Tag: Scary

REVIEW: ‘Imaginary’ has insufficient scares

Blumhouse Productions, the gift that keeps on giving. Sometimes you get something fun like “M3gan,” other times you get “Imaginary.”

The latest film from the horror-centric studio centers on Jessica (DeWanda Wise), an accomplished children’s book author. The film picks up with her and her husband (Tom Payne), as well as her step-children Alice (Pyper Braun) and Taylor (Taegen Burns) moving into her childhood home.

Taylor isn’t a fan at all of her stepmom but Alice seems to be OK and starts adjusting to the new house thanks to a teddy bear she finds in the basement. However, it soon becomes clear that the bear is attached to a dark spirit related to Jessica’s own past.

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REVIEW: ‘Smile’ will have horror fans smiling

Here in Minnesota, we know all about misleading smiles. It’s called being passive aggressive. The smiles in this film, though, are much more devilish.

Parker Finn makes his feature directorial debut with this new horror film, with Sosie Bacon playing the protagonist Rose. A doctor in a psychiatric ward, Rose regularly works with patients and it’s what brings her into contact with a troubled woman at the movie’s start.

The woman, a PhD student, says she’s been seeing a sinister figure who takes the form of people with an evil grin, before taking her own life. At first, Rose deduces that the woman must have been suffering from a mental ilness, until the same evil force begins appearing before her, too.

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REVIEW: The Devil went down to ‘Conjuring’ and it wasn’t a good time

The totally not con-artist Warrens are back in another movie about a demonic possession that really happened and wasn’t made up.

Yes, there was a lot of sarcasm in that lede.

The eighth film in the “Conjuring” cinematic universe takes place in 1981 with Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) assisting in an exorcism of a young boy. In the process of the exorcism, the demon possessing the boy is transferred to a man assisting in the situation, Arne (Ruairi O’Connor).

During the altercation, Ed suffers a heart attack and is taken to a hospital. When he recovers, he warns of Arne’s possible possession, but it’s too late. Arne commits murder on his landlord and is arrested by the police. Facing a potential death penalty sentence, the Warrens begin an investigation into the possession to try to prove in court that it was a demon that caused the murder.

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REVIEW: ‘The Unholy’ squanders potential with horror cliches

Here’s a horror movie that actually would have been better off had it not been a horror. At least not such a straightforward one.

“The Unholy” stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Gerry. A disgraced journalist with a history of fabricating stories, Gerry now works as a of paranormal reporter. He travels around to write about UFO sightings and haunting to make some cash. His latest story brings him to a small Massachusetts town, but unfortunately, the supposed subject ends up being dud.

However, as luck would have it, Gerry discovers an interesting artifact near a rural church. Following his discovery, a young girl named Alice (Cricket Brown), who’s been deaf all her life, can suddenly hear and talk perfectly. According to her, she can communicate with the Virgin Mary and begins performing miracle healings. Her miracles begin drawing a lot of positive attention, but while this is happening, Gerry starts to notice sinister signs.

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Halloween Adventures in B-Movie Horror 2020 Part 2

I don’t know if there’s a better decade for pure schlock in film than the good ole 80s. Not only was it a good time for entertaining horror, it was also an era for people to produce lower budget flicks full of over the top moments.

These next three films fit that criteria.

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Halloween Adventures in B-Movie Horror 2019 Part 1

Since cutting the cable cord and picking up a Roku, I’ve stumbled upon a great free film option.

One of the streaming channels available to Roku owners is B-Movie TV. Every two hours, the channel plays a low budget B-movie, usually from the 80s or 90s. The channel plays a different genre every day, ranging from martial arts to horror.

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Halloween Horror Fest 2016: Honoring Lugosi and Lee

Hello movie fans and welcome to the first installment of Halloween Horror Fest, a month long special on Matthew Liedke on Film all about the genre that’s around to create chills and thrills.

For this year’s HHF, I’ll be looking back at horror movie performances and celebrating the best of the best. This will go over what makes them good, memorable and in some cases downright award worthy.

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