Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026) - Comedy Horror Film Review

I had heard that the Jane Schoenbrun (We're All Going to the World's Fair) written and directed Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma was a dark comedic horror and that it starred Gillian Anderson (The X-Files). That was the extent of my knowledge of this movie heading to the cinema with my best friend to watch it. There was humour, it was suitably dark, and it did star Anderson, but the movie used the concept of horror films to tell its dark romantic story, rather than the horror be the focus.

Hannah Einbinder (Hacks) stars as Kris; a gay up and coming film director who has been given the chance to revitalise a long running slasher film series called - 'Camp Miasma'. The film's trans villain - Little Death (Jack Haven) is seen as problematic for a modern audience, and so the film has been given to Kris, hoping that a gay director will appease critics of the film. Being a huge fan of the original entry, with one particular scene being pivotal to her gay awakening as a child, Kris has decided to track down the film's original final girl, Billy (Anderson), an actress who since that role has became very reclusive. Kris plans to travel to Billy's remote property and try and convince her to come back to the series for a role in the latest entry. Arriving, she is surprised to see that Billy lives at the same location that the first Camp Miasma was filmed at. Kris becomes entranced with the mysterious and strange Billy, and as the days of her visit pass, she becomes more and more taken with the former actress. Also going on in the background - Camp Miasma's slasher; Little Death, might exist in the real world, and might be looking to kill.

I had imagined that this would be a slasher that took place in a meta-way, much as what happened with The Final Girls. It was slightly similar here, though with characters not falling into a horror film (though there is a bit of that), but in a hallucinogenic way falling into the creation of a horror film. Peppered throughout the main movie are scenes from the film within a film - Camp Miasma. It had a filter to give a suitably seventies look, but the directing was pure modern day on how it was shot, and kills were shown in an artsy and stylish way. I enjoyed these film clips, and they integrated into the real story in very purposeful ways. Much of the horror here was from the clips of the film, and so lose any power due to knowing it wasn't real. That isn't to take away from the pleasure of the very violent kills. Little Death is a diminutive white overall wearing trans-person who wears a metal box on their head, and wields a huge spear. During the many lovely looking kill scenes, he tears limbs and heads off of victims, as stylised fountains of over the top red gore spurting out the bodies. These scenes were great fun to watch, the highlight being a protracted massacre scene that focuses the camera directly on Little Death, swinging away as he slashes his way through a room.

The film had a trippy vibe, with the real world blending with the fake. Exterior locations often use obvious painted backgrounds, and characters from the film are encountered in the real world, making for some surreal moments. Unexpectedly, the core of the story is a lesbian love story, with Kris discovering a sexual awakening. It included long (non-graphic) sex scenes of the two leads, which included some nudity. Horror films were key to the plot, but not really the point of the film, being there more as an allegory for desire. Kill scenes are done in a way that aren't designed to create fear, and the protagonists never felt like they were in any threat The humour here isn't a constant, but there were moments that made me laugh out loud, with Dylan Baker (Immortal, Fido) shining in a tiny role as someone Kris is speaking to on a Zoom call - the comedic highlight of the film that had the audience laughing.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma was a good film even if it never felt like it was too much for me. This isn't a slasher, not even a meta-one, and that is perfectly fine, it never said it was. Instead, its a dark gay romantic arty story of self discovery, that nonetheless includes plenty of references to classic slasher films, with everything from Friday the 13th, Halloween, Sleepaway Camp and A Nightmare on Elm Street brought up at one point or another. Just be prepared for some weirdness along the way.

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Bad Karaoke (2026) - Comedy Horror Film Review

Bad Karaoke is a comedy horror co-directed and co-written by Chris Lightbody, with Robert J. Steinmiller Jr also directing. The film is the directorial debut of both men, and with its story about a cursed karaoke machine resonating with me, I was eager to see if this bloody horror with its musical numbers, could possibly live up to its potential?

A cover-band made up of Emily (Lexi Underwood), Noah (Case Walker - The Other Two), singer Hannah (Kat Cunning), and drummer Logan (Kevin Clayette - Neighbours) have headed to a remote AirBnB alongside Hannah's girlfriend, Ava (Jenna Karan - Goon of the Lagoon) and Logan's best friend, Matt (Jonathan Jason Green - 13th Sign). They have a wedding gig the next day, but this evening they plan to party with lots of drugs and alcohol. Enroute to the place they are staying, they visit a local bar, where Melissa is gifted an old karaoke machine which the barman seems all too eager to be rid of. He was eager for them to take it as the machine had been linked to a horrifying incident, and now is cursed. When the friends turn it on in the evening, they fall into a deadly karaoke session where the punishment for a bad performance is a gory supernatural death. The only way for any of the friends to survive the night is to put on the performance of a literal lifetime.

Comedy in horror can always be something tough to get right, thankfully the comedy on offer here mostly lands well more often than not. Dialogue between the characters was witty and the central threat was dumb enough that it was hard to take it too seriously. Emily and Noah are set-up to have unsaid feelings for each others, but this wasn't a source of much tension, with the whole group of friends getting on surprisingly well. Outside of farcical moments such as Mark deciding to cook some food in the midst of all the unfolding terror, there isn't really much conflict to be found here, something that helped with the film's non-straight faced vibe.

In an inspired move, each of the death scenes here is prefaced by a musical number featuring the next potential victim, almost turning Bad Karaoke into a musical horror. Each subsequent song seemed to have more effort and heart put onto it, with singing broken up by music video-lite moments of characters transported to different locations while they sing. Reasonably early on, the machine is believed destroyed, but its power means that any electronic screen it can carry on its session with, its program appearing on phone and car screens. One amusing example was a character sat on a toilet, who is suddenly forced to perform, as his friends offer support from the other side of the locked toilet door. Kills are very bloody, there is no shortage of gore here, with the central location splattered all over in blood. The deaths are supernaturally caused and did look quite cartoonish with the use of CG to do things such as swell up one victims head before it pops. The kills were very hit and miss with how they looked, it is easy to dismiss the silly looking artificial kills as part of the comedy horror, but I feel this was the weakest part of the movie regardless. The plot was basic, but I appreciated the flashback sequence that completely explains how the machine came to be cursed; it all leads to a fun and surprisingly heartfelt finale.

Bad Karaoke is of course a silly concept, and it means that this always feels more comedic than horror filled. Both are combined so strongly that neither overshadows the other. Stupid, but entertaining, there might be some dodgy CG special effects here, but I had a good time with it. Bad Karaoke had its world premiere at FrightFest on August 30th.

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Tenebris (2026) - Horror Film Review

Tenebris (Latin for 'darkness') is a found footage thriller that attempts to show a story solely from the perspective of a doorbell camera. Co-directed and co-written by Miguel James and Ricky Martinez, this is their feature length debut for both, if you count a 50 minute movie as feature length. The low budget indie thriller had a solid central idea, but could it stick to that constraint for the duration?

Tito Medrano stars as Andy; the world's most dullest man, who decides after a messy break-up to return to his mother's town to sort through her belongings after she dies. He moves into a non-descript suburban home, where unknown to him, 13 months previously the former tenant vanished in quite suspicious circumstances. When Andy learns that a teenage boy had been stabbed to death in the area, and that this boy had actually knocked at his door seeking help, but Andy hadn't heard him, he decides to turn into a neighbourhood vigilante. In addition to his doorbell camera, he sets up a second camera in his back yard, as well as placing cameras throughout his home (for some reason). With these, Andy hopes to capture footage of the unknown killer (Martinez), so that he can then pass this onto the police.

The idea of a story shown exclusively from a doorbell camera is not a completely new one. In fact, British dark comedy horror anthology TV series Inside No.9 had already done this with it's season 9 episode 'Mulberry Close', an episode that was a better use of the idea than what was done with it here. This starts off interesting enough. The film primarily show the street outside Andy's home, with footage edited so that only things of note are appearing on camera. In the early part, there did seem to be some misdirection, with multiple scenes of nothing happening at all, but it all followed a day and night cycle that was easy to parse. Scenes of nothing in particular happening I figured where to flesh out the short film, and to add more weight to the world. So when an apparently grinning boy runs up to Andy's house, rings the doorbell and then runs off, I honestly figured this was a comedic interlude, just adding some life to the neighbourhood by having a child play 'cherry door knocking'. Not appreciated was that this teenager becomes the motivation for Andy moving forward, with his grin more like a grimace of fear (unfortunately not reflected in the used footage). Knowing he could have saved the boy, this propels dullard Andy into action. I briefly had a thought that Tenebris might be a slasher film, with the killer only appearing whenever he chases victims past Andy's home. That would have been cool, but wasn't the case.
It is around this point that Tenebris makes the cardinal sin of removing the one thing that made it stand out. For reasons unknown, Andy has such 'main character' energy that he decides to put cameras all around his home interior. The monotone man so sure of his own importance that he must assume at some point the killer will be inside his residence. From here, the film becomes very generic and familiar, the story moved from outside to inside, and feeling very stale, even finding space to include a night vision scene. The core novel thing about this film was the doorbell camera, so to nearly entirely remove this from the film's back half was a serious misstep.

It never helped that the protagonist had all the charisma of a sack of potatoes. Mostly we see him talking on the phone, where he speaks emotionlessly about the issues in his life. He shows little more zest for life when he decides to start making video diaries of his snooping. The personality vacuum sucked all energy out of the film, but he was in good company. Acting throughout felt a bit off, with Andy often seeming like his lines were being read from a sheet of paper in front of him. Sole highlight was the comically creepy next-door neighbour. A joy each time he appeared on screen with his refrain of telling Andy he is lonely and that they should meet-up. As for the antagonist, I had hoped for something supernatural or at least scary, instead we get a pint-sized normal looking guy whose identity I immediately clocked. His outfit of hooded coat and goggles looked goofy, and zero intimidation factor from him. By the time the killer, Andy, and another character are having a very slow paced, poorly choreographed fight, I was done with this, the battle giving the impression of a playfight on a playground.

Tenebris was frustrating as it clearly had potential, but seemed to lack the courage to stick to its most unique idea. I never understood why halfway through this became something so much more generic. Suspect acting, a wafer thin story, and a general lack of fresh ideas did not make for a compelling found footage thriller. Tenebris came to horror streaming platform BloodStream on August 18th.

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A Cold Season (2026) - Horror Film Review

A Cold Season is an indie horror that has one toe dipped into the darkly comedic. Written and directed by Christian Jude Grillo (Neighbor, Intruder), this psychological thriller falls neatly into the Christmas sub-genre. Mixing that thriller with elements of a slasher, the film is shown from the viewpoint of an unreliable narrator, and attempts a mid-film rug pull that puts into question everything that has came before.

Starting in medias res, the film opens on Jacob (Andrew Hunsicker - Epidemic, The Listing) being interviewed in what appears to be a police station on the first of January 2027. Asked to provide an explanation for what events led him to be in this situation, the majority of the film then works as a flashback, taking place over several weeks during the Christmas period. During this time, the grumpy  loner is carrying on as normal, though that normal includes murder as it seems that he is secretly racking up a small body count. The flashback starts with Jacob looking down on a frozen corpse before kicking snow over it, and in addition, he seems to be carrying another corpse wrapped in a blanket in the back of his truck. All of this without context for what has happened. His motivations may be unclear, but as the days pass and he begins to get more reckless with his choice of victims, it seems that capture for him is certain.

I had the vaguest sense of American Psycho watching this, an ever present feel that what was being shown might not be completely accurate. The audacious actions of the anti-hero protagonist  made it feel like there was no way he could have been getting away with things like he was. Jacob is the centre of this thriller, so much so that the film sticks with him the entire 80 minute runtime, everything shown from his perspective, the only cutaways being to sensationalised news reports that are often shown playing while Jacob dozes on his sofa. The character is not a good person, but he wasn't completely unlikeable. Gruff, sullen and a definite loner, he fits the small town snowy locale well, without sticking out as someone different. His interactions with elderly neighbour, Julie (Clair O'Neil - Human Hibachi 2) show his altruistic side, and he even has a half decent relationship with his son. In a film like this you would expect him to be estranged, maybe as a reason for his bitterness, but it is just a large distance that separates them. A lot of the dark humour came from the juxtaposition of light and dark, such as the recurring jovial Christmas ditties that play as Jacob drives around with a body on the back of his truck. The most surreal part of A Cold Season has Jacob hallucinating a shades wearing Santa (also played by Hunsicker), a character who pops up a few times playfully chiding the killer for how sloppy he is becoming with his choice of victims.
There never seemed a decent explanation for why he was killing. A messy breakup lives rent-free in his head, maybe being a catalyst for Jacob's misery, but you are just led to believe that the man is just crazy. To be fair, a big twist at the end of the second act explains away some of this. The third act taking place after the initial police interrogation scene was a big departure in vibe, interesting direction to go in for sure, but it wasn't a smooth fit, feeling different in tone, likely on purpose.

Not the most action filled movie, there are still a couple of kills that take place on screen, and are suitably Christmas themed. Without many special effects, and with little to no blood shown, visually this was a little tame, but kills did look good, such as one that takes place lit by the flashing lights of a police car. The snow and feel of it being winter (this was literally filmed in freezing temperatures on isolated mountain locations) worked with the story of isolation and grief that Jacob carries with him.

A Cold Season was an enjoyable indie thriller, though one that could have fused its two disparate sections together more neatly. Jacob made for a protagonist who was hard to identify with, always an element of mystery that kept the viewer at a distance from understanding just what makes him tick. With much of the film on his shoulders, Hunsicker does a compelling performance, long scenes of him alone never resulting in the plot stalling, instead this is like a window into Jacob's troubled mind. A Cold Season releases domestically in the US on November 10th 2026 via MVD Entertainment Group.

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Carry the Darkness (2025) - Horror Film Review

Written and directed by Douglas Forrester in his feature length directorial and writing debut, Carry the Darkness encapsulates a nostalgic time for me, I look back on the 1990s fondly, so a horror set in 1993 appealed, even if by dealing with the issues of moral panics in America (in this case the real-life Satanic panic), it wasn't one whose coming of age story resonated with me. Adding to this small town horror of a social outcast are elements of the supernatural, though these never dominated the film, maybe to the film's discredit?

Travis (Joel Meyers - Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Broadway stage play) is an angst ridden teenager, who plays up the role of the rebellious teen outsider that the townsfolk have painted him as. Bitter at life in general, him and his unexpected best friend, the studious Jordan (Jaden Gant), spend their free time looking for ways to get high; as a means to escape from the insular community they are a part of. While exploring an abandoned building out in the woods (looking for a new place to hang-out when taking drugs), Travis discovers a strange room that feels like it shouldn't be there. While there, he encounters a doppelganger of himself, who promises with a corrupted voice that he can give Travis the power to right the perceived wrong he feels he has been dealt in life. When he decides that he doesn't want the assistance of this being, it turns its attention to his new friend, and potential love interest; troubled Stacey (Helen Laser -  In Sound Mind video game voicework), seeing that she would be more open to its sinister offer.

Did I enjoy Carry the Darkness? Yes I did, even with a somewhat pathetic protagonist. He was fun to watch; sure he is a walking parody of an angsty teen, complete with long black coat, Satanic T-shirts and his brooding persona, but he wasn't entirely unlikeable. There was something of the poser to him, hiding his fear of not knowing his place in the world by acting like the ultimate rebel. This became a little bit endearing, with the sense that he is a good person under this act. He treats his best friend well, and despite arguments with his mother he still is shown to respect her, and the people he does act out against deserve it in one way or another. What Travis, Jordan and Stacey have in common is that their teenage characters are played by actors obviously a little older than teens. Meyers covers this up with his wild eyed stares and jittery movements, making Travis seem like a fabricated character rather than a believable one, or at least one who has drank far too much coffee.

Splitting the story, there is also a subplot about the local law enforcement investigating a series of strange murders in the area, with them eager to place the blame at Travis' feet without having proof. In this part, Hollis Fox plays the Fox Mulder coded Detective Jillian Carter; the sole responsible adult to suspect a more supernatural explanation for what is going on.

Those supernatural elements are not heavy, relegated to key scenes. This led to feelings that not much was really going on horror-wise, two thirds drama, one third horror. Scenes with the doppelganger looked great, fitting into the dark and grimy locations it resided at. This being didn't really do much more than talk, and was used sparingly. The core story felt far more coming of age. Travis having recently experienced the freedom of being able to drive his mother's car, finding a love interest in the equally angst filled Stacey (who comes across as a more authentic rebel), and recurring encounters with the high school jocks who are not his biggest fans. The supernatural story is left to the viewer to decipher and felt a little ill-developed, suggestions the being returns in IT fashion every 30 years, and that it lives in a type of dimension made up of the subconscious memories of its victims, but never really explained. Then, as effective as the ending felt, I can't say I completely knew what was happening during it.

Carry the Darkness leans heavily into its early 90s setting, and having the story set to the backdrop of a moral panic (that is reflected in interviews and on screen news stories), brought things together well. I would have liked for the horror part of the movie to be more front and centre. As key as it undeniably was, I was always left wanting more than what was shown. Carry the Darkness came to horror streaming platform BloodStream on August 14th, which is to be followed by a multi-platform rollout from The Horror Collective.

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Fear of the Living Dead (2010) - Short Horror Film Review

Fear of the Living Dead is a sixteen minute long, very low budget Canadian indie horror directed and co-written by Randy Smith in his directorial debut. Generic and derivative, but coming out at the tail end of the zombie boom in the early 2000s, this has sound problems and some suspect acting, but plenty of undead.

It is two weeks after a zombie outbreak and Her (April Campbell - We Are the Missing, Smash Cut uncredited) appears to be the sole survivor. She spends her days looting homes for supplies, and battling the undead. One day, the house she breaks into is found to be inhabited; a young man (Mike Tarp credited as Him), who is just as surprised to see Her as she is Him. After he discovers that she is immune to infection, he teams up with the woman, figuring survival in numbers will be easier. Some days later after coming under attack by a horde, the duo escape in a car, with the man alleging he knows of a remote location where the two will be safe from the walking dead.

This was the kind of low budget zombie film that I live for, and which makes me such a fan of the horror sub-genre. The undead are a varied bunch of bloodied, but basic zombies who often have their arms outstretched in the generic way undead in early media were portrayed as doing. Blood stained and slow shambling, these looked effective on camera. The film moves along at a pace, but hits its stride in the thrilling mid-film sequence where the man discovers the perils of bringing a loud gun to a zombie fight. This led to exciting scenes of the two running gauntlet style through a band of rotters, though it was hard to not see the empty space either side of the zombies that would have made for a more sensible, though less exciting looking scene if the protagonists had taken it! The two main characters were fine, but the male character fell a bit into the pitfall of looking too young for the role he was meant to be playing, while both were guilty of acting very nonchalance about the outbreak even though the short took place just two weeks into it. There were some sound issues, at times dialogue sounded so muffled that I struggled to make out what was being said.

A generic title and with few surprises, Fear of the Living Dead wasn't a fantastic short, but in the zombie genre that isn't an essential factor. With issues for sure, but this was still an entertaining and fun little film that I took nostalgic enjoyment in watching. Also, a bonus point for the film's cover having nothing whatsoever to do with the movie, a classic zombie film trope!

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Harbinger (2026) - Horror Film Review

I don't know why, but I had high hopes for the very low budget UK indie horror - Harbinger. I didn't actually know anything about the movie, so not entirely sure why I was optimistic for great things, I even gave it the extra chance by watching it at night; a rare occurrence for me due to annoyingly not being a 'night owl'. Directed by James Crow (Curse of the Witching Tree), this supernatural horror has a few choice casting choices, but would this be enough to elevate it past some of its weaker components?

In a wild prologue, Julia (Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott - Helloween), discovers that her boyfriend of 18 months, Henry Decker (Peter Woodward - The Patriot) is actually a homicidally insane serial killer who plans for her to be his seventh victim. Fatally shot by police, the man collapses next to an antique fortune teller machine, mumbling a strange chant as he lay dying. Unknown to all, this chant was a magic spell that transferred his consciousness into the machine.
Five years later and Julia still suffers PTSD, frequently hallucinating that Decker has come back to life. One day she is approached by Mike (Gary Webster - Minder); the presenter for a popular paranormal investigation show called Spectre Investigates. He wants her to return to the mansion her and her ex-boyfriend lived at as part of a new episode of his show. Desperately needing the money being offered, Julia hesitantly agrees. Not long after arriving at her former home with the show cast and crew, everything goes wrong. Decker now possessing the fortune teller machine, uses his supernatural powers to seal all the doors and windows, trapping the visitors inside. His plan is to perform a ritual that will return him to some sort of life, and to do that, he requires six sacrifices.

Being very low budget, some of the acting is a bit suspect here. The more over the top characters fared better than the more measured performances on show. Woodward was excellent as the manic antagonist. One part The Joker, one part Moriarty, he was a joy to watch on screen, so much so that I found myself wishing the prologue had been the whole film. It was a lot better than the undercooked paranormal direction the main film went into. Webster's Mike, and the actor playing the hatted psychic also excelled in their roles, again due to their larger than life performances. Weirdly, I felt that Sothcott didn't really work as the protagonist. She might not be a bad actress, but physically her acting came across as a bit wooden, with her facial expression not changing much based on the situation. The character she played was quite dense, with even other characters within the movie wondering how she could be with Decker for so long and not realise he was a total maniac. The man was Looney Tunes from the off, and it was hard to believe they could have ever been even a façade of a couple. Julia is in good company for stupidity as this cast of characters love to make classic horror movie mistakes. Discovering you are trapped in a house due to an evil paranormal force isn't a good time to decide to go off and have sex for instance, nor would it make sense for near enough every character to at some point make up an excuse for why they needed to go and be on their own, rather than sticking together as a group. Most of the cast felt a bit like Star Trek red-shirts, just there to beef up the kill count without needing to be well developed characters. A forgettable bunch not helped by a soap opera level sub-plot about infidelity and accidental pregnancy going on in their background story. 

The supernatural element is loose and ill-defined with it never clear as to the extent of Decker's powers. Is he a ghost able to materialise anywhere at any time to kill his victims? Is he literally possessing the body of the dummy in the fortune teller machine and killing people in a more physical slasher fashion? The film never seems entirely sure either, giving him of combination of both styles seemingly on a whim. When the kills begin they come thick and fast. You hardly have time to mourn (so to speak) the death of one character before another is swiftly dispatched in quick succession. Strangulation, a slit throat, and eyes being squished into the skull; all sound fine on paper, but there was something uniformly lacklustre about how they are shown on screen. Take the slit throat, sounds neat, but was ruined slightly by little to no blood.

Harbinger felt like it focussed on the wrong point in time with its story. Decker was never as joyously villainous as he was in the fun prologue sequence. As a ghostly force he never worked as effectively; the best character relegated to the background, and who was often represented by a bland looking possessed French clown dummy rather than the delightfully gurning Woodward. Look past the low budget and there are a couple of moments of magic to be found. As a whole though, for me this just didn't land. Harbinger came to UK digital on 10th August and on Blu-ray, and US digital on 11th August, thanks to Miracle Media.

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Silent Night, Deadly Night (2025) - Horror Film Review

I had heard there was a remake of cult classic eighties Christmas horror; Silent Night, Deadly Night, but I can't say I had been in any rush to check it out. I did enjoy the original, even if it was a bit of a strange movie, and the anti-hero protagonist was a bit of an oddball. It turns out that rather than a straight remake, this new Mike P. Nelson (Wrong Turn) directed and co-written version of Silent Night, Deadly Night is a reimagining. Would this be garbage, or is garbage day to be found elsewhere?

As a young child, Billy witnessed his parents be viciously murdered by a maniac wearing a Santa outfit (Mark Acheson - 1922), who ends up killed in the process. Now grown up, the young man (Rohan Campbell - Halloween Ends) has some troubling quirks. Whenever Billy wears a Santa outfit he gets an intense urge to kill, and he also has a voice in his head (also Acheson) that constantly tells him to punish bad people. This is no twisted trauma born of his experience as a child, instead it is something more supernatural. The voice is able to accurately identify evil people just by Billy looking at them. Each Christmas period, Billy is compelled to kill one person every day over advent, with the voice stating this will prevent innocents being killed in their place. Always on the move, Billy arrives in a new town where he gets a job at a toy store. It is here he falls for his colleague, and daughter of the store owner; Pamela (Ruby Modine - Happy Death Day 2U, Happy Death Day). His feelings for the girl have him pondering if maybe he could somehow give up his bloody life crusade, but may be powerless for that to happen.

I have to admit, even after hearing this reimagining was a pretty good horror I was still sceptical. The changes made here were really all for the better, at least at making the anti-hero protagonist less weird, and with motivations slightly more understandable. There was scope for the voice in Billy's head to be misleading the boy, tricking him into killing innocents, but time and time again that is shown not to be the case.  Delphine (Sharon Bajer - Orphan: First Kill) is a case in point. It seems she is just a typical 'Karen' rather than anything more sinister, then later revealed she is the cartoonishly evil leader of a group of Nazis! That part made for a fun mid-film massacre sequence that was over the top and deliriously entertaining. Some touches to the style of the movie channelled Quinten Tarantino, with title cards introducing each new target of Billy's, leading to a small montage of red tinted images of the villain in close up. I liked how relatively normal Billy was. I may have detested Halloween Ends, and the character Campbell played in it, but it wasn't his fault that film was so badly written, here, he fits an almost identical role much better. Modine was also great as Pamela, a character with a violent streak towards injustice that had her as almost a counterpart to Billy, she had a great scene at an ice rink.
By having the victims of Billy be genuinely bad people, and with the voice in his head so sincere and fatherly, he became an anti-hero I was rooting for. This diverges from the original, introducing a subplot about missing children that later becomes more important.

There are many many kills and all featured lovely looking practical effects. You get decapitations, severed limbs, axes embedded in heads, and even a disembowelment. Many of the iconic kills from the original are replicated here, albeit in different context, and mostly in the form of a montage sequence showing Billy's past kills. I did love the practical effects, even if occasionally the victim being attacked did have the look of a dummy to them.

I was very pleased with Silent Night, Deadly Night, and wasn't prepared for how much I was into this by the time the end credits roll. It isn't a film that takes itself too seriously, or abides by real life rules too much (how on Earth was Billy getting away with all these ill-prepared murders over the years without being caught?). Still, by the end, I was almost leaping off my chair in excitement at what was going on, even if it were hardly surprising. In this reimagining there is no younger brother, there is no mindless rampage, and the inclusion of the supernatural made this feel like a different film. Sure, you might need to switch your brain off somewhat, but this was a surprisingly entertaining Christmas slasher. Silent Night, Deadly Night is currently streaming on Netflix.

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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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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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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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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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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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