The holiday is upon us and there are many more things to write about. More films that we hadn’t had a chance to cover, more horror themed music we neglected, and more of all sorts devilish Halloween themed fun. However, those of us who loved the horror world don’t have to quite celebrating after tonight.…
31 Days of Halloween
31 Days, Day 30: Tyger Tyger, Burning Bright, I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER, Alright?
Officer: What’s the prognosis, John? John: He’s dead, for sure. From the onset, John (Max Records from Where the Wild Things Are) presents as a young man of little affect. He seems completely unfazed by the presence of death and has a very even temperament. We soon find out that despite being a good kid…
31 Days, Day 29: Selena is One Scary Chica
Selena Kirby is not just your average 17 year old posting duck face pics on the Snapchat. I mean, she may do some of that, but she also has an Instagram page when she posts her adventures in makeup effects. I discovered her creepy photos on her’s mother’s Twitter feed. If you follow us on…
31 Days, Day 28: The Gang was Stuck at Home, So We Watched HOUSEBOUND
[Editor’s Note: This is our last Friday Frights piece, as Halloween is Monday. This column (originally conceived as Friday Fight, but called Friday Frights in honor of Halloween) will return after we take a week or two off to iron out the details, as I noted last week. This month we restricted all of our…
31 Days, Day 27: The Disturbing, the Demented, and the Depraved Takes on CANNIBAL Motherfucking HOLOCAUST
In the world of disturbing cinema, few films have the name value that Cannibal Holocaust carries. It’s not quite a household name, per se, but despite being a 1980s Italian exploitation horror film, it has broken out of its target niche to be something that runs at a far higher name recognition than you’d expect.…
31 Days, Day 26: Johnny Galecki Pukes Out an Adorable Pet Creature in THE MASTER CLEANSE at BHFF
Winner of Brooklyn Horror Film Fest’s “Best Effects” award, The Master Cleanse, has a star studded cast that includes Johnny Galecki, Anjelica Huston, Oliver Platt, Anna Friel, and Kyle Gallner. On top of the incredible effects and amazing cast, the film also has a great script, a fantastic sense of humor, and legitimately great cinematography.…
31 Days, Day 25: Castel’s THE PUPPET MAN Hits Brooklyn Horror Film Fest
Jacqueline Castel’s The Puppet Man harkens back to 80’s style slashers very much in the vein of John Carpenter. This is no accident. John Carpenter not only wrote the score to The Puppet Man, he also has a cameo as a cab driver in the 9 min short. Full of style and atmosphere, The film…
31 Days, Day 24: BHFF Catches Themselves a Mermaid
The Brooklyn Horror Film Festival was a few weeks ago, and I had the pleasure of reviewing this short film for the site. This is probably one of the best horror shorts that I have ever had the pleasure of viewing. The premise of The Man Who Caught a Mermaid surrounds a man with a…
31 Days, Day 23: MEMETIC Shows Us the End is Nigh
Ignorance is now a choice. We have lightning fast connection to all of human information with us at all times. It changes how we communicate and how we pass information. I still have one friend that will call me to identify an obscure Muppet or remember who played that part in what movie. But other…
31 Days, Day 22: Look! It’s Godzilla! He’s Back!
[Editor’s Note: Listen to Garrett and his cohost, Dan Scully, discuss Shin Godzilla on their podcast, I Like To Movie Movie.] A Kaiju version of In The Loop – something I never thought I’d see nor did I know I would enjoy so much. Shin Godzilla feels like a proper, modern take on the monster…
31 Days, Day 21: Dr. Caligari’s Neighborhood
[Editor’s Note: This column began this month but will continue in some form after our 31 Days celebration is over, though the exacts are be ironed out. Essentially, this is where we take a movie on Netflix, watch it, and argue or agree about what we think. I kinda stole the idea from Cinapse’s Two…
31 Days, Day 20: Why We Must Purge
The Purge movie series must continue. I get that they aren’t the best horror series in town. I get that they are filled with missed opportunities and lackluster beats. But the set-up for the Purge is too good to let lay fallow. Our culture needs The Purge like the people in the world of the…
31 Days, Day 19: WE ARE THE FLESH at Brooklyn Horror Film Fest, This is Not Your Average Party
Where does the flesh end and the soul begin? Is The Self an extension of the body, or an altogether separate entity? And what is left of The Self when it is untethered from the social and cultural context in which it is formed? These questions are the fuel that drives We are the Flesh,…
31 Days, Day 18: In Defense of JASON X
“This sucks on so many levels.” Where do you go after the 9th chapter of a franchise, the second chapter to be named the “Final” chapter in said franchise, completely undermines that franchise by attempting to explain what should have remained inexplainable? Especially after sending your main character to Hell (presumably – this never actually…
31 Days, Day 17: mc chris is Dreaming During This New Music Monday
In the midst of our 31 Days of Halloween celebration, I’d be remiss to leave out the brand new album from mc chris, mc chris is Dreaming. The album dropped on 9/30 and is am homage to one of mc chris’s favorite film franchises, A Nightmare on Elm Street. With standard nerd tracks and some…
31 Days, Day 16: Corey Feldman is Johnny Splatter
While watching bad movies there’s often a point where I’ll wonder whether or not this is the worst thing I’ve ever seen. For Splatter that moment came about 20 minutes into it. Now, granted, the entire short is a mere half hour long, but it’s not like I was on the fence prior to that.…
31 Days, Day 15: Celebrating Half Way to Halloween with THE HORRIBLE DR. HITCHCOCK
The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock is, to modern eyes, a subtle Italian gothic horror. Released in 1962, it riffs on some taboo themes without ever highlighting them to their full squeamish grandeur. Bernard Hitchcock (Robert Flemyng) is a doctor of some repute. He lives in a cavernous mansion with his wife, housekeeper, and cat. It’s something…
31 Days, Day 14: The Gang Goes Gore Crazy with BASKIN on Friday Frights
This week on Friday Frights (aka Friday Fight), we’re taking a tour through the bowels of hell with Baskinl a harrowing Turkish export and debut film from one Can Evranol. Baskin is mean, violent, and surreal. It provokes a strong reaction. After opening on an unnerving dream sequence, the film follows a group of five…
31 Days, Day 13: Luke Ventures into THE BEYOND
Eyeball stuff gets me every time. Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond features no less than three cases of eye gouging. It features a couple face meltings, dog attacks, and a scene involving a pack of flesh eating spiders literally tearing a man’s face apart. The Beyond needs to be seen to be believed. There isn’t much…
31 Days, Day 12: WYTCHES by Snyder and Jock is a Must Read
I was fortunate enough to spend some of the weekend up at New York Comic Con. When approaching many of the booths, vendors would ask “What are you into?”. I’d usually respond “Capes, Horror…”; that’s as far as I’d ever get before the vendor would say “Have you read Wytches?”. I had not and this…
31 Days, Day 11: Garrett Writes a PUFF Piece, a Festival Wrap Up
This past weekend marked the very first Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival and I had the privilege of getting to see every show for the site. The festival was organized and directed by Madeleine Koestner and Alex Gardner who clearly put a lot of care into curating the programming, as I walked away with a few…
31 Days, Day 10: PUFF 16’s Best of the Fest… Part Deux
The closing film of PUFF, and with good reason. “Your brother has a black belt in Cirque du Soleil too!?” I may have spoken too soon when dubbing We Go On the best of the fest a few hours ago. I was admittedly nodding in and out of Karate Kill as it screened last night,…
31 Days, Day 10: PUFF 16’s Best of the Fest… Part One
Screened at PUFF along with another very cool short film called Mindless, which as far as I can tell has no web presence other than a handful of reviews and this IMDb page, which is a shame because it’s quite good. We Go On is the highlight of the feature films at PUFF this year…
31 Days, Day 9: Werewolves Are Played Out… So PUFF 16’s Got Werefrogs
Screened at PUFF with this great short called MUTE, which you can watch the trailer for right here. It’s hard to be overly critical about Bad Blood, as it’s a pretty successful schlocky monster movie. Your mileage here will vary depending on how on board your are for such a thing. For me, the characters…
31 Days, Day 9: SOMETHING STRANGE is Going on at PUFF 16
Screened at PUFF alongside the animated short It’s Not About Horses on Mars, which is about horses on Mars, and can be watched right now, right here. I stopped counting somewhere after 7 rapes, at least 4 of which were meant to make me laugh. I get what this movie is trying to do and…
31 Days, Day 8: An EGOMANIAC is on the Loose at PUFF 16
Screened at PUFF along with the (really excellent) animated short Sonder During End Times, which you can watch right here. I really enjoyed Egomaniac – it’s a great premise with an excellent cast made on a microbudget – exactly the kind of thing you go to a film festival like this for. The form here…
31 Days, Day 8: PUFF 16’s Whodunnit Slasher, DEAD BODY
Screened at along with the short film Fanny the Frugal Foodie, which you can watch right here. On paper, Dead Body should be killer (no pun!). It’s billed as Friday the 13th meets Clue! – a whoddunnit-murder-mystery-camp-slasher – this should be a no brainer. And unfortunately, it sort of is (pun!). The cast here is…
31 Days, Day 7: Week 1 of Friday Frights Takes on EVENT HORIZON
Every Friday this month, the team is going to take on a horror flick streaming on Netflix as a special October sub-series of Stream a Little Stream called “Friday Frights”. This week, we tackled a little 90s cult horror film called Event Horizon. This week was my selection, which I chose because somehow I’d never…
31 Days, Day 7: PUFF 16 Opens with Some SMALL TALK
Paired with a screening of CRSHN ON U (a 2-minute short described as a “a stylish EDM nightmare date” that you can watch right here) Small Talk marked the opening of the very first Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival, or PUFF. Small Talk is a decent little genre short in which a phone sex operator starts…
31 Days, Day 6: I Just Came for the Halloween Candy… Snickers & Hazelnut
It’s not hard to review a beloved candy bar. What is hard, is to review a beloved candy bar with a new twist! Lucky for me, most people know the joys of Nutella, and so Snickers & Hazelnut isn’t a strange leap for the Mars Company. You might think that this would taste like a…