Hellraiser

A disappointment. I was hoping this would go back to the source novella for some true Barker glories, but no it’s just yet another poorly formulated sequel that does nothing the other nine sequels haven’t already attempted, only backed by substantially more money.

Amsterdam

It definitely takes huge film making talent to be able to take a cast as strong as this has, embed them in a true story as grand as this has, and come out of it all with something so frothy and slight.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Not only a laughably poor attempt at a sequel but also a laughably poor attempt at a film.

Videoman [Videomannen]

Was expecting a giallo obsessed descent into paranoia, madness and messy stabby death, but got a story about alcoholics falling in love instead. Kinda lost interest anyway when the protagonist claimed Fulci was a better director than Argento and described Suspiria as a giallo but with a witch as the killer. Tsk.

Tilbury

Supremely weird Icelandic yarn about a strange imp working as an officer in the British army, who vomits green butter and gains sustenance by suckling on a distended nipple growing on the inside of his girlfriend’s thigh. I shit you not.

Lake Of The Dead [De dødes tjern]

Talky and dull.

Devil’s Express [Death Express]

Utterly shit. 

Is that gold velvet dungaree outfit on the poster worn in the film? 

Yes. 

Does that save it? 

No, that’s how utterly shit this movie is.

Werewolf By Night

Not really a movie, but i’m mildly baffled as to why it isn’t. Stick fifteen minutes on the start to flesh out a couple more characters, show more of the hunting and you’d have a pretty good movie.

God Said Give ‘Em Drum Machines

For those who are in to Techno, this isn’t going to tell them anything new but they’ll love it regardless. For those who aren’t in to Techno, it is imperative that they are made aware that this hugely popular genre of music stems entirely from a group of black fellas hanging out in Detroit during the eighties and has nothing to do with cunts like David Guetta, and this puts that message out there with aplomb.

Deadstream

During the first twenty minutes I really began to regret putting this on, then it hit a stride that’s best described as ‘Jackass meets Found Footage hauntings’ and leaned hard into the silliness and I regretted nothing. 

Host

Takes place entirely as a Zoom call and uses this very effectively to provide some original scares, my favourite being somebody repeatedly emerging from, and then disappearing back into their fake Zoom background as their face is repeatedly smashed into their keyboard. As fun as all of this undoubtedly is though, there’s no story to be had because no Zoom call ever is a story worth telling.

Death Weekend [The House By The Lake]

A rape/revenge movie that’s thankfully low on sordid detail, providing fully clothed sexual assault and a gang who are more irritating than leery, and that is also pleasingly high on heroine resourcefulness as she calmly fucks everyone up.

Nope

This is a great movie, but if a good 50 minutes were to be shorn from it then it would be an amazing movie. And those 50 minutes could easily then be fleshed out into another totally separate amazing movie. Jordan Peele clearly knows what he’s doing but still has lessons to be learned.

In The Mouth Of Madness

The final masterpiece from a master who has since lost his way.

Prince Of Darkness

Carpenter’s second in his trilogy of love letters to Lovecraft suffers from a considerably lower FX budget than the other two which means to truly enjoy how excellent this film is you have to be really on board with ideas like ancient entities of pure evil being represented by the occasional spray of dirty water.