The bodies pile up with Popeye, Goldilocks, and two movies for the holiday horror page. Let’s take a look.
SHIVER ME TIMBERS (2025)
I’ve already covered Popeye’s Revenge, so I was so ready for another spinach-fueled slasher.
Actually, this evil Popeye is fueled by a meteor. A group of friends goes camping in the woods for a viewing of the burning rocks from space but spend most of their time partying and telling campfire stories instead.
That is until the meteor shower transforms an old fisherman on a rowboat into a hulking, killer Popeye! Awesome.
Running only 73 minutes long, this is a simple slasher that goes for the basics, and I found it to be gory fun with a mix of a classic, 80s-style synth score jingle and raucous metal music during kill scenes that perfectly fits the splatterfest feel.
“Well blow me down!”
Popeye really beats his victims to a pulp, which often involves squishing their heads. There’s also a humorous edge to the nastiness, including a trashy outhouse scene, complete with the splashing sounds of the dump and even Popeye taking a turn on the crapper.
And after the chaos of running through the woods, the final girl goes hardcore with a giant saw to hack away at Popeye in a scene that looks right out of a video game.
GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS: DEATH AND PORRIDGE (2024)
This is one for the home invasion loving crowd, but it’s like comfort horror—an easy watch that requires nothing new to absorb.
Friends gather for a reunion at a house in the woods, realize they’ve come to the wrong place, and decide to break in and crash there for the night.
As they explore the house, the references to the classic tale are fun, and there’s a foreboding tone, right down to the POV of watchers breathing in masks from the woods.
However, it’s 38 minutes before we first see one of the characters outside a window (people wearing Goldilocks and the Three Bears masks). One guy thinks he’s hallucinating the sightings of the characters in some effective setup shots.
It’s not until 49 minutes in that we see all four psychos and things finally take off. There’s some gory killing and torture, but in the tradition of The Strangers, there’s no apparent reason for what’s going on. Only Goldilocks talks, but it’s just to taunt victims, and it’s in a high-pitched, singsong voice with her mask on, so I could barely understand what she was saying, and I didn’t feel like reaching for the remote to turn on subtitles.
Speaking of the masks, the cheesy final frame has Goldilocks remove her mask while her face is out of frame and hold it up to the camera, essentially breaking the fourth wall.
GNOME SICK: 7 SLAYS TIL MITHRAS (2025)
This campy Christmas comedy knows exactly the style and tone it’s going for and nails it from the start. It’s a movie made with bold confidence and has plenty of moments that made me laugh.
It also has a super Christmasy tone and loads of festive décor, which it should considering it takes place in a town called Christmas, and the main guy’s family owns an ornament making business.
Having broken away from the family business to become an actor, the main guy returns home to find his family is missing. His family also happens to be part of a pagan Christmas cult, and his father is an infamous Santa slasher that kills people and sucks up their souls.
This is where the movie is imbalanced. The Santa killer is a hoot and has cheesy CGI minions helping him do his dirty work, giving their presence a very cartoon Christmas special vibe. Unfortunately, the kills take a backseat to the characters that revolve around our main guy, including his old friends, neighbors, and high school sweetheart. The humorous shtick between characters makes them endearing, but it really starts to wear thin when we know there are killer gnomes waiting in the wings to spread Christmas fear.
Even though the film could have been shortened for better pacing or focused on more kills, it’s still a seasonal bonanza and quite charming.
The guy playing the sheriff gives off a Frank Grillo vibe and was the highlight for me, and the two detectives on the case have a very funny fight with the gnomes, but I was disappointed that they don’t get much focus. Why? Because right at the last second before they are killed, their gay love for each other is expressed. WTF! If flirted with throughout the film, that plot line could have been comedy gold. Especially if they had survived…
WICKED SEASON (2024)
This one opens strong on Halloween night. A woman leaves a Halloween party and hops in an Uber, only to find her driver wearing a scarecrow costume. Things do not go well for her.
Next we meet detectives at the crime scene. There’s a crucified body, and it looks like a copycat of “the scarecrow killer”, who murdered the daughter of one of the guys on the case.
The detectives decide to go to the abandoned prison where the scarecrow killer was incarcerated to look for old records. The caretaker takes them on a tour, and then this goes into Thirteen Ghosts territory with no signs of Halloween.
There are a handful of different specters roaming the halls, including a psycho in drag with a switchblade, a girl ghost who looks like she just crawled out of a well, a feral werewolf sort of guy, and a big guy with a chain who goes around asking victims to play with him. Eek!
The setting is great, and the camera work and lighting are spot on, but instead of focusing on the detectives being chased by the psychos, the film delves into a lot of procedural investigative stuff, and eventually it steps into the spooky spiritual realm, as if it has taken a slight turn into religious horror territory.
I do like the discovery of how you stop these seemingly unstoppable ghosts, as well as the connection between a killer scarecrow choosing to crucify victims in the same way that scarecrows essentially are, but I’m bummed that the film had such great killers at its disposal but instead focused on the otherworldly plot. The conclusion also seems to set us up for a very apocalyptic sequel.
