Earnest homage, entertaining performances, and some nailbiter setups of suspense make for a cheeky crowd-pleaser of surprise shocks and humorous horror.

“Trash Fire” is about confronting challenges in relationships, both romantic and familial, and the frightening honesty in its fiction can be unsettling to see.

“Ouija: Origin of Evil” ranks alongside “The Conjuring” as a memorably mesmerizing thriller with substance to match its style.

Not only does “Patient Seven” collect seven strong shorts worth watching, it includes a proper wraparound tying everything together in a creatively clever way.

“Raw” does not disappoint with unsettling scenes certain to have you uneasily scratching at sympathy pains as Justine goes down her hole of macabre metamorphosis.

“RWD” is an overachieving endeavor that doesn’t want for good intentions, but has low production quality and entertainment value to show for it.

I suspect that in twelve months time, I won't be able to tell you a single thing off the top of my head about “The Invoking 3.”

“Jack Goes Home” is an introspective character deconstruction with an arthouse indie skin first, and a psycho-thriller with slight swaths of commercial horror second.

Putting it in a peanut shell, “The Windmill” trots out more than a few tropes and predictable plot beats, yet it’s got gory guts and gusto where it counts.

What you end up getting out of “Phantasm: Ravager” is proportionately related to how much nostalgia you have for the franchise.

Will you want to own it on home video for repeat viewings every Halloween? No. But for a one-and-done viewing to kick off October? Sure, why not?

While its slow roll and tame terror keep menace at a minimum, the movie has a thematic backbone where comparative thrillers have only hollow horror.

No matter how mundane the “To Do” list task, “Ouija Summoning” is all the motivation you need to do anything that isn’t watching this movie.

With six consecutive features now tapping into this telltale brand of roadside hillbilly horror, following formula no longer challenges audiences to be shocked.

“Wolf Creek: The Series” may not be essential viewing, but it is entertaining, provided there exists a willingness to overlook implausible plotting.

If you’ve seen the first film, then you’ve seen this sequel’s identical plot beats of getting lost, yelling, being chased, becoming separated, and concluding in a creepy old house.

“The Purging Hour” is too vague about its mythology and too dull as a movie to come anywhere close to earning a recommendation.

It’s fine as the kind of movie you land on by happenstance and opt to stay there out of curiosity, boredom, or because you dropped the remote and don’t feel like picking it up.

As a monument to the man Leonard Nimoy, the myth of Mr. Spock, and the legend of how the two intertwine, the film is absolutely on point.