The Activated Man (2023) - Horror Film Review

Written and directed by Nicholas Gyeney, The Activated Man is a psychological horror film that is not without its flaws, such as being overly sentimental. It does thankfully have some good parts to it such, including a wonderful looking antagonist, and some cool casting choices.

After his beloved dog dies, out of work Ors (Jamie Costa) falls into a deep depression that his detective wife is not able to help with. One day, Ors is delighted to discover that he has been visited by the ghost of his dog, though also worries that this may be a sign he is going insane. His strange next door neighbour, Jeffrey (Tony Todd - Werewolf Game, Hellblazers) informs Ors that the grief of his dog dying has activated something within the man that has opened him up to the spirit world. This is all well and good for seeing his dog, but it also causes Ors to begin to frequently spot a terrifying demonic entity that comes to be known as 'The Fedora Man' (Edward Michael Scott). This creature is able to psychically affect regular people's minds, causing them to commit unspeakable acts, and it also might have a link to Ors' estranged father, Laszlo (Kane Hodder - Paralyzed with Fear, Victor Crowley).

At nearly two hours long, The Activated Man feels that length every step of the way. It is almost slow burn, but somehow didn't drag. Instead, as over stuffed as parts of this are, each meandering scene serves some type of purpose. For me personally, it was the late, great Tony Todd's inclusion that had me drawn to the story. I assumed as usual he would be a minor side character, but actually, he becomes an integral side character with quite a beefy role. Outside of Ors, the character of Jeffrey is probably the next most featured one in the whole film. Due to the way the story is told, I was often unsure if Jeffrey was actually a good person or not, this added to the enjoyment of watching this man. Todd as always puts in effort, rather than just phoning in his performance, and features in some fun scenes (apparently his last ever role in a theatrically released movie before his untimely death). 
Next best character was the demonic creature, in his trench coat, fedora, and hulking frame he looked to me like the T-00 character from the video game Resident Evil 2. This villain is a constant throughout the film, with Ors spotting him all over the place. He partakes in a few psychic battles with both Ors and Jeffrey that were equal parts silly and fun to watch. He might not have been the most effective movie monster, but he has a memorable look to him that really made him stand out.

The plot for this horror wasn't the best, or the best explained. As a protagonist, Ors seemed a bit pathetic. To be fair, I have never lost a dog, but the level of mourning this character has, and the deep understanding of this that every single character he interacts with provides made things seem overly sentimental and fake. Talking of fake, the special effects to show the ghost dog looked a bit CG and goofy, while the psychic battles represented by Ors and Jeffrey weaponising their auras also didn't look fantastic.
I don't know if I wasn't paying full attention, but some later plot twists came out of nowhere and felt like they were missing key details. This was especially the case with Laszlo, Hodder was great as always, but the character felt a bit ill-defined and generic.

Tony Todd alone was enough to make me glad I got to see The Activated Man. The sinister fedora man was a close second, as he always looked super creepy with his leering grin, mouth full of sharp teeth, and pure white skin. Ors didn't work for me as a protagonist, I found him a bit bland, and never really cared for the character as a result. A mixed bag then, some great bits, and some not so great, combine to make a spiritual horror film that was perfectly fine, but not much more.

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The Rotting Zombie's Round-up of Horror News for April 2025

It is another month as I am often fond of saying. My personal life has somewhat calmed down a bit, with me not having to travel to Oxfordshire every weekend. I have managed to really mess up my back however, I put it down to getting old, but has been over a week now and it is still torture, fun times! Onto the news.

Room Six is an upcoming feature film that is set for a Digital Debut release on North America VOD platforms and DVD on May 2nd 2025. This horror thriller is about a college student named Maxx who is working the night shift at a remote rural motel during summer. After the arrival of two strange brothers coinciding with some suspicious incidents, Maxx decides to check out the brothers' room, and is horrified by what she discovers. Co-written and co-directed by Hobart Miller and Michael Panico, the cast includes Sophia Echendu as Maxx, and Mickey O'Sullivan and Jack Ball as the two brothers.

Coming from writer/director Joe Leone, and starring Remiara Eve, Adrienne Laurén and Robert J. Morgalo, is the very indie looking Greet Your Demons. This award winning movie (Best International Feature at Thilsri International Film Festival and the Athvikaruni International Film Festival) is about a comatose girl who has to mentally and literally battle her personal demons in order to be able to wake up. Greet Your Demons is out on Digital Platforms, including to rent/buy on Amazon Prime Video.

Dystopian action film Special Needs Revolt! is out now on Amazon. Directed by Adrian Esposito, this is about a man with Down syndrome (Nolan Tierce - Clowns in the Woods) who wakes up from a two year coma only to discover the US has been turned into a brutal dictatorship thanks to President Trump...checks notes...thanks to President Kruger (Bill Weedon). He leads a group of social outcasts to try and overthrow the dictator. The cast include many actors with disabilities.

Classic silent horror film Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde was been released by BayView Entertainment LLC with a brand new score by Michael Richard Plowman, it is out on Digital Platforms worldwide. The classic directed by John S. Robertson also has a restored picture.

Dracula Eternal is an upcoming vampire film that features Mike Ferguson (Beyond the Flood), Cody Renee Cameron (The Mayans), LeeAnne Bauer (When It Rains in LA) and Denise Milfort (Dead on Arrival). After a woman's best friend falls ill and her fiancé vanishes, she gets caught up in a battle against ancient evil.

The Transparent Woman is a horror film that comes from BayView Entertainment LLC. It is available to rent/buy on Amazon Prime Video in the USA and Canada. Directed by Domiziano Cristopharo, this tells the story of blind woman, Anna, who moves with her husband to his rural childhood home. While alone during the day, Anna begins to suspect someone or something is in the house with her.

Feral Female is a horror comedy that is written, directed and starring Jared Masters (Slink). In LA's Griffith Park lurks a deranged killer; Ebba (Kate Ly Johnston), a woman raised by wolves. A big game hunter (Masters) is called in to deal with the menace. The film comes out later this year.

Finally for this month's round-up is Italian horror Scarrafone, which is out to rent/buy now on Amazon Prime Video in the UK, USA, Canada, and Mexico. Starring award winning actor Sebastiano Pigazzi (And Just Like That...), this is about a woman named Agnese who lives an isolated life in the middle of nowhere, and who happens to have a strange guest locked up in her house.

Chronicle of a Serial Killer (2020) - Thriller Film Review

Chronicle of a Serial Killer is a crime thriller directed by Steve Stanulis (Clinton Road), who also co-stars, and with a story written by John Bianco. The dialogue is so cliché and predictable that there were parts of this where I began to suspect it was actually meant to be taken as a comedy, but I don't think that was the intention. At least the make-up effects were quite fantastic.

Det. John Bosley (Stanulis) and his partner Det. Kelly Smith (Dominique Swain - Rottentail, Face/Off) are doing their best to try and stop a serial killer who is operating in their city. This killer (Brendan Sexton III - El Camino, Dark) has serious mother issues, and his modus operandi is to kidnap, torture, rape and kill women who look similar to his memories of her. An increasing body count causes growing anger for Bosley, who becomes more and more determined to catch the killer.

From the title, I initially expected the film to follow the killer himself, and to begin with it did seem this would be the case. While the antagonist is of course an essential character, it is far more the procedural investigation of Bosley and Smith that takes up much of the one hour forty minute runtime. In total, I would say around three quarters of the movie follow the duel protagonists around, with the other quarter dedicated to the twisted serial killer. Dubious mention has to go to the tired and unoriginal script. All characters here, especially the police, act like they are in the most generic 'made for TV' film of all time. They spout out tried and tested lines with nothing original or memorable being said. The police side of things has a smaller character count than you might expect, with the same few characters constantly turning up at different crime scenes. One of the police force actors is former rapper DMX, with this apparently being his final film role before his death.

The killer was easy to hate, and he is shown to be quite crazy. Flashback sequences of him being abused by his father as a child try to point to how he came to be so messed up. We only really see him during his crime phases, and being so unbalanced it seemed unlikely to me he would have been able to pass himself off as just a normal person outside of his crimes.
Chronicle of a Serial Killer may have been a tired and idea-less thriller but one thing it does get right is the fantastic make-up effects for the victims of the killer. One early scene in which a woman has her teeth bashed in with a hammer looked pretty gnarly, the blood effects, and injury effects always looked really strong, and were a highlight of what could often be a mean-spirited movie, where things don't always play out as you might expect.

As good as the make-up effects were, it couldn't prevent Chronicle of a Serial Killer feeling like a bit of a pointless movie. I didn't much care for any of the characters, made even harder for them to resonate by their clumsy and bland dialogue. The killer wasn't the worst here, but there wasn't much satisfaction with that side of things either. Not the worst, but definitely plenty forgettable.

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Self Driver (2024) - Thriller Film Review

Low budget blackly comedic thriller Self Driver is basically a better and more polished version of Don't Get in the Car. Both films are crime thrillers that take place over a single night, though the disinterested protagonist here is a willing rather than unwilling participator. Written and directed by Michael Pierro (in his feature length directorial debut), this had an odd charm to it.

D (Nathanael Chadwick) is a freelance driver who desperately needs money to pay essential bills. One day a passenger gives him a business card, offering him a job as a more exclusive type of driver, with it insinuated it might not exactly be legal. Initially hesitant, after a series of bad passengers, D decides to call the number on the card. Meeting his new boss, the man explains to D that it is a very well paid job, but that he must do as the car app states or any money earned will be forfeit. Over a very long night, D gets caught up in an increasingly illegal series of events, driving blatant criminals around the city. The money he is making is enough for him to turn a blind eye to all that is going on, but is there a breaking point for the detached driver?

Virtually the entire film takes place within the car that D drives, with the camera having a voyeuristic feel to it, at times appearing to be perched on the dashboard, other times almost like a passenger sat next to the man. Most of the time the camera is focussed close-up on D. He makes for a bland protagonist, but that adds to the dark humour of the piece, remaining non-plussed as no end of illegal and dangerous things occur. The pacing of the film has him picking up various passengers and his bizarre interactions with them, as well as following the very simple but strict instructions from the car app. In addition to following its directions, it also has him doing other things, such as at one point getting in the back of his car and repeatedly punching a passenger! Things become increasingly surreal, not helped by his ridiculous decision to imbibe a random drug, giving the later third of the film an often trippy feel when D begins to feel the effects.

This looked to be shot on a shoe string budget, the camera gave the feel of almost a fly on the wall documentary, with the viewer along for the crazy ride as much as the unemotional driver is. The story goes full circle in a way that I found pleasing, later characters inadvertently linking up with previous ones to give the film a satisfying and amusing end. The thrills here mainly come from the danger that D is getting into. In addition to driving under the influence of drugs, the man also ends up with a pistol in his car, and assisting criminals. I would have been beside myself with guilt and horror, but the driver is so dead inside that he makes it feel almost normal. For ninety minutes we sit in the car with D, but it somehow never gets boring, I was completely drawn into the story, wondering how it would all end. Being such a personality vacuum, D might be one of the more realistic characters out there, it didn't help that he looked and acted almost the exact same as one of the delivery drivers who drops things off at my day job!

When deciding to accept the screener for review I did wonder if it would be a good fit for a horror site. It really is though, the thills diluted by the surreal straight faced comedy, and the eccentric soundtrack (very Squid Game like) added to the unique vibe it rocked. The low budget worked out perfectly for this engaging thriller, with effects on screen decent, and nothing seeming obviously cheap. Self Driver premiered at the Fantaspoa - International Fantastic Film Festival where it won 'Best Film' in the 'Low Budget, Great Films' section. Further festivals saw it pick up 'Best First Feature' (Fantasia Festival), 'Best Actor' (Grimmfest), and received a special mention from the jury for 'Best Director' at the Macabro Festival Internacional de Cine de Horror, MidWest WeirdFest, and Panic Fest. Self Driver arrives on VOD and Digital on May 8th from Cinephobia Releasing. 

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for 24th April 2025

I've been mostly succesful with having a blog day at the time of typing. I've watched and reviewed two films and now am writing a small news post to end the day. Tomorrow shall be a music review and a further horror film (that final film was only half watched so has slipped a week!). Onwards to the news.

New from Arrow Video US for May are the following. Dystopian wasteland movie Steppenwolf comes to Blu-ray on May 27th and includes hours of special features. The film is about a woman whose son is abducted in the middle of her town's descent into anarchy. She hires ex-cop Brajyuk (Berik Aitzhanov) to get him back, with the promise of a huge reward should he do so. Coming to 4K UHD on 13th May is sci-fi thriller The Andromeda Strain. Based on a Michael Crichton novel (author of Jurassic Park), this is about a mysterious organism that arrives on Earth via a crashed satellite and infects a small town. 20th May sees the arrival of both Jason Goes To Hell and Jason X, the later being an entertaining watch, while the former is notable for its inclusion of Freddy Kruger from the A Nightmare on Elm Street series.

An official trailer has been released for upcoming horror film, Lake Abyss. Written and directed by Aric Garcia, this is about a group of college friends who go on vacation to a sinister lake. Actors include Bryant Smith, Carl Solomon, and Joe Barlam.

Finally for today, H.P Lovecraft's Two Left Arms is a Lovecraftian horror that the press release states was inspired by H.P Lovecraft's dreams. It sees a man arriving in Italy to restore an ancient painting in a deconsecrated church. The church happens to be near to a village where the locals worship a nearby lake rumoured to be where a meteor once crashed. It has been released in the US and Canada on Digital Platforms.

Project MKHEXE (2025) - Horror Film Review

It appears that the Gerald Waddell written and directed found footage mockumentary Project MKHEXE is so committed to trying to seem authentic that it doesn't even have an IMDB page. I have seen lots of found footage horror films so far this year, and this one is certainly the most polished one, but I don't think for all its atmosphere and vibe it manages to quite stick the landing.

The film is set out like a lost documentary with a screen of text at the start saying that back in 2014 it had been uploaded to the internet but mysteriously vanished a week later. Now (it states), the documentary has resurfaced and will be shown in its original unedited format. The rest of the film takes the form of this mockumentary as we follow Tim, the older brother of Shawn, a young man who unexpectedly killed himself after exploring the urban myth of 'Project MKHEXE', an internet legend about a government broadcast intended to hypnotise, but instead sends the people who see it dangerously insane.

I was immediately reminded of the excellent Butterfly Kisses, a horror mockumentary that played out in a similar fashion, though the core horror there was more interesting I felt. The key to the horror here comes from a signal, this was a similar idea to Haunted: The Audio Drama, which also used the idea of a unnatural signal that sent people homicidally mad. Due to this lingering feeling of familiarity, I never was able to fully immerse myself in this film as much as I would have liked. It was undoubtably masterfully edited, the fake doc feels like lots and lots of care was put into it to try and make it seem authentic. It contains a lot of content over the nearly hundred and ten minute runtime that includes interviews, stock footage, written evidence, its own collection of within universe found footage tapes and found audio recordings. These were all fascinating to see and meant that the focus wasn't solely on Tim (and later Nicole; a university friend of Shawn), instead giving a small selection of other stories. These include the recovered video tape of police interviewing a man suspected of murdering his friend, a blogger, a scientist performing strange research, and of course the tapes that Shawn left behind. All of this looked fantastic, the acting on the whole is decent enough, but outside of maybe one or two characters, no one seemed legitimately authentic. This was a shame as that was the one piece of the film that really needed to sell itself, but it was obvious the whole time that it was a film being watched and not something that could potentially be believed to be real.

The core idea was interesting, I really liked how this found documentary really tries to set itself up as one. There are dives into the protagonist brother's life, and a natural seeming explanation for how Tim decided to make a doc, due to not understanding how his brother could have taken his life. Relatively early on it is revealed what is going on, what the antagonist force actually is. It was fun enough and had some Lovecraftian feelings to it, but my main enjoyment came from the anticipation of where things would end up. By the time I got to about an hour and a half in, the film had began to drag a little and I was ready for the end. The final twenty minutes took a long while to travel a little distance, becoming a little tropey with elements such as unreliable scenes being shown, and ending on a sudden but underwhelming sequence. I will say that I loved that the QR code that briefly flashes up on screen at then end actually points to a website that has been designed as a companion piece to the mockumentary, keeping up the illusion of this being real and featuring links to other equally fake websites that continue the fabrication. It is impressive the dedication to the art of the film here.

For a good chunk of the runtime of Project MKHEXE I was enthralled. The fake format was really entertaining to watch, with perfect editing and plenty of mystery created. Camera glitches were used to great effect. This was one such film where the journey was better than the destination, as I didn't feel the payoff was that exciting. I still thought this was a wonderfully made found footage horror however. Project MKHEXE will be streaming exclusively on SCREAMBOX from April 29th.

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The Age of Alexander (2025) by Xiphos - Music Album Review

Anyone paying attention during my many ill fated music album reviews will know they typically only have a tertiary association to horror. Practice makes perfect, so I rarely turn down a music review request. I can't say I have ever heard anything quite like Xiphos' The Age of Alexander, it may not be horror but it is extremely history based (something I am also interested in). The music style didn't appeal, but I appreciated this was something a little different.

This is the fourth production in Xiphos' Illo Tempore collection, with this one being based roughly around the time period of Alexander the Great. Each of the ten tracks revolves around a different notable person from this time period, starting with the 'King of Kings' 'Artaxerxes' and going through a variety of different ones, including of course 'Alexander'. The general vibe is the same, the three person group use classical orchestration, with keyboards, and a vocal style that is half singing and half oration, usually telling a story about the person who the track is about. Due to this, I found I couldn't really do anything but listen to the music, as I wanted to hear the words and understand the tale being told. There are a bunch of different styles, the sombre 'Phocion' is slow and mournful, while 'Timoleon' has more of a military sounding vibe to it as examples.

I thought The Age of Alexander wasn't a bad album at all, but the genre and style of music didn't gel with my preferences. This is a cool concept, and speaks to the history geek in me, but maybe an acquired taste. Head to the BandCamp page to learn more.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Friday 18th April 2025

Another week, another trio of horror news stories. Not much to say other than life is flying by at a pace that is almost hard to keep up with, day bleeds into day and week bleeds into week in a dizzying way. Onwards to the news.

A third film in the Axeman At Cutter's Creek series is on the way, titled Axeman At Cutter's Creek: Absolution. I only saw the first, but I thought  that one impressed despite its obvious low budget, remember the axeman looking great. Once again directed by Joston Theney, this new film is going to star Nicole Alexander, Brittney Kade, Mindy Robinson, Hannah Hueston, Veronica Lavery, Morgan Bussler, with Michael Wayne Foster taking on the mantle of the titular Axeman this time around. There is currently an Indiegogo campaign running to get funds so the director can make the very best film he can, so check out the page to learn more.

Australian director Luke Sparke has released the first trailer for his upcoming prehistoric sci-fi horror Primitive War. Featuring Jeremy Piven (Old School), Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica), Ryan Kwanten (True Blood) and Nick Wechsler (Revenge), this is about a recon unit who infiltrate an isolated jungle valley in search of a missing platoon.

Finally for today, The Fairfield County Four is an upcoming found footage werewolf film that is to star Joe Bob Briggs (The Last Drive-In). The story follows four internet personalities who go missing while working on an episode of their reality series - 'The Cryptid Project', with the only evidence as to what happened to them coming from recovered camera footage. This comes from director Joshua Brucker (Mothman).

The Hermit (2025) - Horror Film Review

As a child, I loved watching The Incredible Hulk TV show, and of course the moments I lived for where when Banner transformed into the monstrous Hulk. That creature was played by Lou Ferrigno, and so it was a nice surprise to see him starring as the appropriately hulking cannibal antagonist of the Salvatore Sclafani directed and William Walkerley written The Hermit.

While begrudgingly out camping with her widower father, teenager Lisa (Malina Weissman - A Series of Unfortunate Events TV series) and boyfriend Eric (Anthony Turpel) end up lost in the woods and stumble across the property of an isolated pig farmer (Ferrigno). They end up being captured by the mentally challenged man, with it revealed that the state famous beef jerky he sells to the local petrol station is actually made from people he has abducted!
All of this has happened in the past, in present day, Lisa is recounting to a journalist (Julie Chang) how she managed to escape from her captor.

Having the main story of The Hermit being one being told by the final girl made for some interesting moments, but it was a double edged sword, also creating issues along the way. Rather than the film start and the survivor tells her story which changes into the movie proper, this instead has a relatively frequent back and forth between the past and present. After key events the journalist quizzes Lisa on inconsistencies in her story, and entire key scenes are only mentioned by the protagonist rather than actually shown on screen. This leads to certain scenes that appear out of nowhere, ruining the flow and pacing of the story being told. It was interesting having the core story move around in time, but the frequent enough interrupts also got in the way, removing me from the movie. The reason for all the disconnect and time skips becomes apparent in the final ten minutes. This section drastically rewrites large sections of the story, making the viewer question evidence previously shown. To be honest, I don't think this part was handled the best, it tried to do too much in too short a time frame. I still thought it was pretty fun, and I liked the montage type sequence that juxtaposed sweet music with the horror unfolding on screen. There were a few too many silly twists, some of which were not bad, but others that I saw coming a mile away.

Lisa was fine as the lead character, though Eric was really annoying, even if I think that was the whole point of his character. Lisa's father was wasted, being built up before disappearing from the movie in an underwhelming way. The titular villain wasn't terrible, I enjoyed that while he is portraying the stereotypical giant killer, he has elements to him that make him fit into the world somewhat better. The man is able to speak, albeit simply, and never wears a mask to conceal his identity, instead his long lank hair often covers his face. There are even a few scenes showing him interacting with people in a normal non-murderous way. He made for a sympathetic villain, his backstory shown via hallucinations and flashbacks give him a Friday the 13th type of unadulterated love for his mother, whose brutal methods for raising her simple child inadvertently caused him to become who he does.
I will save the best character for last though, Ranger Cadet Scott (Christopher Collins) might have only had a small role, and he may have been a comedy character, but I loved him. I found his scenes legitimately funny, and the inclusion of a series of goofy TikTok videos from the character were a stroke of genius.
Mentioning the kills briefly, the hermit's weapon of choice is a giant pointy wooden pole, and he skewers many victims over the course of the film. I'm not entirely sure why, but often these kills lacked impact,. I wasn't sure if it was bad CGI effects, or just the way the kills were framed, but they seldom seemed to pack much punch to them. Still, it was a cool weapon regardless of how realistic the kills appeared on screen. Related to the kill scenes, I found it a bit stupid how the gigantic killer was constantly able to somehow sneak up on people without them being aware, but that is a trope of the genre!

The odd pacing and interrupts throughout The Hermit might make sense by the end of the movie, but I still found them distracting. I felt the film was at times too over-produced, it would have benefitted from a more grindhouse-y  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre vibe, and the inclusion of more gore would have also been more welcome. Ferrigno made for a decent enough antagonist, looking the part, and managing to be sympathetic, but also being a tiny bit bland and forgettable. For all its faults, I still found myself enjoying The Hermit, so it must have done some things right!

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Razortooth (2024) by Stephen Kozeniewski and Steve Kopas - Post Apocalyptic Book Review

My slow march through my daunting backlog of books to read for review continues with the review of the Stephen Kozeniewski (The Thing Under Your Bed) and Steve Kopas co-written post-apocalyptic novel Razortooth. This is actually a prequel to Slashvivor, I have that on my reading pile, but figured I would read the prequel first. I am assuming that Slashvivor is similar to Sean E. Britten's Kill Switch series, seeming to sound like a futuristic game show where contestants are forced to battle deranged killers. 

The story follows the trails and tribulations of a girl nicknamed 'Razortooth', who at a young age experiences and survives a nuclear war between Russia and the USA only to subsequently be captured by a post-apocalyptic warlord named Marisol and made into a sex slave. With skill at murdering her clients, it is decided to instead change her role to that of a hitwoman for the powerful warlord.

I really liked the set-up for this world, with it explained that purely by complete chance during the nuclear exchange with Russia all the American nukes missed their targets, while all the Russian nukes hit theirs. This has resulted in an irradiated America that saw the collapse of government. The tale bounces around in time and at a hundred and sixty seven pages wasn't much larger than a novella. It was a cool idea also to have the whole story being a fabricated one, an embellished version of a true (within the book's universe) story of how one of the Slashvivor killer's came to be there. This set up was added to with little throwaway chapters that act like 'commercial breaks' from the core story being told. From Razortooth's innocent beginning pre-nukes, to the early stages of the new country order, and the events that led to her being made into a slave. It moves along at a rapid pace and does a good job of fleshing out the world.

The world here is a dark one, and there are some disturbing topics alluded to, and some graphic scenes, at least a couple featuring severed testicles! The story never really stays in one place for too long, with a bunch of characters introduced along the way. My favourite aspect of the world were the 'Georges', with only one 'George' being around at any one time, their punitive punishments for perceived failure resulting in their replacement taking them out.
Having not read Slashvivor yet, I can't really comment on how successful as a prequel this is. I'm guessing Razortooth is an integral character of that novel, with this being an origin story relating to both her sad past, and how she came to have body modifications to fit the name she has. 

A short well written novel that was as easy to get through as a hot knife through butter. The world of Razortooth might be depressing and bleak, but it is brought to wild life with a selection of madcap larger than life characters who create a Tank Girl type vibe, especially with the likeable titular lead.

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Stéphane (2023) - Comedy Horror Film Review

Co-directed by Timothée Hochet and Lucas Pastor, Stéphane is a spell binding found footage horror comedy that was like a French cousin to the fantastic Creep. The cast may be small but they really made an impact on me.

Timothée (Bastien Garcia) is an amateur film director who one day while trying to film some scenes for a short film contest, encounters a most eccentric man. This larger than life character introduces himself as Stéphane (Pastor), and impresses the young director with his tales of having worked as a stunt man. By a series of misadventures, Timothée ends up on Stéphane's private island where they decide to make a short World War II film alongside the meek and subservient Bianca (Eva Gregorieff). While Timothée is earnest in making the film, he is also secretly working on a mean-spirited documentary about Stéphane, finding the man at once both utterly ridiculous and fascinating. There may be a more dark and sinister side to the man however, and getting on his bad side may be a most terrible thing.

As a found footage this was wonderful, the small cast are mostly made up of the three core characters who were all perfectly cast. With Stéphane you have someone who really reminded me of Mark Duplass' Josef (Creep), but this character is somehow even more weird, yet more likeable. The horror remains just out of reach but there are moments where the viewer is secretly shown his more sinister side, such as when he takes a shotgun to his car engine while Timothée is sleeping (having offered to drive him home) and pretends the car broke down on its own, or when he sees the director flirting with Bianca and so purposely throws a wine bottle on the floor and states it was an accident. The character carries himself around like a bull in a china shop, causing chaos wherever he goes, an intense screen presence, and a powerful aura hidden beneath his bumbling ways. Timothée is much more normalised, but he is hardly the most noble protagonist, having amusing delusions of grandeur about the film he is trying to make when it is clear that he too seems to be a bit of an idiot. I liked the intense co-dependant relationship the two men seem to create, and how easy it was for Timothée's ego to be stroked. Last of all is Bianca, a character who barely has any lines in the whole seventy eight minute movie, but is able to perfectly look like someone who is with the two men against her will just by the constantly scared and bewildered look on her face. It was impressive to be able to act so effectively in near silence, even if her role seemed mostly to exist for comedic purposes.

The comedy/horror split mostly centres on the former. Throughout there are hints of horror, especially with some fantastic unsettling moments where almost subliminal images are edited in to show hints of something far more scary happening (as if it were footage that had been recorded over). Without going into too many spoilers, it is around ten minutes left when the shoe drops and the horror really begins. I did feel this was too little too late, I would have preferred a longer section for this final part. Saying that, it was visually exciting to watch, and featured some good looking special effects, and a neat twist that I wasn't expecting. The comedy side occurs around the two men, with Timothée it is his overblown confidence in his abilities, while as strange as Stéphane can be, there was something almost endearing about him, though saying that as someone watching him on screen, I'm sure if I had been in a room with him I would have been terrified!

This French version of Creep excels with its perfect core cast, especially with Pastor. It may have veered more on surreal comedy than horror, but there was still a mix of the two genres that could be felt throughout the runtime that made for a captivating found footage film. To be fair, even the IMDB page for the film doesn't label this as a horror, citing only 'comedy'. Stéphane is currently streaming exclusively on ARROW, worth watching.

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Longlegs (2024) - Horror Film Review

I am going through a bit of a dry spell on my blog at the moment, with the screeners I am getting sent quite low in numbers. That isn't to say I am unhappy about the situation, instead I am getting to choose each weekend whether to do a reduced blog output or to select a film of my own choice to watch for review. This past weekend, I decided to give the Osgood Perkins (I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, February) written and directed Longlegs a view, starring that most iconic of cult actors; Nicolas Cage (Renfield, Mandy), even if his screen time only makes up around five minutes of the hundred or so minute thriller.

Lee Harker (Maika Monroe - Independence Day: Resurgence, It Follows) is a newly recruited FBI agent who is assigned to a long running serial killer case, working along the seasoned Agent Carter (Blair Underwood), after she demonstrates apparent psychic abilities linked to it. For over twenty years, the serial killer (the titular Longlegs, played by Cage) has been seemingly responsible for a series of family murders, in which the father butchers his family before killing himself. Despite no evidence of Longlegs having been at the homes where the murders happen, his calling card is always left behind, a message written in a strange code. After someone leaves a key to deciphering his messages at her home, Lee begins to unravel the mystery of this killer, discovering unexpected links to an event in her own childhood.

The film felt very similar in style to Silence of the Lambs, but here there is a definite supernatural element hinted at, due to the killer's ability to seemingly make people commit horrific acts without him actually being present. This odd ability meant that I struggled to follow the story at times, especially early on when a series of clues are presented to the viewer, but due to watching the film on my phone (and my eyesight not being fantastic!), I couldn't actually make out what the written information said. Much like Silence, the film is shown mainly from the perspective of the FBI agent, the socially awkward Lee. Her lack of personality is balanced against her obsession with the case she has been assigned to work on, I actually came to like the quiet and muted way she carried herself.
Any film that Cage is in I expect him to steal the attention, that is the case here despite his character barely featuring. He is often shown badly framed in camera shot, with the top half of his head cut out the shot, this just added to the mystique of the character. It is over an hour I believe until he is shown fully on camera, before this, he is always lurking in the background, or obscured. Some of the twists in the story I had already heard of, not in terms of spoilers, but more the general outline of what happens with Longlegs. He made for a very disturbing feeling character, played to sheer perfection by Cage. He makes a hell of a lot of impact for a character who is in the movie for so short a time.

Flashback sequences related to Lee spur on the story, and by the end everything makes some sort of sense, even if they are steeped in supernatural elements that made this at times feel like an extended version of an X-Files episode. The meat of the film is Lee and her investigations alongside Carter, onscreen horror is kept to a minimum, but always looked good on camera with the right amount of blood being splashed about. The story makes you think a bit, mainly admittedly due to the strangeness of what is happening, but it wasn't bad. This is the best movie I have yet seen from Perkins, the serious vibe, and the unsettling performance by Cage combine to give this a dark atmosphere all of its own.

Longlegs didn't blow me away, but I am glad I finally got around to watching it as I had wanted to ever since I saw the trailer a few years back. Cage I expected to shine, and he does, it seems he can only give amazing performances at this stage in his wild career. I thought this was an effective horror, but some of the more outlandish moments might lose some viewers. Longlegs is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Thursday 10th April 2025

This year has been a transition from my more sedentary existence of last year. Not all good, but I am certainly learning lots of interesting things. With that out the way, onwards to a trilogy of horror news, starting with music.

US Dungeons & Dragons inspired power metal group Behölder have released a lyric video for their track 'Eyes of the Deep', which is the second single from the group's upcoming second single from the upcoming debut album; In The Temple of the Tyrant, which is due to release on April 25th via Black Lion Records. The new single is billed as a '...Lovecraftian-style mystery/horror' and sees a man infiltrating an ancient temple in a bloody search for his missing son.

A new trailer has been released for R rated comedy horror Sanguine Teeth On a Driftless Road. Written and directed by Austin Galante, this follows four black vampires who have gone on a road trip to a cabin in the woods. The film stars Jason Horton, Matthew Kenner, Jason Rouse, Galante, Charlie Mac, Douglas Montoya, Tony Lee Gratz, Duane Daniels, Michael Oilar, Kristin McCabe and Tiffiny Saggio, while the soundtrack features music with Snoop Dogg, KRS-ONE, Galante, and Jeff Ryon.

Finally for today, First State of Fear is an upcoming anthology horror film that sets out to explore Delaware's scariest legends. The set up has a group of paranormal investigators sharing three scary stories during a Halloween ghost hunt, but is there any truth to the stories being told? Featuring Michael St. Michaels (The Greasy Strangler), Mark Haynes (Stream), Amber Brook (The Amityville Barbi) and Illsun 4K (Pretty Face), this comes from the makers of Slaughter Beach, with Clockout Films having launched a Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign that with its modest goal looks set to be achieved. For more details, head to the Indiegogo page here.

The Last Cabin (2025) - Horror Film Review

There was something refreshingly simple about the very indie found footage horror The Last Cabin. I have seen a fair few from this sub genre lately and all have suffered by having a very lengthy set-up. Thankfully, this one gets straight to the action, and also doesn't outstay its welcome with a lean seventy minute run time.

Ben (Brendan Goshay), Shawn (Tanner Kongdara - Amy and the Aliens) and Hope (Isabella Bobadilla) are three location scouts who feel they have stumbled across the perfect location for their next shoot; a newly built cabin out in remote woodland. After encountering the strange property manager (John Fantasia), they strike a deal with him to rent the place for a few days to do some filming. They haven't been there long at all when they notice that they are being watched by someone wearing a creepy clown mask, and it soon becomes clear that the silent figure and his two equally silent clown mask wearing accomplices intend violent horrors for the trio. With their phones jammed, the three have to try and find a way to escape the cabin and alert the authorities.

After a brief prologue in which a different group of friends are murdered by the mask wearing clowns, the film really begins in earnest. I have gotten used to a good forty or so minutes of set up in found footage, but here it begins almost immediately. This plunges straight into the action by having the film begin when it is already pitch black outside. It might be a good half hour until the first character (post-prologue) is killed off, but prior to that there was plenty of threat. To be honest, I don't think the prologue was really needed, it doesn't add much aside from a higher body count, and it takes away some of the mystique from The Strangers type antagonist figures as it is clear that murder is their goal.
At one point the protagonists discover a series of DVDs, each of which is hinted to show a different group of people being killed, in a way that reminded me of parts of the excellent Sinister. That would have been a much better introduction to the viewer as to how the clown mask people operate.

The story is incredibly basic, but as a found footage horror this does what it sets out to do in a way that was very welcome. I appreciated the swift intro into terror, and also that it moved along at a swift pace. Characters didn't really have too much to them, but I thought some of them shone. Fantasia was effortlessly unsettling as the property manager, and film crew manager Kevin (Benjamin L. Newmark) delighted with his cruel uncaring persona. He impressed enough that my initial amusement at the lame reason why Shawn was filming everything actually retroactively made sense, as did the reason why the trio didn't flee at the first sign of trouble.
The movie is indie and that stretches to the kill scenes which lack impact, but I would also say can be very inventive when they choose to be. Often the violence is implied rather than shown on screen, but this works to the constraints of the budget. With a shorter run time there wasn't as much filler dialogue, but a scene in which Hope records a video message to her parents apologising felt very by the numbers and generic. There are moments of jump scares here but they actually worked on a couple of occasions, and while the epilogue wasn't that original, I did appreciate it as a way to end this type of film.

The Last Cabin is one of the better found footage horrors I have seen this year. I have respect for the back to basics approach to the story being told, I found the design of the clown masks to be effective, and there wasn't too much of the elements I dislike from the sub-genre, such as ad-hoc dialogue and shaky camera footage. It might not blow your mind, but this was an entertaining horror that shows less can be more. The Last Cabin comes to on-demand on April 29th thanks to The Horror Collective.

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Candlewood (2025) - Horror Film Review

Candlewood is a new indie suspense thriller that has been released by Mill Creek Entertainment. Directed and co-written by Myke Furhman, this takes the paranormal genre and blends it somewhat effectively with the thriller genre, though makes it a little too obvious as to what is actually going on.

Kevin (Joel Bryant), his wife, Veronica (Lisann Valentin - Jessica Jones TV show), and their two children - Sarah (Isabel Lysiak) and Matteo (Coulter Ibanez - She Came From the Woods) have recently relocated from the city to a woodland property out in the sticks, hoping for a fresh start. They discover a group of locals who seem hostile to outsiders, with creepy property owner Elijah (Jeffrey Alan Solomon) and flirtatious nearby neighbour Brandi (Jessica Altchiler) seeming to be the only ones willing to welcome the new family. With this already causing friction within the family group, the increasing apparent sightings of ghosts, possibly related to a local legend, increasingly threaten to tear the family apart.

The movie begins with a fantastic prologue that immediately drew me to the picture. This sequence was full of horror and tension, featuring corpses that had wonderfully bleak makeup effects on them, and a man committing suicide that toys with audience expectations by drawing out the expected moment that the rising score alludes to, to make something well signposted still alarming to see. Had the rest of the film shown this quality to story telling then Candlewood would have been a masterpiece, but unfortunately that was the very best scene in the entire film. After an overlong intro credits sequence (complete with a Danny Elfman sounding piece of music), the film begins proper and some of the cracks begin to show.

My problem was that I didn't like any of the four protagonists, making it hard to root for them, and also hard to care about what happens to them. Worst of these was Kevin, a man who always acts like he has all the answers but just seems a bit of a moron. The voice of the actor really reminded me of Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad fame, I found this distracting, though obviously that is a 'me' problem. The rest of the family don't fare too better, especially Veronica who has some really twisted lines where she basically says she hates her children. I accept that all four were suffering strange symptoms, but these moments always seemed very cold, without a realistic response from other characters. Solomon was superb as the effortlessly creepy property manager, I liked the way he always seemed to be amused by a joke that only he knew, so his scenes were forever delightful.
Candlewood has a unique way of making ordinary looking characters seem monstrous just by the way they act. There is a quiet amusement from the locals that gives an unsettling vibe, with facial expressions seeming somehow exaggerated without it being super obvious, giving a bit of an 'uncanny valley' feeling that I was fully on board for.

The meat of the horror comes both from the ghostly apparitions various family members see, and the increasingly unhinged actions of the family. It could have been fun wondering what exactly was really going on, but this part was sadly ruined by far too much signposting. From the effects used, and different characters seeing different things, it was clear that the ghosts may not turn out to be anything more than hallucinations. There are attempts at jump scares that always fell flat, the ghosts looking quite generic.
Where the plot goes was totally expected, and this even saw fit to end on an epilogue that wasn't the most original way to end a movie, and which I guessed would happen when I got to about halfway through the film. 
I might not think much of the main characters, but there were some decent enough moments, makeup effects for damage inflicted on characters looked good on camera and the mainly unsurprising score did a decent enough job.

I think if the plot of what actually was happening in Candlewood had been less obvious then I might have gotten into this more. It made for a horror that was lacking in decent twists, being far more of a psychological thriller than the synopsis might make you expected. There were plenty of great moments, and some standout actors here however, especially with that prologue that was near film perfection to see play out.

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Mirror Mirror (1990) - Horror Film Review

I thought I had previously heard of 90's cult supernatural horror Mirror Mirror but I think I must have mixed it up with a different mirror based horror film. Either way, it is always a delight to travel back to the past and watch horrors that would have been around during my childhood, with this Marina Sargenti effort (in her directorial debut) being released when I was around eight years old. Full of cheese, with the occasional fun death scene thrown in, I liked this, but it did really drag, especially towards the second half.

Goth girl Megan (Rainbow Harvest) has recently moved into a large house with her mother, having arrived at a new town. The house clearers had intended to remove all the previous occupants furniture, but inexplicably, a strange mirror that had been removed was back in the house. Megan convinces her mother to let her keep the mirror, finding a strange pull to it. At the local school Megan's strange dress style leads to the popular kids picking on her, which in turn causes kind Nikki (Kristin Dattilo) to befriend the outsider. Megan soon confides in her new friend that the strange mirror she owns seems to have some type of power, able to grant the girl's wishes, even if at a terrible cost. Nikki at first dismisses her claims, but after a series of tragic events happen at the school to people who Megan had issues with, Nikki comes to believe the mirror has some type of terrible hold over the girl.

From the prologue that seemed to be set in the fifties or sixties it is apparent straight away that the mirror has supernatural properties to it. Backstory provided by the house clearer who discovers a journal, reveals that it is likely a demon resides within it. This demon mirror granting Megan's wishes makes up most of the film's runtime, with there being a slight suggestion that she is vaguely possessed by it. As the body count ramps up, Megan's confidence increases. The mirror doesn't just kill, it also can also cause hallucinations and pain to people. Early on this is shown when an animal mortician's flirting with Megan's mother is stopped when he starts to see flies and maggots everywhere. There wasn't really a good idea of what the mirror could do as it seemed pretty random, from controlling peoples actions, to being able to Final Destination style murder people, such as a character taking a shower when the pipes burst and burn her to death with boiling hot steam. With no apparent weaknesses, the mirror seemed unstoppable, leading up to a dream like surreal ending that left itself pretty open.

This horror was very cheesy with plenty of dodgy acting and a low-fi straight to video sounding soundtrack. The general flow was perfectly fine, but I found myself bored with a lot of the middle part of the movie circling the water and not really doing much to advance the story. The main actors were fine, but no one stood out, and peoples reactions to people around them dying were a bit too understated. The mirror was ok, I liked the views from its perspective, but it didn't look creepy, and it was ill explained. Some of the special effects were decent enough, there was blood at times, best of which had a character whose arm started getting chewed up in a food disposal unit!

Mirror Mirror was perfectly fine, but I found it to be a bit slow, and also a bit light on plot. I appreciated the cheesy early nineties vibe to it, always a joy to see, but at a hundred minutes long this felt like it could have benefitted by being more lean. Mirror Mirror is now streaming on ARROW.

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