Horror
20. Paranorman
19. The Pack
18. Bait 3d
17. The Theatre Bizarre
16. The Divide
15. Cabin in the Woods
14. Frankenweenie
13. Detention
12. Grabbers
11. John Dies at the End
10. The Possession
9. The Pact
8. Lovely Molly
7. The Woman in Black
6. The Bay
5. Juan of the Dead
4. Beyond the Black Rainbow
3. Father’s Day
2. Sinister
1. Rec 3
Non-horror
10. Flight
9. Guilty of Romance
8. Beasts of the Southern Wild
7. Looper
6. Skyfall
5. Undefeated
4. Klown
3. The Raid: Redemption
2. Paradise Lost 3
1. Prometheus
Albums
10. Celldweller – Wish Upon a Blackstar (industrial/dance/rock)
9. Bat for Lashes – The Haunted Man (indie)
8. Deftones – Koi No Yokan (hard rock/metal)
7. …

Apartment 143
Director: Carles Torrens
Writer: Rodrigo Cortés
Stars: Kai Lennox, Gia Mantegna and Michael O’Keefe
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jeremy 
 
Plot: Paranormal investigators investigate a family torn apart by a haunting.
Like them or not, the trend of found footage films isn’t going on vacation. As cameras get cheaper and smaller, the option to go faux-documentary remains a viable choice to enhance the realism of a film and offer unique perspectives. Let’s face it—the horror genre needs some unique twists to the same repeating conventions. However, one issue is that found footage is …

Familiar
Directed by Richard Powell
Starring: Robert Nolan, Astrida Auza and Cathryn Hostick
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jeremy
Richard Powell proved with his last short that he knows how to Worm under our skin, and his latest, the twenty-one minute Familiar, quite literally does so. Not only do we have a successful return to psychological horror, we get a bloody mess of practical fx to keep everyone who stays the course happy. While at times the film strays dangerously close to rehashing the body-horror of David Cronenberg or the under seen French film Baby Blood, …

The Fields
Directors: Tom Mattera, David Mazzoni
Stars: Tara Reid, Cloris Leachman and Brian Anthony Wilson
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jeremy
 
Essential fact #1: Cornfields are creepy. Even with a bad script and poor cinematography, those stalks are unnerving. Thankfully, that is not this movie.
The Fields is a coming-of-age dark drama with a very slow burn that has some nice atmospheric moments, but is generally devoid of the horror, action, or scares that a grown-up audience might expect. It recalls the subject matter of films like Watcher in the Woods, Paper House, and Tidelands. I feel …

Lovely Molly
Directed by Eduardo Sanchez (Blair Witch Project)
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jeremy
 
 
If you haven’t read any reviews about the horror film with the not-so-horrific
name of Lovely Molly, get ready. Even with varying tastes, it should rule end
of the year lists. Director and part screenwriter (alongside Jamie Nash)
Eduardo Sanchez recalls the intensity of past movies such as The Entity and 100
Feet to create a modern spin on the malevolent haunting story. Sanchez helped
usher in the found footage genre with The Blair Witch Project, and there are
moments of …

The Theatre Bizarre
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jeremy

The horror anthology is hopefully making a comeback as writers and directors strain to find some original angle for feature lengths. These horror shorts can pack a meaner punch than some of their full length brethren, and have been doing so for the last 200 years. The Theater Bizarre succeeds in finding conceptually strong stories that are very different in tone for a nice horror buffet with big names like Tom Savini and Richard Stanley involved. The relatively low-budget meal is served up grand-guignol style by …

The River Murders
Director: Rich Cowan
Writer: Steve Anderson
Stars: Ray Liotta, Christian Slater and Ving Rhames
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jeremy
Ray Liotta, Christian Slater, and Ving Rhames take on a whacked-out serial-killer. Do you need any other reason to see this movie? The River Murders doesn’t just rest on those laurels. The actors must have signed up when they read this fantastic script that gives the serial killer-cop movie a new twist. We may know whodunit, but the whyhedoin’it and whogoin’tadie should please fans of this genre.
The plot centers on …

A Horrible Way To Die
Director: Adam Wingard
Writer: Simon Barrett
Stars: AJ Bowen, Amy Seimetz and Joe Swanberg
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jeremy
Serial killer mumblecore. If you think that that conceptually is a great idea, then you will probably enjoy the ride of this film. It has all the tenets of mumblecore: awkward, seemingly-improvised dialogue, hand-held camerawork that isn’t too shaky, many close-ups, and an overall reach for realism and emotion. Thanks to the director Adam Wingard’s eye and the performances of his actors, the film succeeds in this concept. Yet …

Bereavement
Directed by Stevan Mena
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jeremy
I haven’t seen Stevan Mena’s Malevolence, which Bereavement is a prequel to, but I’ve read unflattering accounts of it to know that Mena has made some strides as a director. Filmmakers should get second chances to hone their skills past their first foray into directing. Bereavement starts as a promising small-town serial killer movie that initially hits all the right notes, but it ultimately grows stale and leaves a disappointing taste by the end.
The opening credits and prologue sets up the movie perfectly. …

A summer of movies—here is the better half of what I saw this summer. I tried to focus on genre, cult, and foreign films, but there were a few ‘dramas’, documentaries, and Hollywood mainstream films I decided not to ignore. Please comment if you think I’ve undervalued or overestimated the worth of any of these, or if you just saw something really cool this summer.
8.5-9: Highly recommended.
7.5-8: Recommended.
7: Slight recommendation.
6-6.5: A curiosity, mostly worthwhile, but no promises.
Ugly, Dirty, and Bad – 9
Inside Job – 9
…

Xtro
Directed by Harry Bromley Davenport
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jeremy
You can’t always judge a movie by its poster, but in the case of Xtro it is a good prognosticator of things to come. I had seen this poster/cover many times since a young age, but was never able to talk the parents into renting it. Enter 2011 and the golden age of the internet, and Xtro is available for rediscovery. I was expecting a one-note, trashy B-movie and got much more!
Where else can you get a demented midget clown, body-jacking aliens that give …

The Gate (1987)
Directed By: Tibor Takács
Reviewer: Chuck Conry
The Prologue
Well as much of a fan of 80′s style horror as I am, I had never seen,
The Gate, until now. I do know that it certainly seems to hold a place
in the heart of a lot who have seen it, so that’s reason enough for
checking it out then right? I mean what’s not to love about a tale of
kids who accidentally open up.well.a gate..in their backyard? I’m sure
had I seen this as a kid …

Humanoids From The Deep
Directed by Barbara Peeters and Jimmy Murakami (uncredited)
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jeremy
You never want to run into a gang of humanoids on a dark, foggy night. They are loud, unseemly creatures who would just assume to maul and then mate with you, but it’s not their fault their claws are so sharp. I mean, even webby beasts deserve a shot at love right? Humanoids from the Deep is a wonderful and true account of a time when fish monsters descended upon humanity.
The story revolves a northern American fishing community …

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Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jeremy
American Gothic is an entertaining 80’s slasher that has a following as a cult classic, but it seems to be getting a bad rap from various internet critics. It’s directed by John Hough, who delivered a solid resume during the 70s with films such as The Legend of Hell House, The Watcher in the Woods, Twins of Evil, and Dirty Mary Crazy Larry. He has put together an all-star cast that has a lot of fun playing …

The Perfect Host review
Directed by Nick Tomnay
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jeremy
The Perfect Host is a witty thriller that seems tailor-made for David Hyde Pierce. While the horror elements are light, it nevertheless is an enjoyable cat-and-mouse game between the captive and the captor. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out Pierce would not take a diminutive role in such a struggle, but don’t fret, the movie is very unpredictable.
If you want a synopsis, there is a host (Pierce) and a guest (Crawford). That’s all you should really know.
Not surprisingly, …

Zombies vs. Nazis.
Author: Scott Kenemore
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jeremy
Awesome.
This colorful, 250 page book with a cover of Hitler being dismembered by the voracious undead called to me as I tried to finish a very long and ambitious 800 page novel. It turns out it was the perfect antidote. The author Scott Kenemore is a smart and witty writer that makes this short novel a fun, entertaining read. The overall design of the book, with illustrations by Adam Wallenta, adds to that enjoyable experience. Go ahead and arch your high-brow, …

YellowBrickRoad
Directed by Jesse Holland, Andy Mitton
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jeremy
Yellowbrickroad has a clever name and good synopsis, but ultimately it becomes another tired retread of people slowly going crazy in the woods. At some point, you wish they would just hurry and either off themselves or each other instead of just wandering around the damned woods for low-budget eternity. When you finally get the answer to the epic mystery at the finish line, disappointment will probably reign. The film does exceed in creating an interesting allegory and existential dread. Too …

Nightmare Detective 2
Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jeremy
Tsukamoto’s first Nightmare Detective was my favorite horror film of 2008, a mixture of Nightmare on Elm Street, Dreamscape, and anime. I was very excited for this second installment, but I should have known Tsukamoto, the director of Tetsuo and Vital (and some other Japanese artistic oddities), to throw a curveball. The sequel is a completely different film that becomes a haunted examination of grief, loss, and fear. Its villain is created partly from our blame. It takes nearly an hour …

Directed by: A.D. Baker
Starring: Leslie Simpson, Axelle Carolyn
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jeremy
A Reckoning is essentially a low-budget, art-house The Quiet Earth that recalls some of the works of Andrei Tarkovsky, Aleksandr Sokurov, and Bela Tarr. It may not be quite at their level, but the fact it brings them to mind shows how much promise director/writer AD Barker and DoP Adam Krajczynski have with this first-feature. Traditionally speaking, the movie doesn’t belong in the horror section, and most horror fans will be bored to tears by this. Yet, if you have an …

Seconds Apart
Directed by Antonio Negret
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jeremy
Imagine The Parent Trap, but replace Lindsay Lohan with Damien from The Omen (she is the antichrist after all-), and you’re getting close to the premise of Seconds Apart. We all know David Cronenberg raised the bar high with Dead Ringers, but Seconds Apart manages to carve out a dark space all of its own. Nuanced performances by the twins Edmund and Gary Entin (don’t ask me who plays who) and Orlando Jones as the Detective, a wonderful script by George Richards, …