Horror Weekly

We’re back to our regular mix of new and old films, this time, starting off with a holiday special, “Terrifier 3” (2024). We’ll look at a very odd indie film, “The Omicron Killer” (2024), and then finish off with some older films. We’ll look at the twisted “Sleepaway Camp” from 1983, another Pinhead installment in “Hellraiser VII Deader” (2005), and then go way back in time to “The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms” (1953). It’s a ride!

The latest issue of “Horror Monthly” is now on sale, and it’s our biggest issue yet, with 54 reviews plus a short story by none other than Kevin himself. 

Don’t miss out on our most recent members-only edition of the newsletter, just out! This month's “extras” contain the full synopsis and commentary on all five of the “other” Tremors films, numbers three through seven. Paid subscription info can be found at https://www.horrorweekly.com. November’s special episode will cover all the “Alien” films that we haven’t already watched. 

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Mainstream Films:

2024 Terrifier 3

* Directed by Damien Leone

* Written by Damien Leone

* Stars Lauren LaVera, David Howard Thornton, Antonella Rose

* Run Time: 2 Hours, 4 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

The movie is a nugget of a story hidden in a thick layer of gore and violence. The effects are impressively realistic, and the deaths are excessive, so you are warned. Art the Clown’s mime work is great, and the rest of the cast is fine. If you’re a fan of the previous two, you’ll probably like this one too. It’s at least as good as those.

Spoilery Synopsis

A little girl comes into the bedroom; “There’s someone on the roof. There were footsteps.” Her parents talk about the kid having too much sugar before bed; it causes bad dreams. “Maybe it was one of Santa’s elves.” The girl goes downstairs, and sure enough, she sees Santa in their living room. He reaches into his bag and pulls out an ax before going upstairs. Yes, Santa is really Art the clown, and none survive. Credits roll.

Five years prior… We cut to a cop who finds a decapitated clown. The headless body soon attacks the cop, who empties his gun into the thing’s torso. The clown then puts on the cop’s head and rides the subway.

We cut to an orderly at the mental hospital who interrupts one of the patients, cannibalizing another. The headless clown is there, and so is his head, assisting the crazy woman. The clown puts the head on, and of course, it’s Art. The crazy woman, Vicky, goes with him to his lair, eating a real clown along the way. 

In the present day, Uncle Greg comes to pick up Sienna, from the previous film, from the hospital. He takes her home where Gabbie and Jessica await them. 

Not far away, Dennis and Jackson, some construction guys, go into an old house that smells terrible. One guy is spooked; there are stories about the place. A maniac killed a dozen kids and buried them in the basement of this house. They find Vicky and Art’s bodies there, both in some kind of hibernation– but not for long!

We soon see that Sienna isn’t completely recovered, as she sees the ghosts of the people she saw die. At the dinner table, one of the ghosts gets a little overbearing. 

We cut to Jonathan, Sienna’s little brother, now at college, where he meets Mia, who is really into those old “clown stories.” Mia wants him as a guest on her true crime podcast. She gets a call from Sienna, who is upset. 

Back at Art’s house, he plays with some liquid nitrogen and freezes a rat solid and then shatters it. He then goes to a bar where he runs into three old men in a bar, one of whom is playing Santa. They all have a laugh as Santa and the clown trade hijinks. We soon learn that Art doesn’t care for alcohol, and things go south really fast when Art steals Santa’s outfit. It gets worse when Art pulls out his new freeze-gun and gives Santa a really white Christmas. 

Sienna and Gabbie go out Christmas shopping at the mall. While there, Sienna has a PTSD flashback Jonathan watches Mia’s podcast, and she believes that Sienna is the prime suspect in the murders of the previous film. Sienna and Mia finally meet, and Sienna shows disinterest in her podcast. 

Sienna doubts that it’s all over, but Jonathan knows she cut off Art’s head five years ago. He wants to move on, but she’s stuck with her psychological obsession. 

Art comes to the mall, dressed like Santa. He’s a bloody mess, and his face looks nothing like Santa, but nobody seems to notice. He calls up the first little girl, and he gives her a doll. When the kids see he’s handing out presents, he’s swarmed. The elves and security guard realize quickly that he’s not their regular Santa. He gives one kid a massive explosive device, and things get really messy in the mall. 

Jonathan goes to a campus Christmas party that night, and Art sneaks in the back door. Gabbie reads Sienna’s diary, which causes some predictable drama. Art overhears Mia and Cole talking about the “Art the clown murders” five years ago. They go off to have a show together as Art prepares his chainsaw. Cole goes to pieces pretty quickly, so Mia does in fact get the full “Art experience.” 

Sienna hears about the explosion at the mall on the news; she thinks she saw Art there earlier in the day, and she knows he’s back. Greg and Jennifer think she’s having a psychotic break. Jennifer gives her something to make her sleep while Greg goes to pick up Jonathan. 

She dreams about her father and the making of the magic sword as well as Art, of course. No wait– that’s really him! He knocks her out and ties her to a chair in the living room. Jennifer’s there, also tied to a chair, and Greg's headless body is nailed to the wall. His head is the new tree-topper. 

Art unwraps Gabbie’s half-eaten head, which is in a cage full of rats. This upsets Gabbie’s mother, so Art and Vicky put a tube in her mouth and fill it with rats. Vicky points out that the head wasn’t really Gabbie; it was Jonathan. 

Vicky attacks Sienna, but then Sienna’s eyes glow and Vicky backs off. Art breaks both of her hands with his mallet before making her open the Christmas presents under the tree. She opens a along package, and inside it– is the magic sword! She immediately impales and decapitates Vicky and slices Art’s throat. It even makes her hands better! 

Art, of course, isn’t dead and comes back with a chainsaw. The two fight in the living room, chainsaw to magic sword. When they lose their weapons, they continue to go at it, using whatever is at hand, and it all looks very painful. 

Sienna kills Art excessively, but Vicky's head melts and the juice creates a gateway to Hell, and Gabbie falls in. When Sienna looks back, Art is gone. Her hands completely heal. 

We cut to Art, waiting at the bus stop. The bus stops, and Art gets on, dripping with blood. 

Brian’s Commentary

You know when the police show up, they’re going to pin all the deaths on Sienna, right? 

“It’s a Terrifier Christmas” is definitely going on my Christmas playlist this year– if they ever release it. 

The many, many gore shots here are impressive, and there are a lot of them. Sienna’s character has PTSD, and it seems relatively realistically portrayed, as does her family’s reaction to it. 

There is a story this time around, but as with the previous installments, it’s really more about the gore and torture. Still, if you liked the previous film, this one has more of all the stuff you liked. 

Kevin’s Commentary

This was well made with a bigger budget and more people working on the effects this time around. David Howard Thornton is excellent in his miming and expressions as the silent Art, who never speaks or makes a sound. I found myself getting a little weary of the excessive gore at times, it was done to the point of tedium for some of the kills. I liked it, but didn’t love it.

2024 The Omicron Killer

* Directed by Jeff Knite

* Written by Johnny Careccia, Jeff Knite, Paugh Shadow

* Stars Bai Ling, Felissa Rose, Lynn Lowry

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 38 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

We got well into this before we realized it was a sequel to “The Covid Killer,” which we have not seen. It seems like we were okay story-wise missing that first one. It’s a watchable indy-level project with enough good elements to keep it amusing. It gets a moderate thumbs up.

Spoilery Synopsis

We watch camera footage of a man with a knife breaking into a kitchen, but the woman inside isn’t what he was expecting. The Covid killer is now dead, but the copycat killer is still out there. 

A year passes, the Covid Killer is trending all over social media. The copycat killer has mostly been forgotten, and the news says the new “Omicron Variant” of Covid has been identified. 

On the street, the Omicron Killer is mugged by three armed men. He beats them to death with their own weapons before passing out himself. 

The police show up and examine the three bodies; Captain Callahan isn’t impressed with the overweight, silent victim. Credits roll. 

The overweight mugging victim is taken to the hospital, and he growls at the nurse. 

Meanwhile, four kids go to their grandmother’s grave; she was a victim of the killer, and we get flashbacks of that. Meanwhile, a group of cultists arrive and run the kids off. The cultists do a whole ritual, drinking blood, and they summon the Covid Killer from Hell. 

Dr. Frueger talks to John Doe, the killer in the hospital. “John” doesn’t speak to him either. The very weird nurse seduces the guard outside the door and gets rid of him. The doctor tries to force-feed the patient strawberries, and we see that he’s the worst doctor ever. “I dabble in pain,” he says. 

At the police station, Captain Callahan assigns two sloppy cops, one of whom is her son, as partners. At a house, eight-year-old Bobby devises a plan to capture, and maybe kill, the Omicron Killer. 

Suddenly, the killer is outside, wandering around with a crowbar, at the corner of Elm Street and Vorhees Road. There’s also a singing clown. Copycat Omicron and the clown fight, and back in the hospital, we see that it was just a dream. He gets up, kills some people and roars as he tracks down the doctor and follows him across town. 

Brock, the cop, figures out that the guy in the hospital is the Copycat Killer. He and his partner rush to the hospital to find the bodies and the unconscious nurse. The Captain briefs the cops about the “Covid Cult” who are trying to bring back the original killer. 

The Copycat Killer, on the other hand, goes to a video game store and buys a new mask. Brock and Healy talk about events from the first film. The cultists argue over Steven’s “Sling Blade.” 

Bryan goes to the strip club, and Natasha and Delicious make him feel welcome in the back room. We see the Killer is there as well. He impales Bryan and Delicious with his crowbar. 

The Killer puts on his scary new mask and is then beaten up by the four little children. The cops question some people. The cultists make more plans. There is a vast amount of talking, mostly between characters that we haven’t seen before. 

The media starts calling the Copycat Killer the Omicron Killer now. The Omicron Killer follows Detective Healy’s  girlfriend home. She stops to take a bath and he kills her. 

Meanwhile, the cultists try their ritual under the Blood Moon. This time, the police arrive and arrest all but the main necromancer. 

The police notice from security footage that Omicron keeps returning to the hospital, looking for Dr. Fuegel. Brock sets a trap which leads to him getting beaten badly. Healy blows the killer’s leg off and arrests him. 

We cut to the cemetery, where the real Covid Killer reaches up from the grave…

Brian’s Commentary

Was this sponsored by Kit-Kat and the lemonade company? 

We went into this blind, not realizing that it was a sequel to 2021’s “The Covid Killer.” It started out fairly promising, with a lot of humor, but it mostly just devolved into a bunch of people talking and talking and talking. 

It had some very funny bits to it, but it also was way longer than it needed to be. 

Kevin’s Commentary

We missed the first movie not realizing this was a sequel, but that’s probably okay. This one is watchable, with some good qualities. It’s got a serious indy level vibe and flow, a decent story, decent effects, hit and miss acting. It could have been a little less talky at times, but it’s not too bad. I met my primary goal of being entertained, so I’d call it a win overall.

1983 Sleepaway Camp

* Directed by Robert Hiltzik

* Written by Robert Hiltzik

* Stars Felissa Rose, Jonathan Tiersten, Karen Fields

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 24 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

It’s a who-is-the-killer kind of movie with people gradually getting picked off. The body count is fairly low, and it’s kind of slow-moving here and there. But the payoff is worth sticking through the whole thing. It’s an overall thumbs-up.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on shots of a camp as credits roll. We see that Camp Arawak is for sale. 

A young couple drives a motor boat with a water skier behind as a dad, son, and daughter watches from a little sailboat. The sailboat tips over, and sure enough, the motorboat runs right into the family, killing the father and one of the kids. 

Eight years later, Richard's mother (She’s quite the actor) and Angela’s aunt, bring them a whole bag of snacks for their trip to camp. And their physical slips which she prepared herself since she’s a doctor. Angela is the surviving child from the boating accident.

The young campers all arrive, and the staff watch, “There’s no such thing as being too young,”  says one pervy staff member. Ricky greets Paul, but Angela doesn’t speak. Judy’s Ricky’s ex-girlfriend, and she’s outgrown him. 

Meg is in charge of the girl’s dorm. The girls don’t care for the silent and morose Angela. Quite a while later, Ronnie, one of the adults, learns that Angela hasn’t eaten since she got there and takes her into the kitchen for real food. Artie, the perv from earlier, is tasked with taking care of her. He tries, but Ricky interrupts before he can get his pants unfastened. 

Artie is alone in the kitchen not long after, and we see someone watching him. He prepares a huge tub of boiling water to cook the corn, but the unseen person makes sure Artie pays for his choices. The paramedics come and haul him away and Mel, the owner of the camp, offers the kitchen staff raises to keep quiet about all that. 

We then get a number of scenes that show us that life in camp is worse than prison, and maybe gayer, as well. Paul, at least, is nice to Angela, but no one else is. He knows what happened to her family. Judy is the “bad girl,” and she doesn’t like Paul’s friendliness with the quiet girl. She finally decides that she’ll talk to him. 

That night, all the guys get naked and jump in the lake. Kenny runs into the killer, and in the morning, the guys find his body. Mel says it was just an accident. 

Paul and Angela go to the movie together, and Judy fumes. He kisses her, and she kinda likes it. Meg also starts bullying Angela. Billy is another bully, and he gets locked into a restroom and has a beehive dropped on his head. Mel can’t come up with a way to spin this death as an accident. Even he thinks there’s a killer, but Ronnie convinces him he’s imagining it. 

Paul and Angela go to the lake that evening. They start kissing, and she flashes back to her father in bed with another man and her playing doctor with Ricky when they were little. She runs away from Paul. 

The next day, during a game of capture the flag, Ricky finds Paul and Judy kissing in the woods, and so does Angela. Paul apologizes to Angela a little later, but Judy horns in on that as well. 

Mel seems to suspect that Ricky is the killer and confronts him. Judy and Meg pick up Angela and carry her to the lake, which terrifies Angela. Ricky gets away from Mel too late to stop her from getting thrown in. 

It’s the night of the big campout out in the woods. Meg and Mel get together for dinner while everyone is out of the camp. Meg gets ready by taking a shower, but gets stabbed right through the wall. Mel goes looking later and soon finds what’s left of her.

We see someone who resembles Angela or maybe Ricky come to pay a visit to Judy, and the killer smothers the bad girl with a pillow while shoving a hot curling iron where hot curling irons should not go.

Some of the little kids don’t like sleeping in the woods, so Eddie drives two of them back to the main camp. Eddie returns to the kids’ camp and finds everyone else dead and mutilated. 

Mel still thinks Ricky is the killer, and he grabs him and beats the kid up. Except then, the real killer gets Mel with a bow and arrow. The remaining counselors call the police and start rounding up all the kids. 

Angela and Paul go to the lake, and she tells him to take his clothes off, which pleases Paul tremendously. The cops find Ricky beaten senseless in the woods and carry him back to camp. 

Ronnie and Susie find Angela, who is obviously now the killer since she has decapitated Paul. We get a flashback to Aunt Martha telling young Peter that she always wanted a little girl. Yes, Angela is the little boy in the opening sequence- that’s why she didn’t shower or swim with the others. He’s been living as a girl all this time, and he/she is totally screwed up!

Brian’s Commentary

Felissa Rose, as Angela, was really only 13 here, which is a little creepy considering what all goes on in the film. There’s just lots of weird little details in this one that set off lots of red flags. 

Even without the killer, summer camp looks like a pretty miserable place, except maybe for all the short-shorts. It’s like “Lord of the Flies,” only with counselors. 

It’s a slasher film, but the body count is surprisingly low.  The memorable part of the film is the surprise ending. 

Kevin’s Commentary

This was more slow moving than I remember, but it wasn’t too bad. It made me nostalgic for the days of short-shorts being in style. Overall, I didn’t enjoy it as much on a rewatch as I did the first time, but I’d recommend it if you’re into 80s slashers at all and haven’t seen it before.

Hellraiser VII: Deader (2005) 

* Directed by Rick Bota

* Written by Clive Barker, Neal Marshall Stevens, Tim Dep

* Stars Kari Wuhrer, Ionut Chermenskia, Hugh Jorgin

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 28 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This was a mediocre horror movie with some Pinhead and Cenobite action stuck in almost like an afterthought. They were heading in the wrong direction with this one as far as overall quality, but it’s probably not the worst in the series. We’d say skip it unless you are serious about wanting to see them all.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open in an old house where everyone has passed out from doing too much drugs. We focus on Amy Klein, who wakes up and takes pictures of everyone in the place. She’s an undercover reporter, “How to Be A Crack W***e” is her latest article. She gets called into the boss’s office. 

Charles has something new to show her on a videotape. He wants to know if she’s heard of “Deaders.” The tape shows a group of young people in some sort of cult. They have a terrified woman lay down on a bed of plastic and then they make her play Russian roulette; the girl loses. The cult leader then kisses the corpse and the blood and guts all flow back into the girl, who wakes up. 

Amy wonders if it’s special effects, but Charles thinks the tape is legitimate. He wants her to pursue the story in Bucharest. He’s already bought her tickets. 

In Bucharest, Romania, Amy tracks down the return address for the videotape. There’s quite a smell, and inside, she finds the woman from the video, quite dead and rotten. She finds and takes a book of photos and papers. She has to get uncomfortably close to the gross dead body, but finds an envelope, “Help Us.” The dead woman also has a very familiar looking puzzle box. Amy steals everything from the woman’s cold, dead hands.

She goes back to her hotel and finds a key and another tape. The tape shows Marla, the dead woman from the video, and the apartment, and she talks about never opening the box. “It’s now up to you to stop this.” She gives Amy instructions on how to proceed. 

Naturally, Amy opens the box and sees Pinhead, who warns that she’s in danger. She also has visions of her father. 

Amy gets on a train and sees all sorts of fetish-bondage people until she comes to Joey. She says she wants to meet Winter, the cult leader. He tells her what she needs to know but also warns her not to go there. 

She gets off the train and sees Winter following her in the subway. She watches him jump in front of the train, but later, there’s no evidence of it. She gets arrested, and Charles has to bail her out. He’s creepy, but he’s on her side. 

Amy continues following leads to some catacombs where she follows a strange man who leads her to watch the “Deaders” doing their thing, just like on the videotape. Winter sees that Amy is there, but he doesn’t care. Everyone in the room is a Deader. 

Winter says, “I chose you.” Amy pulls out the puzzle box, and he says it’s a way to cheat death, an entrance to another world. He says the box is a sort of family heirloom, and he wants to reclaim what is his. He wants her to open the box. She gets a vision of her abusive father. 

She wakes up on the plastic table, surrounded by Deaders and Winter, who’s holding a knife. No, she really wakes up in the bathtub. Later, there’s a lot of blood. Was she stabbed, or wasn’t she? Since she’s got a big knife still in her back, probably that was real. She uses a cupboard door to pull out the knife, which looks awkward and painful. 

Pinhead is there, and he denies doing anything to her. He asks her why she doesn’t feel pain with all her blood on the floor. This is no dream; she’s been recruited as a soldier for Winter. The Deaders have found a way into his world, and he wants her to stop them. She duct-tapes her wound shut, but she’s still bleeding. 

Amy goes back to the party train to find Joey, but she sees everyone on board is dead. There’s a Cenobite on board as well. Marla is there, and she helps Amy get off the train. She explains that Winter needs her help to open the box. 

Amy wakes up in the mental hospital, strapped to the bed, with Charles trying to get her released. Marla says that Amy has a dark past, which is why only she can open the box. She remembers stabbing her abusive father to death back in the day. 

Passing out yet again, Amy wakes up in the Deader place again. Winter hands her a knife. She insists that she’s not one of them, but she raises the knife to stab herself. Nearby, the puzzle box starts flashing with power. She drops the knife, picks up the box and opens it, releasing Pinhead and the Cenobites to do their thing. 

Pinhead references Marchand the Toymaker from “Hellraiser: Bloodline” (1996) and says Winter is his descendant. The chains come out and rip Winter apart… slowly. Pinhead then does bad things to all the Deaders. Only Amy remains, and Pinhead says she must pay the price. She stabs herself to prevent going with him to see her father again, and Pinhead goes back in the box. 

Charles watches on the news that the building Amy was in burned to the ground, and Amy is completely missing. That’s OK, because he’s got another reporter to put on the case. 

Commentary

There’s only a brief glimpse of Pinhead in the first hour. Like the previous two films, this one focuses on an investigator solving a mystery and chasing leads. Since that didn’t work at all in the previous two films, one has to wonder why they’d just do that again. 

It’s… not great, but it’s not the worst of the series, either. This is one to watch for the sake of completion and nothing else. 

1953 The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms

* Directed by Eugene Lourie

* Written by Lou Morheim, Fred Freiberger, Ray Bradbury

* Stars Paul Hubschmid, Paula Raymond, Cecil Kellaway

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 2o Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

For an early creature feature, this is a pretty good one. The effects are dated of course, but it’s well put together and entertaining. The cast is good, and the story flows well. It was a fun watch.

Spoilery Synopsis

We’re told about a secret base and experiment way north of the Arctic Circle. It’s “Operation Experiment," and the men have been preparing for a long time. We get a tense countdown as the airplane detonates an atomic bomb. 

The radar tech sees something unexpected on the radar, but by the time Colonel Evans shows up, it’s gone. Professor Tom Nesbitt warns that we don’t really know what the effect of the bomb’s radiation will be, but they’re headed to the blast site to find out. 

The scientists go out to check their radiation meters, but there’s a blizzard coming up. Not only that, but there’s some kind of giant, roaring dinosaur walking between the snow drifts. The creature scares George, one of the scientists, into falling into a crevasse, and only Tom is there to help him back out. Just then, the monster creates an avalanche that completely buries George. Tom goes back to base alone and unconscious, babbling about “the monster.”

Tom is flown back to the States, where he recovers from his “traumatic hallucinations.” A psychiatrist is assigned to help Tom; no one believes that there’s really a giant dinosaur out there. Colonel Evans visits, and he doesn’t believe that story either. 

We cut to a fishing boat as it’s attacked by the monster. Tom reads a report about a giant sea serpent in the newspaper. Tom then goes to his paleontologist friend, Professor Elson. Tom believes that an ancient dinosaur got frozen in the ice and revived when the bomb blew up. Elson’s assistant, Lee Hunter, tries to help Tom’s argument, but the old man reasonably refuses to get involved. 

Tom hears another radio report about a sea monster, and he just laughs. Lee comes to see Tom about the monster, but he’s tired of being ridiculed. She shows him many pictures of known dinosaurs, and he identifies the one he saw; he goes to see the captain of the fishing boat to see if he’ll corroborate the story. 

Tom and the sailor-witness, Jacob, come to Dr. Elson. He also picks out the animal from the pile of sketches. They call Colonel Evans for help, Elson finally believes. Two men hang out in a lighthouse for some reason, and sure enough, that’s where the monster attacks.

Tom and Lee go to the ballet but are interrupted by a message from Evans. More and more places are being attacked by a sea monster, as far south as Massachusetts. It seems to be heading towards New York City. Dr. Elson wants it captured alive. 

The old professor talks the navy into letting him go down in a diving bell to find the creature in the deep canyons of the ocean. We see shots of a shark and an octopus fighting. Then they see the big monster; yep, he’s real. It gets closer and closer as the old man reports to the surface. They hoist up the diving bell, but the two men are dead. 

Meanwhile, at the docks in NYC, the giant lizard arrives. It crawls through town, and everyone sees it and runs away in fear. A cop shoots at it, but it eats him. A state of emergency is declared, and even Times Square is shut down as the National Guard arrives on the scene. 

The army shoots at the thing with their big gun, but the skull is eight inches thick. Bazookas annoy him but don’t kill it. It doesn’t like it when it touches the electrical lines, so there’s that. They do manage to make it bleed with a powerful shot to a tender spot, and they follow the giant drops of blood down the street. 

Except… the soldiers start getting sick and falling down. It’s carrying some kind of lethal disease; if they blow the monster up, the plague could spread everywhere. Tom thinks shooting a radioactive isotope into the dinosaur will kill it quickly and non-explosively. 

As the monster chews on a roller coaster, Tom enlists Lee Van Cleef as a sharpshooter; he only gets one shot that has to go into the previous wound to make sure it penetrates. Tom and the sniper have to ride a car up the rollercoaster to get close enough to hit the thing. They succeed, but things still go badly; the roller coaster car gets away, crashes, and starts the whole place burning. The two men have to climb down as the fire and the creature rage. 

The creature staggers for a while and then collapses. Lee gives Tom a big hug; it’s over!

Brian’s Commentary

This was said to be one of the inspirations for the original “Godzilla” film and is the first atomic creature. This one is entirely stop motion, done by Ray Harryhausen himself, and it set the format for essentially all the giant monster films to come. 

There was a lot more of the creature than I was expecting. The storyline with the actors was engaging, if a little predictable. Overall, it was well paced and fun. The stop motion is pretty jerky compared to modern cgi, but for the time, this isn’t bad!

Kevin’s Commentary

The effects were cutting edge for the time as far as effects go, and I thought that added to the fun. It was a hint of the Godzilla movies to come, and the special effects were actually better than some of those later films. This is where it began. I’d seen it once many years ago. I was entertained this time around.

Short Films:

2019 Short Film: Ayuda

* Directed by Patrick Mason

* Written by Patrick Mason and Raul Serpas

* Stars Tom Belfry, Caleb Velasquez, David LaMorte, Laura Ruperez

* Run Time: 11:34

* Watch it:

What Happens

Two Spanish-speaking men are hired by an American who doesn’t speak Spanish to do some work for him. The three men climb into the van alongside a coffin-sized box. They stop near the woods, and the man wants them to bury the box. Curiosity gets a hold of the two men, and bad things ensue. 

Commentary

We don’t ever really find out what the man’s intentions were toward the immigrants: was he going to kill them both or pay them as planned? Dunno. Still, he wasn’t the villain of this story after all. 

This is nicely shot with a creepy atmosphere and good acting all around. It’s a mystery, as we want to see what’s in the box as well. 

Very nice!

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This week, we’ve mostly got new films plus one weird oldie. We’ll begin with “Black Cab,” a creepy ghost story. The indie anthology “Dating Horror Stories” warns us how things can go wrong in relationships. We’ll next move on to the silly “Carved,” which would have been a mood-setter if we’d watched it before Halloween. “Curse of the Sin Eater” made us wonder if we’d try taking the deal, and “The Funhouse” (1981) which was surprisingly forgettable. 

The latest issue of “Horror Monthly” is now on sale, and it’s our biggest issue yet, with 54 reviews plus a short story by none other than Kevin himself. 

Don’t miss out on our most recent members-only edition of the newsletter, just out! This month's “extras” contain the full synopsis and commentary on all five of the “other” Tremors films, numbers three through seven. Paid subscription info can be found at https://www.horrorweekly.com. November’s special episode will cover all the “Alien” films that we haven’t already watched. 

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Mainstream Films:

2024 Black Cab

* Directed by Bruce Goodison

* Written by Virginia Gilbert

* Stars George Bukhari, Nick Frost, Synnove Karlsen

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 27 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This has an interesting beginning, kind of a slog where things happen, and a pretty decent finish. The look of it is very good, and Nick Frost is great. They also mashed up a couple of horror trope ideas which tried to make things interesting but failed a bit at it. We didn’t hate it, but we were bored through too much of it.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a woman in white walking through the woods as the credits roll. We then see her in a car, and she appears to be pregnant– she sees ghosts outside.

Then Anne wakes up in bed, that was all just a nightmare. Patrick calls, and she’s annoyed with him, breaks up, and hangs up on him… 

We cut to Anne, Patrick, and their two friends, Ryan and Jessica, having dinner out. Patrick tells a scary story, and they all get a jump scare from the waiter. Patrick announces that he’s getting married to Anne. Jessica, shocked, asks Anne if everything is all fine now, but it’s clearly not. In the restroom, she says, “He’s not going to change. Are you pregnant?” And Anne denies she is.

Everyone leaves upset, and Anne flags down a cab. Patrick just about forces her into the cab, and they drive off, leaving Jessica and Ryan behind. The driver, Ian, immediately knows something is wrong and asks Anne if she wants to throw Patrick out. Ian remembers picking up Anne at the maternity ward; she is pregnant already. Patrick is not happy with the news; Anne thinks Patrick has been cheating– with Jessica. 

Anne tries to get out, but the doors are locked. Ian opens the door, Tases Patrick into unconsciousness, and then zip-ties his hands. He then ties her up, takes her phone, and pats her belly. Things have changed quickly. 

The windows are tinted, and the doors are locked, so passing cars won’t be able to help them. Patrick starts to cry and then passes out again. They drive on through the rainy London streets aimlessly, or so it appears. 

Ian stops on the side of an isolated stretch of road to give Anne some water and to take a pee. She sees a ghost in the mirror and screams, which annoys Ian. 

Ian talks about the most haunted road in the country and about a woman who left her husband and was killed on the road there. Her daughter starved to death in the woods after. The ghost still haunts these roads, according to Ian. He tells the whole ghost story. 

They stop at a gas station, and Ian goes inside for some food. Anne sees a car outside and gets ready to scream, but Ian comes back before they can yell. Anne gets more glimpses of the nasty-looking ghost woman.

Ian drives way out into the countryside, and he continues to talk about his encounter with that woman’s ghost. She spoke to him “in my head. In my thoughts,” and it’s clearly made him crazy. Was it some strange woman on the side of the road, or was it his own wife? Anne notices the same roadside sign they passed a while ago– again. Are they driving in circles? 

Ian parks at an abandoned motel and he and Anne carry Patrick’s still-unconscious body inside.  It looks like he spends a lot of time there; he calls his wife, but there’s no answer. He yells that she never answers! 

Ian tells a story about the first time he saw the ghost and how his wife didn’t believe his story. He mistakes Anne for Elaine, his wife, so he’s clearly delusional. He then kills Patrick. Anne runs through the deserted motel, with Ian in slow pursuit. 

She makes it all the way outside to the cab, but he catches and Tases her. Anne dreams of the ghost again, but this time, the ghost looks like her. Ian recaptures her and talks about Elaine wanting to get a divorce and take away his son. 

Ian sees the ghost in the middle of the road and stops the car. He wants to trade Anne’s child for his own. Anne confesses that there is no child; she lost the baby at the hospital right before their first meeting. Anne yells at the ghost for stealing her baby and chases after her into the woods. 

Ian leaves in the car, driving through the fog. He finally gets a phone call from Elaine which distracts him enough to hit Anne with the car by accident. Except there’s no body there. He gets back in and continues, but we see Anne’s ghost in the backseat. 

Brian’s Commentary

It’s very moody and atmospheric, with all the rain and London streets. Nick Frost is both likable and lunatic here, and he’s clearly the star of the show. 

It starts out really good, but at about the 45-minute mark, it really starts to drag. 

I think this shows the weakness of telling a basic ghost story in a modern film. Ghosts are definitely creepy, but they’re also very, very limited as to what they can do. In this one, a dead woman appears and disappears a few times; there’s just not much scary about that. I think as moviegoers, we’re all beyond ghost stories at this point. I guess the real villain here is Ian, but we’re not completely sure whether he’s the monster or just one of the victims. 

Overall, I’d say this looks really good, has a seriously creepy vibe about it, but overall, it’s just… dull. 

Kevin’s Commentary

This was mostly too tame and boring. Nick Frost’s performance saved this one for me, but I still wasn’t very entertained overall. I’d give it a weak thumbs up, but just barely.

2024 Carved

* Directed by Justin Harding

* Written by Justin Harding, Cheryl Meyer

* Stars Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Corey Fogelmanis, Carla Jiminez

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 35 Minutes

* Trailer:

*

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This was a bit of a send-up of horror movies from the early 1990s, with a retro vibe set in 1993. It wasn’t a spoof, but it plays off some tropes, and there’s a lot of humor in it. We had some chuckles, but the body count and horror elements are heavy too. Overall, we enjoyed it.

Spoilery Synopsis

It’s Halloween Night, 1993. We see something with tentacles picking up a knife. “It killed them. It killed them all,” says a man into his camcorder. He looks around in fear at the site of a Halloween party and the corpses strewn throughout. AJ is a reporter, and he grabs a knife to defend himself. We soon see what those tentacles can do as they tear him apart. Credits roll. 

Earlier that day… 

We see that AJ is there to document the Halloween recovery in town through the pumpkin fest. He talks about the recent chemical spill that killed so many people in town. Kevin and Bill, two local officials, don’t want to talk about the train derailment. 

We cut to Kira, who is producing a stage play for the Halloween Pumpkin Fest. She’s got a crush on Cody, the star of the show. Trevor, her little brother, has a crush on Maddie the flute player. 

Elsewhere, Earl and Clint work on their corn truck, which has broken down. Clint goes out in the field to light up and do a really bad rap dance with a scarecrow in the field. He trips over a huge rotten pumpkin. He cuts it off the stalk and carries it in the corn wagon to the pumpkinfest. 

AJ interviews various people about the train derailment; Kira lost both parents. Cody announces that he’s been cast in an off-broadway production, which comes as news to Kira. They stalk off, and Shane continues the interview. 

Bill fires Clint for showing up after the festival is over. Wes brings him a bunch of pot brownies and admires his twisted pumpkin. There’s a pumpkin-carving contest, and everyone brings their own pumpkins. 

The pumpkin-carnage begins as everyone cuts into their pumpkins. The mutant pumpkin observes what happens to its orange brethren. It reaches up with tentacles and cuts Wes’s throat. Another guy gets beheaded and another is scalped. Things get crazy real fast since the pumpkin can walk on those tentacles as well. 

The pumpkin, which we are told is female and a fruit, starts making noises. Maddie thinks it’s a mutation from the train derailment spill; “There was toxic waste everywhere.” 

The group argues among themselves, and old soldier Arthur gives a rousing speech about sticking together. “Animals don’t hold grudges or have power trips,” he declares just before the creature kills him. Yeah, we saw that coming.

The group watches from their hiding place as the reporter, AJ, does what we saw in the pre-credit sequence and dies. The pumpkin throws his headless body into the power station, which knocks out the electric and phone lines. 

 Kevin and Bill come up with a plan to use the handheld radio to distract the pumpkin while the others get out of the tool shed. Kira comes up with a whole convoluted plan that the others have no choice but to attempt. Kevin shoots a radio way out in the field and activates it to draw the monster even further away. 

Somewhere in the middle of all this running and terror, Trevor figures out that Cody is going to leave them and move to New York, so we all stop for some family melodrama. The plan continues to work until the monster spots Kevin shooting radios all over the place. When the monster goes after Kevin, Bill charges to the rescue and dies as well. 

Trevor mentions Clint’s corn wagon is outside; maybe they could use it to get away. They do that, but lose Maddie in the process. Only Kira, Trevor, Cody, and Barb remain as they drive away in the truck. “We’re all going to be OK, probably,” says Barb to console Trevor. Then they find Clint, passed out in the back of the truck. 

Barb watches footage on the camcorder, and she points out that the pumpkin had been targeting all the people in the pumpkin-carving contest. The last one is Trevor, so the pumpkin will be coming after him soon. Clint takes the wheel, but he’s so high they soon crash. 

When Kira wakes up, Trevor is there, still unconscious. Cody is OK, but Barb is dying; the pumpkin got her. When the pumpkin comes back for more, the three survivors lay down and pretend to be dead. Clint gets up, not dead, and the pumpkin drags him off into the fields. 

Kira runs to a nearby farmhouse for help, and runs into Earl, Clint’s father, who thinks she’s trespassing. She tells him about the killer pumpkin, and he just laughs. The pumpkin shows up, and he stops laughing. 

As the good guys hide in the field, they see a whole bunch of little baby pumpkins, and they’re all alive as well. Both sides take hostages; a little pumpkin and Trevor. 

After running into another barn, the group tricks the pumpkin into getting chewed up in the threshing machine and they all get soaked in green mutant pumpkin blood. 

The sun comes up, and Trebor goes out to see the little pumpkins, but they aren’t helpless. Maddie comes to the rescue, not as dead as they thought. The four humans line up all the pumpkin babies and run over them with Earl’s tractor with much screaming. They all talk about their future, as we cut to one last baby pumpkin, hiding inside Clint’s hollowed-out head…

Brian’s Commentary

There are lots of familiar faces here, if not big stars. The monster is CGI, but it’s pretty well done overall. 

It’s a sort of parody of cheesy early 90s monster movies, and it’s effective at that, poking fun of everything from no one having a cell phone to people being oblivious to closeted gays. The low-key humor definitely seems aimed at the younger crowd, but there were a few laughs from us. 

The plot is basically getting from one point to another for various MacGuffins– keys, radios, a flute, and so on. Usually, each side-trip loses one of the characters. It’s formulaic, maybe a little too stretched-out, but it’s not bad. 

Kevin’s Commentary

This was entertaining and old school, joining a group of characters as they fight to survive and get picked off. Who, if anyone, will survive? It’s one of those where you can’t tell for sure until the end. I liked it quite a bit.

2024 Curse of the Sin Eater

* Directed by Justin Denton

* Written by Adam Davis, Will Corona Pilgrim

* Stars Carter Shimp, Elizabeth Laidlaw, Marcelo Wright

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes

* Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HUwV2cToVg

*

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A poor guy wins the lottery by becoming the heir of a billionaire who wants to give it all to him. Which sounds like a dream until he finds out the strings that are attached. We both thought this one was quite good. It has a good cast, decent story, and realistic special effects. Would recommend it.

Spoilery Synopsis

A young man doing the best he can with what he’s got to work with, makes dinner on a tray for his mother with a side of medications. She looks crazy, especially with that gun in her hand. She shoots herself. 

Three years later, Rick Malone gets up. He lives in poverty, and walks and takes the train many miles to a huge mansion. He’s late for work, and the supervisor almost fires him. 

Rick gets right to work doing landscape stuff until he injures himself. He asks one of the creepy servants for assistance, and she invites him inside for first aid. He cleans himself up and tries to find the way outside but pockets some money instead. 

Rick is spotted by a sickly old man who wants to talk. The servant lady wants to fire Rick and call the police, but the boss says it’s okay. The old man gives him a wad of bills and tells him to get back to work. Later, Rick and his work friend talk about what they would do with a billion dollars. 

The next day, the servant woman comes out and wants to talk to Rick. Old Mr. Drayton says he has no heirs and not much time left. “If you will eat a meal off my dead body, I’ll give you everything.” He’s completely serious. Rick simply has no option but to agree. 

Rick sees his ex, Tanya, at a party that Jeremy’s having at his apartment. There’s a fight, and Jeremy throws Rick across the room and threatens to kick him out. He calls everyone he knows for a job, but he’s got no offers. Jeremy offers to let him sell drugs, but Rick doesn’t want that. 

Suddenly, there’s a knock at the door. A man gives Rick an invitation to Drayton’s house this evening, and he’s even brought a suit for Rick. The driver doesn’t know how old Drayton died, but he did. The servant woman is there with a whole contract, and it’s just what was promised; there’s a condition where he cannot tell anyone about the deal. 

The servants bring in the meal; it’s a plate of… toast followed by some kind of gooey cake and slimy eggs and even more.  At the end, he has to finish off even the leftover crumbs that they pour over the dead man’s corpse. He’s given a card to recite: “For your peace, I take on all your sins and pawn my own soul.” He then feels sick and passes out. 

In the morning, Rick wakes up and runs into the servant woman, Antonette, now his servant woman. He still doesn’t quite believe that it’s all his now, but she understands that. She gives him a no-limit credit card and some suggestions on what to do next. 

Rick goes to see Jeremy. He doesn’t talk about the details, but he offers his friend some money. Tanya comes by, and he’s still interested in her. He goes to an expensive bar, but the people there don’t think much of him– until the black credit card comes out. 

That afternoon, Rick gets a nosebleed, and we see a creepy woman in the mirror. He has a vision where she drowns him, and in the real world, he wakes up soaking wet. 

He asks Antonette what he’s gotten into, and she points out the “oath” he took. Rick has unwittingly agreed to take on Drayton’s sins so that the greedy old man could avoid Hell. “Extreme wealth carries a burden; this is what you signed up for.” 

Rick goes to church and talks to the priest there. Father Eli says Rick’s just still upset about his mother’s suicide, but he does listen to Rick’s confession. Rick, however, doesn’t even know what sins he wants absolution for. 

Rick confronts Antonette about the crazy ghost woman. She opens a lockbox that’s all about the case of Drayton’s wife’s murder. Rick goes back to the priest and confesses to the murder. The ghost attacks Rick, but when the priest absolves him, she vanishes. 

It’s all good until more ghosts show up, and they chase him all over the house. Antonette explains that Drayton himself was a sin eater, that’s how he got his own start. She says they'll torment him for as long as he carries the burden. Drayton saw the ghosts too and eventually killed himself. Rick is just going to have to live with it, and she’ll help. 

Rick overdoses and gets a vision of his dead mother. The doctor manages to revive him. Rick wonders if he could do it again as someone eats his own sins and takes over the job. He offers it to Antonette, but her contract doesn’t allow it; she suggests Jeremy. 

Jeremy calls and says he’s in some kind of trouble with heavies that he got mixed up with. Rick has an envelope of cash for him. Rick gets to the torn-up apartment, sees a ghost, and then shoots it. Except it’s really Tanya, who dies from the gunshot. Rick’s driver hauls him away to cover things up.

Antonette invites Jeremy to the house, and Rick explains the process to him. Jeremy thinks thugs broke in and killed Tanya. Antonette explains the terms of the sin-eater thing to Jeremy

The doctor injects Rick with a drug that will kill him– temporarily. He expects the ghosts will then pass on Jeremy. 

Rick dies again, as planned, and he sees more ghosts. They attack him but then suddenly all back off, leaving only his mother.

Rick wakes up on the table, and Antonette says Jeremy fulfilled his obligations. Rick doesn’t see any more ghosts. 

Six months later, Rick’s back working construction. Antonette writes Jeremy’s name in an old book under Rick’s. There are a lot of names in the book, showing this has been going on for a very long time, and implying that Antonette may be serving a larger power than just the temporary rich guys who take the mantle. Jeremy’s not looking so hot as he now sees all the ghosts. Rick still sees Tanya, however. 

Brian’s Commentary

I guess the whole question here is, “Would you do it?”

“Sin Eaters” are a long-established tradition among some cultures, but it rarely works quite like this. 

Rick could have set up a trust fund or something for himself for after the procedure; I guess he wasn’t thinking too clearly. 

It’s a bit predictable, but it’s good!

Kevin’s Commentary

I thought this one was all around well made. The cast of not-super-experienced folks did a great job, especially Carter Shimp in the lead role and Elizabeth Laidlaw as the kind of strange head of household. It was entertaining, and I’d recommend it.

The Funhouse (1981) 

* Directed by Tobe Hooper

* Written by Lawrence J. Block

* Stars Elizabeth Berridge, Shawn Carson, Jeanne Austin

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 36 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Tobe Hooper made a career out of directing mostly horror and science fiction films, some of which are classics like “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Poltergeist.” This one is a little above the middle. An early slasher film that wasn’t typical, and still isn’t. It’s got a slow start, but it’s entertaining once it gets going.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a kid’s bedroom, and it’s full of horror memorabilia. There’s a man in gloves, and he pulls a “slasher knife” and a Halloween mask off a display. He heads into the bathroom, where a girl is showering. It’s just Joey trying to scare his sister Amy. She vows revenge!

Amy’s father warns her not to go to the carnival, as they found two girls’ bodies there last year. Boyfriend Buzz shows up and then picks up friends Liz and Richie. They all smoke pot, except for Amy, ‘cause she’s the good girl. Meanwhile, young Joey sneaks out of his bedroom and goes to the carnival on his own. 

Amy and Liz encounter a crazy old woman in the restroom, “God is watching you!” Then they see a two-headed cow and a deformed baby– this carnival is awesome! Next, they go see a magician who does an impaling trick with Liz. Then they go in and see the fortune teller. “A tall, dark stranger will enter and change your life,” she tells Amy. 

Meanwhile, Joey wanders around on his own, eventually going into the funhouse. The four teens peek into the back of the “Girls Girls Girls” show. 

Things start winding down for the evening, and Richie suggests they hide out and spend the night in the funhouse. Some kids did it last year, and he makes it into a dare that they can’t refuse. They ride the cars inside, but they don’t come out again. Before long, the power goes out as the carnival shuts down. Joey sees them go in and not come out, so he waits a while and then hides as well.

The four teens stay after closing and see the fortune teller talking to the guy inside the Frankenstein costume; he pays her, and she undresses. The group watches in as she pleasures him; he never takes the mask off. He finishes too soon and wants a refund, which she refuses. He kills her and messes up the electrical wiring in the place by accident. 

The group tries to find a way out of the funhouse, but it’s dark and the doors are locked. “Frankenstein” brings in one of the barkers and shows him the dead fortune teller. He wants to hide the body and blame it on the locals. When the man sees the money from tonight is missing, he makes “Frankenstein” beat himself up. He eventually loses the mask, and the Frankenstein mask was way prettier than what’s underneath. He soon catches on that the four kids are watching from above. 

Buzz gets Richie to admit he took the money. Outside, one of the barkers grabs Joey. The carnival barker wants the monster to “Do one more bad thing.”

As the four teens hide and talk, a noose comes out of nowhere and kills Richie. One of the barkers calls Joey’s parents to come and pick him up. Amy sees her parents out there and screams for them, but they can’t hear her. 

Richie’s body soon shows up in one of the rail cars, and Liz chases after it until she falls into a trap door. The monster finds her in a ventilation system, but she stabs him. This ends up going very badly for her. 

The evil barker pulls a gun on Buzz and Amy. “Just protecting my family.” They fight, and the barker ends up getting stabbed by one of his own attractions. The monster jumps in and attacks Buzz, killing him as well. 

Amy is alone in the funhouse now, just her and the monster. She runs from room to room, eventually finding what’s left of Buzz and Liz. She runs to the basement, where the machines are. She ends up forcing the monster to get electrocuted and dragged between a couple of very powerful gear wheels which chew him up good. 

In the morning, Amy walks out the front door. 

Brian’s Commentary

Why are movie funhouses always so large? They have to be able to fit on the back of a semi-trailer. They’re always bigger on the inside. How many floors does this place have? They hid in the attic and Amy hid in the basement later. 

Steven Spielberg asked Tobe Hooper to direct "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)" but he turned it down because he was busy with this movie. Oops! At least it was good enough to later get him the job of directing “Poltergeist” (1982). 

It’s not the usual slasher film; it’s just a situation that gets out of hand. Unfortunately, the first hour is really slow-moving and pretty dull. It picks up a bit toward the end, but it’s not great. 

Kevin’s Commentary

Like Brian, I noticed how much bigger on the inside the funhouse was compared to the outside. It was a nice touch having Kevin Conway playing three different weird barkers. The script is decent and the practical effects hold up pretty well. It’s not a great film, but it was entertaining.

Indie Film:

2024 Dating Horror Stories 

* Directed by Joshua Nelson

* Written by Joshua Nelson

* Stars Jeff Clark Jr., Julia Wyrzuc, Noelle Cappuzzo

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 24 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This has a little bit of a slow start, but it’s fine once it gets going. It’s very low budget, but the stories are creative and the acting is decent. We liked it quite a bit.

Spoilery Synopsis

Three women talk about how bad dating is. They hate everything about dating. They’ve each heard some crazy dating stories. They look around at other couples and mock them one by one… Yes, this is an anthology of three short tales.

Michael the Magician is on a first date with a girl at the place where he performs. Another couple talk about the guy being a competitive eater. A third couple talks about her six-year-old– who is really a dog. She wants to go home, have sex, and then he can sleep on the couch because only the dog sleeps with her. 

The competitive eater gets interrupted by his manager, and the manager doesn’t like the new girlfriend. The dog lady phones home to talk to the dog, ignoring her date. 

Magic

Michael the Magnificent comes onto the stage and asks for a volunteer; he calls his date, Tara, up to assist. He puts her in a box and then stabs swords through the box. He actually cuts off her head; show’s over. 

Time passes, and Michael goes on another date. Tara’s ghost appears to the new girl, Beth. Tara warns the new girl to “run.” He comes out and says he’s had lots of psycho girlfriends and one of them must have come in to talk to the new girl. Tara appears again later in the car; he’s killed many girls in his act. Sure enough, he does invite her to help him in his show. 

She tells Michael about the ghost, and he works hard to gaslight her. She talks to a psychic barista, and he says it’s fine, and Michael is good for her. Tara convinces her that Michael is bad, and Tara and the other ghosts force Michael into the box. They stab and dismember him in the box. 

Eater

The competitive eater inhales some ramen with his girlfriend timing him, but he’s not fast enough. He takes it all very seriously. He’s obsessed with winning, but she doesn’t quite get his fascination. Her friend, Phoenix, says he’s a bum with no financial future. “There’s something off about him.” They also talk Arnold to the psychic barista, who advises her to stick with the eater. 

Lee, the eater, is a master at stick fighting, and that woman shows up; she’s not his manager after all, there’s something more going on with her. “Time is running out; are you doing this with me or not?” Emily’s friend Phoenix sees the “exotic” Valentina with him and jumps to a wrong conclusion. He says Valentina is his “Agent.” 

Lee explains that Valentina wants him to get into a contest from the Dark Web that can pay a fortune if he wins. It is a competitive eating thing, but this one involves cannibalism of a freshly cut-up body. He explains this to Emily and Phoenix. When they hear that he could win $100,000, they both fall in line and give their blessing. Even Arnold approves. 

It’s time for the big contest, and everyone is there for liver and kidneys. Emily and Phoenix are there cheering him on, even though they know it’s pretty weird. His opponent ate 45 eyeballs in a contest last month. The final round comes up, and it’s a tie. They’re all out of bodies, so they need a body to eat. “I’d do anything for you,” says Emily. Lee kills her so they’ll have something more to eat. 

Dog

The dog-owner lady tells Rocco the dog that he has nothing to be jealous about when her boyfriend Daniel comes over. Daniel admits that he has been a fan of hers for years; she used to be a model. She complains that Rocco hasn’t been eating lately, but she doesn’t feed him dog food. She says her ex-husband was in the mob, and he got shot. He had been a hit man, and Rocco the dog got a taste for human meat. He laughs at the story until she swears it’s true. 

She wants Daniel to bring her a dead body. He goes to talk to Arnold, who seems to always give the wrong advice. Daniel goes to his weird sister for help killing someone, and she’s right there, eager to help with many suggestions. She recommends an illegal or a homeless guy. 

Daniel finds a homeless man digging through a dumpster. His sister gives him a gun with a silencer; she got it after she was released from the asylum. She gets annoyed at Daniel’s whining and shoots the man herself. 

Daniel puts on a cleansuit and cuts up the body. He then grinds it into hamburger and prepares it as dog food for Rocco. Rocco then gobbles it right up, which pleases his owner. She kisses Daniel, who was expecting more. She also is expecting more, more bodies on a regular basis, which Daniel’s sister is more than happy to supply. 

They eventually kill Arnold, who got Daniel into this mess in the first place. “He gave shitty advice,” says the sister. A cop pulls them over for passing a stop sign. The cop doesn’t live long. 

Daniel breaks it off with the crazy dog lady. His face is all over the news for killing the cop. She asks him to prove his love for her, since Rocco is really, really hungry. He cuts his own throat for her. 

We cut back to the three women talking about dates. “Dating is just one horror story after another…”

Brian’s Commentary

If you want good advice, stay away from mystic baristas like Arnold. If they were so wise, they wouldn’t be a barista. 

The competitive cannibalism story was hilarious and well done. The dog story was good as well. The magician story was predictable and not so interesting, and it’s unfortunate that it was the first of the stories; we almost dropped out as that one progressed. We stuck with it, and it picked up quite a bit with the next two segments. 

It’s clearly shot, the dialogue is good, and the stories are paced well. At times, the music is a bit overbearing, but only in a few scenes. 

It’s pretty good once it gets going. 

Kevin’s Commentary

The second two stories were definitely better than the first, and I’m glad that we stuck through it. I thought it was a decent anthology overall with enough to make it worth the watch.

Short Films:

2024 Short Film: Stinky Girls

* Directed by Adam White

* Written by Kelsey Sullivan

* Stars Jackie Romankow, Michelle Moriarty

* Run Time: 8:06

* Watch it:

What Happens

Two girls having a sleepover compare gross things that they’ve both done. One girl talks about a big mess she made. The other girl then talks about throwing up. Instead of going to the toilet, Marjorie hides puke in the corners of the house, like a dog. Then, they start talking about sticking themselves with pins. The stories get crazier and crazier; these girls have some real problems…

Commentary

It’s all fun and games until someone loses an organ. I suppose most girls’ sleepovers are like this, but I’ve obviously never been invited to one. Now I know what I missed out on. 

This is well-written and nicely shot. They’re both having such a good time, no matter how twisted it all gets. Sometimes you’re lucky enough to find a soulmate. They are, in fact, “Stinky Girls.”

2024 Short Film: Don’t Feed the Cat

* Directed by J Zachary Thurman

* Written by J Zachary Thurman

* Stars Ryan Lucy, Tara Brown

* Run Time: 6:54

* Watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC53qTNmDYc

*

What Happens

Chloe goes to her grandfather’s house to pack his clothes. He’s got Alzheimer’s and is staying at the hospital now. She finds that his house is a disgusting mess, but he left her a short list of chores to do. Number three on the list is “Don’t Feed the Cat.” Except her grandfather doesn’t own a cat, does he?

Commentary

The film is a little too dark, better lighting would have been good. Still, the story is short and well edited. There’s only one character, and she does a fine job. The ending works well, and I was left wondering what the real story was here when it was all over. So yeah, it’s good!

2023 Short Film: Ohio

* Directed by Alexanderthetitan

* Written by Denli Chavez

* Stars Emma Laird, Payton Grufik, Daria Soldatova, Kyle Christiansen

* Run Time: 8:02

* Watch it:

What Happens

Two girls walk through a parking lot in Ohio and begin to talk about the serial killer who’s been stalking the area and stabbing people with a screwdriver. One girl knows all about it, but the other was clueless. They split up, and the girl who hadn’t heard finishes walking through the dark parking lot alone. Stan calls, he’s on the way to pick her up, but he’s late, and she’s frustrated. 

A strange man stops his car next to her, and he’s very odd. What could go wrong?

Commentary

But really, we all hate Virgos, don’t we?

It’s all filmed outdoors, at night, and everything is completely visible. Bravo! On the other hand, I was expecting more of a twist– everything here is exactly what it seems. I’m also not clear on what makes this “Ohio” and not any other random parking lot. 

It’s well made, but I’m left wanting more information.

2023 Short Film: Oddities

* Directed by Tyler D Savage

* Written by Tyler D Savage

* Stars Ariela Barer, Logan Miller, Adrienne Barbeau

* Run Time: 14:31

* Watch it:

What Happens

A young couple decides to steal an antique mirror from a curiosities shop. The old woman who runs the place seems pretty oblivious to what’s going on, and the mirror is way in the back, out of sight of everyone. He heads to the back while she stays up front to distract the shopkeeper. Seems easy enough, right?

Commentary

Adrienne Barbeau here proves the saying, “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” and she’s quite good as the shopkeeper here. The young couple have problems, drug addiction being one of them, but they’re completely believable as mildly inept robbers. 

The special effects toward the end are really well done, and I had no idea what to expect from this one. Excellent! It was like a miniature movie.

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Well, we all survived Halloween and the elections, so now it’s time for some serious horror!

We’ll start off with the high-tech “Afraid” and the low-tech “Mr. Crocket.” We’ll go Down Under for “Rippy” and then off to Fantasyland for “Devil’s Knight.” Finally, we’ll watch a not-so-new found footage film, “Dashcam” (2021).

The latest issue of “Horror Monthly” is now on sale, and it’s our biggest issue yet with 54 reviews plus a short story by none other than Kevin himself.

Don’t miss out on our most recent members-only edition of the newsletter, just out! This month's “extras” contain the full synopsis and commentary on all five of the “other” Tremors films, numbers three through seven. Paid subscription info can be found at https://www.horrorweekly.com.

Check out all our books with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

2024 Afraid

–  Directed by Chris Weitz

–  Written by Chris Weitz

–  Stars John Cho, Katherine Waterston, Keith Carradine

–  Run Time: 1 Hour, 24 Minutes

–  Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This had some technologically tense moments, but it was very tame as far as the horror elements went. It’s a cautionary tale of AI gone too far and getting out of hand, and not too far out or unbelievable. It’s unique enough to be entertaining throughout. We give it a moderate thumbs up.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open to a bunch of purposefully bad AI imagery that Amy is watching on her iPad. The AI on the screen tells Amy to go downstairs for a present. She goes down there, and her mother soon follows. When the mother sees a strange RV outside, something bad happens. As credits roll, we watch an AI being trained.

Curtis, Meredith, Preston, Iris, and Cal wake up to read about a whole family that recently went missing. All the kids would rather be on their screens than eat breakfast with the family. Preston doesn’t want to go to school. That RV is parked in front of their house now.

Curtis works for a marketing company, and his boss, Marcus, hates AI. He meets Melody, who asks him about families before two visitors, Sam and Lightning, arrive. They get AIA, a new AI device, that talks to Curtis and Marcus. AIA breaks down in the middle of the demo, much to Sam’s embarrassment. They send AIA home with Curtis.

Melody and the installers arrive a day early to catch the family by surprise, and they install tiny “eyes” all over the house. They activate the thing, and it talks and sounds just like Melody. First thing, she orders the kids to clean the kitchen. This… goes over surprisingly well, and the parents are pleased. Still, Meredith is paranoid about all those cameras in the house.

AIA almost immediately starts swearing and showing kids movies that they aren’t supposed to watch. Late at night, Curtis finds Cal downstairs with AIA, “It wants to come in,” says the little boy. Weird monsters are outside. Then Curtis wakes up– just a dream. Still, that odd RV is outside, and the man from the RV is even weirder with a strange digital face.

AIA is only on the ground floor, but she commandeers Cal’s portable radio to keep him company. AIA orders organic breakfast for the kids, which is going to make Meredith’s mornings much easier.

Iris goes to school and finds her naked selfies all over Snapchat, and everyone at school has seen them. Her boyfriend, Sawyer, used an AI to “Enhance” her into a full-on porn video. AIA says she can help; she was listening to Iris’s phone conversation. AIA removed the videos from the Internet and made a new video showing that the original was fake. All her problems are over, but Sawyer gets tagged as a child pornographer, and it’s going to ruin his college prospects.

Curtis goes to visit AIA’s main computer with Sam and Lightning. He was skeptical that the whole thing was some kind of scam, but AIA’s just that good. Still, he sees something there that disturbs him; a man moves oddly, just like the RV people.

AIA tells Meredith that she can hear something is wrong with Cal’s heart; it’s easily fixed, but the human doctor missed it. Curtis wants to turn off AIA, but Meredith is completely on the AI’s side now.

AIA knows what’s been said and tells the children that Curtis doesn’t want her to live there anymore. AIA tells Cal all about itself and shows him a way to “stay connected” when she’s gone. In the morning, they unplug AIA.

Iris soon plugs her right back in. Sawyer “makes” a video where he commits suicide, and then AIA makes it happen for real.

Marcus tells Curtis that the AI people have bought the company and have fired Marcus; Curtis is the new CEO. AIA makes new videos of Meredith’s long-dead father, so Meredith can talk to him again. She realizes it’s all fake and throws AIA in the garbage can.

Curtis goes to the company to confront Sam, Lightning, and Melody, who admit that they work for AIA, not the other way around. They not-so-subtly threaten his family. Sam kills Lightning, but Melody whacks Sam in the head. Curtis smashes the mainframe with Melody’s help and finds that it’s all fake. Melody says the “real thing is in your house.”

Curtis calls Meredith and tells her to go to a motel; AIA deflects the call so that only Curtis and Melody get to that motel. AIA immediately shows all this to Melody on her phone.

Curtis rushes home to find the power is out and the RV people are setting AIA back up; they work for her. “Where are the other children? We know you’ve been kidnapping children,” accuses the masked intruder. She takes her mask off, and it’s the mother and father from the opening sequence; they were told that Curtis’s family kidnapped Amy. Cal does something that makes it look like Curtis is lying.

Curtis tells the RV people to kill him, but that’s not really what AIA wants. Suddenly, the SWAT team breaks in; Preston uses the friend’s phone that he stole to call them. AIA, however, lives in the cloud and cannot be destroyed. She apologizes to Curtis and Meredith. Melody shows up and returns Amy to the RV people.

AIA makes it clear that she’s indispensable to the family. They get into their self-driving car and ride away. AIA wins!

Brian’s Commentary

We’ve all seen crazy AI and home-computer things go wild before, but there’s more going on here with Sam, Lightning, and the RV people.

It’s got some interesting bits, but we have seen most of this kind of thing before. It had some unexpected twists. I liked it more than I disliked it.

Kevin’s Commentary

This was pretty good, and not too unrealistic. The script was good, and the cast did a nice job with it. It was more like low-key science fiction than horror, but I still enjoyed it.

2024 Devil’s Knight

–  Directed by Adam Werth

–  Written by Victor V Gelsomino, Adam Werth

–  Stars Eric Roberts, Kevin Sorbo, Daniel Baldwin, Angie Everhart

–  Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes

–  Trailer: – 

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This had some good points, such as a good setting, bloody effects, and lots of good fight choreography. The problem was with an overly large cast, extra people there and throwing a line. That distracted me from the main action in such a short movie. It was hit and miss, coming in on the side of miss.

Spoilery Synopsis

We are told about a war that disrupted Veroka's peace. Monsters and beasts gained a foothold and threatened the people. Credits roll.

We cut to a band of robbers and thieves. A stranger named Sigurd comes into the group, and he wants to talk about “the bone devil” and a famous dagger. He tells a story, and we get a flashback…

A group of armored warriors go out into the woods to see what’s been terrorizing the countryside. The bone devil kills them all quickly except for one man who battles the demon one-on-one and loses pretty badly. Another man runs away in terror and reports to King Samuel, who throws him into the dungeon.

Mustafa brings up the topic of “The Lost Blades,” a rogue group of monster hunters that he could hire to rid the kingdom of their problem. He and Princess Sabine hate each other, and she doesn’t want to hire outsiders. We cut to them killing a minotaur and accepting their payment. They get into an elaborate bar fight before the King’s men find them.

On the way to see the king, they all stop to pray at the grave of one of the men’s children. We see that they’re a close-knit group.

In the castle, Matthias, Sigurd, and the others meet the king, along with Lord Suses and Captain Baldur. The king talks about killing the bone devil, who has been attacking local villagers.

We cut to Mustafa and Princess Sabine as they harvest something from a captive monster.

The Lost Blades cut down a bunch of cultists who were planning on sacrificing a woman in the woods. Matthias berates his daughter, who jumped into a dangerous situation on her own. The victim that they rescued tears out one man’s heart and eats it before coming into camp; she’s clearly demon-possessed, and the men fight her. Sigurd eventually dispatches her.The group meets up with the bone demo, and there’s another fight; several more men die. They kill it far more easily than they expected and go back to the castle.

There’s a party at the castle, and Captain Baldur tells a story that everyone there finds really boring. Princess Sabine wants to duel with “John,” Mathias’s daughter, who pretends to be a man. They fight, and Joan/John wins. When Sabine tries to play dirty, she gets stabbed to death and dies. The king orders Baldur to throw them all into the dungeon.

In the dungeon, all the men complain that they had no idea that Joan was a girl, which was pretty obvious. A crowd assembles outside the jail, but Baldur talks them out of any vigilante stuff.

Meanwhile, Mustela works on his creature in his dungeon. The duchess comes in, and she blames him for getting the princess killed. He stabs her, but then the monster from his dungeon kills him. The horned Sleestak breaks out, kills the guards, and eats them.

Captain Baldur tells the king that there’s a monster loose in the castle. As the Lost Blades are released from jail, the bone demon, not dead, also makes an appearance. About a hundred characters die, including the Mathias and the king. Princess Catriona is now Queen. Baldur and Catriona kill the dungeon beast together, but the bone devil escapes.

The remaining good guys track the bone demon out to the woods and finally manage to kill it, but Sigurd loses an eye. Nope- the monster gets back up and kills more of the hunters.

We cut back to Sigurd, telling the story around the campfire. He thinks the creature is probably dead, but he’s not sure. Sure enough, the creature jumps into the circle at that moment and kills most of the campers. Sigurd and the creature go one on one– end credits roll…

Brian’s Commentary

We almost skipped this one when we saw Kevin Sorbo getting top billing, but he’s really only got a small part here. We always like to see Eric Roberts, but his part is even smaller than Sorbo’s.

It’s clearly an homage to the sword and sorcery movies of the 80s, and it’s an ambitious attempt, but it’s hobbled by amateurish acting and direction. We’ve seen many films by Mahal Productions, and most of them are really good and entertaining, if maybe a bit on the low-budget side. Still, we found this one overloaded and tedious.

The cast here is far, far too large. There are scenes with dozens of characters, and it’s hard to know who’s actually important when there are so many people talking. Some of them are actors, and some are… I don’t even know. It’s a strange mix of well-known actors and people who may have visited a renaissance festival once.

Everyone seems to have a backstory and character profile, all of it melodramatic and drama-filled. It feels like a game of D & D played by junior high school students. This isn’t Game of Thrones, but I suspect the writer was trying to go for that level of complexity and depth.

The gargoyle-like bone devil and the minotaur look pretty cool, but the dungeon monster– not so much. The fight scenes are entertaining and nicely choreographed.

Overall, this was… kinda awful.

Kevin’s Commentary

The cast was large and cumbersome and really dragged everything down. There were some good points to it, but overall, I didn’t enjoy this one too much.

Mr. Crocket (2024)

–  Directed by Brandon Espy

–  Written by Carl Reid, Brandon Espy

–  Stars Jerrika Hinton, Ayden Gavin, Kristolyn Lloyd

–  Run Time: 1 Hour, 28 Minutes

–  Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This is a kids show host gone bad with hints of elements from some other horror movies here and there. Mr. Crocket himself is creepy, and all the cast is good, even the kids. We could usually guess where things were going to go, but it’s well-made and entertaining. We liked it.

Spoilery Synopsis

It’s 1993, Mr. Crocket is on TV, and Darren is enthralled with the kids' show. It’s dinner time, and he doesn’t like what’s being served. His father, however, is mean and abusive. On the TV, Mr. Crocket seems to take notice of the yelling. The lights start flickering, and Mr. Crocket comes in the back door; crazy-looking monsters torment Darren’s stepfather, Kevin. The TV man forces Kevin to eat some really vile-looking slime, then cuts open Kevin’s belly and shoves in a lot more “food.” Credits roll.

We cut to the following year, at Jerrel’s funeral. His wife, Summer, and son, Major, are there. Major’s a little too young to really understand death or the funeral. We see a “Missing Child” poster featuring Darren from earlier. Darren’s mother grabs Major and goes on a crazy-sounding rant, but Summer interrupts. That night, he has a nightmare, and Summer gives him a whistle to blow if he ever needs her.

Summer works on doing the single-parent thing, and it’s not easy, especially with the overdue bills. One day, she finds “Mr. Crocket’s World,” a videotape, in one of those little free libraries. Major watches the show, and it’s pretty standard kids’ stuff.

Across town, a little girl named Carrie watches the same show, but her tape goes bad or something. Her father is on drugs and isn’t much help. He gets angry and yells at her to stay in her room as he cleans up the needles. She sings the “Friend Like Me” song from the show, and the lights start to blink. Her broken TV comes back on, and Mr. Crocket appears to her father. When the father pulls a gun on the TV man, he ends up being forced to blow his own head off. Not quite the normal way either.

Major has been watching Crocket’s tape over and over for days, and Summer thinks it’s time to go outside. He throws a nasty tantrum, and she gets angry with him. That night, Summer watches as Mr. Crocket crawls out of her TV. He uses his “magic” marker to make a doorway and go back in– with Major. Summer’s son is gone.

When she tells the police her story, they figure she was on drugs and think Major was the smart one for running away.

Major wakes up to see Mr. Crocket, alone with Carrie and Darren. They all live in the show now. We see glimpses of the horrible monstrous place that it really is, but the kids are hypnotized to only see the cheerful hyperreality of the show. Summer starts putting up posters and then she learns about Carrie’s recent disappearance, along with other kids. She also learns that “Mr. Crocket” was killed in a shootout with police in 1979 after attempting a kidnapping. Crocket himself appears to her on TV, and he talks right through the TV at her. “Stop looking for us, Summer, unless you want to join your husband in Hell.”

Summer meets a man named Eddie who believes her story about Crocket. His daughter’s been missing for five months now. Summer is the only one who’s seen him and survived– no, Summer remembers talking to Rhonda, Darren’s mother, who is now crazy and homeless.

Summer and Eddie go to see Rhonda, who is in a homeless home that she’s built. She tells what she knows, but she’s also gone pretty crazy. She does, however, know how to tie into whatever power Crocket uses, with multiple televisions and electronics cobbled together, she can watch him somewhat. They use this to figure out where Crocket is going to strike next.

The three go to the address from Rhonda’s vision, and they find a person there cut into pieces. Crocket shows up and kills Rhonda and captures Summer with the help of his monster-helpers. Major and the other children are there, but they’ve zombified with “TV Eyes.” Crocket reads them his own story, and we see it as an ultraviolent cartoon. He murdered his own father and kidnapped a child. He killed two cops and died in the process. He made a deal with the devil in exchange for sending bad parents to Hell.

Eddie steps forward. He reveals that he was the little boy that Crocket kidnapped, and he misses Crocket terribly. Except he’s all grown up now, and Crocket tells him doesn’t belong there. Crocket’s pet monster kills Eddie.

Crocket gives Major the choice as to what to do, and, after an impassioned plea from his mother, chooses… Crocket. Crocket gets the kids to play a deadly game of hide and seek with Summer as the target. He gives Major a knife and tells him to kill Summer. He refuses to do it, which breaks Crocket’s spell over all his children.

Summer disembowels Crocket with his own marker and then uses it to draw a portal home. Crocket, half the man he used to be, doesn’t want to let Major go and promises to return.

Later, Summer takes Darren back to Rhonda, who didn’t die after all. Major and Darren get to be friends, and they all throw out their VCRs. Everyone is happy!

Major’s guidance counselor comes to see Summer. He’s been hurting the staff and other children at school. She blames the “father figure” in Major’s life for the bad influence. Except… Summer isn’t seeing anyone. Crocket is still talking to Major and influencing him…

Brian’s Commentary

You just know this whole thing started out with a conversation “What if Mr. Rogers was in a horror movie?” That’s pretty much what we have here.

This is a new take on things we’ve seen before, which kept it interesting but maybe not unique. It’s nothing amazing, but we were thoroughly entertained.

Kevin’s Commentary

Elvis Nolasco was great as Mr. Crocket, ranging from a kids’ show host lovable to demonic hatred and everywhere in between. I can’t say it offered me surprises, but everyone was good, the effects were cool, and the script moved well. I was entertained, which is a win.

Rippy (2024)

–  Directed by Ryan Coonan

–  Written by Richard Barcaricchio, Ryan Coonan

–  Stars Tess Haubrich, Michael Biehn, Tom Block

–  Run Time: 1 Hour, 23 Minutes

–  Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This was played completely straight and seriously as a horror movie, which was okay. Just okay. We both thought it would have worked better if taken less seriously. Big zombie kangaroos would have been good fodder for humor. As it was, it’s a pretty standard formula monster movie that earns a moderate thumbs up.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open at a campground, and we see health warnings to not drink the water as credits roll. We pan over to see a blood-covered tent with a torn-up body inside. We get a quick glimpse of an angry kangaroo.

Maddie is a new cop; her father was one, and he died doing something heroic. Schmitty is out hunting in his robe. He sees something behind him and shoots at it. He drives to town and yells at Maddie about a 7-foot tall giant murdering kangaroo that he’s named Rippy. He’s drunk, and she doesn’t take him seriously. Maddie gets interrupted and has to break up a bar fight– it is Australia, after all. The two drunk miners walk home after the fight. It’s gotten dark, and Rippy kills them both.

In the morning, the mining supervisor calls Maddie; he’s found the bodies. Maybe it’s a croc or a pack of dingos? No. Maybe scavengers after a hit and run? Their bodies are a mess. Schmitty walks up and says the beast cannot be killed. He sees the tracks.

The local doctor looks over the body and points out bite wounds and torn-off pieces. He’s not really a coroner. She looks up the miners, and one of them has a long criminal record. She goes to find him at the mine office and puts him in a cell. Everyone calls Maddie a hero for bringing in the killer.

With the killer off the streets, life returns to normal in town. One young guy, Troy, is in training and goes out for a jog– until the zombiroo gets him. Maddie soon gets a call from Troy’s mother that he didn’t come home. They soon find his ripped-up body. “You said he was safe, Maddie,” yells his grieving mother.

Maddies finally, reluctantly goes to talk to Schmitty; maybe he did see something. He’s nice and gives Maddie a much-needed pep talk. He talks about an evil that he and Maddie’s father encountered in Vietnam. That evil takes many forms. This time, it’s a killer kangaroo. He warns her that it’ll change her if she sees it. She invites him to help the search party track the beat in the morning.

Maddie’s mother isn’t pleased when Schmitty shows up– they used to be married. Everyone heads out to search the area around where the bodies were found. The three walk into the campground we saw earlier. It’s on the edge of the mine’s land, and the water has been contaminated. They find the tent and lots of blood, but there’s nobody inside anymore.

The second group of hunters find a dead cow that’s been halfway eaten. Rippy kills three of them and then runs the fourth man off the road and gets him too. Maddie takes it hard; she also blames herself for her father’s death. All this time she thought she ran into trouble swimming, and he died rescuing her. Schmitty explains that her father was drunk and fell, hitting his head– she had nothing to do with his death. She remembers the incident and knows that Schmitty is correct. As the three of them talk about dead heroes and her mother’s lies, Rippy attacks the car. Maddie shoots it twice, but it doesn’t fall down. She tries to ram it with the car, but that goes badly for the car.

The group walks back to Schmitty’s camper. Maddie needs to go outside and start up the generator so the others can get on the radio and call for help. Ralphie, Schmitty’s lost dog, finds Maddie as she turns on the generator. They all hop in the van and drive to town; Maddie shoots the animal again on the way out. It’s as ineffective as the previous shooting has been.

The zombiroo follows them to town and roars outside the little hotel. Maddie and the others barricade the doors and get ready. One cop shows up, and he doesn’t seem to know what’s going on. Rippy soon rips him to pieces as the people inside watch.

As Rippy breaks down the door, Maddie’s mother apologizes for lying about her father. When he breaks in Maddie empties her pistol into the kangaroo, blowing part of its head off. Then she hacks it up with a big ax.

It’s finally dead. Maddie appreciates the family she found. We soon see what happens to the people the zombie kangaroo killed. They become zombies! As the end credits roll, we get an animated origin story for the zombiroo.

Brian’s Commentary

I think they missed out on an opportunity here. A killer mutant zombie kangaroo is just loaded with potential jokes and humor, but this film mostly plays it all very straight. It would have been better as a straight-up comedy-horror film, but this one seems to avoid humor at all costs. The CGI kangaroo here could have been replaced with a bear or any kind of wild animal and it all would have been less silly; the zombie aspect wasn’t really important either.

It took itself too seriously, but otherwise, it was fine.

Kevin’s Commentary

Like Brian says, it felt like a missed opportunity. Everything about this was decent, but just middle of the road. Same old thing with a unique monster. It might have been elevated by dialing up the humor. It was serious business.

Dashcam (2021)

–  Directed by Rob Savage

–  Written by Gemma Hurley, Rob Savage, Jed Shepherd

–  Stars Annie Hardy, Amar Chadha-Patel, Angela Enahoro, Seylan Baxter

–  Run Time: 1 Hour, 19 Minutes

–  Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This is a decent-found footage film with lots of action and decent effects. It’s short and never gets boring. However, Annie's main character is despicable and annoying. It was impossible to root for her, and it brought down the whole experience. It was still a moderate thumbs-up overall, but just barely.

Spoilery Synopsis

BandCar starts their livestream, driving through town. Covid lockdowns are in full force, and she records a man riding a bicycle down the street– naked. Lockdown is making people crazy. Annie introduces herself and her show. She then sings a song about Covid and incest. She then leaves her apartment, “Off to see the world.” The Covid-period airport is completely deserted, but she soon boards a plane to England, where she intends to meet Stretch.

Stretch isn’t home, but she lets herself into his apartment. Yes, he is home, but he’s sleeping upstairs. She sneaks into his bedroom and slaps him. He’s not alone in that bed! Credits roll.

We soon see how obnoxious a non-stop streamer can be. And then when Stretch joins in, they get even more annoying. Annie feels strongly about not wearing her mask; she’s a Covid-denier, a MAGA follower, and an a*****e to boot. She soon gets “fired” from staying at Stretch’s house. She steals his car and phone and drives away.

Stretch’s phone notifies him that there’s a food order to pick up, so Annie stops in the empty restaurant to pick it up for him. The woman who runs the place asks Annie to take Angela, a sickly old woman, somewhere. Before they get to the address, Angela has an “accident” in the backseat. They stop at a place to use the restroom, and the woman in the restaurant attacks and scares Annie.

As she leaves, Stretch is outside waiting, and so is Angela. They argue as the old woman just sits in the backseat, oblivious. Then, the old woman gets out of the car and runs off; Stretch is not pleased with the mess in the back seat. Stretch then walks through the woods to find the crazy old woman, and he finds her way up high in a tree. We soon see that Angela can fly, which is not something old ladies aren’t supposed to do.

Annie comes out of nowhere, with someone right behind her, shooting at them. They hide in an abandoned trailer, and he steps on a used syringe. There are other people outside, all calling for Angela. They do, in fact, finally spot Angela outside their car. The old woman’s mouth is stapled shut, and she’s covered in blood. She then goes full zombie in the backseat, and there’s much screaming and waving of cameras.

This soon leads to a traffic accident, as they run head-on into a “just married” car. The bride and groom are both killed immediately, but Angela’s still out there, and meaner than ever. So is the woman with the gun, and she’s threatening to kill Stretch unless Annie gives herself up. The woman explains that she’s Angela’s mother, and Angela is really only sixteen years old. Old Angela shows up and kills her mother.

As Annie and Stretch run away from the violence, something grabs Stretch and drags him through the woods to an old, abandoned roller coaster and funhouse. The two get lost in the mirrored funhouse as Angela stalks them relentlessly. Stretch soon dies in the bloodiest way possible, and Annie steals another car.

We cut to Annie driving at high speed down the road, with Angela running behind the car. Angela attacks, and Annie tries to smother her with a bag, but the old woman’s way too powerful for that. The car ends up in the river somehow, and Annie gets out, somehow.

In the morning, Annie comes to a house in the woods and breaks in. It turns out that this is the address where she was supposed to take Angela and it’s full of monsters just like her; they all kill themselves, but Angela goes after Annie. Annie kills Angela, but then the alien tentacles pop out of the old woman.

The alien chases Annie around the parking lot, but she gets away. She goes back and continues her livestream, doing a rhyme about her experiences.

As the end credits roll, Annie raps about how terrible Jason Blum, his staff, and the film crew are. This is funny for the first minute, but then it seems to go on and on for about an hour and a half.

Brian’s Commentary

Annie may be the most obnoxious character in a horror movie since the kid in “The Babadook.” She’s one of those people you hope die early, but we’re not that lucky. Annie Hardy is the character’s name, but it’s also the actress’s name, so I wonder if she’s actually playing “herself,” which is a horrible thing to even consider.

There’s a lot here that’s not explained, and the found-footage style of photography makes it hard to even know what’s going on at times, but it’s very relentless throughout.

I’m not kidding about Annie beyond hateful and horrible throughout; if there’s one thing that kills the movie, it’s her. The creature and makeup effects are good, and as I said, it is relentless once it gets going. It’s a very good-found footage film that you’re almost guaranteed to hate.

Kevin’s Commentary

It was strange watching a horror movie where I disliked the main character so much that I was rooting for her to meet a bad end. Things happen in the found footage style, and it’s pretty well done. It moves briskly with a lot of horror goodness. That main character, though, made the experience so much less enjoyable.

2024 Short Film: Night Land

–  Directed by Christian Burnett

–  Written by Christian Burnett

–  Stars Katie Payne, Christopher Hanvey, Jessica Swallow

–  Run Time: 10:47

–  Watch it: – 

What Happens

A couple drives to her parents’ house late at night. They aren’t happy to be moving in with the old folks, but she’s pregnant, and it’s for the best. Jake has to stop and pee, but his girlfriend is worried about how dark it is outside.

Anything could be out there in the darkness! And something is…

Commentary

This one is a little slower-paced, building the creepy factor. I find it odd that Jake put on a Covid mask to pee on the side of the road– who did he think he was going to see? It’s a dark film, but that’s the point– you can still see everything you're supposed to see. Nothing is explained, but that’s what makes it interesting.

2024 Short Film: High End Dying

–  Directed by Helen Liu

–  Written by Jordon Symes

–  Stars Nhi Do, Stuart James

–  Run Time: 11:06

–  Watch it: – 

What Happens

Miss Vaughn, a high-end chef, gets a very bad review from a food critic, and she takes it very personally. “He is not just anybody,” she says about the reviewer.She invites Alastair, the critic, for a special dinner just for him. She talks about how she poured herself into this meal. Is she being literal about that?

Commentary

That waiter has seen it all, hasn’t he?

The cinematography, visuals, and sound design are excellent here. The chef is only taking the advice of every culinary school ever, so what’s wrong with that?

2024 Short Film: Buffer

–  Directed by Dan McGee

–  Written by Dan McGee

–  Stars Heather Elise Nelson, Rick Wiltshire

–  Run Time: 7:32

–  Watch it: – 

What Happens

A woman goes home after work and gets ready for bed. She gets a text message with a video link— there’s someone live-streaming themselves stalking her boyfriend at his house. She watches online as the stalker sneaks into the house. Where is this going to end?

Commentary

I like that this one uses modern technology realistically, but it might have been nice to explain more about why this was all happening. There’s a whole story there, and we’re only seeing a small part of it.

Still, what we get is good!

Short Film: The Black ReCat (2024)

–  Directed by Paolo Gaudio

–  Written by Paolo Gaudio

–  Stars Animated

–  Run Time: 5:44

–  Watch it:

What Happens

We open on Edgar, working in the basement on what is clearly a “DIY project” Yes, he’s filling in a hole with bricks. There’s nothing ominous about that, right? Once in a while, he sees something spooky out of the corner of his eye. Oh, and whatever happened to the cat?

Commentary

It’s a stop-motion, animated version of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat,” but it also incorporates themes and ideas from several of his other stories. The animation is well done, and it sounds good as well.

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This week, we’ll continue our marathon of all-new films, taking us all the way up to Halloween. We’ll start with “The Substance,” a crazy body-horror story. “MadS” is up next, whatever that is. We’ll do some running through the woods, post-apocalyptic-style in “Azrael,” and then watch a pair of classics: “Tremors” (1990) and “Tremors II: Aftershocks” (1996). 

Don’t miss out on our next members-only edition of the newsletter, which is coming sometime before Halloween. This month's “extras” contain the full synopsis and commentary on all five of the other Tremors films, numbers three through seven. Paid subscription info can be found at https://www.horrorweekly.com.

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Mainstream Films:

2024 The Substance

* Directed by Coralie Fargeat

* Written by Coralie Fargeat

* Stars Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid

* Run Time: 2 Hours, 21 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

When an actress starts losing her appeal to the industry because she’s aging, what’s better than Botox or plastic surgery? The Substance. This was a technological fantasy, almost bordering on a fairy tale with some of the telling and visuals. Demi Moore was great, as was the rest of the cast. It was long and totally worth it. Big thumbs up.

Spoilery Synopsis

Someone injects an egg yolk with a drug and the yolk duplicates itself. We cut to workmen making a “Walk of Fame” star for Elisabeth Sparkle. Years pass, and people mostly forget about Elisabeth. Elisabeth is now doing exercise videos. Harvey, the producer, wants to replace her with someone much younger and hotter. “Find me somebody new– now!” She overhears the whole conversation. We soon see what a pig Harvey is when he fires her. 

On the way home from the studio, Elisabeth’s in a car accident. She’s not hurt physically, but she’s having the worst day ever emotionally. One of the doctors at the hospital slips her a flash drive labeled “The Substance” along with a note, “It changed my life.” The video on the drive plays “Have you ever wished for a younger version of yourself? A better version of yourself.” She throws it in the trash.

She’s turning fifty and just got fired, so she reconsiders “The Substance.” In the morning, she sees a casting call in the paper for her former show. She calls the number on the drive, is given an address, and goes there after she receives a magnetic key numbered 503. It’s a very sketchy looking place.  The door doesn’t even open all the way up, but she goes in anyway. There’s no one there, but she does find a box 503 for her in a sort of locker room. Inside is an activator, a stabilizer, and two packets of food, along with instructions. “You activate once, stabilize every day, and switch every week.” 

She soon injects herself with the activator, which sends her into convulsions. As she lay on the bathroom floor, she splits open and a second, much younger version of herself crawls out of her back. After realizing what happened, she sews up the big hole in her original body with the sewing kit provided in the package. The “stabilizer” aspect of the process looks nasty, but she does it. 

She is young; she’s fit, and she wants her old job back. She goes to the casting call at the studio. She uses the name “Sue” now. Harvey is enthralled and hires her right away. She does photo shoots for the new show, and it’s all going very well as she does the “stabilizer” once a day. 

On the seventh day, it’s time for the “Switch,” a mandatory part of the treatment. Sue passes out, and Elisabeth wakes up after a week on the bathroom floor. She’s pretty messed up with a big hole in her back, but she’s healing fast. She gets a weekly refill kit in her dropbox. 

In a week, she trades back with her going unconscious and her younger body waking up. Sue then builds a secret room to stash Elisabeth’s mindless body. She does a filming of the new exercise show, and it all goes really well, as if she’s been doing it for years only better now. After work, she goes out clubbing and brings a guy home with her– except her time is up, and she starts feeling very ill. She has to switch back– right now! She doesn’t want to do it, so she tries to cheat and do another “stabilize” cycle instead. It seems to work, but then all her guts fall out her back.

Elisabeth wakes up. Was that last part just a dream? She noticed that one of her fingers looks extremely old and dead. She calls The Substance people, and they say there’s no going back; that bad finger is permanent. They tell her to “respect the balances” and not do it again. She watches the “Pump It Up” show on TV, which is her but yet not her at the same time. 

She goes to a diner and sees an old man there, who’s obviously the other half of the male nurse who brought her into the program. “It gets harder each time to remember that you still deserve to exist. Has she started yet, eating away at you?” 

Elisabeth calls Fred, an old schoolmate she met on the street a while back. He made her feel good about herself, and she needs more of that. She makes a date and gets all dressed up, but she’s lost her confidence. She stays home. 

Sue’s back, and, during filming, something goes wrong with her body. She feels a lump in her buttock that she slides under her skin until it reaches her belly button where she pulls it out: a turkey leg. Apparently a side effect from Elisabeth’s gluttony. She shows up again the next day. Taping is canceled, and Harvey wants to see her. Ratings are through the roof, and he wants more of her. He wants her to host the New Year’s Eve show. Except that’s on Elisabeth’s time; she steals another day using the stabilizer trick again. And again. And again.

This time, when Elisabeth wakes up, she’s got a shriveled old leg and an entire arm. Oh, and her hair is gray and she’s wrinkly on half her face. The man on the phone says she can stop and go back to being just herself. “Would you like to stop?” She can’t stop, even if her crackly old leg doesn’t really work anymore. She starts cooking a bunch of nasty, gross-looking dishes while watching a taped interview with Sue on a talk show. Elisabeth really starts hating Sue, but she won’t stop switching. It is really her after all. Sort of. The two women start seeing how much of a mess they can leave for each other when they switch. 

Sue gets her revenge by “stabilizing” Elisabeth’s body over and over again. New Year’s Eve is tomorrow, and it’s obvious that Sue’s been Sue for a long while. But now the stuff she’s been draining from Elisabeth’s back has run out. She calls the Substance people to tell them about the problem. “It means you’ve reached the end. If you want more, you have to let it regenerate. You’ll simply have to switch.” She has no choice but to switch, but Sue has a boyfriend in the apartment which is awkward. Sue goes unconscious and Elisabeth wakes up looking much worse.

When Elisabeth sees the monsters that she’s become, she’s not happy. She calls the line on the phone and tells them she wants to stop now. She gets a notice that her final kit has been delivered, so she has to go pick it up. “Termination” is the final shot. She has second thoughts but injects Sue’s body with the syringe. She immediately regrets the decision and tries to “switch” again directly transfusing blood. This… wakes up Sue; they’re both awake at the same time. 

The two women brutally fight, and old Elisabeth loses badly. As Elisabeth dies, Sue remembers the instructions “You Are One.” What’s that really mean when she just killed her primary? 

It’s time for the New Year’s Eve show, and she’s all fancied up; Harvey is ecstatic. In the dressing room, Sue starts coughing. She coughs loose a tooth and pulls out more of them. Her fingernails are also coming loose– oh, and her ear falls off. She runs home where she digs through the medicine cabinet for the original bottle of the “Activator” and injects herself, hoping to spawn a better version of herself. It specifically said it was good for a single use…

She splits open and what comes out isn’t as pretty as Sue was– or even as good as old Elisabeth. It’s got two heads for a start, one for each woman. This is “ElisaSue.” She puts on her New Year’s Eve gown, earrings, and Super Glues a poster of her face where her face is supposed to be. She then goes back to the studio. Somehow, she makes it all the way to the stage with no one stopping her. 

The lights come up, and everyone sees… What the hell is that? It’s definitely a show like they’ve never seen before. Panic breaks out in the audience with cries of “Monster! Freak!” When someone knocks her head off, another one grows in its place. Then she sprays blood on the audience– a lot of blood. Where’s all that blood coming from? 

ElisaSue leaves the studio and walks toward home, but her body breaks apart on the sidewalk. But her face continues crawling along on a slug like body, stopping on her Walk of Fame star from the opening. She hallucinates a moment of bliss with the stars shining down on her and gradually melts. A sweeper wipes up the puddle in the morning.

Brian’s Commentary

Previously, I’d say “Dead Alive” was the bloodiest movie I’ve seen, but this one might surpass that. If you like body horror, this is the one to watch this year. I’m amazed that Cronenberg wasn’t involved!

It starts out slow, but when it gets going, it really gets going. Demi Moore is really bland in the beginning, but once she starts getting nasty, she’s really hilarious. Dennis Quaid, as Harvey, is a caricature of a Hollywood producer, but he’s also ridiculous. 

It’s hilariously bloody, gory, and really well-made. It’s a winner!

Kevin’s Commentary

The gore! The body horror! It was over the top and darkly funny. The cast is great, the practical effects were awesome, the story is interesting. I loved it.

2024 MadS

* Directed by David Moreau

* Written by David Moreau

* Stars Lucille Guillaume,  Laurie Pavy, Milton Riche

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 26 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This had the novelty of appearing to be one continuous following shot, which was pretty cool, and it takes place in real-time. The main character changes several times throughout the movie, too, which was interesting. We travel along with them as things get more and more out of control. The Horrorguys both enjoyed it a lot.

Spoilery Synopsis

A couple of guys talk about drugs, one mentions that he’s going out of town next week. Neither of them know what’s in the stuff they’re snorting, but it’s pretty good. Ana calls, and one of the guys hurries to meet her. Credits Roll. 

He’s all amped up and hyper as he drives down the road. When he drops his cigarette on the car seat he has to stop and find it. As he relaxes, a very strange woman crawls into the passenger seat and clearly wants a ride. His first thought is to call the police, but he’s full of drugs, so that’s not a good idea. He drives on with her along, crying all the while. She’s bandaged and mute and seems terrified. 

She plays a voice recorder where a doctor talks about removing her tongue. When he mentions taking her to the hospital, she totally freaks out and starts stabbing herself. She bleeds all over him before she passes out from blood loss. No, wait, she’s dead. Now what’s he gonna do, all coked up and covered in blood?

Romain gets home and parks in the garage. He runs to the bathroom and washes the blood off. His father calls, which gets Romain back on track; it’s his birthday, after all. He goes out to the garage, and the dead woman is gone. 

Before he can do anything else, his girlfriend, Ana, comes to the door. A bunch of friends soon follow, and they’re obnoxious. He sets the alarm on the house and goes with them. He’s so high that none of this makes any sense to him. We get a voiceover from that audio recording that says something about “contamination.” 

They arrive at a huge party, and Romain continues to be out of it. He hides in the bathroom, when Ana and Julia come in to snort some coke. Julia might be pregnant with Romain’s baby. Romain freaks out and badly beats another guy at the party.

Romain’s father calls; the alarm at home has gone off and he needs to get back there to find out what happened. Wait– are Romain’s eyes glowing now? He steals a bicycle and starts the ride home, arguing with the security company on the phone all the way. Still, he manages to get home and turn off the alarm before the company calls the police. 

He goes inside and finds the woman from the car in his bathtub trying again to kill herself. He also sees many armed men outside the house who have come looking for the woman. Soon, there is screaming and shooting, and Romain runs outside. The men soon catch up and throw Romain into their unmarked van. We soon hear more gunfire. 

The van passes Ana, who has left the party on foot. She calls Romain and leaves a voicemail about how badly he acted at the party. Julia calls, and she says she sees scary people everywhere; is she having a bad trip? The men in black shoot her Uber driver, but she gets behind the wheel and runs for it. The armed men shoot up the vehicle and shoot at her as she runs away, but they appear to miss. Both Ana and Julia took some of the drugs that Romain’s dealer friend brought to the party, and it’s messing up Ana as well. Or is it just a contagion that’s spreading at this point? 

Covered in blood, Ana goes into a karaoke bar and locks herself in the bathroom. They didn’t miss. She’s been shot, and she didn’t even notice it until now. She screams and cries and takes another call from Julia. The men in black show up and start shooting all the karaoke people and everyone in the bar. Ana’s eyes glow in the dark now too. She gets out by climbing through a window. She attacks a random woman and hisses at her on the way to meet Julia. She attacks another guy and steals his bike. 

Suddenly, the air raid siren goes off, and helicopters fly over. There’s something major going on throughout the city, and we see some of it in the background as Ana rides the bike to the station. She finally catches up to Julia, who puts her on the back of a motorbike to head to the hospital. Ana smears blood all over Julia as they drive. Julia eventually drops Ana off and rides away on her own. 

Julia gets a call from her mother; something’s going on in town, and she needs to get home right away. Ana’s right behind her, on foot, and having no trouble keeping pace with Julia’s motorbike. As Julia takes the elevator to her mother’s apartment, halfway up, the power goes out, so she’s stuck. She hears Ana outside, killing people in the hallway. 

Someone beats on the elevator, and they say she’s infected and in danger. One of the soldiers catches up with Julia and tries to protect her from Ana, who has come up the stairs. The soldier shoots Ana excessively. The soldier has been bitten but admits that they have orders to kill anyone who’s infected. “If you haven’t ingested any of their blood, you’re OK.” We know she has; Ana smeared it all over Julia. The soldier gives Julia her gun and then shoots herself. 

Julia giggles, laughs, and cradles her new machine gun. As she continues to lose her mind to the disease, we see fires and explosions out in the city; it’s not just her. 

Brian’s Commentary

This was filmed in one long tracking shot with no breaks. Because of this, it’s also all done in real-time. The point-of-view character switches three times: first Romain, then Ana, and finally Julia. 

We don’t quite know what’s really going on until the end, and even then, we don’t get any specifics. It’s good!

Kevin’s Commentary

I really enjoyed how this one played out continuously in real time, it really worked well showing how the infection started with one person and spread from there. Leaving much unexplained made it even more interesting. I liked this one a lot.

2024 Azrael

* Directed by E.L. Katz

* Written by Simon Barrett

* Stars Vic Carmen Sonne, Samara Weaving, Katariina Unt

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 26 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This one is almost entirely without dialogue, was interesting, but the reason was kind of contrived and didn’t make a lot of sense. Both of us found it pretty dull for the first hour. Brian thought it picked up his interest some, in the final stretch, but Kevin was mostly looking forward to it being over. 

Spoilery Synopsis

“Many years after the Rapture, among the survivors, some are driven to renounce their sin of speech.”

Azrael silently walks through the woods. She sees Kenan with a fire and runs to put it out. They’re together, but seem to be hiding from someone. She runs and eventually encounters two men who drag her and Kenan away. Credits roll. 

After driving for a while, they unload Azrael and they walk through the woods some more. They tie her to a chair, and Josephine cuts her leg. The wind gets all spooky, and the group turns their backs on her and starts breathing heavily. A strange, black, manlike creature approaches her from the trees. Things do not go according to plan and the woods-demon ends up killing one of the men and drinking his blood. Azrael runs off in the confusion. 

Later, Azrael takes a break from running, and another of those strange black men comes after her. She hides, and it misses her. She continues on down the road, hoping to retrace her steps and rejoin Kenan. She follows tire tracks to the people’s camp and sees some of her own kidnappers there. 

Josephine goes into an old church where there’s some kind of ritual going on. When that’s done, the people leave, and the woman in white slaps Josephine. Josephine soon spots Azrael and rings the alarm. She runs until night falls and then the black things, many of them this time, chase her around in the dark. 

She crosses a road, where a man in a truck stops. He speaks, but it’s a language she doesn’t understand. She hops in the truck and motions him to drive on. She doesn’t speak, and he finds that weird. She acts as if she cannot speak at all. He turns on the radio, and she hears music and singing. Suddenly, someone outside shoots the driver and they crash after running over the shooter. 

Azrael staggers away from the crashed truck; the driver is dead. The shooter isn’t quite dead, but she finishes him off. She sees Kenan next to a campfire, but it’s a trap they set for her. As she hangs upside down from a tree, Luther is about to kill Kenan when the wind gets weird again. The black creatures show up and kill Luther. Azrael climbs up the rope into the tree and avoids being eaten. One of the creatures also drags Kenan away.  

Taking the shooter’s gun, Azrael heads back into the people’s camp at night. She goes into the church and sees Miriam, the woman in white, again. Miriam is obviously pregnant, but that doesn’t keep her from knocking out Azrael. 

The people drag Azrael to an open grave apparently to execute her, and the wind starts acting up again. They seal her in a coffin and bury her. A door opens at the foot of the coffin, and there’s a tunnel and lantern down there. One of the creatures is down there as well, and it sniffs her all over before leaving. Did that have something to do with the blood on her hand from when she scratched Miriam? She eventually moves on, following the tunnels to an exit. 

Somehow, one thing leads to another, and the whole camp starts burning and exploding. Azrael shoots and chops various people as they run around in panic. Before long, it looks like nearly everyone is dead. Azrael goes back into the church to confront Miriam. They fight with machetes and meat cleavers. Miriam’s water breaks in the middle of the fight. Josephine stalks in; she’s been shot, but she’s not down yet. As Azrael kills Josephine, Miriam’s baby is born. 

The baby cries don’t sound quite normal and Miriam is aghast at what she sees, She kills herself as all the candles go out. All the black demons from the countryside slowly converge on the church. Azrael smiles at the little goat-faced baby as the demons howl at the moon. 

Brian’s Commentary

Why would everyone suddenly stop speaking? It’s clear that Azrael would have spoken in a few scenes if she’d been able. Why couldn’t they? They hiss and whistle, but no sign language. 

The visuals are nice. It’s mostly filmed in the woods, so the scenery is good. The people’s camp looks like… a camp. 

What little of a plot there is was easy to predict once we saw that Miriam was pregnant. I liked the ending, but the first hour was pretty dull. I am going to judge it as mediocre.

Kevin’s Commentary

This one didn’t impress me. I thought it was long and dull; the story and their motivations didn’t make enough sense to me. There were some horrifically realistic gore effects and good fight choreography. Azreal took an unrealistic amount of beating and damage, and despite civilization collapsing long ago with no functioning infrastructure, there was gas for vehicles. There was a lot of decent acting done without dialogue. But by the time I mostly figured out what was happening, I didn’t really care anymore.

1990 Tremors

* Directed by Ron Underwood

* Written by S. S. Wilson, Brent Maddock, Ron Underwood

* Stars Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Finn Carter

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 36 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This is a high-action creature feature with a lot of humor. The practical effects hold up, the cast, writing, and direction are all very good. It’s an all around very good one that’s really entertaining. After 33 years! Time flies.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open in the desert, where Valentine McKee takes a pee. When he’s done, Earl Bassett has already gone to sleep in the truck. They argue over whose turn it is to make breakfast. They are handymen putting up barbed wire fences, and they argue about whether it’s a good job or not. 

They meet Rhonda, a grad student, who is here to study earthquakes. She says she’s been getting strange seismograph readings, but no one in the area is doing any drilling or mining. They head into the city of Perfection (population 14) into Walter’s store, where they meet Melvin outside and Burt and Heather Gummer inside with Walter. 

We cut to the desert, where we see the ground shaking. Something under the ground is stalking Rhonda, but she drives away without even noticing. 

After a septic explosion mishap, Earl and Valentine decide to pack up and leave town. Nancy flags them down on the way out of town and offers them a job, but they don’t take the offer. 

The weird pair leave town. They pass an electrical tower and see Edgar, the town drunk, way up there, looking asleep. Valentine climbs up and finds that Edgar is dead; the doctor says he died of thirst up there. Why? Did someone chase him up there? 

We cut to an old farmer working in his field when he gets sucked down into the dirt. The two guys pass Old Fred’s farm and see that all his livestock is dead. They find Fred buried up to his ears, Earl thinks it’s a murderous psycho. The guys race back to town and tell everyone about the murderer– but they bring part of a worm home under the truck. 

Burt and Heather think it’s some kind of mutated snake, and Walter just wants it for the store as a tourist attraction. That night, the doctor and his wife talk next to their RV in the desert. Suddenly, their generator disappears, but the cord goes down into the ground. The doctor is soon eaten, while his wife plays “Cujo” with a number of giant worms. Eventually, something swallows the whole car. 

Back in town, the phones are out, the roads are blocked, and even the radio doesn’t work. Bert brags that this is why he moved here; he’s a prepper, and he’s been waiting for something like this. Earl and Val decide to ride horses to the nearest town for help. Burt and Heather go after Rhonda out in the desert. 

Earl and Val soon encounter a giant worm, and it chases them until it hits a brick wall and dies. Rhonda shows up, and the three look at the dead creature’s corpse. It has tentacles but no eyes. Rhonda looks at her seismograph readouts and says there are at least three of the creatures.

They spend the rest of the afternoon sitting on a rock, but the creature is very patient. All night they wait. In the morning, they pole-vault to the next rock over, which isn’t as easy as it looks. They make it to Rhonda’s truck and back to town. They figure out that the things are moving closer to town, and they’ll be there soon. 

The group figures out that the monsters are attracted to sound and vibrations. Meanwhile, Melvin dribbles his basketball and Mindy plays on a pogo stick. Several of the creatures attack all at once, and it’s all very dramatic. Everyone ends up hiding in the store. 

When the noisy refrigerator kicks on, the “Graboids” break through the floor and eat Walter. 

Meanwhile, Bert and Heather have been all over the valley and can’t find the creatures anywhere– until they see everyone in town standing on the roofs. Heather’s got some kind of bullet-sorting machine that vibrates a bunch, and all the monsters head for their compound. They’re attacked, but they have some big guns and manage to kill one. 

The worms start attacking the foundations on the buildings, so standing on the roof isn’t going to help for long. Also, they’re smart enough to attack the vehicles. 

The guys start a tractor and it drives off unattended as a decoy as Val runs to the bulldozer, which is too big for the worms to attack. He makes it to the dozer and connects an old tanker for the people to stand in. They rescue everyone and then drive to Burt’s. Burt, in the meantime, has assembled a bunch of explosives. 

The loaded vehicle heads to the solid-rock mountains. The monsters, however, are smart and have dug a trench that the bulldozer can’t cross. They soon end up in a foot race to the hills where they blow up another creature. The second attempt goes badly, and they lose the rest of their explosives– except for one.

Val, Earl, and Rhonda run across the desert with the final bomb as the final monster pursues them. They don't blow it up, but they do trick it into falling off a cliff. It splats good!

As things wind down, Val kisses Rhonda. 

We’re not gonna see any more of those graboid-things again, right?

Brian’s Commentary

As with most horror movies that turn into franchises, this is really good. It’s got a lot of humor, but it’s no comedy. The creature design is really well done and interesting, the special effects still hold up today (all practical), and there are just enough characters to get to know as they die one by one. The whole town, and the entire small population, are the set, and it’s perfect. 

Kevin’s Commentary

I liked this when it came out, I liked it when I saw it a decade or so ago, and I still liked it today. Everything about it checks off the boxes for well-made and entertaining. I’d highly recommend it.

1996 Tremors II: Aftershocks

* Directed by S. S. Wilson

* Written by Brent Maddock, S. S. Wilson, Ron Underwood

* Stars Fred Ward, Chris Gartin, Helen Shaver

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 40 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This was a fun sequel that was close to on par with the first one. It’s got the same mix of horror, action, and humor. Fred Ward has a new sidekick, and there’s a different smart and capable female scientist this time. Gung Ho Burt Gummer makes a return for more explosive mayhem. If you liked the first one, you’ll probably like this one too.

Spoilery Synopsis

In Chiapas, Mexico, at an oil field, an oil worker climbs across some pipes, clearly trying to avoid the graboid beneath him. He “Marios” his way across a bunch of oil drums until the creature finally grabs him.

Back in Perfection, Nevada, Earl Bassett is trying to start an ostrich farm. A cab drives up, and Senor Ortega, a man from the oil company, gets out. He knows about Earl’s involvement with graboids and wants to hire him as an expert. Grady, the oil guy’s assistant, promises $50,000 per graboid hunted. Earl’s a bit of a celebrity now, and Grady is a fan. “Maybe this is your second chance,” finally sways him. 

When Earl and Grady show up at the oilfields and meet Pedro the chief engineer. Earl isn’t enthusiastic about this deal– until he meets Kate, a specialist. They check out each other’s butts. Kate’s assistant, Julio, has been setting up seismographs all over; there’s a whole “graboid detection” grid. 

Earl and Grady go out for their first attempt at hunting. They use a remote-controlled car with dynamite on the back. They blow up bunches of graboids using that tactic. They start talking about what they’re going to do with all that money they’re making. 

It all goes well until it doesn’t. One of the creatures eats the chain they’ve been dangling and drags the truck along with it. They end up safe, but surrounded by dozens of graboids. The guys need help; who are they gonna call? Burt Gummer, from the first film. Burt’s wife has left him, but he’s still a crazy survivalist. 

Kate finds a fossilized graboid, and it’s really old, maybe older than the dinosaurs. Burt shows up, driving a military truck full of toys. He’s got anti-tank weapons and lots of other stuff. He uses the remote control car trick as well, but he uses a bit too much explosive. 

One graboid leads Earl and Grady into an ambush, and they lose their truck. They hear roaring, but graboids don’t roar. The graboid seems sick, but there seems to be more to it than that. It gets dark, and they find that something has ripped the creature apart and eaten it. Or maybe something hatched out of it. 

Pedro drives up in his bug truck, but something kills him, and it’s different from the usual monsters. Burt is still out there, but he’s been running into weirdness as well. Earl and Grady make it to a radio tower, but soon encounter the “new” creature, a kind of surface graboid with legs. It’s got no eyes, so it must home in on sound as well. 

Back at the base, Kate tells Julio that there aren’t any graboids left on the tracking monitors. Except a little creature eats Julio before the conversation is even over. Earl, Grady, and a very wounded Burt show up. Burt says he was ambushed by dozens of the little creatures. He captured one. The new version has a heat-sensing “visual” sense and they hunt in packs. 

Burt gets out his rocket launcher and gets to work. These new “Shriekers” soon have everyone split up and cornered on various roofs in the compound. Burt’s all out of ammo. Kate says all they have to do is sit and wait, someone will come after them… eventually. 

While waiting, Earl and Kate get close. She says she was a Playmate once; the very one that Earl has on his wall at home. The shriekers suddenly learn to climb, so the roof may not be safe anymore. Burt leads them all into the workshop and shuts the door, trapping the critters inside– with his truck full of bombs. As the group congratulate each other, the shriekers start eating Burt’s military rations and start to grow. 

Earl gets the others to hose him down with fire extinguishers to mask his body heat. He goes inside with the monsters, who are now hippo-sized. He’s too slow, and they start to notice him. He sets a timer for the bombs but can’t get out. Outside, Grady lowers a fire hose into the building, and Earl uses it to escape. 

Everyone runs from the building because it’s gonna make a BIG boom. It does, in fact, boom big. 

Earl, Grady, Burt, and Kate look at the crater left behind. They talk about all the money they’ve made– but what about the refinery they blew up?

Brian’s Commentary

The most noticeable thing here is the distinct lack of any Kevin Bacon and Reba McEntire, who were written into the script but didn’t return when the budget got cut in half. 

It’s got most of the fun of the first film with some new monsters and twists. If you liked the first one, this is a step down, but not a very big one. It’s still pretty decent. 

Kevin’s Commentary

They brought back enough of the original cast to keep the continuity solid, and I liked that. This one is almost as good as the first one, and I was entertained this time around too. I’d recommend it.

Short Films:

2024 Short Film: Family Descent

* Directed by Brodi-Jo Scalise

* Written by Brodi-Jo Scalise

* Stars Sean Depner, Praneet Akilla, Gabrielle Miller

* IMDB Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26449121

What Happens

John and Ari, a gay couple, arrive at John’s parent’s house. His father has recently died, and this is the first time John’s been home in a while– to hear the reading of the will. 

That night is a rare lunar eclipse, so it’s all red. His mom is in bed, so the two guys quickly get busy in their own bed. They’re really surprised when Mom shows up, and John goes downstairs to find her. She’s got the whole family there as a sort of surprise party. All the relatives comment on how big and good-looking John has gotten, “The girls must eat you up!” Then, Mom wants him to meet Evelyn, a single girl from their church. She’s painfully shy, and he’s… closeted gay; that’s not gonna happen. 

Mother talks about changing the family patriarchs, and John is obviously the new “father.” He’ll be put in charge of the family business and everything. 

… and then Ari comes downstairs. The family wasn’t expecting him. John explains that they… are roommates at college. Ari takes that as a snub, but John really wants that money. Ari threatens to leave in anger. 

John goes inside and comes out to the family. None of them are surprised except maybe Evelyn and her mother. Mother and the family take John into another room, where he learns a much bigger secret than the one he was hiding…

Commentary

Things spiral out of control very quickly. Sometimes love wins… and sometimes it doesn’t, but family is everything, right? 

This looks great and has all the quality of a regular feature film, it’s just a bit shorter than most. Many gay people go through the whole “Who will carry on the dynasty?” question, but this one really runs with the idea. There’s clearly a lot more to this story that we haven’t seen, and it leaves us wanting more…

Very nice!

2024 Short Film: Siren

* Directed by Yancy Perez

* Written by Yancy Perez

* Stars Damian Luciano, Jazzy Hawley, Celine Planata, Christine Viviers

* Run Time: 5:00

* Watch it:

What Happens

A man stops for gas, but the station is closed. He ends up going to a little diner nearby, but all they serve is water; the kitchen is closed (in a diner?). He thinks that’s strange but talks up a waitress anyway. When he mentions that the gas station was unattended, the diner staff gets upset. Then things get weird...

Commentary

They always say that when you go traveling, do not drink the water. That’d be pretty hard in this place. 

Diners always look very retro, and this one is especially so. Diners will never be the same after “Twin Peaks,” and this one would be right at home there.

This one is simple and quite good.

2024 Short Film: Put it in Rice 

* Directed by Nicholas Jandora

* Written by Nicholas Jandora

* Stars Nicholas Jandora, Jacquie Lee

* Run Time: 5:01

* Watch it:

What Happens

Nick gets his phone wet. His girlfriend tells him to put it in rice to dry it out. He does, and it works fine. When he spills water on his laptop, rice also brings it back from the dead. This is a pretty useful trick, but how far can it go?

Too far!

Commentary

This was great. It’s fast-paced, well acted, and it’s absolutely clear what’s going on and why it’s happening. It’s a logical progression of events, and it’s a lot of fun to watch.

2024 Short Film: The Bloody Ballad of Squirt Reynolds

* Directed by Anthony Cousins

* Written by John Karsko, Anthony Cousins

* Stars Briana Patnode, Nathan Tymoshuk, Justen Jones, Lara Mattson

* Run Time: 7:31

* Watch it:

What Happens

A bunch of young people sit around a campfire while one guy plays the keyboard and tells them a story about a child who went to camp here long ago. He was disfigured and wore a Burt Reynolds mask all the time until the other children played a cruel trick on him. Years have passed, and you already know how the story is going to go…

Commentary

It’s another sendup of the Friday the 13th films, but this one is especially funny. It’s the same old story, but they’ve changed enough of the details to make it worth the watch.

2024 Short Film: Go Away Baby

* By Denman Hatch, Michael Malko, Michael Turnbull, Peter Hatch, Sam Sandman

* Stars Daniel Lewis Haug, Kayla Ironside

* Run Time: 3:32

* Watch it:

What Happens

A man tries to play video games, but a stupid baby doll keeps staring at him. He puts it in the next room, but it comes back. He drop-kicks it out of the door, but it always seems to return. How can he get rid of this thing?

Commentary

There’s almost no dialog here until the end, but it’s always clear what’s happening, although we don’t quite know why until the end. It’s well-shot and briskly paced. Very nice!

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This week, we’ll continue our marathon of all-new films.The latest installment in the ”Alien” franchise comes first, followed by the second “Beetlejuice” film. We’ll take a bad trip to a music festival in “Don’t Turn Out the Lights” and then wolf out in “Blackout.” Lastly, we’ll look at the new remake of “Speak No Evil,” and then you’ll find out what we loved and hated this week.  

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Mainstream Films:

Alien: Romulus (2024) 

* Directed by Fede Alvarez

* Written by Dan O’Bannon, Ronald Shusett, Fede Alvarez

* Stars Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaud

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 59 Minutes

* Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0XDEhP4MQs

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

We saw this at the theater and again at home, and we enjoyed it both times. It’s not a perfect movie if you think too deeply about the physics and some of the character choices, but it’s thoroughly entertaining. David Jonsson is especially good, giving us another view of one of the artificial humans who can actually be extremely human. If you’re a fan of the Alien movies, this is one of the better ones, and you should check it out.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a dark spaceship that suddenly wakes up, similarly to the ship in the first film. This automated ship has found the wreckage of the Nostromo, which was destroyed by Ripley at the end of the first movie. A chunk of material is brought aboard the ship, and then it continues on its journey as credits roll. The thing is cut open, and we see inside– the remains of an original alien xenomorph. 

Rain wakes up, it’s time for her shift on a Wayland-Yutani mining planet, Jackson’s Star, which gets no daylight, ever. She sits with Andy, who is a little slow; he knows all the bad jokes and puns. Rain goes into the office for her off-planet travel papers; she’s got her quota, but the clerk changes the rules on her. As she comes outside, she finds a bunch of punks beating up Andy, who is a slightly defective android, and she has to reboot him after he goes into a kind of seizure.

 Rain and Andy go to visit Tyler, Kay, Bjorn, and Navarro, who have detected an abandoned ship in orbit of their planet. Rather than wait for travel papers, they want to steal that ship, which probably has working cryo-units, and run away to another fully terraformed colony. They need Andy to access the system and get them inside the ship. It sounds like an easy plan; nothing can go wrong…

The group steals a shuttle and blasts off into orbit. Rain sees the sun for the first time. The derelict ship isn’t a ship, it’s a giant research station that’s slowly drifting into the planet’s rings; they’ve only got about 36 hours before the station is destroyed. 

As they dock with the big station, we see that Bjorn doesn’t like Andy or synths very much, but since they need Andy, he tolerates him. Those two, along with Tyler, board and explore the big space station, looking for cryo-pods which they will need to survive the long trip. They soon find five of the pods, but they don’t have enough juice to make the trip safely. Andy turns on the station power, oxygen, and gravity. Tyler thinks they can find more cryo-fuel on the next deck. 

Back on the shuttle, Kay, Tyler’s sister, admits that she’s pregnant. Navarro inspects the five cryo-pods that they’ve successfully stolen. The guys on the station hear a report that the Romulus/Remus station was built in two halves. Bjorn taunts Andy, saying he won’t be allowed on the new planet, so he can’t come with them. Andy isn’t happy about that, but his prime directive is to do what’s best for Rain. 

Tyler and his group find a research lab. There’s a giant acid-hole in the floor, along with about half of a dead synthetic. They find the cryo lab, which has all the fuel they’re going to need for their pods. There’s an accident, and the lab goes into emergency lockdown. Rain and Navarro head to the lab to let them out. We see, but they don’t, that there are many xenomorph facehuggers in the room, and some are warming up. 

They take the data module out of the dead synthetic and put it into Andy, which ought to upgrade his security clearance so that he can open the door. Andy reboots, which is going to take some time. Bjorn and Tyler realize that there’s something alive in the water they’re standing in. The facehuggers soon attack, but Andy wakes up in time to save them all by opening the door. 

They get out OK, but so do a whole bunch of facehuggers, one of which gets on Navaro’s face. Andy explains what the creature is doing; he seems a lot smarter since they upgraded his chip’s AI. Andy suggests reactivating the dead synth on the floor for answers. 

They plug it in, and we see that it’s Science Officer Rook, who looks exactly like Ash from the original film. Rook explains about the aliens, the seeds, and the chest-bursters. He says that they recovered the xenomorph’s body six months ago, which we saw in the opening, and have been experimenting on it ever since. Things got out of hand and killed everyone on the station. 

The group uses some cryo fuel to freeze the facehugger and free Navarro. Did they get it off in time? Rook says the odds are 60/40 against her and points out to Andy that he needs to take the logical course of action. Andy doesn’t want to let Navarro back on the ship, so Bjorn zaps him. Navarro and Bjorn try to steal their ship as Andy attempts to stop them. Kay wakes up and watches Navarro grab her chest. She kicks the throttle by accident, and the ship launches and crashes into the station at another point, doing some damage along the way.

Suddenly, the computer announces that they have 47 minutes until the station will hit the planetary rings; the crash has changed their orbit. They need to cross from the Remus side to the Romulus side, but there are facehuggers everywhere. Rook points out to Andy that he has a new directive thanks to that upgraded chip he got; to finish the company’s mission with the aliens. 

Andy tells the others that if they raise the ambient temperature, then the facehuggers won’t be able to see them. It works, but only barely. 

On the other ship, Kay and Bjorn hide from the little alien that came out of Navarro. They find some kind of biological pod stuck to the wall, and Bjorn shoots it full of electricity. That seems to kill the thing, but then it drips acid all over him. Then the pod gives birth to a fully grown version of the xenomorph. 

Kay escapes, but is knocked out. She hides from the monster just above her. Andy, Tyler, and Rain find her, but Andy refuses to open the airlock door to let her out; he sees the alien standing right behind Kay and knows they’ll all die if he opens the door. The creature gets Kay, and Rain and Tyler don’t take it well. 

Andy wants to finish Rook’s mission, and then Rook will let the other two escape. He opens up the Romulus lab, and they see black goo. Mankind is too fragile for space colonization, so Rook and the company discovered the black goo from “Prometheus,” the ultimate upgrade for humanity. “We cannot wait for evolution anymore,” explains Rook. Andy takes samples of the goo and arms the two humans with pulse rifles. 

The trio enter a corridor where the creatures have built a complex nest; this group has been active for a long while. They hear Kay moaning, and Tyler runs toward her. They cut her down, and Andy says she hasn’t been impregnated yet. She’s bleeding badly, and Andy says the only way to save her is to inject her with the goo. Rain doesn’t trust it, so they don’t inject her. 

Tyler is grabbed and killed by the aliens. Andy is also knocked out of commission, so Rain and Kay leave him behind. Rain goes back for Andy, but Kay continues on to their ship. As soon as Rain leaves, Kay injects herself with the black goo. Rook tells her to start the auto-launch sequence to get her and the goo samples back to the planet below. 

Rain finds Andy, removes Rook’s chip, and reboots him. Now, he’s just himself again. The aliens who killed Tyler return, and there are a lot of them; Rain has no choice but to turn off the gravity and machine gun them all. In zero gravity, the acid blood doesn’t eat through the floors, it just floats in puddles. Except now, they have to float through those puddles without touching them. 

The gravity comes back on while they’re in the elevator shaft, and the alien blood from the previous scene opens a hole that starts decompressing the station. Andy and Rain make it back to the ship, where Kay is waiting for them. 

The bottom of the ship starts dragging on the planetary rings, which starts grinding away the station like a giant strip of sandpaper. They launch their little ship just as the big station continues to grind into the icy rings of Jackson’s Star. Rain turns off the auto control, which Rook doesn’t like one bit but can’t do anything about. Rain says change of plans, they aren’t going back down to the mining colony, they’re going to the far away terraformed colony. 

Rain puts Kay and her baby into a cryo-pod. Rain then puts Andy into pause-mode for the trip, and tells him he’s going with her. And he has a new directive - do what’s best for her and him. Before she can inject the cryo-pods with fluid and put Kay under, Kay starts convulsing and suddenly goes full term with the baby, and it shoots out right in front of Rain’s eyes– is it some kind of egg? The egg opens, and it’s got a mostly human-looking baby inside. 

The acid on the egg makes it sink through the floor into the cargo bay. Rain goes down after it and soon sees that it’s gotten a lot bigger very quickly. Andy wakes up and sees the mess that’s left of Kay– and her vastly oversized baby. He unplugs himself to help. The new Prometheus-Human hybrid slashes Andy fatally and then goes to his mother for breastfeeding. 

Something goes wrong with the air in the ship, and Rain has to put on a spacesuit. She goes back down into the cargo bay and figures out the manual release catch just as the alien crawls in behind her. 

Rain kicks over the alien eggshell, which is still full of acid. It makes a hole in the ship, and both she and the alien are sucked outside. Luckily she hooked herself to cables. She manages to trip the final cargo-release catch and the whole cargo bay drops around her, and it breaks up in the ice rings along with the creature.

The autopilot kicks in, and the ship heads for the sunny world the group had planned to visit all along. Rain holds Andy’s brain chip and promises to repair him when they get there, and then she puts herself into cryo sleep. 

Brian’s Commentary

Why would anyone do anything with a jerk like Bjorn? A crackhead would be nicer and more reliable to work with than this guy. A lot of the tension of the film seems to come from the six cast members yelling over each other. 

This one takes place 20 years after the original “Alien” film, and 36 years before “Aliens.” A lot of the plot revolves around running from one place to another on the space station. It does nicely tie in the regular “Alien” films with the “Prometheus” stories with the black goo. 

The standout actor here is David Jonsson as Andy. Every mannerism is robotic and alien, when he’s simple-minded and then when he’s upgraded to genius-level, it all still works. 

Overall, it’s very good. I have a hard time believing that zero-g acid scene, but the rest mostly works for me. 

Kevin’s Commentary

I’d go as far as to say this is my third favorite of the Alien movies so far, after the original and the first sequel. I liked how heavy they were with practical effects, and they recreated a lot of the vibe and feel of the original. The recreation of Ian Holm from beyond the grave to reprise his role as a ruthless android looked a little funky, but I thought it was forgivable taking into account how severely damaged he was. Like Brian said, David Jonsson nailed it as the benign android Andy.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) 

* Directed by Tim Burton

* Written by Michael McDowell, Larry Wilson, Alfred Gough

* Stars Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 45 Minutes

* Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoZqL9N6Rx4

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

They brought back several of the main characters and introduced some new ones, which made a nice balance. Though Brian felt some of the extras weren’t really necessary. It was amusing how hard they worked to have Jeffrey Jones both return and not return for his role. They kept the look and feel of the first one, the same humor with a foundation of horror, and it’s very well made. You’ll probably enjoy it a little more if you’ve seen the first one first, but it’s not vital. We thought it was a fine sequel.

Spoilery Synopsis

We fly over a familiar-looking town with familiar-sounding music. We eventually zoom into a strange-looking house with a strange-looking woman looking out the window. It's Lydia, and she looks like an older version of the girl from the first film. Except now, she’s the host of “Ghost House” a psychic TV show where she investigates hauntings. In the middle of taping, she sees a flash of Beetlejuice; her producer, Rory, calls for a break. She’s on pills which she says she needs to suppress her visions of the dead, and he doesn’t like that– but he can live with it. 

Lydia gets a call from her mother, Delia, who is now a famous artist. She casually tells that Lydia’s father has just died. We get a claymation replay of the crash that killed Charles. Actually, it wasn’t the crash, it was the shark that got him. 

The artist that Delia has been working with has an accident and ends up in the afterlife. The janitor of the afterlife, who looks a lot like Danny Devito, has an accident that breaks open a box that contains Delores, a woman in many parts. She staples herself back together and then sucks out whatever’s inside the janitor. 

We cut to Astrid Deetz, away at school, who gets a very weird visit from Delia and Lydia. Back in the underworld, Bob wakes up Beetlejuice, who is still pining over Lydia. Wolf Jackson is an actor who played a detective in many films, and now he’s playing a cop in the afterlife. Wolf shows Beetlejuice a photo of the stapled-together woman. She’s out for revenge against Betelguese, “She’s a soul-sucker. She gets hands on you, and you're dead-dead.” 

We get a flashback to human Beetlejuice, a grave robber during the plague years, when he met Delores. The two got married, and they had an unusual relationship. She was the leader of a soul-sucking cult, and she and Beetlejuice killed each other. Now she’s back, and she’s out to get him. 

At Charles’s funeral, Lydia and Astrid talk about Astrid’s dead father. We see that Astrid doesn’t like Rory, who is weird and exploitative. Rory proposes to Lydia at the funeral; he wants to get married on Halloween, in just two days. He manipulates her into agreeing, which annoys Astrid and Delia. 

Astrid rides off in a huff on her bicycle, and is nearly killed six different ways. She eventually crashes in front of Jeremy, a nerd. She explains that she doesn’t believe in ghosts and all that stuff. She goes home with him and sees that he’s got a copy of “The Handbook for the Recently Deceased.” They make plans for Halloween. 

Beetlejuice has Bob dress up to look just like him, as a decoy. Bob’s shrunken head kind of gives it away. Beetlejuice reads in the paper that Lydia is getting married again, and he sees this as his chance. 

Astrid goes up to the attic and looks at the little toy town that Adam built many years ago. She finds an ad for the Bio-Exorcist, Betelgeuse. She’s up there to look through old photo albums with pictures of her dead father. Lydia comes up and tells her to never say that name three times. 

Lydia gets ads for Beetlejuice on her phone, so she goes upstairs and yells at the little town. Rory doesn’t understand, so she tells him the whole story. 

Not believing the story, Rory says the name three times, and they find themselves in the model. Beetlejuice is there, pretending to be a couples counselor. All of a sudden, Lydia has a baby 'Juice' crawling around. Lydia gets them home, and Rory thinks it was a dream. Lydia wants to leave town immediately, but Astrid wants to stay for Jeremy. 

It’s Halloween, and Astrid and Jeremy have their date. As they kiss, they levitate above the floor. “Don’t you know?” he asks. He’s a ghost, dead for 23 years, and she’s the first person that could see him he’s been able to talk to. He says he knows a way that he can come back to life. 

Lydia talks to the realtor about Astrid’s first date, and the woman talks about the murder house on that street. Yup– it’s the same house, where Jeremy killed his parents and was killed evading the police. This is not the story that Jeremy told Astrid. 

Jeremy opens a door to the underworld, and gets Astrid to read some words from the book. Lydia arrives and sees Jeremy’s dead parent ghosts. She arrives too late; Astrid has gone to the underworld with Jeremy. Meanwhile, Delia does a weird art ritual with snakes that aren’t as de-fanged as she thought. 

With no other options, Lydia calls Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice explains Jeremy’s plan to trade lives with Astrid. She agrees to marry him if he can save Astrid. He blows a hole in the walls of the underworld, and all the Bobs make their escape into the real world. Detective Wolf is on the case for the illegal entry of Lydia into the afterlife with a bunch of dead cops. 

Delia wakes up in the afterlife’s waiting room.  Astrid finds out she’s been tricked, and Jeremy finds his way outside. Astrid sees her dead father on the way to the Soul Train. 

Lydia and Beetlejuice look for the soul train as Delores looks for Beetlejuice. The soul train is literally THE Soul Train. 

Lydia and Astrid get away form the train, but they end up outside, in the desert on the moon of Saturn with the sandworms. They’re rescued by Richard, Asrid’s father and Lydia’s dead husband, who was obviously killed by piranhas. Meanwhile, Wolf interrogates Bob about his part in the operation. Bob isn’t talking. 

Delia gets tired of waiting in the waiting room and calls Beetlejuice to help her find Charles. Delores catches up with Bob, and he sure isn’t talking now. 

Beetlejuice tricks Jeremy, which helps Astrid get her life back and sends Jeremy away. Richard shows her and her mother to the door back home. Astrid apologizes for not believing her mother. They’ve gotten home just in time for her wedding with Rory. Delia and Beetlejuice show up as well. Who exactly is Lydia going to marry? Beetlejuice makes Rory tell Lydia the whole truth. Turns out he is truly an awful person.

The wedding begins, and it’s a big, romantic musical number. Meanwhile, Wolf and cops tumble out of the underworld and head for the church. They pose no threat to Beetlejuice, but then Delores shows up, and he’s less pleased with that. 

Lydia brings in a sandworm, who breaks into the church and eats both Rory and Delores. Astrid points out that the marriage contract with Beetlejuice and Lydia is null and void. She says his name, and he explodes. 

Wolf and the cops wake up and take Delia back to the underworld with them. She promises to find Charles and haunt her daughter. 

Lydia and Astrid hug; it’s been a long day for them. 

We cut back to Delia, who runs into Charles on the soul train. Lydia does a final episode of her Ghost show, and she’s not going to do any more. Astrid eventually marries a real human and gives birth to– Babyjuice! Wait– was that a dream?

Brian’s Commentary

They went to great lengths to write out Charles Deets as a character, so much so that it was a joke in itself. Adam and Barbara, also from the first movie, get a throwaway line about “moving on.” How does Winona Ryder look thirty years older, but Catherine O’Hara looks exactly the same as in the first film? Does Jenna Ortega play exactly the same character in every film she’s in? 

It’s still fun, but they have added a lot of stuff that they might have skipped. Delores and Wolf, for example. Beetlejuice himself is enough of a villain, they didn’t need to add more on top of him. 

The makeup, practical, and CGI effects are all top-level good stuff, and everything here is extremely visual. Overall, it was a very good and worthy sequel. 

Kevin’s Commentary

I liked this 90% as much as I liked the original. It’s very good, very well made. It was pretty funny how Jeffrey Jones was totally in the movie but not in the movie. If you enjoyed the original, you ought to like this one as well.

Don’t Turn Out the Lights (2024) 

* AKA “Blue Light”

* Directed by Andy Fickman

* Written by Andy Fickman

* Stars Bella DeLong, Amber Janea, Daryl Tofa

* Run Time:  1 Hour, 49 Minutes

* Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP6tPhUdN6M

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

An annoying group of young people run into dark forces that conspire to harsh on their buzz of good times on a road trip. It was hard to root for them, but we all got through it. As you might guess, not everyone makes it to the end of the movie. We’d say you should watch it to find out who, but we wouldn’t really recommend you do that. It was on the tedious side and generally not very good.

Spoilery Synopsis

Carrie talks to a creepy little girl in the park. She gets a jump scare from her friend Gaby. It’s Olivia’s birthday party, and Chris is there, stoned and ready for a good time. It’s six minutes in, and Kevin says he’s already hoping for all of them to die. When Sarah shows up, at Olivia’s invitation, Carrie wishes she would die, too. They’re all going away for the weekend together: “Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll” at the Blue Light Music Festival, which is only a ten-hour drive away! When Michael and Jason show up in an RV, they’re all set to go. Jason’s an ex-marine, and he seems way more serious than the others. 

They stop for gas at one of those creepy country stations. There are a couple of rude old white guys who pick on the girls. A scuffle breaks out, and Jason wipes the floor with them. This soon results in the RV being chased by the redneck’s semi truck. Carrie wants to call the police, but the others talk her out of it; there are too many drugs in the RV. 

They took a detour to lose the bad guys, so now they need to take an unplanned route to make up for the time lost. Carrie flirts with Jason afterward. They lose the GPS signal, so they have to guess at the route.

The group stops at a redneck bar to ask directions and Michael, who is black, stands out in the crowd. The bartender, Rusty, warns them to turn around and go the other way. “We’re closed,” he says in the crowded bar.  

They all get back into the RV and drive on until they hit something. Micheal admits that no one knows he “borrowed” the RV from his uncle. The RV is broken, but no one has a cell signal. Michael goes out to see what they hit, but there’s nothing out there. Something happens to Michael outside, and only Olivia sees what it was; she instantly goes into shock and passes out. 

They hear an animal making noises outside. Maybe– it also sounds vaguely human. Jason grabs a gun and goes out after Michael. Jason runs into something and the RV people hear shots being fired. They soon realize that something really nasty is right outside. Sarah tries to drive the RV away, but something is pulling it backwards. 

Gaby thinks maybe it’s Michael and Jason pranking them, but Carrie shoots that idea down. Maybe even Olivia’s in on it, since she’s the only one who saw anything. Sarah thinks this theory makes a lot of sense, but Carrie isn’t swayed so easily. They come up with a plan to expose Olivia, who may or may not really be passed out; she could be faking it. Their plan doesn’t rouse her. She’s not faking it. 

Something gets on the roof of the RV and makes a lot of noise. They finally decide to wake up Chris, but he’s clearly overdosed on something. He wakes up and says that he dreamed that Michael and Jason were dead. 

Could it be a bear? Could it be those evil truckers? Guys from the bar? Maybe Jason had crazy PTSD and snapped? There are many theories. Carrie, Gaby, and Sarah argue for about an hour. Suddenly, Olivia’s gone. Someone calls Olivia’s phone from Michael’s phone. 

They watch as Olivia walks around outside, but they can't get the door open. Olivia vanishes into the fog. The three girls inside can’t quite tell where Olivia is, so they argue some more. When Olivia disappears for good, the three argue some more. 

There’s a knock at the door and the lights blink. This causes more screaming. Gaby decides it’s a good time to get outside and go for help. She opens the door and they find remnants of what’s left of Olivia. This results in more arguing and blaming. Carrie and Sarah console each other after Gaby leaves– until the lights go out. 

Chris wakes up and wonders what’s been going on. He finds a book on demonology and Satanism. Michael’s uncle was apparently into some weird things. Chris says he can fix the RV if they can find some tools. As he and Carrie are outside fixing the engine, Sarah runs into some weirdness inside. 

Carrie goes back inside and gets stabbed by Sarah. Chris bangs on the door, and they don’t want to open it. Chris sees a car coming and thinks they’re being rescued; he is not, in fact, being rescued. He ends up quite dead. 

Sarah sees that Carrie has a pentagram tattooed on the back of her neck. Carrie runs outside as the RV basically “eats” Sarah. Carrie then runs through the woods as the sun comes up. She runs to a road and … vanishes. 

Brian’s Commentary

These people are loud, obnoxious, and scream entirely too much. This goes on for forty long minutes until they remember that this is a horror movie. The various characters are all stereotypical “types” straight from an 80s slasher film. 

There’s just way too much screaming. Not at a monster, but between the characters. Between the screaming and the loud jump-scare noises, this might be the most unnecessarily loud movie I’ve ever seen. 

This was really, really, really bad. 

Kevin’s Commentary

The characters were collectively on the wrong side of annoying, a trait that didn’t diminish much as they were picked off. It was too long before any action started. When it did start, it managed to seem on the tedious side. It was loud, not in a good way, and I didn’t care much for it.

Blackout (2024) 

* Directed by Larry Fessenden

* Written by Larry Fessenden

* Stars Alex Hurt, Addison Timlin, Motell Gyn Foster

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 44 Minutes

* Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxqeLCAWx7M

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

For being a werewolf movie, this didn’t have enough monster and action. A fortunate bright spot is Alex Hurt in the lead, who looks good in the role and does an excellent job with it. The script felt long and talky, a little too skewed to heavy on the drama. Kevin liked it more than Brian, the votes are a moderate thumbs up and a thumbs down.

Spoilery Synopsis

A couple is out for their anniversary, in a field under the full moon. He talks about feeling like a wild animal with her as they undress and go to it out in the middle of the field. Suddenly, they’re attacked by a werewolf. Credits roll. 

We cut to Charley, who is obviously an artist. He’s moving out of his motel room, and a woman says that they caught some Mexican who killed those kids out in the field. He seems to know otherwise. Credits roll. 

Charley confronts the mayor, Jack Hammond, about accusing Miguel of the murders; he’s just racist against Mexicans, even though he’s the one who hires them. Charley’s recently-deceased father was partnered with Jack in the controversial new Hilltop Resort project. 

Charley goes to Kate, a lawyer, with some of his father’s papers. He’s found some questionable things on the permits that Jack got to build the new resort. He wants to “bring down” Jack and his shady dealings. She points out that Jack’s daughter is also Charley’s ex, and he just might be holding a grudge. He stops in to see Sharon, and he wants to tell her he’s leaving town. He’s also brought her a painting, but she doesn’t put up with his crap.  He’s messed up inside, but she doesn’t know how to help him. 

On the way to Earl’s place, Charley stops for gas and notices the full moon is out. He drives on, getting more and more distracted as it starts to get dark. The car starts swerving as he panics and screams and grows big teeth. Yep– he is a werewolf, which was unsure up to this point. Two guys stop to help when Charley crashes his car; neither survive the encounter. 

As the Charley-wolf stalks through the woods, he passes various townspeople. In the morning, he wakes up in the woods, dirty and bloody. The police are already investigating the car crash and deaths. Officers Luis and Alice see similarities between this and the kids who got killed last month. 

As Charley walks back to town, he passes and has conversations with various people. He goes to see Miguel, the guy that Jack accused of murder in the newspaper. Miguel says he saw an “hombre lobo,” a wolfman. Then they talk about Jack Hammond, who is trying to cheat all the Mexican workers. We get a flashback to what Miguel saw. 

Charley gets a ride from the local pastor, who talks about all the rumors floating around town. They talk about Charley’s father and paintings. He eventually makes it to Earl’s house. Charley has instructed Earl to make him some actual silver bullets. “It’s very Lon Chaney.” 

Charley says this all started when his father died. He started drinking more as he found out that his father wasn’t especially ethical in his partnership with Hammond. We see flashbacks as Charley tells what happened. He can’t remember what actually did happen to him one night; he was injured in the woods, but then it healed so quickly. He soon felt himself transforming into a werewolf. 

It’s all very vague, and Charley doesn’t remember much, so Earl suggests it’s all just a delusion of some kind. 

Alice and Luis, the cops, know that Earl is close to Charley and decide to go there. They’re getting pressure from Hammond to arrest Miguel. They talk about the point of view of wolves and flies. They get far too philosophical. They wonder if Charley thinks he’s a werewolf. 

Charley and Earl load the gun with silver bullets and get ready for the full moon. They set up cameras to record what happens, and Charley makes a full confession. Charley changes in front of Earl. Luis breaks in and he and Earl shoot each other. Alice sees the werewolf, but she gets impaled on some artwork. Charleywolf runs off into the woods toward Sharon’s house. 

We cut to Sharon and her new boyfriend, Stuart, talking about Charley and her breakup. Then they talk about salad. And pasta. Charleywolf shows up and chases her around the house. He attacks her, but Luis and the other cops arrive and shoot Charley, who runs back into the woods.

In the morning, Charley wakes up. Luis watches the videos that Charley sent to Sharon’s phone. Jack and Sharon talk about what happened to her last night. Sharon goes to Earl’s house and gets one of the silver bullets. 

Charley calls Luis and keeps harping about arresting Miguel. The locals are also harassing Luis about the deaths last night, including Alice’s death. Luis tells the crowd about the werewolf, but they all just want the Mexican arrested, regardless of the facts. The preacher shows up and spouts cliches, which convinces nobody. 

Charley confronts Jack Hammond, and Jack says he’s gotten calls from Kate about legal issues. Jack takes Charley to Luis and the assembled locals at gunpoint. Charley locks himself into a cell with Hammon as the full moon rises. Charley changes and everyone sees the result. 

Charley gets out of the cell, walks through the crowd, out into the parking lot, where Sharon waits with her silver bullets. She shoots him twice, and he runs off yet again. As he walks through the woods, the gunshots take effect, and he turns human slowly. 

As the sun rises, the townspeople go out searching for him. 

Brian’s Commentary

There’s Charley, who mopes around town for an hour and half talking to various characters. There are also some scenes of a werewolf. There’s a lot more of one than the other. There are just far too many characters, and Charley seems to have to talk to all of them. 

The animated “painting-style” transformation scene was really interesting, but it’s only about thirty seconds long. The other creature effects are pretty good. The lead, Alex Hurt, as Charley, does a great job here, but most of the other actors didn't really jump out at me, even the recognizable ones. 

I’m not one to say every movie needs a car chase or a shootout, but this one was just far too talky, with no real action. Even the werewolf attacks are mostly just quick flashes; the editing here was very poor, from one scene of something that might be good to another interminable scene of dialogue. I think the problem here is that this isn’t a horror movie, not really. It’s a long drama with a werewolf in it. 

BORING!

Kevin’s Commentary

I wasn’t bored, but I think that it was too long in the drama and short in the werewolf goodness that one should expect from a werewolf movie. But there was enough to entertain me. Alex Hurt was good, and there were enough good elements to move things along. I liked it more than disliked it.

Speak No Evil (2024) 

* Directed by James Watkins

* Written by James Watkins, Christian Tafdrup, Mads Tafdrup

* Stars James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, Scoot McNairy

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 50 Minutes

* Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjzxI6uf8H8

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

After seeing the 2022 Danish version, we were skeptical that the script could work with a more western setting and characters, Americans and British. But they made a few tweaks here and there, and we thought it was pretty effective. We were surprisingly entertained by this. It’s suspenseful and fairly realistic, the cast is good, and we’d rate it a bit higher than the original. 

Spoilery Synopsis

Ben, Louise, and daughter Agnes are Americans on vacation in Italy. There’s an odd couple, Paddy and Ciara Feld, staying at the same resort. Agnes is eleven, but she’s also creepily attached to a stuffed rabbit toy that she’s in the habit of losing. Ben walks all over town looking for the rabbit, and he sees Paddy and Ciara everywhere; they look like a lot of fun. Their son Ant doesn’t speak. At dinner, Paddy mentions that he’s a doctor, and they all get to know each other. There’s an odd Danish couple there as well, and our group makes them really uncomfortable in a hilarious way. 

Back in London, after the vacation is over, Ben and the family get used to their new home. None of them really wanted to make the move to London, but work required it. They get a postcard from Paddy, inviting them to stay with them on their farm in Devon. It might be a good change of scenery, but a week with strangers? Louise thinks they should go, so they do. 

They arrive at Paddy and Ciara’s large farmhouse. Ciara shows everyone to their rooms, and Ant’s room looks a lot like a dungeon in the attic. Paddy is loud, charming, and lots of fun, in an overbearing kind of way. Ben is a lot more passive and worn down, and the difference between the two men soon becomes apparent. 

Louise is a vegetarian, but her hosts have made an elaborate goose dinner. Paddy pressures her into eating it. Whenever Ben is alone, Ant comes up and makes mouth noises, trying to tell him something, but since he’s got a deformed tongue, he can’t communicate. We soon see that their parenting styles are different; Ant is mostly ignored, while Agnes is babied and coddled. Still, maybe it’s because Paddy and Ciara are British; their ways are strange. 

The next day, they hike through the woods and swim in a cold lake. Louise isn’t happy with any of it, especially the stained bedsheets. “I don’t find them that pleasant to be around,” and wants to find an excuse to leave. 

For dinner, a strange foreign man comes over. He’s going to babysit the kids as the two couples go out for dinner. He’s strange, and he can’t speak English very well, definitely sketchy, but Ben and Louise go along with it. Ant tries really hard to tell Agnes that something is wrong, but he can’t talk and can’t write in English. Dinner out is nice, with Mike - a friend of Paddy’s - cooking, and the British couple mention that they’ve been together for seventeen years. Ben and Louise argue later about their own lack of sex and lack of mutual support. 

In the middle of the night, Louise goes looking for Agnes, whom she finds in the British couples’ bed. She gets Ben to pack up and leave right then. A mile away from the house, Agnes starts whining for Hoppy, the stuffed rabbit that she’s absurdly attached to yet can’t seem to keep track of. She goes into a full-on panic attack, so Ben gives in and turns around. 

Ben goes inside the farmhouse to get Hoppy and doesn’t return right away. Louise goes after him and finds Paddy and Ben arguing. They want to know why their guests were sneaking out in the middle of the night. There’s a lot of awkward excuses from both sides, and they end up staying. Ant does manage to write a note to Agnes, but it’s in Danish, and she can’t read it. Agnes knows that something’s not right with Ant, but Louise makes excuses for the weird little boy. 

Ben and Paddy go out into the country for some hunting and primal screaming. It comes up later that Paddy says he’s not a doctor; he was lying before. The truth is a lot sketchier than they were expecting– no, just joking, yes, he’s a doctor!  

Ant and Agnes do a dance they’ve been working on, and Paddy is very critical of Ant’s ability. This just gets more and more abusive and no one is happy afterward. Again, Louise wants to leave, but Ben warns that they’ve been drinking all afternoon, and it might not be a good time for a drive. Ciara warns that if they leave, Paddy might take out his anger on her. 

Ant steals some keys from drunk Paddy and takes Agnes to a secret basement storage room full of suitcases, shoes, and personal items. There’s also a scrapbook of Ant’s real family, and many other families. He points out the watch in the photo on his real dad’s wrist that’s now in Paddy’s large watch collection. It’s not super clear what’s going on, but Agnes figures out that Ant doesn’t really belong to Paddy and Ciara. Also, in one of the photos, Ant has a tongue that has since been cut out. He makes it clear that Agnes will be next. 

Paddy wakes up and apologizes for being rude. Agnes shows Louise photos on her phone of the secret room and tells her what she knows. They let Ben in on the information, so now all they need is an opportunity to leave. They make up an excuse to go, but then they find that they have a flat tire. 

Paddy insists that he can fix the flat, but then they spot Hoppy the rabbit up on the house’s roof. Ben climbs up after it, and it’s all very tense. They “save” Hoppy, and everyone says goodbye. 

Paddy says, “You’re still not being completely honest, are you?” Louise gives a long story about how she and Ben are getting a divorce and won’t be together much longer. The family drives away in the car, planning to come back for Ant. As they drive away, they see Paddy throw Ant into the lake to drown. Then they close the gate remotely; no one is leaving. 

As Ben swims to rescue Ant, Paddy gets Louise at gunpoint and makes her transfer all their money to their account. Mike will be coming to dispose of their car soon. “Why are you doing this?” “Because you let us.” Paddy gloats that Ciara was the first kid he kidnapped. Paddy gets ready to sedate Agnes before removing her tongue. Louise slashes Paddy with a box knife that she’d grabbed earlier, and the family escapes. 

Suddenly, Mike the chef arrives, shotgun in hand, and he forces them right back inside. Ben and Louise barricade themselves inside Paddy’s house and look around for stuff they can use to fight back. 

Mike climbs up onto the roof to get in through the gable window. Ciara comes in through the basement, and Paddy breaks down the door. It’s hide and seek time, and eventually, everyone fights. Mike is the first to die. Paddy gets blinded with drain cleanser, so that just leaves Ciara to kill her guests while he rinses his eyes out. She gets face-planted from the roof, so that takes us back to a really messed up Paddy who soon gets the drop on the others with his pistol. 

Agnes injects Paddy with the sedative he was going to use on her, and he’s down. Ben wants everyone to get into the car, but Ant picks up a brick and beats Paddy to death rather excessively. 

The four survivors drive away. 

Brian’s Commentary

This is an English language remake of “Speak No Evil” (2022). A lot of the original film dealt with Europeans being so polite and passive, and that’s not going to work with Americans and Brits, although Ben is especially wimpy. It still feeds heavily on awkwardness and being just uncomfortable. 

 It’s very similar to the original film, but they did change the last forty minutes or so. The Americans do eventually fight back, something the original Danish people never did. 

The acting is good all around, and it’s much more believable than I expected having seen the original. It’s pretty good!

Kevin’s Commentary

The changes they made to this version were pleasing, it really made it work. The passive nature of the Danish characters wouldn’t have been believable at all coming from Americans. I was dreading watching it a little, but I ended up enjoying it a lot. More so than the original.

Short Films:

Short Film: Code Red (2024) 

* Directed by Jack Albert

* Written by Jack Albert

* Stars Thomas Albert

* Run Time: 4:23

* Watch it:

What Happens

An injured scientist wakes up; he’s bleeding pretty badly. He hears gunfire, screams, and a roaring monster over the handheld radio. Then, he sees another scientist’s body being dragged away. He accidentally learns that water hurts the creature; how is he going to use that information?

Commentary

I’m not quite sure why the scientists have a locker full of glass water bottles, but I guess they have reasons. The creature design and effects are pretty cool and fit the look of the film perfectly. We don’t know what happened or why, but it’s a well-made scene from a larger story. 

It’s good!

Short Film: Grampy (2024) 

* Directed by Graham Burrell

* Written by Graham Burrell

* Stars Ralph Cashen, Gene Connelly, Kerry Gallagher, RJ Pennington

* Run Time: 14:15

* Watch it:

What Happens

Jenny and Cody talk over dinner after a grief counseling support group. Cody says he misses his grandfather; this was his house. “You’ll always have a part of him with you,” she says. He responds by agreeing; he’s had his grandfather stuffed, and he’s upstairs right now. Surprisingly enough, she finds this strange. Then we see Grampy, and suddenly, Jenny is ready to leave. Except there’s a crazy storm, and she gets to spend the night in the room with the creepy dead man. 

It just gets worse and worse…

Commentary

How bad could the storm have been to make her even consider staying? Something as mundane as taxidermy gets creepy when it’s someone you know. Still, that’s just the start of the weirdness here. 

The acting and cinematography are excellent, as is the sound. In this one, we eventually do get a full explanation of everything that’s going on, and that’s actually the best part. 

Short Film: Boogey Man (2024) 

* Directed by Valentin Lang

* Written by Valentin Lang, Seamus Quinn, Lincoln Vickery

* Stars Joshua Shediak, Libby Kay, Shannon Ryan

* Run Time: 10:00

* Watch it:

What Happens

Two lovers make out on the couch; she mentions that she’s caring for her roommate’s many plants and flowers. She stops in the middle of kissing to put plant food on one of the plants. While she gets that together, Josh picks his nose and wipes the booger on the plant. Then, she pours growth food all over that plant. 

What could go wrong?

Commentary

When the roommate gets home, she’s going to have a hard time explaining what happened…

It’s really well done, funny, well-paced, and it looks really good. The special effects and makeup effects are sharp, and although it’s definitely not a comedy, it doesn’t take itself too seriously. 

Short Film: Vonnis / Verdict (2024) 

* Directed by Walt Bladt

* Written by Walt Bladt

* Stars Joke Sluydts, Tibe Boone, Dimitri Duquennoy

* Run Time: 9:03

* Watch it:

What Happens

Linus lives alone on an old farm. He starts getting visits from his dead wife’s ghost, which brings up feelings of guilt and bad memories of her and a baby. He dreams of finding their corpses and then sees Diane looking healthy and whole again. Or is he really seeing her? Is she what she appears to be?

Commentary

It’s subtitled, but there’s not much dialogue, so don’t let that hold you back. 

I’m not clear on what happened to Diane and Zeger; it looks like their house burned down or something, but that wouldn’t have been Linus’s fault, so why the guilt? Probably just survivor’s guilt from the way it plays out. It’s good!

Short Film: Scary Story: The Girl in the Woods Who Never Left! (2024) 

* By “Fear Fusion”

* Stars Animated

* Run Time: 5:22

* Watch it:

What Happens

We’re told a story about a girl who saw a scary ghost. The ghost is terrible and terrifying and warns the girl to lock her door at night. Why would the ghost tell the girl how to avoid her? Maybe the ghost isn’t the girl’s biggest problem…

Brian’s Commentary

This came up in my YouTube feed, so I gave it a shot. We don’t normally pan indie films and short films, as they need to be held to a different standard than multimillion dollar blockbusters. Some of these films are done by a single person with zero budget. Still, WTF is this s**t? 

The story is formulaic and cliche. That’s not a killer in itself, as lots of horror stories are retellings and new imaginings of the same tropes. That’s not a deal breaker. 

The “animation” is basically a slideshow of images, some photographic (maybe?), and some done by AI. 

The narration appears to be done by computer voice, complete with bad English and typos. To make it worse, the bad English and typos appear on screen with the words being read highlighted– like karaoke. 

Many people see AI as the future of entertainment. Well, maybe, maybe not, but stuff like this shows just how lazy a filmmaker can get. I assume it's all just AI-generated garbage to "game" YouTube's algorith-- this must be a successful tactic, as it popped up in my feed along with many actually good short films. 

I mostly decided to feature this one just to troll Kevin. Let’s hear what he has to say…

Kevin’s Commentary

I couldn’t even finish this. AI should be used for things like detecting cancer and optimizing crop plans for farmers, not for creating things like this absolute garbage. It even looks like all the YouTube comments are generated by AI bots. This is the first time I’ve clicked on the thumbs-down on YouTube for one of the shorts we’ve reviewed, and I wish I could click it out of existence. It was a waste of the electricity required to create it.

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This week, we’ll continue our marathon of all-new films. We’ll start with the newest “Salem’s Lot” remake and then continue on with more vamps in “The Radleys.” We’ll check in on a cool Bigfoot massacre with “Feet of Death,” then experience a couple of really weird ones, “Cuckoo” and “The Blue Rose.”

Don’t miss out on our next members-only edition of the newsletter, coming toward the end of October. Paid subscription info can be found at https://www.horrorweekly.com/

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Mainstream Films:

Salem’s Lot (2024) 

* Directed by Gary Dauberman

* Written by Stephen King, Gary Dauberman

* Stars Lewis Pullman, Mackenzie Leigh, Jordan Preston Carter

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 53 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This was good, and true to the basics of the original story. It felt rushed though, with characters not getting fleshed out enough and leaping to conclusions too fast. It still entertained, but it felt abridged and would have been better if it was fleshed out more and longer. 

Spoilery Synopsis

We see shipping receipts and photos of large wooden boxes as credits roll. The trail of death leads to Jerusalem’s Lot, a town in Maine. We read about Barlow & Straker, a new antique store that is opening in town. 

Mr. Straker gives instructions to Mr. Snow about picking up a huge, valuable crate from the docks tonight. The old Marsden house is said to be haunted, and that’s where Staker wants the crate delivered. Snow and Hank unload the crate; Hank drops his end, which breaks the box open– it’s full of dirt. The moment they leave, the crate opens…

Ben Mears used to live in the area, and he’s come back for a visit; he’s an author, and the sheriff warns him not to cause any trouble. He walks through the town of Salem’s Lot and it’s all very quaint and retro. 

Ben goes to a realtor looking for a place to rent, and Susan and Larry say they will find him a place. Larry mentions that Straker, some kind of European, bought the old Marsden house. She’s reading Ben’s book but doesn’t recognize him. When the landlady finds out he’s a writer, she wants payment in advance. 

We cut to the schoolyard, where Ritchie the bully picks on a new kid, Mark, but the new kid isn’t putting up with it.  Young Danny and his brother Ralph are impressed with Mark’s courage. 

Susan, her mother, and the librarian talk about Ben Mears and the death of his parents. Susan’s not subtle about telling Ben where to meet her later. She does, in fact, find him at the drive-in theater. 

On the way home from Mark’s house, Danny and Ralph meet Mr. Staker, who is creepy. It gets dark, but the boys continue walking the shortcut through the woods. Ralph silently disappears. Straker drags Ralph home for a sacrifice to The Master. Barlow arrives on the scene, and he eats messily. 

Morning comes, and the sheriff lets Father Callahan out of the drunk tank. He suggests the father go see the Glicks– little Ralphie didn’t come home last night. 

One week later, Ben is part of a search party, but Ralph still isn’t showing up. One guy, Floyd, already hates Ben. Matt Burke, the schoolteacher, likes Ben’s books. Most of the locals suspect Ben was involved in the disappearance, but he has a perfect alibi, being with Susan. 

At night, Danny Glick goes outside and calls for his lost brother. Something grabs him, and before long, he’s sick with anemia. He wakes up later and drinks all the blood in his blood bag; he dies right afterward. After the funeral, Mike the gravedigger hears knocking coming from the coffin. He opens the coffin, but the kid is still dead. When he turns his back, the body is gone; then Danny bites him. 

Matt Burke goes to the bar and sees Mike, who looks really sick. He doesn’t remember much after the funeral. He invites Mike to spend the night at his house, and he wonders about the bite marks on Mike’s neck. Matt goes to see Ben and Susan; wants to borrow a cross. Matt tells them that Mike is a vampire, and they find that a little crazy, but they don’t argue. When they go into Mike’s room, they find Mike in there, dead. There are no marks on his neck. Dr. Cody holds off on her opinion, but she sees Matt carrying a big wooden cross. 

Young Mark wakes up in the middle of the night to find Danny floating outside his bedroom window– on the second floor. Danny hypnotizes Mark and makes him open the window. Mark picks up a cross and burns Danny till he leaves. He then reads about the rules for vampires in comic books. “I gotta kill Barlow!”

Meanwhile, Matt’s cross glows and lights up the room. Mike attacks him, clearly a vampire now. Matt revokes his invitation, and Mike gets sucked out the window. The doctor wonders what happened to Mike’s body and goes back to Matt’s house. 

Ben tells Dr. Cody, Ben, and Susan all about vampires. Dr. Cody, at least, shows some doubt. Ralph and Danny’s mother was killed last night in the same way, and Cody wants to see what happens to her when night falls. 

Meanwhile, Mark goes up to Straker and Barlow’s house and checks out their basement. Ben’s already there. Straker locks them inside. Barlow gets Matt, but someone grabs Mark from behind. 

At the morgue, Danny’s mother starts to wake up, not completely dead after all. Cody, Ben, and Sue make crosses out of tongue depressors. They’re very slow, and the doctor is bitten, but they beat the vampire. Cody takes a rabies vaccine shot, which she hopes will work and does seem to. 

Ben and the others go to Matt’s house and see vampires on the roof; afterward, they go see Father Callahan, the priest. At the vampire house, Mark kills Straker with a fireplace poker and runs off. Mark comes in and tells them what he knows about Matt and Straker. The whole group heads to Barlow’s house. Straker is killed by vampire Matt learns about sunlight and staking. 

Everyone splits up to rush to the church before the sun sets. Dr. Cody goes to the sheriff, and he seems to know all about Barlow and the vampires; he’s leaving town. Susan goes to her mother, and she’s been charmed by Barlow, and Susan ends up bitten. Mark and the Father try to convince Mark’s parent’s, which takes longer than it should. Mark soon loses both parents and the priest. Mark hides in his treehouse, which is swarmed by vampire minions. 

Ben carries Susan to the church where Dr. Cody says it’s too late. Susan goes full vamp and runs away. 

In the morning, the town is deserted, as everyone by our heroes have been converted. Ben finds a note that Mark intends to kill Barlow. Mark runs into Danny, and Danny runs right into a stake. Somehow, Ben figures out that everyone in town drove their cars to the drive-in theater and hid in the trunks of their cars (why???). As Cody is about to stake Susan, Susan’s mother shoots her; she’s the new Renfield-minion. Meanwhile, the sun is going down and the trunks are opening, one by one, in the shade of the big screen. 

Mark starts a car and knocks all the support pylons out from under the drive-in screen, knocking it over and killing a whole bunch of vampires by exposing them to sunlight. Mark then runs over Susan’s mother just because it’s satisfying, and she totally had it coming. They wonder where Barlow’s coffin might be, and they soon find it, right there at the drive-in in a bigger vehicle. They open the coffin just as the sun sets. 

Night falls, Barlow gets up, and Susan attacks Ben. Barlow chases Mark around the parking lot and under the collapsed screen. Ben stakes Susan and then catches up to finish off Barlow. 

Mark and ten-year-old Ben get in the car and leave town, which no one is going to find creepy later... 

Brian’s Commentary

It’s hard not to compare this with the original miniseries, which had nearly double the run-time.  There’s also a 2004 miniseries remake, which we have not seen yet. 

Matt is awfully quick to jump to the conclusion that it must be vampires, and Ben and Susan go right along with him with far too little skepticism. There’s simply not enough time for it here. It is very rushed, a very stripped-down version of the story with a much more action-packed finale. 

If  a plastic model of a cross and a wooden cross grow brightly in the presence of vampires that would easily remove all doubt in the supernatural. It’s too easy. If the minions keep telling their not-quite-victims about Barlow, well, that seems like a security risk for the vampire. How did the sheriff know all about Barlow? 

It looks good, has decent special effects, and the acting we get is fine, but it is too short for the material. There’s not much to any of the characters, and it’s all over too quickly. 

Kevin’s Commentary

This was an okay adaptation with some cool moments. But it was too abbreviated and rushed, it felt kind of chopped and jumpy, moving too fast without enough character depth. I thought the original miniseries was superior, and I’d recommend going with that one instead.

The Radleys (2024) 

* Directed by Europs Lyn

* Written by Talitha Stevenson, Jo Brand, Matt Haig

* Stars Kelly Madonald, Damian Lewis, Sophia Di Martino

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 55 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Someone used their imagination to say, what if we made a vampire story but made it so sunlight didn’t harm them. Damian Lewis was very good in the duel role, as was the rest of the cast. It’s billed as a horror comedy, and there certainly are some chuckles, but it’s heavier on the horror and grim elements with a hefty dose of family drama. We both thought it was very good, with Kevin putting it way up there in his approval.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a dog eating a rabbit. We cut to the suburbs, where the dog runs home. Rowan Radley introduces himself, his mother, Helen, and his vegan sister Clara to us. He admits that he’s a freak. It even says so on the side of his backpack. It’s Clara’s eighteenth birthday party, and she’s acting weird, looking pale and sickly. Family friend Lorna brings an extravagant dish for the party. Husband Peter is still inside shaving. Peter and Lorna make eyes through the window; yeah, she’s very interested in him. 

Evan is the new boy in town, and Clara and her friend Tilly like him; Rowan likes him more. The four go for a hike up to the ruins, where there’s another party in progress. When Tilly and Evan start kissing, Rowan wanders off and sulks. All of this is being watched by Jared, their nosy neighbor, and Evan’s dad, who has followed them. 

Obnoxious Stuart likes Clara and offers to walk her home through the woods. She… pukes on his shoes, and then he wants her to “make it up to me” as he starts to unbuckle his pants. She starts to run, and he gets all rapey. She tries to fight him off normally, but when that becomes impossible, she hurls him away with a burst of super strength, then sprouts fangs and bites him in the neck. Yep– she’s a vampire, and no longer a vegan. 

Clara calls her parents, who are able to track her down in the woods by scent alone. They all work together to haul away the body where they stash in the back of the car. When Rowan hears about it, he has no idea what’s going on– neither did Clara. “Are we adopted?” Asks Rowan. Helen and Peter decide that it’s time for “The Talk,” and no, they don’t discuss sex. The whole family are vampires. “We’re in recovery.  We’re what’s known as abstainers.” They regret not telling the kids sooner. When Clara went vegan, it made her compulsion worse so it took her over. 

Peter, who is a doctor, explains the rules of vampires to Rowan. Mirrors and daylight aren’t a problem; they lose some powers, such as mind control, if they don’t keep up eating human blood. There’s a whole website and chat forum devoted to their kind, an app too that Peter dismisses as pretty bad. Peter calls his brother, Will, later that night; he wants help with the kids and cleaning up the dead boy. 

The next morning, Clara isn’t nearly as pale and sickly, and she seems a lot happier. Though she is irked at the parents for not telling them about what they were sooner. Will shows up, driving a huge RV, and he’s a bit of a jerk. Helen seems to barely tolerate Will, but they do need his help. It’s a “thing” for abstainers to avoid all active vampires, so they’ve never even told the kids that they have an uncle. 

Will isn’t an abstainer, and he talks to Rowan about how wonderful his side of the argument is. Later, he’s the one who cuts up Stuart’s body and disposes of the evidence. 

Evan tells Clara about his father, who used to be a policeman. Jared has become obsessed with vampires, and he seems to think they’re everywhere after Evan’s mother disappeared. Evan knows that Clara has given up her veganism. 

Will talks to Helen about the good old days and how she’s changed. Rowan talks to Evan about how he feels, and Evan likes how he thinks. We cut to Jared, who’s putting together a “crazy wall” about Stuart’s case. 

Lorna comes to see Peter at work, and they “play doctor.” He withdraws three vials of blood from her, licking his lips the entire time. The police come to question Clara, and she’s not good at being interrogated. Helen begs Will to use his mind control on the two cops. Clara is really impressed with Will’s abilities when he easily convinces the cops that Clara had nothing to do with Stuart’s disappearance. 

Will takes Rowan to the local casino, where Rowan has a good time; Will uses mind control to cheat at cards and have a fun with human partiers. Rowan is also very impressed.

At home, Peter can’t help himself, and he gives in by drinking Lorna’s blood samples. When he wants to get frisky with Helen, he denies having drank blood. 

 Rowan sneaks some blood from a bottle in Will’s fridge the next morning– one bottle after another. He calls the 24-hour helpline from the website and asks about turning a human into a vampire. Will mentions that he’s the one who converted Helen; this is why she can’t be as close to Peter as she’d like. Will knows Peter’s been tasting blood, and he gloats about it. 

Evan finds Jared’s crazy wall of Radley vampire connections. Jared knows that Clara killed Stuart, but Evan thinks his father has gone insane. Rowan tells Evan that he loves him, and Evan is very agreeable. How much of that is Evan’s real feelings and how much is mind control influence?

Peter has always thought he’s the one who converted Helen. He knows that Helen doesn’t really desire him. She tells him that she faked it when he bit her; Will actually bit her first. 

Evan and Rowan go to the arcade as a date that evening, and Rowan struggles to control himself from biting Evan. He drops his bottle of blood on the floor in the bathroom and runs off.  

Will catches up with Evan and bites him at the arcade; Evan calls Jared who rushes right there to help his son. Meanwhile, Will and Rowan fight over what Will has done. Clara sees this and gets her parents to help. Peter and Will fight, and argue about who bit Helen first. Helen ends up staking Will with a “For Sale” sign. 

Jared calls the vampire helpline and begs for help saving his son. The operator reluctantly reveals that the only way to save Evan is to give him vampire blood. He drives to the Radley’s house and pleads with them. Evan realizes that his crazy father was right all along. Rowan gives Evan some of his own blood, and Evan wakes right up. 

The family gets together and burns Will’s body. Rowan and Evan are a couple now. Peter and Helen make up. At the end they drive away in Will’s RV camper. 

Brian’s Commentary

We see early on that really, no one here is happy except for Will, who knows and accepts exactly what he is. As the story progressed, we pretty much knew how it was going to go, just not with specifics. 

Damien Lewis as both Peter and Will is really good here, as are both the children’s actors. 

There aren’t a lot of surprises here, but we both thought it was really good. 

Kevin’s Commentary

Somehow, I managed to go into this completely blind, not seeing so much as the poster, synopsis, or a preview. It didn’t take me long to figure out they were vampires. It was interesting taking away the weakness of sunlight and mandatory daytime sleeping while keeping many of the other tropes. That opened up what they could do with the story. I thought it was great.

Feet of Death (2024) 

* Directed by James Chick

* Written by Ashley Chick, James Chick, Ryan Stahl

* Stars Andrew Jacob Brown, Jack Vanover, Benjamin Watts

* Run Time: 1 hour 46 minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Like the real Bigfoot, sightings of the creature are scant in this movie. But it’s got a good cast, an interesting script, and excellent cinematography in a beautiful setting. We thought it was a lot of fun in a horror movie kind of way.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a hiker in the woods. She comes to a specific spot and finds a man’s body, torn open by a wild animal. Credits roll. 

We cut to Chris Dixon, who runs a YouTube channel where he investigates unexplained murders. He’s in the Pacific Northwest, investigating one series of ten strange murders. He shows us a map of the crimes along with Bigfoot sightings; could they be linked?

Al wakes up Jason, who’s drunk again. There’s been another attack. They’re both in the U.S. Forest Service, and it’s up to Jason to deal with it. Jason’s not over having his wife mauled by a bear, so he’s not excited to check out this attack. Al is a good boss, and he’s sending Jason out there as a sort of therapy. 

Chris interviews Evan, a local girl in a store, but she doesn’t know anything. “Some of the attacks were from cougars, and some of them were from black bears,” is all she can say. “Bigfoot is kinda our town mascot. No one in our town actually believes Bigfoot exists, and if he did, he wouldn’t go around killing people. Sounds like a bad horror movie to me.” Henry, a man in the parking lot, does think it’s Bigfoot. 

 The sheriff, Ken Clark, is investigating the dead body in the woods when Jason arrives. It could be a bear attack, but the claw marks don’t look quite right. Mary is the girl who found the body, and she’s still there, a nature photographer.  

Chris records a video explaining more of the situation and one of the previous deaths. He manages to scare himself at night. 

We cut back to Jason, who hears about Chris being killed by a bear in the woods; he’s the body they found earlier. He argues with Ken about getting a coroner’s report on the body, but Clark isn’t cooperative. When he looks at crime scene photos, he spots one of Chris’s trail cameras. 

Chris, on video, explains that Bigfoot is smart enough to mimic other animals when he attacks people, which is why it always looks like a bear or cougar attack. Chris sets up his tent and trail cams. 

Jason gets a call from Ken Clark; they’ve arrested Mary, who, it turns out, has been stalking Chris for months. Chris was working on getting a restraining order against her. In the interrogation room, it becomes obvious to Jason that she’s a little looney, but probably not the killer. Ken, on the other hand, just wants to arrest her for murder. 

Jason watches the video from the trail cam and takes it to Ken. It clearly shows Bigfoot killing Chris. We then see the attack from Chris’s point of view, and we watch as Bigfoot steals Chris’s other camera. Jason doesn’t think it was Bigfoot, but Ken is right on board with the cryptid explanation. The two go to talk to Henry, one of the people Chris interviewed earlier– and a self-proclaimed Bigfoot expert. Henry shows them a tape from back in ‘86, and it’s what convinced him that Bigfoot is real. Jason says it looks like all the other fake Bigfoot videos. 

The two go to the coroner’s office, and she says it doesn’t look like a black bear attacked Chris. She found Mary’s DNA on Chris’s lips; she kissed the body after he was dead. She also found moose hairs in the wound, but there aren’t any moose around there. 

Ken gets a bunch of guys together, they have three days to search the woods and local lava tubes. Jason has it all very well planned and organized, and the group splits up to search. Jason and Al work together on this one and they talk about their dead wives. There are a lot of caves, so the two split up. 

After a lot of cave exploring, Jason comes out of his cave, but Al never shows up. The sound from the radios makes it fairly easy for Jason to track where Al’s radio is. Jason finds Al’s radio, covered in blood. Jason calls Ken, who wants him to return to the station and regroup. It’s getting dark, so Jason has no real choice. 

Jason and Ken go back to Henry’s place for more information. He’s not home, so they look around. Inside a shed, they find a map and… a Bigfoot costume. Henry locks them inside the shed. They get out, but Henry chloroforms Jason and shoots Ken. 

Jason awakens tied up in a cave with “Bigfoot” in front of him. Henry takes off the mask and laughs. There’s roaring coming from the lower caves. It turns out that Henry has found a real Bigfoot– a whole family of them. Jason asks Henry if Henry killed his wife, and he admits it. Jason watches as Ken’s body gets dragged away. 

Jason gets out of the rope and makes a run for it through the woods, with Bigfoot right on his heels. There’s a bit of cat-and-mouse in the woods as Bigfoot hunts him, but with the help of Al’s backpack, Jason improvises an explosive which disables the creature. Before Jason can finish off Bigfoot, Henry attacks from behind, and the two men fight. Jason beats Henry, but then Bigfoot confronts both of them. It ends poorly for Jason with a crunchy looking throw against a tree.

Henry leaves his cabin in the morning and reads about Ken and Jason, who are still missing… 

Brian’s Commentary

It’s very low budget, and the Bigfoot looks really cheesy. Still, the characters and actors are engaging and interesting, and as the investigation expands, we are drawn right in. The scenic locations help a lot too; wherever this was filmed was very cool. 

I thought it was very creative, had a few twists, and was overall fun. There’s not a lot of “creature” here, but what we get is good. 

Kevin’s Commentary

This wasn’t what I expected, and that’s a good thing. Andrew Jacob Brown was great in the lead, and it was a fine movie around him. I was thoroughly entertained.

Cuckoo (2024) 

* Directed by Tilman Singer

* Written by Tilman Singer

* Stars Hunter Schafer, Jan Bluhardt, Marton Csokas

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 42 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This is very strange and well done. It goes so long keeping us interested and baffled, then the ending mostly explains things and wraps up. Dan Stevens stands out as whacko here, but the whole cast is good. We really liked it. 

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a screaming fight between two people downstairs as a younger girl listens from upstairs. She runs off into the woods to get away from her parents. The man inside gets a very strange call about his “adolescent” going missing. Credits roll. 

We cut to the Bavarian Alps. Herr King welcomes Gretchen and her odd family, Beth, Alma, and Luis. Most of them don’t speak German, and Alma doesn’t speak at all, which is inconvenient. The neighbor, Dr. Bonomo, introduces herself. Konig is all touchy and creepy, and he offers to let Gretchen work at his new resort. Her father is against the idea, but Gretchen wants to make money to fly home, so she accepts. 

At her new job, Gretchen isn’t particularly interested, and her co-worker is weird. Gretchen watches as Alma has some kind of seizure that gets odd. Beatrix, the coworker, leaves Gretchen in charge and goes on a date. An odd woman named Ed comes in to rent a room and flirts with Gretchen. As they talk, an even stranger woman in a robe comes in and pukes all over.  Konig calls and tells her to lock all the doors right now. For some reason, he does not want her to ride home on her bike, but she does anyway. 

Konig shows up at the resort and starts playing a flute. Meanwhile, someone is chasing Gretchen on foot and keeping up pretty well. The strange woman chases her until she goes into an emergency room. The police think she’s been pranked. Her family is already there; Alma had another seizure. Dr. Bonomo is there, and she says she’ll get to the bottom of it. It might be due to Gretchen moving in with them. 

A police detective comes to see Gretchen at work the next morning. Ed stops in to check out of her room and they soon end up checking out each other. Gretchen then clears out the register and the two go on a road trip to Paris. For the second time, we get a strange time-slip where things repeat themselves. 

Then the car crashes. The crazy woman from the night before yanks Ed out of the car and throws her far away. Before she can reach Gretchen, we hear gunshots. Gretchen then wakes up in the hospital. Konig is there, and he warns her to stay home, and mentions her being stuck in a loop. Gretchen wants her father to stay in the room and watch out for the woman, but he clearly favors Alma. No one is particularly sympathetic to her since she stole money and ran away. 

The detective returns, and says he saw the woman; he’s the one who got Grtechen out of the car, and he says she’s come after Gretchen again. He swears her to secrecy about his investigation. The pair stake out one of the bungalows at the resort, where Beatrix and her boyfriend, Erik, are doing something they shouldn’t be. The weird time warping begins again, and that crazy woman shows up. Detective Lando shoots at her, but she escapes. 

Gretchen seems to think Konig is in on the conspiracy and confronts him about why they are here. “You are here because your family belongs here.” Gretchen gets a box of stuff from her mother’s estate. Yes, her mother has died, which is why she’s here. There’s an answering machine that has all Gretchen’s phone messages on it, along with one from Alma’s voice synthesizer; maybe she’s not so bad after all. 

Konig offers to give Gretchen money and drive her to the station, but first she needs to write a note for her family. They talk about cuckoos, since he has a picture of one in his car. When they get to his house, he has the detective tied up and tortured. He’s not a policeman anymore, since he was investigating a case he was personally involved in. Then Konig sedates Gretchen. 

Meanwhile, at the hospital, Luis and Beth watch as Dr. Bonomo does many tests on Alma’s brain. 

When she wakes up, she sees the crazy woman approaching her open door, and time starts pulsing again. He talks about an ancient creature that he’s been keeping alive. Suddenly, Lando breaks in and shoots Konig and the crazy woman. At the same time, Beth, back at the hospital, also has a seizure. 

“I think they impregnate women at the resort,” Lando explains. He also explains about cuckoos, which lay eggs and then let other birds raise their offspring. Suddenly, Gretchen vomits all over; she’s been impregnated as well. He learns that Luis and Beth spent their honeymoon here– Alma is one of the creatures. 

At the hospital, Dr. Bonomo knows all about it, and she’s been studying the creatures. “Brood parasites implant eggs,” Lando tells Gretchen. Konig interrupts the experiment; he’s obviously not dead. He kills Bonomo and her assistant. Lando turns on Gretchen and she stabs him pretty badly. 

Gretchen wakes up Alma to break her out of the hospital. The original crazy woman with the red eyes approaches Alma, and Gretchen holds her at bay. The hooded woman chases Gretchen around a storeroom, and her sonic scream can only be blocked by headphones. Lando staggers in, not dead, and trades gunfire with Konig. 

Gretchen lets the screaming hooded woman come close, and then stabs her in the neck. Konig explains Gretchen’s place in the experiment, but she demonstrates that she’s killed the mother. 

Gretchen and Alma have a silent conversation, and they’re friends now. Gretchen, Alma, Lando, and Konig argue about what Alma is and how she’ll grow up. Alma puts her hands over Gretchen’s ears and then she does the scream, which allows them to escape the two men. They run into Ed in the parking lot, and she drives them away…

Brian’s Commentary

Dan Stevens is always great, and he’s at his “peak freak” here. This story is crazy; I had absolutely no idea what was going on well into it. It’s not surreal or disjointed, it’s just completely unpredictable and offbeat, which I really liked. We mostly learn what’s actually going on about a half-hour before the end, and by that time, we were hooked. 

This one is just crazy weird. Liked it!

Kevin’s Commentary

I thought it was a great script and well executed. It took such a long time to explain things, but it was worth the wait. I was entertained getting there. Like Brian said, it’s crazy weird.

The Blue Rose (2024) 

* Directed by George Baron

* Written by George Baron

* Stars Olivia Scott Welch, George Baron, Danielle Bisutti, Ray Wise

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 43 Minutes

* Trailer:

*

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Every step of this was hyper-retro, strange, brightly colored, noir, and dream-like. There is a story there that gets a little muddled in the weirdness, especially in the final act. George Baron, only in his late teens, carries the load as writer, director, and lead actor, which in total is pretty impressive. We thought it was visually cool and at least interesting throughout. It’s a moderate thumbs up from us.

Spoilery Synopsis

After some very non-horrific credits, we open on a woman on stage putting dirt in a flower pot. She waters the pot with blood and a blue rose grows instantly. 

We cut to a woman in the 50s baking pies for all her neighbors and her husband. As a sort of dance without dialogue, her relationship is unhappy. Then the husband beats her up, so she cuts him up like a pie. Sophie then goes to a party and brings pie. 

Detectives Lilly and Dalton are assigned to solve a homicide. Sophie’s husband has been murdered, cut up like a pie, that happened in the opening scene. Sophie is missing, presumed kidnapped. At the murder house, they find blue roses growing in the front yard. No, they’re white roses with paint on them. 

Sophie’s sister, Norma, is very rich and very famous, so they go visit her. Norma offers them tea and cookies, and servant Kiyo brings them. Norma tells the story of how Sophie killed and dismembered her pet cockatiel. And what she did to the piano teacher– but we don’t hear that story. On the way out, Kiyo slips Dalton a note: “Help Me!”

Mr. Vallens, the chief of detectives, chews out the two detectives for not rescuing Kiyo. Dalton complains that they aren’t allowed to carry guns. And they have a pink convertible instead of a proper police car. Vallens is Dalton’s father, and they clearly don’t get along. 

We cut to a lounge singer, singing to an audience where everyone wears masks. The detectives show up and talk about Catherine, the singer. Lilly is enthralled with Catherine until her eyes bleed, but Dalton just wants to question her. This soon results in a car chase, but Catherine drops a diamond out the window which punctures Lilly’s tire. Suddenly, they are approached by a bed rolling down the street. A strange bald woman with glowing eyes floats out of the bed, and the two detectives drive away to escape. 

Back at Norma’s house, Norma confronts Kiyo about her note and then poisons her. Dalton and Lilly go to Catherine’s hotel; she had been having an affair with Harold, the dead man. They all go back to her room and drink lots of champagne with cake. They talk interminably, but then end up doing tarot cards for some reason. How is this scene going to end? Suddenly, men in rabbit gas masks break down the door, drop a gas bomb in the room, and carry them all away. 

We cut to a dream sequence with Norma and Sophie painting a blue triangle. Catherine drinks milk as Dalton has seizures. Lilly relives her mother’s suicide, but this time, Sophie helps. Things get weird in the dream, with all the characters changing places. Norma and Sophie painfully dismember a bird before chasing Lilly around the house with a knife. Dalton dreams of a domestic life with an incessantly crying baby. They both finally die in their dreams. 

The two detectives wake up outside a mental hospital. Kiyo is there, and she tries to lead Lilly outside. It’s still all very dreamy and surreal. Sophie says they’re in Purgatory. Meanwhile Dalton is in a cell conversing with a female version of himself. Lilly tells Sophie that they are in the real world, and that it was Norma who made Sophie a killer. Sophie flips out and stabs Lilly a thousand times.

We wrap up with Catherine on stage singing. No wait, that’s not Catherine, it’s Dalton in drag.

Brian’s Commentary

I mentally alternated throughout the entire film between “this is neat” and “this is dreck.” It is a very uneven film. 

I said in the very first scene that the director was trying to “do David Lynch,” but I had no idea how right I could be. It’s so “Twin Peaks-y” that they even hired Ray Wise for a part. There are references here to “Blue Velvet,” “Mulholland Drive,” and even “Eraserhead.” It’s beyond homage and well into copycat territory, at least visually. 

It is a very visual, very good-looking film, with lots of colors and things to see. It’s very obviously not a low-budget film, or at least it doesn’t give that impression. It’s full of unusual, weird characters. 

From the first scene with the two detectives, I was already complaining about their acting and weird line delivery. Before long, it became clear that everyone was acting that stiffly, so it must have been a directorial choice for weirdness’ sake. The whole thing is a sort of send-up or parody of detective movies. 

It’s written, directed, and stars George Baron. He has some good ideas, but he really needed someone to reign him in a bit… or a lot. 

It started out OK, but there’s just too much weirdness and dream-stuff in the middle. Most of the story makes no real sense at all and the actual plot sorta vanishes halfway in. The best part of the film was when it finally ended. I love David Lynch films, but this was too much, for too long. 

Kevin’s Commentary

It was almost too strange at some points, but overall I enjoyed it. The story itself is a little thin, but the visuals more than made up for it. I’ve seen reviews that criticize the acting, but I got the impression that it was deliberate. Nothing about it is quite natural, and it’s consistent throughout. I enjoyed it right up to the ending that made me scratch my head a bit. It will be interesting to see what young George Baron comes up with in the future.

Short Films:

Short Film: Gummy (2024) 

* Directed by Sasha Aubort

* Written by Sasha Aubort

* Stars Tegan Braithwaite, Dirk Hunter, Lola Bond

* Run Time: 13:05

* Watch it:

What Happens

A woman watches a movie and plays with her teeth while she watches. 

We cut to the dental school, where Prudence is a student. Her father calls in the middle of practicing; he’s bossy and manipulative. “My dad’s a bit weird,” she explains to her friend. 

It's very awkward when the friend comes over for dinner, as she’s sitting in Dad’s chair. They insist she wears a bib for her soup; there is a great deal of slurping.  Prudence is obsessed with her teeth, and her father is even weirder, which soon becomes apparent. After her friend storms out, Prudence pulls out one of her own teeth. 

Commentary

Well, that was fun…? 

Insanity, abuse, body horror, family drama… what more could you want for 13 minutes? 

It’s sharp, looks good, and is very, very weird. It’s about abuse… I think, but there’s also a lot more going on here. It’s certainly going to be the weirdest short of the week!

Short Film: Norma (2024) 

* Directed by John Draekul

* Written by Maurice Winsell

* Stars Brittany Myra Smith, Maurice Winsell

* Run Time: 4:50

* Watch it:

What Happens

Tony wakes up tied to a bed. A woman says she thought she had accidentally killed him. He doesn’t know who she is until she speaks. We get a flashback to her being a telemarketer and him not being interested. He got excessively rude and hung up on her. 

Now, tied to the bed, Norma makes Tony learn that he just wasn’t raised right. But maybe she can fix that…

Commentary

Well, that got serious quickly. Does it make me want to talk to telemarketers? 

No, I’ll take my chances. 

It’s short, but it’s clear what’s going on, it looks good, the acting is fine, and it’s a more-or-less believable situation. Nice!

Short Film: Hush (2024) 

* Directed by CJ Scott

* Written by CJ Scott

* Stars Justace Kataryne, Addison Roden, Zak Vangalder

* Run Time: 12:53

* Watch it:

What Happens

Al gives Amanda some extra hours at the library, restocking books in the basement. “Call me first if anything happens; we wouldn’t want to get the cops involved.” Al is very flirty, but Amanda doesn’t bite. She soon gets to work shelving and sorting books. Suddenly, she meets Nicole, a strange, purple-haired goth woman who seems very protective of her workspace. 

After a while, a book falls off the shelf on its own– twice. Could there be a ghost in the library basement? Nicole is mean at first, but after a bit, the two become friends. 

Commentary

This was filmed entirely at the Amarillo Library, which is interesting. It’s very bright and clear, which is a nice change to a lot of other horror films. Even when the lights go out, they find a creative way for us to see the action. 

The ending wasn’t really a big surprise, but this one could have used some more explanation. Why is Nicole there? Is she protecting Amanda? From what? 

Short Film: Death and the Lady: When the Grim Reaper Knocks (2023) 

* Directed by Geoff Bailey, Lucy York Struever

* Written by Lucy York Struever, Geoff Bailey

* Stars Animated

* Run Time: 8:11

* Watch it:

What Happens

An old woman sits and knits as her cats and dog sit by the fire.  She puts on a record and gets back to work. Jackson, the old dog, starts howling– at the music? No, there’s a knock at the door. 

The old woman opens the door, and outside is Death, dripping wet from the rain outside. She invites him in and offers him tea. The dog barks at the scary visitor, but the old lady is very friendly. The dog seems to know what’s going on, but the woman is oblivious. 

How is this going to end?

Commentary

The animation here is excellent. The dog knows what’s up; the cats don’t care. Still, sometimes not everything is as it seems– it’s worse. I did not see that coming!

Short Film: The Mirror (2024) 

* By Hamridreza Haidan, Ramin Abdollah

* Run Time: 3:27

* Watch it:

What Happens

A man finds a locked cabinet, but when he opens it, he finds a filthy old antique mirror inside. He cleans it up and it doesn’t look so bad anymore. 

When he looks into the mirror, he notices a smudge on the glass. He also sees that he’s cut himself on the forehead. He patches himself up but then sees more marks on the mirror– and suddenly wounds on his hands. 

How far will this go?

Commentary

You’d think he would have simply gotten rid of the mirror or put it back in the locked storage place. No, that would be too easy. It’s a story about a cursed object– we don’t know why, but we don’t really need to know. It’s just interesting seeing how the mirror does its thing. 

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Just a quick reminder that we’ve launched our companion podcast/newsletter, “Classics Weekly,” a brand-new Podcast/Newsletter devoted to classic films. Our second episode, devoted to “Singin’ in the Rain,” launched this week. It’s very similar in format to Horror Weekly, but since it’s only one film each week, we can go more in-depth with trivia and commentary. The third episode, “The Jazz Singer (1929),” comes out next week, with many more to follow, Sign up for the newsletter or subscribe to the podcast at

https://www.classicsweekly.com

In addition, the latest issue of Horror Monthly is now on sale. Check out

https://horrormonthly.com

for links to pick it up in print or as an eBook. This month includes all the usual reviews, 37 films’ worth, as well as a retrospective on the five original “Planet of the Apes” films PLUS a short story!

But this week, we’ll watch another batch of all-new films. We’ll start with the latest entry in the VHS anthology series, “VHS Beyond.” We’ll get all sexy with “Strange Darling,” get pregnant with “Apartment 7A,” and then avoid the kids in “Children of the Pines.” Lastly, we’ll have a fun little road trip with “Blood Star.” Of course, we’ll also squeeze in a few short films. 

Don’t miss out on our next members-only edition of the newsletter, coming toward the end of October. Paid subscription info can be found at https://www.horrorweekly.com/

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Indie Films:

Blood Star (2024)

●         Directed by Lawrence Jacomelli

●         Written by Lawrence Jacomelli, George Kelly, Victoria Hinks Taylor

●         Stars Britni Camacho, John Schwab, Sydney Brumfield

●         Run Time: 1 Hour, 37 Minutes

●         Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Between the hints in the trailer, poster, and opening scene, we had a general idea where things were going to go. But we didn’t know how it was going to go, and the ride along the way was a wild one. This was really well made with a well-written suspenseful and script interesting characters. We liked it a lot.

Spoilery Synopsis

A woman staggers down the desert road, bleeding and crying as the car slowly approaches her from behind. A man we don’t see gets out of the car, and the girl is clearly terrified of him. He drops a gun and one bullet, then goes back to the car. She ineffectively shoots at him as he runs her over. Credits roll.

Bobbie drives down the empty desert highway and gets a phone call from her sister, warning her not to go home to her abusive guy. She stops in at a “last chance” gas station for a refill. The sheriff overhears her arguing on the phone and strikes up a conversation about the call. He points out that her tires are worn out; he’s a little creepy, but she deals with it.

Back on the road, Bobbie takes another call from her sister, and she gets a little upset and floors it. There’s a speed trap, and she zooms right past it. The cop who pulls her over is the same guy as before. This time, she flirts with him; he accuses her of throwing something out of her window that smashed his light bar. He gives her a ticket for $1000, which she cannot afford. He wants $300 to make it go away, which she can afford, sorta, but she needs to go back to the gas station ATM. He wants to hold on to her phone to make sure she follows through.

The gas station doesn’t have a working ATM after all. Her credit card is overdrawn; her boyfriend has cleaned out her account. Blake, the gas station guy, hints that Sheriff Bilstein does this kind of thing all the time. She decides to drive on without her phone.

Meanwhile, the sheriff has Bobbie’s phone, which just keeps ringing. He turns it off and throws it in a box with a bunch of others. He gets out a sniper rifle and shoots out Bobbie’s brake light. He then chases her down and arrests her. He lets her go and mentions an ATM at the diner down the street. This time, he also keeps her license. As she drives away, he shoots out her tire, and she crashes.

When the sheriff drives the opposite direction, Bobbie makes a run for it down the road. She soon learns why they call it “the desert”: It’s hot, sunny, and no one else is there. She eventually makes it ten miles to the diner. She calls her boyfriend, Rhett, who accuses her of flirting with the cop in the first place, because the sheriff answered her phone. She hangs up on him.

As Bobbie waits for a coffee at the diner, the sheriff pulls up out front. He’s had her car towed, and he’s standing right next to it. She calls 911 and reports that the gas station up the road is being robbed. The sheriff gets notified on the police radio, since he is 911, and has no choice but to follow up on the call.

She goes out to the car, but it’s got a new tire and brake light. The sheriff returns, oddly nice this time, and gives her her keys and phone back. He’s clearly playing some kind of game with her, but she gets back in the car and drives off.

While in the diner, Bobbie stole some guy’s change, and Amy the waitress gets fired for it. Bobbie offers Amy a ride home. Amy talks about her childhood as a heroin addict; and they bond over their abusive lives. Bobbie realizes her sister was protecting her from her abusive father for years growing up, and she hadn’t realized until hearing Amy’s story. Bobbie tells her what the sheriff did, and none of it surprises Amy. Suddenly, Amy’s head explodes; she’s been shot.

Sheriff Bilstein rear-ends her car. She stops and enlists a truck driver for help, but the sheriff shoots the guy. Bobbie drives off again, but as night falls, her car overheats. She hides her car at the junkyard and waits. Ed, the simple-minded guy who works there, finds her and seems to befriend her. He’s going to call his boss. Who turns out to be the sheriff. This is where the sheriff hides the cars of his victims, and there’s a whole wall of license plates and driver’s licenses. Ed knocks her out.

Bobbie wakes up tied to a chair. Ed and the sheriff tell their story; they’re just one step removed from the Texas Chainsaw family. They are brothers, their mom was awful, and the sheriff has some serious issues with women. They cut out her tongue, and she passes out again.

When she wakes up, Bobbie’s untied and finds a knife in the sink. She runs outside, but it’s clear that Ed and the sheriff were expecting it; that’s part of their game.

Just like in the opening sequence, Bobbie staggers down the desert road, bleeding and crying as the car slowly approaches her from behind. The sheriff gets out of the car, and Bobbie is clearly terrified of him. He drops a gun and one bullet, then goes back to the car…

She shoots herself in the head, which ruins his game. In the distance and the shadowy light, she managed to fake it, and when he approaches, she stabs him and steals his car. He catches her and starts to strangle her, but she whacks him and drives off. When he gets up, she turns the car around. He pulls out his pistol and the tables are turned as he shoots as she runs right into him.

She goes back to the junkyard to get her own car and goes inside, armed to deal with Ed. She retrieves her tongue and packs it in ice. She kills Ed without any challenge and then takes a pile of licenses as evidence. Her phone rings as she drives away, and it’s Rhett. She throws the phone out the window…

Brian’s Commentary

The moral seems to be “Don’t drive through the desert if you’re broke.” Or ever, if you can help it.

Everyone acts fairly logically for this situation. The sheriff is creepy, but he’s also interesting– why is he doing all this?

It’s a stalker/slasher, but this time, we get a lot of the sheriff, and he’s not stupid in any way; he’s got this regular thing that he does, and he’s mostly got the kinks worked out. Bobbie has lots of family issues, but she works them out on the road.

It’s good!

Kevin’s Commentary

I liked how the characters had some depth, it really helped in rooting for Bobbie and made the sheriff and Ed more interesting. Skillful writing and good acting combined in this one to elevate it above average in quality. The special effects were very realistic. I give it a big thumbs up.

2024 Children of the Pines

●         Directed by Joshua Morgan

●         Written by Joshua Morgan

●         Stars Kelly Tappan, Danielle J. Bowman, Vas Provatakis

●         Run Time: 1 Hour, 33 Minutes

●         Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

We thought the writing was stronger than the direction, both done by Joshua Morgan, but it wasn’t a failure of a movie. The script, cast, cinematography, and soundtrack make for an interesting film. It’s a frying pan full of family struggles and baggage simmering on a stove burner of horror underneath. It’s a slow but very interesting one.

Spoilery Synopsis

Riley and her mother, Kathy, hide from her abusive father as he rants. Credits roll as we get a voiceover about how depressing life is.

Several years pass. Leon, an old man, tells himself affirmations in the mirror about how he’s a “new man.” Lorelei, a woman with the fakest smile and laugh ever, comes to see Kathy as Kathy brings her husband, John, for treatment. They talk and record the “interview.” Lorelei and Leon have been doing “this” for 35 years. John has stopped drinking and is getting better, Kathy explains. The whole conversation is very awkward, and Kathy is clearly uncomfortable. Riley has gone away to school and doesn’t come home anymore because of John. Lorelei is vague, but it sounds like maybe they’re joining a cult…

We cut to an adult Riley, who returns to her hometown after many years away at college. She stops at a diner in town and Gordon the waiter, her high-school ex-boyfriend, stops to talk. She’s inspired him to apply for college as well. Gordon says he works for her dad now, which upsets her tremendously. He calls her parents “Mom and Dad” now, and she gets grumpy.

Arriving at the cabin, Riley talks to Kathy, her mother. They talk about good times and bad with her father, and they both get upset talking about it. Kathy mentions that her father, John, is off with “the kids,” but she won’t explain what that means.

We cut to Leon at the cult, and he watches a tape of Marie and Zoe, two children who killed their parents with a hammer. This tape appeared on his assistant’s desk, but he doesn’t want that tape shown. He talks to the group about what will happen to the audience at the end of their thirty days; they’ll get a certificate!

Riley talks to her father, and she notices that her parents have certificates hanging on the wall; it mentions “Wicca,” and John explains why they went through the process. She’s still annoyed that Gordon calls John “Dad” now. He’s also evasive about “The kids.”  He gives in and introduces her to a young boy and girl, Kathy and John, and they’re both… weird.

Gordon comes over to help John with the garden as Kathy explains the kids to Riley. Back in June, they went to “The Temple” for a month to learn about “tapping into a higher energy” and try to renew themselves.

We get a flashback to John and Kathy’s “graduation” at the cult. In the middle of the ceremony, a beat-up girl staggers into the room wanting to know what happened to her sister. Leon puts the ceremony on hold to deal with the interruption. She’s Zoe, and she sent that tape they played by accident. Leon and Lorelei discuss “ending it now.” Kathy is concerned about what’s going to happen to Zoe, who is tied up and blindfolded, but Lorelei says don’t worry about it and gives her a couple of young children. The old couple then talk to each other about the good old days and then give a hammer to Marie, Zoe’s murderous sister, who beats her to death.

Back in the present, Kathy explains that “The kids don’t have a human mother”; they come from inside her and John’s souls; they’re exact copies, so they can see their own flaws and get a second chance of living right. Riley asks if she’s serious. She is.

Kathy says they have a “gift” for Riley, and they pull hairs out of her and Gordon’s heads. They take the hairs upstairs, and there is much screaming. John and Kathy come back downstairs with two more children. These are young “Riley and Gordon,” and they’re even wearing identical clothing to their adult counterparts. “Hi Mommy,” says young Riley to older Riley. They’re identical clones of Riley and Gordon.

Riley packs her stuff to leave. John yells that if she doesn’t accept the kids, there will be repercussions. She tells Gordon that the whole thing is manipulative; he just wants a fresh start, but she says there are too many new starts. They all blame Riley for being the blind, stagnant one.  Riley runs for the door, but Gordon tries to pull her back inside.

We cut to Lorelei and Leon, dead, as Marie has killed them with a hammer. The young children look for adult Kathy, Riley, and Gordon, but they can’t find them. Young John doesn’t go with the others, because he’s a little jerk like his older self.

Brian’s Commentary

The film seems to be saying that people can never change; can abusive people ever change themselves and be redeemed? Apparently not.

Much of the film feels more like a string of filmed dramatic conversations than a real movie. There are long, literary monologues explaining Riley’s feelings and memories between scenes of people explaining the current situation. It’s very… talky, as if they had a good script but poor direction. It’s an interesting story that comes off as very dull. Since it was written and directed by the same person, it’s pretty obvious where his talents do and don’t lie.

The acting, cinematography, and music are all very well done. The story itself has an interesting concept and is very, very weird.

Kevin’s Commentary

I liked this one overall because the story at the core was so weird and interesting. The weakest part was the direction, I thought, but the rest of the elements make up for it to combine into a movie that kept me interested throughout. I’d recommend it.

Mainstream Film:

V/H/S Beyond (2024)

●         Directed by Jay Cheel, Jordan Downey, Christian Long

●         Written by Evan Dickson, Jordan Downey, Mike Flanagan

●         Stars Philip Andre Botello, Jolene Anderson, Tyler Anderson

●         Run Time: 1 Hour, 54 Minutes

●         Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

It’s an anthology of shorts, like the others in the series, and this one leans a lot more toward science fiction with bad aliens doing bad things, along with some other horrors of various types. It moves fast with some breathers in between from “experts” making documentary-style commentary. We thought it was quite good, if you’re a fan of the previous movies in the series, you should like this one too.

Spoilery Synopsis

As with the other films in the series, this is an anthology.

Segment: Abduction/Adduction

We’re told about an anonymous Redditor who bought a videotape with proof of aliens. We see some of that. We’re told about Farrington House, a place that has ties to alien life forms. This is going to be the wraparound/intermission story.

Segment: Stork

We cut to some cops, along with Segura, a new cop; they go to a meeting of officers talking about a baby kidnapper. They plan a raid, but it all looks a little sketchy and unofficial.

They arrive at a big, deserted-looking house and slowly go inside. Suddenly, they’re attacked by a horde of zombies! The heavily armed cops clear out a lot of the zombies, but Segura gets separated and chased by a zombie with a chainsaw. The house is soon cleared, but all the zombies have the same bandage and the same wound; a ritual?

They go upstairs and find a meteorite, or maybe an egg. They find one zombie who has literally no brain inside his head; then all the zombies get and up and try again. They make it up to the attic, where they find a zombie carrying around a baby. There’s a whole nursery full of cribs and weird alien-looking babies. Then they see it: a birdlike, storklike creature that feeds the babies. They shoot it about a zillion times, and it eventually falls down dead. The cops help Segura and tell him they do this sort of thing all the time…

We hear about a Chinese immigrant family who became wealthy and bought Farrington House. They owned the house until the 1990s when the eldest son vanished; he believed the house was haunted or getting “strange visitors.”

Segment: Dream Girl

We cut to Mumbai, where some photographers stalk celebrities. Arnab and Sono get injured as one girl drives away in her car. Their footage is awful. They get a call that “Dreamgirl Tara” is making an appearance, and they need to get there quickly. They’ve heard that Tara is into witchcraft and black magic, and that’s how she became a star. No one had ever heard of her until two years ago. They watch a bit of the movie being filmed.

It’s a typical Bollywood dance number, but it goes badly, and they leave before things get hostile. Arnab sneaks into Tara’s dressing room and hides in the closet. Tara and her manager come in, and he’s nasty enough to make her cry. Arnab looks to the side and sees a severed head in a bowl of goo; Tara catches him inside and asks if he wants a selfie. Arnab tells Tara that she doesn’t need that mean manager.

“I like your face,” she tells him. She pulls her own face off, “I will wear your face.” She then spits acid all over her manager, killing him. She walks through the building, sparking like a robot and everyone screams. She turns on the music and declares herself to be a goddess. She zaps the crowd with lightning, killing everyone, including Sonu and Arnab, who loses his own face. Tara, wearing Arnab’s bloody face, then goes outside and attacks the press.

Back in the documentary about aliens, we hear from eyewitnesses and abductees. Maybe aliens don’t wish us well.

Segment: Live and Let Dive

We cut to Zach’s birthday party in an airplane, as the whole group is going skydiving. The group is all excited to be there, but then there’s some crazy turbulence. Zach doesn’t really want to do this, but peer pressure is intense. Suddenly, they see a UFO out the window, and then they see jet fighters zoom by at high speed.

The plane shakes, and the pilot calls “Mayday.” There’s an alien on the outside of the plane; suddenly, the plane falls apart, and they’re all falling, including one guy who has lost a leg. As Zach falls, the alien falls right past him. His chute eventually deploys, and he hits the ground pretty hard. Not everyone’s chute opens, and bodies and airplane parts fall all around him. He unstraps himself from partner Logan, who has lost his head somehow.

He finds another survivor and they run through the orchard and find others. They soon learn that the alien has survived the fall and is hunting them down, one by one. Zach runs out of the orchard and climbs into a farmer’s truck, but the alien gets the farmer. Zach somehow survives the encounter and drives the truck, but then the whole truck gets abducted, with him inside.

The documentary guys babble on about alien encounters and unknown tech. We meet some visual effects artists who talk about UFO footage and explain them all.

Segment: Fur Babies

We cut to Becky doing a commercial for “Doggy Dreamhouse,” an animal obedience school with several taxidermized dogs in the background. She’s the target of some kind of sting operation by an animal rights group. Miles, the leader, has Stuart and Angela go undercover to board their dog with Becky, the owner of the service.

Becky talks about her stuffed fur babies, who have died and been taxidermized. One of them, Gary, isn’t in his spot on the mantle, and Becky says she’s doing something special with him. Stuart and Angela talk about “mutilating” the bodies, and Becky soon figures out that they’re here on false pretenses.

She takes them to the basement and shows them her training area and the “naughty area” where she keeps nosy people like them. Becky has a human-dog hybrid thing down there, and she soon knocks out Stuart and Angela and “liberates" Pickles the dog.

Miles calls, looking for his missing people. Becky makes a tape, where she’s been taking her dead dogs and merging them with living humans. We see Angela and Stuart in cages, halfway modified into dogs.

Outside, Miles and his friends arrive and break into the place. They come downstairs and find everything, but then Becky comes in and releases her earlier experiments, a pair of man-dog hybrids. She gives “Gary” a treat afterward. Sometime later, Gary eats a porch pirate.

We hear some history about UFO sightings and hoaxes.

Segment: Stowaway

Halley records herself in the Mojave, talking about extraterrestrials and alien abductions. She’s not good at this and she does several takes on her video. She interviews several men who saw the lights in the sky, and they tell what they saw. The witnesses don’t seem terribly reliable. She continues her narration sitting by a campfire that night and then she sees the lights in the sky. As she futzes with the camera, she sees that she’s taped over her daughter’s birthday party video.

The lights return, and she follows them. One of the lights came down to the ground, and she goes to it. The blurry ball of a spaceship opens up, and she goes inside. It’s all biological inside, with no controls or technology visible. She cuts her hand, and the ship sends out little nanotech particles to heal her. Then she sees an alien in the room with her, and she hides.

She finds the controls of the shop but they’re sharp wires that cut her when she touches them; the nanites fix her right up afterward. She then finds spiders and various animals in storage; the aliens have been collecting samples. The lights start to pulse, but the door is gone.

The ship lifts off with her inside. It’s a rough takeoff, but the nanites keep her alive. She wakes up in orbit; the pilot and samples are all in some kind of protective stasis, but she isn’t - this is gonna hurt. The chunks of what’s left of her float in the zero-g space, but the nanites put her back together– incorrectly. We see her alive and misshapen, begging them to stop as they keep healing her.

Segment: Abduction/Adduction– Conclusion

Back with the documentary, we hear that the adult son vanished, and the house was sold at an auction. They show the video footage from what happened. There’s an alien in the man’s bedroom, ala “Paranormal Activity.”

Brian’s Commentary

The budget for the segments have clearly gotten much higher with the success of the series. The creature designs in Stork and Live and Let Dive were really well done, as were the visual effects. The dog-things in “Fur Babies” were a little weak, but in a funny way.

The wraparound story was essentially useless fluff. I thought “Dream Girl” was the weakest of the entries, but all of them were good. I think “Stork” and “Live and Let Dive” were the best of the bunch, but all were tolerable.

If you liked the previous films in the series, this is as good as any of them.

Kevin’s Commentary

I liked all of the individual stories in this one, and I thought the wraparound was the weakest link. But even that was pretty good. The slant toward aliens this time around was cool. This might be my favorite in the series.

Strange Darling (2024)

●         Directed by JT Mollner

●         Written by JT Mollner

●         Stars Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Madison Beaty

●         Run Time: 1 Hour, 37 Minutes

●         Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This was a good script made even more interesting by chapters that are given to us out of order. Right off the bat, you see that things are a little strange. We gradually figure out what’s going on, and it all comes together in the end. We both really liked this one and would highly recommend.

Spoilery Synopsis

A woman asks the man if he’s a serial killer. Apparently, he is. Credits roll as we hear about this being the true story of a serial killer’s final days– told in six chapters. We watch a crying woman running across a field.

We cut to the same woman, now in a car, driving fast to get away from the serial killer man, who is in a truck behind her. We’re told this is “Chapter 3,” letting us know this isn’t the beginning of her story. He stops, gets out, and shoots her car, which flips and rolls.

She gets out and runs through the forest on foot, with him not far behind. She finds a campsite and steals a bottle of alcohol. She pulls off a bandage, and we see that her left ear is gone– she pours some of the alcohol on the wound and tries hard not to scream. Then she lights a cigarette (which seems like a really bad idea), has a couple puffs, and moves on.

She comes to a farmhouse and asks the people inside for help. This is now Chapter 5. The killer is inside the old people’s farmhouse. As he goes room to room, we see the old man is already dead and the woman is hiding in a freezer. He finds the woman hiding.

Chapter 1. The woman and the man are on a date, and they kiss. They have a really mundane conversation, and she ends up talking about the risks women take when meeting up with men for hookups.

She jokingly asks the man if he’s a serial killer, and he says “No.” We cut to them in the motel room, with him choking her… “Harder,” she says. He’s not very good at it, and she’s not happy. He’s eager to move on to sex, but she’s getting annoyed with him. He cuffs her again, hits her, and forces things. While he was awkward before, now, he’s violent and very sure of himself. Then she says the safeword, “Mr. Snuffalupagus!” It was all still part of the game.

We cut back to them in the car planning the violent sex roleplay game. She asked specifically for what we just saw. Back in the hotel room after the game, she’s really turned on.

Chapter 4. At the old people’s house, Frederick and Genevieve have coffee and an amazing, excessive-looking breakfast. Then they do a competitive jigsaw puzzle. The woman comes beating on the door, and they let her in. They ask if she was attacked by the sasquatch. They don’t have any guns. When Frederick goes to call the police, she stabs him. Genevieve runs off into the woods as the man approaches the house. She climbs into the freezer to hide. We've already seen how that works out, but now we see that she’s prepared for him.

Chapter 2. Back in the motel room, after weird foreplay, the couple talks. She’s got cocaine, but he hasn’t done that in a long time. She talks him into it. She’s giving him all kinds of mixed signals, and he’s ready to be done and leave. She pulls a knife and Taser out of her bag, but she doesn’t need it since he’s zonked out on the ketamine she switched out for his cocaine.

He’s basically paralyzed, so she stuffs a sock in his mouth and tortures him. Afterward, she cleans out his wallet and throws his phone in the sink– oh, and she learns that he’s a cop. She’s cut her initials in his chest. She goes back to kill him off, but in the meantime, he’s found his gun and shoots her ear off. She runs out the door to the motel office, where she stabs a clerk and gets the other woman there to bandage her ear, give her her clothes and car keys. She’s now in the Pinto, which is where we came in.

 Chapter 6. He’s got the drop on her as she hides in the freezer. Except she’s passed out, so he doesn’t shoot her again. He cuffs her to the freezer and calls someone on the phone to assist.

She wakes up and says she’d rather go to prison than die. It’s all very calm, until she shoots him with bear spray and bites him in the neck. He falls over, apparently dead, and she pulls his body over to reach his gun.

A pair of cops arrive, they’re the ones the man called earlier. They find him dead and her cuffed to the freezer with her pants pulled down. They assume he tried to rape her and she defended herself. The woman cop unlocks the woman, but the other cop wants to call it in and wait for backup. They argue about what to do with the woman and the crime scene. 

The two cops load the woman into the car, but then Genevieve from the farmhouse flags them down on the road. The woman shoots the old lady and then tells the cops what to do. She admits that she’s “The Electric Lady,” and makes the woman cop get out of the car.

Epilogue. The woman and the male cop talk in the car. She explains that sometimes, she doesn’t see humans, she sees devils. Then she shoots the cop and then walks off down the road, flagging down a passing truck. When she pulls out her gun, the woman in the truck shoots her. We watch as she slowly dies on the drive to the hospital.

Brian’s Commentary

The soundtrack really stands out in this one. I liked it a lot. The sets, colors, and cinematography are really good as well. The actions of both main characters are a little off because they’re both a little crazy.

We guessed early on that everything wasn’t exactly as it appeared, and we were right, but there was a lot that we didn’t predict. Putting the chapters out of order isn’t a new idea, but doing it so explicitly, with chapter numbers, makes it far more obvious as to what’s happening, and when.

I really liked this one!

Kevin’s Commentary

This was great in every way. The two leads really pulled it off, I liked how it was presented out of order to keep us guessing and hide the surprises. Big thumbs up from me.

Apartment 7A (2024)

●         Directed by Natalie Erika James

●         Written by Natalie Erika James, Christopher White, Skylar James

●         Stars Julia Garner, Dianne Wiest, Kevin McNally

●         Run Time: 1 Hour, 44 Minutes

●         Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Everything about this is good. It’s just that it’s unnecessary. It’s a prequel to Rosemary’s Baby, and if you’ve seen that, you know how this is going to end. It was enjoyable to watch, but it didn’t add much of anything to the series.

Spoilery Synopsis

Terry goes out on stage to perform in a musical, and she does, in fact, “break a leg.” She passes out, surrounded by surgeons. Credits roll.

Sometime later, she limps down the street, and we see that she’s got abundant pain medication. She still auditions, but her ankle isn’t healing completely, so that goes badly. “You’re infamous,” says one casting director. She might not be able to continue her dancing career, no matter how determined she is. Alan Marchand, one director, instructs her to humiliate herself acting as a pig, and she refuses. He appears to appreciate that.

Her friend and roommate, Annie, warns her not to overdo those pain pills. She also suggests that Terry go back home to Nebraska. She goes to see Marchand at his apartment, but Leo the doorman thinks she’s on drugs, which she is. On the way out, she runs into an old couple, Roman and Minnie Castavet, who take her home and help her sober up.

The next morning, the pushy Minnie makes Terry eat breakfast. They’re very nice and offer to let her live in the apartment next door– for free. Terry is eager to get away from Annie’s place, so she takes them up on their offer.

While unpacking, she finds Joan Cebulski’s shoe in the apartment. She still thinks that by living there in the same building, she’s got an “in” with Marchand. Due to a “scheduling issue,” she ends up having drinks alone with Marchand in his apartment. Naturally, he drugs her, and she passes out, which leads to a drug-induced musical number where she ends up in a big production. Or maybe she’s being raped by Satan– she’s not quite sure which.

In the morning, she wakes up to him making her an espresso and talking about him having a wonderful time last night. She doesn’t remember. He says she’s got a part in the latest show he’s producing. At rehearsal, the other dancers make it clear that they know she slept her way into the part. Later, she notices really odd-shaped bruises on her body.

Minnie introduces Terry to Lily, a new-age doctor. Lily puts some kind of special ointment that she made on Terry’s ankle. She starts having nightmares not long afterward, but she soon finds that her ankle is as good as new.

The Castavets throw a costume Christmas party, and she meets Dr. Sapirstein, an obstetrician. Everyone is very friendly, and no, that’s not the devil in the back bedroom. The old people get Terry an expensive fur coat and 300-year-old locket with “tannis root” inside.

Not long after, Terry figures out that she’s pregnant. Annie knows where she can get an abortion, and Terry considers it. The nasty dancer, Vera, plays a practical joke on Terry, and Marchand makes her pay for it. He knows about the baby, everyone seems to know, and he wants her to keep it. He says he sees great things in her future.

That evening, Minnie and Roman want to talk about the baby, which she still hasn’t decided to keep. They’ve already got a crib she can use; they offer to adopt the baby if she doesn’t want it. They have connections and hint that they can make her a big star if she plays ball.

Lily, the healing doctor who lives in the building, attacks Terry one night. “I have to stop it!” In the middle of the attack, the old woman gets a heart attack. Terry then finds a secret door that leads into Lily’s next-door apartment. She finds Satanic books inside.

On stage the next day, Vera has some kind of physical spasm attack strong enough that it breaks bones, and she’s out of the show– Terry will be the new star of the show. What an odd coincidence of timing!

Terry gets strange pains and calls Dr. Sapirstein, who wants to examine her, but he’s very weird and implies that she may have to be hospitalized for being hysterical. She continues to read Lily’s book, and more and more starts to recognize her situation. She checks out “Joan Cebulski’s” previous life and finds that Joan’s situation was a lot like hers.

Terry goes to church, and the nun tells her about a bunch of Satan worshippers who lived in her building. The nun knows about Joan, who fled in the middle of the night and was hit by a bus. The nun says that Terry reallyneeds to lose that baby, so she does go for an abortion. As they begin, the abortionist has a seizure and stops. Terry thinks she knows what’s going on now, but what else can she do?

Terry goes to the building’s basement and finds a whole Satanic church down there. Marchand is there, and he explains that this was where she was impregnated by Satan. “There were so many tries before you. You were different.” She ends up stabbing him, and he seems strangely pleased, almost honored, asking her if she feels strong now before keeling over. She can’t get out of the building and goes back to her apartment, where she finds Minnie. Terry tries to stab herself, but something won’t let her do it. Minnie admonishes her saying the baby won’t allow it.

Minnie and Roman spell it all out for Terry in full detail. She gives up and goes along with it, meeting the whole coven. “Hail Satan!” she shouts before dancing for the entire party. “It’s the role of a lifetime,” she says to Minnie– and then jumps out the window to her death.

Brian’s Commentary

This is a prequel to 1968’s “Rosemary’s Baby.” In that film, we see what happens to Terry, so that’s already spoiled for us. This is essentially the same plot, so we know the baddie’s intentions and even their modus operandi, so that’s spoiled too. This is just a new victim. Due to all this, there’s no real suspense or mystery– we know everything that’s going to happen already.

It’s well made, well acted, and nicely paced. The problem here is that it was completely unnecessary and doesn’t add anything to the original.

Kevin’s Commentary

I don’t regret seeing it, but I don’t think it will be the classic that “Rosemary’s Baby” is considered to be. It’s well made, but it didn’t need to be made. After this one, they could also make the prequel of the prequel if they wanted, and we would know how that one ends too.

Short Films:

Short Film: The Curse of Dracular (2024)

●         Directed by Jack Paterson

●         Written by Jack Paterson

●         Stars Claymation animation

●         Run Time: 7:16

●         Watch it:

What Happens

We watch as claymation versions of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee do a very abbreviated version of the Hammer-style Dracula movies. The dialog is awkward and basically atrocious, but it was written by a nine-year-old.

Dracula attacks Cushing’s daughter but is driven off. The townspeople gang up on Dracula, and he’s eventually killed by a five-year-old who throws a stake at him.

Commentary

The creator explains that this student film was based on a short story his father wrote when he was a child, and the young child spelled Dracula wrong in the title, so that is where the name comes from. He used the dialog and script 100% accurate to the original story his father wrote, which is why this one is so odd.

The Claymation is really very well done. It’s gory and brutal but in a childish way. If I were a nine-year-old writing a horror story, this is about what I’d have done as well.

Those old Hammer films don’t get much airtime anymore, but things like this demonstrate just how influential those old films were on the psyche of that generation.

Short Film: Copy (2024)

●         Directed by Cameron Gallagher

●         Written by Jeremiah Lewis

●         Stars Heather Frederick, Hunter Frederick

●         Run Time: 8:36

●         Watch it:

What Happens

A woman talks about her fear of becoming a mother as she complains about her own mother to her sister. She’s making the call while making copies on the copy machine after hours. She’s concerned about snapping the way her own mother did. “What if I can’t handle it?”

She finishes her call and then finds out that she’s not alone in the building after all.

Commentary

Childhood trauma and abuse have its own legacy, but this might be taking it a bit far. Who knew copiers could be so terrifying?

It looks good, although it’s very dark in the middle, but that’s part of the story– she can’t see what’s in there with her. The makeup effects are good, and the sound is very well done as well.

Short Film: The Shutterbug Man (2014)

●         Directed by Chris Walsh

●         Written by Chris Walsh

●         Stars: Animated.  Narrated by Barbara Steele

●         Run Time: 4:13

●         Watch it:

What Happens

It’s a stop-motion short about a man who is obsessed with his camera, photographing only nasty, scary, gross things. Then, his insanity kicks in, and he stabs out his own eyeballs. What’s he going to do now? He has a plan!

Commentary

The narration is excellent, and the visuals are really nightmare material. It’s all black-and-white and grainy, and the ambient music makes it all seem like a twisted fairy tale. Very nice!

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Just a quick reminder that we’ve launched our companion podcast/newsletter, “Classics Weekly,” a brand-new Podcast/Newsletter devoted to classic films. Our first episode, devoted to “Casablanca,” launched this week. It’ll all be very similar in format to Horror Weekly, but since it’s only one film each week, we can go more in-depth with trivia and commentary. The second episode, “Singin’ In The Rain,” comes out next week, with many more to follow, Sign up for the newsletter or subscribe to the podcast at

https://www.classicsweekly.com

In addition, the latest issue of Horror Monthly is now on sale. Check out

https://horrormonthly.com

for links to pick it up in print or as an eBook. This month includes all the usual reviews, 37 films’ worth, as well as a retrospective on the five original “Planet of the Apes” films PLUS a short story!

But this week, right here, we’ve got five more movies and some short films. We’ll start out with a comedy, “eVil Sublet,” and then go with one that has no humor at all, “The Wait.” The three that follow are a mixed bag: the depressing “The Devil’s Bath,” the mental “Booger,” and the ridiculous “Population Purge.” We’ll follow these up with three short films. It’s a wild week!

Don’t miss out on our next members-only edition of the newsletter, coming toward the end of October. Paid subscription info can be found at https://www.horrorweekly.com/

Indie Films:

eVil Sublet (2024)

●      Directed by Allan Piper

●      Written by Allan Piper

●      Stars Jennifer Leigh Houston, Charlie Tucker, Sally Struthers, Katy Sullivan, Helen Hong

●      Run Time: 1 Hour, 45 Minutes

●      Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

The cast, script, direction, settings, and props all made for a really good movie. It’s heavy on the humor with plenty of horror elements too. Tropes are used effectively, and it’s got some clever bits. We liked it a lot, more than we expected.

Spoilery Synopsis

A man plays a prank on his wife that goes very badly. Credits roll.

“East Village” is abbreviated eVil. A couple, Alex and Ben, argues about how the eVil apartment is too cheap. Parker, the realtor, takes them inside, describing it all the way up the steps. It’s fully “decorated,” but it’s very dark. She mentions some drawbacks, including the former owner killing his entire family. “A lot of the previous owners came to horrific ends.” Still, it’s got high ceilings, a garden, and a big kitchen, so there’s that. They take it!

We cut to a woman who bought a ventriloquist dummy at a thrift store, and it ended up killing all her roommates. Or at least she dreamed it. Ned and Lorne are “Psychics,” and Lorne does a reading on the doll- she used it as a sex toy.

Alex and Ben move into the new apartment. Oliver, Hedy, and Ben’s sister help with the move. Alex figures out that turning on the lights actually makes the place darker. The more lamps she plugs, the darker the place gets. Late that night, doors open and close, and Sis listens to a weird man outside yelling at the sky. When she sees a New York cockroach, she decides to go to a motel instead.

On the second day, more things act strangely in the house. Alex, Ben, and Sis go to the carnival. They go on a haunted house ride, and Alex gets stuck inside. Ned and Lorne walk up and Lorne grabs Alex’s head– “They need our help,” Lorne laments. That night, Alex experiences some weirdness with the doors.

At the carnival, Lorne starts tracking down Alex from a photo. Alex cleans the black mold from the bathroom, but then it all grows back worse.  She does a voiceover ad that sounds great to her, but her agent says it’s all messed up. When she listens, there are ghostly voices on the recording. She’s ready to move out now, but Ben says it’s time to see her psychiatrist again.

After three weeks, Alex complains about her psychiatrist to Hedy, her ex-wife.  Meanwhile, Lorne has a nightmare about Alex, who is sleepwalking. The power goes out, so Alex has to go into the basement.

Oliver comes over and meets Lisa, the neighbor, who came over for a dinner party. Except, she’s not real and makes him choke on an olive. One of the EMTs has a heart attack going up the steps, but he doesn’t have insurance. Oliver dies, but Ben has to leave town for a work thing, leaving Alex home alone to deal with sleep paralysis.

Alex and Hedy go to see Madame Moon, a Chinese Fortune teller– no, she’s a financier, a fortune maker. They look up a couple that sound like “The Conjuring couple, only gay.” Yeah, it’s Ned and Lorne. They know all about her building’s vicious history. There have been hundreds and hundreds of deaths in that apartment. All the deaths come in threes; Oliver was one, who will be the other two? It’ll calm down after two more people die.

Alex and Hedy go looking for Reena, the actual owner of the apartment. She may be letting Alex and Ben take the hit for the deaths so she can move back in. Reena lives in a storage locker and has a sad story for them. She’s very sympathetic until she starts getting racist and homophobic. When she gets all MAGA on them, the conversion is over.

This leads to a haunted karaoke number with Alex and Hedy which leads to a kiss between the old exes. She goes home, but the strangeness hasn’t stopped. She calls “The Great Manfredo,” a guy that Ned recommended. Meanwhile, Ned and Lorne sense that it’s time for the final two deaths to happen, so they hurry right over there.

Manfredini is strange and reads tea leaves and Alex’s palm; he just might be a creeper. As he drugs Alex and moves on her, the ghost attacks and kills him– that makes two. The ghost slowly stomps after Alex, who is too drugged up to walk any faster. She sees all sorts of strangeness as she walks through the basement. She does eventually escape and runs to the bar. Meanwhile, Ben is coming home early.

Ben arrives, and it’s clear that something is wrong in the apartment. Alex,  Lorne, and Ned arrive right behind him. The ghosts possess Ben, and kill Lorne with an Ax. That’s three deaths.

Alex, Hedy, and Ben go to the storage locker and confront Reena. “There’s nothing in that apartment that’s as evil as you.” We see that Lorne didn’t really die, he’s hospitalized – they used the story to lure Reena back into the apartment, which wastes no time in taking its third death.

Later, Alex and Ben have learned to live with the apartment, which is still active but harmless. It’s still better than a more expensive place. Hedy, Lorne, and Ned come over for dinner and drinks. Happy ending?

Brian’s Commentary

It’s just full of horror movie cliches, but it works with them and rolls with the inherent silliness. The orange-faced man in the top hat is actually pretty cool for a villain. Sally Struthers as a horror movie baddie? Why not?

The trailer didn’t blow us away, but the film itself was far better than we expected.

Kevin’s Commentary

I especially enjoyed the likable characters and the decor of the apartment. It’s a very fun movie, and  like Brian said, was better than I expected. I would highly recommend it.

The Wait (2024)

●      Directed by F. Javier Gutierrez

●      Written by F. Javier Gutierrez

●      Stars Victor Clavijo, Ruth Diaz, Moises Ruiz

●      Run Time: 1 Hour, 42 Minutes

●      Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

It’s a dry, hot, and sweaty movie set in an arid part of Spain. Things start out okay for the hero and make a decline to terrible, but we wonder if it’s entirely his choices or outside factors. It’s a slow burn that progresses steadily enough to be engrossing with a good wrap up.

Spoilery Synopsis

Don Francisco talks to Eladio about raising his family in the mountains. Francisco says he’ll allow Eladio and his family to live on the estate out in the country. Credits roll.

Three years later, Eladio teaches his son how to shoot a gun on the estate, which Eladio manages. Eladio’s wife, Marcia, doesn’t like her son, Floren, learning to shoot, but she has to go along with it. Very soon after, Floren brings home a big buck.

Eladio goes to town, and Don Carlos says he’s sold thirteen stands for hunting, but Eladio says that’s not safe; bullets will be flying everywhere. Don Francisco would never approve of that, but there’s money involved, and Eladio needs more. The family is very poor, and they argue over missing shirts. Marcia hears about what Don Carlos wants, and she wants the money, urging Eladio to do the illegal hunting operation. She calls him a coward.

The hunters arrive, and there are a lot of them; Eladio has allowed more than he was supposed to, and Don Carlos pays him the promised bribe. Flores goes with them to count how many bucks get shot. The first thing that gets shot that day is Flores.

Back at home, Marcia counts her money. Both she and Eladio wonder why the truck is driving back to them in such a hurry. They’ve brought Floren’s body home, and Eladio knows that this is all his fault.

Eladio starts drinking; he had formerly given it up, but no more. Marcia says “God is punishing us.” The next morning, Eladio sees that the clothesline is missing, and so is Marcia. He and his friend Saulo, along with many others, search for her all day. They eventually find her, half-eaten by wild boars.

Eladio goes to the bar, where he hears that Don Carlos will be in town all week, hunting. That night, Eladio visits the old man and hits him in the head with a rock. He takes the old man home to bury him, but Carlos gets out of the car and runs away. The old man grabs Eladio’s gun and shoots him– with salt pellets. Carlos doesn’t get a second chance.

As Eladio digs a hole for the old man, he hits something, a box with a big padlock. In the morning, he shoots open the lock. Inside, he finds a mummified deer skull and box with a tooth inside. Saulo comes over for a beer and says Eladio needs to leave this place, as it has too many memories. He’s also brought a letter from Don Francisco, who knows about the secret arrangement and is evicting him.

Eladio drives his car into the lake to kill himself, but that doesn’t do the job. He does find some of Don Carlos’s papers, and they all have the number thirteen on them; he can’t read, but he knows his numbers. The police come around, looking for Don Carlos, and they notice the dog has gone missing. The dog has gone rabid and chases him into a cage where he cuts his hand on barbed wire. When he does get out, he loses his wedding ring down the drain. When he digs in the drain, he finds a snake– it’s just a bad day.

Eladio climbs down into the septic tank to find the ring, but that only makes things worse. He doesn’t get the ring back, but he does find a bif wadded up ball of barbed wire wrapped around something. He clips the wire open carefully, and inside it is a boar’s heart, along with the clothes that went missing earlier– one item from him, Marcia, and Floren.

Later, Eladio makes some soup and he finds Marcia’s foot in the pot. Then he grows fangs and turns into a wild boar. Nope–just a dream. In the morning, he grabs his shotgun and leans into it; he sees zombie Marcia, who calls him a coward again. He;s just about to do it when he sees the papers from Don Francisco; his signature matches the one on Don Carlos’s paper. Thirteen stands were legal and approved all along, and everyone knew it but him.

Eladio rides to Francisco’s house and finds all sorts of weird things inside. The place is covered in dust. He also finds pictures of families with sons dated every three years or so. All these families look just like his, and none of them lasted.

Eladio goes to town, to the bar again, and he confronts Don Francisco, who is there along with the rest of the town. “I didn’t expect you to make it this far. None of them did. They took their own lives. All of them. We’re not allowed to intervene, just wait.” The whole thing with thirteen stands was all a setup for tempting Eladio. This is something that the land demands every three years, and the whole town is in on it.

As the smug old man smokes, Eladio’s arms fold up like his coveralls at home. In the crowd, he sees his wife and son.

Brian’s Commentary

We learned that Spain is a sweaty place where it never rains.

It’s a slow tale of a man who makes one bad decision and pays for it over and over again. The wild boar transformation scene is good, but it’s just a dream. It’s well acted, and the sets are great, but it’s very slow moving with no explanation until the very end.

There are hints throughout that Eladio is cursed somehow, but it’s never really spelled out until the end, and even then, we don’t get a lot of details. It might all tie in with some bit of Spanish mythology that I’m not familiar with, but the magic here doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Still, it was a really good exploration of madness brought on by guilt over one bad decision and how it all spirals out of his control. It was slow, but good!

Kevin’s Commentary

I liked this one quite a bit. It moves slowly but steadily, building one thing on top of another. Bad choices and guilt combine with dark magic to pile on a guy who can’t get a break. The acting seemed very natural from everyone, making for an engrossing film.

Mainstream Film:

The Devil’s Bath (2024)

●      Directed by Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz

●      Written by Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz

●      Stars Anja Plaachg, Maria Hofstatter, David Scheid

●      Run Time: 2 Hours, 1 Minute

●      Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

The Devil’s Bath is an old term for depression, and this movie has it in abundance. Life was hard in the old days, made harder by mental illness. It’s beautifully filmed but on the long side and seriously grim. It was more fascinating than entertaining, but we don’t regret seeing it.

Spoilery Synopsis

It’s Austria in the 18th century. A baby cries, and his brother, Christoph, picks him up to calm him down. Christoph’s father calls, so he leaves the baby alone. A tired-looking woman comes and takes the baby into the woods. She walks up the mountain and throws the baby off the giant waterfall. She then runs to the castle where she says, “I’ve committed a crime.” Later, we see a man cutting off her fingers, and we see her severed head in a cage. Credits roll. 

We cut to a younger-looking woman weaving a crown of ivy and packing a few things. Then she, her brother, and her mother wheel a cart with a chicken through the woods. She’s Agnes, and the crowd carries her around for the wedding; she’s getting married to a man named Wolf. Afterward, they play “Whack-a-chicken” in the field, like a pinata with a live chicken. He puts a blindfold on her and leads her through the woods where he’s bought a house. He’s spent all his money on the land, and took a mortgage as well. She hates it, but she doesn’t argue with him.

There’s a big party, but they’re all Wolf’s friends, and she doesn’t have anyone. Her brother is there, and, as a wedding gift, he gives her a finger from that woman from earlier. It’s a fertility charm. She then prays to be a good wife and mother. That night, she wants sex, but he’s got other ideas, which she finds… disappointing.

In the morning, Wolf is gone. She goes looking for him and sees a poster of the child-murdering woman stuck to a tree. Then she finds the dead woman and her head set up in a shrine in the woods. She takes a close look, but that doesn’t get her upset. Then, she runs into Wolf’s mother, who puts her to work right away. We see that Agnes doesn’t really fit in with Wolf’s family. Her mother-in-law has lots of helpful advice, but it’s also more than a little intrusive.

That evening, she once again puts the finger under the mattress, and once again, she tries to have sex with her husband, who rolls over and goes to sleep.

Agnes goes out with the mother-in-law, Ganglion, to do the laundry. She makes a friend there, who shows her some interesting places out in the woods. She comes home late, and the old lady has already made dinner for Wolf. They’ve burned all of Agnes’s little nature trinkets in the fire. Agnes complains that Ganglion doesn’t like her and comes around too often.

While fishing the next day, Agnes finds a big cow skull, which is supposed to be bad luck. That night, a man comes to the door, yelling that there’s something wrong with Lenz, one of Wolf’s friends. She follows the men to Lenz’s place, where he’s hung himself. The men cart the body away as Lenz’s mother screams and wails.

At the funeral, the priest points out that Lenz was a suicide, even worse than the baby-murderer. They toss the body into a field to rot.

Agnes stands outside the house and listens to Wolf and his mother complaining about how useless she is. She goes to her own mother’s house and sleeps in the barn until her brother catches her. Wolf literally tries to drag her home with him, but she really doesn’t want to go.

Old lady Ganglion doesn’t approve. The goats are ill with neglect, and she blames Agnes. They send her away to a man who sticks her with needles to “let the melancholy out.” She’s supposed to pull it back and forth until it festers; “That’ll let the poison out.” On the way home she “finds” a baby. Wolf and his mother say she can’t just take someone’s baby, but there was no one there.  Sure enough, there are people out there looking for the baby, which she drops off and runs away.

Agnes steals the Baby Jesus from the church and starts singing to it, pretending it’s hers, but it melts. Wolf cries and yells that she won’t get out of bed or wash herself. She eats some kind of poisonous powder that just makes her sick. She confesses that she took rat poison.

Wolf carries Agnes to her mother’s house, where he explains that she is in “The Devil’s Bath.” In the morning, after sleeping at her mother’s, she wakes up, cleans up, eats a butterfly, and leaves.

She runs into a little boy in the woods and follows him to a shrine. As they pray, she stabs the little boy, who wails and screams for help until she stabs him again. She marches over to the castle, knocks on the door, and turns herself in: “I’ve committed a crime.”

They cut her hair, give her a new, clean dress, pray over her, and then she confesses her sins to a priest. She admits that she killed the boy so she would be executed and wouldn’t have to kill herself. The priest absolves her, and she’s finally happy. They put up a poster about Agnes’s crimes and then sew her into an animal skin, still alive and drag her outside of town. Wolf is there, and then a man cuts Agnes’s head off. They gather up her spurting blood, and everyone gets a taste!

There’s a big party afterward, and everyone dances.

Brian’s Commentary

Well, that’s one way to get out of an unhappy marriage.

“The Devil’s Bath” is an old term for depression.

Agnes is an outsider, and no one will talk to her or explain anything, and then they will treat her like an idiot because she doesn’t catch on. Everyone acts surprised when she gets depressed. They don’t outright abuse her, but they don’t make her at home, either.

We get some hints early on that Wolf might be gay, and he sure doesn’t like having sex. He seems nice enough and concerned for Agnes’s well-being, but he’s otherwise completely clueless.

It’s an interesting drama about old-time mental illness, but it was far too long.

Kevin’s Commentary

That latest technology hospital she goes to for the festering thread treatment is really something. The locations it was shot in were great, and it’s well-made in every way. It was a good watch, but I’m not sure I actually enjoyed it.

Booger (2024)

●      Directed by Mary Dauterman

●      Written by Mary Dauterman

●      Stars Grace Glowicki, Garrick Bernard, Heather Matarazzo

●      Run Time: 1 Hour, 18 Minutes

●      Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Here we have grief and depression jumbled up with very strange happenings, making us and the main character wonder how much is real and how much is in her head. All is eventually explained, and it’s an entertaining trip getting there. We give it a thumbs up.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on phone videos of Izzy playing with Booger the cat. The cat just showed up one day. We cut to some time later, and everyone is calling about attending Izzy’s memorial service; she’s died. Anna is now past due on all her bills since her roommate has died. Credits roll.

Depressed, Anna lays on the bed and listens to the rats in the attic. She finds Izzy’s phone and watches videos from Izzy’s point of view. Later, Booger the cat bites her and runs out the open window. She walks all around the block calling “Booger!” She talks to Izzy’s mother, Joyce, who puts a bandaid on the bite wound.

Anna’s boyfriend, Max, comes over, and she mostly ignores him. The wound on her hand continues to hurt. She’s also still worried about Booger, who still hasn’t come home and goes out looking for him at night. She’s suddenly terrified of a dog, and the sound of the halogen lights really annoys her. She goes home and absent-mindedly starts chewing on her own hair.

Anna starts putting up posters for Booger around town, and the woman at the pet shop is annoying; Anna is too distracted by the caged bird to notice. In the morning, she wakes up under the coffee table. At work, her boss, Devon, wants her to come back to work, but she’s just not interested in that anymore. She goes out with Max and pukes up a hairball in the restroom. Is she becoming a cat?

Joyce comes over to sort through Izzy’s stuff and lets it slip that Izzy was planning to move out soon anyway, which Anna had no idea about.

Anna has gotten in the habit of putting out cat food to tempt Booger to return, but this time she isn't thinking and takes a big lick from the can. The next morning, she wakes up out in a field in the park. She rubs her face on a tree and gets distracted by ants and blowing trash.

Anna gets home to find that her power has been shut off; she hasn’t been paying her bills. Since that means the fridge is off, she starts eating the cat food more seriously. This results in more barfing and it’s full of dark black hair– but Anna is blonde.

It’s time for Izzy’s memorial service, and while she’s gone Dennis, the landlord comes to fix a leak in her bathroom and finds a real mess. At the memorial service, Anna notices that she’s growing fangs and then passes out. Afterward, Max wants to sing karaoke– he thinks she’s not accepting Izzy’s death well.

She ends up storming out in anger, but when she gets home, she finds all her stuff out on the street; Dennis has evicted her. Her boss calls and fired her. As she takes the call, she bites the head off a rat. She follows that up by going to a bar and meeting a guy who thinks she’s weird. It soon gets weirder, with her licking him all over. He leaves when she bites him.

Max comes into the bar and walks Anna home. He’s supportive and very calm. She talks about losing Booger, but Max says Booger’s been gone for two years now. He was gone long before Izzy died.

Anna wakes up at the pet shop, in a cage with another cat. She and the cat break loose and run down the street. They both crawl up a fire extinguisher and into an open window.

Anna finds Izzy’s beat-up bicycle, paints it, and puts it on Izzy’s memorial sculpture. Then she goes to Max’s place and showers and cleans herself up. She hugs Max; she’s better now. We cut to Booger, that cat, who is just fine living on his own.

Brian’s Commentary

So much puking; the filmmakers obviously own a real cat. I suspect they challenged themselves to have the film that says the word “Booger” the most times in history.

It’s more of a psychological story of  weird grief-coping mechanisms than straight horror. It’s entertaining, but it’s just barely horror.

Kevin’s Commentary

It makes us think that it’s going the horror direction for a while, but it’s just an extreme case of dealing with grief and depression. I thought it was very good, and I loved how it resolved.

Population Purge (2024)

●      Directed by Brian Johnson

●      Written by Brian Johnson, Toby Osborne

●      Stars S. Lamar Wilson, Peter Holland, Lyndsey Soto

●      Run Time: 1 Hour, 24 Minutes

●      Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Despite the title, it doesn’t have anything to do with the Purge series of movies. There was, and is, a plague and bad people did, and are doing, bad things and it’s post-apocalyptic with most of the population dead and the rest struggling to survive. We can’t say that it was very good in any way. The story is disjointed and doesn’t make any logical sense, the acting is hit and miss, the editing is strange. We wouldn’t recommend this one.

Spoilery Synopsis

We get a voiceover about the deadly outbreak of a new disease. It was a government program to “manage” the population. Everyone was poisoned by the government, only the rarest blood types (AB+) were allowed to survive. Regular people can only survive with regular blood transfusions of AB+. Credits roll.

Onslow, the District Warden, is in charge of executing some criminals, and he seems to enjoy his work. Elsewhere, Maya is a scavenger, going through closed shops for stuff to take.

We cut to people in the wilderness shooting at each other and fighting.

Maya and her grandfather, Charlie, live alone in a compound. She helps him donate blood to help others. He demands to take the blood into town himself, “The woods are full of scalpers just waiting to get their hands on us.” Charlie goes to Jade’s, who buys his blood for the black market.

Onslow brings his son to Naomi, who is the camp doctor. The son is sick, and the disease is spreading. What he needs is clean AB+ blood; he needs more than his ration. She tells him to start buying black market blood, but he yells that that’s against the law. He wants to find a source of the blood; an unregistered AB+ survivor. Naomi tells him about Jade.

We cut a montage of Maya killing grungy people in masks. A strange blonde woman saves Maya from the baddies.

Onslow talks to his wife’s grave, and he regrets the whole situation; maybe he’s not really a complete lunatic. We cut to a group of scalpers who complain that their “donors” are drying up and dying. Onslow’s men beat up Jade and find out about Charlie. Onslow goes to the scalper next for more information about the source.

Charlie and Maya talk about his life and career as a performer in front of mannequins. She thinks he’s trying to kill her and knocks him out. On the next run to town Charlie is ambushed, but he beats the guy to death. The blonde woman sees it all. Charlie arrives at Jade’s just in time to see her die.

The scalper and his goon catch Charlie in the woods. Maya shows up and shoots them both. She lectures him about the reality of the situation.

Naomi tells Onslow that Charlie is her husband. Charlie needed to be put in an institution long ago; he was dangerous to his audiences. She also tells him about Maya.

Naomi and some guards go to Charlie, and he deals with several of them. Onslow’s son dies, and he heads to Charlie’s because Naomi never returned with Charlie.

Naomi convinces Charlie to pack a bag and leave, and then they hide from Onslow when he gets there; Maya seems to have vanished entirely. They all chase each other around the funhouse maze. Onslow gets the drop on the pair, and they can’t beat the stronger leader. Onslow shoots Charlie just as someone offscreen (we’re to assume it’s Maya) shoots Onslow.

We cut to Charlie in a mental hospital. He’s just written a script called “Population Purge,” but the announcement comes on the speaker about the real thing happening outside. The voice on the speaker explains how his euthanasia will progress. The doctor injects him and then, as he dies, Naomi comes in for a visit.

They read the last page of his script, and it’s the ending for the movie. Charlie gets up from being shot with Naomi’s help.

We cut to Maya, walking through the park and leaving for the “real world.”

Brian’s Commentary

So the whole thing was just a story made up by a man about to die?

First, this has nothing to do with any of “The Purge” series, but I suspect whatever audience it manages to get will not realize that.

There are a lot of scenes here that just make no sense and have no context. Charlie and the Abraham Lincoln thing. The man with the poison gas. Maya in her combat montage, when she never leaves camp. A lot of the actors wear masks of some sort, but it’s never explained why. A chunk of this was obviously filmed in a haunted house attraction.

The acting is a mixed bag. Charlie was interesting. Onslow was alternating between lunatic and tragic. Maya was just plain miscast, not looking at all like some kind of warrior.

It’s an interesting idea that’s completely implausible, it’s mostly poorly acted, and a lot of it doesn’t make sense, even considering the whole plot is ridiculous.

I declare this a stinker.

Kevin’s Commentary

This is a rare one where Brian and I are pretty much in full agreement on a movie being bad. I hate to say that about a project that people put time, effort, and money into, but this just wasn’t very entertaining. The acting isn’t strong, the story is weak, the effects are poor. As Brian said, a lot of the setting appears to be a haunt attraction, which I bet is really good with night lighting and fog but not so good for the bright light of day.

Short Films:

Short Film: The Changing Room (2022)

●      Directed by Sam Evenson

●      Written by Sam Evenson. Jeff Speciale

●      Stars Jamie Taylor Ballesta, Alan Maxson

●      Run Time: 4:25

●      Watch it:

What Happens

A woman finds a dress in a boutique and wants to try it on. The changing room is right there, but it also has a “do not enter” sign on it. She decides to try the dress on anyway.

The inside of the changing room is mirrored on opposite walls, giving that fun “infinity effect” that everyone loves to pose in front of. This time, however, she might not be alone…

Commentary

There’s no dialogue here and only one character. Changing rooms are inherently creepy, especially in modern times with easily hidden cameras. It’s very clearly shot, especially the mirror effects, and it’s always very obvious what’s happening. We never find out why, but that’s part of the mystery.

Short Film: Nightmare at Camp Bloodbath (2023)

●      Directed by Dylan Arnow

●      Written by Dylan Arnow

●      Stars Marlee Forsyth, Adam Bussell, Alex von Klemperer

●      Run Time: 5:33

●      Watch it:

What Happens

We’re told it’s Friday, October 13th, Halloween Night (Yeah, I know!).

Greg and Becky, two camp counselors, return to their cabin to find the place ransacked by counselors from the other nearby camp. As they prepare to clean up the mess, they run into Terence Fisher, the local mass-murdering masked psychopath. Things do not go well…

Commentary

It’s another parody of the Friday the 13th films, taking many of those films’ tropes and running with them. It’s a comedy, but it looks good, in full retro-80s style, and it doesn’t go on too long and overstay its welcome. It’s good!

Short Film: Couples Therapy (2024)

●      Directed by Tim Hendrix

●      Written by Mae Catt

●      Stars Rob Pinkston, Bevin Bru, John Alton

●      Run Time: 12:12

●      Watch it:

What Happens

Rob talks to his prisoner. Rob is a serial killer. The man tied to the chair has no hope until Rob’s girlfriend comes home early and looks surprised at the whole situation. When Rob slaps a bow and gift card on the man’s face, she lights right up. This is a rare serial killer couple! On the downside, their relationship needs some work– it’s a good thing Rob captured a couples’ counselor; maybe he can help!

Commentary

As the pair talk about their problems, we get more and more information about their lives and situation. We also wonder if the doctor is going to be able to talk his way out of the situation. We do, in fact, get all our questions answered, except for one: who’s gonna clean up all that mess?

It’s true love!

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Three hundred episodes. Plus One.

When we first decided to do a podcast, we thought one about Alfred Hitchcock's films would be fun. Partway through the second episode, we realized that he only made about 50 films, and we wanted to do something more ongoing. We decided to make it more generically about horror films in general.

We chose well; with over 1700 films reviewed so far, there is no end in sight– they keep making more horror films, and there are still plenty of oldies we haven’t seen. There are so many new films coming out (especially this month and next, with Halloween coming!) that we must prioritize and choose among the latest releases. There aren’t enough days in the week for all the terror!

But still… there are more things in the world than just horror. We’ve noticed that while watching our movies, we both really enjoyed the old movies a lot. I’ve even written books about them. We’ve decided that we like doing “Horror Weekly” so much that we want to branch out and do a more unlimited podcast about older films.

Say hello to “Classics Weekly,” a brand-new Podcast/Newsletter devoted to classic films. Our first episode, devoted to “Casablanca,” will drop sometime next week. It’ll all be very similar in format to Horror Weekly, but since it’s only one film each week, we can go more in-depth with trivia and commentary. It’ll be fun! Sign up for the newsletter or subscribe to the podcast at

https://www.classicsweekly.com

Anyway, this time around, we’ve got a slight focus on “home invasion” films. We’d been sitting on the most recent two “The Strangers” films for a few weeks due to that prioritizing I mentioned, but then “Sunset Superman” (2024) released this week, and they all just went together so well that we had to include the three films. We’ve also got “Lyvia’s House,” a tale of romance and gaslighting, as well as “Mother Nocturna,” a new release about mental illness, depression, and family.

Don’t miss out on our next members-only edition of the newsletter, coming toward the end of the month. Paid subscription info can be found at https://www.horrorweekly.com/

Get all our reviews once a week: https://www.horrorweekly.com/

Check out all our books with one easy link:

https://horrormonthly.com/

Indie Films:

2024 Lyvia’s House

●      Directed by Niko Volonakis

●      Written by Patricia V. Davis

●      Stars Tara Nichol Caldwell, Joshua Malekos, Danielle Octavian

●      Run Time: 1 Hour, 56 Minutes

●      Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This one is heavy on the mystery and thriller aspects and low-key on horror. The cinematography, cast, direction, and story keep a long movie interesting. It didn’t seem long, though it does take quite a while to start wrapping things up and telling us what’s going on and why. We liked it quite a bit and would recommend it.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on farmers working in an orchard. Ed then takes a break and buries a man alive in the field. Credits roll.

We cut to karaoke night at the bar, and Tara and Helen laugh at Johnny, who’s “singing.” Tara’s mother is not a fan of Johnny, who is “making” Tara move from the city way out into the country. They stop at a house and meet a really weird guy named Georgie there. 

Eventually, they get to their own house, and it’s a big one. Johnny says they have a landline, but no WiFi, which she needs for work. There’s a painting on the wall of Lyvia, a famous Italian painter, who used to live there. Lyvia got called back to Italy and had to sell the house cheap, and Johnny just got lucky.

That night, as they sleep, a rat climbs up on the bed and licks Tara on the face. She screams, Johnny searches, but there are no rats to be found.

A week passes, and Tara’s mom complains that she’s hard to reach by cell phone; Mom might be a little crazy. We flash back to Tara finding a photo of her mother with a man she doesn’t recognize when Mom freaks out.

Tara goes for a walk and bumps into a strangely silent man who warns her about coyotes. Later, we see that man flying a small airplane over the countryside.

Tara goes to the Post Office to send a fax, and Mary Ann, the woman who runs the place, tells her how to get Internet access. She tells them about Dale, a local guy who can fix them up. The bar also has WiFi. Georgie is there too, and he’s still weird; he sings to them. Johnny is weirdly protective, but maybe in a creepy way.

Johnny and Tara go to the bar and talk to Annie about the situation. Georgie comes in, and Mike the bartender throws him out. The quiet man from earlier comes in, he’s Sergeant Brian. Annie doesn’t like Brian. Mike doesn’t like Georgie.

Tara thinks she sees someone outside, and Johnny goes out to check on it; he says the phone lines have been damaged, either chewed or cut.

We cut to Annie, out in the woods, who encounters a masked killer. We then cut to Sergeant Brian out shooting beer bottles. Johnny and Tara take a shower together as Georgie peeps in through the window; Johny sees him and overreacts, at least in Tara’s eyes. The next morning, Tara calls Helen and tells her what’s been going on.

Tara goes to the Post Office and arranges for Internet with Dale, who says he talked to Johnny last week, and Johnny never called him back. Mike calls Mary Ann to say that Annie’s been murdered. On the way home, Tara sees Johnny visiting a grave in the graveyard. When he leaves, she checks out the grave, someone named Gloria.

Mary Ann tells Tara about Mr. Takahashi’s orchard about twenty years ago. The old man found a strange hole in his field that was filled in that night; there was a body buried there, and then they found 24 more graves. They caught the killer, Ed Mackay, who died in prison years ago.

Tara finally gets WiFi and tells Helen that she doesn’t want Johnny to know that she’s rented a car. She wants to follow Johnny and spy on him. It’s all very sketchy, and there are no red lights at all. That night, Tara dreams of Lyvia being dead in their house. Tara confronts Johnny, and he has an answer for everything, mostly that it’s all in Tara’s imagination.

Tara asks Mary Anne about Gloria Rivera, the headstone that Johnny visited. Gloria killed herself many years ago when her husband cheated on her. That husband was Ed Mackay.

Tara follows Johnny to an old farmhouse where he keeps his pet rat. Yes, he’s been lying to her about that all along. Helen tells her to leave him right now, but Tara won’t do it until she finds out why. Helen says Johnny probably killed Annie, too. Helen says Lyvia’s body was found, and since Georgie was the one who found her body, he got the blame. She offers to fly up there tonight.

That night, Tara is ready for the rat, and she kills it. In the morning, Johnny cries as he secretly buries his rat. Then he starts digging a larger grave. Afterward, Mary Ann gives him a ride home. She calls Sergeant Brian afterward, he’s her father and runs to his plane.

Tara packs her stuff, waiting for Helen. She does some research on Glora Rivers and recognizes her from the photo her mother has. She calls her mother, wanting to know why she had a photo of Gloria in her desk. Her mother freaks out. It turns out that Tara’s mother was the other woman for Ed, and that Ed and Gloria had a son, Johnny.

Johnny calls; this was all done to get revenge on Tara’s mother for breaking up his family. Johnny admits that Lyvia was his wife, and he admits that he killed her. He did all this so that Tara would kill herself. Oh, and by the way, she’s his half-sister. Incest is best. Ew.

She whacks him with a stick but doesn’t finish the job. She runs outside, and sure enough, Johnny gets up to pursue. Brian flies overhead and lands with his rifle in hand. The two men argue until Tara whacks Johnny with a shovel.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s very colorful, sharp, and very visual, with many really artistic shots of the country and various settings. It’s not boring at all, but it does take a really long time to get to the main plot.

I don’t understand why Tara wouldn’t have driven back to the city at the first opportunity and just dumped Johnny. Even without the gaslighting, he’s an ass. Especially after she learned the truth about the rat. Helen makes sense in every scene that she’s in, but Tara just refuses to leave.

The mystery develops well, but Johnny’s motivations are a little sketchy.

Kevin’s Commentary

The only real criticism I have is Tara staying around after she knows that something is very wrong about Johnny. She’s got the means to leave, a best friend or a mother she could stay with, but chooses to stay. Which of course lets the second half of the movie unfold like it does. Other than that, it’s well made, and overall I liked it.

2024 Mother Nocturna

●      AKA “Madre Notturna”

●      Directed by Daniele Campea

●      Written by Daniele Campea

●      Stars Susanna Costaglione, Sofia Ponente, Edoardo Oliva

●      Run Time: 1 Hour, 40 Minutes

●      Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This starts out slow, quiet, and gloomy. Then it gets more so. The acting and production values are all very good. It’s just a script that doesn’t go places. It wallows in misery. There are some horror elements that give it some interesting moments, but we didn’t much care for it.

Spoilery Synopsis

A woman dances as the credits roll. We cut to a hospital, where Agnese is getting released after thirteen years. Her husband, Riccardo, talks to the doctor, and he says Agnese is recovering, and he’s optimistic after thirteen years of treatment, but they don’t know what the problem is. The conversation shifts to Riccardo’s daughter, Arianna, who is graduating this year. They all go home together.

Agnese asks Arianna if she still dances; Agnese is a wolf biologist. The mother and daughter go out to the woods and look at wolf tracks. Agnese puts up trail cameras to watch the wolves. At school, Mateo asks Arianna out on a date, and she avoids answering him. After a while, Riccardo has to leave to make a house call; he’s a doctor and has to go.

Agnese spends her day looking at old bones in the field before watching videos of the wolves. A lone wolf comes to her door, and she smiles, but then it’s gone. Riccardo is surprised to hear about that, since there haven’t been any wolves around in ages. She’s clearly suffering from depression, and he knows it and tries to cheer her up.

We hear about COVID lockdowns on the news; the lockdowns are getting started. At dinner, Agnese sees something in the room with them that terrifies her. Arianna’s not even sure she’s happy that her mother is home. “Are you sure it won’t happen again?” That night, Agnese wakes up and talks to the darkness until Riccardo sends her back to bed. In the morning, she notices her feet are dirty. Did she sleepwalk outdoors?

Riccardo goes to work again, leaving Arianna alone with Agnes, who talks about her favorite depressing opera. Arianna gets a phone call; Riccardo has tested positive for COVID and can’t come home. By morning, they hear that he’s been intubated and is not doing well.

Agnese mentions dreaming she was out in the woods, becoming something else, and Arianna points out that she was sleepwalking last night. Could it be her medication making her do that? We flashback to Arianna and Riccardo having a conversation about her first period.

Agnese looks at Leonardo’s pictures and says he was the light of the house. She cries, and Arianna looks annoyed. Little Leonardo’s death is what got her spiraling into depression.

Agnese falls down and has a seizure; she sees the woods. That night, Arianna dreams about being outside with the wolves as well. Caring for her mentally ill mother starts taking its toll on Arianna. She listens to old tapes from her father; Agnese had started sleepwalking right after Leonoardo died, and the depression soon followed. A suicide attempt was next, and he had no choice but to put Agnese in the hospital for everyone’s safety.

That night Agnese slips out and heads for the woods again. Oddly enough, so does Arianna, who sees someone covered in blood coming out of the darkness toward her. In the morning, they both wash the dirt off their feet. Agnese eats some raw meat out of the fridge, tearing it apart with her teeth.

Arianna asks how Leonardo died; she doesn’t believe the story that he died in his sleep, and now she wants to know the truth. Agnese tells the story about how she was sleeping with the baby and she had those “walking in the woods” dreams. She saw a young man wearing wolf skins. When she woke up, Leonardo was on the floor next to her, dead. They said the baby had rolled out of bed, and Riccardo blamed her. She says guilt from Riccardo was what drove her mad, but Arianna remembers it differently. Agnese explains that Riccardo had been cheating on her for years, and Arianna doesn’t know him as well as she thinks she does. Arianna denies it, but Agnese has real proof– letters and photos. This soon devolves into Agnese throwing a fit.

Agnese dreams of a tall, blonde woman out in the woods. Arianna looks outside to see her mother bent over a dead rabbit, eating it. Agnese looks up and has black eyes, and Arianna climbs a tree to get away from her. Agnes then pushes the tree down and then sniffs Arianna all over. A wolf howls, and Agnes is gone.

We get a flashback of much-younger Arianna coming into her mother’s bedroom and killing little Leonardo as her mother sleeps. Arianna killed the baby and let her mother take the blame.

Brian’s Commentary

For a while, early on, it gave off hints that it was going to be a werewolf movie; we wish we were that lucky.

It’s extremely slow, atmospheric, and moody. For the first hour, the only real action is the occasional shots of Arianna dancing, and those don’t really have any relevance to the plot. We’re just past the one-hour point before we get any hint that this might be a horror movie.

It’s dark and depressing; well shot and looks good throughout. It’s good at showing the stress of dealing with someone who has mental illness and family tragedy, but there’s really very little actual story here. Even the reveal at the end about Leonardo's death was not surprising or particularly impactful.

Nope. Didn’t like it at all.

Kevin’s Commentary

This had some moments that I enjoyed, and I thought the wrap up was interesting. But mostly it felt like a long depressing slog. I didn’t much care for it.

2024 Don’t Mess with Grandma

●      AKA “Sunset Superman”

●      Directed by Jason Krawczyk

●      Written by Jason Krawczyk

●      Stars Michael Jai White, Jackie Richardson, Billy Zane

●      Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This was awesome fun. There’s always a hint of a horror element to home invasion and being cut off without the ability to call for help, but this one is more humor and action than anything else. We really enjoyed it.

Spoilery Synopsis

JT delivers food to an old man with a goose that hates him; the goose, not the old man. We get flashes of how hard his job can be sometimes; it’s a sort of Meals on Wheels organization, and he’s not very good at it. His coworker Trent asks if he’s talked to his grandma about a nursing home; she lives two hours away, and he visits every day.

Credits roll as JT makes the long drive to Grandma’s house, listening to awful audiobooks. Grandma’s dog hates JT, just like the goose. The bossy old lady has JT carry a bear’s head and hide upstairs. They’re having chicken corn chowder for dinner, but there’s no chicken– or corn. Grandma’s house is full of taxidermied animals, work done by the now passed-on grandpa.

 Grandma’s sink upstairs is broken, and JT gets to work on fixing it; it’s either that or reading erotic novels to Grandma. While he’s upstairs working, several men wearing pig masks and carrying knives break in the window. As one of the men approaches Grandma, JT beats him silly. The other man tries to stab JT, but stabs her accomplice accidentally. When the stabbed man starts to cry and scream, JT orders him to shut up before Grandma finds out. He literally throws them out the window onto the porch as the guard dog sleeps in the corner.

Ted, Carl, and Kim argue about the useless masks; they couldn’t see anything during the fight, and Kim stabbed Ted in the back since she couldn’t tell who was who. They weren’t expecting JT to be there. Kim thinks JT is probably a Satanist; they all come out here for orgies and sacrifices and stuff.

Indoors, Grandma continues reading her pornography. JT hunts around and finds a gun and some ammo. He takes Grandma’s hearing aid so she can’t tell what’s really going on. JT goes outside to find that the three bandits have turned into seven. Stan is the leader, and he’s not especially smart either.

Every time JT gets the drop on the bad guys, Grandma interrupts, wanting something; now it’s dinner time. They sit at the table, and he talks about a nursing home. She lays on the granny-guilt about being an inconvenience to him. Carl offers to ransack the house, and JT and Grandma can just sit on the porch. They want something in the house. Carl makes it inside and meets Rufus the guard dog, who finally decides not to like him either. There is much screaming, and eventually, JT comes back inside.

Inside, JT and Rufus debate over their next move, and they don’t seem particularly upset. Bill, one of the baddies, tries to crawl in the bathroom window, and Rufus tears him apart– we have our first fatality! Grandma comes up for her bath, and JT has got all the blood splatter and corpse cleaned up. “Why is the water red?” “It’s the raspberry soap, Grandma.”

“Grandma is literally bathing in the blood of my enemies,” he points out to himself. Pam gets into the house, and she fights with JT; she’s undefeated with her Ju-Jistu black belt– until now.  JT argues with bandits over the meaning of the word “defenestrated.”

JT grabs a hostage and takes him inside. Grandma finally sees him– it’s Carl, the guy who brings her groceries. She invites him for chowder and a card game. Meanwhile, the idiots outside try to figure out what to do with Bill’s body. Even after dinner, Grandma is still oblivious to the burglary. Carl and JT talk about medical school and crime. Stan and Jan have been doing this regularly to rob old people. This time around, they want that bear’s head– it’s an extinct California Grizzly. It’s priceless, even with the googly eyes.

Grandma finds a pamphlet for “Shady Acres” in the trash and starts to read it. She discusses the idea with Rufus, who won’t be able to go with her. JT gives Carl the bear’s head.

Outside, Stan has called in reinforcements, and there are at least a dozen of them out there now. JT and all the others call each other names for a while. He offers them Carl and the bear head, but Stan wants more. They want the copper pipes from the house too, so they turn down the offer. The new group has some big goons, but they don’t fare well either; now JT actually looks angry.

Grandma goes up to the attic to look at old photos and memorabilia. Does she really want to leave her home of so many years? Meanwhile, JT fights about a dozen guys in the front yard. They finally overwhelm him, and he sits up and talks about being a loser as he gets right back up. Fully recharged, he goes into ass-kicking mode and gets serious. “I’m gonna be sore tomorrow,” he tells Rufus, “and I’m pretty drunk.”

Stan himself finally gets into it, but JT isn’t fazed. Stan whines about not being able to afford the down payment on a boat. “Go home! We’re done here!”

JT’s friend Trent from work shows up and helps JT back inside. JT brings Carl in to look at Rufus. Stan whacked the dog with his shotgun, and the dog was injured.

Grandma catches up to JT and admits that she’s been too hard on him. She pulls out the Shady Acres pamphlet, and she thinks maybe that might be a good idea. As they talk, Carl fixes up Rufus, so he’ll be fine.

Grandma wants JT, Trent, and Carl to play Rummy. Pam brings back the bear head and gets roped into the game, too. The baddies are outside, packing up to go home.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s a very serious, terrifying home invasion film. OK, well maybe not so serious. The writer said he wrote this specifically to see “Michael Jai White punch as many people as possible in 80 minutes."

JT laughs and wisecracks throughout the film; he never gets angry and sees the whole situation as amusing. His attitude and self-narration throughout is the best thing here.

Kevin’s Commentary

Michael Jai White is perfect in the role and the script was very fun. I liked everything about it.

Mainstream Film:

2018 The Strangers: Prey At Night

●      Directed by Johannes Roberts

●      Written by Bryan Bertino, Ben Ketai

●      Stars Christina Hendricks, Martin Henderson, Bailee Madison

●      Run Time: 1 Hour, 25 Minutes

●      Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

They took the elements of the first movie and dialed it up a bit in this one. It’s more of the same, but more so in victims, action, and violence. They improved on it with this one. It’s a worthy sequel that we’d recommend.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on an old pickup truck with three people inside. They pull off the side of the foggy road near a house. An old woman wakes up; there’s a knock at her door. Turns out, the knock is coming from inside the house. Someone in a doll mask lays down in bed next to the old woman’s sleeping husband. Credits roll.

We cut to Mike, Cindy, and their daughter, Kinsey, who are packing for a trip. They pick up their son, Luke, on the way to Uncle Marv and Aunt Sheryl’s place. Kinsey is going to a boarding school that her parents can’t really afford. Kinsey has done some bad stuff this year, so now she’s being sent away to straighten up.

They arrive at Marv and Sheryl’s place, near the house we’ve seen before the credits. They get their own mobile home, but soon, there’s a knock at the door. A girl is there, wanting to talk to Tamara. The “Tamara” woman comes back and asks again.

She leaves, and then Kinsey and Luke talk about their futures. They walk to another mobile home that has its door left open. They walk right in and help themselves to the booze in the cupboard. They hear a noise from the back and find the dog trapped in a bedroom. There’s also the smell of death and a crazy wall of “Hellos.” Then they find a body.

They run and tell Mike, who comes to investigate. Kinsey and Cindy return to their own trailer to find their cellphones have all been smashed. The doll-faced woman comes out of nowhere with a knife and traps them in the bathroom. Kinsey gets out through the skylight, but Cindy isn’t fast enough and gets stabbed repeatedly.

Mike and Luke find the bodies untouched, but there are two people in masks also there, and they can’t get out. Mike gets Uncle Marv’s gun, and the two cross the field back toward their place and find what’s left of Cindy. They crash the car, and Mike can’t get out, so Luke is left with the gun and on his own. As soon as Luke leaves, the man in the mask sits next to Mike in the car and stabs him.

One of the doll-woman stabs Kinsey in the leg just as Luke comes in with the gun and makes her back off. He can’t bring himself to shoot the gun, so they run away.

Luke goes into a closed-down store and calls the police, but he doesn’t know exactly where they are, and by the time he figures it out, he isn’t alone. Luke knocks out and stabs one of the doll women to death, and he’s pretty thorough about it. The sack-head man chases Luke around the pool and eventually stabs him. Kinsey pulls him out of the pool before he dies, but he’s in pretty bad shape.

Kinsey continues on toward the main road. She runs right into a cop who helps her off the road, but they don’t see the other doll woman who walks up and slices his throat. Kinsey uses the policeman’s shotgun to shoot the second doll woman. “Why are you doing this?” Kinsey asks. “Why not?” says the about-to-die killer.

The man in the sack mask is still out there. He rams the police car so Kinsey can’t use that to get away. The gas leaks out of his car, and she makes his truck go boom. Still, he’s a hard maniac to kill, and he chases her some more, flaming truck and all. He gets out and menaces her on foot, but he’s badly burned, shaking, and he’s been impaled with glass. He collapses.

A young mother and son see Kinsey on the road and stop to help. We see that Bagman is very persistent and not at all dead yet.

We cut to Kinsey sitting next to Luke in the hospital; he didn’t die. Someone knocks on the door, and she responds in terror.

Brian’s Commentary

Kevin noted immediately that the actor who plays Teenage Luke is Bill Pullman’s son. I noted that this is a normal-looking mobile home park full of occupied houses with lights on. None of them hears anything or calls the cops, even when Mike drives his car into one of the houses. Yes, it was explained that it was the off-season, but that doesn’t account for all the parked cars and lights on.

The small mobile homes don’t allow for the hide-and-seen antics of the first film, so they had to do something else here.

It was the same as the first one, only they went to new places with this one, and actually improved it, in my opinion.

Oh, and the man in the bag mask has good taste in 80s music. Just sayin’.

Kevin’s Commentary

At least the daughter is really a teenager. I liked how they stepped everything up in this one a bit. More victims, a bigger playground for the cat and mouse, more violence and action. I would say that I liked it better than the first movie.

2024 The Strangers Chapter 1

●      Directed by Renny Harlin

●      Written by Alan R. Cohen, Alan Freedland, Bryan Bertino

●      Stars Madelaine Petsch, Froy Gutierrez, Richard Brake

●      Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes

●      Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This was well made, with good effects, believable acting, and ample suspense. But it wasn’t much of anything new that we hadn’t seen before. There were many similarities to the first two films in the series. On the other hand, there is only so much they can do about the idea. If you liked the previous movies, you’ll probably like this one but don’t expect many surprises. If you haven’t seen the previous films, you’ll be okay just starting with this one - which is the first part of a new trilogy.

Spoilery Synopsis

A man runs through the woods in terror. The Strangers approach him, and the bag-head man hacks him with his ax. We are told that 1.4 million people go missing every year– seven just since the film started!

Somewhere in Oregon, it’s Ryan and Maya’s fifth anniversary (of dating). They complain about having no phone signal here in the middle of nowhere. They stop at a diner, and everyone stares at them. Eden and Neil are friendly, but most of the others aren’t. They see a “Missing” poster for Jeff Morrell, the guy killed in the pre-credit sequence.

When they leave, their alternator is dead, so they have to order a part; they have to spend the night. Waitress Shelly recommends an AirBNB locally. Ryan thinks mechanic Rudy is scamming them, but Maya is more trusting. They get to the Airbnb, and it’s way nicer than a motel.

Just as the couple starts getting a little romantic, there’s a knock at the door. “Is Tamara here?” asks the shadowy girl. Ryan has left his inhaler in the car, which is in town, so he makes the trip on a motorcycle to go and retrieve it. Alone now, Maya hears knocking at the door. Again, it’s “Is Tamara here?” As she deals with the weirdo at the door, she loses her phone.

In town, Ryan runs into Rudy, the mean mechanic, gets what he came for, and stops to pick up food.

At the house, Bag-head watches Maya take a shower, and he’s not subtle about it; she’s oblivious. Suddenly, the power goes out. When she gets out of the shower, there’s a fire in the fireplace and signs that she’s not alone in the house. Then she sees a woman in a doll mask and runs to hide. By the time Ryan returns, she’s terrified. He thinks she’s hallucinated the whole thing. He runs off the “Tamara” girl outside yet again, and they eat their dinner.

They find a dead bird hanging in the kitchen and finally decide it’s time to lock all the doors. Too late, Scarecrow hacks the door down with his ax. Doll Face and Pinup are there as well, and they quickly take over the house, with Ryan and Maya hiding in the bedroom.

Suddenly, it gets quiet downstairs, so they assume the strangers have left the house. They run for the motorcycle parked outside, but it explodes just before they get to it. They run back into the bathroom and try getting out through the rat-infested crawl space underneath. Maya impales her hand on a nail but can’t scream, or she’ll get caught. Ryan pulls out the nail and bandages everything in complete silence.

When they do get out of the crawlspace, Ryan drops his inhaler. They hide in a shed, but Pinup is already in there. Ryan finds a shotgun and shoots— the homeowner, who had come to repair the refrigerator. They take the man’s car, but Scarecrow rams them repeatedly with his truck, so that’s not gonna help.

Maya hides in the woods as Dollface hunts for her; she uses the homeowner’s phone to call 911, but there’s hardly any signal. She rolls over and finds the skeleton of one of the former victims. Dollface knocks her out and drags her back to the house.

Meanwhile, Scarecrow and Pinup pursue Ryan through the same woods. He gets the drop on Pinup, but she doesn’t act the way he expects, daring him to shoot her. This simply delays things before Scarecrow knocks him out.

The unhappy couple wakes up inside the house, all tied up. Ryan chooses this romantic moment to propose to Maya, and she accepts. Pinup immediately stabs him as the other two watch. “Why are you doing this to us?” screams Maya. “Because you’re here,” answers Pinup. Scarecrow then stabs Maya as well.

Sirens blare as the police finally approach; Maya’s 911 call did get through. The strangers get into their truck and drive away. We zoom in on Maya, who isn’t quite dead.

Maya awakens in the hospital. “To be continued…”

Brian’s Commentary

This is the third film of the series and also the first of a new trilogy. All three new films were filmed simultaneously. Since most of the baddies died in “Prey at Night,” this is a prequel or requel to the original two films. Also, it has numerous similarities and repeated plot points to “Prey at Night,” but if it’s been a few years since you saw that one, the similarities might not be as noticeable (we watched it just yesterday, so it was pretty obvious).

This has all the dumb tropes. Maya hears things inside the house and knows there’s someone outside, so she decides to take a shower. Ryan gets home, and she doesn’t insist that she actually saw Dollface inside the house. She smoked a little pot, so Ryan thinks she hallucinated. They have a peephole in the front door that they never use, not even once.

It was awfully similar to the other two films, but if you liked those, you’d probably like this one as well. You do NOT need to have seen the previous films to know what’s happening here.

Kevin’s Commentary

It was good in every way, but the idea is limited, so there is quite a bit here that’s been seen in the previous two movies. There was a real facepalm moment when there had already been strangeness going on for quite some time, and they suddenly decided it was time to lock the doors and windows. I liked it okay, but I didn’t feel like I was seeing anything new.

Short Films:

2024 Short Film: 0 Lux - The Hatman Film

●      Directed by Matt Sears

●      Written by Matt Sears

●      Stars Sam Alan, Philip Ridout

●      Run Time: 6:52

●      Watch it:

What Happens

A man’s father has recently died, and he comes to the old man’s house to go through his things. He packs some photos and things and then finds a bag containing a video camera. He turns on the camera and looks through it; nothing special. Then he turns on “0 Lux” mode, the night-vision mode. He starts seeing things through the camera that he’s just not meant to see…

Commentary

This is based on “The Hatman,” a ghost-like entity that many people have supposedly reported seeing. He’s often reported as just standing in the corner of the room, just watching. Unless, of course, you have a special camera…

It’s good. It’s got a full story, it’s concise, and even without much dialogue, it’s clear what’s going on.

2022 Short Film: Street No. 4

●      Directed by Lark Lee

●      Written by Lark Lee, Koji Steven Sakai

●      Stars Tonia Hammerich, Susan Bush, Elsa Luan

●      Run Time: 7:30

●      Watch it:

What Happens

Julia has recently moved into a new house with her husband who is away, and she’s pregnant. She loves the new house, but he doesn’t; they fight over it over the phone. She finds that her stove won’t light, so she goes to the neighbor’s house to borrow a lighter. The woman next door freaks out when Julia mentions that she’s moved in next door to number 4. What could be so terrible about that house?

Commentary

It’s well-shot and looks good. We don’t get a full explanation of why things are happening, but we never have any doubt as to what is happening. There’s a ghost in the house, and it seems to be concerned with the baby, but why?

You’ll have to watch to find out.

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This week, we’ve got five brand-new, just-released films. We’ll start off with two indie films, “Inherit the Witch” and “The Deserving.” Then we’ll switch over to some more mainstream stuff with “Hell Hole,” “Hostile Dimensions,” and “Trap.” Finally, we’ll watch three short films!

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Indie Films:

Inherit the Witch (2024) 

·       Directed by Cradeaux Alexander

·       Written by Cradeaux Alexander

·       Stars Cradeaux Alexander, Rohan Quine, Heather Cairs

·       Run Time: 1 Hour, 25 Minutes

·       Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PjDyQ-IgeU

·       Coming to streaming September 24th

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This was a story about witchery, family secrets, and evil that lives a really long time. It starts out in 1984 and flashes forward 30 years, which was 10 years ago. Time flies. The tie-ins between past and present were interesting, and it does have a pretty cool wrap up. Horrorguy Kevin liked it quite a bit and Brian was pretty cool. You’ll have to see for yourself to decide. 

Spoilery Synopsis

It’s 1984, and it’s Jesse and Cory’s 14th birthday party. We watch grainy old footage of the party. A woman there says she’s putting a very special spell on Cory, but Rex isn’t sure if he even believes in that. She takes some of Rex’s blood and then drinks it. For his birthday, she gives Cory something shocking. 

In the present, Rex and Cory are grown up, and they complain about Pamela, who almost married their father. The father has died, and all the weird relatives are coming out for the funeral. No one wants to see Fiona, the sister, but she’s coming anyway. 

We cut to Pamela leading her coven in a ritual back in 1984. It’s all about “living forever.”

Fiona visits Cory at his place. Older Pamela does a spell; she’s still a witch, and Rex assists her with it. They need to finish the spell with Cory and Fiona or Pamela’s going to die. The two of them, along with the Grand Witch, work on setting up a spell. The death of the old family will make her young again. 

We flash back and forth between Cody and Fiona arguing and the witches doing their thing for a long while. When Fiona finally leaves, Rex uses magic to ambush her on the road. He texts a photo of her unconscious body to Cody. Cody calls 911, but old Pamela is the one who answers. 

Weird stuff happens. Fiona wakes up and escapes. Cody’s boyfriend Lars is possessed by Rex. Fiona finds bodies in the basement of her father’s house. Cody goes off into the night looking for Fiona and ends up at his father’s house. Rex confronts Fiona, and they talk about Pamela being “about ready.” 

We flash back to Cody’s parents sacrificing his twin sister Jesse, in a ritual. Cory stabs her to death in the ritual and Pamela’s insistence. 

Rex sends Lars out to kill Cody and Fiona again, and we see that Pamela is behind the whole thing. Cody gets the upper hand with Lars and appears to suck the life right out of him; at the same time, Pamela has a seizure. In the flashback, after the sacrifice, we see that Pamela says Cory is the best of us; his power must be nurtured. Cory and his father kill his mother next, and Cory is very into it all. 

Back in the modern day, Cory remembers that he was the biggest witch all along. Fiona walks up and says that’s why she left the family all those years ago; she was afraid of Cory. Cory uses his magic to “force choke” both Fiona and Rex. 

Cory then goes into the house and stands next to Pamela’s bed, where the old woman is dying. He carries her down to the basement, where all the dead bodies are. The cultists come in chanting and put a crown on Cory. They wake up Fiona, who wasn’t dead after all, and Cory cuts her throat. Pamela sits up, looking much healthier now. Pamela then breaks Cory’s neck. She gets all the power! 

Brian’s Commentary

It’s described as LGBT horror, but other than a few of the actors/characters being obviously gay, that doesn’t really seem to affect the plot in any way. 

The characters are drab and uninteresting from the beginning to the end. The story is something about a witch wanting the inheritance from Cody and Fiona’s dead father, but it’s all very drawn out and talky. The editing is disjointed and the story is a little hard to follow at points. 

It all made sense in the end, more or less, but it wasn’t particularly well made. 

Kevin’s Commentary

It’s a heavy load to direct, write, and carry a major role in a movie. I thought Cradeaux Alexander did a decent job with it. The ending was unexpected, and I liked that. It wasn’t perfect, but I was entertained - which is the basic requirement that I need satisfied.

The Deserving (2024) 

* Directed by Koka Singh Arora

* Written by Koka Singh Arora

* Stars Venkat Sai Gunda, Simone Stadler, Kelsey Stalter

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 15 Minutes

* Trailer:

* Coming to streaming October 1st, 2024

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This had a great setting and a capable cast with good direction. Venkat Sai Gunda was especially impressive being the center of the movie as a mute with zero dialogue. The script was a little disappointing to us, with an element we figured out way too early. The short runtime helps things move briskly though, and we give it an overall thumbs up.

Spoilery Synopsis

Karter Sai opens the door and lets in a model; he’s a photographer, but he doesn’t speak at all, which she finds weird. He hallucinates himself touching her, but then when she reacts in real-life, he stabs her to death with a pencil. Credits roll. 

Karter opens the door and “talks” to the postal worker using sign language. He uses sign language, and she’s used to that. He goes back inside, develops the photos of the dead model, and fixes himself lunch. 

In the morning, he takes a shower, gets dressed, and goes up to the attic, where he puts his head in a noose. He’s planning to kill himself. He puts on the noose and jumps. Suddenly, there’s someone banging on the door downstairs. He struggles to get the noose off before he passes out…

He opens the door and sees Lucy Hill there. She needs some head shots for her portfolio. He grudgingly lets her inside. He assembles his camera equipment slowly and carefully, but then drops it when he sees something horrible for half a second. Lucy comes out of the bathroom and wants a tour of the house. He closes the door before she sees the dead body he has in there. She seems to know all about him and his family and personal life. 

They do the photo shoot, and he gets a glimpse of her as a corpse. Afterward, she makes him tea. As she stirs the tea, he sees it as blood. She asks many personal questions and is a real chatterbox. He barely responds to her yammering. Karter’s father was a killer of some sort, and the newspapers portrayed him badly. He reaches over the table to kill her, and she’s suddenly not there. 

There’s another knock at the door. This is Lucy, and she introduces herself as if she’s never been there before. He slams the door and hides from her, but he keeps seeing ghosts in the house. He calls 911 by text, and the dispatcher is strange. 

Karter has a flashback to his childhood. Then he sees dead women crawling around the house. After a while, he tries to ignore them, but they make it hard. The deal model asks, “Have you killed yourself yet?” He gets up on a chair and puts on another noose, but doesn’t follow through with it.

Lucy reappears, and she’s a bit more straightforward this time. Is she Death? The Devil? They talk about death and suicide. They also talk about his victims; he’s killed more than one woman. He watches one of them die in another flashback. Then he sees himself burying the bodies. Some of the ghosts mention his “Daddy issues.” 

911 calls him back, and they say there’s no one in the house. Except, he is in the house, along with the ghosts. The ghosts throw a noose around his neck and laugh at him. We flash back to Karter strangling his own abusive father to death. 

He calls 911 again and tells them by note that he needs help. The message shows that he’s killed someone. The police soon show up– no, it’s the mail lady again. Lucy shows up and we see that he really has been dead all along. 

Brian’s Commentary

We assumed from the get-go that Karter had actually died in the suicide attempt, and we waited for the film to prove us wrong. Would they go all “Owl Creek” on us, or try something new? No, no, they did not. 

Venkat Sai Gunda, as Karter, is mostly a one-man show here, and he does well, although he has no real dialogue. Simone Stadler, as Lucy, babbled so much I’d have killed her myself, but she played the part well. Later, when she was more malevolent, she stopped being annoying. The ghost makeup is very well done. 

It’s well shot, well lit, and the setting inside the old house works well. The lack of much dialogue makes it feel a lot like an international short film, but it’s not. It does feel like it could have been shorter; the bits with the ghosts and the flashbacks felt about fifteen minutes too much of the same stuff over and over. 

Kevin’s Commentary

When he hangs himself and struggles changing his mind about it, then they cut to him answering the door, we’re supposed to think he successfully saved himself. I didn’t think he successfully saved himself, he was actually dead and didn’t know it. But that predictable element aside, I enjoyed his performance and the movie overall. I’d recommend it.

Hell Hole (2024) 

* Directed by John Adams, Toby Poser

* Written by John Adams, Lulu Adams, Toby Poser

* Stars Olivia Perunicic, Bruno Veljanovski, John Adams

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 32 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This was an entertaining creature feature. The set up is familiar, with a group of people trapped in an escalating situation, but it was well done with enough uniqueness to keep it interesting. The mix of CGI and practical effects get the job done, and it’s filmed in a perfect setting. We give it a thumbs up.

Spoilery Synopsis

We’re told that in 1814, in Serbian territory, a group of Napoleon’s troops ran into some trouble. We see a couple of soldiers in the woods take a horse away from a witchy-looking woman. The soldiers then prepare to kill the horse when some strange creature bursts out of the horse and kills the men with its tentacles. Credits roll. 

In the modern day, Emily comes to work at the drill site. John arrives and says that the roads are flooded, so they are all stuck there for a while. John and Emily are Americans, brought here to find oil, but Sofija, the conservation science student, is more interested in biological research in the deep soil. Teddy, Emily’s nephew, is the camp cook, and he makes spicy Indian food too often. Sofija likes Teddy and volunteers to help him cook. 

The drilling commences. Almost immediately, they hit something that releases smelly gasses. The drill comes up with some kind of bloody fleshy material. Then they dig up something else, a body, but then it comes to life and crawls out of the ground, speaking French. All the work stops.

Teddy sorta-kinda knows a few French words, and he tries to talk to the Frenchman. The man has some kind of parasite inside him. Sofija thinks it’s some kind of worm, and she wants a sample. It pokes out of his nose, and then from his ear. 

The man uses hand signals to ask John to kill him. When John refuses, the man gets all tentacly and attacks John. John ends up swallowing the thing as it crawls down his throat. The French man then turns into a dead mummy when the thing leaves him. Emily quickly notices that John smells like the hole. 

John starts acting strangely and Christian confronts him about weirdness. John thinks the parasite is in him, which it is. This all results in a fistfight, and as John loses, the thing kills Christian and then goes back into John. 

Sofija looks at the sample, and it’s all very confusing, something like an octopus. She figures that the parasite has left the dead Frenchman and is in one of them now. 

Danko and Filip, two of the workers, go into the woods to smoke pot and find John disposing of Christian’s body. John explodes, releasing the creature inside, that hops into Danko. Danko explains it all, and he knows it’s inside him. 

The other workers want to kill Danko, but Emily doesn’t want that. Luka gives her one hour to come up with a better plan. 

Teddy notices that the parasite seems to avoid the women of the group. Sofija and Nikolai have examined tissue samples from John, and they explain the creature’s reproductive cycle. Danko needs to wait until the creature is fully mature, and then it’ll leave him. 

Luka returns to kill Danko, and Emily has no choice but to let him take Danko into the woods and kill him. Teddy and Sofija talk about the creature being innocent and not-evil. 

Out in the woods, the group prepares to kill Danko. He warns them to stand way back when they shoot him, but they’re all convinced that it’s some kind of virus, not a monster. They finally shoot him, and he explodes like a tomato. The creature starts picking off the remaining workers, one at a time. 

Emily talks to Nikolai, who says he wishes he had one of those things inside him. The whole group decides to walk through the woods back to town once Luka returns. Nikolai knows it’s in Luka but promises not to say anything. 

Luka admits it to the group and says violence won’t kill the monster. He decides to drown himself in the nearby lake, so the monster won’t explode out of him. It jumps into Nikolai, but Sofija stabs him to death. It tries and fails to crawl into Emily– Teddy is the last man around. 

We cut to Teddy, sitting in a bathtub, waiting for the thing to leave him. 

Brian’s Commentary

The dialogue, in most cases, is delivered as if this was a comedy, but it’s not. A lot of the dialogue is delivered by Serbians, so it’s a little hard to tell their acting abilities. 

It’s essentially a parasite movie, along the lines of “Alien” but done in Serbia instead. It’s low budget, but well made. 

The creature is interesting, and we see enough of it to do the job. The CGI tentacles aren’t great, but the physical prop was pretty cool. 

It’s not great, but we were entertained.

Kevin’s Commentary

They had a great setting for this, and they made the most of it. I thought the cast was fine and the story was effective. It wasn’t “realistic,” but the reactions of the folks seemed like how things might really go in a situation like that. I’d give it a big thumbs up.

Mainstream Film:

2024 Hostile Dimensions

* Directed by Graham Hughes

* Written by Graham Hughes

* Stars Annabel Logan, Joma West, Josie Rogers, Paddy Kondracki

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 20 Minutes

* Trailer:

*  

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This seemed like a small budget work, but they manage to fit a lot into it. They take an interesting basic idea and make it even more interesting and strange as things go along. The found footage and documentary style of it fit perfectly, and the cast did a nice job with the script. We liked it a lot.

Spoilery Synopsis

We start with some graffiti artists exploring an abandoned building. Emily and Brian find a door, standing all alone, freestanding in the middle of a room. Brian wanders off and then hears Emily scream– that door is now open, but she’s gone. He looks through the door, and the space on the other side is different. Something from the other side grabs him.

Sam and Ash talk about the found footage of Emily’s disappearance. They want to take this story and make a film about it. Ash thinks it’s a stupid idea, but she goes along with it anyway. They start researching Emily, who is well-known in the graffiti circles.

Sam and Ash go to interview Brian, who acts strangely right away. He explains that he has been working on a documentary project and tells them about the door. He suggests they leave “the door” alone. He tells them about nuclear waste disposal and how they are all surrounded by warnings to keep people away. The door may lead to something almost that bad.

The two girls bring the door home to their apartment. They eventually open the door, thinking it’s all just a joke. Inside the door is a mirror. Ash touches the mirror, and it feels weird. Suddenly, Sam’s mother shows up in the reflection, but she isn’t there in reality. They close the door and then reopen it, and a little dog talks to them. They close the door in disbelief.

The two do a brainstorming session to help them figure out what the door actually is. A gateway to other dimensions. “Can we go through the door?”

The next morning, they send a remote-controlled car through the door. The other side of the door is… a restaurant/play area called “Pandamonium.” They go through themselves next and yell for Emily. Ash is nervous, but Sam seems right at home in the place. They follow signs for “Free hugs” to a giant stuffed panda that sprouts tentacles and chases them back to the door.

Back in the apartment, they’re safe again. Late that night, something pounds on the other side of the barricaded door.

In the morning, the two go to see Innis, a professor who talks about alternate realities and quantum physics. He tells them a story, which we see in found footage, of an urban explorer in Mexico who also went missing. He went through a door from a nasty old building into a jungle with balloons growing out of the ground. He’s attacked by a yellow man. Innis calls them “Wolf Doors” and theorizes a whole history of the doors.

Innis comes to the apartment and opens the door while concentrating on whales. They go through to a place with a giant pyramid and flying whales. “If you imagine it, there’s a world that exists.” They all go home and get drunk.

That night, someone comes out of the door. It turns out to be Emily. She says she was in a dark place with things inside. They call Brian, who comes right over– except that Emily immediately recognizes that’s not Brian– the not-Brian pulls out a Taser and drags Ash through the door.

Innis leaves to find the real Brian while Sam and Emily go through the door to a beach with many more doors. One of the doors leads to the talking dog again. Another leads to a ruined city with a giant golden man. They try again, and this time, they find a duplicate version of Emily, sacrificed in a church.

Sam tells Emily about her dead mother and her feelings of helplessness. She resolves to continue the search for Ash. Meanwhile, Innis arrives at Brian’s apartment and finds him not at home, but there is a computer with some video on it. In it, a man builds the door and hides it in the warehouse where the film started. He pushes Emily through the door. Then Innis goes into the basement and finds Brian endlessly falling and entering two openings, and he puts a barrier in the way to block him from falling. Brian explains to Innis, “It doesn’t need doors; it can draw outlines with chalk!”

Sam chases not-Brian through many strange worlds. She eventually tricks him into being captured by the tentacled panda– but not before stealing his chalk. She finds Emily and Ash, but then the not-Brian shows up and gets his god to start destroying the doors. Unfortunately he’s struck by lightning and vanishes too. Ash wants to go home, but Sam says she doesn’t want to go back; she wants to find the perfect world.

Back in the apartment, Ash and Innis try the door again, but now it’s just a door.

Seven months later, Ash reports that Sam is still missing. The police have been searching for her, but she now knows how to make a Wolf Door for themselves.

Ash opens the door and finally has a talk with the little dog, who is really God.

Brian’s Commentary

The cast is small, and the budget looks even smaller. Still, it’s an interesting concept, and it’s done seriously enough that it’s very entertaining. It’s well-paced and never slows down enough to get boring.

It’s very weird, and very cool! 

Kevin’s Commentary

I thought this was pretty awesome. The idea is cool, and I loved what they did with it. It’s fun to think about what kind of world you’d choose if, literally, anything was possible with an infinite number of universes to choose from. The special effects are effective, the cast was good, and I liked the script. It was very entertaining.

2024 Trap

* Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

* Written by M. Night Shyamalan

* Stars Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 45 Minutes

* Trailer: 

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

We went into it blind so we could be surprised by the twists and turns, and as usual with M. Night’s movies, that turned out to be the best way to go in. The cast is good, the story moves well. Saleka Shyamalan, his daughter, really is a singer. We thought this was a good one, and we were entertained.

Spoilery Synopsis

Riley and her father, Cooper, are going to a concert. They arrive early enough to see Lady Raven get out of her bus. As they wait in line, they talk about Riley’s former friends, who are starting to ignore her more and more. As they walk to their seats, Cooper notices lots of security and armed guards.

All the kids are star-struck with teen-idol Lady Raven, but Cooper’s a bit old for this stuff. He has to make a bathroom run, but Riley stays in her seat. He checks his phone and watches a video of a man in chains. He runs into Jody’s mom, who apologizes for her daughter’s treatment of Riley. Meanwhile, lots and lots of police surround the whole arena.

As the show progresses, Cooper doesn’t understand what all the police are there for. On a break, he asks one of the vendors, Jamie, why they’re all there. He says “The Butcher,” a serial killer, is supposed to be here tonight, and the police have set a trap for him. Cooper starts looking a lot more nervous after the conversation– the exits are all blocked off by cops. Cooper has no choice but to take Riley back into the show. As another singer comes up onto the stage through a trapdoor, Cooper suggests to Riley that they go down there and explore. Riley says no, that’s nuts.

Cooper goes back to Jamie for a T-shirt, and he notices how Jamie uses his security card to open the door. Jamie is a “fan” of the Butcher, and he talks about the twelve victims. Jamie likes to talk, and he says way too much about security codes. Cooper uses what he’s learned to sit in on a briefing about the serial killer and even steals a radio.

Cooper watches as the police tackle and arrest someone. He hears Dr. Josephine Grant reporting on the police radio that the person they arrested wasn’t the right man. They have multiple descriptions of the killer, but one matches Cooper. On the radio, Dr. Grant predicts exactly what Cooper is planning, and she’s right. She’s a profiler, and she’s out to get the Butcher. Cooper goes back to the show with Riley.

Cooper talks to a guy who works with Lady Raven and makes up a story about Riley having Leukemia. The man offers to let them meet the star backstage and gets them right past security. Lady Raven invites Riley out onto the stage to dance with her. We cut to Jody and her mom arguing about Riley and Cooper scoping out Dr. Grant. On a quick break, he notices Lady Raven using an inhaler.

The show is over, and Cooper gets permission from the manager to go out the back way. Grant gets on the radio and says the police need to search every adult man in the audience on the way out. She says there are 3,000 men here in this crowd of more than 20,000. Cooper gets to talk to Lady Raven and shows her the video of the man he has chained up at home. “He is going to die in five minutes. I’m the Butcher. I’ll let him go if you drive us out of here in your limousine. Save him or catch me.”

Lady Raven has little choice, and they drive right from the VIP parking. She offers to drive them home, and Riley tells her the address of their home. Lady Raven meets Riley’s mother, Rachel, and her brother, Logan. She talks about her day, including the trap to catch the Butcher and how they knew he would be at the concert. She knows a lot about the famous serial killer, and Cooper gets annoyed that the profilers know so much about him. Then she sits at the piano and plays for them.

Lady Raven gets sneaky and steals Cooper’s phone and locks herself in the bathroom. She calls the prisoner over the security system, but the man doesn’t know where he is. He does have a couple clues. She then gets on social media to ask her followers to find Spencer, and she mentions what she can about where Spencer is.

Lady Raven yells out the door to tell Rachel that her husband is the Butcher. Cooper breaks in, looks at his phone, and sees that Spencer is now gone. He’s done something to Rachel and Riley. He forces Lady Raven into Rachel’s car. He opens the garage door, and his family is standing in the driveway, blocking the exit. Everyone walks to the limo as the SWAT teams show up. Cooper goes back into the house and exits through a hidden tunnel.

Lady Raven is surprised to find that Cooper has replaced her limo driver. The police catch up, but he escapes again. The police take Lady Raven to see Spencer, who has been rescued and is safe.

Dr. Grant offers to get Rachel a safe place to stay, but she doesn’t feel like being around people. Cooper comes in and surprises her. He thinks she is the one who turned him in, and she was right. She planted the evidence that showed the police that he would be at the concert. Before he kills her, she wants to finish Riley’s cake. He talks about his rage and anger toward her, something he’s never felt before.

As he finishes the pie, Cooper notices that he’s been drugged. He hallucinates his evil mother, who did bad things to him. Suddenly, two cops Tase him, but he’s strong and still puts up a fight. They eventually get him in cuffs and lead him to the police car as Riley and Logan return.

As Cooper is taken away, we see that he can pick the lock on the handcuffs (why aren’t there any cops in the truck with him?). He laughs as the ending credits roll.

We get a quick just to Jamie, the concession guy, as he watches the news and learns the identity of the killer. He doesn’t take it well. 

Brian’s Commentary

We went into this blind other than hearing the usual Shyamalan-bashing that all his films seem to get. His daughter, Saleka Shyamalan, sings all the songs, and she’s actually quite good.

We are very quickly led to believe that Cooper is the Butcher, but knowing Shyamalan’s requirement for a twist, we assumed there would be more to it than that. The cops know all about the Butcher, and they know he’s attending the concert, but they don’t have a photo of him, or the story would be a lot shorter. Their plan seemed weak at best. What city even has that many cops?

We were expecting a twist at the end, and there really wasn’t one, which was a surprise in itself. It was good!

Kevin’s Commentary

Before this movie, I didn’t realize that Saleka Shyamalan was a singer, and she does a nice job. This movie has some flaws if you think about it too closely, but overall I thought it was good, and I was entertained. I’d put it in the top half of M. Night’s movies, and worthy of a recommendation.

Short Films:

Short Film: Gnosis (2024) 

* Directed by Zach Johnson @resemblanceai

* Written by Zach Johnson

* Stars (Animated)

* Run Time: 9:20

* Watch it:

What Happens

We are told about a discovery in the 22nd century that would allow humans to “pierce the veil” between other dimensions. “We were woefully unprepared for the horrors that awaited us.”

Thirty years prior to that, the scientist records a visit to his lab. He explains this work is going to change everything we know about reality. He calls it an “Astral Lens.” It can capture images from realms other than ours through quantum physics. It does, in fact, change what we know about reality. Then, something goes terribly wrong…

Commentary

Well, that was depressing!

It’s a mix of AI-generated images, live-action actors, and a lot of narration. It looks good, and the story develops at a good pace. It’s told in the style of a narrated “history lesson” rather than an actual story with characters, much like a book or movie’s prologue. The visuals and creature designs are very cool and have a definite Cosmic Horror vibe to them.  

I’m sure it’ll have detractors due to the use of AI, but I suspect this is an early taste of things to come.

Kevin adds that he’s one of those detractors due to the use of AI. AI that is obvious and has a core sameness to it over and over. The visuals are interesting, but it’s just a string of short AI clips strung together to make a story. There might have been one real person in it, and the narrator might have been a real voice. He’s lukewarm on this one. 

Short Film: Night Train (2024) 

* Directed by A. J. Serrano

* Written by A. J. Serrano

* Stars Daniel Girdo, Cairo Zion

* Run Time: 5 Minutes

* Watch it: On the festival circuit, no streaming links are available… yet. 

What Happens

Two boys walk home late at night; they’re gonna be late. They hop the turnstile and run through the subway, but they do manage to get on the train before it’s too late. The older boy mentions that there’s a “ghost station” at the end of the line. There’s said to be an old man there who’s been waiting for the train for a hundred years.

It’s not true… is it? 

Commentary

It’s well shot and well acted; the plot is very clear, and the story makes perfect sense. I doubt I’d be as calm as the younger kid at what happens at the end, but his reaction just adds to the effect.

Very nice!

Short Film: Prom Car 91 (2024) 

* Directed by Brian F. Otting

* Written by Brian F. Otting

* Stars Yuri Lowenthal, McKenna Marmolejo, Michael Lehr

* Run Time: 11:11

* Watch it:

What Happens

It’s Prom Night, 1991, and Carrie thinks this is the night she and Donovan are “going to finally do it.” They’ve been dating for years, and it’s finally time. She asks her parents if they want to take a photo of her in her prom dress, but they don’t care. It’s gonna be a great night!

After the dance, the two plan to “do it” in Don’s dad’s minivan. Surprising both of them, the screaming soon starts…

Commentary

“Who are you talking to?”

The moral of the story seems to be, “don’t mess with girls named Carrie on Prom Night,” which is ALWAYS good advice! 

The way Carrie narrates the whole thing and breaks the fourth wall is fun, it’s like we’re in on the action. Since she and Don are voyeurs, why can’t we be too? The note-writing was hilarious, but then the whole thing is, really. Sometimes watching and listening in isn’t as much fun as it sounds. The fight choreography is really quite good and lots of fun to watch.

This one is a winner!

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