The Night is Young (2024) [Popcorn Frights 2024]

It’s not many movies that begin feeling like some kind of goofy fun romantic comedy and transforms in to a war concerning vampires. Patrick Rea is up for the challenge of delivering on a movie with a firm tongue in cheek that’s mostly viewed through the lens of a modern video camera. I’m not too sure how vampires appear on screen but that’s for the artist to decide on terms when it comes to on screen vampires. “The Night Is Young” is a pretty good mixing of genres and sub-genres, centering itself on a woman who is on the hunt for a new girlfriend.

Continue reading

Cuckoo (2024)

If you wanted something original in 2024 then by gum “Cuckoo” is one of the most original horror movies of the year. It’s so original that it works to the detriment of what Tilman Singer is trying to accomplish as a statement about bodily autonomy. Much as I wanted to love “Cuckoo,” Tilman’s mix of sub-genres watches like a lazy nonsensical riff on Cronenberg’s early films by a lazy film student with none of Cronenberg’s daring or creativity. It just literally seems to throw things at the wall to see if it sticks, as many have expressed.

And what doesn’t work just lingers like a festering trail of bread crumbles leading in to this hang nail of nonsense.

Continue reading

There’s A Zombie Outside (2024) [Popcorn Frights 2024]

It should go without saying that I really wanted to love Michael Varrati’s “There’s a Zombie Outside”; somewhere deep down there’s a great film thar doesn’t pitch itself as one thing and is really something else. What I initially assumed was some kind of supernatural descent in to horror transforms in to what is basically “Adaptation” but for the horror sect. It’s an eighty minute horror themed drama about impostor syndrome, and trying to complete a product of love before it begins consuming our lives.

Continue reading

Challengers (2024) [Blu-Ray/Digital]

Now Available from Warner Home Entertainment.

Luca Guadagnino is a talented filmmaker, one that knows how to handle genre films well, but so far he feels so out of his element with “Challengers.” For all intents and purposes, “Challengers” is a very good movie, it’s just so ill fitted for Guadagnino’s abilities as he struggles between directing a film that bounces back and forth between dark suspense and darkly comedic drama. “Challengers” is a lot of ways about the passion of sports and the lengths we’re willing to go through to remain married to it, even when our prime has passed. “Challengers” isn’t so much a love triangle, as it is a dark drama about three people willing to be as cut throat as possible to remain in the game.

Continue reading

Five Great Horror Movies by LGBTQ+ Creators

With another Pride Month here, I’m always reminded at how much the LGBTQ+ community has contributed to the horror world. Be it literature, television, comic books, and or movies, the LGBTQ+ spirit is woven in to the DNA of horror as a whole from Mary Shelly, to Don Mancini, to Elvira, et al.

These are five truly great horror standards directed and/or written by an LGBTQ+ creator.

Continue reading

Slay (2024)

Now Streaming Exclusively on Tubi.

If you’ve seen the trailer or read about “Slay,” then yes, it is exactly the movie that you think it is. If you took “Priscilla Queen of the Dessert” and mixed it with “From Dusk Til Dawn” then you have what is essentially “Slay.” No more, no less. The thing about “Slay” though is that it is a siege horror comedy with vampires and drag queens it at least takes time to make up some of its own rules for vampire. This is a creative move despite the fact it’s also a trick use to cover up the movie’s obviously low budget. And I can’t complain, because the movie makes lemonade out of lemons.

Continue reading

The Importance of Christian in “Clueless”

It was 1995 and I’d seen “Clueless” five times by now. My dad had rented it from the video store for us and I’d seen it a lot over the course of a weekend, even though I didn’t care much for it. It’s a fine movie, but it never managed to click with me like “Heathers” or “Mean Girls” ever did. From these viewings, though, I did pick up a few things.

Number One: I definitely was going to be a good husband to Alicia Silverstone. I’d be supportive of her career, and even not be a geek around other celebrities.

Number Two: Christian is definitely not in to women.

Continue reading