Horror

Review: Maniac

At the screening of Maniac I attended, some journalist types were talking loudly beforehand about hanging prepositions. They were against them, and didn't care much for starting sentences with 'But', either. I resisted the temptation to interject with my view, which is that these tend to form ugly constructions but that arbitrary prohibitive attitudes towards grammar are the enemy of creativity. I don't want to antagonise anyone, after all. But anyway, Maniac is a film you should give a wide berth to.

Review: Mama

Just as Rob is now The Shiznit's go-to guy for dance movies, it seems I've somehow become the de facto horror critic around here. An unwise editorial decision at best: I'd only seen about six horror films before, and two of them were Ghostbusters in different aspect ratios. Here's a thing I've learned, though: there is a Spanish man called Guillermo del Toro who sneaks into edit bays and shoves his name in at the start of other people's films. But he seems to know his Spanish onions: Mama, the latest film he has credits-bombed, is pretty much triumphant from start to finish.

Review: V/H/S

Everyone stop filming yourselves doing everything. It inevitably ends in your murder. Then someone will find the footage and make money off it while you're in the cold, cold ground. Even worse, the footage won't even comprise a found footage movie: it'll end up being the footage someone finds in a found footage movie about people finding footage. And all people will ever say of you will be: "Sheesh, that guy sure went to great lengths to explain why he was filming himself."

A note to the makers of Silent Hill: Revelation

Yes, I know he was in the Silent Hill games before he was in the movie. Still, I bet he reeks of cheddar.

Review: Sinister

It irritates the hell out of me when people use obviously fake computers in movies. A black screen with green text like it's 1982. A free-typed database command like 'FIND ALL GUNSHOT VICTIMS IN SAN DIEGO'. An analogue beep as a search engine returns its results. So I am delighted to report that in horror movie Sinister, Ethan Hawke uses realistic search terms in Google. He talks to people on iChat. He uses real commands on dropdown menus, moves stuff to his recycle bin, and encodes video into .mov files. How scary is the film? Um ... it's ... did I mention how good the computer bits are?

For a film which is definitely going to be terrible, this poster isn't half bad

Texas Chainsaw 3D ("because 'Massacres' are bad for business!") is out in January, and even though it'll be awful, this teaser poster is kind of creepy. Not sure about the nob in the jar, though. (Click here for hi-res).

Important stripper/werewolf news

In a move that's sure to alienate at least 50% of our readers, here's an article about direct-to-DVD British comedy-horror Strippers vs Werewolves; a film destined to be as bad as it sounds.

Shiznit Halloween shamefest: movies that scared us silly

Boo! Sorry for the fright. It had to be done so you understand the mental anguish this article caused. For you see, us Shizniteers bear the terrible mindscars of a youth misspent watching movies that freaked us out in horrible ways. We only share these experiences with you now in the hope their curse will be lifted, or maybe even fobbed off on to you, dear reader. Either way is good. So behold as we regale you with tales of terror, each more terrifying than the last. You have been warned...

The Shiznit Halloween movie liveblog: Sunday edition

I'm almost ready to go with Sunday's Halloween movie liveblog, after the 'incredible success' (read: 'zero retweets') of yesterday's waffling. The headcheese toasties are ready, here we go...

The Shiznit Halloween movie liveblog

Because what kind of Halloween would it be without someone telling you all about the films they're watching?