John McNaughton’s horror drama is a pitch black film that managed to raise so much controversy upon its release and to this day is still a very polarizing work of art in the horror genre. Like “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” it centers on a point of humanity and pure evil that is irredeemable and absolutely impossible to rationalize. “Henry” is that kind of movie without a single bright spot, a tale about a shapeless person indulging in sadism and murder who thinks of snuffing out human life as a mundane hobby that he revels in indulging in.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
The Box Trolls (2014)
Laika has the ability to conjure up magic and unique premises that you can’t find anywhere else, and it’s why I think they’re bringing so much to the animation medium. While “The Box Trolls” isn’t their best title, it surely is a meaningful and heartfelt work of art that works as an entertaining allegory about the class structure and the idea of the dream of wealth and whether or not it can ever live up to our fantasies. Is there such a thing as too much? And it is really as ideal as we think?
The Pagemaster (1994)
When I was a kid whenever councils or committees tried to encourage kids to read, they always invented some kind of mascot, and for me it was Cap’n O. G. Readmore. Every Saturday morning after the cartoons, he’d show up to remind kids to read, and explain how much fun reading was. “The Pagemaster” has good intentions but deep down it feels disingenuous and an awful lot like a glorified Saturday Morning special turned in to a big feature. At barely eighty minutes in length, it’s a mediocre, dreary, occasionally boring film that you can’t help but feel like it could have been shown as a TV movie.
Demon Wind (1990)
You’re just not prepared for what Charles Phillip Moore has to offer you, the horror fan. Never have I seen such a bat shit insane, moronic horror movie that is so tough to digest, but goes down so well. “Demon Wind” is the epitome of bad low budget horror that seems to basically make it up as it goes along. By the time we reached the climax of the movie I literally just gave up trying to comprehend what I was watching and basically laugh my ass off at the sheer hideousness of it all.
3 From Hell (2019)
I don’t know what you can chalk it up to. Maybe it was the unfortunate illness of the late great Sid Haig that caused Rob Zombie to re-write a lot of “3 From Hell.” Or maybe he just didn’t know where to take his characters next. For a movie that takes great pains to explaining in detail how and why the Firefly Clan survived, it’s disappointing when “3 From Hell” does absolutely nothing new with them. Rob Zombie has a lot of windows to basically re-invent his characters and present some kind of social commentary, but in the end it’s just Zombie treading water with middling results.
He’s Out There (2018)
Quinn Lasher’s “He’s Out There” is a film that’s gotten a lot of buzz for being a hidden gem on Netflix and I have to contest that assumption. Is it a hidden gem? No. It’s not even a very good movie, when you cut it down. Lasher’s horror survival thriller is a good idea, but a movie that falls apart when you supply even the simplest logic to it. No really, not even nitpicks, but a simple “Wait a minute…” will eventually lead you down the path to “Well that’s kind of stupid,” in the end.
The Furies (2019)
Tony D’Aquino’s “The Furies” is teeming with potential but is a movie that seems to be hell bent on pissing away any and all entertainment value at every turn. Everything in “The Furies” could have used another draft, from the motives of the mysterious villains, the motivation of the protagonists, and of course the final scene that ends on the presumption that a sequel is coming up the pipe line or something.