Reed Alexander
Bio
I'm a horror author and foulmouthed critic of all things horror. New reviews posted every Monday.
@ReedsHorror on TikTok, Threads, Instagram, YouTube, and Mastodon.
Check out my books on Godless: https://godless.com/products/reed-alexander
Stories (311/0)
Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Cloverfield' (2008)
As a horror head, one of the most interesting things I ever heard about horror was from my father. When he was a kid, the idea of Godzilla scared the shit out of him. Today, we crave something more out of modern horror. The idea of being scared by Kaiju sounds kinda cute, really. Even with the advent of Shin Godzilla, going back to the roots of the evil king lizard, it's not what anyone would really consider scary.
By Reed Alexander5 years ago in Horror
Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Neon Maniacs' (1986)
What's better than a slasher horror? A slasher horror with multiple slashers! Jesus fucking Christ what a dumpster fire. This is another beauty from my childhood years. I believe I first saw it on USA Up All Night. I really miss the USA channel. Duckman, titty flicks, cheep ass horror. Man those were the days. They'd edit out all the good parts, but it was the only way for a little kid to get R-rated stuff back before the internet was a thing.
By Reed Alexander5 years ago in Horror
Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Mandy' (2018)
With The Color Out of Space soon to be released, I figure I'd give Cage one last chance, and see if he has what it takes to pull off Cosmic Horror of the likes of H. P. Lovecraft. I wrote an article a little while back, skeptical of Cage's ability to do the genre any justice. You can read that article at the following link: Nicholas Cage: What Does He Contribute to Horror?
By Reed Alexander5 years ago in Horror
Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'House of 1000 Corpses' (2003)
I haven't watched this movie recently, but I watched it so many damn times that I know it intimately. This movie is the first time I really identified Sid Haig as an actor and paragon of horror. I'd likely seen him before, maybe first in Planet Terror, but Captain Spaulding firmly cemented Sid into my memory. I'd see him along the way in things like Creature (2011), and of course every fucking thing that Rob Zombie ever does. We have to give Rob that. He rescues forgotten actors from the dust bin. Sid was the best find, I think.
By Reed Alexander5 years ago in Horror
Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Toad Road' (2012)
Toad Road invokes an urban legend about a place where the seven gates of hell can be visited right here on earth, a place right in your own home town. It's the sort of stories you hear about that trail that use to be a utility road for an insane asylum, or a place like a sewer tunnel with labyrinthine ducts like the one in New Jersey. We had one in my home town in CT, the Norwich asylum. It's the sort of place you hear about when you're in high school; not coincidentally the place you likely went to do drugs. Or maybe that was just me and my friends. It starts with the sense you're being watched, then touched, then assaulted metaphysically, and so on. And here we find ourselves, of all the idiotic ideas, engaging in drug culture for a cheep thrill and a little sense of adventure. If you identify with that, you will love this movie. Even if you're just a ghost hunter who digs urban legends, you will love this movie.
By Reed Alexander5 years ago in Horror
Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'White Noise: The Light' (2007)
You know, this movie wasn't half bad. I'm not sure what it had to do with White Noise, as there was almost zero connection to the original movie. The first movie dealt exclusively with EVP, and this movie basically didn't deal with it at all. I mean, it's kinda in the background, but I feel like the director just didn't understand what white noise EVP phenomenon is.
By Reed Alexander5 years ago in Horror
Reed Alexander's Horror Review of '31'
Jesus fucking Christ Rob... you sure do know how to pull every god damn trope out of the box that annoys the fuck out of me. This one opens with a talking head, and continues with an unnecessarily long exposition on how annoying all the fucking characters are. It was actually pretty quick, no more than 10 minutes, but it felt like a goddamn hour. Fucking seriously! I hate it when a movie challenges me to break my 30 minute rule. And just so you know how bad it has to be for me to break one of my own rules, one of the few movies where I did was The Bay.
By Reed Alexander5 years ago in Horror
Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'The Exorcist III' (1990)
I recently read a review that stated The Exorcist III (X-3) is finally getting the appreciation it deserves. That's an understatement. X-3 was thrown into the category cult classic as the only people who saw it were hardcore fans of the original (X-1). These are the people who suffered through the absolute fucking travesty that was the second exorcist (X-2). They stuck by and believed in the franchise and forced friends to watch X-3 over the years. My introduction was the same. "HAVE YOU SEEN X-3?!?" "THERE'S A 3RD ONE?!?" We were actually screaming, no lie.
By Reed Alexander5 years ago in Horror
Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Slither' (2006)
You know what was ballsy about this movie? Someone saw Night of the Creeps and said, "I can make that funnier and scarier." And maybe it takes someone like James Gunn to pull that off. If you've ever seen Night of the Creeps, you know it's one of the all time greatest intentionally bad movie. In fact, it was one of the first. The late 80s into the 90s was all about revolutionizing horror as an industry. Movies like Critters and Leprechaun were proving that horror didn't have to be good to be entertainment. Directors like Mark Jones and Fred Dekker realized that half of the movies they enjoyed as kids, were actually garbage, and that's half the reason for loving them. B-Horror helped define the industry.
By Reed Alexander5 years ago in Horror
Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Frankenstein's Army' (2013)
Okay, the very concept of this movie is fucking silly but... This movie was FUCKING AWESOME! Look, don't exactly expect a great plot. Hell, I'm not sure this movie even had a coherent plot. In fact, it was so thin they might as well have not bothered. But, FUCKING INDUSTRIAL MECHANICAL NAZIS!!! This made every portion of the teenage metal head inside of me squee with delight. If you played Wolfenstine, Doom, Blood, or Quake, this was just part of your horror scene growing up. Horror, Metal, and Video Games defined my generation. I'm actually shocked it took the horror industry this long to pander to us as adults.
By Reed Alexander5 years ago in Horror
Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Ready or Not' (2019)
Holy fuck! What a whacked out movie! I brought this up once before and I'll bring it up again in my review of Primal (coming soon), but I think I stated it best in my review of Don't Kill It. It is possible to go too dark for dark comedy. This movie was likely supposed to be your standard horror thriller when it was first written, then either the producers of the director realized how absolutely ridiculous the concept is. Mind you, this movie could be done seriously, as in not a dark comedy, but I really think adding the extra layer of dark comedy was positive. Don't Kill It went a little too far. This one was just about right.
By Reed Alexander5 years ago in Horror
Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Primal' (2010)
I love it when I tiptoe through the bargain bin movies and it yields a little gem like this. Like all movies with a shoe string budget, it's not what one would call good cinema, but it was a fuck ton of fun. As I'm often to point out, that's all that fucking matters. Remember, I also grade on a curve, and while this clearly did have some budget, it wouldn't even approach a small Hollywood production.
By Reed Alexander5 years ago in Horror