Lost After Dark (2014)

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Felix Vasquez

I appreciate the need for filmmakers to evoke the eighties building slasher movies within the confines of the decade, but often time movies can get so lost in paying homage to the culture, it doesn’t focus enough on entertaining. “Lost After Dark” falls victim to this gimmick where we have a movie set in the eighties and based around the eighties aesthetic, and yet fails to re-invent the wheel as a slasher film. While we’re at it, the whole grindhouse flourishes feel woefully superfluous to the film, and never adds anything. That said, “Lost After Dark” isn’t a bad movie, it just never manages to be anything but mediocre.

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Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (2013) [Blu-Ray]

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Felix Vasquez

If you’re like me, you left “Never Sleep Again” completely sure about your love for all things Krueger, and then wondered if Jason would ever get his turn. Thankfully, the folks at 1428 Films have indulged Jason Voorhees fan boys with an utterly extensive and incredibly detailed chronicle of the “Friday the 13th” series. At an intimidating six hours, director Daniel Farrands pays homage to the series that influenced dozens of copycats and wannabes in the eighties. Narrated by series star Corey Feldman, “Crystal Lake Memories” is another of the classic horror documentaries from 1428 that doesn’t just chronicle the rise of a pop icon, but also pays tribute to independent film.

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Tales of Halloween (2015)

Posted on October 1, 2015 by Felix Vasquez

I’m enjoying the rush of Halloween themed movies coming to theaters thanks to talented and ambitious filmmakers. If there’s any holiday deserving of a sub-genre it’s Halloween. “Tales of Halloween” is a near perfect anthology horror film that embraces the holiday and uses it as fuel to tell some weird, wild, creepy tales all set around a small town celebrating the wicked holiday. Much like “Terror Tract” and “Trick r Treat,” the anthology is set around a small suburb where inexplicably terrifying and nasty things happen on the holiday. Like “Trick r Treat,” most of the stories connect with each other and garner references to the former tale. It assures that audiences will have to watch the film over and over to catch every Easter Egg thrown to us.

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Run, Hide, Die (2015) (DVD)

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Felix Vasquez

I’m a little exhausted with indie filmmakers setting every horror film in the eighties based on some hope that if it’s set in a nostalgic decade, the film will in effect be a gem. It’s not enough to show characters playing classic Nintendo, and walking around with neon colors. “Run, Hide, Die” garners a lot of inexplicable elements, from the eighties setting that adds nothing to the overall narrative, right down to the title that in no way reflects the film at al. It adds up to a pretty miserable dramatic thriller that poses as a horror film, and fails to deliver on every aspect. It spends too much time on characterization, offers no interesting villain, and just delights in being melodramatic when it should be terrifying.

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Some Kind of Hate (2015)

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Felix Vasquez

Adam Egypt Mortimer‘s “Some Kind of Hate” may be polarizing to some viewers, because much like its contemporaries like “Carrie,” and “The Final,” there simply are no winners or heroes in this narrative. It’s a tragic tale about people losing left and right, and the vicious cycle of bullying. Being the victim of bullying can be a stain on your persona forever, and it resonates as a horrific echo for eternity. “Some Kind of Hate” is a grim and brutally bleak horror film about bullying and how it musters up something really bad from beyond the grave. Mortimer keeps “Some Kind of Hate” consistently torturous by closing off any avenues of hope for his characters.

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Some Kind of Hate (2015) [Film4 FrightFest 2015]

Posted on September 19, 2015 by Emilie Black

Film4 FrightFest 2015

Lincoln Taggert is a loner metal head who is regularly bullied at school. After a particularly brutal event, Lincoln loses his cool and hurts one of his tormentors badly. Following this incident, Lincoln is sent to a meditation based reform school where he encounters a new group of bullies and eventually wishes they would all be dead. This awakens the vengeful spirit of Moira who attacks his tormentors one by one as she herself being highly disturbed by past bullying she was a victim of before her death.

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Five Essential Wes Craven Films

Posted on September 2, 2015 by Felix Vasquez

As a hardcore horror fan I cut my teeth on the films of John Carpenter, George Romero, and Wes Craven. They were just the trio of horror masters that were always there from the time I started exploring the horror world, and I always took them for granted as wizards of cinema that would always be there. Sadly our horror icons are mortal, and Wes Craven has passed on. His death will surely rattle the horror world for a long time, and that’s because Craven was an important face of the genre right until his death, and he’ll be important long after he’s died. We can take solace in the fact that Craven affected a ton of people, and will live on forever through his vast and unique library of horror films and thrillers.

True, he’d stumbled on occasion with films like “Shocker,” and “Cursed,” but when he was on point, he’d deliver a horror film that would change the entire genre for a long time. He did so through a ghost faced slasher, a clawed dream demon, and an exploitation film about psychotic hippies. Craven always seemed like such an affable and good spirited individual with a smile permanently plastered on his face. He seemed to enjoy creating horror films that would haunt us and make us think at the same time. It’s a shame we won’t see anything new from Craven anymore, but we can celebrate the diverse output of really interesting and often celebrated horror movies that continue to influence generations. With respect to the legacy of Wes Craven, these are five of his films that are essential viewing for any movie buff interested in horror 101.

Here’s to you, Wes. Thanks for entertaining us, scaring us, and enlightening us. May you rest in peace.

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