2020s horror movies – Horror Ghouls

Obsession (2025)

Posted on May 29, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

“Be careful what you wish for“… yeah, there you have an old aphorism. We so often think we know exactly what we want, without thinking over what the fulfillment of said wish would cause. Like the angry child who stomps up the stairs and shouts “I hope I never see any of you jerks again!“ to his family. Yeah, we all know the feeling of wishing something in the heat of the moment without thinking it over more properly, and we also know that the story of the aforementioned child has a happy ending and that the wish wasn’t really fulfilled. Not all stories about people having their wishes come true have a happy ending, though.. not everyone gets a cheerful genie in a lamp. Sometimes they get the monkey’s paw.

In this story, we start off with what could be the buildup for a romantic comedy. Baron Bailey aka Bear has deep feelings for his childhood friend Nikki Freeman, but he doesn’t know how to tell her. He also fears that his feelings won’t be reciprocated, and that it would ruin their friendship. One day Bear comes home, finding his cat Sandy dead from having eaten some of his oxycodone pills (kudos for the movie for making this scene an emotional one instead of just a shock-factor one, as is too often done with dead animals in horror movies). Still grieving, he is persuaded by Nikki to go out with their friends. He decides to buy her a gift, and ends up in a mystic shop where he buys a novelty toy called a “One Wish Willow“: some kind of stick that, once broken, can grant a wish. Only one wish per person, though, with only the first stick counting, so no use stacking up. Naturally, he just thinks of this gift as something silly and fun, but eventually ends up being the one who opens it and wishes for Nikki to love him “more than anyone in the world“. Poof, wish granted! Nikki is now head over heels for him, which should’ve been the best thing ever.. right? Well, not so much, because Nikki isn’t just in love with him, she’s obsessed in all the wrong ways.. maybe Bear should’ve been more careful with how he phrased that wish.

Obsession is a supernatural horror film written, directed and edited by Curry Barker. Barker has earlier uploaded some of his works on YouTube, including his found footage movie Milk & Serial. It was his 2023 horror short The Chair that made Film Producer James Harris of Tea Shop Productions to reach out with an interest of turning it into a feature, but Barker pitched him with Obsession instead. He had gotten some inspirations for it after watching an episode of The Simpsons, where Homer interacts with a monkey’s paw. Jason Blum under Blumhouse Productions joined as executive producer after the film’s festival premiere last year.

Together brought some relationship issues and unnerving codependency themes on the table last year, and this year we’re having a horror movie about a horribly codependent relationship mixed with an extreme borderline FP (Favorite Person) dynamic in a relationship. And I was honestly not prepared for just how tense this movie actually managed to be! While it has, more or less universally, been hailed as a modern horror masterpiece, it isn’t really that original or “groundbreaking“ if you look at it on a surface level. It is the execution, the build-up of scenes and the always smothering tension and the psychology that makes this movie so great.

Despite all the tension, the movie becomes darkly funny at times and I have to give some big thumbs up for Inde Navarrette’s performance as Nikki. She is genuinely frightening, with her erratic and often insane behaviour, mixed with what can only be perceived as so much pain and anxiety that she’s not able to function properly. However, while Nikki is the frightening one just from her erratic and dangerous behaviour, there’s still no doubt as to who’s the real “villain“ here. Bear may at first look like the ultimate nice guy, seemingly sweet and sympathetic, but it is his underlying selfishness that causes his downfall. Also…who the fuck wishes for someone to love them more than anyone in the world..? That’s just crazy…and while Bear is never really presented as the villain (or victim, for that matter), he is the one who created the situation, but instead of looking for a solution as soon as possible he just embraces it, with little regard to how this has literally broken Nikki. He has, although unwittingly, turned her into something that is no longer the person he fell in love with…in fact, she’s barely a person at all anymore.

Obsession is without a doubt a masterful horror rendition about a very fucked up relationship, with the underlying message of being careful what you wish for. Definitely one of the highlights of the year! Currently Curry Barker has two other movies upcoming already: a new Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie and one called Anything But Ghosts, with Blumhouse as producer, where the filming was wrapped on 11 April this year. Barker has mentioned that this film “exists in the same universe as Obsession”. Sounds interesting for sure, but no release date for this one as of yet.

Writer and director: Curry Barker
Country & year: USA, 2025
Actors: Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, Andy Richter, Haley Fitzgerald, Darin Toonder, Anthony Pavone
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt37287335/

Passenger (2026)

Posted on May 26, 2026May 26, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Yeah, you’ve probably already heard the flying monkeys yelling from the rooftops that this is the worst horror movie of the year because Obsession is a masterpiece. Bollox. But if that’s so, then I guess all horror movies have already sucked since 1973 after The Exorcist. Someone said it best: Not all horror movies need to be the best horror movie ever, or the scariest movie since the scariest movie. Sometimes it’s OK to just be good, or just OK to be OK, like enjoying a quick fat cheeseburger.

Passenger is basically a haunted house movie on wheels where we follow the young lovebirds Tyler and Maddie from Brooklyn as they set out for a six-week road trip across the USA in a nomad van, protected with a Saint Christopher necklace and a Bob Ross bobblehead on the dash. “No mistakes, just happy accidents“, as he famously said. We all love Bob Ross, but to be more safe than sorry, they should also add bobbleheads of Ed and Lorraine, and maybe Bob Larson, you know, just to be sure.

Their relationship gets put to the test when they hit some, well, bumps in the night, pun intended. Because there’s one golden rule for road nomads to follow: If you must drive at night, don’t ever stop, if the road is haunted/cursed. And you better know what the hobo codes mean. If the morbid curiosity wouldn’t first get the best of me, I’d also stay away from Clinton Road. A specific country road is more haunted than others, where our love couple stops by (Uh-oh) an ugly car accident (that we see in the opening) where they instantly get attached to a curse of a demonic, ghoulish old geezer known as, yes, you guessed it: The Passenger. To make it more obvious and not subtle at all, their van gets marked with three scratches. Maddie is the first one to see visions and gets her head fucked with, while her boyfriend has a hard time believing her. Pretty much the same set up like in every episode of A Haunting. But instead of being isolated in some house, they’re isolated on rural country roads where there’s hardly any street lights. And I think I would prefer a haunted house on wheels over a deep house.

And, of course, like any curse, we eventually have to pick up the pieces to solve the puzzle before losing grip on reality. To be on the safer side, they stack up the whole van of all the Saint Christopher necklaces they can buy, to hopefully “beat the devil out of it“.

Even though Passenger doesn’t reinvent the wheel, no pun intended, André Øvredal showcases that he still manages to make the woods look haunting with some creative use of lights, like he did back in the Troll Hunter days. A scene that sticks out is when a film projector gets used as a flashlight, and an eerie liminal space sequence at an empty parking lot. Moments like this, where the film gets more room to breathe and lets the atmosphere sink in while the imagination goes rampant, are the strongest part. A fun nod to The Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) at the beginning as well. And yes, the bag of clichés is unfortunately not left home in Brooklyn, where you have some of the typical lame straight-forward jumpscares with loud boom-sound. And it has to be said that getting pulled from the ground into darkness while screaming at the camera just makes me eye-roll. The demonic entity could also have been explored more.

That said, Passenger is overall an enjoyable flick, with some inventive scares, grim woodsy atmosphere spiced with vibrant, stylish flair. It’s far from Øvredal’s scariest film, as he himself claims, but it’s surely a big step up after his previous one, The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023). Now that he’s back on track again, and found his way back to the campfire, I hope for More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

Director: André Øvredal
Writers: Zachary Donohue, T.W. Burgess
Country & year: USA, 2026
Actors: Jacob Scipio, Lou Llobell, Melissa Leo, Joseph Lopez, Miles Fowler, Alan Trong, Devielle Johnson
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33763941/

They Will Kill You (2026)

Posted on May 15, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Asia Reaves and her younger sister Maria are trying to escape from their abusive father, but this doesn’t go too well. It ends up with Asia shooting him (not dead, though) and running away while abandoning Maria. Asia is, of course, arrested and has to spend a long time in jail, all the while Maria has to remain in their father’s custody.

Fast forward 10 years later, we see Asia arriving at a place called The Virgil, which is some kind of exclusive high-rise building in NYC. She’s there to become a new maid, and as the building manager Lilith Woodhouse welcomes her inside, Asia quickly learns that this place is filled with a wealthy cultist elite. And yes, they’re satanic and commit human sacrifices…what a shocker. As Asia was planned to be their latest sacrificial lamb, things take an unexpected turn as she’s come prepared and stacked with lots of weapons, plus badass fighting skills like she’s been taking lessons with Pai Mei. And things really turn deadly, bloody and crazy! Asia finds herself in a bigger challenge than expected, though, when it appears the satanic cultists respawn like low-level enemies in a video game, no matter how many times they are killed. A nice perk they’ve been given after all the human sacrifices…

They Will Kill You is an action comedy horror film directed by Kirill Sokolov, co-written with Alex Litvak. The movie was filmed in Cape Town, using the South African Mutual Life Assurance Society building, CGI’ing the hotel’s name “The Virgil“ on it. Virgil is a reference to Dante’s Inferno, where the ancient poet Virgil is leading Dante through the nine circles of hell. Sokolov said that the inspiration behind the film came from when he and his wife moved to a different city in Russia, where they rented an apartment on the 17th floor. They started joking amongst themselves how the whole building probably belonged to some kind of cult and that eventually they’d end up sacrificed. I’m sure there’s a lot of large apartment buildings that will easily give off that kind of feeling…

Prior to watching this movie, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. Something fun and fast-paced, sure…but would it be as bloody and crazy as I hoped? Well, it certainly was, because goddamn, does the movie hit hard with its blood-soaked frenzied ride! There are the good old blood-fountains, a fair amount of gore and totally insane scenes like the one involving a disembodied roving eyeball. Wicked! It was what I had hoped it would be and then some, for sure. It does absolutely not hold back, there’s so much over-the-top moments that I got some Braindead and Re-Animator vibes all mixed with Kill Bill and a dose of the good old Sam Raimi. And, if I’m going to be completely honest…I actually got more of a Sam Raimi feeling from this film than Send Help from earlier this year…

Zazie Beetz who plays Asia, delivers her performance with just the right amount of ferocious and unhinged brutality. Her little one-person-army is kicking satanic ass all over the place while she must battle her way through the hordes of cultists. They Will Kill You is bloody, ultra-violent and outrageous in such a fun way, and as far as horror-action movies go this is top-tier entertainment. If you want a thrill-ride filled with blood fountains and craziness, you should definitely check this one out!

Despite this being such a fun, bloody and upbeat movie, it didn’t fare too well at the box office with $19 million against its $20 million budget. Oof. Perhaps this had a bit to do with Ready or Not 2 being released at the same time, who knows. Hopefully it will grow in popularity over time.

Director: Kirill Sokolov
Writers: Kirill Sokolov, Alex Litvak
Country & year: USA/South Africa/Canada, 2026
Actors: Zazie Beetz, Patricia Arquette, Myha’la, Paterson Joseph, Tom Felton, Heather Graham, Willie Ludik, David Viviers, Gabe Gabriel, Viktoria Korotkova, James Remar
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31728330/

What Josiah Saw (2021)

Posted on May 12, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

On an isolated farm somewhere in Texas, Thomas (“Tommy“) Graham lives with his alcoholic father Josiah. Tommy is a man with intellectual disability, and his father Josiah…well, let’s just say he doesn’t seem to be the best company for Tommy. Between emptying one bottle of whisky after the other, Josiah rambles on about all kinds of things, including when he saw a leprechaun farting a rainbow of of his ass. Josiah has seen quite some things, it seems. But this story isn’t about something as jolly as rainbow-farting leprechauns, as you might’ve guessed. The Graham farm has a dark and troubled past, and we get a flashback story to how Josiah’s wife Miriam hanged herself from a tree in the garden while Tommy and his two siblings were still young. And speaking of his siblings…they’re not faring too well off either.

Tommy’s brother and sister are Eli and Mary, who are twin siblings. They have long since left the farm, and have more than enough troubles to deal with. Eli is a drug addict, gambler, and you can add sex offender to the list. Scumbag, in other words. Mary is struggling with trauma and tries to live a normal life wanting a child of her own…which is a problem since she decided to have a tubal ligation operation 20 years back. When she was young she was convinced she wouldn’t want to become a mother, but now there’s a total u-turn for that…because her apparently wrecked marriage and the feeling of emptiness inside will be totally fixed if they can just have a baby, right..? Pfft. Then, when the three siblings all receive a letter from an oil company wanting to buy the farm and the land around it for oil drilling, it sounds like an opportunity that’s very hard to say no to. Except Eli and Mary now have to return to the place…and face the horrors from their past.

What Josiah Saw is a Southern Gothic psychological horror drama film from 2021, written by Robert Alan Dilts and directed by Vincent Grashaw in his directorial debut. While this movie is mostly a psychological drama, the horror elements are more than present enough. I really liked the bleak, dark atmosphere that remained like a blanket over the entire movie, even in the segments that took quite different turns than I imagined.

Now, they say all families have their issues. And that’s no doubt true, but some have far more serious issues than others. In this twisted family drama there are past trauma and horrific acts committed, all presented in chapters where each one focuses on each of the siblings. When we start off with Tommy, there’s that oppressive and dark vibe already from the very start, sprinkled with some supernatural elements. When coming into Eli’s segment, though, there’s a very big tonal shift and we’re suddenly in a drug-drama with child-napping gypsies. Not…exactly what I expected. It all still connects and blends with the rest, and in order to fuel the story and climax it was pretty much needed to spend some time with each of the characters. They all have committed sins of the past and have had sins committed against them, and it all unravels towards the end.

There are some twists in this movie that can be figured out very early on if you pay enough attention to certain details, especially in one of the early scenes with Tommy. This didn’t ruin anything, though, as there’s more than enough mystery surrounding the three siblings and their past, and why things turned out the way it did and what Josiah actually saw. It also reminded me a little of another family farm horror movie from 2020, called The Dark and the Wicked. That one is pure supernatural horror very much throughout so they’re not all that similar in story, but it has some of that same vibe and atmosphere of an isolated and worn farmhouse and family drama coming to the surface.

What Josiah Saw is kind of a trauma film with more focus on the family drama than any supernatural stuff, and these kinds of movies are often a bit hit or miss with me. I really think the horror elements worked well here, though, bleak and gritty with a tense slow-burn and dark atmosphere. Not the kind of movie you put on when you want to have a fun popcorn type of time, but for those days when you want something a little gloomy.

Director: Vincent Grashaw
Writer: Robert Alan Dilts
Country & year: USA, 2021
Actors: Robert Patrick, Nick Stahl, Scott Haze, Kelli Garner, Tony Hale, Jake Weber, Ronnie Gene Blevins, Troy Powell, Louanne Stephens, Winston James Francis, Billy Blair, Anthony Gaudioso, Dana Namerode
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3097396/

Hokum (2026)

Posted on May 5, 2026May 11, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Ohm Bauman is sitting at home, sipping whiskey and writing the epilogue of his latest novel. It’s not going to end on a happy note, and we also realize that Ohm is a miserably guy (as if sitting there and sipping whiskey while writing the bleakest ending he could probably come up with wasn’t proof enough of that), but it appears he’s also haunted. Whether by actual ghosts or memories…who knows. But we see him glimpse his mother on the staircase, something that triggers him into packing his bags and going all the way to rural Ireland, to visit The Bilberry Woods Hotel. This was the place where his parents had been on their honeymoon, and he’s keeping a photo of his mother who is standing nearby a large tree, where she’s smiling from ear to ear and looks as happy as can be. Quite the contrast to her gloomy son, but there’s of course a reason for this. There always is.

Once arriving at the hotel, we do notice that Ohm is…kind of a dick. He’s dismissive and mean towards nearly everyone he meets, with perhaps the exception of the no-bullshit bartender Fiona whom he shows the photo to and asks if she knows where the tree is located. She does, of course. Once he’s there, he spreads his parents ashes, carefully placing his mother’s around the tree’s roots, while emptying the container of his father’s ashes the same way you shake the last few drops from a can of beer you’re about to discard. Sometimes a small scene like that tells you a lot more than words can do.

Close by, he meets the groundskeeper Jerry, who lives in his van and drinks milk mixed with magic mushrooms. Probably a fun guy to be around, and seemingly a very kindhearted dude. Once Ohm gets back to the hotel, he gets as shitfaced as possible at the bar, and gets in talk with Fiona again and the bellhop Alby, where they tell him about the closed off honeymoon suite that’s supposedly haunted by a witch that the hotel owner once trapped inside. To this, Ohm’s simple reply is “hokum“! He doesn’t believe a single word they say, and thinks of it all as nonsense (and yes, hokum means nonsense). Despite Ohm’s original plans for the stay at the hotel, though, he is soon to find out that there’s less “hokum“ to the story than he’d expected…

Hokum is a supernatural horror film, written and directed by Damian Mc Carthy in his third feature length film. We have already reviewed his earlier films Caveat (2020) and Oddity (2024), and ever since watching those two we have been looking forward to Mc Carthy’s next entry into the horror field. This is the first movie of his that we’ve been able to view at the theater, and it was a great experience to watch a spookfest like this at the big screen!

Just like his two previous films, it’s filled with thick atmosphere and a constant eerie vibe. While there are a few jump-scares, the movie doesn’t rely on them in the slightest. The setting, locations and scenery are all spot-on when it comes to creating such a moody, isolated and foreboding place ideal for a horror story like this. I so, so much prefer these old-fashioned spooky places over any modern-looking place. I also think Mc Carthy nails the feeling of isolation in the places he use in his films.

Adam Scott is doing a solid performance as the alcoholic, depressed and unlikable Ohm. It just goes to show that you don’t always need a charismatic and likable protagonist. He’s a jerk but we still want to root for him. And yes, of course he’s got a backpack of trauma and childhood shit to drag alongside with him, and even though this doesn’t explain or excuse his behavior in the slightest, we do at least get a bit of sympathy for him. There is also a little bitty redemption arc in store for him, and no, that still doesn’t make him a good or likable guy but we don’t always need a character to be that in order to deliver a good story. And speaking of story, this one has a lot more of it than Caveat and Oddity. While the previous ones relied a lot more on atmosphere and slow build, this one presents several mysteries between it all, adding more layers to the narrative.

It has also become apparent that Mc Carthy’s got a thing for rabbits, and in Hokum there’s a rabbit man/entity (which I first actually believed to be the witch upon seeing the trailer), having a very small yet not insignificant role. We only see this creature in a few scenes, mostly during what appears to be some kind of children’s TV show, and while the significance is never fully explained it’s not hard to get the underlying meaning of it once you learn more about Ohm’s past. Gotta give props to the design of this rabbit-man thing, it looks menacing as hell! Speaking of creepy-looking creatures, I also have to say the witch in the movie is also pure nightmare fuel. Some of the scenes involving her are terrifying, especially the early ones where we only see glimpses of her in the dark. I know for a fact that had I seen this movie in my less desensitized days, sleep would have been less comfortable for at least a few nights to come…

Hokum is a horror movie that makes us even more excited to see what Mc Carthy will brew next! According to an article at Dread Central, he’s mentioned that For my next film, I definitely want to make the ultimate haunted house movie which is a statement that I (not gonna lie) hypes me up a bit. He also stated that I really feel like if I was to make another horror film, I think I’d really nail it, although personally I think he very much “nailed it” with Hokum. Already looking so much forward to what comes next from this director.

Writer and director: Damian Mc Carthy
Country & year: Ireland/United Arab Emirates, 2026
Actors: Adam Scott, Mallory Adams, David Wilmot, Michael Patric, Will O’Connell, Brendan Conroy, Peter Coonan, Florence Ordesh, Sioux Carroll
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35672862/

Hellhole (2022)

Posted on May 1, 2026May 1, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

We’re somewhere in Poland in 1957, where a priest enters a church with a baby that bears a unique scar. He’s not there to drop the baby off for some nuns to take care of, though, he proceeds to try killing the infant. Fortunately for the baby, the Milicja (the Polish militia) enters the place and shoots the priest dead.

Fast forward to thirty years later, we meet another priest: Father Marek. He arrives at a Polish monastery where women are brought in to undergo an exorcism. He’s vetted and checked before entering the place, but when he starts unpacking in his room we see that the suitcase he’s brought with him has a concealed compartment where he’s hidden a gun, a flashlight, and some other stuff. Seems like he’s come prepared…but for what? We’ll find out.

Marek is then taken to a room where they’re performing an exorcism on a woman. All kinds of textbook-exorcism stuff go on in there, with a cross suddenly starting to burn, a shaking bed, and the usual demonic shenanigans. When Marek investigates the room later, he discovers that things are not exactly what they might seem at first glance, though. Marek’s mission at the place is, in fact, to investigate some cases of many missing local women which he believes has something to do with this place. And things are certainly happening in this dark, foreboding hellhole where everything looks rotten, and the food being served is so horribly foul and nasty that it looks even more biohazardous than the fridge contents in Resident Evil 8.

Hellhole (original title: Ostatnia wieczerza, which literally means Last Supper) is a Polish horror film from 2022, written by Mirella Zaradkiewicz and directed by Bartosz M. Kowalski. It is available on Netflix as one of the Netflix originals. It was filmed in Lubiaz, Poland.

Starting off, this movie doesn’t offer too much new to the typical demonic/possession genre, but it’s atmospheric and creepy, much aided by the setting and visuals. It’s very mystery-fueled for the most part of the film, where you follow Marek as he keeps investigating the place and finds the one ominous thing after the other. And poor Marek pretty much finds himself in Hell already, with no means of actually leaving the place and being served the worst meals possible. Yes, those nasty meals have a deeper meaning, of course.

While we follow Marek on his investigative routes (and in between him violently vomiting for obvious reasons) it all becomes a little muddled with a mix of him finding apparent hoax effects that the monks use during the “exorcisms“, to him experiencing some really weird supernatural devilry. It never manages to elevate the atmosphere and creepy settings to some real scares, though, and it’s definitely a little slow at times, but it does gradually reveal bits and pieces along the ride which is pretty much what I crave and expect from mystery-based stories: just give us a few nuggets here and there and keep us wondering for a while still. Then…we get towards the final part of the movie, and oh boy, things certainly take a different turn! In some ways, it reminded me a little of how the buildup was presented in They’re Watching, even though those movies have very little in common otherwise. I’m talking about the somewhat “generic“ start which later presents you with something totally bonkers. Hellhole is one of those movies that saves the best parts for last, and there’s even a scene where it all also turned unexpectedly comedic. This certainly wasn’t a movie I expected to get some good laughs from.

With all of the above being said, Hellhole is for the most part a creepy, mystery-based horror film. If you want something with a sinister atmosphere, with some twists and turns and a fun finale thrown into that mix, then give Hellhole a watch!

Director: Bartosz M. Kowalski
Writers: Bartosz M. Kowalski, Mirella Zaradkiewicz
Original title: Ostatnia wieczerza
Country & year: Poland, 2022
Actors: Piotr Zurawski, Olaf Lubaszenko, Sebastian Stankiewicz, Lech Dyblik, Rafal Iwaniuk, Krzysztof Satala, Malwina Dubowska, Zbigniew Walerys, Antoni Augustyniak
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19724142/

Pretty Lethal (2026)

Posted on April 24, 2026April 24, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

A group of ballerinas from Los Angeles have gotten the opportunity of their lifetime: to attend a prestigious international competition in Budapest. Too bad the group have as much chemistry as water and hot oil. The teacher, Thorna Devenport, tries her best to make the girls work together but their differences are creating too much of a gap between them. You have rich and bratty Princess (yes, that’s her name), deeply religious Grace (fitting name, right?) Zoe and her hearing-impaired sister Chloe, and rebellious and street-smart Bones. Well, ahead to Budapest for the time of their life anyway…and of course, things go bad already from the get-go: there are mix-ups at the airport, resulting in them having to take a bus which breaks down. As they leave the bus to find a cab, they are invited to a place called Teremok Inn, which is run by a former prima ballerina called Devora Kasimer. Huh! What a coincidence. And this place is located in the middle of…bumfuck nowhere, it seems, with nothing but forest around for miles. How convenient…for some.

As they’re trying to wind down a bit inside the inn that looks like a colorful Haunted Mansion, the one red flag after the other is waving in front of their faces. Devora Kasimer is also the head of a small crime family, and bad things happen at Teremok Inn. Bad things that doesn’t really have anything to do with the American troupe, but they get mixed into the shit anyway, because, well…Europe is always so, so dangerous for Americans, ya know! At least according to American horror movies. After their teacher gets killed and the girls locked up and ready to be slaughtered, they finally band together and use their ballerina skills to survive.

Pretty Lethal is an action thriller film, directed by Vicky Jewson and written by Kate Freund. It premiered on South by Southwest Film & TV Festival on March 13, 2026, and released worldwide on Prime Video on March 25. It was originally announced as Ballerina Overdrive back in 2023 and was supposed to be filmed in Serbia, but things changed and it was instead filmed in Budapest, Hungary.

If you want something fun, colorful and vibrant, then this is it. This movie doesn’t only promise some kick-ass ballerina fights and blood ‘n gore to follow with it, it actually delivers. It is fast paced, highly energetic and so, so much fun! In stark contrast to the more dark and brooding Livide from 2011 (which is also a great horror movie featuring a ballerina), this one is a different kind of beast that pumps up the fun and action!

The choreography during the fight scenes are just awesome, and the fight where they take on a group of people in the inn’s pub while having Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers playing is pure gold. These ballerinas kick ass, and the Hungarian mob doesn’t stand a chance! That being said, I love how the movie doesn’t give them some kind of magical-girl superpower where they’re suddenly practically invincible. They get kicked around, punched and hurt too, their ballet-fu isn’t going to stop the Hungarian mob from being a very, very dangerous threat. But this is a bonkers setting where a high tolerance for pain, flexible bodies, and ballerina shoes armored with razor blades manage to beat guns and knives, and it works surprisingly well. Ballerinas are known for having a very high pain tolerance, often disassociating to perform their best, so it makes sense for them to endure as much as they do. A scene where one of them is being “tortured“ by a guy starting with pulling our her toenails makes for a nice gag – she’s a fucking ballerina, you idiot! A broken toenail is almost an everyday occurrence for these ladies…

Visually, the movie looks good with rich visuals and contrasts, with lovely interior matching the setting. Performances are solid, with all the ballerinas doing well with their roles, and Uma Thurman in the role of Devora Kasimer does a pretty good job on portraying a vicious crime-queen with a thick Eastern European accent. The hearing-impaired girl Chloe is played by Millicent Simmonds (A Quiet Place) who is deaf in real life.

Pretty Lethal is a high-energy wild ride from start to finish, with a lot of gore and silly violence, and it’s always totally aware of what it is. A fun time with some killer ballerinas who dance and slash their way out of danger!

Director: Vicky Jewson
Writer: Kate Freund
Country & year: USA/Hungary
Actors: Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Lydia Leonard, Avantika, Millicent Simmonds, Iris Apatow, Tamás Hagyó, Uma Thurman, Tamás Hagyó, Julian Krenn, Miklós Béres, Péter Végh, Adam Boncz
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26678938/

Re/Member (2022)

Posted on April 14, 2026April 14, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Asuka is a high school student who’s a bit of a loner. She’s very shy, apparently doesn’t have any friends, and keeps walking to school by herself while the other students keep laughing and clinging together. Then everything changes when Asuka sees the apparition of a dead girl named Haruka, who simply asks her to “find her body“. After some other strange incidents during the day, Asuka gets back home like it’s just been another normal day in Japan, preparing for the next lonely day at school. Well, she’s in for a new kind of normal from now on. After going to sleep, she wakes up in the middle of the night together with several of her classmates. They’re inside the school, and no one has any idea how they got there. What they quickly find out, however, is that they are now part of some kind of occult game called “Body Search“, and they need to find the eight pieces of Haruka’s body and place it inside a coffin. Sounds like fun, eh?

Not exactly, as their biggest problem isn’t finding the body parts, but being stalked and killed by an entity called the Red Person. When the first night is over, the Red Person has successfully killed them all before they’ve been able to find as much as a single body part. Game Over? Nope, it seems we have a fair share of continues. Asuka wakes up, and initially believes it all to be a strange nightmare…but the date remains the same as of yesterday. Her mother repeats the same lines and actions from the day before. Asuka and the other students who were with her on the Body Search last night, are all now stuck in a time loop. And they will all remain stuck, until they’ve found all of Haruka’s body parts.

Re/Member is a Japanese horror film directed by Eiichirō Hasumi, produced by Warner Bros. Japan. It is based on a Japanese manga series called Karada Sagashi, written by Welzard and illustrated by Katsutoshi Murase. Upon checking this movie out on Netflix we didn’t know much about it, and plot-wise I was actually surprised it wasn’t based off of a video game. The whole setting is quite reminiscent of Corpse Party, the RPG Maker indie game which also centers around a group of students in a school, chased by a girl in red. In the world of the supernatural, the “Lady in Red“ is often a very benevolent ghost, compared to her more friendly counterpart the Lady in White, which is mostly a western thing. I guess red means danger even in the ghost world.

The movie starts off very straightforward, presenting the characters and mystery in a somewhat generic manner but it’s still interesting enough from the get-go, and I really liked the build-up of atmosphere and mystery, together with some nice kills. The pacing can sometimes feel pretty wonky though, where it’s trying to balance gory horror with the anime-esque romantic comedy elements. But overall I never found myself bored with it. From the introduction of the characters, the old murder mystery and the Body Search itself, it was all packed with enough suspense and atmosphere to always keep me interested. It’s also such a huge plus that it doesn’t shy away from showing some gory kill scenes! And, while this is too much fun and action-packed to really be scary, it did manage to build some tight, creepy atmosphere in several of the scenes. And my heart always melts a little when I see the use of practical effects. Sure, there is some CGI here too, but a good amount of practical is used here which looks way more decent than the CGI (which is often the case). Nothing had me prepared for the scenes later in the movie involving a monster though! It’s such a fun mix of uncanny, goofy and creepy at the same time. Must’ve been a struggle for the actor inside that costume though…

Re/Member was more fun that I’d expected it to be, and despite some pacing issues here and there and some strange tonal shifts, I had a pretty good time with it. I totally loved some of the old-school practical effects, especially for the monster. While it’s not exactly anything groundbreaking or awesome, it’s a fun Japanese teen-horror movie mixing supernatural elements with time loops and monsters.

In 2025 a sequel to this movie was released, called Re/Member: The Last Night. And this takes a considerably bigger tonal shift where it’s much more of a teen comedy. Wasn’t our thing, but if you’re interested in checking it out it’s also available on Netflix, at least in some regions.

Director: Eiichirô Hasumi
Writer: Harumi Doki
Country & year: Japan, 2022
Actors: Kanna Hashimoto, Gordon Maeda, Maika Yamamoto, Fûju Kamio, Kotaro Daigo, Mayu Yokota, Yumemi Ishida
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21250176/

Primate (2025)

Posted on April 3, 2026April 3, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Bad Ben! No, not you. I’m talking to my pet chimpanzee. He’s been quite agitated lately. Must be something in the water.

We’re at a big lux cliff side house somewhere in remote Hawaii where no one can hear you scream. That also goes first and foremost for the owner, Adam, a deaf novelist who’s made himself a lucrative career by writing books like A Silent Shadow, A Silent Death and… Deaf Fury, if I’m not mistaken (har-har). Adam is played by Troy Kotsur, who’s actually born deaf, by the way. Adam also has a pet chimpanzee named Ben who wears a red T-shirt but unfortunately not a red cap. That would probably be just enough for Nintendo to eagerly slam the glowing red sue button, and I’m not even joking. Anyway: the film opens with a banger where a vet is about to enter Ben’s big cage in the backyard to get his face ripped off. Ouch. And it’s not the first time that has happened. Ooof.

But this is not just a chimp snapping and attacking by pure primal instinct, as it turns out that he has rabies. And how could that be when there’s no such thing in Hawaii? Well, maybe, just maybe there’s some space rabies going on here when we already have a cute n’ snotty, wild alien on the island called Stitch? Whatever. After this brutal opening, we jump back 36 hours earlier, where we meet the college student Lucy, who arrives in Hawaii to reunite with her dad, Adam, her younger sister and, of course, Ben. Lucy has a friend with her, and to enhance the upcoming body count, they meet some other college dudes at the airport who get invited to a house party to “fuck their brains off.“ Alrighty then. As soon as dad Adam goes on to a signing session, the kids have their whole house for themselves for the night while Ben starts rampaging to where that escalated quickly meme is a fitting way to say it.

Primate is co-written with Ernest Riera and directed by Johannes Roberts, who’s made horror films and been on the grind since 2001. He’s most known for 47 Meters Down (2017), 47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019), and Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021). The last mentioned, despite its flaws and messy script, is the first Resident Evil film that actually felt and looked like a Resident Evil film, as super low as the bar has already been during the past twenty years. Just saying.

On paper, Primate is as basic and formulaic as it can get. Johannes Roberts simply wanted to make a straight-forward 1980s style-slasher where Jason Voorhees was replaced with a killer chimp. Not the most unique idea as we already have Link from 1986. But that’s what you get — an easy, digestible slasher meal with a perfect runtime of 89 minutes and not to be taken too seriously, like most slashers. What makes this one stand out is, of course, the killer chimp himself, who is not CGI, but played by the movement specialist Miguel Torres Umba in the most realistic-looking monkey costume since who knows. Just very impressive stuff which also gives Ben more personality and the more feeling of real threat to our body counts as he chases them around the house. Nothing will ever beat Shakma though. Those poor doors.

Then there’s the gore, or the carnage candy, as the cool kids say, which is all practical, where we have all from ouch!-moments to more slow and ruthless jaw-ripping. Gnarly stuff. Johannes Roberts clearly shows his love for old-school filmmaking with nods to films like John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), spiced with a delicious synth-heavy score by Adrian Johnston, and it all clicks in that regard. A perfect mini banana on the cake would be to include the song Monkey by Harry Belafonte at the end credits. Oh well. The film also looks bright and vibrant, which goes hand in hand with the tropical environment — and if not a stark contrast from the gray and washed-out color palette we usually see in even way bigger budget films nowadays. All that said, the film is nothing new and can come across as super predictable. Still, its technical achievement alone showcases a director who has come a far way since his early bumpy 2000s, and has earned his spot on the radar.

Director: Johannes Roberts
Writers: Johannes Roberts, Ernest Riera
Country & year: USA, 2025
Actors: Johnny Sequoyah, Jess Alexander, Troy Kotsur, Victoria Wyant, Gia Hunter, Benjamin Cheng, Charlie Mann, Tienne Simon, Miguel Torres Umba
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33028778/

Send Help (2026)

Posted on March 27, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Sam Raimi is back (babyyy) with his first horror film in seventeen years. Time flies, and sooner or later we’ll all die and burn in Hell along with Christine Brown. So enjoy life to the fullest while you can — just like the hobby survivalist Linda Liddle that we get the pleasure of meeting over a pouch of tuna in Send Help.

A new horror film by the legend himself, Sam Raimi, is never just any horror film. It’s a rare cultural event where just the announcement itself would make the Earth stop spinning for a moment. But I have to admit that the trailers for Send Help gave me next to nothing. Something felt off, if not missing. Maybe it has to do with the fact that this is the first horror film of Sam where he isn’t credited as screenwriter, nor his brother Ivan. So, instead we have Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, the duo who wrote Freddy vs. Jason (2003), Friday the 13th (2009) and Baywatch (2017). It’s fair to say Uh-oh…

Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) works in an open-office area as a corporate strategist where she’s never been able to fit in. Calling her awkward is an understatement. She’s a socially inept goofy freak who reeks of tuna, looks like a total mess, and talks in a certain way that would get on anyone’s nerve. But she’s at least good at her job. Still, no one hates her as much as her new boss, Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien), who gives all her credit to Donovan, a Patrick Bateman-ish slimeball. To add insult to injury, Preston gives Donovan the promotion that was promised by her former boss. What a wonderful work environment. There is a reason that her last name rhymes with Little, by how much they think of her.

And yes, Bruce Campbell (Linda’s former boss and Sam Raimi’s longtime friend) has a cameo here, well, kinda — in the form of a wall picture in the background, based on his IMDb profile pic. Better than nothing, I guess.

Bradley invites Linda to join him and some of his team to a business trip to Bangkok. And her involvement seems more of a set-up so Bradley and his buddies can mock and bully her. Yes, Bradley is a complete narcissistic scumbag, if that wasn’t obvious already, and people like Linda is a perfect victim for him to abuse. Then the plane crashes and everyone dies, except for Bradley and Linda who get stranded on a small exotic island somewhere in the Gulf of Thailand. While Bradley never seemed to have set up a campfire or even touched a pinecone, it’s good to know that Linda is an obsessed fan of the competition TV show Survivor, and have learned a few skills. The power dynamic gets suddenly turned upside-down in the most primitive ways possible as Bradley is badly injured and Linda is holding the knife. Who’s laughing now, huh? Cast Away meets Misery, for sure, with some interesting twists and turns where we all root for Linda while we wish the absolute worst for Bradley. Right..? Well…

Send Help was a mild disappointment. Mostly because there’s very little of the raw and unique, frantic Sam Raimi-style to be seen here. He’s way past his Evil Dead days, and someone on the interweb gave it a fitting description by calling it Raimi Lite. The goriest moment the film has to offer is when Linda fights a cartoonish CGI boar that looks more like a scrapped creature-design from The Lion King live-action remake. The CGI is made by Disney, after all. Then we have a foggy and gloomy dream sequence with a quick shoehorned-in ghoulish jumpscare to remind us that Sam Raimi is somewhere in the room. The puke scene made me chuckle though, and “that knife-scene“ was a pretty clever and unsettling one.

But the most disgusting Eeeeew–moment in the entire film, for my part, is the tuna smudge on the corner of Linda’s mouth. For fucks sake, lady, wipe that shit away! I can handle gore all up to the ceiling, as the desensitized ghoul I am, while rolling my eyes of films like Slaughtered Vomit Dolls, but this was too much. Rachel McAdams should’ve worn this food stain on every press interview for the film, just for the lols, and see how long it would take before someone dared to react.

We’re first and foremost talking about a twisted psychological drama/thriller/mindgame where the comedic tone doesn’t always find the balance when the film tries to be more serious. Drag Me to Hell, on the other hand, was a perfect mix, but that film was also written by Sam and his brother. All credits here goes to Rachel McAdams, who runs the whole show with a way more layered performance than you’d expect, while Dylan O’Brien’s character is just a self-centered asshole. The film also goes in a direction where we should feel guilty rooting for Linda, or not. No spoilers here, but trying to make her the villain, all things already considered, felt unnecessary. That said, Send Help is overall an entertaining watch with a fun concept, but not exactly the triumphant return of horror director Sam Raimi I’d hoped for.

Director: Sam Raimi
Writers: Damian Shannon, Mark Swift
Country & year: USA/Thailand, 2026
Actors: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Edyll Ismail, Dennis Haysbert, Xavier Samuel, Chris Pang
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8036976/