A self-centered, attention-seeking podcaster is abducted by a demented psychopath determined to recreate an encounter from his past in Tusk. Wallace Bryton (Justin Long) is the star of a recently successful podcast along with his partner, Teddy Craft (Haley Joel Osment). The two are notorious for their offbeat, often offensive “comedic” style, usually achieved at the expense […]
A small entourage joins a determined explorer in her latest adventure below the streets of Paris in As Above/So Below. A young Lara Croft-like adventurer, Scarlett (Perdita Weeks), has spent years in search of the elusive Philosopher’s Stone — a chemical substance that can turn lead into gold and bestow eternal life on its owner. […]
Four hapless citizens try to survive a single night of government-sanctioned lawlessness in The Purge: Anarchy. In the near future, the weight of a growing population threatens the stability of the United States and its capacity to provide services to its citizens. In response, its leaders approved an annual 12-hour period of complete mayhem where anything goes, […]
Possessed individuals and their exorcisms resurface every now and then in the horror genre. For many reasons, nothing tops The Exorcist for me. It was so expertly done — even for its time — that it tapped into the primal fear of evil and added simple special effects for a chilling experience that has not been matched […]
A vampire, disillusioned by the monotony of an endless existence, finds solace in the arms of his estranged partner in Only Lovers Left Alive. To live forever. It’s a universal dream of nearly every human to have walked the Earth. Vampires, by virtue of their undead immortality, no longer need to concern themselves with such […]
An alien from unknown origins uses an attractive human form to lure prey to their death in Under the Skin. There seems little doubt, at least in Hollywood, that if aliens ever did inhabit our planet, their ulterior motives would be anything but pleasant for the human race. Scarlett Johansson stars as an unnamed alien […]
Two siblings, scarred by strange circumstances that resulted in the death of their parents years earlier, return to the scene of the crime in Oculus. A decade ago, Kaylie Russell (Karen Gillan) and Tim Russell (Brenton Thwaites) endured the wrath of their increasingly unstable and dangerous parents (Katee Sackhoff and Rory Cochrane). One fateful evening, both […]
If you keep an eye out for viral videos, you probably saw the “devil baby” video that made the rounds this past week. It was a clever and hilarious promotional prank for the new film Devil’s Due. They put an animatronic baby that looks possessed or demonic in a remote-controlled carriage and rolled it around […]
The only thing worse than a found-footage movie is a sequel to a found-footage movie that strays from the formula that defined the others. It didn’t work with Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, and it certainly fails with Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones. For better or worse, the previous four films in this series […]
Remakes of classic films are usually not worth the price of admission. I am constantly annoyed about how rampant unoriginality is in Hollywood. Why create something new and exciting when there are decades of movies to remake or reinterpret? That attitude has produced a litany of bad remakes. Carrie does not quite qualify as that […]
A shy teen struggles with callous classmates and an overprotective mother until she taps into a unique — but dangerous — ability in Carrie. This is a remake of the classic 1976 horror film based on Stephen King‘s best-selling book of the same name. The story centers on social misfit Carrie White (Chloë Grace Moretz), who […]
About halfway through watching Insidious: Chapter 2, I realized exactly how to think about this subgenre of horror movies. This sequel, the original Insidious, the recent The Conjuring and so many others are really the film equivalent of a walkthrough haunted house that you might visit around Halloween in sites across the country, including transformed amusement […]