Clown in a Cornfield, on Shudder

This is slasher horror, but it obviously brings to mind some of Stephen King’s greatest hits. Think of it as Children of the Corn, with Pennywise’s makeup and wardrobe. Obnoxious, entitled teens had better beware in Eli Craig’s Clown in a Cornfield, based on Adam Cesare’s novel, which premieres this Friday on Shudder.

After her mother’s tragic death, Quinn Maybrook’s father, Dr. Glenn, relocated to quiet Kettle Springs, MO, despite her reservations. She quickly falls in with the cool kids, but ironically Cole Hill and his pals are pariahs amongst Kettle Springs adults. Awkwardly, they were trespassing in the local factory, filming one of their smartphone horror movies on the very night the town’s main source of employment burned to the ground. Technically, they were cleared by the investigation, but everyone rendered unemployed still blames them.

One of their favorite subjects is Frendo the Clown, who was like the Mr. Peanut of Baypen Corn Syrup, which wasformerly manufactured at the now destroyed factory. Periodically, slasher killers have hacked up Kettle Springs teenagers while dressed as Frendo, as viewers witnessed during the 1991 prologue. Clearly, someone has revived the tradition, specifically with the intent of targeting Hill’s cronies. Inconveniently, for the Maybrooks, that now includes Quinn.

Craig and co-screenwriter Carter Blanchard deftly split the difference between knowing irony and faithful reverence for the old school slasher genre. Craig and company spare us the constant stream of hipster commentary. Yet, a sly sense of humor peaks through, from time to time, as when the Gen Z kids panic when confronting the mysteries of rotary phones and stick shift cars.

Katie Douglas and Carson MacCormac bring a lot of energy to the film and develop decent rapport as Maybrook and Hill. However, Aaron Abrams really elevates the film as Dr. Maybrook, who is unusually resourceful and relatable for a horror movie parent.

Monster Island, on Shudder

The original Creature from the Black Lagoon was found in the Brazilian Amazon. That is a long way from a tiny South Pacific island, but the similarly tropical climate would logically be habitable for similar gill-man-like creatures. Based on the fin on its head, the monster in question looks like a creature cousin, but one of the Japanese soldiers recognizes it as a mythical Orang Ikan. Whatever it is, it is hard to kill and the circumstances of WWII do not help much either in director-screenwriter Mike Wiluan’s Monster Island (a.k.a. Orang Ikan), which premieres this Friday on Shudder.

Frankly, things cannot get much worse for Bronson, considering he is an Allied POW aboard a so-called Imperial Japanese “Hell Ship.” The captain decides to execute him for a failed escape attempt, along with Saito, a supposed “traitor.” However, while the officers focus on executions and torture, the U.S. Navy sinks the ship.

Ironically, Saito and Bronson survive, washing up a little speck of an island, chained at the ankles. The first thing they do is fight each other, but the monster coming out of the water convinces them to fight together. Despite the language barrier, they come to an understanding that continues to hold when a group of more violently militant Japanese soldiers reach their island paradise.

Monster island starts with a nifty concept, essentially fusing Creature from the Black Lagoon with Hell in the Pacific, which Wiluan and company execute quite well. It is a tight, tense film filled with peril. The design of the Orang Ikan is several steps up from the vintage Creature, but it looks familiar enough to pay homage.

Dean Fujioka and Callum Woodhouse (a world away from All Creatures Great and Small) are also both terrific as Saito and Bronson. They must convince viewers quickly that their characters can agree to an alliance, which they do, with great success. They also look believably haggard, beat-up, frightened, and generally wrung through the wringer. This is not a buddy-movie, it is an extreme survival film, and both thesps truly act like survivors.

Wiluan’s screenplay is not particularly complex, but it fully explores the implications of the wartime setting. Given the circumstances, this might be the most dangerous island yet, eclipsing Skull Island, because of Saito’s ex-comrades. Very highly recommended, Monster Island starts streaming Friday (7/25) on Shudder.

Hell Motel, on Shudder

The Cold River Motel is more notorious than the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles or the Stanley in Colorado, so, naturally a small group of true crime weirdos want to stay there for its grand re-opening. Years ago, a pair of satanists tried to summon the demon Baphomet with their human sacrifices. Decades later, they have apparently returned for a second attempt, but maybe someone else had the same idea. That means the rest of unhealthily obsessed but harmless guests find themselves in serious trouble throughout creator-writers Aaron Martin & Ian Carpenter’s eight-episode Hell Motel, which premieres tomorrow on Shudder.

Unwisely, the well-heeled Portia indulged her lover Ruby’s enthusiasm for grisly murders by buying the old Cold River Motel and renovating it a theme resort for oddball fans like her. For the exclusive by-invitation-only opening, they invited Paige Harper, a fading actress, who starred in the exploitation franchise inspired by the real-life ritual murders. Joining her are Andy Lecavalier, a true crime academic, Balke Williams, a podcaster who survived a serial killer attack, Crow, a psychic blah-blah-blah, Kawayan, an artist who specializes in crime scene-themed installations, and Adrianna, who sleeps with serial killers. Their disgusting dinner will be catered by Hemingway, an arrogant celebrity chef, who uses his own blood in his cocktails.

Pretty much any of them could be viable suspects, even before Shirley and Floyd Dantree crash the party. They came seeking shelter from the storm, but what were they doing in the middle of nowhere, anyway?

You can usually guess who gets killed at the end of each episode because they typically have their backstories explained in flashbacks. However, Martin and Carpenter take a page out of the playbook used by the under-appreciated 2009 series Harper’s Island for its first choice of victim. Regardless, they build a great deal of suspense by turning the secret satanic killer loose to compete against the returning Cold River Killers (who are revealed quite early), because even when the survivors come close to identifying the originals, viewers know there is still someone else out there, killing victims while wearing a Baphomet mask, just like his or her predecessors.

Indeed, series director Adam MacDonald maintains a high level of tension, but viewers should also prepare for a good deal of brutal gore. Of course, most of the guests are so creepy, they are almost asking for their grisly fates. For instance, Genevieve DeGraves, Eric MacCormack, and Shaun Benson are each flamboyantly nutty as Adrianna, Hemingway, and Crow.

Frewaka, on Shudder

Most people think weddings and births are good things, but spooky old Peig warns her new Galic-speaking home-care nurse, as transitional junctures, they actually make people more vulnerable to the “Sidhe,” Ireland’s malevolent fairy folk. She should know, since she claims the Sidhe kidnapped her on her wedding day. Shoo (Subhan) was warned her new charge had been diagnosed with delusional paranoia, but obviously there must be something to Peig’s story, because director-screenwriter Aislinn Clarke’s Frewaka premieres today on Shudder.

Shoo’s abusive mother just passed away, but she still hopes to marry her Ukrainian girlfriend Mila, once they have the money. That is two red flags for the Sidhe. Just being around Peig constitutes the third, since the old lady considers herself under a constant state of supernatural siege. She lasted this long thanks to all folk charms protecting her house, which Shoo initially dismisses as mere clutter.

Things get weird quickly. However, a bond starts to grow between Shoo and Peig, as a result. It seems to be them against the fairy and human worlds, because the locals give off serious Wicker Man vibes.

Admittedly, Frewaka is not as straight-up scary as Clarke The Devil’s Doorway, but the unsettling atmosphere of paranoia and ancient corruption definitely gets under viewers’ skin, Even though her prior film was set in a Magdalene convent, Frewaka more vehemently expresses Clarke’s sense of Ireland’s historical inequalities. Yet, the Church is almost entirely absent here. Instead, it is paganism all the way through.

Dead Mail, on Shudder

You have to give the USPS dead letter office workers credit. They found a way to deliver all those letters to Santa at the end of Miracle on 34^th Street. This case will be a lot less fun for them. It would be easier to assume the blood-smeared note begging for help is a hoax, but postal sleuth Jasper Lawrence just can’t let it go in Joe DeBoer & Kyle McConaghy’s Dead Mail, which premieres tomorrow on Shudder.

Lawrence is revered by his co-workers, Ann Lankford and Bess Greer, for his ability to find the intended recipients of valuable lost mail. However, he has a secret resource, Swedish intelligence analyst Renee Ogaard, who can perform the sort of database searches we take for granted today, with 1980s technology. Part of Lawrence’s mystique is his sad backstory. Having fallen on hard times, he still lives in a low-income housing facility that is essentially one-step up from a homeless shelter.

Maybe that is why he refuses to abandon the captive who wrote the note. Providentially, the chain tethering Joshua Ivey was just long enough to reach the mailbox in front Trent Whittington’s house. Unfortunately, the only legible tracking information is the rural route, which leaves a number of suspects. Rather ominously, Whittington also knows Ivey’s note is out there, somewhere in the system, because the mail was picked up before he could figure how to best pry open the box.

Essentially, the third act is a long flashback, explaining Whittington’s history with Ivey and how things reached this horrific stage. This is a bit of a mistake, because it unbalances the film, taking too much time away from the postal setting and characters, who are immediately compelling. Of course, that also means the first and third acts work very well indeed.

The gritty, grainy, retro 1980s direct-to-video look of Dead Mail is also lethally effective. It captures the look and texture of its milieu without ever indulging in kitsch, irony, or tongue-in-cheek snark. Arguably, there are times the film feels a little too real.

Shadow of God, on Shudder

Admittedly, this demonic horror movie knows its John Milton. The filmmakers are also probably familiar with the so-called “New Atheists.” While most possession horror films try to scare viewers back to the Church, this one tries to do something very different. It still has sympathy for the Church and its exorcists, but not necessarily its beliefs, even though many celestial and demonic elements sure seem to be born out in Michael Peterson’s Shadow of God, which premieres today on Shudder.

Father Mason Harper dispatches yet another demon in the prologue, but his exorcism comes at a great cost. His companion priest was killed by the unclean entity—one of six exorcising priests murdered that night. Something is afoot, but Harper must return to his provincial Canadian hometown for family business. Unfortunately, home has never been a restful place for him.

As a boy, Harper barely survived his father’s doomsday cult, thanks in part to the intercession of his platonic (by his choice, not hers) friend, Tanis Green. He took refuge in the Church, letting his own experience with evil fuel his battles against demons. Harper saw his father Shaun die when Green and the Sheriff saved him from the “purification” ritual. Therefore, he is quite shocked to see the old man up and walking around. Given his line of work, Father Harper logically concludes an exorcism is in order, but the old man insists that will only make matters worse.

Initially, Peterson’s slow-build is highly unnerving and very effective. Mark O’Brien and Jacqueline Byers have terrific rapport, as the Father and Green, bringing to life a complex and largely original relationship. They are forced to talk about things like Fathe Harper’s faith in a refreshingly direct and honest way. Peterson also evokes a powerful atmosphere suggesting something profoundly wrong threatens both characters.

However, once we get an inkling of what it might be, the film completely derails. Presumably, screenwriter Tim Cairo wants to make a statement about all the wickedness done in the name of Christianity, or perhaps decry a Heavenly Father who supposedly allows such evil to plague his earthly cration. Regardless, there is also a pronounced post-structuralist, militantly materialist impulse to literally demonize, and perhaps even kill the G*d that Father Harper so faithfully worships.

825 Forest Road, on Shudder

Unfortunately, neighborhood block associations cannot regulate against hauntings. Perversely, local ordinances protect Helen Foster, the wrathful spirit terrorizing this beleagured town. According to lore, if you find and destroy Foster’s house, you will eliminate the source of her uncanny power, but those old records were sealed. Unfortunately, Isabelle and her replacement family move into the cursed neighborhood in director-screenwriter Stephen Cognetti’s 825 Forest Road, which premieres this Friday on Shudder.

Frankly, Chuck’s realtor kind of stinks. First, he discovers the roof of their new home leaks like a sieve. Then he starts to learn of the town’s notorious history, starting with the previous owner’s suicide. Yet, she still wants him to film a video testimonial for her.

Of course, it was cheap and he thought they needed the space, since his younger sister Isabelle agreed to move in with him and his wife Maria, after their mother’s accidental death. Technically, it is four of them, if you include Martha, the creepy mannequin Maria insists on lugging around. She believes Martha has been a good luck charm for her YouTubing fashion-designing career. However, as soon as they unpack, Martha mysteriously begins to move around on her own. Must be a prank, right?

Soon, Chick learns the whole town lives in fear of Foster’s ghost. Searching for her address, 825 Forest Road, is their obsession, but everyone does it on the sly, because those who get too close wind-up dead. Foster wastes no time diving deep into the weeds of Foster-philia, even joining his next-door neighbor Larry’s support group for 825-seekers. Yet, he always acts skeptical whenever he comes home to the aftermath of a fresh round of supernatural mayhem.

Regardless, 825 is a surprisingly scary haunted house film. Much like Cognetti’s Hell House LLC found footage franchise (which also prominently features mannequins), it shows how skillful execution can elevate a relatively straightforward premise. However, in this case, the obsession with old maps and municipal records adds an element of old fashioned, tactile musty-smelling intrigue.

The Dead Thing, on Shudder

Alex is about to experience “ghosting” on a whole new, extremely literal level. She had been sleepwalking through hook-ups until she swiped affirmatively on Kyle. Their night together awakened her passion, but then he disappeared. When Alex tries to find him, she learns the man who so fascinates her happens to be dead. However, he remains weirdly active on dating apps in Elric Kane’s The Dead Thing, which premieres tomorrow on Shudder.

Kyle might be dead, but Alex has been living a soulless existence, working in a Kafkaesque office job scanning documents at night, fitting in meaningless sexual encounters when she can. Something about Kyle was different, but when she visits the bar where he supposedly works, she learns he died a while back. Yet, his profile is still active, so Alex creates a new account and makes a date.

Meeting at the same place, Kyle repeats the same lines and moves from their last meeting. He seems not to remember her, until she starts pressing. When memories start coming back to him, it is rather alarming, both for him and her. Nevertheless, they both still feel a connection. Of course, any good horror fan knows being around anyone who has crossed the dark vale is a dangerous proposition.

The Dead Thing is the sort of film that you really cannot analyze with strict logic or you will miss out. Kane’s film is a mood piece that is often eerily frightening. The Dead Thing successfully blends supernatural chills and steamy stuff better than most supposedly “sexy” horror movies. More than anything, Kane and cinematographer Ioana Vasile create a truly hypnotic, dreamlike look and atmosphere.

Grafted, on Shudder

If it were up to the filmmakers who write and direct horror movies, there would be no medical research whatsoever. Want to develop new skin-grafting techniques to treat the disfigured? Oh, the hubris. Haven’t you seen Rabid? Wei’s father is doubly asking for it, because both he and she stand to benefit from the revolutionary technique he tries and fails to develop. Despite his spectacularly gruesome fate, she continues his research in Sasha Rainbow’s Grafted, which premieres tomorrow on Shudder.

Let’s just say Wei’s dad regenerated a little too much skin. Unfortunately, as the world knows from experience, dangerous, unpredictable experiments have a habit of escaping labs in China. In this case, Wei takes his notes to New Zealand, where her aunt has enrolled her in college. Auntie travels most of the time for her dodgy business, so that means the highly self-conscious Wei must deal with her entitled and resentful cousin Angela on her own. It also means she must endure Angela’s friends, Jasmine (who has a good heart, but is too passive to stand up to Angela) and Eve, the campus queen bee, who also happens to be sleeping with Wei’s biology professor, Paul Featherstone.

When Dr. Featherstone sees the potential of the experiments Wei runs in her spare time, he offers to collaborate, with the intention of stealing her father’s work. However, he never anticipated some of its applications. For instance, if Wei were to accidentally kill one of her bullying frienemies, she can use the newly developed serum to regenerate and graft the dead girl’s face onto her own.

The Creep Tapes, on Shudder

You cannot be a serial killer without the serial murders. Unfortunately, the psycho-killer who sometimes refers to himself as “Peachfuzz” has plenty of videotapes in his closet documenting his serial killer credentials. That means he has more than enough tapes to sustain a found-footage streaming series, but, sadly for the victims, they all essentially end the same way in co-creators Patrick Brice & Mark Duplass’s The Creep Tapes, which premieres today on Shudder.

Much like the films Creep and Creep 2, the first four episodes follow a familiar template. Peachfuzz (or whatever name he currently adopts) lures a prospective victim to his mountain home or another isolated location, where he plays mind-games with his prey, before finally moving in for the kill. It always seems very unfair, because they are usually just freelance videographers hustling to make a buck on Craigslist.

Creep 1 was distinguished by Duplass’s manic scenery chewing, while Creep 2 is particularly effective because you really believe his prospective victim might make it, because she is so unpredictable and Peachfuzz’s own neurotic hangups have become so pronounced. The ambiguous ending held the promise of a potentially intriguing Creep 3, but co-star Desiree Akhavan is absent from the series.

Fans will appreciate the show’s consistency with the look and tone of the films, but episodes 1, 3, and 4 (“Mike,” “Jeremy,” and “Brad”) are basically the same thing all over again, as the “Creep” invites someone with a video camera to his home. Seriously, how are there any freelance videographers left alive in his state? “Mike” is probably the most tightly executed and “Jeremy” adds an amusing wrinkle, wherein Duplass’s talky psycho cons a leftwing would-be YouTube muckraker into thinking he is a corrupt Catholic priest. Unfortunately, the formula really looks tired in “Brad,” the series low-point.

The second episode, “Elliot” is largely more of the above, but it is impressively staged. For this killing, PF posts reports of a rare bird sighting to lure the birder to the middle of nowhere. This is probably the best directed episode, all of which were helmed by Brice (and edited by Christopher Donlon, another holdover from the Creep movies).

V/H/S Beyond, on Shudder

Thanks to the collector market, they are making small-batch limited-runs of new VHS tapes again. That is good news for this franchise. In addition to the new appreciation of analog formats, there are also plenty of weird moldy old tapes to uncover out there. The really disturbing ones fuel the creation of urban legends and the Cadillac of found footage franchises. Aliens get into the act a little bit more this time, but all the V/H/S hallmarks remain present in V/H/S Beyond, which premieres this Friday on Shudder.

In a bit of a departure, the wrap-around segments, Jay Cheel’s “Abduction/Adduction” are a mockumentary, supposedly investigating alien encounters at a notorious California mansion. Some of the segments are so well done, it is disappointing to break away to a full chapter. Fittingly, Whitley Strieber gets a lot of deserved credit for establishing and popularizing (or whatever terms might be more fitting) the now familiar alien abduction tropes. Frankly, it would be fascinating to see Cheel (who helmed Shudder’s Cursed Films series) expand this into a full film.

By far, the scariest constituent film (or tape) is Jordan Downey’s “Stork,” intriguingly “based on artwork by Oleg Vdovenko.” The premise is simple, but lethally effective. An elite anti-crime police squad raids the squat house of a cult suspected of kidnapping infants. What they find is a horror show. This is the kind of found footage that is truly terrifying. The crack-house-style design makes viewers crave a tetanus booster and the camera work keeps you on high alert. Like many of Beyond’s instalments, “Stork” is not unlike several previous V/H/S contributions, but it sure works.

That is also true of Virat Pal’s “Dream Girl,” but to a lesser extent. Tara is a Bollywood idol, who shares a kinship with Hannah Fierman’s Lily the Demon from the original V/H/S (and a spin-off), as a group of paparazzi learn the hard way. In this case, the Bollywood setting helps distinguish it from its predecessors.

‘Live and Let Dive,” directed by Justin Martinez (the only returning V/H/S alumnus, from when he was part of the Radio Silence collaborative group) probably earns the honor of the film’s second best segment. In this case, a reluctant skydiver celebrates his birthday with his hard-partying friends, just as the aliens swope down from the skies to attack. The horrors start in the air and finish on the ground. Martinez fully capitalizes on the found footage genre’s potential for what-the-heckness, staging some wild alien attacks, that actually look great, thanks to the subgenres built-in low resolution requirements.

“Fur Babies” directed by Christian Long & Justin Long (the Apple commercial guy and his brother) is probably Beyond’s grossest, most disturbing component film. It also delivers the most satiric “bite,” skewering an annoying band of left-wing animal rights activists, plotting an undercover sting operation against home-based kennel. However, their hubris leads to horrific comeuppance. “Fur Babies” is rough, but it is the one fans will be talking about for years to come.

The Demon Disorder, on Shudder

It turns out demonic possession is contagious. Apparently, it is also carried by an invasive parasite. Whatever it is, the Australian Reilly brothers just cannot shake it in Steven Boyle’s The Demon Disorder, which premieres this Friday on Shudder.

It is safe to say their father’s final years were difficult, considering they had to keep old George chained up in his bedroom. The old man’s violent, abusive behavior showed all the signs of demonic possession. After his death, the oldest brother, Graham left home and never looked back. Unfortunately, the middle brother, Jake comes looking for him, because the youngest, Philip is showing similar symptoms as their father.

Viewers soon learn a nasty, slimy slithering thing, looking like a cross between the Tingler and Xenomorph face-hugger, has been preying on the family. Once a host dies, it tries borrowing into another. Philip would be the logical candidate, for at least one reason. It is a really bloody body-horror situation that Graham wants to keep Cole Nicholls, his tomboy mechanic employee, safely shielded from, but of course, she will be in the garage when they bring their family chaos into the shop, after hours.

Were it not for the vicious physical and vocal attacks of the afflicted, the “Disorder” would not seem very demonic. As it is, viewers coming in after the first act would probably presume this is a mutant bug movie. However, the combination of subgenres gives the film a relatively fresh vibe (although it is maybe somewhat thematically akin to the 1995 Omen pilot).

Horror’s Greatest, on Shudder

Simple genres like horror and science fiction are not good enough for real genre fans. We’re all about sub-genres and sub-sub-genres. For instance, who amongst us is not a huge fan of science fiction time travel anime or folk-body-horror? Fans prone to classifying and categorizing will be particularly drawn to Shudder’s latest series repackaging classic horror clips. They brought back a lot of the usual suspects, but at least they freshened up the mix a little bit in the first four episodes of Horror’s Greatest, which starts streaming today on Shudder.

Frankly, the first episode is the weakest and most annoying, “Tropes and Cliches.” Anyone who ever uses the junky term “tropey” deserves a good slap. At least the talking heads recognize most horror fans enjoy their tropes—and without them, a lot of films would be over before they start.

The second episode, “Giant Monsters” celebrates kaiju, which are always fun. It is cool to see Beast from 20,000 Fathoms get its due as one of the kaiju sub-genre’s influential god-fathers. Of course, Godzilla and King Kong tower above all others. However, the kneejerk praise for Bong Joon-ho’s didactic anti-American The Host quickly grows tiresome. It is also disappointing they overlook the Daimajin franchise, which are like folk kaiju movies, driven by the literal wrath of a god.

However, the third episode, “Japanese Horror” consciously avoids the mistakes of Blumhouse Compendium of Horror, which never really ranged too far from the most obvious choices. Instead, this installment of Greatest takes a legit deep dive into classic Japanese cinema, including Kwaidan, Kuroneko, Ugetsu, and Onibaba. On the other hand, it classifies Battle Royale as horror, which seems debatable, despite its graphic dystopian violence.

Frankly, horror comedies get a bad rap, so it is refreshing to see Greatest champion the genre. Yet, after watching their analysis, you could argue this is one of the most commercial sub-genres if you agree with their reasonable cataloguing of such hits like Ghostbusters, Gremlins, An American Werewolf in London, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Fright Night, and The Adams Family, as well as cult favorites like Re-Animator and Evil Dead 2.

This is the only segment that offers anything remotely sounding like dissenting voice, when Dana Gould admits he considers he largely considers the Adams Family one one-gag franchise. Yet, he immediately follows-up by pointing out ways Adams Family Values transcends the formula.

Nightwatch: Demons are Forever, on Shudder

Serial killers are beyond reform or redemption—but that’s a good thing for movie producers. When a serial killer film is successful, they can always make a sequel, even in Denmark. If you haven’t seen the original Nightwatch or the American remake (both helmed by Ole Bornedal), forget the name Peter Wormer. It seemed Martin Bork and Kalinka Martens survived the killer at the end of the 1994 film, but they never escaped the post-traumatic stress. Unfortunately, Wormer also survived, so he most likely returns to his old ways in Bornedal’s Nightwatch: Demons are Forever, which premieres Friday on Shudder.

Despite the promise of a happy marriage, Martens was paranoid Wormer would return for her and Bork, she took her own life several years ago. Maybe in a future sequel, we will learn she was really murdered, but Bornedal does go there yet. Consequently, Bork has been a pill-popping shell of himself, who is largely dependent on his college student daughter Emma (played by the director’s daughter, Fanny Leander Bornedal), rather than vice versa.

Obviously, it is an extraordinarily bad idea, but Emma takes the same night watchman job at the morgue where her father worked in the first film. Her parents never told her about the incident with Wormer, so Emma hopes to learn more at the infamous site. However, her family investigation quickly leads her to the state mental hospital, where the blind and supposedly feeble Wormer remains in custody. Her inquiry takes on great urgency when a copycat killer starts gruesomely butchering Bork’s old friends, using Wormer’s old scalping M.O.

Fans of the original will be happy to see Bornedal got the old gang back together again—at least the characters who are still living, including Bork’s somewhat sleazy pal, Jens Arnkiel. The original Nightwatch was a breakout film for both the director and lead actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, so it makes sense Bornedal’s screenplay explores the notion of legacy. Instead of just bringing back the old-timers for fan-mollifying cameos, Demons are Forever digs deeply into the long-term psychological distress experienced by the survivors and how it shaped their offspring—including Wormer’s (just who that might be would be telling, but it is easy to guess).

Baghead, on Shudder

Even Jon Taffer from Bar Rescue could not breathe life into the Queen’s Head, a British pub in Berlin. The industrial neighborhood is not great, but the witch in the basement is a tough nut to crack. When Iris Lark inherited the bar from her estranged father Owen, she became the evil entity’s keeper, whether she likes it or not, in Alberto Corredor’s Baghead, which premieres Friday on Shudder.

It has been decades since the Queen’s Head served a draft, but it is not going anywhere. Owen Lark tried to burn it down, but the ancient woman’s infernal power protected it. Unwisely, Lark put her name on the deed, making herself the eternal witch’s new keeper.

At first, she tries to exploit the bag-hooded woman’s power for financial benefit, just as her father once did, until he got too freaked out by her power. After ingesting a personal item, she/it can bring anyone back from the dead. You just pull off the bag and there is your favorite uncle, or whoever. However, after two minutes, she takes control over the beloved loved one’s features, to spew a hateful torrent of tormenting taunts.

Of course, the more a keeper pokes the witch, the more she gets in their heads. She is already digging her hooks into Lark, much to the alarm of her bossy friend, Katie. Yet, they keep letting the wealthy but sketchy Neil dial-up his late wife, even though it never ends well.

Baghead is a terrible title for a cool gothic/demonic horror film. First and foremost, Peter Mullan is spectacularly crusty and vinegary as old man Lark. Sure, he dies at the beginning, but Mullan is always so interesting on-screen, you know they will have to bring him back.

Dario Argento Panico, on Shudder

Until the 1990s indie boom personified by Tarantino, Dario Argento might have been the most recognizable director (first-and-foremost working behind the camera), since Alfred Hitchcock. That makes a good deal of sense, considering how he used Hitch as a career role-model, even helming and presenting his own anthology series. Even though his output since the late 1990s has been somewhat hit-or-miss, he is still the grandmaster of all horror filmmakers. Director Simone Scafidi gets the genre legend to sit down and take stock of his career in the documentary, Dario Argento Panico, which premieres Friday on Shudder.

Arguably, Argento was born to be a filmmaker, as the son of a fashion photographer and an Italian film studio executive. Obviously, his daughter Asia, who discusses her father at great length, was similarly born into the family business. In fact, most of the Argentos are present and accounted for, including his ex-wife Marisa Casale.

Scafidi takes a largely conventional approach, chronologically working through the major films of Argento’s oeuvre, eliciting commentary from the master and his friends and family along the way. Scafidi hints at a meta-concept, capturing Argento’s curmudgeonly grumbling in the swanky hotel his assistant checked him into, ostensibly to finish writing a screenplay. However, Argento quickly gives into the luxury and settles into Scafidi’s interviews.

Of course, that is all perfectly fine for Argento fans. Naturally, the film spends a good deal of time on the early Giallos, Deep Red, Suspiria, and Inferno. Opera is singled out as probably his last great masterwork, but The Stendahl Syndrome gets credit as his first and probably best collaboration with his daughter Asia.

There is a lot of glossing over his later films, but it fittingly features several clips from Do You Like Hitchcock, which is underrated and obviously reflects his Hitchcockian influences. We also see quite a bit of his The Phantom of the Opera, to illustrate the awkwardness of father directing daughter in some sexually charged scenes.

Destroy All Neighbors, on Shudder

William Brown has probably listened to too much Yes and Emerson Lake & Parker. A lot of Millennials might say half a track is already too much, but apparently Brown digs extended suites, orchestrated with synthesizers, and augmented with a lot of reverb. You would think his neighbors must hate him, but instead, he feels tormented by them. The good news is he might finally start to stand up for himself, but unfortunately it takes him to a pretty dark place in Josh Forbes’s Destroy All Neighbors, which premieres tomorrow on Shudder.

Brown will probably never finish his prog rock opus, even though his long-suffering girlfriend Emily tries to be supportive. He knows people like his boss and the weird building manager take advantage of him, but the new loud, abrasively obnoxious neighbor Vlad is the last straw. To make matters worse, Vlad menacingly bullies him, while somehow charming Emily, who must be half-blind and completely unintuitive. When things really get violent, Vlad dies in a freak Rube Goldberg-esque misadventure.

Yet, even then Brown will not be rid of Vlad, because he keeps hounding the poor schmuck, either as a ghost or a hallucination, like Griffin Dunne in American Werewolf in London. The same happens with the next person Brown accidentally kills. However, as they spend more time together, they start to develop a crazy, mutually-deranged understanding.

The first half hour is pure cringe and the second plays like a warmed-over rip-off of American Werewolf, but the final third is shockingly inspired. This film desperately needed a re-write and a strong edit, because it had the potential to be great, but the wait for all the good stuff is punishing.

Hell House LLC, Origins: The Carmichael Manor, on Shudder

Different house, same hell. All the scary stuff happening at the Abaddon Hotel was apparently related to the tragedy that occurred in this Rockland County mansion. Of course, a true crime podcaster decides it would be fun to stay there during her investigation. We can guess the results in screenwriter-director Stephen Cognetti’s not-exactly-a-prequel Hell House LLC, Origins: The Carmichael Manor, which premieres today on Shudder.

Margot Bentley is psyched to be staying in the Carmichael Manor, the scene of a notorious family killing in the late 1980s. Rebecca Vickers, her more responsible partner in life and true-crime, is less excited. Vickers also has her trepidations regarding Bentley’s fresh-out-of-rehab brother Chase, who will be her cameraman, but she will find him to be much reasonably cautious than his gung-ho sister, especially when things get weird, which they will.

Of course, Bentley immediately opens the storeroom the management agent told them should always remained locked, where they find two spectacularly creepy life-size clown mannequins—or were there three of them? Then they visit the local antique shop, where they discover some sinister memorabilia and documents that on closer inspection link the Carmichael Manor to the Abaddon Hotel, the site of the infamous mass murder and subsequent mysterious deaths, before it finally burned to the ground in the previous Hell House LLC.

The connection between the Carmichaels and Abaddon is new to this film. However, what really freaks out some of the talking heads offering commentary in the “documentary” framing the “found footage” is the previously unknown connection between objects at the Carmichael Manor and the late Margot Bentley.

Creepshow Season Four

When a series is based on a classic George Romero-Stephen King film, it better be mindful of horror movie traditions. That continues to be the case for the strongest horror anthology currently going. The very first episode, “Grey Matter” co-starred Adrienne Barbeau in a King short story adaptation. Then it incorporated elements of the films Horror Express and Romero’s Night of the Living Dead in Night of the Living Late Show and A Dead Girl Named Sue. There are highs and a few lows, but as usual, the best episodes harken back to the 1982 fan favorite during the fourth season of Creepshow, which premieres tomorrow on Shudder.

“20 Minutes with Cassandra,” directed by showrunner Greg Nicotero and written by Jamie Flanagan starts out as a monster-stalker story, which it definitely is, but it takes an interesting turn. Ironically, this is the most thoughtful tale of the season, which makes it an outlier, but in a good way. Samantha Sloyan is also terrific as Lorna, the invaded home-owner, especially in her scenes with Okwe, the pizza delivery guy she is trying to keep out of it, played understated humor by Frankie Francois.

The second story of the season premiere, “Smile” directed by John Harrison and written by Mike Scannell, is also super creepy. Somehow, an award-winning photojournalist and his wife find themselves stalked by a mysterious figure, inexplicably taunting them with pictures he or it should not have been able to snap. In this case, it is the eerie details that make the stalking so intense.

The second episode starts with some serious horror fan service in “The Hat,” directed by Kailey & Sam Spear and written by Byron Willinger & Philip De Blasi, tipping its titular Homberg to authors like Richard Matheson. Those are the kind of legends Jay Stratton wants to join, so he borrows the hat formerly owned by his idol, Stephen Bachman (a mashing together of Stephen King and Richard Bachman) once sported. It is suitably macabre in an EC Comics kind of way and Marlee Walchuk’s portrayal of his literary agent is very funny, but not fundamentally inaccurate.

Unfortunately, the B-side, “Grieving Process,” directed by Kailey & Sam Spear and written by Mike D. McCarty and John Esposito, is gorier but much less fun. A Michelin-star chef’s wife barely survives a brutal attack, but her personality changes drastically. So does her appetite. This is probably the lowest point of the new season, because it is so downbeat and predictable.

Next episode, “Parent Death Trap, directed by P.J. Pesce and written by Erik Sandoval & Michael Rousselet, returns to the black comedy of the last season. Although miserable Lyle Veljohnson is rich in money and position, he is dirt poor when it comes to family love and support. His WASPy parents are so nasty, he finally kills them, but that won’t be the end of things. Not even close. Shaughnessy Redden and Loretta Walsh are indeed pretty hillarious as his ultra-snobby and controlling parents. It is backed by “To Grandmother’s House we Go” (director: Justin Dyck, writer: William Butler), which is an okay werewolf yarn that appropriately shares familial themes.

“Meet the Balaskos,” written and directed by John Esposito, is by far the most heavy-handed, lectury installment of the new season. It is sort of like Fright Night, except the Vampire-Americans who move in next door are just another under-represented demographic group, who must endure the prejudice of their new next-door neighbor. However, “Cheat Code,” directed by Justin Dyck and written by Claire Carre & Charles Spano, is one of the season’s best. A recently widowered father tries to bond with his son through an old school cartridge video game, but they deduce its sinister powers a little too late. Coming on the heels of Totally Killer, “Cheat Code” should further establish Lochlyn Munro as one of the top horror dads.

The Puppetman, on Shudder

Michal isnot a normal, well-adjusted college student, but unlike the spoiled sociopathic millennials celebrating genocidal terrorism on Ivy League campuses, she has a good excuse. A demon used her father’s body to brutally murder her mother. Since then, the evil entity kept tabs on her, as viewers can see from the dead bodies that follow in her wake throughout Brandon Christensen’s The Puppetman, which premieres Friday on Shudder.

Michal went from foster care to college, so she will be staying in the dorms during break. So will her roommate Charlie, apparently because she has a weird obsession with Michal and her lurid family history. Unbeknownst to Michal, Charlie has video documented her frequent episodes of sleepwalking she never knew were happening. Charlie also binges true crime podcasts about her father, the so-called “Puppetman” in reference to the mysterious controlling power he blamed for making him kill Charlie’s mother.

Michal and Charlie will also be partying with three of their boring friends. At least that was the plan, until people start dying in freakishly unlikely suicides. Det. Al Rosen is out of his depth, but Ruby, the psychic who maybe isn’t a complete fraud after all, might have some insights.

The Puppetman might be Christensen’s best film yet (far better than Still/Born and more consistent than Z), thanks to some genuinely eerie séance sequences and the super-nasty spin it puts on demonic possession. Christensen takes viewers to some dark, twisted places, which is great.