Horror
Saint Maud Is Wholly Terrifying: Review
This review was originally part of our coverage of the 2020 Beyond Film Festival. The Pitch: Maud (Morfydd Clark) does palliative care for a private healthcare facility and becomes the maid for Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), a former avant garde dancer and choreographer. Maud has found God following a traumatic event at work, hinted at through flashbacks and haunting visions, and has now taken a pious approach to work that borders on fanaticism. Faced with antagonism from Amanda, Maud slowly spirals more and more into religious fueled actions and experiences — talked to and touched by God — that will lead to a string of actions that have an irreversible impact and her and those around her. This Cast and Crew Are Doing the Lord’s Work: British writer and director Rose Glass boldly shows off her ch...
The Reckoning Is Neil Marshall’s Biggest Whiff Yet: Review
This review was originally part of our coverage of the 2020 Beyond Film Festival. The Pitch: It’s late 17th century England, and although the plague is no longer running as rampant as it once was, a new pandemic has taken over: witchcraft. The era of scapegoating women for anything and everything is prevalent and the main conflict in The Reckoning. Grace Haverstock’s husband has committed suicide, himself afflicted with the plague, and has left Grace and their newborn daughter to care for their small farm. When she falls behind on rent, her landlord attacks her and suggests she make payment with sexual favors. Grace spurns his advances. With his fragile male ego damaged, he accuses her of witchcraft, and Grace is put into bondage and undergoes a series of physical and psychological torture...
John Carpenter’s Lost Themes III Haunts With Urgency: Review
The Lowdown: Six years after returning to the synthesizer for 2015’s Lost Themes, the Master of Horror is back for more with its second sequel: Lost Themes III: Alive After Death. Once again, John Carpenter is working alongside his son Cody Carpenter and his godson Daniel Davies, a collaboration that’s only grown stronger with time. “We understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses, how to communicate without words, and the process is easier now than it was in the beginning,” Carpenter has stated in press releases leading up to its release, adding: “We’ve matured.” That growth is evident in all 10 tracks of his latest opus, and the tagline is thus: John Carpenter is back, and this time we’re ready. The Good: Synths and piano have forever been the easiest flexes for Carpenter. He didn’t ...
Ranking John Carpenter: Every Movie from Worst to Best
Dark streets, empty lawns, singing trees, and the nauseating pulse of synths — you’re watching a John Carpenter film. Chances are the Master of Horror was responsible for a few of your earliest childhood nightmares. He’s more or less the Ray Bradbury of filmmaking, an underrated visionary who can conjure up a brand of fear that’s both out of this world and within your reach. Six years after returning to the synthesizer for 2015’s Lost Themes, the Master of Horror is back for more with its second sequel: Lost Themes III: Alive After Death. Once again, Carpenter is working alongside his son Cody Carpenter and his godson Daniel Davies, a collaboration that’s only grown stronger with time. “We’ve matured,” Carpenter has confidently expressed. In celebration, we’ve resurrected this original bre...
Ben Wheatley’s In The Earth Is a Surprising De Facto Sequel to Annihilation: Review
This review is part of our Sundance 2021 coverage. The Pitch: In The Earth is Ben Wheatley’s welcome return to horror after last year’s Rebecca, his disappointing foray into Netflix-approved gothic romance. The film follows city dwelling scientist Dr Martin Lowery (Joel Fry) and intrepid park scout Alma (Ellora Torchia) as they set out on foot through the Arboreal Forest to investigate the welfare of his colleague Dr. Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires), who has been radio silent for months. After Martin injures his foot, the pair seek help from Zac (Reece Shearsmith), an enigmatic recluse who has been living illegally in the forest. It quickly becomes clear that not all is right and the pair lose their sense of time and become increasingly disoriented. A dangerous discovery reveals that their ...
Censor Is A Hallucinatory Look at the 1980s Video Nasty Phenomenon: Sundance 2021 Review
This review is part of our Sundance 2021 coverage. The Pitch: Enid Baines (Niamh Algar) is an uptight film censor with a tragic past. After becoming embroiled in a murder scandal that the press link to a violent horror film she edited, Enid becomes obsessed with Alice Lee (Sophia La Porta), an actress who bears a striking resemblance to her missing sister, Nina. Her pursuit of Alice leads Enid into the shadowy world of underground horror films and the company of questionable men like smarmy producer Doug Smart (Michael Smiley) and director Frederick North (Adrian Schiller). As Enid’s obsessive hunt for the truth intensifies, she begins to lose track of what is real and what is a movie as both her sanity and her life come under threat. Video Nasty: The most intriguing aspect of Censor is ho...
The Stand’s Owen Teague on Becoming Stephen King’s Most Complex Villain
Listen via Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Play | Radio Public | Stitcher | RSS Stephen King’sThe Stand continues on CBS All Access. This week, “The Walk” finds the apocalyptic opus nearing its end as the action moves away from Boulder, Colorado and onwards to Las Vegas, where Randall Flagg (Alexander Skarsgard) dwells. One of the many travelers hitting the road is Harold Lauder, portrayed by Owen Teague. Today, Teague joins The Losers’ Club to discuss how he became King’s most complex villain, his love for The Dark Tower multiverse, and whether he actually likes PayDays. Stream the full interview above and stay tuned for next week’s recap on “The Stand”. Founded in January 2017, The Losers’ Club is a weekly podcast fo...
What’s Streaming on HBO Max in February 2021
HBO Max is offering more than valentines in February. As promised, the streaming giant is delivering more Warner Bros. theatrical features as part of their same-day program. This month sees the release of the star-studded Judas and the Black Messiah and the live-action re-imagining of Tom & Jerry. Judas… is a biographical drama on the life of Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), the Illinois chairman of the Black Panther Party who was betrayed by William O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield). The film is set to premiere at this weekend’s Sundance Film Festival, and has already been named one of the 10 best films of 2020 by the National Board of Review. Elsewhere, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver returns for what should be a far less vitriolic season given the changing political climate, while Studio ...
The Entire Saw Series is Coming to HBO Max
Do you want to play a stream? Well, you’re in luck. Starting in February, all seven films in the legendary Saw series will land on HBO Max. The streaming service has confirmed that the cult-classic horror franchise is included in the massive list of titles that are arriving on the platform in just a few days. To be clear, that means an extended version of the 2004 flick that started it all, followed by Saw II (2005), Saw III (2006), Saw IV (2007), Saw V (2008), Saw VI (2009), and Saw: The Final Chapter (2010). If that weren’t exciting enough, all of the sequels will be the director’s cuts, so that means all of the blood, guts, and squirm-inducing scenes of torture that are fit for home viewing. The only Saw-related flick that won’t be on the ser...
The Night Is a Terrifying Twist on The Shining: Review
The Pitch: Driving home from a night out with friends, exhausted Iranian immigrants, Babak and Neda Naderi (Shahab Hosseini and Niousha Noor), decide to spend the night at a nearby hotel with their infant daughter Shebnam (Leah Oganyan). They quickly realize that there are dangerous secrets lurking within the walls of the mysterious building and the seemingly endless night soon spirals into reality bending terror as they find themselves trapped in a nightmarish hell of their own creation. The Night made headlines as the first US produced Iranian film to secure a theatrical license in Iran after the country’s 1979 revolution. Though set in LA’s landmark Hotel Normandie, this is an Iranian story told predominantly in Farsi and including Iranian Americans or Iranian Immigrants both in front o...
What’s Streaming on Shudder in February 2021
Shudder is showing a whole lotta love for Valentine’s Day. For February, AMC’s spooky streaming service has curated a twisted lineup of originals, classics, and premieres that will splash blood all over your box of chocolates. Building on their promise of 11 new originals/exclusives over 11 weeks, the next month will see premieres of A Nightmare Wakes, After Midnight, Shook, and one of last year’s most frightening films: The Dark and the Wicked. Of course, the real main event is spending a romantic night with Joe Bob Briggs. Shudder’s de facto mayor is back with a Valentine’s Day special that he’s dubbed Joe Bob Put a Spell on You, which more or less confirms some wild witchy content. Editors’ Picks Additions to the back catalogue are just as special, most notably Nicolas Cage’s cult...
50 Most Anticipated Movies of 2021
Anticipating movies these days is a fool’s errand. Unless it’s guaranteed to be hitting a streaming platform, the release date of any film should have an asterisk appended to it. That’s not cynical, but the nature of covering this industry amidst the pandemic. So, you could imagine how fun this list was to put together. (Spoiler: It wasn’t.) Dragging over last year’s offerings to this one seems like an easy task, but the shift opens the door for so many questions, all of which boil down to: “What are the odds?” For many features — you know, like Ghostbusters: Afterlife, or No Time to Die, or Halloween Kills, or any film without a streaming opt-in — the release date is as certain as we are about anything right now in life. “We’ll see” is the name of the game. Having said that, a few studios...
