Horror Weekly

We’ll start off this week with the much-discussed “Backrooms” that just hit streaming this week. We’ll then watch three sequels to major franchises: “Underworld: Evolution” (2006), the second in that series, “Return of the Living Dead III” (1993), and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2” (1986).

And we’ve got two very fun short films this week as well.

All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #58, for July 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

2026 Backrooms

* Directed by: Kane Parsons

* Written by: Will Soodik, Kane Parsons

* Stars: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 50 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

The IMDB.com description says “When a counselor’s client vanishes into a surreal realm of infinite corridors, she is forced to journey into the abyss to bring him back.” But it’s more complicated than that with infinite layers of weirdness. Which is the backrooms, which is the real world, and which is just distorted memories?

It’s a very strange film, and we both liked it.

Spoilery Synopsis

It’s 1990, and we open on a guy filming inside an empty set of rooms. He stops in a room full of radio equipment, and he reports that he’s never been this far before, and he really wants someone to come and get him.

As he continues, we see that birds, leaves, and nature have somehow intruded into the hallway, and various pieces of furniture are embedded into the walls. Then something jumps out and kills the guy. The video ends, and the credits roll.

We get a voiceover about making the same mistakes over and over again, and we see Clark coming to work at Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire, a furniture store. “Rip Off” is painted in the window, and he’s got a bunch of past due bills on his desk.

Clark talks to his therapist, Mary, about his sad life. He talks about the night Barbara left him. He’s a little bitter about his career.

Kat and Bobby record Clark doing a really bad pirate commercial. The electric bill is higher than it should be, so he calls in an electrician to find out why. There’s a whole bunch of power being used, but not for the store. That night, we see that Clark now lives in the store, and there are still electrical problems at night.

A light comes on the downstairs area, so Clark goes down to shut it all off, except it won’t shut down. When it does finally shut off, he notices a light behind one of the walls; a secret door? He leans on the wall and goes right through, into a large yellow room with buzzing fluorescent lights. The portal seems to work both ways, so he starts to explore a bit.

He walks through the place, a lot larger than it appears, until he comes to a stop sign in a dark place. He skips that and goes a different direction. He finds a dead bird and more rooms.

He eventually finds a backpack behind a hidden door hiding a tunnel. On the other side, he finds various shoes embedded in the floor. He hears something weird moving around in the tunnels and runs back to the first room, where he started. The portal is still there, so he goes back to his own world.

We see that someone has a video camera in the backrooms and knows that Clark was there.

Clark goes to see Mary for another session. He’s agitated about what he’s found and sounds like a lunatic.

Clark has Kat and Buddy come back in with the video recorder. He shows them the door, drawn on the wall, and they think he’s insane– until it works. He then shows them around the huge place. Kat’s terrified of the whole place, but Buddy is as curious as Clark is. Bobby goes down into a kind of pit and sees someone down there– pulls him back in and does something bad to him.

We cut to Mary, a little girl who’s not allowed to go outside. “They’re all over the place,” warns her mother. Then adult Mary wakes up. She gets a cryptic call from Clark that he won’t be coming back. She goes to the furniture store to look around; it’s unlocked and has been for days, but no customers ever come here. She goes downstairs and sees the door outline on the wall.

Soon, Mary is in the yellow room. As with the others, she starts wandering around the place. She finds Clark, who grabs her and chokes her out.

Mary then flashes back to her weird childhood and insane mother. Clark explains the weird people that are in these room; it’s sorta-kinda how the room remembers them, just not quite right. Everything here is just a little bit mis-remembered. The poorly recreated people, as it turns out, are edible, since they’re made of food.

Mary wants to help Clark, psychologically, but he’s got some special needs. He’s gone pretty much insane, and makes Mary wear his wife-stand-in’s hair. Mary gets annoyed and says Clark’s problem is all the whining. He likes it in here. “For the first time in a long while, I feel like I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”

Suddenly, a giant pirate lumbers into the room, and Clark says Mary was just leaving. The huge thing takes a bite out of Clark, and Mary runs away. The creature pursues her until she finds a trap door in the ceiling and gets back into the actual furniture store. Except it’s not really the store, it’s just more of the same, and the big pirate is still there. Somehow, she gets to another room with men in hazmat suits who gas her into unconsciousness.

Now, Mary’s in some kind of endless hospital/lab, and there are lots of scientists there. Eventually, a guy named Phil comes in. He wants to know how she got in here. He’s been exploring the place for a very long time, and he knows it’s all super important.

… And that’s all.

Brian’s Commentary

“Furniture Store: The Movie”

The whole “backroom/liminal spaces” thing on Reddit never made any sense to me, so I didn’t expect much going into this. I was expecting something like “Skinamarink” only with bigger sets.

Turns out, there’s a whole story here, with acting and everything. The sets are really well done, and it all looks like it’d be a fun place to explore– until it’s not.

I was thoroughly entertained, but the ending was just out of nowhere and too abrupt. I didn’t expect there to be an explanation, but the story just basically stops.

Overall, it was far better than I expected. I liked it!

Kevin’s Commentary

Just think of all the money you could make harvesting furniture, electronics, and oddities out of The Backrooms and selling them on eBay.

I agree with Brian that it was much more entertaining than I expected. But I’m not sure it was worth the hype. I liked it, I didn’t love it.

2006 Underworld: Evolution

* Directed by: Len Wiseman

* Written by: Danny McBride, Len Wiseman, Kevin Grevioux

* Stars: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Bill Nighy

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 46 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

After a flashback to a battle in 1202 AD and a little narrative to catch up, this continues immediately following the first movie. The action is stepped up even more, putting the horror elements on the back burner again. They answer more questions about events of the past.

It’s pretty consistent in look and quality with the first movie, not quite as good but almost. If you liked that one, you’ll probably enjoy this one as well.

Spoilery Synopsis

We’re reminded about the war between vampires and lycans, two groups started by two immortal brothers. Markus, bitten by a bat, and William, bitten by a wolf. They became the first of their species.

In 1202 AD, we see Markus, Amelia, and Viktor arrive at a slaughter perpetrated by William, who has gone rogue. Suddenly, the dead get, turning into werewolves. There’s a major battle, and William is captured. Markus, his brother, wants William released, but Viktor and Amelia have other ideas. Viktor says William will be imprisoned for all time, and then credits roll.

We cut to Selene, in the present, who reminds us about the first film. She’s run off with Michael, the only person she can trust. She’s now on the run from both races. Her plan is to re-awaken Markus before he’s killed by Kraven.

The two hide out in a safehouse that used to be used for experimenting on lycans.

Meanwhile, back at vampire castle, Kraven goes into the sleep chamber and orders Markus to be re-awakened. The dead scientist from the previous film is still laying there in a pool of blood that has run down into Markus’s pit. He’s already gone.

Markus shows up, looking like a big flying demon. The scientist’s blood has given Markus the whole true story of the last film. Kraven doesn’t last long.

A bunch of men in a helicopter land on a big ship and carry several bodybags inside. They come to an old man who leads them. The soldiers update him on more events from the first film. Two of the three elder vampires are dead now, brought in the body bags, and he wonders about Markus.

The old man, Corvinus, looks at what’s left of Amelia, Lucien, and Viktor. He pulls a metal disk out of Viktor’s chest and smiles.

Michael goes out for dinner and finds that human food doesn’t work for him anymore. His face comes up on the TV screen as “wanted” and the local police draw their guns. He makes a scene on the way out.

Selene and Michael are soon tracked by Markus, who tries to bite her. Michael fills Markus with holes, and they run for it. The sun starts to rise before they make a clean getaway, and Michael has to take over. After a bit of completely unnecessary first-aid, they have sex in a storage container.

We watch as Corvinus’s men clean up the werewolf-experimenting lab to keep it from the normal humans.

Selene sorta remembers Michael’s locket and wants to talk to Tanis, the vampire historian, about what it means. Tanis isn’t big on visitors, and he’s got a trio of werewolves as guard dogs. Tanis explains that Markus was the first true vampire, Viktor came later. He also explains about the first Lycans, who couldn’t take human form at all. If either Markus or William is killed, their whole species will go extinct. Turns out, Selene’s father was the one who built William’s prison. Turns out, Selene knows where William’s cell is, and Michael had the key. She doesn’t remember any of this, but her blood knows, and Markus can read it.

Selene and Michael go to visit Alexander Corvinus, the father of them all. He’s been cleaning up his sons’ mess for many centuries. He won’t kill either of his sons. Markus drops in unexpected;y and fights with Michael. He drinks Selene’s blood, so now he knows what she knows about the key and the cell. He leaves, and Michael dies.

Markus and Corvinus talk about family. Markus then stabs the old man and steals the second key. As he dies, Corvinus tells Selene how to beat Markus; he feeds her his own blood.

Markus goes to the location where William’s cell is and opens the door. Selene and Corvinus’s soldiers approach outside.

William, now free, attacks Selene and the others, as does Markus. With her Corvinus-upgraded blood, she’s able to go one-on-one with Markus now. During the fight, dead Michael wakes up, not dead at all.

Soon, it’s Selene vs. William, and she brings down the house, literally burying all of them. Michael rejoins the fight against William, while Markus works on escaping his prison. Markus gets out and pulls the helicopter into the room with them (someone’s gonna end up in that rotor!)

Selene fights Markus as Michael fights William. Michael rips William’s head right off, and Markus proves me right about the helicopter rotor.

In the morning, the sun comes up, and it doesn’t burn Selene. She and Michael kiss. Selene explains that chaos and infighting is inevitable, but the future is wide open…

Brian’s Commentary

This one takes off just after the events of the first film, and most of the actors return, even if their parts are small. It added a bit to the lore with the two brothers and the father, but between them and now all three ancient vampires being dead, there’s room for lots more drama in the further sequels.

As before, the special effects and fight sequences are excellent, but overall, I preferred the first one. Still, for a sequel, it’s not bad.

Kevin’s Commentary

I’d never seen this one before, only the first movie. I thought it does a good job continuing the story. I almost felt like it could have been just one big movie. The consistency was very good, though it did feel like a small step down around the edges. I was still entertained.

1993 Return of the Living Dead III

* Directed by: Brian Yuzna

* Written by: John Penney

* Stars: J. Trevor Edmond, Melinda Clarke, Kent McCord

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 37 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

After the first two movies and in another place, different mayhem ensues as the military tries to weaponize Trioxin animated corpses and things spiral out of control. This one is less funny and more grim than the first two movies were, with no cast returning and barely a hint of the events that came before. The practical effects are nice and juicy.

It’s not bad, but it lacks the unique humor that made the first one so excellent.

Spoilery Synopsis

Colonel John Reynolds meets Colonel Sinclair, here from Washington; she’s been working on reanimating dead people for use as weapons. John says his program is more humane, and then they wheel a corpse into the lab. John notices that he’s lost his ID badge somewhere.

We cut to a bunch of stereotypical teenagers, including Curt Reynolds, John’s son, who has stolen his father’s security pass. His girlfriend Julie wants to investigate because she thinks they’re experimenting on poor, suffering lab animals.

Back in the lab, the corpse is exposed to trioxin. Curt and Julie basically walk right into the warehouse and proceed toward the lab. They watch as the dead man revives. The teens then leave, shocked. The soldiers shoot it in the head, and it dies. No– not really, he was faking it. The corpse sits up and kills one of the techs. Failure! They strap down the dead subject, but then the dead lab tech gets up and starts trouble.

Julie seems obsessed with what they saw at the lab. John comes home and says they’re being relocated due to his failure. They argue and Curt and Julie storm off on his motorcycle, which goes badly. They soon crash, and Julie goes face first into a telephone pole and dies. Then he remembers the key card to the lab in his pocket.

Curt carries Julie’s body into the lab and exposes her to the trioxin, just as he saw it done earlier. Not knowing how all the equipment works, he just punctures the canister. She starts to twitch and move, but the creature inside the canister starts to move as well. She wakes up and doesn’t remember much, and he explains it to her as they leave.

A bit later, John watches the security footage and knows what Curt’s done. Anyone that Julie bites or attacks will also change, and she’s really hungry. They stop at a convenience store, and she’s being weird. The people in the store rob the place, and Julie ends up biting one of them on the way out. Julie also ends up eating the store owner’s brains in the getaway car.

John and the army drive through town, doing “damage control” and cleaning up the bodies as it spreads. Julie starts sticking herself with pins and screws since the pain makes the hunger go away. She says she’d rather be dead than like this.

Mogo, the criminal that Julie bit, starts getting sick, and Santos, the leader of the gang, decides to find Julie and make her pay. Meanwhile, Colonel Sinclair replaces John as leader of the project, so he takes off alone.

Curt and Julie hide underground with Riverman, a homeless guy who’s got a whole lair in the sewers. She’s still hungry and still cutting herself to relieve the feeling. As Curt sleeps, Julie gets into all kinds of body modifications. The gang continues to follow Julie through the sewers, and they soon catch up. Julie shows up, looking like someone from a Hellraiser film.​​ The gang dies very quickly, but they don’t stay that way.

John shows up and disables the undead gang members. He wants to shoot Julie, who just wants to die. John shoots her as well.

John and Curt make their peace, but Julie has been given to the Colonel as a new project. The Colonel’s specialty is mechanically augmenting the dead with exoskeletons. “Biomechanical weapons driven by meat batteries.” What could go wrong?

We soon find out, as the augmented Riverman breaks loose and Curt releases Julie. Soon, all the monsters are free and the triocin cans are smashed. As they try to get out, Curt is finally bitten by a zombie. He and Julie walk into the incinerator and burn up.

Brian’s Commentary

It takes the basic ideas from the first two films and does something completely new. None of the cast of the previous films makes a return, so this is a sort of reboot.

Unfortunately, they’ve done away with almost all the humor, which was what made the first two films really unique. As a straight-up horror movie, it’s fine, but it doesn’t really fit in with the crazy humor that made the first two films great.

Kevin’s Commentary

I was bracing myself for awfulness, but I was pleasantly surprised by this. It’s not a great film, but it was a decent original continuation of what can happen in a world where Trioxin exists. It was different from the first in the level of comedy which was tamped down, and horror which was ramped up. So it was more of a mid-level straight up horror rather than horror comedy. But still pretty entertaining.

1986 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

* Directed by: Tobe Hooper

* Written by: L.M. Kit Carson, Tobe Hooper

* Stars: Dennis Hopper, Caroline Williams, Jim Siedow

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 41 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

“The saw is family.” It’s years later, and the family is still up to their mischief. This time they tangle with a radio DJ and a Texas marshal obsessed with taking them down. They kept a lot of the grindhouse vibe, but it’s not as organically gross and grimy as the original. Though the gore is bumped up. And there is a lot more humor and satire this time, still grim with horror but almost making fun of itself. It’s pretty entertaining, different, but worth checking out if you’re a fan of the original.

Spoilery Synopsis

We get a brief recap of the events of the first film. Lawmakers could never find the cannibals, so officially, it never happened. Except that it did happen. Credits roll.

A couple of young preppy guys (with a car phone!) are on the way to a party, and they cause some trouble on the road. “Stretch” is a radio DJ, and they call in and harass her. They pass the wrong truck to cause trouble. A maniac on a truck pulls out a chainsaw and cuts through the roof of the moving car. The driver loses his head as Stretch listens at the radio station.

In the morning, Lieutenant Lefty Enright is there to investigate what’s left of the “accident.” He’s got a personal connection to the chainsaw killings fourteen years ago, and this might be related. He wants information. Stretch comes to him with a recording of what she heard last night, but he’s hesitant to even listen to it (why not?). She’s a wanna-be reporter, and he’s not getting involved with that.

As stretch leaves Lefty’s room, she and L.G. watch a Texas Chili Cook-Off where one of the winners is Drayton Sawyer, who seems to win a lot of chili cook-offs. Second year in a row, but he says the secret ingredient is the meat. “This town loves prime meat!”

Enright goes to a chainsaw shop and starts waving the merchandise around, creeping out the store’s owner. He goes all “Leatherface” on the log outside. After, he wants to listen to Stretch’s tape; he wants her to play it on her show so everyone can hear it. He thinks the killers are here in Dallas.

The cook, Drayton, gets a phone call from his family about the recording that they heard on the radio, and he’s not pleased. Not long after, Stretch encounters Chop-Top, a very strange man who claims to be a fan. He wants a tour of the radio station and really creeps her out. Suddenly, Leatherface barges in and starts chasing her around.

Stretch hides behind a big steel door, and Leatherface can’t get to her. L.G. returns, oblivious to what’s going on, and catches Chop-Top digging through the records. He doesn’t live long after that. Stretch, on the other hand, knows exactly how to distract Leatherface, who lets her go– sorta.

As Leatherface and Chop-Top leave with L.G.’s body, Stretch jumps in her car and follows them to Texas Battleland, a theme park that’s closed. Lefty shows up, and he’s not as much help as he should be when Stretch falls into a pit full of corpses.

Lefty gets out his own chainsaw, and he’s maybe a little unhinged. Stretch wakes up in the family meat locker, and she hears Cook ranting to the others. Cook’s got a food truck, and he’s been really successful selling the human meat to tourists. Stretch watches and Leatherface gets L.G. ready for cooking. Leatherface catches Stretch hiding, but she talks him into sparing her again, and soon, she’s wearing L.G.’s face. They dance, then he ties her up and leaves.

Turns out, L.G. isn’t dead yet, but he’s missing his face and a lot of skin. He cuts Stretch loose before dying of shock. She sneaks around as the three baddies rant and act goofy. Meanwhile, Lefty is somewhere else, chainsawing the tunnels apart.

Leatherface corners Stretch again, and again, she tries to talk her way out of it. Too late– the others show up. They know Leatherface lied about killing her earlier.

Stretch soon wakes up, tied at the dinner table as Cook rings the dinner bell. The Sawyer family wheels in Grandpa, who’s on a liquid diet… of blood. The old man’s not as spry as he used to be and can’t even hold a murder weapon anymore.

Lefty shows up, and confronts the family. Lefty’s gone all delusional, and releases Stretch. He then gets into a chainsaw battle against Leatherface as Stretch runs from Chop-Top.

Lefty gets his chainsaw stuck inside Leatherface and then pulls out his spare for more. Things get a little weird at this point, as Cook pulls out a hand grenade and drops it.

Chop-Top chases Stretch outside to where they have Granda all propped up, with a chainsaw of her own. She finally shows Chop-Top who’s the boss. She does the “Chainsaw Dance” at the end, the only survivor…

Brian’s Commentary

Link to the first film: https://www.horrorguys.com/the-texas-chainsaw-massacre-1974/

What kind of theme park is this? It’s a very weird set.

If you count screams-per-minute, Stretch is gotta be way up there on the “scream Queen” chart. She’s constantly screaming and freaking out in nearly every scene.

It’s got most of the same elements of the first film, but this one steers well into over-the-top silliness territory.

Dennis Hopper said this was the worst film he’d ever been in, at least until “Super Mario Brothers.”

Yeah, it’s a weird one. Not bad, but a lot more mainstream than the gritty, dirty original.

Kevin’s Commentary

Jim Siedow who plays Cook here is the only cast member to return from the original, where he was credited as Old Man.

Stretch certainly is a screamer in this one.

I love how the family has their lair decorated with all the salvaged stuff, bones, and lights.

I think it’s necessary to have seen the first movie to really enjoy this one, or it at least helps. I’d say that I liked this sequel better than the first movie.

Short Films:

2026 Short Film Siren Head

* Directed by: Nicolo Fumero, Luca Zanlorenzi

* Written by:

* Stars: Matteo Fumero

* Run Time: 4:41

* Watch it:

What Happens

An electrician is sent out into the remote countryside to fix a damaged electrical pole. When he gets there, he sees it’s all torn up, as if something big smashed it. Before he can get to work, he gets a phone call from his little brother and then notices an abandoned building that he checks out. Inside, he finds graffiti on the wall and a cryptic radio message…

Commentary

It’s a longtime copypasta meme thing, and I don’t know any of the lore behind the creature, but it’s pretty neat. This version of the story is very well done, albeit way too short. It’s just one guy out in a creepy wooded area, running from a CGI monster, but it’s well done.

2026 Short Film Help

* Directed by: Collin Black

* Written by: Collin Black, Erin Bechler

* Stars: Erin Bechler, Chris Herring, Jim Cumings

* Run Time: 11:29

* Watch it:

What Happens

A woman watches scary videos on her phone in the car and then decides to walk to her home in the dark. She has to walk past a house with newspapers all over the windows first, since she lives in the back. We see that someone’s following her home. Wait– is that a zombie? Sure looks like it, as she hides and grabs a knife.

Commentary

I love how much effort she puts into locking the door and then leaving the window wide open. People in horror movies are always ignoring the windows! This is paced really well, looks clear and sharp, and we always know what’s going on– except that we don’t!

Contact Info:

Email: mailto:[email protected]

Websites:

* https://www.horrorguys.com

* https://www.horrormonthly.com

We’ve got another fun mix of films for you this week. We’ll start off with “Passenger,” a fun road trip film. Next, we’ll celebrate New Year a bit late with “New Year’s Absolution,” both of which are newish releases.

For our classics, we’ll watch the first of five “Underworld” films, and then go way back and visit “The Stepford Wives” of 1975.

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

All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #58, for July 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

2026 Passenger

* Directed by: André Øvredal

* Written by: Zachary Donohue, T.W. Burgess

* Stars: Jacob Scipio, Lou Llobell, Melissa Leo

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 37 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A young couple living van life on the road encounter a car accident and end up unintentionally picking up a passenger while they are at it. It relies excessively on jump scares, but it’s quite good anyway. The main duo is really good together, and it’s well made. We were both entertained.

Spoilery Synopsis

Lucas and Daniel drive along the empty road late at night, and they’re both bored. They whine about Lucas’s dry mouth and needing to pee. Not long after, Lucas does have to pee, so they stop. When Lucas gets back to the car, Daniel is gone and the car is all scratched up. Suddenly, Daniel flies into the windshield, dropped from high up. Lucas gets back in the car and speeds away, but he keeps passing the same man on the side of the road, over and over. Credits roll.

Maddie and Tyler pack up their big-city apartment to live in a van. They start their big road trip. Six weeks later, they’re living the mobile lifestyle, stuck in traffic and missing out on their reservations. Tyler proposes to her, right there in the van. Suddenly, a neighborhood watch guy bangs on the door and makes them move. They drive on, another hour to a motel.

A car with a crazy driver overtakes them and passes; it’s Lucas, from earlier. He crashes the car not far ahead. The couple stops to help. Lucas starts to crawl out of the car, but something yanks him back in. Maddie hears something moving around out in the woods.

They get to the motel for the night, but there just might be something hiding in their van. In the morning, they find a claw mark just like the one on Lucas’s car.

The couple goes to a “Van Life” meetup, and there’s a lot of people there. Maddie notices a whole bunch of “Missing” posters on the wall. She meets a long-term van person, Diane, who vaguely warns her to stay off those lonely roads.

That night, after leaving a gym, Maddie runs into some creepiness in the parking lot. The Passenger attacks her in the van, and she scares it off with Tyler’s St. Christopher medal. The dashcam that showed the man before, doesn’t work now. She tells Tyler, who doesn’t really believe any of this.

Maddie buys a book that discusses “The Hobo Code” and learns that three slashes means “Not Safe,” and there’s a whole bunch of lore behind that. The van has three deep gashes in the side that won’t buff out.

Maddie’s ready to go back to a normal life, but Tyler’s talking about living remotely forever. She’s hesitating marrying him because of the van thing; it’s not fun anymore. It seems like they’re just about to break up, when Tyler finally sees something unnatural. They run inside the van, and the creature shakes the whole thing crazily.

Tyler can’t find his keys, so he gets back out of the van to look around for them. He sees the creature again, and now he understands what Maddie’s been telling him. “This thing latches onto you when you’re on the road,” Maddies explains. “Some people call him ‘The Passenger’.”

Maddie wants to contact Diane, who seemed to know about the creature and warned her. They get a flat tire, and suddenly the bolts go missing. Something drags Madddie off while Tyler is stuck under the van.

Maddie wakes up next to a car accident, where a car hit a motorcycle. Tyler catches up to her, no, it’s really the monster. The real Tyler shows up just in time to break the spell, and they drive off.

They arrive at another camper meetup, looking for Diane. Diane just wants them to get out of here, as do all the many other campers. They all know about the trouble. “He’s the highwayman from Hell. It’s demonic!” There’s a St. Christopher church that might offer protection and weaken its powers. She offers to take them there. The demon kills Diane right there in front of them.

Suddenly, it’s night again, and they’re still out on the road and almost out of gas. Maddie notices more Hobo Code symbols and follows them– off the road. They pass a bunch of old, deserted cars, all with the creature’s claw mark on them. Also, there are thousands of dead bodies in sheets, but Tyler doesn’t think those are real. But they all go “squish” and “thump” as the van drives over them.

The demon appears inside the van and torments Tyler before being thrown outside. When Maddie reaches the holy grounds of the church, the creature starts to smoke and steam. She drives right through the wall of the church, with the creature on the hood, and he’s not happy about it. She ends up impaling him on the St. Christopher statue’s sword. The demon melts in front of her.

The church explodes in fire, and Maddie gets out of the van to escape. She meets up with Tyler. Still, they’re out in the middle of the desert with no van or supplies. Somehow, the police show up (why? how?). Maddie and Tyler agree to get married and buy a normal house.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s the “Van Life” horror movie. The YouTubers all make this look like a fun lifestyle, but the movie shows the other side of it. Living in a van, your life will be full of overloud jump-scares.

It looks good, it’s very well paced; the acting is good. Overall, I liked it a lot, but there are a lot of jump scares.

Kevin’s Commentary

It was heavy on the jump scares to make them a little predictable and annoying. Other than that, it’s a movie that moves well, and I thought the casting was excellent. There wasn’t a lot new here, but I enjoyed it.

2024 New Year’s Absolution

* Directed by: Nick Leisure

* Written by: Damion Stephens

* Stars: Michael Copon, Joel Brady, Josh Gilmer

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 25 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A group of eight friends get together for a New Year’s Eve party. The movie takes a while letting us get to know the group. It’s short enough that the pacing moves things along really well. Then something happens and leads to something else, and it ends up being the worst party ever. It’s got some horror elements, but it seemed more like a crime thriller. We both thought it was very good.

Spoilery Synopsis

Claire and Damon are expecting guests for New Year’s Eve. Stuart and Travis are the first to arrive, with their dog. Travis brings his weird little dog, Cookie, to the party. They talk about Stuart’s new $50,000 antique car that doesn’t even have airbags. Jacob and Misty show up next, and he might be a fitness nut on steroids. Roy and Kira come last, and they’ve brought drugs.

It starts raining, so Roy and Kira go to the bathroom for sex while Misty watches from afar. After, the four men play a game where they write out New Year’s resolutions and then draw them out of a hat. They have to try to do the thing over the next year. Stuart gets to write a novel. Roy has to apologize to someone. Damon has to do something for his spouse, even if it hurts. Jacob’s says he has to kill someone.

Jacob gets angry and goes to leave. The others try to stop him, and he shows them that he’s got a gun. He then uses it to accidentally shoot Travis in the leg. Roy, who’s a doctor, starts working on the leg when his drugs begin to kick in. No one wants to call the cops because that’ll ruin Jacob’s career, so they put him in the bathtub to hold the bleeding.

Damon tells the story of Ben, the fifth friend who died in a game-related sporting accident in 2014. Kira suggests the whole thing is just done to show off. They go back in to check on Travis who is very, very dead now. “People don’t just look the other way when white cops shoot gay black dudes, bro,” Jacob whines. Roy and Jacob, who are both at fault, cook up a plan to explain it all in the morning.

Misty, who thinks Travis is hot, sneaks into the bathroom and finds he’s dead. She looks down his pants and leaves, oblivious to him being dead. Meanwhile, Damon is obsessed with cleaning up blood stains on the hardwood floors.

It’s time for the countdown to the new year! As the others celebrate, Stuart finds Travis’s body. Kira says, “You couldn’t even wait till midnight to kill someone,” she says, also adding that Roy killed a patient out of negligence because of their game last year. Soon, she’s dead too. Claire and Damon come in and learn what’s been going on. Damon’s upset about the blood on the floor.

Misty starts threatening everyone, which annoys Claire. Why not go for three? Claire stabs Misty. They pull out the knife, and she bleeds out all over Damon’s floor. Jacob then empties his gun into Claire.

Jacob, Roy, and Stuart talk about their secrets. Damon snaps, comes out of nowhere, and strangles Jacob with the Christmas lights. Stuart didn’t do anything, but Roy says he will blame him for Kira’s death if he doesn’t help cover things up.

Stuart runs outside, where he’s attacked by Damon, and both wind up in the swimming pool. Damon, who can’t swim, drowns. Now Stuart’s killed someone too. Roy comes up with a story that covers, well, some of it. Roy then spikes Stuart’s drink with all his drugs.

Roy amends his story to include Stuart overdosing on medications. Roy then calls 911, he just woke up because someone hit him, hangs up, and breaks a bottle over his own head to fake a wound.

Cookie the dog survives too.

Brian’s Commentary

This takes place on New Year’s Eve of 2024/New Year’s Day 2025, so it’s a little slow being released.

It also takes a while to get to the action, but once it does, it’s all pretty intense. It’s pretty low-budget, with eight actors and one house, but it all looks good, is nicely paced, and never lets up.

I guess Roy got away with it in the end? I was half-expecting an end credit scene with a twist, but that was just the real ending. Overall, it was fun.

Kevin’s Commentary

I was expecting more outright horror, but this was pretty low key. I’d call it more of a crime thriller or drama. Whatever the genre, I thought it was really well made and entertaining. It’s short and moves well. I liked it.

2024 Short Film: Fish Balls

* Directed by: Anwar Johari Ho

* Written by: Victor Yee Fei Chen, Andy Darrel Gomes, Anwar Johari Ho

* Stars: Kahoe Hon, Elise Shick

* Run Time: 15 Minutes

* Watch it:

What Happens

A man cries in the shower; he’s got a serious problem. We flash back to him cutting up fish, which he somehow turns into an erotic thing. We later see him with a bulge in his pants, and it’s throbbing excessively. He pulls the dead fish out of the trash can and buries it in the yard.

Not long after, he finds that he’s losing his hair and his skin is getting scaly. But that’s not the worst of it…

Commentary

Well, that’s a truly unique story.

It’s from Malaysia, and we don’t see much from them, so this is a nice surprise.

It’s not always entirely clear what’s going on, but some of it is all too clear. Our main character has a lot of self-control and self-esteem issues, and that leads to problems of a sexual nature.

The green lighting gives it all a sickly feel, but at times it’s too dark to see clearly, which is not good. The body horror and prosthetics are just about right, and it’s plenty weird.

1975 The Stepford Wives

* Directed by: Bryan Forbes

* Written by: Ira Levin, William Goldman

* Stars: Katherine Ross, Paula Prentiss, Peter Masterson

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 55 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A family moves to the small town of Stepford, Connecticut, where the wife and mom starts noticing a sinister undertone and some strange behavior from the wives of the town. It’s a good slow burn thriller and a time capsule of the society and life of 1975. It’s very dated and very entertaining.

Spoilery Synopsis

Joanna looks depressed at moving out of her big-city apartment. She, husband Walter, and the two kids are moving to a small town named Stepford. It’s a huge house, much bigger than what she’s used to.

Carol, one of the neighbors, comes over and brings a casserole and an offer of assistance if they need it. Walter is impressed. After sending the kids to school, Joanna is almost immediately bored.

The lady who runs the newspaper comes over and has lots of questions for Joanna. She notices how romantic the couple across the street are. Walter comes home and talks about being invited to the Men’s Association, where all the important men in town get together.

The family witnesses a minor fender-bender at the grocery store, and everyone freaks out. They call an ambulance for the woman who bumped her head but keeps insisting she’s fine. Joanna notices that the ambulance drives off in the opposite direction from the hospital.

Walter goes to the Men’s Club meeting and when he comes home, something has him very disturbed.

Joanna meets Bobby, who’s also a new transplant from the city. She’s very plainspoken and energetic, almost pushy.

The men from the group come over that night, and Joanna meets Dale Coba, AKA Diz, a multimillionaire who used to work at Disneyland. As the men make summer plans, one of them draws a creepy sketch of Joanna– especially detailed in certain parts of her face.

Diz throws a party, and Joanna and Bobby make jokes about the other women there; the women are strange. Carol gets especially weird, wandering around repeating herself. Diz catches on and so does her husband, who chastises her for drinking too much and leads her away.

The next day, Carol comes around and apologizes for being an alcoholic. Joanna comments that this town needs some more Women’s Lib. Marie and the other local women aren’t at all interested in that. Between ironing, baking, and gardening, the women are all too busy to join a movement. Eventually, they come to Charmaine, who seems normal and is interested in joining the two women. She also has only just recently moved here.

Claude comes over, also wanting to interview Joanna for no particular reason, just a hobby of his he says. He wants her to read a bunch of stuff into a tape recorder for voice sampling. She refuses unless the Stepford wives come to her Women’s Lib meeting, so the husbands all make sure their wives attend. All the women then show up, but they don’t participate at all. They do like talking about housework.

Joanna goes out to walk the dog, and the local policeman warns her not to go out at night. It’s a tiny, quiet town, so that seems odd to her.

The next day, the old newspaper lady comes around bragging that a black family is going to move into town soon; Stepford is such a liberal town! She mentions that there used to be a big Women’s Lib group in town, but interest in that all just suddenly dried up. Carol, of all people, used to be the president of the group.

Joanna and Bobby drive by Charmaine’s house and notice them tearing up the tennis court. Charmaine explains that her husband always hated tennis, and all she cares about now is pleasing him. She seems very different. She’s fired her maid and now likes to do all the housework herself.

Bobby literally thinks there’s something in the water in this town. There are so many computer, technology, and chemical companies in town, they could be doing something. They take a water sample to one of Joanna’s old boyfriends, but he says there’s nothing wrong with the water.

Bobby doesn’t like this answer and says she plans to leave town. Joanna asks Walter about moving, but he likes it here. Still, he agrees to move in the fall. Joanna and Bobby start looking for houses in a nearby town. Bobby mentions that her husband has a weekend getaway planned for them this week.

After Bobby gets back from her weekend, she’s dressed differently. She looks and acts differently. She loves housework, just like Charmaine!

Joanna tells Walter all about Bobby, and he says she’s going crazy. He goes on and on about how their house is a dump; when is she going to start fixing up the house? He makes a logical argument, and she’s not sure what to say or think.

Joanna goes to a psychiatrist, and the doctor knows Stepford is “unsocial.” Joanna tells the doctor her suspicions, but what can she do? She doesn’t want to become like one of those robots in Disneyland.

Joanna goes home to find the kids are away; only Walter is there, and he’s been drinking. She runs to Bobby, gets into an argument with her, and stabs the other woman. Bobby doesn’t bleed. Bobby does start glitching out in strange ways.

Joanna goes to “The Association’s” building to find her children, but the place looks deserted. She runs into Diz there, and he says she’s had the wrong idea all along. “It’s just another stage,” he explains. “Why? Because we can.”

She runs down the hall, into an exact replica of her bedroom; even her dog is there. So is she– an exact copy of her, but with weird unfinished eyes and bigger boobs. The robot approaches Joanna menacingly…

Some time later, we see the various women at the grocery store, as well as that new black family. All the women are there, including Charmain, Carol, Bobby, and yes, even Joanna is there now, doing the happy shopper things. She’s one of them now..

Brian’s Commentary

I saw this on network TV when it was first released, probably around 1976 or so, and I’d heard it was about robots. I was expecting something like “The Six Million Dollar Man” and was sorely disappointed– I was way too young to be entertained by this.

So many wood-paneled station wagons.

“Women’s Lib” and equal rights for women were the big topic when the film came out, and the whole film is basically pointing that out, contrasting “free” women from the subservient types. The whole thing is a little comical today, but it was a big deal back in the day.

It’s very dated, but I was still entertained.

Kevin’s Commentary

It’s said in trivia that the original screenplay by William Goldman included an ending where we see the Joanna robot violently kill the real Joanna. Director Bryan Forbes didn’t like that and did some rewriting, which angered Goldman, and they never spoke again.

As I was watching this, I realized I saw this at the theater when it came out (OVER FIFTY YEARS AGO?!?) and barely remembered it. So this was a refresher. I read the book more recently, and that’s really good too.

Katherine Ross is great in the role, I especially liked her scene talking to the therapist.

I’d consider this a classic. It’s excellent.

2003 Underworld

* Director: Len Wiseman

* Writers: Len Wiseman, and Danny McBride

* Stars: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Michael Sheen, Shane Brolly, Bill Nighy

* Runtime: 121 minutes (2 hours 1 minute)

* Trailer Link:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Vampires and werewolves have been at war for hundreds of years. Things get more complicated when one of the vampire warriors falls for a human that the werewolves seem to want for some reason. A reason we do find out in a complicated political situation and backstory. Out 23 years ago, the effects still hold up well. The movie is high on action and low on the horror elements, on the long side, but pretty entertaining.

Spoilery Synopsis

We’re told that Lucien, the leader of the Lycans, has been killed and the Lycans all ran off to hide. The vampires have won the age-old battle. Six-hundred years later, the war continues. New Lycans don’t need the full moon anymore, so they’ve become even more dangerous. Selene is a Death-Dealer, a vampire whose job it is to hunt and kill Lycans.

Selene follows a man into the subway, but she’s not the only one following him. Suddenly, there’s a massive shootout, and Selene’s partner dies painfully from sunlight-filled bullets. Selene picks up a gun with special bullets from one of the dead Lycans, but she has to avoid the many others.

Back in the mansion, the vampires get upset when they see the bullets, but Kraven advises not taking the battle to the dogs. She then goes to a room with some ominous-looking manhole covers on the floor. Selene says that Viktor would be more proactive in the battle, but he’s asleep right now, leaving Kraven in charge of the local situation.

Meanwhile, a mad-scientist-type injects a man with a new serum. The leader of the werewolves comes in to check his progress. It’s another failure. We then cut to Michael, the man the wolves were following in the subway; he’s a doctor, and still the subject of their hunt.

At the big vampire party, Kraven is annoyed when Selene goes off looking for Michael instead of staying at the party. She finds him at home, but he has no idea why they’re after him. There’s an immediate attack, and Michael runs off– right into the Lycan leader. Selene shoots the man a few times, but he still has time to bite Michael and get a blood sample.

Selene gets stabbed and passes out, and Michael tries to save her since he’s a doctor. The werewolf leader says because of the bite, Michael will soon be one of them. Turns out, Michael’s blood tests positive– he is the one they’re looking for.

Michael is having nightmares now, and it gets worse when he sees his first vampire and runs off.

Kraven, on the other hand, seems ridiculously jealous of Michael for no particular reason. Turns out, he’s been meeting with the werewolf leader in some kind of backstabbing ploy. The werewolf leader is revealed to be Lucien, the old-time leader who is supposed to be dead. Kraven and Lucien faked the werewolf leader’s death centuries ago.

Knowing that there’s something wrong about Kraven, Selene sneaks into the manhole cover room and awakens Viktor, one of the ancient vampires. It’s not actually Viktor’s turn to wake up, Amelia was just about to awaken Marcus tomorrow night; Viktor is a hundred years too early.

Selene explains to Michael what’s going on. She tells him about her origin story, where Viktor turned her as a child. As all this is going on, the Lycan load their guns and trucks, preparing to attack the vampire castle.

Viktor isn’t sympathetic to being awakened early and says Selene must go on trial when Amelia, the current leader, arrives. Amelia soon does arrive, by train, and they hear the Lycans howling outside. They’re massacred on the train while Kraven and his vampires stand by and do nothing to help.

Selene comes for Michael as the Lycans break into the building beneath them. He gets captured by the Lycans, sees the full moon, and starts to change.

Selene brings the mad scientist before Viktor and Kraven. She makes him tell about Michael’s special trait. Michael is a descendant of the original creature who gave birth to both Lycans and Vampires. Michael can combine the two bloodlines into something new. He also fingers Kraven for helping Lucien escape six hundred years ago.

Viktor orders Selene to kill Michael immediately.

Michael and Lucien have a talk, and Lucien makes a lot of sense. We get a flashback to what actually started the war. Viktor had Lucien’s vampire wife killed - his own daughter - because he couldn’t abide the mixing of the races. Kraven then shoots Lucien in the back with a liquid silver bullet. Raze, the number two Lycan, finds Lucien’s body and then fights a vampire with silver whips.

Viktor shows up, and quickly demonstrates his badassery. Selene rescues Michael as Lucien watches from afar. Kraven shoots Michael with silver, and then reveals that it was Viktor who actually killed Selene’s parents long ago. Lucien tells Selene to bite Michael, and he’ll be half-and-half. Kraven then shoots Lucien repeatedly.

Viktor walks in, and he looks Michael over before throwing him into the next room. He’s not happy. As he and Selene argue about old times, Michael turns into a new kind of creature and attacks Viktor. Viktor gets the advantage, but Selene turns against him and slices her Maker’s head in half. She and Michael walk off together.

Meanwhile, back at the vampire castle, the dead mad scientist bleeds into the manhole cover in the floor, which will wake up Marcus, the third ancient vampire…

Brian’s Commentary

Probably the best part of all this is the complicated backstory, politics, and world-building behind the plot. The sets and costumes are memorable, and the special effects are good as well. The werewolves don’t quite hold up to today’s CGI, but they aren’t bad.

It was good in 2003, and it still holds up really well today. Well, except for the cheap foldable cellphones everyone uses.

Kevin’s Commentary

I saw this at the theater when it came out, and I’d forgotten how high in action it is. It’s got style too. And a real lack of bright color.

The effects hold up pretty well, though the CGI is pretty obvious at times. It felt a bit on the long side, but I was still entertained seeing it again.

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We’ve got another fun mix of films for you this week. We’ll start off with the much-hyped “Obsession.” Is it as good as the Internet hype machine claims? How about “Hungry,” a movie literally based on Hungry Hungry Hippos. That couldn’t be any good… could it?

We’ll then watch something really unusual. What if Star Wars was a horror film? “Project: Blackwing” is exactly that. We’ll then watch a couple of vintage classics, “The Black Sleep” from 1956 and “I Spit on Your Grave” from 1978. Good stuff!

All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #58, for July 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://amzn.to/4vlSZv3

Mainstream Films:

2026 Obsession

* Directed by: Curry Barker

* Written by: Curry Barker

* Stars: Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 48 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A guy taps into some magic to make a wish that his crush will like him back. And the movie proceeds into a lesson of be careful what you wish for. It’s said that it was made on a small budget, but you wouldn’t know it. The pacing, direction, effects, story, and cast are all excellent. It’s an all around very good movie. We both really enjoyed it.

Spoilery Synopsis

Bear tells Nikki how much he loves her, and that she’s out of his league. No– he’s just rehearsing with friends; he could never tell the real Nikki all that. He’s afraid to even flirt with the real girl. Ian tries to give him tips on asking her out, but it’s obviously not going to work. Bear gets home and finds out his cat got into his drugs and died, which makes his day even worse. Credits roll.

Nikki calls and wants Bear to meet her for trivia night, the one thing Ian warned him not to do. He goes to a store to buy her a necklace, but instead, he finds a “One Wish Willow,” which supposedly grants wishes. The clerk tells him not to come back and complain.

After a trivia night with Ian and Sarah, Bear drives Nikki home. They talk, and she’s going to quit her job, where she works with him. We see that Sarah really likes Bear, but he only has eyes for Nikki. He’s just too shy to say anything and blows the opportunity badly.

He forgot to give her the “One Wish Willow,” so he opens it himself. “I wish Nikki would love me more than anyone in the f*****g world!”

Nikki comes back to the car, and her attitude seems different; she invites him inside. No, she wants to go to his place. He doesn’t want to take advantage, but she doesn’t make that easy, since she wants him to sleep in the same bed with her. Turns out, she doesn’t want to do any sleeping. Occasionally, she seems to “wake up” from whatever is controlling her.

Bear Googles the One Wish Willow to see if they really work, and the consensus is “No,” they’re a scam.

In the morning, Nikka has made a really gross memorial to Bear’s dead cat. At work, he tries to explain the previous night to Ian, but he doesn’t understand it. Nikki spends all day at work just staring at Bear.

That night, Nikki shows up dressed for their date, and Bear didn’t even know they had one. She apologizes for being on MDMA last night, and she doesn’t remember much about last night.

Soon, they are inseparable. Ian notices the sudden change in Nikki and tells Bear that something is wrong. Bear just has no confidence at all, and Nikki loves that more than anyone in the world. He knows what’s up, but he doesn’t stop, either.

She watches him sleep. She wears his clothes. She gets just a little bossy. In the morning, he makes her promise “No more weird stuff.” Except he soon finds that she’s taped the door shut so he can’t go to work today.

Sarah also thinks that Nikki is playing some kind of game with Bear, but he knows better. Sarah complains about the notes someone keeps sending her at work. Is Bear’s lunch sandwich made of weeks-old dead cat?

Bear notices a customer-service phone number on the box of the One Wish Willow and calls it. The man on the other end says he can cancel the wish, but he can’t modify it. No, just kidding, he can’t cancel it either. “As long as you live,” says the man. “If you die, the wish will go away.” The man puts the real Nikki on the phone, and all she does is scream.

At Ian’s party, Niki reads a story she’s been working on, and it’s…. Weird. The party games get awkward– really awkward. The party ends badly. It gets to the point where she waits outside the bathroom door when he has to pee.

Bear tries to explain to Nikki that this is not normal. He just wants her to be normal.

Later that night, Bear gets a text from Sarah, who wants to meet him in the park. “Kill me, please,” says Nikki without moving her mouth. Bear sneaks out to meet Sarah, who wants to know what’s going on. She explains that Nikki and Ian had been hooking up for years, and he believes this whole thing is to get back at him. Suddenly, Nikki shows up and beats Sarah to death with a brick. “This is all your fault,” she explains.

Bear goes back to the occult shop, covered with blood, to buy another One Wish Willow, and the man inside knows all about them. It’s called ONE wish willow for a reason, since you only get one chance. Maybe he could get someone else to make a new wish.

Ian says Sarah keeps texting him from Bear’s house, wanting him to come over. Nikki’s trying to lure him to his death. Bear explains about the wishes. Ian wishes for a billion dollars instead, and it starts raining money from the sky. Almost immediately after, Nikki shoots Ian in the head.

Knowing this will end with his death, Bear puts the gun in his mouth and can’t do it. Instead, he takes a bunch of pills. He kisses her and falls over, dead.

The spell is broken. Nikki wakes up and starts screaming.

Brian’s Commentary

How’s she going to explain all this to the police?

It starts out normal enough, but spirals more and more out of control. The pacing is really good, it never slows down even a little bit.

It’s pretty great.

Kevin’s Commentary

The most awful romance movie ever. But a great horror movie. I think I’d agree with the positive hype around this movie. It is a really good one. The whole package, all the elements are there.

2026 Hungry

* Director: James Nunn

* Writers: James Nunn

* Stars: Madison Davenport, Tracey Bonner, Joaquim de Almeida, Michel Curiel, Samantha Coughlan, Olivia Bernstone, Jim Meskimen

* Runtime: 93 minutes (1 hour 33 minutes)

* Trailer Link:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A rogue hippopotamus in the Louisiana swamp makes sport of a tour group there to see the gators. It’s a very serious movie, supposedly loosely based or inspired by the action board game “Hungry, Hungry Hippos,” but it’s not for kids.

It takes a little while to get to the mayhem, but it’s pretty realistic in how it gets there. It was a better than average people vs nature creature feature.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a swamp, with all the usual wildlife. There’s an alligator out there, but something big that we don’t see eats it. Credits roll.

It’s New Orleans. Sistine (Tina) and Hannah talk to Rodrigo about an alligator tour in the bayou. Tina gets the phone call that she’s been fired for taking her approved vacation days.

In the morning, the girls get on “Gator Joe’s” tour bus. There’s an older guy Tim, his daughter Sally, and her son, Mike, along as well. Dionne is there too. Rodrigo is their driver and tour guide.

The group stops at the gift ship for a look at the trinkets and bones. Mr. Walker claims that the most dangerous creature he ever killed was a hippopotamus in Africa. He explains that they’re vegetarian, but they’re still more dangerous than you’d think. He explains that at the turn of the century, hippos were brought over here as a food source to replace cows, but it never caught on.

The boat leaves, and Rodrigo homes in on the alligators, which all have tracking devices on them. They arrive where “Big Ben,” the largest alligator is supposed to be, but he doesn’t appear. They soon find Ben, torn into pieces, on the bank of the river. Tim gets scared; Dionne wants in closer for a better photo. They all start to argue.

Something big hits the boat and capsizes it. Rodrigo gets injured, and everyone gets on the bottom of the capsized boat. Some of them climb into nearby trees. Rodrigo admits that they’re off course, as he took a bribe from Dionne to see Big Ben.

Hannah thinks old man Tim, a retired firefighter, is pretty hot. Dionne just wants out of all this. Sistine is depressed about her mother’s medical bills and her lost job.

The hippo returns, smashes into the tree, and knocks Hannah into the water. Tim and Sistine jump in to help, but both Tim and Hannah become hippo chow. They all see what kind of animal they’re dealing with now.

Back at Gator Joe’s they notice the boat is five hours late returning. Walker has a tracker on all the boats and goes looking for them, alone.

Next, we get a contrived scene where Sistine has to dive under the boat to retrieve the tracker and finds Hannah’s body under there. They pour gasoline in the water to scare off the hippo. They retrieve the tracker and turn it on, which alerts Walker as to where they are.

The group watches as Walker’s boat approaches in the dark; he says it’s impossible that it could be a hippo. Everyone gets into his boat. Dionne goes berserk and pushes Mike into the water, and he’s promptly swallowed.

Walker says there’s a change of plan: they’re all getting back up into the trees. He’s got some tranquilizers, but they might not be enough for the huge hippo. Sally, who just lost her father and her son, jumps into the water and swims off into the fog.

The hippo attacks, bites Walker in the leg, but Rodrigo shoots it with one of the tranquilizers before dying. Walker, Sistine, and Dionne get in Walker’s boat, which is out of fuel, and start rowing. Walker talks about an old plan to farm hippos in Louisiana, and this one must be a leftover from that.

The trio stops at an old abandoned gator farm. Walker thinks that maybe they grew the hippos here. They find many large cages and generations of skeletons. They find a baby hippo, but then the big one attacks.

The plan is to burn the place to the ground and hope someone sees the fire. Before they can do that, Dionne locks Walker in a room with a big baddie. Dionne wants to go back to the boat, but Sistine wants to sit on top of the cages and wait for help to arrive. Dionne pays for her stupidity.

In the meantime, Sistine releases the trapped baby hippo. The big one leads the baby away as helicopters approach. As she flies away, Sistine sees the hippos playing in the river.

Brian’s Commentary

From the name and subject matter, I was expecting this to be funnier: “Hungry Hungry Hippos The Movie” or something like that. It’s actually a fairly standard people-versus-wildlife horror movie.

The first fifteen minutes or so, as the characters arrive and the tour starts, all seems very authentic, the way this sort of tour actually works.

The hippo looks surprisingly real. Overall, the whole thing was far better than I expected.

Kevin’s Commentary

I too was surprised by how serious the movie is. The game is much zanier.

Everything was seeming pretty realistic until they got to the gasoline fire on the surface of the water, a measure meant to keep the hippo away, that burned way better and longer than it should have. But other than that, the effects are good.

And as she flew away, the baby hippo said, “Thank you lady. When I get big I won’t eat you.”

I was expecting the worst, but it ended up being a decently entertaining movie.

2026 Short Film: Project Blackwing

* Directed by: Courtlan Gordon

* Written by: Courtlan Gordon

* Stars: Mark Gonzalez, Tom Hinchcliffe, Vincente DiSanti

* Run Time: 23 Minutes

* Watch it:

What Happens

Rebel pilot “Orphan” gets his X-Wing shot down over a mysterious planet. He’s badly injured, and there’s no one around to help except for the disembodied head of an Imperial medical droid. The droid has a story to tell, but Orphan may not be able to wait out a rescue mission due to the strange monster that attacks every night…

Commentary

This is really good for a fan-made film. It doesn’t look cheap, the pacing and cinematography are well done, and it’s a lot of fun. It’s essentially the Star Wars version of a zombie horror movie.

If you’re a Star Wars fan who likes horror, this is a must-see!

1978 I Spit on Your Grave

* Director: Meir Zarchi

* Writer: Meir Zarchi

* Stars: Camille Keaton, Eron Tabor, Richard Pace, Anthony Nichols

* Runtime: 102 minutes (1 hour 42 minutes)

* YouTube Trailer Link:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

After a writer living alone is attacked and assaulted by four men, she takes brutal revenge on them. They didn’t double check their math when they made the poster that says she took care of five men. This is a weak movie surrounding multiple long scenes of graphic violence and suffering. The violence and sexual assaults are very realistic. There’s some debate if the movie is exploitative or empowering. Either way, it’s notorious for a reason.

Spoilery Synopsis

We watch Jennifer load her car with suitcases in the big city. She stops at a small-town gas station (with 63 cent gas) to ask directions to the lake. She explains that she’s rented a summer house there.

She arrives at the house, strips naked, and jumps in the lake. When she unpacks later, she finds a pistol in one of the drawers. Matthew comes to the door to deliver her food, and he thinks New York City is an evil place. He’s pretty simple, and he’s impressed when he hears that she’s a writer. He’s weird, but he’s a nice weird.

Matthew tells all about Jennifer to the guys at the gas station. He, along with Johnny, Stanley, and Andy, go fishing and talk about the sexy chicks. Matthew insists that Jennifer is special to him, and the others notice.

The next day, Jennifer is out working on her book and sees the guys approach in their boat. They’re annoying, so she goes inside to work. That night, she hears someone outside and considers the gun, but nothing happens.

The following day, she’s out in her canoe and the guys catch up to her in their motorboat and annoy her some more. Andy and Stanley drag her boat to the swamp and chase her through the woods until they run into Johnny, the leader of the group. They hold her down and tear her clothes off, and then call Matthew over to rape her. He can’t do it, but Johnny can– and does!

When it’s done, they still want Matthew to take his turn, but Matthew knows that’s wrong. She ends up walking home through the woods and swamp, naked, crying all the way. After a long walk she runs into the same guys again, and this time, Andy takes a turn. Jennifer can barely stand up after this round.

Jennifer finally makes it home, and she’s a mess. She crawls inside and gets to the phone to call the police– except the guys are already there waiting for her. After a great deal of goading, Matthew finally loses his virginity– nope, he can’t finish with an audience. Stanley finally gets his turn, right there in the living room.

On the way out, the guys decide they need to kill Jennifer to keep her quiet. They talk Matthew into doing it. He goes inside, chickens out, and wipes some of her blood on the knife before leaving.

Jennifer eventually wakes up, cleans up, and rests up. Johnny wonders why they haven’t seen any police at Jennifer’s house, and it’s been two weeks. Someone should have found the body by now. They start to wonder if Matthew really killed her. They’re all getting jittery about the whole thing. They drive by and see Jennifer outside.

Jennifer is somewhat recovered, scars and all, and she takes the gun with her to town. She stalks Johnny at the gas station and sees that he’s married with kids. She follows Matthew on his grocery deliveries. She orders some food, and Matthew knows the address; he takes a knife. When he arrives, she lures him out into the woods and seduces him. Then she hangs him with a noose and dumps his body in the river.

At the gas station, Jennifer shows up and seduces Johnny as well. She pulls out her gun and tells him to undress. He says this was all her fault; she drove them to do it. A bit later, she castrates him in the bathtub and he bleeds to death after a lot of screaming. There’s quite a mess to clean up.

Andy and Stanley head out in their boat toward Jennifer’s place; they know she had something to do with the disappearances. She swims over to Stanley’s boat, pushes him in, and chews him up with the propeller. She then kills Andy with his own axe.

Jennifer smiles as she speeds away in the motorboat.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s gotta be compared to “Last House on the Left,” (1972), which was six years before this. Both portray brutal rape scenes followed by revenge.

There’s the rape scenes and four murders (the poster lies about the body count). Other than that, there’s not much of a plot. The gore is pretty good and everything plays out pretty realistically.

I didn’t hate it.

Kevin’s Commentary

It was originally released in 1978 under the title “Day of the Woman,” and it was a flop. In 1980 distributor Jerry Gross renamed it, and publicity took off, with Siskel and Ebert complaining about it helping quite a bit. It’s been a notorious anti-hit ever since.

I’m sure I was taken to see “Last House on the Left” (a very similar film) when it showed at the drive-in, but I am quite sure this was the first time I’d seen this one.

Some of the scenes are graphic and realistic, without any body double work. It would have been a really awkward movie to make.

It’s interesting, but I didn’t find it very entertaining.

1956 The Black Sleep

* Director: Reginald LeBorg

* Writers: John C. Higgins (Screenplay) | Gerald Drayson Adams (Story)

* Stars: Basil Rathbone, Akim Tamiroff, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, Bela Lugosi

* Runtime: 82 minutes (1 hour 22 minutes)

* Trailer Link:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A rich and brilliant scientist isn’t quite mad, but he does have a secret lair and dabbles in extreme medication and experimental brain surgery. Once he gets a willing assistant, he goes full tilt with his work. It’s well made with good special effects of the time and great sets, but the pacing is slow and uneven. It’s on the dull side with some entertaining moments.

Spoilery Synopsis

We get a voiceover about a strange drug that essentially makes zombies. It’s an ancient drug, and it induces “the black sleep.” Credits roll.

At Newgate Prison in 1872, we watch as Sir Joel Cadman visits Dr. Ramsay in his cell. Gordon Ramsay was a promising student, but he’s scheduled to be hanged in the morning. Gordon says he was framed for killing Curry, but he doesn’t really remember any of it. Sir Joel gives Gordon some of the “black sleep” drug to help him through the execution in the morning.

In the morning, Gordon is dead, probably of heart failure, hours before the execution. Sir Joel Cadman takes possession of the body, takes him home, and tells his servant, Odo, that Gordon is just in suspension, not dead. When Gordon wakes up, Cadman reads him his own death certificate. Cadman explains the whole thing to him.

The two doctors head off to Cadman’s remote castle to do more experiments. Casimir, the butler, lets them in. One of Cadman’s patients, Mungo, chases Laurie around the house until Daphne makes him stop. Daphne’s the nurse, and she keeps all the patients sleeping with the drug. Angelina, for example, has been in a drug-induced coma for 238 days, waiting for brain surgery.

Gordon mentions that Mungo reminds him of Dr. Munro, a brilliant doctor. Turns out, it’s the same man, now insane. Cadman discusses his theories of brain surgery and phrenology. Cadman’s got his laboratory in a secret room in the castle. Daphne and Laurie are already there getting a cadaver ready for them. We see that the corpse has the same tattoo that Odo has. By electrically stimulating various areas of the brain, he can make the corpse respond in various ways. Cadman eventually admits that the man they’re cutting into is still alive, under the black sleep. Gordon objects, but Cadman says it’s all justified.

That night, Gordon breaks up another fight between Mungo and Laurie. Laurie takes Gordon into her confidence; she feels sad for Mungo, who is actually her father but is now just a monster. Cadman operated on his brain, and it went badly. Dr. Cadman has an evil streak, and she knows it.

Cadman talks about his past surgeries with Gordon, and there’s a lot he’s hiding. Odo shows up unexpectedly, and he’s had trouble from the police while acquiring new corpses.

We then get a long scene where Odo pays a woman to model for him but then drugs her. He gives her the tattoo and gets her body ready to send off to Cadman. The police show up and want to search the place. This whole scene goes on for ages, and not much happens. Afterward, Odo simply kills the woman to keep her quiet.

Gordon and Laurie talk about prisoners and patients. Gordon starts calling the patients, “victims.” Gordon theories that one of the previous patients was Curry, the man he was accused of murdering. Gordon tells her all about his situation.

They find a different secret door, and inside this one, they find a dungeon with prisoners. An old man, Bohemond, thinks it’s the year 1100. They also find the man that they operated on the other day, and he’s all disfigured now. There are more, including Curry, who’s not dead at all.

Cadman and the other characters catch them in the act, and Daphne orders Mungo to grab Gordon. They all go upstairs, not realizing that Gordon gave the cell keys to Curry.

Cadman needs Gordon to help with one more operation, this time on Angelina, Cadman’s wife, who needs brain surgery. She’s the reason he’s been doing all this. Odo shows up with the dead woman, and Cadman is not pleased. Cadman decides to use Odo as his next subject– no, maybe Laurie will do instead.

The police arrive downstairs, following Odo. Cadman gets rid of them quickly. Curry, Bohemond, and the others break out of the prison, shouting “Kill! Kill!” Meanwhile, Gordon sedates Mungo and then the crazies kill him. Cadman carries in Angelina, and the crazies make him fall off a ledge to his death. The police return and arrest Odo as they get the full story from Gordon.

Gordon and Laurie have a happy ending.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s got a great cast of old horror icons that really don’t do anything other than lend their name to the movie poster. Lugosi doesn’t speak. Chaney doesn’t do much other than shamble around, as does Tor Johnson. John Carradine gets lines, but he’s little more than a cameo.

It’s not awful, but it’s a long way from great. Probably its worst offense is all the wasted talent.

Kevin’s Commentary

That was the coolest fireplace secret door.

This was the actual last film of Bela Lugosi, or last complete role. Two big names in non-speaking roles, draws an audience and saves money. Plus lots of other recognizable faces of the time.

They almost had Peter Lorre too, he was meant to be the gypsy role, but he wanted more salary than the budget would allow.

It had some interesting moments, but overall I thought it was on the dull side.

Contact Info:

Email: mailto:[email protected]

Websites:

* https://www.horrorguys.com

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Last year, we did a bunch of horror short films that were presented at the Palm Springs International Shortfest, and guess what? They’re back again this year for more great shorts. We’ve got nine great shorts this time around. Unfortunately for us, they’re all still on the festival circuit, so we can’t include links to watch them, but if you keep your eye open for them, you may be able to spot a few of these later this year!

All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #58, for July 2026, is releasing soon! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Short Films:

2025 Short Film: Hand

* Directed by: Jennifer Winterbotham

* Written by: Jennifer Winterbotham

* Stars: Sharlene Cruz, Dario Vazquez, Emma Ramos

* Run Time: 18 Minutes

* Submitted as an entry in the “Palm Springs International ShortFest”

What Happens

Amber and Justin are in the process of breaking up, and she’s taking it badly. As she walks back to her car in a daze, she accidentally cuts her hand on a cactus. Out of the blue, Justin slits his wrists, but that’s OK because she’s got bandages. Or maybe that was a dream.

Later, she talks to her friend on the phone, and we see the cut on her hand and the breakup are real. At work, her hand starts bothering her, and she continues to hallucinate Justin.

What exactly is going on here?

Commentary

So many horror movies could simply be avoided if people actually went to the doctor! Anyway, on to the important question— does mustard expire?

We know something is off about Amber right from the beginning, but finding out the specifics takes some time, and it’s all very suspenseful. The hallucinations are really well done with the accompanying special effects.

Great!

2026 Short Film: The End is at Hand

* Directed by: Japhet E. Velazquez

* Written by: Sam Gallen

* Stars: Efren Ramirez, Richard Kind

* Run Time: 9 Minutes

* Submitted as an entry in the “Palm Springs International ShortFest”

What Happens

Frank calls the phone repair place, and he’s not happy about how long it’s taking to get his phone back. Meanwhile, the repairman gets to work on his phone and pulls out something gooey.

Wait— is that blood?

The repairman’s never had a job like this before!

Commentary

Richard Kind is getting up there in years, but his voice is still identifiable and hilarious. The creature and body horror effects are very good, and it’s obvious exactly what’s going on at all times. And be sure to continue watching (and listening) through the closing credits.

2025 Short Film: Ce qu’on laisse derrière / What We Leave Behind

* Directed by: Jean-Sebastien Hamel, Alexandra Myotte

* Written by: Jean-Sebastien Hamel, Alexandra Myotte

* Stars: Jack Jackel, Jean-Sebastien Hamel

* Run Time: 11 Minutes

* Submitted as an entry in the “Palm Springs International ShortFest”

What Happens

Dan tries to watch TV, but his neck has a huge hole in it, so his head won’t sit up straight. He gets drunk and breaks into the hockey rink, where he hallucinates getting beat up. The guard comes in and sees the hole in his neck.

What’s going on here?

Commentary

It is animated in a very psychedelic, dreamlike way, and it’s interesting to watch one thing develop into the next. Dan is remembering his tormented, bullied youth, and it’s not pleasant. We eventually find out about his neck-hole, and it’s not a fun trip.

2025 Short Film: MANTIS STREAM! LIKE & SUBSCRIBE

* Directed by: Sarah Maerten, Lincoln Robisch

* Written by: Sarah Maerten, Lincoln Robisch

* Stars: Joseph Anthony Carroll, Sarah Maerten, Donald Inn

* Run Time: 9 Minutes

* Submitted as an entry in the “Palm Springs International ShortFest”

What Happens

A man proposes to a woman dressed like a praying mantis. It’s all a part of their livestream show. Craig is all very serious, but Mandy is only in it for likes and subscribes. He asks her for a mantis egg, and she pours them down his throat.

Craig, on the other hand, chokes on the egg. She can’t help him because of her costume. The paramedics show up, and they’re into the “likes” again. Craig staggers outside, where the police are filming a thing, and he’s dying the whole time.

Will Craig be OK? Will he get enough likes?

Commentary

It’s really dumb, but it’s also a representation of streamer culture, doing anything for likes. It gets weirder and weirder as it progresses, and it’s all really well done. The special effects are really impressive once it gets going as well.

If you agree with my review, LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE!

2026 Short Film: Don’t Puke

* Directed by: Daniel Chisholm

* Written by: Daniel Chisholm

* Stars: Janka Horakova, Claire Uicker, Mitra Adib-Moghaddam

* Run Time: 9 Minutes

* Submitted as an entry in the “Palm Springs International ShortFest”

What Happens

It’s Charlie’s birthday, and she’s out with her friends drinking… heavily. She leaves the bar looking for food and staggers around trying hard not to puke. As she walks up to Kebab Castle, she watches as another woman pukes and barely manages not to join in.

Will she succeed?

Commentary

When that room starts spinning, there’s no getting off the ride. Anyone who’s tried to avoid barfing knows the terror involved. It’s fun, and fairly effective body horror at that!

2026 Short Film: Imago

* Directed by: Ariel Zengotta

* Written by: Ariel Zengotta

* Stars: Didi Romero, Josh Plasse, Denise Blazer

* Run Time: 13:20

* Submitted as an entry in the “Palm Springs International ShortFest”

What Happens

It’s Ana’s birthday, and everyone sings. She sees a bug on the table and just stares at it. Later, she laughs at Billy’s gringo accent. Things soon devolve to him admitting that he loves her. Ana’s mother calls, and they both panic ridiculously.

Ana’s mother is having some kind of emergency, so Ana has to leave in a hurry. When Ana pulls back the covers, we see that her mother is turning into a big bug— that doesn’t keep her from arguing with Ana. “I’ve got like sixteen f*****g legs now!”

And then it gets weird…

Commentary

The bug creature is really well done. The mother-daughter dynamics are more than a little on-the-nose.

It’s very funny, and very well done.

2026 Short Film: Scissors

* Directed by: Hanna Alline

* Written by: Hanna Alline

* Stars: Ethan Embry, Jenna Kanell, Georgia Bridgers

* Run Time: 12 Minutes

* Submitted as an entry in the “Palm Springs International ShortFest”

What Happens

A woman buys beer in a convenience store and flashes the clerk. A stranger, Terry, watches her do it, and he follows her out. Terry calls his ex on the phone, and she hates him so much it’s on her answering machine.

Terry’s a stalker/serial killer, but he’s chosen the wrong house…

Commentary

Don’t mess with the lesbians!

Terry’s maybe the worst stalker ever; he talked himself right out of the whole thing. Then again, sometimes a stalker isn’t the worst guy at the party.

Very well done!

2025 Short Film: I have A

* Directed by: Rory WT

* Written by: Rory WT

* Stars: Nathan Rizwan (animated)

* Run Time: 5 Minutes

* Submitted as an entry in the “Palm Springs International ShortFest”

What Happens

An animated man decides to list all the good things in life. Somehow, this goes terribly wrong.

Commentary

Horror? Well, it’s life and death; sometimes it’s pretty horrific.

The animation is fun, and the rhyme is amazing. It kept reminding me of the “Pen Pineapple Apple Pen” from a few years ago.

2025 Short Film: What Are Grandchildren Made Of?

* Directed by: Lindsey Susor

* Written by: Lindsey Susor

* Stars: Mike Gassaway, Jeanine Henry, Loralei Godwin

* Run Time: 12 Minutes

* Submitted as an entry in the “Palm Springs International ShortFest”

What Happens

Lilly’s grandfather forgot and left her in the car for many hours, and now she’s dead. Or is she? No, she’s back alive again. She can respawn after death. “You think this can help us pay off our car?” asks Grandma.

Grandpa takes her out back and shoots her in the head. Then he goes inside, grabs, and does it again. Soon, there’s a whole pile of dead Lillys in the backyard.

Yes, Grandpa’s found a way to pay off the car.

Commentary

So THAT’s how organ harvesting works. This is really clever and funny, and it actually makes sense, in a twisted way.

The ending is great as well. Oops!

Contact Info:

Email: mailto:[email protected]

Websites:

* https://www.horrorguys.com

* https://www.horrormonthly.com

We’re back with another collection of five films, some new, some not so much. We’ll open with the comedic “Hold the Fort” and then the not-funny-at-all “Love is the Monster,” both new releases. We’ll take a look at a creepy, long-ish short film, “Animals,” also from this year. We’ll then watch a couple of vintage films, “Planet of the Apes” and “Lost Highway.” Mostly good stuff!

All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #57, for June 2026, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

2025 Hold the Fort

* Director: William Bagley

* Writers: William Bagley (written by), Scott Hawkins (story)

* Stars: Haley Leary, Chris Mayers, Julian Smith, Tordy Clark, Hamid-Reza Benjamin Thompson

* Runtime: 74 minutes

* Official Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Because they didn’t read their home owners association contract, a young couple find themselves in a battle with assorted creatures from a hell portal. It’s very funny while being full on horror with a gory body count. The effects, cast, and script were all very good. We thought it was really entertaining.

Spoilery Synopsis

An old man and woman argue about defending the house against something. There’s something wrong with their land, and she wants to sell the place. He refuses, but he may not have a choice.

When the realtor and a new buyer come to look at the house in the morning, there are bullets everywhere and the old woman, covered in blood, says “We’ll sell.” Credits roll as a whole new subdivision is built on the spot.

Lucas argues with Jenny about moving into a place with an HOA. She’s not a fan of HOAs, but he thinks it’s all pretty cool. They get an invitation to the annual equinox party tonight. Jerry, the HOA guy, shows up at the door.

“Welcome to the Equinox. Please don’t die” says the banner at the party. Ted and Annette say there’s plenty of weird stuff that goes on here. They explain the legend of the equinox; once a year, a portal from Hell opens up and all kinds of creatures pour out to kill. The “Fort” that was here defends against the monsters, so now they can all get drunk and celebrate. Ted asks, “Can you shoot? You can always tell which neighbors are gonna last.”

Jerry starts his presentation, and he talks about expecting a horde of witches. “Magic can’t stop bullets,” but the price of silver is going to limit their werewolf defenses. The Stick Man might be the worst of all of them, the leader of the dark army. Then there’s a raffle and Lucas wins a shotgun. Everyone jokes that there’s no way Lucas is going to survive the night.

Jerry freaks out and says “They’re early tonight!” and everyone goes on full alert. We get a glimpse of the Hell portal, wide open outside.

The witches attack, and one man dies right away, splattering Lucas with blood. McScruffy, the local weapons guy, shows up, and he’s armed for witches. It’s all very violent, but the witches are soon dead. Lucas, who doesn’t know guns, shoots McScruffy in the leg.

Jerry explains that this is all pretty standard HOA stuff “Gotta pay for bullets and s**t,” he explains, which is why the fees are so high. Jerry then passes out because he ate too many cheesesticks with muscle relaxers in them.

Three of the men inside the house turn into zombies. There’s a crazy battle, and soon there are five zombies. Everyone hides in the closet. Lucas tries to call 911, but they keep hanging up on him. “Didn’t you read anything in your HOA contract?”

Ted explains that there’s no property tax here, so the portal to Hell is generally worth it. They explain about the kung-fu spirits that control the zombies, and Lucas thinks he can get to the special sword. When they get out of the closet, the zombies are gone.

The fog rolls in. “He’s here,” says Jerry. Ted gives Lucas a sort of pep talk as they hear a werewolf outside. The two finally defeat the kung-fu zombies by working together. Suddenly, a huge werewolf shows up, and it takes forever for Jenny to figure out how to load the gun with silver bullets.

Ted gets killed in the meantime, but that doesn’t keep him down. Lucas uses the mini-chainsaw on him.

Lucas apologizes to Jenny for moving into an HOA. She says she would have liked the place under different circumstances. Jerry and Annette say that there’s another wave coming. Jerry wants to mix things up by attacking the portal with Annette’s moonshine bottles.

Lucas, with McScruffy duct-taped on his back, runs toward the portal with a huge load of moonshine as they are swarmed by kamikaze bats. They fall down and lose the moonshine, but McScruffy has a huge bomb strapped to his chest, so that’s Plan B.

Back in the clubhouse, something grabs Jerry, leaving Jenny and Annette alone. It suddenly gets really cold, and the Stick Man shows up just in time to kill Annette. As he moves in to kill Jenny, Lucas helps McScruffy to jump into the Hell portal with his bomb.

As the portal explodes, so do the remaining monsters.

One year later, new people move into the HOA, and Jerry shows up to invite them to a party tonight. Lucas and Jenny don’t expect anything will happen this year, and they’re part of the HOA.

As the closing credits roll, we see the power of cocaine in large quantities.

Brian’s Commentary

Always read your HOA contract. At least now we really understand what those fees are for.

It’s fast-paced, funny, and has excellent effects. I thought it was pretty great.

Kevin’s Commentary

This was really a lot of fun. Which continues into the closing credits with some outtakes. It’s well made and entertaining.

2026 Love is the Monster

* Director: Alex Noyer

* Writers: Alex Noyer, Hannu Aukia, Blair Bathory

* Stars: Madeline Zima, Leonardo Nam, Kimberly-Sue Murray, Moe Jeudy-Lamour, Kristina Tonteri-Young, Milla Puolakanaho, Sheila McCarthy

* Runtime: 86 minutes

* Official Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Multiple couples go on a therapy retreat in Finland, which is unfortunately the home of an ancient goddess of love who damages her playthings. Things aren’t quite right from the beginning and only go downhill from there. It’s well put together, a little on the slow side, but overall pretty good. We were entertained.

Spoilery Synopsis

We watch a commercial for a romantic retreat for couples. Lempo has many testimonials of people that it’s helped. “Free your hearts in the name of love,” the woman, Tina, says. We then cut to some kind of blood ritual of Lempo that involves glowing eyes and human sacrifice. Credits roll.

Ana wakes up, hearing a bird inside the house. She doesn’t find a bird but does find the ghost of her dead boyfriend outside. Justin wakes up inside, and he has a weird vision as well. There’s no phones allowed in this resort, but it’s only three days, so they’ll probably survive that. They come outside and meet the rest of the guests: Harper says this place isn’t for everyone, but doesn’t get to finish her thought.

They all notice the many loud birds on the island, and then Tina, their host, arrives. Tina shows an unusual interest in Ana, but mostly ignores Justin. Tina is weird. Blake introduces herself and mentions that Lempo is a Finnish word, and it’s also the goddess of birds.

All the guests convene in the sauna, and they all beat each other with tree branches. After, something attacks Ana in the lake. She then starts noticing various people’s eyes glowing oddly.

The group does an exercise looking at each other in broken mirrors and Ana sees Marko, her dead boyfriend, once again. Justin has no idea who Marko is; Tina accuses Justin of being unfaithful. Tina knows that Ana blames herself for Marko’s death.

Everyone then gets naked and goes swimming after Tina paints herself with blood. There is much frolicking, and even Ana and Justin go at it. All the couples pair off for sex, and each pair behaves differently as Tina does a ritual. An old ghost-woman appears to watch all of them, as their eyes all glow. By the time they’re all done, one couple is dead; Petri and Blake dispose of the bodies.

In the morning, Ana and Justin argue about their respective affairs. Ana runs outside and sees Tina and Petri being weird in the woods. All the guests are surprisingly hostile with each other.

Ana wants to go home, and Justin thinks a lot of the strangeness is all in her head, which just makes her angrier. Petri explains that she can’t leave, as it’s Midsummer and all the taxis have shut down.

Everyone wanders around outside, and they all notice just how many birds, both alive and dead, are all over the place. Ana sees Marko again, and this time, she follows him.

Tina starts another ritual, and the old bird-woman, Lempo, is there. Everyone is in a trance except for Ana, who is there unwillingly. Tina cuts the old woman’s throat and puts the blood in a cup. Tina wants Ana to be Lempo’s new vessel; she forces Ana to drink the blood. Everyone else is some kind of trance. Justin and Harper have sex right there in front of everyone.

Lance, Harper’s husband, wakes up and causes trouble while Blake grabs Ana and runs off into the woods. Blake admits that Marko was her half-brother, and she’s part of the Lempo cult. Petri sneaks up and stabs Blake in the back before coming after Ana.

Some of the other couples have lethal difficulties. After killing Harper, Ana grabs a rowboat and heads away from the island– at least until Justin shows up begging her to come back for him. She’s captured once again.

Tina and Petri use Justin to sacrifice Ana to Lempo. He resists, and ends up stabbing Tina. Petri prays to Lempo, who brings Tina back to life. Tina then rips out his heart with her bare hand.

Out of nowhere, Blake, who isn’t dead, shows up and calls on a different Finnish god to stop Lempo-Tina. Blake doesn’t live long after that. Tina then pulls out Ana’s still-beating heart and bleeds all over it attempting to transfer into Ana.

A bird crawls out of Blake’s body and attacks Tina, who bursts into flame.

Later, Ana wakes up as a man in a boat approaches. He sees Ana and recognizes her as Lempo; he’s a cultist as well. Justin and Harper are still alive, but no longer in a trance. They leave all the corpses for the birds.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s clear from the beginning that this whole thing is some kind of weird setup, and that Tina and Petri have something going on.

There are lots of CGI birds, some well done, and some not. We also noticed some bonfires looked completely computer generated for some reason.

It’s not a mythology I’m familiar with, so all the Lempo stuff was new for me. Overall, I was entertained.

Kevin’s Commentary

Wind and fire conditions must have limited them to CGI fires at times.

Overall though, I thought it was pretty well made, and I enjoyed it.

2026 Animals

* Director: Maya Gray

* Writers: Maya Gray

* Stars: Rachel Alig, Serine Sianosian, Geneva Cimone, Jamie Criss, Chad Anderson, Peter Kalisch

* Runtime: 22 minutes

* Official Trailer: N/A

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A grieving woman answers the door to find another woman there who believes she rented the place as an AirBNB. What starts out as a friendly gesture to stay goes downhill in a big way as time goes on.

Spoilery Synopsis

Zoya finishes praying and then the doorbell rings. A woman comes to the door saying she rented this place on AirBNB. Zoya explains that it’s her mother’s house, who just recently died from cancer, and the strange visitor wants to come inside to sort out the issue. She brings her suitcase in with her. Zoya wants to know where Amelia will be staying, but Amelia stalls with her answer and begins making herself at home…

Brian’s Commentary

There are squatters, and then there’s this.

It all starts off pretty awkward, but it progresses realistically until it gets weird. It’s well shot and well acted, and both characters seem to have some major issues.

We all need friends as accepting as Amelia’s. Very nice!

Kevin’s Commentary

The quiet realism of this is impressive, and it builds nicely. Great script, great actors, and good direction. I thought it was excellent.

2001 Planet of the Apes

* Director: Tim Burton

* Writers: William Broyles Jr., Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal (Based on the novel by Pierre Boulle)

* Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Clarke Duncan, Paul Giamatti, Estella Warren

* Runtime: 120 minutes

* Trailer Link:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

In the far distant future of 2029, an astronaut lands on a planet where apes rule, and humans are slave labor. It’s a reboot and reimagining of the 1968 original, with practical makeup and prosthetics. Kind of an interim between the original series of the 60s and 70s and the CGI heavy “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” which started the modern reboot series in 2011. It’s not bad, quite entertaining, but also unnecessary.

Spoilery Synopsis

A normal-looking monkey flies a spaceship and works the controls. Things go badly, but it’s only a simulator. It’s the year 2029, and there’s a huge space station orbiting Saturn. Captain Leo Davidson and a bunch of scientists are out there training apes.

Suddenly, the lights go out. A space storm approaches, and they start getting TV broadcasts from many different time periods. Leo wants to pilot the ship out there because he doesn’t believe the monkeys can handle it, but the commander overrules him.

Pericles the ape pilots his ship into the storm, as instructed. They soon lose his signal. The commander wants to give up, so Leo hops in a pod and launches himself after Pericles. A space disturbance hits both pods, and something strange happens. Leo loses power but soon sees the chronometer going crazy. He does an emergency landing on the strange planet below.

Leo finds himself on a forest planet, in the middle of a bunch of humans that are running from — apes! Many of the humans, including Leo, are captured in nets and beaten. The apes then lead a procession of human prisoners to their city.

They’re taken to a slave trader, Limbo, who’s a hoot. General Thade and his assistant Attar walk through, and it’s clear they’re in charge. Thade’s niece wants one of the human children to play with, and Limbo has no choice but to donate it.

Limbo gets to branding the slaves, but then Ari, a human-friendly ape activist, interrupts. She thinks humans can be taught to live with them as equals. She buys Leo and a blonde woman as house servants. Ari’s father is a senator, and he doesn’t care for humans.

The senator has guests over, including another senator and General Thade. Thade talks about his ailing father. Thade is all for eliminating the entire human population, but there are financial reasons for keeping them around.

Thade’s men find the remains of Leo’s space pod and let him know about it. He then kills the soldiers who know about it.

Meanwhile, Leo knows some tricks and uses them to escape their cages. They run through the town, causing all kinds of mischief. Ari and her bodyguard, Krull, help them, and Thade soon hears about that.

They all make their way to Leo’s crash site, but his ship has sunk. He dives in and retrieves a supply bag. He’s got a radio, but can’t talk to his ship; he can, however, get a direction toward where they are. They run into and take Limbo along as a hostage.

Thade uses the situation to convince the senator to declare martial law, so he can purge the planet of all the humans. He talks to his own sickly father, who explains that this has all happened before, and way back in the past, humans were the masters and apes the slaves. He’s even got proof, an old human-made pistol. He warns Thade not to allow the humans to reach Calima, which has the secret of their origins.

Meanwhile, Ari tells Leo and the others about Calima, where they originally came from, but maybe that’s just a religious fairy tale. Leo’s tracker seems to be pointing in that direction. But first, they have to steal some horses and cross a river while avoiding a whole camp of Attar’s apes.

Leo’s group soon reaches Calima, which is the space station from earlier, but it’s been crashed on the planet for a very long time. There are no survivors present. Turns out, Calima is “Caution: Live Animals.” Yes, these modern apes have all descended from his own experiments in training apes. Leo watches the ship’s logs and finds out what happened.

Apparently, all the humans everywhere have learned about Leo and show up outside. All the apes are not far behind.

Ari turns herself in to Thade, who wants to trade herself for the lives of the humans. He doesn’t buy what she’s selling and sends her back to die with the humans.

Meanwhile, Leo has a plan to defeat the ape army using some trick with the Oberon. As the thousands of ape soldiers charge, the space station’s engines ignite, blowing up many of them.

Thade’s had enough waiting, and they all start the big battle. Attar and Krull face off, old teacher and mean pupil. Attar easily wins. Thade, on the other hand, has eyes only for Leo.

The apes are easily winning, but suddenly, there’s a boom from the sky and another space pod lands. Turns out, it’s Pericles, who is a much better pilot than Leo ever was. The apes think he’s the second coming of Cemos, and all bow down.

Thade isn’t giving up so easily. He chases Leo and Pericles into the ship and there’s another fight. Pericles brought a blaster, and the ape and the man fight over it. Thade gets the gun, but he’s also trapped in the animal chamber.

Everything starts to settle down, and Leo finds that Pericles’s pod can still be used. He wants to use it to go home. He blasts off and soon finds that same space-storm. He retraces his steps and soon sees Earth. He comes in over Washington DC and picks up radio transmissions. He crashes into the Lincoln Memorial, which doesn’t feature Lincoln: It’s Thade instead. Police show up, and they’re all apes as well.

What?

Brian’s Commentary

It’s probably easiest to compare this to the 1968 original. This is much faster-paced, with Leo in Ape City in the first twenty minutes. Then again, since everyone knows how the story goes they can dispense with the suspenseful reveal.

At one point, we see two planets or moons in the sky, so this isn’t our Earth. They obviously had plans for sequels, but the movie flopped, so that never happened.

This time around, the humans can speak, which kinda limits how “special” Leo is compared to the others. Unlike the newer Ape series, the characters here are all done with practical effects, more like the original series, but it’s clear that the makeup and prosthetics have gotten much better.

It all looks really good, but the story is just too neat and tidy; everything wraps up too cleanly except for the twist in the final scene. I didn’t hate it, but this is one of those films that doesn’t really improve on the source materials (the films, not the book).

Kevin’s Commentary

We’d better get on the ball if we want a space station like that in the next three years.

So, the space storm wasn’t just messing with time, it was sending them to different dimensions as well.

I do like the practical effects way better than the CGI motion capture of the modern reboot series that started in 2011. Though I can see why the actors would prefer the CGI. That’s a lot of hours getting it on and off every day, and a lot of hours in it all day.

I thought this was pretty good, and I know it gets a lot of hate. It’s not deserved. Not a perfect movie, but it’s entertaining.

1997 Lost Highway

* Director: David Lynch

* Writers: David Lynch, Barry Gifford

* Stars: Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty, Robert Blake

* Runtime: 2 Hours, 14 Minutes

* Trailer Link:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

The IMDB.com listing for this movie summarizes it perfectly: “Anonymous videotapes presage a musician’s murder conviction, and a gangster’s girlfriend leads a mechanic astray.” There’s other things that happen too, but that’s the gist. It’s a David Lynch film, so every shot and every character seems a little off or unsettling or unusual. It’s a strange and quiet movie that unfolds at a relaxed pace for the most part. Some might call it boring. Some might think it could be trimmed down by a lot.

Spoilery Synopsis

Credits roll as we drive along… a lost highway.

We cut to Fred Madison, who’s annoyed by the doorbell. “Dick Laurent is dead” says the voice on the intercom. Renee comes in, and they talk before he goes to work; she says she’ll stay home and read a book. He’s a saxophone player in a loud bar (he’s horrible, by the way). He calls her later, and she’s not at home reading a book. Still, when he gets home, she’s there asleep. Maybe he’s just suspicious over nothing.

In the morning, Renee finds an unlabeled videotape waiting for her outside. Fred puts it in the player, and it’s their house. “Must be from a real estate agent,” she quips. Then they have sex for a long time, and Fred… fails. He tells her about the dream he had last night. She was in bed with him, but her face looked like Robert Blake for some reason.

The next morning, there’s another videotape. This time, it’s their house from the outside and on the inside. It also shows them sleeping in their bed. The police detectives show up and look the place over, but they don’t find anything.

At Andy’s houseparty not long after, Fred sees that same weird man. “We’ve met before, haven’t we? At your house? As a matter of fact, I’m there right now, at your house.” Fred calls home and the man, who is standing right in front of him, answers. It’s a weird conversation. When they get home, no one is there.

Fred finds another videotape. This one shows Fred murdering Renee. Did he really do that? The police think he did, and he goes to prison for it– on death row. The prison doctor gives him something to make him sleep, but he has headaches that won’t go away. He gets another vision of the mystery man and some even stranger things.

The warden and the guard look into Fred’s cell, but that’s some other guy in there now. How did that happen? This guy is Peter Dayton, not Fred at all. They release Peter to his family, since he’s not even supposed to be in prison at all.

Peter goes out with friends, but he’s changed. He doesn’t really know what happened to him. He goes back to work, fixing cars for Arnie. Mr. Eddy, a gangster, comes in, and he’s a good friend to Pete. They go for a drive and a tail-gater messes with the wrong car. Let’s just say Mr. Eddie is a stickler for safety rules.

Pete and his girlfriend, Sheila, make out in the car that night, with the police watching from their tail-car.

The next day, at the auto shop, Pete gets a headache when he hears saxophone music on the radio. Mr. Eddy comes in again and leaves his car. He notices Eddy’s new girl in the passenger seat, and she looks just like Renee, but she’s not. She comes by later that evening to talk to Pete, alone; she’s Alice.

Pete’s parents saw everything that happened the night Pete went missing. There was a strange man involved. Not long after, Eddy warns Pete about staying away from Alice. Alicec, on the other hand, wants to run away with Pete. She talks to him about doing pornos for Mr. Eddy. She’s got a whole plan laid out for leaving town with the help of Andy.

Mr. Eddy calls Pete on the phone. Mr Eddy puts the Mystery Man on the phone. “We’ve met before, haven’t we? At your house.” Yeah, he knows about Alice, and that’s not good for Pete.

Pete goes to the rendezvous spot to meet Alice at Andy’s house. He sees a porno movie playing on a big screen, and it’s Alice in the movie. Pete attacks Anyd, who dies in the fight, albeit accidentally. Pete sees a photo of Alice and Renee together, along with Andy and Eddy.

Pete’s head goes all wonky, and he goes up to the bathroom, bleeding heavily. The two drive out to the desert to meet her fence, who will pay them to leave the country. As they wait, they have more sex. When they’re done, Pete is gone and Fred is there taking his place. The Mystery Man is there as well.

Fred gets freaked out by the strange man and drives off alone, to the Lost Highway Hotel, where Renee is having sex with Eddy. Fred takes Eddy, at gunpoint, out into the desert and kills him.

At Andy’s house, the detectives look at the photo, and only Renee, Andy, and Eddy are in it. Fred then goes to his house, rings the bell, and says “Dick Laurant is dead.” The detectives spot him there and chase him way out into the desert. As he drives, Fred becomes some else…

Brian’s Commentary

You know it’s a weird movie when Gary Busey plays one of the more reasonable characters.

I had only seen this one once before, when it came out, and all I remember was that I didn’t care for it. I’m a huge David Lynch fan, but this was my least favorite of his films. Now I see why: It’s boring as hell; we didn’t get a single laugh until Robert Loggia showed up to give us a driving lesson.

We get a whole bunch of stuff with Bill Pullman, and then he disappears for the majority of the movie. Then we get Balthazar Getty for a chunk of the film with no explanation for the shift.

I don’t get it. It probably needs three or four more viewings before I do, just like “Mulholland Drive” did.

Kevin’s Commentary

I’d forgotten how many recognizable faces are in it in supporting roles.

I too had only seen this once before and didn’t care for it too much. It’s Lynch, so the cinematography is amazing and the script is weird. There are some solidly entertaining moments. And I liked it better this time. But it also felt too long and drawn out. I’d trim it back half an hour or so.

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Hey guys– we took the week off. Instead of new films, we’re posting five films that were originally published as “member only” reviews from HorrorWeekly.com. Yes, this time, we’re looking at all the Christopher Walken “Prophecy” films, from 1995 to 2005. Some were great, some weren’t, but hey, it’s Walken, so we were enthralled. Mostly.

All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #57, for June 2026, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

The Prophecy (1995)

* Directed by Gregory Widen

* Written by Gregory Widen

* Stars Christopher Walken, Elias Koteas, Virginia Madsen, Eric Stoltz, Viggo Mortenson

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 38 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

It’s an interesting take on ideas of creation and good versus evil. It’s helped a lot by a strong cast, with Christopher Walken being an especially bright spot with what he brings to the movie. It’s a little slow at the beginning but builds well. We’d give it a thumbs up.

Spoilery Synopsis

Simon says that he remembers the first war, Hell was created and many angels died. Lucifer fell and it was all terrible. He never thought there would be another war… Credits roll.

We cut to a big church in the middle of a ritual to ordain new priests. Thomas Dagget watches the process, but when it’s his turn to be ordained, he has a weird vision and screams. Years later, Thomas is now a police detective; “Heaven showed me too much.”

Simon is perched unnaturally on a chair. Simon pulls out Thomas’s thesis; he wrote about angels. He smells something and then stops a demon who breaks through the window. He pokes out the demon’s eyes and then throws the demon out the window, and Thomas comes to investigate. The only lead is a newspaper from Chimney Rock.

In Chimney Rock, it’s a funeral for an old man who died at age 85. Simon is there, clearly injured from his battle. He opens the old corpse’s mouth and kisses him.

The coroner tells Thomas that the dead man never had eyes, and he’s very weird overall with both male and female sex organs. He was carrying an old handwritten Bible with an extra book at the end about a second war in Heaven.

Gabriel checks out the room where Simon and the demon fought. He smells things. He talks to Jerry, who looks post-suicidal. He wants Jerry to steal stuff from the police station evidence room.

Mary is playing hide and seek and finds Simon. Katherine, her teacher, comes looking for her and has a conversation with Simon, who’s hiding upstairs. He gives Mary something, and she gets sick. Katherine drives Mary home to the reservation.

Thomas translates the new book and it predicts a new war of the angels and demons, that hasn’t happened yet. The weird corpse in the morgue is Usiel, an angel. Meanwhile, Gabriel finds the body in the morgue and burns it. Jerry recovers all Usiel’s things, but the Bible isn’t there. The two of them set off for Chimney Rock. Gabriel calls Jerry a “talking monkey,” his name for humans. They dig up the body of the old man Simon already met. The soul that Gabriel wants is gone from the man now.

Gabriel tracks down Simon; he wants that soul. He does not want to be replaced by talking monkeys. Gabriel sets Simon on fire, demanding to know where the soul is.

Katherine comes to school and the police are there, looking at what’s left of Simon. Meanwhile, Mary, a Native American, is acting sick, so her people pray over her.

Thomas arrives at the cemetery where the old man is being buried a second time. The gravedigger tells Thomas about Simon’s body being found. He talks to Katherine, who mentions Mary and her strange illness. Thomas researches the old Colonel, who was accused of doing human sacrifices during the war; there’s even a film. The old man even left behind a box full of faces. He was a special kind of evil, which makes his soul a weapon that Gabriel wants.

Thomas goes to the church and Gabriel finds him there. He’s weird but doesn’t really do anything. Mary dreams about the old Colonel. Gabriel visits the school and looks inside the children’s mouths for the soul.

Thomas and Katherine visit Mary; she’s got the old Colonel’s soul inside her. Thomas knows that the angels want that dead, psychotic Colonel. She tells him about Gabriel. Katherine takes Thomas to the old shut-down copper mine; she thinks Gabriel is in there. They see thousands of angels, impaled on spikes.

Thomas and Katherine go to Mary’s house and find Gabriel there. Jerry attacks Thomas while Katherine tries to distract Gabriel. Katherine shoots the propane tank and blows up the house, which clobbers Gabriel. But Mary says that to really kill Gabriel, they need to cut his heart out.

The good guys take Mary to the Indian village to have a magic procedure done. Mary tells Thomas that this place is defensible; “One man could hold off an entire battalion.”

Since Jerry’s dead for real now, he needs a new servant. He goes to the hospital and resurrects Rachael, who committed suicide.

Katherine gets a very special visit from Lucifer himself. He explains the angels’ motivations and purposes. The Colonel was the “blackest soul” on Earth, and Gabriel wants it to help him win. Lucifer is actually here to stop Gabriel. He makes her an offer.

Gabriel and Rachael visit a local diner, and Rachael isn’t appreciating still being alive. Lucifer visits Thomas next and gives him some tips.

Night falls, and Gabriel approaches the place where the Native Americans are doing their songs. Thomas has set up boobytraps for Gabriel. There’s a bit of a battle, and Lucifer ends up confronting and killing Gabriel. Meanwhile, the ritual completes and Mary coughs up the Colonel’s soul which is destroyed by light from Heaven.

Lucifer wants Katherine and Thomas to go home with him, but they refuse. He leaves them unharmed.

Brian’s Commentary

I saw this when it came out and remembered this being more interesting than it was. About all I remembered from the original watch was the way the angels perched up above everything like birds; it’s still a neat touch. It’s very slow for the first hour, but the intensity of the last half hour is worth the wait.

What really makes this movie is the casting. How did they get all these big-name people involved? It holds up pretty well; there are some subtle special effects, but they all mostly still work. It’s good!

Kevin’s Commentary

The cast really does help this one a lot, elevating the movie quite a bit. I also saw this when it came out, and this was my second viewing thirty years later. How time flies. I thought it held up well enough to entertain me overall.

The Prophecy II (1998)

* Directed by Greg Spence

* Written by Gregory Widen, Matt Greenberg, Greg Spence

* Stars Christopher Walken, Russell Wong, Jennifer Beals, Brittany Murphy, Eric Roberts

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 27 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This one was a little bit of a step down from the first one, but not too much. There are some new characters, and a couple of actors are replaced, but Christopher Walken is still here doing his thing, with a little more dark humor to liven things up. It’s a worthy sequel.

Spoilery Synopsis

We hear a voiceover from a man who has had visions of the end of Heaven and Earth as credits roll.

Valerie Rosales is a nurse, and we open on her drive to work through the downtown area of the city– until someone falls onto her car. Meanwhile, at a monastery, there’s a bunch of screaming from one of the monks, Thomas Daggett, from the first movie.

Lucifer walks in a dark alley and says it’s time for Thomas to go. He kisses the ground, which then breaks open and releases someone from Hell. We soon see that it’s Gabriel, and he goes straight to Thomas. He burns up Thomas and the whole apartment.

Valerie talks to the man she hit with her car; he’s Danyael, and says he’s harder to kill than that. He’s being released, so they have a talk about her work and her lack of a husband. Naturally, they end up having sex a few moments later. This results in her getting visions of angels.

Later, Danyael reports to his boss, who asks, “Is it done?” They are soon attacked by two opposing demons. They both beat the invaders, but Gabriel comes sniffing around afterward. He kills Danyael’s boss, Rafael.

Valerie wakes up with a headache and her belly hurts. She gets a test, and sure enough, she’s pregnant, and it’s only been two days. The doctor says, no, she’s in the second trimester.

We cut to Izzy and Julian, two whiny teens who are about to complete a suicide pact… as Gabriel watches. He swoops in afterward to revive Izzy; he needs a new servant.

Valerie gets a call from the police; Danyael killed one of the demons, and they have the body. Joseph, the coroner from the first film, has seen this before, four years ago. He tells Valerie his experiences. A bit later, Gabriel burns that body as well.

Valerie goes to see Father William about Thomas, and the old priest tells her what Thomas told him. He talks about a Nephilim, a child of angels and humans.

She goes home and finds Gabriel there, waiting for her. Danyael breaks in and interrupts Gabriel before he can kill her. Danyael ends up taking her to a nearby church and tells her how important she is; she’s going to have a Nephilim. She doesn’t believe him, so he shows her his true form. He wants to take her to Michael for protection.

Gabriel takes a radio and a gun from a policeman, and Izzy shoots herself with it, to no effect. He hears a report about a break in at a nearby church and goes right there; that’s where Valerie is. Danyael arrives just in time to rescue her, but he drops Father William’s book.

Gabriel soon wakes up in the morgue and walks right out with Izzy. Meanwhile, Danyael takes Valerie to Eden, or what’s left of it to see Michael. They talk briefly, but then Gabriel comes to the gate, also wanting to talk to Michael. Michael… lets him inside.

Danyael attacks Gabriel, one on one, as Izzy goes after Valerie. This goes badly for Danyael and Izzy. Gabriel closes in on Valerie, but she fights back. She grabs onto him and jumps off the roof. Gabriel gets impaled pretty seriously, and then Michael finishes him off. He turns Gabriel into a human and leaves him there.

Michael talks to Valerie after. She knows he’s going to come and take her son away someday. Five years later, Valerie sends her son to school on the bus, which passes a homeless guy on the street; it’s Gabriel, begging for coffee. “Everything’s gonna be made right soon.”

Brian’s Commentary

They still had a pretty decent cast, even though they did end up replacing both Thomas and Lucifer from the first film. Christopher Walken returns, and he leans more into his comedic talents here, with some great lines in a film that’s otherwise very serious.

It’s got the benefit of not having to explain everything, since that’s already been covered. This feels like a logical progression, and also leads into it possibly becoming a series.

It’s pretty good, not far off from the first one.

Kevin’s Commentary

I thought this was a bit of a step down from the first one, but not too much. Christopher Walken really makes the movie, and I’m glad they went with him again. The story continues pretty well, which I liked. The writing was decent. It’s a thumbs up.

The Prophecy 3: The Ascent (2000)

* Directed by Patrick Lussier

* Written by Gregory Widen, Carl V. Dupre, Joel Soisson

* Stars Christopher Walken, Vincent Spano, Davino Buzzotta

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 24 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This continues on from the second movie, years later, with a couple of the kids grown up and Christopher Walken’s Gabriel a little older. And he’s stuck being a human, which is pretty humorous. It’s worth the watch to see the storyline get wrapped up.

Spoilery Synopsis

Credits roll as someone throws a Molotov cocktail into the house of a woman and her young son.

We cut to long haired Gabriel, looky pretty shabby after being turned human at the end of the previous film. He walks into a sermon being given by a street preacher in an abandoned building. Suddenly, a zealot in the audience shoots the preacher about 60 times. Maggie screams and runs to help the dead young man as Gabriel watches in amusement.

The zealot, who is blind, somehow manages to get away and go home. He hears voices in his apartment, “I did what you told me.” The voice wanted more done to the preacher, but the man got pushed away by the stampeding crowd and couldn’t finish the job. Whoever he’s been talking to reveals himself.

Over at the morgue, coroner Joseph looks at the dead body of the preacher. Meanwhile, another angel walks the streets looking weird and creepy. The corpse is Danyael Rosales, the son of Valerie, and Joseph remembers her.

Gabriel talks to a detective, and they get along really well; Gabriel seems very human now. Maggie is there to identify the body.

The new angel is A.Z. Jones, and he makes the guard see that he has an FBI ID, which he doesn’t really. He goes to the morgue, and they let him right in. He walks right past Gabriel, who is on his way out. “I let myself go,” Gabriel quips to Zophael. Zophael is against “The monkeys,” but Gabriel has changed sides. “I like it here; I even learned to drive.”

Meanwhile, down in the morgue, Danyael wakes up. By the time Zophael gets there, he’s gone. Maggie is very skeptical that someone gets up from the morgue and walks away. Danyael runs into Gabriel in the alley. Coroner Joseph has a research montage as he learns about Nephilim and the second war and Pyriel.

Danyael is having flashbacks to being dead on a pile of corpses. He goes to the apartment of the man who shot him, and the man is dead. Zophael comes in, so Danyael leaves in a hurry.

Zophael catches Danyael, and they fight. Zophael’s about to kill Danyael when Gabriel shows up in a car and smashes the evil angel.

Somehow, Maggie finds Danyael. She spots Zophael and calls 911. Zophael tells Danyael about Pyriel, “The Next God” and then kidnaps Maggie to drive him around town. He explains his side of the story to her.

Gabriel runs into Danyael again, and this time, he explains things. Danyael rides out to the desert and finds Mary, from the first film, who has also grown up.

Zophael chases Danyael, and he injures Maggie to lure Danyael in closer. Danyael finally beats and kills the bad angel. Gabriel gives Danyael one more pep talk before comforting Maggie as she dies.

Danyael finds the skeleton of an angel in the desert, and as he approaches, it reforms itself into Pyriel. Pyriel wants to wipe out all humans and start over. They argue until Pyriel is struck by Holy lightning and Danyael pulls out his heart.

Danyael comes back to Gabriel, who is now an angel once again. He waves his hand and Maggie wakes up.

Brian’s Commentary

The previous film led right into this one, although it takes place several years later, as young Danyael has grown up and Gabriel has aged a bit by this time. Gabriel has “gone native” and is actually on the side of the humans now, which makes him twice as funny.

A lot of screen time is Zophael wandering around with this long hair and longer coat talking cryptically and stomping around like a GQ Terminator. Probably half the movie is devoted to one character chasing another.

Although there were two more films in the series, this is the end of the main storyline. What comes later… are poor imitations.

Kevin’s Commentary

Thank goodness for Christopher Walken who really saves this one. The story continues, and it’s okay, but there’s a lot of filler time with people wandering around and chasing each other. I liked that they had the same baffled coroner dealing with this weirdness through all three. I found it watchable, and it wraps things up. Yet there are two more sequels…

The Prophecy: Forsaken (2005)

* Directed by Joel Soisson

* Written by Gregory Widen, John Sullivan, Joel Soisson

* Stars Kari Wuhrer, John Light, Jason Scott Lee, Tony Todd

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 15 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This felt more like a part 2 than a sequel, perhaps something that could have just been combined with the previous film to make a slightly longer one. As it is, this one drags along a bit, taking its time to wrap things up. Tony Todd is always a pleasure to watch, which helps the time pass, and there’s some bright spots. It’s necessary to see for completion, but it’s not great.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open with a flashback to Father Constantine and the book in the church basement from the previous film. As before, Allison comes down and finds the book, which leads to a whole mess. Credits roll.

John Reigart appears in front of little Maria and asks her to send a message. She’s immediately run over by a truck, and we see Allison watching from afar. She starts running right past Dylan. Maria gives Allison the message… right after she dies.

Dylan talks to Stark, whom we don’t see. Stark orders Dylan to shoot Allison. Rather than do that, Dylan kills himself. Stark isn’t going to let that stop him, so he brings Dylan back from the dead.

Dylan immediately tracks down Allison and pulls a gun on her. He still has some doubts as to the job and wants her to convince him to let her live. Meanwhile, Stark searches Allison’s apartment and finds a decoy book, just the cover with a bunch of junk stuffed inside. Dylan and Allison end up in a foot chase, being pursued by “Thrones” who work for Stark. He disguises her and douses her with perfume to mask her scent. They look her over carefully, sniff, and even lick her but eventually let her pass.

Reigart explains the “rules” to Allison. There used to be a rule against hired assassins, but Dylan used to be a CIA agent, and he’s been turned, so the rules have changed. She leaves and soon finds that she’s being stalked rather unsubtly. She joins a funeral parade, and the baddies lose her in the crowd. Turns out, it’s little Maria’s funeral! Her death was set up knowing that it would save Allison.

Stark beats up Dylan for disobeying him. Allison has a conversation with Maria’s ghost until Dylan shows up. She thinks he’s on her side, but she also knows that he’s a hitman. He wastes no time in turning her over to the enemy.

Stark says that he’s a Seraphim, and on Allison’s side. He wants the last page of the Lexicon, which will reveal the name of the AntiChrist, whom Stark wants to kill. He doesn’t want the apocalypse to take place. Allison realizes that there’s something special about her since Stark simply cannot kill her.

Allison talks to Reigert again, and he helps her realize what Stark’s motivation is. Reigert does want Armageddon. So by keeping the book from Stark, she’s actually helping Satan himself. Elsewhere, Stark questions Dylan about where Allison tends to hang out, suspecting she’d hide the book somewhere she goes often, just to keep an eye on it.

Some random lunatic stabs Allison in the park. With a little divine assistance, she gets up and kills her attacker. Stark figures out where the book is, and everyone makes a beeline to the place. Allison runs inside and learns the name of the AntiChrist. Stark chases her up to the roof, but she scatters loose pages from the book everywhere, slowing him down.

Stark confronts Allison. He wants to know the name of the child so he can kill it. Dylan staggers in, and he’s looking a lot more dead. He tells her that she’s a Nephilim, but she thinks he’s lying. She’s Simon’s daughter, child of a human and angel. Dylan pulls out his pistol and… shoots Allison everywhere but in the head, knowing it won’t kill her. As she falls off the roof, pages of the book go everywhere.

After a moment, Allison wakes up. Because she is a Nephilim. One little boy picks up one of the book’s pages and sees his name at the end…

Brian’s Commentary

This was filmed simultaneously with the previous film, and they were always intended to be one story. This one, however, is very short, even ignoring the “filler” scenes. Whereas the previous film was entertaining, even having ignored the first three films, this one feels unnecessary, like they were really scraping for a story.

It’s not very good.

Kevin’s Commentary

It was a wrap up, but not a very good one. It was kind of a money grab I guess. Since this and part 4 were filmed at the same time, they really could and should have kept it as one slightly longer movie. I’d recommend it for completion, but it’s kind of a drag. At least it’s short.

The Prophecy: Uprising (2005)

* Directed by Joel Soisson

* Written by Gregory Widen, John Sullivan, Joel Soisson

* Stars John Light, Sean Pertwee, Kari Wuhrer, Doug Bradley

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 28 Minutes

* Trailer: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8hqv21

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This was a bit of a reset of the story, without Christopher Walken this time around. It’s more of the angels battling with humanity stuck in the middle. It’s a step down from the first three, but it’s not too bad. The setting in Romania helps the atmosphere, and Doug Bradley adds some extra life to it. It was fairly entertaining.

Spoilery Synopsis

We watch old footage of an unnamed tyrant in Europe. Twenty-five years later, the country is a mess. A man starts running from something. He’s in a panic and even gets hit by a car, but he doesn’t stop, making his way to a big old church.

The man chasing him goes through the scared man’s pants; he’s Dani, a cop. Serban is the running man, a drug dealer.

We cut to a church, where Dani makes eye contact with Allison. Allison helps out the old priest there. Father Constantine goes into a hidden area of the basement with a pickaxe and opens one of the tombs. He finds an ancient book inside. He reads it in Romanian, and new words appear on the page. He has a massive heart attack and dies.

Dani goes outside and meets John Reigert from Interpol. Dani tells him to get lost and tries to leave, but then his car won’t get going, which is awkward when John walks up and gets into the passenger seat. They get a call that a man has jumped from the roof of a church; it’s Serban. It looks like his heart has been removed. John says the heart was removed before he fell.

They meet two local cops who introduce themselves as Laurel and Hardy. There’s a message written on the wall, “Welcome Dani Simionescu.”

Clara, a waitress, walks through the park and sees dogs attacking a woman on the ground; she runs the dogs off. Something from the woman on the ground possesses Clara and she walks off– straight to that same old church. She goes down into the basement, where she talks to a glowing entity, Simon, who calls her Belial. Simon says that the book is gone.

Allison has the book after finding dead Father Constantine with it, and Simon warns her that Belial is coming for it. “He is going to rip you apart.”

Reigert has Dani drop him off at home, but when Dani goes around the corner to follow, Reigert has vanished. The next day, the two get called to the woman who was killed by the dogs; her heart is gone too.

Carla/Belial goes to the morgue to see Father Constantine. She rubs his eyeball to see what happened when he died. The undertaker comes in, and she transfers Belial into him. Florian then tears her heart out.

Dani starts to do research on the case, and gets an online response from the coroner Joseph from the previous films. He warns that angels are involved; “All angels are terrifying.” They go to an old house that used to be the headquarters for the old Communist Secret Police. They go into the basement and Dani gets a vision of the tortures that used to go on here. He watches his own parents murdered by the Communists. Reigert says the killer was a man named Treptow. Reigert continues and reveals that Dani had a sister who was taken away: Allison.

Allison goes to talk to Ion, a priest, and shows him the book. He gets a nosebleed as he explains that Revelation is not just the last chapter of the Bible, but it’s incomplete, waiting for God to write the ending. He goes to the restroom, and it goes badly for him. Inside her head, Simon warns her that Belial is approaching once again. She doesn’t know it, but Belial is now inside Ion.

Reigert wants Dani to meet his sister and explains that she’s at the heart of a prophecy. Laurel calls, and he’s done facial recognition on Reigert, and he dates all the way back to the seventies. Reigert admits that he’s an angel and gives a brief overview of the war in Heaven. The book that Allison has is capable of ending the world.

Reigert demonstrates to Dani that he’s not necessarily a “good guy.” Laurel and Hardy come in and they all discuss Reigert. They have Ion in custody, and he has a staring contest with Reigert. Ion/Belial has a seizure. Something nasty comes out of his mouth and goes into Laurel, who walks out the front door– after killing Hardy.

Allison calls another priest friend and gets the scoop on who Belial is. Dani explains that Laurel is going to try to kill Allison before she gets to the old government house. There’s a brief chase, and everyone ends up at the old torture asylum.

Allison goes inside, and she also gets visions of what used to go on there. Treptow was behind it all, killing his own people and then himself. Dani, Reigert, and Belial come in, separately, Belial talks, and it seems that he and Reigert were once on the same side; Reigert is the devil himself. They all argue over who gets the book.

Dani points his gun at Belial, who promises to possess him next. Dani says he’ll kill himself if that happens. Dani shoots him, but Belial takes him over as promised. Allison then shoots Dani. Belial then goes into Reigert, who just sort of absorbs him and walks away says that Belial is where he belongs now, with him.

Allison goes outside and talks to Reigert. He says it’s over for now, but there are more out there.

Brian’s Commentary

Romania was a very inexpensive place to make movies, and there were a lot of them filmed here around this time period. “Hellraiser VII: Deader” (2005) even had the same stars. Still, it’s a very alien and exotic place, and it adds a lot to an otherwise fairly bland story. This was filmed simultaneously with the following film, “The Prophecy: Forsaken” (2005).

This one doesn’t have Christopher Walken, but it’s still got good points. Still, it’s definitely a step down from the predecessors. We get a flash of what’s to come… in the next film.

Kevin’s Commentary

I was bracing myself for a boring abomination of a sequel dragging the story on beyond where it should have ended in the third movie, and I was pleasantly surprised. While it’s not a terrific film, I thought it was quite good and it entertained me. If you enjoyed the first three, I’d recommend carrying on with this one.

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We’ve got a lot of newer movies this week plus one oldie. We’ll open with “Hokum,” a cool haunted hotel story. “Exit 8” is a weird import that’ll get under your skin. “Chum” and “Iron Lung” take us into two very different oceans. Lastly, we’ll have some fun with “Return of the Living Dead II” from 1988.

All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #57, for June 2026, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

2026 Hokum

* Directed by: Damian McCarthy

* Written by: Damian McCarthy

* Stars: Adam Scott, Peter Coonan, David Wilmot

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 47 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

An American writer visits Ireland to scatter his parent’s ashes and do some writing. But there might be ghosts and witchery afoot, and his trip gets more complicated than he expected. Adam Scott does a good job in a dramatic role, and the whole thing is well put together. The script is excellent, and we both thought it was very entertaining.

Spoilery Synopsis

A man in armor wanders across the desert and consults a map. He soon runs out of water but sees a big circle in the sand.

We cut back to a man writing a story about the conquistador in the desert. “They were doomed,” says the story. The writer, Ohm Bauman, gets distracted by someone in his house. A ghost? He considers shooting himself, but decides to go to Ireland instead (is that better?). Credits roll.

Ohm soon arrives at the remote hotel in the woods. A man inside tells the story of a witch to two terrified children. Ohm arrives, and he’s already pretty judgmental of the locals. The old man is the owner of the hotel, and Ohm makes an impression on everyone.

Ohm has a photo of his mother standing next to a big redwood tree, and he tracks down the tree. He pours out his parents’ ashes on the tree. An old man, Jerry, watches and offers him a drink of moonshine. He’s also got some psilocybin-laced milk. They talk about the local goats which have a tendency to climb on cars and mess up the paint.

Fiona, one of the staff, talks about the honeymoon suite, which is supposed to be haunted. The owner, old man Cobb, has locked a witch inside, or so they say. He tells Fiona about his mother, who was shot in the face by someone too young to prosecute. Alby, the bellboy, also believes the story. Ohm says it’s all “Hokum” and gets snarky with the man. Not long after, Fiona finds Ohm hanging from the ceiling, apparently dead from suicide.

Ohm wakes up in an elevator, in black-and-white land. He later wakes up for real in the hospital, after having a vision of his dead mother. When he recovers, he goes back to the hotel, which is about to close for the season. He learns that Fiona has gone missing since his incident– but she’s not the first. Old Jerry, the man with the milk, has also gone missing under suspicious circumstances. Ohm wonders if she might have gotten into the Honeymoon Suite.

On the way out of town, Ohm runs into Jerry in the woods. Jerry admits he killed his sick wife, but he had nothing to do with Fiona’s disappearance. He’s seen her ghost, and he has the key to the suite. The plan is for Jerry to go back after the hotel is closed and empty, but now he invites Ohm to go with him.

The two soon arrive at the hotel, now closed for the season, and go inside. Turns out, Fergal, the manager, is still there and he chokes out Jerry and ties him up. Fergal takes Jerry and drives away.

Ohm, on the other hand, hears the bell ringing for the honeymoon suite. It’s been neglected for a long time. He goes to sleep and dreams about how he shot his own mother. Mal comes in and wakes him up. Mal insists that there’s nothing in the creepy basement elevator shaft. When ohm finds what’s left of Fiona, Mal locks him inside the suite.

We get a flashback to Halloween night and what actually happened to Fiona. Mal drugged her and took her to the honeymoon suite, where he put her in the dumb waiter and left her. She left a recording explaining that she was pregnant by Mal, who wasn’t happy.

Elsewhere, Jerry escapes from Fergal and jumps out of the van.

After trying to get out of the suite, Ohm notices that Fiona’s body is gone. He then watches the best children’s TV show ever. He then figures out how to take the dumb waiter down to the basement. After a quick look around, he finds that he’s trapped down there as well. He sees someone else down there just as the dumb waiter returns him to the suite.

The witch follows him right upstairs, and, as she closes in, he remembers what he’s been told about chalk circles and uses it.

In the morning, Mal returns and finds Jerry trying to get into the honeymoon suite. Mal explains how he drove Ohm to the airport last night. Ohm rings the bell, and Jerry knows he’s there. Jerry heads up to the honeymoon suite to free Ohm while Mal sets up a fire to start before heading to the honeymoon suite himself with his crossbow. He kills Jerry and intends to lock Ohm in again but also gets locked in himself.

Ohm goes back down to the basement, taking the key with him. Mak gets ready to follow him. The witch makes another appearance, but this time, Ohm knows how to protect himself and starts to draw a chalk circle, but the witch is right behind him and grabs him before he can complete it. Mal comes down and finds the key among the witch’s souvenirs, and she gets him too. Ohm talks to the ghost of his mother and makes peace with her. Ohm gets out; Mal does not.

Ohm goes down to the main floor in the elevator and finds the whole place ablaze. He passes out, but Fergal comes in and finds him.

Some time later, Ohm works on his book in the hospital when Alby comes for a visit. He explains that they found Fiona and Jerry’s bodies, but not Mal’s. Alby admits he spikes Ohm’s whisky with Jerry’s mushroom milk. Was anything he experienced real?

He finishes his book, this time giving it the happy ending that Fiona wanted.

Brian’s Commentary

There’s gotta be a better way to break a glass bottle. What was with the goats? The business with Ohm’s mother’s death seems a little tacked on, and I didn’t have much to do with the main plot.

It’s a really well-done haunted house story mixed with a murder mystery, and most of it makes sense.

Overall, I liked it.

Kevin’s Commentary

It was strange seeing Adam Scott in such a grim and serious role after seeing him in so much comedy, but he does a really good job with it. He’s been in other horror films, such as “Krampus” and “The Monkey,” but those had a thread of humor. This movie does not.

I liked the script. The elements of bad people doing bad things in tandem with supernatural forces.

It was a winner!

2025 Exit 8

* Directed by: Genki Kawamura

* Written by: Kotake Create, Kentaro Hirase, Genki Kawamura

* Stars: Kazunari Ninomiya, Yamato Kochi, Naru Asanuma

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 35 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A man becomes trapped in an endless subway station and has to complete a mission to escape. Kind of like a video game, which this movie is based on. We are both in agreement that it’s a cool idea and very well made. We are split opinion though, with Brian finding it too repetitious, and Kevin finding it just about right.

Spoilery Synopsis

A man scrolls through his phone on a crowded train. A businessman yells at a crying baby, which is sure to help. It’s all pretty unpleasant, so he cranks up the music in his earbuds. The man’s girlfriend calls and asks where he is. She’s pregnant and wants him to come to the hospital. Our guy starts coughing uncontrollably and uses his inhaler.

He’s in the subway tunnels, so his cell signal isn’t very good. He approaches Exit 8, the way out. Suddenly, he’s alone; all the people are gone. He passes one man walking– twice. Did he just walk in a circle? No, he’s very clearly not going in a circle, and then he passes that man again. About the fifth time passing, the strange man stops and smiles maniacally. It soon becomes clear that something weird is going on.

The Lost Man

The Lost Man notices a poster for an “Escher exhibition,” with one of those famous impossible loops on it. Suddenly, the poster drips blood. He finds a sign about finding anomalies and turning back. “Do not overlook any anomalies.”

The man starts taking photos of everything to compare for anomalies, but the photos in the phone get corrupted. The smiling man, however, clearly isn’t normal. He passes the sign for Exit 1 and then Exit 2, so he must be doing it right. He passes the photo booth and lockers we’ve seen before, but this time, he hears a baby crying inside one of the lockers. No– all the lockers have babies, which could indicate an anomaly.

He spots the eyes of people in posters following him, and then makes it to Exit 4 and then 5. Progress! His girlfriend calls again, wanting to know where he is. He tells her he can’t get out, walking in circles, and she laughs at him. She can’t decide what to do about the baby, after all, the two broke up not long ago. He doesn’t see her right there in the tunnel with him, and he’s now back at Exit 0, needing to start all over again. He finds a little boy in the tunnel, but he might not be an anomaly.

The Walking Man

We cut to the Walking Man’s point of view, and he’s lost as well. He’s made it up to Exit 4. He also counts the posters, lockers, and photo booth. He, however, passes a girl in the hallway and walks with the little boy. The girl asks to join them on their search for the way out. She wonders if they’re dead and in Hell. She gets creepy fast, He turns back and hits Exit 6. He misses a weird doorknob and goes back to zero.

No– he sees the stairway to Exit 8 and runs to it. The little boy with him refuses to go up there. The man runs up the stairs, and the little boy goes back into the maze. He then runs into the Lost Man, and we’ve seen this part before.

The Boy

The boy follows the lost man through the maze of tunnels. This time the man notices the odd doorknob and turns back. Then he sees some real horror weirdness and freaks out. The boy sees his mother, but it’s also the Lost Man’s pregnant girlfriend.

They’ve made it up to 5 and this time one of the side doors is open. They look inside and the lost man sees himself in the distance from earlier when he was riding the subway listening to music. That’s an obvious anomaly, so they turn back and they’ve made it to 6.

Suddenly, the Silent Hill siren goes off. The tunnel violently fills with water. And then the lost man is on the beach with his girl and the boy, who is their boy. She talks about deciding the right thing to do. Then he and the boy are back in the tunnel, and the lost man saves him by putting him up on top of the ceiling sign before he is swept away himself. The boy wakes on the floor in the corridor now filled with what looks like the aftermath of a tidal wave. He goes back, and he has made it to 7. He goes forward through his 8th, and the lost man comes through a moment later for his 8th pass - no anomalies. And he comes to the stairs down for exit 8.

Eventually, he finds the exit, and he’s back in the normal subway. He buys a water from the vending machine, puts his earbuds back in, and calls his girlfriend. She’s still at the hospital and asks “What are we going to do?” He gets on the train, and we see the same routine as in the opening sequence with the man screaming at the baby. Our guy, who was ashamed at not intervening the first time, still does nothing– or does he? Will it all be different this time?

Brian’s Commentary

This one is all about paying attention to the visual cues and trying to find the anomalies before the characters do. But oh boy, did that middle section drag and drag and drag.

It was a very cool concept, and it was very well produced, but it was a bit too repetitive, which, unfortunately, was the entire point of the film.

Kevin’s Commentary

Some of the anomalies are obvious and some are pretty subtle. If the maze really wanted to be a jerk about it, something super subtle like the number of rows of tiles could change.

I thought it was great. I didn’t find it too repetitious like Brian and some reviewers have. I thought it was just about right. It was a good time, and I’d recommend it.

2026 Chum

* Directed by: Jonathan Zuck

* Written by: Dick Grunert, Ryan R Johnson, James Kondelik

* Stars: Alice Eve, Eric Michael Cole, Jim Klock

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 27 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A newlywed couple, and some friends, on a yacht excursion encounter the double whammy of a psycho guy and a psycho shark who make their trip the worst ever. Flaky people doing clumsy things and making bad decisions accelerate the chaos. It’s not the worst shark movie, or the worst CGI, that we’ve seen, but it’s not a great film. It’s stupid, but at least it wasn’t dull and had some entertainment value.

Spoilery Synopsis

We get a very ominous voiceover about a woman going missing in the sea. After that, we cut to a woman swimming in the ocean. We get an underwater view of something under there near her. Chomp– one bite! Her husband jumps in after her, and that goes badly too. Credits roll as we hear about global warming changing predator’s hunting habits.

We open on Tina’s wedding, and her father gives a speech about her and Tom. We soon see that the happy couple doesn’t really like each other very much. The next morning, the groom wakes up out on the beach, with her back in the room. Everyone is happy for the couple– except for the couple.

Tom’s friend Rick rents a boat for the wedding party. Tina hates the ocean, and can’t swim. Tom doesn’t really feel it either. Still, it’s a three-hour tour , and Rick paid a lot for it. They all get on the boat, peer pressure and all. The captain explains that there’s never been a shark attack in these waters, and then they set sail.

Tina admits to her friends that she’s getting an annulment. Tom’s a heavy-duty environmentalist, and she’s a lawyer for the big corporations. This has broken up their romance. Tina’s sister says he’s always been too high-and-mighty for her. During all this, we see a huge fin following the boat. The boat hits “something” and both the anchor and the captain go overboard. He soon comes up, but then a shark bites his leg off.

Through a series of rapid bad decisions, Tina goes overboard, Tom dives in after her, and the boat catches fire. A fishing boat arrives on the scene and pulls Tom and Tina out of the water. The four people on the burning boat swim over to the fishing boat before their boat explodes. The shark finishes off the captain.

The fishing boat captain says there’s a storm coming, so he can’t take them back to their resort. Everyone thinks there’s something “off” with this new guy, Roy. He serves them food, and they’re mostly all condescending toward him. He’ll go south, and says there’s a port there.

Tom and Tina explore their feelings. Roy picks up on it and talks to Tina, giving her a pep talk. Roy says it’ll take a few hours to get them to port, but they stopped seeing the shore a while ago. Suddenly, everyone passes out; Roy drugged them all. “Get some rest. Tomorrow’s gonna be a long day.”

When they all wake up, Brittany is tied up in a shark cage as Roy prepares to lower her into the water. He cuts her and drops her in… as bait. The CGI shark rapidly approaches. Roy shoots at the shark when it gets close. Brittany gets out of the cage, and this time, the shark gets her.

Roy explains that he wants revenge on the shark. That was his wife in the opening sequence. He’s been using homeless people as bait, but now he’s got a bunch of stranded tourists.

Suddenly, a police siren approaches, and a tiny little boat with two cops, out looking for their missing boat. When they see Brittany’s arm floating past, the jig is up, and there’s a shootout. Both cops wind up as shark food, and Rick gets shot as well. Tom also gets knocked out and thrown overboard.

Rashinda jumps overboard to swim to the police boat, but Roy runs her over with his boat– the propellers chew her up better than the shark.

Way out in the ocean, Tom wakes up, not drowned or eaten. He starts making his way over to the police boat. He uses their radio to call the police.

Everyone gets untied and fights back all at once. Out of nowhere, the shark leaps up onto the boat and eats Rick. Soon after, Roy lowers Tina into the ocean in the shark cage. The rope holding the cage breaks, and the cage sinks to the bottom and opens right up. Since she can’t swim, she soon drowns. Out of nowhere, Tom shows up in scuba equipment and rescues her. When the shark comes after Tom, Tina grabs a knife, jumps on its back (like a bucking bronco ride that was mentioned earlier) and stabs it repeatedly.

Tom, Tina, and Tina’s sister sneak back onto Roy’s boat and cover him in chum. He gets the drop on them until Tina shoots him with an air tank. “Come on, finish him!” they yell at the shark. The shark does his part. CHOMP! CRUNCH CRUNCH.

Eventually, the boat police show up. We watch Roy’s stripped skull landing next to his wife’s stripped skull at the bottom of the ocean.

On the news, Tina is now talking against the corporations; she’s on Tom’s side now.

Brian’s Commentary

The CGI isn’t atrocious, but it is pretty obvious. The sequence of nonsense that led to the first boat’s demise was so contrived that it’s ridiculous. The growling and bone-crunching noises when the shark eats someone is a nice touch.

It’s very similar to last year’s “Dangerous Animals” only with a larger cast of idiots. Except it’s really, really stupid.

Kevin’s Commentary

Roy said that he’s been tracking this one particular shark because he tagged it. He had tagging stuff along with him on their honeymoon in that opening scene? But that’s the only real point to nitpick in this movie, everything else is spot on.

We like sharks that growl and make bone crunching juicy noises when they attack people.

It wasn’t truly awful all things considered. It’s a really stupid movie, but I’m going to give it a moderate thumbs up.

2026 Iron Lung

* Directed by: Mark Fischbach

* Written by: Mark Fischbach, David Szymanski

* Stars: Mark Fischbach, Caroline Kaplan, Troy Bake

* Run Time: 2 Hours, 5 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

In a far future where “The Quiet Rapture” is making stars and space stations and populated planets vanish, a convict is sent to explore a moon covered with a vast ocean of blood in a clunky submarine in the hopes of finding something to help mankind survive.

For it being two hours plus of mostly just a guy in a room, a lot goes on. The acting, story, and effects are great. It’s that two hours plus that we both thought was its only real fault. It’s on the long side.

Spoilery Synopsis

We’re told about the end of civilization and that they might be able to survive on a planet’s moons. One moon seems special since it has an ocean of blood; maybe there’s life there. We see a man wearing a cloak in what appears to be a submarine. He’s a convict, and this is some kind of redemption mission. “You did test this thing right?” “This is the test,” the radio explains. All they have are surface scans, and they don’t know what they’re going to find under the surface.

He descends to the maximum depth and then stops. The radio cuts out, leaving him on his own. He figures out the camera and finds a map. He figures out how to make the sub move and gets going as credits roll.

He’s not sure, but it looks like there are living creatures swimming around outside his ship. He also hears things out there. Yes, the thing outside is attacking the sub, and he gets knocked all over the place.

He gets on the radio and reports seeing a skeleton on the bottom. The people on the surface get really excited and they bring him back up. He’s welded inside the thing, so they don’t have time to switch him out for another pilot. The captain explains that this is really important and that he really has no choice. They’re changing his deal.

He turns on the camera, which blasts all the people outside with radiation– it’s an x-ray camera since you can’t see through blood, but he didn’t know that because they didn’t tell him. They send him back down. There’s someone new on the radio now; the others had to get radiation treatments.

The prisoner sees someone inside with him, but that might only be a hallucination. He finds a note: “Cross the wires.” When he does, a computer activates, and he learns about a previous mission where the pilot died. He takes more pictures, and that skeleton from earlier is gone now. The captain gets back on the radio and says again that he’s the first one they’ve sent down. They argue over whether or not humanity is done for.

He finds the skeleton again, and this time, they want him to grab a sample. He needs to ram the skeleton with the ship, and it’ll grab a piece of it. They start to bring him back up, but something grabs the ship.

When he wakes up, the power is mostly off, but he finds a light and learns that the sub has a basement level. He finds the dynamo and gets the power back on. He explores a bit, but then there’s a hull breach and he gets blood from outside splattered on himself. Oh, and there’s a fire as well.

Once he gets all that under control, he starts mapping the ocean floor and goes through a cave. He sees more of those big living creatures outside and finds another submarine. Somehow, he makes radio contact with the people on that sub. Ava, on the other ship, says the light was what caused the Quiet Rapture and the end of the universe. They might have some answers as to why that happened.

There’s a lot of talking but then Simon notices the speaker has been unplugged the whole time. Are the aliens talking to him? He gets a weird bloody vision.

The captain calls him back again, and suddenly, the speaker is plugged in again. She says it’s been days and he should have run out of oxygen long again. She says they aren’t going to bring him back up– they just want to observe now. When she learns that he found the missing SM-8 sub, they get really interested. “If you want it, you have to get me out!” She promises to get in another sub and meet him in 30 minutes. It sounds really important– all of humanity will be saved.

Simon returns to the dead sub and starts the process to recover the other ship’s “black box.” He’s running out of oxygen and has a hard time functioning. The voice on the recording says the oceans are actually made of blood– human blood at that. So maybe that’s where everyone has been disappearing to.

As Ava approaches, he hears her, but he also hears the alien voice, and they contradict each other. The crawlspace under the sub is slowly filling with blood, but Simon has to go down there and retrieve his own black box. He ties it to the life preserver he found, but by this point, the entirety of the ship is covered in blood and growing gross things all over. Simon himself starts growing into the ship.

The ship is destroyed. The black box, however, is recovered.

Brian’s Commentary

I was not aware going in that this was based on a video game; I’ve not heard about that one. I’d recommend subtitles for this one, as the voices on the radio are very garbled and often hard to understand.

It’s a really good concept, with good acting from the start, and the set is perfect for the story. It’s just too long though. The last half hour is really hard to understand what’s going on. There’s just too much here that’s not explained (maybe it’s in the videogame?).

The first hour and half is good, but the last part was incomprehensible.

Kevin’s Commentary

I was glad of the subtitles. The radio voices tend to be garbled and Simon mumbles a lot with echoey acoustics in the sub.

I can see how they set the record for most fake blood used in a movie production.

Mark Fischbach is great in the role, the story is good, the setting and effects are very cool. I liked everything about it except the length, I thought it could have been tightened up timewise.

1988 Return of the Living Dead II

* Directed by: Ken Wiederhorn

* Written by: Ken Wiederhorn

* Stars: James Karen, Thom Mathews, Michael Kenworthy

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 29 minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Once again, a barrel of Trioxin ends up where it shouldn’t be and is opened by a clueless couple of guys. Since it’s right next to a cemetery, hilarity ensues as the living dead return again to terrorize a community. It’s pretty entertaining, but less so than the first one. If you loved the original and wish you could see it almost the same again but not quite as good or funny, this is for you.

Spoilery Synopsis

We’re told about the army’s experiments with Trioxin, which didn’t work out. It has since all been destroyed— or so they claim. We cut to a truck full of the stuff, driving through the rain. The truck driver is having a much better time than he should, and some canisters fall off the truck into the river.

Some annoying children go to the cemetery to hang out. This leads to a foot chase, and one kid hiding in a storm drain, where the canister is. They open it up, because of course they do, and inside, they see a face. They run and lock Jesse into a mausoleum.

Ed, Joey, and Joey’s girlfriend Brenda arrive at the same cemetery. Ed’s a bit of a graverobber. They open the crypt that little Jesse’s been locked into.

The canister bursts open, and the other two kids breathe in the gas, which quickly spreads throughout the cemetery. It then rains and soaks all the gas into the ground.

Jesse’s sister, Lucy lets in Tom, the cable guy, and Jesse sneaks outside. He goes over to Billy’s house, and Billy is really sick after breathing the gas. Jesse goes back to the canister and finds it empty now. He writes down the army’s phone number from the can and sees the “Tar Man” there. “Brains” yells the monster, and Jesse runs away. He soon spots the dead rising out of their graves. We then get a musical montage of zombies.

Ed and Joey take a break from head hunting to have a sandwich. Brenda gets tired of waiting and comes looking for them. All three of them soon figure out that they’re in trouble. They steal Tom the cable guy’s truck and make a run for it, but Joey’s an awful driver and knocks out the phone lines.

Back at home, Jesse calls the army’s phone number and reports the canister. The colonel comes to the phone just as Jesse loses phone service. Meanwhile, Billy’s dad gets his brain eaten. Everyone piles into Jesse’s house, much to Lucy’s surprise. The head in Ed’s bag starts moving, and now they all know what’s happening. There’s a lot of screaming.

Tom fights one of the dead and accidentally turns on Lucy’s Jazzercise video, which the dead find entertaining.

The group heads to the neighbor’s house for a car, and the doctor lets them use it. There are some automotive hijinks, as Ed fights a disembodied hand. There’s a lot more screaming until the group arrives at the local hospital. The doctor looks at Joey and Ed, but they aren’t looking good. The doctor thinks they’re already dead.

Tom, Lucy, and Jesse drive into town to the police station, but it’s locked up; the zombies are already here. They break into a house and grab some guns.

Brenda loads Joey and Ed into a car and drives off. She runs into the army, which has arrived. Ed and Joey go full zombie and eat Brenda’s brain.

The rest of the cast convenes at the meat packing plant and loads up with animal brains. They then drive through town, leading the dead behind them pied-piper-style. They stop at the electric generator plant and Tom the cable guy rewires the city’s power grid as an electrical trap.

Billy’s been a zombie the whole time, and now he’s with the others, but he’s got an axe to grind with Jesse. Jesse, on the other hand, has a screwdriver and isn’t afraid to use it. Jesse throws the switch, turns the power back on, and fries all the zombies outside.

The army comes in and burns what’s left of the zombies. Tom, Lucy, Jesse, and the Doc all walk off– they’re going to have to explain this all in the morning.

Brian’s Commentary

The original “Return of the Living Dead” (1985) is a huge classic of horror comedies. James Karen, one of the stars of that film, reappears here as Ed, not the same character, and Thom Matthews is back as his sidekick. “It’s almost like we’ve been here before,” Joey jokes at one point.

The dialogue is very 80s, but it works here. The creature effects are really good, with some being makeup and some animatronic.

It’s entertaining, but definitely a step down from the original.

Kevin’s Commentary

Someone thought it would be hilarious to have Thom Matthews and James Karen return as basically the same characters with different names in different jobs, which did help the movie, I think.

The effects are excellent and there are some laughs, but the originality is low. It didn’t do it for me like the first movie did, but it’s okay.

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Only one new film this week, a documentary about an old musical that you may have heard of: “Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror” came to streaming this week. Of course, we had to watch the original 1975 film as well.

To offset all that fun, we had to watch 2007's “The Mist” to calm down. “Catnado” and “Wishmaster 2” both had us eager to Do the Time Warp Again.

All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #57, for June 2026, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

1975 The Rocky Horror Picture Show

* Directed by: Jim Sherman

* Written by: Richard O’Brien, Jim Sherman

* Stars: Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 40 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

IMDB.com has a good succinct description. “A rain-soaked couple takes refuge in the castle of a transvestite mad scientist from outer space who is about to unveil his greatest creation.” They neglect to mention that it’s also a musical, and it’s got some songs in it. It was originally a stage musical titled “The Rocky Horror Show” which premiered in 1973 with Tim Curry and the same trio playing the servants and Jonathan Adams (now Dr. Scott) as the Narrator/Criminologist. It’s weird and funny, with very catchy songs. We’d recommend it.

Spoilery Synopsis

A giant mouth comes on screen and sings about sci-fi movies as credits roll.

We cut to a wedding, as the happy couple leaves with rice and a cheering crowd. We get a quick look at Tim Curry in the background in a second role as the preacher. Plus Richard O’Brien and Patricia Quinn as church custodians (American Gothic custodians, at that!). And is that Nell Campbell as a third custodian?

Best man Brad congratulates the groom, and then his girlfriend Janet catches the bouquet, so he may be next. Brad and Janet talk about their future, which leads Brad to sing to Janet, dammit. He wants to go tell his old teacher about their impending engagement.

But first, we cut to a criminologist who introduces the case of Brad and Janet. He’s going to narrate the story for us.

The young couple’s car breaks down on the road, and they have to walk to the nearby castle for help. They sing on the walk there. A strange hunchback man opens the door and reluctantly invites them in. There’s a party going on, and the two servants lead them to the party, where they all do the Time Warp (again). The criminologist enjoys that a little too much, but it’s more than Janet can handle.

Their host, Dr Frank-N-Furter, makes an appearance, and he’s really something; something Brad and Janet have never seen before, at least. He explains in song how he’s a transvestite from Transexual Transylvania. He invites them up to visit his laboratory upstairs, where he’s got a whole audience awaiting to see his newest project.

Yes, Dr. Frank-N-Furter has a whole Frankenstein setup, and he knows how to use it. Soon, the creature starts to move. He’s Rocky, and he’s here to sing another song. Dr. Frank-N-Furter clearly put some time into assembling this body. Frank is smitten with his creation, and he has to sing about that as well.

Suddenly, a motorcycle breaks through the wall, and Eddie, a biker, breaks through and interrupts with a rock and roll number that has everyone dancing. Frank is not amused that he’s lost control of the event. Eddie was one of Frank’s previous experiments, and he’s lost half his mind to Rocky. Frank grabs a pick and kills him dead, ending the song. Then he sings and dances his way to the honeymoon suite with Rocky.

The party breaks up, and Brad and Janet go to separate rooms, both watched by Riff-Raff and Magenta through the closed-circuit TVs. Frank visits Janet, who protests her innocence, but Frank’s all into that. She doesn’t protest all that much, though. Meanwhile, Riff Raff torments the monster because that’s what Frankenstein’s henchmen do, and Rocky escapes. Frank then visits Brad in the same way as Janet, and it has almost exactly the same result.

Guilt-ridden Janet makes her way to the lab, sees Brad and Frank on the monitor, then finds Rocky hiding there. She sings her feelings to him; she’s got an itch to scratch, and she wants him to touch her, which he does, as Columbia and Magenta watch on the monitor from their room.

Dr Everett Scott arrives at the front door, and he’s Brad’s old high school science teacher— and an expert on UFOs. Frank thinks this is all a conspiracy to spy on his work. Scott says he’s here looking for his nephew, Eddie.

They all stop and have a very awkward dinner. Dr Scott sings about Eddie. Eddie sent him a note begging for a rescue, but it’s too late for that. Frank then makes it clear what happened to Eddie. Janet flees with Frank chasing and singing, and everyone makes their way to the lab again, where Frank petrifies Brad, Janet, and Dr. Scott into statues.

All the action stops as Columbia yells at Frank about his behavior. He statues her too and Rocky for good measure. Riff Raff and Magenta argue briefly with Frank and then give each other sneaky looks. They’re up to something.

Meanwhile, Frank has moved all the statues to a stage and releases them one at a time for a burlesque confession dance show. Which morphs into a pool orgy with Frank in the lead. And suddenly they are in a rocking chorus line song and dance. It gets just a little weird at this point.

Riff Raff and Magenta break into the room, and they look different now. They’re definitely aliens, and they’ve revealed themselves. They’ve had enough of Frank’s extremes and are ready to go home to Transylvania, but first, Frank sings to explain himself and rejoice that he’s going home. But when he’s done, Riff Raff admits that only he and Magenta are going home, and he’s got a laser capable of emitting a beam of pure antimatter. Columbia is killed. And Frank tries to climb the curtain to get away unsuccessfully. Rocky freaks out at Frank’s death, but Riff Raff’s beam doesn’t work on him with just one shot. He finally dies when he falls from the RKO radio tower that he tried climbing with Frank’s body.

As Janet, Brad, and Scott leave, the whole castle blasts off into space. The criminologist comes back to the scene and concludes the story. One final song plays over the closing credits, as well as an instrumental reprise of The Time Warp.

Brian’s Commentary

Most of the cast were pretty inexperienced at screen acting, but all of them went on to long careers (most are still alive fifty years later). This is all pretty tame by today’s standards, but this was way out there in ‘75.

The main thing here is, of course, the very catchy songs, and the soundtrack is one of the best ever.

This was actually only my second time watching it. I don’t know that I’d want to watch it every weekend, as some do, but it’s pretty darned good.

Kevin’s Commentary

It was, and still is to a lesser degree, a thing to go see the movie at the theater, preferably at Midnight, and participate with lines echoing and mocking the dialogue, use props (such as throwing rice during the wedding), interact with the screen, dance to the Time Warp, and there would often be a cast of fans (known as The Floor Show) acting out the movie in sync down in front and in the aisles - often in costume and makeup.

In the late 1980s, I saw this 150 some times at midnight showings. I even played Frank-N-Furter, Janet, and the Criminologist a few times in The Floor Show when they were short on people and needed bodies. And of course, I joined in dancing the Time Warp every time.

It took a lot of self-control watching this with Brian and not bombing him with the audience participation lines.

I’ve also seen several productions done on stage, and they don’t always get the element of Frank being both trans and someone who could kick serious ass if he wanted to, which Tim Curry does have in the movie version.

I watch this through a filter of nostalgia, and I still find it really entertaining and fun.

2026 Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror

* Directed by: Linus O’Brien

* Written by: Avner Shiloah

* Stars: Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Richard O’Brien

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 29 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

There’s not a story to spoil. This is a documentary about how the play and movie came to be, interviewing actor writer musician Richard O’Brien and his past, and much about the people involved with Rocky Horror. It’s loaded with interviews and vintage footage and stills. Clearly the folks in this had a good time back in the day, and in the making of this documentary. It’s really well put together and a lot of fun to watch.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on Richard O’Brien in New Zealand, talking about his “historic house.” We see a statue of Riff Raff in front of a museum. O’Brien then talks about his life as a barber. We then cut to scenes from the movie and views of the crowds as credits roll.

We hear from a guy who talks about being gay and learning about the show; he often participated in the live show. He eventually became a drag actor.

O’Brien talks about his early career and Method Acting. He’d been in several major parts in musical theater and then became a father to Linus, this film’s director. He eventually decided to write his own musical, and he sings “Science Fiction Double Feature” for us live. He wrote most of the play in a hurry because time was so limited.

We hear from the costume designer next; most people turned down the job. Tim Curry and Nell Campbell explain how they got involved. They all talk about opening night at the theater, and the tickets sold out very quickly— a huge hit. O’Brien then talks about his sexuality in the younger days and how that went in the 50s and 60s— that just didn’t fly. His wife at the time didn’t approve, but his kid was fine with it.

We then shift to the initial production of the movie version of the play. They brought in many of the cast and crew from the London play, which was unusual for a film. It wasn’t taken over by the Hollywood crowd; the small theater group basically did the whole thing for a budget of about a million dollars. Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon came in at this point as outsiders, just like their characters. The producer explains that a lot of the low-budget, cheap-looking special effects were actually intended to be cheesy, and he often told the effects people to tone it down and make it look goofier.

Jack Black tells us about seeing the film when he was nine years old and what an influence Meat Loaf had on him. Peter Hinwood, as Rocky, wasn’t an actor, but hired for his muscle.

Linus reads fan letters to his father, and it’s clear that the movie changed some people’s lives.

After three years in London and Hollywood, the play moved to Broadway, but the critics and New Yorkers hated it. It soon closed. The film was released, and it was a flop as well. They eventually landed the idea of showing the film at midnight in theaters, and that brought in a whole new audience. It was a surprise hit. People kept going to see it over and over, every week, which surprised everyone.

We move on to talk about the film’s audience and how they dressed up, brought props, and acted out scenes. The whole concept of a “shadow cast” was a new thing. The dressing up, cross-dressing, and message of sexual freedom was an outlet for young, queer people through the 70s, 80s, and onwards.

As the film winds down, we’re told that the Rocky Horror Picture Show is the longest-running theatrical release in history.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s surprising that so many of the people involved are still alive, but they’re all looking good and eager to talk about their work. The stories are interesting and relevant, and it’s clear that they all owe a lot to the play and movie.

I’m a relative newcomer to Rocky, but I liked it a lot, and this film helps explain the appeal and history of the whole phenomenon. It was definitely worth watching.

Kevin’s Commentary

This was very cool. I’d never seen this much of the history of Rocky Horror, and I didn’t know that much about Richard O’Brien. I’m glad this was made at this time when almost all the main folks were still available to interview.

2007 The Mist

* Directed by: Frank Darabont

* Written by: Frank Darabont

* Stars: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden

* Run Time: 2 Hours, 6 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

In a small Maine town, people are trapped in a supermarket after a strange mist envelopes the town. There just might be creatures in the mist, too. There’s a strong cast with a lot of recognizable faces, a suspenseful story with action, and decent special effects. It’s on the long side, but it moves well. It’s one of the better Stephen King adaptations, and we both thought it was very entertaining.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on David Drayton, who appears to be Stephen King’s personal artist. There’s a weird storm, and the family heads down to the basement just before a tree falls on the house. In the morning, they assess the damage and notice there’s a strange mist coming down off the mountain.

The next-door neighbor Brent, has a bunch of damage as well. The two, along with little Billy, pass a bunch of military trucks on the way into town. Rumor has it that there’s a crashed alien saucer up the military base on the mountain.

The three head into the local grocery store, which is packed and without power. While there, we meet some of the town’s quirkier characters. They notice a lot of army people in town this morning for some reason.

Suddenly, the tornado siren goes off. Dan Miller runs in, covered in blood, yelling “There’s something in the mist!” The fog rolls into town, and they all hear people screaming out there. Then there’s an earthquake, and everyone in the crowded store knows they’re in big trouble.

Everyone has somewhere else they’d rather be, but one woman left kids home alone and insists on leaving. The mist is so dense that they don’t know what happened to her. Billy goes into shock from the fear. Old Irene introduces Amanda, the new teacher in town. Mr. Carmody says it’s Judgment Day for all the sinners.

David goes into the back room and something outside really wants in through the loading dock door. David immediately comes to the conclusion that there’s a monster outside, but the others are skeptical. Norm crawls out under the door into the mist to unclog the ventilator for the generator, but something with a huge tentacle grabs him, and it’s quite a violent scene.

David, Ollie, Myron, and Jim watch Norm die and wonder how they’re going to keep the monsters out of that giant plate-glass window in the front of the store. They tell Norton about the situation, and he thinks it’s a prank.

David explains the monsters in the mist to the gathered crowd, but it’s a hard sell. Bud the store manager, goes back to see the mess from the attack, and now he’s a believer. Everyone gets to work reinforcing the windows. Mrs. Carmody prays hard, wondering if everyone in the store is a sinner; she’s not very nice.

Norton and Carmody have their own views about what’s going on, and the bring a bunch of dissent to the crowd. Amanda contributes a gun to the cause.

Norton and some of the group decide that enough is enough and leave the store. They tie a rope to big biker dude and he goes out with them; what they pull back in is just a bloody mess. Now, no one is doubting.

Night falls, and the lights inside attracts some bugs. Big bugs. Carmody goes on about locusts. Then come little dragon-looking things to eat the bugs. Soon, the windows break and things start coming in for the lights. Sally gets bitten by a bug and quickly dies, as do many others. There’s quite a battle, and there are more deaths throughout the night.

David points out that it’s just a matter of time until Carmody turns the locals against them and do a human sacrifice or something. It doesn’t take very long until that happens.

A group decides to go next door to the pharmacy to get some painkillers for the wounded. The doors on the pharmacy are wide open, so anything could have gotten in.There’s a spider web and human carcasses in it, including one army guy who’s only mostly dead and says that it’s all their fault. Things escalate very quickly, and we lose a few more characters.

Carmody continues preaching to the crowd all day. David, Ollie, Irene, Amanda, and some of the others still want to leave. David and the last remaining soldier talk about “The Arrowhead Project” up at the army base. He admits he heard stuff about a doorway to other dimensions to see what was on the other side. The creatures probably came from another world.

Goaded by Carmody, the crowd attacks the soldier and throws him outside, where something really big gets him.

David’s group is ready to leave, but now Carmody forbids it— and her followers are ready to enforce what she says. At least until Ollie shoots her, and her followers scatter like rats. The group makes a run for the car, but there are more deaths on the way.

David, Billy, Amanda, Dan, and Irene make it to the car, but the others are killed by things. They start the car and slowly drive out of the store’s lot. They drive and drive, and everyone they pass is dead. David’s house is covered in spider webs, so his wife has to be dead.

They head out of town, and they don’t see anything better. They spot one creature that’s just about mountain-sized; it doesn’t even notice them. Everyone gets more and more depressed, and they eventually run out of gas.

Without any hope of rescue, David offers to kill them all, and the others agree. He uses the gun to kill his four companions, but then he doesn’t have a bullet for himself. He tries, but four bullets is four bullets. He gets out the car, planning to be eaten, but then he hears engines,

Turns out, the army, with tanks and heavy weapons, were right behind them, along with a truckload of survivors. The army is fighting the monsters and winning, and the mist is even breaking up, but it’s too late for David, who just shot all his friends and his son.

Brian’s Commentary

The casting in this is amazing— so many recognizable faces. The pacing is really good, as it’s long but never drags.

It’s got probably the bleakest ending of any movie, but its also really appropriate and works well. Stephen King actually preferred this to his own book’s ending.

The creature effects hold up pretty well, but the characters and rising tension are what really drive this one. It’s a classic!

Kevin’s Commentary

An early draft of the script had a prologue scene of Project Arrowhead running an experiment during the thunderstorm that gets out of control and opens a portal to another dimension through which the mist and critters come through. They decided not to include it.

This was very good, but I actually prefer the novella that it’s based on. And I dislike the ending of the movie versus the novella that was more open ended.

2022 Catnado

* Directed by: Curtis Everett, Donald Farmer, Alaine Huntington

* Written by: Blake Blasko, Curtis Everett, Donald Farmer

* Stars: Rebecca Rinehart, Blair Kelly, Joshua Gotte

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 28 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

IMDB says, “It’s like Sharknado, but with cats,” and that’s a pretty apt description. It also has a harsh rating of 1.7 out of 10 at the time of this posting. This is an anthology, and as a voice on the radio warns, those catnadoes can pop up anywhere, anytime. It is a supernaturally powered tornado full of evil, angry cats, for some reason. The movie is stupid and bad, yet entertaining and quite hilarious at the same time.

Spoilery Synopsis

A woman talks about the day that the sky went dark and then cats started killing. “This was no ordinary tornado. This was a catnado. No one was safe.” We’re going to see some of those stories in this anthology…

Crimes and Felines

On Halloween, we see the neighborhood is all decorated. A man talks about not being able to book their vacation cruise because of the catnadoes, which is a lot like the COVID hoax.

A woman picks up her ex from prison; he’s just been released. He’s got a lead on 1.3 million dollars hidden in a mattress. They need some cash to get there, so they rob a woman coming out of the pet store.

They arrive at the victim’s house, and it’s full of cats. Suddenly, the tornado siren goes off. Could it be a catnado? Yes, it’s a tornado full of cats, spitting them out all willy-nilly and killing people. There’s nothing worse than stirred-up cats!

To make it worse, a cat bursts out of the boyfriend’s belly and kills the girl. The pet shop lady then takes her money back.

Of Cats and Men

A man arrives at his home in the country and gets a storm warning on his phone. He then sits outside and drinks beer until the storm hits. He runs out of beer and goes after more— he runs into a cat with his truck, and it makes a big splat.

He’s about to get into a fight with another motorist when they hear a bunch of meowing. Soon, the cat-astrophe is upon them, and Mal gets hit by a car himself.

Everyone wakes up in a cabin, and they argue a lot as the yowling surrounds the house. They all go over their family drama and some deaths in the past; they all have a backstory. The drama continues until the cats get inside.

Storm Window

A man who doesn’t like storms reads Bible verses. He finds that he’s locked in a storm shelter with several cats who talk in funny accents (where did these cats grow up to learn these accents? That’s not what real cats talk like). The cats trash-talk Raymond until he slowly goes insane. “The catnado is coming for you, Raymond!”

Apocalypse Meow

A scriptwriter writes a story about a cat plague that kills millions of cats. There’s even a cat church now. The two guys, Jerry and Oliver, have a cat, but one of them is afraid of the cat. There’s a storm coming, and the weather report is pretty weird. Maybe the cat vaccine has something to do with it.

Something scratches at the door, and Oliver doesn’t want to let it in. Jerry, on the other hand, has a gun. The vaccine made millions of killing machines and hundreds of catnadoes. The two soon form a vigilante group to look for pussy.

The pair soon encounter a really big catnado. Oliver is killed, and Jerry puts on his silly hat. Somehow, Oliver has become a cat-man and comes after Jerry.

Cat Burglar

A woman talks about a man who stole her cat. There’s been a “cat burglar” in the neighborhood, and he’s wearing a mask. The detectives check out one of their informants, and he’s seen the man.

We then cut to the cat burglar, in a mask, and there’s some science-y stuff going on. The burglar promises to conjure up a catnado. There’s a shootout with the detectives, and the burglar is killed.

Nightmare at 10,000 Feet

A couple of guys are flying their small plane home, but they hear something on the roof of the plane. There’s a gremlin-cat left over from a catnado on the wing of the plane! They use a cat toy to get its attention, and the reject from “Cats” takes it away from them.

Cosmic Catnado

After the credits, another segment appears. It doesn’t make any sense at all, something about “Stinky cheese of the soul” and “Astro the Space Hero.”

Brian’s Commentary

“It’s raining cats and …” “When there’s no more room in the cat box, cats shall rule the Earth!” So many “pussy” jokes.

This has some of the worst special effects I’ve ever seen, but they’re still hilarious. It’s extremely low budget, but it’s so silly it’s hard not to like it.

Kevin’s Commentary

Who doesn’t love a vortex of cats sweeping across the land?

It’s low-budget and bad, but in a good way. The effects are terrible. I thought it was funny and entertaining. Don’t expect great cinema, but if you’re a fan of sharknado-level movies, you can expect a good time.

I have no regrets seeing it.

1999 Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies

* Directed by: Jack Sholder

* Written by: Peter Atkins, Jack Sholder

* Stars: Holly Fields, Chris Weber, Al Foster, Andrew Divoff

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 26 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

During a botched robbery, Demerest the Wishmaster is accidentally released, and he becomes linked to the surviving thief. The djinn has to collect 1001 souls in exchange for wishes to trigger an apocalypse. So he gets to work, causing mayhem and death - very few of his granted wishes are benevolent. Andrew Divoff is great again as the djinn; it’s got a decent story, and the effects are very good. But the pacing is clunky, and we both thought it was pretty dull.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a group of thieves in the museum. They take paintings, but when they break some glass, the alarm goes off. During the ensuing gunfight, a statue gets shot and spits out a huge gemstone, which one of the thieves grabs. Morgana shoots a guard and then gets shot herself, but the jewel stops the bullet. Eric also gets shot, but he stays behind to die— except the jewel reveals something to him. The Wishmaster comes out of the jewel, and he’s quite a mess. Eric wishes he’d never been born. He suddenly de-ages down to the fetus level and then vanishes. “Done,” says the Wishmaster. When the police show up, the creature has turned into his human form, Nathaniel, and they promptly arrest him. Nathaniel tries to get the detective to make a wish, but the cop isn’t biting.

In the jail cell, Nathaniel tries to “help” some of the inmates. One guy wishes to walk right through the bars, which soon happens— like Play-Doh through the extruder. With another prisoner, he offers to make his lawyer suffer.

Meanwhile, Morgana takes Eric’s death badly. She has a nightmare about the Wishmaster demon and then goes to church. She meets an old friend, Gregory, who is now a priest. She tells him all about her odd dreams, which all seem to involve a prophecy.

Meanwhile, the djinn continues making deals for souls in prison where he’s being held. He ends up talking cryptically to Morgana in jail. Later, he makes a prison bully’s henchmen beat him to death because he wished to get “wasted.” Morgana tries to convince Gregory that evil is happening, and she keeps having visions. Gregory goes to see the djinn himself, and he’s convinced that he’s not of this world.

Gregory looks up djinns and explains the thing about needing 1,001 souls to free the Wishmaster’s entire race, and he has to finalize it by giving three wishes to the one who released him. Morgana then cuts off her pinky finger as a sacrifice to become “pure.”

Nathaniel gives a guard his wish, a minute alone to dance. He then steals the guard’s skin to walk out the front door along with his friend Osip. He soon meets Pushkin, a mob boss. Pushkin wants his enemy’s head, and he’s soon wearing it— so his men kill him. Suddenly, Morgana rushes in and shoots Nathaniel, who turns into his demon form. He offers her a wish as a reward for waking him, but she runs away.

Morgana and Gregory return to Osip, who refuses to help them. He shoots Morgana to prevent the prophecy, and she’s OK with that. Somehow, that doesn’t work - she’s locked in with the Djinn until he finishes his work. Meanwhile, Nathaniel goes to the Vegas casinos, where lots of people have wishes. It’s not going to take long for him to get the 800 more souls that he needs.

Not long after, it seems everyone is a winner at the casino. Then, everyone he granted wishes to starts dropping dead as he collects their souls from them. Now, he has only to grant Morgana’s three wishes, and he wins the Earth.

The Wishmaster takes Morgana to Hell for a chat. He’s torturing Gregory, and getting him released is her first wish. Gregory dies; that’s a release, right? She tries a lot of things, but none of them work against him. He takes her back to the casino, which has gotten all possessed, and it’s killing the patrons. Morgana wishes the guard she killed in the opening scene were alive again— this makes her pure enough to put the Wishmast back in his crystal. As she says the magic words, all his victims’ souls are returned to their owners.

Back in Hell, the Wishmaster doesn’t look happy. He’ll probably be back.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s been a while since we saw the first film, so here’s a link. This is more of the same. The deaths seem a little less creative this time, and the characters didn’t do much for me either. Andrew Divoff, as the djinn, is the only thing worth seeing here, and it’s clear that at least he’s having a good time.

I was a little bored with this one.

Kevin’s Commentary

I was initially thinking I’d seen this, but I now think it was just a compilation of some key scenes on YouTube.

It’s pointed out that when Andrew Divoff is in his human form, in this movie and the first movie, he doesn’t blink. Trivia says the director was impressed that he was doing it, but Andrew said he didn’t even realize that he was. I agree with Brian that Divoff is the bright spot in this. He’s perfect in the role, and it’s clear he’s really into it.

It’s on the dull side overall.

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A mummy, a vampire, a zombie, and a cyber-entity walk into a bar… No, wait, they’re right here! This time around, we’ll start off with the new Mummy movie from Lee Cronin, then take a listen to the “Undertone,” both recent releases. Last year’s “This is Not a Test” will shamble on stage next, and then we’ll suffer through the second “Lawnmower Man” film (1995) so you don’t have to. Finally, we’ll take a look at another of the old Christopher Lee Dracula movies, “Dracula has Risen From the Grave” from 1968.

As a special bonus, we’ll also talk about the mostly non-horrorish series, “Fallout Season 2” that just hit a physical media release. We liked it!

All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #56, for May 2026, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

1968 Dracula Has Risen from the Grave

* Director: Freddie Francis

* Writers: Anthony Hinds

* Stars: Christopher Lee, Rupert Davies, Veronica Carlson

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 32 Minutes

* Link:

Spoilery Synopsis

A boy rides his bicycle to the church; he’s the janitor. He goes to ring the church bell and notices that the rope is covered in blood. The priest comes in and climbs the long, winding stairs to the bell tower to find a dead girl hanging inside the bell with bite marks on her neck. “When shall we be free of his evil?” The priest cries. Time passes, and we see that winter has come and gone.

A year has passed since Dracula was destroyed in the previous film, “Dracula: Prince of Darkness.” The monsignor comes to town, and he says he wants to “clean” the castle of its evil influence. The local priest is terrified to even talk about it and refuses to walk all the way up the mountain to the castle. It’s dark by the time he arrives and begins his blessing. The terrified priest runs away and falls down the mountain, injuring himself and cracking open the ice that has trapped Dracula. The priest looks and finds that… Dracula Has Risen from the Grave!

The monsignor returns to the town and says everything is fine now; the castle has been exorcised. We soon see that Dracula has enslaved the priest. Dracula and the priest hop on a carriage and hurry to the nearest town, which just happens to be where the monsignor lives. Dracula has dinner on the way there, picking on Maria’s waitress friend Zena for a first course.

The monsignor returns to his own city. He is raising his niece, Maria, his ward, and her mother. Maria’s boyfriend accidentally gets soaked in beer, which doesn’t impress the snooty monsignor. When the boyfriend mentions that he’s an atheist, that impresses the monsignor even less.

The priest rents a room at the inn, and in the basement is a secret area where he hides Dracula and his coffin. Dracula tells Zena to bring Maria to him; he wants revenge on the monsignor. Zena does her job, and Maria is brought in before Dracula. He’s ready to bite her, but Paul interrupts and runs Dracula off. Dracula enters her bedroom later that night, uninvited, and finally bites her.

The monsignor finds the bite marks and knows immediately what has happened. Dracula comes back the next night, and the monsignor runs him off with a cross and chases him across the rooftops. The evil priest bashes the monsignor in the head with a rock. The monsignor calls for Paul to help, and he explains everything to him before he dies.

Paul catches on to the evil priest and makes him lead Paul to Dracula, who is in his coffin. Paul places the stake above his heart and impales him. It’s still not enough to kill Dracula because Paul is an atheist and will not pray. Dracula grabs Maria as he escapes. They both board a carriage driven by the priest, and once again, they head out of town.

They all run to the castle. Maria pulls the big cross off the door and throws it down the mountain. Paul and Dracula wrestle, and Dracula gets thrown down the mountain and impaled on the cross. The evil priest comes to his senses and prays, causing the final death of Dracula. When we look again, Dracula is gone. Did he get away? Did he turn to dust? We don’t see what happened. Surely, we’ll never see him again, will we?

Brian’s Commentary

Several interior sets from previous Hammer films are noticeable here, from the previous Dracula film as well as Frankenstein Created Woman.

It looks good and has a good story. Dracula actually gets lines this time, and not only that, but he also has a plan for revenge.

Paul freely admits that he’s an atheist. I’m no expert on the customs of the time period, but I suspect that’s not something anyone would have admitted to a monsignor in the vague-1800s. Atheism is a common-enough status today, but it would have been likely to cause all sorts of trouble for him in town in those days. Still, it’s an important point later when Paul actually drives a stake through Dracula’s heart, and it doesn’t work. The necessity of prayer to kill a vampire is unique to this film, as far as I am aware.

A lot of the plot has to do with Dracula needing to hide out because he can’t get back into the castle after the monsignor puts the cross on the door. Near the end of the film, he gets Maria to pull down the cross for him and throw it away, and that was good enough; why couldn’t he have simply told the possessed priest-servant to do the same about an hour earlier?

1995 Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace

* Director: Farhad Mann

* Writers: Farhad Mann

* Stars: Patrick Bergin, Matt Frewer, Austin O’Brien, and Ely Pouget

* Runtime: 92 minutes (1h 32m)

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This takes place immediately following the first movie, and about six years later. Despite Jobe putting himself into the machine and leaving his body behind in movie one, he’s still alive and doctors reconstruct his damaged face so Matt Frewer can play him this time. It’s sort of a stand alone more than a sequel. And the opening credits call the movie “Lawnmower Man 2: Jobe’s War.”

It’s tame and lame, pretty bland. Neither of us cared much for it.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open with some scenes from the ending of the previous film, where Cyber-Jobe gets out of the machine into the system before the building explodes. Dr. Benjamin Trace defends his Chiron Chip in court as credits roll.

A body is retrieved from the burning facility, and it turns out to be Jobe. Dr. Cori Platt communicates with the man through a computer terminal, but then he can speak. He was burned and reconstructed, so he doesn’t look like Jeff Fahey now, he looks more like Max Headroom. Jonathan Walker, the owner of the company, wants Jobe to build the Chiron Chip for him. They put Jobe into the VR machine, and things get weird quickly.

In Los Angeles, in the future, it looks like Blade Runner, but with less steam and more VR helmets. Peter, Jade, Shawn, and Travis steal access codes. Their group is like the Lost Boys meets “Hackers.” They all go into the VR world, but it’s a warzone now. With a little help from Harvey, the too-intelligent dog, they find Jobe, who has missed Peter.

Jobe says Cyberscape is dying, and he needs Peter to find Dr. Trace. Walker talks to the senator about his nefarious plans.

Peter comes to Dr. Trace’s house, and they talk about Jobe. Peter explains how the new and improved VR works; if you die in the game, you die in the real world. Trace jacks in and talks to Jobe about the Chiron chip, which he’s using to build a virtual world. Trace quickly comes to the conclusion that Jobe is insane. Jobe wants to know what “Egypt” means, and it’s some kind of encoded secret. Trace explains that the Egypt code would let Jobe access any system in the world.

Walker uses Jobe to blackmail rich Democrats like the senator, who wants to revoke their license. Jobe then kills the senator by making his plane crash.

Cori confronts Walker about putting the project online tomorrow. She’s worried about Jobe, but Walker doesn’t care. Trace warns Cori about Jobe yet again and then sneaks into the Virtual Light compound with the kids. They steal the Chiron Chip, and soon all the guards chase them as Jobe giggles on the monitors. This leads to all the good guys running to the exit and getting away.

Turns out, they stole a fake chip, and Walker still has the real one. He gets the President of the USA to jack in along with many VIPs. Jobe is there with the Chiron Chip, and he makes it so that he has twelve hours until the global interface. He starts taking over systems around the world, but it’s not irreversible for another twelve hours.

Jobe takes over a helicopter and crashes it into Trace’s house. He then creates computerized mayhem all over the world. Jobe wants people to hate their world and live in his. Walker confronts him and Jobe quickly shows him who the real boss is.

Trace needs to go into the system and trick Jobe into destroying himself. They do a virtual sword fight, and the Chiron Crystal is destroyed. The Egypt thing takes over and destroys Jobe and the whole cyberworld.

Trace and the others find Jobe, who’s regressing to his old lawnmower-man self. Walker comes in and grabs Peter, but he’s electrocuted instead.

Everyone smiles as they go outside into the post-apocalyptic hellscape that is Earth.

Brian’s Commentary

Peter’s like five years older than in the previous film, but the world has gone full cyberpunk Blade Runner in that time. Jobe, whose body melted in the previous film, is back in a corporeal body again, which isn’t really explained.

This feels like a sci-fi movie targeted towards children, and it’s just as logical as that sounds. Most of it makes no real sense. Plus, they’ve stolen a whole lot of plot elements from the various Star Wars movies.

Why were the guards suddenly following Jobe’s orders? He was Walker’s slave, and a secret one at that.

There’s surprisingly little VR in this film, but the sci-fi that is here is all very cliched and gimmicky. It’s just plain awful.

Kevin’s Commentary

So despite it taking place immediately after the first movie, with some time for Jobe to heal with about six years passing, it’s now a futuristic Blade Runnerish world now.

It’s said that there was conflict in the editing stage, with the producers taking over from director-writer Farhad Mann, so it’s not quite the movie he intended. Perhaps it would have been better. Like Brian pointed out, it seems like a sci-fi movie for kids. But with quite a bit of violence and a pretty good body count.

We paused for a break, saw there was half an hour to go, and both groaned. This is not a good sign for a movie. It’s not the worst movie I’ve seen, but I wasn’t very entertained.

2026 This is Not a Test

* Director: Adam MacDonald

* Writers: Adam MacDonald

* Stars: Olivia Holt, Froy Gutierrez, Luke MacFarlane, Corteon Moore, Chloe Avakian, and Carson MacCormac

* Runtime: 1 Hour, 43 Minutes

* Trailer (YouTube):

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Five students in their twenties shelter in their high school after a zombie outbreak. It starts out fast, and there are some frantic moments, but the pacing is uneven, and it often drags. We both agreed there wasn’t anything new here, which really reduced the entertainment for us.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on Sloane in the bathtub, with a suicide note in-hand, but then she changes her mind. Sloane’s sister left them, and she’s not happy about it, especially since dad’s an abusive jerk. Suddenly, there’s abrupt chaos, and her dad says they need to leave. Yes, it’s a very sudden zombie apocalypse! Dad gets bitten in a violent but quick battle, and then Sloane runs outside. Credits roll.

The next day, we cut to a group of teenagers hiding inside the high school. They have to beat the principal to death with a phone, but he’s a zombie, so that’s OK.

We flash back to Sloane’s run yesterday. She runs into Rhys and Cary and goes with them. They join Grace, Trace, and their mother and hide in a house. They decide to run to the school, but are attacked on the way.

We get additional flashbacks concerning Sloane’s sister, who left the abusive father and sister alone together. Of the five survivors, there are already conflicts and alliances.

They find Mr. Baxter, one of the teachers, hiding in a closet; he won’t tell them how he got inside. He’s a perv for Sloane, and creepy to boot. Cody says the teacher’s been bitten and wants to shoot him. Rather than be shot, he volunteers to leave. On the way out, he bites Cory.

After ejecting Baxter, they decide to isolate and observe Cory. Sloane and Rhys have some happy-time together, as do Cory and Grace. Baxter returns, and Trace shoots Grace by mistake in the ensuing scuffle.

Sloane gets a text from her sister and wants to go to the family home in the morning. Trace has killed himself, so now there are only three left. They make a run for Sloane’s house and lose Cody along the way.

Sloane and Rhys make it to the house and find Sloane’s sister, Lilly, there– but she’s been turned, so Sloane has to kill her. She and Rhys drive off to find the safe zone they heard about on the radio.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s teenagers and drama in a high school during a zombie outbreak. That’s all there is to this. There are also lots of people yelling over each other in many scenes to make it seem more tense.

It’s well-made and looks good, but there’s nothing here that we haven’t seen MANY times before.

Kevin’s Commentary

It starts fast, and there are fast moments, but it’s inconsistent with some really dragging points. And there’s too much “teen” drama.

There wasn’t much new that we haven’t seen before in fast zombie movies, and the pacing wasn’t great. While the production values were very good, I was actually kind of bored through much of it.

2026 Lee Cronin’s The Mummy

* Director: Lee Cronin

* Writers: Lee Cronin

* Stars: Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy, Natalie Grace, and Verónica Falcón

* Runtime: 133 minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A girl disappears in Egypt. Eight years later, she turns up and is returned to her family. But she’s not at all right, and it’s a nightmare for everyone that just gets worse and worse as the movie progresses. The effects are nasty and effective. The story and pacing are good, and it never lets up. We both thought it was great.

Spoilery Synopsis

An Egyptian family is on vacation, and Mom is grumpy. The pet bird has somehow fallen over into a puddle of blood. The adults know what’s going on and head to the pyramid they have buried in the basement. “How do we know it’s time?” asks the husband. “We check,” says the wife. They open the huge stone sarcophagus using a complicated winch setup and peek inside. “Is he awake?” Yeah, he’s awake. Credits roll.

Charlie Cannon is in Cairo teaching his kids Morse Code. He’s a reporter in Egypt. His wife, Larissa, is pregnant with another kid, but the first two like to fight a lot. The little girl, Katie, meets Layla’s mother, the magician, and she looks very familiar. She’s got candy and magic tricks, and she gives Katie candy and an apple. She also feeds her a magic bug. When Charlie goes to look for her, she’s vanished.

Detective Zaki is newly assigned to Missing Persons at the police department, and she’s assigned Katie’s case. The chief detective thinks Charlie killed his own daughter.

Eight years later, Charlie and his family live in New Mexico, and they have never found Katie. Older Sebastian wants to go on a school trip to Europe, but his mother won’t allow it. Maud has been born and is about eight.

Back in Egypt, an airplane falls from the sky. Inside the plane was that stone sarcophagus we saw before. Experts try to image what’s inside but can’t see through it. They open it up, and there’s a mummy inside. The mummy inside is in surprisingly good shape and then sits up, screaming. It’s Katie.

Charlie gets a call from Cairo, and the man there says they found Katie– alive. She’s catatonic and has weird skin, seems heavily sedated, andt she’s not quite right. Zaki explains about the way Katie was recovered.

As monstrous as Katie is now, the parents take her home. She quickly goes full-Exorcist in front of the whole family. Seb and Maud are a little terrified of her, and the parents are at a loss as well. Katie sneaks into the big crawl space in the walls that night and leads them all on a chase.

The next day, Larissa and her mother try to clean up Katie, and her toenails and teeth are horrific. This goes… badly. Charlie suggests finding a place for Katie to live, but Larissa’s not having that; this leads to an argument. Katie pulls off a big strip of skin from her leg, and Charlie notices that it has Egyptian writing on the inside.

Charlie shows the strips of skin to Professor Baxter, an expert. The text is extremely old, and the professor gets to work on translating it. Katie doesn’t speak, but she makes clicking noises that Charlie recognizes as Morse Code. She says, “Layla” over and over. Charlie soon figures out that Layla was the neighbor girl back in Egypt.

Late that night, Katie uses her supernatural powers to possess Maud. Baxter tells Charlie that Nazmeranian is an ancient Egyptian demon, a destroyer of families who travels from person to person. Then it was trapped by using an ancient ritual.

Zaki works on tracking down Layla at a nectarine farm in the middle of the desert. She finds the house with the pyramid inside and goes exploring. She shoots Layla’s mother and then chases Layla through the farm. She eventually finds a videotape about Katie, and it talks about how using an innocent child is best. “Katie is not supposed to be outside the box.” Layla has no tongue, so she writes out a full explanation.

Meanwhile, Katie and a pack of coyotes mess up Grandma. At the funeral, Maud is looking pretty evil as Katie’s bedroom door now has a big padlock on it. Still, Katie starts her corrupting work on Seb next. The funeral is memorable, to say the least.

Zaki shows up and shows Charlie and Lari the tape. Eighty-two people have been mummified to contain the evil Nazmaranian - children work the best because they hold up the longest. We see what they did to little Katie; Nazmeranian came out of the old, dead mummy and into her. Then they wrapped her like a mummy and sealed her away.

At the same time, Seb is upstairs helping Katie peel her skin off. Dead-Grandma gets up out of her coffin and torments Charlie. Katie goes berserk and attacks… everyone. All manner of nastiness ensues. Eventually, Zaki says the magic words that make Nazmaranian leave Katie’s body and go into Charlie’s.

Katie wakes up, mentally normal now. They bury Charlie in a chained-up box in the basement with the proper runes to keep him inside. He taps out in Morse Code to the three kids. Katie’s normal again, as are Seb and Maud.

Zaki and Lari talk; Layla’s mother isn’t dead, but in prison. Lari comes into her cell and brings Charlie with her… to transfer Nazmeranian into the evil woman…

Brian’s Commentary

The scariest part might be the toenail-clipping scene. There’s a lot of body horror and gore here, and it’s all really well done. All the creature effects here are really excellent.

The family needed to institutionalize Katie after about the first hour, but even after her weirdness became evident to everyone, they still didn’t do anything.

The acting, sets, and everything are really good here, especially the pacing, which never slows down or gets boring for a minute.

This was excellent!

Kevin’s Commentary

It’s got some real cringe and wince moments with the gore and effects with body horror.

That was the best wake ever.

Everything about it was really well put together, very impressive. I liked it a lot. Best of the modern Mummy movies for sure.

2026 Undertone

* Directed by: Ian Tuason

* Written by: Ian Tuason

* Stars: Nina Kiri, Adam DiMarco

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 34 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A skeptical paranormal podcast producer starts to believe a bit as strange audio gets a little too real. It’s interesting how it’s made, with only two actors seen - Nina Kiri as Evy, mostly - and everyone else as audio only, and all taking place inside one house. It’s quiet and slow-moving, all about the audio. It gradually builds and gets creepier as it goes along. We were both very entertained.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on an old woman in bed as Evy sings to her. The old woman is clearly dying, and credits roll.

Evy puts on her headphones and calls Justin on her computer. She tells him about her sick mother– she just wants it to be over. They talk about “The Undertone,” a podcast they both create about “freaky” things. This time, they talk about a cursed video that made 91 people kill themselves, but it’s been debunked.

On another topic, Justin shares a weird email that’s full of random letters and audio clips. Justin plays the first clip, and it’s a couple of people talking. Mike wants to record Jessa, because he says she talks in her sleep. At one point, Jessa starts singing in her sleep. In the second clip, there’s a sound like “Mike kill all.”

Evy tells Justin she wants to stop recording for the night, and they sign off. She goes upstairs to check on her mother and goes to bed. In the morning, Evy calls the doctor about a pregnancy test and talks to Mama’s nurse.

Evy’s invited to a party, but when the time comes, she has to clean up her mother - and she tells her mother she’ll be back in a few hours. She doesn’t get home until morning, and then finds her mother on the bedroom floor.

Evy and Justin resume their talk about the weird sound clips. The fourth clip is about a weird doll that Jessa and Mike have, and then there’s some loud banging. They put off recording for a couple days so Evy can get some sleep.

Instead, she looks at that audio clip in more detail and plays some of it backwards. It says “Come in Abyzou” over and over, putting Evy into a trance. Abyzou is “the taker of children,” an old-time demon. The lore has a bunch of dead babies and stillborn births, which doesn’t do much for the now-confirmed-pregnant Evy.

One of Mike and Jessa’s clips now has a baby crying on it, but they don’t have a baby. Then there’s a scream. The next clip has another baby and some music, as well as more screaming. There’s more about “Ba Ba Black Sheep” and Abyzou.

Justin gets scared and wants to scrap this episode, but Evy thinks it’s gold. Maybe do a two-parter episode? Evy keeps noticing that things move in Mama’s room. Maybe she’s not as comatose as she appears?

Evy listens to a meditation/relaxation recording to help her get to sleep. It’s not as relaxing as you might think.

It’s time to record the next podcast, and they have two audio clips left to analyze. Evy’s still convinced that the whole thing is a hoax, but Justin believes it’s all real. They take live callers (on a recorded podcast?) and the caller recognizes Mike and Jessa, who died from suicides. Another listener talks about music played backwards and a mother who killed her baby.

The final audio file says “She is listening” over and over. There’s more loud banging, screaming, and children’s music. Then Jessa name-drops Justin’s name in the recording. A caller explains that they shouldn’t have called out to Abyzou, who lives in the tenth file. Another caller, Abby, talks about killing her own baby.

Out of the blue, Evy admits she killed her mother. The call with Abby gets even weirder after that, tying together all the things we’ve heard so far.

Meanwhile, Evy’s house turns red, and she stops to watch that cursed video that was mentioned in the beginning of the film. The power goes out, and then things get really weird. Maybe Mama’s not dead after all… and the call ends.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s all done in one house, with one actress and a bunch of voice actors, so it’s obviously pretty low budget. Still, what we get looks good, but not much happens on-screen. It’s all about the audio files and sounds.

I was entertained throughout, but it was definitely a slow burn.

Kevin’s Commentary

For such a quiet, low-action movie, I thought it was fascinating to watch. And listen to. Nina Kiri is great, and it’s really well put together.

Hmm. They were recording a podcast and taking live callers at the same time. Somehow, folks knew where and when to call.

I liked how it ended with just audio. Pretty cool. I liked it.

2026 Fallout Season 2

* Directed by: Various, depending on the episode

* Written by: Various, depending on the episode

* Stars: Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Walton Goggins, Kyle MacLachlan

* Run Time: Around 55 minutes per episode / 8 Episodes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Let us state up front that Season Two is every bit as entertaining as Season One, if not more so. The weird retro-futuristic-alternate timeline is still there. The dark humor, satire, and violence are dialed up. We laughed, chuckled, and winced many times watching this. As people who are barely familiar with the video game, we say it’s not a requirement to have ever played the game to have fun with this show. But from what we have seen in commentary and trivia, there is a lot of homage and references to the video game that you’ll recognize if you have played it.

Besides the great stories going on in the foreground, the richness of the background details, sets, and characters is impressive. They clearly had money to work with after the success of Season One and put it to excellent use.

This season seems more fragmented than the last, showing the stories of The Ghoul, his life as a human in the past with his wife Barb and her conflict of loving him and their daughter overlapping with her role in the Company, the sagas of the Maclean family (Lucy, Norm, and Hank), Maximus trying to do the right thing, and the struggles and politics of Vaults 31, 32, and 33. And there’s the power struggle over cold fusion running throughout. The transitions between the different individuals and groups is smooth, and they all interact and overlap nicely like a handful of pebbles thrown into a pond with expanding circles. The writers knew what they were doing.

The use of songs is so great, very well placed, and well used.

It’s a strong thumbs-up from us. If you liked Season One, do continue on to Season Two for a good time. It’s a skilled cast with high production values that all come together.

📀 Fallout Season Two is now available on 4K Ultra HD and DVD. Based on the iconic video game series, bring home the action-packed post-apocalyptic thriller starring Walton Goggins, Ella Purnell and Aaron Moten. In Season Two, our odd trio ventures across the wasteland in search of the ruins of New Vegas. Own Fallout Season Two on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray now.

Brian’s Commentary

It moves a lot more quickly than Season One, since it doesn’t need to set up all the characters and situations, but it still feels like it’s dragging out a story too long, especially the Howards’ story from the past— just tell us what happened and get on with it! I guess they need to drag this out so they can let Walton Goggins have some screen time with his own face.

There are essentially three main story lines, one for Lucy and her father, one for Maximus, and one for The Ghoul, or maybe four if you count Cooper Howard from the past. Oh, yeah, and whatever’s going on with Norm and the guys in the vaults, but we don’t get as much of those this year. Any one of these would be an interesting basis for a series, but we get some part of each story in every episode.

The visuals are excellent, a mix of practical and CGI, as are the many creatures and monsters that appear this year. I assume they’re all right out of the video games, but I have no experience with those. The choice of old-timey songs from our grandparents’ days is fun, and those songs are still entertaining today.

I’ve seen that it has been renewed for Season Three, but the ending this year mostly wraps up the main storylines we’ve been seeing. Time for a new chapter?

Kevin’s Commentary

I thought it was very entertaining through the whole thing. I was never bored.

We do jump right in after Season One, continuing smoothly with that stuff as well as introducing new things as the story moves along. There’s more explanation about how the world got to be the way it is now thanks to the generous flashbacks from the past, with a surprising number of characters who still manage to be around 200 plus years later.

I loved that Lucy and Maximus get back together at the end, my two favorite characters.

I’m looking forward to more fun in Season Three - I see that was already renewed and underway before this season started showing.

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We’ve got a weird mix this week! We’ll start off with the sci-fi “Voidance” and the slashery “Strawstalker” first, both new releases. We’ll check out the very weird “Protanopia” next, and then compare the original “Faces of Death” and the new sorta-sequel from 2026.

All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #56, for May 2026, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

2026 Voidance

* Directed by: Marianna Dean

* Written by: Simon X Frederick

* Stars: Zoe Cunningham, James Cosmo, Eloise Lovell Anderson

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Alana wants to join the elite ATIC guard, but in order to be accepted she has to complete a simulated mission to solve a mystery and stop a terrorist attack. It plays out like a holographic video game that she gradually solves in steps and goes back to the beginning of the program when she fails - and she only has 20 chances to get it right. It’s far in the future and far from Earth, heavy science fiction, really not horror. Kevin thought it was great. Brian thought it was well made, but he wasn’t entertained.

Spoilery Synopsis

At ATIC headquarters, Atopia, an agent is congratulated on making it this far. Agent Polo comes in a hologram and explains to Alana about her mission. A spaceship has been stolen and used to rob a cargo ship. This crime was perpetrated by a terrorist group on the neighboring planet, Cho-Hacha. Alana’s mission is to find the ship, arrest the assailants, and figure out what’s going on.

Later, in The Forge, the space-bar on Cho-Hacha, the people there don’t like ATIC very much, and no one will talk to her. Suddenly, everyone in the bar starts arguing with each other, and a curfew is immediately announced. The power resets, and suddenly, everyone is normal again.

She goes to another room and finds a dead man and woman. Three men are there, claiming to have found the bodies first. One of the men, Tashir, isn’t supposed to be there. They all argue and something happens behind Alana. Fail.

Back in the Forge, Alana watches everything she saw before… again. Curfew is raised again. There’s some young people there handing around a petition. She uses the re-do opportunity to check out the murder site, and she sees the two victims, still alive. Alana recognizes that they’re saboteurs, about to wreck the ship. Things turn out differently this time. But someone shoots Alana, so she has to reset and try again.

Alana goes back to the bar, and the group is more friendly now. There’s more investigation going on, and she’s killed a few more times as are some of the characters; at least we get to know the characters a little better. It’s a complicated scenario to solve, and it keeps taking her more and more attempts. While her countdown from 20 is running out.

Eventually, Alana narrows it down to two drug-addicted terrorists and an EMP-like device that shuts down the station. Alana learns from Polo that this situation is all real, and it’s a test of her loyalty as well as her problem solving skills. In the process, she learns that ATIC may not be worth fighting for.

In several more rounds, Alana decides to try to save everyone, even the bad guys. But now she’s down to two more attempts, and she’s run out of ideas. But Polo insists that it can be solved, and she knows the solution. Alana finally talks to Issy about why she hates ATIC, and Polo tells her not to listen. Maybe Issy’s group aren’t terrorists after all. She uses what she knows to kill both terrorists and Issy has to die too - and that’s the solution.

Alana has passed the exam and now graduated as a real agent of ATIC. Alana then returns to the real Forge and joins the resistance group.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s like one of the time-loop episodes of “Star Trek,” or a videogame with save-points, but this one is set in a training simulator.

They make good use of limited sets and rooms. The costumes are good, and it’s clear that the writers have a whole backstory/world in mind that we only get small glimpses of.

I thought there was too much going on that we didn’t know. It wasn’t like a whodunnit, since we really had no idea what was going on. It wasn’t an action movie, either. It was a lot like someone playing a video game and getting through it by brute force trial-and-error.

It’s well made, but it didn’t do much for me.

Kevin’s Commentary

In the future, Britain will conquer space.

I thought it was fun how we get to see the same scenario and characters played out repeatedly with different variations as she tries different things. And it’s cool how she knows she’s in a simulation, and interacts with the gamemaster, which often confuses the characters because they think it’s real from their point of view, and they have no memory of the previous run throughs.

I kept thinking of “Groundhog Day” with Bill Murray.

It reminded me of the frustration of playing some walk through video games. You might want it to end one way with certain results, but there is only one way you can win and you have to do those things whether you want to or not.

It’s clearly a low budget project and also clear that the makers knew what they were doing. Good script, limited sets, good minimal special effects, and a small, talented cast were all put to good work.

I thought the ending was ambiguous. Was she there to join the resistance? Or was she fully on board with ATIC because they showed her there was only one way to win, and she was there to infiltrate and destroy the resistance?

I thought it was excellent, I really enjoyed it.

2026 Strawstalker

* Directed by: George Henry Horton

* Written by: George Henry Horton

* Stars: Branika Scott, George Henry Horton, Dallas Steinback

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A fame seeking social media couple moves to a community on the edges of LA and gets ensnared with a powerful scarecrow creature. It’s found footage being livestreamed with a stream of follower comments scrolling along the side of the screen for much of the movie, which was an interesting touch. We both thought it was technically good, a decent story at the core, and realistic effects but we also both wished it had gotten to the good stuff sooner. Brian didn’t dig it at all, Kevin gives it a low-key thumbs up.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on Kurt, one of those financial vloggers who clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing. He talks about fake and pretentious vloggers, while obviously being one himself. He talks about being high last night, so much so that he doesn’t even remember what he’s going to show us.

We start with a girl talking about an “influencer house.” Kurt comes back on and talks about what a weird neighborhood that is. Henry and Haley are in that house, and they’re influencers. They’re obnoxiously pleased with being in L.A., heavy on the “obnoxious.”

They go into their new rental house and find it full of someone else’s clothes. They stop and have sex, but we see someone stalking around outside their window. After way too much foolishness, they find a stuffed scarecrow-looking thing in their backyard.

The couple takes a cab tour of downtown L.A. and Hollywood, and it’s not so impressive. Haley is really concerned about that scary scarecrow outside, but Henry laughs it off– worrying about it laying in the backyard literally keeps her up all night. She gets Henry to go out and find the scarecrow, which might have made one of the neighbors scream. Also, maybe it moves when they aren’t looking.

Eleanor comes over in the morning to see their “monster.” She’s the owner of the house, and she promises to have the gardener remove it next week. The couple then prepare to give a houseparty.

At the party, we get bodycam footage from the cops, who have come to warn them about the neighborhood. There’s a creepy guest there who asks about the dead crows they found in the backyard. She asks Henry about the scarecrow, which has vanished. Now Henry is terrified of the scarecrow.

Suddenly, the scarecrow comes inside and grabs Henry. After Haley says she loves Henry, the monster grabs her too. It drags them outside, where a bunch of cultists stand in a circle, waiting. These guys have a whole religion based around the Strawstalker, who keeps their community safe from deception and lies.

Eleanor is there, and she admits that she’s enticed many people there as an offering to the StrawStalker. The monster is not pleased and kills her. Haley tries to convince Henry that the StrawStalker is an actual monster, but he’s the densest man who ever lived and still thinks it’s a prank.

The cops show up, and they’re useless. As the scarecrow kills the final cop, Henry and Haley set it on fire. They run outside, straight into their next-door neighbor, who runs the cult. Eventually, the monster carries off Henry.

Kurt, the livestreamer, comes back on and doesn’t remember seeing any of that before. Then the monster kills him as well.

Brian’s Commentary

If I knew someone who said “Baybeee” as often as Henry, I’d kill him myself. Actually, I was hoping everyone in the film would die a lot quicker than actually happened. The filming is fine, the acting is all right, and the creature is interesting, although cheap-looking. The problem here is all the influencer/livestreaming stuff, which is just annoying as hell.

It’s dullsville, bay-beeee!

Kevin’s Commentary

Oh my goodness, I thought, Henry and Haley are people I would block on social media not follow. And I could have overlooked that if something interesting actually happened sooner - it went on far too long just watching their domestic and social life. It was a relief when things picked up, and much more entertaining.

Interesting premise that the community, so close to a major city, was a cult worshiping a demigod creature. The story itself is pretty cool, and it’s well made on the technical side of things. It just took too long to get to the good stuff.

2024 Protanopia

* Directed by: Matthew Mahler

* Written by: Matthew Mahler

* Stars: Timothy J. Cox, Anthony Carey, Paula Mahler

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 15 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

When a young woman goes missing, her brother has dreams about the house where Alan Roscoe Jr lives. And things aren’t at all normal with Alan or his house. It’s interestingly loaded with trippy visuals, bright colors, dreamlike sequences, camera tricks, and general weirdness. It’s thin on story, but still an interesting watch. We both give it a thumbs up overall.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a Bible lesson talking about a leprous house, and then credits roll.

A woman runs through the fog and opens a door; then she’s hit with a hammer, and someone starts putting up “Missing” posters about her.

A detective interviews Luke about the missing girl, his half-sister. Elsewhere, we see Alan, who kills an animal with his lawn mower and feeds the remains to someone in his basement. He obsessively cleans his house.

Alan bakes a pie and lets his guests in, but Janice also brings a pie, which throws off his routine. This is the neighborhood group, and they all have a prayer for Alan’s dead father. The meeting doesn’t go as Alan expects, so he’s not happy about that; Janice seems to be making a power play. They all eat her pie and not his.

Luke and Jack talk about his writing, which is hard since Mallory went missing. Luke then has a very weird vision.

Alan hears someone downstairs and grabs a shotgun. He goes down and finds the ghost of his dead father there, and the old man isn’t happy. He warns Alan to move the bones before he gets caught. He goes outside, digs up something, and his hallucinations just get more and more wild.

Naturally, Janice shows up in the middle of all this to retrieve her pie plate. He leads her to the basement and something happens.

Luke shows up at Alan’s house and looks around. He’s followed his visions of Mallory– but first, a song! Once he wakes up, Jack is still there, reading his book of dreams, but Luke explains that they aren’t his poems, someone is putting them there.

There’s a search for the missing girl, and Alan participates. Everyone wonders where Janice is, but no one really likes her. When he gets home after, he sees his father again.

The detective searches Alan’s backyard and finds bones. The detective and Luke wander around the foggy forest at night. They both head to Alan’s house and check out the basement. Alan calls Luke, “Jack.” The detective bursts in and shoots Alan, who turns into flowers. The detective also calls Luke “Jack.” Jack points at the detective and turns him into dirt.

As the poem said, there really is a lot of dirt in that house…

Luke, who is now Jim, lets in the neighborhood group for another meeting.

Brian’s Commentary

Wikipedia: Protanopia is a severe form of red-green color blindness caused by the complete absence of long-wavelength sensitive (L-cones) in the eye, commonly known as red blindness. People with this condition cannot detect red light, making them dichromats who only see in shades of blue, yellow, and beige.

When the screen goes red, Alan is really crazy.

Janice totally had it coming.

There are lots of weird visuals, colors, and camera tricks in this one. The music adds a lot to the experience as well. Kevin said toward the end, “There’s a story in there somewhere,” and that’s the main impression I got as well. This is visually very neat, but there’s not much plot to it.

Kevin’s Commentary

There is totally nothing wrong with having two pies at a gathering.

This one is all about the visuals and audio, which are excellent and kept me interested. The story, not so much - we have to hunt for that.

I was drawn to the screen and never bored, but would have enjoyed more of a straightforward story. I certainly liked it more than disliked it.

1978 Faces of Death

* Directed by: Conan LeCilaire

* Written by: Alan Black

* Stars: Michael Carr, Samuel Berkowitz, Mary Ellen Brighton

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 45 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

There isn’t a story to spoil. It’s really just a collection of death and violence, some real and some staged, involving both animals and humans, put together as a sort of documentary exploring the many Faces Of Death, narrated by actor Michael Carr proclaiming himself to be Dr. Francis B. Gröss. There’s a lot of real graphic content, and even the staged stuff is pretty realistic, so it’s not for the squeamish. It’s an interesting piece of work, a little on the long side.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on grainy footage of an open-heart surgery. We watch the heart beating in the opened-up chest and then stop (it looks more like a freeze-frame than the heart actually stopping). We see many photos of shrivelled-up dead people and an autopsy as the credits roll.

The doctor comes out and looks into the next patient. He tells us about medical failures, which are common. He’s Dr. Francis B Gröss, a pathologist, and he’s compiled a whole library of the faces of death. He tells us about a recurring dream he used to have about a woman, a priest, and a funeral.

He talks about a cemetery in Mexico with a lot of mummified corpses. He also talks about Matadors, bullfighting, and pitbulls in Mexico. He shows us a “lost tribe” in the Amazon jungle that uses blow-gun darts to kill monkeys for food. Not only that, but these guys are head hunters! We then cut to watch some farm animals being slaughtered.

We then cut to a middle-eastern restaurant that serves monkey. They bring a live monkey out to the table and beat it to death with little hammers. Then they cut open the skull and eat its raw, warm brains.

We then shift to poachers and other animal slaughtering. This leads us to a very fake-looking alligator attacking a policeman who was trying to catch him.

Political assassinations are up next. A hired assassin tells us about his work.

At the L.A. Morgue, we talk to the (real) coroner and see how the bodies are treated and stored.

Executions are the next fun topic as we focus on a murderer’s execution by electric chair. We see him led in, strapped to the chair, and get all wired up. It’s pretty nasty (and one of the fake ones). There’s also a beheading by sword in the middle-east.

A flesh-eating cult in California is up next, and they’re weird in a 70s kind of way. This leads us to snake-handler churches in Kentucky.

Surprisingly, cryonics comes up next, with a man who was frozen after he died. This one was real.

Drownings are up next, with a real body caught on film. Spelunkers, hikers, natural disasters, pollution, burning, war, the Holocaust, plagues, poverty, cancer, bad parachutes, train wrecks, car accidents, plane crashes, and more are all addressed.

The narrator then goes into the idea of life after death. What about ghosts and the supernatural? We watch a seance.

Dr. Gröss returns to the screen and wraps things up.

Brian’s Commentary

Back when video stores were a new thing, this was one of the first tapes I rented, and I assumed it was all real. It wasn’t. More than sixty percent of the deaths are real, but many are still fake. It’s all done very seriously, in the usual documentary style of the 70s.

It’s a little hard to tell with some shots whether they’re real or fake, so it is very effective. There’s a lot of gore and blood here. This was crazy in the 70s, but it’s pretty mild by modern standards. Or maybe I just read too much on Reddit.

It’s overlong, and I was ready for it to be over a half hour before the end.

Kevin’s Commentary

Adolf Hitler is listed in the credits, and today I learned he has 43 credits in IMDB as “Self” plus one upcoming at the time of this writing.

It’s a mix of real death and realistic staged stuff - violence, surgery, and gore. Trivia says it is about 60% real. The director openly admitted to everything after the movie was made. There’s a well put together Wikipedia page that tells about how it was made and information about what’s real and what’s not.

I don’t know if I’d define it as entertaining but it is at least interesting. Though like Brian said, it does start to feel long.

2026 Faces of Death

* Directed by: Isa Mazzei and Daniel Goldhaber

* Written by: Isa Mazzei

* Stars: Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery, Josie Totah, and Charli XCX

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 34 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A video content moderator starts coming across videos where someone seems to be recreating scenes from “Faces of Death” from 1978 for real. Or are they? Mystery and tension ensues as she tries to figure it out and gets involved herself. It’s not really a remake or a sequel - it’s a horror movie that exists in the same universe that the 1978 movie does. Brian didn’t like it, Kevin did. Split opinion on this one.

Spoilery Synopsis

We see someone watching violent videos on the internet in a cubicle. They’re content moderators. They allow or disallow submitted videos, and we get the familiar narrator from the original “Faces of Death” movies. Margot is interrupted, but she allows the video, tagged as “Likely fake.” Then she goes home to a creepy old factory where she talks to her roommate, Ryan, the artist. He wants her to go to a party; she’s not comfortable going out, but finally agrees. She’s immediately recognized as “that girl from the train video” and goes home.

The next day, Margot gives a lecture to new hires about the moderation process. She goes up to the roof for her lunch break and talks to a workfriend, who finishes her sandwich. When she goes back to work, we hear that narrator again, but the video isn’t from the old movie. We see a re-enactment of the electric chair scene from the 1978 film. Josh looks at the video and says to let it through, since “DIY horror is trending right now.” Still, she has doubts that this one might actually be real and cries in the restroom.

Arthur, a guy who works in a phone store, sees Samantha’s social media posting and tracks her down. We soon see him following the influencer around town. “Someone” in a mask grabs her in the locker room.

Margot watches a re-enactment of the monkey-brain scene, but this one uses a real person instead of a monkey. This one she flags to remove. She tells Josh again, but he doesn’t want to escalate to the police, because that’s bad PR. This causes a flashback to Margot’s sister’s death by train during an influencer-stunt. She posts the beheading video on Reddit and asks if it’s real or not.

Arthur, meanwhile, is stalking someone new. Neal invites Arthur in, and they talk about making videos. Neal works in television, but when his son walks in, Arthur finds a reason to leave– with Neal’s keys. That night, Arthur returns wearing a mask and knocks out Ryan– and his son Drew as well.

Margot obsesses down the Reddit rabbit hole about the video, and someone mentions that it reminds them of “Faces of Death,” a low budget documentary from 1978. Ryan, a horror fan, just happens to have an old VHS copy, so she watches it. She gets to the monkey brain scene and knows what she’s seeing. Then the electric chair scene looks really familiar too. Ryan says “None of it was real.”

Margot thinks someone is copying the old movie murders for real today. She recognizes the victim of the electrocution as a movie director who recently went missing. She hacks into the system at work to get at the metadata.

At his home dungeon, Arthur makes his prisoners watch the movie. He’s got Samantha, Neal, and Drew locked up in cages. He pulls out Neal and sets him up to re-enact a scene where cops shoot him a bunch of times.

Margot traces the videos to the same local area, but Arthur simultaneously tracks her. Ryan makes her stop. Arthur watches the train video that killed Margot’s sister– ouch! Margot goes to the police, who don’t believe any of her story. Josh fires her the next day.

Arthur comes to Margot’s door and attacks Ryan; Margot’s in the next room with headphones on. He then kidnaps both of them. Arthur’s videos are getting a lot of press and people are copycatting them. Margot gets loose, but Ryan gets decapitated.

Samantha also escapes, but Arthur shoots and recaptures her. Margot hears the shooting as she gathers digital evidence inside the house. Which saves her from a bullet when she escapes and now has a hole in it. She runs away and calls the police; she leads them right to Arthur’s house. Arthur, in the meantime, calls the police and reports Margot for trespassing. Arthur says she does this all the time, and Margot gets so upset that they arrest her.

Arthur knows Margot has his hard drive, and he texts her to return it or Drew and Samantha will die. She returns to him, but doesn’t take the drive, which he doesn’t know was destroyed. He talks about how famous his videos have become. “People love remakes.”

Arthur shows Margot Drew and Samantha’s cut-up corpses; he’s already killed them. He gives her a needle and forces her to inject herself. Margot, on the other hand, has a hidden knife, and she uses it on him repeatedly.

Margot records a video where she explains who Arthur is. She uploads her video of his confession and laughs as Arthur dies.

Brian’s Commentary

Are all horror films about filmmakers or influencers now?

It’s a neat idea using the old film as a template for murder, but the characters here are all annoying stereotypes.

It was a good attempt, but no, I didn’t like it.

Kevin’s Commentary

The 1978 “Faces of Death” was a mix of real death and violence along with realistic staged segments, so it’s interesting to play on that with Margot not being able to tell if the scenes she’s seeing are real or not. And others not knowing.

Narcan doesn’t work before you take drugs, like it did for Margot in the movie knowing Arthur was going to sedate her. Other than that point which I had an issue with, I really liked it a lot.

Contact Info:

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Websites:

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