Nightmare Alley is a 2021 psychological thriller film directed by Guillermo del Toro and starring Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, and Willem Dafoe. The film is an adaptation of the 1947 novel of the same name by William Lindsay Gresham. It tells the story of a carnival worker named Stanton Carlisle (Cooper), who rises through the ranks of the carnival world by using his skills as a manipulator and con artist. However, his ambition and greed lead him down a dark path, as he becomes embroiled in a web of deceit and corruption.

The film explores themes of power, manipulation, and the corrupting influence of ambition. Del Toro's direction and the performances of the cast, particularly Cooper and Blanchett, have been praised for their intensity and nuance. The film's visual style, which evokes the gritty, seedy world of carnivals and sideshows, also received praise for its ability to create a sense of unease and danger.

Overall, Nightmare Alley is a well-crafted, gripping thriller that delves into the psyche of its characters and the dark side of human nature. With a talented cast and director, the movie is a must-watch for fans of psychological thrillers, crime dramas, and film noir.

‍

The Lazarus Effect is a 2015 horror film directed by David Gelb and starring Mark Duplass, Olivia Wilde, Donald Glover, Evan Peters, and Sarah Bolger. Frank (Duplass) and his fiancé Zoe (Wilde) and their team of medical researchers have discovered a way to resurrect the dead using a serum which they have given the codename "Lazarus." So far, Zoe and Frank have only tested their research on a lifeless animal, but when Zoe is killed in a lab accident, Frank decides to resurrect her in an unsanctioned experiment with the help of their research team. Zoe returns from the grave with the help of the Lazarus serum, but begins to display uncanny supernatural abilities. The team then realizes that she may not be alone, and they have unleashed a terrible and powerful evil into the world.

You might remember the first of The Last Exorcism and its cam-shaking found-footage style. Thanks god, The Last Exorcism Part 2 is made in normal way without boring "real-footage" effects. Like in th previous one, Ashley Bell stars in this movie too as Nell Sweetzer, a terrified girl found lurking in the woods and latter rehabilitating after the previous exorcism which turns out be just an act of clearing the way for greater evil eager to settle in Nell's tiny body. Further, unlike the first movie directed by Daniel Stamm (The Darkness, Angry Little God, A Necessary Death), the second "Last Exorcism" is directed by the less known Ed Gass-Donnelly (Small Town Murder Songs, This Beautiful City) which may lead to some underestimating of the horrifying power of this movie, but watching the trailer will left you reassured. The filming is great, the horror scenes are powerful, and the evil is realistic. Thanks to the writer Damien Chazelle (Grand Piano, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench) the movie plot looks solid and scenario twists are plausible.

Few of us know Scott Charles Stewart as a man standing behind the visual effects of such the great movies of last decade: Red Cliff, Iron Man and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Live Free or Die Hard. In 2009 he debuted as director of horror movie Legion followed by awesome directorial work on action-horror film Priest in 2011. Dark Skies (2013) his forth directorial project and definitely most ambiguous one. The movie follows Barret family. They are quiet and inoffensive people living their insulated and isolated lives among suspicious neighbors in small American town. That's why they are left one-on-one with imminent threat. Gorgeous hottie Keri Russel (Austenland, Goats, Extraordinary Measures) is playing the main character in Dark Skies (2013) while Dakota Goyo (Noah, Real Steel, Thor) is playing her young brother, Jesse.

Humorous yet gruesome, Warm Bodies is the title of Jonathan Levine's next movie, the title that works on the many levels; all of them are perfectly describing the idea of the film that loosely based on Isaac Marion debut novel of the same name. The story of filmed in 2013 Warm Bodies begins in the post-apocalyptical world where hordes of zombies are in the charge, ruling the Earth, while people are hiding in sporting domes, usually main city stadiums. Such stadiums remain the last refugee camps in the centers of most of the big cities of the destroyed world. Fortified in the manner medieval castles these domed structures hold the small concentrated groups of survivors keeping an endless defense against zombies. The movie follows the zombie named R, who is able to think and empathize: when he eats another portion of human brains it takes him high filling R with emotions and life experience of the victim. The irreversible changes begin when kills a suicidal teenager and eats out his brains. In the moment he immerses in the center of unrequited love of the victim to some girl named Julie. When R's congeners approach to kill the rest of the teenagers, R in the burst of emotions decides to save Julie's life, taking her out of the massacre. This step ignites developing relationship between R and Julie, resulting in the world-change consequence of events.

World War Z stars Brad Pitt as Gerry Lane, an UN employee who travels the world to write down the stories of greatest world war's survivors, the war of living beings against dead, the war of humans against zombies. The war that has had a global reach and has covered entire planet: from biggest megacities to small distinct islands. The survivors' destinies and ways there are managed to overcome the zombie epidemic were quite different from country to country and from culture to culture. First signs of future tribulation have came from South Africa where cases of "African Lyssa" were initially noticed. It took almost three month for future pandemic to shown itself the next time. Next case has happened in China where Patient #0 was subjected to medical research. However, Chinese Authorities seems to be prepared this time: military forces start national mobilization. In order to hide the real reasons of military activities China foments the war conflict with Taiwan to acquit the mobilization in front of the face of rest of the world. While all of the civilized society remains calm and kept in the dark, another country Israel starts to show the strange political behavior. Israel Authorities abandons the entire disputed territories builds military fortified wall around the remains of its territory. All the Jewish from every corner of the world are strongly asked it left their places of residence and to move in Israel urgently. Meanwhile, the signs of future catastrophic events encounters all over the planet, nearly in every country. Soon after the entire civilized world enter in the state of war against zombies. The massive nuclear impact at the former Iran territory follows and the Earth enters a Nuclear Winter. Despite of the global war, there are the islands of unbelievable equanimity. Spy satellites' photos show no signs of epidemic in South Korea, however the population of this country skyrocketing reduces; and nobody knows why – an automatic military defense perimeter leaves no chances to local disquisition. The last resort of humanity is Cuba, where no zombies reached and every suspicious human being is exterminated without delay. However, apart of this story, Brad Pitt's character, Gerry Lane has its own story. The story of his family he managed to rescue from the very first moment of global zombie epidemic, the family he was asked to left in order to travel the world to gather the facts which are able to be on help to end the World War Z with human victory. The movie is loosely based on the same name modern novel of Max Brooks which has been written in 2006. It was considered that the book is totally unfilmable due to its global reach and huge quantity of crucial panoramic scenes needed be filmed with big budget. That's why the script was rewritten for several times after it was finalized. And even then it has been underwent some significant changes which caused lots of scenes to be reshoot and release date to be postponed for half of the year. Another interesting fact about the movie – World War Z filming right were subject of severe bidding war between two high-profile Hollywood studios Plan B Entertainment and Appiean Way owned by two high profile Hollywood celebs Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio accordingly.

Guillermo del Toro once again tries to horrify as after a spooky Don't Be Afraid of the Dark - now, with his next horrendous creature Mama (2013). The story of Mama starts from scene where two sisters Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse) mysteriously disappear in the nearby forest, after their mother was ferociously killed by their father. Lilly's and Victoria's uncle, Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) tries his best to investigate this strange disappearing and to find little girls, if it's possible. But days has pass, and his rescue expedition hasn't show any results. In desperation he seeks and seeks his nieces again making it almost the main mission of his life. Finally, when he is about to give it up, he encounters a weird cabin in the forest, where two girls are living on their own, safe and in the good health. And there would be nothing extraordinary, if we talked about days of searching. But, almost five years have passed since, Victoria and Lilly were missed… That asks lots of questions. How little girls survived in the forest alone? Were they alone? And who was welcomed in Uncle Lucas's house alongside with the children? It seems like little girls' mother haunted their minds and what was taken as aftermath of the stress now turns to be a paranormal entity, Mama that has infested Lucas' house. The situation becomes really horrifying when Lucas's girlfriend, Annabel (Jessica Chastain) decides to use hidden demonic powers of Mama to resurrect her own children, which died many years ago.