Another anticipated international horror film is right around the corner. Three women come together from across the world to discover what’s haunting them. The mysterious force elicits a terrifying wailing as a harbinger of what’s to come. Such is the enigmatic plot of Pedro Martin-Calero’s debut feature film “The Wailing.”
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The lives of character actors usually make terrific fodder for documentaries. We’ve seen these people of 1,000 faces throughout our moviegoing lives, and while we might not always know their names, something registers in our brains enough to go “hey, it’s him/her/them from that thing!” One of the most memorable of these performers in the past several decades is the late, great Rutger Hauer, who passed away in 2019. Now, Hauer’s life and legacy is explored in director Sanna Fabery de Jonge’s doc “Like Tears in Rain,” a eulogy to a man that more people should consider one of the greats of genre film.
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My uncle isn’t a major cinephile like I am, but he’d always mention his love of Rutger Hauer. He’d watch anything with him in it, and there was a lot to choose from. From “The Hitcher” and “Blade Runner” to “Hobo with a Shotgun” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Hauer was an indelible character actor who passed away in 2019 due to pancreatic cancer. In just a few weeks, we’ll see the release of “Like Tears In Rain,” a documentary on the Dutch icon.
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While there’s an undeniable horror boom happening in film and TV, there’s a lesser-known renaissance happening in the literary world. Authors like Grady Hendrix, Victor LaValle, Clay McLeod Chapman, Adam Cesare, CJ Leede and so many more have been releasing incredible horror fiction in the last few years. Barnes & Nobles all over the country now have a dedicated horror section so you don’t have to scour the fiction section. Capitalizing on this new wave is Substack, who have released “First Word on Horror,” a 15-part documentary series about the latest and greatest horror authors.
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Anchor Bay Entertainment gives us a look inside the man behind the mask in "DINNER WITH LEATHERFACE"
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Months after making the rounds on the festival circuit, including the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival and Cannes, Ryan J. Sloan’s debut feature “Gazer" is finally coming to the big screen this April. The stylish mystery stars Ariella Mastroianni (who co-wrote the film with Sloan) as a mother who gets in over her head trying to protect her daughter. Oh, and she perceives time differently than the rest of us. Piece of cake, right?
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A dead woman stares at us, as she lies flat on her back in the middle of a babbling brook. Opening credits play over her as she sings a jaunty, but melancholy tune about life. We don’t know who she is or how she got there, but it’s not a far leap to assume she’s the titular “Lizzie Lazarus.” It’s a compelling way to start a film, but writer director Aviv Rubinstein isn’t making a musical. What follows, however, is surprisingly theatrical.
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Last year, when everyone and their hotter, younger selves were praising “The Substance,” another excellent body horror film swept the film festival circuit. From New Zealand director Sasha Rainbow, comes “Grafted,” which finally gets a US release this week on Shudder. Her candy-coated fable, about a lonely outsider trying to assimilate (in more ways than one) was one of my favorite films of last year. Rainbow talked to Macabre Daily about the making of the film, and how she “graduated” from shorts to her first feature. Check it out!
Read MoreThe following films are in no particular order, but they’re my favorites. As of this writing, I still haven’t seen “Heretic,” “Red Rooms,” or “Terrifer 3,” but I stand by my list. Pitchforks up!
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Earlier this year I spoke to Clay McLeod Chapman about his previous book, “What Kind of Mother,” a gothic tale of grief and the horror it can produce. It was a spirited chat, despite the dark subject matter, and Chapman is always fun to talk to. Speaking to him in the same café just weeks after the 2024 election, the vibe was different. We were in a jovial mood, but in order to discuss his newest work “Wake Up and Open Your Eyes,” you have to talk about the big orange elephant in the room.
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Every entry in the “In Search of Darkness” series is a whole lot of documentary. From David A. Weiner, the fourth, and latest epic, “In Search of Darkness: 1990-1994” is no exception, clocking in at just over 6 hours. For fans of these sprawling retrospectives and the films contained within, we can’t get enough. So how does the latest entry stack up to the previous three when finally exiting the 80’s? Matt and I have recorded our review below.:
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There just aren't enough Thanksgiving horror movies. Eli Roth might have gotten the ball rolling, but Clarke Wolfe is keeping it going with her latest project “Fiendsgiving.” Wolfe is writing and directing, but sharing producing duties with Samm Levine, who stars as Xander, a douchey tech bro who encounters a masked maniac dubbed “The Gobbler.” Who will survive, and will there be any leftovers? Well, that’s where you come in…
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Two hundred years ago, the Swedish island of Svälta descended into starvation and cannibalism. Today, the islanders hold the annual festival of Karantän as a memorial, and oddly, a celebration. They even put on a play featuring historical reenactments along with giant, scary masks and bloodshed. So, naturally, the bumbling Richard (Nick Frost) decides to vacation there with his family. Such is the setup of “Get Away,” a new horror comedy from IFC Films.
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The Brooklyn Horror Society holds weekly film screenings and monthly trivia nights at the Lucky 13 Saloon in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn. They’ve recently partnered with The Twisted Spine, New York City’s first bookstore devoted to horror, to launch “Dark Sparks,” a speaker series where a horror author does a reading from their latest book, before introducing a movie of their choice.
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Without casting aspersions on the readers of Macabre Daily, I’m going to assume most of us have had a very stressful few months, to say nothing of the past decade. The 2024 election is another brick in the wall that’s sending shockwaves through America. We’ve already been divided by cable news, social media grifters, and our own lesser angels, so what could possibly be next? “Wake Up and Open Your Eyes,” the terrifying new novel from Clay McLeod Chapman, explores what happens when a malevolent force exploits a fragile populace. You know, fiction.
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Movies about horny vampires are a dime a dozen. The sex and death metaphors that link to vampirism are well-trodden territory by now, but it’s nice to know that vampires can get bored, too. But as we’ve seen before, horniness and boredom can lead to dangerous places, especially when dealing with creatures of the night. Writer/Director Dallas King explores this, as well as the bodies of his cast in DREAD’s latest vampire flick “Swap.” This ain’t no white elephant party.
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Has there ever been a film featuring true crime fanatics who DON’T wind up terrorized by what they’re after? Maybe they could fall in love and open a detective agency. That’s definitely not the premise of “Overkill,” the new gripping horror thriller from writer-director George Kaplan (“Abduction: The Harvesting”) about the danger of obsession and of course, a killer wearing a frightening mask.
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Julian Maury and Alexandre Bustillo are the xenomorphs of horror directors. The duo attach themselves to a subgenre, exploring its corners almost to the fullest, in order to make a film rooted in a given category, while maintaining their own identities as filmmakers. They’ve tackled home invasions (“Inside”), vampires (“Livide”), coming-of-age horror (“Among the Living”), and even an underwater haunted house film (“The Deep House”). But no matter which sandbox they play in, you know a Maury/Bustillo joint when you see it. Their latest is “The Soul Eater,” a procedural that ventures into some of their darkest territory yet.
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For the record, I’m an absolute sucker for horror documentaries. There’s no reality in which I wasn’t going to love “Generation Terror,” the latest from Phillip Escott and Sarah Appleton “The Found Footage Phenomenon”), exploring the state of horror at the turn of the millennium. If anything, I wanted it to be longer.
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The recipient of the Bronze Audience award at this year’s Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, “Bone Lake” is an erotic thriller about the worst ways to prove your love. The film’s four characters comprise two couples who accidentally book the same lake house for the weekend. They decide to make the best of it, but things don’t go as planned, leading to mind games and a gleefully bloody finale. I spoke with director Mercedes Bryce Morgan, as well as stars Marco Pigossi (Diego), Alex Roe (Will), and Andra Nechita (Cin) about collaboration, improv, and one of the most crowd-pleasing finales of the year.
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