Author: Justin

The Disappointments Room’s title sets itself up for all sorts of jokes, but perhaps a greater disservice was done by the film’s trailer which sold this as your typical horror flick. It’s not. In truth, it’s not much of a horror film at all. Sure, it has the trappings to begin, and that’s not to say there aren’t some attempts at jump scares, but this is probably more accurately described as a psychological thriller, and not a very good one at that. Kate Beckinsale stars as Dana Barrow, an architect that has moved with her husband and son to one…

The Night of the Hunter was an odd film when it was released in 1955, and time hasn’t really brought it anymore into vogue. Sure, critics and film buffs adore it, but unlike other horror classics that slowly found critical and commercial approval over time—The Night of the Hunter still largely remains unknown to the masses. There are some good reasons for that, even if they’re missing one of the masterpieces of not just horror, but film in general. Robert Mitchum gives one of his most iconic performances as a criminal turned preacher (or is it the other way around?)…

Unfortunately, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later does not have quality equal to the length of its unwieldy title. The seventh film in the Halloween franchise serves as a soft reboot ignoring the three previous films (though, technically, it does not exclude them and originally included a scene directly including them). In this film’s world the original Halloween I and II occurred, and this picks up 20 years after that night. The big draw was that Jamie Lee Curtis returned to the franchise to reprise her Laurie Strode character from those two films, and to be blunt she’s far and away…

I’m a sucker for scary kids’ movies. I think all good kids’ stories are inherently a little bit scary. Contrary to what many parents may protest, I think kids genuinely want to be scared a little within the safe confines of a story. That being said, Goosebumps is just an okay scary story for the little ones. The basic premise is that R.L. Stine, author of the Goosebumps series, has a magical gift to bring his creations to life, but has been trapping them within the pages of his books. Now, however, they’ve broken out and are wreaking havoc in…

The first Scream works so well because, at its heart, it’s just a really solidly made slasher flick. For all the talk of its meta quality, it was really the follow-up, Scream 2, that truly plays with the conventions of the genre. The original Scream begins with Drew Barrymore’s character being taunted over the phone and it works exceptionally well. However, the only meta aspect to the scene is that unlike in most horror films, they actually acknowledge that other horror films, such as Friday the 13th, exist. By contrast, Scream 2 begins with characters attending a screening of Stab,…

For a show with a goofy title, Buffy was surprisingly sparse on the gimmick episode. Yes, everyone knows it kicked off the modern movement of every show having a musical episode, but that and “Hush”, which goes in the completely opposite direction as a silent episode, are about it. I’ve seen “Hush” easily over a dozen times now and what continues to resonate is the fact it’s about something. Like most good horror, it reaches beyond just scaring you to say something—in this case about communication and how the limitations of language often get in our way. Strip language away…

You could easily write a graduate thesis on why the original Halloween works so well. There’s no way I can tackle that in a few paragraphs. However, I have watched this film just about every year since I was a kid and every time I notice new little details and have new thoughts about it. For me, Halloween excels because of its simplicity. The key to that simplicity is that it flows throughout every element of the film—the dialogue, the plot, the music, the mythology, and even the effects. This isn’t A Nightmare on Elm Street with its fantastical dream…

Dylan Minnette has built quite the career for himself in recent years playing sullen teenagers in Don’t Breathe, 13 Reasons Why, Goosebumps, and others. He’s at it again here in The Open House, but his one note performance is more a problem here where everyone and everything is sullen and lifeless. In fact, this is the least exciting horror film I’ve seen in years. Dylan stars as Logan, and along with his mom Naomi they are really left to carry this film alone on their shoulders. Occasional other characters pop in, but almost as afterthoughts. The main focus of this…

The original Scream often gets credited with being the first post-modern horror film, even if that honor probably really belongs to Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. Scream 4 might be credited with being the first post-post-modern horror film, if anyone can ever figure out what that actually means. Once again series mainstays Sidney, Dewey, and Gale find themselves in the midst of a series of slashings perpetrated by a killer in a ghost mask. This time, however, they’re joined by a new generation of scream queens such as Alison Brie, Britt Robertson, Kristen Bell, Emma Roberts, and Hayden Panettiere. That cast…

What if you took eleven directors, threw them into a blender, and added just a dash of John Carpenter (and then poured in the rest of the bottle? You’d get Tales of Halloween—an anthology film in the grand tradition of Creepshow or Trick ‘r Treat. You know what else? You should watch those instead. I won’t bother with the plot but given the ten segments and the 90-minute running time, you can imagine these are fairly brief tales. Normally, that might seem an advantage. No one segment has to bare the workload like in a similar film that might feature…