2000s horror movies – Horror Ghouls

Seed of Chucky (2004)

Posted on October 8, 2026October 8, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

After the wild ride in the previous film, Bride of Chucky, we are now in for something even more wacky. The child of Chucky and Tiffany has been captured and help captive by a mean ventriloquist called Psychs, who has named the doll “Shitface“. Nice. This doll, however, could definitely be considered a true Good Guy as it’s got a peaceful and kind nature. As if this wasn’t already weird enough, the story continues with how the doll finds out that Chucky and Tiffany are its parents, then manages to escape from Stromboli, er, I mean Psychs, and tracks down the dolls from a prop room in Hollywood. Yeah, because this movie also goes all semi-meta and Chucky movies are a thing here. Voodoo is once again used to resurrect Chucky, and also Tiffany this time. While Chucky is horrified to find out he’s got a child, Tiffany is all over the moon. Then they have to name their child…which becomes somewhat of a problem when Tiffany notices that their child are without genitals (like most normal dolls are). So…is it a boy or a girl..? Not even their child seems to know the answer to that question, the poor thing, who is now stuck in a struggle between mom and dad where Chucky names their child Glen, while Tiffany names it Glenda. And if you didn’t get the reference, it’s to Ed Wood’s cross-dressing cult film Glen or Glenda (1953).

Anyway, Chucky and Tiffany quickly start a new killing spree while Glen/Glenda is confused and just wants them to stop so they can all live as a happy doll family. Aw. And while Tiffany does have an inkling of parental responsibility inside her plastic body, that’s not so much the case with Chucky. And all the stuff that happens from here on is…weird.

Seed of Chucky is the fifth film in the Chucky/Child’s Play franchise, and a direct sequel to the fourth film, Bride of Chucky. And ohh boy…did they decide to go batshit with this one. While Bride had a good balance between the black comedy and the horror elements, always fun, energetic and slightly goofy, this one takes it all several steps further.

It is once again written by Don Mancini, and he’s also directing this time in his directorial debut. And this was the last film from the original continuity to be released in the theaters. Don Mancini, who is gay, wanted to explore some LGBT themes for this film and was in fact inspired by Ed Wood’s Glen or Glenda when writing the script including a doll suffering from gender dysphoria. Universal Pictures didn’t want any of this though, and rejected the script with the simple note “This is too gay“. Alright, well fuck them then. The project was later approved by Focus Features and released through Rogue Pictures. It was shot almost entirely in Romania in Castel Studios to keep the costs down, and this time the animatronic and makeup effects were made by Tony Gardner who also had a small cameo in the film.

I’m going to be honest: I get why many Chucky lovers hate this film. Everything has been changed from what was originally a possessed slasher doll into a comedic self-parody. Then again, at this point it was absolutely no surprise. While Bride started it, then Seed definitely took it and ran the entire mile with it. The entire movie is a joke, but it’s supposed to be. I mean, the previous film ended with a crazy doll-birth scene. No need for any clairvoyance to foresee that this would get even weirder and even more over-the-top. It could easily have become a bit too much, but I found the “family issues“ between the dolls somewhat amusing and slightly charming actually. The chemistry between Chucky and Tiffany, now having become parents, is sweet in a kind of messed up way. And the duo killing both while working together and while going solo adds for a lot of fun death scenes and scenarios.

Personally, while I enjoyed Bride of Chucky more, I actually liked Seed of Chucky more than I expected to. It’s cheesy, filled with gore and sick jokes, the kill scenes are as fun as ever, and it’s even got frickin’ John Waters, the “Pope of Trash“ himself. This movie knows exactly what it is. It’s fun and silly, just don’t expect it to be anything else and you just might have a good time. And it kinda has a happy ending too…kinda.

Writer and director: Don Mancini
Country & year: USA, 2004
Actors: Jennifer Tilly, Brad Dourif, Billy Boyd, Redman, Hannah Spearritt, John Waters, Keith-Lee Castle, Steve West, Tony Gardner, Jason Flemyng, Nicholas Rowe
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387575/

100 Tears (2007)

Posted on September 25, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

― I think I’m gonna shit my pants!

Imagine if Terrifier was directed by Andreas Schnaas, just with a more sober camera man and even a cleaner camera lense. There you more or less have 100 Tears. What else is there really to say.

Well, there’s actually a plot here, somewhere, I believe. It goes something like this: A mute double-chinned psycho clown, simply called Gurdy the Clown (Jack Amos), goes around and slaughters people like there’s no tomorrow with a ridiculously big meat cleaver. C o o l. He kidnaps some victims to drag home to his abandoned warehouse to, well, torture them. A girl gets slowly killed in Ginî piggu-style, before killing another guy and ripping out his intestines like a kid opening his presents on Christmas morning…and then chopping his head off with the meat cleaver, causing blood spurts like a garden hose. Gurdy surely has learned from the best.

Then there’s this mysterious young disturbed blond woman, a Harley Quinn wannabe, who picks up guys at the local bar to take them to an alley to have oral sex before she, yeah you guess it, kills them. What connection does she have to anything, you ask? It’s pretty obvious.

There’s also an iceberg to this Gurdy clown, and the two tabloid journalists, Jennifer and Mark, are working to get to the bottom of it. If they’re a couple/married or whatever, we don’t know. But what we know is that the guy who plays Mark, Joe Davidson, is no doubt a clone of James Gandolfini. And they’re overall entertaining to follow if you’re drunk enough, even though most of the wonky dialogues just flies over your head while we’re waiting for the next goreshow by Gurdy.

Because the most outstanding here are the practical effects made by the director himself, Marcus Koch, who has worked on 100-plus obscure independent horror films. Nikos the Impaler and Lung II are two I can mention that are reviewed on this site. So, if you’re first and foremost looking for crazy over-the-top violence where torsos get cut in half and limbs scattering left and right, spiced up with some dumb humor in glorious Z-movie format, you’ll have a jolly good time. A Director’s Cut Blu-ray is released by Unearthed Films and can also be found on Tubi.

Director: Marcus Koch
Writer: Joe Davison
Country & year: USA, 2007
Actors: Georgia Chris, Joe Davison, Raine Brown, Jack Amos, Kibwe Dorsey, Rod Grant, Norberto Santiago, Jerry Allen, Jeff Dylan Graham
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0943946/

American Psycho (2000)

Posted on September 18, 2026September 18, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

We’re in 1987, and Patrick Bateman is a New York City investment banker who is very obsessed with showing off a perfect façade. His clothes need to be perfect and of the best brands, he only dines at the most trendy and expensive restaurants, and is of course within a circle-jerk of apparently likeminded wealthy associates: shallow, arrogant, and secretly hating each other and filled to the brim with jealousy. However, Bateman is not all what he seems on the surface. Inside him there’s very violent impulses he can’t (or won’t) control. He’s in fact a reckless serial killer, brutally killing everything from animals, homeless people, prostitutes and also one of the other rich douchebags from his circle of acquaintances. This leads to the involvement of a private investigator. Bateman, however, has already spiraled so far down into a dark hole filled with sadistic depravity, that he has already started to lose his sense of reality.

American Psycho is a psychological thriller from 2000, based on the 1991 novel by the same name written by Bret Easton Ellis. The film was directed by Mary Harron, who co-wrote the screenplay with Guinevere Turner. It stars Christian Bale in the role as Patrick Bateman, and also includes some other familiar faces like Willem Dafoe.

The author of the novel, Ellis, considered it “unfilmable“. And if you were to do a proper and true adaption including some of the book’s most graphic content, then yeah…they would have censored the fuck out of it and probably banned it outright in many countries. The novel, while starting off rather slow, really goes hard in the latter part of the book and it’s definitely not for the faint of heart. Some of the scenes depicted in the novel are even more extreme and vicious than what you would find in a Terrifier movie, and that says something. Anyway, Edward R. Pressman was determined to make an adaption no matter what, with Stuart Gordon, David Cronenberg and Rob Weiss considered as directors before Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner started writing the screenplay in 1996. The pre-production didn’t go smoothly with lots of back and forth, and Harron was even fired when she wanted to hire Bale to play Bateman. Lions Gate Films wanted Leonardo DiCaprio for the role, so they replaced her with Oliver Stone. That didn’t go well, as DiCaprio and Stone had “creative differences“ which made them leave the project, where Harron was reinstated as the director and got her wishes to cast Bale. Which is good, as Bale does an excellent portrayal of the arrogant and unhinged yuppie.

Interestingly, Harron had actually attempted to read the novel shortly after its publication, but was put off due to the very violent content. She gave it a second chance later, and was especially interested in the satire presented in it. The movie, just like the book, heavily satirizes the 1980’s yuppie culture, where Bateman and his colleagues are depicting social privilege in a very on-the-nose matter. What’s a little hilarious is how the movie got a pretty good reception, where mainly it was well received but some still criticized its “violent nature“. Hah…they should’ve read the book instead, those wusses. Roger Ebert liked it, though, and gave it 3 out of 4 stars.

Bale, in order to appear as much like Bateman as possible, started going to the gym to become completely ripped, and also got a tan and fixed his teeth. Still nothing compared to how far he went for his role in The Machinist, though…but yeah, Bale’s performance really stands out and he fits the role like hand in glove, and totally embodies the character. Some of the political and societal satire is still present, and I found myself often chuckling at how seemingly perfect lives Bateman and the other characters apparently lives, with all that fancy restaurant dining, expensive luxury brand clothing, and the world at their feet. Yet they’re all filled with sickly jealousy over the smallest thing, constantly in some kind of pissing contest with each other, doped on Xanax or snorting coke. None is as miserable as Bateman, of course, who harbors a deep hatred for pretty much everything. It’s entertaining to see how he falls deeper and deeper into the hole he’s been digging for himself, while also wondering exactly what is really going on when certain things become a little too crazy. Both the movie and the book are intentionally ambiguous.

American Psycho is a pretty fun popcorn movie which is also dark satire about the 80’s yuppie opulence. Of course, it is nothing close to as vicious and graphic as the book, so don’t expect anything close to it. A fun little nod to certain parts of the book is actually shown in the movie, though, when we get to see a glimpse into Bateman’s journal where’s he’s made some crude drawings depicting all kinds of acts. This includes some of the things he did in the book, but I don’t think I was able to spot any nods to the iconic “woman, cheese, and a starved rat“. If you’ve read the book, you’ll know…

There is actually a direct-to-video sequel, called American Psycho 2. The movie doesn’t really appear to have anything to do with the first, aside from a quick flashback scene showing Bateman’s death (who wears a mask since that role is not played by Bale), and a woman named Rachael Newman who have become murderous after her encounter with him.

Director: Mary Harron
Writers: Mary Harron, Guinevere Turner
Country & year: USA, 2000
Actors: Christian Bale, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, Bill Sage, Chloë Sevigny, Reese Witherspoon, Samantha Mathis, Matt Ross, Jared Leto, Willem Dafoe, Cara Seymour, Guinevere Turner
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144084/

Eight Legged Freaks (2002)

Posted on September 1, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

They’re eating the dogs! They’re eating the cats! They’re even eating the ostriches!

Eight Legged Freaks is the title and that’s what you get — and it’s as silly, fun and campy as it sounds. The plot is pretty straightforward: A horde of mutated giant hopping CGI spiders attack a small mining town somewhere in Arizona. Sheriff Sam (Kari Wuhrer) and her love interest Chris (David Arquette) have to come up with a plan to save the day. Good luck. A relatively unknown Scarlett Johanson plays the sheriff’s young teenage daughter, a decade before she became a Royal Hollywood Elite.

Fun fact: The original title for the film was Arac Attack, which had to be changed due to, well, a certain current Iraq Attack in the wake of 9/11. We can all agree that Eight Legged Freaks is a way better title, a passion project by the upcoming director Ellory Elkayem from New Zealand. Too bad that his upcoming took a quick double nosedive after he made the Return of the Living Dead films Necropolis and Rave to the Grave back-to-back in 2005 that as well could be made by Uwe Boll on his worst days.

Anyway… The B-movie monster that became Eight Legged Freaks had its humble start back in 1997 with the black & white horror short Larger Than Life, which is, of course, about monster spiders. Independence Day director Roland Emmerich spat out a budget of 30 million dollars for a full-length film inspired by the short, and used his own FX company Centropolis Entertainment for the visual effects. Still, I have to say if it wasn’t for the cast and the name of Roland Emmerich attached, this could easily have been mistaken for a very late mockbuster of Arachnophobia by The Asylum. This is way more polished than what they ever could fart out though. That being said, the effects here are far from amazing, as this is meant to be a silly lighthearted comedy-homage to schlocky monster movies of the 1950s. And like a lightning in a bottle, it succeeds in every way.

There are a lot of highlights here, but one that sticks out is a scene where a poor cat gets attacked by one of the many big spiders, dragged behind a wall, and well, how should I describe it…I can’t. It’s something straight out of Tom & Jerry, and it’s okay to laugh, folks. Ostriches get killed in a way that looks like a regular day in Peru, or like any poor bastard who’d get traumatized for life after this beautiful sight in the basement, or in Australia where huntsman spiders eats possums for dinner. Brrr! We have some wild motorcycle stunts and a fuel truck gets attacked by a handful of spiders which end up in an epic explosion. Budget well spent. And yeah, the spiders also punches people with cartoon punch sound effect. Because, of course.

There’s also a nod to Dawn of the Dead where all the townsfolk go to hide in a shopping mall which quickly escalates to crazy action which most notably includes a scene where a dude in a Jason mask is slashing through the spiders with a chainsaw. The older Marvel fans will probably go nuts when ScarJo gets attacked and webbed against the wall after a spider crawls into her bedroom. The actors play their roles seriously, maybe except David Arquette, who knows exactly what kind of a film this is. It was also him that came up with the title Eight Legged Freaks after the Arac Attack had to be canceled. As a first time watch in the year of 2026 it’s also a bittersweet nostalgic reminder for us older millennials when Hollywood blockbusters once in a time knew how to have fun with no agenda and bullshit.

Director: Ellory Elkayem
Writers: Ellory Elkayem, Randy Kornfield, Jesse Alexander
Country & year: USA, 2002
Actors: David Arquette, Kari Wuhrer, Scott Terra, Scarlett Johansson, Doug E. Doug, Rick Overton, Leon Rippy, Matt Czuchry, Jay Arlen Jones, Eileen Ryan, Riley Smith
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0271367/

The Cave (2005)

Posted on August 4, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

A group of Soviet and British plunderers visit an old, abandoned 13th-century abbey located somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains. The abbey is filled with what can be best described as Lovecraftian carvings, which was probably supposed to be some kind of warning. These guys don’t give a shit, though, and blasts the place with dynamite which makes the floor collapse and throws them into some underground cave system. This all happened sometime during the Cold War, and what happened to these guys? We don’t get to know that, at least not yet.

Fast forward to the present, and Dr. Nicolai and his associate Dr. Kathryn Jennings is leading a team to excavate the former abbey which is now just a bunch of ruins. Once inside they discover mysterious mosaics, and find that the cave system could contain an entirely undiscovered ecosystem. Inside the cave, a guy named Briggs is chosen to scout ahead and he ends up being attacked by something. The others believe it’s just an equipment malfunction, but the huge problem remains the same: the water scooter Briggs used sped off and crashed into the wall, causing rocks to fall down and blocking the way they came in. The only way they can get out now, is by following the river and hoping they find another way out…all the while something else inside the cave seems to be stalking them.

The Cave is a creature feature film from 2005, directed by Bruce Hunt and written by Michael Steinberg and Tegan West. It grossed $33.3 million against a $25 million budget, and the reception wasn’t that great. And I guess it didn’t help that there was another cave-horror movie that came the same year, The Descent, which became a huge hit and is conceivably a better film. That being said, The Cave is not really a bad movie!

One of the highlights, at least for me, were the set design, props and effects. The movie was filmed in Romania (which is known for having over 12,000 registered caves) and some scenes featuring underwater caves where shot in Mexico. Aside from real-life locations there were some really good artificial cave sets built near Bucharest, and a 750,000 gallon tank was created for some of the underwater photography. Yeah, I do have a soft spot which seems to grow softer for each year when it comes to actual real-life locations and handmade props. It just makes a movie look so much more real, which makes it easier for me to actually feel whatever the characters are going through during the film. The actors also had to sometimes spend up to 12 hours a day in a wetsuit, going in and out of the water all the time, and I can easily see how this must have been exhausting as hell.

The Cave plays out more as an action horror and there aren’t really any scares, but it’s pretty solid as far as creature feature films go. Much thanks to the set designs and locations you easily buy that they are truly trapped in those caves. It also takes a little inspiration from real-life incidents of discoveries of micro-ecologies that have been found in deep caves, and especially in Romania. In 1986 Cristian Lascu discovered Movile Cave, where 35 new species were found and this included a 10 cm venomous centipede. Nothing of any gigantic measures, for sure, but there’s always that little thought of “who knows what else could be down there“. At the start of the movie you also get a little bit of a Lovecraftian vibe, but the movie doesn’t really venture there so don’t start expecting some cosmic horror of any kind. This is purely a monster flick, and for this purpose it does its job well. The CGI monsters leaves something to be desired, not gonna lie about that. I’ve seen a lot worse, though, and there are some scenes where they used animatronics and real models which of course looks great.

The Cave is a fun little popcorn creature feature flick, with some good suspense and a claustrophobic cave setting.

Director: Bruce Hunt
Writers: Michael Steinberg, Tegan West
Country & year: USA/Romania, 2005
Actors: Cole Hauser, Eddie Cibrian, Morris Chestnut, Lena Headey, Piper Perabo, Rick Ravanello, Daniel Dae Kim, Kieran Darcy-Smith, Marcel Iures, Vlad Radescu
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402901/

The Mummy Theme Park (2000)

Posted on April 17, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

It’s been a while since the last amateur show, but here we have the forgotten and buried gem that is The Mummy Theme Park from the year 2000. And no, this is actually not a mockbuster version from The Asylum of the highly successful film with Brendan Fraser that came the year before. This is…uhm, well, something else.

Picture a superhigh ambitious Hollywood studio-level concept with none to zero resources, budget or talent, cast a bunch of first (and last-time) amateur actors, and just make it anyway, in the most borderline stubborn and deluded fashion imaginable. There you basically have The Mummy Theme Park in a nutshell, and one of those fascinating cinematic trainwrecks you have to see with your own eyes to believe.

And speaking of being ambitious: We’re in modern-day Egypt where the goofy businessman Sheik El Sahid has some big plans to open, which the title says, a theme park, something in the style of Jurassic Park and Westworld. Because here’s the thing: A Cleopatra named Nekhebet, has managed to open an enormous, ancient necropolis tomb with the help of an earthquake caused by the Egyptian gods Osiris and Ra. Cool. And Sheik El Sahid smells big business for a tourist attraction. Who wouldn’t. But those with an actual sense of smell will only smell the strong reek of cheese, plain and simple. I mean, bruh, just look at it. It’s not as bad as the Willy Wonka Experience, but still. I think visiting Disneyland would be a better idea. If you happen to be around the Paris area and survived the catacombs, make sure to swing by Parc Astérix, where you can ride the god of Osiris’ roller coaster itself. Been there twice. Awesome stuff.

Where was I… oh yeah, The Mummy Theme Park. Daniel, a model photographer and his blonde bimbo assistant Julie, gets invited to an exclusive before-the-opening tour of the fresh park by Sheik El Sahid himself. A miniature train guides them through the underground caverns on a model railroad where every scene looks more fake than the other. Plastic human skeletons are placed around the tunnels while we see workers as the train passes them by from a green screen. Epic stuff. The only thing missing is some adventurous score by John Williams. And then we, of course, have the Egyptian mummies themselves, which are controlled by microchips. Of course. What can possibly go wrong. One of the mummies suddenly pops up from nowhere in Sheik El Sahid’s palace, kills several guards while Julia enjoys her bubble bath and the Sheik himself never seem to get some intimate privacy with his harem of four or five wives.

It’s easy to look at this and assume that the film was just made for the shits n’ giggles by a group of drunk film school students… but when you have a director who looks like an average university professor, the kind of individual who just wouldn’t even be dreaming of wasting his time on watching a minute of these kinds of retarded, juvenile trash cinema, you can’t be too sure. The mastermind behind The Mummy Theme Park is Alvaro Passeri, an Italian special effects artist who’s worked in the movie biz since 1979. There isn’t much info to dig up about this signore other than he has directed five obscure horror schlocks during the 1990s and early 2000s, and has a YouTube channel where he showcases his special effects work which is way more impressive than his filmmaking skills.

Trying to describe Mummy Park is like remembering an obscure fever dream you had after a long night of binge-drinking. There is the one absurd scene and moment after another with not much time to even process what you just saw on the screen. Yes, it’s one of those movies. The fugly visuals are the most striking here, where you have sets mixed with miniatures and small cute dollhouse furniture placed in the foreground and middle to make the exteriors of Sheik’s palace appear bigger than it is. It looks even more fake when the actors have to be close to the wall because of the limitations of movie magic. That being said, and despite all the cheap cardboard-looking props, I have to give Al Passeri some credit for at least trying rather than just take the quick Ed Wood solution by filling the backgrounds with big curtains and call it a day.

The retarded acting, the overly bright fake cheesy costumes, the overall bizarre fuzzy atmosphere, the look of it all is just the tip of the iceberg here, or the tip of the pyramid, if you will. I could sit here and pick apart the film down to five thousand pieces, but I won’t spoil the fun. Words wouldn’t make it justice anyway. The film was recently discovered in Germany after being a part of the SchleFaZ (shortened from “the worst movies of all time“) series and streamed on RTL+ in September 2025. Better late than never. It’s also on several streaming sites, none of which is, of course, available for us in Norway, but you can find it in 4K on YouTube.

Director: Alvaro Passeri
Writers: Alvaro Passeri, Antony Pedicini
Country & year: Italy, 2000
Actors: Adam O’Neil, Holly Laningham, Cyrus Elias, Helen Preest, Peter Boom, Paola Real, John Gayford, Clive Riche, Mark Anazald
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0391355/

Hollow Man (2000)

Posted on April 7, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Sebastian Caine is a brilliant scientist who has developed something truly incredible: a serum that can make someone invisible. Of course, he hasn’t done everything entirely by himself, as his team includes six other people, including his ex-girlfriend Linda…but since he’s a narcissistic a-hole they don’t matter to him, of course. Neither does the poor gorilla which they have tested the serum on, which successfully turned it invisible and it’s now freaking out in the lab. The turning-invisible part is just the first step of the process, as they need to inject a reversing serum to make the subject visible again. They do this to the gorilla, ends up being a success, and everyone are happy over such a major achievement! A project like this couldn’t be done without proper funding, though, and who would be most interested in throwing big cash on something like this? Yup, you probably guessed that right: the military, of course. So then, time to go and bring the sponsors the good news then, right? Well…Sebastian has other plans. Instead of reporting the latest success to the military, he tells them he needs more time and wants to start the human testing without their authorization. The rest of his team are kept in the dark about this, but we’ve already established that he doesn’t give a shit about anyone else but himself. And it comes as no surprise that he wants to be the first human test subject…

Just like with the gorilla, Sebastian is successfully turned invisible. Time to have some fun! Or, at least what a sociopath would consider “fun”. Sebastian sneaks around the lab, pranks them a little at first, and then goes on to basically molest one of his teamworkers while she’s asleep by sexually fondling her. Yikes! That escalated quickly. If you had even the slightest doubt that Sebastian might not be all that bad, well, here you go. No redemption arc in sight for this one. And as the other people on the team becomes wary of him and his behavior, they decide that enough is enough, he’s had his fun and it’s time to get the douchebag visible again. Except…things don’t go the way any of them had hoped for, and that also includes Sebastian.

Hollow Man is a sci-fi horror thriller from 2000. It’s written by Andrew W. Marlowe (from a story he co-wrote with Gary Scott Thompson) and directed by Paul Verhoeven. It did pretty well at the box office, $190 million against its $95 million budget, but wasn’t too well received. Paul Verhoeven, who had earlier made films like Robocop (1987) Total Recall (1990) and Starship Troopers (1997) had wanted to tone done the levels of sex and violence in this film in order to, well, make it more “commercial for the masses”. The main focus here was obviously the special effects, as most of the movie’s budget went to this. Sony Pictures Imageworks (SPI) and Tippet Studio worked on this movie, so needless to say it does look pretty good.

The performances here are solid, with Kevin Bacon playing Sebastian aka the hollow man. And yes, considering what type of guy he’s so clearly depicted as, it becomes obvious that the title can have a double meaning. While we do not have any kind of “falling down” episode for Sebastian’s character, as it becomes obvious he’s already pretty far up on the “I’m the bad guy” bar, it still brought some suspense to see how far he would go when getting the gift of being invisible. The simple premise of “what would you do if you could not get caught” is something that will always make people ponder, but that doesn’t mean the majority would do the things Sebastian does. Statements like “everyone would do x or y if they could get away with it” is a bit akin to the “a thief thinks everybody steals” mindset. Not everyone would do bad things just because they could. But some would…because they are bad people to begin with.

Overall, you could say that Hollow Man might come off as a little, eh, hollow if you wanted something deep and meaningful here. If you prefer your invisible men with less cheese, then Leigh Whanell’s The Invisible Man from 2020 might be more your thing. But this one is a pretty fun popcorn type of film that just aims to entertain, and should be a good and fun watch on a lazy evening!

A sequel called Hollow Man 2 was released in 2006, starring Christian Slater and Peter Facinelli.

Director: Paul Verhoeven
Writers: Andrew W. Marlowe, Gary Scott Thompson
Country & year: USA, 2000
Actors: Elisabeth Shue, Kevin Bacon, Josh Brolin, Kim Dickens, Greg Grunberg, Joey Slotnick, Mary Randle, William Devane, Rhona Mitra
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0164052/

Mécanix (2003)

Posted on January 30, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

What would you get if you took a piece from Begotten, mixed it with a little bit of Tetsuo: the Iron Man and sprinkled it with some bits and pieces of Mad God and Švenkmajer? Well, something like this would definitely be the result. Mécanix from 2003 is an avant-garde horror film directed by Rémy M. Larochelle, co-written with Mélissa Hébert. And just like Begotten, you most likely wouldn’t really have a clue what the fuck is actually going on unless you read the description first.

Mécanix presents its twisted story in something akin to a fairytale, where we’re introduced to what appears to be a post-apocalyptic world. In this world, the few remaining humans are forced into slavery by monsters, who seem to only fear one thing: the embryo of the universe, the origin of everything. The embryo is hidden within the last freeborn man, and it is the only hope humankind has to break free from the mechanic monstrous world they’re enslaved by. And yes, the world is filled with monsters of all kinds that often seem to have some kind of mechanism attached to them. Kind of like mechanic beasts where they’re part robot, and part rotting animal/creature. While most of these creatures look like something that belongs somewhere in the darkest corners of Hell itself, others are actually rather cute.

Visually, the movie is mesmerizing from start to finish, despite some of the scenes being repetitive and sometimes dragging on for longer than necessary. It’s getting its hooks in you purely by the oddness and surrealism, with a lot of different techniques used. It’s mixing stop-motion animation with live action, and everything is just so surreal, otherworldly and bizarre. The entire movie is done with a sepia-colored filter over it, which suits the visuals perfectly and adds an uncanny and almost filthy look to it. The soundtrack is often just as experimental as the film, fitting well with all the absurdities shown on screen.

Mécanix is a treat for anyone who loves surreal avant-garde horror movies filled with bizarre stop-motion effects and a constant what-the-fuck-is-going-on-here feeling. Too bad the director didn’t make more movies after this, as it would have been interesting to see what other nightmarish insanity he could’ve put on the screen. Who needs drugs to trip when you’ve got movies like these.

The movie was released by Unearthed Films, and can be found on several streaming sites including Tubi.

Director: Rémy M. Larochelle
Writers: Mélissa Hébert, Rémy M. Larochelle
Country & year: Canada, 2003
Actors: Stéphane Bilodeau, Julie-Anne Côté, Philippe Chabot
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427580/

Dreamcatcher (2003)

Posted on December 5, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Jonesy, Beaver, Pete and Henry are four men who have been sticking together ever since childhood. Their bond got even closer on the day they met a disabled boy named Douglas, or “Duddits“. They save him from a bunch of bullies, and Duddits rewards them by giving them all telepathic powers. A group of childhood friends sticking together after experiencing something during their childhood…yup, it’s a Stephen King story. As the four friends are going through their seemingly normal adult lives, using their powers when they can, things almost go really bad for Jonesy after seeing Duddits beckoning him from across the street. When Jonesy approaches him he gets hit by a car, but still manages to heal incredibly fast. Six months later, they all go on their annual hunting trip in Maine during the winter season.

This trip will become very different from the others, though, and shit (literally) start happening once Jonesy rescues a man named Rick McCarthy who had gotten lost in the forest. Rick seems…a bit off, though. Sickly and constantly burping and farting. Yay. Jonesy and Beaver makes him lie down in bed so he can recover, and later notices a flock of forest animals outside the cabin. Foxes, wolves, rabbits, deer, predator and prey together, all seeming to flee from something. Suddenly this spectacle gets interrupted by the sound of two military helicopters, who announces to them that the area is now quarantined. Then Beaver goes “What do you mean quarantine? We got a sick guy down here!“ and we pretty much got it established that these characters are dumb as fuck. Because there’s no way a quarantine and a guy with some kind of mysterious illness could have any connection whatsoever, riiight? Jeez.

When Jonesy and Beaver get back inside the cabin, they see a trail of blood from the bedroom leading to the bathroom. Uh-oh. Some nasty shit is going on here. They ask Rick if he’s ok, and he screams at them that he wants his privacy while it sounds like he’s having a really, really bad case of the stomach bug. When he stops answering them, they get inside and see that Rick sits dead on the toilet, covered in blood. A big worm creature writhes and screams in the toilet, having been literally shat out by Rick. Beaver sits on the toilet to keep the lid down to trap the creature, but the creature is strong, and everything quickly goes to shit for both Beaver and the other characters.

Alright, enough with the shitty shit-jokes, although this review could’ve had a lot more of it for more than one reason. This is Dreamcatcher, a sci-fi-horror film released in 2003 and based on Stephen King’s 2001 novel of the same name. The movie was directed by Lawrence Kasdan, co-written with William Goldman. It has been receiving generally negative reviews and was a flop at the box office, having grossed $75.7 million against a budget of $68 million. Which is by no means a massive flop compared to some other box office failures we’ve covered here at Horror Ghouls, like for example Virus (1999) with its $75 million and $30.5 million result. So it could’ve fared a lot worse. The one who took the actual damage for the movie’s failed success, however, was the director who pretty much got his whole career flushed down the toilet (no pun intended). In a 2012 interview, Kasdan admitted that prior to this film’s failure, he was planning to do The Risk Pool with Tom Hanks, and had written a script from Nobody’s Fool by Richard Russo. Didn’t happen. And then years passed and things kept not happening, and he didn’t make another movie until 2012 which was called Darling Companion.

Stephen King, on the other hand, praised the film upon its release and stated “This is one of the very, very good adaptions of my work“ (ho-hum…really?) and also added that the film “would do for the toilet what Psycho did for the shower“. Err…nope, it certainly didn’t. But maybe Stephen King at this point was still high on OxyContin, as when he wrote the Dreamcatcher novel he had just recovered from a severe 1999 car accident which he almost died from. It happened when a van struck him while he was walking, which I guess is referenced in the scene where Jonesy gets hit by a car in the beginning of the movie. King admitted to having been “pretty stoned“ on OxyContin while writing it and has later expressed being dissatisfied with the outcome of the book.

If you have read some of Stephen King’s books, you’ll be quite aware of how certain things only make sense when still in book format, and how transferring them to the screen often turns it into something messy and nonsensical. And how he likes to return to certain themes and topics. This one really packs in so many of the formulaic Stephen King ingredients, from the group of male childhood friends, something experienced during childhood, and the supernatural powers and a creature/monster of some kind. And while this movie pretty much warranted B-grade actors, there’s a surprisingly strong cast list, like for example Thomas Jane as Henry and Morgan Freeman in a smaller role as Colonel Curtis. Nothing bad to say about the acting here at all, the only thing is that the lead characters are so incredibly dumb it becomes a bit jarring at times. And when one of the guys becomes “possessed“ or whatever you should call it, and for some unexplained reason starts speaking in an upper-class British accent, I’m not sure whether to snicker or cringe.

Storywise, the movie is pretty much all over the place. It starts decent enough, but quickly starts going back and forth and becomes a bit disorienting as to what the heck is actually going on. Maybe it would’ve worked better as a miniseries, who knows. Still, there’s also the total shift in tone where the scenes with the group of friends are somewhat cheesy, nonsensical and oftentimes weird, while the subplot with Colonel Curtis and the military turns everything into a full-on action film. It’s like there were two films in there, badly merging together.

So, yeah…Dreamcatcher is definitely not one of the best Stephen King adaptions, but as far as silly, trashy B-movies goes it’s actually a bit of fun despite a somewhat long runtime and a bit sluggish pacing. And I guess only a Stephen King high on OxyContin would write a horror novella where diarrhea is a key factor throughout the story.

Director: Lawrence Kasdan
Writers: William Goldman, Lawrence Kasdan
Country & year: USA/Canada, 2003
Actors: Morgan Freeman, Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Damian Lewis, Timothy Olyphant, Tom Sizemore, Donnie Wahlberg, Mikey Holekamp
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285531/

100 Feet (2008)

Posted on August 29, 2025September 2, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Marnie Watson (played by Famke Janssen) is a woman who killed her abusive husband, Mike, in self-defense. Or that’s what she claims, because not everyone is eager to believe her version of the story, including police officer Lou Shanks who was a former partner of her husband. Yep, Marnie’s husband was a cop, and they can never be abusive, right? Hah. Marnie is placed under house arrest, and has an ankle bracelet fit on her which prevents her from moving more than 100 feet from the detector which is placed in the house’s hallway. If she does, the police will be notified, and that’s bad news for her, so better stay safe at home. Or at least she tries to. She has a delivery boy bringing her groceries, since she can’t go outside. Then, later at night, her husband’s face suddenly appears before her while she’s in bed. Terrified, she runs out from the bedroom, but her husband’s ghost pushes her down the stairs. She desperately tries to flee, and sets off the detector in the hallway, and Shanks arrives to find her unconscious at the front door. He notices that she looks beaten up, but she just tells him she fell down the stairs. They didn’t believe her when her husband was still alive, so there’s no chance in hell they’ll believe her now, so why even try. However, Marnie is now trapped with her abuser once again…

100 Feet is a horror film from 2008, written and directed by Eric Red (who also directed Bad Moon). It stars Famke Janssen in the leading role as Marnie Watson. While many ghost horror movies use its time to build up a mystery regarding the haunting and who the ghosts are, this movie goes straight to the point with showing the audience exactly what is happening here. It’s a haunted house/ghost story where you know very well who the ghost is. The suspense comes from how Marnie is totally trapped inside the house with her dead tormentor, which sets it all up for an interesting premise. In many ways, 100 Feet has some very close similarities to Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man from 2020, except here it really is a ghost and not some invisible mad scientist. I also found a little flair of Delirium from 2018, which was also about someone trapped inside their home in a house arrest situation.

Famke Janssen’s performance here is pretty good and carries a lot of the movie, where her actions and behavior comes off as convincing. While it may at first appear like she’s a cold-blooded murderer, which her husband’s former police partner obviously considers her to be, it also becomes clear that she tried multiple times to get help, including calls to the police which were quickly disregarded by his police buddies (of course). She was trapped before, but is even more trapped now. The only thing that hasn’t changed is that she knows no one will believe her, which means she must once again take matters into her own hands.

While 100 Feet never really becomes scary, there are some very effective scenes, where Marnie is both physically and mentally tormented by her dead husband. Some of the scenes where we can see glimpses of him are actually kinda creepy. There are some CGI scenes that get a little goofy, but there’s also a certain violent scene in the latter part of the movie which really catches you off guard with is severe brutality. Holy hell, did that just come out of nowhere!

Despite not exactly reinventing anything here, the movie delivers some creepy scenes, solid performances and a few twists and turns, making it a pretty solid supernatural horror movie.

Writer and director: Eric Red
Country & year: USA, 2008
Actors: Famke Janssen, Bobby Cannavale, Ed Westwick, Michael Paré, Patricia Charbonneau, John Fallon
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0899128/