The Intruder is Muddled and Unsure of Itself [Blu-ray Review]

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Wicked Horror is the author of The Intruder is Muddled and Unsure of Itself [Blu-ray Review]. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

The Intruder follows Annie (Meagan Good of The Unborn) and Scott (Michael Ealy of Jacob’s Ladder 2019) Russell, a young couple who have just purchased a beautiful home outside San Francisco. The only problem with their new domicile is that Charlie, the the previous owner (played by Dennis Quaid) is not quite ready to part with his beloved dwelling.  I wanted to like this film. I wanted to be able to enjoy Dennis Quaid chewing the scenery and creating genuine terror in the process. Unfortunately, there’s no genuine terror to be had here. The Intruder is effectively void of scares and surprises. It feels disjointed and unsure of precisely what it’s trying to be.  While Dennis Quaid more than delivered on the scenery chewing for which I had hoped, the film never takes off. It fails to captivate the viewer and sweep them away to a place where they can suspend their disbelief. Instead, the audience is left yelling at the screen (but for all the wrong reasons).  One huge issue I had with the flick with the way screenwriter David Loughery (Nurse 3D) scripted Meagan Good’s character, Annie. It was impossible for me to believe her refusal to acknowledge that Charlie could be a threat to her safety. And her level of naiveté isn’t supported by anything in her backstory. By all accounts, she’s an intelligent woman with common sense. So, it’s difficult to accept that she has zero reservations about letting a man her husband vehemently distrusts and suspects of major wrongdoing into her home multiple times.  Related: See Geoff Zanelli’s Thoughts on Scoring the Film Right Here! Director Deon Taylor (Chain Letter) really sealed the film’s fate with his inability to stick to a consistent tone. In some scenes he goes for suspenseful (with little success) and other times, he appears to be deliberately shooting for hammy and over the top. The two make for a very perplexing juxtaposition. It’s almost as if Dennis Quaid wasn’t in the same film as Meagan Good and Michael Ealy. It felt as though Taylor was asking Quaid to play the role of the villain like he was channelling Jack Nicholson and told Good and Ealy they were in a Lifetime Channel original feature.   Taylor throws in a few cheap and hollow jump scares here and there (IE: The husband and wife scare one another by creeping around the house at night) but the tension is never palpable. Moreover, the characters we are supposed to identify with are not developed to the point where the audience is likely to take an investment in their plight. They’re shallow and bland. We watch them existing but there’s no sense of attachment.   The lack of character development is especially damning when the finale rolls around. For me, it was like I could see the characters going through the motions but since we weren’t really given a chance to warm up to them, the peril they were facing seemed pretty benign.  As far as the Blu-ray release: The picture and sound quality are perfectly sufficient. And the special features were kind of a pleasant surprise. I was expecting something a little more bare bones. However, the film’s home video release offers not just a commentary track with the director but with members of the cast and the director. Moreover, there are a number of deleted scenes and an alternate ending. Additionally, there is a making of featurette and a gag reel. Unfortunately, the alternate ending is nothing special and the deleted scenes didn’t add anything to the film. Also, the making of featurette doesn’t really do anything to shed light on any of the strange decisions made throughout the film’s production. However, it’s nice to see a major studio putting some love into their physical media releases. I have to give Screen Gems major props for that.  If you’d like to check it out for yourself, The Intruder is now available on DVD, Blu-ray Disc, and DigitalHD.  WICKED RATING: 4/10 Director: Deon TaylorWritten by: David LougheryStars: Meagan Good, Michael Ealy, and Dennis QuaidRelease Date: July 30, 2019 (Home Video)Studio/Production Co: Screen GemsBudget: $8 Million (Estimated)Length: 102-Minutes Sub-genre: Home Invasion Follow us on our social media! Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Youtube. 

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Blair Witch (2016) is the Blair Witch Project Sequel We Deserve. It’s Time To Appreciate It.

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Wicked Horror is the author of Blair Witch (2016) is the Blair Witch Project Sequel We Deserve. It’s Time To Appreciate It.. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

The Blair Witch Project turns 20 this month, which means it’s the ideal time to point out that Blair Witch is the perfect sequel. There, I said it. The 2016 film, from horror super-duo Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett, which was made under a shroud of secrecy under the title The Woods and memorably revealed at Comic Con, is a labour of love from two guys who are as obsessed with the Blair Witch mythology as we are. So, why did everybody hate it so much? Okay, it probably didn’t help that the first pull-quote many of us saw, from Brad Miska at Bloody Disgusting (also emblazoned on the BD, if you own it — and you should, it’s a fantastic package loaded with cool stuff including the hilariously candid commentary from Wingard and Barrett), declared Blair Witch as a new beginning for horror — nay, a game-changer for horror fans! Re-reading Miska’s review now, it’s clear he was excited about, and hugely enamoured with, the movie. But that quote got people’s backs up, no doubt, and it’s easy to understand why. Think back to how esteemed critics took issue with Hereditary being described as “this generation’s The Exorcist.” We’re in the same ballpark here. The flick currently stands at 37 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, which is a complete joke, especially when you consider Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones is at 39 percent. This film is considered among the worst dreck of the 2010s and it just isn’t. It doesn’t even come close. Some of us saw Devil’s Due, FFS. In a 2017 interview with Comic Book, Wingard and Barrett discussed how the timing was off, suggesting if Blair Witch had come out even a couple years earlier, the reaction might have been better. They also, notably, don’t consider their movie a remake or a reboot, and were careful to state it wasn’t an easy cash in for them either because, “The hardest thing that we could do was making a f**king found footage movie that was very straightforward.” Related: Blair Witch (Shockingly) Has More Scares And Shocks Than The Original [Review] Wingard has since fought even harder battles with his re-imagining of the beloved Death Note (which wasn’t terrible by any stretch of the imagination) but it’s clear this one was intensely personal to him and Barrett. The documentary accompanying the BD release of the movie showcases, to an almost painful extent, just how much work these two put into their Blair Witch. It’s worth noting, too, that Wingard and Barrett were the first choices of the original filmmakers to handle such delicate material. They wanted to make a “relentless” and “pure” horror movie, building an impressive, 3-storey set for the house where much of the brilliant final act takes place, similar to the original film, even making holes to match those glimpsed in its predecessor. Everything is based on the core lore and mythology established in The Blair Witch Project, with the two making it clear that, although they didn’t want to show absolutely nothing again, what we do see definitely is not the witch. As Wingard notes, “What really makes it scary is you don’t know what’s out there.” Working as both sound designer and composer, Wingard created soundscapes to layer in as the subtle, barely-there score, playing with a lot of real noises to give that genuine, trapped-in-the-forest feel. Blair Witch is an incredibly tactile movie, with Wingard adamant everything was done in camera, practically. The lesser-known cast of actors were given only “safe scripts” to read and weren’t even told what they were auditioning for at first. They stood behind the camera operators for that found footage effect during filming, and wore massive rigs on their heads whenever they were in the shot. Wes Robinson, who plays Lane, even shot most of his footage for real on the older Sony video-camera featured in the movie. The sonic identities of the different cameras were very important. Hundreds of takes were captured, to ensure the actor and camera were always in concert with each other. Glitches were added to help the story feel more real, while additional footage was inter-spliced here and there to deliberately throw us off. Wingard and Barrett wanted to stick very closely to found footage rules, so it was important to put the actors in these situations as much as possible. They shot in the Vancouver wilderness, using only flashlights at night, where the actors confirmed it was genuinely frightening once darkness fell. For Talia’s death, actress Valorie Curry was buried halfway underground with fake legs. Likewise, Callie Hernandez, who plays Lisa (the Ripley of the movie, as per Wingard, who told her to watch Alien to prepare for the role) is really crawling through those tiny, claustrophobic tunnels at the end. The space measured just one inch bigger than her shoulders, with even the cinematographer freaked out by how tight it was. As Corbin Reid, who played Ashley, attested, Blair Witch works because it plays “on primal fears.” Likewise Barrett agreed found footage “works best as POV horror.” He and Wingard wanted to split the difference between the authenticity of The Blair Witch Project and making a film that actually looked good, with original co-director and writer Eduardo Sanchez noting their movie was still subtle in spite of its much larger scale. The final 30-40 minutes were edited like an action movie, which makes the intensity of the scares so much worse. Wingard and Barrett wanted different growls for each monster and every different type of scare possible to be featured throughout — not just the usual quiet-quiet-bang typical of found footage. As Sanchez himself intones in the documentary, Blair Witch was the sequel The Blair Witch Project deserved. Watching it even now, just a few years after its release, makes it clear how much richer and more rewarding a horror movie experience it is than most of us gave it credit for. I remember being completely terrified seeing it in the cinema, from that first, spine-tingling glimpse of the new footage (so much scarier once you know who it actually is) to the crazy, relentless ending. The high-tech equipment, the GPS, the cellphones, it all reads like an answer to smart-ass horror fans — the kind who claim The Blair Witch Project sucks and has always sucked (you’re so creative, honey). Even with all this stuff, these modern kids, who are so careful to take every precaution, are still doomed. Blair Witch builds on the mythos established in its predecessor by making the fact the group stays overnight in the woods what ultimately seals their fate. Likewise, the time loop is established when they awaken to discover it’s seemingly the afternoon and, later, Lisa finds a dishevelled Lane wandering around with a full beard. The addition of two locals, Lane and girlfriend Talia, is genius as it provides exposition via a super-nerdy and natural exchange of info. There’s no standing around explaining what’s happening, just these two dodgy weirdos (his screen-name is Darknet666; they have a confederate flag hanging in their house) gravely intoning “nobody comes out this way.” There’s also palpable tension between the deadly-serious locals and the skeptic outsiders. When the two betray their new friends, the incident provides a great comparison between their too-perfect, homemade Blair Witch symbols and the terrifying real ones that appear later (one of which memorably acts as a voodoo doll, breaking Talia’s spine). The raw footage shot by Lisa looks decent because she’s a film school kid, but it still has that rickety, essentially found footage quality to it. The sound design is impeccable, so every bang and crash is LOUD. In the dark of the woods, anything moving is scary, even a tree falling down or some walkie talkie interference. Nothing much happens in the drone feed, for example, but the tension compels us to keep watching and waiting. There are callbacks throughout, from Lisa’s shot of the car as they’re first entering the woods to the terrifying final moments, but Blair Witch is entirely its own, modern story. There’s no real score, outside of Wingard’s cleverly-deployed soundscapes, which we take for granted but must remember how important it is for establishing tension. The body horror aspect, with Ashley’s foot/leg, is gruesome and shot straight on with no cuts which, again, is rare. The moment when she crawls the tree to get the drone back will be considered an all-timer years from now (as will Lisa’s aforementioned climb through those gnarly tunnels). Likewise, characters getting grabbed and pulled off is another nice, modern addition that still fits the Blair Witch tradition. Even the jump scares are on a hitherto unknown level of greatness, expertly executed so the big moment cannot be predicted, even by diehard horror fans. Blair Witch plays with audience expectations as the characters confusion intensifies, with Barrett and Wingard understanding that what’s barely glimpsed is more often scarier. The movie is consistently unnerving, lulling us into a false sense of security, alongside the group, once Lane and Talia are excommunicated. The piles of rocks and stick figures that eventually surround their little makeshift campsite are terrifying not just in number but because of how truly bizarre their presence is. This is a movie clearly made by Blair Witch Project fanatics. Once it all kicks off proper, it doesn’t let up. Those final 30-40 minutes are faultless. The otherworldly shafts of light through the slats suggest a time lapse again while the haunted house setup itself is classic, devilishly employed to wrong-foot us at every turn (even after a few watches, I only spotted the hooded dude in the upstairs room this time around). Blair Witch is such a good looking film in general, and the painstaking detail in that house is second to none. Remember: it’s not the witch at the end but whatever it is is pretty bloody terrifying so who cares, just get in the damn corner. See Also: Ten Found Footage Films that Redefined the Genre Blair Witch‘s final moments mimic the original movie’s, with James’s apologies to Lisa recalling his sister, Heather’s, infamous speech 20 years previous. Crucially, though, it’s updated for a modern audience as Lisa is tricked into turning around (which, technically, is another callback). Every decision in this movie respects and pays homage to its predecessor while simultaneously staking a claim for this new story. There have been suggestions that Blair Witch would have played better under its original title, The Woods, but this is a Blair Witch story through and through. Found footage has never reached the heights of The Blair Witch Project, but Blair Witch makes a compelling argument for how the sub-genre could be retooled for a modern audience. Miska may have been premature in suggesting it was a new beginning, but I’d wager this will become a fan favourite in years to come. It’s scary, intense, well-captured, performed, and lovingly put together, and, most importantly, it pays homage to what’s come before without being enslaved to it. Eduardo Sanchez was right; this is the Blair Witch sequel we deserved. Now we all just need to cop on and appreciate it.

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20 Years On, Still, Nothing Compares to The Blair Witch Project

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Wicked Horror is the author of 20 Years On, Still, Nothing Compares to The Blair Witch Project. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

The Blair Witch Project is 20 years old this week so, naturally, the “found” footage contained within has aged considerably. Rather than putting distance between the film and a modern audience, however, it actually adds to the experience. Suddenly, the instantly-iconic warning that “their footage was found,” which spawned an entire sub-genre, carries an entirely different, spooky weight. Not only is this footage caught on the fly by wannabe filmmakers, but it’s completely different to anything else we’re likely to see in the cinema nowadays. Or even online. It’s worth remembering just how intense the viral marketing campaign, the first of its kind, for the movie was. From the website, purporting to show real missing kids, to how the film was initially shown to those in the know (including Kevin Smith whose wife, Jennifer Schwalbach, memorably finished the movie in a panic about helping the subjects out), The Blair Witch Project benefited from an onslaught of brilliantly-conceived marketing. Related: The Last Witch is a Blatant Blair Witch Project Knockoff [Review] Poor Heather Donahue suffered for real when the public turned against her for apparently being such a pain (she’s hated so much due to her gender; she acts exactly like any young filmmaker would). Watching the film back, the trio look so much younger, with Donahue sporting the kind of lame nineties-style hairband that’s come back into fashion since. They smoke constantly, which again is jarring for modern eyes, and get mad about Donahue filming everything (now a trope in found footage). The group gets lost almost immediately and falls out even quicker, which heightens the tension without anything particularly scary even happening — consider how most of The Blair Witch Project takes place in daylight for more evidence of its power. Being lost in the woods is bad enough without being taunted by a supernatural entity. Indeed, there’s never actually anything out there; it’s their minds playing tricks on them just as ours do. The nighttime noises aren’t even otherworldly, but rustling in the darkness is enough to chill the blood. The thing is only 80 minutes long, which is crazy considering just how much of a slow burn it actually is. The Blair Witch Project has been parodied beyond recognition, but its mythology is incredibly strong (when they’re interviewing townspeople and the mother says “It’s NOT true” ’cause her  kid is so scared before mouthing “It’s true” to the camera) and so much of it is implied, which is why most of us have spent 20 years trying to decipher its meaning. That early shot of the car receding into the background as they first enter the woods is so haunting Adam Wingard reused it for 2016’s Blair Witch, to similarly horrifying effect. Likewise, the grave intonation of “Nobody knows we’re out here” has been replicated in virtually every found footage movie that’s followed. In stark contrast to those films, however, once the central trio realize something is up, they make the rational decision to leave the forest sooner rather than later. It’s human error that initially lumbers them lost, too, as it’s revealed Mike kicked their map into the creek, but a working knowledge of the movie makes moments such as this even more disturbing because the trio still believe they’re in control of their environment. Likewise, when Mike and Heather are discussing food cravings, it’s an important moment of levity but it’s also horrible for the audience who know they’re never getting out of there. The lack of cellphones or any other modern conveniences is tackled in the 2016 sequel, which showcases how useless such devices are against the powers of the titular witch. Once things start to change for the worse, it’s evident this is her world and these kids are just unlucky enough to have stumbled into it. Only Mike, as the voice of reason/wuss, seems to understand the grave danger they’re in. They may find comfort in each other but it’s Josh’s voice that lures the other two to their deaths. Heather’s cry of “It can’t be him” is also mimicked in Blair Witch, as another character rushes into the house (painfully reconstructed for the movie) to save someone who’s clearly already perished. The property is a truly terrifying find, dilapidated but lived-in enough that it’s obvious some really terrible things happened there. Something as simple as the addition of children’s tiny hand-prints all over the walls is so perfectly executed. It’s scary but can’t be easily explained away, much like the house itself. The Blair Witch Project might take its time, drip-feeding its story until it all goes pear-shaped in the final, nerve-shredding act, but there are several massive, all-timer moments — more than any modern found footage movie could hope for, including its sort-of sister movie, Paranormal Activity. The little gift from the witch is a gruesome, horrifying moment, while the most famous shot is, in spite of parody, still an emotionally-charged, and expertly played, scene for Heather Donahue while that famous final glimpse of Mike, stood facing the wall, is iconic for a reason. It’s still horrific. There have been several great found footage movies released in The Blair Witch Project‘s wake, notably Bobcat Goldthwaite’s similar, Bigfoot-themed Willow Creek, the bonkers Borderlands, and the soul-destroying Internet horror The Den, along with the aforementioned, and unfairly derided, 2016 sequel Blair Witch, but none have had the same impact. Maybe it was a moment in time, or a genius marketing campaign, but The Blair Witch Project is simply a very scary movie. Still, in 2019. Weirdly, of its tiny cast, only Joshua Leonard has really had a career in the ensuing years, most recently seen in the brilliant Unsane and Larry Fessenden’s Frankenstein redux Depraved. The movie was clearly difficult to shoot, with plenty of behind the scenes stories accumulating over the years, but the dedication of all involved is clear in each perfectly-staged, expertly creepy moment. And co-writers and directors Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez  have been incredibly generous over the years with filling in (some) of the blanks for eager fans. See Also: Five Fierce Found Footage Flicks [Top 5 List] I was 11 when The Blair Witch Project hit theaters. I can still remember the marketing campaign, those horrible posters with Heather’s crying face, and how much buzz there was around seeing the movie in the cinema. I fantasized about finally getting to watch it, in fact, but my babysitter at the time saw it and then expressly forbid me from doing so (she did, however, show me Deep Blue Sea so kudos to her). I’ve often argued that a movie being “over-hyped” has more to do with the prospective audience than the film itself, but in the case of The Blair Witch Project, nothing could’ve prepared us for the onslaught. And it still works, just as well if not even better. As much as I love Blair Witch 2016, nothing compares to the no-budget, grainy quality of The Blair Witch Project. It’s the original and best found footage movie for a reason; because no film since has come close to capturing its eerie energy. Even in 2019, with the viral marketing campaign in the rear-view and the actors long since exposed as, er, actors, it still packs enough of a punch to convince us that this trio of unlucky kids really perished in the Burkittsville woods that year. And we can’t stop watching the footage that was found.

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Psycho Beach Party [Rabid Dog’s House Review]

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Wicked Horror is the author of Psycho Beach Party [Rabid Dog’s House Review]. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

The Rabid Dog’s House is a recurring feature at Wicked Horror where contributor Justin Steele uncovers hidden gems, lost classics, and overlooked indie offerings. Flying solo or with the occasional guest, he will discuss an array of topics covering film, literature, and television. Check out the latest installment below. In this episode we’re looking back at the horror comedy Psycho Beach Party (2000)! Starring Lauren Ambrose and Charles Busch, Psycho Beach Party is a 2000 horror comedy parodying beach party flicks from the 1960’s with a 1970’s slasher flavor added in. This film follows a wannabe surfer chick with split personalities that is trying to uncover the identity of a serial killer. Even if it might be her. Also See: The Rabid Dog’s House: Phenomena/Creepers Join me and our special guest star Zena Dixon below as we talk about this feature that is equal parts sincere and silly. All in all, it’s a great deal of fun.

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Psycho Beach Party [Rabid Dog’s House Review]

Original Source via Wicked Horror

Wicked Horror is the author of Psycho Beach Party [Rabid Dog’s House Review]. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

The Rabid Dog’s House is a recurring feature at Wicked Horror where contributor Justin Steele uncovers hidden gems, lost classics, and overlooked indie offerings. Flying solo or with the occasional guest, he will discuss an array of topics covering film, literature, and television. Check out the latest installment below. In this episode we’re looking back at the horror comedy Psycho Beach Party (2000)! Starring Lauren Ambrose and Charles Busch, Psycho Beach Party is a 2000 horror comedy parodying beach party flicks from the 1960’s with a 1970’s slasher flavor added in. This film follows a wannabe surfer chick with split personalities that is trying to uncover the identity of a serial killer. Even if it might be her. Also See: The Rabid Dog’s House: Phenomena/Creepers Join me and our special guest star Zena Dixon below as we talk about this feature that is equal parts sincere and silly. All in all, it’s a great deal of fun.

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New on Netflix| July 26th, 2019

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Wicked Horror is the author of New on Netflix| July 26th, 2019. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

Welcome to New on Netflix, a feature here at Wicked Horror in which we provide the latest updates on what’s coming to the streaming service for the week. In recent times, Netflix’s shift in content has been interesting. While many fan-favorite movies and TV shows have been Netflix staples for the better part of a decade, they’ve been taken off the service with more frequency. Some of them return, some of them don’t, and while these are all simply the result of licensing deals that were already in place before these properties even hit the service, they do shed some light on the content provider’s new focus. Netflix is continuing to shift gears away from movies and TV shows owned by other studios or companies and is producing their own content with staggering frequency. As we continue to provide updates on what’s been added to the service, it will always be interesting to note the balance between original and licensed content being added to the Netflix library. With that in mind, here are the latest Netflix additions for the week of July 26th, 2019. Scream 3 The Scream franchise has been cycling in and out of Netflix for a few years now. In this current phase, Scream 3 has just been added back to the service. Long considered to be the worst of the series, it’s seen a bit more praise in recent years for its over-the-top humor, Hollywood commentary and Scooby Doo antics.

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Iron Sky: The Coming Race is an Absolute Mess of a Movie

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Wicked Horror is the author of Iron Sky: The Coming Race is an Absolute Mess of a Movie. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

Simply put, Iron Sky: The Coming Race is a movie I just didn’t “get.” Granted, I didn’t see the first movie, but even after doing my post-mortem research on Wikipedia I’m still not entirely sure what I watched. Was it supposed to be funny, or have some sort of implied political message, or, you know, make any sense whatsoever? Not only do I not know the answer, I’m pretty sure the filmmakers themselves are in the dark, too. There’s no denying a lot of hard work went into Iron Sky: The Coming Race. For a movie of its caliber, it actually looks pretty impressive, with set design and CGI I’d easily put on par with Snowpiercer. There’s no denying The Coming Race — with its garish costumes and quirky makeup effects — looks like a multi-million dollar production, but unfortunately, the story just isn’t there. And when I say the story isn’t there, I mean quite literally I’m not sure the movie actually has a plot, or at least one that could be considered coherent in the classical connotation. Also See: Six Great Moments from Bad Horror Movies OK, brace yourself, this might take a while. So apparently, in the first movie there was a nuclear war amongst lunar Nazis and freedom fighters on Earth — don’t ask, it’s way too long a story, trust me. This sequel picks up a couple of decades later, where the denizens of the moon are now trying to COEXIST with their goose-stepping neo-neo-neo-neo fascist neighbors, which is actually working out a lot better than you’d expect because everybody has converted to a new religion based on the teachings of Steve Jobs — complete with Tom Green serving as the proverbial pope of the Church of Apple.  You following me here? Good, because at this point, the movie stops making any damn sense whatsoever. We’re introduced to the new heroine of the franchise, Obi, who is the secret lovechild of the telekinetic heroine from the last movie. Then Udo Kier shows up as the reformed moon N*zi leader who gives the audience all the backstory on how Hitler was actually a half-dinosaur man and the Earth is actually hollow and apparently, all of the really famous leaders throughout human history — from Caligula to Mark Zuckerberg — have all been undercover lizard monsters a’la V. Well, without giving away the rest of what this movie considers a plot, let’s just say it’s only a matter of time until Genghis Khan, Idi Amin and Vladimir Putin are sitting around the dinner table, The Last Supper style, having Three Stooges slapstick fights and old Adolf H. is roaming around atop a tyrannosaurus in Antarctica. Oh, and the grand finale revolves around two important plot points: the Holy Grail, and … an old Nokia phone with “Snake” preloaded on it. Yeah, don’t even ask. To say that Iron Sky: The Coming Race is an absolute mess of a movie is an insult to the word mess itself. This feels like a movie where the script was written in crayon in 20 minutes, and they spent $25 million filming all of it. If it’s supposed to be some sort of cornball political comedy, the “humor” in the flick just doesn’t land at all; indeed, with the main villainess of the flick portrayed by a Sarah Palin doppelgänger, the whole movie feels like something that would’ve been stuck at the bottom of a RedBox machine circa’ 2010.  Of course, the movie doesn’t work as a “straight” sci-fi action/adventure, either. The acting is just too hokey and the characters too underdeveloped, and the script itself is just too goofy to make any of the “tense” sequences feel like they matter. On the whole, the acting is passable, but nobody really turns in anything I’d consider a memorable performance — indeed, Tom Green and Udo Kier don’t just look visibly bored in all of their scenes, I’d swear they were both doped up on near-fatal levels of sleeping pills right before the cameras started rolling.  You don’t really need me to tell you that Iron Sky: The Coming Race is a bad movie. You can take one look at the trailer and figure that out for yourself. But in a year that has been glutted with so many horrible movies where the filmmakers clearly put in minimal effort, this movie stands out as being one of the most passionately sucky flicks I’ve seen in quite some time. To make a movie this spectacularly and extravagantly bad, you no doubt have to invest a lot of time, effort, money and energy, and there’s no denying that director Timo Vuorensola has a lot of pep in his step. Alas, what this movie really needed was someone behind the scenes to rein in the insanity of the script. Granted, we probably wouldn’t have gotten Casablanca out of the final product, but at least we would’ve ended up with a moderately better movie about lunar N*zis, no doubt.  WICKED RATING: 4 /10 Director: Timo VuorensolaWritten by: Dalan MussonStars: Lara Rossi, Vladimir Burlakov, Tom Green, Udo KierRelease Date: July 19, 2019Studio/Production Iron Sky Universe, 120dB Film Finance/101 Films, Scoundrel MediaBudget: $21 Million (Estimated)Length: 92 minutesSub-genre: Sci-Fi, Comedy Follow us on our social media! Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube.

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Zombieland 2: Double Tap Debuts A Bonkers, Cameo-Filled Trailer

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Wicked Horror is the author of Zombieland 2: Double Tap Debuts A Bonkers, Cameo-Filled Trailer. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

Fans of Zombieland rejoice! The trailer for Zombieland 2: Double Tap is finally here! Anybody worried it wouldn’t make the ten year wait (for the movie, not the trailer — that would be insane) worth it can relax. If this clip is anything to go by, we can expect the same gruesome gore, big laughs, and tongue-in-cheek — or should that be through cheek? — tone this time around. Maybe even more. It’s been ten long years since horror comedy Zombieland landed in theaters and made everybody reassess their feelings on beloved comedian Bill Murray. Now, a decade on, the highly-anticipated sequel is just a few months away. Original cast-members Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin are all back alongside returning director Ruben Fleischer. Hilariously, the trailer kicks off with proclamations about the three leads’ Academy Award-worthy statuses (before getting to the good stuff, obvs). Also back for more are the original film’s writers, Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, both of whom are also serving as executive producers on the project. Original producer Gavin Polone is producing once more alongside them. Joining the cast are Zoey Deutch, Avan Jogia, and Rosario Dawson. The premise sees Columbus, Tallahasse, Wichita, and Little Rock move to the American heartland as they face off against evolved zombies, fellow survivors, and the growing pains of the snarky makeshift family created in the first movie. The upcoming flick’s official Twitter account gave fans a glimpse at the poster art a little while back, which naturally apes the original movie’s now-iconic poster, via the #10YearChallenge. It also, whether inadvertently or otherwise, shared the sequel’s subtitle: Zombieland 2: Double Tap which, er, is a choice for sure. Related: Zombieland 2 Full Title And Poster Revealed The lively trailer finds the gang kicking undead ass all the way to the White House, while tussling with humans along the way. Plenty of notable faces pop up during the clip, including a gun-toting Dawson along with Columbus and Tallahassee doppelgängers played by Luke Wilson and Thomas Middleditch. In a recent interview with the Toronto Sun, Eisenberg revealed it took so long for the sequel to roll around because everybody involved was adamant a second movie had to live up to the original. There were ideas, and even full scripts, knocking about for ages but it took until now to find something everybody was happy with, to make a finished product they could all be proud of. “Finally, we have something I think people are going to love. I hesitate trying to characterize it now, but we are all very happy. We didn’t want to do a typical sequel to try and capitalize on something that was popular. We waited 10 years until we had a great idea,” he explained. Check out the balls-to-the-wall nutso trailer for yourself below. Zombieland 2: Double Tap is set for an October 11, 2019 release. Stay tuned to Wicked Horror for more info on Zombieland 2: Double Tap as it becomes available. Follow us on social media: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Youtube

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Five Memorable Rutger Hauer Performances

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Wicked Horror is the author of Five Memorable Rutger Hauer Performances. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

The news that Rutger Hauer had passed away was a devastating blow to generations of film lovers. The actor made an impact on so many lives during his time on this earth and he will never be forgotten.  Throughout his long career, Hauer has acted alongside Hollywood heavyweights such as Harrison Ford, Anthony Hopkins, and Donald Sutherland. Rutger Hauer has touched many people throughout the world through his acting work, outreach, and activism. We didn’t just lose another actor, we lost a beautiful soul.  In the end, I think the only true way to say goodbye is in the words of the Rutger Hauer himself. In Blade Runner it is reported that he improvised the line ” All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain”. But we are fortunate that the actor’s skills were captured on film for future generations to discover.  In honor of Hauer, I have composed a short list of some of the actor’s most memorable roles. Rutger Hauer had the ability to bring intensity and intelligence to the characters he played, whether he was appearing in a huge blockbuster or a lower budget, independent film.  Surviving the Game (1994) Surviving the Game tells the story of a group of wealthy hunters on one of their yearly trips. The only catch is, they are hunting humans and Ice-T finds himself on the run from the armed horde.  Hauer plays Thomas Burns, the one leading the hunt. Alongside accomplished actors F. Murray Abraham and Gary Busey, Hauer shines in this role. He is cold blooded, ruthless and with his portrayal, I totally believed him to be a psychopath.  Wanted: Dead or Alive (1987) Hauer plays Nick Randall, a Bounty Hunter and former Central Intelligence Agency agent. Randall is asked to find a terrorist named Malak Al Rahim, played by none other than KISS bassist Gene Simmons. If you’ve ever wanted to see how a head and grenade interact, Wanted: Dead or Alive will answer that question for you. Hauer gives a great performance in what could have been just another late 80’s action flick churned out by Hollywood. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) Those of us who grew up in the late 80’s and early 90’s were introduced to Buffy before the popular TV show. Kristy Swanson plays Buffy, a sometimes clueless cheerleader who finds herself fighting hordes of the undead.  Hauer plays Lothos, a powerful vampire that soon finds himself in the crosshairs of Buffy. Buffy the Vampire Slayer shows Hauer’s versatility as a performer. The two films above were both straight action films. Buffy combines elements of horror, comedy and action and Hauer plays Lothos masterfully. The Hitcher (1986) Growing up, I had a friend named John Ryder, and I never fully trusted him, thanks to Rutger Hauer. The Hitcher tells the story of psychopathic and murderous hitchhiker John Ryder as he stalks and menaces a young man who is driving cross country.  One scene that still sticks with me to this day is the sequence where we see Ryder in the back of a family’s car grinning and waving out the window with the family’s children. Even though he says nothing, Hauer was able to convey a sense of menacing dread and unease in this scene. He smile is not one of happiness but of malevolence. The audience knows what is going to happen to the family, all because they picked up the wrong hitchhiker.   Also See: Why The Hitcher is Still Going Strong After More than 30 Years Hobo With a Shotgun (2011)  While trying to save up money to buy a lawnmower to start a new business, Hauer changes his mind and buys a shotgun from a pawn shop. Now armed, he attempts to clean up the streets, dispatching villains in gruesome and extremely violent ways.  Hauer gives an emotional portrayal as a broken man against the backdrop of a city cloaked in neon and ultra violence. Some of the scenes in this film are not for the squeamish.  Follow us on our social media! Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Youtube. 

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Not Quite Horror: Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)

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Not Quite Horror is back from the dead. After resting for a bit in its kind-of creepy but still-normal-enough-to-pass-as-regular crypt, our biweekly series returns. In each installment, Joey Keogh will argue why a chosen film not generally classified as horror actually exhibits many of the qualities of a great flight flick, and therefore deserves the attention of fans as an example of Not Quite Horror. This week, it’s the 20th anniversary of the brilliant Drop Dead Gorgeous. Drop Dead Gorgeous turns 20 this week, which is completely insane because it means I was 11 when it came out. Naturally, watching such a dark movie so young, lots of it went over my head. It’s only now, as an adult, that I can truly appreciate how razor-sharp its wit is, how brutal its take-downs of small-town life and, perhaps most importantly, just how dark its black little heart actually is. The cast is unbelievable, from icons like Allison Janney and Ellen Barkin playing trailer-trash besties and Kirstie Alley as a ruthless pageant mom with Mindy Sterling as her doting second in command, to then up-and-comers Kirsten Dunst, Brittany Murphy (RIP), Denise Richards, and, in her debut feature, one Amy Adams. Everybody is game for a laugh, committing totally to the good ol’ Minesoooootaaaah accents to hilarious effect. See Also: Not Quite Horror: High Life (2019) Styling Drop Dead Gorgeous as a mockumentary is a stroke of genius, because it allows the characters breathing room for some hilariously candid moments, each of which is played as off the cuff (“What’s sick is women dressing like men” / “Oh you betcha, Iris”). It never feels mean-spirited or judgemental, with the exception of Will Sasso’s handicapped character, Hank, the treatment of whom really hasn’t aged well. As Adam West intones, only one lucky lady will make it all the way to…Lincoln, Alabama, and although it’s clear it should be Dunst’s saintly (but always likeable) Amber Atkins, with her Diane Sawyer hero worship and PG tap dancing routine, the fun comes from watching her competitors get picked off one by one while Amber stays annoyingly out of the fray. In keeping with its biting satirical edge, Drop Dead Gorgeous nails the horror elements, too. The contestants start being killed off pretty much immediately, with star athlete Tammy (Brooke Elise Bushman) taken out of the running because, as one of the grungy bathroom dwellers (essentially the Greek chorus) intones, this time “someone didn’t want her to win.” The shock of that first murder quickly dissipates because the movie moves along at such a quick clip. The most important thing, after all, is getting to the finish line. The football captain showing up with a bullet wound in his head, which poor Amber has to tend to at her after school job gussying up corpses, is immediately followed up with a shot of Richards’ Becky proudly showing off her favourite firearm — a hilariously brilliant bit of editing. Still, in spite of the loose, jovial tone, the threat is real; Amber even receives a photo of Tammy with “You’re Next” scrawled across it in her locker. Likewise, her trailer is blown up with Amber’s mom still inside, leading a beer can to be fused to her hand (a terrifically gross bit of makeup work, seen in all its glory thanks to a totally game Barkin). Later, the infamous barfing sequence will see more disgusting practical FX utilized, again, out of nowhere. It’s rare to see a teen movie with a lineup of gorgeous young actresses allowed to be this gross, and Drop Dead Gorgeous does it beautifully. The shock of Becky’s fiery death, which leads her mother, played by Alley, to finally let loose on the loser citizens of Mount Rose (she defo voted Trump), is the movie’s darkest moment not least because it’s the last thing we expect to happen. In this disappointingly realistic universe, when even the pageant’s eventual winners don’t get their promised rewards, it seems highly implausible Amber is going to emerge unscathed or make her dreams come true, as she does in the movie’s triumphant, yet still tongue in cheek ending. As she explains to the documentary crew, guys get out of Mount Rose all the time, for “hockey scholarships or jail,” but women tend to burn out there (literally in poor Becky’s case). Even Amber’s own father didn’t stick around because he was more dedicated to his career than family (“Once a carnie, always a carnie” is one of the most hilarious lines in a consistently hilarious movie). But her mother has hope for her daughter more than herself. Related: Not Quite Horror: Destroyer (2018) Drop Dead Gorgeous is still, all things considered, a story of female friendship above all else. Amber gets her shot at the crown in spite of the odds being stacked against her because the other contestants are so fond of her, and help her out. The themes of each year’s event may be all about America, but the pageant at which the story takes place could more reasonably be themed “Proud to be a friend.” Drop Dead Gorgeous has aged of course. There’s a hell of a lot of smoking (suck it, Stranger Things) and the aforementioned jokes at the expense of a mentally handicapped man are uncomfortable at best. But this is an incredibly sharp, funny movie that’s impressively committed to its darker elements without losing any of its heart. The horror comes from the lengths one spurned beauty queen will go to in order to get her offspring a shot at the crown. In keeping with the film’s tone, she loses everything in the process. Follow us on social media: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Youtube

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Film Icon Rutger Hauer Deceased at 75

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Wicked Horror is the author of Film Icon Rutger Hauer Deceased at 75. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

It was a sad day in Hollywood today, following the announcement of the passing of actor, activist and Golden Globe winner Rutger Hauer. Hauer is remembered for his long and varied career. He brought some on cinema’s best loved villains and anti-hero’s to the silver and small screens. Hauer began his career when he was cast in future Robocop director Paul Verhoeven’s television series Floris. The show became a hit in Hauer’s native Netherlands. American audiences though had to wait 12 years to be introduced to Hauer. He made his U.S. screen debut in 1981, opposite Sylvester Stallone in Nighthawks. Hauer plays a maniacal and cold blooded terrorist. Other noteworthy genre roles include Blade Runner, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hobo with a Shotgun, Blind Fury (pictured above), The Hitcher, and many more. Related: Why The Buffy the Vampire Slayer Movie Deserves a Fair Shot In addition to having a noteworthy filmography under his belt that includes pretty much every genre, Hauer was also an AIDS and environmental activist. He founded the Rutger Hauer Starfish Association, a non-profit that works towards AIDS awareness and offers assistance and care to victims of the AIDS epidemic. The organization focuses especially on children and pregnant women. In 2013, Hauer was knighted into the Order of the Netherlands Lion. The organization has existed in the Netherlands since 1815. Hauer has accomplished in his life, what most men can only dream of.

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Luz is a Singular, Auspicious Debut from Tilman Singer [Review]

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Wicked Horror is the author of Luz is a Singular, Auspicious Debut from Tilman Singer [Review]. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

Luz, the impressive debut feature from German writer-director Tilman Singer, is a singular work. It defies easy categorization or even simple comparison. I’d wager it bears a striking similarity to Anthony DiBlasi’s still hugely underrated Last Shift, in setting (a police station) if not in tone (DiBlasi is brooding and creepy, Singer juggles an offbeat deadpan humor with sharp shocks of weird, un-explainable madness). The film opens with a lengthy long shot reminiscent of that which opens Mega64’s Version 1, although in this case nobody is eating pudding (disappointing). Here, a young woman walks into what is slowly revealed to be a police station, gets a drink out of a vending machine, knocks it back, and then starts screaming at an unseen entity. This is our titular character, played with an easy confidence by Luana Velis. See Also: Midsommar is a Horrifying, Endurance Test of a Movie [Review] Across town, a male therapist, Dr. Rossini (Johannes Benecke), is trying to enjoy a quiet drink in the kind of Berlin-style bar that intentionally looks like someone’s kitchen (the film was shot in Cologne) when another young woman accosts him, demanding that he listen to the story of Luz while plying Rossini with drugs and alcohol. This coke-addled fiend is more than meets the eye and, soon, the two stories will converge in surprising and highly disturbing ways. That’s basically all the setup we get. Luz takes place almost entirely within the confines of the police station or, more specifically, a drab conference room where Rossini soon appears to put Luz through her paces. Via hypnosis, she’s coaxed into acting out the moments leading up to her arrival at the station. When the camera finally settles on Velis’s face, we see that it’s banged up, as though she’s been in an accident. Mysteries abound, with very few answers offered (to Singer’s credit). Luz will be a divisive film for sure. It’s structured in such a way that it will either capture your attention immediately or send you running for the hills. Stick with it, and Singer’s debut holds many dark delights. The small cast is uniformly excellent, with Velis a standout. Tasked with communicating a variety of conflicting emotions, she manages to be an open book and wildly unreadable, often simultaneously. The demon itself, smartly personified here by jumping from character to character, which negates the need for potentially dodgy CGI, isn’t as sexy as Adam Scott’s in The Good Place, but it’s always clear what’s going on — to us, if not to the characters (though one openly religious lad is terrified once he realizes something is up). It’s evident the filmmakers had no money to make the thing, and as a result they improvise as best they can. Dry ice transforms the conference room into this unwieldy, otherworldly hell-scape, while black and white contact lenses prove to be excellent demonic accessories. DP Paul Faltz ensures Luz looks super grainy and textured throughout, so the single locations and many long shots never feel boring or rote. Likewise, the score by Simon Waskow is this insistent, brooding, pulsating thing that creeps along as slowly and deliberately as the camera. This is an ambitiously told, hugely inventive tale of possession. Singer fills in Luz’s backstory with nifty flashbacks to her days at a Catholic all-girls school and the dark ritual that might have started the woman down the dark path she now can’t escape from. The film opens and closes with the same static shot but the implications are severely different. Without revealing too much, Singer makes a case for why his protagonist is forced to make a choice that seems relatively easy in the beginning. Related: Review: Last Shift Is 2015’s Scariest Movie Luz will not be for everyone but its short run-time (70 minutes!) should hopefully entice curious parties to check it out. It’s not a difficult film, just a deliberately obtuse one. Whether you find yourself falling for its spooky spell, there’s no denying this is an auspicious debut for Singer. It marks the German filmmaker out as one to watch in future. With any luck, he’ll put a woman front and center again if given the chance. WICKED RATING: 8/10 Director(s): Tilman Singer Writer(s): Tilman Singer Stars: Luana Velis, Johannes Benecke, Jan Bluthardt, Lilli Lorenz Release date: July 19, 2019 (limited) Studio/Production Company: Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln Language: German, Spanish, English Run Time: 70 minutes

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Rock, Paper, Scissors Loses Game with Psycho Sequel

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Wicked Horror is the author of Rock, Paper, Scissors Loses Game with Psycho Sequel. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

Tom Holland has certainly proven himself a great director in the eyes of horror fans. One only has to reference Fright Night (1985) or Child’s Play (1988) to back up that claim. As a writer, his skills are superb (for example, 1983’s Psycho II). In this case, Rock, Paper, Scissors (also known as Rock Paper Dead) unfortunately does not stand up next to his previous successes. One could even say it’s not even playing the same game. Considering some strange plot coincidences, this film’s shortcomings are all the more puzzling. A serial killer (Luke Macfarlane) places the blame of his actions on a nonliving family member. He is sentenced to a psychiatric facility until his doctor (Tatum O’Neal) releases him back into the world. As this seemingly reformed killer copes with his inner demons and newfound freedom, a sister out for revenge (Jennifer Titus) tries to ensure his fall back into insanity. She is backed up by another person out for a revenge (Michael Madsen) until she starts to see the good in the disturbed man. Does this plot sound at all familiar? Hint: Think of an earlier Tom Holland collaboration. The answer is Psycho II. There is more than just a resemblance. With the exception of a couple gender swaps, all the main players are still present. Norman Bates is now Peter Harris (Macfarlane). Instead of “Mother,” Peter blames his actions on a supposed nonexistent twin brother. The sympathetic shrink is Tatum O’Neal. Lila Loomis (Vera Miles) has become Ashley (Titus), a woman out to seek revenge for her sister’s murder. To compound the issue, Ashley is a combination of Lila and Mary Loomis (Meg Tilly). Similar to Mary, she not only befriends this new Norman but seems to garner sympathy for him as well. Also See: Tom Holland Would Like to Remake The Beast Within The nefarious plot in Psycho II to drive Norman back into insanity is still intact. This time, the volatile mother-daughter relationship is traded for a volatile pseudo father-daughter arrangement. Doyle Dechert (Madsen) is a detective that arrived too late to save Ashley’s sister and refuses to believe Peter Harris is rehabilitated. When Ashley’s actions appear to be more ambiguous (like Mary), Doyle alternates the Lila role as one more tenacious in his feelings towards the serial killer. What I find to be puzzling about all these similarities is that, unlike the Psycho sequel, Holland did not have a hand in writing Rock, Paper, Scissors. He must have noticed that writers Kerry Fleming and Victor Miller were (poorly) regurgitating his brilliant ideas from the earlier flick. Which is kind of sad because they were better executed in Psycho II by director Richard Franklin. To be fair, the ultimate resolution is very different from the (mostly) well-received Psycho sequel. Where the 1983 feature developed both a claustrophobic and introspective terror, Rock, Paper, Scissors lays everything right out on the table.  There are certainly unsettling moments in Rock, Paper, Scissors and to Holland’s credit, one classic scare is pulled off with seasoned perfection. Even some interesting ideas are presented to the audience to ponder. Unfortunately, similar to 1986’s Psycho III, the audience never figures out with whom to identify. Without one character to tether themselves to, the viewer is given only mild interest to anyone in danger. There are a series of twists to keep the viewer engaged; however, even if mildly believable, the final twist becomes an exercise in confusion. By this time, the reveal only further waters down what little (if any) emotional connection the audience had to the characters. Related: Psycho III [Back to the ’80’s] Luke Macfarlane does a suitable job as Peter Harris. He is certainly not Anthony Hopkins, but about a third of the way into the film, he settles into the role. His gravelly “villain” voice takes getting used to but overall it works. He even lends a sort of charisma to the character. As Ashley, Jennifer Titus is believable as a woman that has had to toughen up over the years. Unfortunately, in one scene she is forced to deliver some truly traumatic dialogue that comes out almost comical. The pacing is off and horrifying to watch. Mainly, because these terrible things happen every day to young women. Maybe the writers were desperate to make Ashley more vulnerable or to appear that she has overcome incredible odds. Either way, of great detriment to the overall film, the dialogue in this scene and in many others is incredibly clumsy. Even revered character actor Michael Madsen appears to be unsure of the dialogue he is expected to recite. Madsen’s Doyle believes in his convictions; however, the actor comes across reluctant to back up his character. As in, if he just says everything quickly then it will be over soon. Tatum O’Neal is more willing to believe in her character Dr. Bauer. O’Neal’s Bauer is confident in her ability to cure, but she takes action at the first sign of something wrong. Still, in tripping over itself, the film’s final twist only reveals that all these so-called intelligent characters were actually idiotic. Rock, Paper, Scissors shifts from interestingly derivative to ultimately disappointing. Taking many cues from Holland’s earlier involvement in Psycho II, the script eventually deviates from what made the 1983 feature work so well. In both films, the truth is surprising. Psycho II, however, plays with audience expectations. Rock, Paper, Scissors decides to be different by going with the obvious. What everyone assumes is a lie actually turns out to be the truth. This reveal, in combination with the rest of the movie’s awkward dialogue just does not hold up. In these kinds of films, the truth should vindicate at least one character. Instead, the sympathy for every single character completely disappears. Also See: Psycho II is Almost as Good as the Original: Here’s Why! So, why would Holland want to retread the plot of someone else’s interpretation of his Psycho II? Again, the similarities are just too overwhelming to overlook. Perhaps, Holland had a desire to see how he would have directed his earlier written work. In addition to some tense moments, he does achieve one classic scare in Rock, Paper, Scissors. Unfortunately, in the places where these writers change his original ideas, the film tends to fall apart. I have a high respect for Tom Holland’s work. Therefore, I was disappointed to have to report that this film turned out the way it did. The game this film is named after is always a gamble, and, in the end, the gamble did not pay off. Rock, Paper, Scissors is now on DVD and Blu-ray.  Wicked Rating: 5/10  Director: Tom HollandWritten by: Kerry Fleming and Victor MillerStars: Luke Macfarlane, Jennifer Titus, Michael Madsen, Tatum O’NealRelease Date: July 23, 2019 (Blu-ray/DVD) October 21, 2017 (Nightmares Film Festival)Studio/Production Company: Fuel 1, RPD EntertainmentBudget: UnknownLength: 84 minutesSub-genre: Serial Killer, Psychological Thriller  

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They’re Inside is a Survival, Stalker Thriller That Got in its Own Way [Review]

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Wicked Horror is the author of They’re Inside is a Survival, Stalker Thriller That Got in its Own Way [Review]. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

They’re Inside is a survival thriller that follows sisters Robin (Karli Hall of Being Charlie and The Hollow Point) and Cody (Amanda Kathleen Ward of Fate and Nocturne) who reunite in a cabin to work on their strained relationship. During their stay, the women are terrorized by two masked individuals with no goal in mind, aside from terror and murder.   As They’re Inside begins, it is very obvious from the start that the two sisters are estranged and dealing with a broken relationship. In this way, the picture slowly builds authentic tension that I enjoyed, especially since one of the sisters is an awful person and the flick offers her no sympathy after this reveal. The tug of war between the siblings is fantastic character for character development and makes the audience loathe the bad sister. But this is cut short by the arrival of the antagonists and this is where my enjoyment of the movie started to wane.  Also see: She’s Just a Shadow Offers Something for Everyone [Review] Initially I thought this was another film with the masked psychos trope, but it actually had some twists and turns that could have been refreshing. However, the film’s lack of commitment to any one logical plot was the biggest obstacle to my enjoyment. They’re Inside is a mix of The Strangers and Funny Games, but the lack of follow through makes the ending hollow and unsatisfying. There are elements that are supposed to be craftily edited in but come across as annoying. For instance, in a scene where the killer is stalking one of the characters, there is loud symphony music cut in along with footage of a cheetah chasing a rabbit. Now, it is fairly obvious what this is supposed to mean, but this random edit is not creative and it adds very little to the story. Later, the edit ‘means something’, but it was nonetheless unneeded.  There are far too many add ins to the film, additional camera angles, cut ins of someone kidnapped, the music,  random information, the sudden arrival of a new character, it makes the film disjointed and hard to watch. In fact, the picture starts with a fake YouTuber, completely unrelated to the rest of the victims getting stabbed to death by the masked people. It is only addressed one other time and again, not necessary. Then, there is the ‘reveal’ of the killers and this makes even less sense. Without spoilers, the killers’ motivations lack reasoning, the subsequent kidnapping has no basis in logic, and the ending left me empty handed.   Overall, They’re Inside is not a movie you can watch because it is deliciously bad, but is a movie that is simply disappointing. I selectively use disappointing because there are so many elements that are well done. The only thing that got in the way of the film’s success was its disorganized nature and the lack of focus. I hope co-writer/director John-Paul Panelli sharpens his skills before his next outing and he is able to create something logical, straightforward, and most of all terrifying.  The film is now available on Blu-ray and VOD.  WICKED RATING: 4/10  Director(s): John-Paul Panelli Writer(s): John-Paul Panelli and Schuyler Brumley Stars: Amanda Kathleen Ward and Karli Hall Release: July 16th (Home Video) Studio/ Production Co: Epic Pictures, Dread Presents Budget: Unknown Language: English Length: 1 hour and 23-Minutes Follow us on our social media! Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Youtube. 

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The Hellboy Reboot Exudes Energy [Blu-ray Review]

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Wicked Horror is the author of The Hellboy Reboot Exudes Energy [Blu-ray Review]. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

In the first scene in Hellboy featuring the eponymous character, he fights a vampire luchador in a wrestling ring. If that sounds like your s***, than you’re going to love the newest iteration of Hellboy. He punches giants, Baba Yaga, zombies, and crusty old British dudes too as he struggles to stop Nimue the Blood Queen’s (Milla Jovovich) apocalypse. Hellboy is punk rock movie: there’s not a lot of technical mastery but the film exudes energy.  Before Hellboy (David Harbour) steps in the ring, director Neil Marshall (who you should know from The Descent and Dog Soldiers) shows us Nimue’s lowest moment. In a black and white sequence, she’s cut apart by King Arthur, but unable to die. To prevent her uprising, Arthur sent his knights to carry her pieces to the furthest reaches of England. Once back together, she starts a campaign to bring “the forgotten people out of the dark.” It sounds quite heroic, although the film frames her as a villain. Hellboy, who is framed as a hero, needs to stop her.  RELATED: Sorry Haters, The New Hellboy Rocks  Outside of the fight scenes, Hellboy feels a lot like Deadpool. There’s a joke roughly every thirty seconds. Some are funny, especially a repeated gag in which Hellboy tries to use a smartphone without breaking it. Other aren’t (“I met Ra once in the underworld. He’s a close talker.”) The script, penned by Andrew Cosby lampshades the jokiness, having Hellboy explain, “My therapist did say I rely on jokes as a way to normalize,” which makes sense but does suck some of the fun out of it. I like laughing. It’s not as much fun when it’s clear that I’m laughing at someone’s pain.  Hellboy draws from the Marvel Cinematic Universe style, tossing in a couple of post-credit scenes setting the table for a Hellboy universe. Some of the pre-credit scenes (read: scenes in the movie) are doing that same work and not really contributing to this film. Shave those off, and this Hellboy is a half hour shorter and a better, 90-minute film. As is, there are places where it feels overstuffed.  With rumors running rampant about behind the scenes drama, it’s hard not to speculate about what exactly Marshall and Cosby wanted to have in and what they were forced to put in. The rise of super-producers like Kevin Feige helming Marvel and Kathleen Kennedy helming Star Wars, it’s become a familiar story. When budgets get this big, business can get in the way of art.  Some of those slightly irrelevant scenes did lead to some amazing creature designs. My favorite monster was a giant demon with a blade for an elbow. It scooped people into the crook of its arm before closing it, dismembering them. The gore is as over-the-top as the monsters, featuring a number of eyes being plucked or stabbed, dovetailing with the film’s punk rock aesthetic.  The stacked cast, especially David Harbour, put in solid performance to underscore those gruesome moments. Harbour had a tough job, acting under massive prosthetics, but imbues the character with heart. Ian McShane brings his classic no-bulls*** gruffness to Professor Broom. Daniel Dae Kim sneaks humanity into a stiff veneer as Major Ben Daimo.  The special features of the Blu-Ray don’t delve into the behind-the-scenes drama, instead focusing on character design and how the actors prepared. “Ye Gods and Devils: Creatures and Gear” is the most interesting, giving viewers a window into how the monster design was approached. There’s also a set of “Previsualization,” allowing viewers to see what the fights looked like on their way to being fully rendered.  Of course, none of this answers the question I had when the film was announced: How does Neil Marshall’s Hellboy stack up to Guillermo Del Toro’s films about the character? It’s not a fair comparison, but I would bet has a lot to do with this film’s negative reception. The Del Toro films are cleaner, better written, and more beautifully shot. None of that takes away from what this Hellboy is doing well, though.  Hellboy is available on video on demand now. The 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack and Blu-ray Combo Pack will be released July 23, 2019.  Follow us on our social media! Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube.  Wicked Rating – 6/10  Director: Neil Marshall Writers: Andrew Cosby, Mike Mignola (based on The Dark Horse Comic created by) Stars: David Harbour, Milla Jovovich, Ian McShane, Sasha Lane, Daniel Dae Kim Release Date: July 23, 2019 (4K Ultra HD Combo Pack and Blu-ray Combo Pack) Studio/Production Company: Summit Entertainment, Millennium Films Language: English Run Time: 120 minutes

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New on Netflix: July 26th, 2019

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Wicked Horror is the author of New on Netflix: July 26th, 2019. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

Welcome to New on Netflix, a feature here at Wicked Horror in which we provide the latest updates on what’s coming to the streaming service for the week. In recent times, Netflix’s shift in content has been interesting. While many fan-favorite movies and TV shows have been Netflix staples for the better part of a decade, they’ve been taken off the service with more frequency. Some of them return, some of them don’t, and while these are all simply the result of licensing deals that were already in place before these properties even hit the service, they do shed some light on the content provider’s new focus. Netflix is continuing to shift gears away from movies and TV shows owned by other studios or companies and is producing their own content with staggering frequency. As we continue to provide updates on what’s been added to the service, it will always be interesting to note the balance between original and licensed content being added to the Netflix library. With that in mind, here are the latest Netflix additions for the week of July 26th, 2019. Scream 3 The Scream franchise has been cycling in and out of Netflix for a few years now. In this current phase, Scream 3 has just been added back to the service. Long considered to be the worst of the series, it’s seen a bit more praise in recent years for its over-the-top humor, Hollywood commentary and Scooby Doo antics.

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Iron Sky: The Coming Race is an Absolute Mess of a Movie

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Wicked Horror is the author of Iron Sky: The Coming Race is an Absolute Mess of a Movie. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

Simply put, Iron Sky: The Coming Race is a movie I just didn’t “get.” Granted, I didn’t see the first movie, but even after doing my post-mortem research on Wikipedia I’m still not entirely sure what I watched. Was it supposed to be funny, or have some sort of implied political message, or, you know, make any sense whatsoever? Not only do I not know the answer, I’m pretty sure the filmmakers themselves are in the dark, too. There’s no denying a lot of hard work went into Iron Sky: The Coming Race. For a movie of its caliber, it actually looks pretty impressive, with set design and CGI I’d easily put on par with Snowpiercer. There’s no denying The Coming Race — with its garish costumes and quirky makeup effects — looks like a multi-million dollar production, but unfortunately, the story just isn’t there. And when I say the story isn’t there, I mean quite literally I’m not sure the movie actually has a plot, or at least one that could be considered coherent in the classical connotation. Also See: Six Great Moments from Bad Horror Movies OK, brace yourself, this might take a while. So apparently, in the first movie there was a nuclear war amongst lunar Nazis and freedom fighters on Earth — don’t ask, it’s way too long a story, trust me. This sequel picks up a couple of decades later, where the denizens of the moon are now trying to COEXIST with their goose-stepping neo-neo-neo-neo fascist neighbors, which is actually working out a lot better than you’d expect because everybody has converted to a new religion based on the teachings of Steve Jobs — complete with Tom Green serving as the proverbial pope of the Church of Apple.  You following me here? Good, because at this point, the movie stops making any damn sense whatsoever. We’re introduced to the new heroine of the franchise, Obi, who is the secret lovechild of the telekinetic heroine from the last movie. Then Udo Kier shows up as the reformed moon N*zi leader who gives the audience all the backstory on how Hitler was actually a half-dinosaur man and the Earth is actually hollow and apparently, all of the really famous leaders throughout human history — from Caligula to Mark Zuckerberg — have all been undercover lizard monsters a’la V. Well, without giving away the rest of what this movie considers a plot, let’s just say it’s only a matter of time until Genghis Khan, Idi Amin and Vladimir Putin are sitting around the dinner table, The Last Supper style, having Three Stooges slapstick fights and old Adolf H. is roaming around atop a tyrannosaurus in Antarctica. Oh, and the grand finale revolves around two important plot points: the Holy Grail, and … an old Nokia phone with “Snake” preloaded on it. Yeah, don’t even ask. To say that Iron Sky: The Coming Race is an absolute mess of a movie is an insult to the word mess itself. This feels like a movie where the script was written in crayon in 20 minutes, and they spent $25 million filming all of it. If it’s supposed to be some sort of cornball political comedy, the “humor” in the flick just doesn’t land at all; indeed, with the main villainess of the flick portrayed by a Sarah Palin doppelgänger, the whole movie feels like something that would’ve been stuck at the bottom of a RedBox machine circa’ 2010.  Of course, the movie doesn’t work as a “straight” sci-fi action/adventure, either. The acting is just too hokey and the characters too underdeveloped, and the script itself is just too goofy to make any of the “tense” sequences feel like they matter. On the whole, the acting is passable, but nobody really turns in anything I’d consider a memorable performance — indeed, Tom Green and Udo Kier don’t just look visibly bored in all of their scenes, I’d swear they were both doped up on near-fatal levels of sleeping pills right before the cameras started rolling.  You don’t really need me to tell you that Iron Sky: The Coming Race is a bad movie. You can take one look at the trailer and figure that out for yourself. But in a year that has been glutted with so many horrible movies where the filmmakers clearly put in minimal effort, this movie stands out as being one of the most passionately sucky flicks I’ve seen in quite some time. To make a movie this spectacularly and extravagantly bad, you no doubt have to invest a lot of time, effort, money and energy, and there’s no denying that director Timo Vuorensola has a lot of pep in his step. Alas, what this movie really needed was someone behind the scenes to rein in the insanity of the script. Granted, we probably wouldn’t have gotten Casablanca out of the final product, but at least we would’ve ended up with a moderately better movie about lunar N*zis, no doubt.  WICKED RATING: 4 /10 Director: Timo VuorensolaWritten by: Dalan MussonStars: Lara Rossi, Vladimir Burlakov, Tom Green, Udo KierRelease Date: July 19, 2019Studio/Production Iron Sky Universe, 120dB Film Finance/101 Films, Scoundrel MediaBudget: $21 Million (Estimated)Length: 92 minutesSub-genre: Sci-Fi, Comedy Follow us on our social media! Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube.

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Zombieland 2: Double Tap Debuts A Bonkers, Cameo-Filled Trailer

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Wicked Horror is the author of Zombieland 2: Double Tap Debuts A Bonkers, Cameo-Filled Trailer. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

Fans of Zombieland rejoice! The trailer for Zombieland 2: Double Tap is finally here! Anybody worried it wouldn’t make the ten year wait (for the movie, not the trailer — that would be insane) worth it can relax. If this clip is anything to go by, we can expect the same gruesome gore, big laughs, and tongue-in-cheek — or should that be through cheek? — tone this time around. Maybe even more. It’s been ten long years since horror comedy Zombieland landed in theaters and made everybody reassess their feelings on beloved comedian Bill Murray. Now, a decade on, the highly-anticipated sequel is just a few months away. Original cast-members Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin are all back alongside returning director Ruben Fleischer. Hilariously, the trailer kicks off with proclamations about the three leads’ Academy Award-worthy statuses (before getting to the good stuff, obvs). Also back for more are the original film’s writers, Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, both of whom are also serving as executive producers on the project. Original producer Gavin Polone is producing once more alongside them. Joining the cast are Zoey Deutch, Avan Jogia, and Rosario Dawson. The premise sees Columbus, Tallahasse, Wichita, and Little Rock move to the American heartland as they face off against evolved zombies, fellow survivors, and the growing pains of the snarky makeshift family created in the first movie. The upcoming flick’s official Twitter account gave fans a glimpse at the poster art a little while back, which naturally apes the original movie’s now-iconic poster, via the #10YearChallenge. It also, whether inadvertently or otherwise, shared the sequel’s subtitle: Zombieland 2: Double Tap which, er, is a choice for sure. Related: Zombieland 2 Full Title And Poster Revealed The lively trailer finds the gang kicking undead ass all the way to the White House, while tussling with humans along the way. Plenty of notable faces pop up during the clip, including a gun-toting Dawson along with Columbus and Tallahassee doppelgängers played by Luke Wilson and Thomas Middleditch. In a recent interview with the Toronto Sun, Eisenberg revealed it took so long for the sequel to roll around because everybody involved was adamant a second movie had to live up to the original. There were ideas, and even full scripts, knocking about for ages but it took until now to find something everybody was happy with, to make a finished product they could all be proud of. “Finally, we have something I think people are going to love. I hesitate trying to characterize it now, but we are all very happy. We didn’t want to do a typical sequel to try and capitalize on something that was popular. We waited 10 years until we had a great idea,” he explained. Check out the balls-to-the-wall nutso trailer for yourself below. Zombieland 2: Double Tap is set for an October 11, 2019 release. Stay tuned to Wicked Horror for more info on Zombieland 2: Double Tap as it becomes available. Follow us on social media: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Youtube

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Five Memorable Rutger Hauer Performances

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Wicked Horror is the author of Five Memorable Rutger Hauer Performances. Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

The news that Rutger Hauer had passed away was a devastating blow to generations of film lovers. The actor made an impact on so many lives during his time on this earth and he will never be forgotten.  Throughout his long career, Hauer has acted alongside Hollywood heavyweights such as Harrison Ford, Anthony Hopkins, and Donald Sutherland. Rutger Hauer has touched many people throughout the world through his acting work, outreach, and activism. We didn’t just lose another actor, we lost a beautiful soul.  In the end, I think the only true way to say goodbye is in the words of the Rutger Hauer himself. In Blade Runner it is reported that he improvised the line ” All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain”. But we are fortunate that the actor’s skills were captured on film for future generations to discover.  In honor of Hauer, I have composed a short list of some of the actor’s most memorable roles. Rutger Hauer had the ability to bring intensity and intelligence to the characters he played, whether he was appearing in a huge blockbuster or a lower budget, independent film.  Surviving the Game (1994) Surviving the Game tells the story of a group of wealthy hunters on one of their yearly trips. The only catch is, they are hunting humans and Ice-T finds himself on the run from the armed horde.  Hauer plays Thomas Burns, the one leading the hunt. Alongside accomplished actors F. Murray Abraham and Gary Busey, Hauer shines in this role. He is cold blooded, ruthless and with his portrayal, I totally believed him to be a psychopath.  Wanted: Dead or Alive (1987) Hauer plays Nick Randall, a Bounty Hunter and former Central Intelligence Agency agent. Randall is asked to find a terrorist named Malak Al Rahim, played by none other than KISS bassist Gene Simmons. If you’ve ever wanted to see how a head and grenade interact, Wanted: Dead or Alive will answer that question for you. Hauer gives a great performance in what could have been just another late 80’s action flick churned out by Hollywood. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) Those of us who grew up in the late 80’s and early 90’s were introduced to Buffy before the popular TV show. Kristy Swanson plays Buffy, a sometimes clueless cheerleader who finds herself fighting hordes of the undead.  Hauer plays Lothos, a powerful vampire that soon finds himself in the crosshairs of Buffy. Buffy the Vampire Slayer shows Hauer’s versatility as a performer. The two films above were both straight action films. Buffy combines elements of horror, comedy and action and Hauer plays Lothos masterfully. The Hitcher (1986) Growing up, I had a friend named John Ryder, and I never fully trusted him, thanks to Rutger Hauer. The Hitcher tells the story of psychopathic and murderous hitchhiker John Ryder as he stalks and menaces a young man who is driving cross country.  One scene that still sticks with me to this day is the sequence where we see Ryder in the back of a family’s car grinning and waving out the window with the family’s children. Even though he says nothing, Hauer was able to convey a sense of menacing dread and unease in this scene. He smile is not one of happiness but of malevolence. The audience knows what is going to happen to the family, all because they picked up the wrong hitchhiker.   Also See: Why The Hitcher is Still Going Strong After More than 30 Years Hobo With a Shotgun (2011)  While trying to save up money to buy a lawnmower to start a new business, Hauer changes his mind and buys a shotgun from a pawn shop. Now armed, he attempts to clean up the streets, dispatching villains in gruesome and extremely violent ways.  Hauer gives an emotional portrayal as a broken man against the backdrop of a city cloaked in neon and ultra violence. Some of the scenes in this film are not for the squeamish.  Follow us on our social media! Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Youtube. 

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Not Quite Horror: Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)

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Wicked Horror is the author of Not Quite Horror: Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999). Wicked Horror is the internet's only horror fan site for free original horror movies, news, review & more.

Not Quite Horror is back from the dead. After resting for a bit in its kind-of creepy but still-normal-enough-to-pass-as-regular crypt, our biweekly series returns. In each installment, Joey Keogh will argue why a chosen film not generally classified as horror actually exhibits many of the qualities of a great flight flick, and therefore deserves the attention of fans as an example of Not Quite Horror. This week, it’s the 20th anniversary of the brilliant Drop Dead Gorgeous. Drop Dead Gorgeous turns 20 this week, which is completely insane because it means I was 11 when it came out. Naturally, watching such a dark movie so young, lots of it went over my head. It’s only now, as an adult, that I can truly appreciate how razor-sharp its wit is, how brutal its take-downs of small-town life and, perhaps most importantly, just how dark its black little heart actually is. The cast is unbelievable, from icons like Allison Janney and Ellen Barkin playing trailer-trash besties and Kirstie Alley as a ruthless pageant mom with Mindy Sterling as her doting second in command, to then up-and-comers Kirsten Dunst, Brittany Murphy (RIP), Denise Richards, and, in her debut feature, one Amy Adams. Everybody is game for a laugh, committing totally to the good ol’ Minesoooootaaaah accents to hilarious effect. See Also: Not Quite Horror: High Life (2019) Styling Drop Dead Gorgeous as a mockumentary is a stroke of genius, because it allows the characters breathing room for some hilariously candid moments, each of which is played as off the cuff (“What’s sick is women dressing like men” / “Oh you betcha, Iris”). It never feels mean-spirited or judgemental, with the exception of Will Sasso’s handicapped character, Hank, the treatment of whom really hasn’t aged well. As Adam West intones, only one lucky lady will make it all the way to…Lincoln, Alabama, and although it’s clear it should be Dunst’s saintly (but always likeable) Amber Atkins, with her Diane Sawyer hero worship and PG tap dancing routine, the fun comes from watching her competitors get picked off one by one while Amber stays annoyingly out of the fray. In keeping with its biting satirical edge, Drop Dead Gorgeous nails the horror elements, too. The contestants start being killed off pretty much immediately, with star athlete Tammy (Brooke Elise Bushman) taken out of the running because, as one of the grungy bathroom dwellers (essentially the Greek chorus) intones, this time “someone didn’t want her to win.” The shock of that first murder quickly dissipates because the movie moves along at such a quick clip. The most important thing, after all, is getting to the finish line. The football captain showing up with a bullet wound in his head, which poor Amber has to tend to at her after school job gussying up corpses, is immediately followed up with a shot of Richards’ Becky proudly showing off her favourite firearm — a hilariously brilliant bit of editing. Still, in spite of the loose, jovial tone, the threat is real; Amber even receives a photo of Tammy with “You’re Next” scrawled across it in her locker. Likewise, her trailer is blown up with Amber’s mom still inside, leading a beer can to be fused to her hand (a terrifically gross bit of makeup work, seen in all its glory thanks to a totally game Barkin). Later, the infamous barfing sequence will see more disgusting practical FX utilized, again, out of nowhere. It’s rare to see a teen movie with a lineup of gorgeous young actresses allowed to be this gross, and Drop Dead Gorgeous does it beautifully. The shock of Becky’s fiery death, which leads her mother, played by Alley, to finally let loose on the loser citizens of Mount Rose (she defo voted Trump), is the movie’s darkest moment not least because it’s the last thing we expect to happen. In this disappointingly realistic universe, when even the pageant’s eventual winners don’t get their promised rewards, it seems highly implausible Amber is going to emerge unscathed or make her dreams come true, as she does in the movie’s triumphant, yet still tongue in cheek ending. As she explains to the documentary crew, guys get out of Mount Rose all the time, for “hockey scholarships or jail,” but women tend to burn out there (literally in poor Becky’s case). Even Amber’s own father didn’t stick around because he was more dedicated to his career than family (“Once a carnie, always a carnie” is one of the most hilarious lines in a consistently hilarious movie). But her mother has hope for her daughter more than herself. Related: Not Quite Horror: Destroyer (2018) Drop Dead Gorgeous is still, all things considered, a story of female friendship above all else. Amber gets her shot at the crown in spite of the odds being stacked against her because the other contestants are so fond of her, and help her out. The themes of each year’s event may be all about America, but the pageant at which the story takes place could more reasonably be themed “Proud to be a friend.” Drop Dead Gorgeous has aged of course. There’s a hell of a lot of smoking (suck it, Stranger Things) and the aforementioned jokes at the expense of a mentally handicapped man are uncomfortable at best. But this is an incredibly sharp, funny movie that’s impressively committed to its darker elements without losing any of its heart. The horror comes from the lengths one spurned beauty queen will go to in order to get her offspring a shot at the crown. In keeping with the film’s tone, she loses everything in the process. 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