2000s horror movies – Horror Ghouls

The Mummy Theme Park (2000)

Posted on April 17, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

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/

Hollow Man (2000)

Posted on April 7, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

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/

Mécanix (2003)

Posted on January 30, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

What would you get if you took a piece from Begotten, mixed it with a little bit of Tetsuo: the Iron Man and sprinkled it with some bits and pieces of Mad God and Švenkmajer? Well, something like this would definitely be the result. Mécanix from 2003 is an avant-garde horror film directed by Rémy M. Larochelle, co-written with Mélissa Hébert. And just like Begotten, you most likely wouldn’t really have a clue what the fuck is actually going on unless you read the description first.

Mécanix presents its twisted story in something akin to a fairytale, where we’re introduced to what appears to be a post-apocalyptic world. In this world, the few remaining humans are forced into slavery by monsters, who seem to only fear one thing: the embryo of the universe, the origin of everything. The embryo is hidden within the last freeborn man, and it is the only hope humankind has to break free from the mechanic monstrous world they’re enslaved by. And yes, the world is filled with monsters of all kinds that often seem to have some kind of mechanism attached to them. Kind of like mechanic beasts where they’re part robot, and part rotting animal/creature. While most of these creatures look like something that belongs somewhere in the darkest corners of Hell itself, others are actually rather cute.

Visually, the movie is mesmerizing from start to finish, despite some of the scenes being repetitive and sometimes dragging on for longer than necessary. It’s getting its hooks in you purely by the oddness and surrealism, with a lot of different techniques used. It’s mixing stop-motion animation with live action, and everything is just so surreal, otherworldly and bizarre. The entire movie is done with a sepia-colored filter over it, which suits the visuals perfectly and adds an uncanny and almost filthy look to it. The soundtrack is often just as experimental as the film, fitting well with all the absurdities shown on screen.

Mécanix is a treat for anyone who loves surreal avant-garde horror movies filled with bizarre stop-motion effects and a constant what-the-fuck-is-going-on-here feeling. Too bad the director didn’t make more movies after this, as it would have been interesting to see what other nightmarish insanity he could’ve put on the screen. Who needs drugs to trip when you’ve got movies like these.

The movie was released by Unearthed Films, and can be found on several streaming sites including Tubi.

Director: Rémy M. Larochelle
Writers: Mélissa Hébert, Rémy M. Larochelle
Country & year: Canada, 2003
Actors: Stéphane Bilodeau, Julie-Anne Côté, Philippe Chabot
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427580/

Dreamcatcher (2003)

Posted on December 5, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Jonesy, Beaver, Pete and Henry are four men who have been sticking together ever since childhood. Their bond got even closer on the day they met a disabled boy named Douglas, or “Duddits“. They save him from a bunch of bullies, and Duddits rewards them by giving them all telepathic powers. A group of childhood friends sticking together after experiencing something during their childhood…yup, it’s a Stephen King story. As the four friends are going through their seemingly normal adult lives, using their powers when they can, things almost go really bad for Jonesy after seeing Duddits beckoning him from across the street. When Jonesy approaches him he gets hit by a car, but still manages to heal incredibly fast. Six months later, they all go on their annual hunting trip in Maine during the winter season.

This trip will become very different from the others, though, and shit (literally) start happening once Jonesy rescues a man named Rick McCarthy who had gotten lost in the forest. Rick seems…a bit off, though. Sickly and constantly burping and farting. Yay. Jonesy and Beaver makes him lie down in bed so he can recover, and later notices a flock of forest animals outside the cabin. Foxes, wolves, rabbits, deer, predator and prey together, all seeming to flee from something. Suddenly this spectacle gets interrupted by the sound of two military helicopters, who announces to them that the area is now quarantined. Then Beaver goes “What do you mean quarantine? We got a sick guy down here!“ and we pretty much got it established that these characters are dumb as fuck. Because there’s no way a quarantine and a guy with some kind of mysterious illness could have any connection whatsoever, riiight? Jeez.

When Jonesy and Beaver get back inside the cabin, they see a trail of blood from the bedroom leading to the bathroom. Uh-oh. Some nasty shit is going on here. They ask Rick if he’s ok, and he screams at them that he wants his privacy while it sounds like he’s having a really, really bad case of the stomach bug. When he stops answering them, they get inside and see that Rick sits dead on the toilet, covered in blood. A big worm creature writhes and screams in the toilet, having been literally shat out by Rick. Beaver sits on the toilet to keep the lid down to trap the creature, but the creature is strong, and everything quickly goes to shit for both Beaver and the other characters.

Alright, enough with the shitty shit-jokes, although this review could’ve had a lot more of it for more than one reason. This is Dreamcatcher, a sci-fi-horror film released in 2003 and based on Stephen King’s 2001 novel of the same name. The movie was directed by Lawrence Kasdan, co-written with William Goldman. It has been receiving generally negative reviews and was a flop at the box office, having grossed $75.7 million against a budget of $68 million. Which is by no means a massive flop compared to some other box office failures we’ve covered here at Horror Ghouls, like for example Virus (1999) with its $75 million and $30.5 million result. So it could’ve fared a lot worse. The one who took the actual damage for the movie’s failed success, however, was the director who pretty much got his whole career flushed down the toilet (no pun intended). In a 2012 interview, Kasdan admitted that prior to this film’s failure, he was planning to do The Risk Pool with Tom Hanks, and had written a script from Nobody’s Fool by Richard Russo. Didn’t happen. And then years passed and things kept not happening, and he didn’t make another movie until 2012 which was called Darling Companion.

Stephen King, on the other hand, praised the film upon its release and stated “This is one of the very, very good adaptions of my work“ (ho-hum…really?) and also added that the film “would do for the toilet what Psycho did for the shower“. Err…nope, it certainly didn’t. But maybe Stephen King at this point was still high on OxyContin, as when he wrote the Dreamcatcher novel he had just recovered from a severe 1999 car accident which he almost died from. It happened when a van struck him while he was walking, which I guess is referenced in the scene where Jonesy gets hit by a car in the beginning of the movie. King admitted to having been “pretty stoned“ on OxyContin while writing it and has later expressed being dissatisfied with the outcome of the book.

If you have read some of Stephen King’s books, you’ll be quite aware of how certain things only make sense when still in book format, and how transferring them to the screen often turns it into something messy and nonsensical. And how he likes to return to certain themes and topics. This one really packs in so many of the formulaic Stephen King ingredients, from the group of male childhood friends, something experienced during childhood, and the supernatural powers and a creature/monster of some kind. And while this movie pretty much warranted B-grade actors, there’s a surprisingly strong cast list, like for example Thomas Jane as Henry and Morgan Freeman in a smaller role as Colonel Curtis. Nothing bad to say about the acting here at all, the only thing is that the lead characters are so incredibly dumb it becomes a bit jarring at times. And when one of the guys becomes “possessed“ or whatever you should call it, and for some unexplained reason starts speaking in an upper-class British accent, I’m not sure whether to snicker or cringe.

Storywise, the movie is pretty much all over the place. It starts decent enough, but quickly starts going back and forth and becomes a bit disorienting as to what the heck is actually going on. Maybe it would’ve worked better as a miniseries, who knows. Still, there’s also the total shift in tone where the scenes with the group of friends are somewhat cheesy, nonsensical and oftentimes weird, while the subplot with Colonel Curtis and the military turns everything into a full-on action film. It’s like there were two films in there, badly merging together.

So, yeah…Dreamcatcher is definitely not one of the best Stephen King adaptions, but as far as silly, trashy B-movies goes it’s actually a bit of fun despite a somewhat long runtime and a bit sluggish pacing. And I guess only a Stephen King high on OxyContin would write a horror novella where diarrhea is a key factor throughout the story.

Director: Lawrence Kasdan
Writers: William Goldman, Lawrence Kasdan
Country & year: USA/Canada, 2003
Actors: Morgan Freeman, Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Damian Lewis, Timothy Olyphant, Tom Sizemore, Donnie Wahlberg, Mikey Holekamp
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285531/

100 Feet (2008)

Posted on August 29, 2025September 2, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Marnie Watson (played by Famke Janssen) is a woman who killed her abusive husband, Mike, in self-defense. Or that’s what she claims, because not everyone is eager to believe her version of the story, including police officer Lou Shanks who was a former partner of her husband. Yep, Marnie’s husband was a cop, and they can never be abusive, right? Hah. Marnie is placed under house arrest, and has an ankle bracelet fit on her which prevents her from moving more than 100 feet from the detector which is placed in the house’s hallway. If she does, the police will be notified, and that’s bad news for her, so better stay safe at home. Or at least she tries to. She has a delivery boy bringing her groceries, since she can’t go outside. Then, later at night, her husband’s face suddenly appears before her while she’s in bed. Terrified, she runs out from the bedroom, but her husband’s ghost pushes her down the stairs. She desperately tries to flee, and sets off the detector in the hallway, and Shanks arrives to find her unconscious at the front door. He notices that she looks beaten up, but she just tells him she fell down the stairs. They didn’t believe her when her husband was still alive, so there’s no chance in hell they’ll believe her now, so why even try. However, Marnie is now trapped with her abuser once again…

100 Feet is a horror film from 2008, written and directed by Eric Red (who also directed Bad Moon). It stars Famke Janssen in the leading role as Marnie Watson. While many ghost horror movies use its time to build up a mystery regarding the haunting and who the ghosts are, this movie goes straight to the point with showing the audience exactly what is happening here. It’s a haunted house/ghost story where you know very well who the ghost is. The suspense comes from how Marnie is totally trapped inside the house with her dead tormentor, which sets it all up for an interesting premise. In many ways, 100 Feet has some very close similarities to Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man from 2020, except here it really is a ghost and not some invisible mad scientist. I also found a little flair of Delirium from 2018, which was also about someone trapped inside their home in a house arrest situation.

Famke Janssen’s performance here is pretty good and carries a lot of the movie, where her actions and behavior comes off as convincing. While it may at first appear like she’s a cold-blooded murderer, which her husband’s former police partner obviously considers her to be, it also becomes clear that she tried multiple times to get help, including calls to the police which were quickly disregarded by his police buddies (of course). She was trapped before, but is even more trapped now. The only thing that hasn’t changed is that she knows no one will believe her, which means she must once again take matters into her own hands.

While 100 Feet never really becomes scary, there are some very effective scenes, where Marnie is both physically and mentally tormented by her dead husband. Some of the scenes where we can see glimpses of him are actually kinda creepy. There are some CGI scenes that get a little goofy, but there’s also a certain violent scene in the latter part of the movie which really catches you off guard with is severe brutality. Holy hell, did that just come out of nowhere!

Despite not exactly reinventing anything here, the movie delivers some creepy scenes, solid performances and a few twists and turns, making it a pretty solid supernatural horror movie.

Writer and director: Eric Red
Country & year: USA, 2008
Actors: Famke Janssen, Bobby Cannavale, Ed Westwick, Michael Paré, Patricia Charbonneau, John Fallon
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0899128/

Aquanoids (2003)

Posted on July 29, 2025July 29, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Aquanoids, or Aquanooooids, like Johnny Depp would have said it, is a silly Z-grade amateur-hour creature/feature flick where we have a sea monster that looks more like a rejected, drunk band member of Gwar who’d fallen into the ocean, and just decided to stay in the water and kill everyone who comes near him.

The film starts in the year 1987 in Santa Clara Island, California, where a couple is having a swim. Guess what happens. They get dragged down the water and killed by an unseen monster as a random guy is watching the “traumatic“ incident through his binoculars. And, of course, this random guy will be important later. Much later. Sixteen years later, to be precise, in the present day (2003) where a coastal town in sunny California is celebrating the 4th of July. God bless America. As the town is in full festive mode, the young girl-next-door, Vanessa, actually has far more important things to do. Because she’s an environmentalist, you see, and would rather spend her time to save our green planet by diving into the ocean to pick up trash. Greta Thunberg would be impressed. As she gathers her good karma points, she gets a glimpse of our sea-creature. Ooh, scary. She hops on a water scooter and heads straight to the town’s mayor, Frank Walsh, to beg him to close down the beaches. Because the aquanoids are back, she says, despite we’ve only seen one. Dream on, honey. Haven’t you seen Jaws, or if you dig a little deeper, Humanoids From the Deep? Here we also meet Clifton Jefferson, a mafia-looking guy who does some dirty work for Mayor Walsh, and who also looks like a Joe Pesci cosplay from Goodfellas. And if Mayor Walsh talked like Kermit the frog, I wouldn’t doubt for a second that he was played by Jordan Peterson.

Anyway, as Mayor Walsh won’t do shit because he’s exactly what he looks like: a super-shady bad guy, Vanessa and her roommate are handing out warning papers while they shout dangerous waters! dangerous waters! No one believes them though. The only one who does is Ronald Jackson, the random guy we saw at the beginning. And no, he’s not played by Eric Roberts. He’s the one and only witness of the aquanoid that killed 17 people back in 1987, and is just seen as the town’s crazy person. He now spends most of the time at the local bar being a traumatized alcoholic, and just wants to be left alone. The news and rumors of the aquanoids start to spread, and suddenly the local Hard Boiled News (yes, really) pops up to have a quick chat with none other than Jackson. Poor guy doesn’t get a break. Mayor Walsh and Joe Pesci, sorry, Jefferson, don’t like that the rumors of the aquanoids are spreading to the public, and that’s for more than one reason. The “plot“ here is thrown all over the place, and there’s just too much to spoil (or maybe not), but let’s just say that you’ll be more shocked than anything by how corrupt this Mayor is. And I also bet that he’s on a certain client list.

Aquanoids is directed by Reinhart ‘Rayteam’ Peschke. Rayteam who? He worked primarily in the Camera and Electrical Department on films such as Volcano (1997), The Usual Suspects (1995), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993) With Aquanoids, you’d get the impression that Rayteam one day went through some of his old and forgotten childhood stuff in the attic, found some tapes of a home-made horror movie he made with some friends, neighbors and uncles during some summers in his early teens, and said to himself: I want to release this hidden gem on DVD. This is also the one and only film he directed.

The title, screenshots and the trailer speak more or less for themselves. If you’re familiar with these kinds of retarded, zero-budget home-made turd movies, you know what you’re gonna get. It’s amateur-hour from start to end (with a short and welcoming runtime of 1 hour and 13 minutes) with a dumb plot, bad acting, absurd dialogue, cheesy music, a series of WTF-moments, an unexpected and “shocking“ twist, and of course some cheap gore.

The highlight of Aquanoids is actually not the monster itself, which we barely get a clear glimpse of, but our two goofy antagonists, Mayor Walsh and Jefferson, as these two actors try very hard to act dead seriously. If Walsh looks somewhat familiar aside from Jordan Peterson, he’s the guy who had the deadly handshake with the Joker in his most-known-for-movie on IMDb, Batman (1989). And I’m not surprised if the one who looks like Joe Pesci has auditioned for all the Martin Scorsese films, and in his all-boiled-up frustration tricks people into believing that his most-known-for-movie, Aquanoids, is actually an alternative title for Jaws. And enough schadenfreude for today.

Director: Reinhart Peschke
Writers: Mark J. Gordon, Eric Spudic
Country & year: USA, 2003
Actors: Laura Nativo, Rhoda Jordan, Edwin Craig, Ike Gingrich, Laurence Hobbs, Suzan Spann, Robert Kimmel, Christopher Irwin, David Clark, Doug Martin
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338726/

28 Weeks Later (2007)

Posted on June 20, 2025January 27, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

We’re not so far after the events of the first film where the rage virus is still fresh and spreading like wildfire. While we just have to hope for the best for Jim and his girlfriend, we’re introduced to some new characters, which starts at a barricaded, cozy cottage in the countryside of England. Yes, we’re still in England, and I don’t mind. Their tea is something else. Anyway, Don (Robert Carlyle), his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) and some other survivors are getting ready for dinner. Then someone knocks on the door, a boy who’s been chased by his freshly-infected family. And he’s frightened. Of course he is. As Alice lets him in, we see a glimpse of how heavily barricaded the house is as the sun shines through like laser beams.

Then, suddenly, all hell explodes as one of the infected that chased the boy manages to punch through the walls, which weren’t so heavily barricaded after all, bites Alice and we have one of the most intense opening sequences in a zombie film since the singaia scene in Braindead. It’s full non-stop chaos where even the cameraman really struggles not to get attacked. It all escalates to Don sliding out of the top-floor window and leaving his wife behind, and his last memory of her will be her screaming for help from a window while being trapped. I couldn’t have lived with myself after a situation like that, but that’s maybe just me. Because the big question here is why she hasn’t already been turned into a red-eyed zombie, since we’ve already learned that the virus only takes seconds to strike. Huh. Yeah, you can say.

If Don couldn’t, or wouldn’t, save his wife, because he’s maybe a cowardly narcissist, he meets the next level of Mission Impossible – to run away from a horde of infected Tom Cruises to the river so he can escape on a boat. Don(e).

And just to have a quick summary, we get a text timeline of the events:

15 days later: Mainland Britain is quarantined

28 days later: Mainland Britain has been destroyed by the rage virus

5 weeks later: The infected have died of starvation

11 weeks later: An American-led Nato force enters London

18 weeks later: Mainland Britain is declared free of infection

24 weeks later: Reconstructions begins

Then we are 28 weeks later. And god knows how many timeline texts we’ll get in 28 Years Later!

So, what we’ve learned now, there’s no more threat from the rage virus. The society starts to come together, families reunite, postman Pat can finally deliver mail in Greendale again, and maybe we can celebrate the next Christmas. Empathy is back… for now. London is split into the secure zone District One, heavily guarded with the help of the US military. Since the first film was such a huge success in the states, the producer probably thought that mixing the film with American actors would please them even more. It didn’t seem to work as the film earned 20 million less than the first one. But it made a big profit nevertheless. Here we have a relatively unknown Jeremy Renner, way before his Marvel days, as Doyle the sniper. Harold Perrineau, always most known for sitting in a wheelchair and speaking in metaphors in the TV show Oz, as a chopper pilot. Rose Byrne is Scarlett, the medical chief who tests and approves people to enter the secure zone. You know, just in case someone should just be too unlucky to have some of the virus in their bloodstream, as it can be spread by dogs and rats. And there’s no vaccine yet.

Don, the one who we saw in the opening scene, reunites with his two kids, Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) and Tammy (Imogen Poots) as they arrive at District One. They were out of the country when the outbreak happened. But where’s mum? Yeah, where the fuck is Alice, Don? Don does what a narcissist does by lying and saying that he tried to save her while he fakes some crocodile tears. Tammy and Andy sneak out of the safe zone to go for some open world exploring with a scooter in the big, empty and desolated London. Because why the hell not. Yeah, there are some really questionable and logical issues here, but whatever. They stop by their former home, where they, to their big surprise, stumble into their mum, Alice! She’s a bit shaky and disorientated, but very alive and not infected, despite that she got bitten. She gets taken back to the safe zone to get examined by Scarlett, who believes that Alice’s immunity could be a source of a vaccine. And Don has some explaining to do. At the same time, he seems genuinely happy to see that Alice is alive. So it’s not always too easy to read that man. He enters her medical room, when no one is holding guard. Don and Alice have a reunion where “The Kiss of Death“ couldn’t be more literal.

Yes – Don, the airhead that he is, kisses her fully contagious wife straight on the mouth with the tongue and all. Yuck. He turns immediately into a raving infected, gauges her eyes before he spreads chaos and panic in heartbeats. A bittersweet karma for Don. Just too bad that the rest of the world had to go down with him. It’s time to escape the big city – again! But now it’s Code Red, which means that all soldiers are ordered to shoot and kill everyone, and that also includes the uninfected. The difficulty level is now set on nightmare mode as we follow Andy and Tammy running and using their stealth skills through a minefield of snipers, while also avoiding the infected. One life, one hit-death, no continues.

So there’s the sprint start 28 Weeks Later, more or less. This time directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo while Danny Boyle and Alex Garland is put on the sideline as producers. While the first one focused more on the psychological aspects with a more bleak and somber tone, this one goes straight to the jugular, with more blood, more gore, more rage and more action. One of the highlights involves a messy zombie massacre by using the blades of a helicopter, a very similar gag we also saw in Planet Terror, which came out the same year. Not much new on the surface here, and not much more to learn than we already know. It’s overall a fine and entertaining sequel that at least manages to keep up with the same energy and adrenaline as the first one, rich on locations with some more nice set-pieces of a deserted London to spice up the apocalyptic surroundings.

There’s not much of a spoiler to say that there’s no happy ending here, as we have now finally reached the big milestone of 28 Years Later. This one ended with a cliffhanger, or a sort of, where the virus has been able to spread itself outside the UK to France, with a quick teaser that the next installment would take place in Paris. And that film never happened, nor did 28 Months Later. So in that case, it’s maybe about time to re-watch the French action/zombie flick La Horde (2009), which, as I remember, could as well work as a spinoff.

Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Writers: Rowan Joffe, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Enrique López Lavigne, Jesús Olmo
Country & year: UK/Spain/USA, 2007
Actors: Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Harold Perrineau, Catherine McCormack, Idris Elba, Imogen Poots, Mackintosh Muggleton, Amanda Walker
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0463854/

Prequel:
– 28 Days Later (2002)

Sequels:
– 28 Years Later (2025)
– 28 Years Later: The Bonde Temple (2026)

28 Days Later (2002)

Posted on June 17, 2025January 27, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

This British and relatively low-budget zombie film was a hUUUUUUge success when it came back in 2002 and is today, 23 Years Later, regarded as one of the big, fat zombie classics that more or less reinvented the whole zombie sub-genre after a decade of almost overdosing on Zoloft. Strong British tea seemed to do the trick. Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland were actually surprised over the giant success of the film, especially how it blew up in the US. They were just making a small zombie film, after all, with (at the time) no-name actors. A classic case of lightning in a bottle, I guess. It gave the genre the same resurgence as Scream did for slashers in the 90’s and opened the doors for George Romero to finally make his first zombie film under a Hollywood studio with Land of the Dead. And, of course, we have another British classic, that is Shaun of the Dead, and tons of other shitty zombie films that got sharted out at full speed in step with the shark films during the early 2000s (and still going strong). We Norwegians finally got our first zombie fest with Dead Snow plus an even better sequel, and I’m still hoping for a third one.

Then came the mega-hit TV show The Walking Dead and the whole planet was in full-blown zombie mania. It was a fun ride as long as it lasted, until the show fell completely on its arse, and we were forced to forgive Negan. B o l l o c k s. I digress.

A group of activists break into a lab to save some monkeys used in experiments. And these monkeys are not to be messed with as they’ve been injected with this so-called rage virus. As soon as they release the monkeys, they get attacked, bitten and turned into zombies within seconds. Sorry, I meant “infested“, as this virus turns them into red-eyed flesh-eaters with a non-stop rage psychosis that also gives them the skill-upgrade to run like Tom Cruise. What a great combination. And no, this rage virus wasn’t coughed out from some shady lab in China, but at Cambridge University. Yes, in Cambridge, England, of all places. God save the Queen. Then we skip to some days later, 28, to be precise, where sheriff Mick Graves wakes up in a hospital… uhm, sorry, wrong universe. The first issue of the comic book series The Walking Dead was released one year after the release of this film, by the way. A young lad named Jim (played by an unknown Cillian Murphy) wakes up in a hospital bed after being in a coma, to quickly discover that he’s the only one in the building. It’s eerie, quiet and a bit spooky. What the hell happened. Is he the Last Man on Earth? Huh…

From here on, we follow the footsteps of a confused, hazy and disoriented Jim as he walks into a deserted London, like an open-world game where all the NPCs have been glitched away. Then we have the classic scene which the film is most known for where he walks through an empty and trash-filled London Bridge with Big Ben in the background with not a single soul to spot. This scene was shot very early in the morning, a hangover Sunday morning I’d guess, where they had to shoot in a big hurry before a car would enter the frame. Jim enters a church filled with bodies where he has his first encounter with “the infected“, among them a creepy priest. Athletes were used as the running zombies. Makes sense, but I find it a bit funny at the same time, since Britain has its fair share of obesity. Although jabbas have their physical limitations, they sure can be angry too. Anyway – he manages to get away, and pays his mum and dad a visit, which he finds in their bed, rotting away after committing suicide during the outbreak. A horrific sight where you actually can smell it. This scene made me think of the poor guy in Dying Light who shot himself in front of a photo of his cat. Jim eventually meets some other survivors, the young chick Selena (Naomie Harris), Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and her younger daughter Hannah (Megan Burns). With Frank’s car, they join forces, looting a grocery store before escaping London and driving to Manchester. And instead of a nice sunrise on the horizon, they only see a city in flames. More shit and bumps in the road (to say it mildly) happens, but then they meet the military. Thank goodness! Finally safe. Oh, well…

So the big question is: does the film still hold up? Has it survived (no pun intended) the test of time and all that? I recently rewatched this, and the sequel, 28 Weeks Later, for the first time in two decades, and I’d say yeah. That is much thanks to the grounded story and the rock-solid acting by everyone involved. 28 Days Later focuses way more on the fight-or-flight mode and getting the hell out of the big city and hoping for the best, rather than action and gore and collecting skill points. There are gory moments here, but that aspect is not the main focus. The first two acts of the film is more of an escape journey where we get more of a sense of the apocalyptic surroundings and the overall grimy atmosphere of sheer hopelessness as they stumble from A to B… and eventually to C. They have a terrifying moment in a tunnel where they have to change a tire while we hear the infected screaming in the distance as they come closer and closer. Then we see their running shadows, and it’s time to change that damn tire! A simple but very effective scene. It all builds up to a more intense and action-packed third act where we see some clear parallels to George Romero’s films, and, of course, to mention The Walking Dead for the third time, where humans are as much a threat as the zombies/infected, and how we flush all forms of basic moral sense in the toilet as the society collapses.

Without spoiling, Cillian Murphy gradually reaches the breaking point and goes in full shirtless Rambo mode, Ramboheimer, if you will. The deeper meaning behind his mental development is obvious where the last thirty minutes or so could as well be something from a war film. Makes more sense now in the wake of Alex Garland’s last two films, Civil War (2024) and this year’s Warfare. The subject of war is clearly his thing. Garland and Boyle were clearly on the same page here as they took a lot of ideas from real events to put in the script to not just make it as another zombie film. The Rwanda and Sierra Leone war were some of the inspirations for the piling bodies in the church. The rage virus was inspired by the scares of anthrax (not the band), bio-terrorism and the spread of mad cow disease in the 1980’s. So yeah, 28 Days Later has aged pretty well – because humans will always be humans, for the better, but mostly for the much, much worse. The soundtrack is also outstanding, where the tunes of In the House, in a Heartbeat by John Murphy capture the eerie emptiness, the sadness and the overall bleak atmosphere perfectly.

The one and only gripe I have here, is that damn low-resolution image quality. And I’m not the only one. The answer is short and simple: 28 Days Later is one of the very first films that was shot digitally, with a Canon XL1, which doesn’t allow it to be remastered to 4K. That’s why the film has the overall image quality like an old YouTube video from 2007, and also why the Blu-ray looks the same as the DVD. Director Danny Boyle wanted to give the film a more gritty and authentic look, aside from being shot like a documentary. Sometimes it works, but for the most part it just looks outdated. Bummer, but it is what it is, so… Still a solid film though.

The film is reviewed from the Norwegian streaming site Viaplay, after our 20 plus years old DVD crashed.

Director: Danny Boyle
Writer: Alex Garland
Country & year: UK, 2002
Actors: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, Luke Mably, Stuart McQuarrie, Ricci Harnett, Leo Bill, Junior Laniyan, Ray Panthaki, Christopher Eccleston, Toby Sedgwick
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289043/

Sequels:
– 28 Weeks Later (2007)
– 28 Years Later (2025)
– 28 Years Later: The Bonde Temple (2025)

Monsturd (2003)

Posted on June 6, 2025September 5, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

And no, just to put the big fat joke aside: this is not a biopic of Amber Heard. Har-har.

But what’s this supposed to be then..? Well, it’s a movie that was made. And released. And it’s exactly what the title tells you: a big goofy-looking monster turd who goes on a shitting/murder spree until it steps on a bee. Pure quality cinema from start to finish where the poster and title should speak for itself. The only thing missing here is the Troma Entertainment logo proudly slammed on the poster, just to put the icing on the turd cake. And maybe that was the hopes and dreams of the amateur writers/directors duo Dan West and Rick Popko, who the hell knows. They teamed up again in 2008 with the zombie flick Retardead (yep, you read that right) that went nowhere, other than being flushed straight to the sewer section on Tubi years later, including Monsturd. A big two in the loo, as they say in Britain.

It’s bedtime for a little girl, simply called Munchkin. It’s a thunderstorm outside and she’s scared. She wants her dad to tell her a bedtime story. But he’s tired of telling bedtime stories, and now he wants her to tell a bedtime story, for a change. That should be interesting. Ok, but it’s really SCARY, she says. And she’s not kidding. OoOoOohh…

Once upon a time, in a place called Butte County in California, there was this serial killer, Jack Schmidt, who managed to escape from a maximum security prison. He hides in the sewers (filmed in some caves that look nothing like sewers) where some toxic waste has just been dumped. After getting chased by a local cop and a federal Marshall, he gets shot and falls into a tank with the freshly exposed toxic waste that transforms him into a decent skeleton Halloween decoration after his skin falls off. Jack Schmidt is dead, or so they thought. Because you won’t believe in your wildest imagination what happens next. Listen to this: The serial killer has been mutated into a monster of human feces! Say hello to Monsturd. The poop is loose and no one in Butte County is safe as he comes out of peoples’ toilets to make sure they have a shittier day than usual. And who are you gonna call to get this mess cleaned up? Turdbusters? Oh well… If this Turdman was smart enough, he’d just skidmark himself to San Fransisco where he’d blend perfectly in.

This stinky, little passion project of a motion picture took over two years to shoot (yes, really), the biggest number two you can squeeze out, with a whopping budget of 3000 dollars. And I bet that every cent was put on screen. Most of the actors were coworkers from Rick Popko and Dan West’s dayjob, and rumors on the trustworthy internet say that some of them were blackmailed to be in the film. You couldn’t blackmail me to be in this movie, because who in the right mind wouldn’t want to be a part of a film called Monsturd?? Sign me up! I don’t see much point in picking apart a film like this that was made of pure shits n’ giggles (no pun intended). I’d just get a splitting headache if I did. By just looking at the poster and the trailer you know what you’re gonna get, nothing more, nothing less. The humor is as juvenile as it can get, with cringe jokes that’ll give you more brainfart than diarrhea, whatever you may prefer, and maybe more suitable for kids around the age of eight to twelve.

That being said, Monsturd is the perfect film to kill some time with on the smartphone as you’re having a nice dump and just, oh shit, noticed that you have to wait for someone to hand you over a new pack of toilet paper!

Writer and directors: Rick Popko, Dan West
Country & year: USA, 2003
Actors: Paul Weiner, Beth West, Dan Burr, Dan West, Rick Popko, Dan Ellis, Timm Carney, Hannah Stangel
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364527/

Final Destination 5 (2011)

Posted on May 16, 2025May 20, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Sam Lawton is an office worker who is going together with his colleagues to a company retreat. On the bus, he has a premonition where the North Bay Bridge starts collapsing due to high winds, and he witnesses a lot of people getting killed. This also includes himself, after getting his ex-girlfriend Molly Harper in safety. When the premonition is over, and he starts realizing that this is really going to happen as all the small details prior to the incident becomes familiar, he panics and urges everyone to get out of the bus. Several people follow him outside, and they manage to leave before the bridge collapses. Naturally, Sam is questioned by the FBI afterwards, but everything was ruled to have happened due to natural causes. Shit happens, sometimes. After the survivors attend a memorial for all their deceased colleagues, they start dying one by one. A woman named Candice dies in a freak accident at the gym, and a man named Isaac has a not-so-pleasant experience at a Thai massage. No happy ending there. Bludworth, the coroner who has appeared in some of the movies since the start and has always seemed to know about Death’s mischievous plans, tells the remaining survivors that they are now dying in the order they were supposed to die in if they had not survived the bridge collapse. So now Sam and the remaining survivors must try to figure out a way to beat Death.

Final Destination 5 is the fifth movie in the franchise. It was released in 2011, and is directed by Steven Quale and written by Eric Heisserer. Just like the previous film, called The Final Destination (which was actually yet another movie that was supposed to be “the final film“ but which changed due to the financial success) it was shot in 3D. And just like the previous film.. the 3D effects haven’t really aged that well. Still, that doesn’t ruin the experience at all, it just adds an additional goofy flavour to it. It grossed $157 million worldwide, making it the second-highest grossing film in the franchise. The sixth film has its premiere (at least in most places) today on May 16th, so let’s see if the new one breaks any of the old records!

This film follows the same formula as previously: the protagonist has a premonition, saves some people, and then Death is coming for them. Many franchises have lost all their steam long before coming to their fifth installment, but the Final Destination movies keeps it going surprisingly strong. This might have a bit to do with how these movies are always being very simple popcorn-horror entertainment that were never meant to be groundbreaking masterpieces. Plus, the concept behind the movies opens up for so many possibilities, it’s nearly impossible to not keep it at least entertaining with its main forte: the death scenes! Or most importantly: how everything leads up to the death scenes. As always, there’s several scenes here that gives that “ick“ feeling, and the kills are just as fun as ever.

Final Destination 5 is yet another fun entry into the franchise and proves that it’s still going strong. This movie is also providing some twists and turns and even ties everything back to the first movie.

Director: Steven Quale
Writer: Eric Heisserer
Country & year: USA, 2009
Actors: Nicholas D’Agosto, Emma Bell, Miles Fisher, Ellen Wroe, Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, P.J. Byrne, Arlen Escarpeta, David Koechner, Courtney B. Vance, Tony Todd
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1622979/

Prequels:
– Final Destination (2000)
– Final Destination 2 (2003)
– Final Destination 3 (2006)
– The Final Destination (2009)

Sequel:
– Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025)