Talk to Me (2022)

Forget shaking hands with the devil; "Talk to Me" is all about shaking hands with an embalmed hand of obscure origin, thus summoning and ultimately unleashing supernatural forces that wreck friendships and lives. Oh, and they bring the gore too! When Mia (Sophie Wilde) and her friends make a party game of this ritual, what starts out as admittedly freaky fun eventually takes a turn for the catastrophic, resulting in some of the more effective scenes of horror and suspense in recent memory. That co-directors Michael and Danny Philippou don't simply allow the teens to be experiencers of horror but -- whether they like it or not -- participants in it, too, lends the film a sense of urgency and genuine dread that's typically absent from the frequently interchangeable supernatural horrors that have cropped up in the two decades since "The Ring" really kickstarted the genre. Not just trying to survive but facing legitimate moral dilemmas as well as her own past trauma, Mia is forced to make desperate choices in a bid to save herself and her friends, while we're forced to squirm just a little bit more than we probably expected as the ante ratchets up. Sophie Wilde is stunning in the lead role, working with tough material and delivering a brilliant performance. The rest of the cast are similarly great. As for the movie itself: it's not perfect but it is excellent and darkly refreshing. It's kind of reminiscent of "Hereditary" with the effect it has on you. Highly recommended.

Natty Knocks (2023)

You'd think a horror movie directed by "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers" helmer Dwight Little and starring genre legends Bill Mosely, Robert Englund and Danielle Harris, in which a band of teens seek to survive the murderous meltdown of the son of a B-horror movie actress once burned at the stake by angry townsfolk, would at least be a bit of a good time. Alas, outside of a handful of cute references to horrors of yesteryear, "Natty Knocks" is a largely joyless Halloween slasher that fails to reach its potential. In fact, the younger cast members here outshine the veterans, who are given little of substance to work with and don't seem particularly inspired by it. Bill Moseley as a serial killing villain sounds great on paper (especially after his stellar work in Rob Zombie's "Firefly" trilogy), but unfortunately his energy only matches the rest of this bland movie.

Slotherhouse (2023)

Totally lacking in seriousness and delivering enough laughs to overcome its basic design, "Slotherhouse" pits a murderous three-toed sloth against the sisters of a sorority house with entertaining, albeit insufficiently bloody results. Except for not being terrible, this is pretty much what you'd expect from a goofy horror blending slasher and killer animal tropes, right down to the branding of stereotypically male movie facets onto members of its endearing female cast. It's still turn-your-brain-off material completely devoid of depth, but it's fun in all the ways it needs to be without exactly transcending an obviously limited budget (in that sense it reminds of the similarly cheap-and-cheerful "Jack Frost"). And isn't it nice to see Sydney Craven having fun playing a cunty sorority president after the cinematic tragedy that was "Jeepers Creepers: Reborn"? The silly "Slotherhouse" won't rock anybody's worlds like a Ti West or Mike Flanagan joint, but if you're looking for an upgraded version of the kinda crap you're liable to find when browsing Tubi, this one shouldn't disappoint.

Bury the Bride (2023)

With one of their number scheduled to marry a country guy they've never met, a bachelorette party arrives at a secluded cabin to down a few drinks and argue a bit before the knot is tied. Alas, the bride-to-be (Scout Taylor-Compton) sure knows how to pick them. Soon, her fiancee and his redneck friends crash the party, and they're so cartoonishly evil from moment one that you expect "Bury the Bride" to lurch into comedy territory without delay. Alas, the filmmakers really thought they were cooking up something serious here, so they cast the joke book aside and, even after it's revealed that the groom and his comrades are vampires acting out a ritual in which they kill and resurrect their betrothed (and dispatch their unfortunate friends), play it painfully straight. This ain't no "From Dusk till Dawn" and director Spider One (brother of the more talented Rob Zombie) ain't no Robert Rodriguez. For what it's worth, the film does have some decent performances courtesy of the female cast and there's an appropriate amount of gore for the story, but damned if isn't boring and unbelievably self-serious for what it is. Maybe if it took some risks and didn't follow the path of least resistance in its plotting, its humorlessness could be forgiven. Here we are, though.