A grieving man hires a spiritual medium to contact his deceased girlfriend, but the session takes a dark turn when murderous cannibals hijack the spiritual possession.
Horror Short Sunday is here again, and this time we’re taking a look at Rare Medium. The title’s certainly got a double meaning here!
Director: Emily Maya Mills
Writer: Emily Maya Mills
Country & year: US, 2024
Actors: Ryan Meharry, Dave Theune
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt32668647/
Bad Ben! No, not you. I’m talking to my pet chimpanzee. He’s been quite agitated lately. Must be something in the water.
We’re at a big lux cliff side house somewhere in remote Hawaii where no one can hear you scream. That also goes first and foremost for the owner, Adam, a deaf novelist who’s made himself a lucrative career by writing books like A Silent Shadow, A Silent Death and… Deaf Fury, if I’m not mistaken (har-har). Adam is played by Troy Kotsur, who’s actually born deaf, by the way. Adam also has a pet chimpanzee named Ben who wears a red T-shirt but unfortunately not a red cap. That would probably be just enough for Nintendo to eagerly slam the glowing red sue button, and I’m not even joking. Anyway: the film opens with a banger where a vet is about to enter Ben’s big cage in the backyard to get his face ripped off. Ouch. And it’s not the first time that has happened. Ooof.
But this is not just a chimp snapping and attacking by pure primal instinct, as it turns out that he has rabies. And how could that be when there’s no such thing in Hawaii? Well, maybe, just maybe there’s some space rabies going on here when we already have a cute n’ snotty, wild alien on the island called Stitch? Whatever. After this brutal opening, we jump back 36 hours earlier, where we meet the college student Lucy, who arrives in Hawaii to reunite with her dad, Adam, her younger sister and, of course, Ben. Lucy has a friend with her, and to enhance the upcoming body count, they meet some other college dudes at the airport who get invited to a house party to “fuck their brains off.“ Alrighty then. As soon as dad Adam goes on to a signing session, the kids have their whole house for themselves for the night while Ben starts rampaging to where that escalated quickly meme is a fitting way to say it.
Primate is co-written with Ernest Riera and directed by Johannes Roberts, who’s made horror films and been on the grind since 2001. He’s most known for 47 Meters Down (2017), 47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019), and Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021). The last mentioned, despite its flaws and messy script, is the first Resident Evil film that actually felt and looked like a Resident Evil film, as super low as the bar has already been during the past twenty years. Just saying.
On paper, Primate is as basic and formulaic as it can get. Johannes Roberts simply wanted to make a straight-forward 1980s style-slasher where Jason Voorhees was replaced with a killer chimp. Not the most unique idea as we already have Link from 1986. But that’s what you get — an easy, digestible slasher meal with a perfect runtime of 89 minutes and not to be taken too seriously, like most slashers. What makes this one stand out is, of course, the killer chimp himself, who is not CGI, but played by the movement specialist Miguel Torres Umba in the most realistic-looking monkey costume since who knows. Just very impressive stuff which also gives Ben more personality and the more feeling of real threat to our body counts as he chases them around the house. Nothing will ever beat Shakma though. Those poor doors.
Then there’s the gore, or the carnage candy, as the cool kids say, which is all practical, where we have all from ouch!-moments to more slow and ruthless jaw-ripping. Gnarly stuff. Johannes Roberts clearly shows his love for old-school filmmaking with nods to films like John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), spiced with a delicious synth-heavy score by Adrian Johnston, and it all clicks in that regard. A perfect mini banana on the cake would be to include the song Monkey by Harry Belafonte at the end credits. Oh well. The film also looks bright and vibrant, which goes hand in hand with the tropical environment — and if not a stark contrast from the gray and washed-out color palette we usually see in even way bigger budget films nowadays. All that said, the film is nothing new and can come across as super predictable. Still, its technical achievement alone showcases a director who has come a far way since his early bumpy 2000s, and has earned his spot on the radar.
Director: Johannes Roberts
Writers: Johannes Roberts, Ernest Riera
Country & year: USA, 2025
Actors: Johnny Sequoyah, Jess Alexander, Troy Kotsur, Victoria Wyant, Gia Hunter, Benjamin Cheng, Charlie Mann, Tienne Simon, Miguel Torres Umba
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33028778/
In the small fictional Texas town of Gallup, people start dying. The reason for all those deaths? Bats! And no, it’s not because they’re spreading viruses or diseases, they go for the quick solution and simply maul people to death. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls in the experts to get some answers: Dr. Sheila Casper and her assistant Jimmy Sands are called in, both being Chiropterologists (scientists who specializes in the study of bats). And, lo and behold: it’s revealed that these bats have of course been genetically modified. What a surprise. All orchestrated by a crazy scientist, Dr. Alexander McCabe, who wanted them to become more intelligent and more omnivorous to avoid extinction. It might have been done with good intentions, but it seems the result is putting all other species into danger of extinction instead, including humans…
In order to de-escalate the situation, they need to find the bat roost so they can put these little beasts down. They’re only active at night, so they do have some time to work out a plan. This, of course, proves to be more challenging than first anticipated since the bats have become highly intelligent. To make matters even worse, the National Guard arrives and evacuates the entire town, planning to destroy the entire place to get rid of the bats. Sheila pleads to let them at least give it a try first, and she and her team gets a time-limit of 48 hours to locate the bats before the whole places goes kaboom. Clock’s a tickin’…
Bats is a creature feature horror film from 1999, written by John Logan and directed by Louis Morneau. It grossed $10 million against a budget of $5.2 million, and got pretty much slaughtered by critics. Like so many B-movies, especially creature feature ones, they aren’t considered “good“ movies but still offers a solid amount of entertainment value. We didn’t really have much expectations when putting this movie on, but definitely had a good time with it!
The effects for the bats are somewhat limited, and I’m fairly certain that’s the reason behind the usage of shaky camera during some of the attacks scenes. It’s often Hobgoblins-style where the actors just hold a puppet and tries for dear life to make it at least somewhat convincing that this thing is alive and trying to kill them. Not that these movies can be compared in any way other than that, of course. There are some pretty neat practical effects here and there, and the bat creatures and the puppetry are actually pretty cool. There’s a little bit of gore, although not much, and some fun locations including a cave where things really go, well…batshit crazy in more ways than one.
So overall, Bats is a nice little B-Movie that you can have some fun with if you expect nothing more than a late 90’s creature flick with all the boxes ticked: scientist girlboss, brave local sheriff, cool sidekick making witty remarks here and there, meddling military, and untrustworthy people from the government. And creatures out for blood and causing lots of kill counts, of course. It’s some nice, silly fun for a typical popcorn evening!
Director: Louis Morneau
Writer: John Logan
Country & year: USA, 1999
Actors: Lou Diamond Phillips, Dina Meyer, Bob Gunton, Leon, Carlos Jacott, David McConnell, Marcia Dangerfield, Oscar Rowland, Tim Whitaker, Juliana Johnson
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0200469/
Driving down a dark country road, Niall picks up a strange man who’s cradling a mysterious cardboard box.
It’s Horror Short Sunday again, and this time we’re taking a look at The Box. What’s in the box? Watch to find out!
Director: Adam Collins
Writer: Adam Collins
Country & year: US, 2024
Actors: Andrew Bennett, Ned Dennehy, Máire Ní Ghráinne, Catriona Loughlin, Mark Griffin
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt6474196/
Sam Raimi is back (babyyy) with his first horror film in seventeen years. Time flies, and sooner or later we’ll all die and burn in Hell along with Christine Brown. So enjoy life to the fullest while you can — just like the hobby survivalist Linda Liddle that we get the pleasure of meeting over a pouch of tuna in Send Help.
A new horror film by the legend himself, Sam Raimi, is never just any horror film. It’s a rare cultural event where just the announcement itself would make the Earth stop spinning for a moment. But I have to admit that the trailers for Send Help gave me next to nothing. Something felt off, if not missing. Maybe it has to do with the fact that this is the first horror film of Sam where he isn’t credited as screenwriter, nor his brother Ivan. So, instead we have Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, the duo who wrote Freddy vs. Jason (2003), Friday the 13th (2009) and Baywatch (2017). It’s fair to say Uh-oh…
Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) works in an open-office area as a corporate strategist where she’s never been able to fit in. Calling her awkward is an understatement. She’s a socially inept goofy freak who reeks of tuna, looks like a total mess, and talks in a certain way that would get on anyone’s nerve. But she’s at least good at her job. Still, no one hates her as much as her new boss, Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien), who gives all her credit to Donovan, a Patrick Bateman-ish slimeball. To add insult to injury, Preston gives Donovan the promotion that was promised by her former boss. What a wonderful work environment. There is a reason that her last name rhymes with Little, by how much they think of her.
And yes, Bruce Campbell (Linda’s former boss and Sam Raimi’s longtime friend) has a cameo here, well, kinda — in the form of a wall picture in the background, based on his IMDb profile pic. Better than nothing, I guess.
Bradley invites Linda to join him and some of his team to a business trip to Bangkok. And her involvement seems more of a set-up so Bradley and his buddies can mock and bully her. Yes, Bradley is a complete narcissistic scumbag, if that wasn’t obvious already, and people like Linda is a perfect victim for him to abuse. Then the plane crashes and everyone dies, except for Bradley and Linda who get stranded on a small exotic island somewhere in the Gulf of Thailand. While Bradley never seemed to have set up a campfire or even touched a pinecone, it’s good to know that Linda is an obsessed fan of the competition TV show Survivor, and have learned a few skills. The power dynamic gets suddenly turned upside-down in the most primitive ways possible as Bradley is badly injured and Linda is holding the knife. Who’s laughing now, huh? Cast Away meets Misery, for sure, with some interesting twists and turns where we all root for Linda while we wish the absolute worst for Bradley. Right..? Well…
Send Help was a mild disappointment. Mostly because there’s very little of the raw and unique, frantic Sam Raimi-style to be seen here. He’s way past his Evil Dead days, and someone on the interweb gave it a fitting description by calling it Raimi Lite. The goriest moment the film has to offer is when Linda fights a cartoonish CGI boar that looks more like a scrapped creature-design from The Lion King live-action remake. The CGI is made by Disney, after all. Then we have a foggy and gloomy dream sequence with a quick shoehorned-in ghoulish jumpscare to remind us that Sam Raimi is somewhere in the room. The puke scene made me chuckle though, and “that knife-scene“ was a pretty clever and unsettling one.
But the most disgusting Eeeeew–moment in the entire film, for my part, is the tuna smudge on the corner of Linda’s mouth. For fucks sake, lady, wipe that shit away! I can handle gore all up to the ceiling, as the desensitized ghoul I am, while rolling my eyes of films like Slaughtered Vomit Dolls, but this was too much. Rachel McAdams should’ve worn this food stain on every press interview for the film, just for the lols, and see how long it would take before someone dared to react.
We’re first and foremost talking about a twisted psychological drama/thriller/mindgame where the comedic tone doesn’t always find the balance when the film tries to be more serious. Drag Me to Hell, on the other hand, was a perfect mix, but that film was also written by Sam and his brother. All credits here goes to Rachel McAdams, who runs the whole show with a way more layered performance than you’d expect, while Dylan O’Brien’s character is just a self-centered asshole. The film also goes in a direction where we should feel guilty rooting for Linda, or not. No spoilers here, but trying to make her the villain, all things already considered, felt unnecessary. That said, Send Help is overall an entertaining watch with a fun concept, but not exactly the triumphant return of horror director Sam Raimi I’d hoped for.
Director: Sam Raimi
Writers: Damian Shannon, Mark Swift
Country & year: USA/Thailand, 2026
Actors: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Edyll Ismail, Dennis Haysbert, Xavier Samuel, Chris Pang
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8036976/
Steve Marsh (John Agar) is a nuclear physicist who, together with his friend Dan (Robert Fuller) goes to investigate something strange that’s been happening on Mystery Mountain (yep, that sounds too much like a lazy TBD title even for a 50’s schlock film). There’s a mysterious radiation source coming from the place, and they want to find out what it is. So, off they go, with the most barebones of supplies that wouldn’t even be sufficient for a campingtrip in their own garden. In these kind of movies it never seems like the blazing desert heat is any problem at all, aside from some severe armpit-sweat…and the guys also seem to have a remarkable bodily feature where they only sweat on the front of their shirts. Huh! In Sci-Fi everything can happen, even with something as simple as armpit sweat.
They get to a cave, and find the source of the radiation: a giant alien shaped like a disembodied brain! The brain is called Gor, and he’s a criminal from the planet Arous. First the brain kills Dan, and possesses Steve. Now residing in a human body, Gor finds himself fully enjoying life’s pleasures, including Steve’s girlfriend Sally (Joyce Meadows) who notices straight away that something’s not quite right with her otherwise nice and gentle Steve. Gor, as the megalomaniac psychopath he obviously is, wants nothing more than taking over the entire world, and uses his power to cause mayhem and plane crashes. Not everything seems lost, though, as Sally and her father gets an unexpected ally in another brain alien named Vol who wants to help them stop Gor and his evil plans.
The Brain from Planet Arous is an independently made sci-fi movie from 1957, produced by Jacques R. Marquette, written by Ray Buffum and directed by Nathan H. Juran who also made the sci-fi movie Attack of the 50 Foot Woman in 1958, one year after this little cheeseball. Because make no mistake – this is a movie where you don’t need a brain, just a love for the good old B-schlock that’s both absurd and gleeful in its presentation of its campy plot. And if you thought for even a second that there would be any actual suspense or scares, those would fly straight out of the window within the first frame featuring the so-called Brain alien Gor. And while that is a cool name that could have belonged to a vocalist from a Death Metal band, it is actually an Armenian boy name meaning “proud“ and also “of the mountain“. Hmm…
The brain aliens here have a surprising amount of screentime, but they function mostly for laughs and chuckles. The only scenes that are at least dipping its toes slightly into the waters of horror, must be when Steve is getting those “possessed eyes“ when the brain is up to the worst mischief. These effects were created by having him wear very thick special black contact lenses, which was of course very painful. Fun fact: these effects were used later by actor Gary Lockwood during the second Star Trek TV series pilot episode.
Gor, using Steve’s body to fulfill his plans since he needed a nuclear physicist to garner the attention from the right people, is eager to display his powers of destruction with his menacing I’m-so-evil-mwa-haa-haa! laugh which he’s just as eager to repeat. He’s bringing fear and worry to the world’s leaders by using his powers to destroy planes and cause terrible accidents, and by using some stock footage from the atomic bombs tests we truly get to witness this evil villain’s power. And yes, it’s just as cheesy as it sounds, but it’s good fun for the right audience. Too bad the right audience came much later, as the movie (not surprisingly) got a pretty bad reception upon release. The director was also very unhappy with the end result of this film, and since Alan Smithee wasn’t a thing back in 1957, his name in the credits was changed to the pseudonym Nathan Hertz. Over time, the movie has gained some cult classic status, and has even been parodied several times and referenced in numerous works. In 2002, the German band Megaherz used Gor’s laugh and a sample of Vol’s line “I have powers that equal and surpass the powers of Gor“ in their song Perfekte Droge.
So, if you’re in the mood for some campy sci-fi schlock, then bring out the popcorn and give The Brain from Planet Arous a watch!
Director: Nathan Juran
Writer: Ray Buffum
Country & year: USA, 1957
Actors: John Agar, Joyce Meadows, Robert Fuller, Thomas Browne Henry, Ken Terrell, Henry Travis, E. Leslie Thomas, Tim Graham, Bill Giorgio
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050210/
Brooke, a member of the Green Girl Guild, embarks on a scavenger hunt that leads her to a world of trouble. But not all is lost for little Brooke…
It’s Horror Short Sunday, and this time we’re taking a look at The Hunt Among the Green. From the creators of The Kid and the Camera, comes another seemingly cute ‘n cuddly throwback-style animated short, but things aren’t as cute as they first seem…
Director: Braiden Ortiz
Writer: Braiden Ortiz
Year: 2026
Actors: Liz Fodor, Reannah Ortiz, Richard Stibbard
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt40769195/
Father’s Day started as a fake grindhouse trailer (like Hobo with a Shotgun, Machete and Thanksgiving), produced by the once small independent film company Astron-6, based in Canada. In their early days, they made a bunch of silly short films through the lens of 80s and 90s nostalgia, and began experimenting with feature-length films with Manborg. Producers Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz from Troma got an eye for this creative ensemble from Mapleland and spat out a generous budget of $10,000 for them to make Father’s Day into a full movie. The main team behind Astron 6, Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie, Matthew Kennedy, Steven Kostanski and Conor Sweeney wrote and directed it. And the result is, well, it’s a movie.
Father’s Day starts right off the bat with a deranged chubby homosexual rapist/cannibal/serial killer with the classic Jeffrey Dahmer glasses who is sawing bodyparts, ripping out guts and organs of fresh corpses, plays with sawed-off heads, French-style. This particular serial killer’s name is Chris Fuchman, and his way to, well, Fuckkmanize his prey is to hunt down and kill as many dads as possible on every Father’s Days after cumming into their crusty cornholes. Ugh. A vengeful vigilante named Ahab, wearing an eye-patch, a big nod to Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1973), hunts down Fuchman’s ass in some dark alley and declares Happy Father’s Day before he blows his head straight to Hell with a shotgun. The bad news is that he just shot and killed an innocent man he mistook for being Fuchman…or did he? Hmmm… Later we learn that Fuchman is assumed for being dead for thirty years. Huh…
Then we jump to the gay teen-prostitute boy, Twink, who’s in a police interrogation after he got caught with a fresh corpse in a motel room and being suspected of… being Chris Fuchman, aka The Father’s Day Killer. Something like that. After being released, his dad drives him home, who is soon to be assplayed, and burned alive by said killer in front of Twink. Twink gets approached by Father Sullivan, for whatever reason, where the amateur-acting kicks in. And a Catholic Priest played by a teen-looking altar boy is always believable. I guess Eric Roberts was unavailable. Anyway, Twink spits in Father Sullivan’s face and tells him to stay away. Who wouldn’t. Father Flynt, a blind old sentinel on his deathbed, tells about Ahab whom he raised after his dad was killed by Fuchman. The mother? Who knows. Ahab is the one and only man who can kill Fuchman, because…because. Father Sullivan travels far away to the middle of nowhere to drag Ahab out of exile and bring him back to Tromaville to hunt down Fuchman and end him once and for all.
Before going on the mission, he hooks up with his sister, Chelsea, whom he hasn’t seen in ages. She’s, of course, a go-go dancer and The Foxiest Bitch in the City. Sounds groovy. The plot and the direction here is a muddled mess, but it all boils down to Ahab, Chelsea and Twink joining forces. And I almost forgot to mention that Chelsea gets kidnapped by Fuchman. Maybe The Foxiest Bitch in the City cured his homosexuality. Brainfart. Father Sullivan, the boy priest, chimes in as we maybe also have a demon to deal with. Of course.
The film has, as mentioned, four writers and directors going crazy, and it shows. The gritty grindhouse filter/style switches on-and-off when it feels like it. The forced humor and jokes, mixed with amateur acting, falls mostly on its face. The film is a tonal mess as it jumps from Jörg Buttgereit territory with close-ups of tasteless penis mutilations to crazy talk about maple syrup. Welcome to Canada. The third act falls completely off the rails and looks more like a YouTube skit by Nostalgia Critic. It’s overall a fun watch though, with lots of entertaining moments, like a wild car chase where the actors do their own stunts. We have a soft-porn sex scene, colorful special effects (mostly old-school), gruesome kills, dick-eating, mutilation, necrophilia, cannibalism, exploding guts, head-smashing, lots of gore, demon possession and more unpredictable madness and surprises. Woof! We’re in Tromaville, that’s for sure, where Lloyd Kaufman makes a quick appearance as someone I won’t spoil. A crazy movie for a crazy Friday night to enjoy with sausage and knight cheese.
Writers and directors: Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie, Matthew Kennedy, Steven Kostanski, Conor Sweeney
Country & year: Canada/USA, 2011
Actors: Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, Conor Sweeney, Amy Groening, Garrett Hnatiuk, Brent Neal, Kevin Anderson, Meredith Sweeney, Zsuzsi, Lloyd Kaufman, Mackenzie Murdock, Billy Sadoo
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1727261/
Greg, Alex and Sarah are a film crew running a popular home-improvement television series. This time they’re going to visit Becky, an American woman who has moved to a remote village in Moldova and bought a very old and rundown house with her husband, and turned the place into something out of a fairytale. As the crew meets up with their bitchy producer Kate and a cheerful Moldovian businessman named Vladimir, they first get some footage of the town. Like the disrespectful tourists they are, they even try to sneak into a funeral and film it, causing an angry crowd and a police officers that treats them a lot more mildly than they deserved.
Oh well, the show and the filming continues over the next few days, as they experience hostile locals and some really weird behavior from some of them. Vladimir, letting the crew know a little bit more about the village’s history and folklore, tells them about a plague that struck the place several generations previously, where a woman who lived in the outskirts of the town was accused for being a witch and causing said plague. She was, like so many people accused of witchcraft of course, burned alive. And the house this witch used to live in? Yeah, yeah, you already guessed it. Of course it is the same place that Becky and her husband bought and renovated into their dream home. When they visit Becky, they really see that she and her husband has turned the place into quite the cozy home indeed. The husband is away at the moment, so Becky is all alone. Well, not anymore now that the crew has arrived, of course. But things start happening. The locals act more and more weird. Animals act weird. Even Becky acts weird…
They’re Watching is a found footage horror film from 2016, written and directed by Jay Lender and Micah Wright. While many found footage movies suffers a bit from overused and generic locations (with forests being the most worn-out locations of them all), this movie did at least spice it up a bit with more interesting filming areas, as it’s filmed in Romania. Before heading over to the more generic forest/cabin-in-the-woods stuff, we get to see some villages, cobbled streets, locals, and even a restaurant scene where the actors are actually playing the instruments and the audio was recorded live. Fun!
The characters are fine enough, with most of them being a bit douchy and unlikable, with the producer Kate being so overly bitchy and mean it becomes comedic. Vladimir, the somewhat cheesy businessman, is the only character that actually comes off as likable. As far as kill counts and blood ‘n gore goes, there isn’t that much of it until much later in the movie. There is one that’s visceral enough to stand out, but other than that it’s mostly a rather slow journey that focuses more on the mystery about the place and the witch lore. There’s always a certain comedic tone underneath which helps to hold up the entertainment value, plus a few twists and turns here and there…but gosh darn, that ending! It honestly made the entire movie, turning it all into one of the most bonkers finales I’ve seen in a found footage horror movie. Maybe that wild craziness shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise considering that the director-duo previously made things like Spongebob Squarepants and Phineas and Ferb episodes…
They’re Watching is a found footage horror movie that doesn’t really stick that much out from the rest, until you get to the final part. Well worth checking out for those who like the found footage genre, with an insane climax!
Writers and directors: Jay Lender, Micah Wright
Country & year: USA/Romania, 2016
Actors: Brigid Brannagh, David Alpay, Kris Lemche, Carrie Genzel, Mia Marcon, Dimitri Diatchenko, Cristian Balint, Mircea Constantinescu, Cici Caraman
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3096858/
When Francis is beckoned to a glory hole in a dank gas station bathroom, he gets more than he bargained for. Perhaps he should have realized it was a Full Moon.
It’s Horror Short Sunday, and this time we’re taking a look at Full Moon Glory Hole. A gory and fun horror short with a real bite to it!
Director: Thom Newell
Writer: Renton Hawkey, Thom Newell
Country & year: US, 2024
Actors: Courtney Bandeko, Sam Huntington, Thom Newell
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt32889701/
