HorrorGhouls – Horror Ghouls

The Cat (1991)

Posted on October 21, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Li Tung is sleep deprived and near a mental breakdown from the constant noise his neighbor is making, hammering all night. He decides that enough is enough, time to deal with this noisy neighbor! He confronts the man, and when getting a little peek into his neighbor’s apartment, Li Tung notices that there’s a beautiful young woman inside, holding a fluffy black cat. Aww. The next day, Li Tung witnesses his neighbors departing in a moving van. Well, at least now he can get some peace and quiet at night.

Curious, he decides to enter the ex-neighbor’s empty apartment, only to notice it’s…not so empty, after all. There’s a pile of newspaper on the floor…bloodied. Underneath he discovers what appears to be human guts, and he freaks out and calls the police. Plot twist: the police deducts that they were not from a human, but fresh cat intestines. And then they laugh at silly Li Tung for the false alarm. Uhm…encountering a pile of cat intestines in an apartment is a laughing matter…? What the actual fuck.

Li Tung is then having dinner with police inspector Wang Chieh-Mei, the adventure novelist Wisely, and his partner Pai So. Wisely is convinced that the girl and her black fluffy cat are aliens. And who are they, exactly? Wisely has no proper clue (yet) but we learn that the girl and the cat who is called The General are indeed aliens, and the man with them is Errol, the girl’s protective knight. They need to obtain some octagonal artifacts which will help them defeat “The Star Killer“, which is a large, fungus-blob monster with some kind of electricity superpower. The problem is: these octagons are in museums, so they need to steal them…and The Star Killer tries to hunt them down while killing everything that stands in its way in the most gruesome ways possible, zombiefying them in the process and taking control over their bodies, making them its minions. Wisley might be the only one who can help the aliens…

The Cat (衛斯理之老貓 Wèisīlǐ Zhī Lǎomāo, lit. “Wisely’s Old Cat“), aka The 1000 Years Cat, is a Hong Kong science-fiction action horror film from 1992. It was directed by Lam Ngai Kai (known for Riki-Oh: Story of Ricky which we have yet to see but looks just as bonkers as this one), and based on a novel called Old Cat which is an installment in the Wisely series by Ni Kuang, which consists of sci-fi adventure novels with the character Wisely as the protagonist. Ni Kuang actually has a cameo in this film, as a dog owner named Mr. Chen.

If you want some crazy Hong Kong sci-fi action horror, then look no further. The Cat delivers and more than lived up to our expectations! An extraterrestrial feline with kung-fu powers that aids a pretty alien girl in battling a cosmic blob monster that turns its victims into controlled zombies? Yeah, you already know you’re in for a ride! Whenever the fluffy black cat is on screen, you know there will be some pure goodness to witness. It’s either something totally cheesy (like the scene where the girl and the cat are “playing around“ by levitating around in the street), something cute like the cat snuggling the actress, or there’s some wild creature feature effects mostly followed by even wilder gore scenes. The cute and the macabre in such a balanced unison!

As the story progresses, and Wisley teams up with the aliens, The Star Killer manages to control even more bodies. One of The Star Killer’s controlled bodies is that of the cop Wang, who turns on a full Terminator-mode and gets himself a load of guns and blasts the hell out of everything. As if this wasn’t wild enough we also get a scene at the end of the movie with some of the craziest giant blob monster effects, where our protagonists are on the rooftop to fight it off.

If you’re still not sold in on this movie, then at least watch it for the most legendary fight scene in all of movie history. Yes, I’m talking about the Cat vs. Dog fight. I’m even struggling with how in the hell I could possibly describe this scene and make you realize just how intensely insane it actually is, but no…you just gotta see it for yourself. And it was just as hard to pull off this fight scene as it looks…it took a whole six months to complete it, with seven trained cats. The special effects director who was originally hired to create these scenes was fired after just three days due to animal endangerment, and instead they got Japanese effects artist Shinji Higuchi onboard.

The Cat is a wild ride with so many insane and crazy elements that the day after watching it you may find yourself wondering if you just dreamt up the entire thing. It’s really that bizarre. From the one crazy scene to the other, with puppetry, inspired practical effects, absurd fight scenes and overall cozy tone that adds to the already bizarre vibe, this movie is sure to stick with you as one of the weirdest things you’ve witnessed.

The Cat is available on 2K restored blu-ray from 88 Films.

Director: Ngai Choi Lam
Writers: Gordon Chan, Hing-Ka Chan, Kuang Ni
Original title: Lo mau
Country & year: Hong Kong, Japan, 1991
Actors: Gloria Yip, Waise Lee, Christine Ng, Yee Cheng, Yuk-San Cheung, Liang Chiang, Lam Chua and a big solid black fluffy cat
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105796/

Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell (2012)

Posted on October 20, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell is the one and only Japanese Evil Dead, also known as “The Lost Evil Dead remake“, and one of those films you’ve never seen. Well, thanks to Tubi, the only horror streaming service you need, we randomly came over this hidden relic earlier this year, and had no idea what to expect — other than some bizarre J-horror insanity, especially with a nutty title like this.

The best way to explain this short and simple, is as if a manic fifteen-year old got his religious calling card after watching Evil Dead, grabbed the parent’s 8mm and made his own magnum opus on pure impulse with his friends in the backyard. In other words: ultra-cheap, very primitive and Z-grade schlocky yet filled with crazy energy and dedicated, stubborn non-stop passion. And when it’s also from Planet Japan, you know you’re in for something extra and special. The film is written, produced, directed and edited by Shinichi Fukazawa, who of course, plays the bodybuilder from hell. He’s also behind the effects and make-ups. And this is, as we speak, the only film he’s directed.

We meet the young hunky bodybuilder Shinji, not Ashu, (played by the director himself) and his ex-girlfriend and paranormal journalist Mika. Since Shinji is without a job and has nothing better to do than pump iron, he tags along with Mika to investigate a local haunted house. They also bring a psychic priest. But this is not just some random house though; it’s the house of Shinji’s dad, who once lived there with a mysterious girlfriend. Aside from the trippy horrorshow that’s around the corner, we also have a lot of dark secrets and lore to be revealed during the one-hour runtime. The film was shot in Shinichi Fukazawa’s parents’ house, and since it was planned to be demolished, the young director got a whole free set on a silver platter to go wild and fire on all cylinders. And so he does.

The fun begins after the first dull twenty minutes. It all starts when the priest gets demon-possessed and trapped inside the house with our two protagonists. What we have next is more or less what the alternative title is: The Japanese Evil Dead, with some flair of Resident Evil, and even some well-known elements from The Grudge before The Grudge — and an extravaganza of splatter effects of various sorts with everything from cheap rubber limbs, eyes popping out, neck-biting, ball-grabbing, head-crushing with a barbell and even more trippy stop-motion effects. And gallons of blood. All done in the most naive old-school way possible. And yeah, there’s no Evil Dead without a golden shotgun, waiting to be used with the catchphrase See you in Hell… Baby! No sugar for the bodybuilder.

The production of Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell began in 1995 and making the film took 16 days. I’m kidding, it actually took him 16 years! Most of which I guess has to be editing stuff with some hardcore OCD involved, because, seriously. Body Builder in Hell got its first official release in Japan in 2012 when Shinichi Fukazawa self-distributed the film on a 100 limited DVD-R, in pure underground-style, before it was shown in theaters, only in Japan, of course. It was released on Blu-ray from Visual Vengeance in 2022. But if you expect some image restoration for your big 4K screen, you’d be disappointed. It’s necro like a death metal cassette tape from 1989, and that’s also the point, I guess. On the other hand, you get a c o o l poster. And owning a physical copy of this rare little gem is cool in itself.

Writer and director: Shinichi Fukazawa
Also known as: The Japanese Evil Dead
Country & year: Japan, 2012
Actors: Shinichi Fukazawa, Masaaki Kai, Masahiro Kai, Aki Tama Mai, Asako Nosaka
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6403680/

The Company of Wolves (1984)

Posted on October 19, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

If there is a beast inside every man, he meets his match in the beast inside of every woman.

Rosaleen is a young girl who, in her bed wearing her big sister’s makeup (used without permission, of course) dreams that she lives in an 18th century fairytale world. There, her sister Alice is killed, and while her parents are struggling with their grief, Rosaleen is sent to stay with her grandmother (played by Angela Lansbury). She kits a red shawl for her granddaughter, and tells her a tale in order to warn her to never stray from the path and never trust a man with eyebrows that meet. Can’t have been fun to have a unibrow in that village…oh, and if you haven’t taken the hint already: this is of course a Little Red Riding Hood inspired story. Rosaleen returns to her little village, where one of the boys is constantly trying to get her interest. The village’s cattle have also been attacked by what appears to be a wolf, and the village men set out to hunt it down. They manage to kill it, but right before their eyes the wolf’s corpse transforms into a man. Later, when Rosaleen is going to visit her Grandmother, she encounters a handsome huntsman in the forest…one with eyebrows that meet…

The Company of Wolves is a Gothic fantasy horror film from 1984, directed by Neil Jordan with screenplay by Jordan and Angela Carter, adapted from her short story of the same name from 1979, which had earlier been adapted into a radio dramatization in 1980. It was filmed in Shepperton Studios in England.

Already from the start you know that you’re not in for an ordinary story here. The movie is told in a narrative that consists of one main story, with embedded tales that ties in with the overall plot of the film, which is a coming of age story where female sexuality is the dominant theme, presenting it in an adult Little Red Riding Hood version. The stories blend in with Lil’ Red’s life, or Rosaleen as she’s called here, except granny’s warnings seem to evoke more curiosity in her than scaring her. She’s one of those! A female embracing her own sexuality without shaming herself and everyone else over it! Oh goodness me. Maybe it’s really the wolf who should be afraid.

The movie’s strongest asset is how it looks, as it lays it all heavily down on the dreamy visuals and slightly surreal fairytale landscape with its giant mushrooms and crooked trees. The sets are really visually enchanting, perfectly belonging in a dreamy fairytale setting. Jordan said he tried to eroticize the forest, and you won’t really have to put too much effort into seeing some obvious phallus-like symbols in all the mushrooms…

The Company of Wolves is not a gory film, but it does actually have some scenes with true body-horror werewolf transformations, and there’s also a chopped off head and a severed arm. The werewolf effects themselves are actually really good, with transformations shown in full practical glory! Ah, the 80’s. There are also a lot of wolves in the film, so the title surely fits. Most of them are not actually wolves of course, both because of the low budget but also due to cast safety. Most of them are in fact Belgian Sheperd Dogs with dyed fur. Note I said “most of them“, though…because there were indeed some real wolves here, in which Jordan was impressed over young Sarah Patterson (who plays Rosaleen) when she was acting amongst the genuine ones and didn’t fear them. I guess there really might have been a bit of Lil’ Red in her.

The Company of Wolves is a horror fairytale with very obvious erotic undertones. It’s an adult and dreamlike version of Little Red Riding Hood, playing into the obvious terms of a woman’s sexual awakening, the loss of so-called “innocence“ while embracing one’s true self.

Director: Neil Jordan
Writers: Angela Carter, Neil Jordan
Country & year: UK, 1984
Actors: Angela Lansbury, Sarah Patterson, David Warner, Graham Crowden, Brian Glover, Kathryn Pogson, Stephen Rea, Tusse Silberg, Micha Bergese, Georgia Slowe
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087075/

IN A NUTSHELL – Horror Short

Posted on October 19, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

A miniature artist is commissioned to re create a gruesome crime scene for the local police department, unknowingly opening the doors for an evil entity.

Our Halloween Marathon is running (where we update with new reviews daily during October!), but we’re still having the weekly Horror Short Sundays of course. And this time we’re taking a look at In A Nutshell. A creepy horror short where a woman gets a commission to create a “dollhouse” based on photos from the actual crime scene, only to find something strange starts happening once she paints the killer’s symbol on the miniature house walls…

Director: Ryan Valdez
Writer: Ryan Valdez
Country & year: USA, 2025
Actors: Sarah Palmer, Ivan Djurovic, Hannah Risinger, Sarah Nicklin, Zoë Kasch, Mia Kasch
Letterboxd: letterboxd.com/film/in-a-nutshell-2025/crew/

Beyond Darkness (1990)

Posted on October 18, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Beyond Darkness aka La Casa 5 is…uh, wait a minute, hold on…La Casa 5? Huh? You haven’t heard of the legendary Italian La Casa franchise? And you call yourself a horror fan?! Because who would know about this franchise that barely exists.

So, here’s La Casa explained: La Casa is the Italian title for The Evil Dead (1981) and La Casa 2 for Evil Dead II (1987). Ok, so where do we go from here, then? We make a fake clickbait sequel that capitalizes on the big success of the two previous La Casas, of course. Ah. Clever. Because if you loved Evil Dead II, you’ll surely love the dull, uninspired, boring and lazy Ghosthouse (1988) aka La Casa 3, directed by the one and only Humphrey Humbert aka Umberto Lenzi.

And already next year we have Witchery aka La Casa 4, which will have zero excuse for being boring and unfunny despite having Linda Blair and David Hasselhoff in the main roles! Then, the year after that, we have the one and only “original La Casa film“ that will be worth watching, Beyond Darkness. Because when we have a director like Clyde Anderson, aka Claudio Fragasso, you know you’ll at least get some showtime in one way or another. We can always count on our man Fragasso, even if he makes a bad movie. Capisci?

The last two, La Casa 6 and La Casa 7 are the Italian titles of House II: The Second Story (1987), and House III: The Horror Show (1989). And no, I’m not making this shit up, La Casa 6 came somehow before La Casa 5, possibly in an alternative dimension called La Planeto Bizarro. The series never made its comeback with the Paranormal Activities, weirdly enough.

Now, back to Beyond Darkness aka La Casa 5 and not aka The Conjuring, and also not to be confused with Joe D’Amato’s Beyond the Darkness aka Buio Omega aka Buried Alive aka House 6. The film starts with Father George giving the last rites to a bald Sinéad O’Connor-lookalike who’s ready to be fried in the chair after killing a bunch of children in the name of Satan. As she walks through death row, the priest sees a vision of her with the ghosts of the children she killed. She then says: Priest! I want you to witness my last orgasm. Uuhm… no comment.

Then we cut to a regular happy-go-lucky American Christian family who moves into a nice old big house. Say hello to Peter, his wife Annie and their two kids, Martin and Carole. And yep, the kid who plays Martin is the same one who made himself a living film legend after pissing on hospitality in Troll 2. Anyway, Peter is a priest, so there’s no chance in blue heaven that they have just moved into a house built on an ancient burial ground. Right? But things already seem to look ominous when Peter’s Holy Bible falls into a pile of mud. The kids discover a hole in the wall with some lightning beaming through. They also have a big black swan rocking chair in the bedroom, and not even the most competent use of light and shadow could make that thing look spooky.

The priest and his wife are about to have sex just when the evil wind from the west blows into the room and rips away all the pages from the freshly-ironed bible. The only page that’s left is an image of Baphomet. The family gets attacked one evening when they get chased by a flying meatcleaver, Evil Dead-style. A legion of ghouls n’ demons emerges in the house as Claudio Fragasso’s favorite fog machine is already working overtime. The soundtrack is overblown with some intense loud organ synth. And yeah, an old antique radio gets possessed, soon ready to be placed in a certain occult museum in Connecticut. OoO the horror! One of the demons looks like a mishmash of Darth Maul and The Lipstick Demon, by the way. Luckily, the priest’s bible has somehow fixed itself so he can chant some prayers to cast them out. Works for a short while, until the boy, Martin, gets captured and dragged to The Other Side by the ghost of the evil lady we saw in the beginning.

Now it’s time for some professional assistance from Ed and Lorraine or Father Russel Crowe.

Instead we have the priest who said the final rites to the evil lady before her execution. And his encounter with her has turned him into a traumatized alcoholic as he shambles through the streets with his moldy bible, acting like a schizophrenic lunatic and dressed like Castiel from Supernatural. Life’s tough. There’s some back and forth bullshit with some older minister at the local church before Father George puts his collar back on and pays a visit to our haunted family to give us the shocking news: This house is cursed! Huh, you don’t say. I seriously thought everything was just a Halloween role-play with all that fake fog. Mom Annie spots Martin in a mirror and…well, just like any mom would have done to save her boy, she dives into the mirror that leads her to The Other Side where she eventually finds him in a casket. She brings him back to the living just as if she went outside on the porch. No ropes needed. The bad news is; Martin is possessed. Now, let the exorcism begin.

By just looking at the cheesy n’ tasty poster and seeing the name Claudio Fragasso as director, the expectations go a certain way. But this is not at the same level as Troll 2, or Night Killer, which both were released the same year as Beyond Darkness. This is actually his most (if not only) professionally-made film, with the most professional actors he ever had the privilege to have on set. And when I say “professional“ I only mean in contrast to Fragasso’s other horror films, like the low bar it already is. Because there are a lot of hiccups here where the clownish aura and energy of Fragasso oozes all over the place like his fog machines. And with a script filled with plot holes driven by hazy, incoherent dream logic, also written by Fragasso and his recently deceased wife Rossella Drudi (RIP) it’s near to impossible, even for the most pro actor, to deliver dumb and cheesy lines without looking like a simpleton.

Then we have the obvious riffing of Poltergeist, Amityville, The Exorcist, Phantasm and The Conjuring before The Conjuring. If James Wan directed the aforementioned movie high on laughter gas from the dentist combined with some early dementia, something like Beyond Darkness would probably be the result: messy, tone-deaf, oddly entertaining, and maybe suitable enough for a goofy and mesmerizing gateway horror.

Director: Claudio Fragasso
Writers: Claudio Fragasso, Rossella Drudi
Also known as: La Casa 5
Country & year: USA/Italy, 1990
Actors: Gene LeBrock, David Brandon, Barbara Bingham, Michael Paul Stephenson, Theresa Walker, Stephen Brown, Mary Coulson
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103802/

The Whisperer in Darkness (2012)

Posted on October 17, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Albert Wilmarth is a folklore lecturer at the Miskatonic University in Arkham. Albert have been receiving letters from a man named Henry Wentworth Akeley, who lives in an isolated farmhouse in Vermont. In the letters, this man claims that he’s got proof that there are creatures surrounding his farm, and they start exchanging letters back and forth. Albert, of course, is a skeptic, and he’s about to enter a debate with Charles Fort about the strange events during some heavy rains in Vermont. Unexpectedly, Henry’s son appears with photos of the creatures as evidence, and it all ends with Albert heading out to visit the man, and is shocked to find him in a completely frail state, immobilized to his chair and preferring the darkness. Yeah…nothing suspicious going on here, not at all…

Henry starts telling Albert about the creatures, how wonderful they are and how much knowledge they have. He also tells Albert something rather disturbing…they can, apparently, extract the brain from a human and place it in a canister where it can live indefinitely. In such a state, a human could even endure the dangers of space travel. How tempting! Or maybe not. Before Albert may start suspecting all this rubbish is only the result of too much isolation (and perhaps too much moonshine), he gets to see one of these “living brains“, who tells him about the journey to Yuggoth, which is where the creatures originally reside. And they urge Albert to take the trip too…

The Whisperer in Darkness is a sci-fi horrormovie from 2011, directed and produced by Sean Branney, Andrew Leman, and David Robertson, distributed by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. It is based on the Lovecraft short story by the same name. It’s made in black & white, intended to capture the look of the classic horror films from the 30’s. And just like their previous film, The Call of Cthulhu from 2005, they’ve managed to capture the moody atmosphere tinged with an underlying unease of the terror of the unknown. Visually, it looks great, and they’ve really captured the 30’s aesthetics.

Plot-wise, the movie follows the original story quite closely until the latter part where originally, the story ends much earlier. It’s during this latter part that the tone of the film takes a kind of shift, where new material is introduced that were not part of the original Lovecraft story. Then we get what I can best describe as some kind of adventure plot, and we even have full-on CGI monster displays which I honestly didn’t expect. And yeah…at this point it ends up straying far from the moody, mysterious vibe which is all about atmosphere and fear of the unknown (which is, of course, the substance of most Lovecraft stories), and they definitely took more liberties here compared to The Call of Cthulhu. Now, I personally don’t think any of this ruins the film in any way, and most of Lovecraft’s stories are a bit hard to put into a full-feature film since the main horror elements in the stories are not really the monsters or creatures themselves, but the mystery surrounding their existence and all the things we don’t know and their implications.

A big kudos to the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society for bringing some of Lovecraft’s work to the screen while keeping so much of the original mood and atmosphere of the original stories. It’s impressive what they’ve been able to pull off with a very limited budget and mostly dedicated, talented amateurs. These movies are made with obvious love and affection for the original work, and that’s a pleasure to see.

Director: Sean Branney
Writers: Sean Branney, Andrew Leman
Country & year: USA, 2012
Actors: Stephen Blackehart, P.J. King, Zack Gold, Barry Lynch, Autumn Wendel, Annie Abrams, Daniel Kaemon, Matt Lagan, Casey Kramer, Sean Branney, Andrew Leman
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1498878/

Vampyr (1932)

Posted on October 16, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Allan Gray is a student of the occult, and we see him arriving at an inn in the village of Courtempierre, France. In his cozy rented room, he is suddenly awakened by a rambling old man entering the place, who ends up leaving a small package on the table with a wrapping paper where “To be opened upon my death“ is written on it. Gray becomes curious, takes the package, and leaves. He starts following a disembodied shadow of a peg-legged soldier, and ends up in what appears to be an abandoned factory of some kind. There, the shadow reunites with his body, while other shadows are dancing around.

Okey-dokey… I’m already a bit lost at this point.

Gray sees an old woman who seems to hold some kind of power over the shadows, and then encounters an Einstein-lookalike. He eventually follow some more shadows, and ends up at a manor where he sees that the lord of the place is the one and same man who entered his room at the inn. Hmm…curiouser and curiouser. The man gets shot by the shadow of a soldier, and Gray helps a servant to get the man back into the manor, but it’s too late to save his life. The man has two daughters: Giséle, who comes into the room and watches her father die, and the other is named Léone, and she is bedridden with some mysterious disease.

Gray is invited to stay for the night, and he enters the library of the manor where he finds a book about vampires. He and Giséle then sees Léone walking outside, and they hurry to get her back inside. When they catch up to her, they see that some old crone is bent over the young woman’s unconscious body, who flees when they come close. When they examine Léone, they notice fresh bite wounds on her body. Obviously we’re dealing with some vampire activity here…among a lot of other oddities in this surreal fever-dream.

Vampyr (German title: Vampyr – Der Traum des Allan Gray) is a gothic horror film from 1932, directed by Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer. The script for the movie was written by Dreyer and Christen Jul, and it is based on elements from Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 collection of supernatural stories called In a Glass Darkly. It was also Dreyer’s first sound film, and it was recorded in three languages. There is very little dialogue throughout the movie though, and it still uses title cards like in the silent films. It was shot entirely on location, in Courtempierre, France.

The film was a massive flop, where it received mostly negative reception after its release in Germany. Dreyer actually edited the film a bit after the premiere, and it was then released in France where it received a bit more mixed reviews, but it was still an overall huge failure: in Vienna, there were even audiences who wanted their money back and it caused such a riot that the police had to restore order with nigh sticks. Yikes. The film premiered in Copenhagen in 1933, where Dreyer didn’t attend as he had suffered a nervous breakdown and was in a mental hospital in France. This entire debacle must’ve taken quite a toll on him…fortunately it didn’t break him though, as he continued making movies until 1964, only 4 years before his death in 1968.

Despite being considered a very low point in Dreyer’s moviemaking career, Vampyr is now seen in a much more favorable light. But I’m not gonna lie: I was mostly sitting like a question mark during the majority of this movie, wondering what the actual big F is going on. Sure, there is a certain narrative going on here with a story hidden behind the veil of apparent illogicality, but it all feels mostly like a nonsensical dream. Which was of course, the point as well: the movie is supposed to have this surreal, dreamlike atmosphere, and the movie definitely nails it. Just like a dream, certain things are never really explained, they just…are. And they make sense only in a dream-logic state. Despite the nonsensical tone, Vampyr delivers a very atmospheric experience where several scenes are bringing out an eerie mood. The disembodied shadows makes for some interesting and inspired scenes, but there are also some other bizarre scenes with special effects that even gave it a little bit of whimsy. I also really liked how the film’s vampire differs so much from the classic “romantic“ vision: here, she’s a haggard old woman who resides only in the coffin she was buried in, no fancy castle for her or anything like that. What the old crone does have, however, is some kind of Renfield-ish accomplice who does get his comeuppance later on in what looks like a scene that must’ve been rather uncomfortable to shoot…

Vampyr is a surreal, weird and dreamlike experience, utilizing some clever camera work, combining light and darkness in a way that heightens the haunting atmosphere. The vampire aspects, despite being the “main story“ here, are a little bit in the background for a lot of the time as there’s so much absurdities going on here. A weird film indeed, and what can probably be considered an early arthouse film.

Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer
Writers: Christen Jul, Carl Theodor Dreyer
Country & year: Germany/France, 1932
Actors: Julian West, Maurice Schutz, Rena Mandel, Sybille Schmitz, Jan Hieronimko, Henriette Gérard, Albert Bras, N. Babanini, Jane Mora
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023649/

Paganini Horror (1988)

Posted on October 15, 2025October 15, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

The year was somewhere in the late 1980s where the exciting news had spread in Italy that none other than Klaus Kinski was writing, directing and playing the main role in an upcoming biopic of the legendary violinist Niccolò Paganini. Since Klaus Kinski was still a crowd magnet, director Luigi Cozzi, expected Kinski’s film to be such a hit that a horror film based on Paganini could piggyback on its success. Instead, we have a nonsensical and laughable shiny turd of an amateur hour spectacle that could easily have been sharted out by Claudio Fragasso in a short week. Not that Kinski Paganini was a much better film, but that’s a whole other story, in a different genre.

Paganini Horror starts in the city of Venice with a girl who plays her violin through “The Witches Dance“ from a rare sheet of paper. These notes are of course cursed that makes the girl become possessed, then goes into the bathroom where her mother is taking a bath to drop a hair dryer in her water. FZZZZZZT, FZZZZZZT, added with some old-school cheesy hand-drawn electric effects.

Then we jump to our group of protagonists, an all-female rock n’ roll band (except for the drummer) who’s in the studio and recording. And no, the singer is not Peter Burns. The producer isn’t much impressed as she calls it the same old stuff and nothing original. She wants them to make something mind-blowing and sensational. Well, we’re still in the good ole’ 1980s, so that shouldn’t be that hard. The drummer, Daniel, then meets a mysterious man named Mr. Pinkett to exchange a black suitcase that holds the sheet of notes for… Paganini Horror! The combination of the suitcase is of course six, six…six. OoOoh… This Pinkett guy is played by Donald Pleasance where it’s hard to tell whether he’s completely buzzed-out or high as a kite.

Daniel plays the tune on a piano. The producer is finally impressed even though it fits way more in an Elton John ballad. Daniel says that the unpublished notes were written by Niccolo Paganini. Do you mean Paganini, the famous Italian violinist?, she ask like a braindead imbecile. No, Eilerti Paganini Pilarmi, who else? So let’s rock! The legend says that Paganini used these magical notes in a secret ritual while he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for fame and wealth. According to the real legend, Paganini did sell his soul to Dr. Satan but for talent and not for fame and wealth. Maybe not the best choice as he died piss-poor at age 57. Anyway, a light bulb flicks over their airheads as they believe that these tunes can bring the same success to them. The mind-numbingly bad acting as they look as excited and enthusiastic as some broken NPCs mixed with the stiff dubbing, is enough to give this extra cheese-filled spaghetti clown show a watch. And it gets better/worse.

Our girl band rents a remote castle to shoot a horror-themed music video. Meanwhile, we see this Pinkett guy throwing all the money from a tower while he’s mumbling

go, go, go, go all you little demons. Little demons. Yes, fly away, little demons, so that the real ones can take your place, so that what happened to Paganini will repeat itself this time as well. Let the price for fame be extracted by the one to whom it belongs, his majesty, Satan.

OK. So, uhm, the ghost of Paganini rises from the grave, I guess, to stalk and kill our female rockers one by one with a dagger that sticks out from the bottom of his small violin. Here he’s dressed more like a cheap cosplay version of the phantom of the opera, and is not even close to the awesome-looking ghoulish skeleton we see in the poster. There’s full-on nonsensical dream logic from here on where people randomly fall through green neon-lighted sinkholes, and…well, as we say in showbiz: The show must go on. Don’t have a script, you say? Then improvise! What follows is more retarded acting, cheap effects, cheaper costumes, baffling dialogue delivery and so on. You know the drill..

But to be fair though, the director Luigi Cozzi is not all to blame here. Cozzi was in constant fights with producer Fabrizio De Angelis, who always demanded Cozzi to cut as many gory scenes from the script as possible. Which is pretty odd considering that Fabrizio was also producer on the goriest films of Lucio Fulci throughout the 1980s. It sounded more like pure sabotage when Cozzi got this demand just a few days before the shooting started. He also planned an eight-minute long sequence with scenes of planets, galaxies and parallel dimensions that were supposed to give the movie a stronger “science fiction touch“. Paganini in space? Yeah, why not. This animated short film from Gobelins isn’t that far from the idea.

Cozzi picked the script apart until it was nothing more left to shoot, and most of the script had to be rewritten. Daria Nicolodi (the fresh ex-girlfriend of Dario Argento) then came into the picture to help him with the rewrite, and the next is Italian Trash Cinema history. Nicolodi also plays one of the main characters and she looks as brainfarted as the rest. If the original script and the overall technical aspects would be much better if hadn’t it been for the iron fist of De Angelis, we’ll never know. But if the acting was still as amateurish as in the version that got made, I hardly think so. Some fewer laughs, maybe.

Director: Luigi Cozzi
Writers: Luigi Cozzi, Daria Nicolodi, Raimondo Del Balzo
Country & year: Italy, 1988
Actors: Daria Nicolodi, Jasmine Maimone, Pascal Persiano, Maria Cristina Mastrangeli, Michel Klippstein, Pietro Genuardi, Luana Ravegnini, Roberto Giannini, Donald Pleasence
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095812/

The Antichrist (1974)

Posted on October 14, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Ippolita is a young woman who has been paraplegic since a car accident when she was 12. The accident killed her mother, and left her broken in more ways than one. The doctors have diagnosed her paralysis as purely psychosomatic due to mental trauma rather than any physical issues. She’s also gotten very reliant on her father, the wealthy Rome aristocrat Massimo, and more or less craving his attention nonstop. Her attachment issues skyrockets when she finds out that Massimo has gotten romantically involved with a woman named Greta.

Ippolita, wanting more of her own life and especially to get rid of her paralysis, eventually reaches out to her uncle who is a Vatican cardinal. He only recommends her to get in contact with a parapsychologist named Marcello Sinibaldi, who uses hypnosis on her because he believes that she’s having unconscious memories of her past lives. One of these past lives is none other than a witch (well, of course!) who entered a covenant with Satan and was burned at the stake. Ippolita is possessed by her ancestor’s spirit, and even regains her ability to walk, which she does only under a dissociated state. During this state she ends up killing a tourist after seducing him in her own witchy way. Then things only escalate, where Ippolita becomes fully possessed and lets everyone know that she’s learned a few bad words like “cock“ and “whore“. Especially cock, which seems to be her new favorite word. Ippolita is now ready to let her witchy, demonic side out in full. Mamma Mia! Time to call the exorcist!

The Antichrist (original title: L´anticristo), also being released under the title The Tempter, is a supernatural horror film from 1974, directed by Alberto De Martino and co-written with Gianfranco Clerici and Vincenzo Mannino. Yet another cash-in on the success of The Exorcist (1973), but despite all the cheese and nonsense in this film I don’t think anyone can beat The Turkish Exorcist, Seytan. Its place as number-one in the most baffling and hilarious exorcist ripoffs remains unsurpassed.

While this film is another blatant The Exorcist ripoff, it is on a completely other level than the aforementioned Seytan. The Antichrist actually harbors some qualities, especially in the visual department. Joe D’Amato worked as director of photography on this film, under his real name Aristide Massaccessi. This easily explains why the movie feels fairly competent visually, and combined with a score composed by Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai, there are actually some scenes which manage to deliver some decent atmosphere. It doesn’t take long until it stumbles between each of those, however, as the pacing is quite off at times and the special effects are mostly goofy. Ippolita’s character isn’t exactly the most sympathetic to begin with, but her change into a murderous, horny, foul-mouthed witch becomes more ludicrous than shocking. Hearing an adult woman say cock will never pack the same punch as hearing a 12-year old say your mother sucks cocks in hell.

There are some scenes that goes straight into wtf-land with some surreal fantasy-dream-nightmare visuals, and of course we get a rather lengthy Satanic orgy in Satan’s garden in Hell (or wherever it’s supposed to be). With all that talk of cock it was about time she finally got some. Despite some good things, the film is struggling with the pacing issues and some rather laughable scenes which are actually supposed to be scary. Or at least I think so. We have a disembodied flying hand that chokes a guy, a hilarious levitation scene, and so many other things which I suppose are supposed to be horror elements, but just makes you chuckle instead. It’s a totally confused mixture of witchcraft, satanism, possession, sleaze, and goofy effects. But is it still entertaining? Hell, yes!

Overall, The Antichrist is a movie that can be a fun watch if you want to see a sleaze ‘n cheese ripoff of The Exorcist. If you’re in for a challenge: take it as a double-feature with The Turkish Exorcist, Seytan!

Fun Fact: Carla Gravina, who plays the role as Ippolita, revealed that she had some trouble playing the role and would never accept anything similar ever again. After starting the shooting of the film, she said she started to feel some kind of strange disease coming on, which she described as differing between an intense cold, feeling dizzy, getting a feeling of emptiness, headaches, lack of appetite, and so on. Doctors diagnosed that it was most likely due to overwork and “curious psychic influences“…

Director: Alberto De Martino
Writers: Gianfranco Clerici, Alberto De Martino, Vincenzo Mannino
Original title: L’anticristo
Also known as: The Tempter
Country & year: Italy, 1974
Actors: Carla Gravina, Mel Ferrer, Arthur Kennedy, George Coulouris, Alida Valli, Mario Scaccia, Umberto Orsini, Anita Strindberg, Remo Girone, Ernesto Colli
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071150/

Satan’s Slaves 2: Communion (2022)

Posted on October 13, 2025October 14, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Three years have gone since the incidents in the first film. And since they lived in a reclusive yet more idyllic area by the woods, they decided it was a good idea to move into a Jakarta apartment building with neighbors up, down, left and right. Because don’t fear thy neighbor. Doesn’t sound like the dumbest idea, but when you first take a look at the place, you’d take the quickest U-turn back to the cabin in the woods and just tell demons to fuck off and touch some grass. Because I’m telling you, when you have a place like this that makes the building in Evil Dead Rise look like a five-star hotel, it’s better to just live in a tent or just under a bridge. Woof.

The place and setting also vaguely reminds me of a Hong Kong horror film called Rigor Mortis (2013). It’s one of those final destinations where you move into just to hang yourself in the tiny living room. So yeah, the setting itself plays the biggest part in Satan’s Slaves 2: Communion. So if you don’t fear thy neighbors, you’ll certainly fear thy place. Or in the worst case, both. Welcome to hell.

A quick trivia: the building used in the film was found by one of Joko Anwar’s followers on X. It’s located on the border of East Jakarta and Bekasi and has been abandoned since 2008. The only change is the open fields seen in the film. Here’s an exploration video of the place, done by a local YouTuber, where the images speaks much for themselves.

Despite being free from the ghosts n’ demons, life hasn’t been too kind to the struggling, near to the lower-class family Suwono. The financial safety they have left is close to be flushed down the toilet as the oldest daughter, Rini, works a dead-end job at a factory after dropping out of high school to be a surrogate mom for her two younger brothers. And where’s their dad, Bahri? He always comes home just in time for dinner, looking depressed, burnt-out and not saying much. One of the brothers adds some positivity to the conversation with his high ambitions to become a full-time gigolo when he grows up. Yay! At least, there’s no disgusting urinating on the floor here, like we saw in the first film (whatever that was about). But Rini has had enough of the situation and plans to leave for a university while she still has the chance before she turns 30. She couldn’t choose a worse day to leave as a big storm hits.

And with the storm comes something wicked… and to make matters even worse, the place gets flooded, the electricity cuts off and all the tenants are trapped in the building. So, the University has to wait. And we learn very early that an ancient burial site surrounds the place. Of course. A legion of ghosts will have a field day.

It starts subtle enough (or maybe not so) with kids almost being sucked into the chute by demonic forces, ghoulish figures that pops up to give some effective jumpscares, and we have a nice static nod to Poltergeist (1982). It gets more physical, to say the least, with an elevator scene where a group of kids dies in a heavy, brutal way. A dozen other residents also dies by the elevator crash that gets piled up in the cramped apartments, disturbing La Ilaha Illa Allah—chanting can be heard throughout the hallways, like in a certain fire temple way back in the day. The supernatural aspect is only the icing on the cake with the isolated surroundings and the sight of the fresh dead bodies lying around.

Writer and director Joko Anwar takes full advantage of the location where not a single room or hallway looks safe or welcoming. Although the old-school approach we saw in the first one is still here, Satan’s Slaves 2 has a way bleaker and nihilistic tone where the atmosphere is as heavy as the concrete environment. Communion also has its fair share of references and nods sprinkled throughout, but manages to be its own thing. And speaking of, there’s also some Stranger Things going on with a group of kids who explore the even more obscure rooms and corners of the building to find some hidden secrets as the storm rages.

We also see a glimpse of the underworld, or The Further if you will, in a very effective way, which I hope we get to see more of in a sequel. So much potential to develop a great franchise here, or at least, a trilogy.

And yes, this sequel is more connected to the first one, apart from just focusing on the same family where there’s still some dark secret to unfold (as in most families). That said, Communion is way more about the atmosphere, mood and the overall mysterious vibe than the story itself, like in the best Lucio Fulci kinda way. It’s unsettling, nightmarish and hellish. A haunted house ride, masterfully directed by Joko Anwar with sharp sound-design, superb make-up effects and just overall a morbid visual treat for all horror ghouls.

Satan’s Slaves 2: Communion became another big win for Joko Anwar and Indonesian horror as it became the highest grossing film in that country in 2022. After its limited theatrical release, it got acquired by Shudder, and as of now, there’s no physical release of the film. Thanks to the Norwegian streaming site SF Anytime, we got the access to see it.

Writer and director: Joko Anwar
Original title: Pengabdi Setan 2: Communion
Country & year: Indonesia, 2022
Actors: Tara Basro, Endy Arfian, Nasar Annuz, Bront Palarae, Ratu Felisha, Jourdy Pranata, Egy Fedly, Muzakki Ramdhan, Fatih Unru, M. Iqbal Sulaiman, Ayu Laksmi
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16915972/

Prequel: Satan’s Slaves (2017)

Original: Satan’s Slave (1982)