The ghostly ghouls in these three flicks are awesome, but do the movies do them justice? Let’s find out.
AMOROSA (2025)
This is another take on the Bloody Mary/Candyman concept, only in this case it’s updated—you summon Amorosa (no, not the reality show villain) by standing in a dark room, telling her how many followers you have, and then asking her to take a selfie with you.
If you ask me, this actually could have been a satisfying, cheesy throwback to early 2000s supernatural slashers, with Amorosa hacking up obnoxious influencers left and right. Unfortunately, it takes a mostly dull route instead.
A woman calls a psychic in to help her learn what happened to her daughter. The psychic works alone, so she’s not happy when she arrives at the woman’s house to find four ghost hunters have been invited as well.
There’s a lot of walking around and feeling out the ghostly vibes, with the psychic getting some impressions here and there, but none of it is thrilling. I know. Throw in a scary doll. That will fix it!
Someone is finally killed 54 minutes in, but we don’t see Amorosa yet. We also don’t see her when someone else is killed 69 minutes in. Or at 82 minutes in.
Don’t ask me why they chose to only show Amorosa in the last few minutes of the movie, because she’s a creeptastic mix of witchy and possessed.
Sadly, she gets little screen time, and the battle with her is anticlimactic. However, I was really feeling the autumnal vibe outside the house as the survivors leave at the end.
GHOSTS OF WAR (2020)
Even though I hate period pieces, especially war flicks, I checked this one out because it has a cool cast, including hottie Alan Ritchson of Reacher, Skylar Astin of Pitch Perfect, Kyle Gallner of Jennifer’s Body, and Billy Zane.
This one really threw me for a loop. For a majority of its runtime, it reminded me of the lost 80s military flick The Supernaturals (which seriously needs a physical media release). Just like that film, most of this movie is slow.
It builds atmosphere, and there are some creepy moments, but it doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere. Fact is, even if you pay attention to the details of what is happening, much of it won’t make sense during the first watch….
American soldiers in France during World War II take cover in a large, abandoned building, and little by little, they experience supernatural situations that suggest that they are not alone.
Things do eventually pick up somewhat (I’m talking 52 minutes into the movie), and there are some ghostly attacks, but both the hubby and I were losing interest. But then…something happens. Something so unexpected that we were both totally invested all of a sudden. We were both like, “This is fricking awesome.” We were both like, “Shit, we have to watch this movie again to better appreciate it.”
And that’s all I’m going to say.
NFT: CURSED IMAGES (2026)
This was just the kind of low budget, cheap scares, early 2000s digital entity effects bonanza I needed in my life right now. It’s a basic throwback to J-horror (and their remakes) ghost curse era, and aside from a slow start, it is nonstop, spooky silliness.
Updating the premise, the film focuses on a group of friends that deals in one of those crypto scams—NFTs, those supposedly rare, expensive digital image files people are gaga over, while my Gen X ass won’t even buy music or a movie unless it’s a tangible hard copy to add to my cherished media collection.
Anyway, these suckers—I mean—brilliant business people end up scoring what is supposed to be a cursed NFT. It’s a creepy demon face, and pretty soon (well, as soon as they’re done with a loooong scene in which they explain NFTs to a friend), they begin encountering digital demons in reality.
It’s pure popcorn movie fun as we are bombarded by shadowy forms in dark rooms, scary, flickering NFTs come to life (with faces that all look like they were borrowed from early 2000s horror movie digital effects), and disjointed, contorting, crawling ghosts. Awesome. We also get some shirtless man action. BONUS!
