By: Jeff Ching ReBroken is an ambitious and unique exploration of grief that qualifies as a thriller, drama, horror and a mystery. It’s an unpredictable puzzle that the audience slowly pieces together. But despite that selling point, I can’t wholeheartedly recommend Rebroken. I will always applaud a filmmaker for taking risks over playing it safe. However, I didn’t enjoy this experience, which could’ve been fixed had the film built an essential emotional connection to the material.
By: Jeff Ching I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a horror movie more relatable than Abie Sidell’s Cram. I also really don’t know if there will be a better horror movie this year. Cram was made for nerds with severe procrastination issues. Don’t get me wrong, if you’re one of those freaks that study for your exams a month in advance, watch this movie and understand the pain of being a procrastinator – this is in…
By: Jeff Ching Walking into Cocaine Bear, I was expecting the movie to be the latest inductee to the “so bad, it’s good” list. Something along the lines of Snakes on a Plane or the Sharknado franchise: movies that are not good, but fun to laugh at. Cocaine Bear, however, is not “so bad, it’s good” – it’s “so good, it’s umm….…the best movie of 2023 so far”. Look, it’s only late February, and I don’t expect…
In a plot that would make any vacationer anxious, and in the “not too distant future”, novelist James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) are suckered into a crime that develops into an additional crime during a getaway at a luxurious resort. James, who becomes the most guilty, is given the choice to opt out of his execution if he pays a lump sum of cash for a clone to be made…
“Found footage” horrors often receive a bad rap because it’s presumed that they’re “easy” movies to make: scrounge together a couple thousand dollars, a consumer video camera, some amateur actors, and a loose lore around something eerie that can guarantee jump scares. Yes, the “found footage” sub-genre is one of the more resourceful outlets for DIY filmmakers, but there’s an art to it. They may not trick audiences anymore into thinking the stories are non-fictitious…
I can’t quite place my finger on when audiences last received an experimental horror like Kyle Edward Ball’s Skinamarink, and I think that’s because a lot of filmmakers would be too intimidated to take a crack at it. Making a movie like Skinamarink requires a filmmaker to be brave, insane, self-aware yet purposely reject what qualifies as entertainment nowadays, and completely commit to the film’s static presentation. Ball has all of these traits, which is…
A “found footage” horror anthology gets a seasonal spin in The Christmas Tapes, but it’s only further proof as to why these projects are a tough task to pull off.
Alex Phillips’ feature debut All Jacked Up and Full of Worms plays out like a never-ending string of hallucinations. It’s never clear what’s actually rooted in reality and the movie becomes so surreal, it’s impossible for it to return to normalcy.
By: Liam Parker Scary movies are supposed to keep us up at night. Things that go bump in the night and lurk beyond the shadows rob us of our ability for a good night’s sleep. John Farrelly’s The Sleep Experiment, however, has the opposite effect: it leaves you begging to close your eyes. But wait, the movie isn’t bad! You’ll feel the need to escape to slumberland in order to feel safe again.
Jordan Peele has quickly proven to be a filmmaker with a lot on his mind, which he then translates effortlessly to the screen. His intelligent writing for Get Out earned him an Oscar, and Us convinced audiences that Peele’s feature-length debut wasn’t just a fluke. Peele’s third film, Nope, allows the writer/director to expand his scope; both with his screenwriting and as a visual storyteller.