A trio of witch flicks

Posted on November 4, 2024 by Daniel

I love me a good witch flick, especially over the long holiday weekend…but did I get any witchy satisfaction from this triple feature? Let’s find out.

BEEZEL (2024)

I was psyched to see Beezel, especially since it’s Halloween season. I’ll say right off the bat that the witch herself doesn’t disappoint…what little of her we see.

The film is almost like a horror anthology. Its works as a series of vignettes about a family whose home has a witch in the basement. Each new generation must make sure to “feed her” in order to keep their cherished home. Eek!

Each short tale jumps to a different decade and features a story of someone encountering the witch. There are some great, frightening moments in most segments, but the film begins to rely way too much on dream sequences to deliver cheap scares instead of letting the witch materialize more in the reality of each situation. So frustrating.

On top of that, the final segment is way too long, the main female character is so damn annoying, and there’s little in the way of a climax. I mean, who can climax when this happens?

With Beezel being as freaky as she is and making terrifying appearances in the dream sequences, it’s a shame that she wasn’t exploited to full effect.

This film easily could have delivered the goods in the final act like Barbarian did, but it is disappointingly underwhelming instead.

HEIR OF THE WITCH (2023)

Victoria U Bell writes, directs, and stars in this atmospheric witch movie that, unfortunately, relies way too much on visions and nightmares to deliver its creepiest moments.

Our main character is a seamstress struggling to fit in with a circle of snooty upper class women. Instead, she makes matters worse by having a love affair with the husband of one of the women.

Meanwhile, she’s caring for her ailing grandmother while learning more about a family witch curse she’s trying to fend off, but the curse seems determined to ruin her.

There are some great witchy moments here, as well as some disturbing and gory moments, leading to the darkest plot line of the film—a witch’s attempt to steal a baby…that’s still in the womb. Eek!

WITCH (2024)

Maybe if you liked the period piece The Witch you’ll like Witch. I’m not sure, because I couldn’t stay focused on either of them enough to tell if they’re similar.

The basic plot is that a woman is accused of witchcraft (by a freaky looking girl who claims the woman is her mother), so the woman and her husband have to hunt down the actual witch.

Don’t expect any witch thrills. This is all talk and very little action, and you won’t find much in the way of horror except for one scene of a young woman walking around carrying two heads—which is spoiled on the poster art. Staring at the poster art is more exciting than sitting through the movie.

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A throwback to old school survival horror with Tormented Souls

Posted on October 28, 2024 by Daniel

Tormented Souls is a satisfying nod to classic, turn-of-the-millennium survival horror games. The setting is a big old mansion that will bring memories of earlier Resident Evil locations flooding back, but the hideous monsters are totally inspired by the creeps in Silent Hill.

The game mechanics are mostly the same as both of those classics, complete with fixed camera angles that make it impossible to see what horror you’ve just walked into when entering a room (argh!), and even an option to switch to tank controls for the true authentic feel. I opted for the more modern option of moving in the direction you press the thumb stick, which does cause some infuriating moments where you find yourself spinning in circle basically because the fixed camera angle changes and direction in which you’re moving doesn’t.

There’s an inventory system where you gather weapons, ammo, health, files, and items, with the ability to combine, use, or equip them while the action on screen freezes. Yay! However, for a game so clearly created by people who know classic survival horror, it’s quite bizarre that they crafted a tedious, multi-step process to using items. There’s a point-and-click element instead of automatically using the required item (perhaps a nod to the original PS1 Clock Tower?). For instance, if you need to use a wrench to open a door, you have to click on the door, then click “use” on the wrench in inventory, which then gives you the ability to move the wrench over to the door, where you then have to click on the highlighted spot to get the wrench to work.

Files are handled the same way. When you pick up a file, it gets added to your pamphlet of files. Instead of the text simply popping up on screen so you can read the file you just picked up, you have to click on the file on screen from your pamphlet in the inventory to read it. Sigh.

There are no item boxes in which to store things you pick up, but the game doesn’t seem to have a limited inventory—or at least you never find yourself with too many items to fit in your inventory. That’s partially because there aren’t many weapons or bullet types. In fact, there are only TWO—a nail gun and a shotgun. You want to save the shotgun for bigger boss battles and harder enemies. You’ll mostly use the nail gun, and in order to conserve the nails, you need to figure out how many nails each type of monster takes before it temporarily falls down, at which point you can finish it off with your crowbar, the only melee weapon you have.

Another item you carry with you is a lighter. This is where things get tricky. You mostly have to keep the lighter equipped, because when you walk through dark halls, the screen goes dark and wonky and you’re susceptible to enemies. In order to fight those enemies, you have to lure them into a better-lit area OR find candelabras nearby that can be lit with your lighter to brighten the battle space, after which you must switch to your weapon to start fighting. Also, to reload you can press a button, but to save time and not have to watch the slow reload animation, which leaves you vulnerable to attack, you can freeze the game by going into inventory and combining ammo with your weapon for an automatic reload.

And of course, most importantly there’s the save feature. We get old school save slots! Wahoo! You use a reel-to-reel tape on tape machines in save rooms. Unfortunately, each tape only gives you one save (remember the three saves the ink ribbons in Resident Evil gave you?), so you have to use them sparingly. This is challenging, because there were times when I didn’t find another tape until I’d been playing for at least an hour…and there were times when I’d die after doing a load of stuff and then had to do it all over again by loading the previous save. Sigh.

The map is the other challenge here. First of all, you’ll find maps on walls in the mansion, but you can’t take them. Instead, the map you can pick up is somewhere nearby on a shelf or a table. Why??? Next, when you press the button to bring up the map, it is never a straightforward view that fills the screen. Instead, the map is tilted and crooked in the center of the screen in the visual form of an actual paper map you’re carrying, so you have to use the thumb stick to rotate and adjust it for readability. Every. Time. Ridiculous. The map is also set up so each of the mansion floor is on a different tab on the file, but every time you go back in it begins on the top tab again instead of just bringing you to the map corresponding with the floor you are on. Argh! The room you’re in is highlighted on the map, but there’s no little arrow designating where exactly you are in the room. WTF? Trying to find the right direction and door to go through at any given time is fricking tedious as a result.

As with classic survival horror games, there’s a lot of backtracking to collect items to progress, plus classic puzzles that are usually solvable by reading files you’ve gathered. The good news is that enemies don’t respawn after you kill them, which you definitely should, because they are fast and take your health down a lot when they hit you, and health is scarce, so you don’t want to have to run by them numerous times. Even so, it’s highly recommended that you use a walkthrough so you aren’t running in circles trying to figure out what to do next or where to go next.

The most shocking thing about this game is that at the beginning, your character, a female, wakes up in a tub with a tube shoved down her throat and her tittays hanging out! Survival horror sure has progressed!

In the late stage of the game you finally get a convenient upgrade…you swap out your lighter for a flashlight that attaches to your shirt and is on at all times. This means you will no longer enter any dark spaces, and you can fight enemies without having to light candles to keep a room lit. What a relief.

Eventually you encounter a floating ghost. Like Nemesis in Resident Evil 3, it chases you throughout the rest of the game. However, it is invulnerable and cannot be even temporarily taken down, so you must run from it. Odd thing is, when you come upon it, if you simply turn right back around and leave the room you just entered, when you go back in a second later, it’s gone. You’ll be doing this a lot in the tail end of the game, when it begins to appear more often.

As you near your escape from the mansion (and the game), you’ll suddenly find yourself short on ammo, health, and save tapes, and the only one that becomes more plentiful is the save tape. The game gets really tough as you solve puzzles while digging your way deeper underground in tighter locations with harder enemies. Why??? It got to a point where I didn’t think I was going to be able to complete the game, especially with the sudden introduction of another new enemy. Not to mention, you eventually have to fight four of this baddie at once in order to get your hands on a key item you need to progress further. I was so out of bullets at this point, but luckily a few items were tucked away in the area to pick up. The new enemy is slow, and by running around until the foursome began walking in a line formation, I was able to shoot more than one at a time to conserve bullets. Learned that using a walkthrough, which proved to be invaluable at the very end.

By the time I reached the final boss, I thought for sure I wasn’t going to be able to finish. The game does not hook you up for a battle as some games do when they leave plenty of ammo and health along the way as you near the conclusion. Only a few items up for grabs in the actual boss arena allowed me to make it through. But here’s the trick. The giant boss is relatively easy. All you have to do is avoid the blood he spits at you from his position in the center of a series of staircases. What you need to do is shot him six times with the nail gun…the shotgun doesn’t have enough range. Nailing him six times, opens up these little Audrey II type plants that have wrapped around three different mechanisms you need to access to loosen bolts that will eventually drop a giant drill on the boss. Once you open them, you have to run up to one of the plants (you should always locate one first and then shoot the boss from nearby so you can get right back to it), shoot the plant (one shotgun bullet does the trick), then press a button on a mechanism three times at just the right, carefully timed moment to push a rod through a trio of discs with slots in them that spin by in order for you to line them up. If you screw up, you have to do the whole process over, so it’s really crucial to be accurate with guns and button pressing if you are super low on ammo.

There are also a few different endings, and you can save before the final section in order to reload the save and go for a different ending each time, so you’ll want to read a walkthrough to learn how to get each ending. The biggest disappointment was that the game doesn’t give you any bonus items on the next play through once you’ve completed it. An infinite rocket launcher would have been nice….

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HALLOWEEN HORROR ROUND-UP 2024

Posted on October 23, 2024 by Daniel

As far as I can tell after months of Halloween horror movie hunting, these should be the last four flicks out there that celebrate the season for this year and get added to the complete holiday horror movies page, so let’s get right into them.

THE TOWN WITHOUT HALLOWEEN (2024)


The director of Kill, Granny, Kill! and Red River goes for more of an 80s kids’ horror movie with a very indie feel.

The autumn and Halloween vibes are perfect, and this is like a throwback to Ghoulies for sure, with little, goofy puppet creatures, but it also feels very low budget. The acting is somewhat stilted at times, however, there’s something very endearing about the cast of kids.

The plot has a lot going on. There are hooded dudes doing satanic rituals to take over the world. The little creatures appear. Adults that want to cancel Halloween are turned into zombies at the town hall meeting (with cheesy makeup and blue foam spilling from their mouths).

The kids decide they have to save Halloween, which is always a fun concept, but the film falls short in the excitement arena, which is weird considering there are hooded cult members, little creatures, and zombies at its disposal!

There are a few memorable “scary” scenes, but overall, not much happens, and the finale is quite anti-climactic…although I’m pretty sure there was a nod to Ernest Scared Stupid at the end, which is just awesome.

HAUNTED ULSTER LIVE (2023)

This 78-minute, ghost-hunting Halloween mockumentary is virtually a remake of the infamous British film Ghostwatch…and just as disappointing.

It takes place on Halloween 1998. A radio personality and television network are doing a joint, live event at a supposedly haunted house. The DJ is broadcasting from the attic, the hosts are downstairs talking to the family that live there and outside speaking with spectators and neighbors, some of them in costume.

There’s a lot of talk, they look at pictures of supposed ghosts, a psychic is brought in, a legend of Black-Foot Jack is discussed, and the medium communicates with some sort of spirit through the little girl that lives there.

The movie finally ends with some moaning in the attic, but don’t expect to see anything horrific as the film crew flees the house. Yawn.

CARVED (2024)

You can’t go wrong with a Halloween horror movie about a pumpkin carving contest gone wrong when a pumpkin comes to life and starts killing people with tentacle vines. There have been several anthologies featuring killer pumpkins, and even Scooby Doo took on live pumpkins in one of his Halloween specials.

The film unnecessarily opens with the aftermath of the pumpkin carving contest before jumping back to show us how we got there, but these days a “shocker” moment is kind of obligatory to grab an audience’s attention.

Next we meet all the major players in a small town as they prepare for the big context. There’s a reporter in town covering the event, and it’s none other than the dude who played Mr. Crocket!

Also on hand is DJ Qualls, who gets to play gay in this one, with a Black partner, which lands this one on the does the gay guy die? page.

As soon as the carving contest starts, the nonstop horror action is triggered as a gnarly pumpkin comes to life and begins popping human heads off left and right with its tentacle vines. Awesome.

The cast is likable, there’s some good humor, there’s suspense, there’s gore…it’s a Halloween blast. And wouldn’t you know it all eventually leads to a pumpkin patch. The cast may be comprised mostly of kids, but this ain’t the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Although it’s a Hulu exclusive now, I sure hope this one gets a physical release, because I’d love to add it to my Halloween horror movie collection.

HALLOWEEN MASSACRE (2024)

The 65-minute running time is perfect for this film, which has so much going for it except for the fact that those involved in making it clearly have no idea how to write a script. If you read the detailed synopsis of the film on imdb, you’ll discover that you can barely discern the plot being described in the movie, which is predominantly a montage of a killer clown doing his thing at Halloween time.

Honestly, if I hadn’t read the synopsis first, I would not have been able to pick out a plot. I guess it doesn’t matter much, because the filmmakers at least knew what they were doing when it comes to creating a Halloween horror movie vibe. In fact, this one has a fantastic grindhouse feel to it, and really reminded me of the gritty, violent style and tone of Rob Zombie’s Halloween. Adding to the atmosphere is a good throwback to 80s horror movie synth scores.

Essentially, a clown is somehow luring all these random people to his rundown house that looks like a trailer home, complete with laundry hanging on a line out front. There’s also a “main girl” out for revenge against this clown, but it’s a good thing she’s not in the movie too much, because her overacting is really distracting.

What you’re left with is a series of vicious and torturous kills, and no one is spared, including a kid and a pregnant woman. This ominous clown revels in making people’s lives miserable, and the pregnant victim is one great scream queen.

The film works in terms of delivering on the brutal horror, but there are a few weaknesses, including a totally pointless part where they keep jumping back to a guy taking a shit while singing “Old McDonald”. It added absolutely nothing to the movie.

The final battle between the over-the-top main girl didn’t do anything for me aside from making me giggle when the clown simply slaps her across the face. That was quite satisfying.

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Sea creatures, werewolves, and a killer kids’ show host

Posted on October 18, 2024 by Daniel

It’s October, and I just need more and more marathons of fun fright features. That is mostly what I got from this trio of films, which even includes some gay horror!

GODS OF THE DEEP (2024)

I often cover Charlie Steed’s indie horror flicks on my site, and this one is like his throwback to the days of Leviathan, Deep Star Six, Deep Rising, and Aliens.

A scientific team is assembled for an aquatic expedition in a uniquely structured submarine that can go lower than any oceanic vessel ever has before. Their goal is to enter an opening in the seabed.

It’s all fairly basic, with the team trapped in the sub after they encounter a giant sea monster. It’s a cool, Cthulhu looking monster, even if the budget leads to it looking like someone wearing a costume who is not actually underwater.

More disappointing to me is that after the team gets a sample of the monster to take back with them, it’s totally forgotten. Like…isn’t the giant monster outside the sub you’re stuck in underwater the biggest threat?

Apparently not. They become focused on the sample and the tentacles that pop out of it. Very slowly, the tentacles seem to become parasites in people, but this movie really glosses over most of the horror elements, leaving us with a very underwhelming horror/sci-fi flick. However, the main guy is a cutie.

LORD OF WOLVES (2024)

Bohemian, sleazy, gay, trippy…this Charlie Steeds flick is like Rent on werewolf speed. It earns an honorary spot on the homo horror movies page, and although it’s hard to follow, I will definitely add it to my gay horror collection if it’s released on physical media.

There are four different stories going on here, and they don’t really merge until the last few minutes of the movie. We have a woman who learns she’s pregnant, and not by the man she’s with. There’s a gay guy who indulges in club life and sex. There’s his sister, who is somewhat of a junkie. And there’s a young photographer dude who has a close relationship with one of his teachers.

Slowly but surely, each main character gets drawn to a weird werewolf cult—actually, a wolfman who keeps two other wolfmen on chains like slaves and appears to reside in an abandoned church.

I’m honestly not sure if this underground werewolf clan is supposed to be real, but their presence seems to be triggered by people shooting up a drug with a syringe.

Seriously, I did not understand this movie at all aside from it being a commentary on people hitting rock bottom and then being led down the wrong path.

However, I really liked the grit of it, and I applaud Steeds for going hard with the gay sexuality stuff, from the main gay guy posing in skimpy undies (he gets a whole montage) to him having sex with other guys.

MR. CROCKET (2024)

This fun flick is a throwback not only to the supernatural specter movies of the early 2000s, like The Ring, Darkness Falls, and The Boogeyman, but it also reminds me of older flicks like Brainscan and Trick or Treat, in which a demonic entity comes out of a media format to prey on vulnerable kids.

While it’s loaded with campy horror, scares, and gore, the film is also a commentary on absentee fathers, single parenting, and the effects abuse has on children.

After the death of her husband, a mother struggles with her tween son acting out as he copes with his loss. The movie takes place in 1993, so it’s a little weird that she finds a VHS tape of a children’s show in a lending library—I’m pretty sure lending libraries were a product of the 21st century.

Anyway, the son becomes hooked on the show, hosted by “Mr. Crocket”, who, it turns out, is a supernatural being that escapes the television to take troubled kids back with him.

The mother’s acting when she is pushed too far by her rebelling son is fantastic, as is the writing of the scene. This outburst leads to Mr. Crocket coming for her son.

Now the mom has to track down other parents that have lost their children as well, and they all have to figure out a way to find their kids and vanquish Mr. Crocket. Their journey into his show is filled with over-the-top, cartoonish kids’ show monsters, which just adds to the fun.

There are also evil children, Mr. Crocket’s backstory is a goodie, and there’s even a good twist. I could see picking this one up for my collection if it ever hits physical media.

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A foursome of “house” movies from 1989

Posted on October 15, 2024 by Daniel

Made for Italian television and originally called The Houses of Doom (which is what the Blu-ray boxed set is called), these films were apparently shelved until the 90s. I’d never seen them until now, after buying the new boxed set. The only thing connecting the movies together is that they all concern people coming to the wrong house at the wrong time, which provides us with standalone horror movies in various subgenres. Cool. So which ones were my faves?

THE HOUSE OF CLOCKS (1989)


Lucio Fulci directed the first “installment”, and while it has flashes of classic Fulci gore, it definitely feels more like a TV movie than a hardcore horror flick. It also has a generally common plot—a group of thugs intends to rob a house, ends up murdering someone, and then finds out that this is no ordinary house.

We know right from the start that things are really fucked up in this house. An old couple that collects clocks lives there, and their murderous ways are presented before the thugs even arrive.

Meanwhile, the thugs are a trio of two guys and a girl, and one of the guys is a real douche. We are subjected to him sticking a cat in a plastic bag and then having to listen to it suffer. The most horrific part of the movie.

Once they arrive at the mansion, they soon kill the couple, at which point all the clocks in the house begin going in reverse. Nothing is really explained, and there’s not much in the way of scares, even though some corpses do come back to life. Plus, with only three main characters, there’s little in the way of a body count.

There is, however, an interesting premise to this time-jumping movie…the reversal of time serves as a launching pad for sweet revenge for literally everyone wronged in the movie. Too bad the supporting plot isn’t better. It’s really hard to believe this movie comes from Fulci.

THE SWEET HOUSE OF HORRORS (1989)


The second film is another Fulci flick, and he more than makes up for the disaster of the first movie. This is pure 80s Euro horror wackiness, right down to irritating, obnoxiously dubbed children. The boy even has an infamous bowl cut, a staple for boys in 80s Euro horror.

This is basically an evil kid movie. In the opening scene, a couple comes home and is brutally murdered by an intruder in an old school ski mask. This scene is filled with classic, super gory mutilation that isn’t something you’d see in a TV movie even today.

The couple’s kids end up orphaned, so their aunt and uncle come to stay in the house with them. The aunt and uncle also plan to sell the house to make money. They bring in a realtor who is immediately harmed by a supernatural presence and then spends the rest of the movie walking around with crutches, which makes for several slapstick scenes. Only thing is, I’m not sure if that is intentional or not.

Aside from one freaky scene of the aunt coming upon hanging dolls and a big fly toy that seems to come to life, which is quite creepy, this whole movie feels more like a horror comedy.

The children talk to flames that dance in the air, poltergeist winds cause havoc, and a killer excavator terrorizes the family in the gardens. I was seriously laughing during this scene.

Eventually the ghosts of the parents begin communicating with the kids and enter a couple of rocks so the kids can always carry them around. I’m not even kidding. To top it all off, the film mostly relies on that cheesy, fast-paced synth score style music of the 80s Euro horror era. This is how you do it.

THE HOUSE OF WITCHCRAFT (1989)

The third film is directed by Umberto Lenzi, who brought us Ghosthouse, Nightmare Beach, and Black Demons, and quite honestly, I like it better than both of Fulci’s installments.

It’s a killer witch slasher! Awesome!

A dude is plagued by nightmares of going into a house where he encounters an old hag boiling his head in a pot of water. He’s also struggling with the fact that his wife is obsessed with the occult and witches, so their relationship is rocky.

She suggests they take some time away together at a house in the country to try to save their marriage. He should have just called it quits the moment they get into a car accident on the way there and she insists they flee the scene…and the dead bodies.

As in most Euro horror flicks of the 80s, there ends up being the usual cast of quirky and creepy characters at the house…which turns out to be the house from the main guy’s dreams!

I was quickly so satisfied by this one, as characters began getting hacked and slashed by the evil witch. Of course, there’s some mystery embedded in the plot to keep us guessing if any of the weirdos is part of this witchy murder spree.

The witch is awesome, the kills are awesome, the setting is atmospheric, and there’s even a black cat. However, in the end, I kind of guessed early on how this one was going to turn out, and any horror veteran probably will, too.

THE HOUSE OF LOST SOULS (1989)


Umberto Lenzi is back for the final installment, and I definitely prefer his movies over Fulci’s flicks. This one is pure 80s Euro horror nonsense.

A woman with psychic powers is part of a group of environmentally conscious college students. While out doing some fieldwork, they end up at a motel with no guests and no staff beyond the manager.

The psychic begins having visions of axe murders that involve decapitation. In the meantime, everyone else is having weird experiences of their own: chandeliers that drip blood, spiders, dead bodies hanging in freezers, etc.

Slowly but surely everyone starts getting killed off by very tangible ghosts, including a little boy, an angry woman, a Hare Krishna dude, and more.

There’s some fun gore, including a killer washing machine and a killer dumbwaiter, and as the survivors try to stay alive, they are eventually chased by the bevy of ghosts that come across more like zombies and were all victims of decapitation. The only way to stop them? Find the heads of the dead to free their souls. Awesome.

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Influencers on the chopping block

Posted on October 14, 2024 by Daniel

It’s a trio of flicks in which influencers gather together in an isolated house to party, only to be targeted by masked killers.

#AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead (2024)


This simple, mean-spirited slasher comes from the director of The Collector movies. The cast of characters is despicable and the kills are brutal…in other words, sometimes murder is so satisfying.

A group of seven influencer friends rents an AirBnB to go to a music festival that was the site of unsolved murders several years before.

As this obnoxious, self-centered group begins to party, we get snippets of backstory about a friend they lost to an apparent suicide, played in a brief cameo by JoJo Siwa.

Slowly but surely, the friends begin disappearing, and each one is taken to be tortured and killed in a lair lit in dance club colors by a killer in a hoodie and an electronic mask that can display different images on the surface. Talk about rave to the grave.

The kills are brutal and gory, which is really what you have to run with here, and while I’m always up for death by dildo, it’s a very random weapon of choice in this particular film.

There’s not much in the way of scares or tension, although there are a few suspenseful moments that give us more than just the victims being captured and killed.

One of the most important elements to mention here is that there is a lesbian side story that at first seems to get buried rather quickly, but it does take on a much larger role late in the film as the group begins to learn the truth of why they are being targeted.

The final chaotic chase scene and battle to the death gets quite over-the-top with some funny moments as well, and there are plenty of twists that run straight through the end credits, so make sure to keep watching.

AMP HOUSE MASSACRE (2024)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A group of the biggest, most obnoxious internet stars gets trapped in a house with a masked killer. Yeah. It’s a sign of the times that we’ve been bombarded by influencer horror over the last few years.

The film begins with one member of this clique dying at one of their parties. In honor of his memory, the others decide to gather in a large house and initiate a new, up-and-coming influencer into their group to fill the void.

Soon, the killing begins. Would you believe the killer wears a hoodie and an electronic mask that changes images?

However, this film differs from AMFAD in that the killer begins taunting the group to get them to turn against each other. The tension it causes is the highlight here, because the death scenes are pretty tame.

The kills come fast in the last half hour, and of course there’s a few twists along the way as the truth unfolds as to how their first friend died and who is now seeking revenge.

FOLLOWERS (2024)


This is actually a sequel to a film called Follower, which I haven’t seen. You don’t actually have to, because the movie, which only ran a little over an hour long, is recapped in the first fifteen minutes of the sequel. The first one looks like a bland movie in which three influencers go camping in the wilderness, get terrorized by a guy in a mask…and then all get away at the end! Yawn.

In this movie, which is essentially an hour long without the recap, it’s more than a year later. One of the girls has decided to get back into her influencer career by exploiting what they went through.

She invites the other two girls and their boyfriends for a New Year’s Eve gathering in a mansion in the middle of nowhere. That lands this one on the holiday horror page, but don’t expect any signs or celebration of the holiday at all.

This is a pretty simple and straightforward home invasion film about internet fame and angry white male incels jealous of not being the center of society’s attention anymore. This cultish group of guys who fancy themselves to be wolves, wearing furry masks and even growling when they go hunting victims, decides to crash the party and kill off the influencers and their boyfriends.

The action that unfolds is totally typical, the weapon of choice is most often a gun (yawn), and the twist is predictable. But I’ll give the film credit for feeling like a high-quality production rather than a low budget indie.

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Slashing my way through seasonal horror for Halloween 2024

Posted on October 10, 2024 by Daniel

It’s a trio of new Halloween horror slashers to add to the complete holiday horror page, and it was a good marathon to set the tone for October.

NIGHT OF THE HARVEST (2023)


I’ll give this one credit—it’s a little different than your usual Halloween slasher. It definitely has an indie feel, and along with that comes some of the common pitfalls of indies, including the fact that it runs too long at 107 minutes.

However, I was happy to see the movie open with plenty of holiday décor as a dude comes to a girl’s house for a first date. I even appreciated the appearance of an ominous masked killer with an axe.

Next we meet our cast of friends planning to go to a cabin in the woods to celebrate Halloween. This is where things get weird. One girl is at the cabin setting up for the party, and there are some creepy shots of the killer watching her before attacking her. Unfortunately, the “choreography” of the kill feels amateurish.

Meanwhile, after plenty of scenes of the other kids discussing who they want to hook up with, they all end up…at a warehouse instead of the cabin! Huh?

This is where the big twist in the film plays out…way too early. There’s really no mystery left after the reveal, and we then just watch people getting hacked up before more people arrive to serve as more bodies for the brutality.

From there the movie starts to go in circles with very few characters walking around the empty warehouse, filling the excessive run time with little action. If it’s any consolation, there’s one more twist in the final act, but I definitely felt the Halloween vibe waning to nothing by the end.

Gotta confess, I blind bought this one on Blu-ray, but I wouldn’t have purchased it if I’d seen it first.

HAUNT SEASON (2024)


This would have been the better blind buy, but unfortunately, it’s not on disc yet. I love me a good haunted Halloween attraction slasher, and while this one does have some pacing issues early on, it brings refreshing twists and has a kick ass final act and smartly runs only 80 minutes long.

It begins with a major kill in a red-drenched room at the haunt, which leads to a vacancy on the haunt team.

A new girl comes in to fill the inexplicably open position, and she slowly gets to know all her fellow employees. It’s a pretty likable cast, and includes a pretty boy who enjoys walking around naked. Yum.

What’s established rather quickly is that the killer, having a whole haunted attraction at their disposal, wears a different horror mask for every kill. Awesome.

There are some violent and bloody kills, including one chase scene, in between the group hanging out and getting to know the new girl. The vibe of some of the early kills feels a little cheap because the sound effects are mixed down too much with an 80s style throbbing synth score filling the void, but the problem is remedied later on.

The big turn in the kills getting way cool is one involving a laser light effect. From then on there’s some really creative camerawork, and the kills start to rock. We’re also treated to a fun montage of the girls on the team getting into the Halloween spirit.

The movie really takes off when the killer’s identity is revealed…surprisingly early. You’d think the film would nose-dive after that, but it totally ramps up and turns into a haunted attraction massacre. Not to mention, two of the main girls shift into fantastic final girls you find yourself rooting for. I so want this one on disc.

CREEPING DEATH (2023)


Load your Halloween horror film with seasonal visuals and you’ve already got me halfway in your corner, and this indie does just that, starting with an awesome trick or treating opening kill. And it cuts right from that to a pumpkin patch! Perfect.

The rest of the film isn’t quite as perfect, but it does have a fun supernatural folklore legend as the basic premise. Director Matt Sampere is also the lead in the film, playing a son who is dealing with caring for his dying mother.

At the same time, something sinister is taking place in town. Pets have gone missing, houses are being vandalized, people have seemingly abandoned their houses, and occult symbols are being left on doors in what looks like blood.

Matt’s friends, who all look like they’re in their late 20s and way too old to be playing Halloween pranks, steal a bag from a crotchety old man’s steps on Halloween night and bring it back to Matt’s house to see what’s inside.

Little do they know it was an offering left there to keep an evil entity from coming out to kill on Halloween night.

In a throwback to all the supernatural specter movies of the early 2000s, the group has to figure out what they’ve unleashed and how to stop it, right down to the annoying aspect of the subgenre, which sees them running all over town instead of keeping the action set in one location.

The film is a little chaotic and rough around the edges, but the evil entity is pretty darn awesome, there’s some good gore, and there’s a devilish twist as to how they can kill the entity. I could definitely see adding this simple little indie slasher to my collection of Halloween horror movies for an annual watch.

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A cub vs. zombies and male strippers vs. a witch

Posted on October 8, 2024 by Daniel

It’s two horror comedies that aren’t specifically gay themed but will definitely appeal to gay guys. One is a horror musical, and the other revolves around male strippers!

ELDRITCH USA


It’s a zombie musical with a cute cub as the leading man!

Our main guy lives in the shadow of his successful reporter brother (he’s the brother’s cameraman), and has to sit on the sidelines as his brother gets all the accolades, steals any girl he likes, and even gets all the love from their parents.

The brothers end up doing a story on a sort of cult community that claims to have been successful in bringing the dead back to life. Uh-oh.

Things get into Pet Sematary territory when a freak accident leads to someone dying…and the realization that maybe the cult community can help bring the dead back to life. Before long, there’s a chain reaction of people needing to be resurrected as the first person brought back to life can’t control their zombie urges.

The cast is lovable, there’s charm and humor, and the songs are quite catchy, with repeating melodies carrying through the story as in traditional musicals. Highlights include the cub bear getting a slap on the booty from one of his male coworkers, the cub bear’s nerdy friend singing a whole meta song about what happens in horror movies when the dead come back to life, and of course a zombie horde musical number featuring a “Thriller”-esque dance number.

There’s only one thing missing from this horror musical—a big show-stopping finale! The final battle between our main characters and the horde of zombies is completely void of any music, singing, or dancing!

Eldritch USA hits Blu-ray and DVD on October 22, 2024, and comes to digital and on demand on November 5, 2024.
 
MEMBERS CLUB



Members Club is Magic Mike meets Practical Magic, and it’s a blast. I love me some movies with less than perfect stripper men as much as I love witch movies, so combine the two into a sexy horror comedy and you’ve got a full monty frightfest!

The film opens with an awesome scene of a perv getting his rocks off…and getting some body parts lobed off.

We then meet our struggling stripper foursome, known as The Wet Dreams. They land a gig at a club in the middle of nowhere, and before long they find themselves involuntarily taking part in a coven’s occult ritual to resurrect a man-hating witch out for revenge. Awesome!

This is just pure witchy fun as the guys try to get through the night with their lives…and manhood…intact.

The witch is gnarly, there’s sexual and gross out humor, gore, suspense, men stripping, a severed tongue running amok, and even a witch getting a lap dance. Totally my kind of movie. Plus, we get a couple of daddy bears doing stripteases.

Members Club will be available for digital download on October 21, 2024, and I hope it will eventually get a physical media release, because I would love to add it to my movie collection.

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Women vs. scary stuff

Posted on October 4, 2024 by Daniel

It turns out this trio of flicks I watched on Tubi all feature women in perilous horror situations. Shocker, I know. More shocking is that two out of the three really worked for me.

THE DEAD GIRL IN APARTMENT 03 (2022)


Short and to the point at 72 minutes long, this little indie really grabbed me with its ambience and atmosphere—isolating, dark, shadowy, and mostly contained to one apartment.

The main girl discovers her roommate dead in her bedroom. Adrienne King of Friday the 13th plays one of the detectives that comes to the scene to investigate the possibility of any foul play.

This becomes a tense slow burn as the main girl tries to go on with her life while attempting to piece together what could have happened to her roommate.

The only person she really has contact with while she’s alone in the apartment in which she found a dead body is her ex-boyfriend.

When her electricity goes out, the shit hits the fan and a terrifying presence comes out of the shadows.

Sound and (lack of) light are used to great effect for the final act, and there are some good occult aspects added to the ghostly storyline.

VIOLETT (2023)


If you’re looking for a visually arresting, intriguing, and unnerving elevated horror flick, this one is a good place to turn. I’m not the biggest fan of elevated horror, yet I found Violett totally engaging.

Kids have gone missing in a small town, and a sick and mentally troubled mother is concerned her daughter is going to be taken as well. Especially since the freaky neighbors stare at her when she goes out on the street. Is she paranoid, or is there something much more sinister going on?

She has macabre visions, delusions, and daydreams, and her relationship with her incredibly handsome husband is suffering.

However, she has a strong and protective relationship with her daughter, which deepens as the threat starts hitting closer to home.

This moody and atmospheric slow burn has an eerie vibe, the casting of mother and daughter is fantastic, and there are some unexpected twists, so I’d definitely recommend it for lovers of the elevated horror subgenre.

LAIR OF THE KILLER CLOWNS (2023)


Not even the 75-minute runtime could make this one any less unbearable to me.

We’re thrown right into a bizarre situation. A blonde bombshell seems to have some sort of psychic powers. She channels some clowns then begins searching for her missing, killer clown brother with the help of some other dude in the middle of a desert.

They explore sand and some ramshackle structures for 50 minutes, with no action and very little dialogue. Eventually they split up and she finds a few crazy clowns that are keeping her brother bound in some sort of killer clown purgatory (aka: a room in one of those ramshackle structures).

Finally, there’s a bunch of dialogue that doesn’t accomplish much of anything other than just taking us right to the closing credits.

I don’t know. Maybe this was supposed to be some sort of cathartic art piece so those who fear evil clowns could get to see them pay for what they’ve done, but personally, when I’m welcomed into a lair of killer clowns, I want the clowns to…you know…kill.

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Everything I know about The X-Files I learned from a survival horror video game

Posted on September 30, 2024 by Daniel

I have to admit, I never watched The X-Files when it aired in the 90s. Those were my prime clubbing years, I was going to college, and I was working two jobs, so I was out all the time. Therefore, the ways in which the game makes reference to episodes of the show were irrelevant to me, but it’s still a fun Resident Evil style survival horror game.

You get to play as either Scully or Mulder, and each character’s game is a bit different. With each character, you actually get to play a series of “episodes”, which is cool.

The game is loaded with zombies, and they are actually much creepier than RE zombies. They make noises, they move fast, they jump out of shadows, and they are quite aggressive. The fact that the game is very dark adds to the tense atmosphere. I cranked my television brightness up all the way and that shit was still dark.

As with RE games, you explore locations, find ammo, health, and new weapons, and locate notes and key items to help you open doors to new areas, all while a paranormal mystery unfolds.

The game has a self-contained inventory (you’ll never run out of space) and a save system—look for an X on a wall or computer to save—that can be used infinitely. Awesome.

The controls are mapped a bit oddly considering most survival horror games of the era tended to stick to a fairly universal schematic, so that takes some getting used to. You have a run button, and you can actually use a flashlight while shooting…with the pistol. Bigger, two-handed guns don’t offer that option, which sucks due to how ridiculously dark the game is. You also can’t run while using the flashlight, which makes no sense.
The graphics are typical of the PS2, and the main character models are excellent. As is common with games of the era, it’s very easy to get stuck on background objects (argh!), and while the game is more fluid because it doesn’t use tank controls, that is not advantageous considering it uses fixed camera angles like RE. Therefore, you can be running in one direction, and when the camera angle changes, your controller doesn’t accommodate the change and you’re suddenly running in the wrong direction unless you quickly adjust your push on the thumbstick. As a result, you will find yourself running in circles at times. Not to mention, this is one of those games that has scene change loads even when you’re running down the same street, so you can easily run into a load screen only to find when you are in the new location, you are now running right back in the direction from which you just came, kicking off another load screen to take you back where you just were.

As for the episodes, you actually play the same ones with both characters, but like Resident Evil 2, you experience the situation from two different perspectives and have some similar and some different experiences.


MULDER
Episode 1
Act 1

In the first episode, you start off exploring alone, but eventually Scully joins you and she does help shoot enemies, which is good since it takes loads of bullets to kill these fuckers. And it’s important to create space before shooting them, because the auto aim will fail to hit them when they’re too close.

The worst part of this episode is a protect sequence. Argh! You have to shoot loads of zombies coming into a fricking dark room so they don’t attack and kill Scully while she’s doing an autopsy. This part really sucked. If she dies, you die.

You get a map, but you are presented as a red dot instead of as an arrow on it, so you don’t know which direction you’re facing. Absurd! Also, locations aren’t written on the map until you visit them. What the hell? This is especially infuriating because of the horrible load screens. You’ll find yourself running in circles around streets and constantly being bombarded by load screens as a result of making wrong turns, which just manages to throw you off even more. It’s a vicious cycle.
There’s one major boss in this episode, and you fight him in tight quarters in a grocery store. The idea is to shoot him while avoiding his laser attacks until a knife symbol appears in the corner. You then have to equip the knife in your inventory, find a way to get behind the boss, and stab him in the back of the neck with it. Fun.

Soon after, you get to mines where you have to put on night vision goggles and quickly lead Scully safely through crumbling caves as zombies attack. It’s pretty straightforward, but you can’t let her get killed by zombies or falling rocks, and you can’t let her fall behind. You also have to make your way to two different ladders to climb. The second one leads you out, and there’s a save in the first building you enter right after.

After that you near the end of the episode. Now you have to get the power to a cable car while Scully protects you from an onslaught of zombies. You need to do this fast so she doesn’t die before they can even get to you, and you’ll have no idea what to do, so I’d highly suggest using a walkthrough. Once you’re on the cable car, you have to diffuse a bomb really fast. Again…walkthrough for the code.

The chapter ends, you save, and then…

Episode 1
Act 2

…you are thrust right outside with a demon dog attacking you…and your gun suddenly unequipped. WTF?

You soon explore a building where you encounter lots of zombies, including one that unleashes a black oil you have to run away from or it’s instant death!

A floating woman boss with laser fire is pretty easy the first time you fight her, but on the second encounter you have to fight three of her at the same time!

Right after that you fight another boss who has the three women with him, but you get a new weapon right before the battle, and you can take him down in seconds before he even conjures the women.


Episode 2
Act 1

This is simply exposition. You walk around FBI headquarters and talk to several people.

Episode 2
Act 2

What the hell? You’re in your apartment and Scully visits…but it’s not her! Shoot her and she turns into a baddie you just have to run away from for a cutscene…something you wouldn’t know without a walkthrough.

You end up in a trippy hallway maze with aliens attacking you. There’s a certain path you need to take to escape this section, and if you don’t use a walkthrough you’re an idiot, because a mere five-door path could take you forever if you keep choosing the wrong doors.

Next you fight a boss…and his secretary! WTF? The idea is to kill her first because she has a kick ass gun she drops that you can then use on him.

After a cutscene you have to immediately run away from Scully in cramped quarters with other people standing around to get to an elevator. She catches you, she kills you! Sigh.

You end up in a stunning cathedral, but sadly the darkness of this game makes it hard to see. The idea is to actually let the baddies you encounter kill you! How would you know this without a walkthrough???

Episode 3
Act 1

What the hell? It starts with a cut scene, then as soon as the credits end you are surrounded by bad guys. You have to get around them and run towards the screen to escape…and you have absolutely nothing in your inventory, so you can’t fight them.

Seconds later you enter a section where you are chased by wolves and have to find the right doors to enter to get away! You have to avoid them a few times, but eventually you have your gun to kill them, which is kind of sad because they yelp like dogs. You also need to conserve ammo, because this is a tough episode with bosses galore. And don’t feel too guilty about killing the wolves, because the first damn boss keeps resurrecting them while you fight him. Argh!

This episode ends with a few scenes in which you have to run to stay alive…just as it began.

Episode 3
Act 2

There’s a fishing expedition here to move forward with Scully, but once you get separated from her things get challenging.

You first have to chase a guy who is shooting at you. The goal is to stay far enough away to hit him every time he stops so he’ll continue running up a tower. If you get too close, he will riddle you with bullets and you will die.

Once you come back down from the tower, it’s a boss! He’s a tall scary guy in a robe who spits at you in a limited space…right near a save that you can’t use until he’s dead. Bastards.

Next you have to use night goggles again to get through winding tunnels filled with zombies. You also have to be really carefully here not to meet up with Scully until you’ve found the flamethrower and some other items, which is really tricky. Scully is in a corner room and looks like she’s waiting to be the next Blair Witch victim, so just avoid approaching her until you’ve gotten lost trying to find the flamethrower and gotten just as lost finding your way back to her.

Holy crap. The final Mulder boss comes in five forms with a spaceship as the hub in between forms. Each time you defeat one you are put back on the spaceship to gather some goodies and some breath…and to fight an alien or two. WTF? I simply don’t see completing this episode without the infinite health and ammo codes punched in. Oh. Did I mention this game has punch-in codes?

The first time the boss is just a man with some powers and is pretty easy.

The second time he has a zombie that he keeps resurrecting.

Third time he has two zombies he keeps resurrecting.

Fourth time is a bitch. Three zombie and the boss in the tight grocery store, and you wouldn’t know it if you didn’t read a walkthrough, but you also must retrieve the knife you stuck in the dead boss earlier while getting your ass beaten by the enemies.


The fifth and final time the boss is a big alien in the spaceship…with little aliens swarming you as well. The catch is you have to stay close to him and keep shooting him, otherwise he has the ability to fricking heal himself. Which means you need to stick to killing him and get your ass kicked by the other aliens while you do it. Which also means…use them fricking cheat codes. Once he falls to his knees you have to get behind him and stab him mercilessly with the knife until he dies. Now what would happen if you’d missed picking up that knife in the grocery store?


SCULLY
Episode 1
Act 1

Basically, Scully’s game covers a lot of the same ground as Mulder’s game, just showing you what she’s doing around town when she wasn’t with him. While you had a section in which you killed wolves in his game, you actually have to kill dogs in this one! I’m not even sure if they’re normal dogs or zombie dogs as in Resident Evil (it matters, because the rules are it’s okay to kill zombie dogs).

The first big challenge is the autopsy scene, in which you now have to quickly perform the autopsy while Mulder covers you. If you don’t do it fast enough, he dies and it’s game over. This section will drive you crazy, because you will have no idea what to do without a walkthrough, and even with a walkthrough, you can’t hesitate at all. Plus, in between trying to do the autopsy and give an antidote to Mulder, both of you will be getting attacked by zombies.


At the gas station there’s a fun zombie boss. The object is to raise a car on a lift, get him to crawl under it, then drop the car on him. You have to do this three times, but seriously, I just stood at the panel and simply kept pressing the button to raise it and then drop it again, and he never got a chance to get out from under it before I did it three times.

You eventually have another run-in with instant death oil chasing you, but you barely even notice it because it’s after a cutscene and shrouded by the dark. You’re in a little alcove, and if you instinctively run out of it, you run right into the approaching oil slick! The idea is to run to the back of the alcove and press x to climb and then x again to jump back down from a back exit. But you’re not done yet! You then have to run to a grate and use bolt cutters on it while the oil is still right behind you! Eek!

You have to repeat the annoying mineshaft night goggles sequence again, but Mulder seems to keep up with you better than you did with him in his game. However, the zombies seem more aggressive this time and really slow you down.

This act ends with a repeat of having to get a cable car up and running, with Mulder guarding you from zombies this time.

Episode 1
Act 2

The highlights of this part include fighting mental patient zombies and doing another autopsy and complicated chemical mixing. Eek! You make toxic bullets to kill a horde of zombies with, but there are only enough to use one bullet on each zombie. Eek! Of course the infinite ammo code can fix that fear fast.

You also get trapped in a radiation chamber in which you quickly have to use night vision goggles to find the code to a panel nearby…which you first have to open with a screwdriver. Yikes!

You end up having to fight the boss with the three women again, and this time you have to make sure Mulder doesn’t die while he’s helping you fight.


Episode 2
Act 1

I wish this was just as short and all exposition at FBI headquarters, but this time there’s one catch—you have to perform an autopsy, you end up poisoning yourself while doing so, and then you have to create an antidote quickly! Also known as…walkthrough.

Episode 2
Act 2

The majority of this act requires walking around a facility without a weapon. Pulling out your weapon equals instant death because the guards all over will know you’re not really on their team.

You have a guy accompanying you, and it’s mostly search and find missions. You do one autopsy, and at one point you have two guys with you and have to quickly help them run away from a couple of zombies and a burning monster…which you eventually have to fight. You get a shotgun right before this battle, but it’s in a tight space, and you first have to turn on sprinklers in the area to put out his fire before he’s vulnerable to your gun shots. He also breathes fire at you. Sigh.


Episode 3
Act 1

This is a simple search and fetch mission in an area you already explored with Mulder, and he’s with you part of the time.


Episode 3
Act 2

You’re in other areas you were already in with Mulder for the final part of the game, and there’s absolutely no new game play aspects here, right down to the bosses.


I don’t know why I played Mulder first, because his is the harder game, so I would suggest playing with Scully first. This allows you to familiarize yourself with the game more so you can take on the more difficult challenge of his game.

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