Category Archives: Horror

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Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Drama, Horror, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Love It

It Comes At Night (2017) Movie Review

It Comes At Night is a terse family drama disguising itself as a horror film. Still, it remains the scariest filmgoing experience of 2017 thus far.

The film takes place in an idyllic cabin hideaway in the woods. It is the sort of place that you would run off to on a lazy Summer weekend. But this house also has wood boarding up its windows. It has a pair of doors—one prominently red—locking itself off from the outside world.

This is no vacation. It is survival.

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This contrast that director Trey Edward Shults plays with is crucial to the thematic understanding of It Comes At Night. In the film, a family of three have just buried Continue reading It Comes At Night (2017) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Love It

Raw (2017) Movie Review

Raw is a beautiful, disgusting mess. And it’s fantastic.

In the prestigious veterinary school newly attended by Justine (Garance Marillier), hazing is tradition. Midnight dorm raids. Mandatory partying. Buckets of blood dumped Carrie-style. Eating raw rabbit kidneys.

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For most, this would be frustrating but tolerable. But Justine is also Continue reading Raw (2017) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Horror, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The Girl With All the Gifts (2016) Movie Review

Melanie (Sennia Nanua) is confined to a cell. She must strap herself in to a wheelchair at gunpoint before she can leave it. She is kept under close, militaristic watch. She is dangerous. And she is also a child.

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In a secure compound, children like Melanie learn by rote during the day and are held in lockdown at night. They are test subjects for a Continue reading The Girl With All the Gifts (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Alien: Covenant (2017) Movie Review

Alien was set against the backdrop of corporate struggles between white collar and blue collar. Aliens: on the backdrop of ragtag soldiers not understanding the gravity of their situation; an extended metaphor for Vietnam, if you will. Alien 3, although flawed for it, is about religious persecution by way of prison purgatory.

Alien: Covenant? It is set on the backdrop of ironic lost love. Thanks, Hollywood.

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On a colonization vessel, the Covenant, headed for an Earth-like planet, an aberration in space causes a handful of the thousands of passengers to lose their lives. Among them is Continue reading Alien: Covenant (2017) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, F Movies, Horror, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) Movie Review

In preparation for the May release of Alien: Covenant (Dir. Ridley Scott), CineFiles is looking back at the decades-spanning horror sci-fi franchise. In this installment, we look at the ill-received Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, the second film to pair the two horror monster heavyweights.

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A dramatic reenactment of a pivotal scene from AVP: Requiem

Directed by the Brothers Strauss (Colin and Greg), the film involves, like its immediate predecessor, a Continue reading Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Alien 3 (1992 & 2003) Movie Review

There is a stigma to Alien 3, the third installment in the massively popular Alien franchise and David Fincher’s first directorial effort. Pulled out of the world of music video directing, Fincher was given the lofty task of continuing the sci-fi horror series. The end result was massive studio interference that led to two drastically different cuts of the film.

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The 1992 theatrical cut was heavily edited down, leading to a far less cohesive film. It is still Continue reading Alien 3 (1992 & 2003) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Phoenix Forgotten (2017) Movie Review

Phoenix Forgotten opens on Sophie’s (Florence Hartigan) 6th birthday party. Family members give testimonials to camera about Sophie; advice for her as she grows up. Then, a voiceover from Sophie begins the narrative. Her brother Josh (Luke Spencer Roberts) and two of his friends went missing in the desert in 1997. Now, Sophie is returning home to make a documentary about his disappearance.

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The film plays with framing through this setup. In 1997, Josh, obsessed with seeing lights in the Phoenix sky that may or may not be a UFO, starts Continue reading Phoenix Forgotten (2017) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The Dark Tapes (2017) Movie Review

The Dark Tapes is an independent found footage horror anthology. It is a film in the same family as the V/H/S films, The ABCs of Death, and the recent XX. The difference between those films and this is that, while other anthology films split its work among multiple directors who each take on a self-contained short, The Dark Tapes is a film written by one screenwriter (Michael McQuown, who also shares directorial credit with Vincent Guastini).

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As such, the frame narrative should share some cohesion across the film. The immediate impression, thus, is that the various “chapters” bleed together. Glitches transition between the shorts on the “tape.”

What this does at first is cause Continue reading The Dark Tapes (2017) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The Devil’s Candy (2017) Movie Review

A family of three move into a quaint rural home that was once the site of a double homicide, perpetrated at the hands of a man (Pruitt Taylor Vince) who hears the voice of the devil in his head.

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Jesse Hellman (Ethan Embry), father and husband, is a contract painter and metalhead. He’s a young-at-heart, hippie-looking pot smoker who hates painting flowers for banks. And he also picked the wrong house to move into.

Sean Byrne, whose directorial debut The Loved Ones provided an Continue reading The Devil’s Candy (2017) Movie Review →