2025 – Horror Ghouls

The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025)

Posted on September 12, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

The fourth and (for now) the farewell entry in the Conjuring franchise drifts far more from the actual case it is based on than ever before. The film starts back in 1964 where Ed and Lorraine have their first case together. They’re at a curio shop to investigate an antique haunted mirror. Lorraine is also fully pregnant, and the water goes as soon as she touches the mirror and sees a spooky vision of some demon. Ed rushes her to the hospital where Lorraine pushes out a stillborn. Oof. (My mind then played with the idea of Ed and Lorraine taking the fresh corpse of the baby home with them to perform a ritual to make a deal with the devil in order to bring the baby to life. Some decades later a pack of hellhounds would emerge to drag Ed and Lorraine to hell after the deal comes due, Supernatural-style. A predictable but fitting reason why the Smurl haunting became their last case, especially by looking at that sinister promo poster. Oh well.) After some hard prayers, the baby comes to life, and they name her Judy.

Then we jump to 1986 where She Sells Sanctuary are blasting from the speakers. Good times, for as long as it lasts. Jack and Janet Smurl with their four daughters and Jack’s parents are moving into a crammy duplex at a bleak and dreary suburb in West Pittson, Pennsylvania, where anyone would be bound to end up with chronic depression and alcohol problems before the first Christmas. The church-going family seems pretty happy, though, but they’ll soon learn that there isn’t much sanctuary to find here. It all starts when one of the oldest daughters gets an evil-looking gothic mirror as a confirmation present, something you’d see in Phantom Manor. And yep, it’s the same mirror we saw earlier. OoOoh…

The ceiling lights crash down on the kitchen table like a sledgehammer, Janet hears a cheesy whispering voice calling her name in the basement, Jack one night gets paralyzed and porked by a witchy Phoebe Waller-Bridge look-alike succubus. Fifty Shades of Ectoplasm. One of the youngest daughters gets spooked by a ghoulish grandma ghost with a demented Cheshire cat grin. A tall redneck farmer with an axe, also a smiley one, suddenly pops up around the house to terrorize the family. Their dog, Simon, is safe, for now.

Meanwhile, as hell is brewing in Pennsylvania, we spend some time with Ed and Lorraine’s daughter Judy, who’s now grown up and dating her future husband Tony. Judy looks collected on the outside but on the inside she’s broken, shaken and traumatized. Growing up with Ed and Lorraine as your parents does that to you. But the reasons are more generic than that: because Judy has the psychic powers of her mom and started seeing ghosts floating around her long before she realized that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. Life’s not fair. Ed and Loraine are now more or less retired from ghost hunting, much due to Ed’s failing health after he suffered a heart attack, and spends most of the time lecturing for a shrinking audience and being home, probably playing Ghosts ‘n Goblins on Nintendo. Tony gets the blessing of Ed and Lorraine to marry Judy after dating her for only six months. Hooray. He also bought the proposal/wedding ring only one (yes 1) week after they met. Uhm… red flags anyone? The Warrens have a barbecue party and play pingpong where we see one of the many cameos from previous films. Cheers. How’s Smurl’s doing?

Not that great. Things have gotten so bad that they’ve reached out to all from talk shows on TV to Larry King in hopes of getting some help. Doesn’t go so well. And the Warrens have no desire to help them. That’s only until Judy somehow gets drawn to the Smurl house, all the way from Connecticut. Why? Because.

Director Michael Chaves said in an interview with Bloody Disgusting that the Last Rites would stay true to the real-life Smurl haunting. BOOlshit. The Smurls seems more like an afterthought here as the main focus lies more on Judy and Tony, who had zero involvement with the case. We spend a lot of time with Judy and Tony and that’s the main problem. They’re not an interesting couple and the whole romance aspect is pure dead meat and filler-time that could easily have been tossed into the deleted scenes section. And the chemistry between these two is non-existent. It just feels hollow. A stark contrast to Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga.

The last twenty minutes or so is messy, stupid, eye-rolling and all over the place. The spinning mirror is so cartoonishly retarded that I almost expected Russel Crowe’s character from The Pope’s Exorcist to randomly chime in and end the film with a big ko-ko.

Even though the Last Rites was overall a mild disappointment, it has its strong elements when it comes to the technical aspect. It’s far from the trainwreck that was The Nun II. Michael Chaves gives a steady direction with great enhancement from cinematographer Eli Born. The retro 1980s esthetics are on point and the thing with the videotape camera, without spoiling, was a new and fresh idea. The few scenes in the Smurls’ house during the first and second half are the most interesting, especially if you’ve seen the movie made for TV, The Haunted, and read the book, which works best at reading as just pure horror fiction. Having that in mind, there are certain scenes here to wait for, especially the classic Janet? sequence in the basement. And they completely botched it, just like I expected. Then we have the mommy-mommy doll scene which is in pure style of James Wan and worked much better in the context of the film than in the first teaser trailer, where we saw a more goofy CGI ghost. The new design of the granny ghost, played by Fabrielle Downey, was a big quality upgrade which looks like a mix of The Bride in Black from Insidous and Mary Shaw from Dead Silence. The other two ghosts, the farmer with the axe and his succubus wife, make some solid appearances during the short amount of screentime they were given. And like the first two films, the child actors also delivers. Some few other classic Conjuring highlights sprinkled here as well. Too bad that the Smurl case itself is so rushed and undercooked.

So there you have The Conjuring: Last Rites – a very mixed and bloated bag with potential that was primarily wasted on romance and Hallmark family drama bollocks. If the film just had focused more on the actual case, the three grinning ghosts and the demon, whatever that was, this could maybe reach the quality levels of the first two. And if you haven’t seen the aforementioned TV movie from 1991, since the film has to this day not gotten a physical, nor a streaming release, and probably never will, it’s available on YouTube.

And here we have a quick local news segment about a young couple who bought the real Smurl house a week after the first teaser for the Last Rites dropped. They had no idea about the house’s history, off course. So it just remains to see if they also get swarmed with trespassing horror fans and ending up suing Warner Bros, like what happened in the wake of the first film back in 2015. In this case they should rather sue the real estate agent. Peace out.

Director: Michael Chaves
Writers: Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing, David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, James Wan
Country & year: USA, 2025
Actors: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Mia Tomlinson, Ben Hardy, Steve Coulter, Rebecca Calder, Elliot Cowan, Beau Gadsdon, Kíla Lord Cassidy, Peter Wight, Kate Fahy, Tilly Walker, Molly Cartwright
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22898462/

Prequels:

– The Conjuring (2013)
– The Conjuring 2 (2016)
– The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)

Together (2025)

Posted on August 26, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

A search party is combing through the woods, calling out for a missing couple. Two of the search dogs end up in a cave, where they drink from a strange pool of water. Later that night, the dogs start behaving very strangely, and the owner is woken by their whining and commotion in the kennel. When he shines his flashlight on them, he’s met with a horrible sight: they’ve been fused together.

After this little horrific scene, we head over to our protagonists: Millie Wilson who is an elementary school teacher, and Tim Brassington who is an aspiring musician. They are going to move to the countryside where Millie has gotten a job, and they’re throwing a going-away party with their friends. Here, Millie has decided to make it extra romantic by proposing to Tim…which ends up totally embarrassing when he delays his answer and appears totally hesitant. Ouch. So, was this just Tim being taken aback and having an unfortunate moment? Well, not exactly. Despite having been together for some time, Tim and Millie are having more than a few issues, where their relationship has ended up in codependency due to Tim’s mental issues. Tim suffers from PTSD after his parent’s death, he is depressed, he doesn’t have a job, and keeps more than one foot in the past, not willing to fully commit to Millie…but at the same time, he’s not willing to let her go and clings to her as some kind of lifeline rather than a partner he wants to spend his life with. Millie, on the other hand, is getting tired of his lack of commitment, his lack of sexual interest in her, and his immaturity. On the night after the going-away party and botched proposal, Millie asks him straight out if he really wants this relationship, because if they don’t split up now before the move, it will just be harder later. Oh, that’s some real prophetic words right there! Tim desperately claims it is what he truly wants, and so they move to the countryside after all, with all their issues still in tow. They decide to go on a hike near their home, and fall down a cave. The same cave where the dogs were in at the beginning of the movie, of course. Tim decides to drink some water from the pool, and that’s the start of another chapter in their relationship issues. Now they find themselves getting closer and closer each day…but not in a good way.

Together is a supernatural body horror film written and directed by Michael Shanks in his directorial debut. It stars Dave Franco as Tim and Alison Brie as Millie, a real-life married actor couple who have been together for over 13 years and married since 2017.

This is obviously a film where the themes are deeply rooted in metaphors, specifically codependency but also several other layers. Tim’s problems with commitment while simultaneously being afraid of letting her go, while Millie starts wanting to pull away due to his lack of interest in both her and their relationship, reminds me a little about how some people’s biggest fear is ending up alone (and thus settling for a partner they don’t really want) while others are the opposite, and would rather be alone than living with a partner who just settled for them. And the latter is, at least to me, much more understandable. Who wants to be together with someone who looks at you as someone they’re “stuck“ with because they can’t get what they really want? Someone who may find the comforts of the things you bring into the relationship to be enjoyable, but have trouble showing commitment, desire for you, or even an interest in your well-being…who the fuck wants that, right? Because these traits is what Millie also experienced once they fell down the cave: she’s quick to ask if he’s ok and check on him, and only minutes later she gives him the cold assertion “I’m okay, by the way“ because he couldn’t be arsed to even ask her. Yay. But, here’s the twist: that’s not because he’s an uncaring asshole, he is genuinely flustered when being reminded. It simply wasn’t on his mind because he’s used to her caring for him, not the opposite, which is just another trait of the classic codependency relationship. None of these characters are “good“ or “bad“ which could’ve easily been the case in a setup like this. Tim isn’t lacking commitment because he doesn’t care about her, he just hasn’t learned how to properly do so due to his trauma, depression, and immature fantasizing about a rock-star life and something that’s unachievable anyway. When your mind live in a fantasy world, what you’ve got in real life will always seem “meh“ no matter how good it actually is. Neither of them are flawless, both are struggling, something that comes off as believable due to some great performances by Franco and Brie. The chemistry between the characters always appear raw and heartfelt, which I guess is much thanks to the fact that the actors are a real-life couple that’s been together for many years.

The lovecraftian backstory regarding the cave is for the most part left ambiguous, but we do get a more detailed explanation of what the cave used to be and how it was used. The body horror elements, despite not being as crazy as what could be seen in last year’s Substance for example, are overall pretty solid as the movie uses some practical effects which look pretty nice. In a scene where the couple merged their arms together, they wore a prosthetic that effectively conjoined them together for hours on end, resulting in them having to use the restroom together. Must’ve been…not exactly fun. Aside from the body horror, there were also some surprisingly good scenes which were effectively creepy, especially the scene with Tim’s parents and the one with Millie behind the door. But for the most part, the movie is more of a fun popcorn entertainment movie with a nice slice of the bizarre.

Overall, Together is a weird and icky movie about codependency, and the fear of losing oneself in a relationship and the oftentimes messy complications of love.

Writer and director: Michael Shanks
Country & year: Australia/USA, 2025
Actors: Dave Franco, Alison Brie, Damon Herriman
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31184028/

Dangerous Animals (2025)

Posted on August 19, 2025August 19, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Captain Tucker runs a tourist attraction called Tucker’s Experience, where the tourists are put in a shark cage to enjoy the sight of those dangerous animals in relatively safe surroundings. The tourists Greg and Heather are ready for such an experience, and of course they’re completely ignoring all the red flags. When some guy who is going to take you out on a boat suddenly seems very interested in how nobody else knows that you’re there, then…it’s time to turn around and just goooo…but of course not. So, a bit later when they’re out on the open ocean and ready for the cage dive, Tucker starts preparing them by telling them to do a few breathing exercises to loose the tension, and then…starts singing Baby Shark doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo. Another major red flag right there! Greg becomes shark food, and Heather’s dragged to the cabin of the boat and reserved for a later purpose. The most dangerous animals are those on two feet.

Now we head over to the drifter Zephyr, who ends up in some kind of romcom-like scenario with the real estate agent Moses. They both start bonding over their love of surfing, and have a one night stand. Zephyr just drives away in the middle of the night, not quite as interested in something more like Moses apparently is. She decides to do a little night surfing, and who does she encounter in the parking lot where no one else is around? None other than Tucker, of course. He abducts her, and is soon to find out that she’s the most feisty animal he’s captured thus far. That’s what he wanted, though…a little bit of a challenge, for once. A fish you need to use a lot of strength and stamina to reel in. Zephyr might be more of a fighter than he initially expected, though…

Dangerous Animals is an Australian survival horror film, directed by Sean Byrne (The Devil’s Candy) and written by Nick Lepard. In 2024, production begun on the Gold Coast, Queensland, which contributed with over $10 million to the state’s economy.

Serial killers have different ways of exposing of their victims, and a movie about a shark-obsessed killer who feeds them to the sharks? Well, that’s gotta be an interesting take for sure. Tucker, played by Jai Courtney, definitely works great as an unhinged and sadistic guy, filled with just the right bit of charisma and craziness. While the movie does have a fair bit of excitement and thrills, don’t expect to have some truly grisly shark attack scenes here though. The sharks aren’t the danger, it’s the serial killer who’s the only baddie here, so the story pans out more as a stalker-killer ride. Which is fine, even though I would have loved to see some more shark-mayhem. The movie is rather laidback on the gore, which was a little disappointing considering the bloody film poster. Oh well. It makes up for it by keeping up the pace at a good level throughout, and offering enough suspense.

Overall, Dangerous Animals is a fun and fast-paced survival horror movie, and despite feeling that it lacked a little bit of extra bite it was still a fun experience.

Director: Sean Byrne
Writer: Nick Lepard
Country & year: Australia, 2025
Actors: Hassie Harrison, Jai Courtney, Josh Heuston, Josh Heuston, Ella Newton, Liam Greinke, Rob Carlton and a bunch of dangerous animals
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32299316/

Weapons (2025)

Posted on August 12, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

In Maybrook, Pennsylvania, something strange happened one night. At exactly 2:17 a.m. seventeen children suddenly woke up, ran out of their homes and disappeared. All of these children were from Justine Gandy’s class, where the entire classroom would be empty the next day with only one exception: Alex Lilly, the only child who didn’t end up missing that night. Police investigation begins immediately, but yields no results. Alex doesn’t know anything, and Justice doesn’t know anything. One month later, the desperate parents of the missing children demand answers, and decide that Justine must know at least something. After all, it was her class. She’s put on leave, and immediately turns to the alcohol for comfort as she’s being harassed by the townspeople who believes she’s guilty in some way or other. Justine, sincerely not knowing anything and also being concerned about Alex, the only kid left from her class, starts doing a bit of investigation by herself. One day, she follows him home, and notices that the windows of his house are all covered in newspaper…

Weapons is a horror film written, co-produced and directed by Zach Cregger. It has so far grossed over $70 million against a budget of $38 million. Zach Cregger also had a financial and critical success with Barbarian (2022), and immediately started working on a new spec script which was inspired after the death of a close friend of his, Trevor Moore. The screenplay ended up in a bidding war between Netflix, TriStar Pictures, Monkeypaw Productions, Universal Pictures, and New Line Cinema, where the latter won. Jordan Peele, with his company Monkeypaw Productions was one of the participiants in the bidding war, and after losing he parted ways with his longtime managers Joel Zadak and Peter Principato. I guess the success of Weapons was foreseen by a lot of people, considering the heavy interest in securing the rights…

When we saw Weapons at the big screen we knew very little about it and went in as blind as possible, and yes: this is one of those movies where knowing as little as possible definitely heightens the experience. The movie starts off with the mystery that’s also revealed in the trailer and descriptions of the movie. A narrator with the voice of a young child tells you what happened, and you follow the aftermath of the children’s disappearances. There’s an ominous vibe to it all, something dark and brooding, and if you’re blessed with seeing this movie while still being oblivious as to what’s actually going on, you’ll definitely have some fun trying to figure out and speculate where it’s all going. While Barbarian very obviously red-herringed the fuck out of you, this one keeps you constantly guessing while slowly creeping towards the reveal, which I’m going to be honest, wasn’t at all what I initially expected. Weapons also has a lot of dark humor, mixed with some pretty grotesque scenes where some of them honestly caught me a bit off guard. It was quite the ride, for sure! There’s a lot I could have written about this movie, but as I think the best experience is to watch it as blindly as possible, I’ll refrain from going much further.

Underneath Weapons, you might be surprised to realize that the story is actually a very generic horror story, but it’s the non-linear way it’s told and the mix of narrative choices here that makes everything work out so perfectly. Instead of a bland, overused formula with ingredients you’re all too familiar with, it twists everything on its head and presents it to you in a completely different wrap-up. I’m repeating myself like a broken record here, but: go in as blind as possible, and enjoy this twisted and unpredictable horror adventure!

Writer and director: Zach Cregger
Country & year: USA, 2025
Actors: Scarlett Sher, Julia Garner, Cary Christopher, Jason Turner, Josh Brolin, Benedict Wong, Austin Abrams, Alden Ehrenreich, Whitmer Thomas, Callie Schuttera, Amy Madigan
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26581740/

Bring Her Back (2025)

Posted on August 5, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Piper is a girl who is partially sighted (played by Sora Wong who has a real-life condition of coloboma and microphthalmia). Despite her efforts, she struggles to find friends, but she’s pretty close to her step-brother Andy who both live together with their father, since Piper’s mother died. One day, they find their father dead in the shower, and Piper is sent to live in a foster home. Since neither of them wants to split up, Andy comes along, hoping to get custody once he turns 18 which is in just a few months. They are sent to live with Laura, who is also fostering a mute boy named Oliver. Laura is eccentric, to put it mildly, and it’s obvious from the start that Andy is the third wheel here while Laura seems to be all over Piper. They learn that Laura once had a daughter who drowned in the backyard pool, which might explain some of Laura’s odd behavior…but there also appears to be more to it than that. Not to mention Oliver, who appears to be both mute and mentally impaired. Soon Laura also starts to undermine Andy’s mental state, using insidious tactics to make him seem unfit to care for his sister. Something is very wrong in the house, and Laura’s dark plan is about to come into fruition, as she plans to bring her dead daughter back to life.

Bring Her Back is the second horror film from the Australian duo Danny and Michael Philippou, where they had great success with Talk to Me from 2022. The story is written by Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman, who was also one of the co-writers for Talk to Me. The movie is released by A24, and has so far grossed $27.5 million against a budget of $15 million.

The Philippou brothers certainly proves that Talk to Me wasn’t just a one-hit-wonder: their newest film is even more unsettling and atmospheric. All the actors are delivering great performances here, where the bond between Andy and Piper comes off as believable and with convincing ethos. The boy playing Oliver is creepy as hell, and Sally Hawkins (who also played the protagonist in Guillermo del Toro’s Shape of Water) does an excellent performance as the unbalanced, grieving mother who’s desperate to do anything to bring her dead daughter back to life. The theme of death, trauma and grief was also substantial in Talk to Me, and I really love how they’re able to present it as something so incredibly dark and ominous. Grief, being a part of everyone’s life in so many ways, gets a thick layer of gloom where all the characters have their own fill of it. What wouldn’t one be willing to do if they could bring a loved one back to life? We all know the answer to that question: most of us would do quite a lot, and some would even do everything.

While there is a somewhat basic occult story underneath Bring Her Back, it’s the execution that makes it such a great watch. There’s a constant feeling of creeping dread, you always anticipate something horrible to happen. And while the horror is mostly subtle, the scenes where the bad things start happening are truly visceral and often unexpectedly unnerving. Timing is everything, nailing it without the use of unnecessary jumpscares. There’s a lot of innuendo before the actual, purest hell breaks out, and some of these lead up to several incredible wtf-ish disturbing moments.

Bring Her Back is a bleak, unsettling and oftentimes heartfelt horror movie, which continuously builds up the dread. Now we can only look forward to what the Philippou brothers are going to do next, which will at least be the sequel of their first film which is simply titled Talk 2 Me.

Directors: Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou
Writers: Danny Philippou, Bill Hinzman
Country & year: Australia, 2025
Actors: Billy Barratt, Sally Hawkins, Jonah Wren Phillips, Stephen Phillips, Sally-Anne Upton, Mischa Heywood, Sora Wong, Kathryn Adams
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32246771/

Until Dawn (2025)

Posted on July 1, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Clover’s sister Melanie has gone missing. Desperate for any answers or at least a clue, Clover goes on a trip in search of her missing sister and brings her ex-boyfriend Max, her friends Nina and Megan, and Nina’s boyfriend Abe. They try to retrace Melanie’s steps according to the last places she was seen, and ends up by the gas station where she had sent a message before going missing. When talking to the station attendant, he claims that people tend to go missing near the mining town called Glore Valley. Alright, there’s a pinpoint to check out. When they drive to this place, a heavy rainfall makes them seek shelter at a visitor center. There, they notice the heavy rain is…strangely local. Hmm. Inside the abandoned visitor center, they find a wall that’s filled with posters of missing people. No surprise that they also find Melanie’s photo there. Nina signs the guestbook just for the fun of it, and soon a masked assailant attacks and kills everyone. And that’s the start of a time loop where they will be brought back to the first night, having to sign their names in the guestbook once more and try to survive the night. If they die 13 times, however, they will end up missing just like the previous visitors…including Melanie.

Until Dawn is a horror film directed by David F. Sandberg, and written by Gary Dauberman and Blair Butler. It’s loosely based on the 2015 PlayStation video game by the same name, where the movie is using the same universe while featuring an original standalone story.

Movies based on horror games do not, unfortunately, have many home-runs to brag about. Most of them are either underwhelming, straying too far from the source material and thus alienating the game’s fanbase, and sometimes they’re just outright awful. Sure, there are some exceptions, but they’re few and far between, and of course there’s also a few that could end up in the fun-bad category. So, where does Until Dawn belong? While I have not played the PlayStation game and have no way to compare the game to the movie, I have noticed that many have placed it in the category of movies that strays too far away from the source material. So if you’re a fan of the game, I guess it’s a safe bet that this movie would be a disappointment. All in all, I have to admit we didn’t have high expectations when watching it, but as we more or less just watched it without any comparisons in mind it actually turned out to be….fairly okay? By no means any masterpiece, but it was entertaining enough with some decent atmosphere and visuals. The pacing is fine, the deaths are sometimes quite gory, and there’s a mystery that keeps you engaged. In no way does the movie rely on you having any prior knowledge of its source material, making it a movie where you can go in completely blind.

So overall, Until Dawn didn’t turn out to be the disaster we more or less expected. It’s a pretty fine supernatural horror film, works fine on its own and gave us a decent ride. Yeah, I’m certain our opinions might have been completely different if we had played the game and were devoted fans of it. Personally, I have rarely seen a movie based on a book where I’ve read the book first and actually fully enjoyed the movie version, for example. That’s just the way it works for most people, the level of depth and engagement you use when reading a book or playing a video game will always be considerably different from a movie.

Director: David F. Sandberg
Writers: Gary Dauberman, Blair Butler
Country & year: USA/ Hunagry, 2025
Actors: Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Odessa A’zion, Ji-young Yoo, Belmont Cameli, Maia Mitchell, Peter Stormare, Tibor Szauervein, Lotta Losten, Mariann Hermányi, Willem van der Vegt, Zsófia Temesvári
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30955489/

28 Years Later (2025)

Posted on June 24, 2025June 25, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

28 Years Later starts 28 years earlier with an opening sequence somewhere over the hills and far away in the countryside of the Scottish Highlands. The rage virus has spread across the country and a group of kids have been locked inside a living room with the Teletubbies on TV to be kept calm and safe, which doesn’t last long. One of the kids are Jimmy, who escapes from the home as the freshly infected are raging their way in while Jimmy’s dad, a priest, has gone completely insane as he’s on his knees at the church, welcoming the apocalypse to kill him and the rest of humanity. Because the Bible says so. Amen. Jimmy escapes, followed by a childhood that we only can imagine as a traumatic hellride that will segway itself into a fine and stable adulthood. Ha-ha. And no, this is not the first and last we see of Jimmy. He will be important later, you can be sure of that.

Then we take the huge leap of 28 years later where parts of Britain are still in full quarantine, after the rage virus has been wiped out from the rest of Europe. So maybe the last ten seconds of 28 Weeks Later happened after all in the lost tapes of 28 Months Later. We’re in a small community of survivors on the island of Lindisfarne off the northeast coast of England that is connected to the mainland through a causeway. Here they have their own fortified Animal Crossing village where the modern technology that we once knew is a faded memory. No smartphones, no internet, no telly, no cars and no botox. Most kids today wouldn’t even survive a day without their daily dose of Guess My Fart on TikTok. We meet the twelve-year-old boy Spike (Alfie Williams), his dad Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and the bedridden mum Isla (Jodie Comer), who’s suffering from an unknown disease. And since there are no doctors on the island to examine her, there’s only to hope for the best.

But today is a big special day when Jamie takes Spike outside of the village to the open world mainland for the very first time, to teach him to scavenge and protect himself with bow and arrows. Because the infected is still roaming, which has since mutated into new variants. Now there’s not just the regular infected to be aware of, but also the Alphas, this film’s version of the Volatiles (yes, another Dying Light reference). These giants are not sensitive to light though, and once they spot you, it’s Game Over, unless you’ve unlocked the skill to run like Tom Cruise. And all the infected are buck naked, and if you’ve never seen tits before and especially dicks, you may get traumatized. Just a friendly warning/sarcasm. Another new type of species we may stumble upon is the fat slobs (jabbas) that mostly crawl deep in the forest and slurps worms like noodles. Maybe that explains why all the jabbas are… Asians. I still have questions.

It’s all quite a surreal and eerie experience for Spike, and we feel it too, as the soundtrack is mixed with disturbing chants from the poem Boots by Rudyard Kipling, while we have some grainy war clips from the middle-ages to set up the mesmerizing mood. As Spike lets The Breath of the Wild sink in, he and Jamie enter an abandoned house where they find an infected that is hanging from his feet from the ceiling. The name Jim is carved on his chest. Huh. The infected is still alive and Jamie orders Spike to give him an arrow to his skull to make him his first kill. The trip escalates into getting chased by an Alpha all the way to the village gate. Safe and mission accomplished.

The village celebrates Spike’s coming-of-manhood quest with a big party where Spike witnesses Jamie cheating on his wife. At the same time, Spike has a little chat with his grandad (if I remember correctly), who mentions Dr. Kelson (Ralph Voldemort Fiennes), a mysterious hermit who lives some hills and forests away from the island. And Jamie is very aware of this doctor. Spike confronts Jamie the next morning and understandably gets angry at him when it’s obvious that Jamie just wants Isla to die so he can be with his new mistress. After Jamie slaps him, like the first-class scumbag that he actually is, Spike tells Jamie to fuck off and later sneaks out of the village with Isla to get her to this Dr. Kelson. Who’d know that Spike has bigger bollocks than the Alphas. Balls with Spikes, if you will.

Spike and Isla also come across a Swedish Nato patrol soldier, Erik (Erik Sundqvist), who’s been stranded in Britain after his unit patrol boat got destroyed. Since he has got nothing better to do, he joins the quest for Dr. Kelson. He also has this thing called a smartphone, something that Spike has never seen before. Erik proudly shows a picture of his girlfriend, a standard botox doll with duckface and all. You know, the regular stuff. Spike then asks what’s wrong with her face. Ooof… the comedy writes itself.

28 Years Later, where director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland returns to the franchise since the first one, was not exactly as expected. I’d say that. What we basically have here is a very spiritual coming-of-age film where the subject of death is explored in such a raw and honest way, but at the same time, with an empathic, somber and unpretentious approach which I can’t remember to have seen in any horror film. I especially like the whole concept of the bone temple, without going more into that. It’s beautiful, emotional, and it’s been eons since I actually got teared-up in a movie theater. And I’m not that easy to manipulate. And yeah, there is action and several wild and brutal scenes here as the threat of the infected looms everywhere, even though the weather in Britain is better than ever. The gore doesn’t hold back, which is all good old practical.

While the ground story itself is nothing new, the execution is quite something else. The cinematography, the use of the idyllic summer landscapes with the blue sky and all, makes a stark contrast to the morbid and ugly, almost like a dreamlike paradox. There are some really haunting images here and some brilliant use of silhouettes while the kinetic camerawork amps up the intensity. That this thing was shot on iPhones with a budget of 60 million dollars and looks more crisp, lively and just overall way more vibrant and epic than a 200 million Disney film is just hilarious. The acting is top-tier and the newcomer Alfie Williams has a bright future ahead as he manages to carry the whole film. Jodie Comer is fantastic as the more and more sick and disorientated mother, and Ralph Voldemort Fiennes as Dr. Kelson is an eccentric oddball I’d like to see more of. Also say hello to Cillian Murphy’s long-lost twin brother. So yeah, I was highly impressed with this one, how it explored some themes in a new, fresh way, the world building and the overall vibe and atmosphere. It all just clicked.

28 Years Later is the first part of a trilogy. The second one, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, was shot back-to-back and is directed by Nia DaCosta. And I won’t deny that the director choice has given me some mixed feelings. I just hope for the sweet love of Belzebob that this trilogy is, at the very least, carefully planned with a clear roadmap so we don’t end up with another slow and embarrassing car crash incident like The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker …

And then we have the quite special and super-non-controversial ending, which connects some elements from the opening scene in the most British way that I actually found to be pure genius. It comes straight from the blue with the zany apocalyptic madness that we’re most used to in Mad Max and Dead Rising. No spoilers here, but some of the clothing choices of these individuals that pop up in the last minutes have made people on the internet completely lose their collective minds, as the one and only thing they now see is The Great Satan himself, Jimmy Savile! Yes, the former best buddy of King Charles and the once protected golden pedophile of the BBC (not big black cock). Some NPC’s are programmed to see only what they wanna see with zero ability to pick up any nuances and the several additional layers here. During the rewatch they’ll maybe also spot Epstein, Pootin and the double chin of Dan Schneider. That being said, have a cold one, smell some flowers, have sex, enjoy the summer and Memento Mori.

Director: Danny Boyle
Writer: Alex Garland
Country & year: UK/USA, 2025
Actors: Alfie Williams, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Christopher Fulford, Jodie Comer, Ralph Fiennes, Edvin Ryding, Chris Gregory, Celi Crossland, Rocco Haynes
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10548174/

Prequels:
– 28 Weeks Later (2007)
– 28 Days Later (2002)

Companion (2025)

Posted on May 30, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Iris is a young woman who is going to an isolated lakehouse together with the love of her life: her boyfriend Josh. She fondly recalls how they met for the first time at a grocery store, where eyes met and hearts locked in an instant connection. Sounds a little overly romantically idealized? Well…it is. Despite Iris being head over heels for Josh, we quickly notice that something in their relationship is kinda off. When they meet up with Josh’s friends Kat, the couple Eli and Patrick, and Kat’s boyfriend Sergey who owns the lakehouse, things quickly go wrong, with Iris being the center of it all. And it’s at this point we find out that Iris is, in fact, not a human: she’s a companion robot, made exclusively to fulfill the needs of lonely people (and, probably most often, scumbags who wants to treat someone badly while easily getting away with it). And the best part? These robots aren’t even aware that they are robots, programmed to be fully loyal and committed to the person they “love“ without question, no matter how badly they are treated. Every narcissist’s dream, for sure. Josh had plans for Iris, of course, but those plans are botched once she becomes aware of her situation.

Companion is a science fiction thriller written and directed by Drew Hancock. It grossed $36.7 million against a budget of $10 million, and has received fairly positive reviews. The core themes of the movie is control, autonomy, and of course the dangers of technology if it gets in the wrong hands. Underneath is also a very obvious metaphor for a toxic relationship consisting of manipulation and control. Iris, being a robot, is quite physically controlled by an app in Josh’s possession, but once she becomes aware of this she manages to gain a certain control over her own self.

It’s no secret that technology can be both good and bad, depending on how people use it. Unfortunately, when new technology is created, we often see how many people are at the forefront to use it mainly by the means of exploiting others (just look at generative AI as a prime example of this). The concept of “companion robots“ in this film opens up for so many ways for bad people to use them for various purposes. All of this comes in stark contrast to how Iris is, ironically, the most “human“ character in the movie. The majority of the other people are complete assholes with little or no qualms regarding other people’s lives and well-being as long as they can gain something from it. Once Iris finds out that she is, in fact, not a human, she is also thrown into a full existential horror where free will at first seems to be completely out of her grasp, but she still tries to fight for it. Metaphorically, one could easily consider this scenario as someone realizing how toxic their relationship is, and tries to break out from it.

Companion is a fun movie about how human aggression and violence can easily become an ethical issue when given control over something that emulates human emotions, yet have no control over their lives and have no rights like that of real humans. While this is far from the first time similar concepts have been explored in movies or other media, it still felt like a fresh take, especially in these days when a situation like this seems considerably less far-fetched than it was just a few years ago.

Writer and director: Drew Hancock
Country & year: USA, 2025
Actors: Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage, Megan Suri, Harvey Guillén, Rupert Friend, Jaboukie Young-White, Matt McCarthy, Marc Menchaca, Woody Fu, Ashley Lambert
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26584495/

Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare (2025)

Posted on May 27, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

In this demented/twisted/fucked-up serial killer flick that your mum and dad don’t want you to see, we meet, yeah you guessed it – Peter Pan. And he’s a, yeah, you guessed it – a serial killer. And yep, you guessed it again – he murders children, sometimes in broad daylight. And not one by one, but in drones. The few lives he spares gets trapped in his dungeon basement. Oh my… calling the whambulance is no use here. So there’s no big shocker to say that this isn’t the Peter Pan that we know from our classic childhood fairy tales, but rather a homicidal maniac who lives out his sick fetish role-playing fantasies.

Pan is also a hardcore junkie who lives comfy enough in an abandoned manor somewhere in the idyllic British countryside of Ashdown with his one and only Tinker Bell, an unpleasant sight by itself who looks more like the sister of Longlegs. Instead of heroin, we have pixie dust. It’s the same shit though, so don’t get fooled, kids. Stay outta drugs and have some Kava instead.

But at the end of the day, Peter Pan actually means all well. Because he doesn’t kill children just for the hell of it, but in order to send their souls to Neverland to save them from the evil world that we live in. Your typical road to hell that is paved with good intentions, to put it that way. Neverland is, after all, a place where you can be a little boy for the rest of your existence. And since dead people don’t age…well, you get the idea. Sweet dreams.

The film starts with a quick, flashback story of Pan (Martin Portlock) where he works as a mime artist at a circus. After performing in front of a group of kids, he stalks one of the kids home, which by a wild coincidence is named James Hook. After sneaking into his bedroom through a trapdoor, where we also have a quick Pennywise reference (because why not), the kid’s mother spots him and hell breaks loose. After a brutal fight in the kitchen that goes from bruises to chopped-off toes by a meat cleaver, a disfigured face and a scalped head, Pan takes Hook with him before we jump fifteen years later.

Then we meet the upper-class family, the Darlings, just another wild name coincidence, where the older sister Wendy (Megan Placito) is driving her youngest brother Michael (Peter DeSouza, the possessed kid from Pope’s Exorcist) to school. Michael is depressed, and since it’s his birthday and all, Wendy tries her best to make his day a little easier by also intending to pick him up after school. Aaw, how thoughtful. Too bad that she gets distracted on the phone by her boyfriend when Michael leaves the school on a bike, which leads to him being captured by our psycho killer Peter Pan The Grabber. While Michael is trapped in his manor where he’s forced to play games like hide-and-seek, a guilt-stricken Wendy sets out to find her brother.

Terrifier meets The Black Phone says hello to Castle Freak, written and directed by Scott Chambers, a living non-stop Duracell Bunny who made only eleven movies in 2021 alone, according to his IMDb. Geez, I’m having a stroke just thinking about it. Can’t say I’ve seen any of them though, except from Exorcist Vengeance (2022) only because of Robert Bronzi, the famous Charles Bronson clone. While his previous films have an average rating between 2.8 and 3.6, it’s fair to assume that he has had a major skill upgrade at some point. Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare is a more polished and overall professional-made movie than you’d expect, all from the camerawork, production design, sound, pacing, acting, and, of course, the effects, which are all practical, as far as I could see. To be completely honest, this looks more like it could be in the same universe as Damien Leone’s Terrifier than the Poohniverse. And that’s probably the best compliment I can give.

The most remarkable here is Martin Portlock as Peter Pan – a brilliant and charismatic actor who just came as a lightning strike from the blue sky when he went viral in the UK after his appearance as a witch on Britain’s Got Talent. Here, he’s a mix of Heath Ledger’s Joker, Freddy Krueger and Radu the vampire with a dark and a seductive British voice that would even make Hugh Grant blush. He’s as ruthless and mean-spirited as he’s intimidating. I also liked the angle with the Tinker Bell character, played by Kit Green. Her and Peter’s relationship is a pure psychological warzone, if the circumstances weren’t hell already. Her story of how she ended up in this pit of misery would be an interesting spinoff by itself. And if you want the blood and gore, you’ll get it. The third act goes especially full throttle in the splatter & gore department, with a cute final girl and all, which you can guess who.

So yeah, all in all, a gritty, gory, tension-filled and morbidly entertaining ride you’ll never experience at Disneyland, even after dark. Solid stuff. I hope we see Martin Portlock in more horror films, while it’ll be interesting to see what Scott Chambers does next. Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare is available on streaming on Amazon Prime, or (for us Norwegians) on Viaplay.

Writer and director: Scott Chambers
Country & year: UK/USA, 2025
Actors: Megan Placito, Martin Portlock, Kit Green, Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, Teresa Banham, Olumide Olorunfemi, Campbell Wallace, Nicholas Woodeson, Hardy Yusuf, Harry Whitfield
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21955520/

Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025)

Posted on May 20, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

The year is 1968, where Iris Campbell is going to attend the opening ceremony of a high-rise restaurant tower called Skyview. The one to bring her there is her fiancé Paul, who wants this event to be as perfect as possible. Oh, if he only knew. Well, since this is a Final Destination movie, we know the drill: Iris has her premonition, and oh boy, is this one a total disaster! The grand opening of the Skyview ends just as well as Titanic’s first voyage. The entire tower collapses, causing a huge death toll. After Iris watches her final moments before dying, however, this is where the movie takes a turn from the previous films: instead of seeing Iris “waking up“, we see college student Stefani Reyes waking up in bed with a scream. Apparently, she’s been having recurring nightmares about this event for months, driving her equally sleep-deprived roommate to the brink of murder. Stefani travels back to her family for some answers, and finds that her nightmares are linked to her maternal grandmother, Iris.

The grandmother is no longer in contact with anyone in the family, and she lives waaaay out in bumfuck nowhere. Stefani decides to pay her grandmother a visit to get some answers, and ends up at Iris’s fortified cabin. There, Iris tells Stefani all about how she was able to disrupt Death’s plans when she prevented the tower’s collapse, literally saving the lives of everyone there. She gives Iris a book where she has documented Death’s omens and giving instructions on how to spot them. Stefani, of course, thinks her grandmother’s just totally kooky and regrets going there in the first place…until Death makes his move. Soon, Stefani realizes that Iris was right, and Death is now trying to kill off the survivors in the order they would have died at the Skyview…and of course, all their descendants who were never meant to exist if they had died as intended. This, of course, includes Stefani and her younger brother, plus several of their other family members.

Final Destination: Bloodlines (aka Final Destination 6) is the latest film in the Final Destination franchise. It was directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, and written by Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor. It’s based on a story that was developed by them and Jon Watts. After the commercial success of Final Destination 5, the next film was described as some kind of “re-imagining“ of the franchise. That’s…not really the case, though. They’ve changed the basic setup a little bit, but it’s still a classic Final Destination film, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It premiered on May 16, and has so far received generally favorable reviews. It has currently grossed $105 million worldwide. The highest grossing film in the franchise, The Final Destination (the 4th film) made $187 million worldwide. It’s still early, so it remains to be seen if their sixth installment breaks that record.

So, how does this movie hold up to the rest of the franchise? Well, we watched it at the big screen and had a total blast with it! Six films in and it’s still feeling as playful and fun as ever, perfectly balancing humour with grisly deaths. Already from the opening scene with the Skyview you know it’s going to be good, keeping you eagerly anticipating how all hell will break loose. And it sure does! During this premonition scene there is a 71 year old stuntwoman, Yvette Ferguson, who came out of retirement in order to play a fire stunt. Now, how cool is that! Aside from the bonkers opening scene, there are many other kills that turns both bloody and gory, so the fun lasts throughout.

Final Destination: Bloodlines proves that the franchise is still going strong, and still feeling surprisingly fresh. That being said, it’s been approximately 14 years since the previous film, so it’s not like we’ve gotten these movies thrown at us every single year or so. We’ve had some time to build up an appetite for a new one, and it certainly was a great time! Now, we all know that a 7th film will be inevitable. Just how long that will take, however, remains to be seen. They still have so many ideas to take from, bad things can happen to a lot of people everywhere: on a cruise ship, in a tunnel, at a concert, on tourist attractions around the world (like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Colosseum in Rome, etc.), at Las Vegas, at a circus, etc. etc. The possibilities are endless! Will be fun to see what idea they go for next.

Also, R.I.P. Tony Todd (Bludworth). It was nice to see his story arc ending here, with a reveal of his character and backstory.

Directors: Zach Lipovsky, Adam B. Stein
Writers: Guy Busick, Lori Evans Taylor, Jon Watts
Country & year: USA/Canada, 2025
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/tt9619824/

Prequels:
– Final Destination (2000)
– Final Destination 2 (2003)
– Final Destination 3 (2006)
– The Final Destination (2009)
– Final Destination 5 (2011)