A bizarre few weeks in 2016 become a gripping documentary about creepy clowns, internet hysteria and idiots desperate for attention. Unsettling, surprisingly tragic and a refreshing alternative to your usual Halloween horror.
Clown Panic
Models vs. Werewolves
Models vs. Werewolves is bloody awful, but I kind of admire it. Terrible acting, a rubbish plot and some bizarre AI visuals, yet the technology allows a tiny production to deliver freaky werewolves and buckets of gore. A terrible film, but a fascinating experiment.
Stupid, ridiculous and not in a good way. Fall 2 delivers a parade of terrible decisions, irritating characters and the occasional moment of genuine vertigo. By the end, I wasn’t hoping they’d survive, I was hoping they’d slip so the film would finally be over.
Onslaught feels like the bastard offspring of The Guest and Assault on Precinct 13: pounding synths, unstoppable super-soldiers, glowing eyes and enough lovingly staged badass imagery to make its killers instant genre icons.
Infirmary turns its decaying hospital into a wonderfully eerie liminal maze, with strange camera angles, fisheye lenses and superb lighting constantly suggesting something is hiding just out of sight. The journey builds genuine dread, but an ambiguous ending never quite delivers on it.
A fresh and unsettling take on abusive relationships that makes love bombing feel every bit as disturbing as outright horror. Ray Nicholson is frighteningly nuanced, Sofia Black-D’Elia matches him brilliantly, and the hyper-online Gen Z dating world makes the whole thing feel uncomfortably real.
It starts like an irritating family drama and ends up somewhere considerably nastier. The End of Oak Street is uneven, occasionally ropey and surprisingly creepy, but as gateway horror for dinosaur-obsessed kids ready to venture beyond Jurassic Park, it might be absolutely perfect.