horror – Page 33 – PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – The Return of the Living Dead

The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Written & Directed by Dan O’Bannon

The Return of the Living Dead is not so much a film as it is a cinematic experience. The characters are drawn paper-thin and spend most of the picture screaming at each other in panic. The plot is super simple, zombies get lose and start wreaking havoc. The movie is more influential than you probably realize, the whole zombies wanting to eat brains trope came from this picture. Zombies being the result of military/industrial chemical experiments or accidents came from this movie. If you think about Romero’s zombies, they don’t really have an origin; they just are. Traditional zombies are related to practices of voodoo. The Return of the Living Dead established new rules while ignoring old ones and became a true cult classic.

Movie Review – The Lodge

The Lodge (2019)
Written & Directed by Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala

There are lots of familiar elements at play in The Lodge. You have a stepmother figure whose purpose in the story is ambiguous, possibly malevolent. There’s a snowed-in cabin where the power goes out, cutting the lines of communication. Sleep is disturbed by noises in the night and troubling dreams of the landscape. There are even two kids who might be up to no good. All the pieces are there, but the execution just ultimately stumbles, and nothing ever comes together. The Lodge has so much promise but fails to deliver on that promise.

TV Review – The Outsider

The Outsider (HBO)
Written by Richard Price
Directed by Jason Bateman, Andrew Bernstein, Igor Martinović, Karyn Kusama, Daina Reid, J.D. Dillard, and Charlotte Brändström

HBO’s The Outsider does not ease the viewer into its story. It explodes in the first ten minutes with the inciting crime, the brutal murder of an 11-year-old boy. The audience doesn’t see the act, but we are with the local man walking his dog, who comes across the crime scene. In a quick succession of camera shots, we see the mutilated remains that look like an animal savaged the poor child. Thus begins the first two hours of this adaptation of the Stephen King novel. I have to say, these opening two parts are amazing and had me riveted to the screen. Major props to Jason Bateman on directing and bringing such a simmering, tense atmosphere to the project.

Movie Review – Nightbreed

Nightbreed (1990)
Written & Directed by Clive Barker

Nightbreed has so many great elements and ideas but ultimately fails at everything it is trying to do because it overflows with stuff. That stuff is characters, mythology, plot, pretty much everything. Horror legend Clive Barker wrote and directed this adaptation of his own novella, which I think might be at the core of the problems. He wants to have everything in this movie, but that means so much gets abbreviated but still presented, which leaves the audience confused about who certain people are or what some of this mythology being spoken about is.

Movie Review – Darkman

Darkman (1990)
Written by Sam Raimi, Chuck Pfarrer, Ivan Raimi, Daniel Goldin, and Joshua Goldin
Directed by Sam Raimi

What do you do when you want to make a superhero movie, but you don’t have the rights to any superheroes? Well, you invent your own. That’s what filmmaker Sam Raimi did as he embarked on making his first Hollywood studio feature. Originally, Raimi wanted to make a movie about Batman or The Shadow; however those characters were already in development with other directors at the time. Raimi managed to combine the shadow mystery men of comic books’ Golden Age with the brooding angst of classic Universal monsters to bring audiences Darkman.

Movie Review – Jacob’s Ladder (1990)

Jacob’s Ladder (1990)
Written by Bruce Joel Rubin
Directed by Adrian Lyne

My wife’s first remarks as the credits rolled were, “That was intense.” Now, it takes a lot to phase my wife when it comes to movies. Between the amount of horror cinema I’ve exposed her to and the limited sentimentality, she has towards many films, she is a tough nut to crack. I’ve only known her to weep at two movies, Dancer in the Dark and The Elephant Man, otherwise, she appreciates the pictures but doesn’t get too deeply emotionally invested in them. I tell you all this as a way to begin talking about this heartbreaking existential horror film, a movie that the first time I viewed it, my maturity wasn’t at the level to really understand what the filmmakers were saying. This time around, I agreed with my wife, I was shaken and found a deep appreciation for the performances and themes in this movie.

SXSW Short Film Festival @ Home – Midnight

Heat **
Directed by Thessa Meijer

This short is visually and technically fantastic, however, that’s about it. Heat is a joke with a set-up and a punchline. It definitely doesn’t overstay its welcome but I don’t particularly enjoy it. It happened and then it ended. I can imagine director Thessa Meijer doing a great job on music videos but I look for short stories when I watch a short film.

Movie Review – The Invisible Man (2020)

The Invisible Man (2020)
Written & Directed by Leigh Whanell

Once upon a time, Universal Pictures wanted some of that sweet cinematic universe money, and they introduced The Dark Universe, a rebooting of classic monsters from their film catalog but modern and basically like superheroes. The opening film, The Mummy, was released, performed terribly, and received scathing reviews, and thus the Dark Universe died. Now Universal has pivoted and handed the reins to Blumhouse, a company quite skilled at coming way under budget and making lots of money with gimmicky B-horror movies. I’ll admit, I found the first Insidious to be pretty good, but the rest of their films are not my particular cup of tea. So, how does The Invisible Man stack up?

Movie Review – Extra Ordinary

Extra Ordinary (2020)
Written and Directed by Enda Loughman & Mike Ahern

The Conjuring meets Edgar Wright would be one of the best ways to describe this hilarious horror-comedy. Wright has such a distinct visual style, and it’s clear these filmmakers are great fans of his, putting those little touches without becoming a knock off. There is still enough of a distinct comedic voice that it differentiates itself but remains firmly in the same subgenre where these two types of films meet. There are some missteps along the way and some underused cast members, but overall it’s a refreshing break from the typical comedic pablum seen in theaters most weekends.

Movie Review – Cooties

Cooties (2014)
Written by Ian Brennan, Leigh Whannell, and Josh C. Waller
Directed by Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion

Genre movies can have problems. When a filmmaker loves a genre so much, and they make a film under that umbrella, they often become derivative without bringing anything new to the table. No kind of film is guilty of this more, in my opinion than zombie movies. American zombie movies look to Night of the Living Dead and now in the 21st century, 28 Days Later, and just mimic what they see there. Each film has some sort of unique hook but inevitably breaks down into predictable pablum that we’ve seen playing out dozens of times before. Cooties starts with promise but does down that same disappointing path.