One can either be offended/repulsed by imagery of tribal villagers salting severed limbs and boiling a human head with an apple in its mouth or chuckle amusedly at the absurdity of it all.

The movie has nowhere to go but into the burn bin of indistinguishable “found footage” flicks about haunted buildings.

This is a case where overseas origins provide an imaginary edge of avant-garde exoticness the movie doesn’t fully possess.

Even at barely an hour, “Night of the Living Dead: Darkest Dawn” is excruciating to sit through.  Rubbing your retinas with steel wool would be less painful on the eyes.

“Estranged” has more than its fair share of intrigue and unexpected turns, but there is succinctness in its story making its terror frighteningly down-to-earth.

By overlaying the middle class melancholy with the landlord’s lurking threat, “13 Cameras” puts a fresh coat of paint onto otherwise average plotlines.

“The Girl in the Photographs” shouts loud enough to be heard above the slasher movie din while its echo may not reach all the way through the ears.

Incredibly sly and energetic, “Patchwork” is a movie that works on multiple levels, with copious comedy and carnage always front and center.

Given its “invaders among us” content and DIY style, the best way to describe “They Look Like People” is: Think “They Live” reimagined as mumblecore.

If there was ever any contemporary horror movie whose core content is not conducive to being refashioned for popular consumption, it is “Martyrs.”

The eight films in “The Labyrinth” are among the most technically accomplished and entirely engaging shorts a genre fan will ever see.

Never has a film been unenjoyable enough to warrant walking out of a theater mid-movie, but “Condemned” fought hard to be my first.

“Game Changer” is a marshmallowy nostalgia piece driven more by marketing than any desire to delve deeply into the series’ inner machinations.

Lean, clean, and compact with more motivation than most, “The Unraveling” is a refreshingly respectable piece of streamlined suspense cinema.

Sights and sounds are just odd enough for “Naciye” to deliver the kind of subtle strangeness that western audiences can only get from a suspense thriller made in Turkey.

By-the-book, by-the-numbers, run-of-the-mill, or however else it can be hyphenated, “Curve” is as conventional as thrillers get.

With slasher masks off and one-liners silenced, “Martyrs” reminds how horror can be escapist entertainment without being entertaining in the traditional sense.

Once swirled into its style, “The Blackcoat's Daughter” is darkly entrancing.  See through that style however, and the fiction doesn’t stand all the way up.

“The Mind’s Eye” is straight-up psychic horror aiming intentionally for wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor, and then obliterating-the-entire-room action entertainment.

Overflowing with character in its cast, setting, scripting, and tone, “Bone Tomahawk” easily earns its place as one of the 21st century’s most memorable modern westerns.