horror movie review – Horror Ghouls

The Last House (2026)

Posted on August 28, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Jason Delgado is out fishing, when he sees some stormy clouds approaching. Time to pack up! He returns to his suburban home in Seattle, and manages to get inside just before it starts to rain. Inside are also the rest of his family: his wife Ann, their son Graham and their daughter Ruth. And last but not least, the family dog Cassidy. Things quickly get weird when the family notice that they cannot open any of their doors. Windows are also impossible to open. It’s like some kind of force from outside prevents them from getting outside. Internet is down, phones have stopped working, and when looking through their windows they see that their neighbors are in the exact same situation. Those who are inside can’t get out, and those who are outside can’t get it. And things don’t seem to get any better. Desperate, Jason tries to break the doors and windows, and even the walls (because yeah, who wouldn’t in a situation like this) but to no avail. It’s like the water from outside creates a barrier that prevents any exit.

So, what to do? Well, luckily they have electricity, food and water. For now. They start rationing it, still hoping it all gets resolved soon…hopefully. After two months, it becomes apparent that things are way, way worse than they originally expected. And one day, one of their neighbors whom they saw could not get inside her home suddenly arrives outside their window, yelling that there’s no one left now, before she’s suddenly attacked by some kind of creature…

The Last House is a sci-fi horror film written by Matthew Robinson and directed by Loius Leterrier, and it was released on Netflix earlier this month. It was first announced in 2025 with the title 11817, and principal photography started in 2025 where the filming mostly occurred in England and Shepperton studios.

The premise here is rather simple: a family must survive locked inside their own house for who knows how long, while there is some sort of mysterious force at play. And we do actually get a little spoiler at the very start of the movie regarding where the threat actually comes from, we just don’t know exactly what it is. Regardless, what I found the most interesting part of this movie is how the family found ways to actually band together and use their brains and wit to survive with whatever means they have at hand, MacGuyver-style. Of course, this is a very average middle class family who may not have everything they want but absolutely everything they need, and their only real problems seem to be some financial struggles and a house which needs more fixing than they can afford. They do have pretty healthy family relations, however, and to be honest, I actually found this a little refreshing after so goddamn many movies about broken and trauma-ridden family relations. Now, don’t get me wrong – I don’t mind those themes, as very often they do fit like hand in glove when it comes to many horror narratives. It’s just a little refreshing to see a story about a more well-balanced family sometimes.

As time moves forward, the family do get put into some difficult situations which requires harsh decisions, especially one rather heartbreaking scene. Yeah, yeah…you could kinda see it coming from a mile away, but still. Now, had this been a much darker horror movie it could have gone considerably farther with these things, but it never really tried to be shocking in any way. In fact, there are even small parts of it where their situation is almost glamorized a little, where they bond even further as a family and have their regular funtime together with the only two DVD’s they own (Annie and Air Force One). Day after day, week after week, month after month…it kinda reminded me of the message in The Amazing Digital Circus: “there is meaning to be found in a stagnant life“. The Last House is not a “livin’ happily ever after“ in such a state, though, as there is a threatening force out there. What it is? Well, with the start of the movie it isn’t really any spoiler to mention that the story does take some Lovecraftian turns.

Surely enough, The Last House doesn’t really explain everything in detail when it reaches its climax, and if you search for too much logic you can easily rip it to pieces. Overall, though, we found it a very entertaining sci-fi thriller which goes well along with some popcorn on a lazy evening!

Oh, and here’s a fun tidbit: this movie does have a fair share of animal actors (yes, not CGI animals!) and the IMDb page has them listed with their names, with Dave Melmoth listed as the animal handler.

Director: Louis Leterrier
Writer: Matthew Robinson
Country & year: UK/France/USA, 2026
Actors: Greta Lee, Wagner Moura, Riley Chung,Noah Alexander Sosnowski, Emma Ho, Gabriel Barbosa, Arden Cho, Audrey Anderson, Sid Edwards, Eveline Reynolds-Boison, Cassidy Remi, Wicket, General, Bonnie, Layla, George, Ralph, Lady, Lilo, Moose, Annie
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32268156/

Insidious: Out of the Further (2026)

Posted on August 25, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Gemma is a young girl who lives with her mother, Ingrid, who appears to be very mentally unwell. As if the little girl wasn’t traumatized enough by living together with an unstable mother, Gemma one day witnesses her commit suicide in the bathroom while asking her to watch. A supernatural force then shuts the door right in front of her face. And yes, we know some demonic shit was at play here, and if you’ve seen the previous films it isn’t hard to already get the puzzle pieces to fit.

We fast forward to many years later, where Gemma is now a dentist, is raising her daughter Maya in her childhood home (yes, really) and is dating a police officer. All seems…rather good? Except for the old creepy-looking weirdos that appears outside on the sidewalk. Who are they? Did they just move to the neighborhood? Well, we’ll find out. Gemma, on the other hand, gets to encounter these old creeps during her astral projection, where she is haunted by visions that includes her mother’s suicide. It appears that something demonic is out for both Gemma and her daughter, who wants to use her in order to get brought back from the Further and into the world of the living. Only Elise Rainer can help her…who is now part of the Further too.

Insidious: Out of the Further is the sixth installment in the Insidious franchise, and I’d say it’s a step up from the previous one. The fitting music score was once again composed by Joseph Bishara, who also composed the score for all the previous films in the series, and we get to see both some new and some familiar faces from the earlier films.

While the first movie was indeed a very good supernatural horror film where a lot of the story was shrouded in mystery since we didn’t know much about what was happening to the family, it goes without saying that a sixth film would have to play its cards very differently. After five films we are now well familiar with the Further, how the demons/ghosts/entities wants to come back to our world, and how astral projection is what makes traveling there possible as a living human being. There’s not much of a mystery anymore, so what is the most interesting thing in this franchise now, of course, is the realms of “the Further“. The place where the dead things live and where many evil people have mutated into horrific demon-looking monsters. The premise here is that the demons want out, and the Further then becomes merged with the real world…and while I personally didn’t think this movie really went as far as it could with this, there is plenty of atmospheric and fun scenes where Gemma gets to explore the world of the dead and its inhabitants.

And yeah…as you’ve probably already guessed, this is yet another ride on the trauma train, as generational trauma plays a major factor in the plot here. Our protagonist, Gemma, is doing her best despite her troubled past, and is naturally terrified of becoming just like her mother. She’s actually doing a great job, even deciding to keep her childhood home in order to create the home she never had and not let the past overtake her in any way. As they say, you cannot run or hide from your trauma, so the only option you really have is to face it and not let it overtake your life. That is, of course, easier said than done…and especially when all the supernatural shenanigans starts hitting her full force and she quickly begins struggling with keeping herself cool and controlled. In real life you can’t blame ghosts if you lose your shit (although I’m fairly certain some people actually try to do that, after all we already have an infamous case of someone blaming the devil). Here, though, our protagonist has good reason to being close to losing her mind, but fortunately there’s help to get from the other side. Lin Shaye reprises her role as Elise Rainer, who is of course trapped in the Further since she’s been dead for a while. Aside from all the nasty ghoulies there, she’s a rare friendly presence.

Insidious: Out of the Further is pretty much exactly what you expect it to be, nothing more and nothing less. There are some really good atmospheric scenes, a fitting and strong sound design, and some solid new entities as well as a revisit with some old and familiar faces. It definitely plays the franchise’s old tricks over and over, but overall it’s a nice supernatural horror film where they definitely have lots more to explore if they want to take a further dive into the Further.

Director: Jacob Chase
Writers: Jacob Chase, David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick
Country & year: Australia/USA, 2026
Actors: Amelia Eve, Island Austin, Lin Shaye, Sam Spruell, Brandon Perea, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, Joseph Lopez, Robina Beard, Susan Gray, Laura Gordon, Charli Penton
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32393988/

Prequels:
– Insidious (2010)
– Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)
– Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015)
– Insidious: The Last Key (2018)
– Insidious: The Red Door (2023)

Demonwarp (1988)

Posted on August 21, 2026August 21, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Dad Bill (George Kennedy) and daughter Julie are having a wholesome time in a forest summer house playing board games. Suddenly, they hear some growling outside the front door before a hideous-looking Bigfoot creature storms in and kills Julie. The monster drags her body outside, only with some few lousy scratch marks on her face, while Bill lies knocked out on the floor.

Then we get introduced to our group of teens, played by actors in their mid-twenties, who’s about to spend some summer party time in the house we saw earlier. Bill suddenly shows up with a rifle to warn those damn kids that this place is dangerous! They, of course, don’t believe him, because why should they. But Bill is no bullshitter and sets the record straight as he says:

― There’s a thousand stories about this place… ghosts, and UFO’s, and monsters, and Bigfoot, you name it! They’re all bullshit. I know what’s real. What’s real is what happened to me and Julie, and nobody’s going to tell me any different. Now, if you’ve got any brains between the two of you, you’ll get in that truck and get the hell out of here right now. This place is dangerous!

Oki-doki-mister. Anyway… the first night sets in, we have a cheesy soft-core sex scene, one of the girls is taking a shower, and surprise, surprise: Bigfoot comes in, wreaks some havoc, and kills one of them before he leaves. Next morning the rest of the group head out to the woods to find the main road. Good luck and don’t take any pissing breaks. As schlocky as the film is, I have to give some props to the monster design, made by John Carl Buechler, that is moons apart from the Mick Jagger Bigfoot from Night of the Demon (1980).

But then we also have some side-plots with two young women, Betsy and Tara, who eventually get topless, and a… birdwatcher, only to have some more bodycounts. Fun trivia: One of the topless women, Tara, is Georges Kennedy’s daughter, Shannon Kennedy, who was cast because he wouldn’t be in the film unless his daughter got a small role, and this is the only role she ever played. Better than nothing, as we say. And then zombies, of all things, start to show up. Just what you expected, right? So, where does this thing actually go, you may ask? Oh, it certainly goes somewhere, that I can say for sure, haha…

Look, here’s the thing: the best way to watch Demonwarp is to know little to nothing beforehand. Because as the film progressed, we went into the film’s page on IMDb, scrolled through some of the screenshots, just to be sure if we actually saw the right movie. And, well, haha, we did. The majority of the film is a standard, micro budget almost Z-level monster schlock where the Bigfoot monster is chasing boobs in the local woods, whereas the last thirty minutes is where I’d guess that a drunk and delirious Lucio Fulci came to the set and finished the film. Crazy, retarded fun stuff to watch with pizza and Jack Daniel’s.

Director: Emmett Alston
Writers: John Carl Buechler, Jim Bertges, Bruce Akiyama
Country & year: USA, 1988
Actors: George Kennedy, David Michael O’Neill, Pamela Gilbert, Billy Jayne, Hank Stratton, Colleen McDermott, Michelle Bauer, Shannon Kennedy Sullivan, John Durbin, Jill Marin
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094998/

The Banished (2024)

Posted on August 14, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Grace is a young woman who ventures back to her childhood hometown after her father has died and her brother has gone missing. And of course we quickly find out that there’s a reason she left the place, because her late father was an abusive asshole. Good riddance. Grace has been estranged from her family for a very long time, living her life and pursuing her career in a completely different place, but now she returns mainly because of her brother, who was the only person who stood up for her when they were kids.

Once arriving in her old hometown, where everything kind of has the look of decay and rot, she notices missing people posters everywhere. She finds out that one of her old teachers are driving some people up to the wilderness, and after asking around she discovers that her brother apparently went there too to get away from the city life (and their father who was then still alive). There’s supposed to be some kind of hidden commune up there somewhere, but it’s not going to be easy finding it on your own. With the help of her former teacher she ventures deep into the wilderness to find her lost brother, and lo and behold – ends up getting lost herself. Now she must struggle to stay alive, and of course there’s something dangerous and dark hidden between all that beautiful nature.

The Banished is an Australian folk-horror movie from 2024, written and directed by Joseph Sims-Dennett. And yes, it’s another trauma-fueled story which has been all the rage for the last decade or so. Rarely do we get horror movies these days where trauma isn’t a major factor in the storytelling. Here we get the trauma bits interwoven with a missing people mystery, some possible dark secrets of a secluded community, and hints of something supernatural. Mostly, though, it’s about being lost in the woods. While it comes off as a bit slow, I enjoyed the creepiness of the wilderness and the mystery behind the hidden commune and the people venturing there. There’s a constant eerie atmosphere, and the isolation feels real and claustrophobic. Nothing bad to say about the actors, either, where Meg Eloise-Clarke delivers a strong lead performance.

What I appreciated the most in this movie, though, was the actual feeling of true isolation in the wilderness, and the slight psychedelic vibe throughout a large part of it. Perhaps being less ambiguous and dropping the non-linear storytelling format would have served the narrative better, but overall I think The Banished is a pretty nice watch if you’re in for something slow and eerie with an isolated forest setting.

If you’re in for more lost-in-the-woods horror of the slower kind, maybe also give Lovely, Dark and Deep from 2023 a watch.

Writer and director: Joseph Sims-Dennett
Country & year: Australia, 2024
Actors: Meg Eloise-Clarke, Gautier de Fontaine, David Beelen, Steve Brekalow, Hayley Buckley, Taylor Buoro, Leighton Cardno, David Charlie, Adrian D’Arcy
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33050521/

The Devil’s Rain (1975)

Posted on August 11, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

― There have been films about earthquakes, airplane disasters and blazing infernos… but there has never been anything like THE DEVIL’S RAIN! … or nothing like this fluffy, silly Satanic horror movie that only could have come out from the mid ’70s. Horns up!

Just to make no mistake what subject matter we’re getting ourselves into, the film opens with tasty hell paintings by Bosch over the intro credits. We then get thrown right into, yes you guessed it, a rainstorm where Mark Preston (William Shatner) is looking for his father. After he gets home to his mother Emma and some other old guy named John, his father, Steve, suddenly shows up outside the house, looking like a melted hobo freak from Tromaville. Steve has escaped from the Satanic cult leader Jonathan Corbis to warn the Preston family about a mysterious book, which Corbis expect to be delivered to him at a place called Redstone. Steve mumbles “In nomine Satanas“ before he melts away to a small puddle in front of Mark and his wife.

We learn that the Prestons have hidden a Satanic Bible for generations, and now they order Mark to just give it to Corbis. Nah! Instead, he loads his gun and gets ready to hunt down this Corbis guy to blow his brains out, because who wouldn’t. If it was that simple. A voodoo doll is nailed to the steering wheel on his truck. Uh-oh. Mark then hears screaming from the house where he finds John hanging upside-down with a bloody face. The house has also been completely trashed, as if a tornado of poltergeists had swarmed by. Emma is gone and seems to have been kidnapped by Corbis’s cult. All this happens in just a seconds. Talk about some vulgar display of power. Eleven minutes in and the film is already all over the place. Mark finally takes the roadtrip to Redstone which looks like an abandoned old ghost town and maybe an old set for a western movie. After Mark eventually gets captured by the Satanic cult, we then switches over to Mark’s brother Tom (Tom Skerritt) and his wife Julie who’s a psychic of some sort. She can see into the past, or something like that. Tom get the news that his brother is missing and the search begins in the Mexican desert. Good luck and remember to drink a plenty of water.

According to the original poster for The Devil’s Rain, it can promise us “Absolutely the most incredible ending of any motion picture ever!” Yes, with an exclamation point. No clickbait bullshit, because hear this: the last five minutes or so has more gooey and grotesque melting body horror than The Incredible Melting Man (1977) and Body Melt (1993) combined. Not too shabby for a half-obscure ’70s low-budget horror. And look out for John Travolta’s very first screen presence, which he’s not much proud of as he only remembers it as a terrible movie. Travolta has been in way, way, waaay worse movies than this, and that’s a fact. Then we have the actual Mister Satanist himself, Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan who worked as technical advisor on the film and had a small cameo as the The High Priest. The chanting we hear from the Corbis cult are words from The Satanic Bible, yes the one and only that LaVey wrote and published in 1967. And with that being said, Ernest Borgnine, who plays the cult leader, would never be in a film that deals with devils and satanism again after the film was plagued with “eerie incidents and accidents“. That’s a shame, since he seemed to be having a ball playing the over-the-top demonic cartoonish villain with the most evil psychotic grin that only Kenneth Copeland could match. His presence in full demonic form is nothing but mesmerizing where he looks like a mix of Ron Perlman from Hellboy and the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. Delightful stuff!

But the one that didn’t smile in the slightest, was director Robert Fuest, who was on the brink of a nervous breakdown while filming somewhere in bumfuck nowhere in a dusty hellhole in Mexico with very limited resources. Rumors say that the film was financed with mafia money and several actors didn’t get paid, including Ernest Borgnine. A chaotic shitshow, in other words. After a disastrous theatrical release which garnered mostly negative reviews and earned a spot on Roger Ebert’s “Most Hated“ movies list, Fuest was reduced to spending the rest of his film career on obscure TV shows and even more obscure TV movies. It wasn’t until 1982 that he got his final theatrical release, which was the Greek soft porn Aphrodite. Showbiz…what can you say. Leaving on that note, The Devil’s Rain may sound like one of the worst movies ever made. I wouldn’t say it’s even close. It’s a flawed incoherent mess for sure, but an entertaining incoherent mess with some solid production values, vibrant look, a nice n’ eerie vibe, a cool-looking villain and, a glimpse of the origin of the iconic Michael Myer’s mask… and, of course, lots of melting satanists. The only thing missing is a nude woman ready to be sacrificed on an altar, but oh well, not everyone can be Nude for Satan, I guess.

Director: Robert Fuest
Writers: Gabe Essoe, James Ashton, Gerald Hopman
Country & year: Mexico/USA, 1975
Actors: Ernest Borgnine, Eddie Albert, Ida Lupino, William Shatner, Keenan Wynn, Tom Skerritt, Joan Prather, Woodrow Chambliss, John Travolta, Claudio Brook, Lisa Todd, Anton LaVey
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072869/

The Sonata (2018)

Posted on August 7, 2026August 11, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Rose is a young and very talented violinist, but she’s also a bit of a loner. Charles, her agent and manager, has been taking care of her and functioned more or less as a parental figure ever since Rose’s mother died when Rose was only sixteen. When it comes to her father, who is none other than world famous composer Richard Marlowe, she has never personally known him as he abandoned his family and became a recluse shortly after Rose was born. And now the guy is dead, which to the news Rose at first gives a “whatever, I’m busy“ attitude. Who can really blame her, though, the man was basically nothing but a stranger she never met. Rose has still inherited his mansion which is located in France, and she decides to go there in the small hopes of maybe finding out something about why he decided to leave his own family all those years ago.

Once there, in the gloomy and desolate mansion, she finds some sheet music for the sonata her father had been working on for the last twenty-or-so years. She sends a sample of it to Charles, who is immediately intrigued and sees potential for wealth and fortune. The final piece of a famous composer! Once he starts digging, he finds that Richard had been a member of some satanic cult who believed that music could be used for summoning the Antichrist himself. And Rose starts experiencing strange things around the mansion…

The Sonata is a supernatural horror thriller from 2018, directed by Andrew Desmond from a screenplay by Desmond and Arthur Morin. It also stars Rutger Hauer in a smaller role, and this was his final film before his death the following year. The film was shot almost entirely in Latvia, in the 19th century Cesvaine Palace.

This is one of those supernatural movies where you get a good amount of that misty, gothic atmosphere. It’s never really venturing into any real scares, but it’s always giving off that certain spooky vibe. The movie starts off from Richard Marlowe’s perspective (played by the late Rutger Hauer), filmed in a pretty interesting POV style where we witness an act of self-immolation. So, we already know that some weird, spooky shit is going on here. And yes, it does play out the rest of the film as a straight-forward supernatural mystery thriller, with a satanic cult, mysterious disappearances, and of course several paranormal incidents. Just like in The Ninth Gate, the mystery unfolds through cryptic esoteric symbols, hidden messages in artwork and the solving of puzzles in order to unlock some dark, demonic forces.

The music, of course, also plays a significant role here. The ficitional Op. 54 “Rose Sonata“ was composed, orchestrated and conducted by Alexis Maingaud, and performed by solo violinist Olivier Leclerc with the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France. With much of the movie’s concept relying on some unfinished evil sonata, it would be expected that the music here would add to the overall feeling of the film. And it certainly helps with providing the perfect setting for the story.

While never bringing much new do the table, The Sonata is a pretty fine gothic supernatural mystery thriller which delivers mostly on a spooky atmosphere, a nice location, and of course a lot of violin playing.

Director: Andrew Desmond
Writers: Andrew Desmond, Arthur Morin
Country & year: France/UK/Latvia, 2018
Actors: Freya Tingley, Simon Abkarian, James Faulkner, Rutger Hauer, Catherine Schaub-Abkarian, Matt Barber, Christopher Brand
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7149066/

The Cave (2005)

Posted on August 4, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jaws 3-D (1983)

Posted on July 31, 2026July 31, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

It’s been some years since the great white sharks terrorized Amity Island, and the son of police chief Brody (Mike) has now grown up and works as a chief engineer at SeaWorld Orlando together with his girlfriend Kathryn, who is a biologist. The park’s main attractions are the new underwater tunnels, which allows people a great view of the undersea life. Sounds fun, right? Well, not so much when a great white shark manages to enter while the park’s lagoon gates are stuck open. No one knows yet, of course, but the park’s dolphins shows signs of distress and are afraid of going out into the lagoon. The first victim is the mechanic who dives into the water to repair the gates, and while the shark has started its feasting, Mike and his girlfriend are not aware of any dangers.

When it becomes clear the mechanic has gone missing, they use a submarine to look for his body, and encounters a great white instead…but it’s not a big one, and they find it’s just a juvenile. In order to get more publicity for the park, it’s decided that this shark should be captured, which of course goes to hell pretty quickly and the shark dies. There’s a reason great whites can’t survive in captivity, and that’s due to their need for continuous movement in order to breathe and stay alive, plus they are known for being under extreme stress in captivity and also refuse to eat. Those creatures are born to be free, period. Then when the corpse of the missing guy is discovered, they realize that he was attacked by a much larger shark than the one they captured (and caused the death of). Out there somewhere is Mommy shark, and we are of course in for more body counts.

Jaws 3-D from 1983, also known as Jaws 3, is the third film in the Jaws franchise. It was directed by Joe Alves. And yeah…this is arguably not really a good movie, but as far as shark movies overall go it’s fairly decent to give a watch, and maybe have some laughs at the same time due to the silly and extremely outdated 3D effects. Yes, it’s one of those 3D-glasses movies where several scenes are designed for these effects, and like most movies utilizing this it looks more laughable than fascinating. Getting some of the actors from the previous movie was also a no-go, as Roy Scheider (who played Police Chief Martin Brody) just laughed at the concept of Jaws 3-D and made it apparent he couldn’t have been talked into doing it. Dennis Quaid, who plays Mike Brody in this film, admitted that he was aggressively using cocaine during the filming and was high “in every frame“. That being said, I think the actors overall did well enough with what they had to play along with.

In many ways it was a good decision to move away from yet another story centered around Amity Island, but while the second installment of the film series kind of tried to keep some of the ominous vibes from the first, we here go into pure B-schlock territory. And I guess you can say that a setting of a marine park works pretty well for something like this, with the goofy vibe and all. Just like in the previous movies, we must not forget to also add in some corporate greed that puts everyone in danger, of course!

Some of the highlights are of course the clunky effects which are made even more laughable in the 3D setting, with the glass-breaking scene being the most hilarious one. How could we go from the outright scary and sinister vibe from the first movie, to this ludicrous schlock..? Well, that’s the power of sequels made from popular movies. In one attempt after the other to recreate some of the magic from the first, we end up getting something that strays further and further from the original’s qualities. Kind of makes me wonder what a Jaws movie would look like if it was re-created inside the Backrooms.

Overall, though, Jaws 3-D is a fun watch when seeing it with the right expectations. Despite getting mostly negative reception and even multiple Golden Raspberry Awards, Worst Picture, Worst Director and Worst Supporting Actor awards, it still managed to become a commercial success. Later on came Jaws: The Revenge in 1987, which kind of pretends that this movie never happened and gives the shark a pure “revenge“ motive. I think it’s fair to say that the Jaws franchise ended with this third installment.

Director: Joe Alves
Writers: Richard Matheson, Carl Gottlieb, Guerdon Trueblood
Country & year: USA, 1983
Actors: Dennis Quaid, Bess Armstrong, Simon MacCorkindale, Louis Gossett Jr., John Putch, Lea Thompson, P.H. Moriarty, Dan Blasko, Liz Morris, Lisa Maurer, Harry Grant, Andy Hansen
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085750/

Jaws 2 (1978)

Posted on July 28, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

It is now four years since a great white shark terrorized the villagers and tourists on Amity Island. After Chief Martin Brody and his companions finally managed to kill it and give the seagulls a nice sushi-buffet in the same go, everything has been fine. Of course something must happen to disturb the peace. Two scuba divers are photographing the wreckage of the Orca, and another great white shark appears and kills them both. Uh-oh, here we go again! Already the next day the shark is out for more blood, and kills a water skier who manages to burn the shark’s face by using a flare gun in self defense. It all ends with both skier and the boat pilot getting killed, and we now have four victims in just two days.

Just like last time, no real evidence of anything being caused by a shark is clear from the start, but when Brody finds an orca carcass in the beach with some severe bite marks on it, nothing is going to convince him we’re not in for yet another round of shark terror. As bodies start piling up, the Mayor is once again more worried about the island’s tourism. Money comes before everything when it comes to these guys. Brody, suspected of being “mentally unstable“ after the incident four years ago is not taken seriously, and he grows more and more concerned for the safety of his family. He forbids his 17-year old son, Mike, from going out in the water. We all know how that goes…tell a teenager what they aren’t allowed to do, and you can bet that this will be on their to-do list pretty soon. And sure enough, Mike goes sailing with his friends and even brings his younger brother Sean with them, mostly because the little bugger saw him sneaking out and threatened to tattle on his big bro. Ah, younger siblings…such fun. And we all know that this sailing trip will be just another setup for additional meals to the big fish.

Jaws 2 is the 1978 sequel to the success of Jaws from 1975, a success which was of course bound to spew out a few sequels afterwards. And just like the first film, the production was troubled. The first director, John D. Hancock, proved to not be the right guy for directing this one, and was replaced with the French director Jeannot Szwarc. Steven Spielberg was of course not interested as he thought “making a sequel to anything is just a cheap carny trick“ and apparently didn’t even bother to respond when the producers asked him. He also admitted later on that the production hell of the first film scared him from trying to reprise the ordeal…

Once again, mechanical sharks were constructed for the film, where special mechanical effects supervisor Robert Mattey and Roy Arbogast used the same body mold from the first film. Why they didn’t use the originals, you may ask? Well, they had started to rust and rot away after being stored behind sheds in the lower lot of Universal Studios. So that’s where the creation of “Bruce 2“ came into place. Martha’s Vineyard once again became the filming location for the town scenes, and many of the locals were cast as extras. The beach scenes were shot at Navarre Beach in Florida. John Williams, who won an Academy Award for Best Original Score for the first film, also returned to score. Jaws 2 also became considerably more expensive, and cost $30 million to produce, more than three times the first movie…but hey, they knew this would be an immediate success anyway since loads of people would watch it purely because of the first film, and they were right as the box office was $208.9 million. Not as much as the first movie, but still a success.

Now, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this movie is nowhere near as good as the first one, but to be honest that’s mostly the deal with sequels (with some very few exceptions). That being said, it’s still entertaining and it’s fun to see a movie playing a little around with the so-called aftermath and of course focusing on some of the same characters. The pacing is not quite as tight compared to the first, and with the same town and setting you can’t help but feeling that it’s a little repetitive.

The shark itself is still an obvious threat, but there isn’t that feeling of a constantly threatening atmosphere as in the first. It ventures more into pure creature-feature territory where the shark is more monstrous and often a bit over-the-top. I mean, there’s a scene where it’s attacking a helicopter…something that’s right out of a monster movie. But Bruce 2 is pretty alright (whom fans have nicknamed Brucette since the shark is a female in this movie). Definitely some fun to be had here, just don’t expect a movie on the same level as the first. So, while Jaws 2 doesn’t have nearly enough bite as the first one, it’s still a decent sequel worth watching.

Director: Jeannot Szwarc
Writers: Carl Gottlieb, Howard Sackler
Country & year: USA, 1978
Actors: Roy Scheider, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Joseph Mascolo, Jeffrey Kramer, Collin Wilcox Paxton, Ann Dusenberry, Mark Gruner, Barry Coe, Susan French, Gary Springer, Donna Wilkes
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077766/

Jaws (1975)

Posted on July 24, 2026July 28, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

For this year’s shark week special, we’ll start off with the biggest fish of them all, the ultimate shark horror movie. The one and only movie that scared people away from the beaches and even lakes and swimming pools (!). It scared the bejeezus out of a lot of people, and some even carries that galeophobia to this day. Yes, we’re of course talking about Jaws from 1975, an instant classic when it came and still remains one, directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the 1974 novel by Peter Benchley. While Psycho made people afraid of showers, Jaws made people afraid of the ocean.

The story starts off in the New England beach town of Amity Island, and we are presented with the first kill almost immediately. A group of young people are partying at the beach, and one of the girls decide to go for a late night swim, while her too intoxicated boyfriend drunkenly collapses and passes out in the sand before being able to join her. Lucky for him, as we soon see her pulled underwater and dragged around like a ragdoll. By what, we don’t see, but of course we have a hunch. Next morning, her partial remains are found washed up on the beach, and when the coroner concludes that this is caused by a shark attack, police chief Martin Brody wants to close the beaches for people’s safety. But, oh no…that won’t do, since the town’s summer economy would suffer! Mayor Larry Vaughn won’t have any of such nonsense, of course. So what happens next is that everything is swept under the rug, no shark here, false alarm, fake news, probably a boating accident. Then the young boy Alex Kintner is killed at a crowded beach, where everyone gets the pleasure or watching nature’s brutality at its finest. And now, of course, it’s time to take it seriously enough to put a bounty on the shark, causing a full-frenzied amateur shark hunting by the local fishermen. Soon afterwards, some of them catches a tiger shark, and the Mayor once again declares the beaches safe. Ding-Dong, the shark is dead! Or maybe not. Slicing it open, there are no human remains inside its stomach. It’s also not as big as the presumed culprit should be, which is more likely to be a great white shark of the much larger kind.

And yes, much of the plot’s key points have been copied, referenced, and parodized numerous times over the years: a giant killer shark (or other creature) plus a town not wanting to take it seriously because of tourist money and local traditions, or something similar. It’s a no-brainer that a movie’s huge success will always make people try to copy it, and there’s no doubt that Jaws has inspired numerous shark and creature feature movies, and continues to do so, because there’s just so much it got right. One of those things include Spielberg’s decision to use lesser known actors. He said that actors who were more anonymous would help the audience find it more believable, as “stars bring a lot of memories along with them, and those memories can sometimes … corrupt the story“. True words. Besides, we all know that the real star here is the shark anyway, so…

Originally, this was actually not meant to be a Steven Spielberg film at all. John Sturges was first considered as director, then it went to Dick Richards instead, but he was dropped from the project. One of the reasons was apparently that he had a habit of describing the shark as a whale…I guess he mistook it for a Moby Dick story. Steven Spielberg became aware of the position and really, really wanted the job, and it all ended with the producers signing him to direct. The producers actually also wanted to train a great white shark for the movie. Uh…yeah, nope. Of course that was not possible, so that’s where “Bruce“ came into the works, which were three full-size pneumantically powered prop sharks. And the film crew nicknamed the shark props after Spielberg’s lawyer Bruce Ramer. Fun spin on the old phrase “all lawyers are sharks”.

The movie was shot mostly on location at Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. It was also the first major motion picture to be shot on the ocean, and yeah…the production was troubled where both the budget and schedules went to shit. To top it all, the main star of the movie, Bruce himself (the mechanical shark) malfunctioned all the time, causing Spielberg to focus more on the shark’s ominous presence than showing it very often. Which may very well have been art by accident, as this movie is definitely an excellent example of how less is more when it comes to showing off the “monster“. Add to it the excellent theme by John Williams, which has become so iconic you’ve probably heard it even if you haven’t seen the movie, and you’ve got the shark’s threatening presence in just a minimalist theme song. That’s no small feat. And despite being a movie that doesn’t show the “monster“ all too often, it doesn’t drown in loads of unnecessary subplots or character interaction that doesn’t drive the story further (which can be an issue in some creature features). The pacing is really good, there’s a constant sinister vibe overlaying the movie due to the shark’s elusive presence. And of course, we have some kill scenes which are really well done.

I’ll admit, Jaws holds a special place in my heart as one of the very first movies to actually scare me. Like, literally. I saw it at a very young age, and as someone growing up in a coastal town where boat life and spending time nearby the ocean and fishing during the summer was a way of my normal everyday life, the idea of a giant shark prowling underneath the waves literally scared the piss out of me. Most of the other horror movies I’d seen was too fantastical and removed from reality to really give me any “but what if“ impact. And while there aren’t even any great whites here in Norway, and the only shark species that roam the Norwegian waters are no threat to humans, it still instilled a deep-rooted fear in me which persisted. At the same time I also got fascinated by sharks, and I already had a love and fascination for ideas of sea monsters and the like, so overall I guess you can say that the movie kind of got me hooked.

If there is one downside with this movie, it’s how the public perception of sharks turned very negative, causing wide-spread trophy fishing and “revenge hunts“. I’d say that this is a people problem, not a movie problem though…both Peter Benchley and Steven Spielberg expressed regret over how the movie caused such an impact on the real-world shark population. That being said, shark populations have also suffered from industrial overfishing and the shark fin trade. Humans will always remain the most dangerous creature, no matter what.

Jaws was the highest grossing film in history until the release of Star Wars two years later, and in 2001 the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the US National Film Registry. While there’s a huge ocean of shark movies out there, Jaws still takes the biggest and sharpest bite compared to all of them.

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Peter Benchley, Carl Gottlieb
Country & year: USA, 1975
Actors: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Carl Gottlieb, Jeffrey Kramer, Susan Backlinie, Jonathan Filley, Ted Grossman, Chris Rebello
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073195/