In Podcast Episode 80, we explored the Western Zodiac by reviewing our birth years, examining what movies came out in the year we were born, and determining what those movies had to say about our taste in cinema. It was an interesting experiment in podcasting, so we thought we’d try it again, this time with the Eastern Zodiac.

The idea was simple: each year represents a different animal on the celestial wheel. We pick a movie that includes said animal and figure out how original we can be with our selections. Or, at least, that was the original intent of this podcast. Mike took it differently than Eric, Heather, and Liz, as he looked for aspects of the animal representatives and found movies that met those themes.

So, we beg your pardon for any confusion, but I think you will agree that this will be a most original podcast. There are three sets of animals in movies, and one is an abstracted traits movie for each year on the Lunar Zodiac. It’s in a speed-round method, so we plow through a lot of movies very quickly!

According to the Lunar horoscope, The Year of the Wood Snake is a time of big opportunities. This is a shedding of the skin year, a time of renewal and potential. The snake is wise and intuitive; this could be a year of challenge and opportunity. The skin-shedding nature of the year of the snake also offers up the potential to change your appearance and, perhaps, the way that you approach your challenges.

The wood snake, in particular, suggests that you plan carefully and think strategically. Make thoughtful and analytical decisions. Though this year may be one of great promise, set realistic goals. Be wary; this may be a year when others try to manipulate or cheat you. It’s rather grim tidings, if you are following current politics.

Turning our thoughts to horror movies. Think cool, calculating, methodical, persuasive… what horror movie does this make you think of? Or… if we boil it down to the simplest form: What is your favorite snake-themed horror movie? You can go philosophical, or you can go literal. We’ll give you both in Episode 195.

Snake Characteristics:
You are charming, elegant, sophisticated, witty, and charismatic. Snakes tend to be intelligent, creative, and ambitious. You have leadership potential, but you tend towards manipulation and are prone to jealousy. Snakes hold grudges and have good memories. Work on being more humble, compassionate, and forgiving of others.

Grindhouse as a method isn’t gone. Oh no, it’s still around in a slightly more polished form. The Terrifier franchise alone has proven that the love of grindhouse cinema is still alive. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey is a hugely successful take on tasteless is proof positive that there is still a big audience for cheap thrills.

However, you should recognize that we are far from the golden age of the grindhouse. For that, you need to travel back to the early 1970s, when old downtown cinemas and aging drive-in theaters had to find a way to get audiences without paying the studios big money for the latest blockbuster. You can thank Jaws and Star Wars for that. Roger Corman’s influence from the 1950s B-movie scene translated to the indie grindhouse scene, upping the racy and bloody content and keeping it fun.

There are three pillars to grindhouse: Sex, drugs, and violence. These are the requirements. This is what titilates people.”

Mike Campbell, The Scariest Things

The grindhouse movement began at the dawn of cinema. It will probably not surprise you that sex and violence have always been alluring to potential moviegoers, and that was true at the dawn of the medium. People have ALWAYS been curious. The grindhouse was a practice that promoted movies all day, with escalating costs and quality as the day turned to prime-time evening viewings. Counterintuitively, the daytime was often when the cheap thrills were available, and the more respectable programming was later. The grinders lure visitors in like carnival barkers, cajoling the curious to come in for a few coins.

When the theater audiences dwindled in the 1960s, with changing societal codes, the old downtown movie theaters and drive-ins could not afford to compete with the multiplex cinemas. As a result, the grindhouse returned with increased vigor. Small theaters turned to upscale arthouse and foreign films or lowbrow grindhouse fare.

Emerging genres that would find difficulty getting a booking in the suburban cineplex found homes in the grindhouse theaters. Blaxploitation. Kung-Fu. Nunsploitation. Revenge thrillers. And… pornography… which took a while to develop its methodology. Some theaters would find room for a Russ Meyer or John Waters film that would be wild and crazy but not overly explicit. Titliating? Yes. Perverse? Probably, but the times they were a changing.

Our podcast will discuss some of the more obscure grindhouse horror pictures. That is not to say that we think the ones we discuss are the most important, as the top of the sub-genre will be familiar enough that they don’t need introductions.

When considering what would qualify for a grindhouse movie, here are the crieteria:

With those considerations, here are our most significant Grindhouse Horror Films in chronological order. Judging a grindhouse film by quality is antithetical to the genre. This grouping is for influence, longevity, and impact on horror.

Sometimes, the little guy has to play dirty to stay in the game. These are not the most pleasant or enjoyable films, but they have cut a bloody swath through the consciousness of horror fans. You have to respect them even if it’s not your cup of tea. Time will tell if the more recent films will be revered similarly. (I’m suspecting that Terrifier will be.)

With that now written on a stone tablet, you can listen in to Eric and Mike discuss this topic in-depth and get some deep-cut grindhouse for you to consider.

The Scariest Things had disagreements about how we felt about the horror offerings from 2024. Some thought it was a strong year; others thought it was weak. We also had crossover on several of our best and worst selections, which made for some fun interaction. We already talked about our favorites. Here are our disappointments.

For those of you who enjoy kicking a bad movie when it is down, today is the lucky day for the wrong bettors! In craps gambling parlance, this is somebody who plays the don’t pass and don’t come lines. In an era where critical evaluations come out black and white with not much grey, there are certainly plenty of wrong-side bettors. That makes things spicy! We are going to lay some shade on movies that we thought were a train wreck.

If you haven’t gotten a chance to listen to Episode 192: The Best Horror Movies of 2024, we had an entertaining and robust debate. Even some of the movies that some of us loved were loathed by one of our fellow critics. In fact two movies that were ranked #1 on our respective critics list also snuck in to the bottom of the year list. It made for a very complex evaluation year.

In a manner befitting the subject material, our worst of the year list is a bit more random than our more refined best of list. The rules are a little loose. Some of us picked three movies. Others picked nine. There are some bigger production films from directors or actors who we have a lot of respect for that somehow left a bad taste in our mouths. Other films were ones that we took a chance on, and found us unimpressed.

Here are our dubious double dozen movies from 2024.

The best horror movies of 2024

If you enjoy a good horror debate, listen to Episode 192. Some of us thought the year was full of good horror movies, and others of us found the year wanting. The best part is that you get a nice long podcast, so prepare for a raucous discussion this year. Several movies were in one person’s top ten and someone else’s bottom 10. You get big studio hits, independent films, foreign offerings, and some Oscar-worthy films as well. There were a few films that were wholly unique this year.

Oddity. Cuckoo. Stopmotion. I Saw the TV Glow. Longlegs. Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Human. The Substance. You have never seen movies like these before. Original concepts abound in the horror selections of 2024.

Heather Alexander, our newest critic, joins the party. Having one more voice adds so much life to the discussion, with a fresh perspective. So, if you want to validate your movie impressions from last year or if you want to find some under-the-radar picks to watch, give this a listen. I’m sure you will find something that fits your taste in horror. Between the six of us, we had 36 films included in the top 10 rankings. Great variety! Once again, Joseph Perry provided some of the most obscure films for your viewing, should you think you’ve seen everything else.

Note: Nosferatu had not been released at the time of the recording. Eric managed to get it into his top 10, but don’t take the fact that it didn’t make the discussion as a slight to a tremendous picture.

Horror movies are emotionally charged and fantastical films. Musicals are similarly fantastic presentations. When you pair them up, you get something magical, full of passion and emotion. Or, it’s a hot mess. A lot of it will depend on the quality of songs in the movie, but when judging a horror musical, it also should be a scary movie.

If you want to see our ENTIRE list of horror musicals, you can check out our Horror Musical Dead List, which also contains Spotify links for as many of the musicals as I could find. I have tried to uncover EVERY horror musical ever made. Defining the criteria was a bit of a trick. The movie needs to use singing as a narrative method. The exposition should be sung, rather than said, at least for some of the film. The characters need to break the fourth wall and sing to the audience.

Fudging around the corners would allow some recent fare like Your Monster and Smile 2, which contains big live stage performances. Both of those films are worth a watch. Don’t be surprised to see both films on the big Musical Horror Dead List, soon. Perhaps the thrilling presentation and huge box office success of Wicked (Which we will NOT consider a horror-adjacent movie, despite the presence of a witch). Knowing that many horror movies have successfully made the transition from video nasty to the Broadway stage, perhaps we can get a full feature of one of these as a reboot, with songs already written:

Make it happen, Hollywood!

Now you too can sing along to a Horror Musical Jam! DO IT!

No Spotify tracks are available for Toxic Avenger: The Musical or The Apple, sadly.

OR: You can go to the full Horror Musicals Playlist from The Scariest Things, which includes many other songs from our Horror Musical Dead List.

The movie of the week was a staple for the broadcast networks since 1944, but the heyday of the made-for-tv horror movie began in the 1970s when TV took control of the nation’s consumer media consumption. The downtown cinema fell out of fashion, with the big movie productions moving into the cineplex. The broadcast networks took advantage, finding large audiences for original movies that couldn’t be found at the theaters. The competition from VHS and cable TV had not arrived, so the networks were largely unchallenged on the small screen for options. The broadcasters hired A-list actors, and talented directors to produce these movies. Advertisers recognized the value of the Movie of the week.

ABC, NBC, and CBS… particularly ABC also delved into Horror as a medium. In a mildly provocative manner, the networks recognized that the culture was changing. The MPAA re-wrote the rules of what could be shown in theaters, and it was clear that lurid and scary stories could still draw audiences. Many of the made-for-tv horror movies leaned towards the thriller/horror-adjacent genre, as the sexy but dangerous mystery was still considered socially acceptable. That said, it is hard to fathom themes of Satan and serial killers being broadcast in the sixties. The times, they have changed.

In the eighties, the made-for-TV movie became a water cooler event. The producers tweaked the format to meet changing tastes. The mini-series adaptation had become extremely popular outside the horror genre. The Thorn Birds, Roots, and Shogun were must-see properties, and have become legendary television landmarks. The novelization adaptations needed more than a single-night movie. So, the networks would reserve an entire very profitable week for these efforts. Realizing that epic books made for popular television, in a way that the cinema couldn’t translate as well, the networks (again, ABC) turned to Stephen King stories to capitalize on this trend. Salem’s Lot, It, and The Stand all proved to be hugely popular mini-series adaptations. King’s lengthy tomes were naturals for the mini-series, and despite the toning down of the gore and violence of his works, audiences loved these interpretations.

By the mid-nineties, the nature of television had changed again. The movie of the week had to compete against home video rentals, and the advent of “reality” television competitions proved to be far more affordable and profitable for the networks, so they got out of the business of making movies for themselves. They abandoned the notion of showing the movie of the week altogether.

Serialized television provided a new outlet that by the 2000’s found a new home for horror. The X-Files was a revelation for FOX and took the notion of conspiracy theories and crypto mythology and elevated it to new heights. Buffy the Vampire Slayer riffed on a modest horror comedy and became a cult sensation. Depending on what you consider AMC (which now owns Shudder), The Walking Dead was the most buzzy show on the air for about five seasons, and proved to broadcasters that continuing narrative horror storytelling had a big audience built in.

American Horror Story would follow, as would Yellowjackets, Ash vs. Evil Dead, The Haunting of Hill House, The Terror, What We Do in the Shadows, Evil, The Last of Us, True Blood, Penny Dreadful, Interview With the Vampire, and Stranger Things. The modern era of TV streaming horror offerings spoiled those younger than forty. We may have lost the individual Movie of the Week, but we now live in a golden age of Horror Television. But, go back into the horror vault to find some partially forgotten television horror movies of the week.

To be considered for this discussion, we limited the criteria to movies made to be shown on broadcast television, and it is to be a Mini-Series or a Movie, but not an ongoing series.

Since 1984, the Criterion Collection has been dedicated to publishing important classic and contemporary films from around the world in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements. No matter the medium—from laserdisc to DVD, Blu-ray, 4K Ultra HD to streaming—Criterion has maintained its pioneering commitment to presenting each film as its maker would want it seen, in state-of-the-art restorations with special features designed to encourage repeated watching and deepen the viewer’s appreciation of the art of film.”

When this company was founded, the world was just getting used to VHS. Having your own copy, or an available copy of a classic movie was now at your fingertips. Fans of classic films could now watch great films and create a library of their favorite movies. Important, but non-commercial movies rarely got shown in theaters, and by the eighties, the places where they did play, the small independent movie houses were being replaced by cineplexes that would present new releases and big blockbuster films.

The Criterion Collection focused on the collectors. They got on board early with laser disc technology and remastered copies of legendary movies for the cleanest and best archival quality available. Low volume, high-quality curation was the name of their game. Over the years, it established a bit of cinema elitism, but you could be assured that your copy of the movie would come with director notes, actor interviews, scenes from the cutting room floor, and behind-the-scenes footage.

Quite simply, it was the best packaging a movie could offer. The big question for horror fans would be: What about us? The good news is that the Criterion Collection is fond of SOME horror films. Thrillers make the cut, and foreign films are well-represented. You will find the collected works of David Cronenberg, Guillermo Del Toro, and Roman Polanski in the catalog. Val Lewton, David Lynch, Brian DePalma, and Alfred Hitchcock films are abundant here. And, oddly enough, Godzilla’s Showa era (1954-1975) is here in its entirety.

Like LP records, the Criterion Collection’s physical copies still offer up the best in physical media. The movies now are in Blu-Ray 4K formats, but they still come with all the trimmings that a film historian would crave. They also have gone through the effort for many films to have new cover/poster art created for the DVD’s, much like what the Austin-based Mondo Posters has done. And, they continue to follow up with restoration, in bringing back old movies and restoring them to the most current production format.

If you want to avoid purchasing a DVD and want to stream the movies, you can to go straight to the source and subscribe to The Criterion Channe where you can have access to the full library. You can find these movies on other streaming platforms, but if you want the film extras that The Criterion Collection creates, you’ll want to get a subscription. Our recommendation? Get the DVDs! Create a library! Also, this would be a service if horror is part of your film preferences, but you also love other genres. You’ll run out of horror films before too long.

With competition like A24 and IFC Midnight supporting high-quality horror productions that would often be snapped up by The Criterion Collection, it will be interesting to see if any modern classics get the Criterion treatment. It is notable that the major studios are not usually represented in this process. Notably, there are no Universal monsters, for example… except for Shape of Water.

In our podcast, Eric went into brain freeze on a key quote that was very quippy, and he went into brain freeze. Here is the missing quote!

Mr. Peters: Got a question for you. Which magazine sells the most copies?
Mark Lewis: Those with girls on the front covers and no front covers on the girls.”

Peeping Tom

It is rare to see an independent feature film loaded with lavishly appointed sets and historically accurate props. This is usually the domain of big budget studio productions, but Vincent Shade and his team have crafted a rich tapestry of Lovecraft-era period piece lore. The movie strived for period authenticity from the well-appointed general store to the creepy old mansion to the antique vehicles. Appropriately, this film had its world premiere at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival.

The story begins with a MacGuffin, a letter written to a store clerk, summoning him to attend to his ailing uncle, whom he was previously unaware of. The letter is of little consequence other than to launch a series of interlocked mysteries that are shrouded in old grievances, dark secrets, and cryptic rituals.

Jonathan Ackley, summoned to a gloomy mansion by his mysterious Uncle, Lord Barksdale realizes that the invitation was a ruse. His uncle is not ailing, physically, but may have been driven mad by the loss of his daughter, Emily. Barksdale cannot pursue his hunches because he has been exiled from Dunwich by his former partner and now arch-rival Richard Armitage. Barksdale suspects Armitage has been holding her. Since Jonathan is a new face in town, Barksdale suspects the estranged Jonathan can slip into town and find her.

Of course, much scheming has been festering in the background, both within Barksdale’s mansion and within Dunwich. Jonathan has been given blasphemous tomes to assist with Emily’s potential whereabouts. Indeed, that should have been a red flag. When Jonathan is awakened by Lady Barksdale having seizures, he realizes that something is seriously amiss within the old house. Are the tomes and the seizures connected? Wait and see!

Jonathan’s investigations in Dunwich prove that he is way over his head. He is assaulted by Armitage and his thugs as soon as he arrives in town. Father Maurice, a local black minister rescues Jonathan from being carved up by Armitage’s goons. Maurice has been witness to the depravities that have cursed the town. He knows of Emily’s fate. As it turns out, nobody abducted Emily. She’s not even missing… but she is gone. A dark ritual summoned a shoggoth to bring Emily back: an amorphous chaotic being of pure evil intent. When things like this are beckoned from evil tomes, they do not behave as expected. It works its tendrils through the entire community on both sides of the political divide.

Jonathan must overcome his natural cowardice to set things right or die trying. A heavily armed mob and an amorphous chaos monster? No problem!

Appropriate to the source material, the plot of this film is very dense and cryptic. The web woven between all the participants is often hard to untangle. There is a ton of exposition, and every player has multiple motives both in the open and under the surface. The benefit of a Lovecraft period piece film is that it transports you to another time. The downside is that, like many of Lovecraft’s stories, it gets confusing.

Again, this feels like a Call of Cthulhu (or Mansions of Madness, if the Arkham Horror board game is more your speed) game brought to life.

A Call of Cthulhu game often plays like this:

I really liked the atmosphere and feel of this film. However, I wish the evil menace had crystalized sooner in the plot. A lot of attention is spent on establishing the relationships between all the characters, and the main thread not only gets a little lost. The story has a second-act slump, as more characters are revealed.

I appreciated the first-act hooks. I enjoyed the third act’s call to action. The second act, however, could have used some editing. Another somewhat problematic element was the antiquated speaking. Many of the actors wrestled with the period dialogue. It made for some uneasy pacing. Such is the price of working with Lovecraftian material sometimes. This mannered speech maintains period authenticity but feels dense for both the performers and the audience.

If you like Agatha Christie – complex mysteries full of scurrilous characters, you may be handsomely rewarded with this film. It is a transportive film in many ways. The look is stunning. Andrea Grant’s original score composition soars. Having a full orchestra perform the piece is an audio treat. The movie is also a real treat for Lovecraft scholars, as there are plenty of references and Easter Eggs for fans of his work.

The Letter bears the burden of cosmic horror. It is difficult to describe something as “Indescribably Evil” while simultaneously trying to show it. You want your mind blown, which sets up certain expectations. Some nifty special effects reveal the monstrous underpinnings of the story, but there is a need for a heavier dose of the ultimate dread. The story compensates for the wickedness within the characters, but I would have liked more of the inexplicable evil shown.

Vincent Shade delivered a movie with all the production values of a bigger studio effort. Shane Simmons embodied a very Lovecraftian hero, full of doubt, angst, and curiosity. John Judd appears to have the time of his life chewing the scenery in his monologues as Lord Barksdale. All the actors had great moments in the film, and even some initially minor characters get worked into the central plot. At times, though, the tangled relationships worked to separate rather than bind these characters from the central story thread.

The Letter debuted at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. The film is scheduled for release in February of next year. The movie is not crafted for young audiences, as the plot and language is very complex, but a PG-13 rating would be appropriate for this film, should it apply for an MPAA rating.

I recorded an interview with Vincent Shade and Shane Simmons backstage at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival before having seen the film. You can hear our conversation right here:

Few people in independent cinema have risen as fast and maintained the rigorous intellectual integrity of far-out horror as Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. They have done so much at such young ages, that their resumes read like every independent filmmaker’s wish list. Resolution (2012), Spring (2014), The Endless (2017), Synchronic (2019), and Something in the Dirt (2022) built up such creative notoriety that Marvel brought the duo on board to direct Moon Knight (2022) and Loki (2023) for them.

Their themes of time travel, spatial anomalies, astrological impossibilities, and the sheer vastness and terror of mathematical equations helped push the genre into heady territory. Many of his stories involve characters seeking universal truths. Through addiction (Synchronic), love (Spring), belonging (The Endless), and logic (Something in the Dirt) these characters all seek higher meaning. They risk their sanity on what could very well be beyond what we can imagine. It was inevitable that Moorhead would attend the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. This year he and Benson produced Things Will Be Different (2024) which he promoted at the festival on its theatrical release date.

Reality isn’t stranger than you think… it’s stranger than you CAN think.

That was a key phrase from his lecture. It referenced the not-so-humble, amazing octopus. Often used as the subject of Lovecraftian lore, the octopus is so alien and so intelligent that it defies logic. You can’t think like an octopus because the creature, as intelligent as it is, does not process the world in any way like a human might. The cephalopods can solve puzzles. But the things it can do unconsciously, like change its skin color and texture as camouflage or display are wildly beyond our comprehension.

It is that sort of creative thinking that has inspired scores of filmmakers. You could see the admiration from his fellow filmmakers backstage at the festival. Moorhead was so gracious with his time. He shared thoughts about everything ranging from film theory to professional wrestling with a number of us in the green room. He was extremely supportive of all the other directors in attendance. I appreciated the community spirit of all the filmmakers this year, and Aaron was at the center of this experience.

What I find particularly remarkable is that Benson and Moorhead came upon cosmic horror themes by osmosis. Early in their career, they were lauded by Rogerebert.com as “A Hybrid of Richard Linklater and H.P. Lovecraft.” The irony was that they were unaware of either of those references at the time they were bestowed with that appraisal. Now, they are fully aware of the literacy and lore of both Linklater and Lovecraft, but they came by their ideas naturally. Perhaps that is why their stories always feel fresh and uncluttered, despite the cerebral nature of their films.

Madness and dreams are a staple of Lovecraftian horror. The Dreamlands beckon the unwary. In the Lovecraft Mythos, malevolent forces can infiltrate our minds and our world through our sleep cycle. The power of suggestion is strong, and there is only so much that our minds can potentially handle. Such is the struggle that Alex and Mallory are dealing with.

Dream Eater explores the fragility of the dream psyche, using an appealing couple at its core. This is as much a story of love and devotion as it is about madness. The found footage format is not always a great format for telling complex stories, but Dream Eater manages to explain its multi-layered tale with a whole lot of heart… and jump scares. Dream Eater exploits the power of found footage authenticity to ramp up the tension and scares. The beauty is that Dream Eater doesn’t use the first-person perspective for cheap thrills. This film earns its scares.

Dream Eater punctuates these fears, through an emotional bond between the characters and the audience. The characters are normal people with whom you can identify. Think of Paranormal Activity as a precedent.

Life has been stressful for Mallory and Alex, a young Canadian couple. Despite struggling to pay the bills between their jobs in the documentary film world, they have saved enough money for a long-awaited vacation in the proverbial cabin in the woods of Quebec. Alex has been waking in the middle of the night, muttering cryptic and only semi-coherent thoughts. He has also been sleepwalking, and more alarmingly, he has started acting violently during his semi-conscious dream state.

His therapist, Dr. Snape has recommended this getaway, and since Alex doesn’t recall any of his sleeping actions, she has requested that the couple film these encounters to see if this helps Alex recall what he might be going through. So far, he recalls nothing, and his waking self is charming and affable. As the snow falls during their retreat, the parasomnia gets worse. Alex becomes more aggressive and frightening. Eventually, these events take their toll on him.

Alex has been taking nightly trips into the crawlspace under the cabin, talking to a malevolent presence, and he starts having visions about a demon with a beard of snakes. Mallory grows more concerned about Alex’s worsening state, and she reaches out to Dr. Armitage, an author who describes the demon Alex has seen in his nightmares. Dr. Armitage relays that there may be an ancient evil entity that may be trying to possess him and turn him into the Dream Walker. This being travels like a curse, through troubled bloodlines. Alex’s past is a mystery, having been raised in foster homes. Initially dismissing Dr. Armitage as a quack, Mallory is in a race to determine to piece together the truth as Alex descends deeper and deeper into madness.

The power of found footage is the visceral and personal authenticity that is implied with the hand-held camera. Dream Eater utilizes a more controlled and professional documentary look (because Mallory is a documentarian) early on in the movie, and it descends into the visceral chaos of a GoPro aspect when Mallory needs to use the camera to see where she is going. It is always the responsibility of a found-footage shaky-cam film to justify the use of the hand-held camera. Dream Eater was quite successful in this, even when some of the third-person perspectives takes the camera out of the hands of Mallory.

Dream Eater won the best feature in an excellent year for feature films at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. Why? Simply put, Dream Eater is successfully scary. As much as I typically dislike found footage films, one thing this format excels at is the jump scare. Alex Lee Williams transforms from a silly and adorable character into a raving wild-eyed lunatic who pops up at the worst (best) moment possible. This is essentially a two-person drama. Williams and Drumm infuse their off-screen friendship into the characters, with emotional gravitas. Protagonists you care about. It matters.

It is not a movie without issues though. Mallory has horrible survival instincts. Yes, love will color most impulses, but at a certain point, all of the horror survival tropes get violated. Don’t go chasing Alex into the crawlspace. Make a plan. Make sure you have the car keys on you. Be prepared. You have the foresight to do the homework, and all signs point to DOOM, so even if you think that Alex could be saved… have a contingency plan! Having said all that, it makes the third act into a roller coaster.

Full marks to the story and lore. The Lovecraftian exposition was handled really well. There is a build of the lore, but not an excessive build. I really appreciated the Dr. Armitage easter egg, and he was the perfect person to do the exposition dump.

Dream Eater will find a home with fans of both found-footage horror and cosmic horror. The directing trifecta of Drakulich, Drumm, and Williams has been making some regional waves near Toronto, but I suspect that they could make a dent in the horror space. It was apropos that Aaron Moorhead was at the Festival as well, and getting to hang out with the four of them backstage in the green room helped convince me that they may be able to find a similar way forward as the Indie taste-makers Benson and Moorhead.

When looking for the ideal actors to execute what you want, look no farther than yourselves. Dream Eater is a slice of original thinking. It utilizes the evergreen Lovecraftian concepts of dreams, madness, legacy, and spins them into a fresh story. The film is Rated R for language, violence, and intensity. It is not a particularly gory movie, but it has a lot of shock moments.

Dream Eater has already been released in Canada, and the international streaming release (USA) will be coming soon. You will also be able to watch this on the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival streaming edition taking place from October 18 to 20, along with several other great features and shorts. Again, this was a very strong showing for the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, and if you missed it, now is your chance to catch the films online!