Tag Archives: horror comedy

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

Review: Hold the Fort — Fantasia Festival 2025

July 17, 2025 Alex Brannan

Hold the Fort had its world premiere on July 16 as part of the Fantasia International Film Festival.

Herbert Gruber (Mark Ashworth) sets down a box of “Shoot ‘Em Dead” shotgun shells and hands his wife Mable (Devney Nixon) a wooden stake. Herb insists that nothing could convince him to sell his family’s land. Over his dead body, and all that. “Nothing’s takin’ my land,” Herb says. Then, he arms himself for a night full of a cryptid sort of self-defense.

William Bagley’s Hold the Fort is a broad horror comedy centering on the new tenants of Gruber Hills. Following Herb apparently not making it through the night, the suburb has a new home for sale. Lucas (Chris Mayers) and Jenny (Haley Leary) arrive to the warm welcome of the HOA representative (Julian Smith), who informs them of the portal that annually sends through a bevy of Continue reading Review: Hold the Fort — Fantasia Festival 2025 →

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

Abigail (2024) Movie Review

May 12, 2024 Alex Brannan

The team of directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and screenwriter Guy Busick have been well-discussed on this site. I have, in general, enjoyed their recent output – Scream VI notwithstanding. Their latest, Abigail (based on a story by Stephen Shields, who also gets a shared writing credit), has a similar generic blend to 2019’s Ready or Not. The latter film, a violent and comedic Most Dangerous Game send-up taking place almost entirely at one lavish estate, was a good bit of morbid fun. Abigail, an even more violent comedy horror film taking place almost entirely at one lavish estate, is similarly good for a light bit of morbid fun.

The film has two distinct halves. In the first, a group of criminals hired to Continue reading Abigail (2024) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) Movie Review

August 13, 2022 Alex Brannan

Bodies Bodies Bodies, on its surface, is a movie I should instantly fall in love with. It is a light horror comedy riff on the whodunit with a cast so stacked with great young talent that I almost couldn’t believe it when it was announced. Drop the cherry on top that it is an A24 picture, and my fears that this was a half-thought-out satire churned out as a genre programmer went out the window.

Churned out genre programmer Bodies Bodies Bodies is not. As for the satire, I must admit I was unimpressed. Early buzz from critics and audiences alike is Continue reading Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) Movie Review →

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

Review: Die Kinder Der Toten – Fantastic Fest 2019

September 22, 2019 Alex Brannan

Die Kinder der Toten is a zombie movie, technically. But fewer scripts with the word “zombie” in it stray this far from what we consider standard operating procedure for a “zombie film.”

In Styria (not to be confused with Syria), a car wreck sets off a chain of events that disrupts the entire town (eventually). Call it experimental or avant garde or surrealism; it certainly is not Continue reading Review: Die Kinder Der Toten – Fantastic Fest 2019 →

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

Child’s Play (2019) Movie Review

June 25, 2019 Alex Brannan

Lars Klevberg and Tyler Burton Smith’s Child’s Play is not so much a reboot or remake. It is more of a new film with a Chucky skin layered on. The Child’s Play brand is well-known. Killer children’s doll kills. A simple premise.

Smith’s script changes many aspects surrounding this premise. The Buddi toy, even though it looks like a doll from the late ’80s, is a toy for the modern era. It is a home-connecting device, voice activated like a Google Home or an Amazon Alexa. It connects to your television, stereo, electrical system, etc.

Chucky (Mark Hamill), the doll in question, is gifted to teenage Andy (Gabriel Bateman) by his mother (Aubrey Plaza), who works at the return counter of the Zed Mart that is stuffed to the brim with Buddi dolls. Instead of being possessed by the soul of a ruthless killer, however, this Chucky is Continue reading Child’s Play (2019) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, F Movies, Halloween Horror, Horror, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The Babysitter (2017) Movie Review

October 19, 2017 Alex Brannan

McG’s new film, The Babysitter, is immediately abrasive. Within the first five minutes, we find ourselves in four different locations. Cole (Judah Lewis) is introduced as too squeamish to accept a shot from the school nurse. A strange introduction, to be sure.

Cole is your stereotypical high school nerd. He stutters his way through conversations. He is bullied by the stereotypical bullies. He has a massive crush on his babysitter Bee (Samara Weaving).

Bee is a great babysitter. She is down to earth, sees things on Cole’s level, bends the rules. Did I say bend the rules? I meant Continue reading The Babysitter (2017) Movie Review →

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

Happy Death Day (2017) Movie Review

October 13, 2017 Alex Brannan

Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) wakes up hungover in the dorm room of Carter Davis (Israel Broussard). Glibly, she blows him off and leaves to her sorority house, where she continues to brush off people left and right. If you cannot yet tell, she is not a very nice college student. She doesn’t even care that it is her birthday.

She goes to class (she is engaging in an adulterous relationship with her professor), comes home to prepare for a party, and leaves alone to get there. On the way, she is cornered by a masked knife-wielder and killed. But wait… Continue reading Happy Death Day (2017) Movie Review →

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

Little Evil (2017) Movie Review

September 4, 2017 Alex Brannan

Eli Craig is no stranger to horror movie conventions. As director and co-writer, he skewered them in the cult hit Tucker and Dale vs Evil. The film took the Friday the 13th vein of slasher movies and turned it squarely on its head, to a riotous (if not one-note) comedic result.

With his sophomore feature film effort, Little Evil, Craig takes on the demon child subgenre, using the framework of The Omen to craft his horror comedy.

The short-form review of Little Evil is that it does not Continue reading Little Evil (2017) Movie Review →

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

Yoga Hosers (2016) Movie Review

December 5, 2016 Alex Brannan

Kevin Smith’s latest feature, the blatantly Canadian-set Yoga Hosers, feels at first like an unofficial Clerks 3 graduated to a new generation to include Instagram, yoga, an attempt at current slang, and a female empowerment angle. Indeed, most characters are introduced through an Instagram insert that adds no information to the character that was not already presented through narrative context.

The film is also a horror movie about bratwurst Nazis. And a musical, kind of. It paints Canada like a fantasy world completely alien to American audiences, so alien that Continue reading Yoga Hosers (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Halloween Horror, Horror, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Krampus (2015) Movie Review

October 10, 2016 Alex Brannan

It’s Christmas in October at CineFiles, as we watch last year’s Krampus, a film about the eponymous antithesis of Santa Claus, a half-goat, half-demon who punishes naughty children during the holiday season.