Malachi moves to a small town for his new job but is suddenly faced with a moral quandary when a bloody and scarred young woman in a strange mask appears outside his house, screaming for help in the street.
Horror Short Sunday is here again, and this time we’re taking a look at The Girl in the Street. Sometimes, being a good person can lead to negative consequences…
Director: Miles August, Chris Paicely Writer: Chris Paicely Country & year: US, 2026 Actors: Hunter Alfonso, Chris Anthony, Tabitha Kushlakus, D’Andra Laneé, Heather Langenkamp, Grace Marengo, Whitney Masters, Shawn Roundtree Jr. IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt37593496/
It’s been a while since the last amateur show, but here we have the forgotten and buried gem that is The Mummy Theme Park from the year 2000. And no, this is actually not a mockbuster version from The Asylum of the highly successful film with Brendan Fraser that came the year before. This is…uhm, well, something else.
Picture a superhigh ambitious Hollywood studio-level concept with none to zero resources, budget or talent, cast a bunch of first (and last-time) amateur actors, and just make it anyway, in the most borderline stubborn and deluded fashion imaginable. There you basically have The Mummy Theme Park in a nutshell, and one of those fascinating cinematic trainwrecks you have to see with your own eyes to believe.
And speaking of being ambitious: We’re in modern-day Egypt where the goofy businessman Sheik El Sahid has some big plans to open, which the title says, a theme park, something in the style of Jurassic Park and Westworld. Because here’s the thing: A Cleopatra named Nekhebet, has managed to open an enormous, ancient necropolis tomb with the help of an earthquake caused by the Egyptian gods Osiris and Ra. Cool. And Sheik El Sahid smells big business for a tourist attraction. Who wouldn’t. But those with an actual sense of smell will only smell the strong reek of cheese, plain and simple. I mean, bruh, just look at it. It’s not as bad as the Willy Wonka Experience, but still. I think visiting Disneyland would be a better idea. If you happen to be around the Paris area and survived the catacombs, make sure to swing by Parc Astérix, where you can ride the god of Osiris’ roller coaster itself. Been there twice. Awesome stuff.
Where was I… oh yeah, The Mummy Theme Park. Daniel, a model photographer and his blonde bimbo assistant Julie, gets invited to an exclusive before-the-opening tour of the fresh park by Sheik El Sahid himself. A miniature train guides them through the underground caverns on a model railroad where every scene looks more fake than the other. Plastic human skeletons are placed around the tunnels while we see workers as the train passes them by from a green screen. Epic stuff. The only thing missing is some adventurous score by John Williams. And then we, of course, have the Egyptian mummies themselves, which are controlled by microchips. Of course. What can possibly go wrong. One of the mummies suddenly pops up from nowhere in Sheik El Sahid’s palace, kills several guards while Julia enjoys her bubble bath and the Sheik himself never seem to get some intimate privacy with his harem of four or five wives.
It’s easy to look at this and assume that the film was just made for the shits n’ giggles by a group of drunk film school students… but when you have a director who looks like an average university professor, the kind of individual who just wouldn’t even be dreaming of wasting his time on watching a minute of these kinds of retarded, juvenile trash cinema, you can’t be too sure. The mastermind behind The Mummy Theme Park is Alvaro Passeri, an Italian special effects artist who’s worked in the movie biz since 1979. There isn’t much info to dig up about this signore other than he has directed five obscure horror schlocks during the 1990s and early 2000s, and has a YouTube channel where he showcases his special effects work which is way more impressive than his filmmaking skills.
Trying to describe Mummy Park is like remembering an obscure fever dream you had after a long night of binge-drinking. There is the one absurd scene and moment after another with not much time to even process what you just saw on the screen. Yes, it’s one of those movies. The fugly visuals are the most striking here, where you have sets mixed with miniatures and small cute dollhouse furniture placed in the foreground and middle to make the exteriors of Sheik’s palace appear bigger than it is. It looks even more fake when the actors have to be close to the wall because of the limitations of movie magic. That being said, and despite all the cheap cardboard-looking props, I have to give Al Passeri some credit for at least trying rather than just take the quick Ed Wood solution by filling the backgrounds with big curtains and call it a day.
The retarded acting, the overly bright fake cheesy costumes, the overall bizarre fuzzy atmosphere, the look of it all is just the tip of the iceberg here, or the tip of the pyramid, if you will. I could sit here and pick apart the film down to five thousand pieces, but I won’t spoil the fun. Words wouldn’t make it justice anyway. The film was recently discovered in Germany after being a part of the SchleFaZ (shortened from “the worst movies of all time“) series and streamed on RTL+ in September 2025. Better late than never. It’s also on several streaming sites, none of which is, of course, available for us in Norway, but you can find it in 4K on YouTube.
Director: Alvaro Passeri Writers: Alvaro Passeri, Antony Pedicini Country & year: Italy, 2000 Actors: Adam O’Neil, Holly Laningham, Cyrus Elias, Helen Preest, Peter Boom, Paola Real, John Gayford, Clive Riche, Mark Anazald IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0391355/
Asuka is a high school student who’s a bit of a loner. She’s very shy, apparently doesn’t have any friends, and keeps walking to school by herself while the other students keep laughing and clinging together. Then everything changes when Asuka sees the apparition of a dead girl named Haruka, who simply asks her to “find her body“. After some other strange incidents during the day, Asuka gets back home like it’s just been another normal day in Japan, preparing for the next lonely day at school. Well, she’s in for a new kind of normal from now on. After going to sleep, she wakes up in the middle of the night together with several of her classmates. They’re inside the school, and no one has any idea how they got there. What they quickly find out, however, is that they are now part of some kind of occult game called “Body Search“, and they need to find the eight pieces of Haruka’s body and place it inside a coffin. Sounds like fun, eh?
Not exactly, as their biggest problem isn’t finding the body parts, but being stalked and killed by an entity called the Red Person. When the first night is over, the Red Person has successfully killed them all before they’ve been able to find as much as a single body part. Game Over? Nope, it seems we have a fair share of continues. Asuka wakes up, and initially believes it all to be a strange nightmare…but the date remains the same as of yesterday. Her mother repeats the same lines and actions from the day before. Asuka and the other students who were with her on the Body Search last night, are all now stuck in a time loop. And they will all remain stuck, until they’ve found all of Haruka’s body parts.
Re/Member is a Japanese horror film directed by Eiichirō Hasumi, produced by Warner Bros. Japan. It is based on a Japanese manga series called Karada Sagashi, written by Welzard and illustrated by Katsutoshi Murase. Upon checking this movie out on Netflix we didn’t know much about it, and plot-wise I was actually surprised it wasn’t based off of a video game. The whole setting is quite reminiscent of Corpse Party, the RPG Maker indie game which also centers around a group of students in a school, chased by a girl in red. In the world of the supernatural, the “Lady in Red“ is often a very benevolent ghost, compared to her more friendly counterpart the Lady in White, which is mostly a western thing. I guess red means danger even in the ghost world.
The movie starts off very straightforward, presenting the characters and mystery in a somewhat generic manner but it’s still interesting enough from the get-go, and I really liked the build-up of atmosphere and mystery, together with some nice kills. The pacing can sometimes feel pretty wonky though, where it’s trying to balance gory horror with the anime-esque romantic comedy elements. But overall I never found myself bored with it. From the introduction of the characters, the old murder mystery and the Body Search itself, it was all packed with enough suspense and atmosphere to always keep me interested. It’s also such a huge plus that it doesn’t shy away from showing some gory kill scenes! And, while this is too much fun and action-packed to really be scary, it did manage to build some tight, creepy atmosphere in several of the scenes. And my heart always melts a little when I see the use of practical effects. Sure, there is some CGI here too, but a good amount of practical is used here which looks way more decent than the CGI (which is often the case). Nothing had me prepared for the scenes later in the movie involving a monster though! It’s such a fun mix of uncanny, goofy and creepy at the same time. Must’ve been a struggle for the actor inside that costume though…
Re/Member was more fun that I’d expected it to be, and despite some pacing issues here and there and some strange tonal shifts, I had a pretty good time with it. I totally loved some of the old-school practical effects, especially for the monster. While it’s not exactly anything groundbreaking or awesome, it’s a fun Japanese teen-horror movie mixing supernatural elements with time loops and monsters.
In 2025 a sequel to this movie was released, called Re/Member: The Last Night. And this takes a considerably bigger tonal shift where it’s much more of a teen comedy. Wasn’t our thing, but if you’re interested in checking it out it’s also available on Netflix, at least in some regions.
Director: Eiichirô Hasumi Writer: Harumi Doki Country & year: Japan, 2022 Actors: Kanna Hashimoto, Gordon Maeda, Maika Yamamoto, Fûju Kamio, Kotaro Daigo, Mayu Yokota, Yumemi Ishida IMDb:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21250176/
The movie opens with an eerie scene of a naked man drowning himself in the marsh. For what reason, and who he was, we have absolutely no idea…at least not yet. Then we head over to our protagonist, Laura. She’s a woman troubled with trauma and who is trying to handle this in the worst ways possible of course: by drugging the pain away. Yup, that’s always such a splendid solution and never make things ten times worse! While she’s overdosing in her own bathroom, something inexplicable happens causing her to survive. With most of her life having already gone to shit, including her job and what was originally a good relationship with her boss, she decides to confront her childhood demons once and for all. Laura packs up and leaves to return to her childhood home in a village where everyone seems to keep a resentment towards her for having left the place. Well, they can all go fuck themselves, who cares what they think. But Laura soon finds herself in a position where it’s not only the broken relationship with her mother that’s the only problem…and why does it look like her mother has barely aged at all since she left all those years ago?
Matriarch is a folk horror film from 2022, written and directed by Ben Steiner. It was released on Hulu and Disney+. While we’ve had more than our fair share of trauma-centered movies in the horror genre during the last two decades or so, many of them try to depict the protagonist in as much of a sympathy-inducing manner as possible. In this movie, however, our protagonist Laura comes off as such a miserable and messy character, with a demeanor that’s hard to fully sympathize with. Yes, she had a bad childhood and all kudos to her for escaping the hellhole she came from and starting a new life…but instead of at least trying to get her act together, she’s self-sabotaging in the worst ways possible, while antagonizing every kind person around her who’s actually trying to help. She’s a maladaptive mess. And then we get to meet the mother, or the matriarch if you will, and while you kind of get why Laura has become such a fuck-up to begin with they ultimately both end up being unlikable characters, despite obviously rooting for Laura in all of this as she’s the obvious victim here. But victims can sometimes be assholes too. There’s no mystery regarding the mother though, it’s apparent from the get-go that she’s an evil bitch who starts drugging her daughter already on the first night for some purpose we get to know much later in the movie.
The town itself appears like the type of forgotten village where all the young people are long gone to better and more populated places, while the only remaining ones are the binge-drinking types that keeps the only local pub well alive while all the rest goes to shit. And while that comparison may not be all that far from the truth, it becomes obvious early on that it’s not just Laura’s mother who is plotting something sinister, everyone in the little town appears to be keeping some kind of dark secret. While the story here is very much a slow burner with more focus on family drama at first, there’s always an underlying tone of something brooding, some supernatural mystery that gets slowly revealed. The atmosphere is pretty decent, and helps elevate the movie.
While not great, I think that Matriarch is a pretty decent folk-horror slowburner, with some disturbing elements and an unexpected bonkers finale. If you like folk horror movies and already have a subscription to Disney+/ Hulu, I recommend giving it a watch!
Writer & Director: Ben Steiner Country & year: USA, 2022 Actors: Jemima Rooper, Kate Dickie, Sarah Paul, Simon Meacock, Nick Haverson, Andrew Akins, Mandy Aldridge, Nini Anamah, Samantha Arnold, Franc Ashman IMDb:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17202326/
Sebastian Caine is a brilliant scientist who has developed something truly incredible: a serum that can make someone invisible. Of course, he hasn’t done everything entirely by himself, as his team includes six other people, including his ex-girlfriend Linda…but since he’s a narcissistic a-hole they don’t matter to him, of course. Neither does the poor gorilla which they have tested the serum on, which successfully turned it invisible and it’s now freaking out in the lab. The turning-invisible part is just the first step of the process, as they need to inject a reversing serum to make the subject visible again. They do this to the gorilla, ends up being a success, and everyone are happy over such a major achievement! A project like this couldn’t be done without proper funding, though, and who would be most interested in throwing big cash on something like this? Yup, you probably guessed that right: the military, of course. So then, time to go and bring the sponsors the good news then, right? Well…Sebastian has other plans. Instead of reporting the latest success to the military, he tells them he needs more time and wants to start the human testing without their authorization. The rest of his team are kept in the dark about this, but we’ve already established that he doesn’t give a shit about anyone else but himself. And it comes as no surprise that he wants to be the first human test subject…
Just like with the gorilla, Sebastian is successfully turned invisible. Time to have some fun! Or, at least what a sociopath would consider “fun”. Sebastian sneaks around the lab, pranks them a little at first, and then goes on to basically molest one of his teamworkers while she’s asleep by sexually fondling her. Yikes! That escalated quickly. If you had even the slightest doubt that Sebastian might not be all that bad, well, here you go. No redemption arc in sight for this one. And as the other people on the team becomes wary of him and his behavior, they decide that enough is enough, he’s had his fun and it’s time to get the douchebag visible again. Except…things don’t go the way any of them had hoped for, and that also includes Sebastian.
Hollow Man is a sci-fi horror thriller from 2000. It’s written by Andrew W. Marlowe (from a story he co-wrote with Gary Scott Thompson) and directed by Paul Verhoeven. It did pretty well at the box office, $190 million against its $95 million budget, but wasn’t too well received. Paul Verhoeven, who had earlier made films like Robocop (1987) Total Recall (1990) and Starship Troopers (1997) had wanted to tone done the levels of sex and violence in this film in order to, well, make it more “commercial for the masses”. The main focus here was obviously the special effects, as most of the movie’s budget went to this. Sony Pictures Imageworks (SPI) and Tippet Studio worked on this movie, so needless to say it does look pretty good.
The performances here are solid, with Kevin Bacon playing Sebastian aka the hollow man. And yes, considering what type of guy he’s so clearly depicted as, it becomes obvious that the title can have a double meaning. While we do not have any kind of “falling down” episode for Sebastian’s character, as it becomes obvious he’s already pretty far up on the “I’m the bad guy” bar, it still brought some suspense to see how far he would go when getting the gift of being invisible. The simple premise of “what would you do if you could not get caught” is something that will always make people ponder, but that doesn’t mean the majority would do the things Sebastian does. Statements like “everyone would do x or y if they could get away with it” is a bit akin to the “a thief thinks everybody steals” mindset. Not everyone would do bad things just because they could. But some would…because they are bad people to begin with.
Overall, you could say that Hollow Man might come off as a little, eh, hollow if you wanted something deep and meaningful here. If you prefer your invisible men with less cheese, then Leigh Whanell’s The Invisible Man from 2020 might be more your thing. But this one is a pretty fun popcorn type of film that just aims to entertain, and should be a good and fun watch on a lazy evening!
A sequel called Hollow Man 2 was released in 2006, starring Christian Slater and Peter Facinelli.
Director: Paul Verhoeven Writers: Andrew W. Marlowe, Gary Scott Thompson Country & year: USA, 2000 Actors: Elisabeth Shue, Kevin Bacon, Josh Brolin, Kim Dickens, Greg Grunberg, Joey Slotnick, Mary Randle, William Devane, Rhona Mitra IMDb:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0164052/
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 RaccoonCity (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/
