The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Thursday 10th September 2026

This year continues ever onwards, before I knew it I can see the end of the year in sight. Least we are out of the heatwaves, and it has been glorious to get lots of rain this past week. Onwards to the news.

Trinity Content Partners announced at the end of July, three UK digital premieres that arrived last month. The first of these is The Demon Detective. Starring Doug Jones, Adrienne Barbeau, Vivica A. Fox and Tom Virtue, this, as the title hints at, has a supernatural detective discovering a link between demonic possession and his past. That arrived on 17th August thanks to Miracle Media. Deadly Games arrived on 10th August. This sees a group of influencers lured to a deserted island; a survival thriller. Last is Soul Snatchers, a supernatural thriller that I reviewed yesterday. A family return to the island they used to live on, to use the power of God to help the poor, but face hostility from the power hungry mayor.

Psychological thriller; A Mind in Chaos has come to Amazon Prime and Plex. Directed by Chris Rakotomamonjy, this follows a corporate executive who survives a mass shooting incident at her office. To recover, she heads to a remote elite therapy retreat, but there she encounters a series of inexplicable events that make her question her sanity.

Finally for today, in August, Blood Magick had its North American VOD digital debut, August 11th. Featuring a guest appearance from scream queen Victoria De Mare, this sees a witch named Aisling who awakens in a costume warehouse with five strangers. With the place under assault from demonic creatures, and the costumes magically being brought to life to hunt the survivors, Aisling must use her magic powers to protect the group, as well as try and work out which of them is the secret mastermind behind the attack.

The North Witch (2024) - Horror Film Review

The North Witch (directed by Bruce Wemple - The Hangman, Lake Artifact) had an intriguing premise to it, one that drew me in. It was a shame then that a lot of the one hour twenty minute run time saw me feeling a bit let down, mainly due to how rushed the set-up for this was. I was actually ready to write this off as a terrible film, but there were elements that did appeal, and I'm happy to say it does manage to pull things back together somewhat for the final act.

Having recently been kicked out of the home she had been renting with two others due to them not liking her, Madison (Anna Shields - Lake Artifact, and who also wrote this one) phones an old friend to see if she can stay at her home. The friend, Gemma (Jessy Holtermann - The Hangman) tells Maddie that she is actually just about to go on a camping trip with friends to a remote area in Canada named 'The Barren Lands'. There is a legend of a mysterious vanishing cabin known as 'The Barren Cabin', and Gemma and her friends, who include among them Laura (Brianna Cala), Alice (Ameerah Briggs - The Hangman, Split), and Talia (Kaitlyn Lunardi - The Hangman) are hoping to find evidence of this house while on their trip. On the very first night there, the group find themselves caught up in a terrible storm, in the chaos they are all separated, with Maddie discovering an old cabin that she decides to take shelter in, unable to go too far away from it due to a bad leg injury she sustained during the storm. A few days later she is joined by Talia, but the woman's increasingly disturbing behaviour leads Maddie to suspect something isn't right with her, and she begins to fear for her safety.

This started great, an opening found footage style blurb that speaks about the legend of the vanishing cabin. A not so great ending blurb that attempts to sell the idea that during the making of the movie the film crew experienced weird goings on. This didn't seem to have anything to do with anything as up to that point The North Witch was set up like a traditional film. There are a cast of five friends initially but I wondered just what the point of all these people were. The story moves forward at a lightning pace, with Maddie finding herself alone in the cabin before even fifteen minutes of the film has passed. The set-up felt rushed to me, and due to most the characters having had barely any lines, or character development, I couldn't care less that they all seem to have vanished, likely dead. Much of the film has Maddie as the sole character, even when she is joined by Talia this still remains the same, as that character always seemed to be off doing her own thing. I did think Talia was the highlight of the movie, the actress getting to be really crazy without seeming over the top, a great range of insane looking facial expressions.
That own thing Talia was doing was mainly performing increasingly sinister self mutilation, from smashing her mouth in with a hammer, to getting into a bath of boiling hot water, to slamming a compartment drawer onto her arm until bone shows! It did all look good though, decent special effects selling the damage being done.

There is a strange method of some of the potentially more interesting ideas taking place in scenes that aren't shown on screen. Most of the film takes place in the cabin, a place that looked far too new for a building that is apparently from the sixties or seventies. I guess you could defend it by saying a building that disappears and reappears might not age in a normal way. The cabin interior never felt like it was in the middle of a forest, with the windows always not really showing anything. The few scenes set outside seemed in a different location entirely, with an altogether older looking building. Maddie wasn't the most likeable of protagonists, but she was fine enough. I did feel peril for her, trapped in a building with an increasingly erratic friend. I felt that the moments where she watches videos on her friends phone in a found footage manner were very good, some of those clips felt like they would have benefitted by being shown on screen, but it was a good way to show some of the more messed up things.
I wasn't that taken with the story, the idea that the cabin had been home to a witch in the past wasn't explained that well. More details on the backstory of the place would have been good, as well as more reaction from the characters that they were staying in a place that was only said to have existed in legend, as they seemed mostly unfazed to be staying there. Thankfully, the last twenty minutes are were things become to come together a lot better. There are a whole variety of twists, introduction of new characters, and a feeling that what the viewer is being shown can't really be trusted. I thought this third act was good enough to claw back an additional rotting zombie head to my score.

A rushed first act, a long meandering second act, and an exciting third act make for a witch based horror that may have been poor on occasion, but also had plenty of strong moments to it. The North Witch comes from High Fliers Films.

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The Yorkie Werewolf (2024) - Comedy Horror Film Review

I've said it before and I will say it again; werewolves are just about my least favourite type of movie monster. Thankfully, the Michael DiBiasio-Ornelas written and directed comedy horror The Yorkie Werewolf does things a little differently, with a unique take on the traditional werewolf. With an amusing first email speaking about the movie, I had hopes the humour within the film would appeal, as humour can be so hard to get right. On the whole it succeeds, though does have its less good moments.

Jenny (Isabella Jaimie) is a witch living in a small American town. In the past there had been a localised war between the creatures of the night and the mafia based in the town, but a peace of a kind had been secured. This all changes when Jenny's coven are attacked by the mafia, with her mother ending up dead. In the process, Jenny inadvertently gets cursed to be a werewolf, though rather than a ravenous wolf, she instead turns into a pint-sized were-Yorkshire terrier (played by Risa Mei - Unicorn Overlord voice work). Teaming up with a timid vampire named Chris (Jacob Rainer), they set out to get revenge against the mafia boss - Big Nick (Juan Salvati), someone who turns out to not only be Jenny's father, but who is also a powerful warlock.

Comedy horror films can be a bit hit and miss, and there are some types of humour that just do not appeal to me, and which do rear their head in this movie. Still, I loved the in medias res prologue that had a chaotic scene out in snowy woodland, with various terrified mobsters being attacked. It displayed some of the simple, yet genuinely amusing dialogue that can be found throughout The Yorkie Werewolf. My hopes appeared to be dashed in the very next scene however when recurring jokes about bodily functions started up, something I never find funny. Thankfully, while there is a bit of a recurring joke around wind to be found throughout the story, those type of jokes were kept to a minimum and so I was able to look past them. The jokes here were never stomach achingly funny, but they did make me smile on occasion, again, especially with the silly dialogue that I loved. Maybe my favourite line in the movie was when someone was dying and they exclaim "Agh no! I had big dreams!"
Jenny made for a bit of an anti-hero, someone who is feisty and whose temper can sometimes get the better of her, but was likeable enough. Chris was similarly not that bad a character, a few fun jokes around his blood intake, and I liked how weedy he was, despite being a vampire. Salvati gave a spirited performance as the antagonist here, reminding me more than anything of a less scary version of Pop from English sitcom The League of Gentlemen. He made for a fun villain and he fitted the comedic tone of the film world well.

There was a good mix of action and more low-key scenes here, and as I said in my intro, this take on a werewolf was something memorable. Jenny changes into a tiny were-terrier who manages to look super cute, but is also shown to be very deadly. The costume design didn't look that realistic, but it really suited the vibe, gave a slight Ewok type look. There is a body count here, with a lot of blood shown on occasion, which was nice. The story was straight forward enough, it includes some drawn out scenes that didn't add much, but which were funny. I especially liked one long scene where Jenny and Chris visit gun shop owner Cliff (Roy Ward) and quiz him on the type of things he sells.

If the whole film had been bodily function jokes then I would not have enjoyed it as much as I did. Thankfully, most the humour comes from other sources, and while not laugh out loud did their job. I loved the werewolf design, and while some scenes seemed a little clunky with the pacing, overall, I had a good time with this. The Yorkie Werewolf was released on January 7th from Deskpop Entertainment.

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Nightsiren (2022) - Horror Film Review

Nightsiren is a Slovakian folk-horror that was co-written and directed by Tereza Nvotová. It follows a chapter based progression that has key elements of the unfolding mystery revealed via flashbacks. On the surface this seemed like it was going to be a supernatural horror, though it can more keenly be seen as horror that stems from the superstitious beliefs of the inhabitants of a close-minded small rural town.

Sarlota (Natalia Germani) returns to her childhood town in rural Slovakia after receiving a letter from the mayor there stating that her deceased mother had left her an inheritance that she had to return to the town to claim. With the mayor away on vacation, Sarlota decides to stay a while, but finds that the forest cabin that her, her sister and her mother lived in had at some point in the past burnt down. She decides to instead move into the nearby cabin that once belonged to Otyla (Iva Bittová), an old woman who the locals had believed to be a witch. It is here that she meets Mira (Eva Mores), an outsider who had moved to a small hut on the edge of town in order to gather herbs from the nearby forest to sell online. The two soon strike up a friendship, and increasingly find themselves at odds with the highly superstitious townsfolk who still believe that Sarlota had been groomed by Otyla to be a witch as a child.

The movie is split over a series of chapters that both reveal further secrets from Sarlota's past as well as the increasing animosity she is getting in the present day. Nightsiren begins in a shocking way with a young Sarlota accidentally knocking her younger sister, Tamara off a cliff, with the sister apparently killed by the fall. Much of Sarlota's journey has her confronting her past self. This was a film that started off more supernatural than it turned out to be. It is established that Otyla was a witch, but this starts to become questioned more and more as past events are revealed to the viewer. There are parts of this that could be taken at face value to prove the existence of the supernatural, but it felt like this wasn't what was actually going on. The most supernatural point of the film comes at the end of the second act, but with the protagonists having imbibed a drugged drink this very trippy sequence felt much more likely to have been hallucinations.

Nightsiren wasn't a happy film, the main characters are seen with suspicion that leads up to a ramping up of threat and peril for them. Being so rural, the town is seen to take the law into their own hands, and there was an increasing feeling that events were going to reach a violent crescendo. The third act in particular was feel bad, with events cascading due to a series of bad luck and poor timing. There are plenty of folk-horror moments here, scenes of naked women dancing around bonfires deep in the woods, writhing around covered in day-glow paint, the repeated use of snakes that seem to appear from nowhere, and the persistent threat of the nasty townsfolk, including one uncomfortable attempted rape scene. There was a lot of non-sexual nudity in the film, including full frontal nudity, but this worked within the vibe of the film, not seeming excessive, and not at all feeling like it was there for base titillation. Instead this fed both into the context of witchcraft, and the feel of characters being closer to nature.
The plot I found interesting, with Sarlota and Mira standing out as great duel protagonists. The former had an interesting back story, with her being bald due to a history of trichotillomania, and having recently had a miscarriage that destroyed her relationship back in the city she came from. Love interest Tomás (Marek Geisberg) felt a bit underused with not much personality to him, though secretly gay Helena (Juliana Olhová) was an interesting if unlikeable character who was part of the catalyst for the townsfolk's increasingly dangerous behaviour.

While Nightsiren wasn't feel good in the slightest, and made for a sometimes unpleasant watch, I thought it was very well made, and created an atmosphere over its one hour fifty minute runtime that had me drawn into the beautiful location. Nightsiren came to ARROW at the start of June where it is streaming exclusively, a limited edition Blu-ray was also released at the same time.

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The Rotting Zombie Interviews Victoria U Bell

Victoria U Bell has recently directed her first feature length movie, Heir of the Witch, a movie that she wrote, directed, produced and starred in and which is the first full feature film from production company Pasha Entertainment. The film tells of a Moldovan woman living in America who finds herself haunted by her family's dark past, specifically her grandmother, who had been an evil witch. The story was taken from Bell's own personal experiences, and bizarrely more of this fantastical story is said to have actually happened than you might expect. I was able to get an interview with the director, to speak with her about this passion project of hers.

Hello Victoria and welcome to The Rotting Zombie. With elements of Heir of the Witch based partly on real life experiences, has creating the film helped you face the fears you had while growing up?

Bringing HOTW to life was a true "Come to Jesus moment". The whole process has helped me see things from a different perspective. A healing process of facing the monster and fear in my heart, soul and mind. Through this journey I have become stronger. I have recognized my power and I no longer suffer from the terror I had felt all my life. Creative art can be a true healing and cleansing process, but you have to be honest. You have to bare your soul and expose it. I no longer find the act of witchcraft terrifying. I know my truth. I found my light, and with that, I can conquer anything.

With this being your first feature length film as a director, how did it compare to the short films you have previously made, and were there any unexpected challenges you had to face?

Making a short film was a walk in the park compared to a feature film. Compounded by being made during Covid - it felt like an Ironman Triathlon. I learned more while making this movie than anything I learned in film school. It's an experience that is unparalleled with anything else I've ever encountered. Through it, I found my true love and passion in life - film. It was a lot of hard work, and there were constant challenges that would arise throughout the whole project, but we did it! I am very grateful for my team and everyone who helped bring this movie to life!

Aside from the real-life elements, what were the other inspirations for this movie? Were there any other films that influenced the direction and style you went for?

Everything is inspiration to me. From the fragrant flowers I smell on the sidewalk to the decaying body of a dead animal on the highway. From the great books I devour, to the multitude of movies that I have watched. My brain is a sponge; always hungry and curious for more information. I can't pinpoint one that that inspired me most, but when I was a child, I heard a story that a man in our village kept having dreams about his wife who had passed away. She kept telling him in his dreams that she's alive and trapped in her grave and that he had to save her. His request to have her exhumed was denied by the church. I couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if he had dug her up himself that night. In my audacious mind, I imagined that when he opened the casket, the woman had turned in her grave and her fingernails were embedded in the walls of the casket while trying to escape. That story stayed with me and translates in the film. So, you can say I've been a storyteller from an early age.

The protagonist, Anna, stands out due to the world of shallow and conceited people she finds herself in, while not without her flaws, there was a genuine feeling to her. Were you always planning to play the part of the protagonist, and did you put any of your real self into the character, or is she a completely invented creation?

If you believe Anna's agony, then it was real. I did not put myself into the character, but I did embody Anna completely. A few months prior to filming the movie I stripped myself of all jewelry, makeup, and any items that reminded me of me.
I cut my nails short, I wore the modest dresses that Anna wears, and I started to learn how to sow. I tried to leave everything of mine behind and I let Anna speak to me. She was gentle, kind, turbulent and lost. I did not judge her. I let her tell me her story and I embedded myself in her character. There's no way I could reveal her suffering authentically without walking in her shoes. Somehow, her shoes felt somewhat familiar. Growing up in Moldova, my feet were dirty from running in the fields with no shoes, but my heart was filled with big dreams. In each project I have the pure intention of serving the story. I'm always looking for who I feel is the best actor for each role. Anna - was the hardest role to fill and I knew I was the only one who could best serve her and bring her to the world.

The moments of visual horror in the movie were very effective. At times, featuring some scenes that surprised with just how bloody they were. What were your favourite special effects used during the making of these scenes?

We had a great make-up team and they worked wonders with every aspect of my intricate requests. One of my favourites is the decapitated body of one of the witch's victims. It looks and feels eerie and real. It took a lot of work from my team to create the same body type, size and skin tone - but the results were fabulous. In reference to special effects, the shower scene with the demon mist, and the spider shadow under the bed are 2 of my favorites.

Finally, for people who have yet to see Heir of the Witch, why should they check it out?

Heir of the Witch is unlike any other horror film you have ever seen before. The story and the theme are unique and different. The twists and turns keep you involved and glued to the screen. I've planted a lot of breadcrumbs, follow them closely! Enjoy!

Heir of the Witch is due to be streaming everywhere from August 4th 2023, a thank you to Victoria U Bell for her time answering my questions.

Heir of the Witch (2023) - Horror Film Review

Heir of the Witch is the first full feature film from film production company, Pasha Entertainment. It was written and directed by Victoria U Bell, who also stars as the protagonist, and the idea was created from Bell's own personal experiences. The press release states in real life her Moldovan grandmother was a witch with a dark reputation, with a family legend being that she was unable to die until she had passed on her powers to someone else. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction! While this was the inspiration for the movie, Bell used her creativity to add elements to make it work better.

As a child, Anna (Bell) and her aunt left Moldova and moved to the United States, after an incident involving the death of her mother and the imprisonment of her father. Now grown up, the shy woman works as a seamstress for wealthy clients, living at the home of her elderly and terminally ill aunt (Vanessa Neff). Her work brings her to the attention of Chloe (Deanna Rashell), a conceited rich woman who sees the shy Anna as something of a pet project. Anna soon captures the attention of Chloe's husband, Nicholas (Ben Holtzmuller), and they secretly begin having an affair, which results in Anna getting pregnant. The woman holds a secret though, her grandmother back in Moldova had a history of witchcraft, and it is hinted that this is something that Anna has been fighting her whole life to get away from, and which is increasingly affecting her in the form of troubling nightmares, hallucinations, and dark thoughts.

After an intro screen of text describing a type of witch particular to Moldova, the film begins in earnest. Throughout the hour and a half run time this straddles the line between being a doomed romance plot, and the more horror based attempts by the evil spirit of Anna's grandmother (Lorayn DeLuca) to corrupt the girl. Frequent flashbacks reveal both what exactly happened with her parents, as well as the sinister ordeals she experienced at the hands of her grandmother. There was almost a dream like feel to aspects of the film, with it often, particularly in the second half, becoming hard to parse what was real and what was imagined. It all leads to a somewhat bizarre twist reveal, but one that I did think worked, especially with flashbacks to key scenes in the movie with a different perspective put on things.

Bell was great as the protagonist, though the character remained something of a mystery. She was prone to hysterics, with her coming across as not entirely balanced. I found the affair between her and Nicholas to feel a little off, I couldn't quite get on board with the idea she would cheat with a married man, and the way the film zoomed past periods of time with no indication of having done so, added to the strange feel. Between scenes for instance, Anna changes to being her normal self to being heavily pregnant. The way this often felt a bit dreamlike made this transition not as jarring as it could have been. I was never sure how this was all going to end up, thankfully it remained deliciously dark, even if I was getting a little lost prior to the big twist reveal
On the horror side of things I was pleased with what was shown. There was more blood than I had expected to see, and some fun death scenes, typically involving the ghost of an evil witch controlling victims into doing awful things to themselves, such as one scene that had a woman repeatedly stabbing a huge pair of scissors into her own leg. I thought the visual effects for these moments were neat, and the parts that had either the witch, or possessed people suddenly taking on a demonic look were fun, giving me Evil Dead deadite vibes.

With a cast of mostly horrible characters, it was hard to root too much for anyone, with the exception of Anna, who herself was shown to be very flawed. The murkiness around the edges of the story sometimes left me more confused than intrigued. I did however think the moments of horror were effective, they had a strong visual look to them which did create some nice messed up scenes. Heir of the Witch is streaming everywhere from August 4th 2023.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Friday 17th June

This is the first of two news posts for this week. As I have mentioned in other places, I phoned in my blog posts this week due to heading to a War of the Worlds interactive experience in London this past Sunday. On to the news.

Prosper is a new horror film that was released via Midnight Releasing on June 3rd. This was written and directed by Deronte Smith and is about the last witch of Salem who returns after a fifty year absence in order to sacrifice people in order to keep her soul replenished. The film stars April Hollingsworth, Shayla Love, Nic Wolfe, Davien Harlis, Renier Cortes, Walnette Marie Santiago and Anastasia Pekhtereva.

The Unbroken is about a woman named Sarah who begins to get visions of a young boy who becomes associated with accidents that start happening around her. It stars Daniel Baldwin (Vampires, Grimm), Warwick Davis (Leprechaun, Willow) and Veryl Jones (The Punisher, Out of Time) and came to DVD on May 31st from Bayview Entertainment.

Finally, in this smaller post, a trailer has been released for Crime Traveler: The Adventures of Dave Slade. This eighty five minute Dave Sweeny film stars Nicholas M. Garofolo as the titular Dave Slade in a time travelling fantasy film about a reluctant hero. The press release states 'This film will be better then Top Gun Maverick...Best Summer 2002 movie - - coming soon!'. The trailer can be seen here.

Coven (2020) - Horror Film Review

Coven is a modern day witch story set on a college campus. I got the feeling watching this that it wanted to be something memorable like The Craft but instead its over use of the scantily clad cast walking around trying to look cool in slow motion made this mostly forgettable. This was directed by Margaret Malandruccolo with a story written by Lizzie Gordon (writer of The Last Exorcist), who also starred as the protagonist.

Ronnie (Jennifer Cipolla) is the leader of a coven of student witches whose aim is to resurrect a powerful witch from the past known as Ashura. Being quite evil, during the incantation to summon her back, Ronnie in a fit of anger kills one of the five witches that make up her coven. The result of doing this is that they are one person short, and so they use a spell to locate a possible replacement. The replacement is found in the form of Sophie (Gordon), a history student whose biggest aim is to find a way to bring her deceased mother back to life. With the promise of this being made possible should she join Ronnie's coven and help resurrect Ashura, Sophie happily joins, somehow unaware of just how evil most the group actually are.

This wasn't a good movie unfortunately, it isn't even down to the cast, as over the top and ridiculous as many of them are. The story here is as bland as they come, over the course of eighty minutes barely anything happens. That the whole plot begins because Ronnie killed an essential member of her coven is ridiculous, especially when no one else seems that bothered she did this. The whole thing with witchcraft films have led me to believe is that there is the law of karma. Sophie is warned that magic costs a price, yet she joins up with the bad guys, has her own little hanging out with bad guys montage (that seems to mostly consist of dancing around in her underwear for some reason) and gets no repercussions. This was one of my biggest complaints, the amount of scenes of the witches all dressed up in sexy lingerie doing stuff in slow motion. They could have least made an excuse as to why they had to be wearing barely any clothes, but no, there wasn't and so it just came off as weird. There are also a couple of scenes set two hundred years in the past that really show off the lack of budget.

The Cleansing (2019) - Horror Film Review

The Cleansing is a U.K made horror from director Antony Smith, that almost felt like an indie version of The VVitch: A New England Folktale. Like that movie this is a period piece that has the central idea of witchcraft, and like that one this can also be a bit of a slow burn.

Set in 14th century Wales this follows a teenage girl named Alice (Rebecca Acock - The Watcher in the Woods) whose small village is suffering from the effects of a plague sweeping the land. After her mother gets the disease and is killed by a plague doctor in order to prevent the spread, the village preacher/leader - Tom (Rhys Meredith - Apostle, Don't Let Him In) offers for Alice to come live with him, as he secretly desires the girl. However, after spurning his advances Tom convinces the villagers that she is a witch, and the person responsible for causing the all the illness. Fleeing, she is taken in by a herbalist living deep in the woods - James (Simon Pengelly - Being Human), who decides to teach her about natural medicine.

While I didn't mind this it does take a bit to get going. A big distraction for me for a while was that Alice barely speaks at all. I find the idea of a silent protagonist to be an interesting one, but it led to some moments of frustration, especially in the first third. This first third has the girl being tortured at the hands of the priest and his cronies, their aim seemingly to be just to get her to talk. I never really understood why she refused their pretty simple requests, though it is only much later that you actually do discover just why she won't talk. Then there is the middle section with her growing friendship with James which was the most grounded part, it features as its centrepoint a hallucinogenic dream sequence that tries to pull the story towards its final third. Here, all the promises of horror come to fruitiation. Having spent two thirds of the film in relatively sedate surroundings it was nice to see the action pick up in a slightly over dramatic finale.

A Discovery of Witches: Series 1 (2018) - Horror TV Show

A Discovery of Witches is a British fantasy drama that made me think of a much more mature and normalised Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Based off a book it introduces us to a secret world that exists alongside the humans, one they know nothing about. Series 1 is made up of eight episodes, each around 45 minutes in length. A second and third series have already been approved.

The show takes place in a world where witches, demons and vampires co-exist secretly alongside humans. Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer - Warm Bodies, Lights Out) is a witch who one day discovers a magical book thought lost to time. This gets the attention of everyone who all want it for their own ends. Matthew (Matthew Goode - Watchmen) is a vampire who becomes interested in her as a result and the two start a forbidden relationship that has the possibility of starting a war.

To begin with I wasn't that taken with A Discovery of Witches. While it features fantastical creatures this is very grounded in reality relatively. The three races alongside humans are witches, vampires and demons but all are less fantastical than the traditional versions. Witches in this world are a separate being to humans though the only difference seems to be that they are able to use magic. Other than that they look the same and do the same sort of jobs it seems. Vampires have more to them in that like tradition they are immortal and they drink blood, as well as have super speed and some mind control powers. However sunlight doesn't affect them at all and they have no fangs, just looking like slightly more pale humans. Demons are the third fantasy race but rather disappointingly the show does absolutely nothing with them. By the end of the series there had not even been a single throw away line about what makes them different to the average human, I found this kind of frustrating when the other two types are explored so well. On the subject of humans they really don't factor into the show much. The spoken blurb at the start of each episode says how the creatures have to live in secret from the humans but I get the impression if they outed themselves they would swiftly red faced realise that they are in the vast majority as aside from a small handful there seems to be no humans whatsoever existing in this world.

The Black Cat (2017) - Short Horror Film Review

The Black Cat is not another adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's cautionary tale as I first assumed, instead it is a charming adaptation of the short story of the same name by celebrated Indian writer Ruskin Bond that deals with the subject of witches. It features legendary Indian actor Tom Alter in one of his final lead roles before his sad death due to skin cancer.

Alter stars as Ruskin Bond; a writer who has recently brought a broomstick in order to clean his messy house up. However not long after taking his tool home he is visited by a mischievous black cat who causes the man no end of trouble. Hot on the heels of this unwelcome invader comes Miss Bellow (Shernaz Patel) who claims to be the owner of the cat and wants it back, but does she have ulterior motives?

This 20 minute short (directed by Bhargav Saikia in his second short film) is a whimsical and magical offering that stays on the side of fantasy for the majority but does have a few scenes that are more frightening. The majority of this has Bond home alone dealing with the troublesome cat, and then his bizarre meeting with Miss Bellows. I loved Alter's performance here, he came across as a likable character whose gruffness never seems much more than an act. Patel also gives a good performance as the mysterious woman that visits. I thought the set decoration for the home was pretty good, though in terms of props the broomstick did seem to be pretty useless as it seemed to cause more mess than it cleared up! The music throughout fits this short perfectly, it all adds to the fantastical nature of this.

Reel Nightmare (2017) - Horror Film Review

Reel Nightmare is an indie horror that was written and directed by Amand Petri (who also acts in the film). Upon starting this I recoiled in horror when on-screen text talked about some footage that had been found at a bizarre crime scene. Found footage is a very over saturated genre, thankfully it is mostly found footage in name only, while characters are shown to occasionally be filming, the majority of this is far more traditional in the way it is shot.

The intro features an online horror investigator who speaks about some footage hacked from the local Police showing what happened in the unexplained Goodwin Manor murders that took place three years previously. We then follow the exploits of a group of friends who have gone to a remote Victorian house in order to help Christian (Garrett Morosky) film his university thesis. These people include his older brother, cousin, best friend Sophia (Mary Elizabeth Winstead lookalike Madeline Heil), as well as video blogger Hassan (Petri) and a few others. A series of weird occurrences that include one of the group getting inexplicably sick, discovering the tyres on their car have been slashed, and the power to the house going off make the friends think that someone is messing with them, so they decide to hold up in the old house over night, so that they can get help in the morning. However the actual cause may be down to the spirits of three witches who once used to live in the mansion.

The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2015) - Horror Film Review

Another week and another horror, with 10 Cloverfield Lane, The Boy, and The Purge: Election Year in the trailers it seems there is no end in sight yet for this unexpected Spring time yield of terror. The VVitch: A New-England Folktale is a film I never even knew existed until I saw it as one of the films coming out this week at my local cinema.

The year is 1630 and devoutly religious William (Ralph Ineson) due to a disagreement with the church has been banished from the New England plantation he and his family had lived at. He decides to build a house on the outskirts of a vast impassable forest and for a while all is well. One day while teen Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) is babysitting her baby brother; Samuel he gets snatched and after a week of searching the family give up. They assume a wolf had taken the youngster but in reality a witch living in the woods had taken him for a sacrifice. With bad luck befalling the farm the family come to believe a witches curse is to blame and paranoia takes over...

The Last Witch Hunter (2015) - Fantasy Film Review

You kind of know what to expect when you go to see one of Vin Diesel's power fantasies. In the Riddick series he played an unbeatable bad-ass in a nightmare sci-fi world, in The Last Witch Hunter he plays an unbeatable bad-ass in a nightmare fantasy world.

Diesel stars as Kaulder; a witch hunter who was cursed by a witch with immortality, and so for the last 800 years he has been roaming the planet doing what he does best. In that time a truce has been made between the witches and the hunters, they now have their own council who work to ensure that they don't interfere in the world of man. When Kaulder's trusted aid (Michael Caine) turns up seemingly dead he realises that someone is working to destroy the fragile truce and bring doom and destruction back to mankind, and so he teams up with his new aid (Elijah Wood) and a friendly witch; Chloe (Rose Leslie) in order to stop this plan.

What We Do in the Shadows (2014) - Horror Comedy Film Review

I had heard this comedy horror from one half of Flight of the Conchords was a damn funny film but still I was unsure if it would appeal to me. It seemed just too many people had waxed lyrical about it but as it turns out this is pretty much hilarious, the funniest horror I have seen since the fantastic This is the End from 2013.

Set in Wellington, New Zealand What We Do in the Shadows is set up in the style of a mocumentary with three vampire house mates; Viago, Deacon, and Vladislav (Jemaine Clement) hiring a film crew to document their lives in the run up to an annual masquerade ball. Along the way newly turned vampire Nick brings conflict as well as providing the old fashioned vampires with introductions to modern technology, while the group have to deal with vampire hunters, their rivals; a pack of werewolves, and Vladislav's ancient nemesis...

Chicken Pi: Twisted Tales by S. Lawrence Parrish (2013) - Horror Audiobook Series Review

Chicken Pi: Twisted Tales is a collection of fifteen short horror stories written and spoken by S. Lawrence Parish (he of Where Evil Grows and Yog-Sothoth's Box fame), each one roughly twenty minutes in length. His previous audio books have been straight up narrations and featured him doing a variety of voices. The stories contained in Chicken Pi all have sound effects and music added which really gives them some added flavour.

Parrish gives all his audio work away for free and this is no exception and so the only aspect to look at is are these stories any good, and are they worth the listen? The resounding answer would be yes. I was very impressed with the variety and quality of these tales with only a few coming across as anything but excellent. While all the stories are different there are several themes that he keeps coming back to. A few of the stories concern demons and vampires while a fair few of them are post apocalyptic in nature. It is the apocalyptic ones in particular that had a real power of dread behind them.

Not all the stories in Chicken Pi were amazing, in particular I did not enjoy Givin' the Dog a Bone which was about an old man and woman trying to survive nuclear fallout, it was depressing from the start and ended a bit strangely. The other one which I did not think was as good as the others was final story Kitty Kitty about a witch and a very hard to kill cat. For that one I just straight up got confused as to what happened. That is not to say these are badly written, far from it, Parrish never disappoints with his style of writing and he is skilled at coming up with different voices for the characters in that particular unique voice of his.

On the other end of the spectrum the best tale by far is Current Events that brings real horror of nuclear Armageddon into play, it is harrowing throughout and ends in such an amazing and descriptive way that I got goosebumps hearing it, something very special there. The two parter The Prophet was also another stand out story. That one concerned a feudal based civilisation who are approaching end times and had a sense of urgency and frustration and again ended on such a blinder of an ending.

Most of the stories here finish badly for the characters being followed, it almost come to be expected that everything would go wrong and so I came to look forward to getting the ironic or deserved end to these people. A few curve balls are thrown also with the best oddity being A Fistful of Rubber that seems to be a post apocalyptic based yarn about the day after a wild party. The story is narrated by Stumpy who speaks in a very A Clockwork Orange way with his own little language that was fun to hear.

With stories set hundreds of years in the past and future, demons that crawl into people via their bottoms, aliens who can take over your mind with just a touch, Scanner style head explosions and exploding babies the variety is always consistent leading you to never know what is going to be next. Chicken Pi: Twisted Tales is essential listening if you are a fan of short horror stories, I cannot recommend it enough.

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The Craft (1996) - Horror Film Review

I'm about 95% sure I actually own The Craft on VHS somewhere or other, but watching it on Netflix the other day was my first actual time seeing it.

Sarah Bailey moves to a new town with her Dad to start a new life. At the local Catholic school she befriends three outcasts; timid Bonnie (Neve Campbell), bullied Rochelle, and mouthy Nancy (Fairuza Balk) who practise witchcraft together and invite her to be their fourth member. Soon after the magic spells they perform actually start working and each of the four girls gets their biggest wish to come true. With their new found power and confidence they set out to do greater and greater things but everything has it's price and soon it comes back to haunt them, Sarah in particular.

The best thing about The Craft is it's excellent 90's soundtrack (including Elastica, Portishead, and Siouxsie and the Banshees among others) it is used well also, appearing at appropriate times. Sometimes you just forget how good music was but it also has the adverse effect as marking this very much as a film of that time. The film is not actually horror per se, sure there are witches and there is a body count as well as some scenes of straight up horror (such as a house full to the brim with insects and reptiles) but this is more a teen high school flick, focusing on the different cliques that exist in the American school system.

The characters themselves are all interesting in their own ways, for the main four girls at least. They all have some depth to them, especially with crazy Nancy who yearns to get out of her trailer trash hell, and with the reasoning behind Bonnie's shyness. When these characters get evil they do a good job, Balk who goes overboard with the insanity is a real fun person to hate. For all their bad ways though they always seem a bit ineffectual, more likely to try and scare people than actually set out to do them harm (for the most part they just float around and laugh a lot), It is telling that there is not a single good male character to be found here. The boys at school are all horrid jock types, while the male parents are shown to be either abusive or missing. I guess this rode on the waves of girl power that swept the world around that time.

The Craft did seem to drag ever so slightly, around twenty minutes before the end the last real plot twist happens and from then on it is just lots of running around when things should have been tied up quicker. The final action scene is very well done though it has to be said and things all wrap up in a satisfying manner. It just seems stupid that these girls get access to working magic and are able to use it so freely with little real risk to themselves. All I will say is the magic shop lady has a lot to answer for!

Overall I really did not mind The Craft, it whiled away a few hours and entertained me and that is not a bad thing at all.

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Wotsits Zombie Fingers and Maynards Sour Tricks and Spooky Treats (2014) - Halloween Themed Food Review

As the Halloween season is pretty much dead and done I wanted to officially end Halloween 2014 by talking about a few more horror themed products launched to cash in on the season to scream.  First up is Wotsits Zombie Fingers...

I don't mind Wotsits in general though their powdery nature makes them a nightmare to eat if your doing anything else at all. In a shocking twist these corn puffs had a limited edition of flamin' hot zombie fingers. I like these, not bad but be warned there is false advertising as they are exactly the same look and shape as normal Wotsits; not actual zombie fingers!

So Wotsits Zombie Fingers are misleading and make little effort with the design of the bag but actually taste fine

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Next up ARE some sweets I got at a reduced price. Maynards Sour Tricks are sour coated jelly sweets, I ate the pumpkin adorned packet in one go and it gave me a belly ache...maybe a tricky curse? The other is named Maynards Spooky Treats and features a witch on the front of the packet. These jelly sweets did not give me a belly ache but they did make me feel a bit sick...another curse perhaps? Both packets feature weird jokes on the back that seem to be incomplete.

Both these sweets caused me afflictions in various ways but could have been caused by their addictive nature, I like the cover design but in general I really not am keen on sweets anyway.

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Witchfinder (2013) - Short Horror Film Review

January seems to be the month for short films, the third one I have seen for review in just over a week. Witchfinder (written and directed by Colin Clarke) is a period piece that takes place during the American Witch hunts. While I have never seen the British horror classic Witchfinder General that is what immediately sprung to mind during the film.

William Thatcher Blake (Dave Juehring) is a witchfinder and the film starts with him interrupting a demonic ritual and capturing a suspected witch and her customer. Just before him and his men burn the witch at the stake she puts a curse onto Blake. Thinking nothing of it Blake carries out his duty and returns home to his family. In the middle of the night a strange noise awakens him and the terror begins...

I was quite impressed with this short 18 minute film, it appears to have a budget with some great special effects used. Period pieces can live or die on their believability, Witchfinder succeeds with locations and costumes that form a cohesive whole. There is a 3 act structure here, the first act being the arrest of the witch, it starts the film well. The witch character had some slight over acting to her I felt, but she redeems herself later on anyway. The second act takes place out in the woods and has some decent special effects such as a nasty use of a spiked mask that made me wince. The final act takes place at Blake's family home. I felt this act to be slightly rushed and I did not think much of the ending yet the special effects in this sequence are the best of the whole piece, I almost got goosebumps.

Throughout Juehring is a strong lead, his costume makes him stand out and his acting is of a good standard, it would be great to see more of this character. The direction and lighting is used to great effect, especially the switch from the woods in night time to the grey of the woods in day which I found to be quite striking.

Overall my main complaint is that there just was not enough here, that is something I don't usually say about short films but in this instance I really found myself itching for more when the end credits rolled.

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Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013) - Horror Film Review

I quite liked the trailer for Hansel and Gretel, sure it didn't look like anything special but seemed like it would deliver on being a solid fantasy action flick.

Hansel (Jeremy Runner) and his sister Gretel (Gemma Arterton) have spent their lives as bounty hunters specialising in witches after being kidnapped by one as children. After a load of children vanish from a small forest village the siblings are hired to rescue the kids and stop the witches. It seems that head witch Murial (Famke Janssen) is planning to do a ritual under the blood moon which will make her and her fellow sisters immortal.

While there were no surprises this was a solid enough film that had plenty of cool fight scenes and more violence than I expected. All digitally done for the most part but people get their heads caved in, explode in bloody chunks, and even get ripped apart limb by limb. Along side this you have quite a few F-bombs going off, and a rocking industrial soundtrack that brings a weird sense of modernity to the fairy tale setting.

There is plenty of scrappy violent close quarters fighting, it is good to see the two main chracters get visibly damaged during the course of the film, all cut lips and dark bruises on both of them. In a way it reminded me of Van Helsing (2004) that many people frown at, but it is very similar in nature with a too cool hero using bizarre weaponry out of place in a fantasy setting. Along with a strange looking shotgun and crossbow there are mini guns, collapsible rifles and hand grenades in abundance.

The witches of Hansel and Gretel are really not that great as villains, for the most part they totally ham up their parts, looking quite ridiculous, I was nearly laughing at the surreal chase sequence near the films start that saw some pointy chined hag charging through the trees pursued by a shotgun blasting loon. Runner and Arterton do a good enough job in their roles, even if at times it seems the two are uncomfortably close. Hansel having diabetes from being force fed candy when he was a child was a weird plot device (apparently Gretel originally had been planned to be suffering from an eating disorder also).

I saw the film in 3D, it actually was not too intrusive and really works well in a woodland setting, just a shame it was nearly a quarter of the way into the film before the projectionist realised he had not widened the screen meaning around a quarter of the film was being projected either side onto dark walls which was annoying. The plot is nothing special at all, it is so obvious what is going to happen but sometimes it is good to just disengage your brain.

Better than average but definitely not a great film, enjoyable nonetheless, an extra Rotting Zombie head due to the inclusion of Gemma Arterton being easy on the eyes. Also good to see a film that is not padded out to make the run time longer, I am more than happy with 88 minutes!

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