io9Movies

Brazilian Horror Skull: The Mask Is a Splatter Fan’s Delight

Horror has a rich history of movies revolving around cursed masks that spell doom for the wearer—and usually anyone in the wearer’s vicinity. Halloween III: Season of the Witch is one example; Demons is another. Brazilian slasher Skull: The Mask now adds itself to the list, with extra-squishy flair. Skull: The Mask is written and … Continued

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Seance Offers a Reminder That Toxic Friends Are the Worst Kind of Evil

There are a lot of horror movies set at boarding schools—almost always all-girls’ boarding schools—and they tend to follow the same template: a new student realizes something is off about her surroundings. Seance starts down that same path… but it sprinkles in some unexpected elements once it gets going. Directed and written by Simon Barrett—who … Continued

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A Quiet Place Part II Is a Super Solid, Edge-of-Your-Seat Sequel

A Quiet Place Part II is a quintessential great sequel. Everything that worked about the first movie remains intact: high tension, gross monsters, great characters, strong relationships, it’s all there. This time though, everything is bigger—the number of settings and characters, and the scale of the action set pieces. However, the larger landscape doesn’t quite … Continued

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Oxygen Is a Claustrophobic Sci-Fi Thriller of Non-Stop Reveals

Don’t let the fact that Oxygen is about a woman stuck in place for two hours fool you. The claustrophobic setting provides more twists and turns than most films with the whole world at their disposal. Directed by Alexandre Aja (Crawl, The Hills Have Eyes), the film stars Mélanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds) as a mysterious … Continued

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Howard the Duck Is Still the Weirdest Marvel Movie Ever

Over 20 years before Iron Man kick-started what’s now the Marvel Cinematic Universe—the pop-culture juggernaut that devours so much of the box office—another Marvel hero got his chance to save the world. Big difference, though: the star of Howard the Duck didn’t exactly set the world on fire with his efforts. To celebrate executive producer … Continued

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Spiral‘s Ending Almost Saves a Gross But Bland Saw Sequel

There’s good news and bad news when it comes to Spiral: From the Book of Saw. The good news is you don’t need to rewatch any of the eight previous Saw films to completely understand what’s going on here. The bad news is, devoid of that dense mythology, the film lacks a much-needed identity and … Continued

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Castlevania‘s Final Season Gets There, in the End

There’s a moment roughly halfway through Castlevania’s final season when, at the height of an arduous, suitably bloody, and rather fantastic fight sequence, one character yells at another “This is about Dracula, isn’t it!?” And… that’s it. That’s the show, for better and worse, as Netflix’s Castlevania cracks its whips for one last time. For … Continued

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Army of the Dead Turns-Pandemic Era Fears and Greed Into Bloodthirsty Monsters

At this late stage into the zombie movie/tv/book game, the question that comes to mind whenever a new project in the genre debuts is what it has to add to the larger canon of zombie lore that’s given us an entire taxonomy of fictional flesh-eating ghouls. Familiar as Army of the Dead’s constituent parts will … Continued

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Star Wars: The Bad Batch Trades a Murky War for a Touching Tale of Found Family

After over a decade and seven seasons, last year brought us the end of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. But it also introduced us to its spiritual successor in the form of the unlikely clone heroes of the Bad Batch. Now, they’re in their own Disney+ animated series, and in leaving the Clone War behind, … Continued

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There’s No Way Netflix’s Gundam Movie Can Be as Bad as G-Saviour

Netflix’s acquisition of Legendary’s long-in-gestation plans to help bring Sunrise’s Mobile Suit Gundam to the world of Hollywood is bringing us one step closer to reimagining the iconic franchise. But it’s not the first time Gundam tried to take on Hollywood… and it’d be hard-pressed to turn out something as bad as the attempt Sunrise … Continued

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The Boys From County Hell Puts Its Own Bite on the Vampire Genre

The rural Irish village of Six Mile Hill is notable for one reason: a local vampire legend that supposedly inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula. But what happens when the legend… wakes up? That’s the premise for the genial yet gory The Boys From County Hell, written and directed by Chris Baugh. Like most small … Continued

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The Banishing Finds Plenty of Horror But Not Enough Frights

Set in late-1930s England, with the specter of World War II looming over the landscape, Christopher Smith’s The Banishing captures plenty of doom. But unfortunately, its haunted-house tale feels like a hodgepodge of horror movies we’ve all seen before, even with intriguing period details and a few other interest-adding elements. Jessica Brown Findlay (Brave New … Continued

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Everyone Involved With Thunder Force Deserved Better

Love or hate her brand of comedy, there’s no denying Melissa McCarthy is one of the most energetic, fearless actresses working today. The same goes for Octavia Spencer, an Oscar winner who can just as easily, and skillfully, jump between playing a serial killer or a rocket scientist. Put them together in a superhero comedy—Netflix’s … Continued

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I’ve Been Wrong About Scream 4 for 10 Years

It took me 30 minutes to remember who the killers were in Scream 4. That’s how long it had been since I’d seen it, let alone thought about it. You see, I’m a fan of the Scream franchise. I’ve seen the first three films dozens of times. Ask me about those killers and I’d spout … Continued

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Made For Love Is All About Escaping the Tangled Web of Other People’s Minds

Though HBO Max’s new series Made For Love, an adaptation of Alissa Nutting’s 2017 novel of the same name, is charged with the same foreboding dread about a technology-saturated near future that’s present in Black Mirror, the show imagines a hero who has enough sense to understand how messed up the world she lives in … Continued

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Voyagers‘ Riff on Lord of the Flies in Space Is All Too Familiar

Voyagers, the new sci-fi film from writer-director Neil Burger (Divergent), begins with an interesting twist on a tried and true premise: Earth is screwed. Disease, climate change, and more have doomed humanity unless it can find a new home. Which, luckily, it does. The problem is it’ll take 86 years to travel there. Obviously, 86 … Continued

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King Kong vs. Godzilla Never Hides Its True Victor, Even in Defeat

This week, Godzilla vs. Kong stomped into theaters and onto HBO Max to pit two of cinema’s most beloved giant monsters against each other (while some very annoying humans get in the way). It’s not the first time they’ve fought of course—and likely not the last. But the first time these titans clashed, no matter … Continued

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Godzilla vs. Kong Can’t Be Saved, Not Even by Good, Dumb Fun

Monster movies often ride or die by their over-the-top action. One can be willing to forgive failures elsewhere—many of them, even—as long as the bits where the monsters punch the bejesus out of each other are satisfying. But Godzilla vs Kong has a problem: its titanic action heights just come too rarely to justify an … Continued

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3 of the Squishiest, Creepy-Crawliest Cult Horror Movies Ever Made

Some movies give us monsters that are supernatural. Some hail from outer space or are so huge they just stomp anything in their way. But other movies—including the three we’re celebrating here today—spotlight those small yet vicious critters in our midst that often go unnoticed until just the right thing sets them off. Slugs: The … Continued

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The Sound of Violence Will Make Your Head Explode (In a Good Way)

The Sound of Violence, from writer/director Alex Noyer, debuted at the 2021 South by Southwest Film Festival’s Midnighter showcase. It’s a booming and colorful horror film, following an unhinged DJ. With that kind of logline, you’ll understand that when it allows itself to relish in brutality, it’s great fun. When it’s not doing that, it’s left … Continued