Director: Mark Tonderai Starring: Omari Hardwick, Loretta Devine .USA. 1h 31m
18 years on from Ian Softleys powerful hoodoo thriller Skeleton Key (2005), the time and tested horror had graduated into Spell, which is a strange name for a rootworking movie but nonetheless no one will be surprised when the incantations, grimoire and ritual work is let loose. However this darkened story has closer ties with Misery (1990) and the Hills Have Eyes (1977/2005).
Director: Brandon Cronenberg Starring: Andrea Riseborough, Christopher Abbott, Sean Bean, Jenniger Jason leigh .Canada. 1h 43m
the junior Cronenberg stirkes again with yet another brilliant, mind bending, reality busting concept, this time he’s matures his process and developed a highly stylish assasination bureau where agents enter the minds of a close associate of their victim via an implant, allowing the prefect kill to be commited, once the job is done, the agent gets their host to commit suicide and they are “pulled” out of the persons mind and back into their own body, it’s advanced, but so simple and intraceable.
Director: Patrick Picard
Starring: Joe Adler; Lian Aiken .USA. 1h 12m
A great alternative title for this movie would be “A nice guy deals with an entitled cunt”, but there’s a little more to Patrick Picard’s sleek thriller, loosely based on Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher.
The film is a steady paced psychological breakdown of “the nice guy” Francis (Aiken) by his supposed school friend, Jen Paul Luret (Adler), a privileged, rude and cruel young man who’s bordering on crazy. Living in a high tech and lavish home in the remote wilderness with his sister, who’s rarely seen throughout the movie, almost as frequently as the Bloodhound itself, which seems to be a strange masked man that hides around the home and is honestly the freakiest aspect of the entire movie, i found a clip here to wet your whistle.
Director: Edward Drake
Starring:Jonathan Lipnicki, Avery Konrad, Timothy V Murphy USA. 1h 30m
Coming of age is a difficult time for any young girl but it’s especially troubling for Chance in Drakes power struggle vampire film with a gritty power struggle a troubled hero and s touch of je ne sai qoir but it doesn’t go that extra mile to really set itself apart from all the other TV vampire movies but it’s still thoroughly enjoyable to watch family fireworks.
Opening with a family trying to control their wayward and violent teen daughter Chance (Konrad) they send her to live with her pious grandfather and extended family on a remote estate. Slowly the easily distracted teen uncovers a family secret and her only chance of survival comes from the dead and an assassin destined to end her family’s reign.
Here’s a crafty micro list of my favourite reviewed horror movies of 2020, in no particular order..
Don’t fear it’s just a list titles and images, no justifications, no explanations, no spoilers or any nonsense. If you’d like to read the reviews, click on the links below the image, if you want to question me on my choices, please message me..
Which films really caught your eye during the year?
Invisible Man (2020)
Director: Leigh Whannell Starring: Elisabeth Moss, Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid, Harriet Dyer, Michael Dorman, Oliver Jackson-Cohen . Australia/USA. 2h 04m
Director: Thomas Robert Lee
Starring:Catherine Walker, Jared Abrahams, Sean McGinley, Jessuca Reynold, Don McKellar. USA. 1h 34m
For the most part, The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw is a slightly perplexing pagan tale, seeming to take roots from a host of folklore horror classics but while it’s a masterclass of cinematography and there’s nothing negative to be said about the acting, there’s just not really enough here to bite into, or at least nothing we haven’t seen done better elsewhere.
Director: ​Jared Jay Mason, ​Clark Runciman Starring: Jordan Ashley Grier, Swayde McCoy. USA. 2h 1m
A couple on a romantic getaway in an idyllic cabin in the mountains agree to smoke a little dope and be totally honest with each other, but when Micharl (McCoy) beings to confess that he’s God possessing a human body, does his new lover Gabby (Grier) believe him, or is Michael a manipulative psychopath or is he really channelling a divine being, if so.. why?
Backwoods horrors seem to have traveled from the deserts of the southern American into the cold forests of the north, incorporating indigenous folklore along the way. The Silencing tries to keep itself in the here and now, offering a grimy armchair detective mystery with icy drama, some daring thrills and a fathers promise to find his missing daughter at all costs.
Falling in love just might be the easy part in this explosive Nigeria classic, not only do a couple of friends both find the women of their dreams, they manage to lose them due to irrational reactions and lack of attention and empathy.
Frederick Leonard plays an attractive bachelor, who’s hooked up with an old flame and within months of reuniting they are getting married. The love is lost and all goes bad on the wedding night when his new bride wakes up, and before she’s got her faculties together and in a total daze, she’s asking to be paid for her nightly rate! Utterly shocked Frederick realises he’s married ex prostitute, disgusted and pained verbally beats the woman down, leaving her in their hotel suite with some cash, the message is clear, the arrangement is over. At her most vulnerable state her best friend also takes advantage of her and ashamed she moves on with her life.
Director: Liam O’Donnell Starring: Lindsey Morgan, Jonathan Howard, Daniel Bernhardt, Rhona Mitra, James Cosmo, Alexander Siddig .USA. 1h 50m
Long after the failure of Skyline and the mediocre success of the sequel, it’s plain to see that the new format is the new template for all future movies, now that Liam O’Donnell is in the driving seat. While O’Donnell’s fine tuning has made a drastic improvement in the Skyline trilogy it’s taken the film down a strange rabbit hole but is this third installment a breath of fresh air or just the final nail in the Skyline coffin? Continue reading Skylines (2020)→
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