Haunt follows a group of friends decide to enter a mysterious haunted house establishment in the middle of nowhere. Once it becomes clear that the scares have turned deadly (go figure), they must try to find a way to escape with their lives. Haunt Review It's difficult to comprehend why I loved this movie so much. It encompasses a great deal of criticisms I would normally deem weak. It's terribly unoriginal for a majority of its runtime, right through to the incredibly generic title. The characters are standard cookie-cutter figures (sans the lead's decent subplot) and the haunted-house-turned-murder-house synopsis is not only familiar, it's been recently beat to death in the past 5 years or

Eli follows the titular boy and his parents as they try to cure him of a severe auto-immune disorder by taking him to a remote facility built from an old mansion. The boy tries to cope with the hauntings of the building and the mysterious and controversial treatment. Eli Review It's rather convenient that one of the movies we missed at Telluride Horror Show popped up on a streaming service so quickly. We knew Eli was heading to Netflix eventually, but it was nice to see it show up while it was still top-of-mind from the festival. Eli is pretty basic, standard haunted house fare with a twist that seemingly had more potential to be a pertinent tool for scares throughout a story rather than a m

Making Monsters follows a couple who star in their own scare-prank social streaming channel. When an old friend invites them to his rural church-turned-home, they timidly accept the weekend getaway. Upon arriving, they meet their friend's awkward boyfriend and things quickly spiral out of control. Making Monsters Review The Colorado premiere of Making Monsters at Telluride Horror Show was received with applause as the credits rolled, and with good reason. This horror genre mash-up combines a number of modern horror tropes and concepts to bring something truly unique and special. Despite familiarity found in elements of the story's design, the film manages to feel like none of the films of wh

The Wretched When I first saw the preview for The Wretched and we talked about it on the podcast both Sickle and I got extremely excited. We like witch movies as much as the next demon/serial killer but this one seemed special. The witch in The Wretched (directed by The Pierce Brothers) has way more of a feral feel and has the potential to make for an interesting new twist on the genre. When we saw it was playing at Telluride Horror Show I knew I needed to see it. I will just say this now to get it out of the way...this was my favorite film of the festival. The Wretched has us following a young boy name Ben whose parents are going through a divorce. Ben is staying and working with his dad fo

After Midnight After Midnight follows a man who attempts to fend off a monster every night after his longtime girlfriend leaves unexpectedly. It would probably take too much of a dive down the rabbit hole to track down all of the subtle connections within this family of horror filmmakers, but any film that associates with the Resolution, Spring, The Endless, and The Battery folks has to be good. And it is. The cast and crew of these films have built quite a portfolio of character-driven horror pieces that focus more on horror as a vehicle to push the human condition. On the surface, it appears to be a monster movie, but it soon becomes clear that the monster element is merely symbolism for t

She Never Died We don’t often get to sequels and follow-ups are not something we get to see here at Telluride, so when we get one it is pretty much a must-see. The follow-up we got this time was to 2015’s He Never Died with Henry Rollins. She Never Died, directed by Audrey Cummings and written by the original writer Jason Krawczyk, is a new adventure with similar trappings and feel to the original. Although it is unfair to call it a true sequel, it is more of a story set in the same universe. Our story follows Lacy, an immortal who needs to consume bone marrow, but we're not super-sure why. Lacy is hunting down a few unsavory characters and runs into a cop with the same goals. They start to

Black and Blue Horror Shorts Block Bad Hair - This grotesque short would have been right at home in the "Squirm" shorts block of years past. Hellevate - Short, sweet, and to-the-point, this great short takes place in an elevator that, in real life, was about to be demolished due to it being dangerous and unreliable. Love it. O.I. - Some shorts are able to pull off a feature-length story into a handful of minutes. This is one such short, and it takes its brilliant concept and runs with it in a humorously macabre fashion. Place - This haunted house satire is easily one of the best of the block. The humor is on-point and the jokes are executed to perfection. The Procedure 2 - It's hard to follo

After Midnight It isn’t often that someone tells me about a movie with a heavy dose of relationship drama and I get excited. But when one also adds that this movie is also a monster flick, it can change my mind really fast. I wasn’t quite prepared for the movie that was After Midnight (directed by Jermey Gardner and Christian Stella) after the host introduced it, but you got to always keep an open mind. This is a pretty straightforward movie about a man who has ruined his own relationship with his 10-year girlfriend due to his lack of passion and willingness to change anything about his life. That is pretty clear from the get-go. As we age, we tend to forget passion and feelings in place of

Posing with Jonathan Craig from "Making Monsters" You may notice that I, Sickle, don't look like my normal self...every year, Efrit and I possess bodies to attend THS, which is why you'll notice our voices will sound more "normal" on our THS podcast coverage at the end of the event. Just try to ignore it. The bar for Telluride Horror Show has been set very high based on years past alone, but the bar was set even higher with a film list that had Efrit and I salivating. And the festival has definitely come prepared to meet those high expectations. Solely from a subjective point of view, the short films have always been a highlight of THS, which is a testament to their quality, not an indictme

In the Tall Grass follows a young pregnant woman, her brother, her ex lover, and a family of three as they become eternally stranded in a field of tall grass that breaks the laws of space and time. A mysterious rock at the center of the maze of grass holds a dark secret, but may also hold the key to their freedom. In the Tall Grass Review Netflix has made every attempt to make Stephen King stories feasible and coherent for cinema. First there was Gerald's Game and then 1922. Both were on the positive side of King adaptations, but didn't really hold a candle to the recent successful theatrical IT films. They did boast powerful performances from Carla Gugino and Thomas Jane, respectively, but