For “The Monster,” director Bryan Bertino who debuted with the excellent “The Strangers,” channels “Cujo,” exploring a family in disarray and what happens when they’re tested by a force of nature that’s unstoppable and deadly. “The Monster” is two parts a family drama and one part horror movie. The film’s monster serves as something of a metaphor for family dysfunction and the potential for character Lizzy to end up the victim of her rage-aholic father. Zoe Kazan and Ella Ballentine work beautifully together as a mom and daughter Kathy and Lizzy who spend more time arguing with one another than working for a goal. When Lizzy decides she wants to move with her father, Kathy begrudgingly takes her. After hitting a wolf on the road, they’re left stranded, and stuck in a rain storm. Sadly the wolf has managed to lure a monstrous beast from within the heart of the woods, leaving Kathy and Lizzy vulnerable and incapable of diving to safety.
Tag Archives: Horror
Evil Games (Scherzo Diabolico) (2015)
A man who receives very little acknowledgement for his hard work decides to get things to change by kidnapping a young woman and holding her captive until he sees results to his plans. Unbeknownst to him, things are about to take an unexpected turn or two. Evil Games is written and directed by the mind behind 2016’s White Coffin, Adrian Garcia Bogliano. Here he builds another kidnapping story but with much different characters and reasoning. In Evil Games, the story is seen from the kidnapper’s side as he takes the time to build his story, his background, and his reason for doing this before getting to the kidnapping itself.
A First Edition with a Lot of Potential [Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival 2016]
This year’s edition of Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival was their first and from the online reactions to it, it should be back next year bigger and better.
As this is one of the festivals Cinema Crazed could not attend, I managed to snag some coverage anyway (yeah!).
Without further ado, here are the links to the 5 features I was lucky enough to be able to see.
Movies, Camp Fire Stories, Dance, and… Grease? [Horrible Imaginings Film Festival 2016]
This year’s edition of Horrible Imaginings Film Festival saw the festival grow from 3 days to 5 days and include more features, documentaries, shorts, live literature readings (as well as a dance showcase). The fest does not feature a gallery anymore, but it has been about more than films since its inception. This year’s highlights were some truly great short films and the campfire story readings with David Agranoff, Laura Lee Bahr, John Skipp, and Cody Goodfellow amongst others.
Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride (2005)
I respect Tim Burton’s legacy a lot and I admire what he was going for with “The Corpse Bride.” Not a lot of mainstream directors aspire to deliver movies that are more bent toward the Gothic sensibility with homages to folks like Edward Gory. Burton is a man who clearly has a love for the style, and I love it as well. Sadly, “The Corpse Bride” is a weaker approach toward the stop motion animation that Burton was mostly known for with “The Nightmare Before Christmas” for a long time. The aforementioned film is so much more charismatic and entertaining than “The Corpse Bride” in the end. Granted it’s not an awful movie, but it just feels like Burton is trying to recapture the brilliance of “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”
Nightmare Sisters (1987) [Blu-Ray/DVD]
David Decoteau’s “Nightmare Sisters” is the result of economic independent horror filmmaking and one of the finer artifacts of eighties horror sleaze. It three of the most iconic scream queens in movie history working together to dole out the best comedy that they can. “Nightmare Sisters” is a silly and often weird horror film that is oddly bloodless, considering it spends a shocking amount of time setting up the fact that our trio of lusty protagonists becomes man eating succubi. In either case, “Nightmare Sisters” is a kitschy bit of eighties exploitation that garners a unique history behind with DeCoteau using the remaining funds for “Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl O Rama” to complete this movie. That’s just economic and smart thinking.
Last Girl Standing (2015)
In writer/director Benjamin R. Moody’s film, the lead character is one hell of a fighter, but her trauma may be having the best of her as she sees signs of her attacker throughout her life and can’t quite let go. Camryn, the only survivor of a massacre in the woods is trying to live with PTSD and survivor’s guilt. As she is taken in by a new group of friends, the killer from her past may be haunting her. The lead character he creates here is a strong young woman but she does not have much of a back story outside of being the only survivor from a massacre during a camping trip to the woods. The other characters, her new friend and potential love interest Nick and his roommates have more set up than she does almost. They are presented and explained quickly but it gives them connections and personalities.