We have a fun mix of old and new this week. We’ll start off with two new releases, “The Death of Snow White” and “For God’s Sake Wake Her Up,” both new-ish. We’ll go overseas for a bit and visit “Thelma” from 2017. Then we’ll watch the American remake of Godzilla, “Godzilla” (1998). Finally, we’ll watch a true-crime-sorta film, “The Town That Dreaded Sundown” from way back in 1976. [Except we ended up reading them all out of order on the podcast, sorry!]

This, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #51, is on sale now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link:

https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

2025 The Death of Snow White

* Directed by: Jason Brooks

* Written by: Jason Brooks, Naomi Mechem-Miller

* Stars: Sanae Loutsis, Chelsea Edmundson, Tristan Nokes

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 50 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

It’s a dark telling of the classic fairy tale. This is a good one to watch if you really enjoy Renaissance Festivals - it appears to have been filmed at one with that level of realism throughout in all the aspects. The story has the logic of a fairy tale, and it has some entertaining moments and ideas. But we both thought it was a bit long and drawn out, and not an overall winner.

Spoilery Synopsis

An old woman chases a young woman up the stairs in the castle. The old woman whispers some magic words, and the other starts to puke up maggots. She makes the guard kill himself. She then goes to the bedroom of a very pregnant woman and stabs her with a poisoned dagger. All the king’s doctors get to work trying to save the baby. The dying queen looks out the window and talks about how beautiful the snow is.

On the way out, the witch takes out more guards and encounters a buff dwarf with an axe, and she knows him. They fight epically, and she runs him through and makes her wounded escape. Credits roll.

Years later, at what appears to be a still-medieval Renfest, Princess Snow White likes the looks of The Prince. There’s some awkward flirting between the two. Meanwhile, the Queen looks at the results of an experiment of arsenic skin care on a subject. She’ll try mercury next. She looks out the window at Snow and hates her. The magic mirror knows all about her plans.

The Queen has lost some blood and wants the huntsman to kidnap one of Snow’s friends to replace it. His group of hunters arrive at the festival and search for a victim. Meanwhile, Snow and the Prince look at sparkly lights in the forest. Huntsman Kaiser kills the girl and attacks Snow and the Prince. Huntsman Gunnar, however, is loyal to Snow and helps her escape into the Dark Forest.

Snow and Sophie run into monsters in the woods, and they tear Sophie in half. The Prince and his search party look for Snow White who is wandering through the forest bloody and dazed. Back at the castle, the mirror gives the queen some advice on how to “have it all.”

Snow is captured by the huntsmen, who put her to sleep and carry her back. No– they’re interrupted by a pack of dwarves who have come to rescue Snow. None of them like the queen, either, so they all become allies. Many of them worked for her father, the king, and even helped in her childbirth.

When the only surviving guard from the dwarf ambush returns to the queen, she orders that his hand be cut off with a very small knife. But he’s still grateful and loyal. Out in the woods, the search party meets up with the dwarves and fights the tree-monsters.

Meanwhile the queen casts a spell to transform herself into an old decrepit woman, the powerful killing witch we saw at the beginning. Who goes out into the woods with a basket of apples, encounters the boy from the search party, and kills him after getting information from his mind.

The old woman runs into Snow and offers her an apple. This goes badly since the apple is poisoned; Snow goes into a coma. The dwarves and the Prince rush in, and we get a flashback to Snow’s birth. The only way to beat the magic poison is to sacrifice a life. That’s how Snow’s mother really died, she sacrificed herself.

Meanwhile, the Queen is young again but still obsessed with Snow White. She has her toes cut off to fit into Snow’s shoes.

The Prince’s group manages to break into the castle and confront the Huntsman and the Queen. In the ensuing battle, a few of the dwarves are lost. The battle goes badly for everyone, but the Prince finally manages to carry Snow back out to the woods. He kisses her and takes the poison from her. He dies, and she wakes up.

Snow is awake, and now she gets the “epic badass music” as she walks through the continuing battle. She walks into the throne room, where the queen is making the dwarves suffer. The queen orders Huntsman Gunnar to kill Snow; he hands the queen Snow’s heart. No wait– it’s a maggoty mass of decay - the queen was tricked into eating her own poison.

The dwarves use the magic mirror to bounce the Queen’s evil magic right back at her. Then the dwarves get all medieval on her. The queen melts as the figures in the magic mirror laugh at her.

Snow is now the queen, and everyone is happy. She goes out to the Dark Forest and dances with the ghost of the Prince.

Brian’s Commentary

The story is fine, but the execution leaves a bit to be desired. The dialogue and sets seem to come straight from Renaissance Festivals. Most of the scenes with the queen involve some body horror, and there are some pretty cool monsters in the Dark Forest. The dwarves are fun and well done. Some of the “actors” seem to have never spoken on-screen before.

Wilhelm and Jacob are really just Timon and Pumbaa turned human, right?

The pacing is very slow, however, and it gets a little boring at points. It does pick up a lot in the final half hour, when we finally get some action. It’s… decent once you get through the opening scenes.

Kevin’s Commentary

It’s like a Renaissance Festival. The accents, the costumes, the sets, even the dialogue, all seem put on like a Ren Fest. Where on the surface everything looks and sounds generically medieval, but if you really look and listen you can easily tell it’s a veneer.

It’s a fairy tale, not a historically accurate film, I kept telling myself. It’s silly and exaggerated for a reason. There are some entertaining moments and some scenes of real horror and gore. The mirror was cool. The dwarves were badass. So I’m not going to say that I hated it, but it was a bit too long and didn’t do much for me.

2024 For God’s Sake Wake Her Up

* Directed by: Wayne Moreheart

* Written by: James Justin Howells

* Stars: Sarah Crawford, Mamie Kakimoto, Queen Legend

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 27 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Two young women wandering the city after avoiding one of their mother’s funeral stumble on another woman who is suffering from a severe case of recurring sleep paralysis. They slowly learn it’s not just a simple medical condition. We both agree, it’s a slow moving one but it was very good.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a videotape of April talking about her sleep paralysis; she’s afraid it’s going to kill her. We then watch it happen as credits roll.

We watch as Rizz and Myles walk along the train track past the landfill. They admire the graffiti and then stop to steal some beer. They don’t really like beer, but it’s fun to steal it. They argue about not going to the funeral; Rizz’s mother has recently died, and she has regrets. Myles cheers her up.

The two soon wind up in the bad part of town and bump into April. Who is walking around like a sleep-deprived zombie.

April goes home to her neglected-looking house. She watches another videotape; she says she hasn’t slept more than an hour in weeks. She’s recording all this before “he takes me.” “This is my final tape,” she explains, “I am the end of the line.”

Rizz and Myles wander around through the bad neighborhood, and Rizz decides to go into one of the houses there. Why? Because!

Inside, Rizz starts digging through the stuff and finds April’s video camera and TV. She plays the tape and watches as April explains her problem. There are a lot of tapes. They go upstairs and find April in bed, apparently in some kind of seizure. Rizz wants to help the old woman, but Myles just wants to get out of there before the police get them for breaking in.

Myles tries to leave but something keeps her from opening the door. Rizz has a feeling that the answer lies in that stack of videotapes. “The entity” took April’s grandmother and her mother as well; now it’s her turn. April has no children, so she expects this will all end with her.

Meanwhile, Myles tries to break a window with a stool, but the entity rips the stool right out of her hands. Rizz insists on helping April, who told her the answers are all in the tapes. The tapes are very repetitive and not especially interesting. Finally, Myles cuts the power cord. Now, Rizz reads through April’s “crazy book” and reads it. It’s all about sleep-demons, and people have died from it before.

Rizz and Myles argue, again. Meanwhile, April is terrorized by the entity. The entity opens the door and lets Myles out, but then it won’t open again. She runs off to charge her phone and call for help. No– the entity breaks her neck and kills her, then drags the body away. Rizz freaks out until the entity drags her away as well.

Rizz watches the rest of the tapes. April explains that the entity is an ancient, primeval thing that