REVIEW: I Trapped the Devil [2019]

Something feels wrong. Tragedy struck some time ago and we honestly don’t need to know the details to understand how it’s affected the three characters we’re about to meet. Steve (Scott Poythress) is the one who’s hurting from it and has been ever since. Maybe his brother Matt (AJ Bowen) thought space was needed for him to heal or maybe he was just too unsure about what he could do to help alleviate his pain and/or scared about what doing so entailed, but it’s been awhile since they’ve last seen…

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REVIEW: Rottentail [2019]

I don’t want to change! I’m a proponent for fun comic book adaptations that don’t adhere to the Christopher Nolan school of brooding drama that’s more or less taken over the genre, but I’d hope the goal would be smart wit rather than dumb idiocy. That doesn’t mean I necessarily begrudge the sort who seek out fare such as Brian Skiba‘s Rottentail or its source material from Kurt Belcher, David C. Hayes, and Kevin Moyers. Some just like cheesy over-the-top one-liners that were definitely written before the scenes trying too…

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REVIEW: The Curse of La Llorona [2019]

She’s already here. When Warner Bros. decided to capitalize on the box office and critical success of James Wan‘s The Conjuring by crafting an extended universe of creepy spirits with a feature length tale born from that film’s prologue, the results were not great. Annabelle felt rushed at best and retrofitted at worst—a generic horror injected with a popular character for no reason other than selling tickets. If not for Wan going back to the well for The Conjuring 2 to remind audiences of the potential this franchise possessed, the…

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REVIEW: Le notti del terrore [Burial Ground] [1981]

It’s a walking corpse! The earth trembles and graves open just like Ragno Nero (Black Spider) foretold when talking about a non-descript “they” joining the living as messengers of death. A professor (Raimondo Barbieri) catalyzes this event when an underground discovery releases a horde of zombies onto him and the three couples he had already invited to share his findings. They don’t know where he’s gone upon arriving so they capitalize on his absence with a night of sex to supply director Andrea Bianchi‘s audience with some nudity and half-hearted…

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REVIEW: Pet Sematary [2019]

I just wanted to be a family again. Remakes are often thankless jobs because you’re stuck trying to live up to or best your predecessor while also creating something wholly different. Most attempts based on literary works are able to fall back on the clichéd notion of “returning to the source” as though the first adaptation was inexcusably unfaithful. But when you’re following a script written by the novel’s author, that excuse holds zero weight. So Jeff Buhler (Matt Greenberg‘s draft was apparently changed enough to downgrade his credit to…

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REVIEW: Pet Sematary [1989]

It’s a place where the dead speak. Death is never an easy subject to broach for children or adults. The latter have their beliefs and experiences with it and thus work towards either protecting the former from thinking about mortality too early or ensuring it so they can be prepared. Some don’t have a choice, though, since death always finds us in the end. It could be the demise of a beloved pet or the traumatic circumstances surrounding a loved one suffering at the hands of disease. Do you choose…

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REVIEW: Us [2019]

We’re Americans. If you’ve never questioned whether you’re a good person, chances are you’re not. That second-guessing of our actions and motivations is what makes us human—fallible creatures striving to be better and do right. Nobody wants to believe he/she is the villain in another’s story, so we generally find a way to learn and change upon discovering when we are. Some, however, don’t. Some discover the spoils of greed, lust, vanity, and the other seven deadly sins as too great to abandon. They spin a new yarn of self-sufficiency…

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REVIEW: The Howling [1981]

Well he didn’t get up and walk out on his own. With the amount of 1980s horror films that go all-in on the blood and gore from frame one, the few that don’t can’t help but standout. What’s funny is that the latter were the types I disliked as a kid. I remember watching Joe Dante‘s The Howling decades ago on television and thinking it was too boring to ever want to watch again. We don’t even get to see a werewolf—the supernatural entity we’re promised—until two-thirds of the runtime…

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REVIEW: The Wind [2019]

How did she get my gun? A suicide. A stillborn baby. A woman holding the latter as she leaves the former to show her husband and the now widower father the results of the harrowing night thus far kept off-screen. We hear the wind blowing as the camera pushes in towards Lizzy Macklin’s (Caitlin Gerard) haunted face in silent shock. Only after she washes the blood from her body and sees Isaac (Ashley Zukerman) place her rifle against the table does she speak and only after mother and child are…

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REVIEW: Climax [2018]

Anything. What would you do for the chance to work with the illustrious choreographer Selva (Sofia Boutella) and her DJ Daddy (Kiddy Smile)? According to the group of young dancers they interviewed: “Anything.” Some are coy when asking for context to the question with a smile and others are quick to pretty much say they’d kill a person if asked. So off they all go to a remote school during winter to rehearse a routine with which they plan to set New York and London stages ablaze. And with an…

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REVIEW: Starfish [2019]

Maybe I’m dead. The logline deals in grief—the loss of a best friend. It describes Aubrey (Virginia Gardner), a woman lost in thought, pain, and sorrow after the death of Grace (Christina Masterson). She wasn’t there for her in her time of need and that regret is eating away her resolve and perhaps even her sanity once she’s awoken from a nightmare to find herself in the middle of a wintery wasteland. The dream wasn’t of Grace, however, but an unknown man (Eric Beecroft) crying inconsolably despite having no face…

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