See cinema differently
Director: Patrick Brice Stars: Sydney Park, Théodore Pellerin, Jesse LaTourette The slasher movie is back. There's a new Scream movie causing hubbub on the internet. Halloween Kills is doing monster box office in the face of a day-and-date streaming release. Even Chucky is back on telly in the rightful hands of Don Mancini. If our last decade saw …
Continue reading "Review: There’s Someone Inside Your House"
Director: David Gordon Green Stars: Andi Matichak, Will Patton, Anthony Michael Hall Earlier this week Captain Kirk himself was fired into space, in a sense completing a circuit that began back in the 1960s. Here on Earth, however, the raggedy-ass face of William Shatner is out there scaring the bejeezus out of teens in the …
It's October which, for some of us, means one thing - horror movies. As is fairly well represented here at The Lost Highway Hotel, horror movies are a pride and joy. Few genres are so daring, so inventive or so resonant with the world we live in. It's an area of filmmaking that encompasses our …
Continue reading "40 Great Horror Movies of the Last Decade"
Directors: Simon Barrett, Chloe Okuno, Timo Tjahjanto, Jennifer Reeder, Ryan Prows Stars: Anna Hopkins, Kimmy Choi, Kyal Legend For me, personally, there was a mini horror renaissance around 2012/2013 when I started to discover the genuinely diverse and even subversive scope of independent horror movies that were bubbling beneath the surface, spurred on by the …
Director: James Wan Stars: Annabelle Wallis, Maddie Hasson, Michole Brianna White Throughout an already significant tenure in popular horror cinema, James Wan has been most commonly creeped out by the idea of losing control. Be it succumbing to Jigsaw's traps or getting possessed by whatever malevolent ills stalk the shadows of Insidious and The Conjuring, …
Director: David Bruckner Stars: Rebecca Hall, Stacy Martin, Vondie Curtis-Hall Showing nationwide in multiplexes, The Night House isn't the easily-digested Friday night thriller it sorta kinda looks like it is. It's tougher than that. Moodier. Actually, downright morose. It takes you places and makes you think about depressing things. Death, mainly, and the paralysing fear that …
Its exceedingly easy to dismiss the Friday the 13th series. From Sean S Cunningham's 1980 original through to the trash-humping 2009 Marcus Nispel remake, the slasher series is about as disposable as franchise cinema gets, even in horror circles. There's no single outright masterpiece in the set, and even the hardcore fans of the series will …
Continue reading "Minutiae: Love in Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter"
Director: Anthony Scott Burns Stars: Julia Sarah Stone, Landon Liboiron, Carlee Ryski There must be something in the water up in Canada. Certainly it seems to be the place to go for indie treats that blur the boundaries between science fiction and horror, and a new generation is gamely taking up the baton. We have …
Director: Rodo Sayagues Stars: Stephen Lang, Madelyn Grace, Fiona O'Shaughnessy Around five years ago, Don't Breathe made a little bit of rumpus as a nasty home invasion movie with a twist. A bunch of youths broke into a dilapidated house to steal from a rumoured cash box, only to encounter Stephan Lang's ex-Navy Seal Blind Man …
Director: Adam Robitel Stars: Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Indya Moore I must admit I have a soft spot for Escape Room. Adam Robitel's initial movie in this unlikely series felt like something of an underdog when it was released with little fanfare two and a half years ago. Who wanted or needed a YA Saw film? …
Continue reading "Review: Escape Room: Tournament of Champions"
Director: Leigh Janiak Stars: Kiana Madeira, Elizabeth Scopel, Darrell Britt-Gibson The latest in the unending is-it-a-movie-is-it-TV discourse, Netflix's time travelling teen horror trilogy/mini-series hops further back than before as it reaches its final frontier - or should that be frontier finale? Largely reusing its extant cast, Fear Street Part Three: 1666 takes us back to …
Director: Quentin Dupieux Stars: Adèle Haenel, Jean Dujardin, Albert Delpy As a costume piece that elaborates on character, the jacket has a storied history in cinema that goes back to it's silent days. For modern touchstones - especially in terms of how it is linked to masculinity - consider the ubiquity of Sailor's snakeskin jacket …
Director: Everado Valerio Gout Stars: Ana de la Reguera, Tenoch Huerta, Gregory Zaragoza James DeMonaco's Purge franchise lumbers onward. While it predated and has now surpassed the short sorry presidency of Donald Trump, it is the series that feels most laboriously representative of the whirlwind ills that the disgraced orange bile-pod brought to the Oval Office. …
Director: Leigh Janiak Stars: Sadie Sink, Ryan Simpkins, McCabe Slye It's been but a short week since the first part of Leigh Janiak's Netflix trifecta Fear Street appeared on the service, and already much of its lore has faded from memory. Fortunately, this second entry opens with an (optional) recap. Even more promisingly, Fear Street Part Two: 1978 …
Director: Jill Gevargizian Stars: Najarra Townsend, Brea Grant, Sarah McGuire Claire (Najarra Townsend) is a lonely hair stylist eager to provide immaculate service to her clients, but who feels alienated from the urban landscape around her. Her position at the lower end of the beauty industry makes her work a commodity, but she clearly wishes …
