Confidently surfing a tidal wave of brazen gags, Tina Romero’s horror-comedy creates a partygoer personality as chic as its colorful characters.

Guillermo del Toro’s creative freedom to be as artistically indulgent as he wants becomes a double-edged sword in this case.

“Black Phone 2’s” crossover into “A Nightmare on Elm Street” territory works well on the surface, but not as well for the familiar fiction operating underneath.

This is an unentertaining sequel that’s poorly designed as a movie, and unnecessarily plodding as a story.

It’s rare for a horror movie to run this deep on themes of friendship, finding hope in oppressive darkness, and refusing to be broken by bleakness.

What if we take “The Strangers” and do the exact opposite of everything that made “The Strangers” suspenseful and successful in the first place?

“Vicious” erases potential resonance with inessential stuffing that’s overlong, unnecessarily ambiguous, or just plain boring.

Summing up the movie’s “no duh” declarations: Violence as entertainment is bad. Exploitation is bad. Fanaticism is bad. “Him” is also bad.

“The Conjuring: Last Rites” purports to be “based on a true story,” although it’s anyone’s guess where facts are supposedly included in the fiction.

“The Toxic Avenger” feels like a true Troma film, but older, wiser, and with a lot more wit to go along with the grossouts and B-movie bloodbaths.

The real thing these shorts have in common is that they're all too long by about 20%, and some have nearly nothing to do with the supposed sci-fi frame.

The result is a consecutive collection of incongruent stories whose tenuous connection is just that they're sheltering under the same thin umbrella.

Where “Night of the Reaper” hits a hard snag with its comparatively calmer tone is in not establishing the same sense of dread that “Halloween” does.

“Strange Harvest” echoes “The Poughkeepsie Tapes” in a manner that’s able to maintain its own originality despite the déjà vu.

Everything about “Witchboard” 2024 can be described as “average,” with “below” fitting in front of that word more often than “above” applies.

Once its foundation firms up, “Weapons” continues forward as an experiment in storytelling that’s more about the telling than it is about the story.

“The Home” has the appearance of a slow-burn snore, but its essential organs are grown out of grindhouse gruesomeness and B-movie battiness.

Engaging as allegory, and entertaining as a carnival-like freak show, “Together” is a full-bodied horror experience.