When 11 year old Juliet stubs her toe on a loose floorboard, she unwittingly sets off a series of mysterious events. A faint noise and an unusual glow seeping through the cracks capture her curiosity. But as she investigates, Juliet finds herself pulled into a chilling, otherworldly encounter.
Horror Short Sunday is here again, and this time we’re taking a look at The Littles! A fun little horror short mixing live action with stop motion animation.
Director: Andrew Duplessie Writer: Andrew Duplessie Country & year: USA, 2025 Actors: Violet McGraw, Janel Parrish, Dominic Sherwood IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt37432997/
Billy Hughes is a special effects make-up artist who finds herself in Moscow after saying yes to work on a low-budget slasher film directed by the boyfriend of her elder sister. One night, Billy finds she must return to the studio where they’re shooting the film in order to get something for the next day’s shoot, and ends up getting herself locked inside. Oops. No problem, though, as she phones her elder sister Karen for help. Billy is a mute, by the way, but she’s communicating via morse code through the phone, and her sister is used to her ways of communication so she’ll easily figure it out. Unfortunately for Billy, something really, really shady is going at that studio…she gets interrupted and not able to complete her message through the phone, as she discovers that a small part of their film crew is inside and seemingly shooting some porn flick. Oh well…many folks have gotta do some side hustles every now and then, right? No biggie. Billy hides and watches, and ends up witnessing the actress suddenly getting stabbed to death. Looks like Billy just walked in on the filming of a snuff video. She manages to flee even though she was noticed by the director, some shady dude called Lyosha.
Billy, in shock over what she just witnessed, and with Karen’s help, she tries to convince the police that a murder just happened. The problem is: there’s no body, and the guy Billy saw stabbing the actress demonstrates to the police how a fake retracting knife streaming blood was used to create some elaborate special effects. Billy’s not a fool, though, she knows exactly what she witnessed. And even if no one believes her, at least not yet, she’s knows that she in danger for having seen something she wasn’t supposed to see…
Mute Witness is a horror thriller from 1995 that was written, directed and produced by Anthony Waller in his feature film debut. It’s a British-German-Russian co-production, and it premiered at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. It received pretty good reviews from the critics, and was also nominated for Best Horror Film and Best Actress at the 22nd Saturn Awards. It was shot on-location in Moscow, because Anthony Waller wanted to do it in Russia due to cheaper sets and labor. Well, well…that probably didn’t go as smoothly as he first thought it would. Filming was delayed several times, and the first delay was because of a diphtheria outbreak in Moscow (a serious, contagious bacterial infection). And then the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis happened, where President Boris Yeltsin and the Russian parliament had a violent political standoff. Result: street fights and mayhem causing 147 killed and 437 wounded. Then, they had to pay off some customs official who had taken possession of their production gear, and to top it all Waller claimed that they also had to pay off some crime syndicates and corrupt officials, aka Russian mobsters, so the filming wouldn’t get any problems. Oh, the irony…
Marina Zudina, who plays the role of Billy, wasn’t the one who originally got cast for the role. Gina Bellman was the one who was first cast to play the lead role, but she dropped out due to illness and Marina was then brought into it all on a very short notice. Marina couldn’t speak English and Waller couldn’t speak Russian, so he had to direct through an interpreter, and I’m sure this wasn’t the easiest task. Still, Marina’s performance is strong and pretty much carries a lot of the film.
This is essentially a cat ‘n mouse thriller where we have a protagonist that must escape reckless mobsters while being in a foreign country and more isolated than most. Billy being mute does of course give her some challenges when she needs to communicate her worries and needs, which is very much the movie’s strength when it comes to added suspense in a situation like this. Sometimes she is communicating through a text-to-speech device (which sounds almost exactly like the voices you hear in the indie pixel horror game Faith: The Unholy Trinity).
The grimy and cheap locations also heightens the atmosphere of the movie, and there’s no doubt that Waller got what he wanted budget-wise. The locations were definitely on the cheaper end, but hey – the surely fit the movie’s premise!
Mute Witness is a ride filled with tension and suspense, some dashes of dark humour and a very strong performance by the lead actress. Overall a fun cat ‘n mouse thriller!
Writer and director: Anthony Waller Country & year: UK/Russia/Germany, 1995 Actors: Marina Zudina, Fay Ripley, Evan Richards, Oleg Yankovskiy, Igor Volkov, Sergei Karlenkov, Alec Guinness, Aleksandr Pyatkov, Nikolai Pastukhov, Aleksandr Bureyev, Stephen Bouser IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110604/
They’re eating the dogs! They’re eating the cats! They’re even eating the ostriches!
Eight Legged Freaks is the title and that’s what you get — and it’s as silly, fun and campy as it sounds. The plot is pretty straightforward: A horde of mutated giant hopping CGI spiders attack a small mining town somewhere in Arizona. Sheriff Sam (Kari Wuhrer) and her love interest Chris (David Arquette) have to come up with a plan to save the day. Good luck. A relatively unknown Scarlett Johanson plays the sheriff’s young teenage daughter, a decade before she became a Royal Hollywood Elite.
Fun fact: The original title for the film was Arac Attack, which had to be changed due to, well, a certain current Iraq Attack in the wake of 9/11. We can all agree that Eight Legged Freaks is a way better title, a passion project by the upcoming director Ellory Elkayem from New Zealand. Too bad that his upcoming took a quick double nosedive after he made the Return of the Living Dead films Necropolis and Rave to the Grave back-to-back in 2005 that as well could be made by Uwe Boll on his worst days.
Anyway… The B-movie monster that became Eight Legged Freaks had its humble start back in 1997 with the black & white horror short Larger Than Life, which is, of course, about monster spiders. Independence Day director Roland Emmerich spat out a budget of 30 million dollars for a full-length film inspired by the short, and used his own FX company Centropolis Entertainment for the visual effects. Still, I have to say if it wasn’t for the cast and the name of Roland Emmerich attached, this could easily have been mistaken for a very late mockbuster of Arachnophobia by The Asylum. This is way more polished than what they ever could fart out though. That being said, the effects here are far from amazing, as this is meant to be a silly lighthearted comedy-homage to schlocky monster movies of the 1950s. And like a lightning in a bottle, it succeeds in every way.
There are a lot of highlights here, but one that sticks out is a scene where a poor cat gets attacked by one of the many big spiders, dragged behind a wall, and well, how should I describe it…I can’t. It’s something straight out of Tom & Jerry, and it’s okay to laugh, folks. Ostriches get killed in a way that looks like a regular day in Peru, or like any poor bastard who’d get traumatized for life after this beautiful sight in the basement, or in Australia where huntsman spiders eats possums for dinner. Brrr! We have some wild motorcycle stunts and a fuel truck gets attacked by a handful of spiders which end up in an epic explosion. Budget well spent. And yeah, the spiders also punches people with cartoon punch sound effect. Because, of course.
There’s also a nod to Dawn of the Dead where all the townsfolk go to hide in a shopping mall which quickly escalates to crazy action which most notably includes a scene where a dude in a Jason mask is slashing through the spiders with a chainsaw. The older Marvel fans will probably go nuts when ScarJo gets attacked and webbed against the wall after a spider crawls into her bedroom. The actors play their roles seriously, maybe except David Arquette, who knows exactly what kind of a film this is. It was also him that came up with the title Eight Legged Freaks after the Arac Attack had to be canceled. As a first time watch in the year of 2026 it’s also a bittersweet nostalgic reminder for us older millennials when Hollywood blockbusters once in a time knew how to have fun with no agenda and bullshit.
Director: Ellory Elkayem Writers: Ellory Elkayem, Randy Kornfield, Jesse Alexander Country & year: USA, 2002 Actors: David Arquette, Kari Wuhrer, Scott Terra, Scarlett Johansson, Doug E. Doug, Rick Overton, Leon Rippy, Matt Czuchry, Jay Arlen Jones, Eileen Ryan, Riley Smith IMDb:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0271367/
A young woman battles against a series of giant spiders, spawned by toxic waste, in her new suburban home.
It is Horror Short Sunday again, and this time we’re taking a look at Larger Than Life! A fun 50’s monster movie inspired short, and will definitely give you the willies if you have arachnophobia!
Director: Ellory Elkayem Writer: Ellory Elkayem Country & year: New Zealand, 1997 Actors: Rebecca Hobbs, Jeremy Callaghan, Patrick Wilson, Hamish Gough IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt0254516/
Jason Delgado is out fishing, when he sees some stormy clouds approaching. Time to pack up! He returns to his suburban home in Seattle, and manages to get inside just before it starts to rain. Inside are also the rest of his family: his wife Ann, their son Graham and their daughter Ruth. And last but not least, the family dog Cassidy. Things quickly get weird when the family notice that they cannot open any of their doors. Windows are also impossible to open. It’s like some kind of force from outside prevents them from getting outside. Internet is down, phones have stopped working, and when looking through their windows they see that their neighbors are in the exact same situation. Those who are inside can’t get out, and those who are outside can’t get it. And things don’t seem to get any better. Desperate, Jason tries to break the doors and windows, and even the walls (because yeah, who wouldn’t in a situation like this) but to no avail. It’s like the water from outside creates a barrier that prevents any exit.
So, what to do? Well, luckily they have electricity, food and water. For now. They start rationing it, still hoping it all gets resolved soon…hopefully. After two months, it becomes apparent that things are way, way worse than they originally expected. And one day, one of their neighbors whom they saw could not get inside her home suddenly arrives outside their window, yelling that there’s no one left now, before she’s suddenly attacked by some kind of creature…
The Last House is a sci-fi horror film written by Matthew Robinson and directed by Loius Leterrier, and it was released on Netflix earlier this month. It was first announced in 2025 with the title 11817, and principal photography started in 2025 where the filming mostly occurred in England and Shepperton studios.
The premise here is rather simple: a family must survive locked inside their own house for who knows how long, while there is some sort of mysterious force at play. And we do actually get a little spoiler at the very start of the movie regarding where the threat actually comes from, we just don’t know exactly what it is. Regardless, what I found the most interesting part of this movie is how the family found ways to actually band together and use their brains and wit to survive with whatever means they have at hand, MacGuyver-style. Of course, this is a very average middle class family who may not have everything they want but absolutely everything they need, and their only real problems seem to be some financial struggles and a house which needs more fixing than they can afford. They do have pretty healthy family relations, however, and to be honest, I actually found this a little refreshing after so goddamn many movies about broken and trauma-ridden family relations. Now, don’t get me wrong – I don’t mind those themes, as very often they do fit like hand in glove when it comes to many horror narratives. It’s just a little refreshing to see a story about a more well-balanced family sometimes.
As time moves forward, the family do get put into some difficult situations which requires harsh decisions, especially one rather heartbreaking scene. Yeah, yeah…you could kinda see it coming from a mile away, but still. Now, had this been a much darker horror movie it could have gone considerably farther with these things, but it never really tried to be shocking in any way. In fact, there are even small parts of it where their situation is almost glamorized a little, where they bond even further as a family and have their regular funtime together with the only two DVD’s they own (Annie and Air Force One). Day after day, week after week, month after month…it kinda reminded me of the message in The Amazing Digital Circus: “there is meaning to be found in a stagnant life“. The Last House is not a “livin’ happily ever after“ in such a state, though, as there is a threatening force out there. What it is? Well, with the start of the movie it isn’t really any spoiler to mention that the story does take some Lovecraftian turns.
Surely enough, The Last House doesn’t really explain everything in detail when it reaches its climax, and if you search for too much logic you can easily rip it to pieces. Overall, though, we found it a very entertaining sci-fi thriller which goes well along with some popcorn on a lazy evening!
Oh, and here’s a fun tidbit: this movie does have a fair share of animal actors (yes, not CGI animals!) and the IMDb page has them listed with their names, with Dave Melmoth listed as the animal handler.
Director: Louis Leterrier Writer: Matthew Robinson Country & year: UK/France/USA, 2026 Actors: Greta Lee, Wagner Moura, Riley Chung,Noah Alexander Sosnowski, Emma Ho, Gabriel Barbosa, Arden Cho, Audrey Anderson, Sid Edwards, Eveline Reynolds-Boison, Cassidy Remi, Wicket, General, Bonnie, Layla, George, Ralph, Lady, Lilo, Moose, Annie IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32268156/
Gemma is a young girl who lives with her mother, Ingrid, who appears to be very mentally unwell. As if the little girl wasn’t traumatized enough by living together with an unstable mother, Gemma one day witnesses her commit suicide in the bathroom while asking her to watch. A supernatural force then shuts the door right in front of her face. And yes, we know some demonic shit was at play here, and if you’ve seen the previous films it isn’t hard to already get the puzzle pieces to fit.
We fast forward to many years later, where Gemma is now a dentist, is raising her daughter Maya in her childhood home (yes, really) and is dating a police officer. All seems…rather good? Except for the old creepy-looking weirdos that appears outside on the sidewalk. Who are they? Did they just move to the neighborhood? Well, we’ll find out. Gemma, on the other hand, gets to encounter these old creeps during her astral projection, where she is haunted by visions that includes her mother’s suicide. It appears that something demonic is out for both Gemma and her daughter, who wants to use her in order to get brought back from the Further and into the world of the living. Only Elise Rainer can help her…who is now part of the Further too.
Insidious: Out of the Further is the sixth installment in the Insidious franchise, and I’d say it’s a step up from the previous one. The fitting music score was once again composed by Joseph Bishara, who also composed the score for all the previous films in the series, and we get to see both some new and some familiar faces from the earlier films.
While the first movie was indeed a very good supernatural horror film where a lot of the story was shrouded in mystery since we didn’t know much about what was happening to the family, it goes without saying that a sixth film would have to play its cards very differently. After five films we are now well familiar with the Further, how the demons/ghosts/entities wants to come back to our world, and how astral projection is what makes traveling there possible as a living human being. There’s not much of a mystery anymore, so what is the most interesting thing in this franchise now, of course, is the realms of “the Further“. The place where the dead things live and where many evil people have mutated into horrific demon-looking monsters. The premise here is that the demons want out, and the Further then becomes merged with the real world…and while I personally didn’t think this movie really went as far as it could with this, there is plenty of atmospheric and fun scenes where Gemma gets to explore the world of the dead and its inhabitants.
And yeah…as you’ve probably already guessed, this is yet another ride on the trauma train, as generational trauma plays a major factor in the plot here. Our protagonist, Gemma, is doing her best despite her troubled past, and is naturally terrified of becoming just like her mother. She’s actually doing a great job, even deciding to keep her childhood home in order to create the home she never had and not let the past overtake her in any way. As they say, you cannot run or hide from your trauma, so the only option you really have is to face it and not let it overtake your life. That is, of course, easier said than done…and especially when all the supernatural shenanigans starts hitting her full force and she quickly begins struggling with keeping herself cool and controlled. In real life you can’t blame ghosts if you lose your shit (although I’m fairly certain some people actually try to do that, after all we already have an infamous case of someone blaming the devil). Here, though, our protagonist has good reason to being close to losing her mind, but fortunately there’s help to get from the other side. Lin Shaye reprises her role as Elise Rainer, who is of course trapped in the Further since she’s been dead for a while. Aside from all the nasty ghoulies there, she’s a rare friendly presence.
Insidious: Out of the Further is pretty much exactly what you expect it to be, nothing more and nothing less. There are some really good atmospheric scenes, a fitting and strong sound design, and some solid new entities as well as a revisit with some old and familiar faces. It definitely plays the franchise’s old tricks over and over, but overall it’s a nice supernatural horror film where they definitely have lots more to explore if they want to take a further dive into the Further.
Director: Jacob Chase Writers: Jacob Chase, David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick Country & year: Australia/USA, 2026 Actors: Amelia Eve, Island Austin, Lin Shaye, Sam Spruell, Brandon Perea, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, Joseph Lopez, Robina Beard, Susan Gray, Laura Gordon, Charli Penton IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32393988/
After hearing of his estranged father’s mysterious passing, an anxious young man attends the funeral seeking answers. As he searches for the truth, he must face a troubling secret from his past.
Horror Short Sunday is here again, and this time we’re taking a look at Good Boy! A dark and disturbing story…
Director: Aidan Weaver Writer: William Christopher Stephens, Aidan Weaver Country & year: US, 2025 Actors: Spencer Harrison Levin, Regen Wilson, Ginger Britt Daniels, Trevor James, Samuel Whitehill IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt31022171/
Dad Bill (George Kennedy) and daughter Julie are having a wholesome time in a forest summer house playing board games. Suddenly, they hear some growling outside the front door before a hideous-looking Bigfoot creature storms in and kills Julie. The monster drags her body outside, only with some few lousy scratch marks on her face, while Bill lies knocked out on the floor.
Then we get introduced to our group of teens, played by actors in their mid-twenties, who’s about to spend some summer party time in the house we saw earlier. Bill suddenly shows up with a rifle to warn those damn kids that this place is dangerous! They, of course, don’t believe him, because why should they. But Bill is no bullshitter and sets the record straight as he says:
― There’s a thousand stories about this place… ghosts, and UFO’s, and monsters, and Bigfoot, you name it! They’re all bullshit. I know what’s real. What’s real is what happened to me and Julie, and nobody’s going to tell me any different. Now, if you’ve got any brains between the two of you, you’ll get in that truck and get the hell out of here right now. This place is dangerous!
Oki-doki-mister. Anyway… the first night sets in, we have a cheesy soft-core sex scene, one of the girls is taking a shower, and surprise, surprise: Bigfoot comes in, wreaks some havoc, and kills one of them before he leaves. Next morning the rest of the group head out to the woods to find the main road. Good luck and don’t take any pissing breaks. As schlocky as the film is, I have to give some props to the monster design, made by John Carl Buechler, that is moons apart from the Mick Jagger Bigfoot from Night of the Demon (1980).
But then we also have some side-plots with two young women, Betsy and Tara, who eventually get topless, and a… birdwatcher, only to have some more bodycounts. Fun trivia: One of the topless women, Tara, is Georges Kennedy’s daughter, Shannon Kennedy, who was cast because he wouldn’t be in the film unless his daughter got a small role, and this is the only role she ever played. Better than nothing, as we say. And then zombies, of all things, start to show up. Just what you expected, right? So, where does this thing actually go, you may ask? Oh, it certainly goes somewhere, that I can say for sure, haha…
Look, here’s the thing: the best way to watch Demonwarp is to know little to nothing beforehand. Because as the film progressed, we went into the film’s page on IMDb, scrolled through some of the screenshots, just to be sure if we actually saw the right movie. And, well, haha, we did. The majority of the film is a standard, micro budget almost Z-level monster schlock where the Bigfoot monster is chasing boobs in the local woods, whereas the last thirty minutes is where I’d guess that a drunk and delirious Lucio Fulci came to the set and finished the film. Crazy, retarded fun stuff to watch with pizza and Jack Daniel’s.
Director: Emmett Alston Writers: John Carl Buechler, Jim Bertges, Bruce Akiyama Country & year: USA, 1988 Actors: George Kennedy, David Michael O’Neill, Pamela Gilbert, Billy Jayne, Hank Stratton, Colleen McDermott, Michelle Bauer, Shannon Kennedy Sullivan, John Durbin, Jill Marin IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094998/
Brian Kessler (David Duchovny) is a journalist who’s got himself invested in the stories about serial killers. He’s also gotten an offer for a book deal, so he and his avant-garde photographer girlfriend Carrie Laughlin (Michelle Forbes) decide to relocate to California in order to pursue their careers. During their road-trip Brian can visit the former homes and murder sites of serial killers, while Carrie snaps some photos. Sounds like a great time! There’s a problem, though…money’s kinda tight. Brian decides to post a ride-share ad on the university campus in the hopes of splitting the costs with some people going the same way. Oh, boy…sometimes you just know a plan is horrible before it’s even set in motion.
So, meanwhile, we head over to the psychopathic and sleazy Early Grayce (Brad Pitt) who’s on parolee and has just lost his job. He lives in a trailerpark together with his gullible and mentally damaged girlfriend Adele Corners (Juliette Lewis). Quite a pair, these two…and they are of course the ones who wants to hitch a ride with Brian and Carrie over to sunny California, after Early sees the ad. Before they leave the trailer park, he murders the landlord and sets the trailer ablaze, so there’s no mystery about what kind of guy Early is. The only question is how many red flags Brian and Carrie will ignore before their inner alarms start blaring. Sure enough, Carrie becomes cautious almost immediately, but Brian encourages her to give them a chance, they’re probably nice when you get to know them…hehe, right. Well, Adele certainly is “nice“ but also such a wreck that you can barely count on her for anything, and often behaves more like a child than an adult…which gives us some really awkward scenes that are borderline funny and slightly disturbing at the same time. I have to give huge props to Juliette Lewis for this role, she plays this character masterfully.
Now, as their road trip continues on, let’s just say that Carrie isn’t exactly surprised when she finds out that Early beats Adele and keeps her under strict control over what he’s allowing her to do or not (like not wanting her to drink but frequently getting shitfaced himself). There’s sooo many red flags continually popping up, but never one big enough to make Brian listen to Carrie’s worries. Funny thing is, that while Brian is working on a book about serial killers, one is riding along with him in the passenger seat…
Kalifornia is a psychological thriller from 1993, written by Stephen Levy and Tim Metcalfe, and directed by Dominic Sena in his feature film directorial debut. It was filmed in Georgia and rural inland California, during the spring on 1992. It got kinda mixed reviews, and bombed hard at the box office, grossing only $2.4 million against its $9 million budget. Owie. It did get nominated for three Saturn Awards in 1994, which included Best Horror Film, but it appears people had some difficulty placing it. Some thought of it as nothing more than a violent exploitation film (it’s not), and others thought it was too much style over substance. It did receive a full 4-star rating by Roger Ebert back in the day though, so while it’s nowhere near as brutal and depraved as some people back then found it to be, it’s still an entertaining road trip thriller.
There’s no doubt that much of the movie’s entertainment relies heavily on the performances. While Brian (David Duchovny) and Carrie (Michelle Forbes) have more subdued performances since they’re the “normal“ people, the unhinged and wacky roles of Early and Adele is what makes their juxtaposition so amusing to watch. Brad Pitt, who plays the violent and distasteful serial killer Early, had at the time been seeking out a role that differed from his “pretty boy“ image. I guess you can say he really hit the nail with this one, then…he comes off as such a dirtbag. And when it comes to Adele played by Juliette Lewis…I honestly can’t imagine anyone else playing that role to such perfection.
While the movie doesn’t really give us any mystery as we learn early on exactly what Early is, there’s always that underlying tension of where the story proceeds to next. And yeah, it’s always a little eye-rolling how a dude writing a book about serial killers are so fucking blind to everything Early says and does that should send his inner alarm blaring like a siren. Then again…it’s easy to sit and nitpick about such things when you watch a movie where you already know something’s wrong. How many times haven’t people in real life been close to all kinds of danger, but refused to consider warning signs because they don’t want to come off as prejudiced and mean?
Overall, Kalifornia is an entertaining road trip thriller, where all performances are pretty good, especially Juliette Lewis as the childlike and incredibly naive girlfriend.
Director: Dominic Sena Writers: Stephen Levy, Tim Metcalfe Country & year: USA, 1993 Actors: Brad Pitt, David Duchovny, Juliette Lewis, Michelle Forbes, Kathy Larson, David Milford, John Zarchen, David Rose IMDb:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107302/
An innocent child’s drawings mask a sinister reality when her secret online friend convinces her to play a deadly game that turns her home into something unimaginable.
It is Horror Short Sunday again, and this time we’re taking a look at How I Met My New Best Friend! A narrative shown by a child’s drawings, with a sinister conclusion..
Director: Nicholas Jandora Writer: Nicholas Jandora Country & year: US, 2025 Actors: Olivia Gadieva, Marion Jandora, Thomas VanDamme IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt38630810/
