american horror movies – Horror Ghouls

Stir of Echoes (1999)

Posted on April 28, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

In a working-class Chicago neighborhood, Tom Witzky and his wife Maggie are going to a party after getting a babysitter for their 5-year old son Jake. Lisa, who is Maggie’s sister, is a firm believer in the supernatural and claims that she can hypnotize people… and to this Tom just snorts and thinks of it all as pure nonsense. It all ends with the non-believer being put under hypnosis by Lisa, where she gives him a post-hypnotic suggestion (an instruction given to someone under hypnosis which they will carry out once the trance ends) telling him to be more open-minded. Yup, you can already imagine how this goes. Shortly afterwards, he begins seeing and experiencing things, and to top it all, it also seems that their young son Jake is doing so, too, and that Jake has been seeing dead people for much longer than both Tom and Maggie have been aware. Now daddy’s in for the ride too. What Tom and Jake are experiencing in the house, seems to be connected to the disappearance of a 17-year old girl named Samantha Kozac. It all turns into an obsession where Tom tries to turn the entire place upside down in order to find out what happened to this girl, and why he and his son keep seeing her.

Stir of Echoes is a supernatural horror film from 1999, based on a book by Richard Matheson, and written and directed by David Koepp (who later directed Secret Window from 2004 starring Johnny Depp, and You Should Have Left from 2020 once again starring Kevin Bacon in the leading role). Now, if you asked someone if they’ve seen that supernatural horror film from 1999, about a man and a boy seeing dead people, they would most likely answer “oh, yeah, you mean that film called The Sixth Sense“! At least they would not be very likely to answer “Stir of Echoes“. The Sixth Sense became a major success, while this movie more or less got thrown in the shadows…which is a little bit of a shame because this is a pretty decent supernatural thriller, but it came and went like so many other movies. Typical example of truly bad timing.

Now, one thing I tend to really love about supernatural horror movies, at least in the ones that goes for a darker and more serious tone, is the mystery and gradual build of it. All of that “what really happened“, “what is really going on“, that makes you wonder and anticipate the answers. In a story about a ghost you already know that the ghost is dead, but what you want to know is why and what happened to them. This movie works very well in that regard. Sure, there’s the usual ghostly tropes and clichés as can be expected, but the solid execution makes it very enjoyable for those who want a mystery-fueled supernatural horror film. Unless you’re one of those who expects people to reinvent the wheel for every new movie, of course.

Kevin Bacon is fine in the role as the skeptic man turned believer, and he’s often so irrational in his behavior that you almost start wondering what exactly is up with this guy. Yeah, we all know that seeing dead people can take its toll, but c’mon man, even your five-year old son is able to cope with this in better ways than you do! With that being said, a lot of people in the neighborhood seem to cope with things in the wrong ways, which of course goes a long way in describing how certain working-class neighborhoods who are striving to appear like a “decent upper-class” place, will often hide their issues rather than deal with them.

Compared to The Sixth Sense, there aren’t really any truly scary moments in Stir of Echoes, but it is an entertaining and mysterious supernatural horror film mixed with some crime elements, and one that should be a pleasant watch if you want a ghostly crime mystery from the end of the 90’s.

Note: David Koepp was also writer and producer of this year’s Cold Storage, which we haven’t seen yet but most likely will soon.

Writer & director: David Koepp
Country & year: USA, 1999
Actors: Zachary David Cope, Kevin Bacon, Kathryn Erbe, Illeana Douglas, Kevin Dunn, Conor O’Farrell, Lusia Strus, Stephen Eugene Walker, Mary Kay Cook, Larry Neumann Jr.
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0164181/

Pretty Lethal (2026)

Posted on April 24, 2026April 24, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

A group of ballerinas from Los Angeles have gotten the opportunity of their lifetime: to attend a prestigious international competition in Budapest. Too bad the group have as much chemistry as water and hot oil. The teacher, Thorna Devenport, tries her best to make the girls work together but their differences are creating too much of a gap between them. You have rich and bratty Princess (yes, that’s her name), deeply religious Grace (fitting name, right?) Zoe and her hearing-impaired sister Chloe, and rebellious and street-smart Bones. Well, ahead to Budapest for the time of their life anyway…and of course, things go bad already from the get-go: there are mix-ups at the airport, resulting in them having to take a bus which breaks down. As they leave the bus to find a cab, they are invited to a place called Teremok Inn, which is run by a former prima ballerina called Devora Kasimer. Huh! What a coincidence. And this place is located in the middle of…bumfuck nowhere, it seems, with nothing but forest around for miles. How convenient…for some.

As they’re trying to wind down a bit inside the inn that looks like a colorful Haunted Mansion, the one red flag after the other is waving in front of their faces. Devora Kasimer is also the head of a small crime family, and bad things happen at Teremok Inn. Bad things that doesn’t really have anything to do with the American troupe, but they get mixed into the shit anyway, because, well…Europe is always so, so dangerous for Americans, ya know! At least according to American horror movies. After their teacher gets killed and the girls locked up and ready to be slaughtered, they finally band together and use their ballerina skills to survive.

Pretty Lethal is an action thriller film, directed by Vicky Jewson and written by Kate Freund. It premiered on South by Southwest Film & TV Festival on March 13, 2026, and released worldwide on Prime Video on March 25. It was originally announced as Ballerina Overdrive back in 2023 and was supposed to be filmed in Serbia, but things changed and it was instead filmed in Budapest, Hungary.

If you want something fun, colorful and vibrant, then this is it. This movie doesn’t only promise some kick-ass ballerina fights and blood ‘n gore to follow with it, it actually delivers. It is fast paced, highly energetic and so, so much fun! In stark contrast to the more dark and brooding Livide from 2011 (which is also a great horror movie featuring a ballerina), this one is a different kind of beast that pumps up the fun and action!

The choreography during the fight scenes are just awesome, and the fight where they take on a group of people in the inn’s pub while having Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers playing is pure gold. These ballerinas kick ass, and the Hungarian mob doesn’t stand a chance! That being said, I love how the movie doesn’t give them some kind of magical-girl superpower where they’re suddenly practically invincible. They get kicked around, punched and hurt too, their ballet-fu isn’t going to stop the Hungarian mob from being a very, very dangerous threat. But this is a bonkers setting where a high tolerance for pain, flexible bodies, and ballerina shoes armored with razor blades manage to beat guns and knives, and it works surprisingly well. Ballerinas are known for having a very high pain tolerance, often disassociating to perform their best, so it makes sense for them to endure as much as they do. A scene where one of them is being “tortured“ by a guy starting with pulling our her toenails makes for a nice gag – she’s a fucking ballerina, you idiot! A broken toenail is almost an everyday occurrence for these ladies…

Visually, the movie looks good with rich visuals and contrasts, with lovely interior matching the setting. Performances are solid, with all the ballerinas doing well with their roles, and Uma Thurman in the role of Devora Kasimer does a pretty good job on portraying a vicious crime-queen with a thick Eastern European accent. The hearing-impaired girl Chloe is played by Millicent Simmonds (A Quiet Place) who is deaf in real life.

Pretty Lethal is a high-energy wild ride from start to finish, with a lot of gore and silly violence, and it’s always totally aware of what it is. A fun time with some killer ballerinas who dance and slash their way out of danger!

Director: Vicky Jewson
Writer: Kate Freund
Country & year: USA/Hungary
Actors: Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Lydia Leonard, Avantika, Millicent Simmonds, Iris Apatow, Tamás Hagyó, Uma Thurman, Tamás Hagyó, Julian Krenn, Miklós Béres, Péter Végh, Adam Boncz
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26678938/

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (2026)

Posted on April 21, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Evil Dead Mummy, Egyptian Evil Dead, Evil Dead Wrapping, Bring Her Back from the Evil Dead, The Exorcist of the Evil Dead, Resident Evil Dead… a dear child has many names, as we say in Scandinavia. But what this is certainly not, is a new entry from the Universal Monsters Universe. To avoid more confusion and potential legal copyright issues, Blumhouse/Atomic Monster took the easy fix by adding the director’s name above the title — while the grimy, necro promo posters alone spoke loud and clear by itself that this is a whole new take on the mummy concept. And if you still expected something in the same style of the more lighthearted and adventurous approach of The Mummy from 1999 and only waited for Brendan Fraser to show up, well, then you have no one but yourself to blame (LOL). Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is pure mean-spirited horror, through and through, and to quote Emil from RoboCop: I LIKE IT!!

We’re in Cairo, Egypt, where the little girl Katie gets kidnapped by a creepy horse-faced-looking lady. She’s the type of person who looks like a walking spell, and has groomed Katie with candy for some time. Dad Charlie, who’s a TV reporter, runs after her through some narrow streets until he gets slowed down by a sudden sandstorm and loses them. The local police won’t do shit as the scummy lead detective only suspects the parents. What can you say…

Eight years go by where the family, Charlie, his wife Larissa and their two children, Sebastian and Maud, have since moved to dusty Albuquerque, New Mexico. Then the phone rings. Their daughter has been found – alive. Well, sort of. The bad news is that she was found in a sarcophagus, of all things, from a crashed cargo plane in the desert of Aswan — and is now in a locked-in catatonic state in a wheelchair looking like a ghoulish, rotting corpse that has just been dug up from the grave by Wednesday 13. Time has not been kind to her, to put it mildly. Besides all that, her heart is in great condition. Hm..

A top comment I’ve seen floating around is the lack of logic of bringing her back home in the condition that she’s in, rather than just discard her like trash and let her rot at the hospital. Well, if we’re gonna have some serious talk here about logic, and a quick psychology course for dummies while we’re at it, it could maybe have something to do with the sweet health insurance? Since this is the United States of ‘Merica, BOY, where the power of thoughts and pears are way more lifesaving than one’s basic rights to proper healthcare will ever be. Or maybe the parents aren’t, you know, just some cold psychopaths. I’m not a parent, so what do I know.

The big question is, of course, what the hell really happened to her, and why. Hell happened, that’s for sure. And Hell will happen again as soon as she gets rolled back home with her parents and two siblings. Katie starts to act more weird, uncanny and unpredictable with sudden violent tics, one that ends up headbutting poor grandma to a nosebleed. At night, she runs on all fours like a wild dog in the crawlspace to hunt for scorpions to eat before puking green goo. While this sounds more like a generic possession movie, you’ll be surprised…and disgusted… and maybe lose your appetite for the rest of the week.

Not to slip into spoiler territory, but yes, we have a possession thing going on here that was on full display in the trailers. But on the surface, this is actually a mummy movie — with even a mummy. Yeah, I know, I’m as surprised as you. There’s a lot to chew on here (and swallow, for that matter), just from the aggressive visuals alone, where Lee Cronin seems to be a big fan of the so-called split diopter-effect, shot by cinematographer David Garbett, who also did Evil Dead Rise (2023) with Cronin. It’s icky, which puts an extra flavor to it. The dusty and old, almost Resident Evil’ish haunted house-setting that is the home of the family in New Mexico works perfect for the backdrop. The heavy atmosphere is consistent with much of the same edge as the first two Conjuring films, mixed with the gritty detective aspects like Deliver Us from Evil (2014), without the rain, of course.

All the actors do a solid job, but Natalia Grace, who plays the mummy girl, doesn’t get enough roses. She has the perfect balance of looking like a vulnerable vegetable while at the same time reeking with the same intimidating force like Pazuzu, or maybe Mumzuzu in this case. The film is way more brutal and bleak than expected, especially having in mind that this is Blumhouse, where I assumed that only The Grabber had full access to the Splatter & Gore department. All, if not most effects are practical, and they all rip, in all literal sense.

Then there’s the already infamous gross-out scenes which goes all up to eleven during a wake/funeral scene that starts off with an old wine-sipping lady saying the embalming fluid is the new Botox. Haha. It’s something straight out from the dinner scene from Braindead where the pitch-dark gallows humor shouldn’t work, but it somehow does. Some moments here are truly disgusting, even for a ghoul like me — and after witnessing the young girl grinning with the uncanny teeth in full context, is now a still image that will lives rent-free in my head for a while. This could easily have been a muddled, tonal mess, especially judging by the trailers, but Lee Cronin manages to stitch it all together into a cohesive and highly entertaining dark wild ride where the runtime of two hours and fifteen minutes flew away like a crispy leaf on a windy autumn day. One of the best horror films of 2026.

Writer & director: Lee Cronin
Country & year: USA/Ireland/Spain, 2026
Actors: Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy, Natalie Grace, Shylo Molina, Billie Roy, Veronica Falcón, Hayat Kamille, May Elghety, Emily Mitchell, Husam Chadat, Tim Seyfi, Mark Mitchinson
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32612507/

Matriarch (2022)

Posted on April 10, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

The movie opens with an eerie scene of a naked man drowning himself in the marsh. For what reason, and who he was, we have absolutely no idea…at least not yet. Then we head over to our protagonist, Laura. She’s a woman troubled with trauma and who is trying to handle this in the worst ways possible of course: by drugging the pain away. Yup, that’s always such a splendid solution and never make things ten times worse! While she’s overdosing in her own bathroom, something inexplicable happens causing her to survive. With most of her life having already gone to shit, including her job and what was originally a good relationship with her boss, she decides to confront her childhood demons once and for all. Laura packs up and leaves to return to her childhood home in a village where everyone seems to keep a resentment towards her for having left the place. Well, they can all go fuck themselves, who cares what they think. But Laura soon finds herself in a position where it’s not only the broken relationship with her mother that’s the only problem…and why does it look like her mother has barely aged at all since she left all those years ago?

Matriarch is a folk horror film from 2022, written and directed by Ben Steiner. It was released on Hulu and Disney+. While we’ve had more than our fair share of trauma-centered movies in the horror genre during the last two decades or so, many of them try to depict the protagonist in as much of a sympathy-inducing manner as possible. In this movie, however, our protagonist Laura comes off as such a miserable and messy character, with a demeanor that’s hard to fully sympathize with. Yes, she had a bad childhood and all kudos to her for escaping the hellhole she came from and starting a new life…but instead of at least trying to get her act together, she’s self-sabotaging in the worst ways possible, while antagonizing every kind person around her who’s actually trying to help. She’s a maladaptive mess. And then we get to meet the mother, or the matriarch if you will, and while you kind of get why Laura has become such a fuck-up to begin with they ultimately both end up being unlikable characters, despite obviously rooting for Laura in all of this as she’s the obvious victim here. But victims can sometimes be assholes too. There’s no mystery regarding the mother though, it’s apparent from the get-go that she’s an evil bitch who starts drugging her daughter already on the first night for some purpose we get to know much later in the movie.

The town itself appears like the type of forgotten village where all the young people are long gone to better and more populated places, while the only remaining ones are the binge-drinking types that keeps the only local pub well alive while all the rest goes to shit. And while that comparison may not be all that far from the truth, it becomes obvious early on that it’s not just Laura’s mother who is plotting something sinister, everyone in the little town appears to be keeping some kind of dark secret. While the story here is very much a slow burner with more focus on family drama at first, there’s always an underlying tone of something brooding, some supernatural mystery that gets slowly revealed. The atmosphere is pretty decent, and helps elevate the movie.

While not great, I think that Matriarch is a pretty decent folk-horror slowburner, with some disturbing elements and an unexpected bonkers finale. If you like folk horror movies and already have a subscription to Disney+/ Hulu, I recommend giving it a watch!

Writer & Director: Ben Steiner
Country & year: USA, 2022
Actors: Jemima Rooper, Kate Dickie, Sarah Paul, Simon Meacock, Nick Haverson, Andrew Akins, Mandy Aldridge, Nini Anamah, Samantha Arnold, Franc Ashman
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17202326/

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/

Primate (2025)

Posted on April 3, 2026April 3, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Bad Ben! No, not you. I’m talking to my pet chimpanzee. He’s been quite agitated lately. Must be something in the water.

We’re at a big lux cliff side house somewhere in remote Hawaii where no one can hear you scream. That also goes first and foremost for the owner, Adam, a deaf novelist who’s made himself a lucrative career by writing books like A Silent Shadow, A Silent Death and… Deaf Fury, if I’m not mistaken (har-har). Adam is played by Troy Kotsur, who’s actually born deaf, by the way. Adam also has a pet chimpanzee named Ben who wears a red T-shirt but unfortunately not a red cap. That would probably be just enough for Nintendo to eagerly slam the glowing red sue button, and I’m not even joking. Anyway: the film opens with a banger where a vet is about to enter Ben’s big cage in the backyard to get his face ripped off. Ouch. And it’s not the first time that has happened. Ooof.

But this is not just a chimp snapping and attacking by pure primal instinct, as it turns out that he has rabies. And how could that be when there’s no such thing in Hawaii? Well, maybe, just maybe there’s some space rabies going on here when we already have a cute n’ snotty, wild alien on the island called Stitch? Whatever. After this brutal opening, we jump back 36 hours earlier, where we meet the college student Lucy, who arrives in Hawaii to reunite with her dad, Adam, her younger sister and, of course, Ben. Lucy has a friend with her, and to enhance the upcoming body count, they meet some other college dudes at the airport who get invited to a house party to “fuck their brains off.“ Alrighty then. As soon as dad Adam goes on to a signing session, the kids have their whole house for themselves for the night while Ben starts rampaging to where that escalated quickly meme is a fitting way to say it.

Primate is co-written with Ernest Riera and directed by Johannes Roberts, who’s made horror films and been on the grind since 2001. He’s most known for 47 Meters Down (2017), 47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019), and Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021). The last mentioned, despite its flaws and messy script, is the first Resident Evil film that actually felt and looked like a Resident Evil film, as super low as the bar has already been during the past twenty years. Just saying.

On paper, Primate is as basic and formulaic as it can get. Johannes Roberts simply wanted to make a straight-forward 1980s style-slasher where Jason Voorhees was replaced with a killer chimp. Not the most unique idea as we already have Link from 1986. But that’s what you get — an easy, digestible slasher meal with a perfect runtime of 89 minutes and not to be taken too seriously, like most slashers. What makes this one stand out is, of course, the killer chimp himself, who is not CGI, but played by the movement specialist Miguel Torres Umba in the most realistic-looking monkey costume since who knows. Just very impressive stuff which also gives Ben more personality and the more feeling of real threat to our body counts as he chases them around the house. Nothing will ever beat Shakma though. Those poor doors.

Then there’s the gore, or the carnage candy, as the cool kids say, which is all practical, where we have all from ouch!-moments to more slow and ruthless jaw-ripping. Gnarly stuff. Johannes Roberts clearly shows his love for old-school filmmaking with nods to films like John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), spiced with a delicious synth-heavy score by Adrian Johnston, and it all clicks in that regard. A perfect mini banana on the cake would be to include the song Monkey by Harry Belafonte at the end credits. Oh well. The film also looks bright and vibrant, which goes hand in hand with the tropical environment — and if not a stark contrast from the gray and washed-out color palette we usually see in even way bigger budget films nowadays. All that said, the film is nothing new and can come across as super predictable. Still, its technical achievement alone showcases a director who has come a far way since his early bumpy 2000s, and has earned his spot on the radar.

Director: Johannes Roberts
Writers: Johannes Roberts, Ernest Riera
Country & year: USA, 2025
Actors: Johnny Sequoyah, Jess Alexander, Troy Kotsur, Victoria Wyant, Gia Hunter, Benjamin Cheng, Charlie Mann, Tienne Simon, Miguel Torres Umba
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33028778/

Bats (1999)

Posted on March 31, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

In the small fictional Texas town of Gallup, people start dying. The reason for all those deaths? Bats! And no, it’s not because they’re spreading viruses or diseases, they go for the quick solution and simply maul people to death. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls in the experts to get some answers: Dr. Sheila Casper and her assistant Jimmy Sands are called in, both being Chiropterologists (scientists who specializes in the study of bats). And, lo and behold: it’s revealed that these bats have of course been genetically modified. What a surprise. All orchestrated by a crazy scientist, Dr. Alexander McCabe, who wanted them to become more intelligent and more omnivorous to avoid extinction. It might have been done with good intentions, but it seems the result is putting all other species into danger of extinction instead, including humans…

In order to de-escalate the situation, they need to find the bat roost so they can put these little beasts down. They’re only active at night, so they do have some time to work out a plan. This, of course, proves to be more challenging than first anticipated since the bats have become highly intelligent. To make matters even worse, the National Guard arrives and evacuates the entire town, planning to destroy the entire place to get rid of the bats. Sheila pleads to let them at least give it a try first, and she and her team gets a time-limit of 48 hours to locate the bats before the whole places goes kaboom. Clock’s a tickin’…

Bats is a creature feature horror film from 1999, written by John Logan and directed by Louis Morneau. It grossed $10 million against a budget of $5.2 million, and got pretty much slaughtered by critics. Like so many B-movies, especially creature feature ones, they aren’t considered “good“ movies but still offers a solid amount of entertainment value. We didn’t really have much expectations when putting this movie on, but definitely had a good time with it!

The effects for the bats are somewhat limited, and I’m fairly certain that’s the reason behind the usage of shaky camera during some of the attacks scenes. It’s often Hobgoblins-style where the actors just hold a puppet and tries for dear life to make it at least somewhat convincing that this thing is alive and trying to kill them. Not that these movies can be compared in any way other than that, of course. There are some pretty neat practical effects here and there, and the bat creatures and the puppetry are actually pretty cool. There’s a little bit of gore, although not much, and some fun locations including a cave where things really go, well…batshit crazy in more ways than one.

So overall, Bats is a nice little B-Movie that you can have some fun with if you expect nothing more than a late 90’s creature flick with all the boxes ticked: scientist girlboss, brave local sheriff, cool sidekick making witty remarks here and there, meddling military, and untrustworthy people from the government. And creatures out for blood and causing lots of kill counts, of course. It’s some nice, silly fun for a typical popcorn evening!

Director: Louis Morneau
Writer: John Logan
Country & year: USA, 1999
Actors: Lou Diamond Phillips, Dina Meyer, Bob Gunton, Leon, Carlos Jacott, David McConnell, Marcia Dangerfield, Oscar Rowland, Tim Whitaker, Juliana Johnson
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0200469/

Send Help (2026)

Posted on March 27, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Sam Raimi is back (babyyy) with his first horror film in seventeen years. Time flies, and sooner or later we’ll all die and burn in Hell along with Christine Brown. So enjoy life to the fullest while you can — just like the hobby survivalist Linda Liddle that we get the pleasure of meeting over a pouch of tuna in Send Help.

A new horror film by the legend himself, Sam Raimi, is never just any horror film. It’s a rare cultural event where just the announcement itself would make the Earth stop spinning for a moment. But I have to admit that the trailers for Send Help gave me next to nothing. Something felt off, if not missing. Maybe it has to do with the fact that this is the first horror film of Sam where he isn’t credited as screenwriter, nor his brother Ivan. So, instead we have Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, the duo who wrote Freddy vs. Jason (2003), Friday the 13th (2009) and Baywatch (2017). It’s fair to say Uh-oh…

Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) works in an open-office area as a corporate strategist where she’s never been able to fit in. Calling her awkward is an understatement. She’s a socially inept goofy freak who reeks of tuna, looks like a total mess, and talks in a certain way that would get on anyone’s nerve. But she’s at least good at her job. Still, no one hates her as much as her new boss, Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien), who gives all her credit to Donovan, a Patrick Bateman-ish slimeball. To add insult to injury, Preston gives Donovan the promotion that was promised by her former boss. What a wonderful work environment. There is a reason that her last name rhymes with Little, by how much they think of her.

And yes, Bruce Campbell (Linda’s former boss and Sam Raimi’s longtime friend) has a cameo here, well, kinda — in the form of a wall picture in the background, based on his IMDb profile pic. Better than nothing, I guess.

Bradley invites Linda to join him and some of his team to a business trip to Bangkok. And her involvement seems more of a set-up so Bradley and his buddies can mock and bully her. Yes, Bradley is a complete narcissistic scumbag, if that wasn’t obvious already, and people like Linda is a perfect victim for him to abuse. Then the plane crashes and everyone dies, except for Bradley and Linda who get stranded on a small exotic island somewhere in the Gulf of Thailand. While Bradley never seemed to have set up a campfire or even touched a pinecone, it’s good to know that Linda is an obsessed fan of the competition TV show Survivor, and have learned a few skills. The power dynamic gets suddenly turned upside-down in the most primitive ways possible as Bradley is badly injured and Linda is holding the knife. Who’s laughing now, huh? Cast Away meets Misery, for sure, with some interesting twists and turns where we all root for Linda while we wish the absolute worst for Bradley. Right..? Well…

Send Help was a mild disappointment. Mostly because there’s very little of the raw and unique, frantic Sam Raimi-style to be seen here. He’s way past his Evil Dead days, and someone on the interweb gave it a fitting description by calling it Raimi Lite. The goriest moment the film has to offer is when Linda fights a cartoonish CGI boar that looks more like a scrapped creature-design from The Lion King live-action remake. The CGI is made by Disney, after all. Then we have a foggy and gloomy dream sequence with a quick shoehorned-in ghoulish jumpscare to remind us that Sam Raimi is somewhere in the room. The puke scene made me chuckle though, and “that knife-scene“ was a pretty clever and unsettling one.

But the most disgusting Eeeeew–moment in the entire film, for my part, is the tuna smudge on the corner of Linda’s mouth. For fucks sake, lady, wipe that shit away! I can handle gore all up to the ceiling, as the desensitized ghoul I am, while rolling my eyes of films like Slaughtered Vomit Dolls, but this was too much. Rachel McAdams should’ve worn this food stain on every press interview for the film, just for the lols, and see how long it would take before someone dared to react.

We’re first and foremost talking about a twisted psychological drama/thriller/mindgame where the comedic tone doesn’t always find the balance when the film tries to be more serious. Drag Me to Hell, on the other hand, was a perfect mix, but that film was also written by Sam and his brother. All credits here goes to Rachel McAdams, who runs the whole show with a way more layered performance than you’d expect, while Dylan O’Brien’s character is just a self-centered asshole. The film also goes in a direction where we should feel guilty rooting for Linda, or not. No spoilers here, but trying to make her the villain, all things already considered, felt unnecessary. That said, Send Help is overall an entertaining watch with a fun concept, but not exactly the triumphant return of horror director Sam Raimi I’d hoped for.

Director: Sam Raimi
Writers: Damian Shannon, Mark Swift
Country & year: USA/Thailand, 2026
Actors: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Edyll Ismail, Dennis Haysbert, Xavier Samuel, Chris Pang
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8036976/

The Brain from Planet Arous (1957)

Posted on March 24, 2026March 25, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Steve Marsh (John Agar) is a nuclear physicist who, together with his friend Dan (Robert Fuller) goes to investigate something strange that’s been happening on Mystery Mountain (yep, that sounds too much like a lazy TBD title even for a 50’s schlock film). There’s a mysterious radiation source coming from the place, and they want to find out what it is. So, off they go, with the most barebones of supplies that wouldn’t even be sufficient for a campingtrip in their own garden. In these kind of movies it never seems like the blazing desert heat is any problem at all, aside from some severe armpit-sweat…and the guys also seem to have a remarkable bodily feature where they only sweat on the front of their shirts. Huh! In Sci-Fi everything can happen, even with something as simple as armpit sweat.

They get to a cave, and find the source of the radiation: a giant alien shaped like a disembodied brain! The brain is called Gor, and he’s a criminal from the planet Arous. First the brain kills Dan, and possesses Steve. Now residing in a human body, Gor finds himself fully enjoying life’s pleasures, including Steve’s girlfriend Sally (Joyce Meadows) who notices straight away that something’s not quite right with her otherwise nice and gentle Steve. Gor, as the megalomaniac psychopath he obviously is, wants nothing more than taking over the entire world, and uses his power to cause mayhem and plane crashes. Not everything seems lost, though, as Sally and her father gets an unexpected ally in another brain alien named Vol who wants to help them stop Gor and his evil plans.

The Brain from Planet Arous is an independently made sci-fi movie from 1957, produced by Jacques R. Marquette, written by Ray Buffum and directed by Nathan H. Juran who also made the sci-fi movie Attack of the 50 Foot Woman in 1958, one year after this little cheeseball. Because make no mistake – this is a movie where you don’t need a brain, just a love for the good old B-schlock that’s both absurd and gleeful in its presentation of its campy plot. And if you thought for even a second that there would be any actual suspense or scares, those would fly straight out of the window within the first frame featuring the so-called Brain alien Gor. And while that is a cool name that could have belonged to a vocalist from a Death Metal band, it is actually an Armenian boy name meaning “proud“ and also “of the mountain“. Hmm…

The brain aliens here have a surprising amount of screentime, but they function mostly for laughs and chuckles. The only scenes that are at least dipping its toes slightly into the waters of horror, must be when Steve is getting those “possessed eyes“ when the brain is up to the worst mischief. These effects were created by having him wear very thick special black contact lenses, which was of course very painful. Fun fact: these effects were used later by actor Gary Lockwood during the second Star Trek TV series pilot episode.

Gor, using Steve’s body to fulfill his plans since he needed a nuclear physicist to garner the attention from the right people, is eager to display his powers of destruction with his menacing I’m-so-evil-mwa-haa-haa! laugh which he’s just as eager to repeat. He’s bringing fear and worry to the world’s leaders by using his powers to destroy planes and cause terrible accidents, and by using some stock footage from the atomic bombs tests we truly get to witness this evil villain’s power. And yes, it’s just as cheesy as it sounds, but it’s good fun for the right audience. Too bad the right audience came much later, as the movie (not surprisingly) got a pretty bad reception upon release. The director was also very unhappy with the end result of this film, and since Alan Smithee wasn’t a thing back in 1957, his name in the credits was changed to the pseudonym Nathan Hertz. Over time, the movie has gained some cult classic status, and has even been parodied several times and referenced in numerous works. In 2002, the German band Megaherz used Gor’s laugh and a sample of Vol’s line “I have powers that equal and surpass the powers of Gor“ in their song Perfekte Droge.

So, if you’re in the mood for some campy sci-fi schlock, then bring out the popcorn and give The Brain from Planet Arous a watch!

Director: Nathan Juran
Writer: Ray Buffum
Country & year: USA, 1957
Actors: John Agar, Joyce Meadows, Robert Fuller, Thomas Browne Henry, Ken Terrell, Henry Travis, E. Leslie Thomas, Tim Graham, Bill Giorgio
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050210/

They’re Watching (2016)

Posted on March 17, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Greg, Alex and Sarah are a film crew running a popular home-improvement television series. This time they’re going to visit Becky, an American woman who has moved to a remote village in Moldova and bought a very old and rundown house with her husband, and turned the place into something out of a fairytale. As the crew meets up with their bitchy producer Kate and a cheerful Moldovian businessman named Vladimir, they first get some footage of the town. Like the disrespectful tourists they are, they even try to sneak into a funeral and film it, causing an angry crowd and a police officers that treats them a lot more mildly than they deserved.

Oh well, the show and the filming continues over the next few days, as they experience hostile locals and some really weird behavior from some of them. Vladimir, letting the crew know a little bit more about the village’s history and folklore, tells them about a plague that struck the place several generations previously, where a woman who lived in the outskirts of the town was accused for being a witch and causing said plague. She was, like so many people accused of witchcraft of course, burned alive. And the house this witch used to live in? Yeah, yeah, you already guessed it. Of course it is the same place that Becky and her husband bought and renovated into their dream home. When they visit Becky, they really see that she and her husband has turned the place into quite the cozy home indeed. The husband is away at the moment, so Becky is all alone. Well, not anymore now that the crew has arrived, of course. But things start happening. The locals act more and more weird. Animals act weird. Even Becky acts weird…

They’re Watching is a found footage horror film from 2016, written and directed by Jay Lender and Micah Wright. While many found footage movies suffers a bit from overused and generic locations (with forests being the most worn-out locations of them all), this movie did at least spice it up a bit with more interesting filming areas, as it’s filmed in Romania. Before heading over to the more generic forest/cabin-in-the-woods stuff, we get to see some villages, cobbled streets, locals, and even a restaurant scene where the actors are actually playing the instruments and the audio was recorded live. Fun!

The characters are fine enough, with most of them being a bit douchy and unlikable, with the producer Kate being so overly bitchy and mean it becomes comedic. Vladimir, the somewhat cheesy businessman, is the only character that actually comes off as likable. As far as kill counts and blood ‘n gore goes, there isn’t that much of it until much later in the movie. There is one that’s visceral enough to stand out, but other than that it’s mostly a rather slow journey that focuses more on the mystery about the place and the witch lore. There’s always a certain comedic tone underneath which helps to hold up the entertainment value, plus a few twists and turns here and there…but gosh darn, that ending! It honestly made the entire movie, turning it all into one of the most bonkers finales I’ve seen in a found footage horror movie. Maybe that wild craziness shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise considering that the director-duo previously made things like Spongebob Squarepants and Phineas and Ferb episodes…

They’re Watching is a found footage horror movie that doesn’t really stick that much out from the rest, until you get to the final part. Well worth checking out for those who like the found footage genre, with an insane climax!

Writers and directors: Jay Lender, Micah Wright
Country & year: USA/Romania, 2016
Actors: Brigid Brannagh, David Alpay, Kris Lemche, Carrie Genzel, Mia Marcon, Dimitri Diatchenko, Cristian Balint, Mircea Constantinescu, Cici Caraman
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3096858/