Alexis den Boggende

Boston

Senior Staff Writer at Sound of Boston

Short and spooky New Englander. Writer and critic. | Bylines: @bostonhassle, @downrightcreepy, @dailygrindhouse, @soundofboston, @imaginemagbos.

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Articles

REVIEW: Dangerous Animals (2025) dir. Sean Byrne

3 weeks ago | bostonhassle.com | Dangerous Animals |Alexis den Boggende

Since the 1975 release of Steven Spielberg’s beloved blockbuster Jaws, a slew of filmmakers have attempted to capture the same terror. From 1999’s Deep Blue Sea to 2016’s The Shallows, all these films have failed to conjure half the heart and atmosphere Jaws has, suffering from poor acting, writing, or the blatant overuse of CGI (or all three).
REVIEW: Fear Street: Prom Queen (2025) dir. Matt Palmer

1 month ago | bostonhassle.com | Alexis den Boggende

The Fear Street trilogy (1994, 1978, 1666), based off the works of beloved young adult horror author R.L. Stine, was a critical success on Netflix in 2021. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Leigh Janiak’s Fear Street movies offered horror fans an escapist nightmare brimming with blood, guts, camp, a strong storyline, and brutal kills (I am frequently haunted by the bread slicer scene). These films felt like a triple horror feature you’d see at a drive-in on a hazy summer night.
BUFF 25 DISPATCH, PART TWO: Shorts, Betrothals, and Lycanthropes

2 months ago | bostonhassle.com | Oscar Goff |Alexis den Boggende |Kyle Amato

The 2025 Boston Underground Film Festival ran from Wednesday, 3/19 through Sunday, 3/23 at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, and the Hassle’s intrepid writers Oscar Goff, Alexis den Boggende, and Kyle Amato were on the scene. Click here to catch up with the Hassle’s first dispatch from BUFF, and watch this space for our team’s continuing coverage!THE DUNWICH HORRORS dir.
REVIEW: Humane (2024) dir. Caitlin Cronenberg

Jul 25, 2024 | bostonhassle.com | Alexis den Boggende

Dystopian flicks are beginning to feel a little too close to reality—and that’s exactly how Caitlin Cronenberg’s Humane feels. The film opens with depressing and overwhelming sound bites that feel a little too close to what we hear on CNN—snippets of various television networks spewing nothing but bad news. Humanity is facing a horrific environmental crisis, and governments worldwide are enforcing voluntary, humane euthanasia upon society to lower the population by 20%.
REVIEW: The First Omen (2024) dir. Arkasha Stevenson

Apr 4, 2024 | bostonhassle.com | Alexis den Boggende

Arkasha Stevenson’s directorial debut, The First Omen, is a visually stunning horror prequel that offers haunting imagery, a harrowing score, startling kills, and clever homages to the 1976 Richard Donner classic. Though it begins promising, this demonic prologue struggles in its final act. In 1971, Massachusetts native Margaret Daino (Nell Tiger Free) is sent to Rome as a novice, weeks away from taking her vows to become a nun.
REVIEW: Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023) dir. Emma Tammi

Oct 26, 2023 | bostonhassle.com | Alexis den Boggende

Typically, PG-13 horror breeds apprehension. However, on rare occasions—such as Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell and Gore Verbinski’s The Ring—teen-rated terror tales can burrow beneath the skin and be surprisingly effective. Most often, though, PG-13 horror is limited, placing strict constraints on kills, gore, terror, and language—some of the most prominent features of a fun horror flick. It’s notoriously difficult to achieve a formidable horror film under these restrictions.
Hassle of Horror: The Hassle’s Halloween Staff Picks

Oct 24, 2023 | bostonhassle.com | Alexis den Boggende |Kyle Amato |Anna Hoang

Oscar Goff, Editor-in-ChiefTo me, Halloween is less a holiday than a semester, a portion of the year that begins on September 1, reaches a crescendo with the Coolidge Corner Theatre’s annual Halloween Marathon (which I have not missed since 2006, give or take a plague year), and doesn’t end—if it ever does end—until the candy runs out.
Eli Roth Offers a Gruesome Cornucopia of Horror in ‘Thanksgiving’ Red Band Trailer

Oct 13, 2023 | downrightcreepy.com | Alexis den Boggende

Share The red band trailer for Eli Roth’s latest film Thanksgiving offers up some seriously brutal kills in this highly anticipated holiday horror. 16 years after teasing splatter fans with his fake Thanksgiving trailer in Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse, Roth is releasing a full-length feature on November 17, 2023.
Making Knives Out of Broken Ribs: Ashnikko

Oct 12, 2023 | soundofboston.com | Alexis den Boggende

When Ashnikko was in Boston last, the zany London-based vocalist overtook Paradise Rock Club to promote her 2021 debut album, DEMIDEVIL. To celebrate her return and latest release, WEEDKILLER, Bostonians sold out Roadrunner for her. Her name flashed in lights above the entrance to the new Brighton venue. Lines of Ashnikko’s passionate fans—adorned in bright, elaborate rave-inspired gear—crammed down the block for entry.
REVIEW: The Jester (2023) dir. Colin Krawchuk

Oct 5, 2023 | bostonhassle.com | Alexis den Boggende

Adapted from a short film of the same name, Colin Krawchuk’s The Jester follows estranged half-sisters Emma (Lelia Symington) and Jocelyn (Delaney White) who are stalked by a nefarious jester on Halloween night after their father’s supposed suicide. While the film is effective in its crisp, nostalgic Halloween atmosphere and offers fun kills and chilling imagery, The Jester loses its footing—and its creepiness—in its climax.