Horror

Before making waves in the horror genre with such box office successes and critical winners as Daybreakers, Predestination, and Jigsaw, German-born, Australian-raised brothers Michael and Peter Spierig pooled their talent, connections and coins together for Undead.  Originally released in 2003, the low-budget Australian zombie thriller was an homage to the B-grade horror entries of the…

To coincide with the release of his horror film Lair, now available to rent or buy on DVD and digital in time for the spooky season, writer/director Adam Ethan Crow spoke with our own Peter Gray about his love of horror films, attempting something different to please the genre fans, and the rough seas travelled…

In the opening minutes of Adam Ethan Crow‘s Lair, a masterful sense of tension is introduced that near-immediately puts its audience on guard.  An eerie musical score, an unseen force, a bloodied body…nightmarish additives that deliberately only tell fragments of a whole story. From here we are introduced to Steven Caramore (Corey Johnson, having an…

A gorgeously rendered, lovingly crafted, maybe slightly messy, giallo tribute drenched in 1960’s London culture, Last Night In Soho is the type of film one wishes to dissect and divulge in intimate detail.  But that would entirely undo any service to writer/director Edgar Wright, who has implored audiences the globe over to keep their mouths…

One of many 2020 titles that saw its original release delayed due to the pandemic, and one of the few that held its nerve and opted out of a streaming alternative, Antlers, from director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Black Mass) and producer Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water), proves its bold mentality…

After pushing 2018’s sequel-cum-reboot Halloween to record breaking statistics, it only made sense that writer/director David Gordon Green was handed a sequel to continue revelling in Michael Myers’ carnage. Not only granted a sequel – Halloween Kills – but a trilogy (Halloween Ends, set for a 2022 release) to boot, Green expanded on the violent…

“What’s your favourite scary movie?” 25 years ago it was a question posed to Neve Campbell in Wes Craven’s now genre classic Scream, and come January 2022 a new generation of fresh blood will have their knowledge similarly tested in, well, Scream. Less a sequel and more a reinvention, Scream will pay homage to Craven’s…

William Friedkin’s classic The Exorcist is so ingrained in the demonic possession sub-genre of the horror field that every feature that has come since can’t help but feel like a recycled take on a head-spinning narrative we’ve come to know so well.  So, with that, there’s all more the reason to celebrate something like The…

Similar to how Jordan Peele, Robert Eggers, Jennifer Kent, and Ari Aster all secured their place in the annals of genre cinema with their debut offerings, Julia Docournau‘s bold cannibalistic horror effort Raw cemented the French filmmaker as a name to pay consistent attention to.  And just as those aforementioned auteurs all swung big with…

There’s a lot of tried and true genre staples adhered to in Simon Barrett‘s Séance.  Having cut his teeth over the years with writing credits for such horror efforts as V/H/S, You’re Next, and Blair Witch, Barrett’s flair for skewering expectation has often been his wheelhouse.  Marking his directorial debut, Séance, whose title alone announces…

To say there was a certain amount of resistance when it came to the notion of Don’t Breathe 2 would be something of an understatement.  The idea that the original film’s villain – Stephen Lang‘s Norman, aka “The Blind Man”, who emerged from Fede Alvarez‘s tense 2016 thriller Don’t Breathe as a vile shut-in with…

From August 26th, director Nia DaCosta and producer Jordan Peele dare a new generation of viewers to say one particular name; Candyman.  Ahead of the film’s release, our own Peter Gray was invited to join a roundtable panel with writer/director DaCosta and star Colman Domingo to discuss the important social commentary on racial trauma present…

The idea of marrying grief and the horror genre together isn’t exactly a bold, new concept, but thanks to a thought-provoking script (courtesy of Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski), deceptively inventive set design, and a wholly committed central turn from Rebecca Hall, The Night House explores a tested theme in a fresh manner. Hall stars…

One of the few horror efforts from 2020 that dared an American theatrical release last year – only one minor delay period and no being sold to a streaming service – Come Play, though perhaps stuck with the stigma of being a “direct to digital release” here in Australia, is a worthy scarer that utilises…

Thanks to Sony Pictures we have five double passes to give away to the upcoming release of Don’t Breathe 2, the chilling sequel to 2016’s Don’t Breathe, in Australian cinemas from August 26th, 2021. The sequel is set in the years following the initial deadly home invasion, where Norman Nordstrom (Stephen Lang) lives in quiet…

A group of men looking to escape their everyday lives, a couple of inept gangsters, and a one-eyed killer who thirsts for his kills cross paths in Ernar Nurgaliev‘s wild horror comedy Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It. Slapstick comedy and irreverent bloodshed work hand-in-hand throughout the film’s crisp 85 minute running time, centring initially on…

There’s really no other way to say it – M. Night Shyamalan‘s Old is bad.  It’s very bad.  In fact, in some instances it’s downright awful!  Mirroring the same career slump he experienced after the 1-3 punch of The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000) and Signs (2002) with such misfires as The Lady in the Water…

There’s nothing particularly original about The Resort.  In some manner hoping to be a type of The Shining-in-Hawaii set-up, Taylor Chien‘s supernatural scarer at least doesn’t tread on the expected genre trope of the found footage angle – something that this type of narrative could easily have adopted. A film that unfortunately lets itself down…

To claim nothing is as it seems in Rob Schroder‘s Ultrasound would be a vast understatement.  Requiring significant patience and understanding of its components, this horror/science-fiction hybrid begins on one disturbing note before unravelling into something far more psychologically mysterious. It all opens rather straightforward, however off-kilter, with Glen (Vincent Kartheiser) driving home one night…

Starting on a blackly comic note and ending on a vastly different one of dramatic grit, Mickey Reece‘s Agnes is a truly confounding piece.  Inserting a narrative and tonal shift half-way through its proceedings, Reece has created a unique film without question, but it’s one that is likely to irk viewers who could respond so…

Having essentially built itself around the “based on a true story” hook, the Conjuring universe of films have been served well by a selling point that’s either something you buy into or simply accept as neat marketing. Whilst there’s no denying that Ed and Lorraine Warren did exist and built a name for themselves as…

After over a decade of vacating the director’s seat on the Saw franchise, Darren Lynn Bousman has returned to the series that gave birth to his career as a staple within the horror genre.  As the latest instalment releases in cinemas across the country, Spiral: From the Book of Saw (read our review here), our…

Defying the critical odds in 2004 and spanning an unlikely 8-film-strong series in the process, the original Saw became much more of a phenomenon than expected, and, arguably, than originally intended.  Often synonymous with the horror sub-genre of “torture porn”, James Wan‘s grimy, low budget affair delighted in its gory aesthetics, but tried its best…

There’s nothing particularly original about The Resort.  In some manner hoping to be a type of The Shining-in-Hawaii set-up, Taylor Chien‘s supernatural scarer at least doesn’t tread on the expected genre trope of the found footage angle – something that this type of narrative could easily have adopted. A film that unfortunately lets itself down…

It goes without saying that the ending of a film is as crucial to its success as any other major component.  And in horror films especially, the satisfaction element of its climax is one the genre often lives or dies by.  Hunter Hunter, from writer/director Shawn Linden, is such a film that almost relies entirely…

Grief is often something that runs throughout the core of the horror narrative.  And depending how it is structured, it can act in a nature that’s either cathartic or repressive.  In Alex Noyer‘s Sound of Violence it’s a mixture of both psychological expressions, with the additive intricacy of music production – another key element to…

Written and directed by Sophie Mair and Dan Gitsham, The Thing That Ate The Birds is an atmospheric short that teases a darker universe we can only hope could be expanded on. Abel (Eoin Slattery) and Grace (Rebecca Palmer) are on the verge of separation, but the tragic circumstances surrounding their farmland have pushed their…

One of those films that has a log line that feels all too familiar, Lee Haven Jones‘s The Feast presents itself as a supernaturally inclined horror film on the surface, only to gradually morph into an allegory of sorts that runs deeper than the film’s initial mentality would have you believe. Set in a secluded,…

Creepy children are always good fodder for horror-leaning films, and Here Before, whilst more psychological thriller than all-out horror, is no exception with writer/director Stacey Gregg utilising the premise and twisting it just so. Andrea Riseborough leads the charge as Laura in this small, gradual thriller that focuses on young Megan, a seemingly friendly school…

The type of indie horror flick that has a lot of promising-enough elements for it to earn audience investment, Come True may ultimately culminate in disappointment – in fact, it’s downright frustrating – but an atmospheric dread and hauntingly effective score keep Anthony Scott Burns‘s intense feature on a more upward trajectory overall. At the…