Skinamarink

Two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their father is missing, and all the windows and doors in their home have vanished.

Initial release: 25 July 2022
Directors: Kyle Edward Ball, Kyle Ball
Cast: Jaime Hill, Dali Rose Tetreault, Ross Paul, Lucas Paul
Distributed by: IFC Films

A Horror Movie Review by George Wolf

(Tom Hanks SNL voice) “My name is Kyle Edward Ball…and I’m going to scare the HELL out of YOU!”

And you know what? He just might do it.

Be extra prepared if the title Skinamarink reminds you of those fun singalongs from Sharon, Lois & Bram. Because Ball’s brand of nightmare fuel taps into the very essence of childhood fears, exploiting those exposed nerves with a committed resolve we haven’t seen since Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man.

Is it safe? It is not.

Ball’s premise is brilliant simplicity. It’s 1995, and two young children, Kaylee (Dali Rose Tetreault) and Kevin (Lucas Paul), wake in the night to find they are alone, with the windows and doors in their house suddenly gone. In an instant, the stakes are familiar – but not because you’ve seen this before.

It’s because there’s probably some version of this nightmare in your past. You were just a kid, separated from your parents and trying in vain to reach them or call out for help, or maybe just escape.

Remember how scared you were? Ball and cinematographer Jamie McRae do, and they twist that knife again and again for 100 slightly bloated minutes of dark, disorienting dread.

Cinematography and sound design are intertwined in an analog, cathode-ray aesthetic that recalls vintage, grainy VHS. The children whisper to each other (“Where do you think Dad is? I don’t know.”) as they wander from room to room, with Ball’s camera never allowing you one second of relief.

All through this fright night, familiar sources of comfort such as toys and cartoons turn eerily sinister, accentuating the feeling that it’s not just these kids that are in peril, it is childhood itself. POV is often at floor level, and then tight into a corner of the ceiling or high above the room and rising. You squint in the direction of the children’s flashlight, trying in vain to decipher anything about the house that will give you some sense of its layout, and you strain to separate the cracks of white noise from that deeper voice speaking to the children.

Come upstairs. Look under the bed. Close your eyes.

Ball started down this harrowing hallway by filming 3-4 minute short films of the actual dreams described by viewers of his YouTube channel. Some two years ago, his 29-minute short Heck emerged as the wonder of primal fear that inspired Skinamarink. And though it is a bit disappointing that the single most bone-chilling (and to be fair, most explanatory) moment of the short didn’t make it in the feature, Ball’s $15,000 budget buys much more killer than filler.

More than just nightmarish, this is a literal nightmare onscreen. And the intimate nature of nightmares means that the film’s patient, psychological assault is likely to bring out the “nothing happens!” barbs from those seeking more universally visceral thrills. But for others, the whispers of Skinamarink will hit like a sonic boom.
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And they will be hard to shake.

George “Screen” Wolf is co-founder and writer for maddwolf.com. He’s also  film critic for Saga Communications radio (25 markets across the US), Columbus Underground and UK Film Review.

In Columbus, Ohio, you can catch George on TV every Friday morning on ABC6/Fox28’s Good Day Columbus.

George is a member of the Columbus Film Critics Association, and lives in Grandview Heights with his wife, Hope Madden. Their son Donovan lives in L.A. George enjoys music, politics, his Harley, sports, travelling, and, oh yeah, movies!

Contact George at maddwolf95@gmail.com.

Follow George on Facebook and Instagram @maddwolfcolumbus and on Twitter @maddwolf

Shooting a vampire movie in an old abandoned house should have worked like a dream. However, with the full moon, the nightmare begins. The body count rises as the cast and crew encounter the mansion's resident werewolf.

Director Dominic Brunt
Writers Joel Ferrari Pete Wild
Stars James Fleet John Henshaw Nicky Evans

A Horror Movie Review by Jim Mcleod ​

In terms of tonality, Wolf Manor sits right in the middle of Dominic Brunt's film catalogue. Mixing horror with comedy, it never hits the sheer brutal nihilistic tones of Bait nor the overtly comic overtones of Attack of the Adult Babies, which might confound some viewers who are going in with preconceived ideas about this film. But don't be concerned, for despite this slight lack of tonal focus, there is still a lot to love about this movie. Think classic Hammer Horror with a few sight and snark gags thrown into the mix. The writer and the director of Wolf Manor never overegg the jokes, which thankfully prevents Wolf Manor from tipping into farce territory. There are still plenty of laughs, particularly about the hunt for a fake hand and the chaos associated with trying to film a low-budget horror movie. And like all great horror comedies, the humour never overshadows the horror on the screen. And for you gorehounds out there, Wolf Manor has plenty to whet your wolf whistle. The special effects on show here are top notch. Considering the budget, the filmmakers were obviously working with the team achieved a hell of a lot with them.  


The creature design is terrific, and apart from one scene where the wolf's ears appear to be just that little bit too much like a rabbit's floppy ears (which truthfully made me smile and love this film that little bit more for the charm of it), the werewolf stands up to close inspection and remains powerful and effective monster for the film.  


The cast, led by James Fleet, does an admiral job in maintaining the gothic Hammer Horror quality of the film. Fleet, in particular, excels at playing the washed-up actor. Still, the real star of "both movies" is Thaila Zucchi, who plays the massively put upon production assistant Fiona. Her strong performance anchors the movie perfectly, providing a tangible link between the movie's real and meta horror.  


I would be remiss if I didn't mention Morgan Rees-Davies as the werewolf. With a solid and confident performance, Davies ensures that the budget spent on the creature's costume is utilised thoroughly to provide not only a convincing monster but one that manages to elicit that primal fear in the viewer that is paramount to a successful creature feature. 


Viewers will also relish picking out all of the nods to other classic horror films while having a great time with this fun and heart filled indie horror movie.  


Wolf Manor is a strong if ever so slightly flawed, horror film. The pacing of the film's first half could have been tightened up slightly. Some of the jokes did fall flat, but overall I had a fantastic time with the movie, and I look forward with glee to Dominic Brunt's next film Soulless.  


If 2023 is indeed the year of the werewolf, then we are off to a wolf worthy start with Wolf Manor.  ​

Léo (Kévin Mischel) is a struggling musician, working as a taxi driver and living out of his car as he composes music in-between driving fares and slaughtering innocent women. The killing soothes his inner anger and frustration at the world, silencing the turmoil that threatens his creativity. The killing allows him to create, and he is compelled to keep repeating his crimes as he is compelled to compose.


When he drives deaf dancer Amélie (Aurélia Poirier) to a practice, Léo becomes obsessed, returning to her studio to watch her and eventually pluck up the courage to talk to her; and so begins an awkward relationship which you can only imagine is going to end badly; doomed lovers indeed.


The central conceit of Out of this World is intriguing and the pairing of a deaf dancer, with a serial-killing musician is an interesting one. Both Léo and Amélie struggle with communication, but for vastly different reasons. Léo’s music and Amélie’s dancing threaten to bring out the best of them both, only Amélie is dealing with the emotions of falling for a withdrawn, potential violent man, while Léo is fighting his animal urges. Both characters are outsiders, looking for a place in the world and Amélie might just be the connection Léo needs to save him.


it’s a bit like a darker version of Silver Linings Playbook just without any of the laughs, and as if someone had planted a ticking bomb under the dancefloor at the end.

Out of this World sets itself up as a slow burn psychological thriller and it really does take its time with little dialogue, especially in the first half of the movie. Mischel and Poirier are brilliant in their roles, very believable and they work together to create a palpable air of tension whenever they are on screen. However, for me, the slow pace and lingering scenes of Léo struggling with his inner demons, strayed dangerously close to labouring a point, rather than moving the story forward.

Having said that, Mischel, does a particularly good job of portraying a tortured artist with homicidal tendencies. Scenes with him going through his daily routing as he builds towards another murder are awkward and disturbing, making for uncomfortable viewing. His performance hints at a desire to be saved, to be rescued from his cycle of violence but, sadly, the film doesn’t quite manage to make him sympathetic. There are a couple of scenes that hint at abuse when he was younger and a difficult relationship with his mother but, otherwise, we get little glimpse into his reasons for killing, other than the need to create. While this gives us some motivation, it makes it hard to develop any sympathy or empathy with Léo and, while I wanted to see him saved (and to some extent, perhaps he is) his behaviour from the start of the film, makes it hard to see him as anything other than a monster.
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Poirier does just as good a job beside him, a quiet, but emotional anchor for Léo and someone who can appreciate his music even though she can’t hear it, only feel it; its beat and tempo as a metaphor for Léo’s inner demons.


Pulling both of those performances together is Fouchard’s direction and Pascal Boudet’s cinematography which combine to deliver a solid, stylistic thriller that looks great. It just fell a little short for me for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on.
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That is, of course, my own interpretation of the film and other’s will see things differently. I just didn’t quite gel with it and, ultimately, didn’t feel enough empathy with the characters to be able to fully engage in their exploration of being on outcast in your own world and not knowing quite where you belong.

The 5.9 on IMDB feels about right for Out of this World (so very much NOT a bad film) and I wouldn’t want to put anyone off watching it as the performances are impressive and the film looks fantastic, it just wasn’t quite my cup of tea. However, if slow burn, psychological thrillers are your thing, give it a whirl, there is a lot on offer in Out of this World, even if it didn’t push all my buttons.

Out Of This World is on digital HD 5 December from Bulldog Film Distribution

Nanny

Immigrant nanny Aisha, piecing together a new life in New York City while caring for the child of an Upper East Side family, is forced to confront a concealed truth that threatens to shatter her precarious American Dream.

Director Nikyatu Jusu
Writer Nikyatu Jusu
Stars Anna Diop, Michelle Monaghan, Sinqua Walls

A Horror Movie Review by Hope Madden

Senegalese transplant Aisha (a transfixing Anna Diop) cares for a little girl whose mother works too much and whose father is often away. Aisha’s care is tinged with her own deep well of sadness and guilt at handing the care of her own son Lamine over to a friend back in Senegal. But this job will allow her to finally pay for the flight to bring Lamine to NYC, and just in time for his birthday.

Writer/director Nikyatu Jusu’s feature debut employs fantastical elements, but her Nanny is never an outright horror film. Aisha’s visions, though thoroughly spooky and potentially dangerous, speak to the fear, powerlessness and profound sadness facing a woman forever making impossible choices, regardless of the country.

Jusu gives these folklore-rooted images purpose as Aisha awakens to the real nightmare that the American Dream so often becomes. As self-pitying employer Amy (Michelle Monaghan) works long hours to compete in a man’s world, she shorts Aisya’s pay while taking advantage of her time. Reuniting with Lamine feels less and less likely. Helplessness, hopelessness and anger grow.

Jusu’s lighthanded with true horror, a choice that benefits the film because its honesty is horror enough. Diop conveys more with a glance or a sigh than any scaly monster or hairy spider could ever display. Her command of this character’s melancholy and rage is extraordinary.

The addition of Leslie Uggams as Aisha’s love interest Malik’s (Singua Walls) grandmother introduces exposition and explanations that feel slightly forced, particularly compared to the nuance defining the rest of the film. But it’s a slight fault in an otherwise beautiful, devastating movie.
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Like Jenna Cato Bass’s Good Madam, Nanny identifies the uneasy social structure that guarantees inequity, and all the accompanying horror it produces. Jusu’s tale sidesteps the true genre punch, though, which may leave some viewers unsatisfied. But, even for its diabolical sirens and eight-legged tricksters, it’s Nanny’s naked honesty that makes it so scary.

Hope Madden is a writer and award-winning filmmaker living with her husband George and cat Velma in Columbus, Ohio. She writes what scares her, which worked out fine until she became a filmmaker and had to live what scared her for the duration of a shoot. Terrible decision. Her novella, Roost, was published in 2022 by Off Limits Press and her first feature film releases in late 2022.

Friends are the family we choose.

Yeah, that’s all well and good until one of them turns into Annie Wilkes from Misery.
But it looks like Javi (Javier Botet) has chosen well in David (David Pareja). Director Óscar Martín’s film Amigo, co-written with both Botet and Pareja, opens on David carrying Javi from his car, across a snowy lawn, into an old farmhouse, and to a comfortable bed. That’s not all. David will sit up all night in the chair next to Javi’s bed, just in case his friend-in-need needs anything. That’s devotion.

As the next 80 minutes crawl past, we’re alone with the pair in their isolation. They’re far from town. Snow and ice have made the streets impassable. David’s low on his own medication, and that scar on his forehead marks the throbbing pain he can’t control without it. Plus, shouldn’t Javi be in a hospital?

Slowly but surely, Martín’s film descends with its characters into a nightmare, kind of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane without the egos or lipstick.

To develop palpable tension, Martín takes full advantage of Javier Botet’s physical presence. The actor’s made a name for himself playing silent, nightmare images in REC (Nina Medeiros), Mama (Mama), The Conjuring 2 (Crooked Man), Insidious: The Last Key (Key Face), Slender Man (Slender Man) and more. While he put his physical performance to use doing creature work for Guillermo del Toro, Álex de la Iglesia and other filmmakers, Amigo changes that perspective. Botet’s long, gaunt frame is webbed with the scars of an auto accident, his gangle of bones a macabre reminder of his vulnerability.

Botet’s performance, much of it nearly silent, aches with rage, melancholy and helplessness. Javi’s quiet, burning anger could simply be the natural result of his situation. And his best friend David counters the hostility with buoyant, devoted energy and an unflagging smile.
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Pareja’s depiction of David’s gradual decline unsettles. Martín rushes nothing, and though he leaves breadcrumbs, you’ll never know for sure where he’s leading you. The result is a somber, unnervingly realistic punch to the gut and a reminder that friendship does not have to be forever.

Hope Madden is a writer and award-winning filmmaker living with her husband George and cat Velma in Columbus, Ohio. She writes what scares her, which worked out fine until she became a filmmaker and had to live what scared her for the duration of a shoot. Terrible decision. Her novella, Roost, was published in 2022 by Off Limits Press and her first feature film releases in late 2022.

What Andy Mitton’s The Harbinger does well is remind you how desperate the early days of lockdown were. How scary. How lonely. This was especially true for anyone quarantining alone. It must have felt like the world would just go on without you. You’d be forgotten entirely.

Mavis (Emily Davis) is alone, and she is not taking to lockdown well. Her dreams are terrifying and almost unending. When Mavis falls asleep, she doesn’t wake up, sometimes for days, trapped the entire time in a horrifying nightmare. Her friend Mo (Gabby Beans) leaves the comfort and relative safety of the home she shares with her father and brother because Mavis has no one else to call.

Mitton’s film combines collective trauma with existential dread, mirroring the kind of terror that caves in on you when you don’t work, don’t leave home, and fear everything: surfaces, people, the air in your building. It’s a true nightmare, and one you can’t wake up from.

The isolation, the stench of death, it all inspired any number of horror films. Mitton animates that collective ordeal as effectively as anyone working in the genre. He marries the graphic reality of the pandemic with an internal descent, reflecting more than a society’s fear of death. What he sees is the way lockdown, hivemind, misinformation and isolation made people forget who they were.

Davis delivers a solid turn as one wearied to the point of death by quarantine, but it’s Beans’s resilient, naturalistic performance that grounds the unreality in uneasy truth. Mitton’s script sometimes relies on tropes that feel too obvious for his unusual story, and in the end, it’s an overreliance on genre mechanisms that keeps the film from really cutting free from expectations and saying something truly fresh.
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But there’s no question he hits a nerve because very few changes need to be made to the reality of 2020 for it to be a nerve-wracking horror show.

Hope Madden is a writer and award-winning filmmaker living with her husband George and cat Velma in Columbus, Ohio. She writes what scares her, which worked out fine until she became a filmmaker and had to live what scared her for the duration of a shoot. Terrible decision. Her novella, Roost, was published in 2022 by Off Limits Press and her first feature film releases in late 2022.

​Bones and All

Love blossoms between a young woman on the margins of society and a disenfranchised drifter as they embark on a 3,000-mile odyssey through the backroads of America. However, despite their best efforts, all roads lead back to their terrifying pasts and a final stand that will determine whether their love can survive their differences.
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Release date: 23 November 2022
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Cinematography: Arseni Khachaturan
Costume design: Giulia Piersanti
Distributed by: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Bros. Pictures, Vision Distribution, United Artists Releasing

A Horror Movie Review by Hope Madden

You might be surprised to know there is some cinematic precedent for cannibal romances. Julia Ducourneau’s Raw equated coming-of-age with the lust for human flesh. Claire Denis did something similar with her 2001 French horror Trouble Every Day, and Ana Lily Amirpour’s 2017 The Bad Batch chewed that same bone. And of course, there’s Joe D’Amato’s 1977 softcore Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, although I don’t recommend that one.

I do recommend Luca Guadagnino’s latest, based on Camille DeAngelis’s popular YA novel, Bones and All.

The film follows Maren (an absorbing Taylor Russell, Waves), coming of age on the fringes of Reagan-era America. She meets and slowly falls for another outcast with similar tastes, Lee (Timothée Chalamet), and the two take to the road.

Given what the handsome young lovers have in common, you might expect a sort of meat lovers’ Badlands to follow. But Bones and All is less concerned with the carnage left in a wake than in what’s awakening in these characters themselves. 
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And all the characters are quite something. Michael Stuhlbarg, David Gordon Green, Chloë Sevigny, Sean Bridgers and especially Mark Rylance populate an America easily corrupted by invalidation, loneliness, otherness. “This world of love has no love for a monster.”

These characters range from creepy to terrifying, their potential danger even more unnerving than the violence they exact. They become the obstacles along Maren and Lee’s romantic journey, but Guadagnino (Suspiria, Call Me By Your Name) and a terrific cast never let them amount only to that.
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Bones and All is a tough one to categorize. I suppose it’s a horror film, a romance, and a road picture – not three labels you often find on the same movie. In Guadagnino’s hands, it’s more than that, though. He embraces the strength of the solid YA theme that you have to be who you are, no matter how ugly the world may tell you that is. You have to be you, bones and all. Finding Maren’s way to that epiphany is heartbreaking and bloody but heroic, too.

Hope Madden is a writer and award-winning filmmaker living with her husband George and cat Velma in Columbus, Ohio. She writes what scares her, which worked out fine until she became a filmmaker and had to live what scared her for the duration of a shoot. Terrible decision. Her novella, Roost, was published in 2022 by Off Limits Press and her first feature film releases in late 2022.

Christmas Bloody Christmas 

It's Christmas Eve and fiery record store owner Tori Tooms just wants to get drunk and party, until the robotic Santa Claus at a nearby toy store goes haywire and makes her night more than a little complicated. Santa embarks on a rampant killing spree through the neon-drenched snowscape, ultimately forcing Tori into a blood-splattered battle for survival.

Release date: 9 December 2022
Director: Joe Begos

​A Horror Movie Review by Jim Mcleod 

A Wounded Fawn


Director Travis Stevens
Writers Nathan Faudree Travis Stevens
Stars Sarah Lind Josh Ruben Malin Barr

A serial killer brings an unsuspecting new victim on a weekend getaway to add another body to his ever-growing count. She's buying into his faux charms, and he's eagerly lusting for blood. What could possibly go wrong?

A Horror Movie Review by Hope Madden

In 2019, Travis Stevens directed his first feature, Girl on the Third Floor, a haunted house film in which the house is the protagonist. It not only looked amazing, but the unusual POV shots did more than break up the monotony of a film set almost exclusively inside one building. Those peculiar shots gave the impression of the house’s own point of view – a fresh and beguiling choice.

Stevens’s 2021 film Jakob’s Wife waded more successfully into feminist territory, benefitted from brilliant, veteran performances, and turned out to be one of the best horror shows of the year. In many ways, the filmmaker’s latest, A Wounded Fawn, picks up where those left off – which does not mean you’ll see where it’s heading.

Josh Ruben is Bruce. Marshall Taylor Thurman is the giant Red Owl Bruce sees, a manifestation of that part of Bruce that compels him to murder women. The next in line seems to be Meredith (Sarah Lind). After finally getting past the trauma of a long-term abusive relationship, Meredith is taking a leap with a nice new guy, heading for an intimate weekend at his cabin.

This sort of sounds like Donnie Darko meets about 100 movies you’ve seen, but it is not. Not at all. Bruce bids on high-end art at auctions, Meredith curates a museum, and Stevens’s film is awash in the most gorgeous, surreal imagery – odes to Leonora Carrington, among others. And, like the POV shots from Girl on the Third Floor, these visual choices do more than give the movie its peculiar and effective look.

At the center of Bruce’s personal journey is a sculpture he stole from his last victim, a piece depicting the Furies attacking Orestes, who was driven mad by their torture for his crimes against his mother. It’s a great visual, an excellent metaphor for a serial killer comeuppance movie. It’s also an excellent reminder that art has a millennia-long history of depicting women’s vengeance upon toxic men – in case anyone is tired of this “woke” trend.

Lind more than convinces in the character’s tricky spot of being open to new romance and guarding against red flags. We’ve seen Ruben play the nice guy who’s not really as nice as he thinks, but his sinister streak and sincere narcissism here are startling.

The film does an about-face at nearly its halfway mark, not only changing from Bruce’s perspective to Meredith’s, but evolving from straightforward narrative to something hallucinatory and fascinating.
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The final image – unblinking, lengthy, horrible and fantastic – cements A Wounded Fawn as an audacious success.

Hope Madden is a writer and award-winning filmmaker living with her husband George and cat Velma in Columbus, Ohio. She writes what scares her, which worked out fine until she became a filmmaker and had to live what scared her for the duration of a shoot. Terrible decision. Her novella, Roost, was published in 2022 by Off Limits Press and her first feature film releases in late 2022.