The Deep House is a claustrophobic, otherworldly bit of throwback horror that welcomingly pivots away from modern, flattened genre sensibilities. Forget indie insufferability: it seems vogue…
Antlers is a competently made but shallow horror effort, slathered in trauma-heavy metaphor and a questionable abuse narrative. Writing about new horror movies can sometimes feel…
Next of Kin feels untethered from the Paranormal Activity franchise, an unscary film that resists both its found footage formula and any narrative cogency. Paranormal Activity: Next of…
Last Night in Soho is a seductive and sumptuous Giallo riff, but suffers from a final act that undermines much of the film’s early power.…
The Spine of Night is a grisly, singular work of nerdcore unorthodoxy that occasionally stumbles but manages to stay upright. The Spine of Night is a…
Roh trades only in tropes, and subverts any inherent eeriness with its heavy-handed application of mood. Emir Ezwan’s debut feature, Roh, is part of an emerging…
Snakehead foregrounds its lead actress to magnificent effective, offering a film far more singular than its generic setup suggests. Snakehead starts with a rather deceptively benign…
The Estate succeeds in delivering cult-ready laughs, but feels entirely superficial and neutered as satire. A designer-rags to even-more-riches fable from director James Kapner and writer/leading…
Halloween Kills is a smug bit of a ill-advised fan service with dull kills, sanctimonious plot beats, and little narrative progression. David Gordon Green’s 2018 take…
Broadcast Signal Intrusion is built on used parts, but Gentry executes his vision with queasy dread and necessary ambiguity. Working late nights transferring tapes of old…
The Blazing World is a disarmingly charmless and amateurish series of indie genre check-boxes that amounts to a whole lot of nothing. With horror films in…
Old Henry is about as dusty and unoriginal as westerns come. Writer-director Potsy Ponciroli’s Old Henry dares to go where nearly every Western in the history…
Coming Home in the Dark isn’t breaking new ground and its ending is a bit too tidy, but it’s a film that feels genuinely dangerous for…
None of Mayday’s ideas are bold, and it presents its revolutionary possibilities as nothing more than mere daydream. At the beginning of Karen Cinnore’s Mayday, Ana,…
Love Wolf boasts a bold formal idea that’s wielded to unfortunately perfunctory ends. Jonathan Ogilvie’s Lone Wolf, a political thriller told almost entirely through mock surveillance…
Copshop finds Joe Carnahan at the top of his game, with the requisite violence, humor, and plot intricacies to sell this brand of genre bombast. Thanks…
The Nowhere Inn smartly softens its meta conceit with some winking humor, but doesn’t interrogate any of its ideas or rise above mere brand management. Returning…
Prisoners of the Ghostland is neither Sono nor Cage’s finest work, but it’s a good enough fix for those in need of either’s madman energy. If…
Malignant isn’t a start-to-finish success, but its final 30 minutes solidify it as one of the wildest, weirdest horror films in some time. In interviews and…
TMBMZM oddly tilts toward authenticity rather than camp, to disappointing results. The Manson Brothers Midnight Zombie Massacre is a title that promises a lot. For…
Some pacing issues occasionally upset We Need to Do Something’s otherwise effective tone, but it remains a solid, low-ceiling genre exercise. We Need to Do…