Being Film #1 for Hooptober 2025 There's a lot that goes into choosing the first movie in this marathon: do you get the requirements out of the way first? Look at runtimes? Or is it something more ephemeral? I wanted to start with the simple things that made me a fan of the genre as... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 11.0 – Hell Hole (2024)
Being Film #26 for Hooptober 2024 It's rare, but sometimes the situation just calls for a low budget yet earnest splatterfest involving Lovecraftian cephalopods who get into your body and just...incubate. Then explode your body at the first sign of danger. This was one of those times, and Hell Hole, the latest feature from the... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 11.0 – Oddity (2024)
Being Film #24 for Hooptober 2024 We're getting to the saturation point of reviewing. 24 reviews in 23 days. I'm beat, trying to get this wrapped up so I can take on the other writing stuff I'm putting off. Luckily, the films continue to show bright spots in the genre, perhaps none more so than... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 11.0 – ‘Salem’s Lot (2024)
Being Film #21 for Hooptober 2024 Announced in 2019, shot in 2021, originally set for theatrical release in 2022 only to dribble out onto the Max service this past Friday, the long-awaited 'Salem's Lot took a meandering road to reach our eyes. And in the end it was neither a massive misfire not a surefire... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 11.0 – Unwelcome (2023)
Being Film #20 for Hooptober 2024 It can be a startling thing when expectations are upended. You think you're familiar with something, say, a filmmaker based on a particular film. And you hear about their new film, and it looks like it treads similar ground. And it does, except it doesn't. And in that thin... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 11.0 – The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster (2023)
Being Film #13 for Hooptober 2024 The beautiful thing about The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster is how much of a "first film" it is, in the best possible way. The directorial debut of Bomani J. Story, this is a film very much full of ideas, using genre to get at the heart of... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 11.0 – Insidious: The Red Door (2023)
Being Film #11 for Hooptober 2024 Boy do I like Patrick Wilson. Guy is a phenomenal performer, handsome to a damn fault, and has made some really brave and interesting choices in his career. He also seems to really love genre, and I love that his passion for this franchise and these characters propelled him... Continue Reading →
Hooptober 11.0 – Infested (2023)
Being Film #6 for Hooptober 2024 We've see a lot of films that are one thing on the surface and something else underneath. Infested, the French spider creature feature from Sébastien Vaniček in his feature debut is very much two things, but both are very much on the surface and striking in their forcefulness. You... Continue Reading →
Hooptober X #9: The Exorcist: Believer
David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy will probably continue to divide fans of that franchise for years to come. It’s three films that took at big swing. For all their faults though, those three films at least attempted something. They’re three slasher films that at least felt like pure slasher films. No overt meta humor gets... Continue Reading →
Hooptober X #8: It Lives Inside
It Lives Inside is the debut feature film of Bishal Dutta. This might be the first wide release Indian-American horror film. Instead of relying on the Christian and European based horror tropes, the movie introduces audiences to the mythology and mysticism of Hinduism. It’s an impressive and confident debut for a first time filmmaker. It... Continue Reading →
