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.com

Mainstream 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 Zone

You 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 Synopsis

Jake 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 Commentary

The 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 Commentary

I 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 Zone

We 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 Synopsis

We 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