Oliver Blackburn’s survival horror film is an engaging and tense thriller with a deceptively simple premise. It is mostly a single setting horror film, but implements its college setting to feel terrifying and completely alien. Even when we’re watching heroine Justine walking around campus with utmost familiarity and soaking in the peace of the usually crammed halls, once the darkness falls, it feels like one of the most terrifying hunting grounds for evil ever depicted. “Kristy” is set during Thanksgiving break, where young Justine is stuck in college. With all of her friends and boyfriend off to see their families, Justine has the campus to herself, along with two random security guards. Haley Bennett is fantastic as young Justine, a seemingly random victim of a group of hooded masked killers.
What We Become (2016) [Blu-Ray/DVD]
It’s “Night of the Living Dead Yuppies” in what is easily one of the most asinine foreign zombie movies of the year. In a year where we were able to see brilliant zombie fare like “Train to Busan” and “Seoul Station,” it’s sad we have “What We Become,” a pretty frustrating horror drama that ends just as it begins to pick up steam. It’s not really a zombie movie, but it feels like one heavy handed commentary on how vicious and cruel we become when we’re faced with the task of surviving and caring for one another. It’s nothing we haven’t seen covered in George Romero’s films, or “The Walking Dead,” before. Yes, when faced with survival, we will tear each other’s throats out for a can of beans, the military is shifty and violent, the elderly are usually the first to go, and deep down we’re all selfish bastards. Also kids never stay in the damn house, even during a zombie apocalypse.
Child’s Play (1988): Collector’s Edition [Blu-Ray]
Killer dolls are popular once again and now seems like a better time than ever for Chucky to enter stage left and remind people that once upon a time he was the plastic maniac with a butcher knife. 1988’s “Child’s Play” is still a mini-classic that dabbles in the killer doll sub-genre and offers up its own twist. It’s essentially a slasher movie through and through, but it has small doses of the supernatural, and mysterious to add some kind of logic to the origin of Chucky. Brad Douriff’s turn as Chucky is immortal as he plays serial killer Charles Lee Ray, a man who is chased by police during a robbery. After being mortally wounded during a shoot out, Ray ducks in to a toy store and finds no other option but to summon magic to keep himself alive. Said magical incantation allows his soul to be transferred in to a popular doll named the “Good Guy Doll.”
Child Eater (2016) [Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2016]
Based on the 2012 short of the same name, Child Eater follows a babysitter as she watches the new kid in town in an old house that has a bad history. As she tries to sooth the boy she’s watching, he seems to be good to go to bed. He then decides to go exploring the nearby woods which contain a terrifying legend. Writer/director Erlingur Thoroddsen whose short this feature is based on takes his story of the boogeyman and expands it to a wider story. The creepy figure he creates is at first a looming figure, something that may or may not be real. However, clues abound to its existence and who or what it used to be before it started doing its evil deeds.
Ranking the “Bob’s Burgers” Halloween Episodes
If you’re still waiting for the heir apparent to “The Simpsons,” it’s already here and it’s been on television for seven years, now. “Bob’s Burgers” is a consistently hilarious, well written, and sweet series about a lower middle class family working hard to make ends meet and deal with the wackiness of life. Almost every year “Bob’s Burgers” has hosted their own holiday episodes, including Halloween, and they’ve managed to build some of the most memorable episodes of the series through the holiday, using it as a means of emphasizing some of the more unique traits within every character.
With a new Halloween episode of “Bob’s Burgers” arriving on October 23rd, I thought I’d rank and rave about every Halloween episode from the series so far.
Which “Bob’s Burgers” Halloween episode is your favorite? Let me know in the comments.
Psychotic! (2016) [Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2016]
This film follows a group of friends attempting to enjoy the party scene in Bushwick (Brooklyn) when a party killer starts eliminating party goers here and there. Not know who the killer is or when they will strike again. The friends are navigating life, dating, expensive apartments, and their passions. Credits for the film are not yet on IMDB, so the festival’s site is the only source of information for now. The film is directed and written by Maxwell Frey and Derek Gibbons who start the film off with a clear homage to stalker films of the early 80s with a scene that follows a person stalking a girl.
Human Killers and Psychological Terrors Shorts Block Part 2 [Horrible Imaginings Film Festival 2016]
Dogged (UK) (2015)
A young couple is being watched; soon the young man’s life takes a turn for the artsy weird as masked people chase him in this homage to Little Red Riding Hood. Director Richard Roundtree creates, with co-writer Christina Roundtree, a visually interesting short film that is disorienting. The story is unfortunately unclear which leads to being unsure as to the leads’ performances. The cinematography by Christopher Foulser, the editing by Foulser and Lee Wignall, and the music by James Griffiths team up to create a short that is memorable even with its story issues.