horror movie review – Horror Ghouls

M3GAN (2022)

Posted on June 27, 2025June 28, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Cady is an 8-year old girl whose parents are killed in a car accident, where she is the only survivor. The girl is sent to live with her aunt Gemma, an eccentric woman who is a roboticist at a high-tech Seattle toy company called Funki. Without the company’s consent, she’s been using their resources in order to develop a highly advanced humanoid robot doll, simply named M3GAN (model 3 generative android). Things go horribly wrong during the first presentation test in the lab, where the boss orders her to discontinue any work on M3GAN. So on top of that failure, Gemma is also struggling with connecting to her niece Cady, until the girl discovers Gemma’s old motion capture robot Bruce. An old project Gemma created back at college. When she watches how Cady plays with Bruce, she becomes motivated to get rid of M3GAN’s bugs and complete her anyway. And so she does.

The finished M3GAN then ends up getting paired with Cady, and this time the presentation goes way better than the first one. M3GAN totally exceeds expectations, and even though a mass-production of her would result in a rather steep price, most children would never want another “toy“ again anyway. M3GAN proves to offer everything to a child: she can be a friend, a playmate, a therapist, a teacher…and a parent. Which, all in all, isn’t necessarily a good thing. Cady’s therapist, Lydia, mentions that she finds it worrisome that Cady appears to be developing an unhealthy attachment to M3GAN, but that’s not even the biggest problem. The problem is M3GAN herself, who appears to become more and more protective over Cady, to the point where everything that can be considered a threat to Cady’s well-being is considered something that must be eliminated…

M3GAN (or simply Megan) is a sci-fi horror film from 2022, directed by Gerard Johnstone (who also directed Housebound from 2014) with screenplay from Akela Cooper, and based on a story by Cooper and James Wan, Allison Williams and Violet McGraw. The film grossed over $181 million against a budget of $12 million, so a big success without a doubt. The sequel M3GAN 2.0. is hitting the theaters soon, and a spin-off called SOULM8TE (yes, playing around with numbers in the titles seems to be a thing here) is set to be released in 2026.

The idea for this film came when James Wan’s production company Atomic Monster was brainstorming ideas and chose to go for one with a killer doll, and going for a concept about embracing technology too much and letting it run amok. Wan said “it’s a commentary on the world we live in and it feels relevant“. It sure does, and now more than ever. An animatronic puppet version of M3GAN was used for dialogue and close-up scenes, plus stunt versions that were not puppeteered (yes, that famous dance scene would have been hard to pull off otherwise). And overall, the killer robot actually looks pretty good. They managed to give her just the right amount of realistic movements mixed with obvious robotic motions, which gives her a perfectly uncanny expression.

The movie is generally fast-paced, and mixes humour and horror in a lighthearted way which gives it a fun and campy feel. As expected it never goes very far with the kill scenes, despite there being several opportunities for it to have done so. They had to make some changes and cut down certain scenes in order to get the desired PG-13 rating for the theatrical release. Thus, the unrated release teased “more blood, more violence and more M3GAN“, so naturally we wanted to see that version! We expected to get some additional nasty and gory scenes, and what we got, was…well…barely anything at all. To be honest, it was surprisingly lackluster with very little additional meat to the bone, and I guess the most major difference was a few extra f-bombs. I guess it’s fun for the most eager fans to see the small differences, but this was so far from what we’re used to seeing in an uncut version of a movie that it felt a bit pointless. Oh well.

Overall though, M3GAN is a fun A.I. robot slasher film which works as a fine entry into the robot-killers genre. Never taking itself too seriously, never being too bloody (and yes, that goes for the unrated version as well), it’s a fine campy popcorn-flick for a lazy evening.

Additional note: the sequel M3GAN 2.0 (which we recently watched at the theaters) unfortunately ended up being quite the disappointment. While I can see how they tried to go for a “M3GAN Impossible“ version here, all horror elements are completely gone. The theme in this movie is also largely focused on what can be best described as pure pro-AI propaganda trash, which comes off as rather bad-tasting after Blumhouse’s “I H8 AI” blunder from last year. Blergh.

Director: Gerard Johnstone
Writers: Akela Cooper, James Wan
Country & year: USA/ New Zealand, 2022
Actors: Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Ronny Chieng, Amie Donald, Jenna Davis, Brian Jordan Alvarez, Jen Van Epps, Stephane Garneau-Monten, Lori Dungey, Amy Usherwood, Jack Cassidy
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8760708/

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)

28 Weeks Later (2007)

Posted on June 20, 2025June 25, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

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

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

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

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

15 days later: Mainland Britain is quarantined

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

5 weeks later: The infected have died of starvation

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

18 weeks later: Mainland Britain is declared free of infection

24 weeks later: Reconstructions begins

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prequel:
– 28 Days Later (2002)

Sequel:
– 28 Years Later (2025)

28 Days Later (2002)

Posted on June 17, 2025June 25, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sequels:
– 28 Weeks Later (2007)
– 28 Years Later (2025)

Arcadian (2024)

Posted on June 13, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

A man named Paul (Nicolas Cage) is scavenging a storehouse for supplies while fleeing from something. We then see what appears to be an apocalyptic event with explosions and sirens and full pandemonium. Paul seeks refuge, and we see he’s cradling two infants, telling them that “everything will be okay“. Yeah, sure it will…

Fifteen years later, most of the population has been wiped out and civilization is just a faraway memory. For Paul’s twin sons, Joseph and Thomas, the world from before is nothing but a story from a time they have no memory of whatsoever. Maybe that’s for the best, though. They now live in a derelict farmhouse, but trying to get by in this apocalyptic world would’ve been a lot easier if it wasn’t for the monsters roaming the night. As soon as the sun sets, they must take shelter inside their home to avoid them. Thomas is often late as he’s spending a lot of time in the nearby farm of the Rose family, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise as it’s the only place where there’s a girl around his age. One day, Joseph reveals that he’s been working on restoring an off-road utility buggy, and Paul teaches him how to drive it. Paul then sends both sons out to salvage some stuff, but on their way Thomas leaves his brother to head over to the Rose farm. As expected, things then don’t go well and both Paul and his sons end up getting a too close encounter to the creatures that come at night.

Arcadian is a post apocalyptic horror film from 2024, directed by Benjamin Brewer and written by Michael Nilon. Is stars Nicolas Cage as Paul, the father, but just a heads up: this is not one of those “cage-rage“ movies, and he’s not the lead either despite that most movie posters make it seem like he’s got a far more significant role than the actually has. This is a movie where the two sons have the major roles, as we follow their struggles in a world where there’s hardly any survivors, and the nights have been seized by monsters who seem hell-bent on destroying the few remaining pieces of humanity. Good thing those monsters fear the light, and can only walk around in the dark.

The highlight in the movie is actually the monsters. While this is by no means any scary movie, the first introduction to these creatures includes a scene that is actually creepy as hell. I’ve never seen a scene with an arm offer such a solid dose of nightmare fuel! The rest of their designs are almost disorienting at first, making you wonder what the fuck you’re actually looking at. They also have some pretty weird mannerism, like excessive teeth chattering. They’re chaotic, nonsensical, and slightly goofy, and all of that combined gives the movie the necessary personal flair. This is exactly what this movie needed, because otherwise there isn’t really much to offer. The story is very minimal, and there’s not much character depth either. The monsters are by far the most entertaining thing here, and their freakish depiction is what makes it work.

Overall, Arcadian is a nice little post apocalyptic movie with some really cool monsters. Nothing spectacular, but fine popcorn-entertainment.

Director: Benjamin Brewer
Writer: Mike Nilon
Country & year: USA, 2024
Actors: Nicolas Cage, Jaeden Martell, Maxwell Jenkins, Maxwell Jenkins, Sadie Soverall, Samantha Coughlan, Joe Dixon, Joel Gillman
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22939186/

Jug Face (2013)

Posted on June 10, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Ada is a young woman who lives in an isolated backwoods community. Aside from selling their homemade moonshine in the nearest town, this community worships a pit that is said to have healing powers. The catch? The pit demands a sacrifice every now and then, because all good things requires a certain price to pay. One of the community members, a man named Dwight, gets visions of the next sacrifice and creates “jug faces“ from clay. The face on the latest jug must then be sacrificed to the entity that lives in the pit. Ada, visiting Dwight one day, notices his latest creation. Guess whose face is portrayed on it? Yup, it’s hers, of course. Terrified, she decides to hide the jug away. What then happens is a chain reaction of horrible events: she is arranged to marry a boy named Bodey, but Ada is already pregnant with her beloved brother’s child (yes, really). This is something she must try to keep a secret, but the worries don’t stop there. Ada is having a vision where she witnesses the death of Bodey’s sister, killed by the angered entity who didn’t get the sacrifice it wanted. Ada tries everything she can to escape both the community and the entity’s wrath, only to cause even more death.

Jug Face is a supernatural folk horror film from 2013, written and directed by Chad Crawford Kinkle. The jug faces in the movie was made by potter and sculptor Jason Mahlke, who designed them specifically for the film. And they certainly work in the movie’s favor, as they look like something that could be sold at an estate sale and later winding up in The Warren Occult Museum.

Many folk horror movies often deal with protagonists coming to visit certain isolated villages or communities, while this one tells a story solely from inside the community itself. They have lived for a long time with certain traditions, with the pit giving them protection from disease and also offering healing properties. What’s an occasional human sacrifice every now and then, right? And in order to make everything feel more justified, they let the entity pick the chosen one. And of course, like in the majority of all communities: you can’t really escape it.

Jug Face is definitely not a movie for the more casual horror audience. This backwoods folk horror movie delves into themes like incest, graphic depictions of having the period, and a miscarriage just to put the nasty cherry on top. There’s some gore during the killings, but not anything over the top, and most of it looks like leftovers from the local butchery (perhaps it even was, who knows). There’s still an unsettling atmosphere throughout, mixed with Ada’s isolation and lack of any easy escape route.

Jug Face is a pretty solid entry into the more bizarre hillbilly folk horror genre. A small-scale hicksploitation film that offers an interesting premise, and plays it along surprisingly straight-forward. Well worth a watch if you want something a little folkish, strange, and a little bit disgusting.

Writer and director: Chad Crawford Kinkle
Country & year: USA, 2013
Actors: Sean Bridgers, Lauren Ashley Carter, Kaitlin Cullum, Larry Fessenden, Katie Groshong, Scott Hodges, Daniel Manche, Alex Maizus, Chip Ramsey, Jennifer Spriggs
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2620736/

Hatching (2022)

Posted on June 3, 2025June 4, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Tinja is a 12 year old girl who lives in what appears to be the “perfect“ family. Her mother is an influencer, making videos so she can display their wonderful family to the world. Look, how happy we are! We’re the picture perfect family where every day is a delight! Pfft, yeah, right. Underneath the glossy facade hides a family dynamic that’s more toxic than a snake’s venom. The influencer-mom is obsessed with the image of her family, putting a ton of pressure on Tinja because she wants her to succeed in her gymnastics practices. The stepford-husband dad acts like he’s lost his pair, and in between it all is also Tinja’s younger brother who appears to be desperate for his mother’s love and attention, often failing to reach her since all she focuses her energy on is making cringeworthy instagram videos and making Tinja succeed. Oh, and the handyman Tero whom she’s having an affair with. Perfect family indeed.

One day, a crow flies into the family house and causes quite a stir and breaking things. Tinja wants to take it outside, but her mother snaps the bird’s neck after capturing it and instructs Tinja to expose of it in the trash. Later, Tinja walks in the woods and finds that the dying crow has somehow gotten away from the trash can and towards its nest in the woods. There’s no way to save it, so she euthanises it with a stone and takes the orphaned egg back home with her. From it, something hatches which will change Tinja and her family’s lives forever.

Hatching (original title: Pahanhautoja, which translates to “Evil Graves“ or “Graves of Evil“) is a bizarre psychological Finnish horror film directed by Hanna Bergholm, and written by Ilja Rautsi. The movie is pretty much a metaphor film, and this isn’t a spoiler as it becomes obvious early on. The egg, which keeps growing in Tinja’s room, represents her growing repressed emotions which later hatches into a bird-like creature she calls “Alli“. The creature in the film was portrayed by an animatronic puppet created by Gustav Hoegen and his team. There are several stages of the creature’s form, so later on it is played by different performers, with special effects make-up by Conor O’Sullivan. And the creature actually looks pretty good! It’s having a certain uncanny yet cute form from the start, but it gradually transforms into something more gross.

What drives the movie up some notches is also the performances by the actors, especially the child actor who plays Tinja, Siiri Solalinna (who hasn’t played in any other film than this one). The underlying tension between the characters, especially between Tinja and her mother, makes everything a lot more convincing. The family dynamics, despite being obviously toxic, isn’t one of those “screaming, slamming doors, breaking things, punching and kicking each other“ type of violent home which many seem to believe is the only harmful environment children can grow up in. This is a family who appears to be perfect on so many levels, but is too broken to provide their children the necessary care and healthy upbringing. Tinja is at the brink of total collapse due to her mother’s obsessions, her father is a spineless enabler, and her younger brother is caught in the crossfire and well on the way to develop his own behavioral issues. The believable characters makes the metaphors kick harder, and the monster, of course, ends up as the most sympathetic character.

Overall, Hatching is a strange little Finnish gem which tackles the theme of toxic families and being under too much pressure in order to live up to the expectations of your own parents. The creature feature and body horror elements work both as metaphors but also by adding a certain fairytale-like element to the story. Like one of those dark, twisted fables. Definitely worth a watch if you like something a little bizarre! But, just a heads up: Tinja feeds Alli the same way that mother birds do, and yeah…ew, it gets gross sometimes.

Director: Hanna Bergholm
Writers: Hanna Bergholm, Ilja Rautsi
Original title: Pahanhautoja
Country & year: Finland/Sweden/Norway/Belgium, 2022
Actors: Siiri Solalinna, Sophia Heikkilä, Jani Volanen, Reino Nordin, Oiva Ollila, Ida Määttänen, Saija Lentonen, Stella Leppikorpi, Hertta Nieminen, Aada Punakivi, Hertta Karén, Jonna Aaltonen
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12519030/

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/

Caveat (2020)

Posted on May 23, 2025May 23, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Isaac is a drifter who is suffering from amnesia. He is suddenly hired by a man named Moe Barrett who claims to be an acquaintance (whom Isaac doesn’t remember, of course, due to his amnesia). Moe wants Isaac to look after his niece Olga, who will occasionally go into a catatonic state, and he offers Isaac a good sum of money for this. Isaac says yes, and when they get close to the property it’s revealed that Olga lives on a remote island. First, Isaac wants to refuse the job, but after a little guilt-tripping he reluctantly says yes. That’s not the worst, though. Once inside the house, Moe shows Isaac a harness that he needs to put on which will restrict him from entering certain portions of the house, and he needs to put this on because that will make Olga feel safe. Oh, and on top of that he is also told that Olga’s mother went missing and that her father recently died in the basement after being locked inside there, as he suffered from extreme claustrophobia and killed himself when he couldn’t get out. There appears to be no limits to how stupid a character in a horror movie can be, because even after learning all this, Isaac still says yes to stay and puts on the harness after just a little more guilt-tripping. Yikes forever! In reality, even the most dim-witted person would have bailed ass long ago. As can be imagined, weird shit starts happening inside the house when Isaac and Olga is alone. When she is in her catatonic state he can’t even talk to her, but once lucid, she behaves oddly antagonistic towards him and carries either a crossbow around, or a creepy toy rabbit with a drum. Meanwhile, Isaac tries to piece together what really happened in that house.

Caveat is an Irish horror film from 2020, written and directed by Damian Mc Carthy in his feature directorial debut. It was filmed in West Cork, and the Bantry House that was used was owned by a friend’s family. The movie had a budget of around £250,000. The toy rabbit featured in the movie is one Mc Carthy bought on eBay, which was stripped of its original fur and sent to costume and prop builder Lisa Zagone to make its creepy design.

We have also already reviewed Mc Carthy’s second film, Oddity, which was released last year, and now we finally got around to watch his debut movie. And while it’s definitely very slow-burn and somewhat illogical, it really picks up the scares later on. The setting and atmosphere are solid, although some of it does get a bit ruined by the main character’s total lack of being able to spot the one red flag after the other. There are horror movies where a character is willing to do the most idiotic things due to obvious desperation, which can make the most insane setting more believable, but Isaac’s backstory is (intentionally) left obscured from the start. Most of the movie is set around him walking around the house, having weird interactions with Olga, and gradually finding out more about what really happened. Once things progresses a bit more, however, that is when Mc Carthy proves that he’s really got a knack for scary supernatural scenes!

Caveat is a movie that certainly takes its time to get things going, and you’re likely to feel a little annoyed if dumb characters is one of your pet peeves. But it sure does deliver some scares towards the latter part of the film, some which are reminiscent of the scares and atmosphere that could be found in the first Conjuring movies. There’s no doubt that Mc Carthy knows how to build up atmosphere that leads to proper scares, which is by no means any easy feat. His second film, Oddity, didn’t have quite the same amount of scare factor as Caveat, but that one had more of a solid ominous atmosphere throughout. There is already another movie in development called Hokum, and it will be interesting to see what Mc Carthy’s next movie will bring in terms on chills and (hopefully) scares. Because he’s certainly got talent in that department.

Writer and director: Damian Mc Carthy
Country & year: Ireland, 2020
Actors: Ben Caplan, Johnny French, Leila Sykes, Inma Pavon, Conor Dwane, Siobhan Burton, Sam White
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7917178/