Tough Films For The Rough Crowd

      Please note: this review contains some spoilers.   I have long been a proponent of bringing the horror genre to the theatre, so when I heard that the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY franchise was being adapted into a new story for the stage, I jumped on the chance to…

      For the final Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, there were several legacy screenings of some of the most important and influential films to come out of the festival over its tenure. One of these films was the 2004 indie-horror masterwork, SAW. Before the screening, I…

          “SEND HELP.” Okay, but who’s asking? There are really only two characters in this movie. Could both of them be asking for help? Or is it only one of them? And is it the one we’re expecting it to be? This is mainstream Hollywood filmmaking,…

    God only knows what I’d be without you. That’s a line from a song cowritten by one of the very many talented people we lost in 2025. It’s also something I could say to the very many people I lost in 2025. God only knows what I’d be…

      Rob Reiner was the son of a legendary and legendarily beloved comedian, which was very good luck, but he quickly earned his own credits, first as a deft comic actor who starred on one of the greatest American TV series of all time, and then, even more…

    I was lucky enough to see Zach Cregger’s WEAPONS in the third row of a sold-out room, elbow to elbow with the most random group of people imaginable all buzzing with excitement over one of the most anticipated movies of the year… on a Wednesday. Such is the…

    I took on the mammoth task of compiling the 500 Best Horror Movies of All Time. During the summer, The New York Times posted its list of 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century – and caused quite a kerfuffle. Countless critics, writers, and general film fans, myself…

“A home invasion occurs every 30 seconds in America.” So opens Mickey Keating’s latest, which just landed on Shudder this month. Keating has proven to be one of my favorite creators working in horror over the last several years, thanks in no small part to his twisting narratives that often…

    On February 13th, 2009, I left my local multiplex mostly satisfied with Platinum Dunes’s rendition of FRIDAY THE 13th. I had some qualms with the forgettable score (this series just hits different without Harry Manfredini’s iconic themes and motifs), but it was an otherwise strong effort that did…

    Under the family’s dining room table are three buckets of blood labelled like measuring cups: “Going. Going. Gone.” A cryptic triangle marked by three distinct points has been painted in blood on the ceiling above them. I didn’t realize how badly STRANGE HARVEST had shaken me until I…

  A bloody and dirty homage to THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and THE HILLS HAVE EYES was all the information I needed on BRUTE 1976 to instantly add it to my watchlist. The original TCM is a personal favorite of mine, and I’m even one of the rare few who enjoys the Netflix…

    Note: There are spoilers for the film below   I haven’t stopped thinking about Stephen Dunn’s CLOSET MONSTER since I first saw it last summer. The elemental body horror, which turns 10 this year, bills itself as a drama/fantasy/mystery, but those genre labels do it a disservice for…

          I need to set the stage by talking about two recent Westerns. Ari Aster’s EDDINGTON is a film about the lack of sense the filmmaker could make of the United States’ response to the relentless horror of 2020. Like all Westerns, it’s about the collapse…

  With a new legacy sequel to I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER out in theaters, a few of us got to talking, and here’s what about…   Who’s your favorite character in the “I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER” series?     BEE DELORES   Growing up…

  Solvent (adj): able to pay all just debts; having the power of dissolving; causing solution (n): something that solves or explains   They say the most important thing you can do with your past is learn from it. Honor it in a way that means you can move on…

        In honor of a new SUPERMAN movie swooping into theaters, we posed a question to our friends and foes, but only our friends replied, so we will have to thwart their evil plans later. For now, enjoy these responses to the question…   WHO IS YOUR…

    I fell in love once. It felt just about perfect for a while, but then it ended. I took the loss hard, ending up in increasingly seedier neighborhoods, experiencing increasingly trashier replacements in my desperate search to fill the void left empty after that one perfect moment.  …

  We’re already more than halfway done with 2025, believe it or not, so the gang at Daily Grindhouse thought it would be a fun idea for the Fourth of July to huddle and talk over the best movies of the year so far… or at least, our favorites. What…

      It’s July, which means it’s the best time of the year — Shark Week time! This year is also extra special thanks to the 50th anniversary of JAWS, a monolith of summer blockbuster animal horror that also just so happens to have been so equal parts rife…

  Throughout the uncertainty, fear, and turmoil of the Covid pandemic, the only thing I created was a questionable online footprint. It was a completely different story, however, for the four student filmmakers behind 4085 Productions, who took their isolation and boredom and turned it into art. Their debut feature,…

    You don’t have to be a mediocre white man to start a cult, but it certainly makes the longevity easier. 2025’s Chattanooga Film Festival virtual lineup had a lot on offer exploring the infliction of and process of healing from shared trauma. Perhaps the most heartfelt feature I…

    So this was a big thing that happened on the movies-people corner of the internet this week. The New York Times asked filmmakers and others (seemingly at random) to contribute their votes for the best movies of the 21st century so far. For those without calendars handy, that…

            JAWS, released on June 20th in the summer of 1975, has enjoyed 50 years of great-white supremacy. 50 years, and not a single legitimate challenger to the throne. What’s the last watchable great-white-shark movie to be released into theaters and truly strike a chord…

    When JAWS debuted in 1975, it so thoroughly revolutionized the movie industry that its effects continue to reverberate 50 years later. So much ink has been spilled about it that it hardly warrants rehashing, but it can’t be stated enough just how monumental this unassuming adaptation of a…