skills as a filmmaker, it feels as if it could have just as easily been released theatrically. There's a lot of solid suspense and Lauren Hutton and Adrienne Barbeau make for a charming duo.

Andy is sent to live with foster parents after his mother is institutionalized and, pretty soon, Chucky has been reborn via electricity and goes after Andy so that he can transfer is soul into the boy's body.

Although very similar to the original, Child's Play 2 ups the ante in almost every way. The body count is larger, the music score is grander and more symphonic, and there are a lot of memorable new characters. One of these new characters is Kyle, another orphan living at the foster home with Andy. Their friendship is the heart of the film and a welcome addition.

A young boy's doll has the habit of being around whenever someone around him is killed and his single mother with the help of a cop tries to figure out if the boy's claims that his doll is alive are something they should be concerned about.

Child's Play is a big blast of fun from start to finish and, unlike many of the sequels that came after it, it takes itself mostly very seriously with only a few one liners from Chucky. Alex Vincent is also a terrific child actor which is very rare in movies like this. The animatronic effects for the Chucky doll are nothing short of genius and so much better than any modern computer wizardry you'd see these days.

A woman who had an affair with her husband's brother attempts to bring him back to life by murdering random strangers and allowing him to return to human form, but there are angry demons from hell looking for him and they won't stop until they drag him back to hell with them.

Clive Barker brings a kinky and taboo vibe to this bloody domestic drama. Some of the 80's effects haven't held up as well as they could have but they're charming in their own way and the story is interesting enough to pull you in. The makeup effects are still astounding.

In this bio pic, Tammy Faye and her husband, Jim, create a religious network to reach millions of people and bring them closer to God, but Jim's shady business dealings and lustful urges bring them to their knees.

Both Chastian and Garfield are wonderful as Tammy and Jim and Chastain even does her own singing, acquitting herself nicely. Cherry Jones is also wonderful as Tammy's disapproving mother.

Jonathan Larson is a struggling musical theater writer who feels like time is running out. He must balance his relationships with his girlfriend and friends while trying to finish the new musical he's workshopping on the week he turns 30.

Andrew Garfield gives one of his finest performances in the lead role and has an excellent singing voice, but besides a few moments, the story didn't move me as much as I'd hoped it would and it feels a bit bloated in run time. Broadway fans will love all the cameos and Lin Manuel Miranda displays genuine directing chops.

A shy and mentally unstable young woman goes into the big city to study to be a fashion designer and becomes haunted by visions of a murdered young woman who lived in her apartment in the 60's.

In spite of several plot holes, Last Night in Soho is an engrossing and stylish murder mystery bathed in bright colors. The acting, soundtrack, and cinematography are all top notch even if the story begins to get repetitive midway through.

Picking up right where the last film left off, Laurie Strode is taken to the hospital to nurse her wounds while Michael Myers escapes from the inferno and goes on a killing spree, knocking off anyone who gets in his way.

If mindless gory slashings are all you're after, you're in luck. If you want a little mood, suspense, scares, or realistic characters you can pull for, this isn't the movie for you. Gee, and I thought the last film was bad.

Laurie Strode is a jumpy, angry, and nervous wreck after the events of the first film where Michael Myers disappeared into the night. Because of this, she's certain he'll come back and, of course, he does right as Dr. Loomis is going on a book tour to promote his vicious cash-in true crime expose on Michael and Laurie.

While this might sound straightforward, Rob Zombie peppers this bizarre sequel with many dream sequences, hallucinations, visits from Michael's dead mother, extreme violence, and some alarmingly ugly and realistic human drama. The performances are good to great and some are even fairly moving, but there's too much in its way to distract us. At least it was something different and unique to the Halloween franchise.

After dispatching of Laurie Strode within the first 15 minutes, Michael Myers returns home for a much deserved rest and finds an entire reality show crew in his house. Obviously, he's not too happy about this and attempts to kill them all as millions of viewers watch the stream live.

Jamie Lee Curtis gives a performance that resembles pulling teeth and lets her Asian ghost girl wig do all the work for her and, once she's gone, there's very little to recommend. The new batch of carving fodder are uninteresting if not completely annoying and it's hard to care when they're thrown in front of Michael's blade.

40 years after Michael Myers was shot by his doctor and apprehended by local police, he escapes while being transferred to another hospital and ends up back in Haddonfield where his lone surviving victim, Laurie Strode, has been waiting for him.

While the intentions and hearts are in the right place and the elimination of all the previous silly sequels was a wise choice, this new Halloween is nothing more than a series of non-stop callbacks and homages to the original film (and some of the sequels) and not enough interesting new material. Laurie Strode, one of the most memorable heroines in horror history, is relegated to a cheesy Rambo movie cliche and never once feels like a real human being. A real misfire.

A father and son are tasked with the unenviable task of figuring out what happened to a mysteriously well-preserved corpse that was found at the scene of a brutal murder. As they start investigating, strange things start to happen at the funeral home.

Jane Doe is a small, tight, and compact thriller with only two major characters and one very claustrophobic and creepy location that the filmmakers exploit beautifully. The scares are well timed and well earned and it all builds to a very satisfying ending.

A high schooler headed to his class trip has a terrifying vision of his plane blowing up and ushers a few classmates and teachers off the plane to safety. When the plane takes off and does explode mid-air, the terror has only just begun as, one by one, the survivors are killed in a variety of creative freak accidents. But is there some way to stop this?

Final Destination is much glossier and smarter than many of the post-Scream teen horror films with a great cast and some really excellent special effects. It's not surprise that it spawned an entire franchise in its wake.

This remake of Wes Craven's cult classic from the 70's features a family who get stranded in the desert and have to square off with a family of inbred cannibals.

The Hills Have Eyes wisely settles its audience into the mayhem for the first 40 minutes or so. We get fleeting glimpses of upcoming danger until one particular scene where everything falls apart at once and we see the main bad guys in full light during one incredibly violent and intense sequence where they siege upon the family. From then on, the film never lets up and you might find it hard to catch your breath. It felt me drained.

A handful of terrifying tales involving werewolves, zombies, monsters, and vampires all take place in the same town on the same dark Halloween night.

To speak too heavily of the individual stories in Trick 'r Treat would be unfair to the viewers who have yet to see it. Each story is compelling, well shot, written, and acted with plenty of festive Halloween mood. One of the best horror anthologies since Creepshow.

After her mother dies, a mother of two struggles to keep her family together through the grief and the newfound knowledge that her mother might have been involved with some shady people who mean them harm.

Toni Collette owns every second of screen time she has and delivers one of the bravest, most ferocious, and frightening performances in recent memory. She's supported by a wonderful Ann Dowd, Gabriel Byrne, and Alex Wolff. The mood is unsettling and some of the images in this film will haunt your dreams for a long time.

A young woman goes on a date with her mysterious new boyfriend only to be knocked out and wake up in an abandoned building as the man tells her that he's passed a sexual transmitted curse on to her. From now on, she'll be stalked by apparitions of evil that can look like normal people or even friends and family.

The atmosphere of It Follows is thick and foreboding with a creepy synth score recalling the works of John Carpenter. Some sequences are supremely effective, especially the first few viewings of these spectral beings who are terrorizing our heroine. Around the midpoint, things do start to get a little too repetitive for their own good and the the film loses a lot of its menace as it limps to the finish line with a nicely ambiguous ending.