Shivers
A phallic/fecal-looking parasite that causes uncontrollable, violent sexual urges spreads throughout an exclusive apartment complex. How's that for an opener? I just can't be objective about early David Cronenberg. I've…
Latest "Canadian" files
Shivers
Night Visions (series)
Fairly watchable Canadian early 2000s Twilight Zone-type anthology. Lots of recognizable faces & reasonably respectable actors involved (David Paymer, Miguel Ferrera, Mare Winningham, a million more. That sort of caliber.)…
In April
This is one of the weirdest movies I've ever seen... to a point. This movie about a suicidal man driving around in a car looking for an opportunity to kill…
Grace
Understated, character-based horror like they used to make in the 1970s, although with a fair share of visceral gore along the way, for sure. A mother carries a miscarried baby…
Relax, I’m From The Future
Totally fun sci-fi comedy. Rhys Darby, who I always liked in "Flight Of The Conchords", is a hapless time traveler stuck in our time and just looking to enjoy his…
Anything For Jackson
"The Omen" cast a long shadow, and this well-made but somewhat derivative tale sits squarely enough within it that some of the scares are unfortunately predictable. Holly Palance cheerily throwing…
The Corrupted
This entry in the "A group of teens go on vacation in a cabin and..." genre is a sad near-exception to the Canadian horror rule. I say "near" because the…
Shifted
Another fatally-flawed horror gem in the finest Canadian tradition, this odd horror/thriller features an ensemble cast trying to survive trapped in a house with dwindling supplies as zombie-like former humans…
Devil’s Diary
Canadian-produced TV movie about a pair of outcast girls who find a diary where you can write any wish and it will come true. Being Canadian, it couldn't be as…
Wintertide
I'm leaving this here just so I remember if I run across this again. This movie started slow, and I was having a hard night with other things, so for…
The Hyperborean
A self-consciously "weird" movie (never a good thing in my book) movie which suffers primarily from self-consciously "quirky" characters obviously invented by a Wes Anderson fan: a family with a…
Death Trip (2021)
Among the worst of the worst and apparently the glaring exception that proves the rule about Canadian horror movies. Four friends go on a trip to a cabin where, for…
We Are Zombies
Aw, for the first two-thirds, this movie was fun! For a lot of its runtime, it's a funnier and better-done comedy than I'm used to seeing from a bunch of…
The Control
This stylistically incredibly Canadian sci-fi movie is unfortunately a swing and a miss. Basically, "Primer" but with virtual reality instead of time travel. In some sort of experiment that's too…
End Of Days, Inc
People working at a mysterious inventory company are being laid off as the company is closing, but promised a million dollar bonus if they can finish one last round of…
Halloween Party
So, this is a little different for a teen scream... this uninteresting-sounding tale is about a meme email that spreads around and forces you to be killed by your deepest…
Knuckleball
decent cinematography, especially shots making grate use of wintry rural Canadian farmland, is the sole redeeming feature of this unremarkable captivity/pursuit flick in which a young boy is sent by his gorgeous parents to spend the winter on an isolated farm with his grandfather, and things go wrong. Not terrible, it has some typical hallmarks of the many well-made little Canadian indie horror movies that I like so much, but in terms of the plot and whole idea that someone made this movie at all—aim higher, people. I guess there must still be an audience for this stuff, but I myself can't see why people even still make these movies.
Deadbolt
alright indie thriller. Young woman escaping a bad relationship moves into a supposedly haunted house in a bad neighborhood with an overly clingy roommate, and things get weird. Could have been terrible but a couple of above-average performances put it just a touch above complete mediocrity. Canadian, not so Canadian (in the usual good way) that I'd have guessed, but it does make sense. Kind of succeeds by not overreaching for more than it can accomplish, sometimes you have to admire something just for managing not to be bad, which this does manage. Better writing would have helped even more.
Invited
So, ok, weird. Young woman disappears, then suddenly invites her family to a zoom call of her wedding with her creepy new fiancee. But: First off, this entire movie is a zoom call. The acting is terrible. Major developments are telegraphed and predictable. So, overall all the ingredients of a terrible horror movie. But: the pacing is good. Somehow, despite the terrible acting and the utter lack of motion as the entire movie is a screenshot, tension is built kind of effectively. That, and only that, elevates it very slightly above what it looks like it's going to be. I still wouldn't, say, recommend it, but apparently found-footage horror fans (a phenomenon I don't understand; to me"found footage fan"is an oxymoron) really like this one, and I get it. Plus it's not really found footage. (Note: on subsequent research, this is a Canadian film. Ok, pretty poor showing for indie Canadian fare, it explains why it's a tiny above bottom of the barrel instead of wallowing at the very bottom.
Man Seeking Woman [tv show]
I loved this show. Jay Baruchel, Eric Andre, and the ridiculously likable Britt Lower in a magical-realist take on dating. If you've ever gone to a party and discovered your…
Hunter Hunter
Family of trappers living in the wilderness, Dad and daughter are into it, Mom's maybe getting tired of it, when a wolf starts raiding their trap line, and to say…
Possessor
Assassin takes over other people's bodies to kill her targets. Another small-but-satisfying Canadian sci fi thriller, well-cast with a bunch of no-name actors. David Cronenberg's son, and I called this…
Pyewacket
Another successful zero-budget Canadian horror outing of the kind that should, by all rights, have sucked, except that Canadians seems somehow good at making these little horror movies pretty effective.…
What Keeps You Alive
Ok, slightly better than your average captivity/stalking in the back woods movie, but I don't know how much of that to chalk up to quality (usually totally lacking in this…
American Hangman
Another thoughtful Canadian thriller that starts off looking like it's going to be torture porn but in fact turns out to be low-key and, after some initial grisliness, largely nonviolent,…
Haunter
Not sure why this movie isn't better known. The ghost of a murdered girl, trapped in the day of her death in the 80s, learns to travel backwards and forward…
Pontypool
Kind of a personal favorite, despite how much of a stretch it is at points. Another one of those small, unique, strangely good films Canadians seem so good at. DJs…