 | 2005I had a hard time watching "Wolf Creek." It is a film with one clear purpose: To establish the commercial credentials of its director by showing his skill at depicting the brutal tracking, torture and mutilation of screaming young women. When the killer severs the spine of one of his victims and calls her "a head on a stick," I wanted to walk out of the theater and keep on walking.
It has an 82 percent "fresh" reading over at the Tomatometer. "Bound to give even the most seasoned thriller seeker nightmares" (Hollywood Reporter). "Will have Wes Craven bowing... Read More |
 | 2010Brian Paulin is slowly, but surely, making a name for himself in the horror business. Hardcore gore fans will probably already be familiar with some of his previous work, including Bone Sickness and Fetus. He steps it up another notch with Blood Pigs, a different kind of zombie film that he wrote and directed in 2010. I can tell you two things right away about this movie that will make you want to watch it. First off, there is no CGI used in this film (that alone is enough to pique my interest). Not only that, but Blood Pigs was also voted the goriest movie of 2010 by... Read More |
 | 2014It would be a wild exaggeration to suggest that “Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones” breathes new life into the increasingly fumes-fueled found-footage horror subgenre, but it certainly represents a shot in the arm for this series after 2012’s poorly regarded “Paranormal Activity 4.” Functioning more as a mythology-expanding spinoff than a proper sequel, this fifth installment (the first directed by longtime series writer Christopher Landon) smartly moves the setting away from airy suburbs to overcrowded working-class apartments, and introduces a winning sense of humor... Read More |
 | 2008Watching MARTYRS is like staring into a blast furnace. Pascal Laugier’s film is a smoldering cell of anger and heat and hate and marvel. It’s difficult to watch head on and downright painful to endure over time. To be honest the experience is one I hesitate to recommend. However, one must be impressed by the effect of it, impressed by its ability to inflict such engineered torment, impressed that the film can survive its own extreme internal pressures. Laugier’s is an escalation game, vying not to push past boundaries, rather to set up... Read More |
 | 2004This film's English title is The Ordeal, which is absolutely right, but the literal translation - Calvary - turns out to be worryingly appropriate too, for reasons I can hardly describe without toppling away from my keyboard in a dead faint. It is a brilliant black comic nightmare about a singer, conceived in the style of Deliverance or The Hills Have Eyes, and Calvaire triumphantly proves that when it comes to subhuman degradation, Belgian hillbillies from the EU can proudly hold their own with throwbacks and knuckleheads from the US.
The sacrificial hero-victim is a... Read More |
