With “A Quiet Place” ruling the box office and proving horror is as popular as ever, fans are actually debating whether a not you can brand a movie a horror film if it’s rated anything but R. Does gore and violence qualify a horror movie as legitimate genre fare? Do we even need horror and or grue to be scared? Didn’t telling scary stories around camp fires center more on mood and atmosphere and less on someone being mutilated or turned in to a human centipede? In either case, “A Quiet Place” proves you can scare and grab people with horror no matter what the rating, and these are five more PG-13 horror movies worth watching.
Wildling (2018)
A teenager raised in an odd and potentially abusive situation is rescued and taken in by a police officer. As they attempt to figure out life together and how she can adapt to society, bizarre happenings begin.
Attack of the Southern Fried Zombies (2017)
In a small southern town, scientists test new chemicals on local crops. Soon thereafter, people start turning into flesh-eating zombies at a local fair.
Paul Brenner: A Film Critic’s Life
Paul Brenner’s career as a film critic spanned four decades, and he has offered cogent and provocative analysis of films ranging from the sublime (Orson Welles’ “F for Fake”) to the ridiculous (“Slappy and the Stinkers”). Brenner’s finest reviews have been gathered for the new book “Digging Down Deep: Subterranean Homesick Movie Reviews 1975-2017,” and we are thrilled to have him as a guest on this episode of “The Online Movie Show.”
The episode can be heard here.
“The Online Movie Show” is produced at the Platinum Wolfe Studios.
The Hurricane Heist (2018)
First off, let me apologize for not seeing and reviewing this sooner. Second, there will be mild spoilers ahead. You are forewarned.
In a small town, a hurricane causes mayhem and destruction. A father and his two sons attempt to outrun it in the family’s tow truck. As they become stuck, the father puts his sons in a house for safety. Before he can unstuck his truck, the hurricane closes in, a skull shape comes out of it before the truck disappears and the house starts tumbling. Now if this doesn’t sell you on seeing the film, the rest of the story takes place in present day during a heist at a federal reserve happening under the cover of a massive hurricane stronger than the one in the opening. Good guys and bad guys face off under this epic hurricane.
A Quiet Place (2018)
It’s surprising to see such a terrific horror debut from John Krasinski, a man who I’ve never been much of a fan of. “A Quiet Place” has just about converted me in to a fan, as he manages to deliver a very challenging genre film that relies a lot on the weight of the performances from the cast, rather than explosions, shocks, and cheap thrills. Krasinski’s horror film is poetic in its way and explores how sound means a lot in the medium of cinematic storytelling. Sound, music, it counts for almost everything and can either keep the audience baited for ninety minutes or lose them in the first five.
TV on DVD: Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century (DVD)
Back in the nineties, there was this strange movement to take pulp and serial heroes and revive them for a modern audience. Everything from Flash Gordon to Doc Samson were revived. Some of them, like “Zorro,” were big hits, while a lot of them surprisingly missed with audiences. I’ve always loved the pulp and serial heroes, but a lot of the box office and ratings for movies and television decided that they were best left in their era. One of the bigger movements was to place serial heroes in to the future. So, The Phantom was placed in to a futuristic setting, and Sherlock Holmes was brought back a la “The Demolition Man.”