“Deadly Manor”, made in 1990, is a horror film about a group of young people (including a hitchhiker who may be more than he seems), who enter a mysterious mansion in the middle of a forest. As you might predict, one by one they are killed off. Being that I would’ve been around the same…

So I’ve got a theory about horror films. They’re at their best when they’re subversive—celebrations of nihilism from hustlers working the film industry’s fringes, just trying to make a quick buck. Think Craven’s “Last House on the Left”, Hooper’s “Texas Chainsaw…”, Cunningham’s first “Friday the 13th” films, and a lot of the 80s horror schlock…

If you’ve been reading my reviews, you’ve noticed I tend to focus my keen and critical eye on crime and horror films. As such, “Luce,“ a drama set around issues of race and class might stick out like a plucked eyeball in a bowl of Cheerios. But, there is a bit of crime in the…

What are young people in 80s horror movies supposed to do with themselves? All they wanna do is have sex, drink copious amounts of alcohol, and generally party-hearty. Yet there’s always somebody trying to kill them! In the case of 1989’s “Nightmare Beach“, the killing often occurs via electrocution, which leaves the victims as charred,…

I bet it would be a lot of fun to make one of these low-rent cheese ball horror films that populate the metaphorical bins of Amazon Video. You get some buddies together, track down a few sets, and just start filming, knowing you are in no way attempting to render a masterpiece. My guess is…

File this novella under: skin-crawling psycho-sexual thriller The protagonist, Dale, is your garden-variety passive creep. He’s a flop with the ladies and is pushed around by his hoity-toity family. But he’s got one thing going for him: the doll collection he keeps in his attic. He hears his girls talking, and they seem to hear…

OK, for the first half of it, I was hating this movie. For starters, it has an utterly confusing introductory sequence that tries to cram about an hour’s worth of backstory in ten minutes. Then I quickly get a taste of the herky-jerky shot cutting that made me think the editor was on crack. (It…

So here’s the funny thing about “Burnt Offerings.” I have a very distinct memory of being a young kid and watching the film on a relative’s television set. (My mom and I didn’t have a TV until I was in my teens.) And that final scene, when he goes into the locked room… man, it…

In my review of “Kafka,” I mentioned how the movement of postmodernism came out of the historical condition referred to as the modern era (ironically, it’s an era now antique as it ran from about 1890 to 1950). The modern era had an optimistic tenor, claiming the solutions to society’s problems could be found in…

I’m not wild about possession horror. For some reason, the idea of oddly named demons taking control of someone’s body and making them vomit pea soup just seems kind of dopey. (I did love the Ethan Hawke film “Sinister,” which might fall into the possession category.) So, right out of the gate, that was a…

I have several thoughts about this one. Let me first give the broad strokes of the plot. Several Europeans, some bound by familial ties, go to visit the Kinnitty Pyramid, a reconstruction of an Egyptian pyramid that actually exists in Ireland. While exploring the pyramid, they release what may be malevolent spirits, who take possession…

I’m not quite sure what to make of “Cobweb.“ On the one hand, it’s creepy and evocative. While it never produces any real jump scares, it maintains a sense of unease throughout its entirety. On the other hand, once it’s done, and you sit back to think about what you watched, a lot of it…

The imaginary friend has a long lineage in Hollywood. I’m reminded of “Harvey,“ which featured a Jimmy Stewart character who claimed to rub shoulders with a giant talking rabbit. There’s a lesser-known comedy from the 80s, “Drop Dead Fred,“ where Phoebe Cates’ childhood pal reappears in her life when she’s an adult, causing havoc. “Daniel…

This one could’ve been worse. A lot of these cheeseball 1970s/80s slashers tend to feel more like an episode of Quincy M.E. or The A-Team, than anything with genuine tension or drama. (Note for young folks: I’m referencing old TV shows that upon re-watching almost always make you ask, “How did I ever watch this?”) …

When I was growing up in Honolulu in the 1970s, my mom often took me to strange movies that my young brain really had little chance of comprehending. Orson Welles’ version of the Franz Kafka short story “The Trial“ (starring Anthony Perkins) was one such film. I recall seeing it as a confusing melange of…