Wolf Man (2025)

Leigh Whannell follows up his commercially successful (if creatively bankrupt) The Invisible Man by remaking another classic horror movie for a 21st century audience. Once again, it has to do with toxic men attacking poor defenseless women. This time, one of them just happens to be a loving father.

It essentially tells a small, simple story about a family hunted by a werewolf. Where it succeeds is by slowly building up a dark, brooding atmosphere. Where it falters is by not doing anything different than we've seen before. The original still stands on its own. This one feels sadder, not more scary.

2½ shivers out of 5

The Invisible Man (2020)

A battered women has to deal with her abusive ex-boyfriend who returns to harass her after discovering the secrets of invisibility. You'd think there would be a lot more creative uses for invisibility than torturing your ex, but okay.

Horror movies have always traditionally touched on cultural issues and reflected the times they were made in, but it tends to only be successful when done in a subversive way, not by preaching its agenda to the audience. This film was made at the height of #MeToo and has its sights aimed at abusive high-powered men, which is not immediately the first thing you would expect from this story. I suppose it's a new angle on it, but I hate when a movie gets bogged down by its politics. Almost as if we're supposed to pat ourselves on the back afterwards for agreeing that violence towards women is a bad thing.

2 inexplicable technologies out of 5

COOTIES [2014]

Some movies know they're bad so they decide to run with it and that's where they find their greatest strength.
Directors Jonathan Milott & Cary Murnion's horror-comedy Cooties doesn't quite hit the mark.
An elementary school's students all become infected with a 'zombie' virus and begin chasing after the teachers for an afternoon snack.  This playful gory little film aims for big twisted laughs but mostly it ends up with a lot of groaners and terribly timed one-liners.  The horror elements, although a bit different in setting as most films like this, does nothing to scare or disturb.  If not for the wonderfully entertaining ensemble cast the film would fall even flatter on it's face than it already has.
In short, it's not funny enough to be a comedy or scary enough to be a horror.

2 chicky nuggets out of 5

INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3 [2015]

Leigh Whannell, writer of the first two Insidious films, takes the director's chair for Chapter 3, seeing as James Wan had something faster & furiouser going on.
Serving as a prequel, we're introduced to a new family who contact Lin Shaye's psychic character to rid of the scary ass nasties violently haunting their apartment.  Basically it's the same old song & dance of very effective yet predictable jump scares and creepy shadows that move closer and closer but this time it's given some empathetic heart to make it easier to relate to the story.  Whannell inserts enough humor to give the series a bit of fresh air but that's also a sign of the final nail in the coffin.  It's way more focused than the horribly misguided second film but it doesn't pack the same surprise as the first.  In other words, this is probably the best time to call it a day while it's still somewhat welcome.

2½ "knock-knocks...no one's there" out of 5

INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 2 [2013]

Director James Wan & writer Leigh Whannell reunite for the sequel to their insanely scary 2011 sleeper hit Insidious.
Chapter 2 picks up shortly after the events of the first film so the scares start up so soon it gives the viewer next to no to time to familiarize themselves with the setting or the atmosphere and detracts from the terror quite significantly.  Instead, it relies on cheap, yet effective, jump scares that are almost immediately forgotten about.
It's cheap, predictable, silly and immensely disappointing compared to the first film.
Oh well...at least Wan had The Conjuring this year.

1 set of ouija dice out of 5

DYING BREED [2008]

Dying Breed is a gruesome little Australian horror film from director Jody Dwyer that follows 4 tourists in search of the supposedly extinct Tasmanian Tiger and happen to stumble upon the history of notorious cannibal Alexander Pearce.
It starts off a bit slow but when it finally picks up you realize it was intentional as the horror of the mysteries begin to unravel.  It never really does anything we haven't seen a million times before but the dreary atmosphere of the backwoods of Tasmania makes for a beautiful and frightening effective backdrop.  My biggest complaint is how many times I found myself yelling at the characters "STOP FUCKING SPLITTING UP!"  In the end, I found it to be a so-so crowd pleaser that could have tried just a bit more.

3 bunny heads in a bowl out of 5

DEAD SILENCE [2007]

From Leigh Whannell & James Wan (the guys who made Saw & Insidious) comes this "creepy" homicidal wooden puppet shitfest, Dead Silence.  

I know these guys don't make particularly great films but I was expecting a bit more than this boring, cliched sad excuse for a horror film.  What's nice to know is Whannell & Wan speak poorly of this film too and apologized for what it was.  A studio imagined cash cow that didn't deliver.  

½ Pinocchio is scarier than this out of 5

SAW III [2006]

What a colossal waste of time.

So-so ending. The rest is juvenille, shallow and lacking any sort of substance. For a film that uses death scenes as it's only selling point it fails completely. One death scene was a might bit interesting and the rest were boring and uninspired. It's like some kid came up with them on an internet forum...and upon investigation, that's exactly what the writers did. They used fanboy's fanfic ideas. Wow. Just wow. Fuck this shit.

1 ___ out of 5

SAW [2004]

The first time I saw this film my jaw dropped to the ground and my pants filled with the good stuff at the end of the movie. It was simply quite insane.
As for the rest of the film?
The idea, the scene set-ups and the narrative were actually quite good, enthralling and filled with the necessary tension.
The acting, dialogue and direction were mind-numbingly terrible and for that I have to knock it down a star. Which is a shame because the idea itself is quite brilliant and deserves to be standing next to other classic twisted thrillers like Se7en.
An effective little thriller that could have been so much better with a couple tweaks here and there. Worth watching if you're looking for a sick, fun night in.

3½ reverse bear traps out of 5

INSIDIOUS [2010]

Saw creators James Wan & Leigh Whannell craft a delightfully frightening haunted house story that does it best to avoid the usual cliches in this tired formula.
Rose Byrne continues to impress with her role as the frightened mother while Patrick Wilson is off and on as the distant father. The dialogue is pretty bad and horribly delivered in several spots but doesn't subtract from the insanely intense first half of the film, complimented by a Penderecki-esque score by Joseph Bishara. The second half starts to fall apart due to it's premise getting too silly and a 'villain' that may be the lovechild of Darth Maul and Freddy Krueger.
In the end, Insidious delivers on the scares and that's all I expect from such a film.

3 creeped out baby monitors out of 5