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Like most people, when it comes to holiday movies, I have my favorites. Oftentimes, the bulk of these are things I have watched since I was a child. Thanks to technology, especially Social Media, we have discovered that most of us watch the same stuff: Elf, A Christmas Story, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, etc., for X-Mas, and things like Halloween, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the like for Spooky Season. And yet, when it comes to Halloween, I find that there i

When it comes to favorite 80s movie monsters, I must say, I am firmly in camp (pun not intended) Jason. It isn’t just the fact that we have the same name, which, of course, is cool (it made Kane Hodder, when I met him, raise an eyebrow), and it isn’t because the movies themselves are particularly good, because, quite frankly, none of them are “good” in the strictest sense of the word. No, it’s their campiness (again, pun unintended), their outrageousness, and lack of common s

Like it or not, Tom Holland, the original writer and director of the cult classic film, has returned to Fright Night. Fright Night: Aftermath, a direct sequel to the film (and the recently released novelization by the creator (see my review on the site), follows Charley Brewster, Peter Vincent, and Amy, picking up right where the movie ended. As hinted at in the movie, Evil Ed is not only alive but eager to avenge and resurrect his master, which may be a possibility thanks to

For my money, Mike Flanagan is one of the best, if not THE best horror showrunners and filmmakers working today. When students ask me, “What is your favorite modern horror?” I usually point them to Flanagan’s TV shows on Netflix. When I heard he was adapting Carrie, Stephen King’s first published novel and legendary film, I was excited. Flanagan’s Carrie is unquestionably excellent. It has all the marks of a Flanagan production – a great cast (many of them returni

I am at the point with Josh Malerman, author of Bird Box, Incidents Around the House, and others, that I’ll give anything he does a read. Pictures of You, Malerman’s latest, is short, taut, and to the point – in essence, all qualities a busy man like me looks for in a Halloween read, but at the same time, it is also a little slow maybe just the tiniest bit boring, and a tad bit anticlimactic. While on a romantic getaway in a small, lakeside Michigan town, a young cou

Lanterns, DC’s latest foray into its unsteady cinematic and streaming universe, is a triumph not because it sticks so closely to its source material, but because it ultimately strays from it. It takes a leap into waters that can be either promising or the wrong decision – that of taking a critical lens to its iconic hero and his creators, the Guardians of the Universe. The result is far less of a superhero story and more of a dark Sci-Fi tale with superhero elements, an edgy,

After the relative success of 2025’s Superman, including a surprise cameo by his famous cousin, Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl, and the revelation that Krypto was actually her dog, it seemed only natural that a Supergirl film would be coming soon. And it did, arriving just a year later amid much buzz with the casting of Jason Mamoa as comic book fan favorite Lobo. As part of the larger DCEU now helmed by James Gunn, Supergirl had all the right ingredients to be successful: a goo

How to Survive a Horror Story, the debut novel by Mallory Arnold, is a guided tour of tried-and-true genre tropes. It has a remote, spooky mansion, the death of an eccentric gazillionaire who has called people from his life to the reading of his will, riddles, booby traps, and a final girl. It is a mostly fun read by an author that shows promise. After the death of the uber-rich, very mysterious, and extremely famous horror author Mortimer Queen, seven horror auth

Buddy is a fever dream throwback to 90s kids' shows such as Barney and the Teletubbies, with a dose of Pee Wee’s Playhouse and the recent horror sensation Backrooms thrown in for good measure. Is it satire, parody, comedy, or horror? The answer is a little bit of all of the above. Buddy is that rare enough picture these days: something not just an original take, but not something you’ve really seen before. It's a funny, disturbing, even occasionally scary trip into kid TV hel

The Godfather is, without question, a cultural phenomenon, at its core, always about more than just the American Mafia (a word that is not even said in the first movie). The film series, particularly the first two, are on most critics' short lists for some of the best movies ever made (the third, which I do happen to like, not so much …). The film is so ubiquitous that it seems as if many Godfather Devotees have forgotten, if they ever even knew in the first place, that it ca

Despite having an excellent cast – Robert DeNiro, Adam Scott, Michelle Monaghan, and Michael Keaton – The Whisper Man, based on the novel by Alex North, is a relatively flat, unoriginal thriller that at times feels like one part homage to previous classics of the genre, and three parts rip-off. In the town of Garretton, Detective Amanda Beck (Monaghan) investigates a missing child case, in the process discovering the body of a different child, the M.O. eerily fami

When it comes to reboots, requels, and the like, people often ask, “When is enough enough?” The answer, of course, is never. As long as there’s a chance that people will pay to watch and buy the tie-in merchandise, Hollywood will always be willing to risk spending hundreds of millions of dollars on an established property rather than a new, potentially “risky” idea. And let’s be honest: while the term may be new, reboots are not. Dracula, Zorro, Frankenstein, The Three Musket

Netflix’s The Last House has an interesting, fairly original premise and is one of those stories that make you wonder: what would I do in this situation? Would I be able to turn my entire home into a greenhouse and build elaborate traps to ensnare unwitting critters that stray into my yard (The answer on both, btw, is probably a resounding no)? It’s a taut Sci-Fi/Horror picture that brings you along for the ride until its ultimately questionable climax. Jason Delg

It is safe to assume that most of us have been infatuated with someone who does not feel the same way about us. With luck, most of us probably get through the worst of that in our teens-early twenties – learning from our mistakes, gaining confidence, and trying again sometime later. Obsession, written and directed by Curry Barker, tackles this subject head-on in a film that proved to be a breakaway hit and audience favorite of 2025. A plot that easily could have come off as s

Hokum has many elements to attract horror fans: a creepy house in the Irish countryside, a local legend about an evil witch, and it begins on Halloween, complete with carved turnips placed around said spooky house. Though it starts as a typical ghost story, Hokum ultimately proves to be not only that, but also a smart, twisty horror film with some excellent creep factor and more than a couple of surprises. Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott), a best-selling author of some not

The Fourth of July. Fireworks, hamburgers, hot dogs, and ... The Twilight Zone? If you're anything like me, Rod Serling's timeless show is as much a part of your July 4th traditions as sparklers and barbecues. Growing up as a kid, I only recall Twilight Zone marathons on Thanksgiving Day (in San Diego, it showed on channel 5 KTLA). The Syfy channel started showing marathons of the show on New Year's Eve and the Fourth of July a few years back (and apparently, the tradition of

Josh Malerman’s Incidents Around the House is both a good old fashioned ghost story but also a highly innovative one – genuinely scary (which, in my humble opinion, contrary to what the gushing reviews of ARC readers suggest, is hard to do), quite a bit sad, and kept me turning the pages in a way I have not been motivated to do in a long time. The book centers on and is narrated by Bela, a little girl who is being visited by an entity she calls Other Mommy, a kind

Full disclosure: Fright Night is not only probably my favorite vampire film, but it is also one of my favorite horror films of all time. Now, before you grab the torches and pitchforks and come after me for saying that, let me be clear by stating that no, as a movie, Fright Night pales in comparison to Sinners, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Nosferatu, and so many others. And as a horror film, it doesn’t hold a candle to the original Nightmare on Elm Street, Night of the Living Dead,

Dolly, directed by Rod Blackhurst (based on a short film directed by the same), is irreverent, gruesome, and (mostly) fun, a throwback to 70's and 80’s slasher films with enough gore to satisfy diehard horror fans. Macy (Fabianne Therese) and Chase (Seann William Scott) are a young couple who have driven to a wooded area in Tennessee to get away. Extremely nervous, Chase plans to propose while there, which Macy suspects. As they trek into the woods, they encounter

There are as many layers to Kane Parsons’ Backrooms as there are in the film’s endless, extra-dimensional maze of liminal spaces. It is, at its heart, the story of a divorced, alcoholic furniture store owner in dire financial and emotional straits, juxtaposed with the troubled past of his therapist and her (possibly) crazy mother. It is one part science fiction, one part horror, and two parts psychological thriller, a thought-provoking fever dream that’ll keep you talking ab