REVIEW: Winchester [2018]

I died. You wouldn’t think to use the word timely to describe a horror movie about a place known as the Winchester Mystery House wherein a black lace-veiled woman feels the presence of ghosts and locks them away in specially built rooms with thirteen nails, but here we are. The reason stems from why this woman does what she does. She is Sarah Winchester—the widow of the son of the founder of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company—and she believes her family is cursed. To hear her say it, every victim…

Read More

REVIEW: The Mule [2014]

“Who doesn’t want a veranda, eh?” Directors Tony Mahony and Angus Sampson‘s The Mule is not at all what I expected. The marketing materials draw it up as a B-movie romp, something the involvement of Sampson and Saw co-creator Leigh Whannell (they co-wrote this one together from a story by Jaime Browne) helps corroborate. Besides a couple gross-out moments due to the excremental nature of the plot, however, the film proves differently. It’s instead a rather slowly paced true-life thriller spanning two weeks while the authorities wait on their captive…

Read More

REVIEW: 100 Bloody Acres [2013]

“…We’ll Fertilize Ya!” There is a fine line between horror spoof and horror comedy. The former tries to make fun of the genre while the latter looks to appeal to audiences of both halves. Since most horror generally has a comedic streak anyway, accomplishing this duality above the juvenile humor of a Scary Movie shouldn’t be too hard. But while comedies with horror elements—Beetlejuice, Bubba Ho-Tep, and Ghostbusters—have been a staple through the years, it was 2004’s Shaun of the Dead that gave mainstream audiences a chance to embrace the…

Read More

REVIEW: Insidious [2011]

“Last night I watched myself sleep … then I flew away” Ever since James Wan and Leigh Whannell collaborated on what became a franchised sensation in Saw, expectations for the two were high. I haven’t seen their second film, Dead Silence, but I do remember press being positive and the creepiness of dolls—a motif the two seem to champion, (look at the chalkboards for an Easter Egg here)—quite unnerving. So, with the buzz on their newest horror film, Insidious, almost universally great, I became excited for what could be an…

Read More