ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, DEC. 16, 2008 The lowbrow and highfalutin collide in an orgy of upscale disembowelment as director Darren Lynn Bousman gives uneasy birth to the gore opera. Bousman honed his genre chops in Saw II, III, and IV, and he now offers up a Rocky Horror Picture Show for the torture-porn set. This Toronto-shot cult item … Continue reading Horror review: Repo! The Genetic Opera
Horror review: Twilight
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, NOV. 21, 2008 Stephenie Meyer’s series of four romantic vampire novels—of which 2005’s Twilight was the first—have proven incredibly popular among teens. But unless you’re a 14-year-old girl who gets all giddy at the thought of cute boys and first love, steer clear of Thirteen director Catherine Hardwicke’s anemic adaptation. Kristen … Continue reading Horror review: Twilight
Horror review: The Haunting of Molly Hartley
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, NOV. 3, 2008It’s kinda hard to have a haunting without a ghost, but that tidbit of common knowledge never dawned on the makers of The Haunting of Molly Hartley. They used the title anyway for this contemptible cross between To The Devil a Daughter and a dark version of High School Musical (without the music).Haley Bennett … Continue reading Horror review: The Haunting of Molly Hartley
Don Coscarelli brings Joe R. Lansdale’s soul-sucking Bubba Ho-Tep to hilarious life
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MARCH 25, 2004 By Steve Newton Bubba Ho-Tep is a horror-comedy about two elderly men at a rundown retirement home--one supposedly Elvis Presley, the other claiming to be John F. Kennedy--who battle a mummy that sucks souls from victims' arseholes. Who would have thought that such a far-out B-movie premise could result in … Continue reading Don Coscarelli brings Joe R. Lansdale’s soul-sucking Bubba Ho-Tep to hilarious life
Ten underrated horror flicks worth searching out this Halloween
By Steve Newton When horror fans are asked to cite the movie that first got them hooked on the genre, they often offer up titles like Frankenstein, The Exorcist, or maybe The Shining. Not me. The film that turned me into a devotee of scary flicks was a little-known (yet influential) gem from 1958 called It! The Terror From … Continue reading Ten underrated horror flicks worth searching out this Halloween
Horror review: Saw V
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, OCT. 27, 2008 The fifth installment of the Saw franchise doesn’t waste any time getting to the torture-porn aspect the series is known for. The opening scene sees a muscular, bare-chested man—a vicious killer released from prison on a technicality—find justice via the old pit-and-the-pendulum routine. The added attraction here is that the … Continue reading Horror review: Saw V
Horror review: Stuck
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, OCT. 20, 2008 This year was shaping up to be the worst one for horror in decades. The last decent fright flick to grace theatres was 2007’s The Orphanage, a Spanish production; since then, Hollywood dreck like Prom Night, One Missed Call, Shutter, and The Eye have wreaked untold damage on the genre. Finally, though, horror fans … Continue reading Horror review: Stuck
Movie review: Quarantine
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, OCT. 12, 2008 It’s been almost a decade since The Blair Witch Project, but the fallout from that film’s then-original found-footage conceit still radiates today. Earlier this year, you had the Godzilla-like destruction of Manhattan being documented by Cloverfield’s inexperienced videographer, whose herky-jerky camera work was off-putting to the extreme. Get ready for … Continue reading Movie review: Quarantine
Horror review: Mirrors
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, AUG. 18, 2008 After he burst onto the horror scene in 2003 with the wrenchingly suspenseful serial-killer flick High Tension, then followed that up with his exhilarating 2006 remake of Wes Craven’s rampaging-mutants opus, The Hills Have Eyes, Alexandre Aja was seen by some as the gifted new saviour of big-screen fear. … Continue reading Horror review: Mirrors
Horror review: The X-Files–I Want to Believe
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, JULY 25, 2008 There was a lot of secrecy surrounding the new X-Files movie. The story line was kept under heavy wraps, and when stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson made the promotional rounds of the TV talk-show circuit, they’d be all coy about the plot, then look embarrassed after showing a lame clip of their respective … Continue reading Horror review: The X-Files–I Want to Believe
Horror review: Jack Brooks–Monster Slayer
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, JULY 23, 2008 Watching Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer reminded me of renting vids in the ’80s. Thanks in part to the grisly shenanigans of Freddy Krueger, the horror genre was flying high, which also meant that a ton of suspect, direct-to-video fright fare was clogging the shelves. I recall seeing Ghoulies … Continue reading Horror review: Jack Brooks–Monster Slayer
Horror review: The Strangers
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, MAY 28, 2008 By Steve Newton Who among us hasn’t crept down the stairs in the middle of the night, clutching a Louisville Slugger, convinced that the noise outside the window is someone bent on getting in? Nothing gets the old heart pumping like the fear of home invasion, but you … Continue reading Horror review: The Strangers
Horror review: Prom Night
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, APRIL 16, 2008 Prom Night is an in-name-only remake of the Canadian slasher flick from 1980, in which Jamie Lee Curtis built on the scream-queen title she’d begun to establish two years earlier in Halloween. The original Prom Night was best forgotten for its re-creation of a dance scene from Saturday … Continue reading Horror review: Prom Night