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/
Grace is a young woman who ventures back to her childhood hometown after her father has died and her brother has gone missing. And of course we quickly find out that there’s a reason she left the place, because her late father was an abusive asshole. Good riddance. Grace has been estranged from her family for a very long time, living her life and pursuing her career in a completely different place, but now she returns mainly because of her brother, who was the only person who stood up for her when they were kids.
Once arriving in her old hometown, where everything kind of has the look of decay and rot, she notices missing people posters everywhere. She finds out that one of her old teachers are driving some people up to the wilderness, and after asking around she discovers that her brother apparently went there too to get away from the city life (and their father who was then still alive). There’s supposed to be some kind of hidden commune up there somewhere, but it’s not going to be easy finding it on your own. With the help of her former teacher she ventures deep into the wilderness to find her lost brother, and lo and behold – ends up getting lost herself. Now she must struggle to stay alive, and of course there’s something dangerous and dark hidden between all that beautiful nature.
The Banished is an Australian folk-horror movie from 2024, written and directed by Joseph Sims-Dennett. And yes, it’s another trauma-fueled story which has been all the rage for the last decade or so. Rarely do we get horror movies these days where trauma isn’t a major factor in the storytelling. Here we get the trauma bits interwoven with a missing people mystery, some possible dark secrets of a secluded community, and hints of something supernatural. Mostly, though, it’s about being lost in the woods. While it comes off as a bit slow, I enjoyed the creepiness of the wilderness and the mystery behind the hidden commune and the people venturing there. There’s a constant eerie atmosphere, and the isolation feels real and claustrophobic. Nothing bad to say about the actors, either, where Meg Eloise-Clarke delivers a strong lead performance.
What I appreciated the most in this movie, though, was the actual feeling of true isolation in the wilderness, and the slight psychedelic vibe throughout a large part of it. Perhaps being less ambiguous and dropping the non-linear storytelling format would have served the narrative better, but overall I think The Banished is a pretty nice watch if you’re in for something slow and eerie with an isolated forest setting.
If you’re in for more lost-in-the-woods horror of the slower kind, maybe also give Lovely, Dark and Deep from 2023 a watch.
Writer and director: Joseph Sims-Dennett Country & year: Australia, 2024 Actors: Meg Eloise-Clarke, Gautier de Fontaine, David Beelen, Steve Brekalow, Hayley Buckley, Taylor Buoro, Leighton Cardno, David Charlie, Adrian D’Arcy IMDb:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33050521/
―There have been films about earthquakes, airplane disasters and blazing infernos… but there has never been anything like THE DEVIL’S RAIN! … or nothing like this fluffy, silly Satanic horror movie that only could have come out from the mid ’70s. Horns up!
Just to make no mistake what subject matter we’re getting ourselves into, the film opens with tasty hell paintings by Bosch over the intro credits. We then get thrown right into, yes you guessed it, a rainstorm where Mark Preston (William Shatner) is looking for his father. After he gets home to his mother Emma and some other old guy named John, his father, Steve, suddenly shows up outside the house, looking like a melted hobo freak from Tromaville. Steve has escaped from the Satanic cult leader Jonathan Corbis to warn the Preston family about a mysterious book, which Corbis expect to be delivered to him at a place called Redstone. Steve mumbles “In nomine Satanas“ before he melts away to a small puddle in front of Mark and his wife.
We learn that the Prestons have hidden a Satanic Bible for generations, and now they order Mark to just give it to Corbis. Nah! Instead, he loads his gun and gets ready to hunt down this Corbis guy to blow his brains out, because who wouldn’t. If it was that simple. A voodoo doll is nailed to the steering wheel on his truck. Uh-oh. Mark then hears screaming from the house where he finds John hanging upside-down with a bloody face. The house has also been completely trashed, as if a tornado of poltergeists had swarmed by. Emma is gone and seems to have been kidnapped by Corbis’s cult. All this happens in just a seconds. Talk about some vulgar display of power. Eleven minutes in and the film is already all over the place. Mark finally takes the roadtrip to Redstone which looks like an abandoned old ghost town and maybe an old set for a western movie. After Mark eventually gets captured by the Satanic cult, we then switches over to Mark’s brother Tom (Tom Skerritt) and his wife Julie who’s a psychic of some sort. She can see into the past, or something like that. Tom get the news that his brother is missing and the search begins in the Mexican desert. Good luck and remember to drink a plenty of water.
According to the original poster for The Devil’s Rain, it can promise us “Absolutely the most incredible ending of any motion picture ever!” Yes, with an exclamation point. No clickbait bullshit, because hear this: the last five minutes or so has more gooey and grotesque melting body horror than The Incredible Melting Man (1977) and Body Melt (1993) combined. Not too shabby for a half-obscure ’70s low-budget horror. And look out for John Travolta’s very first screen presence, which he’s not much proud of as he only remembers it as a terrible movie. Travolta has been in way, way, waaay worse movies than this, and that’s a fact. Then we have the actual Mister Satanist himself, Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan who worked as technical advisor on the film and had a small cameo as the The High Priest. The chanting we hear from the Corbis cult are words from The Satanic Bible, yes the one and only that LaVey wrote and published in 1967. And with that being said, Ernest Borgnine, who plays the cult leader, would never be in a film that deals with devils and satanism again after the film was plagued with “eerie incidents and accidents“. That’s a shame, since he seemed to be having a ball playing the over-the-top demonic cartoonish villain with the most evil psychotic grin that only Kenneth Copeland could match. His presence in full demonic form is nothing but mesmerizing where he looks like a mix of Ron Perlman from Hellboy and the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. Delightful stuff!
But the one that didn’t smile in the slightest, was director Robert Fuest, who was on the brink of a nervous breakdown while filming somewhere in bumfuck nowhere in a dusty hellhole in Mexico with very limited resources. Rumors say that the film was financed with mafia money and several actors didn’t get paid, including Ernest Borgnine. A chaotic shitshow, in other words. After a disastrous theatrical release which garnered mostly negative reviews and earned a spot on Roger Ebert’s “Most Hated“ movies list, Fuest was reduced to spending the rest of his film career on obscure TV shows and even more obscure TV movies. It wasn’t until 1982 that he got his final theatrical release, which was the Greek soft porn Aphrodite. Showbiz…what can you say. Leaving on that note, The Devil’s Rain may sound like one of the worst movies ever made. I wouldn’t say it’s even close. It’s a flawed incoherent mess for sure, but an entertaining incoherent mess with some solid production values, vibrant look, a nice n’ eerie vibe, a cool-looking villain and, a glimpse of the origin of the iconic Michael Myer’s mask… and, of course, lots of melting satanists. The only thing missing is a nude woman ready to be sacrificed on an altar, but oh well, not everyone can be Nude for Satan, I guess.
Director: Robert Fuest Writers: Gabe Essoe, James Ashton, Gerald Hopman Country & year: Mexico/USA, 1975 Actors: Ernest Borgnine, Eddie Albert, Ida Lupino, William Shatner, Keenan Wynn, Tom Skerritt, Joan Prather, Woodrow Chambliss, John Travolta, Claudio Brook, Lisa Todd, Anton LaVey IMDb:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072869/
A young artist uses a forbidden paint containing the remains of a serial killer’s victims, unaware that a mysterious phrase can awaken the souls trapped within.
Horror Short Sunday is here again, and this time we’re taking a look at Death Red! That serial killer sure found an interesting way to use part of his victims…
Director: Mitch Glass Writer: Mitch Glass Country & year: US, 2025 Actors: Joseph Lopez, Brad Rundblade, Jordan Tortorello, Kelsey Tuma IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt32939476/
Rose is a young and very talented violinist, but she’s also a bit of a loner. Charles, her agent and manager, has been taking care of her and functioned more or less as a parental figure ever since Rose’s mother died when Rose was only sixteen. When it comes to her father, who is none other than world famous composer Richard Marlowe, she has never personally known him as he abandoned his family and became a recluse shortly after Rose was born. And now the guy is dead, which to the news Rose at first gives a “whatever, I’m busy“ attitude. Who can really blame her, though, the man was basically nothing but a stranger she never met. Rose has still inherited his mansion which is located in France, and she decides to go there in the small hopes of maybe finding out something about why he decided to leave his own family all those years ago.
Once there, in the gloomy and desolate mansion, she finds some sheet music for the sonata her father had been working on for the last twenty-or-so years. She sends a sample of it to Charles, who is immediately intrigued and sees potential for wealth and fortune. The final piece of a famous composer! Once he starts digging, he finds that Richard had been a member of some satanic cult who believed that music could be used for summoning the Antichrist himself. And Rose starts experiencing strange things around the mansion…
The Sonata is a supernatural horror thriller from 2018, directed by Andrew Desmond from a screenplay by Desmond and Arthur Morin. It also stars Rutger Hauer in a smaller role, and this was his final film before his death the following year. The film was shot almost entirely in Latvia, in the 19th century Cesvaine Palace.
This is one of those supernatural movies where you get a good amount of that misty, gothic atmosphere. It’s never really venturing into any real scares, but it’s always giving off that certain spooky vibe. The movie starts off from Richard Marlowe’s perspective (played by the late Rutger Hauer), filmed in a pretty interesting POV style where we witness an act of self-immolation. So, we already know that some weird, spooky shit is going on here. And yes, it does play out the rest of the film as a straight-forward supernatural mystery thriller, with a satanic cult, mysterious disappearances, and of course several paranormal incidents. Just like in The Ninth Gate, the mystery unfolds through cryptic esoteric symbols, hidden messages in artwork and the solving of puzzles in order to unlock some dark, demonic forces.
The music, of course, also plays a significant role here. The ficitional Op. 54 “Rose Sonata“ was composed, orchestrated and conducted by Alexis Maingaud, and performed by solo violinist Olivier Leclerc with the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France. With much of the movie’s concept relying on some unfinished evil sonata, it would be expected that the music here would add to the overall feeling of the film. And it certainly helps with providing the perfect setting for the story.
While never bringing much new do the table, The Sonata is a pretty fine gothic supernatural mystery thriller which delivers mostly on a spooky atmosphere, a nice location, and of course a lot of violin playing.
Director: Andrew Desmond Writers: Andrew Desmond, Arthur Morin Country & year: France/UK/Latvia, 2018 Actors: Freya Tingley, Simon Abkarian, James Faulkner, Rutger Hauer, Catherine Schaub-Abkarian, Matt Barber, Christopher Brand IMDb:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7149066/
A group of Soviet and British plunderers visit an old, abandoned 13th-century abbey located somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains. The abbey is filled with what can be best described as Lovecraftian carvings, which was probably supposed to be some kind of warning. These guys don’t give a shit, though, and blasts the place with dynamite which makes the floor collapse and throws them into some underground cave system. This all happened sometime during the Cold War, and what happened to these guys? We don’t get to know that, at least not yet.
Fast forward to the present, and Dr. Nicolai and his associate Dr. Kathryn Jennings is leading a team to excavate the former abbey which is now just a bunch of ruins. Once inside they discover mysterious mosaics, and find that the cave system could contain an entirely undiscovered ecosystem. Inside the cave, a guy named Briggs is chosen to scout ahead and he ends up being attacked by something. The others believe it’s just an equipment malfunction, but the huge problem remains the same: the water scooter Briggs used sped off and crashed into the wall, causing rocks to fall down and blocking the way they came in. The only way they can get out now, is by following the river and hoping they find another way out…all the while something else inside the cave seems to be stalking them.
The Cave is a creature feature film from 2005, directed by Bruce Hunt and written by Michael Steinberg and Tegan West. It grossed $33.3 million against a $25 million budget, and the reception wasn’t that great. And I guess it didn’t help that there was another cave-horror movie that came the same year, The Descent, which became a huge hit and is conceivably a better film. That being said, The Cave is not really a bad movie!
One of the highlights, at least for me, were the set design, props and effects. The movie was filmed in Romania (which is known for having over 12,000 registered caves) and some scenes featuring underwater caves where shot in Mexico. Aside from real-life locations there were some really good artificial cave sets built near Bucharest, and a 750,000 gallon tank was created for some of the underwater photography. Yeah, I do have a soft spot which seems to grow softer for each year when it comes to actual real-life locations and handmade props. It just makes a movie look so much more real, which makes it easier for me to actually feel whatever the characters are going through during the film. The actors also had to sometimes spend up to 12 hours a day in a wetsuit, going in and out of the water all the time, and I can easily see how this must have been exhausting as hell.
The Cave plays out more as an action horror and there aren’t really any scares, but it’s pretty solid as far as creature feature films go. Much thanks to the set designs and locations you easily buy that they are truly trapped in those caves. It also takes a little inspiration from real-life incidents of discoveries of micro-ecologies that have been found in deep caves, and especially in Romania. In 1986 Cristian Lascu discovered Movile Cave, where 35 new species were found and this included a 10 cm venomous centipede. Nothing of any gigantic measures, for sure, but there’s always that little thought of “who knows what else could be down there“. At the start of the movie you also get a little bit of a Lovecraftian vibe, but the movie doesn’t really venture there so don’t start expecting some cosmic horror of any kind. This is purely a monster flick, and for this purpose it does its job well. The CGI monsters leaves something to be desired, not gonna lie about that. I’ve seen a lot worse, though, and there are some scenes where they used animatronics and real models which of course looks great.
The Cave is a fun little popcorn creature feature flick, with some good suspense and a claustrophobic cave setting.
Director: Bruce Hunt Writers: Michael Steinberg, Tegan West Country & year: USA/Romania, 2005 Actors: Cole Hauser, Eddie Cibrian, Morris Chestnut, Lena Headey, Piper Perabo, Rick Ravanello, Daniel Dae Kim, Kieran Darcy-Smith, Marcel Iures, Vlad Radescu IMDb:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402901/
After hiring a shadowy company to speak to his deceased son, a grieving father is faced with a sinister force.
It is Horror Short Sunday again, and this time we’re taking a look at The Conduit! This is a creepy supernatural horror short about a father seeking contact with his dead son.
