By: Addison Wylie My experience with Cody Calahan’s Antisocial 2 started with a surprise. Antisocial offered some squeamishly great effects but was by no means “one for the books”. While ultimately forgettable, it did leave on enough of a cliff-hanger to provoke thoughts of a sequel. However, it was a small production and the chances of seeing another Antisocial were slim. For Calahan to push himself to continue the story of Sam – the Social…
By: Trevor Jeffery Horror works best in extremes: if you can’t make a film that is legitimately bone-chilling, then you better make it so over-the-top that the value comes from its absurdity rather than its potential to fear. Unfortunately, non-camp horror is a hard beast to tame: you need a plot and a cast that can effectively scare people. Bite is a campy horror film at heart that tried to go full-out scare mode, and…
By: Addison Wylie Ambiguity can be a beautiful thing – especially for the horror genre. Filmmakers can inject an idea, and then trust the viewers to fill in the blanks. It does, however, take a certain skill and direction to utilize ambiguity to its fullest degree. A skill that David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows is missing although the film is confident it has. It Follows goes heavy on creepy nuances, which benefits the experience. Nothing…
By: Addison Wylie Movies like Debug make me wish I had a notebook handy during screenings. I feel overwhelmed trying to remember all of the sci-fi mumbo-jumbo that fills David Hewlett’s futuristic space horror. Let’s just say Hewlett’s self-penned script has expiatory dialoguing of the laziest kind. Science fiction often hosts the worst scenarios since some filmmakers just want to hurl a bunch of technical nonsense towards the audience and expect movie goers will be…
By: Addison Wylie Vampires and the mockumentary genre have both been exhausted thanks to current fads, and spoofing these horrific bloodsuckers has also been done before. Yet, What We Do in the Shadow is one of the funniest films of the year. How so? Filmmaker Taika Waititi and comedic actor Jemaine Clement use inventive intelligence to ingeniously breathe life into these seemingly overplayed areas. There are various forms of comedy, but it’s always helpful when…
By: Addison Wylie Henry Hobson has been given a one-of-a-kind opportunity to showcase Arnold Schwarzenegger’s never-before-seen tender side with Maggie. I welcome my readers to send in examples of other low-key films the Terminator star has acted in, but I expect to receive no tips. The post-apocalyptic film also hands the filmmaker a chance to re-imagine zombie movies that star “the infected”. Screenwriter John Scott 3 has crafted a story concerning the rights of the…
By: Addison Wylie It’s often said that art reflects life. Unfriended turns the mirror towards a modern age of teenagers who sometimes veer on being brain dead, yet can problem solve with the drop of a hat when they need to use technology. Twenty years ago, a movie would only call on one token techie. Now, a movie can afford to fill its roster with this type of character. While Unfriended deals with terrors that…
By: Addison Wylie An after hours horror show goes mad in the uneven Late Night Double Feature. Before the mayhem ensues on the set of Dr, Nasty’s Cavalcade of Horror, the audience is treated to a couple of spooky shorts intercut by commercials and previews. For the most part, the film is authentically structured like a craggy cable access show, which provides plenty of chuckles. An ill-placed ad cashing in on the night’s horror theme…
By: Addison Wylie Spike Lee took to Kickstarter to fund his latest joint Da Sweet Blood of Jesus. It was a bold move that opened up the floodgates for skeptics to start criticizing the filmmaker. Zach Braff endured the same with his campaign to make Wish I Was Here. Lee brings more of an argumentative crowd compared to Braff’s followers and naysayers. Some see Spike Lee as a self-serving loudmouth, but loyal fans believe he has…
By: Mark Barber David Gelb’s The Lazarus Effect offers an intriguing concept, but gets bogged down by convention. Despite its compelling concept, the premise is familiar: a group of researchers led by Frank (Mark Duplass) and his fiancée Zoe (Olivia Wilde) create the “Lazarus” serum, a formula that brings the recently deceased back to life. This God-like power to cheat death causes things to go awry very quickly. Zoe is killed in a laboratory accident…