Category Archives: Horror

They’re coming to get you, Barbera.

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Horror, Indie Films, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Green Room (2016) Movie Review

April 24, 2016 Alex Brannan

In Green Room, a group of young and conceited punk rockers travel to one last unscheduled gig after their tour bottoms out. The White Supremacist punk scene of the club proves to be more shady than it first appears. The mosh pit is slowed to a balletic chaos as they perform. The atmosphere of the audience is unforgiving. And the green room backstage is an environment of violent undoing.

The film, like the music it portrays, is unrefined, but it is a purposefully stylized unrefined. The low key lighting and grimy aesthetic is what has become “torture porn chic.”

What writer-director Jeremy Saulnier, whose 2013 microbudget indie thriller Blue Ruin received critical success, does differently than torture porn is deliver a Continue reading Green Room (2016) Movie Review →

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

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) Movie Review

March 11, 2016 Alex Brannan

Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), in the process of leaving her boyfriend, suddenly becomes party to a car wreck. She awakens in a concrete room chained to the wall. An effectively desperate Winstead struggles just to reach her phone in a tense scene that culminates in the menacing introduction of Michelle’s captor Howard (John Goodman).

This early standoff between Winstead and Goodman is fascinating, although it would have played better with Continue reading 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) Movie Review →

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

The Witch (2016) Movie Review

February 18, 2016 Alex Brannan

The Witch follows the trials of a 17th century New England family banished from society to a home on the outskirts of a threatening woods. They struggle to survive: the crops die, the hunting traps bear no food, the chicken’s eggs bear stillborn chicks. But what is to blame for the family’s misfortune? For the Puritanical family, their misfortune becomes a hysteria over religious heathenism.

The film is marked by quiet. At the film’s outset, we get a flurry of Continue reading The Witch (2016) Movie Review →

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

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016) Movie Review

December 2, 2015 Alex Brannan

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is adapted from the book of the same name, and it is exactly what you think. Jane Austen’s famous characters return to the big screen, only now they aren’t combating class and gender barriers, they are samurai fighting zombies.

The film, understanding that the audience is likely already familiar with the Austen classic, begins with some heavy handed exposition revolving around the nature of the narrative’s zombie outbreak. This opening scene involves an interesting point of view shot that comes from a unique perspective, to say the least. Unfortunately, Continue reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016) Movie Review →

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

Goodnight Mommy (2015) Movie Review

November 25, 2015 Alex Brannan

The main diegesis of Goodnight Mommy begins with two twin brothers being children. They play tag in a corn field and frolic through the woods. They cautiously enter through a dark void of a passageway, referring back to the viewers themselves, who are choosing to do the same by watching this film.

The film opens with an immediate sense of stillness. But there is Continue reading Goodnight Mommy (2015) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Leave it, Quickie Reviews (<400 Words)

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) Movie Review

November 20, 2015 Alex Brannan

The 1995 Halloween sequel The Curse of Michael Myers is a non-canon plot revolving around cults and a survivor of a previous Myers’ massacre. Teenage Jamie (J.C. Brandy) gives birth to a boy on the eve of Halloween, but the child is abducted. Then, she gets the child back and escapes from the candle-lit void of a soundstage that she is resting in before Myers can get to her. Myers, all the while, is searching for the baby, and killing everyone who gets in his way.

The opening of the film is a confusing mash-up of quick cuts and a voiceover that is easy to ignore. Even later, when Jamie is on the run, the film cuts away from action and uses misplaced ellipsis to makes sure the Continue reading Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Horror, Indie Films, Like It, Quickie Reviews (<400 Words)

Dude Bro Party Massacre III (2015) Movie Review

November 14, 2015 Alex Brannan

After two mass murders in frat houses—recounted in an almost imperceptible montage of brutal murders at the hands of a burn victim serial killer and her daughter “Motherface”—there is a third mass murder of a group of frat bros.

Dude Bro Party Massacre III is a take on B-movie slasher flicks of the 1980s. Filmed in “glorious VHS quality,” the film is Continue reading Dude Bro Party Massacre III (2015) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Halloween Horror, Horror, Indie Films, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Gravy (2015) Movie Review

October 29, 2015 Alex Brannan

The horror comedy Gravy opens with Anson (Michael Weston) buying sorbet in a gas station on Halloween, where he has the most unrealistic, awkward conversation with Bethany (Sarah Silverman). It is charming in the characters’ simplicity, but it avoids realism entirely.

After this, we leave these characters in lieu of those working in a bar at closing time. The ensemble all work off of each other like Continue reading Gravy (2015) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Halloween Horror, Horror, Indie Films, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (2015) Movie Review

October 22, 2015 Alex Brannan

Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse opens on Blake Anderson from Workaholics (here simply Ron the Janitor) dancing to an Iggy Azalea trap beat. Marvelous. Ron then single-handedly starts the zombie apocalypse. Double marvelous. The dramatic irony and use of space in this opening is great. It might be the best scene in the entire movie comedy-wise.

We then see a dated-looking boy scout recruitment tape led by the comedic styling of David Koechner. Scout Leader Rogers’ (Koechner) Boy Scout Troop 264 is comprised of three archetypal scouts: the brown-nosing overachiever Augie (Joey Morgan), the apathetic burnout Carter (Logan Miller), and the reluctant leader Ben (Tye Sheridan).

When Ben and Carter decide to ditch Augie for a rave that appears to take place in a warehouse (although it is labeled as a rec center, but this is all besides the point), the two boys stumble upon Continue reading Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (2015) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Halloween Horror, Horror, Indie Films, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The Final Girls (2015) Movie Review

October 20, 2015 Alex Brannan

The Final Girls opens on a fake movie trailer for a B-movie horror movie called Camp Bloodbath. It is a solid comic send up to 80’s slasher franchises such as Friday the 13th.

Then we see the star of the film, Amanda Cartwright (Malin Akerman) and her daughter Max (Taissa Farmiga). She’s washed up but is just glad that she has her daughter in her life. Then, you know, she dies. Continue reading The Final Girls (2015) Movie Review →

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