Horror | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Luz [2019]

2019/07/062020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

You see a girl and reveal your true self. It’s been years since a demonic entity has seen the woman it loves—she who conjured it to the surface before being driven out from the place in which she did. Tonight was a chance reunion wherein familiarity was quickly replaced by violence before a yet-unseen escape sees both parties going their separate ways. The woman stumbles towards a virtually deserted police station while the force of evil seeks out someone else who might be able to help it confront her within…

REVIEW: Midsommar [2019]

2019/07/032020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

No higher and no hotter. It must have been one helluva break-up since no run-of-the-mill, mutual uncoupling could inspire someone to pull a complete reversal like writer/director Ari Aster did. He initially turned down an idea that some Swedish producers brought him to bring to life. He didn’t see the purpose in creating some random slasher set in their Scandinavian nation simply because they were offering the money to do so. Aster only circled back when the messiness of his relationship’s demise provided a reason to get some characters there…

REVIEW: Annabelle Comes Home [2019]

2019/06/262020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

Miss me? After an excitingly popular debut during The Conjuring‘s prologue, the creepily revamped Annabelle doll (its real-life counterpart was actually a Raggedy Anne) earned the title role in the first spin-off of this ever-growing horror universe. That installment left much to be desired with screenwriter Gary Dauberman eventually redeeming himself three years later on Annabelle: Creation thanks in part to director David F. Sandberg. You might assume this demonic vessel would then be left alone since its tragic trajectory had now been fully drawn from the home of its…

REVIEW: The Nun [2018]

2019/06/242020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

Mary points the way. There’s a scene in Corin Hardy‘s The Nun where a young postulant receives her vows inside an unholy abbey while the ashes of a dead sister smoke in the background and an unlikely alley loads a shotgun in the fore. It’s the type of moment that should conjure laughs via its absurd juxtaposition and yet anyone who follows The Conjuring franchise knows the inherent severity of its subject matter renders such comically ripe material unintentionally hilarious instead. That’s why so many of these movies find an…

REVIEW: Child’s Play [2019]

2019/06/202020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

Are we having fun now? It’s not everyday a remake gets produced of a currently running franchise, but that’s exactly what’s happened with Child’s Play. While original screenwriter Don Mancini continues to advance the escapades of his version’s murderous doll possessed by a serial killer’s soul (most recently in 2017’s Cult of Chucky with a television show on Syfy arriving in 2020) thanks to the help of Universal Pictures, MGM and United Artists decided to flex their legal retention of ownership in the property by branching off anew. After Mancini…

REVIEW: Hagazussa [2018]

2019/06/172020/03/27 Jared Mobarak

We don’t have to be afraid here. What creates a witch? An evil that takes hold of willing vessels yearning to do his/her demonic master’s bidding or a populace’s mass fear that turns mankind’s own evil against those who are different than them and therefore a threat to the status quo? If you’re a believer in the occult, some version of the former is probably at the forefront of your philosophies on supernatural powers in the real world. And if you aren’t, the latter’s perspective provides clarity as to the…

REVIEW: Child’s Play [1988]

2019/06/062021/07/10 Jared Mobarak

I’ll be your friend to the end. The rough cut of Tom Holland‘s Child’s Play was around two hours and test audiences weren’t happy. Almost forty minutes were excised (and boy can you tell) before the film saw the light of day and eventually earned an insanely devoted cult following that’s seen six sequels (so far) with original screenwriter Don Mancini taking up the reigns for the last three. As such, it’s wild to think how different his initial draft was. Mancini first imagined a conceit that involved the transference…

REVIEW: Blood Rage [1987]

2019/05/222020/03/27 Jared Mobarak

Here’s to the new family. Shot in 1983 but released in 1987 under a different name (Nightmare at Shadow Woods) and without most of its gore, the uncensored version of Blood Rage doesn’t even have its title intact. The word Slasher takes its place during a drive-in theater prologue instead—an apt name in its own right considering the murder weapon of choice is a machete wielded with a swing of the arm to inflict gashes into the faces of its victims. It ultimately doesn’t matter what you want to call…

REVIEW: Chopping Mall [1986]

2019/05/212020/03/27 Jared Mobarak

Absolutely nothing can go wrong. Only a 1980s horror could have a killer robot plot and intentionally gloss over artificial intelligence themes for lightning. Who wants a ton of exposition talking about hubristic irony when you can let Mother Nature provide a malfunction? Rather than show humanity as its own worst enemy flying too close to the sun, supernaturally sci-fi-inspired sentries wreak havoc with little more than a bolt of electricity flipping the switch that transforms these programmed protectors into autonomous predators. Now all you need is a few sex-crazed…

REVIEW: An American Werewolf in London [1981]

2019/05/182021/08/03 Jared Mobarak

Beware the moon, lads. It’s not hard to believe John Landis wrote his first draft of An American Werewolf in London at eighteen. The male gaze throughout is right in line with the comedies he would bring to life (The Kentucky Fried Movie and National Lampoon’s Animal House) to achieve the success necessary to secure a ten million dollar budget more than a decade later. By focusing on two co-eds crossing the Atlantic to backpack through the moors around his age while writing, he’d of course end up injecting a…

REVIEW: Velvet Buzzsaw [2019]

2019/05/102020/03/27 Jared Mobarak

All art is dangerous. The underlying idea of Dan Gilroy‘s art world horror Velvet Buzzsaw is an intriguing one because it forces us to realize how extensive the profiteering branch patterns of one single canvased tree of paint are. There’s the artist seeking notoriety, the gallery owner providing it, the consumers catching a glimpse at exhibits, the pocketbooks of buyers, the curators banking on ticket sales after hopping onto the bandwagon, and the critics supplying exposure in return for clicks. And that’s just the main offshoots which themselves possess more…