How far would you go to be remembered? A YouTube short inspired by Guillermo Del Toro’s FRANKENSTEIN trailer.
Horror Short Sunday is here again, and this time we’re taking a look at a “fan-remake” that was inspired by the trailer of Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein (which is now streaming on Netflix). The title of this short is called The Frankenstein, and provides a creative cyberpunk-ish version with some really cool stop-motion effects.
Director: Thomas Percy Kim Writer: Thomas Percy Kim Country & year: USA, 2025 Actors: Thomas Percy Kim
― Only the Nazis could think of something like this!
Before every found-footage film, there was ― Frankenstein’s Army (not to be confused with Army of Frankensteins), the first found-footage film ever. Yes, ever! We’re going way waayy back to 1945, believe it or not.
We’re at the end of WW2 where we follow a small group of Russian soldiers as they’re walking through some obscure and bleak countryside in Germany. Their mission is to hunt down a Nazi sniper nest, and Dimitri is documenting the whole thing on camera as a task from the Russian government to make a propaganda film for the Red Army. For some odd reasons they speak English, because… because. But the first thing that strikes the viewer in the glossy year of 2025 is how surprisingly clean and crisp the image quality is, considering it’s shot on a 8mm. Huh. Either Dmitri is a time-traveler, or the film spent several decades in the editing room to restore the quality to pitch-perfectness before it got officially released in 2013.
Anyway, as they move further into the zone they get a distress call that eventually leads them into something that looks like an abandoned factory. That there’s some shady business going on here, is an understatement, where we have minecarts and a shaft filled with bodyparts. Little do the Kalinka soldiers know that this is the lair of none other than Victor Frankenstein! And say hello to his horde of freaky murderous robomonsters. It’s death metal time, baby!
And jokes aside… Frankenstein’s Army is the passion project of the Dutch filmmaker and storyboard artist Richard Raaphorst that was eight years in the making. The original idea was a more ambitious horror comedy with the title Worst Case Scenario which he worked on for two years. And ironically, the film ended up as a, well, worst case scenario as it was canceled after the money ran out. The only thing that was left to show was a teaser and a trailer, which got nominated for Best Movie Trailer by the Golden Trailer Awards in 2006. And that was that.
So… what’s next? Instead of letting the delightful steampunk zombie designs from the canceled film go to waste, they were further used in Richard Raaphorst’s next film, or plan B, if you like, with Frankenstein’s Army. To save more money, it was shot in found-footage-style on very limited locations without any use of cheap Asylum/SyFy-looking green screens. Aside from the found-footage element, this is pure old school. We can also argue that the story has as much meat on its bones as a starved Holocaust prisoner as the film works more as a proof of concept that just as well could’ve been a DLC to a Wolfenstein game.
And speaking of games; In 2021 Richard Raaphorst accused Capcom for stealing the design for the one of the bosses in Resident Evil Village. Nothing but a desperate marketing stunt, I’d say. The first thing that came to my mind was actually Air Man from Mega Man 2. But that’s just simple me.
That being said, this is still an entertaining little flick with some great claustrophobic and grim, dirty atmosphere, gory highlights, superb practical effects, attention to detail in both set-designs and the monster creatures, sprinkled with some dark humor and morbid charm. And of course, the nightmarish and demented cybernetic experiments of Dr. Frankenstein, makes this alone worth a watch. Richard Raaphorst showcases some strong and creative directing skills here, with lots of twisted ideas that could further evolve into a sequel of two. This is so far the one and only feature-length film he’s made, so… we can only hope.
Director: Richard Raaphorst Writers: Richard Raaphorst, Miguel Tejada-Flores, Chris W. Mitchell Country & year: Netherlands/USA/Czech Republic, 2013 Actors: Robert Gwilym, Hon Ping Tang, Alexander Terentyev, Luke Newberry, Joshua Sasse, Mark Stevenson, Andrei Zayats, Karel Roden, Klaus Lucas, Cristina Catalina, Jan de Lukowicz IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1925435/
Liz has been together with Malcolm for one year, and in order to celebrate this anniversary they go on a weekend trip to his cabin on a secluded place in the countryside. When they get there, they even have a gift waiting for them which is apparently from the caretaker: a boxed chocolate cake. Yum! Malcolm really, really wants her to eat it, but here’s a twist: Liz doesn’t like chocolate. Who doesn’t like chocolate..? Malcolm seems somewhat stressed over this fact as he thought all girls liked chocolate. Apparently there’s still some things he doesn’t know about the woman he’s been together with for one year.
The chocolate-cake thing aside: if Liz was hoping for some real alone-time with her boyfriend, she’s in for a letdown. Malcolm’s obnoxious cousin Darren is nearby, and even interrupts them during their dinner and has brought with him a girl named Minka, a foreign model, whom Darren says can’t speak any English at all, which doesn’t matter as she’s obviously there to use her mouth for entirely different things than talking. Still…when Malcolm and Darren has a private talk in a different room, Minka notices the unopened cake and whispers to Liz that it “taste like shit“. Hmm. So Minka must have gotten her own cake earlier. That caretaker must really love baking. Despite the warning, Liz reluctantly takes a tiny bit of the cake later, though, just to be nice. And because Malcolm really, reeeeally wants her to taste it. Yeah, nothing fishy about that, no red flags at all. He just really wants you to enjoy some chocolate which you just said you don’t like…
If it wasn’t obvious enough already with several red flags literally waving right in front of Liz’s face, we soon get to see that things are about to get…weirder. Liz is having strange visions, and in the middle of the night she’s suddenly having an uncontrollable urge to eat the rest of the cake in the grossest way possible, and doesn’t even stop when she sees bloody severed fingers inside of it. Bon Appétit. The next day, Malcolm tells Liz that he needs to travel back to the city, but will be back later in the evening. And as you can imagine, things escalate while Liz tries to figure out what is really going on here.
Keeper is a supernatural folk horror film, directed by Osgood Perkins and written by Nick Lepard (who also wrote the script for Dangerous Animals). It was shot in its entirety while The Monkey was on hold due to the 2023 Hollywood labor disputes. During this time, several of the cast and crew that worked on The Monkey tried to keep things going, and Perkins and Ferguson then found a Canadian writer who was not part of the Writers Guild of America to write the script.
Perkins have had two successes in a row now: first with Longlegs last year, and then with The Monkey from earlier this year. It turns out Keeper is the one to break these ongoing financial successes at the box office, though, as it has so far only grossed $3 million at the box office against a budget of $6 million. And while one may think it’s partly due to the movie’s artsy and slow storytelling, this is kind of the regular recipe of a Perkins movie, with The Monkey being the one to stand out from the rest. Already from the very first scenes, there’s the Perkins style all over the place. There’s an ongoing sinister and odd atmosphere throughout the movie as we see scenes filmed from different kinds of angles and with filtered lenses. It’s both slightly ethereal at times, mixed with a dreamlike, uncanny vibe. And it sure does take its time, with a very slow buildup. It is still a story that’s very easy to follow, though, it isn’t a movie that keeps you guessing much. Just be prepared for another Perkins movie with a lot of creepy-weird atmosphere.
Performances are pretty good all around, where Tatiana Maslany portrays her role perfectly as the everyday woman looking for true love. We saw her a little bit in The Monkey as the mom of the two boys, and here she gets to shine as the protagonist. Rossif Sutherland also does a good job portraying Malcolm, who appears to be a decent man despite it being obvious from the get-go that something’s very, very fishy about him. The dynamic between the two, who are still rather fresh in their relationship but appear to slowly trying to figure each other out, works pretty fine until the point where certain things become a bit too obvious.
Keeper is overall a pretty decent slowburn horror that does require a bit of patience, and while arguably not one of Perkins’s best, it’s still a solid entry into his collection of atmospheric, artsy horror films.
Director: Oz Perkins Writer: Nick Lepard Country & year: USA/Canada, 2025 Actors: Tatiana Maslany, Rossif Sutherland, Claire Friesen, Christin Park, Erin Boyes, Tess Degenstein, Birkett Turton, Eden Weiss IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt32332404/
After 12-year-old Charlie kills a kayaker, his troubled older brother, Blake, attempts to hide the evidence. As Blake grapples with overwhelming guilt, he faces the surreal and horrific consequences of his actions.
It is Horror Short Sunday again, and this time we’re taking a look at Blake Buried a Body. A strange little horror short where it becomes obvious that certain things run in the family..
Director: Joshua Morgan Writer: Joshua Morgan Country & year: USA, 2025 Actors: Asher Colton Spence, Troy Thomas, Donna Rae Allen, Mackenzie Prince IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt32306863/
Max is a troubled young man. With one issue after the other we see him ending up getting arrested for graffiti vandalism. We learn that his life more or less spiraled downwards after his older foster brother, Luke, committed suicide. His foster parents are trying to get him on the right track by working out a deal with the police so he can work at a community service, or more specifically a retirement home out in bumfuck nowhere. It’s either this, or get a criminal record…not much of a choice for young Max, really. He arrives at the place and starts seeing strange things already, including an old man looking out from the fourth floor window. As ominous as that might seem, we’re at a retirement home…sometimes the most exciting thing is simply watching the clouds from your window. Max immediately starts working at the place as superintendent, and is (surprise, surprise!) told not to enter the fourth floor.
As Max starts befriending some of the old people at the home, more and more strange things start happening. Some of the residents are breaking into his room at night, some of them act very strangely, and he even witnesses a resident suddenly starting to bleed, among several other weird disorders. There’s more than enough warning signs to prove to Max that something is terribly wrong with the place, and he suspects that some answers may lay on the restricted fourth floor.
The Home is a psychological horror film directed by James DeMonaco (director of The Purge), co-written with Adam Cantor.
Retirement homes are a little bit of a horror in and of itself. We’re all afraid of getting old, whether we admit it or not. There’s something terrifying about losing so much control over the functions you could earlier take for granted, maybe needing help with the most basic things like getting up from bed or even wiping your own ass. As if that’s not frightening enough, there’s also the loss of memory and awareness. There are horror movies that portrays those illnesses themselves (like Relic and to some extent Next of Kin), while there are others where the growing old thing mixes with supernatural elements, like for example The Manor. We can try to convince ourselves that growing old is “just part of life“ and nothing to worry about, but…no one in their right mind would say that life and its many challenges aren’t terrifying. And with that in mind: to which lengths would some people go if they could avoid aging? Pretty damn far, I’d reckon.
This movie does start off with playing around a little with grief and loss, although we don’t know too much about Max or Luke at the very start to feel too invested in that part. We know Max really misses his brother even a decade after the died, and that much of this resulted in him not coping too well. This isn’t all, of course, as several more layers are unveiled regarding both Max, Luke, and things from the past. When Max arrives at the retirement home, it actually looks like a fairly decent place. The elders there appear to be happy, very well dressed, and having a great time overall. More or less the equivalent of what all of us hope for the final stages of our lives to be: decent enough to function well as a human being, and without too much physical or mental deterioration. Then Max starts seeing that the rose-colored picture of the retirement home is not what it seems.
The first half of the movie goes along rather slowly and a little bit sluggish. It does build up a bit of atmosphere and keeps the tension up by offering a few twists and surprises along the way. There’s also a rather grisly death scene in the middle of the movie that comes out of nowhere, which was a pleasant surprise as at that moment the pacing really needed a shift, and managed to offer one. And while I won’t spoil any of the twisty turns along the way, I think the saving grace for the movie is a totally bonkers finale which delivers a fun, blood-soaked and gory climax.
The Home is the kind of slightly dumb fun movie that, despite some pacing issues and not the most original plot, delivers a pretty fun time.
Director: James DeMonaco Writers: James DeMonaco, Adam Cantor Country & year: USA, 2025 Actors: Pete Davidson, John Glover, Mugga, Adam Cantor, Bruce Altman, Denise Burse, Stuart Rudin, Ethan Phillips, Nathalie Schmidt, Mary Beth Peil, Victor Williams, Marilee Talkington IMDb:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17023012/
Indy is a dog who lives with Todd, a man suffering from a chronic lung disease. Todd decides to take Indy with him and move to his late grandfather’s uninhabited house somewhere in the woods, despite his sister Vera being worried about him becoming far too isolated out there. Not to mention that the house itself has a certain bad history, with no inhabitants staying for long with the exception of their grandfather, who died there. The grandfather also had a dog, which went missing when he died. Vera appears to be a little superstitious and believes something in the house might have caused their grandfather’s death, but Todd just scoffs at her. Indy, however, starts experiencing strange things in the house and the nearby surroundings. Dark shadows looming in the corners, and the sound of a dog whimpering and barking. Meanwhile, Todd’s health gets even worse and he starts regularly coughing up blood, and also gets increasingly irritable towards both Indy and his sister Vera who keeps calling him. Indy is sensing that something evil is gradually getting a hold on them both…are they awaiting the same fate as Todd’s grandfather and his dog, or can Indy change what appears to be an impending disaster for them both?
Good Boy is a supernatural horror film directed by Ben Leonberg in his directorial debut, co-written with Alex Cannon. Leonberg got the idea for the film after re-watching Poltergeist (1982), and started thinking about how animals in haunted house films are known for sensing presences before the humans do. He thought it would be a fun idea to write a traditional haunted house script for a film with the perspective of a dog, and started on it in 2017 together with Alex Cannon. And the main actor of the feature, the Good Boy himself, is none other than Leonberg’s Novia Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever dog Indy, simply playing himself. Principal photography took place in Harding Township, New Jersey, and the filming process took over three years to complete. Much of the long process was due to, well, Indy being a dog, and not having a double like many animal-focused movies do. Leonberg also stated that a lot of Indy’s expressions were done by post-production techniques and the Kuleshov effect (a film editing principle where different shots can be interpreted with a deeper meaning and emotional impact when placed together). The movie had a budget of only $750,000, which the film has earned back many times over as it has so far grossed over $8 million worldwide.
While Good Boy may appear to play very hard on using a cute gimmick with little else to it than that, they have actually managed to deliver a movie that offers a solid haunted house story. Prior to watching this I didn’t really know exactly what to expect. Would it be like a longer episode of Animal Planet’sThe Haunted, without the interviews? Well, not really. The movie does, in fact, tell the narrative solely from Indy’s perspective, which makes it a different experience in its apparent simplicity. While some of the story is told through the dialogue we overhear between Todd and Vera, the rest is a mix of Indy’s experiences, dreams and sightings. It’s a simple narrative for sure, but told in a steady way that never loses the pacing, and with a runtime of only 1 hour and 13 minutes it packs everything in well without outstaying its welcome. It’s all about creepy and ominous atmosphere from the very start, and there were several parts of the movie where that hopeless, disease-ridden feeling reminded me a little bit of Relic (2020). We see Indy in a rather hopeless situation as his owner gets more and more ill, trapped in a house where it’s all about illness, evil presences and echoes of past tragedies. And visually it looks great, using some clever perspective shots to portray the dog POV which often creates an unsettling effect.
Animals can sense spirits, they say. Well, anyone who’s ever owned a pet know that they can have this uncanny habit of staring at corners or spots on the wall for no apparent reason, creeping the fuck out of you. All for what was probably just a tiny bug you couldn’t see or a sound from the neighbor’s house you couldn’t hear. The notion of animals being able to “see spirits“ is something a lot of people believe, but then again, I’m pretty certain that we would “stare at nothing“ too if our hearing suddenly got a much wider frequency range or our eyesight got higher motion detection. I personally don’t think there’s anything supernatural to put into it, but the idea does at least make for some spooky animal-centered stories!
Good Boy is a very decent haunted house film, filled with creepy atmosphere. And yeah…gotta love Indy, he’s cute as hell and did an excellent job (and kudos to the creators for pulling this off, of course). This was also a pretty strong debut, so it will be exciting to see if Ben Leonberg decides to create more horror movies, animal-POV or not.
If you want some more animal-POV (or at least partially) horror movies, make sure to also check out Cat’s Eye (1985) and Bad Moon (1996).
Director: Ben Leonberg Writers: Alex Cannon, Ben Leonberg Country & year: USA, 2025 Actors: Indy, Shane Jensen, Arielle Friedman, Larry Fessenden IMDb:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35521922/
With a hurricane raging outside, two nurses have to stow a dead woman’s body in the hospital morgue before the building floods. But the corpse quickly reveals itself to be more than it seems.
Horror Short Sunday is here again, and this time we’re taking a look at Wake. A creepy horror short a little reminiscent of The Autopsy of Jane Doe. When you find a corpse with a stake stuck in its heart…it might be a good idea to not remove it…
Director: Sean Carter Writer: Sean Carter Country & year: USA, 2024 Actors: Catherine McCafferty, Lavelle Roby, Milly Sanders, K Steele IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt35926715/
A man is at a subway station, and it’s just a normal crowded and busy-as-hell day in Japan. On the train, he watches a woman holding a crying baby, who gets yelled at and harassed by an angry passenger who has become annoyed by the baby’s constant screaming. The woman desperately tries to hush her baby, telling the angry douchebag that she’s sorry…and no one bothers to step up for her. Not our protagonist, either, who seems bothered by the incident but decides to just block it out with his phone and earplugs. Just a normal day in an everyday phone-infested daily life where no one gives a shit.
As the man then gets off the train and walks the hallways of the subway station, his ex girlfriend calls: she’s pregnant! And she’s unsure what to do about it, and wants to hear his opinion, which only results in a lot of stammering and procrastination, until the signal is lost and he finds himself in what appears to be a strange and mostly deserted passage. There’s a sign saying he should take Exit 8 to get out of the station. Okey-dokey, then. As he keeps walking, he finds himself inexplicably stuck as he keeps returning to the same spot over and over, like walking in a literal circle with no exit to be found. And even stranger: the same man keeps coming, from the same place, whenever he gets back at the entry point. As he starts studying the signs and info posted around the place, he’s instructed to look for and identify any anomalies, and if he sees any, he should turn back instead of walking forward. As he notices slight changes after several walking rounds, he notices that if he follows these instructions, the level proceeds from 0 to 1, and upwards. But if he makes a mistake, no matter how far he’s gotten, he gets sent back to level 0 again. And the anomalies and incidents that keeps happening gets weirder and stranger the further he gets..
Exit 8 (Japanese: 8番出口) is a psychological mystery thriller from Japan, directed by Genki Kawamura and co-written with Kentaro Hirase. It’s based on a video game from 2023 by the same name, which was developed by Kotake Create. It was filmed in Tokyo during late 2024 to early 2025, for the most part in a built replica of the game’s underground passage.
Time loop films can be a fun and interesting concept, with a lot of things to play around with, everything from rather simple and upbeat ideas like Happy Death Day (or even the recent Until Dawn which was also based on a video game), or the more artsy ones like for example Koko-di Koko-da. In Exit 8, you not only get the loop concept, but it’s concentrated around a liminal space area which gives it an extra dreamlike and surreal feel.
Exit 8 is one of those mystery thrillers that never really offers anything that’s outright frightening in and of itself, but it’s the total feel of the place, the small oddities, weirdness and surrealism of everything. While I haven’t yet played the game this movie is based on, I have for a long time enjoyed games that involves liminal space surroundings and heavy surrealism (and while I’ve played several of these games over the years, none have really scratched that itch the same way as Yume Nikki did). What I think makes Exit 8 very effective in creating an eerie vibe with such a bright location, is the mix of familiarity with a deepening sense of something being very, very wrong about the place. And to be honest, it was actually a bit fun to follow the protagonist walking round and round while trying to spot some anomalies together with him.
While the game itself is just a surreal liminal space horror game with no actual narrative, this movie does add something to the mix which becomes rather apparent early on. There’s a lot of metaphors here, mainly about being indecisive and stuck in a self-inflicted loop of irresolution, especially when it involves guilt and responsibility. And the road to an actual solution seems like it’s never coming, and you keep trodding the same path over and over and often looking at so many external reasons why you’re stuck, instead of looking inwards and realizing the solution most often lies within yourself.
Exit 8 is a weird and minimalist psychological thriller that manages to keep the viewer engaged with what is a very simple premise. Perfect if you also like ideas featuring liminal space environments!
Levi Kane, a former U.S Marine Sniper, and Drasa, a Lithuanian covert operate, both receive a very special and top-secret mission: to guard a gorge from a tower placed at each side. They’re supposed to stay there for a year, and oh: they are not supposed to get in contact with each other. Or anyone else for that matter. Total isolation for a year, guarding a gorge that has…what kind of purpose, really? They’re not told, and obviously they’re not allowed to ask the questions either. Just STFU and do your job.
Upon arriving at the tower, Levi relieves his predecessor who explains that the location is kept hidden by some very powerful cloaking antennas. And the gorge itself is totally obscured by a thick fog, hiding whatever is down there from view. He also gives some cryptic explanations about the towers being armed to protect any attacks from the so-called monsters nicknamed “The Hollow Men“. Good luck, then, and try to stay sane. And the months pass by, rather uneventfully…until Drasa in the opposite tower decides to say screw it the no-communication rule, and manage to engage Levi in a conversation with written signs and a shooting competition. After all, it’s her birthday, so fuck the protocol! And what at first seems to be a night of fun and games, they suddenly get to see the first wave of Hollow Men attacks, where these creatures have started climbing the gorge. Levi and Drasa use the weapons of the towers, and blasts the creatures back to where they came from. And so the love story has just started. As Levi and Drasa starts bonding, desperately wanting to meet each other more intimately (and whenever there’s a will, there’s a way), things are in for a complete change of tone when Levi ends up having to parachute himself into the gorge during a Hollow Men attack. Drasa is quick to follow after him, and they are both finally figuring out what’s hidden down there.
The Gorge is a romantic science fiction horror film directed by Scott Derrickson and written by Zach Dean. It stars Miles Teller as Levi, and Anya Taylor-Joy as Drasa. The filming began in March 2023 in London, with the production at the Warner Bros Studios, Leavesden. Here, the interiors for the towers were built on a stage. They also used the home country of us Horror Ghouls, Norway, for certain filming locations: the Rauma River was used for the forest locations and the gorge exteriors.
The movie itself builds up a bit slowly, introducing you to the characters and their struggles, and offering just enough of a mystery about the gorge and what exactly is going on here. While the Hollow Men and the gorge’s hidden secrets are, of course, the main point of interest, the love story elements are a pretty major part of the film. Fortunately they managed to pull this off in a pretty good way. It was sweet without being cringe, and thankfully they didn’t do the painfully overused “characters hate each other by first sight and then falls in love later on“ trope. They have a cute connection from the get-go, with a chemistry that makes your root for them. But, all that romance thing aside: the best part of the movie, at least for me, is when they finally get down to the depths of the gorge itself. There’s so much ghoulish and spooky settings here! There’s reminiscences of Resident Evil and Sleepy Hollow all over the place, and it was something that actually caught me a bit off guard as I knew hardly anything about this movie prior to watching it, and went in mostly blind (which is my preferred way to watch most movies).
Visually, The Gorge looks beautiful much thanks to excellent use of scenery and practical effects. Of course some credit must go to the Danish cinematographer Dan Laustsen (John Wick 2-4, The Shape of Water, and also the upcoming Guillermo del Toro Frankenstein movie) for the visual treats. It is such a fun sci-fi romance horror which is probably the most Resident Evil-esque film we’ve got so far (with maybe Zach Cregger being able to top that in 2026 with an actual Resident Evil film).
Director: Scott Derrickson Writer: Zach Dean Country & year: USA/UK, 2025 Actors: Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sigourney Weaver, Sope Dirisu, William Houston, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, James Marlowe, Julianna Kurokawa, Ruta Gedmintas, Oliver Trevena IMDb:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13654226/
After surviving a house party-turned-horror film, Tara and Mitch’s escape is cut short when they realize – they forgot their cat.
It’s Horror Short Sunday again, and this time we’re taking a look at Did You Remember the Cat. A fun horror short where a couple barely escapes alive from some kind of murderous entity, but needs to go back for their cat. Because who in their right mind wouldn’t go back to save their cat, right?
Note: also make sure to stay for the cool animated end credits!
Director: Daniel Foster Writer: Daniel Foster, Autumn Olson Country & year: USA, 2025 Actors: Angelique Maurnae, Autumn Olson, Daniel Drach, Brandon Hammel, Jonny H Lee, Trevor Newlin IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt33394022/
