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2009 | 2008

1-20 of 47 articles from 2009   « Prev | Next »

Top 10 Horror Films of 2009

22 October 2009 2:08 AM, PDT | SoundOnSight | See recent SoundOnSight news »

1- The Children The concept of killer kids is nothing new, but The Children can safely join the list of great horror movies like The Omen, Home Movie, The Exorcist, The Innocents and Village of the Damned. The film is directed by Tom Shankland who also adapted the script form a story by Paul Andrew Williams the director and writer of London to Brighton and The Cottage. Shankland delivers a simple film, with a simple set up and a simple pay off. What’s not simple are his sublime directorial flourishes. Shankland might add a few jump scares, but avoids genre clichés and wisely chooses an effective slow burn. The journey is unnerving, relentless, packed with suspense with a terrifying and brutal atmosphere. Easily one of the best horror films of the decade and destined to become a Brit Classic. Listen to our review from podcast #140 [1] 2- The Loved Ones Sean Byrne’s debut feature, »

- Ricky

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The Children Blu-ray Review

19 October 2009 1:06 PM, PDT | TheHDRoom | See recent TheHDRoom news »

The cover for Lionsgate's The Children (2009) touts that it is "From The Makers of The Evil Dead Trilogy," so I was expecting Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, Spiderman, Drag Me to Hell) attached as a producer or in some similar capacity. While the acclaimed director had nothing to do with the actual making of the movie, he and longtime collaborator/producer, Rob Tapert, are responsible for singling out efforts from the horror genre they deem worthy of a wider audience through their Ghost House Underground label.

All I knew going into this independent UK flick was from the synopsis on the back cover. Two families gather in a secluded house in the English backcountry for a low key Christmas celebration when a "flu-like" virus infects the four young children causing them to turn deadly. Mayhem ensues and stress builds as the parents fight to survive while trying to figure out exactly what is going on and, »

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[DVD Review] The Children

18 October 2009 8:00 PM, PDT | JustPressPlay.net | See recent JustPressPlay news »

I wanted to hate this movie, I really did; in fact, the first thing I did before I even watched the thing was brainstorm some high-larious jokes regarding the hokey tag line, which solemnly reads, "You brought them into this world...they'll take you out." How pleased I was with myself, chuckling quietly as I armed myself with a veritable battalion of besmirching, scathingly funny material. What a fool I was. All of that haughty posturing quickly slipped away after I got about half an hour into the film and was promptly Drop-kicked In The Face With Nausea-inducing Terror.

We're all familiar with the concept of creepy killer kids. It's done entirely too often (Joshua, The Good Son, Orphan, Children of the Corn, Village of the Damned) and only rarely is it done well (The Bad Seed, The Omen, Pet Sematary). Luckily, The Children manages to hold up amongst the best, »

- Inna Mkrtycheva

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Blu-Ray Review: ‘Ghost House Underground Four Film Collection’ Offers Few Chills

12 October 2009 8:07 PM, PDT | HollywoodChicago.com | See recent HollywoodChicago.com news »

Chicago – It’s always nice to see world-famous filmmakers raising awareness about work from their lesser known peers. Where would Eli Roth be without Quentin Tarantino, or Neill Blomkamp be without Peter Jackson, or Danny McBride and Jody Hill be without the better half of Hollywood’s comedy titans? That’s why it’s nice to see “Evil Dead” creators Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert “hand pick” the indie horror films they admire, and then assist in their distribution.

Overall Blu-Ray Rating: 2.5/5.0

Raimi and Tapert’s “Ghost House Underground” series began last year with a collection of eight features that included the exuberant zombie satire “Dance of the Dead.” This year’s collection has shrunk to four features, none of which are as fun or memorable as last year’s “Dance.” Only one film manages to satisfy, while the other three vary in their degrees of mediocrity and failure. Let »

- adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)

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Rapid Fire: Trick 'R Treat, The Children, The Shortcut

11 October 2009 12:45 PM, PDT | Fangoria | See recent Fangoria news »

This past week a handful of standout DVD's hit the streets including the highly anticipated Trick 'R Treat and the Ghost House Pictures shocker The Children. A few disjointed films also hit the public market, but I'll steer clear of those duds for the time being and share some insight into some worthwhile cinema.

Trick 'R Treat focuses on four separate Halloween tales that all intersect ala a Tarantino script structure. There's plenty of vengeful ghosts, sexy lycanthropes and odd ball creatures to keep the goose bumps surfacing. Also involved in the story is a father who could use some serious parenting lessons, unless of course his ultimate goal is to raise homicidal maniacs, in which case - kudos to him, he's doing a damn fine job.

One of the beautiful things about this picture is how smoothly Michael Dougherty (who wrote and directed the picture) ties each tale together. »

- no-reply@fangoria.com (Matt Molgaard)

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Children of the Corn (2009)

7 October 2009 8:22 PM, PDT | SoundOnSight | See recent SoundOnSight news »

Children of The Corn Directed by Donald P. Borchers In what's being marketed as a "rebirth," Children of the Corn revisits the 80's classic that spawned 6 sequels and countless amounts of children to fear those long weekends in the country.  There's a trend happening again in the Horror genre. A trend that makes a strong case that children are complete creeps.  Not only are they capable of being annoying little brats but it seems that in every town, city, county or home, there's at least one twisted little monster, who in between playing with Trouble the pop-omatic bubble game dreams of popping your skull open and feasting upon the meat of your brain. Word of advice: Don't have kids and don't trust kids, they'll just try to kill you.  Children of the Corn, if anything, reaffirms these wise words as well as gives us the much needed visceral satisfaction of brutal violence towards kiddies, »

- Detroit

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Exclusive Interview: 'Seventh Moon' Director Eduardo Sanchez

7 October 2009 11:23 AM, PDT | FEARnet | See recent FEARnet news »

Yesterday we brought you our exclusive interview with Tom Shankland, writer/director of the kids-gone-bad creepfest The Children, just one of four new Ghost House Underground titles to hit store shelves this week. Today we have an exclusive chat with Eduardo Sánchez (The Blair Witch Project) writer/director of Ghost House Underground's Seventh Moon (starring Tim Chiou and Amy Smart). Check out our full interview with Eduardo below. FEARnet: Where did the inspiration for Seventh Moon come from, is it a real Chinese myth? Sanchez: Me wanting to make a chase film, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Originally it was gonna take place here, where I live in Maryland. I live in a rural area in Maryland. I just... »

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DVD Review: Ghost House Underground 4-Pack

7 October 2009 1:55 AM, PDT | Rope of Silicon | See recent Rope Of Silicon news »

I wasn't sure what to make of the stack of Ghost House Underground DVD releases. While I tend to be a fan of B-horror movies, there's a fine line between a bad-good one (something like say Wrong Turn 2) and just a flat-out bad-bad one (like another sequel, the unwatchable Lake Placid 2). The balance between absurdity, nonsense and gore has to be just right, and if it is even just a tiny bit off any chance of enjoyment is thrown out the window as quickly as a bloody severed head.

As for an outright good one? I tend not to hold my breath on that front. Just look at those continuing After Dark Horrorfest releases. I can think of maybe one or two of those (2008's The Broken, 2006's Wicked Little Things) that I can admit to having enjoyed, and as far as Ghost House Underground has been concerned »

- Sara Michelle Fetters

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Sitges '09: My Sitges Story - Part 3

6 October 2009 12:33 PM, PDT | Fangoria | See recent Fangoria news »

Monday, October 5

I begin my first full week at the Sitges film festival (see last entry here) with a leisurely stroll into town. Several vendors hawking horror T-shirts and posters have set up shop outside the fest’s Brigadoon theater (where non-competition and video screenings are free for the locals), serving as a sort of mini-convention.

Two movies are on the agenda today. First up at the plush Auditori Melia is the Belgian/Canadian/French/German co-production Mr. Nobody, an excellent fantasy/quasi-sci-fi film that pretty much defies easy classification and synopsis. Urban Legend’s Jared Leto (never better) stars as a 117-year-old man (in totally convincing old age makeup), who, we are told, is the last mortal man alive on the Earth of 2092, where people now live forever. Gradually, the complexities of his back story are revealed as we experience multiple storylines of at least three different histories the character may have lived. »

- no-reply@fangoria.com (Tony Timpone)

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Exclusive Interview: Tom Shankland's 'The Children'

6 October 2009 12:07 PM, PDT | FEARnet | See recent FEARnet news »

Four Ghost House Underground titles hit store shelves today including writer/director Tom Shankland's The Children. While The Children has been making the festival rounds for a while (and has hit DVD in other countries) this is the first chance that Us audiences will have to experience Shankland's unassumingly creepy film in the discomfort of their own home. It's a nasty little tale about a snowbound family with a group of kids that go very, very bad. The Children is definitely recommended viewing and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to sit with Tom and discuss his love of all things horror and what it's like to tackle one of the most taboo cinematic subjects around. Hit the jump for our full... »

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Excl: The Children 's Tom Shankland

6 October 2009 | shocktillyoudrop.com | See recent shocktillyoudrop news »

Children can be absolutely terrifying. The problem is, there hasn't been a decent "killer kid" movie that I can think of since the '70s or early '80s. Until The Children , that is. Blistering with tension, this import finally arrives on DVD via Lionsgate's Ghost House Underground after a run in England last winter. Writer-director Tom Shankland gave me a call recently for a candid discussion about the film's origins, parental instincts and the production. Ryan Rotten: Paul Andrew Williams told me this was based on a short story of his. Tom Shankland: He original wrote a script called "Miria" which I think is an anagram of "Raimi." It was a first draft of a zombie kid movie where a comet passes over a family holiday and the kids start... »

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Fantastic Fest 09: Fear The Children

5 October 2009 9:24 AM, PDT | Fangoria | See recent Fangoria news »

You might want to re-think having kids after seeing the British horror film The Children, directed by Tom Shankland. It’s certainly the best advertisement for contraception ever committed to celluloid, firmly moving past former reigning champion of the terrorizing-tots subgenre Devil Times Five (1975), starring Leif Garrett. In fact, it’s a note-perfect and, dare I say, masterful entry into the genre as a whole and one of the clear standouts at this year’s Fantastic Fest.

The idyllic Norman Rockwell-esque house where a pair of charming young British families go to spend quality time together over the Christmas holidays is slowly revealed to be a ruse of sorts, as we start to see their relationships play out on screen. Once their kids begin exhibiting strange behavior, screaming wildly and grabbing the nearest sharp objects, the character dynamics play out in an unexpected ways as the strangeness suddenly turns to tragedy. »

- no-reply@fangoria.com (Drew Tinnin)

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It's Ghost House Underground mega review time!

4 October 2009 3:40 PM, PDT | QuietEarth.us | See recent QuietEarth news »

You know it's getting close to Halloween when Sam Raimi's Ghost House Underground label unleashes a whole new wave of indie acquisitions on the horror community. Not sure why, after last year's run of eight titles, the label decided to release only four this year, but when the offerings are this fun who really cares, right?

As usual with these types of multi-film releases, we've just not got the time to give each of he flicks full reviews before they street, so this four piece mega-review will have to do.

Tuck into the horrors of The Thaw, The Children, Offspring and Seventh Moon after the break!

***

Title: The Thaw

Year: 2009

Director: Mark A. Lewis

Writer: Mark A. Lewis

IMDb: link

Trailer: link

Amazon: Purchase

Review by: agentorange

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

The Thaw is an effective little eco creature-feature from Canada. It's about a badass prehistoric parasite that gets re-introduced »

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Exclusive Microvideo for The Children

29 September 2009 11:21 AM, PDT | Fangoria | See recent Fangoria news »

Lionsgate Home Entertainment gave Fango an exclusive advance peek at a Ghost House Underground Microvideo from the DVD and Blu-ray of The Children, one of four new chillers it’s releasing on both formats under the Ghost House banner October 6. The clip is a montage from the movie set to the song “The Great Divide” by female-fronted hard rock band In This Moment; you can see it below.

The Children, directed by Waz/The Killing Gene’s Tom Shankland, is set in the British countryside at Christmastime, when two families’ celebration turns bloody as their young kids inexplicably turn murderous. The other Ghost House titles are Andrew van den Houten’s Offspring, Eduardo Sanchez’s Seventh Moon and Mark A. Lewis’ The Thaw, all with commentaries, featurettes and/or other special features. Check out our rave review of The Children here and pick up Fango #287, now on sale, for an »

- no-reply@fangoria.com (Michael Gingold )

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Fantastic Fest Review: Tom Shankland's The Children

28 September 2009 5:47 PM, PDT | firstshowing.net | See recent FirstShowing.net news »

Another surprise delight I discovered at Fantastic Fest is Tom Shankland's The Children, a horror-thriller from England. I've been waiting to find out what this year's Let the Right One In would be (since that I saw that film at Fantastic Fest last year). While this film isn't exactly that incredible, it's one of my favorites of the festival (so far) along with Mandrill. The Children is, in short, about a group of children who go crazy and start killing their parents. Shankland takes everything to the next level, though, even though he doesn't need to, from the great performances young and old to the thrilling story to the beautiful cinematography. Two families meet up at a country estate to celebrate the winter holidays together. One of the families has two young kids, the other has three, one of which is a teenage daughter, the other two as young »

- Alex Billington

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Fangoria to be celebrated at Spain’s Sitges film fest

24 September 2009 9:52 PM, PDT | Fangoria | See recent Fangoria news »

The 30th anniversary of Fangoria magazine will be honored at a special panel to be held at the 42nd edition of Spain’s prestigious Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia,  to be held October 1-12. Longtime Fango editor Tony Timpone will be attending, joined by British correspondents Alan Jones, Calum Waddell and Axelle Carolyn, as well as Italian correspondent Roberto D’Onofrio. The Fango salute will take place on Sunday, Oct. 4 at 5 p.m. in the Tramuntana Room at the Meliá Hotel.

“For the last 30 years, Fangoria has been the cornerstone of the Sitges program’s diet,” says festival director Angel Sala, “the number-one source of information to feed the bowels of the beast. Fango has been the written witness of the horror scene around the world for over three decades. Sitges can only bow and pay due respect with a celebration for the fans.”

“The panel will be »

- no-reply@fangoria.com (Fangoria.com)

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Sitges 2009 Complete Lineup

19 September 2009 12:48 AM, PDT | SoundOnSight | See recent SoundOnSight news »

The Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia announces its complete program. There are still a few surprises to be confirmed, like the closing gala, but they have already put together the final list of films that will be screened at Sitges 09. Below you’ll find the titles of each film and their sections as well as links for the films that we have already reviewed here on Sound On Sight. Opening Film [Rec]2. Paco Plaza and Jaume Balagueró. 2009. Official FANTÀSTIC In Competition Section Accident. Soi Cheang. 2009. Accidents Happen. Andrew Lancaster. 2009. The Children. Tom Shankland. 2008. [1] Cold Souls. Sophie Bartes. 2009. The Countess. Julie Delpy. 2009. Les Derniers Jours Du Monde. Jean-Marie and Arnaud Larrieu. 2009. Dogtooth (Kynodontas). Yorgos Lanthimos. 2009. Dorian Gray. Oliver Parker. 2009. Enter The Void. Gaspar Noé. 2009. Grace. Paul Solet. 2009. [2] Heartless. Philip Ridley. 2009. Hierro. Gabe Ibáñez. 2009. La Horde. Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher. 2009. Ingrid. Eduard Cortés. 2009. Kinatay. Brillante Mendoza. 2009. Metropia. Tarik Saleh. 2009. Moon. »

- Ricky

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Sitges 09: And the full lineup includes...

12 September 2009 1:14 AM, PDT | QuietEarth.us | See recent QuietEarth news »

The full lineup has been announced, and among the load of genre fare that's been running the fest circuit are the world premiers of:

Vincenzo Natali's latest, Splice, which we're all excited about.

Simon Fellows twisted adaptation Malice in Wonderland (trailer)

Along some of our personal favorites:

Black Dynamite (friggin awesome)

Swiss scifi flick Cargo (trailer)

Pater Sparrow's incredible Stanislaw Lem adaptation 1 (review)

The Mo Brothers Indonesian slasher Macabre (review)

Atm (get it?) horror-comedy The Human Centipede (review)

Full list after the break.

Opening Film

[Rec]2. Paco Plaza and Jaume Balagueró. 2009.

Official FANTÀSTIC In Competition Section

Accident. Soi Cheang. 2009.

Accidents Happen. Andrew Lancaster. 2009.

The Children. Tom Shankland. 2008.

Cold Souls. Sophie Bartes. 2009.

The Countess. Julie Delpy. 2009.

Les Derniers Jours Du Monde. Jean-Marie and Arnaud Larrieu. 2009.

Dogtooth (Kynodontas). Yorgos Lanthimos. 2009.

Dorian Gray. Oliver Parker. 2009.

Enter The Void. Gaspar Noé. 2009.

Grace. Paul Solet. 2009.

Heartless. Philip Ridley. 2009.

Hierro. Gabe Ibáñez. 2009.

La Horde. Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher. »

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Tadff 09:  The Children Review

19 August 2009 3:58 PM, PDT | Twitch | See recent Twitch news »

[Todd has a very different take of the film and we’re playing dueling reviews.  Read his review here.]

“You brought them into this world. Now ... They will take you out” is the, frankly pretty awesome, marketing hook on the British juvenile-slasher film The Children.  I choose my words carefully because the film is on the whole rather immature; being more giddy for set-piece kills over storytelling and characterization.  I am quite amazed how it is earned a reputation for being “scary.”  Tom Shankland and company have a eye for technical detail yet one too many establishing shots expose the episodic, plotted around kill ‘money shots’ nature of the piece.  The film is so eager to please in a 1980s Freddy/Jason kinda way that it squanders a really good idea on the cheapest form of horror-thrills.  Nevertheless the picture is shot with a talented eye and for the most part the acting and setting is well established. 

»

- Kurt Halfyard

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TADFF09:  The Children Review

19 August 2009 3:32 PM, PDT | Twitch | See recent Twitch news »

[Kurt and I have very differing opinions on this one and we’re playing dueling reviews.  Read his take here.]

Ah, children.  They’re sweetness and light and all the good things about life.  Too bad they can also be heartless, amoral bastards with no sense of consequence or finality who are willing to do just about anything when it suits them.  These things are both true. Guess which side of the coin the titular characters of Tom Shankland’s The Children fall on?  Without doubt one of the big buzz titles on the genre circuit over the past year thanks to its combination of technical chops and gratuitous violence, Shankland’s film made its first Toronto appearance yesterday, playing to a large and rowdy house at the Toronto After Dark festival.

»

- Todd Brown

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2009 | 2008

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