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. 17H AGO

    Scream 7, I Know Exactly How You Die, Night Patrol, The Wailing, and Ice Cream Man

    We’ve got three new films, one newish film, and an oldie this week. We’ll begin with the much-hyped “Scream 7” and see how that holds up. We’ll then take part in a meta film about a horror writer with “I Know Exactly How You Die” and then go on a “Night Patrol,” all new films. “The Wailing” is from 2024, and the original “Ice Cream Man” from 1995 finishes us off. All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #55, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com Mainstream Films: 2026 Scream 7 * Directed by: Kevin Williamson * Written by: Kevin Williamson, Guy Busick * Stars: Neve Campbell, Isabel May, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Anna Camp, David Arquette, Matthew Lillard, Courteney Cox * Run Time: 1h 54m * Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone Years have passed, Sydney has a new town, new home, new job, a cop husband, and a teenage daughter in her 20s. Things are idyllic in the affluent area until, of course, the killings start again. And the who-is-doing-it begins again. It’s very well put together with a strong cast, but we didn’t feel like it was much different than the rest of the series. If you’re a Scream fan, you’ll probably like this one too. If you’re tired of the Scream movies, there’s not much reason to see this one. Spoilery Synopsis A couple of influencers arrive at the “Stab” house. It’s a murder house based on the movie series, which was also based on the real-life murders. Numerous murders happened here, but now it’s a themed-BNB museum, with body outlines on the floor and everything. They soon come across an animatronic Ghostface and a shrine to Stu, who legend says is still alive. Scott and Madison get “the” phone call about scary movies, which is a put on for part of the tourist experience. The whole trip goes very badly after that. Credits roll. Ben crawls through his girlfriend Tatum’s bedroom window and points out that it’s just like in the first “Stab” movie. Turns out, it’s Sydney’s house, and she’s wise to his tricks. Her husband, Mark, knows all about Sydney’s past. We spend a while meeting all of Tatum’s friends. Lucas wants to start a podcast about Sydney’s story. They’re all involved in an unrealistically elaborate school play for the theater club. Sydney still gets calls from the Woodsboro killer, but she doesn’t believe it’s really him. The killer Facetimes her, and she immediately recognizes that it’s Stu. He threatens to do something to Tatum at the theater, so Sydney gets the whole police force involved. Ghostface kills a girl on stage, but then Sydney shows up and starts blasting. Tatum turns out to be fine, but two of her friends are killed. Mark, a policeman, swears that Stu is really dead. Ben is a computer whiz, and he could have AI-deepfaked that video of Stu, so he’s Sydney’s main suspect. As Sydney and Tatum argue about leaving town, the killer pops out of the attic, inside the house. They hide in a safe room, but they both decide to sneak out to see how Mark is doing. There’s a lot of cat-and-mouse, but eventually, the killer is run over by Gale, who shows up out of the blue. They pull off the killer’s mask, and no one knows who that guy is. After a bit, we hear that he’s a former mental patient with no connection to anyone. “There’s always more than one,” Sydney points out. Sydney and Gale immediately turn their suspicions on Lucas. Stu calls, and this time, he gets Gale. Gale and Sydney go to the mental hospital to research the now-dead killer, Karl. They show the orderly Stu’s photo, and the man recognizes him as a John Doe patient who spent a lot of years there. He was released two weeks ago. Stu and Karl were close friends. Mindy and Chad, Gale’s intern camera people, talk to Tatum and discuss their suspicions. They talk about how horror-cliched it is that no one recognized Stu after all these years. They say it’s all about nostalgia and old movie franchises. Meanwhile, Ghostface kills Mark. Gale interviews Sydney on TV to draw out the killer. He does call, and he’s right outside where all the kids are. Sydney calls Mark, who doesn’t answer because he’s already dead. Meanwhile, Tatum finds an AI-deepfake that Ben made and smashes his face thinking he’s involved, but there’s still another Ghostface out there. Inside, Mindy points out that they are locked inside and all their suspects have conveniently disappeared. Lucas, Chloe, Mindy, and Chad all die in rapid succession. Tatum, on the other hand, is being chased through town by Ghostface. And since there’s been a curfew established, no one is in the entire downtown to help. Ben shows up and proves that he’s not the killer– by dying. Sydney and Tatum text each other but don’t call 911. Sydney talks to Tatum about how to use a gun and to shoot through the wall where the killer is standing. As usual with a horror movie, that doesn’t kill him. On the other hand, a second Ghostface shows up and they both get her. Sydney runs home and confronts Sydney; “Stu” unmasks himself on screen, and turns into various dead characters we’ve seen before. Eventually, we see that it’s actually the hospital worker from the asylum. Mark is there, only mostly dead, with the other Ghostface, who is Jessica, the next door neighbor and Lucas’s mother. They talk about Sydney being a scream queen and final girl. Mark secretly cuts Tatum loose, and they turn the tables on the baddie, but only briefly. Sydney’s had enough and stabs the Hell out of Jessica, and then Tatum shoots Jessica, but not in the head. Then she does, repeatedly. Gale shows up, along with not-dead Chad and Mindy to report on the story. Brian’s Commentary I like that everyone suspected that the Stu calls were AI-faked; I’ve never seen anyone in a movie go down that route before. We’re just spinning our wheels with this whole franchise at this point. There’s really not much new going on here. It’s well-made, highly budgeted, looks good, but there’s absolutely nothing new here. Kevin’s Commentary That was a very affluent high school. There were some updates using current technology, but it just mostly seemed like more of the same. I can’t fault the quality. The cast, effects, sets, everything were top notch. But the Scream movies all kind of run together for me, and a little weariness is creeping in. Oh look, there’s more than one killer, and they have crazy reasons for taking over the Screamface persona. This didn’t do much to excite me. 2026 I Know Exactly How You Die * Director: Alexandra Spieth * Writers: Mike Corey (Screenplay) * Stars: Rushabh Patel, Stephanie Hogan, Bobby Liga, Summer Hernandez, Zachary Leipert * Runtime: 90 minutes * Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone When a horror writer working on a slasher story checks into a motel to get some work done on his book, the lines between reality and fiction start blurring. The problem he finds is that a writer can’t control every single thing in the world, and things get crazier as the story progresses. Who is really in charge? It’s got an ideal location where most of it takes place, the acting is good, the effects are effective, and it’s a clever script. We both thought it was quite good and entertaining. Spoilery Synopsis A man does laundry as another man comes in behind him and kills him excessively with a brick. Credits roll. Rian, a writer, checks into a motel to self-isolate to get some work done. He tends to overshare and is a little bit of a creep. He gets to work writing his horror novel about Katie getting killed. We watch as the real Katie parks her car at the very same motel and goes into a really sketchy restroom. A man comes in and has some kind of seizure, and she rescues him. She and Naja, the motel manager, watch a news report about Katie’s neighbor, who turned out to be a serial killer. Actually, she’s come to the motel to be away from the killer, who is still at large. As soon as she goes into her room, we see her stalker approaching the door with a brick… Rian takes a break from his writing and goes outside to the indoor pool. As he swims, he thinks about Katie’s story some more. Someone steals his clothes, and then he’s attacked and kidnapped. No– he’s just dreaming, passed out on the pool room floor. Katie comes and helps him as well. Maybe that was all a dream. Rian’s neighbors have sex 24/7, so he wants to change rooms. The new one is smaller and not as nice. He gets back to work. In another room, a woman is sick and doesn’t notice the killer breaking into her room. As the woman runs out of her room, Rian thinks he can actually hear her screams and looks out his window. He watches the woman be murdered out there, but then, when he goes outside, there’s no one else there. Could the story he’s been writing have come true? Rian goes to Naja about the maybe-murder, and they look around the parking lot. Turns out, the woman is staying in the motel’s “haunted room,” where murders have happened before. The man who stayed there wrote down “his intrusive thoughts” and then killed his family. Rian thinks the motel makes written stories come true. Rian tells his agent that he can “take control of my story.” Katie finds evidence that her stalker is in the area and tells Naja about it. She runs into Rian, who asks her if anything weird is going on. They find a room with the killer’s stuff in it and then hide as the stalker pounds on the door. They both find their cars sabotaged, so they can’t leave. It’s not long before they wind up in bed together. Rian decides to “write them out of this” and gets back to work. He writes the scene we already saw with the laundry guy getting killed. He also kills the other woman we’ve seen in a nearby room. Katie finds another note, along with a bloody brick. Rian an

    35 min

  2. APR 5

    Death Name, Cold Storage, Stranded, Monster Dog, and Godzilla: The Planet Eater

    We have a more or less random mix of old and new this week. We’ll start off with the new releases, “Death Name” and “Cold Storage,” both from 2026. We’ll watch a not-so-recent sci-fi movie, “Stranded” from 2013. For an oldie, we’ve got 1986’s Alice Cooper in the not-so-spectacular “Monster Dog.” We will then finish our series on Godzilla with “Godzilla: The Planet Eater” from 2017 (We’ve now seen ALL the Godzilla films!) All this as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #55, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com Mainstream Films: 2026 Death Name * Director: Réi Talas * Writers: Réi Talas and Regina Kim * Stars: Amy Keum, Kevin Woo, and Vana Kim * Runtime: 81 minutes * YouTube Trailer Link: Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone A young woman of Korean descent tries exploring her family history and accidentally awakens a family curse that followed her grandma to America. It is slow-moving and talky with some suspense and story that builds to a climax. But it’s low on scares, and neither of us were very impressed with it. It’s just middling in pretty much every way. Spoilery Synopsis We open on an old news report of General Eisenhower and the Korean War. A pregnant woman hides in the closet as a strange man in a hat walks in to find a woman hanging from the ceiling. The man in the hat finds the woman in the closet, and she screams. Credits roll as we see Korean immigrants coming to America. It’s Sophie’s first day of university, and all the good classes have been taken. She asks her mother why they never bothered teaching her Korean, and she doesn’t even have a Korean name. It’s something her grandma wanted. Grandma overhears part of the phone conversation and freaks out. Her father texts her that she was, in fact, given a Korean name, but there was a fight over it. She wants to know her name, and he sends it to her, in Korean text, which makes her phone blink with static. Brian, Kwan, and Ari meet Sophie in class, and they’re all friendly. Professor Lee runs the Korean History class. Some of the students want to be called by their Korean names. She asks them for help translating her Korean Name, since she can’t read Korean. When Kwan tries, the power goes out. Sophie goes home on a break and eats with the family. Grandma is especially interesting, asking the same question repeatedly– she must have some dementia. She mentions thinking about going by her Korean name now, and Grandma insists that she doesn’t have a Korean name– excitedly. Sophie’s parents explain about some of Grandma’s history– her great-grandmother killed herself, which was a big scandal in Korea. Grandma says there’s more to it than that; she’s been trying to protect the whole family from the family curse. “Don’t speak that name!” Sophie goes to a nearby bar and meets Jun, a single guy from Korea. He tells her that it’s never too late to learn Korean. They talk a lot, and he walks her home for a kiss. Later, Ari says Sophie isn’t a real Korean; it’s just trendy for her– she’s been whitewashed. Sophie and Jun have another date, and he admits that he’s got baggage too. Something keeps dripping through the ceiling in Sophie’s dorm room. On the next break, Sophie takes Jun home to meet her parents. Her parents are normal, but Grandma’s taken a turn for the worse. Jun has brought a gift from Seoul for Grandma, and when she sees it, she screams. It’s pearls– no, it’s berries. She calls him an evil spirit. As they talk later, Sophie tells him her Korean name, Park Joo-Hyun. This leads to kissing and sex for some reason. Later, she hears voices calling that name. All her photos of Jun are blurry, but only on his face. Is he real? Sophie gets a flashback to her great-grandmother and the man in the big hat, who has a melted face. When his face is intact, he looks like Jun. Sophie gets a call from her parents; she needs to drive home and check on Grandma. Turns out, Grandma is right there on campus to warn Sophie about the curse. Sophie drives Grandma home, which is a mess. Grandma tells the story about her mother, the man in the hat, and Sophie’s new boyfriend, who knows her Korean name. One of her ancestors caused Jun to kill himself and become a ghost. We see that opening scene again, with more detail this time. She moved to the USA and took a new name; he couldn’t find them under a different name. Now, with Sophie speaking her true name out loud, the ghost has found them. Sophie has to go out to pick up more of Grandma’s medication, and leaves her home alone. When she gets home, Grandma is unconscious on the floor. At the hospital, she sees Jun in the room, and he’s angry. He wants Sophie to be his bride in the afterlife, and she volunteers. She wants 48 hours to tie up loose ends before going with him, and he agrees to the terms. Sophie talks to Professor Lee about some old family tree documents she needs to translate. Back in 1902, Jun committed suicide, and the family had his name cut out of the records. Sophie then runs to the Korean records library, which is closed for construction, and breaks right in. Ari follows her to see what’s going on and helps translate what they find. Ari says Sophie’s name, and the ghost finds them immediately. Jun lets Sophie choose the manner of her death, and she chooses poison. Ari helped her find the ghosts’ true name, and she says it aloud. Suddenly, Grandma jumps out of bed, and Sophie accidentally cuts her throat. Jun the ghost vanishes. Later, Sophie rubs her belly. She’s got Jun’s baby inside there… Brian’s Commentary If you don’t like this movie, you’re not a real Korean. OK, maybe you are, I dunno. A lot of the film seems to revolve around what a “real” Korean is versus a second- or third-generation immigrant. I suspect the doctors are going to suspect foul play when they find Grandma’s throat cut in her hospital room. Maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t find it particularly compelling at all. The backstory of the curse, the deaths, none of it was particularly interesting. Meh. Kevin’s Commentary There’s a lot of talk and not a lot of scare here. The Korean culture things were kind of interesting. The whole movie was kind of interesting, but I wouldn’t go much further than that. I’d call it just okay over all. 2026 Cold Storage * Director: Jonny Campbell * Writers: David Koepp * Stars: Georgina Campbell, Joe Keery, and Liam Neeson * Runtime: 99 minutes * YouTube Trailer Link: Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone A semi-retired bioterrorism agent gets called back into action with his sidekick when a deadly fungus gets on the loose. Throw a couple of civilians into the mix, and hilarity ensues. This one has lots of humor and body horror. It’s juicy and gross. Everything was well done, and it’s entertaining, but it’s not super original. There’s a lot here we’d seen before. Spoilery Synopsis We’re told about Skylab and the debris that mostly burned up in orbit. Some of it hit the Earth. In Western Australia, 18 years ago, Enos rushes to make a phone call. Dr. Martins in Rome gets the call. “Something came out of your tank! We’re all dying!” The tank is NASA’s, and she doesn’t know much about it. 27 hours later, she arrives there to investigate. Robert Quinn arrives on the scene with Romano; they’re military of some sort. There was an O2 tank from Skylab that fell down here, but it had a parasitic fungus on it. We sent it up there in the first place, but what came down wasn’t the same thing. The three check out the small town where the “outbreak” has taken place. There are no people. They soon find the tank and check it out. Dr. Martins quickly figured out what happened. Someone was trying to clean the tank and accidentally fed the thing inside. The creature finds its way into her through a hole in her boot. Then they find all the townspeople on the roofs of the buildings, dead. Quinn calls in the military to burn the town to the ground. Martins has one sample in her bag and another in her foot. It acts really fast and takes over her mind. She shoots herself. As credits roll, the town is destroyed and the sample is taken to a secret research facility where it’s put into Cold Storage. Years pass, and the facility shuts down and is eventually sold. Teacake drives to the new self-storage facility, which is the re-tasked cold storage place from before. He works security there, and his boss, Griffin, wants to do something illegal. He talks to Naomi, a new employee about how awful this job is. An old woman comes in and wants to access her unit. She goes into the unit and finds her gun; this is her anniversary, and she’s thinking of shooting herself. She takes a nap first. In North Carolina, Robert Quinn gets a phone call about the sample. There’s an alarm about a temperature change at the storage facility. He’s soon on the way to the facility. Teacake and Naomi hear a beeping inside the wall and want to investigate. They break open the wall and see the same alarm that Quinn was notified about. There’s a whole wall of control-panel stuff back there. Naomi wants to explore the place’s sub-sub-basement, where the lab is. It takes a while, but they get there. Naomi’s crazy boyfriend Mike drives up outside, and he’s more or less a stalker now. He calls her, but she doesn’t get the message due to being so far underground. Also, he’s got someone dead in the trunk of his car. It’s not a body, it’s a cat who appears to be infected. It climbs to the roof and explodes a load of spores that infect Mike, a deer, and gets the ball rolling. Naomi and Teacup open the vault and go inside. They find an infected “rat king” on the ground. They nope right out and head back upstairs. Quinn talks to Abigail and Jerabek, who explains that the man in charge of the cold stor

    28 min

  3. MAR 29

    Bone Keeper, Dead Lover, The Strangers Chapter 3, The Kinderhook Creature, and Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle

    Lots of fun things this week. We’ll start off with “Bone Keeper,” a cool monster flick that just released. We’ll then get really weird with a “Dead Lover” that you’ll either love or hate. “The Kinderhook Creature: In the Shadow of Sasquatch” is the newest in a long line of cryptic documentaries. We’ll wrap up the series with “The Strangers: Chapter 3” and then continue the anime Godzilla trilogy with “Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle” from 2017. All this as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #54, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com Mainstream Films: 2026 Bone Keeper * Director: Howard J. Ford * Writers: Howard J. Ford * Stars: Sarah Alexandra Marks, Louis James, Tiffany Hannam-Daniels, and John Rhys-Davies * Runtime: 96 minutes * Trailer Link: Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone A group of seven young folks explore a cave infested with creatures that arrived thousands of years ago by meteor. As you might guess, it goes badly for them. The basics are laid out right away. The effects look very good and it was entertaining. We both enjoyed it. Spoilery Synopsis We watch a meteorite crashing down as credits roll. Whatever it is, it’s got tentacles and slithers into a cave. It’s 400,000 years ago, and the cavepeople of the time fear it since it eats them. In 1976, a woman narrates about her grandfather, a journalist, who went exploring in a cave. He sees cave paintings and skeletal remains. Then the monster gets him. In the present day. Professor Harrison looks depressed. “I’ve killed him. I killed her, too,” he yells. Olivia and Annabelle want to go search for her mother, who has gone missing while investigating the grandfather’s disappearance; the police aren’t doing enough. They, and their friends, a group of monster hunters, head to the remote location and pick up Ashley, a travel blogger. They’re off to find the “Bone Keeper.” With the addition of Ashley, the trip just got a lot less scientific. Ethan, Nick, and Ravi plan to find the monster, and maybe get lucky with the girls in the process. The group goes to the local pub, and everyone watches them as they come in. They look at all the “Missing Persons” posters on the wall. They’re here to meet Professor Harrison, and the locals are strangely hostile. Harrison knew Olivia’s father, and he warns them not to go into the caves. Everyone who has ever gone in there has… stayed in there. He really doesn’t want to tell them which cave has the monster; too many people have died. He even has Olivia’s grandfather’s film footage of what happened in the cave. He even thinks the monster is an ancient alien. The next morning, the seven characters go to the cave that Harrison told them about. They climb, crawl, and do all the usual cave-explorer-y things. They find some slime, and Ravi looks at it in the microscope he’s apparently carried into the cave with him. Ashley stays behind to film some vlogging stuff and the monster grabs her. For some reason, the others can’t hear her screaming as it rips her apart. The others find some hair with a bit of skull attached, so they know someone has died in this cave. Nick goes looking for Ashley, but he finds what killed her instead. Ravi and Nadia actually see one of the tentacles and get all excited. When it grabs and kills Nadia, they get even more excited. Ravi catches up with the others and reports what he saw. There’s a whole nest of the alien creatures down here. They find a huge mound of slowly digesting merging melted bodies, including Olivia’s mother. They decide it might be a good time to head for the exit, but now they’re lost. They find the exit, and Ethan even gets a few photos of what’s left of Nick still crawling around. Outside now, Olivia, Annabelle, and Ethan tend to Ravi’s severe wounds. “It gets inside you. It becomes you,” Ravi rants. Ethan calls Harrison and sends him all the footage he’s taken. The tentacle-monster attacks the girls in the campsite, outside, and Ethan runs to help. It drags Ethan and Ravi back down into the cave. When Olivia and Annabelle see just how big the thing is, they run for the road, but Annabelle is grabbed next. Olivia hears her mother singing and prepares to go back inside. She goes through all the caves, back to the big digesting mess, and retrieves her mother’s necklace. Outside, Harrison and the military show up and plant explosives at the cave entrance. They shoot at the many monsters inside and find Olivia, still alive. Then they blow up the cave entrance. Six months later, Olivia wakes up in the hospital, and the doctor says she’s pregnant. They do an ultrasound, and it’s a little baby tentacle monster. Nope-just a nightmare. She’s with the soldiers and Harrison, who says blowing up the caves may not be the end of the creatures. Naturally, for the final shot, we see that it’s definitely not over. Brian’s Commentary None of these people are spelunkers or regular cave explorers, and yet none of them are claustrophobic or terrified by the caves alone. Despite being specifically warned to stick together, the group continually splits up so that one person can die at a time. One after another, they die, and no one else ever seems to hear the screams. That’s nowhere near as stupid as Olivia going back inside the cave after seeing what the creature really is. The creatures are pure CGI, but they are really well done. We see more of them than I expected we would, and they all look good. John Rhys-Davies is too old to be climbing around in caves, but he still has a significant amount of screen time here. Other than the stupid choices the characters made, the film is really very good! Kevin’s Commentary One point that deeply troubled me was the way there would be attacks and rock collapses causing much commotion, and the others who were not that far away in the cave heard absolutely nothing or very little. That aside, the story is basic but pretty effective I thought. The creature and gore effects look really good, slimy and creepy. The cast does a nice job with it. There’s some issues here and there, but all in all I’d call it a win. I was very entertained. 2026 Dead Lover * Director: Grace Glowicki * Writers: Grace Glowicki, Ben Petrie * Stars: Grace Glowicki, Ben Petrie, Leah Doz, Lowen Morrow * Runtime: 83 minutes (1 hr 23 mins) * YouTube Trailer Link: Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone A lonely and smelly gravedigger laments she can’t find love, then finds a man who adores her just as she is. And when she loses him, she goes to extremes to bring him back from the dead. This was a fun story with lots of chuckles and some real horror at the core. It’s unique, with the look of a stage play, and we both really enjoyed it. Spoilery Synopsis We’re told that this is done with “Stink-O-Vision,” where a number appears on the screen at various points, and we’re supposed to scratch-n-sniff at various times. A strange-looking woman plants seeds as credits roll. She’s a grave digger and doesn’t smell very good. She’s trying to make a perfume to hide the smell of death on her. She tries to seduce the priest at a funeral; her perfume doesn’t work. When no one shows up for the funeral, the gravedigger tells us all about the too-generic dead woman. Three old women with big hair talk about the gravedigger and the dead opera singer. We cut to the funeral and the woman’s weird funeral guests. The opera singer’s brother runs off in anguish and is attacked by a wild wolf, but the gravedigger saves him. He smells her and doesn’t hate it; could it be the smell of the wolf’s blood that makes her attractive to him? The two go for a wash in the ocean, and he “wants to lick your stink. I want to shower in your rot, the feast on your fetid funk. I want to pick up a piece of your poo and eat it like a banana.” (Which Kevin notes might be his favorite monologue and following sex scene ever.) He might be a little weird, but then she has sex with him while holding her shovel. The two get very close and talk about their needs and dreams. He leaves her because he can’t have children; he goes overseas for an operation to possibly fix that. His postcards are quite descriptive. In the meantime, she works on growing a rosebush to make her smell better; he loves her because of the stink. On the way home, he’s lost at sea, all but his finger. Some foreign fishermen find the finger and bring it to the gravedigger. We-have-Johnny-Depp-at-home lights his opium pipe, and dreams of the dead opera singer, his wife. The gravedigger gets the finger returned to her, but she’s not really willing to let her dead lover go. She thinks about the flowers and fertilizer; can she re-grow him? She starts catching lizards and stealing their regeneration-juice. She injects the finger with lizard-elixir and creates a whole Frankenstein’s Lab setup to bring him back. It works– sorta. The finger comes to life and grows… into a very long finger. What can a lonely woman do when her lover is only one long finger? Well, yeah, that. The finger wants a body, and the gravedigger is well-equipped to get one. How about the dead man’s sister, the opera singer? She grafts on the special finger to the dead woman’s corpse and zaps it with lightning power. The opera star with the very long finger doesn’t look too happy to be alive at this point. She likes the lizards more than the gravedigger. The three tall-haired women go to the Dollar-Store-Depp and tell him that the gravedigger has dug up his dead wife; they also tell the priest. He goes to the gravedigger’s house and sees his undead wife there. They fight, sword vs shovel, and shovel wins. The opera star’s husband takes the gravedigger hostage as the opera star hooks up with a blind fisherman. The gravedigger gets out of her restraints and runs off int

    33 min

  4. MAR 22

    Return to Silent Hill, Whistle, The Car, The Strangers Chapter 2, and Godzilla: Planet of Monsters

    We’ll start off the week with “Whistle,” released this year, along with “The Strangers Chapter 2” from last year and “The Car” from way back in the seventies. Finally, we’ll continue our series coverage with “Return to Silent Hill” and “Godzilla: Planet of Monsters.” All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #54, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com Mainstream Films: 2025 Whistle * Director: Corin Hardy * Writer: Owen Egerton * Stars: Dafne Keen, Sophie Nélisse, Nick Frost * Runtime: 97 minutes (Note: some sources report up to 108 minutes) * Trailer Link: Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone A group of young people come into possession of a cursed whistle that summons the future death of anyone who blows it or hears it. So they learn about the magical situation as they are getting picked off one at a time. It’s a little formulaic, but it’s well made and above average in quality. We were both entertained. Spoilery Synopsis We open on a basketball game with the Stalkers versus the Wolves. One of the players, Horse, sees something weird up in the audience. As he makes the winning shot, he sees someone who appears to be on fire that scares him off back to the locker room. The player runs into the locker room and smashes an old-looking urn as the smoky-ashy-man approaches. It sets him on fire in the shower. Credits roll. Six months later, Chrys argues with her cousin Rel about unpacking her stuff. It’s her first day of high school after moving here. She’s assigned Horse’s locker and some of the kids take offense to that. We get to meet some of the other “kids” of the school, as well as a teacher, Mr. Craven. Also, Chrys may have a bit of history. Grace tries to be nice to the new girl, but doesn’t get any support. Inside Horses’s locker, Chrys finds all Horses’s stuff, still there, including that ancient urn with an ugly skull-whistle inside. She’s about to blow it when the bell rings. Mr. Craven looks at the whistle, and it’s got ancient writing on the side which he just happens to be able to read. Someone Googles the script and says it means “Summon the Dead.” He blows in it to see if it works and it makes the mirror shatter. Chrys meets Noah, a youth pastor who invites her to church. He’s very sketchy– no, he’s also a knife-wielding drug dealer. Meanwhile, Rel steals the whistle off Craven’s desk. Not long after, a bloody bald man crushes Craven’s lungs and makes him lose all his hair. At Grace’s houseparty, Grace blows the whistle, and they all cringe at the sound. Ellie is nice to Chrys and invites her to the harvest festival tomorrow night. Chrys soon develops a crush on Ellie. Later that night, Grace works on her homework next to the pool. She hears someone scrabbling around on the deck and checks it out. She gets a jump scare, but that’s all. The next morning, Rel and Chrys arrive at school and hear about Craven’s death from lung cancer last night. Chrys and Ellie go to Horse’s house to return the whistle to his parents. His mother, Ivy, is broke and has to sell all her possessions. She’s very self-obsessed. “You didn’t find it, it found you,” she says about the whistle. It doesn’t say “Summon the dead,” it says “Summon YOUR death.” It shows you how you’re going to die. It brings Death to you earlier; you die in the way you were meant to, but much sooner than intended. Could Mr. Craven have used it like Horse did? Ellie works at the hospital, so she checks on Horse’s death records. Horse’s dental records show that he was in his forties, but he was really just seventeen. He would have died in a gas leak at age forty. Mr Craven would have died of lung cancer eventually, but it happened last night because of the whistle. It’s time for the harvest festival, and it’s quite a party. Rel and Grace are there. She buys some weed from Noah, who then tries unsuccessfully to sell some to Chrys. Meanwhile, Grace goes into the scare maze and runs into a terrifying old woman who chases her. It catches her and she ages seventy years in a matter of seconds. Ellie and Chrys explain the whistle to Dean and Rel; they all heard the whistle, so it’ll be coming after them as well. Dean doesn’t believe any of it until he gets home and sees himself after a drinking and driving death. Chrys tells Ellie about how she OD’d last year and her father died on the way taking her to the hospital. This leads to a makeout session. Meanwhile, Rel has visions of his death at the steel mill. The next morning, they all go back to see Horses’ mother about Choka, the whistle of Death. She says there’s no way to stop it, but they can change its course. “Give your death someone else’s life. Offer Choka a new sacrifice. Mark another with your blood and you will be spared.” Alone in his bedroom, Dean dies from a massive traffic accident in the grisliest way possible. Meanwhile, at the church, Rel has decided to trade Noah’s life for his own to break the curse. Noah takes his gun away, but Rel knows he’s not going to die that way. Rel knocks him out and takes him to the steelmill. Chrys and Ellie show up and talk Rel out of marking Noah with his blood. The invisible steel-chewing machine then kills Rel as the girls watch. Chrys says they summoned Death and have to die– but they don’t have to stay dead. Ellie’s a diabetic, and she’s got enough insulin to kill both of them and then revive. Ellie injects Chrys, she dies, and then Ellie resuscitates her. Noah, meanwhile, breaks out of where they had him tied up, and he works on getting into where the girls are. Noah gets in with his gun as Ellie lays on the floor dying. She’s bleeding out, but Noah dips his fingers in the puddle like it’s a religious experience. Yep, he’s marked with Ellie’s blood now. His own Death comes after him, and he doesn’t escape it. Three months later, Chrys is back in high school and she’s with Ellie. We cut to another girl opening a locker and finding the whistle inside… Brian’s Commentary I went into this one blind except for knowing a cursed whistle was involved. I liked it quite a bit. The casting, soundtrack, and deaths were all good, and the plot was fairly unique. The film leaves it wide open for a sequel, and it was good enough that I’d watch it if there was one. Kevin’s Commentary The basic formula seems familiar. A group of friends in their 20s still in high school get their hands on a magic object that kills them off one by one in unique ways. I thought they milk things out a bit, but overall it’s well made and entertaining. The effects are excellent, the cast is good as are all the technical aspects. I’d call it above average for this type of movie. 2025 The Strangers Chapter 2 * Director: Renny Harlin * Writers: Alan R. Cohen, Alan Freedland (Based on characters by Bryan Bertino) * Stars: Madelaine Petsch, Gabriel Basso, Froy Gutierrez, Ema Horvath, Ella Bruccoleri * Runtime: 98 minutes * YouTube Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone Immediately after Chapter 1, survivor Maya wakes up in the hospital and has a peaceful recovery. Okay, not really, the Strangers are still after her. There’s lots of chasing and incidental body count. The Strangers are persistent, and we get hints about their origin. And then it stops and says, “To be continued.” Yep, that happened. Spoilery Synopsis As credits roll, we get flashbacks to the three “Strangers” killing a man in the woods. We cut to Maya, from the previous film, who wakes up in the hospital. She describes them and tells the story to Sheriff Rotter, who is still creepy. She wonders who “Tamara” is that they kept asking about. The people in the local diner speculate about the killers, and they’re all suspicious-looking themselves. We cut to an angry little girl who has a doll that looks like Dollface. That night, at the hospital, the place is nearly empty. Maya gets a phone call, “Is Tamara here?” Then there’s screaming out in the hallway. Suddenly, the lights go out, and her cell phone stops getting reception. Soon, she sees Scarecrow wandering around with his axe. Fortunately, it appears that Maya is the only patient in the huge hospital. Soon, they’re all playing hide-and-seek in the hospital’s basement workings. She hides in the morgue, in the same drawer as her dead fiancé, Ryan. This works pretty well, so she gets away from the hospital and runs outside into the rain. She runs into a woman who tells her that the sheriff isn’t going to help her “Because he’s–” and then she dies. Maya runs into a horse farm or stable to hide. Running back outside, she’s picked up by two women whom Maya obviously doesn’t trust, but at least they have a car. They pick up two guys on the road, and she finds it all very suspicious. It’s all very tense. She panics and jumps out of the moving car and back to the woods. As the sun comes up, Maya uses a stolen first aid kit to sew up the wound in her side, screaming all the while. Somehow, the three baddies have tracked her to this location as well, even though there are miles of forest between where Maya jumped out of the car and where the bad guys were left behind. Instead, Maya gets attacked by a wild boar, which is pretty random. She’s having a really bad day. But not as bad as the pig. Pinup comes across the scene and has a flashback about playing with baby pigs herself. Maya makes her way back to the murder cabin from the previous film and grabs a knife, some clothes, and food. She meets a man who says he’s with the State Police, and they get into his car. He doesn’t last long before the masked women kill him. She hurries to another house, with a strange man inside, and passes out. When she wakes up, Turns out this is the house of the two men from the car she was in earlier. Gregory is creepy

    32 min

  5. MAR 15

    The Dreadful, The Other, Silent Hill Revelation, The Hills Run Red, and Godzilla: Final Wars

    We’ll start off the week with a new folksy-horror film, “The Dreadful.” We’ll then take a look at some rough family life with “The Other” from late last year. “The Hills Run Red” is this week’s lame-o slasher film. Finally, we’ll continue our series coverage with “Silent Hill: Revelation” and “Godzilla: Final Wars.” All this as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #54, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com Mainstream Films: 2026 The Dreadful * Directed by: Natasha Kermani * Written by: Natasha Kermani * Stars: Sophie Turner, Kit Harington, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurence O’Fuarain, Jonathan Howard * Run Time: 94 minutes * Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone Two women in 1400s England live a quiet life on their own on the edges of society. And it’s a quiet and slow build of a movie. But the dread does build and things get darker as things go along. It’s pretty low key in every way, with beautiful scenery and strong performances. We both liked it quite a bit. Spoilery Synopsis Anne goes to church and has Communion. Her mother-in-law, Morwen, is a pickpocket, stealing from young mothers. They’re poor, and all the men from the village have gone off to war. Anne dreams of her husband, Seamus, returning from war, but there’s something very wrong with him. Morwen says, “This war will make us rich.” The next day, she runs into Jago, home from the war. He tells the story of how Seamus was rather brutally killed in the war. She still remembers when they were all little and growing up together. Anne and Morwen take the news badly. Not long after, there’s a shipwreck nearby, and one survivor makes it to the beach. Morwen stabs him in the back, which Anne doesn’t see, and then she and Anne loot the bodies. “God is smiling on us to send such good luck,” Morwen adds. They eat well that night. Jago likes Anne, but she’s not really interested in him. Morwen doesn’t like him either; he was always jealous of Seamus. A wandering priest comes by and shows them his relic. He wants to sell it to them for three silver pieces. As he prays with Anne, Morwen cuts his throat. Anne is horrified, but Morwen justifies it all. Some time later, Anne watches as a knight in armor kills a man in the field. She’s seen the knight before. She runs to Jago for protection, and he likes that. Later, she has a dream where Morwen is eating raw flesh. She sneaks out of the house late at night and goes to Jago; they have sex. He wants her to move in with him, but she thinks Morwen needs her. Anne starts helping Morwen kill and rob travelers of their valuables. When Jago comes around for Anne, Morwen runs him off with her knife. She sneaks off to do her thing with Jago when Morwen’s asleep. Meanwhile, Morwen watches as a knight in armor comes to their house. She follows him and kills him from behind. She takes off his helmet and loots him. Anne tells Morwen that she’s leaving to be Jago’s wife. Morwen does not take it well, and she goes to live with Jago. That night, Anne dreams that the demon knight came and killed them both. Anne notices discrepancies in Jago’s story about her husband’s death. Could he have killed Seamus? He tells the story about how Seamus would kill soldiers and rob their bodies– just like his mother’s been doing. Seamus killed the knight in the helmet and put on the helmet. The helmet burned Seamus and wouldn’t come off; Jago left him there on the battlefield. Anne turns against him and leaves. We get a flashback to Morwen killing the knight, who turned out to be Seamus in that same helmet. Anne goes to the village and finds the priest has been murdered by the knight. She runs to Morwen’s house, but the old woman isn’t home. The knight shows up, and it’s Morwen inside the helmet. She screams that she can’t get it off. Anne rips the mask off, and Morwen is all disfigured under there now. “Now you really are a demon,” Anne says. An actual demon comes out of the helmet, and the two women run for the house. When Anne looks outside, all she finds is the helmet. Anne and Jago talk about demons. He still wants her, but now she’s loyal to Morwen, who has gone blind from what the helmet did to her. Anne goes outside and picks up the helmet… Brian’s Commentary This is based on the same Buddhist parable as “Onibaba” (1964). Like that film, this one is slow-moving and atmospheric. There aren’t any jump scares or anything like that; just a slow buildup of dread that you know isn’t going to end well. And it doesn’t. Kevin’s Commentary The scenery and quiet of the movie are very soothing. The dreadfulness is there, but it’s pretty low-key. I thought it was a good watch. Excellent cast. 2025 The Other * Directed by: Paul Etheredge * Written by: Paul Etheredge * Stars: Olivia Macklin, Dylan McTee, Avangeline Friedlander * Run Time: 1 Hour, 38 Minutes * Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone When a couple brings home a little orphan girl, it’s not a simple happily ever after. There’s a reason she’s holding that drill in the poster, and we get to find out why. It builds slowly to a big finish, then a very abrupt ending. It’s on the unique side, and we liked it more than disliked it. Spoilery Synopsis The lady at the adoption agency explains that Kathelia doesn’t speak , but they don’t know why. She’s been returned to the orphanage before. Robin and Daniel go ahead and adopt her anyway. Credits roll. Robin’s mother has done some research and learned that Kathelia’s mother killed and cut up her whole family, which might be why Kathelia doesn’t speak. We see that all the food in the house has very suddenly gone off. That night, everyone goes to bed, and Kathelia grabs a big knife from the kitchen as something out in the pool goes, “Bloop!” In the morning, Daniel finds some pink sludge growing in the pool. Robin finds that all her kitchen knives are missing. Kathelia looks hard at the pink stuff. Kathelia meets Fiona, a neighbor with Down Syndrome. They spend the morning throwing dolls in the sewer. She’s… weird. Her mother, Lizzie, comes over, and Fiona says, “That lady is a door” to Robin. Robin starts being afraid to be home alone. The family throws a party for all the people they know with children, and Kathelia doesn’t look happy to be there. All the kids know about Kathelia’s murderous mom, which soon turns into a fight. Afterward, Robin gets into the jellyfish-infested pool. Meanwhile, Kathelia packs a bag and runs out the front door until she gets a nosebleed. They soon find her. In the morning, Fiona knows that Kathelia “tried to get away” and couldn’t. “You’re stuck here now.” She follows this up with, “Monsters are coming. They’ll be here soon.” The parents take Kathelia to a child psychologist, but that goes badly. Robin thinks adopting was a mistake, but Daniel wants to stick with her. Robin’s pregnant again, and her priorities have changed. Kathelia gags Robin and ties her to the bed somehow, which is over the line for Robin, who wants to send her back. Also, it looks like she lost the baby. Kathelia writes down an address for Daniel, which he checks out. He goes inside to talk to the old woman inside, but all the food on the table is rotten. The old woman is weird and has a worm crawling out of her leg. Turns out, the woman is insane and tied to a leash. The husband blames all their troubles on Kathelia and warns Daniel that he’ll find out. His wife got pregnant with something nasty after Kathelia came to live with them. “Get rid of that child any way you can!” Robin goes to the doctor and shows her the thing that came out of her. The multiple things that came out of her, and they don’t look quite right. The doctor wants her to go to the hospital, but Robin says she’s fine and leaves. By the time Robin gets home, she’s fat and really pregnant-looking. She kicks down Kathelia’s door and threatens her. Kathelia can’t scream. Kathelia runs to Fiona’s house; she talks to ghosts and plays with bugs. Then she whacks Kathelia with a hammer, which involves a hospital visit. By the time Daniel gets home, Robin looks ready to deliver and has become completely unhinged. The doctor calls; Kathelia has “vanishing twin syndrome,” where Kathelia “ate” her own twin in utero. Thanks to Fiona’s attack, they discovered this. The twin got stuck in her frontal lobe, which is why she can’t speak. At home, Robin looks terrible and immediately gives birth to something nasty. Daniel and Kathelia go to see Fiona, who seems to know things. Lizzie tells Daniel Fiona’s origin story. She knew hitting Kathelia on the head would result in finding the monster in her head. Things get weird from here. The whole group goes up to the attic so Fiona can put on a weird raincoat and do a ritual to communicate with the monster. The twin inside Kathelia is trying to use any woman as a door to be born into the world. The gynecologist comes to the house to talk to Robin about “the baby.” Daniel comes home, and Robin stabs him with scissors a few times. The doctor gets it even more severely. Kathelia hides and finds all of Robin’s previous dead babies. Robin drags Kathelia out to the pool, which appears to have become a gateway to Hell. Lizzie and Fiona show up out of nowhere and rescue Kathelia, who goes over and beats on Robin’s belly. “It’s not there. She’s just a door,” Fiona explains. Robin then slices Lizzie’s neck and kills her on the spot. When Robin comes after the rest of them with a sledgehammer, they all barricade themselves in the workroom lab. Fiona tells Kathelia that she needs to dig out the body from her brain or they’re all gonna die. Kathelia looks at the power tools on the wall and chooses a drill. Daniel puts the drill to Kathelia’s scar and lets it rip. A

    29 min

  6. MAR 8

    NFT: Cursed Images, Haunters of the Silence, Forty Five, Obex, and Silent Hill

    We’ve got an interesting batch of films this week! We’ll start with “NFT: Cursed Images,” which explains that some NFTs are even worse than others! “Haunters of the Silence” shows us that grief is the monster we met along the way, and “Forty Five” brings us to the edge of Armageddon. “Obex”, on the other hand, is a fun, techno-fantasy that takes a few dark turns along the way. Lastly, we’ll start watching the “Silent Hill” series, with more of those to come in the coming weeks. All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #54, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com Mainstream Films: 2026 NFT: Cursed Images * Directed by: Jonas Odenheimer * Written by: Jonas Odenheimer * Stars: Najarra Townsend, David Wayman, Mariah Nonnemacher * Run Time: 1 hour 13 minutes * Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone It’s 2021 and NFTs are hot. A group of young friends in London start having some big troubles when they receive some that have curses attached. The rules and the ending seemed a little unclear, but we both liked it more than disliked it, with Kevin being a bit more favorable toward it. Spoilery Synopsis A couple walks home late at night. Sue thinks she sees something and gets spooked. She talks about how an NFT scared her. Her friend is making a lot of money with them, and her friend passed one on to her. There are supposed to be dozens of these cursed images that are shared online. Sue can’t get through to her friend now. Suddenly, Mark vanishes. When Sue tries to call the police, all she sees on her phone is that NFT. Credits roll. It’s 2021, and NFTs are still a thing. Kit is a successful NFT trader. Dan complains about being a Millennial and the current job market. There are Boomer and Doomer jokes. The whole group got rich with crypto, except for poor Dan, who’s a whiner. James doesn’t know what an NFT is, and the others can’t explain it to make sense. Julie and Cass arrive, and Kit’s not happy about that. The women have exactly the same thoughts about the men. They all seem to be infatuated with NFTs– it’s even better than crypto! The group talks James and Dan into buying some NFTs right now. They explain the nonsense that is an NFT. Kit suddenly has seven NFTs transferred to his account out of the blue. It’s from a collection called “Crypto Horrors.” Sarah’s heard of those, they’re real cursed images. There are only 666 of them, and they get Airdropped to you at random. He sends each person one of them. The party breaks up, and everyone leaves. Later, Kit wakes up to a weird stretchy-faced ghost woman in his room. Cass remembers that she left her phone at Kit’s place, and Julia suggests asking James to go back and get it. Sarah walks home and gets texts from Kit’s phone, but the person texting isn’t Kit. She soon finds out who’s stalking her. James and Cass go back to Kit’s for her phone. They find the place a mess, and then Cass wants to go check on Sarah, who also isn’t answering her phone. We cut to Dan, who is also walking home in an isolated tunnel. Something is chasing him. Julia: The same. Nes is watching YouTube videos about NFTs and gets a panicked call from Dan, who says he saw his NFT chasing him. Dan believes in the curse now and every one is unique just like NFTs are, but Nes just laughs it off. All the NFTs are based on old legends, and possibly real curses. Julia also comes to Nes, and she’s been experiencing the same thing as Dan. James also calls and tells him that Kit and Sarah have gone missing. Julia leaves, and her monster gets her right after. Nes takes a show and gets his. James arrives at Nes’s house, talking to Dan on the phone all the while. He sees Nas’s NFT there and scares it away by showing it a reflection of itself, like Dan tipped him off should work. Dan says if that worked, then maybe they do have a chance against the curse. Dan looks up Cass’s curse and says it can be stopped by striking it with a sword. Meanwhile, James’s own NFT comes after him, as does Dan’s. Dan is attacked, but his monster goes away suddenly. He gets a notification that his NFT has sold for .5 ETH. He’s free of the curse. Dan calls James and tells him to sell or transfer his NFT right now. James transfers his right then; Dan gets the notification that it was transferred to him. Dan dies right away. Dan calls Cass and tells her to dump that NFT right away. She says she already gave it away to some random guy on Twitter. Cass goes to Sarah’s place and talks to her corpse. It possesses her somehow, which gives James a final scare. Brian’s Commentary The background music is occasionally too loud; it’s often hard to follow all the British people talking due to the noise. The visuals are all pretty good, as is the acting. The creatures themselves are not particularly impressive, but we mostly only get glimpses of them. I’ve done crypto, but I never understood NFTs at all. Of course, I was eventually proved right on those. Even today, I still don’t understand where the value was supposed to come from. Still, the only thing they normally kill in real life is your net worth. I like the idea of cursed NFTS, and that they appear from nowhere. The ending made no real sense. Are the victims killed or possessed? Cass should have been spared, but the monsters weren’t following their own rules. It’s a neat concept, but the actual story was a little underwhelming. Kevin’s Commentary We could have used subtitles. Perhaps it was just in the quality of our screener. I thought the party was a bit draggy at first, but things move quickly once that breaks up with the NFTs doing their thing that very night. The digitized creature effects are brief, but pretty cool. All the effects do the job well. Like Brian points out, the monsters don’t seem to follow the rules, and the ending was a little unclear. But overall, I was entertained, which is what really counts. It’s a pretty good one. 2025 Haunters of the Silence * Director: Tatu Heikkinen, Veleda Thorsson-Heikkinen * Writers: Tatu Heikkinen, Veleda Thorsson-Heikkinen * Stars: Tatu Heikkinen (as K.), John Haughm (as Hat Man), Veleda Thorsson-Heikkinen (as Wife) * Runtime: 1 hour 11 minutes * YouTube Trailer Link: Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone The IMDB description says “In the stillness of night, a man is trapped between worlds. As darkness closes in and reality blurs, he must confront the Haunters of the Silence.” and it’s hard to pin down more of a story than that. The visuals are very cool, sound and music is effective, and Tatu Heikkinen is completely natural going about through his days and haunted nights. Spoilery Synopsis A man walks along the beach and eventually stops to dump someone’s ashes into the water. As he drives home, credits roll. The man, K, sits in his house, and we see photos and things of his wife, who is apparently the one who died. He goes to sleep, and we see all around his house. An alert from his porch camera wakes him up, and he goes out to investigate. Finding nothing, he goes back inside and checks inside the house. More weird stuff happens after he goes back to bed, so he searches some more. He falls to the floor and starts hallucinating. K runs through the misty forest and comes to an abandoned building. It all gets pretty surreal and weird. After a while, he starts being pursued by a man in a hat. K wakes up when he gets a phone call from his father. He then dreams about skulls and bones followed by many other weird visuals. K wakes up and sees his wife at the bottom of the bed. “It’s OK,” she says. We then hear a recording of a poem, “The Haunters of the Silence.” The alarm goes off, and K gets out of bed. He makes some tea and goes outside. Suddenly, it’s the middle of the night again. He’s still in the dream, and he can’t get out. The man in the hat comes into his bedroom and– the film ends. Brian’s Commentary It’s super slow-moving and atmospheric. Everything is hazy and dreamlike, which reflects the main character’s state of mind after losing his wife. It was inspired by the director/writer/star’s experience with sleep paralysis. It’s all very visual, but there’s no real plot to speak of; it’s just K and what he sees, or imagines he sees. There’s also no real dialogue, as K is alone through the whole film. It’s basically a nightmare on film. It’s surprisingly relaxing, and I almost caught myself going to sleep a couple of times, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s unique and weird! Kevin’s Commentary I’d say the visuals are the number one thing going for this. Very cool. There is a nightmare quality to many of the scenes, and the whole thing is surreal. Without much of a story. A guy in mourning attends therapy, takes medication, tries to get through his days, and looks like he’s having nightmares with sleep paralysis. I agree with Brian, I found it more relaxing than disturbing. I’d say that I liked it. 2025 Forty Five * Directed by: Bazz Hancher * Written by: Bazz Hancher, Michael Walcott * Stars: Benedict Bareford, Sean Botha, Ryan Brunt * Run Time: 40 Minutes * Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone After Fallon loses his daughter, his search for answers leads him on a surreal and creepy quest wrapped up in religious prophecy. It builds well as it goes along until a chilling finish. We were both impressed. Spoilery Synopsis We get a Biblical math lesson; it is the end of days– 45 days to go. It’s June 6th, 2022. Police and detectives examine a crime scene out in a field. A young girl was murdered and bitten, some kind of ritual killing. Three years later, Carson and Fallon talk about “45” whoever that is. 45 is dangerous, and whoever gets close to him dies. Despite the warning, Fallon, the dead girl’s father, still wants to know more. Fallon goes to see Father Vaughn,

    26 min

  7. MAR 1

    28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Primate, Predator Badlands, Lake Placid: Legacy, and Godzilla Tokyo S.O.S.

    We’ll finish up the Lake Placid movies this week with “Legacy” from 2018. We’ll also continue our Godzilla sequence with “Tokyo S.O.S.” from 2004. Then we’ll watch three hot new films: “Primate,” “Predator Badlands,” and “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” all from 2026. New Book! The Horror Guys Guide to the Tremors Films and TV Series 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: 2018 Lake Placid: Legacy * Director: Darrell Roodt * Writers: Johnathon Lloyd Walker, Matt Venables, and Jeremy Smith * Stars: Katherine Barrell, Tim Rozon, Sai Bennett, and Joe Pantoliano * Runtime: 93 minutes (or 1 hour 33 minutes) * YouTube Trailer Link: Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone This is a sequel to “Lake Placid vs Anaconda” as well as a sequel to the Lake Placid standalone movies. A group of eco-warrior urban explorers FAFO when they break into a fenced off decommissioned research compound. It wasn’t anything we haven’t seen before, but it’s well put together. It moves well and entertains. Spoilery Synopsis We open in Seattle, WA, where four people sit in a tiny car and conspire about exposing corporate greed. And urban exploration. And hacking. As they break into Wenoco Corp, we cut back and forth with a man running through the woods, terrified. Wenco Corp looks like a Star Trek set on the inside. The eco-terrorists drop a “Wenoco = Death” banner off the roof. Meanwhile, something unseen eats the man in the woods. Credits roll. Alice doesn’t approve of the urban explorer/eco-terrorist stuff that her sister Jade leads. Sam, Billy, and Spencer are just in it for the rush. Sam gets a challenge from Dane for “one last quest” that has a $100,000 prize for the first one in. The place they need to go is off-limits, even deleted from Google Earth. It’s supposed to be a place where a toxic spill happened twenty-something years ago. Pennie and Travis don’t want to go anywhere near a place with radiation, if that story is even true. The group arrives at the electric fence, and there’s definitely no radiation. The electric fence doesn’t work or is turned off for some reason. When they get inside, they do soil samples; there’s no contamination here, either. Why the fence? Pennie and Travis drop the others off at a dock and promise to wait 30 minutes before they leave them. The others walk through a construction site. They soon find Dane’s camp, but Dane isn’t there. The place is wrecked, but they find a camera. It shows Dane being chased by some kind of monster. Then they find body parts, but Spencer thinks it’s all a prank– until they find half of Gomez, Dane’s assistant. They all run back to the boat, which suffers an accident, along with Travis. Everyone talks, whines, screams, and argues all at the same time. The group finds a dark tunnel with a grate that’s been broken through and decides it’s a good idea to go inside. The group gets split up. Billy, Spencer, and Pennie head back to the dock while Sam, Alice, Jade, go deeper into the facility. The inside group finds a lab with power while the outside group tries to boost their cellphone signal to call for help on the dock. Inside, the group learns that the facility was breeding giant crocodiles for some reason. Outside, Spencer and Pennie get eaten. Sam and his group find Dane, still alive, down in the tunnels. They also run into Henderson, whom Dane has tied up for getting them all into this situation. He used to work for the corporation and explains about the genetically modified formerly extinct species that was supposed to cure cancer. He sounds believable with his motivations. Billy calls 911 with his boosted phone, but he’s doubtful they could trace to source. Billy then loses his head, so he’s not gonna try again. In the confusion, Henderson sneaks away. Everyone else has to swim through a flooded tunnel for no obvious reason. The monster catches Dane and tears him up. Henderson, in the meantime, wanders right into the big crocodile’s main nest and is torn in half. Sam comes up with a cockamamie plan to blow up the whole place by sacrificing himself with canisters of propane as the two girls run back the way they came. Sam’s plan fails non-spectacularly. Alice faces the monster eye-to-eye, but then Jade gets in one of the construction machines and starts it right up after being outside, abandoned for twenty-five years. She pins the crocodile and then covers it in fuel. The croc goes boom! The two girls then swim off the island, but then we see they’re being followed… Brian’s Commentary It plays fast and loose with the lore from the previous films, as the whole corporate angle only marginally applied to the “Vs” film. On the other hand, the lab and facility were nice sets and they probably hoped there would be more sequels. There’s supposed to be just one crocodile, but it’s both simultaneously inside the tunnel and out eating Billy at the same time. Its size also fluctuates depending on where it is. It’s all fairly predictable in every way, but it wasn’t boring. If you’re looking for more CGI-croc action, this movie… exists. Kevin’s Commentary The poster is especially cool for this one. I had a fundamental dislike of the eco-arrogant characters, which made it difficult to root for them. The croc tended to move from place to place and size to size as plot required (though we do find out at the very end it wasn’t really just one). And it wasn’t anything we haven’t seen before. But those issues aside, I thought the whole thing was pretty well made and entertaining. The pacing is good without much down time, and the settings are great. 2003 Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. * Director: Masaaki Tezuka * Writers: Masaaki Tezuka, Masahiro Yokotani * Stars: Noboru Kaneko, Miho Yoshioka, Mitsuki Koga, Masami Nagasawa, Chihiro Otsuka, Koh Takasugi, Hiroshi Koizumi, Akira Nakao * Runtime: 91 minutes (1 hour, 31 minutes) * YouTube Trailer Link: Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone Mothra and the fairies are back to warn Japan they need to return the bones of Godzilla used to make Mechagodzilla to the ocean to rebalance nature. But they repair Mechagodzilla just in time for Godzilla’s return, so there’s a big creature battle. We both thought this one looked good, but it was only middling. A bit on the bland side. Spoilery Synopsis We open on Mechagodzilla, back in the base as the people do checks on the system. We then cut to the deep sea, where Godzilla wakes up. In the Caroline Islands, there is wind. In Hawaii, the Americans detect something on the radar– it’s Mothra! Credits roll. The news reporter reminds us about the battle with Godzilla in the previous film– Mechgodzilla is still under repair from that one. Godzilla hasn’t been spotted in months, but he’s still out there somewhere. Yoshi talks to his little nephew, Shun, about being a fighter pilot. He’d love to pilot the Mech-G. The grandfather is Professor Chujo. Suddenly, the two mini-fairies show up in the living room and want to talk to him. The old man knows them from way back in the first Mothra adventure, 43 years ago. They want him to send Godzilla’s bones back to the sea and not use them to build weapons like Mech-G. Yoshi argues that we need Mechagodizilla for protection, but the girls say Mothra will protect them– or else Mothra will destroy humanity. There’s some debate on whether or not the presence of Godzilla’s bones is what attracted the new Godzilla in the previous film. Maybe they should get rid of those bones. Grandpa Chujo tells Shun about his original adventure with Mothra, and he’s got photos to back it up. At the base, Yoshi and Azusa, from the previous film, know each other and talk about piloting. Yoshi goes in and looks at Mechgodzilla while remembering the fairies’ threat. Chujo talks to the Prime Minister about cancelling the Mechagodzilla project. The leader has no other defenses against Godzilla and the monsters; they need MechaGodzilla, even if its absolute zero freeze-ray hasn’t been repaired yet. Some giant creature washed up on shore, dead. It’s a giant sea turtle, but it was killed by something even bigger– like Godzilla. Meanwhile, Godzilla runs into, and rips apart, an American submarine. Yoshi gets called to testify about the meeting with the Mothra fairies and what they promised. Meanwhile, Godzilla is heading toward Tokyo again. Shun steals Chujo’s Mothra-calling stone and tries to signal Mothra for help. It works very quickly. Godzilla is heading straight for the Mecha base; his bones are attracting him. Inside, the men scramble to get Mechagodzilla working. Mothra attacks Godzilla as the fairies sing to an egg back on their island. The big Mothra gets injured, and the humans decide they have to launch Mechagodzilla to assist. Soon, the two Zillas are fighting, and many buildings in Tokyo pay the price. Mothra gets shot down just as his replacement egg hatches into two Mothras! The two soon set out across the ocean. Yoshi drives around the deserted city looking for Chujo and Shun. The worms arrive and start spraying Godzilla with their silky strings. Meanwhile, old-Mothra is still alive and giving them advice– at least until she gets nuclear-blasted by Godzilla. Mechagodzilla is dead. It can’t get up. Yoshi calls the commander and says he can fix it. What choice do they have? The fairies want Mecha-G dead, but they help Yoshi on the way to the repair anyway. He gets the problem fixed, but he also finds out that he’s trapped inside the thing. The fight continues, and Mechagodzilla’s got some surprises to use against the bog lizard. The hyper-maser really annoys Godzilla. Mechagodzikka and Yoshi decide to stand by and let the Mothra worms disable Godzilla. The fairies insist that the Godzilla bones

    29 min

  8. FEB 22

    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.com Mainstream 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 Zone It’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 Synopsis As 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 Commentary The 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 Commentary I 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 Zone The 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 Synopsis After 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 Commentary This 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 Commentary Everything 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 Zone It’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 Synopsis It’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 ba

    30 min
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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
    387
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Brian Schell
  • Show Website
    Horror Weekly