Demon
“Demon” makes the best of spatial awareness – you can feel the breadth of space around the property, while also succumbing to the suffocating corridors of the interior shots – but there are too many creative hiccups to maintain this taut feeling of suspense.
The Boy
Don’t let the trailer fool you — there’s a lot more going on in this film than the typical and trite synopsis or interesting-yet-entirely-overplayed trailer would lead you to believe. It’s an effective vehicle for Cohan, who at this point is probably itching to stretch her legs beyond the stagnant confines of The Walking Dead.
The Forest
To be honest, I’d have a hard time even recommending this film to the strange awkwardly aged audience group that seem to harbor an inexplicable love for these lousy PG-13 horror films. It doesn’t succeed in anything it sets out to do, nor does it manage to even try in any way that can be considered creative or original.
The Visit
Old Man Take a Look at My Knife Review written by Robert D. Patrick Starring: Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould Homemade cookies and the warm, intense scents of cloves have been the tinder of horror stories since Hansel and Gretel. The unassuming guise of coziness hides a jack-o-lantern smile, and a venomous agenda. Here, writer/director M. Night Shyamalan drills into our subconscious fear of age, and the curious maladies that come with...
What We Do In The Shadows
In the Land of Blood and Funny Starring: Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi Review written by Robert D. Patrick Vampires, again? When drawing from an empty, moss-encased well, you would expect your rusty bucket to hit the sludge at the bottom. We’ve had empirically attractive, virile blood suckers. Well quaffed, Victorian vampires. Apathetic, vinyl hoarding shapeshifters. Grotesquely moribund trucker vampires with Jeff Reboulet...
Annabelle
Guise and Dolls Starring: Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton Review written by Robert D. Patrick Dummies, dolls, and plastic fortune tellers make up the axis of evil in the land of possessed inanimate objects. Their lifeless orb-like eyes, stare, without motive, as their frozen lips curl into a macabre smile. A perfect conduit for demons, to be sure, these facades hang out until they have the appropriate opportunity to scamper across a...
Byzantium
Vampires, Audiences Both Suckers Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Gemma Arterton Review written by Robert D. Patrick Vampires are rarely the gangly, spindly creatures of yesteryear. The cartography of the German vampire’s gaunt, drawn face has been replaced with coverall, pulpy gel and a propensity for pomp. And while teen literature is buzzing like a beetle on its back over the empirically salacious versions of the fanged and supernatural,...
Maniac
The Wood Son Starring: Elijah Wood, America Olivo Review written by Robert D. Patrick A windmill of knives and an assortment blood specked sheets, curled up like a python, is probably not what you would think of when someone mentions the mousy, cue ball eyed Elijah Wood. Franck Khalfoun’s fleshy remake of the 1980 slasher, Maniac, is a macabre, cuticle-snapping foray into the twisted psyche of a sociopath with serious mother issues....
World War Z
Call of Duty: Zombie Mode The Movie Starring: Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos Review written by Tom Bevis A lot of people said World War Z, Max Brooks’ sequel to The Zombie Survival Guide, couldn’t faithfully be adapted. In a lot of regards, they’re right. Not as a film, anyway – the spanning and erratic narrative, told as an oral history of a world-wide zombie epidemic spanning tens of years, is more suited for television than for...
Gut
Heart of Darkness Starring: Jason Vail, Nicholas Wilder Review written by Robert D. Patrick The claustrophobic trappings of an office job. A cubicle as big as a lion’s cage, containing the guttural roar of a desktop computer’s whirring fan. That’s the real horror, some may say. The dowdy, monochrome world of the everyman, where neckties become the frozen hand of a clock; swiveling chairs become ball turrets; and your...
