Condemned: Criminal Origins Developed By: Monolith Productions Produced By: SEGA When CONDEMNED: CRIMINAL ORIGINS was first released I felt a sense of unease, it just didn’t sit right with me. It looked impressive enough but the blend of realism mixed with the supernatural just didn’t seem to connect. I tried not to let this prejudiced [...]
Directed by David Smith, 2005 Written by Phil O’Shea If I’m going to keep watching such mediocre ninety-ish minutes of trapped time, I need to at least watch high concept mediocrity. SPIRIT TRAP’s plot is as salient as a cobweb on a glass case of cobwebs nestled within a Cobweb Museum. If that isn’t bad [...]
Directed by David Winkler, 2005 Written by Adam Gross, Seth Gross The stuff found trawling through On Demand. The plot description spoke of a deadly online game. The cast list included Jensen Ackles, Shannyn Sossamon, Dominique Swain and “Bill Sadler”. The running time was 90 minutes, a perfect match for the 90 minutes I was [...]
Directed by Albert Pyun, 2005 Written by Cynthia Curnan This INVASION film spent years under the title INFECTION before its US DVD release. I am not sure why the name was changed. I feel that INFECTION and INVASION are both capable of referring to extra terrestrial maladies, yet neither is any more original or any [...]
Directed by Jaume Balagueró 2005Written by Jaume Balagueró, Jordi Galcerán All the natural resources ghost films mine their goods from have been plundered for years now. Every now and then a film like Shutter can tap into a familiar vein and uncover treasure in the process, but the law of averages says that most ghosties [...]
Written and Directed by Billy O’Brien, 2005 Isolation opens aptly with moody, mysterious circumstances surrounding the imminent delivery of a calf on a remote farm in Ireland. Orla, the sole vet tending to the pregnancy, is performing one of what will prove to be several armful uterus probings, when there is a crunching sound prompting [...]
Directed by Mike Mendez, 2006Written by Brad Keene, Chris Skinner Finally a movie that reminds horror of the fact that ghosts don’t have to be Asian with long black hair to get your blood pumping. Dominic Purcell plays Harris, the dull spearhead of a group of old college buddies reunited by a friend’s funeral. With [...]
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, 2005Written by Chad Hayes, Carey Hayes, Charles Belden (story) Pull the trigger, I accept the bullets openly. House of Wax taint half bad. On a fair day, it may even be considered half good. The combo weights of being an unnecessary remake at the height of remake hysteria and casting Paris [...]
Directed by John Gulager, 2005 Feast sucks. I’ve written and rewritten this introduction countless times now and regardless of how I try to word the drumroll, the punchline stays the same. It sucks. Period. The end. Project Greenlight’s editing would have led you to believe that the hapless John Gulager was to blame for the [...]
Directed by Kevin VanHook, 2005 "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."- Some guy named Jesus It’s called the ethic of reciprocity. If someone was nice enough to send me something, should I return the favor and kindly write a good review? What if the movie wasn’t any good? What if [...]
Directed by Jake West, 2005 Take a look at Brit Jake West’s IMDB profile and you’ll notice he is the director and editor of over a dozen documentaries on horror film icons, so it should come as no surprise when I say that his latest film, Evil Aliens, is overloaded with what probably amounts to [...]
If you’re a horror fan and read genre news sites, or practically any movie news sites, for that matter, you’ve probably heard nothing but praise for The Descent, a trapped-in-a-cave flick from UK’er Neil Marshall which hits American theaters on August 4th. I first reviewed it in early November of last year and didn’t buy [...]
Directed by Don Michael Paul, 2006 In the realm of direct-to-DVD horror, The Garden is a unique find for a multitude of reasons. Lance Henriksen is the most obvious motivation for any genre fan to watch this contemporary but isolatory tale of good versus evil. However, not only does the rest of the cast pull [...]
Directed by Jeff Wadlow, 2005 I hate to describe films as X meets Y, but Jeff Wadlow and Beau Bauman’s script for Cry_Wolf owes its family tree to too many films for it to go unmentioned. This is Scream meets Mindhunters, as introduced to each other by Cruel Intentions, who was flirting with Wild Things, [...]
Directed by Jeremy Haft, 2005 It’s a pity when writing a review for a movie becomes an obligatory chore. I know Jeffrey Reddick and Jeremy Haft put a lot of love into Tamara. It’s the only recent Indie teen "slasher" I can think of that was actually shot on film and recieved a small – [...]
Directed by Greg McLean, 2005 I’ve been in a horror rut recently, hence the lack of reviews. There’s nothing coming out that I want to see theatrically. I’m a big supporter of direct-to-DVD stuff, but there’s little to offer there as well. I never particularly had a good feeling about Wolf Creek, but given the [...]
Directed by David Slade, 2005 Hard Candy is not strictly a horror film, but it will mess you up more than any genre movie you’ll see this year and is thus deserving of a spot on this here horror site. If all you know about the film is what you’ve seen from the trailer, you’ll [...]
Directed by Philip Cruz, 2005 Andre the Butcher is a movie for people who just don’t care. After the mandatory, unrelated-to-the-rest-of-the-movie opening death, it kicks off with a hillbilly narrator who introduces us to Andre, the film’s urban legend cannibal, and our unique little cast of good guys; a high school cheerleading squad (all four [...]
Directed by Timur Bekmambetov, 2005 In Soviet Russia, movie hates you! In the interest of full disclosure, one should know my history with this film’s predecessor. When I first saw Night Watch over a year and a half ago, I thought it was one of the most insane fantasy films I’d ever seen. I watched [...]
Directed by Neil Marshall, 2005. Review originally written 11-07-05 What a freaking headache. I’m not the worldest biggest fan of Dog Soldiers, I think it is a decent enough flick, but I thought buzz was very solid about The Descent…
Directed by Tim Sullivan, 2005 A vapid, moronic attempt at a horror film if there ever was one. 2001 Maniacs is everything I hate about horror these days. I’ve heard good things about the original Two Thousand Maniacs!, but this remake is just trash. Horny frat boys and sluty sorority girls fill out the principle [...]
Directed by Charles Band, 2005 Just look at that cover! How could anyone possibly resist such a siren’s seductive call? That cover means business. The Gingerdead Man doesn’t ask to be watched, it sticks a knife to your throat and demands that you watch it. When I first saw the full-page ad in Fangoria a [...]
Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, 2005 I appreciate the original Saw for drawing enough crowds to turn Lions Gate a very solid profit, but that’s about it. I think it was a worthless movie which showed absolutely zero promise for James Wan as a filmmaker and exposed him as nothing more than a gimicky screenwriter. [...]
Directed by Michael Hurst, 2005 I’d just like to point out that I was right in my guess as to House of the Dead 2′s fate, since I just saw a commercial for it on Sci-Fi. Not much of a surprise… I didn’t know anything about the production of this obvious disaster going into it, [...]
Directed by Paul Fox, 2005 Where was I in the late 90′s when the law was passed that says, “If you are making a psychological horror film said film’s conclusion must be that all of the film’s events were in the protagonist’s head?” I don’t remember getting to vote on this, but apparently it must [...]
Directed by Stephen Bradley, 2005 Boy loves girl. Boy has misunderstanding, is devestated by girl. Boy kills himself. Mother raises boy from the dead. Such is Boy Eats Girl. There is something about any high school horror movie that I am just a sucker for. Maybe it is the idea of an entire high school [...]
