Always take a chance on expanding exposure to horror stories from around the globe. You never know when you might find a terrifying treasure as ghoulishly golden as “Tumbbad.”
CUCUY: THE BOOGEYMAN (2018)
“Cucuy: The Boogeyman” serves a simple purpose as feature film filler that puts the basic in basic cable.
THE AMITYVILLE MURDERS (2018)
Early exposition often plays like deleted material from “The Sopranos” featuring incidental actors too campy to make the final cut.
HALLOWEEN (2018)
A no muss, no fuss approach to slasher storytelling makes “Halloween” probably the second best film in the saga.
HEAD COUNT (2018)
“Head Count” needs a more forceful personality to push it over the edge of being average, and further into the realm of being bold.
THRILLER (2018)
Between the boilerplate fiction and carelessly cut corners, “Thriller” could quite possibly be the worst movie to ever bear the Blumhouse banner.
HOUSEWIFE (2017)
“Housewife” contains “good” and “bad” bits, adding up to an overall hodge-podge that’s neither and both at the same time.
KNUCKLEBALL (2018)
No matter what you think you see coming, “Knuckleball” still has armfuls of suspenseful surprises in store.
THE DEAD CENTER (2018)
The dark aura of “The Dead Center” would pair terrifically with the supernatural suspense of “The Autopsy of Jane Doe” and the slasher thrills of “The Corpse of Anna Fritz.”
HELL HOUSE LLC II: THE ABADDON HOTEL (2018)
“Hell House LLC II” plays like a nickel-and-dime rush job scrabbling to find a story in the editing room instead of having clearly focused goals in mind.
RIDE (2018)
“Ride” coasts on cruise control towards an easy recommendation for Will Brill’s performance alone. Then the conveyor belt of contrivances creates a pileup demanding to drag down the grade.
THE CLOVEHITCH KILLER (2018)
“The Clovehitch Killer” creates an atypical serial killer thriller with intangibly haunting consequences for its characters and audience alike.
TALES FROM THE HOOD 2 (2018)
“Tales from the Hood 2” still gets the basic job done, though its lack of refinement means it may as well be slugged out of a Solo cup instead of a stemmed glass.
HE'S OUT THERE (2018)
What kind of quality can be expected from a movie whose director used a pseudonym and whose publicist employed imaginary praise to drum up an illusion of acclaim?
BLOOD CHILD (2017)
I would believe “Blood Child” is a true story before I’d believe any one of its actors as an authentic person.
SLICE (2018)
“Slice’s” episodic story plays out in film form like stream of consciousness ramblings randomly ripped from a stoner’s notebook.
MARA (2018)
“Mara’s” mediocrity prevents it from being memorable, even among its equally unimpressive peers in the sleep paralysis subgenre.
HOSTILE (2017)
Even though “Hostile” hits bumps impeding immersion in its fiction, inventive craftsmanship enables it to be more easily appreciated as a movie.
OUIJA HOUSE (2018)
Mischa Barton and Tara Reid I understand. But what in the world are Dee Wallace and Chris Mulkey doing in something like “Ouija House?”
BLOOD FEST (2018)
It’s simply splattery and silly, but in a blackly good-humored way that has the colorful enthusiasm of an R-rated “Goosebumps” movie for adults.
It is moderately compelling in the moment, but it has a hard time holding up to even cursory scrutiny as far as believable “found footage” concepts go.