Author: Matt Donato

‘Scream VI’ – We Sliced into the Stabby Meal and Walked Through the Film’s Immersive Experience

Matt Donato Editorials, Movies, Scream, Scream VI

It’s not every day you get to unbox a Scream-themed Happy Meal for adults. Pop-up dinner party brand Chain is celebrating Spyglass and Paramount’s newest slasher entry with a drive-thru classic and swankified fast-food restaurant vibes. All the decorations blend Scream with roadside-casual mascots, like Grimace dressed as Casey Becker or a Bob’s Big Boy […]

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‘The Strays’ Review – Netflix’s Social Thriller Feels Like an Incomplete Experience

Matt Donato Movies, Nathaniel Martello-White, Netflix, Reviews, The Strays

Nathaniel Martello-White’s feature debut The Strays is a social thriller that lacks bite, discipline, and a third act. When the film abruptly ended, I waited for Ashton Kutcher to pop from behind my sofa to announce a film critic Punk’d spin-off, where they cut to a movie’s credits twenty minutes too early. It’s an incomplete […]

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Animals Gone Wild: How 2015 Creature Feature ‘Stung’ Stands Out from the Swarm

Matt Donato Benni Diez, Editorials, Movies, Stung

We’ve all seen the hackneyed, poorly CG-ed, primetime Asylum special on SYFY version of Stung too many times before. Director Benni Diez, every producer, and each department head go the extra mile to avoid such a fate for their 80s throwback creature feature. That’s what’s so endearing about a 2015 “When Insects Attack” flick with […]

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‘The Unsettling’ Review – Strong Performances Can’t Save This Lackluster Feature Debut

Matt Donato Harry Owens, Movies, Reviews, The Unsettling

Let’s hold a moment of silence for the presence wasted in writer and director Harry Owens’ feature debut, The Unsettling. Leading performances are admirable, but the tediously sluggish narrative is an ambiguous slog that culminates with the impact of a handkerchief slap. Owens’ themes feel indebted to Remi Weekes’ His House and Nikyatu Jusu’s Nanny […]

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‘She Came from the Woods’ Review – The ’80s Slasher Returns With a Nostalgic Trip Back to Camp

Matt Donato Erik Bloomquist, Movies, Reviews, She Came from the Woods

If you didn’t know Erik Bloomquist’s She Came from the Woods loves the 80s like Pac-Man loves Mrs. Pac-Man, the first few minutes should sell a tubular on-screen time warp. Hormonal camp counselors in short shorts prepare for summer’s end while Kim Wilde’s “Kids In America” blares over opening credits like any other Camp Crystal […]

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‘The Wizard of Gore’ – Only Crispin Glover Shines in 2007’s Herschell Gordon Lewis Update [Revenge of the Remakes]

Matt Donato Editorials, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Jeremy Kasten, Movies, Revenge of the Remakes, The Wizard of Gore

To say Herschell Gordon Lewis‘ and Jeremy Kasten‘s respective The Wizard of Gore releases pushed me to my limits is correct for all the wrong reasons. My choice to stack the 1970 original and 2007 remake back-to-back stands as one of my least favorite Revenge of the Remakes double-bills thus far. I’ve no objection to […]

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Level Up: Why Horror Titles Make for the Best Video Game Adaptations

Matt Donato dino crisis, Doom, Editorials, House of the Dead, Rampage, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Silent Hill, Sweet Home, the last of us, Video Games

Video game adaptations: one of cinema’s most hated-on subgenres. Whenever another beloved controllable franchise is announced for moviegoing treatment, eyes roll. Critics quiver. Visions of Mark Wahlberg as Max Payne or Uwe Boll’s crimes against both gamersphere credibility and audience standards montage a hard-fast argument for such scoffs. Fantastical play-alongs turned theatrical try-hards have long […]

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Cabinets of Curiosities: Why Horror Anthologies Are Such an Important Horror Staple

Matt Donato A Christmas Horror Story, Editorials, featured, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities, Holidays, Horror anthologies, Movies, Nightmare Cinema, Satanic Hispanics, Scare Package, The ABCs of Death, topnews

Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities — a marvelous compendium of streaming deadtime stories — emphasizes everything that lures me to horror anthologies. It feels like a reinvention of Showtime’s Masters of Horror, highlighting everything I appreciate about the format. One might balk at calling Cabinet of Curiosities an outright horror anthology, more a miniseries? […]

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‘Deadly Games’ and ‘Violent Night’ – The Christmas Movie Double Feature You Need to Experience

Matt Donato Deadly Games, Editorials, Movies, Violent Night

Tommy Wirkola‘s Violent Night is taking the holiday movie season by storm (and force). As you already know, David Harbour plays an action-hero version of Santa Claus who eliminates mercenaries during a hostage crisis on Christmas Eve. Commercials are everywhere, selling what’s now dubbed “Die Hard meets Home Alone.” That’s very much correct as a […]

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‘Willard’ – An Inferior Remake Despite the Dream Casting of Crispin Glover [Revenge of the Remakes]

Matt Donato Crispin Glover, Editorials, Movies, Revenge of the Remakes, Willard

The producers of 2003’s Willard chose to nix “remake” from the film’s marketing vocabulary, but 2003’s Willard adaptation is irrefutably a remake of 1971’s furry social outcast chiller. At the forefront of 2000s remake trends, Glen Morgan‘s Willard features altered themes and a deeper thirst for suspense, going the “darker and grittier” route displayed by […]

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‘Halloween’ – How Rob Zombie Made a Horror Classic Entirely His Own [Revenge of the Remakes]

Matt Donato Editorials, featured, Halloween, John Carpenter, Movies, Revenge of the Remakes, Rob ZOmbie, topnews

In discussions about slasher infamy, all roads lead to Haddonfield. The Halloween franchise has amassed a convoluted franchise canon since the late 1970s, filled with retcons and redos as recently as Halloween Ends — including Rob Zombie‘s universally divisive 2007 remake. Countless horror screenwriters, including Josh Stolberg (no stranger to “Revenge of the Remakes”), attempted […]

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‘Goodnight Mommy’ – The Kind of Remake That Gives Remakes a Bad Name [Revenge of the Remakes]

Matt Donato Editorials, Goodnight Mommy, Movies, Revenge of the Remakes

Anyone who’s kept pace with “Revenge of the Remakes” here on Bloody Disgusting knows I’m a rather outspoken advocate for horror remakes. They’re inevitable, serve multiple purposes, and aren’t the poison to filmmaking culture some claim. That said? Matt Sobel’s American remake of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s Goodnight Mommy exemplifies everything you hate to […]

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‘The House on Sorority Row’ and ‘Sorority Row’ Fulfill Different Horror Cravings [Revenge of the Remakes]

Matt Donato Editorials, Movies, Revenge of the Remakes, Sorority Row, The House on Sorority Row

Mark Rosman‘s The House on Sorority Row (1982) and Stewart Hendler‘s Sorority Row (2009) feel shoved aside in their respective horror classes. Titles like Pieces, Black Christmas, and The Dorm That Dripped Blood get more frequent mentions when discussing pre-90s sorority or dormitory slashers. Remake debates rarely include Sorority Row in their reassessments of unfairly […]

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‘Shark Side of the Moon’ Review – Tubi Hopes You’re in the Mood for Russian Space Shark Silliness

Matt Donato Movies, Reviews, Shark Side of the Moon, Tubi

From the directors of The Asylum’s Dune knockoff and the writers/director of The Asylum’s Aladdin ripoff comes The Asylum’s Tubi Original Shark Side of the Moon. Just when you thought it was safe to colonize Earth’s crater-covered moon again, Glenn Campbell and Tammy Klein introduce Russian human-shark hybrids as cosmic predators. Or, more appropriately, lower-than-low-budget […]

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‘The Hills Have Eyes’ Took a Horror Classic and Made It Even Better [Revenge of the Remakes]

Matt Donato Editorials, Movies, Revenge of the Remakes, The Hills Have Eyes, Wes Craven

Wes Craven‘s The Hills Have Eyes is a seminal “Sunny Scary” horror flick renowned for its cannibalistic hilltop clan, but it certainly presents as one of Craven’s earliest works. The sorely missed master of horror went on to hone his craft as a writer and director, tidying visions and coaxing stronger performances. Craven’s 1977 The […]

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