Montreal is sort of infamous for its roadwork and potholes… One day, a pothole grows to frightening size and oozes a sort of gas. Soon after, people in various neighborhoods around town are starting to feel this gas’ effects, turning into violent people and zombies, switching bodies, meeting monsters and other oddities.
Tag Archives: Horror
Cold Skin (2017) [Fantasia 2018]
On an Antartic island, a new weather observer arrives to relieve his predecessor only to fins he may very well have lost his mind. As the two enter in an odd sort of back and forth, a native creature lives by their side as her cohorts start showing themselves outside.
Pledge (2018) [Fantasia Fest 2018]
Director Daniel Robbins’ survival college thriller is a pretty typical horror film that surprisingly takes a lot of its beats from “Hostel.” At times it almost felt like a cheap rip off. Despite some interesting ideas, “Pledge” is a pretty crummy horror offering with no real pay off to the climax and lacking any kind of protagonist during its entirety. In fact I was left with a lot of questions when the movie came to a sudden end rather than with a sense I’d been dropped in to a nightmare.
Piranha II: The Spawning (1981): Collector’s Edition [Blu-Ray]
James Cameron is one of the many students of Roger Corman who spent a lot of his early career cutting his teeth on doing smaller jobs for Corman and learning the basics. Finally given a shot with “Piranha II,” Cameron delivers a movie that’s terrible, but charming in its terribleness. It’s the beginnings of a blockbuster titan and his ability to serve something up on a grand scale.
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! (1978): 2 Disc Special Edition [Blu-Ray/DVD]
Movies like “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” are virtually bullet proof from criticism. You either go in the movie prepared for the silly, or you can’t quite match the film’s frequency. “Attack of the Killer tomatoes” is one of the earliest known satires of “The Birds” where it’s about the inexplicable sentience and attack of deadly fruit on a small town rather than pecking deadly birds from the sky. And that’s about where it ends there. You figure with the preamble about “The Birds” and how this movie is basically the same thing but with tomatoes, we’d have a full fledged spoof of the Hitchcock movie.
Knuckleball (2018) [Fantasia 2018]
Following a death in his father’s family, a young boy is dropped off at his maternal grandfather so that his parents can go to the funeral. Once there, grandpa puts him to work and shows him a few things about baseball. As this happens, the odd neighbor comes and goes on the property. As things advance, young Henry has to go get this neighbor for assistance and things go from bad to worse, forcing him to fend for himself and fight for his life.
Knuckleball (2018) [Fantasia 2018]
It’s disheartening when you’re watching a very good movie from a group of people you love, and then as the film reaches its home stretch you can see the wheels slowly coming off. That’s what “Knuckleball” was like. It’s a great idea, and a twisted premise with some great performances, but by the final twenty minutes it gets unnecessarily weird with a twist that feels tacked on and absolutely out of left field. Which is not to say “Knuckleball” is a bad movie, since right up until the final twenty minutes, I’d highly recommend it as a wrenching of the “Home Alone” formula that also kind of feels like a spiritual companion piece to M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Visit.”