I was very fortunate to chat with Ben Mauro when he appeared at Toronto’s Fan Expo. And I have just finished the first installment in his Huxley saga. Filled with world-building and fantastic art, Mauro takes some familiar science fiction tropes, and incorporates them in a new way. The trade paperback is composed of the…
Tag: demon
Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024) – Brian Taylor
I love the character of Hellboy, both the cinematic and the source material brought to life in the Mike Mignola’s comic books. However, this time out, thanks to budget constraints, which directly impacted actors, effects, camera et. al. what fans are given feels like a fan-film and not a studio one. Set in the early…
Longlegs (2024) – Osgood Perkins
I really wanted to see this one in the theaters, but I could never make it work with my schedule, so when it finally popped up on a streaming service, I was all in. Immediately. And I loved it. It’s spooky, freaky, and Osgood Perkins masterfully frames his images. He makes use of negative space…
Stargate SG-1 (1999) – Deadman Switch, and Demons
SG-1 finds themselves captured by a bounty hunter, Aris Boch (Sam J. Jones!) in Deadman Switch. Written by Robert C. Cooper, this episode was first broadcast on 6 August, 1999. It seems O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson), Carter (Amanda Tapping), Teal’c (Christopher Judge) and Daniel (Michael Shanks) have a price on their heads from causing so…
Demons 2 (1986) – Lamberto Bava
Demons 2 came fast on the heels of the first, now iconic horror film, and while there are some interesting moments, I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first one. There are some solid kills, and some pretty sweet practical effects, but it just didn’t have the kick of the first film. Set shortly…
Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare (1968) – Yoshiyuki Kuroda
As much as I loved 100 Monsters, Spook Warfare almost disappointed me as much. It feels like a bit of a goofy film, and I get that this is the point of the series, the same way Godzilla went from a dark film to ‘who is he fighting this time?’ It starts out promisingly enough,…
When Evil Lurks (2023) – Demian Rugna
The Spanish language film, When Evil Lurks, from Argentina, has found its way into my favourite horror films along with Late Night with the Devil. It’s creepy, has some legitimate scares, and a real sense of menace. Two brothers, Pedro (Ezequiel Rodriguez) and Jimi (Demian Salomon), find themselves confronting true evil when they encounter a…
TAD 2023: Late Night with the Devil dir. Cameron Cairnes, and Colin Cairnes
The Toronto After Dark film festival got started on Thursday night with a bang with Late Night with the Devil. And it was a crowd-pleaser. If you are a horror fan, this is one to seek out, this is one to demand from your streaming service, this should move to the top of your viewing…
Episode Thirteen (2023) – Craig DiLouie
Orbit Books brings me my first real creepy novel of 2023, Episode Thirteen. Using the familiar structure of the found footage genre, something that has been co-opted successfully for all of the ghost-hunting shows that seem to plague reality television, DiLouie compiles a literary found footage film, offering up video transcripts, EVP recordings, text messages,…
V/H/S/99 (2022) – Flying Lotus, Maggie Levin, Tyler MacIntyre, Johannes Roberts, Joseph Winter, and Vanessa Winter
The most recent installment of the continuing found footage franchise, V/H/S/ feels like a bit of a miss to me. There are some interesting story ideas here, but they either take too long to develop, the camerawork is TOO shakey, or they tried to do too much. This time out there is five tales, none…
The Mind Reels 