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Spoiler-Free Film Review: “The Complex Forms” (Slamdance Film Festival)

It is January 22, 2024 as I write this review, and I have my first strong candidate for my list of best films of 2024: writer/director Fabio D’Orta’s genre-blending Italian chiller The Complex Forms. With his film, which he himself lensed in luscious black-and-white, D’Orta uses for inspiration classic cinema both Italian and international, investing these inspirations with a modern sensibility and a maverick vision. The budget may have been low, but the look of the film — including fantastical, beautifully rendered creature design — belies that fact. Christian Del Ben (David White) is down on his luck to the point that he has agreed to sell the use of his body to a mysterious entity for a sum of money that will help him get back on his feet. This takes place in a mysterious villa, the location of which none of the men who have made the pact know about. Del Ben is roommates with the affable Luh

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 24, 2024

Game Review: ‘Devil Inside Us: Roots of Evil’

This may be the first published game review of 2024 from us but this is actually the second with the official first review on its way on February 6th, so keep an eye out for that one! Let’s get to some exorcising with QU Byte Interactive and Mr. Skull Game Studio’s Devil Inside Us: Roots of Evil. Devil Inside Us: Roots of Evil is about Father August Heylel, a Vatican-recognized Exorcist who is penning a letter describing his most haunting exorcist case that began in 1984 where he failed to save the family but was able to banish the evil within the house. Over the years he’s been watching over the house and the families that moved in who all have lived in peace till in 2020, the evil returned. The controls for the game are limited and easy to remember. One of the things I wish you had in this game are meters letting you know how much health

Continue reading →
Daniel S. Liuzzi
Jan 23, 2024

Movie Review: México Bárbaro II (2017) – Unearthed Films Blu-ray

Being the forgetful fiend that I am, yours cruelly oft forgets that our pals South of the Border can deliver the gory goods among the best of them… and Unearthed Film’s new Blu-ray release of arcane anthology México Bárbaro II (the follow up to 2014’s México Bárbaro) reminded me with a nice, big, bloody open-handed slap right across my putrid puss! Let’s put our eerie eyeballs on the sinister segments that comprise this fright flick one by one and see just what makes this picture tick! La Leyenda De Juan Soldado: Coming from writer/director Abraham Sánchez; our first yarn concerns a soldier by the name of Juan (Uri Meza), who is accused of rape and left to die in the desert by his commanding officer. The thing is, our hero is innocent… so naturally the denizens of hell give him a chance to settle the score with those that wronged him! Entertaining, fast-paced, and full of a pseudo-EC Comics vibe

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 20, 2024

New K-Sci-Fi Survival Thriller Takes You to “The Moon”

Brace for liftoff as acclaimed director Kim Yong Hwa (the Along With the Gods franchise) takes viewers on a thrilling voyage to the dark side in The Moon, debuting on Digital, Blu-ray, and DVD on February 27th from Well Go USA Entertainment. The Story: Disaster strikes seven years after Korea’s first lunar mission left an astronaut stranded on the moon. With time running out for another stranded astronaut in the face of a malfunctioning spacecraft, Korea’s Naro Space Center must desperately seek redemption in the form of their former disgraced director. Veteran actor Sul Kyung Gu (Public Enemy, Memoir of a Murderer) tackles the challenging role of the ex-director, haunted by past failures and now tasked with leading a seemingly impossible rescue mission. He’s joined by rising star Doh Kyung Soo (Along With the Gods” franchise) as the stranded astronaut clinging to life. Kim Hee Ae (“Herstory”) stars as a key decision-maker amid the crisis. The Moon promises a gripping

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Jan 18, 2024

Box Set Review: Cushing Curiosities (1960 – 1974) – Severin

You know what’s better than a flick featuring good ol’ Peter Cushing? A flick featuring Peter Cushing you haven’t seen 3,457 times! To that end Severin’s new boxset, Cushing Curiosities; a 6 disc collection of Cushing-starring rarities will fit that bill nicely indeed! The whole shebang kicks off with 1960’s Cone of Silence… Cushing stars as pilot Clive Judd; a douche-par-excellence that has nothing better to do than fuck with an investigation into a fatal airline disaster. Why would he do that you may ask? Well, he kinda-sorta had everything to do with it and he’s sweating that shit in a major way. Defending the pilot of the doomed craft, Captain George Gort (Bernard Lee) by name, is Captain Hugh Dallas (Michael Craig)… but how pure are his motives what with his being in a romance with Gort’s daughter, Charlotte (Elizabeth Seal)? Directed by Charles Frend (Scott of the Antarctic,The Cruel Sea), Cone of Silence is a solid courtroom-centric thriller

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 13, 2024

Final Girls Berlin Film Festival Offers In-Person and Online Viewing for Its Ninth Edition

The FINAL GIRLS BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL proudly unveils its 9th edition, featuring a captivating array of horror cinema that includes nine feature films, twelve short film blocks, and a variety of horror-themed events and workshops led by international genre experts. This year’s program highlights queer horror narratives, digital dystopias, eco horror, folk horror, the absurd & surreal, and more. Scheduled from February 7-11, 2023, the festival will take place at City Kino Wedding and will also feature an online component for broader accessibility. Dedicated to elevating the work of women and non-binary filmmakers in the horror genre, Final Girls Berlin Film Festival has earned recognition as one of MovieMaker Magazine’s Top 50 Genre Festivals in the World and has been named among Dead Central’s The Best Horror Festivals in the World. This edition continues the festival’s tradition of challenging conventions and showcasing groundbreaking horror that pushes boundaries and sparks conversation. Watch our 2024 trailer here! FEATURE FILMS BOOGER Written and

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 8, 2024

Richard Glenn Schmidt Gets Down with Murder and Mad Men in Giallo Meltdown 2

If you dig on my style of revoltin’ reviewin’ then let me clue you in on the latest book of fright flick commentary from my putrid pal Richard Glenn Schmidt; Giallo Meltdown 2! Unsurprisingly (unless you are incredibly dense or incredibly easily surprised), Giallo Meltdown 2 is the sequel to Richard’s 2015 beastly book of spaghetti shockers, Giallo Meltdown, and continues the author’s trademark stream of consciousness reviewing style! To add to that, picture sitting around the ol’ terror tube with a group of fiendish friends watching a seemingly endless parade of Italian crime thrillers while everyone offers up their thoughts on the picture at hand often to hilarious effect… this is that shit right there, but in book form! Of course I have already slapped my eerie eyeballs over each and every wicked word of this vicious volume, and it gets my sinister seal of approval both for fans of the genre looking for suggestions for film’s they may

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 5, 2024

Movie Review: The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra – Indiepix DVD

When you sit down to The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra, the debut feature from South Korean Director Park Sye-young, you may think you are settling in to a take on George Barry’s 1977 killer bed flick, Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. Since both features contain killer beds… or more specifically in this film’s case a killer mattress… but the two experiences couldn’t be more different. While Death Bed is a more conventional horror movie, The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra is a melancholy, though completely bizarre, treatise on loneliness and emotion. Following the life cycle of a creature born of fungus that inhabits a mattress owned originally by a couple in a rather crummy relationship, the narrative moves from owner to owner (usually after it feeds on someone), allowing us to experience their sad existences. All of that packs quite an emotional punch that in a conventional drama would be almost overbearing in it’s depressive aesthetic, but since this is ostensibly a

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 4, 2024

Prime Video Snares K-Horror ‘The Human Trap’ (Trailer)

Get ready for a chilling descent into the woods, where laughter curdles into screams. The Human Trap, a South Korean horror film, arrives on Amazon Prime and other streaming platforms, promising to turn your next camping trip into a white-knuckle nightmare. A carefree weekend outing for four naïve teens takes a horrifying turn when they stumble into a hidden nightmare. Rounded up by a deranged Christian “doctor” and his sadistic assistant, they find themselves prisoners in a makeshift medical lab. The gruesome twist? To escape, they must sing the full Kumbaya hymn. But this ain’t your childhood campfire song. Infused with pitch-black humor and relentless suspense, The Human Trap unleashes a torrent of shocking violence. The terrified teens fight for their lives. Each desperate escape attempt was met with unimaginable brutality by their twisted captors. Director Lee Moon-young weaves dark humor into the fabric of his gruesome narrative. The film’s unpredictable twists and turns will keep you guessing until the

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Dec 24, 2023

Movie Review: Count Dracula (1970) – Severin 4K

What do you get when you combine Sir Christopher Lee, legendary horror/exploitation filmmaker Jess Franco, the madman that was Klaus Kinski, and an absolute fang-banger of Gothic literature? Why you get a surprisingly more faithful than most, though by no means complete, retelling of Bram Stoker’s 1897 literary masterpiece Dracula of course! After encountering a number of locals that look at him like a dead man walking, lawyer Jonathan Harker (Fred Williams) continues to the Borgo Pass where he is met by a mysterious coachman that takes him to his destination; the castle of Count Dracula (Lee), an aging aristocrat who wishes to secure property in England with Harker’s assistance. Right from the get-go things are off with ol’ Drac, as he casts no reflection in mirrors, has fangs like a wolf, gets excited around blood, and sleeps in a stone coffin… oh, he also has a trio of brides that sleep in coffins and eat the babies of the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Dec 23, 2023

More from Foreign

Spoiler-Free Film Review: “The Complex Forms” (Slamdance Film Festival)

It is January 22, 2024 as I write this review, and I have my first strong candidate for my list of best films of 2024: writer/director Fabio D’Orta’s genre-blending Italian chiller The Complex Forms. With his film, which he himself lensed in luscious black-and-white, D’Orta uses for inspiration classic cinema both Italian and international, investing these inspirations with a modern sensibility and a maverick vision. The budget may have been low, but the look of the film — including fantastical, beautifully rendered creature design — belies that fact. Christian Del Ben (David White) is down on his luck to the point that he has agreed to sell the use of his body to a mysterious entity for a sum of money that will help him get back on his feet. This takes place in a mysterious villa, the location of which none of the men who have made the pact know about. Del Ben is roommates with the affable Luh

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 24, 2024

Game Review: ‘Devil Inside Us: Roots of Evil’

This may be the first published game review of 2024 from us but this is actually the second with the official first review on its way on February 6th, so keep an eye out for that one! Let’s get to some exorcising with QU Byte Interactive and Mr. Skull Game Studio’s Devil Inside Us: Roots of Evil. Devil Inside Us: Roots of Evil is about Father August Heylel, a Vatican-recognized Exorcist who is penning a letter describing his most haunting exorcist case that began in 1984 where he failed to save the family but was able to banish the evil within the house. Over the years he’s been watching over the house and the families that moved in who all have lived in peace till in 2020, the evil returned. The controls for the game are limited and easy to remember. One of the things I wish you had in this game are meters letting you know how much health

Continue reading →
Daniel S. Liuzzi
Jan 23, 2024

Movie Review: México Bárbaro II (2017) – Unearthed Films Blu-ray

Being the forgetful fiend that I am, yours cruelly oft forgets that our pals South of the Border can deliver the gory goods among the best of them… and Unearthed Film’s new Blu-ray release of arcane anthology México Bárbaro II (the follow up to 2014’s México Bárbaro) reminded me with a nice, big, bloody open-handed slap right across my putrid puss! Let’s put our eerie eyeballs on the sinister segments that comprise this fright flick one by one and see just what makes this picture tick! La Leyenda De Juan Soldado: Coming from writer/director Abraham Sánchez; our first yarn concerns a soldier by the name of Juan (Uri Meza), who is accused of rape and left to die in the desert by his commanding officer. The thing is, our hero is innocent… so naturally the denizens of hell give him a chance to settle the score with those that wronged him! Entertaining, fast-paced, and full of a pseudo-EC Comics vibe

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 20, 2024

New K-Sci-Fi Survival Thriller Takes You to “The Moon”

Brace for liftoff as acclaimed director Kim Yong Hwa (the Along With the Gods franchise) takes viewers on a thrilling voyage to the dark side in The Moon, debuting on Digital, Blu-ray, and DVD on February 27th from Well Go USA Entertainment. The Story: Disaster strikes seven years after Korea’s first lunar mission left an astronaut stranded on the moon. With time running out for another stranded astronaut in the face of a malfunctioning spacecraft, Korea’s Naro Space Center must desperately seek redemption in the form of their former disgraced director. Veteran actor Sul Kyung Gu (Public Enemy, Memoir of a Murderer) tackles the challenging role of the ex-director, haunted by past failures and now tasked with leading a seemingly impossible rescue mission. He’s joined by rising star Doh Kyung Soo (Along With the Gods” franchise) as the stranded astronaut clinging to life. Kim Hee Ae (“Herstory”) stars as a key decision-maker amid the crisis. The Moon promises a gripping

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Jan 18, 2024

Box Set Review: Cushing Curiosities (1960 – 1974) – Severin

You know what’s better than a flick featuring good ol’ Peter Cushing? A flick featuring Peter Cushing you haven’t seen 3,457 times! To that end Severin’s new boxset, Cushing Curiosities; a 6 disc collection of Cushing-starring rarities will fit that bill nicely indeed! The whole shebang kicks off with 1960’s Cone of Silence… Cushing stars as pilot Clive Judd; a douche-par-excellence that has nothing better to do than fuck with an investigation into a fatal airline disaster. Why would he do that you may ask? Well, he kinda-sorta had everything to do with it and he’s sweating that shit in a major way. Defending the pilot of the doomed craft, Captain George Gort (Bernard Lee) by name, is Captain Hugh Dallas (Michael Craig)… but how pure are his motives what with his being in a romance with Gort’s daughter, Charlotte (Elizabeth Seal)? Directed by Charles Frend (Scott of the Antarctic,The Cruel Sea), Cone of Silence is a solid courtroom-centric thriller

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 13, 2024

Final Girls Berlin Film Festival Offers In-Person and Online Viewing for Its Ninth Edition

The FINAL GIRLS BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL proudly unveils its 9th edition, featuring a captivating array of horror cinema that includes nine feature films, twelve short film blocks, and a variety of horror-themed events and workshops led by international genre experts. This year’s program highlights queer horror narratives, digital dystopias, eco horror, folk horror, the absurd & surreal, and more. Scheduled from February 7-11, 2023, the festival will take place at City Kino Wedding and will also feature an online component for broader accessibility. Dedicated to elevating the work of women and non-binary filmmakers in the horror genre, Final Girls Berlin Film Festival has earned recognition as one of MovieMaker Magazine’s Top 50 Genre Festivals in the World and has been named among Dead Central’s The Best Horror Festivals in the World. This edition continues the festival’s tradition of challenging conventions and showcasing groundbreaking horror that pushes boundaries and sparks conversation. Watch our 2024 trailer here! FEATURE FILMS BOOGER Written and

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 8, 2024

Richard Glenn Schmidt Gets Down with Murder and Mad Men in Giallo Meltdown 2

If you dig on my style of revoltin’ reviewin’ then let me clue you in on the latest book of fright flick commentary from my putrid pal Richard Glenn Schmidt; Giallo Meltdown 2! Unsurprisingly (unless you are incredibly dense or incredibly easily surprised), Giallo Meltdown 2 is the sequel to Richard’s 2015 beastly book of spaghetti shockers, Giallo Meltdown, and continues the author’s trademark stream of consciousness reviewing style! To add to that, picture sitting around the ol’ terror tube with a group of fiendish friends watching a seemingly endless parade of Italian crime thrillers while everyone offers up their thoughts on the picture at hand often to hilarious effect… this is that shit right there, but in book form! Of course I have already slapped my eerie eyeballs over each and every wicked word of this vicious volume, and it gets my sinister seal of approval both for fans of the genre looking for suggestions for film’s they may

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 5, 2024

Movie Review: The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra – Indiepix DVD

When you sit down to The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra, the debut feature from South Korean Director Park Sye-young, you may think you are settling in to a take on George Barry’s 1977 killer bed flick, Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. Since both features contain killer beds… or more specifically in this film’s case a killer mattress… but the two experiences couldn’t be more different. While Death Bed is a more conventional horror movie, The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra is a melancholy, though completely bizarre, treatise on loneliness and emotion. Following the life cycle of a creature born of fungus that inhabits a mattress owned originally by a couple in a rather crummy relationship, the narrative moves from owner to owner (usually after it feeds on someone), allowing us to experience their sad existences. All of that packs quite an emotional punch that in a conventional drama would be almost overbearing in it’s depressive aesthetic, but since this is ostensibly a

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 4, 2024

Prime Video Snares K-Horror ‘The Human Trap’ (Trailer)

Get ready for a chilling descent into the woods, where laughter curdles into screams. The Human Trap, a South Korean horror film, arrives on Amazon Prime and other streaming platforms, promising to turn your next camping trip into a white-knuckle nightmare. A carefree weekend outing for four naïve teens takes a horrifying turn when they stumble into a hidden nightmare. Rounded up by a deranged Christian “doctor” and his sadistic assistant, they find themselves prisoners in a makeshift medical lab. The gruesome twist? To escape, they must sing the full Kumbaya hymn. But this ain’t your childhood campfire song. Infused with pitch-black humor and relentless suspense, The Human Trap unleashes a torrent of shocking violence. The terrified teens fight for their lives. Each desperate escape attempt was met with unimaginable brutality by their twisted captors. Director Lee Moon-young weaves dark humor into the fabric of his gruesome narrative. The film’s unpredictable twists and turns will keep you guessing until the

Continue reading →
Kelli Marchman McNeely
Dec 24, 2023

Movie Review: Count Dracula (1970) – Severin 4K

What do you get when you combine Sir Christopher Lee, legendary horror/exploitation filmmaker Jess Franco, the madman that was Klaus Kinski, and an absolute fang-banger of Gothic literature? Why you get a surprisingly more faithful than most, though by no means complete, retelling of Bram Stoker’s 1897 literary masterpiece Dracula of course! After encountering a number of locals that look at him like a dead man walking, lawyer Jonathan Harker (Fred Williams) continues to the Borgo Pass where he is met by a mysterious coachman that takes him to his destination; the castle of Count Dracula (Lee), an aging aristocrat who wishes to secure property in England with Harker’s assistance. Right from the get-go things are off with ol’ Drac, as he casts no reflection in mirrors, has fangs like a wolf, gets excited around blood, and sleeps in a stone coffin… oh, he also has a trio of brides that sleep in coffins and eat the babies of the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Dec 23, 2023
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