Shogo is the star of a popular call-in radio show, who is forced to broadcast from the infamous “Studio 6“ which is a creepy and abandoned booth. The last time someone used it was several years ago, when the DJ there committed suicide. Yay. Shogo is also a prime example of the douchebag breed, and of course he’s got some skeletons in the closet. His crew isn’t exactly treated fairly by him, either. When someone on the line starts whispering “liar“ to him, he starts fearing that someone knows about his troubled past. Or maybe…the studio is cursed and the same fate that fell on the previous DJ will also fall upon him? Shogo keeps getting more and paranoid.
The Booth is a J-Horror movie from 2005, written and directed by Yoshihiro Nakamura. The leading role in the movie is played by Ryûta Satô, and this was actually his first leading role. He’s most known for his role in the Netflix movie Fullmetal Alchemist from 2017.
There are many early 2000’s J-Horror films that are little known. Some for obvious reasons, while others never got the attention they deserved. The Booth falls a bit into the latter category, as it’s a very decent mystery horror film. It’s mostly a one-location movie, which focuses on the tension built from Shogo’s asshole-behaviour and creeping sense of unease as he fears that his bad attitude has started catching up on him. As the film opens with the reveal of the DJ having committed suicide in the notorious Studio 6, we already know that there might be some supernatural influences here. Or is there, really? The movie offers so many twists and turns underway, some which you’re very unlikely to see coming.
Limited location movies often depend a lot on the leading role character, and Ryûta Satô does a great job performing as the arrogant and despicable DJ Shogo. All throughout the movie, you get snippets from his past and several misdeeds, and there’s especially one that ends up revealing quite the unexpected turn of events. You don’t root for this guy at all, so you end up looking forward to see him get a bit of karma teeth on his ass. Whether or not it’s a curse, supernatural forces of some kind, or simply his barebones bad conscience that catches up with him…well, that’s something the movie keeps as a mystery until the very end.
The Booth is an obscure, creepy little J-Horror film, definitely worth a watch if you’re looking for a claustrophobic horror chamber film that will keep you guessing.
Writer and director: Yoshihiro Nakamura Original title: Bûsu Country & year: Japan, 2005 Actors: Maiko Asano, Makoto Ashikawa, Mansaku Ikeuchi, Seiko Iwaidô, Hijiri Kojima, Masaki Miura IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0760506/
Late at night, deep in the woods, a woman cries in her car. A light flickers through the trees. At the edge of her headlights’ reach, she can just make out the shape of a man. He’s coming closer.
Another Horror Short Sunday, and this time we’re taking a look at The Perfect Place to Cry. A simple, straight-to-the-point suspenseful horror short!
Director: Shane Bannon Writer: Shane Bannon Country & year: USA, 2022 Actors: Celina Bernstein, Kevin Owyang, Jesse Howland IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt22815298/
You mad, bro? Shakma the baboon clearly is, that’s for sure. And who can really blame him, as he’s trapped inside a tiresome office building with a bunch of bland NPC characters that you rather want to flush down the toilet before you take the weekend off. Cuz this fluffy firecracker has zero tolerances for stupid people… and doors. Especially doors.
The story is even more simple than any of the Friday the 13th films: A group of young medical students are preparing themselves to be locked in a lab building during one night to role-play Dungeons and Dragons. And instead of a serial killer lurking around, we have a baboon named Shakma who starts to body-count them. And if baboons weren’t hostile enough animals already, this one has just been injected with an experimental serum that increases his aggression even more. If you play with fire, you’ll get burned, as we say, and Shakma will make sure of that.
Shakma is a very cheap-looking film, even for a budget of 1,500,000 bucks. The setting here, with the grey office environment, is as dull as it can get with the esthetics and vibes that ooze like a cancelled sitcom where the actors, who’s just graduated from the Disney Channel School of Acting, have to deliver lines such as You are soooooo male! Well, excuuuuuuse me, princess…
And speaking of: the one and only reason to give this silly B(aboon) movie a watch is thanks to Shakma himself. He’s “played“ by Typhoon – a real, unstoppable, demonic force of nature who’d bite off both of the ears of Mike Tyson in a heartbeat. Typhoon is not just the most badass name ever, but the most fitting, as he literally typhoons himself throughout the whole film, where you almost feel more sorry for the doors he tries to break, as his own life was depending on it. Fluffboy is so fucking pissed and full of rage that he makes Alec Baldwin look like Postman Pat, and no one can convince me that he was a joy to work with. I bet the feelings from Typhoon were mutual. At least he got snacks constantly between the takes to calm him down and was carefully instructed by his trainer, Gerry Therrien, so he didn’t murder the whole film crew. Baboons are, after all, nothing to joke with as they’re the most aggressive monkey species out there. The actors did what they could to not make eye contact with Typhoon as that was enough to trigger him. Actress Amanda Wyss, most known for being the first victim of Freddy Krueger back in 1984, was especially very afraid of the fluffy co-star. And I’m just assuming that most of the budget went to the doors. I’d love to see an hour of B-rolls of this, which I’d guess would be more amusing than the film itself.
That being said, Shakma works fine for what it is, and there’s enough of monkey rage, body-counts, some cheap gore and some even cheaper laughs, if you’re in the right mood, to keep you entertained. This was also David Lynch’s favorite film of 1990. And after learning that, I just can’t stop picturing a little, cute, fluffy baboon dancing in a certain red room.
Directors: Hugh Parks, Tom Logan Writer: Roger Engle Country & year: USA, 1990 Actors: Typhoon, Christopher Atkins, Amanda Wyss, Ari Meyers, Roddy McDowall, Robb Edward Morris, Tre Laughlin, Greg Flowers, Ann Kymberlie, Donna Jarrett IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100589/
A woman is hunted by what appears to be a deranged killer, who is hellbent on taking her down. Who are these people, and what connection do they have? Well, we are soon to find out more but not in a chronological order. What we see in the opening is very much the middle of the film, and after an action-filled chase scene we backtrack to an earlier chapter where we find out that the woman meets the guy in order to hook up for sex in a local motel. Something is off right from the start, of course, and everything keeps spiraling into what ends up as a crazy cat ‘n mouse chase where you’re going to keep guessing.
Strange Darling is a thriller from 2023, written and directed by JT Mollner. The movie is told in a non-linear fashion, with 6 chapters, and very much centers around keeping you wondering what is going on, except the early understanding of this being a story about a serial killer. The movie was shot on location in Oregon on 35 mm film by Giovanni Ribisi.
When Mollner had completed the script for the film, he got three different offers and decided to meet up with Miramax first, where he wasn’t even three minutes into his pitch before Bill Block told him they had a deal. Things didn’t exactly go as smooth from thereon, however. It was shut down two days into filming due to some executives suddenly deciding to throw a fit, and stated “we hate everything about what you’re sending us. We’re not enjoying this at all. And we’re not sure if this is going to work“. They also wanted Willa Fitzgerald to be recast (who was excellent in the role) and hated that the movie was told in a non-linear way. Why they suddenly started to act like someone shoved a cactus up their ass is anyone’s guess, but it actually went as far as Miramax hiring another editor to recut the film as a linear story, to which Mollner clearly stated that he then would have his name removed from the film. He utilized a clause in his contract that stipulated that he could demand there to be a test screening of his director’s cut, and during this test screening the crowd started being very enthusiastic about the way the story was told, and Miramax finally let Mollner keep his final cut. Bill Block also later apologized to Mollner for the shitstorm during the film’s production.
While I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about stories not being told in a non-linear way (sometimes it works perfectly, other times it might just befuddle everything), this movie is a perfect example of how the non-linear storytelling heightens the experience. Yeah…I gotta admit that certain things were a little obvious already from the early part of the movie, but not being entirely sure what is going to happen and what has already happened, that is part of the viewing experience here. It’s entertaining and suspenseful, and the performances from both Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner are really well done and the cinematography is vibrant and beautiful.
Strange Darling is one of those movies that is hard to write very much about since it really is a movie where you need to go in as blind as possible, and while the “twist“ or whatever could be seen from a mile away (or at least from very early in the movie), it was still a very fun experience.
Writer and director: JT Mollner Country & year: USA, 2023 Actors: Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Ed Begley Jr., Barbara Hershey, Madisen Beaty, Bianca A. Santos, Steven Michael Quezada IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22375054/
A cursed bridesmaid is forced to track down and marry her soulmate to escape the wrath of a malevolent demon known as The Manglik.
Horror Short Sunday again, and this time we’re taking a look at My Scary Indian Wedding where a demon makes a young bridesmaid perform several rituals in order to stay alive…
Director: Ramone Menon Writer: Ramone Menon Country & year: USA, India, 2023 Actors: Misha Molani, Patrick Rutnam, Lexa Gluck, Anna Chavez, Raoul Menon IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt28280280/
We’re somewhere in central Africa where a tiger has been captured to be a new supplement for a local circus in France. The circus is run by Mr. Lohman, an abusing scumbag who should be fed to the lions. The staff would agree, especially the young tiger trainer’s assistant, Yanka (Emmanuelle Escourrou). One night the new tiger explodes/bursts. Splat. Just like that. And out of the tiger we see a snake-looking parasite who slimes its way into Yanka’s trailer while she’s sleeping, and crawls into her vagina. I guess Aylmer would be jealous.
As she wakes up with morning sickness, she gets confirmed from a lab that she’s pregnant. And who’s the father? Yanka have a suspicion, but little did she know. The daily life at the circus goes as normal where Lohman acts like an unhinged lunatic who wants to pick fights with the whole staff. Yanka has had enough of the abuse and dead-end career bollshit, packs a bag, steals some cash and flees to the big open world of France.
We jump to one month later where Yanka has taken shelter in a rundown crack house apartment where she has lost her mind. I bet that happens when you have a monster baby parasite in your womb that speaks to you with a distorted telekinesis voice, and tells you to kill people so that it can feed on blood to grow. She gets an unexpected visit from Lohman, who’s tracked her down, only to be the first victim. At least, this one deserved it.
From here on we follow Yanka as she goes on a murder spree where she jumps from job to job, from the one scenario to the next. Prostitution would probably be the easiest choice to lure men, but she’s way too classy for that. She goes from being a part-time waitress to a taxi driver to, much later, becoming a police woman (in the sequel. Yes, really). Not much logic here, in other words, and the film doesn’t take itself seriously. The distinct tone is pretty clear from the start where we have a quick opening monologue from the parasite itself.
80 women auditioned for the role of Yanka, and it’s easy to see what director Alain Robak was looking for. Emmanuelle Escourrou is quite a remarkable sight, the camera is sure to show us that, but she can also act and gives a pretty raw performance. The film also has some stylish flavor to it and a uniqueness that makes it stand out rather than just being another low-budget schlock. And if you’re in for the gore, you won’t be disappointed as the film has the word blood in the title for a reason. No click-bait title, just to make that clear. Despite a middle-part that drags a bit, it gets pretty wild, and Baby Blood is overall a fun, zany and a tasteful little exploitation classic with its own spin on the pregnancy horror sub-genre.
The film became an urban hit as it sold exactly 10381 tickets in Paris before it grew up to be a half-obscure cult-classic. And speaking of obscure, in one scene we can actually spot an easter egg poster for Baby Blood 2, even though it took 19 years to make the sequel, titled Lady Blood – which, judging from the trailer, looks like an Uwe Boll film. No wonder why it has a solid 2.7 rating on IMDb from only 188 users. So… nah. I’d probably check it out if it sharts out on streaming.
Baby Blood is available on Blu-ray, also with the English dub version where you can hear Gary Oldman as the parasite.
Director: Alain Robak Writers: Serge Cukier, Alain Robak Country & year: France, 1990 Actors: Emmanuelle Escourrou, Christian Sinniger, Jean-François Gallotte, Roselyne Geslot, François Frapier, Thierry Le Portier, Rémy Roubakha, Eric Averlant, Alain Robak, Alain Chabat IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096871/
The Ugly Stepsister is a dark and twisted reimagining of the classic fairytale Cinderella, mostly inspired by the Brothers Grimm version and this time told from the perspective of one of Cinderella’s stepsisters. Her name is Elvira, and she’s dreaming of Prince Julian all the time. She’s savoring his published book of poems, dreaming of being the girl he will end up marrying. And she’s willing to do everything it takes!
The original title of this movie is Den Stygge Stesøsteren, and it’s a dark comedy horror film co-written and directed by Emilie Blichfeldt in her directorial debut. It is an international co-production between Norway, Poland, Sweden and Denmark, and it was filmed on location in Poland. The movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on 23 January 2025, where it opened the Midnight Section. It received a little bit of buzz on the festival screenings, where some people even compared it to the body-horror hit The Substance from last year. And while I can see where people draw those similarities from, I’d also like to make it clear that The Substance and The Ugly Stepsister are two very different beauties. They both involve a commentary on society’s harsh demands on looks, where The Substance focused mostly on aging where The Ugly Stepsister is a commentary on the fucked up beauty standards as a whole. The Substance is a lot more sci-fi-ish and wild, while The Ugly Stepsister is more toned in realism, but both are definitely worth a watch! Just don’t expect them to be very similar.
Most of us are familiar with the classic fairytale Cinderella, especially due to the animated Disney feature from 1950. Here we start with the “bad guys“, the stepmother and her two daughters, coming to live with her new husband and his daughter Agnes (Cinderella). It doesn’t take long before things go south. Agnes’s father suddenly dies during dinner, making the stepmother a widow once more. Agnes, of course, is completely lost in grief. Then, in a scene where the “ugly“ stepsister, Elvira, enters Agnes’s room with some chocolate because she believes it might cheer her up and starts talking about how it felt when their father died, Agnes suddenly bursts out in anger and says “how dare you compare your grief to mine“. Yup…this made it very early that Agnes/Cinderella is a bit of a stuck-up bitch. At this point I started to wonder if the movie would be going in that opposite direction where the bad guys are the good ones and vice versa. However, when Agnes keeps up her bitch-parade by telling Elvira that her father would never have let people “like them” inside the house if it wasn’t for their money, Elvira runs out of the room in a shocked state towards her mother, shouting “they don’t have any money!“, where her mother is in a meeting with some creditors. So, both tried to marry because they believed the other one had wealth…so no one is really a good guy here, but there’s still no doubt who the real villains are. While Agnes (Cinderella) isn’t as meek and lovely as the original fairytale makes her out to be, the stepmother and Elvira treat her horribly without any just cause. The only sympathetic character is perhaps the other stepsister, Alma, who couldn’t give a rat’s ass about neither ball nor prince and is the most reasonable among them.
While we follow Elvira’s quest for unsurpassable beauty, it’s also easy to take note that despite this being set in such a fanciful fairytale setting, the procedures that Elvira are going through are based on things women actually did to themselves in order to achieve “beauty“ (well, aside from the final Grimm-part of course, the most similar you get to that is probably the Chinese foot binding). I have to admit I expected the movie to take things a lot further than it did (after all, there are enough brutal beauty practices to take from) but based on the sounds emanating from the other people in the theater I suppose there were enough gut-churning moments for the less hardened viewers.
Visually, the movie looks great and the costumes and scenery are all top notch. While the horror elements are more subtle, I’d say that they were interwoven in the movie to enhance the enchanting atmosphere. For example, Cinderella’s father was put inside a room in the house in order to wait for “enough money“ to bury him, which makes for some grotesque scenes. At the same time, this is also where the singing mice and Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo have been swapped with silk-spinning maggots crawling from the corpse’s body and the ghost of her mother. This makes for quite a creepycute scene, like something that could have come from a Tim Burton movie. The perfect atmosphere for a dark fairytale.
The Ugly Stepsister is a fun and beautiful movie, with a dark fairytale spin on a classic story mixed with the insane beauty standards that both have existed, and still exists today. The director, Emilie Blichfeldt, said in an interview that the movie’s theme is very personal for her: “When I got the idea for the movie, I thought: here I’ve been walking around trying to be Cinderella, while I’m actually the stepsister. Those of us who struggle with making that fucking shoe fit, we’re the stepsisters!“ and with that she’s certainly got a point. The beauty industry’s standard’s are unachievable for most people (duh, it needs to be, otherwise it wouldn’t be such a huge industry) where very few of us fits into the “perfect“ ideal. There are very few true “Cinderellas“ out there, most of us are “stepsisters“. And that isn’t really a problem as there isn’t a lot of true “princes“ either (there are very few monarchies left, after all). The majority of us are a bunch of normal people with normal looks, and while it’s far too naive to say that it’s only up to us how we want the beauty industry to affect our lives, we can at least use some common sense and appreciate the beauty in the “less perfect“.
The rights for North America, UK, Australia and New Zealand has been acquired by Shudder, and it has also been sold several other rights holders for further distribution. The Ugly Stepsister will hit the big screen in the US on April 18, and in the UK on April 25.
Writer and director: Emilie Blichfeldt Original title: Den stygge stesøsteren Country & year: Norway/Poland, 2025 Actors: Lea Myren, Thea Sofie Loch Næss, Ane Dahl Torp, Flo Fagerli, Isac Calmroth, Malte Gårdinger, Ralph Carlsson, Isac Aspberg, Albin Weidenbladh, Oksana Czerkasyna, Katarzyna Herman IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29344903/
Amidst total environmental collapse, a desperate and lonely fisherman discovers a mermaid.. and makes her dinner.
Another Horror Short Sunday, and this time we’re taking a look at The Fisherman’s Wife where a fisherman brings a mermaid back home.. and no, it’s not as romantic as it might sound..
Director: Jared Watson Writer: Jared Watson Country & year: USA, 2023 Actors: Kelsey Carthew, Caitlin Riley, T. Ryder Smith IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt26597407/
Jen and her boyfriend Darius are going on a hike to the Appalachian Trail, together with two other couples: Adam and Mia, and Gary and Luis. When they arrive at the small town in rural Virginia, they immediately get on the wrong foot with some of the locals. And when they begin their hike, they do of course commit the worst mistake of all which have been warned about so clearly: going off the trail. Every year, people die when hiking the Appalachian Trail, but sure…let’s tempt fate a little. It doesn’t go long until something happens: a huge tree trunk suddenly rolls down the hill and Gary gets crushed by it. Luis is totally distraught over the loss of his boyfriend, and on top of it all they cannot find their way back. They have no choice but to set up camp for the night, and the next day they wake up to find their cellphones are gone…and they also can’t see Mia anywhere. Close by, they find an old plaque dated “1859“, commemorating the creation of the “Foundation“, which were a group of settlers who fled to the mountains because they believed the end of the US was near. Obviously, they still live there, and the people who enter their realm do not get out alive.
Wrong Turn (aka Wrong Turn: The Foundation) is a horror film from 2021, which is some kind of reboot of the Wrong Turn franchise. It is directed by Mike P. Nelson and written by Alan McElroy, who is the franchise’s creator. It was theatrically released for only one day, on January 26, 2021, by Saban Films. It received fairly positive reviews, and grossed $4.8 million at the box office and $2.1 million in home sales. It is also the first film in the Wrong Turn franchise to actually have been filmed in the United States, as the previous ones were filmed in Canada and Bulgaria.
Wrong Turn is taking a different approach in this reboot, and instead of a bunch of inbred cannibal hillbillies killing off innocent travelers, it’s now a cult that’s behind it all. The cult, who is calling themselves the Foundation, believed in making an ideal place for themselves. Doesn’t sound that bad, right? Well, we all know that the creation of some people’s Utopia inevitably ends with the birth of some kind of Hell on earth, and this is no exception. While the previous installments in the franchise had the lunacy of the hillbillies as the threat, the cult’s vision of a perfect world and how to treat everyone who doesn’t fit in it, serves as a possibly even bigger threat. That being said, the build-up involves a bit of justified reaction from the cult due to the previous behaviour of the hikers, so there’s an attempt at trying to justify the view from both sides here. At least until a certain point.
There are some kills here that are grisly enough, and while there’s isn’t very much of this kind the ones displayed are effective enough. There’s a definite feeling of being lost and trapped between the characters, and while there are some things that fails to make everything entirely convincing all the time, it was a fun enough watch. Also, the ending was a nice touch.
Wrong Turn is a decent enough horror film and a reboot that does things a bit differently from the previous films in the franchise. I can see how this would easily put off many of the fans of the earlier films (very much like Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin did to that franchise’s fans), but as an easy-going horror flick for a lazy day this is a perfectly fine pick.
Director: Mike P. Nelson Writer: Alan B. McElroy Country & year: USA, 2021 Actors: Charlotte Vega, Adain Bradley, Bill Sage, Emma Dumont, Dylan McTee, Daisy Head, Matthew Modine, Vardaan Arora, Adrian Favela, Tim DeZarn, Rhyan Elizabeth Hanavan IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9110170/
Margot was abandoned as a baby outside a hospital, and the only thing she knows is that her mother came from an Amish family living at the Beiler Farm. She decides to make a documentary about her past, and brings with her some friends: Chris, the cameraman, and Dale, the soundman. They meet up with her blood relative Samuel, who leads them to the place where Margot’s mother came from. There they meet Jacob, the patriarch of the commune and also Margot’s grandfather. They’re welcomed, and soon strange events start happening. Margot gets some cryptic signs indicating that her mother, Sarah, is still alive and at the location somewhere. They also find a small church that is locked up, and they’re told they’re not allowed to enter. As more and more red warning signs start blinking, things have already gone too far before they realize that they’re all in danger at the isolated Amish farm.
Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin is a supernatural horror film from 2021, and despite the title, it doesn’t have jack-shit to do with the franchise aside from the name. It’s written by William Eubank, and produced by Jason Blum and Oren Peli. It’s the 7th film in the series, despite that Ghost Dimension from 2015 was promoted as the final installment. Next of Kin is very much a stand-alone film, and was originally planned for a theatrical release but then COVID-19 happened, and it became the first Paranormal Activity film to not get shown on the big screen.
It was released mostly to negative reviews, and to be honest, it very much escaped our interest back in 2021 mostly because of it seemingly being yet another film in the PA franchise. Sure, we really did love the first movie when it came out back in the day, its simplicity felt very fresh and effective, but there’s a limit to how interesting it was able to keep that premise going. The people who love the movies in this franchise, however, would definitely be put off due to the fact that this movie has nothing to do with neither the characters from the franchise, or anything else. It’s like this movie was written as something completely independent, but then they decided to slap “Paranormal Activity“ in the title in hopes of more attention. While this might have gained the movie more viewers, I also think the problem was that the ones who wanted a new PA movie would be left dissatisfied, while those of us who had grown tired of these movies were more likely to turn a blind eye. Oh well.
As we decided to check it out this year, we were left with a feeling that this movie is by no means any masterpiece, but it’s far from a bad one either. One of the major elements that keeps you engaged is the mystery behind Margot’s Amish family, her mother, the isolated farm and the creepy little church. The surroundings makes for some decent atmosphere, and the isolation of the Amish farm and the people living there are creepy enough even without any supernatural intervention. And speaking of, the supernatural elements are put a little in the backseat for the majority of the film, as it mostly plays out as a mystery where Margot is trying to find out what happened to her mother. To be honest, the entire movie could even have done well without anything supernatural in it.
Overall, Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin is a generic but pretty fine found-footage horror film, that doesn’t really feel like it belongs in the PA universe. The movie is playing more on the mystery elements than the supernatural ones, so just watch it while having in mind that the title could simply have been cut to “Next of Kin“.
Director: William Eubank Writer: Christopher Landon Country & year: USA, 2021 Actors: Emily Bader, Roland Buck III, Dan Lippert, Jaye Ayres-Brown, Tom Nowicki, Jill Andre, Alexa Niziak, Colin Keane, Ari Notartomaso, Michael Short, Al Garrison IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10515988/
Shogo is the star of a popular call-in radio show, who is forced to broadcast from the infamous “Studio 6“ which is a creepy and abandoned booth. The last time someone used it was several years ago, when the DJ there committed suicide. Yay. Shogo is also a prime example of the douchebag breed, and of course he’s got some skeletons in the closet. His crew isn’t exactly treated fairly by him, either. When someone on the line starts whispering “liar“ to him, he starts fearing that someone knows about his troubled past. Or maybe…the studio is cursed and the same fate that fell on the previous DJ will also fall upon him? Shogo keeps getting more and paranoid.
