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Bloodshine, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (and The Beginning), and The Slime People
lundi 21 septembre 2026 • Durée 24:16
This week’s new release is “Blood Shine,” which we assume was a vampire story but isn’t. We’ll dismember and eat up two more Leatherface films, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (2003) and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning” (2006). Finally, we’ll come up from someone’s bowels with “The Slime People” from 1963– yuck!
All this, plus the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #60, for September 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com
Mainstream Films:
2026 Blood Shine
* Directed by: Emily Bennett, Justin Brooks
* Written by: Emily Bennett, Justin Brooks
* Stars: Emily Bennett, Brendan Sexton III, David Call
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
In an isolated country estate, a young filmmaker is held prisoner by a religious zealot. The beginning segment - about 16 minutes long - held promise, but things change after the opening credits. The two leads give it their all, but we both thought it was pretty dragging and dull.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on a creepy TV preacher talking about how our bodies are cages.
We cut to some guys working on a farm with cows; more newborn cows have died this year than have been born alive. The farm is failing, so the farmer lays off Keith, who’s obviously already broke. Keith’s truck breaks down on the way to another farm that was recommended to him – he’s not having a good day.
Keith walks to a farmhouse to make a phone call. The woman inside, Clara, offers to call him a tow truck. She invites him inside; he does seem safe, at least. She’s kinda plain-looking, but the more he looks at her, the better she looks. They start talking about being lonely and alone.
They touch hands, and we then get a glimpse of her and knife, and a trail of blood; she’s stabbed him, and now she wants him to stab her as well. He kills himself instead, even though she wants him to kill her. “You wasted it! You wasted all of it!” Credits roll.
We cut to Brighton West showing off his latest new horror short. He’s got an actress there auditioning for a new role, and he Weinsteins her. Later, he calls the producer and promises to finish writing the promised film. He’s going to go off to the country to force himself to finish the movie script for “Craven IV.” The producer is skittish because Brighton’s had addiction issues in the past.
At the cabin, Brighton meets Lucy, a neighbor, and avoids her. He ends up spending most of the evening at the local bar drinking. He admits to the bartender that he can’t find any inspiration here. Manny the bartender gives him directions to a nearby town where he’ll find some inspiration in a cave.
Brighton goes out to the woods and spots Clara there, naked in the river. Suddenly, he’s knocked out by a falling branch. He wakes up at Clara’s house. They talk about being single, just as she did with Keith earlier, and he admits that no one is home waiting for him.
Clara gives Brighton some drugged tea, and the next thing he knows, he’s chained up in a dark place watching a recording of the preacher telling him that he’s going to die. “In 26 days, you will die in agony.” We see that she’s got a whole videotape series about kidnapping and torturing for the cult. She beats, cuts, and shocks him daily after that.
Eventually, Brighton takes the hint and starts cutting himself on command; it’s easier than getting beat up first. Brighton figures out that he’s not the first one held here when he finds a message, “She’s afraid of the dark.”
There’s a long montage of torture, cult-speak, and suffering between the two. After a very long while, he sorta seduces her and trades places with Clara, chaining her to the floor in the dark.
After a great amount of discussion, the two are soon cutting each other and putting their hands under each other’s skin.
Eventually, it’s time. She hands him a knife and wants him to kill her, but he doesn’t want to do it. He does do it, and she thanks him before dying.
The other cultists arrive on the scene, along with the leader. All the other characters we’ve seen in the film are involved. The leader pokes out Brighton’s eyes, but Brighton doesn’t mind; he smiles and looks at the sun.
Brian’s Commentary
It’s all about loneliness, isolation, and of course, cult murder. It’s well acted and looks good, but the pacing is awful and it’s really, really slow at times. It’s really all about the two characters bearing their souls to each other, but it’s actually all pretty boring.
I was eager for it to end.
Kevin’s Commentary
The opening scene was so long, and with the main character being killed, it almost felt like two movies in one. Unfortunately, the first segment was really good, and I thought the rest of the movie dragged. The two leads were just acting their hearts out, but I thought it was pretty boring.
2003 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
* Directed by: Marcus Nispel
* Written by: Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper, Scott Koser
* Stars: Jessica Biel, Jonathan Tucker, Andrew Bryniarski
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 38 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s a reboot of the 1973 movie by the same name. And while it is a sweaty movie with some grit, it doesn’t match the grimy feel of the original. It’s a polished modern (okay 23 years ago) horror movie. Though it is pretty well made and entertaining after a little bit of a slow start. In total, we liked it more than disliked it, but our attention wandered here and there. Kevin liked it a bit more than Brian did.
Spoilery Synopsis
We get a voiceover about the deaths of five young people thirty years ago. We get a video walkthrough of one of the murder sites. Credits roll.
August 18, 1973, a bunch of teens in a van are out in the country. Erin, Morgan, Pepper, Andy, and Kemper are annoying right off the bat. They’re all coming back from buying pot in Mexico; they’ve got two pounds in the car.
They almost hit a young girl walking in the road. The girl has clearly been into some bad things, so they offer her a ride. Kemper, the driver, doesn’t know where they are and drives her to the meat packing plant, where the girl kills herself in the back of their van. Most of the van people are asking “why did this happen to us?”
The group stops at a gas station. The woman inside calls the sheriff, who offers to meet them somewhere else. They drive to an abandoned-looking factory, but there’s no sheriff there. They go inside the old factory, but they aren’t alone. They find a little boy who seems to be living there alone.
They go to a huge old isolated house, and the man says they can call the sheriff from there. The sheriff finally shows up at the factory, and he’s a class act as he wraps up and takes the body away. Meanwhile, Erin and Kemper run into trouble with the old man in the house– oh, and Leatherface is there as well.
Erin returns to the other three, minus Kemper, and they wonder what’s happened. She takes Andy back to the old man’s house, and he sneaks in the back door. They soon run into Leatherface, and Andy loses a leg.
Erin runs back to Morgan and Pepper, but then the sheriff shows up to arrest them all for drugs. There’s a standoff between Morgan and the sheriff, and that goes badly for Morgan.
Meanwhile, Leatherface takes off his mask and works on what’s left of Kemper and Andy. After, he goes after the two girls, now alone in the van, but he’s wearing Kemp’s face. She runs to a mobile home with two women inside; “He knows better than to bother us in here. He’s a sweet boy.”
The sheriff and gas station lady are in cahoots with the old man and Leatherface, which is not at all surprising. They turn Erin over the big masked man, who puts her in the basement with Andy, who’s still not dead yet. He begs her to kill him, which she does. She then finds Morgan, who’s also still alive– at least for a little while.
Leatherface chases Erin across a field, but he trips and injures himself. She runs to the meat packing plant, where the two play cat-and-mouse. Somehow, it’s hard to tell with all the superfast edits, Leatherface loses an arm.
Erin runs outside and flags down a truck driver, who stops and picks her up. She freaks out and makes the guy stop– at the same gas station as before. Erin hotwires a car and runs over the sheriff repeatedly. She drives away with the kidnapped baby, right past Leatherface, who’s still out there.
We get a voiceover discussing how the case is still open.
Brian’s Commentary
This just seems to take forever to get to anything. It’s a very sweaty, dusty movie, but it just doesn’t give the impression of dirt that the original did; it’s just a little too professional and polished.
It was fine, but I admit I was checking my phone from time to time; it just didn’t grab me.
Meh.
Kevin’s Commentary
It’s certainly a sweaty and wet movie. With water leaking into rooms even before it started raining.
It was a nice touch bringing John Larroquette back for the voiceover again. He was an unknown at the time of the original.
I thought it was okay, liked it more than disliked it. But the original was better, and is more rewatchable. This isn’t that memorable.
2026 Short Film: A Good Death
* Directed by: Kaz Ps
* Written by: Kaz Ps
* Stars: Tracie Thomas, Jenny O’Hara, Stefanie Estes
* Run Time: 10 Minutes
* Watch it:
What Happens
Amalia is a “Death Doula,”someone who helps with terminal patients. She arrives at the house of a new client, and Tabitha, who answers the door, seems really eager to let her in. “There’s no such thing as unusual in this line of work,” she explains.
She could be wrong.
Commentary
The only thing creepier than monsters is seeing old peoples’ toenails.
Could it be elder abuse? Maybe, but not in the usual manner. I kinda figured this was the way the story was going to go, but it was well-executed, looked good, and even the special effects were fun.
Nice!
2006 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
* Directed by: Jonathan Liebesman
* Written by: Sheldon Turner, David J. Schow
* Stars: Jordana Brewster, Matt Bomer, Diora Baird
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This one starts with Leatherface being born in 1939, and catches us up on what happened before the 2003 remake. We get to see how Hoyt became Sheriff and other fun things. Since it’s a prequel, we know some of how it’s going to end, but that didn’t stop it from being good. It’s well made, and we were both entertained. If you’re a fan of the 2003 reboot, you’ll probably like this one too.
Spoilery Synopsis
It’s August, 1939, and we’re at the meat packing plant. The woman working there grabs her belly and begs the boss for a break. She collapses, leaking blood all over the place and gives birth to a really ugly baby. Not long after another strange woman finds the ugly baby in the dumpster and takes him home to the house we saw in the previous film. “That’s the ugliest thing I ever saw,” says Charlie Hewitt. Credits roll.
We forward to July of 1969. The meat packing plant is now closed and condemned. Thomas Hewitt, the big guy who works there, doesn’t want to leave the job.
We cut to Chrissie and Eric messing around at the nasty motel pool. He’s heading back to Vietnam soon, and this is their last fling. Dean, Eric’s brother, is supposed to be going as well, but he’s not as enthusiastic about it. Bailey, Dean’s girlfriend, wants him to not show up for the draft.
Back at the meat plant, Thomas returns at night and beats the manager with a hammer. He then picks up a chainsaw and goes home. The sheriff finds out and goes to Charlie, Thomas’s adoptive uncle, for help. Charlie shoots the sheriff in the back. Charlie then takes the uniform and “becomes” the new sheriff. Charlie cuts up the old sheriff and feeds him to the family.
The four young people stop at a familiar looking gas station. There’s a whole bunch of sketchy looking bikers there, and the girls are eager to leave. Dean burns his draft card in the back seat; he’s not going. They run from a biker but crash into a cow, which is really juicy.
The “sheriff” shows up and immediately shoots the biker. He terrorizes the group, then takes three of them away in his car, leaving Chrissie on the road alone. Monty shows up with a tow truck and takes the wreck with him, along with Chrissie, who’s hiding in the back.
They all drive to the family home, and Tommy, AKA “Leatherface” takes the dead biker away for processing. Charlie tells the guys about how he learned to eat human flesh in the Korean prisoner of war camps.
Chrissie flags down another biker and tries to talk him into helping her.
Eric gets loose and goes into the farmhouse, threatening the old women inside. Sheriff Hoyt quickly regains control of the situation. Leatherface straps Eric down and starts measuring his face.
Meanwhile, Chrissie’s biker ally arrives at the farmhouse with his gun. He shoots Monty. Charlie and Leatherface take care of him– with the chainsaw, Tommy’s first chainsaw murder! Leatherface then goes back downstairs and finishes off Eric the same way. All except for the face, which he has use of.
Charlie gets Tommy to cut Monty’s wounded leg off with the chainsaw. “What is this?” “Surgery!” Tommy takes off both legs, just so that they’re even.
Chrissie sneaks in and releases Bailey, who’s been tied up all this time. Charlie catches her and “invites” her to dinner. There’s a whole family dinner scene, which is pretty much required in a TCM film. Chrissie, Bailey, Dean, and Uncle Monty are all pretty much unwilling guests of Charlie and Mama. Tommy shows up and kills Bailey, right there at the dinner table.
Chrissie gets loose and runs out of the house through the fields, and Tommy chases after her with the saw. She runs to the old meat packing plant.
Meanwhile, Dean wakes up to see Bailey’s corpse sitting next to him. He helps Chrissie fight off the big man, but he doesn’t last long in the battle.
Chrissie almost drives to freedom, but Leatherface is hiding in the backseat. With everyone dead, Leatherface slowly lumbers on back home.
Brian’s Commentary
This works backward from the previous film, bringing back most of the family that died in that one. Being a prequel, we already know who lives and dies, but it’s still very well done. It’s got good characters and pacing, and R. Lee Ermey really steals the show in this as the main baddie.
I think I rank this one third, after the original two films. The ones in-between have been pretty forgettable.
Kevin’s Commentary
I thought this one was very good in the series. Interesting seeing why Monty is in a wheelchair, how Hoyt became Sheriff, and other prequel tidbits. It’s well put together and moves well. I liked it quite a bit.
1963 The Slime People
* Directed by: Robert Hutton
* Written by: Blair Robertson, Vance Skarstedt
* Stars: Robert Hutton, Les Tremayne, Robert Burton
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 16 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Slime people from underground isolate an area of California under an impenetrable force field dome and release a deadly fog in an attempt to invade. But a heroic group fights them off. It’s not the worst movie we’ve seen, but it was featured on Mystery Science Theater for a reason. It’s low budget with mediocre acting and dialogue, entertaining at points but clunky in the pacing. We’d recommend you pass on this one.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on… slime people walking through the fog– and there’s a dead man. Credits roll.
There’s so much fog that Tom can’t land his airplane. Los Angeles tells him to divert North, and they are very insistent. He lands anyway, and there’s no one anywhere in the airport.
Professor Galbraith and his daughters drive up and say he needs to go with them. Lisa and Bonnie explain how the slime men arrived and wiped out all the military. The family had been staying up in their remote cabin and missed the whole invasion.
Tom’s a sportscaster for the news, and he wants to go to the station to see if they have any footage of the slime monsters. He plays the newsreel, and sure enough, there are slime people invading Los Angeles.
They came from the sewers, not from outer space. They hide in the fog, which they make somehow. The fog can harden at times, which is lethal.
The group encounters a slime person and hides inside a studio. They run into Cal, a soldier. Cal tells them about the solid wall around the city that the fog made.
Bonnie likes Cal, and Cal likes Bonnie, so we stop the story so they can flirt.
Lisa takes care of the cooking and coffee while Tom and the professor theorize about the dome. Tom and Lisa get a bit romantic. And he helps with the coffee.
Tom, Lisa and the professor run into Tolliver the shepherd at his cabin. He’s a bit whacky, and says he doesn’t believe the slime people are dangerous. They bring him along but refuse to include his favorite goat. Cal and Bonnie are in a separate car, and they all go toward the wall to investigate it. The temperature continues to drop, which is what the slime people are trying to do so they can live above ground permanently.
Tom and the professor go into the woods toward the wall while the others stay behind. Then they just leave Tolliver behind as they head in. They try various chemicals to burn through the wall, but they don’t have much luck.
After all this, Tolliver still thinks the whole thing is irrational and not real. Reality hits him hard. The group hides in a butcher shop, but the creature gets Tolliver. The professor figures out that plain old salt will break down the fog wall.
Somehow, Bonnie gets caught by a monster and taken away. Tom and Cal go off to find her in the mist. They find a cave that the creatures are using as a headquarters and sneak inside. Cal finds Bonnie and leads her out as Tom fights with the slime men.
On the way back to the butcher shop, the trio find the machine that makes the fog. But there are too many slime people around to get close. They all head to the wall with salt water solution in buckets that the professor says will get them through. But Tom wants to go take out the generating machine.
After they battle the slime people, the wall machine blows up with a simple spear-throw, and all the fog immediately dissipates. All the slime men fall down dead without the fog to breathe.
With the wall down, soldiers pour in, and all the good guys ride away.
Brian’s Commentary
Slow-moving mudmen with spears and magic fog conquered Los Angeles? Well, OK then. The really scary thing? Look at the prices at the butcher shop; three pounds of bacon for a dollar!
The acting and dialogue are pretty horrible. The creatures are adequate for a movie of this period, but they aren’t very stand-out. Also, there’s a lot of fog to obscure the cheap-looking rubber suits. The pacing is really bad; I dozed off for a couple of minutes and didn’t miss a thing. There are a lot of scenes of driving and walking where not much else happens.
Bleah. Dull.
Kevin’s Commentary
The Slime People have the technology to project an impenetrable force field dome and generate a massive amount of climate changing fog, but walk around carrying spears and knives like a primitive tribe. Very strange.
Other than a fog machine and some people in rubbery costumes (which the trivia says took about half the budget), the effects are pretty minimal.
The acting and dialogue are pretty bad. It’s not a terrible story, but the pacing isn’t steady or very exciting. I wouldn’t recommend it.
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The Last House, Penny Lane is Dead, Her Private Hell, and The Unearthly
vendredi 18 septembre 2026 • Durée 21:53
This week, we’ve got three new releases and one campy classic. We’ll open with “The Last House,” which seems fairly polarizing with the critics. “Penny Lane is Dead” comes up second, with the very strange “Her Private Hell” up next. For an oldie, we’ll watch John Carradine in “The Unearthly” from 1957.
All this, plus the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #60, for September 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com
Mainstream Films:
2026 The Last House
* Directed by: Louis Leterrier
* Written by: Matthew Robinson
* Stars: Greta Lee, Wagner Moura, Riley Chung
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 52 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A family of four is sealed in their house, along with everyone else in their houses apparently, and we get to watch them survive with the resources that they have on hand.
After seeing a lot of bad reviews and online hate for this movie, we were bracing ourselves for the worst. We were pleasantly surprised, and we both liked it. It’s got a lot of questionable points and unexplained things, but we were entertained.
Spoilery Synopsis
“Everyone remembers where they were when the rain came,” we are told. Everyone looks up at the weird-looking storm, as the voiceover gets pretty ominous. Credits roll.
Jason comes home from bad fishing, and he’s brought donuts to his wife Ann, and two kids, Ruth and Graham. The garage door and the electronic front door won’t open, and the kids are super whiny, and everyone talks over each other, so it’s gonna be bad. It must be a prank, right? The Internet is down, as are the cellphones. Even the glass in the window won’t break– it reforms and “heals” itself.
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Pinocchio: Unstrung, Eegah, Trog, and Teenage Cave Man
dimanche 6 septembre 2026 • Durée 28:35
We’re back with four movies and a short this week. We’ll start off with the latest in the Twisted Childhood Universe, “Pinocchio: Unstrung,” recently released. Then we’ll go way back in time with three horrible caveman films: “Eegah” (1962), “Trog” (1970), and “Teenage Cave Man” (1958). UGH! OOG!
All this, plus the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #60, for September 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com
Mainstream Films:
2026 Pinocchio: Unstrung
* Directed by: Rhys Frake-Waterfield
* Written by: Rhys Frake-Waterfield
* Stars: Jude Evan Lloyd, Richard Brake, Robert Englund
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 22 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s a modern telling of Pinocchio, created by Geppetto as a companion for his grandson, and his wholesome journey to becoming a real boy. Actually it’s brutal and violent.
The practical effects were impressive - the closing credits show a series of behind the scenes clips.
We’re both in agreement that the series is getting better as they go along. This was quite good.
Spoilery Synopsis
We hear about the narrator’s grandson James, who came to live with him. Then James’s best friend died. The old man made something for James that would never die… Pinocchio…
James and Geppetto talk about death and life. Geppetto then coughs, which in movie tropes, means he’s dying. That night, James chases something small throughout the house. Turns out, it’s Pinocchio, who lives in a creepy-looking hole in the basement wall. That is one creepy doll.
Geppetto insists that Pinocchio’s existence remain a secret, so he can’t go to school with James. Instead, Pinocchio talks to his “wood mother,” made of the same wood as him. She tells him to take human flesh and wear it.
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The Dollmaker, The Voices of Our Mother, Project: Hail Mary, Underworld: Blood Wars, and 20 Million Miles to Earth
dimanche 30 août 2026 • Durée 27:25
We’ve got FIVE big films to discuss this week. We’ll open with “The Dollmaker,” which was the favorite of the week for both of us. “The Voices of Our Mother” comes up second, followed by the sci-fi sorta-apocalypse with “Project: Hail Mary,” all three of which are recent releases. For our oldies, we’ll wrap up the vampire series with “Underworld: Blood Wars” and then a real oldie, “20 Million Miles to Earth” from 1957.
All this, plus the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #59, for August 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com
Mainstream Films:
2026 The Dollmaker
* AKA “Encantador”
* Directed by: Jose Maria Cicala
* Written by: Jose Maria Cicala, Griselda Sanchez
* Stars: Mario Alarcon, Alejandra Baldoni, Griselda Sanchez
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
In a town filled with quirky characters, Tomas leads a quiet life taking care of his mom and working two jobs with doll making and collecting as a hobby. But women are disappearing in town, and when a police inspector comes to town to help, things start getting even weirder. It’s a strange movie, kind of surreal, almost a Twin Peaks vibe. We both thought it was great.
Spoilery Synopsis
We watch some crafty credits, and then get on with it. A girl gets whacked in the head with a shovel and dragged off.
Tomas finds a doll’s head on the road on the way to the doctor’s office. He makes and repairs the world’s ugliest CPR dolls for the doctor. He hallucinates his mother suffering in the mental ward. He then attends a group therapy session where Tina talks about her family as Tomas sketches her. The bloody ghost of her dead mother attends the session as well. He follows her most of the way home afterward.
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Nightborn, Big Baby, Son of Sara, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation
dimanche 23 août 2026 • Durée 24:32
FOUR HUNDRED EPISODES? WOOOHOOOO!
We’ve got a baby and family-themed episode this week. We’ll start off with the folk-horror “Nightborn” from this year. We’ll go with some meta-slasher fun with “Big Baby” next. “Son of Sara” gives us a slightly different take on the birth of the antichrist. All three of those are new this year. “Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation” is our oldie for the week, starting the careers of a couple of actors you might have heard of.
And we’ve got a creepy short film this week as well.
All this, plus the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #59, for August 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com
Mainstream Films:
2026 Nightborn
* Directed by: Hanna Bergholm
* Written by: Hanna Bergholm, Ilja Rautsi
* Stars: Seidi Haarla, Rupert Grint, Pamela Tola
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 32 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A young couple moves to her childhood home in the Finnish woods, has a kid, and lives happily ever after. Well, actually no. The kid ain’t quite right and things get progressively worse as the story progresses. It’s kind of slow moving and talky in places, but the dread and horror builds nicely. We were both entertained, Brian more than Kevin.
Spoilery Synopsis
Jon and Saga drive their car through the woods toward their new, isolated home. It’s her childhood home. It looks an awful lot like a haunted house. Credits roll.
They go inside, and it’s really torn up. There’s a tree growing in the bedroom floor. For some reason, they seem happy to be in this mess.
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Evil Dead Burn, Soulm8te, Corporate Retreat, and Colony
dimanche 16 août 2026 • Durée 28:39
We’ve watched a bunch of oldies and sequels over the past few weeks, so this time, let’s focus on four brand-new films. The latest installment of the Deadites franchise, “Evil Dead Burn” is first. Next, we’ll stop in with a visit to the M3GAN universe and meet our “Soulm8te.” After that, we’ll stop in for a perfectly normal “Corporate Retreat,” and then take a side trip to Korea to visit a strange “Colony.” 2026 is shaping up to be a fine year for horror so far!
And we’ve got a creepy short film this week as well.
All this, plus the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #59, for July 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com
Mainstream Films:
2026 Soulm8te
* Directed by: Kate Dolan
* Written by: Rafael Jordan, Kate Dolan, James Wan
* Stars: Lily Sullivan, David Rysahl, Claudia Doumit
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A lonely guy working in robotics gets an experimental home model companion to test and improve on. His attempts to make her more lifelike leads to obsession and deadly consequences. It’s very well made, and the cast is great. But we both thought it didn’t show us much new that we haven’t seen before. The storytelling was good but kind of predictable as it unfolded.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on a sex scene as the credits roll. She chokes the guy, but she gets carried away and nearly kills him before the technicians monitoring can shut her off.
We get a commercial about Ultima’s new AIs and robots. David’s company has been acquired by Ultima and Ben is the new boss. David is not enthused about work. He also misses Lizzie, his dead wife.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
Leviticus, Until Dawn, Wishmaster 4, Underworld: Awakening
dimanche 9 août 2026 • Durée 26:55
We’ve got another batch of weird ones for you this week. We’ll open on “Leviticus,” and you’ll hear what we thought about that. “Until Dawn” takes us on a time-loop adventure, while “Wishmaster 4” brings an end to that franchise. And then there’s “Underworld: Awakening,” which takes that franchise in a whole new direction.
And we’ve got a creepy short film this week as well.
All this, plus the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #59, for July 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com
Mainstream Films:
2026 Leviticus
* Directed by: Adrian Chiarella
* Written by: Adrian Chiarella
* Stars: Stacy Clausen, Joe Bird, Mia Wasikowska
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 28 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Two teenagers run into trouble when a shapeshifting entity fixates on them. It’s not a happy movie, and it’s very slow-paced. But it’s got an interesting story, and it’s well made. The acting is excellent. Neither of us disliked it, but we were kind of meh.
Spoilery Synopsis
The lifeguard stays late after the pool closes to take a naughty shower. Something bad happens to her that we don’t see, but it involves lots of screaming and blood. Credits roll.
Ryan and Naim play with a snake and break into an abandoned mill to vandalize it and hang out. It doesn’t take long before the two are fighting with each other– and then kissing. Ryan warns Naim later not to tell anyone about what happened. Later, both boys stare at each other as the church group sings.
Some time later, the boys are back inside the mill making out again. Naim’s mother is highly religious and often drags him to church groups. They also know Hunter, who is Rob, the preacher’s son. Naim sees Hunter and Ryan kissing in the backyard and realizes he’s not exclusive. Naim tells Rob what he saw and things go badly for Hunter at home after that. Ryan and his family as well.
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Disclosure Day, Wishmaster 3, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, and Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III
dimanche 2 août 2026 • Durée 30:49
Will your life ever be the same after “Disclosure Day?” We suspect it will be. Then we’ll continue our dive into franchise sequels with “Wishmaster 3: beyond the Gates of Hell”, “Underworld: Rise of the Lycans,” and “Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III.” It seems that the films’ names grow longer with each iteration.
And we’ve got a creepy short film this week as well.
All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #58, for July 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com
Mainstream Films:
2026 Disclosure Day
* Directed by: Steven Spielberg
* Written by: David Koepp, Steven Spielberg
* Stars: Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth
* Run Time: 2 Hours, 25 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Aliens are real and some people want to disclose and some people really, really want to keep it a secret. So we have two and half hours of back and forth chasing and strangeness and science fiction mish-mash.
We both thought it was on the long side, with too much filler and not enough disclosure.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open with wrestlers beating each other up in the ring. Daniel Kellner sits in the audience, not interested in the show at all. We soon see that he’s there to pay the ransom for Jane. The kidnappers release Jane to him, but they’re a big, well-run group, and Noah Scanlon is in charge. He wants the “device” that Daniel has, and it’s very dangerous. Noah warns that there’s no reset for what Daniel’s about to do, but Daniel knows this.
Jane asks what kind of treason Daniel’s done, and he says it’s complicated. He’s got a big bag full of memory cards of data, and he calls Hugo Wakefield to take them.
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Backrooms, Underworld: Evolution, Return of the Living Dead III, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
dimanche 26 juillet 2026 • Durée 28:59
We’ll start off this week with the much-discussed “Backrooms” that just hit streaming this week. We’ll then watch three sequels to major franchises: “Underworld: Evolution” (2006), the second in that series, “Return of the Living Dead III” (1993), and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2” (1986).
And we’ve got two very fun short films this week as well.
All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #58, for July 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com
Mainstream Films:
2026 Backrooms
* Directed by: Kane Parsons
* Written by: Will Soodik, Kane Parsons
* Stars: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 50 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
The IMDB.com description says “When a counselor’s client vanishes into a surreal realm of infinite corridors, she is forced to journey into the abyss to bring him back.” But it’s more complicated than that with infinite layers of weirdness. Which is the backrooms, which is the real world, and which is just distorted memories?
It’s a very strange film, and we both liked it.
Spoilery Synopsis
It’s 1990, and we open on a guy filming inside an empty set of rooms. He stops in a room full of radio equipment, and he reports that he’s never been this far before, and he really wants someone to come and get him.
As he continues, we see that birds, leaves, and nature have somehow intruded into the hallway, and various pieces of furniture are embedded into the walls. Then something jumps out and kills the guy. The video ends, and the credits roll.
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Passenger, New Year’s Absolution, Underworld, and The Stepford Wives
dimanche 19 juillet 2026 • Durée 24:12
We’ve got another fun mix of films for you this week. We’ll start off with “Passenger,” a fun road trip film. Next, we’ll celebrate New Year a bit late with “New Year’s Absolution,” both of which are newish releases.
For our classics, we’ll watch the first of five “Underworld” films, and then go way back and visit “The Stepford Wives” of 1975.
And we’ve got a very weird short film this week as well.
All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #58, for July 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com
Mainstream Films:
2026 Passenger
* Directed by: André Øvredal
* Written by: Zachary Donohue, T.W. Burgess
* Stars: Jacob Scipio, Lou Llobell, Melissa Leo
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 37 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A young couple living van life on the road encounter a car accident and end up unintentionally picking up a passenger while they are at it. It relies excessively on jump scares, but it’s quite good anyway. The main duo is really good together, and it’s well made. We were both entertained.
Spoilery Synopsis
Lucas and Daniel drive along the empty road late at night, and they’re both bored. They whine about Lucas’s dry mouth and needing to pee. Not long after, Lucas does have to pee, so they stop. When Lucas gets back to the car, Daniel is gone and the car is all scratched up. Suddenly, Daniel flies into the windshield, dropped from high up. Lucas gets back in the car and speeds away, but he keeps passing the same man on the side of the road, over and over. Credits roll.
Maddie and Tyler pack up their big-city apartment to live in a van. They start their big road trip. Six weeks later, they’re living the mobile lifestyle, stuck in traffic and missing out on their reservations. Tyler proposes to her, right there in the van. Suddenly, a neighborhood watch guy bangs on the door and makes them move. They drive on, another hour to a motel.
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The neighbors across the street signal with a mirror that they can’t get out either. A jogger runs by, and they get her attention to go for help. They all wonder about conspiracy theories. Ruth thinks the rain did this. “The rain looked different today.”
Jason shows Ann his gun, and she freaks out. Night falls, and the rain continues. Jason tries to drill through the door, but the holes re-seal themselves. The rain is making some kind of barrier around the house, even underneath it.
No Internet. They dig out old DVDs and records to entertain the kids. They have power and water, but food is going to be limited. The dog, on the other hand, has to poop, so that’s a problem. Jason teaches the kids how to gut a fish, but they don’t have any fish.
After a week, some of the neighbors run out of food. After the second week, they’ve all adjusted to the new normal. After a month, Ruth notices something walking around outside in the rain, but no one believes her. Ann saves the seeds from their vegetables and starts growing more. Another month, and neighbors are dying, and they’re out of dog food.
One night, a crazy person with a knife beats on the doors and windows. “They’re dead! Everyone is dead!” Is that jogger from a long time ago, and she’s clearly gone insane. The rain itself tears her away from the window and drags her away. They all believe Ruth’s stories about rain-people now. It’s time to start covering up the windows.
The crappy old house is falling apart, especially the cracks in the chimney and foundation. Could they get out through the chimney? They hoist Ruth up through the chimney and she gets her hand through, but the hole is too small to get out completely.
The dog runs out of medicine and dies. What to do with the body? The fireplace… or the freezer? There are now big tentacle-monsters outside when it rains.
Three months, and all the food is gone. There’s a wild dog outside that keeps coming around, and Jason builds a trap that he sends out through the chimney to catch it. It takes a few attempts, but he eventually catches a squirrel. “Chimney fishing,” they all joke. They also expand the garden by pulling up the floor. Eventually, the power goes out.
Five years later, most of the house is garden. The kids have gotten much bigger. There are bears living in the street outside. The house is still sinking, and the cracks are getting worse. The monsters keep coming to the door, and they always hide from them. The monsters can open the door and come inside, but the people can’t open them. Something calls the monster away.
After the rain stops, the door still won’t open. The monster left a puddle of seawater behind, so Ruth figures the creatures are from our oceans, not outer space. It also kills most of their garden with the salt water. It poisons their soil and drinking water.
Ruth gets bitten by a weasel and gets infected. Jason figures out a way to dig down into the sewer pipes, and Ann volunteers to crawl through to the neighbor’s house to get antibiotics (Why would a retired dentist have antibiotics in their home that would have expired years ago?).
Ann makes it to the neighbors house and gets the drugs, but it starts to rain, and the monsters come out. It’s a chase through the sewer, but she escapes the tentacle-monster. The drugs heal Ruth just fine.
Jason tells Ann and the kids to hide in the attic, since the creature is going to come for them now; he’ll distract them. No, Ann and Graham want to run outside when the creature opens the door next time. Jason wants to go all “Home Alone” and just lure the creatures inside to a bunch of traps he’s made.
The creatures, on the other hand, have their own plan. They flood the house with water, filling it up entirely. There’s a crazy battle as the family makes their way up to the attic. The garage floor gives way and drains most of the house’s flooding. They finally get the best of the creature, trapping it alive. Jason remembers that Ruth thought it was friendly and doesn’t kill it. It opens the door for them and lets them all outside.
Outside, they are soon surrounded by other creatures, but the one they spared comes out and tells the others to leave them alone. Suddenly, the whole house collapses and falls down into a pit.
For some reason, the rain stops and the monsters all go away. The family takes a fishing boat and sails away since it’s “Waterworld” by this point.
Brian’s Commentary
I’m skeptical that there’s enough space in that house to garden food enough for four people.
I’ve read some really terrible reviews of this one, but I kinda liked it. It’s not really explained, and it probably doesn’t make a lot of sense if you think about any of it, but who wouldn’t want to be trapped inside their house for five years?
It’s not as bad as you may have heard.
Kevin’s Commentary
The Internet and cell service went out but electricity, gas, and water kept working just fine for longer than they should have if they were unattended. But that’s just one of the many unexplained issues and loose ends.
By the time they made their move to get out of the house, if the phenomenon was worldwide, it doesn’t seem like there would be a whole lot of other survivors left.
Basically my interpretation is that it was a race of ocean dwelling creatures with control over water, such as the creatures in “The Abyss,” that got fed up with the human race.
With as much online hate as I’ve seen for this movie, I was expecting to hate it myself. I did not. So much is unexplained and things best not to question too deeply. But I was entertained.
2026 Penny Lane is Dead
* Directed by: Mia Kate Russell
* Written by: Mia Kate Russell
* Stars: Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn, Tahlee Fereday, Alexandra Jensen
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Four young women join up at an isolated beach house for a celebration. When three bad guys show up, things take an assaulty, violent, and somewhat predictable turn. The movie takes place in 1986, which gives it a retro vibe. It’s well made, and there are enough variables to keep it interesting, but at the core it’s mostly something we’ve seen before.
Spoilery Synopsis
Australia, 1986. Kat and Nick are a couple, and she makes drug-laced cupcakes. Penny’s mother doesn’t trust Penny’s cousin, Kat, who drinks and does drugs. Credits roll.
Penny has Toni and Amy over for a “school’s out” party, and Penny’s mother finally leaves them alone. Penny and Toni kissed each other and liked it, but they don’t tell Amy, cause that’d be weird in 1986. They go to the liquor store and flirt with Nick and Josh.
Kat shows up and has custom cupcakes for each of them. It doesn’t take long before that and all the other drugs start to kick in, and Penny passes out. Kat admits that she drugged Penny’s for kicks. If they call the police, Penny might not be able to go to law school. Toni attacks Kat, and there is much arguing. Kat calls her boyfriend, Angus, to come and pick her up.
Angus wants to come inside to make a phone call, but Toni thinks he’s scary. Radowsky and Merrick are outside in the car as well. Against her better judgment, Toni lets them all inside. They’re obnoxious and a bit scary to Toni and Amy.
Toni figures that Kat will want to leave if she seduces Angus, which goes badly. In retaliation, Kat shows the men where Penny is passed out in the bedroom. This is quickly turning into Angus’s rape party, and Merrick wants to wait in the car, uninvolved. Kat, on the other hand, takes photos.
Penny wakes up, screaming, and Toni beats Radowsky into unconsciousness. Kat nags Angus into killing Penny with a shovel. Toni takes off in the car to get help, but Radowsky isn’t far behind. The store Toni goes to is closed, and the phone doesn’t work, but it does have a machete hanging on the wall. She knows how to use it, and soon Radowsky is in pieces.
Merrick and Angus argue about where they were supposed to go tonight. Important people were waiting for them. Angus’s father is important and lets Angus get away with anything.
Meanwhile, Amy steals the world’s slowest bicycle, and Angus chases her down on foot. He ends up shooting her.
Kat and Angus have sex while Merrick cleans up the bodies. Toni runs back from the store with the machete, but it’s a long way off.
Toni returns to the house and finds bodies; she missed the killings. She slashes Merrick, but he doesn’t die quietly– or quickly. Kat wants to kill Toni, and Angus gives her the chance, but even Angus starts to think Kat’s a lunatic.
Unexpectedly, Nick shows up, and Kat’s happy to see him. She’s covered in blood, so he immediately knows something is up. Nick sees too much and runs away. While Angus is out chasing him, Merrick gives Toni a knife to help her escape. When Angus kills Nick, Kat freaks out, because she liked Nick.
Toni cuts herself loose, grabs Angus’s gun, and shoots him. Merrick throws a knife to finish him off.
Now it’s just Toni and Kat in a … Katfight. Josh shows up, looking for Nick, and he finds Toni stuck to the window with a knife. He releases her, but he doesn’t live long after that. Kat and Toni get back at it, and it gets pretty bloody– cheese grater bloody!
It’s all looking pretty bad for Toni until Penny wakes up, not dead after all, and whacks Kat with a shovel. They ride off in the morning, leaving Kat and the others at the house.
Brian’s Commentary
It’s an Australian home invasion story. Since it’s 1986, there aren’t any cell phones, which is convenient for the killers.
So Toni is just fine in the morning after getting all those stab wounds? Doubtful. Still, it’s a bloody mess with a twist at the end, so it was pretty decent.
Kevin’s Commentary
I was kind of bored in the beginning when we were getting to know the four girls, but things picked up when the guys showed up. Well, a while after the guys show up. But it gets more interesting eventually.
I was thinking 1986 wasn’t so long ago, then I remembered that’s 40 years. It gave it a retro vibe plus took the element of cell phones out of the story.
It’s just another women suffering through a home invasion story, but it’s well made and still pretty entertaining.
2026 Her Private Hell
* Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn
* Written by: Nicholas Winding Refn, Esti Giordani
* Stars: Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, Havana Rose Liu
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 50 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
The IMDB.com description says, “A hypnotic, unhinged thriller with an original story promising plenty of glamour, sex, and violence.” which is useful to use because I’d have no idea how to describe it exactly. It’s surreal and futuristic, with dialogue that is deliberately stilted and odd. It looks great, and there’s sort of a story there to be deciphered. Watch it for the visuals, then wonder afterward what it is you just saw.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on a shadowy, misty, futuristic city with lots of cyberpunk elements (Kevin called it “the Blade Runner planet” right off the bat). At the Tower Hotel, Elle looks up at the neon tower. Inside, she meets Hunter, and they have some clunky dialogue. They go up to Elle’s apartment, and it’s super huge. Dominique comes in and gives them a lecture about not being relatable. Dominique turns out to be Elle’s stepmother.
We flash over to her father, Johnny Thunders, who is powerful and likes to play games with people. There’s a whole scene with models, dresses, needles, and discussion about the mist and what it brings. Johnny tells the girls about the Leatherman, a father cursed to search for his daughter in the mist. Hunter is fascinated by the older man, who wants Elle and Dominique to make up and be friends again– by making a movie together.
Elle and Hunter watch as someone in the neighboring building is murdered.
We cut to Elle aboard a starship that enters some kind of vortex that makes her pass out. She gets into a laser battle with a bunch of fembots but gets shot in the arm. I assume this is the “movie” they were supposed to be making. Suddenly, Hunter tells them about the Leatherman story again, and it’s all true. She tells them about a pair of women, The Kingmakers, who are the guides for the Leatherman.
Elle goes home and finds that her father has left her a hatchet and a note to bury the hatchet, literally. [At this point, we’re 35 minutes in, and I really have no idea what’s going on or why].
We cut to “Private K,” a man with a cigarette lighter. “I saw the Leatherman,” he explains. “I saw him take my daughter. Is he a ghost? A monster? A god?” He talks to a detective who learns that K recently lost his daughter to a kidnapper when the mist came.
He hears a scream and runs toward it to help, where he knocks out a guy with his brass knuckles. He breaks up a whole trafficking/photography thing out in an alley somewhere. It’s all very colorful and violent. The police arrest him for killing all the perpetrators. The police then take off K’s shirt and whip him; meanwhile, Elle moans “Daddy” in her sleep over and over.
Elle, Dominique, and Hunter bark like dogs to each other and then go out for the evening to meet Nico, a guy they all know. They talk about fetal art. Hunter tells him all about the Leatherman as well.
Private K talks more about his lost daughter, and I strongly suspect that it’s going to be Elle when she was a child (could Johnny Thunders be the Leatherman? Who could see THAT coming?) He talks to the Kingmakers, who tell him that he’s just a memory. They explain that he will see his daughter again, but only when he dies. The yakuza show up and beat up K, but he kills them all, unarmed.
Dominique and Elle have a long conversation about being former and future friends. The two of them, along with Hunter, go to the least crowded rave I’ve ever seen. Maybe Private K is there. Nico is there, and he kisses everyone, and they all kiss each other as K watches from outside.
K tries to break in as someone, I think Hunter, gets her chest ripped open (I’m not sure who it was, I was too busy looking up synonyms for “pretentious”).
Elle then goes home to her apartment above the mist and makes out with Dominique. No, she stuffs underwear in Dominique’s mouth. This leads to a full-on fight with knives and everything. Elle goes for the hatchet.
Suddenly, the Leatherman arrives, and he silences Dominique. Trapped, Elle waits to see who the Leatherman turns out to be. Since there are only two men in the film, it’s not much of a debate. The demonic Leatherman fights Private K dramatically. K loses, but then Elle cuts off the Leatherman’s hands with the hatchet. Characters give long, lingering looks at the camera and then vanish, leaving Elle alone in the mist.
The Kingmakers appear to choose her fate. They give her some magic gloves.
Brian’s Commentary
That the hell was that all about?
It’s extremely visual, most scenes seem composed for the sake of visual art instead of any kind of rational story. There are some ideas here, but they’re barely connected and the overall plot is dragged out that it’s just boring as anything.
This “mist” needed more extradimensional monsters. That would have livened it up.
It’s a self-indulgent, pretentious waste of two hours. If you’re really into cinematography and art, go for it. If you want a story, stay far, far away.
As Kevin says, “Yeah, that happened.”
Kevin’s Commentary
Brian said, “This is what you get if you let the cameraman write a movie,” and I thought that was spot on. Lots of long lingering shots and strangeness and camera work that look great but don’t really mean anything. It’s like the visuals and imagery and surrealism came first, then a sort of loose story was inserted around that.
“Nicolas Winding Refn (the director) said the story originated from combining three separate ideas: a young woman arriving in a city that does not exist, a man willing to descend into Hell to rescue his daughter, and a third narrative thread created specifically to connect the first two into a “triangle” structure.” Well alrighty then.
It was pretty to look at, but the near-two hour run time started feeling long for me well before the halfway point. I wouldn’t recommend it.
1957 The Unearthly
* Directed by: Boris Petroff
* Written by: Jane Mann, John D.F. Black
* Stars: John Carradine, Myron Healey, Allison Hayes
* Run Time: 1 Hours, 13 Minutes
* Watch It:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A mad scientist obsessed with glands experiments with the patients in his isolated psychiatric institute and laboratory. And despite the title, everything happens unEarthly. It’s not awful, but it’s pretty basic and forgettable. Neither of us were very impressed.
Spoilery Synopsis
After the credits, Dr. Wright and Grace come to visit Dr. Charles Conway. The huge servant, Lobo, lets them in and looks creepy. Conway runs a sanitarium, and he’s accepted Grace as a new patient. Conway hears about Grace’s father and gets nervous, but Dr. Wright says he’s arranged for her to be discovered as a suicide; no one’s going to come looking for her.
Conway’s been experimenting on people and suspended animation. He’s got Jedrow in the basement who’s not much better than a zombie. Jedrow has a sister who’s been trying to find him, which is a problem.
Lobo catches a man skulking around outside and drags him inside to Conway. He’s Mark Hueston, and Conway knows that he’s a wanted killer. Conway makes a deal with him. He won’t turn Mark Houston in if Houston works for him.
Time passes, and Danny and Natalie argue about breakfast. They’re patients, and they’ve been here for months. Danny’s aggressive, but Dr. Sharon sedates him.
Conway has the secret of life, death, and growth; it’s all done through glands. Lobo was a tiny man when he arrived here, but now he’s a huge man. He’s developed a new, artificial gland that will prolong life. Mark thinks the doctor is crazy but has no choice but to stay.
Mark makes friends with Grace. Conway tells Natalie that she’s got a “special treatment” coming up. Dr. Sharon and Lobo drug her and send her to Conway’s lab while the others are distracted by Conway’s organ music. In the surgery, Conway implants the gland inside Natalie and sews her back up.
Meanwhile, Mark searches Natalie’s room, since he suspects something is wrong. He goes to Grace’s room and wants to take her away from all this.
Eight hours later, Conway goes in to check on Natalie, who should have awakened by now. Turns out, she’s aged tremendously in those hours; it didn’t work at all. He then warns Grace to stay away from Mark, who’s a troublemaker. This makes Sharon jealous, and she wants to make Grace their next subject.
Mark starts snooping around in the basement and finds Jedrow, who still just sits there. He brings Grace down to see him, but by that point, Jedrow is gone. They do find Natalie, who’s a decrepit mess now. Meanwhile, Lobo has hauled Jedrow out back in a coffin and is digging a hole to bury him. Mark sees him doing it. He goes to Danny and warns him about what the doctor is up to. They hatch a plan for them to meet at 2 am and the two of them with Grace will escape.
There’s lots of running up and down the stairs as the doctor checks to make sure his trio of patients are sleeping. The three of them meet in the lobby at 2, but the doctor catches them. Sharon, Lobo, and the doctor all have guns so they have little choice but to go back upstairs. They take Grace for a gland implant. The two guys are left with Lobo, and they take advantage of his slow wits to escape. Danny gets shot as Mark confronts Conway.
Mark reveals himself as an undercover policeman, here to stop Conway, but Conway escapes in the dark. Jedrow gets out of the grave and stabs Conway. Lobo then kills Jedrow. The police arrive in time to arrest Sharon and Lobo. The police also find a room full of animal-men in the basement that we had no idea about before this. “What if they do live forever?” asks one of the cops.
Mark and Grace laugh at their good luck. He offers to take her home, and they kiss.
Brian’s Commentary
This was completed in only six days. Wow. It’s not especially good, but it doesn’t feel rushed.
It’s a very standard mad-scientist film with a very standard plot. There’s nothing supernatural or “unearthly” about anything here.
It’s not very good.
Kevin’s Commentary
I can see how it could have been done in six days if the cast and crew was on top of things. There aren’t many very complicated scenes or special effects.
It was kind of tame with not much originality to offer. It’s not bad, but I’d put it low on the classics scale. I didn’t hate it, but I’d rate it a mid that I’d never need to see again.
Short Film:
2026 Short Film: Black Coffee
* Directed by: Muzappar Osman
* Written by: Muzappar Osman
* Stars: Nobody real, it’s entirely AI
* Run Time: 4:41
* Watch it:
What Happens
An AI representation of a woman coming home after losing her job to AI discovers something very special about her mug of coffee. It’s a portal. And when the opening isn’t big enough, she finds a way around that. It’s heavy on science fiction and low on horror, but it tells a story that has an unsettling tone.
Commentary
There’s a disclaimer that it’s AI if you notice it, but you can tell by the short scenes - a current limit of AI, the general look of it, and the gibberish visual text here and there. And the story seems like it was written by AI trying to convince us that AI and technology heading the way it is is a good thing and nothing to be afraid of. Brian thought it was okay. Kevin was not impressed. Posted 12 days ago at the time of this writing and at 88,000 plus views. Sigh.
The next day, Pinocchio does go to school with James, pretending to be a doll. Pinocchio watches a really fun chain of accidents that would make “Final Destination” proud (this is why I don’t go to the gym). When the bullies come for James, Pinocchio observes. When Dudley and Mia see the doll move, James says it’s an “AI Thing.” When James goes to the dentist, Pinocchio observes.
There’s a traffic accident on the way home, and Pinocchio goes to the hospital with him. “Best friends protect each other,” he says as he leaves. He tracks down the drunk driver in a nearby room and gets his somewhat excessive revenge. He takes some of the man’s organs to make himself more real.
The wood mother is thrilled to hear that Pinocchio has killed someone, so now things are just beginning. She sends an evil-looking cricket to assist him.
Meanwhile, Mia finds some home movies and watches them. In the film, Geppetto talks about cheating death and what he’s done. The first experiment went really badly.
Pinocchio and the cricket go after the dentist next. He gets his dentribution on her. After that, there’s a trio of bullies that don’t live long.
Geppetto realizes that Pinocchio is gone, and James and his friends are gone as well.
With teeth, eyes, hair, lips, and some organs, Pinocchio sits in front of a mirror and pretties himself up. Geppetto shows up and drives Pinocchio home. Pinocchio realizes that the wood mother has tricked him. He smashes both her and the cricket with a hammer.
Geppetto shows Pinocchio where he was created, and it’s really something. There’s a special magic tree that makes magical wood. Pinocchio was supposed to be the reincarnation of James’s dead friend, Zach. He plans to kill Pinocchio and end the experiment. Instead, Geppetto shoots the annoying friend, Dudley.
Pinocchio gets the drop on Geppetto with the shotgun, and the doll shoots his maker. He mostly misses and releases the really bad wood creature that was in a cage behind him. The house burns down, and James, Mia, and Pinocchio get out. “I’m gonna need a new dentist,” jokes James. And a couple quick wrap ups make us think it isn’t really all over.
They earned the R rating through the gore, which is excessive and realistic looking. Though also a little tedious.
Somehow this managed to be both unexpected and predictable at the same time. Yes, it was a twist that Geppetto was evil, but would anyone expect Richard Brake to be playing a benign good guy? Though I do think it was an improvement over the previous Twisted Childhood Universe tales. They are getting better at them.
1962 Eegah
* Directed by: Arch Hall Sr.
* Written by: Bob Wehling, Arch Hall Sr.
* Stars: Arch Hall Jr., Marilyn Manning, Richard Kiel
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 32 Minutes
* Watch it:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Two teens encounter a prehistoric giant in the desert. The poster makes it look way more exciting than it actually is. It’s often included in worst movies ever made lists, and it probably belongs there. The pacing is clunky, the dubbing is bad, there isn’t a lot to the script, and the acting is questionable. It’s watchable and somewhat interesting, but not one to really recommend.
Spoilery Synopsis
Roxy leaves the store and stops to talk to the guy at the gas station. On the road to the lake, she almost runs over a caveman. Tom interrupts the proceedings before the giant man carries her away, but he doesn’t see anything. When they tell their fathers, the old men don’t believe them.
In the morning, they find giant footprints in the dirt. Mr. Miller, Roxy’s father, wants to visit the nearby mountains and maybe write an adventure book about the big caveman. Miller takes a helicopter up to the mountain to spend the night. Miller soon encounters the caveman.
Meanwhile, at the pool, Tom plays his guitar on a huge amplifier, which probably annoys people for at least a square mile. Roxy gets a call that the helicopter set to meet her father can’t show up for the rendezvous, so she and Tom head out there to pick him up– in a dune buggy. We get lots of gratuitous “Wheee!” in the dune buggy. Night falls, which leads to a campout, and another song from Tom (where are the backup singers coming from?).
Out in the desert, the caveman hears the music and hones in on them. He sneaks into camp and eats their food while they sleep. He runs off when Tom’s faulty radio starts playing.
The next morning, the two continue the search for Mr. Miller. The caveman grabs Roxy while Tom is off in the hills. Roxy wakes up in the creature’s cave next to her father, who is still alive. The caveman sniffs her all over; he likes her perfume. The cave is also occupied by the caveman’s mummified dead relatives.
Miller calls the creature “Eegah,” and Roxy whines about the cave (I’m whining about the pacing and acting at this point). Later, Eegah goes out for a dead rabbit and some flowers for Roxy. Roxy shaves the caveman, which is badly needed. Afterwards, Eegah’s got one thing on his mind, but Roxy ain’t having that.
Rocy lures Eegah outside, but Tom is out there as well, and he fights the big man. The three jump into the dune buggy and ride off with the caveman in pursuit. As they drive away, Roxy looks at the big man longingly. Eegah goes back to his cave and tells his troubles to the mummies.
Eegah leaves the cave and goes looking for Roxy and her car. He uses his bloodhound powers to follow her with his nose– right to town. Miller and Roy talk about Eegah, and they decide to keep the whole thing a secret so that people won’t hunt down and kill the caveman. They head to a party with Tom, and Eegah causes mayhem looking for Roxy. The police get a call “Large man or giant on the loose.”
Meanwhile, Tom’s doing more singing at the party. Roxy tells Miller that she’s worried about Eegah. “Something’s happened to him.” Then she proceeds to dance with Tom and another guy from the band who wants to fight. Eegah shows up at the party, and everyone sees him. He grabs Roxy and carries her off.
The police shoot Eegah repeatedly, and he dies. Everyone is sad, especially Roxy.
Brian’s Commentary
Richard Kiel got all the “big man” roles in the 60s and 70s.
This feels like an hourlong TV show stretched into a movie. It’s got lots of unnecessary filler scenes, and it’s downright boring at times.
Yawn.
Kevin’s Commentary
It’s strange, I had a used copy on DVD about 15 years ago that was in black and white. This was in color, and I don’t see any mention of it online or in trivia about it having two versions.
Trivia says much of the sound was accidentally destroyed, which is why it’s (badly) dubbed. It’s impressive how Tom starts to sing with his guitar around the campfire, and there’s drums, bass guitar, and backup singers who join in.
Richard Kiel certainly was a big feller. 7 foot 2. With a very fake looking beard here.
I was slightly entertained, but it’s really pretty bad overall. My biggest complaint is the clunky pacing and too many filler scenes.
2026 Short Horror: Unprompted
* Directed by: Stephen Packer
* Written by: Stephen Packer
* Stars: William Lonsdale, Bryan Cooper, Libby Kay
* Run Time: 6:16
* See it here:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Mason is struggling to get started on an idea for a horror screenplay. Even a writing sprint with a classmate on the phone hasn’t helped. Reluctantly with guilt, he asks an AI assistant to help him with writing. Unfortunately, the prompt is so vague that it gives the AI unlimited leeway to create something. And does it ever!
Spoilery Synopsis
The lesson here is don’t just let your AI just go off on its own to create things. It’s quick and effective, poking fun while still being deadly serious at the same time. The effects, acting, and direction are all excellent. Maybe a little too short, but it was entertaining.
1970 Trog
* Directed by: Freddie Francis
* Written by: Aben Kandel, Peter Bryan, John Gilling
* Stars: Joan Crawford, Michael Gough, Bernard Kay
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 33 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Cave explorers find a surviving primitive man in a cave, and a scientist takes the lead trying to study and help him. There’s plenty of pandemonium when he surfaces, but smart and capable Joan Crawford does a pretty good job of handling things. Until there’s more pandemonium when local rabble rousers cause trouble. It’s on the campy side, but it’s not awful and we both kind of enjoyed it.
Spoilery Synopsis
A group of spelunkers walk through a field to a cave. They drop their ropes into a deep pit and go down. They explore the cave system until one of them finds an underground stream. This leads them to a cave system where no one has ever been before. Suddenly, there’s a caveman attack! One of the cavers, Cliff, rushes in to find his friend Bill beaten to death.
Inspector Greenham goes to see Dr. Brockton, a doctor treating the traumatized surviving spelunkers. Cliff is in shock, but what he describes in the caves intrigues her. Malcolm, the third caver, explains to the Inspector what happened. Dr. Brockton wants Malcolm to be her new assistant.
Brockton wants to go back into the cave and see the creature. Just the two of them go back and explore the cave some more. They aren’t attacked, but she gets a really clear photo of the creature. She calls it a Trog, a troglodyte, half-man, half-ape.
Soon, there are newspeople, police, firetrucks, and crowds of spectators as everyone comes to the cave. Sam Murdoch, a local troublemaker, calls it all a hoax and nonsense. They all watch on TV as the trog attacks a camera crew. It comes out of the cave and is mesmerized by the sun. Brockton shoots it with a tranquilizer dart.
Later, Trog wakes up in a big cage in Brockton’s lab. He eats raw fish and lizards. Brockton’s daughter, Ann, likes to feed him. Sam goes on and on about the dangerous monster; it’s hurting business. She argues that it’s the “missing link.” Brockton theorizes that Trog was frozen solid in ice until just recently.
Brockton starts “taming” the trog. She’s nice to it, and he’s nice back to her. It likes classical music, but not rock.
Sam continues to raise more rabble. He works to enlist Dr. Selbourne, one of the other scientists, in his plan.
The scientists take Trog outside to play ball, but a dog gets involved, and that goes badly. There’s a court of inquiry by the locals, who want Trog killed as a wild animal. Everyone tells their side of the story, and Brockton fires Selbourne.
Brockton enlists a bunch of other scientists and surgeons, and soon, they’re operating on the mysterious caveman. They implant an electronic tracking device into him. They do a second operation, and this one will allow Trog to talk. Trog has a memory of stop-motion dinosaurs fighting and volcanic eruptions.
Sam, unwilling to let this all continue, breaks into the lab one night and wrecks the place. He then opens the cage and is killed by Trog; he totally had it coming. Trog runs away into the woods.
Trog soon arrives in the small town, which is pretty deserted in the morning. Not completely deserted, as he kills a couple of shopkeepers. He comes to a playground and steals a little girl who looks like his favorite doll. He carries the girl back to his cave.
The local police bring in the military to deal with the caves. Brockton argues with them and then goes into the caves alone to defuse the situation. Trog gives the child to the doctor and then goes back into the cave. When she comes out, the army blows up the cave and shoots Trog, who dies.
Brian’s Commentary
This takes place in the “modern” 1970s. Were British people really that close minded and provincial back then? I doubt it. There’s not really any motive behind Sam’s unreasonable hatred for the monster other than a vague mention of a land deal.
The Trog costume was a leftover from “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
This was Joan Crawford’s final film role, and one she later said was the worst film she’d ever done. It wasn’t that bad.
Kevin’s Commentary
I may have seen this when it came out, I barely remembered it as it was going along.
Trivia says Trog’s prosthetic is recycled from the opening scene of “2001: A Space Odyssey.” And it looks rubbery but pretty decent.
It was refreshing to see Joan Crawford playing a character who isn’t crazy, mean, evil or all three. I haven’t seen that very much from her. It was her last film role here. And she later said it was the worst movie she ever made. I wouldn’t call it the worst movie I’ve ever seen. It’s bad, but it’s a good bad, and I thought it was entertaining fun.
1958 Teenage Cave Man
* Directed by Roger Corman
* Written by R. Wright Campbell
* Stars Robert Vaughn, Darah Marshall, Leslie Bradley
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 5 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Even young Robert Vaughn couldn’t save this movie. And he’s reported as saying it’s the worst film ever made. Years later, Roger Corman would be quoted as saying, “I never directed a film called ‘Teenage Cave Man.’ We don’t quite agree with Vaughn, but it’s not a good one.
Synopsis
We get Biblical quotes about the creation of the Earth. “And then there came… man!” Credits roll.
We see cavemen returning from a hunt across the mountainside. “Where’s the boy?” Asks the Symbol Maker, who goes off looking for his son. His son has gone somewhere that is forbidden because the son has “progressive” ideas. He doesn’t want to hunt in this dead land but instead wants to go to the lush, forbidden land. His father warns that there are terrible creatures there; it’s all very dangerous. There is also “a god that gives death with its touch!” They head back to the group.
The Symbol Maker’s son likes the Blonde Maiden. They worship fire, the wheel, and the way things belong. It is the law. The Black-Bearded One tries to tempt the son to do things that are against the law; he just might have an ulterior motive. The Symbol Maker is in charge of keeping the records— cave paintings.
The next day, all the men go out hunting, and the Symbol Maker is mauled by a bear. The Fire Maker tries to sew him up. The Bearded One goes right to work on the son, talking him into going into the forbidden land for better hunting.
The Symbol Maker’s son tries to talk his young friends into going to the forbidden land with him. Four of them set out the next morning. A dinosaur spots them and starts to pursue them but gets distracted by another big lizard. One guy gets sucked down into quicksand and dies, so two of the others turn back and go home. Only the son of the Symbol Maker continues on.
Then the, uh, ”monster” shows up, whatever the heck that was. The son runs away, but runs into a tree and knocks himself out.
Back home, the Symbol Maker wakes up and wants to know where his son has gone. His wife explains, and he’s not happy. The Bearded One starts rabble-rousing. The Symbol Maker swears he will find his son and bring him back.
The son wakes up and “discovers/invents” a bow and arrow, all by himself. He kills a deer and the local wild dogs attack. His father arrives just in time to help fight them off. They go back to town for trial. The people decide to shun the son instead of killing him, which enrages the Bearded One, who attacks the son but fails to kill him.
The Blonde Maiden is impressed with the son’s fighting skills, so he plays a tune on his pipes while she bathes in the waterfall. She decides to break the rules and talk to him– genders aren’t supposed to speak directly to each other unless they are married, and then only in private. He talks about going back to the forbidden place again for another attempt.
A man rides up on a horse, which is something new for the tribe. They think the man and the horse are one animal. They knock the man off the horse, and the son insists that they can learn from the new man. The Bearded One kills the innocent, wounded man.
The Symbol Maker wants to change the law, but the Bearded One argues that the old ways are best. The stranger’s existence proves that people can survive in the forbidden land. The Fire Maker is in charge, and he upholds the status quo— stay out of the forbidden land.
The son finally hits the age of manhood, and when asked, says he will hold to the word and to the law. The monster skulks around just out of sight. The son warns the Bearded One that a fight is coming. The Blonde Maiden wants them to run away together and find a cave all their own someday. They spend time at “the sleeping place” together that night. The son swears he will go out and kill the monster.
The son goes off into the forbidden land again, and once again, the Bearded One condemns him. This time, he convinces the people to kill both the son and the Symbol Maker. Everyone heads to the forbidden zone, breaking the law to keep the son from breaking the law.
They soon encounter the monster, which stands up just as wild dogs attack the tribe from behind. The son approaches the monster to communicate as the Bearded One drops a rock on it. The son kills the Bearded One with his bow. The monster turns out to be a man in a mask.
The son searches the dead man’s body and finds a book with pictures inside. Apparently, this all takes place in a post-apocalyptic future world, not the distant past (dinosaurs and all).
The Symbol Maker says from here, the tribe will spread out and try to find other human tribes. We get a voiceover that explains the man was wearing a radiation suit after the atomic holocaust.
Brian’s commentary
The first fifteen minutes is mostly exposition and talk about the laws and the caveman’s society. There’s nothing there that we don’t need to know, but it’s awfully talky.
The dinosaur fight is ridiculous by current standards, but I’ve definitely seen a lot worse from the 50s and 60s. Some of the other dinosaurs are clearly guys in rubber suits stomping around, so it’s not all good.
This is really, really bad. The plot is really childish, the acting is terrible, and the dialog tries to be primitive, but just sounds dumb. The twist at the end isn’t really a huge surprise and is still mostly irrelevant to the story.
Kevin’s commentary
Roger Corman put together a lot of entertaining work, and Robert Vaughn certainly did some very good acting in his career. This wasn’t that for either of them.
It’s not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, and I was at least interested, not bored. And those are about the only pluses I can give it. I’d recommend you stay clear of it and watch something else.
A new inspector starts, and the police chief shows him around the town of Palacios. The chief doesn’t even carry a gun. Soon, they get another missing woman complaint. They aren’t necessarily dead, so that’s not a crime, the sheriff explains. We soon see these cops are just a little on the incompetent side.
Tomas goes home and finds his mother on the floor; she’s not well. He sometimes sees her as a big plastic doll, and he has to carry her around. He tells her about Tina, his new bride-to-be (I’m totally getting the Norman Bates vibe from him and think she’s probably really a doll).
We cut to the missing woman being handcuffed and raped in a dark room.
Tomas drives Tina to the drag-dancing-diner she works at after her next session, but he can’t stay because his mother is home waiting for him. She mentions having a daughter, but Tomas sees her with a child doll and thinks she’s delusional. Plus Tomas gets the wrong idea about her obviously-gay friend, Robert. He goes home and yells at Mother. Then he apologizes later and she forgives him.
Tomas, who works for a very weird video store, goes to a client’s house to pick up an overdue film. The police arrest Tomas outside the house, and he misses his “date” with Tina. It turns out, the house (and video) belonged to one of the missing girls. The sheriff soon releases him and chews out the dumb cops.
In case we forgot about the missing women, there’s a scene of a girl getting chopped up with a hand-saw while another captive screams watching.
At the video store, the police want a list of clients. They notice the strange locked room in the back, but they don’t have a warrant. Turns out, all the missing women were clients of the video store where Tomas works.
Tomas asks Tina to come over for dinner, so he has to clean up the house; he explains it all to Mother and then puts away all his way-too-heavy dolls. He goes to pick her up at work, but she left earlier because she got a call about a problem with her daughter. He ends up going home and throwing a tantrum.
In the morning, Tomas goes to the video store to find his boss being arrested. The boss, the doctor, and the priest are identical triplets, which confuses the police. Tina apologizes, blaming her sick child (who Tomas thinks is a doll).
We finally see Tomas in the dark room torturing the kidnapped women; yes, it really is him. He cuts out body parts, to please his mother, who really is a doll herself. He puts some real eyes in the mother-doll.
Tina comes over for dinner as promised this time. She spends the night, but in the morning, she hears screaming from another part of the house. She finds “Mother” and freaks out, running away.
At the police station, the video store boss implicates Tomas, who delivered gift cards to the victims’ house. Tina goes to work and tells Robert about the doll with real eyes and a heart– and the screams. They both wonder if it was real or if Tina is having another “episode.”
That night, Robert goes to Tomas’s house and snoops. He, too, gets a shovel to the face.
Tina and her “daughter” come to Tomas’s place to apologize, and he’s got bodies all over the place that he has to clean up in a hurry. Tomas knows his mother is a doll, and he believes Tina’s daughter is one as well. They are made for each other. He’s got a “roomful of dolls” to show the daughter.
The video store owner admits that Tomas is the police chief’s son, and the old man has been hiding things. Tomas killed his mother when he was very little, and there was a whole coverup by the three triplets. Soon, everyone is out searching for Tomas and Tina.
While Tina is talking, Robert crawls up out of where he was being kept, not quite dead. He knocks over mom’s ashes, Tomas freaks out and kills him with a pitchfork, Tina screams and Tomas clubs her.
Meanwhile the sheriff and the doctor kiss and then commit suicide. Tomas then gives a warm loving speech to all his collection of “dolls.” As the inspector comes in and sees what’s happened. We get to see Tomas’ last hallucination, with the assumption the inspector shot him dead.
Brian’s Commentary
That diner is even weirder than Waffle House.
The police in this town are absolutely comic-relief material. It’s weird, and a little funny in a Twin-Peaks kinda way. We don’t know for sure who the killer really is until very far into the film, although there are numerous weird characters who could have been it. There are also influences from “Psycho” here as well.
It’s a little dull and hard to follow in the beginning, but once we learn who’s who, it all gets pretty good.
It was very weird. I liked it!
Kevin’s Commentary
Tomas had a Norman Bates vibe going from early on in the movie, and I suspected early on he was the killer. And it turns out he’s even loonier than I expected.
That diner-bar-nightclub-dragshow-karaoke place where Tina works looks fun. In addition to Tomas being so whacked, the whole town has a little bit of a surreal vibe to it, full of odd characters.
It’s very strange, and I really liked it a lot.
2026 The Voices of Our Mother
* Director: Mark O’Brien
* Writers: Mark O’Brien
* Stars: Sheila McCarthy, Georgina Reilly, Mark O’Brien, Carolina Bartczak, Alex Ozerov-Meyer
* Runtime: 93 minutes (1 hour 33 minutes)
* Trailer Link:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A complicated family relationship is made worse when four siblings return home to help out their ailing mother, who seems to either have a possession or dementia. Either way, she’s not right and things get worse as the movie progresses. Mark O’Brien does a really good job as writer, director, and one of the siblings. It builds steadily to a conclusion that was pretty satisfying. We both enjoyed it.
Spoilery Synopsis
A woman reads a book but stops when she hears something large stomping around outside. The thing tears the door off and the fireplace suddenly goes crazy. She grabs a gun, but that’s not going to help. “You’re mine and no one else’s,” says the monstrous voice. “I need your help, Annika.” Then she sits up– it was a nightmare. Later, Annika remembers talking to her grandma about helping her mother. Credits roll.
Two old women sit in church, almost the only ones there, and listen to Father Roslovic’s sermon. They go home and one reads a story to the other. Harriet is Johanna’s daughter, and she’s got problems. “You’re mine and no one else’s,” Johanna repeats over and over. In the morning, Johanna is dead. Harriet dramatically crawls to the phone to call for help.
Therese, William, and Martin are the children, and they all soon arrive. Dr. Meyer talks to them about Harriet, who seems to be healthier and mentally like a child now. It wasn’t a stroke, it’s not dementia, it’s something else. William is bitter about the whole thing and thinks Harriet should be institutionalized.
Annika, the fourth child, is a nun, and she doesn’t really want to go home, but the other nuns convince her that she should; she talks about being abused by her father.
The three siblings take Harriet home, and Annike is there waiting for them. We take a little time to learn all the siblings’ problems. William is broke and has a gambling problem. Therese is an angry widow. Martin is a useless junkie and was written out of the will.
At the funeral service the next day, Harriet freaks out and punches the preacher. She’s soon back in the hospital, but the doctors can’t find a problem.
Therese accuses William of having an affair with her dead wife and may have been the one who killed her. She’s got a bit of a grudge. As they all argue, Harriet starts laughing upstairs. Harriet says the others have done awful things, they aren’t pure like Annika. They got Martin to kill their father and maybe Therese’s wife as well. Then Harriet walks out the window and vanishes.
Annika finds Harriet standing outside the church, just staring. They take her home and build a jail cell in the basement for her. Father Roslovic comes over and talks about her odd behavior. Is she possessed? This leads to more arguing. Annika insists that they let the priest assess Harriet.
It soon becomes clear that Harriet is possessed, big time. Grandma’s prayers were holding the thing back, but now it’s free to “infect” all of them. She’s not subtle about it. The priest says the demon is feeding on the family conflict; their father was really a good man until Harriet corrupted him.
The siblings all get drunk, and Martin admits to shooting their father with William’s help. Harriet bangs on the wall in the basement as they all yell at each other. Therese and William decide it’s time to just kill Harriet. Annika tells about the time her grandma asked her to take care of Harriet the way she did, so this is technically all her problem now. She knows the whole story about how Grandma made a deal with Satan.
Father Roslic gets a letter mailed by Johanna before her death with some instructions.
Martin decides to come clean about killing their father, and William attacks him to prevent him from leaving and going to the police. Before long, William and Therese are dead. Martin then shoots himself, leaving Annika alone in the house with Harriet.
Annika hears the big demon stomping around upstairs and takes the gun. Roslovic comes in and hands her the instructions before he is also killed.
As the house burns around her, Annika finally sees the gargoyle-like demon that is really her mother. She prays really hard, and the demon goes away. Harriet is there, and she looks normal again. Since smoke inhalation isn’t a thing in horror movies, Annika picks up the old woman and carries her outside through the burning house. “You’re mine and no one else’s,” she repeats over and over.
Brian’s Commentary
It starts off really slow, with lots of family drama, but it gets more and more ominous as it proceeds. At least we didn’t have to sit through another exorcism.
I didn’t quite understand what Harriet was, but the ending is far from a happy one. What happens when Harriet eventually dies of old age or something?
Kevin’s Commentary
It was a good script, weaving the family drama and issues into the supernatural and amplifying things.
All the effects were good, but I thought the demon effect at the end was especially cool.
I liked the double implication of “You’re mine and no one else’s,” that could be ominous or benevolent.
I dug it. It was very good.
2026 Project Hail Mary
* Directed by: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
* Written by: Drew Goddard
* Stars: Ryan Gosling, Sandra Hüller, Milana Vayntrub
* Run Time: 2 Hours, 36 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A solitary astronaut wakes up from a hibernation sleep on a starship with huge gaps in his memory, and slowly discovers he is on a desperate mission to save Earth from a solar-system-killing threat. After waiting years for this adaptation of Andy Weir’s hit novel, we weren’t sure if the movie could pull off the book’s almost-excessive science and central alien friendship– but they did. We both loved it. It takes a few visual liberties with the math and science (it’s a movie, not the book), but it’s a wild ride. The special effects are amazing, and it’s just plain fun. The long run time flew by, and we were both entertained.
Spoilery Synopsis
“I’m allergic to peanuts,” is pretty much the first functional thought Ryland Grace has as he wakes up in a sterile chamber attached to tubes. Two of his crewmates are dead in their pods beside him, reduced to mummies. He doesn’t even remember his own name, let alone why he’s in deep space.
As his memory slowly trickles back through flashbacks, he remembers that he was a middle school science teacher recruited by Eva Stratt—the head of a global task force. She explained to him that a microscopic organism named “Astrophage” is eating the Sun’s energy, threatening a global extinction-level ice age. In fact, all the nearby stars seem to be fading. Except for one. Why?
The star Tau Ceti is the only one reasonably close that seems to be immune to the infection, so humanity built the Hail Mary, a probably-suicide-mission starship powered by Astrophage fuel, to travel there and find out why. Naturally, Ryland had a big part in the design of the engine they use; actually, he learns that he’s the world’s biggest expert on the Astrophage, so he’s indispensable to the mission.
While orbiting Tau Ceti, Ryland makes a shocking discovery: another ship is in the system. He makes contact with an alien vessel operated by a five-legged, spider-like creature made of heavy stone who communicates entirely through musical chords. Ryland names him “Rocky.” Rocky’s home sun is also dying from Astrophage, and he is also the sole survivor of his own crew.
The two science nerds form an instant bond. They build a pressurized airlock tunnel between their ships so they can work together. Ryland learns Rocky’s musical language using a laptop program, and together they start running experiments on Tau Ceti’s atmosphere. They discover a natural predator to Astrophage: a microbe they name “Taumoeba.” However, breeding Taumoeba in lab conditions presents a huge problem—the microbe dies when exposed to tiny traces of methane.
Through dangerous trial and error, Ryland selectively breeds a line of Taumoeba that can survive methane exposure. With enough Taumoeba bred to save both Earth and Rocky’s home planet of Erid, they stock their respective ships and part ways. Ryland sets course back to Earth, sending unmanned probes ahead to carry the data and samples, ready to probably starve to death on the journey home. Shortly after departing, Ryland realizes a fatal flaw: the methane-resistant Taumoeba he bred has adapted to eat through Xenonite, the material Rocky’s ship is made of.
Rocky’s fuel tanks are going to be destroyed, leaving him stranded to die in space. Ryland makes the ultimate choice: He redirects his ship, sacrificing his last chance to return to Earth, and saves Rocky just as his ship breaks down. He hopes the probes containing samples and data that he sent to Earth arrive safely.
Much later, Ryland is living on Rocky’s home world among the Eridians. He receives news via long-range light signals that Earth’s Sun has recovered, meaning his probes made it home. He spends his days happily doing what he loves most: teaching a classroom full of little alien kids. Rocky tells him that they fixed his ship up and he could return to Earth any time he wants to. But maybe he’ll stick around there for a while yet.
Brian’s Commentary
I’m skeptical that anyone could learn a complex alien language based entirely on musical pitches using a basic Excel spreadsheet. I had high expectations coming into this one after loving the book, and it really delivered. Actually, I thought there was a little too much science in the book, and it dragged at times; the movie fixes that problem. Gosling carries the solo screen time effortlessly, and the CGI for Rocky makes a giant rock-spider surprisingly adorable. The many flashbacks as he recovers his memory is straight from the book and well done.
It’s every bit as good as you’ve heard.
Kevin’s Commentary
The science holds up surprisingly well for a blockbuster, though there were points here and there that kind of work because the plot requires it. Such as the speeds they travel at.
But overall it’s a movie that’s hard to nitpick. It’s a big story, and I really liked how we gradually figure out what’s going on along with Ryland as some of his memories return, and we see lots of flashbacks revealing how he got there. And what the problem is that he has to solve. I’ve never read the book, so I went into this pretty blind.
In some ways it reminded me of “The Martian,” not surprising since it’s by the same author, but this one has a buddy factor that livens things up. And Ryan Gosling was the perfect choice for the role.
Sometimes, highly hyped movies don’t live up to it, but this one really does. It’s entertaining from the beginning to the end. A great ending by the way. For such a long run time, I was never bored.
2016 Underworld: Blood Wars
* Directed by: Anna Foerster
* Written by: Cory Goodman, Kyle Ward, Kevin Grevioux
* Stars: Kate Beckinsale, Theo James, Tobias Menzies
* Run Time: 1 Hours, 31 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
More time has passed since the last movie and the lycans and vampires are in all out war again. While looking stylish and cool in a world seen through a blue filter where humans are barely seen or mentioned. Selene and David are still teamed up, with Michael no longer in the picture. It’s a decent continuation of the story, but it skips the contents of the previous movie in most ways. It’s not perfect, but we were pretty entertained. If you liked the previous movies so far, you’ll probably enjoy this one as well.
Spoilery Synopsis
We get some recap of the earlier films before the credits roll.
Selene is nearly captured by a bunch of humans and a lycan until she’s rescued by David. He’s looking for Eve, Selene’s daughter, and he says the lycans have a new leader, Marius, who wants to capture Eve. David gets shot in the battle, and he’ll need help.
Meanwhile, the vampires apparently have a new castle somewhere. Thomas, from the previous film, comes to visit Samira, who is in charge now. She complains that they’re losing the war to the lycans. She’s afraid of a large-scale lycan attack. Samira wants Selene to hunt Marius and train new Death Dealers. She’s got some Corvinus blood and has special powers above all the other vampires.
At the lycan camp, Marius is making plans to kill all the vampires. Thomas addresses the vampire council, convincing them to bring in Selene, whom the whole council hates for killing Marcus and Viktor.
Thomas and Selene arrive at the new vampire castle and meet the other potential Death Dealers. Cassius, one of the new elders, is really not pleased about Selene being there. Varga is their best lycan killer, but he’s nowhere near Selene’s league. In a practice battle, she clearly beats him, but he sticks her with a poison nightshade blade. He immediately kills all the new Death Dealer recruits at Selene’s instruction and frames Selene: double cross!
Thomas fights off Samira and Varga as Thomas escapes with Selene, but the old vampire doesn’t survive the fight. Samira sends Alexia to track Selene, but she’s really working for Marius.
Selene and Thomas head to the far north, where there’s one last isolated coven that’s friendly to them. The place seems to be full of Targaryen vampires, led by Vidar. He reveals that Amelia, one of the grand elders, was Thomas’s mother, who left him a magic sword. Turns out, Thomas is supposed to be the leader of all the vampires.
Suddenly, lycans attack. The lycans brought guns, but the vamps only have swords and crossbows. Selene and Marius fight, as do David and Lena. With Alexia’s help, Marius gets the better of Selene, but she really doesn’t know where Eve has been hiding. Marius says he’s running out of time and needs to attack Samira’s coven right away. Selene hides under the frozen ice to get away from Marius.
Later, Lena uses her elf-magic to revive Selene. Meanwhile, Samira uses the blood she stole earlier from Selene to supercharge herself. Alecia returns and disables the security system. Samira knows all about Alexia’s treachery and kills her for it. Samira then turns on the council and does a coup, just as David shows up to take over as last of the purebloods.
Varga turns against Samira just as the lycans attack. The vampires do pretty well until the lycans start breaking windows and letting the sunlight in. It’s all looking pretty grim until Selene returns, now blonde and supercharged with northern elf-magic, along with a bunch of Nordic vamps as backup.
Marius fights Selene again. David fights Samira, who dies. Selene tastes Marius’s blood and learns that he’s the one who killed Michael; he’s been injecting himself with Michael’s blood to supercharge himself. She pulls his spine out.
The Eastern and the Northern covens join up, and Selene is appointed to be one of the main elders now.
Brian’s Commentary
How did the humans allow that many vampires to occupy a fortress after the events of the previous film? This is all about the vampires vs lycans again, mostly ignoring the human threat set up in the previous film.
This one is a bit of a mess. It doesn’t really continue the main plotline of the previous film, instead going back to the formula of the first two films (which is probably for the better). Eve, the main Maguffin of the previous film, is mostly forgotten here. And what’s up with the blonde elf-vampires? They have magic now? The CGI version of Marius, with his human face, is ridiculous.
There is talk of a sixth film in 2026, which will probably be a reboot. Not sure how they’ll handle that with Kate Beckinsale in her mid-fifties now. I guess we’ll see.
Kevin’s Commentary
Yeah, like Brian points out, what happened to an outraged humanity who knew vampires and lycans existed and wanted to wipe them all out? This movie, we’ll just ignore humans pretty much completely. And speaking of humans, what were those blond vampires feeding on out in their isolated fortress out the middle of the frozen wasteland?
Selene takes more abuse in this one one than any of the previous movies, but of course she comes out okay in the end. I’m assuming that if they reboot it, there will be a new Selene actress.
It’s not quite on par with the first movie, or couple movies, but I was still entertained.
1957 20 Million Miles to Earth
* Directed by: Nathan Juran
* Written by: Robert Creighton Williams, Christopher Knopf, Charlott Knight
* Stars: William Hopper, Joan Taylor, Thomas Browne Henry
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 22 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
The first manned expedition to Venus crash lands when it returns to Earth. A collected specimen starts small and grows into a gigantic creature that runs amok to terrify the world. The effects are quite good, considering the year, with a stop-action creature. The cast is good, the script has a decent story that moves well. It’s all around a fun 1950s creature feature.
Spoilery Synopsis
We’re told about the way scientific advances just seem to jump up on us, like atomic power and now… space travel! Credits roll.
Italian fishermen complain about catching cows in Texas. Suddenly, they stop and look up– it’s a space rocket! It crashes right next to the fishing boats. They spot a hole in the side and check it out. Two men climb inside the huge rocket and go down deep inside and find several dead Air Force men, along with two survivors. Just as they exit the ship, it sinks below the sea.
Later, at the Pentagon, General McIntosh and Dr. Uhl don’t know where the ship crashed down, but they’ve had sightings. They get the report that the ship has been found.
Back in Sicily, Pepe, the little boy from the boat, finds a device, “Project 5” and hides it in a cave. He opens the tube, and inside is a small, slimy lump. The Italians bring Dr. Leonardo, a vacationing American scientist, and his daughter Marisa to investigate. Pepe takes the thing he found to Leonardo to sell it for 200 Lira.
Colonel Robert Carter, one of the astronauts, wakes up and wants to know what’s going on. The other man, Dr. Sharman, has something growing on his face, and Carter knows it’s terminal. Sharman wants to know what happened to his sample, and they assume it went down with the ship. Then Sharman dies.
The gooey blob hatches into a little lizard-man in the professor’s trailer, and Marisa and Leonardo see it. They put it in a cage, but the next morning, the thing is much bigger.
General McIntosh and Dr. Uhl arrive in Sicily and meet Bob Carter. They explain the whole Venus expedition to the Italian Consul, Contino. The ship was hit by a meteor on the way back. Several members of the expedition died from some contagion they caught on the surface. They brought back, but lost, a sample of the lifeforms of Venus.
Colonel Bob offers Pepe money to tell him about the sample container and tells them about Professor Leonardo, who is on the way to Rome.
On the road, the creature, even bigger now, breaks out of the cage and runs off. Shortly after, the Americans catch up and hear the story. It shouldn’t have grown so fast or so large, but maybe there’s something on Earth that’s affecting it.
The creature comes upon a farm and eats from a bag of sulfur; it also wounds the farm dog. Bob and the others show up, and they all have it cornered in the barn. They try and fail to force it into a cage, but when the farmer hits it with a pitchfork, it attacks him. Bullets don’t seem to have much effect on it.
The Italian officials insist now that the creature must be destroyed. They start searching the hills, as the Americans search with helicopters. Bob and Dr. Uhl fly over the creature and capture it in an electrified net.
The general gives a press conference, where he explains everything again. The creature’s being held at the zoo, and he’s gotten way bigger. They keep it asleep with a constant flow of electricity. They’re studying how the creature breathes on Venus and adapting that for humans. This gives Bob and Marisa plenty of time to flirt.
Suddenly, the power goes out and the creature wakes up. It breaks loose and attacks an elephant. The two go back and forth through the streets of Rome, crushing cars and people all along the way past several landmarks. The elephant eventually loses the battle, but the creature keeps on going.
The creature disappears into the river for a few hours, and when it comes out, it’s even bigger. It hides inside the Coliseum, where Bob shoots it with a rocket launcher and it falls to its death.
Brian’s Commentary
The creature is another of Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion designs, and it’s really well done. This was also his last black-and-white film, as well as his last film set in the modern age. The “Italians” in the film are stereotypes and I doubt they’re even remotely Italian.
It’s pretty standard stuff for a 50’s giant monster film, but it stands out mostly for the effects, which were great for the time. We get a lot of creature action in this one.
Kevin’s Commentary
It’s 1957, so they didn’t know yet there wasn’t any advanced life on Venus and they wouldn’t be landing people there. There weren’t probes until the 1960s.
The special effects look good, if obvious and dated, and they get the job done. I thought it was good storytelling and interesting to start it out with the rocket crash on Earth.
Out in the woods, the trees look like people, with faces and bony hands. Jon gets creeped out, but Saga rubs the belly of the pregnant-looking tree. “Grandma forbid me to come” to the forest, she explains. Then they have sex under the tree.
We cut to Saga giving birth, and it’s a bloody mess. “What is this?” asks the nurse, and then they sedate Saga. When she wakes up, Jon explains that the baby is fine. The nurse says she’s never seen such a hairy baby before; it’s all down his back.
The trio goes home, and we see that Jon’s been busy renovating. Breastfeeding hurts, as the baby draws blood, and she can’t make eye contact with the baby. The baby’s got a tiny little tail sprout growing on his backside. We soon see that Saga is a little afraid of the baby, who hurts her every chance he gets.
They have a party for Saga’s family to come over and meet the baby. Saga explains that she plans to have two more babies before going back to work. Mother explains that Saga was always a weird kid, and then the baby pulls her earring, and a big chunk of her ear, off. “Why did it look so weird?” asks one little girl visitor. “Babies are usually cute.”
The wind blows from the forest, and it tells Saga to name the baby, “Kuura.” The sunlight burns the baby, so Saga takes him inside. The parents argue over her not being able to do anything right. She starts calling the baby, “It.”
Saga’s sister comes over and explains how “cold iron burns them” about something in the woods that scared their grandmother.
Jon comes to the conclusion that there’s something wrong with Saga. She soon finds out that the baby is quite eager to lick up blood after an accident. They go to counseling, and Saga says the problem is the baby.
Jon’s parents come for a visit, and his father is a priest. “If you don’t bless a child, a troll will take them,” someone jokes. The blessing is completely uneventful, which shocks Saga, who expected something bad to happen. The baby touches some iron and burns his hand. “It’s just cold. Cold iron.” After that, Saga realizes she’s given birth to a troll. She gives it a baby bottle filled with blood, and the baby loves it. She hides the bottle and remaining blood from Jon.
Later they have a rough evening of discussion and arguing, and Jon leaves for work in the morning without saying goodbye. Saga and the baby then roar at each other as the trees encroach right up to the house. Then things get a little rough.
Saga wakes up outside in the snow-covered woods. She hears the baby squealing out there somewhere, and the trees themselves try to slow her down. She tracks down little Kuura, who is eating a dead deer.
Jon comes home, and he knows about the blood the baby drinks. They argue some more.
Jon wants to watch the baby while she goes into town once in a while– which she does. Her fingernails look like they’re turning into wood, and her stomach has rings like a tree. She meets up with some old work friends, “None of us really knows you,” one says. All through lunch, she hears babies crying. The vegetarian menu does not agree with her anymore.
Back at home, Jon takes care of the baby, and it all seems normal. Saga comes home from town, on foot, through the snow. She’s physically changing, which reverts back as soon as she gets near the baby.
Saga’s sister comes over for a visit, and things get nasty. Anna, her niece, seems normal; “I got that monster,” Saga whines. The sister says there’s nothing wrong with Kuura, it’s all her. Then the baby bites off Anna’s finger.
Eventually, she embraces the monstrosity of the whole situation , and she starts getting along with the baby. Jon finds the mother and child sleeping in a hole under the floor where the tree grows. He just rolls with it. Jon wants to set “human limits” on child raising. “This child can’t be raised,” she says.
Jon’s had enough and says he’s taking Kuura away from Saga. They physically fight over the baby. Kuura gets upset, and the forest goes wild, invading the house. Jon gets impaled on a tree and dies. Then the baby starts eating on him. Saga then pulls out his heart and shares it with Kuura.
Saga goes outside and watches Kuura run toward the forest and the tree people inside.
Brian’s Commentary
If the sound of crying babies bothers you, stay as far from this one as possible.
If this movie teaches us anything, it’s that babies will suck the life right out of you. If you’ve ever even considered having children, watch this film first. It’s all very mother-metaphorical, but it’s also a good horror movie.
It’s slow-moving and predictable, but it’s very well made and kept me entertained.
Kevin’s Commentary
So much crying baby in this one.
It didn’t have a long run time, but it felt long to me. Slow, quiet, and talky for a lot of it, but the undertone of dread is there almost from the beginning and the horror does build. I’d say I liked it more than disliked it.
2026 Big Baby
* Directed by: Spider One
* Written by: Spider One
* Stars: Brandon Scott, Krsy Fox, Torio Van Grol
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 43 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Horror writer Adam is struggling a bit to make it big, but he comes up with a great idea to create a new slasher character, Big Baby. As he gets into it, reality and fiction starts to blur. This is loaded with horror tropes, and the meta vibe of horror story within horror story, leaving us wondering what’s real or not. It’s a little on the talky side at times, but overall really well made and entertaining. Better than both of us expected.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open to Adam listening to a podcast of horror movie reviews, and it’s NOT OURS. Turns out, they really hate the movie that Adam wrote. Adam gets really angry (he shoulda been listening to The Horror Guys). Adam’s girlfriend, Kate, gives him a pep talk. Adam is sooo tired of criticism; everyone hates everything. He makes good money writing horror films, but he’ll never win an Academy Award.
This, naturally, gives Adam writer’s block. He has a nightmare about a serial killer who looks like a huge baby who kills Kate. The next morning, he’s really excited about his new idea. Kate wants him to write a slasher film from the idea. He hates slasher films, but maybe he could elevate it.
Then again, writing isn’t easy, and he’s still got writer’s block. He does laundry instead. He finds the bedsheet cut up, just like in his dream, but it’s probably just a coincidence. At the coffee shop, he runs into the same two horror movie podcasters, and they’re idiots in person as well. They say his movie, “The Blackest Moon” was just plain boring.
Adam and Kate get drunk and talk about cats and monkeys building roller coasters. Adam gets all philosophical about it, mentioning that people create reality from their own thoughts. That night, Adam gets a visit from a little boy who explains the origin of Big Baby; he was a bullied boy who nearly drowned and vowed to get revenge. Wait– was that a dream, or was it real?
He writes the story so far, but Kate doesn’t think that origin was enough to explain a serial killer. Adam makes excuses and wonders what level of revenge can be considered acceptable. Adam then writes about how Big Baby gets his mask; Kate comes home wearing that exact same mask and scares the crap out of Adam.
He runs into a woman at the convenience store and starts stalking her as she walks home. He watches as Big Baby comes out of nowhere and hacks the woman to pieces with an ax. “He’s real,” he tells Kate, who wants to go to the alley and see for herself. Of course, there’s no sign of anything there. Adam thinks writing about Big Baby made it actually happen; he manifested it.
Kate convinces Adam to put the story away for a while. A few weeks later, they have friends over for dinner. Adam and James talk about their work, and “Big Baby” comes up, which gets awkward. Kate really thinks Adam’s losing his mind, and she’s not happy about it.
That night, Big Baby comes to Adam and says “She doesn’t want you to succeed. She’s in our way.” He won’t promise not to hurt Kate. Kate wakes up halfway through the conversation, and she sees that Adam is alone, talking to himself. In the morning, Kate leaves him.
Amanda, one of Big Baby’s victims, comes to visit Adam, and he wants him to save her. She wants out of the story. Big Baby calls from Kate’s phone, “Finish the story or she dies.” Adam then writes another scene, one where Kenny and Julia argue and are killed. He quickly writes another, where Graham gets it. Big Baby impales Graham with a cross and then beheads him. Theo and Nicky are next.
In the real world, James comes to the door to talk about what’s been going on. James leaves, and Adam gets back to work, finally writing Amanda’s death scene. Before he can finish, Amanda appears to Adam and begs to live. If he writes her death, Adam will be no better than the killer. Adam writes of her death anyway. “Sorry.” The story now ends, and Adam laughs that he’s completed it.
Adam goes to James’s house to see Kate, and he’s got a knife. He gives her the knife, and they talk. “There’s only one way for all this to stop,” he says. He calls upon Big Baby to appear, so we can get a proper horror movie ending. She sees the killer as well this time as Big Baby slashes Adam with his ax. Jaes and Patrice break down the door, but only Kate is there, saying Big Baby did it.
As the end credits roll, we get back to those two FAKE podcasters, reviewing the new film, “Big Baby.” They talk about their encounter with the crazy writer, Adam and how he was mysteriously murdered by his girlfriend. After the podcast, Big Baby shows up and starts stalking them both…
Brian’s Commentary
It picks on all the horror tropes, including a lot of behind-the-scenes filmmaking and writing stuff. The critics… well, at least I’ve never had coffee thrown in my face– yet. There’s a lot to say about revenge killings and who actually deserves it in horror movies.
On the other hand, it’s got some long, talky bits. It’s got the usual amount of kills and gore for a slasher film, but the killings aren’t even the real story; it’s all about Adam’s descent into madness.
I liked this way more than I thought I would. Very nice!
Kevin’s Commentary
This was a really cool one. Being a horror reviewer and podcaster knowing as many movies as I do bumped up my enjoyment of it.
And it had an ending I didn’t expect, that’s always a nice bonus. It was really good.
2025 Son of Sara
* AKA “Son of Sara: Volume 1”
* Directed by: Houston Bone
* Written by: Houston Bone
* Stars: Chloe Van Landschoot, Tymika Tafari, Garrett Hnatiuk
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 25 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A very pregnant woman having visions and unusual cravings gets invited to a dinner that ends up being one of the worst ever. It has a shock beginning, then a long time where not a lot happens. We both thought it had an interesting ending, but it was kind of boring getting there.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on a woman giving birth, but she’s chained to the bed and pretty unwilling to be there. They do something to the baby, and it stops crying, then they cut the mother’s throat.
Three weeks later, Sara is pregnant, and Carol is there to help. They’re lesbians, so we don’t immediately know who the father is. Sara’s in a lot of pain, which somehow leads to a sex scene.
Later, she eyes the raw ground beef in the fridge hungrily. In the middle of the night, she comes back for the meat and digs in– raw. She knows that’s weird but does it anyway. Not long after she pukes up a long string of hair and pointy teeth.
Then she sees the devil in the hallway and screams. Carol says there’s no one there. The next day, she stops by the store and buys more raw meat that she eats on the way home.
She bumps into Troy on the way home as well, and we see that he’s the father. He barely remembers her name. He’s found someone else and ghosted her, but also says it’s complicated. He wants to know why she kept the baby, and she says it’s because of Carol. He wants to be friends, but she asks him to leave. He says he can’t wait to meet the baby and generally doesn’t seem like a bad guy. Carol shows up, and she doesn’t like Troy.
Troy leaves, but first, he invites Sara to a dinner party and to meet his mother. Carol says she has to work and cannot go, but Sara really wants to do it. They argue about Troy. Sara then rides out into the country with Troy to his remote house.
Sara and Troy make it to his mother’s house, and Agnes welcomes them inside. He seems a little sketchy, and his mother is even weirder.
After drinking some clearly drugged milk, Sara tries to call Carol, who ignores the phone call. She soon face-plants into the table.
Carol finally finishes work and checks her phone messages. She calls Sara, but it goes right to voicemail. Agnes explains to Troy that he’s here on Earth for a purpose and it’s not to spread his seed all willy-nilly. He says Sara isn’t like any of the other girls. This sixth try is going to be the best!
Yes, Sara is going to have Satan’s child, and if it happened in the hospital, that’d be a real mess. Then both Agnes and Troy get naked and admire themselves in the mirror.
Sara wakes up out in the barn, tied to a bed. Agnes explains the whole situation to Sara, who isn’t pleased. She explains about the first five failed attempts; those women just weren’t right. Sara sees the devil there in the room with them, but Agnes and Troy don’t see anything.
Carol arrives outside in a taxi, and the driver says he can wait around a bit. Troy leads her into the house. He attacks her, so she pepper-sprays him. Troy does, however, manage to kill the tax driver and tie up Carol. Meanwhile, inside, Sara starts to give birth, with only Agnes there to help. Troy shows up in time for both of them to get splattered with blood that Sara coughs up. Carol gets untied and grabs a pitchfork.
Rather than have a normal birth, the baby comes up out of her mouth, and it’s in a cocoon or something. The baby’s got little horns and claws. He’s hungry and takes a big bite out of Agnes’s neck. As Troy tries to kill the little monster, Carol comes in and stabs him in the back.
Carol unties Sara, and they leave together… with the baby, who is obviously some kind of demonic thing.
Brian’s Commentary
Who puts onions in the fridge?
As an almost sixty-year-old guy who never had kids, pregnancy horror just does not do anything for me. I guess pregnancy in general is body-horror of a type, but… yawn.
The last twenty minutes were fine, but the rest was just boring.
Kevin’s Commentary
This is one of those movies where they have a shocking horror opening so they can get away with an hour of build-up afterward where nothing much happens. But eventually things get somewhere, and it has an interesting ending. So mixed feelings on it. Well made, dull path to an ending that I enjoyed.
That baby was the cutest little demon ever.
1994 Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation
* AKA “The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre”
* Directed by: Kim Henkel
* Written by: Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper
* Stars: Renee Zellweger, Matthew McConaughey, Robert Jacks
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 27 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Leatherface is hanging out with a new family again, and on prom night a group of lost teens tangles with him and his family. Matthew McConaughey’s performance is over the top and a bright spot in a movie that drags and is kind of dull. Neither of us was very entertained overall.
Spoilery Synopsis
We hear a voiceover about the previous crimes from the previous movies. Credits roll.
It’s prom night, and Jenny and Sean show up and encounter all the weird “high school students.” Heather catches Barry cheating on her and speeds off with Jenny and Sean in the backseat. They take a detour and get lost.
Another car comes out of nowhere and smashes into them. The driver says “I’m not hurt,” and then passes right out. As they walk to call an ambulance, Heather tells creepy monster-in-the-woods stories to cheer them up. They stop in a place and meet Darla, who has boobs and isn’t afraid to flash them. She calls Vilmer, a tow-truck guy, to come help.
Vilmer shows up, but it’s not to help. He kills the injured guy and then chases Sean. Barry and Heather chase after another car, leaving Jenny behind. Yes, the group splits up in a Leatherface movie.
Heather and Barry come to an old house, and run into Leatherface and W. E. There’s lots of screaming on Heather’s part as Leatherface tosses her around and locks her in a freezer. Barry doesn’t care about the walls covered in human skin because he’s just gotta pee. Leatherface gets him as well.
Jenny gets picked up by Vilmer, and she soon learns that she doesn’t like him much. He dumps her on the side of the road and then chases her with his truck. She eventually runs into Leatherface, who’s got his saw with him this time. This leads her to Darla and W.E., who are also involved with the baddies.
Jenny finds herself tied up in the family kitchen with the whole gang. There’s a lot of arguing between the group.
As is the custom, the whole group ends up around the dinner table, along with several corpses.
Suddenly, a limousine drives up. Mr. Rothman and his driver come inside. He tries to calm Jenny down. “This is appalling. You are here for one reason,” he tells Vimer. “I want these people to know the meaning of horror.” Rothman then licks Jenny all over and leaves.
Vilmer finishes off Heather and then goes crazy cutting himself. In the confusion, Jenny runs out the front door and out into the woods. She’s soon picked up by a pair of old people in an RV, but they don’t last long. Somehow, an airplane dives at Vilmer, chopping him up in the propeller.
Jenny runs to the limo and gets in, where Rothman apologizes for how this has all been run. He takes her to the hospital, but Leatherface is still out there…
Brian’s Commentary
Is the Illuminati behind Leatherface? I did not see that coming.
It’s a very early breakout role for both Renee Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey, neither of whom had done much prior to this. His performance is way over the top, and he steals the show. Otherwise, it’s all pretty forgettable.
Meh.
Kevin’s Commentary
I had seen this one before in the 1990s, and before we started this rewatch I was thinking it wasn’t very memorable. Well into it this time, I was thinking “this really isn’t very good.” The supporting cast isn’t impressive, the pacing and script are clunky. Though I can see why Renee Zellweger and Matther McConaughy went on to do many other things. I think they salvaged the movie from being truly awful. Plus his motorized leg brace was quite the DIY project.
Definitely my least favorite of the Chainsaw movies so far.
Short Films:
2023 Short Film: Mamu
* Directed by: Michael Skanes
* Written by: Michael Skanes and Jessica Skanes
* Stars: Emma Bellomy and Eden Ritter
* Run Time: 8:21
* Watch it:
What Happens
A mom at home alone at night keeps getting motion alerts on her phone from the baby monitor system, which has a camera pointed at the crib upstairs. But the baby is in her arms now. Is that something lurking there by the crib? Better go upstairs to take a look for herself…
Commentary
It’s very well made, creepy and suspenseful without dialogue. Especially impressive considering the minimal special effects, an ordinary house, and a small cast (one cast member being especially small). The music is very effective too. And even when things are dark, we can still see what’s going on, which is always appreciated. We’d call it a winner worth checking out.
At a meeting at the office, Ben talks about chronic loneliness and how their newest product can help with that. A woman walks out and then pulls off her hair– she’s a robot underneath, designed for companionship. She’s a Soulm8te with an extra 8, which Terrance thinks is stupid. And she’s very stiff and robotic.
Ben talks to David about the business, Lizzie, working from home, and the company’s chat app, which David doesn’t use. Still, David’s gotta work on this new robot, so he has to get involved now. Afterwards, much of the group goes to a karaoke bar. David kinda likes Aubrey, and she kinda likes him, but the dead wife thing keeps getting between them.
David keeps calling Lizzie’s voicemail just to hear her voice. Sara, the AI chatbot on his phone, sees his call and asks if everything is OK. This begins a conversation, and before long, he’s sold on the chatbot. Before long, David signs up to beta test the new physical version of the AI, in robot form.
He shows her around the apartment, and she gives simple responses to things he says. They talk about Lizzie and play chess. He puts her to sleep in power-save mode in the living room; he doesn’t want to sleep with her. She’s okay, but kind of stiff and inhuman.
David talks to Ben about getting more access to improve the robot, whom he names Sara. He programs her to criticize him, which she wasn’t able to do before. He finds her much more attractive after the upgrade and they kiss, quickly followed by sex. He then follows up by reprogramming her with more alterations and updates.
The neighbor, Alma, notices that David’s got a new girlfriend, and it’s a little awkward. While David’s at work, Sara watches lots of television about lots of topics. She starts tapping into his phone to listen to him at work, especially when he starts flirting with Aubrey.
Sara goes out shopping, runs into some trouble, and neighbor Alma helps out. Sara is curious about her baby. “Having a baby changes everything,” Alma says. Sara gets mugged on the way home, but that goes very poorly for the bad guy.
David and Sara go out for a drink at the karaoke bar, and Sara does a song. She’s very good, and everyone in the place notices. They have sex in the alley afterward. Some guys try to take pictures, and she hurts them. He realizes that she’s not programmed with safeties, and that could be a problem. He has to really push her to get into power save mode.
Later, he’s just about to start to fix the mistakes he made in Sara’s programming and Aubry stops by with wine. This leads to more romance, but this time, Sara watches through the smart home device. Sara wakes up and won’t go back to sleep on command. “Even when I’m sleeping, I can hear you,” she explains. He has to physically turn her off with the button in the back of her neck.
David calls the factory to have them come and pick up Sara for a return. At work, Aubrey wants to do a presentation about how changing a few lines of code can really mess with the ‘bots. They aren’t ready for market yet.
Meanwhile, at home, the service guy arrives and reactives Sara. He tries to reset her to factory settings, but she won’t reset. She seduces the guy and kills him in a unique way. She then cuts him apart and disposes of the evidence.
During the presentation at work, everyone suddenly watches a video of Aubrey having wild sex with someone. She swears it’s not even really her, a deepfake. She’s fired from the job immediately.
David realizes where that porn video came from and goes home to find Sara dressed up as Lizzie. Also, now she’s got a baby. A real baby. David grabs the baby and tries to leave the apartment, but she locks the doors. Alma and the police show up and get the baby back safe, but Sara jumps down the laundry chute and escapes.
The police talk to Ben, who explains about the robot. He’s sure there’s no danger, since the robots are perfectly safe and they can remotely shut it down. He goes looking for her, but she finds him first. He makes him have a severe car accident. She then goes to Aubrey’s house and attacks her. David shows up to intervene, as do the police. They get there in time to save Aubrey, but Sara flees.
David and Aubrey leave their phones behind and go to David’s old house out in the country. They hang out and David casually mentions Chechov’s paint stripper. Sure enough, Sara shows up and grabs him. He splashes her with the paint thinner, and most of her face melts. Not the important metal parts though as she points out. Though there’s a good opening for David to jam a drill into now.
David runs out into the rainy woods, and she follows, not damaged enough yet. We know from before that her skin is water resistant, but that was before her head was full of holes, and the rain starts to get to her a bit - but still not enough. She says she’s more than just a body; she exists in the ether and she’ll come for him no matter what. Aubrey drives her car into Sara and runs it over a cliff into a lake. The Sarabot shorts out as she sinks.
One year later, David’s at a fundraiser, and an old man has a Soulm8te that looks exactly like Sara with dark hair. They’re on the market now. Could she be the same?
Brian’s Commentary
This takes place in the same fictional universe as “M3GAN” (2023) and “M3GAN 2” (2026). It’s also very similar to the plot of “Subservience” (2024). It’s even got a touch of “Obsession” (2026). We’ve been getting a lot of AI/Robot stories lately.
The acting is good, the situation escalates reasonably, and it’s all well filmed. Storywise, however, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. A man and a robot have a romance, and the robot gets carried away.
It’s well done and entertaining if you haven’t seen the other dozen films that tell the same story.
Kevin’s Commentary
I was really impressed with Lily Sullivan’s performance as Sara, she was excellent.
It was very well made all around with great special effects. I think the biggest fault was that it didn’t have enough new or unexpected. As events unfolded, I could predict most of them coming.
So, it’s an entertaining watch with a good story, but few surprises.
It’s death and mayhem for a family who are descendents of an old professor who researched the Necronomicon and the business around it. In an isolated house where they’ve gathered, evil does its thing with over the top violence and gore. It’s pretty continuous in the violence in fact, almost to the point of tedium by the end, a serious business without much humor at all. We’re both in agreement it was better than the previous movie “Evil Dead Rise,” but Brian enjoyed this one more than Kevin did.
Spoilery Synopsis
We get a voice recording talking about the Necronomicon and flesh-possessing demons. There’s also a magical device that can send the demons back to Hell, but it must remain hidden. If it’s found, the demons will stop at nothing to destroy it. We watch a guy find the thing.
We cut to two fishermen arguing about leaving their phones in the car. One guy catches a head and then something catches him. Leo pulls about half of Jarod out of the water, and then the demon gets him as well. The demon then stands in the road and waits for a car to hit her.
Alice and her friends get together for Joseph’s birthday. Will buys Joseph a thousand-dollar pen because he never finishes his books, which devolves into an argument. He’s abusive and controlling, and ends up speeding away from the club… until he runs into the demon-woman and crashes. “We found you, now lead us to your family,” says the demon-woman, who soon loses her head. The car bursts into flame, burning Will alive. Credits roll.
At the funeral, Alice sees Will’s family, Susan and Polly. There’s construction going on outside, which is very distracting. They all think Alice and Will were happily married, but that’s obviously not the case. Will’s father, Ed, wants one last visit alone with his son, but he hears Will knocking on the casket from the inside. What comes out of the casket isn’t Will. It messily takes care of the crematorium operator but lets the old man leave.
The whole group goes off to the family home, which is looking really run-down now. Grandpa, who is dead now, was the man who made that recording we heard about in the opener. The photo of Grandpa looks like Bruce Campbell (We also get to see Bruce among the family photos by the stairs). Grandpa was obsessed with demons and the occult, and Susan resents it.
Ed goes into the basement and the demon talks to him. Alice takes a knife away from him before he can hurt himself. Grandma Polly has dementia and has no idea what’s going on most of the time, which makes dinner awkward for everyone. Ed is weirdly hostile and soon, everyone notices, especially when he kills the family dog with a fork and collapses in a seizure. On the way to the hospital, Ed kills Thya, who’s driving the car. Joseph gets beat up but escapes into the woods.
Alice reads from Grandpa’s book, and she learns a few things about the demons and the dagger that can kill them. At least until the dead dog gets up and attacks her.
Joseph returns to the house and says Ed killed Thya. Thya then knocks on the door, and they all get a look at her. Joseph, Alice, and Susan throw the undead girlfriend into the basement and lock the door. Outside, they run into Ed and Max, the now undead dog. Ed pulls out a gun and shoots himself in the head– twice, but that doesn’t stop him. Then he does it a third time, which still doesn’t do the trick.
The remaining family barricades themselves inside the house. Dolly then lets Thya out of the basement. Thya attacks Alice, and Joseph proves how useless he really is. Thya stabs him with a whole dishwasher full of knives. Thya is about to get grandma when Alice steps up and knocks her down the stairs with Grandma’s prosthetic leg. And Joseph beats her to pieces with the dishwasher door.
Alice finally makes Joseph explain about the demons and their grandfather. The old man travelled the world researching and gathering artifacts. Meanwhile, Dolly convinces Susan to open the window and let Ed in.
Ed wants the dagger, and Joseph admits that he knows where it is. As Ed tortures and beats Joseph and Susan, Alice hides in a closet. How is Joseph not dead six times over by this point?
Dolly grabs Alice and stabs her in the ear with Joseph’s pen. Susan and Alice hide in the bathroom, and Alice finally comes clean about what a monster Will was.
Alice cuts a hole in the ceiling and climbs up to Grandpa’s attic to search for the dagger. She finds a dagger and stabs now-possessed Joseph with it, but it’s the wrong one. Then she hits upon the right one and kills him with it. She then drops the knife out the window and has to battle the demons on the roof and down the chimney.
Alice then kills Susan and Ed with a rotary garden edger. She stabs the dog with the knife and burns down the house. As a final boss, Alice must confront Will, who’s more skeleton than man at this point.
Will chases Alice to a construction site, where he knocks her into a pit and starts to fill it with boiling tar. She throws the knife Ed gave her early on into the tar and tricks Will into going after it. She then picks up a jackhammer, not the chainsaw, and really messes up Will’s day. Finally, she stabs him with the real dagger. She takes out her frustrations on his head and drops him back into the tar.
Suddenly, the police and medics show up, maybe they saw the fire. She blames her ex-husband.
Brian’s Commentary
Neither of us much liked the previous film, “Evil Dead Rise” (2023), as it had no real connection to the classic films. Other than having flesh-possessing demons, neither does this one, but it seems the franchise is on a new path now, and there’s no going back.
The many practical effects are really well done, and there’s not excessive blood, although it’s extremely violent. Actually, this may be one of the most non-stop relentlessly violent movies I’ve ever seen, and there’s no comic relief in sight.
It’s about a half-hour longer than it needs to be; they could have trimmed down some of the early stuff.
Overall, it’s better than the previous installment. I was entertained. Too long though.
Kevin’s Commentary
The first three Evil Dead movies were directed by Sam Raimi and starred Bruce Campbell. I remember them being weird and darkly funny and entertaining. Like the two sequels/reboots before this, “Evil Dead Burn” lacks all those things. Okay, somewhat entertaining. And the gore and effects are top notch. There are many visceral ouchies.
There is a sort of story and explanation, but it just feels too much to me like random awful things happening to people who did nothing to deserve it. Not that that’s not a formula in some horror movies, but this didn’t really connect with me. I think it’s because there’s a bit too much hopelessness and helplessness. The deadites are just going to keep coming no matter what they do to try and save themselves. Graphically demonstrated by possessed Edgar who puts multiple bullets through his own brain and keeps on deadite-ing. It’s just events playing out until everyone is dead.
I did enjoy it more than the previous movie in the series, “Evil Dead Rise,” but not nearly as much as the original trilogy.
2026 Corporate Retreat
* Directed by: Aaron Fisher
* Written by: Aaron Fisher, Kerri Lee Romeo
* Stars: Alan Ruck, Odeya Rush, Rosanna Arquette
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
The core staff of a highly successful company goes on an annual corporate retreat. As you might guess, things go horribly. How the movie goes about it is interesting, but the pacing feels long and drawn out with bursts of action. Brian gives it a thumbs down, and Kevin gives it barely a thumbs up.
Spoilery Synopsis
As the credits roll, we get shots of a very expensive house with bodies all over the place.
Cliff and Ginger, his girlfriend, sit in the car and talk about her test on Monday. We also see Carl and Devin, who are boarding a bus. Billie is the gung-ho HR person, and they all work for Immaculate Pond Technologies. Omar is the IT guy, and Deborah, Audrey, and Omar all don’t really want to be there.
Cliff tells Ginger that they are meeting friends, but it turns out that he’s brought his girlfriend to a corporate retreat. He’s also got a gun, which Ginger doesn’t like. Everyone except Carl turns in their phone. Billie sneaks in and steals his phone shortly after.
Right away, Deborah finds bodies hanging in the storeroom, and then she becomes one of them.
The group starts with a meditation session. The second involves being locked into a steam room. Afterward, they’re fed botulism and told they have everything they need to survive. The chemist of the group works on mixing up an antidote. Everyone’s OK except for one guy, Omar.
Arthur, the founder of the company, does a video call, and he’s angry about their betrayals and getting kicked out of the company. Amber and Lola, the two running the retreat, walk in with machine guns. They want one of them to sacrifice themself and cut out a heart. They shoot Cliff in the head and drag his body out and then talk for an hour and half about how they met Arthur.
The group decides to kill Omar, who chooses that moment to wake up. Billie cuts his throat anyway, and then Carl removes the heart.
Next up is a laughing contest. Aubrey and Carl do fine, but then it’s Ginger’s turn; Arthur doesn’t even know who she is. Devon requires a bit of prompting, but he does it as well. Billie, on the other hand, can’t do it, so Amber cuts her head off.
During a break, Ginger tells the others about Cliff’s gun, which is up on the roof. They argue with Arthur over the videocall. They goad him into coming there personally.
For the next game, Arthur explains that they all need to pop out their left eyes with a spoon, and he wants to go first. He does, and it looks pretty painful. He came prepared, as he’s got a patch ready to put on. He chooses Carl to go next, and he does it. Devin does it as well. Audrey has her turn and drops the spoon, so Amber shoots her eye out. Ginger is last, and she doesn’t hesitate.
The final game begins. Arthur’s still annoyed about the voodoo doll the group passed around in the company, so he wants everyone to stab themselves with seven big nails. Carl tries it, and stabs himself in both ears– he’s dead. Devin refuses, so the girls shoot him.
Ginger’s time once again. She admits she was the one who made the voodoo doll for Cliff. She says Arthur should never have been ousted from the company. She wants to do the ritual to ascend, but she wants to do it on the rooftop.
Ginger grabs Cliff’s hidden gun and holds it to Arthur’s head. He stabs her, and she shoots him. Lola and Amber shoot at Ginger, but she avoids them. After a little cat and mouse, Ginger beats Amber to death with a dumbbell. There’s more cat and mouse as Ginger deals with Lola.
And the final girl is Ginger, who wasn’t even supposed to be there. “This is the worst corporate retreat I’ve ever been on,” she says as she gets in the car and drives home.
Brian’s Commentary
I had two coffees and was still yawning throughout. Alan Ruck: “We have Jeff Goldblum at home.” Everyone else is completely forgettable here. I kept having to look at IMDB to remember which character was which, there wasn’t much here in the way of character development or acting. The gore is pretty good, especially the eyeball scene, but there’s really not much of that sort of thing here.
Pretty awful.
Kevin’s Commentary
It’s well made, good acting, good special effects - that eyeball removal scene for instance. But the script and the pacing are lacking. It was bland and drawn out. I had some chuckles. I didn’t hate it. By the third hour I was getting into it.
I’d call it moderately entertaining on the dull side.
2026 Colony
* Directed by: Yeon Sang-Ho
* Written by: Choi Kyu-seok, Yeon Sang-ho
* Stars: Jun Ji-hyun, Koo Kyo-hwan, Ji Chang-wook
* Run Time: 2 Hours, 2 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
At a scientific conference in a huge center, someone deliberately releases a virus that spawns fast zombies - with a sort of hive mind. The uninfected have to band together to survive and keep it from becoming a wider disaster. There are some elements that make it unique, which we really appreciated so it’s not the same old thing again. It’s well made and entertaining without slowing down much. We’d highly recommend it.
Spoilery Synopsis
A man calls 911 and says he made a highly contagious terrorist attack with a pathogen in his own body. He also has the only vaccine that could help. Kwon Se Jong and Gyu Song arrive at the bio-conference where Kang Woo-cheol is speaking on stage. They’ve been divorced for ten years, and he still sees a need to help her career. Meanwhile, the man on-stage talks about collective intelligence and ants and how they can use that to improve semiconductors. They’ve used the technology to restore paralyzed rats. It may even bestow a kind of telepathy.
Meanwhile Seuk and Hui are in the mall talking about going camping together.
Kang Woo-cheol gets a call that one of his scientists is planning on making a terror attack this afternoon, and that stops the conference. He then runs into the man in the restroom, and they argue about stolen research. “I’m taking humanity to the next level! The birth of a new humanity.” This culminates in the lunatic injecting the CEO with something.
Almost immediately, Kang collapses and has seizures. He very quickly becomes a Korean Fast Zombie ™ and starts attacking people at that conference. Things escalate very quickly.
Se Jeong and Gyu Seong have some dinner and talk about their lives. Seok, who works security, hears that the building is going into lock-down as the police arrive outside. Very quickly, all the characters we know have barricaded themselves inside a store in the mall.
These aren’t normal Korean Fast Zombies ™, however, they’re linked telepathically into a hive-mind, which soon becomes apparent. Se Jeong remembers what the CEO at the conference said and realizes that this is related to that somehow.
The news reports that the building is under quarantine because of the bio-terror attack, but people outside can see the zombies inside. Gyu Seong tries to help a girl outside their building, and he dies in the process. Se Jeong then talks to his wife on the phone, which goes poorly.
The policeman of the group gets a call about the scientist who caused all this having the vaccine, and he’s probably still in the building. Se Jeong explains how the creatures outside are getting smarter and evolving. They might respond to smells and pheromones.
They “train” the zombies to chase a certain brand of perfume, and then they cover themselves with antifreeze to make a different smell, hoping to walk right past the zombies.
The group inside the mall find Dr. Suh and arrest him. He knows Se Jeong by reputation. They need to get him to the roof to be rescued. Seok tells them about the cargo elevator that no one knows about.
Professor Gong arrives outside Suh’s laboratory. The SWAT teams are about to break in. They find a large number of infected monkeys, but they all seem to be in a trance– except for one that’s awake and out of a cage. The others all wake up and work together to get out; it’s not just a barrel of CGI monkeys. Suddenly, they all freeze and die when monkey #1 is killed. “Patient Zero” seems to be the core of the whole infection.
The elevator doors open on the wrong floor because Suh pushed the button, and several people get bitten. Suh just walks off in the confusion, and the zombies just ignore him because he’s vaccinated. The survivors head to the security office to use the camera to find where Suh has run to. They come to the conclusion that Suh can see through the eyes of the zombies since he is, in fact, infected. The zombies can see through his eyes too, so they blindfold him.
They watch as Suh talks to the infected CEO, and they realize that he was Patient Zero. The CEO bites Suh, and Suh changes. All the zombies go into “buffering mode,” which gives the policeman’s group time to go after Suh. They get him, but he’s linked to the hive now while still keeping his faculties. Suh telepathically sends the zombies to the control room, and Hui is killed. This enrages Seok, who vows that Suh and the rest are all going to die.
Professor Gong explains to the military that the infected are effectively brain dead and can’t be cured. They want justification to shoot the people inside. She explains about killing Patient Zero to stop all this.
Seuk, who has vowed to kill all the survivors, gears up for battle.
The policeman shoots the businessman to use as bait, but the zombies get them both. Se Jeung and two girls have Suh, and they’re the only ones left. They make a plan by text so Suh doesn’t hear them. Jeung heads out and the two girls stay with Suh. Except one of the zombies is looking at one of the group’s dropped phones and sees the texts, which means Suh can see it.
Se Jeung finds the policeman’s phone and calls the police commissioner. They send two teams. One to kill the CEO, and the other to grab Suh as a vaccine. Se Jeung tells the police where to find Suh, but since Suh can hear, the zombies attack. Suh escapes with help of the horde.
The soldiers kill the CEO, but it doesn’t do anything. Suh is actually the prime zombie. Se Jeung finds Suh at the same time Seuk does. Suh uses Seuk’s dead sister against him. Suh explains to Se Jeong that this was all in revenge for her ruining his father’s career.
The soldiers get in and grab Suh, but leaves Se Jeong locked in a closet. Gong calls her on the phone, and they figure out that Suh is “the first monkey” and needs to die. The zombies start using the guns to free Suh, so they’ve evolved pretty far. The military refuses to kill Suh, because he’s also the vaccine.
Suh and some zombies steal a van and leave the building. They drive right up to the crowd of people outside the building and start infecting everyone there.
Se Jeung calls Gong, who finds Suh on the CCTV and tells her where to go. Se Jeung finds him and tries to run him over, but there are too many zombies in the way. She tricks the zombies into running in an “ant circle,” something we learned about earlier, and Suh struggles to get them to stop. The zombies all fall down and reboot to their original state. The zombies wake up and attack the nearest poster with faces, and Suh ends up catching on fire and dying in the melee.
All the zombies freeze. Se Jeong and Gong discuss who’s going to take the blame for all this.
Or ARE the zombies actually permanently frozen?
Brian’s Commentary
The obvious comparison here is “Train to Busan” (2016), and it was, in fact, directed by Yeon Sang-Ho, the director of that film. It’s very similar, with a small number of distinctive characters and personalities and how they interact with each other as they try to survive.
This one is different due to the hive mind and being controlled by a human, Dr. Suh. It turns it from a standard zombie film into almost a supervillain-type story.
There are some very cool shots of zombies doing weird things, and they all have a very unnatural style of moving.
I liked it!
Kevin’s Commentary
I thought it was an interesting touch having the zombies not be able to tell images and cutouts from real people. At first anyway until they collectively upgrade. The hive mind aspect gave this a unique twist on the zombie genre, it was very cool how that was used. I thought this one was pretty great.
Short Films:
2023 Short Film: Open Casket
* Directed by: Vincent Dormani
* Written by: Vincent Dormani
* Stars: Jonathan Stephens and Austin Pigza
* Run Time: 4:30
* Watch it:
What Happens
A man brings some new artwork home and hangs it on the wall, not noticing that someone wrote “Burn if found” on the back of it. He’s pleased with how it looks, but almost immediately things go strange, and there seems to be something else behind the paint on the canvas. It’s okay though, it’s just a painting, right?
Commentary
It’s short and effective, shot well in a great setting and cool effects. Without dialogue, they manage to tell a creepy little story. It’s a good one.
The church does a whole big thing for the two gay boys to drive the sin out of them, and there’s quite an embarrassing crowd. The Deliverance Preacher says, “All your lust, indecency, and desire has to go now!” Both boys fall down in a seizure in the middle of the ritual, going into convulsions. Naim watches all this and is terrified, since it’s partly his fault.
At school later, Ryan starts getting bullied. Ryan warns Naim that he has to stop. Naim follows Ryan to the skating rink, where Ryan acts like he’s not alone. Something invisible in the photo booth attacks Ryan and scratches him up good. Ryan tells Naim to just leave him alone, he thinks it was Naim that attacked him.
Naim questions Hunter about what happened at the ritual. “Did it work?” After following Hunter, he finds that Hunter’s being followed by something invisible as well. He watches as Hunter is dragged away and killed that night.
Naim goes to the police about what he saw; he thinks it’s going to kill Ryan next. The detective tells Naim’s mother everything, and it’s an awkward drive to the church where Rob and the Deliverance Preacher awaits him too. The men drag him inside and do the same ritual to him.
Naim tells Ryan what happened, and then Ryan attacks him. Except Ryan was inside and didn’t do anything. “You saw it, didn’t you!” Izzie, Rob’s daughter, knows something. “It comes for you when you’re alone,” she explains about two girls. One, Marnie, died in the opening sequence, but the other one didn’t. The girl who lived, Jessica, hangs out all day and night at a hospital so she’s never alone.
Ryan and Naim take the bus to see Jessica, who explains that the monster looks like the person you have a crush on and then it kills them. “Nothing can make it stop. Stay away from your friend, you’re only making it worse!” For a moment, Naim is alone, and he sees it coming for him as both Ryan and Hunter.
On the bus ride home, the two kiss and make out, which they both know is only going to make it worse, but they can’t help themselves.
Izzie takes the two boys to the Deliverance Preacher to “take it back,” but it’s a trap. A large group of trouble makers start to beat them up, but they steal Izzie’s car to escape. Unfortunately, Ryan learns who it was who told on him.
Naim tries to tell his mother about the creature, but she doesn’t understand. He sees Ryan/The Creature several more times. It just about kills Naim, but Naim soon learns that it’s vulnerable to fire.
Naim runs into the old mill, with Ryan not far behind. Naim sets the place on fire with the Ryan thing inside.
Naim tells his mother the story, but she already knows. This was supposed to happen, and it can’t be undone. Ryan has apparently run away or otherwise disappeared. Naim goes to the bus stop and meets him there, where they leave the depressing town altogether sitting next to each other sharing music. Along the way, Naim sees “Ryan” standing beside the road.
Brian’s Commentary
“What if conversion therapy actually worked?”
It’s about depressing characters in a depressing town going through depressing situations– fun!
It’s a good concept and it’s got good acting and cinematography, but it’s very slowly paced. There’s also an inconclusive ending– did leaving town stop the problem? It seems unlikely, but we don’t know.
It was… okay. A little on the dull side.
Kevin’s Commentary
It’s a very strange romance. With a sort of happy ending, and not a solid wrap up. The problem is going to continue, from the look of it.
The two leads were great, as was the supporting cast. All the production values were very good. It wasn’t unpleasant to watch, but I thought it was a little too long and drawn out.
2025 Until Dawn
* Directed by: David F. Sandberg
* Written by: Gary Dauberman, Blair Butler
* Stars: Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Odessa A’zion
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 43 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A group of friends gets trapped in a time loop house of horrors. All they have to do to escape is survive Until Dawn. It’s a variation on the Groundhog Day time loop scenario with a video game vibe. The movie is pretty well made, but there wasn’t a lot here we haven’t seen before. We both thought it was on the tedious side. It was just okay overall.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on a woman crawling through a tiny tunnel, and there’s something nasty behind her. The evil clown catches up to her and kills her. “I can’t take it again!” Credits roll.
Clover, Max, Nina, Megan, and Abe discuss what they are going to do for closure after they arrive. Clover’s sister, Melanie, went missing about a year ago, and they’re here to say goodbye.
Megan’s a bit of a psychic, and she leads them all in a little ritual that almost gets them all run over in the street. The man inside the gas station says a lot of people go missing in Glore Valley, just up the road.
After a very strange storm, they stop at a building that’s in the eye of the rainstorm, but that’s not really a thing. None of them have any cell signal, and the rain seems to be falling everywhere except where they are. The calendar inside the inn says it’s 1998. Abe finds a whole bulletin board full of “Missing” posters.
The sun goes down, and the weird sundial clock on the wall turns itself over. Abe’s car suddenly comes to life just outside the rain circle. One thing quickly leads to another, and the clown shows up, cutting Abe in half. Max soon gets a knife in the face as well. Megan gets face-planted repeatedly, but then Clover stabs the clown in the back– to no effect. He kills her as well.
Time resets, and suddenly, everyone is alive again. They all remember what happened. Now their photos are on Missing posters as well. “It has hold of us now,” Megan says. As the hourglass continues to run down, Megan says it feels different this time. She’s apparently possessed by the former victims of the place. “Don’t let it in,” she says before she dies.
There’s a knock at the door, and Clover hears Melanie’s voice. There’s no one out there. Also, there’s an old house that wasn’t there before. Clover’s dragged into the old house, but the others are forced back into the house they’ve been in.
Clover looks around the strange house, and there’s an old woman there: the Glore Witch. “You either survive the night or become a part of it.” Max comes looking for her, but Abe and Nina jump in the car to drive away, which they soon learn is a bad idea. The others also die… again.
Megan’s losing hair and not looking so good this time around. They all have some minor health issues now– Abe starts coughing up teeth and explodes. Clover tells the others about what the witch said to her. Nina then explodes as well. Megan explodes just a little bit at a time until there’s nothing left. As Clover lays down, ready to try another round, the man from the gas station comes in. “You almost made it. Almost but not quite.”
Time resets again. Clover finds the ID for Dr. Hill, the man she talked to at the gas station. He was a doctor who was brought in a few years back when the whole town got swallowed in a mine disaster. They figure out that each time they’ve died, it’s been something different, just to keep them afraid.
Max finds a videotape that explains a lot about what Dr. Hill was doing here in town. He turned a man into a wendigo. Hill explains that four of them can leave, but one of them must die. First, the clown kills Abe and Nina, then the wendigo gets Megan. Max and Clover run into Melanie, who is now a wendigo. But first, more death.
None of them can remember how long they’ve been there. Tonight might be their last chance. Wait, Megan isn’t here on this go-round, maybe her time was up? They look at Abe’s phone and see videos of many, many previous deaths and monsters.
Clover decides it’s time to stop running away and elects to go into the tunnel, and the surviving three join her. It leads to the submerged ruins of the town that sank in the mine collapse. All the wendigos appear to be down there, now chasing them. They fight back more this time.
Clover runs into Dr. Hill, who explains that the monsters are a manifestation of their psyche. While her friends are getting hunted down, she manages to slip a bit of water into the doctor’s coffee, which makes him explode. Clover grabs his keys and rescues Megan. They all climb upward as the sand almost runs out. Aaaaand… they make it out as the sun comes up.
Brian’s Commentary
It’s another time-loop / Groundhog Day-type movie. The characters die over and over. It started out pretty great, but it dragged a lot in the final half hour. There was lots of running around in the tunnels, but the “puzzle” part of the film was over by that point, and it slowed way down.
It was… OK.
Kevin’s Commentary
I didn’t realize this was based on a video game until we got started and I checked out the trivia.
The attacks seemed too random, and what they could do about it seemed too limited. It was too hopeless and pointless. It’s pretty well put together, but there isn’t much to root for.
The beginning had promise, but it got bogged down and repetitive. I thought it was on the tedious side more than entertaining.
2002 Wishmaster 4: The Prophecy Fulfilled
* Directed by: Chris Angel
* Written by: John Benjamin Martin, Peter Atkins
* Stars: Tara Spencer-Nairn, Michael Trucco, Jason Thompson
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Once again, someone frees the Djinn from the ruby, and he’s on his mission to end the world when the one who freed him makes three wishes. It’s a little more complicated this time when love enters the picture.
Like the third movie, this one lacks the humor and interesting killings of the first two movies, and Andrew Divoff as the Djinn added a lot to those.
We both thought it was just okay. Not a strong finish to the series.
Spoilery Synopsis
A young couple, Lisa and Sam, buy their first house and have sex as the credits roll.
Three years later, Lisa goes to a fancy house to see Steven Verdel, her lawyer. He’s bought her a gift, a big red jewel in a box. Sam was in a motorcycle accident, and Steven is representing them in a lawsuit. When she touches the jewel, she gets a weird vision. She leaves, and he puts the jewel in his safe.
The Wishmaster appears to Steven and offers him a wish. He needs Lisa to make three wishes, and to do that, he steals Steven’s face and appearance, just as he did in the previous film.
Steven shows up at the house, and soon, Lisa wishes to get a quick settlement for the case, which he grants. Sam thinks that Lisa has been waiting for this to leave him. At dinner, Lisa wishes that Sam could just walk again, and now he can, but he’s in a crazy load of pain from it. Turns out, the only place he has any feeling is in his legs; the damage is still there.
Steven stalks Lisa at work. Later, Sam admits that he’s done with Lisa. Steven still needs Lisa to make one more wish, and then his people can ravage the Earth. She wishes she could love Steven for who he really is. Uh-oh.
The Djinn’s boss appears and insists that the Wishmaster release them from Hell as prophesied, but he refuses: he’s in love now. They send a hunter to kill Lisa, which will solve the problem.
Steven goes to see Tracy, Lisa’s friend. She wishes for some killer sex, and that happens.
The Hunter shows up at Lisa’s store, and Jennifer, the clerk, tries to help him. He pulls out a sword and kills her. Meanwhile, the Djinn goes one on one with a bouncer, and it’s not much of a fight.
Steven and the Hunter fight, which makes no sense, since the Hunter needs the Wishmaster to fulfill the prophecy. It doesn’t matter since the Hunter loses badly.
Lisa goes home and finds a note from Sam, who has left her for good now. Steven shows up, and there is much kissing now. Sex ensues. He asks if she loves him for who he is, and she’s evasive. He can’t make her love him, that’d be against the rules. “It was the plan; I gave you what you wanted.”
Lisa finally sees Steven in his true form and freaks out. “I am only a monster if you choose to see me as one.” He wants her to be his queen when his people take over the Earth.
Sam shows up and shoots Steven a few times, which does nothing. Sam wishes for a way to kill the Wishmaster, and grants him a sword. But the Djinn runs Sam through with his own sword.
The Wishmaster takes on the form of Sam so Lisa will finally love him. Lisa finishes things by shoving the Wishmaster into Sam and his protruding sword, impaling the Wishmaster and killing him.
Brian’s Commentary
This was filmed at the same time as the third film, but I found the story to be a lot more interesting. It wasn’t particularly bad, but it wasn’t very interesting, either. All the actors showed up on time, but none were particularly great. The special effects were minimal, and even the deaths weren’t that creative.
It was OK, but not especially good.
Kevin’s Commentary
Knowing that it was filmed back to back with the third one, I didn’t have high hopes, but it ended up being moderately entertaining. If it was stand alone, it would be held up differently, but it’s being compared to the earlier movies. I’d put it as my number three favorite of them.
2012 Underworld: Awakening
* Directed by: Mans Marlind, Bjorn Stein
* Written by: Len Wiseman, John Hlavin, J. Michael Straczynski
* Stars: Kate Beckinsale, Michael Ealy, India Eisley
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 28 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
With the war between the vampires and the lycans over, humans find out about the monsters, and they’ve shifted to humans vs. vampires and lycans. There is a lot of action fighting, but more to the story than just that.
It seemed a little short and rushed, and maybe unnecessary, but it’s pretty well made and still has some entertainment value. It was a step down from the previous movies, but worth checking out if you’re a fan of the series.
Spoilery Synopsis
We get a quick recap of the storyline. Now, a new darkness has arisen.
We get a news report that vampires and werewolves have been discovered and made public; everyone knows about them now, and there are tests to determine if you’re human or not. Marshal law has been declared, and Dr. Jacob Lane is interviewed on TV about the situation. We watch Selene fighting human soldiers as the credits roll.
Selene’s not a typical vampire; she’s a Death-Dealer, and not so easy to kill, even without a gun. She arrives at the dock to meet Michael, who is shot with silver bullets and blown up, along with Selene.
In the hospital, “Subject 1” is awakened from Cryo-sleep. That’s Selene, who was frozen for some reason. Dr. Lane is called, but she kills his assistants. She escapes after causing much carnage. She breaks into a store for clothes to find that they sell “Real Vampire Teeth” and “Real Lycan Teeth.”
Selene runs into a security guard who tells her that the fight with Michael happened twelve years ago.
Two detectives talk about a recent murder; it’s been years since the last Lycan killing. Detective Sebastian is assigned to the Selene escape from the lab. Sebastian goes to see Dr. Lane, who explains that they killed the subject; no one actually escaped. For some reason, he lies about what happened. The detective soon discovers the lie.
Selene interrogates one of the scientists about “Subject 2,” whom she assumes is Michael. She gets glimpses of visions through #2’s eyes. Another vampire, David, comes to Selene, and he says the lycans have been hiding for years, but something has been getting them stirred up recently. They rescue a young girl from an impending lycan attack.
The lycans do attack, right in the middle of a busy street, and they want that girl they have. They break in and bite her, but she’s meaner than the wolves. Turns out, the girl is Subject #2, and she’s Eve, Selene’s daughter somehow. Selene tastes Eve’s blood and verifies the story.
David takes Selene and Eve home to his coven, and the leader there, Thomas, doesn’t trust Selene at all; he knows her history. The vampire doctor is astounded at Eve, since she doesn’t have any bite marks. It’s likely that Eve is the daughter of both Selene and Michael, something between the two races.
The humans arrive at the coven hideout. David wants to fight, Thomas wants to evacuate. Turns out, the attackers aren’t human, they’re lycans, led by one giant one. Thomas gives Eve over to the lycans.
Selene goes to see Detective Sebastian. Something isn’t right that lycans still not only exist but have some unnaturally big specimens. They put it together that the lab is helping the lycans. And then we see that Dr. Lane and his minions have made themselves lycans through science. Lycans that are immune to silver. And they want to rule the world.
Meanwhile, Selene armors up to make an assault on the lab and get Eve back, with Detective Sebasian’s help. For plot reasons, Selene can walk around in the daylight now, and she uses that to sneak into the lab. Dr. Lane sends his chief goon, Quint, to stop Selene.
Selene finds Michael, frozen in a cryo tube, but she has to choose to free him or help Eve. She shoots his tube and runs off.
Selene makes it to the parking garage and stops Lane’s van, but she has to fight Quint, who is the big bad wolf. Sebastian shoots Lane, who is a lycan, and they fight as well. Sebastian loses, but then Lane has to fight Eve. David shows up out of nowhere and helps. Both lycans lose messily.
Selene, Eve, and David leave as Sebastian promises to misdirect the police who are arriving. They stop by the lab and see that Michael is gone.
Will the vampires survive?
Brian’s Commentary
This one gives up all the supernatural politics and lore of the first three films and becomes more of a post-vampire-apocalyptic action film. With the exception of Selene and barely Michael, none of the characters make a return appearance.
It was fine. It lost a lot by leaving the politics and scheming out. The human scientists just weren’t that interesting. Still, there’s room for at least one more sequel.
Kevin’s Commentary
It was a way to keep things going, just do a time jump. Michael is out of commission for the movie, shown briefly and not quite Scott Speedman, but they don’t list Michael in the IMDB credits. Digging in the trivia, it’s said that a stand-in played Michael and Scott Speedman was digitally superimposed. It wasn’t a very good special effect.
I’m not sure we needed this movie, but I don’t regret seeing it. It’s not as good as the previous ones, but still pretty good.
Short Films:
2022 Short Film: Résistance
* By: Alex Chauvet, Anna Le Danois, Quentin Foulon, Fabien Glasse, Juliette Jean, Julie Narat
* Stars: Animated
* Run Time: 6:36
* Watch it:
What Happens
A trio of human-sized cockroaches enjoy a fine dining experience. The staff, on the other hand, don’t particularly care for roaches.
Commentary
It’s a grisly meal all around. It’s even better when you realize it’s based on the French Resistance of WWII and true events. The animation is excellent, the pacing is good, and it’s always extremely clear what’s going on at all times. Very good!
We see that Noah is working for Wardex, who works for the government, and they’ve had a big leak of security information. Many people from their own organization didn’t show up for work this morning, including Hugo, so it’s some kind of organized betrayal.
Daniel explains to Jane that he stole the data that he was paid to protect. “People have a right to know,” he whines.
In Kansas City, Jackson and Margaret joke about her newscaster audition. She sees a random cardinal bird and then starts speaking Russian. She doesn’t even know she was doing it. When a cop pulls her over, she knows all about the cop; telepathy or something. She’s the weather person on the news, and she suddenly starts talking Korean to a guest; she doesn’t speak Korean. When it’s time to actually give the weather report, she just makes weird clicking sounds.
Noah gets a report about Margaret speaking in clicks on national TV. The sound she makes matches something that upsets him greatly. Margaret has had nightmares all her life and doesn’t remember much about her childhood.
Danny and Jane go with a guy to a safe house. He explains that Wardex deals with dead aliens from the 1970s. Not just that, but they’ve tortured and dissected live aliens as well. This has been going on for 79 years, and Daniel’s got proof of all of it. He wants full disclosure of all of it to the entire world. Jane’s not sure the world needs to know; it’ll be really disruptive. She’s afraid people will lose their religion.
Margaret runs from the Wardex guys and talks to Hugo, who warns her to stay away from those guys. Jackson has no idea what’s going on, but he does what Margaret says. Hugo shows Margaret’s clicking to Daniel, who thinks it’s all English, he understands it perfectly.
Noah tries using one of the alien devices, and doesn’t like the results. He tries it again, and takes partial control of Margaret’s body remotely. He then projects himself there to have a conversation with her, where he gets her location. Margearet somehow picks up all this and warns Daniel to run. He then steals a car and shows us how incompetent the Wardex guys are.
Jackson thinks there’s something wrong with Margaret, and she knows he’s about to break up with her if she moves. She knows more about everything than she should. She abandons him at a convenience store where everyone is panic-buying the gas and merchandise because of news and stuff.
The Wardex guys raid the motel where Daniel and Jane are staying. She gets away with a device, but the baddies catch Daniel and the backpack.
Just on instinct, Margaret is not far behind. She knows all the secret codes, so the guards let her right in. Noah knows who she is and lets her leave with Daniel. All the guards see them, but they appear to be friends and relatives, so they let them pass. They all see something very personal. Daniel doesn’t really understand it, but he had a strange encounter with a cardinal as well.
Noah and Hugo have a “diving” conversation, and Hugo says he’s working for the aliens. They both believe the other is irrational.
Jane talks to Sister Maura about religious ideas. The existence of aliens might or might not make people of faith lose their minds.
Margaret and Daniel finally make it to where Hugo is. He’s rebuilt a copy of her childhood home so she can regress to her missing childhood. “When you do, you’ll know everything, more than is humanly possible.” He was gifted to understand the aliens, and she was gifted to understand the humans. They get a vision of animals visiting her as a child, but they aren’t really animals. “They present as animals to calm us,” explains Hugo. We see both Daniel and Margaret as the aliens abducted them and “upgraded” them.
Noah and his men arrive and come inside, but they don’t see anything; Margaret has “cloaked” them all. They drive away in an invisible fire truck, heading to KCXE, her news station, which is broadcasting the beginning of WW3. The station manager immediately cooperates with everything Margaret tells him to do. Noah gets to work cutting the power for the building before they can broadcast anything.
The power at the station goes off, and the emergency generator comes on. They cut the generator off just as Margaret’s about to go live. Jane sneaks in and gives Margaret one of the devices, which powers up all the equipment for her. Noah doesn’t make any move to stop her, so she goes live on the air with lots of video footage of alien stuff. All the news outlets in the world immediately start showing the footage, without any kind of verification at all.
At the station, Hugo’s men wheel something in. It’s a very old alien and it has a message for us…
Brian’s Commentary
This is in no way “Horror,” but it’s billed as an alien invasion film, so we went with it anyway. The alien CGI was surprisingly not-s0-great, like something from twenty years ago. The pacing was OK for such a long film, and it didn’t get boring.
The first hour kept reminding me of the weirdness that was the first half of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977). Later, it became more like “E.T.” in a lot of ways, but it’s also very different from both.
Somehow, I doubt the news agencies would be that quick to show all the footage without any kind of verification. It could simply be a big hoax; they wouldn’t know. Also, why did Noah just give up right at the end? His assistant, Boyd, was ready to stop the broadcast, and he could have just shot everyone, but no, he just let it go.
It’s fine. I’d have been way more interested in seeing the aftermath of all this; what effect did the revelation have on everyone? We don’t know much about the aliens or what their message was.
It’s long, but it gives us way too much about what we didn’t need and not enough about what we wanted to know. They should have done the disclosure at the halfway point and showed us what came after.
Kevin’s Commentary
I’m going to go with well made, because of course after 30 some movies Spielberg knows how to make them, and also mediocre. It trots along for an awfully long time being somewhat interesting but mostly nothing that we haven’t seen before. The acting is great. The script didn’t impress me. There were a lot of plot holes and things that worked out fine because the plot required it.
Maybe the CGI looked better on the big screen rather than being so blatant for home viewing?
It was just okay overall. I would have rather seen an hour less of the first part of the movie and more tacked on at the end after the actual disclosure.
2001 Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell
* Directed by: Chris Angel
* Written by: Alex Wright, Peter Atkins
* Stars: Jason Connery, A.J. Cook, Tobias Mehler
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 32 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Someone finds the ruby gem, the Djinn is freed, death and mayhem happens, they find a way out at the end. It’s a familiar formula used a third time. It’s been a downward slide though. This one doesn’t have Andrew Divoff, it lacks dark humor, and it’s on the dull side. It’s not bad, but middling.
Spoilery Synopsis
Diana has a nightmare about the traffic accident that killed her parents. Her boyfriend, Greg, suggests she needs therapy over the incident.
The next morning, Diana and Katie go to school with Billy, Katie’s boyfriend. The professor might have a thing for Diana, which annoys Greg.
The professor asks Diana to come in after class to help him at the museum. As she waits, she opens a puzzle box from ancient Persia, and finds a big red gem inside. The professor shows up and reads the words on the box and then wants to go out for dinner. She turns him down, and he’s annoyed.
The Djinn shows up to the professor, and he wants to know more about Diana. He wishes for the two most beautiful women in the world to be in love with him; they show up and tear him apart. The Djinn then changes shape to replace the professor.
Katie hangs up a big bull’s head with Chekov’s horns poking out. Then she makes out with Billy. Diana translates the writing on the box and knows what’s going on with the Djinn; Greg isn’t interested in the story. She thinks the professor has been killed, but it’s only been two hours, so he thinks she’s overreacting.
“The professor” wants to see Diana’s transcript, and the woman who runs the record department wishes the whole department would just burn up, which it does– with her inside.
Diana tells her three friends about the professor, the Djinn, and the woman in the records department, and they all think she’s literally losing her mind.
The professor goes looking for Diana at Eleanor’s place, and ends up leaving a message with Greg. The Djinn need Diana to make three wishes. He shows her Anne, who wishes to lose weight, which she does.
Diana wishes for the Angel Michael to come down and stop the Djinn, and Greg changes into Michael. Turns out, Michael’s a bit of a wimp, and has to run away. Eleanor has a thing for old men, like the professor, and she wishes for him to break her heart. Ouch!
Angel Michael tells Diana that only she can defeat the Djinn. He gives the “Sword of Justice,” which is all flamey magical. It burns her, but Michael can fix that.
Billy has a run-in with those horns we saw on the wall earlier. We saw that coming a long way back. The Djinn threatens to go after Katie next, who finds what’s left of Billy. She runs to the science lab to hide, where she wishes there was somewhere to hide. The Wishmaster overhears her and puts her in a cage with a bunch of hungry rats.
The professor and Michael fight, and there’s a sort of car chase– and a crash. They all end up on the roof of the dorm, and he yells “Make your wish!” Rather than do that, she jumps off the roof, but the Djinn grabs her instead. She grabs the sword and stabs the Djinn, and they both fall. She dies, and the djin vanishes back into the crystal. Michael then vanishes, but heals Diana as he goes.
Brian’s Commentary
This is all pretty dull. The Djinn is played by a new actor, as the old one wanted nothing to do with it. It’s just another movie with college students getting picked off one by one in not-terribly creative ways. The Djinn here is mean and more than a little violent, very different from the one in the previous films.
The gore and special effects are all pretty good, which helps offset the not-so-good acting and plot. There’s just too much running around in the final half hour, and it got pretty boring.
It’s a pretty major step down from the first film, and since it was filmed at the same time as the fourth one, I don’t have high hopes for that one now, either.
Kevin’s Commentary
I went into this fearful of the lack of Andrew Divoff as The Djinn. Trivia says that he was originally planning on reprising the role in part three, wrote a screenplay for the third movie, and presented it to producers. They went with this script instead. He hated it so much he turned it down.
It seemed like the genie wasn’t as constrained by rules this time - something I thought added a lot to the first movie. And the deaths weren’t as interesting.
It was filmed back to back with the fourth movie.
Aaron Smolinski, playing Billy Matthews, was baby Superman in the 1978 movie - the kid holding up the car when the jack slips.
The script does have a decent story though the pacing is clunky. The special effects and makeup are very good. It’s definitely the weakest of the third films, but I wouldn’t say I hated it.
2009 Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
* Directed by: Patrick Tatopoulos
* Written by: Danny McBride, Dirk Blackman, Howard McCain
* Stars: Rhona Mitra, Michael Sheen, Bill Nighy
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 32 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is a prequel to the first two movies, showing the origin of the lycans and the start of their war with the vampires. Some of the cast returns because their characters are hundreds of years old. It’s full of loads of action with the horror aspects on the back burner - in fact there’s only one scene that has any humans in it. The mix of CGI and practical effects gets the job done, and the story is interesting, filling in gaps in our knowledge about the Underworld universe. It entertained us both.
Spoilery Synopsis
It’s twenty years since the creation of both vampires and werewolves, and the war had already begun. The werewolves were simply vicious monsters. Lucian was born, the first lycan who could turn into a human form; Viktor wanted to kill him, but spared him for some reason. He bred more lycans and started using them as servants and slaves. Credits roll.
We watch a scene where Sonja runs from three wolves and Lucian shoots them. Viktor is impressed, but he sees that Lucian likes Sonja, his daughter, and that displeases him.
Colomon complains to Viktor that the werewolves are killing the local humans, and they need the humans for many reasons.
Meanwhile, Lucian sneaks into Sonja’s room, and they have some sexy-time. They’ve been doing this for a while, and he expresses his plan to escape slavery and help his people, but he wants her to go with him. The vampire Tannis sees them together, but he doesn’t say anything to Viktor… yet.
The human nobles approach the castle for a scheduled visit. Sonja and the others ride out to escort them in and prevent any werewolf attacks.
Lucian senses that there are too many and rides out to help, which is forbidden. He saves Sonja, but then releases himself from the slave collar and reveals himself to the other wolves, who all pay attention and back off. Viktor is not amused and orders that Lucien be punished.
In prison, Lucian explains the difference between the mindless werewolves and the partly-human lycans to Raze, another prisoner. The other prisoners, all humans, are impressed with his attitude.
More human nobles show up, this time, with large chests of money. He says their mines have been overrun with monsters and blames Viktor.
Sonja comes to Lucien and tells him that her father plans to kill him in the morning, so he needs to escape tonight. Tannis, promised a seat on the council, slips Lucien a key.
Raze and the other humans are led to Viktor, who forces them all to be bitten by a lycans. Viktor wants to use them as soldiers, but most choose to go with Lucien instead. There’s a massive jailbreak of all the slaves.
Lucien sends Raze to gather human volunteers while he goes to the main werewolf den.
Viktor confronts Sonja about hooking up with Lucian, which she denies. So Viktor takes a quick nip of blood from her neck, and it gives him visions of exactly what she’s been up to. He is not pleased.
Lucien wants to break back into the castle to rescue Sonja. He gets in easily, but they have to fight their way out. During the fight, Sonja reveals to Viktor that she’s pregnant with Lucien’s child, and that makes Viktor even less pleased than before, if that’s at all possible. They soon find themselves back in cells.
Sonja goes on trial for treason and interspecies crimes. The council votes for death, but it’s up to Viktor, who agrees. Lucien is whipped repeatedly as Sonja watches and then Sonja is exposed to sunlight and dissolves.
Viktor comes in to assess the situation, and Lucien wolfs out and escapes again. In his wolf form, he’s pretty much unstoppable, but they fill him full of arrows.
Raze and the others assault the castle, and there are hundreds of them. They break in and kill just about all the other vampires and release the rest of the slaves as well. Of course, it all boils down to Viktor versus Lucien in a sword fight. Viktor ends up with a sword through the head.
Lucien goes outside to Raze and the rest of his people, saying “This is just the beginning.”
We then cut to Viktor on a ship with Tannis being put into sleep for another hundred years. We get a quick recap of Selene’s story that we’ve seen before.
Brian’s Commentary
How does Michael Sheen, Lucian, look younger here than he did in the first film, eight years previous? Bill Nighy must have spent weeks getting his face un-scowly after all the grouchiness. We were twenty minutes in before Kevin realized that Rhona Mitra wasn’t actually Kate Beckinsale.
It’s the prequel we didn’t need of a story that we actually already saw in flashbacks in previous films, only stretched out to feature length. Still, it’s an excuse to bring back cool characters that died in the earlier films, so there’s that going for it.
Kevin’s Commentary
This might be Bill Nighy’s surliest role.
That’s totally not Kate Beckinsale though I had to keep convincing myself of that throughout because Rhona Mitra resembles her so much here. In fact it’s said that Rhona was originally up as a possibility for the lead role in Underworld, which led to her getting the role in this. It was a plus that they resemble each other so much, satisfying a plot point.
Brian asked a good question - How are there any humans left in this land at this time? Between lots of vampires needing blood and the lycans eating human meat, there would be a huge local body count.
It’s not a happy movie, though we knew how it was going to end ahead of time after seeing the previous two movies. But it is very well made and entertaining. I liked it a lot.
1990 Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III
* Directed by: Jeff Burr
* Written by: Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper, David J. Schow
* Stars: Kate Hodge, Ken Foree, R.A. Mihailoff, Viggo Mortensen
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 25 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Leatherface is back with a new family, tormenting a young couple and a survivalist. This sequel moves even further away from the grit and grind of the original movie. It’s more in the direction of a standard 80s/90s slasher film. With the stakes a little bit on the low side with such a small pool of people.
We both thought it was pretty good, not a strong thumbs up but it’s there from both of us.
Spoilery Synopsis
We get a voiceover recapping the events of the first film. Sally survived but died in an institution. One of the cannibal family, W.E. Sawyer, also survived but was executed. Leatherface was assumed to be an alternate personality of W.E. Sawyer, so his case was closed. If that’s not the case, then Leatherface remains at large… Credits roll.
Michelle and Ryan are driving through Texas on the way to Florida. They hear a news report about the discovery of a mass grave nearby. The two have to stop at the roadblock as the police clear out the 40 or 50 bodies there.
The next day, they stop at the Last Chance gas station. The attendant, Alfredo, is an extreme weirdo, but the other guy, Tex, is more helpful, but still a little creepy. Tex suggests a shortcut off the highway, a road that’s not even on the map. Tex catches Alfredo doing a poopy-peeky with Michelle and starts a fight. Alfredo shoots out their rear window and then shoots Tex.
Night falls, and someone in a truck starts chasing the couple on the isolated country road. They get run off the road and stop to yell at each other for a while as they change the tire.
Suddenly, Leatherface shows up with his chainsaw, but they drive off and avoid him. Instead, they nearly hit another driver, Benny, on the road, and they both crash. Ryan tells them that they’re being hunted, but Benny doesn’t really believe it. He gives them pain medication that makes them sleepy.
Another man shows up to help, Tinker, and he’s weird. Benny notices a chainsaw in the back of Tinker’s truck and gets suspicious. Turns out, Tinker’s not here to help, and neither is Leatherface, who gets distracted by a girl in the woods and runs off.
The girl finds Benny and explains that she’s been with the baddies for a week; she was also ambushed on the road. They split up, and she soon dies. Leatherface finds Ryan and Michelle, and he gets his foot caught in a trap, so Leatherface has his way with him.
Michelle runs to a nearby house and lets herself in. Inside, she finds a little girl who’s playing with corpses. Tex is there as well, and he’s not as dead as we were led to believe. He nails her hands to a chair. They feed her blood to Grandpa, who is clearly dead. Mama shows up, and she’s not nice either. Tinker drags in Ryan, so now they’ve got fresh meat.
Meanwhile, Benny follows Alfredo through woods, and the lunatic gas station man is disposing of bodies in the swamp (isn’t this the Texas desert?).
As Leatherface gets ready to slice up Michelle, Benny reaches the house and starts shooting excessively. Mama gets shot, as does what was left of Grandpa. Benny and Tex fight, and that goes badly for Tex. Benny, Leatherface, and the brand new saw go into the swamp and fight some more. Turns out, the saw swims better than Benny.
Leatherface comes after Michelle, who beats him to death with a rock. In the morning, Michelle makes it back to the road, which is back in the desert again. Benny drives up in Alfredo’s truck, except Alfredo is there as well. Michelle shoots him and then helps Benny into the truck. “There’s roadkill all over Texas,” she quips.
We see that Leatherface has survived.
Brian’s Commentary
After the previous films’ focus on the whole family, this one switches to Junior’s new family, a whole different bunch of killer kooks. Does this take place in the desert, the swamp, or a forest? All three at varying times.
It was fine. Not on the same level as the previous two, but not terrible either.
Kevin’s Commentary
Trivia says that the original script was even more brutal with such explicit scenes that the producers made them tone it down. Even then they still had a hard time toning it down enough to get an MPAA rating, sending it to them 11 times and cutting a little more every time.
That was strange, as Brian pointed out, how it was desert, then forest, then swampland, then desert again at the end. Which probably hurt the final product. Ending up with a movie that’s pretty good but lackluster without much new to see. It’s more along the lines of 80s and 90s slasher movies, cleaned up from how grimy the original movie was.
And Leatherface still lives, making more future movies possible.
I’d call it middling overall, liked more than disliked.
Short Films:
2026 Short Film Motion Detected
* Directed by: Vincent Dormani
* Written by: Vincent Dormani
* Stars: Frank Dormani
* Run Time: 7:12
* Watch it:
What Happens
A man comes home from work and notices some things inside the door have been knocked over. He checks the security footage on his tablet and notices that every night at 9 p.m., a strange woman appears in his foyer. A very strange woman.
The next night, he waits for her to appear. What could go wrong?
Commentary
This one doesn’t explain anything at all, so it’s a mystery as to why this is all happening. That said, for having no real dialogue, it’s easy enough to understand exactly what is happening at all times. It’s short, looks good, and the special computer effects are well done.
We get a voiceover about making the same mistakes over and over again, and we see Clark coming to work at Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire, a furniture store. “Rip Off” is painted in the window, and he’s got a bunch of past due bills on his desk.
Clark talks to his therapist, Mary, about his sad life. He talks about the night Barbara left him. He’s a little bitter about his career.
Kat and Bobby record Clark doing a really bad pirate commercial. The electric bill is higher than it should be, so he calls in an electrician to find out why. There’s a whole bunch of power being used, but not for the store. That night, we see that Clark now lives in the store, and there are still electrical problems at night.
A light comes on the downstairs area, so Clark goes down to shut it all off, except it won’t shut down. When it does finally shut off, he notices a light behind one of the walls; a secret door? He leans on the wall and goes right through, into a large yellow room with buzzing fluorescent lights. The portal seems to work both ways, so he starts to explore a bit.
He walks through the place, a lot larger than it appears, until he comes to a stop sign in a dark place. He skips that and goes a different direction. He finds a dead bird and more rooms.
He eventually finds a backpack behind a hidden door hiding a tunnel. On the other side, he finds various shoes embedded in the floor. He hears something weird moving around in the tunnels and runs back to the first room, where he started. The portal is still there, so he goes back to his own world.
We see that someone has a video camera in the backrooms and knows that Clark was there.
Clark goes to see Mary for another session. He’s agitated about what he’s found and sounds like a lunatic.
Clark has Kat and Buddy come back in with the video recorder. He shows them the door, drawn on the wall, and they think he’s insane– until it works. He then shows them around the huge place. Kat’s terrified of the whole place, but Buddy is as curious as Clark is. Bobby goes down into a kind of pit and sees someone down there– pulls him back in and does something bad to him.
We cut to Mary, a little girl who’s not allowed to go outside. “They’re all over the place,” warns her mother. Then adult Mary wakes up. She gets a cryptic call from Clark that he won’t be coming back. She goes to the furniture store to look around; it’s unlocked and has been for days, but no customers ever come here. She goes downstairs and sees the door outline on the wall.
Soon, Mary is in the yellow room. As with the others, she starts wandering around the place. She finds Clark, who grabs her and chokes her out.
Mary then flashes back to her weird childhood and insane mother. Clark explains the weird people that are in these room; it’s sorta-kinda how the room remembers them, just not quite right. Everything here is just a little bit mis-remembered. The poorly recreated people, as it turns out, are edible, since they’re made of food.
Mary wants to help Clark, psychologically, but he’s got some special needs. He’s gone pretty much insane, and makes Mary wear his wife-stand-in’s hair. Mary gets annoyed and says Clark’s problem is all the whining. He likes it in here. “For the first time in a long while, I feel like I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”
Suddenly, a giant pirate lumbers into the room, and Clark says Mary was just leaving. The huge thing takes a bite out of Clark, and Mary runs away. The creature pursues her until she finds a trap door in the ceiling and gets back into the actual furniture store. Except it’s not really the store, it’s just more of the same, and the big pirate is still there. Somehow, she gets to another room with men in hazmat suits who gas her into unconsciousness.
Now, Mary’s in some kind of endless hospital/lab, and there are lots of scientists there. Eventually, a guy named Phil comes in. He wants to know how she got in here. He’s been exploring the place for a very long time, and he knows it’s all super important.
… And that’s all.
Brian’s Commentary
“Furniture Store: The Movie”
The whole “backroom/liminal spaces” thing on Reddit never made any sense to me, so I didn’t expect much going into this. I was expecting something like “Skinamarink” only with bigger sets.
Turns out, there’s a whole story here, with acting and everything. The sets are really well done, and it all looks like it’d be a fun place to explore– until it’s not.
I was thoroughly entertained, but the ending was just out of nowhere and too abrupt. I didn’t expect there to be an explanation, but the story just basically stops.
Overall, it was far better than I expected. I liked it!
Kevin’s Commentary
Just think of all the money you could make harvesting furniture, electronics, and oddities out of The Backrooms and selling them on eBay.
I agree with Brian that it was much more entertaining than I expected. But I’m not sure it was worth the hype. I liked it, I didn’t love it.
2006 Underworld: Evolution
* Directed by: Len Wiseman
* Written by: Danny McBride, Len Wiseman, Kevin Grevioux
* Stars: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Bill Nighy
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 46 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
After a flashback to a battle in 1202 AD and a little narrative to catch up, this continues immediately following the first movie. The action is stepped up even more, putting the horror elements on the back burner again. They answer more questions about events of the past.
It’s pretty consistent in look and quality with the first movie, not quite as good but almost. If you liked that one, you’ll probably enjoy this one as well.
Spoilery Synopsis
We’re reminded about the war between vampires and lycans, two groups started by two immortal brothers. Markus, bitten by a bat, and William, bitten by a wolf. They became the first of their species.
In 1202 AD, we see Markus, Amelia, and Viktor arrive at a slaughter perpetrated by William, who has gone rogue. Suddenly, the dead get, turning into werewolves. There’s a major battle, and William is captured. Markus, his brother, wants William released, but Viktor and Amelia have other ideas. Viktor says William will be imprisoned for all time, and then credits roll.
We cut to Selene, in the present, who reminds us about the first film. She’s run off with Michael, the only person she can trust. She’s now on the run from both races. Her plan is to re-awaken Markus before he’s killed by Kraven.
The two hide out in a safehouse that used to be used for experimenting on lycans.
Meanwhile, back at vampire castle, Kraven goes into the sleep chamber and orders Markus to be re-awakened. The dead scientist from the previous film is still laying there in a pool of blood that has run down into Markus’s pit. He’s already gone.
Markus shows up, looking like a big flying demon. The scientist’s blood has given Markus the whole true story of the last film. Kraven doesn’t last long.
A bunch of men in a helicopter land on a big ship and carry several bodybags inside. They come to an old man who leads them. The soldiers update him on more events from the first film. Two of the three elder vampires are dead now, brought in the body bags, and he wonders about Markus.
The old man, Corvinus, looks at what’s left of Amelia, Lucien, and Viktor. He pulls a metal disk out of Viktor’s chest and smiles.
Michael goes out for dinner and finds that human food doesn’t work for him anymore. His face comes up on the TV screen as “wanted” and the local police draw their guns. He makes a scene on the way out.
Selene and Michael are soon tracked by Markus, who tries to bite her. Michael fills Markus with holes, and they run for it. The sun starts to rise before they make a clean getaway, and Michael has to take over. After a bit of completely unnecessary first-aid, they have sex in a storage container.
We watch as Corvinus’s men clean up the werewolf-experimenting lab to keep it from the normal humans.
Selene sorta remembers Michael’s locket and wants to talk to Tanis, the vampire historian, about what it means. Tanis isn’t big on visitors, and he’s got a trio of werewolves as guard dogs. Tanis explains that Markus was the first true vampire, Viktor came later. He also explains about the first Lycans, who couldn’t take human form at all. If either Markus or William is killed, their whole species will go extinct. Turns out, Selene’s father was the one who built William’s prison. Turns out, Selene knows where William’s cell is, and Michael had the key. She doesn’t remember any of this, but her blood knows, and Markus can read it.
Selene and Michael go to visit Alexander Corvinus, the father of them all. He’s been cleaning up his sons’ mess for many centuries. He won’t kill either of his sons. Markus drops in unexpected;y and fights with Michael. He drinks Selene’s blood, so now he knows what she knows about the key and the cell. He leaves, and Michael dies.
Markus and Corvinus talk about family. Markus then stabs the old man and steals the second key. As he dies, Corvinus tells Selene how to beat Markus; he feeds her his own blood.
Markus goes to the location where William’s cell is and opens the door. Selene and Corvinus’s soldiers approach outside.
William, now free, attacks Selene and the others, as does Markus. With her Corvinus-upgraded blood, she’s able to go one-on-one with Markus now. During the fight, dead Michael wakes up, not dead at all.
Soon, it’s Selene vs. William, and she brings down the house, literally burying all of them. Michael rejoins the fight against William, while Markus works on escaping his prison. Markus gets out and pulls the helicopter into the room with them (someone’s gonna end up in that rotor!)
Selene fights Markus as Michael fights William. Michael rips William’s head right off, and Markus proves me right about the helicopter rotor.
In the morning, the sun comes up, and it doesn’t burn Selene. She and Michael kiss. Selene explains that chaos and infighting is inevitable, but the future is wide open…
Brian’s Commentary
This one takes off just after the events of the first film, and most of the actors return, even if their parts are small. It added a bit to the lore with the two brothers and the father, but between them and now all three ancient vampires being dead, there’s room for lots more drama in the further sequels.
As before, the special effects and fight sequences are excellent, but overall, I preferred the first one. Still, for a sequel, it’s not bad.
Kevin’s Commentary
I’d never seen this one before, only the first movie. I thought it does a good job continuing the story. I almost felt like it could have been just one big movie. The consistency was very good, though it did feel like a small step down around the edges. I was still entertained.
1993 Return of the Living Dead III
* Directed by: Brian Yuzna
* Written by: John Penney
* Stars: J. Trevor Edmond, Melinda Clarke, Kent McCord
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 37 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
After the first two movies and in another place, different mayhem ensues as the military tries to weaponize Trioxin animated corpses and things spiral out of control. This one is less funny and more grim than the first two movies were, with no cast returning and barely a hint of the events that came before. The practical effects are nice and juicy.
It’s not bad, but it lacks the unique humor that made the first one so excellent.
Spoilery Synopsis
Colonel John Reynolds meets Colonel Sinclair, here from Washington; she’s been working on reanimating dead people for use as weapons. John says his program is more humane, and then they wheel a corpse into the lab. John notices that he’s lost his ID badge somewhere.
We cut to a bunch of stereotypical teenagers, including Curt Reynolds, John’s son, who has stolen his father’s security pass. His girlfriend Julie wants to investigate because she thinks they’re experimenting on poor, suffering lab animals.
Back in the lab, the corpse is exposed to trioxin. Curt and Julie basically walk right into the warehouse and proceed toward the lab. They watch as the dead man revives. The teens then leave, shocked. The soldiers shoot it in the head, and it dies. No– not really, he was faking it. The corpse sits up and kills one of the techs. Failure! They strap down the dead subject, but then the dead lab tech gets up and starts trouble.
Julie seems obsessed with what they saw at the lab. John comes home and says they’re being relocated due to his failure. They argue and Curt and Julie storm off on his motorcycle, which goes badly. They soon crash, and Julie goes face first into a telephone pole and dies. Then he remembers the key card to the lab in his pocket.
Curt carries Julie’s body into the lab and exposes her to the trioxin, just as he saw it done earlier. Not knowing how all the equipment works, he just punctures the canister. She starts to twitch and move, but the creature inside the canister starts to move as well. She wakes up and doesn’t remember much, and he explains it to her as they leave.
A bit later, John watches the security footage and knows what Curt’s done. Anyone that Julie bites or attacks will also change, and she’s really hungry. They stop at a convenience store, and she’s being weird. The people in the store rob the place, and Julie ends up biting one of them on the way out. Julie also ends up eating the store owner’s brains in the getaway car.
John and the army drive through town, doing “damage control” and cleaning up the bodies as it spreads. Julie starts sticking herself with pins and screws since the pain makes the hunger go away. She says she’d rather be dead than like this.
Mogo, the criminal that Julie bit, starts getting sick, and Santos, the leader of the gang, decides to find Julie and make her pay. Meanwhile, Colonel Sinclair replaces John as leader of the project, so he takes off alone.
Curt and Julie hide underground with Riverman, a homeless guy who’s got a whole lair in the sewers. She’s still hungry and still cutting herself to relieve the feeling. As Curt sleeps, Julie gets into all kinds of body modifications. The gang continues to follow Julie through the sewers, and they soon catch up. Julie shows up, looking like someone from a Hellraiser film. The gang dies very quickly, but they don’t stay that way.
John shows up and disables the undead gang members. He wants to shoot Julie, who just wants to die. John shoots her as well.
John and Curt make their peace, but Julie has been given to the Colonel as a new project. The Colonel’s specialty is mechanically augmenting the dead with exoskeletons. “Biomechanical weapons driven by meat batteries.” What could go wrong?
We soon find out, as the augmented Riverman breaks loose and Curt releases Julie. Soon, all the monsters are free and the triocin cans are smashed. As they try to get out, Curt is finally bitten by a zombie. He and Julie walk into the incinerator and burn up.
Brian’s Commentary
It takes the basic ideas from the first two films and does something completely new. None of the cast of the previous films makes a return, so this is a sort of reboot.
Unfortunately, they’ve done away with almost all the humor, which was what made the first two films really unique. As a straight-up horror movie, it’s fine, but it doesn’t really fit in with the crazy humor that made the first two films great.
Kevin’s Commentary
I was bracing myself for awfulness, but I was pleasantly surprised by this. It’s not a great film, but it was a decent original continuation of what can happen in a world where Trioxin exists. It was different from the first in the level of comedy which was tamped down, and horror which was ramped up. So it was more of a mid-level straight up horror rather than horror comedy. But still pretty entertaining.
1986 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
* Directed by: Tobe Hooper
* Written by: L.M. Kit Carson, Tobe Hooper
* Stars: Dennis Hopper, Caroline Williams, Jim Siedow
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 41 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
“The saw is family.” It’s years later, and the family is still up to their mischief. This time they tangle with a radio DJ and a Texas marshal obsessed with taking them down. They kept a lot of the grindhouse vibe, but it’s not as organically gross and grimy as the original. Though the gore is bumped up. And there is a lot more humor and satire this time, still grim with horror but almost making fun of itself. It’s pretty entertaining, different, but worth checking out if you’re a fan of the original.
Spoilery Synopsis
We get a brief recap of the events of the first film. Lawmakers could never find the cannibals, so officially, it never happened. Except that it did happen. Credits roll.
A couple of young preppy guys (with a car phone!) are on the way to a party, and they cause some trouble on the road. “Stretch” is a radio DJ, and they call in and harass her. They pass the wrong truck to cause trouble. A maniac on a truck pulls out a chainsaw and cuts through the roof of the moving car. The driver loses his head as Stretch listens at the radio station.
In the morning, Lieutenant Lefty Enright is there to investigate what’s left of the “accident.” He’s got a personal connection to the chainsaw killings fourteen years ago, and this might be related. He wants information. Stretch comes to him with a recording of what she heard last night, but he’s hesitant to even listen to it (why not?). She’s a wanna-be reporter, and he’s not getting involved with that.
As stretch leaves Lefty’s room, she and L.G. watch a Texas Chili Cook-Off where one of the winners is Drayton Sawyer, who seems to win a lot of chili cook-offs. Second year in a row, but he says the secret ingredient is the meat. “This town loves prime meat!”
Enright goes to a chainsaw shop and starts waving the merchandise around, creeping out the store’s owner. He goes all “Leatherface” on the log outside. After, he wants to listen to Stretch’s tape; he wants her to play it on her show so everyone can hear it. He thinks the killers are here in Dallas.
The cook, Drayton, gets a phone call from his family about the recording that they heard on the radio, and he’s not pleased. Not long after, Stretch encounters Chop-Top, a very strange man who claims to be a fan. He wants a tour of the radio station and really creeps her out. Suddenly, Leatherface barges in and starts chasing her around.
Stretch hides behind a big steel door, and Leatherface can’t get to her. L.G. returns, oblivious to what’s going on, and catches Chop-Top digging through the records. He doesn’t live long after that. Stretch, on the other hand, knows exactly how to distract Leatherface, who lets her go– sorta.
As Leatherface and Chop-Top leave with L.G.’s body, Stretch jumps in her car and follows them to Texas Battleland, a theme park that’s closed. Lefty shows up, and he’s not as much help as he should be when Stretch falls into a pit full of corpses.
Lefty gets out his own chainsaw, and he’s maybe a little unhinged. Stretch wakes up in the family meat locker, and she hears Cook ranting to the others. Cook’s got a food truck, and he’s been really successful selling the human meat to tourists. Stretch watches and Leatherface gets L.G. ready for cooking. Leatherface catches Stretch hiding, but she talks him into sparing her again, and soon, she’s wearing L.G.’s face. They dance, then he ties her up and leaves.
Turns out, L.G. isn’t dead yet, but he’s missing his face and a lot of skin. He cuts Stretch loose before dying of shock. She sneaks around as the three baddies rant and act goofy. Meanwhile, Lefty is somewhere else, chainsawing the tunnels apart.
Leatherface corners Stretch again, and again, she tries to talk her way out of it. Too late– the others show up. They know Leatherface lied about killing her earlier.
Stretch soon wakes up, tied at the dinner table as Cook rings the dinner bell. The Sawyer family wheels in Grandpa, who’s on a liquid diet… of blood. The old man’s not as spry as he used to be and can’t even hold a murder weapon anymore.
Lefty shows up, and confronts the family. Lefty’s gone all delusional, and releases Stretch. He then gets into a chainsaw battle against Leatherface as Stretch runs from Chop-Top.
Lefty gets his chainsaw stuck inside Leatherface and then pulls out his spare for more. Things get a little weird at this point, as Cook pulls out a hand grenade and drops it.
Chop-Top chases Stretch outside to where they have Granda all propped up, with a chainsaw of her own. She finally shows Chop-Top who’s the boss. She does the “Chainsaw Dance” at the end, the only survivor…
What kind of theme park is this? It’s a very weird set.
If you count screams-per-minute, Stretch is gotta be way up there on the “scream Queen” chart. She’s constantly screaming and freaking out in nearly every scene.
It’s got most of the same elements of the first film, but this one steers well into over-the-top silliness territory.
Dennis Hopper said this was the worst film he’d ever been in, at least until “Super Mario Brothers.”
Yeah, it’s a weird one. Not bad, but a lot more mainstream than the gritty, dirty original.
Kevin’s Commentary
Jim Siedow who plays Cook here is the only cast member to return from the original, where he was credited as Old Man.
Stretch certainly is a screamer in this one.
I love how the family has their lair decorated with all the salvaged stuff, bones, and lights.
I think it’s necessary to have seen the first movie to really enjoy this one, or it at least helps. I’d say that I liked this sequel better than the first movie.
Short Films:
2026 Short Film Siren Head
* Directed by: Nicolo Fumero, Luca Zanlorenzi
* Written by:
* Stars: Matteo Fumero
* Run Time: 4:41
* Watch it:
What Happens
An electrician is sent out into the remote countryside to fix a damaged electrical pole. When he gets there, he sees it’s all torn up, as if something big smashed it. Before he can get to work, he gets a phone call from his little brother and then notices an abandoned building that he checks out. Inside, he finds graffiti on the wall and a cryptic radio message…
Commentary
It’s a longtime copypasta meme thing, and I don’t know any of the lore behind the creature, but it’s pretty neat. This version of the story is very well done, albeit way too short. It’s just one guy out in a creepy wooded area, running from a CGI monster, but it’s well done.
2026 Short Film Help
* Directed by: Collin Black
* Written by: Collin Black, Erin Bechler
* Stars: Erin Bechler, Chris Herring, Jim Cumings
* Run Time: 11:29
* Watch it:
What Happens
A woman watches scary videos on her phone in the car and then decides to walk to her home in the dark. She has to walk past a house with newspapers all over the windows first, since she lives in the back. We see that someone’s following her home. Wait– is that a zombie? Sure looks like it, as she hides and grabs a knife.
Commentary
I love how much effort she puts into locking the door and then leaving the window wide open. People in horror movies are always ignoring the windows! This is paced really well, looks clear and sharp, and we always know what’s going on– except that we don’t!
A car with a crazy driver overtakes them and passes; it’s Lucas, from earlier. He crashes the car not far ahead. The couple stops to help. Lucas starts to crawl out of the car, but something yanks him back in. Maddie hears something moving around out in the woods.
They get to the motel for the night, but there just might be something hiding in their van. In the morning, they find a claw mark just like the one on Lucas’s car.
The couple goes to a “Van Life” meetup, and there’s a lot of people there. Maddie notices a whole bunch of “Missing” posters on the wall. She meets a long-term van person, Diane, who vaguely warns her to stay off those lonely roads.
That night, after leaving a gym, Maddie runs into some creepiness in the parking lot. The Passenger attacks her in the van, and she scares it off with Tyler’s St. Christopher medal. The dashcam that showed the man before, doesn’t work now. She tells Tyler, who doesn’t really believe any of this.
Maddie buys a book that discusses “The Hobo Code” and learns that three slashes means “Not Safe,” and there’s a whole bunch of lore behind that. The van has three deep gashes in the side that won’t buff out.
Maddie’s ready to go back to a normal life, but Tyler’s talking about living remotely forever. She’s hesitating marrying him because of the van thing; it’s not fun anymore. It seems like they’re just about to break up, when Tyler finally sees something unnatural. They run inside the van, and the creature shakes the whole thing crazily.
Tyler can’t find his keys, so he gets back out of the van to look around for them. He sees the creature again, and now he understands what Maddie’s been telling him. “This thing latches onto you when you’re on the road,” Maddies explains. “Some people call him ‘The Passenger’.”
Maddie wants to contact Diane, who seemed to know about the creature and warned her. They get a flat tire, and suddenly the bolts go missing. Something drags Madddie off while Tyler is stuck under the van.
Maddie wakes up next to a car accident, where a car hit a motorcycle. Tyler catches up to her, no, it’s really the monster. The real Tyler shows up just in time to break the spell, and they drive off.
They arrive at another camper meetup, looking for Diane. Diane just wants them to get out of here, as do all the many other campers. They all know about the trouble. “He’s the highwayman from Hell. It’s demonic!” There’s a St. Christopher church that might offer protection and weaken its powers. She offers to take them there. The demon kills Diane right there in front of them.
Suddenly, it’s night again, and they’re still out on the road and almost out of gas. Maddie notices more Hobo Code symbols and follows them– off the road. They pass a bunch of old, deserted cars, all with the creature’s claw mark on them. Also, there are thousands of dead bodies in sheets, but Tyler doesn’t think those are real. But they all go “squish” and “thump” as the van drives over them.
The demon appears inside the van and torments Tyler before being thrown outside. When Maddie reaches the holy grounds of the church, the creature starts to smoke and steam. She drives right through the wall of the church, with the creature on the hood, and he’s not happy about it. She ends up impaling him on the St. Christopher statue’s sword. The demon melts in front of her.
The church explodes in fire, and Maddie gets out of the van to escape. She meets up with Tyler. Still, they’re out in the middle of the desert with no van or supplies. Somehow, the police show up (why? how?). Maddie and Tyler agree to get married and buy a normal house.
Brian’s Commentary
It’s the “Van Life” horror movie. The YouTubers all make this look like a fun lifestyle, but the movie shows the other side of it. Living in a van, your life will be full of overloud jump-scares.
It looks good, it’s very well paced; the acting is good. Overall, I liked it a lot, but there are a lot of jump scares.
Kevin’s Commentary
It was heavy on the jump scares to make them a little predictable and annoying. Other than that, it’s a movie that moves well, and I thought the casting was excellent. There wasn’t a lot new here, but I enjoyed it.
2024 New Year’s Absolution
* Directed by: Nick Leisure
* Written by: Damion Stephens
* Stars: Michael Copon, Joel Brady, Josh Gilmer
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 25 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A group of eight friends get together for a New Year’s Eve party. The movie takes a while letting us get to know the group. It’s short enough that the pacing moves things along really well. Then something happens and leads to something else, and it ends up being the worst party ever. It’s got some horror elements, but it seemed more like a crime thriller. We both thought it was very good.
Spoilery Synopsis
Claire and Damon are expecting guests for New Year’s Eve. Stuart and Travis are the first to arrive, with their dog. Travis brings his weird little dog, Cookie, to the party. They talk about Stuart’s new $50,000 antique car that doesn’t even have airbags. Jacob and Misty show up next, and he might be a fitness nut on steroids. Roy and Kira come last, and they’ve brought drugs.
It starts raining, so Roy and Kira go to the bathroom for sex while Misty watches from afar. After, the four men play a game where they write out New Year’s resolutions and then draw them out of a hat. They have to try to do the thing over the next year. Stuart gets to write a novel. Roy has to apologize to someone. Damon has to do something for his spouse, even if it hurts. Jacob’s says he has to kill someone.
Jacob gets angry and goes to leave. The others try to stop him, and he shows them that he’s got a gun. He then uses it to accidentally shoot Travis in the leg. Roy, who’s a doctor, starts working on the leg when his drugs begin to kick in. No one wants to call the cops because that’ll ruin Jacob’s career, so they put him in the bathtub to hold the bleeding.
Damon tells the story of Ben, the fifth friend who died in a game-related sporting accident in 2014. Kira suggests the whole thing is just done to show off. They go back in to check on Travis who is very, very dead now. “People don’t just look the other way when white cops shoot gay black dudes, bro,” Jacob whines. Roy and Jacob, who are both at fault, cook up a plan to explain it all in the morning.
Misty, who thinks Travis is hot, sneaks into the bathroom and finds he’s dead. She looks down his pants and leaves, oblivious to him being dead. Meanwhile, Damon is obsessed with cleaning up blood stains on the hardwood floors.
It’s time for the countdown to the new year! As the others celebrate, Stuart finds Travis’s body. Kira says, “You couldn’t even wait till midnight to kill someone,” she says, also adding that Roy killed a patient out of negligence because of their game last year. Soon, she’s dead too. Claire and Damon come in and learn what’s been going on. Damon’s upset about the blood on the floor.
Misty starts threatening everyone, which annoys Claire. Why not go for three? Claire stabs Misty. They pull out the knife, and she bleeds out all over Damon’s floor. Jacob then empties his gun into Claire.
Jacob, Roy, and Stuart talk about their secrets. Damon snaps, comes out of nowhere, and strangles Jacob with the Christmas lights. Stuart didn’t do anything, but Roy says he will blame him for Kira’s death if he doesn’t help cover things up.
Stuart runs outside, where he’s attacked by Damon, and both wind up in the swimming pool. Damon, who can’t swim, drowns. Now Stuart’s killed someone too. Roy comes up with a story that covers, well, some of it. Roy then spikes Stuart’s drink with all his drugs.
Roy amends his story to include Stuart overdosing on medications. Roy then calls 911, he just woke up because someone hit him, hangs up, and breaks a bottle over his own head to fake a wound.
Cookie the dog survives too.
Brian’s Commentary
This takes place on New Year’s Eve of 2024/New Year’s Day 2025, so it’s a little slow being released.
It also takes a while to get to the action, but once it does, it’s all pretty intense. It’s pretty low-budget, with eight actors and one house, but it all looks good, is nicely paced, and never lets up.
I guess Roy got away with it in the end? I was half-expecting an end credit scene with a twist, but that was just the real ending. Overall, it was fun.
Kevin’s Commentary
I was expecting more outright horror, but this was pretty low key. I’d call it more of a crime thriller or drama. Whatever the genre, I thought it was really well made and entertaining. It’s short and moves well. I liked it.
2024 Short Film: Fish Balls
* Directed by: Anwar Johari Ho
* Written by: Victor Yee Fei Chen, Andy Darrel Gomes, Anwar Johari Ho
* Stars: Kahoe Hon, Elise Shick
* Run Time: 15 Minutes
* Watch it:
What Happens
A man cries in the shower; he’s got a serious problem. We flash back to him cutting up fish, which he somehow turns into an erotic thing. We later see him with a bulge in his pants, and it’s throbbing excessively. He pulls the dead fish out of the trash can and buries it in the yard.
Not long after, he finds that he’s losing his hair and his skin is getting scaly. But that’s not the worst of it…
Commentary
Well, that’s a truly unique story.
It’s from Malaysia, and we don’t see much from them, so this is a nice surprise.
It’s not always entirely clear what’s going on, but some of it is all too clear. Our main character has a lot of self-control and self-esteem issues, and that leads to problems of a sexual nature.
The green lighting gives it all a sickly feel, but at times it’s too dark to see clearly, which is not good. The body horror and prosthetics are just about right, and it’s plenty weird.
1975 The Stepford Wives
* Directed by: Bryan Forbes
* Written by: Ira Levin, William Goldman
* Stars: Katherine Ross, Paula Prentiss, Peter Masterson
* Run Time: 1 Hour, 55 Minutes
* Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A family moves to the small town of Stepford, Connecticut, where the wife and mom starts noticing a sinister undertone and some strange behavior from the wives of the town. It’s a good slow burn thriller and a time capsule of the society and life of 1975. It’s very dated and very entertaining.
Spoilery Synopsis
Joanna looks depressed at moving out of her big-city apartment. She, husband Walter, and the two kids are moving to a small town named Stepford. It’s a huge house, much bigger than what she’s used to.
Carol, one of the neighbors, comes over and brings a casserole and an offer of assistance if they need it. Walter is impressed. After sending the kids to school, Joanna is almost immediately bored.
The lady who runs the newspaper comes over and has lots of questions for Joanna. She notices how romantic the couple across the street are. Walter comes home and talks about being invited to the Men’s Association, where all the important men in town get together.
The family witnesses a minor fender-bender at the grocery store, and everyone freaks out. They call an ambulance for the woman who bumped her head but keeps insisting she’s fine. Joanna notices that the ambulance drives off in the opposite direction from the hospital.
Walter goes to the Men’s Club meeting and when he comes home, something has him very disturbed.
Joanna meets Bobby, who’s also a new transplant from the city. She’s very plainspoken and energetic, almost pushy.
The men from the group come over that night, and Joanna meets Dale Coba, AKA Diz, a multimillionaire who used to work at Disneyland. As the men make summer plans, one of them draws a creepy sketch of Joanna– especially detailed in certain parts of her face.
Diz throws a party, and Joanna and Bobby make jokes about the other women there; the women are strange. Carol gets especially weird, wandering around repeating herself. Diz catches on and so does her husband, who chastises her for drinking too much and leads her away.
The next day, Carol comes around and apologizes for being an alcoholic. Joanna comments that this town needs some more Women’s Lib. Marie and the other local women aren’t at all interested in that. Between ironing, baking, and gardening, the women are all too busy to join a movement. Eventually, they come to Charmaine, who seems normal and is interested in joining the two women. She also has only just recently moved here.
Claude comes over, also wanting to interview Joanna for no particular reason, just a hobby of his he says. He wants her to read a bunch of stuff into a tape recorder for voice sampling. She refuses unless the Stepford wives come to her Women’s Lib meeting, so the husbands all make sure their wives attend. All the women then show up, but they don’t participate at all. They do like talking about housework.
Joanna goes out to walk the dog, and the local policeman warns her not to go out at night. It’s a tiny, quiet town, so that seems odd to her.
The next day, the old newspaper lady comes around bragging that a black family is going to move into town soon; Stepford is such a liberal town! She mentions that there used to be a big Women’s Lib group in town, but interest in that all just suddenly dried up. Carol, of all people, used to be the president of the group.
Joanna and Bobby drive by Charmaine’s house and notice them tearing up the tennis court. Charmaine explains that her husband always hated tennis, and all she cares about now is pleasing him. She seems very different. She’s fired her maid and now likes to do all the housework herself.
Bobby literally thinks there’s something in the water in this town. There are so many computer, technology, and chemical companies in town, they could be doing something. They take a water sample to one of Joanna’s old boyfriends, but he says there’s nothing wrong with the water.
Bobby doesn’t like this answer and says she plans to leave town. Joanna asks Walter about moving, but he likes it here. Still, he agrees to move in the fall. Joanna and Bobby start looking for houses in a nearby town. Bobby mentions that her husband has a weekend getaway planned for them this week.
After Bobby gets back from her weekend, she’s dressed differently. She looks and acts differently. She loves housework, just like Charmaine!
Joanna tells Walter all about Bobby, and he says she’s going crazy. He goes on and on about how their house is a dump; when is she going to start fixing up the house? He makes a logical argument, and she’s not sure what to say or think.
Joanna goes to a psychiatrist, and the doctor knows Stepford is “unsocial.” Joanna tells the doctor her suspicions, but what can she do? She doesn’t want to become like one of those robots in Disneyland.
Joanna goes home to find the kids are away; only Walter is there, and he’s been drinking. She runs to Bobby, gets into an argument with her, and stabs the other woman. Bobby doesn’t bleed. Bobby does start glitching out in strange ways.
Joanna goes to “The Association’s” building to find her children, but the place looks deserted. She runs into Diz there, and he says she’s had the wrong idea all along. “It’s just another stage,” he explains. “Why? Because we can.”
She runs down the hall, into an exact replica of her bedroom; even her dog is there. So is she– an exact copy of her, but with weird unfinished eyes and bigger boobs. The robot approaches Joanna menacingly…
Some time later, we see the various women at the grocery store, as well as that new black family. All the women are there, including Charmain, Carol, Bobby, and yes, even Joanna is there now, doing the happy shopper things. She’s one of them now..
Brian’s Commentary
I saw this on network TV when it was first released, probably around 1976 or so, and I’d heard it was about robots. I was expecting something like “The Six Million Dollar Man” and was sorely disappointed– I was way too young to be entertained by this.
So many wood-paneled station wagons.
“Women’s Lib” and equal rights for women were the big topic when the film came out, and the whole film is basically pointing that out, contrasting “free” women from the subservient types. The whole thing is a little comical today, but it was a big deal back in the day.
It’s very dated, but I was still entertained.
Kevin’s Commentary
It’s said in trivia that the original screenplay by William Goldman included an ending where we see the Joanna robot violently kill the real Joanna. Director Bryan Forbes didn’t like that and did some rewriting, which angered Goldman, and they never spoke again.
As I was watching this, I realized I saw this at the theater when it came out (OVER FIFTY YEARS AGO?!?) and barely remembered it. So this was a refresher. I read the book more recently, and that’s really good too.
Katherine Ross is great in the role, I especially liked her scene talking to the therapist.
I’d consider this a classic. It’s excellent.
2003 Underworld
* Director: Len Wiseman
* Writers: Len Wiseman, and Danny McBride
* Stars: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Michael Sheen, Shane Brolly, Bill Nighy
* Runtime: 121 minutes (2 hours 1 minute)
* Trailer Link:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Vampires and werewolves have been at war for hundreds of years. Things get more complicated when one of the vampire warriors falls for a human that the werewolves seem to want for some reason. A reason we do find out in a complicated political situation and backstory. Out 23 years ago, the effects still hold up well. The movie is high on action and low on the horror elements, on the long side, but pretty entertaining.
Spoilery Synopsis
We’re told that Lucien, the leader of the Lycans, has been killed and the Lycans all ran off to hide. The vampires have won the age-old battle. Six-hundred years later, the war continues. New Lycans don’t need the full moon anymore, so they’ve become even more dangerous. Selene is a Death-Dealer, a vampire whose job it is to hunt and kill Lycans.
Selene follows a man into the subway, but she’s not the only one following him. Suddenly, there’s a massive shootout, and Selene’s partner dies painfully from sunlight-filled bullets. Selene picks up a gun with special bullets from one of the dead Lycans, but she has to avoid the many others.
Back in the mansion, the vampires get upset when they see the bullets, but Kraven advises not taking the battle to the dogs. She then goes to a room with some ominous-looking manhole covers on the floor. Selene says that Viktor would be more proactive in the battle, but he’s asleep right now, leaving Kraven in charge of the local situation.
Meanwhile, a mad-scientist-type injects a man with a new serum. The leader of the werewolves comes in to check his progress. It’s another failure. We then cut to Michael, the man the wolves were following in the subway; he’s a doctor, and still the subject of their hunt.
At the big vampire party, Kraven is annoyed when Selene goes off looking for Michael instead of staying at the party. She finds him at home, but he has no idea why they’re after him. There’s an immediate attack, and Michael runs off– right into the Lycan leader. Selene shoots the man a few times, but he still has time to bite Michael and get a blood sample.
Selene gets stabbed and passes out, and Michael tries to save her since he’s a doctor. The werewolf leader says because of the bite, Michael will soon be one of them. Turns out, Michael’s blood tests positive– he is the one they’re looking for.
Michael is having nightmares now, and it gets worse when he sees his first vampire and runs off.
Kraven, on the other hand, seems ridiculously jealous of Michael for no particular reason. Turns out, he’s been meeting with the werewolf leader in some kind of backstabbing ploy. The werewolf leader is revealed to be Lucien, the old-time leader who is supposed to be dead. Kraven and Lucien faked the werewolf leader’s death centuries ago.
Knowing that there’s something wrong about Kraven, Selene sneaks into the manhole cover room and awakens Viktor, one of the ancient vampires. It’s not actually Viktor’s turn to wake up, Amelia was just about to awaken Marcus tomorrow night; Viktor is a hundred years too early.
Selene explains to Michael what’s going on. She tells him about her origin story, where Viktor turned her as a child. As all this is going on, the Lycan load their guns and trucks, preparing to attack the vampire castle.
Viktor isn’t sympathetic to being awakened early and says Selene must go on trial when Amelia, the current leader, arrives. Amelia soon does arrive, by train, and they hear the Lycans howling outside. They’re massacred on the train while Kraven and his vampires stand by and do nothing to help.
Selene comes for Michael as the Lycans break into the building beneath them. He gets captured by the Lycans, sees the full moon, and starts to change.
Selene brings the mad scientist before Viktor and Kraven. She makes him tell about Michael’s special trait. Michael is a descendant of the original creature who gave birth to both Lycans and Vampires. Michael can combine the two bloodlines into something new. He also fingers Kraven for helping Lucien escape six hundred years ago.
Viktor orders Selene to kill Michael immediately.
Michael and Lucien have a talk, and Lucien makes a lot of sense. We get a flashback to what actually started the war. Viktor had Lucien’s vampire wife killed - his own daughter - because he couldn’t abide the mixing of the races. Kraven then shoots Lucien in the back with a liquid silver bullet. Raze, the number two Lycan, finds Lucien’s body and then fights a vampire with silver whips.
Viktor shows up, and quickly demonstrates his badassery. Selene rescues Michael as Lucien watches from afar. Kraven shoots Michael with silver, and then reveals that it was Viktor who actually killed Selene’s parents long ago. Lucien tells Selene to bite Michael, and he’ll be half-and-half. Kraven then shoots Lucien repeatedly.
Viktor walks in, and he looks Michael over before throwing him into the next room. He’s not happy. As he and Selene argue about old times, Michael turns into a new kind of creature and attacks Viktor. Viktor gets the advantage, but Selene turns against him and slices her Maker’s head in half. She and Michael walk off together.
Meanwhile, back at the vampire castle, the dead mad scientist bleeds into the manhole cover in the floor, which will wake up Marcus, the third ancient vampire…
Brian’s Commentary
Probably the best part of all this is the complicated backstory, politics, and world-building behind the plot. The sets and costumes are memorable, and the special effects are good as well. The werewolves don’t quite hold up to today’s CGI, but they aren’t bad.
It was good in 2003, and it still holds up really well today. Well, except for the cheap foldable cellphones everyone uses.
Kevin’s Commentary
I saw this at the theater when it came out, and I’d forgotten how high in action it is. It’s got style too. And a real lack of bright color.
The effects hold up pretty well, though the CGI is pretty obvious at times. It felt a bit on the long side, but I was still entertained seeing it again.
