Cedar Mills (2025) by Dylan James - Horror Novel Review

I received an eBook version of Dylan James' Cedar Mills back in June of last year, and at the time of typing I have just finished reading it. That may seem like a long time, but with my reading pile of shame as bulky as it is, that for me was actually lightning fast, though, obviously nothing to be proud of. I am getting as much reading done as I had hoped on my relaxing visit to Australia to visit family.

Back in the late 1990s, a biker witnesses his gang being torn to shreds by a monstrous creature out at an abandoned mill near the sleepy town of Cedar Mills. In present day, wanting to write an article about the history of the town for his school yearbook (and choosing this mostly forgotten event), a high school student heads out to the area to take some photos. This proves to be fateful, with the boy's last photo taken before he is abruptly killed being of that same creature that was reported about all those years ago. The town sheriff who was investigating this death has the case taken off her by a shady branch of the government, but not before she had recruited a disgraced former detective, now P.I - Tom, to investigate the case off the books. With the government covering up the death, Tom reaches out to the murdered boys friends - high schoolers Jake Evans, DeShawn, Angela, and Alexis, with an offer to tell them what he thinks really happened to their friend. Before much information can be traded however, they are ambushed by agents who had been following Tom, and they are forced to go on the run, as the agents are determined to hide the truth at any cost.

Cedar Mills started off coming across like a Stephen King type of small town horror. This is the type of town where everyone knows everyone else, and gossip spreads rapidly. From the thrilling prologue set in the 90s, events get moving rapidly. I figured the pacing of the story would see Tom and friends investigating the strange goings on in the town in a Stranger Things type of fashion. Instead, the novel is roughly split into three distinct parts. The early small town horror transitions into more of a road trip story, before coming together for an action packed third act that is pure creature feature horror. The story went to some unexpected places, with the story getting more wild than I imagined. I can't say I thought too much of the epilogue, mainly due to the rather abrupt cliff-hanger ending.

There were a lot of grim moments here. The creature itself is very deadly, a green reptilian type of huge monster with blade-like appendages for arms. The scenes of it killing victims were all very exciting, especially with how powerful it is. More detestable for me were the three government agents. Led by the psychotic Hives, they appear in some of the more miserable parts of the book. There even came a point where I had to take a break from reading - too much bad stuff were happening to likeable protagonists and likeable side characters alike! Despite a lot of the main characters being teens, they don't escape without harm. The story kept me going, as well as my assumption that these horrible agents would eventually get their comeuppance! 

Throughout Cedar Mills, I really struggled to put the book down. The short chapters and unfolding story over the 313 pages, kept me glued to the pages. I was a huge fan of where the story ended up going. Not that I haven't seen that type of thing done before, but I wasn't expecting that direction in this particular novel. Well written, action packed, and with a likeable collection of characters, I had a great time reading Cedar Mills, it did little wrong.

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No Through Road (2009) - Horror TV Series Episode Review

No Through Road I had assumed to be a short horror film. It was only while looking this up after the fact that I realised it was actually the first episode in a TV mini-series, with the three subsequent episodes coming out in 2011. I will be looking at this as if it were a short film as it certainly acts and feels like one. Written, directed and co-starring Steven Chamberlain, this effective British found footage horror did a lot of things surprisingly well.

It is 2008 and four English lads are out on a night time drive on the rural roads outside of Stevenage, with one of them filming the event on his new camera for prosperity. Their drive leads them to a tunnel that leads to an abandoned farmhouse and has a sign saying 'no through road'. It is after they decide to go through this tunnel that the strangeness begins. Carrying on their journey they keep encountering the same road sign time and time again, despite driving in a straight line. Seeing no traffic and constantly seeming to be driving in a loop, the boys get increasingly panicked, not helped by a disturbing loop of repeating music playing out over the radio. Just when they think they have finally escaped their nightmare, the real horror begins.

I thought this little horror was super effective. The gradual breakdown of the four friend's cockiness and bravado was done perfectly. The intro text stating the four were found dead in their car, and the outro text giving a link to a webpage should anyone who sees the footage can help the authorities work out what happened gave this an authentic feel. Editing was sublime, corrupted footage blending in earlier happier times of the four at home, distorted and creepy. Sticking so faithfully to found footage, this does drag ever so slightly at times, especially in the middle, and a lot of scenes of very dark and hard to see, even if this does make sense with this being 'natural' footage.

No Through Road succeeded due to its feeling of realism that resulted in a short that was at times unsettling, creepy and sinister. It can be viewed on YouTube.

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Garten of Banban VII (2024) - Horror Video Game Review

I have been barrelling through the Garten of Banban series of mascot horror video games these past weeks, mainly due to travelling to Australia for a month (at the time of typing). Hopefully I am still able to put up blog posts there using my laptop (I am!), this review is written four days before the long 25 hour plane journey starts. Garten of Banban VII is the first game in the series not to be released in 2023, and was the only one to be released in 2024. I also have to say it was mightily disappointing. As ever, unavoidable spoilers to follow.

After descending yet another elevator of the secret facility hidden under Banban's Kindergarten, you arrive on floor six - the domain of Syringeon. The previous floor having become overrun by Sir Dadadoo and his small army of corrupted creatures. You had fled the area with the intention of retrieving the missing piece of Queen Bouncila's magical sceptre; the only item capable of sending the giant slug and his naughty one minions back into her pouch. After finding the surgeon, he instructs you with locating Jumbo Josh, the green giant being somewhere in Syringeon's improbable city, and who the creature believes is the only one capable of stopping Dadadoo.

I have to say, I did not expect a city to be found on this particular floor of the facility. I reckon by now we must be getting on for a good half a mile under ground. After a brief but fun horror opening, you make it to the city. The rest of the game takes place in this small open world area, with you tasked with heading to various locations, such as a bar, apartment block and theatre, as you search for clues on Josh's whereabouts and find the items you need to capture him. Unfortunately, this is the most frustrating game in the series by far, frustration popped up at several annoying moments. Chase sequences are back, but there was one here that required a mix of running and pixel perfect jumps. I must have taken at least 50 increasingly angry attempts until I finally did that section. Then there is the drone, it has another upgrade that lets you control it directly. I had hoped this would make it less cumbersome to control, but alas, the controls are poor and its range is limited by invisible walls. There are also a lot less puzzles to be found here, a handful of ones that mostly revolve around memorising patterns.

The city was fine, populated by alien looking creatures who talk in a variety of languages, it wasn't anything exciting. It had a kind of 1920's American gangster type feel, the bar playing jazz music, and a misty vibe to the streets. I can't say I liked that aesthetic, for much of the two and a half to three hour game there was barely any horror to be found. You get the obligatory dream sequence which to be fair was pretty fun, but the lore here was minimal. The story of containing Sir Dadadoo started to feel like a bit of an unimportant sub plot, divorced from the bigger story of finding your missing child. I liked the twist ending, but other than that there wasn't many interesting events to be had, outside of an epic finale, and the death of a major character.

I figured that each subsequent game in the series would be better and more polished. Garten of Banban VII however felt a bit of a mess. It felt like it was too ambitious for its own good, the amount of times I encountered invisible walls during my playthrough was ridiculous, and those moments of absolute frustration really hampered my enjoyment. This was ok, but really lacked the quality of the last few games.

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Portrait of God (2022) - Short Horror Film Review

I was idling on the back porch of my aunt and uncle's remote house when I happened across a Reddit post about really messed up films. Needless to say, the ones I checked out didn't live up to the expectations placed on them, but they were still entertaining to watch. The first of these was the Dylan Clark (Transfigure, Home Movies) written and directed Portrait of God. It seems that a feature length version of this short is currently in production.

A devoutly religious teenage girl; Mia (Sydney Brumfield - Blood Star) is practising a power point presentation about a painting supposedly of God, that only certain people who look at it are able to see the hidden image, and which gives those people a feeling of having seen the divine. After her first practice run she goes through her presentation again, but this time, when she gets to the slide that shows a photo of the painting, she notices that where before there was just a black canvas, she can now spot something lurking in the darkness.

Set across seven minutes, this certainly started off effectively. The second half of this mostly takes place within a black void, assuming this is meant to represent the black painting. This part while still good, didn't feel like it quite worked as well as the initial section set in the girl's home. I did appreciate the somewhat open ended finish to this, a nice ending shot. Both the special effects and the creature design were good, but I couldn't help but feel this should have felt more unsettling than it actually was.

I loved the central idea for Portrait of God and as a short horror it excelled at not following the tired format that so many short horrors go for, not a jump scare to be found thankfully. A solid performance from the lead, and I can see how this could be lengthened out for a feature length adaptation. Portrait of God can be viewed on YouTube.

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NFT: Cursed Images (2026) - Horror Film Review

A film about haunted NFTs feels like its lost its moment already. I seem to recall a year or so back NFTs (none fungible tokens or something I believe it stands for, basically digital images that are all unique and can be traded) were briefly popular. They seemed to be only for rich douche-bags, who would spend ridiculous amounts of money to buy them. NFT: Cursed Images was written and directed by Jonas Odenheimer (Classroom 6). This crypto-horror had some good ideas, but ultimately it had a lot of wasted potential.

James (David Wayman - After Death) has recently returned to London and has gone for a meet up with his old friends at the home of Kit (Patrick Shearer - Perception). The other friends are nerdy Dan (Durassie Kiangangu - Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania), James' ex; Cass (Mariah Nonnemacher - Terminator: Dark Fate), couple, Nes (Nobuse Jnr - The Group) & Julia (Jasmine Clark), and finally, tomboy Sarah (Amelie Edwards). While the group are enthusiastically deep in discussion about NFTs, Kit is mysteriously sent seven by someone unknown. These seven are part of a collection called 'Crypto Horror', which urban legend states to be cursed NFTs capable of killing people. Thinking nothing of it, Kit sends each of his friends their own one as a joke. The late night gathering ends and the friends go their separate ways, unaware that they are going to be haunted by their own personal NFT they were sent.

I don't know what it is about modern horror films being obsessed with having the most unlikeable protagonists, and this is a trap that NFT: Cursed Images falls into. My hatred for these idiots started early on when a painfully slow near fifteen minute sequence plays out where the characters drone on inanely about just what NFTs are. Characters then spend the rest of the movie making bad decision after bad decision as each inevitably come face to face with their personalised NFT demon. It becomes a bit of a farce with all the characters trying to locate one another, constantly acting very surprised when people aren't answering their phones. I mean, it's the middle of the night, it's hardly surprising no one is answering calls, if they were normal people they would be fast asleep! There wasn't a single likeable character to be found. You have the insufferable one who refuses to believe anything strange is going on, cowardly ones, selfish ones, and then the one person who seems to know what is going on fails due to his bizarre pick and choose in his research for how to defeat each of the seven! Basically, the plot of the movie couldn't have happened to a bigger set of morons.
The one interesting thing in terms of pacing is that despite being set over one night, there are constant small time skips backwards and forwards to accommodate the different characters going through their own mini-plots.

The biggest missed potential came from the seven demons haunting the group. Each one had its own unique look and design, from conjoined twins to a figure with an upside down face; these white skinned monstrosities were actually pretty neat, and unique to each other in a way that reminded me of Thir13en Ghosts. It was a shame that none of these appearances ever led to anything interesting happening. Each time the character would come face to face with their NFT demon and then the scene would end, before anything happened on screen. I loved the demon designs but I wish they had featured more heavily than here, where they were on screen roughly for about two minutes of this 75 minute horror.

NFT: Cursed Images had potential for sure. A bigger focus on the scenes of horror and more tension would have been better than annoying characters wandering around the streets. If you insist on populating the movie with idiots, then at least give them satisfying on-screen deaths. A lacking story and unsatisfactory plot path led to this all feeling a little pointless; much like NFTs themselves. NFT: Cursed Images came to steaming on Digital HD on March 6th.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Thursday 11th March 2026

Currently in Australia, it has been a good time for my blog. Without the million distractions at The Rotting Zombie HQ, I am able to properly focus, even if the initial trip temporarily broke my laptop (darn loose connections!). My inbox is fit to bursting with news, so I shall release the valve for a second and drip out three news stories of terror.

Romantic horror film, Nuptials had its Digital debut on North American VOD platforms on February 13th, and came to DVD on February 17th. This sees a young couple on their honeymoon trapped in their bridal suite by a sinister presence, and slowly seduced to violence. This was written and directed by Sean Braune and features Ariana Marquis, Kevin McPherson, Annie Stone, and Denis Davicino.

Independent horror streaming platform; Screamify have announced Game Night - a 24-episode horror series to be released under its Micro Horrors initiative. Written and directed by Trent Duncan, this sees four friends who gather to play a mysterious board game titled 'Survive the Slasher'. After rolling the dice, they are transported into a real life version of the game, where armed with three lives each, they must survive deadly traps and avoid the slasher, all while trying to win the game if they want to survive. Micro Horrors are designed for mobile phone users, with vertically shot designed for immersive viewing.

Finally for today, Bitter Souls is now available on Amazon Prime Video and Tubi. This Tom Ryan (Theatre of Terror) directed voodoo horror sees a grieving boyfriend unable to deal with the brutal murder of his girlfriend. With the aid of a priest and a voodoo priestess, they set out to rescue the murdered girl's soul, coming to learn that bringing someone back from the dead comes with a terrible price.

Mamochka (2026) - Horror Film Review

Horror film Mamochka has a weird title (translates as Mammy), so it is fitting that it has a vibe that reflects that weirdness. Directed and written by Vilan Trub (The Dirty Kind), this psychological horror doesn't make an effort to make a lot of sense and is all the better for it.

After her detestable mother dies, she leaves her daughter Jane (Maya Murphy - Rosewater) a china doll that has been in the family for generations. This begins a series of strange events for the family. First, young son Brian (Stanley Trub) has an odd altercation with teenage babysitter Sarah (Sadie Stone in her film debut), and then it is the turn of husband Mark (Alexander Kollar - Kids Get Dead 2: The Kids Get Deader). Wanting to know more about the doll (specifically if it is worth anything to sell), Mark takes it to a doll expert who informs him that it is a 'Nazi' doll; a doll that was made in a German factory during World War II and may well have used the hair of a concentration camp victim in its creation. This leads the man down a rabbit hole into the history of the Nazi party. This causes him to get more sympathetic towards the Nazi ideology, and increasingly protective of the creepy doll.

With the feeling of an indie David Lynch film, Mamochka was odd to say the least. It is never entirely clear what is real and what isn't. Early on for instance, a whole day plays out for Mark, only for him to wake up in bed and realise it was all a dream. He then goes about his day that plays very similarly to what he had already experienced. This follows on from a black and white nightmare sequence where he discovers a cackling naked old woman in his kitchen! Characters appear who may not actually exist (standout being Dino Castelli - Jim Haggerty's Unnatural Causes). There are scenes of horror that end before their resolution and a very bizarre ending that leaves large swaths of the story unresolved.

Mamochka is never scary but it does carry with it a strange surreal vibe with events playing out using dream logic. Mark was fine as the protagonist, but I didn't really like or dislike him. I thought Castelli played the standout character here, seeming to be the physical manifestation of the doll's evil. Scenes were well shot, leading to some tense moments, and I thought the inclusion of classical music fitted the strange vibe well. The doll itself is a static object rather than something that is running around causing mischief. This works though, with it seeming to have a sphere of influence that is able to forever change anyone who enters the zone.

If you come to this weird horror expecting a cohesive story then it may leave you frustrated. It has the feel of a half remembered dream where it is not so much about the story, but about the atmosphere. As will be evident with this review (not one of my best!), I may have struggled to understand the intention of this horror, but this created a tone and feeling that at the very least will have you thinking. Mamochka opened the Horror-on-Sea Film Festival in the UK on January 16th and had a limited VOD release on January 27th. It is currently available on Amazon Prime in the US and UK.

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Zombie Maelstrom (2014) by Bryan Cassiday - Horror Book Review

Bryan Cassiday's Zombie Apocalypse: The Chad Halverson Series is one of the most action packed zombie sagas I have read to date. I've so far approached the series in a strange order. Starting with book 7 - Cutthroat Express, before heading to book 6; Horde, and then late last year reading the latest novel, book 8 - Purge. Following on from that latest review, the author asked if I wanted to see where it all began, and sent me the first book, 2014's Zombie Maelstrom. After a two day speed run (for me anyway who is typically a very slow reader!), I have finished this first book, and it did not disappoint.

The world is in a bit of a state, there have been multiple reports of a strange new virus coming out of China which is able to reanimate the dead and has started to spread around the world. A lot of those details have been kept secret, though as a CIA agent, Chad Halverson has been briefed on those. The deadly virus has yet to reach the U.S.A and it is hoped that will long continue. After his brother, Dan, is involved in a serious car accident, Chad is enroute to L.A via plane to visit him. As the plane nears the L.A airport, the crew and passengers alike notice a strange yellow smog covering the whole area. The pilot informs the 200 passengers that he has been unable to raise the tower, and that he is going to have to perform an emergency landing without their help. Landing mostly intact, everyone evacuates the plane only to be surprised there is no help awaiting them on the runway, in fact, the entire area appears deserted, as much as can be made out in the thick smog. Taking charge, the captain, Roger, leads the group to the terminal, noticing that something bad seems to be going on in the air traffic control tower. Fearing a terrorist attack is responsible for the airport being deserted, Roger leads a group of armed volunteers to the tower. It is here the terrible discovery is made; the virus has reached America, and the airport, and at least L.A has become infested with the walking dead.

Cassiday's series is always insane with crazy event after crazy event forever tying to one-up themselves. It isn't much of a surprise then to see the novel pretty much open with the plane's emergency landing. It was cool to see that even from the very first pages, this series was firing on all cylinders. From the first page to the last, the action virtually never lets up. For me, it was neat to see Halverson (however briefly) operating in a world before the apocalypse had began. The smog obscuring everything made a great introduction to readers and characters alike to the dead new world. It is actually 40 pages before the first zombie is seen on page, and from this point their inclusion is relentless, barely a page going by without more of the rotting rotters trying to feast on the hapless protagonists flesh.

The story here is simple, with the events of the nearly 300 page novel taking place over just a day or two, as it charts the destruction of the 200 strong cast until it is just a handful of survivors. The novel is roughly split into three sections, the initial discovery at the airport, a doomed siege at a nearby restaurant, and then the road trip to try and escape the overrun city.
The undead are an insatiable constant threat, driven wild with blood-lust, traditional George Romero type ghouls who are slow moving and can only be stopped by destroying the brain. Chad is as awesome a protagonist as ever, even at this early stage he took to zombie killing like a fish to water, and a good portrayal of his internal struggles as he is made to deal with hard situations, such as not knowing for sure if someone bitten will definitely become a ghoul.
Roger, Tom, Rosie, and Mildred among others never had too much to them, Roger's gradual crumbling under pressure of being in charge was shown well, and detestable bank manager Lemens was fun to hate.
The plot is carried along by 51 short and snappy chapters, often ending on a mini cliffhanger designed to keep you reading on. Many of these chapters ended in the same way, often with the arrival of more zombies, or the sound of panic from off-page. The third act ramps up the action for a chaotic finale, even if it did seem a bit odd how quickly a self made militia rose up and claimed L.A for themselves!

It may just be constant undead battling from beginning to end, but I often struggled to be able to put Zombie Maelstrom down. I was hooked following Chad and the other survivors journey, and seeing what crazy event would happen next. A blistering start to Bryan Cassiday's Chad Halverson series - blood soaked popcorn for the brain.

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Garten of Banban VI (2023) - Horror Video Game Review

Surprise surprise, it is yet another review of one of the games in the prolific mascot horror video game series; Garten of Banban. If you have been following these, you may be wondering where my review for Garten of Banban V is, seeing as the last review I put up was for Garten of Banban IV. This has caused me no end of confusion. Initially I believed that for some bizarre reason the fifth game just hadn't been added to the Playstation store, but it turns out that as of now, that fifth game still hasn't been released, despite there being eight games released. What I do know about that missing game, is that it was for some reason planned to be missing, and that rumors suggest it was meant to be a prequel, taking place on the day that the event happened that caused all the staff and children of Banban's Kindergarten occurred. 
Anyway, onwards to my review of the fifth released game - Garten of Banban VI, and as always, spoilers for previous games are bound to follow.

Due to Bittergiggle's meddling, the 'naughty ones' that had been contained within Queen Bouncelia's pouch have been released once more. Arriving on the fifth floor down, Sheriff Toadster leads you to the locked room where the Queen's allegedly magical scepter is kept, with it assumed that the scepter has the power to return the mischievous monsters back to the pouch. He asks you to work your way around the floor, pressing the three switches that will open the door to the scepter room, and making sure to avoid the dark, for that is where the naughty ones like to reside.

This was another great entry in the series, and the final game to be released in 2023. To have five games released in the space of a year was really impressive. The games have come on leaps and bounds from the very rough and basic first game. This, like the game before, took me roughly two hours to complete. All of that time I was having a blast. It is more of the same to be fair, there are chase sequences, scripted story moments, an obligatory dream sequence, and plenty of vaguely challenging puzzles to solve. If any of those elements were not fun then it might be an issue; it might seem repetitive. That isn't the case though, some of the puzzles here were the most complex yet, even if they are still simple to do. There wasn't really much new in terms of the puzzles. You had one kind of similar in style to the operation puzzle from Garten of Banban III, there was a boss encounter that required mild puzzling to solve (thankfully far less frustrating than the last game's boss fight!), and there was a platforming section, which to its credit did ask for something more than just jumping around a bottomless chasm.

The lore is where it is really at for me. The biggest thing this has over Poppy Playtime is how much personality these mascot monsters have. I love that each floor of the mammoth facility leads to the introduction of new monsters, while never forgetting about ones that have came before. I love all the interactions between these monsters, and their interactions with you, each new game it feels like less and less of the creatures have it in for you, even when you forge new alliances and end old ones. Finding key cards and notes is still the order of the day, but this was the most open level yet, with chasms in short supply, and your upgraded magical drone (sure is clumsy how it operates still), now able to shine lights into dark places. Darkness is a key part of this game, and becomes a puzzle itself. The locations are as ridiculously huge and unbelievable as ever, but thinking of these places as liminal spaces has made them a lot more interesting to me. 

I'm completely engaged in the story by this point, I can't wait to play the next game in the series, though feel a twinge of sadness knowing that there are only three of these micro-games to play and I will be caught up...completely. Really enjoyed Garten of Banban VI, who have I become?

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Anacoreta (2022) - Horror Film Review

Anacoreta is a found footage horror with an intriguing meta twist to it. It was directed and co-written by Jeremy Schuetze, the other writer being Matt Visser. The meta part is that these two people play fictional versions of themselves within the film, with them carrying out the same roles there. Watching this, the question becomes - what is fabricated as part of the film within a film that is being made, and what is actually 'real' within the film world?

Jeremy (Schuetze), his actress girlfriend Antonia (Antonia Thomas - The Good Doctor), and lifelong friends, Matt (Visser) and Jesse (Jesse Stanley - Van Helsing) have gone to spend the weekend at the remote cabin that had belonged to Jeremy's grandpa. With the cabin due to be sold due to the recent death of the grandpa, Jeremy both wants to visit the place one last time, but also has plans to make an experimental found footage horror film while there. To do this, he has hired a camera man who has been instructed to film the group. As time goes on, Jeremy's increasingly heavy handed directorial style, and his insertion of fabricated scary events that the rest of the group hadn't been made aware of, soon leads to the group of friends starting to fracture.

I appreciate what films such as Anacoreta are trying to achieve, and here, trying to forever keep the viewer guessing as to what is fact and what is fiction, that part of the experience was effective. One issue with these types of films is that rather than the viewer wonder what is actually going on, they might just come to assume that nothing shown is to be taken as real, and so any moments of horror come heavily diluted. Straight away, I was wondering if the found footage being presented was the actual film the in-world characters had been planning to make, rather than it seeming like this was the unedited footage prior to that film being created (if that makes any sense). There wasn't any type of title text saying how the footage was discovered, perfectly fine, there doesn't always need to be, More glaring was the addition of a soundtrack, especially popping up during key scenes. It is hard to take the found footage seriously when there is music playing during the more dramatic moments. In a meta way this is likely all purposeful, if what the viewer is being shown is actually the finished product that the in-film characters were trying to make, then it works as it is certainly an experimental horror. To be honest, I might be set in my ways, but I would have been more happy with the story the characters came up with actually being the story. Their idea is to travel to a remote mausoleum with creepy grave stones styled as chairs, and there was a fun legend explaining what would happen if they did that, which would have been fun to see.
The horror moments when they come are often swiftly revealed to be red herrings. These include a mysterious truck following the group wherever they drive, a butchered cat, and one of the group getting strange visions. I did like how the viewer is never made aware of some of the twists within the film-making, At one point the group are meant to be deep on a hiking trail, the camera panning across at one point to reveal to the viewers for the first time that the group were actually right next to their cabin and the whole 'hike' was a fabricated part of the movie they were making.

The cast were pretty decent, I especially thought the character of Jeremy was good, mainly due to how detestable he became as the film went on. His manipulative nature means viewers and characters alike become to doubt anything he says or does, and Antonio is decent, with the gradual breakdown in trust for her boyfriend who she had thought she knew and loved.
The editing throughout this was good, occasional split second moments that hinted at horror not acknowledged, such as an early scene where a character jumps into a lake and red blood appears to spill out from her. I also liked a part near the film's conclusion where brief scenes from earlier in the movie appear, but digitally corrupted. The film was clever at creating moments where it seems like errors had been accidentally left in, such as a boom stick appearing in shots, and scenes being repeated several takes in a row.

Anacoreta was certainly an interesting idea. The central idea of not knowing what is real or not did take a huge amount of any potential horror out of this, but it was achieved well enough. Not at all a scary found footage, but well crafted and can be appreciated despite not being much of a horror. Anacoreta came to streaming and Digital HD services on February 24th, including Apple TV, Prime Video, and Fandango at Home.

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Demon Squad: Tooth and Claw (2026) - Horror Film Review

Directed and co-written by Thomas Smith (Backwoods), Demon Squad: Tooth and Claw is the crowd funded sequel to Demon Squad (2019); an indie horror-noir (love that moniker) that got a cult following after being featured on season 13 of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I can't say that I've even heard of that first film, but found with this one a charming and light hearted paranormal detective film that featured an endearing and charming protagonist.

Nick Moon (Khristian Fulmer - Demon Squad, Night of the Krampus) is a paranormal investigator who is called upon by the authorities to solve cases of an unnatural nature in the Southern city he lives in. Blessed with natural magical powers, and with an empath assistant - Daisy (Erin Lilley - Demon Squad, The Night Shift), the duo solve mysteries and defeat creatures who wish humans harm. The latest case sees Moon investigating a series of strange deaths, with the victims seeming to have been torn apart as if by a wild beast. This comes at a time when he learns that his magical powers are at risk of killing him should he continue to use them, while his gadget filled gauntlet he wears has become unreliable. Due to this, Moon must rely on his wits and charm alone to find and stop whoever or whatever is responsible.

This is an indie film that carries with it a lot of ambition. This felt grander in scope and in quality than you might expect of a crowd funded adventure horror. A high energy soundtrack and impressive production values make this seem like a indie version of a big budget epic such as Indiana Jones, albeit with much reduced spectacle to be seen. There are scenes of action, and these scenes are entertaining to watch, but mostly the film is about characters talking to other characters. Nowadays it is unfortunately rare to have a protagonist who is fun to follow around, thankfully, Nick Moon was the highlight of this movie. He fits the lovable rogue archetype, smooth talking, self confident and capable, though often coming across as a bit of an idiot, despite being obviously very respected in his field of work. The best part about him was his somewhat heart of gold, he isn't heavy handed, or too serious, and often seems to choose violence as a last resort. He had an iconic look with red leather jacket, Hawaiian shirt and trilby hat, making him the centre of attention in any scene he is in. I liked the rapport Daisy had with her mentor, while Moon's old partner; Hank (Rob Eubanks - The Passenger) was another likable character, again someone who it felt shared a history with the character.

Scenes of action when they come are short lived but entertaining. It had a slight Buffy the Vampire Slayer feel with the look of some of the monsters, but with older characters, and characters who seemed more experienced and world worn. Action scenes were supplemented with CG effects for the magic which worked perfectly fine, and monsters were a mix of prosthetics, monster suits, and puppetry, all of which fitted the vibe of the film world.
The plot was relatively simple, I liked the detective angle to it, such as looking at crime scenes. The mix of the supernatural and detective genres was well done. I enjoyed the slowish pace and the relative lack of much peril, it made for a film that had a chilled out vibe to it, even with some moments of darkness. I did feel that the film's finale had some small pacing issues, but other than that I thought it was all decent.

Demon Squad: Tooth and Claw was a pleasant movie that had a good feel for its film universe. With all the horrid stuff going on in the world at the moment, I found this film to be the perfect tonic, a neat piece of escapism. It isn't too hard to see the limitations of the budget at times, but the production on this was impressive, and the likable characters carried this through.

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Garten of Banban IV (2023) - Horror Video Game Review

I think something has broken within me. I initially picked up Garten of Banban as a stop gap mascot horror game to play while I was waiting for later entries of Poppy Playtime to go on sale (being jobless at the moment, my limited budget doesn't stretch to buying full price games, even as relatively cheap as these all are). Since then Poppy Playtime: Chapter 4 has gone on sale and I have brought it. I also picked up a bunch of the Garten of Banban games at the same time, and despite the low quality...I am completely hooked on them! A part of me knows that this is a subpar series, but I just cannot stop playing the damn things! With a choice of the fourth Poppy Playtime or Garten of Banban IV, I somehow chose the later. As always, unavoidable spoilers to follow.

Having escaped finally from Stinger Flynn at the end of Garten of Banban III, you have descended down to the mysterious fourth floor of the seemingly infinite basement complex hidden under Banban's Kindergarten, with a chick creature in tow. It isn't long before you have once again been captured, this time by new creature - Sheriff Toadster. In a weird twist, Sheriff Toadster is a subject of a kangaroo themed creature called Queen Bouncelia, and both of these creatures are shockingly actually non-hostile to you. Sympathetic to your search for your missing child (children?), Queen Bouncelia instructs Sheriff Toadster to help you retrieve three parts of a damaged elevator from around her kingdom, which when repaired will take you back up to one of the higher levels where you can continue your search.

I played through this game in one single sitting, and I have to say it was by far the most polished and fun to play one yet. Your objective is clear from the start, and with this level split into four distinct sections, it is clear also where you need to go. There is a load of lore, notes mainly talk about Sheriff Toadster and Queen Bouncelia, later on you get audio diaries that talk about the rogues gallery of creatures you have previously encountered (who of course once again appear here). With each subsequent game, this distances itself more and more from Poppy Playtime. I loved that not all the creatures are hostile to you, and I liked how self contained this game felt. It both gives further beats to the main story, while also having its own little plot going on of a rebel jester creature that is on the level causing mischief.

There is the usual assortment of fun and easy puzzles, from spot the difference, to again more switch pressing with your magical teleporting drone. There were also a couple of chase sequences (one that starts immediately at game's beginning), and another kind of boss fight against a new giant creature occurs. That boss fight was a low point of IV though, involving you tricking it into running into giant switches, it took me many many goes before I finally worked out how to do that. According to my Playstation 5, this was the longest game yet, with me taking about two hours to finish it. Each subsequent game costs more than the previous one, but this was still well under £10. This is a brief experience, but it was also a fun one. There is something about the basic creature designs that just become more and more appealing with time.

It is crazy to me that four Garten of Banban games were released in the space of a year (actually five in the end). There has been a thankful gradual improvement with each game, this one being the most fun I've had yet. It wouldn't make much sense to pick up Garten of Banban IV if you haven't played the previous games, but from the growing quality (there are some actual attractive looking locations here, and the increase in background music is much appreciated), this one was by far the best one yet. Just don't expect anything remotely scary, the jump scares are once again ineffectual, and the content very horror slight.
With eight games in the series released, you would assume that the next game will be Garten of Banban V. That is not the case though. Tune in to the next review to find out more.

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Yes, I am a Vampire (2024) - by Stephen Kozeniewski - Horror Short Story Collection

In anticipation of getting a lot of reading done on a (so far) relaxing holiday to visit family in Australia I was sorting out my back log of shame. I have some books dating back to around 2014, including one from Stephen Kozeniewski (The Thing Under Your Bed) which to my embarrassment I noticed wasn't in a format that I'm able to use on my Kindle. It's a shame, as my favourite story in this short story collection (previously I would have called this an anthology but the author spells out the difference of that and collections here) is based in that book's world (that book being Braineater Jones) and it sounds like a grand world indeed. Anyway, Yes, I am a Vampire isn't quite as old as that book, receiving the eBook at the end of 2024. I guess that makes this quite a speedy turnaround!

Yes, I am a Vampire is a horror collection with a difference. From the title alone I imagined this to be an anthology collection of short vampire stories (doing my usual thing of barely skimming the synopsis of anything I am sent so as not to be spoiled on the contents). Not only is it the collected short works of Kozeniewski from 2013-2016, it is also half an autobiography. Each of the 12 short stories is followed by a lengthy afterword which not only talks about the inspiration for the story, but also goes into details of what was going on in the author's life at the time some of these were quite frank. For this review, I will follow a similar format, giving some unwanted and self indulgent background on where I was and what I was doing as I read these stories.

It all begins with microfiction piece 'Clockwork Offal', a one page story that at first went over my head, but each subsequent read it dawned on me more and more the horror being suggested. The afterword is where it became apparant that Kozeniewski really was dedicating half of this book on writing about his own trials and tribulations with getting his work published. He mentioned Braineater Jones here, and that sparked a memory that I thought I had a copy of this sitting in an email somewhere waiting to be read (as stated, I kind of did, but I hadn't bothered to check if it worked at the time). 

'The Thing Under The Bed' is next. I had previously reviewed the novella The Thing Under Your Bed, and almost skipped this one thinking it was just a repeat. Glad I did read this as it was a completely different and much shorter version of that neat story. Some of the awkwardly placed England references (this being set in London) are explained in the afterword, and it was there where Brian Keene's The Rising and City of the Dead is mentioned. I have fond memories of those two books, being some of the first zombie novels I ever read (the talking zombie lion at the zoo is forever burned into the undead appreciation part of my brain).

As may be apparent from this blog's name, zombies are by far my most favourite type of horror monster, so it was pleasing to see so many of the short stories here to feature the undead. The first of these was the crassly titled 'Exploding Sh*t Zombies' that as its title suggests, is one of the more grim zombie apocalypses. Many of the short stories in this collection are taken from the author's novels, this being one of those. I thought this story had a fun bait and switch at the start and was quite humourous. I was (very) indirectly mentioned in the notes for this one when Kozeniewski mentions sending his novel Braineater Jones off to a horde of various bloggers and reviewers back when it was first written.
This was the start of a bunch of undead tales, 'The New Dark Ages' was a bleak and grim one, starting off as a fantasy, before being revealed to actually be a Dungeons & Dragons game that a group of friends hiding out from an undead uprising were playing, before the rug pull of something far more twisted. The author in the notes mentions the cover for the anthology this one was originally published in was quite ugly. Having Googled the cover image; yup, it sure was a hideous cover!
'The Man With Four Scars' was a great story, a zombie story but one that takes place during caveman times. I have never read anything similar before, and having the story told from the perspective of a prehistoric human with his own way of talking and describing things was fascinating. I read this one in two parts, having crashed after drinking two strong cups of coffee in a row. The most exciting part of this somewhat haunting story picked up immediately from where I had paused reading, so I demolished this story upon getting back to it.

That brings me up to almost present day (at time of typing). The rest of the collection I read in the span of a day while out on holiday in Australia (where I will be until the end of March). I tried to read 'The Key to the Stars' back in the U.K while my best friend was staying at my house. I couldn't recall a word when I returned to it, so began again. I thought this was a charming story, and one of the most light hearted ones. A sci-fi story about a girl who encounters a holographic projection of an alien in the 1950's. It mixes this story with a real account of an alien encounter to wonderful effect. For me 'The Old Man and the Seesaw' was the highlight of this short story collection. Set in the Braineater Jones world, it is another that shows imagination, the titular 'old man' referring to a zombie fetus whose fortunate early immersion in an alcoholic based preserving formula led to it being one of the oldest surviving zombies in that alternate world where sentient undead have emerged who require alcohol to keep their faculties. The notes for this one particularly resonated to me, the authors hopes to one day be able to write full time and not need to have a bill paying day job echoing my desire to one day somehow be able to do the same, but with my blog.
The last zombie story follows with 'Cadaver Bite', showing an unusual form of execution used during a zombie outbreak. I was sat nearby a radio and got engrossed enough in this one that the words being spoken on the radio faded away to nothing for me.
This review is perhaps getting a bit self indulgent and lengthy so will zoom through the last four stories. 'The Quiet Life' is very similar to A Quiet Place, but as the notes afterwards say, this was actually written a few years before that film came out. The final three stories are all single page microfiction stories set around Christmas; 'Traditions', 'A Visit From...' and 'Brightly Shining' were all excellent and twisted in their own ways, a lovely finish to this collection.

I have always had a love of anthologies (well, in this case, collections), so with Yes, I am a Vampire I found yet another one that I enjoyed. Truthfully, there wasn't a short story I didn't like, but there were some that were in my mind much better written than others. I was of course also pleased that so many of these featured zombies, that is never going to be anything other than a positive thing in my mind. The autobiographical part was also very interesting. It challenged my baseless assumptions that all published authors are effortlessly able to get their stories out. 

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