Guy in a Suit

Dark Skies (2013)

You can’t run, you can’t hide.

There is an air of grim inevitability that permeates Dark Skies, the feeling that any precautions taken are futile, because the extraterrestrial enemy faced by the Barrett family is simply beyond their comprehension.

“People think of aliens as these beings invading our planet in some great cataclysm, destroying monuments, stealing our natural resources,” states UFO expert Edwin Pollard (J.K. Simmons).

“But it’s not like that at all. The invasion already happened.”

The Barretts are a normal, run-of-the-mill family just trying to make ends meet. Mom Lacy (Keri Russell) is a real estate agent in a slump; Dad Daniel (Josh Hamilton) is an unemployed architect working on his anger issues. Older son Jesse (Dakota Goyo) has a crush on a neighborhood girl, while younger son Sammy (Kadan Rockett) is more of a sensitive introvert.

Without warning, weird shit starts happening. Food and garbage gets strewn around the kitchen. Household items are stacked in geometric configurations. Photographs disappear. Swarms of starlings hit the house.

Even more disturbing, episodes of sleepwalking plague various Barretts, resulting in a tightening noose of paranoia and distrust between Lacy and Daniel, who despite their dire financial circumstances, continue to invest in pricey home security measures that prove fruitless.

After enduring a series of inexplicable events, Lacey reaches out via the internet to Pollard, a man who has been visited by aliens known as “the Grays” since he was a youngster.

“I don’t even fight them anymore,” he tells Lacey and Daniel, and further informs them that one of their children is being groomed for abduction, sooner rather than later,

Instead of providing the parents with hope, all Pollard can suggest is to fight back and hope the extraterrestrials get frustrated and move on to other specimens.

Writer-director Scott Stewart dispenses with the usual CGI wonder parade, and keeps things low-tech, naturalistic, and increasingly tense. The absence of special effects adds a mundane realism to Dark Skies, that sharply contrasts with the utterly unknowable nature of the Grays.

“What answer would a lab rat understand from a scientist in a white coat putting electrodes in its brain, giving it cancer?” Pollard asks.

Best of all, Dark Skies is a riveting example of story craft that shows, rather than tells us what we need to know. Even so, answers are few and far between.

Heavily recommended.

Bad Fish (2024)

If Shadow Over Innsmouth was adapted as a Grade-Z horror film, it might play out something like Bad Fish, written and directed by West Coast indie filmmaker Brad Douglas.

Filmed for measly money over a two-year period in locations near Brookings, Oregon and Crescent City, California, Bad Fish follows alcoholic marine biologist John Burton (Jonny Lee) on a quest for clues in a remote coastal community where fishermen’s body parts keep washing ashore.

After confabbing with Sheriff Porter (Mark Schneider), Burton examines a mangled torso and concludes that this was no boating accident. But it wasn’t a shark either, he decides.

Giant squid? Not known to inhabit these water. And what’s driving away all the salmon?

Turns out it’s all the work of Abby (Abby Wathen), the beguiling bartender at the local boozer, who comes with a whopper of a backstory. Seems when she isn’t mixing martinis, Abby is the leader of a nasty deep-water cult in search of fresh blood (and other fluids).

Despite a few too many talky scenes enacted by amateur thespians, Bad Fish is an admirable, atmospheric, small-town mystery that concludes with Burton getting left without a leg to stand on in a very bad domestic situation.

Not to worry, Douglas has Bad Fish II in the works, so maybe someone will throw the poor sap a lifeline.

Just don’t buy him socks for Christmas.

Found Footage: The Making of the Patterson Project (2025)

Layers upon layers upon layers.

Writer-director Max Tzannes opens Pandora’s Box in Found Footage: The Making of the Patterson Project, and what emerges is a very entertaining hot mess.

As we’ll see, there are no other outcomes possible.

See if you can follow this. Chase Bradner (Brennan Keel Cook), a low-budget filmmaker, makes commercials for used furniture salesman Frank (Dean Cameron).

Chase and Frank decide to make a found footage horror film about Bigfoot that somehow attracts the attention of a French documentary crew that tags along for the ride.

Funding for the movie comes from a $20,000 loan from Frank’s dotty client Betsey (Suzanne Ford), under the condition that her favorite actor, Alan Rickman, will play the lead. This becomes especially difficult when they figure out the actor passed away eight years before.

Chase and Frank are under the impression that they have secured the talents of Daniel Radcliffe to act in their feature, but he turns out to be a chick named Danielle (Rachel Alig).

The location, a remote time-share cabin belonging to the parents of Chase’s girlfriend and producer Natalie (Erika Vetter) appears to be inhabited by a demon from Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead universe.

Add to that a conundrum straight out of Waiting For Guffman, when it proves too dangerous to have anyone running about in the meticulously made Bigfoot costume after the first actor is shot by a hunter.

It’s to his credit that Tzannes manages to keep most of his subplot balls in the air. We actually care about Natalie’s growing frustration with Chase and her budding romance with his best friend Mitchell (Chen Tang), despite the silly chaos erupting all over the place.

Natalie gets respect points by being the only adult on the set capable of seeing the big picture, but her boyfriend is too preoccupied with his vanity project to pay attention.

And it all builds to what is called the Grand Jubilee, a surprisingly downbeat WTF ending, that explains why no bodies were ever found.

Yep. You should watch it.

Arcadian (2024)

Once upon a time…

Told as a post-apocalyptic fairy tale, Arcadian stars Nicolas Cage as an anxious father of twins trying to navigate single parenthood while fighting off vicious monsters come nightfall.

Bummer. At least he doesn’t have to drive them to soccer practice.

For 15 years, Paul (Cage, in an extremely understated role) has forged a hardscrabble existence putting food on the table for his adopted sons Thomas (Maxwell Jenkins) and Joseph (Jaeden Martell), whom he rescued as infants during the initial collapse of civilization.

Holed up in a remote farmhouse, Paul teaches the lads everything they need to know about off-the-grid survival, most importantly, being home by sundown to secure their hacienda from nightly visits by protean creatures with sharp claws and turbo-charged choppers that show up like broke relatives at suppertime.

Joseph is a homeschooled DaVinci, intuitively figuring out how things work and devising ingenious inventions. His brother Thomas has the hots for Charlotte (Sadie Soverall), a lovely lass who lives on a farm some distance away, causing the crushed-out kid to test the limits of Paul’s strict curfew.

Arcadian director Benjamin Brewer and writer Mike Nilon tell a simple story as simply as possible. When Thomas visits Charlotte on her farm, they play a game in which they have to explain how the world ended in 10 seconds. Charlotte theorizes that alien insects infected humanity, and Thomas says that a purple haze turned people into werewolves.

After providing us with that handy exposition summary, Thomas realizes he’s been wooing Charlotte for too long, and is forced into a cross-country sprint to get his ass home before dark. He ends up unconscious at the bottom of a ravine, necessitating a rescue from Paul.

Poor old Dad barely survives an explosive confrontation with the burrowing alien wolf bugs, and now it’s up to the boys to adapt and survive on their own. Arcadian works best as a coming-of-age story, with the brothers painfully applying the lessons they’ve learned about their nocturnal enemies.

Jospeh is methodical, taking careful notes about the intensity and duration of the attacks. Thomas, ruled by his passions, favors direct action, but benefits from listening to his wiser sibling.

The action is occasionally marred by poor lighting and clumsy edits. Paul, finding Thomas at the bottom of a crevasse, suddenly appears at his son’s side after finding some alternate route down.

The ensuing battle with a suddenly subterranean foe is almost all quick cuts with a shaky camera in the darkness so we don’t really figure out what happened to Paul until the sun comes up.

The monsters are formidable, though vague, never holding still long enough to get a gander at. Their inexplicable hive-mind decision to assemble into a giant flaming attack wheel is certainly a head-scratcher.

Ultimately, the pros of a fast-moving story outweigh the clunky cons in Arcadian, and you will be sufficiently entertained.

The end.

Boys from County Hell (2020)

You can count me among those short-sighted sods who’ve overlooked the obvious connection between Ireland and vampire lore, namely author Bram Stoker. He served as a theater manager and a drama critic for the Dublin Times, before he’d spun Dracula into existence.

Filmmaker Chris Baugh’s extremely entertaining The Boys From County Hell, takes place in a blighted Irish backwater called Six Mile Hill, where legend has it an ancient vampire named Abhartach lays buried beneath a cairn of stones in a nearby field.

At least that’s what bored locals Eugene Moffat (Jack Rowan) and William Hogue (Fra Free) tell the occasional tourist that comes to town looking for historical information about Bram Stoker. The lads insist that Abhartach was the original vampire that inspired Stoker to create his own version.

Coincidentally, Eugene’s no-nonsense father Francie (Nigel O’Neill) gets handed the contract to build a new road that’s going straight through Six Mile Hill and the accursed pile of rocks.

Eugene and his drinking buddies, SP McCauley (Michael Hough) and Claire McCann (Louisa Harland), are recruited by Francie to start breaking local ground. When they reach the rock pile, a bloody accident involving a runaway bull and Eugene’s friend William leads to the resurrection of a very pissed off, ancient vampire.

Rather than push his bloodsucker into the spotlight, Hough opts to keep Abhartach in the shadows; his mere malignant presence causes the townspeople to start bleeding uncontrollably.

Even with a monstrous creature on the loose, we can’t help admiring Francie and Eugene, a devoted father and son who can always find time to bust each other’s chops to welcome comic effect.

We’re also witness to some major mythology retooling, as it turns out you can’t kill a vampire with a wooden stake. Or decapitation. Or sunlight. This leads to an assortment of survival challenges for the principal players—and most of them simply don’t have what it takes.

What we have in Boys From County Hell is a bloody good time with funny, fleshed-out characters matching wits with an inhuman adversary that just won’t stay grounded.

Recommended to anyone in search of something fresh.

The Gorge (2025)

So many genres, so little time.

When the creative team in charge of a film project gets carried away trying to please each and every imagined audience member, the results are usually a load of crap.

The Gorge, written by Zach Dean and directed by Scott Derrickson, seemingly utilizes this kitchen-sink approach, tossing a zesty, messy melange of romance, action, horror, and conspiracy theory that’s a just a tad over two hours in length.

And somehow it works pretty damn well as a super-engaging popcorn flick!

Levi (Miles Teller) and Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy) are two highly trained snipers from different countries assigned guard duty at opposite watch towers on either side of the enormous and mysterious titular gorge.

The mercenaries are armed to the hilt and instructed not to contact each other, but the need for company proves too much for Levi and Drasa, and soon they’re flirtatiously firing rounds, demonstrating their skill and accuracy, while a Ramones record plays.

“I guess this qualifies as a Meet Cute,” I whisper to Mrs. Sharky.

Though separated by a chasm that occasionally spits out monstrous hybrid humanoids called Hollow Men, the hired guns overcome logistical challenges and use a zip line to hook up and become not just a couple, but an elite and capable survival team.

This comes in handy when their military handler (Sigourney Weaver) decides they can no longer be trusted.

Once the protagonists figure out that this version of the future has no future, their decision to join forces is logical and inevitable. Besides, they’re a hot couple, and Drasa is clearly the aggressor, eventually rescuing Levi from an unexpected plummet into the abyss.

Through waves of decent monster attacks and fabulous fire fights, we actually grow fairly attached to Levi and especially the badass Drasa, which helps keep the viewer grounded during the mood shifts and infrequent talky interludes.

The Gorge is also a very impressive example of world-building, an important component to any successful popcorn operation. The mise-en scene has been carefully considered providing a foundation of future realism that looks like it was designed by the prison industrial complex.

No wonder no one want to hang around!

Ouija: Origin Of Evil (2016)

Prolific genre dynamo Mike Flanagan (Haunting of Hill House, Oculus, Dr. Sleep) created this prequel to Ouija (2014), and consensus opinion holds that Ouija: Origin of Evil, is far superior to its predecessor, though that may have more to do with the “meh” quality of the original material, rather than an auteur’s magic wand.

We travel back to the year 1967, where widowed mother Alice (Elizabeth Reaser) makes a modest living as a phony fortune teller, aided in her deceptive practices by daughters Lina (Annalise Basso) and Doris (Lulu Wilson).

Alice and eldest daughter Lina consider adding a Ouija board to their seance shtick, but all too quickly this occult stepping stone gets a grip on Doris, the youngest, resulting in a once-innocent child playing host to a number of spiritual entities, good and bad, including her late father (good) and a fiendish Nazi doctor (bad).

Flanagan and cowriter Jeff Howard weave together enough plot points for seven sweaters, but don’t sweat the details. Ouija: Origin of Evil is trademark Flanagan territory, as a fractured family faces a perilous paranormal presence coming from inside the house.

The technicians Flanagan puts to work on his projects are first-rate, intuitively establishing the tone, time, and terroir in which his particular domestic terror can take hold of hearts and spines.

Here, art director Alberto Gonzalez-Reyna and cinematographer Michael Fimognari mute the sunny ’60s California scenery in dark shades of green and gold, so wardrobe colors appear especially vivid and blooming—a keen counterpoint to the carnage being carried on behind closed doors at the local fortune teller’s house!

Despite being a minor entry in Mike Flanagan’s filmography, Ouija: Origin of Evil is a compelling and highly watchable film in its own right, and needn’t be seen in the company of any other Ouija entries in the hopes of additional illumination.

The Tunnel (2011)

An investigative reporter and a film crew descend into the darkness looking for a story—and find a doozy.

The Tunnel is a supremely creepy Australian found footage/creature feature that takes place in a vast network of subway tunnels beneath the streets of Sydney. Natasha Wagner (Bel Delía) is an ambitious journalist with water on the brain.

Specifically, Natasha wants to know why the city government abandoned a plan to recycle millions of gallons of water located in an old underground reservoir, so she picks up a map and convinces her trusty team of techs to have a look around down there and roll cameras.

Instead of civic corruption, Natasha, cameraman Steve Miller (Steve Davis), sound guy Jim “Tangles” Williams (Luke Arnold), and unit producer Pete Ferguson (Andy Rodoreda) uncover evidence of homeless folks living in the tunnels, as well as a fearsome predator that’s decimating their numbers.

Director Carlo Ledesma keeps the pace breathless and chaotic, dumping the cast in a very dark place. Fading sources of illumination prove particularly vexing to the trapped investigators, who have deduced that whatever manner of beast is stalking them, it’s frightened of light.

As is the case with media outlets these days, the whole case gets shut down at the behest of powerful interests, despite a few pesky survivors with some questionable footage.

And they never did find poor Tangles!

Wolf Man (2025)

The most impressive thing about Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man is that it got made.

Whannell, the Australian horror maestro who introduced us to the Saw and Insidious franchises, clearly has serious show biz clout to get this turkey green-lighted.

This was obviously a “troubled” production.

Blake (Christopher Abbott) is a stay-at-home dad married to busy magazine writer Charlotte (Julia Garner). While Charlotte earns bucks, Blake looks after their daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth), until he’s notified that his father Grady (Sam Jaeger) has been declared officially dead, after being reported missing for several years.

Now the owner of the family farm, Blake drags his dubious brood out to the Middle of Nowhere, and in real time they are attacked by a strange creature (see the film’s title), and spend the evening running and hiding from same.

Meanwhile, Blake, the dutiful husband and father, begins to change into something remarkably similar to the beast that’s stalking them.

Wow. Didn’t see that one coming.

There is little dialogue, which lends itself to Mystery Science Theater ad-libbing during the howlingly bad action sequences, such as Blake gnawing on his own arm, and two guys in simian rubber masks wrestling on a dark floor.

What are we watching?

Wolf Man is simply godawful, and since Whannell directed and cowrote this mess, he gets the lion’s share of the blame.

It’s a complete waste of Julia Garner’s talents, and hopefully won’t interfere with her trajectory as one of Hollywood’s best young actresses. She’s given very little to do besides wander through the night with a flashlight.

I’ve said this before when reviewing werewolf movies and it certainly applies to Wolf Man: If you can’t come up with better transformation effects than The Howling or American Werewolf In London—both of which were made 43 years ago!—then don’t bother.

Shining Vale (2022-23)

When I was a wee sprout, and the family hive mind turned to televisual entertainment options, I invariably lobbied for something “scary” or something “funny.”

My conservative-leaning, middle-class family would not have tolerated a moment of Shining Vale, and, truth be told, most of the adult humor would have been lost on me.

Shining Vale ran for two seasons on Starz, and was created by Jeff Astrof (The New Adventures of Old Christine, S#!* My Dad Says) and Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe, Bad Sisters). Over the course of 16 half-hour episodes, we get cozy with the Phelps family, possibly the most dysfunctional brood since the Bundys showed up on Fox in 1987.

Pat Phelps (Courteney Cox) is in a dark place. She wrote a tawdry, best-selling lady porn novel 14 years before, but the follow-up hasn’t been forthcoming, and her agent Kam (Merrin Dungey) is giving her an ultimatum: deliver the book or return the advance money.

When Pat has a torrid affair with a handyman, her stubbornly optimistic husband Terry (Greg Kinnear) packs the whole family off to a huge haunted house in rural Connecticut for a fresh start, much to the dismay of teenaged daughter Gaynor (Gus Birney).

“Mom boned some rando and now we have to move,” she grumbles. Though a freewheeling sexpot herself, Gaynor becomes the unwilling head of the household, after Mom and Dad lose their marbles.

Her younger brother Jake, a plus-sized introvert, is mostly concerned with gaining levels in his Virtual Reality game, and is slow to realize that change is afoot.

“Why did we move to a hotel?” he asks, upon arrival at the dilapidated Victorian mansion they will now call home.

Jake is also the butt of (fairly benign) fat kid jokes, but gets comic revenge by farting most foul at the worst possible moments. Seemingly an innocent, he gets his own demon adversary courtesy of VR.

Once the family is settled, Pat makes instant contact with the spirit of Rosemary (Mira Sorvino), the former owner of the house who went mad and hacked up her own family with an axe.

Rosemary does a little ghost-writing on Pat’s unfinished manuscript, and an uneasy partnership is formed when Kam digs the new, darker direction the book is taking.

This is all just tip of the iceberg stuff, as Pat, Terry, and the kids go through individual transformations of various magnitudes, while dealing with ghosts, cults, demonic possession, hereditary mental illness, and infidelity in a weird little town that features homegrown businesses like The Lucky Wiccan.

As for the title of the series, yes, there are many references to The Shining. For crying out loud, it’s about a writer trying her best not to chop everyone up with an axe.

For my money, Shining Vale is the funniest and finest-written domestic horror series since The Addams Family. The cast is flawless. You’re welcome.

But what happened to Season 3?