Modern Horrors is a Kindle eBook with an alphabetical collection of more than 800 reviews by US critic Scott Weinberg, which cover horror movies released from 2000 to 2015.
As Scott notes in the preface, in the late 1990s he dreamed of being a film critic and he found that the Internet was the best way to get exposure for his reviews. Over the past 15 years websites have come and gone, so as a consequence his reviews are scattered all over the Internet or no longer available.
To compensate for the vagaries of the Internet, this compendium gathers his work together in one place and showcases the sheer scale of his determination to improve his reviewing skills and share his love of horror cinema.
James Wan (director of Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring) in a short introduction reveals how he value’s Scott’s writings because “he champions the little guys”. As a budding film director, a review by Scott gave him a glimmer of hope and he appreciates the fact that “his writing is filled with honesty, wit and biting sarcasm, but it’s never mean-spirited.”
You can see what James means when you read Scott’s one-liners, like “It’s the kind of flick you watch while you’re playing a video game and you’ll look up only when the shark starts eating people” (2-Headed Shark Attack); “You need a lot more than five actors, a van, a forest, a camera, some lights, and a sound effects program to make a decent film – as Alien Abduction clearly and repeatedly shows”; and “There’s a tongue-in-cheek absurdity to the flick that, after a rough start, actually started to win me over” (Bikini Bloodbath).
As a horror film connoisseur Scott clearly identifies the best and worst of these movies, a case in point is his review of Jurassic World. Many reviewers have dismissed it as a pointless sequel but Scott appreciates its great set pieces consisting of “chases, scrape, escapes and all-out-dino-frenzy action”. For him there is always a glimmer of gold in even the worst movie.
Scott loves horror movies and he makes you want to see all 800 plus of them that are reviewed in this volume.
MODERN HORRORS: AN A TO Z OF HORROR MOVIE REVIEWS / AUTHOR: SCOTT WEINBERG / PUBLISHER: THE HORROR SHOW LTD / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 31ST
