Apostle (2018)
This review contains minor spoilers. In this Netflix period drama, prodigal son and erstwhile missionary Thomas (Dan Stevens) returns home to find his father aging and addled, and his sister Jennifer kidnapped and secured on a mysterious (Welsh) island. The island is...
Halloween (2018) delivers the horror matriarchy we so desperately need
The first Halloween was a hard act to follow - as it's an almost perfect horror film - but follow many films did. To date the franchise includes seven sequels (a few of them, non-sequiturs at best) and two remakes. These nine efforts have been considerably less...
Slender Man (2018)
Four typical teen girls Hallie (Julia Goldani Telles), Wren (Joey King), Chloe (Jaz Sinclair), and Katie (Annalise Basso) find a website detailing the sketchy legend of Slender Man (Javier Botet) and instructions on how to summon him. Sounds like a good idea, right?...
The Uninvited (1944)
Ghost stories today aren't what they used to be, and as much as I enjoy gore and over-the-top carnage, there's something to be said for a quietly effective thriller. The Uninvited is not only a great little mystery that stands the test of time, it is notably the first...
“Ghoul” (2018)
The second Netflix Original from India (after the ambitious and thrilling Sacred Games), Ghoul is an effective short story given the perfect amount of runtime via a three-part installment. The series is set in a dystopian near future, where army loyalist Nida Rahim...
Terror Train (1980)
A winter night fraternity hazing goes awry, finding young Alana (Jamie Lee Curtis) unwittingly party to initiate Kenny's nervous breakdown (Derek MacKinnon). Flash forward a year later and Alana is still dating her jerk of a boyfriend Mo (Timothy Webber ), who appears...
Hold the Dark (2018)
Aging, morose naturalist Russell Core (Jeffrey Wright) is summoned to a remote Alaskan village a few days after a woman's young child is taken by wolves. The mother, Medora Sloane (Riley Keough) greets Core with long, whispered poetic soliloquies about her husband...
The Car (1977)
The Car is one of the more flagrant Jaws ripoffs (and everyone involved knew and owned this, at the time), although of course it takes place entirely in a land-locked, somewhere-out-West small town near a canyon. It might seem silly to think on all the...
Malevolent (2018)
Scottish siblings Angela and Jackson (Florence Pugh and Ben Lloyd-Hughes) helm a sophisticated ghost investigation scam operation to keep themselves afloat. Angela is a university student in Psychology half-assing her way through her studies, preferring to get...
The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Christine Daaé (Mary Philbin), an ingénue with the Paris Opera House, has recently advanced as understudy to prima donna Carlotta (Virginia Pearson). Her admirer Vicomte Raoul de Chagny (Norman Kerry) and his brother Comte Phillipe (John St. Polis) frequent the venue...
“Ghoul” (2018)
The second Netflix Original from India (after the ambitious and thrilling Sacred Games), Ghoul is an effective short story given the perfect amount of runtime via a three-part installment. The series is set in a dystopian near future, where army loyalist Nida Rahim...
Hereditary (2018) is damn scary, and some demon god is the least of it all
Note: this review contains spoilers. It's awfully hard to please me when it comes to demon-possession films. They are usually packed with so many standard scares that have thoroughly lost their charm: bone-cracking body distortions, ceiling-crawling monstrosities,...
TV Time! “Sharp Objects” (2018)
I'm going to come right out and say that I loved "Sharp Objects", based off Gillian Flynn's 2006 debut novel, despite considerable flaws. I've described the series in shorthand as "True Detective" Season 1 - for ladies. Both programs center around the boilerplate...
