“Every time I survived a war zone, I thought I was sending a warning home: don’t do this,” Kirsten Dunst’s veteran photojournalist Lee tells another in Civil War. “But here we are.” The sentiment sums up writer/director Alex Garland‘s anti-war messaging, told through a visceral assault on the senses as it plunges its characters on a road trip […]
The post ‘Civil War’ SXSW Review – Alex Garland’s Anti-War Movie Provides a Sensory Assault appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Writer/Director Tilman Singer continues his streak of experimental high-concept horror with his sophomore effort, Cuckoo. The filmmaker boldly marches to the beat of his own drum, examining heady themes of grief, reproduction, and gendered expectations through inventive, playful horror. That Cuckoo plays it fast and loose with details and plotting means that this body horror entry will likely polarize, […]
The post ‘Cuckoo’ Review – High-Concept Horror Movie Gets Weird, Quirky, and Playful appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Did you know that there is a Child’s Play-inspired film from Mexico? If you didn’t, you can thank Vinegar Syndrome’s new label Degausser Video for making 1993’s Herencia Diabólica available for the masses to watch. Or at least for the VS hardcore fanbase, Chucky completists and anyone else who needs something like this in their […]
The post ‘Herencia Diabólica’ – 1993’s “Mexican Child’s Play” Finally Has a Blu-ray Release [Review] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
A horror movie set in an Italian convent with a title like Immaculate communicates all there is to know about the plot. A young American nun, Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney), travels to her new post in the remote countryside, only to discover she’s miraculously pregnant soon after taking her vows. Director Michael Mohan and screenwriter Andrew […]
The post ‘Immaculate’ SXSW Review – Sydney Sweeney Gets Fierce in Conventional Religious Horror Film appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Dev Patel (The Green Knight, Slumdog Millionaire) has much more on his mind than straightforward action homage with his high-octane directorial feature debut, Monkey Man. At the SXSW world premiere, Patel told the enrapt audience that he poured his soul into his hyper-violent actioner, and broke two toes, a hand, tore a shoulder, and battled an eye infection […]
The post ‘Monkey Man’ SXSW Review – Myth and Ultra-Violence Collide in Dev Patel’s Bloody Actioner appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
While Nicolas Cage gets a proper hero’s moment or two in director Benjamin Brewer and writer/producer Mike Nilon’s Arcadian, the post-apocalyptic creature feature belongs to its young stars. Playing like a cross between a poignant coming-of-age story and intense survival horror, Arcadian does just enough to set itself apart from similar fare. However, its ultimate appeal and magic lie in the inventive monster […]
The post ‘Arcadian’ SXSW Review – Nicolas Cage Creature Feature Highlighted by Inventive Monster Designs appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Beth Hetland’s debut graphic novel, ‘Tender,’ is a modern tale of love, validation, and self-destruction by way of brutal body horror with a feminist edge. “I’ve wanted this more than anything.” Men so often dominate the body horror subgenre, which makes it so rare and insightful whenever women tackle this space. This makes Beth Hetland’s […]
The post [Review] Graphic Novel ‘Tender’ Is Brilliant Feminist Body Horror That Will Make You Squirm & Scream appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Coming off an exceptional second episode last week (which featured an awesome nod to Dawn of the Dead, a stand-out performance from newcomer Matthew Jeffers as Nat, and the wonderful full reunion between Rick and Michonne), “The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live” Episode 3 (“Bye”) finds Michonne still undercover within the CRM as a […]
The post “The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live” Episode 3 Review – This Series Continues to Surprise and Delight appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Writer/Director/Editor Michael Felker knows his way around time-shifting, metaphysical labors of love, having edited Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s Something in the Dirt, Synchronic, The Endless, and Spring. Felker’s feature directorial debut, Things Will Be Different, seamlessly fits into the Benson/Moorhead cinematic universe, introducing a fractured sibling relationship put through the physical and emotional wringer when they play with forces they don’t quite […]
The post ‘Things Will Be Different’ SXSW Review – Family Bonds Get Tested in Engaging Sci-Fi Thriller appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Bigfoot isn’t the only elusive cryptid in horror. Director Kourtney Roy‘s feature debut, Kryptic, centers around an amnesiac in pursuit of a missing cryptozoologist and the Canadian cryptid she was pursuing. Don’t expect a straightforward approach to this cryptid tale, though. Kryptic earns its title and then some, unfurling an esoteric psycho-thriller that uses its forest dwelling […]
The post ‘Kryptic’ SXSW Review – A Goopy, Esoteric Cryptozoology Psycho-Thriller appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Obsession and profound loneliness drive writers/directors Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy’s lo-fi psychological thriller, Dead Mail. On paper, the premise reads like a familiar crime tale, yet the filmmakers’ execution quickly proves Dead Mail to be anything but conventional. A reinvention of the ‘80s aesthetic, a deft genre blend, and intimate empathy afforded to all of its unique […]
The post ‘Dead Mail’ SXSW Review – An Offbeat, Lo-Fi ’80s Thriller appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
The attention-grabbing opening scene in writer/director Benjamin Finkel’s Family effectively establishes the film’s peculiar, esoteric, yet bone-chilling tone. Evoking Relic or Ari Aster’s Hereditary, the cold open sees preteen protagonist Johanna (Cameron Dawson Gray) banging on the locked doors of a synagogue, pleading to be let in, only for her mother, Naomi (Ruth Wilson), to stalk across the lawn, […]
The post ‘Family’ SXSW Review – Esoteric Arthouse Horror About Grief and Fear Induces Visceral Chills appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
A woman finds herself trapped in a harrowing nightmare in writer/director Shannon Triplett’s feature debut, Desert Road, but not in the way you’d expect. While the road trip thriller traps its protagonist in place on a desolate stretch of highway, tossing harrowing encounters and obstacles her way against a ticking clock, a sci-fi twist and a […]
The post ‘Desert Road’ SXSW Review – A Roadtrip Thriller with an Affecting Sci-fi Twist appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Ah, Y2K. The millennium bug that induced widespread fear over the possibility of a worldwide infrastructure crash once 2000 arrived becomes infectious fodder for a teen comedy infused with horror and nostalgia. Armed with a pitch-perfect, game-for-anything ensemble and great practical effects behind the carnage and calamity, A24’s latest offers up the most entertaining, apocalyptic funny-bone-tickling […]
The post ‘Y2K’ SXSW Review – A24’s Teen Comedy-Horror is a Party Worth Rewinding the Clock For appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
A blurred image of a Wake in Fright poster in an early shot in Birdeater cuts right to the heart of directors Jack Clark and Jim Weir’s feature debut, a hat tip to the style and tone of madness ahead. Like Ted Kotcheff’s 1971 classic thriller, Birdeater utilizes horror and thriller mechanics and tropes to deconstruct Australia’s masculine identity, one at odds with today’s […]
The post ‘Birdeater’ SXSW Review – A Nail-Biting Deconstruction of Identity and Abuse appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.