The Screamfest Horror Film Festival recently wrapped up its 24th annual edition at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, California. Here are reviews of a selection of the program’s films.
Antropophagus Legacy
Dario Germani’s Antropophagus Legacy is, perhaps, a continuation of his 2022 film Antropophagus II, itself a sequel (if only in name) to the 1980 cult cannibal film Antropophagus.
This flesh-eating entry follows Hanna (Valentina Corti), who we meet recovering in a hospital bed after her husband’s death (which she is promptly accused of). It is revealed to Hanna by a nurse that Continue reading Screamfest 2024 Movie Reviews→
Apartment 7A is screening as part of the 2024 Fantastic Fest, which runs from September 19 to September 26.
I’d be lying if I said I’ve read Ira Levin’s 1967 novel Rosemary’s Baby. Although, it sits on my dining room table (because the one bookcase I own overflows). It is a burnt orange hardcover volume, slim, with similarly orange-y paper, as the book is from the original Random House printing. I found it on the side of the road when I was 16, in a box of other very old books ready to be tossed into the back of a garbage truck.
19 years ago, James Wan’s Saw became a surprising hit for Lionsgate and a meaningful propeller for the 2000s cycle of torture porn horror films. Since then, that grisly subgenre has fallen far out of fashion, and Lionsgate is in a potentially pivotal moment where it is hoping to rejuvenate past successes. Both Saw X and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes are prequels; this is fitting, given the studio is looking backwards to its most profitable franchises in an attempt at similar box office success.
The trajectory of the Saw franchise, aside from being packed with lore rendered nearly incomprehensible due to sequel ret-conning and increasingly inane plot twists, has its ups and downs. After Continue reading Saw X (2023) Movie Review→
The Collingswood Story has received something of a new lease on life with the continuing trend of “Screenlife” movies. Films which take place entirely on digital screen spaces find their origin point in 2002 with Collingswood. Though not Screenlife in the “pure” sense of taking place entirely on a screen (it’s maybe at 95%), Collingswood makes use of emergent technology in a relatively novel way – blocky early-2000s desktop aesthetic and all. A pandemic-era film like Host owes a great deal to this film, whose video chat technology amplifies a mood of isolation and loneliness.
While I do find myself saying it quite often, I think “third act problems” is a strange statement. In most cases, a third act problem probably originates as a first or second act problem, as in, something needs to be resolved in the third act for the film to work and that does not happen. The third act reveals the problem, but it was an underlying structural problem that carries over across acts.
I make this distinction to say that Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool has major third act problems, but that these problems pertain to the film’s overall structure.
Cronenberg’s Possessor was my favorite horror movie of 2020. It is the type of film that does not give clarity to every angle of its story, but the overall Continue reading Infinity Pool (2023) Movie Review→
V/H/S/94 is screening as part of the 2021 Fantastic Fest.
V/H/S/94, the fourth installment in the cult horror anthology film series, follows the franchise’s weakest entry, V/H/S: Viral, a forgettable and occasionally downright lazy film. 94 marks the return of Simon Barrett and Timo Tjahjanto, the former of which had a hand in both V/H/S and V/H/S/2 and the latter of which directed a segment in the second film. It seems evident that this film is meant to be a course correction of sorts.
R.L. Stine’s young adult book series Fear Street was the “grown up” Goosebumps. Books about teens for teens, which allowed for slightly more suggestive horror content. If Goosebumps was a G, Fear Street was a hard-PG. Leigh Janiak’s Fear Street: 1994, the first in a trilogy of adaptations for Netflix, is firmly R-rated.
I was a Goosebumps obsessive as a kid. I wanted to join the Goosebumps fan club (a real thing), in which I would receive a book every month and updates on all new things Goosebumps. Alas, the club was defunct by the time I signed up—it probably had been for years, considering Stine concluded writing the original series of books when I was three. Fear Street, on the other hand, completely Continue reading Fear Street Part One: 1994 (2021) Movie Review→
Director Tim Hunter is perhaps best known for the crime drama River’s Edge starring Keanu Reeves. He has since directed the occasional feature, but most of his work is done on television programs. Fittingly, his Smiley Face Killers has the appearance of a teen drama show (like Riverdale or Scream: The TV Series, two shows Hunter has worked on).
I don’t say this disparagingly; it is simply an apparent feature. The young actors are lit and shot like they are models in an advertisement. Soft focus accentuates them in the frame. Soft, high key lighting highlights their features. At one point, a major character strips down and takes a shower, and the camera lingers on Continue reading Smiley Face Killers (2020) Movie Review→
May (Brea Grant), the protagonist of Lucky, suffers the condescending disinterest of the police, reductionist head-shrinking of social workers, and emotional manipulation and gaslighting of her partner (Dhruv Uday Singh). Oh, and she also gets attacked by a masked man every night of her life.
Lucky, written by Grant and directed by Natasha Kermani, is a lean (perhaps too lean) horror satire that imagines society’s patriarchy, microaggressions, and trauma as a surreal nightmare cycling again and again with no end in sight. As far as “social horror” goes, it’s a pretty perfect premise.
The film starts as a fresh twist on an old favorite. May and her husband Ted are attacked in their home by an intruder in the middle of the night. Only, Ted is shockingly nonplussed by the situation. In fact, Continue reading Lucky (2021) Movie Review→
Osgood Perkins’ Gretel & Hansel, produced by Orion Pictures and Bron Studios, reverses the names in the title of the classic Grimm’s fairy tale. This is an intentional choice. Not only is Gretel arguably the protagonist of every major iteration of this story, but this version makes a concerted effort to address the gender differences between its title characters.
It is an interesting direction to take a familiar fairy tale, one that could bear rich thematic fruit. Unfortunately, Rob Hayes’ script makes statements toward this theme without much elaboration and with only a cursory connection to the fairy tale text. The film begins with Continue reading Gretel & Hansel (2020) Movie Review→
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