Getting You in the End … Again: Ghoulies II (1987)

When washed up magician Uncle Ned (Royal Dano) and his nephew Larry (Damon Martin) are lagging behind with the old, overheating, funhouse truck, they stop off at a local garage whose lights are on but find no one home. The water they need is easily had, allowing them to get back on the road. However, […]

Not the Only One to Get Confused by Light and Shadow and Reflection: Melanie Tem’s The Tides

Rebecca is the administrator for The Tides, a retirement home. The place takes its name from the lake it was built alongside, some years ago. The lake has since been filled in (though water does tend to collect after a rainstorm), but of late a new, unseen force is pulling at the residents. It all […]

What Kind of Vacation Is THIS?!? Witch Story (1989)

When Ed (Gary Kerr) and Marie Hayes (Elise Hirby) lose their parents in a strange accident, they are distraught. But not for long because they soon decide to leave New York and head south to Florida with their best friends. The destination? The old family manse that is forty miles away from anywhere. It’s a […]

Anxious For Some Changes: Walter Mosley’s Bad Boy Brawly Brown

Life has not been easy for Easy Rawlins. After losing a dear friend just a short while early (part of A Little Yellow Dog) he is grappling with a hard-won case of grief and guilt for not doing everything he could to save that friend … So, while he’s dealing with those big feelings (or […]

Putting the Fatal in Fatalism: Tarot (2024)

Seven friends rent a mansion for a weekend to celebrate a birthday. Elise (Larsen Thompson) and her besties Haley (Harriet Slater), Madeline (Humberly González), Paige (Avantika), Grant (Adain Bradley), Lucas (Wolfgang Novogratz), and Paxton (a wildly entertaining Jacob Batalon) have run through their supply of beer and are searching for a stash in the rental […]

Big Apple Slices: Scream VI (2023)

After their fateful encounter with slasher evil in Woodsboro, Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera), Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega), Mindy Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown), and Chad Meeks-Martin (Mason Gooding) have relocated to New York City to pursue school and life away from their tragedy. Sam is not having an easy time of things. She is seeking therapy, […]

A Family Saga with Bones in the Cellar: Melanie Tem’s Wilding

In a certain part of Denver, there is a courtyard that holds four houses. Two of them are empty now, but when they were first built, they belonged to a quartet of sisters who had done plenty of traveling over their surprisingly long lifetimes: The sisters had come most recently from wooded, green, and rainy […]

Blonde Fury: Lady Reporter (1989)

When the FBI discovers the US is being flooded with counterfeit hundred dollar bills, their best analysts trace the funny money to Hong Kong. It’s time to call in a specialist agent to crack the case. As it turns out, Cindy (Cynthia Rothrock) went to school in HK, has plenty of contacts there, and can […]

Feelings Are Hard, Let’s Do Math: Serena Kaylor’s The Calculation of You and Me

After spending a good part of Junior year as a couple, Josh dropped quite the bomb in Marlowe Meadows’ lap. He didn’t think she was reciprocating his romance very well, so he decided they needed a break. She did not agree with this assessment since she’s done nothing but everything he told her to. Suffice […]

Because the Night Belongs to Us: You’ll Never Find Me (2023)

Oh, the weather outside is frightful … The strangest storm to hit this particular Australian trailer park in a while has arrived, bringing booming thunder and brilliant flashes of lightning. It’s 2AM and Patrick (Brendon Rock) is still up and awake, listening to the radio playing “Sleepwalk” and waiting for something, trying to figure something […]