I love digging into horror films from around the world, seeing how different directors and cultures dole out their scares, what is frightening to them, and how some things are scary across the board, seemingly tapping into some primal fear. Thailand delivers Death Whisperer, which according to the film’s intro is based loosely on a…
Tag: supernatural
Final Prayer (2013) – Elliot Gardner
Found footage is either the bane of my horror experience or a delight, and Final Prayer is no exception to that idea. I really like the idea at work here, and I love the climax, though I wish it had been executed better, we don’t see enough, we don’t quite learn enough, though the fear…
Insidious: The Red Door (2023) – Patrick Wilson
Patrick Wilson makes his directorial debut with the fifth (and final?) Insidious film that takes us back to the Lambert family, checking in on them nine years after the events of Insidious 2, which was the last time the family was featured as the main characters in the series. There are some fun ideas here,…
A Haunting in Venice (2023) – Kenneth Branagh
Branagh delivers a third Agatha Christie adaption, and like the previous films, Branagh brings in a great cast and delivers a lush-looking production with some gorgeous production design and location work. Branagh directs and stars, again, as Hercule Poirot the great detective who has now retired to Venice. He is approached by an old friend,…
Fallen (1998) – Gregory Hoblit
Denzel Washington doesn’t often take on roles in films that have paranormal or supernatural overtones, so when he does make one it’s got to be worth the watch. And Fallen is that. I hadn’t watched this one since it came out on VHS, oh so many years ago, and figured it was time for a…
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) – Tommy Lee Wallace
Halloween III surprised audiences when it came along. There was no Micheal Myers, which had already become synonymous with the holiday, and there was a strange combination of the supernatural and science fiction in the third entry in the franchise. A convoluted behind-the-scenes story affected the script and the filming, and with no Micheal, the…
If It Bleeds (2020)- Stephen King
Stephen King knows how to tell a story and his short story/novella collections are always guaranteed to entertain. This one took me a while to get this one, but once I heard that the novella, If It Bleeds was a Holly Gibney story set after the events of The Outsider it raced up my to-be-read…
Rosemary’s Baby (1968) – 4K Review
Rosemary’s Baby is still terrifying. Some fifty-five years on, Roman Polanski’s film, starring Mia Farrow, still packs a wallop, and what better way to celebrate its enduring legacy than a new 4k release of the film from Paramount Pictures? It’s been the better part of a decade since I last watched this film, and I…
TIFF ’23: Sleep
Midnight Madness at TIFF is always a lot of fun, and some great genre films get scheduled that are designed to deliver to the late-night audience. Sleep hopes to do that this week. A Korean entry to the film festival from writer/director Jason Yu. It’s his first feature film, and Yu creates a tense, moody…
Burnt Offerings (1976) – Dan Curtis
The 1976 creepy house tale of Burnt Offerings didn’t engage me as much as the novel did. It has a fairly solid cast, but honestly, it didn’t quite have the eeriness that seemed to permeate the book. The film features Oliver Reed, Karen Black, Bette Davis, Burgess Meredith and the always-menacing Anthony James. The Rolf…
The Mind Reels 