Category: Film
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My favorite horror concepts are always the ones that are right in your face, and writer-director Nick Verdi’s Sweet Relief is abundantly that. A slow roll of suburban moral panic, Verdi paints the Rockwellian portrait of a sleepy small town and fills it with uproar over a viral internet challenge. It’s a song we’ve all…
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I’m not going to lie and tell you that I’ve been anxiously looking forward to Tarot. Like every other horror fan, I thought this movie looked like the worst kind of generic genre drivel, so I went into it with just about the lowest expectations possible. In fact, I was basically dreading the experience, so…
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If there’s anything I know about Takeshi Kushida, it’s that he can craft a visually striking horror movie. Whatever side of the fence you fell on with Kushida’s debut feature, Woman of the Photographs, you can’t say it wasn’t a lavishly colored and beautifully shot debut feature. Kushida’s artistic prowess combined with a love/hate relationship…
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Typecasting is a terrible thing that happens far too often in the horror genre. Fans are often quick to embrace the idea of seeing their favorite “scream queens” or slasher icons return for new rounds of chaotic violence filled with one-liners, gore, and a possible final chapter to a beloved character’s storyline. As much as…
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By the end of Season 5 Episode 2 “Holy Cow” of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, ranch owner Brandon Fugal will boldly exclaim, “We are on the cusp of discovering the secret of Skinwalker Ranch.” How did we get here? Before we cover the experiment, yes singular, in “Holy Cow” I think it’s pertinent to…
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I’ve had my eye on Mind Body Spirit for a while now. I first heard about the film when it was making its festival run several months ago, and I thought both the premise and the trailer were pretty intriguing. I really wanted to check this movie out, so when I learned that I’d be…
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Dima Barch sits on a linen sofa. From the other end of my computer screen, I see his soft eyes, wide smile, and slightly tussled hair as I mess with the settings on Zoom, which has logged me out and won’t let me record. Barch is calm, patiently waiting for me to ask him about…
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We all go a little mad sometimes. That’s what Psycho’s Norman Bates says anyway. Sure, the original silver screen slasher had his problems and went on to kill a bunch of people after issuing the statement, but on this point, he was indisputably correct. There’s a fire in everyone, and if it’s not ventilated properly,…
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When someone says folk horror, I’m sure your mind goes to the same places mine does: Robert Eggers, Ari Aster, maybe some Ben Wheatley, and for sure Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man. These director’s films are the peak of folk storytelling. They offer the mystical, the natural, and the terror that all other films will…
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Monolith opens with a single enticing line spoken over a black screen, “I want to tell you a story.” Over the next moments, a narrative unfolds into lunacy. The screen pulls back to an extreme close-up of a microphone, then to a home office, in the same space where viewers will spend all but a…