[7] If you love creature features as much as I do, you’ll enjoy Peter Hyams’ The Relic. Penelope Ann Miller stars as an anthropologist who teams with a cop (Tom Sizemore) to stop a supernatural creature after it wreaks havoc at a Chicago museum event. The monster effects are courtesy of the late, great Stan Winston, the museum setting provides plenty of creepy atmosphere, and …
[7] Soldiers fight werewolves in rural Scotland in Dog Soldiers. Neil Marshall’s (The Descent, Doomsday) directorial debut is a worthwhile, claustrophobic werewolf movie featuring a sophisticated group of personalities and some of the best on-set werewolf effects I’ve ever seen. The first thirty minutes are a bit of a chore to get through, but once the characters make their last stand in a remote cottage, …
[7] A rescue team investigates a seemingly abandoned spacecraft that has been inside a black hole and discover that its… well, basically it’s haunted. Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne star in this haunted spaceship flick that plays like a cross between Alien and Hellraiser. Some nice moments of tension, especially involving airlocks and decompression, but the barrage of ‘is it real or is it imaginary’ …
[5] You know the drill: a family moves into a new home, weird shit starts happening, SURPRISE. Ghosts. A Haunting in Connecticut is a so-so haunted house movie with some interesting concepts and hackneyed execution. The mother-son relationship between Kyle Gallner and Virginia Madsen is almost strong enough to keep you invested, but the movie ultimately aschews character and becomes desperately preoccupied with plot twists …
[8] A teenager (C. Thomas Howell) picks up a hitcher (Rutger Hauer) in the middle of a rainy night and barely escapes to tell the tale. Unfortunately, that first night’s escape is only the beginning. The hitcher is relentless, pursuing the boy on the open road, framing him for murder, and forcing him to bare witness to his carnage. Hauer is at his psychopathic best …
[6] Two boys accidentally uncover a portal to hell and then have to fend off the demons that emerge from it. Probably for budgetary reasons, The Gate takes place almost entirely in one house, but the menace really needed to grow beyond in order to make a bigger impression. The demons themselves lack identity. They take the form of tiny monsters, one big monster, and …
[6] Lethal tarantulas take over an Arizona town in this remarkably well-paced, well-put-together little B-movie. And William Shatner is the star! How frickin’ cool is that? He actually delivers a decent performance. And Shatner fans will be happy to know that old Shat ain’t afraid of no spiders — to juice up the climax of the movie, it was his own idea to glue a …
[6] Just when you thought the Nazi zombie subgenre was dead, Scandinavia gives us Dead Snow. For those who find the concept appealing, the movie cuts the mustard, as well as several arteries. Unfortunately, a hackneyed plot, stock characters, and a scarcity of memorable gags keep Dead Snow from transcending our expectations. The lack of originality is counterbalanced by the movie’s brisk pace and a …
[6] Troll is a dark fantasy confined to an apartment building where an evil Troll is sacrificing the tenants to open the doors to another dimension. The makeup effects are a bit hit and miss, with the main troll character being the most successful creation from director John Carl Buechler’s creature shop. Budgetary constraints keep the film from delivering a satisfying climax. Noah Hathaway (Atreyu …
[6] Franka Potente (Run Lola Run) gets locked in a London subway station overnight and soon discovers she’s not alone. Someone, or something, is after her. Creep is a simple but solid indie horror thriller. It’s not terribly original, but director Christopher Smith (Triangle, Severance) is capable of building tension and conjuring some spooky atmosphere. And when the ‘monster’ is revealed, it’s not a let-down …
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