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

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

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

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

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

Strawstalker (2026) - Horror Film Review

Strawstalker is a found footage horror, written and directed by George Henry Horton (Dark Obsession), who also co-stars. This takes a look at the falsities of influencer culture, a premise that never became too interesting, despite the horror beginning relatively early on.

The film has a wraparound segment to explain where the found footage that makes up the main story came from. Basically, small-time L.A based social media influencer Sandy (Vincent Ranola - Halloween Immortal) has been inadvertently shown up by two up and coming influencer superstars; Henry (Horton) and his girlfriend Haley (Branika Scott), when his day job as an Uber driver got exposed. As some type of revenge, he then broke into the property they were renting and stole a whole bunch of video recordings he found there. Sandy then edited all the footage he found into a cohesive and chronological 'movie', and so on his next live stream, he announces he is going to play the combined footage for his viewers, and also for himself, as he claims to have been 'black out drunk' when editing the recordings together and so can't recall a single detail that was on them.
The footage story itself charts Henry and Haley's new arrival to L.A, where they hope to cement their reputation and make it into the influencer big-leagues. As their base, they have rented a property in a secluded and private suburb. While there, they discover a creepy scarecrow hidden in the back garden, and this innocuous object begins to unsettle them, with it appearing to have been moved to a slightly different position each time they subsequently spot it.

Strawstalker had a few things going for it. As insufferable as Sandy was, he slightly grew on me. He became almost a proxy for the viewer, with the film occasionally cutting away to him where he gives his reaction to whatever has been going on in the main story. He is also the in-film reason for why the footage being shown has had sound effects and a suitably horror-like film score added to it.
The protagonists proper were even more insufferable, all of this extremely purposeful, as influencers here are never shown in a good light. The couple are constantly filming everything they do, with Henry in particular being very tiresome, constantly acting-up for the camera and goofing around in a clownish way. His catchphrase of "L.A baby!" with his British accent, was so bad, that purely by repetition I came to find it vaguely amusing. Outside of actual cameras being used for the footage, there are additional moments that comes from the couples phones, bodycam footage, and most interestingly, footage that was taken by the antagonist, where they are seen spying on the two. This all flows cohesively, but I found the strange montage that shows all the highlights of the film edited together into a 20 second clump at movie's start an odd choice, as it did kind of ruin some of the more action packed moments.

The horror may start at around fifteen minutes into this 82 minute movie, but it never really progresses to anything that interesting. Sometimes the horror is so well hidden in the background of scenes that I didn't even spot it, when I did spot it, it was always tame. The scarecrow moving around on its own while out of shot was hardly the epitome of terror, I never really understood why the couple found it all so scary. Until the third somewhat wild act, not much of note really happens. There is a slight body count, though being a found footage, I expected it was likely the protagonists wouldn't survive the events. The deaths never looked anything special on screen, and the suggested supernatural element to this was only shown poorly, given a bit of an amateurish feel; set pieces hard to excite. There are no scary moments to be found here, perhaps the point, as the director has stated the film was designed to be campy, and that events while played straight, were not really meant to be taken too seriously.

Strawstalker wasn't all bad. The live-stream segments were done just as well as in other films that use a similar concept, and the wraparound segment at least added something slightly fresh. Overall, there wasn't much entertainment to be found, with it often bordering more on the realm of boredom. Strawstalker can now be rented or brought on Digital HD services in North America, including Amazon Prime.

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

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

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

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

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

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Anacoreta (2022) - Horror Film Review

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

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

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

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

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

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We Put the World to Sleep (2025) - Thriller Film Review

Be My Cat: A Film for Anne is one of the few films I have reviewed on my site where my opinion has changed over time. The found footage, that starred Romanian filmmaker Adrian Tofei as a fictional version of himself came at the tail end of a shift in found footage horrors where the antagonist became the leading character in the film. Other examples that spring to mind being Creep and A Guidebook to Killing Your Ex. The strength of these movies relies on the believability of the central character, and with Be My Cat, you had a mesmerising performance from Tofei. His latest film - We Put the World to Sleep has been a long time coming, with ten years of production that included four years of editing the hundreds of hours of footage into a cohesive feature length whole. This spiritual successor is a very very weird film, unsure at first, I came to love the dedication and bizarre direction this went in.
I try to avoid spoilers as standard, but with the director requesting not to spoil anything about the story, for this review, I will try to be even more careful than usual.

The 80 minute mockumentary begins as one thing and alters course, with a distinctly different second chapter that is referenced in teasers for the film. The film's title - We Put the World to Sleep, refers to central protagonists - Adrian Tofei (again playing a fictional version of himself) and his real life wife - Duru Yücel (Dura Yücel also playing a fictional version of herself) coming to believe that humanity would be better off if it didn't exist. Initially they planned to make a found footage type mockumentary about this, but then use the film as a pretext for actually bringing about the end of the world. That is the start of a meta and very convoluted descent into the rabbit hole, where the viewer is made to feel ever unsure what is real and what is part of the illusion.

Even more so than Be My Cat, We Put the World to Sleep adheres deeply to making the protagonists feel like real people, rather than actors. Both give performances that never once feel like the fake onscreen personas are fabricated, going at lengths to give this a feel of reality, such as scenes shot in actual locations like busy streets and airports around an unsuspecting cast of real background characters going about their real lives. This is a really weird film to talk about, with the characters within the mockumentary making a mockumentary, the actors blurring the lines between reality and fiction in an increasing brain hurting way. The first half was a different beast to part two, and sees the two heading to a variety of locations, from Romania, to Ukraine and Türkiye. Their story of trying to find a way to end the world was a bit hard to follow with its exploration of future tech and A.I, but that is just a slight part of it. Keeping to the imitation of reality, Tofei's previous horror is directly mentioned at various points, with him even returning to filming locations from that modern horror along the way. 
The second half of the film dials down the adventure, giving a different feel with a singular location, that revolves around a fascination with real life serial killer - Richard Ramirez. This second part feels disconnected in terms of the story telling to the first, but the themes of getting lost within characters, and the blurring of reality and fiction both resonate well with each other.

Going into this expecting a rehash of Be My Cat may leave you disappointed, as the horror here, if it could be called that, is far more slight. This isn't suggested to be found footage, instead, as frequent screens of text suggest, this is a mockumentary about the in-film characters trying to put together a movie. The two leads stay in character throughout and present a far more balanced and normal feel to them than the over the top unaware madness of Tofei in his first film. It is far more talky here, with a large amount of the movie being conversations between Tofei and his wife, including scenes of them just living together, with relatable drama. There are a handful of other roles, some of which are people the couple are talking to on their laptop. Of the technological side, that is another meta part of the film, with it opening as if an unseen person is finding the movie on a laptop and manually playing it, at times the film paused while the unseen person searches the internet for more information on things discussed. All very meta and all very convoluted in a way that I found increasingly fascinating.

We Put the World to Sleep is a very hard film to talk about. It stretches the idea of found footage and mockumentaries to its extreme, delighting with its ideas presented, while keeping a humorous tone that had me smiling with the absurd but not cringe inducing situations. At the start of this I feared it wasn't going to be for me. By film's end I felt like I had seen something special, albeit, something that might not have the same wide reaching appeal of the more simple first film in this thematically connected trilogy (Pure being the third film). Tofei was the standout star first time around, here, both Tofei and Yücel jointly share the limelight, impressive stuff. We Put the World to Sleep won a variety of awards last year, and this year comes more festival appearances, with the European premiere of the film happening at the Romford Horror Festival in London on February 20th.

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Don't Look in the Dark (2026) - Horror Film Review

I feel that Sam Freeman's directorial debut - Don't Look in the Dark, is going to be a divisive movie. This found footage horror took home the award for 'Best Feature' at the Birmingham Horror Film Festival & Convention, but my thoughts on it are far from positive. This is a film for people who saw Skinamarink and decided it didn't go far enough, also for people who thought The Blair Witch Project felt too staged. That isn't to say this wasn't an effective horror, it does some brave things that really should be commended, it just really wasn't for me.

It begins with the familiar white text on a black screen stating that what is about to be shown is recovered footage. It comes from a couple who went hiking in the Pinelands National Reserve on 4th April 2022. The couple; Italian Golan (Dennis Puglisi in his feature length debut) and his American pregnant wife; Maya (Rebi Paganini - Un-Speak-Able) are there to follow a hiking trail that Maya used to go on with her father when she was a child, in tribute to him now the man has passed. While deep on their hike, Maya believes she sees a young child off in the trees, and fearing for its safety, she decides to go and check that the kid is ok. There is no one where she thought she saw it, but hearing a child's voice in the distance, she heads off on a mad pursuit of it, much to the bemusement of Golan, who neither sees or hears it. Sometime later, the two have neither found the child, nor do they know where they are anymore. Their journey is somehow making them walk round in circles, with them constantly coming back to a huge overturned tree, each time, the hole under the tree has gotten deeper and deeper, and Maya feels a strange force compelling her to climb into the hole.

As well as the opening lines setting up the basis for the footage, it also states that everything shown is exactly as it was found, with nothing added. An old complaint of found footage films was why the person recording continued to record once everything went to Hell. Here, this is resolved in a satisfying way. The footage here is being recorded outside of the protagonists control. Their phones are recording randomly, with neither character able to stop it. That means the film can take place without the immersion breaking feeling of events being staged, unfortunately, it also means that visually, there is not much going on at all. Not even exaggerating, around 85% of the film takes place with audio only. This is interspersed with brief seconds long (sometimes milliseconds long) footage from the character's phones, and as the characters are not meaning to record, these images are random to say the least. You get flashes of trees, of legs, and feet, all intentionally not framed, to give a disorientating effect. It also means that there is a heck of a lot of nothing being shown on screen. To add to the confusing feeling, the footage when it does appear, is shown from a vertical view rather than horizontal, so you get letter boxed images. The horror is implied from these long parts of the movie where everything is black, as very occasionally (and admittedly effectively), you can just about make out strange things occurring in the blackness. Sometimes it seems the camera is travelling down some sort of burrow, or extremely close-up travelling towards a giant eyeball, and sometimes when there is footage on screen you get an almost subliminal snatch of what could possibly be some sort of being. These parts felt few and far between, I found myself pondering at times if the darkness on my PC monitor was too dark maybe, and that I should have been witnessing more than I did.

Outside of what is shown (or rather not shown), the plot of the film is carried by Golan and Maya, with this feeling at times much more an audio drama than a film proper. I think this could experienced purely from audio alone without too much really being lost. With Don't Look in the Dark not once showing the protagonists either fully, or their faces, it became increasingly hard to care about them in the slightest, not helped by never once getting a clear look at the characters you are meant to feel for. In fact, I found the couple's bickering to get more and more irritating. They are constantly arguing, either Golan complaining about his wife's wild goose chase and refusal to admit they are lost, or Maya complaining about her husband's obvious lies that he knows how to get back to their car. When they are not fighting, they take it in turns to either have panic attacks, or to fall to the ground and state they are too tired/injured to move. It became actually tiring - the lean 70 minute runtime felt like it was twice as long as it actually was. I found myself wishing I could crawl into the film and throttle them both!

I didn't enjoy my time with Don't Look in the Dark, but that isn't to say it is badly made in the slightest, or that it shouldn't be seen. It gets around the bugbear of why the characters are filming for one thing, and while to me it seemed like the flashes of footage were random and didn't add anything, of course they were on purpose, with the director intentionally showing and not showing exactly what they wanted to. This was also a found footage that felt very unique. If you love the genre but think that you have seen everything it has to offer, then it would be a disservice to not suggest giving this one a try. I may have been equal parts bored and frustrated with this, but there was also the occasional chill of fear with its adherence to making this feel like genuine unintentionally recorded found footage; the sometimes distorted audio and suggestions of something lurking almost unseen in the darkness. Experimental and divisive (unless I am the sole person who the film didn't resonate with!), this nonetheless achieved something very different. Don't Look in the Dark had its Jersey premiere on 31st January as part of the New Jersey Film Festival.

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The House on Haunted Grounds (2026) - Horror Film Review

Coming from director/writer Brendan Rudnicki (The Last Cabin), The House on Haunted Grounds is a found footage horror that uses the idea of a paranormal investigation crew investigating a possible haunted house. I felt this was a better made film than the last found footage I viewed from this director, but a few too many similarities to other films of this type I have seen from this sub genre of horror, prevented me from really loving this.

The cast and crew of a paranormal investigation show - 'The Otherside' have headed to the house where a notorious serial killer once operated from. Not only are they the first ones to be at the place since the police shot and killed the killer some months or years previously, the house is also due to be demolished the following week. The hosts; Amy (Logan Wallace) and Tony (Andrew Thomas - Shadows of Bigfoot) intend to spend the night there, alongside cameraman Dylan (Dylan Devane - The Last Cabin), and superfan Kate (Cashmere Monique - The Last Cabin), with I.T guy Bradley (Stuart Maxheimer - A Cold Grave) staying back in the van to monitor the camera feeds. They soon get evidence that there may actually be supernatural activity occurring in the house, as the stakes get higher and higher, they must decide if it is worth sticking around to capture their footage or if self preservation is a better idea.

This immediately brought back strong memories of last year's Paranormal Investigations, a similar cast of characters, a similar concept of an episode of a show being filmed, and even an identical death scene to one that is shown here. That film was presented as if it was an actual episode, complete with editing. Here, aside from an intro sequence, the footage is shown as if it was the raw unedited footage, rather than edited together. The film is of course edited, but it is made up of both footage that would have made it onto the show and everything else around that. A few similarities include a bickering cast (that features again the male host being a problem), as well as the computer guy being bullied. It all felt so familiar, I'm not implying this was actually a copy of that other found footage, but the similarities really pulled me out of the picture, a shame, as this was overall a much better made horror than The Last Cabin. Normally I feel if a film is found footage then it should stick religiously to that format. Here, there are the occasional scenes that are traditionally shot. The effective prologue sequence of the cops discovering the killer in the basement of the house was one such part, and then near enough every scene shot in the van was also traditionally done. In total though, that was about 5% of the overall film, and it wasn't jarring having the two styles occasionally side by side.

The horror begins early on, and rather than a gradual ramp-up of terror over the seventy minute runtime, there is instead constant things happening. At first, ghostly blood stained figures who appear extremely briefly on camera, later it ramps up to possession, objects moving on their own, and a wild Ouija board sequence. This was mainly impressive to see on screen. Some parts didn't work quite as well, a later mannequin scene could have worked if not for the lengthy build up to it, and the Blair Witch moment of a character silently standing in the corner of a room facing the wall felt really derivative. Other moments worked much better, especially with how physical some of the horror is. Apart from the identical looking (to Paranormal Investigations) death scene of one character (which wasn't as well executed here), there are some neat moments that feature much more blood than you might expect. Deaths are near all on-screen and they can be pretty messed up in the best possible way! I won't ruin any of those here, but at least one had me saying "Jesus" out loud when I was watching it; lovely stuff! 

I thought The House on Haunted Grounds was a better made film than Rudnicki's previous effort. For me, there was barely any complaints to be had with how the horror was integrated here, there were perhaps a few too many jump scares of ghostly figures suddenly appearing or hovering unseen in the background, but I thought the special effects were great, and it was all edited together in a neat package. Being a found footage, the story is quite basic, and for me personally, it really suffered for being so similar to that other film I saw last year. With a decent location, great effects, and some neat moments of horror, this was still an enjoyable, if unoriginal horror. The House on Haunted Grounds is now available on transactional VOD platforms, with it coming to streaming platform BloodStream later this year. To support this new release, BloodStream currently features a curated collection of Rudnicki's previous films, including The Last Cabin, Into the Forest, and Forest of Death.

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Paranormal Investigations (2025) - Horror Film Review

There is nothing particularly original about found footage/mockumentary Paranormal Investigations. The set-up of a goofy cast of characters exploring a haunted house has been done many times before to varying degrees of success, with the 2021 films Infrared and Paranormal Prison coming to mind straight away. Having said that, this Raymond Wallace written and directed horror delighted due to a mix of darkly comedic goings on, and the presentation style chosen to show the events of the movie.

The whole film is presented as if it was a TV episode that someone unseen is watching. The synopsis is that the cast and crew of a popular paranormal investigation show visited a reputably haunted old plantation building; the Hennesy House, as it had been chosen as the location for the first episode of their new season of the show. Their plan was to spend the night there. The next morning they were found all dead, having been brutally torn apart. The footage taken that night had been confiscated by the police, but after a court battle, the TV network the show belonged to have managed to get a hold of it. Under the pretence of honouring their memory, the TV network have created a special episode of 'Paranormal Investigations', the crew's footage edited together as if it was a proper episode, with behind the scenes footage included, and additional commentary from the network boss.

So, the idea wasn't anything original, but I loved the way this was presented. What I loved most was the way the film is edited together. The crew were joyfully fake, appearing in their filmed scenes as a tight unit of friends, and off camera the inevitable bickering and infighting that gave a comedic contrast. You have Matt (David J. Rivera); the smarmy host who in the background has discovered one of the fans he sent a dick pic to was a fifteen year old girl. This has caused a lot of the conflict as various members are concerned if this gets out the show will be cancelled, especially the sound technician; Fran (Tatiana Robledo). Kelsey (Jamie Bernadette - Ash and Bone, The Bone Box) is the writer and director of the show, also happening to be married to Matt and obviously angry at the man. Then there is cameraman Logan (Nick Oprea in his film debut), who is the most friendly with Matt, and the computer guy; the very nerdy Steve (Logan Stem) who is often bullied by the others. The on and off screen dialogue was wonderful between these, I never tired of the transitions between these moments, and how cheesy and fake they all acted when the camera was rolling. The over the top dramatic music, stylish scene transitions, and the over exaggerated way the characters spoke was mainly so great as it felt so authentic to the type of show they were creating within the film world. Without the behind the scenes stuff (and of course later horror), this could have almost passed for a legitimate cheesy American ghost investigation show. I found the characters interesting for who they were, the behind the scenes dynamics showing tensions between various members leading to amusing moments. I loved the recurring complaint from Kelsey of Logan not having covered up the logo on his baseball cap. Later, the love affair that Steve has with his brand new capture system comes to an almost laugh out loud moment when in the height of the chaos, he makes a pathetic attempt to rescue his heavy equipment before giving up and apologising to it that he has to leave it behind! Amusing stuff. The press release states this is a comedy horror, but it does verge far more on the horror side of things than humour, but it certainly plays a strong role in terms of the dialogue between the cast. As a final point, loved the trailer that plays after the film finishes proper, a great moment.

The icing on the cake was the wraparound for this show. I found it hilarious that the network had edited together their found footage to be in line with a typical 'Paranormal Investigations' show, and I adored how sensationalised the 'episode' was shown. When the horror is in full force, it was amusing to notice the dramatic music playing over the scenes of violence and terror. The schlocky in your face over the top presentation was just perfect. Funny the similarities between the exaggerated performance of the original show itself, and then being eulogised for viewers by an equally fake feeling and dumbed down presentation style for the memorial show.

Being an edited together show, there are various camera feeds around the house often all shown on screen at the same time, it was neat seeing things happen in rooms the characters were not in, though sometimes the smaller images made it a tiny bit hard to see things. The kill scenes were all tremendous, often happening just off screen, but with plenty of enthusiastic screaming, and a nice amount of blood spurts. A mix of practical effects and CG, these mostly looked great, especially one character whose head is crushed on camera! It wasn't all so good for the antagonistic force, the CG for the shadowy being just about looked good, but the thing itself when revealed looked a bit cheesy and fake, enough that I began to think it would all be revealed to be a hoax within the story. Not the most scary looking thing out there, but the panicked actions of the characters sold the scenes. The final twenty five minutes when the mud finally hits the fan made for a thrilling third act, characters running around the large house in total disarray.

From the start Paranormal Investigations felt very familiar, but it was a great example of one of these types of mockumentary found footage movies. At times it played things a little too on the nose. Obviously inspired by the classics, the scene that plays most homage to The Blair Witch Project (in which a character leaves a snivelling apology message to their parents) was such an obvious steal that it almost ripped me out the film entirely. Of course the scene was done that way purposely, but was the most derivative and over-used found footage moment.

This has turned out to be a lengthy review. I thought Paranormal Investigations was a great film despite some little missteps. It would have been nicer to have a little more variety during the third act, and it would have worked better with a more authentic looking antagonist, but I enjoyed the flawed characters and their internal bickering, and I really did adore the way the movie was presented and edited together, quietly amusing. Director Raymond Wallace said of his film:

"We wanted to capture the absurdity of reality television colliding with genuine horror."
I think it is safe to say he was successful in that endeavour.

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The Creep Tapes (2024) - Horror Series Review

Creep and Creep 2 are two fantastic found footage horror films that shine mainly due to the hypnotically awkward performance of the antagonist (played by Mark Duplass). I have always felt a bit bad about giving that first film a six out of ten, but have to assume that was what my thoughts were at the time. With the last film released in 2017, I had assumed this series was done and dead. Last year I was delighted to see a TV series based on the character was released. The Creep Tapes is a found footage horror series, each episode taking the form of a snuff film that the titular creep has made. 

Season 1 is made up of six roughly twenty five minute long episodes, each one featuring a different victim that the killer has tricked into meeting with him. I wasn't sure how the episodes would feel varied seeing as I assumed the central concept would be the same. The fun comes from the different personas and situations that Duplass' character gets to act out in. It begins with 'Mike' in which a man hoping to make a video to help him get into film school has came to the killer's remote house. This was a bit Creep by numbers but it had some shining moments. In this one, the killer is pretending to be a killer for the film being shot, a lovely blend of you not knowing if he is just pretending or is actually attempting to kill Mike. Lovely stuff and it makes sense they would want to start the season with something more familiar. Next up is 'Elliott' which takes place entirely out in a remote location where the killer has joined a man for a spot of bird watching, enjoyed the way killing is described in bird watching terms, though this was one of the weaker episodes due to the location. Halfway through the first season brings 'Jeremy' that was probably my favourite here. Duplass' character is in full cringe mode, playing the part of a priest in order to trick someone who makes a living out of ridiculing religion online. The tables are of course turned in the most delightful ways, with Jeremy failing to out-creep the sinister odd-ball.

The second half of the season begins with 'Brad' in which the killer offers a true crime documentary maker the opportunity to film a real crime in progress, with penultimate episode 'Brandt' mainly just being Duplass' character on his own after the titular man fails to show up. Season finale 'Mom (and Albert)' is the biggest lore dump, with the killer visiting his equally insane mother and her new boyfriend. It is all as you would expect and there were no real revelations, and was also the least horror filled episode. Throughout the season, things were always entertaining but I was never blown away. I enjoyed the variation in these episodes but they remained relatively samey. Of course the iconic wolf costume 'Peachfuzz' makes plenty of appearances, even appearing to be sentient during 'Brandt'. The scenes where the victims come to understand the danger they are really in was always the highlight, Duplass plays his role to perfection, plenty of sudden jump scares by screaming at characters, and the chase sequences were always a lot of fun. The short length of the episodes prevents a feeling of slow pacing that can be the case in found footage feature lengths, with the story picking up at the most interesting point typically.

If you liked the Creep films then I am sure you would also enjoy the series. There is nothing that fresh and exciting here, but it works as a greatest hits of the best that the films had to offer. This was certainly a fun watch, but it didn't blow me away, Duplass of course is perfection in his twisted role. The Creep Tapes is currently streaming on Shudder.

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The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Tuesday 15th of July

It is hard not to feel excited this week as I am on the cusp of what I hope will be an awesome week off of work. Rather than going off to some exotic location, I am instead heading inwards, deep within the bowels of The Rotting Zombie HQ. Here I intend to see absolutely no one (with the exclusion of my best friend should they choose to visit), I won't be looking at any type of world news, I won't even draw the thick dusty curtains of my dilapidated mansion. A staycation done correctly where for a week my entire world will consist solely of myself. Of course, during that time I won't abandon this blog, indeed, I intend to create a surplus of blog posts to feed the future when I travel back from my pocket dimension. Onwards to the news!

Final Transmissions is an upcoming found footage anthology series that is currently on an Indiegogo campaign. Taking place in the small town of Eldritch, Illinois in 1999, it follows a local TV host who begins airing strange transmissions he has received, assumedly, these transmissions making up the found footage segments. This was created by husband and wife team Steven Hugh Nelson and Erica Nelson, and features segments from Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein (The Once and Future Smash), Evan Churchill and Thomas Pardo (Beholder), Nick Cotrufo (The McKinney Family Home Videos), Alex Hera (The History of Analog Horror), the Nelson's themselves (Old Wounds), and Lianne O'Shea and Aviv Rubinstien (Lizzie Lazarus). Check out the Indiegogo page here for more details.

Anima is a psychological thriller that is currently being filmed in Colombia, written and directed by Andrés Beltrán (Tarumama, MalaYerba). Included among the cast are Odette Annable (Cloverfield), Allegra Leguizamo (Tin Soldiers), Julio Cesar Cedillo (Sicario), Tony Revolori (Scream VI), and Andreas Londono (Fear the Walking Dead TV show). The story follows forensic medical investigator Helena (Annable), deep in mourning after the death of her husband Richard (Londono). She becomes obsessed with a strange new case, and starts to believe that hidden within the events of this case is the key to be able to somehow return her husband back to life. Beltrán says of the film "This is a deeply emotional and unsettling story-about grief, denial, and the terrifying cost of refusing to let go". Production runs through July in Bogotá, with post-production planned in both Colombia and the United States for a 2026 planned release.

Finally for today, theatrical metal group Raven Black have released a new single titled 'This Little Piggy'. Described as a 'razor-sharp anthem for the outcasts, the misfits, and the tormented', this promises to be the start of '...a darker, more intense evolution' of the group's sound. Produced by Ulrich Wild (Static-X, White Zombie, Deftones).

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Thursday 3rd of July

There won't be any blog posts on this site next week as I am off to Dunkirk with my father for the weekend, the weekend being the only chance I get to write posts. I figured I might as well pull my finger out and make this week's output a full five posts (I failed, plus I am moving one of the four posts I did write to next week). Onwards to a terrifying trilogy of horror news.

Found footage streaming service FOUND TV is branching out into video game territory, with first release Tag! You're Dead now available to wishlist on Steam. The game takes the form of a side scrolling horror, with it being a small reimagining of the cursed video game from the film /demo_n. You play as Gary, a man battling his way through a demon infested city. Co-founder and CEO of FOUND TV - Louie La Vella stated that this is only the beginning for their video game output 'FOUND has several other gaming projects in the works, including a VR experience in development...' Tag! You're Dead is due for release this summer.

A trailer for upcoming horror comedy The Massage Parlour Massacre has been released. The film sees a detective who has spent their whole life trying to find the person responsible for their mother's death at a massage parlour get caught up in another massacre at the same location some twenty years later. The star studded cast include Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp), August Kyss (Murdercise), Sandy Johnson (Halloween), Mark Patton (A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge), and Robert Allen Mukes (House of 1000 Corpses). This is to be written and directed by Nigel Hartwell (The Demented).

Finally for today, the official poster and trailer for indie horror Blood Red Beach has been released. Coming from Mad Angel Films (Graveyard Shark), this follows a group of friends who anger the vengeful ghost of pirate Captain Roderick Cross while on vacation at a remote island. Blood Red Beach is due for release on August 1st on Blu-ray, DVD, VHS, and a limited edition collectors box. Preorders are live here.

The Rotting Zombie's News Anthology for Thursday 19th June 2025

Here in the UK it is quite a humid June we are having, with the constant threat of a rain shower that never seems to come. I'm determined to actually get five blog posts written this weekend (at time of typing), as I have been getting lazy and my screeners to watch pile has been increasing! Onwards to the news.

I hadn't even realised it was out, but the Watts Brothers are working on a sequel to their unique found footage movie Black Daruma. This always stuck out to me, as the film was apparently shown from the perspective of a cursed Japanese Daruma doll! The sequel, titled Red Daruma, is due to hit screens later this year. Of this sequel, Toby Watts stated:
"The whole idea of there being other cursed Daruma dolls out there and some kind of link between them all really excites us. We've got an amazing location for this one and can't wait to bring it to the screen for the fans to enjoy."

Tonight She Comes is now available to stream on MoviVue. Two friends lost in woodland encounter a naked girl possessed by an evil spirit, as well as a backwoods Satan worshipping family of psychos. This comes from director Matt Stuertz and stars Nathan Eswine, Larissa White, and Jenna McDonald.

Finally for today, a trailer has been released for first-time filmmaker Mark A. Williams' feature length supernatural slasher Mary's Lake. This often repeated story sees a group of camp counsellors who find themselves being hunted by a recently escaped mental institution patient, one who also carries a supernatural force within him. The film promises to pay homage to classic camp slasher movies, done in a respectful way. Mary's Lake was an official selection at both the Crimson Screen Horror Film Festival and the Moonless International Film Festival in 2025.

Project MKHEXE (2025) - Horror Film Review

It appears that the Gerald Waddell written and directed found footage mockumentary Project MKHEXE is so committed to trying to seem authentic that it doesn't even have an IMDB page. I have seen lots of found footage horror films so far this year, and this one is certainly the most polished one, but I don't think for all its atmosphere and vibe it manages to quite stick the landing.

The film is set out like a lost documentary with a screen of text at the start saying that back in 2014 it had been uploaded to the internet but mysteriously vanished a week later. Now (it states), the documentary has resurfaced and will be shown in its original unedited format. The rest of the film takes the form of this mockumentary as we follow Tim, the older brother of Shawn, a young man who unexpectedly killed himself after exploring the urban myth of 'Project MKHEXE', an internet legend about a government broadcast intended to hypnotise, but instead sends the people who see it dangerously insane.

I was immediately reminded of the excellent Butterfly Kisses, a horror mockumentary that played out in a similar fashion, though the core horror there was more interesting I felt. The key to the horror here comes from a signal, this was a similar idea to Haunted: The Audio Drama, which also used the idea of a unnatural signal that sent people homicidally mad. Due to this lingering feeling of familiarity, I never was able to fully immerse myself in this film as much as I would have liked. It was undoubtably masterfully edited, the fake doc feels like lots and lots of care was put into it to try and make it seem authentic. It contains a lot of content over the nearly hundred and ten minute runtime that includes interviews, stock footage, written evidence, its own collection of within universe found footage tapes and found audio recordings. These were all fascinating to see and meant that the focus wasn't solely on Tim (and later Nicole; a university friend of Shawn), instead giving a small selection of other stories. These include the recovered video tape of police interviewing a man suspected of murdering his friend, a blogger, a scientist performing strange research, and of course the tapes that Shawn left behind. All of this looked fantastic, the acting on the whole is decent enough, but outside of maybe one or two characters, no one seemed legitimately authentic. This was a shame as that was the one piece of the film that really needed to sell itself, but it was obvious the whole time that it was a film being watched and not something that could potentially be believed to be real.

The core idea was interesting, I really liked how this found documentary really tries to set itself up as one. There are dives into the protagonist brother's life, and a natural seeming explanation for how Tim decided to make a doc, due to not understanding how his brother could have taken his life. Relatively early on it is revealed what is going on, what the antagonist force actually is. It was fun enough and had some Lovecraftian feelings to it, but my main enjoyment came from the anticipation of where things would end up. By the time I got to about an hour and a half in, the film had began to drag a little and I was ready for the end. The final twenty minutes took a long while to travel a little distance, becoming a little tropey with elements such as unreliable scenes being shown, and ending on a sudden but underwhelming sequence. I will say that I loved that the QR code that briefly flashes up on screen at then end actually points to a website that has been designed as a companion piece to the mockumentary, keeping up the illusion of this being real and featuring links to other equally fake websites that continue the fabrication. It is impressive the dedication to the art of the film here.

For a good chunk of the runtime of Project MKHEXE I was enthralled. The fake format was really entertaining to watch, with perfect editing and plenty of mystery created. Camera glitches were used to great effect. This was one such film where the journey was better than the destination, as I didn't feel the payoff was that exciting. I still thought this was a wonderfully made found footage horror however. Project MKHEXE will be streaming exclusively on SCREAMBOX from April 29th.

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Stéphane (2023) - Comedy Horror Film Review

Co-directed by Timothée Hochet and Lucas Pastor, Stéphane is a spell binding found footage horror comedy that was like a French cousin to the fantastic Creep. The cast may be small but they really made an impact on me.

Timothée (Bastien Garcia) is an amateur film director who one day while trying to film some scenes for a short film contest, encounters a most eccentric man. This larger than life character introduces himself as Stéphane (Pastor), and impresses the young director with his tales of having worked as a stunt man. By a series of misadventures, Timothée ends up on Stéphane's private island where they decide to make a short World War II film alongside the meek and subservient Bianca (Eva Gregorieff). While Timothée is earnest in making the film, he is also secretly working on a mean-spirited documentary about Stéphane, finding the man at once both utterly ridiculous and fascinating. There may be a more dark and sinister side to the man however, and getting on his bad side may be a most terrible thing.

As a found footage this was wonderful, the small cast are mostly made up of the three core characters who were all perfectly cast. With Stéphane you have someone who really reminded me of Mark Duplass' Josef (Creep), but this character is somehow even more weird, yet more likeable. The horror remains just out of reach but there are moments where the viewer is secretly shown his more sinister side, such as when he takes a shotgun to his car engine while Timothée is sleeping (having offered to drive him home) and pretends the car broke down on its own, or when he sees the director flirting with Bianca and so purposely throws a wine bottle on the floor and states it was an accident. The character carries himself around like a bull in a china shop, causing chaos wherever he goes, an intense screen presence, and a powerful aura hidden beneath his bumbling ways. Timothée is much more normalised, but he is hardly the most noble protagonist, having amusing delusions of grandeur about the film he is trying to make when it is clear that he too seems to be a bit of an idiot. I liked the intense co-dependant relationship the two men seem to create, and how easy it was for Timothée's ego to be stroked. Last of all is Bianca, a character who barely has any lines in the whole seventy eight minute movie, but is able to perfectly look like someone who is with the two men against her will just by the constantly scared and bewildered look on her face. It was impressive to be able to act so effectively in near silence, even if her role seemed mostly to exist for comedic purposes.

The comedy/horror split mostly centres on the former. Throughout there are hints of horror, especially with some fantastic unsettling moments where almost subliminal images are edited in to show hints of something far more scary happening (as if it were footage that had been recorded over). Without going into too many spoilers, it is around ten minutes left when the shoe drops and the horror really begins. I did feel this was too little too late, I would have preferred a longer section for this final part. Saying that, it was visually exciting to watch, and featured some good looking special effects, and a neat twist that I wasn't expecting. The comedy side occurs around the two men, with Timothée it is his overblown confidence in his abilities, while as strange as Stéphane can be, there was something almost endearing about him, though saying that as someone watching him on screen, I'm sure if I had been in a room with him I would have been terrified!

This French version of Creep excels with its perfect core cast, especially with Pastor. It may have veered more on surreal comedy than horror, but there was still a mix of the two genres that could be felt throughout the runtime that made for a captivating found footage film. To be fair, even the IMDB page for the film doesn't label this as a horror, citing only 'comedy'. Stéphane is currently streaming exclusively on ARROW, worth watching.

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