Tag: Horror Flick

October Horrorshow: What We Become

If a viewer happens to be in the mood for something post-apocalyptic from the horror genre, a good zombie flick can be a fine way to go. But there are so many zombie flicks now that it’s hard to pick out something with enough originality to make it worth one’s while. Even good zombie flicks sometimes only offer token revisions to the subgenre’s many, many tropes. That’s why I enjoy it all the more when I come across something like What We Become. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: What We Become”

October Hammershow: The Mummy (1959)

Autumn is a time of cooler weather and football games, of trees transitioning into their winter hibernation, and rivers of blood flowing on screens all over the country. For this is October, a time when horror fans the world over celebrate the coming of Halloween. It is also time for the October Horrorshow. I’ve been doing this since 2009, making this the ninth year in a row the site has been dedicated to a month of horror film reviews. But in all that time, having reviewed over 200 horror flicks, I’ve never reviewed a movie from Hammer Film Productions. How in the world did that happen? In fact, I haven’t seen all that many Hammer films at all, much less for the Horrorshow. This month I’m going to fill in this unconscionable void in my horror film experience. I’m expecting it to be a worthwhile adventure. So, this year, welcome to the October Hammershow. Every day will feature a review of a Hammer film, plus some random horror flicks from other production companies scattered throughout. Continue reading “October Hammershow: The Mummy (1959)”

Shitty Movie Sundays: The Last Shark, aka Great White, aka L’ultimo squalo

Oh, Enzo G. Castellari, I’m so glad I found you. Shitty Movie Sundays has been further enlightened by your presence. Master of schlock, minister of exploitation, employer of flamethrowers, you can be counted among the progenitors of the mockbuster, those sad, cash grab excuses for films. It seems your only purpose as a filmmaker was to piggyback on the accomplishments of others, and prey upon an audience that didn’t realize what your producers were selling. Who would have thought that so many decades after your heyday, there would be people like me seeking out your films — not only to mock and deride, but to enjoy? Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: The Last Shark, aka Great White, aka L’ultimo squalo”

Shitty Movie Sundays: The Chilling

It’s time for some obscure horror! How obscure is The Chilling, the 1989 film from directing pair Deland Nuse and Jack A. Sunseri? This flick doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. I’m fairly certain it went straight to video, but IMDb doesn’t have it marked as such. But this flick is such high stinking cheese that I can’t see how it got a theatrical release. This is truly bottom feeding stuff. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: The Chilling”

October Horrorshow: Halloween: Resurrection

I don’t know what I’m going to do. This is the eighth year that I’ve done the October Horrorshow, and at the end of every year, on Halloween, I’ve reviewed one of the Halloween movies. But, with Halloween: Resurrection, I’ve run out. This is it — the last of the movies from the original franchise. I already reviewed the Rob Zombie remakes before the Horrorshow existed, so those are out, as well. There is a new flick in the works, but apparently it’s stuck in development hell and won’t be in the can before next year’s Horrorshow. Oh, man. My hands are shaking and my heart is beating fast. This feels exactly like when I graduated college and the rest of my life was staring me in the face. I can see far but there’s nothing but blackness at the end. I’m…lost. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Halloween: Resurrection”

October Horrorshow: Hush

A film doesn’t have to have a boatload of jump scares or shocking moments to be frightening. I’ve found that jump scares in particular, when overused, to be detrimental to the quality of a horror film. But Hush, the 2016 film co-written and directed by Mike Flanagan, and starring fellow co-writer Kate Siegel, does not rely on quick instances of surprise to juice up its fright with adrenaline. Rather, Flanagan and Siegel place their protagonist in a situation that is naturally horrifying, and use the tension that creates to settle a viewer into deep, feature-length unease. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Hush”

October Horrorshow: The Conjuring 2

The Conjuring, the 2013 horror film from director James Wan and screenwriters Chad and Carey Hayes, is among the most frightening horror films I’ve ever seen. It did such an effective job at giving me the heebies that I won’t watch it again for a while. Not because it’s too scary for me to handle, but because I don’t want to become so familiar with the movie that it’s no longer frightening. I want enough of the film to be lost to my memory over time that the next viewing will still catch me off guard. The Conjuring wasn’t a master class in filmmaking, but Wan and company showed that they could use some pretty well worn haunted house tropes and still scare the bejesus out of a viewer who has seen hundreds of horror films. This year’s sequel…not so much. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Conjuring 2″

October Horrorshow: Eight Legged Freaks

Sometimes horror films can be a downer. In preparing for this month of reviews, I watch a lot of horror. For every film that makes it to the Horrorshow, I probably watch two others that didn’t interest me enough to write about. That means I spend a lot of evenings listening to young women scream in terror, watching grievous bodily injury, and living in a state of general anxiety brought about by all that scary stuff on the screen. Sleep is no respite, as we tend to dream about things that are on our minds. It’s not uncommon for me to watch yet another gory horror film followed up by a night of dreaming about the zombie apocalypse or a demonic presence in my home. Good grief. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Eight Legged Freaks”