2016
THE WITCH
4 out of 5 stars
The atmosphere & soundtrack is chilling enough,but the paranoia & pure evil that runs through the family shakes their faith & shakes your nerves. Director Robert Eggers spawns more of a psychological than horror film where he lets terror dilatorily devour the screen.
10 CLOVERFIELD LANE
4 out of 5 stars
Supported with an impressive trio of talent, this rare, remarkable thriller hides behind mystery & delivers the unexpected. Clever while jacked up on intensity, it rejuvenates the genre by being captivating, disquieting, & catching you completely off guard.
THE PURGE: ELECTION YEAR
1.5 out of 5 stars
Its politics are meant to stir, but instead, get buried under senseless action & cartoonish gimmicks w/ dumb masks playing into laughable “scares”. There’s not a drop of blood left in these messy massacre movies.
THE INVITATION
4.5 out of 5 stars
This remarkable tension-filled film is cleverly mastered by walking a thin line between skepticism & paranoia. The sweltering eeriness & dread becomes almost unbearable in the most vital way possible. A superior psychological treat.
BLAIR WITCH
2 out of 5 stars
The sequel tries to be current & effective, but what worked phenomenally back in 1999, doesn’t quite startle you in 2016. It turns to the same old tricks, followed by stale scares.
GREEN ROOM
4 out of 5 stars
It’ll be tough to not look away, but do your best to endure this ruthless, unapologetic thriller that builds up from an unnerving atmosphere into a spinning wheel of brutality. Though simple, the meticulous directing & sensationally unstable performances make you incapable of forgetting this ferocious film.
LIGHTS OUT
3 out of 5 stars
Believable, hypnotic performances w/ truly spine-chilling moments lift this horror movie scrabbling to make a lot out of a little. Total credit to the director for keeping it lean & brisk.
DON’T BREATHE
3.5 out of 5 stars
A searing home invasion movie w/ a simple concept but a lot to offer. It puts you in a chokehold of tense, nerve-racking moments where the silence makes you sweat the most.
OUIJA: ORIGINS OF EVIL
3.5 out of 5 stars
Flowing w/ true scares,this well-crafted prequel cleverly applies the precise amount of chills from scene to scene to give you a real treat this Halloween.
2017
IT COMES AT NIGHT
3.5 out of 5 stars
Two surviving families trying not to get sick is just the setup to this skin-tingling film. Beyond the bolted red door, the unknown lingers & how can anyone prepare for that? This is a bare-boned, tension-boiling glare at an attempt to keep living life as it struggles to exist.
GET OUT
4 out of 5 stars
Peele’s darkly funny, tense, and ingenuous horror film is a daring one, but he ain’t scared. Energized by critiques of our culture, the terror comes ripping through, as does the notice of one’s skin color.
THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS
3 out of 5 stars
Being gory is not its thing, yet falling into the same tiring cliches shouldn’t be either. Still, this is a more thoughtful zombie flick that focuses on the evolution of the undead, the creation of a new civilization. The flesh-eating isn’t all for nothing.
LITTLE EVIL
1 out of 5 stars
Dopiness runs deep in this comedy-horror mashup that’s neither funny nor scary. A demon kid & his step-father trying to get along is something that NETFLIX should’ve told to go straight to hell.
SPLIT
3.5 out of 5 stars
M. Night’s best since The Village. He slowly turns back to form with this mind-bender that’s maniacal, providing a stellar showcase for McAvoy’s multiple roles. The real terror is never knowing what he’s fully capable of.
RESIDENT EVIL:
THE FINAL CHAPTER
1.5 out of 5 stars
This post-apocalyptic franchise is finally dead. That’s really the only thing to celebrate about this loud, obnoxious final installment. Fugly creatures and the undead can finally rest easy. Their massacre became insipid long ago.
GERALD’S GAME
3.5 out of 5 stars
A phenomenal psychological thriller that’s twisted, traumatic, & tough. With a stirring performance by Gugino & solid storytelling by director Flanagan, they turn King’s strenuous story of survival into a haunting victory.
A CURE FOR WELLNESS
2.5 out of 5 stars
Verbinski concocts a slick psychological thriller, spreading crazy, suspicion, & creepiness. And then the truth about the cure sours the entire experience, wishing you never took a sip of this twisted drink. It won’t quench your thirst for great mystery & suspense.
RAW
3 out of 5 stars
This daring, disturbing French horror film has real bite thanks to a deliciously demented performance by Marillier. Still, the inner lining themes of exploring female transformation & experimenting w/ who you are & want to be are crippled due to all of the meaty madness.
THE LURE
3 out of 5 stars
It defies any genre you could ever dream of. A foreign horror comedy mermaid musical is beyond ambitious, but it makes one intriguing, spirited splash. These ladies can swim,seduce, & their bite leaves a vicious mark.
PERSONAL SHOPPER
2.5 out of 5 stars
An unusual, immersing ghost story, until the shifts in tone scare its artful smarts away. Sadly, capturing chilling moments becomes a disappearing act in the process. Yet Stewart is compelling, being haunted from the inside out. Her Twilight days are undeniably dead & gone.
THE BABYSITTER
3.5 out of 5 stars
If Home Alone had barrels of blood & Satanism, it would be this juvenile but japing horror movie that’s gifted w/ a clearly aware, all-in cast. There’s a touching tale about growing up if you can make it through the madness where you don’t know whether to scream or laugh.
LIFE
2.5 out of 5 stars
It’s not terrible, but the horror factor & ending doesn’t shock. We’ve seen it done bigger & better by directors Carpenter & Scott. There are glimpses of something original, but this sci-fi creature feature won’t be remembered.
ALIEN: COVENANT
3 out of 5 stars
A slick sci-fi film w/ customary scares we’ve come to expect in this saga, along w/ some stupidity it just can’t shake. The philosophical themes are there, but incapable of bursting through the grisliness of the creation of the xenomorph. Still, Waterston kicks ass & Fassbender is dynamite at being devilish.
A DARK SONG
2 out of 5 stars
There’s an unsettling, eerie atmosphere that consumes this small horror film about a mother wanting to talk to her dead son, but where’s the scares?! As deranged as it gets w/ all of the preparation & waiting, the finale doesn’t nearly reward us for our generous patience.
THE DEVIL’S CANDY
3.5 out of 5 stars
A delectably demented horror film that isn’t afraid to dance w/ the devil. It brings style & ear-deafening heavy metal music to a wild tale of possession.
DEATH NOTE
1.5 out of 5 stars
The style & violence can’t change this from coming off as a cheap horror flick that’s being crammed w/ crapola. Dafoe’s voice coming out of a demon is the only cool thing going on & it shouldn’t be.
A GHOST STORY
3.5 out of 5 stars
This will haunt you,just not in the way you may think. A poetic, poignant film about how you move on from love & loss. It definitely requires patience, & director David Lowery’s ambition may seem to get in the way periodically; but his tale of time & how we exist through it quietly allures anyone willing to stick w/ it.
1922
3.5 out of 5 stars
Masculinity results to murder & regret in a dense yet uneasy head trip from the mind of Stephen King. Jane is fantastic a
s a man being buried by inescapable guilt, watching his world rot from the inside out.
BETTER WATCH OUT
3 out of 5 stars
There’s no holiday cheer in this demented Christmas movie that begins on familiar terms before spinning into a twisted, unpredictable, & vicious tale of loving someone until it hurts—or kills.
THELMA
3.5 out of 5 stars
Part love story, part supernatural thriller, this unique film’s beauty is within its sneaky mysteries. Director Trier’s approach of keeping us entirely enthralled is by staying quietly haunting even while each event becomes more & more startling. Harboe is incredible as Thelma, a teenage girl growing up while desperately trying to contain something that’s inevitably going to be unleashed.
Brandon Vick is a member of The Music City Film Critics’ Association, the resident film critic of the SoBros Network, and the star of The Vick’s Flicks Podcast. Follow him on Twitter @SirBrandonV and be sure to search #VicksFlicks for all of his latest movie reviews.
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