Matt
I've been obsessed with horror movies since I was two years old and staring wide-eyed at all the hypnotic VHS covers at the local video store.
The Pope’s Exorcist, Scream VI, and Son of Frankenstein
THE POPE’S EXORCIST (2023) Taking a stab at the “based on real case files” scenario The Conjuring made popular ten years earlier, The Pope’s Exorcist delivers a “true” chapter out of Father Gabriel Amorth’s (Russell Crowe) book of paranormal activity.…
Antibirth, Doom Asylum, and Nightwish
DOOM ASYLUM (1988) Friday the 13th by way of John Waters, this garish—but quite funny—comedy-horror centers on young Kiki (future Frankenhooker Patty Mullens) and her quartet of cartoonish friends who take a day trip to an abandoned hospital where the…
The Blood-Spattered Bride, Don’t Torture a Duckling, and Nomads
NOMADS (1986) An interesting, if not fully successful, tale of a French anthropology professor (Pierce Brosnan) who passes his life force (I think) to a medical doctor (Lesley-Anne Down) right before he dies in an L.A. hospital. Soon after, the…
Cocaine Bear, Dead Silence, and A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
COCAINE BEAR (2023) Cocaine Bear is superbly silly hokum that works surprisingly well. In 1985, after a massive grizzly bear sticks its snout into a bag of raw cocaine (which fell out of an airplane during a failed drug swap),…
Edge of Sanity, Martin, and Pet Sematary Two
EDGE OF SANITY (1989) Before Anthony Hopkins was Hannibal Lector, Anthony Perkins was the modern face of evil thanks to his unforgettable turn as Norman Bates, and here he’s well-cast as a serial slasher in this colorful but garish variation…
Dead Ringer, Hostel III, and The Witches of Eastwick
DEAD RINGER (1964) Bette Davis fans will get a kick out of watching her play twins in this post-Baby Jane chiller, but everyone else will most likely be bored. Penniless spinster, Edith (Davis), finds out her lost love of 20…
The Dunwich Horror, Shriek of the Mutilated, and Silent Hill: Revelation
THE DUNWICH HORROR (1970) A colorful/psychedelic answer to Rosemary’s Baby, this adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft tale is light on plot but extremely well-made and fairly suspenseful. Naive college student, Nancy (Sandra Dee), is pulled into the sinister world of…
The Dead, The Girl with All the Gifts, and Greta
THE DEAD (2010) Inventive, Romeroesque, slow-walking-zombie tale about an American mercenary (Rob Freeman) who survives a plane crash in West Africa and, along with a local soldier (Prince David Osei), must battle hordes of the walking dead while trying to…
Knock at the Cabin and The Night Flier
KNOCK AT THE CABIN (2023) Not-really-horror horror from the increasingly unreliable M. Night Shyamalan, which promises spectacular, apocalyptic destruction but, sadly, never delivers the goods. While on a woodsy vacation, a small family is taken hostage by a quartet of…
Reviews: Blood, The Dentist, Housebound, and M3GAN
M3GAN (2023) Beware the 90-minute movie which has become culturally defined by a meaningless, split second character action. A hollow rip-off of Child’s Play and every other killer doll movie ever made, M3GAN is the first horror film of 2023,…