2020s horror movies – Horror Ghouls

Together (2025)

Posted on August 26, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

A search party is combing through the woods, calling out for a missing couple. Two of the search dogs end up in a cave, where they drink from a strange pool of water. Later that night, the dogs start behaving very strangely, and the owner is woken by their whining and commotion in the kennel. When he shines his flashlight on them, he’s met with a horrible sight: they’ve been fused together.

After this little horrific scene, we head over to our protagonists: Millie Wilson who is an elementary school teacher, and Tim Brassington who is an aspiring musician. They are going to move to the countryside where Millie has gotten a job, and they’re throwing a going-away party with their friends. Here, Millie has decided to make it extra romantic by proposing to Tim…which ends up totally embarrassing when he delays his answer and appears totally hesitant. Ouch. So, was this just Tim being taken aback and having an unfortunate moment? Well, not exactly. Despite having been together for some time, Tim and Millie are having more than a few issues, where their relationship has ended up in codependency due to Tim’s mental issues. Tim suffers from PTSD after his parent’s death, he is depressed, he doesn’t have a job, and keeps more than one foot in the past, not willing to fully commit to Millie…but at the same time, he’s not willing to let her go and clings to her as some kind of lifeline rather than a partner he wants to spend his life with. Millie, on the other hand, is getting tired of his lack of commitment, his lack of sexual interest in her, and his immaturity. On the night after the going-away party and botched proposal, Millie asks him straight out if he really wants this relationship, because if they don’t split up now before the move, it will just be harder later. Oh, that’s some real prophetic words right there! Tim desperately claims it is what he truly wants, and so they move to the countryside after all, with all their issues still in tow. They decide to go on a hike near their home, and fall down a cave. The same cave where the dogs were in at the beginning of the movie, of course. Tim decides to drink some water from the pool, and that’s the start of another chapter in their relationship issues. Now they find themselves getting closer and closer each day…but not in a good way.

Together is a supernatural body horror film written and directed by Michael Shanks in his directorial debut. It stars Dave Franco as Tim and Alison Brie as Millie, a real-life married actor couple who have been together for over 13 years and married since 2017.

This is obviously a film where the themes are deeply rooted in metaphors, specifically codependency but also several other layers. Tim’s problems with commitment while simultaneously being afraid of letting her go, while Millie starts wanting to pull away due to his lack of interest in both her and their relationship, reminds me a little about how some people’s biggest fear is ending up alone (and thus settling for a partner they don’t really want) while others are the opposite, and would rather be alone than living with a partner who just settled for them. And the latter is, at least to me, much more understandable. Who wants to be together with someone who looks at you as someone they’re “stuck“ with because they can’t get what they really want? Someone who may find the comforts of the things you bring into the relationship to be enjoyable, but have trouble showing commitment, desire for you, or even an interest in your well-being…who the fuck wants that, right? Because these traits is what Millie also experienced once they fell down the cave: she’s quick to ask if he’s ok and check on him, and only minutes later she gives him the cold assertion “I’m okay, by the way“ because he couldn’t be arsed to even ask her. Yay. But, here’s the twist: that’s not because he’s an uncaring asshole, he is genuinely flustered when being reminded. It simply wasn’t on his mind because he’s used to her caring for him, not the opposite, which is just another trait of the classic codependency relationship. None of these characters are “good“ or “bad“ which could’ve easily been the case in a setup like this. Tim isn’t lacking commitment because he doesn’t care about her, he just hasn’t learned how to properly do so due to his trauma, depression, and immature fantasizing about a rock-star life and something that’s unachievable anyway. When your mind live in a fantasy world, what you’ve got in real life will always seem “meh“ no matter how good it actually is. Neither of them are flawless, both are struggling, something that comes off as believable due to some great performances by Franco and Brie. The chemistry between the characters always appear raw and heartfelt, which I guess is much thanks to the fact that the actors are a real-life couple that’s been together for many years.

The lovecraftian backstory regarding the cave is for the most part left ambiguous, but we do get a more detailed explanation of what the cave used to be and how it was used. The body horror elements, despite not being as crazy as what could be seen in last year’s Substance for example, are overall pretty solid as the movie uses some practical effects which look pretty nice. In a scene where the couple merged their arms together, they wore a prosthetic that effectively conjoined them together for hours on end, resulting in them having to use the restroom together. Must’ve been…not exactly fun. Aside from the body horror, there were also some surprisingly good scenes which were effectively creepy, especially the scene with Tim’s parents and the one with Millie behind the door. But for the most part, the movie is more of a fun popcorn entertainment movie with a nice slice of the bizarre.

Overall, Together is a weird and icky movie about codependency, and the fear of losing oneself in a relationship and the oftentimes messy complications of love.

Writer and director: Michael Shanks
Country & year: Australia/USA, 2025
Actors: Dave Franco, Alison Brie, Damon Herriman
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31184028/

Locked (2025)

Posted on August 22, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Eddie Barrish is a jobless guy who tries to find ways to provide for his daughter Sarah. That often involves some options that are…not exactly legal. He tries searching for unlocked cars he can rob, but struggles to find any good valuables to sell at the pawn shop. One day, he finds that a luxury SUV is unlocked, and of course he thinks he’s just hit the jackpot. Well…not so much. Once inside, he finds that the entire vehicle has locked itself, trapping him inside. Kicking, screaming and literally trying to tear the car apart in order to find a way out, he realizes that the car has been made with the intent to keep you, well…locked. It’s also sound proof, and with one-way mirror windows so no one can see inside. Once Eddie is totally exhausted and out of options, he accepts an incoming call on the car’s screen. The caller, who is the owner of the car, is called William and explains that he’s sick and tired of experiencing break-ins, so he decided to build a trap. What follows is a claustrophobic journey with two men from very different viewpoints and perspectives, where one must fight for survival.

Locked is a thriller from 2025, directed by David Yarovesky (who also directed Brightburn from 2019). It stars Bill Skarsgård as Eddie, and Anthony Hopkins as William. The film is a remake of an Argentine action film from 2019, called 4×4.

We all know that regret can come in many forms, but none is more common than the regret that comes not from the actions themselves, but having to face the consequences of them. Eddie, while being an obvious scumbag and criminal, is someone who is also struggling in a world that’s not exactly rigged in his favor. Yet, it still doesn’t mean that he couldn’t have taken better choices, but he is undoubtedly in a more difficult situation to do so. In many ways, this movie is not just a simple survival thriller where someone is trapped in a confined environment, it also mixes a lot of social commentary. Throughout Eddie’s entrapment, he is forced to question his morals and choices. At the same time we have William, who we may understand the motivations of to some extent, but who is also suffering from lack of depth in his views. The movie could have expanded on these clash in views and challenged the viewer much more, but we do have some fairly valid arguments from both sides. William, for example, hasn’t just set up a car as a trap to lure in thieves so he can torture them and teach them a morality lesson just because he’s been robbed a couple times, there’s a backstory here where we can understand how he got to the tipping point and simply wanted revenge. The film, like its original, deals with themes of the struggles of the common people and the privilege of the wealthy. Compared to the original film 4×4, both characters here have certain motivations we can at least partially understand. In the original, the thief was a pretty big douche with hardly any redeeming qualities, though, maybe except for the “Jiminy Cricket“ thing. In this film, Eddie comes off as a much more likeable person, despite very flawed.

While Locked doesn’t go too far with its violence, there’s still some amusing ways that William is torturing Eddie. Whenever he tries something, he gets electrocuted. He’s starved, overheated, and gets blasted with a looped polka song for hours. Yay! There’s a certain fun dynamic between the two, and each try to challenge their world views and biases. Ultimately, Eddie is of course the only one who does a proper soul searching.

Locked is a pretty nice thriller that blends philosophy with horror elements and is fueled by strong performances from a great cast. A fun watch!

Director: David Yarovesky
Writer: Michael Arlen Ross
Country & year: USA/Canada, 2025
Actors: Bill Skarsgård, Anthony Hopkins, Ashley Cartwright, Michael Eklund, Navid Charkhi
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26671996/

Dangerous Animals (2025)

Posted on August 19, 2025August 19, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Captain Tucker runs a tourist attraction called Tucker’s Experience, where the tourists are put in a shark cage to enjoy the sight of those dangerous animals in relatively safe surroundings. The tourists Greg and Heather are ready for such an experience, and of course they’re completely ignoring all the red flags. When some guy who is going to take you out on a boat suddenly seems very interested in how nobody else knows that you’re there, then…it’s time to turn around and just goooo…but of course not. So, a bit later when they’re out on the open ocean and ready for the cage dive, Tucker starts preparing them by telling them to do a few breathing exercises to loose the tension, and then…starts singing Baby Shark doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo. Another major red flag right there! Greg becomes shark food, and Heather’s dragged to the cabin of the boat and reserved for a later purpose. The most dangerous animals are those on two feet.

Now we head over to the drifter Zephyr, who ends up in some kind of romcom-like scenario with the real estate agent Moses. They both start bonding over their love of surfing, and have a one night stand. Zephyr just drives away in the middle of the night, not quite as interested in something more like Moses apparently is. She decides to do a little night surfing, and who does she encounter in the parking lot where no one else is around? None other than Tucker, of course. He abducts her, and is soon to find out that she’s the most feisty animal he’s captured thus far. That’s what he wanted, though…a little bit of a challenge, for once. A fish you need to use a lot of strength and stamina to reel in. Zephyr might be more of a fighter than he initially expected, though…

Dangerous Animals is an Australian survival horror film, directed by Sean Byrne (The Devil’s Candy) and written by Nick Lepard. In 2024, production begun on the Gold Coast, Queensland, which contributed with over $10 million to the state’s economy.

Serial killers have different ways of exposing of their victims, and a movie about a shark-obsessed killer who feeds them to the sharks? Well, that’s gotta be an interesting take for sure. Tucker, played by Jai Courtney, definitely works great as an unhinged and sadistic guy, filled with just the right bit of charisma and craziness. While the movie does have a fair bit of excitement and thrills, don’t expect to have some truly grisly shark attack scenes here though. The sharks aren’t the danger, it’s the serial killer who’s the only baddie here, so the story pans out more as a stalker-killer ride. Which is fine, even though I would have loved to see some more shark-mayhem. The movie is rather laidback on the gore, which was a little disappointing considering the bloody film poster. Oh well. It makes up for it by keeping up the pace at a good level throughout, and offering enough suspense.

Overall, Dangerous Animals is a fun and fast-paced survival horror movie, and despite feeling that it lacked a little bit of extra bite it was still a fun experience.

Director: Sean Byrne
Writer: Nick Lepard
Country & year: Australia, 2025
Actors: Hassie Harrison, Jai Courtney, Josh Heuston, Josh Heuston, Ella Newton, Liam Greinke, Rob Carlton and a bunch of dangerous animals
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32299316/

Weapons (2025)

Posted on August 12, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

In Maybrook, Pennsylvania, something strange happened one night. At exactly 2:17 a.m. seventeen children suddenly woke up, ran out of their homes and disappeared. All of these children were from Justine Gandy’s class, where the entire classroom would be empty the next day with only one exception: Alex Lilly, the only child who didn’t end up missing that night. Police investigation begins immediately, but yields no results. Alex doesn’t know anything, and Justice doesn’t know anything. One month later, the desperate parents of the missing children demand answers, and decide that Justine must know at least something. After all, it was her class. She’s put on leave, and immediately turns to the alcohol for comfort as she’s being harassed by the townspeople who believes she’s guilty in some way or other. Justine, sincerely not knowing anything and also being concerned about Alex, the only kid left from her class, starts doing a bit of investigation by herself. One day, she follows him home, and notices that the windows of his house are all covered in newspaper…

Weapons is a horror film written, co-produced and directed by Zach Cregger. It has so far grossed over $70 million against a budget of $38 million. Zach Cregger also had a financial and critical success with Barbarian (2022), and immediately started working on a new spec script which was inspired after the death of a close friend of his, Trevor Moore. The screenplay ended up in a bidding war between Netflix, TriStar Pictures, Monkeypaw Productions, Universal Pictures, and New Line Cinema, where the latter won. Jordan Peele, with his company Monkeypaw Productions was one of the participiants in the bidding war, and after losing he parted ways with his longtime managers Joel Zadak and Peter Principato. I guess the success of Weapons was foreseen by a lot of people, considering the heavy interest in securing the rights…

When we saw Weapons at the big screen we knew very little about it and went in as blind as possible, and yes: this is one of those movies where knowing as little as possible definitely heightens the experience. The movie starts off with the mystery that’s also revealed in the trailer and descriptions of the movie. A narrator with the voice of a young child tells you what happened, and you follow the aftermath of the children’s disappearances. There’s an ominous vibe to it all, something dark and brooding, and if you’re blessed with seeing this movie while still being oblivious as to what’s actually going on, you’ll definitely have some fun trying to figure out and speculate where it’s all going. While Barbarian very obviously red-herringed the fuck out of you, this one keeps you constantly guessing while slowly creeping towards the reveal, which I’m going to be honest, wasn’t at all what I initially expected. Weapons also has a lot of dark humor, mixed with some pretty grotesque scenes where some of them honestly caught me a bit off guard. It was quite the ride, for sure! There’s a lot I could have written about this movie, but as I think the best experience is to watch it as blindly as possible, I’ll refrain from going much further.

Underneath Weapons, you might be surprised to realize that the story is actually a very generic horror story, but it’s the non-linear way it’s told and the mix of narrative choices here that makes everything work out so perfectly. Instead of a bland, overused formula with ingredients you’re all too familiar with, it twists everything on its head and presents it to you in a completely different wrap-up. I’m repeating myself like a broken record here, but: go in as blind as possible, and enjoy this twisted and unpredictable horror adventure!

Writer and director: Zach Cregger
Country & year: USA, 2025
Actors: Scarlett Sher, Julia Garner, Cary Christopher, Jason Turner, Josh Brolin, Benedict Wong, Austin Abrams, Alden Ehrenreich, Whitmer Thomas, Callie Schuttera, Amy Madigan
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26581740/

Bring Her Back (2025)

Posted on August 5, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Piper is a girl who is partially sighted (played by Sora Wong who has a real-life condition of coloboma and microphthalmia). Despite her efforts, she struggles to find friends, but she’s pretty close to her step-brother Andy who both live together with their father, since Piper’s mother died. One day, they find their father dead in the shower, and Piper is sent to live in a foster home. Since neither of them wants to split up, Andy comes along, hoping to get custody once he turns 18 which is in just a few months. They are sent to live with Laura, who is also fostering a mute boy named Oliver. Laura is eccentric, to put it mildly, and it’s obvious from the start that Andy is the third wheel here while Laura seems to be all over Piper. They learn that Laura once had a daughter who drowned in the backyard pool, which might explain some of Laura’s odd behavior…but there also appears to be more to it than that. Not to mention Oliver, who appears to be both mute and mentally impaired. Soon Laura also starts to undermine Andy’s mental state, using insidious tactics to make him seem unfit to care for his sister. Something is very wrong in the house, and Laura’s dark plan is about to come into fruition, as she plans to bring her dead daughter back to life.

Bring Her Back is the second horror film from the Australian duo Danny and Michael Philippou, where they had great success with Talk to Me from 2022. The story is written by Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman, who was also one of the co-writers for Talk to Me. The movie is released by A24, and has so far grossed $27.5 million against a budget of $15 million.

The Philippou brothers certainly proves that Talk to Me wasn’t just a one-hit-wonder: their newest film is even more unsettling and atmospheric. All the actors are delivering great performances here, where the bond between Andy and Piper comes off as believable and with convincing ethos. The boy playing Oliver is creepy as hell, and Sally Hawkins (who also played the protagonist in Guillermo del Toro’s Shape of Water) does an excellent performance as the unbalanced, grieving mother who’s desperate to do anything to bring her dead daughter back to life. The theme of death, trauma and grief was also substantial in Talk to Me, and I really love how they’re able to present it as something so incredibly dark and ominous. Grief, being a part of everyone’s life in so many ways, gets a thick layer of gloom where all the characters have their own fill of it. What wouldn’t one be willing to do if they could bring a loved one back to life? We all know the answer to that question: most of us would do quite a lot, and some would even do everything.

While there is a somewhat basic occult story underneath Bring Her Back, it’s the execution that makes it such a great watch. There’s a constant feeling of creeping dread, you always anticipate something horrible to happen. And while the horror is mostly subtle, the scenes where the bad things start happening are truly visceral and often unexpectedly unnerving. Timing is everything, nailing it without the use of unnecessary jumpscares. There’s a lot of innuendo before the actual, purest hell breaks out, and some of these lead up to several incredible wtf-ish disturbing moments.

Bring Her Back is a bleak, unsettling and oftentimes heartfelt horror movie, which continuously builds up the dread. Now we can only look forward to what the Philippou brothers are going to do next, which will at least be the sequel of their first film which is simply titled Talk 2 Me.

Directors: Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou
Writers: Danny Philippou, Bill Hinzman
Country & year: Australia, 2025
Actors: Billy Barratt, Sally Hawkins, Jonah Wren Phillips, Stephen Phillips, Sally-Anne Upton, Mischa Heywood, Sora Wong, Kathryn Adams
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32246771/

Choose or Die (2022)

Posted on July 4, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

We start off by seeing Hal, a man who is the husband in a dysfunctional family. He’s a retro video game collector, and he receives a copy of a game called CURS>R. It’s supposed to be a classic text-based adventure game from the 80’s, but once Hal starts playing it he realizes that the choices the game gives him have a direct interaction with things in his own life. One of those choices he makes ends with some serious consequences. Then, we fast-forward to three months later, to the college student Kayla and her friend Isaac who is a computer geek. Kayla’s younger brother, Ricky, died a while back which turned her mother into a drug addict. On top of that, the rent collector is her supplier and forces Kayla’s mother into prostitution as an exchange to keep the apartment. So at this point we’ve already established at least one kill count we hope to see coming.

One day, Kayla visits Isaac and discovers the CURS>R game along with a phone number that’s offering a prize of $125,000. Just out of curiosity, she calls the number and then gets a recorded message from “The Terror Director“ (with the voice of none other than Robert Englund himself, and yes, even in the movie he is presented as Robert Englund which doesn’t really make a lick of sense, but whatever). The recording tells her to complete the game, and insert the number code she will get at the end of the game, and she will become the winner of all that money. Kayla starts playing it, and makes a deal with Isaac to share the money. Of course, just like we saw what happened to Hal in the beginning, Kayla soon finds out that the game intervenes with what happens in her real life, and the choices she must make often have deadly consequences.

Choose or Die (formerly titled CURS>R) is a Netflix horror film from 2022, directed by Toby Meakins as his feature directorial debut. It was originally planned to be a “short form“ series for the Quibi streaming service, which didn’t even last a year. So, over to Netflix as one of their originals then.

The premise itself, being a cursed video game from the 80s, sure does sound like some easily consumed fun. And it is. It is also very generic, and despite having the opportunity to set up a lot of very nasty situations, it has decided to play (no pun intended) everything pretty safe. There’s a scene where Kayla only sees how something is unfolding in her mother’s apartment through the game’s simple pixel graphics and MIDI music, and that’s the most exciting scene of them all as it leaves a lot to the imagination and also makes it slightly hilarious. I realize that what I just wrote there isn’t necessarily a good thing in a movie like this, though, but I actually enjoyed the setup for that scene. Now, regarding the Robert Englund cameo with the recording, it really didn’t make any sense, because he’s got fuck-all to do with the rest of movie. I was actually expecting him to show up for some kind of surprise role at the end but nah.

Despite its obvious flaws, though, I won’t lie: I found the movie to be fairly entertaining. It’s one of those simple dime-a-dozen “curse“ horror movies we’ve already seen so many variants of, but just like a cheap fast-food meal, it’s sometimes all you need. The performances are fine, and there’s a few moments that are effectively atmospheric and tense. Choose or Die, while suffering from being very generic and not going far enough with the kills, is still an okay movie to watch on a lazy day. Just turn down your expectations, and you might simply have a fun time!

Director: Toby Meakins
Writer: Simon Allen
Country & year: UK, 2022
Actors: Iola Evans, Asa Butterfield, Angela Griffin, Ryan Gage, Eddie Marsan, Kate Fleetwood, Pete MacHale, Kayleen Aires Fonseca, Caroline Loncq, Robert Englund
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11514780/

Until Dawn (2025)

Posted on July 1, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Clover’s sister Melanie has gone missing. Desperate for any answers or at least a clue, Clover goes on a trip in search of her missing sister and brings her ex-boyfriend Max, her friends Nina and Megan, and Nina’s boyfriend Abe. They try to retrace Melanie’s steps according to the last places she was seen, and ends up by the gas station where she had sent a message before going missing. When talking to the station attendant, he claims that people tend to go missing near the mining town called Glore Valley. Alright, there’s a pinpoint to check out. When they drive to this place, a heavy rainfall makes them seek shelter at a visitor center. There, they notice the heavy rain is…strangely local. Hmm. Inside the abandoned visitor center, they find a wall that’s filled with posters of missing people. No surprise that they also find Melanie’s photo there. Nina signs the guestbook just for the fun of it, and soon a masked assailant attacks and kills everyone. And that’s the start of a time loop where they will be brought back to the first night, having to sign their names in the guestbook once more and try to survive the night. If they die 13 times, however, they will end up missing just like the previous visitors…including Melanie.

Until Dawn is a horror film directed by David F. Sandberg, and written by Gary Dauberman and Blair Butler. It’s loosely based on the 2015 PlayStation video game by the same name, where the movie is using the same universe while featuring an original standalone story.

Movies based on horror games do not, unfortunately, have many home-runs to brag about. Most of them are either underwhelming, straying too far from the source material and thus alienating the game’s fanbase, and sometimes they’re just outright awful. Sure, there are some exceptions, but they’re few and far between, and of course there’s also a few that could end up in the fun-bad category. So, where does Until Dawn belong? While I have not played the PlayStation game and have no way to compare the game to the movie, I have noticed that many have placed it in the category of movies that strays too far away from the source material. So if you’re a fan of the game, I guess it’s a safe bet that this movie would be a disappointment. All in all, I have to admit we didn’t have high expectations when watching it, but as we more or less just watched it without any comparisons in mind it actually turned out to be….fairly okay? By no means any masterpiece, but it was entertaining enough with some decent atmosphere and visuals. The pacing is fine, the deaths are sometimes quite gory, and there’s a mystery that keeps you engaged. In no way does the movie rely on you having any prior knowledge of its source material, making it a movie where you can go in completely blind.

So overall, Until Dawn didn’t turn out to be the disaster we more or less expected. It’s a pretty fine supernatural horror film, works fine on its own and gave us a decent ride. Yeah, I’m certain our opinions might have been completely different if we had played the game and were devoted fans of it. Personally, I have rarely seen a movie based on a book where I’ve read the book first and actually fully enjoyed the movie version, for example. That’s just the way it works for most people, the level of depth and engagement you use when reading a book or playing a video game will always be considerably different from a movie.

Director: David F. Sandberg
Writers: Gary Dauberman, Blair Butler
Country & year: USA/ Hunagry, 2025
Actors: Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Odessa A’zion, Ji-young Yoo, Belmont Cameli, Maia Mitchell, Peter Stormare, Tibor Szauervein, Lotta Losten, Mariann Hermányi, Willem van der Vegt, Zsófia Temesvári
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30955489/

M3GAN (2022)

Posted on June 27, 2025June 28, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Cady is an 8-year old girl whose parents are killed in a car accident, where she is the only survivor. The girl is sent to live with her aunt Gemma, an eccentric woman who is a roboticist at a high-tech Seattle toy company called Funki. Without the company’s consent, she’s been using their resources in order to develop a highly advanced humanoid robot doll, simply named M3GAN (model 3 generative android). Things go horribly wrong during the first presentation test in the lab, where the boss orders her to discontinue any work on M3GAN. So on top of that failure, Gemma is also struggling with connecting to her niece Cady, until the girl discovers Gemma’s old motion capture robot Bruce. An old project Gemma created back at college. When she watches how Cady plays with Bruce, she becomes motivated to get rid of M3GAN’s bugs and complete her anyway. And so she does.

The finished M3GAN then ends up getting paired with Cady, and this time the presentation goes way better than the first one. M3GAN totally exceeds expectations, and even though a mass-production of her would result in a rather steep price, most children would never want another “toy“ again anyway. M3GAN proves to offer everything to a child: she can be a friend, a playmate, a therapist, a teacher…and a parent. Which, all in all, isn’t necessarily a good thing. Cady’s therapist, Lydia, mentions that she finds it worrisome that Cady appears to be developing an unhealthy attachment to M3GAN, but that’s not even the biggest problem. The problem is M3GAN herself, who appears to become more and more protective over Cady, to the point where everything that can be considered a threat to Cady’s well-being is considered something that must be eliminated…

M3GAN (or simply Megan) is a sci-fi horror film from 2022, directed by Gerard Johnstone (who also directed Housebound from 2014) with screenplay from Akela Cooper, and based on a story by Cooper and James Wan, Allison Williams and Violet McGraw. The film grossed over $181 million against a budget of $12 million, so a big success without a doubt. The sequel M3GAN 2.0. is hitting the theaters soon, and a spin-off called SOULM8TE (yes, playing around with numbers in the titles seems to be a thing here) is set to be released in 2026.

The idea for this film came when James Wan’s production company Atomic Monster was brainstorming ideas and chose to go for one with a killer doll, and going for a concept about embracing technology too much and letting it run amok. Wan said “it’s a commentary on the world we live in and it feels relevant“. It sure does, and now more than ever. An animatronic puppet version of M3GAN was used for dialogue and close-up scenes, plus stunt versions that were not puppeteered (yes, that famous dance scene would have been hard to pull off otherwise). And overall, the killer robot actually looks pretty good. They managed to give her just the right amount of realistic movements mixed with obvious robotic motions, which gives her a perfectly uncanny expression.

The movie is generally fast-paced, and mixes humour and horror in a lighthearted way which gives it a fun and campy feel. As expected it never goes very far with the kill scenes, despite there being several opportunities for it to have done so. They had to make some changes and cut down certain scenes in order to get the desired PG-13 rating for the theatrical release. Thus, the unrated release teased “more blood, more violence and more M3GAN“, so naturally we wanted to see that version! We expected to get some additional nasty and gory scenes, and what we got, was…well…barely anything at all. To be honest, it was surprisingly lackluster with very little additional meat to the bone, and I guess the most major difference was a few extra f-bombs. I guess it’s fun for the most eager fans to see the small differences, but this was so far from what we’re used to seeing in an uncut version of a movie that it felt a bit pointless. Oh well.

Overall though, M3GAN is a fun A.I. robot slasher film which works as a fine entry into the robot-killers genre. Never taking itself too seriously, never being too bloody (and yes, that goes for the unrated version as well), it’s a fine campy popcorn-flick for a lazy evening.

Additional note: the sequel M3GAN 2.0 (which we recently watched at the theaters) unfortunately ended up being quite the disappointment. While I can see how they tried to go for a “M3GAN Impossible“ version here, all horror elements are completely gone. The theme in this movie is also largely focused on what can be best described as pure pro-AI propaganda trash, which comes off as rather bad-tasting after Blumhouse’s “I H8 AI” blunder from last year. Blergh.

Director: Gerard Johnstone
Writers: Akela Cooper, James Wan
Country & year: USA/ New Zealand, 2022
Actors: Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Ronny Chieng, Amie Donald, Jenna Davis, Brian Jordan Alvarez, Jen Van Epps, Stephane Garneau-Monten, Lori Dungey, Amy Usherwood, Jack Cassidy
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8760708/

28 Years Later (2025)

Posted on June 24, 2025June 25, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

28 Years Later starts 28 years earlier with an opening sequence somewhere over the hills and far away in the countryside of the Scottish Highlands. The rage virus has spread across the country and a group of kids have been locked inside a living room with the Teletubbies on TV to be kept calm and safe, which doesn’t last long. One of the kids are Jimmy, who escapes from the home as the freshly infected are raging their way in while Jimmy’s dad, a priest, has gone completely insane as he’s on his knees at the church, welcoming the apocalypse to kill him and the rest of humanity. Because the Bible says so. Amen. Jimmy escapes, followed by a childhood that we only can imagine as a traumatic hellride that will segway itself into a fine and stable adulthood. Ha-ha. And no, this is not the first and last we see of Jimmy. He will be important later, you can be sure of that.

Then we take the huge leap of 28 years later where parts of Britain are still in full quarantine, after the rage virus has been wiped out from the rest of Europe. So maybe the last ten seconds of 28 Weeks Later happened after all in the lost tapes of 28 Months Later. We’re in a small community of survivors on the island of Lindisfarne off the northeast coast of England that is connected to the mainland through a causeway. Here they have their own fortified Animal Crossing village where the modern technology that we once knew is a faded memory. No smartphones, no internet, no telly, no cars and no botox. Most kids today wouldn’t even survive a day without their daily dose of Guess My Fart on TikTok. We meet the twelve-year-old boy Spike (Alfie Williams), his dad Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and the bedridden mum Isla (Jodie Comer), who’s suffering from an unknown disease. And since there are no doctors on the island to examine her, there’s only to hope for the best.

But today is a big special day when Jamie takes Spike outside of the village to the open world mainland for the very first time, to teach him to scavenge and protect himself with bow and arrows. Because the infected is still roaming, which has since mutated into new variants. Now there’s not just the regular infected to be aware of, but also the Alphas, this film’s version of the Volatiles (yes, another Dying Light reference). These giants are not sensitive to light though, and once they spot you, it’s Game Over, unless you’ve unlocked the skill to run like Tom Cruise. And all the infected are buck naked, and if you’ve never seen tits before and especially dicks, you may get traumatized. Just a friendly warning/sarcasm. Another new type of species we may stumble upon is the fat slobs (jabbas) that mostly crawl deep in the forest and slurps worms like noodles. Maybe that explains why all the jabbas are… Asians. I still have questions.

It’s all quite a surreal and eerie experience for Spike, and we feel it too, as the soundtrack is mixed with disturbing chants from the poem Boots by Rudyard Kipling, while we have some grainy war clips from the middle-ages to set up the mesmerizing mood. As Spike lets The Breath of the Wild sink in, he and Jamie enter an abandoned house where they find an infected that is hanging from his feet from the ceiling. The name Jim is carved on his chest. Huh. The infected is still alive and Jamie orders Spike to give him an arrow to his skull to make him his first kill. The trip escalates into getting chased by an Alpha all the way to the village gate. Safe and mission accomplished.

The village celebrates Spike’s coming-of-manhood quest with a big party where Spike witnesses Jamie cheating on his wife. At the same time, Spike has a little chat with his grandad (if I remember correctly), who mentions Dr. Kelson (Ralph Voldemort Fiennes), a mysterious hermit who lives some hills and forests away from the island. And Jamie is very aware of this doctor. Spike confronts Jamie the next morning and understandably gets angry at him when it’s obvious that Jamie just wants Isla to die so he can be with his new mistress. After Jamie slaps him, like the first-class scumbag that he actually is, Spike tells Jamie to fuck off and later sneaks out of the village with Isla to get her to this Dr. Kelson. Who’d know that Spike has bigger bollocks than the Alphas. Balls with Spikes, if you will.

Spike and Isla also come across a Swedish Nato patrol soldier, Erik (Erik Sundqvist), who’s been stranded in Britain after his unit patrol boat got destroyed. Since he has got nothing better to do, he joins the quest for Dr. Kelson. He also has this thing called a smartphone, something that Spike has never seen before. Erik proudly shows a picture of his girlfriend, a standard botox doll with duckface and all. You know, the regular stuff. Spike then asks what’s wrong with her face. Ooof… the comedy writes itself.

28 Years Later, where director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland returns to the franchise since the first one, was not exactly as expected. I’d say that. What we basically have here is a very spiritual coming-of-age film where the subject of death is explored in such a raw and honest way, but at the same time, with an empathic, somber and unpretentious approach which I can’t remember to have seen in any horror film. I especially like the whole concept of the bone temple, without going more into that. It’s beautiful, emotional, and it’s been eons since I actually got teared-up in a movie theater. And I’m not that easy to manipulate. And yeah, there is action and several wild and brutal scenes here as the threat of the infected looms everywhere, even though the weather in Britain is better than ever. The gore doesn’t hold back, which is all good old practical.

While the ground story itself is nothing new, the execution is quite something else. The cinematography, the use of the idyllic summer landscapes with the blue sky and all, makes a stark contrast to the morbid and ugly, almost like a dreamlike paradox. There are some really haunting images here and some brilliant use of silhouettes while the kinetic camerawork amps up the intensity. That this thing was shot on iPhones with a budget of 60 million dollars and looks more crisp, lively and just overall way more vibrant and epic than a 200 million Disney film is just hilarious. The acting is top-tier and the newcomer Alfie Williams has a bright future ahead as he manages to carry the whole film. Jodie Comer is fantastic as the more and more sick and disorientated mother, and Ralph Voldemort Fiennes as Dr. Kelson is an eccentric oddball I’d like to see more of. Also say hello to Cillian Murphy’s long-lost twin brother. So yeah, I was highly impressed with this one, how it explored some themes in a new, fresh way, the world building and the overall vibe and atmosphere. It all just clicked.

28 Years Later is the first part of a trilogy. The second one, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, was shot back-to-back and is directed by Nia DaCosta. And I won’t deny that the director choice has given me some mixed feelings. I just hope for the sweet love of Belzebob that this trilogy is, at the very least, carefully planned with a clear roadmap so we don’t end up with another slow and embarrassing car crash incident like The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker …

And then we have the quite special and super-non-controversial ending, which connects some elements from the opening scene in the most British way that I actually found to be pure genius. It comes straight from the blue with the zany apocalyptic madness that we’re most used to in Mad Max and Dead Rising. No spoilers here, but some of the clothing choices of these individuals that pop up in the last minutes have made people on the internet completely lose their collective minds, as the one and only thing they now see is The Great Satan himself, Jimmy Savile! Yes, the former best buddy of King Charles and the once protected golden pedophile of the BBC (not big black cock). Some NPC’s are programmed to see only what they wanna see with zero ability to pick up any nuances and the several additional layers here. During the rewatch they’ll maybe also spot Epstein, Pootin and the double chin of Dan Schneider. That being said, have a cold one, smell some flowers, have sex, enjoy the summer and Memento Mori.

Director: Danny Boyle
Writer: Alex Garland
Country & year: UK/USA, 2025
Actors: Alfie Williams, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Christopher Fulford, Jodie Comer, Ralph Fiennes, Edvin Ryding, Chris Gregory, Celi Crossland, Rocco Haynes
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10548174/

Prequels:
– 28 Weeks Later (2007)
– 28 Days Later (2002)

Arcadian (2024)

Posted on June 13, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

A man named Paul (Nicolas Cage) is scavenging a storehouse for supplies while fleeing from something. We then see what appears to be an apocalyptic event with explosions and sirens and full pandemonium. Paul seeks refuge, and we see he’s cradling two infants, telling them that “everything will be okay“. Yeah, sure it will…

Fifteen years later, most of the population has been wiped out and civilization is just a faraway memory. For Paul’s twin sons, Joseph and Thomas, the world from before is nothing but a story from a time they have no memory of whatsoever. Maybe that’s for the best, though. They now live in a derelict farmhouse, but trying to get by in this apocalyptic world would’ve been a lot easier if it wasn’t for the monsters roaming the night. As soon as the sun sets, they must take shelter inside their home to avoid them. Thomas is often late as he’s spending a lot of time in the nearby farm of the Rose family, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise as it’s the only place where there’s a girl around his age. One day, Joseph reveals that he’s been working on restoring an off-road utility buggy, and Paul teaches him how to drive it. Paul then sends both sons out to salvage some stuff, but on their way Thomas leaves his brother to head over to the Rose farm. As expected, things then don’t go well and both Paul and his sons end up getting a too close encounter to the creatures that come at night.

Arcadian is a post apocalyptic horror film from 2024, directed by Benjamin Brewer and written by Michael Nilon. Is stars Nicolas Cage as Paul, the father, but just a heads up: this is not one of those “cage-rage“ movies, and he’s not the lead either despite that most movie posters make it seem like he’s got a far more significant role than the actually has. This is a movie where the two sons have the major roles, as we follow their struggles in a world where there’s hardly any survivors, and the nights have been seized by monsters who seem hell-bent on destroying the few remaining pieces of humanity. Good thing those monsters fear the light, and can only walk around in the dark.

The highlight in the movie is actually the monsters. While this is by no means any scary movie, the first introduction to these creatures includes a scene that is actually creepy as hell. I’ve never seen a scene with an arm offer such a solid dose of nightmare fuel! The rest of their designs are almost disorienting at first, making you wonder what the fuck you’re actually looking at. They also have some pretty weird mannerism, like excessive teeth chattering. They’re chaotic, nonsensical, and slightly goofy, and all of that combined gives the movie the necessary personal flair. This is exactly what this movie needed, because otherwise there isn’t really much to offer. The story is very minimal, and there’s not much character depth either. The monsters are by far the most entertaining thing here, and their freakish depiction is what makes it work.

Overall, Arcadian is a nice little post apocalyptic movie with some really cool monsters. Nothing spectacular, but fine popcorn-entertainment.

Director: Benjamin Brewer
Writer: Mike Nilon
Country & year: USA, 2024
Actors: Nicolas Cage, Jaeden Martell, Maxwell Jenkins, Maxwell Jenkins, Sadie Soverall, Samantha Coughlan, Joe Dixon, Joel Gillman
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22939186/