Horror Weekly – Détails, épisodes et analyse

We’ve got two amazing new releases and three fun oldies this week. We’ll start off with the critically acclaimed “Sinners” that’s just come to streaming. We’ll then stop for a snack with “Cannibal Mukbang,” another tasty new release. We’ll do a couple of comedy-horrors next, “Hot Fuzz” (2007) and “Tucker and Dale vs. Evil” (2010). Lastly, we’ll go way back in time and meet “The Man from Planet X” from 1951.

“The Horror Guys Guide to the Horror Films of Christopher Lee” is available NOW!

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Mainstream Films:

2025 Sinners

* Directed by: Ryan Coogler

* Written by: Ryan Coogler

* Stars: Michael B. Jordan, Miles Caton, Saul Williams

* Run Time: 2 Hours, 17 Minutes

* Get it here: https://amzn.to/45Vl2s8

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

It’s very much a humanity and period drama with magic and horror in the background, at first. Then things get crazy toward the second half. The cast, direction, music, and effects are all excellent. Especially the use of music. It’s on the long side but worth it.

Spoilery Synopsis

It’s 1932 in Clarksdale, Mississippi. A man with a broken guitar walks into church, and the preacher gets really upset, changing the sermon to talk about men who are full of sin. He wants Sammie to give up his sinful ways. We get flashes of violence and blood.

We flash back to the cotton farm, where all the black people work in the fields; it’s after slavery, but the echoes of it are still strong. We then cut again to two brothers, Smoke and Stack, who are dressed up with a fancy car. Mr. Hogwood shows up and shows them some property. It gets a little tense, but they’ve got a bagful of money and buy it.

Sammie argues with his preacher father about going out for the evening. “You keep going out with the devil, sooner or later, you’re gonna bring him home.” He goes off with Stack and Smoke, saying he’ll be back for service tomorrow. They’ve got big plans for the day and night.

The three are planning on putting a juke joint together, with lots of drinking, at the old sawmill they just bought. Stack runs into Mary, an old jilted lover, and a white looking woman as well, so she could be trouble. The harmonica player, Delta Slim, tells a story about why black folks shouldn’t get too successful.

Smoke goes to see Annie about cooking at the juke joint tonight, and they have a long history. We get a montage of everyone setting up for the party, including the cooking.

Elsewhere, a dirty-looking and injured white man beats on a door and asks a white couple for shelter from the Choctaws. He offers them money to let him inside, and they invite him in. A short while later, a Choctaw scout with others shows up, and he says he’s looking for a dangerous man who’s not what he seems. She lies and says she hasn’t seen him. They soon leave, and the strange man kills the couple, who should’ve never invited him in. Before long, all three of them are vampires.

Mary shows up to the big party, and she looks a little out of place there. Stack wants her out of there before trouble breaks out; she’s part black in the family, but has been passing for years, a prime target for lynching.

Delta Slim finishes his piano set and introduces Sammie, who plays the guitar. The magic of music fills the room. We see a guy playing an electric guitar and half the crowd is dressed like anachronistic rappers, ancient Africans, and even Asian musicians and dancers thanks to the Asian grocer and his wife. (I guess the Blues are timeless?). They are having a goooood time.

And then the three vampires, Bert, Joan, and Remmick, show up outside. They talk to the doorman/bouncer and want it. They pull out instruments and start playing; they say they just want to join the party, and they’re pretty good bluegrass singers as well. Smoke does not want to let them in.

Smoke gives Sammie some career advice; he wants to keep his young cousin out of trouble, but Sammie thinks he might want to go to Chicago like the twins did.

Mary wants to talk to the white trio about coming back; the twins are going to need every dollar they can get. She finds them playing their music right outside the barn. They’ve very friendly– until they aren’t.

When Mary returns to the party, she needs an invitation to come inside. The vampires start picking off people as they go outside to pee. As Smoke deals with a cheating gambler, Stack and Mary make out; she’s drooling. We see that yes, they did turn her outside. By the time Smoke and Sammie come in, they’re both covered in Stack's blood. Smoke wastes zero seconds filling her full of lead, but that doesn’t even slow her down.

Stack bleeds out as everyone watches; the party is over. Annie talks to Sammie, and she seems to know what they’re dealing with– she wants to move Stack’s body outside for a while. They end up locking the room he’s in.

Cornbread comes back from peeing and needs an invitation back inside. Annie accuses him of being a haint now, and the others don’t interrupt her at all. It gets so obvious that he needs an invitation that they all know something’s up with him.

There’s a knocking at the locked storeroom door; only Stack’s dead body was in there. He’s feeling much better now and busts down the door. Annie splashes him with a bottle full of pickled garlic, which makes him sizzle and run out. And then she knows they aren’t haints, they’re vampires. She says that they all need to hold out till sunlight. She explains all the rules of vampires to the group.

They find someone lying in a pool of blood. When the men carry a body outside, they see that there’s a whole bunch of vampires out there dancing as Remmick sings very Irishly. It’s a whole big musical number, and the vampires apparently not only get immortality and bloodthirstiness, but also a talent for Irish singing and dancing. Clearly in many ways they are an extension of Remmick.

Inside, everyone eats some garlic to prove they aren’t vampires, and Remmick comes to the door, making it clear how things are going to turn out for all the people in there. The Klan was already planning to come and kill them all. The mill was a trap by Hogwood that’s been used more than once, to get a bunch of black folks together in one place. The vampires are much nicer, or so they say. Stack talks to Smoke, and he makes a good case. Eternal life in one big happy family.

One of the crew finally breaks and dares the vamps to come inside. Remmick perks up - was that an invitation? Good enough! There are a lot more vamps than humans already, so the fight is a little one-sided. Smoke ends up staking Annie, which upsets Mary.

Remmick wants Sammie’s songs and wants to absorb his musical talent. Meanwhile Stack and Smoke fight inside. Sammie whacks Remmick with his guitar that has a silver disc that ends up embedded in his head. That really hurts, and all the vamps feel the wound. Smoke comes out of nowhere and stabs Remmick all the way through with a stake as the sun rises. Most everyone burns in the sunlight, especially Remmick.

Smoke tells Sammie to go home and bury that guitar. They seem to be the only ones left alive.

Smoke unpacks his old army rifle and goes after the Klansmen who arrive to shut down the juke joint. He’s got a machine gun and grenades too, and he takes out all of the evil white men. He gets shot, dies, and yet still has a happy ending.

Back in the opening scene, Sammie walks back into his father’s church with the broken guitar. We see that Sammie’s got a big clawmark on his face. Instead of dropping the guitar fragment and turning his back on music as his father urges, we see him driving away with it.

We flash forward many years and see that Sammie is old and has made a long career from singing the Blues. He runs a club of his own now, and one night, he gets some very strange visitors who need to be invited in… Stack and Mary.

Stack tells the story of how they survived and asks Sammie to play for them; he’s repaired that same old guitar.

Brian’s Commentary

The vampire effects toward the end are really good, but they aren’t overbearing through the rest of the film. This is the kind of vampire story that makes you wonder how there aren’t already billions of vampires all over the world.

It’s got a big budget, and the historical setting and context are just about perfect. It’s really slow getting to the action bits; there’s only one quick scene about vampires in the first 70 minutes, much more a period drama than anything else, but once the sun goes down, it gets pretty crazy.

The magical realism during the first musical act stands out from everything else [The Blues are forever?]. The singing vampires are a little weird as well, but not as much as the first musical number.

It’s long, but it’s really excellent.

Kevin’s Commentary

Remmick must restrain himself and his minions to keep a reasonable clan size. It’s very easy to convert others to loyal vampires. It was cool how the vampires seemed to be extensions and connected to Remmick while still retaining much of their original personalities. I really liked the long stretch without much vampire action as we got to know the characters and the world they are living in. Then the vampire action kicked in nicely. The use of music was great. And I was impressed with how flawlessly Michael B. Jordan played twins, both his acting and the special effects. This one is a winner.

2023 Cannibal Mukbang

* Directed by: Aimee Kuge

* Written by: Aimee Kuge

* Stars: April Consalo, Nate Wise, Clay von Carlowitz

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 44 Minutes

* Watch it here: https://amzn.to/4e0cVN0

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

So, how much would you put up with in a relationship? This movie takes the question to the extreme. The cast is good, the script is well written, and the effects are realistic. It’s heavy on strange romance with a heavy dose of gore and horror. We liked it quite a bit.

Spoilery Synopsis

Mark stares at the redhead at the convenience store. He soon finds a way to talk to her, but he’s too shy to stick around. He leaves the store and gets hit by a car. He wakes up in the redhead’s house; she’s Ash, and she’s the one who hit him. She feeds him, and it’s delicious. She’s fascinated by the metal plate in his head that he’s had since he was a kid.

Mark works in customer service; Ash eats stuff online while people watch. He knows all about mukbanging since he watches them all the time. They have a good time, and she drives him home.

Mark’s job isn’t much fun. He watches Ash’s videos and then fantasizes about her, but he’s weird about it, cutting off his own nose for her. Mark’s older brother, Maverick, gives Mark some advice about women, and he’s clearly no expert.

Ash finally gets back in touch with Mark and invites him over. She’s made a blanket fort, and it’s all really cozy and romantic. He explains that as a hobby, he writes horror movie reviews [Who does that?!], and she’s impressed. They talk about where they came from, and this leads to kissing and lots more talking.

Another day, Mark takes Ash to a vegan place, and she doesn’t look happy; she’s rude and distracted throughout the whole date. A creepy-looking man comes in, and Ash looks worried. “You need to leave now,” she warns him.

Mark goes to hang around in the park and accidentally watches as the creepy man attacks Ash. He’s about to hit her when she reaches up and breaks his arm in half. She bites the man in the throat, killing him, as Mark walks up to talk. “You’re eating him.” He offers to help her move the body.

When Ash shows Mark to her “butcher’s table,” he wonders what were in the nachos he ate the other night. “You don’t even know what hot dogs are made of,” she counters. “I only kill the people that society could do without.” He recognizes her as a serial killer, Alexandra Rouge, he’s read about. No, Alexandra was Ash’s sister. She cuts the dead man up and saves the pieces for later.

This leads Mark into more weird fantasies. Maybe Ash is the stable one in this relationship? He starts going into convulsions, and she says his hunger may be starting. He goes over, and she’s prepared a charcuterie board, fully decorated with a skull. He’s still freaked out, but he’s coming to terms with it.

Ash tells us about her little sister, Allie, and how they lived in Louisiana. A man kidnapped them and put them in a cage. He eventually killed Allie and made Ash eat her. Ash soon turned the tables on the swamp man and killed and ate him.

Ash runs errands in the morning, leaving Mark on his own, and he has breakfast. He loves cannibalism now!

Ash talks about a child molester that she’s been tracking, and she wants to kill him tonight. That goes off really well, and they do it over and over; cue the killing and eating montage!

After quite a long time, Ash asks about sex. Are they ever gonna do it? He’s still very uncomfortable, but he finally goes for it– in the butchery room. Afterward, they argue, and he leaves.

Maverick, Mark’s brother, breaks into Mark’s house, worried about not hearing from him in so long. The smell is terrible, but Mark’s in there, asleep, and he doesn’t look good. He hasn’t seen Ash in two weeks, and it’s tearing him up.

Mark goes back to Ash and apologizes. She says they have important business to attend to tonight; she’s got another victim in mind. The victim tonight turns out to be… Maverick!

Maverick knocks Ash out and gets to work raping her as Mark hides in the closet and waits for her signal. He comes out and confronts, much to his surprise, his brother. Ash had no idea they were related. The pair tied up Maverick and put him in the basement to discuss the situation. There is much begging and yelling. “If you love me, you would kill him,” Ash says.

Mark releases Maverick and gets accidentally stabbed in the process. Ash bites Maverick’s ear off. Mark lets him go yet again, and Ash is not happy. She kills Mark with an axe as Maverick runs out the door, his ear in hand.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s very slow getting to the action, but it does eventually get there. We saw the “twist” coming long before it did; Maverick was just too much of an ass to be allowed to live.

It’s an allegory for toxic relationships, but it’s still fun to watch. It’s almost more of a romantic drama than a horror film, but it’s got cannibalism and gore, so it’s got that working for it.

It ended with Maverick getting away. That’s not going to end well for Ash, but we don’t see any of the fallout from that, which should have at least been an after-credit scene.

Kevin’s Commentary

It’s a weird romance. I thought the acting and chemistry between the two main characters were great. I enjoyed everything right up to the ending, which I thought was a little abrupt and didn’t quite seem finished; it didn’t quite satisfy. But it’s good overall and definitely worth watching.

2007 Hot Fuzz

* Directed by Edgar Wright

* Written by Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg

* Stars Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman

* Run Time: 2 Hours, 1 Minute

* Watch it: https://amzn.to/3SSp6BS

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

It’s a cop buddy action mystery thriller comedy with just the tiniest pinch of horror hints. That said, it's got a lot of laughs with a decent body count, and the pieces of the mystery coming together are very clever.

Spoilery Synopsis

Nicholas Angel introduces himself. We see that he’s some kind of supercop, excelling at everything. He’s so good that he makes all the other cops look bad, so they transfer him to a tiny town out in the country. Also, they’re not going to take “No” for an answer. He tells his ex, Janine, who doesn’t really care since he cares more about his job than anything else.

So Nicholas moves to Sandford, a quiet village in the English countryside. He’s… not thrilled to be there. He goes to the pub and meets the Porters, the owners, as well as PC Danny Butterman. He immediately starts causing trouble when he finds a bunch of underage drinkers in the pub– he clears out the whole place. He’s maybe a little overzealous for this kind of posting.

In the morning, he meets Simon Skinner, who owns one of the big stores in town. Next, he goes to the station and meets Inspector Butterman, his new boss, who says this is the safest village in the country. He meets all the other cops, who show him that things aren’t the same outside the city.

That evening, Tom Weaver, the old man who thinks he runs the town, throws a party for Nicholas for the Neighborhood Watch group. The old man has a grudge against “The Living Statue,” a street performer whom no one else cares about at all.

After an awful presentation of “Romeo and Juliet,” Nicholas and Danny walk right past a mysterious hooded figure who later viciously murders the stars of the stage play. Two decapitations are not something that the town cops are really equipped to deal with. But it’s staged to look like a car accident, and Angel is the only one suspicious.

The duo gets called out to an old man with a whole barn full of guns and weapons, which they confiscate. They celebrate later and then carry a drunk home. The hooded killer gets the man immediately after.

At the big church fundraiser, the town reporter tries to talk to Nicholas, but is killed by the masked killer who knocks a pointed piece of masonry down on him.

Nicholas tells his boss that he thinks all the recent deaths are connected, but the inspector prefers to think they were all just accidents. Cue the research montage as the pair discuss all the characters we have met.

Not long after, Nicholas hears all about a big real estate deal in the town from the local florist, who is killed as Nicholas watches. He chases the killer through the greenhouses. All the police still insist that there are so many accidents.

The whole police force goes to arrest Simon Skinner at the grocery store. Nicholas has a whole convoluted theory about Simon and the real estate deal. Except, according to security footage, Simon has a perfect alibi. Now, Nicholas looks like an idiot to everyone.

That evening, Nicholas goes back to his hotel room, and the killer is waiting for him. It’s Michael, Simon’s not-so-smart assistant. He and Simon were working together.

Nicholas runs to the castle, where Simon is there with a whole coven of witches that includes a lot of the townspeople we already know. It’s the whole Neighborhood Watch group! Nicholas walks in and tells them they’re all under arrest.

The Inspector Butterman shows up, and he’s all in with the cultists. This is all about winning the “Best Village” award again. Danny seems to be with them as well, and all Nicholas can do is run away. He falls into an underground pit and sees the bodies of all the people in town that the cult considered bad and killed.

He runs up to Danny for help, and Danny stabs him. But he just faked it to get Nicholas to safety; he doesn’t know anything about the big conspiracy or his father’s involvement.

Nicholas buys some supplies and then comes back in the morning. He goes to the evidence room and stocks up on all the weapons he could ever want. He rides into town on a horse, and everyone sees him coming. We see that all the quaint little villagers are armed to the teeth.

One by one, Danny and Nicholas take out the crazy villagers. The other police show up, and Nicholas tries to explain everything to them. Danny and the Inspector have their family moment, but the rest of the police start to believe him.

Everyone runs to Simon Skinner’s store for the final battle. Butterfield and Simon make a quick getaway, and it’s time for a high-speed chase as the award judges look on in astonishment.

Nicholas and Simon fight in a miniature version of the town like big silly kaijus. Nicholas has a very painful finish. Frank Butterfield makes his escape, but the town swan takes him out instead.

The London police want him back now; they’re numbers are slipping. Nicholas decides to stay in the little town now, where he’s learned to have a good time…

Until crazy old Tom shoots Danny and gets trapped under the sea mine and blows up… everyone. But it’s a comedy, and none of our heroes are hurt too badly. There are way more survivors than there should be, and one year later, Nicholas is the new police chief.

Brian’s Commentary

Nicholas’s supercop has no sense of humor or much of a personality, and he reminded me immediately of the main character in “The Wicker Man” from 1973, which is probably not a coincidence.

Timothy Dalton, as Skinner, was an obvious villain, but also a sort of red herring, since the whole town was really the baddies here. Other than him, there are lots of familiar faces here, so that’s a lot of fun in itself.

Still, there’s very little horror here. There’s a serial killer who wears a black robe and looks like Death, as well as a whole group of cultists/witches.

It’s very good, but don’t watch it as a horror movie.

Kevin’s Commentary

This is probably my favorite of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's movies. And it’s really too much of a stretch to call it horror, but that’s okay. It’s really funny and entertaining.

2010 Tucker and Dale vs Evil

* Directed by Eli Craig

* Written by Eli Craig, Morgan Jurgenson

* Stars Tyler Labine, Alan Tudyk, Katrina Bowden

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 29 Minutes

* Watch Now: https://amzn.to/4jUkM01

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This is an excellent horror comedy. It takes the idea that the killer hillbillies in a horror movie are actually the misunderstood good guys. So much depends on your point of view. It’s bloody and violent and very fun.

Spoilery Synopsis

We cut to a couple of true crime podcasters, but they’re both very quickly killed. The credits roll as we shift to a car full of teenagers in West Virginia. Chad makes a hillbilly joke. Their car is passed by two sketchy-looking rednecks in a pickup truck. When they stop to buy beer, those same two guys are there. It all looks very “Deliverance”-y.

At the store, Tucker and Dale, the hillbillies, admire the young college students. Dale likes the girls, but he doesn’t have the self-confidence to talk to them. He walks over to the girls while absent-mindedly carrying a huge scythe; he laughs nervously, and the kids all think he’s some kind of maniac.

Tucker talks to Dale about his self-confidence problems. We soon see that these guys are really deep in the region of “It’s not what it looks like,” when they get pulled over by a cop. They get to the “vacation home” that Tucker just bought, and it’s quite the fixer-upper. It’s a cabin in the woods, to be sure. There are bones hanging from the ceiling and news clippings about serial killings on the walls. They narrowly avoid a booby trap, and we see just how ignorant these two are about what they’ve stumbled into.

Not far away, Chad and the gang talk about “The Memorial Day Massacre” twenty years ago that happened right here. We get a flashback to when that all happened. It’s like every serial-killer-in-the-woods movie we’ve ever seen.

Tucker and Dale are out on the lake fishing. A bunch of the campers go skinny dipping. One of the girls has an accident, and Dale rescues her. One of the other campers sees this. “We’ve got your friend,” Dale yells, and they all run away.

Allison wakes up in the morning at the cabin, and she’s terrified of Dale and his pancakes. The teenagers walk through the woods and blow the whole thing out of proportion.

Dale explains what really happened to Allison, and she understands. They make friends and start playing board games together. Meanwhile, Tucker is outside working with his chainsaw as Mitch, one of the kids, approaches. Tucker cuts into a bee nest and reacts badly, terrifying everyone with his chainsaw antics. Mitch gets impaled on a tree branch and dies. The body is soon found by the other kids, who assume the hillbillies are murderers; Chad says, “It’s us versus them!”

Tucker walks back to the cabin, and he’s covered in bee welts. Dale pulls the stingers out, one by one, and Tucker talks about how afraid Mitch looked when he saw the bees.

The kids hide and overhear Dale talking about “beating the crap out of Allison and finishing her off.” He means, of course, at their trivia game, but they don’t hear that part. Then Tucker starts working on cleaning up the dead wood around the cabin with their wood-chipping machine. Dale and Allison dig an outhouse hole, and the kids think they’re making her dig her own grave. Two of the college students attack the men, and that goes hilariously badly for both of them. Allison is knocked unconscious in the action.

Tucker is amazed that one of the college students ran and jumped into his wood chipper (he tripped when aiming to attack Tucker). Dale talks about one of them impaling himself on a spear right in front of him. “This is a suicide pact,” Tucker speculates. They could call the police, but what would they say? Who would they believe?

Out in the woods, Chad suggests that this is an amazing opportunity to kill some rednecks. The rest of the kids run into the sheriff, and they drive back to investigate. Meanwhile, Tucker and Dale try to unplug the wood chipper.

Tucker tells the cop, “We have had a doozy of a day. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, these kids started killing themselves all over my property.” They go inside, and the sheriff runs right into the booby trap from before. Chad starts shooting at the guys, and Tucker blames the whole thing on Dale.

When Chad takes Dale’s dog as a hostage, the guys fight back with a nail gun. He’s only a distraction as Tucker frees the dog, which leads to another chase through the woods. They soon catch Tucker and hang him upside-down from a tree.

Allison wakes up, and Dale tells her what’s been going on as he cries. She offers to clear up all the misunderstandings and goes outside, where she sees the carnage. She finds Tucker’s shirt with a couple of fingers inside. He soon tracks down Tucker, who says, “This vacation sucks.”

Chad and the other kids show up, and Allison explains it all to them, but Chad just wants to kill some hillbillies. They think she’s got “Stockholm Syndrome.” Chad’s just a psychopath.

Allison gets Chad and Dale to sit down and talk, all diplomatic-like. Chad explains how his parents were attacked in the Memorial Day Massacre twenty years ago. The rednecks of the time captured his mother and killed his father.

Outside, Jason and Chloe have been waiting to come inside and save the day with a weed whacker. They break in and kill Naomi by accident. Chad accidentally sets Jason on fire. The whole cabin ends up exploding, much to Tucker’s dismay. “I’m a terrible therapist,” whines Allison.

Chad gets up and comes outside with his axe. Tucker, Dale, and Allison run to the truck and drive away– right into a tree. While they’re unconscious, Chad takes Allison away.

Tucker gives Dale a rousing speech about how Dale’s not as stupid and ugly as he thinks he is. Tucker’s badly hurt, so it’s up to Dale to save Allison.

Chad has Allison literally tied to a lumber mill saw; he’s burned and crazy now. Dale decides to embrace his inner “killer hillbilly.” Chad starts up the buzzsaw as he and Dale fight.

Allison finds a newspaper article that explains that Chad’s parents were the Memorial Day Murderers; it’s all genetic! “Chad– you’re half hillbilly!” Dale then kills Chad with chamomile tea.

The news reporters are calling it a “mass suicide,” and also that there was a killer who was never found. Tucker, in the hospital, asks Dale about Allison. They’re going bowling, so it’s a date! Also, Dale has learned not to help people now.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s all a comedy of misunderstanding, of course, but it uses all the horror movie tropes. The gore and deaths are really well done, and always funny. It uses all the killer-in-the-woods tropes, but it’s totally turned around since the kids are the bad ones.

Tucker and Dale are hilarious, and we absolutely should have had half a dozen sequels by now. It’s very possibly my favorite horror-comedy.

Kevin’s Commentary

This is really excellent. There are lots of laughs, and I liked it even better this second viewing. The script is great, and Tucker and Dale are perfectly cast.

1951 The Man from Planet X

* Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer

* Written by Aubrey Wisberg, Jack Pollexfen

* Stars Robert Clarke, Margaret Field, Raymond Bond

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 11 Minutes

* Trailer:

* Get it from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3FiB6t9

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This is mainly a classic example of early 1950s science fiction, but it’s got some horror elements with alien scares, peril from space, and conniving humans. It’s certainly dated, but that adds to the fun. We enjoyed the watch.

Spoilery Synopsis

In the dark castle on the hill, a man wonders what happened to the girl and her father. He expects that he’ll be dead by morning as well, but he intends to fight. He’s a reporter, and he writes down his story about meeting a man from Planet X face to face. We flash back…

A new planet has arrived from nowhere, and it’s all very mysterious. John Lawrence and Professor Blaine talk about mysteries from the sky. The new planet isn’t going to collide with the Earth, but it’s going to come really close. Professor Elliot discovered the new world, and he’s gone to Burry Island, the place that’s going to be closest to the new planet.

John goes to the remote Scottish island where Elliot is staying. He’s met by Enid, the professor’s daughter. They drive up to the old castle on the hill, where he meets Elliot and Dr. Mears, whom John doesn’t like. Mears just showed up two weeks ago, one of Elliot’s former students. Elliot admits he’s not sure what’s going to happen as the planet gets really close in a few days.

John and Enid go for a walk on the foggy moors, and John likes what he sees, in all the meanings of the word. They find a strange metal thing on the ground that looks like a bomb or missile. Dr. Elliot can’t explain it either, but he thinks it may have come from outer space, as the metal is unknown. Mears points out how important that metal is to science.

After dropping John off at the inn in town, Enid gets a flat tire on the foggy old country road. She sees a flashing light out on the moor and finds a space rocket that has landed out there. She looks in the window and sees an alien face inside. She screams and runs all the way back to the castle.

The old professor thinks she’s imagined it all, so she takes him out there; Mears skulks along behind them. When Elliot looks in through the window, there’s no one inside. A beam from the ship shines on the old professor, who goes into some kind of trance. He feels better later and tells the whole story to John.

When John sees the spaceship, he says it looks like “A big diving bell,” and the professor says there’s not much difference between water and space, so why not? Then they see the spaceman, who appears to be holding a gun. It collapses as the alien tries to adjust his space suit.

The alien soon recovers and gets up. They try to communicate, but that doesn’t work, so it follows them home to the castle, much to Enid’s surprise. Dr. Mears wants to use math to communicate with the alien. John doesn’t trust Mears, and Mears knows it.

Alone, Mears works his math with the creature, hoping to learn something he can use for profit. He has no plans to share his knowledge with anyone else. He overpowers the very weak alien and turns down the gas it breathes. He goes in and tells Elliot that he’s had no luck.

Enid goes into the room with the creature and screams.

John returns and finds Enid missing, as is the creature. He and Mears walk back to the spaceship to see if they are there. They aren’t there, so John goes back to the castle, leaving Mears there.

The constable and another man arrive to talk to Elliot. Some men from the village have vanished. John’s not willing to tell them the story, but he’s willing to take the constable out to the moor and show him. They go back to where the spaceship was, but it’s not there now, and neither is Mears.

Back in the village, the second villager shows up and says that Professor Elliot went off with the alien and Mears. John says what he knows, which sends all the villagers off in a panic. The constable reports that the phone lines are out, so they try to signal a passing ship.

Meanwhile, more villagers are starting to work for the alien, all mind-controlled. John finds more men out by the alien ship, digging.

Scotland Yard sends two men; the ship did get their message. They want to bring in the military. John says he has a plan, and the police decide to go along with it. They give him until eleven o’clock– the planet will be at its closest at midnight.

We cut to the opening sequence, as John writes out his story before time runs out. He goes to the ship, where he encounters Elliot and Mears. He tells Elliot to walk back to town. Mears explains what the alien is doing; there’s going to be an invasion since the alien’s planet is dying. He tells the mind-controlled slave workers to walk away, and they do it.

The alien comes outside, and John tackles it, turning his valve off. It soon dies. He sends Enid and Mears to safety, but the alien, not as dead as it would appear, gets back up. Mears decides to run back to the ship as the army starts shooting at it. Mears get shot in the back by the soldiers before the ship explodes.

Meanwhile, Planet X gets really close to the Earth, and everyone watches as it passes harmlessly. John and Enid discuss how the government is going to cover it all up. Enid thinks the creature was friendly, and Mears was lying about the invasion.

Brian’s Commentary

The 1950s were known for their atomic horrors and flying saucer movies, but this is one of the early ones, and it was very influential in what followed.

We don’t know what Mears did back in the day for John to distrust him, but the feeling is obvious. Any planet that came that close to Earth would be a much bigger deal than the film suggests. Also, we don’t know for sure at the end what the creature’s motivations were, invasion or just exploration? Mears is the only real death in the film, and the soldiers did that.

The alien is possibly the least emotive creature ever filmed. It’s just a fixed head inside a glass helmet, no moving mouth, blinking eyes, or anything. Well, I guess that does make it pretty alien. The acting is good, the pacing is fine, but the alien really makes it hard to take seriously.

Kevin’s Commentary

The science is pretty bad, but it’s a decent watch for entertainment. The alien and effects are simple and dated. It was a great year for science fiction: “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” “The Thing From Another World,” and “When Worlds Collide” were all released in 1951, too. This is one to either relax and enjoy for what it is or make fun of it mercilessly. It depends on the mood you’re in.

Short Films:

2023 Short Film The Fisherman’s Wife

* Directed by: Jared Watson

* Written by: Jared Watson

* Stars: Kelsey Carthew, Cairlin Riley, T. Ryder Smith

* Run Time: 8:11

* Watch it:

What Happens

A fisherman wanders the deserted beach, scrounging for whatever he can find, which is mostly garbage. He continues on with his futile search until he sees a woman lying in the sand. No, not a woman– a mermaid caught in a net!

He carries her home, but she’s gasping and having difficulty breathing. He boils water in a pot and then pulls out the butcher’s knife… No, it’s not what it looks like. Is it?

Commentary

This is one messed-up family.

It’s all very dark and depressing, lonely and filthy. It’s post-apocalyptic even, but it’s still hilarious in its weirdness. It’s very ponderous and slow-moving, and that just adds to the oddball charm here.

It’s very cool!

2024 Short Film The Noise Next Door

* Directed by: Christopher Cox

* Written by: Christopher Cox

* Stars: James Sanger, Scott Bolger, Natalie Polisson

* Run Time: 13:09

* Watch it:

What Happens

Jay just moved into a new, small apartment, and he’s not too impressed with it. As he talks to his mother, he hears someone bumping into the wall from the other side. He knocks on the neighbor’s door, and the man inside apologizes for watching his movie too loudly.

The thumping continues, and it’s clearly not a movie. He looks through his door’s peephole and sees a woman crying. When he opens the door, no one is there. He checks with the neighbors again, and it’s not her. They have no idea what the sounds are, and they’re also tired of being bothered.

He calls the apartment manager to report it. He’s not about to let it slide without investigating further, and he soon learns he shouldn’t have…

Commentary

It’s time for a new apartment!

From the neighbor’s point of view, Jay is just a nut. From his point of view, he’s trying to help. We don’t know until the end what’s really going on. I kept waiting for someone to say, “Oh, it’s THAT apartment,” like they knew– it took a while, but that’s exactly what happened.

This is very nicely paced and fast-moving. It’s very well done and makes perfect sense. It ratchets up the tension right up to the end. Excellent!

2023 Short Film Eyestring

* Directed by: Javier Devitt

* Written by: Alena Chinault, Javier Devitt

* Stars: Jeannie Bolet, Alena Chinault, Erin Grant

* Run Time: 8 Minutes

* Watch it:

What Happens

Veronica talks on the phone, and the phone-in therapist on the other end talks about balance and her getting out more. As she talks, she starts to pull a little hair out of her eye. Except the hair pulls and pulls… Credits roll.

She’s out driving now, and the eye-hair is hanging down the side of her face. She calls her “concierge” from earlier, but she can’t talk to the same guy from earlier– the “therapists” are all assigned randomly.

She decides to go to the store and pick up some “eye care products,” including scissors…

Commentary

Wait– people actually call those phone-therapy lines?

Ew. Nothing’s worse than stuff in your eye. Except maybe something coming out of your eye.

It’s well shot and well acted. None of this goes the way you’d expect, which is the best part!

2025 Short Film Play or Die

* Directed by: Luca Zanzlorenzi

* Written by:

* Stars: Silvia Barattini

* Run Time: 6:17

* Watch it:

What Happens

A woman sits alone in her room at night and looks at the “Play or Die” screen on her computer. After deliberating for a moment, she clicks “Accept.” It’s a one-million-dollar challenge, and it's worth the risk for her. She looks at her bank account, and the money is suddenly all there. She has to follow the rules exactly, or “you’ll lose it all.”

The rules say, “Turn off all the lights, lock the door, and do not look behind you.”

It’s not going to be pretty, is it?

Commentary

Not following the rules is one thing, but she did as instructed in the end, so why did they kill her? Half of the short film was a black screen, so we’re left to imagine what happened.

I can live with the darkness, but the game broke its own rules, which is a cheat.

Nope. Didn’t like this one.

2022 Short Film Searchers

* Directed by: Isaac Ruth

* Written by: Isaac Ruth

* Stars: Michelle Lukiman, Christine Renaud, Ash Yap

* Run Time: 12:36

* Watch it:

What Happens

A woman wakes up from a nightmare of bones. She’s asked to search for a missing six-year-old, and she tells her contact, “This is the last time.”

Liv drives out to Salton Sea, a mostly dead community in the desert. She goes to see the girl’s mother, who is evasive and paranoid about her kidnapped daughter. She tells the story about finding that her daughter was missing one night.

It wasn’t the garden-variety kidnapper. It’s also not just one missing kid– it’s six, just this year…

Commentary

It’s one of those “what’s really going on here” type of stories, well acted and well shot. The locations and scenery here are really good. There’s no resolution to the story, and we’re left with a couple of mysteries. The director calls it a “Proof of concept” film, and I’m intrigued, but it’s not a story in itself. I’d totally watch a feature-length film expanding on this.

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We’ve got three new releases this week as well as a pair of oldies. We’ll open on the not-Poohverse “Piglet” and then go to church for “Consecration.” For our oldies, we’ll take a look at one more episode that even Pinhead didn’t show up for in “Hellraiser: Revelations” from 2011, followed by the remake of “House of Wax” from 2005. And we’ve got more shorts as well!

“The Horror Guys Guide to the Horror Films of Christopher Lee” is available NOW!

https://www.horrormonthly.com/horror-guys-guides/christopher-lee-filmsCheck out our selection of short horror biographies, including Christopher Lee, Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, and many more: https://www.hourlongpress.com/

The latest issue of “Horror Monthly” is now on sale! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

2025 Piglet

* Directed by Andrea M. Catinella

* Written by Harry Boxley

* Stars Alexander Butler, Lauren Staerck, Alina Desmond

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 23 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This isn’t the Piglet from “Pooh: Blood and Honey,” it’s a separate tale. This Piglet is a big, mutated guy wearing a mask and having a big appetite for killing. Reminiscent of Leatherface from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” movies. The music and accents required subtitles. Brian was harsher on it than Kevin was, who found it entertaining more than not. But we both agree it didn’t show us enough new to really be interesting. It’s not a standout film, and we thought it was okay at best.

Spoilery Synopsis

A prison van stops in the woods so the driver can pee. “Is it true what they say about him? About the experiment… and his family?” The prisoner was part of a scientific experiment that deformed him. Dr. Bickley turned the scrawny man into a huge killing machine. He then murdered the people in the prison. Naturally, the prisoner gets out of his chains and kills all three of the inept security guards. The masked killer returns to his lair and puts on a pig mask. Credits roll.

A carload of party girls stop on the side of the road so one of them can throw up. Kate is upset about hiding from her insane boyfriend. Two other girls talk about the pig serial-killer who used to operate in this area. A man comes out of the woods and tells them not to go to the camp, as bad things always happen there.

A man in a cowboy hat talks to Piglet about the girls who will be coming to stay at the farm. Piglet can have his pick of one of the girls; the rest will go in the freezer.

The girls arrive at Mr. Hogarth’s farm for the first time in ten years. Kate sees Piglet in the woods, but only for a moment. Mr. Hogarth, the man in the cowboy hat, shows the girls around; he runs the camp.

On the road, three other people stop their car with a breakdown and have to walk the rest of the way to camp through the forest. Courtney is autistic or something and forces them to stop so she can draw. As they wait, the other two stop for sex. Piglet kills the couple, Riley and Bruce, with a big meat hook. Courtney goes looking for them and finds herself in a bear trap until Piglet catches up to her.

Kate gets a scare from a man covered in blood. The police come and pick up the homeless man as Mr. Hogarth assures the girls that animals won’t come into the camp. One of the girls tells the story about the local serial killer they used to call “Piglet,” who fell in love with a girl named Kate.

Judith soon finds Courtney chained up in the barn and hides while Piglet comes in and kills Courtney with a hook before killing Judith as well.

Kate and Susie talk about Spencer, Kate’s crazy ex, who used to follow her around and stalk her. She feels like that again. They both plan to move to Salt Lake City. Meanwhile, Alex and Dianne make out in the hot tub as Mr. Hogarth watches. Hogarth then kills Dianne with an axe.

Alex, Kate, and Susie wonder what happened to all their friends. They talk about making a phone call, but try to drive to town instead; the car has been sabotaged.

Hogarth and Piglet work together to kill Alex with a sledgehammer. Kate thinks Spencer has followed them and is causing all their troubles. Bret, the weird harbinger from the woods, shows up and tells them they need to leave– he offers them gas for their car. They soon see Piglet, and the chase is on. Bret shoots Piglet, and then the girls take his gun and force him to drive them to town. Bret explains the whole thing, but Susie and Kate are skeptical. Hogarth comes outside and blames Bret for keeping a bloodthirsty monster on the grounds.

Piglet shows up and kills Bret while Hogart shoots Susie in the leg. Piglet takes Susie to the barn and chains her up. He then peels her face off with the help of his knife.

Kate runs to the road and flags down a cop, Officer Burke, who handcuffs her and takes her back to Hogarth and Piglet. They all sit around and sing “Happy Birthday to you” to Kate. Instead of a birthday cake, they give her a foot with a candle wedged on top; they’re cannibals. “Piglet’s chosen you. We want you to join the family. He needs a mate. He’ll take the mask off for the honeymoon.”

Kate seduces Officer Burke and attacks him as well as Hogarth. She runs out to Bret’s car as Piglet comes up behind her. She rams him with the car and then drives off. The car stalls out not too much later, and Kate walks to another barn, where she encounters a man in a welding mask. Piglet grabs the man and kills him right away. She steals the man’s car, but crashes it as well.

Kate knocks Piglet down and goes at him with the axe. She pulls off his mask, and he just vanishes.

Brian’s Commentary

This isn’t part of the “Poohniverse,” as this version of Piglet is just a deformed man wearing a pig mask, not a mutant animal at all. The mask, however, looks just like the one in “Blood and Honey,” but it’s a whole different story. The weird family is more closely related to the one in “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” instead.

The music was so overbearing in the beginning that we had to turn on the subtitles to catch all the details of what was being said. The thick accents were strong enough that we would have needed the subtitles anyway.

The acting is really weak, and the accents are atrocious. If you can make it through the pre-credit sequence and keep your sanity, you might like this one. That opening scene was really the worst of it, but it never really gets good.

It’s not awful for a low-budget indie flick, but it doesn’t really do anything we haven’t seen many times before. I never thought I’d say it about a movie, but it’s no “Pooh: Blood and Honey.”

Kevin’s Commentary

I don’t disagree with any points Brian made, but I did find it entertaining enough to keep me interested - a fundamental requirement to get any kind of thumbs up from me. The short run time helps, with minimal time wasted - it does have a lot of gore and kills, and the effects are realistic.

2023 Consecration

* Directed by Christopher Smith

* Written by Christopher Smith, Laurie Cook

* Stars Jena Malone, Danny Huston, Thoren Ferguson

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This has a little bit of a slow start, but we do gradually get to find out what’s really going on and who’s behind it. The movie blurs the lines a little between good and evil, right and wrong. And raises some questions about who is really in charge. We thought it had a cool wrap-up and liked it a lot.

Spoilery Synopsis

A woman walks down the street thinking about guardian angels. Suddenly, an old nun walks up and points a gun at her.

We cut to the same woman, Grace, giving an eye exam to an old woman. She goes to see John, an old friend and teacher, about the old woman’s case. She goes home to work on her computer when, suddenly, the lights go out. We get glimpses of a nun in the background, inside the house, but Grace doesn’t see anything. She gets a phone call from the police, who say they’ve found the body of her brother, the victim of a murder suicide.

Credits roll as she travels to the remote convent where her brother’s body was found. DCI Harris fills her in on the investigation. They think Grace’s brother, a priest, killed another priest and then himself. Harris is trying to piece together what actually happened and why. He tells the story about how one of the nuns thought they saw the devil and poked their own eye out. They’re an extreme sect.

Grace and Harris meet Mother Superior, and we see that Grace isn’t interested in religion at all. The old woman blames a demon for the deaths. She gets a vision of Michael warning her that it’s not safe there; then she faints.

When Grace wakes up, she meets Father Romero from the Vatican. She goes back to sleep and dreams about a middle-ages witch hunt. She goes to the place where Michael died and sees many nuns dropping off the same cliff. She faints again and wakes up in the convent. She confronts the whole group of nuns at dinnertime.

Father Romero takes Grace on a tour of the ruins of the old church and explains the history of the place. He seems straightforward and honest, exposing that the Mother Superior cleaned up Michael’s body before the police arrived.

She goes through Michael's books and finds a really weird one that she can’t read. Except that she can read it somehow. We get another flashback to young Grace doing things she shouldn’t be able to.

We cut to Romero arguing with Mother Superior and the other involved nuns. Grace and Sister Meg talk about life in the convent.

DCI Harris questions Mother Superior. Kate’s rude to all the religious people, and we soon get a flashback as to why. Her father was a religious nut who kept them locked in cages, which explains her attitude and also why the two siblings have a secret code that only they can read. Kate watched as her father killed their mother.

When their father was captured, the convent tried to adopt the two children. We get a flashback to that as well, but the old priest and nun really only wanted Grace. As the kidnapping progressed, something happened, and a truck ran into the kidnappers.

She tells this to Romero, who believes Michael came there to find a relic. He offers several ancient books to Grace, and they’re in code as well. The same code she thought was her and her brother’s. The books talk about the Knights of the Morning Star and his shadow. We get another flashback to Grace’s brother Michael being tortured for information about the relic. He refuses to talk, and when he gets up he stabs the old priest, which is how he died.

Grace watches as a nun stabs herself, and the next thing we see, she’s talking to DCI Harris about what she’s learned. She stops in at the prison to meet her father and asks why he did the things he did. He believes that she’s the devil’s own child, and he should have done even worse. He’d died in a storm, and she prayed for him to come back, which he did, but he wasn’t the same after. When she tells him that Michael died, he tells her to “bring him back.” He doesn’t think she can die. He points out that wherever she goes, death and destruction soon follow.

Mother Superior talks to Harris, and she says that Grace is the relic; not only that, but Grace knows this herself.

Grace watches as an invisible force beats up one of the nuns who was trying to hurt Grace. She walks back to the convent, where no one seems surprised that she’s now covered in blood.

Father Romero does a prayer to “consecrate her,” and then opens up a door to an underground place beneath the church. “She must be contained for eternity; her power is a threat to Christ,” we hear someone say. As Romero tells the nuns to seal the crypt, all Hell breaks loose in the church, killing him. “So that was your plan, to bury me in a tomb? What happened to forgiveness?” Grace asks.

Grace goes up to the “suicide ledge” and starts walking backwards, the way Romero explained to her. Before she gets too close to the edge, Harris shows up and tries to talk her out of it.

She jumps. And falls very, very slowly. Slowly enough for another flashback. We see that somehow, Grace has been time-travelling through young Grace’s childhood, saving her from many bad things, sometimes invisibly. She even has a conversation with the about-to-die Michael. She tries to persuade him not to, but he says he must. The mother superior and two nuns there feel invisible Grace push past them and see Michael’s one-sided conversation with invisible Grace. Before he jumps to his death. Then she finishes her own fall off the cliff.

In the morning, Harris sends boats out to find Grace’s body, but that’s not easy and nothing is found. Mother Superior tells him that Grace isn’t dead; she’ll go on using her power until she’s stopped.

We flash to Grace, drinking with her old friend John. She’s looking very healthy now. She still doesn’t like churches. John mentions that the old woman from the beginning now has perfect sight; it seems to be a miracle.

We cut back to the opening scene, with Mother Superior pointing a gun at Grace on the street. Out of nowhere, she’s hit by a vehicle and killed. Grace is her own guardian angel...

Brian’s Commentary

It’s slow going in the beginning, and we don’t know who’s good or bad for a very long while. Still, the mystery and suspense build up continuously, and it comes to a fun ending.

It looks good, it’s well acted, it’s a mystery where we do get all the answers in the end. I liked it.

Kevin’s Commentary

I liked the places it went with theology and angels, and how far people would go to protect the status quo. Basically, I think, she’s a fallen angel slumming as a human, hiding the memory of who she really is from herself most of the time. Very cool. It does have a slow start, but I thought the finish was great. I highly recommend it.

2025 Self Driver

* Directed by Michael Pierro

* Written by Michael Pierro

* Stars Nathanael Chadwick, Reece Presley, Lauren Welchner

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

We weren’t sure going into this one, the trailer looked iffy. But it turns out the trailer doesn’t do it justice. It was very good. Nathanael Chadwick is perfectly cast in the lead, which is good since the majority of the movie is about him driving around and doing stuff. It moves well as things get more complicated through the night. We both liked it a lot.

Spoilery Synopsis

A man drives a car as the credits roll. D, the driver, eats his generic fast food in the car and gets a phone call from his landlord, which he ignores. His girlfriend calls and asks when he’s coming home, but this is Friday, the day that pays the best. She complains that there’s no WiFi; he probably didn’t pay the bill.

He opens the VRMR! App, a rideshare thing. He picks up people and takes them where they want to go, and he does a variety of weird characters that are all critical. They. Are. Annoying.

One of the clients offers him a business card for Tonomo, a new company that offers better pay and a signing bonus. Four or five thousand dollars a night, with the right attitude. He doesn’t actually say it’s legal, but D thinks about it. D calls VRMR! on the phone, and it’s the usual annoying runaround with the voice system and “hold music.” He wants to get paid early, but that’s not going to happen.

He keeps on driving and picks up two drunk women, one of whom pukes all over his back seat. It costs even more money to wash the car. The VRMR! app says it’s time for a mandatory 8-hour break.

He calls Nick with Tonomo about the job. Nick installs an app on D’s phone. D signs the mile-long “Terms and Conditions” page. “Always do what the app tells you; never speak to the clients. If you quit in the middle of a job, you lose all your money.”

D hits “Start,” and the app tells him where to go. He misses a turn, and that already cost him a penalty deduction. He gets to the destination, and the app has him wait. He picks up a woman and drives her where the app says to go. As he drives, she changes into an angel costume. He drops her off in an alley, but she wants him to wait for her.

The payment for the job comes to $100. The next job is for $500, but he promised the girl he’d wait. He accepts the job anyway and drives on. The whole thing has a lot of time pressure, so he has no choice. On this job, he just carries a package.

D stops and a man gets in, and he’s loud and obnoxious; he says he’s a pusher. D drops the guy off and continues with the package. He goes around the block, and the app tells him to pick up the same guy. It looks a lot like he’s a getaway driver now. D and the man argue over the route, but D insists on following the app. The man gives D a gun to dispose of and some drugs as a tip. He ends up with $450 for that job.

Between jobs, D tastes one of the drug-coated sugar cubes the man gave him but doesn’t really take it.

He takes on another $500 job. This one has him move to the back seat next to a passenger and hit the man. “It’s OK, just do it,” says the man. D does the job. Each punch is $50, again and again. It gets easier for D around the fourth punch. With all the bonuses, he makes a bunch.

The app tells him to “rest now.” He uses the time to clean up the blood on the back seat. He goes back to the place he dropped off the angel woman, but she’s not there.

The next job is $2000. Before accepting, he tries one of the sugar cubes. They stop and pick up two girls, one is very high or drunk, and it might be a matter of sex trafficking. She cries and fights, and D just sits there. About this time, the drugs D took start kicking in. He sits there while the brother and sister carry the stoned girl into a warehouse. When they come out, they yell at each other and then start making out on the hood of the car.

D starts seriously hallucinating now, but he’s also driving where he needs to go. Something went wrong with the girl they dropped off, so they need another one. They stop and grab the girl with the angel wings from earlier. They drive back to the sex trafficking warehouse, and the brother and sister have to deal with a more immediate problem.

D digs out that gun from earlier. He gives the angel girl the other sugar cube, and she wakes right up. The two run away from the car but the two soon catch and beat up D. The car itself rescues D from the evil pair.

“Job abandoned: Payout $0” D loses all the money for the evening’s work.

He gets back in his car and drives away. VRBR! sends him a text asking if he wants to drive some more, which he accepts. Back to the grind…

Brian’s Commentary

The trailer didn’t do this one justice. It’s mostly just one guy and a few passengers, very simple. For quite a while into this, I was thinking, “I’d do this job,” but then it got a bit excessive.

The jobs weren’t that hard from D’s point of view, I dunno what he thought was going to happen taking LSD or whatever it was during the work.

It was well shot, looked good, was nicely paced, and kept my interest throughout. Very cool!

Kevin’s Commentary

I was reminded of “13 Sins”(2014), where the guy had to do progressively more twisted things with anonymous instructions.

I like being pleasantly surprised by a movie, and this is one that does that. The trailer looked like a maybe, and it turned out to be a winner. Things build nicely and move well, with just enough dark humor to spice it up. I’d recommend it.

2011 Hellraiser: Revelations

* Directed by Victor Garcia

* Written by Gary J. Tunnicliffe, Clive Barker

* Stars Steven Brand, Nick Eversman, Tracey Fairaway, Jay Gillespie

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 15 Minutes

* Trailer:

* Watch it: https://amzn.to/43zJXQp

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Unlike some of the previous sequels that were a standalone movie with a little Hellraiser stuff barely tacked on, this was made as a Hellraiser movie. Clive Barker wasn’t involved because he no longer held the rights, and he vehemently denounced it, but it does tap into a lot of elements from the first two movies. Doug Bradley isn’t involved either and reportedly said bad things about it. There’s a different and less effective Pinhead actor. All things considered, though, it was surprisingly pretty entertaining and certainly better than some of the previous sequels.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a found-footage style camera view of two guys leaving L.A. to get one of the guys some sex. Nico and Steven are going to Tijuana for hookers. Their car gets stolen, and the next thing they know, they’re playing with a cursed puzzle box. Lights blink, bells ring, and the walls glow. Pinhead shows up for his box and Nico’s soul.

We cut to Steven’s mother and sister discussing the video we just watched. Ross, Steven’s father, doesn’t want to talk about Steven, but Emma does. They all argue. Pinhead listens from another dimension. Emma sneaks into the bedroom and watches the rest of Steven’s video. Nico kills a hooker, so that kinda spoils the trip.

Back at home, Steven’s parents, Ross and Sarah, talk to Nico’s parents, Peter and Kate. As far as they know, both boys went missing and were presumed murdered. We see that Emma has the puzzle box. As she plays with the box, Steven suddenly appears, more or less alive.

The phones are dead, and now all of a sudden, everyone’s cars are gone. The parents think some kind of psycho has followed Steven and has cut the phone lines and stolen the cars. They lock all the doors and plan to run for help in the morning.

Emma continues to play with the box, which escalates the weirdness inside the house. When the lights come back on, Steven is gone again. They soon find him outside, “They’re coming. The vagrant called them Cenobites.”

We get another flashback to Mexico, where the boys talk about not getting caught for the hooker’s murder. A vagrant comes over and offers them a puzzle cube; “It’s experience. A form of ultimate arousal.” He gives the box to Nico. Not long after, Nico opens the box and all Hell breaks loose. Pinhead comes and takes Nico away.

Steven hires a hooker and kills her as well, thinking it will help Nico. Her blood brings Nico partially back, but he needs much more.

Back in the present, Steven flashes back to having his skin peeled off. Steven wakes up and makes a move on his own sister before kissing her.

The vagrant shows up outside. “He’s here. The one who escaped. They will have him again.” Peter shoots the guy, but the vagrant then slices up Peter’s face, killing him. Steven then shoots Ross. “This isn’t you talking,” says Ross.

Flashback to Mexico again as Steven hires and starts to kill another hooker. He stops halfway through when he sees she has a baby. Nico comes in and argues with Steven, who finishes the job. Nico wants one more, a man, so he can wear his skin. Steven refuses, so Nico kills him and takes his skin. This has been Nico in the house with his parents all along!

After much monologuing from Steven-skin-Nico, Emma brings him the box. She stabs him as well, but he still forces her to open the box.

Pinhead and the other Cenobites, including Steven as an apprentice Nailhead, come for Nico. Pinhead only wants one thing, and that’s Nico. When Ross shoots Nico, Pinhead needs someone as payment, so he tears Sarah apart. Then they send Emma home with Ross, who dies. Emma looks at the box, maybe she’ll try again.

Brian’s Commentary

This is the first film where Pinhead isn’t played by Doug Bradley. Stephen Smith Collins isn’t a great substitute. Clive Barker refused to have anything at all to do with the film in a very clear way. That said, at least it is clearly a Hellraiser story, unlike a lot of the past half-dozen films in the series. Despite Barker’s opinion, this is not the worst of the series.

Kevin’s Commentary

After the previous sequels, I was bracing myself for the worst. I was pleasantly surprised to find this one wasn’t too bad. It’s not great, certainly not up to par with the first two movies, but it does have some of the elements from them. Trivia says it was a rush job thrown together so the company could maintain their rights. I’d call it watchable with no regret, having seen it.

2005 House of Wax

* Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

* Written by Charles Belden, Chad Hayes, Carey W. Hayes

* Stars Chad Michael Murray, Paris Hilton, Elisha Cuthbert

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 53 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

It’s a remake, in name only, of the 1953 original. That said, though, this had a good script, actors who knew what to do with it, good direction, and excellent special effects. Plus top-notch death scenes. It’s a good one to go into blind if you can. We thought it was very entertaining.

Spoilery Synopsis

It’s 1974, and we watch as someone fills a mask mold with melted wax as their child calmly eats cereal. The other child comes in, and he’s an out-of-control monster who has to be tied and duct-taped to the high chair. That kid ain’t normal. Credits roll.

In the present day, Carly and Paige talk about starting their internships after their trip, as Wade shows up. Blake finds a shortcut on the GPS for their planned road trip. Nick and Dalton are also going, but no one really wants them to.

Halfway through the shortcut, there’s a detour, and they all decide to pull over for a nap. Nick is just out of jail, and he blames Carly and Wade for ratting him out. Nick and Carly are twins, and they clearly don’t like each other much. The wind kicks up, and there’s a terrible stench coming from the woods.

A truck stops nearby, just sitting there with the headlights on high, shining at them. Nick throws a bottle at it, smashing one of the headlights. The truck backs up and drives away. After the group goes to sleep, Carly hears someone skulking around outside in the darkness.

In the morning, they all pack up, but Dalton seems to have lost his camera. When they look to see where that smell is coming from, they find a huge pit full of dead animals and at least one person. The group watches as a roadkill collector dumps carcasses from his truck. The hand in the pile is just part of a mannequin.

Also, the belt on Wade’s car has broken - probably sabotaged though they don’t realize that. Wade and Carly go with the roadkill guy to the gas station for a replacement belt to fix Wade’s car. The driver is creepy, has a big knife, and the window won’t open. It’s tense, but he turns out to be okay. The road’s washed out, so they walk the rest of the way to town.

Blake, Paige, Dalton, and Nick get stuck in traffic in the big city; they’re gonna miss the big game, so they turn around and head to where Carly is.

Wade and Carly make it into the little town of Ambrose, but there’s no one on the streets. But there are puppies in a shop window, and they see a lady peek out through some upstairs curtains. They go into the church, and there’s a funeral in progress. They exit quickly. Bo angrily comes out. He runs the gas station. The funeral’s gonna be going on for a while, so they decide to visit the big house of wax they walked past earlier.

Wade notices that “The House of Wax” is literally covered in wax on the outside. It’s closed, but they go inside anyway. The floor and walls are made of wax, as well as almost everything else. The place is dusty and old, but it’s got lots of cool things to see. Carly gets skeeved out, and they go back to the gas station. Carly tells Wade about her being the good twin while Nick was the “vile one.”

Bo returns and invites them to his house to pick up the fan belt. Bo talks about Trudy, who used to be the main artist there. Vincent was Trudy’s son. Dr. Sinclair was Trudy’s husband, a doctor who did bad things. She went crazy, Sinclair killed himself, and their two sons went to foster homes.

Wade soon comes to the conclusion that Bo is one of Trudy’s sons, just before the power goes out and someone attacks him. Bo chases Carly around outside, and she runs back toward town. In the center of town, all the lights come on and there are city noises, but nothing at all is moving.

Vincent drags Wade into his workroom and starts cleaning him up and sewing the hole shut, and waxing all his hair off. Wade is put into a “wax shower” that coats him completely.

Carly runs back to the church and sees that all the parishioners are wax figures, the priest included. It’s Trudy Sinclair’s funeral, and it appears to have been going on for a long time. Bo comes in to talk to his Momma and looks around for Carly, and soon catches her. He straps her to a chair and superglues her mouth shut.

Nick and Dalton arrive in town. Carly yells after getting her lips apart, and Nick comes downstairs and releases her; he knows about Bo now. Dalton goes to the wax museum and finds the very immobilized, yet still alive, Wade. There’s not much skin left under the wax. Vincent shows up and chases Dalton toward the basement workroom before beheading him.

Carly and Nick go to the woman peeking out of the curtain, but that’s just an animatronic wax figure. So are the puppies.

Meanwhile, Paige and Blake have sex in their tent out in the woods. Blake stops to check his phone messages and hears bad news from Carly. Vincent shows up and kills Blake, but Paige runs and hides, but not long enough, so he gets her as well.

Nick and Carly run to the movie theater, which is showing “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.” Inside, they turn the tables and finally kill Bo. Wade and Dalton had the car keys, so the pair decide they have to go back inside the house of wax to find them.

Carly finds a news clipping talking about how Bo and Vincent were Siamese Twins joined at the head. Dr. Sinclair separated them. Vincent ended up with a half face. And Bo was the violent one. We cut to Bo, not as dead as he appeared. Outside, Vincent drives up with Blake and Paige’s bodies in the back of the truck.

Bo and Vincent talk - well, Bo talks - and they’re clearly in on the plot together.

Nick finds Dalton in the wax machine and pulls his reconnected head off by accident. Vincent shows up, and the three fight as the wax-cooking fire flares up. The fire gets out of control, and since the whole building is made of wax, it starts melting. Carly beats Bo to death with a baseball bat for real this time, and Vincent starts to chase them, but the whole place is falling down around them. After a battle, Vincent is killed too.

Bo and Vincent fall through the floor into the burning basement, and Nick and Carly have to claw their way through the walls as the whole place oozes down around them.

In the morning, the police arrive, and there are wax-covered bodies all over town, so no one doubts the story. The sheriff explains that the town has been deserted for ten years, and most people forgot the place even existed.

We hear over the sheriff’s radio that the Sinclairs didn’t have two sons, they had three. On the way out of town, Carly notices the weird roadkill guy waving to them on the way out.

Brian’s Commentary

“Town of Wax” would be more accurate. This is almost nothing like the original from 1953.

The melting building was really well done, but where would anyone have gotten that much wax? The acting was fine, the characters were distinctive, and it didn’t get boring. The whole idea is a little hard to believe, but overall, it was a fun movie

Kevin’s Commentary

I really enjoyed this one, it was actually the third time I’ve seen it. Even knowing the twists, it’s a fun movie. The whole package - script, cast, effects, direction, all work for me.

Short Films:

2018 Short Film And The Baby Screamed

* Directed by: Dan Gitsham

* Written by: Dan Gitsham

* Stars: Fionn Gill, Lisa Backwell, Otto Gitsham-Mair

* Run Time: 3:27

* Watch it:

What Happens

There’s a baby crying on the baby monitor. The baby is always crying on the monitor, so the parents argue about whose turn it is to check on the screaming. The father does his thing, and it stops for a bit. Not a long bit, as the crying starts again. And again. And again.

The father finally comes up with a solution to get a good night’s sleep. This turns out to be a really bad idea.

Commentary

It’s a simple idea and a simple story, but it’s still very effective. It’s darker than I would have preferred, but it does all take place late at night, so I can deal. For a hair over three minutes, it’s worth taking a look.

2024 Short Film The Night Nurse

* Directed by: Tim Delaney

* Written by: Tim Delaney

* Stars: Francesca Anderson, Rachel Brun, Emily Jon Mitchell

* Run Time: 12:15

* Watch it:

What Happens

Tallulah’s stuck in the nursing home at Christmas time. She looks longingly at all the visitors that other people are getting. A stranger waves at her, and Tallulah ignores her; she’s a little bitter. The nurse comes in and reminds her that the sun lamp will help with her memory. He’s nice, and then he leaves.

Late that night, Tallulah hears something from her neighbor and goes to investigate. She sees that smiling stranger from earlier biting her old neighbor’s neck. Could she be a vampire? Whether she is or not, will anyone believe an old woman with dementia? Would it be a bad thing to have just one visitor?

Commentary

The vampire here is surprisingly convincing… and tempting. She makes a lot of logical sense. This old lady’s not so far gone that she can’t put up a fight, and that’s exactly what happens. I had a very good idea how it would end, as they projected that too early on with the nurse.

I was immediately reminded of “The Rule of Jenny Pen” (2025). Old people in nursing homes are generally not taken very seriously when they complain.

It’s well shot, nicely paced, and I thought it was really good.

2023 Short Film Red Velvet

* Directed by: Blake Simon

* Written by: Blake Simon

* Stars: Austin Lynn Hall, Alisha Erozer

* Run Time: 13:00

* Watch it:

What Happens

Jack practices introducing himself; he’s nervous about asking a girl out. He calls an escort service and orders an escort for his motel room. It’s all very automated, and Cassandra will be joining him shortly. He bumps the radio and overhears people discussing that the end of the world is imminent, like tonight, imminent.

Jack’s already ordered the prostitute, so what’s he gonna do? He turns on the news to verify what he heard, and yeah, that’s all accurate. He looks down at his arm, and he’s already infected with whatever it is– maybe. It messes with your head first.

Cassandra comes to the door, and he lets her in. Could she be infected? It’s all very confusing. She’s good enough at her job to almost make Jack forget what’s happening outside. Almost.

Commentary

I kept wondering all along if he was just imagining it, which is what we’re supposed to be wondering. Right up to the end, we’re never sure. But we do get answers!

This is fun. We get enough information about the situation to make it tense, but then Jack’s got a whole lot of tension even before the story begins, and it only gets worse for him.

2024 Short Film “O”

* Directed by: Dominik Balkow

* Written by: Dominik Balkow

* Stars: Nadine Scheidecker

* Run Time: 14:06

* Watch it:

What Happens

We open on a dried-up, mummified-looking mouth making the “O” face. We zoom into the mouth for our story…

A woman looks into the hole, back out at us, and smiles. We cut away and see that she’s looking through a hole in a brick wall. She stands there watching the hole all day, well into the night, until a stranger bumps into her and breaks her concentration.

That night, she dreams about the moaning hole and goes right back to it, this time, with a flashlight.

What’s in the hole? She reaches in and finds nothing.

Before long, all holes start doing it…

Commentary

I immediately wondered if we were going to get some kind of play on the glory-hole, much like “Glorious” from 2022. It’s not quite that twisted!

It’s black-and-white and very sharp. It looks great, and all along, we’re wondering what’s in there, as does the woman. It’s a fun tale of obsession and compulsion.

It’s very weird!

2022 Short Film Sushi Noh

* Directed by: Jayden Rathsam Hua

* Written by: Jayden Rathsam Hua

* Stars: Felino Dolloso, Geneva Phan, Jodine Muir

* Run Time: 18 Minutes

* Watch it:

What Happens

Ellie dances to the music until her uncle yells at her to turn the music off. He seems grouchy and doesn’t like her noisy toys. He breaks her toys and won’t let her call her parents. He’s stuck babysitting her while the parents are away at a conference. He has someone coming over tonight, so he demands that she keep quiet. He turns on a TV show about making sushi, and it’s very strange.

Uncle Donnie gets one of the sushi-making machines that’s even weirder than the commercial. Uncle Donnie soon has his date, but she clearly doesn’t like him. He offers her sushi, and she doesn’t like it. Turns out, his big date is really just trying to proselytize to him. She talks about visualizing their dreams, and Ellie listens to all of it.

Ellie learns to “Emanate” her desires.

Commentary

“Emanate!!!!”

I may never eat sushi again. That may be the worst date ever.

I guess the moral of the story is don’t abuse your family, or you may wind up the victim of a sushi curse.

This is awesome, both silly and terrifying at the same time.

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Some classics, some remakes, and some fun for you this week! We’ll start out with the super-powered “Freaks” from 2019. We’ll then watch the original “Cube” film from 1997 and then the Japanese remake from 2021. We’ll do the sequels another time. We’ll watch a couple of old classics next, “The White Reindeer” from 1952, as well as “The Seventh Seal” from 1957.

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Mainstream Films:

2019 Freaks

* Directed by Zach Lipovsky

* Written by Zach Lipovsky

* Stars Emile Hirsch, Bruce Dern, Grace Park

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 45 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This leans heavily into science fiction, action, thriller aspects while whispering in some horror. It starts out nicely with a bit of mystery and gets more fascinating the more we find out what’s going on in this alternate reality. It was very entertaining with a big thumbs up from both of us.

Spoilery Synopsis

A little girl, Chloe, peeks out the window at the ice cream truck on the street. Her father shoos her away from the window and covers it back up, saying she’s not being a good hider, and the bad guys will find her if she’s not careful. She recites all the details about her made-up identity with her dad. She knows exactly what to do if her father ever doesn’t come home. “I can’t wait until I’m normal,” she whines. They seem happy, but they’re also clearly hiding. Is he some kind of loon?

Then Dad’s eyes start to bleed, which surprises no one. She wonders if her eyes will do that someday. He shouts at her, “You are not normal!” and she laughs. Chloe knows things about “the mountain,” but she’s not supposed to know about that.

Chloe dreams about a monster trying to break in the door, and we see that she’s been drawing scary pictures. Turns out, she sees ghosts. Dad says, “Ghosts aren’t real.”

The next morning, Chloe hears the ice cream man outside again, and someone drops a book through the mail slot, “Mr. Snowcone and the Princess.” Chloe wants ice cream. She sees another little girl at the ice cream truck and wishes out loud repeating for Harper to bring her some. She does, so Chloe opens the door. Harper’s mother, Nancy, also stops by and introduces herself. “She looks so normal,” Nancy says. Dad wonders how Harper knows Chloe’s real name.

Harper wakes up and finds Chloe in her room. This version of Harper is Chloe’s sister, at least Chloe thinks so. And wants Harper to pretend she’s Chloe’s mother. Dad comes in, and Chloe’s alone in the locked room. He offers to just buy her some ice cream since he has to go out for supplies anyway.

A short time later, Dad rushes in, covered in blood and holding a gun. “That’s OK, this mostly isn’t my blood,” he says. “I just gotta be more careful.” Not only has he been shot, he’s forgotten the ice cream. He says they may have to stay hidden for a very long time.

Once Dad passes out, Chloe grabs a gun and hundred-dollar bill and goes outside to get some ice cream. She looks around like she’s never been outside before. “Are we safe from the people who want to kill us?” She asks the ice cream man, who happens to know her name. He lures her into the back of his truck and drives her to “the park.” On the way, they pass a billboard showing someone who bleeds from the eyes and a warning to call 911.

They do, in fact, actually go to the park. The old man asks if Chloe can do anything special. He tries to scare her, and then he tries to make her mad, to get a response. “Is there anything you can do that other people can’t do?” A police officer shows up, and the old man claims to be her grandfather. Chloe gets upset at the cop, and she makes him go away with the power of her mind.

On the way home, the old man explains that Chloe’s mother was his daughter– he really is her grandfather, and he really does take her back home. He hands her a drug to make her father go to sleep the next time he returns.

When he wakes up, Chloe’s father finds that his daughter has a new attitude; she calls him a liar. He says her mother was killed because she couldn’t follow the rules. A little later, Chloe finds her mother in the little room where she was with Harper earlier.

We watch Chloe’s father dozing in front of a news report, “Remembering Dallas Ten Years After the Attack,” and they show the city in ruins. The “Abnormals” or “Freaks” are the subject of discussion. Any Freaks who are running loose are illegal. Most of the Freaks have been relocated to a mountain somewhere. “Living weapons of mass destruction,” calls the newscaster. But the agent being interviewed suggests how wonderful it could be to find an Abnormal child they could raise to be good and on their side.

Chloe somehow ends up in Harper’s room while still at her own house during a sleepover, and all the other girls start calling her a Freak. She also finds her mother chained to the floor.

When Chloe tells her father about what she’s seen, he doesn’t believe any of it. She tries to drug him as instructed, but he figures out what she’s doing. She forces him to go to sleep–without the powder, and her eye bleeds.

Chloe wants to go across the street and pay Nancy to become her new mom, but Grandpa shows up and offers to take Chloe to her real mom. Grandpa explains what happened to Chloe’s mother– her father wouldn’t use his powers to protect the family, since he wanted to hide.

Grandpa takes Chloe to see Agent Ray, the woman from the TV. He pretends to be a priest who’s been taking care of an “Abnormal.” Ray has an easy, painless way to detect mutants by using an ultraviolet flashlight to see if there are traces of blood tears, and the old man looks clear. He wants Ray to take them both to Maddick Mountain. That plan goes south, and the old man makes them both disappear– he can turn invisible! He stabs a cook in the eye, and the overzealous cops shoot that guy as they invisibly escape. He believes that his daughter is still alive and being held at the Evil Mountain.

Chloe’s dad, Henry, appears out of nowhere, and teleports the old man away. He says he’s been looking for her for a week. Then we see that Henry doesn’t teleport, he can slow down and even stop time outside a bubble he projects. The world only advances while he sleeps; it’s only been a few months since Chloe’s mom died, but it’s been years inside the house from their point of view inside the bubble he projects.

Henry takes Chloe and a big pile of money across the street to Nancy and Steven’s house. They expected this; Henry wants to leave Chloe with them with the promise of regular payments. Harper is there as well, and she doesn’t like Chloe, who has been appearing in her room; she’s gonna be a problem. This is a weird situation, and Nancy and Steven argue. Chloe makes the problem go away– for a few minutes before they’re thrown out.

Henry and Chloe go back home, where Grandpa Alan is tied to a chair. As the two men argue, Chloe talks to her mother in the attic. When Henry tries to nail the door shut, Chloe makes him nearly kill himself before passing out herself.

Alan tells Henry that Mary isn’t really dead. This leads to an argument. Chloe notices Nancy, across the street, talking to the police about getting a reward. Chloe makes the policeman stab Nancy in the eye, and then the other cops see her eye bleeding and shoot her.

Chloe gets a vision of her mother strapped to a bed after being tortured. Henry sees it too, this time. He apologizes as they watch two workers get ready to inject something into Mary. Chloe makes them stop, at whatever distance the scientists are away. She then makes the remaining man release Mary, fully possessing him.

Agent Ray comes to the door, which interrupts everything; Henry freezes the entire outside world. Chloe wants Henry to talk to Ray and convince her that he’s normal. Alan shows Henry how to get past Ray’s ultraviolet light test, so he lets her in. They talk about Freaks in the neighborhood like Nancy and Steve. She knows who he is as well as the whole family story. She’s got drones outside ready to kill them all if he doesn’t cooperate, as well as heavily armed cops outside. Meanwhile, Chloe continues to fully control that other security man, who wheels Mary toward the prison exit. Mary has said she has to get outside to have room to use her power.

As Ray and Henry talk, Alan, who is invisible, steals Ray’s gun. Ray says Henry will be killed, but Chloe will be saved and used as a weapon. Ray knows he’s there. She shoots Henry and goes upstairs to find Chloe doing her thing with Mary and the man at the prison. Ray shoots Chloe, but Grandpa gets in the way and blocks the bullet; he dies. Chloe then makes Ray shoot herself.

Henry comes upstairs, and he uses Ray’s radio to tell the men outside that she’s a hostage. Henry freezes time, goes outside, and shoots several of the cops before starting time up again, which gives the rest of them pause.

Inside the mountain, the guards close in on Mary, but Chloe makes them open the doors. Mary then flies away with a shockwave that blasts all the guards outside into pulp, “I know where to find you,” she tells her. Henry slows the Hellfire missile that’s in the process of hitting their roof and he runs out with Chloe.

A bit later, Chloe wakes up just as Henry dies. Mary shows up, she flew all the way there. The shockwave from her landing kills the remaining soldiers closing in on Chloe. She carries Chloe away, who declares that they aren’t going to hide anymore.

Brian’s Commentary

This should not be confused with the 1932 film “Freaks” which is a whole different animal.

We start off with a paranoid, isolating father who appears to be crazy, and it goes quite a long time until we learn otherwise. We’re forty minutes in before we figure out that this is the X-Men universe. The X-Men are fun, but this film is probably much more like the way it would really work out if mutants were real.

Bruce Dern was 83 here and it’s a big part for someone of that age. Lexy Walker, as Chloe, is very young and does an outstanding job here as well. Emile Hirsch looks just like a young Jack Black for some reason, but he’s good too.

It’s a bit minimal on the horror elements, but it was really entertaining.

Kevin’s Commentary

I thought this was very cool. We got to gradually find out what was going on in this alternate world, and once we did it was a cool story. The effects of Chloe’s distance viewing and projection, the time dilation, and the invisibility were all very well done. I’d give it a solid thumbs up.

1997 Cube

* Directed by Vincenzo Natali

* Written by Andre Bijelic, Vincenzo Natali, Graeme Manson

* Stars: Nicole de Boer, Maurice Dean Wint, David Hewlett

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 37 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This is heavy on science fiction, but certainly has the horror elements with trapped people, deadly traps, and gruesome deaths. We travel through the cube trap with the cast, trying to figure out what’s going on as they do.

Spoilery Synopsis

A bald man wakes up on the floor inside an industrial-looking room that’s cube-shaped. Each of the six sides, four walls, floor, and ceiling, has a door in the center. He opens one and goes into the next room, which is identical to the first. He goes through several rooms, lit in different colors. Suddenly, something happens, and the man falls to pieces– literally. We see a razor sharp grid– these rooms are trapped! Credits roll.

A man whose shirt says “Quentin” wakes up another named Worth. They are joined by two women, Leaven and Holloway. Quentin has blood on his hands, and he tells the others about the traps. An older man, Rennes, comes in, and he’s found a way to avoid the trap rooms by throwing his shoes in first. None of them remembers how they got there.

Who built this place? The government? Aliens? Holloway is a doctor, Quentin is a cop, Rennes is a career criminal who is known for escaping prisons. Leaven is a student and Worth is “just an office guy.” The group uses the “boot trick” to move through several more rooms as they start looking for a way out. Leaven notices that each room has a serial number. Rennes gives them all a speech about being careful seconds before being sprayed with acid in the face and melting. So much for the boot method.

Quentin and Leaven look at the serial numbers on the doors and notice that the trapped rooms all have a prime number. The pattern seems to work, and they go through a bunch of rooms, all alike. Once in a while, they hear machinery in the walls doing something. They open a door and find a mentally challenged man inside; he’s Kazan.

They all start getting tired and hungry. Quentin falls into a trap and gets cut, but the room isn’t prime, so they don’t understand that. Quentin and Leaven start to get really annoyed with Kazan, who’s loud and smells bad. They all argue with Worth, who has a bad attitude and doesn’t believe there is a way out. He eventually admits he worked in the office who drew the plans for the shell of the cube. The group all argues about conspiracy theories and ideas about how this place got made. It all starts to sound pretty hopeless, so Quentin beats up Worth.

With Worth’s information, Leaven figures out that the cube has 17,000-plus rooms. She also figures out that the serial numbers are three-dimensional coordinates.

They find a room where the trap is activated by sound, but they have to go through instead of around. They’re all concerned about Kazan, who’s noisy at the best of times, but they all make it through. Afterward, Quentin and Hollway argue about him being abusive. They make it to where they think the door should be, but it’s just a sheer wall outside.

Holloway sings from a rope made of clothing to try and get somewhere “outside,” which doesn’t work. Something moves, and she nearly falls but Quentin catches her. Then Quentin lets her fall to her death.

Leaven, Kazan, Worth, and Quentin decide the best bet is to go down, so they can drop out the bottom. They all stop for a nap first. As the others sleep, Quentin hauls Leaven away to leave the others and go off on their own. It soon becomes apparent that Quentin is a little but insane– and maybe a pedophile as well. Worth comes to the rescue, and the others realize that Quentin killed Holloway. Still, might makes right, so Quentin beats Worth senseless.

Uh-oh. They come to a room and find Rennes’ body. They’ve travelled in a circle somehow. No, they soon figure out that the rooms move around. Leaven does some math, and she says she knows where the exit is. The math is way too advanced for her to figure out, and then Kazan chimes in with the answer; he’s a human calculator (and an excellent driver as well, most likely).

The three manage to escape from Quentin, and they leave him behind. They come to the “bridge” room and wait for it to move. The rooms then shift and they lose Kazan somewhere. He doesn’t go far, and they retrieve him as they end up in the final room. They enter the bridge to the outside.

They see the light outside, but Worth doesn’t want to leave, since he feels that this is all his fault. As he and Leaven talk, Quentin sneaks in behind them and kills Leaven. He also stabs Worth. Kazan goes outside, but Worth hangs onto Quentin just long enough for the room to cut him in half when they move again.

Worth, Badly wounded, lays down next to Leaven’s body as the cubes reset again. Kazan walks out to the exit, alone.

Brian’s Commentary

Julian Richings was on the poster, the trailer, and all the advertising, but he’s only in it for thirty seconds and never says a word. Iconic!

Seven actors and one set. This would have a hard time being more low budget, but it’s really good.

The rooms all made sense until they started talking about permutations, and that’s where they lost me. The movie is essentially a math puzzle.

This was good when it came out, and it still holds up today.

Kevin’s Commentary

Having the rooms be different colors is such a simple idea but so effective in making a single set seem like a maze of rooms. This was my third or fourth time seeing it, and I think it’s great. I like everything about it.

2021 Cube

* Directed by Yasuhiko Shimizu

* Written by Vincenzo Natali, Koji Tokuo

* Stars Tokio Emoto, Masaki Okada, Takumi Saito

* Run Time: 1 Hour 48 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This is a Japanese remake of the 1997 English language film “Cube.” While it does have some differences to make it a bit interesting, it has an even lower budget feel to it than the original and we both thought it was on the dull side for much of the film. If you’re a fan of the 1997 version and two follow-up movies, you’ll probably find this at least interesting. But we don’t highly recommend it.

Spoilery Synopsis

A man opens a door and climbs through the small hole. He enters a cubical room from one of the sides. He opens the opposite door and goes inside. There’s a room exactly like it, only in a different color. As he walks across the floor to the next door, giant tubes shoot out of the wall to impale him and a big cube of flesh falls out of his chest before he collapses.

Another prisoner wakes up to find two other people in the room with him. None of them know how or why they are there. A door opens and someone throws a shoe in . This guy walks through to the next door, and one of the prisoners asks him what’s going on. They open the ceiling door and find the first man and his chest chunk. Then a girl opens the door and comes in as well. Credits roll.

The guy with the shoes demonstrates to the others that some of the rooms are booby-trapped. Everyone introduces themselves. Kai, Goto, Uno, and Ide talk about what they do in the real world. Then they all freak out a bit until they calm down and Ide leads them to the next room.

Goto notices that each room seems to have a serial number. They keep moving until they find an older man, Ando, in one of the rooms. Now, there are six of them. Uno, the youngest - a boy, doesn’t like to talk or be touched.

Suddenly, the lights go out, and giant spinning fans start to descend. The room they are in is rigged; they barely manage to open the floor door and escape. Not long after, Uno figures out that the room numbers can predict whether or not there is a trap inside. He and Goto work on some math problems for about an hour, and then find a pattern.

The group starts making rapid progress, as the prime numbers seem to indicate the presence of a trap. They find one room that’s got a sound-activated trap, and they have to be very, very quiet. Ando gets a cut on his leg after Ochi accidentally makes a noise.

The next door they open has that first guy and his hollowed-out chest again. They’ve travelled in a circle? No, the rooms move! Soon after, Ide gets cut to bits with a laser in one of the rooms.

Everyone sits around while Uno does more math problems. Bars come up out of the floor, splitting the room, and the group, in half. Ando says that’s OK, he hates young people anyway, and he goes off on his own. Ochi on his side has no choice but to follow him.

Uno, Goto, and Kai continue in another direction, still relying on the numbers to guide them. Goto and the others watch a projection of himself in the past, on the roof of a building as his brother, Hiruto, stands on the edge. He says the wrong thing, and Hiruto jumps to his death.

Ando and Ochi, in a different room, talk about how much they hate each other; it’s old versus young with these two. Youth wins out, as Ochi crushes the old man’s head in one of the doors.

Uno yells at Goto that he understands why Hiruto killed himself; adults are garbage! Uno then jumps into a deathtrap, but Goto grabs and saves him instead. Kai opens the next door, which opens to an empty space. They watch as one of the rooms moves; is that the exit? Must be.

They decide to make for that cube near the door and see if it is the exit they need. Ochi opens the door and finds them again. He’s covered in blood and says Ando got killed in a trap. Uno catches on quickly that he’s lying, but the others don’t. He tells Goto, but Goto is skeptical that Ochi would have killed Ando.

Ochi very soon exposes himself by attacking Goto. He’s gone quite insane from working at a convenience store. It’s more complicated than just that, but it makes a kind of sense. He makes a long speech before trying to kill Goto. He doesn’t want to go outside. Abruptly, a trap goes off and kills Ochi. The room starts to move, and Goto gets left behind.

Kai and Uno ride the moving cube to the exit. After Uno gets out, Kai decides to stay inside and says goodbye to him as he walks away. We cut to Goto, who is all cut up, injured, and very much not quite dead yet.

We see on a screen about the ones killed, that Uno was “Released” while Goto was “Continued.” Kai, on the other hand, has glowing computerized eyes that go back to appearing normal after a moment. She goes into a room with another batch of prisoners, and you can see her processing each of them one at a time visually before she speaks. It appears she’s some sort of android or cyborg, and she’s been in on the whole thing all along.

Brian’s Commentary

Kevin said, “This is for people who liked the first Cube, but wished it was more slow and dull.” I can’t argue with him. There are long stretches with no dialogue, and the math problems are cranked way up as well.

The original had some commentary about the conflict between rich and poor people; this one seems to do the same with age differences and child abuse.

We see lots of pointless American remakes of foreign movies, like “Funny Games,” “Speak No Evil,” or “The Ring.” This one spins that around and does a Japanese remake of an American movie. This one is equally as pointless and diminished as those other remakes.

Right off the bat, we noticed that the cube’s walls and floor are cheaper looking and smaller than in the original. It’s not a shot-for-shot remake, but it’s pretty close. The characters are all different types, and some of the traps are different from the first film.

There are some flashbacks and new things, but not enough to make this as good as the original. It picks up a bit in the second half, but the first one is still far superior.

Kevin’s Commentary

As Brian mentions in his commentary, for the most part, I found this kind of low-key and dull. There are enough differences from the original to spark some interest here and there, but overall, I didn’t care for it. The set and technical aspects weren’t as good as the original. The second half is better, but overall it’s just okay.

1952 The White Reindeer

* Directed by Erik Blomberg

* Written by Erik Blomberg, Mirjami Kuosmanen

* Stars Mirjami Kuosmanen, Kalervo Nissila, Ake Lindman

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 14 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Instead of the vampire turning into a bat, she turns into a white reindeer - that was a different take we’ve never seen before. This was kind of interesting seeing what life was like in a small Finnish community in 1952. The movie has a dark fairy tale vibe to it, literally starting out with a woman setting up the story, and there’s also vibes that it's a documentary about these people and the nature they live with. It wouldn’t be for everyone, but we thought it was a decent watch.

Spoilery Synopsis

We watch people wandering around in a desolate snowscape as the singer tells us about a witch with “evil in her belly.” There’s also a story about a girl who turned into a deer and died when a hunter killed her. We watch the woman make it to the witch’s tent, give birth, and die.

We cut to Pirita at the reindeer-sled races. It’s like the Iditarod meets Ben Hur. Pirita is way ahead when a man throws a lasso over her and pulls her off the sled. They laugh and then kiss.

Later, the man, Aslak, meets her parents and says he has good intentions and pays a dowry. There’s a party and lots of drinking and toasts. It’s a happy day for everyone!

Some time passes, and although the two love each other, they have a dead bedroom. He leaves to go on a weeks-long reindeer cattle drive, which leaves her at home alone.

Pirita goes to visit an evil-looking man, Taslkku-Nilla, out in a very remote cabin. She wants a love potion from him. His magic drum gets out of control, and even he’s afraid of it, calling her a witch. He does tell her that she has to sacrifice the first living thing she sees when she leaves– which is her pet reindeer, a little white tame one.

She takes the little reindeer to the altar of the Stone God and kills it with her knife. She then passes out in the snow and gets a vision.

Pirita goes looking for Aslak, but he’s not in the camp when she gets there, he’s out hunting. She goes to sleep in the tent with all the other men, but she wakes up in the middle of the night. She leaves the tent and becomes a big white reindeer.

Some hunters see the white reindeer and start tracking it. One of the hunters ropes the animal and wrestles it to the ground, just as we saw Pirita do earlier. Suddenly, the deer is Pirita, laughing at the shocked hunter. As he leans in for a kiss, she gets a surprised look and bites him on the neck, killing him.

Other hunters find the body and bring it back to the village. All the village men find Pirita attractive, especially after the love potion spell, and that night, she eats another man.

The men talk about the “White witch reindeer,” and argue about superstition. They discuss their favorite weapons. They spot a white reindeer outside and one man chases it and shoots it, but his gun explodes. He sees Pirita there, laughing at him.

That night, back in camp, the man with the exploding gun recognizes Pirita and chases her with a torch. The other men wrestle him to the ground, but now, Aslak is a little suspicious of his wife. She looks in the mirror and sees that she now has fangs. That night, she almost kills Aslak, but doesn’t at the last moment.

At church, Pirita doesn’t sing with all the other women, and people notice. Aslak sharpens his spear; he wants that reindeer. “Cold iron is the only way to kill a witch,” he proclaims. We see that a lot of people in town are readying iron weapons.

The white reindeer returns, and all the men grab their spears and go after it. Pirita knows she’s in trouble and goes back to Tsalkku-Nilla to undo the spell, but she finds him frozen to death inside his hut; no help there.

She runs back to the sacrificial altar and begs the stone god to take back his magic. Instead, she turns into the reindeer right then and runs off. Aslak sees the reindeer from a distance and pursues it on his skis. He gets it with his spear and approaches, only to find out that it’s his own wife.

Brian’s Commentary

I had no idea people used reindeer as sled dogs or could just catch a wild one to tow your sled. Very cool! There are a lot of shots of reindeers and people herding, hunting, and wrestling them.

There’s very little dialogue, so even if you don’t like subtitles, this isn’t excessive. Visually, it’s excellent, especially if you’re curious about Finland in the old days (it’s vague about when this takes place, but it could've been as late as 1952).

It’s interesting due to the location and time period, but there’s not really much of a story or drama here. A lot of it feels like a nature documentary rather than horror. I suspect many modern audiences would find it boring.

Kevin’s Commentary

The best part about this was getting a historical peek at a very different culture, thriving in a frozen land, from many decades ago. It’s low-key on horror, more like a fairy tale, but I thought it was worth watching.

1957 The Seventh Seal

* Directed by Ingmar Bergman

* Written by Ingmar Bergman

* Stars Max Von Sydow, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Bengt Ekeros

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 36 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

It’s a visually interesting piece that explores religion, philosophy, human relationships, the meaning of life, and death. Death is personified and while it’s not their first appearance on film, it’s an iconic version that has influenced other later movies and media. It’s pretty grim through much of it, and on the talky side, but it’s one worth checking out for sure if you haven’t seen it.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a deserted-looking beach, and we hear about the lamb opening the seventh seal, and the signs of the apocalypse. We cut to shots of dead men on the beach, from a shipwreck, including Antonius Block. He gets up and prays, not as dead as the others. Well, maybe not so good, since Death himself appears to him. “Are you ready?” Antonius challenges Death to a very high-stakes game of chess.

Antonius rides his horse away, with Squire Jons tagging along, talking about all kinds of ominous things. They try to ask a man for directions, but he’s obviously died from the plague.

Jof wakes up, gets out of his wagon and talks to his horse until he has a vision of a mother and child walking through the grass– he assumes it is the Virgin Mary. He goes inside and tells Mia about what he saw. She doesn’t believe him since he’s played pranks on her before. They are part of an acting troupe, and they've been hired to entertain the priests, who are all worried about the plague.

Squire Jons talks to a man painting a mural about the value of scary paintings. It’s a painting of the plague dead, meant to remind the living that they’re going to die. Jons tells that they’ve just come home from the Crusades.

Antonius arrives at the church and makes a confession– to Death. He laments that he doesn’t care about his fellow man, and he has major doubts about his faith. He wants knowledge, not faith. Why won’t God show his face? Antonius wants to use his reprieve from Death to do one worthwhile act.

Antonius and Jons go outside and find a woman being flogged for having “carnal intercourse with the devil.” They think she’s the cause of the plague. Antonius and Jons ride out of town.

The two come upon a mostly abandoned town. Jons talks to Ravel, who brags about robbing the many dead in town. He’s the man who talked Antonius into going on the crusade ten years ago; it was a scam of some kind, and Jons threatens to kill Ravel if they see him again. Ravel’s woman becomes Jons’s housekeeper.

The acting troupe/circus has come to town. One of the actors follows a local woman into the bushes for a good time. The act is interrupted when a bunch of creepy monks and sick people march into town in a macabre parade. Everyone stops, prays, and cries. “You shall all die from the Black Death,” says the leader. He’s… not a fun man. After his morbid speech ends, the whole group moves on.

Everyone knows the plague is coming, and there’s a lot of angst as they wait in dread. The people are talking about Judgment Day and what that entails.

Plog the blacksmith is looking for his wife, who ran off with Jonas, the actor we saw earlier. He talks to, and threatens, Jof, because he’s an actor, too. They force him to dance and perform until Jons comes and rescues him.

Antonius sits in front of the chessboard and talks to Mia, who has a small baby, Mikael. He recognizes her from the circus show. Jof comes back, and he’s a mess from his ordeal. Antonius and Jof talk about safe places to hide from the plague. Antonius offers to guide them through the forest. Antonius talks about his wife, whom he hasn’t seen in a decade.

He likes being here with this calm, quiet family, and he’s cheerful when Death comes to play a turn of chess. Death vaguely hints that something bad might happen to Jof and his family. Plog, the blacksmith, begs to come with the group through the forest, hoping to find his missing wife.

Antonius, Jons, and a few others lead Jons’s family through the woods. They very soon catch up with Plog’s wife, Lisa, and Skat the actor. The two men call each other names until Lisa begs forgiveness. Lisa is obviously manipulating both men, and Jons cynically watches the whole thing.

Skat hides by climbing a tree, but then gets upset when Death arrives with a big saw to cut the tree down. “Your time has come. Your contract is terminated.” The tree falls and Skat dies.

Soldiers walk through, pushing a cart with the witch aboard, they’re heading to the execution grounds.

Antonius tells the witch that he’d like to meet the devil in order to ask him about God. She doesn’t have any good answers. The men burn the witch. Antonius and Jons argue over whether anyone, God, the angels, or Satan, is watching over the poor girl.

A man infected with the plague crawls into camp looking for help. Jons won’t let anyone go near the man or help him, as it’s pointless.

Later, Jof watches as Death returns for his game with Antonius. Mia thinks Antonius is alone, but Jof sees Death for what he is. “Nothing escapes me,” says Death. Antonius tries to spill the board, but Death restores the pieces and says Antonius is going to lose in the next movie. “When next we meet, you and your companion’s time will be up.” He still won’t say anything about the afterlife.

There’s a storm, and Jof and Mia have to park the wagon for the night. They know Death is on their heels. Meanwhile, Antonius and Jons enter a castle and look around. It’s Antonius’s home, and his wife is inside. They all sit down to dinner until Death shows up and they all recognize him… “It is finished,” says the mute girl.

We cut to Jof, Mia, and Mikael, all fine and healthy in the morning after the storm has passed. Jof sees the rest of the characters walking in a line as the Grim Reaper leads them in a long dancing line. Antonius, Jons, Skat, Plog, Lisa, and the mute girl are all dead now.

Brian’s Commentary

You know it’s old when Max Von Sydow gets fourth billing under people you’ve never heard of.

This wasn’t the first portrayal of Death as a character, but it was an extremely influential depiction.

It’s basically all the characters talking about how people deal with death, loss, and faith. It’s very philosophical, and all the characters have their own opinions. It’s an exceptionally bleak film, and they don’t get much more morbid and death-obsessed than this one. Visually, it’s excellent, the characters are all good, and there’s a lot of talking about religion and philosophy here.

Kevin’s Commentary

You never know when you’ll be climbing a tree and Death will come along with a saw to collect you. And the tree. This movie was much more interesting than I expected, full of engrossing and thought-provoking moments. Visually it’s great, the cast does a fine job, and the writer/director Ingmar Bergman clearly knew what he was doing.

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No special theme this week, just a lot of creepy stuff!

We’ll start with the excellent Lovecraftian “Dagon” from 2001. We’ll then look at a different cult in 2015’s “Baskin.” We’ll then eat some of “The Devil’s Candy” and then watch the excellent remake of “Dawn of the Dead” from 2004. 

For our newsletter-exclusive bonus films this week, we’ll also watch:

• “Demonic Toys” (1992)

• The anthology film “Holidays” (2016) 

https://brianschell.com/collection/horrorguys

Here. We. Go!

Links:

• Dagon (2004) https://www.horrorguys.com/dagon-2001/ 

• Baskin (2015) https://www.horrorguys.com/baskin-2015

• Short Film: Vestige (2023) https://www.horrorguys.com/short-film-vestige-2023

• Dawn of the Dead (2004) https://www.horrorguys.com/dawn-of-the-dead-2004

• The Devil’s Candy (2015) https://www.horrorguys.com/the-devils-candy-2015

And that’s our show. Thanks for joining us. Stop in during the week at our website, HorrorMovieGuys.com, for news and horror updates, to comment on this podcast, or to contact us.

Get ready for next week, where we’ll watch four more full-lengths and a fun short film!

Stay tuned!

Stay tuned for more regular and bonus reviews next week!

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• Book Store: https://brianschell.com/collection/horrorguys 

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We’ve got five movies this week:

We’ll start with the funny zombie movie that started it all, “Shaun of the Dead” from 2004. Then we’ll visit “Zombieland” twice, in 2009 and 2019. 2013’s “Warm Bodies” is a bit of a different take on zombies, as is “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” from 2019. 

On our newsletter site, horrorbulletin.com we discuss all the above PLUS: 

• “The Uninvited” (1944)

• “65” (2023) 

https://brianschell.com/collection/horrorguys

Here. We. Go!

Links:

• Shaun of the Dead (2004) https://www.horrorguys.com/shaun-of-the-dead-2004/

•  Zombieland (2009) https://www.horrorguys.com/zombieland-2009/

• Zombieland 2: Double Tap (2019) https://www.horrorguys.com/zombieland-double-tap-2019/

• Warm Bodies (2013) https://www.horrorguys.com/warm-bodies-2013/

• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2019) https://www.horrorguys.com/pride-and-prejudice-and-zombies-2016/

And that’s our show. Thanks for joining us. Stop in during the week at our website, HorrorMovieGuys.com, for news and horror updates, to comment on this podcast, or to contact us.

Get ready for next week, where we’ll watch four more full-lengths and a fun short film!

Stay tuned!

Stay tuned for more regular and bonus reviews next week!

• Email: email@horrorguys.com 

• Book Store: https://brianschell.com/collection/horrorguys 

• The web: http://www.horrorguys.com

• Subscribe by email: http://horrorbulletin.substack.com

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• Theme Music by Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com

We’ve got five movies this week:

We’ll start with the 1986 film, “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer,” then move on to 1995’s “Se7en.” Then we’ll watch a fictionalized version of the real-life “Zodiac” and go insane with “The Collector” and “I Saw the Devil.” Crazy stuff!

On our newsletter site, horrorbulletin.com we discuss all the above, PLUS: 

• “Hollywood in the Atomic Age - Monsters! Martians! Mad Scientists!” (2021) 

https://brianschell.com/collection/horrorguys

Here. We. Go!

Links:

• Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer https://www.horrorguys.com/henry-portrait-of-a-serial-killer-1986/

• Se7en https://www.horrorguys.com/se7en-1995/

• Zodiac https://www.horrorguys.com/zodiac-2008/

• The Collector https://www.horrorguys.com/the-collector-2009/

• I Saw the Devil https://www.horrorguys.com/i-saw-the-devil-2010/

And that’s our show. Thanks for joining us. Stop in during the week at our website, HorrorMovieGuys.com, for news and horror updates, to comment on this podcast, or to contact us.

Get ready for next week, where we’ll watch four more full-lengths and a fun short film!

Stay tuned!

Stay tuned for more regular and bonus reviews next week!

• Email: email@horrorguys.com 

• Book Store: https://brianschell.com/collection/horrorguys 

• The web: http://www.horrorguys.com

• Subscribe by email: http://horrorbulletin.substack.com

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• Theme Music by Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com

We’ve got four more movies and a short film this week:

We’ll start with the early-2000s zombie classics, “28 Days Later” and “28 Weeks Later,” then we’ll watch the crazy 1963 kaiju movie “Atragon.” Finally, we’ll discuss “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” from 2017.

On our newsletter site, horrorbulletin.com we discuss all the above, PLUS: 

• “Monster on Campus” from 1958

• “Overlord” from 2018

https://brianschell.com/collection/horrorguys

Here. We. Go!

Links:

• 28 Days Later (2002) https://www.horrorguys.com/28-days-later-2002/

• 28 Weeks Later (2007) https://www.horrorguys.com/28-weeks-later-2007/

• Short Film: Worth The Weight (2023) https://www.horrorguys.com/short-film-worth-the-weight-2023/

• Atragon (1963) https://www.horrorguys.com/atragon-1963/

• The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) https://www.horrorguys.com/the-killing-of-a-sacred-deer-2017/

And that’s our show. Thanks for joining us. Stop in during the week at our website, HorrorMovieGuys.com, for news and horror updates, to comment on this podcast, or to contact us.

Get ready for next week, where we’ll watch four more full-lengths and a fun short film!

Stay tuned!

Stay tuned for more regular and bonus reviews next week!

• Email: email@horrorguys.com 

• Book Store: https://brianschell.com/collection/horrorguys 

• The web: http://www.horrorguys.com

• Subscribe by email: http://horrorbulletin.substack.com

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• Theme Music by Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com

We’ve got four more movies and a short film this week:

We’ll start with the 2023 Swissploitation film, “Mad Heidi.” Then we’ll go back and watch both the good “Warlock” movies from 1989 and 1993. Finally, we’ll visit with “The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane” from way back in 1976

For our bonus films, over at https://horrorbulletin.com, we have:

• “The Devil Bat” with Bela Lugosi from 1940

• “Timecrimes” from 2007

Here. We. Go!

Links:

• Mad Heidi (2023) https://www.horrorguys.com/mad-heidi-2023/

• Warlock (1989) https://www.horrorguys.com/warlock-1989/

• Warlock II: The Armageddon (1993) https://www.horrorguys.com/warlock-ii-the-armageddon-1993/

• Short Film: Flat (2023) https://www.horrorguys.com/short-film-flat-2023

• The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976) https://www.horrorguys.com/the-little-girl-who-lived-down-the-lane-1976/

And that’s our show. Thanks for joining us. Stop in during the week at our website, HorrorMovieGuys.com, for news and horror updates, to comment on this podcast, or to contact us.

Get ready for next week, where we’ll watch four more full-lengths and a fun short film!

Stay tuned!

Stay tuned for more regular and bonus reviews next week!

• Email: email@horrorguys.com 

• Book Store: https://brianschell.com/collection/horrorguys 

• The web: http://www.horrorguys.com

• Subscribe by email: http://horrorbulletin.substack.com

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/horrormovieguys

• Twitter: http://twitter.com/HorrorMovieGuys

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• Threads: https://threads.net/brian_schell

• Theme Music by Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com

We’ve got four more movies and a short film this week:

We’ll start with the 2023 documentary, “The Dogman Triangle: Werewolves in the Lone Star State.” Then we’ll go to Ireland and become “Unwelcome.” After our short film, well meet 2020’s “Becky” and follow up with her sequel, this year’s “The Wrath of Becky.”

For our bonus films, over at https://horrorbulletin.com, we have:

• “Malum” (2023) - A police officer spends the night in a very strange old jailhouse. 

• “Hellraiser: Bloodline” (1996) - the fourth film of the series, this time covering the creation of the puzzle box and giving us Pinhead— in space!

Here. We. Go!

Links:

• The Dogman Triangle: Werewolves in the Lone Star State (2023) https://www.horrorguys.com/the-dogman-triangle-werewolves-in-the-lone-star-state-2023/

• Unwelcome (2023) https://www.horrorguys.com/unwelcome-2023/

• Short Film: Serbian Dancing Woman (2023) https://www.horrorguys.com/short-film-serbian-dancing-woman-2023/

• Becky (2020) https://www.horrorguys.com/becky-2023/

• The Wrath of Becky (2023) https://www.horrorguys.com/the-wrath-of-becky-2023/

And that’s our show. Thanks for joining us. Stop in during the week at our website, HorrorMovieGuys.com, for news and horror updates, to comment on this podcast, or to contact us.

Get ready for next week, where we’ll watch four more full-lengths and a fun short film!

Stay tuned!

Stay tuned for more regular and bonus reviews next week!

• Email: email@horrorguys.com 

• Book Store: https://brianschell.com/collection/horrorguys 

• The web: http://www.horrorguys.com

• Subscribe by email: http://horrorbulletin.substack.com

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/horrormovieguys

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• Theme Music by Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com

We’ve got four more movies and a short film this week:

We’ll start with the 2023 Shudder Original, “Brooklyn 45,” a WWII-era ghost story— sorta. We’ll then go to prison in “Nefarious,” also from this year. After we watch our short film, “Canary,” we’ll watch an outrageous killer-doll film, “Baby Oopsie.” We’ll then wrap it up with “The Black Demon” from 2023.

For our bonus films, over at https://horrorbulletin.com, we have:

•    “Society” (1989) - A very strange body-horror movie with, um, “social” commentary.

•    “Morgan” (2016) - It’s an insane, killer robot!— or is it?

Here. We. Go!

Links:

•    Brooklyn 45 https://www.horrorguys.com/brooklyn-45-2023

•     Nefarious https://www.horrorguys.com/nefarious-2023

•    Short Film: Canary https://www.horrorguys.com/short-film-canary-2023

•    Baby Oopsie https://www.horrorguys.com/baby-oopsie-2021

•    The Black Demon https://www.horrorguys.com/the-black-demon-2023

And that’s our show. Thanks for joining us. Stop in during the week at our website, HorrorMovieGuys.com, for news and horror updates, to comment on this podcast, or to contact us.

Get ready for next week, where we’ll watch four more full-lengths and a fun short film!

Stay tuned!

Stay tuned for more regular and bonus reviews next week!

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•    Theme Music by Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com