// Category Archive for: Horror

Blu-Ray Review: We Are Still Here

By Less Lee Moore

The Sachettis have recently lost their only son Bobby to a car accident and move from the city into an old house in the middle of nowhere, hoping to be able to get past the pain. When the grieving mother Anne tries to explain to her husband Paul that the presence she feels in the house might be the ghost of their son, he scoffs at first, but agrees to let their psychic friends May and Jacob visit in an attempt to put Ann’s mind at ease. As it turns out, the presence in the house isn’t Bobby; it’s something much darker and more malevolent.

This plot seems like it would make for a fantastic movie. Unfortunately, We Are Still Here isn’t that movie. It’s painful to watch such a promising premise go so dreadfully awry.

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Movie Review: The Inhabitants

By Jeffery X Martin

After a year of being disappointed by movies about haunted houses, witches, and/or creepy kids, it’s refreshing to find a movie that combines all three of those things and does it the proper way: lean, mean, and well, scary. You know. Like a horror movie is supposed to be.

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Blu-Ray Review: The Walking Dead, Season Five

By Less Lee Moore

I think it’s safe to say that a lot of people are sick of zombies. And yet, The Walking Dead continues to be one of the most popular shows on television, even producing a spinoff (Fear The Walking Dead) that’s gotten some good buzz. There are those who might be tempted to just give up on the show—and zombies—altogether. Yet The Walking Dead remains one of the most compelling and innovative dramas on television.

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New Music for Halloween Parties

By Jeffery X Martin

Are you a discerning celebrator of Samhain, looking for some different music to terrify and delight your friends with at your next public ritual? Or perhaps, you’re just a happy Halloweener, looking for some bombtracks for the next party. No worries, Fellow Traveler… we’ve got you sussed.

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Retro Review: Pontypool

By Less Lee Moore

Let’s face it: with few exceptions, everyone is sick of zombies. That’s not to say that zombie movies and TV shows are dead in the water (with zombie sharks), but it does mean that artists are going to have to do better than the standard ripoffs of “I’m coming to get you, Barbara.”

Enter Tony Burgess and Bruce McDonald. Based on Tony Burgess’s book, Pontypool Changes Everything, the McDonald-directed film Pontypool—which screened at TIFF in 2008—is a breath of fresh air in a cemetery full of empty, stinking graves.

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Retro Review: Tony

By Less Lee Moore

If the name Gerard Johnson doesn’t ring any bells, it should. Perhaps you will recall a grubby, claustrophobic film from a few years back called Tony. (I can see you nodding at your computer as you read this blog post. But I swear I’m not creepy.)

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Blu-Ray Review: Contamination

By Jeffery X Martin

When I stated on Facebook that I was watching the 1980 Italian horror-fi movie, Contamination, I got heat from a couple of people.

“Why?”
“How come you’re watching that?”

And I thought, I’ve built a career out of watching horrible films and writing about them. There’s no reason why this should be a surprise.

Then it struck me: maybe there are people out there who don’t intentionally seek out and watch films they know aren’t great. Wow. That floors me. It leaves me wondering how to recommend Contamination, which is a gigantic piece of shit that I adored.

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Psychic Powers In Cinema: Four Faves

By Less Lee Moore

This is what we psychics refer to as an “axe drop.”

Filmmaker Joe Begos brought his updated (and superior) version of 1982’s Xtro to the Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness programme in 2013 with Almost Human. Now he’s back, along with Almost Human actor Graham Skipper and horror legend Larry Fessenden with The Mind’s Eye. You can read my review on Modern Horrors, but here’s a synopsis:

On a snowy back road in New England, police harass a drifter, only to be thrown through the air by an unseen force. Clearly, they’ve picked the wrong man to hassle. Taken into custody, the loner is identified as Zack, a man with a curse/blessing that makes him of particular interest to the seemingly sympathetic Dr. Slovak. Zack finds himself in Slovak’s institute alongside others with similar telekinetic abilities, but the doctor’s intentions are quickly found to be less helpful and more diabolical.

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Five Faves: Final Girls

By Less Lee Moore

The Final Girls (review) is a film about… what else? The hallowed halls of heroines in horror movies (how’s that for alliteration?) have many portraits hung on their walls. Here are a few fave Final Girls that you might not have yet considered, but who are still worthy women.

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DVD Review: A Plague So Pleasant

By Jeffery X Martin

Anyone with a decent camera phone and at least two acquaintances can make a zombie film. It’s that simple. Because of the simplicity of the basic set-up (don’t get eaten), we’ve gotten a lot of zombie flicks that are the same thing over and over. Eat that leg. Yank out those entrails. Cut off those zombie heads and for the love of all that’s profitable, don’t stray from the formula!

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