Robtober

It may be the first in the series (other than the original) to have a director and screenwriters with name recognition, but this is just another Halloween sequel, thankfully nothing less but certainly nothing more. It’s pretty boring.

Also, is there any greater talent in Hollywood who is as routinely wasted as Judy Greer is?

The director of The Raid putting his spin on The Wicker Man sure sounds like fun, and Apostle starts off with promise, with a wild-eyed Dan Stevens lurching around a muddy village of Victorian cultists. But the movie kneecaps itself before the halfway mark, rushing to resolve the most interesting aspects of its plot in favor of making a gonzo, gore-soaked spectacle of the superfluous remainder.

Every October, I put together a big schedule of horror films, most of which I haven’t seen before. Films, dates, and times (all subject to change) are listed for any friends who want to join me, and ticket links are included for public screenings. The schedule is also available as a handy Google calendar and as a Letterboxd list.

This year, Michael Myers’ imminent return to the big screen has inspired me to binge my way… See more →

The Uninvited is a compelling and well-paced mystery that tries to be a few too many things. The seams between its comedy, melodrama, and horror may be visible, but when it wants to be spooky, it does so very successfully, and the whole thing is beautifully shot. I’m especially fond of all the opportunities it creates for characters to emerge from and disappear into inky blackness.

I spent most of Fiend Without a Face trying to decide if I was amused or annoyed by its budgetary workaround of making its monsters invisible. When we do finally get to see them, they’re rendered with a disarming panache that almost pays off, but at the end of the day, there’s not much to set this apart from the other B movies of the ’50s.

Canoa: A Shameful Memory tells the true story of a group of mountain climbers in 1968 who were terrorized by a small Mexican town in thrall to a corrupt Catholic priest. It begins by plainly stating the facts of the event, followed by a mix of faux documentary footage (giving background on the town’s economic woes and poorly-educated populace) and a dramatization of the 48 hours leading up to the event. This context—plus one hell… See more →

After seeing three of his films, I have yet to undertake a thorough appraisal of Yorgos Lanthimos’s skewed visions, but for now, I’ll just say I’m still really enjoying living in his weird world.

Once again, death has a nonsensical plan that its victims-to-be generously recite aloud to the viewer in simple declarative sentences as they somehow piece it all together. As with the other Final Destination movies, this is recommended for folks who love to see the Mouse Trap board do its thing but are too lazy to set it up.

Whatever it is that appeals to me about so many of the satanic-panic-inspired schlock horror flicks of the ’80s, this one doesn’t have it.

If you were like, “We’ve got to see this hybrid The Thing / Terminator / buddy cop movie from 1987 starring Kyle MacLachlan,” I’d be like, “Um, yes, we certainly do.” And our decision to see it would indeed be a wise one. But as we might have expected, the product is not quite the sum of its parts.

The most engaging slasher films tend to be the ones that continue the whodunit tradition of their giallo forefathers. Not only do you get to enjoy amusing innovations in grisly murder, you get to guess which unlikely suspect is responsible for them. Happy Birthday to Me is arguably the best of the whodunits in the first wave of slashers, and its crazy finale is my favorite kind of preposterous.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space is the rare treat that happens when the right people go all-in on the right ludicrous concept (or at least as all-in as a couple million bucks would allow). The hideous clowns and their imaginative misdeeds are rendered so vividly and with such care that any skeptic the film fails to disarm is truly a lost cause.

A disparate handful of travelers take shelter from a storm in a creepy house with a creepy family. The plot, a collection of vignettes running the gamut of comical, spooky, and romantic, seems designed more to highlight the strengths of the cast and the set than to advance a cohesive narrative, but it works as both a celebration and satirization of creaky-old-house tropes. The ensemble cast is terrific, as is their staging on the expansive… See more →

An anthology of four shorts directed by women, XX’s preoccupation with maternal horror is the opposite of the crappy brodown that was V/H/S, but it’s ultimately just as disappointing. The shorts are all equally unsatisfying, but Sofia Carrillo’s Švankmajer/Quay-inspired dollhouse-of-horrors interstitials are pretty cool.

I shudder to think what Freaks would have been if it were helmed by a director without a circus background, especially given how difficult its 1932 audience apparently found it to empathize with the performers. Despite his cast’s dramatic shortcomings, Tod Browning’s look behind the sideshow curtain is deeply human, and its cathartic revenge sequence is rightfully iconic. I so wish we could see the original 90-minute version.

Owing to the central relationship between a kindly antiques shop owner and his granddaughter, as well as the enchantingly mysterious mechanical device that upends their lives, Cronos feels kind of like a Jean-Pierre Jeunet stab at horror, which I guess could be said of several of Guillermo del Toro’s films. That said, Cronos’s imagination and balance of sickly and sweet make for a strong debut. The villains (Claudio Brook and Ron Perlman) aren’t nearly… See more →

For better or worse, Vampyr prioritizes the lyrical over the logical. Its surreal visual poetry is mesmerizing, though it doesn’t quite make a full meal.

While Itay Tiran’s incredible performance as the possessed bridegroom is the standout component of Demon, the film is largely driven by a morbid fascination with patriarchy. As the father of the bride works frantically to ensure that his new son-in-law’s disturbing ailment doesn’t reflect poorly on him, the groom is hidden rather than helped, the bride’s devastation is ignored, and the wedding reception drags on compulsorily. The father’s pride benefits no one and hurts everyone.… See more →

A scorching condemnation of capitalism. As the armed-and-dangerous hitchhiker reminds his captives, their concern for each other is what keeps them under his thumb, while he is empowered by his selfishness. When competition trumps collaboration, compassion is a liability.

Sumptuous visuals with atmosphere to spare, but I wish there were more of a story to hang them on. Simple tales of vengeful ghosts are common and often satisfying, but I found this one repetitive and shallow.

Zombieland’s towering self-satisfaction is inversely proportionate to its ingenuity and wit.

Visually breathtaking to the last, and another reminder that I really need to get more German Expressionism under my belt. The endless invention and confident hand behind Faust’s sets, cinematography, and special effects are entirely stunning, and Emil Jannings’ Mephisto is appropriately otherworldly.

I admire the chutzpah it takes to acquire a Spanish werewolf/vampire movie, slap a Frankenstein title on it, and sell it in place of (the unwatchable) Dracula Vs. Frankenstein you originally promised to American theaters, which is what distributor Sam Sherman did in the early 1970s with Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror. The movie is terrible, but at least it introduced me to Paul Naschy, who is apparently Spain’s barrel-chested Boris Karloff.

Perverse camp expertly dialed to 11.

A documentary on witchcraft in seven parts, incorporating a vintage PowerPoint presentation, delightfully grotesque dramatizations of occult folklore, and semi-rational hypotheses of what drove the paranoid, superstitious frenzy of the Middle Ages. Nearly 100 years after its release, Häxan’s preoccupation with female “hysteria” is also an unintentional indictment of its own time’s shallow thinking, and parallels are easily drawn to the modern era’s persistent misogyny and crooked notions of criminal justice.

A subpar backwoods survival slasher with a modest body count and zero mystique. Notable for featuring several cast and crew who would go on to much bigger and better things (Daryl Hannah, Joe Pantoliano), but if Hollywood stars’ humble horror beginnings are the primary draw for you, you’d be better served by The Burning (Jason Alexander, Holly Hunter), or, hell, Friday the 13th (Kevin Bacon). The Final Terror is mostly a snooze.

Lush, invasive, viscerally unsettling, and tender in every sense of the word. I was rapt for the duration.

I had to bail on this halfway through because the shaky cam was gonna make me barf. From what I saw, the effects are impressive and all of the characters are irritating, with the possible exception of Lizzy Caplan, who does her usual good job of playing Lizzy Caplan.

A paranoid conspiracist (John Goodman) keeps a young woman (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) captive in his underground doomsday bunker to protect her from what he claims is some kind of nuclear fallout above. Goodman’s reliably excellent performance works in concert with a smart script to keep you guessing about the truth of the matter, and Winstead’s charisma is rooted in a persistent resourcefulness that stops just short of Macgyver. I was frequently distracted by the big… See more →

Prompted by the 2017 film adaptation of It, I revisited the 1990 miniseries version for the first time in more than two decades, and it holds up about as well as expected. The kids are decent, the adults are laughably melodramatic, and the finale is pretty embarrassing. Even at a runtime exceeding three hours, this adaptation can barely scratch the surface of King’s sprawling novel, and the questions it leaves unanswered hurt more than they… See more →