Overlord is a gift to gorehounds
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT, NOV. 8, 2018 By Steve Newton I’m not sure horror and war go together that well in movies. War is already horrifying enough, and […]
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Category Archives: scary movies
30 great horror flicks from the last 30 years
By Steve Newton I’ve been reviewing horror movies professionally since 1988. Here’s 30 of my faves: Hereditary (2018) “The wrath of Satan seems pretty tame compared to the suffering that […]
Brutally unsettling Hereditary lives up to the hype
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM By Steve Newton Hereditary has been generating a lot of buzz lately as the scariest horror flick in years, and I gotta admit that it’s pretty damn […]
A Quiet Place delivers horror with heart
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, APRIL 6, 2018 By Steve Newton In A Quiet Place, Lee Abbott—played by director, co-writer, and executive producer John Krasinski—has it rough. He lives in a […]
Unsane is as crazy good as iPhone-shot psycho-thrillers get
By Steve Newton There’s a lot to fear around the world at this particular moment in time, and we’re not just talking spiders and snakes. There’s the ongoing fear of […]
The Strangers: Prey at Night is routine masked-killer fare
By Steve Newton According to the on-screen message in its opening scene, The Strangers: Prey at Night was “based on true events”. It kinda makes you wonder if anyone was ever actually […]
The Shape of Water resurfaces as a ’50s monster-horror flick
By Steve Newton Long-suffering horror fans are finally getting their due. It’s been 27 years since The Silence of the Lambs was chosen as Best Picture at the Oscars, but this […]
Silly Winchester proves a weak platform for Helen Mirren’s horror debut
By Steve Newton Three-and-a-half months ago Jigsaw, the eighth entry in the Saw torture-porn franchise, was released. Not too surprisingly it was a mostly mediocre affair, although it included one memorable scene near […]
Another WolfCop is way better than WolfCop, but still pretty awful
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, DEC. 1, 2017 By Steve Newton Apparently, quite a few people thought WolfCop–the 2014 horror-comedy about an alcoholic werewolf policeman battling ancient shapeshifters in smalltown Canada–was an […]
Jigsaw’s killer twist takes torture porn up a notch
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, OCT. 27, 2017 By Steve Newton Back in October of 2010, after six straight years of hugely successful Saw films coming out on the Friday before Halloween, the […]
“Saw Six is the sixth Saw I’ve seen”: my original reviews of every Saw movie, 2004-2010
By Steve Newton As most in-the-know horror-movie freaks are no doubt aware, the latest entry in the Saw franchise, Jigsaw, opens this Friday (October 27). Not one to miss out […]
The curse of the old-school horror freak means that Tim Curry is still the Pennywise of choice
By Steve Newton As the only journalist invited to interview Tim Curry on the set of It back in 1990–I was the Vancouver correspondent for fabled New York horror mag Fangoria […]
Houseguests from hell cause havoc for Jennifer Lawrence in insane Mother!
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, SEPT. 15, 2017 By Steve Newton When I saw the TV trailer for Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! I thought it looked like a pretty decent horror flick–or maybe “psychological […]
Hellraiser shows rising horror star Clive Barker should, like Stephen King, stick to writing
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT, SEPT. 18, 1987 By Steve Newton Some guys just don’t know when to leave well enough alone. Stephen King just wasn’t satisfied with the […]
Hollywood wins the War for the Planet of the Apes
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, JULY 12, 2017 By Steve Newton I’ve harboured a peculiar fondness for the Planet of the Apes movies ever since I saw the 1968 original at […]
It Comes at Night oozes paranoia and dread
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, JUNE 7, 2017 By Steve Newton First you had the awesome Get Out blowing scary-movie fans away with its shockingly sly take on racism in America. […]
The Belko Experiment fails, though not for lack of dying
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, MAY 12, 2017 By Steve Newton The Belko Experiment looks great on paper if you’re a devotee of scary movies. It’s directed by Aussie Greg McLean, who blew […]
The Void has tons of gore and not much more
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, APRIL 5, 2017 By Steve Newton The Void is like a cosmic cross between the original Hellraiser, John Carpenter’s The Thing, some freaky Lovecraft shit, and that skinless-human […]
Nude Polish mermaids get what they deserve with The Lure
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, MARCH 15, 2017 By Steve Newton The last horror-musical I remember seeing was 2008’s Repo! The Genetic Opera, in which director Darren Lynn Bousman of Saw […]
Get Out sets the bar shockingly high for 21st century horror
By Steve Newton If you only see one horror movie this year, let it be Get Out. And if you only see one movie of any kind this year, same […]
The Girl With All the Gifts takes a tender turn with zombies
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, FEB. 22, 2017 By Steve Newton If you’re not a fan of flesh-eater flicks by now, you surely won’t be after seeing The Girl With All […]
Rings makes hairball-horror history
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, FEB. 3, 2017 By Steve Newton Rings is the first horror flick I’ve seen since Cheeto Mussolini and his treacherous gang of fear-mongering scuzzballs got access […]
Ear of Newt’s top 5 horror flicks of 2016 (and five more that sucked the biggie)
By Steve Newton Here’s five horror flicks I really enjoyed in 2016: Don’t Breathe “Alvarez–who also cowrote the script–guides the ensuing mayhem with a sure hand, ratcheting up the suspense and […]
Shut In delivers one big twist and a storm of horror clichés
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, NOV. 11, 2016 By Steve Newton Naomi Watts has won some and lost some as far as her lead roles in horror flicks go. She hit […]
Blair Witch goes all-in on freakiness, not so much on scares
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, SEPT. 17, 2016 By Steve Newton The Blair Witch Project was a huge sleeper hit when it came out in 1999. Made on the cheap, it […]
Don’t Breathe delivers endless thrills and chills
By Steve Newton ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, AUGUST 28, 2016 By Steve Newton Director Fede Alvarez blasted onto the scary-movie scene in 2013 with his twisted Evil Dead remake. It was […]
Lights Out ain’t The Babadook, people
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, JULY 22, 1016 By Steve Newton Lights Out is a new horror flick about a murderous ghoul that you can only see–and get terrorized by–when the […]
