• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • News
  • Trailers
  • Short Films
  • About DDOH
  • Horror Poems and Essays

Horror Movies Blog - Daily Horror Movie Reviews

Everyday - Any Genre - From Anywhere

  • Reviews
    • Asian Movies
    • European Movies
    • Hollywood Movies
  • Horror Movies Lists
  • Top Horror Movies of 2013
  • New Horror Movies on DVD
  • Submit a Review

Horror Movie Reviews

You will find on this page all the latest Horror Movie Reviews. My reviews are usually short and avoid spoilers. The idea is to give you a quick feedback on whether I believe a movie is worth watching or not.

Feel free to agree and disagree in the comments or submit your own reviews.

Countdown (2012) Review

August 18, 2013 by Eric S. Leave a Comment

countdown thai reviewSynopsis: (from IMDb) Three Thai teens in New York City are planning the New Year’s Party of their lives. They called Jesus, a drug dealer, to drop off some stuff at their apartment so they can celebrate and countdown the end of the year in style. Little did they know that Jesus’ visit that night will change their lives forever

My Quick Review: I stumbled upon this movie on dvd without any kind of expectation. I was just looking forward another Thai Horror entry by GTH, the production company behind most of the biggest Thai hits.

Right off the bat, I liked the idea to base the action in New York but the movie never really takes advantage of this if not for what is supposed to be some kind of surprise twist.

The whole movie relies on David Asavanond’s performance as Jesus the drug dealer and, while not bad, his effort is slightly unconvincing. He is also not being helped by the other actors who are not given much and just represent stereotypical rich kids living abroad.

I did like the pitch and there are a couple of scenes with real tension, but as a whole Countdown is a bust that drags for too long (especially during the introductory scenes) and relies too much on the (average) performance of its actors.

My Rating: 5/10

Director: Nattawut Poonpiriya

Origin: Thailand

Filed Under: Thai Horror Movies Tagged With: Foreign, Psychological, Supernatural

The Conspiracy (2012) Review

August 15, 2013 by Eric S. Leave a Comment

the conspiracy reviewSynopsis (from IMDb): A documentary about conspiracy theories takes a horrific turn after the filmmakers uncover an ancient and dangerous secret society.

My Quick Review: Finally a found footage movie that makes a smart  use of its format.

Too often using handheld cameras and shooting everything like a retarded kid who has a seizure is enough to get a movie green lighted with a “based on a real story” stamp of approval.

The Conspiracy starts out as a documentary and what we see on the screen is actual footage of the documentary (interviews, news broadcasts, hidden camera footage…). At no point in the movie have I been asking myself why they were using a camera or shooting anything with it.

For me the found footage style works the best when its use is actually justified: security cameras, documentary/tv crew or through a smart use of the medium (like some of the stories in V/H/S 2). This is what makes The Conspiracy efficient: it just looks real enough.

I did enjoy the documentary part of the movie, based on the conspiracy theorists and how some people in governments around the world are controlling every major world’s events. 9/11 surely has  given us much to discuss and to be paranoid about. Recent news events have also reminded us that Big Brother is definitively among us, now more than ever.

In that aspect, the first hour of The Conspiracy could work well as a standalone documentary, one I’d love to watch. And when our 2 filmmakers infiltrate a secret society wearing hidden micro-cams, things start to turn creepy fast.

The conspiracy is  not the scariest or the most impressive Found footage movie out there, but it’s most certainly one of the better one. It’s well made, well acted and has a strong plot that should give you some hope for the found footage genre.

My Rating: 6/10

Director: Christopher MacBride

Origin: Canada

Click Here to Watch The Conspiracy Online Now!

Filed Under: Indie Horror Movies Tagged With: Creepy, found footage

Modus Anomali (2012) Review

August 14, 2013 by Eric S. Leave a Comment

modus-anomali-reviewSynopsis: A guy wakes up in a shallow grave in the woods with amnesia and has to work out what’s going on. He finds a cabin and the mystery begins to unfold. (from IMDb)

My Review: Modus Anomali is a strong entry into Indonesian horror cinema. Joko Anwar’s (The Forbidden Door, Dead Time:Kala) 4th movie has a simple but efficient pitch that maintains the tension high throughout the whole movie.

By keeping the camera very close to him, Anwar creates a suffocating feeling making us as lost and wary of the surroundings as his main character. While some of the scenes in the forest tend to be a bit on the lengthy side, as soon as something is happening, we are right back in the middle of the action.

On the negative side of things, I wasn’t a  big fan of the use of english throughout the film since this is not the actors first language. Why make such a decision, especially since there aren’t that many lines in the film anyway.

The violence in Modus Anomali is raw and sometimes unexpected with the right amount of gory effects while the mystery surrounding the killer(s) in the woods offers a satisfying conclusion. The last reel actually kept me on the edge of my feet.

Once again Joko Anwar is proving that he is a director to definitively keep an eye on and, together with the Mo Brothers (Macabre, Killers) and Gareth Evans (The Raid:Redemption) belongs to an exciting new wave of young directors out of Indonesia..

My Rating: 6.5/10

Director: Joko Anwar

Origin: Indonesia

 

Filed Under: Indonesian Horror Movies Tagged With: Cabin in the Woods, Disturbing, Foreign, Survival

The Purge (2013) Review

August 13, 2013 by Eric S. Leave a Comment

the purge reviewSynopsis: A family is held hostage for harboring the target of a murderous syndicate during the Purge, a 12-hour period in which any and all crime is legalized. [from IMDb]

Neoli’s Review: It’s about time Ethan Hawke starred in a sci-fi thriller again.  The last time he did that was in Gattaca back in 1997, and he was wonderful.  Sure, his very talky, romance trilogy with Julia Delpy (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight) was also nice and all, but once in a while, it’s refreshing, too, to see Ethan in something action-packed and life-threatening.

And thus we have The Purge (not to be confused with brilliant film from Finland also called The Purge).

Anyway.  Set in the not-so-distant future, the film has that Orwellian atmosphere, but instead of 24/7 surveillance and propaganda, one night each year, the government has legalized crime of all forms—including murder, since crime rate is practically zero the entire year.  It’s like this: people deserve one day in which to let out all their anger, hatred, violence, and every other evil primal emotions they’ve been keeping all year long.  A sort of reward for being good citizens.

The premise is flimsy, I know, because in the future I would expect science discovering a breakthrough in curbing, even eliminating people’s murderous tendencies, not the government allowing an all-night nation-wide murder.  And if people really needed release, aren’t video games doing a good job of it already?

The Purge easily reminds me of Panic Room.  In both films, the bad guys break in the supposedly safe and protected walls of the homes.  In Ethan Hawke’s case, it’s doubly ironic since he sells home security systems precisely for this occasion.  So the entire time I’m watching The Purge, I drift and remember Jodie Foster instead—the intense look on her face, the danger she and her daughter must live through, and the helpless claustrophobia overall.

This is not to say The Purge pales in comparison.  It’s a well-made film, no doubt.  Just the right amount of thrill of the hunter and the hunted with rampant killing here and there.  If anything, I liked the concept of a wealthy family coming to terms with their mortality, suddenly becoming vulnerable.  Erase Orwell; it’s more like Darwin’s survival of the fittest for this film.

But the concept of a society with a 100% tolerance policy of crime even for just one night?  I just don’t buy it.

Neoli’s rating: 6/10

Eric’s Review: The Purge is such a waste of  potential, it’s been a while since I’d been so mad at a movie. Because what starts as a shaky but exciting premise, ends up as another ripoff home invasion movie (and a family-friendly one, not a gut wrenching one ala Funny Games).

The Purge should have been an intense horror/Thriller showing us the darkest parts in human psyche. With a better director and gutsier producers we might have had another “Clockwork Orange” on our hands. But not here.

The Purge is another hollywood made thriller with no scares, no thrills and almost no blood. Everybody acts dumb (don’t get me started with the kid, the fact that they do not have a panic room in the house, they do not give guns to the homeless guys once  the “purgers” get into the house, the main villain does not finish off the dad when he could, and nobody has thought about leaving the country for a week or two during Purge???).

But what pisses me even more are the missed opportunities to show raw violence and create a real sense of tension by showing us more about the impact of the purge all over the country (apart some lame voiceover in the credits and some streets footage). Instead, we stay on the rich people side of the fences where nothing is new (we do not need a purge to see this kind of people acting the way they do in the movie) and where ultimately we do not care about their demise and the stakes are just not high enough.

The Purge is rather like A Plague: to Avoid.

Eric’s Rating: 4/10

Writer & Director: James DeMonaco

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey, Max Burkholder, Adelaide Kane, Edwin Hodge

Click Here if You want to Own The Purge on DVD or Blu-Ray (really?)

Filed Under: Hollywood Horror Movies Tagged With: Survival

Frankenstein’s Army (2013) Review

August 12, 2013 by Eric S. Leave a Comment

frankensteins-army-reviewSynopsis (from IMDb): Toward the end of World War II, Russian soldiers pushing into eastern Germany stumble across a secret Nazi lab. The scientists have used the legendary Frankenstein’s work to assemble an army of super-soldiers stitched together from the body parts of their fallen comrades.

My Quick Review: I’ve got mixed feelings about Frankenstein’s Army. On one hand it did entertain me and I just loved the whole universe they created, especially the monsters looks and overall design, really brilliant stuff. On the other hand I’m on the fence regarding the use of POV style shooting, barely justified in the film.

The strongest elements of Frankenstein’s Army are the undead super-soldiers. I just loved each and every one of them and wished we could have seen more of them actually. Found footage style can increase the tension and some of the shocks (and it certainly does a few times in the movie) but it also does render the whole happenings quite chaotic. We never have the time to really get a good look at each menacing soldier and while it can work in a 1-monster movie such as Cloverfield it’s a bit of a waste in Frankenstein’s Army.

What the POV style brought to the table though, is a bit of a video game flair. At times I felt like I was watching somebody playing Bioshock or Wolfenstein and it surely added to my overall enjoyment. But this came at the price of losing focus and creep factor.

So, would Frankenstein’s Army have been better if it had been shot the traditional way? Probably. But as it is, Frankenstein’s army is a real indie gem that deserves to be watched. And who knows, if it makes enough money we might get a follow-up with even more inventive undead soldiers!

My Rating: 6.5/10

Director: Richard Raaphorst

Origin: Netherlands/US

Click Here to Watch Frankenstein’s Army Online Now!

Filed Under: Indie Horror Movies Tagged With: Action, found footage, Gory

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 16
  • Go to page 17
  • Go to page 18
  • Go to page 19
  • Go to page 20
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 39
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Search for a Movie

What Are You Looking For?

  • Hollywood Horror Movies
  • Indie Horror Movies
  • Asian Horror Movies
  • Indonesian Horror Movies
  • Japanese Horror Movies
  • Korean Horror Movies
  • Thai Horror Movies
  • British Horror Movies
  • Spanish Horror Movies
  • Found Footage Movies
HorrorFind.com Says: This Site Is Horrific!
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2023 Daily Dose of Horror · All Rights Reserved