House of the Dead II: Dead Aim (2005) - Horror Film Review

I've owned zombie horror film House of the Dead II: Dead Aim for many years, but I had such bad memories of the Uwe Boll directed original that I had long put off watching this sequel. That original made the cardinal sin of being as dull as dishwater, even if it had a couple of inspired moments, such as editing in gameplay from the Sega video games it was based on during some of its more action packed scenes. In terms of quality, this Michael Hurst (New Blood) directed sequel is not better, but is more entertaining in that special way that only low budget zombie films can be.

A university science professor trying to perfect a serum to resurrect the dead (a short but sweet role by cult actor Sid Haig - The Devil's Rejects) results in the accidental unleashing of a virus that turns the students and teachers of the university into flesh hungry ghouls. Catching the attention of a zombie hunting organisation known as A.M.S, they send two agents; Nightingale (Emmanuelle Vaugier - Saw II) and Ellis (Ed Quinn - Werewolf: The Beast Among Us) as well as a small group of soldiers to the place of learning. Their mission is to retrieve a blood sample from patient zero, with the hope a vaccine can be created from the blood. They are working against the clock however, the army planning to destroy the place by missiles in order to contain the contagion.

This was cheesy, predictable, and silly in a way that if not purposely done, was still a good reflection on the cheesy video games that the property spawned from. Over the hour and a half runtime there are many easily avoidable deaths, groan worthy one liners, and stupid ideas. One of the things I most love about zombie films is that it doesn't matter if the plot is particularly good, as long as there are enough undead I am going to be happy, content to switch off my brain and let the goofiness and mayhem wash over me. Unlike the first movie, this one remembers to be entertaining, from the start to the finish there isn't really a let-up, with the action forever increasing, and the odds of survival getting more and more ridiculous. Side characters mainly existed to be swiftly killed, it was funny how fast the soldiers were defeated, even one of them who stated he had fought the undead before, kept mistaking zombies for survivors until his luck ran out. Most memorable of these soldiers was Bart (James Parks - Kill Bill: Vol 1, Vol 2), a self serving and cocky man who was as entertaining as he was sleazy. I liked Nightingale and Ellis, they didn't have much to them other than tonnes of bravado and a willingness to be cold as ice when it came to dealing with the recently infected, but they did remind me of the protagonist duos you would see in the games.

Initially in small numbers, the amount of walking corpses increases as the film goes on. There did seem to be a bit of main character energy with the protagonists, as they are able to survive intense close quarters fighting of large groups without getting bitten or scratched, while the more expendable characters instantly get bitten. To be fair to them, by the end of the movie the zombie actors direction seems to be 'pretend you are in a mosh pit at a hardcore music festival' as they seemed to do little more than rush the heroes with their arms windmilling in large circles! There is plenty of blood, plenty of action, and a couple of references to the games. The games are not known for their deep stories, and this is the same, the plot is incredibly basic and fitted the vibe of a short and sweet arcade machine light gun game. Some later story beats were more silly than serious, but it gave a reason to increase the tension and threat level. Zombies were plentiful and looked the part, often appearing in huge groups. Nothing like the games, there were just zombies here and no other creatures, and those zombies look like former people rather than lab grown monstrosities. I was fine with this though, I was more than happy that the film was enjoyably dumb rather than a lesson in tedium. I also appreciated how this was linked to the first movie, rather than being a completely self contained story. Lastly, I enjoyed the bleak ending to this, always good to see in these types of movies!

With zombie films it is never so much 'is this good?' but more 'is this fun?' House of the Dead II: Dead Aim is not a good movie, but it was an enjoyable one. The university setting might not be the most original, in fact, there is little here that is original, but there are spirited performances from people who are likely all too aware of the level of film they are acting in. The story might be incredibly basic, but I kind of get the feeling that was the intention, and being from the early 2000s (that I have huge nostalgia for), this was a zombie film that did exactly what it set out to do, mindless entertainment.

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The Rotting Zombie's Round-Up of Horror News for February 2025

2025 has been continuing unexpectedly interesting in my personal life this year, while I'm trying to keep my rotted beak out of Reddit too much as there is some terrible things happening around the world at the moment it seems. Also, I have to say, I really dislike the apparent Nazi in charge of Twitter, but due to having the most followers on that platform I am stuck having to use it. I am however on Threads and Bluesky now. With that out the way, onwards to the news...

New werewolf film Byte is now on Tubi. The weird synopsis states a group of friends discover a phone app that claims to be able to transform people into werewolves, which coincides in a series of gruesome attacks around town. Written/directed by Eddie Lengyel (St Patrick's Day: The Sluagh Awakens), this stars Kayden Bryce (An Intrusion), Marshall Vargas (Specter) and Carlie Allen (Shredded).

Final Days: Tales from the End Times is a new anthology that as the title suggests is based around the apocalypse. Five different directors bring five different tales of the end of everything, with the film starring Robert LaSardo (Bloodthirst), Kayla Kelly, Seth Boyer, and Rodney B. Snyder. It is currently available exclusively on Amazon Prime Video to rent or buy, and beginning March 28th 2025, Terror Films Releasing will be releasing it across a variety of digital platforms.

The American Ripper is the latest horror film from ITN Movies. Said to be inspired by The Shining and Joker, this comes from filmmaking couple Chuck and Karolina Morrongiello who were responsible for all aspects of production, from acting to directing, the soundtrack, and editing. The synopsis has a newly married couple moving into a new house. It is here that the husband swiftly turns into a homicidal maniac, torturing his new wife, and killing anyone who gets in his way. The American Ripper is currently available on Tubi and Amazon.

Don't Get Eaten is a family horror-comedy set for digital debut for North American VOD platforms and DVD on March 4th 2025. The story is about a zombie apocalypse prepper whose wife is fed up with her husbands obsession with making zombie survival videos. On the advice of a couples therapist, the family head away for a technology free weekend, but it is here where an actual zombie apocalypse begins. Written and directed by George Simon and Joseph Simon, the cast include among them Justin Kilduff, Melinda Rose, Dale Dobson, and Reese Ravencraft.

Finally for today, March 11th 2025 sees the release of Troma Entertainment's Eating Miss Campbell on Blu-ray. This is a high school horror comedy about a vegan-goth introvert (Lyndsey Craine - Book of Monsters) whose affair with teacher Miss Campbell (Lala Barlow) results in the girl getting a taste for flesh and deciding to try and win the schools 'All You Can Eat Massacre' contest. Though not a sequel, Vito Trigo (Return to Nuke 'Em High), Lloyd Kaufman (President of Troma Entertainment), Dani Thompson (Video Shop Tales of Terror), and Laurence R. Harvey (The Human Centipede sequels) all reprise their roles from My Bloody Banjo.

Heretics (2024) - Horror Film Review

It had been a hot minute since I had last watched a found footage horror for review so I was ready to give the Jose Prendes (Monster Mash) directed and Ryan Ebert written Heretics a fair chance. This was very old school in how it was created and unfortunately that meant there was a lot to dislike here.

A bunch of teenage friends are having a drunken garden party one evening. With the alcohol flowing and the friends running out of ideas for what to do, one of them suggests that they head to the abandoned Simmons estate (no relation, my surname is 'Simmonds'!). It is a local place rumoured to be inhabited by crazy homeless people, which teens in the area visit as a test of their courage, to see if they can last the night there. Things briefly go well, but it isn't too long before the group find themselves under assault from a group of murderous demon worshipping cultists.

Firstly, I thought how the found footage aspect was presented was different to the normal way. There is some text at film's start but instead of stating the following was to be recovered footage found it is instead praising a demon named Lilith. I thought that screen and the one at the end of Heretics was probably the best idea here. This falls into all the usual generic tropes of the genre. It begins with a far too long introduction, twenty seven minutes of dumb teenagers playing drinking games and flirting might have intended to give the characters some fleshing out, but it just made me dislike them more than I would have without that part. By the half hour mark the teens have finally got to the abandoned house, I noted that it was thirty three minutes when the first moment that could be considered horror happened, and from here it is somehow all downhill.
Things progress predictably, lots of people filming for absolutely no reason, the scared teens constantly running into the basement rather than making any attempt to break the multitude of weak looking windows in the house proper, constant excuses as to why they shouldn't just try and escape, and then the third act. Third act goes full shaky cam, lots of really blurry and hard to see scenes put against static camera recordings that were so dark it was hard to make much out. This wasn't exciting, instead the most action packed section of the film felt plain dull.

There were too many characters to care about, none of which had much personality to them. Stand-out was Eva (Neeley Dayan), only because her being the only religious character made her easier to remember than the rest of the idiotic teens. I also enjoyed seeing prolific actor Eric Roberts (Devil's Knight, Down Below) in a small role here. I assume a lot of the dialogue was improvised as it was mainly made up of characters saying the same things in different ways over and over again. A bit where Jessica (Shelby Wright) films a video message for her parents while sniffling was a blatant homage to The Blair Witch Project, making me roll my eyes. The cultists unfortunately came across as comically cartoonish. When they first appeared, climbing through windows they briefly looked like a threat as it appeared they were wearing balaclavas so seemed intimidating. It soon became clear they were idiots too, black robed and wearing goofy black masks, it was hard to take them seriously, not helped by their bumbling around and Scooby-Doo type reveals of who they actually were. One thing Heretics does get right is the amount of on-screen deaths, with a large cast comes a large body count thankfully, and the sticky looking red blood looked good on screen.

Heretics had little bursts of good ideas but all too often it was content to be a derivative copy of found footages from before. This wasn't all terrible, and if for some reason you are in the mood for a brain dead found footage then Heretics will be right up your street.

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Schicksalsweg (2024) by Schatten Muse - Music Album Review

Schatten Muse are a band from Berlin/Athens whose sound the press release states is mainly influenced by electronic underground music of the 1980s and 1990s, especially with regards to NDT (New German Death Art). Schicksalsweg (Fateful Path in English)was released last year and brings together nine tracks of darkness.

The album has a simple, repetitive, and often addictive quality to its music. Sometimes sounding like a soundscape such as with 'Vergangen' and closing trio 'Es Stirbt Ein Teil Von Mir', 'Verlorene Seelen', and 'Zerrissenheit'. Music is by Shelmerdine, with all vocals/lyrics coming from Sylvia Fürst, and the lyrics are different to what you might expect. A lot of the time the vocals are more of a narration or incantation. I don't know German so the words mean nothing to me, but with the atmospheric music it sounded like a spell being spoken. Looking back to the press release it states the lyrical concept is about '...darkness, melancholy, isolation, philosophy of life and death, solitude, madness, depression, desperation, surrealism, expressionism, (and) existential philosophy...'.

The music remained simple throughout, such as the pulsating drumbeats on opener track 'Angst', and the piano led 'Fluss Des Lebens'. Second track 'Illusion' with its atmospheric Silent Hill mist-world type sound began a trip-hop sound that followed on to my favourite track 'Transzendenz' with a Depeche Mode vibe to it and that title constantly being spoken. The only other track to mention on the forty one minute album is the mournful 'Charlotte Manchmal', a track that I quite enjoyed.

I wouldn't say this genre of music is one I would say I'm a giant fan of, but I still did enjoy what I heard here. I felt this was better with tracks which felt more like isolated songs, rather than some of the later ones that became a bit abstract and soundscape like to my ears. There was plenty to like here, so I am glad I gave Schatten Muse's Schickalsweg a listen.

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#Manhole (2023) - Thriller Film Review

Last year I saw Fall, a dizzying thriller about a thrill seeker trapped at the top of a giant tower. Today's review is the complete inverse of that one; #Manhole, a Japanese one person disaster movie about a man who has fallen down a manhole. Directed by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri and written by Michitaka Okada, this seemed to be low on ideas, but turned out it was saving them all for the bonkers end.

Shensuke Kawamura (Yuto Nakajima) is a successful young salesman who is thrown a surprise party on the eve of his wedding to the daughter of the CEO of the company he works for. Him and his colleagues drink late into the night until eventually, a drunk Shensuke sets off for home. In the dark however he doesn't see an open manhole and promptly falls through the opening. Coming to, he realises that he sustained a nasty leg injury during the fall, and that even worse, the ladder leading out of the hole is broken. When he discovers that his phone's GPS appears to have been altered, so that he is unable to tell where he is, the man starts to suspect that this was all planned by someone out to cause him harm.

This avoids the usual plot device of the mobile phone being damaged or without signal and instead makes the phone a central part of the storytelling device. Being the middle of the night, Shensuke is unable to get through to any contacts on his phone, apart from awkwardly, a girl he had dated before he met his bride to be. He also gets through to the police, but due to his GPS not working they don't know how to locate the man. Much of the story for him comes through an in universe version of Twitter (Twitler?) called 'Pecker', on this social media platform he swiftly creates a profile named 'Manhole Girl', figuring people are more likely to assist him if they think he is a damsel in distress. It is via this platform that backstory for the type of person the protagonist is, is revealed to the viewer. The phone was an integral item, also being used to take photos that Shensuke hopes will identify where he is trapped, as well as for him to watch videos taken earlier in the evening, to look for clues on who may have spiked his drink (if he was indeed lured to the hole by someone sinister).

Make-up effects were effective, the protagonist getting more dirty and bloody as the one hour forty film goes on. The blood effects were good, and the manhole location was suitably gross. There always feels a need to have various unbelievable things happen to keep the movie interesting, and here is no different. Aside from his leg wound hindering his movement, other urgent matters randomly pop up, such as a gas pipe in the hole leaking gas, rain threatening to flood the hole, and waste from a slaughterhouse causing some type of foam to start filling up the space. These moments all felt a bit generic, this feeling not helped by the fact that Shensuke seems a bit of a self absorbed protagonist, thinking himself the most important person in the world.

By the end of the second act I felt like #Manhole may have ran out of energy, it became a bit meandering, and the dull location didn't do much to keep events exciting. Thankfully then, there is a third act that turns everything on its head. Flashbacks and revelations combine to make for story twists that I didn't remotely see coming. The film may end on a bit of a fun note, but it sure gets bleak along the way!

#Manhole started off fun enough but soon felt like it was running out of ideas. I  was glad that there was a fresh injection of thrills added in that third act as it really turned things around for me, leading to a thrilling finale that was full of dark humour as well as misery! #Manhole streams exclusively on SCREAMBOX from February 25th.

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The North Witch (2024) - Horror Film Review

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

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

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

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

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

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for February 20th 2025

Today sees my sister getting married, so I will be off busy with that this day, but should still have time to stick up this small news post, bringing three stories plucked from the bottom of my bloody news sack. Onwards to the news.

Starting with some music news and industrial rockers Gillsaw have released a new single with their track 'Siren Comes'. This is the second single from the group, following on from 'Rizen' and this brings a '...relentless blend of metal, electronic, and industrial elements'. The track is about a man who is tormented by night by the titular siren creature.

The Dead Rose is an upcoming feature film that is about a man (played by Jimmy Drain) who gets caught up in the world of organised crime, coming across a secretive cult planning on world domination in the process. This is written and to be directed by Drain, and other cast members include Eric Roberts (Babylon), Vernon Wells (The Road Warrior), and Richard Tyson (Black Hawk Down). Production for The Dead Rose continues in Denver, Colorado and Los Angeles this summer.

Finally for today, FOUND  TV have announced the exclusive streaming release of What Happened to Suzy, which will be coming to the platform on February 21st. Directed by James Ersted. This found footage horror is described as a social mystery horror, and is also going to be shown on the big screen at the Toronto Indie Horrorfest on April 3rd.

Delicate Arch (2024) - Horror Film Review

Delicate Arch (written and directed by Matthew Warren in his feature length directorial debut) is just the sort of messed up confusing horror that appeals to me. This desert based horror constantly hints at fourth wall breaking elements using similar ideas to The Cabin in the Woods, but executed better, and on par with the excellent Resolution and The Endless, even feeling like a companion piece to those messed up movies. It doesn't quite stick the landing however, running out of steam for its confusing and hard to follow third act.

With high pollution in the city causing health issues, four friends - film nerd Grant (William Leon), his ex-girlfriend Wilda (Kelley Mack - The Walking Dead TV series), stoner Ferg (Rene Leech), and alpha male Cody (Kevin Bohleber - V/H/S/Beyond segment 'Fur Babies') head out on a camping trip to the Utah desert. Their plan is to hike to a rock formation known as 'delicate arch', doing plenty of drugs on the way. The journey becomes increasingly surreal, and Grant starts to suspect that they might unknowingly be characters in a horror movie.

The story is really out there, from the start it is shown how this being a film means that part is able to interfere with the actual story going on. A prologue has a narrator (Katie Self - Silent Hill: Ascension web series) being able to influence a man to take his own life, serving as an early hint as to the strangeness of the film world. This then appears throughout, with Grant in particular seeming to sense he is inside a film, such as blacking out in-between scenes and losing time, commenting when the film is at its exact midpoint, literally measuring out the boundaries of the camera shot he finds himself in, as well as staring directly at the viewer. That part of the film takes a slight backseat to the drama of the four friends travelling across the desert. There is tension with Grant seeming to still have feelings for Wilda, while it seems she is secretly hooking up with Cody. As Grant indicates, Ferg serves as the stoner comic relief, and also can be seen as a catalyst for some of the strange events due to the amount of random drugs they have on them.

It sometimes felt that this was a little too much style over substance. I'm all for that in horror films, and for much of the run time it didn't disappoint. I particularly liked the mid-film point where after taking a lot of magic mushrooms the film starts to at first slip into an animated feature, before becoming all CG (via the use of AR). This made for a suitably trippy segment that was entertaining to watch. I liked also how there are three distinct types of film work here. Most of the movie plays out in a constricting wide-screen format, but at times we get horizontal phone footage instead, and with Grant having brought an old school film camera, there are also sections where it is grainy found footage type sequences. That third act lost it for me though, I didn't understand where the story was going, with many fake out segments that show various unhappy things happing to the protagonists before rewinding to suggest they didn't take place? Or that everything shown is taking place somewhere? I'm not too sure at all what was going on, there was a vague reference to the delicate arch rock formation maybe being a gateway to other worlds, but I just felt lost in the final ten to fifteen minutes. It wasn't badly made, there was impressive film work here, but I just could not follow what was going on and what I as a viewer was meant to make of it all.

Delicate Arch was a film that felt unique, similar ideas to Resolution, but that was no bad thing. The desert location helped the paranoia and isolation that the characters begin to feel, and I thought the direction was good. For me, I got a bit too lost with where the story went to, leaving me feeling a little dissatisfied when the end credits rolled. Described as a 'psychonautic horror', Delicate Arch came to the streaming platform SCREAMBOX on February 11th.

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Dead on Arrival - Escape Room Review

Shame on me! My sister and her boyfriend are always going to escape rooms and stating how fun they are, but I admit that when I was told that as part of my birthday present I would be going to a local escape room with them and my father I wasn't that excited. I should have been more excited though, as this turned out to be a great time that made me feel like I was inside a survival horror video game (minus any enemies).

The escape room we went for was titled Dead on Arrival, rated five out of five stars for difficulty, and three out of five scare factor, and apparently just a 13% escape rate. As we arrived I overheard the previous group saying they had failed the room, and with me and my father having no real idea what to expect with an escape room, I expected we wouldn't survive. After being led blindfolded to the escape room, the introduction story plays out over a speaker. The set-up states that we had gone to hospital after an accident and family members had been told the injuries were not major. For some reason able to hear the room around us but unable to move or respond, we are alarmed when the heart rate monitor goes wild and our family are told we have sadly passed away. Awakening some time later, we find ourselves in a morgue, with it soon dawning on us that our death was faked in order to sell us to some type of dark web buyer. We are given an hour to escape the room before our captor returns to deal with us.

As films such as Escape Room and...well, Escape Room had already taught me, this is made up of a series of rooms, rather than literally one room. I found that rather than abstract solutions to puzzles, it all revolved around unlocking various types of locks that are sealing doors, drawers, and cupboards shut. Different to what I had expected, we were able to ask for hints at any time, seemingly infinitely should need be. I think that we asked around four times for hints, including the very first room that to my knowledge contained the most obscure puzzle of the whole lot, that didn't instil much hope of us escaping. Obviously, I'm not going to go into too much detail on the puzzles for fear of spoiling, but there were some fun ones here, though also some that appeared a bit broken. A great one that took me straight back to the Resident Evil games saw us lining up a series of x-ray photos to spell out a number, but some of the photos seemed a bit faded, so we had to get a lot of assistance to get the numbers correct. My personal favourite had us in a security room having to enter a series of questions on a PC, with the added difficulty of the mouse and keyboard being portioned off, away from the screen. Initially a two person job, I realised that thanks to my long arms I was just about able to move the mouse and see the screen at the same time, making for a much quicker time with that part! Puzzles in general were not too difficult, the difficulty came more from not being sure how props worked, such as the process to turn off a fan in one room, and working out what the relevance of a locked away severed hand was. It was all a learning process though, going forward I will know more what to expect. 

Finally with less than five minutes left, we escaped the cold morgue and its secret rooms via a narrow passageway. Truthfully, I found this a lot of fun. I had feared that constantly being watched by the games master over the cameras would make me feel a bit awkward and hesitant to give any suggestions, but the feel of being inside a survival horror video game removed that fear of embarrassment. As my first escape room experience, I enjoyed Dead on Arrival, especially as we were able to work together to solve the clues and escape!

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Bokshi (2025) - Horror Film Review

I know not why, but I had in my head that the Bhargav Saikia directed and Harsh Vaibhav written Indian folk-horror Bokshi (that word being a Nepalese one meaning witch, sorceress, or someone believing in witchcraft) was a short film. Imagine my surprise then when I sat down to watch it and saw it had a daunting two hour forty five minute run time! So much so that I did a real life double take. A long run time of course doesn't mean a bad film, but I have seen more than my fair share of overly long arthouse horrors where the time is filled with style over substance, and with this one starting in that manner I feared I may overdose on tedium. Thankfully, while this certainly felt as long as its runtime, it was an effective horror, with a setting relatively unique for me in terms of horror. I have seen horror films set in India, but aside from comedy horror Goa Goa Gone, the ones I have seen all featured white protagonists.

Anahita (Prasanna Bisht) is a seventeen year old girl who has frequent terrifying nightmares relating to an incident she was caught up in involving her shaman mother as a young child, which led to her mother disappearing. After a violent encounter with a bully at her school, her grandma decides to send Anahita away to a boarding school, thinking the change in scenery could help her get over her past trauma. It is at this new school that she encounters captivating history club teacher Shalini (Mansi Multani), and takes an instant shine to the woman due to her lessons talking about folklore related to the type of beliefs her mother's side of the family practised. Learning that Shalini is going to take a select group of students on a fieldtrip to a mysterious prehistoric site deep in a remote forest, Anahita convinces the teacher to let her come along as well, as again, it relates to the type of thing her mother had believed in. Things begin well, but after Shalini decides to ignore the advice of the guides and head into a part of the forest that the locals believe to be cursed by an ancient witch known as the Bokshi, the carefully planned field trip begins to fall apart.

I always make notes when watching a film for review, and this time around those notes are many! After an arthouse style prologue that sees the screen bathed in a red tint as discordant images are edited together, things settle down. Being so long, the film is split into seven distinct chapters with intelligently placed beginnings and ends. For instance, chapter one ends with Anahita heading off to boarding school, while later on, chapter five sees the hapless group entering the forbidden part of the forest. This does feel like a long and lengthy movie, but thinking of it all, I was hard placed to be able to identify anything added just to extend the run time. There was always something going on, whether the trippy sequence that saw two shamans separated by distance battling each other via magic (really gave me vibes of the wizard battle between Gandalf and Saruman in The Lord of the Rings!), or the frequent nightmare flashback sequences Anahita suffers with. The pure length of the film helped to really make the group's trek deep, deep into the forest feel like a real journey, adding the impression of it feeling like they really are far away from any type of help. While traditionally shot rather than found footage, I did get a real The Blair Witch Project vibe to this, though the supernatural elements here are shown to be genuine with many characters experiencing the effects of that part of the film. A lot of this was atmosphere and build-up, again with the references to other films, I got more than an echo of The Ritual in the way the characters keep stumbling across unsettling offerings. This ramping up of tension leads to a decent payoff with a quite insane final act that with forty five minutes to go, saw the bubbling madness finally boil over, before simmering down to another red tinted arthouse sequence for the film's ending. One that added elements that felt similar to Midsommar, and used elements of the Bokshi as an analogy for female empowerment.

Characters were a varied bunch, and settled down to a key set once the story really gets going. There are seven students, five girls and two boys, some of which have been on previous field trips with their history club teacher. Then there are three local guides, Shalini and another teacher, Avinash (Sandeep Shridhar Dhabale). Of course, being the protagonist, Anahita had a lot of development to her character, the main draw being exactly what happened to her when she was a child that could have possibly opened her up to being possessed by a Bokshi. Shalini was a much more mysterious character, her behaviour became more of a type of cult leader, constantly convincing the group to press forward, and acting very strangely the deeper the group got. I personally thought Avinash was the best character here, a man with an impressive moustache and a voice of reason who is forced to accept his world view isn't correct when the myths and legends he sees as being silly begin to come to life around him. Right up until the end this stern teacher was trying to do the best by his pupils, Avinash - I salute you! Outside of a core four or five, the other key characters didn't have as much to them, the two male students mainly kept outside the story, while two of the girls only defining characteristics were that they were identical twins.

Special mention has to go to Advait Nemlekar who created both the songs and background score, an unnerving rustic tribal sound that was a perfect fit.

Bokshi is a horror that feels long, but it also was something that really drew me in. The unique Indian setting set itself apart in terms of looks, while the story was something that I found a little confusing, but there was enough provided to give you at least a vague idea of what was going on. The film looked quality, just a couple of effects that looked a little CG, and it was a bit distracting having the myths and legends play out as a series of animated hand drawings, but that saved on cost, and fitted that these would have been stories passed down before the advent of technology. I was impressed with the atmospheric folk-horror that was on display here, and regardless of the big ask in terms of time, this was something I was very happy I got to see. Bokshi had its world premiere on 31st January at the Rotterdam International Film Festival.

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The Gift (2000) - Horror Film Review

I requested a screener of the 2000 supernatural horror film The Gift but later discovered I already owned it on VHS. This wasn't a good sign for this Sam Raimi (Drag Me to Hell, The Evil Dead) directed movie as usually if I can't remember something it means it left little impression. I found the film to be a bit of a slow burn, but maybe due to being more mature, I found myself really enjoying this story, and it was a delight spotting a whole bunch of famous actors throughout this.

Cate Blanchett (Thor: Ragnarok, The Lord of the Rings trilogy) stars as Annie Wilson, a small town psychic who performs readings for the local townsfolk. After socialite Jessica King (Katie Holmes - Brahms: The Boy II, Miss Meadows) goes missing, her worried father convinces the local Sheriff (J.K Simmons - Spider-Man) to enlist Annie's help, and soon using her powers she is able to locate the body of the woman hidden in a pond of the property of local redneck Donnie Barksdale (Keanu Reeves - John Wick). After a trial however, Annie discovers her visions about the murder have not stopped, and that the wrong person might have been convicted of the crime.

The Gift is played super seriously and super straight, with the paranormal elements only popping up every now and again. At its heart this is a small town drama, made up of a variety of important characters who add texture to the film world. You have Donnie's abused wife, Valerie (Hilary Swank - P.S. I Love You), mentally ill mechanic Buddy (Giovanni Ribisi - Ted) and Annie's husband to be (Greg Kinnear - Mystery Men) all fleshing out Annie's character, with Valerie she is trying to do the right thing by her, with Buddy she is trying to be a friend to him, while with Annie's husband she is forced to confront her own past with relation to the husband of her three children who died a year or so previously. The three children also play a part, but felt much less developed and there just as a prop rather than feeling like living breathing characters. As the movie's most vocal antagonist, Reeves was on fun form, even if he seemed far too good looking and well presented to be playing a backwater redneck.

The story plays out like a murder mystery, including police procedure scenes, and a relatively lengthy court case sequence that makes up a lot of the second act. I found this all interesting in my more mature guise, but I will admit, I have a giant soft spot for films from the early 2000s, I have such a huge feel of bittersweet nostalgia for that time in my life. It was a delight spotting so many famous faces, with most the actors here doing great jobs. The horror is very slight, mainly taking the form of a couple of nightmare/vision sequences that Annie has, there are more elements of a thriller here, including a satisfying finale that works despite using old horror film tropes (the final encounter taking place at night during a thunder storm). Special effects were minimal, but the blood shown on screen was fine enough, and the make-up effects on the corpse looked effective.

The Gift is light on horror and high on drama, it can easily be seen as a slow burn. For me, I was there for the acting, and the tightly woven story that while predictable for the most part, I still enjoyed seeing play out to its thrilling conclusion. The Gift is currently streaming exclusively on ARROW in the UK.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Thursday 13th February - Birthday Edition

Despite being a rotted corpse, this rotting zombie is one year older somehow today, having arrived at my forty third birthday. To celebrate I've not only taken a week off of my day job, but also crafted a trio of news stories to make you scream...possibly.

A crowdfunding campaign has been released for new Bigfoot movie, Fear The Fouke Monster. Inspired by the real life legend of a hairy swamp monster living near the small American town of Fouke, this follows in the footsteps of 1972 cult classic The Legend of Boggy Creek, which also was based on the same legend. Half of the movie has currently been shot and pre-editing has begun. Filmmaker Mark Francis says about his film "We kill women, children and pets in this film. This ain't no 'gentle giant of the forest!" An Indiegogo campaign is currently running, for more details, travel the link to find out more.

David Lynch inspired horror film Texas Nightmare has had an official trailer released. This comes from director Michael Merino and stars Sadie Katz (Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort), Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp), James Pratt (The 3 Killer Pigs), Lew Temple (The Devil's Rejects), and Eva Hamilton (The Black Mass). The film sees a writer heading to an isolated home in rural Texas to work on a new book. They find themselves caught up in a battle against a local cult instead.

Finally for this Birthday Day, Gator Creek is coming to digital platforms in the UK and Ireland on March 24th from Vertigo. This survival film was directed by Taneli Mustonen and Brad Watson and features an ensemble of young stars. The story has a plane crashing in the remote Louisiana bayou, with the survivors discovering they are being hunted by giant alligators mutated by chemical waste dumped in the area.

Do You See Me? (2017) - Horror Film Review

Do You See Me? I had assumed would be a slasher film, it shares similarities with that genre, particularly with Halloween. This follows the old adage of less is more, with the creepy clown stalking the protagonist rarely shown, but unfortunately is shown so very little that this Corbin Timbrook (The Belly of the Beast, Blood Ranch) directed and co-written indie horror felt like it wasted whatever potential it had.

Emily (Rya Meyers) is an ordinary woman who one day begins to receive disturbing messages from an unknown number that read 'Do You See Me' which is then typically followed up by the woman then spotting a creepy clown (Robert Ambrose) somewhere in the distance watching her. She contacts the police, but due to only herself ever seeing the clown, and her not keeping hold of any of the 'gifts' it leaves her, no one is really sure what to believe. As the days draw closer and closer to Halloween, the stalking increases, with Emily starting to fear for her life.

I get keeping the antagonist at arms length and rarely sighted as a way to build up tension, but this goes far too far with this concept. In total, in over eighty two minutes, the clown appears on screen for a literal total of about two minutes, and that includes the prologue where the clown kills his one and only on-screen victim. Many of the sightings appear in nightmare sequences the main character has. I figure that prologue was a compromise to actually make it seem like there was a genuine threat going on, but due to the rest of the movie this part felt almost unrelated. It also gets in the way of the mid-point notion that it is possible the creepy clown is all in her head. That might have been an interesting idea but the viewer knows that isn't the case.

It is hard to talk too much about the clown as it is on screen for so little time. When it isn't texting Emily (as an aside, she has the most sinister text message noise possible, I figured the clown had somehow made her phone make that noise, but no, it appears that is her own choice!), it stands around staring for seconds at a time. The Halloween comparisons are made here, with quite a few first person perspective shots of the clown watching Emily while hidden. I had expected this would lead up to a terrifying conclusion, but when the horror finally gets closer to home for the protagonist, I noticed that there was just four minutes of run time left before the end credits appeared, and what is shown in that time also included an epilogue scene!

I spent far too much of the movie expecting something more clever from this than it actually was. There are plenty of suspects as to who the clown could be, from Emily's jerk ex-husband Randy (Phillip Boyd), to oddball gym member Taylor (Taylor Piedmonte) and some weird neighbours. I even began to suspect it could be her ex-detective father's former partner, as the detective investigating the case mentions he used to work with her father, but this is never verified as that character is never shown on screen despite being around. Too much time is spent establishing that the protagonist is being stalked, but the threat not ramping up until far too late. I would have had the clown make an appearance properly much sooner into the movie than here, where his eventual inclusion almost felt like an afterthought.

Do You See Me? is good at ramping up the tension, but it squanders the potential and feels like it ran out of time to give a satisfying conclusion. There is far too much treading water, with the escalation coming far too late. For what you see of him, the clown had a suitably disturbing look to it, but did feel wasted, leading to a feeling of frustration that the story never really got going properly before it ended.

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Radio Sessions (2025) - by Eamon The Destroyer - Music EP Review

Having previously reviewed Eamon The Destroyer's second album We'll Be Piranhas and EP Alternate Piranhas, I knew what to expect from latest EP titled Radio Sessions. This Edinburgh based musician creates mellow music with a rustic sound, something that could be hard to picture in a horror setting. I am forever trying to improve my music review game though, and so here is my latest attempt.

This EP brings together six acoustic versions of his songs, rocking in at around twenty six minutes in length. It begins with 'Nothing Like Anything' which at nearly five minutes is a chilled and rustic sounding intro. Trying to link it to horror, I could picture the lovely rural folks in Deliverance banjoing along to this.
Next comes 'Underscoring the Blues' which at just over two minutes is the shortest track on Radio Sessions. I really liked this one, had the feel of a sea shanty to it, short and bittersweet.
Middle of the EP starts with the classic 'We'll Be Piranhas', something I am familiar with, actually recognising this when it started. A sailor song, at four and a half minutes this made for a pleasant and mellow time.

The second half of the EP begins with 'Silver Shadow', a sad song referencing tepee tents, probably my second favourite track to be found here. 
Penultimate track is 'Avalanche', this to me sounded like a bit of a lost track from Blur's Thirteen album, not a bad comparison as Blur are on of my favourite bands.
Finally comes 'The Choirmaster', a peaceful end to a mellow EP. Sure, trying to link it to anything horror related is a fool's errand, but I thought Radio Sessions was a good listen, I really liked the stripped back feel. Radio Sessions was released on January 31st, Eamon The Destroyer will be releasing his third album later this year, provisionally entitled Full Picture Revealed.

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Round the Decay (2025) - Horror Film Review

Round the Decay is the latest indie film from writer and director Adam Newman (Everwinter Night) and takes the form of a creature feature with a large ensemble cast. With my screener of this film, I also received a note saying that the version I watched for review wasn't the complete version, with VFX being worked on, the sound mix not in its final form, and the monsters voice not finalised. As a result, I won't let those elements effect my thoughts in this review.

After a short prologue in which early American settlers reveal they have summoned a monster as revenge against the ingenious population, the story moves to present day. The remote town of Newport has fallen on hard times, with tourism down, something that Bart (Cary Hite), the new owner of the local hotel hopes to remedy. Also in the area are a group of young adults, who have came to climb the nearby hillside. Unfortunately for them, they stumble across an abandoned mine which happens to be the home of a monstrous creature called the Wrexsoul (Rachel Pizzolato), the same creature that had been summoned in the prologue. Added to the mix are a group of redneck hunters who seem intent on capturing the young friends, and the shady townsfolk who seem to know more about what is going on than they initially let on.

There were a large cast of characters here that on the one hand meant lots could be happening concurrently, but also had the downside of making it hard to remember who was who. Key characters for me where Munroe (Damian Maffei - The Strangers: Prey at Night), a monster hunter from out of town who serves as a device for the viewer to have the backstory of the creature explained in a somewhat natural feeling way. Other highlights were Gregory Newport (Jamie Dufault) as a descendent of one of the founding fathers of the town, and the frat boy styled slightly loveable idiot James 'Muffin' Ford (Jay Voishnis - Everwinter Night). With so many characters to be found in the film, it did take a while to get going properly. The first forty five minutes were more mysterious, with the various groups discovering strange things on their own. The monster itself didn't appear until the forty five minute mark, but with an hour left to go still, it meant that plenty of this creature was shown.

The Wrexsoul did look like someone wearing a monster costume, but I thought it had a cool design to the mask part of the suit. I also thought it was really cool that the monster was able to speak, but only by mimicking the words of people it had encountered. Despite this limitation, it uses this ability to have some basic communication with the protagonists at times. There were plenty of death scenes, and featured a pleasing amount of blood and gore squirting out everywhere. One later scene featured a whole cast of characters being attacked, it did make for a thrilling sequence, but the vibe was ruined slightly by it being obvious actors were just running backwards and forwards in front of the camera, rather than feeling like the characters were trying to flee the location they were in! The special effects were one of the highlights of Round the Decay, despite the not so stellar monster costume, the action scenes were exciting and well choreographed with pleasing effects used.

I couldn't help but feel that nearly the first half of this horror felt a bit longer than it needed to be. The film rapidly improved once the horror finally properly started, making me wish more of the movie had been as interesting. I felt that there were maybe too many characters hanging around to try and find a time to explain their particular backstory to the viewers, though the large cast also led to a large body count. Round the Decay came to theatres on January 31st from Dreamscape Productions.

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