Horror | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: The Gallows [2015]

2015/07/082015/07/09 Jared Mobarak

“He’s going to choke like Charlie” Something doesn’t add up. It does if coincidence is the name of the game (and it is), but that doesn’t make it plausible to accept any revelations Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing deliver in Act III of The Gallows. It’s not ruining anything to say a main character is the kid of a classmate of deceased teen Charlie who died during a high school play in 1993. The filmmakers meticulously ensure we know there are twenty years between that performance and the current one,…

REVIEW: We Are Still Here [2015]

2015/06/122015/06/25 Jared Mobarak

“The house needs a family” Sometimes the spirits clinging to your old home prove the least of your worries. Just ask the Sacchettis (Barbara Crampton‘s Anne and Andrew Sensenig‘s Paul). Attempting to restart their lives after the tragic death of their son months earlier, the couple moves to Aylesbury for peace, quiet, and a former mortuary turned residential property with a price-tag they couldn’t resist. She’s the spiritualist of the two, feeling a presence that could only be her boy Bobby comforting her. He’s the pragmatist, responding in kind with…

REVIEW: How to Save Us [2014]

2015/05/232015/06/05 Jared Mobarak

“Have you seen mom and dad yet since they’ve died?” A plague has decimated Tasmania to the point where everyone is either dead or evacuated. Everyone but Sam Everett (Coy Jandreau), the youngest of three siblings yet to cope with the death of his parents, present to visit his family’s old vacation home on the island. The reason he has gone despite warnings stems from the fact that ghosts have taken over—shimmering visages from another world drawn to electricity that communicate over radio waves through recorded messages caught in the…

REVIEW: Resolution [2013]

2015/03/272015/03/30 Jared Mobarak

“They said they were researching folktales” ***Possible Spoilers*** Films like Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead‘s Resolution can’t help but get under your skin and risk never letting go. Any issues you may have about production quality, plot holes, pacing, and performances fall away because of one genius detail planting the seeds of curiosity. Then, when you attempt to discover answers, inspiration, or whatever else might help shine a light on exactly what these filmmakers created, the rabbit hole opens wider to reveal an internet puzzle still intact today courtesy of…

REVIEW: What We Do in the Shadows [2014]

2015/03/252015/03/26 Jared Mobarak

“Get up and stand on the ceiling like a man” In great mockumentary fashion, What We Do in the Shadows bears to mind the work of Christopher Guest. It has eccentric characters, constant mugging for the camera, and a perfectly dry delivery ensuring those watching will laugh even harder at each joke—if that’s their cup of tea. This is a New Zealand produced work and therefore filled to the brim with a British comic sensibility. That means you won’t get the over-the-top nonsense from a John Michael Higgins or a…

REVIEW: Lucid [2015]

2015/03/12 Jared Mobarak

“In my dreams you’re trying to kill me” As a proof of concept for what is currently in development as an episodic series, Kevin K. Shah‘s short film Lucid provides a psychological wallop of quick cuts and disorientation. It’s ending reveals itself as a beginning for something larger—an unexplained answer to the questions we’ve been asking from the start. What is going on inside Karen’s (Marion Kerr) mind? Where is the rage coming from that she projects onto her husband Sam (Ross Marquand) when his real life self is anything…

REVIEW: It Follows [2015]

2015/03/112015/03/12 Jared Mobarak

“How about that woman in the yellow dress?” It was only a matter of time before horror literally made an STD monster. With the trope of sex leading to one’s demise so prevalent in the genre, it makes sense to create a predator that jumps from one potential victim to the next via intercourse. What makes David Robert Mitchell‘s It Follows more than a gimmick is his decision to ensure only those who’ve had the “bug” can see their pursuer. This means sex serves as the act to acquire your…

REVIEW: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night [2014]

2015/03/042015/03/05 Jared Mobarak

“Are you a good boy or not?” The comparisons are so spot-on that I knew critics before me had made the same parallels before even looking. Ana Lily Amirpour‘s debut feature A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is Jim Jarmusch cool with Quentin Tarantino swagger—an Iranian Vampire Western calling to mind Dead Man and Ghost Dog remixed through a Pulp Fiction lens. It’s a wonder no one had done it before with the way in which her titular creature of the night glides across Bad City in her pitch-black…

REVIEW: The Voices [2015]

2015/02/022015/02/03 Jared Mobarak

“I know karate” Don’t let the wide-eyed giddiness of Ryan Reynolds‘ Jerry Hickfang fool you. There’s darkness inside him that simply hasn’t yet been coaxed out into the open. It may take a little while to see it in full force so you can truly comprehend what is going on with the Edward Scissorhands-esque bright colors and smiling faces version of warped small town suburbia, but it will be an eye-opening revelation when it does. What this means too is that you need to try and not let Reynolds’ broad…

REVIEW: Da Sweet Blood of Jesus [2015]

2015/01/112015/01/12 Jared Mobarak

“You have not because you ask not” I backed Spike Lee‘s Kickstarted Da Sweet Blood of Jesus because I was intrigued by an auteur of his stature being left to his own devices on a project as captivating as what he’d set forth. He said it was “a new kind of love story”—one about human beings addicted to blood that’s funny, sexy, and bloody. It was therefore disappointing when the adjective “new” altered into “1973 remake”. Since I haven’t seen Bill Gunn‘s Ganja & Hess, however, I kept an open…

REVIEW: Pitch Black [2000]

2014/12/05 Jared Mobarak

“Looks clear” People weren’t kidding when they used Chronicles of Riddick‘s expanded budget to blame for its box office demise. I always knew its predecessor was made with much tighter purse strings, but the level of ingenuity necessary to make it still look good surpassed any expectations I might have had. Not only does co-writer (with Jim and Ken Wheat) and director David Twohy play with color tints, vision filters, and an abundance of darkness to hide some of his CGI creatures’ fabrication, he ensures the plot and characters are…