Fun films this week! We’ll start off with the sorta-sci-fi “Woken” from 2025, then get traumatized by “Traumatika,” also from this year. “Ghost Killer” was released last year in Japan, but it’s also new here recently. “Insidious: The Last Key” from 2018 winds up our coverage of that series (at least until the next one). Lastly, we’ll look back at “Demon Seed” from 1977– does it still hold up?

“The Horror Guys Guide to the Horror Films of Christmas” is available now wherever you get your books. Seventy-Five holiday-themed films are included— it’s our biggest book yet!

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Mainstream Films:

2025 Woken

* Directed by: Alan Friel

* Written by: Alan Friel, Rebecca Pollock

* Stars: Erin Kellyman, Maxine Peake, Ivanno Jeremiah

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Anna wakes up pregnant with no memory of where she is or who the people she’s with are. But everything and everyone seems so normal, what could go wrong? Things go slowly until they abruptly don’t, and the tension mounts. It definitely has a science fiction element with low-key simmering horror. We both thought it’s a winner.

Spoilery Synopsis

Anna runs to the cliff and looks down in a panic. She jumps. Credits roll.

Later, she wakes up in a bed with her head bandaged. When she wakes up, there’s a strange woman there who’s taking care of her. “Don’t worry, the baby’s fine,” she says. The woman, Helen, brings in a book with photos of Anna, but Anna doesn’t remember Helen or anything. James comes in and is introduced as Anna’s husband, but she doesn’t remember him. His version of what happened on the top of the cliff differs from what we saw.

Helen explains that they’re on an isolated island, and she can help deliver the baby when it comes. Anna meets Peter, Helen’s husband, and he’s a little weird. The group has whole lobsters for dinner, and it’s all pretty revolting to pregnant Anna. She doesn’t know them, so James shows her some videos. Helen and Peter are their neighbors, the only ones on the island.

Dr. Henry comes for a visit to examine Anna. He pulls out one of her hairs before examining the baby. It’s due in about two weeks. Anna suggests that a visit to the mainland might help her memory, but James insists they wait until after the baby.

Anna sees two people on a swan pedal-boat out on the water. When Helen sees it, she sounds an alarm. When Anna runs to welcome the people, she sees that they’re disfigured and monstrous. Helen shoots both of them, then James burns the bodies and the boats. “You’ve been exposed– We’ve all been exposed” Helen shouts. They all strip and burn their own clothes.

James explains that ¾ of the population are dead. You can catch it a whole bunch of ways, and no one knows what started it. They lock her in the bedroom for a quarantine, but they don’t explain much.

Some soldiers in hazmat suits come to the house, and James insists that Anna is uninfected. Dr. Henry is with them, and he examines her again. He says that both she and the baby are healthy. He seems excited, but tells her it’s “Nothing for you to worry about.” Clearly, these people still have some secrets.

Anna finds the knitting basket, and it’s full of little knitted baby shirts, all identical. Helen and James whisper about Anna when she’s out of the room. She grinds up some pills she was given but didn’t take and puts them into James’s soup, but he’s suspicious and doesn’t eat it.

Anna sneaks out in the morning and goes to the part of the island she’s been told not to go to. She passes a “Forbidden” sign and comes to Helen and Peter’s house. Peter complains that Helen’s getting too attached, and this happens to her “every time.” Also, Helen has a small black child that clearly isn’t hers or James’s. And there’s a baby crying– or maybe that’s a goat.

Anna sneaks into their house and looks around. She runs into little Joshua, who says she promised to never leave him but did. Helen interrupts and tells her to go back to the cottage. Just as she’s about to get answers, James chloroforms her.

Anna wakes up restrained to a table in a lab. James comes in, and he says that’s not his baby inside her, he’s just here to protect her during the pregnancy. He says she doesn’t really want to know what’s going on. Helen and Peter appear to be scientists. “Always a pity to cut you up,” says Peter. Anna gets an arm free and stabs him in the neck with a syringe. Through an accident, Peter shoots himself, and Anna gets off the table.

Anna watches videos of her being experimented upon– and dying. She sees computer records of at least 17 past failures where she and the baby died. She opens a machine and sees that they are already working on her replacement.

Anna confronts Helen and James, and she wants answers. It’s only a matter of time before humans are wiped out. Anna, and her kind are here to replace us. Helen and Peter are experts in Genetic Cloning and Transmissible Intelligence. Anna is immune to infection, and hopefully her child will be too. Helen says there have been 96 attempts, and the current Anna is only two years old. Joshua was from a previous Anna, and Helen has been keeping him hidden.

Anna and Helen lure the doctor and soldiers to the island and then board their boat. They are quickly captured. Anna gives birth to a healthy baby that is quickly rushed away by Dr. Henry.

Back at the lab, Henry infects the baby, but it’s immune. He’s also got Joshua as a hostage, but that ends really badly. Henry orders Helen to get the next one ready and to make sure she doesn’t remember anything next time. Helen and Anna shoot the two guards and then infect the rest.

Anna comes to Henry on the boat. Helen shoots Henry in the head, and then they burn Joshua’s body. They set sail North on Henry’s boat with the newest Anna on board as well; they heard there are islands up there that aren’t infected.

Brian’s Commentary

For a very long time, we don’t really know what’s going on, other than some of the people on the island are a little off. About thirty minutes in, we both came up with the same theory about a twist that might be coming. We were essentially right, but there was a lot more to it than that.

It’s slow moving and creepy. There’s some action at the end, but it’s mostly a mystery as we try to figure out what’s going on.

Kevin’s Commentary

Anna wakes up with no memory, but the people she encounters seem so kind and normal. The island is beautiful, and the house is peaceful - through rundown and low tech. I liked the abrupt change of pace and tone. And we see that it’s in the future with medical technology quite a bit ahead of what we’ve got now.

I can see where they had the best intentions shielding Anna from reality while her memory was gone. But I was kind of annoyed when the big change in tone happens and they don’t take the time to fully tell Anna what’s going on and continue to keep things from her. And us. Though that did help us come up with a theory of everything.

I thought it was pretty cool.

2025 Traumatika

* Directed by: Pierre Tsigaridis

* Written by: Maxime Rancon, Pierre Tsigaridis

* Stars: Rebekah Kennedy, Emily Goss, Ranan Navat

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 22 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

A demon set free really messes with people over a lot of years. We thought this one was hit and miss. It’s well made, with some good creepy bits and suspense. There are also some places that drag and don’t do much for us. The Horrorguys are split on this one. Kevin gives a moderate thumbs-up, and Brian didn’t care for it much at all.

Spoilery Synopsis

We are told of the five forms of childhood trauma, and then we go to Egypt in 1910. A man is walking across the desert, and he doesn’t look to be in very good condition. As he collapses, he unwraps a figurine and says a prayer over it before burying the evil thing. He then stabs himself in grief over his son that the demon in the statue took. He dies as the credits roll.

We cut to 2003 in Pasadena. Little Mikey calls 911 about his mother, who is scaring him. We soon see that this is no normal domestic abuse situation as she scurries around after him and pees on the floor. Yeah, she’s demon-possessed.

We see Mikey on TV as an abducted child, as he and his demonic “mother” watch the news. The sheriff shows up in response to that 911 call and he insists on coming inside; he knows something is wrong. He finds a tub full of blood, and it’s all very weird. Then he moves down to the basement and finds several bodies. The crazy woman charges at him, and he shoots three times. Then it goes badly for the sheriff.

One year earlier, an angry man hangs up the phone and unwraps that statue we saw in the pre-credit sequence. John picks up the phone and talks to Steve, who says there’s some way to use the idol to open a mystic portal - you must not take the head off. The instructions say to keep it away from children. Volpaazu preys on children and then spreads like a disease. Steve clearly believes all this, but the idol is worth $5o,ooo, and he needs the money.

What does John do? He immediately opens the idol and breathes the smoke contained inside. He then goes out to the living room and tells his daughter Alice to go to bed. Then he rapes his other daughter, Abigail. We see that Abigail’s mouth looks j