Psychopaths (2017)

Director: Mickey Keating

Notable Cast: Ashley Bell, Angela Trimbur, Mark Kassen, Ivana Shein, James Landry Hebert, Jeremy Gardner, Helen Rogers, Larry Fessenden, Sam Zimmerman

In recent years there has been a resurgence of artistically charged horror films in the mainstream conscious, but there are always those truly enigmatic and impressive films that lie in the undercurrent of what’s popular. Even though the filmography of Mickey Keating tends to fit into the rising popularity of the arthouse horror with his focus on atmosphere and artful visuals, most of his films tend to find themselves buried with limited releases. His latest, Psychopaths, was once again given little fanfare when it first hit VOD and now it is even available to stream for free on Amazon Prime with little in the way of marketing or word of mouth. This is a problem because Psychopaths, for all of its divisive approaches, is a dynamic, perplexing, and impressively well-crafted modern arthouse horror affair. It might be Mickey Keating at his most Mickey Keating, but it resonates in a strange way that really had me hook, line, and sinker.

The Blood Splatter: 2016 Horror Vol. 3 [Holidays, Carnage Park, Baskin]

HOLIDAYS (2016)

Directors: Kevin Smith, Gary Shore, Matt Johnson, Scott Stewart, Anthony Scott Burns, Denis Widmyer, Kevin Kolsc, Sarah Adina Smith

It would seem that the horror anthology is trending as a style now even more than ever and, as a subsidiary of that style, holiday themed horror anthologies is also trending. Between the most obvious Halloween focused films, there was a couple Christmas themed films that were worth their weight in celluloid, but it was only a matter of time before a multitude of holidays made it into one film. The aptly titled Holidays is that film. In a weird combination of holiday themed horror and the ABCs of Death, Holidays is a generally entertaining albeit roller coaster ride of quality for a horror anthology film. It certainly doesn’t reach the heights of the granddaddy of modern anthology films like Trick R Treat, but it’s not nearly as a mixed bag as the previously mentioned ABCs of Death or the horrific V/H/S/3. For horror fans, it’s a nice combination of diverse stories, but it’s also hardly one of the best that the style has to offer. In anthologies, it’s obvious that audiences are going to have some stories that hit home and others that flounder. With Holidays, it’s the same as the rest. If anything, at least all of the stories are entertaining to some degree even if that entertainment focus fluctuates between the various stories depending on their style.