Tourism officials in Ireland are probably not championing Citadel. Almost oppressively dank and dreary, it’s an odd little chiller that features few speaking roles and a unique twist on the killer kids subgenre.
The opening scene is incredibly frightening and effectively sets the tone. A happy young couple, Tommy (Aneurin Barnard) and Joanne (Amy Shiels), is leaving their apartment building to head for the hospital so she can give birth to their first child. Tommy carries her bag to a taxi outside and then takes the elevator back up to the 11th floor. It’s an old, decrepit building and when he arrives the elevator door won’t open. He watches helplessly as hooded figures attack his wife. When he finds her she is bloodied and has a needle sticking out of her stomach.
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If you are looking for something original or suspenseful, do not bother with the Syfy Channel’s American Horror House, airing on Saturday, October 13th as part of the network’s 31 Days of Halloween.
However, if you happen to be in the mood for some goofy fun and, generally speaking, enjoy Syfy fare, look no further.
Penned by Syfy veteran Anthony Ferrante (Haunted High, Leprechaun’s Revenge, Headless Horseman) and directed by Darin Scott, who helmed Dark House and co-wrote Tales from the Hood, American Horror House is a convoluted mess. It kicks off with a little girl murdering her parents in bed and immediately jumps to the present. Who they all were and when the murders occurred is unclear.
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Sinister, the new movie from director Scott Derickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose), was produced by the same people who made Paranormal Activity. It also once sported the unfortunately obvious title of "Found Footage." Putting that aside, it's more than just another Paranormal Activity faux-doc rip-off like we've seen many times these past few years, turning the similarly overused horror premise of a family experiencing strange occurrences in their new home into something that feels more cinematic and unique than other similar films.
Ethan Hawke plays true crime novelist Ellison Oswalt, who has moved his family into a new home where he plans to write a new book about the disappearance of a young girl after her entire family was murdered. What his wife (Juliet Rylance) and family don't realize is that the house they moved into was where those horrible murders took place. Soon after moving in, Ellison finds a box in the attic containing reels of Super 8 film, each one that may hold an answer to the murders and disappearance while tying them into something much bigger.
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Hollow is a horror film about a tree. No, really. It's a horror flick about a spooky tree. That initially put me off, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s not great, but the film is better than one might expect after reading the synopsis.
Scott, Emma, James and Lynne head to the English countryside on holiday. Once there, they encounter more than the pleasant getaway they had in mind. The group crosses paths with a tree that is haunted by a malevolent spirit known to lead young couples to an untimely demise.
I am impressed that the filmmakers managed to make a story about a haunted tree fairly suspenseful. I had no expectations going in and was pleasantly surprised by parts of the film.
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“If you were going to tell a horror story, you would write something like this." So says a woman in the documentary The Jeffrey Dahmer Files, which played to a full house at the Milwaukee Film Fest, a reminder of our endless fascination with serial killers. Sometimes reality is far more frightening and disturbing than what even the best genre filmmakers concoct. Such is the case with Jeffrey Dahmer, who murdered 17 young males between 1978 and 1991.
Avoiding sensationalism, director Chris Thompson goes micro and focuses on three lives directly affected by Dahmer: Dr. Jeffrey Jentzen, the medical examiner at the time; Pat Kennedy, a young homicide detective and the first law enforcement officer to speak with Dahmer after his arrest in July 1991; and the aforementioned woman, Pamela Bass, who lived next door to Dahmer in the Oxford Apartments in Milwaukee.
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Well, that was something.
And not a good something either. I understand that Universal is looking to cash in on the fact that werewolves (along with vampires) are popular these days, but surely they can come up with something that’s just a notch above a bad SyFy Channel flick, right?
At least, you would think so.
Werewolf: The Beast Among Us is really bad. It is a mish-mash of clichés that try to cleverly harness lines and themes from other werewolf movies but it fails miserably on all counts. Instead, nothing at all is clever, nothing is fresh and we are left with a host of nameless and faceless (literally sometimes) people getting killed and torn to shreds for a reason the writers seems to have forgotten. And really by about the halfway point when all is revealed, you don’t care.
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Horror on television is generally hit or miss.
For every successful Twilight Zone, Tales from the Dark Side, The Outer Limits, Supernatural, Friday The 13th: The Series, True Blood or The Walking Dead there’s a dreadful Harper’s Island, American Gothic, Happy Town, Brimstone, Fear Itself and The River to go along with it.
American Horror Story falls into the former category.
The series is smart, stylish, kinky, strange as hell, a wrinkle of retro and most importantly scary. Plus, having been shown late at night on FX, it pulls no punches with the sex, kink and harsh language. All of these traits make up what is one of the most unique shows going in all of television.
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Nods to classic horror monsters, amazing animation, and a return to old school Tim Burton form make Frankenweenie a lot of fun, but a largely spoiled plot and a bland lead character keep the film from reaching its full potential.
Victor Frankenstein is a young boy living in the town of New Holland. He's extremely intelligent, but he doesn't have many friends. Victor is OK with that, though, because he has his dog Sparky to keep him company. That is until Sparky is tragically hit by a car and killed. However, Victor isn't willing to say goodbye just yet. Victor uses his scientific knowledge to bring Sparky back to life! While he is overjoyed that his friend is alive again, Victor now must hide Sparky from the rest of the world. But it's not long before his secret gets out and the town is turned upside down by the revelation.
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