From the opening scene of Scream VI, it’s clear that the tagline was no joke: we’re in a new city and the rules have changed. Directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin (Scream 2022) return to pull the rug out from under audiences’ feet immediately, delivering surprises—and surprising brutality—in quick succession. The result is a film …Read More

High school is hard for everyone, but it has been especially hard for 17-year-old Karma (Hannah Christine Shetler) in new horror-thriller Waking Karma. After all, she shares a surname with her estranged father, the infamous and murderous cult leader Paul de Grendel (Michael Madsen), and her mother, Sunny (Kimberly Alexander), refuses to let her change …Read More

A Brooklyn Horror Festival 2022 Review The Nazi party’s well-documented fascination with the occult is rife with horror potential. Writer-director Marie Alice Wolfszahn dips her toes into these dangerous waters in her debut feature Mother Superior, a lush Gothic tale that casts a bewitching spell. Set in 1975, the film follows Sigrun (Isabella Händler), a …Read More

A Brooklyn Horror Festival 2022 Review Most movies about hauntings revolve around a single hypothesis: what is buried will once again come to the surface. Writer-director Laurence Vannicelli’s Mother, May I?, while not a conventional ghost story, is no exception, exploring repressed abandonment issues through a possible case of possession. The film follows Emmett (Kyle …Read More

A Brooklyn Horror Festival 2022 Review Writer-director Joe Begos (Bliss, VFW) places a decidedly punk present under the tree with his latest offering, Christmas Bloody Christmas, a riotously fun horror film about a robotic Father Christmas that unleashes holly jolly hell. That’s not a spoiler, by the way: Christmas Bloody Christmas lays its cards on …Read More

A Brooklyn Horror Festival 2022 Review Few films released his year are likely to be as divisive as All Jacked Up and Full of Worms, the feature debut of writer-director Alex Phillips. Intentionally abrasive yet bursting with bizarre humour, it’s a love-it-or-hate-it affair that will leave you wondering what the hell you just watched if …Read More

A Brooklyn Horror Festival 2022 Review One of many films that had its release date dramatically delayed as a result of the pandemic, writer-director Shana Feste’s Run Sweetheart Run finally debuted on Amazon Prime Video this October, having undergone a few reshoots since its world premiere. But was it worth the wait? The film stars …Read More

A Brooklyn Horror Festival 2022 Review Some remakes try to do their own thing, some aim for shot-for-shot accuracy, and others fall somewhere in the middle, often trying to patch over cracks while maintaining the original wallpaper. Director Philippe Gagnon’s Terror Train remake is very much of the latter variety—a faithful-to-a-fault reimagining that makes little …Read More

A Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2022 Review Director Lorcan Finnegan (Vivarium, Without Name) returns for his third feature film with Nocebo, an Irish-Filipino co-production that explores the evils of capitalism through horrific, haunting imagery and sly subversion of horror tropes. Eva Green stars as Christine, a designer of expensive-looking children’s fashion. She’s got it all: …Read More

The Stranger is a unique and compelling independent horror film that owes as much to 80’s action movies as it does its direct influence of the ’80s slasher flicks. The debut feature of directing team Mike Clarke and Paul Gerrard is part family drama, part horror, part thriller, even part creature feature, and in a …Read More

A Fantastic Fest 2022 Review Mexican filmmaker Isaac Ezban uses folk horror and dark fantasy to tell a coming-of-age tale in Evil Eye (Mal de Ojo), which made its international premiere at Fantastic Fest this year. The film follows Nala (Paola Miguel), a 13-year-old girl whose younger sister, Luna (Ivanna Sofia Ferro), is becoming increasingly …Read More

A Fantastic Fest 2022 Review A bullied young woman turns the tables on her tormentors in Piggy, a horror film where the psycho killer on the loose is the least of its protagonist’s problems. In writer-director Carlota Pereda’s feature-length adaptation of her short film of the same name, Laura Galá stars as Sara, a plus-size …Read More

A Fantastic Fest 2022 Review A babysitter micro-dosing on LSD gets a job caring for a boy who’s allergic to just about everything in Spoonful of Sugar, a new horror film from director Mercedes Bryce Morgan that made its world premiere at this year’s Fantastic Fest in Austin. Said babysitter is Millicent (Morgan Saylor), a …Read More

A Fantastic Fest 2022 Review Horror anthologies are only as strong as the sum of their parts, and it’s rare to find one without a weak link. Satanic Hispanics—which world premiered at this year’s Fantastic Fest in Austin—is one such film, delivering four fun and scary segments held together by an equally enjoyable wraparound story. …Read More

A Fantastic Fest 2022 Review There’s a moment in the meet-cute opening of Attachment, the feature debut of writer-director Gabriel Bier Gislason, when I suddenly remembered I was watching a horror film. That would usually be a complaint, but here it is a testament to just how compelling the relationship at the heart of the …Read More

A Fantastic Fest 2022 Review A family’s preparations for Easter Sunday become increasingly strained and sinister in Family Dinner, an Austrian horror film from writer-director Peter Hengl, making his feature debut. The story centres around Simi (Nina Katlein), an overweight teen who travels to the remote home of her aunt Claudia (Pia Hierzegger), a professional …Read More

A Fantastic Fest 2022 Review Anthology horror films are almost always uneven, and the V/H/S franchise is no exception. Segments like “Amateur Night” (V/H/S) and “Safe Haven” (V/H/S/2) are unforgettable, while others deserve to be skipped. But though one standout entry can elevate an entire anthology, the latest entry, V/H/S/99, struggles to reach these heights. …Read More

A Fantastic Fest 2022 Review When the first pandemic-set horror films started being announced in 2020, many of us collectively recoiled. At a time when COVID dominated every aspect of our lives, we wanted escapism, not a reminder of our grim reality. Sick is the exception that proves the rule, a wildly entertaining slasher film …Read More

A Fantastic Fest 2022 Review A bittersweet send-off descends into a body horror nightmare in Swallowed, the latest horror film from writer-director Carter Smith (The Ruins). The film follows Benjamin (Cooper Koch) and Dom (Jose Colon), two friends celebrating their last night together before Benjamin moves to Los Angeles to star in gay porn. Hoping …Read More

A Fantastic Fest 2022 Review From the opening scene, the spectre of motherhood looms large over Huesera, the striking feature debut of director Michelle Garza Cervera. Climbing the steps toward the Virgin of Guadalupe, Valeria (Natalia Solián) catches a glimpse of the enormous shrine through the trees. She and her mother are making the pilgrimage …Read More

A Fantastic Fest 2022 Review An elite group of hunters compete in a deadly monster hunt in Werewolf by Night, a Marvel TV special from director and composer Michael Giacchino. Their prize if they win? Lead the cabal and wield the Bloodstone, a glowing red jewel that will weaken any monsters they encounter. But in …Read More

A Fantastic Fest 2022 Review Sometimes when we smile, what’s going on underneath is anything but cheerful. That’s certainly the case in Smile, the feature debut of writer-director Parker Finn, which world premiered at Fantastic Fest in Austin last week. The film follows Dr. Rose Cotter (played superbly by Sosie Bacon) who, after witnessing a …Read More

A Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2021 Review Love hurts, especially when you’re the daughter of a Puritanical family and you’ve fallen for another woman. That’s the premise of first-time writer-director Edoardo Vitaletti’s The Last Thing Mary Saw, a moody religious-tinged chiller set in rural New York in 1843. The film stars Stefanie Scott as the …Read More

A Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2021 Review If you like your horror bleak, they don’t come much bleaker than director Vincent Grashaw’s sprawling Southern Gothic tale What Josiah Saw. Told in four parts, What Josiah Saw centres around a family forever scarred by childhood trauma. There’s Eli (Nick Stahl), an ex-con who can’t seem to …Read More

A Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2021 Review It’s tough to escape the trauma of one’s past. For brother and sister Wilson (Evan Dumouchel) and Daphne Shaw (Libby Ewing), the past is always lurking in the shadows with hungry eyes in writer-director Perry Blackshear’s dark revenge saga When I Consume You. The film centres on the …Read More

A Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2021 Review While there will no doubt be a slew of virus-related horror to come out of the pandemic, the simple terrors of staying at home are prime fodder for some psychological chills. Director Alfonso Cortés-Cavanillas digs deep into the anxiety and isolation of lockdown in his homebound horror film, …Read More

A Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2021 Review “You made books and movies about us and got most of the details wrong,” a vampiric voiceover tells us at the start of Night Teeth, Netflix’s new action-horror film from director Adam Randall. Sadly, the proceeding movie fails to live up to the promise of something other than …Read More

A Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2021 Review Between In the Earth and Gaia, it’s been a good year for eco-horror—and with extreme weather roiling all around us, it hasn’t come a moment too soon. Welsh-language film The Feast adds a new dimension to the subgenre, drawing on ecological themes and folk horror tradition to critique …Read More

A Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2021 Review The idea of something gone but not forgotten is at the heart of any good ghost story. Despite a few supernatural touches, it’s the lingering trauma of apartheid that haunts director Jenna Cato Bass’s Good Madam (Mlungu Wam), a striking psychological horror film set in a distinctly white …Read More

A Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2021 Review It’s strange to say that something that started life as a Yves Saint Laurent commercial will likely be one of the most distressing films you sit through this year, but Lux Æterna is exactly that—a beautiful, stress-inducing nightmare from Gaspar Noé that will make you laugh before leaving …Read More