Reviews

As a drama about a single mother terrified of turning into her own mentally ill mother as she struggles to raise and house her young daughter, Dark Water works and works very well. When it tries to function as a horror film, it fails and delivers some of the most pedestrian attempts as tension and scares I've ever seen. It all seems borrowed from the Asian ghost movie cannon - strange stains, long haired ghost girls, and, of course, icky water are all used as instruments of fear, but they've been done better in the past and they feel stale and uninspired here. If you go in for the moody cinematography, great performances, and moving drama, I can't see how you'd be disappointed, but if you go in expecting a scare-a-minute fright fest, you'll have to resist the urge to break your TV.

Sosie Bacon treats the script of Smile as if it were her key to racking up tons of awards. Her spirit is admirable and she's able to spin gold from straw many times and elevate the predictable material, especially as the latter half dissolves into a series of confusing fake out daydreams and nightmares where you're never quite sure what's going on or what's at stake for the character. It's loaded with jump scares - some are effective and some are duds - but at least the filmmakers have supplied a good amount of mood and dread to go along with it. As good as some of the scares are, it does get exhausting after awhile.

The Black Phone might be a well made film that looks and sounds professional, but it rarely rises to the occasion and gives us very few true chills or scares. The two young actors are excellent and carry the film through all its rough patches with a shocking amount of ease considering their ages. Ethan Hawke has a few effective moments, but he's not as threatening as the film calls for him to be leaving a lot of the suspenseful moments. The character of the children's abusive father cuts a much more imposing figure and, yet, the filmmakers treat that character in an almost offensively thoughtless way. It could serve as a decent into to the genre for younger viewers, but it never unsettles as much as it should.

A spoiled rich girl throws a pool party for her equally spoiled friends once her parents are away and they're killed one by one with a variety of sharp tools in between scenes of charmless, shrill complaining.

Pool Party Massacre is well made and well intentioned and is at least smart enough to not let its threadbare plot drag past the 80 minute mark, but the characters we're stuck with are some of the whiniest and most shrill people you'll ever spend time with. There's not a redeemable one in the bunch and you'll be twiddling your fingers, waiting for them to get killed.

If you're just in it for the nudity and gore, you're in luck, because Pool Party Massacre does supply more than its fair share of that.

Somehow, a film with both Diane Ladd and Olympia Dukakis as two insane post-menopausal crazies isn't as entertaining as you'd think. Ladd has a 19 year old son that she's keeping tucked away at the shop they run together while scalding college admissions people, threatening any of his potential girlfriends, and being generally unpleasant to anyone who tries to take her sweet baby away from her. Mother is sort of interesting for the first half hour before it loses the plot and goes off on one too many tangents before you forget what it was about in the first place. It also attempts to keep things a bit too classy when it should be swinging from the rafters. It ends up being frustrating instead of exciting.

Heather Locklear and Linda Purl both give it their all in this made for TV Single White Female rip-off which finds Locklears executive terrorized by Purl's devious secretary who wants more than her job - she wants her entire life. She steals her boyfriend, makes a copy of her house key, and starts killing anyone who gets in her way. It never reaches the right level of campy histrionics that makes movies like this memorable and entertaining, but it's fun enough to have on in the background.

A really entertaining proto-slasher with an all star cast that tells the story of a dying man who summons his daughters back home for Christmas when he thinks his new wife might be poisoning him. Someone in a yellow raincoat and carrying a pitchfork doesn't want that secret getting out and, one by one, the daughters are terrorized and murdered. Acting is better than most films like this thanks to the great cast and the rainy atmosphere helps a lot in keeping things creepy. The only downside is that, given its TV movie origins, it can't embrace the slasher aspects as much as if it had been a theatrical release so all the horror scenes are kept in PG territory.

If you're thinking of watching this movie, it's worth it just for the first major murder scene involving the infamous kidney heist urban legend. Unfortunately, it's downhill from there and the rest of the film might as well have been PG-13. Everything is mostly suggested, but since the story and characters aren't as gripping as they should be and the suspense isn't always properly built up, each death scene feels anti-climactic, especially after opening with such a bang. At least Loretta Devine returns to spice things up.

Some stories work better than others, but that's true of just about any anthology movies. The first story with Vic Morrow is tinged with sadness due to the tragic events of what went down on that set, so it's hard to even judge it at all since I have no idea what the original intentions of the story were before they had to scramble to retool it after Morrow's death. The second story is probably the most Spielberg thing Steven Spielberg has ever done and it's maybe a little too sweet and cute for what's essentially a horror film, but it's not badly made and it's endearing in its own way. The last two segments are easily the best of the bunch with some really powerful moments and images that stick with you.

An abnormally smart and classy ghost thriller from that time period. Great performances by Kate Hudson and Gena Rowlands, spooky New Orleans atmosphere, and some great twists, too. If it has any flaws, it's that it's never really scary. Amusing and suspenseful, yes, but never really leap out of your seat or clutch your arm rest terrifying, but maybe it doesn't have to be since it at least presents us an interesting story and tells it well.

As remakes go, at least The Amityville Horror attempts to keep us awake unlike the original, which has always been one of the most overrated horror movies. Yes, most of the ways they do this are to employ loud noises, flash cuts, and ghosts appearing out of nowhere, but at least they try and some of the moments are built up to and are effective. The script doesn't allow very nuanced or interesting characters but both Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George give credible and realistic performances.

The script could use a lot of work, but if you're into production design porn, I can't thing of many film's better than Thirteen Ghosts to get your fix. The sets and special effects are all stellar, but the script is messy and many of the characters are hard to connect to, especially Matthew Lillard's shrill ghost hunter who's already chipping away at the audience's nerves within the first minute he's on screen.

Cursed is terrible and there's no getting around that, but the cast is game and never waver from being right on the mark, helping to balance the film's odd tone. The effects (depending on which version you see) are strong and the pacing seems much more sure of itself than the script does, never allowing the audience a chance to get bored or overthink something that shouldn't be overthought.

Wes Craven creates a dark fairy tale with his take on race relations and religious extremism. Some of the humor doesn't always work with the raw horror on display, but Wendie Robie and Everett McGill make for memorable unhinged movie wackos and retain their threatening presence throughout.

Female friendships are front and center in Wes Craven's Deadly Blessing and that's a blessing indeed. The main trio of strong women are what keep this movie's feet on the ground whenever a silly plot development threatens to derail it. Snakes slither into bathtubs, demons leap from the floorboards, and corpses swing from the rafters of barns all in the name of good fun. You can see Craven starting to prove himself as one of the horror masters here with some great scares.

One of the most interesting terror films to follow after Psycho. In it, two teenage girls spend all evening prank calling people saying "I know who you are and I saw what you did", but they get more than they bargained for when they ring up a man who's just murdered his wife. Joan Crawford stars as the killer's boozy neighbor who has her sights on him as a potential mate and she hams it up with campy relish. I Saw What You Did is smarter and has more suspense than you might expect.

If they were giving out prizes for most rushed and ridiculous sequel, I can't imagine this film wouldn't win first place. It takes the two survivors of the last film and drops them into a labyrinth of thunderstorms, plot holes, and gory murders as the killer from the first film has found a way to lure them all onto a private island to dispatch them one by one. You'd think he could find a more cost effective way to get the job done.

Excellent darkly comic Frankenstein story about a grieving man who tries to reassemble his lover with parts from murdered prostitutes. It's wacky in that way that's pure Frank Henenlotter. His movies all have a similar fun, jovial tone that keeps them from getting too sleazy and he almost always leaves you smiling at the end. Frankenhooker is no exception.

The French really know how to deliver the goods when it comes to horror. Inside is no exception and it features a pregnant woman ready to burst at any second being chased around by a demented woman who wants to kill her and steal her baby during the Christmas season. It's a lot to take in, but Inside takes tons of risks and most of them pay off. It's a hard movie to forget.

A nasty and gritty slasher film that looks like it was shot during a weekend with some college friends. In some ways, that's part of its charm, but the film falters whenever it's not focusing on the killing since none of the actors are very good at selling the dialogue. The ending is memorably depressing and cruel.

Kelly Curtis gets a chance to follow in her mother and sister's scream queen shoes as she plays a teacher who gets stalked by members of a cult who want her to have Satan's baby. It might sound like Rosemary's Baby, but I promise you the execution is about as different as you can get. It's much more dreamlike and surreal and some of the imagery in the film is excellent and haunting.

There are a few shades of Diabolique in Nightkill and Jaclyn Smith is pretty good in the lead role. Don't be mislead by the more slasher-esque poster art. This has more in common with Hitchcock than My Bloody Valentine.

Unlike most anthology films which follow the tongue in cheek EC Comics approach, From A Whisper To A Scream dares to go dark and bleak with the material and it's an unforgettable experience for it. Yes, there are several "just desserts" twists at the end of some of these stories that feel right out of the pages of Tales From the Crypt, but its tone feels different and more serious as if it's EC Comics as filtered through Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It has a hell of a great cast, too.

As with most prequels, you ask yourself at the end "why bother?" After all, we know no one will beat the Sawyer clan. There's a depressing sense of inevitability that leaves a bad taste in my mouth with this film. You know it's not going to end well for any of these fairly pleasant kids and I had to keep asking myself why I was watching this. I'm all for a downer horror film, but this movie doesn't give anyone a fighting chance and it just feels needlessly cruel and mean.

A schizo slasher if I ever saw one. What starts out as a normal teen body count movie ends up as some sort of wacky action movie with a shootout in the woods. Not a lot of gore and the acting is pretty dire, but the unpredictability of the story keeps things interesting and watchable.