Review – Creature of the Mist

What an odd little movie. The story launches into huge-tentacle-monster-attacks-feudal-Chinese-city action almost immediately. But then just as fast it gets bogged down in arguments between characters from different social classes forced to shelter together in an inn. The action sequences were okay. The rest didn’t do as much for me. At least it was short. Mildly amusing

Review – Blood and Snow

This is what John Carpenter’s The Thing would have been if everyone involved had been terrible at their jobs. Though there’s plenty of blame to go around, the leading culprit is the script. Other than brief monster moments here and there, the vast majority of the running time is given over to pointless bickering, much of which is difficult to follow let alone care about. The only thing I found even vaguely intriguing about this experience was speculation about what sort of abandoned building it was filmed in. Shopping mall? Hospital? It’s a mystery on par with how anyone managed to scrape together a budget for something this awful. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Monster Island

This movie needed way more Tina (for a better understanding of that joke, do a search for “Tina is king of monster island”). Two survivors from a torpedoed Japanese WW2 prison ship wind up stranded on a Pacific island with a monster. The result is the back half of Predator with the Creature from the Black Lagoon as the bad guy. The pace is inconsistent at best, but otherwise it’s a reasonably good monster movie. Mildly amusing

Review – How to Kill Monsters

Humor and Lovecraft are never not going to be an awkward mix. Case in point here. Shambling horrors are inadvertently drawn to a British police station, where inept cops and random ne’er-do-wells battle to prevent the earth from getting sucked into a dimension of chaotic horror. See if desperate

Review – Mothman (2010)

Add the title cryptid to the list of things that are apparently oddly difficult to make into a non-terrible movie. This go-around gets off to the wrong start with a “Mothman Knows What You Did Last Summer” plot construction. And though I imagine the monster itself was the best a low-budget CGI team could produce in 2010, its crappiness still detracts from an already bad experience. See if desperate

Review – The Resonator: Miskatonic U

Nostalgic for the heyday of Full Moon Videos? Apparently you aren’t alone. This is a semi-loving homage to what Stuart Gordon did with H.P. Lovecraft’s “From Beyond,” complete with rubbery effects and gratuitous boob shots. See if desperate

Review – The Lamp

Back in the days before internet porn, nudity must have been regarded as enough to make a movie interesting. So now there’s pretty much nothing at all. The story is some nonsense about an evil spirit and a lamp, but the production values, script and acting are all so terrible that it’s hard to follow - let alone care about - the plot. If you have a craving for low budget horror from the 1980s, this will do as well as anything else. See if desperate

Review – The Boogeyman (2023)

KC and the Sunshine Band gets stiffed again, as does anyone hoping that this will be an exception to the general rule that movie adaptations of Stephen King’s stories stink. Sisters find themselves isolated and disbelieved when a shadows-dwelling beast starts stalking them. Mildly amusing

Review – Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

I was going to mock this production by simply summarizing its plot, demonstrating that it was clearly created for (if not in fact by) fidgety five year olds. But honestly it was too convoluted even for that. The story – to the extent there even is one – depends a lot on previous entries in the series. But If elaborate, expensive effects are enough to keep you happy for a couple of hours, you’re in business. See if desperate

Review – Transylvania 6-5000

Literally everybody in this movie appears to be improving everything they do. And not in a Robert Altman slice-of-life way, either. More in a “let the actors make a giant mess so the movie will fail and turn into a big tax write-off” way. The result is a sloppy, amateurish mess, an assembly of sight gags so stupid that it’s almost literally unwatchable. And yet when I sit through crap like this, I can never quite shake the feeling that this is somebody’s favorite movie. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Piranha 3DD

In answer to the “genital violence” question on DoesTheDogDie, someone wrote “piranha on the ding dong.” That five-word observation was more entertaining than the whole movie. Even the copious supply of outtakes during the end credits were more tightly plotted than the previous 90 minutes. If for some reason you hate David Hasselhoff and want to see him humiliate himself staggering around in a terrible low budget horror movie, here’s your chance. And if you’re a 12-year-old boy who craves random shots of bare boobs, well, they make this thing called the internet. This production serves no other function. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Sea Fever

So is a movie that does a kinda okay job at several things the equivalent of a movie that does one thing really well? This story starts out with sea monsters but then segues awkwardly into an alien infection paranoia plot. The acting is good. The production values are good. But somehow it seems content to paddle around without ever really setting sail. Mildly amusing

Review – Shadow in the Cloud

As if we needed further proof that gremlins – the old school airplane attacking sort – can sustain a Twilight Zone episode but not much more. And that continues to puzzle me. This had many of the ingredients of a good horror movie, including a reasonably scary monster and a familiar face or two in the bomber-crew-sized cast. But then the protagonist gets stuck in the ball turret under a B-17, and the bulk of the rest of the movie happens in that limited space. Which isn’t as big a shame as it sounds, as almost all of the non-monster parts of the script (the majority of the production’s running time, by the way) was a dull soap opera rather than a frightening story or even an interesting history lesson. See if desperate

Review – Prey

I was reluctant to watch this movie at first because of all the animal violence described in its DoesTheDogDie entry. But I’m glad my desire to see every entry in the Predator series prompted me to see it anyway. Yes, there’s a lot of animal death in this, which isn’t particularly surprising for a movie about hunting. But the story draws distinctions between the Comanche protagonists hunting for food as part of their culture, the Predator hunting for trophies and European immigrants hunting for the love of slaughter. Set 300 years before the first episode in the set, this manages to equal and perhaps even surpass the original for storytelling quality. Worth seeing

Review – No One Gets Out Alive

This gets off to a slow start. Actually the very beginning is a fun sequence of simulated Super 8 chillingly reminiscent of the opening to The Exorcist. But when the main story kicks in, it’s the slow, sad story of a woman who journeys from Mexico to Cleveland only to find herself victimized by people who prey on undocumented workers: a sweatshop owner, a con artist and the landlord of a run-down boarding house. It’s the latter of the three who proves to be her biggest worry, as the house conceals dark secrets. The supernatural entity, when it finally appears, turns out to be genuinely innovative, well worth the wait. Worth seeing

Review – Malignant

Here we have further proof – as if it was needed or even wanted – that “borrowing” plot elements from a bunch of old movies doesn’t make a good new movie. The Dark Half and Basket Case are the most obvious donors, but horror movie fans will notice many other familiar moments. Fans of James Wan’s directing style will find enough common ground between this and his other efforts to justify the experience. Mildly amusing

Review – A Quiet Place 2

If you liked the first one, odds are you’ll enjoy this one as well. I enjoyed the prequel at the beginning, because any time society falls apart in a movie I like to see how it came about. But even there the audience has to suspend a fair amount of disbelief in order to go with the monster flow. This one includes some familiar new faces in addition to the cast from the original. And of course it has terrifying-yet-sound-sensitive beasts aplenty in a constant parade of alien menace. Mildly amusing

Review – The Devil Below

I want to like subterranean horror movies. Unfortunately most of them seem to turn out like this. After spending the bulk of their budget on Will Patton and smoke bombs, the folks who put this indie together apparently didn’t have much left for a script. See if desperate

Review – Black Mountain Side

I originally took an interest in this movie after a member of The Thing’s fan group on Facebook sang its praises. Further, the plot summaries promised that the horror would stem from the discovery of ruins more ancient than humanity itself, which of course conjured a tantalizing vision of Lovecraftian adjectives. Instead the archaeological element is a boxy hunk of junk that the filmmakers wisely opt to avoid showing in any detail. And the only real points in common with John Carpenter’s masterpiece are an all-male cast and a cold setting. Beyond that this is a tangle of fragmentary plot threads that aren’t woven together with any skill. Added demerit: cat death. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Rabid (2019)

This started out looking like a loving tribute to the original. Though clearly a creature of the 21st century, it had some of Cronenberg’s look and feel to it. Alas, it swiftly descended into the realm of cheap, unnecessary remake. See if desperate