Category: Horror

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 27th October
Seen: 30th October

Horror is seemingly going through somewhat of a resurgence lately. A lot of people who are huge fans of the genre will agree that 2022 was something of a landmark year for horror, something I would agree with as the majority of my best of 2022 list consisted of entries in the Horror genre. 2023 might not have been up to that level in terms of consistency but when this year releases a great horror movie, it’s an absolute masterpiece. Obvious huge monster hits have been things like Talk To Me, Cocaine Bear, or Evil Dead Rise which have shown that this is an era of some truly amazing horror films and there’s probably a bunch more that are due out any day now that’ll be on any list of great horror films from this year but a recent release may have forced its way to the top of that list through sheer force of will… that film is When Evil Lurks and god damn, it’s an all-timer.

Over on Soda & Telepaths I reviewed another Fantastic Fest film called Bark, a 2 person thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat and hugging your pampered pooch as tightly as possible

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 6th October
Seen: 12th October

The V/H/S franchise is quite possibly one of the most fascinating series to be a part of the horror genre. Each film follows a very simple but effective structure, five short films all tied together by the gimmick of being found footage from a VHS recorder that has a larger overarching film showing between them. This has turned the franchise into a breeding ground for future major directors in the horror/sci-fi genre, some alumni of the franchise include Ti West (X, Pearl), Radio Silence (Scream, Scream 6), David Bruckner (Hellraiser) and Adam Wingard (Godzilla vs Kong) among a slew of others who have all made their mark on the genre. All of them connected through this strange little horror series using an old technology as the linking force. Now on its sixth film, V/H/S turns to a decade that was almost defined by the rise of the VHS tape and sees what horror it can find there.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 5th October
Seen: 12th October

It’s pretty much impossible to deny the impact of The Exorcist. The classic 1973 shocker is a touchstone of the horror genre, the stories of people fainting and running out of the cinema are the stuff of legends and it is an absolute constant on any ‘Scariest Movies of All Time’ list, to the point that not having it on your list makes the list invalid. With its incredible visuals, revolutionary scares, and Oscar-nominated performances, The Exorcist is one of those all-time classics that everyone can agree earns a special place not only in the Horror genre but in the history of cinema itself. It also should probably have never been turned into a franchise.

Over on the new Soda and Telepaths I went and wrote a little review about a new Shudder release called The Puppetman, which felt a lot like a Nightmare on Elm Street with Freddy forcibly removed which is certainly an interesting creative choice if nothing else