A backwoods cannibal musical, mall witches, and a killer thong

Posted on July 12, 2026 by Daniel

They all sound like they should be awesome, but do they live up to their concepts? Let’s find out.

CHAINSAWS WERE SINGING (2024)

This is an Estonian language film, and I’m not going to lie; I suck at American geography, so I’ve never heard of Estonia, which I’ve now learned is a country in Northern Europe. Horror; it’s educational.

As a backwoods musical, Chainsaws Were Singing kind of feels like two different movies in tone, and it’s way too long. Trimming it down from 120 minutes would have helped the pacing, and it deserved that, because it’s actually quite entertaining, and the songs are much better than those in most low-budget horror musicals.

Having said that, the problem is that the songs don’t feel like they fit the film—at least the first half. The first hour has a fairly nasty backwoods slasher vibe, with loads of gore and a grindhouse look and feel, so the characters breaking into song feels out of place, and the musical compositions just don’t match the vibe.

The story is basic. There’s a killer with a chainsaw living in the woods with his domineering mother and several other weird family members. This includes a gay couple with dating my doppelganger syndrome, landing this not only on the screamin’ & singin’ page of horror musicals, but also on the does the gay guy die? page.

Our leads, a guy and girl, meet in the woods and fall in love…and then she gets kidnapped by the family. The rest of the movie moves between her being terrorized in the cannibalistic home and him and his friend trying to find her.

The gore is outrageous and over the top, with plenty of tasteless kills, like anal penetration with a chainsaw, a tailpipe deep throat kill that leads to an exhaust fumes fart, and a chainsaw to the penis.

All that fun comes in the second half of the film, which is when the shift in tone hits, and the campy, slapstick humor finally complements the insertion of songs. However, there are no extravagant song and dance numbers here at all.

There is, however, a gross little highlight number involving a cult of men in the woods who worship bukkake. Awesome.

Finally, there’s a full cast song near the end in which they literally sing about how all their singing is slowing down the movie and keeping them from getting to the big climax.

I liked it for what it is. I just wish there had been less of it.

FORBIDDEN FRUITS (2026)

Is it The Craft meets Mean Girls? Well, it could have been, but those two movies rule. This one…doesn’t.

I had high hopes when it opened with a girl coaxing a guy in a car parked next to hers to jerk off for her before tossing a hot drink in his lap. I assumed the movie would keep up that sort of prey on predators vibe.

Instead, it’s a movie about a group of trendy girls working at a clothes store in a mall. They’re also witches. They invite the new girl who works at the food court into their little coven.

There’s plenty of bad girl attitude, there just isn’t any bitchy camp to go along with it. This one is just bland. We get typical girl night hangouts, and a few of the girls score some sex in the changing rooms with cute guys who work in the mall—yay for man butt.

Unfortunately, there’s also not much in the way of witchcraft, but inevitably, the girls begin turning on each other when spellcasting delves into dark territory.

The best parts come at the end. All of a sudden there’s a lesbian kiss, a nasty escalator scene, a gory head split—this shit helped at the last second, but it feels like it comes from a totally different movie!

Things come to a close with a big twist, a less than positive conclusion, and a surprising appearance from Gabrielle Union all of a sudden.

KILLER THONG (2025)

With a title like this, you’d expect totally campy, sleazy fun. But no. Buried somewhere in this tedious film is a story about a girl who comes out of the closet after realizing that men in thongs gross her out.

I wasn’t grossed out, which means…thong slideshow time!

These two slices of beefcake dance at a party for a bunch of girls, after which this movie turns into Skinamarink. If you thought Skinamarink was brilliant, I’d highly advise that you watch this one, which subjects us to endless still shots of the house the story is set in, accompanied by a ticking clock and a blowing wind sound. We are talking endless filler scenes that barely propel any story forward.

So, what is the story? The main girl passes out at the party and dreams that a killer thong comes for her and her friends. Yes, a majority of this film is a dream. And no, the thong does not have teeth as it does in the poster art. But we do get killer thong POV.

Instead, it shoots electrical bolts and chokes her friends to death (in the dream) by deep throating them. The most exciting part of her trying to conquer the thong (in her dream) is when her dead friends come back momentarily as zombies.

Even the blow-up doll rendition of Munch’s The Scream seems out of place, since the movie simply is not campy enough.

75 minutes in, it does, however, jump back to the party where she fell asleep and began dreaming, so at least we get more stripper action for a climax. This one definitely earns a spot on the stud stalking page.

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Supernatural and backwoods slasher time

Posted on July 8, 2026 by Daniel

This was one underwhelming trio of films for me, but at least one of them had gay guys and hot bods, which lands it on the does the gay guy die? page. Let’s get right into them.

DARK DISTORTION (2026)



It was nice to feel like I was catapulted back to the early 2000s, direct-to-DVD, supernatural slasher era watching this one, but aside from plenty of eye candy for the gay male’s gaze, as well as a gay couple, this simply isn’t a very cohesive movie.

There’s this group of models/actors that makes money by meeting up with creepy online fans and then robbing them.

There’s also the ghost of some woman’s dead son inside a camera. And there’s a sexy sleazy dude who films pretty people having sex in order to summon the ghost inside the camera to come out and kill them. This sexy sleazy dude is this like this ghost dude’s bitch.

The plot is all over the place, there are no likable characters to connect with, the kills are underwhelming, and we never actually see the killer ghost. I repeat—we never see the damn ghost. Basically, every opportunity to make this a halfway decent flick was missed.

THE DAMNED LANDS (2024)

Take the hillbillies in animal masks backwoods horror concept and suck all the unsettling suspense out of it, and you’ve got this movie.

It opens with a redneck and his female “escort” checking out some property he bought in the middle of the woods…in the middle of the night. What better time to see your purchase, right? Anyway, the baddies kill them, so we at least know right away that the death scenes are kind of violent.

Then we meet our main group of young friends. They’re heading to that exact location to camp despite warnings they receive from locals along the way.

Soon after, we are presented with the masked baddies…talking to each other! The fear factor gone in an instant.

What follows is pretty typical stuff—a few random kills, the friends setting up camp, sitting by a fire, doing a lot of talking, etc. The only things missing are some good old fashioned, gratuitous nudity and sex.

That would have at least kept us entertained until the group is finally targeted…53 minutes into the movie! Even then, it’s just not very exciting, and when the baddies finally abduct someone, they immediately remove their masks and have a chat with their prisoner about why they are killing people.

A letdown from start to finish.

TRUCKER (2024)

We all love a psycho driver terrifying people on the road movie. Well, that isn’t this, despite the title. This is basically a backwoods, trailer home revenge slasher movie. The hillbilly banjo music used at various times throughout definitely sets the corny tone, so it’s hard to find anything frightful about this one.

We begin with a fresh take on I Know What You Did Last Summer. Dirtbags driving a car at night run a truck off the road. Some old hillbilly dude with only one good eye shows up on the scene of the crash and knocks out one of the dirtbags, and his friends all run for it. They also decide never to admit they were with the friend they left behind that night.

A year later, this dude is still missing, so the friends decide to go back to the vicinity of the accident to find him. This place is like a junkyard/trailer park. The old dude lives there, and so does the trucker they made crash. He hangs out in his trailer skinning animals to cook. Not people. Just animals. Primitive but not…you know…cannibalistic as you might expect from this type of setup.

The kids start poking around the trailer park junkyard, and the trucker, who wears an ominous mask but still fails to frighten, eventually comes out to play. And by eventually, I mean about 20 minutes before the film ends.

There is approximately one good, violent and bloody kill, but there are no suspenseful chase scenes, there are no likable characters, the old dude with one good eye is goofy, and there’s that annoying banjo music. This just isn’t much of a slasher at all.

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Trying to board a train to Busan territory

Posted on June 28, 2026 by Daniel

It feels like Asian filmmakers that delve into the zombie genre these days are often attempting to capture the familial, emotional depth of Train to Busan, as is the case with these two flicks. Did either of them pull it off? Let’s find out.

THE ELIXIR (2025)



This Indonesian film introduces us to a family that owns and runs an herbal business, but they’re all at odds with each other over whether to keep the business or sell it. On top of that, the interpersonal dysfunction runs deep among them.

Then the dad discovers a concoction that works wonders in turning back the hands of time like a fountain of youth…until the family discovers the really bad side effects in the midst of a big shouting match.

Once dad goes viral, so does everyone else, quite quickly. The zombies are gnarly looking, fast runners, have creaking joints, and make heinous sounds. As soon as the infection spreads thanks to some bloody flesh-eating, the family scatters.

The movie becomes about each separate group trying to fight their way back to each other. Luckily, they all have phones to stay in touch and cars with which they can cream zombies, yet they still get their asses kicked.

The action is high energy, but there’s not much in the way of scares, and it’s hard to care about the family for most of the movie since they didn’t even seem to like each other that much.

However, the final act is pretty devastating as they all begin to succumb to the outbreak, and there’s an absolutely intense scene in which police in gear with shields decide to attempt passing through a zombie horde, only to be swarmed instead. Eek!

ZIAM (2025)



This Thai film leans heavily into a zombies vs. action hero angle.

After reports of famine, greenhouse emissions, and climate change devastation, we learn that the apocalypse is already here.

An infected victim is brought to a hospital, and the outbreak kicks in soon after. These fast-running zombies have huge, freaky mouths and do plenty of gut munching.

Our cute main guy is a seasoned fighter, so he takes it upon himself to try to reach his girlfriend, who is a doctor in the hospital. Along the way, he runs into a young boy who decides to tag along. This kid reminded me of all the annoying, badly dubbed kids from 80s euro horror, so naturally, I loved him.

The goal becomes for our leading man to fight his way through hordes of zombies in an effort to rescue the girlfriend and get the hell out, so he taps into his martial arts skills to wipe the hospital floor with them. He also has to contend with a police force that has been ordered to kill everyone in hopes of stopping the infection from spreading.

The action is fun enough, and the zombie makeup rocks, but again, we don’t get a scary experience, and the attempts to tug at our heartstrings don’t quite succeed. Not to mention, pretty much everything about this film is cliché, and the final moments are about as close as you can get to the conclusion of pretty much every Resident Evil game without actually making a movie adaptation of a Resident Evil video game.

Despite the lack of scares and the underwhelming emotional storylines in both of these films, this makes a damn good double feature of high speed zombie fun.

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Indies from the 80s, 90s, and 00s

Posted on June 25, 2026 by Daniel

I recently scored most of these movies on Blu-ray and just tossed Mirror of Death in as a bonus in this post because it’s from the same director as Bloodspell. it was on Tubi, and I need to see and own every horror movie I somehow missed in the 1980s before I die. Ironically, I think it’s the one I had the most fun with, but it’s currently only available on out-of-print DVD and selling for ridiculous prices on the used market.

BLOODSPELL (aka: The Boy from Hell) (1988)

This is like a male version of Carrie…at an orphanage…filled with 20-something orphans It’s as bad as direct-to-video horror of the 80s gets.

The adult kids at the orphanage are pretty much a bunch of assholes (not the assholes you’d see in the kind of 80s film the two guys above look like they’d be in…), so maybe I misunderstood and it’s actually a home for troubled kids. Their housemother is wacky, and the main kid they constantly harass has anger issues.

Then a woman drops her son off there to keep him safe from his evil father. That doesn’t work out. The psycho father shows up at the orphanage and possesses his son. I totally don’t understand this movie.


No, it’s not that. It’s just a thumb.

Anyway, the possessed son starts to do awful things to the other kids (who deserve it)—like setting one on fire and luring another into a wood chipper. The main kid realizes something is up with the newcomer, but no one will listen to him.

Silliness ensues until the kids can finally draw the dad out of his son to battle him face to face, and he looks like a corpse for some reason. I think maybe the dad died during an incident that occurs earlier in the movie, and so he’s basically a ghost, but I’m not sure.

MIRROR OF DEATH (aka: Dead of Night) (1988)



I watched this on Tubi right after killing some time watching an episode of Freddy’s Nightmares from the same era, and I can definitely say this silly low budget 80s flick feels just like an episode of that show. It’s blurry, nonsensical, late 80s nostalgia, and for that reason, I kind of liked it.

It also helps that it is so ridiculous that it could only come from the direct-to-VHS era. Our main girl escapes her abusive boyfriend the same night her sister is given a book of Haitian rituals at a party. The main girl stays with the sister and her husband, finds the book, and begins doing the rituals with candles in front of a mirror.

She appears to become possessed by a seductress, so she goes out to bars and seduces, naturally. She lures guys to her sister’s place then kills them, but the kills are rather bland.

Eventually, her sister catches her burying a body in the yard, and she decides to admit she killed a bunch of men. This is where things get ridiculous. Despite the possessed main girl bashing her sister over the head with the shovel when discovered burying bodies, the sister and her husband decide they need to keep the dead bodies a secret and call in a goofy dude who is supposed to be an exorcist. They draw the demon, who appears as a doppelgänger of the main girl, out of her body to conquer it. Like, it’s literally a physical manifestation that can simply be shot. Ah. The 80s.

BLOOD SYMBOL (1992)



This one is co-directed by the director of End of the Line, a favorite movie of mine. Shooting for this one began in 1984 and was completed in 1991, the main actress left during production and was replaced by a double, which required far shots, and the audio wasn’t recorded during filming, so they had to create an audio track by guessing what the actors were saying. However, there actually isn’t that much dialogue when all is said and done.

This is definitely a low budget production with rough film quality, but it does capture the very basic vibe of 80s movies that featured a high school kid being stalked by some sort of supernatural entity. They are actually the highlight here. While it’s definitely overkill, the many stalking sequences feature tight editing and camerawork that makes it seem like this is just one long demo reel showing what the director could do if given enough money to make a better movie.

Very briefly, the story is about our main girl being stalked mostly through the halls of her school and at home by a dude who looks like a flasher with a bad complexion. This shit is like Charlie Brown, because there are virtually no adults in sight.

The main girl does some reading and learns about a cult from centuries ago that needs blood from “the chosen ones” in order to become immortal. Safe to assume she is one of the chosen ones.

There’s not much more to it than that. She interacts with a few friends and a boyfriend, there’s a totally 80s sighting of a Trapper Keeper (awesome), there’s a bit of blood, and eventually the main girl has to fight the evil low budget style. It might not hold up today, but I definitely appreciate it for the director’s potential, and I don’t think I would have been totally disappointed watching this one back in the day.

BASEMENT JACK (2009)



There’s nothing more classic than beginning a slasher with sex in a car during a rainstorm. This scene really sets up the visual aesthetic of this film, which I think is one of the highlights.

The story is about an escaped killer who murders families in their house during rainstorms. We meet plenty of side players in a town he is now targeting, plus we get a rookie cop and a young woman he sort of teams up with because her family was killed by this dude, and she wants to find him. In fact, he’s trying to find her, too.

For me, that is the part that ends up getting in the way of the fun. Despite his brooding appearance, with long, disheveled hair and psychotic eyes, the killer is just background noise to the main girl and all the trouble she’s getting in for hindering police business.

Other than that, the kill scenes are bloody and macabre, Lynn Lowry play the abusive mother of the killer in flashbacks, Tiffany Shepis has a minor role as a cop, and veteran actor Joel Brooks, who used to guest star on tons of sitcoms and played Mrs. Garrett’s son on The Facts Of Life, has a small role. One of the best parts of the film is most definitely a massacre Basement Jack pulls off at the police station.

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SCREAM 7: taking a stab at plugging up all the holes

Posted on June 23, 2026 by Daniel

While I loved almost everything about Scream 7, from the nonstop suspense and kill scenes to the meta concept of the killer representing the overzealous fandom that was furious when Neve Campbell wasn’t paid to return for Scream 6, like most other fans, I was perplexed by the lack of killer backstory.

So, when a friend and I rewatched the film together, we began discussing script tweaks that could have been made to the killer’s limited onscreen moments to iron out details of the mostly missing character development. My breakdown of what we came up with is going to be loaded with spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the film, stop reading, like, NOW.

Okay, now that the rest of us are alone, we’re going to be discussing Anna Camp’s character Jessica, of course. Even Anna saw the problems with the script, and you can hear what she had to say about it in this interview with cutie Tommy DiDario.

 

Meanwhile, here are some ideas my friend and I came up with to better explain the Jessica character, and most of it could have been handled in the scene when we first meet her in Sidney’s coffee shop. After Jessica’s son, Lucas, tries to coax Sidney into discussing life as a survivor, he leaves, and the two women sit down to talk. They are friends and neighbors, but we have absolutely no sense of how long they have been, because Jessica’s timeline is nonexistent. By the end of the movie, we have learned that she was married, that she killed her abusive husband, and that she checked herself into a facility for a while, so my friend and I used that information as a jumping-off point to expand her story and piece together a past for her in the brief exchange she has with Sidney.

For starters, we needed a clear connection between Sidney and Jessica, and that easily could have been established by looking back at the history of the franchise. Remember when Sidney worked as a hotline counselor in Scream 3? What if during the coffee shop conversation with Sidney, Jessica simply thanked her for being her counselor when she was trying to escape her abusive spouse and then helping her relocate and start over when a house went up for sale next door? It would not only create a foundation for their friendship, it would also be echoed in Jessica’s final monologue when she says Sidney saved her life and now she’s going to start all over.

Next, where was Jessica’s son Lucas when she checked herself into that facility? What if it were worked into the coffee shop conversation that he’d been sent to live, let’s say, with his grandparents? When Sidney laments the struggle of dealing with her resentful daughter, Jessica could empathize by saying that Lucas resents her for deserting him or neglecting him while she was tending to her own mental health. She could claim that during the period of separation, Lucas became weirdly obsessed with serial killers, implying that he had abandonment issues that could serve as a red herring clue. If viewers surmise that maybe Lucas snapped as a result, leading him to go on a murderous rampage, it would deepen the whodunit aspect of the film. Not to mention, since Jessica is so flippant about killing him at the end of the movie, it would make sense that she would plant a seed in Sidney’s head that he’s messed up enough to be the killer in hopes that Sidney might do what she does best, as Jessica points out—kill the presumed killer.

Then there’s Jessica’s brief conversation with Gale, however, nothing is really said to enrich her character here either. She does say she and her son are “friends of [Sid’s] family”, which makes it sound like they are closer than we ever get to feel they are, and she isn’t happy when Gale grills her son as if he’s a suspect, but that’s it.

We see Jessica just one more time for her killer motivation monologue, when Anna Camp delivers Rebecca Gayheart level crazy. Even with some of the conversation enhancements I presented above, there are still some odd pieces of dangling dialogue here. For instance, when Jessica nonchalantly reveals she killed her husband and got away with it with no explanation as to how, she could have made some sort of quip about the magic of white privilege combined with a claim of self-defense working wonders in the legal system. When Sidney says, “Jessica, please. what are you doing?” and “Listen to me. This isn’t you. Whatever this is, there’s another way,” it suggests that she knows Jessica on a deeper level than we are ever privy to, which would make sense if Sidney had counseled her at an earlier time. Jessica could say that while Sidney had been trying to help her find herself, she found out who Sidney really was by reading her book, which would segue right into her monologue about Sidney’s whole identity being that of a final girl.

The dialogue as it stands would also have to be adjusted to address Jessica’s asinine claim that she checked herself into the facility due to Sidney’s New York absence, so it would better align with my suggestions about her doing so to seek treatment for her trauma. Also, as written, Jessica saying she chose to enter one particular facility to be closer to Sidney just creates another glaring plot hole. Like, that’s where she went to become closer to Sidney? Wouldn’t she have actually moved next door to Sidney to be closer to her? That statement once again muddles the timeline, because we have no idea if Jessica moved next door to Sidney after leaving the facility, or if she already lived next door to Sidney when she went to the facility, which would mean she at some point just disappeared for a while and Sidney would have been aware of her absence. The timeline is just completely fucked the way it was originally written, and I don’t understand why Kevin Williamson didn’t demand that the producers allow him to do more rewrites before directing it, because I guarantee he would have fixed all this…even if not in the ways my friend and I formulated.

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Do we have a new horror hottie on the rise?

Posted on June 22, 2026 by Daniel

I discovered 2 movies on my “to see” list that star cutie Aaron Dominguez, so it was the perfect opportunity for a delicious double feature.

WITCHBOARD (2024)



This is the way I prefer my remakes lately. Take the skeleton of the original plot and add more meat. In this case, the simple plot of a woman getting possessed and going psycho after using a witchboard is there, but there’s also a rich backstory here involving the witch trials. I love me a movie with a good witch. However, the backstory flashbacks get a bit excessive, causing the film to run unnecessarily long at 112 minutes.

After an opening establishing that the board once belonged to a witch executed in the 1600s, we fast forward to the present. A mad cult leader sends his minions out to find the board after it is stolen from a museum.

The board ends up in the woods near the home of the sexy subject of this post: Aaron Dominguez. His wife finds it and brings it inside—after getting a pussy scare. Seriously, they defaulted to the cat jump scare trope in the woods. However, this devious cat becomes an integral part of the horror. This isn’t your Hocus Pocus variety bewitched cat. This meat-eater totally reminded me of the cat from the Pet Sematary remake.

The couple is opening a bistro, so they have a tasting party with friends. They use the board, and soon the wife begins acting different.

There are some pretty gory and frighteningly fun moments throughout the movie as the witch steps up her game while possessing the wife, but again, the numerous scenes filling in the backstory really hurt the pacing, particularly because the witch trial subplot is as basic as it gets.

The money shot is definitely during the opening night of the restaurant, when the wife casts a spell on the food that causes all the diners to go batshit crazy and start attacking each other. On top of that, the witch is perfectly witchy. As a bonus, we get a cheesy, old school final frame scare.

HIVE (2026)

This Tubi original definitely gets points for delivering on super scary killer children horror with some fantastic visuals. It reminds me of a cross between Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Playground” and Stephen King’s “Children of the Corn”.

It also feels like it’s almost trying to be a metaphor for a Latin community that has been heavily gentrified and essentially “eaten up” by white people, but it never quite clarifies that concept. I wasn’t sure if the white people had moved in, taken over, built up the houses, and hired Spanish people to work for them, or if the white people had always been there and began renovating their homes and hiring Spanish people to do the work they don’t want to. Either way, there definitively is a socioeconomic message about whites and Spanish people for sure.

Our main girl is a teenager who takes a babysitting job. Aaron plays her blue collar brother. And there’s another older lady housekeeper who tries to warn them to get the hell out of town.

Unfortunately, the main girl shows up for her job. The little white girl she’s watching convinces her to go to the playground…a playground where there are only children, no adults. This is a great introduction to their freakiness, with them in a choreographed dance doing the old jerky movements and spider crawl. Eek!

There’s a very isolating atmosphere, and there are no adults around anywhere, let alone the playground. The sister and brother eventually team up with the housekeeper and discover a sort of ant colony of these infected children underground. Yikes!

If there’s one problem with the movie, it’s that it gets a little too complicated for its own good and begins to slow in pace for a while as a result. Not to mention, the sister and brother have every damn chance to just get the fuck away from the town, but they don’t.

The final confrontation in the playground is another banger of a sequence, and we don’t get the kind of trendy gloom and doom conclusion we see in so many movies these days. The cherry on top is that the main weapon to use against these kids is a tank of soda and syrup. Awesome.

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Slasher time: a haunted attraction, a rental house, and a desert

Posted on June 17, 2026 by Daniel

My latest streaming marathon was a triple feature of masked killer movies, so let’s get right into them.

THE LAKSMAN (2026)



The colors and the creeps are there, but while this haunted attraction horror movie’s IMDb description says it takes place on Halloween, there isn’t a pumpkin or trick or treater in sight. Even so, I really liked the woodsy slasher moments and the 68-minute runtime.

Surprisingly, what triggers the modern day slasher is an opening scene in which whities lynch a Black slave back in the day, with underdeveloped hints of some sort of occult work at play.

In modern times, a group of friends heads to a rural haunted attraction run by a bunch of rednecks. The woman who owns the place has just fired her Black employee for no good reason, so there isn’t much mystery here….

It’s just straight-up slashing, with numerous characters roaming around the woods instead of staying on the designated path. The killer is big and ominous, there’s great horror lighting and atmosphere, and there’s even some nice gore, making this a good one if you just need a quickie to satisfy your slasher thirst. Although, I was a bit disappointed in the climax.

KILLER RENTAL (2025)

This is a simple, straightforward slasher that suffers from a bit too much padding and doesn’t seem to find its voice until the last act.

It begins with a gory body reveal, as well as a chase scene when a house cleaner comes to tidy up a vacation rental property. While this isn’t a found footage flick, much of the events are presented through the lens of cameras placed around the house.

This is where things get confusing for a moment. We briefly meet a group of friends staying in the vacation house, but then…

We meet the actual focus of the movie—a group of what appear to be influencers. They head out on a road trip to Joshua Tree National Park, encounter a creepy clerk during a pit stop, reach the house the first group was in, and then do typical group of friends in a horror movie stuff, like hanging by the pool and playing truth or dare.

There are some good kills sprinkled throughout the movie, but things don’t really pick up until two of the girls make a discovery in the desert area around the house. While they’re doing that, one straight dude becomes very bi-curious with the bi guy in the movie, which leads to a kiss, landing this one on the does the gay guy die? page.

When the girls return to the house, there’s suddenly an injection of subtle humor that immediately made me like the characters for the first time. Before that, they were simply forgettable, so I kind of wish this tone had been implemented throughout the movie.

Killing and chase scenes kick in, making the second part of the film pretty enjoyable. There’s a little twist as well, plus we finally find out what the deal was with that first group of friends we saw only briefly at the beginning.

NAMELESS (2026)

Running only 66 minutes long, this is another one you watch if you want a quick fix of slasher kills…but it comes with a price. The kills don’t exactly come quick. This movie is overloaded with bad filler.

A group of friends stops at a diner, where a waitress, played by 80s adult star Ginger Lynn, tells them the story of the sack-headed killer Nameless….and how he got his name.

Then we meet a group of friends that comes to the desert to honor their dead friend who, it appears, was a travel tuber. We have to sit through them hanging out, drinking, babbling about what a great guy he was, listening to one friend play guitar, and walking around the desert rock formations. The one cool thing is that the great shooting location brings to mind The Hills Have Eyes.

Oh, there’s also a straight white trash lap dance scene.

As for Nameless, he’s pretty ominous, and his kills are violent and gory, but they mostly come right at the beginning and right at the end. Eventually, he removes his mask (Nameless goes maskless), and we get a motivation speech with a pretty basic twist.

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BOUGHT ON DVD AND BLU-RAY: a trio of obscurities

Posted on June 4, 2026 by Daniel

I’m always up for lesser-known horror flicks that star veteran actors from the old days, and these three feature appearances by George Kennedy and Cameron Mitchell. I don’t regret adding two out of three of these blind buys to my collection. Let’s find out why.

INTENSIVE CARE (1991)



Here’s another one that passed me by in my video store clerk heyday, so I’m thrilled that it got a Blu-ray release. Shockingly, the reviews on IMDb are absolutely terrible, but for me, this is classic direct-to-VHS era goodness. What I especially love about it is that while it’s a 1991 slasher, it looks and feels more like a 1981 slasher.

Although it’s not about Christmas and no one mentions the season, I am going to put it on the holiday horror page, because there are Christmas decorations in both the hospital where the horror starts and in the neighboring houses where it ends, including Christmas trees.

George Kennedy briefly plays a scientist who loses a grant because of his unorthodox experiments on coma patients. He gets into a car accident and, ironically, ends up in a coma.

Seven years later, the main guy in the movie, who is either an intern or an orderly (I’m not sure), goofs around with the scientist’s burned, comatose body. A little while later, the scientist wakes up, grabs a scalpel, and heads off to kill. I have no idea how he realizes he should go directly to the main dude’s house for revenge…or how he knows exactly how to get there.

Anyway, the parents of both the main guy and the main girl, who lives next door, go out together for the night. Maybe to a Christmas party? No idea.

We get killer POV and heavy breathing as the killer roams around the houses peering in windows. While the main guy tries to get with the main girl next door, her boyfriend shows up, making for some good old cheesy slasher drama. We also get some good old slasher boobs.

There aren’t a lot of kills, but they are satisfying and gory, plus we get jump scares, a gnarly killer face (he doesn’t wear a mask and isn’t played by George Kennedy!), a body reveal chase scene, and the main girl and her little brother having some tense moments with the killer. But it’s the final takedown of the killer, which involves big ass bottle rockets, that brings the best laugh of the movie. Classic.

ISLAND OF THE DOOMED (1967)



At some point, I realized that I own a load of horror movies starring veteran actor Cameron Mitchell dating back to the 60s, and me being me, I decided I must own every horror movie he was ever in. Yeah, I basically elevated this dude to Vincent Price or Christopher Lee status in my mind. So here we are. I picked up this recently released flick starring Mitchell.

The animated, horror-themed opening credits sequence was a pleasant surprise, and the movie itself has some classic atmosphere and a traditional plot.

Tourists come to the island of a scientist (Mitchell) to see the amazing plant life he has cultivated. Turns out it’s more than that. He’s been crossbreeding plants to make a new carnivorous species. Eek!

If only the movie had leaned into the human-eating plants. As we get to know the quirky cast of characters and realize things are kind of eerie on the island, we occasionally witness someone being attacked by something in cutaway kills.

Eventually, those already killed are discovered, and based on the condition of the bodies, those still alive become convinced there are vampires on the island. The movie gets kind of trippy at this point, complete with a goon who seems to be working for Cameron Mitchell…until he isn’t.

The leading man is sizzling hot, so the eye-candy definitely kept my eyes glued to the screen until we at last get giant killer plant action in the final act, which is definitely the highlight, complete with a stormy night, nasty plant parts, and people being devoured. Plus, the final frame is perfectly macabre.

DEMON COP (1990)



It’s another purchase for my Cameron Mitchell pile, but it turns out he basically serves as a horror host telling the tale of Demon Cop. This one is a German DVD release with picture quality that makes you feel like you’re watching it on VHS back in the day.

A Black dude wrote, directed, and stars as Demon Cop in this absolutely awful shot-on-video movie (there’s even a bad edit where he’s supposed to be inside, but when it cuts to him, he’s outside). He’s an ex-cop who escapes from a mental institution after being tainted by blood that was meant for researching an AIDS cure.

Turns out this infection transforms him into a demon that is brought out by the full moon, much like a werewolf. And yet he always goes out killing in broad daylight, because good lighting is expensive when you’re making an indie film.

And get this. While cops are working on the case and trying to find him, this Black dude is basically killing Black gang members! What an asshole.

It’s terrible, I’m shocked Cameron Mitchell agreed to film an opening and closing scene for it, and I wouldn’t have even bought it if I’d known it was going to be this bad. However, the score is 80s synth score perfection, and this dude is such a 1990 vibe.

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They’re dripping and drooling and have wild eyes

Posted on June 3, 2026 by Daniel

It’s a trio of flicks about zombies, infected crazies, and demonic creatures, and they all have spittle spilling off their lips and freaky eyes. Sounds good. Right? But is it?

THE SILENCE AFTER (2025)



Despite its flaws, this was my kind of indie horror in terms of the zombie visuals and gut-munching action.

Its first flaw is opening with a scene that comes later in the movie. I get that they want to draw you in with some early zombie action, but right after this preview/spoiler scene, there’s a news report montage about unethical medicinal experiments, followed by a massive breakout scene! We didn’t even need to wait long for this even better zombie moment. This could have been the opener.

The zombies’ look appears to be a combination of makeup and CGI effects, but it’s nasty good. A couple of them even ham it up for the camera, one of them delivering major Busta Rhymes mouth for the lens.

We meet a handful of main characters, but the problem is that as we bounce back and forth between them, it kind of feels like they and their stories are meandering and going nowhere fast in between the intense zombie moments. In other words, watch this one for the zombie moments, which are a blast.

Brace yourself for one of a nasty scene of a pregnant zombie giving birth, watch out for the one white dude in the movie that comes in and fucks up everything for a Black family, and stick around for the awesome final frame.

DEAD BLOOM (2026)



Ooh. This is a tense little creeper. Some might find it slow, but I actually liked the ominous atmosphere created by the lack of action for a while after the gruesome opening sequence.

A family living in a rural area finds a mysterious plant bearing fruit (or vegetable) in their field. So, like any dumb country folk (yes, it appears even Black people can be dumb hicks), they begin eating the untested fruit (or vegetable). WTF?

Doesn’t take long for a gross, drool-inducing infection to kick in…and it takes even less time for one of the daughters to behead her mom at the first sign of spit hanging from her mouth. No concerned, “Mom? Are you okay?” She goes straight into kill the bitch mode. Awesome. Let that be a warning to any of my family members to never come near me when they are sick and look like death.

Next, we meet a pregnant woman, her adult daughter with MS, and her white husband. The woman discovers she has inherited a house. How do people always inherit shit from unknown relatives in these movies? Why did all the dead relatives I never knew let me down? Clearly, this is why I’d go right into kill the bitch mode.

Anyway, the family travels to the house, because nothing makes more sense than an interracial family with another kid on the way moving into the middle of bum fuck.

Soon, the husband’s white trash sister (played by horror queen Sadie Katz) and her grown douchey son show up. Maybe the family should have given them the house since they’re much more at home in hillbilly land.

Slowly but surely, the plant is discovered by them, and everyone begins looking not so well…except daddy. Damn. I love when an unassuming father in a movie suddenly appears shirtless to give us all this hidden treasure.

The gore and action don’t kick in again until the final act, when it all comes fast and furious…and complete with a nasty mutant dick scene and a gnarly birthing scene. So satisfying.

THE DEAD OF NIGHT (2004)



This one is so a product of its time, with monster makeup effects on par with early seasons of Buffy, and a cheesy hybrid rock/techno score setting the tone for stuttering action sequences straight out of the opening credits sequence of Charmed.

That bad upbeat music and choppy editing kick right in at the beginning, with patients escaping a mental institution. I honestly don’t know how this part is relevant to the rest of the movie, so I’m hoping I just wasn’t paying close enough attention.

Next, we meet a bunch of high school kids that bully two dudes, but them to go party in a cemetery. Of course, the assholes have an ulterior motive. They tie up the two dudes, dump them in an open grave, bury them in a bit of dirt, and leave.

And then…demons appear out of nowhere. They possess some of the kids by drooling in their mouths, then the rest of the action moves to the kids beginning to act weird at school.

It’s pretty bad, and you can’t see much of the monsters for a majority of the film because of the quirky, disorienting editing style, but eventually we get to see full demon masks where the actors’ necks aren’t even painted to match the color of the mask. The teeth look cool though, and the drooling aspect is kind of icky.

Weird things is there’s absolutely no mention of it being Halloween time, but all of a sudden near the end of the movie, there’s a scene of a guy standing in a classroom doorway, and there are old school cardboard Halloween pictures taped to the walls and door. Weird.

Anyway, this is pretty much on the level of bad SyFy originals, so if you’re looking for some nostalgia and haven’t seen it, that might be the only reason to bother to check it out.

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Pig people, a looping backwoods stalker flick, and killer gators

Posted on May 26, 2026 by Daniel

This trio delivered horror, blood, gore and even some extreme scenarios, but only one of them was the kind of easy entertainment I need right now. Let’s find out which one.

PIG HILL (2025)



This one really threw me for a loop. At the beginning of the movie, I was totally feeling the rural town tale of a young woman obsessed with missing persons cases and the legend of hybrid pig people living in the hills. The movie has this unnerving and eerily atmospheric tone, and there are some seriously brutal scenes each time a pig person kills a victim. Pig people or goons in pig masks are so damn freaky. I prefer cute little oinking piggies with curly tails. Or big, cuddly, hairy bears who are also pigs.

The main girl has a tragic history with the husband who deserted her, along with an overprotective brother, so things get tense when a new guy comes into town and gets close to her.

Together, the main girl and the new guy begin to investigate the stories of the pig people, hoping to solve the latest missing person case.

And then…things move into a pig man’s lair and this shit gets really messed up.

There’s sodomy, rape, murder, abortion, childhood sex abuse, grooming, incest, satanism, and the pig people becoming a metaphor for everything fucked up in society, which shifts this one from horror territory to horrific territory. Eek.

DRIVE BACK (2024)



This is one of those films in which a long drive turns into an unescapable loop of horror that builds on itself each time the journey circles back to where it began. If you’re a fan of this kind of mind trip movie, you’ll find plenty to like here, from the bloody scares to the relentless stalker.

For me, the main issue was with the newly engaged straight couple. I’m so tired of movies about couples in volatile relationships. It’s always the same. Either they’re going to have to find a way to get along to survive, the horror is going to turn them against each other, or all their dirty secrets are going to be revealed…which will inevitably lead to them either forgiving each other or turning on each other.

As for this main couple, after leaving their engagement party at a house in the middle of nowhere, they begin to experience weird shit while on the road—creepy general store owner, manic hitchhiker, a roadblock, something preying on them in the woods, etc.

As the pair bickers, they both begin to experience disturbing hallucinations. Eventually they realize that they keep passing the same locations, but they never seem to have the same memories of what has already transpired. These straighties can’t agree on anything.

The events start to fold in on themselves, and the couple is forced to look into a metaphorical mirror…

That’s when a masked figure shows up and begins to terrorize them. The final act is definitely the most thrilling part, but this is absolutely one of those films in which nothing is truly what it seems. Kind of like Pig Hill. Dammit, I just need some tangible horror at this point in my life.

THE BAYOU (2025)



Aaaaand…that’s why I made this my third selection for this triple feature. The hubby and I so needed this kind of rainy Sunday afternoon killer animal flick. Especially since it has a totally mid-00s throwback vibe. Ah, the nostalgia of it all.

In a very cool visual presentation, the opener shows us exactly how the gators in the Everglades become bloodthirsty predators. Not as if gators don’t already have reason enough to eat stupid humans that enter their territory.

Next, we meet our main girl and her group of college friends. They’re heading to the swamps on a charter plane. The plane crashes into the water in a pretty intense scene, and soon after, the group discovers they are being hunted by crazed alligators.

So, why does one of the girls pull a Jurassic Park 3 and steal the eggs when she finds a gator nest? Does she have no maternal instincts? Sigh.

The movie is all about the group trying to survive in the wild while being hunted by the gators. The kill scenes are a blast, and the gators look pretty damn good. The level of dumb character decisions is perfect for keeping this movie moving, including a moment when they find an abandoned building and someone literally says “We should split up”, plus one character’s decision to just sacrifice herself as they’re getting away because—get this—she lost her foot to one of the gators and apparently can’t fathom going through life without it.

For a pretty basic killer gator action thriller, there’s actually an amazing moment that delivers a double dose of character development. One character figures out that another character is the type that will throw you under the bus—or into the gator’s mouth in this case—to save themselves and decides to do something to put a stop to that shit. It proves to be quite an educational experience for both characters.

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