There simply wasn’t a satisfying horror experience to be had in my latest trio of selections from my streaming watchlists. Let’s find out why.
PRANK NIGHT (2026)
I watched this one because horror queen Katharine Isabelle is in it, but there are two problems: A) it’s more a home invasion thriller than a horror film, and B) Isabelle doesn’t appear in the movie much.
So, our main girl comes home to stay with her dad and stepmom (Isabelle). The casting is weird here, because the main girl looks like she could be Isabelle’s biological daughter. Not to mention, her best friend looks like she’s cosplaying as Isabelle in Ginger Snaps.
So while the main girl goes out with her friend, home invaders break into the house and shoot her parents.
Our main girl decides to take justice into her own hands. Conveniently, she is able to track the baddies down and begins preparing with a cute trainer to go after them. Sigh.
Before she gets home invasion revenge, we get some character development. The main girl fights with her friend, and the leader of the baddies demonstrates that he is an abusive asshole. Shocker, I know.
There’s nothing scary about the main girl sneaking into the house of the baddies, and the final act isn’t very suspenseful, but there are some bloody kills. However, the final scene of the leader of the baddies coming back for more like he’s some unstoppable killer made me laugh.
PUZZLED LITERATURE (2026)
This film is about as low budget as it gets, and it seems determined to bring back the “urban horror” label while failing to deliver even one standup Black character. I wasn’t going to bother watching the whole thing, but I did, and now I will totally spoil it.
For starters, they have had no way to adjust the volume of the dialogue in post-production, because you can’t hear anything anyone is saying, so you have to either turn the volume way up or turn on the subtitles.
There are two positive aspects to the film that I’ll mention immediately. First, we at least get a shirtless guy in the opener. And second, the killer’s mask is freaky.
The story is about a dude who was just released from prison. His girl gives him a surprise birthday party. We get at least 3 hip hop partying montages in which they talk about booze, drugs, and hoes, and throw the N word around, and then the girlfriend gives the main guy a total ho dance…in front of all his friends. Doesn’t every girl do that for all her boyfriend’s friends on his birthday?
Then they go on a weekend getaway trip. They literally call it a weekend getaway trip. Does anyone actually call it that in real life? I thought it was just used in horror movie blurbs.
Anyway, there’s another hip hop montage at the house in the woods, a long game of truth or dare, and then the main guy has a meltdown, so it comes as no surprise who’s behind the mask when the kills begin 35 minutes in, with the weapon of choice predominantly being an arsenal of guns. Yawn. The killer also leaves poorly written poetry as a calling card, so at least the writing doesn’t try to outshine the script.
After killing a few people, the killer eventually ties up all his friends and we are bombarded by flashbacks and a monologue that reveal why he targeted these awful people. After that, the movie ends on a cliffhanger and a promise of “to be continued”. If it is continued, I won’t be watching.
SATURNALIA (2025)
This movie is basically a love letter to Suspiria, but that’s all it has going for it. It includes plenty of echoes of that film and its style, but it simply fails to grab you by the throat or deliver the icy cold sequences that made the Dario Argento film a classic.
The opener is so promising. A teen girl tries to sneak out of her boarding school at night. The setting looks just like Argento, and once she makes it outside, a masked figure wearing a white mask hangs her with a wire, which seems like a nod to Argento’s Trauma.
Next, our main girl is dropped off at school by a creepy taxi driver who offers her a cryptic warning. She then meets all the mean girls at the school and the evil head mistress, as well as a teen boy who is there because, well, I don’t know why. I must have missed a line of dialogue that explains it.
Anyway, the main girl has trippy nightmares, is tormented by the mean girls, and is terrorized by the head mistress. So much of this movie takes place around the dinner table and lingers on the idea of eating and body size.
The main girl also plays Nancy Drew, to unfold a mystery about her parents that simply isn’t all that compelling.
It’s 51 minutes before the first victim is murdered, and once again, the film doesn’t live up to the kind of horror Argento delivers. The few kills we get are very basic and disappointing.
The reveal at the end is not much of a surprise, and it makes this feel like it’s just a simple rehash of Suspiria. If you’re going to pay homage to the Italian horror master, you simply have to give it your own spin in the process and not make a film that pales in comparison to the movie you want to celebrate.
