Cinefantastique Online

Here is where you will find all posts related to the Horror genre: movies, television, music, books, and home video

Don't Go in the… Never Mind: Sarah Paxton (left) and Pat Healy probe where novice ghost hunters shouldn't probe in THE INNKEEPERS.
There are compelling reasons why, when traveling, one should skip the chain lodgings and stay at one of America’s classic hotels. There’s the friendly and courteous staff, the opportunity to experience a [...]

We Blame Slytherin: Daniel Radcliffe unearths the secret of a hostile spirit in THE WOMAN IN BLACK.
The balmy days of February have triggered an uncommon sense of renewal, nowhere more so than in the cinema, where, after a customarily dismal January (we’re looking at you, THE DEVIL INSIDE), there now come glimmers of hope in [...]

Not Your Typical Hit: Pro assassins find themselves in over their heads in KILL LIST.
What starts out as common, garden-variety crime thriller turns… bizarre, and then frightening, in director Ben Wheatley’s twisty new film, KILL LIST. The tale of middle class hit-man Jay (Neil Maskell), who with colleague Gal (Michael Smiley) goes [...]

You May Feel a Burning Sensation: Brittania Nicol discovers the secrets of THE WICKER TREE.
A story as relevant as yesterday’s headlines, or too late a tale? Some thirty years ago, Cinefantastique hailed Robin Hardy’s THE WICKER MAN as “the CITIZEN KANE of horror,” lauding the Anthony Shaffer-scripted story of a god-fearing police detective trying  to [...]

Deal Me Some Death, Baby: Kate Beckinsale does even more of what she does in UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING.
The UNDERWORLD franchise’s relentless, death-dealing vampire, Selene (Kate Beckinsale), goes under ice at the beginning of UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING, and so does most of the series’ political intrigue, swapping out the power struggles from the previous entries in favor of [...]

Mother and Child Reunion?: Fernanda Andrade (top) learns the risks of reconnecting with Suzan Crowley in THE DEVIL INSIDE.
What kind of film is worthy of the sacrificial lamb slot that is the first release of January? What sort of slipshod storytelling does it take for audience members to start hurling epithets at the screen as [...]

Whatever the merits of the film might turn out to be, this GHOSTRIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE trailer is worth a look.

The Christmas season is upon us, and as we have had occasion to mention, that means ghosts and spirits. And what greater Christmas ghost story is there than Charles Dickens’ A CHRISTMAS CAROL? That is the subject of this week’s Cinefantastique Round Table Podcast: Dan Persons, guest John W. Morehead (of Theofantastique.com), and Steve Biodrowski [...]

2011: Definitely a good year for aliens. They waylaid a couple of fanboys, staged a showdown with cowboys, wrecked a tween’s film project, invaded LA, twice (must be the universal lure of In-N-Out Burger) — yessir, if you had more than four limbs and a palate for human flesh, you had a home in theaters [...]

This 1896 black-and-white silent horror film from George Melies (the special effects pioneer behind 1902’s A TRIP TO THE MOON) probably yields little gooseflesh for today’s viewers. However, it plays like an overture for the next forty years of horror movie imagery; its brief running time encapsulates such soon-to-be-familiar cinema imagery as old dark castles; [...]

X-MEN/SUPERMAN RETURNS director to make 60’s sitcom as… an hour-long drama?

STAR WARS is back again – this time on home video – and a look at the 1977 original reminds Cinefantastique Podcasters Lawrence French, Dan Persons, and Steve Biodrowski that, despite having been retitled A NEW HOPE, the first film still works best as a stand-alone original, not as part four in an on-going franchise [...]

Despite a trailer that features Santa Claus being shot out of the sky, a stop-motion animated sequence, a baby so stoned that it can crawl on the ceiling, and Neil Patrick Harris insisting he’s straight, we weren’t secure enough in A VERY HAROLD & KUMAR 3D CHRISTMAS’ genre bona-fides to dedicate an entire episode to [...]