MONSTERZERO NJ’S WORST HORROR FLICKS of 2017!

It’s now time to look back at the past year and see what horrors left a bad impression. As we all know in horror, all that splatters isn’t gold. Here are my least favorite/worst horrors of 2017.

(NOTE: There are a few titles here initially released in 2016 at festivals or limited theatrical release, but I did not catch up to them till VOD or home media in 2017 and felt it unfair not to include them! -MZNJ)

(To get to our reviews of these titles use the search engine at the top of the page!)

 

-MonsterZero NJ

BARE BONES: PHOENIX FORGOTTEN and MONSTER X

PHOENIX FORGOTTEN (2017)

Second “Phoenix Lights” based found footage flick has an engaging plot, but a lackluster execution. Here we have a young woman (Florence Hartigan) searching for her brother Josh who disappeared twenty years earlier. Josh (Luke Spencer Roberts) witnessed The Phoenix Lights Incident along with she and her family at her sixth birthday and disappeared soon after upon investigating it with friends. Now decades later, she investigates his vanishing with a documentary crew and finds something they may not escape from themselves.

Directed by Justin Barber from his script with T.S. Nowlin, this had promise, but sadly isn’t all that much better than the awful Phoenix Incident, which had, obviously, a lot of the same plot elements. It has a few moments and the characters are nowhere near as annoying as the ones in that other film, but this is still a rather dull movie with a lot of Blair Witch scene retreads and some stuff already covered in Oren Peli’s Area 51. Too bad that a real life incident that still has people talking can’t inspire a movie that is actually as spooky as what it’s based on.

-MonsterZero NJ

 

MONSTER X (2017)

Anthology flick has an amusing concept. A guy (Matt Tatroe) takes a first date (Stephanie June) to an all night horror festival and as they watch, the movies seem to take life around them. Now the couple are on the run from zombies, vampires and werewolves.

Multiple directors (Patrick Rea, Sean van Leijenhorst, Daniel B. Iske and Jaysen P. Buterin) are listed for this flick which has it’s heart in the right place and earns points for taking place in an old style movie theater. The anthology segments…Banshee, Howl of a Good Time, Now That You’re Dead and Don’t Let The Light In…are amusing as is the framing segment, The Dead Hour, of our beleaguered couple trying to survive their first date. The individual segments do seem like short films that the anthology was built around, as the copyright’s for those segments vary and go back as far as 2008. This adds to the cleverness, as getting those short films seen as part of a multi-segment film is inventive thinking. Overall, it’s very low budget and a little amateurish in spots, but it’s intentions are well meant and there is credit for effort. Cute and fun little flick that doesn’t overstay it’s welcome at only 70 minutes including credits.

Segments:

The Dead Hour– directed by Daniel B. Iske and written by Scott Coleman

Banshee– written and directed by Sean van Leijenhorst

Howl of a Good Time– written and directed by Patrick Rea

Now That You’re Dead– written and directed by Patrick Rea

Don’t Let The Light In– written and directed by Jaysen P. Buterin

-MonsterZero NJ