Horror Weekly

This week’s new release is “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” (2026). We’ll also begin watching the Resident Evil series with “Resident Evil” (2002). “You’re Next” (2011) is up next, and finally is 1964’s “The Earth Dies Screaming.”

All this, plus the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #61, for October 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

2026 Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

* Directed by: Jane Schoenbrun

* Written by: Jane Schoenbrun

* Stars: Jack Haven, Hannah Einbeinder, Gillian Anderson

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 52 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Sexual and psychological hijinks occur when the director who is going to reboot a classic horror movie franchise visits the camp where the first movie was filmed and tries to talk the final girl from the first movie into returning to acting. And of course she has to convince her agent that’s a good idea too. It’s weird and surreal and gets more so as the movie progresses, almost like being about horror and fandom than actually being horror, and it blurs the lines between fantasy and reality.

We both agree it had good parts, and was interesting, but we were kinda bored for big chunks of it.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a movie set, and then cut to a young couple walking through a field. A crazy man with a box on his head, “LIttle Death,” kills them excessively. Credits roll as we see newspaper clippings about what a hit the movie, “Camp Miasma” was back in the days of videotape. There are numerous sequels and merchandising gimmicks. Nowadays, it’s considered a “problematic classic.” But now, there’s a new reboot in the works!

Kris calls Mari, who talks about Thor, about the new remake. She gets to the strange little Hilton Inn and talks to the proprietor about borrowing a DVD player that he has to dust off. She watches Part VI of the franchise, and it is pretty awful.

She eventually comes to Camp Tivoli, which is clearly closed for the winter. They do, however, have a building marked “Cinema,” so she has to check that out. At just about the point where she’s expecting a jump scare, Billy Presley, the star of the films, shows up. She just might actually believe that Little Death is real. He’s still waiting down at the bottom of the lake, and he always comes back. We then get a montage of them eating fried chicken…

The two discuss how Camp Miasma isn’t woke enough for modern audiences, but if they hire a queer director like Kris, that makes it OK. Kris explains all about being polyamorous, which is new to Billy. It’s a long conversation, and after, Kris wants to leave. Still, it’s late, so Billy convinces her to stay the night.

Meanwhile, out in the center of the frozen lake, something glows and starts to break free.

The two women watch the original film, released back in 1980, and it’s clear that Billy still identifies with the younger version of herself in the film. We watch as the camp counselors arrive ahead of the kids and tell the legend of the Little Death. There was a weird mute kid there one summer who was a boy on some days and a girl on others. Eventually, the other kids just drowned him. We see Little Death rise from the cold dark lake. He immediately starts killing people and spraying CGI blood everywhere. LOTS of CGI blood. He kills all the counselors within a few minutes.

Back in the real world, Kris and Billy continue watching the film. There’s a sex scene involving young Billy, and we see the killer approaching them. Just as the Little Death is about to kill them, the power goes out and the film stops.

Then we stop as Kris takes her shirt off to seduce Billy, and it appears to work quite well. Kris has visions of Little Death right in the middle of sex, which she finds annoying. Kris wants to be the victim of Little Death, or at least that’s her fantasy,

The next day, Kris does a video conference with the backers for the film. Kris reports that she’s pretty sure she’s signed Billy to be in the project, but the others aren’t at all impressed with that idea. They all expect a Little Death origin story, but she explains her concept for the film, and it’s pretty weird. [At this point, I’m looking to see how much longer this is]. The producers decide to… get back to Kris.

Kris, on the other hand, finds herself suddenly in the Miasma movie, with all the original actors and characters. Then she goes back to camp to dance and hang out with Billy again.Billy talks about losing her virginity, and it was its own “Little Death.” Kris sees Little Death rise out of the lake to chase her. She obliges by stripping down to her panties and a shirt with no bra. Mari and Thor show up just in time to be killed. So does her agent and others as things get more and more over the top like she’s in a Miasma movie.

As Billy and Kris make love in bed, Little Death approaches from outside and kills them both, which seems to be a romantically happy ending? Little Death creates the next film in the series, which stars Billy and Kris.

We flash back over all the dead bodies of people that Little Death really did kill, as he walks back out into the lake until next time. Both dead girls wake up, their fantasies fulfilled…

Brian’s Commentary

It truly is the golden age of gummy candies.

There’s so much product placement that it probably made a profit even before it was released. The in-movie movie, Camp Miasma, is a send-up of all the slasher films of the 80s, mostly the Jason Voorhees ones, but it’s far more over-the-top than those films ever really were. There’s also a lot here about washed-up actresses and ruined careers.

Most of the outdoor scenes are clearly not real places, but it gives the whole thing a surreal side that emphasizes the weirdness of the camp setting. The visuals overall are quite nice, and the in-movie gore is excessively silly, but very appropriate.

Much like the director’s previous film, “I Saw the TV Glow,” this one is heavily LGBTQ and trans friendly. It’s kinda all over the place, storywise. The in-movie Miasma stuff is hilariously gory, but the wraparound story with Kris and Billy really drags and drags.

It’s a weird one, but I have to say I was bored through about 35% of it.

Kevin’s Commentary

I too noticed the product placement. Lots of it and pretty obvious.

I thought casting Amanda Fix as young Billy, AKA young Gillian Anderson, worked really well.

Candy. There is so much candy in this movie.

I’d call it at least interesting. The visuals and acting are great. But not a lot happened in the first half, and I thought the second half started dragging. I was longing for more movie within the movie. But the ending was intriguing. I’m going to go with I liked it more than disliked it.

2002 Resident Evil

* AKA “Biohazard”

* Directed by: Paul W. S. Anderson

* Written by: Paul W. S. Anderson

* Stars: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Ryan McCluskey

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 42 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A special military unit has to infiltrate an underground research facility where they deal with the undead, mutated dogs and people, and a protective computer system. And some amnesia in the mix just for fun. It’s heavy on science fiction, set in the future, and it plays out a lot like a video game for very good reason. The horror elements are there, and lots of action. It felt a little dated seeing it now, but it’s still well made and entertaining. And the ending leaves it wide open for the sequel.

Spoilery Synopsis

We are briefed on the events that led to the incident at Racoon City. We’re told that The Umbrella Corporation had become the largest commercial entity in the United States. They have products everywhere, including bio-weapons. Credits roll.

We watch as a scientist packs up some samples and then releases a virus into the air system of the science base. The dogs used as test animals notice the smell first, but the people don’t. There’s a biohazard warning, and all the doors lock down. The gas is channeled into the rooms, killing most of the employees. The people in the elevator, on the other hand, are gas-free, but trapped.

Somewhere else, Alice wakes up, naked, in the shower. She looks in the mirror and notices strange bruises. She’s alone, but finds some weapons in a locked vault.

Suddenly, ninjas attack! One of them grabs Alice and demands a report, but she doesn’t remember anything. There’s a man there, Matt, who insists he’s supposed to be there. The whole group descends to the mansion’s basement, where there’s a whole secret subway station. On the train, they find another guy with memory loss. We can see that someone is following their progress through the security monitors.

One explains to Alice and the other guy, Spence, that they all work for the corporation to protect the secrecy of the hive, where they are now. Alice, Spence, and all the soldiers enter the hive, the science base we saw earlier. “The Red Queen has locked onto us, she knows we’re here.” The Red Queen is the AI that controls the hive.

The group comes across a room full of pods, and inside those pods are people. The group’s leader, One, walks ahead of the others and unlocks the doors. Turns out, it’s a trap, and that goes badly for four of the soldiers and One.

A holographic representation of the Red Queen appears and warns them to leave immediately. Alice and JD plant the EMP device, which goes off and shuts down the computer. It also shuts down all the containment things in the building and opens all the doors. Turns out, all those scientists who died have become zombies; one of them bites Rain.

A bunch of zombies attack, and there’s a great deal of shooting. After the fighting, mutated weird things start breaking out of the pods. Alice runs into mutant zombie dogs and one of the soldiers. She does martial arts on the undead security guard and remembers that she’s a trained fighter.

Meanwhile, Matt, playing the corporate weasel (every movie’s got one one), sneaks off by himself. Turns out, he was here to spy on Umbrella and expose them to the press. Alice starts to think she might be the inside agent who was leaking the secrets outside.

The group only has about an hour to get out of the building before the doors all lock and they’re buried here, forever. They have to turn the Red Queen back on to get the doors open. The queen explains all about zombies and how to kill them.

Still, the numbers are overwhelming, and most of the soldiers die. Alice and Spence, along with Matt and the clearly infected Rain, are all that’s left. Alice gets a flashback showing her that there’s a cure for the virus. The blue vials are the virus; the green is the cure. Spence also gets his memories back; he’s the baddie who released the infection.

Spence locks everyone in a room and returns to the train, where he hid the antidote. The Red Queen, on the other hand, has released the scary mutant monster in the same place. It kills him and then uses his DNA to mutate further.

The group meets up with Kaplan, who didn’t die after all. They give Rain the antidote and get back on the train. Kaplan drives the train, at least until the big mutant gets him. Alice stabs the creature in the tongue, but then Rain turns into a zombie after all and attacks from the rear. Matt shoots Rain; Alice kills the mutant.

Alice and Matt barely make it out of the hive before lockdown happens. Matt, who was scratched, starts to turn, but a bunch of scientists storm in and cart him away. Alice is also taken away for further study.

Alice wakes up some time later in a lab, but there’s no one else there. Turns out, this lab has gotten infected as well. She breaks out of the Racoon City Hospital and sees that it’s gotten all post-apocalyptic outside.

Time for a sequel!

Brian’s Commentary

The poor Umbrella Corporation gets the blame for all of this? The corporation was legally creating bioweapons for the government. Spence was the one who released it, with help from Matt, Alice, and Matt’s sister.

There’s lots of shooting, jumping, kicking, and puzzles, almost as if this was based on a video game or something. It’s got a lot of action, one damned thing after another, but it never gets boring. The story is fine, although there really aren’t any surprises; the acting… well, it’s a videogame movie.

The CGI mutant has not held up, but the rest is all pretty good.

Kevin’s Commentary

I thought this one still holds up pretty well overall for entertainment, but it’s dated looking around the edges. Like a video game, it keeps moving steady from one thing to the next. I’d recommend it if you’re in the mood for something fun and violent.

2011 You’re Next

* Directed by: Adam Wingard

* Written by: Simon Barrett

* Stars: Sharni Vinson, Joe Swanberg, AJ Bowen

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 35 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

The family gets together for mom and dad’s anniversary at their huge house in the country. Home invaders crash the party and things get deadly and violent. It becomes a cat and mouse game, and we’re left wondering who is going to survive to the end. Home invasions have been done before, but this was an especially good one. We would recommend it.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a couple having bad sex. Erik goes off for a shower, and she turns on some music. He comes out of the shower and sees “You’re Next” written on the mirror in his girlfriend’s blood. He is, in fact, next.

Paul and Aubrey arrive at the house next door to Erik’s, and the front door has been opened. They go in and start cleaning up. Paul goes to check out the upstairs, but is interrupted by Crispin, their son, and Erin, who have just arrived. There is, however, someone up there. Aimee and Tariq show up next, along with Felix and Zee.

The next morning, Crispin’s brother Drake and wife Kelly arrive and annoy Crispin. Aubrey sends Erin over to Erik’s house to borrow some milk. She goes over there but doesn’t see Erik’s body.

Dinnertime rolls around, and soon, the whole family is arguing. Tariq notices someone outside, and whoever it is out there shoots him in the head. The shots just keep on coming, and Drake gets it in the back as well. Panic ensues.

They talk Aimee into running for help, and that goes very badly, very quickly. More screaming ensues as Aimee dies from a wire-cut throat.

Aubrey goes upstairs to cry, but she’s attacked by a killer in a fox mask. Erin is also attacked, but fights him off. “You’re Next” is written on the wall. Kelly gets out the front door and runs to Erik’s house, where she runs into a sheep-masked man who finishes her off with an axe.

Crispin decides it’s his turn to run for help. Tigerman breaks in through the window, but Erin beats him to death– and she’s sure he won’t be getting up again. Paul thinks this whole thing was an organized attack and that they’ve been watching the house for days, but then he gets his throat cut and can’t elaborate further.

Turns out, the animal-men are working for Felix and Zee. Erin is still out there trying to find a way out. Sheepface finds the dead tigerman and freaks out; that was probably his brother or something. He runs into Drake, who still isn’t dead, but Erin runs him off before anyone else dies.

Drake and Erin meet up with Felix and Zee to barricade the doors. Erin says she grew up in a survivalist compound, and she’s learned some weird stuff. Felix stabs Drake repeatedly with multiple screwdrivers, and this time, he’s really going to die.

Erin jumps out the window and starts running through the woods. Sheephead steps on a nail trap which he finds annoying. Zee wants to have sex with Felix on the bed next to his dead mother. Erin hides and overhears Felix yelling at the killers for their incompetence.

Erin stabs sheephead in the forehead, and he looks dead. She then sets out “Home Alone-ing” the house. Naturally, the fox-head comes in through the window instead of the booby-trapped door. Erin uses a flashbulb to distract him and then kill him. No more masked men, just Felix and Zee are left.

Felix attacks Erin, who kills him very creatively. Zee simply gets stabbed in the head.

Felix’s phone rings; it’s Crispin, wanting to know if the murders are done. Erin is just a bit unhappy that her boyfriend would set her up to be murdered. He goes inside and runs into Erin. He explains that there was a reason she was there; as a surviving witness. He knows they can work through this as a couple. Will she join him as an accomplice?

No, she stabs him. Then she falls over; the cops have arrived and shot her. He opens the front door, which is still booby trapped, and gets an axe to the face. Credits roll.

Brian’s Commentary

We both would have insisted that we’d seen this before, but we hadn’t. It was probably since the movie poster looks so much like similar movies with home invasions by people in animal masks.

Rich people, out that far in the country, and they didn’t even have a hunting rifle? I am skeptical. I do like that these killers aren’t mysterious, unstoppable forces. They’re just guys in masks, and, although not stupid, they aren’t super overcompetent, either.

I did like this one.

Kevin’s Commentary

I suspected before the reveal that Felix was in on it. It seemed unnecessarily elaborate and drawn out though if he just wanted it to look like home invaders killed everyone else - they took their time doing it with missed opportunities to wrap things up faster. Crispin being in on it too caught me by complete surprise.

The house where it was filmed was pretty awesome.

It was kind of refreshing to see Erin break the trope of knocking down a bad guy, then running away and giving them a chance to get up and resume the chase. When she got one down, she made sure they stayed down permanently.

I thought this was a very good one. I liked it a lot.

1964 The Earth Dies Screaming

* Directed by: Terence Fisher

* Written by: Harry Spalding

* Stars: Willard Parker, Virginia Field, Dennis Price

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 2 Minutes

* Watch it:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Set in England, a small group of survivors are left after alien robots gas the planet and kill most of the population. It’s kind of interesting, but we both felt like more could have been explained and done with it. With such a short run time, they could have done a bit more to up the satisfaction. We’d both call it interesting and not bad. At least it’s a short watch.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a train derailment. A man at the station passes out. No, everyone passes out at the same time. The train crashes, a plane crashes, people are flopping down everywhere. Credits roll.

A Jeep drives into town, and Jeff Nolan, the driver, is the only one who’s awake. He steals a radio from a shop window. He checks both it and the TV, but nothing’s on but static. A man and a woman come in behind him with a gun. Quinn and Peggy are locals, and they don’t know what’s going on. The others are not sleeping, they’re dead. Jeff was up in a plane, Peggy was in an oxygen tent in a hospital. Was this some sort of attack? Quinn suspiciously doesn’t say where he was.

Violet and Ed introduce themselves. They were in a car crash and just woke up. They were fooling around in a lab that had processed air. This all indicates that maybe it was a gas attack.

Men in metal space suits come into town, and Violet runs to them. One of them turns around, touches her, and she dies. They aren’t just men in suits. Two new people drive into town, Mel and Lorna. They slept in an air raid shelter last night when this all happened.

The whole group explores a nearby army base and gets more guns and supplies. Then it’s back to the hotel where they all hang out watching for trouble and getting to know each other better.

That night, one of the weird robots returns to town and watches Lorna through a window. Jeff watches it spying on her. Quinn sneaks out in the middle of the night and packs up some food to take with him. Virginia, who died earlier, gets out of bed and goes downstairs. Quinn shoots Virginia, who is possessed somehow.

Quinn whacks Jeff over the head and then insists that Peggy leave with him. Peggy runs back to the hotel where they’d all been staying, but he’s right behind her. She gets caught between a robot man and animated dead people. Jeff arrives in his car just in time to save her by ramming the robot and shooting the zombified humans.

Jeff and Peggy return to the army base for the others, but find that Lorna is in the process of having her baby.

Jeff listens to the radio and hears the same sound that the robots are using. He thinks maybe the robots are using a local radio transmitter to control themselves. If they can find that transmitter, they might be able to disable all the robots at once. They soon find it, unguarded out in the woods.

Back at the base, Quinn leads a group of robot men inside where Peggy and Lorna are. With no time to lose, Jeff positions the explosives and gets ready to blow up the tower. Boom! The tower falls down, and so do the robots.

They all board a plane and head South.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s only 62 minutes, and the credits are quite long. Everyone just sorta falls over dead, there was no screaming as the Earth died.

It’s a few days after the end of the world, but oddly enough, the power doesn’t go off and the gas pumps work perfectly. I guess the robots kept the power running because of their radio transmitter, maybe.

Who was behind all this? The robots didn’t seem like the brains behind the attack. Also, that one little radio tower wasn’t controlling all the robots in the world, so there have to be a lot more out there.

Kevin’s Commentary

It’s said in trivia that the scenes in the opening of a plane crashing because the pilot passed out, and the car crashing into the brick wall for the same reason are recycled from “Village of the Damned” (1960).

My theory was that the invading robots were keeping the power going for their own purposes.

I thought the setup and idea was interesting, but they didn’t do enough with it. It’s uneven and the pacing drags. Though it is only about an hour long, and that helps. I didn’t hate it, but I wouldn’t really recommend it either. A solid 5 out of 10 for me.

Short Film:

2026 Short Film: Long Pork

* Directed by: Iris Dukatt

* Written by: Iris Dukatt

* Stars: Lena Headley, Marc Menchaca, Zoe Cipres, Catherine Curtin

* Run Time: 12:37

* Watch it:

What Happens

A butcher kills a pig, but the assistant gets squeamish about it. Later, the main butcher and chef talks to a friend and says “He shows promise.” The chef starts having flashbacks to her own dead daughter, and we see that they live in a strange, religious future that is very pro-birth.

The new “Chancellor of Righteousness” comes in for dinner. They talk about fresh hogs, and he grew up on a farm. He wants to see the slaughterhouse in back, so she leads him on a tour. He’s all about the babies, very anti-abortion. The chef, on the other hand, has a problem with that…

Commentary

It took a minute to realize the cook they were referring to as him and was pregnant was a trans man. Still, in this future, abortions are completely illegal, and the situation is much more like “The Handmaid’s Tale” than it is now. This was written in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and it’s obvious where the filmmaker stands on that issue.

I knew what “Long Pork” was even before the story started, which kinda spoiled where things were going for a bit.

This one really stands out with excellent acting, music, and pacing. I want some of what they’re having!

Contact Info:

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Websites:

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This week’s new releases are “The End of Oak Street,” and “Black Box” both from this year. We’ll also look at a couple of classics, “Goodnight Mommy” from 2014 and the original “Ju-On: The Grudge” from 2002. Mostly good stuff!

All this, plus the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #60, for September 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

2026 The End of Oak Street

* Directed by: David Robert Mitchell

* Written by: David Robert Mitchell

* Stars: Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

The Platt family bands together for survival when their whole neighborhood is transported back to an era when dinosaurs were thriving. The title has a double meaning of the end of Oak Street and perhaps the literal end of Oak Street. They nailed the retro vibe setting it in 1982. The blood and gore is surprisingly tame considering the violence. Somehow they managed to avoid an R rating. The special effects are good as is the story, and we thought it was very entertaining.

Spoilery Synopsis

There’s a big block party on Oak Street, and Denise, Greg, Audry, and Brian Platt are all having a great time, probably because this is vaguely the 80s, when everyone was happy (Carl Sagan was alive and Chrysler was still a thing). Denise and Greg are having some martial issues because he’s working too many jobs. There’s a radio report of strange waves out in space.

Denise has written a book, and the old lady who’s editing it shows her a weird plant in her back yard that she can’t identify that’s grown really fast. The kids and the dog have typical problems. That night, there are weird lights in the sky; only Brian and the dog see them.

In the morning, nasty neighbor Mel comes over and blames the kids for piling hundreds of pounds of poop in his backyard. Later, the local bully, Kaden, chases Brian around the neighborhood. That night, the strange lights in the sky return, and everyone sees them this time. The power goes out and the rain instantly stops. They all hear screaming, so Greg goes out to investigate. When he returns, he warns them all to lock the doors before going back to bed.

In the morning, the power is still out. The water isn’t working either, which is unexpected. Greg and Denise go out for a walk, and it’s very quiet– almost too quiet. They hear lots of unusual animal noises.

Denise finds her elderly neighbor friend half-eaten in her kitchen, and there’s a full-on jungle in her backyard that wasn’t there yesterday. Greg, on the other hand, gets chased around the neighborhood by a dinosaur. They run home, and there is much screaming and panicking.

Everyone hops in the car, but all the roads out of the neighborhood stop in forests, as if the whole subdivision was transported into a dinosaur-infested jungle. The camera pulls away, and we see that that’s exactly what has happened. They all rush home and start boarding up the windows.

Greg admits that he was recently laid off and didn’t want Denise to worry. Denise’s book got destroyed when the basement flooded. The kids are terrified. Good times all around. The small dinosaurs hear something that scares them away. They talk about portals through time; could they be in the past?

That night, they watch as Mel is torn apart by flying reptiles. We see larger dinos slowly moving into the area. Brian runs out after the dog, and Audrey runs out after Brian; the parents soon notice and go out again, looking for them. Something big attacks the car, so that doesn’t last long.

Brian and Audrey run into Jeannette, the new kid at private school, and her parents have already been eaten. Greg and Denise find a portal that appears to lead back to the normal world, but it vanishes before they can do anything. There’s a lot of running around and being chased until Greg gets caught by a big one and eaten.

There’’s a fire that’s coming, and it’s going to burn everything.

They spot another portal, but it’s way across town. The group gets there without too much trouble and goes upstairs, where the portal is. Mr. Valcourt, the town’s librarian, is there with a shotgun. The elevated portal is blinking on and off, so they need to time their jumps. Jeanette goes through, no problem. Brian’s not so lucky and falls three stories to hurt his leg.

They retrieve Brian and then go back to the roof, where they all jump together, even the dog. They wind up in 1982 in someone’s swimming pool, and the owner isn’t happy. Their neighborhood is still there, like nothing happened. It’s the night the portal came, in twenty minutes from now!

Can they save all the people? Jeanette runs off to save her parents. Denise runs to a phone booth and makes a call. Turns out, she ordered a pizza from the company Greg has been working for, and that gets him out of the “transport zone.” The family watches as the lights cover the part of the city around their home and it all vanishes and is replaced with a chunk of dinosaur jungle.

Two years later, a news report explains what’s been going on. Turns out, Denise called a lot of people, warning them to get out, and ended up being a local hero for it. She then wrote a book about the whole ordeal. Everyone’s got a happy ending (including TWO Jeanettes)!

Brian’s Commentary

The easy comparison here is the recent film, “The Last House” (2026), which is similar in a lot of ways. “Jurassic Park” also comes into play heavily here.

Ewan McGregor’s “American” accent is not great.

Special effects for dinosaurs aren’t exactly new, but they are very well done here. Many are more birdlike, with hair and feathers, something scientists didn’t know about when Jurassic Park was made, but they added it here. The portals aren’t really explained in much detail, but we don’t need to know.

The blood and gore is pretty minimal, but a lot of people are killed and eaten, so it’s borderline on the horror scale, but we’ll count it anyway because it’s pretty good!

Kevin’s Commentary

I know that it’s more scientifically accurate, but after growing up with all lizard dinosaurs I feel irrationally annoyed at some dinosaurs being depicted with fur and feathers now.

I agree that Evan McGregor’s accent sounds kind of unnatural. At least it’s consistent.

I thought it moved well and was entertaining. I’d give it a thumbs up.

2026 Black Box

* Directed by: Steven Quale

* Written by: Stephen Susco

* Stars: Tom Brittney, Holly White, Betsy-Blue English

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 25 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

It’s stuff on a plane. Flight 298 from New Orleans to Seattle encounters strange events in the air. Things go on for quite a while being weird and random before any kind of explanation surfaces. It’s entertaining, above average in quality, but overall neither of us thought it was really great.

Spoilery Synopsis

We get a cryptic message from a man aboard a plan that swears what we are about to see is real. He says it would be terrible if what’s on this plane makes it to the ground. We then see some found footage of the passengers in the airport before the flight. Black Box: Flight 298 comes on, and we hear the pilot talking about a hurricane and electrical disturbances just ahead, and then contact is lost.

We watch the various passengers board the plane, not as found footage, and many of them seem obnoxious and rude. We also see a large crate being loaded “handle with extreme care.” Chen puts on a tin-foil hat to avoid the cosmic rays up there.

The plane takes off normally, but before long, one man starts coughing. Another guy is a stereotypical privileged businessman-jerk. Jeremy is sad over a break-up, but he makes friends with Chloe, a little girl waiting for the restroom the sick man is camped out in. He then makes friends with Emma, one of the stewardesses.

The sick old man sees a light outside the plane and starts yelling, “We’re all gonna die up here!” After a few minutes of panic, he grabs his chest and tries to open the door. He then coughs up a bunch of blood and passes out. Jeremy is a doctor, and it’s soon clear that the old man is dead.

Suddenly, all the dogs in the hold start barking all at once. The copilot goes down to check, but it looks normal. He speaks to them, and they all get real quiet, real fast. Jeremey notices that the lightning outside is not normal; it’s red and green and moving.

Jeremy and Chloe, the people who see the lights, start getting headaches. Their ears are bleeding. Or was it their contact with the sickly old man? Turns out, a lot of people on the flight have started feeling bad. The captain decides to divert to another airport.

The pilot and co-pilot see weird lights in the sky, and it’s not lightning. They call to see if the military is testing anything tonight, and they aren’t since the weather is too clear. Our plane, however, is in a major storm. The pilot says it looks like a category five hurricane.

The pilot and co-pilot stop responding for no obvious reason, and the plane might not have anyone flying. From outside, we see a special cloud surrounding and following the plane, and it’s full of lights.

Suddenly, the turbulence stops; have they landed? Could they be on a black site for quarantine? Jeremy takes another look at the old man and comes to the conclusion that the electrical system blew up his pacemaker. They all hear footsteps on the roof of the plane.

Something’s trying to get in. The door opens, and tentacles pull one of the passengers out. The businessjerk, who’s been hiding in the restroom, gets splattered in the face and might be possessed. A spider-like tentacle monster then comes on board and starts killing people.

Things get weird at this point. The characters that we know hide in the cargo area, but they probably aren’t alone. The dogs have been taken over, as is the Air Marshal.

Jeremy opens the door, and they see that they haven’t landed, they’re just sorta floating high in the sky. As they look for parachutes, one guy tries to open that big crate we saw earlier. Turns out, that’s Jeremy’s recently dead wife. They find the parachutes, but it’s not enough for all of them. They all record messages on their phones in case they die.

Chloe hears her (dead) mother’s voice, telling her to open the door. She opens it, and the monster gets her. Emma jumps out of the plane with a chute, but Jeremy stays behind. Emma gets pulled back up and drawn back to the plane, but she does drop the bag of cellphones.

The plane starts to move again, so Jeremy makes his way out of hiding. One of the alien bugs has taken over Jeremy’s dead wife’s body and they have a talk. She explains that this happens to most airplanes, as the aliens slowly possess one set of passengers after another. “We will have taken your world, one body at a time…”

The pilot reports that everything’s fine now, no one is sick, and they’re ready to land. Jeremy comes out of the cargo area and sees that the plane is full of passengers, just like before. They all look normal. He kills the pilot and co-pilot and takes over the plane. He points it down and tries to crash it, but the auto landing system takes over and lands the plane safely.

The SWAT team comes in and takes Jeremy into custody. He sounds like a lunatic, so no one listens to his warnings.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s a mix of stuff happening on the plane mixed in with found footage of… other stuff. Fortunately, the found footage bits are few and far between once the action starts. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the beginning that never really gets explained, but most questions are answered by the end.

I was entertained, but it’s not great.

Kevin’s Commentary

It was feeling too weird and random for quite a while, but it does eventually explain things a bit.

I wondered if it was going to go full found footage, but that was only something sprinkled throughout.

It was pretty entertaining, but also pretty forgettable. Like eating potato chips. The details won’t stick with me.

2014 Goodnight Mommy

* Directed by: Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz

* Written by: Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala

* Stars: Lukas Schwarz, Elias Schwarz, Suzanna Wuest

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Twin boys have moved to a big new house with their mother - who is bandaged and unrecognizable after facial surgery. But things seem off, and they get more so as the story unfolds and we get clues about what’s going on. It’s well made and acted, but it really drags. Kevin thought it was okay. Brian thought less of it than that. It makes lists of must-see horror films, but we aren’t sure why.

Spoilery Synopsis

After a creepy goodnight lullaby, we cut to two boys playing hide-and-seek in a cornfield. Elias and Lukas are twin brothers. Credits roll.

A car drives up, and the boys run to meet their mother, who has returned home after surgery. Her face is all bandaged, and the boys are a little afraid of her. Mother makes dinner for Elias but ignores Lukas entirely. Is he real?

Mother has new rules: she wants no noise at all and no visitors. She needs to avoid sunlight. The boys whisper to each other that she’s different, not like their mom.

One day, the boys find a pit full of skulls and bones. That’s OK, because there’s a cat there they can play with. They take the cat home with them, but mother doesn’t see it.

When night comes around, mother takes off all her clothes and walks through the dark woods. The twins collect giant cockroaches, and they put one in her bed that night, and she swallows it in her sleep.

They boys go online and see that their house is for sale. They put a baby monitor in her room under the bed to spy on her. Mother talks about making him face it. They boys go looking for the cat, but can’t find it. When they do find the cat, he’s dead.

Elias accuses the mother of not being their mother, and she gets upset at that. She punishes him but seems to ignore Lukas entirely. He dreams about cutting her open and letting out all the cockroaches inside her.

Eventually, mother loses the bandages, looking like her old self, but the boys are still suspicious. They boys run away to the nearby town, which seems mostly deserted. They go to a church there asking for the priest to take them to the police for help, but the man simply drives them home. She talks to the priest, “It was all a bit much– the accident, the separation.”

In the morning, Mama wakes up tied to the bed. The boys want to know where their mother is. This goes on for quite a while, as Elias torments her. He’s about to release her when he realizes the mole on her face is only drawn on; his real mother had a real mole. She says it was removed in the surgery. They torture her with sunlight through a magnifier to burn her.

For some reason, the Red Cross stops by wanting a donation. Mother’s gagged and can’t make much noise, so the boys say she’s out. They decide to wait for her return. Finally Elias gives them a 50 out of mom’s purse just to get them to go away. They end up supergluing her mouth shut, but then they have to cut it open to feed her.

Elias eventually cuts her loose to change the bedsheets, and she runs off. They’ve got the place booby-trapped, so she doesn’t get far. She promises to talk to Lukas again if he lets her go; “He’ll be alive again.” She tells him the accident wasn’t his fault. Lukas tells Elias that she’s lying.

Elias sets the house on fire, and Mother is glued to the floor. She burns to death, so Elias goes to hide in the cornfield. Now he sees his real mother, right there with Lukas!

Brian’s Commentary

No one ever seems to notice Lukas, so we figured early on that he was imaginary, or a ghost or something. This question takes far too long to play out, and it becomes so obvious after a while.

I’ve seen this on several “Top Horror Films” lists, and thought it ought to be pretty good. It was not. I don’t see the attraction to the film at all. The “twist” was pretty obvious, even early on, and the rest was pretty drawn-out and dull.

Kevin’s Commentary

There were enough clues given that I guessed early in the film that Lukas was dead and Elias was imagining him still alive. And it becomes more clear later.

Well into the movie, Brian commented that he’s tired of boring horror movies, and I had to agree. This is mighty slow moving for the first long part. Things build very slowly for a long time. The finish livens things up a little.

Those were the two pushiest and entitled Red Cross volunteers ever.

I thought it was too easy to figure out what was going on too early and getting to the conclusion seemed like a bit of a slog. It’s well made, and I was impressed with the acting. But I give it low marks for entertainment value.

2002 Ju-On: The Grudge

* Directed by: Takashi Shimizu

* Written by: Takashi Shimizu

* Stars: Megumi Okina, Misaki Ito, Misa Uehara

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 32 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

IMDB.com describes this as “A mysterious and vengeful spirit marks and pursues anybody who dares enter the house in which it resides.” The order and timeline are strange and a bit hard to follow, with the focus changing from character to character in different sections. It’s jumbled and didn’t fit together for us as a plot. Neither of us get the appeal. We didn’t like it.

Spoilery Synopsis

We’re told that Ju-On is a curse of one who died in the grip of a powerful rage. Those who encounter it die, and a new curse is born. We open on blurry photos of a man torturing a cat with a little boy in the next room. Credits roll.

At the Social Welfare Center, Rika gets a new case assignment. She’s only a volunteer, but the last guy just sorta quit without notice. When she gets to the Tokunaga house, it’s not very well maintained, and she gasps. She introduces herself to the old lady inside, but the old woman doesn’t have much to say.

As Rika cleans up the house, she finds a torn-up photo of what she assumes is the old woman’s family. She goes upstairs to a closet and opens the door, where she sees a little boy hiding. The boy says his name is Toshio. Suddenly, a scary black ghost comes and leans over the old woman; Rika faints.

A couple gets ready in the morning, and she sees him off to work, leaving her with an aging mother to take care of. It’s the same house, maybe a little earlier. The woman, Kazumi, sees Toshio and goes to investigate. There’s a jump scare involving a cat, and the next thing we get is the husband coming home from work. He finds Kazumi in a trance on the bed. We keep seeing the little boy behind him, but he keeps missing the boy. Another young woman comes in with groceries and speaks to mother, who does not respond. Meanwhile the husband is hiding Kazumi’s body upstairs. Hitomi finds him sitting on the stairs, they are siblings, and he keeps repeating “It’s not my child” over and over. He pushes her outside and heads back upstairs.

Later, Hitomi calls Kazumi to ask about their elderly mother. She’s in the restroom of a hospital and sees the black ghost. She runs back to the security office and watches the creature on the security camera; it’s still there. She runs for it, takes the elevator to her apartment upstairs, and every floor she passes has the little boy on it. She keeps hearing the croaking sound the boy makes, even on TV. Turns out, the adult woman ghost is right there in her bed!

Toyama comes to the Tokunaga house that we saw earlier. He’s Rika’s boss, and he finds both her and the old woman inside, nearly comatose. He calls the police, who also find Kazumi and her husband up in the attic.

Mariko comes to visit Rika in the hospital. The police are very interested in hearing more about the child she reported seeing. She suspects that something bad happened at that house, and the police detective is evasive. Turns out, the families who lived in that house before the Tokunagas disappeared or were killed too.

A man named Tokeo Saeki killed his wife there, and he was found later dead on the road. They had a son, Toshio, and yeah, it’s the same child. They go to talk to the former detective who was in charge of that case, and he’s not happy to be involved. Toshio’s body was never found– five years ago. Meanwhile, the bodies of people involved in all this keep stacking up. The former detective watches a video of one of the killings, but it’s a little too real for him.

That night, Rika gets a visit from the little boy and the big ghost as well. Meanwhile, Toyama, the former detective tries to burn down the haunted house, but gets a vision of his daughter, Izumi. He spots the big ghost and goes crazy; she gets the other two detectives.

Izumi wonders about her missing friends. She’s upset about something; someone suggests she might have ESP. The teacher at school has photos of all the students, and he has to go find Izumi’s. They go to Izumi’s house and find that she’s there, terrified. “The three of them keep looking in at me,” about her three missing friends.

Izumi explains that she and her three friends went to the local “haunted house” on a dare. She got spooked and left, but the other stayed, and they haven’t been heard from since. Her photos are all cursed as well.

Izumi’s three dead friends come for her that night, as do the other ghosts.

Kayako talks on the phone while the old man behind her makes faces at someone she can’t see; it’s Toshio. Later, she meets up with Mariko to talk. She has lunch with Rika later, and Rika’s not quite right– she’s still seeing Toshio. She gets a call from Mariko, who is now at Toshio’s house. Rika rushes right over there.

Mariko suddenly can’t find Toshio and goes upstairs looking for him. Rika arrives and finds footprints in the dust. She follows them just in time to see Mariko dragged into the attic. She finally figures out the secret to seeing the ghosts through her fingers. She then gets a vision of the man who killed his wife many years ago. He kills her.

Brian’s Commentary

I’m sure I saw this when it came out, but other than Toshio, I didn’t remember much about it. It’s confusing when the narrative jumps from one character’s point of view to another, as we’re not sure how the timeline works. Also, there are a lot of characters

Maybe it was the subtitles, but I didn’t really understand a lot of this one. It’s highly regarded and led to many sequels, in Japan and Hollywood, so I’m gonna maybe just suggest that I missed something along the way.

Kevin’s Commentary

I thought this was hard to follow and dull. The story changes from person to person as the main character as we see different parts of the story at different times. And the rules are that the ghost kills or vanishes or makes a ghost of anyone who so much as visits the house, because it’s an angry ghost, or ghosts, holding a grudge. Unless you’re a security guard who never visited the house or had anything to do with it.

I saw the US remake some years back and remember enjoying it. I didn’t care for this one a bit.

Short Film:

2023 Short Film Juliette Wasn’t Invited Tonight

* Directed by: Michael Lazovsky

* Stars: Juliette Cacciatore, Linnea Quigley

* Run Time: 5 Minutes

* Watch it:

What Happens

Juliette wasn’t invited to go out with her friends tonight. She knows this because she’s watching them party on their social media feeds. She gets a text message from someone with a really weird avatar who wants to have a sleepover. The creature sends her a photo taken right outside her window…

Commentary

I guess turning on the light never occurs to people in horror films. Neither does calling 911 with the phone right there in your hand.

We’ve seen this kind of thing before with cameras, phones, and stalkers, but it’s well done, shot in interesting ways, and never has time to slow down. It’s nicely done!

Contact Info:

Email: mailto:[email protected]

Websites:

https://www.horrorguys.com

https://www.horrormonthly.com

This week’s new release is “Blood Shine,” which we assume was a vampire story but isn’t. We’ll dismember and eat up two more Leatherface films, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (2003) and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning” (2006). Finally, we’ll come up from someone’s bowels with “The Slime People” from 1963– yuck!

All this, plus the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #60, for September 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

2026 Blood Shine

* Directed by: Emily Bennett, Justin Brooks

* Written by: Emily Bennett, Justin Brooks

* Stars: Emily Bennett, Brendan Sexton III, David Call

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

In an isolated country estate, a young filmmaker is held prisoner by a religious zealot. The beginning segment - about 16 minutes long - held promise, but things change after the opening credits. The two leads give it their all, but we both thought it was pretty dragging and dull.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a creepy TV preacher talking about how our bodies are cages.

We cut to some guys working on a farm with cows; more newborn cows have died this year than have been born alive. The farm is failing, so the farmer lays off Keith, who’s obviously already broke. Keith’s truck breaks down on the way to another farm that was recommended to him – he’s not having a good day.

Keith walks to a farmhouse to make a phone call. The woman inside, Clara, offers to call him a tow truck. She invites him inside; he does seem safe, at least. She’s kinda plain-looking, but the more he looks at her, the better she looks. They start talking about being lonely and alone.

They touch hands, and we then get a glimpse of her and knife, and a trail of blood; she’s stabbed him, and now she wants him to stab her as well. He kills himself instead, even though she wants him to kill her. “You wasted it! You wasted all of it!” Credits roll.

We cut to Brighton West showing off his latest new horror short. He’s got an actress there auditioning for a new role, and he Weinsteins her. Later, he calls the producer and promises to finish writing the promised film. He’s going to go off to the country to force himself to finish the movie script for “Craven IV.” The producer is skittish because Brighton’s had addiction issues in the past.

At the cabin, Brighton meets Lucy, a neighbor, and avoids her. He ends up spending most of the evening at the local bar drinking. He admits to the bartender that he can’t find any inspiration here. Manny the bartender gives him directions to a nearby town where he’ll find some inspiration in a cave.

Brighton goes out to the woods and spots Clara there, naked in the river. Suddenly, he’s knocked out by a falling branch. He wakes up at Clara’s house. They talk about being single, just as she did with Keith earlier, and he admits that no one is home waiting for him.

Clara gives Brighton some drugged tea, and the next thing he knows, he’s chained up in a dark place watching a recording of the preacher telling him that he’s going to die. “In 26 days, you will die in agony.” We see that she’s got a whole videotape series about kidnapping and torturing for the cult. She beats, cuts, and shocks him daily after that.

Eventually, Brighton takes the hint and starts cutting himself on command; it’s easier than getting beat up first. Brighton figures out that he’s not the first one held here when he finds a message, “She’s afraid of the dark.”

There’s a long montage of torture, cult-speak, and suffering between the two. After a very long while, he sorta seduces her and trades places with Clara, chaining her to the floor in the dark.

After a great amount of discussion, the two are soon cutting each other and putting their hands under each other’s skin.

Eventually, it’s time. She hands him a knife and wants him to kill her, but he doesn’t want to do it. He does do it, and she thanks him before dying.

The other cultists arrive on the scene, along with the leader. All the other characters we’ve seen in the film are involved. The leader pokes out Brighton’s eyes, but Brighton doesn’t mind; he smiles and looks at the sun.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s all about loneliness, isolation, and of course, cult murder. It’s well acted and looks good, but the pacing is awful and it’s really, really slow at times. It’s really all about the two characters bearing their souls to each other, but it’s actually all pretty boring.

I was eager for it to end.

Kevin’s Commentary

The opening scene was so long, and with the main character being killed, it almost felt like two movies in one. Unfortunately, the first segment was really good, and I thought the rest of the movie dragged. The two leads were just acting their hearts out, but I thought it was pretty boring.

2003 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

* Directed by: Marcus Nispel

* Written by: Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper, Scott Koser

* Stars: Jessica Biel, Jonathan Tucker, Andrew Bryniarski

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 38 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

It’s a reboot of the 1973 movie by the same name. And while it is a sweaty movie with some grit, it doesn’t match the grimy feel of the original. It’s a polished modern (okay 23 years ago) horror movie. Though it is pretty well made and entertaining after a little bit of a slow start. In total, we liked it more than disliked it, but our attention wandered here and there. Kevin liked it a bit more than Brian did.

Spoilery Synopsis

We get a voiceover about the deaths of five young people thirty years ago. We get a video walkthrough of one of the murder sites. Credits roll.

August 18, 1973, a bunch of teens in a van are out in the country. Erin, Morgan, Pepper, Andy, and Kemper are annoying right off the bat. They’re all coming back from buying pot in Mexico; they’ve got two pounds in the car.

They almost hit a young girl walking in the road. The girl has clearly been into some bad things, so they offer her a ride. Kemper, the driver, doesn’t know where they are and drives her to the meat packing plant, where the girl kills herself in the back of their van. Most of the van people are asking “why did this happen to us?”

The group stops at a gas station. The woman inside calls the sheriff, who offers to meet them somewhere else. They drive to an abandoned-looking factory, but there’s no sheriff there. They go inside the old factory, but they aren’t alone. They find a little boy who seems to be living there alone.

They go to a huge old isolated house, and the man says they can call the sheriff from there. The sheriff finally shows up at the factory, and he’s a class act as he wraps up and takes the body away. Meanwhile, Erin and Kemper run into trouble with the old man in the house– oh, and Leatherface is there as well.

Erin returns to the other three, minus Kemper, and they wonder what’s happened. She takes Andy back to the old man’s house, and he sneaks in the back door. They soon run into Leatherface, and Andy loses a leg.

Erin runs back to Morgan and Pepper, but then the sheriff shows up to arrest them all for drugs. There’s a standoff between Morgan and the sheriff, and that goes badly for Morgan.

Meanwhile, Leatherface takes off his mask and works on what’s left of Kemper and Andy. After, he goes after the two girls, now alone in the van, but he’s wearing Kemp’s face. She runs to a mobile home with two women inside; “He knows better than to bother us in here. He’s a sweet boy.”

The sheriff and gas station lady are in cahoots with the old man and Leatherface, which is not at all surprising. They turn Erin over the big masked man, who puts her in the basement with Andy, who’s still not dead yet. He begs her to kill him, which she does. She then finds Morgan, who’s also still alive– at least for a little while.

Leatherface chases Erin across a field, but he trips and injures himself. She runs to the meat packing plant, where the two play cat-and-mouse. Somehow, it’s hard to tell with all the superfast edits, Leatherface loses an arm.

Erin runs outside and flags down a truck driver, who stops and picks her up. She freaks out and makes the guy stop– at the same gas station as before. Erin hotwires a car and runs over the sheriff repeatedly. She drives away with the kidnapped baby, right past Leatherface, who’s still out there.

We get a voiceover discussing how the case is still open.

Brian’s Commentary

This just seems to take forever to get to anything. It’s a very sweaty, dusty movie, but it just doesn’t give the impression of dirt that the original did; it’s just a little too professional and polished.

It was fine, but I admit I was checking my phone from time to time; it just didn’t grab me.

Meh.

Kevin’s Commentary

It’s certainly a sweaty and wet movie. With water leaking into rooms even before it started raining.

It was a nice touch bringing John Larroquette back for the voiceover again. He was an unknown at the time of the original.

I thought it was okay, liked it more than disliked it. But the original was better, and is more rewatchable. This isn’t that memorable.

2026 Short Film: A Good Death

* Directed by: Kaz Ps

* Written by: Kaz Ps

* Stars: Tracie Thomas, Jenny O’Hara, Stefanie Estes

* Run Time: 10 Minutes

* Watch it:

What Happens

Amalia is a “Death Doula,”someone who helps with terminal patients. She arrives at the house of a new client, and Tabitha, who answers the door, seems really eager to let her in. “There’s no such thing as unusual in this line of work,” she explains.

She could be wrong.

Commentary

The only thing creepier than monsters is seeing old peoples’ toenails.

Could it be elder abuse? Maybe, but not in the usual manner. I kinda figured this was the way the story was going to go, but it was well-executed, looked good, and even the special effects were fun.

Nice!

2006 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning

* Directed by: Jonathan Liebesman

* Written by: Sheldon Turner, David J. Schow

* Stars: Jordana Brewster, Matt Bomer, Diora Baird

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This one starts with Leatherface being born in 1939, and catches us up on what happened before the 2003 remake. We get to see how Hoyt became Sheriff and other fun things. Since it’s a prequel, we know some of how it’s going to end, but that didn’t stop it from being good. It’s well made, and we were both entertained. If you’re a fan of the 2003 reboot, you’ll probably like this one too.

Spoilery Synopsis

It’s August, 1939, and we’re at the meat packing plant. The woman working there grabs her belly and begs the boss for a break. She collapses, leaking blood all over the place and gives birth to a really ugly baby. Not long after another strange woman finds the ugly baby in the dumpster and takes him home to the house we saw in the previous film. “That’s the ugliest thing I ever saw,” says Charlie Hewitt. Credits roll.

We forward to July of 1969. The meat packing plant is now closed and condemned. Thomas Hewitt, the big guy who works there, doesn’t want to leave the job.

We cut to Chrissie and Eric messing around at the nasty motel pool. He’s heading back to Vietnam soon, and this is their last fling. Dean, Eric’s brother, is supposed to be going as well, but he’s not as enthusiastic about it. Bailey, Dean’s girlfriend, wants him to not show up for the draft.

Back at the meat plant, Thomas returns at night and beats the manager with a hammer. He then picks up a chainsaw and goes home. The sheriff finds out and goes to Charlie, Thomas’s adoptive uncle, for help. Charlie shoots the sheriff in the back. Charlie then takes the uniform and “becomes” the new sheriff. Charlie cuts up the old sheriff and feeds him to the family.

The four young people stop at a familiar looking gas station. There’s a whole bunch of sketchy looking bikers there, and the girls are eager to leave. Dean burns his draft card in the back seat; he’s not going. They run from a biker but crash into a cow, which is really juicy.

The “sheriff” shows up and immediately shoots the biker. He terrorizes the group, then takes three of them away in his car, leaving Chrissie on the road alone. Monty shows up with a tow truck and takes the wreck with him, along with Chrissie, who’s hiding in the back.

They all drive to the family home, and Tommy, AKA “Leatherface” takes the dead biker away for processing. Charlie tells the guys about how he learned to eat human flesh in the Korean prisoner of war camps.

Chrissie flags down another biker and tries to talk him into helping her.

Eric gets loose and goes into the farmhouse, threatening the old women inside. Sheriff Hoyt quickly regains control of the situation. Leatherface straps Eric down and starts measuring his face.

Meanwhile, Chrissie’s biker ally arrives at the farmhouse with his gun. He shoots Monty. Charlie and Leatherface take care of him– with the chainsaw, Tommy’s first chainsaw murder! Leatherface then goes back downstairs and finishes off Eric the same way. All except for the face, which he has use of.

Charlie gets Tommy to cut Monty’s wounded leg off with the chainsaw. “What is this?” “Surgery!” Tommy takes off both legs, just so that they’re even.

Chrissie sneaks in and releases Bailey, who’s been tied up all this time. Charlie catches her and “invites” her to dinner. There’s a whole family dinner scene, which is pretty much required in a TCM film. Chrissie, Bailey, Dean, and Uncle Monty are all pretty much unwilling guests of Charlie and Mama. Tommy shows up and kills Bailey, right there at the dinner table.

Chrissie gets loose and runs out of the house through the fields, and Tommy chases after her with the saw. She runs to the old meat packing plant.

Meanwhile, Dean wakes up to see Bailey’s corpse sitting next to him. He helps Chrissie fight off the big man, but he doesn’t last long in the battle.

Chrissie almost drives to freedom, but Leatherface is hiding in the backseat. With everyone dead, Leatherface slowly lumbers on back home.

Brian’s Commentary

This works backward from the previous film, bringing back most of the family that died in that one. Being a prequel, we already know who lives and dies, but it’s still very well done. It’s got good characters and pacing, and R. Lee Ermey really steals the show in this as the main baddie.

I think I rank this one third, after the original two films. The ones in-between have been pretty forgettable.

Kevin’s Commentary

I thought this one was very good in the series. Interesting seeing why Monty is in a wheelchair, how Hoyt became Sheriff, and other prequel tidbits. It’s well put together and moves well. I liked it quite a bit.

1963 The Slime People

* Directed by: Robert Hutton

* Written by: Blair Robertson, Vance Skarstedt

* Stars: Robert Hutton, Les Tremayne, Robert Burton

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 16 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Slime people from underground isolate an area of California under an impenetrable force field dome and release a deadly fog in an attempt to invade. But a heroic group fights them off. It’s not the worst movie we’ve seen, but it was featured on Mystery Science Theater for a reason. It’s low budget with mediocre acting and dialogue, entertaining at points but clunky in the pacing. We’d recommend you pass on this one.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on… slime people walking through the fog– and there’s a dead man. Credits roll.

There’s so much fog that Tom can’t land his airplane. Los Angeles tells him to divert North, and they are very insistent. He lands anyway, and there’s no one anywhere in the airport.

Professor Galbraith and his daughters drive up and say he needs to go with them. Lisa and Bonnie explain how the slime men arrived and wiped out all the military. The family had been staying up in their remote cabin and missed the whole invasion.

Tom’s a sportscaster for the news, and he wants to go to the station to see if they have any footage of the slime monsters. He plays the newsreel, and sure enough, there are slime people invading Los Angeles.

They came from the sewers, not from outer space. They hide in the fog, which they make somehow. The fog can harden at times, which is lethal.

The group encounters a slime person and hides inside a studio. They run into Cal, a soldier. Cal tells them about the solid wall around the city that the fog made.

Bonnie likes Cal, and Cal likes Bonnie, so we stop the story so they can flirt.

Lisa takes care of the cooking and coffee while Tom and the professor theorize about the dome. Tom and Lisa get a bit romantic. And he helps with the coffee.

Tom, Lisa and the professor run into Tolliver the shepherd at his cabin. He’s a bit whacky, and says he doesn’t believe the slime people are dangerous. They bring him along but refuse to include his favorite goat. Cal and Bonnie are in a separate car, and they all go toward the wall to investigate it. The temperature continues to drop, which is what the slime people are trying to do so they can live above ground permanently.

Tom and the professor go into the woods toward the wall while the others stay behind. Then they just leave Tolliver behind as they head in. They try various chemicals to burn through the wall, but they don’t have much luck.

After all this, Tolliver still thinks the whole thing is irrational and not real. Reality hits him hard. The group hides in a butcher shop, but the creature gets Tolliver. The professor figures out that plain old salt will break down the fog wall.

Somehow, Bonnie gets caught by a monster and taken away. Tom and Cal go off to find her in the mist. They find a cave that the creatures are using as a headquarters and sneak inside. Cal finds Bonnie and leads her out as Tom fights with the slime men.

On the way back to the butcher shop, the trio find the machine that makes the fog. But there are too many slime people around to get close. They all head to the wall with salt water solution in buckets that the professor says will get them through. But Tom wants to go take out the generating machine.

After they battle the slime people, the wall machine blows up with a simple spear-throw, and all the fog immediately dissipates. All the slime men fall down dead without the fog to breathe.

With the wall down, soldiers pour in, and all the good guys ride away.

Brian’s Commentary

Slow-moving mudmen with spears and magic fog conquered Los Angeles? Well, OK then. The really scary thing? Look at the prices at the butcher shop; three pounds of bacon for a dollar!

The acting and dialogue are pretty horrible. The creatures are adequate for a movie of this period, but they aren’t very stand-out. Also, there’s a lot of fog to obscure the cheap-looking rubber suits. The pacing is really bad; I dozed off for a couple of minutes and didn’t miss a thing. There are a lot of scenes of driving and walking where not much else happens.

Bleah. Dull.

Kevin’s Commentary

The Slime People have the technology to project an impenetrable force field dome and generate a massive amount of climate changing fog, but walk around carrying spears and knives like a primitive tribe. Very strange.

Other than a fog machine and some people in rubbery costumes (which the trivia says took about half the budget), the effects are pretty minimal.

The acting and dialogue are pretty bad. It’s not a terrible story, but the pacing isn’t steady or very exciting. I wouldn’t recommend it.

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This week, we’ve got three new releases and one campy classic. We’ll open with “The Last House,” which seems fairly polarizing with the critics. “Penny Lane is Dead” comes up second, with the very strange “Her Private Hell” up next. For an oldie, we’ll watch John Carradine in “The Unearthly” from 1957.

All this, plus the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #60, for September 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

2026 The Last House

* Directed by: Louis Leterrier

* Written by: Matthew Robinson

* Stars: Greta Lee, Wagner Moura, Riley Chung

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 52 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A family of four is sealed in their house, along with everyone else in their houses apparently, and we get to watch them survive with the resources that they have on hand.

After seeing a lot of bad reviews and online hate for this movie, we were bracing ourselves for the worst. We were pleasantly surprised, and we both liked it. It’s got a lot of questionable points and unexplained things, but we were entertained.

Spoilery Synopsis

“Everyone remembers where they were when the rain came,” we are told. Everyone looks up at the weird-looking storm, as the voiceover gets pretty ominous. Credits roll.

Jason comes home from bad fishing, and he’s brought donuts to his wife Ann, and two kids, Ruth and Graham. The garage door and the electronic front door won’t open, and the kids are super whiny, and everyone talks over each other, so it’s gonna be bad. It must be a prank, right? The Internet is down, as are the cellphones. Even the glass in the window won’t break– it reforms and “heals” itself.

The neighbors across the street signal with a mirror that they can’t get out either. A jogger runs by, and they get her attention to go for help. They all wonder about conspiracy theories. Ruth thinks the rain did this. “The rain looked different today.”

Jason shows Ann his gun, and she freaks out. Night falls, and the rain continues. Jason tries to drill through the door, but the holes re-seal themselves. The rain is making some kind of barrier around the house, even underneath it.

No Internet. They dig out old DVDs and records to entertain the kids. They have power and water, but food is going to be limited. The dog, on the other hand, has to poop, so that’s a problem. Jason teaches the kids how to gut a fish, but they don’t have any fish.

After a week, some of the neighbors run out of food. After the second week, they’ve all adjusted to the new normal. After a month, Ruth notices something walking around outside in the rain, but no one believes her. Ann saves the seeds from their vegetables and starts growing more. Another month, and neighbors are dying, and they’re out of dog food.

One night, a crazy person with a knife beats on the doors and windows. “They’re dead! Everyone is dead!” Is that jogger from a long time ago, and she’s clearly gone insane. The rain itself tears her away from the window and drags her away. They all believe Ruth’s stories about rain-people now. It’s time to start covering up the windows.

The crappy old house is falling apart, especially the cracks in the chimney and foundation. Could they get out through the chimney? They hoist Ruth up through the chimney and she gets her hand through, but the hole is too small to get out completely.

The dog runs out of medicine and dies. What to do with the body? The fireplace… or the freezer? There are now big tentacle-monsters outside when it rains.

Three months, and all the food is gone. There’s a wild dog outside that keeps coming around, and Jason builds a trap that he sends out through the chimney to catch it. It takes a few attempts, but he eventually catches a squirrel. “Chimney fishing,” they all joke. They also expand the garden by pulling up the floor. Eventually, the power goes out.

Five years later, most of the house is garden. The kids have gotten much bigger. There are bears living in the street outside. The house is still sinking, and the cracks are getting worse. The monsters keep coming to the door, and they always hide from them. The monsters can open the door and come inside, but the people can’t open them. Something calls the monster away.

After the rain stops, the door still won’t open. The monster left a puddle of seawater behind, so Ruth figures the creatures are from our oceans, not outer space. It also kills most of their garden with the salt water. It poisons their soil and drinking water.

Ruth gets bitten by a weasel and gets infected. Jason figures out a way to dig down into the sewer pipes, and Ann volunteers to crawl through to the neighbor’s house to get antibiotics (Why would a retired dentist have antibiotics in their home that would have expired years ago?).

Ann makes it to the neighbors house and gets the drugs, but it starts to rain, and the monsters come out. It’s a chase through the sewer, but she escapes the tentacle-monster. The drugs heal Ruth just fine.

Jason tells Ann and the kids to hide in the attic, since the creature is going to come for them now; he’ll distract them. No, Ann and Graham want to run outside when the creature opens the door next time. Jason wants to go all “Home Alone” and just lure the creatures inside to a bunch of traps he’s made.

The creatures, on the other hand, have their own plan. They flood the house with water, filling it up entirely. There’s a crazy battle as the family makes their way up to the attic. The garage floor gives way and drains most of the house’s flooding. They finally get the best of the creature, trapping it alive. Jason remembers that Ruth thought it was friendly and doesn’t kill it. It opens the door for them and lets them all outside.

Outside, they are soon surrounded by other creatures, but the one they spared comes out and tells the others to leave them alone. Suddenly, the whole house collapses and falls down into a pit.

For some reason, the rain stops and the monsters all go away. The family takes a fishing boat and sails away since it’s “Waterworld” by this point.

Brian’s Commentary

I’m skeptical that there’s enough space in that house to garden food enough for four people.

I’ve read some really terrible reviews of this one, but I kinda liked it. It’s not really explained, and it probably doesn’t make a lot of sense if you think about any of it, but who wouldn’t want to be trapped inside their house for five years?

It’s not as bad as you may have heard.

Kevin’s Commentary

The Internet and cell service went out but electricity, gas, and water kept working just fine for longer than they should have if they were unattended. But that’s just one of the many unexplained issues and loose ends.

By the time they made their move to get out of the house, if the phenomenon was worldwide, it doesn’t seem like there would be a whole lot of other survivors left.

Basically my interpretation is that it was a race of ocean dwelling creatures with control over water, such as the creatures in “The Abyss,” that got fed up with the human race.

With as much online hate as I’ve seen for this movie, I was expecting to hate it myself. I did not. So much is unexplained and things best not to question too deeply. But I was entertained.

2026 Penny Lane is Dead

* Directed by: Mia Kate Russell

* Written by: Mia Kate Russell

* Stars: Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn, Tahlee Fereday, Alexandra Jensen

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Four young women join up at an isolated beach house for a celebration. When three bad guys show up, things take an assaulty, violent, and somewhat predictable turn. The movie takes place in 1986, which gives it a retro vibe. It’s well made, and there are enough variables to keep it interesting, but at the core it’s mostly something we’ve seen before.

Spoilery Synopsis

Australia, 1986. Kat and Nick are a couple, and she makes drug-laced cupcakes. Penny’s mother doesn’t trust Penny’s cousin, Kat, who drinks and does drugs. Credits roll.

Penny has Toni and Amy over for a “school’s out” party, and Penny’s mother finally leaves them alone. Penny and Toni kissed each other and liked it, but they don’t tell Amy, cause that’d be weird in 1986. They go to the liquor store and flirt with Nick and Josh.

Kat shows up and has custom cupcakes for each of them. It doesn’t take long before that and all the other drugs start to kick in, and Penny passes out. Kat admits that she drugged Penny’s for kicks. If they call the police, Penny might not be able to go to law school. Toni attacks Kat, and there is much arguing. Kat calls her boyfriend, Angus, to come and pick her up.

Angus wants to come inside to make a phone call, but Toni thinks he’s scary. Radowsky and Merrick are outside in the car as well. Against her better judgment, Toni lets them all inside. They’re obnoxious and a bit scary to Toni and Amy.

Toni figures that Kat will want to leave if she seduces Angus, which goes badly. In retaliation, Kat shows the men where Penny is passed out in the bedroom. This is quickly turning into Angus’s rape party, and Merrick wants to wait in the car, uninvolved. Kat, on the other hand, takes photos.

Penny wakes up, screaming, and Toni beats Radowsky into unconsciousness. Kat nags Angus into killing Penny with a shovel. Toni takes off in the car to get help, but Radowsky isn’t far behind. The store Toni goes to is closed, and the phone doesn’t work, but it does have a machete hanging on the wall. She knows how to use it, and soon Radowsky is in pieces.

Merrick and Angus argue about where they were supposed to go tonight. Important people were waiting for them. Angus’s father is important and lets Angus get away with anything.

Meanwhile, Amy steals the world’s slowest bicycle, and Angus chases her down on foot. He ends up shooting her.

Kat and Angus have sex while Merrick cleans up the bodies. Toni runs back from the store with the machete, but it’s a long way off.

Toni returns to the house and finds bodies; she missed the killings. She slashes Merrick, but he doesn’t die quietly– or quickly. Kat wants to kill Toni, and Angus gives her the chance, but even Angus starts to think Kat’s a lunatic.

Unexpectedly, Nick shows up, and Kat’s happy to see him. She’s covered in blood, so he immediately knows something is up. Nick sees too much and runs away. While Angus is out chasing him, Merrick gives Toni a knife to help her escape. When Angus kills Nick, Kat freaks out, because she liked Nick.

Toni cuts herself loose, grabs Angus’s gun, and shoots him. Merrick throws a knife to finish him off.

Now it’s just Toni and Kat in a … Katfight. Josh shows up, looking for Nick, and he finds Toni stuck to the window with a knife. He releases her, but he doesn’t live long after that. Kat and Toni get back at it, and it gets pretty bloody– cheese grater bloody!

It’s all looking pretty bad for Toni until Penny wakes up, not dead after all, and whacks Kat with a shovel. They ride off in the morning, leaving Kat and the others at the house.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s an Australian home invasion story. Since it’s 1986, there aren’t any cell phones, which is convenient for the killers.

So Toni is just fine in the morning after getting all those stab wounds? Doubtful. Still, it’s a bloody mess with a twist at the end, so it was pretty decent.

Kevin’s Commentary

I was kind of bored in the beginning when we were getting to know the four girls, but things picked up when the guys showed up. Well, a while after the guys show up. But it gets more interesting eventually.

I was thinking 1986 wasn’t so long ago, then I remembered that’s 40 years. It gave it a retro vibe plus took the element of cell phones out of the story.

It’s just another women suffering through a home invasion story, but it’s well made and still pretty entertaining.

2026 Her Private Hell

* Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn

* Written by: Nicholas Winding Refn, Esti Giordani

* Stars: Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, Havana Rose Liu

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 50 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

The IMDB.com description says, “A hypnotic, unhinged thriller with an original story promising plenty of glamour, sex, and violence.” which is useful to use because I’d have no idea how to describe it exactly. It’s surreal and futuristic, with dialogue that is deliberately stilted and odd. It looks great, and there’s sort of a story there to be deciphered. Watch it for the visuals, then wonder afterward what it is you just saw.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a shadowy, misty, futuristic city with lots of cyberpunk elements (Kevin called it “the Blade Runner planet” right off the bat). At the Tower Hotel, Elle looks up at the neon tower. Inside, she meets Hunter, and they have some clunky dialogue. They go up to Elle’s apartment, and it’s super huge. Dominique comes in and gives them a lecture about not being relatable. Dominique turns out to be Elle’s stepmother.

We flash over to her father, Johnny Thunders, who is powerful and likes to play games with people. There’s a whole scene with models, dresses, needles, and discussion about the mist and what it brings. Johnny tells the girls about the Leatherman, a father cursed to search for his daughter in the mist. Hunter is fascinated by the older man, who wants Elle and Dominique to make up and be friends again– by making a movie together.

Elle and Hunter watch as someone in the neighboring building is murdered.

We cut to Elle aboard a starship that enters some kind of vortex that makes her pass out. She gets into a laser battle with a bunch of fembots but gets shot in the arm. I assume this is the “movie” they were supposed to be making. Suddenly, Hunter tells them about the Leatherman story again, and it’s all true. She tells them about a pair of women, The Kingmakers, who are the guides for the Leatherman.

Elle goes home and finds that her father has left her a hatchet and a note to bury the hatchet, literally. [At this point, we’re 35 minutes in, and I really have no idea what’s going on or why].

We cut to “Private K,” a man with a cigarette lighter. “I saw the Leatherman,” he explains. “I saw him take my daughter. Is he a ghost? A monster? A god?” He talks to a detective who learns that K recently lost his daughter to a kidnapper when the mist came.

He hears a scream and runs toward it to help, where he knocks out a guy with his brass knuckles. He breaks up a whole trafficking/photography thing out in an alley somewhere. It’s all very colorful and violent. The police arrest him for killing all the perpetrators. The police then take off K’s shirt and whip him; meanwhile, Elle moans “Daddy” in her sleep over and over.

Elle, Dominique, and Hunter bark like dogs to each other and then go out for the evening to meet Nico, a guy they all know. They talk about fetal art. Hunter tells him all about the Leatherman as well.

Private K talks more about his lost daughter, and I strongly suspect that it’s going to be Elle when she was a child (could Johnny Thunders be the Leatherman? Who could see THAT coming?) He talks to the Kingmakers, who tell him that he’s just a memory. They explain that he will see his daughter again, but only when he dies. The yakuza show up and beat up K, but he kills them all, unarmed.

Dominique and Elle have a long conversation about being former and future friends. The two of them, along with Hunter, go to the least crowded rave I’ve ever seen. Maybe Private K is there. Nico is there, and he kisses everyone, and they all kiss each other as K watches from outside.

K tries to break in as someone, I think Hunter, gets her chest ripped open (I’m not sure who it was, I was too busy looking up synonyms for “pretentious”).

Elle then goes home to her apartment above the mist and makes out with Dominique. No, she stuffs underwear in Dominique’s mouth. This leads to a full-on fight with knives and everything. Elle goes for the hatchet.

Suddenly, the Leatherman arrives, and he silences Dominique. Trapped, Elle waits to see who the Leatherman turns out to be. Since there are only two men in the film, it’s not much of a debate. The demonic Leatherman fights Private K dramatically. K loses, but then Elle cuts off the Leatherman’s hands with the hatchet. Characters give long, lingering looks at the camera and then vanish, leaving Elle alone in the mist.

The Kingmakers appear to choose her fate. They give her some magic gloves.

Brian’s Commentary

That the hell was that all about?

It’s extremely visual, most scenes seem composed for the sake of visual art instead of any kind of rational story. There are some ideas here, but they’re barely connected and the overall plot is dragged out that it’s just boring as anything.

This “mist” needed more extradimensional monsters. That would have livened it up.

It’s a self-indulgent, pretentious waste of two hours. If you’re really into cinematography and art, go for it. If you want a story, stay far, far away.

As Kevin says, “Yeah, that happened.”

Kevin’s Commentary

Brian said, “This is what you get if you let the cameraman write a movie,” and I thought that was spot on. Lots of long lingering shots and strangeness and camera work that look great but don’t really mean anything. It’s like the visuals and imagery and surrealism came first, then a sort of loose story was inserted around that.

“Nicolas Winding Refn (the director) said the story originated from combining three separate ideas: a young woman arriving in a city that does not exist, a man willing to descend into Hell to rescue his daughter, and a third narrative thread created specifically to connect the first two into a “triangle” structure.” Well alrighty then.

It was pretty to look at, but the near-two hour run time started feeling long for me well before the halfway point. I wouldn’t recommend it.

1957 The Unearthly

* Directed by: Boris Petroff

* Written by: Jane Mann, John D.F. Black

* Stars: John Carradine, Myron Healey, Allison Hayes

* Run Time: 1 Hours, 13 Minutes

* Watch It:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A mad scientist obsessed with glands experiments with the patients in his isolated psychiatric institute and laboratory. And despite the title, everything happens unEarthly. It’s not awful, but it’s pretty basic and forgettable. Neither of us were very impressed.

Spoilery Synopsis

After the credits, Dr. Wright and Grace come to visit Dr. Charles Conway. The huge servant, Lobo, lets them in and looks creepy. Conway runs a sanitarium, and he’s accepted Grace as a new patient. Conway hears about Grace’s father and gets nervous, but Dr. Wright says he’s arranged for her to be discovered as a suicide; no one’s going to come looking for her.

Conway’s been experimenting on people and suspended animation. He’s got Jedrow in the basement who’s not much better than a zombie. Jedrow has a sister who’s been trying to find him, which is a problem.

Lobo catches a man skulking around outside and drags him inside to Conway. He’s Mark Hueston, and Conway knows that he’s a wanted killer. Conway makes a deal with him. He won’t turn Mark Houston in if Houston works for him.

Time passes, and Danny and Natalie argue about breakfast. They’re patients, and they’ve been here for months. Danny’s aggressive, but Dr. Sharon sedates him.

Conway has the secret of life, death, and growth; it’s all done through glands. Lobo was a tiny man when he arrived here, but now he’s a huge man. He’s developed a new, artificial gland that will prolong life. Mark thinks the doctor is crazy but has no choice but to stay.

Mark makes friends with Grace. Conway tells Natalie that she’s got a “special treatment” coming up. Dr. Sharon and Lobo drug her and send her to Conway’s lab while the others are distracted by Conway’s organ music. In the surgery, Conway implants the gland inside Natalie and sews her back up.

Meanwhile, Mark searches Natalie’s room, since he suspects something is wrong. He goes to Grace’s room and wants to take her away from all this.

Eight hours later, Conway goes in to check on Natalie, who should have awakened by now. Turns out, she’s aged tremendously in those hours; it didn’t work at all. He then warns Grace to stay away from Mark, who’s a troublemaker. This makes Sharon jealous, and she wants to make Grace their next subject.

Mark starts snooping around in the basement and finds Jedrow, who still just sits there. He brings Grace down to see him, but by that point, Jedrow is gone. They do find Natalie, who’s a decrepit mess now. Meanwhile, Lobo has hauled Jedrow out back in a coffin and is digging a hole to bury him. Mark sees him doing it. He goes to Danny and warns him about what the doctor is up to. They hatch a plan for them to meet at 2 am and the two of them with Grace will escape.

There’s lots of running up and down the stairs as the doctor checks to make sure his trio of patients are sleeping. The three of them meet in the lobby at 2, but the doctor catches them. Sharon, Lobo, and the doctor all have guns so they have little choice but to go back upstairs. They take Grace for a gland implant. The two guys are left with Lobo, and they take advantage of his slow wits to escape. Danny gets shot as Mark confronts Conway.

Mark reveals himself as an undercover policeman, here to stop Conway, but Conway escapes in the dark. Jedrow gets out of the grave and stabs Conway. Lobo then kills Jedrow. The police arrive in time to arrest Sharon and Lobo. The police also find a room full of animal-men in the basement that we had no idea about before this. “What if they do live forever?” asks one of the cops.

Mark and Grace laugh at their good luck. He offers to take her home, and they kiss.

Brian’s Commentary

This was completed in only six days. Wow. It’s not especially good, but it doesn’t feel rushed.

It’s a very standard mad-scientist film with a very standard plot. There’s nothing supernatural or “unearthly” about anything here.

It’s not very good.

Kevin’s Commentary

I can see how it could have been done in six days if the cast and crew was on top of things. There aren’t many very complicated scenes or special effects.

It was kind of tame with not much originality to offer. It’s not bad, but I’d put it low on the classics scale. I didn’t hate it, but I’d rate it a mid that I’d never need to see again.

Short Film:

2026 Short Film: Black Coffee

* Directed by: Muzappar Osman

* Written by: Muzappar Osman

* Stars: Nobody real, it’s entirely AI

* Run Time: 4:41

* Watch it:

What Happens

An AI representation of a woman coming home after losing her job to AI discovers something very special about her mug of coffee. It’s a portal. And when the opening isn’t big enough, she finds a way around that. It’s heavy on science fiction and low on horror, but it tells a story that has an unsettling tone.

Commentary

There’s a disclaimer that it’s AI if you notice it, but you can tell by the short scenes - a current limit of AI, the general look of it, and the gibberish visual text here and there. And the story seems like it was written by AI trying to convince us that AI and technology heading the way it is is a good thing and nothing to be afraid of. Brian thought it was okay. Kevin was not impressed. Posted 12 days ago at the time of this writing and at 88,000 plus views. Sigh.

Contact Info:

Email: mailto:[email protected]

Websites:

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We’re back with four movies and a short this week. We’ll start off with the latest in the Twisted Childhood Universe, “Pinocchio: Unstrung,” recently released. Then we’ll go way back in time with three horrible caveman films: “Eegah” (1962), “Trog” (1970), and “Teenage Cave Man” (1958). UGH! OOG!

All this, plus the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #60, for September 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

2026 Pinocchio: Unstrung

* Directed by: Rhys Frake-Waterfield

* Written by: Rhys Frake-Waterfield

* Stars: Jude Evan Lloyd, Richard Brake, Robert Englund

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 22 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

It’s a modern telling of Pinocchio, created by Geppetto as a companion for his grandson, and his wholesome journey to becoming a real boy. Actually it’s brutal and violent.

The practical effects were impressive - the closing credits show a series of behind the scenes clips.

We’re both in agreement that the series is getting better as they go along. This was quite good.

Spoilery Synopsis

We hear about the narrator’s grandson James, who came to live with him. Then James’s best friend died. The old man made something for James that would never die… Pinocchio…

James and Geppetto talk about death and life. Geppetto then coughs, which in movie tropes, means he’s dying. That night, James chases something small throughout the house. Turns out, it’s Pinocchio, who lives in a creepy-looking hole in the basement wall. That is one creepy doll.

Geppetto insists that Pinocchio’s existence remain a secret, so he can’t go to school with James. Instead, Pinocchio talks to his “wood mother,” made of the same wood as him. She tells him to take human flesh and wear it.

The next day, Pinocchio does go to school with James, pretending to be a doll. Pinocchio watches a really fun chain of accidents that would make “Final Destination” proud (this is why I don’t go to the gym). When the bullies come for James, Pinocchio observes. When Dudley and Mia see the doll move, James says it’s an “AI Thing.” When James goes to the dentist, Pinocchio observes.

There’s a traffic accident on the way home, and Pinocchio goes to the hospital with him. “Best friends protect each other,” he says as he leaves. He tracks down the drunk driver in a nearby room and gets his somewhat excessive revenge. He takes some of the man’s organs to make himself more real.

The wood mother is thrilled to hear that Pinocchio has killed someone, so now things are just beginning. She sends an evil-looking cricket to assist him.

Meanwhile, Mia finds some home movies and watches them. In the film, Geppetto talks about cheating death and what he’s done. The first experiment went really badly.

Pinocchio and the cricket go after the dentist next. He gets his dentribution on her. After that, there’s a trio of bullies that don’t live long.

Geppetto realizes that Pinocchio is gone, and James and his friends are gone as well.

With teeth, eyes, hair, lips, and some organs, Pinocchio sits in front of a mirror and pretties himself up. Geppetto shows up and drives Pinocchio home. Pinocchio realizes that the wood mother has tricked him. He smashes both her and the cricket with a hammer.

Geppetto shows Pinocchio where he was created, and it’s really something. There’s a special magic tree that makes magical wood. Pinocchio was supposed to be the reincarnation of James’s dead friend, Zach. He plans to kill Pinocchio and end the experiment. Instead, Geppetto shoots the annoying friend, Dudley.

Pinocchio gets the drop on Geppetto with the shotgun, and the doll shoots his maker. He mostly misses and releases the really bad wood creature that was in a cage behind him. The house burns down, and James, Mia, and Pinocchio get out. “I’m gonna need a new dentist,” jokes James. And a couple quick wrap ups make us think it isn’t really all over.

Brian’s Commentary

The 5th film from The Twisted Childhood Universe after “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey” (2023), “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2” (2024), “Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare” (2025) and “Bambi: The Reckoning” (2025).

Kevin’s Commentary

They earned the R rating through the gore, which is excessive and realistic looking. Though also a little tedious.

Somehow this managed to be both unexpected and predictable at the same time. Yes, it was a twist that Geppetto was evil, but would anyone expect Richard Brake to be playing a benign good guy? Though I do think it was an improvement over the previous Twisted Childhood Universe tales. They are getting better at them.

1962 Eegah

* Directed by: Arch Hall Sr.

* Written by: Bob Wehling, Arch Hall Sr.

* Stars: Arch Hall Jr., Marilyn Manning, Richard Kiel

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 32 Minutes

* Watch it:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Two teens encounter a prehistoric giant in the desert. The poster makes it look way more exciting than it actually is. It’s often included in worst movies ever made lists, and it probably belongs there. The pacing is clunky, the dubbing is bad, there isn’t a lot to the script, and the acting is questionable. It’s watchable and somewhat interesting, but not one to really recommend.

Spoilery Synopsis

Roxy leaves the store and stops to talk to the guy at the gas station. On the road to the lake, she almost runs over a caveman. Tom interrupts the proceedings before the giant man carries her away, but he doesn’t see anything. When they tell their fathers, the old men don’t believe them.

In the morning, they find giant footprints in the dirt. Mr. Miller, Roxy’s father, wants to visit the nearby mountains and maybe write an adventure book about the big caveman. Miller takes a helicopter up to the mountain to spend the night. Miller soon encounters the caveman.

Meanwhile, at the pool, Tom plays his guitar on a huge amplifier, which probably annoys people for at least a square mile. Roxy gets a call that the helicopter set to meet her father can’t show up for the rendezvous, so she and Tom head out there to pick him up– in a dune buggy. We get lots of gratuitous “Wheee!” in the dune buggy. Night falls, which leads to a campout, and another song from Tom (where are the backup singers coming from?).

Out in the desert, the caveman hears the music and hones in on them. He sneaks into camp and eats their food while they sleep. He runs off when Tom’s faulty radio starts playing.

The next morning, the two continue the search for Mr. Miller. The caveman grabs Roxy while Tom is off in the hills. Roxy wakes up in the creature’s cave next to her father, who is still alive. The caveman sniffs her all over; he likes her perfume. The cave is also occupied by the caveman’s mummified dead relatives.

Miller calls the creature “Eegah,” and Roxy whines about the cave (I’m whining about the pacing and acting at this point). Later, Eegah goes out for a dead rabbit and some flowers for Roxy. Roxy shaves the caveman, which is badly needed. Afterwards, Eegah’s got one thing on his mind, but Roxy ain’t having that.

Rocy lures Eegah outside, but Tom is out there as well, and he fights the big man. The three jump into the dune buggy and ride off with the caveman in pursuit. As they drive away, Roxy looks at the big man longingly. Eegah goes back to his cave and tells his troubles to the mummies.

Eegah leaves the cave and goes looking for Roxy and her car. He uses his bloodhound powers to follow her with his nose– right to town. Miller and Roy talk about Eegah, and they decide to keep the whole thing a secret so that people won’t hunt down and kill the caveman. They head to a party with Tom, and Eegah causes mayhem looking for Roxy. The police get a call “Large man or giant on the loose.”

Meanwhile, Tom’s doing more singing at the party. Roxy tells Miller that she’s worried about Eegah. “Something’s happened to him.” Then she proceeds to dance with Tom and another guy from the band who wants to fight. Eegah shows up at the party, and everyone sees him. He grabs Roxy and carries her off.

The police shoot Eegah repeatedly, and he dies. Everyone is sad, especially Roxy.

Brian’s Commentary

Richard Kiel got all the “big man” roles in the 60s and 70s.

This feels like an hourlong TV show stretched into a movie. It’s got lots of unnecessary filler scenes, and it’s downright boring at times.

Yawn.

Kevin’s Commentary

It’s strange, I had a used copy on DVD about 15 years ago that was in black and white. This was in color, and I don’t see any mention of it online or in trivia about it having two versions.

Trivia says much of the sound was accidentally destroyed, which is why it’s (badly) dubbed. It’s impressive how Tom starts to sing with his guitar around the campfire, and there’s drums, bass guitar, and backup singers who join in.

Richard Kiel certainly was a big feller. 7 foot 2. With a very fake looking beard here.

I was slightly entertained, but it’s really pretty bad overall. My biggest complaint is the clunky pacing and too many filler scenes.

2026 Short Horror: Unprompted

* Directed by: Stephen Packer

* Written by: Stephen Packer

* Stars: William Lonsdale, Bryan Cooper, Libby Kay

* Run Time: 6:16

* See it here:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Mason is struggling to get started on an idea for a horror screenplay. Even a writing sprint with a classmate on the phone hasn’t helped. Reluctantly with guilt, he asks an AI assistant to help him with writing. Unfortunately, the prompt is so vague that it gives the AI unlimited leeway to create something. And does it ever!

Spoilery Synopsis

The lesson here is don’t just let your AI just go off on its own to create things. It’s quick and effective, poking fun while still being deadly serious at the same time. The effects, acting, and direction are all excellent. Maybe a little too short, but it was entertaining.

1970 Trog

* Directed by: Freddie Francis

* Written by: Aben Kandel, Peter Bryan, John Gilling

* Stars: Joan Crawford, Michael Gough, Bernard Kay

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 33 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Cave explorers find a surviving primitive man in a cave, and a scientist takes the lead trying to study and help him. There’s plenty of pandemonium when he surfaces, but smart and capable Joan Crawford does a pretty good job of handling things. Until there’s more pandemonium when local rabble rousers cause trouble. It’s on the campy side, but it’s not awful and we both kind of enjoyed it.

Spoilery Synopsis

A group of spelunkers walk through a field to a cave. They drop their ropes into a deep pit and go down. They explore the cave system until one of them finds an underground stream. This leads them to a cave system where no one has ever been before. Suddenly, there’s a caveman attack! One of the cavers, Cliff, rushes in to find his friend Bill beaten to death.

Inspector Greenham goes to see Dr. Brockton, a doctor treating the traumatized surviving spelunkers. Cliff is in shock, but what he describes in the caves intrigues her. Malcolm, the third caver, explains to the Inspector what happened. Dr. Brockton wants Malcolm to be her new assistant.

Brockton wants to go back into the cave and see the creature. Just the two of them go back and explore the cave some more. They aren’t attacked, but she gets a really clear photo of the creature. She calls it a Trog, a troglodyte, half-man, half-ape.

Soon, there are newspeople, police, firetrucks, and crowds of spectators as everyone comes to the cave. Sam Murdoch, a local troublemaker, calls it all a hoax and nonsense. They all watch on TV as the trog attacks a camera crew. It comes out of the cave and is mesmerized by the sun. Brockton shoots it with a tranquilizer dart.

Later, Trog wakes up in a big cage in Brockton’s lab. He eats raw fish and lizards. Brockton’s daughter, Ann, likes to feed him. Sam goes on and on about the dangerous monster; it’s hurting business. She argues that it’s the “missing link.” Brockton theorizes that Trog was frozen solid in ice until just recently.

Brockton starts “taming” the trog. She’s nice to it, and he’s nice back to her. It likes classical music, but not rock.

Sam continues to raise more rabble. He works to enlist Dr. Selbourne, one of the other scientists, in his plan.

The scientists take Trog outside to play ball, but a dog gets involved, and that goes badly. There’s a court of inquiry by the locals, who want Trog killed as a wild animal. Everyone tells their side of the story, and Brockton fires Selbourne.

Brockton enlists a bunch of other scientists and surgeons, and soon, they’re operating on the mysterious caveman. They implant an electronic tracking device into him. They do a second operation, and this one will allow Trog to talk. Trog has a memory of stop-motion dinosaurs fighting and volcanic eruptions.

Sam, unwilling to let this all continue, breaks into the lab one night and wrecks the place. He then opens the cage and is killed by Trog; he totally had it coming. Trog runs away into the woods.

Trog soon arrives in the small town, which is pretty deserted in the morning. Not completely deserted, as he kills a couple of shopkeepers. He comes to a playground and steals a little girl who looks like his favorite doll. He carries the girl back to his cave.

The local police bring in the military to deal with the caves. Brockton argues with them and then goes into the caves alone to defuse the situation. Trog gives the child to the doctor and then goes back into the cave. When she comes out, the army blows up the cave and shoots Trog, who dies.

Brian’s Commentary

This takes place in the “modern” 1970s. Were British people really that close minded and provincial back then? I doubt it. There’s not really any motive behind Sam’s unreasonable hatred for the monster other than a vague mention of a land deal.

The Trog costume was a leftover from “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

This was Joan Crawford’s final film role, and one she later said was the worst film she’d ever done. It wasn’t that bad.

Kevin’s Commentary

I may have seen this when it came out, I barely remembered it as it was going along.

Trivia says Trog’s prosthetic is recycled from the opening scene of “2001: A Space Odyssey.” And it looks rubbery but pretty decent.

It was refreshing to see Joan Crawford playing a character who isn’t crazy, mean, evil or all three. I haven’t seen that very much from her. It was her last film role here. And she later said it was the worst movie she ever made. I wouldn’t call it the worst movie I’ve ever seen. It’s bad, but it’s a good bad, and I thought it was entertaining fun.

1958 Teenage Cave Man

* Directed by Roger Corman

* Written by R. Wright Campbell

* Stars Robert Vaughn, Darah Marshall, Leslie Bradley

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 5 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Even young Robert Vaughn couldn’t save this movie. And he’s reported as saying it’s the worst film ever made. Years later, Roger Corman would be quoted as saying, “I never directed a film called ‘Teenage Cave Man.’ We don’t quite agree with Vaughn, but it’s not a good one.

Synopsis

We get Biblical quotes about the creation of the Earth. “And then there came… man!” Credits roll.

We see cavemen returning from a hunt across the mountainside. “Where’s the boy?” Asks the Symbol Maker, who goes off looking for his son. His son has gone somewhere that is forbidden because the son has “progressive” ideas. He doesn’t want to hunt in this dead land but instead wants to go to the lush, forbidden land. His father warns that there are terrible creatures there; it’s all very dangerous. There is also “a god that gives death with its touch!” They head back to the group.

The Symbol Maker’s son likes the Blonde Maiden. They worship fire, the wheel, and the way things belong. It is the law. The Black-Bearded One tries to tempt the son to do things that are against the law; he just might have an ulterior motive. The Symbol Maker is in charge of keeping the records— cave paintings.

The next day, all the men go out hunting, and the Symbol Maker is mauled by a bear. The Fire Maker tries to sew him up. The Bearded One goes right to work on the son, talking him into going into the forbidden land for better hunting.

The Symbol Maker’s son tries to talk his young friends into going to the forbidden land with him. Four of them set out the next morning. A dinosaur spots them and starts to pursue them but gets distracted by another big lizard. One guy gets sucked down into quicksand and dies, so two of the others turn back and go home. Only the son of the Symbol Maker continues on.

Then the, uh, ”monster” shows up, whatever the heck that was. The son runs away, but runs into a tree and knocks himself out.

Back home, the Symbol Maker wakes up and wants to know where his son has gone. His wife explains, and he’s not happy. The Bearded One starts rabble-rousing. The Symbol Maker swears he will find his son and bring him back.

The son wakes up and “discovers/invents” a bow and arrow, all by himself. He kills a deer and the local wild dogs attack. His father arrives just in time to help fight them off. They go back to town for trial. The people decide to shun the son instead of killing him, which enrages the Bearded One, who attacks the son but fails to kill him.

The Blonde Maiden is impressed with the son’s fighting skills, so he plays a tune on his pipes while she bathes in the waterfall. She decides to break the rules and talk to him– genders aren’t supposed to speak directly to each other unless they are married, and then only in private. He talks about going back to the forbidden place again for another attempt.

A man rides up on a horse, which is something new for the tribe. They think the man and the horse are one animal. They knock the man off the horse, and the son insists that they can learn from the new man. The Bearded One kills the innocent, wounded man.

The Symbol Maker wants to change the law, but the Bearded One argues that the old ways are best. The stranger’s existence proves that people can survive in the forbidden land. The Fire Maker is in charge, and he upholds the status quo— stay out of the forbidden land.

The son finally hits the age of manhood, and when asked, says he will hold to the word and to the law. The monster skulks around just out of sight. The son warns the Bearded One that a fight is coming. The Blonde Maiden wants them to run away together and find a cave all their own someday. They spend time at “the sleeping place” together that night. The son swears he will go out and kill the monster.

The son goes off into the forbidden land again, and once again, the Bearded One condemns him. This time, he convinces the people to kill both the son and the Symbol Maker. Everyone heads to the forbidden zone, breaking the law to keep the son from breaking the law.

They soon encounter the monster, which stands up just as wild dogs attack the tribe from behind. The son approaches the monster to communicate as the Bearded One drops a rock on it. The son kills the Bearded One with his bow. The monster turns out to be a man in a mask.

The son searches the dead man’s body and finds a book with pictures inside. Apparently, this all takes place in a post-apocalyptic future world, not the distant past (dinosaurs and all).

The Symbol Maker says from here, the tribe will spread out and try to find other human tribes. We get a voiceover that explains the man was wearing a radiation suit after the atomic holocaust.

Brian’s commentary

The first fifteen minutes is mostly exposition and talk about the laws and the caveman’s society. There’s nothing there that we don’t need to know, but it’s awfully talky.

The dinosaur fight is ridiculous by current standards, but I’ve definitely seen a lot worse from the 50s and 60s. Some of the other dinosaurs are clearly guys in rubber suits stomping around, so it’s not all good.

This is really, really bad. The plot is really childish, the acting is terrible, and the dialog tries to be primitive, but just sounds dumb. The twist at the end isn’t really a huge surprise and is still mostly irrelevant to the story.

Kevin’s commentary

Roger Corman put together a lot of entertaining work, and Robert Vaughn certainly did some very good acting in his career. This wasn’t that for either of them.

It’s not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, and I was at least interested, not bored. And those are about the only pluses I can give it. I’d recommend you stay clear of it and watch something else.

Contact Info:

Email: mailto:[email protected]

Websites:

* https://www.horrorguys.com

* https://www.horrormonthly.com

We’ve got FIVE big films to discuss this week. We’ll open with “The Dollmaker,” which was the favorite of the week for both of us. “The Voices of Our Mother” comes up second, followed by the sci-fi sorta-apocalypse with “Project: Hail Mary,” all three of which are recent releases. For our oldies, we’ll wrap up the vampire series with “Underworld: Blood Wars” and then a real oldie, “20 Million Miles to Earth” from 1957.

All this, plus the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #59, for August 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

2026 The Dollmaker

* AKA “Encantador”

* Directed by: Jose Maria Cicala

* Written by: Jose Maria Cicala, Griselda Sanchez

* Stars: Mario Alarcon, Alejandra Baldoni, Griselda Sanchez

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

In a town filled with quirky characters, Tomas leads a quiet life taking care of his mom and working two jobs with doll making and collecting as a hobby. But women are disappearing in town, and when a police inspector comes to town to help, things start getting even weirder. It’s a strange movie, kind of surreal, almost a Twin Peaks vibe. We both thought it was great.

Spoilery Synopsis

We watch some crafty credits, and then get on with it. A girl gets whacked in the head with a shovel and dragged off.

Tomas finds a doll’s head on the road on the way to the doctor’s office. He makes and repairs the world’s ugliest CPR dolls for the doctor. He hallucinates his mother suffering in the mental ward. He then attends a group therapy session where Tina talks about her family as Tomas sketches her. The bloody ghost of her dead mother attends the session as well. He follows her most of the way home afterward.

A new inspector starts, and the police chief shows him around the town of Palacios. The chief doesn’t even carry a gun. Soon, they get another missing woman complaint. They aren’t necessarily dead, so that’s not a crime, the sheriff explains. We soon see these cops are just a little on the incompetent side.

Tomas goes home and finds his mother on the floor; she’s not well. He sometimes sees her as a big plastic doll, and he has to carry her around. He tells her about Tina, his new bride-to-be (I’m totally getting the Norman Bates vibe from him and think she’s probably really a doll).

We cut to the missing woman being handcuffed and raped in a dark room.

Tomas drives Tina to the drag-dancing-diner she works at after her next session, but he can’t stay because his mother is home waiting for him. She mentions having a daughter, but Tomas sees her with a child doll and thinks she’s delusional. Plus Tomas gets the wrong idea about her obviously-gay friend, Robert. He goes home and yells at Mother. Then he apologizes later and she forgives him.

Tomas, who works for a very weird video store, goes to a client’s house to pick up an overdue film. The police arrest Tomas outside the house, and he misses his “date” with Tina. It turns out, the house (and video) belonged to one of the missing girls. The sheriff soon releases him and chews out the dumb cops.

In case we forgot about the missing women, there’s a scene of a girl getting chopped up with a hand-saw while another captive screams watching.

At the video store, the police want a list of clients. They notice the strange locked room in the back, but they don’t have a warrant. Turns out, all the missing women were clients of the video store where Tomas works.

Tomas asks Tina to come over for dinner, so he has to clean up the house; he explains it all to Mother and then puts away all his way-too-heavy dolls. He goes to pick her up at work, but she left earlier because she got a call about a problem with her daughter. He ends up going home and throwing a tantrum.

In the morning, Tomas goes to the video store to find his boss being arrested. The boss, the doctor, and the priest are identical triplets, which confuses the police. Tina apologizes, blaming her sick child (who Tomas thinks is a doll).

We finally see Tomas in the dark room torturing the kidnapped women; yes, it really is him. He cuts out body parts, to please his mother, who really is a doll herself. He puts some real eyes in the mother-doll.

Tina comes over for dinner as promised this time. She spends the night, but in the morning, she hears screaming from another part of the house. She finds “Mother” and freaks out, running away.

At the police station, the video store boss implicates Tomas, who delivered gift cards to the victims’ house. Tina goes to work and tells Robert about the doll with real eyes and a heart– and the screams. They both wonder if it was real or if Tina is having another “episode.”

That night, Robert goes to Tomas’s house and snoops. He, too, gets a shovel to the face.

Tina and her “daughter” come to Tomas’s place to apologize, and he’s got bodies all over the place that he has to clean up in a hurry. Tomas knows his mother is a doll, and he believes Tina’s daughter is one as well. They are made for each other. He’s got a “roomful of dolls” to show the daughter.

The video store owner admits that Tomas is the police chief’s son, and the old man has been hiding things. Tomas killed his mother when he was very little, and there was a whole coverup by the three triplets. Soon, everyone is out searching for Tomas and Tina.

While Tina is talking, Robert crawls up out of where he was being kept, not quite dead. He knocks over mom’s ashes, Tomas freaks out and kills him with a pitchfork, Tina screams and Tomas clubs her.

Meanwhile the sheriff and the doctor kiss and then commit suicide. Tomas then gives a warm loving speech to all his collection of “dolls.” As the inspector comes in and sees what’s happened. We get to see Tomas’ last hallucination, with the assumption the inspector shot him dead.

Brian’s Commentary

That diner is even weirder than Waffle House.

The police in this town are absolutely comic-relief material. It’s weird, and a little funny in a Twin-Peaks kinda way. We don’t know for sure who the killer really is until very far into the film, although there are numerous weird characters who could have been it. There are also influences from “Psycho” here as well.

It’s a little dull and hard to follow in the beginning, but once we learn who’s who, it all gets pretty good.

It was very weird. I liked it!

Kevin’s Commentary

Tomas had a Norman Bates vibe going from early on in the movie, and I suspected early on he was the killer. And it turns out he’s even loonier than I expected.

That diner-bar-nightclub-dragshow-karaoke place where Tina works looks fun. In addition to Tomas being so whacked, the whole town has a little bit of a surreal vibe to it, full of odd characters.

It’s very strange, and I really liked it a lot.

2026 The Voices of Our Mother

* Director: Mark O’Brien

* Writers: Mark O’Brien

* Stars: Sheila McCarthy, Georgina Reilly, Mark O’Brien, Carolina Bartczak, Alex Ozerov-Meyer

* Runtime: 93 minutes (1 hour 33 minutes)

* Trailer Link:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A complicated family relationship is made worse when four siblings return home to help out their ailing mother, who seems to either have a possession or dementia. Either way, she’s not right and things get worse as the movie progresses. Mark O’Brien does a really good job as writer, director, and one of the siblings. It builds steadily to a conclusion that was pretty satisfying. We both enjoyed it.

Spoilery Synopsis

A woman reads a book but stops when she hears something large stomping around outside. The thing tears the door off and the fireplace suddenly goes crazy. She grabs a gun, but that’s not going to help. “You’re mine and no one else’s,” says the monstrous voice. “I need your help, Annika.” Then she sits up– it was a nightmare. Later, Annika remembers talking to her grandma about helping her mother. Credits roll.

Two old women sit in church, almost the only ones there, and listen to Father Roslovic’s sermon. They go home and one reads a story to the other. Harriet is Johanna’s daughter, and she’s got problems. “You’re mine and no one else’s,” Johanna repeats over and over. In the morning, Johanna is dead. Harriet dramatically crawls to the phone to call for help.

Therese, William, and Martin are the children, and they all soon arrive. Dr. Meyer talks to them about Harriet, who seems to be healthier and mentally like a child now. It wasn’t a stroke, it’s not dementia, it’s something else. William is bitter about the whole thing and thinks Harriet should be institutionalized.

Annika, the fourth child, is a nun, and she doesn’t really want to go home, but the other nuns convince her that she should; she talks about being abused by her father.

The three siblings take Harriet home, and Annike is there waiting for them. We take a little time to learn all the siblings’ problems. William is broke and has a gambling problem. Therese is an angry widow. Martin is a useless junkie and was written out of the will.

At the funeral service the next day, Harriet freaks out and punches the preacher. She’s soon back in the hospital, but the doctors can’t find a problem.

Therese accuses William of having an affair with her dead wife and may have been the one who killed her. She’s got a bit of a grudge. As they all argue, Harriet starts laughing upstairs. Harriet says the others have done awful things, they aren’t pure like Annika. They got Martin to kill their father and maybe Therese’s wife as well. Then Harriet walks out the window and vanishes.

Annika finds Harriet standing outside the church, just staring. They take her home and build a jail cell in the basement for her. Father Roslovic comes over and talks about her odd behavior. Is she possessed? This leads to more arguing. Annika insists that they let the priest assess Harriet.

It soon becomes clear that Harriet is possessed, big time. Grandma’s prayers were holding the thing back, but now it’s free to “infect” all of them. She’s not subtle about it. The priest says the demon is feeding on the family conflict; their father was really a good man until Harriet corrupted him.

The siblings all get drunk, and Martin admits to shooting their father with William’s help. Harriet bangs on the wall in the basement as they all yell at each other. Therese and William decide it’s time to just kill Harriet. Annika tells about the time her grandma asked her to take care of Harriet the way she did, so this is technically all her problem now. She knows the whole story about how Grandma made a deal with Satan.

Father Roslic gets a letter mailed by Johanna before her death with some instructions.

Martin decides to come clean about killing their father, and William attacks him to prevent him from leaving and going to the police. Before long, William and Therese are dead. Martin then shoots himself, leaving Annika alone in the house with Harriet.

Annika hears the big demon stomping around upstairs and takes the gun. Roslovic comes in and hands her the instructions before he is also killed.

As the house burns around her, Annika finally sees the gargoyle-like demon that is really her mother. She prays really hard, and the demon goes away. Harriet is there, and she looks normal again. Since smoke inhalation isn’t a thing in horror movies, Annika picks up the old woman and carries her outside through the burning house. “You’re mine and no one else’s,” she repeats over and over.

Brian’s Commentary

It starts off really slow, with lots of family drama, but it gets more and more ominous as it proceeds. At least we didn’t have to sit through another exorcism.

I didn’t quite understand what Harriet was, but the ending is far from a happy one. What happens when Harriet eventually dies of old age or something?

Kevin’s Commentary

It was a good script, weaving the family drama and issues into the supernatural and amplifying things.

All the effects were good, but I thought the demon effect at the end was especially cool.

I liked the double implication of “You’re mine and no one else’s,” that could be ominous or benevolent.

I dug it. It was very good.

2026 Project Hail Mary

* Directed by: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller

* Written by: Drew Goddard

* Stars: Ryan Gosling, Sandra Hüller, Milana Vayntrub

* Run Time: 2 Hours, 36 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A solitary astronaut wakes up from a hibernation sleep on a starship with huge gaps in his memory, and slowly discovers he is on a desperate mission to save Earth from a solar-system-killing threat. After waiting years for this adaptation of Andy Weir’s hit novel, we weren’t sure if the movie could pull off the book’s almost-excessive science and central alien friendship– but they did. We both loved it. It takes a few visual liberties with the math and science (it’s a movie, not the book), but it’s a wild ride. The special effects are amazing, and it’s just plain fun. The long run time flew by, and we were both entertained.

Spoilery Synopsis

“I’m allergic to peanuts,” is pretty much the first functional thought Ryland Grace has as he wakes up in a sterile chamber attached to tubes. Two of his crewmates are dead in their pods beside him, reduced to mummies. He doesn’t even remember his own name, let alone why he’s in deep space.

As his memory slowly trickles back through flashbacks, he remembers that he was a middle school science teacher recruited by Eva Stratt—the head of a global task force. She explained to him that a microscopic organism named “Astrophage” is eating the Sun’s energy, threatening a global extinction-level ice age. In fact, all the nearby stars seem to be fading. Except for one. Why?

The star Tau Ceti is the only one reasonably close that seems to be immune to the infection, so humanity built the Hail Mary, a probably-suicide-mission starship powered by Astrophage fuel, to travel there and find out why. Naturally, Ryland had a big part in the design of the engine they use; actually, he learns that he’s the world’s biggest expert on the Astrophage, so he’s indispensable to the mission.

While orbiting Tau Ceti, Ryland makes a shocking discovery: another ship is in the system. He makes contact with an alien vessel operated by a five-legged, spider-like creature made of heavy stone who communicates entirely through musical chords. Ryland names him “Rocky.” Rocky’s home sun is also dying from Astrophage, and he is also the sole survivor of his own crew.

The two science nerds form an instant bond. They build a pressurized airlock tunnel between their ships so they can work together. Ryland learns Rocky’s musical language using a laptop program, and together they start running experiments on Tau Ceti’s atmosphere. They discover a natural predator to Astrophage: a microbe they name “Taumoeba.” However, breeding Taumoeba in lab conditions presents a huge problem—the microbe dies when exposed to tiny traces of methane.

Through dangerous trial and error, Ryland selectively breeds a line of Taumoeba that can survive methane exposure. With enough Taumoeba bred to save both Earth and Rocky’s home planet of Erid, they stock their respective ships and part ways. Ryland sets course back to Earth, sending unmanned probes ahead to carry the data and samples, ready to probably starve to death on the journey home. Shortly after departing, Ryland realizes a fatal flaw: the methane-resistant Taumoeba he bred has adapted to eat through Xenonite, the material Rocky’s ship is made of.

Rocky’s fuel tanks are going to be destroyed, leaving him stranded to die in space. Ryland makes the ultimate choice: He redirects his ship, sacrificing his last chance to return to Earth, and saves Rocky just as his ship breaks down. He hopes the probes containing samples and data that he sent to Earth arrive safely.

Much later, Ryland is living on Rocky’s home world among the Eridians. He receives news via long-range light signals that Earth’s Sun has recovered, meaning his probes made it home. He spends his days happily doing what he loves most: teaching a classroom full of little alien kids. Rocky tells him that they fixed his ship up and he could return to Earth any time he wants to. But maybe he’ll stick around there for a while yet.

Brian’s Commentary

I’m skeptical that anyone could learn a complex alien language based entirely on musical pitches using a basic Excel spreadsheet. I had high expectations coming into this one after loving the book, and it really delivered. Actually, I thought there was a little too much science in the book, and it dragged at times; the movie fixes that problem. Gosling carries the solo screen time effortlessly, and the CGI for Rocky makes a giant rock-spider surprisingly adorable. The many flashbacks as he recovers his memory is straight from the book and well done.

It’s every bit as good as you’ve heard.

Kevin’s Commentary

The science holds up surprisingly well for a blockbuster, though there were points here and there that kind of work because the plot requires it. Such as the speeds they travel at.

But overall it’s a movie that’s hard to nitpick. It’s a big story, and I really liked how we gradually figure out what’s going on along with Ryland as some of his memories return, and we see lots of flashbacks revealing how he got there. And what the problem is that he has to solve. I’ve never read the book, so I went into this pretty blind.

In some ways it reminded me of “The Martian,” not surprising since it’s by the same author, but this one has a buddy factor that livens things up. And Ryan Gosling was the perfect choice for the role.

Sometimes, highly hyped movies don’t live up to it, but this one really does. It’s entertaining from the beginning to the end. A great ending by the way. For such a long run time, I was never bored.

2016 Underworld: Blood Wars

* Directed by: Anna Foerster

* Written by: Cory Goodman, Kyle Ward, Kevin Grevioux

* Stars: Kate Beckinsale, Theo James, Tobias Menzies

* Run Time: 1 Hours, 31 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

More time has passed since the last movie and the lycans and vampires are in all out war again. While looking stylish and cool in a world seen through a blue filter where humans are barely seen or mentioned. Selene and David are still teamed up, with Michael no longer in the picture. It’s a decent continuation of the story, but it skips the contents of the previous movie in most ways. It’s not perfect, but we were pretty entertained. If you liked the previous movies so far, you’ll probably enjoy this one as well.

Spoilery Synopsis

We get some recap of the earlier films before the credits roll.

Selene is nearly captured by a bunch of humans and a lycan until she’s rescued by David. He’s looking for Eve, Selene’s daughter, and he says the lycans have a new leader, Marius, who wants to capture Eve. David gets shot in the battle, and he’ll need help.

Meanwhile, the vampires apparently have a new castle somewhere. Thomas, from the previous film, comes to visit Samira, who is in charge now. She complains that they’re losing the war to the lycans. She’s afraid of a large-scale lycan attack. Samira wants Selene to hunt Marius and train new Death Dealers. She’s got some Corvinus blood and has special powers above all the other vampires.

At the lycan camp, Marius is making plans to kill all the vampires. Thomas addresses the vampire council, convincing them to bring in Selene, whom the whole council hates for killing Marcus and Viktor.

Thomas and Selene arrive at the new vampire castle and meet the other potential Death Dealers. Cassius, one of the new elders, is really not pleased about Selene being there. Varga is their best lycan killer, but he’s nowhere near Selene’s league. In a practice battle, she clearly beats him, but he sticks her with a poison nightshade blade. He immediately kills all the new Death Dealer recruits at Selene’s instruction and frames Selene: double cross!

Thomas fights off Samira and Varga as Thomas escapes with Selene, but the old vampire doesn’t survive the fight. Samira sends Alexia to track Selene, but she’s really working for Marius.

Selene and Thomas head to the far north, where there’s one last isolated coven that’s friendly to them. The place seems to be full of Targaryen vampires, led by Vidar. He reveals that Amelia, one of the grand elders, was Thomas’s mother, who left him a magic sword. Turns out, Thomas is supposed to be the leader of all the vampires.

Suddenly, lycans attack. The lycans brought guns, but the vamps only have swords and crossbows. Selene and Marius fight, as do David and Lena. With Alexia’s help, Marius gets the better of Selene, but she really doesn’t know where Eve has been hiding. Marius says he’s running out of time and needs to attack Samira’s coven right away. Selene hides under the frozen ice to get away from Marius.

Later, Lena uses her elf-magic to revive Selene. Meanwhile, Samira uses the blood she stole earlier from Selene to supercharge herself. Alecia returns and disables the security system. Samira knows all about Alexia’s treachery and kills her for it. Samira then turns on the council and does a coup, just as David shows up to take over as last of the purebloods.

Varga turns against Samira just as the lycans attack. The vampires do pretty well until the lycans start breaking windows and letting the sunlight in. It’s all looking pretty grim until Selene returns, now blonde and supercharged with northern elf-magic, along with a bunch of Nordic vamps as backup.

Marius fights Selene again. David fights Samira, who dies. Selene tastes Marius’s blood and learns that he’s the one who killed Michael; he’s been injecting himself with Michael’s blood to supercharge himself. She pulls his spine out.

The Eastern and the Northern covens join up, and Selene is appointed to be one of the main elders now.

Brian’s Commentary

How did the humans allow that many vampires to occupy a fortress after the events of the previous film? This is all about the vampires vs lycans again, mostly ignoring the human threat set up in the previous film.

This one is a bit of a mess. It doesn’t really continue the main plotline of the previous film, instead going back to the formula of the first two films (which is probably for the better). Eve, the main Maguffin of the previous film, is mostly forgotten here. And what’s up with the blonde elf-vampires? They have magic now? The CGI version of Marius, with his human face, is ridiculous.

There is talk of a sixth film in 2026, which will probably be a reboot. Not sure how they’ll handle that with Kate Beckinsale in her mid-fifties now. I guess we’ll see.

Kevin’s Commentary

Yeah, like Brian points out, what happened to an outraged humanity who knew vampires and lycans existed and wanted to wipe them all out? This movie, we’ll just ignore humans pretty much completely. And speaking of humans, what were those blond vampires feeding on out in their isolated fortress out the middle of the frozen wasteland?

Selene takes more abuse in this one one than any of the previous movies, but of course she comes out okay in the end. I’m assuming that if they reboot it, there will be a new Selene actress.

It’s not quite on par with the first movie, or couple movies, but I was still entertained.

1957 20 Million Miles to Earth

* Directed by: Nathan Juran

* Written by: Robert Creighton Williams, Christopher Knopf, Charlott Knight

* Stars: William Hopper, Joan Taylor, Thomas Browne Henry

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 22 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

The first manned expedition to Venus crash lands when it returns to Earth. A collected specimen starts small and grows into a gigantic creature that runs amok to terrify the world. The effects are quite good, considering the year, with a stop-action creature. The cast is good, the script has a decent story that moves well. It’s all around a fun 1950s creature feature.

Spoilery Synopsis

We’re told about the way scientific advances just seem to jump up on us, like atomic power and now… space travel! Credits roll.

Italian fishermen complain about catching cows in Texas. Suddenly, they stop and look up– it’s a space rocket! It crashes right next to the fishing boats. They spot a hole in the side and check it out. Two men climb inside the huge rocket and go down deep inside and find several dead Air Force men, along with two survivors. Just as they exit the ship, it sinks below the sea.

Later, at the Pentagon, General McIntosh and Dr. Uhl don’t know where the ship crashed down, but they’ve had sightings. They get the report that the ship has been found.

Back in Sicily, Pepe, the little boy from the boat, finds a device, “Project 5” and hides it in a cave. He opens the tube, and inside is a small, slimy lump. The Italians bring Dr. Leonardo, a vacationing American scientist, and his daughter Marisa to investigate. Pepe takes the thing he found to Leonardo to sell it for 200 Lira.

Colonel Robert Carter, one of the astronauts, wakes up and wants to know what’s going on. The other man, Dr. Sharman, has something growing on his face, and Carter knows it’s terminal. Sharman wants to know what happened to his sample, and they assume it went down with the ship. Then Sharman dies.

The gooey blob hatches into a little lizard-man in the professor’s trailer, and Marisa and Leonardo see it. They put it in a cage, but the next morning, the thing is much bigger.

General McIntosh and Dr. Uhl arrive in Sicily and meet Bob Carter. They explain the whole Venus expedition to the Italian Consul, Contino. The ship was hit by a meteor on the way back. Several members of the expedition died from some contagion they caught on the surface. They brought back, but lost, a sample of the lifeforms of Venus.

Colonel Bob offers Pepe money to tell him about the sample container and tells them about Professor Leonardo, who is on the way to Rome.

On the road, the creature, even bigger now, breaks out of the cage and runs off. Shortly after, the Americans catch up and hear the story. It shouldn’t have grown so fast or so large, but maybe there’s something on Earth that’s affecting it.

The creature comes upon a farm and eats from a bag of sulfur; it also wounds the farm dog. Bob and the others show up, and they all have it cornered in the barn. They try and fail to force it into a cage, but when the farmer hits it with a pitchfork, it attacks him. Bullets don’t seem to have much effect on it.

The Italian officials insist now that the creature must be destroyed. They start searching the hills, as the Americans search with helicopters. Bob and Dr. Uhl fly over the creature and capture it in an electrified net.

The general gives a press conference, where he explains everything again. The creature’s being held at the zoo, and he’s gotten way bigger. They keep it asleep with a constant flow of electricity. They’re studying how the creature breathes on Venus and adapting that for humans. This gives Bob and Marisa plenty of time to flirt.

Suddenly, the power goes out and the creature wakes up. It breaks loose and attacks an elephant. The two go back and forth through the streets of Rome, crushing cars and people all along the way past several landmarks. The elephant eventually loses the battle, but the creature keeps on going.

The creature disappears into the river for a few hours, and when it comes out, it’s even bigger. It hides inside the Coliseum, where Bob shoots it with a rocket launcher and it falls to its death.

Brian’s Commentary

The creature is another of Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion designs, and it’s really well done. This was also his last black-and-white film, as well as his last film set in the modern age. The “Italians” in the film are stereotypes and I doubt they’re even remotely Italian.

It’s pretty standard stuff for a 50’s giant monster film, but it stands out mostly for the effects, which were great for the time. We get a lot of creature action in this one.

Kevin’s Commentary

It’s 1957, so they didn’t know yet there wasn’t any advanced life on Venus and they wouldn’t be landing people there. There weren’t probes until the 1960s.

The special effects look good, if obvious and dated, and they get the job done. I thought it was good storytelling and interesting to start it out with the rocket crash on Earth.

It’s a good one from the era.

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FOUR HUNDRED EPISODES? WOOOHOOOO!

We’ve got a baby and family-themed episode this week. We’ll start off with the folk-horror “Nightborn” from this year. We’ll go with some meta-slasher fun with “Big Baby” next. “Son of Sara” gives us a slightly different take on the birth of the antichrist. All three of those are new this year. “Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation” is our oldie for the week, starting the careers of a couple of actors you might have heard of.

And we’ve got a creepy short film this week as well.

All this, plus the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #59, for August 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

2026 Nightborn

* Directed by: Hanna Bergholm

* Written by: Hanna Bergholm, Ilja Rautsi

* Stars: Seidi Haarla, Rupert Grint, Pamela Tola

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 32 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A young couple moves to her childhood home in the Finnish woods, has a kid, and lives happily ever after. Well, actually no. The kid ain’t quite right and things get progressively worse as the story progresses. It’s kind of slow moving and talky in places, but the dread and horror builds nicely. We were both entertained, Brian more than Kevin.

Spoilery Synopsis

Jon and Saga drive their car through the woods toward their new, isolated home. It’s her childhood home. It looks an awful lot like a haunted house. Credits roll.

They go inside, and it’s really torn up. There’s a tree growing in the bedroom floor. For some reason, they seem happy to be in this mess.

Out in the woods, the trees look like people, with faces and bony hands. Jon gets creeped out, but Saga rubs the belly of the pregnant-looking tree. “Grandma forbid me to come” to the forest, she explains. Then they have sex under the tree.

We cut to Saga giving birth, and it’s a bloody mess. “What is this?” asks the nurse, and then they sedate Saga. When she wakes up, Jon explains that the baby is fine. The nurse says she’s never seen such a hairy baby before; it’s all down his back.

The trio goes home, and we see that Jon’s been busy renovating. Breastfeeding hurts, as the baby draws blood, and she can’t make eye contact with the baby. The baby’s got a tiny little tail sprout growing on his backside. We soon see that Saga is a little afraid of the baby, who hurts her every chance he gets.

They have a party for Saga’s family to come over and meet the baby. Saga explains that she plans to have two more babies before going back to work. Mother explains that Saga was always a weird kid, and then the baby pulls her earring, and a big chunk of her ear, off. “Why did it look so weird?” asks one little girl visitor. “Babies are usually cute.”

The wind blows from the forest, and it tells Saga to name the baby, “Kuura.” The sunlight burns the baby, so Saga takes him inside. The parents argue over her not being able to do anything right. She starts calling the baby, “It.”

Saga’s sister comes over and explains how “cold iron burns them” about something in the woods that scared their grandmother.

Jon comes to the conclusion that there’s something wrong with Saga. She soon finds out that the baby is quite eager to lick up blood after an accident. They go to counseling, and Saga says the problem is the baby.

Jon’s parents come for a visit, and his father is a priest. “If you don’t bless a child, a troll will take them,” someone jokes. The blessing is completely uneventful, which shocks Saga, who expected something bad to happen. The baby touches some iron and burns his hand. “It’s just cold. Cold iron.” After that, Saga realizes she’s given birth to a troll. She gives it a baby bottle filled with blood, and the baby loves it. She hides the bottle and remaining blood from Jon.

Later they have a rough evening of discussion and arguing, and Jon leaves for work in the morning without saying goodbye. Saga and the baby then roar at each other as the trees encroach right up to the house. Then things get a little rough.

Saga wakes up outside in the snow-covered woods. She hears the baby squealing out there somewhere, and the trees themselves try to slow her down. She tracks down little Kuura, who is eating a dead deer.

Jon comes home, and he knows about the blood the baby drinks. They argue some more.

Jon wants to watch the baby while she goes into town once in a while– which she does. Her fingernails look like they’re turning into wood, and her stomach has rings like a tree. She meets up with some old work friends, “None of us really knows you,” one says. All through lunch, she hears babies crying. The vegetarian menu does not agree with her anymore.

Back at home, Jon takes care of the baby, and it all seems normal. Saga comes home from town, on foot, through the snow. She’s physically changing, which reverts back as soon as she gets near the baby.

Saga’s sister comes over for a visit, and things get nasty. Anna, her niece, seems normal; “I got that monster,” Saga whines. The sister says there’s nothing wrong with Kuura, it’s all her. Then the baby bites off Anna’s finger.

Eventually, she embraces the monstrosity of the whole situation , and she starts getting along with the baby. Jon finds the mother and child sleeping in a hole under the floor where the tree grows. He just rolls with it. Jon wants to set “human limits” on child raising. “This child can’t be raised,” she says.

Jon’s had enough and says he’s taking Kuura away from Saga. They physically fight over the baby. Kuura gets upset, and the forest goes wild, invading the house. Jon gets impaled on a tree and dies. Then the baby starts eating on him. Saga then pulls out his heart and shares it with Kuura.

Saga goes outside and watches Kuura run toward the forest and the tree people inside.

Brian’s Commentary

If the sound of crying babies bothers you, stay as far from this one as possible.

If this movie teaches us anything, it’s that babies will suck the life right out of you. If you’ve ever even considered having children, watch this film first. It’s all very mother-metaphorical, but it’s also a good horror movie.

It’s slow-moving and predictable, but it’s very well made and kept me entertained.

Kevin’s Commentary

So much crying baby in this one.

It didn’t have a long run time, but it felt long to me. Slow, quiet, and talky for a lot of it, but the undertone of dread is there almost from the beginning and the horror does build. I’d say I liked it more than disliked it.

2026 Big Baby

* Directed by: Spider One

* Written by: Spider One

* Stars: Brandon Scott, Krsy Fox, Torio Van Grol

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 43 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Horror writer Adam is struggling a bit to make it big, but he comes up with a great idea to create a new slasher character, Big Baby. As he gets into it, reality and fiction starts to blur. This is loaded with horror tropes, and the meta vibe of horror story within horror story, leaving us wondering what’s real or not. It’s a little on the talky side at times, but overall really well made and entertaining. Better than both of us expected.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open to Adam listening to a podcast of horror movie reviews, and it’s NOT OURS. Turns out, they really hate the movie that Adam wrote. Adam gets really angry (he shoulda been listening to The Horror Guys). Adam’s girlfriend, Kate, gives him a pep talk. Adam is sooo tired of criticism; everyone hates everything. He makes good money writing horror films, but he’ll never win an Academy Award.

This, naturally, gives Adam writer’s block. He has a nightmare about a serial killer who looks like a huge baby who kills Kate. The next morning, he’s really excited about his new idea. Kate wants him to write a slasher film from the idea. He hates slasher films, but maybe he could elevate it.

Then again, writing isn’t easy, and he’s still got writer’s block. He does laundry instead. He finds the bedsheet cut up, just like in his dream, but it’s probably just a coincidence. At the coffee shop, he runs into the same two horror movie podcasters, and they’re idiots in person as well. They say his movie, “The Blackest Moon” was just plain boring.

Adam and Kate get drunk and talk about cats and monkeys building roller coasters. Adam gets all philosophical about it, mentioning that people create reality from their own thoughts. That night, Adam gets a visit from a little boy who explains the origin of Big Baby; he was a bullied boy who nearly drowned and vowed to get revenge. Wait– was that a dream, or was it real?

He writes the story so far, but Kate doesn’t think that origin was enough to explain a serial killer. Adam makes excuses and wonders what level of revenge can be considered acceptable. Adam then writes about how Big Baby gets his mask; Kate comes home wearing that exact same mask and scares the crap out of Adam.

He runs into a woman at the convenience store and starts stalking her as she walks home. He watches as Big Baby comes out of nowhere and hacks the woman to pieces with an ax. “He’s real,” he tells Kate, who wants to go to the alley and see for herself. Of course, there’s no sign of anything there. Adam thinks writing about Big Baby made it actually happen; he manifested it.

Kate convinces Adam to put the story away for a while. A few weeks later, they have friends over for dinner. Adam and James talk about their work, and “Big Baby” comes up, which gets awkward. Kate really thinks Adam’s losing his mind, and she’s not happy about it.

That night, Big Baby comes to Adam and says “She doesn’t want you to succeed. She’s in our way.” He won’t promise not to hurt Kate. Kate wakes up halfway through the conversation, and she sees that Adam is alone, talking to himself. In the morning, Kate leaves him.

Amanda, one of Big Baby’s victims, comes to visit Adam, and he wants him to save her. She wants out of the story. Big Baby calls from Kate’s phone, “Finish the story or she dies.” Adam then writes another scene, one where Kenny and Julia argue and are killed. He quickly writes another, where Graham gets it. Big Baby impales Graham with a cross and then beheads him. Theo and Nicky are next.

In the real world, James comes to the door to talk about what’s been going on. James leaves, and Adam gets back to work, finally writing Amanda’s death scene. Before he can finish, Amanda appears to Adam and begs to live. If he writes her death, Adam will be no better than the killer. Adam writes of her death anyway. “Sorry.” The story now ends, and Adam laughs that he’s completed it.

Adam goes to James’s house to see Kate, and he’s got a knife. He gives her the knife, and they talk. “There’s only one way for all this to stop,” he says. He calls upon Big Baby to appear, so we can get a proper horror movie ending. She sees the killer as well this time as Big Baby slashes Adam with his ax. Jaes and Patrice break down the door, but only Kate is there, saying Big Baby did it.

As the end credits roll, we get back to those two FAKE podcasters, reviewing the new film, “Big Baby.” They talk about their encounter with the crazy writer, Adam and how he was mysteriously murdered by his girlfriend. After the podcast, Big Baby shows up and starts stalking them both…

Brian’s Commentary

It picks on all the horror tropes, including a lot of behind-the-scenes filmmaking and writing stuff. The critics… well, at least I’ve never had coffee thrown in my face– yet. There’s a lot to say about revenge killings and who actually deserves it in horror movies.

On the other hand, it’s got some long, talky bits. It’s got the usual amount of kills and gore for a slasher film, but the killings aren’t even the real story; it’s all about Adam’s descent into madness.

I liked this way more than I thought I would. Very nice!

Kevin’s Commentary

This was a really cool one. Being a horror reviewer and podcaster knowing as many movies as I do bumped up my enjoyment of it.

And it had an ending I didn’t expect, that’s always a nice bonus. It was really good.

2025 Son of Sara

* AKA “Son of Sara: Volume 1”

* Directed by: Houston Bone

* Written by: Houston Bone

* Stars: Chloe Van Landschoot, Tymika Tafari, Garrett Hnatiuk

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 25 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A very pregnant woman having visions and unusual cravings gets invited to a dinner that ends up being one of the worst ever. It has a shock beginning, then a long time where not a lot happens. We both thought it had an interesting ending, but it was kind of boring getting there.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a woman giving birth, but she’s chained to the bed and pretty unwilling to be there. They do something to the baby, and it stops crying, then they cut the mother’s throat.

Three weeks later, Sara is pregnant, and Carol is there to help. They’re lesbians, so we don’t immediately know who the father is. Sara’s in a lot of pain, which somehow leads to a sex scene.

Later, she eyes the raw ground beef in the fridge hungrily. In the middle of the night, she comes back for the meat and digs in– raw. She knows that’s weird but does it anyway. Not long after she pukes up a long string of hair and pointy teeth.

Then she sees the devil in the hallway and screams. Carol says there’s no one there. The next day, she stops by the store and buys more raw meat that she eats on the way home.

She bumps into Troy on the way home as well, and we see that he’s the father. He barely remembers her name. He’s found someone else and ghosted her, but also says it’s complicated. He wants to know why she kept the baby, and she says it’s because of Carol. He wants to be friends, but she asks him to leave. He says he can’t wait to meet the baby and generally doesn’t seem like a bad guy. Carol shows up, and she doesn’t like Troy.

Troy leaves, but first, he invites Sara to a dinner party and to meet his mother. Carol says she has to work and cannot go, but Sara really wants to do it. They argue about Troy. Sara then rides out into the country with Troy to his remote house.

Sara and Troy make it to his mother’s house, and Agnes welcomes them inside. He seems a little sketchy, and his mother is even weirder.

After drinking some clearly drugged milk, Sara tries to call Carol, who ignores the phone call. She soon face-plants into the table.

Carol finally finishes work and checks her phone messages. She calls Sara, but it goes right to voicemail. Agnes explains to Troy that he’s here on Earth for a purpose and it’s not to spread his seed all willy-nilly. He says Sara isn’t like any of the other girls. This sixth try is going to be the best!

Yes, Sara is going to have Satan’s child, and if it happened in the hospital, that’d be a real mess. Then both Agnes and Troy get naked and admire themselves in the mirror.

Sara wakes up out in the barn, tied to a bed. Agnes explains the whole situation to Sara, who isn’t pleased. She explains about the first five failed attempts; those women just weren’t right. Sara sees the devil there in the room with them, but Agnes and Troy don’t see anything.

Carol arrives outside in a taxi, and the driver says he can wait around a bit. Troy leads her into the house. He attacks her, so she pepper-sprays him. Troy does, however, manage to kill the tax driver and tie up Carol. Meanwhile, inside, Sara starts to give birth, with only Agnes there to help. Troy shows up in time for both of them to get splattered with blood that Sara coughs up. Carol gets untied and grabs a pitchfork.

Rather than have a normal birth, the baby comes up out of her mouth, and it’s in a cocoon or something. The baby’s got little horns and claws. He’s hungry and takes a big bite out of Agnes’s neck. As Troy tries to kill the little monster, Carol comes in and stabs him in the back.

Carol unties Sara, and they leave together… with the baby, who is obviously some kind of demonic thing.

Brian’s Commentary

Who puts onions in the fridge?

As an almost sixty-year-old guy who never had kids, pregnancy horror just does not do anything for me. I guess pregnancy in general is body-horror of a type, but… yawn.

The last twenty minutes were fine, but the rest was just boring.

Kevin’s Commentary

This is one of those movies where they have a shocking horror opening so they can get away with an hour of build-up afterward where nothing much happens. But eventually things get somewhere, and it has an interesting ending. So mixed feelings on it. Well made, dull path to an ending that I enjoyed.

That baby was the cutest little demon ever.

1994 Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation

* AKA “The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre”

* Directed by: Kim Henkel

* Written by: Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper

* Stars: Renee Zellweger, Matthew McConaughey, Robert Jacks

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 27 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Leatherface is hanging out with a new family again, and on prom night a group of lost teens tangles with him and his family. Matthew McConaughey’s performance is over the top and a bright spot in a movie that drags and is kind of dull. Neither of us was very entertained overall.

Spoilery Synopsis

We hear a voiceover about the previous crimes from the previous movies. Credits roll.

It’s prom night, and Jenny and Sean show up and encounter all the weird “high school students.” Heather catches Barry cheating on her and speeds off with Jenny and Sean in the backseat. They take a detour and get lost.

Another car comes out of nowhere and smashes into them. The driver says “I’m not hurt,” and then passes right out. As they walk to call an ambulance, Heather tells creepy monster-in-the-woods stories to cheer them up. They stop in a place and meet Darla, who has boobs and isn’t afraid to flash them. She calls Vilmer, a tow-truck guy, to come help.

Vilmer shows up, but it’s not to help. He kills the injured guy and then chases Sean. Barry and Heather chase after another car, leaving Jenny behind. Yes, the group splits up in a Leatherface movie.

Heather and Barry come to an old house, and run into Leatherface and W. E. There’s lots of screaming on Heather’s part as Leatherface tosses her around and locks her in a freezer. Barry doesn’t care about the walls covered in human skin because he’s just gotta pee. Leatherface gets him as well.

Jenny gets picked up by Vilmer, and she soon learns that she doesn’t like him much. He dumps her on the side of the road and then chases her with his truck. She eventually runs into Leatherface, who’s got his saw with him this time. This leads her to Darla and W.E., who are also involved with the baddies.

Jenny finds herself tied up in the family kitchen with the whole gang. There’s a lot of arguing between the group.

As is the custom, the whole group ends up around the dinner table, along with several corpses.

Suddenly, a limousine drives up. Mr. Rothman and his driver come inside. He tries to calm Jenny down. “This is appalling. You are here for one reason,” he tells Vimer. “I want these people to know the meaning of horror.” Rothman then licks Jenny all over and leaves.

Vilmer finishes off Heather and then goes crazy cutting himself. In the confusion, Jenny runs out the front door and out into the woods. She’s soon picked up by a pair of old people in an RV, but they don’t last long. Somehow, an airplane dives at Vilmer, chopping him up in the propeller.

Jenny runs to the limo and gets in, where Rothman apologizes for how this has all been run. He takes her to the hospital, but Leatherface is still out there…

Brian’s Commentary

Is the Illuminati behind Leatherface? I did not see that coming.

It’s a very early breakout role for both Renee Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey, neither of whom had done much prior to this. His performance is way over the top, and he steals the show. Otherwise, it’s all pretty forgettable.

Meh.

Kevin’s Commentary

I had seen this one before in the 1990s, and before we started this rewatch I was thinking it wasn’t very memorable. Well into it this time, I was thinking “this really isn’t very good.” The supporting cast isn’t impressive, the pacing and script are clunky. Though I can see why Renee Zellweger and Matther McConaughy went on to do many other things. I think they salvaged the movie from being truly awful. Plus his motorized leg brace was quite the DIY project.

Definitely my least favorite of the Chainsaw movies so far.

Short Films:

2023 Short Film: Mamu

* Directed by: Michael Skanes

* Written by: Michael Skanes and Jessica Skanes

* Stars: Emma Bellomy and Eden Ritter

* Run Time: 8:21

* Watch it:

What Happens

A mom at home alone at night keeps getting motion alerts on her phone from the baby monitor system, which has a camera pointed at the crib upstairs. But the baby is in her arms now. Is that something lurking there by the crib? Better go upstairs to take a look for herself…

Commentary

It’s very well made, creepy and suspenseful without dialogue. Especially impressive considering the minimal special effects, an ordinary house, and a small cast (one cast member being especially small). The music is very effective too. And even when things are dark, we can still see what’s going on, which is always appreciated. We’d call it a winner worth checking out.

Contact Info:

* Email: mailto:[email protected]

Websites:

* https://www.horrorguys.com

* https://www.horrormonthly.com

We’ve watched a bunch of oldies and sequels over the past few weeks, so this time, let’s focus on four brand-new films. The latest installment of the Deadites franchise, “Evil Dead Burn” is first. Next, we’ll stop in with a visit to the M3GAN universe and meet our “Soulm8te.” After that, we’ll stop in for a perfectly normal “Corporate Retreat,” and then take a side trip to Korea to visit a strange “Colony.” 2026 is shaping up to be a fine year for horror so far!

And we’ve got a creepy short film this week as well.

All this, plus the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #59, for July 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

2026 Soulm8te

* Directed by: Kate Dolan

* Written by: Rafael Jordan, Kate Dolan, James Wan

* Stars: Lily Sullivan, David Rysahl, Claudia Doumit

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A lonely guy working in robotics gets an experimental home model companion to test and improve on. His attempts to make her more lifelike leads to obsession and deadly consequences. It’s very well made, and the cast is great. But we both thought it didn’t show us much new that we haven’t seen before. The storytelling was good but kind of predictable as it unfolded.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a sex scene as the credits roll. She chokes the guy, but she gets carried away and nearly kills him before the technicians monitoring can shut her off.

We get a commercial about Ultima’s new AIs and robots. David’s company has been acquired by Ultima and Ben is the new boss. David is not enthused about work. He also misses Lizzie, his dead wife.

At a meeting at the office, Ben talks about chronic loneliness and how their newest product can help with that. A woman walks out and then pulls off her hair– she’s a robot underneath, designed for companionship. She’s a Soulm8te with an extra 8, which Terrance thinks is stupid. And she’s very stiff and robotic.

Ben talks to David about the business, Lizzie, working from home, and the company’s chat app, which David doesn’t use. Still, David’s gotta work on this new robot, so he has to get involved now. Afterwards, much of the group goes to a karaoke bar. David kinda likes Aubrey, and she kinda likes him, but the dead wife thing keeps getting between them.

David keeps calling Lizzie’s voicemail just to hear her voice. Sara, the AI chatbot on his phone, sees his call and asks if everything is OK. This begins a conversation, and before long, he’s sold on the chatbot. Before long, David signs up to beta test the new physical version of the AI, in robot form.

He shows her around the apartment, and she gives simple responses to things he says. They talk about Lizzie and play chess. He puts her to sleep in power-save mode in the living room; he doesn’t want to sleep with her. She’s okay, but kind of stiff and inhuman.

David talks to Ben about getting more access to improve the robot, whom he names Sara. He programs her to criticize him, which she wasn’t able to do before. He finds her much more attractive after the upgrade and they kiss, quickly followed by sex. He then follows up by reprogramming her with more alterations and updates.

The neighbor, Alma, notices that David’s got a new girlfriend, and it’s a little awkward. While David’s at work, Sara watches lots of television about lots of topics. She starts tapping into his phone to listen to him at work, especially when he starts flirting with Aubrey.

Sara goes out shopping, runs into some trouble, and neighbor Alma helps out. Sara is curious about her baby. “Having a baby changes everything,” Alma says. Sara gets mugged on the way home, but that goes very poorly for the bad guy.

David and Sara go out for a drink at the karaoke bar, and Sara does a song. She’s very good, and everyone in the place notices. They have sex in the alley afterward. Some guys try to take pictures, and she hurts them. He realizes that she’s not programmed with safeties, and that could be a problem. He has to really push her to get into power save mode.

Later, he’s just about to start to fix the mistakes he made in Sara’s programming and Aubry stops by with wine. This leads to more romance, but this time, Sara watches through the smart home device. Sara wakes up and won’t go back to sleep on command. “Even when I’m sleeping, I can hear you,” she explains. He has to physically turn her off with the button in the back of her neck.

David calls the factory to have them come and pick up Sara for a return. At work, Aubrey wants to do a presentation about how changing a few lines of code can really mess with the ‘bots. They aren’t ready for market yet.

Meanwhile, at home, the service guy arrives and reactives Sara. He tries to reset her to factory settings, but she won’t reset. She seduces the guy and kills him in a unique way. She then cuts him apart and disposes of the evidence.

During the presentation at work, everyone suddenly watches a video of Aubrey having wild sex with someone. She swears it’s not even really her, a deepfake. She’s fired from the job immediately.

David realizes where that porn video came from and goes home to find Sara dressed up as Lizzie. Also, now she’s got a baby. A real baby. David grabs the baby and tries to leave the apartment, but she locks the doors. Alma and the police show up and get the baby back safe, but Sara jumps down the laundry chute and escapes.

The police talk to Ben, who explains about the robot. He’s sure there’s no danger, since the robots are perfectly safe and they can remotely shut it down. He goes looking for her, but she finds him first. He makes him have a severe car accident. She then goes to Aubrey’s house and attacks her. David shows up to intervene, as do the police. They get there in time to save Aubrey, but Sara flees.

David and Aubrey leave their phones behind and go to David’s old house out in the country. They hang out and David casually mentions Chechov’s paint stripper. Sure enough, Sara shows up and grabs him. He splashes her with the paint thinner, and most of her face melts. Not the important metal parts though as she points out. Though there’s a good opening for David to jam a drill into now.

David runs out into the rainy woods, and she follows, not damaged enough yet. We know from before that her skin is water resistant, but that was before her head was full of holes, and the rain starts to get to her a bit - but still not enough. She says she’s more than just a body; she exists in the ether and she’ll come for him no matter what. Aubrey drives her car into Sara and runs it over a cliff into a lake. The Sarabot shorts out as she sinks.

One year later, David’s at a fundraiser, and an old man has a Soulm8te that looks exactly like Sara with dark hair. They’re on the market now. Could she be the same?

Brian’s Commentary

This takes place in the same fictional universe as “M3GAN” (2023) and “M3GAN 2” (2026). It’s also very similar to the plot of “Subservience” (2024). It’s even got a touch of “Obsession” (2026). We’ve been getting a lot of AI/Robot stories lately.

The acting is good, the situation escalates reasonably, and it’s all well filmed. Storywise, however, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. A man and a robot have a romance, and the robot gets carried away.

It’s well done and entertaining if you haven’t seen the other dozen films that tell the same story.

Kevin’s Commentary

I was really impressed with Lily Sullivan’s performance as Sara, she was excellent.

It was very well made all around with great special effects. I think the biggest fault was that it didn’t have enough new or unexpected. As events unfolded, I could predict most of them coming.

So, it’s an entertaining watch with a good story, but few surprises.

2026 Evil Dead Burn

* Directed by: Sebastien Vanicek

* Written by: Sebastien Vanicek, Florent Bernard

* Stars: Souheila Yacoub, Tandi Wright, Hunter Doohan

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 50 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

It’s death and mayhem for a family who are descendents of an old professor who researched the Necronomicon and the business around it. In an isolated house where they’ve gathered, evil does its thing with over the top violence and gore. It’s pretty continuous in the violence in fact, almost to the point of tedium by the end, a serious business without much humor at all. We’re both in agreement it was better than the previous movie “Evil Dead Rise,” but Brian enjoyed this one more than Kevin did.

Spoilery Synopsis

We get a voice recording talking about the Necronomicon and flesh-possessing demons. There’s also a magical device that can send the demons back to Hell, but it must remain hidden. If it’s found, the demons will stop at nothing to destroy it. We watch a guy find the thing.

We cut to two fishermen arguing about leaving their phones in the car. One guy catches a head and then something catches him. Leo pulls about half of Jarod out of the water, and then the demon gets him as well. The demon then stands in the road and waits for a car to hit her.

Alice and her friends get together for Joseph’s birthday. Will buys Joseph a thousand-dollar pen because he never finishes his books, which devolves into an argument. He’s abusive and controlling, and ends up speeding away from the club… until he runs into the demon-woman and crashes. “We found you, now lead us to your family,” says the demon-woman, who soon loses her head. The car bursts into flame, burning Will alive. Credits roll.

At the funeral, Alice sees Will’s family, Susan and Polly. There’s construction going on outside, which is very distracting. They all think Alice and Will were happily married, but that’s obviously not the case. Will’s father, Ed, wants one last visit alone with his son, but he hears Will knocking on the casket from the inside. What comes out of the casket isn’t Will. It messily takes care of the crematorium operator but lets the old man leave.

The whole group goes off to the family home, which is looking really run-down now. Grandpa, who is dead now, was the man who made that recording we heard about in the opener. The photo of Grandpa looks like Bruce Campbell (We also get to see Bruce among the family photos by the stairs). Grandpa was obsessed with demons and the occult, and Susan resents it.

Ed goes into the basement and the demon talks to him. Alice takes a knife away from him before he can hurt himself. Grandma Polly has dementia and has no idea what’s going on most of the time, which makes dinner awkward for everyone. Ed is weirdly hostile and soon, everyone notices, especially when he kills the family dog with a fork and collapses in a seizure. On the way to the hospital, Ed kills Thya, who’s driving the car. Joseph gets beat up but escapes into the woods.

Alice reads from Grandpa’s book, and she learns a few things about the demons and the dagger that can kill them. At least until the dead dog gets up and attacks her.

Joseph returns to the house and says Ed killed Thya. Thya then knocks on the door, and they all get a look at her. Joseph, Alice, and Susan throw the undead girlfriend into the basement and lock the door. Outside, they run into Ed and Max, the now undead dog. Ed pulls out a gun and shoots himself in the head– twice, but that doesn’t stop him. Then he does it a third time, which still doesn’t do the trick.

The remaining family barricades themselves inside the house. Dolly then lets Thya out of the basement. Thya attacks Alice, and Joseph proves how useless he really is. Thya stabs him with a whole dishwasher full of knives. Thya is about to get grandma when Alice steps up and knocks her down the stairs with Grandma’s prosthetic leg. And Joseph beats her to pieces with the dishwasher door.

Alice finally makes Joseph explain about the demons and their grandfather. The old man travelled the world researching and gathering artifacts. Meanwhile, Dolly convinces Susan to open the window and let Ed in.

Ed wants the dagger, and Joseph admits that he knows where it is. As Ed tortures and beats Joseph and Susan, Alice hides in a closet. How is Joseph not dead six times over by this point?

Dolly grabs Alice and stabs her in the ear with Joseph’s pen. Susan and Alice hide in the bathroom, and Alice finally comes clean about what a monster Will was.

Alice cuts a hole in the ceiling and climbs up to Grandpa’s attic to search for the dagger. She finds a dagger and stabs now-possessed Joseph with it, but it’s the wrong one. Then she hits upon the right one and kills him with it. She then drops the knife out the window and has to battle the demons on the roof and down the chimney.

Alice then kills Susan and Ed with a rotary garden edger. She stabs the dog with the knife and burns down the house. As a final boss, Alice must confront Will, who’s more skeleton than man at this point.

Will chases Alice to a construction site, where he knocks her into a pit and starts to fill it with boiling tar. She throws the knife Ed gave her early on into the tar and tricks Will into going after it. She then picks up a jackhammer, not the chainsaw, and really messes up Will’s day. Finally, she stabs him with the real dagger. She takes out her frustrations on his head and drops him back into the tar.

Suddenly, the police and medics show up, maybe they saw the fire. She blames her ex-husband.

Brian’s Commentary

Neither of us much liked the previous film, “Evil Dead Rise” (2023), as it had no real connection to the classic films. Other than having flesh-possessing demons, neither does this one, but it seems the franchise is on a new path now, and there’s no going back.

The many practical effects are really well done, and there’s not excessive blood, although it’s extremely violent. Actually, this may be one of the most non-stop relentlessly violent movies I’ve ever seen, and there’s no comic relief in sight.

It’s about a half-hour longer than it needs to be; they could have trimmed down some of the early stuff.

Overall, it’s better than the previous installment. I was entertained. Too long though.

Kevin’s Commentary

The first three Evil Dead movies were directed by Sam Raimi and starred Bruce Campbell. I remember them being weird and darkly funny and entertaining. Like the two sequels/reboots before this, “Evil Dead Burn” lacks all those things. Okay, somewhat entertaining. And the gore and effects are top notch. There are many visceral ouchies.

There is a sort of story and explanation, but it just feels too much to me like random awful things happening to people who did nothing to deserve it. Not that that’s not a formula in some horror movies, but this didn’t really connect with me. I think it’s because there’s a bit too much hopelessness and helplessness. The deadites are just going to keep coming no matter what they do to try and save themselves. Graphically demonstrated by possessed Edgar who puts multiple bullets through his own brain and keeps on deadite-ing. It’s just events playing out until everyone is dead.

I did enjoy it more than the previous movie in the series, “Evil Dead Rise,” but not nearly as much as the original trilogy.

2026 Corporate Retreat

* Directed by: Aaron Fisher

* Written by: Aaron Fisher, Kerri Lee Romeo

* Stars: Alan Ruck, Odeya Rush, Rosanna Arquette

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

The core staff of a highly successful company goes on an annual corporate retreat. As you might guess, things go horribly. How the movie goes about it is interesting, but the pacing feels long and drawn out with bursts of action. Brian gives it a thumbs down, and Kevin gives it barely a thumbs up.

Spoilery Synopsis

As the credits roll, we get shots of a very expensive house with bodies all over the place.

Cliff and Ginger, his girlfriend, sit in the car and talk about her test on Monday. We also see Carl and Devin, who are boarding a bus. Billie is the gung-ho HR person, and they all work for Immaculate Pond Technologies. Omar is the IT guy, and Deborah, Audrey, and Omar all don’t really want to be there.

Cliff tells Ginger that they are meeting friends, but it turns out that he’s brought his girlfriend to a corporate retreat. He’s also got a gun, which Ginger doesn’t like. Everyone except Carl turns in their phone. Billie sneaks in and steals his phone shortly after.

Right away, Deborah finds bodies hanging in the storeroom, and then she becomes one of them.

The group starts with a meditation session. The second involves being locked into a steam room. Afterward, they’re fed botulism and told they have everything they need to survive. The chemist of the group works on mixing up an antidote. Everyone’s OK except for one guy, Omar.

Arthur, the founder of the company, does a video call, and he’s angry about their betrayals and getting kicked out of the company. Amber and Lola, the two running the retreat, walk in with machine guns. They want one of them to sacrifice themself and cut out a heart. They shoot Cliff in the head and drag his body out and then talk for an hour and half about how they met Arthur.

The group decides to kill Omar, who chooses that moment to wake up. Billie cuts his throat anyway, and then Carl removes the heart.

Next up is a laughing contest. Aubrey and Carl do fine, but then it’s Ginger’s turn; Arthur doesn’t even know who she is. Devon requires a bit of prompting, but he does it as well. Billie, on the other hand, can’t do it, so Amber cuts her head off.

During a break, Ginger tells the others about Cliff’s gun, which is up on the roof. They argue with Arthur over the videocall. They goad him into coming there personally.

For the next game, Arthur explains that they all need to pop out their left eyes with a spoon, and he wants to go first. He does, and it looks pretty painful. He came prepared, as he’s got a patch ready to put on. He chooses Carl to go next, and he does it. Devin does it as well. Audrey has her turn and drops the spoon, so Amber shoots her eye out. Ginger is last, and she doesn’t hesitate.

The final game begins. Arthur’s still annoyed about the voodoo doll the group passed around in the company, so he wants everyone to stab themselves with seven big nails. Carl tries it, and stabs himself in both ears– he’s dead. Devin refuses, so the girls shoot him.

Ginger’s time once again. She admits she was the one who made the voodoo doll for Cliff. She says Arthur should never have been ousted from the company. She wants to do the ritual to ascend, but she wants to do it on the rooftop.

Ginger grabs Cliff’s hidden gun and holds it to Arthur’s head. He stabs her, and she shoots him. Lola and Amber shoot at Ginger, but she avoids them. After a little cat and mouse, Ginger beats Amber to death with a dumbbell. There’s more cat and mouse as Ginger deals with Lola.

And the final girl is Ginger, who wasn’t even supposed to be there. “This is the worst corporate retreat I’ve ever been on,” she says as she gets in the car and drives home.

Brian’s Commentary

I had two coffees and was still yawning throughout. Alan Ruck: “We have Jeff Goldblum at home.” Everyone else is completely forgettable here. I kept having to look at IMDB to remember which character was which, there wasn’t much here in the way of character development or acting. The gore is pretty good, especially the eyeball scene, but there’s really not much of that sort of thing here.

Pretty awful.

Kevin’s Commentary

It’s well made, good acting, good special effects - that eyeball removal scene for instance. But the script and the pacing are lacking. It was bland and drawn out. I had some chuckles. I didn’t hate it. By the third hour I was getting into it.

I’d call it moderately entertaining on the dull side.

2026 Colony

* Directed by: Yeon Sang-Ho

* Written by: Choi Kyu-seok, Yeon Sang-ho

* Stars: Jun Ji-hyun, Koo Kyo-hwan, Ji Chang-wook

* Run Time: 2 Hours, 2 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

At a scientific conference in a huge center, someone deliberately releases a virus that spawns fast zombies - with a sort of hive mind. The uninfected have to band together to survive and keep it from becoming a wider disaster. There are some elements that make it unique, which we really appreciated so it’s not the same old thing again. It’s well made and entertaining without slowing down much. We’d highly recommend it.

Spoilery Synopsis

A man calls 911 and says he made a highly contagious terrorist attack with a pathogen in his own body. He also has the only vaccine that could help. Kwon Se Jong and Gyu Song arrive at the bio-conference where Kang Woo-cheol is speaking on stage. They’ve been divorced for ten years, and he still sees a need to help her career. Meanwhile, the man on-stage talks about collective intelligence and ants and how they can use that to improve semiconductors. They’ve used the technology to restore paralyzed rats. It may even bestow a kind of telepathy.

Meanwhile Seuk and Hui are in the mall talking about going camping together.

Kang Woo-cheol gets a call that one of his scientists is planning on making a terror attack this afternoon, and that stops the conference. He then runs into the man in the restroom, and they argue about stolen research. “I’m taking humanity to the next level! The birth of a new humanity.” This culminates in the lunatic injecting the CEO with something.

Almost immediately, Kang collapses and has seizures. He very quickly becomes a Korean Fast Zombie ™ and starts attacking people at that conference. Things escalate very quickly.

Se Jeong and Gyu Seong have some dinner and talk about their lives. Seok, who works security, hears that the building is going into lock-down as the police arrive outside. Very quickly, all the characters we know have barricaded themselves inside a store in the mall.

These aren’t normal Korean Fast Zombies ™, however, they’re linked telepathically into a hive-mind, which soon becomes apparent. Se Jeong remembers what the CEO at the conference said and realizes that this is related to that somehow.

The news reports that the building is under quarantine because of the bio-terror attack, but people outside can see the zombies inside. Gyu Seong tries to help a girl outside their building, and he dies in the process. Se Jeong then talks to his wife on the phone, which goes poorly.

The policeman of the group gets a call about the scientist who caused all this having the vaccine, and he’s probably still in the building. Se Jeong explains how the creatures outside are getting smarter and evolving. They might respond to smells and pheromones.

They “train” the zombies to chase a certain brand of perfume, and then they cover themselves with antifreeze to make a different smell, hoping to walk right past the zombies.

The group inside the mall find Dr. Suh and arrest him. He knows Se Jeong by reputation. They need to get him to the roof to be rescued. Seok tells them about the cargo elevator that no one knows about.

Professor Gong arrives outside Suh’s laboratory. The SWAT teams are about to break in. They find a large number of infected monkeys, but they all seem to be in a trance– except for one that’s awake and out of a cage. The others all wake up and work together to get out; it’s not just a barrel of CGI monkeys. Suddenly, they all freeze and die when monkey #1 is killed. “Patient Zero” seems to be the core of the whole infection.

The elevator doors open on the wrong floor because Suh pushed the button, and several people get bitten. Suh just walks off in the confusion, and the zombies just ignore him because he’s vaccinated. The survivors head to the security office to use the camera to find where Suh has run to. They come to the conclusion that Suh can see through the eyes of the zombies since he is, in fact, infected. The zombies can see through his eyes too, so they blindfold him.

They watch as Suh talks to the infected CEO, and they realize that he was Patient Zero. The CEO bites Suh, and Suh changes. All the zombies go into “buffering mode,” which gives the policeman’s group time to go after Suh. They get him, but he’s linked to the hive now while still keeping his faculties. Suh telepathically sends the zombies to the control room, and Hui is killed. This enrages Seok, who vows that Suh and the rest are all going to die.

Professor Gong explains to the military that the infected are effectively brain dead and can’t be cured. They want justification to shoot the people inside. She explains about killing Patient Zero to stop all this.

Seuk, who has vowed to kill all the survivors, gears up for battle.

The policeman shoots the businessman to use as bait, but the zombies get them both. Se Jeung and two girls have Suh, and they’re the only ones left. They make a plan by text so Suh doesn’t hear them. Jeung heads out and the two girls stay with Suh. Except one of the zombies is looking at one of the group’s dropped phones and sees the texts, which means Suh can see it.

Se Jeung finds the policeman’s phone and calls the police commissioner. They send two teams. One to kill the CEO, and the other to grab Suh as a vaccine. Se Jeung tells the police where to find Suh, but since Suh can hear, the zombies attack. Suh escapes with help of the horde.

The soldiers kill the CEO, but it doesn’t do anything. Suh is actually the prime zombie. Se Jeung finds Suh at the same time Seuk does. Suh uses Seuk’s dead sister against him. Suh explains to Se Jeong that this was all in revenge for her ruining his father’s career.

The soldiers get in and grab Suh, but leaves Se Jeong locked in a closet. Gong calls her on the phone, and they figure out that Suh is “the first monkey” and needs to die. The zombies start using the guns to free Suh, so they’ve evolved pretty far. The military refuses to kill Suh, because he’s also the vaccine.

Suh and some zombies steal a van and leave the building. They drive right up to the crowd of people outside the building and start infecting everyone there.

Se Jeung calls Gong, who finds Suh on the CCTV and tells her where to go. Se Jeung finds him and tries to run him over, but there are too many zombies in the way. She tricks the zombies into running in an “ant circle,” something we learned about earlier, and Suh struggles to get them to stop. The zombies all fall down and reboot to their original state. The zombies wake up and attack the nearest poster with faces, and Suh ends up catching on fire and dying in the melee.

All the zombies freeze. Se Jeong and Gong discuss who’s going to take the blame for all this.

Or ARE the zombies actually permanently frozen?

Brian’s Commentary

The obvious comparison here is “Train to Busan” (2016), and it was, in fact, directed by Yeon Sang-Ho, the director of that film. It’s very similar, with a small number of distinctive characters and personalities and how they interact with each other as they try to survive.

This one is different due to the hive mind and being controlled by a human, Dr. Suh. It turns it from a standard zombie film into almost a supervillain-type story.

There are some very cool shots of zombies doing weird things, and they all have a very unnatural style of moving.

I liked it!

Kevin’s Commentary

I thought it was an interesting touch having the zombies not be able to tell images and cutouts from real people. At first anyway until they collectively upgrade. The hive mind aspect gave this a unique twist on the zombie genre, it was very cool how that was used. I thought this one was pretty great.

Short Films:

2023 Short Film: Open Casket

* Directed by: Vincent Dormani

* Written by: Vincent Dormani

* Stars: Jonathan Stephens and Austin Pigza

* Run Time: 4:30

* Watch it:

What Happens

A man brings some new artwork home and hangs it on the wall, not noticing that someone wrote “Burn if found” on the back of it. He’s pleased with how it looks, but almost immediately things go strange, and there seems to be something else behind the paint on the canvas. It’s okay though, it’s just a painting, right?

Commentary

It’s short and effective, shot well in a great setting and cool effects. Without dialogue, they manage to tell a creepy little story. It’s a good one.

Contact Info:

Email: mailto:[email protected]

Websites:

* https://www.horrorguys.com

* https://www.horrormonthly.com

We’ve got another batch of weird ones for you this week. We’ll open on “Leviticus,” and you’ll hear what we thought about that. “Until Dawn” takes us on a time-loop adventure, while “Wishmaster 4” brings an end to that franchise. And then there’s “Underworld: Awakening,” which takes that franchise in a whole new direction.

And we’ve got a creepy short film this week as well.

All this, plus the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #59, for July 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

2026 Leviticus

* Directed by: Adrian Chiarella

* Written by: Adrian Chiarella

* Stars: Stacy Clausen, Joe Bird, Mia Wasikowska

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 28 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Two teenagers run into trouble when a shapeshifting entity fixates on them. It’s not a happy movie, and it’s very slow-paced. But it’s got an interesting story, and it’s well made. The acting is excellent. Neither of us disliked it, but we were kind of meh.

Spoilery Synopsis

The lifeguard stays late after the pool closes to take a naughty shower. Something bad happens to her that we don’t see, but it involves lots of screaming and blood. Credits roll.

Ryan and Naim play with a snake and break into an abandoned mill to vandalize it and hang out. It doesn’t take long before the two are fighting with each other– and then kissing. Ryan warns Naim later not to tell anyone about what happened. Later, both boys stare at each other as the church group sings.

Some time later, the boys are back inside the mill making out again. Naim’s mother is highly religious and often drags him to church groups. They also know Hunter, who is Rob, the preacher’s son. Naim sees Hunter and Ryan kissing in the backyard and realizes he’s not exclusive. Naim tells Rob what he saw and things go badly for Hunter at home after that. Ryan and his family as well.

The church does a whole big thing for the two gay boys to drive the sin out of them, and there’s quite an embarrassing crowd. The Deliverance Preacher says, “All your lust, indecency, and desire has to go now!” Both boys fall down in a seizure in the middle of the ritual, going into convulsions. Naim watches all this and is terrified, since it’s partly his fault.

At school later, Ryan starts getting bullied. Ryan warns Naim that he has to stop. Naim follows Ryan to the skating rink, where Ryan acts like he’s not alone. Something invisible in the photo booth attacks Ryan and scratches him up good. Ryan tells Naim to just leave him alone, he thinks it was Naim that attacked him.

Naim questions Hunter about what happened at the ritual. “Did it work?” After following Hunter, he finds that Hunter’s being followed by something invisible as well. He watches as Hunter is dragged away and killed that night.

Naim goes to the police about what he saw; he thinks it’s going to kill Ryan next. The detective tells Naim’s mother everything, and it’s an awkward drive to the church where Rob and the Deliverance Preacher awaits him too. The men drag him inside and do the same ritual to him.

Naim tells Ryan what happened, and then Ryan attacks him. Except Ryan was inside and didn’t do anything. “You saw it, didn’t you!” Izzie, Rob’s daughter, knows something. “It comes for you when you’re alone,” she explains about two girls. One, Marnie, died in the opening sequence, but the other one didn’t. The girl who lived, Jessica, hangs out all day and night at a hospital so she’s never alone.

Ryan and Naim take the bus to see Jessica, who explains that the monster looks like the person you have a crush on and then it kills them. “Nothing can make it stop. Stay away from your friend, you’re only making it worse!” For a moment, Naim is alone, and he sees it coming for him as both Ryan and Hunter.

On the bus ride home, the two kiss and make out, which they both know is only going to make it worse, but they can’t help themselves.

Izzie takes the two boys to the Deliverance Preacher to “take it back,” but it’s a trap. A large group of trouble makers start to beat them up, but they steal Izzie’s car to escape. Unfortunately, Ryan learns who it was who told on him.

Naim tries to tell his mother about the creature, but she doesn’t understand. He sees Ryan/The Creature several more times. It just about kills Naim, but Naim soon learns that it’s vulnerable to fire.

Naim runs into the old mill, with Ryan not far behind. Naim sets the place on fire with the Ryan thing inside.

Naim tells his mother the story, but she already knows. This was supposed to happen, and it can’t be undone. Ryan has apparently run away or otherwise disappeared. Naim goes to the bus stop and meets him there, where they leave the depressing town altogether sitting next to each other sharing music. Along the way, Naim sees “Ryan” standing beside the road.

Brian’s Commentary

“What if conversion therapy actually worked?”

It’s about depressing characters in a depressing town going through depressing situations– fun!

It’s a good concept and it’s got good acting and cinematography, but it’s very slowly paced. There’s also an inconclusive ending– did leaving town stop the problem? It seems unlikely, but we don’t know.

It was… okay. A little on the dull side.

Kevin’s Commentary

It’s a very strange romance. With a sort of happy ending, and not a solid wrap up. The problem is going to continue, from the look of it.

The two leads were great, as was the supporting cast. All the production values were very good. It wasn’t unpleasant to watch, but I thought it was a little too long and drawn out.

2025 Until Dawn

* Directed by: David F. Sandberg

* Written by: Gary Dauberman, Blair Butler

* Stars: Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Odessa A’zion

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 43 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A group of friends gets trapped in a time loop house of horrors. All they have to do to escape is survive Until Dawn. It’s a variation on the Groundhog Day time loop scenario with a video game vibe. The movie is pretty well made, but there wasn’t a lot here we haven’t seen before. We both thought it was on the tedious side. It was just okay overall.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a woman crawling through a tiny tunnel, and there’s something nasty behind her. The evil clown catches up to her and kills her. “I can’t take it again!” Credits roll.

Clover, Max, Nina, Megan, and Abe discuss what they are going to do for closure after they arrive. Clover’s sister, Melanie, went missing about a year ago, and they’re here to say goodbye.

Megan’s a bit of a psychic, and she leads them all in a little ritual that almost gets them all run over in the street. The man inside the gas station says a lot of people go missing in Glore Valley, just up the road.

After a very strange storm, they stop at a building that’s in the eye of the rainstorm, but that’s not really a thing. None of them have any cell signal, and the rain seems to be falling everywhere except where they are. The calendar inside the inn says it’s 1998. Abe finds a whole bulletin board full of “Missing” posters.

The sun goes down, and the weird sundial clock on the wall turns itself over. Abe’s car suddenly comes to life just outside the rain circle. One thing quickly leads to another, and the clown shows up, cutting Abe in half. Max soon gets a knife in the face as well. Megan gets face-planted repeatedly, but then Clover stabs the clown in the back– to no effect. He kills her as well.

Time resets, and suddenly, everyone is alive again. They all remember what happened. Now their photos are on Missing posters as well. “It has hold of us now,” Megan says. As the hourglass continues to run down, Megan says it feels different this time. She’s apparently possessed by the former victims of the place. “Don’t let it in,” she says before she dies.

There’s a knock at the door, and Clover hears Melanie’s voice. There’s no one out there. Also, there’s an old house that wasn’t there before. Clover’s dragged into the old house, but the others are forced back into the house they’ve been in.

Clover looks around the strange house, and there’s an old woman there: the Glore Witch. “You either survive the night or become a part of it.” Max comes looking for her, but Abe and Nina jump in the car to drive away, which they soon learn is a bad idea. The others also die… again.

Megan’s losing hair and not looking so good this time around. They all have some minor health issues now– Abe starts coughing up teeth and explodes. Clover tells the others about what the witch said to her. Nina then explodes as well. Megan explodes just a little bit at a time until there’s nothing left. As Clover lays down, ready to try another round, the man from the gas station comes in. “You almost made it. Almost but not quite.”

Time resets again. Clover finds the ID for Dr. Hill, the man she talked to at the gas station. He was a doctor who was brought in a few years back when the whole town got swallowed in a mine disaster. They figure out that each time they’ve died, it’s been something different, just to keep them afraid.

Max finds a videotape that explains a lot about what Dr. Hill was doing here in town. He turned a man into a wendigo. Hill explains that four of them can leave, but one of them must die. First, the clown kills Abe and Nina, then the wendigo gets Megan. Max and Clover run into Melanie, who is now a wendigo. But first, more death.

None of them can remember how long they’ve been there. Tonight might be their last chance. Wait, Megan isn’t here on this go-round, maybe her time was up? They look at Abe’s phone and see videos of many, many previous deaths and monsters.

Clover decides it’s time to stop running away and elects to go into the tunnel, and the surviving three join her. It leads to the submerged ruins of the town that sank in the mine collapse. All the wendigos appear to be down there, now chasing them. They fight back more this time.

Clover runs into Dr. Hill, who explains that the monsters are a manifestation of their psyche. While her friends are getting hunted down, she manages to slip a bit of water into the doctor’s coffee, which makes him explode. Clover grabs his keys and rescues Megan. They all climb upward as the sand almost runs out. Aaaaand… they make it out as the sun comes up.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s another time-loop / Groundhog Day-type movie. The characters die over and over. It started out pretty great, but it dragged a lot in the final half hour. There was lots of running around in the tunnels, but the “puzzle” part of the film was over by that point, and it slowed way down.

It was… OK.

Kevin’s Commentary

I didn’t realize this was based on a video game until we got started and I checked out the trivia.

The attacks seemed too random, and what they could do about it seemed too limited. It was too hopeless and pointless. It’s pretty well put together, but there isn’t much to root for.

The beginning had promise, but it got bogged down and repetitive. I thought it was on the tedious side more than entertaining.

2002 Wishmaster 4: The Prophecy Fulfilled

* Directed by: Chris Angel

* Written by: John Benjamin Martin, Peter Atkins

* Stars: Tara Spencer-Nairn, Michael Trucco, Jason Thompson

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Once again, someone frees the Djinn from the ruby, and he’s on his mission to end the world when the one who freed him makes three wishes. It’s a little more complicated this time when love enters the picture.

Like the third movie, this one lacks the humor and interesting killings of the first two movies, and Andrew Divoff as the Djinn added a lot to those.

We both thought it was just okay. Not a strong finish to the series.

Spoilery Synopsis

A young couple, Lisa and Sam, buy their first house and have sex as the credits roll.

Three years later, Lisa goes to a fancy house to see Steven Verdel, her lawyer. He’s bought her a gift, a big red jewel in a box. Sam was in a motorcycle accident, and Steven is representing them in a lawsuit. When she touches the jewel, she gets a weird vision. She leaves, and he puts the jewel in his safe.

The Wishmaster appears to Steven and offers him a wish. He needs Lisa to make three wishes, and to do that, he steals Steven’s face and appearance, just as he did in the previous film.

Steven shows up at the house, and soon, Lisa wishes to get a quick settlement for the case, which he grants. Sam thinks that Lisa has been waiting for this to leave him. At dinner, Lisa wishes that Sam could just walk again, and now he can, but he’s in a crazy load of pain from it. Turns out, the only place he has any feeling is in his legs; the damage is still there.

Steven stalks Lisa at work. Later, Sam admits that he’s done with Lisa. Steven still needs Lisa to make one more wish, and then his people can ravage the Earth. She wishes she could love Steven for who he really is. Uh-oh.

The Djinn’s boss appears and insists that the Wishmaster release them from Hell as prophesied, but he refuses: he’s in love now. They send a hunter to kill Lisa, which will solve the problem.

Steven goes to see Tracy, Lisa’s friend. She wishes for some killer sex, and that happens.

The Hunter shows up at Lisa’s store, and Jennifer, the clerk, tries to help him. He pulls out a sword and kills her. Meanwhile, the Djinn goes one on one with a bouncer, and it’s not much of a fight.

Steven and the Hunter fight, which makes no sense, since the Hunter needs the Wishmaster to fulfill the prophecy. It doesn’t matter since the Hunter loses badly.

Lisa goes home and finds a note from Sam, who has left her for good now. Steven shows up, and there is much kissing now. Sex ensues. He asks if she loves him for who he is, and she’s evasive. He can’t make her love him, that’d be against the rules. “It was the plan; I gave you what you wanted.”

Lisa finally sees Steven in his true form and freaks out. “I am only a monster if you choose to see me as one.” He wants her to be his queen when his people take over the Earth.

Sam shows up and shoots Steven a few times, which does nothing. Sam wishes for a way to kill the Wishmaster, and grants him a sword. But the Djinn runs Sam through with his own sword.

The Wishmaster takes on the form of Sam so Lisa will finally love him. Lisa finishes things by shoving the Wishmaster into Sam and his protruding sword, impaling the Wishmaster and killing him.

Brian’s Commentary

This was filmed at the same time as the third film, but I found the story to be a lot more interesting. It wasn’t particularly bad, but it wasn’t very interesting, either. All the actors showed up on time, but none were particularly great. The special effects were minimal, and even the deaths weren’t that creative.

It was OK, but not especially good.

Kevin’s Commentary

Knowing that it was filmed back to back with the third one, I didn’t have high hopes, but it ended up being moderately entertaining. If it was stand alone, it would be held up differently, but it’s being compared to the earlier movies. I’d put it as my number three favorite of them.

2012 Underworld: Awakening

* Directed by: Mans Marlind, Bjorn Stein

* Written by: Len Wiseman, John Hlavin, J. Michael Straczynski

* Stars: Kate Beckinsale, Michael Ealy, India Eisley

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 28 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

With the war between the vampires and the lycans over, humans find out about the monsters, and they’ve shifted to humans vs. vampires and lycans. There is a lot of action fighting, but more to the story than just that.

It seemed a little short and rushed, and maybe unnecessary, but it’s pretty well made and still has some entertainment value. It was a step down from the previous movies, but worth checking out if you’re a fan of the series.

Spoilery Synopsis

We get a quick recap of the storyline. Now, a new darkness has arisen.

We get a news report that vampires and werewolves have been discovered and made public; everyone knows about them now, and there are tests to determine if you’re human or not. Marshal law has been declared, and Dr. Jacob Lane is interviewed on TV about the situation. We watch Selene fighting human soldiers as the credits roll.

Selene’s not a typical vampire; she’s a Death-Dealer, and not so easy to kill, even without a gun. She arrives at the dock to meet Michael, who is shot with silver bullets and blown up, along with Selene.

In the hospital, “Subject 1” is awakened from Cryo-sleep. That’s Selene, who was frozen for some reason. Dr. Lane is called, but she kills his assistants. She escapes after causing much carnage. She breaks into a store for clothes to find that they sell “Real Vampire Teeth” and “Real Lycan Teeth.”

Selene runs into a security guard who tells her that the fight with Michael happened twelve years ago.

Two detectives talk about a recent murder; it’s been years since the last Lycan killing. Detective Sebastian is assigned to the Selene escape from the lab. Sebastian goes to see Dr. Lane, who explains that they killed the subject; no one actually escaped. For some reason, he lies about what happened. The detective soon discovers the lie.

Selene interrogates one of the scientists about “Subject 2,” whom she assumes is Michael. She gets glimpses of visions through #2’s eyes. Another vampire, David, comes to Selene, and he says the lycans have been hiding for years, but something has been getting them stirred up recently. They rescue a young girl from an impending lycan attack.

The lycans do attack, right in the middle of a busy street, and they want that girl they have. They break in and bite her, but she’s meaner than the wolves. Turns out, the girl is Subject #2, and she’s Eve, Selene’s daughter somehow. Selene tastes Eve’s blood and verifies the story.

David takes Selene and Eve home to his coven, and the leader there, Thomas, doesn’t trust Selene at all; he knows her history. The vampire doctor is astounded at Eve, since she doesn’t have any bite marks. It’s likely that Eve is the daughter of both Selene and Michael, something between the two races.

The humans arrive at the coven hideout. David wants to fight, Thomas wants to evacuate. Turns out, the attackers aren’t human, they’re lycans, led by one giant one. Thomas gives Eve over to the lycans.

Selene goes to see Detective Sebastian. Something isn’t right that lycans still not only exist but have some unnaturally big specimens. They put it together that the lab is helping the lycans. And then we see that Dr. Lane and his minions have made themselves lycans through science. Lycans that are immune to silver. And they want to rule the world.

Meanwhile, Selene armors up to make an assault on the lab and get Eve back, with Detective Sebasian’s help. For plot reasons, Selene can walk around in the daylight now, and she uses that to sneak into the lab. Dr. Lane sends his chief goon, Quint, to stop Selene.

Selene finds Michael, frozen in a cryo tube, but she has to choose to free him or help Eve. She shoots his tube and runs off.

Selene makes it to the parking garage and stops Lane’s van, but she has to fight Quint, who is the big bad wolf. Sebastian shoots Lane, who is a lycan, and they fight as well. Sebastian loses, but then Lane has to fight Eve. David shows up out of nowhere and helps. Both lycans lose messily.

Selene, Eve, and David leave as Sebastian promises to misdirect the police who are arriving. They stop by the lab and see that Michael is gone.

Will the vampires survive?

Brian’s Commentary

This one gives up all the supernatural politics and lore of the first three films and becomes more of a post-vampire-apocalyptic action film. With the exception of Selene and barely Michael, none of the characters make a return appearance.

It was fine. It lost a lot by leaving the politics and scheming out. The human scientists just weren’t that interesting. Still, there’s room for at least one more sequel.

Kevin’s Commentary

It was a way to keep things going, just do a time jump. Michael is out of commission for the movie, shown briefly and not quite Scott Speedman, but they don’t list Michael in the IMDB credits. Digging in the trivia, it’s said that a stand-in played Michael and Scott Speedman was digitally superimposed. It wasn’t a very good special effect.

I’m not sure we needed this movie, but I don’t regret seeing it. It’s not as good as the previous ones, but still pretty good.

Short Films:

2022 Short Film: Résistance

* By: Alex Chauvet, Anna Le Danois, Quentin Foulon, Fabien Glasse, Juliette Jean, Julie Narat

* Stars: Animated

* Run Time: 6:36

* Watch it:

What Happens

A trio of human-sized cockroaches enjoy a fine dining experience. The staff, on the other hand, don’t particularly care for roaches.

Commentary

It’s a grisly meal all around. It’s even better when you realize it’s based on the French Resistance of WWII and true events. The animation is excellent, the pacing is good, and it’s always extremely clear what’s going on at all times. Very good!

Contact Info:

Email: mailto:[email protected]

Websites:

* https://www.horrorguys.com

* https://www.horrormonthly.com

Will your life ever be the same after “Disclosure Day?” We suspect it will be. Then we’ll continue our dive into franchise sequels with “Wishmaster 3: beyond the Gates of Hell”, “Underworld: Rise of the Lycans,” and “Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III.” It seems that the films’ names grow longer with each iteration.

And we’ve got a creepy short film this week as well.

All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #58, for July 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

2026 Disclosure Day

* Directed by: Steven Spielberg

* Written by: David Koepp, Steven Spielberg

* Stars: Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth

* Run Time: 2 Hours, 25 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Aliens are real and some people want to disclose and some people really, really want to keep it a secret. So we have two and half hours of back and forth chasing and strangeness and science fiction mish-mash.

We both thought it was on the long side, with too much filler and not enough disclosure.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open with wrestlers beating each other up in the ring. Daniel Kellner sits in the audience, not interested in the show at all. We soon see that he’s there to pay the ransom for Jane. The kidnappers release Jane to him, but they’re a big, well-run group, and Noah Scanlon is in charge. He wants the “device” that Daniel has, and it’s very dangerous. Noah warns that there’s no reset for what Daniel’s about to do, but Daniel knows this.

Jane asks what kind of treason Daniel’s done, and he says it’s complicated. He’s got a big bag full of memory cards of data, and he calls Hugo Wakefield to take them.

We see that Noah is working for Wardex, who works for the government, and they’ve had a big leak of security information. Many people from their own organization didn’t show up for work this morning, including Hugo, so it’s some kind of organized betrayal.

Daniel explains to Jane that he stole the data that he was paid to protect. “People have a right to know,” he whines.

In Kansas City, Jackson and Margaret joke about her newscaster audition. She sees a random cardinal bird and then starts speaking Russian. She doesn’t even know she was doing it. When a cop pulls her over, she knows all about the cop; telepathy or something. She’s the weather person on the news, and she suddenly starts talking Korean to a guest; she doesn’t speak Korean. When it’s time to actually give the weather report, she just makes weird clicking sounds.

Noah gets a report about Margaret speaking in clicks on national TV. The sound she makes matches something that upsets him greatly. Margaret has had nightmares all her life and doesn’t remember much about her childhood.

Danny and Jane go with a guy to a safe house. He explains that Wardex deals with dead aliens from the 1970s. Not just that, but they’ve tortured and dissected live aliens as well. This has been going on for 79 years, and Daniel’s got proof of all of it. He wants full disclosure of all of it to the entire world. Jane’s not sure the world needs to know; it’ll be really disruptive. She’s afraid people will lose their religion.

Margaret runs from the Wardex guys and talks to Hugo, who warns her to stay away from those guys. Jackson has no idea what’s going on, but he does what Margaret says. Hugo shows Margaret’s clicking to Daniel, who thinks it’s all English, he understands it perfectly.

Noah tries using one of the alien devices, and doesn’t like the results. He tries it again, and takes partial control of Margaret’s body remotely. He then projects himself there to have a conversation with her, where he gets her location. Margearet somehow picks up all this and warns Daniel to run. He then steals a car and shows us how incompetent the Wardex guys are.

Jackson thinks there’s something wrong with Margaret, and she knows he’s about to break up with her if she moves. She knows more about everything than she should. She abandons him at a convenience store where everyone is panic-buying the gas and merchandise because of news and stuff.

The Wardex guys raid the motel where Daniel and Jane are staying. She gets away with a device, but the baddies catch Daniel and the backpack.

Just on instinct, Margaret is not far behind. She knows all the secret codes, so the guards let her right in. Noah knows who she is and lets her leave with Daniel. All the guards see them, but they appear to be friends and relatives, so they let them pass. They all see something very personal. Daniel doesn’t really understand it, but he had a strange encounter with a cardinal as well.

Noah and Hugo have a “diving” conversation, and Hugo says he’s working for the aliens. They both believe the other is irrational.

Jane talks to Sister Maura about religious ideas. The existence of aliens might or might not make people of faith lose their minds.

Margaret and Daniel finally make it to where Hugo is. He’s rebuilt a copy of her childhood home so she can regress to her missing childhood. “When you do, you’ll know everything, more than is humanly possible.” He was gifted to understand the aliens, and she was gifted to understand the humans. They get a vision of animals visiting her as a child, but they aren’t really animals. “They present as animals to calm us,” explains Hugo. We see both Daniel and Margaret as the aliens abducted them and “upgraded” them.

Noah and his men arrive and come inside, but they don’t see anything; Margaret has “cloaked” them all. They drive away in an invisible fire truck, heading to KCXE, her news station, which is broadcasting the beginning of WW3. The station manager immediately cooperates with everything Margaret tells him to do. Noah gets to work cutting the power for the building before they can broadcast anything.

The power at the station goes off, and the emergency generator comes on. They cut the generator off just as Margaret’s about to go live. Jane sneaks in and gives Margaret one of the devices, which powers up all the equipment for her. Noah doesn’t make any move to stop her, so she goes live on the air with lots of video footage of alien stuff. All the news outlets in the world immediately start showing the footage, without any kind of verification at all.

At the station, Hugo’s men wheel something in. It’s a very old alien and it has a message for us…

Brian’s Commentary

This is in no way “Horror,” but it’s billed as an alien invasion film, so we went with it anyway. The alien CGI was surprisingly not-s0-great, like something from twenty years ago. The pacing was OK for such a long film, and it didn’t get boring.

The first hour kept reminding me of the weirdness that was the first half of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977). Later, it became more like “E.T.” in a lot of ways, but it’s also very different from both.

Somehow, I doubt the news agencies would be that quick to show all the footage without any kind of verification. It could simply be a big hoax; they wouldn’t know. Also, why did Noah just give up right at the end? His assistant, Boyd, was ready to stop the broadcast, and he could have just shot everyone, but no, he just let it go.

It’s fine. I’d have been way more interested in seeing the aftermath of all this; what effect did the revelation have on everyone? We don’t know much about the aliens or what their message was.

It’s long, but it gives us way too much about what we didn’t need and not enough about what we wanted to know. They should have done the disclosure at the halfway point and showed us what came after.

Kevin’s Commentary

I’m going to go with well made, because of course after 30 some movies Spielberg knows how to make them, and also mediocre. It trots along for an awfully long time being somewhat interesting but mostly nothing that we haven’t seen before. The acting is great. The script didn’t impress me. There were a lot of plot holes and things that worked out fine because the plot required it.

Maybe the CGI looked better on the big screen rather than being so blatant for home viewing?

It was just okay overall. I would have rather seen an hour less of the first part of the movie and more tacked on at the end after the actual disclosure.

2001 Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell

* Directed by: Chris Angel

* Written by: Alex Wright, Peter Atkins

* Stars: Jason Connery, A.J. Cook, Tobias Mehler

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 32 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Someone finds the ruby gem, the Djinn is freed, death and mayhem happens, they find a way out at the end. It’s a familiar formula used a third time. It’s been a downward slide though. This one doesn’t have Andrew Divoff, it lacks dark humor, and it’s on the dull side. It’s not bad, but middling.

Spoilery Synopsis

Diana has a nightmare about the traffic accident that killed her parents. Her boyfriend, Greg, suggests she needs therapy over the incident.

The next morning, Diana and Katie go to school with Billy, Katie’s boyfriend. The professor might have a thing for Diana, which annoys Greg.

The professor asks Diana to come in after class to help him at the museum. As she waits, she opens a puzzle box from ancient Persia, and finds a big red gem inside. The professor shows up and reads the words on the box and then wants to go out for dinner. She turns him down, and he’s annoyed.

The Djinn shows up to the professor, and he wants to know more about Diana. He wishes for the two most beautiful women in the world to be in love with him; they show up and tear him apart. The Djinn then changes shape to replace the professor.

Katie hangs up a big bull’s head with Chekov’s horns poking out. Then she makes out with Billy. Diana translates the writing on the box and knows what’s going on with the Djinn; Greg isn’t interested in the story. She thinks the professor has been killed, but it’s only been two hours, so he thinks she’s overreacting.

“The professor” wants to see Diana’s transcript, and the woman who runs the record department wishes the whole department would just burn up, which it does– with her inside.

Diana tells her three friends about the professor, the Djinn, and the woman in the records department, and they all think she’s literally losing her mind.

The professor goes looking for Diana at Eleanor’s place, and ends up leaving a message with Greg. The Djinn need Diana to make three wishes. He shows her Anne, who wishes to lose weight, which she does.

Diana wishes for the Angel Michael to come down and stop the Djinn, and Greg changes into Michael. Turns out, Michael’s a bit of a wimp, and has to run away. Eleanor has a thing for old men, like the professor, and she wishes for him to break her heart. Ouch!

Angel Michael tells Diana that only she can defeat the Djinn. He gives the “Sword of Justice,” which is all flamey magical. It burns her, but Michael can fix that.

Billy has a run-in with those horns we saw on the wall earlier. We saw that coming a long way back. The Djinn threatens to go after Katie next, who finds what’s left of Billy. She runs to the science lab to hide, where she wishes there was somewhere to hide. The Wishmaster overhears her and puts her in a cage with a bunch of hungry rats.

The professor and Michael fight, and there’s a sort of car chase– and a crash. They all end up on the roof of the dorm, and he yells “Make your wish!” Rather than do that, she jumps off the roof, but the Djinn grabs her instead. She grabs the sword and stabs the Djinn, and they both fall. She dies, and the djin vanishes back into the crystal. Michael then vanishes, but heals Diana as he goes.

Brian’s Commentary

This is all pretty dull. The Djinn is played by a new actor, as the old one wanted nothing to do with it. It’s just another movie with college students getting picked off one by one in not-terribly creative ways. The Djinn here is mean and more than a little violent, very different from the one in the previous films.

The gore and special effects are all pretty good, which helps offset the not-so-good acting and plot. There’s just too much running around in the final half hour, and it got pretty boring.

It’s a pretty major step down from the first film, and since it was filmed at the same time as the fourth one, I don’t have high hopes for that one now, either.

Kevin’s Commentary

I went into this fearful of the lack of Andrew Divoff as The Djinn. Trivia says that he was originally planning on reprising the role in part three, wrote a screenplay for the third movie, and presented it to producers. They went with this script instead. He hated it so much he turned it down.

It seemed like the genie wasn’t as constrained by rules this time - something I thought added a lot to the first movie. And the deaths weren’t as interesting.

It was filmed back to back with the fourth movie.

Aaron Smolinski, playing Billy Matthews, was baby Superman in the 1978 movie - the kid holding up the car when the jack slips.

The script does have a decent story though the pacing is clunky. The special effects and makeup are very good. It’s definitely the weakest of the third films, but I wouldn’t say I hated it.

2009 Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

* Directed by: Patrick Tatopoulos

* Written by: Danny McBride, Dirk Blackman, Howard McCain

* Stars: Rhona Mitra, Michael Sheen, Bill Nighy

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 32 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This is a prequel to the first two movies, showing the origin of the lycans and the start of their war with the vampires. Some of the cast returns because their characters are hundreds of years old. It’s full of loads of action with the horror aspects on the back burner - in fact there’s only one scene that has any humans in it. The mix of CGI and practical effects gets the job done, and the story is interesting, filling in gaps in our knowledge about the Underworld universe. It entertained us both.

Spoilery Synopsis

It’s twenty years since the creation of both vampires and werewolves, and the war had already begun. The werewolves were simply vicious monsters. Lucian was born, the first lycan who could turn into a human form; Viktor wanted to kill him, but spared him for some reason. He bred more lycans and started using them as servants and slaves. Credits roll.

We watch a scene where Sonja runs from three wolves and Lucian shoots them. Viktor is impressed, but he sees that Lucian likes Sonja, his daughter, and that displeases him.

Colomon complains to Viktor that the werewolves are killing the local humans, and they need the humans for many reasons.

Meanwhile, Lucian sneaks into Sonja’s room, and they have some sexy-time. They’ve been doing this for a while, and he expresses his plan to escape slavery and help his people, but he wants her to go with him. The vampire Tannis sees them together, but he doesn’t say anything to Viktor… yet.

The human nobles approach the castle for a scheduled visit. Sonja and the others ride out to escort them in and prevent any werewolf attacks.

Lucian senses that there are too many and rides out to help, which is forbidden. He saves Sonja, but then releases himself from the slave collar and reveals himself to the other wolves, who all pay attention and back off. Viktor is not amused and orders that Lucien be punished.

In prison, Lucian explains the difference between the mindless werewolves and the partly-human lycans to Raze, another prisoner. The other prisoners, all humans, are impressed with his attitude.

More human nobles show up, this time, with large chests of money. He says their mines have been overrun with monsters and blames Viktor.

Sonja comes to Lucien and tells him that her father plans to kill him in the morning, so he needs to escape tonight. Tannis, promised a seat on the council, slips Lucien a key.

Raze and the other humans are led to Viktor, who forces them all to be bitten by a lycans. Viktor wants to use them as soldiers, but most choose to go with Lucien instead. There’s a massive jailbreak of all the slaves.

Lucien sends Raze to gather human volunteers while he goes to the main werewolf den.

Viktor confronts Sonja about hooking up with Lucian, which she denies. So Viktor takes a quick nip of blood from her neck, and it gives him visions of exactly what she’s been up to. He is not pleased.

Lucien wants to break back into the castle to rescue Sonja. He gets in easily, but they have to fight their way out. During the fight, Sonja reveals to Viktor that she’s pregnant with Lucien’s child, and that makes Viktor even less pleased than before, if that’s at all possible. They soon find themselves back in cells.

Sonja goes on trial for treason and interspecies crimes. The council votes for death, but it’s up to Viktor, who agrees. Lucien is whipped repeatedly as Sonja watches and then Sonja is exposed to sunlight and dissolves.

Viktor comes in to assess the situation, and Lucien wolfs out and escapes again. In his wolf form, he’s pretty much unstoppable, but they fill him full of arrows.

Raze and the others assault the castle, and there are hundreds of them. They break in and kill just about all the other vampires and release the rest of the slaves as well. Of course, it all boils down to Viktor versus Lucien in a sword fight. Viktor ends up with a sword through the head.

Lucien goes outside to Raze and the rest of his people, saying “This is just the beginning.”

We then cut to Viktor on a ship with Tannis being put into sleep for another hundred years. We get a quick recap of Selene’s story that we’ve seen before.

Brian’s Commentary

How does Michael Sheen, Lucian, look younger here than he did in the first film, eight years previous? Bill Nighy must have spent weeks getting his face un-scowly after all the grouchiness. We were twenty minutes in before Kevin realized that Rhona Mitra wasn’t actually Kate Beckinsale.

It’s the prequel we didn’t need of a story that we actually already saw in flashbacks in previous films, only stretched out to feature length. Still, it’s an excuse to bring back cool characters that died in the earlier films, so there’s that going for it.

Kevin’s Commentary

This might be Bill Nighy’s surliest role.

That’s totally not Kate Beckinsale though I had to keep convincing myself of that throughout because Rhona Mitra resembles her so much here. In fact it’s said that Rhona was originally up as a possibility for the lead role in Underworld, which led to her getting the role in this. It was a plus that they resemble each other so much, satisfying a plot point.

Brian asked a good question - How are there any humans left in this land at this time? Between lots of vampires needing blood and the lycans eating human meat, there would be a huge local body count.

It’s not a happy movie, though we knew how it was going to end ahead of time after seeing the previous two movies. But it is very well made and entertaining. I liked it a lot.

1990 Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III

* Directed by: Jeff Burr

* Written by: Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper, David J. Schow

* Stars: Kate Hodge, Ken Foree, R.A. Mihailoff, Viggo Mortensen

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 25 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Leatherface is back with a new family, tormenting a young couple and a survivalist. This sequel moves even further away from the grit and grind of the original movie. It’s more in the direction of a standard 80s/90s slasher film. With the stakes a little bit on the low side with such a small pool of people.

We both thought it was pretty good, not a strong thumbs up but it’s there from both of us.

Spoilery Synopsis

We get a voiceover recapping the events of the first film. Sally survived but died in an institution. One of the cannibal family, W.E. Sawyer, also survived but was executed. Leatherface was assumed to be an alternate personality of W.E. Sawyer, so his case was closed. If that’s not the case, then Leatherface remains at large… Credits roll.

Michelle and Ryan are driving through Texas on the way to Florida. They hear a news report about the discovery of a mass grave nearby. The two have to stop at the roadblock as the police clear out the 40 or 50 bodies there.

The next day, they stop at the Last Chance gas station. The attendant, Alfredo, is an extreme weirdo, but the other guy, Tex, is more helpful, but still a little creepy. Tex suggests a shortcut off the highway, a road that’s not even on the map. Tex catches Alfredo doing a poopy-peeky with Michelle and starts a fight. Alfredo shoots out their rear window and then shoots Tex.

Night falls, and someone in a truck starts chasing the couple on the isolated country road. They get run off the road and stop to yell at each other for a while as they change the tire.

Suddenly, Leatherface shows up with his chainsaw, but they drive off and avoid him. Instead, they nearly hit another driver, Benny, on the road, and they both crash. Ryan tells them that they’re being hunted, but Benny doesn’t really believe it. He gives them pain medication that makes them sleepy.

Another man shows up to help, Tinker, and he’s weird. Benny notices a chainsaw in the back of Tinker’s truck and gets suspicious. Turns out, Tinker’s not here to help, and neither is Leatherface, who gets distracted by a girl in the woods and runs off.

The girl finds Benny and explains that she’s been with the baddies for a week; she was also ambushed on the road. They split up, and she soon dies. Leatherface finds Ryan and Michelle, and he gets his foot caught in a trap, so Leatherface has his way with him.

Michelle runs to a nearby house and lets herself in. Inside, she finds a little girl who’s playing with corpses. Tex is there as well, and he’s not as dead as we were led to believe. He nails her hands to a chair. They feed her blood to Grandpa, who is clearly dead. Mama shows up, and she’s not nice either. Tinker drags in Ryan, so now they’ve got fresh meat.

Meanwhile, Benny follows Alfredo through woods, and the lunatic gas station man is disposing of bodies in the swamp (isn’t this the Texas desert?).

As Leatherface gets ready to slice up Michelle, Benny reaches the house and starts shooting excessively. Mama gets shot, as does what was left of Grandpa. Benny and Tex fight, and that goes badly for Tex. Benny, Leatherface, and the brand new saw go into the swamp and fight some more. Turns out, the saw swims better than Benny.

Leatherface comes after Michelle, who beats him to death with a rock. In the morning, Michelle makes it back to the road, which is back in the desert again. Benny drives up in Alfredo’s truck, except Alfredo is there as well. Michelle shoots him and then helps Benny into the truck. “There’s roadkill all over Texas,” she quips.

We see that Leatherface has survived.

Brian’s Commentary

After the previous films’ focus on the whole family, this one switches to Junior’s new family, a whole different bunch of killer kooks. Does this take place in the desert, the swamp, or a forest? All three at varying times.

It was fine. Not on the same level as the previous two, but not terrible either.

Kevin’s Commentary

Trivia says that the original script was even more brutal with such explicit scenes that the producers made them tone it down. Even then they still had a hard time toning it down enough to get an MPAA rating, sending it to them 11 times and cutting a little more every time.

That was strange, as Brian pointed out, how it was desert, then forest, then swampland, then desert again at the end. Which probably hurt the final product. Ending up with a movie that’s pretty good but lackluster without much new to see. It’s more along the lines of 80s and 90s slasher movies, cleaned up from how grimy the original movie was.

And Leatherface still lives, making more future movies possible.

I’d call it middling overall, liked more than disliked.

Short Films:

2026 Short Film Motion Detected

* Directed by: Vincent Dormani

* Written by: Vincent Dormani

* Stars: Frank Dormani

* Run Time: 7:12

* Watch it:

What Happens

A man comes home from work and notices some things inside the door have been knocked over. He checks the security footage on his tablet and notices that every night at 9 p.m., a strange woman appears in his foyer. A very strange woman.

The next night, he waits for her to appear. What could go wrong?

Commentary

This one doesn’t explain anything at all, so it’s a mystery as to why this is all happening. That said, for having no real dialogue, it’s easy enough to understand exactly what is happening at all times. It’s short, looks good, and the special computer effects are well done.

Contact Info:

Email: mailto:[email protected]

Websites:

* https://www.horrorguys.com

* https://www.horrormonthly.com