american horror movies – Page 2

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/

Savageland (2015)

Posted on March 10, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

In the border town of Sangre de Cristo, Arizona, something inexplicable happened on the night of June 2, 2011. The town’s entire population of 57 residents was either found dismembered and covered with human bite marks, and the rest of them were never found at all. The only exception was the only survivor of the incident, a man named Francisco Salazar… so the only natural thing to do was labeling him as the prime suspect, of course, as this loner and drifter had also illegally entered the country some years before. Yup, gotta be him! No matter how it would have been impossible for a single guy to commit all those murders in such a short timespan, and how he lacked any motive at all, plus having some of the same bite marks as his supposed victims had. Gotta put the blame on someone, and nothing is better than being able to pin it on an illegal immigrant. However, things definitely do not add up, because here’s also another thing: Salazar brought a camera with him on that night, taking photos of some of the events that transpired. Despite being dismissed by the police, the court, and even his lawyer (of course, as they couldn’t have anything proving he could be innocent, right?) the footage shows that something very sinister really happened on the night of June 2 that year.

Savageland is an mockumentary horror film from 2015, written and directed by Phil Guidry, Simon Herbert, and David Whelan. The trio were colleagues at UCLA and began working on this movie with the intent to create an independent film outside a studio, ultimately making the decision to tie it to the local landscape and have an immigration angle. Most of the actors in this movie didn’t star in any other movie except this one, a common thing for mockumentary movies. Not only is this of course often due to a low budget, but there’s also the big plus of keeping the realism since having well-known actors starring it would take away from that. The man who plays Francisco Salazar, Noé Montes, is also a photographer in real life and an artist whose works deals directly with immigration.

While the found footage horror genre really includes a huge bag of mixed content, it appears there are still some hidden gems to be discovered. Savageland is definitely one of them, and really caught us by surprise. We do tend to quite enjoy a lot of found footage horror movies that are done in the mockumentary style (with the most recent being Strange Harvest, and other goodies involving Lake Mungo and the more lighthearted Digging Up the Marrow), and this was definitely one of the highlights to add to our collection!

Like many typical crime documentaries, this movie aims for as much realism as possible by looking and feeling much like one with authentic-looking interviews and footage. And of course, it displays a narrative where we have an obvious victim (the poor Salazar who’s being framed for everything) and the sleazeballs who wants nothing but seeing him put on death row, guilty or not. Not only does the movie mock how broken the justice system can be, but it also portrays how big a role public media can have in turning people against someone if only one side gets to voice their opinions, here displayed by how the local Sheriff is using the media to influence the case by only focusing on his views while suppressing all other evidence.

While most found footage and mockumentary horror movies focus on showing glimpses through filming, Savageland twists this around and makes it all about found photos instead. And the effect of that is actually pretty darn creepy, with some of the photos being pure nightmare fuel. They’re purposefully distorted, blurry and unfocused, depending on both your eyes and imagination to make out what the hell we’re actually looking at. It reminds me of the good old (very, very old) days on YouTube where you could watch those “scary videos“ compilations that actually featured an array of creepy photos and footage that didn’t just involve some “something moved in my bedroom“ TikTok rot. Ah, those good old days…what a time to be a ghoul. And seeing movies like this gives that good old feeling back again, when you see something that can actually give you a little bit of the heebie jeebies…because hell knows, that’s getting more and more rare these days.

Savageland is not your typical found footage/mockumentary horror, and proves that there’s always new ways to tell a familiar narrative!

Writers and directors: Phil Guidry, Simon Herbert, David Whelan
Country & year: USA, 2015
Actors: Heather Moore, Lars Nielsen, J.C. Carlos, Lawrence Ross, George Lionel Savage, Noe Montes, Daniel Kafer, Monica Davis, Renee Davies, Len Wein, Dan Trabulus
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3899154/

Strange Harvest (2024)

Posted on February 6, 2026March 16, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Mr. Shiny is a serial killer in California’s Inland Empire who has committed several grisly murders during a period of over three decades. What actually happened during these periods are relayed by detectives Joe Kirby and Lexi Taylor during interviews for a documentary about this case. It all started in 1993, when a young woman was found dismembered in the San Bernadino National Forest, and around the same time an elderly man in a retirement facility was bludgeoned and stabbed to death. That wasn’t all, as the third victim was a young boy that has been abducted and later found murdered in a bog, with his liver removed. At the time, these murders didn’t seem to carry any connections at all, but this was just the start of Mr. Shiny’s horrible murder sprees, with seemingly totally random victims and no clear motive at all. As people are interviewed and the detectives continue telling their stories, it becomes clear that Mr. Shiny was indeed a serial killer like no other.

Strange Harvest is a mockumentary horror film from 2024, written, directed, produced and edited by Stuart Ortiz (one of the directors of Grave Encounters from 2011). Ortiz got the idea for this horror mockumentary after seeing how the Netflix miniseries Tiger King got a lot of popularity, and he wanted to make something that had the traditional true crime story elements mixed with inspirations from for example the Zodiac Killer and H.P. Lovecraft. Ortiz went for as much realism as possible in making this look like an actual true crime documentary, and he really nailed it. Aside from small things like how certain photos and scenes of corpses would not have been shown in an actual documentary, it looks very real. The time periods, the old photos, crime scenes, the people interviewed and everything just looks so authentic, to even such small details as those “red eyes“ on 90’s photos. If someone channel-surfing on TV accidentally put this on, I wouldn’t be surprised for a second if they thought they’d put on an actual true crime documentary.

Some of the murder scenes and details are surprisingly gruesome, with such a thick layer of realism over it that it’s hard to not feel at least a little bit disturbed. Mr. Shiny himself is always perfectly mysterious and creepy, wearing a slightly silly mask that kind of looks like a malformed Shy Guy from Super Mario. His motives are for the most part very obscured, and despite getting a few hints throughout he remains a very cryptic villain whose goals can only be guessed at. Even the detectives are at a loss for understanding his whys and wherefores. Is it something Satanic? Is he collecting souls for the devil? Trying to conjure Yog-Sothoth? Does he want to open a portal so the Dark Overlords of the Universe may enter our world? Who knows. We only learn that he truly is a madman who squirms at nothing in order to achieve his goals, whatever they are or whatever he may believe they are. And that makes him even more terrifying, as nothing is more dangerous and horrible than a person who is willing to do the most atrocious acts because of things they believe in. The ending, despite being somewhat ambiguous (did that really happen or was it all just one coincidence after another, mixed in with a crazy man’s beliefs?) I think it fits really well with the rest of the film.

Strange Harvest is a really good mockumentary horror film, and one you definitely should not miss!

Writer and director: Stuart Ortiz
Country & year: USA, 2024
Actors: Peter Zizzo, Terri Apple, Andy Lauer, Matthew Peschio, Allen Marsh, Jessee J. Clarkson
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33400719/

Iron Lung (2026)

Posted on February 3, 2026February 3, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

We’re in the distant future where an incident called the Quiet Rapture has caused all star systems and planets to vanish, leaving only some space stations with a few surviving humans left. An imprisoned man named Simon has been tasked with testing and piloting the SM-13 submarine, which has been nicknamed “Iron Lung“. He needs to explore an ocean of a moon named AT-5, and this is no ordinary ocean: it’s made of blood! With the promise of being freed once he completes this mission, he reluctantly does what he’s told. In the claustrophobic confines of the submarine, Simon can only see outside with a crude camera, and communication is done only through a radio. Once he’s down there in the ocean of blood, the submarine’s detectors indicate that there’s something moving outside. Simon uses the camera and captures what looks to be a skeleton on the ocean floor. The officials want him to capture a sample of it, but it appears that the skeleton is not the only thing at the bottom of the blood ocean. And he also discovers that he’s not the first pilot being sent down there…

Iron Lung is a sci-fi horror film written and directed, and also self-funded, by Mark Fischbach aka Markiplier in his feature directorial debut. It also stars Fischbach himself in the leading role, and it is based on a horror video game from 2022 by the same name which was made by David Szymanski. The development for the film began in the start of 2023, and it was shot at Troublemaker Studios. During the production, Fischbach stated that the film would contain the most fake blood of any horror film thus far, even surpassing 2013 Evil Dead‘s 50,000 US gallons (190,000 L). Iron Lung has 80,000 gallons (300,000 L). Yikes! Fischbach even had to go to hospital during the filming as he’d gotten too much of that fake blood in his eyes (ouch).

When Iron Lung was done and ready for release, it was only supposed to be shown in some independent US theaters. Fischbach encouraged his fans to request the movie from their theaters, and ohhhh boy, did that spread like wildfire! From an initial planned release to only 60 independent US theaters, it ended up being shown in 4,161 theaters internationally. And that’s how we Horror Ghouls also got to see it at the big screen here in Norway on January 30th, all thanks to Markiplier’s dedicated fans!

Now, I’m going to admit a little sin here: I didn’t know who Markiplier/Fischbach was prior to watching this film. I pretty much went in totally blind for this one, other than knowing it was made by a very famous YouTuber and based on a horror game from 2022. And while we are rather often at the big screen, this was probably the busiest opening we’ve experienced since we watched Oppenheimer back in 2023. Sure, it wasn’t as crazy-busy as the Barbenheimer-insanity that went on back then, but it was still the busiest day at the cinema in a long time. In fact, it was so busy that the theater had (for some inexplicable reason) managed to overbook two of the seats, causing an unfortunate couple having to leave. Goddamn… (I really hope those two were compensated for the theater’s big blunder).

Sitting there in the most cramped cinema in a long while, it didn’t take long until I got the feeling of déjà vu once the movie had started. Wait…this looks familiar? And then it clicked: I had seen a walkthrough of that game before. I often watch horror game walkthroughs on YouTube (mostly indie games) and I recognized this one immediately despite that it obviously had buried itself deep within my brain somewhere. Which speaks volumes about how detailed and true to the game the set design here is. This immediately set the mood for me as well, as I knew more or less what to expect from here on. What you get here, is a slow dive (pun intended) into a slow-burn chamber drama lovecraftian sci-fi horror. Much of the horror is of the subtle kind, with an ever-growing feeling of total helplessness and how insignificant humanity is in the scope of bigger, unknown things. Which is basically cosmic horror in a nutshell. Did Fischbach hit the nail on the head with this movie adaptation? My personal opinion of that is definitely a yes. At least it scratched my cosmic horror itch well and good.

Iron Lung is a passion project through and through, and Fischbach is indeed a very decent actor. Which was a must in a chamber drama movie like this, where everything relies mostly on the shoulders of one actor. The set design looks great and exactly like the game as I already mentioned, and the effects used in this film are overall really solid. There is only one issue, and that is the movie’s runtime. It’s just too dang long. I’m not saying that a runtime of 2 hours wouldn’t necessarily work for a movie like this, but it does unfortunately become too repetitive at times and it was hard not to feel that it could have done much better with a shorter runtime. Despite some issues with the pacing and overly long runtime, I thought it managed to keep a creepy atmosphere and dense, claustrophobic vibe throughout. And those 80,000 gallons of blood? Well, they’ve been put to good use in a totally bonkers finale which really amps up everything to a hundred and eleven!

Iron Lung is without a doubt a movie that will be perceived with mixed feelings, as it’s not exactly a mainstream movie by any means. If you liked the game, I think there’s a pretty fair chance you’ll also like this movie. Despite some mixed reception (yes, it’s not a movie for everyone) it’s still been a huge success so far with a box office of $21 million after the opening weekend, against a budget of $3 million. Fischbach/Markiplier has proven that he’s both a good filmmaker and actor, so let’s hope the success will spark some ideas for future films to be made!

Writer and director: Mark Fischbach
Country & year: USA, 2026
Actors: Mark Fischbach, Caroline Kaplan, Troy Baker, Elsie Lovelock, Elle LaMont, Dave Pettitt, Isaac McKee, Asher Wagh, Kazuki Jalal, Alanah Pearce, Seán McLoughlin, David Szymanski
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27564844/