horror movie review – Horror Ghouls

Return of the Living Dead III (1993)

Posted on October 28, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

What the hell happened to Return of the Living Dead III ? Trimark bought the rights and Brian Yuzna, who had made a name for himself in the horror biz after Society (1989) and Bride of Re-Animator (1990), was hired to direct. The only few questions he had before signing, were: Do the movie have to continue the characters? (No.) That was good to know. Do we need to bring back actors? (No.) Does it have to be funny? (No.) So what does it have to be? You gotta have the Trioxin and brain eating. Yuzna had a problem with the brain eating as he found it too cliché and comical. All his horror films are comical, but whatever. The script was written by John Penney, who worked as assistant editor on the first film.

The film was a box-office disaster and only grossed $54,207 in the USA of a $2,000,000 budget. Oof. Solid movie, though!

Julie (Melinda Clarke) is a young rebellious sadomasochist ginger with looks that could kill and has an impressive high pain threshold that would even make Pinhead and Kakihara raise their eyebrows, and maybe other things. Her boyfriend is Romeo, I mean Curt (J. Trevor Edmond), and one night they don’t have better things to do, they sneak into an Army research lab where Curt’s dad works. From a hiding spot, they witness something interesting where a cadaver, Tarman, I assume, gets rolled into the lab to be tested with the Trioxin as their plan is to use zombies as bioweapons. And poor Tarman. He looks rough as hell and completely destroyed after all the hard partying in the 1980s. Mötley Crüe can relate and Dr. Feelgood is certainly not in this building.

Fun fact: under the makeup (if there actually was makeup at all) of this particular zombie, is the legendary Clarence Epperson ― a homeless man who lived by the Los Angeles Airport where the exterior scenes of the military base were shot. In the interviews on the Blu-ray we can also learn that he was on meds, lived in his “own world“ and had to be looked after so he didn’t disappear. Huh, interesting…

Anyway, the Trioxin works and one of the lab doctors puts his fingers into his mouth, because that’s what lab doctors do, and next we have a messy bloodbath that’s more gory than the first two films combined. He eventually gets taken down, and to Curt’s frustration, Julie just seems exited over what they just witnessed. They can’t even have sex without having her fascination of necro come to mind. How nekromantik. Jörg Buttgereit wants your phone number, Julie. Yes, she’s a bit “strange and unusual“, we can say, who could as well be the sister of Trash from the first film. Then tragedy strikes with a motorcycle accident where Julie flies off and knocks her head straight to a pole…and dies. RIP. So you thought. After Julie gets resurrected in the lab after sneaking her fresh dead body in, we have an urban chaotic odyssey of pain, screaming, tears, a hurricane of strong feelings, and of course, brain eating, and more fun gory stuff.

And speaking of: the gore/prosthetic effects and Melinda Clarke is everything about this movie. Melinda has admitted that she’s not a horror fan, and took the inspiration of playing a messed-up zombie junkie after portraying Nancy Spungen in the theater play Vicious. The rebellious look of Julie with the nose-and lip ring was her own idea, and she actually had to fight with the studio because they found it to be “too much“. So did the MPAA. And yes, we’re talking about USA, not North Korea. We have come a long way with Art the Clown, haven’t we. Some of the producers must have gotten a serious stroke when they saw her in her full zombie-makeup/outfit where she looks more like a Cenobite from Hellraiser, and gives the horniest Kubrick stare ever put on film. And we’re sure to have close-ups so we can see the nice, grotesque details of what she has done to herself. There’s also a “logic“ explanation of why the self-mutilation has more importance than just pure shock value, something that Yuzna had to explain to the censor bureaucrats to avoid the big bad X-rating.

The third film takes a big leap from the comedy, and that was maybe for the better. You could easily remove the Trioxin name and the film would’ve been exactly the same, and works perfectly as a standalone. The original working title was Curt and Julie. Lame. In Spain it was released under the alternate title Mortal Zombie. Much better, and even Yuzna agrees. That said, the silly and eccentric undertones reeks through the cracks, especially during the zombie outbreak with some gooey animatronics and goofy cartoonish growl sound effects. Nothing to take serious even though Melinda Clarke and James Callahan plays it strong and straight all the way through. It’s well-directed and relatively fast-paced with little to no dull moments where we actually have a fourth act, so that none of the impressive gore effects and some more surprises goes to waste. Great, tasty stuff and certainly one of the goriest zombie movies to come out of the 1990s, at least on the surface level.

And this is the second time (I believe) the film has been released in “Full Uncut Version“. That was until 2024 when it came to light that there’s actually even more lost footage, of eight minutes to be exact, that was rediscovered by filmmaker Dustin Ferguson when he saw the first cut on a T-120 VHS Master. Well… good for him. The Blu-ray from Vestron Video has nevertheless more than enough meat, brains and red corn syrup to fill your stomach.

Director: Brian Yuzna
Writer: John Penney
Country & year: USA, 1993
Actors: Kent McCord, James T. Callahan, Sarah Douglas, Melinda Clarke, Abigail Lenz, J. Trevor Edmond, Jill Andre, Michael Decker, Billy Kane, Mike Moroff
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107953/

Return of the Living Dead Part II (1988)

Posted on October 27, 2026October 28, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

What the hell really happened to Return of the Living Dead Part II? It’s a movie that was made, that we at least can say for sure. But it’s certainly not a sequel, nor a prequel. I saw Part 2 on TV (on the Norwegian Broadcast channel, of all places) years before I saw the first film, and can say I got a little confused when I finally got to see it, even though it should have been the other way around. On the surface, this is more or less the same film all over again, a rerun, where Thom Matthews and James Karen reprise their roles in what we might call an alternate universe… something like that. A more fitting title would be Return of the Living Déjà vu.

Dan O’Bannon was not interested in making the sequel as he was moving on to developing his own project, that was The Resurrected. In comes Ken Wiederhorn, a frustrated and struggling director who was notoriously known for hating horror movies since he entered the business in 1977 with his nazi/zombie flick Shock Waves. He also made the sleazy drive-in thriller Eyes of a Stranger (1981) and was only seen as a schlocky horror movie director. He was so desperate to make this as his ultimate segway out of the horror genre that he took a writing class, so he finally could make real movies like William Friedkin and Martin Scorsese. The irony is that the result more or less ended up like a watered-down copy-and-paste version of the original, without the spicy satire. Wiederhorn originally wrote a stand-alone comedy horror which producer Tom Fox saw the big-dollar opportunity to slam Return of the Living Dead Part II on, or “The Police Academy of Horror Movies“, as Wiederhorn proudly called it. Fucking Christ, he should be forever glad that social media didn’t exist back then.

Tom Fox brought back Thom Matthews and James Karen to make some shallow connections to the first film, while the child actors would appeal to the younger audiences. Don Calfa, who played the mortician in the first film, auditioned to play the goofy doctor, but got rejected. The funny thing is that the production was such a miserable experience that Tom Matthews and James Karen told Don Calfa on the phone that he was lucky to not be a part of it.

And against all odds, the film was better than it had any right to be. Even Ken Wiederhorn was taken back of how well received it was. He never got the big break he wanted, though, and only directed some TV series in the early ’90s. His last film was the obscure romance/thriller A House in the Hills (1993), which is the one and only film he’s proud of.

The plot is as basic as it can get, where some canisters of the Trioxin gas/liquid falls off a military truck and into a river that finds its way into a drainpipe near a suburb. And that’s just fantastic, since drainpipes are an exciting place for kids to explore, especially in the 1980s. And speaking of kids, meet the twelve-year-old Jesse and the two bullies, Billy and Johnny, stumble upon the canister, tampering with it until they see a dead cadaver through its glass panel (hello, Tarman) and runs away. As the gas has already started to ooze, because of those damn kids, the damage is done, and it’s just a matter of time before it reaches the local cemetery, and it’s partytime once again (just without the punks and naked gravedancing).

There are several positives about Part 2, though. It’s a great-looking ’80s movie with some tasty atmospheric foggy night scenes and interesting-looking zombies. The dumb comedy really kicks in during the zombie resurrection scene where zombie aunt puts on her glasses, zombie uncle fixes his tie, while others gets stomped on. And if you’re watching this for the first time on DVD you’d go bruh? What’s this? Return of the Living Disco Zombies? The cheese really reeks hard at this cemetery. Even director Wiederhorn says in the commentary track that there’s something wrong with this music, but has no answer to why. Other sources say that there were some copyright disputes and a new score had to be added to the 2004 DVD release. The funny thing is that the original score is still on the French and Italian language track. I also read many years ago somewhere on the internet that the DVD was transferred from a Russian version. Another unsolved mystery is who actually made that awesome movie poster. Rumors says it’s by Peter Mueller who also did the very similar poster for Fright Night (1985) , but nothing has been confirmed.

Well, anyway…James Karen goes full force with the tiresome overacting. Some of the “highlights“ is where he holds a zombie head and let the indexfinger on his other arm get bitten. Just because. Hilarious (sarcasm). While we have lots of zombies shuffling around, there’s actually even less blood here than in the first film. It’s lighthearted, silly and pretty much on the level of gateway horror. And despite the turmoil behind the scenes, and a director that had no idea what made the first one so special, they at the very least managed to be professional and give us a false impression that the actors had fun on set. The slick and polished cinematography by Robert Elswit, is also a big plus, who later did Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood and Nightcrawler, to mention some. I also like the ending/climax with the sparkling, jiggling zombies where we have a quick cameo from none other than Michael Jackson. Aow!

Writer and director: Ken Wiederhorn
Country & year: USA, 1988
Actors: Michael Kenworthy, Thor Van Lingen, Jason Hogan, James Karen, Thom Mathews, Suzanne Snyder, Marsha Dietlein, Hanala Sagal, Jonathan Terry, Philip Bruns, Allan Trautman
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095990/

The Return of the Living Dead (1985)

Posted on October 26, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

It’s the fourth of July, the year is 1984, and it’s time to get horny.

But before we get loose and festive, here are some important facts to know: because did you know that The Night of the Living Dead (1968), yes the George A. Romero classic, was actually based on a true case? Frank can tell. We’re at a medical supply warehouse somewhere in Louisville, Kentucky, where the two workers, Frank (James Karen) and the new, younger employee, Freddy (Thom Matthews) are about to get done for the day. Frank is supposed to be 45 years old, which has to be the most brutal 45 years I’ve ever seen. Bearing the guilt of being responsible for building houses on an unmarked cemetery maybe does that to you. Anyway: It all starts when Freddy asks Frank what’s the weirdest thing he’s ever seen in the warehouse. Oh, he’s surely seen some things, but nothing weirder than the Trioxin gas conspiracy. Because the true story is that in 1969 this chemical got leaked into a hospital in Pittsburgh, leaked down to the morgue and woke up the dead bodies into zombies. The Trioxin was originally developed for the Army, and if it was ever exposed in the movie, Romero and co would have their asses sued.

And given that this film is actually co-written by John A. Russo, who also co-wrote TNOTLD, the truth is finally coming out. Anyway, the Army sent all the contaminated bodies out, and some of them are in the basement, yes, in this building, with a can of the Trioxin. You wanna see? Of course you do.

The pompous dork that Frank is, takes a quick slam at the canister to show how strong and secure it is. Instead, the gas oozes out that eventually reeks out of the crematorium pipe and up in the air that makes the rain toxic enough to resurrect the dead at the local cemetery. And they want braaaaains! Why exactly brains though? You’ll see.

While Frank and Freddy get more and more sick after inhaling the gas, we meet a charming group of punks who just wanna party. And what could be a better spot to celebrate the fourth of July than in a cemetery? They all stick out in their own ways, but the one we would focus most on, is the redhead Trash (Linnea Quigley). Because when the sun has gone down, and it’s partytime, Trash gets aroused and horny with her own filthy sadomasochistic fantasies of being killed in all kinds of different ways by a bunch of men. Be careful what you wish for, hon. She rips off her clothes and dances on a gravestone, buck naked, which alone made the entire legacy of Linnea Quigley. Not bad. And she runs around naked for the rest of the movie. Quigley already had a background as a nude model, so that explains something.

Fun trivia time: The grave dance scene was as groundbreaking and controversial in American cinema as it was to show a toilet in Psycho (1960). This scene was shot two times. The second time was when they realized that they couldn’t show pubic hair without getting an X-rating. And an X-rating at that time meant zero advertisement other than a small black & white logo of the film’s title hidden in the newspaper. It wasn’t just enough to shave it, no no, she had to wear a prosthetic of her crotch to make her less exposed and make her more doll-like. The funny thing is that the actors had never seen a shaved pussy before, because this was after all the 1980s, and they were more confused about what they were watching. Pretty vacant, like Johnny Rotten would say.

According to the making-of-documentary More Brains! A Return to the Living Dead from 2011, the film was a brutal shoot, a war zone, someone even calls it. A lot of spontaneous rehearsal tapes ended in the final cut, which was usually unheard of. There’s a great chaotic atmosphere here, lots of raw punk rock vibes energy (yeah duh), and much is also due to the director Dan O’Bannon, who according to the actors, was a total punk himself who pushed the actors to the breaking point. Everything that could go wrong, could go seriously wrong and ruin the whole production. In this case, however, it seemed to make the film better. More chaos, more fun. Art by many accidents, or just having a relatively clear vision may help a lot. Even though this was Lloyd Kaufman, I mean Dan O’Bannon’s first time directing, he was the one who wrote Alien (1979), so he wasn’t exactly a nobody.

More fun trivia: One of the actresses had a very awkward meeting with Bannon over a script reading at his house, where he had guns all over his desk and hardcore porn showing on the TV. That’s Hollywood, baby, to quote R. Zegler. The best part of the documentary can be found in the deleted scenes section called “Researching the Dead“. The iconic movie poster was illustrated by Carl Ramsey (1946-2014). He also made the posters for Motel Hell (1980) and Beetlejuice (1988).

The soundtrack has a fitting playlist of some local punk bands such as The Cramps, The Damned, The Flesh Eaters and more. The most memorable will always be Party Time by 45 Grave, and the pop song Tonight We’ll Make Love Until We Die by SSQ is catchy as hell. The good ole’ 1980s. It also has to be said that this is far from a gore fest like Re Animator, which came out the same year as this. You have two scenes where skulls get eaten, more bloody than the other. The satire and the chaotic absurdity is what drives the film, with lots of memorable moments like the restrained zombie who explains why they need to eat brains, the first encounter with Tarman, “send more paramedics“, and the overall pure ’80s atmosphere.

I also like the concept of Frank and Freddy slowly dying while they’re still alive after they inhaled the Trioxin. Having to go through rigor mortis before death is a horror movie in itself. And there you have the irony of zombies running, which you’ll see later on. So no, Zack Snyder was far from the first. My favorite character here is the mortician with the big bulging eyes, Ernie (Don Calfa), who has some of the best reactions as he plays it all straight and rational, which is moons apart from all of the rest. The ending is what it is, because Bannon had no clue how to, well, end it.

Director: Dan O’Bannon
Writers: Rudy Ricci, John A. Russo, Russell Streiner
Country & year: USA, 1985
Actors: Clu Gulager, James Karen, Don Calfa, Thom Mathews, Beverly Randolph, John Philbin, Jewel Shepard, Miguel A. Núñez Jr., Brian Peck, Linnea Quigley, Mark Venturini,
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089907/

The Frighteners (1996)

Posted on October 25, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Are you troubled by strange sounds in the middle of the night?
Do you experience feelings of dread in your basement or attic?
Have you or any of your family ever seen a spook, specter or a ghost?

If the answer is yes, pick up your phone and call the professionals: GHOSTB…I mean Frank Bannister, a true shameless conman that will suck all your money out of your pocket faster than the closet mouth in Carol Anne’s bedroom.

We’re in the small coastal town of Fairwater where Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox), a chronically depressed “psychic investigator“, drives around in his rusty, yellow Volkswagen Beetle like a madman, throwing away a handful of business cards at random funerals, and does his best to make a not-so earnest living. And here’s the thing: Frank is actually a psychic who can see ghosts clear as day, everywhere he goes, and even lives with three of them in his half-built hillside house: the gunslinger Judge, the disco afroman Cyrus, and the uncool ’80s nerd Stuart. Sounds fun. But instead of investigating real hauntings, Frank uses Cyrus and Stuart to stage false haunting scenarios so he can basically just come in, switch on the lights and write the check. How clever. Judge, on the other hand, is too old to spook around (yes, even ghosts can get old). I guess that being dead isn’t such a luxury, after all.

Then folks around the town start to die suddenly, at a high rate, while Frank sees numbers carved on peoples’ foreheads as a premonition, which seem to draw some connections with the dead notorious serial killer Johnny Bartlett. So, maybe it’s time to cut down the booze and start some serious ghost hunting. Well, that’s maybe easier said than done when Frank himself gets investigated by the FBI for being accused of killing his wife who died in a car accident after Frank’s reckless driving some years back. And if you thought Mulder was “spooky“, then say hello to Milton Dammers (Jeffery Combs). Yikes.

The Frighteners is truly something special, directed by Peter Jackson and co-written with his wife Fran Walsh. It blends the comedy and the “seriousness“ like Ghostbusters (1984) and the more cartoonish elements from Beetlejuice (1988), Casper (1995), and even some grimy true-crime elements. A script like this, with its many layers, subplots, slapstick comedy and more dark horror could easily have been an epic tonal disaster. But like a lightening in a bottle, it works.

There are a lot of colorful characters here and the three ghosts Frank lives with is just the tip of the iceberg. A particular standout here is Jeffrey Combs as Milton -Sieg Heil- Dammers. And there’s nothing shady about him. He only looks like if Adolf Hitler and Judge Doom had a baby, possessed by the paranoid ghost of Jim Carrey (don’t panic, Jim is alive and well, but you get the point). I could watch a whole spin-off with this guy. Then you have the cameo of none other than Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, I mean R. Lee Ermey, as a ghost who protects the local cemetery, and who can’t get enough to showcase his goddamn rights to the Second Amendment. God Bless America, you slimy fucking walrus-looking piece of shit! Rumors say that his screentime is taken from the Full Metal Jacket audition tapes.

Jake Busey certainly looks the part as Johnny (The Homicidal Maniac) with his dead eyes and hideous mouth. Michael J. Fox’s performance as the broken, depressed and desperate shell of a man is a big contrast of his signature role Marty McFly. Fox actually turned down the role as Edward Douglas in The Island of Dr. Moreau (yes, that one) to be in The Frighteners. And ‘boy, even though this wasn’t the biggest moneymaker at the box-office, we can say that he dodged a huge bullet. Dee Wallace also have a central role here as, well, that’s all I can say without slipping too much into spoilers. Danny Elfman gives a fitting and spooky Danny Elfman score, I at least can say.

The film goes heavy on CGI, all created by Wētā FX, who also did the visual effects for the The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Avatar movies and Van Helsing, to mention some. The post-production to add the visual effects took 18 intense months. After the 15 artists at Wētā was on the verge of getting burned-out, George Lucas’ company, Industrial Light & Magic, had to step in to give a helping hand. Sounds like a messy disaster already, but Universal was so impressed with the final cut that they wanted to release the film right away instead of waiting three months for October, which was its intended release. Not a good plan since the film barely made back its budget. And maybe the R-rating was a factor. Who knows.

In Norway, my home country, the film flopped so hard that it didn’t even survive the first week before it was pulled from the theaters. A prime example of how a flop does not equal a terrible product. The Frighteners holds up, 30 years after its release and is an absolutely delightful fun spookyride. And on October 26, (yes, tomorrow) the film gets a 4k/Blu-ray release from Arrow Video. Happy anniversary!

Director: Peter Jackson
Writers: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh
Country & year: USA/New Zealand, 1996
Actors: Michael J. Fox, Trini Alvarado, Peter Dobson, John Astin, Jeffrey Combs, Dee Wallace, Jake Busey, Chi McBride, Jim Fyfe, Troy Evans, Julianna McCarthy, R. Lee Ermey
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116365/

Necronomicon (1993)

Posted on October 24, 2026October 24, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

H. P. Lovecraft himself is visiting a monastery, where they store a copy of the Necronomicon. When he enters the place and meets some rather dubious monks, he asks if he can read the Alchemical Encyclopedia Vol. III, and manages to steal a key from one of them. He hurries to the cellar vault, where the Necronomicon is being held. Once inside, a vault door closes behind him. Taken aback by this he drops the key down a grating and into water, but he still proceeds to do what he came for, and sits down and starts reading.

And from here on the movie is separated into different segments, which Lovecraft is sitting there reading. The first one is called The Drowned, and supposedly based on The Rats in the Walls. The story is about Jethro De Lapoer who lost his wife and son. He uses the Necronomicon to bring his family back to life. Of course, we know that bringing back the dead always ends in even more misery. The next story is called The Cold, based on Cool Air. Here we meet Dale Porkel, a reporter who is investigating a string of murders in Boston which has taken place over several decades, and interviews a woman who lives in a freezing cold house. Next up is Whispers, based on The Whisperer in Darkness. This time we meet two police officers, Paul and Sarah, who is pursuing a suspect nicknamed “the Butcher“, where we go into creature-feature territory. And all the while Lovecraft has been reading these stories, seals have opened up to let in…something.

Necronomicon (also called H. P. Lovecraft’s Necronomicon, Necronomicon: Book of the Dead or Necronomicon: To Hell and Back) is an anthology horror film from 1993, featuring segments that are loosely inspired by some of Lovecraft’s stories. The segments are directed by Brian Yuzna, Christophe Grans, and Shusuke Kaneko, and they were written by Gans, Yuzna, Brent V. Friedman and Kazunori Itō. Animatronic effects and special makeup were supervised by Tom Savini, and were created by John Carl Buechler, Christopher Nelson and Screaming Mad George. So, yeah…it goes without saying that the effects here are kickass. The film won the award for Best Special Effects at the 1994 Fantafestival. The film did pretty well upon its initial VHS release in the US, and even better in Europe and Asia.

I found all the segments interesting and nice enough in their own way, but the film’s final segment, Whispers, is definitely my favorite, and the most insane and fast-paced of them all. It barely has jack shit to do with the original Lovecraft story, so if you want something more true to that you should check out The Whisperer in Darkness from 2012. Whispers is the darkest segment of the bunch, going into pure horror territory in an old abandoned house and a nasty feeding ground deep inside some creepy tunnels leading to a cave. We also get some cool body horror elements here, plenty gore and creature effects. But yeah, the segments are just veeery loosely based on the original stories, where I guess the first one regarding theme and atmosphere is probably closest to the vibe of a “cosmic horror“ Lovecraft story with sea people, rejection of the Christian God and a tentacled monster, while Cool Air is the one closest to the source material. I love Lovecraft’s stories, and I’ve gotten used to the fact that most movies based on them doesn’t really manage to capture them in a solid way. That being said, I also love the more loosely-inspired ones (and even some of the parody ones), I’m not picky. I can easily see how some of the more hardcore Lovecraft fans might wrinkle their nose like someone just farted in their face when seeing this film, though, despite how much fun I personally find it.

Jeffrey Combs plays the role as H. P. Lovecraft here, and for some crazy reason the makeup makes him look like Bruce Campbell’s twin brother. A little uncanny, to be honest. The ending/climax features of course some wrap-up with Lovecraft and the monks, which is fun. While some of the segments leaves a bit to be desired story-wise, the movie makes it all worthwhile with the awesome special effects. Plus Bruce Camb – er, I mean Jeffrey Combs, of course.

Necronomicon is a bit of a mixed bag, but it’s pure 90’s fun through and through with special effects from some of the best. It’s a little hard to come by, but we got the German Wicked Vision Blu-ray release which includes both the German dub and original English language + English subtitles.

Directors: Christophe Gans, Shûsuke Kaneko, Brian Yuzna
Writers: Brent Friedman, Christophe Gans, Kazunori Itô, Brian Yuzna
Country & year: USA/1993
Actors: Jeffrey Combs, Tony Azito, Juan Fernández, Brian Yuzna, Bruce Payne, Belinda Bauer, Richard Lynch, David Warner, Signy Coleman, Don Calfa, Judith Drake
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107664/

Hiruko the Goblin (1991)

Posted on October 23, 2026October 23, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Reijiro Hieda is a young archeologist who is very interested in the supernatural. No one takes him seriously, though, and he is discredited for advocating his “wild“ theories. One day, he receives a letter from his brother-in-law, Takashi Yabe. Yabe is a high school teacher, and he and his student Reiko Tsukishima investigated a burial mound where they discovered an ancient tomb, built to seal an evil spirit (a yōkai). Reiko mysteriously disappears, and Yabe has no idea what happened to her.

Hieda travels to the town where Yabe lives so he can investigate the incident, and he meets Masao, Yabe’s son. Masao tells him that Reiko has in fact returned, and he noticed that she tried to oddly seduce one of his classmates. Soon, they find that both this classmate and several others have been murdered with a switchblade. They first suspect the creepy janitor, but when they find Reiko’s singing, disembodied head…well, then there’s no doubt who’s the culprit and that the threat is entirely supernatural!

Hiruko the Goblin, also known as Yōkai Hunter: Hiruko, is a Japanese horror film from 1991, directed by Shinya Tsukamoto. Yes, that’s the guy who made the infamous Tetsuo: The Iron Man from 1989. Hiruko the Goblin is based on a manga by Daijiro Morohoshi, called Yokai Hunter. The movie was filmed in the town of Asahi, Toyama and Toho sound stage. For some reason, the production of the film was strained because some crew members complained about having to work under “a younger director“. Seriously…the guy was 30 at the time. What the hell. I guess these guys would’ve suffered a collective aneurysm if they had to work on Backrooms. The director even got into a physical altercation with veteran cast member Hideo Murota who refused to follow his directions. The film also went over budget near the end of the production, so the requiring crew members had to finish it for free.

With just reading the title, you’ll be quick to expect something zany and totally bonkers. And it sure is! While it doesn’t have the deepest story, it really doesn’t need it. There’s a Gate to Hell that must be prevented from opening, and our protagonist and friends must prevent this from happening while being killed off by an evil spirit. The evil spirit chasing them is using people’s disembodied heads as a vessel, crawling after them on spider legs. And through the school hallways, we see some fast-moving POV shots when the creature is coming for them. Hmm…these things probably ring a few bells, don’t they? Tsukamoto was paying some obvious homages to several classic western horror films, like John Carpenter’s The Thing and Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead. You can also find some nods to Ghostbusters (their goblin-hunting devices) and Alien (that face-hugging thing). As much as the film obviously gives references and pays homage to several western horror films, it’s doing its own thing with Japanese folklore and the Shinto mythology. Hiruko aka “Leech Child“ was the deformed firstborn son of the Shinto creator deities Izanagi and Izanami, born without bones and unable to walk or stand properly.

Performances are as expected, often energetic and hyper. The guy in the leading role as Hieda (Kenji Sawada) is the same guy who played the family father in The Happiness of the Katakuris. The effects here are of course practical and even some stop motion, and the creature designs are really cool. There’s the usual blood spray now and then, plenty decapitations and some decent gore and, of course, body horror elements. We’re talking about the creator of Tetsuo: The Iron Man after all! And while this movie is nowhere near as insane as that one, it’s still a lot of fun and with that old-school charm that older movies often manage to deliver.

If you want to see a fun, goofy low-budget J-Horror film about a severed head on spider legs killing and terrorizing students, with some awesome creatures and body horror effects, then Hiruko the Goblin is a film for you to check out!

Director: Shinya Tsukamoto
Writers: Koji Tsutsumi, Shinya Tsukamoto
Original title: Yôkai hantâ: Hiruko
Country & year: Japan, 1991
Actors: Kenji Sawada, Masaki Kudou, Hideo Murota, Naoto Takenaka, Megumi Ueno
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100991/

The Pit (1981)

Posted on October 22, 2026October 22, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Jamie (Sammy Snyders) is a disturbed and socially stunned 12-year-old boy with only one friend: his teddy bear, who he has daily conversations with. When he tries to connect with other kids in the neighborhood, he only gets met with a suckerpunch or just public humiliation. He starts to show interest in girls, especially in the older psychology student Sandy (Jeannie Elias), a brunette curlyhead who gets the job of babysitting him when his parents go on a business trip. He falls madly in love with her and does creepy things such as watching her sleep, and writing “I love you“ with her lipstick on the bathroom mirror while she’s showering. Puberty is one helluva drug. And Sandy is just too young and naive to spot any red flags other than getting irritated by his creep behavior. Boys are just being boys, as they say.

Fun fact: The director, Lew Lehman, couldn’t direct the scene in the bathroom since his wife refused him to be in a same room with a naked actress. Lol. He should make a porn after this one, just out of spite.

Anyway: Jamie is also a prankster, who glues the face of the local librarian, Marg, on a page from a nude photography book. Har-har. If that sounds harmless, well, then listen to this: Jamie one night gives the woman a phone call, telling her that her niece has been kidnapped, and if she is going to be released, Marg has to strip in front of the window so he can snap some Polaroid photos of her.

And then there’s this mysterious pit out in the forest, hence the title, that only Jamie knows of. And at the bottom of the pit, which I’d guess is only three meters deep, live some small monstrous creatures who’ve escaped from the puppet storage of Charles Band. Joey calls them Tra-La-Logs and buys raw meat from the local butcher shop to feed them. Why? Who knows. Fun fact: the pit creatures were originally called Troglodytes, but were renamed after being misspelled as Tra-La-Logs. Sounds like something that Claudio Fragasso would name his beaver pet. Screenwriter Ian A. Stuart didn’t like that as it sounded silly. And if that sounds silly, regarding this film, then you’ve seen nothing yet. From here on I’d just recommend going into this strange anomaly of a film blind, because, well, just trust me.

When Jamie no longer can’t feed the Tra-La-Logs with meat, he tries to drag a cow to the pit with no success. The next option: bring people to the forest and push them into the pit. He even brings the pit an old lady in a wheelchair where the tone suddenly shifts to an absurd silly comedy where the only thing missing is the Benny Hill theme song. Yeah…

The Pit was originally meant to be a serious and realistic coming-of-age horror thriller about a preteen boy with murderous fantasies. Director Lew Lehman had other plans though, and wanted to make…god knows. Here we basically have three films: a dark psycho drama of a boy growing up to be a Ted Bundy, a silly comedy, and a standard creature feature like Critters. What could possibly go wrong? Everything. I’ve seen some wild tone-deaf horror movies, but so far, this one takes the cake. The wooden acting, the overly dramatic and sometimes goofy misplaced score doesn’t help much to take this seriously. It’s the pure definition of a Bruh what the fuck am I watching movie, plain and simple.

Director: Lew Lehman
Writer: Ian A. Stuart
Country & year: USA, 1981
Actors: Sammy Snyders, Jeannie Elias, Sonja Smits, Laura Hollingsworth, John Auten, Laura Press, Paul Grisham, Wendy Schmidt, Andrea Swartz, Edith Bedker, Lillian Graham
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086113/

The Seventh Curse (1986)

Posted on October 21, 2026October 21, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

A girl named Bachu is a member of the bloodthirsty “Worm Tribe“ in Thailand. She is about to be sacrificed to the demonic Old Ancestor, but is saved by Dr. Yuen. The evil sorcerer of the tribe gets really pissed off by this, and Yuen is given seven “Blood Curses“, which each burst through his leg periodically. When the seventh one bursts…well, then it’s game over for Yuen, no continue. Bachu manages to make an antidote for him, served from her own tit…but unfortunately this antidote will only last for a year. Yuen gets in contact with Wiseley, whose advice is to travel back to Thailand to find a cure that will rid him of all the curses. This won’t be easy, as the evil sorcerer of the Worm Tribe will do anything to stop him, with the help of strange creatures and ghoulies that you’ll only find in a wacky film like this.

The Seventh Curse is a Hong Kong action horror film from 1986, directed by Ngai Choi Lam. Yes, that guy, who later gave us more Hong Kong horror wackiness like Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991) and The Cat (1991). That these two films became his last is such a shame. He just quietly retired from the film industry without giving any explanation, so who knows what the hell happened. There could have been so much more pure comedy horror gold from this guy, but alas. Let’s just appreciate what we got, and how it’s been made more available for us western audiences during the recent years.

The Cat, which we reviewed earlier here on Horror Ghouls, was based on Ni Kuang’s Wiseley novel series. The Seventh Curse is also based on another of Ni’s series: the Dr. Yuen Series. Wiseley actually appears as a supporting character in this film, just to tie the universes together. Ni even has a brief appearance in the movie, and also serves as the film’s narrator.

Now, if I were to try and explain this movie to someone in the simplest and shortest way possible, I’d say something like this: imagine the horror elements from the Indiana Jones movies, mixed with lots of crazy Hong Kong action. Sounds fun? Well, it sure as hell is! This movie is stocked with over-the-top crazy kung fu fighting, bizarre and goofy monsters, and even some insane body horror moments and a little bit of gore.

The main characters are for the most part rather bland, but that’s okay, as everything else is so crazy that I guess we need a more grounded protagonist at least. The guy playing the evil sorcerer is almost like a goofy villain from an animated Scooby Doo episode, extremely exaggerated in his expressions and antics, but it worked in what is already such a wild movie. What did become a little bit of a pet peeve, however, was the journalist character who is eager to get the scoop of this story and come to Thailand with Dr. Yeun. She mostly came off as a little too noisy and slightly annoying. I get that she’s supposed to be intentionally intrusive but yeesh…that being said, she also had some golden moments in the movie.

Many of the things happening in this movie is so bonkers that you pretty much can’t foresee what’s going to happen most of the time. There’s just one wild and incredible scene after another. The scene featuring a giant Buddha statue our protagonist must climb while fighting kung fu monks is something you would only see in a crazy Hong Kong movie, that’s for sure. My favorite amongst it all is the little “blood ghost“, which is a nasty lil’ fetus-like bugger that’s summoned by the evil sorcerer and made from the blood of 100 children. It looks so goofy, creepy-cute and silly that every second it’s on screen is pure gold! And let’s not forget the zombie skeleton, with its glowing blue eyes! Sure, it looks like a cheap halloween-prop and the budget limitations certainly is at full display here, but it’s so cheesy and filled with charm, and even leads to a rather gory scene and its second form. Yeah, just like a video game boss it’s got a second form which is, of course, much harder to beat! Especially when it looks like something that’s been crossed with a Xenomorph.

The Seventh Curse is pretty much everything you want from a wild Hong Kong martial arts horror movie. Lots of awesome old-school practical effects (this was made in the 80’s, after all), kung fu zombies, a fetus monster, and a wild climax!

Director: Ngai Choi Lam
Writers: Jing Wong, Kai-Chi Yuen
Original title: Yuen Chun Hap yu Wai See Lee
Country & year: Hong Kong, 1986
Actors: Chow Yun-Fat, Siu-Ho Chin, Maggie Cheung, Ken Boyle, Hung Chen, Bing-Chuen Cheung, Kwok-Keung Choi, Yuen Chor, Joyce Godenzi, Shu-Yuan Hsu, Sibelle Hu
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092273/

Van Helsing (2004)

Posted on October 20, 2026October 20, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

It’s the year of 1887 and some interesting things are happening in Transylvania. Dr. Victor Frankenstein has just given life to his monster under the assistance of Igor (Kevin J. O’Connor) and…Count Dracula himself (Richard Roxburgh). What could go wrong aside from Frankenstein’s castle getting invaded by a mob of angry peasant villagers? Well, now that Frank has done his work and can go further with his shady plans, Dracula doesn’t need him anymore and kills him. Igor, that weasel, has secretly been on Dracula’s side since “he pays well“. At least he’s being honest. Igor looks like the lost little twin brother of Radu, by the way. The monster gets angry, knocks down Dracula for a second before he carries his dead “father“ and runs to the windmill. The mob throws their torches until the windmill explodes. Rest in peace Frankenstein and his monster. Dracula’s plans have just been put on the back burner, pun intended.

This opening sequence was shot in black & white as a homage to James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931) and the golden era of Universal’s monster movies. It also sets the tone perfectly for the kind of movie this is that could share the same universe as The Mummy (1999) and The Mummy Returns (2001). You either vibe with it, or you don’t.

Then we jump one year later to Paris, where monster hunter Gabriel Van Helsing, a buff Anime-style thereof, played by Hugh Jackman, is chasing a CGI video game boss of Mr. Hyde to the top of the Notre-Dame. Fun fact: the face of Mr. Hyde was modeled after a French wrestler named André René Roussimoff, also known as André the Giant. Anyway, after the boss fight with Hyde, Gabriel flees back to the Vatican City in Rome, where we learn that he works for the secret organization Knights of the Holy Order as an assassin. They simply protect mankind from unholy creatures, way before the world got blessed with Father Amorth and the Winchester bros. Gabriel’s next big mission points to the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania to team up with Princess Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale) and kill this mysterious evil Count Dracula. Good luck. Carl (David Wenham), a Friar and a weapon/gadget inventor, joins the journey.

As they approach the obscure, snowy countryside of Transylvania, we see some of the remarkable set-pieces. The old village Gabriel and Carl enter is a village where they meet Anna, that was actually built for the film, much like the Bree village in The Fellowship of the Ring. Yes, there’s lots of greenscreen in pure Hollywood fashion that later went full overkill in the MCU/DC, and seeing Frankenmonster swinging on wires like Peter Parker, is just…well, something. What makes a great balance with the digital ocean of effects are the spectacular set-designs, and even matte-paintings, even to recreate some of the look and the gothic atmosphere from the Universal classics and some of the Hammer films. Miniatures were also used, if I’m not mistaken. The world of Van Helsing and Dracula feels lived-in where you also have steampunk elements sprinkled in. I could walk around on the set of Frankenstein’s laboratory all day long, just watching the details, the cobwebs, all the rusty old equipment while being mesmerized. Dracula also has an army of Dwergers, who looks like a cross between the dwarfs from Phantasm and the Shy Guys from the Mario games.

That being said, we’re not without the slop when it comes to CGI, especially the werewolves and their “transformation“. The final boss battle with Helsing and Drac is lame and lackluster where the video game cutscenes are getting tiresome. Here I prefer the simplicity of Peter Cushing tearing down the big curtains to expose Christoper Lee to the sunlight like he did in Dracula (1958). I like the look on Dracula’s brides in their monster form, though, and Frankenmonster looks cool. The effects are, after all, made by Wētā Workshop, so there’s some decent stuff here from that department. And I almost forgot the drinking game: take a shot of Stalinskaya for each time you see a lightning bolt/spark on screen. You may need 20/40 bottles for that and already secured a new liver.

Then there’s the masquerade ball scene, which I’d guess was some of the deleted chunks of Eyes Wide Shut. And if you see the Castlevania parallels, you’re not alone. The gadget that beams up the whole ballroom building could be a reference to the rosemarys from the games. But there’s more, cuz listen to this: Right before Dracula says, “Ladies and gentlemen… I give you VAN HELSING “, you can actually hear the trumpets from Castle Dracula from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Isn’t that freaking’ c o o l. Alan Silvestri cooks the type of catchy and pompous orchestral score before it became trendy to just throw in some classic A-side songs.

Stephen Sommers had some big plans to bring Van Helsing to a lucrative franchise. The bad reviews and box-office returns suggested otherwise. The director who was once on the top of the world with the first two Mummy films and the gory sea monster-flick Deep Rising (1998) on his resume, got his film career pretty much demolished by the critical failure of Van Helsing. Bummer. Sommers made only two movies after that, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009) and the disastrous flop that was Odd Thomas (2013). However, Van Helsing became a big success on DVD, which sold copies for $65 million in the first week, more than half the revenue from theater runs, and has gained cult status over the eons. Van Helsing, despite its issues, is a pure roller coaster extravaganza with lots of energy, heart and camp, made at the last minute before Hollywood lost its funny bone and slipped into a chronic depression. They tried with the recent Masters of the Universe (thumbs up) to reignite the power of the old magic, but flopped hard at the box office. So, we can only hope for the best that the upcoming Mummy: Book of the Dead with the return of Brendan Fraser will make Epic Hollywood Adventure Horror flicks great again.

Writer and director: Stephen Sommers
Country & year: USA/Czech Republic, 2004
Actors: Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale, Richard Roxburgh, David Wenham, Shuler Hensley, Elena Anaya, Will Kemp, Kevin J. O’Connor, Alun Armstrong, Silvia Colloca, Josie Maran
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338526/

Troll Hunter (2010)

Posted on October 18, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

The film starts with the text that says:

On October 13, 2008, Filmkameratene AS (Film buddies, LLC) received an anonymous shipment consisting of two hard drives containing the filmed material. This film is a rough cut of the footage. Everything is shown in chronological order, and the images have not been manipulated. For over a year, a team of investigators has tried to determine whether this is a hoax or if the material is genuine. The conclusion was that it is genuine.

Hey, look, it’s actually real, you guys! No Blair witch bollox.

Some weird stuff is going on in the west part of Norway, such as suspicious bear killings by a mysterious lone ranger-like man named Hans. And yes, he’s a Norwegian, not a German. A group of film students follow Hans to get some real answers, and why some shady guy, who says he’s the head of the Norwegian Wildlife Board just coincidentally shows up on every kill site with the “nothing to see here, folks“ attitude (catching my breath). It’s too easy to smell the bullshite, or trollshite if you will, especially when he’s from Bergen. The film crew tries to get an interview with Hans, only to get a clear Stay away! Sure, bud. They follow him over to Sogn and Fjordane, a hotspot for trolls, and as they track him deeper into the woods after the dark has settled, they hear some unearthed noises. The next moment, Hans runs towards them in a panic and yells TROOOLL! I guess that wasn’t exactly on their bingo card.

And here’s a funny thing: If you view Sognefjord from Google Maps, it actually looks like an epic lightning strike. Thor was here, that’s for sure.

We eventually learn that Theodor Kittelsen’s classic drawings were not merely some products of imagination, and that anyone with Christian blood is safer in Oslo’s worst neighborhoods than in the forest. Muslims are safe, though, because that’s another religion. Asbjørnsen and Moe, on the other hand, (the Norwegian answer to the Brothers Grimm) do not quite align with reality, according to Hans. And now that the can of worms has been opened, and that Hans has not much to lose, he welcomes the film crew to join him as he hunts for the giant mountain troll Jotun, while exposing some secrets that would be Norway’s answer to Disclosure Day (catching my breath again).

Our Troll hunter is portrayed by Otto Jespersen, one of the most profiled, and sometimes controversial comedians of Norway. His primetime was during the ’90s and early to mid-2000s and us norse millennial gnomes will have some fond memories of the farmer Duggurd, Mr. Bean on bathsalt Friskusen and Barron Blod who got me into Black Metal. Fun, fun times. And his transition from the comedy scene to the big screen was not the easiest as he struggled to keel himself together and take the film seriously during the shooting. Most of the comedic one-liners he added was cut out, and that was maybe for the best. The mix of apathy and bitterness fits his ragged, scarfaced character way more which also makes a great paradoxical contrast to all considered with trollpiss, Tusseladder and all. This is no laughing matter, you see.

André Øvredal actually had his directorial debut in the mid ’90s with the thriller/fantasy film Future Murder, which he co-directed with his buddy Norman Lesperance. It was made as a student thesis at Brooks Institute of Photography in California, and released in 2000 with a limited DVD release of 5000 copies. It took another ten years until he made his breakthrough film, Troll Hunter, that would not only be the first mockumentary/found footage made in Norway, but also its first creature feature. And what could be more fitting than trolls? The real trolls in Norway will always be the politicians (yes, I despise them) and the Royal family, much like how the real vampires in Romania hides in the Victoria Palace in Bucharest.

The first remarkable thing here is, of course, the grim n’ gloomy Norwegian nature, which already makes a perfect backdrop. No set-pieces needed, just drive some miles, take a ferry and there you have it. And we haven’t even seen the troll yet, only the disgusting slime and other bodily fluids they leave behind. I must admit I was skeptical when seeing this back in 2010, and I really liked how the first troll was introduced and how the effects looked way more practical than CGI. The sharp sound design also adds some weight on their presence. They actually looked so convincing that there were people on the internet who asked if this was real, probably the same simpletons who still believes that The McPherson Tape is real, so…what can you say.

Most of the humor relies on folklore references, such as a scene where Hans tries to lure a troll by placing three billy goats on a bridge. We also finally have a “logic“ medical explanation of why the sunlight turns them into stones. Then there’s a scene where Hans and the crew enter an old mine, only to get trapped in a corner and exposed to gas. And yes, we’re talking about troll farts. Long, wet crusty bubbly farts. Ew. Speaking of stench, since trolls can smell Christian blood, a certain crew member has to smear their body and clothes with troll stench. The climax at the mountain where Hans’ Land Rover has been modified as something from Mad Max before the encounter with the giant troll, looks c o o l.

Troll Hunter still holds up, just like the 10 000 year-old Troll Cock (Trollpikken) outside of Egersund, and feels fresh to this day, sixteen years after its release. It’s still a unique triumph that doesn’t look like anything else coming from Norwegian cinema (if we’re gonna ignore the rather forgettable and shallow Troll films made for Netflix.) Norwegian horror films hasn’t been much to write home about during the last ten years or so, aside from very few exceptions, and the newest Kraken was a total embarrassment. Øvredal said under the press tour that he’d love to make a sequel sometime, and now that Otto Jesperen already has pushed his 70s, it’s maybe about time to gear up the Land Rover.

Writer and director: André Øvredal
Original title: Trolljegeren
Country & year: Norway, 2010
Actors: Otto Jespersen, Glenn Erland Tosterud, Johanna Mørck, Tomas Alf Larsen, Urmila Berg-Domaas, Hans Morten Hansen, Robert Stoltenberg, Knut Nærum, Eirik Bech, Inge Erik Henjesand
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1740707/