Author: JP Nunez


  • Sleep Skillfully Skirts the Line Between Supernatural and Psychological

    Sleep has been on my radar for quite a while. I first got wind of it in the spring when a PR company sent me a list of their upcoming films for the next several months, and it sounded like it would be right up my alley. Iโ€™ve been keeping an eye out for this…

  • Fantastic Fest 2024: Ghost Killer Masterfully Blends Comedy, Fantasy, and Action

    I have to be honest, I initially wasnโ€™t planning on watching Ghost Killer. In fact, up until just a couple of days ago, the film wasnโ€™t even on my radar. There are so many great movies at Fantastic Fest that some inevitably have to fall by the wayside, and this was slated to be one…

  • Fantastic Fest 2024: The Birthday Finally Comes to Light 20 Years Later

    Itโ€™s not often that movies play at the same festival twice, but somehow, The Birthday has managed to do just that. The film had its first festival run about 20 years ago, and it even played at the inaugural Fantastic Fest back in 2005, but it quickly faded into oblivion. Thankfully though, a bootleg version…

  • Fantastic Fest 2024: The Draft! Takes Meta Horror to a Whole New Extreme

    Iโ€™m a big fan of meta-horror. Whether itโ€™s classics like Wes Cravenโ€™s New Nightmare and Scream or more modern gems like The Cabin in the Woods and The Final Girls, I love horror movies that comment on the genre itself. So naturally, when I heard that the Indonesian flick The Draft! was a meta-horror comedy…

  • Never Let Go Puts Family Bonds to the Test

    If youโ€™re a hardcore horror fan, you know the name Alexandre Aja. Sure, not all of his movies are bangers (Iโ€™m looking at you, The Hills Have Eyes remake), but heโ€™s definitely made a name for himself in the genre. I especially enjoy his 2019 animal-attack film Crawl, so when I heard he was back…

  • The Shade Follows a Young Man Plagued by Tragedy and Trauma

    Iโ€™ve had my eye on The Shade for a while. I first heard about this film a few months ago when I saw the trailer, and I thought it looked pretty interesting. I immediately put it on my to-watch list (yes, I keep an actual list), so you can imagine my excitement when I received…

  • The Substance Gruesomely Roasts Impossible Beauty Standards

    Hype is a dangerous thing. It can ruin even the best of movies, so when The Substance started garnering rave reviews, I tried my best to remain cautiously optimistic. But Iโ€™m not going to lie, it wasnโ€™t easy. This is being hailed as one of the best horror films of the year, and one critic…

  • The Deserving Turns a Familiar Horror Template on Its Head

    As a hardcore horror fan, I watch a lot of innocent people get tortured, tormented, and killed by everything from otherworldly monsters to little old ladies. Thatโ€™s just how the genre typically works, but every once in a while, a film like The Deserving flips the script on us. This time, the killer is the…

  • Speak No Evil Is the James McAvoy Show…And I Love It

    At first blush, I might not seem like the best guy to review the Speak No Evil remake. I wasnโ€™t a big fan of the 2022 Danish original, so I initially had zero interest in this new American version. I started to come around when the early reactions and reviews came out. Not only did…

  • Voice of Shadows Goes to Hell and Back in an Old Woman’s House

    In real life, Iโ€™m not a fan of cults or evil entities, but if you give me a movie about either of those things, Iโ€™ll happily eat it up. And if a film includes both of them, Iโ€™ll be chomping at the bit to see it, so when I first heard about Voice of Shadows,…