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.

Alone Review

April 4, 2013 by Eric S. Leave a Comment

Year: 2007

Director: Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom

Synopsis (from IMDb): A Deceased Siamese twin returns to haunt her surviving sister

My Short Review: After having watched Shutter yesterday, I decided to get my hands on as many Thai Horror Movies as I possibly could, starting with Alone which was from the guys who already brought us Shutter,writers and directors Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom.

And my problem with Alone is exactly what made me want to watch it in the first place: it follows too closely on Shutter’s steps without getting close to its level of creepyness or scares.

Alone is another entry into the Revengeful Ghost genre, with a twist that is way too easy to see coming. And when it happens, the last 20mns of the movie turn one of the main character into crazed pshycho killer mode and put aside the supernatural part that made the movie mildly interesting up to that point.

There are some great visual ideas here and there (I won’t soon forget the ceiling fan scene) and the siamese twins love triangle is an original idea, but the scenes with the ghost do not have the impact the ones in Shutter had (this time I did not have one jump scare in the whole movie). As I mentioned before, the end of the movie ended up ruining the film even more for me.

Alone is therefore a slight disappointment, and maybe I would have liked it better had I not just watched Shutter (a superior movie) the day before.

With that being said, I would still consider it a good entry in the Asian Horror Movies category and recommend fans of the genre to give it a chance.

My Rating: 5/10

Shutter (Thai) Review

April 3, 2013 by Eric S. 1 Comment

Year: 2004

Director: Banjong Pisanthanakun, Parkpoom Wongpoom

Synopsis (from IMDb): A young photographer and his girlfriend discover mysterious shadows in their photographs after a tragic accident.

My Short Review: I’ve been a big Fan of Japanese Horror Movies since the first time I watched Ringu. I will always remember when Sadako crawls out of the well and out of the TV screen.

Similarly, I will never forget in Ju-On the scene when Kayako crawls down the stairs in the house (especially the sound effects).

It’s quite obvious that those scenes have inspired our directors in their own take of the revengeful asian ghost movie. Shutter is indeed a successful entry into the genre, using the sound effects and each of the ghost apparition with maximum efficiency. The scares are plenty and well timed and Shutter is definitively the best Thai Horror Movie I’ve seen so far (and I plan now on seeing more, especially since I will be moving to Thailand in a few months) and it managed to make me jump on my couch couple of times (not an easy feat).

Shutter’s story is, of course, not very original (ghost revenge, spirit photographs) but has couple of nice little twists and reveals,

Needless to say I strongly recommend Shutter to any fan of asian horror movies, especially if you’re into the whole “ghost with long black hair” genre.

My Rating: 8/10

Click Here to Own and Watch Shutter Now!

Excision Review

April 2, 2013 by Eric S. Leave a Comment

Year: 2012

Director: Richard Bates Jr

Synopsis (from IMDb): A disturbed and delusional high school student with aspirations of a career in medicine goes to extremes to earn the approval of her controlling mother.

My Short Review: I had read good reviews about this one and I really DO like the main actress, Annalynne McCord, so I was really looking forward to watching this movie.

Unfortunately, 40 mns in, I could not make it through anymore.

Full disclosure: I was pretty beat when I started watching the movie, so it needed to be extra special to keep me awake and somehow I did not really get into the film so I decided to call it quit at midpoint.

For this reason I won’t be giving Excision a note, as I believe it would not be fair.

What I can say though is that I enjoyed the performances of AnnaLynne as a repressed unpopular girl and Traci Lords as her righteous mom. Not a big fan of Ariel Winter (from Modern Family) though.

Some of the Dream imagery is very well shot and a bit on a gory side. Everything else: the teenage angst, the smartass geeky girl, the jocks, stupid mean girls, a lot of clichés that just bored me and did not manage to keep me awake.

I’m welcoming comments from people who actually made it to the end and please try to make me wanna finish it one day.

My Rating: N/A (it would not be fair to give Excision a rating since I haven’t gotten to the end.

Wrong Turn Review

April 1, 2013 by Eric S. Leave a Comment

Year: 2003

Director: Rob Schmidt

Synopsis (from IMDb): Six people find themselves trapped in the woods of West Virginia, hunted down by “cannibalistic mountain men grossly disfigured through generations of in-breeding.”

My Short Review: This was my second viewing of Wrong Turn and since I had just watched Cabin Fever the day before, it was interesting to see how my perception of both films have changed.

When I first watched cabin fever 10 years ago, I did not like it and did not even finish it. Wrong Turn on the other hand, had left me with quite a good impression. Not such an original movie but efficient in its own way.

But memory can definitively play tricks on you sometimes because I thought there was much more gore, more nudity and more cleavage shots of Eliza Dushku. Boy was I wrong!!

The movie is just another “cabin in the woods” bore with none of the little originality found in Cabin fever. No nudity, gore is quite limited (to the film’s defence, we have seen so much gore in the last 10 years than we have to put things into some perspective here). And the script is just lazy. There was one classic jump scare that worked I have to admit and the make up department did an outstnaing job on the hillbillies but apart from that, and eliza dushku, I can’t really recommend Wrong Turn to current horror movie fans.

My Rating: 4/10

Cabin Fever Review

March 31, 2013 by Eric S. Leave a Comment

Year: 2002

Director: Eli Roth

Synopsis (from Imdb): A group of five college graduates rent a cabin in the woods and begin to fall victim to a horrifying flesh-eating virus.

My Short Review: First of all, I have to let you know that I did watch this movie 10 years ago, when it was first out on dvd. And For some reason, I did not get into it and stopped watching after 30mns or so. But somehow I’ve always felt I missed something and people kept on telling me how great it was. And then, Eli Roth kind of became the next big thing in horror. So as the years went by and my memories from this movie started to become elusive, I swore to myself I’d give it another chance. And this is exactly what I did today.

Long story short: well it’s better than what I thought 10 years ago. After all, I did watch the whole movie this time. But it still isn’t as good as expected. It’s basically just another “cabin in the woods” movie with clichés situations and characters. Small twists here and there, couple of good gore moments but nothing to make you jump out of your seat or any memorable scenes.

My Rating: 5/10

I suggest you to watch the following trailer for the dvd version of the film. It definitively makes you want to check the movie out.