Writer/director Teresa Sutherland delivers a moody, atmospheric hallucination that follows Park Ranger Lennon (Georgina Campbell) as she takes on her new backcountry assignment, and attempts to reconcile an event that has haunted her since childhood. Positing that there are too many missing people in national parks, Sutherland’s story wonders if there is perhaps something more…
Tag: ominous
TAD 2023: The Deep Dark dir. Mathieu Turi
Mathieu Turi delivers a delightful and ominous creature feature with The Deep Dark and the practical effects, and oppressive setting make this one spark, and it’s definitely something the Toronto After Dark crowds are going to love. Amir (Amir El Kacem) arrived to join a mining team in the 1950s. He’s paired with a rough-and-tumble…
The Twisted Ones (2019) – T. Kingfisher
I absolutely loved Kingfisher’s The Hollow Places and immediately sought out her other horror novel, The Twisted Ones, and much like Places, this one didn’t disappoint. Filled with a sense of humor that is increasingly mixed with dread, this tale dives into folk horror, and leaves enough questions unanswered that the solutions your imagination creates,…
Disquiet (2023) – Michael Winnick
There are some fun and familiar ideas at work in Michael Winnick’s Disquiet which is getting a limited theatrical run, and VOD release tomorrow, but it just isn’t as strong as it could be. At just under an hour and a half I still felt the editing could have been tighter, and the characters could…
The Color Out of Space (2019) – Richard Stanley
Last week I watched a 2010 German adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s famouns short story, this week, I take a look at the 2019 version starring Nicolas Cage. Directed by Richard Stanley, who delivered the infamous The Island of Dr. Moreau with Brando and Kilmer, this version differs from the German version, but its essence is…
The Color Out of Space (2010) – Huan Vu
H.P. Lovecraft, despite his racist tendencies that pop up in his writings, was a master of unnerving cosmic horror, and in 2010, Huan Vu adapted the classic novella, The Color Out of Space into a moody and ominous thriller. A German made film whose only problem lays in some of its special effects, but more…
Midsommar (2019) – Ari Aster
Writer/director Ari Aster’s follow-up to his unnerving horror film, Hereditary, is another menacing, and ominous story, Midsommar. Florence Pugh stars as Dani, a traumatised young woman, who is dealing with personal grief, and a crumbling love life, when she learns that her boyfriend, Christian (Jack Reynor) and a number of his buddies, some are doing…
The Day She Died (2021)- S.M. Freedman
Dundurn Press delivers S.M. Freedman’s thriller, The Day She Died, to my summer reading pile, and it is a gut punch of a book, exploring dark secrets, while exploring the concept of forgiveness of oneself. It’s a captivating read that pulls you in, and drags you along at full-throttle on a white knuckle ride that…
The Hunger (2018) – Alma Katsu
There is a sense of dread and menace that seems to ooze off the pages of Alma Katsu’s retelling of the haunting, and infamous Donner Party expedition. Everyone knows, or thinks they know the story, and Katsu uses that troubling knowledge and lets it hang over every page – you know each of the characters…
NOS4A2 (2013) – Joe Hill
So I wanted something spooky and creepy, but needed a quick respite from revisting King’s work. I kept it in the family and dug into his son’s novel, NOS4A2. This one feels almost epic in size as we follow the horrors committed by Charlie Talent Manx and the life of a woman, Victoria McQueen who…
The Mind Reels 