The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Thursday 14th May 2026

At the time that this goes up, I should have finally returned to working after a four month gap of unemployment. Trying to write some posts in advance as I'm sure I am going to struggle to get back into the swing of things, seeing as now (at the time of typing), I find it hard to get through the day without multiple naps! Onwards to the news...

Coming from RZE Studio is animated horror film; Ynccuth, created by Lukas Reznicek. The creator states the idea for this story came from his video game project - Bukkaku, and the whole film is being put together by Reznicek. He states: "The film story will be full of helplessness and hope, atmospheric scenes with dynamic action, psychedelic stylization and a charming world." An official teaser titled 'The Ceremony of Death' has been released, with Ynccuth getting its teaser premiere on Halloween via YouTube.

Bayview Entertainment announced the release of psychological horror - The Weight of Eyes, which came out back in March. Written by Shaun Hutson (Slugs, Spawn), and directed by Jason Figgis, this sees an architect in conflict with a couple '...who have weaponized their grief into a symphony of physical and psychological trauma.'. Starring Bill Fellows, Cora Fenton, and Bryan Murray, The Weight of Eyes is out now on Digital and VOD.

Finally for today, being a zombie film, I had to mention this. Dead Road is a horror currently in the early stages of development, and is due to be directed by Christopher Douglas-Olen Ray (Assault on VA-33). Not much has been revealed of the plot, other than it being described as '...a journey down a path of horror where survival is their only option but far from guaranteed'. The production team plan to use practical effects to tell their story.

The Rotting Zombie's Round-up of Horror News for January 2026

A new year and the same old me. With no bill paying job currently, I am working on this site more, though perhaps not as much as I should - there are so many distractions! There are a few films at the cinema or coming soon that I very much would like to see. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple chief of these, I am also curious to see how Return to Silent Hill turns out, I'm a huge fan of the video game series, have heard the film isn't the best. Onwards to the news.

Writer/director George Tsouris' sophomore feature film - Condemned Dreams, is now streaming for free on Tubi. This psychological thriller is about a disgraced journalist who hopes to recover their career by carrying out an interview with a condemned revolutionary. Condemned Dreams stars Catherine Parish (Totem Chaser) and Soft Abilez (Dexter: Resurrection).

Animated comedy horror series - Meat the Carvers has entered into a licensing agreement with American Horrors; one of the oldest running 24/7 linear streaming horror channels. It is due to premiere on Friday, January 30th at 20:30 as part of the streaming channel's 'Good Time Horror' programming block. The show is about the misadventures of the Carver family, an animated take on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Meat the Carvers is a 2D animated series created by Daniel Nation and Samson Cornette, with the press release stating: 'The series blends classic horror elements with contemporary humor and features voice talent from horror cinema icons'.

Ash is the latest novel from Donald Lawrence Flaherty. The post-apocalyptic story follows the Rivas family as they head on a perilous journey to escape deadly ash that resulted from the unexpected eruption of the Yellowstone Super Volcano. Ash is available for purchase on Amazon.

BayView Entertainment have acquired the rights to Steve Merlo's psychological horror - Unseen. Taking place alongside an unknown disaster, the film follows a mentally unstable man who begins to torment a woman with a history of abuse. This stars Jamie Hill (Skinamarink), alongside Brett Wagner (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Trinity Chase, and Katerina Khramova.

            

Scream 7 is coming to UK cinemas on February 27th from Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group. A new poster has been revealed in celebration of this. The seventh film in the series (I am so behind watching these!) sees a new Ghostface killer emerging in the quiet town where series protagonist Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) has started a new life with her daughter. This is directed by Kevin Williamson, who also co-wrote the screenplay alongside Guy Busick. There is also a legacy spot teaser out for the film.

            

Psychological horror film, Mamochka had its premiere on January 16th, with a wider release starting on that date. Directed by Vilan Trub, this follows a suburban husband who inherits an antique Nazi-era heirloom doll. This leads the man into a dark fixation, helped along by a mysterious figure who introduces him to a sinister worldview.

           

FrightFest is returning to the Glasgow Film Festival for its 21st year running, from Thursday 5th March to Saturday 7th March. The line-up has been announced, with a variety of films set to show over the event. It begins with the world premiere of Jailbroken; a Scottish action thriller that takes place entirely within a single prison cell. The two-day pass event begins Friday 6th March with the UK premiere of exorcism horror, Bury the Devil. This is followed by the world premiere of Howard J. Ford's creature feature, Bone Keeper, which takes place deep within a remote cave system. After that is documentary Boorman and the Devil, which takes a look at the troubled production of Exorcist II: The Heretic. Penultimate film is sci-fi horror comedy The Restoration at Grayson Manor, followed by the UK premiere of The Curse; a satire on the hidden horrors of internet algorithms.

Saturday's line-up starts with the international premiere of  action horror Violence, this is followed by a short film showcase. Next is the UK premiere of Japanese horror adaptation of Chilla's Art video game - The Convenience Store. The evening then begins with Craig Conway's Red Riding - a horror based contemporary retelling of the classic Little Red Riding Hood fairytale. The penultimate film of the Saturday is dystopian fable, Karmadonna, with Australian fantasy horror, Deathkeeper closing the day. Passes to the event can be purchased here, with the Thursday showing of Jailbroken requiring a separate ticket.

Finally for today, queer horror film The Stutterer is currently running a Kickstarter campaign. Coming from former professional wrestler - Rocky Ciarrocchi, this is an anthology made up of three interconnected short films. The first of these works as a throwback to classic slashers of the 1980s, the second short is an origin story for the titular slasher, while third film shows the downfall and death of the killer. AEW wrestling superstars Ace Austin and Red Velvet are set to star in this.

Space Goblins (2020) - Short Animated Sci-fi Film Review

Space Goblins is a half hour long animated indie short that was created entirely by just two people; Amer Shihab and Harry Bryan. There is something about simplified animation that somehow puts me on edge, I find it strangely disconcerting. In the case of this short film that is not a problem, it just adds to the alien vibe.

Gib (Shihab) and Gob (Bryan) are two bounty hunting space goblin brothers who we find out on a mission to capture a warthog themed alien who is on the run for not paying his taxes. The two track him down to a squalid planet, deciding to check out a remote and run-down strip club for clues as to his whereabouts.

I had expected the titular goblins to be bad and nasty people. Instead, this is almost like a 'day in the life of', with the story following these two determined and law abiding brothers who it turns out are surprisingly competent. This is a dialogue heavy film with many scenes of characters talking face on into the screen. Sometimes this works and sometimes this doesn't, such as the intro scene set on their spaceship that just seemed to go on and on with the character talking in a meandering way. Some of the dialogue did get to be amusing, such as a scene at a bar, and the chief of police who literally has eyes in the back of his head. There is one action scene and it was short but sweet.

The animation was basic, but it all looked good, reminded me quite a bit of creepy British animated sketch show; Monkey Dust or the animated segments from old children's program - Around the Bend! The film world is full of bright and vibrant colours, and there were some neat moments, such as the CG planet that shows behind the cockpit of the brother's spacecraft. Voice work was decent, a few of the more exotic alien types were a bit hard to understand, but that could well be due to my hearing rather than anything else. There isn't too much to be found here that would warrant its 18 rating, there is a small bit of animated nudity, and some scatological references. 

On the whole, Space Goblins plays its story unexpectedly straight, the goblins are not the meat heads you might expect them to be, and there is an enjoyable atmosphere, even if full of a little disquieting feel. The press release states this has earned a bit of a cult following, enough that there is a live-action feature film currently being made that continues the unsettling feel and looks quite promising from the teaser trailers.

SCORE:

ApoKalypse (2025) - Comedy Horror Film Review

ApoKalypse is an animated comedy zombie film that was written, directed and produced by Lutz Geiger, who was also the animation supervisor. Described as an ultra-low budget 3-year passion project, this comedic horror doesn't always hit with its style of humour, but has a consistent charm that made me more than happy to stick around for the sensible seventy minute runtime. 

Set in America, Apo (Chris Koehne) works at a burger takeaway in a local mall with best friend Jamal (Ravin Wong). One day, rat poison comes to be advertised as a cure for the ongoing Covid pandemic, and idiots in their droves come to believe this to be the case. Unfortunately, the rat poison not only doesn't cure Covid, it also happens to turn people into flesh hungry ghouls, seemingly only infecting Caucasians. With the mall swiftly overrun with these zombies, Jamal, Apo, his love interest Cho (Ao Mikazuri) and her family must work together to try and find a way to make it to the staff exit and escape. Meanwhile, the U.S army have cordoned off the complex, planning to use drastic measures to stop the outbreak.

The animation style is basic, but it has a unified feel to it that everything seems consistent in style. The 2D look reminded me a bit of South Park, a bit simpler maybe, but I thought the look of this was good. There was even a brief 3D section inserted towards the end for a few minutes, that part in particular looked pretty great. The characters all had a vaguely creepy unnatural look to them, but that worked for a comedy horror.
The humour was occasionally to my liking, but there were plenty of moments that didn't appeal, being a bit grotesque at times. There were a few jokes about bodily functions, drug use, and some gross sex joke moments that included full frontal zombie nudity. That type of stuff I wasn't on board for, but there were also amusing moments. None of this was laugh out loud, but again, the style was consistent and parts made me inwardly chuckle. 

The protagonists were fine, they served the purpose as people to root for, even if there wasn't much character development for them. The zombies meanwhile were plentiful, but they were often not that much of a threat. I did enjoy the large numbers of these and the often gross fight scenes that sees survivors and braindead alike being ripped apart. As for the plot, it was very simple, but what would you really expect from a zombie movie? Despite being an animation, this had a lot of the story beats you would expect from a film of this genre, a gradual ramping up of danger, and an over the top finale. The social commentary aspect was interesting enough, taking a look at America's treatment of minorities though the lens of the 'Karen' stereotype. It made a change to have the heroes all be non-white characters, I did feel having this based around the Covid pandemic felt a little outdated, though obviously, at the time this was first thought of, that was still relevant.

I enjoyed ApoKalypse, but it didn't always appeal. I thought some of the character design to be crude, especially when it came to the female characters, and I would have been happy without any nudity. That was all done to personal preferences. For something described as ultra-low budget, this was far more watchable than expected, the David Firth/South Park feel was often neat, and the basic animation worked surprisingly well with zombies as the main focus.

SCORE:

Resurrection Corporation (2021) - Animated Comedy Horror Film Review

Resurrection Corporation is an Italian animated comedy horror film that was directed by Alberto Genovese (Sick Sock Monsters from Outer Space), with the story and screenplay written by Mattia De Pascali (Beyond the Omega). From the stark black and white nihilistic world the inspirations behind this are not too hard to figure out. The story does have some nice ideas behind it but there were certain aspects that didn't really sit right with me. The version of the film I watched had an English dub so I can't comment on the performances of the original voice actors.

Dottor Caligari has a problem and that is that he is a coffin maker in a town where no one ever dies. This is thanks to the Resurrection Corporation, ran by Potriantow, his company using secret means is able to bring back to life anyone in the town who dies. After his attempts to compete with him fail, Caligari and his assistant Bruta (a woman it is insinuated the Dottor created himself) head away to a remote castle where Potriantow's mentor is said to live. It is there they hope to learn the methods by which Potriantow is able to perform his trade.

The first noticeable thing about this film is its basic animation. In a post South Park world this isn't an issue and was one area that I think this really got right, there is some interesting directing meaning that everything isn't always shown from side on, but includes things coming into the screen as well . With some of the more disgusting parts (such as a room full of skinned corpses) this reminded me a bit of the style of David Firth. Keeping with that vibe this isn't a children's movie, there is some extreme (animated) violence with characters murdered and beaten including at least a couple of decapitations. I was totally fine with that, what didn't sit so well was the sexual abuse, mainly of Bruta. There was one uncomfortable scene where she is being molested, another bizarrely played for laughs where someone is trying to rape her. I didn't really get this character, she was treated as if she wasn't a real person, and she never reacts in a realistic way to her bad treatment.

The Rotting Zombie's Round-up of Horror News for March 2021

Life marches inexorably forward and I find myself once again faced with a bumper news post to write. I started the year with the intention to write seven posts a week, but I came to a realisation last week that this was leaving me with not much of a weekend left to relax. So, I took the decision to cut down my posts to five a week, giving me Monday to be a man of leisure. On the pandemic front I was fortuitous to be working for a company whose staff were eligible for the vaccine due to the nature of the work, so I can happily state I have now had my first dose, even if the side effects stayed with me for an entire week. Anyway, who cares about me, let's bring out the news...

New horror comic, The Mugwump Corporation issue #1 is now available via ComiXology. The comic is about loner Marybeth Callen who wants nothing more than to find a friend. She finds one, but they transform her into a cannibal monster. I love the art style and colours in this one, has a unique look to it. For more details check out here.
A Disgusting Supermarket of Death by author James C. Harberson III (co-author of graphic novel Stay Alive) is now available on Amazon. This is a comedy horror collection of '...hard-boiled shorts about satanic Christmas movies, performance art euthanasia, child sacrifice skincare, and other demented goodness'. Check here to pick up a copy.
Killer Raccoons 2: Dark Christmas in the Dark made the list of eligible films for The Oscars for 2021, while it never ended up getting nominated for any of the categories this was still a feat I found pretty cool.
Horror sci-fi film Mandao Returns has now been released on Tubi TV. I said of this one in my 7/10 review "..as a movie to put on to just forget about the real world this works as pleasant escapism."

The animated violent time-loop horror To Your Last Death has so far picked up 34 wins since its world premiere at Frightfest. These include Best Feature at the Pasadena International Film Festival, Best Director from Horrorhound, and Best Horror Feature at the Phoenix International Film Festival. Reviewing this in September last year I gave it 9/10 and said "...the animation was attractive also, it is never smooth, but that made for a more strange and creepy look that felt like an animated graphic novel." This is currently free to stream on Amazon Prime, and can be bought or rented on various digital HD platforms as well as Blu-ray.

Voyagers, the sci-fi thriller is coming soon to UK cinemas. This was written and directed by Neil Burger (Limitless, The Illusionist) and stars Tye Sheridan (The X-Men franchise), Lily-Rose Depp (Savage), Fionn Whitehead (Dunkirk), Chanté Adams (Roxanne Roxanne), Isaac Hempstead Wright (Game of Thrones), Viveik Kalra (Blinded by the Light), Archie Madekwe (Midsommar), Quintessa Swindell (Trinkets), Madison Hu (Bizaardvark), and Colin Farrel (The Gentlemen).
In this film a group of young men and women have been sent on an expedition to colonise a distant planet. After revelations about their mission are discovered they go against their training, and life on the ship descends into chaos. 

This next one is not so much horror, but it did seem unique so thought it would be worth a mention. Starfunk and the Astral Pioneers is described as 'the first feature film made about the Funk music genre whose story takes place in outer space'. The creator, Glenn Towery, having won awards for the screenplay has decided this space fantasy motion picture is going to be part of a crowdfunding campaign so he can get funds to create the movie himself. The Kickstarter campaign is due to run in May. You can check out the website here.

I set myself a limit of an hour and a half to write this months news post, and so finishing with some music news now. A Cloud of Ravens (great name) have released their new album, Another Kind of Midnight on Cleopatra Records. Check out the track for this Darkwave duo's single When it Comes below. I have enough emails to fill up an exclusive music only news post so maybe I will do that in a week or so.

The Addams Family (2019) - Children's Horror Film Review

I've once again come to the conclusion that I need to branch out more in the movies I watch for review. 99% of what I watch are new films that have been sent my way, yet there are hundreds, if not thousands of horror films out there that I have never so much as glanced at. At random I picked a film from my infinite Netflix list and it happened to be the 2019 animated children's horror The Addams Family.

Thirteen years after moving to New Jersey the Addams Family discover a new bright and cheerful town called Assimilation has been built near to their mansion by TV host Margaux Needler (Allison Janney - The Help, Juno). She is horrified to discover their family house and has designs to change it so that it conforms to her idea of beauty. Meanwhile Wednesday (Chloe Grace Moretz - Susperia, Carrie) has begun to get tired of her family and becomes friends with Margaux's daughter Parker (Elsie Fisher - Despicable Me), who likewise is looking for change. While this is all happening, Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard - It, Stranger Things) is preparing for a rite of passage, but his inability to conform to the standards set by his father Gomez (Oscar Isaac - Ex Machina) is also causing problems.

From the synopsis there is a clear idea that the moral being told here is that non conformity and individuality is a good thing and it shouldn't be seen as something to be against. People should be free to be who they want to be without judgement being passed if they are seen as different. This is a heavy handed message in that it bleeds into all aspects of the various storylines being told, but it is a relevant one. Being an animation rather than live action means that the horror aspect of the characters and setting can be more visually represented. From a sentient tree, to the house itself which has a voice there are many monsters and much madness here. Characters are very unrealistic in that all sorts of cartoon peril can befall them and they are perfectly fine, as to be expected and not a criticism.

The Trouble with Terkel (2010) - Animated Comedy Film Review

The Trouble with Terkel is a Danish made animated film that was directed by Thorbjorn Christoffersen and Stefen Fjeldmark. Now this shares a lot of its style of humour from Sausage Party, that was a film I could barely stand due to its focus on trying to be as offensive as possible. As such the type of humour to be found in this movie is the absolute polar opposite of what I enjoy, there wasn't a single joke here that amused me and so that could not help but make me dislike what I saw.

Terkel (Mike Olsen) is a typical teenager in what appears to be an alternate dimension in which it is normal for everyone to be foul mouthed and nasty to each other. One day he starts getting death threats from a person unknown and he starts to fear for his safety. It all comes to a head on a school camping trip organised by his teacher Mr. Balsac (Shark Firestone).

This is pretty mediocre stuff, but thankfully at least the animation is fine enough. It is nowhere as near as good as Pixar but I have seen far far worse. The animation is functional even if characters look unfinished, and they have a kind of unique look to them in that they resemble muppets in how they move. While I thought the actual script was awful the voice actors all do actually pretty good jobs, there was no one at all who I felt were bad at their lines, and it was great to see (well, hear) Chad Ridgely (Massacre on Aisle 12, 6.66 PM) as the voice of Uncle Stewart. This has English dubbed over the original language and no attempt is made to lip sync so is a lot of flapping mouths with no sound coming out. There are quite a few song and dance numbers throughout this, none of them were any good, and one rap played out in the original Danish with not even subtitles to help make sense of what was being said. The one concession was a header saying something like 'this next part will make no sense', stuff like this just added to the unpolished feel.