Your Monster is billed as a horror-fantasy, with notes of a rom-com, featuring a Broadway hopeful (Melissa Barrera) discovering a hunky beast (Tommy Dewey) in her closet. Sounds wild, right? What if I told you writer/director Caroline Lindy plays everything “straight”? What if I told you that the film is so quiet, you can hear the emptiness between lines of dialogue? Granted, this is a deliberate choice to play up the film’s quirkier qualities, but…
With an impressively involving story using multiple methods to scare the viewer, Hold Your Breath is just the ticket for this year’s Halloween season.
While a filmmaker who commits to their premise is usually worth commending, The Front Room repels the viewer towards condemning it.
Oddity is a decent horror endeavour where the scares are more memorable than the film itself. This ghost story, about a clairvoyant’s mission to find out the truth behind the death of her sister, is a haunting slow burn that loves to steep itself in atmospheric chills. But also, the production can’t help itself when given the opportunity for shriek-worthy jump scares. Writer/director Damian McCarthy (Caveat) shows plenty of skillful competence for building tension. Even…
Named as one of Variety’s top horror movies of the year so far and hailed by shock comic Anthony Jeselnik, Spanish import The Coffee Table is one hell of an unforgettable and disturbing experience.
The Exorcism is a reminder that filmmakers have a “shot clock” when trying to map out their movies.
The iconic “crossing the streams” scenario, originally pitched by Ghostbusters, has served to be an effective comparison when describing debacles. Such is the case for another supernatural film, Handling the Undead. Norwegian filmmaker Thea Hvistendahl essentially”crosses the streams” by running a metaphorical subtext with more literal examples. Hvistendahl aims for nuance, but misses and creates heavy-handed deliveries and drawn out results.
Newfoundlander director Christian Sparkes (Hammer) seems as though he dipped into A24’s back catalogue to draw inspiration for his effective east coast chiller The King Tide. While there may be stylistic similarities to David Eggers’ work (The Witch, The Lighthouse) and Ari Aster’s movies (Hereditary, Midsommar), Sparkes’ ominous dramatic thriller doesn’t necessarily resemble Canada’s usual output. At least, not since Denis Côté’s Ghost Town Anthology.
