For three years, David F. Sandberg’s short horror film “Lights Out” rocked the internet and became a viral hit. It was a very short and to the point film with excellent framing, brilliant editing, and a shocker of a surprise ending. After years as a viral hit, we’re given the full length adaptation of “Lights Out,” which is a pretty great extension of the terror that Sandberg spreads out for his audience. Thankfully while the spirit of the original film is kept in tact (with the original star making a welcome walk on appearance), “Lights Out” is transformed in to a complex and wrenching horror film about mental illness, abandonment, and family. I was a bit hesitant to believe “Lights Out” could be expanded in to a feature length film but while it isn’t perfect, it’s a damn good horror film with some genuinely dynamite moments.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Locals Only: Shorts by Brooklyn Filmmakers [Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2016]
Stitched (2016)
A woman has a visit from her sister after their mother has passed away. As her sister listens, she unloads and unleashes on her. Written and directed by Heather Taylor, Stitched shows how the death of a loved one can affect someone about to snap. This short (4minutes) short shows how to have a good impact by keeping things short and simple. The sisters played by Jen L. Burry and Deborah Green both do well while giving a bit of extra emotions to their parts, which fits with the short for the most part.
Killbillies (2015) [Horrible Imaginings Film Festival 2016]
Killbillies, also known as Idyll and Idila, follows a group who goes out to the mountains for a photoshoot and gets interrupted by the local hillbillies hell-bent on killing them. Writer/director Tomaz Gorkic takes the hillbillies in the woods tropes and transposes them to Slovenia. The story basis is one the public has seen a bunch of times before: city people trespass on hillbilly family land and suffer the consequences. The story is one that has been seen before, however its development and added details such as the alcohol the hillbillies produce and the fact that the group in danger is of varied adult ages gives the film an edge.
Hail to the King: 60 Years of Destruction (2015) [Horrible Imaginings Film Festival 2016]
This American documentary shows what the Japanese think of the King of Kaijus, the big G, Godzilla. This documentary was shot using crowd funding to garner its budget. Director and uber Godzilla fan Kyle Yount went to Tokyo in July 2014 to film this fan love letter to his favorite monster.
Dead Rising Endgame (2016)
It’s a damn shame that the Crackle team couldn’t follow up the entertaining first “Dead Rising” movie with an even better one. “Endgame” is a very disappointing follow up that spends most of its ninety minute run time involving government cover ups, potential military strikes, and reporters trying to get the word out about corruption. Every now and then the movie decides to dole up some zombie carnage. And even then it’s disappointing, since the story slowly drifts away from zombies and begins focusing on more rabid mutants that the government has been testing on. The narrative for a movie like this shouldn’t be so hard to follow but lo and behold when I wasn’t drifting off from boredom, I was anxiously trying to figure out how any of this worked.
Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) [Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital]
For the five people that loved Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland,” Disney decides to give us yet another take on Lewis Carroll’s tale, as Alice ventures in to Wonderland to travel through time. And literally tries out run it as she experiences the oncoming specter of adulthood and hard decisions rearing its ugly head at her. Stepping in for Burton this time is James Bobin, who manages to assemble virtually the entire cast from the first film to tell what is essentially a very convoluted and incredibly tedious movie. Truthfully, director Bobin’s film isn’t as bad as Burton’s first film, but Bobin spends so much time trying to Burtonize his sequel, he forgets to inject any kind of entertainment in to the nearly two hour drama adventure.
Meridian (1990)
Let’s face it: “Meridian” is only a Full Moon classic because it has the insanely sexy Sherilyn Fenn being all nude and scantily clad and whatnot. Co-star Charlie Spradling even has her change to unclothe as we’re given full view of her breasts during a surreal scene involving a party with a bunch of supernatural gypsies. “Meridian” watches like a really sluggish two dollar romance novel from a super market, where the author tried really hard to appeal to the horror audience, but failed big time. “Meridian” has a ton of beast on woman sex scenes, all of which are slow motion, to boot. One scene in particular bears a shocking similarity to the one in “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” where Dracula rapes Mina’s sister Lucy.