The Fourth Wall 2.2: Why Did it Have to Be Birds?

I’m back as the Assistant. Who am I assisting? Keep listening to find out!

Listen to the new episode here!

Catch up on previous episodes here!

The Fourth Wall 2.1: Alice Stayed

I’ve never voice acted before, but when my friend Mac Boyle asked me to play a part on his stellar series The Fourth Wall, I jumped at the opportunity. I hate the sound of my voice recorded, so I need you to listen and tell me how it sounds.

Mac’s writing is phenomenal. The series is about an organization that polices the border between our reality and that of the fictional world.

You can hear the first episode I’m in (a brief cameo near the end) here.

You can catch up on previous episodes here.

Portals Brings Together Authentic Voices in Dissonant Keys [Review]

Christopher White’s Portals, an anthology horror film from Bloody Disgusting, is set during a worldwide blackout the day scientists created “the world’s first man-made blackhole.” Cities are being evacuated. There’s chaos in the streets. As everything falls apart, portals start appearing everywhere.

The portal effects are one of the highlights of the film. They’re black rectangles, calling back to the Monoliths from 2001: A Space Odyssey, but they gleam, as if wrapped in cellophane. They shimmer, with lightning bolts flashing across them. The portals can influence the minds of anyone who gets too close. It’s never clear why some people can resist the mind control and others can’t, but the portals wield their power to either get people to come through, or to force others into the portal.

Continue reading at Wicked Horror!

Review of ‘Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Terror Vol. 1’

My review of Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Terror vol. 1 is live at Cyn’s Workshop!

Dementer Gives the Devil his Due [Review]

Dementer opens with a grainy montage. A woman is dancing naked in front of a fire. A distorted voice is babbling. There’s a close up of a dog barking. Another, or maybe the same, woman is being chased through a field by a car. Larry (Larry Fessenden) counts up from 1. Through it all, a coin clangs repeatedly. Larry reaches 13, and the title credits run. The montage lasts for an anxiety inducing two minutes, and director-writer Chad Crawford Kinkle does good work keeping that feeling throughout the film’s eighty-minute runtime.

After the credits, Katie (Katie Groshong), who may be the woman who’d been dancing in front of the fire, interviews for a job at a home for special needs adults, which she gets. The story follows her through her orientation, introducing both Katie and the audience to the clients and her responsibilities. All of this is interspersed with flashbacks to that grainy opening sequence, effectively heralded in by the return of that clanging coin. The juxtaposition of the bright, soothing home with the insanity of her PTSD flashbacks is outstanding.

Continue reading at Wicked Horror!

Ari Aster’s Midsommar is Next Level Horror [Blu-ray Review]

I saw Midsommar on a Wednesday afternoon in a theater with five other people—two duos, and one brave individual. When the credits rolled, the woman sitting by herself approached my friend and I to see if we were okay. She checked on the other pair next. None of us were okay. We walked out into a sun blasted Oklahoma afternoon, and wished it was nighttime. Every person in that theater that afternoon was shook. Ari Aster’s second film, Midsommar, is next level horror.

The film opens with about a minute long shot of a piece of art divided into four seasons, moving from a death skull over a winter all the way to a sun smiling unsettlingly over summer. It’s beyond foreshadowing. It’s a depiction of the film’s entire emotional arc. Aster did something similar in his phenomenal freshman effort, Hereditary, by showing a page of the grandmother’s book explaining what Paimon needed to do to move to a new body. He telegraphs his entire films early on, then lets viewers stew in it.

Continue reading at Wicked Horror!

Everything #2 [Comic Review]

Atmospheric horror is subjective. What makes one person anxious puts another to sleep, as was the case with me and It Comes at Night, though others loved the film. And maybe that’s what’s happening with Christopher Cantwell’s Everything.

Continue reading at Wicked Horror!