Horror Weekly

Brian Schell and Kevin L. Knights
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  • FILM REVIEWS
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Join Kevin and Brian for a weekly podcast episode. Every Friday, the guys release both a video and audio podcast episode that covers everything new in horror, along with a handful of great (and awful) movie reviews! www.horrorweekly.com

  1. 3D AGO

    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.com Mainstream 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 Zone Two 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 Synopsis Two 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 Commentary Bight: 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 Commentary The 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 Zone The 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 Synopsis In 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 Commentary This 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 Commentary I 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 Minut

    32 min

  2. FEB 8

    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.com Mainstream 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 Zone When 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 Synopsis As 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 Commentary It’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 Commentary I 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 Zone The 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 Synopsis We 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 s

    31 min

  3. FEB 1

    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.com Mainstream 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 Zone In 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 Synopsis A 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 Commentary This 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 Commentary This 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 Zone It’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 Synopsis A man has breakfast in a futuristic city and suddenly starts screaming. Angst A 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. Soulmate A 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 You John 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. Subscribed We 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 Machine Martin 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 Commentary It’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 Commentary

    30 min

  4. JAN 25

    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.com Mainstream 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 Zone Two 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 Synopsis We 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 Commentary Brian’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 Commentary Kevin’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 Zone It’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 Synopsis We 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 scoote

    31 min

  5. JAN 18

    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.com Mainstream 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 Zone A 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 Synopsis We 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 Commentary Was 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 Commentary We 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 Zone Jennifer’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 Synopsis The 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 Commentary The 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 Commentary We 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 Zone It’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 fo

    29 min

  6. JAN 11

    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.com Short 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 Happens A 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… Commentary This 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 Happens Emmy 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… Commentary Well, 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 Happens Kira’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. Commentary It’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 Happens We 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… Commentary This 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 Happens Kelly 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? Commentary No 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 2025 Link 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 Elixir Kevin’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 Harvest Unanimous Favorites * The Ugly Stepsister * Dracula: A Love Tale * 825 Forest Road Brian’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 Kiss Kevin’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 Sangre Both Agree * Boys from County Hell * A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night Contact Info: Email: mailto:email@horrorguys.com Websites: * 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

    38 min

  7. JAN 4

    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 1959 This 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.com Mainstream 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 Zone A 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 Synopsis We 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 Commentary This 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 Commentary It’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 Zone It’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 Synopsis A 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

    30 min

  8. 12/28/2025

    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.com Mainstream 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 Zone Inspired 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 Synopsis We 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 Commentary So 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 Commentary I 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 Zone Twelve 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 Synopsis As 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 instea

    33 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
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3 Ratings

About

Join Kevin and Brian for a weekly podcast episode. Every Friday, the guys release both a video and audio podcast episode that covers everything new in horror, along with a handful of great (and awful) movie reviews! www.horrorweekly.com

Information

  • Creator
    Brian Schell and Kevin L. Knights
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    379
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Brian Schell
  • Show Website
    Horror Weekly