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Movie Review: Bloodmoon (1990) – Severin Blu-ray

The girls at St. Elizabeth’s Catholic School are up to their teased-out tresses in trouble. If they aren’t constantly in danger of being caught by staff as they get hot n’ horny with the boys from nearby Winchester School (and occasionally a local or two… who just so happen to be the eternal subject of those rich Winchester lads bullying), there’s a killer on the loose on Lover’s Lane offing the student bodies of both academies with his barbwire killing implement! As the bodies (and suspects) go up exponentially the gals n’ guys must keep their wits about them if they are to survive this deadly ordeal with their Aquanetted coifs in-tact… and the rest of their bodies as well! Director Alec Mills certainly wanted to emulate the slasher genre that was sweeping America in the eerie ‘80s, and along with screenwriter Robert Brennan he does just that… but given the fact this film was produced in Australia we get

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Mar 15, 2024

Spoiler-Free Film Review: “Hunting Daze” (SXSW)

Writer/director Annick Blank’s French-language Canadian thriller Hunting Daze blends harshly realistic scenarios with dizzying drug-trip sequences. The result is a fascinating, often disturbing look at toxic masculinity. Sex worker Nina (Nahéma Ricci), after performing for a bachelor party in very rural Quebec, finds herself abandoning the rest of her group in anger and frustration. She asks Kevin (Frédéric Millaire-Zouvi), one of the party members, if she can stay there until a ride can be arranged for her. The group votes that to do so, she must pass some rites and become part of their self-professed wolf pack. Rather than turning into the rape revenge thriller that some might expect, Nina finds herself in no such danger from the group, which parties hard before and after hunting. Another stranger — African man Doudos (Noubi Ndiaye) — shows up, adding another element of “The Other” to the group dynamics, as well as the suspense. When a dangerous accident occurs, paranoia and tension

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 14, 2024

Spoiler-Free Film Review: “Natatorium” (SXSW)

Writer/director Helena Stefansdottir’s Icelandic thriller Natatorium is the type of film where you just know that something is off from the onset, and the mystery as to what exactly is happening keeps you wrapped up until the climactic reveal. The dark family drama at the heart of this feature is thoroughly gripping. With dreams of traveling the world in a performance troupe, 18-year-old Lilja (Ilmur María Arnarsdóttir) stays at the home of her grandmother Áróra (Elin Petersdottir) and grandfather Grimur (Valur Freyr Einarsson) for an audition being held in their town. She has arrived at their home without announcing it in advance to her father Magnús (Arnar Dan Kristjánsson). He calls his sister Vala (Stefanía Berndsen) and asks her to check in on Lilja, and viewers learn right away that the older siblings have problems with Lilja staying there. The titular swimming pool seems to be one of the big reasons for their concerns. Áróra’s other son Kalli (Jónas Alfreð

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 14, 2024

Spoiler-Free Film Reviews: “The Funeral” and “Custom” (FrightFest Glasgow)

THE FUNERAL (CENAZE; Turkey, 2023) Hearse driver Cemal (Ahmed Rifat Sunger) takes a job of which he is leary from the start: driving away with the body of a murdered young woman named Zeynep (Cansu Türedi) and hiding away with the corpse for a month until her family is ready to claim it. Matters become instantly complicated when Cemal checks into a motel and hears breathing coming from Zeynep’s casket. I don’t want to give away too much more of the plot, so suffice it to say so that in the first act, viewers learn that Zeynep is indeed quite dead — sort of — and that she develops a particular hunger, and that Zeynep’s feelings toward her drive him to do whatever it takes to feed her. Director Orcun Behram delivers a highly unique take on the living dead subgenre that boasts terrific lead performances from Sunger and Türedi. Engin Özkaya’s cinematography splendidly portrays the bleak tone of Behram’s

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 11, 2024

Movie Review: Burial Ground (1981) – Severin 4k/Blu-ray

You know how when you are a connoisseur of something, let’s say for instance; Italian fright flicks, there tends to be tiers of quality? I mean you got your Suspiria and your The Beyond, then you get a bit further out and you have your Buio Omega and other delightfully hardcore shit… then things get a bit cheaper with the likes of Bruno Mattei and titles like Hell of the Living Dead… and then you get right down there towards the bottom and you find things like the flick we are taking a look at today, Burial Ground, and well… that’s the type of unadulterated nonsense that yours cruelly can really sink his fangs into! After an opening where the European equivalent of Rick Rubin attempts to stave off a zombie attack with this bon mot; “Wait, stand back; I’m your friend!” we get into the story proper of ol’ Burial Ground… and by that I mean a bunch of

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Mar 9, 2024

Movie Review: Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972) – Synapse

While vacationing, Virginia (María Elena Arpón), and her pal Roger (César Burner) bump into Virginia’s former boarding school chum/former lover Betty (Lone Fleming) decide to take a train ride. Whoopie-shit you may say, but wait… Virginia gets super jealous of Roger’s interest in Betty and decides to hop of that train and goes for a stroll where she ends up wandering in the wind-swept ruined town of Berzano. While that would be creepy enough on it’s own, this location was once home to a cadre of Knights Templar in the Middle Ages… but they were executed by hanging for crimes of cavortin’ with the Devil… oh, and performing ritual, cannibalistic sacrifice… but unfortunately for our good friend Virginia, they are more of the walking dead-style of deceased… and at night they rise as rotted, eyeless, hooded cloak wearing zombie mother fuckers… and their horses too! Being the supernatural menace that they are, the knights dispatch Virginia by biting the living

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Mar 7, 2024

Horror-Comedy ‘Agak Laen’ Ranks as Indonesia’s Second Highest-Grossing Film EVER

Horror continues to reign supreme at the box office, including across the globe in Indonesia. The newly released horror-comedy Agak Laen has just become the second-highest-grossing Indonesian film of all time. Deadline is reporting that the film has seen a whopping “7.35 million admissions” since its February 1st debut. The film follows 2022’s KKN di Desa Penari, which is currently in the number-one spot with an impressive 10.62 million “admissions.” With it just being released, Agak Lean may very well take the number-one spot soon. A Major Hit: Agak Laen, directed by Muhadkly Acho, stars Bene Dion Rajagukguk, Oki Rengga, Indra Jegel, Boris Bokir, and Tissa Biani Azzahra. It follows a group of individuals dealing with the aftermath of an old man’s death at a failing haunted house ride. The operators, in a bizarre twist, bury the body on-site, unknowingly transforming it into a popular attraction. Standing Out from the Crowd: While horror films often perform well in Indonesia, producer

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Feb 27, 2024

Spoiler-Free Film Reviews: “The Activated Man,” “Escalation,” and “Ron” (Romford Horror Festival)

THE ACTIVATED MAN (U.S., 2023) Writer/director Nicholas Gyeney’s feature The Activated Man is an interesting variation on the “shadow people” subgenre. The film goes all-in on its exploration of psychic power and supernatural forces. Leaning perhaps slightly more toward tugging at the heartstrings than delivering full-blown horror, the film does serve up a decidedly frightening new character in The Fedora Man (Edward Michael Scott), whose appearance should inspire cosplay and Halloween costumes aplenty. The Activated Man is loaded with ideas, perhaps almost too many for a single film, including a late reveal that I won’t spoil here. Unemployed Ors (Jamie Costa) is suffering from depression after the loss of his dog Louie to cancer, and his police detective significant other Sarah (Ivana Rojas) is supportive of him, while she herself investigates local cases of murder–suicides, an epidemic of which is sweeping the United States. Ors begins to see ghostly visions of Louie, as well as unwelcome appearances from The Fedora

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Feb 27, 2024

Spoiler-Free Film Review: “Underground” 

Somewhere in director Lars Janssen’s Underground (U.K., 2023) is a good horror short, but at feature-film length, the project feels heavily padded. Ella (Maaike Tol) is about to get married, and her friends Riley (Charlotte Dawn Potter, who cowrote the screenplay with Janssen), Ziggy (Sapphire Brewer-Marchant), Claire (Nadia Dawber), and Jessica (Caitlyn Barber) are throwing her a hen party (a bachelorette party, as it is called in the U.S.), with plenty of drinking as part of the festivities. Their wacky (to this point) evening gets them kicked out of a taxi cab by the driver, and the friends are left to their own devices on a dark road in the middle of nowhere. Armed only with their smartphones, the quintet gets into further trouble when one of them falls down a hole, and the others come to her aid and find themselves trapped in a bunker. Underground starts off by introducing us to the protagonists, which at first is a

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Feb 25, 2024

Spoiler-Free Short-Film Reviews: “The Foreboding: Fractured,” “Sour Milk,” and “Dolly Molly’s Playhouse” (Romford Horror Festival)

THE FOREBODING: FRACTURED (U.K., 2024) In director Kemal Yildrim’s short The Foreboding: Fractured, four university friends go camping in the woods, which is never a good idea when it comes to horror movie characters. Neither is telling scary stories by the campfire, but that happens here too. The elements are set for some forest-bound fear fare, and though I will avoid going into spoiler territory, suffice it to say that what the quartet runs afoul of is not a slasher nor a cryptid, but something of the supernatural variety. The ensemble cast — Eve Kathryn Oliver, Alexander Staunton-Hill (who also wrote the screenplay), Olivia Bennett, Peter Tilley, and Sienna Shih — all turn in fine performances playing believable characters, and Yildrim does an admirable job of setting an eerie atmosphere and building suspense. SOUR MILK (U.K., 2024) A homeless shelter offers a terrifying choice for a young woman in writer/director Joe Duncombe’s Sour Milk. Cassie’s (Molly Grainger) first night at

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Feb 22, 2024

More from Foreign

Movie Review: Bloodmoon (1990) – Severin Blu-ray

The girls at St. Elizabeth’s Catholic School are up to their teased-out tresses in trouble. If they aren’t constantly in danger of being caught by staff as they get hot n’ horny with the boys from nearby Winchester School (and occasionally a local or two… who just so happen to be the eternal subject of those rich Winchester lads bullying), there’s a killer on the loose on Lover’s Lane offing the student bodies of both academies with his barbwire killing implement! As the bodies (and suspects) go up exponentially the gals n’ guys must keep their wits about them if they are to survive this deadly ordeal with their Aquanetted coifs in-tact… and the rest of their bodies as well! Director Alec Mills certainly wanted to emulate the slasher genre that was sweeping America in the eerie ‘80s, and along with screenwriter Robert Brennan he does just that… but given the fact this film was produced in Australia we get

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Mar 15, 2024

Spoiler-Free Film Review: “Hunting Daze” (SXSW)

Writer/director Annick Blank’s French-language Canadian thriller Hunting Daze blends harshly realistic scenarios with dizzying drug-trip sequences. The result is a fascinating, often disturbing look at toxic masculinity. Sex worker Nina (Nahéma Ricci), after performing for a bachelor party in very rural Quebec, finds herself abandoning the rest of her group in anger and frustration. She asks Kevin (Frédéric Millaire-Zouvi), one of the party members, if she can stay there until a ride can be arranged for her. The group votes that to do so, she must pass some rites and become part of their self-professed wolf pack. Rather than turning into the rape revenge thriller that some might expect, Nina finds herself in no such danger from the group, which parties hard before and after hunting. Another stranger — African man Doudos (Noubi Ndiaye) — shows up, adding another element of “The Other” to the group dynamics, as well as the suspense. When a dangerous accident occurs, paranoia and tension

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 14, 2024

Spoiler-Free Film Review: “Natatorium” (SXSW)

Writer/director Helena Stefansdottir’s Icelandic thriller Natatorium is the type of film where you just know that something is off from the onset, and the mystery as to what exactly is happening keeps you wrapped up until the climactic reveal. The dark family drama at the heart of this feature is thoroughly gripping. With dreams of traveling the world in a performance troupe, 18-year-old Lilja (Ilmur María Arnarsdóttir) stays at the home of her grandmother Áróra (Elin Petersdottir) and grandfather Grimur (Valur Freyr Einarsson) for an audition being held in their town. She has arrived at their home without announcing it in advance to her father Magnús (Arnar Dan Kristjánsson). He calls his sister Vala (Stefanía Berndsen) and asks her to check in on Lilja, and viewers learn right away that the older siblings have problems with Lilja staying there. The titular swimming pool seems to be one of the big reasons for their concerns. Áróra’s other son Kalli (Jónas Alfreð

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 14, 2024

Spoiler-Free Film Reviews: “The Funeral” and “Custom” (FrightFest Glasgow)

THE FUNERAL (CENAZE; Turkey, 2023) Hearse driver Cemal (Ahmed Rifat Sunger) takes a job of which he is leary from the start: driving away with the body of a murdered young woman named Zeynep (Cansu Türedi) and hiding away with the corpse for a month until her family is ready to claim it. Matters become instantly complicated when Cemal checks into a motel and hears breathing coming from Zeynep’s casket. I don’t want to give away too much more of the plot, so suffice it to say so that in the first act, viewers learn that Zeynep is indeed quite dead — sort of — and that she develops a particular hunger, and that Zeynep’s feelings toward her drive him to do whatever it takes to feed her. Director Orcun Behram delivers a highly unique take on the living dead subgenre that boasts terrific lead performances from Sunger and Türedi. Engin Özkaya’s cinematography splendidly portrays the bleak tone of Behram’s

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 11, 2024

Movie Review: Burial Ground (1981) – Severin 4k/Blu-ray

You know how when you are a connoisseur of something, let’s say for instance; Italian fright flicks, there tends to be tiers of quality? I mean you got your Suspiria and your The Beyond, then you get a bit further out and you have your Buio Omega and other delightfully hardcore shit… then things get a bit cheaper with the likes of Bruno Mattei and titles like Hell of the Living Dead… and then you get right down there towards the bottom and you find things like the flick we are taking a look at today, Burial Ground, and well… that’s the type of unadulterated nonsense that yours cruelly can really sink his fangs into! After an opening where the European equivalent of Rick Rubin attempts to stave off a zombie attack with this bon mot; “Wait, stand back; I’m your friend!” we get into the story proper of ol’ Burial Ground… and by that I mean a bunch of

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Mar 9, 2024

Movie Review: Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972) – Synapse

While vacationing, Virginia (María Elena Arpón), and her pal Roger (César Burner) bump into Virginia’s former boarding school chum/former lover Betty (Lone Fleming) decide to take a train ride. Whoopie-shit you may say, but wait… Virginia gets super jealous of Roger’s interest in Betty and decides to hop of that train and goes for a stroll where she ends up wandering in the wind-swept ruined town of Berzano. While that would be creepy enough on it’s own, this location was once home to a cadre of Knights Templar in the Middle Ages… but they were executed by hanging for crimes of cavortin’ with the Devil… oh, and performing ritual, cannibalistic sacrifice… but unfortunately for our good friend Virginia, they are more of the walking dead-style of deceased… and at night they rise as rotted, eyeless, hooded cloak wearing zombie mother fuckers… and their horses too! Being the supernatural menace that they are, the knights dispatch Virginia by biting the living

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Mar 7, 2024

Horror-Comedy ‘Agak Laen’ Ranks as Indonesia’s Second Highest-Grossing Film EVER

Horror continues to reign supreme at the box office, including across the globe in Indonesia. The newly released horror-comedy Agak Laen has just become the second-highest-grossing Indonesian film of all time. Deadline is reporting that the film has seen a whopping “7.35 million admissions” since its February 1st debut. The film follows 2022’s KKN di Desa Penari, which is currently in the number-one spot with an impressive 10.62 million “admissions.” With it just being released, Agak Lean may very well take the number-one spot soon. A Major Hit: Agak Laen, directed by Muhadkly Acho, stars Bene Dion Rajagukguk, Oki Rengga, Indra Jegel, Boris Bokir, and Tissa Biani Azzahra. It follows a group of individuals dealing with the aftermath of an old man’s death at a failing haunted house ride. The operators, in a bizarre twist, bury the body on-site, unknowingly transforming it into a popular attraction. Standing Out from the Crowd: While horror films often perform well in Indonesia, producer

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Feb 27, 2024

Spoiler-Free Film Reviews: “The Activated Man,” “Escalation,” and “Ron” (Romford Horror Festival)

THE ACTIVATED MAN (U.S., 2023) Writer/director Nicholas Gyeney’s feature The Activated Man is an interesting variation on the “shadow people” subgenre. The film goes all-in on its exploration of psychic power and supernatural forces. Leaning perhaps slightly more toward tugging at the heartstrings than delivering full-blown horror, the film does serve up a decidedly frightening new character in The Fedora Man (Edward Michael Scott), whose appearance should inspire cosplay and Halloween costumes aplenty. The Activated Man is loaded with ideas, perhaps almost too many for a single film, including a late reveal that I won’t spoil here. Unemployed Ors (Jamie Costa) is suffering from depression after the loss of his dog Louie to cancer, and his police detective significant other Sarah (Ivana Rojas) is supportive of him, while she herself investigates local cases of murder–suicides, an epidemic of which is sweeping the United States. Ors begins to see ghostly visions of Louie, as well as unwelcome appearances from The Fedora

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Feb 27, 2024

Spoiler-Free Film Review: “Underground” 

Somewhere in director Lars Janssen’s Underground (U.K., 2023) is a good horror short, but at feature-film length, the project feels heavily padded. Ella (Maaike Tol) is about to get married, and her friends Riley (Charlotte Dawn Potter, who cowrote the screenplay with Janssen), Ziggy (Sapphire Brewer-Marchant), Claire (Nadia Dawber), and Jessica (Caitlyn Barber) are throwing her a hen party (a bachelorette party, as it is called in the U.S.), with plenty of drinking as part of the festivities. Their wacky (to this point) evening gets them kicked out of a taxi cab by the driver, and the friends are left to their own devices on a dark road in the middle of nowhere. Armed only with their smartphones, the quintet gets into further trouble when one of them falls down a hole, and the others come to her aid and find themselves trapped in a bunker. Underground starts off by introducing us to the protagonists, which at first is a

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Feb 25, 2024

Spoiler-Free Short-Film Reviews: “The Foreboding: Fractured,” “Sour Milk,” and “Dolly Molly’s Playhouse” (Romford Horror Festival)

THE FOREBODING: FRACTURED (U.K., 2024) In director Kemal Yildrim’s short The Foreboding: Fractured, four university friends go camping in the woods, which is never a good idea when it comes to horror movie characters. Neither is telling scary stories by the campfire, but that happens here too. The elements are set for some forest-bound fear fare, and though I will avoid going into spoiler territory, suffice it to say that what the quartet runs afoul of is not a slasher nor a cryptid, but something of the supernatural variety. The ensemble cast — Eve Kathryn Oliver, Alexander Staunton-Hill (who also wrote the screenplay), Olivia Bennett, Peter Tilley, and Sienna Shih — all turn in fine performances playing believable characters, and Yildrim does an admirable job of setting an eerie atmosphere and building suspense. SOUR MILK (U.K., 2024) A homeless shelter offers a terrifying choice for a young woman in writer/director Joe Duncombe’s Sour Milk. Cassie’s (Molly Grainger) first night at

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Feb 22, 2024
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