Category: 2010’s

Directed by Olly Blackburn [Other horror films: Donkey Punch (2008)]

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect of Kristy before going in, and I’d say that was probably a good thing. There were some elements and stylistic choices I didn’t care for, but honestly, I was overall pretty pleased with this one.

A lot of this has to do with the setting of a virtually empty university campus (as it takes place during Thanksgiving break). There’s a lot of scenes of just expansive buildings and grounds with just a single character in frame, which lent much of the film a great vibe. What also helped was the fog that was prevalent throughout most of the film.

In many ways, I was reminded of The Strangers: Prey at Night, as much of this film is a cat-and-mouse game between Haley Bennett’s character and her mysterious assailants. The only difference is that Kristy doesn’t have the same 80’s nostalgic feel that one does. There were some really suspenseful scenes, from the library sequence, to the gym scenes, and when Bennett’s character really starts fighting back, you have a great character to root for.

Bennett was really good in this. She’s a student with a less-than-perfect life (especially compared to her friends, one of which has rich parents who are vacationing in Aspen, the other who comes from a wealthy family that mocks the fact Bennett has to work while attending school), and seeing this character get beaten down only to fight back once the going really gets tough, it’s rather satisfying.

Bennett’s about the only performance that really matters, on a side-note. The four antagonists are fine, but they’re just basically the same type of silent, mask-wearing antagonist you see in movies like The Strangers and Cabin 28. There’s not much to them, really. Lucas Till’s character was mostly a nonentity, and the other two who really stood out one way or another, in as limited scenes as they had, were James Ransone (Deputy So-and-So from Sinister) and Mathew St. Patrick (who played a friendly and rather enjoyable campus security guard).

The kills were pretty solid past a certain point. A baseball bat with nails strapped on made for a solid scene in which someone’s head didn’t have the best of days. There was a fun sequence in a pool, and another great instance with someone burning to death. Some of the kills were a bit more generic, but the main ones were all on point.

A few problems did arise, though. I don’t personally think that loud music needs to accompany every scare the film has. There were plenty of scenes that would have been just a creepy, if not more so, in a subtle way, if they had just laid off the music. If a scene is legitimately creepy, the music isn’t necessary because the jump will come naturally.

Also, I didn’t love the story behind the antagonists. This is literally one of the first things we see, so it’s not a spoiler, but having an online cult going after girls they deem ‘perfect’ (without actually studying their subjects to see if they fit) just felt a bit shallow. The ending, which dealt with some of the aftermath of the events of the film, was sort of interesting, but at the same time, the dark web cult of serial killers just turned me off.

Speaking of being turned off, the post-credits scene was extraordinarily unnecessary. It seemed to imply that the cult still had some cells, which wasn’t something that really came as a surprise, and ultimately didn’t really seem all that worth tacking onto the ending.

Despite my problems, I think Kristy is a movie that has a lot going for it. I really enjoyed much of it’s style, and the kills that really mattered were great. There are many just plain satisfying scenes with Bennett’s character fighting back, and I think this was was pretty enjoyable overall. Definitely one that I’d recommend, and certainly one that I’d watch again.

8.5/10

Directed by David Robert Mitchell [Other horror film: N/A]

Something of a modern-day classic, It Follows is certainly a memorable movie with plenty of creepy scenes, even if there’s something to be desired insofar as the origin of the ‘it’ is concerned.

There’s not too many performances here that really stand out one way or the other. Most of the main actors and actresses do just fine (such as Lili Sepe, Maika Monroe, and Keir Gilchrist), but didn’t really blow me away. Gilchrist, on a side-note, later starred in 2015’s Dark Summer, a somewhat disappointing film overall, but not altogether terrible. It was Olivia Luccardi’s performance I enjoyed the most, though I kept hoping for a bit more from her character.

Which leads to the crux of my problem with the film, which is that we never learn what exactly the entity that ‘follows’ is. Not only do we not learn what the entity is, but more problematic, none of the characters even come up with any ideas, nor seem to care. Luccardi’s character was a reader, and the first time I saw this, I kept hoping that she’d eventually run into something that matched this creature’s modus operandi, but we got nothing.

If you can get past that, and I by-and-large can, you have a pretty enjoyable and occasionally rather creepy film. Some of the music used worked quite well, creating an uneasy atmosphere, and given that the being here is invisible to most people, there are some decently subtle scares here also, and at times, the film feels pleasantly disorienting.

Overall, It Follows is a solid film, probably an easy top ten movie in 2014, but having seen it twice, it’s not a movie I necessarily love. I enjoy the film quite a bit, and if a sequel deigns to explore the background of the malevolent entity, I’d be all in. As far as this one goes, the film’s good, but I need more information to fully sate me.

7.5/10

This is one of the films covered on Fight Evil’s podcast, so if you’re at all interested, listen below as Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss the film.

Directed by Jonathan Milott [Other horror films: Becky (2020)] & Cary Murnion [Other horror films: Becky (2020)]

I didn’t go into this one with many expectations, which is probably a positive, as I doubt that Cooties could have surpassed them. For a zombie comedy, Cooties is definitely a competently made film, and it may even be a good movie, but I don’t think it’s particularly great in any way.

The higher-budget production here looks nice, and we’re given a decent amount of mildly interesting characters, but the movie doesn’t really transcend the feel of an average film. Special effects, cinematography, it’s all decent, but at the same time, I really didn’t see much in here that’s likely to be either that memorable or that praise-worthy, mainly because zombie comedies are a tough sub-genre to crack anyway.

One high selling point here is the cast, of course. I never much cared for the star, being Elijah Wood (an actor who I personally haven’t seen in much, but is most well-known for Lord of the Rings), and I could have done entirely without Rainn Wilson’s (The Office) character, and now that I think on it, the characters played by Jack McBrayer, Nasim Pedrad, and Peter Kwong didn’t add much either.

If it weren’t for Alison Pill and Leigh Whannell, this would have been a much harder movie to swallow. I didn’t necessarily love Alison Pill’s character, but she did have much the same attitude her character from The Newsroom possessed, and I generally liked her spunk. Whannell, of course, played Adam in the first Saw movie, and though he’s noticeably older here, his socially awkward, scientifically-detached character is quite a lot of fun. Shout-out to Matt Jones’ (Badger from Breaking Bad) single appearance, which was nice, but the brunt of the enjoyment from performances came from Pill and Whannell.

The comedy here is moderately balanced, but it can really get a bit overboard at times (and many of these times revolve around Wilson’s ridiculous character, who seems right out of a Will Ferrell movie), which didn’t help matters. The gore was pretty solid, and I did like seeing zombie kids get taken down, but some parts were just too silly, and much of the ending itself was sort of suspect.

There’s also not near as much a sense as dread as you’d hope. Virtually none of the main characters die. One seems to have been torn apart, but they pop up at the end of the film, along with another character who had gone missing. I just didn’t get how at least three of the more likely suspects weren’t killed off, just to give us a sense of some type of real danger, but it just never happened.

Cooties isn’t a bad film, but it really should have been better, especially with the budget and solid cast members. I don’t think it really broke ground in the zombie comedy genre, even with zombie kids and teachers kicking their asses, but like I said, it’s still a competent enough film. It’s just not memorable, or really remarkable whatsoever.

7/10

Directed by Eric Red [Other horror films: Body Parts (1991), Bad Moon (1996), 100 Feet (2008)]

There’s very little about this Syfy film that’s worth seeking this movie out for. The fact it stars Rob Morrow is one of the few things I enjoyed about this, because otherwise, it’s pretty unremarkable.

My first big problem is the plot – some meteors fall from space, and it causes all dogs and wolves in a local area to go crazy and start attacking people. The funny thing is, despite the fact that these meteors were a bright glowing green, only once was it brought up that they might have something to do with it, and exactly no one in the movie seemed to notice them scattered across the town (despite them being, you know, a glowing green).

Speaking of colors, it wasn’t uncommon for there to be a red light tinting some of the scenes. Apparently, according to IMDb, director Eric Red was influenced by the lighting of Suspiria (1977), which amazes me. It’s great that he’s seen the classics, but after watching Suspiria, he thinks that this pile of trash is a good way to give reverence to it?

Rob Morrow, who I know mostly from the television series Numb3rs, of which I’ve seen every episode, is a fun presence here. His character’s decent, but more importantly, Morrow himself is just a solid actor to see here, which is a positive, as few others stand out. Playing his daughter, Tristin Mays did fine, but wasn’t particularly memorable. Her two friends, played by Mary Risener and Mary Katherine O’Donnell, were pretty pointless characters, and neither actress was impressive (Risener in particular). Lastly, Kelly Rutherford didn’t do a thing for me.

There are some solid dog attacks in the film, and there was a somewhat gory aftermath (including a body torn apart) that I enjoyed. But toward the end of the film, a lot of time is spent on random dog attacks in the downtown area, and as it dragged on and on, I was just bored out of my mind seeing characters I didn’t know get killed by dogs that hadn’t appeared before, especially since few of the attacks there were really worth seeing. Also, there were about five to six scenes using slow motion, which just looked ridiculously dramatic and utterly unnecessary.

Personally, if it weren’t for Morrow, I’d rate this movie quite a bit lower. It’s still nowhere near a good movie, or even an average one, but I think I see it in a slightly better light because Morrow’s one of the stars. That said, if you couldn’t care less about Morrow, than I suspect that Night of the Wild is one Syfy flick that you could do without. Even with Morrow, I understand that feeling.

Also, the CGI dogs at the end didn’t help either. It’s a poor movie, period.

4/10

Directed by Nick Simon [Other horror films: Removal (2010), The Girl in the Photographs (2015), 2 Lava 2 Lantula! (2016), Truth or Dare (2017), Untitled Horror Movie (2021)]

For a Syfy release, Karma’s okay. It’s not particularly good, and I suspect it won’t be particularly memorable in the months to come, or even weeks, but it’s nowhere near as bad as other Syfy films such as Dead in the Water and Grave Halloween.

Story-wise, it reminded me a bit of It Follows, where, instead of a dark force following someone after sex, it follows them after they commit a terrible act. It’s not really original, but I liked some aspects of what Karma tried to do with it, though, and this perhaps wouldn’t come as much a surprise, the jump scares struck me as mostly unnecessary.

When it comes to concerns, there are quite a few that Karma poses. For instance, only three of the performances in the film really stand out (being Tim Russ, despite his horrible character, Mandela Van Peebles, and Brytni Sarpy, who was also in the likewise unmemorable 2017 Syfy flick Truth or Dare). None of the other actors and actresses do particularly bad, but they’re just sort of there. And much could be said for the story itself – like I said, I enjoyed some of the aspects (such as Peebles’ attempts at removing the curse from himself during a feel-good montage), but ultimately, Karma felt pretty bland.

Once everything’s said and done, that’s the biggest problem with the movie – it was completely unremarkable. It did boast one death sequence I rather enjoyed (involving a saw blade and a hammer, in a very Final Destination fashion), so it wasn’t completely without gore, but generally, there was little of interest here, and the conclusion felt a bit off, along with being somewhat anticlimactic.

Syfy has so many better movies, such as House of Bones, Neverknock, Cucuy: The Boogeyman, and even Stickman. Karma isn’t the worse that they’ve done, but it is both tepid and ultimately forgettable, which is the main issue. I’d pass on this one.

5.5/10

Directed by Dan Trachtenberg [Other horror films: Prey (2022)]

Talk about a rather masterfully-done film. A spiritual successor to the 2008 Cloverfield, 10 Cloverfield Lane is a damn good movie with a very competent cast and spectacular suspense.

Much of this lies in the ambiguity of the situation Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s character finds herself in. Waking up in a doomsday bunker after being abducted by Howard (John Goodman), and told that there’s been some type of invasion, and she’s safer there, it’s a tense, tense movie with a lot of twists and turns.

John Goodman is an actor I’ve always appreciated. He was great in Roseanne, and pretty much everything else. He does look healthier here than he did in Red State (2011), which I’m grateful for. Here, his performance is superb, and he comes across both as genial and other times rather threatening and absolutely batshit. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is an actress I know from limited exposure (Final Destination 3, Live Free or Die Hard, and the short-lived series BrainDead), but she does great here, and totally feels right in the role. John Gallagher Jr. (from The Newsroom) is pretty solid also, and brings a little humor to the film.

The tense, suspenseful plot of this film is one that I can’t imagine easily being rivaled, and when you have such a great cast, everything comes nicely together. Toward the end, when some of the hard-asked questions finally have a light shined upon them, the movie loses a bit of it’s magic, but I rather like the final scene, so I think that some of the loss of suspense can be forgiven.

Given my somewhat lukewarm reaction toward Cloverfield, I am happy to say that you can definitely watch this as a stand-alone, and I’d highly recommend doing so, as this really is a damn good film with a lot going for it, such as Goodman’s great performance and the fantastically-crafted, tense story.

9/10

Directed by Todor Chapkanov [Other horror films: Copperhead (2008), Ghost Town (2009), Monsterwolf (2010), Asylum (2014)]

For a Syfy Daybreakers clone, True Bloodthirst (better known as Vampyre Nation) is actually okay. I can’t tell you how surprised I am exactly to be saying that, but it’s true. While there are big problems, such as horrible special effects and moderately forgettable characters, the story itself was unique enough to give the film a bit more heart than I’d have first expected.

From the get-go, the plot is interesting. In a world where the existence of vampires has been found out by the general human population, vampires live in segmented sections of the cities, treated generally as second-class citizens, and due to a synthetic blood, there’s theoretically no need for hostilities between them and the humans.

Of course, that alone might make for an interesting drama, but naturally they threw something into the mix, being tainted synthetic blood that causes the vampires to regress to a much more primal, unsophisticated killing machine, which goes after both humans and vampires. A detective, with the help of both a group of vampire hunters and vampires themselves, tries to figure out what’s going on in order to save human and vampire alike.

Generally, I don’t think I’d like most movies with the plot description above, but this made it work. Admittedly, from a political perspective, I did find it interesting to see how the confirmed existence of vampires would theoretically play out among the human populations on Earth, and the creation of a synthetic blood seems logical in order to keep both sides feeling relatively safe. Of course, one can easily see the vampires as substitutes for either racial or religious minorities, bringing an actual element of contemporary politics into the mix, which I personally found welcomed.

I think the reason that I found myself engaged with the movie’s story, other than that it was pretty intriguing, was that it seemed somewhat well thought out. Elements could have been better fleshed out, of course, but overall, I got the sense of semi-realism. It’d be a legitimate concern of humans that more and more people would chose to transform into vampires (given a much longer life-span), and of course what with not having almost any power, vampires, just by being in the spotlight, are at high risk of danger themselves, especially since humans in powerful positions are more likely to back up vampire hunters than attempt to protect the weaker class (vampires), which all brings a lot of pretty solid points to the forefront.

I didn’t love Neil Jackson as the main character, but I eventually got used to him. More enjoyable was Ben Lambert, playing a vampire, and Heida Reed, who was a bit weak at times, but her character was both fun and had an interesting story. Most everyone else was a bit run-of-the-mill, such as Andrew Lee Potts (playing Harker, one of the vampire hunters, he was a bit over-the-top), Roark Critchlow, and Jonathon Hargreaves (which is a shame, as this is his sole role on IMDb). Bordering pointless, we have Claudia Bassols, who had a generic role with a pretty unnecessary character, so she didn’t really have much of a chance.

Like I said, the special effects were pretty awful. The primal state of a vampire seemed to be a blob with wings, not too dissimilar from a rather strong-looking gargoyle. The blood didn’t do it for me, and aspects of the vampire’s abilities, such as occasional bursts of super-speed, just looked ridiculous. I don’t fault the movie too much for this, given it’s budget limitations, but even so, from a technical standpoint, it was rather amateur.

I’m not overly familiar with director Todor Chapkanov’s other output; I have seen both Copperhead and Ghost Town. Copperhead was actually a rather enjoyable film, from what I recall, while Ghost Town was more in the forgettable vein (until I rewatch both of these, though, my final judgment will have to wait). He’s behind other horror films of which I’ve not seen, but based on what I have, Chapkanov at least seems a competent director with the budget he has. Since most of his work is on Syfy originals, though, it may be worth his while to branch out a bit at some point.

Vampyre Nation (which is the title I saw the film under) definitely had problems, but since I went into it with very low expectations, the fact that it felt as good as it did really skewed with my perceptions. It’s not a great movie, nor is it a good movie, but I could easily see myself watching it sometime in the future, so while it’s below average, Vampyre Nation isn’t disastrously bad, and may perhaps be worth a shot.

6/10