Comrade Courant Culture Critic

They Were Witches (2025): A Grounded, Grief-Soaked Horror Rooted in Mexican Myth "A grounded, grief-soaked slasher that feels rooted in Mexican myth." — 3/5 Stars They Were Witches (2025) review: From its chilling opening—a woman chained to a chair, suffocated with a plastic bag, her breath siphoned into a jar by a man with a hammer— Eran Brujas announces itself as something far more primal than a standard horror film. Directed by Alejandro G. Alegre ( Ánima , The Devil Told Me What to Do ), this Mexican indie doesn’t rely on jump scares or digital spectacle. Instead, it builds dread through atmosphere, folklore, and a deeply personal mythology that feels ancient—even if it’s largely the filmmaker’s own invention. The story follows Mia (Tania Niebla), a paranormal radio host and self-proclaimed witchcraft expert, who stops at a rural motel en route to a therapy session. Ther...

The Home (2025): A Muddled Asylum Thriller That Finds Catharsis in Chaos "A thriller that forgets to explain its own rules—but ends with a gloriously messy revenge splatter." — 2.5/5 Stars The Home (2025) review: James DeMonaco—director of The Purge —trades social satire for psychological horror in this muddled asylum thriller that stumbles through its narrative but lands hard in its final act. Set in a decaying psychiatric facility, it follows Max (Pete Davidson), a lost young man who takes a job as an orderly and quickly finds himself drowning in conspiracies, gaslighting, and escalating violence. I went in with low expectations—and honestly, I still had fun. Not because it’s coherent, but because it commits so fully to its own unraveling. That said, it fails to recapture the thematic clarity or cultural punch that made The Purge franchise resonate. If you’re looking for sharper horror thi...

Companion (2025): A Satirical Horror About the Men Who Think They’re Owed Love "Find someone made just for you." — 8/10 Stars Companion (2025) review: Drew Hancock’s sharp sci-fi horror opens with a woman pushing a grocery cart through a supermarket—calm, ordinary, eerily familiar. It’s a direct echo of The Stepford Wives , but this film isn’t about suburban conformity. It’s about something far more contemporary: the belief that intimacy can be purchased, loyalty programmed, and love automated—so long as you’re the kind of man who thinks he’s owed it. Josh (Jack Quaid) brings his new girlfriend, Iris (Sophie Thatcher), to a lakeside weekend with his closest friends: the sharp-tongued Kat (Megan Suri), the warm-hearted Eli (Harvey Guillén), his partner Patrick (Lukas Gage), and Kat’s mysterious, married lover Sergey (Rupert Friend). Iris is beautiful, attentive, and unnervingl...

Primeval (2007): More Than Just a Giant Croc Movie "A creature feature with a conscience—and a surprisingly sharp bite." — 2.5/5 Stars Primeval (2007) review: In 2007, Hollywood had a curious obsession: giant crocodiles. That single year unleashed Rogue , Black Water , Lake Placid 2 , Croc , and Supercroc —but Primeval , to me at least, stands apart. Loosely inspired by Gustave, the real-life man-eating Nile crocodile said to have killed hundreds in Burundi, the film masquerades as a B-movie monster flick while quietly smuggling in something rarer: geopolitical awareness wrapped in genre thrills. The story follows a brash American news team—Dominic Purcell’s cynical journalist, Orlando Jones’ quick-witted cameraman, and Brooke Langton’s idealistic producer—as they travel to war-torn Burundi to capture the legendary 25-foot beast. But their mission quickly collides with human ...

Rumpelstiltskin (2025): A Grimy, Retro Fairy Tale from the VHS Crypt "A cursed bargain, a demonic imp, and a film that feels like it time-traveled from 1999." — 3/5 Stars Andy Edwards’ Rumpelstiltskin (2025) resurrects the Brothers Grimm classic not with new polish, but with a CRT feel, muddy grays, and a 4:3 aspect ratio that screams late-night Sci-Fi Channel rerun. Clocking in at a lean 87 minutes, this UK-certified 18 horror-fantasy feels less like a modern release and more like a lost artifact from the golden age of B-movie fairy-tales on the Sci-Fi channel, terror—complete with demonic pacts, period costumes, and a devilish imp who’s far more unsettling than his poster suggests. The story remains largely faithful: a miller’s daughter (Hannah Baxter-Eve) promises the king she can spin straw into gold. With the help of a sinister, otherworldly imp (Adrian Bouchet), she suc...

  Bring Her Back (2025) – A Harrowing Descent Into Grief and the Occult With Bring Her Back , Australian siblings Danny and Michael Philippou—fresh off their breakout hit Talk to Me —deliver a sophomore feature that’s less a ghost story and more a full-body immersion into maternal grief turned monstrous. Clocking in at a lean 104 minutes, Bring Her Back wastes no time plunging its audience into emotional and visceral chaos. The story centers on Andy (Billy Barratt) and his visually impaired stepsister Piper (Sora Wong), orphaned after their father’s death and placed in the care of Laura (Sally Hawkins), a foster mother whose warmth quickly curdles into something cultish and cruel. What begins as a tale of fractured family dynamics soon spirals into a grotesque resurrection ritual involving preserved corpses, demonic possession, and a mute foster boy named Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips) whose physi...

Cloverfield (2008): A Found Footage Post-9/11 Kaiju Nightmare "An American kaiju movie shot like a home video—and somehow, that makes it scarier." — 5/5 Stars Let’s settle this upfront: Cloverfield is a kaiju movie. Not a “sort of” or a “loosely inspired by”—it’s a full-blooded, city-stomping, ocean-rising kaiju film, filtered through the trembling lens of a handheld camcorder. Directed by Matt Reeves (years before he’d don the cape for The Batman ) and produced by J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, the 2008 thriller arrived not with fanfare, but with silence: a cryptic teaser in theaters showing only chaos in New York and a date— 1-18-2008 . No title. No explanation. Just raw, disorienting footage that felt less like marketing and more like a distress signal. That teaser was just the tip of the iceberg. What followed was one of the most innovative marketing campaigns in modern film his...

Crimes of the Future(2022): Cronenberg Returns with a Visceral Vision of Human Evolution "A chilling, visually audacious provocation that lingers long after the credits roll—just maybe not in the way you’d want it to." — 4/5 Stars For devotees of cerebral body horror and those unafraid to stare into the abyss of biological obsolescence, Crimes of the Future is a singular, unforgettable experience—grotesque, brilliant, and defiantly Cronenbergian. Let’s be clear: if the words “written and directed by David Cronenberg” don’t make your stomach flutter with a mix of dread and anticipation, you haven’t been paying attention. With Crimes of the Future (2022)—a film that shares only its title with Cronenberg’s obscure 1970 debut of the same name (the two are completely unrelated)—the legendary auteur returns to his roots with a slow-burning, surgically precise meditation on art, mutation...

  'The Monkey': A Delightfully Twisted Take on Stephen King’s Cursed Toy "Osgood Perkins delivers a darkly comic, surprisingly heartfelt horror that defies expectations—and makes a killer toy feel fresh again." — 4/5 Stars For fans of Stephen King’s stranger tales and those who appreciate horror with a wicked sense of humor, The Monkey is a rare adaptation that not only honors its source but elevates it. I went into The Monkey with cautious curiosity—after all, how do you turn a wind-up toy that claps cymbals into a credible engine of terror? Yet Osgood Perkins pulls off the near-impossible: a horror film that masterfully blends pitch-black comedy with genuinely gruesome set pieces, all anchored by emotional depth and razor-sharp direction. Far from a gimmick, this cursed monkey becomes the beating (and clapping) heart of one of the most inventive King adaptations in year...

  'Rabbit': A Surreal Australian Thriller That Punches Above Its Weight "Luke Shanahan's debut is a visually stunning, cerebral puzzle box, slightly hampered by its own ambition." — 4/5 Stars For those seeking a refreshing, visually arresting, and thought-provoking thriller that isn't afraid to challenge its audience, Rabbit is 100% worth checking out. It’s a testament to the potent and often overlooked creativity flourishing in Australian cinema. It was a film I had not seen and had forgotten anything I had once known about it—all the better for a clean, unspoiled viewing. What unfolded over the next 103 minutes was a refreshing and haunting surprise: a rare gem from Australia that serves as a potent announcement of a new directorial voice in Luke Shanahan. The plot follows Maude Ashton (a hauntingly intense Adelaide Clemens), a year after the ...

  'Borgman': A Sinister Masterpiece That Deserves Wider Recognition "Dutch auteur Alex van Warmerdam crafts a haunting surrealist thriller that's been criminally overlooked" — 5/5 Stars "And they descended upon the Earth to strengthen their ranks." Borgman (2013) review: As it opens we are met with those eerie biblical words (in Dutch), and van Warmerdam pulls us into a world of equally eerie images. We see a hunting party, looking like they've stepped out of another century, moving through the woods. They're armed with spears, accompanied by a barking dog, and one of them—a priest, no less—carries a shotgun. It's immediately clear they're hunting something wicked, and that this thing lives underground. It's a fever dream beginning that immediately signals we're not in familiar territory—and it's only the tip of the iceberg in what stands as one ...