Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods - Part Two (2021) - Horror Video Game DLC Review (Playstation 5)

Continuing my playthrough of the previous games on the path to Doom: The Dark Ages, I have played and beaten the second of the two story DLCs (also available as a standalone mini-game) for Doom Eternal, funnily enough, this one is called The Ancient Gods - Part Two. I didn't have high hopes due to the first DLC being neat in terms of lore, but exhausting in terms of incessant combat. Thankfully, the developers seem to have realised their error with a much easier, and albeit, shorter second set of levels that were much better designed and more fun to play. Unavoidable spoilers for both Doom Eternal and The Ancient Gods - Part One to follow.

With the Dark Lord of Hell resurrected by the Doom Slayer, all he has to do is kill him. It doesn't turn out to be that easy as the Dark Lord teleports away to the prime city of Hell, challenging Doom Slayer to meet him there if he wishes to battle. Part Two is therefore the journey of the protagonist to this city.

This again is made up of three levels, kind of anyway. There is actually a fourth level, but that is just a boss fight. My issue first time around was how combat heavy and dull the levels were. This time around the levels feel like they are in the same style as the base game levels, rather than being endurance runs. The challenge was much lower, I again played on easy (now in my forties my reactions aren't as great as they once were), but this time it did feel a little easy. There was a strange Halo vibe to this second DLC, with the levels feeling like they wouldn't be out of place in that game. Like before, the three levels all take place in different realms. Starting off out in the rocky countryside of Argent D'Nur, which includes a dragon ride and plenty of platforming, things then move to a post apocalyptic Earth city, before finally heading to the principle city of Hell. These all looked great, but there has been a steady shift from supernatural to science fiction. No longer does it feel like you are battling demons, but more like an ultra advanced futuristic society! The last level in particular had this feel, but it was countered by having it take place during a massive war raging in the background.

The new enemy types from Part One reappear here, and plenty of new enemy variants are introduced. You have stone version of imps, armoured versions of Hell beasts, zombies with indestructible shields, and a rarely used enemy that can curse you, the only cure being to hunt down the teleporting idiot and punch him. A new weapon appears here, a giant hammer that when used stuns all enemies around you. This weapon was ridiculously useful, meaning that there wasn't much fear when surrounded by hordes of enemies. A new platforming element is also revealed, there are now grapple points floating in the sky that you can hook onto using the super shotgun. Some of these platforming sections were a bit intense, thankfully you no longer lose health when falling to your doom (Doom?), making them perfectly fine despite not really having a place in the universe.
The story was basic, but again, the lore you can collect was excellent. I especially liked how the lore of the second level is then shown to be lies by the lore of the third level. Doom Slayer also finally gets to speak, something that was a lovely surprise!

I was prepared for another faintly boring collection of combat challenges, instead Part Two delighted by feeling much more like the base game. I'm glad I played through these, though I probably won't ever return to them. Enjoyable, and a fine farewell to Doom Eternal. At around two and a half hours long this is a shorter part, but it goes to show, sometimes less is more as this is superior to Part One.

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

I've had a blissful and very lazy week off of work this previous week, and that is reflected in my blog output that features zero film reviews. Those will be returning next week in full force I am sure. Onwards to another selection of stories plucked out of my bloody mail sack.

Emmett Loverdale's Without A Name is now available on Amazon Prime. This horror, which stars Jeff Wittekiend, Desi Cruz Brooks, and Deborah Kay Johnson, is about a teenager who gets caught up in a youth worshipping cult that hates adults.

On June 1st, found footage streaming platform FOUND TV is launching an Indiegogo page for one of its first ever FOUND originals: A Possession in Lincoln County. This is currently in development by 105ive Films and FOUND TV. While the film will be coming to the streaming service, the only place to get the director's cut (with extra scenes and an alternate ending) will be from the Indiegogo page, with copies limited to just 500 on DVD/Blu-ray. Pre-orders for this director's cut of A Possession in Lincoln County can be found on the Indiegogo page here.

Gothic industrial metal band, Our Frankenstein have announced the release of new full-length album, Magnum Spire Hotel, which is out now via Reclamation Records. This has a concept theme of a haunted hotel with the press release stating 'Each floor takes listeners deeper into levels of psychological depravity, all building towards a grand ball at the top-where YOU are the guest of honor'.

Bitter Souls came to Amazon on May 15th after a limited theatrical run. The film tells the story of a murdered teenage girl whose boyfriend becomes determined to find her killers. To help him, he gets the help of Father O'Reilly (Karl Barbee) and voodoo priestess Mahlet (Destiny Brown) in order to defeat the evil houngan Immanuel.

Premiering on SCREAMBOX on June 10th (and additional VOD platforms) comes Bleeding, which was written, directed, and produced by Andrew Bell. The film takes place in a world where vampire blood is harvested as a drug. The story follows teenager Eric, who is determined to prevent his cousin Sean from getting into this shady world.

Finally for today, Shiver is a Christmas themed slasher film that is currently in pre-production, and is coming from writer/director Robert Resto. Principal photography is due to begin in January 2026. Based at a snowy ski resort, this follows a group of friends away on a Christmas getaway who of course find themselves being stalked by an unknown killer.

Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods - Part One (2020) - Horror Video Game DLC Review (Playstation 5)

With Doom: The Dark Ages releasing recently, I saw fit to make my way back through Doom, and finally get around to finishing Doom Eternal, a game I had initially bounced off of due to the hard difficulty. The Ancient Gods - Part One is the first of two story DLCs released for the game. It promised an even harder challenge than the base game, while giving loads and loads more lore about origins of the Doom universe to the plater. Spoilers for the base game to unavoidably follow.

Having defeated the Icon of Sin and stopped Hell's invasion of Earth, Doom Slayer doesn't get a moments break. With the Heavenly forces of Urdak defeated, Hell have invaded their dimension, allowing them to reignite their assault on Earth in the process. Working with Samuel Hayden and his team, Doom Slayer is tasked with travelling to a secret UAC base and reawakening an ancient being known as the Seraphim, someone who will be able to help the Slayer to resurrect The Father and end the madness.

I had heard that this DLC was even more chaotic and full of action than the later half of the base game. When the difficulty select screen mentioned that even on easy mode the challenge would be a lot harder I can't say that filled me with excitement. Boy, is this DLC full of combat. Part One is made up of three different levels, but with each one roughly taking an hour to get through, there was a decent amount of game to be found here. Things didn't start off that well. The first level set on a series of giant oil rigs out in the middle of the ocean looked impressive, yet being under a constant barrage of enemies for the entire level soon had me becoming bored. This felt like a continuation of the end of the base game, where the combat got so intense that there wasn't any room to breath.
Thankfully the second level calms things down slightly, given a map that had more of a puzzle element design to it. Taking place in a large swamp in Hell, this second level introduced a new enemy type in the form of ghosts who can possess enemies, and have to be killed while their spirit form is exposed.
The final level takes place in Urdak and while combat heavy, this had a lot of interesting lore that really delved deeply into the key players. This level featured a tough boss (even on easy), and another new enemy type; a flying one whose only moment of weakness being when they fire their energy beams at you.

I liked the introduction of new enemy types, and I also thought the the settings used all looked fantastic. Combat was never the highlight of the game for me, and there was far more than I would have liked. It was worth it for the story however, as it really changed up my thoughts of previous story beats. It might have been nice to have a new weapon or two, but I did appreciate the DLC acts as if you had gotten all the upgrades in the base game. With Doom: The Ancient Gods - Part One being quite tough I am a bit concerned about how even more difficult the second and final DLC pack will be. I guess I will soon find out! Also; this is available to purchase as a standalone game should you not want it as Doom Eternal DLC.

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Doom Eternal (2020) - Horror Video Game Review (Playstation 5)

In a tale as old as time, on my path to playing Doom: The Dark Ages (that is now out on Xbox Gamepass), I decided to play through the previous newer Doom games. Returning to Doom 2016 was a complete blast, that game just seems to get better with each subsequent playthrough. Doom Eternal is a different beast altogether. I brought this on day one, super excited to play. The game just didn't click with me, despite some amazing levels, I eventually crawled my way to the last third of the game and promptly gave up. Now, some five years later I have returned, deciding to play the game on easy mode so that I could finally finish this particular fight. In a film-less week, the two DLCs will be making up my other reviews.

This picks up fourteen years after the end of Doom, with no explanation whatsoever, Doom Slayer is now on a space station orbiting Earth (he was last seen fourteen years previously being teleported away to an unknown location), an Earth that is under supreme demonic assault due to the UAC (Union Aerospace Corporation) becoming completely corrupted by Hell. Dr. Samuel Hayden (a powerful robot with a human brain) had led a resistance, but had been defeated, so now the Earth is at the mercy of the legions of Hell, and the three Hell Priests leading the invasion. Your goal is to head to Earth and kill these three Hell Priests, with it hoped that will lead the invasion to collapse. Unfortunately, it appears that the demons have teamed up with an alien race named the Maykr, and the leader of this race; the Kahn Maykr is determined to stop Doom Slayer completing his task.

I have mixed feelings about this game. When it is firing on all cylinders there is nothing quite like it. There are a load of fantastic levels here. In the first game, the levels took place either on the Mars UAC facility or in Hell, with the former being much more fun to play through. This time around, the levels are either set on Earth (channelling the spirit of Doom II), or in various other planets. You have several set on the Sentinel (the alien race who helped Doom Slayer after the events of Doom 64) home world of Argent D'Nur for instance. These take place on sprawling maps which is basic Roman architecture turned up to eleven. These levels just were not as fun as the more logically designed Earth levels. The absolute highlight of Doom Eternal were the levels set on Earth, from an artic cultist base, to the epicentre of the demonic invasion in the middle of a huge city, these were all amazing. I also loved the detour that takes you briefly back to Mars, again, some lovely designed levels. In between most levels you return to a hub area set on the space station. I enjoyed this break in pace, even if there isn't really that much to do on the station, other than use energy cells hidden in levels to unlock power-ups.
A weird new addition to the series is the introduction of platforming sections. Doom Slayer is inexplicably now able to swing on poles and clamber up rock walls, throw in the return of a double jump, and the ability to dash forward twice in mid-air and you have a much more dynamic protagonist. These sections were fine, but they felt out of place (having now started playing Doom: The Dark Ages I can confirm there are mild platforming sections in this prequel).

Combat is the main focus of this sequel, and spices things up by having different enemies be weak to different weapon types. A lot of the enemies from Doom return, albeit with new looks and abilities, and a lot of new enemy types are introduced, many being ones that had appeared in Doom II. Mech spider creatures for instance fire missiles, but their launcher can be destroyed by rockets. The magma monster is suspectable to gatling gun fire, while the returning BFG can lay waste to multiple enemies at once. There are four key powers on a recharge meter that are essential to get the most out of the game. A flamethrower causes enemies to drop armour pieces, a chainsaw can be used on weaker enemies to create ammo pick-ups, a super punch can instantly kill weaker enemies or massively damage larger ones, while both ice grenades and normal grenades can be fired. All enemies can be stunned, which allows you to perform a gory execution kill for health. Being required to constantly change up your weapons depending on the enemy type, as well as having to constantly manage your ammo and armour might not appeal to everyone. That was actually me included, but by the end of the DLC missions I had started to finally appreciate this aspect.
Levels are full of secrets to collect, and grant points of various types that be used to upgrade weapons (each of which has two different special functions), or to upgrade your character, such as being able to see secrets on the maps, and increasing the damage of your grenades. The levels are mainly split into adventure sections and battle arenas. Unfortunately, the last third of the game is pure combat. The final four levels are all intensely combat heavy, as a result I got quite bored with this final section of the game. I understand one or maybe two levels like this to finish on (the manic final boss fight brought to mind a feeling of the similarly manic final boss in Doom II), but four in a row was a real test of endurance. The levels also get worse as they go on, the very final one gave an intense feeling of playing an Xbox 360 game, and not in a good way. The level design got more and more dull, almost as if the creators were running out of time to get the game finished.

Doom Eternal has some levels that match or even surpass some of those found in Doom. It also has its fair share of more bland ones, especially towards the end of the game. I loved the lore given here, I was delighted to discover Doom Slayer is meant to be the same character from the original games, and the drip-fed backstory as to what happened in the character's past was both awesome and fascinating. It was however, also weird how so little of what happened in-between games is explained, leading to lots of confusion. I had a tremendous amount of fun playing this, but I also had a less entertaining time than the first time around. Level design really suffers at times thanks to the unneeded inclusion of the gymnastic sections, and those parts really do not feel like Doom at all. Great story (for a mindless shooter at least), it looks and sounds fantastic, and the gameplay is solid. I wish that sometimes more care had been given to the level design, and that the final third had been improved upon.

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ApoKalypse (2025) - Comedy Horror Film Review

ApoKalypse is an animated comedy zombie film that was written, directed and produced by Lutz Geiger, who was also the animation supervisor. Described as an ultra-low budget 3-year passion project, this comedic horror doesn't always hit with its style of humour, but has a consistent charm that made me more than happy to stick around for the sensible seventy minute runtime. 

Set in America, Apo (Chris Koehne) works at a burger takeaway in a local mall with best friend Jamal (Ravin Wong). One day, rat poison comes to be advertised as a cure for the ongoing Covid pandemic, and idiots in their droves come to believe this to be the case. Unfortunately, the rat poison not only doesn't cure Covid, it also happens to turn people into flesh hungry ghouls, seemingly only infecting Caucasians. With the mall swiftly overrun with these zombies, Jamal, Apo, his love interest Cho (Ao Mikazuri) and her family must work together to try and find a way to make it to the staff exit and escape. Meanwhile, the U.S army have cordoned off the complex, planning to use drastic measures to stop the outbreak.

The animation style is basic, but it has a unified feel to it that everything seems consistent in style. The 2D look reminded me a bit of South Park, a bit simpler maybe, but I thought the look of this was good. There was even a brief 3D section inserted towards the end for a few minutes, that part in particular looked pretty great. The characters all had a vaguely creepy unnatural look to them, but that worked for a comedy horror.
The humour was occasionally to my liking, but there were plenty of moments that didn't appeal, being a bit grotesque at times. There were a few jokes about bodily functions, drug use, and some gross sex joke moments that included full frontal zombie nudity. That type of stuff I wasn't on board for, but there were also amusing moments. None of this was laugh out loud, but again, the style was consistent and parts made me inwardly chuckle. 

The protagonists were fine, they served the purpose as people to root for, even if there wasn't much character development for them. The zombies meanwhile were plentiful, but they were often not that much of a threat. I did enjoy the large numbers of these and the often gross fight scenes that sees survivors and braindead alike being ripped apart. As for the plot, it was very simple, but what would you really expect from a zombie movie? Despite being an animation, this had a lot of the story beats you would expect from a film of this genre, a gradual ramping up of danger, and an over the top finale. The social commentary aspect was interesting enough, taking a look at America's treatment of minorities though the lens of the 'Karen' stereotype. It made a change to have the heroes all be non-white characters, I did feel having this based around the Covid pandemic felt a little outdated, though obviously, at the time this was first thought of, that was still relevant.

I enjoyed ApoKalypse, but it didn't always appeal. I thought some of the character design to be crude, especially when it came to the female characters, and I would have been happy without any nudity. That was all done to personal preferences. For something described as ultra-low budget, this was far more watchable than expected, the David Firth/South Park feel was often neat, and the basic animation worked surprisingly well with zombies as the main focus.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Thursday 22nd May 2025

This week has been a very lazy one in the Rotting Zombie HQ as I have a blissful week off of work. My main interests outside of doing daily blog posts is sleeping and playing video games, so quite idyllic. Onwards to the news.

Cryptid horror film Daisy has came to Amazon Prime. Based on encounters with Tora Bora vampire bats, this follows a former soldier, now small town mechanic, who has a deadly secret living in his garage. Daisy stars Michael Wainwright, Sparkle Soojian, Wade Pierson, Manuel Ramirez and Matt Macedo.

Heading to Sweden next is Feed, which is based on the true story of the first Swedish woman to be killed for witchcraft. The plot follows a young medical student and her social media influencer boyfriend. They end up trapped on a small island on a lake where allegedly the ghost of an ancient Swedish witch was said to inhabit. With the influencer boyfriend having been hired to sell this idea, they soon come to discover that there might actually be some truth to the legend of a witch ghost. The Swedish language horror Feed became available to rent or own on North American digital HD internet, cable, and satellite platforms as well as DVD on May 9th.

Finally for today, first look stills have been released for Howard J. Ford's Bone Keeper. The plot sees six friends enter a remote cave system to investigate the local legend of the 'Bone Keeper'. They are unluckily put into danger when they indeed find this creature, something that may have lived in the cave system for thousands of years. This stars John Rhys-Davies (Gimli in The Lord of the Rings trilogy), alongside Sarah Alexandra Marks, Louis James, Tiffany Hannam-Daniels, Sophia Eleni, Danny Rahim, Tyler Winchcombe and Sarah T. Cohen.

Dachra (2018) - Horror Film Review

The press release for horror film Dachra states this is Tunisia's first ever horror film. Whether it is the case or not, this witch based horror (alleged to be based on true events), written and directed by Abdelhamid Bouchnak is certainly the first Tunisian horror to be reviewed on this blog. The film won the Scariest Film Award at The Overlook Film Festival.
Having now watched this I would say there are some uninspired moments, but this can't be accused of not having atmosphere in spades.

Yassmine (Yassmine Dimassi), Walid (Aziz Jebali), and Bilel (Bilet Slatnia) are three journalism students whose college professor has tasked their class with creating a documentary about a local topic of interest. Laid back Walid tells his friends about the story of a strange woman who was discovered in the middle of nowhere with her throat slashed some twenty five years ago. She was subsequently taken to a local mental institute where she has since gotten a reputation for being a witch. The trio decide this would be the perfect story to cover for their project, and with Walid being friends with one of the nurses at the institute, heads there to see the patient. This eventually leads to them discovering the location where the woman had been originally discovered, and decide to head there to do some filming. They stumble across a strange village deep in woodland that wasn't marked on any maps. Mostly populated by cowled silent woman, the jovial sole male village leader convinces the three to stay, due to time getting late in the day. The longer they are there, the more the three begin to suspect something very wrong is going on, Yassmine in particular is shocked to discover that life long nightmares she has had of a woman in black appear to be somehow linked to this bizarre cultish place.

The story for this film felt very found footage like, I am glad it didn't go in that direction, instead being traditionally filmed, as this allows all sorts of camera shots to be used. The story was interesting, I liked how it seemed Yassmine was caught up in events before the film had even really started. Later reveals I had expected, but I was still pleased to see them occur, it gave the whole movie a bit more of a The Wicker Man vibe, with me not shaking the feeling that the three had been lured to the village for some nefarious reason. I thought the protagonists were a decent group of characters. They are forever bickering with each other, but this came across as natural. There were some moments that became amusing due to the friendly insults the characters share. This is in Arabic, but the subtitles were forever easy to read and translated well. Other characters all served purposes well, but I did feel The Shining style subplot of Yassmine's uncle spending much of the film making his own way to the village was a bit dull.

The horror here mainly comes from the atmosphere, the village felt like an unsettling place, with the creepy non-speaking villagers like something out of Resident Evil 4. There were some tries at creating horror that were very generic, a few lame early jump scares. The atmosphere of the village was very well done, a grimy poor looking place where strange lumps of meat are hung up everywhere. From the prologue in which a young boy is sacrificed, it is clear that something obviously evil is going on at the place. I liked the drip feed of information the protagonists get, the best part being when Yassmine comes into possession of a journal. It did the gradual unpeeling of the story satisfying. With all that this does get right, it is a bit of a slow burn, it doesn't get dull over the course of the one hour fifty five minute runtime but I would say that not too much really happens over the course of the movie. I was also unsure of the very abrupt ending, not completely convinced that worked for me.

Dachra was bleak and cruel, both things that are most welcome in a horror. There were occasional moments where nothing too interesting was going on, though I did think the village setting was very effective. With normal feeling protagonists, the horror sparsely explained, and a great setting, this was a good film, only let down by a few cliche horror moments. Dachra came to the streaming subscription platform ARROW on May 16th.

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Gearshifting (2025) by Fir Cone Children - Music Album Review

Fir Cone Children is one of the many monikers that Berlin based musician Alexander puts out music under. It is a concept one man bad of sorts, with the music always being about his children and how they are adapting to life, as well as his relationship with them. The press release states the central theme for this eleventh album, titled Gearshifting, is puberty, though the light, energetic and wholesome attitude is still prevalent.
Of course, this has little to do with horror, but I have gotten into a strange hole of just reviewing any music sent my way despite not being qualified to do so.

There are ten tracks over the thirty four minute runtime and they mostly all fit into an optimistic and joyful vibe. The best track also happens to be the first, 'Let's Calm The Senses' was a great opener, bringing with it an early Blur sound. Most the tunes have a real garage vibe to them, I can't say that is really my favourite music genre, but these are all high energy and upbeat, from Interpol type sound of 'Ghost In The Frame' to the joyous 'Madness!'. Penultimate track 'Perfect Trade' brings in a slower reflective feel, before the energy picks back up for final track 'Life Rearranges'.

Gearshifting was an enjoyable half hour of shoegaze garage punk, each track sounded distinctly different, thoughmostly united in style. For an upbeat and mostly joyous look at life in its purist form then look no further than another solid Fir Cone Children album.

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Final Recovery (2025) - Thriller Film Review

Final Recovery is an indie dramatic thriller that looks at the subject of substance abuse. Directed by Harley Wallen (Beneath Us All, Ash and Bone), and co-written by Jerry Lee Davis and Nick Theurer, this tells a story with an obviously low budget, yet there was something engaging about this regardless.

Rodney (Jasper Cole - Fall, The Purge: Anarchy) is a regular at the Sage Treatment Facility; a drug rehabilitation centre run by the motherly Nanny Lou (Charlene Tilton). He finds himself back there again after succumbing to his addiction. Unlike many of the other patients however, Rodney feels he knows full well how evil the place is. Nanny Lou gets money from the government to run her centre, and so in her desire to always have a full house of patients, she provides her own special drug concoction to those recently released, knowing that their addiction will soon lead to them being brought back by corrupt cop Levi (Michael Emery - An Intrusion, The Lurker) and his partner (a small part by Wallen). Dustin (Damien Chinappi) is a newcomer to the centre, and while him and Rodney initially don't get on, they put aside their differences to find a way to survive their ordeal.

With a blissful week off from my day job, I decided I would allow the luxury of watching horror films for review at night instead of daytime. That is the ideal way to watch horror films, but due to having to be up at 05:00 each week day for work it isn't exactly practical. Final Recovery is the first film for this week that I (mostly) watched at night. I admit that with about twenty five minutes to go, I fell asleep, having to watch the last part the next day! It is a mix of drama and thriller, but by far it is the dramatic element that is most prevalent. If it wasn't for a bonkers subplot that eventually gets thrust into the limelight for the thrilling final twenty minutes, I would be hesitant to even call this a thriller. 
Tilton plays an almost pantomime villain, while she has decent motivations for being like she is (having witnessed her father be murdered by a junkie as a child, shown as the film's prologue), this doesn't alleviate the fact that she just seems plain evil. She acts like she cares about her patients, but it is always obvious that she doesn't believe what she is saying, and is bizarrely ready to threaten absolutely anyone who suspects her of not having the patients best intentions at heart. It makes it hard to believe she would be able to get away with all the insane things she is doing. It is never explained where she gets the special drugs from that her patients get addicted to, and it is never adequately explained just what on earth the reasoning is behind the sinister subplot boiling mostly away in the background. Rodney was fine as the protagonist, but had a weird vibe to him. He knows that Nanny Lou is evil and that she is responsible for making the drug problem in the city worse, yet he also constantly antagonises and threatens her when he is in no position to do so. This limits the characters movements causing a basic plot take longer to reach its conclusion than it should have done. That isn't saying Final Recovery is too long, at ninety six minutes it is fine, I didn't find myself getting too bored.

There are some moments of ultra violence mixed in with a mostly more realistic feeling drama. The low budget is evident in the bland set design, and I had some sound issues with this, especially towards the start. I'm not sure if that was down to the screener I had, so I'm giving the benefit of the doubt and not factoring that into my overall score. I really enjoyed the final act of this thriller, it had some fantastic looking scenes in which characters have lights flickering near them, plunging them in and out of darkness. There were also some tense moments, such as a scene of Dustin slowly walking down a basement corridor towards an ominous door.
I would say that the evilness of the antagonist was never hidden. It is obvious from the start she is a bad person, and that some really messed up things are happening at her centre. I couldn't help but feel that a gradual reveal of this would have been better than going all-in at films beginning.

Final Recovery was an entertaining indie drama that tries its best to look at the subject of addiction. This veered too much into drama for me, with the thriller element only really appearing towards the end. I thought the film was decent enough, but as little too light on thrills for the type of movie I was personally hoping for. 

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Black Mirror: Season 6 (2023) - Sci-fi Horror TV Show Review

Black Mirror typically revolves around exploring a piece of possible future technology to its most nightmarish conclusion. It is an anthology show that features stand-alone stories that mostly end up being very bleak and very not-feel good. Season five only had the three episodes and none of them was particularly amazing. This led to me beginning to think that the show had run out of any really good ideas. Because of this, it was only with the release of season seven this year that I decided it was high time I get around to finishing up watching season six. This season was made up of five episodes and thankfully, it not only has mostly decent ones, but it contains a departure from the typical formula that ranks up there as one of my all time favourite Black Mirror episodes.

'Joan Is Awful' starts the season and also happens to be the worst one. I can't even really remember it too much, it felt very Black Mirror by numbers. The idea here is that a normal woman (Annie Murphy) discovers that a hit TV drama has been released which shows her life in exact detail, the fictional version of her being played by Salma Hayek (Dogma). I seem to recall this was a bit of a farce rather than anything too serious, as the real Joan tries to find a way to stop her life being copied on TV. It features Michael Cera (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) in a small role that was at least fun to see.
Next is the excellent 'Loch Henry' that takes a more realistic approach to its central idea. A young Scottish man, Davis (Samuel Blenkin - The Sandman TV show, Peaky Blinders TV show) returns to his sleepy loch side town with American girlfriend Pia (Myha'la) in tow, on the way to make a documentary for a university project. There, Pia learns of a dark tragedy involving kidnapped tourists that indirectly resulted in the death of Davis' policeman dad when he was a child. Pia convinces Davis to turn the focus of the documentary they are making into one looking at this dark event, unaware of the traumatic consequences this digging up old dirt would bring to David, Pia, and those around them. The technology here is current day and old VHS recorders, and the idea is to take an ironic look into the unhealthy fascination people have with true crime documentaries. I loved the more grounded look, and despite not using any type of future technology this fell into the Black Mirror format well, with a most bleak finish. Special mention to Daniel Portman (Game of Thrones TV show), John Hannah (The Mummy), and the excellent Monica Dolan (Kick-Ass 2).

It was after that second episode that I took a year long break from watching the show. I got so distant from it that I had in my head it was another three episode season, when it was actually a five episode season for this one. Someone I work with in my day job kept insisting I had to return to at least check out third episode 'Beyond the Sea', and while it wasn't my favourite of the season, it was still a strong one. Following the remit of season five seemingly trying new things, this episode takes place in an alternative 1969 in which technology has been invented that allows people to mentally control artificial surrogates of themselves. Two astronauts on a deep space mission are therefore still able to spend time with their families back on Earth using this technology. After David (Josh Hartnett - Trap, The Faculty) is helplessly forced to witness his family being brutally murdered and then his surrogate destroyed in a  home invasion by an anti-surrogate group, he understandably falls into a deep depression. With fellow astronaut Cliff (Aaron Paul - Breaking Bad TV series) concerned that David might do something drastic in his grief, his wife back on Earth (Kate Mara - Morgan), convinces Cliff to let David borrow his surrogate, in the belief this would help the man heal. Of course, this results in typical Black Mirror darkness and horror. I loved the time period here, and I also appreciated the open ending that left me with a lot of questions.
'Mazey Day' is the penultimate episode and did something so unexpected that I found myself delighted with the silly twist. In this one, the titular Mazey Day (Clara Rugaard) is a troubled A-list celebrity who vanishes from the public eye after abandoning a film project in Europe. Former paparazzi photographer Bo (Zazie Beetz - Joker, Deadpool 2) is convinced to return to her former job with a huge cash reward should she be able to take a photo of the missing Mazey. Again, the central idea is grounded in reality, with the story being about the detrimental effects that sleazy elements of the press can have in their desire to get money and recognition. Personally, I loved the direction this ended up going in, bringing some genuine horror to the show while still keeping this unapologetically Black Mirror in style.
Finally is the fantastic 'Demon 79' that immediately sets itself apart by being termed as 'Red Mirror', the first purposely pure horror episode to appear in the show. It takes place in 1979, where mild mannered department store worker Nida (Anjana Vasan - Spider-Man: Far from Home) inadvertently forms a demonic pact with a friendly demon named Gaap (Paapa Essiedu). She is convinced by this being that unless she murders three people within three days the end of the world will occur. I thought this was an amazing episode, it featured a great soundtrack of songs from that time period, and made the two protagonists really likeable. Both outsiders, they come to form an unexpected bond that was a joy to see play out on screen. I also liked how it wasn't clear for the majority of this episode whether Nida was simply insane and hallucinating Gaap (who only she can see and hear), or if there really was something more going on. Set against the backdrop of the Cold War, this had plenty of strong elements to it, from the casual racism of the time, to the captivating David Shields whose role as the villainous and cold politician Michael Smart not only allowed for elements of The Dead Zone to appear here, but also (as Black Mirror often does) pre-empted real world events, in this case, Elon Musk's ill-advised Nazi salute. A very strong ending as well it has to be said.

From a dull start, season five soon proved itself to be one of the best seasons of Black Mirror. This has all the qualities I have come to expect from the show, while each episode after the first, tried new things and was mostly successful each time. 'Loch Henry' and 'Demon 79' in particular were strong entries, I would actually recommend people who have never watched the show to still check out that last one, it really was fantastic. Black Mirror is streaming on Netflix.

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Feral Female (2025) - Comedy Horror Film Review

I recently mentioned the indie comedy horror film Feral Female and now I have had the chance to check it out for a review. Written and directed by Jared Masters (The Nightgown, Ballet of Blood), I fully expected my attention might wane before I had reached the end of this. However, due mainly to the wonderful protagonist character (played by Masters), I was hooked.

In the wilds of LA's Griffith Park lurks a monstrous killer, a feral woman (Kate Ly Johnston) raised by wolves, now stalks and kills the visitors to the park. Inept Australian big game hunter Nigel B. Shearing (Masters) has been hired to capture the beast to end its reign of terror.

The simple plot did bring some concerns as to how this would be able to sustain a feature length movie and it brought to mind keenly the Australian comedy monster horror film Badass Bunyip from 2021. Both are set in a similar feeling location, both feature an idiotic protagonist, and both feature plenty of scenes of random people being killed by the titular creature. Where Feral Female succeeds is that the protagonist might be a complete idiot, but he is also very entertaining. He comes across like a mix of Steve Irwin and a character from The Mighty Boosh, his rampant stupidity rather than irritating and grating is actually something I found very amusing. His self confidence in his animal knowledge was never laugh out loud, but it was very funny. Examples off the top of my head being that he states his car plays loud rave music as that is known to sooth animals, and that the silver jumpsuit he wears is due to animals being unable to see the colour silver.
The feral female is basically a topless woman wearing a loin cloth. Silent and quite angry, the meat of the film has her stumbling across various random characters and then killing them for the most part. Many of her kills have a first person perspective shot from the victim as Johnston waves her fingers at the camera. Then shown to have had quite a violent outcome. Being comedic, I thought maybe blood wouldn't be as pronounced as if this were a normal horror, but the blood is in full effect, and even have scenes where intestines are hanging out. All the special effects are purposely weak, often the victim will be coated in blood but with not much visible sign of injury to themself. The actress did exactly the job she needed to, more impressive when you factor in that the original actress for that role pulled out two days before filming was due to begin (according to IMDB).

Basing a feature film around a series of different sequences of random characters being attacked should be hard to do. The story is by far the weakest element of the film, wafer thin, though I did enjoy the subplot of the feral female's estranged sister trying to track her down. A wonderfully straight and serious performance, despite the ridiculous look of the character. Many of the side characters were forgettable, and the acting on the whole wasn't the best. The film leans into this though, making for some surreal and amusing scenes of victims pleading for their lives in the most disinterested way possible. Holding it altogether was Masters character of Nigel. He is a constant throughout, meaning that as repetitive as some of the kill scenes could get, he was never more than a few minutes away from reappearing. Not all his scenes worked, but most of them did.

I was impressed with the look of Feral Female, it seemed to be made to a higher quality than I would have expected. It also struck gold with the character of Nigel. He could have so easily been an irritating annoyance, but instead, there was a likeability to this liability that made him the star of the movie. You could accuse the film of being a bit exploitative by having a topless character on screen so much, this character I never felt was so, she might be half naked but there is nothing sexual about her nudity. The same can't be said for the handful of other female characters who end up topless, those moments did feel like they were there for pure titillation. A picturesque location (apparently filmed during a heat wave), fun characters, lots of silly dialogue and a lack of much tepid humour (such as sex and scatological jokes) meant that I was drawn into this film world, and while at times it slightly dragged, in all, it didn't outstay its ninety minute runtime. Feral Female is due to release this summer, coming to DVD, VHS and streaming.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Thursday 8th May 2025

Hitler was not a good person, in fact you wouldn't be wrong if you described him as evil (something that it increasingly seems the dystopian America of 2025 is beginning to forget). I have a huge interest in history, especially the second world war, so Obsession: Hitler's Occult Odyssey sounds like a good mix of history with the supernatural. The Nazi's were into occult stuff, I once read a theory that the Third Reich failed due to the 'spear of destiny' they had gotten hold of (said to have pierced Jesus' side) getting lost. Regardless of fact and fiction, the occult did play a part however minor. This documentary takes a look at this aspect of the Nazis, looking at such things as that spear of destiny, the Holy Grail, as well as rituals and beliefs Hitler and some of his cronies were meant to have believed in. This comes from BayView Entertainment.

An official trailer and poster for Harley Wallen's upcoming thriller Final Recovery has been released. Starring Charlene Tilton (Dallas), Jasper Cole (Fall), Richard Tyson (Black Hawk Down), Michael Emery (Blue Bloods), Cherish Lee (American History X), Damien Chinappi (Eternal Code), and Kaiti Wallen (Beneath Us All), this is about a recovery facility with a dark secret to it. Run by the seemingly altruistic Louise (Tilton), the facility is actually out to make profit over helping people. Final Recovery was scheduled for release on May 2nd on Tubi and Amazon by Buffalo 8. I have a screener of this for review, so watch out for that some week soon.

Finally for today, a surprise digital release of 2010 student film Dog Beater has been released on Vimeo. The film, notable for an early performance from actor David Perry was written and directed by Kera Hildebrandt at Columbia College Chicago. In this horror short, a cruel pet owner is forced to confront his past misdeeds of abusing dogs in his care. Said to be a love letter to Japanese horror, Perry was responsible for getting this student film in the eyes of a bigger audience. For more details of the film, check it's Vimeo page here.

Steppenwolf (2024) - Dystopian Thriller Film Review

The Adikhan Yerzhanov written and directed Steppenwolf was like a Kazakh version of Mad Max. Both films appear set in a dystopian nightmarish future where law and order have completely collapsed, and both feature complex anti-heroes. By good fortune, I am currently learning Russian, so for me, it was fun to recognise a whole bunch of words that the characters speak!

Steppenwolf takes place in a nihilistic and dystopian world, one where it appears that in the relatively recent past there was an event that led to an uprising, with the common folk and criminals alike coming together to wipe out the local police force. During an assault on a police station by a bunch of armed men, a very traumatised woman - Tamara (Anna Starchenko) stumbles in and happens upon a former detective, Brajyuk (Berik Aytzhanov). Within her incoherent mumbling the man realises she is looking for her missing son. Using his natural confidence and leadership, he ingratiates himself with the rebels and convinces them to help him find Tamara's son, promising that there is a big cash reward for doing so. It becomes clear that Brajyuk wants to find the missing boy for his own reasons, with it revealed that his family were murdered by the man responsible for the boy's abduction.

This is a very stylish film, and while in my earlier review this week of A Hard Place, I criticised it for being a bit too stylish, here that didn't get in the way of my appreciation of this at all. The film world is never explained, it starts with the country already fallen into anarchy, and there is no resolution to that aspect. Instead, this is a simpler story that takes place within that film world. Max in the Mad Max films may have been a bit deranged, but there was a compassionate side to him that often saw him helping the good people he came across. Aytzhanov's Brajyuk is an extreme anti-hero, someone who is prepared to go to any lengths to get the information he needs, and who has an extreme nihilistic approach to life. Truth be told, he is a bit of a psycho, but has some charm to him. He appears forever in an amused mood, and doesn't really take much of life seriously. He is also a cold blooded killer who has no problem killing innocents, seemingly for his own amusement. One scene has him telling a man to continue playing the instrument he was playing prior to Brajyuk shooting another man. He does so, only to then be shot dead. Another scene has a woman begging for her life, with Brajyuk letting her go when she says she has children. She doesn't get far however before he pulls out a gun and shoots her in the back. On the one hand some of his craziness was understandable, but on the other he was often shown being needlessly cruel, even to Tamara.
Due to her permanently dazed state she is hard to communicate with, the lead protagonist's method of dealing with her then is to slap her or push her, or even take the mick out of her requests. She was a fascinating character, both leads in fact were amazing cast choices. I loved how detached Tamara was, not reacting to all the bloodshed and mayhem going on about her, even just standing in the middle of large gun fights without flinching, or being aware of the danger around her.
The interactions between these characters was one of the film's highlights. You never get a strong feeling of Brajyuk's real thoughts towards her, using her time and time again, but he also seems to grudgingly look out for her, recognising her innocence underneath her insanity.

There is lots of death to be found in Steppenwolf. There is an almost road-trip type feel to the film as the two leads track down the missing boy. Elements of El Mariachi snuck into this, with key battles being rather subdued and over quickly. There are lots and lots of gun fights, a few scenes of torture, and plenty of cinematic vistas of dusty deserts and burnt out cars. It leads up to a rather tepid finale. I did like this part also, but the last ten minutes of this hundred minute thriller really slowed the pace down to a snails crawl, and an ending that I found a bit confusing truth be told. Keeping the anarchic film together was a great soundtrack that featured some lovely eighties sounding synth tracks, really worked well with the sublime looking scenes.

Steppenwolf was a great thriller. I loved the Mad Max current-apocalyptic vibe that it carried with it, and I appreciated that even though the two leads were a very weird duo, they had a strong onscreen presence to them, especially the eccentric Brajyuk. This is a thriller very well worth seeing, don't let the foreign language put you off as this has style in spades. It may be style over substance, but what style it was! Steppenwolf will be available to stream exclusively on ARROW and to own on limited edition Blu-ray from 26th May.

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A Hard Place (2025) - Horror Film Review

Directed and co-written by J. Horton (Craving, The Campus), A Hard Place was an entertaining indie horror whose special effects, makeup effects, and some iconic horror actors made up for a somewhat lack lustre story.

In the aftermath of a robbery that left one of their targets dead, the leader of a group of career criminals - Zenia (Lynn Lowry - Wolf Hollow, Cynthia, Whispers) takes them to a remote safe house in the middle of nowhere. This group who include among them tough guy, Hurt (Kevin Caliber - Craving, Tales of Frankenstein, The Campus), his violent girlfriend Candy (Jennifer Michelle Stone II - Dr. Gift), mild mannered Fish (Rachel Amanda Bryant - Craving, The Campus), and pragmatic White (Scott Alan Ward - Transient, Macabre Mountain, Craving), soon find themselves in a lot of trouble. Inexplicably, the woods they find themselves in are patrolled by monstrous tree-like creatures, and they quickly attack the group. Rescued by a large tribe of rednecks, the criminals are taken to the rednecks home, where the leader of them - Henrietta (Felissa Rose - Terrifier 2, The Demented, Sleepaway Camp) reveals to the newcomers an ancient feud between the rednecks and their wooden adversaries.

This begins weird and continues the trend by having an in-film zombie film constantly being played. This low budget horror film (featuring Bai Ling - Down Below, Night Caller, Crank: High Voltage) was low budget but was fun. I was a little disappointed when after this prologue it is revealed to be a movie characters are watching at a drive-in.
The actual film itself is also low budget, but not as much. I was immediately drawn to the lighting used for the film, early attacks by the tree monsters during broad daylight made for some lovely cinematography, accentuated by some strange angled shots that added to the unfolding horror. From start to end the lighting was wonderful, as were the special effects. The tree monsters looked fantastic, while people in monster suits, these creatures really stood out, making for memorable zombie-like antagonists. The redneck family had their own secrets as well, the make-up effects on them were also decent. There was CG used during transformation sequences and I was surprised that even these were neat to see happen on screen. There is a large cast, which made for a large body count. People are literally ripped apart, heads are torn off, and most amusing to watch where when the skin is ripped off of victims bodies, leaving just the skeleton behind! Not all of these looked the most realistic, but the energy of these scenes made up for a few dodgy looking body parts.

The large cast are a mixed bunch, and many fall into stereotypes. Most obvious of these was the redneck family who hoot and holler all over the place. Truthfully, I enjoyed the over the top acting, and the fun family dynamic here. The protagonists were also a mixed bunch, it was only really Fish who appealed, with the others criminal nature getting to be too flawed for my liking, especially with the trigger happy Candy. The feeling of outsiders getting caught up in a ridiculous and bloody feud was cool, but the actual plot was a little light on substance. There were not any real surprises to be found, and the story beats went along at a predictable pace. The large cast led to plenty of scenes of mayhem, with it culminating in a giant battle that forms the film's finale. There were maybe too many characters however, with little plot development given to almost all of them.

A Hard Place had some impressive looking special effects, and it was fun spotting all the different iconic horror actors. The story was a bit lacking though, as much as I normally prefer style over substance, I did wish that the plot had been a bit more memorable. Still, plenty of violent death scenes, great costume and makeup design made for an enjoyable horror. A Hard Place debuts on VOD on May 27th, streaming on all major platforms across North America.

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