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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

What Moves the Dead, T. Kingfisher’s retelling of Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher,” is a short, mostly satisfying throwback to Victorian horror, a fun, spooky tale and first book in a trilogy. Alex Easton, a retired soldier and veteran of war, is contacted by childhood friend Roderick Usher, who pleads with Alex to come visit, as Usher’s sister Madeline, also a friend of Alex’s, is gravely ill. Upon arriving at the Usher estate, Alex finds the house in utter dis

When The Mandalorian debuted on Disney+ back in 2019, the series was hailed as some of the best Star Wars in years, fresh balm on the still smarting wounds of the die-hard fans left by the “sequel movies” (Episodes 7-9). A friend of mine praised it for its western-style vibe, something really not seen in Star Wars since A New Hope back in 1977. I was forced to agree. Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) was one part Clint Eastwood in the Man with No Name trilogy and one part samurai ron

There was a moment, as I was reading I Was a Teenage Slasher, in which I started to understand what Stephen Graham Jones was doing as slasher-to-be Tolly Driver was being tested by his best friend (and big horror fan) Amber. In scenes that will appear familiar to fans of everything from Scream to Shazam, in which a hapless person is fan-splained the rules of the genre or given a battery of tests to gauge their abilities, Amber, convinced Tolly has become a “slasher” in the ve

When 28 Days Later first premiered, it was hailed as not only one of the “best” zombie films in years, but perhaps a new phase in the genre. After its success, and given that the film’s name practically invited more installments, it was only natural that it would spawn multiple sequels. After a long hiatus, the franchise returned with 2025’s 28 Years Later, followed immediately by its direct sequel, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. While there is merit to the latest installme

Netflix’s Something Very Bad is Going to Happen, an 8-part horror series developed by Haley Z. Boston and produced by the Duffer Brothers of Stranger Things fame, is slick, spooky, and atmospheric, full of a lot of twists and turns – some you see coming, and some you probably won’t – a fast-paced, weekend-binge worthy show with appropriate amounts of gore and gross-out moments. The story follows Rachel (Camila Morrone) and Nicky (Adam DiMarco) as they journey to N

Family of Liars, the prequel to E. Lockhart’s best-selling novel We Were Liars, continues to follow the Sinclair family, diving farther back into their sordid past of secrets and lies, addiction, and even murder. Though lacking the impact of the first, the sequel continues to explore the sordid, dark secrets and lies of the Sinclairs and the long term repercussions thereof. This novel, set a generation before the events of We Were Liars, focuses on Carrie Sinclair

When it was announced that after 25 years, Stephen King would be returning to the world of the Territories in a third installment of The Talisman series, I thought I would give the first book of the same name another read (also probably the second in preparation for the third). The novel is a typical 80’s-era King dictionary-sized tome, the original paperback running year to 700 pages. Written in collaboration with fellow horror author and friend Peter Straub, The Talisman is

The concept of “best” is nearly always problematic when it comes to matters of art and entertainment, due mostly to the fact that the work put into the production and its ultimate effect on people are hard to quantify. There are fans and critics who seem to like attaching the words “best” and “yet” to almost every Marvel TV show that is released, so much so that I tend to groan internally when I hear it. And yet, Wonder Man , starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Ben Kingsley, m

Ian Tuason’s Undertone is a masterclass in doing more in a horror film with less. The film, made for a reported $500,000, takes place in a single location and features only two on-screen actors, foregoeing intense gore and expensive special effects, instead relying heavily on clever camera angles, the use of shadows, mirrors, and uncomfortable close-ups - in essence, feeling like an old school classic horror film, while at the same time managing to feature modern themes: te

In many ways, Johannes Roberts’ Primate is exactly what you’d expect it to be: a typical feral animal story that is gory, fairly silly, and generally implausible - in essence, exactly what it should be. That being said, the film does have some merits, including some jump scares and surprisingly tense and unnerving moments. Animal lovers and people who ask, “Does the dog die?” beware: the monkey, a rabies-infected chimp named Ben, is the monster in the film, and … and there’s

In Speak No Evil, an American couple (Mackenzie Davis and John “Scoot” McNairy) and their daughter are invited to stay at the secluded country home of a charming British couple they met while on vacation in Italy. As one would expect, there’s much more than meets the eye to the idyllic country setting and seemingly perfect, handsome couple (James McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi), who are gradually revealed to be not just eccentric and a bit odd, but downright crazy. The movie, w

Brutal and yet heartfelt, tautly presented in a way that belies its complexity, The Long Walk, based on a 1979 Stephen King novel written under his pseudonym of Richard Bachman, is a harsh dystopian nightmare full of good performances and layers of depth that unravel gradually as we follow fifty young men chosen by lottery to participate in an event first presented as a rewarding contest that is gradually revealed to be a sadistic, Hunger Games-esque punitive measure meted ou

I’ve always felt that horror can be truly great and effective when there is an element of believability to it. We don’t get scared of Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger because they exist in realms so far out of reality that we find it easy to cheer them on as opposed to their victims. Something like Jaws, on the other hand, was so effective – and still is – because shark attacks are very real. Whereas the likelihood of most of us ever encountering a shark as big as good ol’ B

Huh, I thought when I saw the first trailers for Black Phone 2. The “Grabber” is back, even though he died in the previous film. Now, as any long time horror fan knows, the Monster can always come back, and yet, the return of the Grabber as a sort of supernatural entity, at least to me, is the inverse of what made the first Black Phone so good: it was a thriller about a demented serial killer that, in the way the King family is so good at doing, with just enough supernatural

The Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley, is a well-written science fiction novel with well-developed characters and an interesting concept, a concept, however, that tends to get muddled throughout the book. A story that seems to start out like a humorous satire takes turns being an everyday Sci-Fi time travel book, a romance, and a spy story. Some of these elements don’t come as a surprise – it is a Sci-Fi story after all, and you can see the romance coming from a mile away,

The premise of Divine Rivals draws you right in: in a fictionalized yet still familiar version of England, two ancient gods, Dacre and Enva, wage war on each other with mythical creatures but also vast armies of humans in a conflict much like one of our World Wars. The war provides the backdrop for Iris and Roman, two rival journalists seeking the same promotion while Iris desperately tries to reach her brother, who is on the front. The novel is well-written, but if you're p

Inventive, woefully short, well-written (though perhaps with a somewhat gratuitous usage of big, fancy words), The Salt Grows Heavy is a horror-fantasy novella that takes familiar fairy tale tropes and twists them and turns them on their head. It follows a mermaid and her plague doctor companion (neither character ever given a proper name) as they traverse through a tortured landscape, encountering a brutal tribe of murderous children and their horrific “saints.”