A young woman living a mute-by-choice society finds herself hunted by a cult who want her for nefarious reasons.
Tag Archives: Horror
Red Riding Hood (2011)
It’s hard to imagine but Hollywood just never seems to be short of attempts to re-think and re-imagine “Red Riding Hood. And surely enough they never seem to think of an interesting enough idea for a franchise of any kind. I wish they’d stop by now. “Red Riding Hood” is Catherine Hardwicke’s efforts to transform “Red Riding Hood” in to this Puritanical, Stephanie Meyer tinted romance horror film that never works as well as it wants to.
The Substance (2024)
An actress facing agism decides to give a black-market drug a try to see what her other self could allow her to do.
The Elderly (Viejos) (2023)
Raúl Cerezo, and Fernando González Gómez’s horror thriller may not be the most entertaining genre film, but it certainly is one of the most depressing movies about aging I’ve ever seen. With movies like “The Elderly,” although there is almost certainly another horror element waiting around the corner, the pair of directors are keen on depicting aging and being elderly as perhaps the most horrific circumstance to ever find ones self in. “The Elderly” is a lot about this inexplicable series of events involving the local elderly population, many of whom are becoming violent toward their family and toward themselves.
All Fun and Games (2023)
It’s really too bad that directors Eren Celeboglu, and Ari Costa’s supernatural horror movie virtually came and went without much of a trace in 2023. It’s not by any metric a complete masterpiece, but it sure is a fun little horror film packed with a lot of mythos that I wanted to learn a lot more about. “All Fun and Games” is primarily about the fragility of the family unit and how this family known as the Fletchers are thrown in to disarray and pure chaos at the drop of a hat.
Monster Family (2017)
You could be forgiven for mistaking “Monster Family” as a part of the “Hotel Transylvania” movie universe, but I don’t think that’s unintentional. “Monster Family” bases itself on a lot of other better films for what amounts to such a flat affair. Despite its lively animation, everything about “Monster Family” is a messy, convoluted, and bizarre affair that never makes much sense, despite its attempts to bring itself down to Earth as a tale about family unity. Holger Tappe delivers what is just a sloppy, derivative mash-up of “Hotel Transylvania,” “The Incredibles” and “The Munsters.” And it’s never as fun as either of the aforementioned, even at its best.
Talk to Me (2023)
Danny and Michael Philippou’s “Talk to Me” really is one of the crowning horror achievements of 2023. It’s one of those horror movies that doesn’t just scare you, but it also leaves a stain on you. That’s because while “Talk to Me” is very much a demonic possession movie, it’s deeply rooted in the concept of the urban folklore that taps in to not only our obsession with death, but our need to know if there’s anything after we’ve died. That’s essentially what fuels pretty much everyone in “Talk to Me”; the twisted porcelain hand reaching out for a grip becomes the sort of Monkey’s Paw or Ouija Board that everyone begins to center their lives on.
It grants them an amazing ability, but one that is easily misused and one that can be exploited. It’s almost a phone extension to the other side where anyone can mine souls for some sort of contact. The problem is we’re never quite sure what kind of souls they’re conjuring up. What becomes such a fascinating drive for these characters is that the use of the film’s mysterious porcelain hand is a plot device that is powerful, but also ambiguous until the very end. Whose hand is it? How old is it? Where does the power come from? Is it meant for good or pure evil? Can it filter out demons?