CHERNOBYL DIARIES returns to many of the tropes that have made co-writer/co-producer Oren Peli famous for an exceptionally effective kind of low-budget, high-terror flicks. Unfortunately, this one isnt quite the creep fest that his PARANORMAL ACTIVITY suite was and is. While those films, particularly the first, retain a freshness that keeps the creepiness going at… Read More »
AWAKENING, THE
THE AWAKENING is a superbly crafted film, and for films of this ilk, execution is everything. The ilk is a horror story, the premise is an investigator (Rebecca Hall) determined to debunk fake mediums and ersatz hauntings. Its 1921 and London, like so many other places that have survived both World War I and the… Read More »
SINISTER
SINISTER has the all too rare virtue of being a horror film with a fine gloss of originality and genuine surprise to it. Rather than going for the usual assortment of jump-and-scare tactics, it broods atmospherically on the evil that humankind is capable of, and not necessarily the gruesome acts of violence on which the… Read More »
TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN, PART 2, THE
The most persistent question about THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN 2 is why it is that the human character, the one adrift amid all the assorted vampires and werewolves, is the one who is the most engaging. That would be Charlie (Billy Burke), the father of the now undead Bella. In roughly 10 minutes of… Read More »
MAMA
MAMA is an imperfect horror film, but one that is highly effective in the moment. Stressing suspense over gore, it is blessed with an original story, elegant direction, a gifted cast, and a suitably unsettling subtext about the pleasures and perils of childhood. Specifically, the vulnerability of children negotiating an adult world that has fallen… Read More »
EVIL DEAD
The original version of THE EVIL DEAD was such a perfect little horror film. Written and directed by Sam Raimi in 1981, it simultaneously sent up the conventions of horror films while also unleashing the sort of nightmares that originate in the id, and then become progressively more terrifying as they percolate up to consciousness.… Read More »
WORLD WAR Z
Throughout the episodic and ultimately annoyingly unresolved WORLD WAR Z, we have the lovely face of Brad Pitt filling the screen. As U.N. investigator Gerry Lane, it is his story that leads us through another zombie apocalypse, starting with the odd happenings during his rush hour in Philadelphia, to his increasingly desperate globe-trotting in an… Read More »
INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 2
The fine people who bring us INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 2 are very serious about spoilers. While we in the reviewing press are almost always given an embargo date before which we are not supposed to post a formal review and/or any sort of critique in social media, before being allowed to attend the only press screening… Read More »
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY — THE MARKED ONES
And once again we return to the trough of a formerly terrific franchise in order to drain the dregs and make those last few bucks before the well finally runs completely dry. I speak of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES, the fifth installment of the series, and the one that connects to the original in… Read More »
DEVIL’S DUE
DEVILS DUE is a perfectly competent horror flick with a few nice twists scattered among its otherwise unremarkable storyline. The standard plot in not helped by the films indulgence in the latest horror-flick fad, pretending that the film has been cobbled together from bits and pieces of found footage. The films that started it all,… Read More »
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