According to David Paulides, the author of the Missing 411 books, he estimates that there are over 1,600 unexplained disappearances in North American National Parks. In “Lovely, Dark and Deep,” director Teresa Sutherland offers up one of the more complex and haunting supernatural thrillers of the year, all set within the confines of a national park. What makes “Lovely, Dark and Deep” so haunting is that director Sutherland sets the entirety of her film within a national forest, all of which seems so suffocating and all consuming from the moment character Lennon drives in to its threshold.
Tag Archives: Supernatural
Cobweb (2023)
I’ve always had a soft spot for horror movies that present themselves as dark twisted versions of fairy tales, and Samuel Bodin’s “Cobweb” is one of the highlights of the sub-genre. “Cobweb” is a dark and twisted tale of family that watches almost like and Edward Gorey folktale that’s suddenly sprung to life. It’s shocking that Lionsgate hasn’t promoted this movie at all, since as we’re entering in to the Halloween season gradually, “Cobweb” is the perfect dose of autumnal tinted horror. Director Samuel Bodin manages to concoct a mystery horror film that is not just creepy, but suspenseful and twisted all at the same time.
Insidious: the Red Door (2023)
It’s a real shame that the “Insidious” series would go back to its roots with “The Red Door” and end up being probably the worse entry in the franchise yet. Patrick Wilson is a fine enough director, but “The Red Door” is such a misfire that you can’t even really call it a cash grab. It feels a lot like the studios attempts to add some sense of closure to the Lambert family, but rather than this emotional journey through the Further, all they hand us is a half baked rip off of “The Babadook.” And that’s saying a lot since I’ve been such a fan of the “Insidious” series since it arrived in 2011. But these films have done so much better, even with “The Last Key.”
Insidious: The Last Key (2018)
Elise Rainier has been one of the most fleshed out horror movie heroines of the modern era and I’ve enjoyed her quest throughout the “Insidious” series. After dying at the end of the first film, every subsequent film has backtracked to not only explore Elise more, but also give us a bigger wider bridge to the first film. “The Last Key” is perhaps the most personal quest featuring Elise as it does fit in to the general mythology of “The Further” but is more intimate and lower stakes. The movie can be seen more as a stand alone one shot featuring Elise in where she not only garnered full control of her powers, but also foresaw her fate in the first “Insidious.”
Bad Girl Boogey (2023)
I give filmmaker Alice Maio Mackay a lot of credit for pressing forward with a slasher movie that’s based a lot around the LGBTQ community and a slasher that’s centered on murdering citizens of that community. There aren’t many horror movies that focus on the whole LGBTQ experience and on a slasher that’s centered on them and only them. While I do credit director and writer Alice Maio Mackay for trying to offer something different, “Bad Girl Boogey” excels in the directorial department but sorely needed work in the script department. The script is an aspect of “Bad Girl Boogey” that could have stood at least a few more rewrites and re-thinking.
Suitable Flesh (2023) [Tribeca 2023]
A young man with what seems to be multiple personalities shows up unexpectedly in a psychiatrist’s office triggering an obsession in her that leads her into a world of madness in this H.P. Lovecraft adaptation.
BAD MOVIE MONDAY: Verotika (2019)
I’ve written at length about what makes a good bad movie, but what makes a BAD bad movie? This is what I’d like to talk about in today’s review because I think I found the perfect example. Here is a movie that is so bad, so incompetent, so mind-numbingly lazy, that I can’t just overlook its flaws and give it the benefit of the doubt like I normally would. This is a movie that is insultingly and aggressively terrible. Yes folks, I’m talking about VEROTIKA.
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