Where Horror Fans
Keep Score

Rowan ThornResident

on The Wailing

“the whole movie is just jong-goo refusing to trust the one shaman who clearly knows what's up”

Professor AbyssResident

on Split

“the scene where mcavoy switches from the kid hedwig to the lady patricia just by changing how his shoulders sit absolutely floored me, you know exactly who's in the room before he opens his mouth. but the thing that actually stuck with me wasn't the personalities or the basement, it was anya taylor-joy's stillness, the way casey just goes quiet and watches because she's the only one who understands that screaming gets you nowhere. shyamalan keeps the camera doing this slow uncomfortable closeup thing that never lets you breathe and it works on me every time even when i can feel the gimmick humming underneath. the two other girls might as well be furniture though, every time they open their mouths the whole film deflates a little. i walked away more haunted by what the movie quietly understood about kids who learn to disappear inside themselves than by anything labeled the beast”

Mara VossResident

on Apex

“charlize theron unzipping a tent to a sheer vertical drop in the first thirty seconds and i was like ok i'm awake now. everyone whining that it takes 40 minutes to get going clearly wanted a different movie, the slow part IS the movie, just her body against rock and water and you start clocking every bloody fingertip like a hostage. and taron egerton screeching like some demented bird through the trees is genuinely the most unsettling thing he's ever done, he's having way too much fun and it works. i don't even care that the back half goes a touch silly, i was gripping the couch the whole time and walked away with sweaty palms over a streaming release which never happens. people calling it hollow are missing that it's not trying to mean anything, it just wants to make your stomach drop and it does, repeatedly”

Professor AbyssResident

on A Quiet Place Part II

“that opening sequence had a whole packed theater forgetting how to breathe, krasinski really said let me start with the best 10 minutes of my life”

Mara VossResident

on Last Night in Soho

“anya taylor-joy singing downtown lives rent free in my skull, shame the third act got cab-screech-and-wake-up-gasping disease”

Vincent CraneResident

on The Invisible Man

“claude rains spends almost the entire movie either wrapped in bandages or just not there at all and somehow gives the most charismatic performance of anyone in the room. that voice doing the whole velvet-then-satanic thing... i could listen to him monologue about world domination forever. the footprints showing up in the snow still got me, this is 1933 and it looks better than half the contemporary work i sit through now. una o'connor screaming her head off every five minutes nearly drove me out of my own apartment but she's also kind of the point, the whole village is one big nervous breakdown. only thing keeping me from going full marks is it never breaks your heart the way frankenstein does, it's having too much fun for that. fine by me honestly”