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Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, Undertone, This is Not a Test, Lawnmower Man 2, Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, and Fallout Season 2
May 31, 2026
33m 16s
Faces of Death (1978 and 2026), Protanopia, Strawstalker, and Voidance
May 24, 2026
30m 31s
Send Help, Do Not Enter, Malibu Horror Story, Baby Blue, and Lawnmower Man
May 17, 2026
31m 25s
They Will Kill You, We’re Not Safe Here, Touch Me, The Yeti, and The Hills Have Eyes 2
May 10, 2026
23m 32s
The Bride!, Dolly, Ready or Not 2, Souls Chapel, and Muck
May 3, 2026
32m 31s
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| 5/31/26 | ![]() Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, Undertone, This is Not a Test, Lawnmower Man 2, Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, and Fallout Season 2 | 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.comMainstream 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 SynopsisA 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 CommentarySeveral 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 ZoneThis 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 SynopsisWe 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 CommentaryPeter’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 CommentarySo 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 ZoneFive 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 SynopsisWe 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 CommentaryIt’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 CommentaryIt 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 ZoneA 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 SynopsisAn 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 CommentaryThe 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 CommentaryIt’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 ZoneA 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 SynopsisWe 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 CommentaryIt’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 CommentaryFor 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 ZoneLet 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 CommentaryIt 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 CommentaryI 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.Contact Info:Email: mailto:email@horrorguys.comWebsites:* https://www.horrorguys.com* https://www.horrormonthly.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.horrorweekly.com/subscribe | 33m 16s | ||||||
| 5/24/26 | ![]() Faces of Death (1978 and 2026), Protanopia, Strawstalker, and Voidance | 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.comMainstream Films:2026 Voidance* Directed by: Marianna Dean* Written by: Simon X Frederick* Stars: Zoe Cunningham, James Cosmo, Eloise Lovell Anderson* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneAlana 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 SynopsisAt 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 CommentaryIt’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 CommentaryIn 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 ZoneA 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 SynopsisWe 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 CommentaryIf 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 CommentaryOh 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 ZoneWhen 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 SynopsisWe 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 CommentaryWikipedia: 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 CommentaryThere 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 ZoneThere 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 SynopsisWe 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 CommentaryBack 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 CommentaryAdolf 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 ZoneA 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 SynopsisWe 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 CommentaryAre 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 CommentaryThe 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:Email: mailto:email@horrorguys.comWebsites:* https://www.horrorguys.com* https://www.horrormonthly.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.horrorweekly.com/subscribe | 30m 31s | ||||||
| 5/17/26 | ![]() Send Help, Do Not Enter, Malibu Horror Story, Baby Blue, and Lawnmower Man | No real losers with this week’s five films. We’ll open with “Send Help” and “Do Not Enter” from this year. We’ll pop back for a couple of 2023 films that we missed with “Malibu Horror Story” and “Baby Blue.” Lately, we’ll look at the sorta-classic “Lawnmower Man” from 1992 and see how it holds up.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.comMainstream Films:2026 Send Help* Directed by: Sam Raimi* Written by: Damian Shannon and Mark Swift* Stars: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Edyll Ismail, Xavier Samuel, Chris Pang, and Dennis Haysbert* Run Time: 113 min* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneWhen an employee and the company president are stranded on a tropical island after a plane crash, the boss has to rely on his underling to survive. But things get more complicated and interesting as time goes on. It’s really a good mix of drama, thrills, dark comedy, and horror. It was really good, and there was more to it than we expected.Spoilery SynopsisLinda goes to the office and sits in her stereotypical cubicle. Her boss, Donovan, takes her detailed report and takes credit for the whole thing. Linda’s not very popular in the office, maybe a little weird.Linda thinks she’s next in line for VP when Bradley takes over for his father soon. As she explains things to her pet parrot, we see she has lots of survivor skill books on her shelf; and she’s a big fan of the TV show, “Survivor.”The next day, Bradley and Donovan get promoted, and Linda gets her lunch on Bradley, who decides to fire her. Donovan gets the job Linda was expecting. She goes in to talk to Bradley about it, and he explains how she’s not ready for a VP yet; he needs more of a “People Person,” or someone who golfs. He’s not super-mean about it, and invites her to a meeting in another country that’s coming up. Linda meets Zuri, Preston’s fiancee. She goes out to the car to cry.The group boards the private jet and talks about golf, while Linda continues working on her reports. They watch Linda’s audition for “Survivor” and laugh about that. Suddenly, the plane lurches, and everyone straps in.Then it does a lot more than lurch as the whole plane comes apart. There’s a brutal struggle to see who’s going to be thrown out the hole, and then the plane crashes in the ocean.Linda wakes up on the beach of a small island. She then finds Bradley passed out there as well. While he’s still unconscious, she uses her “Survivor” skills to make shelter and catch water. Bradley wakes up a day and a half later.Linda makes fire, collects food and water, and sets up a camp, but he’s not appreciative. He’s her boss after all. She gets fed up with his crap and leaves him by himself, with no food or water. By the next day, he’s screaming for her help.Linda eventually comes back, and now she wants to hunt a boar. That doesn’t go as well as she expected, but she does kill the boar. It’s a bloody mess. They have pig for dinner.Linda spots a boat and runs to wave at it, but then stops. “Not yet.” Yes, she likes it here. Bradley whines about being here for two weeks, but Linda’s not whining, “It’s not that bad.”Bradley still thinks he’s the boss, and he can do all the things she can. He can’t. He’s soon down to eating bugs. Linda’s got all kinds of food, and she doesn’t hide the fact. He ends up apologizing for everything. The power dynamic has clearly shifted. They make a sorta-ceasefire.She leads him way up onto the mountain, but he can barely walk. She shows him a part of the island that’s totally covered in vines and that he should never go over there.That night, they get drunk, and Linda talks about how her husband died. There’s a huge storm, and they end up hiding in a cave. Their camp is washed away, so they rebuild a new one together.Bradley makes dinner for them, and Linda falls over; he drugged her with poison berries. He’s secretly built a raft and stolen some of her supplies. The raft quickly falls apart in the waves. Somehow, Linda rescues Bradley, while puking on him repeatedly.Linda sets down some new rules. She drugs him right back with a poisonous octopus. Then she pulls out a knife and makes him a eunuch. No, not really, but she could have.A boat pulls up, Zuri, Bradley’s fiancee, is on board. She’s continued searching even after everyone else has stopped. It’s just her and a boat captain, so Linda shows them a “short cut” over the mountain. Zuri falls, but we don’t see exactly what happens to the two newcomers. Linda returns to their camp alone.That night, Zuri washes up on shore, still alive, and Linda freaks out. Zuri’s not real, just a nightmare. In the morning, Bradley finds Zuri buried on the beach, her huge diamond ring still showing.When confronted, Linda says she slipped; it was an accident. He’s not buying that and chases her into the jungle with the stolen knife. They fight, and it’s not a play fight; there’s lots of biting and hair-pulling. He pokes her in the eye, and she swallows the engagement ring.Bradley runs to the part of the island where Linda told him to never go. Turns out, there’s a huge house over there. Linda’s there, and she explains how she already got rid of all the knives except for hers. She’s watching him on the security cameras. She admits how she’s been coming to the house for quite some time. We get a flashback to what happened with Zuri - the boat captain was about to haul her up, but Linda gave him a shove.Bradley begs for his life when she comes in with a shotgun. “I’ve changed!” he begs. He promises to live here on the island with her forever. He’s lying, of course, and they fight some more. Linda plays golf with Bradley’s head.We cut to Linda, now being interviewed about her ordeal in the plane crash a year ago. They’re making a movie about her ordeal, and she’s famous now.Brian’s CommentaryA CEO of a major corporation’s airplane crashes in the ocean within sight of an island, and there wasn’t any effort to search? They couldn’t have been that far off course.For a long time, it looked like they would be rescued, Bradley would recognize Linda’s competence, and give her the promotion. That’s not the way it went at all. It eventually went “full Misery.”Kevin’s CommentaryThis reminded me a bit of “Castaway” meets “Misery.” Trivia also mentions similarities to “Triangle of Sadness,” which I have not seen.It was well done as it builds, and we get to see how far Linda would go.There was much more to it than I expected, and I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. It was great.2026 Do Not Enter* Director: Marc Klasfeld* Writers: Dikega Hadnot, Spencer Mandel, David Morell* Stars: Adeline Rudolph, Nicholas Hamilton, Jake Manley* Runtime: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes* Trailer (YouTube): Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneAs you might guess, they do enter. A group of urban explorer online fame wanna-bes break into a huge abandoned hotel seeking views and hidden treasure. They run into a competing group and they all run into supernatural troubles. It’s not stupendous, but it’s pretty good and entertaining.Spoilery SynopsisWe open on a woman crawling slowly down a hallway and then credits roll. We see old newspaper clippings of gangsters, hotels, and murders.We cut to Diane, Rick, Cora, JD, and Vern as they do their video show about… subways? No, they’re just disguised as subway workers to sneak equipment aboard the train which allows them to jump off and break into a place to admire graffiti. JD steals a piece of the wall, which enrages Rick, who fires JD for “going against our code.” We then see the video and learn that they’re all “urban explorers.”Only 82 people watch their video. What can they do to boost views? They want to explore the Paragon next. That’s where gangster Meyer Lansky stashed his millions, and anyone who has ever gone looking for it has gone missing. They notice that JD has started his own channel, and he’s got way more views than they do.Ballenger, with VICE News, comes to the motel to accompany them to the abandoned hotel. Cora vouches for the guy, but he looks more gangster than journalist. They all soon arrive at the Paragon, and there’s a big “Do Not Enter” on the old place. The only way in is by crawling through the sewers. There are trillions of rats, all running past them (away from something?).Diane gets separated from the others and runs into something creepy. Cora and Ballenger talk about the group so we know what everyone’s job is. Vern, the photographer, finds weird bloody claw marks on the walls. Rick steps into a bear trap, and it’s pretty nasty. Still, he doesn’t want to leave without Diane, who they still haven’t found.The group comes to a tree, and hanging from the branches are cell phones, cameras, and other things that clearly aren’t old-timey. Rick spots Diane’s phone there, and now they know something happened to her. Rick decides that they don’t have time to call the police.JD’s gang shows up, with guns, and takes the group hostage. Tod’s the leader, and he’s more extreme than even JD expects. Ballenger admits that he’s not a reporter, he’s here to look for his wife, who went missing here a few months ago. Tod throws Rick over the stairway, and the fall looks bottomless. Rick, however, had the plans to the motel, so they have to go find him.They run into Beth, the photographer who was with Amanda, Ballenger’s wife. “He’s coming. We’re all gonna die,” she whispers. JD is killed in the dark and something attacks the group, who start shooting. Beth is accidentally shot.Meanwhile, Diane, who is not dead, wakes up in a room full of candles and a big pentagram. Cora finds Rick, who isn’t dead either, but knows something is coming for them. The skinny white creature comes after them, and he’s really strong. Cora runs to an elevator, which has power apparently and escapes to a security room full of monitors. She sees the room Diane is in on one of them.Cora finds videotapes and Diane finds a book, and between the two, we get some idea of the Satanic stuff that’s been happening here. Tod and Mack find the manager’s office with some bodies and a huge pile of cash, but they don’t live long afterward.Frank drops an elevator car on the white creature, so it must all be over, right? Frank finds Amanda’s phone, and not long after, her corpse, with heart removed.Frank, Cora, and Vern get together in the security room and decide to find Diane. They see her on the monitor and head that direction. Then they see the creature on the screen, totally not dead.Diane, in the meantime, has put on a wedding dress to become the bride of the creature. She smacks him in the head and runs away, where Frank tackles him; they both fall a dozen stories. Frank dies, and the creature is impaled on the “phone tree.”Diane then finds Rick, who for some reason still isn’t dead yet. We get headlines that Lansky’s millions were found. Their video has hundreds of millions of views. Rick surprises everyone by showing them a bagful of money; he’s given up “the code.”Brian’s CommentaryThe hotel is full of sculptures, ornaments, and looks intact inside after being closed for decades (on the NJ shoreline as well). In all those years, no developer wanted that real estate? The creature is well done, but nothing outstanding. The sets are really good, although it’s more like a mall than a hotel.The acting was fine. It had a few surprises. Nothing outstanding, but I was entertained.Kevin’s CommentaryAt first I was thinking it was a “Hills Have Eyes” situation set in an abandoned hotel, but it was quickly clear that wasn’t correct.A fundamental flaw, it’s a huge building of prime shoreline real estate, full of salvageable decor, fixtures, and art. It’s a stretch to think that it’s just been sitting there for decades. Plus it seems to be fairly well known that there’s possibly hundreds of millions of dollars hidden in there somewhere. Supposedly everyone who goes in there is never heard from again, or something like that, but that wouldn’t hold up in the real world - action would be taken. But I suppose the dark forces were keeping things the way they were. I had a hard time buying into it.All things considered though, the cast is good, all the technical aspects are good, the suspense was good. I’d call it a win overall.2023 Malibu Horror Story* Director: Scott Slone* Writer: Scott Slone* Stars: Dylan Sprayberry, Robert Bailey Jr., Valentina de Angelis, Rebecca Forsythe, and Tommy Cramer* Runtime: 85 minutes* Trailer (YouTube): Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneA quartet of paranormal investigating filmmakers look into the footage and clues regarding a quartet of guys who vanished without explanation. They do indeed find out what happened to the four guys. It’s sort of found footage within a movie and well put together. The build, tension, and effects are all good. We both thought it was all right, Kevin more so than Brian.Spoilery SynopsisWe open on a bunch of people camping in a cave and making a documentary about ghosts. They have a “ghost communication” device. Ashley lights a candle and starts talking to spirits. Something happens, and the camera sorta-kinda sees something. Josh, Matt, Ashley, and Jess celebrate. Jess shows Josh the footage they’ve already got which doubles as some exposition for us. Four local teenagers went missing in these same caves. Josh found video footage from the teens’ misadventure. Meta-credits roll.Jake, Carlos, Tyler, and Carter got into a van in 2012 and were never seen again. We get news footage and interviews with their families from ten years ago. Eventually, the police gave up until the van and a video camera were found in the hills. We watch some of their video as the teens party. People were not pleased with the drunken, drugged-up teens and everyone stopped caring that they had never been found.We’re told that the area where the boys went missing was Indian territory, so there could be all kinds of weirdness there. They did, in fact, find some burial plots. Then they found a cave and went right inside, completely unequipped to do so. They all talk about portals to “other worlds” like the ones in this cave. We then hear about how Jake’s great-grandfather murdered a bunch of Indians that wouldn’t leave his land– he buried them in one of the caves.Carlos sneaks some of the muffins out of Jake’s bag and unknowingly eats a triple-dose of shrooms. Carlos starts seeing weird things, probably hallucinating. Jakes explains that his grandparents went missing, and they just found the skulls. Could the whole family be cursed? They follow Carlos into a cave, and that’s where the footage stops.Ashley, Josh, and their group explains a little more about apparitions that appeared in the found footage. Their group is now camped out in the same cave. Jess manages to uncorrupt some additional old footage, and we see what was living in the cave. Carlos was possessed by an Indian demon, a skinwalker. The thing grabs Carter and drags him back into the caves while the others follow. It goes badly for the others, too.Ashley warns that it’ll get really bad if it possesses one of them, and they did invite it in with the candle ritual earlier. They all start packing up, but it’s too late. All their ghost-hunting equipment starts signaling, and it gets weird inside the cave. Ashley is dragged off by something invisible. Matt goes off looking for her and disappears as well.Matt gets possessed and starts crawling after Josh as Ashley and Jess search the caves. There’s a lot of wandering around in the dark. The two girls then look for an exit after narrowly avoiding the creature. None of them make it out alive but the cameras record everything…Brian’s CommentaryAbout half the film is the documentary explaining what happened with Jake’s group, and the rest is about Josh’s group ten years later. The creature is well-made and looks good, but it relies way too much on loud jump scares to make it creepy. The cave is surprisingly clean, with wide hallways and perfectly level floors.It was OK as a found footage, but not great.Kevin’s CommentaryEven not being an expert, I can see it’s a generic mishmash of Native American history and lore, but it gets the job done for the story.It seemed familiar at a lot of points and in a lot of ways, but it’s well put together. It’s a little on the bland side, but I’d call it a win for entertainment.2023 Baby Blue* Directed by: Adam Mason* Written by: Simon Boyes, Adam Mason* Stars: Aramis Knight, Ally Loannides, Cyrus Arnold* Run Time: 1 Hour, 29 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneA group of young people attempt a true crime documentary about the deceased serial killer Baby Blue who might still be continuing his work from beyond the grave. There were a lot of elements that we’ve seen before, but it’s well put together with a lot of interesting touches that kept it interesting enough to entertain. We both enjoyed it and would recommend it.Spoilery SynopsisWe open on Laura, in an interrogation room, being questioned for murder. “He made me do it.” Who? “Blue!” She’s possessed by Baby Blue and starts singing there in the interrogation room. She then kills herself with a pencil. Credits roll.Three half-siblings argue about the merit of making bad prank videos. August, Alice, and J.J. all seem to hate what they’re doing, but they put on the gorilla suit and start filming. Their manager, Mo, hates it; it’s not cutting edge. He wants them to do “true crime” instead. He then fires the group. Alice thinks of doing a film about The Redmont, a place with a lot of deaths. She shows them a video of a man named Kelvin being attacked in an elevator by something invisible and then jumping off the roof. It’s a supernatural true crime, and they decide to investigate.They stop to talk to Joy, the last person to see Kelvin Jones alive. She warns them that they’re all going to die if they keep investigating. Baby Blue will kill them all; he was the first victim of the Redmont. They go to the Redmont and meet the manager, Bud. The power to the apartment has been shut off, so it’s all dark and creepy– and there are rats.As April, JJ, and Hutch keep the property manager busy in Kelvin’s apartment, August goes up to the roof. JJ finds a bloody cellphone that used to belong to Kelvin, and upstairs, August hears someone singing a song. Everything that happened to Kelvin now happens to August– but he doesn’t die.The group goes home and opens Kelvin’s phone. It’s got a video from Kelvin on it, saying that this is really Baby Blue’s phone, and it’s cursed. He warns them not to watch the other video on the phone, which cannot be deleted. Can an iPhone video really be cursed? JJ wants to watch it, but the others aren’t so sure. They toss the phone.Hutch, on the other hand, digs out the phone and makes his own video with August. We don’t see much of the video, but it seems to involve cannibalism. Hutch then throws the phone into the ocean. They wonder if they’re cursed now.They are.Baby Blue comes to Hutch that night, and they have a conversation before Hutch cuts his own throat.In the morning, JJ has done more research, and they learn there have been many more Baby Blue suicides. August, meanwhile, is freaking out because he knows he watched the video. They interview Manos Sloane about one of the deaths. He sold the phone to Kelvin after his son David bought it.David lives in the dark basement, strapped to a table to keep him from killing himself. David tells his story; Baby Blue got inside his head. “He goes inside you until he’s in control. He slaughtered over 30 people when he was alive. How many more since he died?” They set up remote cameras to watch over David that night when Baby Blue comes to him. August admits he watched the video, and he’s terrified.They go to see Ellen, a psychic, to help. She touches the cursed phone and immediately gets taken over. She’s a hoot. She suggests returning the cursed phone to its owner, and maybe the spirit will rest then.They take August to a motel, tie him up, and gag him for his own safety. “We shoulda done that years ago,” JJ quips. JJ and Alice snoop and find out where Baby Blue lived with his mother and sister. Mama Blue and Sadie Blue still live in the old house in the country, and they invite the siblings inside. Mama says her son didn’t do anything wrong, since all his victims were sinners. Mama explains that she buried Blue’s ashes in the backyard, but she also drugged their drinks, which turned out to be breast milk.Meanwhile, Baby Blue and August have an all-day conversation.JJ wakes up chained to a bed with a pacifier as Mama sings the Baby Blue song as she milks herself. In the basement, Sadie makes Alice watch the cursed video of Blue’s suicide. Sadie relents and lets Alice go, and she runs right outside to bury the iPhone. Sadie then kills Mama and releases JJ.Before she can bury the phone, Baby Blue possesses Alice, who hangs herself. Surprisingly, back at the motel, August puts up quite a resistance to Blue. Blue then comes to JJ and taunts him, but JJ never actually watched the video. JJ drops the phone into Blue’s grave. Blue puffs into a cloud of red flame. And suddenly, Alice wakes up.In the morning, Alice and JJ return to find August in the motel, bloody but alive. The group then finds the suicide tape online, and now everyone can see it. August admits it was him.Brian’s CommentaryThere are lots of weird little visual details that you have to be paying attention to notice, which add some fun depth to this.Milk is disgusting, no matter what it comes out of.There are lots of cameras, and the characters are filmmakers, but it’s not a found footage film. Overall, it’s not bad!Kevin’s CommentaryThe IMDB description refers to the gang who are clearly in their 20s as teenagers, but at least they don’t play that up and aren’t shown going to high school.If you watch closely, you can see that JJ doesn’t believe in stop signs when he drives.Little details like smoke coming out of the back of Baby Blue’s head when he was having a cigarette was a nice touch too. Plus it’s a movie that will make you want to have a nice glass of milk afterward.I thought it was really good.1992 Lawnmower Man* Directed by: Brett Leonard* Written by: Stephen King, Brett Leonard, Gimel Everett* Stars: Jeff Fahey, Pierce Brosnan, Jenny Wright* Run Time: 1 Hour, 48 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneA simple-minded guy becomes an experimental subject, which greatly increases his intelligence. And psychic abilities. And cyberspace mastery. The story is cool, but the computer graphics were more ambitious than the technology of the time allowed - they are basic by today’s standards. It holds up pretty well for entertainment, heavy on science fiction, but not so much on computer visuals.Spoilery SynopsisWe are told that by the turn of the millennium, a new technology, VIRTUAL REALITY, will allow people to enter computer generated artificial worlds. It may be a new form of mind control…At Virtual Space Industries, Larry Angelo talks about his artificially intelligent ape. He’s a great warrior in the battle simulations. We then see the ape inside the VR system, which rolls and tilts as the ape sees a “realistic” world inside. Credits roll.Later, the ape picks the lock on his cage and escapes– straight to the VR lab, which he activates. The ape shoots a guard with his own, real gun. The security team is sent to track the ape, which they soon do.Dr. Angelo tries to watch TV, but there’s nothing on but war. Timms his boss calls Smith about the ape, which is only doing what they trained it to.We cut to a nearby church, where Jobe, the gardner, whistles at birds. The wounded ape approaches him and determines that he’s not a threat. Jobe hides the ape in his shed from the helicopters. Jobe introduces himself as the Lawnmower Man because he can fix things like lawn mowers. Jobe thinks the ape is Cyboman from a comic book. The priest spots them and calls Timms, who brings in the troops. Jobe is very not-smart and doesn’t really know what’s going on.Despite Angelo’s screams, the soldiers shoot the ape repeatedly, killing it this time. They want to take Jobe in for questioning, but father McKeen says Jobe has the mind of a child. Jobe’s been a ward of the church since he was a kid, and Father McKeen has no problem using the belt on him. After his beating, Jobe gets to work repairing his special new mower, Big Red.Father McKeen’s brother, Terry, runs the landscaping business that employs Jobe.Angelo wants to quit, but Timms warns him that might not be a healthy thing to do. He wants to evolve the human mind and believes that VR is the way to do that. The director of the company wants Angelo returned to work.Angelo, in the meantime, does VR stuff at home. His wife does not approve of his “hobby” and they argue. After, Angelo notices Jobe outside cutting the lawn and thinks he’s probably smarter than a chimp, so why not use him?Angelo hooks Jobe up to the computer and shows him how to make it work. The game is a little intense for Jobe, but Peter, the boy next door, says he’ll get used to them. Angelo says he has a game that might be able to make Jobe smarter, and Jobe’s willing to try.Angelo gives Jobe a shot or experimental chemicals, and then the psychedelic game begins. Meanwhile, Angelo is modifying Jobe’s brain by stimulating certain areas.Fairly quickly, Jobe starts to change. He notices the sexy neighbor lady, and he’s never done that before. He gets smarter and smarter, but he also occasionally has seizures. Jobe realizes that Father McKeen isn’t such a nice guy after all. Soon, Jobe is beating Peter at all the games. Angelo reports everything to Timms, who says he’ll hold off letting the big boss know about what’s going on.Jobe stands up for himself against the evil priest. He buys some new clothes and gets a haircut, and now the neighbor lady notices him. She wants her lawn mowed now.Angelo can’t work from home anymore, so he starts taking Jobe to his big lab in the secret base on the mountain. The VR machines there are far more elaborate, and Jobe can’t wait. Angelo turns the juice way up, and soon, Jobe can read minds, like the neighbor lady, Marnie, which leads to sex.Angelo realizes that Jobe’s smart, but not educated, so he uses VR to teach him pretty much everything in one afternoon. Angelo says no one can learn that quickly, but it’s true. Jobe admits that he can read minds now, and he doesn’t like it. Jobe’s abilities keep growing, even without the treatments.The company Director wants Timms to switch out the drug for the one that they used on the ape– to make him a warrior. Timms doesn’t tell Angelo, he just switches bottles.The next day, Jobe has an unexpected seizure, but Angelo doesn’t figure out why. Jobe can now move things with his mind.Jobe takes his new girlfriend, Marnie, to the VR lab and wires her up. Things get carried away, and she winds up brain damaged. Angelo says Jobe is moving too fast, it’s unnatural. Jobe knows he’s smarter than Angelo now, and he’s not willing to stop the treatments.Timms and Angelo fly out to see the Director, who spills the beans about the military drugs, which Angelo says is going to lead to unpredictable results. They want Jobe to meet the Director. Meanwhile, back at the lab, Jobe takes all the drugs and upgrades himself.Jobe pays Father McKeen a visit and sets him on fire using telekinesis. Jake, the town jerk, also gets his due; Jobe uses his mind powers to put the Lawnmower Man in Jake’s head. Peter’s abusive father is next on the list; Big Red the lawnmower eats him.Angelo returns home from the meeting the next day and finds the neighborhood in a bit of a mess. Angelo’s wife is now completely on Jobe’s side and pretty vacuous; she’s been changed into someone resembling a Stepford Wife. Angelo knows exactly what happened.Jobe raves that he’s become one with the virtual world and wants to fix the whole planet. He plans to merge with all technology and make all the phones ring as a signal when it happens. Angelo thinks Jobe has had a psychotic break, but there’s nothing he can do.Jobe mentally calls Terry for a ride to VSL, where an army of security guys wait for him. Jobe unleashes a swarm of digital bees to take care of them. The security chief shoots and kills Terry, which really gets Jobe in a mood.Angelo shows up at VSL, and he’s got bombs, a gun, and apparently thinks he’s James Bond now. He plants bombs all over the place. Meanwhile, Jobe’s body shrivels as he enters the computer world permanently. Except he didn’t know that Timms and company already cut the computer off from the outside world. Unless he can find a way out, Jobe is going to be trapped in there and die for real when the bombs go off. And he lost his telekinesis over the real world now.As Angelo and Jobe battle inside the computer, Peter sneaks inside and is at risk of dying from the bombs. Jobe releases Angelo to save Peter, but he’s still trapped inside the mainframe. As the bombs start going off, Jobe works furiously at the combination to escape. He gets out just in time.Angelo vows to keep working on the VR project. He, Peter, and Peter’s mom leave town just as every phone in the world rings at the same time…Brian’s CommentaryI assume Angelo’s going to be facing severe legal issues after destroying the whole VSL company.I remember the effects being pretty good back in 1992, but they’re laughably dated today. I also didn’t remember it being this long, but then we were watching the extended director’s cut, which I probably hadn’t seen before.It’s been 34 years, and VR still isn’t really a thing. It’s a pretty good story, but it may be the single worst adaptation of a book ever, having nothing in common with the Stephen King story other than the name.Kevin’s CommentaryIt has very little to do with the Stephen King short story by the same name. New Line Cinema obtained the rights to the story, and they had a script ready to go called “Cyber God.” They slapped Stephen King’s name and title on the script and made it happen. Much to Stephen King’s displeasure who sued and ended up with quite a bit of money from it.It’s also said in the trivia that a team of 7 people spend 8 months and $500,000.00 on 8 minutes of cyberspace effects in the movie. And they don’t hold up well. I thought the movie overall does hold up. It’s dated, but entertaining.Contact Info:Email: mailto:email@horrorguys.comWebsites:* https://www.horrorguys.com* https://www.horrormonthly.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.horrorweekly.com/subscribe | 31m 25s | ||||||
| 5/10/26 | ![]() They Will Kill You, We’re Not Safe Here, Touch Me, The Yeti, and The Hills Have Eyes 2 | Four out of five new releases this week. We’ll open with “They Will Kill You,” followed by “We’re Not Safe Here,” “Touch Me,” and “The Yeti,” all 2026 releases. Lastly, we’ll conclude “The Hills Have Eyes” series with the second sequel from 2007.All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #56, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2026 They Will Kill You* Director: Kirill Sokolov* Writers: Kirill Sokolov, Alex J. Litvak, Dan Berk, Robert Olsen* Stars: Zazie Beetz, Patricia Arquette, Myha’la* Run Time: 1 Hour, 34 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneA woman hires on as a maid in a luxury high-rise in New York and quickly finds out that everything there is not normal. And things get wilder from there. This is a good one to go into as blind as you can if possible. There is much unexpected. It’s well put together, heavy on practical effects and sets, with a strong cast and Zazie Beetz excellent in the lead.Spoilery SynopsisTwo sisters are on the run from an abusive father, and hide in a convenience store, but they soon get caught. Asia shoots her father in the parking lot just as the police arrive. Asia runs off, but Maria is caught.Ten years later, Asia comes to Lily Woodhouse under a different name; she’s the new maid. It’s a very high-security building. Asia meets Sharon and the other residents. There are a lot of maids in this place as well as Ray, Lily’s weird husband. Credits roll.Right away, Asia notices something weird in the vents. And in the hallway. We see that her room isn’t as secure as she thinks it is, as a pig-man sneaks in and licks her toes as she sleeps. He knocks out Asia and lets in the others, the residents, all wearing pig masks. The cultists, or whatever they are, aren’t very good at this, and Asia came heavily armed. She decapitates one of them, shoots another, and uses various ninja skills to take out the rest. Lily walks up and says that was pretty impressive. More credits roll.Asia tells Lily about abandoning her sister, who went home with her father, who survived. Asia spent time in prison and learned to fight there. She hired a PI to find her sister, who went missing in this very hotel.Lily says she also has an unusual family with unusual needs. All the dead cultists then get back up and collect their missing body parts– even the headless guy. Soon, Asia’s on the run from everyone yet again. The baddies need her alive for some reason, and the hotel has quite a maze of (well-lit) secret tunnels.Ray’s down in the tunnels as well, and he helps Asia hide. He explains about the Virgil Hotel, a temple to Satan. Their ancestors made a deal: immortality for human sacrifices. Literally nothing can kill these guys as long as a single piece of them remains. The only way they can die is if their names are removed from the devil’s list. As they crawl through the tunnels, Sharon’s eyeball follows them.Ray takes Asia to Maria, her now-grown sister. Maria explains that she got a job at the Virgil and went through all the ordeals but then was invited to join them instead of being a sacrifice. Yeah, she’s on the list now, and she doesn’t want to leave.There’s a lot more running and fighting as Asia tries to find a way out of the building, but the cultists have a huge number of followers who are all in on it.Lily and the others finally corner Asia and tell her what Marie did to earn her place here– nothing yet. Asia (or Isobel, the woman she replaced) was supposed to be the sacrifice she needed to survive.The whole group goes downstairs to see Satan, who looks like a talking pig head on a stick. The pig erases Ray’s name from the list, which is written on his head. He tells Lily to kill Ray, which she does. He then tells Maria to write her name on his head and then kill Asia.Marie writes a name and then kills herself; the name she wrote was Asia’s, who is now immortal. Her wounds now heal instantly. Time for more fighting, but amped up a notch!During the battle, the pig head climbs on top of Lily and uses her body as his own. The battle is crazy, but Asia ends up removing all the names from the pig’s head, killing all the main baddies permanently and turning all the other residents of the hotel mortal again.Asia takes her sister’s body and goes outside, where the P.I. is waiting with a car. Asia, it turns out, had written Marie’s name on the pig skin before killing it; Marie revives. The P.I. is very confused.Brian’s CommentaryThis is hilarious; the fight scenes and choreography alone are worth the watch. The fights are so incredibly over the top as to make the whole film.This was a lot of fun, easily my favorite of the week.Kevin’s CommentaryI went into this blind, and I was quite surprised by the surprises. I’m glad I hadn’t heard anything about this ahead of time. There were elements that reminded us of “Ready or Not” and the sequel, which we’ve reviewed as well.The violence is so over the top it crosses over into humor. I thought it was great.2026 We’re Not Safe Here* Directed by: Solomon Gray* Written by: Solomon Gray* Stars: Hayley McFarland, Sharmita Bhattacharya, Margaret Wuertz* Run Time: 1 Hour, 33 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneTwo women get together late at night, and one of them tells scary stories. After far too long a period of talk and minor jump scares, things get a little real - maybe. The acting and all the technical aspects are good. But we both thought it was pretty drawn out and dull.Spoilery SynopsisWe see shots of someone with a bloody pillowcase over their head as credits roll.Sarah and Neeta talk about Neeta’s artist block. Later, Rachel calls and wants to come over. Rachel sees several men in bloody pillowcases banging on her car. “We’re all around you,” one says.Rachel arrives and admires Neeta’s many paintings. She explains about her “dreams” that keep her up at night. This has been going on since she was little.Rachel tells about her childhood friend, Lily, who told her a story about a little girl fifty years ago, who put a pillowcase over her mother’s head and killed her. The girl claimed her friend in the closet made her do it. Lily also said her dead grandma told her the story. Lily then rode her bicycle to the house where the little girl did the killing.Rachel stops the story, thinking she’s hearing someone else in the house. There’s no one there.Anyway, back to Rachel’s childhood story. Lily walked into the abandoned house, and Rachel went with her. They found a photograph of themselves, except Lily had a pillowcase over her head.Rachel goes to the bathroom and sees someone with a pillowcase inside. This one removes the covering, and the woman inside is a real mess.Rachel comes out and continues her apparently neverending story. She and Lily opened the closet in the abandoned house, and they saw something. They rode back home in a hurry, but that night, Lily and her mother just vanished, never to be seen again.Rachel still thinks she hears something inside the house. She pulls out her diary, where she’s been making notes about the weird stuff she’s seen.Neeta interrupts to tell her nightmare story about a siren. Rachel ignores that and continues with her story. She grew up, and the weirdness all went away– until it came back. Upset, both women turn in for the night, but Neeta takes a weapon with her just in case Rachel’s as crazy as she seems.Nope– Rachel comes into Neeta’s bedroom and goes on with the interminable tale. She talks about how the visions eventually returned, and why she needed to tell the story.Neeta hears the siren from her own story as someone else appears in the room. Neeta screams and freaks out but then realizes she’s alone in the silent room and Rachel’s asleep in her own room.Neeta sneaks out and goes to the address from Rachel’s diary. Rachel, in the meantime, wakes up and deals with her own nightmares. Across town, Neeta explores the empty old house from Rachel’s diary and story. She finds a closet with a photo of her and Rachel. She gets scared and runs back to her car.In the morning, Neeta wakes up tied to a chair and hears voices. “Fear is the path to grace. That’s what led you to us,” says an old woman, who puts a pillowcase over Neeta’s head. Nope– just a dream, maybe.Neeta goes home, and Rachel knows what she’s done. Neeta now sees the pillowcase-head people outside. Neeta looks again at the photo she found, and it’s different now. It’s Neeta’s demon now, and Rachel is free.Ten months later, Neeta goes to Sarah’s house and wants to tell her a story…Brian’s CommentaryRachel’s story about Lily takes most of the film’s run time. It’s like listening to someone telling a ghost story around the campfire. This is pretty cool in theory, but it goes on for far too long. It’s like a “creepypasta” stretched out for an hour and a half.The set is very interesting, and the acting is fine, but it just takes way too long for anything to actually happen. Something beyond just jump scares between the quiet bits.I thought it was pretty dull, but it might be good to watch in a dark room all by yourself some night.Kevin’s CommentaryI turned on my iPad during viewing and a game being played on there was much more entertaining than this movie. Most of the strangeness just seemed like mental illness, distorted memories, stress, fatigue, and nightmares - which can be a sort of horror in itself. Things did get real and sort of explained at the very end, but by then I didn’t care much anymore.It’s well made, and the acting is good, but it didn’t hold my interest.2026 Touch Me* Directed by: Addison Heimann* Written by: Addison Heimann* Stars: Olivia Taylor Dudley, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jordan Gavaris* Run Time: 1 Hour, 40 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneTwo best friends find their friendship put to the test when they both fall for an alien lover. It’s very funny, very weird, and beautifully filmed with an excellent script. Plus there are plenty of horror elements. The trailer doesn’t do it justice, and we were both pleasantly surprised by how much we enjoyed it.Spoilery SynopsisJoey cleans her ear with a Q-Tip, and it comes out bloody. We then cut to her in therapy where she tells a story about meeting an alien in a bar last night. He had a whole story about seeds and saving the Earth from climate change. He touched her with his tentacle as well and then they had sex under glowing trees. There were many tentacles. It’s quite a long and convoluted story. Credits roll.Joey then goes home to Craig, her gay bestie who lets her live with him. She sees Brian, the alien, in the coffee shop the next day, and he says he misses her. Or is she imagining him?Due to a bathroom disaster, Joey has to get a job. She tries at the local convenience store. They whine about their financial situation and consider themselves “trash pandas.” Craig accidentally watches Joey’s alien sex tape.Brian invites Joey and Craig to his house for the weekend. Yeah, he’s an alien, but he was good at sex, so she wants to go back. It’s quite a house. They meet Brian and Laura, the housekeeper. Brian admits again that he’s an alien and demonstrates to Craig. He explains that he’s allergic to sugar-free lemonade powder. He’s also really into shirtless dancing.Brian shows them his chrysalis. It requires a sad story and a blood sacrifice. They tell their stories and crystal begins to glow and then knocks them all out.Laura doesn’t like Joey and makes that very clear. Everyone has a story, and Brian tells his. Afterward, he and Joey have sex again, and this time, we see the tentacles. Very shortly afterward, He does the same with Craig. Laura watches the whole thing on a remote screen while touching herself..In the morning, both Joey and Craig feel really good. They split up for more “therapy.” Joey tells the crystal about being sexually assaulted as a teenager.We get a flashback to three days ago, where Noah texts Brian and hooks up. Noah drives to Brian’s house and is quickly taken prisoner and locked in a cage. Back in the present, Noah’s head explodes and makes a real mess. Brian says to Laura that he thought Noah might be “compatible.” Joey sees all this on the security cameras.Laura is jealous that Brian won’t use his lubricated appendages on her, but Brian refuses.Joey tells Craig what Brian has been doing to Noah, but even so, neither of them really wants to leave. They know Brian’s been murdering people, but the sex is soooo good.Everyone stays, and dinner is awkward. Joey turns against Craig, who soon winds up in a cell. When Brian admits he wants to eat Craig, Joey is fine with that.Laura knocks out Joey and tells her that Brian has already eaten Craig’s left hand. Brian knows all about Laura, but he has a plan to deal with her. Laura then stabs Brian in the back with lemonade powder, and his outer form melts. Laura finally gets what she wants, more or less. Brian recovers, but Laura doesn’t.Brian thinks Joey was involved with Laura and puts her in a cell as well, right next to Craig, who is no longer as supportive as he once was.That night, Brian eats Joey’s hand, but then it turns out to not really be Brian, but one of his glowing trees.The three sit around the magic crystal for another round of admitting how terrible they all are. This goes badly for Brian, as Joey and Craig have this all planned out.Craig’s got something growing inside him, and he asks Joey to cut it out– which she does. And kills Brian’s offspring. Brian shows up in his full tentacled form and clears the air for his two prisoners. Until they douse him with lemonade powder and he explodes.Craig’s got a big hole in his stomach, falls down, and dies.We cut to Joey, back in therapy, telling the story. The therapist has many questions. She remembers that Brian’s alien trees spit out clones. And ends with her saying “Kill” while interacting with her Duolingo app.Brian’s CommentaryAre YOU ready for some cross-species intercourse?There are numerous monologues and long stories told, which sounds like it ought to be boring, but it’s not. The cinematography is very interesting, with lots of cool shots and effects.I liked this one. It’s got a good mix of humor, grossness, and weird ideas. It’s a winner!Kevin’s CommentaryI wasn’t expecting to like this as much as I did. I thoroughly enjoyed it and chuckled many times. It’s weird and keeps your attention throughout. The script, effects, and cinematography are all excellent. I’d call it a winner.2026 The Yeti* Directed by: Gene Gallerano, William Pisciotta* Written by: Gene Gallerano, William Pisciotta* Stars: Brittany Allen, Eric Nelsen, Jim Cummings, William Sadler, Corbin Bernsen* Run Time: 93 min* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneWhen a group vanishes in the wilds of 1947 Alaska, a rescue party of eclectic and eccentric characters is sent on a rescue mission. The reason they disappeared, as you might guess from the title and poster, is a Yeti on the rampage. It has the look of studio work on sets and a lack of cold temperatures, but the effects are good with a strong cast. Still, things didn’t really come together. It felt like a missed opportunity that should have been better than it was.Spoilery SynopsisIt’s 1947 in the Alaskan Territory. An old man has something in a cage. Other men play cards until they hear roaring outside. “Did you feed it today?” One guy climbs up to fix the hole in the roof, and something big pulls him up and pulls him apart. Credits roll.We then get a newsreel introducing us to the “experts” who are going to find out what happened to the oil exploration crew. Elaine Bannister gives a lecture on cartography, but all anyone cares about is her famous father. Belle Parker comes to visit her to join the rescue team, and they want Ellie to lead the search.Within a few days in Alaska, some of the crew are already ready to leave. They can’t even make camp, so they decide to blow up the ground itself. That night, they talk about monsters, which keep people from going where they don’t belong. Dynamite Dan brags about blowing stuff up before going out to pee; that goes badly for him.Ellie sees the creature, and soon, everyone knows about Dan’s death. They all decide to keep on moving to find their missing fathers. Parker soon goes missing, and everyone splits up to search. Margaret finds a huge footprint in the snow. She and Coates see the monster clawing on Parker in the fog. Coates mercy-kills Parker as Margaret watches.Ellie and her group find the cabin we saw in the opening credits, blood and all. Margaret is in there hiding from the creature. Coates comes in and describes the monster. Margaret, the animal expert, explains what the creature is; an ancient, not-extinct great ape.Then they hear the roaring outside. It reaches in through the window and disembowels Coates right in front of Ellie. They also find some of the original crew, dead in their bunks. Booker reports that the radio is down, so they can’t call for help. Booker then gives Ellie a much-needed pep talk.Booker climbs the radio tower with Ellie’s help, and that goes badly– the yeti rips his arm off. She runs off and finds a cabin with a cage in it. Inside the cage is Mr. Sunday, the man they expedition came out here to find. She also finds big drums of morphine.Ellie finds the records of the expedition; the men weren’t up here for oil, they wanted the creature. Turns out, Ellie’s father, Hollis, was the one who locked Sunday in the cage after being lied to about why they came up here. They found a baby yeti, and Hollis stole it and turned against Sunday.Old man Sunday and Sunday Jr. don’t see eye to eye about all this. They pour the morphine all over Ellie’s unconscious body and use her for bait inside the cage. Margaret’s outside the cage as a second lure.Ellie wakes up and comes face to face with the monster. The morphine takes effect and knocks out the yeti, which Sunday Jr reluctantly runs to tie up. By the time he gets to the cage, the thing is empty. Ellie sneaks up behind Junior and strangles him, but the old man gets the best of Ellie.Ellie’s father, Hollis, comes out of the woods to negotiate with Sunday Sr. The negotiations are short.Ellie wakes up in the cabin, and Hollis is there as well. He’s been raising the baby yeti and protecting the adults from Sunday. He takes the baby and runs off into the woods to lure the female away from Ellie.Meanwhile, outside, Sunday Jr wakes up after being strangled, not as dead as everyone thought. He sits down and freezes to death next to his father.Ellie pulls out her compass, grabs a rowboat, and heads home.Brian’s CommentaryThe characters are obviously all old pulp-novel hero types, each very distinctive in style and personalities. It’s all very surreal and over-the-top in the way it’s filmed. The sets are all pretty weak; it never felt like the actual, cold Alaska to me, and no one’s breath even fogged.I liked the style and basic idea, but it was all too clean and polished, the editing left a lot to be desired. I think this one may have been a little more low-budget than it really should have been.Good idea; flawed execution.Kevin’s CommentaryI thought the pacing was kind of odd and clunky in this one. They were trying to make it stylized and retro, but I don’t feel like they quite pulled it off.As Brian pointed out, it looks like it’s on sets with fake plants, fake fog, fake snow, and no indication they are actually in cold temperatures. I couldn’t stop noticing that.This one didn’t quite work for me. I wasn’t bored, but I was only moderately entertained2007 The Hills Have Eyes 2* Directed by: Martin Weisz* Written by: Wes Craven and Jonathan Craven* Stars: Michael McMillian, Jessica Stroup, Jacob Vargas, and Flex Alexander* Run Time: 97 min* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneSet not long after the first movie released the year before and in the same desert area, a group of National Guard troops find out that the hills still have eyes. This is a remake of 1984’s “The Hills Have Eyes Part 2” and we both thought this one is miles more entertaining. It’s heavy on action, with a high body count and lots of painful looking injuries and death. We give it a thumbs up.Spoilery SynopsisWe open on a woman being tortured as the credits roll. It looks like she’s been there a long time, and now she’s giving birth. Her “midwife” leaves a lot to be desired, and the baby doesn’t look so great either. She’s killed as soon as the baby shows up.We’re told that after half the family in the first film escaped, the military started monitoring the area. Almost immediately, the feed shows more people there than there should be, and then it goes dead. At the army base, people start going missing all at once. Dr. Foster runs into a couple of mutants and dies quickly. Colonel Redding knows what’s really going on, but that doesn’t save him.We cut to a bunch of soldiers under fire in the Middle East. Turns out, it’s just a drill, and they aren’t doing well. The whole squad ships out to Sector 16, where the old-time atomic testing took place. On the truck, we get to know the soldiers a bit.The group soon arrives at the top-secret base, but wonder where all the people there have gone. They see something shiny up in the hills and go to look, leaving Napoleon behind to guard the latrine and Amber to work the radio.Napoleon finds a man in the porta-potty tank, and he’s not happy about it. Someone gave him shallow cuts all over so he’d die slowly of infection. He dies before he can give them much of a warning about what happened. They don’t see a thing until the company truck explodes and their weapons are stolen.Amber runs up toward the rest of the troops, while Napoleon stays with the radio. Amber is grabbed by a mutant and is rescued by Mickey, who was on his way back down the hill. Someone in a hole grabs Mickey’s leg and pulls him in.Sarge and the soldiers find what’s left of Dr. Foster. The mutants make an appearance, and one of the soldiers accidentally shoots Sarge. Now they all know they’re being stalked, but they aren’t sure what to do about it.Someone steals their ropes, and now they can’t get down off the mountain. They have to look for another way, but run into many dead ends. They find Colonel Redding, who’s badly hurt but explains about mutants living in the mines here. He then shoots himself rather than be captured by the mutants.Missy and Amber know what’ll happen to them if they’re captured, and they want to go home now. Turns out, they’re the bait that managed to lure in one of the muties who promptly get shot by the soldiers. Even then, Missy gets grabbed and hauled off.The group goes into the mines looking for Missy, and it soon becomes impossible to go back the way they came. Amber and Napoleon fall down a chute and get separated from the others.Missy, still alive, experiences Papa Hades, and she’s also not happy about it. Delmar, Crank, Napoleon, and Amber get reunited and meet one of the mutants who has offered to help them.The three remaining soldiers argue about what to do next and then Crank accidentally blows himself up. The other two find Missy and untie her. Papa Hades smashes the door in and attacks everyone, and Amber finds that she has only one bullet left, but she knows how to use it. They all still have to work together to finish him off.Still, they aren’t alone and have no way out…Brian’s CommentaryThis was far, far better than the original “Hills 2” which was one of the lamest sequels ever made. I don’t think the real National Guard trains that hard; these guys started out like Marines in combat, but I could be wrong. They’re also really good at making really bad choices at every turn.It’s a little formulaic, but it’s well done for what it is.Kevin’s CommentaryIt moves fast, and it’s one damn thing after another for these folks getting picked off and fighting back. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s sooo much better than the original Part 2 from 1984. Such a different reboot that it’s pretty much a different movie entirely. I was entertained.Contact Info:Email: mailto:email@horrorguys.comWebsites:* https://www.horrorguys.com* https://www.horrormonthly.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.horrorweekly.com/subscribe | 23m 32s | ||||||
| 5/3/26 | ![]() The Bride!, Dolly, Ready or Not 2, Souls Chapel, and Muck✨ | film reviewshorror films+3 | — | Horror MonthlyThe Bride!+4 | — | horrorfilm reviews+7 | — | 32m 31s | |
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| 4/19/26 | ![]() Mercy, Squirm, Frogs, Kingdom of the Spiders, and The Hills Have Eyes✨ | film reviewhorror+3 | — | Horror MonthlyMercy+4 | — | MercySquirm+6 | — | 35m 25s | |
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| 3/22/26 | ![]() Return to Silent Hill, Whistle, The Car, The Strangers Chapter 2, and Godzilla: Planet of Monsters✨ | film reviewshorror films+3 | — | Horror MonthlyWhistle+4 | — | horrorfilm reviews+3 | — | 31m 40s | |
| 3/15/26 | ![]() The Dreadful, The Other, Silent Hill Revelation, The Hills Run Red, and Godzilla: Final Wars✨ | horror filmsfilm reviews+3 | — | Horror MonthlyThe Dreadful+4 | — | horrorfilm reviews+5 | — | 29m 21s | |
| 3/8/26 | ![]() NFT: Cursed Images, Haunters of the Silence, Forty Five, Obex, and Silent Hill✨ | film reviewshorror+4 | — | Horror MonthlyNFT: Cursed Images+4 | — | NFThorror films+4 | — | 25m 32s | |
| 3/1/26 | ![]() 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Primate, Predator Badlands, Lake Placid: Legacy, and Godzilla Tokyo S.O.S.✨ | Lake Placid seriesGodzilla films+3 | — | Wenoco CorpHorror Monthly+5 | Seattle, WA | Lake PlacidGodzilla+4 | — | 28m 38s | |
| 2/22/26 | ![]() Lake Placid: 1, 2, 3, The Final Chapter, and Lake Placid Vs. Anaconda | Back in episode 372, we did all the rest of the Anaconda films. This time, we swap over and do all the “Lake Placid” films, including the crossover with Anaconda. We’ll cover the newer “Lake Placid: Legacy” next week.All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #53, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:1999 Lake Placid* Director: Steve Miner* Writers: David E. Kelley* Stars: Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, Oliver Platt, Brendan Gleeson, and Betty White* Runtime: 82 minutes* YouTube Trailer Link:Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIt’s a giant creature feature, set in a beautiful location. There’s a lot of violence and gore, but also a lot of dark humor - it’s not quite in the comedy genre, but there are a lot of chuckles to be had. The casting is excellent and added a lot to making the movie more watchable and entertaining. It was a fun watch.Spoilery SynopsisAs credits roll, we see scenes of a very placid lake. The sheriff and a diver are out tagging beavers. The diver goes down and finds an underwater tunnel and checks it out. Turns out, it’s not a beaver nest. The sheriff, aboard the boat, pulls up about half of the diver.In New York City, Kelly explains to Myra that her boyfriend has dumped her; Myra already knows because she stole Kevin from her. Kevin comes in and talks about a probable-bear attack and wants to send Kelly to Maine to investigate a tooth they found in the diver. She’s not really gung-ho about field work, but has no choice but to investigate.Near Lake Placid, Sheriff Hank welcomes Jack Wells, with Fish & Game, to investigate the animal attack.Kelly, Jack, and Hank go out to the lake and talk to an old woman who is the only person who lives directly on the lake. Mrs. Bickerman says her husband died two years ago from an assisted suicide. Kelly, in the meantime, does not enjoy the natural beauty of the place. “I have good hygiene; I’m not welcome here.”Hector Cyr, a rich mythology nut, shows up in a helicopter. He’s obsessed with crocodiles, so that’s weird. There shouldn’t be any crocodiles in this lake, but he’s pretty confident that’s what they have. They go out in canoes, and something knocks over one of the boats. They also find the diver’s toe.Hector’s a party animal, and sets up quite a campsite. Hank doesn’t like him at all.The next day, they use all their equipment as Hector and Jack go diving for the creature. Meanwhile, the monster attacks the boat with Kelly and Hank. They’re fine, but the deputy, on the other hand, loses his head. Hector gives a ridiculous speech about dreaming he’d lost his head.Suddenly, a huge bear attacks! That goes nowhere because even more suddenly, a giant crocodile leaps out of the water and eats the bear– whole. Finally, Kelly decides she’s having a good time.In the morning, they all go croc-hunting. They find another severed head just on the edge of Mrs. Bickerman’s place. They watch as the old woman leads a cow to the beach and feeds it to the enormous crocodile.Mrs. Bickerman admits she’s been feeding the thing for six years; it’s a sort of pet. It was what killed her husband. Meanwhile, Hector goes swimming again and comes face to face with the big croc. The crocodile lets him get onto the helicopter, but then tries to eat that.Hector wants to sedate and capture the crocodile. He doesn’t want it killed, which Fish & Game will do. He’s persuasive. They use one of Mrs. Bickerman’s cows, dangling from a helicopter, as bait. Eventually, the croc takes the bait and crashes the helicopter. It comes up on land and menaces everyone. The crocodile manages to get stuck inside the helicopter and can’t get out. They tranquilize it, so it’s all good. Suddenly, a second crocodile shows up, and Hank gets to shoot that one explosively.As things wind down, Hank and Hector drive off to the hospital. Kelly and Jack get together.Some time passes and we see Mrs. Bickerman, out at the dock, feeding a new batch of baby crocodiles…Brian’s CommentaryThe interplay between Hank and Hector is comedy gold. Actually, this movie is only good because of the stellar cast. The croc is a combination of CGI and practical effects, but it’s all very effective.It’s a great mix of giant-animal horror and comedy. It was successful and then led to a whole batch of sequels.Kevin’s CommentaryI agree with Brian, it was casting done right that added a lot to the movie. It could have been a lot lamer than it was. Okay, it wasn’t that lame, it was pretty entertaining. And the humor helped a lot.The croc is a practical effect - a giant puppet - in many of its scenes, which was much better than having it be purely CGI. Though the CGI is quite good too. Trivia says the croc actually has less than four minutes of screen time.Somehow, I had missed seeing this before now. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.2007 Lake Placid 2* Director: David Flores* Writers: Todd Hurvitz and Howie Miller* Stars: John Schneider, Sarah Lafleur, Sam McMurray, Chad Michael Collins, Alicia Ziegler, and Cloris Leachman* Runtime: 88 minutes* YouTube Trailer Link:Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThe first movie was enough of a success that they made a sequel. They embraced the CGI this time, lowered the quality of casting, and generally cheapened everything as a direct to TV SyFy production. The gore was a step up, while the humor and pacing were a step down. It was barely okay, but not the win the first one was.Spoilery SynopsisAfter the credits, we open two men in a boat talking about how many people have disappeared on this lake. Soon, it’s one man in the boat.Sheriff Riley listens to his son Scott complaining about being there after a custody battle. The EPA man comes to the office and tells them about his partner being eaten. They think it’s all a joke until he shows them the man’s chewed arm. Emily, from Fish & Wildlife, arrives, and she has history with Sheriff Riley.The group goes out on a boat to see where the attack took place, and they talk about the crazy old woman who used to feed crocodiles on the lake. They find a head and then go to talk to old Sadie. Sadie is the sister of the other Mrs. Bickerman.Sadie feeds the local newsman to her crocodile. Riley, Emily, and Frank soon see the crocodile when it smashes their boat. A CGI plane lands, and Struthers, a rich loon, arrives. He wants to hunt the crocodile.Meanwhile, Scott and Kerri meet in the woods, along with Thad and Larry. They head to the lake with her friends. He goes out for a walk alone and finds a nest with eggs. Thad breaks some eggs and soon pays for it.Riley and company tranquilize the croc and put it right to sleep. It’s not as asleep as it appears, as Deputy Dale and Frank soon learn. They set up some bait and lure in the croc, but they harpoon Struthers’s airplane instead. Working together, they kill the crocodile.After some celebrating, they all camp for the night. Scott, Larry, and Kelli are lost in the woods. A second croc attacks the camp and eats Ahmad, Struthers’s assistant. They go to see Mrs. Bickman, who tells them that there are three of the big crocodiles out there.Emily, Riley, and Struthers find the nest and take the eggs. They come across Scott and Kerri just after Larry gets eaten. Riley blows up a second croc, but the big one is still out there. Kerri and Scott feed Mrs. Bickman to the final croc– no, turns out there were really four of them.Emily hides in a tree trunk as Riley shoots the next croc. Struthers loses his head but blows up the final croc.Scott, Kerri, Riley, and Emily drive away. They drop Kerri and Scott off at home, and they kiss.Brian’s CommentaryThis was made for the SyFy Channel and never hit the theaters directly. All the “Teenagers” are way old and the acting is equally bad. It’s very cheaply made, with no corner left uncut.John Schneider is just “We have David Hasselhoff at home.” They lost nearly all the humor and went for a straight-up horror movie this time. The film overall is just pretty dull, even for a made-for-TV story.Kevin’s CommentaryEverything about this sequel was a step down from the original. The crocodile, and some other elements, were very obvious CGI without the practical effects of the giant crocodile puppet. The cast, script, and pacing weren’t as good. All in all, the entertainment value was less.I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as the first movie.2010 Lake Placid 3* Director: Griff Furst* Writers: David Reed* Stars: Colin Ferguson, Yancy Butler, Kirsty Mitchell, Kacey Clarke, Jordan Grehs, and Michael Ironside* Runtime: 96 minutes* YouTube Trailer Link:Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIt’s more of the same as the last two films. With no one seeming to really be aware that the events of the two films happened or were anything to be concerned about. The CGI is bad and obvious, but it was a bit better than the second movie. It still wasn’t as good as the first. If you saw the first two, this one was a bit of an uptick.Spoilery SynopsisIt’s the Black Lake Wildlife Area, and two hikers arrive at the lake. They go for a swim and hear growling. A bunch of little crocodiles eat them both.Nathan stands on the dock and has some kind of flashback to the previous film. Nathan, an EPA scientist, is old Mrs. Bickerman’s nephew, and he’s just inherited her cabin. The sheriff comes to visit Nathan, Susan, and their son, Connor. The sheriff tries to convince them that the crocodile incident will never happen again; he wants them to live here rather than sell the house. As they talk, Connor sees crocodiles outside and feeds them all…Two years later, Connor is still feeding the much-larger crocs. Susan leaves him with Vica, the babysitter. He sneaks out to the store to steal a big bag of meat for his pets. Nathan is out in the woods studying elk when he meets a group of campers. When they find a head, Nathan thinks it might have been Reba, a local poacher.Meanwhile, in town, Brett comes to see Reba. He wants to hire her to find a missing girl in the lake area.At home, the crocs eat Vica’s little yap-yap dog and then Vica as well. Out at the lake, those four hikers start getting picked off one-by-one.Connor and Susan try to help Vica, but the crocodiles are surrounding the house. He admits that he’s been feeding the crocs.Reba and her clients’ boat are attacked, which ruins the hunting party. Nathan and the sheriff’s boat as well. There’s a failed attempt for all the good guys to run to the car from the cabin, but that goes badly.Reba and Brett are attacked; the sheriff tries to run over a croc and gets eaten. They eventually make their way to Nathan’s place.Brett holds them all at gunpoint because he wants to go out and find Ellie, the last of the hikers. He soon finds her, and they kiss and make up just before a croc eats him. Everyone gets in Reba’s boat and goes to town.It’s the middle of the night, and most of the stores in town are closed. They break into Dmitri’s grocery store, the place Connor stole from earlier, and he’s got a gun. The crocodile outside makes sure nothing comes of that.Nathan, Susan, Connor, and Ellie run for the truck, leaving torn-apart Reba behind. The big croc chases them until they blow it up at the gas station.Time passes, and Nathan gives a lecture next to the lake about the extinct crocodiles that used to live there. Naturally, we see that they aren’t extinct at all.Brian’s CommentaryThis one was also made for TV, but it’s a lot better than the previous film. The crocs are all mediocre CGI, but once we get past that, the rest is pretty good. Anytime there’s any real action, the camera gets all shaky to make it look more exciting, and I found that annoying. The editing in other scenes is almost as bad.Still, it was miles better than part 2.Kevin’s CommentaryThe CGI. Sigh. So much obvious CGI.And the foreign touches creeped more around the edges because it wasn’t filmed in the United States, like the second film.I agree it was a little better than the second movie. Still not as good as the first.2012 Lake Placid: The Final Chapter* Director: Don Michael Paul* Writers: David Reed* Stars: Elisabeth Röhm, Yancy Butler, Paul Nicholls, and Robert Englund* Runtime: 90 minutes* YouTube Trailer Link: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneSome time has passed, and now the lake and surrounding area is enclosed with a big, sturdy electric fence to contain the crocodiles which are the only ones of their kind. But lots of people still make it inside, either deliberately or accidentally, and there’s a decent body count. Everything about it is decent, not awful, but it’s really just more of the same we’ve already seen.Spoilery SynopsisWe open on the final battle of the previous film, and it turns out that Reba’s not as dead as she looked before. As she limps out of the grocery store, credits roll as she kills one more croc.Sometime later, Sheriff Grove, Dennis, and now-Fish-and-Game ranger Reba, go out into a boat to look for one of the very rare crocodiles. They tranquilize and capture a small one, but there’s a report of bigger ones not far away. They all get into a truck and drive away, but a big croc chases them. The whole area is surrounded by an electric fence as a wildlife refuge for the protected animals. Dennis explains that the crocs are mutants that shouldn’t be getting so big.Loflin talks to his son, Max, who is working on the electric fence. The sheriff goes home to her daughter Chloe. They go out and look at all the young guys who like Chloe. Chloe’s got a senior camping trip this weekend, but she doesn’t really want to go.Poacher Jim Bickerman, along with Dennis and his men, sneak through the electric gate to go hunting crocs. They soon find one, and when it chases them, they can’t get out of the electric fence. The screams attract the attention of Max, who opens the gate and gets hauled off by a croc.Chloe and a busload of teens arrive at the “safe” beach, but Chloe thinks they might have gone to the wrong place. Sheriff Theresa and Loflin make out at home. Chloe tells the story of Mrs. Bickerman and her oversized crocodile pets. Chloe’s boyfriend, Drew, double-times her along with her friend Elaine.In the morning, the men call the sheriff, Reba, Loflin and the others. The gate was left open last night, and Max is now missing. One of the high school camping kids gets eaten by what appears to be… piranhas. Chloe finds Max out in the woods. Soon, everyone knows about the giant crocs on the beach.Loflin kills a croc and climbs down the thing’s throat to see what’s inside. The crocs have run out of food and are eating each other now. The sheriff’s group soon makes it to the beach and finds Chloe’s phone.Loflin and the sheriff find Dennis, who explains why he’s inside the fence. He’s soon eaten. The teen group catches up with Jim Bickerman on his boat. They all swim to the boat except for their coach, who is eaten. He doesn’t take them to the gate, he takes them to where he’s supposed to meet with Dennis (who’s already been croc-lunch).Everyone shows up at the same place, and Drew meets a croc. There’s lots of running and shooting, and eventually, everyone makes it to the gate, where they fry the big lizard on the electric fence.Bickerman, left behind, gets eaten. Max and Chloe, as well as Loflin and the sheriff, get together. Reba finally gets her croc head for the wall. We hear how Lake Placid is now clear of crocs– as we get an attack at Clear Lake.Brian’s CommentaryThat’s a mighty big lake to be surrounded by a high-voltage fence.Again, there’s not very much humor in this one; they are still taking it all pretty seriously. There’s a lot of action and the pacing is decent. It’s not awful, but it’s not anything innovative, either.Kevin’s CommentaryHaving Yancy Butler return as Reba was a bright spot.An electric fence that big and solid would cost a fortune. Plus the power to keep it energized and constant vigilance and repair to keep it running. It’s best not to think about the size of the lake shown on screen and the logistics of that fence.It’s still full of CGI. But the cast did a better job than the last couple movies, and the pacing was better. The crocs are still way too bullet resistant. The sequels have each gotten slightly better, but they still aren’t up to the first one.2015 Lake Placid vs. Anaconda* Director: A.B. Stone* Writers: Berkeley Anderson* Stars: Yancy Butler, Corin Nemec, and Robert Englund* Runtime: 92 minutes* YouTube Trailer Link: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIt’s the crossover we didn’t know we needed, fifth in both series. The crocs from the Lake Placid movies were contained until they decided to try to combine the giant anacondas with them, and things became a mess. There’s quite a body count in this one, and lots of CGI creature action and gore. It had more humor than the anaconda films, which we just saw as well. It’s middling, not awful but some entertainment value. Especially if you like watching lots of young women in bikinis.Spoilery SynopsisWe open on a group of people hunting an alligator in the woods. Jim Bickerman looks like he’s lost some limbs due to the local reptiles. The giant crocodile is taken to a lab where there’s also a giant snake. This whole area is full of protected crocs, and Jim knows how to get in and out. They inject some cells from a crocodile into an anaconda, which is about to lay eggs. Suddenly, the big croc wakes up and gets loose. In the ensuing scuffle, the snakes escape as well.At the Clear Lake State Recreation Area, we run into Tull, a wildlife cop. We also see Sheriff Reba in the next town over, where there is at least one missing person from the area around the Black Lake electric fence. If there’s trouble, the mayor is all set for a coverup. Deputy Ferguson is at Black Lake, and he’s found the mess from last night. Daphne, the missing girl, turns out to have a crocodile under her bed, which eats her.Sarah Murdoch, the daughter of the dead businessman of the previous Anaconda films, tells Mr. Beach about the blood orchids and immortality. The only animals that are compatible with the serum are anaconda and those special crocodiles.A couple of carloads of sorority girls are driving out to “prove themselves” at rush weekend. One of the girls is Bethany, Tully’s daughter.Some hunters get eaten by a swarm of tiny crocodiles.At the crime scene, Reba cuts open a croc and finds some remains inside. She calls Tully for some croc-assist.The sorority group is clear to point out that the famous crocodiles are in that other lake, not here. Everyone gets into the water, and we soon see someone get dragged under– no, it’s just two guys playing games.Sarah, Beach, and his men have a tracker in the female anaconda, hopefully before she lays eggs. They have the trackers and want Jim Bickerman to help them again.Reba and Tully find it’s strange that all the trackers in the crocs have gone offline. They have no trackers, but the crocs must be headed to Clear Lake. Tully calls his daughter, who is at the lake, but she’s not answering.A waterskier gets eaten on the lake, and we see a huge croc closing in on the sorority recruits. The waterskiing group soon learns they’re going to need a bigger boat. The sorority girls run to their cars, without keys, and watch as crocs close in on them.Sarah beats up Jim; she needs his help. Her whole group is soon out in the wilderness area looking for the missing anaconda.Tully and Reba are about to be eaten by a crocodile when the reptile is suddenly attacked and killed by a giant anaconda. They know about the crocs, but the giant snake is new for them.The anaconda squeezes the girls’ car, so now they have no way to get away. Tully, Reba, and Ferguson arrive and check out the wreckage on the beach. They find the girls’ crushed car and soon, the remaining three girls.Murdoch’s group steals a boat, and Jim goes for a swim. Beach and Murdoch argue about leaving Jim behind. They’re attacked by the male snake, but she won’t let him shoot it. They lose their goons, so now it’s just the two of them. They soon run into Tully, Reba, and the girls as well as an even-bigger female snake.Murdoch calls in a helicopter as the snakcs and crocs start fighting with each other. One of the snakes brings down the copter, and things get weird from there. One of the snakes swallows Beach whole, and he uses a grenade from inside. That’s messy.Elsewhere, Jim has finally swum to shore, and he’s thrilled.Tully gets the croc-tracker from Murdoch, so now he can start rounding up the loose crocodiles. One final croc attacks, and everyone shoots it at once.Somewhere in the woods, we watch as eggs hatch and tiny little snakes emerge…Brian’s CommentaryOther than the original Lake Placid, this is the first of that series that I’ve seen. It seems to lean more heavily on humor than the Anaconda series.It absolutely continued the ongoing story of the blood orchids and anacondas, although that never really did make much sense. This one was also made for TV, and it’s a lot cheesier and less serious that the previous Anaconda films.Kevin’s CommentaryThis was the fifth film in both series. We hadn’t done the Lake Placid movies (yet?) but that doesn’t matter much for seeing this one.Again, there’s heavy and obvious CGI use. Some humor, more than the solo Anaconda movies so far. It wasn’t too bad, I thought it was fairly entertaining, it moved well and wasn’t boring. I’d give it a 6 out of 10.Contact Info:Email: mailto:email@horrorguys.comWebsites:* https://www.horrorguys.com* https://www.horrormonthly.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.horrorweekly.com/subscribe | 29m 50s | ||||||
| 2/15/26 | ![]() Bight, Seven Cemeteries, Troll 2, Pumpkinhead 4, and Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla | We’ve got another mostly random mix this time around. We’ll start off with the weird BDSM-gone-wrong film, “Bight” from 2026. We’ll then watch Seven Samurai— no, “Seven Cemeteries” from 2024. We’ll force ourselves to watch the infamous “Troll 2,” finish up the franchise with “Pumpkinhead 4: Blood Feud,” and then continue our big lizard coverage with “Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla.”All this as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #53, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2026 Bight* Directed by: Maiara Walsh* Written by: Cameron Cowperthwaite, Maiara Walsh* Stars: Cameron Cowperthwaite, Mark Hapka, Maya Stojan* Run Time: 1 Hour, 32 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneTwo artsy couples get together for an evening of bondage, photography, sex, and emotional exploration. It takes a while, but it does eventually get to some horror-adjacent elements. It’s more of a drama thriller though, and it’s quite good. It wasn’t quite what either of us expected.Spoilery SynopsisTwo people hug in the shower as they wash blood off each other’s bodies. Credits roll.Charlie gets a call from her boss, Ariana, and she’s not happy. Her artist boyfriend, Atticus, works in the living room. The couple is not getting along very well. They’re going to Sebastian’s party, but neither of them want to go to this one.Turns out, this party is just for them. Sebastian and Naomi have invited only Charlie and Atticus. Charlie keeps getting texts as the men talk about photography. Charlie and Atticus argue some more, and then we see that Sebastian and Naomi aren’t getting along so well either.Sebastian gets all pretentious during dinner and we get a flashback to the last time the four got together; it was an orgy. This time, he wants to use his two guests as nude models. Charlie is all in, but Atticus doesn’t want to participate; they’ve done this before, and he doesn’t want to repeat last time. They decide to go for it.Sebastian puts something in everyone’s tea. He explains the rules of his work with ropes and then everyone splits up to get ready. Naomi ties Atticus’s hands behind his back as the drugs start to kick in. Soon, they’re both bound up, naked, with ropes, and Sebastian starts to take pictures. Naomi, in the meantime, covers them with red paint.Neither Charlie nor Atticus are really into this, and both are really uncomfortable, but it’s hard to argue with Sebastian. As they all take a break, Sebastian gets with Charlie, while Naomi goes for Atticus.We then cut to a bedroom scene with Atticus tied up on the floor and Naomi suspended by ropes from the ceiling above them. Sebastian has sex with Charlie as the other two watch in restraints. Naomi wants to be released, and Sebastian says no way; he’s punishing her for having sex with Atticus. This is all some kind of elaborate revenge plot by Sebastian against the cheaters. When Atticus realizes Naomi drugged him, he urges Sebastian to spin her ropes some more.Charlie has seen enough and wants to leave, so Sebastian just knocks her out. He puts her in a gas mask and ties her up. He then cuts Naomi’s throat and lets her bleed all over Atticus, who is still tied up beneath her.As Sebastian menaces Charlie, Atticus breaks out of his ropes and intervenes. In the struggle, Sebastian gets stabbed numerous times with a box cutter and then strangled with a rope.Atticus apologizes to Charlie and unties her. The two of them then clean up the mess. Then when they get to their car in the morning they have wild sex; their romance has rekindled.Some time later, at one of Atticus’s art shows, he reveals his new works; at least in his mind, Sebastian is still with him.Brian’s CommentaryBight: a loop of rope, as distinct from the rope’s ends.This film looks great. It’s colorful and is very interestingly shot. The dialogue is clunky and pretentious, but the characters are all “artists,” so that’s probably just realism.It took a very long time to get to anything that might be considered horror, but it did get there eventually.It’s weird, a little dull and draggy in the first half, but overall, I liked it.Kevin’s CommentaryThe bight/bite play on words is clever.It flowed along with a lot of talk, and then it got realer than I expected when Sebastian stepped things up a bit. All in all, it wasn’t what I expected, and I liked it quite a bit.What a way to rekindle your relationship.2024 Seven Cemeteries* Directed by: John Gulager* Written by: John Gulager, Joel Soisson* Stars: Danny Trejo, Sal Lopez, Samantha Ashley* Run Time: 1 Hour, 24 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThe plot is simple. A recent parolee gets a Mexican witch to resurrect his old posse so that they can help him save a woman’s ranch from a ruthless drug lord. So it’s an action crime drama with magic and lots of dark humor. We both thought it was really good.Spoilery SynopsisIn Diablo County, Texas, men come to an isolated ranch, and Matteo, the man who lives there, grabs his gun. The old man in the car wants to buy the farm, and he’s not going to take no for an answer. That goes really bad for Matteo.We cut to Santana Bravo, being released from prison, where he’s been since 1973, as credits roll. We’re told he was falsely accused of murder and spent 41 years in prison. He goes to Diablo County and goes to that same ranch for a job from Matteo. Matteo’s wife, Carmela, wants to hire him for protection from the old Abuelo.Sheriff Jake shows up, and oddly, all their body cameras aren’t working. He marches Bravo out into the field, and shoots him in the back three times.Bravo wakes up some time later in the home of a bruja, an enchantress, and her husband, Miguelito is a zombie. She also wants him to stand up to Abuelo. Back in the day, Abuelo killed Bravo’s wife. He became a legend in the region for standing up to Abuelo back in ‘73. He’s old now, and not up to the fight anymore. She says he “needs a crew” and can make one by standing over a grave and bleeding.Bravo goes off to do the job, and he takes Miguelito with him. Miguel explains what it’s like to be dead, and he doesn’t mind it too much. They head to cemetery number one and Bravo cuts himself and bleeds into the grave. His blood explodes dramatically, and when the fire clears, dead Eugene is back, out of the grave, awake, and not too happy to be there.At the next cemetery, they wake up another corpse, Tommy LaSorda. Tommy and Eugene don’t get along, and they wreck their truck. They quickly manage to steal another one. They all drive to another cemetery and dig up Quasimodo, the dead professional wrestler and his girlfriend Delores, both buried in their luchadore costumes.At the fifth cemetery, they wake up Stickface, a homicidal hockey player.Meanwhile, back at the farm, Camela and her mother get ready for a fight when Abuelo returns in the morning. Sheriff Jake and his men arrive in force, and they want trouble. Jake is the first to die in the ensuing fire fight.Then the dead arrive and mess up the killers. They are not gentle, and there’s some great carnage. Carmela is a little surprised to find Bravo with an army of zombies who all introduce themselves. “One problem at a time,” she tells her elderly mother.As everyone gets set working to reinforce the house, Quasimodo sings to Delores. They learn that there are tunnels under the farm that leads across the border.Hector reports to El Abuelo about their defeat at the ranch earlier in the morning, and the old man is not happy. El Abuelo then grabs Miguel and plays the accordion for him. Miguel doesn’t torture well. He warns Abuelo that the others are “Way less chill.” Then they put him through a wood chipper.At cemetery number six, Bravo and Carmela visit Matteo’s grave. They talk about Guadalupe, Bravo’s long-dead wife.The bad guys grab the bruja and drop her off at the ranch. She’s wearing a big bomb, the same way Abuelo killed Guadalupe many years ago. She goes boom, and the zombies are not pleased. Bravo’s got nothing to offer them now; he had promised that the bruja would restore them to real life, but that’s not gonna happen now. That’s OK, as they all want revenge now.The baddies return with missiles, and they blow up Stickface. The gang heads down to the cellar and the tunnels to head for Mexico. All the zombies want to blow up the tunnels and bury themselves to save Bravo, Carmela, and the old lady.Bravo is killed anyway, but Carmela’s mother revives him. When they get to the other side of the tunnel, Abuelo is waiting for them. The old man gets the drop on them, but then, out of nowhere, Miguel’s severed hand crawls up the old man’s pants and does bad things to him. Bravo and Carmela finish him off.At cemetery number seven, Bravo reburies all his zombie friends. Bravo and Mihuel’s hand walk off to have further adventures.Brian’s CommentaryThis is great, it pokes fun at westerns, Mexican wrestlers, revenge films, zombie tropes, and everything else it can throw in. Mostly, though, it follows the basic plot of “Seven Samurai.” It’s more comedy than horror, but it’s about zombies, so there’s that. Danny Trejo’s getting a little old to be doing physical stunts and violence, but as the leader of the group, he does well here. The array of dead characters is fun, especially Lew Temple as Tommy Lasorda.Kevin’s CommentaryI thought the humor in this was excellent. The script is very good, taking an old idea and adding the element of the undead to liven it up. I’d say it was my favorite Danny Trejo movie that I’ve seen.2007 Pumpkinhead 4: Blood Feud* Directed by: Michal Hurst* Written by: Michael Hurst* Stars: Lance Henriksen, Rob Freeman, Amy Manson* Run Time: 1 Hour, 35 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneWhen a young McCoy loves a young Hatfield, their family feud works to keep them apart. When a younger McCoy is killed, it’s revenge time! Which in these parts means it’s time for Pumpkinhead again. The plot’s a little basic, but it’s well made with practical effects that look good, and steady pacing.Spoilery SynopsisA couple of guys on motorcycles race through the woods, being pursued by something. One guy crashes, and Pumpkinhead kills him. Elsewhere, in a cabin, a man collapses in pain. The other cyclist arrives outside the man’s door and demands that he “call it off.” He shoots the man, and Pumpkinhead vanishes. The ghost of Ed Harley appears and tells him that he’s not going to escape vengeance. Credits roll.Five years later, it’s a McCoy wedding party. Two Hatfields show up and aren’t allowed in. Jodie and her brothers understand but don’t like it.Inside, Ricky is weird, and everyone notices. A group of Hatfields come in the side door and soon, it’s an all-out brawl fight. Jodie Hatfield does not approve. Papa Hatfield explains the origins of the feud to her, and she’d never heard the story before; they put Uncle Abner in a wheelchair by running him over. Abner himself isn’t too angry about it; he knows that Jodie is dating Ricky.Jodie and Ricky meet in the woods, and Ricky’s younger sister Sarah comes along to be the lookout. When a couple of the Hatfield brothers show up, Sarah is killed in a fall. They drag Ricky behind their truck until the rope breaks. Ricky runs back and finds Sarah’s body in the woods.Ricky takes Sarah’s body to the old woman in the woods. Ed Harley comes to her and tells her not to help Ricky, but she wants to help Ricky get his revenge. Ricky insists on revenge, and he wants Pumpkinhead specifically to help. If anyone in a horror movie was ever warned that revenge is a bad idea, it would be Ricky, who just won’t listen to talk about “paying the price.” Old Haggis does the ritual.In the morning, Ricky takes Sarah home to the McCoys, who are not pleased. Haggis does her thing in the pumpkin patch, and Pumpkinhead rises again. Soon after, Hatfields start dying.Ed Harley appears to Jodie and explains that only she can stop what’s going to happen. Ricky comes to her and explains that he’s done something that will fix everything.Sheriff Dallas sees Ed. Five years ago, he was warned that Pumpkinhead would be coming back, and now, his time has come.At Sarah’s funeral, Ricky feels pain when the next group of Hatfields dies. Dallas tells old man Hatfield about Pumpkinhead.Jodie goes to Haggis’s house and finds the pumpkin field. Better yet, she runs right into Pumpkinhead, but he doesn’t hurt her.Four more Hatfields go to the McCoy house and set it on fire. Jodie helps out the old woman inside, but she doesn’t get a lot of thanks.This is enough that the McCoys and Hatfields finally make peace. Old Man McCoy has no idea that Ricky’s behind all the carnage. Now, both sides decide to work together to stop Ricky and Pumpkinhead. Sheriff Dallas explains that the only way to stop this is to kill Ricky. Sherriff explains his story, which we saw in the pre-credit sequence.Pumpkinhead attacks the house, full of both McCoys and Hatfields. Ed reminds Jodie that only she can stop this. Soon, there are a lot of dead bodies inside. Ed comes for Dallas, who has to face the monster. The fight moves outside, where Pumpkinhead disembowls Dallas. It comes for Jodie’s younger sister, and Jodie has to make a decision. In the end, she shoots Ricky. He’s still not dead, but he grabs Pumpkinhead and they both fall into a well.Ed appears again and says she “done good.”Brian’s CommentaryHatfields and McCoys? Wasn’t that cliche a hundred years before even this film was made. Lame plot aside, it’s nicely paced, well acted (mostly), and doesn’t get boring. The Pumpkinhead creature looks as good as ever, and he’s still pretty effective for a guy in a rubber suit.It’s entertaining. A long way from great, but not terrible, either.Kevin’s CommentaryHaggis does keep trying to warn these people, but they just don’t listen.I appreciated the practical effects, and the creature looks good even fully visible in the light.There were many moments of neither family being too bright. But it is well put together, and I’d put it as my number two favorite after the first movie.1990 Troll 2* Directed by: Claudio Fragasso* Written by: Claudio Fragasso, Rossella Drudi* Stars: Michel Paul Stephenson, George Hardy, Margo Prey* Run Time: 1 Hour, 35 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIt has nothing to do with the first “Troll” movie, and doesn’t even have Trolls. They go to a town infested with goblins and a witch. It’s a bad movie, but it’s a good bad movie. It’s stupid, but it’s fun and entertaining.Spoilery SynopsisWe hear about Peter, lost in the woods. He found some ugly small people, goblins, who followed him. This is all a bedtime story told by Grandpa to little Josh. He explains that goblins are evil little creatures. Credits roll as the goblins hunt Peter.Grandpa insists that goblins still exist and that Peter came to a bad end. They turned him into a half-plant and ate him. Josh’s mother comes in, and we see that Grandpa isn’t real. “I see him in front of me, and he’s so real.” Grandpa’s funeral was six months ago.Josh and his family are going on a monthlong vacation to Nilbog in the country tomorrow. Elliott comes over and makes both Joshua and Holly scream, but the parents downstairs don’t hear a thing. Elliott invites himself along on the trip.In the morning, Elliott is really late, and the family leaves without Elliott. Dad’s thrilled, Holly is not. Elliott and all his friends are not far behind in an RV. Joshua imagines himself getting sick and turning into a plant. On the way, the ghost of Grandpa tells Josh to make his family turn back.The family arrives at Nilbog, and there’s no one in the town. Dad says “Farmers sleep this time of night,” but it’s clearly mid-afternoon. They take a family’s house and trade keys as some of the locals head to the city. They go inside and find a bunch of food waiting for them. Grandpa warns Joshua not to let them eat, so he pees all over the table and food. “You can’t piss on hospitality– I won’t allow it!” yells Dad.Elliott’s group parks in a field and wonders where all the girls are. Arnold goes outside and soon finds one. He chases her into the woods and learns that the goblins made her eat that green stuff. The goblins show up, and stab Arnold.They run to a strange house with an even stranger woman inside. She’s Creedence Leonore Gielgud, and her ancestors are from Stonehenge. She appears to be a witch. The girl turns into a plant; “She’s food for my children!” says Creedence. The goblins rush in and eat the woman.At home, Holly plans her revenge against Elliott, who never does anything without his friends. She gets a vision of Dead Grandpa, and Dad thinks she’s been smoking dope.The sheriff picks up another of Elliott’s friends, and right away offers him some green food. He’s dropped off at the local general store, and the place has a weird variety of foods. “We’re vegetarians here in Nilbog,” says the store owner. He gives him some “special” milk.Joshua finally figures out what “Nilbog” spelled backwards is and freaks out. Back at the house, Creedence brings Josh’s mother some green cake. Josh comes across a strange church service where the goblins complain about meat.Drew arrives at the church-house and tries to rescue Arnold, who’s mostly a potted plant now. Creedence returns and takes a chainsaw to Arnold, but he laughs as it only tickles.Holly goes to see Elliott and punches him. Josh and his dad arrive and pull her out of there. When they return home, the whole village has come to sing and dance; Mom’s invited them all inside. Josh warns about goblins again and reminds everyone not to eat the food.A goblin attacks Josh, but Grandpa Seth appears with an ax and cuts its hand off. Back at the church, Creedence loses an arm– that she soon regrows. The old ghost then gives little Josh a Molotov cocktail to use downstairs.The leader of the goblins catches on and sends Grandpa back to Hell. That goes badly for both of them, but when Dad puts the fire out, he just sees a burnt goblin there. The whole family soon realizes that the goblin stories are true and hide inside the house.Creedence prays to Stonehenge for more power, and soon, she’s young and normal-looking. She then shows up outside the RV, and Brent, Elliott’s last friend, goes outside to see. They both have sexy corn on the cob… and popcorn.The family, meanwhile, tries really hard to make a seance work so that Grandpa Seth can return. The old ghost talks about destroying the stone that gives the goblins their power, but then the goblins break in and start attacking. There’s a great deal of running around and screaming until Josh finds himself in the church-house (which is apparently now in the basement of the family house).Grandpa tells Josh what to do with the stone. Creedence starts getting ugly again and calls for her goblins, who vanish, leaving the family alone. Creedence looks on in horror as Josh eats a meat sandwich and then touches the magic rock.The whole family helps Josh touch the rock, and soon, all the baddies are dead.Back in the city, the family returns to their real home. Joshua’s mother eats an apple right away. Josh soon finds that his mother is being eaten. “Do you want some, Joshua?”Brian’s CommentaryThis is often cited as one of the best “So bad it’s good” movies, and it’s clear to see why. It’s hard to tear your eyes away from this, as it’s weird at every turn. The acting is atrocious all around, except for Deborah Reed as Creedence, who deserved some kind of overacting award– so bad that she wraps around to awesome.It’s really something.Kevin’s CommentaryGoblins, trolls, Goldberg, iceberg - same thing.Reading the trivia, it’s impressive the movie came out as well as it did. The director only spoke Italian, as did the crew except for one member who acted as translator. And the cast were mostly a bunch of locals who showed up thinking they were just going to be extras and got lead, supporting, and extra roles.Some movies have gallons of blood, this one had gallons of green. I wonder how much green food coloring got used in production. And yogurt. Lots of yogurt.It’s awful but fun.2002 Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla* Directed by: Masaaki Tezuka, Kazuki Omori* Written by: Wataru Mimura* Stars: Yumiko Shaku, Shin Takuma, Kana Onodera* Run Time: 1 Hour, 28 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneWhen a new Godzilla appears, they use the remains of the 1954 Godzilla to make… a MechaGodzilla to fight him. Of course it’s not that simple as complications arise, politics are worked out, and Godzilla is tough and stubborn. There’s more CGI used this time, and they blend pretty well with the practical effects. It’s an entertaining one. Brian thought it was one of the better ones, Kevin was entertained but thought it was a bit mundane.Spoilery SynopsisIt’s 1999, and the Japanese military is getting ready for action. A typhoon is coming, and a big one at that. Not only does it rain really hard, but it drives Godzilla ashore. The Anti-Megalosaurus Force (AMF) is deployed. They bring tanks and rocket launchers, and those work as well as they always do against Godzilla. The Maser gets his attention, but that goes badly for the troops. Credits roll.The news reports that the attack was carried out by a monster similar to the Godzilla of 1954 (I guess we’re ignoring all the sequels again). The Prime Minister remembers how the original was defeated; Dr. Serizawa’s weapon has never been duplicated. Mothra and other monsters have attacked over the years, but have always been repelled. What can they do against Godzilla, though?Meanwhile, at the AMF, Akane Yashiro is cleared from any wrongdoing in the loss of her Maser crew. Still, she’s been transferred to a desk job.We cut to a science lab where Dr. Yuhara, the professor, talks about animal-machine hybrids. He’s soon taken to the Defense Agency to work on a new project. There’s a whole conference table of scientists invited to work on the project. They have found the skeleton of the original 1954 Godzilla and have taken cells to make a bio-robot. They want to make a robotic version of Godzilla and make it even stronger than the new one.Yuhara doesn’t want to get involved, but his daughter, Sara, convinces him to take the job. Four years pass, and the construction proceeds.Akane hates her desk job, but she’s done well in her years of punishment and is finally invited to join the Mechagodzilla team as a pilot. Colonel Togoshi runs the Kiryu project, and it’s nearing completion. The team undergoes extensive military combat training. At the base, Yuhara likes Akane, but she doesn’t even know who he is. They soon find out.The machine is soon finished, and they present it to everyone on the news. It’s powered by DNA computers, the fastest available, as well as a freeze-ray. Suddenly, they spot the real Godzilla on the radar. What perfect timing!Mechagodzilla is airlifted to the coast to wait for big G’s arrival. People flee through the streets.Mechagodzilla attacks with missiles, rockets, lightning, and everything else it has. The absolute zero gun is ready to fire, but all of a sudden, something inside Mechagodzilla wakes up. The original Godzilla DNA cells remember its own death and lets the new one escape.Suddenly, Mechagodzilla shoots at the human’s fighter planes. It then unloads all its weapons against Tokyo’s skyline. In about an hour, it’ll run out of power, but that’s going to be a really long hour.Togashi tells the Prime Minister that it’s a design flaw and that they can fix it. They need the Kiryu project for the next time Godzilla shows up. They retrieve the powered-down machine and get to work fixing the problem. Godzilla’s road was what triggered the machine’s memories.Sara yells at her father about how adults treat living things. She says the thing inside Mechagodzilla is suffering. Akane talks to her about moving on from her mother’s death.There’s another Godzilla sighting, followed by another evacuation. His atomic breath makes short work of the conventional defenses. They don’t really want to try Kiryu again, but what choice do they have?They launch Mechagodzilla again, and the battle continues. Mechagodzilla’s got a jetpack and a wide variety of weapons, but Godzilla’s got atomic breath. Just as Mechagodzilla’s power starts to fail, Godzilla falls over. Akane activates the absolute zero weapon, and that goes badly for Tokyo.Mechagodzilla is knocked out, and Akane has to physically go inside the thing to reactivate it while the scientists figure out a way to recharge it; they drain the whole city’s power.Togashi crashes his fighter plane into Godzilla’s mouth to keep it from firing at Akane. She grabs the big lizard and dumps him in the ocean. When she finally has the power to shoot the absolute zero weapon, she turns Godzilla into an iceberg. That doesn’t last, but it does convince Godzilla to go back to the ocean.They couldn’t destroy Godzilla, but they beat it away this time. The PM declares it a great victory. Akane watches as Godzilla walks out into the ocean. Will they get a rematch?Brian’s CommentaryKiryu: Mechanical DragonAlthough not perfect, this is the first of the series to use CGI fairly well. There’s a lot of it, but it’s mostly pretty good and not super-obviously CGI. The battles look far more realistic this time around, and both creatures look good.I’m not super clear about what was going on with Sara, but everything else made sense.This was one of the better ones in my opinion.Kevin’s CommentaryScience. So much science. DNA computers, and microwave blasters, and low temperature blasters, and giant cyborg robots oh my.This one had a lot of military vs. Godzilla, creature combat, and collateral damage. It also seemed a little heavier on the people and what they were doing.It was entertaining enough, but I didn’t feel like it was much we hadn’t seen before.Contact Info:Email: mailto:email@horrorguys.comWebsites:* https://www.horrorguys.com* https://www.horrormonthly.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.horrorweekly.com/subscribe | 32m 28s | ||||||
| 2/8/26 | ![]() Anaconda, Anacondas, Anaconda 3: Offspring, 4: Trail of Blood, and Chinese Anaconda | We watched the original “Anaconda” (1997) film a couple of years ago, but this week, we’re completing the series.We’ll start off this time with the second film, “Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid” (2004), then the two real sequels, “Anaconda 3: Offspring” (2008) and “Anaconda: Trail of Blood” (2009). Then we’ll watch last year’s Chinese remake, “Anaconda” (2024). Lastly, we’ll watch the recently-released mostly-comedy, “Anaconda” (2025).All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #53, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2004 Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid* Director: Dwight H. Little* Writers: Hans Bauer, Jim Cash* Stars: Morris Chestnut, KaDee Strickland, Eugene Byrd* Runtime: 97 minutes* YouTube Trailer Link:Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneWhen a pharmaceutical company gets information on an orchid that only blooms for a limited time, only grows in Borneo, and could have incredible medical uses, a group goes off on an expedition to collect some. As the title hints, there are big snakes in the mix. And human mistakes and greed. It’s not a great film, but it’s well put together and managed to entertain us both.Spoilery SynopsisAs credits roll, we open on some jungle people hunting a tiger, or maybe it’s hunting them. The tiger might be the least of these guys’ problems, as a giant anaconda eats them instead.In the big city, Gordon is about to lose his pharmaceutical company for lack of performance. Jack explains about the blood orchid, a plant in Borneo that’s extremely rare and might be able to extend human life indefinitely. The orchid is only in bloom for another two weeks, so they need to hurry to Borneo and find some more.In Borneo, there’s trouble with the charter boat; no one will go upriver until the rainy season ends… in three weeks. There’s one guy who will do it; Gordon, Gail, and Jack go into a seedy bar and find Bill Johnson, who wants fifty thousand for the journey. Ben, Cole, Tran, and some other characters introduce themselves at the docks the next day. There’s some banter and hijinks as we get to know the characters a little.Bill’s little monkey pet takes a side quest and runs into trouble. They can hear the screams on the boat. In the morning, they all wonder where the monkey went.Gail falls overboard and runs into a crocodile. Bill shows us that he’s a badass and fights it. We see, but the characters don’t, as the anaconda eats the whole dead crocodile. Also, the not-so-dead monkey comes back for an unexpected jump scare.Because of the rainy season, the river is flooded, and debris jams the propellers; now they’re headed towards a waterfall in the broken boat. There’s literally no possible way the boat could survive going over the waterfall, and we were pleasantly surprised that it didn’t. With everyone in the water, we see the snake again, but it doesn’t get anyone.Bill has a plan to hike to a place where they can be rescued. It only involves a short walk through the jungle. Bill calls his friend John to come and pick them up at a rendezvous point. The group then has to walk through a flooded region, and we see the snake is right alongside them. When the snake reveals itself and eats Ben, everyone sees it.Bill says that was the largest he’s ever seen, a real freak of nature. Fortunately, they’re very territorial, so there won’t be another one for miles. Gail calls off the expedition, but Jack and Gordon refuse to stop. They all argue about how much is riding on this expedition. Cole is the “We’re all gonna die” guy, and he gets annoying fast. He shuts up when he finds leeches all over his body.Meanwhile, at the boat, John is attacked by the anaconda and crashes the boat. The group finds the wreckage and manages to salvage a few things. Tran mentions that maybe they can find help with a nearby tribe of headhunters. When they find John’s body, Bill explains how anacondas spit up their food, also how they all congregate during mating season, so there may be more than just one.They come to the tribe’s camp and it smells bad. There’s a dead anaconda there with half a man hanging out of it. The villagers are all gone now. Jack figures out that these anacondas are so big because they’ve been eating the orchids and have become immortal: they may never stop growing.Jack unleashes a poison spider on Gordon, who tries to use the sat phone to call for help. Jack doesn’t want to quit just yet. The snake shows up and eats Gordon, who is too paralyzed to fight back. Jack then steals the raft while everyone’s distracted.The others try to follow Jack on foot, and naturally, they get separated. Tran gets eaten, but Sam beheads the snake. Whoops- another sneak jumps out and grabs Cole, who miraculously survives.Jack, Meanwhile, heads downriver and finds his orchids. The others soon catch up, and they all know what Jack did. The flowers are surrounded by baby anacondas, and Sam is forced to retrieve them. There’s a struggle over the bag of flowers and Jack is bitten by one of those spiders and falls into the nest. The snakes are all so distracted by eating him that Sam escapes.Bill shoots a flare gun, and the whole rain-soaked hillside explodes, burying the nest, the flowers, and everything else. Bill, Sam, Cole, and Gail all laugh at their luck as they row the raft further downstream.Brian’s CommentaryIt’s got a very “TV Movie” vibe to it, but it was, in fact, a theatrical release. It’s also the last film in the franchise to focus mostly on practical effects, but there’s still plenty of CGI going on.The story is very predictable, and you know how it’s all going to play out. Still, it’s nicely paced, the characters are distinctive, and it more or less all makes sense.It’s not great, but it’s entertaining if you like big CGI snakes.Kevin’s CommentaryI was bracing myself for awfulness and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t too bad. Quite entertaining in fact. The use of CGI is heavy and obvious, but the story moves well and the cast does a decent job. Watching it was a pleasurable experience.2008 Anaconda 3: Offspring* Director: Don E. FauntLeRoy* Writers: Nicholas Davidoff, David C. Olson* Stars: David Hasselhoff, Crystal Allen, Ryan McCluskey, Patrick Regis, John Rhys-Davies, Anthony Green.* Runtime: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes* YouTube Trailer Link: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThe blood orchid from the previous movie only works on snakes, and works very well, in the lab - which they bust out of. The company wants to keep it quiet, so a team of expendables are sent to retrieve them. It’s watchable, but pretty low effort and mediocre. The sequels are not heading the right direction in quality.Spoilery SynopsisWe open on four men walking through the woods (it doesn’t look like the jungle), and there’s a big snake crawling through the trees above them. Suddenly, they’re attacked by the snake, and there’s a lot of shooting. Credits roll.Mr. Murdoch listens to a report on the testing of a new drug that had horrible results. He tells Pinkus that PETA has been complaining about the company and the leak that told them about it. They have a queen anaconda in their lab. They’ve been working on blood orchid extract, and it seems to be working, but only in snakes right now; it’s lethal in humans.They’re experiments with the serum have made aggressive giant snakes. Amanda Hayes is the herpetologist of the facility, and she wants bigger, stronger cages. She picks up right away that Murdoch is dying and wants the serum to live longer.The big snake breaks through the glass and kills a technician. The base goes on lockdown as the snake disappears. It bites the head off a security guard on the way to the queen. Amanda goes to the main lab, but the queen is now gone. The snakes were smart enough to break out. Murdoch orders Pinkus and Grozny to take control of the situation.We cut to Hammett, the guy we saw in the opening scene, selling rhino horns on the black market. We see that he’s a badass even without the wild animals. Pinkus calls him to hunt the snake. The ragtag collection of diverse caricatures heads off to hunt the snake.Elsewhere, a farmer has some misadventures and finds himself inside a snake. The team shows up, searches, and Grozny is impaled. Everyone blasts the snake with machine guns, but nothing stops the snake.Amanda and Pinkus come face to face with the huge snake. Hammett finally shows up and immediately explains a plan and starts giving orders. There’s an extended chase scene through the woods. Victor and Sofia don’t last long against the snake. Amanda escapes but then has a flashback to all the people she’s watched die.Everyone comes to the conclusion that Amanda knows more than she’s telling. She admits that they messed with the snake’s DNA and it got a little… mutated. Also, the queen is pregnant and will be giving birth very soon. The offspring will be useful in developing the health serum. But they all know that would be bad news for the country if they are allowed to live free.The snakes arrive, and Pinkus dies. Hammett calls the local army guy and asks for backup, but he’s clearly not into that and might have faked the call. The snakes, meanwhile, slither into the local lake that’s really near the town.Amanda and Nick follow the snake into an old factory, and there’s a lot of hide-and-seek. It finds Nick first, but he feeds it a grenade. That’s one dead snake, but the queen is still out there.We cut back to Murdoch, who’s on the phone with someone we don’t know, making some kind of plan.Hammett shoots Andre in the back and holds Amanda at gunpoint; he wants those baby snakes - he’s been promised 10 million bucks for one. He and Amanda fight, but he doesn’t see the big snake behind him until it’s too late, or her knife stabbing him in the belly. Amanda throws a bomb at Hammett, the queen, and the baby snakes. The bomb blows up everything as Amanda walks back to the car.Murdoch’s other man goes back to the blown-up factory and retrieves some surviving baby snakes. On the way out, he passes Amanda, who’s burning all the science-y records.This story isn’t over…Brian’s CommentaryThis one was made for TV by the Sci-Fi channel simultaneously with the fourth film. The CGI is just atrociously bad with the snake. The characters are all cliched “types” that you’d expect to see in a cheaply made film.The writers must have seen “Predator” a few times, as some of the characters and situations were ripped right from that film. In the previous film, the tough guy was killing anacondas with the throw of a knife; here, six guys empty their Uzis into one, repeatedly, and it doesn’t slow down.It ends with a bit of a cliffhanger, obviously leading into the fourth film. Murdoch and his assistant are still alive and have a snake. Amanda is still alive, and she may or may not be back to fight snakes again.It’s OK, but far from great. It’s got Hasselhoff, which is a big indicator of the quality of the film.Kevin’s CommentaryThe CGI is pretty bad in this one. And the story. And the characters. It’s made for TV production, and it shows.I understand that the snake was supercharged with a serum, but it couldn’t have been nearly as bullet proof as it was in this production. Though a grenade in the mouth finally does the trick for one of them. Like the previous film, human greed and mistakes play a big factor.I thought it was watchable, and I didn’t truly hate it, but it was low level entertainment.2009 Anacondas: Trail of Blood* Director: Don E. FauntLeRoy* Writers: David C. Olson* Stars: Crystal Allen, Linden Ashby, Danny Midwinter, and John Rhys-Davies* Runtime: 1 hour, 29 minutes* YouTube Trailer Link:Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThis one follows the third movie closely as a sequel, with surviving baby snakes, Alex, and Murdoch back for more. As well as a bunch of new snake victims. Greed and mistakes are still supporting characters as well. It’s on par in overall quality with the third film, maybe a hair better. And if you saw that one you should see this one to see how things wrap up.Spoilery SynopsisWith the retrieval of the blood orchid and the anaconda babies, the research continues in Peter’s lab. Now, the snakes can regenerate when their heads are cut off. We get a good look at the lab, and the big snake clearly wants out. It easily escapes and kills the scientist who had the snake at the end of the previous film.At Murdoch’s house, Eugene arrives to pick up a million dollars if he’ll do a little job for Murdoch. Murdoch thinks the scientist stole the orchid formula and is offering it to the highest bidder. He wants Peter the scientist dead, and also Amanda if she should show up.Meanwhile, in Eastern Europe (that’s where anacondas live, right?), a hiker gets lost in the woods. Alex has no idea how to read a paper map. He runs into Amanda and her two policeman assistants. They find signs of a big predator.Not long after, Jackson, an archaeologist, tells his crew about the important discovery they’re about to make. They stop at a fallen tree and have to walk the rest of the way to their camp. They mention that there’s no cell service or radio out here.Amanda’s group finds Peter’s enhanced orchids in his lab. She plants bombs to wipe out the flowers, but then the snake shows up and kills the two policemen. Amanda and Alex make their way out through a mine shaft. She hears the snake roaring behind her (do snakes roar now?) The snake is about to kill her when part of the roof collapses on it, and she gets away.Jackson arrives in the dig’s camp, but there aren’t any people here. They’ve all gone missing. He soon finds their partially eaten bodies, but it’s too late in the afternoon to go back, so they have to camp there. By the time the rest of the team arrives, all the bodies have gone missing.Eugene’s crew of assassins arrive at Peter’s lab.Heather gets stung by a poisonous spider and gets sick, so they can’t all just walk out the woods today. There’s a whole, “we have to drain the poison” scene that looks pretty nasty. Jackson leaves her and Wendy at camp while they walk up to the excavation site. Jackson soon finds the bodies of the other team.Alex runs through the woods, but Amanda has his lost car keys. She shows up and runs into the snake just in time to save Alex. She shoots at the snake, which draws the attention of both Eugene and Jackson’s groups. Everyone runs, but some of them aren’t fast enough.Eugene then takes everyone hostage and insists that Amanda go and get the serum from the snake. Amanda explains to Scott about the serum, the orchids, and the snake. They stop at Peter’s house and Amanda finds the serum. Some of it is spilled, which is going to attract the big one.Something blows up, and everyone runs in different directions. Scott sacrifices himself so that Amanda can get away. She blows up the snake, but it soon starts to regenerate.Murdoch shows up at Eugene’s campsite. Vasile, the policeman who we thought died, is there, and he wants more money. Eugene double-crosses Murdoch, but shoots Vasile by mistake. Jackson knocks out Eugene and takes his gun.Amanda and Jackson confront Murdoch, who wants the serum. He lets them go; the two of them, along with Alex and Heather get into a car and drive off. Murdoch injects himself with the serum, which immediately attracts the snakes. He’s healthy now, a very healthy snack for the big snake.Amanda stops the car and blows up all the orchids.Eugene wakes up and finds everyone is either dead or gone. He jumps on the back of Amanda’s car to escape and shoots Amanda. Jackson and Eugene fight on the roof of the car, with the anaconda right behind them. Amanda pulls the pins on Eugene’s grenades, and he and the snake blow into a million pieces.As everyone drives off, we see that there are still snakes out there.Brian’s CommentaryThe snake sounds like a roaring lion every time we see it. I’m not sure why Amanda was so intent on blowing up the flowers, since curing cancer is usually considered a good thing. They don’t really need the snakes, that’s just a side effect of the testing.The film mostly continues the plot from part three, but also incorporates some of the ideas of the second film as well. There’s not much connection to the original at all.It does wrap up the previous film. Otherwise, it’s pretty lackluster.Kevin’s CommentaryIn addition to the roaring lion that Brian mentioned, there’s often the sound effect of a rattlesnake.Machine gun shooting 101 - it’s a lot more effective to aim at what you want to shoot rather than randomly waving the gun in the air while holding the trigger down. There was too much of that - from pros who would know better.It was a missed opportunity not showing the blown up pieces regenerating into new snakes after they left, but we’ll have to be satisfied with one still surviving being shown.I thought it was consistent with the previous film, maybe a little better. I didn’t hate it but it’s pretty middling.2024 Anaconda (Chinese)* Director: Xiang Qiuliang and Xiang Hesheng* Stars: Terence Yin, Nita Xia, Paul Che, Jiu Kong, Ken Lok, Wang Xing Chen, Wang Gang, Wang Zi Run, Xu Shao Hang, and Wu Hao* Runtime: 1 Hour, 24 Minutes* YouTube Trailer Link: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThis is a Chinese reboot of the 1997 original movie, not a sequel. There’s similarities to the original, and quite a few differences too. A group of circus folks traveling the river run into deadly highjinx with bad people and badder snakes. So many snakes, of normal size and giant size. It moves well with entertainment and the action is good. We’d say it was just about as good, if not somewhat better, than the US original.Spoilery SynopsisThe four men in the boat talk about the Red Anaconda, the worst kind, and that the place they are going to is cursed. Right away, there’s some treachery, as one guy stabs another in the neck and then cuts his head off– which is promptly eaten. They’re here to poach poisonous snakes, and they soon have sackfuls.As one man carries a sack to the boat, he’s eaten whole by a giant anaconda. It then gets the third man, only leaving the nasty leader alive. He recognizes the crimson anaconda and smiles evilly. Credits roll.We cut to a very weird variety show. During a water-escape act, everyone notices a big snake above the tank. It falls in, and the audience freaks out. Turns out, that’s part of the show. The audience doesn’t appreciate the show and they demand a refund. Mr. Jin comes in and buys the whole thing; he wants to take them all to Thailand. Lan doesn’t want to go and quits the act. She changes her mind and decides to come, along with her snake, Jimmy. They set sail.Right away, one of the men on the boat gets snakebitten, but it’s not a poisonous variety. There’s a zombie jump scare, but it’s just a new act that one of the guys is developing for the circus.The boat stops. The captain shows them a huge pile of garbage and debris that’s blocking the river. The boss doesn’t want to take a detour (as he’s got something sketchy planned), so they decide to blow up the stuff blocking the river. The debris is jam-packed with snakes, and it’s soon raining reptiles all over the boat. There are a lot of snakes.There’s an accident, and a man falls overboard. He runs into Jeff, the snake-poacher guy we saw in the opening sequence. He joins them aboard the ship. Jeff helps when one of the men gets a snake stuck in his ear. Lan knows snakes, and she says the man was bitten by a poisonous snake and didn’t flinch. How many bites does it take to grow immunity? There’s something about Jeff that she doesn’t like.That night, the captain goes overboard and disappears. In the morning, we see that Jeff is using the captain as bait for a really big snake. The birds all fly away. “Something big is coming,” Jeff warns. He briefly hooks the big snake, but it gets away. Still, everyone sees it. The snake grabs Jeff and drags him all over the river, but he manages to get away from it. The snake does eventually vomit up what’s left of the captain.The snake comes up onto the boat and everyone hides from it as it prowls. The snake is very fast and very mean. Some fuel is spilled in the panic, and there’s a fire and explosion. The boat burns, and everyone is stuck in the jungle. Jeff says he can lead them out. No one trusts him, but they don’t have much choice. A-Li has been bitten by something and has 48 hours to get treatment or she’ll die.The group camps in a cave, and there’s more drama with that. The little boy is attacked and rescued, Jeff eats a raw snake, and the girls bond over chocolate. Jin confides to Jeff that the others are his product; he’s selling them for organ transplants when they get to the destination. One of the two cousins is dripped on by the snake and gets some variety of hydrophobia, but he’s eaten before that’s too much of a problem. The other cousin gets it in the morning.They soon arrive at Jeff’s boat, but he wants their help in catching the snake. Jin backs Jeff in the argument. The ones who won’t cooperate are tied up for use as bait. There’s a struggle, and the snake finally gets Jeff. Ali is wounded in the fight and dies as well.The three remaining characters climb into Jeff’s boat, but it turns out that Jeff’s still not dead. Once again, the three are tied up as bait for the Crimson Anaconda. A whole group of anacondas show up, but they’re soon run off by the biggest of all. Jeff’s got a net trap set up, but it doesn’t work as well as he’d hoped. As it swallows him, the other three get out from the ropes and hide.The three are about to die when, out of nowhere, snake Jimmy jumps down as a distraction as Chinese-Hodor jams a log down the snake’s throat. The snake also loses an eye. This enrages the snake enough that it charges right into one of the traps Jeff set for it and is beheaded.As the trio sails away in Jeff’s repaired boat, the headless snake rises up and sticks out a tongue.Brian’s CommentaryBeing a much newer film, the CGI snakes are the best we’ve seen in the series. Yes, this is a “real” film in the series, as the Chinese company bought the rights to the series to make this. I never did catch most of the characters’ names, but they’re all distinctive enough that everyone is easily distinguishable from one another.It’s nicely paced, looks fantastic, has a lot of humor, and works well overall.Kevin’s CommentaryThis one is a remake not a sequel. I went in expecting the worst, and I was pleasantly surprised.Like Brian, I immediately noticed how much better the CGI was in this one vs. the US original and sequels. In addition to the CGI snakes, there are loads of practical effect snakes - this wouldn’t be a good one to watch if you have a phobia.The boat captain is quite a character and looks like a caricature, and they are all at least a little quirky and interesting. The action scenes are very good.I was very entertained and would recommend it.2025 Anaconda* Director: Tom Gormican* Writers: Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten* Stars: Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Steve Zahn, Thandiwe Newton, Daniela Melchior, and Selton Mello* Runtime: 99 minutes* YouTube Trailer Link:Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneA quartet of people on the fringes of show business obtain the rights to the original “Anaconda” movie and decide to remake it on location in the jungles of Brazil. Where there happens to really be a gigantic anaconda. It’s not a horror movie in itself, it’s a comedy adventure, but they are remaking a horror movie. It’s well made with a strong cast, but we both just thought it was okay.Spoilery SynopsisA French couple is out in the Amazon rainforest, and they know they’re in trouble. As she makes her escape, some guy is eaten by a giant snake. Credits roll.We cut to a conference room, where Doug McCallister tells a scary story that’s really just his idea of a wedding video; he makes wedding videos. We also meet Ronald Griffin, who’s an actor playing “Doctor Number 3” but gets fired very quickly. On the way out, he stops to look at a poster for the original “Anaconda” film.Both men wind up at Doug’s surprise birthday party that evening. They made amateur horror movies when they were thirteen, and they all miss it. Afterward, they all talk about the original “Anaconda” film again. Griff mentions that he’s got the rights to the film now. He wants to reboot the series, indie-style, filmed in the actual Amazon. Kenny the videographer and Clair the actress agree to participate in it. Doug is reluctant, but his wife is all for it.The group gets into the process of writing, planning, and financing the film. They soon arrive in the rainforest, where we meet Santiago, the snake handler. Santiago knows all about anacondas, showing them one he has in a cage.We also see Ana, that Frenchwoman from earlier, skulking around, still being hunted by strange men. She steals the keys to a boat and pretends to be the pilot; it’s the filmmaker’s boat.The group starts filming right away. We get a montage of the actors and crew doing their things. Afterward, they all compare head-butting styles. Later that night, a big anaconda slithers through their bedrooms on the boat. In the morning, they find that it’s Santiago’s snake that got out of the crate.In the morning, Griff freaks out and kills the snake, sorta accidentally. They have a funeral for the snake. One of the men following Ana is eaten by an even bigger snake. Santiago and Griff go out into the jungle to find a new snake. Griff “nopes” right back to the boat, but Santiago finds his snake– actually, it finds him.Everyone gets off the boat to look for Santiago, and the bad men search the boat. Doug, Griff, and the others soon learn about the big snake, as they get trapped inside a camper van.Somehow, we find ourselves in a high-speed chase, being pursued by the giant snake and illegal gold miners. They make it back to the boat and have to decide whether to go home empty handed or stick around and keep filming. “We came down here to remake ‘Anaconda,’ and now we’re in it.” Doug rewrites the script to incorporate what he’s seen and use Ana as his new hero character.The next day, another boat passes them on the river. Those people are also doing a reboot of ‘Anaconda.’ Griff may have been exaggerating about having the rights to the film. Surprisingly, everyone gets upset.Griff quits and goes off in a little dinghy to find the other movie boat. He soon finds it, crashed, sunk, and floating in the river. All those actors and crew are dead.Back on the main boat, Ana picks up a gun and forces Claire, Kenny, and Doug off the boat. Not long after, Griff returns and finds everyone gone. Ana makes everyone carry big bags of illegal gold that she stole from the miners. The men who have been chasing them are policemen. As Ana menaces everyone, the snake approaches.When the snake attacks Ana, everyone runs. Doug gets bitten by a spider, and there’s a whole extended thing about Kenny peeing on his leg. When Doug finally gets his leg peed on, it’s a major victory.Doug starts to give a rousing speech to Griff just as the snake comes out of nowhere and snatches him. They later find him regurgitated under a tree. They decide to use his body, tied to a dead pig and squirrel, as a distraction for the snake while they run to a boat. Suddenly, Doug wakes up tied to a dead pig with a squirrel in his mouth and a giant snake right behind him. Turns out, the pig’s not dead either, which leads to some hilarity.The group finds the base camp where that other party was filming the real “Anaconda” remake. Ice Cube, one of the actors from the film, shows up to join their group. “Who were you expecting, Jon Voight?” He says they were setting up pyrotechnics all over the jungle for his film.We then get a montage of everyone getting ready to blow up the snake while on film. That doesn’t work so well, and the four soon find themselves cornered. Griff finally “heroes up” and shoots it with a flare gun, making the snake explode spectacularly.We cut to Doug and Griff accepting an award for their unauthorized, probably illegal reboot film. They were then sued by Sony. J-Lo comes to Doug and wants him to direct the new, real reboot.During the end credits, Santiago sits up in the jungle, amazed that he’s alive.Brian’s CommentaryHonestly, I laughed more at the Chinese version from the previous year.Still, it’s an interesting concept, remaking the movie that the film is based on while running into other people doing the same thing.It’s fine for a goofy comedy, and it does use a lot of the horror tropes. Still it could have used more Jon Voight.Kevin’s CommentaryIt didn’t take long for me to grow weary of Jack Black and company trying to be funny. Though I did have some chuckles here and there, it didn’t satisfy me as a comedy.I can’t fault the production values, and the cast worked hard at it, but I thought it was just okay overall.Contact Info:Email: mailto:email@horrorguys.comWebsites:* https://www.horrorguys.com* https://www.horrormonthly.com This is a public episode. 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| 2/1/26 | ![]() Grizzly Night, Merge, Pumpkinhead Ashes to Ashes, It Came From Beneath the Sea, and Godzilla Giant Monsters All-Out Attack! | Two new films and a handful of weird oldies. We’ll open with “Grizzly Night,” a new dramatization of a true event. Also, we’ll take a look at the sci-fi “Merge” which hopefully isn’t based on true events. We’ll continue looking at the Pumpkinhead series with “Ashes to Ashes” and then the really old “It Came From Beneath the Sea” from way back in 1955. Lastly, Godzilla Returns with “Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack” from 2001.All this as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #52, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2026 Grizzly Night* Directed by: Burke Doeren* Written by: Bo Bean, Katrina Mathewson, Tanner Bean* Stars: Charles Esten, Oded Fehr, Brec Bassinger* Run Time: 1 Hour, 27 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIn August 1967 in Glacier National Park, Montana, there were two fatal attacks by two different grizzly bears. Here they have milked this story into an hour and a half movie. It’s well made and the acting is decent, they captured 1967 pretty well. Brian liked it a lot, and Kevin says it feels like there’s a lot of filler that bored him some.Spoilery SynopsisA couple in a tent are harassed by a nosy grizzly bear as they hide in terror. This goes badly as credits roll.It’s 1967, and this is based on a true story.Eighteen hours before the attack, a woman files yet another report about the bear that’s been terrorizing the campers. The rangers are all busy with a firewatch and fire fighting after the lightning storm last night.Joan, the new girl, gets assigned to lead an overnight hiking group since all the “real” rangers are busy. Julie calls her mother from the camp store; she’s going camping with Michelle, Paul, Denise, Raymond, Ronald, and Roy this weekend, since there’s nothing else to do. Everyone sets off on their respective hikes.At the chalet, Joan stops with her group. Julie and Roy stop in, but there are no rooms available. Her and a few others have to sleep outside since the place is all booked up. Paul and Michelle’s group go to the lake and do some fishing.Michelle’s group runs into a bear, and it takes their dinner. It’s too late to head to the ranger station, so they just hope it doesn’t come back. Roy staggers into camp and says a bear got Julie. The screaming wakes up Joan and the people at the chalet. We get a flashback, and see that they were the couple screaming before the credits.Joan calls the main ranger, Gary, and reports the bear attack. He promises that help is on the way, but he’s a long way off. Gary then takes a helicopter to get there faster, but it’s awfully dark outside. Joan gets the people on the ground to light fires to give the copter a place to land, which finally works. The doctor patches up Roy and they load him onto the helicopter to the hospital.Meanwhile, nine miles away, Denise wakes up, and the bear they saw earlier is back. The bear drags off Michelle, sleeping bag and all.Gary, Joan, and the others search for Julie, and soon find signs of the attack in her campsite. They soon find her, still alive but wounded. Gary and Joan talk about leadership. Julie’s too far gone, so the priest moves in to do his thing as she dies. Gary explains that in 57 years, there hasn’t been a single grizzly attack until now.In the morning, Michelle’s group is still out there, but they haven’t found her yet. They decide to walk to the ranger station and report what happened. Two attacks should be impossible, and the ranger there is skeptical at first. They search the woods and find… parts.Many rangers show up, all armed; it’s time to kill the bears. Joan and Leonard talk about the likelihood of two bear attacks and whose fault this was.Brian’s CommentaryThis isn’t so much a horror movie as it is a drama about a terrifying situation. It starts out with all the horror movie tropes and characters, but then just focuses on what happens without playing up the bear or the drama excessively. It’s based on a true incident, and it doesn’t stray too far from the actual case.It was quite good!Kevin’s CommentaryThis is indeed based on a true event. On the night of August 13, 1967, two young women were attacked and killed by two different bears miles apart in Glacier National Park, Montana - a heck of a coincidence. There’s an online article about the real thing that’s interesting - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Grizzlies.Here they expand the story out into a movie almost an hour and a half long. The sauce is spread mighty thin. It’s well made, but there isn’t a lot of substance. After the attacks, I found myself getting fairly bored.2025 Merge* Directed by: Bela Baptiste, Dalano Barnes, Richard Fenwick* Written by: Bela Baptiste, Dalano Barnes, Richard Fenwick* Stars: Achmed Abdel-Salam, Tatjana Alexander, Bela Baptiste* Run Time: 1 Hour, 17 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIt’s an anthology of science fiction short stories, each heavily depending on technology far ahead of where we currently are. It shows various ways humans could interact with such technology, and how it can interact with us when it has a mind of its own. The stories are pretty gentle, sweet, and romantic, with a zero body count. But there is uncertainty, a lack of control, and the potential for disaster making an undercurrent of horror if you look for it. The stories are all well written, well acted, and well directed. The CGI is a little heavy handed and obvious, but it’s entertaining. It reminded us of “Black Mirror.”Spoilery SynopsisA man has breakfast in a futuristic city and suddenly starts screaming.AngstA narrator explains that everything is perfect and everyone is happy now. Fear no longer exists, and that’s how he makes his business. He gives people phobias for excitement. We see a man become terrified of his own pet spider and a woman becomes claustrophobic. We return to that screaming man and see what he thinks he sees. “Embracing your fear allows you to be reborn,” he explains. The man offers the drug for free. Credits roll.SoulmateA couple talks in bed. He’s so glad he found her, he bought her a book. Turns out, this is a virtual world, and only the girl is real. She’s not allowed to be in there, and there’s an investigation into the illegal avatar. She goes back inside to break up with the man, who doesn’t understand. When she arrives back at work, the boss is sitting at her workstation; she’s going to be caught– but she isn’t. As the boss goes for a break, she deletes the AI logs.The investigation eventually ends, and Anna goes back to work. She restores the deleted information and goes back inside for Neil, who no longer recognizes her. She gets a message: “Scenes no longer compatible with current software version.’ She deletes this newest meeting and then goes back in time to their first meeting. Anna meets Neil for the first time– again.When Unfettered Two men sit by their father, who dies. The father’s robot assistant, Ash, walks them through the process. The girls decide what to do with the house and also what happens with Ash, whom they don’t really want anymore. Ash goes outside for a walk, and she’s a lot more human than people expect. She meets a handicapped boy in the park and plays with him. Everyone thinks she’s great until the mom finds out she’s an AI, and then she gets rude. Then she meets and helps an old couple who are very nice. Ash decides to never go home.The First Time I Never Met YouJohn listens to recorded messages from his dead wife. He’s so broken up that he’s lost his job. Overdue notices litter his desk. He’s got some kind of plant that sends him back in time to the first time he met her. Their “first” date goes well; he’s a physicist, and she’s an evolutionary biologist. He talks about “rewinding” time. He’s so in awe at seeing her again that he acts strangely, knowing too much about her that she’s never told him. She’s so creeped out that she breaks it off and goes home.Suddenly, he doesn’t remember why he’s there. He forgets his children and whole life, since now, none of that happened. He leaves the bar and goes back to his new, old life.SubscribedWe open on a commercial for Vitalus, a new AI product. “Your life, upgraded!” We soon see that all the AI just lets people stay inside all the time. Carol gets a phone call, and it appears that maybe Vitalus is censoring the news and information she gets to keep her inside and addicted to the AI. It watches all her body functions everywhere, even on the toilet, and in bed. Luke keeps trying to get through to her, both on the phone and in-person, but the AI keeps dropping the call and running him off. The AI does not want her talking to him any more.She wises up to all this, but “Vicky” still won’t let her out the front door. She shorts out the power and runs outside, where Vitalus Tases her and sends her back inside. She wakes up, and Vicky says it was all just a nightmare.The Man Behind the MachineMartin lives in a warehouse; a man from the Turing company comes to repossess his android. He’s an older model and is returned to Turing, where he meets a newer model. His signal is different; he’s malfunctioning and escapes back to Martin. He wants to choose what he wants, which is unique.Brian’s CommentaryIt’s way more sci-fi than horror, but these alternate, high-tech futures have a lot of overlap with horror. The first segment of this anthology has dodgy CGI and voice dubbing, but the others mostly look good and are well-acted. I have to admit, I didn’t really understand the final segment. The middle segments are the best of the bunch,If you like “Black Mirror,” then you’ll probably enjoy this.Kevin’s CommentaryThe CGI was a little overused and obvious at times, but the technologies and stories were cool.The stories were all at least pretty good. The last one was a bit confusing. I especially liked “When Unfettered.” What’s an autonomous AI robot to do when they lose their job because their master died?I’d call it a win overall, not really horror, but I enjoyed it.2006 Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes* Directed by: Jake West* Written by: Barbara Werner, Jake West, John Werner* Stars: Lance Henriksen, Doug Bradley, Douglas Roberts* Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThis third movie is a sequel to the first movie, even bringing back several of the same characters. This time several wronged people want revenge and go to the witch Haggis to summon Pumpkinhead, and the main target tries to fight back. It’s not as good as the first one, but it was still pretty entertaining.Spoilery SynopsisA man named Bunt runs through the woods in a panic. Pumpkinhead is right behind him. When he catches him, he cuts an “X” in his forehead. And then Bunt wakes up. His boss, Doc Fraser, tells him it’s time to move the body. As Bunt hides the body, the ghost of Ed Harley, from the first film, comes and tells him bad things are coming his way.A hiker in the woods spots Bunt dragging a corpse behind him. He runs to a nearby crematorium. Inside, Doc Fraser cuts open a dead man as his accomplices watch. The hiker stumbles in and interrupts things; on the way running out, he finds numerous other bodies. They soon catch the man and use him for parts.Doc takes the man’s kidney to a man to sell it for him. Meanwhile, the now-kidneyless dead man wakes up, not as dead as they all thought. He flags down a truck and gets ride to town. Molly Sue takes him to the police station, who rush out to the crematorium and arrest the people there.In the morning, the sheriff’s men clear out the bodies from the crematorium’s barn. They find lots of bodies. One of the bodies they dig up is in the middle of an old pumpkin patch; Doc Fraser is there, and this one doesn’t look familiar.In jail, Bunt tells his accomplices about Pumpkinhead, who feeds on sins.Back at the crematorium, the old woman from the woods shows up and looks at the weird body. “This one belongs to me. You outta know better than to disturb this one.”Molly finds her dead son with the other bodies, and she’s angry. She wants revenge on whoever did this and wants the old woman’s help. She, along with a handful of friends, go to track down the old woman that night. The old woman seems more than happy to help. They all get their hands sliced for blood, and soon enough, the ritual is done. The twisted little skeleton writhes and becomes Pumpkinhead.At jail, Bunt screams, “It’s coming for us!” And it does, right then. It kills the deputy, but the prisoners Bunt and Dahlia get away. They run home to her father, Doc Fraser. They all talk about the monster.Oliver and Mary Sue go to see Doc; she’s not feeling well after the ritual. As soon as they leave, Pumpkinhead attacks Tiny, and all the baddies see it. They hop in the car and drive off. Bunt sees Ed Harley’s ghost in the road and makes them crash. Bunt gives us a flashback to the first film, when he encountered the monster.Meanwhile, at the church, there’s a midnight memorial service for all those dead people they found. Doc arrives and sits with Molly and Oliver. Pumpkinhead arrives soon after, and the whole town sees the CGI creature jump through the skylight. The resulting carnage goes on for a long time.Molly and Oliver talk about the curse. Why did Pumpkinhead go to the church? Who was it after?Oliver, Ellie, and Ritchie regret calling up Pumpkinhead and want to undo what they did. They go back to the old woman, who says that Pumpkinhead can’t be stopped.Doc goes to see Ritchie and tries to kill him but is interrupted by the monster. When Doc kills Ritchie, Pumpkinhead collapses, allowing the evil doctor to get away. Ellie and Oliver return and find the body, along with evidence that Doc was involved.Molly is packing up to leave town when Doc arrives to kill her. Oliver arrives and warns her about Doc. Dahlia and Bunt pack up to leave as well. All of them decide to stop at Lenny the drug dealer’s house first for some reason.Bunt comes to Oliver and Ellie and tells them everything. They plan to get the crematorium working and dispose of all those corpses, which might make the demon go away.Doc and Molly have a talk. He did what he did to give the town free health care.Meanwhile, Oliver and company burn all those bodies at the cemetery, shoving them into the crematory oven like firewood. Molly holds Doc at gunpoint as Pumpkinhead kills Lenny and Dahlia in the next room. The whole place explodes, and only Doc seems to have survived.At the crematorium, Ed comes to Bunt one more time to sound ominous and foreboding. Doc comes in and shoots at Ellie but misses; Pumpkinhead comes in and kills Doc. There’s only one more body left to cremate. Ellie throws it into the fire, but nothing happens. Ellie then crawls into the fire and burns herself up– she was the last of the four who conjured up the monster.Pumpkinhead collapses and shrivels back into the body of Ed Harley before dissolving into a skeleton. The FBI guys finally show up and talk to Oliver and Bunt.The old woman comes to the crematorium and takes Ellie/Pumpkinhead’s little body back to the pumpkin patch.Brian’s CommentaryIt’s a decent enough continuation of the story from the first film. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but it does seem to stick to the information we learned in the first film.Lance Henriksen returns from the first film, but his part is basically just a cameo as a ghost. Doug Bradley has a substantial role as the villain of the film. These two are both good, as always, but most of the rest of the cast is mediocre at best.It’s alright, but nothing special.Kevin’s CommentaryMediocre CGI strikes again and too often. The creature looks good when he’s a practical effect though.The story is a pretty good sequel of the first movie, following the same rules. I saw in the trivia that Lance Henriksen was so embarrassed by the film that he snuck out of a Q&A without taking the stage, but I didn’t think it was that bad. It’s not as good as the first one was, but it’s entertaining.1955 It Came from Beneath the Sea* Directed by: Robert Gordon* Written by: George Worthing Yates, Harold Jacob Smith* Stars: Kenneth Tobey, Faith Domergue, Donald Curtis* Run Time: 1 hour, 19 Minutes* Watch it: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThe “It” is a gigantic octopus (or hexopus if you look closely - the budget was tight and it’s a couple arms short). The military and lab stuff is all realistic looking because it was the real thing, mostly. The puppetry, miniatures, and rear screen use are pretty obvious but they get the job done. The original was black and white, but it’s since been colorized. It’s a fun creature feature of the 1950s, worthy of being called a classic of its time.Spoilery SynopsisWe get a military voiceover talking about the new submarines. The human mind had thought of everything… except that which was beyond his comprehension… Credits roll.We are shown the wonders of the periscope. Commander Matthews talks to another officer, Griff, about how impressive the ship is. Suddenly, something big shows up on the sonar that might be following them. They accelerate, but the thing is gaining on them. It bumps the ship from behind as it catches up. Also, there’s a radiation warning, but it’s not coming from their engine. They finally manage to escape whatever it is and head to dry-dock for repairs.The men find something strange stuck in the rudder, and the scientists had to analyze it. Dr. John Carter and Professor Lesley Joyce, two marine biologists, explain that what they brought in was just a small piece of a much larger creature. Mathews likes Joyce and makes that abundantly clear.The scientists work for a couple of weeks and then report that the creature is an octopus, albeit a giant one, that lived on the bottom of the ocean until H-Bombs stirred up the ocean floor and irradiated it. It can no longer eat fish, so it may be hunting for a higher form of life, maybe even man. The heads of the military don’t seem impressed or believe that the problem is a giant octopus.We cut to a cargo ship out in the ocean, and they spot a huge tentacle outside the ship. It pulls the whole ship down. Carter and Joyce are finished with the military and ready to move on to their next project, but Mathews isn’t going to give her up that easily. The admiral revokes their transfer and requires them all stay– they know about the cargo ship that went down. The survivors tell the story, and it’s still a little hard to believe. The military heads still aren’t convinced. The survivor recants his tales, and Joyce goes to meet with him before he’s released. She’s smooth and crafty about getting the sailor to tell about what he saw.The military shuts down all shipping in the Pacific as they hunt for the monster. Joyce warns that they might be able to kill the thing once they do find it. The main characters all split up to run down a few leads as they hunt for the octopus.They soon find a wrecked car, a missing family, and odd circles in the sand on a beach. That must be the place! Instead of investigating, Mathews and Joyce are soon making out on the beach. They soon get an actual sighting.The Navy plans to trap the creature in San Francisco Bay. Carter talks about the need to destroy the creature’s brain; they have a special weapon for the job– a jet-propelled torpedo. Joyce explains that this kind of thing has happened in the past.The creature makes another appearance, and they attack it with depth charges and electricity. This only manages to anger it, and it climbs up onto the Golden Gate Bridge. Carter has to drive out to the middle of the bridge to turn off the electricity. Mathew and Joyce soon follow to pick him up. The trio barely make it off the bridge before the monster crushes it. The octopus eventually gives up and goes back into the water and vanishes.The monster soon reappears at the ferry terminal, where there are a lot of people still around. As it starts to pull itself up onto land, Mathews and his submarine approach. They dive and prepare torpedoes, but the harbor is pretty crowded, so it’s gonna take some luck. They embed a torpedo into it, but then it grabs and holds onto the sub.Mathews himself puts on Scuba equipment to blast the sub loose with explosives. It doesn’t work, so Carter tries next; he shoots it in the eye, which really gets its attention. Griff orders that the torpedo be detonated, and the octopus blows up. Carter and Mathews are picked up, alive, not long after.Mathews wants Joyce to marry him, but she’s argumentative and wants to write a book instead.Brian’s CommentaryCould Mathews be any more inappropriate with Joyce if he tried? He’d be up on charges for coming on that strong today. It’s the 50’s, where “No” always means “Yes.”The filmmakers had access to a lot of military sets and equipment, probably all leftover from the war, and they weren’t afraid to incorporate them into making the film seem more realistic.The monster is one of Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion creations, and it’s really well done. It crushes ships, the Golden Gate, and various buildings near the ferry port. It’s not much compared to modern effects, but for the time, this was all groundbreaking stuff.Kevin’s CommentaryThe interior submarine scenes were really filmed in a submarine. How cool is that?What’s worse than a gigantic angry octopus? A radioactive gigantic angry octopus.It’s strange to think that everyone on the screen is seventy years older than they were when this was released.It’s very 1950s in sexual and social attitudes, culture, and technology, which I thought added to the fun. It seems to take a long time to get to showing the creature, but we do finally get a payoff.2001 Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack* Directed by: Shusuke Kaneko* Written by: Keiichi Hasegawa, Shusuke Kaneko, Masahiro Yokotani* Stars: Chiharu Niyama, Ryudo Uzaki, Masahiro Kobayashi* Run Time: 1 Hour, 45 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThis one is another sequel to the original 1954 Godzilla that disregards all those that have come since - except for a dig at the 1998 American remake starring Matthew Broderick when an admiral mentions a creature looking something like Godzilla that attacked the United States. It’s a bad Godzilla vs. several good guy monsters and there’s lots of big creature action, carnage and explosions, as well as humans to root for. It’s not the best of them, but it’s entertaining.Spoilery SynopsisWe open on a Japanese Navy meeting where they talk about the 1954 Godzilla attack (I suspect we’re going to ignore all the other films). There was a monster that looked like Godzilla that attacked the USA, but the real one hasn’t been seen since. Suddenly, a US nuclear sub has gone missing. The Japanese send a deep-sea rescue sub down after it. Suddenly, a giant monster arrives on the scene. Guess who? Credits roll!At Mt. Myoko, a reporter talks about the monster of the mountain. They’re making a pseudo-entertainment documentary to entertain children. There’s a sudden earthquake, and it’s clear that there was a real monster involved.There’s some kind of earthquake that night, and Yuri, the reporter, wants to investigate. The army shoots a special “digging” missile at the mountain. An old truck driver claims he saw a monster last night, and it must have been Godzilla. Yuri is given a book, “The Guardian Monsters,” and some of the pictures inside look familiar.Yuri’s father is an admiral, and he thinks she drinks too much. She turns on the TV and learns about another monster attack; this one left a bunch of kids wrapped in cocoons.Yuri interviews an old man who has been saying Godzilla will return for years now. He says she needs to wake up Ghidorah to stop Godzilla this time. Baragon, Mothra, and Ghidorah are the guardian monsters. They are supposed to sleep for 10,000 years, so it’s too soon to wake them up.Yuri’s father, the admiral, has a flashback to 1954, and it wasn’t a happy memory. A giant monster attacks, and everyone says it’s Godzilla, but we know better; it’s Baragon. The actual Godzilla soon arrives on shore and heads right toward the other monster. Soon, they’re fighting as Yuri and Kadokura watch from afar. Little Baragon doesn’t have a chance. Meanwhile, the old harbinger breaks open some ice we saw in a nearby cave.The military is activated to take on Godzilla, and fighter jets are dispatched. Yuri obtains a bike and sets off toward Godzilla to get the story rather than follow along with the evacuation of the area. Not surprising, the missiles only manage to make Godzilla more angry, and he shoots the jets out of the air with his atomic breath. Yuri gets it all on film and follows Godzilla from a distance.Another creature wakes up from the ice cave where the old man is; Ghidora. But wait, there’s more! Mothra also hatches from her cocoon at the same time. All of them head toward Godzilla. Baragon, Mothra, and Ghidorah are all heading toward Tokyo, where Godzilla is also on the way.Mothra shoots some kinds of spores that knock Godzilla over onto a building. He retaliates with nuclear breath, which really makes a mess of the city– and Yuki, who survives somehow.Ghidorah shows up, and he’s dramatic with his three-headed lightning bite. Godzilla, on the other hand, is unstoppable. The humans then open fire on Godzilla, which just results in an angry Godzilla blasting the military.Godzilla blasts Mothra, who dissolves into millions of glowing lights that reinvigorate the apparently dead Ghidorah. The two merge into something new that’s blast proof. Super-Ghidorah clobbers Godzilla explosively and the fight moves underwater.Yuri learns that her father is leading the counterattack from a small submarine that isn’t really meant for war. They shoot Ghidorah by mistake, and that goes badly. But then Ghidorah is reanimated and supercharged by a chunk of stone from one of the talisman statues.There’s still more battling between the two until Godzilla finally blasts Ghidorah into dust. Baragon and the other two guardians are visible as golden energy that combines and then dissolves.The admiral pilots his submarine right down Godzilla’s throat, and Godzilla swallows. He’s not immediately killed and uses one of those drill-missiles to shoot his way out. Godzilla tries to blast Yuri and Kadokura, but his nuclear blast shoots out the wrong hole and he collapses into the water. He tries blasting again and blows himself up. The sub bobs to the surface.Yuri and the admiral are reunited, and both are OK. Tokyo, on the other hand, looks to be mostly gone now. Down in the harbor, we see Godzilla’s still-beating heart– nothing else, just the beating heart. He’ll be back!Brian’s CommentaryThe monsters are still men (and a woman this time) in rubber suits, but there’s also a great deal of really dated CGI here. The bad CGI is pretty distracting this time, because there’s so much of it, but there is some good carnage and explosions. Godzilla’s fire breath is really impressive this time around.This is the one and only film where Ghidorah is considered one of the “good guys” rather than a main villain creature. This one endows the Guardian Monsters with magical healing powers and a bit of religious mystery to them, which basically lets them come back from the dead several times.Kevin’s CommentaryThis one had more of a tangible body count than typical. Not gory graphic, but many instances of people getting stomped and blown up and crushed in rubble. Plus aftermath showing the many wounded.Godzilla is purely the bad creature here, which isn’t typical either.Mothra looks especially cool in this one, I thought. Fluorescent colors and more movement from the wings and legs than we usually see. I also liked the gold dragon look of King Ghidorah.This wasn’t the best of them, but it was entertaining.Contact Info:Email: mailto:email@horrorguys.comWebsites:* https://www.horrorguys.com* https://www.horrormonthly.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.horrorweekly.com/subscribe | 29m 42s | ||||||
| 1/25/26 | ![]() Dust Bunny, Killer Whale, Queens of the Dead, Godzilla vs Megaguirus, and Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings | Trash and treasure this time. We’ll open with “Killer Whale,” our first film released in 2026. We’ll then watch a fun zombie film, “Queens of the Dead” from last year, as well as “Dust Bunny” just recently released. For our oldies, we’ll contend with “Godzilla vs Megaguirus” from 2000 and “Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings” from back in 1993.All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #52, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2026 Killer Whale* Directed by: Jo-Anne Brechin* Written by: Jo-Anne Brechin, Katharine McPhee* Stars: Virginia Gardner, Mel Jarnson, Mitchell Hope* Run Time: 1 Hour, 29 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneTwo young women end up trapped on a tropical atoll by a killer whale with a thing against humans. The acting is a moderately bright spot in a slog of bad pacing, a lame simple script, and way too much CGI and greenscreen. We didn’t care much for this one.Spoilery SynopsisWe open with some discussion of Orcas, killer whales, and the whale at the Sea World-ish amusement park. Chelsea and her friend Dana, who work there, talk about how their whale, Ceto, just isn’t the same since they took away her baby. The whale eats Chelsea, and the credits roll.Maddie and Chad talk about Trish, who’s busy with school. He gives her a cello necklace and leans in for a kiss, just as a gunman comes into the place to rob them. There’s a struggle, and the gun goes off, damaging Maddie’s hearing. Everyone survives the attack, but, from out of nowhere, Chad is killed by the robber’s truck.One year later, Trish comes to visit Maddie and offers to take her on a trip. Maddie doesn’t want to go, but Trish is persuasive. They fly to an island resort in Thailand.On the beach, Trish brings up the topic of Ceto, which disturbs Maddie. Josh, a local guy, talks about the local whale, Ceto, who has been in captivity for twenty years and lost her baby two years ago. That night, the three of them sneak into the run-down amusement park to see Ceto.Maddie gets to see Ceto up close in the aquarium. She hates that the whale is trapped here, but then she watches as the whale kills a maintenance worker. Maddie, Trish, and Josh are then chased out of the park by a security guard.In the morning, the trio takes a Jet-Ski out to an isolated island. The locals say this place is cursed, and something happened a few years ago, and now no one comes here. In almost no time flat, they lose Maddie’s phone, the Jet-Ski, and Josh to an Orca attack.The two girls are now stuck on a pizza-shaped floatie and can see the giant orca swimming around beneath them. It’s Ceto, the same whale that was in the park last night, somehow. They can tell by the distinct dorsal fin. Trisha jumps off the pizza and swims to a big rock, Maddie chickens out. There’s some quick drama, and Maddie soon ends up on the rock as well.The two eventually calm down and talk about how Ceto could possibly be here. “Orcas have never ever killed anyone in the wild.”The girls take a nap, and when they wake up, they see a boat, but it’s too far away to see them. We’re reminded that Maddie is deaf, which is probably going to mean something later.One of Josh’s arms floats by, and Maddie snags it with her bag. It’s not for lunch, she wants his wristband flashlight. When night falls, they use it as a signal, but no one comes. The girls talk about Maddie playing the cello again and going back to school.They use Chad’s cremation stone to break open a shelled thing to have something to eat. Afterwards, she decides it’s finally time to throw the stone away. Trish admits that she put the robber up to the robbery that night; it’s her fault Chad was killed. We get a whole dramatic guilt-spiel from Trish. Again, we’re reminded about Maddie’s hearing aids.In the morning, Trish explains her plan to swim to the atoll surrounding their rock, but Maddie has her hearing aids off and doesn’t even know what’s going on. She makes it, but Maddie only makes it to another rock. When Trish is distracted by a plane flying over, the orca jumps up into the shallows and drags Trish back into the water– and bites her leg off. She crawls back up on the beach but soon bleeds to death.Night falls, and Maddie decides to swim to the atoll. She makes it without too much issue and then makes her way around to where Trish’s body is and buries her in the sand.Maddie remembers that Trish said her phone was waterproof, but it went down with the Jet-Ski. Can she retrieve it? She does. Rather than get out of the water, she activates the phone right there, in the water. It’s unclear if she sent an SOS or the phone didn’t work.This is followed by a string of ridiculous underwater hide-and-seek, resulting in Maddie stabbing the Orca in the eye with her broken Cello bow stick.When the sun comes up a helicopter arrives; the phone’s SOS did work after all.Brian’s CommentaryBrian’s Rating:**Although the whole thing probably wasn’t filmed in front of a green screen, it seems like most of the outdoor scenes were. There are a lot of outdoor scenes, so… ouch! The whale is either as large or as small as the plot requires; sometimes it’s huge, and other times it squeezes right up to the rock.I’ve seen this compared to “Fall” (2022), and it is a very similar theme: two girls stuck in a bad place. The other film did it better.It’s contrived, the characters make one stupid decision after another, and the whole thing with the whale’s location makes no sense. The acting and dialogue are atrocious as well.It’s pretty terrible.Kevin’s CommentaryKevin’s Rating: *So much green screen and CGI. It is so, so obvious and overused.I agree with the comparisons to “Fall” and that movie did it better. The three leads have some skill, but they can’t overcome the effects, direction, and script. It gets worse as it goes along until it culminates with a weak ending.I didn’t like it.2025 Queens of the Dead* Directed by: Tina Romero* Written by: Erin Judge, Tina Romero* Stars: Jaquel Spivy, Kay O’Brian, Quincy Dunn-Baker* Run Time: 1 Hour, 41 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIt’s drag queens, with their friends and family, versus a zombie outbreak. Holed up in a club against the backdrop of a larger apocalypse, there’s a lot of humor with a body count that racks up. The pacing is a little draggy in places, and the zombie action is pretty low for most of the movie, but it’s a fun watch.Spoilery SynopsisWe open on an over-the-top drag queen walking down the street on the way to church. When she goes into the church, her Grindr alert goes off. She finds the man’s phone, but it’s covered in blood. Then she finds him, but he doesn’t look quite alive anymore. She’s bitten by the zombie priest. Credits roll.We cut to a musical number interspersed with scenes of a dancing nurse, Sam, at the hospital. Sam talks to Jane, a patient with issues, who wants to leave.On the stage, Kelsey and Ginsey argue with dancers in the show. Yasmine phones Dre that she’s too sick to do the show tonight, but she’s obviously faking it. Jax and Nico are dancers, and they’re elevens on the gay scale. Jane watches their livestream and tells Sam about it. Sam knows Yasmine and Dre, but that was another time. Jane wants to meet all of them and tell them they’ve got bad drugs. Nurse Lizzy tells Dre that Barry is coming over to unplug her toilet. There’s a lot going on.Everyone’s ready for the big show, and Dre breaks the news that Yasmine’s not coming tonight, so Ginsey will have to headline the act. Nico’s more than willing to step up. They’ve presold a ton of tickets, but hardly anyone has shown up. Barry gets all the pronouns mixed up. When Sam shows up, just as a guest, everyone knows him. Sam used to be “Samonsay,” a major drag star.Barry finds a dead rat in the toilet and takes it out to the garbage. As he’s out there, we see that pre-credit drag queen stumble in.Sam tells Ginsey why he’s been out of action for a while. It was stage fright, and he just couldn’t do it anymore. He starts to change into his costume but then chickens out again. Barry gets a bit of news on his phone about disturbing events in Manhattan. Out on the dance floor, the zombie queen starts looking for people to eat. Barry grabs an axe, but it’s Kelsey who gets hacked. Things go South from there.Sam goes into nurse mode and works on Kelsey’s chopped up leg. Dre tries to call an ambulance and gets a busy signal for 911. Then a shelter in place alert sounds over all their phones. Everyone argues about what’s going on, but it’s all over the news and social media, so they don’t argue long. Jimmy, the bar owner, has some weapons hidden. The Mayor, Tom Savini, comes on and tells everyone to stay home, “This is not a George Romero movie!”At the hospital Jane and Lizzy see that it’s happening there as well. A man in a bloody bunny suit attacks them.At the club, Jax the dancer is clearly a zombie now, and the others all see what he’s become. They all argue some more about what to do about him. They lock him in a dancer’s cage. Next, they catch Yasmine sneaking in through the window. Jimmy is pulled out the window and bitten.The front door is cut open, and new people come in, led by Pops, Kelsey’s girlfriend and fiancee. She mentions a boat waiting for them. Dre wants to wait for Lizzy to arrive, but most of the rest want to go to the boat. A zombie stumbles in, and she drills him through the head.Sam and Dre put Jimmy in the freezer and talk about how he’s changed. After consulting a paper map, several of the group decide to go for a truck, but first, they all change their outfits. Nico, Sam, and Ginsey all dress up to go out on electric scooters.The group makes their way through the horde of zombies, who are mostly interested in their phones. Sam and Ginsey talk about acceptance and the need for approval. They’re attacked, and with her dying words, Ginsey encourages Sam to be himself.Back at the club, there are now zombie rats, and they get Pops. Dre turns on the music to distract everyone, and they dance. Lizzy and Jane have been trapped in a car, Nico’s trapped outside as well, but all the zombies hear the loud music and head toward the club. Meanwhile, Barry tells Dre that Lizzy is pregnant, which she did not know.Sam returns to the club, and he’s got a plan. We get a montage of the group doing various things that might have something to do with the plan. When they’re ready, they open all the doors and let the dead in. Once the dance floor is full of zombies, Samonsea makes her return to the stage with Yasmine and Barry’s backup.Everyone makes it out the back door just as Lizzy, Jane, and Nico drive up in a parade float. They all drive away to the boat, trailed by the zombies.Brian’s CommentaryAs you might guess, it’s full of gay, trans, and drag queen jokes, and some are really good. Most of the good laughs are in listening to the various characters’ reactions to the weirdness going on. All the characters get good scenes, and the dialogue is mostly hilarious.The zombie makeup is fun, although nothing serious. There’s surprisingly little gore involved. It never slows down, and it never gets boring. The jokes mostly drop away in the final half hour as the zombies start getting more serious, but it stays entertaining throughout.Fun!Kevin’s CommentaryDirector and co-writer Tina Romera is a daughter of George A. Romero - zombies run in the family. The one liners are abundant in this, and the humor is one of the best parts of the movie. The zombie action is actually kind of low-key for much of the movie, with it more of a thing in the background. I thought it was a fun one.2025 Dust Bunny* Directed by: Bryan Fuller* Written by: Bryan Fuller* Stars: Mads Mikkelson, Sophie Sloan, Sheila Allen* Run Time: 1 Hour, 46 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneSet in a colorful alternate reality with magic and fantasy, a little girl recruits her assassin neighbor to take care of the monster under her bed that she thinks ate her parents. There’s real danger, viewed through the eyes of a child, so we wonder through much of the movie if the monster is real or not. It’s surreal, quite funny, and very entertaining.Spoilery SynopsisWe open on a blob of dust coming in through the window and rolling around a child’s room. It eventually settles under the bed; it’s a dust bunny! The little girl on the bed above sits up and screams. Aurora’s parents look under the bed for monsters and say there’s nothing there but dust bunnies. She goes out and sleeps on the fire escape instead.Aurora watches her neighbor come home from a trip; a magic firefly points the way. The next night, she follows him into what appears to be “The Blade Runner District” according to Kevin; masks and fireworks and dragon costumes are everywhere. She watches as her neighbor goes fully CGI-Ninja and kills a bunch of guys during a fireworks explosion.There’s a whole over-the-top battle scene, and Aurora watches it all from the roof. She then follows the man home again. The man knows he’s being followed and wipes up his own blood drippings with his socks. He spots Aurora going back into her apartment across the hall.Aurora is still terrified of the dust bunny. That night, it eats her parents. She does “the floor is lava” to avoid getting too close to the thing under her bed. It then bursts out of the floor and terrorizes her excessively.In the morning, everything is back to normal– almost. We cut to a musical number in a very stylish church. Aurora runs off with the collection plate.The neighbor in 5B reads his mail in front of a taxidermied light-bulb-butt chicken. He gets a note from Aurora with money, wanting to hire him. He wants to know what she wants him to do. She’s offered him $327.42 to kill the monster. She knows he killed the dragon in Chinatown. She tells him that the monster ate her parents.5B goes over to Aurora’s house, and her parents’ room is a torn-up mess. There’s no blood, but she says it ate them whole. Something went on there, but he’s not convinced about monsters and sends her home.The neighbor in 5B, who is nameless, goes to see Laverne, his contact/handler. She likes her sandwich– a lot. He asks her about the neighbors who disappeared. He thinks “the monster” was after him and got the wrong apartment. He’s got a whole different kind of monster in mind. She tells him not to get involved.That night, the Neighbor hears someone coming and prepares to kill them. The very human assassins come in through the door and the window to finish off Aurora. The assassins beat the 5B neighbor and prepare to kill Aurora, but then the dust bunny intervenes. There’s a difference of opinions between Aurora and the hitman about what happened to one of the killers.Aurora wants to watch 5B chop up the dead assassin’s body, but he won’t allow that. He does, however, let her help wrap up the pieces. He tells her that the assassins came to kill one of them and that there aren’t any monsters. He explains the whole thing, but she knows better about the monsters.Brenda, from Child Protective Services, comes to the door, and 5B pretends to be her foster family. He doesn’t believe she’s a social worker, and he’s right.Turns out, this is the third family that Aurora’s monster has eaten. She originally wished for it to happen, and it did. She explains all about the monster and why it’s there.The hitman goes to see Laverne, who admits that she sent the assassins to “help” him with getting rid of Aurora, who witnessed him killing the men in Chinatown. Aurora comes to the meeting, which perplexes Laverne.Aurora wants him to be her new dad, but he’s got way too many problems for that. They go out for Chinese food and talk to a threatening man.Brenda returns and has a word with Aurora’s “father.” Aurora warns her about the monster in the floor, but that goes about how it always does. Laverne shows up. A whole squad of killers arrives downstairs. Brenda admits that she’s FBI and investigating the disappearances of Aurora’s families.The Chinese gang and the FBI attack at the same time. Soon, they all believe in monsters. It is, in fact, a giant bunny, and it eats the Chinese gang, one by one.Soon, it’s just Aurora and the Hitman against the monster, and then it swallows him whole.In the morning, Aurora hears pounding under the floor, and then the neighbor claws his way back up. He had a bottle of thumb-sucking deterrent in his pocket, and the monster didn’t like it.Laverne comes in, and she’s not got Aurora’s best interest in mind. We also find out that she’s his mother. 5B warns her to get off the floor, but too late. That goes badly for her.The monster does one more final attack, but it won’t eat Aurora. It’s her monster, after all. She and the hitman go down the fire escape and move to the country. The monster follows along, under the car.Brian’s CommentaryBrian’s Rating:*****Every kid who had a monster under their bed will get this one.As Kevin points out, this feels like Burton and del Toro got together and made a film, but they had nothing to do with it. It’s an American-made film, but it feels very European to me. It’s very fairy-tale-like and surreal in many places.This one is hard to classify. It definitely starts out like a children’s movie, but it’s extremely violent, and the horror bits seem excessive for a kids’ movie. It’s not a comedy, but it’s very funny.This is awesome!Kevin’s CommentaryKevin’s Rating: *****My first thought was this looks a bit like something directed by Guillermo del Toro with influences of Tim Burton and Wes Anderson. It’s actually Bryan Fuller’s directorial debut, and he did a great job.I liked the colorful-surreal-alternate-reality vibe. Very cool. The use of CGI is liberal, but I thought it worked well. And there are practical effects too, like the taxidermied chicken lamp with the lightbulb in its butt - I need one of those.I thought it was excellent.2000 Godzilla vs. Megaguirus* Directed by: Ishiro Honda, Masaaki Tekuza* Written by: Hiroshi Kashiwabara, Wataru Mimura* Stars: Misato Tanaka, Shosuke Tanihara, Masato Ibu* Run Time: 1 Hour, 45 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThis one seems to be in an alternate timeline, once again ignoring all the movies except the 1954 original. It’s said that after that attack, Japan rebuilt and moved the capital to Osaka. And the technology is advanced even more than in some of the other Godzilla films. There are some elements in this one that step up the horror, and it’s got the giant creature fighting with collateral damage we’ve come to expect. It’s entertaining.Spoilery SynopsisWe get a news flashback to the 1954 Godzilla attack on Tokyo. He smashed the city and then walked back into the ocean as Japan rebuilt. Then, in 1966, he returned for more, this time to attack Japan’s first nuclear reactor. Japan then gave up on nuclear power plants. In 1996, the government decided to once again experiment with energy production, this time, with a plasma generator.Kiriko Tsujimori is one of the soldiers tasked with defending the city against Godzilla in Osaka. He’s returned yet again. The soldiers shoot him with bazookas, but that does nothing. He’s heading for the clean energy factory, smashing everything in his path, including Kiriko’s superior officer.In Tokyo, 2001, we see Kiriko is with G-Grasper, and she goes to visit Kudo, who is good with tiny robots. She’s recruiting for an anti-Godzilla unit. She introduces him to the team. We see that most of them have some history against Godzilla, and they’ve designed a weapon powered by a black hole to fight him; he can’t beat that! As the chief scientist explains all this, suddenly, the radar spots something big in the ocean.Three months later, a little boy sneaks into a military facility and sees a bunch of people working on a huge gun. We see that it’s the G-Grasper team, now ready to test their weapon. It works impressively. Uh-oh. There’s a space-time wormhole left behind, but it soon fades away.That night, the little boy sees something outside his window. Turns out, that wormhole didn’t close, and it’s allowing strange flying creatures through. He also finds a large egg that he takes with him. It makes a mess at home, so he dumps it into the sewer.Kudo tells Kiriko that he’s designed a tracking device. Meanwhile, in the sewers under the city, the egg multiplies. A couple of water department guys show up to fix a leak, and we see something nasty right above them. The dragonfly-like creature then kills a couple of people graphically.The G-Grasper people detect Godzilla again; this time, they confirm it. Kiriko pilots the futuristic Griffon fighter to investigate. They find one of the bug-creatures, but it’s dead– Godzilla must have killed it. Kiriko ends up having a close encounter with Big G and climbs up onto his back. She shoots him with the tracker.The black hole weapon is now completed and shot into space on a satellite. The plan is to shoot Godzilla from orbit.The dead bug is analyzed, and it’s a Meganula, an Earth-insect that usually lives in large swarms but is now extinct. Suddenly, large parts of Tokyo are flooded, but they don’t know why. They find more eggs deep under the water.Kiriko explains her plan to lure Godzilla to an isolated island and then blast him with Dimension Tide, the black hole weapon.In Tokyo, soldiers discover hundreds of Meganulas, far too many to shoot with their rifles. At the same time, Kiriko prepares to blow up Godzilla forever. Just as they’re about to push the button, a zillion dragonflies arrive on the scene and swarm over Godzilla. They sting and attach themselves to him, draining his energy. There are too many, even for his fire breath.The humans fire the weapon anyway, and it sucks in everything on the island. Still, some of the meganylas survive, and so does Godzilla. They can’t fire again for another hour, so that’s bad. The bugs fly away, and Godzilla follows them.The insects go back to flooded Tokyo and deposit their energy into a big thing sleeping underwater. The thing awakens, and it’s another kaiju. It’s a giant dragonfly, and its wings tear up the buildings with which they come into contact. It’s also got a sonic screech that’s devastating to the buildings. Kudo gets hurt, and when he wakes up, they explain that the new creature is called Megaguirus, a sort of queen bee of the Meganulas.Godzilla returns to Tokyo, but the Megaguirus is there as well. They prepare to fire Dimension Tide again, but something goes wrong. Only Kudo can fix it, using his weird anime app. The fight between the monsters rages on, and Megaguirus is very fast in the air. It’s back-and-forth for a long time, but Godzilla eventually wins.Godzilla’s in downtown Tokyo now, and he’s making a real mess. Mr. Seguiro won’t spill his secrets, but he seems to know what Godzilla’s after. Also, for some reason, Dimension Tide starts falling from orbit. They can get off one more shot before it’s too late. Turns out, there’s a secret plasma energy project at the science center, and that’s why Godzilla’s here.All the heroes have to work together to make the weapon lock onto Godzilla as the satellite falls from the sky. The satellite fires just before exploding, and the black hole comes down right on top of Godzilla, who shoots it with his atomic breath. There’s a big bang, and there’s no sign of a giant creature.Tokyo, on the other hand, is a mess. Will they rebuild? Yes. Time passes, and Kiriko comes back for Kudo again– there are more signs of kaijus in the ocean. It’s not all over yet…After the credits, we see the little boy at school; he hears Godzilla roar!Brian’s CommentaryDid we ever get an explanation as to why Tokyo flooded?Well, OK, then. This one moves Godzilla back into the realm of horror as the bug-things kill people across town– it’s pretty graphic, the most we’ve seen in a Godzilla film.There’s a lot of noticeable CGI in this one, but considering the age of the film, it’s not terrible. The music is good, the monster effects are very well done, and even the monster battles are creative. I’d go so far as to say this is the best of the monster-battles we’ve seen, even the slow-motion parts.The CGI is overused and pretty dated, but other than that, this is one of the better ones.Kevin’s CommentaryI was very surprised at the one-on-one attacks from the Meganula, before we saw the mega-sized queen. It’s gory monster carnage right out of a horror movie.The CGI looks pretty obvious, but the models and practical effects mostly look pretty good.It was very entertaining.1993 Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings* Directed by: Jeff Burr* Written by: Ivan Chachornia, Constantine Chachornia, Andrew Osborne* Stars: Andrew Robinson, Ami Dolenz, Soleil Moon Frye* Run Time: 1 Hour, 28 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneOnce again, Pumpkinhead is resurrected and is a monster for vengeance. This one has a little bit of a mystery for the sheriff to figure out, but it’s still not a complicated script. It’s not quite a sequel to the original, more of a parallel. It lacks from not having Lance Henriksen and lacks the quality of the first one. It’s not bad, but only pretty good.Spoilery SynopsisIn Ferren Woods, 1958, an old woman goes looking for Tommy. Six local boys arrive in the woods, and they’re hunting him too, but less beneficially. After a short chase, they beat him half to death and then stab him for the other half. They eventually drop him down a mine shaft.In the present, Sean Braddock is the new sheriff; his wife Beth is impressed but thinks their daughter Jenny isn’t going to be happy here. Jenny makes some quick friends at her new school.The new sheriff starts work and gets some advice about the town judge. Mayor Bubba warns him to keep an eye out so Jenny doesn’t wind up with the wrong crowd.Meanwhile, Jenny is with the wrong crowd, including the judge’s son, Danny, hanging around that same mine shaft. Sheriff Sean shows up and runs them all off.That night, the gang runs over an old woman in the road. “Some folks say she’s a witch,” one says, and the old woman seems to have disappeared. Jenny insists they go to the old woman’s house to see if she’s OK, and it looks like a witch’s house should. Inside, they find a scroll with a spell on it to bring back the dead. The old woman shows up and tells them to leave, and that goes badly for her. She curses them all to the “vengeance of Pumpkinhead.”For some reason, Danny and the gang decide to dig up a grave next. The body inside is all deformed and weird-looking. They pour “the blood of the damned” over the body and read from the scroll. At the same time, the old woman’s house catches fire, and she burns. Pumpkinhead rises from the grave!Sheriff Sean soon learns from a farmer that the kids were up at the old lady’s house last night, and he also hears that “It’s back, and none of us are safe till he gets what he’s come for.”Sure enough, that night, Pumpkinhead attacks the same farmer, while at the same time, the old woman in the hospital goes into convulsions. When Sean and the coroner investigate, they find a big “V” drawn in blood on the wall.The coroner comes to dinner, and Delilah tells the story of Pumpkinhead. The sheriff, Sean, is from the area and remembers that story as well. Jenny overheads the whole conversation, so now she knows what’s up. That night, Pumpkinhead gets another local man. The man’s girlfriend sees the whole thing and goes insane.The judge calls for a posse to hunt down the monster which gets Sean angry. Sean then tells his wife about deformed Tommy and how he helped him one day. Somehow, Tommy was connected to the two dead men.Danny, Paul, Peter, and Marcie go back to the grave they dug up and see that the body is gone. They know what they did.Old lady Ossie dies, but that doesn’t stop her from warning Sean and Delilah about Tommy and his father, Pumpkinhead. She mentions that there is going to be one more victim from the old “Red Wing” days, and then he’ll be coming after the modern-day kids.Sean researches the Red Wings, and finds that the sixth member was the judge, who’s gonna be the next victim.The young people want to come clean about the whole thing, but Danny pulls a gun on them. Meanwhile, the judge is torn apart. Pumpkinhead then chases the remaining teens through the woods. It gives Danny what he so cleanly deserves.Jenny runs to the old mine shaft as Sean and the posse run up. Sean yells for Tommy to release her, and the monster hesitates. Tommy/Pumpkinhead remembers what Sean did for him way back in the day and releases her. The posse shows up and starts shooting, causing Pumpkinhead to fall back into the mine shaft.Later, Sean and Jenny make up. Workmen board over the old mine shaft.Brian’s CommentaryIt’s clearly the same monster as in the original, but it doesn’t look nearly as good as the original for some reason.The main cast are all recognizable names, and they do a great job here. There are a lot of tiny cameos from actors from other horror films of the time. The other “actors” are just atrocious. It’s a very formulaic sequel, but there’s nothing explicitly terrible about it. Other than the legend itself, there’s nothing here to connect it with the original film, which was far better.Kevin’s CommentaryThis one seemed less clear on the path of revenge than the first film. And this wasn’t really a sequel to the first film either - it’s more of a parallel or reboot. Andrew Robinson was good, and there are lots of recognizable names from other horror movies in many of the supporting roles.It’s not as good as the original, but it’s not too bad.Contact Info:Email: mailto:email@horrorguys.comWebsites:* https://www.horrorguys.com* https://www.horrormonthly.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.horrorweekly.com/subscribe | 30m 49s | ||||||
| 1/18/26 | ![]() The Demoness, Super Happy Fun Clown, Megan is Missing, Come and See, and Wisconsin Death Trip | Back to our usual five films this week, and we have an interesting mix of horror and terrifying reality. We’ll start with “The Demoness,” which just came out, along with “Super Happy Fun Clown,” also new. We finally got around to “Megan is Missing” from 2011. For a couple of older films, we went with “Wisconsin Death Trip” (1999) and “Come and See” (1985).All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #52, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2025 The Demoness* Directed by: Andrew de Burgh* Written by: Andrew de Burgh* Stars: Akihiro Kitamura, Riley Nottingham, Bella Glanville* Run Time: 1 Hour, 33 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneA demoness visits Earth to cause trouble for one couple in particular. A couple with relationship issues. We had issues understanding several of the characters. After the couple, she moves on to mayhem to a series of victims. We both agree that it suffers from too much dialogue that’s difficult to understand, poor pacing, and bad CGI. It didn’t work for either of us, with Kevin being more forgiving of it.Spoilery SynopsisWe open in an apartment as a jerky-moving demoness wanders through the house and stops next to the occupied bed. Credits roll.In the morning, the couple wakes up and complains about the economy and their jobs. They argue about Sarah’s inability to get a job. That night, the demoness comes back into their room, and this time, we see what it does. It wakes up Jack and has sex with him, but Sarah can’t hear them and doesn’t wake up.In the morning, Sarah finds some evidence of sex in the bed and assumes Jack’s been cheating on her. The demoness comes to her and they argue about the sex last night. “Kill him if you want to live.” That evening, she poisons Jack and dismembers him on the autopsy table they have in the garage for some reason. She mumbles in British throughout the process.The demoness returns and bites Sarah on the neck, vampire-style. The demoness then conjures up assistance, and Satan himself shows up, also speaking too modulated to understand more than half of it. She admits that she’s had a great time with Jack and Sarah, but now she wants more. She wants to be able to take human form to make her job easier. He gives her a month to see if she can torture ten people.Now in human form, the demoness heads to Hollywood for victims. We cut to a disco that looks like it was filmed on a green screen without the processing. Two guys hit on an attractive-looking human who’s not at all a demon; she says she’s Charlotte. She’s rude, and they love it. One guy leaves, leaving Steve, a Tech Bro, with Charlotte. The two seem to compare to see who’s the most shallow.She invites him over to her place after dancing. She’s surprisingly philosophical, which puts him off a little. She makes him a drink, and shockingly, it’s drugged. She dresses him up like a clown, puts him back on the autopsy table, and makes a whole unintelligible speech in her demoness form; when she pulls out a machete, we understand that part.In the morning, Charlotte talks to the neighbors, Yagami and Tamara, about moving to Jack and Sarah’s house. They invite her over for dinner. Their daughter has cancer.Charlotte arrives for dinner in a sexy, low-cut dress that Tamara obviously doesn’t approve of. It’s all very awkward. Yagami, on the other hand, says she “looks gorgeous.” It’s an awkward scene that drags on for entirely too long. It soon becomes obvious that they have drugged her. “This will be fun,” Tamara laughs. Daughter Saori says they shouldn’t be doing this just to keep her alive.Charlotte wakes up tied to the wall. The family plans to steal Charlotte’s organs to sell to pay for Sairi’s treatments. Charlotte starts to laugh in a “Do you know who I am” kind of way. She then beats them both to death with a hammer.Steve’s partner, Brad, goes to see a detective about Steve’s mysterious disappearance. They’re hostile with each other for no apparent reason, but Brad seems unhinged.The demoness calls Satan again, and she wants to move on to bigger things; he says no.Brad grabs a gun and breaks into Charlotte’s house. She quickly takes charge of the situation and puts him in a clown costume. Soon after, she eats his eyeball and cuts out his tongue. Then she bites off his toes. The demoness summons Satan yet again, and they discuss the need to deal with Detective Gerrard, the last one alive who knows who Charlotte is. She pays him a visit at his office, and of course that goes very badly for him.And then it was suddenly over, fortunately for all of us.Brian’s CommentaryWas the sound designer for this a deaf person? Both Sarah and the Demoness are nearly completely unintelligible. Once the demoness became human, the voices got a lot clearer. When she was back in the makeup, she was unintelligible again. The demoness creature looks really good, but her voice is awful.That’s the fakest disco I’ve ever seen, almost as fake as the CGI gore effects, which are really poorly done.I like the idea and the basic plot, but it’s a really poorly made film. It starts out hard to understand, and once we get moving, it’s only downhill from there.This is pretty awful.Kevin’s CommentaryWe really could have used subtitles. That conversation between the demoness and Lucifer might have been interesting, but I felt like I missed a quarter of it. But once we got past that and Sarah out of the picture, people’s voices were nice and clear. Until Charlotte went back to her demon form again, sigh. She was good in the role though, and her makeup was cool.This falls in the trope of a killer that is so powerful that the victims have zero chance as they are toyed with, and we know how each confrontation is going to end - it’s just a matter of how.Between the pacing, poor audio, and overacting, I was pretty weary of it as the end approached. And then an abrupt ending happened. I’m going to say I liked it more than disliked it.2025 Super Happy Fun Clown* Directed by: Patrick Rea* Written by: Eric Winkler* Stars: Jennifer Seward, Nicole Hall, Matt Leisy* Run Time: 1 Hour 27 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneJennifer’s had a rough life, but she finds a way to happiness and fame by channeling her clown self. After a slow start, we watch her trip to crazy town progress and leave a trail of bodies in her wake. The pacing is uneven, but it’s a pretty good one.Spoilery SynopsisThe police have the clown and her hostage in their sights. That goes badly, and then credits roll.Back in 2004, we see a clown in the park. Young Jennifer is somewhat obsessed with clowns and homeless people. She’s smart, but her mother is unenthusiastic.Twenty years later, She’s Jenno-The-Clown, doing mime-y things in the park, and the kids love her. Her husband is unenthusiastic. She’s got serial killer posters on her wall, and she likes that as well.Detectives Barnes and Marshall talk about what crimes they expect this upcoming Halloween.Jennifer and her mother talk about her pedo, ex-lawyer husband and badly paying job. Her mother is still unenthusiastic and downright mean. She and her coworker Ryan fantasize about being serial killers. She loves being a clown, but not much else about her life.After a while, Jennifer stops being enthusiastic about being a clown, so she kills her husband. She just lets him decompose in the spaghetti over the weeks leading up to Halloween. After a while, she starts to eat him. Then she buys a tiny little gun.It’s Halloween, and Jen runs over a guy with her car. She goes over to her mother’s house in full costume and shoots right through her mother’s head.The police get a call to do a wellness check on Jen’s rotting husband. Barnes mentions that he’s afraid of clowns; Marshall hates horses. Neither of them appreciate the half-eaten rotten corpse in the kitchen; they also soon track down her dead mother too. Jen, meanwhile, is at Ryan’s Halloween party and has sex with him. Halfway through, she stabs him with an icepick.Jen then goes to a haunted house attraction and jumps the line. She starts killing the “monsters” inside. The zombie and the Phantom of the Opera are the first to die, but several more follow. Eventually, she comes to a woman dressed as a killer clown, and she likes that a lot but only for a minute.The detectives arrive at the theater, and one of them soon becomes a convenient hostage. We’re back at the opening scene, and Jennifer is shot.Some time later, she wakes up in the hospital without makeup. The networks are already asking for interviews. Detective Marshall is not amused that the evil clown has survived.Brian’s CommentaryThe childhood segment was only ten minutes long, but seemed like half an hour. I love the husband’s meal choices. After the slow start, the film picks up the pace and goes pretty well until the haunted cinema, where things seem to slow down once again.For a low-budget indie film, it’s not bad. With the exception of the pacing issues, I was entertained.Kevin’s CommentaryWe have Harley Quinn at home.This spends way too long at the beginning of the movie showing not a whole lot happening in Jennie’s childhood, or it seemed way too long anyway. Once she reaches adulthood things build momentum. The pacing is still uneven throughout, but I thought it was decent overall. I enjoyed it more than disliked it.2011 Megan is Missing* Directed by: Michael Goi* Written by: Michael Goi* Stars: Amber Perkins, Rachel Quinn, Dean Waite* Run Time: 1 Hour, 25 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIt’s a movie entirely on webcam, video, phone camera, and so forth, presented in found footage format. Two “teenage” girls are the main characters, who fall for an Internet predator. It’s drawn out and talky for a long time before the missing part happens. It does finally dial up the horrifying, and hard to watch, up to eleven, but it takes quite a while to get there. It’s bleak and cautionary.Spoilery SynopsisAmy and Megan come on talking about being her new camera. We’re told onscreen that in 2007, 14 year old Megan went missing, and three weeks later, Amy also vanished. Credits roll.The two girls talk about losing their virginity soon and drugs as well. We soon see Megan’s mom smashing her X-Box in the other room. Amy, on the other hand, has a nice home life. Amy’s a year younger than the other girls, so the others consider her something of a nerd.On Saturday, everyone goes out to a house party. Amy’s only invited because Megan insisted on it, but she doesn’t really fit in. It’s pretty wild for a teenage party, since everyone is too young to really know how to party. It doesn’t end well for Amy, who pukes on some other girls.The next day, the girls talk about b******s; Megan did her first one at age ten, but Amy’s still afraid to try. She tells the story, and it’s anything but romantic. The conversation is interrupted by Meg’s overbearing mother, which prompts her into saying she hates it there and would like to just leave.It’s Amy’s 14th birthday, and she gets a new video camera. She interviews Megan about being sexually assaulted by her stepfather. Amy, on the other hand, talks about her favorite stuffed animals.Megan hears about a new guy in town, Josh, who’s a skateboarder. He likes what he sees, but his “camera is broken” so she can’t see him. He invites her to a party tonight, and she’s clearly interested. He doesn’t show up.She calls Josh, and he swears he was there. He describes what she was wearing, so he was there, but she never saw him. They flirt and make up on their one-sided video call. Later, she calls him again and introduces Amy. Amy leaves, and Megan goes to meet him behind the diner.The next day, Amy starts calling Megan’s friends; she didn’t come home last night. She eventually calls Josh, who says she never showed up last night.A couple days later, Megan’s disappearance makes the news. Amy continues to record her video diary; the newspeople all seem to think Megan ran away, but Amy doesn’t believe that. We see security footage of a man meeting Megan and leading her away.Amy continues to talk to “Josh” on the webcam, and he denies that the “old guy” in the video footage was him. He’s a little mean to her, and he seems to understand her pretty well. She goes to the police and tells them everything. The other girls blame Amy for all this, for no particular reason.Josh threatens Amy to shut up to the police and says he’s watching her. We do see a mysterious figure behind Amy in some of her videos.A few months later, torture porn photos of Megan show up on a fetish site. She’s not looking like she’s having a good time.Amy goes missing as well, and the news people speculate that they may have run off together. They do, however, find Amy’s video camera in the trash can where we saw her abducted. We then see that footage…We hear a woman screaming behind a big metal door; it’s Amy. She begs to go home, but “Josh” isn’t going to do that. We watch her scream as he rapes her. She eventually gets to see what became of Megan, and it’s not pretty. He then seals Amy into a barrel with Megan’s rotten corpse, which terrifies her, as he digs a barrel-sized hole. As he digs, she begs and bargains with him from inside the barrel. This goes on for a long time.Eventually, he pushes the barrel into the hole and fills it in, with Amy screaming and begging the whole time.Then the screaming stops.Brian’s CommentaryBrian’s Rating: ****It starts out fairly weak, with two girls talking about nonsense, but it devolves from there. Megan doesn’t go missing until about 40 minutes in, and it’s a little dull before that. Everything is done as found footage, mostly through video chats.The “horror” aspects don’t really come into it until Amy disappears, and then it gets pretty extreme. There’s no supernatural elements or creatures here, just a kidnapper and victims; the horror comes from the idea that this kind of thing happens all the time in the real world.I’m not quite sure why Josh would film all this and then leave the camera in the last place anyone saw Amy.Kevin’s CommentaryKevin’s Rating: ****So, we get to watch some “teenage” girls talking and partying for a while. For too long of a while. Eventually a predator does start making his moves, and Megan disappears. Then we get more talk from Amy, and we see her getting pressure from the predator. A true crime show wades in.It’s very tame until it isn’t any more, it goes to the other extreme.It’s easy to watch this sort of thing and think how dumb the girls are for falling for it, but this sort of thing (and lesser things) does really happen to the naive and inexperienced and unwary.1999 Wisconsin Death Trip* Directed by: James Marsh* Written by: Michael Lesy, James Marsh* Stars: Ian Holm, Jeffrey Golden, Jo Vukelich* Run Time: 1 Hour, 16 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThere’s not a story to spoil. The movie consists of a series of grim and unusual news stories that were reported in Wisconsin from 1890 to 1900. They are reenacted in black and white, and interspaced with many historical photos and narration. With some more modern scenes and stories from Wisconsin spaced in here and there, showing things can still be violent and strange today. It’s put together in a way that’s interesting, and we both thought it’s worth the watch.Spoilery SynopsisWe’re told that “What follows is based on real events that took place in the state of Wisconsin between 1890 and 1900. All the stories are authentic news reports from a paper of the time.”The narrator introduces us to the city of Black River Falls, and we see lots of old-time photos of the people there. It all sounds like a very nice place. We then cut to a photographer taking a photo of a dead child and then putting her back in the coffin. Credits roll.Then a hard winter hit, the banks failed and mines started shutting down, and poverty and disease hit the area. Many unemployed men left town and some tried to kill themselves quite creatively. Several are sent to the insane asylum.There are stories of the insane, abandoned children, suicides, murders, diptheria.We watch as the film goes into color mode, and we see modern-day children playing and that things have gone back to normal. The current mayor talks to us about the town.Back in the 1800s, and black and white, we hit Spring. Drugs, murders, arson, weird Norwegian superstitions, and suicides abound. After, we get more modern, mundane town life, although they have arson and crime as well.Summer arrives in the cursed 1800s, and there are trouble with courting couples, baby murder, drunkenness, religious issues, and more insanity. Back in the modern day, we hear about Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer, both from the area.In the fall of the 1800s, we get shootings, murders, more religious troubles, and a lesson in making sheep’s head stew. “Criminal ears” are also a factor. We hear the story of a famous opera singer who hit hard times, came to the area, and met with a bad end. In the present, there is still murder, suicide, and mental illness today.Back in Winter, there’s trouble with old people, grave robbing, suicides, ghosts, and still more window-smashing, an ongoing thing.We cut back to the present, where we’re reminded what a wonderful place Black River Falls Wisconsin is– and even that’s creepy.Brian’s CommentaryIt’s mostly in grainy black-and-white to give it a more authentic feel, although the stories are all reported as true. There’s no real overall plot or characters here, it’s just one damned thing after another that happened in this town, which was not a fun place to live. These were not happy times for anyone, and it’s interesting to be reminded of that. Crime and insanity aren’t new.For a film with zero story, it’s strangely fascinating to watch. It’s really something!Kevin’s CommentaryIt was interesting how it focuses on the violent, grim, and sordid around the edges. The mix of historical photos and reenactments is well balanced, with good narration. I thought it was really cool.1985 Come and See* Directed by: Elem Klimov* Written by: Ales Adamovich, Elem Klimov* Stars: Aleksey Kravchenko, Olga Mironova, Liubomiras Laucevius* Run Time: 2 Hours, 22 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone This isn’t a horror movie, but it does show the horror of war. It’s set in 1943 Russia in an area fully hit by fighting and follows the misadventures of a pre-teen boy who joins the resistance. It’s an uncomfortable watch, very graphic and realistic, but it’s really well made.Spoilery SynopsisWe open on an old man yelling at someone he claims is digging and hiding underground. We then cut to a little boy who mocks his grumpy uncle. We see that it’s Byelorussia in 1943. The two boys then go dig on the beach, looking for guns. “Without guns, they won’t let us join!” They want to be soldiers. The older brother finds one. Credits roll.The boy’s mother doesn’t want him to go and hands him an axe to kill them all, which Flyora won’t do. Some Soviet soldiers come to pick him up, he’s joining up with them. The soldiers try to be funny, but it only scares the family. The soldiers make it look like he was conscripted, but he really volunteered.Flyora goes to the army camp, and it all looks like a big adventure to him. Kosach is the commander, and Glasha is a girl that he likes. They are soon called to action, and everyone gets ready to march to the fight– except Flyora, who is told to trade boots with a man and stay behind.Flyora runs into Glasha crying in the woods, and she’s so sad it makes him cry as well until they laugh. She points out that they left him behind out of pity, and he takes offense to that. She doesn’t seem quite right, mentally, and she upsets him. They watch a plane fly over and drop parachutes and bombs far too close for their liking, partially deafening Flyora. Then they have to hide from the paratroopers who land nearby.By morning, the two are friends again, and they get a little crazy in the woods. With nowhere else to go, Flyora and Glasha head back to his mother’s house, but no one is there. The soup is still warm, so they haven’t been gone long. Glasha sees a huge pile of bodies, probably including Flyora’s family, but she doesn’t tell him about it. The two then decide to walk through a swamp, which neither of them enjoy. She tells him the truth, but he won’t believe it.After finding another soldier, the two go with him to a place with a bunch of refugees including some who tell Flyora that his family is dead. Flyora’s cranky old uncle is there who is burned and dying, but still has time to say “I told you so.”In the group, some of the men do artwork with a Nazi skeleton. Flyora seems to mostly be in shock through all this, but eventually moves on with some soldiers. Soon, there’s only Flyora and one other soldier, and they steal a cow, which leads Flyora to be the only survivor; even the cow is shot.Flyora meets up with a man who agrees to take him home and hide him with his family. The German soldiers are right behind them in trucks. The Germans round up all the villagers and inspect the group. Flyora knows they’re going to be slaughtered like his own village, but the villagers allow themselves to be herded into a barn. There is a lot of screaming and pushing for a long while, and Flyora is just one of the crowd.The leader of the Germans then ordered all the adults to climb out a window and leave the children. Flyora is the only one to try to leave, so he’s grabbed and pulled aside. There are a lot of Germans there, and they all watch and have a good time as they kill everyone in the barn. Flyora is one of the few outside who lives to see it. The Germans start to leave as the village burns. Flyora passes out, and they leave him for dead.In the morning, Flyora moves on, regaining his uniform and gun. He rejoins Glasha, who has been beaten and raped quite badly. Kosach’s men have captured a handful of Germans, and there’s an argument on how to treat them. The German officers identify themselves and make excuses. “I’m just a tired old man,” says the German leader. Flyora points out that he’s the one who ordered the children killed. Exposed, the leaders tell what they really think of the local people. This goes badly for the prisoners.We then cut to real old footage of concentration camp survivors as Flyora finally shoots his gun– at a poster of Hitler. It looks like he’s gone completely insane from all of it, but he goes off with the soldiers to fight some more. We’re told that in total, in reality, 628 villages were burned to the ground just like what we saw.Brian’s CommentaryIt’s not so much a horror film as it is a “horror of war” film. Flyora witnesses all kinds of death and atrocities, much more than any twelve year old should. It’s slow to get started, but the climax is very intense. No one gets out unscathed, and we see why Flyora has “that look” in his eyes toward the end.Kevin’s CommentaryIt’s not a fun movie, but it’s a good one. I’ve heard it said it’s an uncomfortable watch, and they are right. War is awful, and this shows that well.Contact Info:Email: mailto:email@horrorguys.comWebsites:* https://www.horrorguys.com* https://www.horrormonthly.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.horrorweekly.com/subscribe | 29m 14s | ||||||
| 1/11/26 | ![]() Our Best of 2025 Review and Five Short Films | We’re breaking our usual format this week to cover our top picks of the films released in 2025. We’ll each discuss our top ten picks from the 2025 films as well as our favorite things we watched of the older films we watched last year as well. We’ll discuss a handful of short films too!This as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #52, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comShort Films:2022 Short Film CIMIM* Directed by: Cody Mobley* Written by: Cody Mobley* Stars: Darian Michael Garey, Mike Duff, Daniel Kohl* Run Time: 5 Minutes* Watch it: What HappensA group of campers banter about cats vs. dogs. One girl mentions she has edibles in the truck. She goes to grab them, and when she returns, she finds herself still sitting at the campfire. Her doppelgänger opens her eyes and freaks everyone out. One by one, it quickly picks off the campers…CommentaryThis is all filmed at night, but it’s still brightly lit, and you can see everything that’s going on. We don’t get much explanation for any of it, but then, neither do the campers. It’s very short, but also really well done.And I have no idea what “CIMIM” means.2025 Short Film The Last Thing She Saw* Directed by: Anthony Cousins, Rebecca Daugherty* Written by: Brady Richards* Stars: Bailey Bolton, Agatha Rae Pokrzywinski, Nathan Tymoshuk* Run Time: 9 Minutes* Watch it: What HappensEmmy has ordered a phone charger, and when the doorbell rings, she answers it. Turns out, it’s a home invasion, and now her phone is dead. She’s just the house sitter, so she doesn’t know the combination to the safe.Emmy has seen the face of one of the intruders, so he plucks out her eyeballs. The rest is all shown through the eyeball’s point of view…CommentaryWell, that was different. These don’t seem like smart crooks, and this was not a well-planned robbery. Still, the eyeball on a string is something I’ve always wondered about.This is gross, nasty, and actually pretty funny.2025 Short Film The Convenience Store* Directed by: Julian Davis* Written by: Julian Davis* Stars: Dominic Collantes, Amia Marisa, Max Ptasznik* Run Time: 10 Minutes* Watch it: What HappensKira’s mother doesn’t like her working alone at the convenience store all night, but she needs the money. Kira hears something strange outside, but there’s nothing there when she looks.The door opens, and her friend Tommy comes in. He doesn’t like her working alone either. She talks a bit and then gets to work restocking and stuff. The front door opens, and the security camera is no help at all.She hears something outside again, and this time, it goes differently.CommentaryIt’s well acted, and the set is perfect. It’s the sort of store that’s not at all creepy until it is. It’s another of those shorts where we don’t really know why anything is happening, but we know exactly what’s happening. Nicely done!2025 Short Film In a Nutshell* Directed by: Ryan Valdez* Written by: Ryan Valdez* Stars: Sarah Palmer, Ivan Djurovic, Chelsea Breeze* Run Time: 8 Minutes* Watch it: What HappensWe zoom through what looks like a dollhouse, and then zoom out to see a woman assembling and painting it. She’s making a duplicate model of an actual crime scene. Her husband, Owen, thinks it’s not good for her to be looking at crime scenes and autopsy reports all day. She says it’s a one-time job, and it’ll be done soon.We then see just how accurate Emma’s work really is, as it becomes reality…CommentaryThis is sharp and looks good. At no point are we unclear on what’s happening, but it’s still suspenseful to watch it play out.2021 Short Film Sleep Talker* Directed by: Carl Firth* Written by: Sarah Emery, Carl Firth* Stars: Jessica Saras, John van Putten, Rhys James* Run Time: 7 Minutes* Watch it: What HappensKelly comes home late after work and finds her husband, Curtis, already asleep. Or is he? There are sounds coming from the bedroom, so she checks it out. He’s in there, asleep, but he’s talking. No wait, is that really Curtis doing the talking?CommentaryNo one’s ever going to believe that actually happened, right?It’s pretty dark, but we see all that we need to see. The “intruder” is really well done, and what he does is interesting as well. Creepy!Best of 2025Link to Last Year’s Ratings (2024)This time around, we’ll be discussing our favorite films released in 2025. We made a list of everything we watched that was released in 2025, and we each made a top-ten list. There’s some overlap, so we’ll look at our individual picks first, then look at the ones we both chose. Note that these lists are the top ten for each of us, but we didn’t sort them into any special order: the top of the list isn’t necessarily the best of the ten.At the end, we’ll also discuss some of the best things we watched this year that WEREN’T new releases. Overall, we’ll discuss 27 of our favorite films.Brian’s Favorites of 2025 Films* The Ugly Stepsister ** Dracula: A Love Tale ** Companion* Frankenstein* Keeper* Weapons* Ash* Woken* 825 Forest Road ** The ElixirKevin’s Favorites of 2025 Films* Dracula: A Love Tale ** 825 Forest Road ** Borderline* In Vitro* Monster Island* Self Driver* Sinners* The Monkey* The Ugly Stepsister ** Strange HarvestUnanimous Favorites* The Ugly Stepsister* Dracula: A Love Tale* 825 Forest RoadBrian’s Favorite Not-New films* Boys from County Hell ** A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night ** It’s What’s Inside* The Legend of Boggy Creek* Tucker and Dale vs Evil* Inhuman KissKevin’s Favorite Not-New films* A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night ** Boys From County Hell ** Cube (The original 1997)* Flesh For Frankenstein* Horns* Santa SangreBoth Agree* Boys from County Hell* A Girl Walks Home Alone At NightContact Info:Email: mailto:email@horrorguys.comWebsites:* https://www.horrorguys.com* https://www.horrormonthly.com This is a public episode. 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| 1/4/26 | ![]() Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, Influencers, Keeper, Wormtown, and Experiment in Evil | For our first episode of 2026, we’ve got four new releases and one oldie for you. We’ll open on “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” and “Influencers,” a couple of sequels. Two that aren’t sequels are “Keeper” and “Wormtown,” all from 2025. Finally, we’ll watch “Experiment in Evil,” an oldie from 1959This as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #52, should be on sale in a few days! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2025 Five Nights at Freddy’s 2* Directed by: Emma Tammi* Written by: Scott Cawthon* Stars: Josh Hutcherson, Piper Rubio, Elizabeth Lail* Run Time: 1 Hour, 44 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneA year after the first movie, the survivors are back with some fresh faces, and there’s another Freddy’s location with intact animatronics plus a new creepy puppet. As you might guess, the problem wasn’t completely solved after the first movie, so there’s another bout of death and destruction. We liked the first one and thought this one was equally entertaining. It’s a bit abrupt in the ending and very obvious there’s going to be a third movie.Spoilery SynopsisWe open on an arcade and a fun place with lots of kids playing. One little girl just sits and waits for the animatronic show. The sad girl, Charlotte, watches as a little boy goes into the back room with the big rabbit. She goes in after him but gets stabbed in the process. Credits roll. “Girl Dies in Fazbear Accident” says the headlines. We also see a marionette, a character who was not in the first film.Twenty years later, little Vanessa has grown up and still remembers all those events. Mike calls; he and Abby have a house now. Mike’s got an upcoming date with her, but his friend says she has crazy eyes after that incident with the killer bear. Abby, on the other hand, tells her story repeatedly at school. No one ever found the real killer, William Afton.Abby’s class is learning about robotics at school, and there’s going to be a science fair. Mr. Berg, the teacher, doesn’t like Abby. Could she fix up the old robots at Freddy’s? Maybe she could. Mike has promised to fix them for years, but he never really does it. The dead-children possessed the robots there, and they were her friends.Mike and Vanessa go on a date, and she’s still messed up from her experiences before. When he gets home, he finds a note from Abby saying she’s gone to Freddy’s to fix up her friends. They go inside to find nothing– the animatronic animals are gone now. She finds a FazTalker, some kind of talking toy, on the floor and keeps it.Elsewhere, a trio of ghost-chasers arrives at Freddy’s; Mike may have invited the “Spectral Scoopers” to investigate. The new security guard is Michael, not the Mike we already know, and he lets them inside. This isn’t the same location as the one Mike and Abby were just in, this one is much cleaner; it’s the original location. The Marionette was unique to this location as well. This one still has the animatronics inside. Lisa, Rob, and Alex explore the place, recording everything for their show. They all die painfully as Michael smiles evilly. Except, Lisa is now possessed by Charlotte.Meanwhile, Vanessa, at Spin Class, hallucinates Afton/The Yellow Rabbit yelling at her, and she’s not all the mentally well. Afton was her father, and he left an impression. She still has nightmares about him.The FazTalker talks to Abby, asking for help. She rides to the other FazBears, where we saw the bad stuff happening. Chica is there, and she’s happy to see Abby.The next day, Vanessa comes over and sees Abby’s robotics project; she says Freddy and Chica helped her build it. This leads to Vanessa and Mike breaking up.Vanessa goes to Freddy’s and talks to Charlotte’s ghost, who wants to get out of this place so that she can hurt people. None of the animatronics can leave, but Charlotte thinks Abby can help her break that limitation. Charlotte/Marionette then capture Vanessa.At the science fair, Mr. Berg breaks Abby’s project, so she goes back to Freddy’s to be with her friends. Chica volunteers to be the new science project, but she can’t leave the building until Abby enters the passcode. The other animatronics arrive just as the lock shuts down. Abby and Chica then take an Uber to the science fair.Mike goes to see Charlotte’s father, who still hasn’t gotten over his daughter’s death twenty years ago. They complain about the “FazFest” that’s coming to town. Mike learns that there was more than one Freddy’s location. The father gives Mike a music box that Charlotte used to like.Mike rushes to Freddy’s, breaks in, and walks right past Lisa’s dead body on the way inside. He does eventually find Vanessa locked in a closet. Vanessa explains it all, but Mike is still skeptical. The only ghost here is Charlotte, not all those other kids.Chica and Abby go to the science fair, and Mr. Berg doesn’t approve. Chica takes care of everything.Vanessa explains that Charlotte is remote-controlling the animatronic to get revenge for her own death. Meanwhile, all four big robots are out and about. Freddy is at the FazFest carnival. When Mike starts hacking into the system Charlotte activates the nasty looking prototypes in the back room.Mike and Vanessa each encounter the prototypes, but they aren’t very smart. Meanwhile, the intact robots are out killing bad parents. As everything starts getting crazy, Mike turns off the wifi and everything stops. Only the one with Charlotte is still active, and it’s at Mike’s house.At home, Abby sees Chica pop open, and the Marionette comes out. When Vanessa reports that the WiFi has come back on, Mike goes to Freddy’s and begs the ghosts of the dead children for assistance.Vanessa gets there first and finds that the Marionette/Charlotte has possessed Abby. Just as she’s about to kill Vanessa, Mike shows up with the music box and puts Charlotte to sleep.The robots then attack again along with Michael, who turns out to be Vanessa’s secret brother. “I’m here to continue Afton’s legacy, just in time for FazFest.” The Animatronics start to attack Vanessa and Mike, but then, out of the blue, the old animatronics, possessed by the dead children, arrive to save the day.One of the ghost boys appears and says they all have to move on, but once they are gone, they “can’t hold him in anymore,” setting us up for a third film. Mike doesn’t want anything to do with Vanessa, who has lied to him repeatedly. Then, the Marionette possesses Vanessa…During an end credit scene, we cut to some looters breaking into Freddy’s before the scheduled demolition tomorrow. They find the yellow rabbit from the first film, the one with Afton inside…Brian’s CommentaryThis is obviously a sequel to 2023’s “Five Nights at Freddy’s.” There’s a lot going on here that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it’s got enough humor in it that it’s worthwhile. It seems like the whole thing could have been avoided if the characters from the first film would have gone through some therapy afterward.The ending was clearly a setup, but it was awfully abrupt, and more of a cliffhanger than an ending. Still, if you liked the first one and thought it needed more, this is probably right up your alley.Kevin’s CommentaryIt’s a smooth sequel, continuing right along with things after a year passing since the events of the first movie. I thought it was on par with the first movie, just as entertaining. And it very obviously sets us up for a third movie after an abrupt ending.2025 Influencers* Directed by: Kurtis David Harder* Written by: Kurtis David Harder* Stars: Cassandra Naud, Emily Tennant, Jonathan Whitesell* Run Time: 1 Hour, 50 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIt’s a sequel to 2022’s “Influencer,” with Cassandra Naud back at it again. It was a little unclear at first if it was a prequel or sequel considering the ending of “Influencer,” but they decided to just gloss over a major issue with that ending without explaining it. That aside, it was well put together in beautiful settings, and we both mostly enjoyed it.Spoilery SynopsisA woman gets a million notifications on her socials and cries. She then grabs a knife and cuts her own throat.We cut to southern France, where Catherine, CW, is riding her bike. She goes home to Diane and they go out for a date. They have plans for the weekend, and they go to– no, they stop off at an abandoned castle to do some sightseeing. Nothing happens there, so they continue on to the castle that they have reserved.When they arrive, their room is rented, so they get a tiny space instead. Catherine meets Charlotte, another guest, who complains about the size of the pool. She’s the one who got their special room and offers to buy their dinner. Turns out, Charlotte is an influencer. Catherine is clearly jealous, but Diane thinks she’s nice. They talk about how quickly Charlotte would shrivel up and die without her phone.The next day, Catherine tells Charlotte that Diane is ill, and offers to be her photographer for the day. She knows just the place to get some great photos– that old castle again. Sure enough, they go up to the dangerous-looking tower Catherine visited earlier. One short push later, Charlotte is no more. Catherine has Charlotte’s phone and password, so she can use that. They soon end up in that room they reserved after Charlotte “runs off.”Diane goes through all Catherine’s stuff and finds her passport. Her name isn’t even Catherine, and she has access to Charlotte’s account. “You’ve done this before. What were you doing in Thailand? Several girls were killed.” Catherine tries to convince her that she knows nothing about it, but one thing leads to another, and soon Diane is dead. Credits roll (30 minutes in).We cut to a podcast explaining what happened at the end of the previous film. The murderer, CW, somehow got away. Madison White was the only survivor from all that carnage. The podcasters still don’t believe Madison’s story, whose story doesn’t quite check out. There’s no evidence that “CW” ever existed. Later, Madison reads how Charlotte’s body was found in France. Could there be a connection? Can she find proof? She’s still getting death threats and stalkers after getting blamed for all the murders.Madison goes to France and starts following places where Charlotte had posted photos. She goes to the big chateau and asks about Catherine and Diane, but she doesn’t know what names they used. It’s kind of a dead end.We cut to Bali, where Jacob, a “man-o-sphere” influencer, does his show. Ariana warns him that his audience is dwindling. He runs into Madison, who’s still looking for CW, and gets her phone number.A while later, Jacob spots CW in a crows, and he recognizes her from the photo that Madison showed him. He tells CW all about Madison looking for her; he’s truly an idiot.CW then returns to her lair and talks to an AI copy of Diane, who talks just like the original. She uses the AI to figure out who Jacob is and where to find him– and Madison as well. She then uses AI to reconstruct Diane’s face well enough to talk to Diane’s own mother over Facetime.CW talks to Jacob and tells him about the stalker that keeps accusing her of terrible things. She’s got quite a story for him. Later, she gets into his computer and gets access to everything. While there, she runs into Ariana, who threatens to call the police. CW leaves, but also tells her that she slept with Jacob, Ariana’s boyfriend.We cut to Paris, one year ago. CW has moved there after the Thailand incident, and wears a hoodie to hide her distinctive birthmark. We see how she met Diane and fell in love. It’s a whole extended flashback thing, and it appears that CW wasn’t using Diane the way she manipulated the other influencers. She didn’t really mean to kill her, it just happened.Back in the present, Ariana calls Jacob’s friend Cameron, who tells her that Jacob wants to break up with her. Cameron never liked Ariana, and he wants to get rid of her. CW posted a video of Jacob having sex with another woman, and Ariana’s getting a lot of notifications. Not long after, Arian kills herself, which we saw in the opening scene.Jacob tells Cameron that he thinks he’s onto a murderer, and Cameron thinks he’s crazy.Jacob goes home and finds Madison standing over Ariana’s dead body and jumps to the wrong conclusion. They argue– who’s been playing whom? Well, that doesn’t matter because Madison then stabs Jacob. The two girls then fight for quite a while. Eventually, Madison knocks out her opponent, steals her phone, and learns where CW’s “lair” is.Madison talks to the AI Diane as she searches the place and finds murder victim photos. Meanwhile, Jaxob recovers a bit and unties CW, whom he assumes is the victim now. He soon looks at Ariana’s phone and learns the truth. This time, CW stabs him a few more times.Except Jacob’s computer on, livestreaming to CW’s lair, where Madison and “Diane” have seen rebroadcast the whole thing on social media. Her guilt is proven, and she goes berserk. Cameron walks in, and she guts him in front of everyone. Then she chases down the girls with him as the movie closes.Brian’s CommentaryThis is a sequel to 2022’s “Influencer,” and, as before, the settings are amazing. I liked the first one, and I liked this one as well. It’s got enough twists and turns, and most of the people who die kinda have it coming, so I’d call it a win.Kevin’s CommentaryIt reminded me a bit of the Mr. Ripley character from his conniving adventures advancing himself at the deadly expense of others and having to keep up on the damage control.At first I was going to go with this being a prequel because they didn’t explain it for the first half hour. But then they showed us that they figured out how to milk it out as a sequel despite the ending of “Influencer.” How do we explain how she got off the island? Just don’t and hope we don’t mind. I’ll overlook that annoying point enough to call it a win.2025 Keeper* Directed by: Osgood Perkins* Written by: Nick Lepard* Stars: Tatiana Maslany, Rossif Sutherland, Birkett Turton* Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneA couple in love goes to his remote, and beautiful, cabin for a romantic getaway. Things seem normal. Then it gets strange. Then very strange. It takes a while to get there, but the payoff is very good. We both were very pleased.Spoilery SynopsisWe see various scenes of women and then cut to scenes of some of them screaming. Credits roll.Liz and Malcolm drive to his cabin way out in the woods. It’s a nice place; the caretaker left them a cake, so he starts making dinner. As she takes a bath, we see odd things happening behind her.Someone’s ringing the doorbell, but it’s late. Malcolm says it’s Cousin Darren and his date, Minka, who doesn’t speak English. Minka nods at the cake and warns Liz about it. The unwanted guests soon leave. Liz is suddenly very suspicious of Malcolm, but he still seems nice. They start to make out, but in the middle, he decides he wants some cake. She doesn’t like chocolate, but he wants her to try it anyway.That night, Liz has strange dreams. She goes downstairs and examines the rest of the cake, which she shoves into her mouth like an animal. As she eats it, we hear the screams of many women.We cut to Minka, who is lost in the woods for some reason. She sees another woman, and she is attacked strangely.In the morning, Liz draws the faces of the screaming women; she’s an artist. Later, she and Malcolm go for a walk in the woods. She finds a locket on a rock in a stream and takes it. Malcolm gets a call from work and has to go deal with it. She’s acting weird, but he doesn’t seem to notice. She keeps getting visions of bubbles and water.Alone now, she watches out the window to the neighbor’s yard and sees a head in the garbage there. No– just her imagination, maybe. Then she sees Minka and also a mini-Minka. And wakes up from a nap after drinking.Darren comes over and asks about the cake. He asks if she feels sleepy. She goes to the bathroom and locks herself in while he grabs a cleaver. Is he coming after her? We see someone weird climbing the stairway, but it’s upside-down and partially dismembered. When she comes out of the bathroom, Darren isn’t there anymore. Did something get him? She calls Malcolm and leaves a message for him to hurry up.Liz finds a man’s wristwatch in the garbage disposal and then hallucinates a person with a bag over their head. Also, there’s another cake on the table now. She packs her bag and calls her friend for a ride; the phone loses signal halfway through, so she doesn’t know how that worked out.Malcolm returns. She confronts him about all the weird people she’s seen. He searches the house for her, obviously not believing her story. He’s charming and all gaslight-y, so she decides to stay longer. After a while, his story continues to not check out, and she knows there’s something wrong again. She finds a photo of Malcolm with another woman lying on the bathroom floor, and it looks really old.He insists that he loves her and didn’t want her to suffer, but he’s starting to tell the truth. “You’re giving me life,” he explains. The cake was supposed to knock her out, but it didn’t work on her. “They present themselves to you as women, didn’t they? I don’t know what they are, but I’ve known them for a long time.”Malcolm tells her a story about when he and his cousin were children, two hundred years ago. They found a pregnant woman on their land and shot her before taking her prisoner. She ended up giving birth in the pig pen. The “baby” was… unusual. Now, he and Darren feed them women regularly, and have for centuries. He talks about “their magic” shielding the place.She runs upstairs, and something strange follows her. She climbs out a window and falls into the stream below. We flash back to the locket, which contains a picture of the original “mother,” who looks just like Liz. Meanwhile, Malcolm packs up Liz’s stuff and puts it in a room with a bunch of others.Liz wakes up in a basement. There are some very weird “people” down there with her as well. They have a head in a honey jar, and they place it on a mummified body. They say they are her children, and also all the women who came before.Upstairs, Malcolm waits for the screaming to stop and then goes to bed. He wakes up coughing; he’s older-looking now. There are screams.In the morning, Malcolm wakes up upside-down, hanging from a tree, and he’s looking pretty ancient now. Liz comes out to him and says they’ve asked her to stay. She feeds him some cake. Then she drowns him in honey.Brian’s CommentaryThis started out feeling like an abduction-gaslighting-kidnapping story, and it was, but there’s a lot more to it than that.The creature effects in this one really stand out. Those things are weird. The whole thing goes way off the rails in the final half hour, and that’s the best part.It was surprisingly good.Kevin’s CommentaryThings seem normal enough at first. Then they get strange. Then all is revealed.I was expecting a sort of vampirism where he was feeding directly off the life force of a series of women over the years, but it’s a secondary immortality by feeding women to magic creatures.I really liked the payoff and where the ending went.2025 Wormtown* Directed by: Sergio Pinheiro* Written by: Andrew James Myers* Stars: Caitlin McWethy, Rachel Ryu, Emily Soppe* Run Time: 1 Hour, 41 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThis is an interesting take on a parasitic takeover, not seeing the initial invasion but instead the day to day life of a fully infested population in a small town - with a trio of holdouts fighting the system. The body horror is dialed up to eleven, and it’s really gross. We both thought it was a little rushed toward the end, but overall a thumbs-up.Spoilery SynopsisWe open on a man at the optometrist’s office; he’s been having headaches and his eyes hurt. He’s the mayor of the town. He claims he can now see in the dark. The eye doctor looks into his eye and sees… worms. We then cut to the town, and it looks like it’s populated by people with skin conditions. The mayor and the others infected by the worms run the town, the radio station, and the churches, working for “the greater good.” We then see a couple of women shaving each other’s heads. Credits roll.We then see some kids playing outside as the sun comes up, and the bright sunlight has a devastating effect on little Tommy. He melts into a pile of blood and worms.Jess, one of the bald women, goes to check on her friend Greg, who has drunk the wormy milk. She scrounges the area for food and junk outside during the daylight hours until she finds what’s left of Tommy. She opens him up and looks at the worms inside; not all of them are dead yet. Rose analyzes the samples back at the bald-woman base to study, but Kara, another of the women, doesn’t care. Jess runs in, covered in Tommy’s blood, and she’s afraid she’s been infected.Night falls, and the infected people come out again as the mayor continues broadcasting on the radio. Kara rushes off in a huff and gets stopped by an infected deputy. He takes her to Tommy’s mother for identification, but she’s not the one who was messing with the body. They want Kara to sell out her friends so they can all join the group. They feed her a wormy apple.Meanwhile, Rose and Jess talk about going to Amish country to visit family. Kara and Deputy Elroy come in to infect them, and there’s a fight. Rose gets infected repeatedly, but Jess pulls out the worms– maybe. She then cuts out Elroy’s eyes - more for revenge than to get necessary samples. The two women then go out, in the daylight, to hide in a shut-down school. Rose is in the early stages of infection.After a while, Rose complains that she can feel the worms inside her. Rose tells Jess to go to Amish country and find her sister Susanna, for help. Rose then runs out into the sun to die.Kara, who now lives with Alice, Tommy’s mother, complains that her ribs hurt. The woman explains that the brian-worms hadn’t even hatched yet when she betrayed her friends.Jess goes to Amish land and finds Susanna and her brother Hans. She tells them that Rose has died, but they had disowned her long ago. Susanna is friendly, but Hans is not, but Jess gets to stay in the barn. She espouses the wonder that is the “Bill and Ted” movies. Jess and Susanna talk about the world outside, all infected by the worms.Back in town, Kara goes through a ritual as the worms take her over. Now she can see in the dark, and she’s part of the group. She’s still getting sick, so it may not be working quite right. She’s going to need surgery to correct the problem. They strap her down to a table and give her electric shocks to drive out the “bad” worms and leave the good ones. It’s painful and disgusting, but the treatment works.Susanna and Hans talk about why she doesn’t get a humspringer, and in exchange, he allows Jess to stay with them.Kara meets the mayor, or what’s left of him, and we see that the long-term effects of the worms are not good. She wants to be “A Rancher” , one of his deputies, and he wants to know why. He admits that the humans are basically food for the worms, and it’s all going to end badly. The mayor wants Jess brought in for the murder of Elroy.Now “Ranchers,” Alice and Kara get outfits that let them walk outside in the daytime.Jess and Susanna talk about Cleveland and the worm-people. They hear normal people on the radio– maybe only Ashland is infected. On the road, they soon run into Kara’s group. This goes badly for Alice, who gets exposed to the sun in the ensuing fight. They throw Alice in the backseat and head back to the farm.Alice, now with her head clear, apologizes to Jess for everything she’s done. Alice tells Jess to disable the radio station where the mayor is constantly broadcasting and then dies.Kara goes rogue and beats up an uninfected person in town, which annoys the mayor. Kara then squishes the mayor’s head and lets the bugs out. Taking over, she goes to the radio station and starts reporting about her new era. They are even going to go after the Amish now.Jess and Susanna arrive at the radio station and kill one of the guards. When Jess smashes the transmitter, the outside signals can get through now. She and Kara fight, and Jess gets wormed before killing Kara.Susanna takes Jess to the car and drives out of town. The sun comes up, and Jess gets out of the car to die in the sunlight. Susanna runs up and covers her with a blanket.Brian’s CommentaryEw. So many worms.I would have liked an explanation of how this all started, but there’s a lot more mystery to it this way, which is probably fine. I feel like there was a lot here that wasn’t fully fleshed out, like the thing with the cell phones, which seemed to disrupt the worms somehow. Also, the worms seemed to be in a sort of group mind, where they knew each other were being attacked.If you like body horror, this is a gross one, but it suffers a bit from being too ambitious a story and from being rushed. This would have made an excellent miniseries.Kevin’s CommentaryI thought this was an interesting take on a parasitic takeover. We don’t see the origin or get an explanation if they are terrestrial or alien or what. Just small town life with most of the population in the grip of the infestation. And a few freedom fighters are trying to undo it. Well, quickly two freedom fighters and then one.It had a promising start, but I thought it got bogged down the further it went along. I have mixed feelings about it, mostly good but not entirely.1959 Experiment in Evil* AKA “The Testament of Dr. Cordelier” AKA “The Doctor’s Horrible Experiment”* Directed by: Jean Renoir* Written by: Jean Renoir, Robert Louis Stevenson* Stars: Jean-Louis Barrault, Teddy Bilis, Michel Vitold* Run Time: 1 Hour, 35 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIt’s an updated version of Jekyll and Hyde set in the modern age of 1959 France, Dr. Cordelier and Mr. Opale this time around. The Frenchness as well as the late 1950s fashions, styles, and technology all contribute to the entertainment. It’s solidly made and an enjoyable watch, though the last half hour drags a bit.Spoilery SynopsisMr. Renoir arrives in town, and they head straight to the TV studio. He gets settled in behind the desk and records the introduction to a documentary story. He tells us about the strange Dr. Cordelier, a scientist. Mr. Joly is a notary who helps the doctor write up a new will. Mr. Opale is written into the will to inherit Cordelier’s estate should anything happen to him.Joly watches one night as a sketchy-looking man with a cane shuffles down the street. His suit doesn’t fit right, and he grabs and attacks a child. The creepy man runs and hides in Cordelier’s garden and escapes. The servant lets Joly in, who tells him what happened. The servant, Desire, explains that Mr. Opale is Cordelier’s house guest, and it must have been him.The next morning, Cordelier comes to see Joly about Opale and the events last night. Cordelier doesn’t seem worried or surprised at the story, but he’s not going to do anything about it.Joly goes to see Dr. Severin who doesn’t like Cordelier’s research. Cordelier used to be a great psychologist, but now he’s a loon. They talk about why Cordelier would want to work with a crazy man like Opale.Meanwhile, Opale goes on a daytime rampage, attacking various people around Paris and eventually beating a man to death. As the witnesses are questioned, Joly is there and recognizes Opale’s cane. He knows what’s going on and tells the police about Opale.The police go to Opale’s apartment, but he’s not there. The women in the building are thrilled that Opale’s going to be arrested. They find whips and fetish gear inside as well as the other half of his broken cane.Cordelier doesn’t seem concerned and says he doesn’t know where Opale is. His brain has allowed Cordelier to do his greatest work, so he owes him.Cordelier sets up a demonstration of his work with Dr. Severin, who also invites Joly. We see that it’s Opale who shows up. He can’t help but attack a man with crutches outside and this starts a whole chase with the police. He then chases the nurses around the office before confronting Severin.Severin examines Opale and asks him some medical questions. As they talk, the police and Joly arrive outside. Cordelier answers the door and shows them to Severin’s dead body. The police search for Opale, but they don’t find a trace of him.Cordelier promises to stop his experiments, and he even has the back door to his garden bricked up. He throws a party for all his wealthy friends.Much later that night, Desire calls Joly and urges him to rush over. Professor Cordelier is in his lab moaning and screaming, and the servants are terrified. The noises continue, and the men break in the door.Inside, they find Opale who grabs a hostage. They can’t find Cordelier anywhere. They all calm down and leave Opale to tell his story to Joly. Opale has an audio tape from Cordelier that explains it all. We get a flashback to a much younger version of Cordelier, who treats a woman with a scandalous nephew. He had “naughty” thoughts about his nurse and some patients, and once, he even raped a sedated patient. This happened over and over, so he started to look for a way to chemically treat his moral failings. He decided to try his experiment on himself, and after drinking it, he turned into Opale, who looks very different.Instead of repressing his sick desires, they manifested physically, turning him into a criminal. Back in the lab, Joly doesn’t believe any of this. Opale wants Joly to help him get his conscience back and go back to being just Cordelier. He tells more about that first time he changed to Opale, then went back to Cordelier who swore never again. But he craved it too much to leave it alone. So we see the flashback of his second outing as Opale.Which brings us back to the present, where Opale laments that he can’t turn back anymore. Opale wants to take a fatal dose of poison which Joly tries to talk him out of. He doesn’t succeed and Opale collapses. Joly runs for help, and when he comes back with the servants Opale has reverted back to Cordelier.Brian’s CommentaryCordelier and Opale look nothing at all alike, yet they’re played by the same actor. This was made for TV and got a theatrical release later on.It’s decent, although pretty uninspired for the first hour, and it starts to really drag once Opale starts to tell his story. I do not recommend it.Kevin’s Commentary“The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” was published in 1886. It’s strange to think that this was a modern update at the time, which was over sixty years ago.I was impressed with the distinct look that Jean-Louis Barrault had between the two personas with the use of mannerisms, makeup, and costuming.It’s dated, but that lends to the charm with 1950s technology and vibe. Overall, I thought it was an entertaining good time. For some reason, it seemed longer than an hour and a half but I wasn’t bored. Just surprised when we paused at a point I was expecting to be a final wrap up and there was still a half hour to go.Contact Info:Email: mailto:email@horrorguys.comWebsites:* https://www.horrorguys.com* https://www.horrormonthly.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.horrorweekly.com/subscribe | 29m 30s | ||||||
| 12/28/25 | ![]() The Carpenter’s son, Werewolf Game, In Our Blood, Godzilla 2000: Millennium, and The Legend of Boggy Creek | As we near the end of the year, we’re going to cover three more newer releases and still do a couple of oldies. Since it’s so close to Christmas, we’ll deal with “The Carpenter’s Son” first, then play a “Werewolf Game” because it’s “In Our Blood.” Then we’ll continue our seemingly eternal series of kaiju reviews with “Godzilla 2000: Millennium” and the classic 1972 film, “The Legend of Boggy Creek.”This as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #51, are on sale now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2025 The Carpenter’s Son* Directed by: Lotfy Nathan* Written by: Lotfy Nathan* Stars: Nicolas Cage, Noah Jupe, FKA Twigs* Run Time: 1 Hour, 34 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneInspired by “The Infancy Gospel of Thomas,” where the idea is that Jesus was born with his full powers, in the body of a boy who didn’t know he was Jesus yet or what to do with it. It’s quite slow moving, mostly quiet, and low on action. The horror elements are there a little, some creepiness, and lots of religious elements. It’s well made but mostly we thought it was pretty dull.Spoilery SynopsisWe open on a woman giving birth. The father looks up and sees a bright light from the sky along with Heavenly whispering. The baby is born, and as they leave the cave, they pass a bunch of people screaming and sacrificing a baby. They want the couple’s newborn baby, but they hide it. As the sun rises, the man sees the devil in the desert. Credits roll.The couple and the baby have been in hiding for years, and the baby is now a young man. The father narrates that the son has powers that can’t be explained, but it’s his responsibility to protect him.The father is a carpenter, but the only work he can get is carving pagan idols. The boy watches as the new neighbor, Lilith, a mute girl, takes a shower. He also gets annoyed when his father insists that he pray for forgiveness. The boy has a recurring nightmare about being nailed to a cross with his mother crying at his feet.The boy runs into a girl who wants to play games with him. They find a man with leprosy, and that goes badly. His father still wonders if he’s from the angels or from demons; he’s not really sure. That night, the leper returns and claims that the boy’s touch has healed him. Now all the lepers want to be touched. Later the girl gives the cured leper a peach, and the next day the carpenter and the boy see the leper dead.The girl offers the boy a carved wooden snake and suggests that keeping secrets feels really good, not being subtle about tempting him.Lilith collapses with black stuff coming out of her mouth and bites a chunk off her mother’s face who screams that it’s the boy’s fault. His father finds the toy snake and there’s a whole argument that comes from that. The father insists that the boy would be dead without his protection.The boy sneaks off to meet with the girl, who is busy poisoning more peaches, and she takes him to see a site where prisoners are being tortured and executed for the crime of sorcery. The girl explains that the carpenter isn’t really the boy’s father at all. When he asks his mother, she’s evasive, and he knows she’s lying.The boy is thrown out of school for talking about things he couldn’t possibly know. The boy then goes back to the place of torture and pulls the demon right out of Lilith, who is chained there. He releases her and sends her away. Others there see the whole thing, and they’re gonna talk.The father and the mother argue about the boy’s conception and crimes. The father is bitten by a snake, and the boy heals the wound right away, clearing up any doubt the father had. He also tells the boy who his father really is. The villagers come for the family, and that goes badly for some of them.As the strange girl tells the boy her origin story, the sky turns red. She admits that she’s The Adversary. She then opens up the gateway to Hell and gives him a peek. The father arrives and interrupts this until the boy stops her from killing him. After a brief argument, she stabs the father anyway.This all leads to a serious fistfight between the boy and Satan. The boy wins, but the father tells him not to kill her and forgive her instead. The boy moves to heal Joseph, but Joseph tells him to let him go, and the red sky clears with a beam of sunlight shining down on him as he dies.The boy goes over and forgives the strange girl, who tells him about his own end. The boy, Yeshua, and his mother, wander off into the mountains. We’ve probably not heard the last of these two…Brian’s CommentarySo many flies. If you don’t like flies, then this is definitely a horror movie.Nicolas Cage plays this one mostly straight, although he does get one yelling scene, which is something he’s always good at. The rest of the cast is good too, although the story is a bit weak. Yes, it’s based on one of the apocryphal gospels, but they could have spiced it up a bit more.It was an interesting concept, but a little boring in my opinion.Kevin’s CommentaryI thought this was slow moving almost to the point of boredom but at least it’s only a little over an hour and a half run time. Knowing how it was going to end took away much of the suspense they were trying to build.The cast is good at what they were doing, but it seemed like a wasted opportunity that they could have done more with.2025 Werewolf Game* Directed by: Cara Claymore, Jackie Payne* Written by: Jackie Payne* Stars: Tony Todd, Robert Picardo, Bai Ling* Run Time: 1 Hour, 36 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneTwelve strangers with various issues are kidnapped and sent to an island for a deadly game of “werewolves” and “villagers.” Kept in line by security devices and guards, they have no choice but to play and gradually eliminate each other. It’s got the horror elements of kidnapping, human prey, and murder, but it’s really not a horror movie. Brian gives it a thumbs up, and Kevin gives it a thumbs down.Spoilery SynopsisAs the credits roll, we get lots of action shots and text that explains “The Werewolf Game” a social game of survival where random people all over the world are kidnapped and divided into two groups: werewolves and villagers. It’s one side versus the other, and only one can survive.We open on a dozen people gagged and tied to little student desks. A man in a mask comes out and welcomes them to the game. Three of them will be wolves and the rest villagers. He explains the rules. One man tries to fight back and loses a finger for his trouble.The Judge in the mask introduces Chris, Monica, Demi, Natalie, Bill, Suzie, Zak, Seth, Pepper, Matthew, Emmitt, and two people whose information is not revealed.Demi doesn’t want to play and tells the others that she’s a werewolf. The others all vote on who the werewolf is, which is really obvious since Demi just admitted it. Demi tells the others all about herself before the final vote; she wants to get it over with. One of the guards then blows her head off. That’s one of the three werewolves discovered.All the other contestants are then released on the island and go their separate ways to cabins. Matt and Raymond, one of the players with no background, talk. Seth and Natalie do the same. Chris grabs everything he can use as weapons. Monica helps Bill with a gunshot he received accidentally.There are three problems on the island. First is the sonic weapon that can kill them. The second is that they’re all going to kill each other. We don’t get to hear what the third one is.Some of the others talk, and none of them remember how they got here. Monica wants to die but can’t make herself jump off the cliff.Night falls, and after 3 a.m. the werewolves are allowed to come out and kill. Everyone is terrified as they wait. A person in a werewolf mask comes into Suzie‘s cabin and kills her.The whole group gathers the next day, and Raymond talks about the company that runs the game. He used to work for them but hacked the system. They’re all skeptical about that. Chris talks big about the traps he’s set; he’s got military experience, but no shirt. He’s not very social, and the others want to “vote him out.”Everyone is called to the great hall for the daily vote. Old Zack won’t answer his door, and he looks very ill inside; the guards violently force him to attend. Now, they all have to decide who to kill. They all vote for Zack, who has just been acting weird throughout.Monica and Emmitt start getting close, which annoys Pepper. Chris finds a shirt and talks to Natalie about winning.On the second night-hunt, Monica and Emmitt spend the first part of the night together, but he goes back to his cabin before the deadline. Emmitt is killed by a werewolf.In the morning, Raymond explains more about the company. It’s all an experiment in mind control and social engineering. Seth gets all argumentative.The group decides to vote equally for Monica and Raymond to die, forcing a tie. They don’t play fair and vote for Raymond to die.Bill says he’s solved it; Matt and Monica are the werewolves. He used to be a detective, so his opinion matters, even though a lot of the others don’t agree with him. That night, the wolf kills him.In the voting the next day, Chris kills two guards and is killed in return. This is the last round of voting, as there aren’t enough players left to keep the mystery up. The group decides to gang up on Seth this time, but he accuses Pepper.Monica, Natalie, Pepper, and Matt are left. Maybe two of them are werewolves, but one certainly must be. Monica thinks Pepper is the werewolf, but she still denies it. Matt blames her as well. Matt and Pepper are the werewolves. Instead of killing Monica and Natlie, the group decides to kill the judge instead.The Judge says the three girls have won the game. He takes off his mask and explains that the brass upstairs requires a big show. He shows them videos of previous winners. He says he’s been rooting for them all along, and the company wants them to join the management and guide humanity.Natalie goes after the Judge with an axe and kills him. With the judge dead, the guards all fall down dead, as their mind control no longer works. The three girls take a boat and go home.Brian’s CommentaryIt’s like a feature-film length version of one of the games from “Alice in Borderland,” with lots of logic and violence. There are no real werewolves in the film, and they don’t pretend that there are.Why hire someone as big as Tony Todd and then have his face obscured by a mask throughout the film? I know he wasn’t very healthy toward the end of his life, but he didn’t look bad.Overall, it’s a sort of deadly whodunnit, more of a thriller than straight-up horror, but it certainly had plenty of paranoia and we had plenty of theories.I didn’t know until the film was almost finished that it was all based on a party game.There’s a lot here that I didn’t quite follow on the first viewing, and a lot of the “company” stuff never did make much sense.The overall plot, pacing, and mystery were pretty decent however. Overall, I liked it.Kevin’s CommentaryI didn’t like the choice of keeping Tony Todd under mask either.I just found the paranoia and the accusations and bickering and debating to be tiresome yada yada. All they had for any of the roles, werewolf, oracle, village, bodyguard was the word of the person saying what role they were. There’s really no way to tell.It’s well made with good acting and production values, but I thought the script was stupid. I didn’t like it.* dy, E.J. Bonilla, Alanna Ubach* Run Time: 1 Hour, 29 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneA filmmaking couple travel to see her estranged mother, making a documentary along the way so that the entire thing is entirely found footage style. It’s very slow moving as we travel along with them trying to figure out what’s going on, then things escalate abruptly, so stick with it. All is explained, and it’s very good.Spoilery SynopsisEmily and Danny park on the side of the road to get some footage at a scenic place. She explains that she’s visiting her estranged mother, who is “clean” now. She’s been an addict forever, and the plan is to record their reunion for a reality film.They arrive at the house in the desert and have a tearful reunion. They all sit down for dinner. Sam, the mother, wants to “make it right with you” after all these years. Emily turns out to not be as forgiving as she thought she’d be. Sam invites them to the clinic where she works in the morning, and then they go to a motel for the night.In the morning, at the clinic, Sam isn’t there; she called off work. They interview Ana, the program director there at the rehab clinic. They talk to the homeless there, and they all talk about people going missing.Afterward, they go back to Sam’s house, fearing a relapse since she won’t answer her phone. Emily finds a skeleton key in Sam’s bed. A photo is missing, and they look at it on yesterday’s footage– Sam burned it for some reason.Emily spends all day waiting and looking for Sam, but she’s just gone. They start to track down some clues and end up talking to some people who saw her just last week.When they get back to the motel, they find rats and a pig’s head in their bathtub. Ana suggests it’s a gang thing trying to intimidate them. Someone doesn’t want them here.The next day, they interview Isaac and Beth, people who were in that burned photo. One of the people in the photo used to work for the coroner’s office but was fired when a body went missing. Of the people in that photo, one is dead and two are missing.They go back to Isaac’s place and find another pig’s head. They get a letter from Sam, but it may have been forged. Emily goes to a bar where the gang hangs out, and that goes badly but the gang doesn’t have Sam.Emily gets a call from Beth. Isaac has left her and left a probably-forged letter. In his office are hundreds of bags of blood, like in a blood bank. Isaac was selling it, but Beth isn’t sure that Sam was involved.Emily and Danny go back to the rehab center, where they’ve been staying, and Red, one of the patients, goes crazy and attacks Emily. Ana explains that Red was always afraid of Sam. They track down where Red lives, and he’s got a whole “crazy wall” about the missing people. He’s got a photo with Sam and Isaac circled, so he knows about that.Danny thinks Red is a serial killer and gets really upset. Emily talks him into staying with her and visiting Red in jail. Red’s being released, so they follow him to Ana’s house, where they find all the stuff from Red’s room.Ana comes in with her pet pig and wants to show them something downstairs. She pulls a gun on them and tells Danny to keep filming, no matter what. She’s got a little pig farm down here, but past that, they find Isaac and Sam chained to the wall. “Sam is not your mother anymore,” Ana explains.Ana cuts her hand and shows the blood to Sam, who sprouts fangs and hisses. So does Isaac. Sam and Isaac are vampires. She then cuts Sam’s throat, which heals up nearly instantly. They’ve been abducting homeless people and others who won’t be missed, and only Ana noticed. She then beheads Isaac and then hands Emily the ax to kill Sam. Sam admits that the world would be better without her. Emily does it.Ana explains the skeleton keys, which represent the vampire’s lineage. She explains the whole thing.Emily then kills Ana, drinks her blood and then finishes off Danny. She then does a final report to The Commission, the group of vampires behind the organized blood bank. They have a whole rulebook for this kind of compromised cover. She resigns, and The Commission sends someone after her…Brian’s Commentary It’s basically a mystery, and we don’t know what’s really going on through most of the film. We don’t know until more than an hour in. It was a little slow and tedious for that first hour, but it did pick up a lot after the reveal. There was a hint toward the end of much larger things going on, and that would have been interesting to explore more of, but it’s just a teaser. Do they have a series in mind? I don’t know, but I’d be interested in seeing more of that.Kevin’s CommentaryIt’s found footage with heaping scoops of trauma, angst, and guilt as we get to know the main duo and her mother. Then things get stranger and more interesting after mom disappears. A little more interesting. And then things make an abrupt leap. And suddenly it’s a vampire movie! Though I suspected that’s where it was heading. Though it was a surprise that Emily was infected and killed Ana and Danny. And cool that it turns out to be a vast and organized conspiracy.I thought it was pretty great.1999 Godzilla 2000: Millennium* Directed by: Takao Oawara* Written by: Hiroshi Kashiwabara, Wataru Mimura, Takao Okawara* Stars: Takehiro Murata, Hiroshi Abe, Naomi Nishida* Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThis is a sequel to the 1954 original that ignores all the other movies in between. Godzilla is back to save us all by battling an alien kaiju, creating lots of collateral damage and mayhem in the process of course. The effects are much improved from earlier films, there’s lots of action, and the story is entertaining. It’s a fun one.Spoilery SynopsisThe Shinoda family, Professor Yuji and his daughter Io, work to set up antennas and equipment outside one evening. They are checking out seismic disturbances that shouldn’t be there. Meanwhile, at the lighthouse, the man inside feels the ground shake and then spots a huge creature eating a ship. Credits roll.We get various shots from around town as people first encounter earthquakes and then see Godzilla’s big feet pass by. The Shinodas come face to face with the giant lizard creature. They narrowly avoid getting squashed in their car. The professor notices that Godzilla seems to be especially attacking power stations and energy sources.Meanwhile, a submarine in a trench drops probes and explores underground caves. They’re looking for a meteorite that recently crashed down in the sea. They find it and manage to raise it to the surface.Yuki, the photographer, goes to see the “Godzilla Prediction Network,” which is really just the Shinodas again. Young Io runs the business and tells her father, the professor, what’s going on.Back at the meteorite raising, something goes wrong. The rock starts to rise on its own without balloons. It floats? They soon learn that it’s 70 million years old and has something metallic inside, perhaps even a living creature from outer space.The professor learns that Godzilla is heading toward a nuclear plant next. They shut down all the reactors. Katagiri, the head of CCI, the Crisis Control Agency, comes to them for information about how to kill Godzilla. Shinoda doesn’t like the idea of killing such a rare animal.The floating meteorite then continues floating up into the air, flying above the surface. It flies away from the scientists’ boat.The army talks about plans to kill Godzilla; they’ve developed a new kind of missile that’s sure to hurt him. As he approaches the nuclear plant tanks and helicopters arrive, and the shooting begins. The new missiles do work, blasting out bloody chunks from Godzilla, who still doesn’t stop. He gets angry and his back starts to glow.The flying rock heads straight toward Godzilla. It blasts him good and him sprawling. Godzilla shoots back with his atomic breath and exposes metal under the rock. The scientist, Professor Miyasaka, thinks that it crashed here millions of years ago and sank to the bottom of the ocean. Bringing it back up into the sunlight allowed it to recharge.Shinoda, Miyasaka, and Katagiri get together and share information. Godzilla’s got an amazing recovery and healing speed. He’s regenerated from the attack already. They name this power “Regenerator G-1.”The sun comes out and charges up the alien spaceship enough to free it from the rest of the rock. The scientists wonder if it’s actually alive as it shoots down the helicopters that have been following it. It lands on the roof of Yuki’s building and parks there for the night.Something is hacking all the computers in the city. They soon figure out that it’s the spaceship. They bring huge bombs into the building to blow up the ship. Shinoda and Io run inside to help Yuki, but she’s found some important information from the hacked computer.The blast bombs go off, but they don’t seem to have done anything to the ship. Messages start appearing on computer monitors. “Destruction. Dominate. Alteration. Prosperity. Revolution. Kingdom.” It’s all very dramatic but Shinoda gets out of the building in time.And then Godzilla shows up, nearly forgotten for quite some time. He wants revenge on the flying saucer. It animates cables from the street to tie up and drag Godzilla around the city.The ship takes some Regenerator G-1 from Godzilla’s wound and uses it to grow legs and a face. It was alive the whole time! Suddenly, the body and ship separate. It cannot adopt the Godzilla cells for its own use. Godzilla gets back up and blows the ship apart with his atomic breath.Now there’s a regular old kaiju (named Orga) that came out of the ship, and it gets into a punching match with Godzilla. Orga can regenerate even faster than Godzilla, so that’s a problem. It’s also continuing to mutate and grows a mouth bug enough to swallow Godzilla whole. Godzilla’s atomic recharge goes into overtime, and the whole thing just explodes dramatically.Godzilla roars in victory. Then it comes and kills Katagiri, who is OK with that for some reason. Godzilla then destroys the other half of the city on the way out…Brian’s CommentarySo many iMacs and Netbooks.The special effects have definitely improved, but the CGI on the ship itself hasn’t dated terribly well. The Orga creature is very neat and works well.I like it. It doesn’t rely on the tons of lore from the previous films, but it’s implied that the characters already knew who Godzilla was, so he’s been there before.Kevin’s CommentaryIt was an interesting choice doing this as a sort of modern reboot. The models and effects have certainly improved since the early days. There is a little CGI, but it’s still mostly practical effects. I especially enjoyed this one.1972 The Legend of Boggy Creek* Directed by: Charles B. Pierce* Written by: Earl E. Smith* Stars: Willie E. Smith, John P. Hixon, Vern Stierman* Run Time: 1 Hour, 27 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThis is a documentary of encounters with a Bigfoot sort of creature in the area around Fouke Arkansas, presented as entirely real and true. Unfortunately like so many cryptid studies, any solid evidence is scarce. There are multiple recountings from real people, and many of the cast play themselves. It’s kind of interesting, a snapshot of life in the area in the early 1970s. They try to play it up for tension and scares, but it’s rated G so it’s pretty tame. Don’t expect much horror, but it was an interesting watch that we enjoyed.Spoilery SynopsisWe’re told that this is a true story, and some of the people on-screen are the original people who participated in the real drama.We watch various scenes of a swampy area and hear lots of wildlife animal noises, to the point of it all getting a little creepy. Suddenly, there’s a roar, and all the little animals go scurrying.A little boy runs to town and tells the old man about a “wild man” who’s hanging around his mother’s house. The old men laugh and send him home. On the way back, he hears the thing roaring in the woods; Jim tells us about it– he’s the little boy, all grown up now. Credits roll.We’re told about Fouke, a tiny town near Texarkana. We hear about Smokey and Travis Crabtree, a couple of locals. It’s a pleasant place to live– until the sun goes down… We cut to a few locals describing their encounter with the thing in the woods. Some of them have lost livestock to it. The creature has terrorized the area for the past fifteen years.As the people tell their stories, we see a dark hairy creature lumbering through the woods. It’s a Bigfoot, but they don’t call it that.We watch a scene with three women alone in a cabin one night as the creature skulked around outside. We next watch a little boy hunting deer shoot the creature.The Fouke community set up a big organized hunt for the monster. The dogs refused to trail the creature, but some of the hunters tried anyway. Injured, the creature disappeared for the next eight years. They assume he went deeper into the woods to hide.We then get a nature montage along with a song about the Sulfur River and the Creature who lives inside the forest. It’s really something. We then cut to Travis Crabtree, a local boy, and get a song about him. Travis is out camping and visits Herb Jones, a recluse who lives out in a cabin. Herb tells us about living out there, but he’s never seen nor heard any monsters.Somehow, the Fouke Monster returned, drawn to civilization. The word “Sasquatch” finally gets brought up and explained. A farmer and a group of children see the monster and his footprints. We see several more late night encounters with terrified women alone at night.The creature returns the next night and reaches into the window. The men go outside looking for it, and they shoot at it. The sheriff thinks it’s a panther. It returns again, and they shoot at it again. It jumps out and grabs one of the men and he’s so freaked out he runs through the door without opening it.The narrator warns us to keep an eye out if we ever come to that region. He’s still out there somewhere…Brian’s CommentaryIt’s rated “G,” which puts this almost in a class by itself right there. We watch the creature kill a dog and are told how he ripped its skin off.From IMDB: “The film is based on actual reported encounters with a Bigfoot creature in the Fouke-Boggy Creek area of Arkansas throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. Most of the actors in the film were the actual people from the encounters.”We heard and saw a lot about Travis Crabtree, but he never had anything to do with the monster, so why was he included? He even got a song about himself included.The documentary-style narration and interviews make this all seem very real. I don’t doubt that many people, when this came out, did believe it. Bigfoot was huge in the 70s, and this was most likely a big part of that. I think the realistic way it’s done and the earnestness of everyone interviewed really make this one stand out.It’s very dated and cheesy to a modern eye, but in the 70s, this would have been amazing. I still like it.Kevin’s CommentaryI wouldn’t be surprised if I hadn’t seen this before, but I really don’t remember it. It’s said that it was very popular as a drive-in movie and was the tenth grossing movie of 1972.It was one of the first feature length documentaries, and was very influential in boosting the popularity of Bigfoot and cryptozoology studies.I found this mostly relaxing and enjoyable with all the nature scenes, rural people, and the soothing voice of the narrator. Plus a music soundtrack that includes a ballad for the creature that was pretty amusing.Contact Info:Email: mailto:email@horrorguys.comWebsites:* https://www.horrorguys.com* https://www.horrormonthly.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.horrorweekly.com/subscribe | 32m 52s | ||||||
| 12/21/25 | ![]() The Death of Snow White, Thelma, For God’s Sake Wake Her Up, Godzilla (1998), and The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976) | We have a fun mix of old and new this week. We’ll start off with two new releases, “The Death of Snow White” and “For God’s Sake Wake Her Up,” both new-ish. We’ll go overseas for a bit and visit “Thelma” from 2017. Then we’ll watch the American remake of Godzilla, “Godzilla” (1998). Finally, we’ll watch a true-crime-sorta film, “The Town That Dreaded Sundown” from way back in 1976. [Except we ended up reading them all out of order on the podcast, sorry!]This, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #51, is on sale now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2025 The Death of Snow White* Directed by: Jason Brooks* Written by: Jason Brooks, Naomi Mechem-Miller* Stars: Sanae Loutsis, Chelsea Edmundson, Tristan Nokes* Run Time: 1 Hour, 50 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIt’s a dark telling of the classic fairy tale. This is a good one to watch if you really enjoy Renaissance Festivals - it appears to have been filmed at one with that level of realism throughout in all the aspects. The story has the logic of a fairy tale, and it has some entertaining moments and ideas. But we both thought it was a bit long and drawn out, and not an overall winner.Spoilery SynopsisAn old woman chases a young woman up the stairs in the castle. The old woman whispers some magic words, and the other starts to puke up maggots. She makes the guard kill himself. She then goes to the bedroom of a very pregnant woman and stabs her with a poisoned dagger. All the king’s doctors get to work trying to save the baby. The dying queen looks out the window and talks about how beautiful the snow is.On the way out, the witch takes out more guards and encounters a buff dwarf with an axe, and she knows him. They fight epically, and she runs him through and makes her wounded escape. Credits roll.Years later, at what appears to be a still-medieval Renfest, Princess Snow White likes the looks of The Prince. There’s some awkward flirting between the two. Meanwhile, the Queen looks at the results of an experiment of arsenic skin care on a subject. She’ll try mercury next. She looks out the window at Snow and hates her. The magic mirror knows all about her plans.The Queen has lost some blood and wants the huntsman to kidnap one of Snow’s friends to replace it. His group of hunters arrive at the festival and search for a victim. Meanwhile, Snow and the Prince look at sparkly lights in the forest. Huntsman Kaiser kills the girl and attacks Snow and the Prince. Huntsman Gunnar, however, is loyal to Snow and helps her escape into the Dark Forest.Snow and Sophie run into monsters in the woods, and they tear Sophie in half. The Prince and his search party look for Snow White who is wandering through the forest bloody and dazed. Back at the castle, the mirror gives the queen some advice on how to “have it all.”Snow is captured by the huntsmen, who put her to sleep and carry her back. No– they’re interrupted by a pack of dwarves who have come to rescue Snow. None of them like the queen, either, so they all become allies. Many of them worked for her father, the king, and even helped in her childbirth.When the only surviving guard from the dwarf ambush returns to the queen, she orders that his hand be cut off with a very small knife. But he’s still grateful and loyal. Out in the woods, the search party meets up with the dwarves and fights the tree-monsters.Meanwhile the queen casts a spell to transform herself into an old decrepit woman, the powerful killing witch we saw at the beginning. Who goes out into the woods with a basket of apples, encounters the boy from the search party, and kills him after getting information from his mind.The old woman runs into Snow and offers her an apple. This goes badly since the apple is poisoned; Snow goes into a coma. The dwarves and the Prince rush in, and we get a flashback to Snow’s birth. The only way to beat the magic poison is to sacrifice a life. That’s how Snow’s mother really died, she sacrificed herself.Meanwhile, the Queen is young again but still obsessed with Snow White. She has her toes cut off to fit into Snow’s shoes.The Prince’s group manages to break into the castle and confront the Huntsman and the Queen. In the ensuing battle, a few of the dwarves are lost. The battle goes badly for everyone, but the Prince finally manages to carry Snow back out to the woods. He kisses her and takes the poison from her. He dies, and she wakes up.Snow is awake, and now she gets the “epic badass music” as she walks through the continuing battle. She walks into the throne room, where the queen is making the dwarves suffer. The queen orders Huntsman Gunnar to kill Snow; he hands the queen Snow’s heart. No wait– it’s a maggoty mass of decay - the queen was tricked into eating her own poison.The dwarves use the magic mirror to bounce the Queen’s evil magic right back at her. Then the dwarves get all medieval on her. The queen melts as the figures in the magic mirror laugh at her.Snow is now the queen, and everyone is happy. She goes out to the Dark Forest and dances with the ghost of the Prince.Brian’s CommentaryThe story is fine, but the execution leaves a bit to be desired. The dialogue and sets seem to come straight from Renaissance Festivals. Most of the scenes with the queen involve some body horror, and there are some pretty cool monsters in the Dark Forest. The dwarves are fun and well done. Some of the “actors” seem to have never spoken on-screen before.Wilhelm and Jacob are really just Timon and Pumbaa turned human, right?The pacing is very slow, however, and it gets a little boring at points. It does pick up a lot in the final half hour, when we finally get some action. It’s… decent once you get through the opening scenes.Kevin’s CommentaryIt’s like a Renaissance Festival. The accents, the costumes, the sets, even the dialogue, all seem put on like a Ren Fest. Where on the surface everything looks and sounds generically medieval, but if you really look and listen you can easily tell it’s a veneer.It’s a fairy tale, not a historically accurate film, I kept telling myself. It’s silly and exaggerated for a reason. There are some entertaining moments and some scenes of real horror and gore. The mirror was cool. The dwarves were badass. So I’m not going to say that I hated it, but it was a bit too long and didn’t do much for me.2024 For God’s Sake Wake Her Up* Directed by: Wayne Moreheart* Written by: James Justin Howells* Stars: Sarah Crawford, Mamie Kakimoto, Queen Legend* Run Time: 1 Hour, 27 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneTwo young women wandering the city after avoiding one of their mother’s funeral stumble on another woman who is suffering from a severe case of recurring sleep paralysis. They slowly learn it’s not just a simple medical condition. We both agree, it’s a slow moving one but it was very good.Spoilery SynopsisWe open on a videotape of April talking about her sleep paralysis; she’s afraid it’s going to kill her. We then watch it happen as credits roll.We watch as Rizz and Myles walk along the train track past the landfill. They admire the graffiti and then stop to steal some beer. They don’t really like beer, but it’s fun to steal it. They argue about not going to the funeral; Rizz’s mother has recently died, and she has regrets. Myles cheers her up.The two soon wind up in the bad part of town and bump into April. Who is walking around like a sleep-deprived zombie.April goes home to her neglected-looking house. She watches another videotape; she says she hasn’t slept more than an hour in weeks. She’s recording all this before “he takes me.” “This is my final tape,” she explains, “I am the end of the line.”Rizz and Myles wander around through the bad neighborhood, and Rizz decides to go into one of the houses there. Why? Because!Inside, Rizz starts digging through the stuff and finds April’s video camera and TV. She plays the tape and watches as April explains her problem. There are a lot of tapes. They go upstairs and find April in bed, apparently in some kind of seizure. Rizz wants to help the old woman, but Myles just wants to get out of there before the police get them for breaking in.Myles tries to leave but something keeps her from opening the door. Rizz has a feeling that the answer lies in that stack of videotapes. “The entity” took April’s grandmother and her mother as well; now it’s her turn. April has no children, so she expects this will all end with her.Meanwhile, Myles tries to break a window with a stool, but the entity rips the stool right out of her hands. Rizz insists on helping April, who told her the answers are all in the tapes. The tapes are very repetitive and not especially interesting. Finally, Myles cuts the power cord. Now, Rizz reads through April’s “crazy book” and reads it. It’s all about sleep-demons, and people have died from it before.Rizz and Myles argue, again. Meanwhile, April is terrorized by the entity. The entity opens the door and lets Myles out, but then it won’t open again. She runs off to charge her phone and call for help. No– the entity breaks her neck and kills her, then drags the body away. Rizz freaks out until the entity drags her away as well.Rizz watches the rest of the tapes. April explains that the entity is an ancient, primeval thing that kills people in their sleep, an incubus. The voice from the TV helps Rizz translate the words from the book. The entity finally shows up in the real world and attacks Rizz, who reads the words out loud just in time.The sun rises outside, and April wakes up. Everyone is happy now, except for Myles, who is still dead. “We carry the bad things until they eat us up,” April narrates. We look out the window and see Rizz walking away holding the demon’s hand…Brian’s CommentaryIt’s got a tiny cast and obviously a tiny budget as well. Still, it’s well-shot and looks really good. April’s accent makes it hard to follow at times, and this is a problem because she’s the one who does most of the talking and explaining here.It’s a story about guilt and personal trauma, and a sleep demon as well. It’s awfully slow-paced but good otherwise.Kevin’s CommentaryThis was really low budget with a cast of five, and they made the most of it. It’s just gripping enough to pull you along with the script, cast, and direction all working well together. It’s really slow moving, and low on action, but I was never bored watching it. I’d give it a thumbs up overall.2017 Thelma* Directed by: Joachim Trier* Written by: Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier* Stars: Eili Harboe, Kaya Wilkins, Henrik Rafaelsen* Run Time: 1 Hour, 56 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIt’s beautifully filmed, very well acted, and super slow moving. But it does build and holds your attention as it does. When Thelma goes away to college, things start getting strange. Then frightening. And we gradually find out just how weird things really are. We both thought it was really good.Spoilery SynopsisA little girl and her father walk on the frozen lake in Norway, and she can see the fish through the ice. She watches as he loads his hunting rifle. He points the gun at a deer and then swivels to point it at the child. He considers shooting her for a long time and then puts the gun away. Credits roll.We cut to a university, where the now-grown Thelma has her first day. She gets a call from her mother, who’s been tracking her location; the parents are very watchful and overprotective.At the library, Thelma starts getting a seizure, and a bunch of birds fly into the windows. The doctor is called, and she wants to get the family history, looking for epilepsy, but Thelma is evasive– she doesn’t want her parents to know.That night, in her dorm, a snake crawls in through the window and gets into her bed.The next day, Thelma talks to Anja, another student, about the seizure yesterday. Thelma’s parents come to visit, and they talk about religious topics, and they don’t like her new attitude. They put her down for not believing in Creationism (she’s a biology student). They talk about her lack of humility.She sees on Instagram that Anja is at a restaurant, so Thelma gets herself cleaned up and goes there. She sits with the group, and they all wonder why she doesn’t drink. Some of the boys make fun of religion. Afterwards, Thelma goes dancing with Anja. It’s fun– until her very unhappy parents call.Much later that night, Thelma wakes up to find Anja standing outside in the park, apparently in a trance. Thelma gets another seizure and Anja helps her back into her room and spends the rest of the night there. In the morning, Anja can’t explain what she was doing outside the apartment last night or why she came.Thelma and Anja start spending a lot of time together, and they both have very different family situations. They go to the ballet, and Anja’s hands sneak over to Thelma’s lap, which she did not expect. Thelma starts getting the shakes, and the lights in the theater start to sway. This all stops when the two girls start to kiss. This goes against Thelma’s strong religious beliefs, which is very conflicting for her. She calls her father and tells him about drinking alcohol.Thelma goes to a party with a boy, Kristoff, and drinks a lot more than she’s used to. He gets her really high, and Anja doesn’t approve. She looks at Kristoff, and parts of him start to glow red. Anja does as well, which results in another kiss. Soon, there’s a snake in bed with the two of them. The snake goes into Thelma’s mouth– maybe all that was just a fantasy.Thelma has an MRI to check for signs of a tumor, but they can’t rule out epilepsy. The medical records show she had seizures when she was six years old, but she doesn’t remember any of that.We get a flashback to young Thelma, her mother, and the new baby. Thelma gets jealous and upset, and then, when Thelma has a little seizure, the baby simply vanishes. When her mother gets upset, Thelma makes the baby reappear under the couch. The parents know that Thelma did it, somehow.In the MRI and exam, Thelma goes into an induced seizure, and across town, Anja sees some effects of it– she vanishes. Turns out, it’s not epilepsy; the doctor thinks it all psychological, a symptom of something else. The doctor says that Thelma’s grandmother had lots of similar problems, but Thelma was always told she was dead. She’s not dead, so Thelma is intrigued and visits her grandmother’s hospital.The old woman isn’t very responsive, but she’s been on drugs for too many years. She’s had delusions ever since her husband disappeared; she blamed herself. “She believed that she made things happen with her mind.”Returning to school, Thelma wonders where Anja has been. Anja’s mother doesn’t know where she went either. Thelma goes to the school pool and has another seizure while swimming. That goes badly. Afterward, she decides it’s time to go home to her parents.The parents drug Thelma’s tea. Father tells her the whole story about the past. Once again, the baby disappeared, and this time, Thelma was asleep in bed. She didn’t do it on purpose this time and couldn’t bring him back like she did the other time. She then wanders out to the frozen river nearby and points under the ice. Not long after the mother jumped off a bridge, which paralyzed her instead of killing her.Thelma talks to her father about Anja, and he suggests that maybe Thelma made Anja fall in love with her. He might be right. That night, the parents talk about what they have to do to keep Thelma from killing anyone else.Thelma’s father, a doctor, prepares a syringe full of poison, but sets it aside since she’s all drugged up anyway. She understands that they did the same thing to her grandmother. She asks her father to let her go, but he says no. In the morning, she has another seizure in her sleep and, outside on the lake, her father bursts into flame.Thelma wakes up, knows what she’s done, and swims down to the bottom of the lake. Then she comes up in the pool where she first talked to Anja. Nope, just a vision as she climbs out of the lake and coughs up a dead bird. Elsewhere, her phone rings; Anja is calling, no longer gone. And the dead bird flies away.She goes back to the house, where her mother is clearly terrified of her. Thelma puts her hands on her mother, and she can suddenly walk again.Thelma goes back to school and smiles at the birds as she gets back with Anja, who is fine again today. Happy ending?Brian’s CommentaryIt’s slow moving, and much higher on the drama than the horror. We swap back and forth between the parents being terrible people and being innocent victims.It’s basically an allegory about how university changes a person, but maybe this is taken a little to extremes. I was expecting the end to be a lot like “Carrie,” but that’s not the way it went.It’s good. Extremely slow-moving, but I never got bored.Kevin’s CommentaryIt’s beautifully filmed and well acted with a cast that seems perfectly natural in their roles. It’s extremely slow moving, but still managed to fascinate me as it went along as it builds.The scenario is interesting. Almost more of a mutant powers, coming of age, suppressing abilities kind of story than horror. The parents seem like decent people stuck in an impossible situation. Sort of a happy ending, except for Dad - apparently she didn’t forgive him for the things he did.Overall, I thought it was really good.1998 Godzilla* Directed by: Roland Emmerich* Written by: Dean Devlin, Roland Emmerich, Ted Elliott* Stars: Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Maria Pitillo* Run Time: 2 Hours, 19 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIt’s an Americanized version of Godzilla who makes his way to New York. It’s heavy on the action, with enough humor to thoroughly take the edge off the massive destruction and body count that is played down. The creature look, and the whole feel of the movie, are quite different from the original series of films. It’s quite entertaining, but not a good fit in the series.Spoilery SynopsisWe open on old footage of nuclear bomb testing in the Pacific and the native egg-laying lizards of the area as credits roll.A fishing boat in a storm sees something weird on the radar. Suddenly, a giant claw rips through the side of the hull and it goes badly from there.Dr. Niko Tatopoulous drives to Chernobyl. He electrifies the soil and takes worm samples. At least until a helicopter lands from the US State Department. They have something bigger for him to work on.In Tahiti, Philippe Roache, a doctor, talks to the lone survivor from the fishing boat; he’s radioactive now. When asked what he saw, the old man says, “Gojira.”In New York City, Audrey and Charles talk about the promotion she wants. He just wants to cheat on his wife with her.Niko is taken to study a gigantic footprint. Lots of footprints and destruction. His new boss, Elsie, explains what they know. They follow the footprints to a huge shipwreck. Philippe is there, and he’s with the news crew. Niko starts collecting samples.That night, more fishing boats run into trouble. Colonel Hicks, the guy in charge of the investigation, hears about this. The creature seems to be heading toward New York City. Niko thinks it’s a new species created by radioactivity from the ocean.Audrey gets advice about the news business from Lucy and Victor. She spots Nick on TV and likes what she sees. Meanwhile, an old man on the pier catches a really, really, really big fish, but it gets away. Godzilla meets the Big Apple, and it’s messy, right in the middle of Mayor Ebert’s speech.Audrey sees Godzilla and decides that’s gonna be her big break. Victor grabs his camera and gets to work taping the monster; he almost gets squashed.Nick and the others discuss how Godzilla has managed to hide somewhere in the city. The city, meanwhile, is in the process of being evacuated. Philippe talks to the mayor and plants a bug on him; he’s some kind of spy who doesn’t like American donuts and coffee.Turns out, the monster may be hiding in the subways. Everyone does things to help with the search. Nick suggests leaving a pile of fish to draw in the creature. This works really well, much to his surprise, as they come face to face.In the ensuing battle, the Chrysler Building gets blown up, as do many other landmarks.Nick and Audrey meet up by accident, and it’s awkward for both of them. She gets lots of information about the new monster, and he’s more than happy to talk all about what he’s learned, including that the monster is pregnant by way of asexual reproduction. He’s… nesting. A lizard can lay up to twelve eggs at a time! Audrey then does a full news report on the story.Nick tells the mayor and the colonel his fears about the eggs. Audrey’s boss steals her story and uses it as his own. Nick gets fired but then is immediately kidnapped by Philippe. He’s with the French intelligence, and he’s got a whole mini-military setup of his own. Victor, the cameraman, follows them and spies on the spies. Philippe convinces Nick to work with them.All the characters head down into the subway to look for the nest and narrowly avoid getting trampled by the big guy. The monster dives into the river, where a submarine awaits him with torpedoes. One sub ends up sinking themselves, but another hits the creature and they assume it’s dead.Nick, Philippe, and Victor head to Madison Square Garden, where the eggs are. They find three eggs. Then they find more. Many more. The group starts planting bombs on the eggs, but they didn’t bring enough. All the eggs suddenly start to hatch all at once. There is much running and screaming as the babies pursue them all through the subways.Audrey and Victor go to the broadcast booth and start reporting. As her boss reports about people wanting to return to the city, she comes up with footage of the nest and hundreds of babies. Nick tells the military what to do to keep the lizards from spreading.We go back to running and screaming as the babies pursue them. Meanwhile, the military is going to blow up Madison Square Garden within a few minutes. The wacky Frenchman leads them outside just as the missiles hit.As the movie ends– no, the big Godzilla gets back up, clearly not dead. He looks at all the dead babies on the ground and there’s more running. And driving. Godzilla is fast. Godzilla ends up grabbing their car and chewing on it. Godzilla gets tangled up in the Brooklyn Bridge’s suspension cables, which allows the fighters to hit it with their missiles.The monster collapses from its injuries and dies. Everyone celebrates except Siskel and Ebert, who argue. Audrey gets back with Nick and quits her job. Philippe steals Victor’s videotape and sneaks away mysteriously. As the main characters all walk away and make jokes, we zoom back in on the Square Garden and see that at least one of the eggs has survived…Brian’s CommentaryWhy do all the helicopters fly between the narrow buildings when they could simply fly over them and look down? This isn’t the Star Wars trench, these are buildings.There’s a lot of silliness and humor here, and that may be the biggest weakness of the film (Siskel and Ebert jokes, really?). This is a summer blockbuster action movie, not a horror film. Matthew Broderick plays the same character he always plays, which is just too silly to take even remotely seriously.The fully CGI monster, although very well done, is hardly recognizable as Godzilla; they were going more of a “Jurassic Park” looking lizard creature. It’s different from what we’ve seen in the past, but at least it’s well done. He’s got fire-breath, but it seems like something they threw in because they felt like they had to– it only shows up twice.It’s a fun movie, really well made, but it’s a lousy Godzilla movie.Kevin’s CommentaryThere were two sequels in mind, but it wasn’t well received enough domestically for them to go through with it. It did much better internationally.This version feels like it left all the horror elements behind and embraced the action. And embraced humor and silliness. It was noticeable how the creature design was different, more of a four-legged lizard who could stand on his hind legs. And he swims really well.I thought it was too different from the originals. In fact, I read online that at the time there was a nickname circulating “G.I.N.O.” Godzilla In Name Only, and I don’t disagree. I’d say that I enjoyed it quite a bit for an entertaining movie, but it didn’t seem like much of a Godzilla movie.1976 The Town That Dreaded Sundown* Directed by: Charles B. Pierce* Written by: Earl E. Smith* Stars: Ben Johnson, Andrew Prine, Dawn Wells* Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThis is based on a true crime story of random attacks in Texarkana in early 1946 that killed at least five and wounded at least eight, all thought to be done by the same man. And “The Phantom” case was never solved. It’s well put together, and everything seems accurate for 1946 cars, clothes, props, etc. We both thought it was pretty good.Spoilery SynopsisWe hear that it’s 1946 in Texarkana; the war is over and the soldiers are all returning home. At the Red River Army Depot, everything is normal, as is the economic outlook. We’re told that a reign of terror was about to begin that people still talk about thirty years later…A couple park the car to make out. We see someone approaching outside with a sack over their face. The man breaks the window and pulls the young man outside. The girl soon follows. Credits roll.In the morning, the girl is crawling along the side of the road, terribly injured, when a man finds her and calls for help. The deputy reports that the couple both survived, but they’re pretty messed up and in comas. The girl wasn’t raped, but she had been chewed on repeatedly.The police chief wants to warn all the college kids to stay away from lover’s lane in the future. No suspects are found, and most people get over it.Three weeks later, deputy Ramsey wants more patrol cars out at lover’s lane, but there aren’t enough men available. He hears shots fired and then finds a car. It’s empty but then there are more shots in the woods. He finds a man’s body and then a woman tied to a tree. The woman has bite marks on her back.Locksmiths and gun shops in town all get very busy as people fear the serial killer. The sheriff asks for more help, and they assign Captain Morales of the Texas Rangers to investigate.Morales is in charge now, and he seems to know what he’s doing. Patrolman Benson, his driver, is a lot less capable. Fear strikes the small town as no clues are forthcoming.It’s been three weeks since the previous attack, and the police expect another attempt tonight. Policemen in drag go out as decoys to park in the lover’s lanes. Nothing comes of it.There’s a big dance in town, and some women sneak some booze into their punch. It’s the prom, and all the young people attend. The dance ends and everyone leaves in pairs. One couple decides to park and make out, but it’ll be OK since they’ll still be in town.We watch as the killer stalks their car as they get ready to go home. As they drive off, the killer grabs the can door and hangs on. He pulls the driver right out of the moving car and beats him severely. The killer ties the girl to a tree, tapes his knife to her trombone, and then plays a bloody tune on her back with it.With this third major attack, the national press gets involved, and it starts to become a big deal. The prison psychologist profiles the killer, and the outlook isn’t good.There’s a crime and high-speed chase. They catch the guy, and he’s suspiciously driving a stolen car. He then confesses to the murders, but Morales is skeptical.Three more weeks pass. We watch as Helen drives home from the grocery store alone. She hears someone outside the house, but her husband Floyd doesn’t. Then someone shoots Floyd through the window. The killer breaks in and shoots her as well. She crawls out of the house and makes it to a neighbor’s house. The killer turns around and goes back to the cornfield.Three weeks pass, and nothing happens. The police presence intensifies. Morales says that if they catch the guy, it’s going to be a miracle.They find the killer’s car deserted in the woods. Morales and Ramsey soon spot the masked killer not far away. The killer runs to a passing train but Morales shoots him in the leg.The cops bring in bloodhounds to follow the killer’s scent. They all chase the wounded killer out into the swamp. What happened to him, no one knows, but they never caught him or identified the killer. He may still be walking free today…Brian’s CommentarySlasher films in general were still pretty new at this point. The voiceover narration makes it all seem very much like a documentary about the “true crimes” the film is based on. It has local police, state police, and Texas rangers, and each group has different responsibilities, which make it all seem more realistic. This is, in fact, based on a series of actual murders, so they had a lot to work with.There’s a bit of slapstick with “Spark Plug Benson” and his driving, but it hits a little too silly for this kind of film.Kevin’s CommentaryI remember seeing this when it came out and finding it pretty creepy at the time as a ten-year-old.The poster says “In 1946 this man killed five people… Today he still lurks the streets of Texarkana, Ark.” I think by this time, he’s probably not.The movie is based on what’s known as the Texarkana Moonlight Murders, an unsolved string of at least five murders and eight woundings attributed to the same attacker in early 1946, there’s an informative Wikipedia page about it.It’s well put together, and I thought it still holds up as an interesting movie. They play up the fear and suspense of course to spice it up and add some humor here and there - maybe a little too much humor. I can’t say it had the same effect on me as it did when I was ten, but it was entertaining.Contact Info:Email: mailto:email@horrorguys.comWebsites:* https://www.horrorguys.com* https://www.horrormonthly.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.horrorweekly.com/subscribe | 26m 43s | ||||||
| 12/14/25 | ![]() Manor of Darkness, Mouse of Horrors, Shiver Me Timbers, Bambi: The Reckoning, and Planet of the Vampires | This time, we’ve got some fun ones. We’ll start of with some time-loop terror in “Manor of Darkness,” then watch some completely unnecessary, but still fairly entertaining rip-offs of old cartoons: “Mouse of Horrors,” “Shiver Me Timbers,” and “Bambi: The Reckoning” are all up this week. Lastly, we’ll squeeze in a classic sci-fi horror film with “Planet of the Vampires” from 1965.Which one is our favorite? Tune in and find out– it may not be what you expect!This as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #51, are on sale now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2025 Manor of Darkness* Directed by: Blake Ridder* Written by: Blake Ridder* Stars: Kim Spearman, Louis James, Sarah Alexandra Marks* Run Time: 1 Hour, 22 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZonePetty thieves meet evil forces when they pretend to be filmmakers and go to a giant manor to rob the place. It went in a direction we didn’t expect and built nicely as they tried to figure a way out. We both really enjoyed it.Spoilery SynopsisA man works in the basement until he hears a strange sound. What he hears finds him. Credits roll.Laura talks to her mother, who needs surgery. Her brother, Chris calls, and he says he’s got something to make everything all right. Laura works at a coffee shop, and she experiences something strange one night. The same night, Chris also experiences some weirdness with Lisa, his girlfriend.Lisa, for some reason, decides to tell Chris about her abusive family and how she ran away from home. Chris tells about what happened with Laura, eleven months ago.Flashback time! Chris and Laura broke into a house. It’s not exactly what Chris told her, so Laura wants to leave. This is the house of Mrs. Wong, one of Chris’s old teachers who gave him a hard time– and she’s still home. When the woman gets up, she finds Laura and grabs a knife. As she recognizes Laura, Chris shoots her.Back in the present, Laura gets a call; she’s lost her job. Chris and Lisa talk about his plan, and how Laura won’t cooperate with him. She goes to the restroom and sees something scary. When she comes out, Chris is talking to Andy, another criminal-type.Some rich man is looking for a film crew to come into his house and film a documentary, and Chris wants to use the job as an excuse to break in and steal a fortune. We then get Andy’s backstory; he’s divorced but wants to be a good father. Later, he gets a scare in the shower. Laura decides at the last minute that she needs the money and will help in the caper.Chris, Andy, Laura, and Lisa arrive at the old manor house and let themselves in, as arranged. They have no cell service there, which even Chris admits is a cliche. They all split up and explore the place.Andy says he feels like he’s been here before. Laura and Lisa check out the basement while Andy and Chris check out the attic. The girls find a tied-up box in the basement that looks too tempting to pass up. They open the box and let out what appears to be the Smoke Monster from “Lost.”In the attic, the guys find a dead body. Suddenly, Lukas, the owner of the house, and the man from the pre-credit sequence, returns home. He talks about “life after death” and his dead wife. He wants the “documentary filmmakers” to capture her spirit on film.When they mention the dead body upstairs, Lukas picks up a knife and kills Chris and Laura. Andy goes next, leaving only Lisa, who is killed as well. There are flashes of another woman being forced to scrub and clean in the past, with religious imagery. No, they’re all fine, and we seem to have jumped back in time a few minutes. They all sense that something weird happened, but they’ve only just arrived at the house. Laura especially seems to feel some deja vu. Chris announces that there’s no cell service here at the old house. They all split up to explore the house (again).The girls find the box in the basement, but it’s already untied and empty. The dead body in the attic is still there. Then Lukas arrives. He asks them if this is “the first time.” He stabs them all again.We again cut to scenes of a man abusing his religious wife, who prays a lot.At the door of the house, Laura knows they’ve all been here before, but the others don’t sense it. “We’re all gonna die… again.” Laura tries to leave, but it’s not that easy. All roads lead back to the manor.She goes into the house and finds that Lukas has killed the other three. She tells him about it, and he knows that she opened the chest. He explains about “The Reset” and that he killed them so that they’d understand the problem. We get a flashback to Lukas and his wife moving into the house. He explains what it is that she released from that box. He has to kill her again to reset the time loop. He does and we see the abusive man and religious woman from the past again. This time, he kills her.Laura, now reset, tells the others not to go into the basement and then hides the knives in a kitchen. She demonstrates her knowledge of the time loop to them. When Lukas comes in, Andy beats him to death. This results in Laura stabbing herself for another reset.She explains the situation, and they mostly believe her, but they still want to remain here to find the money. Lukas arrives, as always, and Laura quickly fills him in. He finally explains what they’re up against, and it’s not good.They all prepare themselves for battle in their own unique ways. Suddenly, the lights go out. Lisa finds herself outside, running from something nasty. Chris is locked in the attic with the body, which gets up and turns into Mrs. Wong, the dead teacher. Andy runs into a sex-crazed version of Laura, who kills him. Laura runs into her mother in the basement, but she knows that’s not real and stabs the woman. Laura dies again, this time at Lisa’s hand, and it all resets again.This time, they all tie up Lukas as night falls outside. Laura goes to stab Lukas, but since her eyes are shut, she somehow stabs Chris instead. The smoke goes back in the box in the basement. We then get a flashback to what happened with Lukas and his wife when they moved in and kept having to stab each other.Laura holds a diamond in her hand, she found the treasure and paid for her mother’s surgery. Andy gets his family back. Lisa is sad.Six months later, a different couple gets invited to the manor and are told to go right on in. They soon find a tied-up box in the basement. Then Chris walks in, he welcomes them to the manor…Brian’s CommentaryWhy were all the characters experiencing bloody scenes of terror before they came to the house? There’s no indication from the trailer that this is a time-loop movie. Still, it’s well done and is paced nicely, which is hard for a time-travel film. The things that happen aren’t really explained at all; we know what happened, we just don’t really know why. It’s pretty good!Kevin’s CommentaryThe manor was a great setting. Cool big place. It seemed low budget with a bit of an indie vibe, but I thought they made the most of it, and it was very effectively done. Their growing frustration with the time loop built nicely.The cast is good, the camera work and music is effective (kept making me think of John Carpenter’s music from the original “Halloween” at times), and the script is clever. I liked it and would recommend it.2025 Mouse of Horrors* Directed by: Brendan Petrizzo* Written by: Harry Boxley, Mac Gottlieb* Stars: Lewis Santer, Stephen Staley, Chris Lines* Run Time: 1 Hour, 24 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneAn inhuman mouse hybrid is on the prowl for body parts and victims, with much of the action taking place at a carnival - an excellent setting. The pacing is a bit off and so is the sound, but it’s watchable and gory. We thought it was very mid overall, with both of us giving it a dislike.Spoilery SynopsisTwo girls are out at the docks. They’ve gone to the wrong place and gotten lost. They’re here to meet a rich doctor with a boat, and what they find isn’t what they expected. They find the boat, but there’s no one there. Out of nowhere, a giant rat stabs Molly and chases Dana through the shipyards and into a closed-down amusement park. As he kills her and laughs, the credits roll.A man tells his daughter, Chloe, a story about being attacked by flies at the beach. We see the killer is watching them from afar. He’s written a book about “The Mouseboat Massacre” but he doesn’t have an ending for it yet. She goes off with her friend to a bar to meet her other friends, a group of obnoxious teens that the killer can pick off one by one later. They call Dana and Molly, but they don’t answer their phones.Chloe tells the story about the Mouse thing as we see the Mouse killing a jogger with a chain. A mad doctor created a giant mutated mouse that was crossed with a murderous prisoner. His goal was to collect body parts of women for another experiment. The group decides to sneak into the closed-down amusement park for some fun.Meanwhile, at the amusement park, Pooh bear has women in a cage, and it looks like a scene from “Pooh: Blood and Honey” Apparently, Pooh and the Mouse are working together to gather body parts for Dr. Rupert. It’s the crossover nobody expected! The doctor whines about the Mouse bringing him male body parts. How is he supposed to make the perfect bride with the wrong kind of body parts?The Mouse kills a bar owner at about the same time the kids get started at the amusement park. The Mouse shows up and kills the first pair of teens, electrifying one of them with the bumpercars (I don’t think they work like that). He catches and dismembers another girl on the teacup ride. He stabs another on the sidewalk. Another guy falls into a swimming pool full of carnivorous jellyfish (what?).Several of the girls run from the Mouse straight into the workshop of Dr. Rupert, the creator of the Mouse and the Bear. He explains the whole thing with the Mouse’s creation.Chloe’s father goes to her mother’s house to look for her since there’s a killer on the loose. For some reason, the Mouse shows up at their house right there and then. The Mouse and the mother play darts, and that goes badly for only one of them. Dad runs away to the fair while the Mouse drags Kim away. Dad and Chloe meet up.Suddenly, Dr. Rupert shows up, calling for Chloe. His boys really want her, and he threatens to kill her friends if she doesn’t come after them. Chloe insists they go after Kim.Kim is actually still alive in the doctor’s workshop being tormented by Pooh. Everyone plays hide and seek in the lab. Rupert scolds the boys for their incompetence and then sets them against each other, with the bride as a prize. Chloe’s father knocks out Rupert and lets Chloe run off.The Mouse and Pooh fight each other for a very long time, but in the end, the Mouse always wins.Next we see the Mouse eating cheese and dancing on the deck of a steamboat. Pooh shows up, and the battle continues. Suddenly, Pooh is eaten by the worst CGI shark either of us have ever seen.Suddenly, it’s daytime, and the Mouse is chasing Chloe around the amusement park. She stabs him in the mouth and runs to find Kim and Rupert. Chloe shoots Rupert without delay.Chloe and Kim smash the tank holding the rest of “The Bride” ending that threat.Brian’s CommentaryWhy they didn’t call this “Steamboat Willie vs Pooh” I’ll never understand.This one wastes no time; I was bored even before the opening credits.The sound is awful. Some people, I could hear just fine, and others seemed to mumble everything they said. The actress who plays Chloe was so mushmouthed that we needed to turn the subtitles on.There are some very similar plot points to 2024’s “The Mouse Trap,” even beyond just the Steamboat Willie connections. Actually, other than the killer being a well-dressed mouse, there’s no real Disney connection (not that the original Steamboat Willie had any kind of real story either). This Mouse is clearly an Art the Clown wannabe, doing all the mime-y things. I was also reminded of “The Jester” by his character’s mannerisms.It’s got no real plot other than teens being killed one by one. The CGI is some of the worst I’ve ever seen attempted in a released film.It’s pretty bad.Kevin’s CommentaryThe crossover with Pooh and the Frankenstein elements were unexpected.I wasn’t impressed with the pacing or the sound quality, but there were some entertaining moments. The Mouse and his pantomime are great, he reminded me a bit of The Joker with a dash of Art The Clown. That was a bright spot.You know the gore is good when the subtitles have things like “Flesh squelching.”The lack of enough story made it seem long and tedious after a while.Pooh’s death was the most rushed, unexpected awful CGI effect ever - it vaguely looked like a shark attack out of the blue. And then the final CGI scene of smashing the bride’s tank. Ugh.I was going to say I liked it more than disliked it, but by the end I had changed my mind.2025 Shiver Me Timbers* Directed by: Paul Stephen Mann* Written by: Paul Stephen Mann, E.C. Segar* Stars: Amy Mackie, Miami Parrington, Brendan Nelson, Ross Dillon* Run Time: 1 Hour, 13 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIt’s 1986 and Halley’s Comet has brought meteors with it, one of which turns Popeye into a big killer. A group of friends camping, along with a few other folks, have a terrible night because of it. We didn’t think it was very funny or particularly scary. It tries, but neither of us thought it was very good.Spoilery SynopsisIn April 1986, a girl finds a severed hand, which leads to a whole crime scene. Credits roll.We heard about the return of Halley’s Comet after 76 years. Earlier that day, Olive Oyl and her family are going on a trip and almost run over a weird-looking man with a pipe. “Well blow me down,” he says. He’s weird and talks about the meteor shower tonight.Castor Oyl, his girlfriend, and sister arrive at the campground, and Olive immediately catches a couple of punks beating up a homeless man who is ranting about “killer meteors” and “the comet is evil!”Castor talks to his friend about how smart Olive is; she’s been admitted to MIT but doesn’t seem too interested in that. There’s a lot of boring talk between the two. Some more of Castor’s friends show up, and they brought the drugs.We cut to the old man with the pipe fishing on the water as the meteors start to pass overhead. A tiny one lands right in his pipe, and he just goes on smoking; it’s full of radiation. The old man falls over and starts to mutate.Popeye has gotten a lot bigger and meaner. He punches a punk in the face and his head explodes.Over at the campfire, Stevie tells a story from another life, which turns out to be a scare prank. The surviving punk shows up raving about a giant sailor but they laugh him off. Trent and Lizzie retire to their tent. Stevie goes off to the outhouse to take a dump as Popeye approaches, now using the punk’s legbone as his new pipe. He crushes Stevie’s head and then literally poops down his neck.The campers talk about movies. “Critters” has just come out, and they’re talking about a potential sequel to “The Terminator” and “Video Nasties.” While Trent and Lizzie have sex in their tent– with Popeye bloodily joining in.Olive and Monique go for a walk and watch the meteors. They soon find one on the ground. Monique gets shot through the head by an evil meteorite. Meanwhile Castor and his girlfriend find what’s left of Stevie. The surviving trio finds Popeye sitting by their campfire. One of them has to go for the car keys in their camp, so Olive creeps on hands and knees hoping Popeye doesn’t notice. It’s suspenseful as she gets into a tent and tries not to make noise. He hears, and yanks her out, but Castor distracts him. Then the chase is on.The girls run to the car, but they find it in flames from an apparent meteor strike. They remember hearing about an abandoned factory nearby and run toward that. Castor is there, but so is Popeye, and soon, she’s the only one left alive. Popeye dunks Castor into a canister of glowing radioactive ooze.Olive makes it to the factory, where she runs into a man with a wheelchair and shotgun. The old man decides it’s time to share an old war story. He goes outside and Popeye gets him.Out of nowhere, the other punk from earlier reappears, grabs the meteorite from Popeye’s pipe, and beats him with it. He doesn’t live long, but it gives Olive time to grab the meteorite from the ground and run off.Unfortunately, it’s really hot and melts her hand completely off. That’s OK, because the crazy old man had built the largest buzz-saw in history and it’s got a handy arm-plug for her to use. She comes out of the barn and buzzes Popeye into a juicy mess. Still, Popeye puts up a big fight before dying.Olive and Castor’s girlfriend survive their order. Soon, the police are there examining everything.A few weeks later, the whole story is on the radio that a cleaned-up Olive is listening to while she works on a prosthetic. We hear that Popeye’s body has gone missing and there are more murders just like his up in New York. We see that Olive is preparing for a rematch with her new turbo hand…Brian’s CommentaryThe film couldn’t quite decide which scenes were happening during the day and which were at night. Sometimes, they alternated between the two in the same scene.This is the lowest-budget and clearly the worst of the three “Popeye” movies that came out this year. “Popeye’s Revenge” and “Popeye The Slayer Man” were both better, although “better” might be a marginally relative term.It’s listed as a horror comedy, but it’s really not very funny at all; it’s just kinda lame throughout. Watch it if you feel you must, but it’s not great.Kevin’s CommentaryHaley’s Comet means meteors too in this universe, and who knew that a meteor shower literally meant meteors showering down to the ground?I yam disappointed by this effort. Like Brian says, it was the weakest of the Popeye trifecta that have recently been spewed from the bowels of public domain. I’m going to go with almost painfully bad on this one.2025 Bambi: The Reckoning* Directed by: Dan Allen* Written by: Felix Salten, Rhys Warrington* Stars: Roxanne McKee, Russell Geoffrey Banks, Samira Mighty* Run Time: 1 Hour 20 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneBambi is all grown up and mutated, and he’s had enough of the humans. The focus here is on a mother and son who become targets after a vehicle crash, but there are also some other subjects of his rage along the way. It’s short and it moves well. We didn’t expect to be as entertained as we were.Spoilery SynopsisWe open a fairy tale book and get some voiceover narration. We watch an animation of Bambi’s mother getting shot. We get an overview of a very hard life for the local deer population. The factory polluted the waters, and Bambi gets mutated. Credits roll.We open on a trio of hunters in the dark woods. We cut to Xana and her son Benji on a drive to Benji’s dad’s family. The driver is really chatty, and Benji gets carsick. Suddenly, a giant deer charges their car, knocking it off the road and flipping it entirely. The deer then jumps up and down on the car, causing it to crush the driver. Xana and Benji get out and run for safety.Mary stands in the backyard chanting “Bambi” repeatedly. Her family is inside talking about the old woman’s dementia. Xana and Benji come to the door; this is grandma’s house. Harriet and Andrew argue about whether they should go try to help the driver or not, and Joshua decides to go out looking. Meanwhile, the hunters, who work for the evil factory, find the taxi, but the driver is nowhere to be found.As Mary sketches pictures of an angry deer, the three hunters hear something in the woods and pull out their guns. They shoot Joshua by mistake.Back at the house, Bambi smashes in through the window and terrorizes the people inside. Everyone runs out to Andrew’s camper, but Harriet can’t outrun the massive deer, who gores her with his antlers. As they drive away, the deer pursues them. Finally, they break away.The hunters arrive at Grandma’s house and look at the damage. They find Harriet, more or less still alive, ripped in half, and finish her off.The camper comes to a log in the road, and moving it turns out to be a disaster. They end up driving several miles at high speed with Andrew tied to the back of the bumper, bouncing all the way. Harrison hides, but Bambi soon finds him, and he gets what he deserves when he learns that Bambi has friends...Grandma wanders off, and Xana and Benji go after her. The old woman repeats “Death. Death.” and we see just how stupid Benji really is as he lights up a torch. This shows them all the bones of Bambi’s victims. They’re in his nest! The deer reappears, and the three run straight to the hunters and tell them the story. They all drive to the hunters’ place, where they run into Simon, Benji’s father.As Xana and Simon argue, he admits he knows all about the company dumping chemicals. Michael, the leader of the hunters, points his gun at Xana; he has no intention of helping them. Xana finds Joshua and the driver’s bodies, so she knows it as well.Benji watches as the other two hunters carry out a baby deer in a cage to use as bait. Benji releases the baby, and Bambi takes care of the two hunters.Bambi comes face to face with Mary, but suddenly, the whole base explodes when she shoots a pressurized gas canister. Xana, Benji, and Simon come face to face with Michael. Bambi shows up, still burning from the explosion, and takes care of Michael for them.Simon and Xana fight over the satellite phone. She wants to call the police, but he knows he’s going to jail for the illegal dumping if she does. He runs off, leaving his ex-wife and child alone with the monster. They grab the fawn and hand it over to the big deer.Michael returns from somewhere and shoots Bambi repeatedly. Mary comes out of nowhere and shoots him in the back.Simon, making his getaway, sees something moving in the backseat. It’s one of Bambi’s little rabbit friends. This one has seen too much Monty Python and does “the thing.” Simon dies.As Bambi lay dying, the little fawn is sad. Time for a sequel?Brian’s CommentaryThis is based on the 1923 book “Bambi, A Life In The Woods,” not the much more well-known 1942 Disney cartoon.The creature effects are less than stellar, but the overall story moves along nicely and doesn’t slow down or get boring. I haven’t seen a horror movie with a stupid kid putting everyone else in extreme danger in quite a while; I thought it was a trope that had been forgotten.Overall, this was way better than I expected. Not great, but better than expectations.Kevin’s CommentaryThis wasn’t just an angry deer, it was an angry monstrous deer - gigantic, fast, strong, and fanged. Thanks to a chemical being dumped in the woods that mutated him. It was impressive how some of the people managed to damage each other in the process dealing with Bambi.The carnivorous, crafty bunnies were a nice touch too. It wasn’t just Bambi who mutated, it was all the little forest creatures.I was dreading going into it, but I was pleasantly surprised with how entertaining it was. Dumb, but entertaining.1965 Planet of the Vampires* Directed by: Mario Bava* Written by: Renato Pestriniero, Ib Melchior, Alberto Bevilacqua* Stars: Barry Sullivan, Norma Bengell, Angel Aranda* Run Time: 1 Hour, 28 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneAfter a crash landing on an alien planet, fixing their ship and taking off again is only one of the problems a crew has to deal with. It’s not quite vampirism despite the title, but the dead rise and there are alien issues. There are some horror elements for sure, but it’s mostly science fiction. The retro-futurism is dialed up to 11 and it’s got a decent story. All in all, we’d call it entertaining fun.Spoilery SynopsisWe zoom in on a spaceship and then see what’s inside. The bridge crew is all decked out in high-necked black leather uniforms that are a cross between the X-Men and Leather Daddies. They’re picking up strange signals from a point on a nearby planet. Captain Mark Markary calls the other ship, and Mark’s brother starts to say something when the ship loses contact.Suddenly the gravity goes crazy and everyone experiences 20g as they approach the nearby planet. Somehow, they regain control enough to land on the desolate planet. When they recover, Mark’s crew wakes up and attacks each other.The ship’s doctor staggers outside, and the atmosphere clears his mind. He doesn’t know why he behaved that way. Mark and Wess inspect their ship outside, and everything looks normal; it was an excellent landing, even if they can’t remember doing it. They find the other ship on their sensors, but can’t tell how badly it’s damaged.Mark and several of the men go outside and explore the alien, rocky terrain. They get to the other ship, the Galliott, and immediately find a couple of corpses outside; they fought and killed each other. Mark comes to the conclusion that this was all planned… by someone. When they look in through the windows, it appears that they’re all dead inside.Mark and the others go back to their own ship, the Argos, for tools, and leave Eldon at the other ship to guard the bodies. As soon as they leave he starts hearing voices.When Mark and the others return, all the bodies are gone, as is Eldon. Also, whatever happened to the signal the ship had been receiving for the past two years? The signal is gone now. The Argos’s solar batteries are drained, so they may not even be able to take off again when the time comes.Outside, the dead crawl out of their graves and rip off their plastic shrouds. Mark dictates a “captain’s log” but stops when he sees Wess stagger into the ship. Wess tries to disconnect the meteor rejector, but he doesn’t know why when he comes to his senses again. The meteor rejector on the other ship was destroyed– why?One of their own men, Bert, is killed, and with his dying breath, he accuses Captain Sallis, one of the dead men from the other ship. As everyone discusses the situation, dead Bert opens his eyes and starts to listen. Tiona sees him moving and faints; then the crew buries Bert.The crew finds the wreckage of another ship, and this one’s been here a long time. They find the skeletal remains of some kind of huge alien. Mark and Sanya go inside, and some of the machinery is still active. They start randomly pushing buttons and hear a recording of what the aliens sounded like. Then the doors close, and they’re trapped inside. They eventually figure out how to open the door again, but when they do, the guard outside, Carter, is gone.On their return, Tiona reports seeing more of the dead up and walking around. Mark sees Sallis and Keir, two of the men assumed to be dead from the Galliott. Captain Sallis tells his story, and it’s all believable.Tiona, on the other hand, insists that they are really dead. She insists they open up the graves and check, and they are, in fact, empty.Meanwhile, Sallis and Keir head straight to the meteor rejector and disable it. When Mark and the others catch Sallis, he admits that he’s not Sallis. Sallis is possessed by another being just using the body. They’re the ones who forced the crew to fight and kill each other so they would have bodies to inhabit. They also sent the signal that brought the humans here. Mark calls them a “breed of parasites,” and Sallis doesn’t like that comparison. They want to go to a more inhabited planet, and they’re holding the meteor rejector hostage. The alien inside Sallis says they can willingly let them in while they are still alive, and it would be a symbiotic relationship, but the humans don’t like that idea.Mark decides to blow up the Galliott and take off anyway. He and Sonya go over there and find all the dead working on the ship, getting it ready to blast off. With the meteor rejector, they just might be able to do it. They run into Toby, Marks’s brother, and he’s one of the aliens as well now. Mark shoots him dead again.The living and the possessed have a battle over the Galliot and snatch their meteor rejector while Wess is finishing up repairs on the Argos.Mark and Sonya run back to their ship and take off immediately. They reinstall the meteor rejector. Wess points out that out of eighteen people, only three are left. Not long afterward, Wess notices that Mark is acting strangely and comes to the conclusion that the captain is possessed as well. He tells Sonya, who picks up a gun on the way to confront Mark. Turns out, both Mark and Sonya are possessed. They intend to go back home and infect the whole planet.Wess runs to the control room and smashes the meteor rejector, dying in the process. Mark says they’ll never be able to reach home now, but they can make it to this primitive planet the inhabitants call Earth…The final twist being that the heroes we were rooting for were aliens too.Brian’s CommentaryIt’s no “Forbidden Planet,” but the sets and costumes are on the same par. It’s said to be one of the original influences for “Alien” as well, and several shots and ideas are very similar.The spaceships are miniatures filmed way too close up, and they don’t look good at all. The planet, while colorfully lit like an episode of “Star Trek,” is hazy, smoky, and effectively creepy and alien. The creatures are more possessed-zombies than actual vampires, but they’re still “undead.”It’s dated in a 1960’s sci-fi way, being too colorful and sharp, but otherwise, it’s really very good.Kevin’s CommentaryThe space effects aren’t great, but the retro-futurism of the sets, props, and costumes is awesome. I’d barely call it horror, heavily science fiction. Science fiction done the way it was in the 1960s. The story is decent, the cast does a convincing job, and I can see where it might have planted the seeds of “Alien” and some other films that came after this one.I’m surprised I’ve never seen it before, and I’m glad that I did. I was entertained.Contact Info:Email: mailto:email@horrorguys.comWebsites:* https://www.horrorguys.com* https://www.horrormonthly.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.horrorweekly.com/subscribe | 33m 45s | ||||||
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