leebutler Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Smile (2022) – It’s Smile Time!

Released: 29th September
Seen: 16th November

2022 is turning out to be a fantastic year for horror, every month just seems to have another great horror flick for fans of the genre to enjoy. Not only has Horror as a genre been doing great, but the kind of horror that’s striking it big is so varied. Films like Terrifier 2, Barbarian, Scream, Hellraiser, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Nope and X are just a handful of horror titles that’ve come out this year and turned this into one of those years that horror fans will mark as a turning point for the genre. Smile is just another film to throw on the pile that we will point to in years to come when proclaiming 2022 to be one of the best years for horror in quite a long time.

Also, time to issue a content warning, this film deals heavily with ideas of suicide and mental illness and those will need to be discussed so consider this your trigger warning.

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leebutler Drama, Horror, Mystery

Grimcutty (2022) – Meme To Death

Released: 10th October
Seen: 2nd November

Grimcutty Info

One of the wild things about horror films is how quickly they can jump on something new and find the terror in it, take the mundane and make it into the malicious. Recent years have shown a lot of ways this can be done, from something as simple as an app being turned into an instrument of foretold death in Countdown to a pair of jeans turning into sentient killers in Slaxx and even if the films aren’t great, they can at least be interesting on some level… and then there’s Grimcutty, a film that takes the concept of a killer meme and turns it into boring sludge that isn’t interesting even if you squint.

Oh, and trigger warning for discussions of suicide because that’s a major theme of this film and it’s impossible not to talk about it on some level.

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leebutler Drama, Horror, Music, Review

Torn Hearts (2022) – Whatever Happened To Peg Bundy?

Released: 8th September
Seen: 2nd November

Torn Hearts Info

In 1962, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis starred in the surprising late career hit What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? which was a touchstone in both of their careers and also inadvertently created a new subgenre known as Hagsploitation, or Grande Dame Guignol. The genre itself revolved around older female actresses playing characters who used to be glamorous stars but have turned into mentally unstable recluses who occasionally do a little bit of murder.

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leebutler Horror, Review

Terrifier 2 (2022) – Did Somebody Mention Art?

Released: 13th October
Seen: 31st October

Terrifier 2 Info

For a little over a decade now, the character Art The Clown has been slowly building his reputation as one of the modern horror icons. He started small as a side character in a set of short films before getting to dive into feature-length fare with the anthology film All Hallows Eve in 2013 where people really started to notice this strange clown. Art was getting noticed by people and so the creator of this creepy clown, Damien Leone, decided to take his creation and give him a film all of his own.

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leebutler Horror, Review, Thriller

Halloween Ends (2022) – One Last Scare

Released: 13th October
Seen: 12th October

In 1978, John Carpenter changed the world of horror films and indeed cinema as a whole when he released Halloween. A simple but intense slasher film, Carpenter’s film was not only a technological triumph, thanks to its use of what would become known as the Steadicam shot, but one of the most tension-filled horror films to ever exist. Naturally, it spawned sequels, some good and some god-awful before eventually being revitalised in 2018 with another film called Halloween that asked the simple question “What would Laurie be like in the aftermath of such a traumatic night” and it was a genuinely great re-entry to the franchise. 

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