Southbound comes from the makers of the popular “V/H/S” series, and they are doing their darndest to bring back the horror compilation, a long dormant venture that most recently peaked in the 1980s with Creepshow and Tales from the Crypt. Southbound ditches the campy humor of those examples and tries for a more gritty, grungy […]

The found-footage horror film is the ugly stepchild in a family of ugly stepchildren. If slasher films do not get respect, found-footage movies, save for one or two, tend to elicit groans and rolling eyes. They are super cheap to make, the cinematography and sound are generally awful, and the acting worse because, for the […]

Body is reminiscent of an episode of an old Alfred Hitchcock TV show. (I’m not aging myself here. It aired long before I was born). It has a quick, concise high-concept idea that can play out in an hour. It also barely rates as a feature, coming in at 75 minutes, and for the most […]

Extraordinary Tales is the perfect little bon mot to kick off the Halloween season. It is a slight, charming, and charmingly macabre animated adaptation of five Edgar Allen Poe short stories, all illustrated, directed, and adapted by Raul Garcia. There is also a mediocre framing device that sets up Poe as a raven chatting with […]

If you are a young couple and have a dream of opening your own bed and breakfast, it’s best not to buy one of the oldest houses in New England for the task. Usually something very bad happened there, or something very unpleasant lives there. That’s the lesson Jessica and Dan learn in the Rasmussen […]

The makers of The Final Girls pull of an admirable trick. They present a credible, genial spoof of 1980’s slasher flicks while successfully incorporating a sentimental yet credible theme of appreciating and letting go of grief. It’s impressive and gives the movie more heft than most of the joke-a-minute spoofs that, say, the Wayans brothers […]

Goodnight Mommy has one crackin’ good premise, but it doesn’t quite know what to do with it. This Austrian film aims for the sparseness and sleekness of recent arty Scandinavian horror, and in doing so, falls into self-enforced blandness. It treads the straight path instead of really examining its characters and ends up letting down […]

Directed by Jonas Alexander Arnby Written by Rasmus Birch, based on an idea by Christoffer Boe, Arnby, and Birch Produced by Caroline Schlüter Bingestam and Ditte Milsted Released by Radius Danish with English subtitles Denmark/France. 84 min. Rated R With Sonia Suhl, Lars Mikkelsen, Sonja Richter, Jakob Oftebro, Stig Hoffmeyer, Mads Riisom, Esben Dalgaard, Gustav […]

Directed by John McNaughton Written by Stephen Lancellotti Produced by Kim Jose, David Robinson, Steven A. Jones and Marshall T Released by IFC Midnight USA. 103 min. Not rated With Samantha Morton, Michael Shannon, Meadow Williams, Charlie Tahan, Leslie Lyles, Natasha Calis, and Peter Fonda Parents just want what’s best for their children, don’t they? […]