Will Lasley
Bio
I’m an actor and director of stage and screen. But I also dabble in standup, and on this site, horror movie criticism. I’m just a guy who loves horror movies, and I like to share that love with the world.
Stories (92/0)
‘Color Out of Space’ Movie Review
Director Richard Stanley’s Color Out of Space, based on H.P. Lovecraft’s short story of the same name, is the story of the Gardner family: Nathan (Nicolas Cage), his wife, Theresa (Joely Richardson), daughter Lavinia (Madeleine Arthur), older son Benny (Brendan Meyer), and younger son Jack (Julian Hilliard). Nathan moves his family out to the backwoods of Massachusetts, where they grow vegetables and raise alpacas. One night, a strange meteorite lands in their yard, exuding a strange neon aura. Over time, the energy from the meteorite begins to “infect” everything; the crops taste bitter, the alpacas get sick, strange blotches start appearing on their skin, time becomes indeterminable, and things only get worse from there.
By Will Lasley4 years ago in Horror
‘Doctor Sleep’ Movie Review
Doctor Sleep, based on Stephen King’s book of the same name, is a sequel to The Shining (in the movie’s case, the 1980 film version). A now-grown Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor) has become a distraught alcoholic. He still sees his old friend Dick Halloran (now played by Carl Lumbly) from time to time, in the form of “shining” (the ability to communicate using one’s mind) from the afterlife. After a man named Billy Freeman (Cliff Curtis) meets him and takes him in, Dan joins AA and begins to repair his life. Soon, however, Dan discovers a girl (Kyliegh Curran) who can shine more powerfully than anyone he, or the evil psychic superhumans hunting her (led by Rebecca Ferguson), have ever experienced, and Dan feels the need to protect her from them.
By Will Lasley4 years ago in Horror
‘The Lighthouse’ Movie Review
The Lighthouse is the latest film from Robert Eggers, director of the truly superb The Witch. Two lighthouse keepers in New England (Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe) start out rather hostile toward each other, but eventually start to become friends. However, both men seem to be harboring dark secrets, and the more stir crazy they get, the more curious they grow about each other’s pasts.
By Will Lasley4 years ago in Horror
‘The Fanatic’ Movie Review
Directed by Fred Durst, of all people, The Fanatic is a stalker flick about a guy named Moose (John Travolta) who idolizes an actor named Hunter Dunbar (Devon Sawa). After just barely missing his chance to get Dunbar’s autograph, Moose approaches him in the alleyway as he is leaving. When Dunbar understandably tells him off, it only makes Moose even more obsessed with him, and that obsession soon begins to spill over into Hunter’s personal life.
By Will Lasley5 years ago in Horror
‘3 From Hell’ Movie Review
Rob Zombie’s 3 From Hell is the completion of his slasher trilogy about the Firefly family, preceded by 2003s House of 1000 Corpses and 2005s The Devil’s Rejects. After miraculously surviving a shootout with the police, Baby Firefly (Sherri Moon Zombie), Otis “Driftwood” Firefly (Bill Mosley), and Captain Spaulding (the, as of recently, late Sid Haig) are all put on death row. But following a bloody prison break, assisted by a new member of the Firefly clan, their half-brother Winslow Foxworth Coltrane, AKA “the Midnight Wolf-Man” (Richard Brake), the titular killers attempt to make a break for Mexico.
By Will Lasley5 years ago in Horror
'It: Chapter Two' Movie Review
It: Chapter Two picks up 27 years after the first film left off (with intermittent flashbacks thrown in). When Pennywise the Clown (Bill Skarsgård) resurfaces after a twenty seven-year sleep, Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa), who chose to remain in their hometown of Derry, must reunite the Losers Club: Bill (James Macavoy), Richie (Bill Hader), Eddie (James Ransone), Ben (Jay Ryan), Stanley (Andy Bean), and Beverly (Jessica Chastain). Together, they’ll have to finish what they started all those years ago to defeat Pennywise for good.
By Will Lasley5 years ago in Horror
'The Banana Splits Movie' Movie Review
The Banana Splits Movie is a horror movie based on the kids’ show of the same name from Hanna-Barbera/Sid and Marty Krofft. In this version, however, they’re not quite as cute and cuddly. A little boy named Harley (Finlay Wojtak-Hissong) is obsessed with the Banana Splits, a quartet of goofy, lovable animatronic characters who play songs and games on their TV show. When Harley gets to go to a taping of the show for his birthday, he is absolutely overjoyed. But when the show’s cast and crew are told that the show is being canned, and that this taping will be the last episode, the Splits don’t take it very well, and Harley, his mother (Dani Kind), his older brother (Romeo Carere), his douchebag stepfather (Steve Lund), his reluctant plus-one, Zoe (Maria Nash), and the rest of the studio audience end up in the path of the Splits’ murderous rage.
By Will Lasley5 years ago in Horror
‘Tone-Deaf’ Movie Review
Tone-Deaf is the latest horror/comedy from Richard Bates Jr. It tells the story of a woman named Olive (Amanda Crew) who, after a nasty breakup, decides to have a little getaway to the rural South. She rents an old, rustic manor from a bitter, surly middle-aged man (Robert Patrick) who has some serious gripes about her generation of young adults. He also just so happens to be a psycho killer.
By Will Lasley5 years ago in Horror
'Gwen' Movie Review
Gwen is about a Welsh farming family, who is staring down the barrel of the Industrial Revolution. The title character (Eleanor Worthington-Cox) is the older of two young girls who live with their mother (Maxine Peake), with their father off fighting in the war. Gwen is slowly watching everything in her life crumble, with her mother becoming ill with an unknown disease and a mining company attempting to destroy their way of life. But people soon become suspicious about Gwen and her family, as women in those days were often quick to be accused of witchcraft.
By Will Lasley5 years ago in Horror
‘Ready or Not’ Movie Review
Ready or Not is a horror/comedy about a young woman named Grace (Samara Weaving) who is marrying into a very rich family of card game and board game manufacturers. On their wedding night, Grace’s new husband, Alex (Mark O’Brien), informs her that they have a family tradition in which everyone who becomes a new member of the family must play a randomly-selected game. When she draws the card for “Hide & Seek,” the family’s patriarch (Henry Czerny) tells her that she will be the sole objective in a family-wide game of hide-and-seek inside their enormous mansion. But once the other members of the family begin seeking her, she figures out that the game is, in fact, to-the-death, and the family has rather sinister plans for her.
By Will Lasley5 years ago in Horror
'47 Meters Down: Uncaged' Movie Review
47 Meters Down: Uncaged, which is unconnected to the previous 47 Meters Down, is about two stepsisters who don’t exactly get along (a tale as old as time). When Mia (Sophie Nélisse), an oft-bullied wallflower, is persuaded by stepsister Sasha (Corinne Fox), who is much more popular and outgoing, to go scuba diving in a secluded site of submerged Mayan ruins with two of Sasha’s friends (Brianne Tju and Sistine Rose Stallone), the four discover that there is an ancient blind species of shark dwelling there.
By Will Lasley5 years ago in Horror
‘Them That Follow’ Movie Review
Them That Follow is about a deep-South Pentecostal snake-handling church. When a secret love affair results in Mara (Alice Englert), daughter of pastor Lemuel (Walton Goggins), becoming pregnant, she must try to hide it from the rest of their community, especially considering that the baby’s father (Thomas Mann) had abandoned the church years ago, much to the chagrin of his parents (Olivia Coleman and Jim Gaffigan).
By Will Lasley5 years ago in Horror