Horror Weekly

We’ve got another weird mix of old and new this time around. We’ll begin with the new “Forgive Us All,” then discuss “Insidious Chapter 3,” “Godzilla vs. Biollante” and then both the original “Witchboard” (1986) and the brand-new remake from 2025.The latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #49, is on sale now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2025 Forgive Us All* Directed by: Jordana Stott* Written by: Jordana Stott, Lance Giles, Alex Makauskas* Stars: Lily Sullivan, Callan Mulvey, Richard Roxburgh* Run Time: 1 Hour, 33 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIn a beautiful location in New Zealand, we see a slice of a zombie apocalypse. And we quickly see that living jerks are just as dangerous as the infected in the aftermath. A woman in mourning finds a wounded traveler being pursued, and we gradually piece together what life and politics are like now. Rather than a non-stop action take, this is more of a story that takes its time, focusing on the people trying to survive. We give it a moderate thumbs up.Spoilery SynopsisA woman cries and screams next to a fresh grave. As she carries her pistol back to the house, we see that a struggle took place that resulted in a shooting. She then looks in on her sleeping child, who is also covered in blood and barely breathing. Although it looks like she’s dying, Maddie sits up and looks possessed. Maddie leaps, and we hear a gunshot. Credits roll.Two years later, Rory still wakes up with nightmares over that whole situation. She listens to a radio report that sounds bleak. She passes Otto on the way out, and it’s clear that they live way out in the wilderness.We cut to a rider leaving Camp 13, zooming right past the sign that says, “GMA Quarantine Processing.” Two other horseback riders are right behind him, in pursuit. The man’s partner gets caught instead. They torture him for the first rider’s location, but he dies rather than give it up.Back with Rory, who still grieves about Maddie, she’s considering killing herself, but doesn’t. She finds the horse, who leads her to the unconscious rider. He looks like he’s dying, but she takes his bag, slings him over the saddle, and sets off leading the horse.Meanwhile, Otto finds a bunch of bones that belonged to their neighbor, Henry. The body appears to be mostly eaten. He sees three men, GMA agents, on horseback and hides, but there’s also something screaming in the woods nearby.Rory takes the wounded man home and looks him over before locking him inside the barn. She opens his package and finds medicine inside that says “Take within 72 hours of infection.” When Otto returns, she shows him the still-unconscious stranger. Otto’s not happy. Also there’s a storm coming, “They’ll be out in force tonight.” At dinner, they argue about life in general.That night, she reminisces about Maddie and her drawing of a dragonfly. Her father was off helping the sick people, but Rory doesn’t know much about the virus. Suddenly, Connor, the father, opens the door, and he’s clearly not right. He jumps at them and– Rory wakes up.She goes out to the barn to check on her prisoner, and he’s up and around now. They hear a “Howler” outside and have a quick scuffle. He’s Noah, and she patches up his wounds. Noah broke into the GMA base and stole the antidote for his own sick son. It’s still dark, so if he leaves now, the Howlers will get him. Still, his time to use the antidote on his son is running out.Not far away, the three trackers, Logan, Scout, and Brooks, find Rory’s house and wait to see what happens. Rory and Otto argue about what to do about the sick boy whose time is running out. As they bicker, the GMA agents ride up.Rory and Noah take the horse as Otto stays behind to stall the agents. There’s a gunfight, and Brooks dies, as does Otto. Logan is injured, but he’ll live. Scout tells Logan she’s not going with him; she doesn’t want to be a part of this anymore, so Logan goes on alone after Noah and Rory.Rory continues on alone as Noah and Logan brawl without their horses or guns. After much back and forth, Noah shoots Logan, which attracts a group of Howlers which finishes him off as well.Rory continues through the dark forest, now at night, and all the Howlers are out at night. She hides and runs from a group of the nasty infected people. In one of the scuffles, she gets bitten. After that, the infected begin to ignore her; she’s one of them now.In the morning, Rory finally comes to Noah’s house. Did she get there in time to save Noah’s son before the infection is too far gone? She leaves the cure with the old woman who’s watching Noah’s son and walks on back to the river.Rory visualizes Maddie as she puts her pistol to her head and pulls the trigger before the disease gets her.Brian’s CommentaryIt’s a just-barely sci-fi post-zombie-apocalyptic story set in the always-beautiful New Zealand wilderness. Everything is filmed with either a brown or green filter, so everything has a very “Western” feel to it.The acting is fine, the situation is interesting enough, but the plot is very generic. It’s more of a good-guys-and-bad-guys movie than really leaning into the zombies, which are just sort of there in the background a few times until the ending.It looks great, has good acting, but it was awfully slow moving.Kevin’s CommentaryWow, the scenery is nice in this one. Lily Sullivan, as Rory, kept reminding me of a young Geena Davis - which is a fine thing. She’s very good in the role, as is the rest of the cast.I liked the direction this one took, with the zombie story a real threat, but not the entire focus. There are plenty of terrifying moments while kind of being on the slow side following the trials of the living. It’s not a happy movie, but it’s quite good.2015 Insidious: Chapter 3* Directed by: Leigh Whannell* Written by: Leigh Whannell* Stars: Dermot Mulroney, Stefanie Scott, Angus Sampson* Run Time: 1 Hour, 37 Minutes* Trailer: \Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIt’s a prequel to the haunting of the Lambert family, showing how Elise got into the business along with Specs and Tucker. So pretend that they all look younger than they did in the previous movies that take place after this. But age discrepancies aside, it’s well made and works perfectly with the other films. If you’re an Insidious fan, you’ll probably like this one.Spoilery SynopsisThis takes place a few years before the previous films.Quinn goes to see Elise; she’s looking for a psychic. She wants to talk to her dead mother and has been trying to contact her on her own. After a bit of discussion, Elise is willing to help. She contacts the spirit world and senses something bad. She warns Quinn not to call on her mother. “If you call out to one of the dead, all of them can hear you.”Quinn goes home, but she keeps talking to her dead mother. Her father works a lot and her brother Alex is weird. She goes to an audition that afternoon, and doesn’t go well. She whines to her friend Maggie. She sees another strange dead-looking person and then gets hit by a car.Quinn dies on the operating table, but then they bring her back. While dead, she sees something scary. Three weeks later, Quinn talks to an old woman who speaks of the man who lives in the vents. “He up there right now, standing in your room.” Quinn’s in two leg casts and a wheelchair, at least for a while.Across town, Elise goes to bed. She dreams about Quinn. She considers opening up her padlocked reading room but doesn’t.Quinn sees someone on her ceiling, and her father Sean investigates the weirdness. Quinn tells him about seeing Elise a month or so ago, and he warns her not to do that.Elise calls Quinn’s mother on her own one night. She knows someone is bothering Quinn, and it’s not her mother. She sees it, and it’s definitely not a nice ghost. Meanwhile, Quinn has a run-in with the same entity, and she soon realizes it’s not her mother. Around the same time, the old woman next door dies.Quinn has a nightmare about the various creatures and dead people. Sean finds her in the empty apartment upstairs.Sean goes to see Elise, and they talk about dead spouses. She talks about going to “The Dark Place” looking for her dead husband, but some evil woman followed her back to the real world. She hasn’t been able to do a reading since then. Still, she tries, and quickly goes into a trance. She sees all sorts of weird things and is attacked by the woman in black, her nemesis.Sean calls in Specs and Tucker, a couple of ghost-chasers from YouTube. Elise talks to Carl, an old friend, about her spirit problem.Quinn beats up Sean, Specs, and Tucker, and then breaks the casts off her legs. Elise shows up to get rid of the parasite inside Quinn. The group does a seance so that she can go to a different plane, “The Further,” and help Quinn.Elise confronts the ghosts, and this time, she beats up the woman in black and defeats her. She runs into her dead husband, and he tempts her to join him in the world of the dead. She recognizes that he would never suggest she kill herself and that he’s actually the bad ghost in disguise. As she steals Quinn away from “The Man Who Can’t Breathe,” there’s an earthquake in the real world. Elise calls on Lily, Quinn’s dead mother, to help.Quinn returns to the real world, and gets to talk to her mother through Elise.Later, Elise talks to Specs and Tucker about them never having really seen a ghost before. Maybe they could all go into business together? They’d have to wear shirts and ties.Brian’s CommentaryThis is a prequel to the first two films, and the character of Elise is the main thing that ties the films together. It’s got foggy corridors, lanterns, and weird creatures, so it fits in with the other films just fine.It’s not my favorite series in general, but this is a solid entry if you liked the others.Kevin’s CommentaryI recognize that the Insidious movies are well made, and they have a loyal fandom. They are not my cu

All five of our films this week are new releases:We’ll open on a nice dog story; really, he’s a “Good Boy.” A not-so-good-boy is the star of “The Toxic Avenger.” We’ll go back in time and watch the prequel, “Borley Rectory: The Awakening.” Then we’ll watch a couple of documentaries, one real, “Lost Contact: UFOs After Wartime” and one not-so-real “Strange Harvest.”Spoiler: We liked them all!* The latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #49, is on sale now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2025 Good Boy* Directed by: Ben Leonberg* Written by: Alex Cannon, Ben Leonberg* Stars: Indy, Shane Jensen, Arielle Friedman* Run Time: 1 Hour, 12 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThe main character of the movie is a dog, with everything slanted toward his point of view, which is interesting. His master, Todd, is afflicted with both a terminal illness and dark forces that are working against him. Both things that seem to have been impacting his family for quite a while. But he’s got Indy by his side. It’s unique, which helps it out a lot, but it’s actually pretty slow moving on a low simmer. We both thought it was pretty good.Spoilery SynopsisIndy the dog protects the house at night; he hears strange sounds that concern him. The phone keeps ringing, and it turns out that Todd is having some kind of seizure. His sister, Vera, comes in and calls 911. Credits roll.We watch old footage of Indy being a puppy and growing up with Todd and his family. Todd’s got a lot of health problems, and Indy is a big help.Todd and Vera argue about him going to stay at Grandpa’s house; neither Vera nor Indy think that’s a good idea. The house is very remote in the country. When they arrive, Indy really doesn’t want to get out of the car. The place is a mess, but Todd says it beats the hospital.Todd calls Vera, and they talk. Grandpa used to have a bunch of dogs, but they kept all running away. As he watches old home videos of grandpa, Vera points out that no one has lived in that house for more than a few weeks; she says it’s haunted. Meanwhile, Indy checks out shadows that he doesn’t like. Indy explores the old house, but he doesn’t find anything.The next morning, Todd and Indy go for a walk in the woods. They stop at the family cemetery, and Todd points out that most of them died pretty young. They run into a neighbor, and he mentions traps and snares all over the woods. The neighbor mentions how strange the area is, too. Todd, on the other hand, thinks it’s nice and peaceful.Vera, still on the phone, mentions that dogs can detect all sorts of things that people can’t, so he should be keeping an eye on Indy for signs of trouble. The next day, Todd goes off and leaves Indy at home, and Indy is not pleased. Indy spots another dog in the house and follows it, but all he finds is the dog’s bandana– and a vision of something nasty that “got” the other dog. Todd comes home, unwell; he’s been at the hospital again.Indy has nightmares that night. He wakes up and patrols the house, hearing and seeing things that shouldn’t be there. He watches as Todd goes to the kitchen and bangs his head on a door repeatedly– sleepwalking? There appears to be some kind of black ghost or monster that’s creeping around the place.Todd gets sicker, and the doctor says he doesn’t qualify for her clinical trials. The neighbor, Richard, warns him again about his fox traps. As Todd obliviously works on his Feng Shui, Indy watches all sorts of horrors going on in the next room and especially in the basement.One night, Todd collapses and a door shuts Indy in the next room. Indy notices the window is open and jumps down to get outside. Indy runs through the woods toward Richard’s house to get help but gets caught in a snare instead. The next thing we know, Todd is chaining up Indy outside in the rain. The monster terrorizes Indy, who can’t escape because of the chains. Indy does eventually break loose, and then he finds the skeletal remains of Bandit, Grandpa’s last dog.Inside the house, Todd gets a scare of his own until Indy comes in and comforts him. The monster then grabs Todd and drags him to the basement, but Indy knows another way in. “You’re a good dog, but you can’t save me,” Todd says as he turns into a skeleton.In the morning, we see that Todd has died in his bed. Vera comes to the house and finds Bandit’s bones in the cellar while letting Indy outside. Indy goes off to live with Vera.He was a good boy!Brian’s CommentaryAll Grandpa’s dogs ran off… we see why.It’s told from Indy’s point of view, which is interesting and unique. Dogs do sense things that humans can’t, and this film makes heavy use of that fact. Indy the dog gets top billing here, primarily because we don’t see any shots of the character’s faces through the majority of the film.It’s actually very slow moving and quiet. I suspect some will say it’s boring, but it had my attention throughout. If you’re a dog lover, you’ll like this one.Kevin’s CommentaryIndy the dog, playing himself, does an impressive job and belongs to the director - possibly he was raised with this role in mind. He does indeed seem to be a Good Boy. It was cleverly filmed to accentuate Indy’s point of view, with the human character’s faces shown very little throughout the movie.It’s well made, and the novelty of it saves it. It’s actually kind of slow. There is creepiness that builds some, and Indy having fearful dreams, but not a lot happens for much of the film.I’d mark it as a win that isn’t quite great, but I liked it quite a bit.2025 The Toxic Avenger* Directed by: Macon Blair* Written by: Macon Blair, Lloyd Kaufman, Joe Ritter* Stars: Peter Dinklage, Jacob Tremblay, Taylour Paige* Run Time: 1 Hour, 42 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThis remake does a good job of paying tribute to the original while being different enough to still entertain. It is still stupid fun and over the top, but with a different vibe. It’s saturated and colorful, almost cartoonish, with less of a thrown together feeling that the original had. When the gore kicks in, it’s the goriest gore. The humor is hit and miss but mostly hit. We both enjoyed it, but it doesn’t quite live up to the original.Spoilery SynopsisWinston narrates his story, which begins on the other side of town. Mel Ferd, the reporter, gets footage from the BTH Headquarters. He’s got evidence that they’ve been dumping toxic waste illegally. Just then, a group of goons break in and kill him. He dies hard. His junior reporter, J.J., gets away. Credits roll.In St. Roma’s Village (or Tromaville), we meet Winston, who lives with his son Wade and can’t cook breakfast. We see there are some really weird people in the town. There are some bad guys who are forcing shopkeeper Daisy to sell her place.Winston goes to work at BTH as a janitor, and it doesn’t look like OSHA would approve of the place at all. He gets a call from his doctor, who says he has an inoperable case of @#$$#@, He’s got six months to a year to live. Winston then calls his insurance company who explains things like insurance companies always do. Yeah, he’s screwed.Meanwhile, at the Garbinger Mansion, BTH Owner Bob may have passed his prime, but he’s getting an infusion of gorilla blood. His brother Fritz comes in, and he’s tremendously weird. Fritz’s friends, The Killer Nutz, were the ones who botched the reporter’s murder. Fritz sends the Nutz after J.J. to finish the job. They are not subtle.Meanwhile, at New Chemical High School (New Chem High), Wade auditions for a talent show. It goes badly. Winston tries to cheer him up, but he’s just not good at that.Bob Garbinger is attending a big fancypants banquet. His business is losing a ton of money, but he’s trying to bluff his way through that. He meets with the town’s big mob boss who wants payment on what he’s owed. Winston interrupts to ask Bob for money for his treatments. Bob promises to sort it all out, but he has no intention of doing anything.Winston goes to BTH, and when he opens the gate, J.J. sneaks inside. Winston dips his mop in the toxic goo and threatens the security guard with it to rob the company’s treasury. The Nutz show up and shoot him dead. They drop his corpse into a big vat of nastiness and throw in the mop for good measure. Down in the vat, Winston is transformed rather dramatically.Winston goes home to Wade, who takes one look at the little monster in the window and freaks out. The real estate swindler is there and shoots Winston. Winston gets angry and rips the man’s arm off. Almost instantly the town forms a mob, complete with torches, to chase the monster away. He passes out.In the morning, Winston wakes up in a hobo’s camp. The man there, Gunther, is pretty crazy. Gunther gives him some wise superhero advice and sets him upon a mission, giving him his mop which he found.Meanwhile, the Miss Meat restaurant, The Nasty Lads, another gang, have taken over the place. They’re angry that the place has changed its name and mascot, and they’re heavily armed. Suddenly, a little green man with a toxic mop breaks in the back door. His mop does some really bad things to the Nasty Lads and saves the hostages.Now a hero, the press starts calling Winston the “Toxic Avenger.” Wade sees all this on the TV and knows who he really is. J.J. comes to the door and explains the whole thing to him. The Nutz show up, and they both run away. But one of the Nutz tags Wade with a tracking device.The mob boss and his son, who lost his arm last night, also see the news and orders his men to kill Toxie. Bob, Fritz, and Kissy also know who he is, and they aren’t happy. His geeks and nerds explain how the mutations happened. Can they reproduce the mutation?Wade and J.J. run into Winston on the street. They talk for a minute until the mob guys show up and shoot Winston again. J.J. gets shot by the Nutz, and everybody runs. Toxie takes out his baddies, and he takes J.J. to Gunther,

Two new releases this week, along with some fun catch-up films.We’ll start off with the brand-new underground tunnel-chase, “Scurry” and then go out to the retro-desert in “Brute 1976.” We’ll take a walk on the silly side with “Lavalantula” from 2015, and then finish off the George Romero zombie series with the final two of his films: “Diary of the Dead” 2007 and “Survival of the Dead” (2010).A bunch of winners this week!* The latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #48, is on sale now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2025 Scurry* Directed by: Luke Sparke* Written by: Tom Evans* Stars: Jamie Costa, Emalia, Peter O’Hanlon* Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneA claustrophobic view of a big disaster event has us following a couple of survivors as they work their way out of an underground obstacle course of collapsed buildings and streets. And is there more going on than just a local earthquake or something? Just how bad could it be? We travel along with them to find out. There are some hints given in the opening seconds.Spoilery SynopsisWe see some kind of apocalyptic disaster happening from out a skyrise window. There are alarms sounding. People are running and screaming. Then we hear growling noises from down the hall and one running woman dies in a wet splatter against the wall. Maybe we aren’t at the top of the food chain any more. We fly over the city, and there is a big blackened pit that is surrounded by burnt out emergency vehicles, and it pans down to a dead man laying there and no, he’s not dead. He wakes up. He’s trapped under a chunk of rubble. He pulls out his cell but can’t get through to anyone. He finally thinks to use his phone as a flashlight and looks around. He finally gets through to his wife’s voicemail and explains what happened from his point of view. He levers himself free..Mark hears a chopper flying over, which is hopeful, but then it crashes right next to the hole he’s in. The hole collapses behind him, trapping him in an underground tunnel. He pulls out a piece of glass that impaled him, but he’s not bleeding too badly.It takes a while for Mark to get his bearings, and he hears rocks falling all over the place. He finds a woman’s purse and digs through it for anything to use. He finds a video camera with an infra-red feature, which is useful.He gets a jump scare when the woman who owns the purse shows up. She’s Sarah. There’s a rock slide or something, and she soon vanishes. No, she’s hiding, “Shhhh. They’ll hear us.” He sets her dislocated bone, but she says everyone up above is dead, no one is coming for them. She’s very paranoid that he’s going to leave her alone. They talk about their kids, but she seems to know a lot more about what’s going on than he does. She’s not really Sarah; that was a stolen purse. Then she pulls a gun on him. And things get complicated.As they argue over who gets to hold the lighter, something growls nearby. “They’ve found us.” Mark uses the infra-red camera but doesn’t see what it is. They run for a while but eventually, Mark gets a glimpse of the creature behind them with the camera. She notices that she’s lost her pills and wants to go back, but he says that’s stupid; this leads to her pulling the gun again. He has to go back for her pills and notices that the creature seems to be stuck in place, so he’s OK for now.Mark wants to know what she knows about the creatures. They killed her sister, dragging her right out of the car. He explains that he was just crossing the street and fell into what he thought was an earthquake sinkhole. “Nothing can survive up there,” she says. He doubts that everyone is dead. They continue to crawl through the tunnel until they see a light; it’s not an exit, it’s just a flashlight someone dropped. They find the flashlight’s owner, dead, and go through his stuff. Turns out, he’s not dead, but when he starts to scream, one of the creatures eats him.Now Mark believes in monsters. They argue over her hard-as-nail attitude since she still doesn’t trust him. As they argue, one of the spiderlike monsters spears Mark and pulls him away. Is this creature an alien, or was it always down here? We don’t know, but the woman’s story makes it sound like they came from space. She continues on, crawling through the tunnel until she catches up to Mark who is lying there; somehow, he killed it with his knife– he’s got to be some kind of marine or special forces.Mark then explains his sad life story. He drunkenly started a house fire that nearly killed his son. He left the family after that, and now he feels he still can’t protect them. She gives him advice, and now they’re friends.After an incredibly long time, they come to a room where they can stand up, and it’s full of bodies. They can hear shooting and bad things happening through the sewer grate above. There are soldiers up there, and they hear the two down below and offer to help. “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be OK,” they say. And then we hear them all die up there; our guys get absolutely drenched in blood.Mark and the woman are forced to keep on crawling through the tunnels since one of the monsters is trying to get to them through the sewer grate. She finally tells him that her name is Kate. Just to make things worse, they both have to swim through a flooded, dark, murky tunnel.They finally find a way outside and see the light. Happy Ending (with forty minutes left). As they crawl to the opening, a creature pops up between them and the light at the end of the tunnel. It takes a look at them and then goes back the way it came, where we hear more screaming.Mark and Kate climb over the open hole, slowly, and try not to wake up the creatures down there. By the time Mark makes it over, Kate has died from her internal injuries. As he climbs over her corpse, we see just how many of the creatures are scurrying around in the tunnels below. Rather than continue to the exit, he goes through her pockets and sets her body on fire… in front of him, blocking the exit. No– he just imagined doing that. Then he lays there within sight of the exit and plays with his phone for a while. I guess her body must be blocking the tunnel, but it doesn’t look like it.Suddenly, Mark’s phone pings; he’s got a message from his wife. “These things are coming from beneath the ground and sunlight makes them grow bigger and bigger. Please come home,” she says. His desire to live re-ignited, Mark goes back to the vertical shaft the alien was in and uses the phone to attract a monster. It crawls up and takes Kate’s body, unplugging the shaft (he could have pushed her body into the shaft much more easily).Mark then crawls up the shaft toward the light. A monster attacks, but Mark sets it on fire with the lighter and alcohol they found; it backs off quickly.As Mark emerges into the daylight, he sees that the monsters have grown to skyscraper size outside, and there are many, many, eggs.Brian’s CommentaryThis is one very dark movie. Make sure you watch this one at night, in a dark room, or you’re likely to miss something. That said, being so dark, they didn’t have to show as much of the creatures. I think they were going for the same kind of scares as “The Descent” (2005), but the characters and tunnels here aren’t as interesting. We get to know more about them as they go along, but the whole film is basically just two characters in a narrow tunnel, so it takes a lot to make that interesting.It was a good concept, but I felt it was too slow-moving. I was yelling at the screen after Mark just lay there talking to Kate’s corpse for like twenty minutes in front of the exit. The creatures do look really good once we get to see them and the ending was bleak enough to satisfy me. Overall, I thought it was entertaining, but there are some issues with the characters making dumb decisions.Kevin’s Spoiling CommentaryI had excellent dim viewing conditions, but like Brian said, it is best in a dark room. Dim room at least. I can still see.Those two must have had really fit legs by the time they were done, as much squatting and crouching they had to do working their way very realistically to an escape.What a situation. Like just surviving an impact like that and having to work very hard to try to dig yourself out isn’t hard enough. Imagine being pursued by meat-eating creatures too. I like how little we see of the creatures for so long. The characters don’t see them either for a long while, only hearing the sounds. It really helps tighten the sense of being there in the same boat with them. And then we all see them. Why did it have to be spiders?I don’t ever want to be in a situation where someone asks, “Is your flashlight waterproof?” That water scene was chilling.The acting is amazing. It’s immersive. I thought it was excellent. Full disclosure, my computer locked up, I was doing remote work, and I didn’t see the last 20 minutes. Right around when Kate died. I won’t mind rewatching the first part to get there.2025 Brute 1976* Directed by: Marcel Walz* Written by: Joe Knetter* Stars: Adriane McLean, Sarah French, Gigi Gustin* Run Time: 1 Hour, 45 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIt’s another killer family and a group of victims who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. They captured the retro look and feel of this one very well, the acting is good with well-defined characters, and the special effects were very realistic. It wasn’t anything particularly original, but it’s well put together and entertaining.Spoilery SynopsisAugust 19, 1976, in the desert, we zoom into two girls broken down on the highway. The road is completely deserted, so hitching probably isn’t going to happen. “There has to be something off this road,” as June and Raquel begin walking. They eventually come to an old, abandoned mine and go inside to cool off. There are lights already on in the mine, and they stop for some kissin

Four new releases this week, it must be getting closer to Halloween!We’ll start off with the much-discussed “Weapons” and then watch some even-newer releases: “Coyotes,” “The Drowned,” and “In Vitro,” which were all fun. Lastly, we’ll continue our ongoing kaiju coverage with 1984’s “The Return of Godzilla.”A bunch of winners this week!* The latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #48, is on sale now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2025 Weapons* Directed by: Zach Cregger* Written by: Zach Cregger* Stars: Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich* Run Time: 2 Hours, 8 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneWe start right out setting the mystery of how a classroom full of kids all ran out of their houses at 2:17 in the morning one night and disappeared. Except for one kid. Then the movie is spent going over the aftermath from different points of view of the people involved, and we get to solve the mystery together. It’s long but we were never bored. Okay, Kevin was a little impatient for the first half hour or so. But overall we liked it a lot and would recommend it. And we also recommend you go into it as blind as you can.Spoilery SynopsisWe’re told that this is a true story, but there was a coverup to hide the truth. We open on a third-grade and a new teacher, Justine. Not one of her kids has come to school, but all the other classes are perfectly normal. Wait, a boy named Alex did show up. Every other kid woke up the previous night at 2:17 a.m., walked outside, and vanished at a run into the night. They never came back. We watch a flashback as the kids go running outside late at night. Credits roll.JustineThe police interrogate little Alex and Justine, who know nothing. Eventually, they had to reopen the school after a month. First, they have a big meeting to deal with grief counseling over the seventeen missing children. They want to hear from Justine, who seems to be at the center of all this. What did she do? The crowd gets nasty, and the meeting is soon over. They blame her.On the way home, Justine starts getting death threats on her phone. She finds her car painted with “Witch” on the side in the morning. The school principal, Mr. Marcus, tells her that she can’t work there anymore. She wants to talk to Alex, but she’s not allowed.Justine meets policeman Paul at a bar later, and she tells him her problems. He says that she’s always been a little paranoid, and now she’s drinking too much. He is reluctant to drink, but we flash forward to the next morning with him waking up hung over in Justine’s bed. She drives him to his car, still at the bar.Justine goes to see Alex, which she has been forbidden to do. There are newspapers over all the windows at his house. She peeks in and sees something weird. She’s later attacked by Donna, Paul’s wife, who is justifiably angry. At home that night, she starts seeing things.She “stakes out” Alex’s house, gets drunk, and passes out. Someone sneaks into the car and snips off some of her hair.ArcherWe cut to Archer, who watches doorbell security video of his son running off into the darkness that night last month. He goes to work, and he’s been messing up lately. He’s been pestering the chief of police to the point of being annoying. He still thinks Justine is behind all this, but the chief doesn’t believe she’s involved. We see that he’s got red paint in the back of his truck, the same color as “WITCH” painted on the side of Justine’s car.Archer has a dream where he sees Matthew, his son, running off to a house with a giant gun flying overhead. He goes inside and talks to his sleeping son. The light comes on, and the dream gets weird.In the morning, Archer takes the information from his dream and checks out a nearby radio tower. He gets with some other parents and looks at their video footage. He confronts Justine, but in the middle of their conversation, she’s attacked by Mr. Marcus, the principal, who has gone utterly berserk.PaulWe cut back a few days, as Paul sees someone suspicious running down the street, this results in a chase. He catches James, whom he knocks out. He realizes the camera is on and lets the guy go so there’s no report. The chief is somewhat supportive, so long as James stays quiet.This is when he gets a text from Justine and meets her at the bar. He falls right off the wagon. He goes home hung over and runs into Donna, who later attacks Justine in a jealous rage. He later sees James again and chases him.JamesJames is an addict who can’t get his pipe to light because he’s run dry. He breaks into a car and steals an iPad. The pawnbroker doesn’t want it. He’s trying to break into a store when Paul spots and beats him the first time.James walks through the rain to Alex’s house and gets in through an upstairs window. He goes all through the house, looking for things to steal until he finds Alex’s parents, who seem to be frozen or paralyzed. He looks in the basement and sees all the missing children standing around down there. He gets creeped out and runs away when both parents suddenly get up. There is a big reward for the missing kids, that he plans to cash in on.He walks to the police station to tell them when he’s chased by Paul a second time. He runs into the woods, where he sees a crazy looking clown. He ends up stabbing Paul in the face with needles. He ends up taking Paul to the suspect house.Paul goes into the house, without calling it in or for any kind of backup, and leaves James in the back of the squad car. He never comes back out until late at night when he drags James inside.MarcusMarcus is sick of Justine, but he has to deal with her anyway. He gets a visit from Gladys, a very strange-looking woman. Maybe that wasn’t a clown that James saw in the woods. She says she’s Alex’s aunt, and she’s really weird. He wants to talk to Alex’s parents, not his aunt, so Marcus offers to visit them at home. He wants to avoid involving CPS, and that seems to concern Gladys.Saturday, Marcus gets a knock on the door, and it’s crazy Gladys, wanting a drink of water - she’s so thirsty. She missed her bus, and pleads for help. He tries to say no, but his husband Terry invites her in. She comes inside for a bowl of water. She cuts herself and then takes some of Terry’s hair. She rings a bell, and suddenly, Marcus freezes and drops the phone he was about to call 911 with. She wraps Terry’s hair around a stick, covers it in blood, and snaps it. Marcus goes berserk and kills Terry. Once that’s over, she does the same thing with Justine’s bit of hair, and he runs off to attack her at the gas station.As all the stories converge, Archer pulls Marcus off of Justine, This leads to a car chase, and Marcus gets hit by a car, badly. After things settle down a bit, Justine and Archer talk about it. Marcus was doing the “Naruto Run,” exactly the same way all the children ran. He was weaponized, like a heat-seeking missile going for a target. Archer shows her the map he’s made, and she points to Alex’s house.AlexAlex is at school, and he’s not happy, being bullied by bigger kids. His father says Aunt Gladys is coming for a visit; she’s sick and doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Late that night, the strange woman with the orange wig comes to stay with them. Alex isn’t happy about the sick old woman, but nobody asked him.One day Alex doesn’t get picked up from school, and when he does get home, he finds his parents are frozen at the dinner table. Aunt Glady, however, is looking much more lively.The next morning, the parents haven’t moved. The old lady swears him to secrecy. She makes his parents stab themselves in the face with forks repeatedly until he agrees. She said she can make them do anything, and demands that he tell no one about her. For several days, Alex feeds his parents soup from a can and quietly goes to school without saying anything.One night, Alex sees that Gladys is very sick and has been for a very long time. Alex’s parents aren’t helping as much as she expected. She tells him to bring her an object from each of his classmates, and she might get better and leave. During the next school day, he pilfers something from each of them.That night, Gladys does a mega-spell on all the children, who come running to her, all at once at 2:17 am. The next morning, only Alex shows up to school. Gladys is now looking very lively and colorful. She sends all the children away temporarily and cleans up the house for when the police come to inspect the place.A month later in the story, Archer and Justine come to the house and see Paul’s police car parked in front. They don’t know what to do, but he steps out and waves them inside. They do go in. Justine steps over a line of salt on the floor, and both Paul and James spring to life and attack them. These guys do not give up easily. Upstairs, the same thing happens with Alex and his parents.Archer finds the missing children in the basement, but he finds Gladys there as well. Gladys uses him to grab Justine. Upstairs, Alex uses one of Gladys’s hairs and repeats the spell himself, making her a target. All the children break out of the house and chase her. After an extended and hysterical chase, the children tear her apart.Back at the house, Archer releases Justine and goes looking for Matthew again; he soon finds him. Justine goes upstairs for Alex and finds him with his parents, who will never recover. Some of the children are just starting to talk this year…Brian’s CommentaryThe story being broken up into different viewpoints makes the story more interesting as it unfolds. I was expecting aliens or something, not a witch. That said, it was interesting, never slows down, and had a big enough budget that it showed. The gore effects were nice, but there weren’t so many that it became a distraction.It’s very good!Kevin’s CommentaryI was very grateful for the different points of view segments. And it was very cool how they weren’t exact

Three new movies this week, but a pair of classics to go along with it:“The Jester 2,” “The Man in the White Van,” and “Monster Island” are all out fresh this month, but “The Ghastly Love of Johnny X” (2012) and “Land of the Dead” (2005) are from a decade or two ago.* The latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #48, is on sale now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2025 The Jester 2* Directed by: Colin KrawChuk* Written by: Colin KrawChuk* Stars: Michael Sheffield, Kaitlyn Trentham,* Run Time: 1 Hour, 27 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThe Jester is back, killing people like a magician and entertainer again, with a bit of a different look. There’s much more explanation in this sequel than the first movie, and we both thought that was a step in the right direction. We liked this one better than the first Jester.Spoilery SynopsisIt’s a big Halloween party, and the guys mock each other for being afraid to talk to Ava. He goes over to her, but she’s more interested in Connor. That goes badly for Eric but suddenly, The Jester appears by crawling out of a box. He then peels his mask off like he’s molting, and we see that he’s got hair now and his face itself looks like the mask. The Jester makes Eric be the pinata, and that’s a mess. Credits roll.Max and Zoe talk about going out trick or treating, but mom says Max is getting a little too old for this stuff. Meanwhile, the Jester asks a guy on the street to pick a card, and then handcuffs him before ripping out his innards with a card trick.Max goes to a restaurant alone, and the jerky waiter recognizes her from school. The girls at the next table mock her, but then the Jester sits down across from Max, and at least he’s nice to her. He tries to do a trick with his cards, but she shows him card tricks aren’t going to fool her. When the guy she likes punctures her bicycle tire, she stops and cries.A trio of troublemakers are out pranking, and they run up against the Jester, who does his thing for them– except his magic no longer works. Instead, he just kills them the old-fashioned way- he attacks them with a knife. He’s lost his mojo and soon figures out that Max has it.Max goes to the magic shop and tells her friend there about her social problems. He’s really nice and cheers her up. When she leaves, the Jester is waiting for her. As she watches, he walks over to the mean group from earlier and “pantses” the guy, much to his embarrassment. Jester invites Max to go trick or treating with him.At the first house, Max does a magic trick for the woman inside, but then the Jester does a trick and kills the woman; his magic is back on again. Max runs away, terrified. They come across the remains of the party from the opening sequence, and Max shows him the Ouija board, which he can use to “talk” to her. He’s not going to kill her, he needs her. “You are just like me.” He says he’s a misunderstood entertainer until he met the Great Deceiver, who made him a deal. “I must trick four souls each Hallow’s Eve before a candle burns out.” Since she tricked him, that opens up a whole new rulebook; she has to do the tricks now.Max picks out one guy in the park; it’s the guy who was mean to her earlier. He’s pretty easy to hate, so she shows him a trick. He apologizes during the trick, but it’s too late by then, and the Jester takes over.Some police come over to question Max and the Jester, but suddenly, Max can’t speak either. Turns out, Max has called 911 on her phone. The police try to arrest the Jester, but that doesn’t go well for them.Max runs away and encounters a man on the street who offers to drive her to the police station. They hear about the previous deaths on the radio, but the guy in the car is very weird, weird in a pedophile kind of way. The Jester reappears and solves Max’s problem.Max has an asthma attack, so the Jester takes her to the fire station for help. The Jester then plays hide and seek with the firemen in the fire station. Max refuses to help him any further and goes home.Max’s mother is there waiting for her, and she’s surprisingly mean. She finds the Jester in her sister Zoe’s room; he’s already killed the mother, and now he wants Zoe too. He still needs her to do one more trick for a victim.Max chooses Darren, the waiter from earlier. When he gets off work, Max and the Jester are outside waiting for him. She pulls out her deck of cards and has second thoughts halfway through it. Turns out, she’s sleight-of-handed the Jester himself and performs a trick on him. Suddenly, his candle goes out and he bursts into flames.The magic shop owner shows up to help Max and Zoe. The police have the whole area covered. He finds that Max has taken the Jester’s hat, and she keeps babbling about “four tricks– four souls. Every year.” Sounds like it’s time for a yearly franchise!Brian’s CommentaryThe character of the Jester looked better in the previous film, with the full-head mask. This time around, he’s just got his face covered, and it’s not as effective. In the first film, he had more of a “street performer” look, but here, it seems he’s trying to look more scary.One complaint about the previous film was that nothing was explained, and we get everything explained in this one. It’s got a much stronger story, and the pacing is much better as well. I liked this one quite a bit more than the original.Kevin’s CommentaryThis one had all the magical murdering goodness of the first movie with a better script and story. Though I do agree that I preferred the Jester’s look in the first film, overall this was a better movie. If you liked the first time around, you should definitely see this one.2025 The Man in the White Van* Directed by: Warren Skeels* Written by: Sharon Y. Cobb, Warren Skeels* Stars: Madison Wolfe, Brec Bassinger, Ali Larter, Sean Astin* Run Time: 1 Hour, 45 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIt’s well-made and based on a real crime situation, which makes it creepy on a fundamental level. But it is rather long and drawn out. It hops around in the early 70s, doing a great job of capturing the look and feel of the decade. The van driver chooses to fixate on one character, rather than just the random attacks, so there’s drama and supporting cast for us to care about.Spoilery SynopsisA woman gets into a car and drives away. It’s 1970, and we see a white van following her car. She pulls over, crying about something, and doesn’t see the man from the van until it’s too late. Credits roll.In 1975, Annie falls off her horse. She goes home, and her mother, Helen, freaks out and tells her to shave her legs. At dinner, her father, Richard, talks business. Margaret and Annie are very competitive sisters. It’s a very strict household.Back in 1971, we watch a woman go out for the evening. She’s immediately kidnapped by the man in the white van, who we never see.In 75 again, we watch as the family goes to church. As the preacher talks, we see that the man in the white van is still active out there and he follows the family car back to their home.In 1972, a woman comes out of a disco and first with a man who drives a white van, and he gives her a ride against her will before killing her with an ax.Annie likes the new boy at school, Mark Newsome. We see that Annie’s horse is upset by something outside, and when Annie goes out, she sees the van there. When she tells her mother and Margaret, they don’t believe her wild stories. She finally gets to talk to Mark, and they hit it off. On the way home, Annie and Patty see the van, but it’s only a telephone installer.Little brother Daniel keeps playing with his father’s rifle, which annoys everyone. Annie ends up showing him how to use it.1973, and a woman at a motel leaves the pool and gets grabbed on the way to her room.Annie keeps seeing the strange man outside the house. One night, near Halloween, her parents go out for dinner and Annie sneaks away for her boyfriend, leaving Annie and Daniel alone. The van man comes around and terrifies them until they get the gun and shoot at the van. When Helen and Richard come home, the story comes out, and Margaret blames Annie for making it all up. Punishments are disbursed all around.In 1974, a girl takes her dog out for a walk and things go badly for her. This time, the killer shows the kidnapped girl to an older man who calls him son.Annie sees the guy outside again and gets Richard to go outside with his real gun. He shoots a possum in the trash can. Annie gets even more paranoid after that, actually going so far as to lock the front door!The three kids go to a drive-in, and once again, Margaret sneaks off to be with her boyfriend. Annie runs into Mark there, and he’s come with the school slut, Joanna, who is having a Halloween party in a few days.It’s Halloween, and Annie and Patty go to Joanna’s party. Margaret is actually nice and helps Annie get ready. Mark, it turns out, is more interested in Annie than Joanna, but they can’t stay very long. On the way home, on horseback, the two girls spot the van again, and this time it chases them. Annie falls off her horse and runs. It’s tense, but she eventually loses him.When she gets home to put her horse away, the man is there waiting for her. The man knocks her out and ties her up, but the horse, on the other hand, kicks the man and knocks him out. It’s a contest of who will recover first, but Annie eventually winds up in the back of that van. She opens the door and jumps out (nobody tried that before?).Annie runs home, and this time, Margaret sees the bad guy too. They do the cat-and-mouse things in and around the house. They hit the man with his own van just as the policeman arrives.One month later, both Annie and Margaret have boyfriends, and the family is much more well-adjusted. We cut to someone buying a white van from a car lot. On the radio, the reports talk about the bodies, which have just started to be discovered.As the clos

Three new movies this week, but a pair of classics to go along with it:“Somnium,” “Dirty Boy,” and “Site” from this year. “The Jester” from 2023 is up next, followed by “Curse of Chucky” to complete that series, we already watched all the others. .* The latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #48, is on sale now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2024 Somnium* Directed by: Racheal Cain* Written by: Racheal Cain* Stars: Chloe Levine, Jonathan Schaech, Will Peltz* Run Time: 1 Hour, 32 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneA struggling actress takes a night job watching over a bunch of people who have signed up for Somnium, a facility where they are put to sleep for weeks and kept in a continuous dream state while being hypnotized into an improved mental state. Is it just stress and lack of sleep that’s causing Gemma to struggle with life or is something more ominous at work? We wondered and so will you. This was very good, entertaining and pulling us along while leaving a lot open to interpretation.Spoilery SynopsisGemma has moved to a new city; she wants to be an actress. She goes to the talent agencies and auditions. She eventually goes to a place called “Somnium” who is hiring. Gemma doesn’t have much experience in anything useful, but Dr. Shaffer explains that it’s not a hard job, but it’s been hard to find anyone who stays very long. She’s essentially a “sleep sitter,” watching over sleeping patients in the facility.We flash back to Gemma and Hunter talking about what they want to do with their lives. She wants to be an actress, he wants to be a touring musician. He knows he’s not really going to do that and sketches her a picture of the house he’d like to build someday.On her first night at Somnium, Gemma learns about the “Science of Winning” and sees the sleep pods with people inside. The machine plays pictures and sounds into these peoples’ dreams. It’s a way to “program” new personal truths into people. It’s a quiet job, making sure nothing happens all night.Gemma’s not comfortable inside her own apartment, hearing and seeing things that aren’t there. She clearly misses her life back in Georgia. She runs into Brooks, a creepy guy who probably wants something bad for her. Noah, at work, shows her how he programs people for their careers. He takes a photo of Gemma and puts it in some guy’s dream, teasing her that if he left it in the guy’s dream he would wake up infatuated with her without knowing why.At an audition, Gemma does great, but the casting people aren’t excited. That night at Somnium, she sees some kind of monster in one of the patient rooms, but, of course, there’s nothing really there. At home, she hears that back home, Hunter has found a new girlfriend. Depressed, she calls Brooks, who offers to show her around town. He is strange, but he’s clearly rich and connected and seems interested in helping her.Time passes, and Gemma does more auditions. At night, she learns more about Somnium and reads all the brochures. She learns from Noah and Olivia about “Cloud 9” an emergency procedure where mental patients get programmed to straighten out their lives in just a few short hours. “No one comes back the same.” Olivia thinks the process is terrible, but Noah says it’s better than the alternative.Gemma runs into Noah working late one night; he’s doing something sketchy. Brooks invites her to a party Friday night, but she can’t get off work. As she starts to mess with the security footage logs to cover her sneaking out, she sees what Noah’s been up to late at night. She then sneaks off to party with Brooks and his friends. She meets Dakota, another actress, and she’s not having any luck getting parts. Max, a huge star, talks to Gemma about Somnium; she’s a former customer, and it made her successful.Gemma finds that she’s being evicted. She also gets caught sneaking out of Somnium. At night, sometimes she sees monsters in her apartment. Brooks comes by, and he’s worried about her. He implies that he’s disappointed with her and tries giving her advice. We get more flashbacks to her time with Hunter as she gets more and more depressed. She finds a shadowy man in her apartment who injects her with something.We get glimpses of Noah at Somnium, working on Gemma. “You figured it out a lot faster than the last dream sitter.” He’s put her in the Cloud 9 program, and she’s being re-programmed. She sees herself inside the Somnium facility, chased by a monster. Suddenly, she’s a guest on “The Latest Show,” being interviewed as a big star. Even in her dream, the interview goes badly. She talks to dream-Hunter, and he’s mean. Eventually, she confronts the monster again, face to face, and it vanishes.Gemma wakes up in Somnium and gets off the table. Dr. Shaffer, Olivia, and Noah are out there. Gemma tells them to look at Noah’s hard drive for evidence. She then goes home, pays her bills, and cleans up her apartment. She hears on the news that Noah has been arrested for multiple occasions of kidnapping and assault. She gets a call from a director, and she’s been cast in the first film she auditioned for.Everything is fine now. Isn’t it?Brian’s CommentaryThere’s a lot of weirdness going on, and we never really know what’s real and what isn’t for the first hour. We get the feeling that Gemma might be crazy, might be in a simulation, or might be a patient of Somnium– we don’t know, but something is very off about her.The last segment, inside the dream, isn’t as exciting as it should have been and actually drags a little. The ending is good, though, as we still don’t know exactly what happened. Is what we saw real? Is anything real?I liked it quite a bit, although I’m sure I didn’t understand the ending entirely.Kevin’s CommentaryEarly on, I was wondering if Gemma was already a Somnium client right from the beginning, there were some hints of strangeness. When we do see her put into the dream state, that seemed more predictable because we knew none of that was really real. It does leave things unanswered about what really happened and when, but I thought it was well made and entertaining. I liked it quite a bit.2025 Dirty Boy* Directed by: Doug Rao* Written by: Doug Rao* Stars: Stan Steinbichler, Susie Porter, Graham McTavish* Run Time: 1 Hour, 38 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIsaac has mental problems and is part of a small cult in a beautiful, isolated area. There’s just enough story to keep pulling us along as we try to figure out what’s really going on with these folks. It’s a simple life that makes us wonder if we might be in the past, but we also see some strange technologies that might mean it’s the future. It’s slow moving but fascinating, and we thought it was great.Spoilery SynopsisA very religious man wakes up with a nightmare; he’s got crosses hanging all over his walls. He’s not sure if he took his pills today. He’s Isaac, and he hears voices in his head. A woman in a mask knocks on the door; she says he’s been in that room for a week, and it’s his third lock-up this year. She wants him to break out and escape. Everyone in the house wears weird animal masks. Yes, it’s some kind of cult, and Isaac watches a human sacrifice in one of the rooms. Suddenly, the alarm goes off and he runs back to his room. He then argues with Frankie, one of the voices inside him. Credits roll.In the daytime, there’s a procession out of the big house as the women all sing. Old man Walter watches as Verity welcomes Isaac back into the fold. She talks about how the people outside are all filthy with liberalism and Satanism. He tells her that he’s clean now.There’s a tense dinner afterward, and it’s clear that everyone knows about Isaac’s issues. When Hope stands up for Isaac, Walter makes her drink most of a bottle of apple cider vinegar. Isaac goes back to his room and mashes up all his pills. He hides the powder and then pretends to have overdosed.Isaac talks to Dr. Cronin about the Foundation, but she explains how great the Wentworths are. There’s history between Isaac, Frankie, and his old girlfriend, Sarah, who isn’t around anymore. Cronin’s not a particularly nice doctor, and it’s clear that she works for “The Flock.” Isaac escapes from her and runs off.Isaac comes to a house in the woods and goes inside. A woman shows up and acts as if she’s been expecting him. She takes him to another woman, whose hands are tied. She tells him to “Breed me.”Meanwhile, a boat arrives outside with Wentworth and others. They get there in time to see Isaac running back into the woods; Wentworth lets him go. One of the other young men ends up doing the breeding.Frankie/Isaac starts following young girls around the trails. He’s been in trouble for this before. He’s interrupted by two men of the cult wearing antlers. They take him back to the Wentworths, where Verity gives him a harsh baptism. He’s clean again now.The four girls at the Foundation talk to Isaac about his pills and lifestyle. Grace is put in charge of Isaac’s medications. Hope is on his side, but she’s in the minority. She also helps him out with his sexual needs. Are they really family? Isaac wants to know. As soon as she leaves, he pukes up the pills. Hope slides a key under Isaac’s door and he escapes again.Everyone is gone out, so Isaac searches the house. He records everything he sees with his handheld device. He finds birth records, but he has no father or mother listed. As he works with Walter’s devices, Walter gets a notification about it. We learn what happened to Sarah: she killed herself due to Isaac’s lies about her.Walter punishes Hope for helping Isaac. In the morning, Isaac seems like he’s all on-board with the cult now. Turns out, he’s used his medication to drug the Wentworth’s juices and starts interrogating them about the foreign women that Walter’s been “importing.” He’s already uploaded his evidence to the Internet.The other three young men ride up on hor

We only have one new movie this week, but a handful of classic oldies to go along with it:* “I Know What You Did Last Summer” the new 2025 one, the reboot/requel/whatever.* “The Toxic Avenger” from 1984 in preparation for the new version that will be coming* “Santa Sangre” from 1989* “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare” from 1994, which completes our coverage of ALL the Freddy movies.* “Seed of Chucky” to continue that series, we only have “Curse” left to watch.And as usual, we’ve got a stack of shorts for you!* The latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #48, is on sale now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2025 I Know What You Did Last Summer* Directed by: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson* Written by: Sam Lansky, Jennifer Kayton Robinson, Leah McKendrick* Stars: Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King* Run Time: 1 Hour, 51 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneOnce again, a group of young people cause a death, cover it up, and in delayed revenge a year later someone starts picking them off. It’s a long-after sequel, not a reboot. It takes place in the same town as the original movie, many years later, and some of the original cast join in the fun. It’s well done and entertaining, with Kevin liking it a bit more than Brian.Spoilery SynopsisAva arrives home and tries on a bunch of outfits; she’s going to Danica’s engagement party. Danica wants her to hook up with Milo tonight after the party. Teddy and Milo have the same conversation from afar. Everyone toasts Danica and Teddy, will Milo and Ava be next? That night, the fourth of July, the four all drive and look at Stevie, who didn’t go off to college like they all did. They invite her along to watch the fireworks.Teddy’s high and standing in the middle of the road, which causes an accident. The truck teeters on the edge of the cliff, and they all try to hold it teetering on the edge. They fail, and it goes over the edge far down into the waves below. The man inside the truck grabs Teddy’s jacket before falling. Teddy says he called the police, but now they all need to leave the scene. They all swear each other to secrecy.One year later, Ava has become a lesbian. She ends up taking Tyler back to her hometown, and she makes an impression on Milo. It’s time for Danica’s bridal shower, and everyone shows up. As she opens the gifts, she gets a note: “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” Danica has broken up with Teddy, so she thinks he sent the note. She’s with Wyatt now. “What if someone saw what happened?”They all go to visit Teddy, who’s a full-blown alcoholic now. He insists that he had nothing to do with the note. That night Danica takes a bath with headphones on. In the kitchen, someone harpoons Wyatt; it’s a fisherman in full cover rain gear with a hidden face, and a big hook. Danica finds him in a posed situation, and it’s clear that it was murder.Danica and Ava talk about the intervening year and how they’ve grown apart. The five from last year get together and discuss who knew what.Tyler has a murder podcast, so they think she might be involved– she even did a podcast about the events of the first movie, from 1997, right here in this town. Tyler tells Ava all about the Fisherman and the story we already know. Sure enough, the Fisherman shows up and menaces them both. Somehow, Ava winds up in a cage and Tyler’s podcasting days come to an end.Since the cops are on Tyler’s father’s payroll, they aren’t going to help, so the group decides to talk to Julie James, one of the survivors of the 1997 massacre. They talk about the connections between the two cases. The man who died last year is a bit mysterious, and they don’t really know who he was. She basically says that they need to find the killer before he kills them all.There’s a town hall meeting, and Ray, from the 1997 occurrence, shows up to warn everyone that this could all be connected. They go see him after the meeting; Stevie works for him at his bar. They track down the stolen car the dead man, Sam Cooper, was driving, and the truck belonged to Pastor Judah, the local preacher.At the cemetery, the Fisherman chases Danica all over the place after killing the caretaker. Teddy jumps in at the last moment and runs the killer off. Everyone sleeps together at Danica’s house that night. Ava likes it rough, which confuses Milo. He goes outside to think about that, and the Fisherman kills him before he goes back inside. Ava sees his car drive off and thinks he left.Elsewhere, Ray and Julie argue about old times and getting involved in all this.Ava and Danica go to see Pastor Judah. Ava talks to him while Danica searches his audience. The pastor and Sam Cooper, may have been closer than everyone was led to believe; they come to the conclusion that Judah is the killer. They take what they know to the sheriff, who promptly calls Grant, Teddy’s father and the town’s mayor.Teddy goes to the steam room and sees “You’re Next” written on the steamy wall. He is, in fact, the next victim, but at least he puts up a fight. Grant finds him before he finally dies, but he’s killed as well. We guess that Grant isn’t the killer, but we suspected him.Danica has a dream where dead-but-also-de-aged-Helen, from the first film, appears to warn her about what’s coming. After waking up, she and Ava follow all the police to Grant and Teddy’s corpses. Ray tells them all just to leave town. Then they find Milo, dead, in his car. Danica, Ava, and Stevie take Teddy’s yacht out into the harbor while the police raid Judah’s church. Judah’s already dead, so it’s not him either. We see that Stevie had a connection to Sam Cooper.On the boat, the Fisherman menaces Ava and Danica; she pulls off her hat, and we see that it actually is Stevie. She was dating Sam at a dark time in her life, and Sam was following them to pick her up before she got re-addicted to drugs. This was all about revenge. Behind them, Ray is following in his own boat, and he boards them. Stevie kills Danica with the hook as both Ava and Ray point guns at her. Ray shoots her.Ava calls Julie and says she doesn’t understand how Stevie did all this alone. Julie looks up Ray online and sees that he’s involved too. Meanwhile, Ray and Ava talk about never moving on from something like this; he never did. She starts to realize that he’s the killer too. He chases her around the bar with a knife. He suggests that maybe he didn’t really kill Stevie.Julie arrives at the bar and finds Ava with a knife in her back. Ray and Julie confront each other. He was angry because the whole town covered up what happened in 1997, so he brought it all back to remind them. As they argue, Ava shoots him in the heart with a spear gun.We cut to the beach, where Danica washes up and goes to the hospital, still not dead. She and Ava recuperate at the hospital. They go to the beach for lunch. Ava mentions that Stevie’s still alive and out there somewhere.We get a post-credit scene where Karla, from the second film, hears about what happened. She hopes Julie’s in therapy. Then, there’s a knock at her door… It’s Julie. She’s got a note: “It isn’t over.”Brian’s CommentaryThe accident in the beginning seems to me to be a genuine accident; they all overreacted by trying to cover it up. At the very least, they could have omitted the part where Teddy was in the road, the rest of the story could have been unchanged. It’s not like they did anything to directly hurt the man, unlike in the original film.It’s very much like the original film, with nearly the same opening act. We have various characters whom we suspect are the killer, but they mostly all die off one-by-one.They clearly lay the groundwork for another sequel as well. It’s nothing new, but it’s well done and pretty entertaining.Kevin’s CommentaryYes, as Brian points out, there was a much weaker reason to cover things up this time around. And some points weren’t explained very well or were weak. We are unclear on why the pastor was killed. And good guy Ray from the first movie is a killer now because… reasons. Julie snidely remarks at the end that it’s because men don’t go to therapy. But faults aside, all in all I was more entertained with this than the original movie or previous sequels, and I’d put it as (barely) my favorite of the series.1984 The Toxic Avenger* Directed by: Michael Herz, Lloyd Kaufman* Written by: Joe Ritter, Lloyd Kaufman, Gay Partington* Stars: Andree Maranda, Mitch Cohen, Jennfier Babtist* Run Time: 1 Hour, 22 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThis is over-the-top, raunchy, gross, over-acted, silly, stupid, and hilarious all at once. It’s got a large cast and lots of special effects, with a hero you can root for. We thought it was very entertaining.Spoilery SynopsisWe hear a voiceover about pollution and technological advances. Millions of gallons of radioactive waste is disposed of… in Tromaville. We hear about a man named Melvin, whose entire life was changed by toxic waste. We cut to the gym, where all the sexy people are, more or less. Melvin, the mop boy, is funny looking and hated by everyone. Bozo and Julie have anger issues and just can’t deal with Melvin.Slug and Wanda talk about running people over with their car; they are vehicular serial killers. They’ve assigned “points” for various targets. Melvin watches them having sex. They get together with Bozo and run over a kid on a bicycle– twice.The next day, Julie gets the others involved in a plan to “get” Melvin. Outside, a big truck of radioactive waste pulls into town and parks in front of the health club. Julie talks Melvin into putting on a pink tutu and lures him into a huge crowd of laughing spectators. He runs from them and falls head first into a barrel of toxic waste.Melvin gets all mutate-y and bursts into flame. He runs down the middle of the street all the way home. In the bath, he gets all bumpy and swollen, and changes completely.We cut to some clearly vicious, har

We've got a whole string of new releases this week. We’ll start out with “Your Host,” about a fun game show. Next, we’ll take a trip to “Pig Hill” and do some huffing and puffing. “213 Bones” slashes up a bunch of teens next, followed by the comedic-stalker film “Borderline.” Finally, we’ll see what came after Dracula with “Abraham’s Boys.”And as usual, we’ve got a stack of shorts for you!* The latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #47, is on sale now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2025 Your Host* Directed by: DW Medoff* Written by: Joey Miller* Stars: Jackie Earle Haley, Ella-Rae Smith, Jamie Flatters* Run Time: 1 Hour 29 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneYou will immediately think, “This reminds me of Saw,” but it leans into the game show aspect enough to be different and interesting. Jackie Earle Haley is excellent as the host and the rest of the cast does a nice job as well. The effects are realistic, and there’s a story that explains things nicely. It was better than we expected, and we liked it a lot.Spoilery SynopsisJake is announced as the “Final Winner” in what appears to be a very bloody, terrifying game. He ends up winning a shotgun blast. Credits roll.We cut to four young people who are visiting a summer house in the country. Matthew, Melissa, James, and Anita begin their weekend of partying– it’s Anita’s birthday. They all seem a little obnoxious, especially James, whose house they’re in. They hear a noise outside, and James finds a video camera filming their house.Anita doesn’t want to watch the tape; she’s a real stick-in-the-mud which causes a big argument. Anita tells Matthew that her mother’s dying, and she’s upset over that. They all go about their evening, and we see someone stalking around in the shadows. We watch as the shadowy figure injects each of them with a sedative.All four wake up chained to the wall in a dark place. There’s another video camera and a strange man in a red suit wearing a mask. He’s got a mannequin studio audience, as he introduces the four contestants for his “game show.” He promises, “There’s always a winner!”The Host says it’s time for “Rock Paper Scissors Shoot.” He shows them what that means to lose.Several hours later, the four commiserate about their predicament. He makes them admit the worst things they ever did. James was guilty of killing someone in a car accident. Anita made an adult web page to pay for her mother’s surgery. Matthew scams people online. Melissa admits that her animal shelter sold dogs to dogfighting organizers.Now it’s time for “Wheel of Pain.” Melissa loses an eye. Anita drills a hole in Matthew’s ear. In the next game, Melissa gets a splitting headache as the point of that one.The Host comes back in and shows them a video of him cutting a woman up with a chainsaw. He also shows Anita his own scarred face. James thinks the man looks familiar. Turns out, Anita used to work on the Barry Miller show; we get a flashback.Barry Miller ran “Wheel of Games,” a game show program. Anita watches as a criminal gets released on the TV news. Jake, the guy who died at the beginning of the movie, and Lisa, the woman who got chainsawed also worked there with Anita, and they plant the idea that Anita and others could get a lot of money if they accuse Barry of being a sexual predator. They lied and ruined Barry’s career plus he lost his wife and kid.Barry’s already killed Jake, Lisa, and the lawyer who ruined him. He makes Anita chew on the dead lawyer’s tongue.For the next game James and Matthew have fresh sewn incisions on their stomachs. Barry gives Anita the chance to play “Incision Decision.” She’s got a knife and guess where the keys are? Which of them is going to be cut open? They both beg and negotiate, but in the end, she cuts open James and pulls out a key.Her key doesn’t fit the door, so she needs the other key. Barry releases Matthew so he can fight back. He picks up the knife, kisses Anita, and then cuts his own throat.Anita gets the other key and lets herself into the back room of “The Show,” where she finds many videotapes and photos. Barry’s obviously been planning this for a long time.Barry invites her in for one last game. It’s time to pick her prize. Anita offers to publicly admit that she lied about her accusations. But he lost his money, his career, his family, all just for money to save her mother’s life, and nothing will get that back. Barry promises not to kill Anita’s mother if she just finishes the game.She cuts Barry and runs outside but is quickly recaptured. She smashes her face into a birthday cake, but there’s no trick there. He says she wins the game. There was no knife in the cake; the icing, however, is acid. She dies painfully.We watch more videotape, where the lawyer admits he raped all those women; Barry was totally innocent of everything before Anita ruined his life.Brian’s CommentaryThe trailers make it look like “The Running Man” meets “Saw,” but in reality it’s more like “The Price is Right,” done the way Bob Barker always really wanted to do it. As uninspired as that sounds, I thought it was far better than I expected, mostly due to Jackie Earle Haley’s over-the-top performance. He’s great here, and a lot of fun to watch. The characters are all well defined and believable, the set is perfect, and the acting is good from everyone involved.And, in the end, Barry was right; they were all a******s.Kevin’s CommentaryI wonder how many game show hosts have fantasized about this over the years. It does remind one of Saw, but it’s different enough to be interesting. I agree that Jackie Earle Haley elevated the whole thing with his performance. It was really good.2025 Pig Hill* Directed by: Kevin Lewis* Written by: Jarrod Burris* Stars: Shane West, Rainey Qualley, Shiloh Fernandez* Run Time: 1 Hour, 40 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneWe were expecting another Piglet-Because-We-Can-Now movie, but it’s not part of that story line. This was well written and put together in an interesting way, with a good cast and realistic effects. We thought it was better than the preview led us to believe, and we both liked it a lot.Spoilery SynopsisWe open on a huge radio tower as a car parks nearby. The couple inside park here to meet someone. She points out that this is “Pig Hill” where all those women went missing. And there are supposed to be pig-people out here as well. Sure enough, a pig-man kills them both as the credits roll.Emily has gone missing and is all over the news. Carrie is her friend, and she wants to know what happened and is writing a book about the missing women. Reggie says it’s been ten people in the last decade.A new guy, Andy, comes into Carrie’s bookshop to sell some books. He gets called away suddenly, but Carrie likes him. Carrie’s married to Ben, but she hates him. Her brother, Chris, has been talking and doing business with Ben behind her back. They joke about the “Pig Hill Rhyme.”We cut to Emily, who’s in a cage somewhere.Carrie volunteers at the shelter, and there are some weird people there. Paula wants an abortion; she’s supposedly been raped by the pig-man, but abortion is illegal here. Carrie sees pig-men around every corner; is she crazy?Meanwhile, Paula gives herself an abortion with a coat hanger. Ew. The baby comes out, and it’s definitely a pig-baby. Paula dies from blood loss after stabbing the baby and then slitting her own throat. Just to make the evening more perfect, Chris is back on drugs.The next day, Andy comes back to pick up his check and offers to take Carrie out. Carrie admits that she’s on the outs with her husband, who left her thirteen months ago for unknown reasons. Andy tells her that he was wealthy and successful, and then lost it all.Carrie’s husband finds out about Andy and shoots himself. At the funeral, Andy shows up, and Chris takes offense at that. On the bright side, Ben was rich, so Carrie’s set for life now. Carrie dreams about having a litter of pig-babies. She thinks writing her book will change the world for her.Andy goes to visit his parents, and they aren’t doing too well. That goes badly, so he reconnects with Carrie. He tells the story about how his young son got run over by a tractor and died.Andy volunteers to help Carrie track down Red, Paula’s abusive meth-head father, for information for her book. They run into Giovanni, the “Pig King of Pig Hill,” a creepy pig farmer who invites them home. He comes from a long line of pig farmers. Giovanni tells about his ancestor whose daughter kept having sex with a well-endowed pig. Their love affair carried on over generations, creating the legends of Pig Hill. We see that Red is there on the farm, hiding.Andy and Carrie park under the radio tower, which figures into the legends about the “Alien version” of the pig-men legend.Later that night, someone drags Carrie out of her house. She soon wakes up in a cage next to Emily, who has been here for months. There really is a pig-man, and Emily calls him “Swill.” The pig-man also abducted the guy who was with Emily, who he sodomizes and kills.The police question Andy, who tells them about Giovanni’s pig farm. Andy enlists the help of Reggie, a homeless man who seems to know a lot about the area, to track down Carrie. Reggie explains that Carrie has been obsessed with the pig-men since she was a child. Reggie doesn’t think Red is the one killing women, since this has been going on for thousands of years. Reggie talks about the Nephilim, who resemble pigs and do terrible things to appease their demonic fathers.Carrie watches as Swill rapes Emily for about the hundredth time. This time, he kills her, leaving Carrie alone.Andy and his friends run into Red, who denies hurting anyone, even Paula. They kill Red, and Giovanni shows up and calls the police.As Andy sits in jail, Carrie gets to know Swill. Reggie finds Carrie laying out in a field near the radio tower and takes

We’ve got some good stuff for you this time around! A mix of new and old this time, starting with “Row” and “Osiris” from 2025. Back in 2016, we met some cannibals in “Raw.” Lastly, we’ll watch “Hellraiser: Judgment” from 2016 and “Terror of Mechagodzilla” from way back in 1975.* The latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #47, is on sale now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2025 Row* Directed by: Matthew Lasasso* Written by: Matthew Lasasso, Nick Skaugen* Stars: Sophia Skelton, Bella Dayne, Akshay Khanna* Run Time: 1 Hour, 58 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneAn expedition on a pretty small four person rowboat is meant to set a world record going across the Atlantic Ocean. We get to cheat a little and see the ending of the expedition first, then we go back and gradually see what led up to that ending. In the claustrophobic setting, things get worse and worse as things go wrong and the quartet starts turning on each other. It’s very well crafted, tense, and fascinating. We both really liked it.Spoilery SynopsisWe open on a deserted-looking boat with bloodstains and wreckage everywhere. One woman is alive, clearly in shock, and there are two dead people on the deck. Credits roll.Megan wakes up in bed, delirious, with an older man and woman there. Apparently she and the boat washed up with her the only survivor.We cut to Newfoundland, Canada, as Daniel records his warnings and expectations about their upcoming expedition. Their four-person team plans to cross the Atlantic in a small boat, but they’re going to row all the way. Megan is going along, leaving her mother, who has terminal cancer.Megan arrives at The Valiant and meets Mike, a new guy. Daniel and Lexi are there as well, and the four start rowing. We cut back and forth between Megan in her recovery bed and the early stages of the row. The hospital man says he’s a policeman DCI MacKelly and she’s been there for two weeks; she’s suffering from malnutrition.On the boat, they’ve been preparing for this 28-day journey for the past two years. They’re off course, so Mike has to dive under the boat to see if something’s wrong. There’s a rubber hair band jammed in the rudder, and it’s burned out their steering motor. Daniel thinks it wasn’t an accident. The only one who was alone with the boat was Mike, but why would he do it? Mike was a replacement for Adam, who broke his leg at the last minute. Daniel insists they should push through and keep going.On board the boat, Mike gets sick, throws up, and then gets the shivering, hallucinating kind of fever. The boat barely survives a storm and a huge wave. Megan gets an incoming satellite call from Adam, who also recently broke up with Lexi; she’s the other woman on board. Mike deliriously threatens Daniel with a knife for hiding Rachel on the boat, which is obviously not true. Daniel whacks him over the head, knocking him out.DCI MacKelly, in the hospital, says there’s no record of anyone named Mike having anything to do with the expedition. In fact, a search by his first and last name doesn’t turn up anyone with that name existing at all.On the boat, in the morning, Mike recovers and feels fine, but everyone else is surprisingly quiet. We get a flashback and see that Megan was the other woman in the Adam-Lexi romance. We see that Daniel is trying to call his father to dig up more information about Mike.A wave hits and capsizes the boat; everyone goes in the water. Megan gets knocked out and nearly drowns, but everyone ends up OK except the boat’s battery, which is dead. Daniel thinks its because Mike didn’t latch the waterproof cover properly.Somehow, they’re also short on food, which shouldn’t be possible. They only have nine days of rations left, and Lexi blames Daniel for throwing it all out. He ends up admitting it, but that may be just out of rage and not something he actually did. Mike jokes that they could throw Daniel overboard and no one would ever know. Lexi seriously considers it, but Megan is appalled at the idea.The next day, all the water pouches are empty. That’s even worse than losing the food. Daniel again gets the blame, but he swears it had to be Mike. Mike and Lexi attack Daniel, tie him up, but Lexi bangs her head badly. She’s not dead but knocked out. Daniel says Mike killed his own girlfriend, Rachel, and is on the run from the police.Megan has Daniel and Mike row toward a shipping lane– at knifepoint. Day 28 arrives, and they lose out on the World Record. Daniel tells mostly-unconscious Lexi all his personal problems.Next thing we see, Lexi is dead. There’s another big wave, and Megan goes overboard again. When she gets back on, she considers cutting Daniel’s safety line loose and then just disconnects it. The current soon carries him away. She then helps Mike back on board.Out of water and food, Megan and Mike keep on rowing. Mike tells her what happened to Rachel, who simply went missing. She admits to him that she unhooked Daniel and watched him die. He, in turn, admits that he did kill Rachel; he stabbed her during an argument. The boat rocks, and she stabs him completely by accident, a bad wound but not fatal.At the hospital, Megan hears that one of the young men from the voyage has been recovered and will be here soon. There is tension as we wonder who it is, and they take their time showing us.Back on the boat, they’re both starving. Mike catches a fish, but the exertion on his wounds makes him fall overboard. Megan eats the fish raw. The next day, the boat crashes at an island. She’s found not long after.Megan in the now watches as a boat approaches the island and gets out of bed. She goes downstairs to see who it is that the police are bringing in. DCI MacKelly says he’s still got to ask the man some questions, but he doesn’t say who it is. He handcuffs Megan to the bed and mentions that they found Lexi’s body with a fatal wound to her head.MacKelly brings the man upstairs, and it’s only Adam, broken leg and all. He doesn’t know anything about the voyage, and Megan tries to conceal her relief. Adam says the police aren’t buying her story - apparently they have found bodies. When they are alone, Adam admits that he was the one who sabotaged their rudder and food supply and water packets so that they would turn back. He didn’t plan on Daniel being so stubborn. He sticks to the story that Mike never existed and that Megan’s just insane. Mike really was on the run from killing his girl, using a false name to hide. Adam tells the cops that when he waved the boat off, there were only three people on board.DCI MacKelly arrests Megan for two murders, Lexi and Daniel. He doesn’t believe “Mike” existed. Adam limps back outside, the real villain of the story.Brian’s CommentaryI was immediately reminded of “The Sound” (2025), another film about a sporting activity that the filmmakers took very seriously and crammed in a little horror at the end. I found the boating stuff more interesting than the mountain climbing in the other film, but that’s not really what we signed up for. It’s clear that this one was also shooting for realism, and it succeeded there. The whole thing is fairly realistic in the way it plays out, even the way all four or five main characters interact.The four main actors all do well, and by switching between the boat and the hospital, it doesn’t get too monotonous, which it would have if it had all been on the boat. I guessed who it was coming to the island to confront Megan fairly early, but didn’t see his reveal coming.We both liked this one quite a bit!Kevin’s CommentaryI thought this was gripping. And it was well done going with the flashing back and forth between the past and the present. Going into it, I was fearing tedium a little, given that it’s almost two hours long, but I was fully invested. The cast is good, the story was clever, and I would call it a win.2025 Osiris* Directed by: William Kaufman* Written by: William Kaufman, Paul Reichelt* Stars: Max Martini, Linda Hamilton, Brianna Hildebrand* Run Time: 1 Hour, 48 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneShades of Predator, a group of soldiers is abducted from battle to wake up fully armed being hunted down by armed aliens in some kind of large facility. But the guys fight back, find a couple allies, and find out a lot more about where they are and what’s going on. Ironically the gunfighting action, which should be highly entertaining, drags on a bit here and there, and we both thought a trimming of 15 minutes or so would tighten things up. This was really good in every way except the pacing.Spoilery SynopsisWe watch a space probe as the credits roll. We eventually pass Saturn on the way out of the solar system. The space probe is captured by… something.We cut to a squad of soldiers on the ground. They shoot a bunch of enemies and announce that the war zone is all clear. No, they get ambushed in the street, and one of them gets shot. It’s all very intense. Suddenly, the music gets scary and the sky turns red. A spaceship appears and kills all the bad guys (the aliens are American?). Then it shoots something different, and all the American soldiers are abducted, probed, and examined.Later, six of them wake up in slime; some kind of suspended animation process. They know things about the process that they shouldn’t; they can read a strange language. All their ammunition has been reloaded and resupplied. Kelly and Rhodie put together what happened to them, but they don’t remember much.They start exploring the many tunnels of wherever they are. Reyes crawls through a small tunnel into another passage. They hear screams and go to check it out. They find men butchered and hanging from the ceiling. Then they find a woman hanging as well, alive, and she only speaks Russian. While they’re busy with that, an alien kills Gibbs and wreaks havoc until Rhodie shoots it with the alien’s own gun.More aliens show up, and it’s s

Nothing brand new this time around. We’ll watch a couple from last year, “I Don’t Understand You” and “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” (2024). We’ll go way back for a thoughtful man-monster in “The Colossus of New York” (1958) and then do a serial killer film with “Found” (2012). Finally, we’ll wrap-up the original zombie trilogy with “Day of the Dead” (1985), which for some reason, we haven’t done before.And, as always, we’ll have five short films.* The latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #47, is on sale now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2024 I Don’t Understand You* Directed by: David Joseph Craig, Brian Crano* Written by: David Joseph Craig, Brian Crano* Stars: Nick Kroll, Andrew Rannells, Amanda Seyfried* Run Time: 1 Hour 37 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThis is heavy on the comedy and light on the horror elements, with language barriers and misunderstandings leading to unfortunate outcomes. It’s not very scary, but it’s a lot of fun and we really enjoyed it.Spoilery SynopsisDom and Cole are a gay couple recording a video about adoption. It’s essentially a video application for the mother to choose them. It’s a lot harder than it sounds. After, they pack up and go on a vacation to Rome as credits roll.In Rome, the two go sightseeing. Dom is clearly obsessive, and Cole is well aware of it. They stop in to visit one of Dom’s father’s friends. They are given engraved knives as gifts - Cole’s is misspelled “Cool.” Cole doesn’t eat meat, which is weird in Rome. They talk about being scammed at one adoption attempt. The family friend, Daniele, has arranged a special dinner for them tomorrow night– and tells them to “Be careful.”The two arrive at their hotel in the country. The man at the hotel gets flustered when two men come in together and spreads their beds apart not realizing they are a couple. He soon realizes the error of his ways. Candace, the potential baby-donor, calls them on Facetime. She likes their video and has chosen them to be the fathers of her child. They’re overjoyed.They go to a farmhouse out in the countryside, an exclusive restaurant, where an old woman has promised to make them a special dinner. When the car gets stuck, it’s clear that this isn’t where they’re supposed to be. The truck who stops to help is the owner of the property, and he’s not happy. They ride along with the man, who stops to shoot a deer. He drops them off at… a place.They knock on the door, and a strange old woman answers. She invites them in. Turns out, this is where they were supposed to go in the first place. They have pizza and wine. When they kiss, she throws a fit about the wine being bad, and they misunderstand why she’s angry because she only speaks Italian. Cole’s a vegetarian, but it’s only polite that he try the horsemeat sausage pizza.The old woman goes into a long story about her son dying and her closing her restaurant. It’s been wonderful cooking for these two men, and she appreciates it. It’s all very nice, but they don’t have a clue what she’s saying. Dom reminds her of the dead son. Cole gets ill and has to puke, leaving Dom alone with the creepy woman. She offers him a clean, dry shirt.Cole finds an old man in an iron lung machine and gets freaked out. Suddenly, the lights go out, and the old woman runs to the breathing machine. In the dark, Cole accidentally pushes the old woman down the stairs, killing her. Dom tries CPR and hears bones snap.Someone drives up in a car. The man comes in and wants Dom’s car keys. He might be trying to tow the car. The power comes back on; should they call for help? The man comes back; he’s Massimo, and he’s rescued their car. He’s the old woman’s son, and he wonders where his mama is. He thanks them for cheering up his mother, who has been very depressed.They boys run outside to the car and run into Francesca. They have to go back inside, and Massimo wonders why Dom is wearing his dead brother’s shirt and he insists they stay for a drink. Massimo sees messages from Candace on Dom’s phone and smiles “You’re going to be dead!” although he’s just mispronouncing “Dad.” Cole runs inside and stabs Massimo in the neck, thinking it’s self defense. As he falls to the floor, he sees his dead mother under the table.Dom’s phone rings. It’s Candace, but they’re both covered in blood. They clean up fast. She’s going into labor, right now. Francesca stumbles in and sees Cole holding a knife over Massimo. She runs outside, and he chases her. Dom gets in the car and accidentally runs her over. “This has to be the last one,” Cole points out. At some point, Cole drops his bloody “Cool” engraved knife outside.Cole notices the big pizza oven in the kitchen. Could they use that to dispose of the bodies? Suddenly, the old woman sits up and Cole kills her again. They burn the bodies and clean up the blood. They get into their car and drive away. As they argue about seat belts, they run over the angry neighbor from earlier.In the morning, the police arrive at the house. The detectives got a call from the neighbor’s wife. They find the bones in the oven. The old man in the iron lung dies before telling them anything useful. They find a knife with the word “Cool” on it and proclaim they can trace that.Dom and Cole get to the airport and rush through the process as the police close in behind them. They get stopped by the police; but it’s only because Cole left his passport behind.Back in Pittsburgh, the guys stop at the hospital and visit Candace and the baby. They decide to name the baby Giovanni after the one character in Rome they didn’t kill.Later, Dom and Cole record another video, trying to get another child. The application asks about how it went when they picked up their first child. Happy ending!The police arrest Daniele for murdering the old woman and her whole family.Brian’s CommentaryGay tourists who don’t speak the local language. What could go wrong? Worst anniversary ever! It’s all a comedy of errors and miscommunications– a very bloody one. It’s no “Tucker and Dale Versus Evil” (2010), but it’s done along the same lines.It’s pretty mild as far as the horror elements go, it’s much more of a comedy. It’s good though, and it all makes sense. I liked it!Kevin’s CommentaryIt was a good comedy, very well done, with just a little horror around the edges. Watching things go more and more off the rails, and how they do their damage control, was a lot of fun. I’d highly recommend this one2024 Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes* Directed by: Wes Bell* Written by: Josh Friedman, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver* Stars: Owen Teague, Freya Allan, Kevin Durand* Run Time: 2 Hours, 25 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneHundreds of years have passed since the last movie, and the apes can talk pretty well as well as sign. It has a little bit of a slow start spending time getting to know what the world is like now. Then things pick up for one ape in particular where it’s one thing after the other. This movie continues the story nicely, with effects on par with the previous movies. We both thought it was quite a good sequel.Spoilery SynopsisWe get an on-screen text snippet that rehashes the first three films. Humans have lost their intellect and the ability to speak, and apes now rule the Earth. We open on Caesar’s funeral, just after the end of the previous film. Credits roll.Many generations later… The world has gotten very green and all natural now. We watch a trio of apes stalking an eagle’s nest. Soona picks one of the eggs and Anaya takes the other. Noa goes without this time– but he finds another nest. That goes badly when the eagle returns. They intend to raise the birds.When the trio get back to their horses, they notice a blanket is missing. It’s not an ape, and this scares them. They ride back to Ape Town and the children all want to see the eggs. Noa’s father, Koro, is the Master of Birds. Noa tells him and the elders about the “Echos” that may have come into the valley. They send Oda, a really big ape, to scare them away.That night, Noa sees a human in the smokehouse, and his egg gets smashed. That’s really bad for the bonding ceremony tomorrow. He goes off in search of another egg. He finds Oda, who dies almost immediately; there are enemies coming. Sylva and Lightning, two apes from another clan, along with their masked army, ride toward Noa’s village. By the time Noa makes it home, his whole village is in flames.Noa helps his father release all the birds before Sylva comes in. Sylva attacks both of them together, and Koro soon dies. Sylva yells, “For Caesar!”By morning, there’s not much left of the burned village. Noa vows to save his captured people from Caesar. He rides his horse through the tunnel, into the “Forbidden” territory, which turns out to be an old, overgrown human city. The enemy apes definitely rode this way. Noa’s father’s big eagle, Sun, follows him.He runs into an orangutan, Raka, who hates the apes in the masks, who killed his friend. Raka has books, an ancient way to store ideas, and he’s been working to understand. Raka explains who Caesar was, and the new ape who calls himself that. He talks about a time when apes and humans lived side by side, but not anymore. The original Caesar is sort of a legendary figure in Raka’s views.As the two apes ride on, they notice a human is following them. Raka’s all about the humans, but Noa thinks they’re just scavengers. They feed the human and give it a blanket. Raka names her Nova. “We name them all Nova. I don’t know why. It’s from Caesar’s time. Caesar legend important.”The two, now with Nova, eventually come upon a herd of primitive humans. Raka decides to stay with them and teach. As Noa rides off, he hears a horn blowing. Sylva and his goons attack the humans with nets, much as in the first film. They especially want Nova, and Noa rescues her. Even Raka gets in on the fighting. Sylva is not pleased.In the fi

This time around, we’ve got three new films, an ancient classic, and a not-so-old franchise film. We’ll start with the new “28 Years Later,” which just came to streaming. Next, we’ll watch the shark-slasher, “Dangerous Animals” and the weird “Flesh of the Unforgiven,” also from this year. We’ll then go back to 1941 and view the comedy-horror film, “Spooks Run Wild.” Lastly, we’ll cover the final film in the Caesar trilogy with “War for the Planet of the Apes” from 2017.And, as always, we’ll have five short films.* The latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #47, is on sale now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2025 28 Years Later* Directed by: Danny Boyle* Written by: Alex Garland* Stars: Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Fiennes* Run Time: 1 Hour, 55 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThis has quite a different tone than the first two movies, and neither of us thought it was improved for the better. After 28 years, assuming the rest of the world is just fine, it seems like they would be handling things differently by this point. Brian thought it was on the dull side. Kevin wasn’t bored, but neither of us liked it that much.Spoilery SynopsisA group of children watch the Teletubbies as the air raid sirens go off and the parents all get really upset. As Jimmy and the others continue to watch, we hear the adults in the next room being eaten. The rage zombies soon get everyone in the house other than Jimmy. We’re told that the rage virus was beaten back from Europe, but it destroyed the entire UK, which was left as a kind of quarantine zone. That was 28 years ago… Credits roll.We open on young Spike and the other villagers getting ready for work on their farms and such on the island. His father is Jamie, who makes an amazing-looking breakfast. His mother, Isla, is sick, and she didn’t realize they were leaving the island this morning for Spike’s first time. She doesn’t want Spike to go, as he’s way too young. She’s confused or delirious, but she calms down easily.Spike and Jamie are going for Spike’s first hunt, and everyone in town cheers them on; it’s a big event. Spike’s only 12, and kids usually don’t go until 14, so he’s an exception. Jenny, the village leader, explains that if anything goes wrong, they’re on their own. They leave the island over the causeway that can only be used during low tide.The two hunters soon see a rotten-looking man crawling on all fours and eating worms. Spike makes his shot and kills the infected man; Jamie kills two more that sneak up on them. They find a house, and inside is a man tied up and hanging by his feet. Someone tied him up and left him for the infected. The man’s got “Jimmy” carved on his chest. Spike kills it.The two find a stag’s head stuck way up on a tree, and Jamie gets spooked. It’s time to go back home. Too late, they run into a whole horde of crazies– the fast variety. The chase is on! They soon run out of arrows and hide in the attic of an old house.We cut back to the village, where people hang up “Welcome home Spike” banners. We hear from Jamie about “Alphas” which are bigger, stronger, and smarter than the usual zombies. Night falls, and they can’t go home. They make a run for it and make it to the causeway, which is just slightly underwater. The Alpha chases them across the water, but the sentries at the village shoot it. They go inside to the celebrations where Jamie’s got a girlfriend on the side, Rosie.Spike talks to an old man, Sam, about the fire they saw in the woods; he says it’s Dr. Kelson, who’s been living out there for years. He’s… odd, but Sam doesn’t want to talk about him. Spike wants to get the doctor to help his mother. Spike eventually gets Jamie to tell the story about Dr. Kelson burning the bodies of the infected.Spike and his mentally-ill mother sneak out of the village; he wants to take her to the doctor– across the wilderness of the mainland. They spend the night in an old church. Someone prevents a zombie from killing them during the night– could it have been Isla, Spike’s mother?We cut to a group of Swedish soldiers who are being chased by a pack of infected. They run into an Alpha, who rips one soldier’s head clean off.Spike and Isla get chased by zombies, and they hide in an old gas station. They’re rescued by the sole surviving soldier, Erik. He’s stuck here now; once anyone sets foot on the mainland, they are quarantined– permanently.Isla comes upon an infected woman who is pregnant, and it looks very painful. The baby seems normal enough, and Isla wants to take it. Meanwhile, an Alpha tears Erik’s head off. The Alpha chases Spike and Isla right into the hands of Dr. Kelson. Kelson sedates the big Alpha, whom he’s named Samson. Spike explains why they’ve come, and Kelson invites them to his compound.Kelson has made a whole forest out of human bones, including a skull tower, as a memorial and tribute to the dead. Kelson shows Spike how to make a clean skull out of Erik. Kelson examines Isla and diagnoses that she has brain and breast cancer that has spread. There’s nothing he can do to help. The doctor drugs up Spike and then mercy-kills Isla. One more skull for the pile!In the morning, Samson attacks, but Kelson and Spike hide in safety. Kelson wants Spike and the baby to go home before something bad happens.28 Days later, the villagers on the island find the baby, left there by Spike, who continues on in his exploration of the mainland. They also find a note from Spike saying he’ll be away for a while.On the road, Spike runs into a gang of men all dressed alike who take care of a bunch of fast zombies. They’re the Jimmy gang, and they’re all named Jimmy. “Let’s be pals,” he says.Brian’s CommentaryWhy, if the rage virus is so insanely deadly, is it allowed to continue in the UK? Why wouldn’t NATO or the US simply nuke it flat? There’s just too much risk of it getting out.Well, you might say it’s because of the survivors, like on the island. If that were the case, why would the authorities airdrop food, medicine, or at least radio to them?Where did the doctor get all that iodine, and why didn’t he kill Samson long ago if he sedated him regularly? He clearly had no problem with mercy killings.The acting is fine, and the sets are cool. Other than random shots of dirty naked people running around, there really wasn’t much zombie action in this. The Jimmies at the end made no sense and wasn’t much of a payoff after seeing “Jimmy” carved into everything along the way.I thought it was really… dull.Kevin’s CommentaryI didn’t think this was dull, but there were too many elements that didn’t make sense - which Brian already went over in his commentary. I thought the Jimmy gang at the end was pretty funny actually. I guess if it’s an apocalypse, one should embrace the crazy.I did appreciate that they were realistic about the arrow use. They were used up accurately and the quivers didn’t magically refill.I didn’t think this was nearly as good or entertaining as the first two movies. This was too different.2025 Dangerous Animals* Directed by: Sean Byrne* Written by: Nick Lepard* Stars: Hassie Harrison, Jai Courtney, Josh Heuston* Run Time: 1 Hour, 38 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThis was a little reminiscent of “Wolf Creek,” with an Australian serial killer who has been at his work for quite some time. Tucker, the baddie, finally meets his match when he pursues Zephyr. It’s a little on the predictable side, but it’s well made with a good cast and it entertains.Spoilery SynopsisA young couple walks out to the pier. Tucker shows up for Greg and Heather, who want to hire his boat. He makes a joke about no one knowing they’re even here, and then takes them out to swim with the sharks. On the way out, he tells the story about how he was attacked by a shark when he was seven, and then he shows them the scar.Tucker dumps some chum overboard to attract a shark, as the young people watch the sharks arrive. Tucker sings “Baby Shark” to calm them down. Greg and Heather climb into the shark cage and go down. There are a lot of sharks down there, and Heather eventually calms down to enjoy the show.Tucker pulls them up, and when Greg gets out of the cage, Tucker stabs him and pushes him overboard. “Welcome aboard,” Tucker says as credits roll.Zephyr and Moses are at a convenience store. He needs a ride and “convinces” her to take him. Turns out, they’re both surfers and start talking about that. They end up going home together for sex.Very early in the morning, Zephyr goes out to the dark beach and gets ready to surf. She left her fin key at Moses’s place and borrows one from Tucker. As she texts Moses, Tucker grabs her from behind. He sedates and ties her up, then loads her into his truck.Moses arrives at the surfing spot and parks next to Zephyr’s van, but she’s nowhere to be seen. A while later, he sees her van being towed and goes to the police.Zephyr wakes up chained to a bed next to Heather, who’s also chained. They’re on Tucker’s boat, way out in the ocean. Heather tells Zephyr what happened to Greg. Tucker comes in with food and water. The water is drugged, and both girls pass out.Zephyr wakes up tied to a chair on deck; Heather is chained to a harness and a hoist, and Tucker has a video camera. He talks about his “true calling.” He uses the hoist to pick up and lower Heather into the chum-filled water. He videos the whole resulting shark feeding frenzy. “Tell me that ain’t the greatest show on Earth.” He says he’ll do the same to Zephyr tomorrow night.We soon see that Tucker’s been at this a while, with dozens of former victims. Back on shore, Moses looks all over for Zephyr, but she’s still not there. He does find her surfboard and gets the police involved in a real search. He uses the beach-cams to see Tucker’s truck on the night he kidnapped Zephyr.Zephyr manages to knock out Tucker and get his keys. She runs up to the control

It’s an odd week, and an even odder mix of films this time. We’ll start off with “Bats” a nature-gone-wild story from 1999, then travel back in time to watch Bela Lugosi ruin Chinatown in 1936. We’ll then take a freaky gander at a very unusual “Wolf Girl” (2001). “The Sound” is up next, a 2025 film about mountain climbers, followed by 2015’s “Anarchy Parlor,” a terrible tattoo tale.And, as always, we’ll have five short films.* The latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #47, goes on sale in just a few days! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:1999 Bats* Directed by: Louis Morneau* Written by: John Logan* Stars: Lou Diamond Phillips, Dina Meyer, Bob Gunton* Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThe poster is cool. The science is bad. The movie is pretty good. It’s a genetically-engineered-creature-gone-wrong kind of movie with a big body count. There’s not a lot new here, but it’s got some entertainment value.Spoilery SynopsisWe open in Gallup, Texas as Quint and Emma, a young couple, drive out to an isolated make-out spot. Quint notices something strange outside the car and investigates. As a train passes by behind them, a giant bat breaks in through the windshield and kills them both. Credits roll.We cut to Skull Valley, Arizona. Jimmy talks to Dr. Sheila Casper, who’s crawling around in a tight bat-filled cave herself. They’re rudely interrupted by a helicopter containing Dr. Tobe Hodge and Dr. Alexander McCabe. They are needed for a bat-related “biological emergency.”The group soon arrives in Texas, where they are met by Sheriff Emmett Kimsey. The three scientists do an autopsy on the young couples’ bodies. They were, in fact, killed by bats, but that’s not normal. There have been some animal deaths, but bats don’t do that. McCabe mentions that these bats are special– two bats escaped from a lab. They need to kill the two bats before they can contaminate others with their unique viruses.Another body is found, and it was done by way more than two bats. The mayor wants to avoid a panic and insists they all keep it quiet. McCabe explains that the bats are more intelligent and aggressive, and now they’re omnivorous. If these bats infect the general population during a migration, that would be… bad. Dr. Casper says they need to kill all the contaminated bats before this gets any worse.Casper and Sheriff Kimsey talk about her love for bats. Suddenly, a swarm of CGI bats chases them, and they barely manage to hide in the car. They crawl all over the car, trying to get in; it’s very tense. When Jimmy and the deputy arrive, they get swarmed as well, but then the bats all fly away. All but one, which they put in a cage. They spot McCabe’s original two bats, but they escape as well. They inject the captured bat with a tracker and release it– but then the two leader bats tear it apart.Dr. Hodge gets the CDC to evacuate the town, and the swarm is slowly migrating in that direction. We cut to the town, where we see people doing normal things. The bats start killing the townspeople, and everyone else comes outside to watch. Among many others, the deputy gets eaten and there are many explosions. Dr. Hodge gets eaten as Casper watches, and then the bats all just fly away.In the morning, the army arrives as the surviving townspeople are evacuated. The army wants to blow up all the mountains and the town itself, but the Sheriff, Casper, Jimmy, and McCabe want to keep looking for the leader bats and save the town. The sheriff plays opera music as the others move into the town’s school.Casper wants to crawl into the bat cave and set up equipment that’ll freeze all the bats to death. McCabe overhears the plan and starts getting a sketchy look; he’s gonna do something dumb.The army locates the bats, who are hiding inside a huge mine. The bats attack and kill most of the army men. McCabe admits that he designed the bats to be “perfect killing machines” and he’s called them to where the characters are set up. “You let them out of the lab, didn’t you?” Casper accuses. Yep– he’s a mad scientist.Everyone runs around doing things as the bats attack the school. McCabe runs outside, and his two “babies” tear him apart and then leave. “I guess they got what they came for.”The sheriff, Casper, and Jimmy show up at the mine in the morning, and everyone’s dead. The soldiers got the whole mine wired with explosives and the refrigeration equipment, and the main characters just have to get it all working before the military bombs the whole place.Casper and the sheriff go down into the mines wearing armored breathing suits. They soon fall into a waist-high pool of bat crap. Then they find millions of bats in their lair. They figure out how to turn on the cooling system, but then the leader bats wake up and get all menacing. After a crazy battle, they kill one of the leaders and run for the way out of the caves.Jimmy blows up the cave entrances at the last minute. He calls the army to stop the air attack. The bats in the cave all freeze to death, trapped in their cave. Everyone goes home.Later that night, we see the other leader bat crawl out of a hole– and get promptly run over by a truck.Brian’s CommentaryThe bats are described as “omnivorous,” but they only seem to go after people. It’s a good thing that a country sheriff, a bat scientist, and her sidekick know all about army explosives and high-tech refrigeration units, huh?The CGI bats don’t hold up very well, but otherwise, it’s all pretty good. There were only two actual live bats used in the film. The town gets wiped out in the middle of the film, something that usually happens in the finale of these kinds of films.I saw this when it came out, and I remembered it being better than this.Kevin’s CommentaryHas Robert Gunton ever played a good guy? Partway through, I said his character wasn’t being enough of a weasel, and sure enough ,he came through. I hadn’t seen this before, I only hoped it was better than this. It was in the middle of the road all around, but it was more entertaining than not. Like Brian said, the CGI hasn’t held up, but the practical effects are pretty good.1936 Shadow of Chinatown* Directed by: Robert F. Hill* Written by: Robert F. Hill, William Buchanan* Stars: Bela Lugosi, Bruce Bennett, Joan Barclay* Run Time: 1 Hour, 11 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneWe watched the officially edited version cut down from over four and a half hours of fifteen serial episodes. It was released this way - cut to movie length - at about the same time as the serials. The end result still manages to feel too long and dull after it gets going - the full thing would be excruciating. The poster gushes about flaming action, dynamic thrills, and eerie mystery, but it was pretty tame.Spoilery SynopsisWe open in San Francisco, on the docks. A woman reads a letter about destroying the competition. She calls Victor Poten; they’ve discussed this, and now it’s time to act. She offers him $10,000 to ruin the merchants of Chinatown. He says with his machine, he can do it easily.Poten gets his gang together and they synchronize their watches before their plan. The men dress up like Chinese and spread out over Chinatown. They blow up smoke bombs, shoot off guns, and cause mass confusion.Joan comes to her editor, Martin, about getting to the bottom of this crime. She’s a reporter, and she’s desperate. Martin’s servant Willie explains the crime to her: someone wants to break up the Chinese tourist trade. She continues investigating with the local beat cop. She pesters the police chief and mayor, but they don’t even believe she’s a real reporter.Joan watches a Chinese man, Tom Chu, be kidnapped off the street and follows them. A remote-control statue drops him down into a pit. Poten and Sonya smirk at the success of their plot.Joan goes missing, so Martin and Captain Walters go looking for her in Chinatown. Joan uses a mirror to signal for help, and Martin sees what’s going on, goes inside, and finds her. Captain Walters gets the wrong idea and arrests Martin as being part of the gang.Sonya and Poten talk about finishing his work. He’s obsessed with revenge, but she’s more reasonable, only caring about business.Joan is reassigned to Los Angeles to cover a story there. Sonya is also going to L.A. Grogan, one of Sonya’s crew, wants to get rid of Poten. Poten comes in and catches Grogan, then hypnotises him. Poten then boards the ship in disguise to kill Grogan. Grogan calls Martin to tell him everything, but just before he can spill the beans, Poten shoots him with a poison dart, knocking him out instantly.Later, Poten grabs Grogan from the infirmary and dresses him up in Poten’s disguise. When it’s time to disembark, Grogan gets off, and the police go after him. Somewhere down the line, Sonya decides she’s had enough of Poten and goes to the police.Martin catches up to Sonya and starts interrogating her as Poten comes in. She also soon winds up hypnotised. She eventually wakes up and tells the heroes about Poten’s devastating devices. Joan writes up Sonya’s story for the papers, and her boss still gives her no credit. Joan and Sonya figure out that Martin’s heading into a trap and drive right over. Meanwhile, Martin and Willy Fu battle one of Poten’s henchmen. Martin and the thug fall off the roof; Martin lands on the fire escape, but the thug is killed.Poten hooks up a trap, fixing it so that the chandelier falls. Sonya pushes Martin out of the way, saving him and dying in the process. This leads to a car chase through town, ending when Potan drives his car off the end of the dock and drowns.Joan writes the story for the paper and tells Martin about it. He just called the paper and had her fired. He won’t have his wife working on a newspaper. Happy ending?Brian’s CommentaryLugosi is Poten, a mad scientist with a criminal gang. He can still hypnotize people with just a stare, which is

We’ve got a fun mix this week. We’ll start off with the more-sci-fi-than-horror “Megan 2.0” which just hit streaming. Then we’ll watch the depressing “Tigers Are Not Afraid” from 2017 and the less-depressing “The Love Witch” from 2016. We’ll continue aping around with “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” (2014) and finally get caught up with the series with “I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer” (2006).And, as always, we’ll have five short films.* The latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #46 is now on sale! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2025 M3GAN 2.0* Directed by: Gerard Johnstone* Written by: Gerard Johnstone, Akela Cooper, James Wan* Stars: Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Amie Donald* Run Time: 2 Hours* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIMDB still calls this horror. Maybe just barely, but not like the first one was. This one is more science fiction action with quite a bit of satire and humor. It’s fun entertainment, but beware it has quite a different tone than the first movie.Spoilery SynopsisSomewhere near the Turkish-Iranian border, the bad guys grab a tourist and kill her. We cut to a security briefing about a new weapon. They have a new asset. We cut to Amelia, that dead tourist, who isn’t dead. She breaks her chains, and we see she’s a robot. She sneaks through the bad guys’ camp and quietly kills… everyone. Then she shoots the man she was sent there to capture alive. She steals some weapons and reports that she isn’t following orders any more.We cut to young Cady, from the first film, who is still in therapy. She tells us about Gemma, the inventor of Megan, who is now a vehement anti-tech speaker. Cady’s taken the time from being away from her phone to learn martial arts.Tess and Cole, Gemma’s employees, put on a disastrous demo of a new not-robotic exoskeleton. Turns out, the system has been hacked. Alton Appleton, a rich jerk, comes into the workshop to gloat. He’s designed a neural chip and wants them to use his brain implants to go into Gemma’s exoskeleton. He’s wearing one of those implants himself. “If you put AI inside a human brain, it’s not gonna ride shotgun,” she warns.That night, Gemma gets a very strange warning from her TV, telling her she’s in danger. It’s Megan, somehow, warning her about a home invasion that’s in progress. The smart-home appliances work together to defeat the intruders. Turns out, they’re the FBI (They could have knocked).Agent Sattler tells her about the failed experiment, Amelia. Amelia is a robot very similar to Megan. Agent Sattler points out how lucky Gemma has been with her book sales, business, and choice of home. He explains that Amelia has been killing everyone who had any kind of involvement with her creation, and that probably includes Gemma.Megan shows up on TV and explains to Gemma that she’s not Amelia, someone hacked Gemma’s computer and built another one. She’s just a program, and she wants a new body– in return, she’ll kill Amelia.Gemma puts Megan in a toy robot’s body. Megan points out that Amelia’s battery has a kill switch, but only greedy Alton knows how that works. Gemma goes to Alton’s party to get the information out of him. We see that Amelia’s there as well. Alton, in a wheelchair earlier, gets on stage and dances– his neural chip really works. He spots Amelia in the crowd and starts flirting.Gemma finds Cole at the party, and he now works for Alton. She steals his ID card and they go into the computer room. They plug in Megan, who hacks Amelia and steals a file from her mind. Then Megan finds that Amelia is here in the same building. Amelia steals Alton’s retinal print and hacks his system. Then she pulls out his implant. Amelia now has access to half the cloud servers in the country.Amelia knows Gemma is there, and Gemma has no choice but to let Megan into the system. They escape and assume that Amelia will be going to get Cady next. Turns out, the house they’re living in is just full of surprises. It’s Megan’s lair… somehow. Megan is there physically as well, but she’s a burned up mess. Megan and Cady talk about morality, life, and evolution. Cady wants to give her robot a “second chance.”Tess and Cady want to help Megan to beat Amelia, but Genna’s not so sure, at least until they see Megan’s factory in the next room. The group gets to work on making Megan a new body. She wants to be taller now, but insists on having the same face.Fully rebuilt, Megan explains that she’s not the first killer robot. The first killer robot has been kept for decades against its will, getting smarter and smarter. Amelia wants to find it and release it, a kind of AI god. They think Amelia will be going after Christian, another outspoken AI genius, who’s going to be at a big AI conference. Megan sneaks in to infiltrate the place as a cosplayer and does a fun dance for the crowd.Meanwhile, Amelia attacks Christian and the Chinese ambassador. Sattler grabs Gemma and puts her in cuffs. Megan finds out that she’s restricted into a nonviolent mode, and Cady works to fix that. Meanwhile, Megan has to fight the FBI guys without hurting anyone. Amelia, in the meantime, impales Sattler.Amelia tries to talk Megan into turning to the dark side and then kidnaps Cady. The whole group, now plus Christian, return to the lair to regroup. Christian’s got the black motherboard, the original killer AI, in a box at the corporate research center. Gemma finally admits that Megan has been right about everything, all along, and that results in a song. Gemma removes the nonviolence chip from Megan; now they mean business.Cole and Megan break into Xenox Corporation’s head office. Gemma figures out that Megan has been controlling Amelia all along. Amelia was just serving Megan, who wants the black motherboard. Christian, on the other hand, shoots Tess and lets Amelia into the lair; Gemma’s theory was wrong. He was behind Amelia, using her to make AI look really, really bad and get it all banned.Christian shows Gemma the black motherboard, and then his goons drag in Megan and “kill” her. He then puts an implant into Gemma.Colt, who knocked himself out, finds Cady locked in a room. Cady explains it all to him. Cady wants to reset Amelia, who has some of Megan's original code inside her.Inside Gemma’s head, Megan talks to her, not as dead as she was pretending. She takes over Gemma’s body to kill a couple of baddies.Cady wakes up Amelia, who kills all the guards. Is Megan in there or not? Gemma puts on the exoskeleton/super-soldier suit and beats up pretty much everyone. The guards knock her out, but then Megan takes over and uses the suit to continue fighting. Turns out, Gemma kinda likes violence.Christian sets the self-destruct for the whole vault and gloats in front of the whole group. As he makes his escape, Amelie gets him. She tears his arm off and uses it to open the security on the black motherboard.Megan, back in her body, talks to Amelia about not releasing the black motherboard, but this just results in a fight just as the self-destruction reaches the one-minute countdown. Amelia beats Megan and connects with the ancient, evil robot mind.Gemma, Cady, and Megan talk about doing what’s right, and then Megan goes back in to talk to Amelia, who is now way more than she was. Then she detonates an EMP that shuts down all the electronics.Later, Gemma addresses Congress about limiting AI and technology. They also soon learn that Megan made a backup.Brian’s CommentaryLink to the first film, M3GAN (2023).That’s totally not Xerox, right? It makes fun of all the corporate techno-speak nonsense that we hear with every new startup as well as media such as “Knight Rider” and “Metropolis.”It’s all pretty ridiculous, and there are a lot of comedic elements here. Gemma’s nonviolent stance is wrong about everything, every time, in every scene, over and over– it’s very funny.It’s more sci-fi action than horror, but I thought it was fun.Kevin’s CommentaryThis one is definitely more straight up science fiction than the first movie. I thought it was fun and entertaining, but there were some plot points I could see coming a mile away. They dialed up the humor and action. It’s a good movie, but quite different from the first one. I guess it evolved like M3GAN did.2017 Tigers Are Not Afraid* Directed by: Issa Lopez* Written by: Issa Lopez* Stars: Paola Lara, Juan Ramon Lopez, Nery Arredondo* Run Time: 1 Hour, 23 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneIf you watch this, see it in Spanish with subtitles, not the English dubbed version that is adults doing the children’s voices. It’s a grim story set in a grim place, with kids dealing with it the best that they can. Horrorguy Brian enjoyed it quite a bit more than Horrorguy Kevin.Spoilery SynopsisAs the credits roll, we are told how many have been killed since the drug wars of 2006 happened. Some whole cities have become ghost towns. A class of kids write stories; one writes a story about a tiger. They can see in the dark and never forget; tigers are fighters and are not afraid.A little boy watches the drunken Caco peeing in an alley. The boy steals his gun and then sneaks away.Back in school, there is shooting, and everyone jumps to the floor. The teacher talks to Estrella, keeping her mind off the shooting. Classes are suspended until further notice. As Estrella walks home, she passes a murder victim in the street. As she arrives, we watch as a trail of blood follows her inside and crawls along the walls.Elsewhere, Morro wants to hear the story of the tiger again from Shine. This is a group of children without parents, and he tells them the scary story. Tucsi and Pop listen as well.Estrella calls her mother, but there’s no answer. She’s hungry and doesn’t know what became of her mother. That night, she has a terrible dream that the Huascas took her mother.In the morning, Estrella comes to the four boys for food. If they don’t help her, the Huascas will g

We’re gonna forego the new movies this week and focus on some older titles. Kevin picked up three more dollar-store DVDs that we’ll let you know about: “Sweatshop” (2009), “Nobody Gets Out Alive” (2012), and “Black Sheep” (2006). We’ll also take another step ahead in two franchises, “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer” (1998) and “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” (2011), the first in the newer reboot series.* The latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #46 is now on sale! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2009 Sweatshop* Directed by: Stacy Davidson* Written by: Stacy Davidson, Ted Geoghegan* Stars: Ashley Kay, Melanie Donihoo, Peyton Wetzel* Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThis movie is like a showcase for the work of the gore effects people involved - the deaths are especially wet and effective in this one. The rest of the movie isn’t so noteworthy. We didn’t get attached to any of the characters, the script is draggy, and the acting is hit and miss. If you’re looking for top notch gore you’ll find it here but not a lot else.Spoilery SynopsisA woman wakes up naked and shivering in a dungeon. She runs around looking for escape. Outside, a cop opens the door to the big factory and comes inside, looking for intruders. It’s obviously the same building. We see that he’s not alone; someone is in there with him has a bloody mouth and isn’t quite human. The woman runs up to him, and he shoots her by mistake about a thousand times. Credits roll.Six hours later, a group of young people enter the same building. They’ve brought a disco ball and sound system to have a party here. They find a video camera left behind by Ghost, one of their group who was here before them, and they all watch a girl do a striptease on the camera.We get to know Scotty, Charlie, and some of the other characters as they wander around the place and argue. As they get set up for their party, we see someone else moving around in the dark shadows of the warehouse. Wade, Scotty’s brother, shows up, and he’s got the lighting equipment and beer. Kim sees a scary face in the darkness and causes a scene. They’re expecting a lot of kids in about an hour.Wade likes Lolli but is told she’s a lesbian. He soon finds out she is more flexible than that. Miko laughs at Jade, who kinda likes Wade as well. Then they talk about the rules for b******s. When Jade sees Wade and Lolli going at it, she runs off and cries. Almost immediately after, some ghouls come out of nowhere and tear Lolli’s guts out.Kim goes looking for Lolli and gets captured by the baddies. A big man in a welding mask cuts off her fingers with garden shears. He then breaks her in half with his huge anvil-hammer.Jade spikes Wade’s drink with something nasty, but Kenny punches him before he gets a chance to drink it. We get a dance break with Miko Scotty and Jade and Kenny get close. When Kenny loses his head, Jade gets a shock from the ghouls. She runs away, straight into the arms of the welding-masked man with the anvil-hammer. Gallagher would be pleased with the results.Charlie and Enix talk about how badly she’s run this whole operation. She might be doing something shady with the admissions fee. They suddenly notice how few of their friends are still working. Scotty and Miko have a drinking contest, and Miko gets the “bad bottle.” She vomits up blood everywhere, but then the Hammer-Man shows up to finish her off.Wade finds what’s left of Kim, but he’s too drunk to see how broken she is. Hammer Man gets him before he goes too far with her.Charlie and Enix find Ghost’s car, along with some of his body parts. They figure out that he was killed before they even arrived, but then they find Kim and the ghouls. Enix soon gets the point as Hammer Man comes after Charlie.Charlie ends up in a room with Scotty and Wade, who aren’t quite dead yet after all. The two brothers confess their sins to each other hilariously before they die. Charlie gets loose, runs back to her car, takes a gun, and shoots Hammer Man several times.Charlie runs into the main room, which is now somehow full of dancers. Hammer Man follows her and starts killing the dancers, creating a stampede for the exits.Only Charlie makes it out alive.Brian’s CommentaryThe characters are all distinctive, but not particularly interesting or well acted. None, not one, of the characters are even remotely likeable, so when they die, we’re like… “OK?” The kills are well done, and the practical gore effects are really good.Why are there ghoul-women and the hammer-man in the warehouse in the first place? We get no explanation or reason for this. That Anvil-on-a-stick is a great-looking weapon, although it wouldn’t be very practical in reality. Where did all those dancers come from at the end when the ticket-takers were all killed? Who was running the lights and the sound?It's a low-budget schlock that doesn’t get good until the very end and even then, the high point isn’t great.Kevin’s CommentaryThe special effects are especially good in this one, the best part of the movie. The music selection was very good too. The script is kind of dull and simple, the characters aren’t very likeable, and the supporting production values are so-so.2012 Nobody Gets Out Alive* Directed by: Jason-Christopher Mayer* Written by: Jason-Christopher Mayer* Stars: Jen Dance, David J. Bonner, Shaun Paul Costello* Run Time: 1 Hour, 17 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThis is a fairly generic serial killer in the woods kind of movie. We start out with a (Why is this dummy allowing his daughter to play hopscotch in the road?) origin story of the killer. Then time passes and a group of young people go camping, laughing off the stories of death that lurks in the area. It’s well made, but just okay for entertainment value.Spoilery SynopsisNovember 2000. There’s a big outdoor party as credits roll. In the morning, one of the partiers runs over a girl in the road as her father watches.Present Day. Doctor Owen talks to a patient and explains that her daughter is going to need time to recover. Later, we see Jenn at home eating dinner with her parents; they want her to go out with her friends now that she’s out of the mental hospital. Jenn calls her friend, Michelle, who tells her the legend of the father of the girl who got killed; he still hangs out in those woods killing people.Mike, Danny, and Deron are going camping with Jenn, Michelle, and Angie. The three guys talk to Jared, who is very weird. Meanwhile, a man goes into a convenience store and kills the people inside.The gang shows up at the deserted convenience store and steals some cases of beer. Jared offends the locals by trying to buy weed from them. The group is flagged down by a man who warns them that the woods are dangerous; the woods give him the willies. “I warned ya!”They soon arrive at the spot and set up tents. Jenn is mopey, and Deron tries to cheer her up. Around the campfire, Daron tells them that the warnings from the harbinger weren't wrong. Hunter Isth, the father of the little girl who died, vanished, but now people die in these woods regularly. Brandon and Tim, the angry locals from earlier, show up and join the group. They laugh at the bogie-man story.Everyone pairs off for the night, and Deron and Jenn talk about why she’s so grumpy. The odd man out is Jared, who gets stabbed repeatedly by the killer, who shows up out of nowhere.In the morning, no one can find Jared. Everyone argues. They spend all day looking for him, and when they get back to their camp, it’s all been ransacked. The car has been sabotaged as well. They all watch in terror as Angie is killed outside the car. Danny also gets it, whacked with a sledge hammer. Michelle gets stabbed with a machete. The numbers are dropping radically as Mike gets hooked.Jenn loses her medications and totally loses her mind.We cut to the killer, Hunter Isth, as he prepares weapons at his cabin. He’s got Michelle and Mike tied up in there, not dead yet after all. He drives nails into Mike’s head, which stops him from screaming. Michelle asks, “What do you want?” and he tells her for what seems like an hour and then saws her legs off.Deron and Jenn run through the woods until they find a house. They go inside and find Michelle and Mike’s bodies. Deron gets into a fight with Hunter and he gets double-hammered.Jenn catches up with Brandon and gets a ride into town. They don’t get far before Hunter stops them. She’s soon on her own again, stumbling through the woods. He catches her. As he strangles her, she grabs his knife and sticks it to him.In the morning, Jenn wakes up on the side of a road. She’s soon picked up by a friendly driver, and we see a pair of hammers in the backseat.Brian’s CommentaryHunter Isth has some anger management issues. Why was Jenn in the hospital and what were those medications for? Who was that guy at the end? He wasn’t the killer, was he?It took a long time for the action to start, but when it did, we got down to two or three characters very quickly.It’s about as generic and bland as a slasher movie can be. It’s not terrible, but there’s nothing here to really recommend it, either.Kevin’s CommentaryNo, people shouldn’t drive drunk, but people do drive drunk. Which is why you shouldn’t let your child play hopscotch in the road. Which is why I had a problem with this movie right from the opening scene where dad is hanging out nearby while his daughter hopscotches on the road - not a residential street where people are driving slow and careful, but an open road that probably has a speed limit of 55. Then he was angry at the world after that and decided to be a serial killer.It’s pretty well put together, but nothing special. I’d say I barely liked it more than disliked it.2006 Black Sheep* Directed by: Jonathan King* Written by: Jonathan King* Stars: Oliver Driver, Nathan Meister, Tammy Davis* Run Time: 1 Ho

We’ve got another week of five-and-five, with five features and five shorts, and they’re all good this time around. We’ll open up with the acclaimed “Bring Her Back” which just hit streaming, and the brand-new “Hotspring Shark Attack” which just released as well. We’ll watch a couple of older films, “Border” (2018) and “Cure” (2017), and then go way back to watch Bela Lugosi monkey around in “The Ape Man” from 1943.* The latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #46 is now on sale! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2025 Bring Her Back* Directed by: Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou* Written by: Danny Philippou, Bill Hinzman* Stars: Billy Barratt, Sally Hawkins, Mischa Heywood* Run Time: 1 Hour, 44 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneAfter a disturbing opening, this takes a while to get to the horror, building nicely as things get stranger and more unsettling. It takes some time to figure out what’s really going on. The casting is spot on, the direction and effects are excellent. It’s a strange one, and we liked it.Spoilery SynopsisWe watch some people doing strange things for the camera, which sees things that we do not. Credits roll.We cut to Piper and Andy, step siblings, and she’s got weird eyes. She tries to make friends with some girls at the bus stop, but they make fun of her face. She’s mostly blind. The two go home to find their father dead in the shower. He’d just finished chemo, and something went wrong.The two get split up for foster care. Piper is going with Laura, but Laura’s had problems with troubled kids in the past, so she doesn’t want Andy. They beg to stay together, so they’ll allow it on a trial basis. He’s very protective of his younger sister.They arrive at Laura’s house, and she’s very friendly and nice, although it’s clear that she’s more interested in Piper than Andy. Laura had a blind daughter, but she’s dead now. They go outside and meet a very strange little boy, Ollie, who’s mute and has a birthmark on his face. He’s another of the foster children. Andy and Laura get off on the wrong footing right away.Later that night, Laura watches videos of the cult that we saw in the pre credit sequence.We also see that Andy has been traumatized by finding his dead father. The next day, they go to their father’s funeral. Laura cuts off a bit of the dead man’s hair and puts it in her pocket. After the funeral, they all play a drinking game. They all, even young Piper, get incredibly drunk.Meanwhile, at home, Ollie breaks out of the house and walks around the yard all bloody, trying to get into a locked shed. He watches the others partying from outside the house. Andy talks about the way his father used to abuse him when he was little, but he never touched Piper. Late that night, Laura pours her own pee all over Andy while he sleeps to make him think he did it himself.Ollie sits in his room and eats bugs. Andy washes himself outside because he’s afraid of the shower. At breakfast, Ollie tries to eat a huge knife, cutting his mouth up, and Andy tries to take him to the hospital. Once they get outside, they cross the white circle on the ground, and Ollie goes into convulsions. “Help me!” he says, speaking for the first time.Laura returns and is surprised that Ollie can talk now. She drags him back inside the circle and indoors, and there’s no more talking from him. We watch one of the old cultists videos. This has happened before, and it’s not pretty. Laura feeds the hair from Andy’s father to Ollie. We see from above that the house and much of the yard is surrounded by a big white circle.Andy has a terrifying vision of his father, who tells him, “She’ll die in the rain.” Andy slips and knocks himself out, waking up at the hospital, in the rain. He tells Laura about this, and she says she killed their father. Then again, he’s got a concussion, so maybe he imagined that.Laura dresses Piper up in dead-Cathy’s clothes and does her hair to look like her dead daughter. Laura wants Piper to stay when Andy turns 18, but Piper plans to go away with Andy when he leaves. We see that Laura still has Cathy’s dead body in her freezer.Andy gets released from the hospital, and Laura’s not happy about it; could he be dangerous? On the old videotape, we see that there’s cannibalism and soul-transference going on. Laura hits Piper in her sleep and frames it so it looks like Andy did it. Laura’s got a whole story made up to turn Piper against Andy. It all gets very confrontational, and Piper ends up taking Laura’s side.Andy goes to see Wendy, the social worker who placed them with Laura. He sees a “Missing Child” poster with Ollie’s face on it. When he sees Wendy, he’s very intense, and she won’t put up with him. Eventually, Andy talks Wendy into going to the house for a visit.At home, Ollie destroys the kitchen and attacks Laura, taking a big bite out of her. He then takes a bite out of the wooden counter-top, losing most of his teeth in the process. The skin on his own arm starts to look pretty tasty after that. He crawls into the freezer with dead-Cathy…Wendy shows up at Laura’s house as Andy breaks the lock on the backyard shed. He sees Ollie and frozen-Cathy out there. “We can bring her back,” Laura says to Wendy. Andy shows Wendy what he’s found, and they both run for the car, where Laura runs over them with her SUV. Wendy is killed, but Andy’s only heavily injured. Laura finishes him off by drowning him in a deep puddle.Laura goes to pick up Piper from her game and they drive home. Of course, Piper can’t see how beat-up the car is. In the house, Piper hears Andy’s voice, but we see that it’s really Ollie, and he’s looking pretty horrifying now.Piper locks herself in the bathroom, where she finds Andy’s body. Laura explains that she put an angel inside Ollie’s body, and now it’s going to put Cathy into Piper. Piper tries to run, but hits her head and passes out.Laura drags Piper out the swimming pool as Ollie watches and joins in the fun. As Laura pushes Piper underwater, she wakes up and tries to fight back. Meanwhile, something comes out of Ollie. Halfway through the drowning, Laura has second thoughts and lets Piper go.Piper runs to the road and gets picked up by a car. Laura looks at Cathy’s half-eaten frozen corpse and drags it outside, where Ollie writhes outside the circle.Later that night, the police find Ollie, who can speak and tells them who he really is. They also find Laura and Cathy in the pool.Brian’s CommentaryIt takes about 45 minutes before we get to anything truly unusual or horrific, but it does eventually get there. It’s very slow paced as we see more and more weirdness that just keeps on building up as the film progresses.The acting here is good all around, and the film is very visual, with lots of cool shots and interesting ways of filming things. For a long time, I thought it was going to be one of those “The monster was grief all along” films, but no, that’s only part of it.It was good!Kevin’s CommentaryThis was really impressive. The cast, visuals, and story. Maybe Laura was going just a little too far for love. We could see how things were spiraling out of her control as she started getting in deeper. I give it a big thumbs up.2025 Hotspring Shark Attack* AKA “Onsen Shaku”* Directed by: Morihito Inoue* Written by: Morihito Inoue* Stars: Daniel Aguilar, Shoichiro Akaboshi, Takuya Fujimura* Run Time: 1 Hour, 10 Minutes* Trailer: 1943 The Ape Man* Directed by: William Beaudine* Written by: Karl Brown, Barney A. Sarecky* Stars: Bela Lugosi, Louise Currie, Wallace Ford* Run Time: 1 Hour, 4 Minutes* Watch it: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneA mad scientist falls victim to his own devices and gets stuck somewhere between gorilla and human. They’ve got a real ape in the lab, desperate plans involving murder, and police on the trail. How will these hijinx work out? We would say you should see it to find out, but you’d probably be okay if you don’t.Spoilery SynopsisA group of reporters talks about how tough their jobs are. The newspaper reports that Dr. James Brewster has gone missing, and it seems suspicious. Dr. Randall is there at the docks to pick up Agatha, the missing doctor’s sister. Carter, one of the reporters, thinks there might be a story in it.Dr. Randall knows exactly where Brewster is, and he tells Agatha that he’d be better off dead due to their recent discovery. Brewster experimented on himself, and it was so successful that they haven’t been able to reverse it.The pair drive to the place where Brewster has been hiding, in a secret room in a country house. In a cage is a big ape and also Brewster, Bela Lugosi, who has hair on his face like a gorilla. He’s an ape-man now! He can still talk, but he walks and roars like an ape.Outside, a weirdo peeks through the window as the altered doctor tells his story. Carter’s photographer friend goes off to the war, and Billie Mason, a young woman, is his replacement.Back at the lab, Agatha watches as Brewster injects himself with a new serum that doesn’t work. He tells Agatha that there is a serum that would work, but Randall won’t allow it. Randall explains that he’d have to commit cold-blooded murder to get the spinal fluid that Brewster needs.Billie and Carter arrive at the Brewster house, and they hear ape sounds even from outside. They’ve come to interview Agatha, a famous ghost-hunter. Agatha discusses the ghosts that haunt this house. She plays a recording of a ghost for them.Hearing again that Randall won’t kill for him, Brewster puts on a coat and hat and goes out, with the gorilla in tow. Detective Brady arrives to question Randall about Brewster’s “disappearance.” Meanwhile, in the next room, Brewster and the ape kill Randall’s butler and take his spinal fluid.Randall calls the police, who find a clump of hair in the dead butler’s hand. He goes to Brewster, who has made the serum and needs the other doctor to inject it. He refuses, and Agatha