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Wonderfully executed and engaging, Beast is an example of the creature feature flick done right. There were a few gasps from my sparse opening night showing back in August but I feel that it’s my duty as a critic to do my part in rectifying the lack of attention and say this is a film worth seeing in the theater. It’s more fun than it has any right to be and is a throwback to the golden age of movies about vicious animals without feeling too much like a carbon copy.
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 Happy Halloween from HorrOrigins, and have we got a real treat for you. Though it seemed like we lost him to Marvel for a while, Scott Derrickson is back in the horror game with The Black Phone. Currently, his highest rated film in the genre, The Black Phone marks a new evolution to Derrickson’s trademark storytelling style of combining the crime thriller with a supernatural edge, something that dates all the way back to the beginning with Hellraiser: Inferno (yeah, remember that one?). Back along for the ride as well is C. Robert Cargill, Derrickson’s prime writing partner for the last decade. He’s someone who got his start writing reviews and articles online, which proves there’s hope for me yet. This is a partnership that was solidified in 2012 with Blumhouse’s small scale hit, Sinister. Once a golden child for the studio, Sinister is not talked about much now. But I haven’t forgotten, and well, it’s officially its 10-year anniversary. Which means it’s a perfect time to re-visit and discuss the parallels with its welcome spiritual successor (pun always intended).
Cosmic Horror (or Lovecraftian Horror) has been a staple for a while but has recently come back into the light in recent years. Lovecraft Country, Color Out of Space, and The Lighthouse are a few of the many shows and movies where the love for the "out there" weird type of horror still exists. Much is the case with Glorious, directed by Rebekah McKendry.
The Predator franchise has always been a mixed bag, with the best entries sticking to a relatively simple concept of a single alien hunter facing off against a group of tough humans. However, I do have a soft spot for the underrated Predators film from 2010. After the disappointment of The Predator (2018), the franchise was caught in a rut. Thankfully Director Dan Trachtenberg decided to bring the franchise back to its roots with energy and brutal slayings for both new and old generations to enjoy. Prey is a surprising hit of the summer.
The latest feature from Rebekah McKendry (All The Creatures Were Stirring, Bring It On: Cheer or Die) lands exclusively on Shudder August 18th, 2022.
When I Consume You marks the third feature for New York-based filmmaker Perry Blackshear following his award-winning psychological horror feature debut They Look Like People and celebrated sophomore effort, the aquatic supernatural horror romance The Siren. All three of his films have been widely embraced and praised both on the festival circuit and upon release, with They Look Like People winning a Jury Honorable Mention at the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival upon its premiere.
 When it comes to a band like Gwar, you’d think they would need no introduction. Any church lady could take one look at anything they have released, and promptly fall into a coma. But wait, any American band willing to dress like this for almost 40 years, has got to be in on a joke. This isn’t Norway. With wild stage names like Oderus Urungus, Beefcake the Mighty, and Balsac the Jaws of Death (among many others that you’ll just have to look up yourself), you can’t help but chuckle at demonic immaturity of intergalactic proportions. And with memorable stage shows, where audiences file in to be drenched with gallons of fake blood and other fluids, all while the band members decapitate dummies of history’s greatest punching bags, you know this is a labor of love. Enough love to warrant This is Gwar, a documentary that chronicles the timeline of the band’s rise, and the many bumps in the road. How deep does this rabbit hole go? Well, I think I came out the other side somewhere in Antarctica and passed a preserved, zombie T-Rex along the way.
 On paper, a horror/western sounds like a weird combo. However, in writer/director Chris Canfield’s Black Wood, it somehow works. The film is a clever and frightening take on the Wendigo legend and a tribute to the South Dakota land he knows well. This is a movie with a heck of a lot of spirit.
 I’m looking forward to a future in which we are still talking about this movie, because we love it, and also because we can’t agree on how to categorize it. (Some of the people who made it have called it a psychological thriller, and the distributor has called it a horror satire. For me, neither of those really capture it.) Like two of its mothers in the horror genre, Rosemary’s Baby and Get Out, Good Madam will be discussed for years to come. In light of that, I’m going to start my campaign now to make it one of those unusual movies that are known by their original, non-English title, like Diabolique, Häxan and Tenebre. The original title for Good Madam is Mlungu Wam, a phrase from isiXhosa, the language in which most of the movie’s dialogue is spoken. Not that Good Madam is a bad title by any means, just that Mlungu Wam is better.
 There’s one simple reason why I wanted to watch writer/director Bobby Canipe Jr.’s short film Intinction. It has cannibalistic nuns. Yes, cannibalistic nuns. As you can probably tell by now, this isn’t a film that takes itself too seriously. It’s gruesome. It’s gory, and most importantly, it’s fun.
The film follows four friends, Mark (Blair Hoyle), Ralph (Ryan Martel), Scott (Hunter Touboulie), and Roxie (Whitney Willetts). The group visits an abandoned house with a haunted history. Sure, we’ve seen this premise several times before. It’s like an old campfire tale, with Mark serving as the storyteller. One brutal winter, nuns resorted to eating each other. Apparently, their hungry spirits still linger. The short does quite a good job balancing the present with the past, establishing its own history surrounding the nuns and that fateful, nasty winter. These flashbacks are especially fleshed out. |
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