Vicious Fun is a Playful and Bloodsoaked Homage to 80s Slashers

Vicious Fun is a Playful and Bloodsoaked Homage to 80s Slashers

Vicious Fun, the latest horror hit from writer and director Cody Calahan, is one of those rare movies that actually lives up to its title for the most part. Soaked in 80s neon colors and backed by a synth heavy score from Steph Copeland, Vicious Fun is a blood-splattered and comedic homage to slasher films of old, one with a sharp wit and a cast that’s more than game for the gory shenanigans.

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Awake is an Intense Reinvigoration of the Disaster Genre

Awake is an Intense Reinvigoration of the Disaster Genre

TAwake is a disaster movie with an interesting sci-fi hook, wherein a mysterious event shuts down all electronics (car batteries and the like included). However, worse than that, people are no longer able to fall asleep. This sets up the usual “civilization starts to break down” apocalyptic mayhem, but with the twist that everyone is quickly losing their minds from sleep deprivation and will die in a matter of days.

hat’s a fun enough premise on its own, and writer/director Mark Raso delivers on the thrills by staging genuinely harrowing scenes–usually shot as one-takes–that have a true intensity to them. Taking a page from Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men, the film has a pair of gripping, long-take action sequences (a couple of which are even set in cars) and others filled with a quieter sort of tension where characters try to sneak around avoiding the notice of others. There’s a real viscerality to the entire film that’s impossible not to admire.

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Caveat is Creepy, Suspenseful and Unpredictable

Caveat is Creepy, Suspenseful and Unpredictable

Caveat is a standard low-budget horror setup: it has a minimal cast of only three people and takes place almost entirely in a single location – a spooky house of hidden and not-so-hidden horrors where things go bump in the night and strange noises echo through the halls.

But writer and director Damian McCarthy – who also serves as his own editor and production designer – quickly establishes a uniquely forbidding aesthetic and atmosphere all his own.

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A Quiet Place Part II Has More Monsters and More Nerve-Busting Tension

A Quiet Place Part II Has More Monsters and More Nerve-Busting Tension

2018’s A Quiet Place wasn’t the first movie to use clever sound design (or lack thereof) as both a stylistic choice and a crucial part of the narrative, but it did apply it in a way that gave it blockbuster appeal.

Part post-apocalyptic survival tale and part monster flick, the film gave audiences uniquely tense thrills and showed star and director John Krasinski’s prowess as a filmmaker. As sequel’s tend to do, this year’s A Quiet Place Part II ramps everything up a notch, with new characters, more monsters and a larger scale.

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