The Quiet Ones (2025) - Thriller Film Review

The Quiet Ones, directed and written by Nicholas Winter (The Imposters, House of Shadows), bills itself as a thriller but for much of its run time that isn't completely the case. It does eventually get around to doing what it says, and at least in the run up, the film has style in spades.

After the death of her father, Charlotte (Kelsey Cooke - The Sandman TV show) intends to move into his Spanish holiday villa. It is while she is there recuperating from an ankle injury that her sister; Alba (Alicia Grace Turrell - The Garfield Movie) visits with the news that their father was in a lot of debt, and that unless she can raise a couple hundred thousand pounds within three weeks, Charlotte will lose the villa. Looking for ways to get the cash in such a short amount of time, she ends up looking at online cam-girl videos, and decides to send one of the girls a message; seductive Danni (Sophie Ablett - House of the Dragon and Doctor Who TV shows). The two strike up a rapport, and Danni offers her a business proposition to make some cam-girl videos together. Travelling to the villa, she promises Charlotte that she can earn a lot of money for not having to do a lot. To increase her chances of getting the required money for the villa in such a short span of time,  Danni invites more people, competitive Brylee (Isadora Leiva - It Needs Eyes), former Russian mob call girl Fabienne (Alina Tamara - War Blade), and clumsy but eager Violet (Sofia Shallai - Evil Eyes). Danni and Brylee make a wager, whoever makes more money with their videos within two weeks will get to stay at the villa with Charlotte, while the other one will have to leave. This seems to be a win-win for Charlotte as she is promised that all the earnings for the next two weeks will go to her, but the competition between the two soon turns tense.

A lot of the movie wasn't really for me, but one thing I did love was the stylistic choice to have key moments represented by retro looking pixelated video game images. As an example; whenever a new character is introduced this is represented by a pixelated character select screen. There is also a slight comic book vibe, with key information displayed on screen with bright and vibrant text. This fitted the world well, and made the less interesting scenes more full of life. 
The movie started on an interesting note; Charlotte waking up handcuffed to an either dead or unconscious person. While there were some more thrilling moments throughout the film, it was with twenty minutes left in the eighty six minute movie that this finally changed gears. Much of the film leading up to this is the contest the girls have decided to have. Mostly all light hearted stuff, it features plenty of tame montages of the girls doing their cam-girl stuff, mainly dancing for the camera.

The final twenty minutes were enjoyable, I liked how things went in a slightly different direction to what I expected. The lead up to this was sometimes slow going. The stylish presentation saved this for me, but aside from one gloriously violent scene that unfortunately turned out to be a dream sequence, this was just a bunch of young woman bickering, doing drugs, and making videos together.  Due to this there wasn't much call for anything but subtle special effects, I thought the make-up for blood and cuts looked decent: this zombie is always a fan of the blood.
The story wasn't a topic that really interested me so through no fault of its own it left me cold for much of the runtime. Style alone kept pulling me along, and I appreciated the little dose of thrills given at the end.

I spent much of The Quiet Ones wondering just when the thrill part of this thriller would kick in. I admit that at some point during the film I did pause it to check IMDB that this actually was meant to be from that genre. The film looked the part with its attractive stylistic presentation for the viewers benefit, but the meat of the story didn't grip me very much. Maybe due to my age, but social media stars are something that I don't really get, so the main topic here wasn't one that could engage me. The Quiet Ones released on 5th August from The Horror Collective.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Thursday 21st August 2025

I really can't get over how quickly time is passing this Summer. It feels like only yesterday it was the start of another work week, and here I find myself back at the weekend and doing another weeks worth of blog posts (at the time of typing). Onwards to the news.

The Justin Sulham directed Nashville creature feature, Big Bad Betty has been acquired by Screamify for worldwide rights. Originally envisioned as a sasquatch story and then a werewolf story, the film instead features an original creation. The story sees a young woman and her friends encountering an unknown creature while restoring her late grandfather's old ranch. Big Bad Betty will premiere later this year as a Screamify Original.

I admit I only include this next news piece due to the fantastic cover art, but electronic metal band The Browning have recently announced the release of new album; Omni (Ultra). This features the original ten tracks from Omni, plus recent singles including the cover of 'Blue (Da Be Dee)' and 'Overlord', and new remixes from Biohex, Jonny McBee, Kaixo, Kodeseven, Darksiderz, Machinyst, and Zardonic. Omni (Ultra) is due to be released on August 27th from FiXT.

Finally for today, a new teaser has been released for Illya Konstantin's horror film Night of Violence. The celebration of a legal victory for a corporation who recently launched a controversial drug is interrupted by masked brutes disguised as caterers. Trapped in their office block, a handful of employees must fight back against their aggressors to survive. Night of Violence has its world premiere at London's FrightFest 2025 on Thursday 21st August at the ODEON Luxe Leicester Square.

Brute 1976 (2025) - Horror Film Review

Marcel Walz's (Jurassic Reborn, Garden of Eden) Brute 1976 pays obvious homage to films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes with its tale of a desert based cannibalistic family, but it is wise enough to not try and hide this, with Chainsaw Massacre in particular being referenced early on (it exists as a film within this movie world). After a slow first half, things really improved, and was often ready to throw expectations on their head.

Unsurprisingly set in 1976, this follows the models and crew of a photo shoot who have headed out to the desert to take some shots for a magazine cover. They stumble across a ghost town and decide to have a look around, photographer Jordy (Adam Bucci - Garden of Eden) in particular inspired by the strange looking location. They soon encounter a mysterious woman who introduces herself as Mama Birdy (Dazelle Yvette - Garden of Eden), she tells the group that she owns the place, and is happy for them to look around as long as they stay on this side of the road. It turns out that Mama is the matriarch of a family of masked maniacs, and that they don't intend for any of the people to leave alive.

The film is almost exactly split down the middle in terms of the pacing. The first fifty or so minutes is an overlong set-up that introduces the cast both on the protagonist and antagonist side. Aside from a side plot featuring Raquel (Gigi Gustin - Garden of Eden, The Retaliators); a character captured during Brute 1976's prologue, this part remains mostly light on horror. The protagonist cast are decent enough, with some who stood out more than others. Roxy (Adriane McLean - Khameleon) is set up to be the main character, with her given slightly more backstory than the others. A few had so little to them that they didn't make too much of an impression, but nor where they off-putting or unlikeable. The location looked great on camera, and it helped at least make this first half enjoyable to watch.

The second half is where things begin to pick up. There is no secret this has been inspired by the classics, Zeus (Andreas Robens) may as well be called Leatherface with his silence, hulking frame, and fondness for a chainsaw, though the character has been split, with another of the crazies being the one who wears masks made of human flesh. There were a decent spread of antagonists but they did sometimes feel a bit random, seeming to be a mix of both the hillbilly stereotype and more surprising characters. I did like this change, how without masks some of these crazies would be able to legitimately pass themselves off as normal. Mama Birdy maybe a prime example. Sure, she was obviously creepy, but she wasn't the wild, over the top psychotic caricature you might expect.

So, cast and locations were both good, even if the first half was a little slow. The weakest part for me however were the kill scenes. There was a lot of blood, and there was a lot of violence, but there were also a whole bunch of lacklustre kills that didn't meet the potential. A whole bunch of characters are killed slightly off-screen, or partially off screen, and a bunch more are killed on-screen, but in an underwhelming and swift manner. For every decapitation and drilled penis(!) there are solitary stab wounds and kills so swift I didn't really see what happened. There were some entertaining death sequences, but this were interspersed with dull ones. For all the blood that sometimes is shown, there wasn't a lot of violence on characters shown in any kind of details.

Brute 1976 wears its inspirations on its sleeve, and it benefits from not trying to pretend it is something wholly original. I liked the general story, had some interesting parts to it later on, I thought the characters were mostly decent, and despite a slow first half the film wasn't boring. I did think there was some lost potential with some of the more tamer kill scenes, but this still had a few good ones. Brute 1976 has a limited theatrical release and is due to arrive on VOD from Cinephobia Releasing on September 30th, and I was also happy to see a sequel titled Brute 1986 is currently in the works.

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Atomfall (2025) - Post Apocalyptic Video Game Review (X-Box Series X)

Post-apocalyptic adventurer Atomfall has been described as an English Fallout video game. Both due to the setting and that comparison, I was excited to try the game, and so it was great to see it head to Xbox Game Pass. When the game first came out I played it for around forty five minutes, got to the village area and then left never to return to that particular playthrough. About a month back I retried it and this time it all clicked. I enjoyed this enough that despite not owning it, I purchased the first DLC for the game; 'Wicked Isle'. I will include that DLC within this review rather than doing a separate review for it.

The game takes place within an alternate timeline in which the very real fire in 1957 at the Windscale nuclear power plant (Britain's worst nuclear accident), resulted in a quarantine zone being set up around the plant. No one was allowed in or out of the quarantine zone, so everyone living in the area now find themselves cut off from the rest of the country, both due to being sealed in, but also due to the disaster causing a strange electromagnetic field that prevents messages getting in or out of the area. The army were called in, but too found themselves trapped within the quarantine zone, and now brutally enforce the areas they control, calling themselves 'Protocol'. Outside their area of influence, bandit groups arose, as well as a strange druid like cult who worship the land.
Five years after the disaster and quarantine was enacted, your player character awakens in a bunker within the zone with no memory of how they came to be there. An injured scientist in a hazmat suit trades your assistance for a special key card, they tell you that a secret facility known as the 'Interchange' is the key to escaping.

Atomfall is a first person adventure game that has light elements of the survival genre to it. You don't need to manage food, water and sleep, but you are able to craft various items such as health, bombs, and temporary stat increases. There is also a skill tree that requires B.A.R.D (British Atomic Research Division) upgrades to advance through. Skills you can unlock aren't particularly exciting, but they are useful. Think traditional stuff like increased skills with melee and ranged weapons, and the ability to craft items faster. Combat is one of the weaker areas of the game, and for much of my time I avoided it. I don't think it was the intention, but I ran rather than fought a lot of enemies until later in the game when I was better armed. This led to me speed running through certain areas, such as the cultists base in Casterfell Woods, meaning I likely missed parts of the game, even if it made sense for my character. Weapons are limited and basic, and ammo is in short supply, but enemies can be dealt with. Human enemies can be dispatched easily enough, there are also ghoul like infected humans that come in various types. Going back on the Bioshock influence, there are giant robots who can be battled to take their power cores. I didn't once engage in combat with the robots as I didn't really see the point. Then there are the animals, very basic looking rats and eels (and crows in the DLC) who attack you in packs in a bit of a lame way.
It isn't all gunplay, you get a hacking device that allows you to turn off gun turrets and restore power to doors, and a metal detector which can be used to uncover buried items. Enemy A.I isn't that great, the enemies tend to swarm you rather than using any other type of tactics, but with combat being not essential this wasn't an issue.

Is this really an English Fallout? Yes and no. It shares elements of that series with others such as Bioshock, and even this years Avowed. Rather than open world, the game takes place within six large areas (seven if you also include the DLC island). Central is Wyndham village, my favourite place due to being a safe area controlled by Protocol. Skethermore is also Protocol controlled, while Slatten Dale is bandit controlled. Then there is Casterfell Woods where the cultists roam, and including the island from the DLC, you have Midsummer Island that contains both cultists and bandits (and takes a more supernatural bend rather than sci-fi to its story). That is all without mentioning the Interchange. There is no fast travel option available in Atomfall, so this requires you to be intelligent in completing missions and side quests, as it can take a good while to travel from one side of the game world to the other. The Interchange is essentially a second way of travelling around the game, this vast underground facility allows you to pop up in any of the games areas (excluding Midsummer Island). A key part of the game is removing the lockdown from the facility, feeding into the end game task of visiting Oberon. With the lack of fast travel I caused more than a few headaches for myself, arriving at my destination only to realise I had left a key item behind back in the storage container system at the Interchange. It did add to the immersion not fast travelling.

The world building is fantastic, and is one of the stronger elements of Atomfall, it feels like a living breathing world that tells a lot of story just with how items have been arranged, such as crashed copters and roadblocks. As amazing as the world building is, unfortunately the main story really sucks. Your goal is to simply escape the zone, and pretty much all the quests revolve around helping various people who reckon they can help you escape should you assist them. You don't need to complete these various tasks at all, the free form mission structure means you could just side with one character and follow their path to the end of the game. Wanting to get the most out of the game, I played all the quests up to the end points, but I couldn't shake the feeling it was a bit pointless in terms of story, only important to me for getting to see more of the fantastic world. Your player character is a huge missed opportunity, it takes the old school approach of a silent protagonist who seems to exist purely as a proxy for the player to be in the game world. Anyone expecting any sort of grand reveal of who this player character actually is, or how they came to be in the quarantine zone will be disappointed, I know I was. It's a shame with a world as well built as this that the protagonist is such a dull nothing. I brought the DLC as I heard it was more of the same. It naturally integrates its new area without feeling like it doesn't belong in the pre-existing world. It added an extra five hours onto my playthrough, so when the end credits rolled I was at twenty two hours. I admit, I had imagined the game would be a good sixty to seventy hours, but with a wafer thin story, and a sometimes samey feel to what you do, I appreciated the shorter runtime.
Another strange thing were the power cores. These are set-up as if they are the game's version of Bioshock's 'Adam', yet despite much being made of securing these rare power cores, there are far, far more of them than you would ever need. It felt like a wasted opportunity, I wish they had been required more, or even used as a means to get through your skill tree.

I loved Atomfall, I thought the way the player is giving control of how they get through the game to be wonderful, and the British setting was fantastic. I wish the story had been more involved, it is so basic here that it almost feels placeholder, like the developers forgot to put the actual story into the game. The lore and world building is really good, making me able to look past the sometimes janky combat, but the main plot was so barebones as to make me feel that I probably won't return for a second playthrough as there wasn't a single engaging story beat. Some of the side quests were fun and added to the world, but far too many of the main quest lines involved fetch quests that had a similar feel. Despite that, I thought Atomfall was a very good game, perhaps just missing out on being an essential play.

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What Lies Beneath (2000) - Horror Film Review

I try and visit my father once a week, so on Wednesday (at the time of typing) after a long, long day at work I went to his. Turned out he had brought some random films from a charity shop and asked if I wanted to watch any of them. Seeing one of them was a horror, I jumped at the chance, in my head, an ideal entry for next weeks film reviews. What Lies Beneath is a supernatural horror that for much of the runtime I was convinced I had once already seen. In fact, just writing that last sentence had me racing to my VHS collection to search through for it, that convinced that I had once long ago brought this. Directed by Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Back to the Future trilogy), this took a heck of a long time to get going, and had an increasingly obvious direction the story was going in. With my brain turned to mush after a long work day, I was happy for my eyes to glaze over and zone out to this mild ghost story featuring two big name actors.

Claire (Michelle Pfeiffer - Batman Returns, Scarface) has recently moved to the lakeside former home of the parents of her research scientist husband - Norman (Harrison Ford - Star Wars and Indiana Jones series of films). Obviously, being happily married, he has moved there with her, as well as their seldom seen dog Cooper. Norman has been busier than usual on a project at the University where he works, and so Claire has been left on her own and is feeling a little lost, even more so as her daughter has recently gone off to college. Odd occurrences start happening around the home, doors open on their own, a photo frame falls on the floor and shatters, and she sees a vision of what appears to be a young woman while investigating the bathtub which had inexplicably filled itself up. Claire increasingly becomes convinced the home is haunted, and she first suspects that it is the wife of her next door neighbour who she has become convinced was murdered by the husband. Norman meanwhile is getting ever more annoyed at Claire's antics, seeing her as being hysterical and getting in the way of his important work. Is Claire slowly going insane or is there something more supernatural at play?

My heart sank a little when I saw this was over two hours long, I had hoped for a shorter film to watch. Initial impressions were not good, nothing was happening. Time and time again it felt like something was on the cusp of occurring, but it never did. Slowly, much like the slow pace of the film, things begin to get more and more interesting. In the supernatural sense not so much. This may feature a ghost at the core of the story, but that part is used very sparsely. I didn't really mind, the times the ghost makes an appearance were well chosen. The lack of much paranormal activity may have been an issue if not for the red herrings going on. The first act has Claire barking up completely the wrong tree, but it was entertaining, and led to some amusing moments. I enjoyed the amount of characters that Claire interacts with, and while she might not be imagining the hauntings, she is hardly the epitome of balanced calmness, known to many around her as someone who gets a bit emotional about things.

Pfeiffer was a good lead, I enjoyed her character throughout the movie, even if there was some bad writing. The poor dog Cooper! He appears in literally about four scenes and really added nothing to the story. He may as not have been there as it became a bit distracting wondering where the family dog was for the majority of the film. Ford wasn't so much of a good character. Not really his fault, but Norman seems to have wild mood swings that make him a bit off putting, and Claire's meekness around him even when hidden secrets come out is a bit pathetic.
The story was predictable, I had worked out what was really going on a good thirty minutes before characters in the film work it out. It does lead to a thrilling finale though, I thought it had some good parts to it, especially the unique use of the bathtub as a weapon, a unique scene.

What Lies Beneath isn't something I would class as a classic. It is nostalgic due to the time it was made, the internet in the film is incredibly basic looking and no one has mobile phones (which would have solved a whole load of plot points if this had been made today). It was fun seeing two iconic actors, and in a horror film no less. The story really wasn't anything to write home about, but it was adequately satisfying to see play out. Well worth a watch if only for nostalgia, and can be a real slow burn at times, but overall, yeah, not bad. As a final word, I read that the director was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's way of making films, I can really see that thinking back.

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Flesh of the Unforgiven (2024) - Horror Film Review

Flesh of the Unforgiven is an indie horror film that was directed and written by Joe Hollow who also stars. At its core there is a decent story I think, for whatever reason, I just could not follow what was going on in this. Not having the faintest idea what was happening didn't add to my enjoyment unfortunately. The synopsis will be based on what I believe the story might be.

Jack Russo (Hollow) and his wife, Sienna (Debbie Rochon - The Man in Room 6, Clinger) are going through a tough time. Three months previous, Sienna had cheated on Jack with his best friend, and while the couple have stayed together, it has caused many issues. Adding to Jack's stress is that he is a writer struggling with writer's block, and he is days away from the due date with nothing to show for it. Sienna starts to experience nightmares in which a masked man threatens her. Elsewhere, Jack receives a strange VHS tape in the post that promises to offer him inspiration for his writing, but which instead seems to show a man torturing a chained up woman.

I really struggled to follow the story and I'm well aware that was the intention. The movie has so many nightmare sequences that it is purposely hard to tell when one of these sequences starts and ends. You can be watching a scene thinking it's the real world before realising that no, it is a nightmare. I did like that part of the film. One thing you couldn't criticise Flesh of the Unforgiven for is lack of inventiveness, it has that in spades, there is constantly something new going on. I appreciated the many dream sequences, they were so sporadic that they felt like a mini-anthology within the film. The idea for the horror I think is that there is a demonic being known as the 'Death Dealer' who puts victims into deadly nightmares that they have to escape from to survive. There was a Freddy Krueger vibe to this part, though the antagonist figure of a masked man with a cartoonishly evil sounding voice didn't have the same impact as that legendary movie maniac.

The parts of the film that were likely taking place in the real world were also the most dull. Scenes set in a small bar, the unhappy couple bickering at home; none of this made me feel engaged with the characters. Both protagonists had huge faults that made it hard to care about either of them. I also wasn't a fan of the overly cheesy music. Likely an ode to the classic horror of the eighties, I found the tracks gave an almost comedic vibe to the scenes they appeared in. It wasn't all bad however, I did think the ending scene going into the end credits sequence was perfectly blended with an appropriate track, lovely stuff.
Obviously an indie horror, it sometimes felt hard to take scenes too seriously, parts of this I was wandering if it was purposefully over the top. It didn't help that some of the more digital special effects didn't really fit the film well.

Flesh of the Unforgiven had a lot of good ideas to it, and at times it brought an almost arthouse dream fugue type feel. The story I found too hard to follow, likely my own fault, but it still took me out of the experience when I was trying to work out what was going on and who all the random characters were. This sometimes veered too far into cheesiness, something that diluted a lot of the horror out of the scenes. There were certainly some great scenes to be found here at the very least.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Thursday 14th August 2025

Writing this on a lazy Saturday afternoon, has been a nice day, and so to balance that, here is some horrific horror news for your perusal.

Tales From The Table is a horror anthology film that is available now on Digital Platforms from BayView Entertainment. From the press release it sounds like each story is based on an ordinary person stumbling into unsettling horror.

Sci-fi horror Somnium opens theatrically on August 29th in LA, September 6th in New York, and streaming on Digital HD from September 9th. The story sees a heart broken girl get a job at an experimental sleep clinic where patients are able to pick what they dream about. I said in my seven out of ten review back in June last year "I liked how the story was left up to viewers to decide on what was really going on, and I thought the character of Gemma was one who was very easy to root for".

Finally for today, Condemned Dreams is a philosophical horror thriller coming from director George Tsouris. It follows a disgraced journalist who gets involved with a story about a condemned transgender revolutionary. Sure it is more exciting than it sounds. The film stars Catherine Parish (Totem Chaser) and Soft Abilez (Dexter: Resurrection TV show). Condemned Dreams has premiere at the Cinema Village in New York City on Thursday September 4th.

Cover (2025) - Thriller Film Review

I really wanted to like the Cameron Francis starring, directed and written thriller Cover, his feature length directorial debut in fact. Early problems I had with the duel protagonists motives really got in my head and I ended up finding myself incapable of taking either of them seriously.

Trevor (Francis) is a travelling salesman who is on a cross country journey to go and sell some rare stamps known as 'covers'. Stopping in a diner for some lunch, he is disturbed by a young woman named Macy (Katherine Lozon in her film debut). She tells Francis that she is on the run from her abusive boyfriend, and begs the man for a ride. This begins an odd road trip in which two people, both suspicious and paranoid about the other, slowly start to get comfortable with each other's eccentricities. This, set to the backdrop of a mysterious car tailing the man.

Straight away I had a real issue with the main characters, both of which I both didn't like, and didn't trust. The way it creates a sense of paranoia that one of the two isn't being truthful was well done, it's just this mistrust stayed with me for the entire film. Even moments that are designed to be sentimental came across as fake and phony, and so that made the central 'buddy' style friendship fall flat. The characters dialogue and the way they said their lines felt grandiose and more wordy than they needed to be. The character of Trevor had a way of talking that often made me feel that Closer may be a comedy thriller, it always felt like he was playing to a crowd. Macy on the other hand was dodgy from the start. For someone apparently fleeing domestic abuse, Macy has a right attitude on her, and plenty of sass to boot.

Much of the film takes place out on the road, or at one of the various places the leads have stopped to rest, and for the first forty or fifty minutes things go along as expected. I did think the second act was a great idea, with events in the story rewound to show them playing out from a different perspective. As cool as that part was, there wasn't a smooth transition for key characters, so it made story beats feel very trite and forced. The thrills are relatively light here, but there was a fantastic looking late film death sequence, even if that follows into a bit of an abrupt and unsatisfying finish.

Cover was a film that just never hooked me. Due to the strange protagonists, I could never take anything they said seriously, which really affected my enjoyment of their journey. I spent most the film expecting twists and turns that never came to fruition. The story was fine, but there was just something a little missing here. Cover releases on August 26th via The Horror Collective.

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9th Dawn Remake (2024-25) - Initial Impressions (PS5)

I've had a review copy of 9th Dawn Remake since April time, but it is the type of game which requires a lot of investment. This is a huge game, and so, rather than wait to finish it, I will give my initial impressions based on the first ten hours or so. 

Unsurprisingly, this is a remake of a much older game. How old I was unable to find out, You play as a character plunged into a nostalgic feeling, relatively basic looking fantasy world. The graphics were really charming and old school, but the game itself felt more fresh. The open world is absolutely gigantic, in my time playing this so far I have barely scratched an eighth of this massive world. It has one of the biggest map screens I've seen in a game to my recollection. I haven't mentioned the story yet and that's probably due to it being about the weakest part of 9th Dawn Remake. It is simple enough that I honestly have no idea what it involves, not helped by a quest screen that is extremely light on details. I love a story in video games, so this was a slight issue. Thankfully, due to the huge world I felt like it was 'open world' rather than just a big old school RPG. This world is to begin with quite a deadly place, my poor wizard was getting the stuffing beaten out of him. I later found an armoury that lets you upgrade your weapons, so that helped. Even more helpful was the amazing creature companion feature. Occasionally you stumble across eggs that when hatched give you a little pet who will battle alongside you. You can have up to eight of the critters at once, making it very fun to pounce on an enemy as a mob. As they level up, they can also evolve into better monsters. On my playthrough I've recently had a skeleton join my crew, love it.

Combat is very simple, requiring nothing more than to have you hold the analogue stick (playing this on Playstation 5) in the direction of enemies to auto battle them. Dungeons are literally dungeons here, all taking place under ground in various caves or sewers. This creates a combat loop of heading in a little bit at a time, slowly grinding out levels to make your team better suited to conquering the place. I enjoyed many an evening with a podcast on while doing this. As if this huge game wasn't enough, there are also some great little side games you can play. Head to the docks and you get a fun fish based Vampire Survivors clone you can play. Even better, by taking to the Card Master in each town you can access Deck Rock. I adored this side game. It has you as paper warriors fighting your way past paper monsters in castles in turn based card combat. Truth be told, I had more fun playing that side mode than the main course itself.

I was given a review code for this indie fantasy game so my words might sound false, but I think there is such a vast and impressive game to be found here. Having a game with such a charming retro look to it coupled with a massive world makes this something I could easily see myself sinking days and days into. 9th Dawn Remake is out on just about everything, from the major consoles to mobile phones.

Crumb Catcher (2023) - Comedy Horror Film Review

The screener I received of the Chris Skotchdopole directed and co-written comedy horror film (in his feature length directorial debut) - Crumb Catcher, stated the screener link was only viable for seven days, so after two weeks I figured it likely wouldn't work. Thankfully, it did, and I was exposed to this very dark and twisted comedy horror, with the empathises more on the horror side of things. While not nearly as bleak, the humour here reminded me of the type used in the shocking comedy horror of The Coffee Table.

Newly-wed Shane (Rigo Garay - The Leech) wakes up the day after his wedding to new wife, Leah (Ella Rae Peck - Blackout) with no memory much of the night before. He discovers their envelope containing guests monetary contributions to the new couple is empty, and he receives an odd text from a woman named Rose (Lorraine Farris - Natural Born Killers) who insinuates that he did something with her the previous night. Confused, but wanting to put it behind him, the newly weds head out to their honeymoon location, a remote and posh woodland home. Later that evening they are surprised to get a knock at the door, and even more surprised when they see that it is John (John Speredakos - Blackout), an odd caterer who had been working at their wedding. He states he had arrived there to give the couple the top of their wedding cake which had gone missing, but his true intentions are made clear when he says he wants to give the two a presentation on a novel device he has been working on, something he calls the 'crumb catcher'. It turns out that John's wife is Rose, and that they are blackmailing Shane to invest in this product unless Shane wants Rose to send the video she took of the pair being 'intimate' to his new wife. This begins an unsettling night of chaos and terror, as the eccentric John becomes increasingly deranged in his effort to sell his device.

This small in scope character drama mainly features a cast of just four. The larger than life John is the focal point of this, and Speredakos steals the show with his wild and chaotic performance. John is like a bull in a china shop, unable to take no for an answer, and reaching some Mr Bean heights of awkwardness and clumsiness. Think of a more horror styled version of Basil Fawlty from the British sitcom Fawlty Towers. With this character though there is an ever present feeling of danger. The man is huge as it is, but early on, Leah notices he is carrying a gun, which while never referenced by John, makes his weirdness more unsettling. Rose was more complicated, she seems at her wits end with John's desperate behaviour, but it always felt to me like this could all be an act. Her blazing arguments with her husband increase to the madness, creating even more of an odd feel to the evening. It made sense then that Leah and Shane are much more normal in how they act. Leah was fine, but I didn't really think much of Shane. He has no memory of the event with Rose, and due to the couple being obvious con-artists, I figured he would have likely been date raped, it was all too convenient. Shane instead, maybe due to confusion, is ready to believe that he willingly cheated on Leah. I enjoyed the flashes of a more dark side to John that are brought to the forefront, it made the uncomfortable night that little bit more perilous. 

It may be a comedy horror, but there aren't many laughs to be found here. It is more a jet-black humour that propels the story, initially the comedic part being the new couple feeling too socially awkward not to interact with the manic John. Much of the film takes place within the remote house, though things change up into something more dramatic for the third act. There were some decent effects used to simulate being drunk, and the way the camera spins around the room during the 'Crumb Catcher' presentation really added to the feeling of confusion and being out of their depths for the protagonists. At one hour forty five, this went along at a fair pace, only really in the third act did things sometimes feel a little dragged out. Much like The Coffee Table, there is a feeling of social horror here, and this combined with the farcical nature of the story created an interesting blend.

I had no idea what Crumb Catcher would be when I started it up. Another film that isn't feel good, and whose humour was quite twisted. The strong central performance of Speredakos made this a movie that I couldn't look away from, even if the core idea was relatively simple. Crumb Catcher came to the ARROW streaming service on July 14th.

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No Tears in Hell (2025) - Horror Film Review

Having not read the synopsis, I had assumed No Tears in Hell would be some sort of demonic possession type story, which I was fully on board with. Directed and co-written by Michael Caissie (Hunter's Moon), this is actually a grim and gory film about a serial killer, and I discovered at the film's end that it was actually inspired by the real life serial killer known as the Siberian Ripper.

Set in Alaska in the 1990's, this stars Luke Baines (The Mandalorian TV series, Shadowhunters TV series) as Alex, a young man who holds a burning rage within him. Creepy Alex is unsurprisingly a serial killer, he picks victims off the streets, typically homeless teens, and brings them back to his decrepit apartment where over a period of days to weeks he tortures and kills them. His loving mother (Gwen Van Dam - Halloween uncredited) helps her son to dispose of the bodies, and also partakes in consuming the corpses. His mother begins to get concerned with Alex, his victims have became more random, while he is being sloppy in clearing up his crimes. This causes a detective to start to suspect there may be a killer on the loose in the city.

No Tears in Hell was a moody, dark, dank, and depressing horror that was the epitome of feel bad. It features a narration from Alex who initially appeared to be set-up as an anti-hero of sorts. This super serious edge lord character feels that he is doing the world a service by getting rid of undesirables. From start to end he is a terrible person, always choosing the darker option when there is the chance of the slightest hint of light. I hadn't realised this was based on a real person, so I am glad that I never once felt anything in common with this evil protagonist. The real killer apparently chose teenagers as his victims, and occasionally ate them. Here, Alex eats all his victims, with his justification being that the world is a harsh place and he has to do what he can to survive. We are kind of shown the film from his perspective, with him seeing himself as a wolf, which is shown on screen by infrequent inserts of close-ups of the creatures. His mother is equally twisted, being the person who encouraged Alex's behaviour from since he was a young child, but she has a vague (extremely vague!) good side to her in that she wants him to only pick people with no family. Sure, that is for self preservation but there are some good scenes where she is trying her best to discourage potential victims from entering Alex's apartment after finding out they had people who would miss them. Side characters mainly exist only to be victims, none of these were particularly bad, but the acting wasn't always world class. I thought Baines was great in the lead role however.

Feel good this was not, the sets are grimy and gross, and there are no end of body parts being sawn off victims, and blood. The torture porn genre is not a favourite of mine, and while this doesn't quite go as deep into body trauma as that, this still has plenty of unpleasant scenes, such as when Alex cuts off a victims tongue, and lobotomises another victim by hammering a corkscrew device into their brain via the eye socket. None of this was happy watching, but I had to say this was actually well made. Outside of some external shots of Alex's apartment block this all took place in a limited number of locations that created a consistent tone to the film world. The special effects were pretty good, and severed body parts looked as they should rather than fake props. The film's score was also decent, memorable at least as I haven't been able to stop myself humming the depressing theme tune ever since I finished the movie. At an hour and forty five minutes in length this had the potential to drag and feel slow, yet it never did for me. I might not have liked what was going on but I was engaged with the story, and drawn into the miserable film world.

I had no idea until the screens of text at the end that this was based on a true story. Typically that would be very loose, but I was surprised how much of this was things that had happened, even if it seems the motivations of the protagonist were simplified. I didn't really enjoy the film, true crime serial killer stuff where victims are tortured is not really my thing. I will state the film was very well made though, and for that it should get credit. No Tears in Hell comes to digital and VOD platforms on 12th August via Scatena & Rosner Films.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for 7th August 2025

I am back for a second round of news stories, feeling aware that my inbox is getting a bit full, though it has certainly been far worse in the past. I am writing this on Sunday after having got back from swimming, the first time I've done that in about twenty five years. Anyway, enough waffling, onwards to the news.

Fear Anonymous is a new film that was directed by Bron Theron, and starring Gerard Marzilli, Tyler Gaylord, Rashida L. Hudson, Tod James, Sarkis Bakalyan and plenty of others. It takes place at a Sunday afternoon support group where people gather to explain what scares them the most. One week, a young man named Tyler joins, which leads to a shift within the dynamic of the group. The movie takes place in the same film universe as Theron's previous film Half Dead Fred, with the director explaining that this takes place the day after the events in that film where Freddy Nash visits a haunted house. I'm not entirely sure, but I believe this to be an anthology.

VIPCO and BayView Entertainment have released the documentary Areas Of High Strangeness: Stimson Hospital, it is now available on digital platforms worldwide, including to rent/buy on Amazon Prime Video. Written and directed by Jeffrey Checker, this follows the Demon Hunter Society as they explore the allegedly haunted Stimson Hospital in Eaton Rapids, Michigan.

Finally for today, Iconic is a thriller from director Matthew Freiheit that has recently came to MoviVue. The film concerns a social media influencer who struggles to keep their sanity after being stalked by a violent stalker. MoviVue is a new streaming service that features curated indie horror gems, with filmmakers on the platform getting up to fifty times more profit than traditional streaming platforms.

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Tuesday 3rd August 2025

They say the older you get the faster that time appears to move, that certainly seems to be the case with me as I can barely believe it is August already! The year is literally zooming by. Onwards to yet another collection of horrific horror news.

Jared Masters (Feral Female, The Nightgown) has revealed his latest movie, and has launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds to help fund it. Bigfoot Breeds is a comedy horror that surprisingly enough deals with the cryptid Bigfoot. The synopsis states it is about three sorority girls who take on a challenge to spend the weekend in a remote woodland cabin, in an area said to be deep in Bigfoot territory, though they have chosen breeding season as the time to do this. The press release promises a reliance on practical special effects, '...a script so sharp it could shave a yeti, and performances that will make you question your sanity...' For more info, check out the Indiegogo page here.

Let's see if you can tell the age of this last news story. Spirit Springs is a new horror that was released on streaming platform Screamify on 13th June. The story concerns a band named 'Midnight Misfits' who stay at a remote mansion on the Florida springs while on tour. One of the band members has a swim, which causes an ancient spirit to awaken and begin to claim souls. The film stars Avaryana Rose (Bitter Souls), Greg Cipes, Ashanti Moore, Tristan Green, Tyler Charly and Austin Nix, with John K. Eagle Jr. as director.

Finally for today, Eureka Entertainment have announced the North American release of The Island, a cult Hong Kong survival horror film (1985) that is said to be Hong Kong's answer to films such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and The Hills Have Eyes. Coming on Blu-ray in a brand new 2K restoration, this joins The Masters of Cinema Series as a limited edition release from 14th October, and is limited to 2,000 copies per territory. Directed by Po-Chih Leong, this is about a teacher and his small group of students who go on an excursion to what they believe is an uninhabited island. Turns out the place is actually home to three psychotic siblings and their equally crazed mother.

Minor Anger Issues (2025) - Short Horror Film Review

Minor Anger Issues is the latest short film from Turkish writer Erdeniz Tunç and director Can Sagir (Shadow of Violence, Ancient Voice). I have always appreciated the films from these two, and after the more thriller orientated previous short, I figured this new one would follow a similar path. I was pleased to see it actually blends the horror and thriller genres into an entertaining blend.

At a school, a teacher explains to the older brother of a troubled school kid that the boy needs to learn to control his anger issues. Staying with the older brother due to the parents splitting up, the brother believes this turmoil may be the reason for his misplaced anger. Later that day while the boy is sleeping in bed, two intruders break in, and come to learn the minor anger issues of the young boy may be more than they can handle.

At six minutes forty five seconds, this was a compact short that told its story in a lean and effective way. The first part takes place at the school, and it is about halfway into the story that the horror part begins. I assumed this was going to be a home invasion film in short form, but with minimal though effective special effects, this becomes something different.

Not too much more to say about Minor Anger Issues, I was delighted with the change-up of expectations and it told its story in a minimalist fashion, combining to make something worth a watch, and also the best short I have seen yet from this duo.

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Slender Man (2018) - Horror Film Review

I don't often get to a stage in my blog where I have space to review films of my own choosing. Why oh why then did I decide to check out the critically panned Slender Man, especially considering I knew it to be a bad film. Directed by Sylvain White, and based on a cool Creepy Pasta (basically the modern day version of urban legends) created a tiny way back in 2009, this film apparently was a bit of a mess to make, with drastic re-writes to try and distance the movie from the negative press the idea of Slender Man was getting (stemming mainly from two girls who conspired to murder their friend and blame it on the figure making them do it). These changes in the film's story were late enough that even trailers showed character death scenes, when the final version boringly features zero deaths even remotely near showing on-screen. 

Four teenage friends - Wren (Joey King - Independence Day: Resurgence), Hallie (Julia Goldani Telles), Chloe (Jaz Sinclair - Gen V TV show), and Katie (Annalise Basso - Ouija: Origin of Evil, Oculus) are bored and decide to look up a way to try and contact urban digital legend the Slender Man. After around a minute of searching online they discover the summoning video, which they all watch but then dismiss it as an internet hoax. As the days pass, the four begin to experience inexplicable hallucinations and nightmares, with things getting more serious when Katie vanishes into thin air during a school field trip. The remaining friends now knowing the Slender Man is real at first seek a way to rescue Katie, but then later on it becomes far more about self preservation from the figure's grasp. 

Surprisingly, it isn't the lack of any type of body count that really pulls Slender Man down, it is more how it tries to be a jack of all trades and inevitably becomes a master of none. The horror is so inconsistent here, with barely any rules as to what the characters will go through. One friend vanishes, another goes insane (I assume anyway, the character just kind of exits the film never to really return), the remaining two getting increasingly paranoid and plunging into waking nightmares. The horror mainly takes the form of limp jump scares that never worked, semi-effective nightmares (one character being stalked by a multitude of Slender Men within a compact library was maybe the film's highlight scene), and poor CG. The CG in particular was very off putting as it looked like the type of CG you might find in an early 2000s film. It is hard to be scared when characters are impaled or grabbed by obviously computer generated tentacles.
The design of the titular antagonist isn't a bad one, the relative newness of this fabricated urban legend meant it was hard to take it seriously. It appeared in some decent enough scenes, usually anything out in woodland made for at least a couple of decent shots of the tall faceless being blending in with the trees.

The story was all over the place. You have to have a bit of suspension of disbelief that the real ritual for summoning the creature is readily available online with the smallest of searches, and that it is guaranteed to work. Much is made of modern technology, and it is sometimes put to decent enough use. I liked when characters receive video calls from the being that then show a first person perspective of it walking through the victim's home. Not so good was a mid-film investigation montage that again speed runs through the investigation, as if it was just checking off a box on a to-do list, the character swiftly finding what she wants to know with the minimum of searches on her laptop. Originally, there was planned to be a kill count, it sounds like this was going to be a more traditional horror. With that kill count abandoned however, there are just a whole bunch of scenes that end up unresolved. Characters vanish from the story with little fanfare, and rather than feeling mysterious, it just feels like the endings to the characters fates ended up on the cutting room floor.

Slender Man was a bloodless, generic, lazy and dull horror movie that really was as bad as it had been made out to be. Perhaps with not so much of a knee-jerk reaction to claims it was glorifying real world crime, this could have been somewhat entertaining. Instead, this is a muddled and meandering mess of a movie that doesn't seem to know what it is trying to achieve.

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