When zombies rip out your insides and tug on your heartstrings

Posted on January 27, 2025 by Daniel

These two flicks are more than just gut-munching fun. In fact, flesh-eating takes a backseat to character-driven stories. So how did that work out for my short attention span? Let’s find out.

DIE ALONE (2024)

Don’t expect a Frank Grillo zombie/action movie with this one. The director of 13 Eerie and the Wolfcop movies makes what I think is an elevated infected winner. The hubby and I were blown away by this simple yet emotional and incredibly smart take on the zombie genre.

I can’t even give many details of the story, because it would spoil the plot. Basically, a young man and his girlfriend have an accident. When he awakens, he doesn’t remember anything beyond that moment. He runs into a woman, played by Carrie-Anne Moss, who takes him in and informs him of a plant-based infection that has taken over the world.

Don’t expect hordes of zombies. There is one amazing, super infected humanoid scene and then just a few more infected moments. This perfectly paced, 90-minute movie draws you in because of the mystery it creates surrounding what happened to the main guy’s girlfriend as he begins to have flashbacks of what led him to where he is now.

Although action and horror hottie Frank Grillo is featured on the poster art, he has only a very small role that doesn’t come in until the 65-minutes into the film, but at least we get a nice crotch shot.

Even if you think you’re burned out on zombie/infected movies, this one truly brings something new to the table.

OUTSIDE (2024)

This Asian zombie film runs 2 hours and 22 minutes long. Eek! That’s the scariest part. However, while the film is slow with just a handful of really intense zombie scenes (just like Die Alone), its goal is to deep dive into the troubles of a fractured family trying to survive after the outbreak.

This is a long, emotional, moody journey that borders on soap opera level drama at times, despite the limited number of characters. A father, mother, and their two sons try to escape the insanity by heading to the secluded home of the husband’s parents. This is when we get the first awesome and gory zombie scene. The best part of these gnarly zombies is that they still speak, but only one single word or phrase over and over. It is fricking creepy.

Zombie attacks are sprinkled throughout the film to help with the low energy, and they really do, because it’s intense energy, especially a scene that unfolds on a bridge. Eek!

The reason for the tension between husband and wife unfolds as the movie progresses. The father’s brother told them about a safe zone to travel to, but the father doesn’t exactly want to reunite with the brother because of a serious betrayal that has shattered the family. The father is trying so hard to keep his family together while his ego is absorbing all the hits, but those efforts eventually backfire big time, and his nuclear family unit begins to splinter.

On top of that, the husband still has to contend with his brother, who keeps resurfacing and trying to lead them to the safe space. Pretty much everyone snaps, and the shit really hits the fan as this family’s drama comes to a head…with zombies.

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TUBI TERRORS: a werewolf, zombies, and underground dwellers

Posted on January 24, 2025 by Daniel

This was a pretty satisfying triple feature for me, despite each of these movies having some flaws. The cool creeps and creatures alone gave me a little jolt of horror, and that’s all I really ask these days.

WE ARE ZOMBIES (2023)

This little indie zomcom has plenty of good elements, and it even offers what seems to be a unique premise, although it does inevitably turn in on itself and become a rather standard zombie plot.

We start in a time where non-flesh-eating zombies roam the streets just trying to survive in a world of discrimination and fighting for the same rights as everyone else.

However, this isn’t really much of a commentary on that familiar horror movie concept. Instead, the focus is on three “freelancer” mortals that tap into the clientele of a big corporation that allows families to “retire” their zombie family members.

These three job robbers soon discover that this evil company plans to experiment (inhumanely?) on zombies and is also out to destroy the trio for stealing from their zombie supply.

It’s an interesting premise, but what happens is that the evil company’s experiments turn the zombies into…flesh-eating zombies. Kind of full circle back to the usual plot of an evil corporation causing a zombie outbreak!

The main characters are quite good and handle the fun, raunchy comedy well, but unfortunately, there isn’t enough of it or enough zombie action for a majority of the movie. The script is kind of flat and really needed a bit more excitement during its entire runtime.

It is in the final act that this zombedy really, um, comes to life. The main trio has to battle a flesh-eating zombie horde in a club, complete with a freaky boss monster. The energy here is what the rest of the film is missing. The zombies look awesome, the action comes fast and furious, and there’s good, gory fun. If only the cast had this much material to work with throughout the whole movie, this would have been a winner. It’s worth a watch, I’d say, but not good enough for me to add to my movie collection.

THE PACK (2010)

As someone who chowed down on the nonsensical story arcs of many Euro horror flicks in the 80s, I had no problem with the skewed narrative of this odd French flick, which manages to shift subgenre lanes various times, leaving a massacre of plot holes in its wake—an issue that might not be for everyone.

It begins with a tough girl driving through the country, she picks up a dude hitchhiking. They stop at a restaurant. Biker baddies show up and almost rape…the hitchhiker dude! It’s not the only time the leader of the bikers demonstrates an attraction to men. Gotta love rednecks.

Things take off from there. The main girl is abducted and thrown in a cage by a good old backwoods family.

She and her cage mate are tortured in various ways. And then they are left as sacrifices for…

Humanoid creatures that crawl up from the ground! A few throwaway sentences offer an explanation for their existence, but when shit is this weird anyway, why even bother with any explanation?

Before long, everyone seems to be changing loyalties in order to survive. Eventually, the bikers, the hitchhiker, and the main girl end up trapped in a little ramshackle house as the cool creatures try to break their way in. There’s gore, action, and chase scenes leading to a dismal finale.

HARMONY FALLS (2022)

There’s a moody, low energy to this little indie werewolf flick, with a lingering camera vibe and a horror music cue that comes back constantly and gets annoying after a while. The film opens with a couple camping in the woods and getting attacked in their tent…all screams, no visuals.

Seems there has been a rash of mutilations in a small town, so the sheriff calls in a scientist dude for help figuring out who or what is responsible.

Aside from a few attacks here and there, in which you never see anything, this is a very slow film, focused mostly on the investigation by the two men. The weirdest thing is that they always seem to wait until it’s dark to go hunting for clues in the woods. Huh?

One of the highlights of this otherwise dialogue-heavy flick is a goofy redneck bar fight, including a shirtless dude with nunchucks. Is he the pancakes boy from Cabin Fever all grown up? Sure feels like it.

When the werewolf is finally revealed at the end, he looks pretty damn awesome for a low budget indie. Actually, as cool as the werewolf form is, the human’s appearance before turning into the werewolf is way freakier.

I kind of wish the movie had been about the human terrorizing locals in normal freaky form, which appeared to be a partial transformation phase.

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It came from the early 1990s

Posted on January 23, 2025 by Daniel

I needed a nostalgic trip back in time this past weekend, so I dug up three flicks from the days of cable movies and video rentals (those were the days), and it was a pretty satisfying marathon.

EVIL SPIRITS (1991)

This is peak Karen Black horror trash, and it is soooooo big on the VHS era nostalgia. Amplifying that vibe is the fact that the movie is only available on DVD from “Cheezy Flicks”, a no budget company that just uses old video tapes as their source material. There’s even a fricking freeze frame/blank screen/missing frame defect in the middle of the movie.

There’s no mystery here. Karen plays a woman running a boarding house in which she has her tenants sign over their government checks to her then kills them and continues collecting their checks.

The misfit inhabitants include horror king Michael Berryman as a pervy writer, a deaf dancer, an alcoholic dude suffering from PTSD, a newly arrived older couple that immediately suspects things are weird, and a psychic medium who senses something is off…which leads to a séance.

Meanwhile, Karen supposedly has an invalid husband living in seclusion upstairs, but considering he talks to her out loud from anywhere she is, it’s obvious this is a total Psycho knockoff…

The kills are fun and bloody, plus we get dark halls, thunder and lightning, a blackout, candlelight, and a feral man chained up in the basement. It’s an odd, low budget, crappy film that is so perfectly a product of its time that I can’t help but love it.

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1991)

It feels like this remake was a studio’s plan to cash-in on the success of Misery by giving a classic film a modern update with the novel addition of actual sisters in the roles made famous by Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.

Lynn Redgrave plays the evil sister, and Vanessa Redgrave plays the wheelchair-bound sister. At the very beginning of the movie, despite the fact that Lynn looks ridiculously clownish and Vanessa looks beautiful, the sisters appear to have a very civil relationship.

That changes fast after two visits trigger Lynn’s resentment of her more successful actress sister (in the movie, not in real life). There’s Vanessa’s caring physical therapist, as well as horror queen Amy Steel, who plays a curious/bordering on pushy new neighbor who wants to meet Vanessa, the big star, but is turned away by Lynn. It feels like the plot had bigger plans for Amy’s character, but they were perhaps scrapped. She is very present for the first fifteen minutes or so of the movie but then completely disappears from the script after.

While Lynn looks clownish, she plays the role much more sinister and less campy than Bette did. Like Misery, this remake highlights the clinical, mental illness of the psycho sister. As soon as the first two visitors drop by, Lynn snaps and puts worms in Vanessa’s sandwich.

This seems to be the shocker moment to replace the rat scene. There is a rat scene later on, but it’s so cartoonish and Vanessa’s reaction to it is so indifferent that I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be a fake rat.

Adding to the mix is John Glover as a video store clerk who wants to take advantage of the former fame of the sisters. He plays into Lynn’s ego, and she goes along with his plan to give her an act at a club. This is where things get really weird and grossly portrays gay men—in a remake of a movie incredibly popular with gay men. What the hell? Glover is painted as a predatory photographer who exploits under age boys, and he also messes with Lynn’s mind by dressing in drag to appear on stage with her as Vanessa without warning her he’s going to do it.

Compared to the original, Baby Jane’s creepy doll aspect is all but removed, but her treatment of her sister is more severe. There are also a few kills that are nicely updated to be more savage. There could have been one more if they had bothered to bring back Amy Steel to poke around out of concern for Vanessa’s whereabouts in the final act, which seems to be implied early on but is then completely dropped.

FULL ECLIPSE (1993)

This cheesy action werewolf flick is such a product of its time—an HBO movie that soon made its way to VHS rental, and it come from the director of both Waxwork movies, Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat, Hellraiser III, and Warlock: The Armageddon. Awesome. Smack dab in the middle of my days working at the video store. If you lived through the 80s and 90s, you will recognize several pop culture phrases from the time sprinkled throughout the film.

Mario Van Peebles is a sexy cop. He has never looked as sexy as he does in this movie. He and his partner immediately get in an awesome shootout in a night club. The partner is shot, but then shows up back at work as good as new. This leads to another awesome action sequence complete with a car chase and the partner demonstrating some amazing agility.

Mario is soon invited to a group meeting by a detective therapist. Before long, a female member of the group is seducing Mario into joining their “pack”, which leads to a sex scene and a slight werewolf transformation. Oh, how I miss sex scenes in movies. Meanwhile, for whatever reason, the female werewolf makes a silly werecat snarl rather than growling like the male werewolves. So sexist (aka: so 90s).

Mario becomes part of their werewolf vigilante justice team, taking down criminals on the street, but there’s more to it, and their leader definitely has something up his sleeve. The movie does drag for a while, but in the final sequence we get a hokey, totally awesome werewolf transformation at last, plus a cool battle between Mario and the werewolf leader.

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TUBI TERRORS: masked killers…mostly

Posted on January 22, 2025 by Daniel

It’s a trio of flicks from my Tubi watchlist, so let’s get right into them.

THE NAUGHTY LIST OF MR. SCROOGE (2024)

This is another one for the holiday horror page! If you ate up all the direct-to-DVD movies that followed the slasher revival at the end of the 90s, you should find this basic holiday slasher enjoyable enough.

It opens with a fun kill, including a Christmas gift left on a doorstep, a chase through a house filled with holiday lights, and a killer dressed as evil Ebenezer.

Damn, Evil Ebenezer should have been the name of the movie.

Next, we get treated to a photo shoot involving two Santa hunks. Yay. One of the guys is the photographer’s boyfriend, and they’re heading to a 10-year college reunion at a mansion.

When the group gathers, there’s plenty of talking and drama as we learn that the main girl’s boyfriend committed suicide back in college while they were working on a production of A Christmas Carol. Is there any question that the killer’s motive has everything to do with that production?

Sure, it’s cheesy, but as a throwback to late 90s slashers, that’s how it should be. There are plenty of sleek kills, dark secrets revealed (mostly that basically every girl in the group was hot for the main girl’s boyfriend), holiday spirit, and chase scenes that culminate in a very long cat and mouse final act. It’s not super scary, but it’s definitely a good one to put on in the background each holiday season while you’re decking your halls.

DOWN BELOW (2024)

The writer and director of this film is also the star. Although he scored some familiar faces for cameos—Eric Roberts, Bai Ling, Doug Jones—this is a very low budget, surreal movie in washed out sepia tone that is more about horror imagery than any actual horror story. It’s also kind of hard to comprehend.

It’s a shame, because the opener is intriguing. It’s Christmas Day 1999, but don’t get your hopes up, because this is not a Christmas horror movie at all after this segment. Anyway, a preacher giving a sermon has his little bastard child assistant turn on gas while he dons a gas mask and kills all the parishioners. His eyes also turn demon black. Intriguing, indeed.

After that, the film moves to present day and focuses on a man registered as a sex offender who insists he was framed and believes he can prove it. He teams up with a prostitute who has visions of the past massacre. The detective who worked on the sex offender case is also going through some stuff of his own.

Was the main guy the child assistant from the beginning? Was he a victim of pedophilia himself? Is he possessed by the same demon as the preacher? It’s a mystery, and the film seems intent on guaranteeing its stays that way. There’s weird sexual stuff, visions of someone in a gas mask, and lots of talk to develop the main character somewhat, but there is very little in the way of actual plot or cohesion. The fricking gas mask person doesn’t even go around killing people. Bummer.



SCISSORS (2024)

Running just 64 minutes long, this clown killer slasher is one you watch simply for the creepy music, old school 80s horror lighting, vicious kills, and loads of boobs, many of them huge (if you’re into that sort of thing).

It’s pretty simple. Scissors the killer clown is caught…then escapes. A blonde woman is having nightmares about him. She and her friends appear to all be sex workers.

The girls show off their tits. Scissors comes around and stabs them.

The action moves to a hospital for the second half. I totally guessed what the twist would be at the end, and I’m assuming most horror veterans will.

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When most of the shows at the Theatre Macabre aren’t so macabre…

Posted on January 21, 2025 by Daniel

This short-lived TV series, hosted by Christopher Lee, is included in the first Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee Blu-ray boxed set, and unfortunately, few of these 24 tales live up to the name of the show. I’m not sure what compelled them to call this Theatre Macabre when it’s actually a mish-mosh of genres. The goal here instead seems to have been to make adaptations of stories by classic authors, whether or not they were macabre. So, I’ll just be pointing out the titles most befitting the name of the series.


“The Tortures of Hope”
After the first few episodes, this one offered signs of actually delivering something macabre. It’s more of a story about faith, science, and the vile hypocrisy of the church, but it is also reminiscent of the rash of historical witch-hunt exploitation flicks of the 1960s, only without all the writhing, moaning women. It takes place during the inquisition, when a doctor is to be burned at the stake for using dead bodies in order to learn how to heal the sick. Other than the doctor being sent into a dungeon lair and coming across some already deceased “sinners”, and the repulsive glee religious men experience from executing others, there’s not much horror.

“The Vampire”
This is by far one of my favorite scary episodes, loaded with atmosphere and creepy vibes. At a party, an older man tries to warn a younger man that another person present is a vampire. Soon, the young man discovers the truth in a classic, gothic erotic bedroom scene that is as good as traditional vampire visuals get, and there are some great twists.

“The System of Dr Tarr and Professor Fether”
This is one of the more nightmarish episodes that goes hard on the acid trip style of some early 70s horror. A man and woman head to an institution to learn of the new technique they are using to treat patients. After we’re treated to a parade of creepy patients, the man and woman discover you can check in, but you can’t check out.

“Tell-Tale Hearts”
This is a nightmarish take on Poe’s famous tale in which an attractive young man is haunted by the act he committed, but more frightening than the heart is an eye—with freaky close-ups. Another greatly presented horror story.

“Markheim”
A Christmas tale about a man who comes to an antique shop on Christmas, commits a horrible crime, and then finds himself encountering who he surmises is the Devil. And talk about a devilish twist!

“The Canterville Ghost”
This is actually a supernatural comedy. A group of skeptics comes to a haunted, gothic castle, where we see the ghost roaming around even though they don’t. Not sure what the thought process was behind the decision, but the ghost is painted Statue of Liberty green. There are cow webs, thunder and lightning, candelabras, blood puddles, skeletons, rattling chains, a moaning ghost—all the classics. The catch is that the guests are tormenting the ghost just by being unafraid of him. There’s even a twist.

“A Terribly Strange Bed”
Eek! It’s a bed that kind of gobbles people up! It is also reminiscent of the original dark ending of The Little Shop of Horrors.

“Resurrection of the Offland”
A man believes he can cure a man of a disease using a combination of science and magic, but only after he is dead for a year and brought back to life. This one has a nice, morbid ending.

“Boarded Window”
A man and woman are living in a cabin and she’s having paranoid delusions of being stalked by something outside, and her fears begin to affect the husband as well. This one has such a haunting vibe to it.

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A horror anthology, a supernatural slasher, and a home invasion flick

Posted on January 15, 2025 by Daniel

I take on three more I watched on Tubi that, despite being pretty basic and unoriginal, each delivered a few thrills…and one featured two gay leads!

WORST LAID PLANS (2022)

This 78-minute anthology is just 3 short films assembled together to make a full-length feature, with no wraparound. It consists of two tales that have cool monsters, and a third story that is too determined to deliver a deeper meaning to actually deliver any scares…or monsters. The good news is that all three stories have attractive leading men.

1st story – this one features a gay storyline, landing it on the does the gay guy die? page. A cute guy, who bears a striking resemblance to singer Robbie Williams (the man, not the CGI monkey) and is way too old to be on a trip with his parents…is on a trip with his parents. His dad is a right wing douche, his mother is determined for them to have fun together.

They go on some underground tunnel tour, and the tour guide is also gay, so there’s some nice flirtation. But then, because of an underdeveloped script, it seems as if the tour guide dude basically leads the tour group right into a death trap! WTF? Good news is that the “trap” is a giant killer catfish created old school style, not with CGI. Great monster, great gay characters, weak script.

2nd story – two friends on a road trip encounter a young girl who appears to be in distress at a diner. They end up at a hotel where the RV of the girl and her “father” shows up in the parking lot.

So, the sexy main guy sneaks onto the RV to see if the young girl is okay. This one delivers another cool monster pay-off, plus the simple kind of twist anthology stories need.

3rd story – this final tale is almost twice as long as the other two, and it’s mostly because it consists of too much unnecessary footage a guy takes while on a vacation with his woman.

The gist of the story is that he thinks someone is sneaking into their hotel room at night and filming them, a plot done before in other anthologies with tension and scares, which you don’t get here. This one appears to be more about a man coping with grieving the loss of his son by getting lost in his own footage. It’s dullsville.

HUNTING FOR THE HAG (2023)

This one covers familiar ground, but it’s fun ground, so I was happy to have something easy to watch with some cheap thrills…and with more witch than The Blair Witch Project ever delivered.

A combination of standard third person perspective and found footage, the movie focuses on a group of young women staying at a country house in hopes of catching the legendary “hag” of the woods on film.

We learn about the hag’s backstory during a fireside discussion, and then the friends decide to do a little incantation to conjure her.

This is where the movie takes a turn for a while, but it serves the purpose of delivering a higher body count. A group of scummy redneck hunters shows up, and before you know it, they’re terrorizing the girls. This is the perfect time for a hag to arrive and stand up for other women, but this hag don’t give a shit. She’ll cut a bitch just as soon as hack up a misogynist.

Just note that the hag doesn’t come out to play until 59 minutes into this 85-minute movie. Her look is perhaps just haunted attraction level of creepy, but it served its purpose, especially since we usually only get quick glimpses of her in a flashlight beam. There are also a couple of satisfying kills, my favorite being a head squish. However, the need to add typical found footage camera glitches during all the standout moments—like the head squish—is super frustrating.

SORRY, CHARLIE (2023)

Cutie Colon Tran directs this simple home invasion film that consists of basically two characters and one location.

The idea is that some evil dude is luring women out of their homes using the sound of a crying baby.

It starts on Halloween night as a girl getting drunk and watching Carnival of Souls takes the baby bait and is attacked by a guy with a mask and top hat who very much resembles The Black Phone guy.

I wish the movie had stuck to Halloween night, but instead it’s just an ordinary night from then on. The focus is on a crisis line phone operator trapped in her house and trying to protect herself from the man she believes is after her.

There’s a lot of talk with callers to develop her character, as well as the backstory of “The Gentleman”, as the stalker is known.

There are also plenty of moments of the stalker lurking outside and inside the house, which starts off suspenseful but quickly becomes repetitive since there’s only one character to terrify. It’s not until there are only 13 minutes left that the main/only girl finally takes him on, and based on the twist, this feels like it could have and probably should have been a short film in an anthology rather than a full-length feature.

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TUBI TERRORS: killer mermaids, a killer creature, and a death plane

Posted on January 9, 2025 by Daniel

I made the hubby sit through all three of these with me, and for what it’s worth, he thought two out of three were pretty good.

MERMAID ISLE (2019)

Director Jason Mills hooked me with some of his earlier horror films, which I even purchased on DVD, but I haven’t been captivated by his later stuff. Mermaid Isle is a bizarre film that only runs 70 minutes long, has loads of filler consisting of characters just walking through the woods, and feels kind of like an incomplete script.

We jump right in with four people arriving on a deserted island. Apparently one guy brought them there to propose to his woman.

They miss the big sign that warns them not to swim in the lake, so one girl gets pushed in and then gets bit by something…in water a few inches deep.

Is there supposed to be a mermaid in the lake or is it something else that carries a mermaid virus? Because it seems like that’s what is going on here.

The wounded girl feels sick, so they look for shelter in a house the come upon. An old lady living there warns them at gunpoint that the wounded girl needs to die or she will kill all of them. They think the old lady is crazy. The old lady keeps repeating her warning and even says, “You don’t understand!” Problem is, she never explains it to them!

Don’t expect anything to be clarified. My guess is that the wounded girl was bitten by a mermaid (not sure how a mermaid was hiding in five inches of water), and just like a zombie virus, she then turns into a mermaid. But if it is a mermaid bite and not something else in the water, what becomes of the initial mermaid that bit her? I have no idea.

We do see one character that gets bit slowly crawling towards the water while turning green in the face, and there is a character splashing around in the water with fins, but that’s it. No other mermaid action. The old lady’s son, who also seems to know what is going on in the water (then why the hell do they continue to live there?) shows up, and then everyone dies with little fanfare.

During the closing credits, we see that another group of people has come to the island a few months later, but there’s no horror pay-off to watching them roam through the woods for a few minutes. WTF? Why was this old lady living alone on an island with a killer mermaid in the water? Why didn’t her son get her the hell off that island long ago? Is she supposed to be like the guardian of the lake? If people come to this island and die, why do people keep coming? How do they even find out about this island? If people keep getting turned into mermaids, wouldn’t there be a lake full of mermaids? Yeah, this one really feels underdeveloped.

ALL EYES (2022)

This is such a bizarre and quirky movie that kept my attention despite being slow-paced.

It opens strong, with a cute podcaster who speaks with strange people who do weird things losing his job after something tragic happens while he’s broadcasting live.

He then gets a request to come to an isolated farm by an old man who claims there’s a monster living in the woods that he wants to capture. The time they spend together staking out the property for the beast’s arrival has a whimsical charm to it, and the old man is a hoot.

There’s plenty of eerie blue and red horror lighting but be warned—things don’t kick into high gear until the last 25 minutes of the movie.

Booby traps the old man has set backfire big time, which becomes one of the brutal highlights of the film, and also a bigger threat than the beast, which we finally see fleetingly near the end of the film.

My one disappointment is that after all the anticipation about the beast, it’s all over and done with way too fast. My favorite part is that the main guy spends the final act shirtless, and his bod is tight.

FLIGHT 7500 (2014)

Somehow this one passed me by a decade ago, which is surprising since it has such a great cast of horror veterans, including Leslie Bibb, Scout Taylor-Compton, Amy Smart, Ryan Kwanten, and Johnathon Schaech.

We meet a cast of characters boarding a fairly empty plane, and we learn of each of their quirks and flaws—some bordering on sinful if you want to be totally judgmental in a Biblical sense. The flight experiences some turbulence, and then things take a weird turn.

One guy has some sort of attack and dies. They move the body to an empty part of the plane. There’s more turbulence, and the plane temporarily fills with some sort of smoke. Soon, passengers start to go missing…and so does the dead body. There are also what seem like attacks by something that comes out of temporary and smaller scale returns of the smoke. It’s like The Fog on a plane, but don’t expect to ever see what’s in the smoke.

There’s even a freaky as fuck, moving doll that they find in the belongings of the guy that died, but that plot element never takes off. Bummer.

Something supernatural seems to be going on, and it’s compelling enough to keep you watching, plus the atmosphere is spooky and often very dark. However, there aren’t tons of thrilling moments with any pay-off, and the turn the film takes at the end is one that might seem unique to newbies, but it was being used quite often at around the time this movie came out, so I wasn’t blown away by the clever conclusion like some might be (including my hubby).

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Back to the beginning of the new millennium

Posted on January 7, 2025 by Daniel

Hard to believe that the Bush Jr. era now feels like a better time, but here we are. Those were the days when the hubby and I would indulge in cheesy SyFy creature features regularly, so I was excited to find three on Tubi that I’d never seen that fit the mold, whether or not they actually aired on the network.

BLOOD PREDATOR (2007)

 

I didn’t expect a movie that was eventually going to make the hubby and I chuckle when this one started. The opening is deceivingly suspenseful, with a man exploring an empty cabin after his snowmobile breaks down. He goes deeper and deeper into a basement as spooky music with a late 70s/early 80s vibe plays, and eventually he encounters a slimy, spider-like creature.

Next we meet a group heading for a skiing vacation in a plane. They crash in the snow, and moments later they are walking through the woods…with absolutely no snow. In fact, this film jumps from scene to scene with either tons of snow or absolutely no snow.

The characters, who are mostly obnoxious, come upon the same cabin as the first guy. They sit around killing time, have sex (including some lesbian action), and eventually discover something in the basement.

What initially appears as a practical effects critter quickly dissolves into a bunch of hilariously overlayed CGI critters that look like ants walking on a glass window that was then placed in front of the camera.

I seriously can’t comprehend how bad the “effects” are, right down to the green screen as the survivors escape the cabin right before it explodes behind them.

I do think, however, that the biggest flaw here is the pacing. This is the kind of movie in which the group should have started peeling off one by one to be killed off without anyone else knowing before they discovered the threat. Instead, virtually the whole group encounters the critters together for the first time…67 minutes into the movie!

FEAR THE CREATURE (aka: Creature Unknown) (2004)

Now this is my kind of SyFy level creature feature…and there isn’t even CGI! This is good old rubber monster material, and we see him a lot. Awesome. On top of that, there are plenty of cuties in the cast, a staple of early 2000s SyFy flicks.

After an opening kill, we meet a dude who is bringing his friends back together at a cabin in the woods where his twin brother died a year before. Typical horror movie therapy that’s totally unrealistic. But who cares? It works.

There’s some drama between the friends, and one girl storms off into the woods, immediately kicking in the monster attacks.

This is a sort of reptile/man hybrid creature, and as the movie progresses, friends go missing, there’s an old school T and A shower scene, and the attacks get fast and furious.

Eventually the creature invades the house, the gore ramps up, and the truth of what happened to the brother is revealed, and it’s a classic plot point.

MANDRAKE (2010)

 
This creature feature stars hunky Max Martini and 80s fave Betsy Russell as part of a team that heads into the wilderness to retrieve a dagger from a burial ground, an expedition being paid for by a rich dude.

They find a coffin and corpse with a warning of death to anyone that removes the dagger, so…they remove it.

Soon, they are being terrorized by vines in the woods as well as a tribe of primitive men looking for sacrifices to what we eventually see is a huge plant creature. Eek!

There are some cool kills and some monster lore, but this is a very cliché flick, and rather than focus predominantly on the threat of the cool monster, too much time is spent on humans warring with each other. Also, there’s some really bad green screen action that distracts from what is otherwise a pretty polished production.

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Harvests and Axes

Posted on January 2, 2025 by Daniel

In my latest movie marathon, I was only disappointed by one choice from my streaming watchlists. Let’s find out which one and why.

BLOOD HARVEST (2023)

This 80-minute film is astonishingly uneventful and offers absolutely no chills or thrills. It’s like someone had a good idea for a plot but then didn’t figure out a way to make it unfold with any sort of tension or suspense.

There’s not much to say, considering not much happens. A woman, her two teen kids, and her second husband come to stay at her family home in a small town. The kids begin to suspect weird things happen in the town, in part because a man confronts them and tells them they should leave.

The kids find a CB in a barn and communicate with what sounds like a child, but they can’t extract enough information from the child to piece anything together. There are numerous flashbacks allowing viewers to know there were sacrificial rituals in this town…where there don’t appear to be any children. It’s Grown Ups of the Corn basically. I just don’t understand how life continues to go on in this town if they never let children reach procreation age.

Even so, that plot could have made this a terrifying ride for the two teens as they try to escape a cult of adults, but it’s really bland and over before anything actually starts to happen.

NIGHT HARVEST (2024)

Indie director Charlie Steeds’ movies rarely disappoint me, and this little slasher was another goody. It’s sort of like a Pumpkinhead concept with an actual pumpkin-headed killer.

The first scene is shot in black and white and has a farm family torturing and killing a goon who lives in the mountains after he commits a heinous act. It takes place on Halloween night, and the rest of the movie appears to be set in the fall, but this isn’t an official Halloween-themed horror movie, for the holiday is never mentioned again. However, the music used for the opening credits is clearly inspired by John Carpenter’s Halloween theme.

Next, a group of young people is traveling in an RV. They are soon being pursued by the police, because it turns out one of them has pyrokinesis and accidentally caused a devastating fire.

Just for the hell of it, we are introduced to the scarecrow-like killer in an awesome scene in which two young dudes make a pitstop in a cornfield to pee. There’s something almost gay about their connection, but they aren’t around long enough for us to really get a sense of any character traits.

In classic slasher style, the main group finds somewhere to crash for the night, has sex, and is stalked and viciously slaughtered by the killer. Awesome. If only there were more victims for a higher body count.

There’s no actual explanation as to why the killer came back for revenge, but he’s obviously supernatural, and he can also get inside the head of victims and make them see and hear things. It’s definitely an underdeveloped killer concept, but it’s fun purely for the slasher aspect, and of course, the main dude’s pyrokinesis comes into play for the final battle.

#CHADGETSTHEAXE (2022)

I’m not usually a fan of the most cookie cutter found footage films, which this essentially is even if it’s actually supposed to be a live stream, and I loathe obnoxious influencer movies, but this one worked for me simply because it had a few clever and unique death scenes. I just wish there had been more of them.

There’s a small group of irritating as fuck influencers (do people in real life actually enjoy the over-the-top shtick of these shallow people?), and their chronic need for attention leads them to Devils Manor, previously a home of a satanic cult that committed murders.

As they explore the location, split up, and piss on a pentagram they find on the floor to entertain the masses that keep them “employed”, we are subjected to all the viewer comments scrolling up the side of the screen. Ugh. The constant text posts don’t do the otherwise pretty good atmosphere any favors.

There are a few creepy death scenes, and eventually our leading man Chad finds himself alone and being chased by someone in a mask and hooded robe and carrying an axe. What’s so satisfying about the final act is that we get to watch one of these self-important influencers receive backlash…911 knows who he is and hangs up on him, and online haters cheer on the possibility that what they’re watching is real and that Chad is actually going to get murdered. Teehee.

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STREAM QUEEN: they came from Hulu, Prime, and Tubi

Posted on December 29, 2024 by Daniel

The latest trio of films I watched were plucked from three different streaming services, and it was quite a variety.

THE INHERITANCE (2024)


This Hulu selection is somewhat of a slow burn, and it’s not a terrifying experience, but I actually had fun with it.


A 75-year-old man assembles his estranged children together at his secluded mansion and informs them “something” is going to come for him that night, so he locks them all in the house to stay safe, an option that never ends well for anyone.

Naturally, these uppity siblings are at each other’s throats, but they try to play nice and go along with daddy’s delusions because of all the money they each stand to inherit.

Then something supernatural starts stalking, terrorizing, and killing the siblings. The first kill from the perspective of under the water in a pool is a perfect sequence to grab your attention.

There are plenty of suspense scenes, ghostly entities crawling from paintings Ringu style, a room full of creepy collectibles (including a huge statue of Pazuzu!), a dark twist, and best of all, someone actually asking another character in a horror movie, “Why are you sitting in the dark?” FINALLY.

DON’T LOOK AT THE DEMON (2022)

Ever watch a movie that just throws so much chaos and plot points at you that you get exhausted and simply go for the ride for the horror scenes? That’s how this one was for me.

Fiona Dourif plays a psychic medium in a group of paranormal investigators that also includes horror hottie Randy Wayne.

They head to a house to start investigating ghostly disturbances, and before long this turns into a possession film.

In Evil Dead fashion, the possession has a domino effect, hitting one person after another until it finally settles in a shirtless pretty boy. I was jealous that the demon was the one inside him.

We get loads of action, plenty of freaky and bloody horror moments, a nasty fetus extraction scene, and the unfolding truth of how Fiona’s character has encountered this demon before.

NOWHERE LAND (2022)

I’m a big fan of the indie flicks of the Crum brothers, so I was looking forward to this one. However, it ended up being their most disjointed venture yet.

Did you ever watch a movie, and you hear every word of dialogue and see every action of the characters, but you haven’t a clue what they’re talking about or what they’re doing? This is that kind of movie. Somehow, it keeps moving forward, but I have no idea why or how.

It has something to do with a kid’s TV show. A few barely developed characters set out to try to figure out what has happened to their children…I think. It appears they were mutilated by or possessed by something that comes out of the show. Again…I think. Not sure.

The characters bounce from location to location speaking with different people about the troubling power of the TV show, and eventually they start clashing with some visually awesome, hideous looking mutants. Unfortunately, it is just hard to grasp how these monsters are materializing as they do.

According to the IMDb description, “Children’s TV show puppets come to life, but take a sinister turn. Following the dark events unfolding as the initially cute puppets wreak havoc in reality”. I’d say the hard-to-follow composition of that description bleeds into the structure of the movie itself, because neither one is easy to comprehend.

I was intrigued by a brief flash of shirtless men looking as if they’ve been impaled on posts in Cannibal Holocaust fashion, but how it relates to anything else that happened in the film is beyond me.

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