What We Do in the Shadows: Season 1 (2019) - Comedy Horror TV Series Review

I let myself down with my blog output last week. That time I blamed it all on a work night out that drained my life force. This time around I have more of an excuse for not sticking up five posts, due to getting a day-less weekend and so only able to work on my blog on this Saturday (at time of typing). Not that that is related to this review of season 1 of What We Do in the Shadows. I loved the 2014 film of the same name, and this ten episode season follows the same format of having events presented as a mockumentary, but the location is moved to a new location and with a completely new set of characters. Often TV shows based on films can be pretty bad, but watching this on and off over about the span of a year, it really wasn't bad.

The show follows four vampire housemates who have lived together on Staten Island for over a century. They are Nandor the Relentless (Kayvan Novak - Four Lions), married couple - Laszlo (Matt Berry - The IT Crowd) and Nadja (Natasia Demetriou), as well as energy vampire Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch - The Office). Each episode is mostly self contained, with an ongoing central plot going on to link them all together, and several minor subplots playing out. Nadja has discovered the latest reincarnation of her eternal lover and is secretly courting him. Nandor's much put upon familiar, Guillermo de la Cruz (Harvey Guillén) comes to suspect his true calling, while the vampires are visited by ancient vampire, Baron Afanas (Doug Jones - The Shape of Water), who tells the house they have been tasked with seizing control of Staten Island by the vampire council; something the group really don't want to have to do.

I loved the opening credit sequence to this show, always being something I watched even with the option to skip it each episode. It shows a montage of the vampires over the ages, starting with oil paintings and ending with photos of them. All of these cast members were great it has to be said. Berry is fantastic in every role I've seen him in, and that is no exception here. I love the way he speaks, and him yelling "bat!" whenever he transforms into one never got tiring. I thought he would be the scene stealer of the show but the rest of the cast capture the screen just as well. These vampires are petty and arrogant, but also innocent when it comes to understanding how the modern world works. The central plot may be about taking control of Staten Island but the episode to episode plots are much more low stakes. In episode 5 'Animal Control' for instance, the group have to rescue Laszlo, after animal control captured him while he was in a bat form, and in 'Citizenship' the main plot is about Nandor applying for American citizenship with comedic results. An unsung character was Guillermo, a toady vampire hopeful who actually gets the most character development by season end, even if it all comes in final episode 'Ancestry'. One trick pony Colin Robinson also delighted, it was fun having a non-typical vampire whose skill is boring people so much that he is able to drain their life force.

Each roughly half hour episode is full of dry humour and all follow a similar format. At times it was a little samey, and there wasn't a single episode in the first season that stood out as a highlight. The mockumentary format isn't overused; there are interviews with the characters and mild interactions with the film crew, but mostly that fades into the background a bit. I did like the editing, often with reference to events that have happened in the past there are silly little montages to show what is being referred to. The characters are anti-heroes and lethal, but on screen they are often shown as dense and mildly incompetent. There are deaths on screen, those veering more towards comedy than horror, but they looked good to my eyes.

Not my best review, but then I did watch the show over a one year period, so my memory of much of it is fuzzy. Season 1 of What We Do in the Shadows was a good starting point. I wouldn't say it was amazing, or as funny as the film it was based on, but it was very watchable even if I didn't personally find it binge-worthy. What We Do in the Shadows is currently streaming on Disney+.

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The Dollmaker (2025) - Horror Film Review

What a strange film the José María Cicala (Alone) directed and co-written horror, The Dollmaker is. At times darkly comedic, at times disturbing, and at times bafflingly confusing. Strong performances from much of the cast and a Lynchian vibe, but would it all be a bit too odd for its own good?

In a remote Argentinian town, a new police inspector has arrived. Despite being assured that nothing bad ever happens there, he soon identifies that there has been a bunch of disappearances of young women in the area, and suspects they have been kidnapped or worse. Meanwhile, weedy yet likeable Tomás (Rodrigo Noya) is living his simple life as best he can. He works at the local video rental store, helps out at a nearby psychiatric centre, and looks after his disabled mother in the evenings. While attending a group therapy session at the psychiatric centre he encounters waitress Tina (Griselda Sanchez), and finds an immediate attraction to her, in time the two begin dating. Tomás is not entirely sane it turns out, with it heavily implied his mother is actually just a life-size doll, and wherever he goes, he sees blood stained hallucinations of his actual mother. Tina also happens to have a few issues of her own, mainly that she can see ghosts wherever she goes.

A very odd film which didn't so much tell a complete story as throw you into the middle of one that has been going on a long time already by film's beginning. Tomás made for a peculiar lead, a small, scrawny young man who is disarmingly innocent with his milk bottle bottom glasses that make his eyes appear huge, and his nervous, yet earnest smile. It is made clear early on that all is not right with the chap, but it takes a good while for the suspected confirmation of just how down the insanity slide he is. His relationship with the beautiful Tina felt so unlikely and out of place that I could not accept it as real. With so many hallucinations captured on film, I assumed this was all in his head or something, and so didn't give this part of the film the respect it deserved. The story in general played out well, but comes to an absolutely bewildering finish. Honestly, the last few minutes of the film went completely over my head, enough that I was unclear as to the actual resolution of the story. I think the ending wasn't meant to be taken literally, but I couldn't parse what it was trying to say.

There is plenty of black humour, none of this is 100% serious, as can be seen with the comically inept local police, and one actor playing three different roles as triplets. There are also some more darker scenes throughout, such as an uncomfortable rape scene early on, and people chained up and abused. Blood looked good on camera, and a satisfying enough amount of and there were a bunch of grim and brutally stark death scenes, all contrasting nicely with the worn out and dilapidated feel of the town the film takes place around. 

The Dollmaker was something far different to what I imagined it would be about. A good cast and effective locations made for a memorable if strange film, and Noya made for a memorable lead. I can't say I was too impressed with how this all got resolved, and it was a bit strange but I was still held captive for the 100 minute runtime. The Dollmaker comes to North American VOD and digital on August 25th via Cinephobia Releasing. Rodrigo Noya won the award for 'Best Actor' in the movie's US premiere at Screamfest in Los Angeles.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Thursday 6th August 2026

Yet another week, and the hot summer is continuing with seemingly no end. The poor grass is as yellow as straw outside my home, and I am awash in fans of various shapes and sizes, keeping my rotted corpse from decomposing in this humid heat. Onwards to the news.

At the start of July, indie psychological thriller, Farm House came to streaming on Amazon Prime Video, distributed by Bayview Entertainment. In this Frank Palangi directed and co-written horror, a house-sitters relaxing weekend turns into a fight for survival. Inspired by the real life Warren County serial killings, this also draws from true-crime and classic 1980s slasher tropes.   

Streaming platform BloodStream has been putting out some experimental vertical horror series lately, designed to be watched on a mobile phone. Coming to the platform are both Umbral and I Will Kill You. Umbral comes from Chilean director Gerson Vega and released on August 1st. The 9 episode series is a 'surreal nightmare about a man trapped in a dream world controlled by a mysterious entity, the lines between reality and dreams completely blurred'. The film is presented in Spanish, and a trailer can be seen here.

Finally for today, Italian found footage movie Watchful Eyes is a Found TV exclusive, premiering on August 7th in the United States, Canada and Italy. Directed by Gianluca Lasaracina, this follows Sebastian, a man attempting to rebuild his life after the death of his daughter, and losing his job. He gets a job as a janitor at a university, where he is tasked with covertly watching five students suspected of being related to an unexplained death of a university professor, but whose death may actually be more supernatural in nature.

Smile 2 (2024) - Horror Film Review

My intention last week was to put out a whole five days of blog posts, but the way I watched Parker Finn's (Smile, Laura Hasn't Slept) horror sequel Smile 2, meant that it was late Monday evening before I got to the end credits and so couldn't write up the review until this past weekend. I really loved the idea of Smile, but the film was ruined a bit for me by the trailers which showed near enough every scene of horror. I avoided trailers for Smile 2 when that came out, but did lead to me accidentally missing it at the cinema, only getting to see it once it hit streaming services, in this case, Netflix. To give the film the best chance possible, I intended to watch this at night once the sun had set. Being summer here in the UK, the sun didn't set until late enough that I only managed to get 20 minutes on my first attempt, before I was hit with tiredness and went bed. The next attempt the next day was a little better, but again sleep claimed me, this time with 40 minutes left of the 127 minute movie. Finally, on attempt three I finished this!
Smile was a film whose central idea appealed to me far more than the film itself, would that be the case for the sequel? Of course, some unavoidable spoilers for the first film here.

Smile 2 is a direct sequel, picking up six days after the end of the first film, with the sole surviving (though cursed) character meeting their bloody end at the hands of the Smile demon. Witnessing this end is small-time drug dealer Lewis (Lukas Gage - Deadcon, Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse), unknowingly cursed to die after a solid week of increasingly demented and twisted events. Now Lewis just so happens to have quite the famous customer. Skye Riley (Naomi Scott - Aladdin) is a world famous popstar who is on the brink of a huge comeback tour, returning to her career both after a serious car accident a year previously that killed her boyfriend, and her subsequently ending up in a rehab centre for drug addiction. Still suffering some long term effects of her crash, and unable to get anything for the pain the legal way, Skye relies on Lewis for pain killers. Needing some of those, she visits Lewis at his home, unluckily turning up on the last day of  his life. Skye now finds herself saddled with the curse, and with her under an enormous amount of pressure due to her tour beginning in a week's time, she initially puts down all the freaky occurrences to stress. Learning quite late what is actually going on with her, she is contacted by a stranger who states he has an idea how to end the Smile curse once and for all.

For the first third of this sequel I was feeling a little deflated, it felt like it was just going through the same motions again, rather than feeling too different. I slowly began to appreciate the differences, especially with the idea of using a world famous character as the protagonist for a curse film (there are enough of these type of films that it is pretty much its own horror sub-genre now). Someone who is unable to go out in public without being recognised, and who certainly can't be seen to be freaking out with so much riding on her comeback tour leads to a fresh dynamic. Mixed in with the traditional horror, is more relatable anxiety around public performances, which the side effects of her curse lead to some really awkward and uncomfortable scenes of her acting insane on stage in front of crowds of people, reacting to grotesque hallucinations that only she can see. These moments were hard to watch, not so much with the scares, but with the awkwardness of it all, I really wanted the ground to open up and swallow her at times!
A lot of the scenes of horror in the first half are Skye noticing creepily smiling people wherever she goes, something that the first film also did. This idea was expanded upon, especially with the amazing mid-film scene that had Skye's entire group of  background dancers, all grinning manically, silently and slowly hunting her around her dressing room, moving towards her as a single unit, but only moving whenever Skye is not looking their way - was a great scene!
Like the first film, again, the lead protagonist becomes someone unreliable for the viewer to follow. Both her and the viewers become unable to discern hallucination from reality, more subtly done I felt this time around so that entire sections of the film, and multiple side characters with pivotal roles are suggested to not have actually existed. The destruction of Skye's surface level perfect life unfolds in a Black Mirror type of way, most feeling similar to season 3 episode 'Nosedive', though without the comedy that one had. There is a sense of horror from the popstar irreversibly ruining her life as she struggles with the curse.

Violent deaths are the order of the day here again, with some brutal ones being shown fully on screen. A dementedly smiling Lewis bashing his face in with a large weight looked very gross, with him front and centre during the whole event. Special effects and make-up effects were amazing for these scenes, but when it comes to the Smile demon itself, I had a similar feel of it coming across as a bit artificial looking, having a cartoonish vibe. Not all the violence is shown on screen, with some kill scenes left to the imagination. Those ones work just as well, often due to the reactions of the on-screen character witnessing it.

Smile 2 was a good sequel whose use of a famous character as the lead made this stand apart from other films of this type. Her fame increased the isolation and terror the character faced, restricting her actions and increasing the pressure and stress beyond what a normal person would have had. Riley really is amazing in the lead role, and she was what made a lot of the film work so well. Despite that, this still feels to me like a greater idea on paper than execution. With the way this film inevitably ends (something that I guessed even before I had seen the movie), it opens up any third film to really do something different, so here's hoping.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Round-up for July 2026

Another month of me being lazy when it comes to this blog. Since returning to work back in May, I've really struggled to find a way to fit both day job and blog into my life equally. This week though, for sure there will actually be five posts going up! (news flash; there wasn't!) Onwards to the news.

Cinema Epoch have acquired worldwide distribution rights to Vito Trabucco's giallo comedy thriller - The Delicate Art of Cooking Italian and Killing Your Wife. This follows a man whose weekend is upended when he kills his wife - from this point nothing is quite as it seems for the man. The press release states it pays homage to the suspense traditions of Brian De Palma, Claude Chabrol, and Alfred Hitchcock, and stars Vince Cusimano (Blade: The Iron Cross), Tania Fox and Katt Balsan. The Delicate Art of Cooking Italian and Killing Your Wife has a worldwide digital release planned for late October.

The first teaser trailer for corrupted The Wonderful Wizard of Oz inspired; Dorothy: The Haunting of Oz has been released. The story takes place on Halloween where a viral internet challenge results in nightmarish characters appearing in a Californian town. This is to be the feature length debut for 22 year old writer/director, Elijah J. Alvarez, and will star Adrienne Tabag, Caia Bonner, Jordan Sklansky, Aziah King, Andrew Wang, and Thomas Shan.

Bloodstream premieres supernatural horror Evil Follows on Tuesday, August 4th, alongside its TVOD debut. This is written and directed by Brendan Rudnicki, and is a demonic possession horror (one of my favourite sub-genres of horror). In the film, a mysterious box unleashes an ancient evil when Sarah opens it. With her now possessed, her husband and a spiritualist look for a way to defeat the entity.

SEGA Europe and Creative Assembly have collaborated for an event during the UK's premier horror film festival; FrightFest. Over the five days of the festival; Thursday 27th August to Monday 31st at the Odean LUXE Leicester Square, guests will get to play the prologue of upcoming survival horror video game; Alien Isolation 2. The first game is often said to be one of the scariest horror games ever made, and so it is with good reason people are looking forward to seeing what a sequel brings. Staying on the topic of Alien; that original stone cold classic will be playing in the main Dolby Cinema auditorium screen on the Sunday at 15:30. For more info, check out the FrightFest website.

Joe Pellegrino's short horror film, Nymphal, is streaming for free worldwide on YouTube currently. This surreal and psychological story sees a man and his daughter trapped in their trailer backyard and has been described as 'Lynch meets Lovecraft'.

Finally for today, production began this month on psychological horror anthology; The Hours That Keep Us. Writer/director Tommy Jay Dwyer is to bring together three interconnected stories of love, loss, and obsession. Leading the cast are mixed martial artists Paige VanZant and Mickey Gall, Zack Ward (Freddy vs. Jason), and pro wrestler Vinny Pacifico (Mr. Reset and the Society of Turnbuckle & Bone). Produced by Greatest Gram Productions and HollyWoot Film Group, The Hours That Keep Us will shoot on location in Massachusetts.

Alien Storm (2026) - Sci-fi Horror Film Review

Alien Storm, co-written and directed by Adam Werth (Devil's Knight, Arena Wars) is the latest film from Mahal Empire. Over the years there have been consistently entertaining movies put out by them. The budget may often be low, but these always looked like they were fun to make. With such an ambitious global story here, would that be able to be adequately told in a little over 70 minutes?

A strange unnatural mist has began to appear in key areas all over the globe. Areas afflicted with this mist lose contact to the outside world. This alarming news is something the American President (Kevin Sorbo - Devil's Knight, Without a Body) bizarrely has only just been informed of - informed that key cities around the world have already gone dark, and that many areas in the US are now in the process of being lost!
Frank is the owner of a successful business, and happens to be hosting a large dinner party at his mansion when the mist appears. With reports on the TV stating to stay inside away from the mist, Frank invites his guests to use his newly constructed bunker, to stay there until the all-clear is given from the government. This might be a too little too late step for the guests though, as it becomes clear that as well as the mist, some sort of monster has infiltrated the grounds of Frank's property.

To cover such a global feeling story in such a relatively short run time was quite ambitious and the scope of the story is never that well realised. The prologue and President's briefing scenes attempt to show this, but more successful was the small montage of different news anchors reporting on the unfolding story.
Within the film, there is some discourse about whether the creatures are alien or demonic. This was just one area where it felt like this was trying to be a low budget version of Signs. In this case, the creatures look more like men in monster costumes. What they lack in realism they make up in numbers, a decent amount appear. You may never forget these don't look like actual monsters, but I did think the glowing red eyes they had made for a unique look, especially in the mist.
There are plenty of action scenes and a high body count. Many kills are shown via fast editing of monster attacks, which sold the kills well I felt. Following previous films, this is quantity over quality, with a huge cast of characters, most of which barely get screen time to give themselves personalities, these are mainly here to be cannon-fodder for the aliens. Some of the cast at least are given more to them, to make them less than one dimensional - such as the rivalry between two former sport stars, and Brian, the loveable albeit stupid uncle character.

There were pacing issues here, and some less than great set-design. With the former, there was barely much of a story here at all. Characters go out of their way to get in danger, and the resulting finale felt rushed through. High action and high stakes for sure, but this finale felt uncomfortably constrained in a ten minute burst. It wasn't an abrupt ending, but ended soon enough that a block of text appears on screen to explain what happened afterwards.
The bunker door for the bunker played a key role in the story, yet the door itself looked pretty wobbly, with the two doors that make up it never really coming together and closing properly. Didn't seem very effective for a supposedly tough door. The mist was overused, though only in the sense that every time it appeared it made everything look the same misty white, obscuring the environments and making it hard to make much out. The bunker interior did look fantastic however, a highlight of the locations used in the movie.

Alien Storm may have been a bit overly ambitious, but I enjoyed it. There was a streak of nihilism that made for an interesting feel and vibe. There were bound to be some less than amazing acting in the large cast, but I enjoyed the characters, regardless of how simple they were. There were parts of this that reminded me of the zombie sub-genre of horror, never a bad thing at all to discover. Alien Storm was released on 21st July and is available to rent or buy on Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video.

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GO Team Agents of C.A.N.U.C.K "Bitter Rivals/African Assault" (2023) by I.D Russell - Comedy Action Novel Review

I've read a bunch of author, I.D Russell's novels in the past. He is someone I discovered while watching his film adaptation of his comedy thriller; The Killing Death. There, I liked the silly type of humour that also came with moments of bloody horror. Earlier this year, Russell sent me a whole bunch of his more recent novels, the first of these I chose to read was his comedy action novel; GO Team Agents of C.A.N.U.C.K "Bitter Rivals/African Assault".

I might be mistaken, but I believe this novel is a spiritual sequel to The Revengist series; a comedy crime trilogy. The GO Team are a secretive Canadian elite special squad who carry out dangerous missions around the world that few others would be able to complete. Set in the 1980s, the once powerful GO Team is now a shadow of its former self, with the outfit only having three agents to its name. Hunglo is the Asian kung-fu expert, Brutal Suzy is an expert sniper, while Doll-Face (Jessica) is the newest member and an all rounder. During a routine mission, these agents discover America's flashy and non-secret version of GO Team, their one named Uncle Sam Squad, soon becomes known worldwide for always getting the job done with minimal casualties. With Uncle Sam Squad beating GO Team to their every mission, the Canadian outfit get closed down, seen as no longer needed. Desperate to stay relevant, the team go rogue, certain if they carry out one last mission, that their use to the world will be recognised.

First off, GO Team is a great novel. The humour is transferred here effortlessly, and it very rarely misses. To be honest, I came here for more of Frank Malone. This detective character may be a clone of Police Squad's Frank Drebin, but I adore the character and his matter of fact literal view of the world. Sadly for me, Frank barely features here. Mentioned in passing, he only makes on appearance for a third of a single chapter. He was on glorious form when he did appear, and the rest of the book was so entertaining that his mild role wasn't an issue.
The book's title suggests a double header, but Bitter Rivals and African Assault flow together much more smoothly than that. The only real link between the two are the chapters dedicated to sadistic dictator Mbunga, demonstrating how cartoonishly evil he is. For all the breezy larger than life characters, there are some strong moments of darkness, including a few scenes of torture and plenty of harsh threats. Though, mostly, the novel runs more comedic than anything else.

GO Team felt like action figures brought to life upon the pages. Each character has a strong personality and iconic look. This vibe was purposeful, with the story never trying to take itself super seriously. One amusing mid-book part has GO Team trying to infiltrate Uncle Sam Squad's huge and impractical mobile fortress. This whole part screamed M.A.S.K to me (something I loved as a child), especially with the location of a petrol station named Boulder Hill. As a child I had the M.A.S.K base, of course set at a petrol station with that same name. That whole part of the book had GO Team at its best, funny, exciting, and unique in equal measure.
The protagonists of the novel reminded me a bit of the characters from Archer. Not so much incompetent, as competent, but constantly finding themselves in ridiculous situations. They were a likeable bunch, so were fun to follow around.

You may well wonder what a review of a comedy action novel is doing on a horror blog. Initially, my excuse was that the novel includes Frank Malone; a character who has feature in comedy horror novels previously. For purists however, there is horror in a form that was very close to my heart, that appeared in the closing sections, but which I won't speak of for fear of spoilers. I enjoyed GO Team Agents of C.A.N.U.C.K "Bitter Rivals/African Assault". Sure, the portrayal of the African characters all being prone to superstition did feel a bit antiquated, but mostly the novel was forever on point. Maybe the 'African Assault' part of the novel could have been extended slightly, to feel less like a fever dream (taking place over the back third of the novel), but overall, this was a wonderful blend of comedy and action.

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Lars Shrike Walks the Night (2024) - Sci-fi Film Review

Sci-fi is often a not too distant cousin to horror, so, the Gary Walkow (The Trouble With Dick) written and directed Lars Shrike Walks the Night seemed on paper like a good fit for this humble blog. I admit, more than anything, I was interested in this due to Kelsey Grammer (Frasier, Cheers) starring. This very low budget, indie arthouse thriller was far more slow paced than I had anticipated, full of philosophical musings rather than moments of action.

Lars (Grammer), suffering amnesia, finds himself wandering a strange desert. All he can remember is his name, and that he had recently escaped from a prison based on an alien prison planet. The man has the clothes on his back, and an A.I controlled rifle, which is rapidly losing power. Lars' journey sees him travel down a narrow ravine, which results in him somehow ending up in modern day California. In a library, Lars discovers that he may actually just be a character from a sci-fi novel, and decides to track down the author of the novel in order to try and discover the truth of who he actually is.

For the first ten to fifteen minutes, this looked like it would just be a very cheaply made sci-fi B-movie. I thought to myself that Grammer must have fallen on hard times to have agreed to star in this. Whether that is the case or not, this turned out to be a more intelligent film than first impressions had suggested. It is relatively early on when Lars finds himself on Earth, but much longer before he realises this fact. It was somewhat amusing looking at Earth technology through an alien lens. Taking the form of such moments as Lars believing homes to be prison cells, and being mystified when he attempts to use a PC.
The sci-fi plot soon transitions into a more arthouse look at what it means to be alive and having freewill. This becomes more a visual essay, and while light on action, there are some interesting ideas to be discovered here, but it is a slow paced film.

The majority of the movie has Lars on his own. There are a handful of side characters, but just the one felt like they were really integral to the story playing out. This isn't something that takes itself super seriously - the talking gun for example is patently ridiculous, while Lars continuing confusion when dealing with modern day Earth is always exaggerated. His wanderings through desert and later California is a lonely and isolating trek, his journey constantly narrated by David Clennon, who starred in the 1987 sci-fi movie tangential prequel; The Trouble With Dick. All the philosophical musings on the nature of man made for an interesting subject, but the story suffered as a result. It increasingly felt more abstract, culminating in an open ended finale, resolving this somewhat, without too much really happening.

Less a film and more a study into the nature of humanity, Lars Shrike Walks the Night soon loses its sci-fi disguise. Grammer was great in his unexpected role, but the slow pace and more artsy feel meant that while the dialogue might have had merit, what actually happens wasn't quite as exciting. Lars Shrike Walks the Night came to VOD on July 24th.

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Home (2026) by Trivia - Music EP Review

Trivia are a Sunderland based punk duo whose debut EP released on 18th July. Impressively, the two members; Hannah Hays and Lydia Stubbs are young teenagers, 14 and 15 respectively. Home is the title of their debut, and features five tracks over 20 minutes. As always, no clue what I'm doing when it comes to music reviews, so don't expect Shakespeare here.

Titular track 'Home' opens up the EP. Four minutes of high energy pop punk which reminded me of the style of B*tch Alert. Next is 'Schizophrenia', an early contender for best track. This features three minutes of mildly snarling singing with a heavy drum beat that was literal music to the ears. Giving a bit of a Courtney Love sound is middle track 'Where Do You Go?', another good one, and another thundering drum beat. Penultimate track 'Fade' continues the blistering punk rock sound, until 'Tonight' closes out the EP. At five minutes, this last track did wear out its welcome somewhat due to the repetitive nature of it.

Trivia's debut EP Home was a good listen, with the three tracks in the middle especially good to hear. I enjoyed it, and at 20 minutes was a perfect length all in all. Trivia have recently been picked up by Serial Bowl Records who are releasing the EP as a CD.

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The Mortuary Assistant (2026) - Horror Film Review

The Mortuary Assistant is a film adaptation of the video game of the same name in which you surprisingly play as a mortuary assistant. I haven't played the game, nor do I know much about it, but I can say it has been sat in my wish list for a while, so eventually I will get around to playing it. I decided to use my time with the movie trying to see if I could decipher what the game itself would involve; a fun little side quest I set myself. This was directed by Jeremiah Kipp (Crestfallen, Contact), with the screenplay coming from Tracee Beebe and Brian Clarke (the later being the creator of the video game this is based on).

Rebecca (Willa Holland - Gossip Girl, Straw Dogs), is a new mortuary assistant who has recently completed her training, allowing her to work unsupervised. She is also a recovering drug addict who has made it to one year free, important as it gives the character a dark backstory. Her creepy boss, Raymond (Paul Sparks - House of Cards, Thoroughbreds) had told her she would never be needed in the mortuary at night, but one dark and stormy evening he contacts her, telling her he is out of town, so she is needed to deal with some bodies that have been delivered there. Things begin fine, but then Rebecca begins to experience strange goings on. Power fluctuations, ringing phones and doors being knocked on, but no-one being there, and hallucinations of a manically grinning white humanoid. It isn't much later that she discovers she has become possessed by a demonic entity that had been residing in one of the corpses she had been working on, and now it is feeding off of her trauma to try and fully take control of the woman. Luckily for her, Raymond is all too aware of this risk of the job, and he has knowledge of how to deal with the situation. He is also someone looking to save his own skin, and so, rather than assist in person, he instead locks Rebecca in the mortuary and gives her some obtuse instructions via the phone.

Watching this, I hoped it would be doing something similar to the excellent The Autopsy of Jane Doe. Setting wise and situation wise those two films were quite similar. This film mostly takes place over a single night, with Rebecca all alone doing her best to adapt and survive to the hell she has found herself in. The hallucinations she experiences have consequence for her outside of being scary, as these hallucinations are able to physically hurt her. She is visited by these deadite style imitations of people who were/are close to her, with their torment revolving around an incident in Rebecca's past that the film keeps flashbacking to. In the present, Raymond does his best to bring both our protagonist and the viewer up to speed on the lore of the film world. I thought Sparks was great in his role, an interesting character who comes across as neutral rather than good or evil. The help he offers is sincere and legitimate, but he is also someone that doesn't want to put himself at unnecessary risk.
Her journey has her shunted through a series of hallucinations and dream sequences heaped on top of each other, transporting her through time and space. This created a dreamlike feel where I could never be too sure what was really happening and what was imagined, which caused the film's stakes to be drastically lowered. It is hard to fear for the safety of a protagonist when a lot of what she is facing may all be in her head.

The Mortuary Assistant had good atmosphere to it, but ultimately was never scary. The tendency to introduce moments of surprise terror with a musical intro led to those parts always falling flat. The confusing story led to moments when I wasn't exactly sure what Rebecca was trying to achieve, nor how she knew to do it. Within this, there are a few scenes of intense action, which were always fun to watch. The special effects were decent enough, and the make-up work on the various corpses looked neat. The prime antagonist here wasn't that iconic looking, appearing like no end of similar looking creatures in multitudes of short horror films. I do appreciate he was based on the creature from the video game, so not like there was any wiggle room to change its look.

I liked The Mortuary Assistant but I didn't love it. It will be interesting to play the video game and see if this movie retroactively improves or worsens the experience. There was atmosphere in spades here, but with a confusing story and a lack of scares, that atmosphere was squandered. Shudder original The Mortuary Assistant came to Blu-ray and DVD on 20th July thanks to Acorn Media International.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for 21st July 2026

The best laid plans of mice and men, a Saturday mostly wasted, instead of concentrating on this little blog. One film review down, but not the three I intended. Still, tomorrow is another day, hopefully I will get a good working ethic then!
Of course, none of that makes sense now, this was written last week prior to be deciding to be lazy and take a week off blogging. I blame the hot weather! Onwards to the late news.

Coming out on July 28th is Cleopatra Venom's new horror film - The Withering, on Digital video. The film concerns an old woman with terminal cancer. This lady becomes obsessed with a strange amulet she gets a hold of. This device siphons the life force of others in her town, keeping  her fit and healthy. The more she uses this however, the more sick the rest of the town become, as she becomes younger and stronger, the town begins to die, and is up to the woman's sister to come to the town's aid and destroy the device.

The Hoodoos is a supernatural horror comedy that became available to stream from July 1st on Amazon, Google TV and Vudu. Directed by Jonathan Waler and written by Sean-Michael Argo, the film is a combination of voodoo and a heist. The synopsis has a heist crew breaking into an abandoned plantation and stealing Confederate gold coins. With begrudging sorcerer in tow (due to magical wards), the crew head out, unaware that they will each encounter a sentient voodoo doll that is thirsty for mayhem.

Finally for today, news that Bayview Entertainment have acquired indie thriller; Grace of God. This Doomsday cult horror comes to streaming this summer. Written and directed by JT Kris, the film follows a 13 year old girl who becomes indoctrinated into a cult, and upon realising its darkness, seeks a way to escape.

Sick Puppy (2025) - Horror Film Review

Sick Puppy is a fitting title for a film as twisted as this. Written and directed by Jay Reid (in his feature length debut), this horror about a serial killer may appear to tackle hard subjects, but it also never strays too far from the darkly comedic.

John (Brett Geddes) is a serial killer. He likes to abduct young women, strip them naked and then lock them up in his basement, where he forces them to act as if they were a dog for his perverse sexual pleasure. Eventually, he will get bored of them/kill them in a fit of rage, and the cycle begins anew. Surprisingly, this is something that his loving wife, Charlie (Natasha Calis) is all too aware of. While she doesn't like her husband doing this, she still supports him, even going as far as to help him to dispose of the bodies. This unique hobby of John's is causing friction in the marriage however, Charlie getting jealous of the attention he gives his victims. After John promises to give up the abductions (to instead focus on his passion for pottery), Charlie is overjoyed. This leads to a chain of events where the roles get inadvertently reversed, with Charlie discovering she too has a passion for killing.

So, as can be inferred, the protagonists here are very much anti-heroes. Despite being a monster, there is something almost innocent to John. Sure he is sick and depraved, but he also very much loves his wife, and the joy he begins to get from making basic pottery was a bit endearing on screen. Charlie wasn't quite as innocent, having no moral issue to John's killings, no remorse for the victims, and only opposed to it for selfish reasons - she was not a good person.
The characters here are all of the small town type, and many share a history, having grown up together. You have a former school bully, now turned detective; Dale (Dylan Taylor - Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City) with his terrible attitude to life, and Mia (Rachel Boyd) - the flirty teenage daughter of a client that groundskeeper John works for, who acts as a kind of Lolita type character. This later acts as a constant temptation for John, with it alluded to that he likes young girls. To be fair to him, the scenes featuring him and Mia were some of the most amusing, with them having more of a friendly rivalry feel than disturbing love interest vibe. Again, John isn't a good person, but his restraint and patience for Mia was handled well. Over the course of the movie, John grows and changes as a person, while in contrast, Charlie seems to devolve into the secret monster she always was.
You would think with people dropping like flies around the couple that they would become suspects, but ineffective local law enforcement is the excuse given for why that isn't the case. This covered up some leaps in logic, but there are still some holes to be found if you examine the plot a little too closely.

There is a kill count, and it is varied enough to entertain. Strangulation, stabbings, and plenty of victim and attacker scenes of them rolling around the floor fighting each other. Blood looked good, and make-up wasn't half bad either.
The locations chosen are suitably grimy, especially the home of the depraved couple which was a bit decrepit looking. 
'Sick Puppy' applies to a lot of things here, obviously, the subject matter of John making his victims act like animals, and also, again obviously, reflected in the characters of John and Charlie. There is constant black humour that does work well on occasion. I thought the running joke of just how much John is into his terrible pottery was a good bit. The story was fine, with protagonists as terrible as these ones, I did wonder how the story would be wrapped up, I was pleased with the path this one took, was at once fitting, and also channelling some of that dark humour.

Sick Puppy was a twisted horror featuring a whole bunch of flawed and feral characters. A decent spin on a typical serial killer thriller, but without a character to care about, I left my viewing of this not really fussed about it either way. Sick Puppy is due to be released via High Fliers Films in the fourth quarter of this year.

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Pig Hill (2025) - Horror Film Review

Coming after Birdcall, the second of my animal themed horror reviews this week sees me get into the twisted world of the Kevin Lewis (Willy's Wonderland) directed Pig Hill. The subject matter of pig people is of course ridiculous, but to its credit, the film tackles that subject matter seriously.

There have been a lot of disappearances in and around the rural city of Meadville (that the end credits are very excited to state is a real place), and Carrie (Rainey Qualley - Ocean's Eight) has decided to write a book about this, hoping to be successful enough that she will be able to afford to move somewhere better. She is looking at the situation from the perspective of local legend, with many people believing human/pig hybrids live up in a remote area known as Pig Hill and they are responsible for the missing people. Of course, these investigations get the girl closer to the the truth than she ever realised she would.

Things do make more sense later on, but I was unprepared for the commitment to treating the silly subject seriously. As a protagonist, I really liked Carrie. She had a sleep-walking type of feel throughout Pig Hill that blended well with its more ethereal and hallucinogenic moments. It is rare to get a lead who is the movie's scene-stealer, but that was the case here. Qualley made each scene she appeared in better, purely by her being there. Not that she had too much competition, as a lot of the rest of the cast didn't seem as well...cast. Shane West (Gotham) plays Carrie's new love interest; Andy; a man with not one, but two tragic backstories to his name. He has such an earnest face and says his lines in such a matter of fact world weary resigned way that every word that came out of his mouth sounded fake. I could not take this character seriously, making for a character I did not care for at all. Better was Carrie's creepy brother, Chris (Shiloh Fernandez - Evil Dead), he has a real skill at oozing off-putting, too protective vibes in his relationship with his adored sibling. Back on the flipside there is Andy's best friend; a barman who is forced to have near enough his every line of dialogue come across as comedic, and out of place.

There are many dream sequences, lots of reality bending, and Carrie frequently hallucinates the pig man in various places watching her  - this all combines to make you feel something more supernatural may be going on. There was a trippy vibe to much of the film, with scenes bleeding into each other enough that you occasionally question if what you are seeing is real or part of a dream sequence. The occasional disorientating scene transition adds to the movie's default dream-like feel. When the story is eventually displayed in all its truth, it adds a different perspective to earlier scenes - certainly a grim subject matter! Gave me slight vibes of the Black Mirror episode 'Loch Henry'. I did really like where the film ended up going.

If you came to Pig Hill hoping for pig people, then sure, you will find them here, at least in some form. You will also get scenes of gore, sexual assault, and one over the top birth scene, invoking old school Peter Jackson gore-fests. I like that this tried to go somewhere unexpected with its story, and with good cinematography, editing effects and a good look, this horror wasn't terrible. Pig Hill is due out in the forth quarter this year, thanks to High Fliers Films.

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