Archives: Movie Reviews

As described in my last review, compilation of three interwoven short tales, revolving around a broadcast signal driving people insane. I like this one a lot, very well done. (Note: there's another 2014 horror movie called"The Signal"that isn't nearly as good.) I just recently, 10 or 15 years after it had faded to a distant memory of a film Ihad especially enjoyed, popped back up on Tubi (which, among the seemingly thousands of awful horror films it gets, seems to also manage to get these distantly-remembered, hard-to-find favorites.) I remember why I liked it. It's gorier than I remember, and, I don't know, I can't say it's exactly a great movie, but it seriously well done for what it is and the kind of gem I would say non-horror fans shouldn't go out of their way to see, but, every horror fan should see it. As noted elsewhere, the first of the three episodes, directed by the guy who went on to do"The Ritual"and a bunch of better stuff I noted in my review of that film, is the best of the three, very effectively ratcheting up the suspense. The rest is nearly as good though. The second two rely a little bit on camp humor, not my favorite thing, but it's strong enough all the way through to pull off this off-kilter and gory end-of-humanity tale. Also, never realized unti now, the female lead was also one of the leads in"YellowBrickRoad"another favorite deep cut.

Ok, this one is special, I think we have an honorable mention here. A folklorist investigates tales of strange creatures appearing in Vermont. When I threw this on, I was suprised to discover it was an old horror movie, not a new one, and nearly turned it off, but thankfully I didn't. Within just a few minutes I found myself thinking that I'd forgotten just how visually beautiful some of those old black and white movies are... similar to some of those John Ford westerns. It was quite a ways into it before I realized something was a little too clean—by the end of the movie I realized that certain lighting revealed that there was no film grain. Which makes sense, because the movie was actually made in 2011. But other than that, WOW, the 1930s reproduction is note-perfect, the acting style, the costumes, the special effects, most definitely the lighting... somebody involved with the making of this film had a spectacularly good eye for black-and-white cinematography, it's just beautiful and would probably have stood out as a great example of vintage cinematography if it had actually been vintage. The story is not great but absolutely good, it builds as effectively as some of the great vintage horror, and the plot ticks along, nothing about it sags at any point from start to finish. There's clearly some modern special effects used but for the most part they're effectively disguised to look like 1930s technology, and mostly the whole thing works. The monsters are a little cheezy but by the time you see them I was so into it that I didn't care. This film really caught my attention, there were a few times I had to rewind to see things a second time. Plus, a dark ending, much more Lovecraft than Hollywood, even though only the first two acts are actually from the Lovecraft story this is based on. Very nice work from an indie director. Not quite a great film, but definitely a treat, from where I sit, for sure. Quality entertainment. Incidentally I notice this one gets high marks from a lot of Lovecraft fans in the review section on IMDB.

Score one for AI. This small indie film has haunted me for years, as I forgot to review it when I watched it, until tonight I typed one image I…