Dead Media: A Blast from the Late 1990s

Usually, horror movies appeal to fans’ nostalgia for the good old days of VHS video stores. This one appeals to our fond memories of the archaic format once known as a DVD. Seriously. VHS still has more personality as an object, but at least a DVD is something evil entities can work with, unlike an impersonal and intangible streaming file. In this case, all kinds of horrors were hardcoded onto a notoriously scarce DVD in director-screenwriter Joseph Scrimshaw’s Dead Media, which opens tomorrow in select theaters.

Maggie Sloke and her housemates can’t decide what movie to stream, until she scrolls over to Rita Nast’s notorious film-within-the-film, Night of the Lurchers. It was always her 90’s-loving Uncle Hep’s favorite. Hep is kind of like her Uncle Buck. Even though he is annoying (especially to her housemate and possible romantic interest, Brenda), Hep was there for her when she needed him, so she remains loyal. Naturally, she texts him and just as predictably, he rushes over with the DVD, so they can enjoy the bonus content as well.

In this case, the extras really are something, especially the easter egg Maggie finds. Suddenly, it pulls Sloke, her uncle, and her housemates into the DVD. Each door in the house now leads to either a chapter of the movie or the bonus content. Ominously, they never know what scene they will enter, because the disk is randomizing.

Fortunately, Nast, the director, can sort of explain the “rules” of the situation. She too was swept up into the DVD during the mastering process. Arguably, it was sort of her fault. During the filming, she accidentally summoned the Lurchers, a strange Scandinavian supernatural variation on the Living Dead. She managed to bind them into the DVD, but now they are all stuck inside with them, along with the actors and the characters they play.

With all the door slamming that ensues, Dead Media takes on a screwball farcical tone, which is really quite amusing. This is definitely the best horror homage to physical media since Beyond the Gates. There is gore, but it is relatively light by genre standards. Nevertheless, Scrimshaw always keeps things sufficiently creepy and unpredictable.

Faces of Death, on Shudder

It miight be the most censored film of all time. Yet, it might also be one of the “banned films” that has been least defended by ostensive civil libertarians. Arthur Spevak helps explain their reticence. The serial killer decides to remake scenes from the notorious fake mondo documentary horror movie in Daniel Goldhaber’s like-titled Faces of Death, which premieres this Friday on Shudder.

Margot Romero was once a reckless online influencer-provocateur until one of her online stunts ended in tragedy. In a soul-killing effort to atone for his sister’s death, Romero works as a content moderator for Kino, a tiktok clone that naturally discourages moderation. At first, she approves videos posted by a mysterious user, assuming they are fake. However, she grows alarmed as the gore appears increasingly realistic.

Of course, her boss dismisses her concern, because Kino and tiktok are evil. Even when she identifies missing persons in the video, the police dismiss her concerns. Noticing deliberate similarities to the original 1978 Faces of Death, Romero starts tracking the poster online. However, her digital sleuthing brings her to the attention of the killer, Spevak, who is indeed remaking Faces of Death.

Arguably, Goldhaber’s new riff-reboot is a lot like Censor and the thematically similar but vastly superior Berberian Sound Studio. It is a horror movie that hates horror movies (which is weird, considering Goldhaber’s Shining-inspired “Red Rum (Colorado)” is such a great “state” within the 50 States of Fright series). Nevertheless, Goldhaber and co-screenwriter Isa Mazzei clearly suggest horror films and rubbernecking online videos have a desensitizing effect, corroding viewers’ empathy and decency. They offer Spevak as a compelling exhibit A.

Whether you agree or not (and tiktok’s amplification of antisemitism is well documented), Goldhaber’s execution is tight and tense. True to horror movie traditions, the characters often display poor survival instincts. Yet, the malevolent vibe is always quite potent.

Lockbox (Based on the Knifepoint Horror Podcast)

It seems like Hollywood remains incapable of writing a major veteran character who does not have PTSD. Frankly, for Winthrop Benson, his military service-related PTSD arguably wasn’t as bad as his pre-service PTSD. Of course, it is all good for those that latch onto and exploit such vulnerabilities. His older cousin, Ellen Hershbergen long carried guilt over his early childhood trauma, even though she was not to blame. She might finally have the chance to help him, if she truly believes the dangers he faces in Daniel Stamm’s Lockbox, which opens this Friday in theaters.

Apparently, the producers and distributors think it is very important to trumpet Lockbox was adapted from one of the Knifepoint Horror podcast’s storylines. Whether ticket-buying consumers also consider it important remains to be seen. Regardless, Justin Yoffe’s adaptation of Soren Narnia pod-script takes a rather intriguingly roundabout approach to its introduction of its demonic elements.

After providing her late mother’s hospice care, Hershbergen moved to Pontiac in Upstate New York, for fresh start. As it happens, Benson will start a factory join the area soon, so she agrees to take him in. She is not prepared for how damaged and awkward he is, but she understands his reasons. After young Benson witnessed the death of his parents, custody was granted to his horrifically abusive uncle. Hershbergen never knew exactly what he endured, but the family guessed enough to feel deeply ashamed.

Weirdly, free-spirited hippy woman Vahna Minter also starts inviting herself over. Hershbergen wants to be neighborly, but the odd woman seems to have an unhealthy interest in the cousins. Then she finds Minter brutally murdered—and the night-walking insomnia-suffering Benson becomes the chief suspect.

The title eventually makes perfect sense, but it is better to wait for it. Until then, there will be a lot of trouble coming the cousins’ way, so Hershbergen soon learns the value of having good representation. However, a team of priests led by Father James Light will be even more helpful.

As it happens, Hershbergen was already a regular church-goer, so Lockbox is rather faith-friendly. Jed Rees brings a lot of humanity to the film, which fans of William Peter Blatty will appreciate. Indeed, faith and spiritual instruction play significant roles in the third act.

The Voices of Our Mother, on Shudder

About all the only thing Harriet spared her children was wire-hanger trauma. Indeed, the damage done while she stood by, watching disinterestedly as her husband beat her four children, has probably irreparably poisoned their relationships. Not surprisingly, when she suffers a stroke, none of them is keen to care for her. However, they soon start to suspect Harriet might have literally had the devil in her. It will be a rough family reunion in director-screenwriter Mark O’Brien’s The Voices of Our Mother, which premieres this Friday on Shudder.

Only the family matriarch, Johanna, ever provided her grandchildren any degree of protection. Yet, she always coddled Harriet, to the point of infantilizing her. When she finally dies, Harriet predictably reacts badly. At first, her doctor assumes she suffered a stroke, but tests prove she is remarkably healthy physically.

Of course, once they reluctantly take her home, Harriet starts exhibiting Reagan MacNeil like behavior. Unfortunately, the dissension between the grown children makes them especially ill-equipped to deal with the crisis. William is on the verge of bankruptcy, so he resents every potential expense. He also resents his twin sister Theresa for stealing his girlfriend, who eventually became her now deceased wife. Younger brother Martin is a hopeless drug addict, who resents his siblings for a shameful secret to be revealed later in the film.

The youngest, Annika, took nun’s vows, so she might be the best prepared for the demonic terrors, but she somewhat resents herself, for largely abandoning her family when they most needed each other. However, helpful Father Roslovic might have insight into Harriet and Johanna that will help Annika confront the evil plaguing her family.

Honestly, O’Brien’s family dysfunction might be more terrifying than his demonic horror. That’s because his mercilessly and unforgiving dialogue is so believable. Judging from this film, O’Brien might be able to remake Mommie Dearest and somehow make it work (but he’s probably much better off sticking with the horror genre).

As it happens, the film also has an unusually strong message regarding the power of faith. It is almost tempting to recommend it to the Evangelical community, but pretty much every other aspect would likely put them off. Oh well.  Regardless, it shares a very Blatty-esque perspective on the existence and nature of good and evil.

Tribeca ’26: Recluse

Apparently, weird people have Lawrence Wyatt’s art tattooed on their bodies. His daughter Joan is one of them. Frankly, the sigil on her wrist hardly looks like the rest of his work, which appears to be modeled after Francis Bacon. Regardless, she probably regrets it because she not so secretly blames her father for her mother’s death. Nevertheless, Joan must return to the family’s spooky Berkshires manor after his freak accident, whether she likes it or not, in Henry Chaisson’s Recluse, which screens again tomorrow during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Joan Wyatt still works sporadically on film crews as an audio engineer despite her “troubled” reputation. It all goes back to the tragically macabre death of her little brother during a childhood game of hide and seek. Basically, she should have “seeked” harder. Bad things keep happening to the Wyatts. Her father was the latest victim of the so-called “curse,” when his paints mysteriously ignited. As a result, he now wears a heavy mask of bandages and can barely speak. Supposedly, he must remain confined to bed, but she sometimes thinks she sees him lurking in the shadowy corridors.

Wyatt always knew her family was dysfunctional, but she really gets an earful when she discovers a box of cassettes containing recordings of her parents’ chaos. At times, the recordings seem like ghostly voices that might even have a haunting existence beyond her sound gear.

Indeed, Recluse shares the aesthetic sensibilities of recent horror films like Rabbit Trap, Noise, and Undertone that use carefully “composed” soundscapes to build suspense and generally unsettle viewers. They are sort of anti-ASMR movies. However, Recluse is probably less successful than some of is predecessors in that regard, because of the ambiguity Chaisson tries to maintain.

Chaisson also derives atmosphere and dread from the traditional, but effective old dark house setting. It just radiates dank, rotten corruption. Wyatt’s art, particularly his sculptures, further deepen the macabre vibe.

Fans of 24, Candyman, and The Walking Dead will be disappointed character actor Xander Berkeley probably only appears in the combustible prologue (assuming a body double was subsequently employed for the masked and bedridden Papa Wyatt). However, Toby Poser (of the Adams Filmmaking Family) is appropriately odd, yet intriguingly hard to immediately pigeon-hole as Lydia, the crossbow-toting estate caretaker and Lawrence’s possible accomplice in who knows what.

Bloody Bites: The Blue Diamond

Cult leaders make terrible parents, because they think everybody is one of their “children.” Allison could tell you that about her late mom, but she doesn’t have to, because all the cult members keep telling her how Jacqueline Diamond was like a mother to them. As far as she is concerned, they can have her—but maybe they want Allison too in Sam Fox’s 16-minoute short film The Blue Diamond, which premieres this Friday on Screambox’s short film showcase Bloody Bites.

Allison long resented her narcistic mother for abandoning her to found her skiing-themed EST-esque self-help cult. She probably assumes her ragingly inappropriate eulogy would be the last way she could get back at Mother Diamond. It is a doozy. Yet, members of Blue Diamond seem completely tone deaf with respect to her flippant contempt for her mom and the cult.

Obviously, The Blue Diamond takes a horror turn, given its debut on a genre streamer, but the best reason to watch is Desiree Staples’ epic middle-finger-waving meltdown as Allison. Watching her react to cultists’ weirdness is quite a show. In fact, she manages to do the hard-to-imagine: outshining horror’s grand dame, Barbara Crampton, who appears as Diamond in pre-recorded video messages.

The Last Anniversary: Canadian Horror

You might assume that if we knew the date the world will end, we could do something to stop it, but apparently not. Apparently, to understand, you need to be an apocalyptologist like Abel Ferrara, who even identified the exact time the end would toll in 4:44 Last Day on Earth. At least his characters were only haunted by their own regrets. Aubrey and Tom’s friends will be haunted by an actual ghost. That is sort of the reason the couple invited them for a reckoning before the reckoning in Brothers Brett & Jason Butler’s The Last Anniversary, which is now playing in Toronto.

It turns out Aubrey and Tom did not select an auspicious date for their wedding. As fate would have it, their anniversary falls on Judgement Day. Their wedding night was also the last time they saw her sister Brenda, who mysteriously disappeared after the reception.

As the rest of the world hunkers down, the couple invited the surviving wedding party members to the very same mountain resort hotel (now abandoned), for a supposedly cathartic reunion. However, the couple has something more Old Testament in mind. Unbeknownst to them, Brenda has similar ideas. Her ghost still haunts the hotel, so she starts terrorizing the returning wedding guests, showing herself at dramatic moments and even physically choking them.

The Butler Brothers sustain a strange tone throughout the film, which either evokes the best of 1970s Eurohorror, or the worst. It also intentionally pays homage to The Shining, with its endless spooky corridors and the room everyone shuns like a cruise ship carrying the Hantavirus.

The results are just odd. Films that take big metaphysical swings risk falling flat on their face. To the Butlers’ estimable credit, that does not happen here. They also maintain enough horror business to preserve the film’s genre viability. Yet, there are frequent “what the heck” moments that will baffle conventional horror fans, but those parts are clearly what were most important to the Butlers.

Whistle, on Shudder

Honestly, no Gen-X’er would ever put their lips on a macabre pre-Columbian artifact they found in a dead classmate’s locker. As for Millennials and Gen Z? Yeah, maybe they would. That’s why the 1980s generation will outlive them all and save our nation. To prove the point, another batch of high school kids inadvertently summon an ancient evil in Corin Hardy’s Whistle, which premieres this Friday on Shudder.

After rattling in the winning basket, Mason “Horse” Raymore burned to death in the showers. Weird, right? Lucky transfer student Chrys Willet, fresh out of rehab, inherits his locker, which dos not sit well with his jerky friend, Dean Jackson. Awkwardly, Willet’s cousin Rel Taylor has long carried a torch for Jackson’s popular girlfriend, Grace Browning, who is duly embarrassed by her boyfriend’s behavior. Perversely, the incident earns them all a session of Breakfast Club-ish detention, along with Ellie Gains, the would-be mediator, for whom Willet immediately starts carrying her own torch.

She also brings the creepy “death-whistle” thingy she found in her locker. Arrogant Mr. Craven recognizes it is a potentially valuable pre-Columbian artifact, so he confiscates it. He also blows through it. Okay, actor Nick Frost is Gen X, but he only did it to test the condition, for re-sale purposes. Our generation is even more enterprising than cautious. Of course, he dies just the same. By that time, Taylor had already stolen it back and brought it to Browning’s cozy pool soiree, since they are all friends now (except Jackson). And what do you think she does?

The nature of the Aztec death demon is somewhat interesting, but for the most part, Whistle plays out like a bland imitation of Bishal Dutta’s vastly superior It Lives Inside, in which a beleaguered teenager also lugs around a demon-bound knick-knack. Unfortunately, Whistle is not nearly as distinctive or scary.

Hunting Matthew Nichols

When the original Blair Witch Project released, it inspired teenaged Matthew Nichols and his friend Jordan Reimer to make their own DIY horror movies. Judging by the small army of found footage films reviewed here, they were clearly not the only ones. Unfortunately, instead of earning a quick pay day, they fell into a ravine and died. At least that is what the provincial Vancouver Island police say, but they never discovered the bodies. Two decades later, his sister Tara and a documentary film crew set out to uncover their true fate. In the process, they produce another found footage horror movie: Markian Tarasiuk’s independently produced and released Hunting Matthew Nichols, which releases today in theaters.

Way up in northern Vancouver, there isn’t much for teens to do except watch horror movies and go hiking. Consequently, everyone hoped Nichols and Reimer would be found, considering how well they knew the woods (the Canadians call it “bush,” but same difference). Yet, the police only recovered Nichols’ video camera.

Tara Nichols wants answers and director Markian Tarasiuk and cameraman Ryan Alexander McDonald—playing themselves—want to help her at least reach some closure. Regardless, they get some pretty good footage when they discover the missing teens were preoccupied with the local not-so-urban legend of Roy McKenzie, a reputed cult leader, who may or may not have eaten the residents of his commune. McKenzie can definitely hang with the Blair Witch. Nichols and Reimer thought so too, judging from the totem the police turn over to his sister.

There is no getting around the fact Tarasiuk’s film looks and plays very much like Chris Stuckmann’s Shelby Oaks, but the Roy McKenzie lore helps somewhat set it apart. It also has some of the best performances you will find in the found footage sub-genre. Miranda MacDougall shows potential star-power as Tara Nichols.

ND/NF ’26: Leviticus

Even before the 1980s, horror movies were associating sex and death. The former often led to the latter, but for the horny teens consuming these movies, the hedonism was maybe worth the risk. “Au contraire” say the Evangelical Australians, who will do anything to keep their kids from swinging the wrong way. For Naim and his on-again-off-again friend-hook-up-lover Ryan, the cure is way worse than the disease in director-screenwriter Adrian Chiarella’s Leviticus, the opening night film of this year’s New Directors/New Films.

Naim and his mother recently moved to the sleepy provincial town after enduring a vague, never fully explained trauma. Clearly, she has adopted religion as her coping mechanism—the more old-time, the better. Despite their church’s funky-aspiring Christian rock band, Naim is more interested in exploring his sexuality, preferably with Ryan. Unfortunately, Ryan also does some exploring with the “blue jeans” pastor’s son.

In a fit of jealousy, Naim informs on Ryan and his rival, but soon regrets it. To cure the boys, the congregation brings in a “Deliverance Preacher” who essentially places a curse on the lads. Every night, a demon will taunt them in the form of the one they most desire. According to the film’s logic, this is intended to scare them straight, literally. Yet, if it actually worked, wouldn’t the demon subsequently take the shape of women?

Regardless, Naim’s mother soon commits the ultimate betrayal, by arranging his own session with the Deliverance Preacher. Ironically, she drives Naim back to Ryan. Despite the risks, they join forces, in hopes of devising a way to undo the curse. As long as they are with someone, the demon cannot approach. Yet, as soon as they separate, they cannot tell whether the doppelganger might be appearing before them, instead their forbidden lover.

Clearly, Leviticus (named for the Old Testament book with the hardcore fire-and brimstone reputation) owes an enormous debt of gratitude to David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows. Chiarella and cinematographer Tyson Perkins stage several darkly sinister scenes, in which tremendous tension is built from the is-he-or-isn’t-he question. Frankly, the paranoia of not being able to trust the one you adore the most is quite terrifying.

However, the entire curse business makes little sense and the depiction of the Evangelicals is distractingly heavy-handed and simplistic. If Chiarella were to make a film about Berber nomads, he would probably try to understand their culture, their values, and their world view. Yet, obviously, no such effort was made with Evangelicals. The truth is they simply do not talk or think as Chiarella depicts. The absence of such understanding leaves Leviticus conspicuously populated with straw men, whose only purpose is to undermine the beliefs they supposedly profess. That’s projection and wish fulfilment.

I Know Exactly How You Die

Poor struggling horror writer Rian Burman is going through a lot right now. He doesn’t need his agent constantly calling to berate him on top of it all. He ought to just write himself a new one. Apparently, he can do that in the Clayborne, the low-budget motel he checked into. Things tend to come to pass there once they are put to paper (or laptop hard drive). Obviously, that will cause some issues since he writes horror in Alexandra Spieth’s I Know Exactly How You Die, which hits various streaming platforms tomorrow.

Burman needs to send that demanding agent some pages pronto, but he is still reeling from a bad break-up. Katie Waters is a lot like his ex. She is just his type. Unfortunately, she is also Hector Darbes’ type as well. The serial killer has stalked her throughout his killing spree and now he has followed her to the Clayborne as well. That was a far as Burman got before meeting Waters face-to-face.

He soon realizes writing comes to life at the Clayborne—a fact Naja, the proprietress and very amateur poet, reluctantly confirms. Unfortunately, he already washed out the roads and toppled the local cell towers, but he resolves to change the tragic fate he envisioned for Waters. Yet, much to his alarm, his story seems to be taking on a life of its own, in a decidedly dangerous way.

There is a lot that works in Spieth’s film, starting with the two principles. Rushabh Patel and Stephanie Gomes Hogan both bring interesting, energetic screen-presences to the party. The fundamental premise is also intriguing. However, there is an awful lot of fudging and conspicuous attempts at narrative sleight-of-hand.

Bone Keeper, Co-Starring John Rhys-Davies

This creature has its own Patterson-Gimlin film. Everyone assumes it is a hoax, but viewers know better. So does Olivia Wheeler, because her missing-presumed-dead grandfather shot it—and then vanished (conveniently leaving the footage behind). She also thinks her mother disappeared down its cave in search of him, so she organizes an expedition to find some traces of them in Howard J. Ford’s Bone Keeper, which releases this Monday on digital in the UK.

According to the 2001-inspired prologue, the Bone Keeper has been terrorizing this inhospitable region of Scotland since the era of neanderthals. Lately, the Lovecraftian monster has developed a habit of consuming Wheelers. Nevertheless, the Wheeler granddaughter is determined to continue throwing good family-members after bad, so to speak.

Wisely, she has recruited a group of friends who are either abrasively annoying or interchangeably dull, so viewers won’t mind when the Bone Keeper starts snatching them up, one by one. Most of them condescendingly assumed they were humoring Wheeler, but they can’t say they weren’t warned. After all, they visited Prof. Harrison, the leading expert on the Bone Keeper, whom the locals dismiss as a crank. He did his best to dissuade Wheeler and her crew. Failing that, he encouraged them to simply try to bring back some physical proof.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Chime

Those noises in your head can really do a number on your sanity. Just ask the narrator of Poe’s “A Tell-Tale Heart.” However, it is not clear whether Takuji Matsuoka truly hears them. Regardless, it seems that he “contracted” the insanity of someone who did in director-screenwriter Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 45-minute short-ish film, Chime, which opens this Friday together with Kurosawa’s classic The Serpent’s Path (the original, not Kurosawa’s recent remake).

Matsuoka works as continuing ed. culinary instructor, but he clearly yearns to return to the kitchen as a head chef.  He is not a great teacher, but to be fair, most educators would struggle with a weirdo like Ichiro Tashiro. When Tashiro complains about hearing chimes inaudible to the rest of the class, Matsuoka tries to ignore him. However, he can’t ignore what comes next.

Does Matsuoka inherit his craziness, or did he always have it? Did Tashiro’s horror show simply provide a catalyst for releasing it? Kurosawa clearly wants to keep the answers to such questions ambiguous, perhaps even unknowable. Regardless, Matsuoka takes a sinister turn that even surpasses Tashiro.

Arguably, Chime feels like Kurosawa, the horror master, taking a stab at more subtle and slippery “elevated” “post-horror.” There are shocking moments, but Kurosawa too coyly toys with the horror elements to sustain much tension.

As Matsuoka, Mutsuo Yoshioka’s performance is defined by an utter soullessness, even before his apparent insanity kicks in. Yet, Seiichi Kohinata is more disturbing as Tashiro, due to his twitchy, awkward sadness.

The Hole: 309 Days Before the Tragedy

Suppose Linton never existed in Wuthering Heights, so Earnshaw arranged a marriage between Catherine and Heathcliff. Then imagine their story turns into a horror movie that culminates in a notorious national trauma. That is the sinister and complicated fate in store for Sugeng and Arum in director-screenwriter Hanung Bramantyo’s The Hole: 309 Days Before the Tragedy, which EST N8 is repping internationally, following its Rotterdam festival premiere.

Lubang Buaya is a village in East Jakarta, not far from an Air Force base, where the Indonesian Communist Party murdered seven Army officers and unleashed chaos during their failed coup attempt. Frankly, the CIA had its doubts regarding the official story, but Sukarno, who had been flirting with the Communists with his anti-imperialist rhetoric, used the incident to decidedly turn against them. Frankly, even when Bramantyo finally reveals all, it is rather hard to see how the Sugeng and Arum’s story ultimately leads into that historical controversy—but somehow it does.

Arguably, even Sugeng’s marriage to Arum seems a little iffy, since Sukarya raised them both as his children. However, since Sugeng, the former street urchin, is not a blood relation, the local Imam gives his blessing. Unfortunately, the celebration will be short-lived. Since he knows the region, the national police assign Sugeng the investigation into the gruesome ritual murders of several prominent local citizens. Tellingly, each victim was denounced by the local Communist newspaper as part of their shameful gang of seven.

That would certainly constitute motive, but it does not explain the spectral woman who starts terrorizing Arum. As the bodies pile up, the Imam suggests it might be the work of curses cast from a Moorish Andalusian book of black magic. There also might be reason to suspect the local Imam could be somewhat complicit in the village’s sins.

Frankly, horror fans should make a point of watching The Hole whenever the opportunity arises, because it is frighteningly easy to imagine campaigns to censor it, for both religious and political reasons. Bramantyo takes some big, fearless swings and tackles some highly protected sacred cows. Its gutsy filmmaking, to the point of even thrilling with its defiant iconoclasm.

However, Bramantyo still takes care of genre business, building suspense out of an atmosphere of corruption and foreboding. There is definitely bad karma at work, to the point that viewers’ sympathies start to flip, or at least become considerably more complicated.

Kimo Stamboel’s Janur Ireng: Sewu Dino the Prequel

Sabdo and Intan Kuncoro are like the poor relations of a gothic novel. After their father dies and their house burns down, their wealthy Uncle Arjo takes them into his home. The hyper-class-conscious might suspect the hardscrabble siblings will never be considered full members of Arjo’s family, but their uncle and his wife Lasmini are only too eager to accept them. Of course, there are terrifying reasons for this in Kimo Stamboel’s Janur Ireng: Sewu Dino the Prequel, which just opened in Cambodia and Vietnam (with EST N8 currently repping other territories).

Don’t worry if you haven’t seen Stamboel’s Sewu Dino. This is the prequel, so newcomers can easily follow the story, based on SimpleMan’s online story (just like Stamboel’s Dancing Village: The Curse Begins)—at least until the final scene somewhat bafflingly links it back to the prior (subsequent) film.

Regardless, orphaned Sabdo and Intan are rather intimidated by their stately new home. Indeed, despite the luxury, the Kuncoro manor absolutely drips with bad vibes. The decidedly gothic set-up soon takes a rather folk horror turn when Uncle Arjo forces Sabdo to sacrifice a goat. In fact, such ceremonies become a bizarrely regular thing.

It turns out their late father had good reasons for cutting ties with his brother’s branch of the family. These Kuncoros are scary people and Sabdo’s prospective role will be especially ominous, involving rites and literal demons. What transpires probably holds a great deal of tragic irony for those who have seen the original Sewu Dino (which currently streams on Prime). However, it probably lands with even greater force for those who haven’t.

Either way, there is an extended scene of third act lunacy that is so jaw-droppingly over-the-top, it ought to make Janur Ireng a cult classic and a perennial favorite for midnight movie screenings. You’ll know it when you see it. Yet, before that, Stamboel crafts a moody folk horror film, rich with atmosphere and foreboding.

Smother: The Horror of Austrian Motherhood

Michaela is a bad mother, but it runs in the family. Her mother was the notorious crazy lady who killed herself. Maybe being the drunk driver who nearly accidentally killed herself and her daughter isn’t so bad in comparison. It still isn’t great—as her husband constantly reminds her. Regardless, when Michaela finally returns home, she will either face her ghosts or succumb to them in Achmed Abdel-Salam’s Smother, which releases Friday on IndiePix Unlimited.

Hanna still hasn’t forgiven her mother for the accident and her father Alex isn’t exactly letting it go either. Unfortunately, Alex caters to Hanna’s neurotic behavior and psychosomatic illnesses, which dramatically escalated after the incident. However, she enjoys the countryside when the family returns to Michaela’s ancestral home for her grandfather’s funeral.

Michaela hasn’t been home for years—and it is easy to see why. The crass locals still openly gossip about her mother’s notorious suicide. Understandably, Michaela repressed many of her childhood memories of that tragic day, but they start rushing back when she starts seeing vision of her mother. Her Grudge-like mother seems to have unfinished business with her—or maybe Hanna.

Smother is the kind of so-called “elevated” horror movie that devotes all its time to elevation, shortchanging the horror. There are some creepy elements introduced, but Abdl-Salam allows them to wither on the vine. Some might euphemistically describe Smother as a “taut slow burn,” but the truth is it often drags, which is a real drawback for a horror film. Rather confusingly, the film also clearly implies Peppi, the elderly neighbor abuses his partially dementia-afflicted wife Gerti, but then completely ignores the implications.

Ghost Train, on BluRay

It only seems logical that you should have have a “ghost train” to go with a “ghost station.” Now Well Go USA has both. Jeong Yong-ki’s The Ghost Station explicitly set its hauntings in notorious Oksu Station, which has become the epicenter of urban legends thanks to a hit web comic. This film takes place in Gwanglim Station, but it is clearly inspired by Oksu and Japan’s Kisaragi Station, the granddaddy of all haunted metro stops. Regardless, commuters would be better off taking the bus in Tak Se-woong’s Ghost Train, which releases today on BluRay.

Da-kyoung, a.k.a. “The Horror Queen” is n influencer without influence, who works for a sad Gawker-Vice-style YouTube network, trying to bring home the eyeballs. Unfortunately, clicks are down, so Gwanglim Station might be her last hurrah. However, premium booze has a knack for loosening the Station Master’s tongue. Thanks to his stories, her views start climbing. They also give the film an anthology vibe, because they seem relatively self-contained and thematically diverse. (It is also hard to see how he would know some of these things, but who wants to be pedantic, right?)

In any event, bad stuff happens down there. Eventually, an informant tells Da-kyoung the station was built on top of a cult church, where the members committed mass suicide to grant their leader immortality. That is creepy element that helps distinguish Train from Station.

Frankly, the two films are quite evenly matched in most ways. Joo Hyun-young’s performance as Da-kyoung is generally on par with everyone appearing in Ghost Station. However, Jeon Bae-soo eventually takes over the film, to its advantage, in a very strange and memorable way as the world-weary Station Master.

Blood Barn, on Screambox

Ironically, Josie’s friends survived working a season as camp counselors, just to die in her barn. Technically, it has been converted into a farmhouse. Honestly, except for Simon, the nice guy, they are all basically animals, who should be sleeping on straw and drinking out of a trough. Regardless, they will probably die like lambs to the slaughter in Gabriel Bernini’s Blood Barn, which premieres tomorrow on Screambox.

This is one of those intentionally grainy-looking, deliberately cheesy, VHS-approximating retro-horror films. For what its worth, Bernini and the design team get the look perfect. Paradoxically, the filmmakers who cranked out the films that inspired Blood Barn would have been thrilled to have the modern techniques available to Bernini for a more polished look. Be that as it may, nostalgia always has a place in horror.

Josie is wildly insecure, so she invites her new “friends” to finish the summer at her family’s old lake house. They should have the place to themselves, because her other relatives never stay there anymore—with good reason. As it happens, Josie’s own memories of the place are rather foggy, in a repressed kind of way. At least the video tape of family home movies her so-called friends start jeering at slowly reawakens bits and pieces buried in her head.

It is hard to really say what the heck is going on, but it seems vaguely Lovecraftian, in a way possibly inspired by Possession. Whatever the heck it is, you do not want to let it get its tentacles into you, in a very literal sense.

Once you get past the look of the film, clearly intended to invoke memories of the original micro-budget Evil Dead, there isn’t much to the film. The only “name” is Chloe Cherry, the former adult performer turned Euphoria co-star, as the sexually forward Rachel, but her charms will elude most mortal viewers unfamiliar with her previous work.

The Mortuary Assistant, Based on the Horror Video Game

Rebecca Owens isn’t exactly a people person, but nobody actually wants to do business with River Fields Mortuary (or any of their competitors), so it should be a good fit. The problem is all the demons possessing the dead. Her boss, Raymond Delver never mentioned that during his training program. Unfortunately, she is in for a rough night of on-the-job learning in Jeremiah Kipp’s The Mortuary Assistant, based on Brian Clarke’s video game, which opens this Friday in theaters.

The embalming and cremating are not a problem for Owens. The exorcisms will be trickier. Delver never mentioned that part of the job. However, on her first busy night working alone, a parasitic demon lurking inside one of the bodies senses her emotional baggage makes her ripe for possession. Much to her annoyance, Delver clearly expected something like this to happen. At least he has procedures in place—assuming she can trust her eyes and ears—which she can’t.

Movies based on video games probably have the worst critical reputation of any cinematic genre. Yet, weirdly, films derived from survival horror games tend to be positive outliers, as exemplified buy the original Five Nights at Freddy’s and the Taiwanese Detention, perhaps because they have clearly established characters and storylines to build upon. In this case, the screenplay, co-written by Clarke (the game designer) and Tracee Beebe, also hews quite faithfully to the video game narrative.

Kipp does a nice job building tension from the creepy, claustrophobic location and the infernal franchise lore. The two co-leads also far exceed the expectations resulting from the film’s gaming source material. Willa Holland (whom Arrowverse fans know as Thea Queen) is credibly neurotic as Owens, while still suggesting she has sufficient fortitude to survive (at least potentially).

Return to Silent Hill: The Third Film, Based on the Second Game

The Konami videogames never explicitly identified Silent Hill’s state, but it was generally understood to be somewhere in New England, even though it was inspired by the real-life ghost town, Centralia, PA, which was evacuated due to toxic coal mines fires that continue smoldering decades later. However, the first two films located the nefarious burg in West Virginia. Now, the third installment geographically shifts the ominous town to Maine, more in keeping with game lore. Regardless, Silent Hill is a nice place to be from—far from. Nevertheless, James Sunderland revisits his late wife's hometown after several years away, when he receives a mysterious letter from her in Christophe Gans’s Return to Silent Hill, which opens today in theaters.

Presumably, Mary Crane died during the environmental disaster that devastated Silent Hill, but the details were sketchy, so Sunderland still holds out hope. Of course, the letter’s inexplicable arrival clearly suggests a sinister force is luring the grieving artist into Silent Hill’s supernatural peril.

Obviously, this is not the picturesque Silent Hill Sunderland remembers. The air is now foul and cloudy, while monsters roam the ruins, definitely including Pyramid Head, who has been slightly redesigned since the previous two films. Yet, we can tell from flashbacks, evil always lurked below the surface in Silent Hill. That was especially true of the sinister cult founded by Crane’s father, who acted like they had been evicted from the Dakota Building (a.k.a. The Bramford in Rosemary’s Baby).

Naturally, Sunderland eventually finds his way to the Silent Hill hospital, because faceless nurses are an iconic element of the games. Along the way, he encounters Maria, a human survivor, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Crane, except she carries herself in a much more provocative manner. Indeed, she seems torn between helping and seducing Sunderland.

Return to Silent Hill is set in the same cinematic world as the first two films, but it adapts the storyline of the second game release—relatively faithfully. Unfortunately, the most notable deviations devised by Gans and co-screenwriters Sandra Vo-Anh and Will Schneider are uniformly bad, because they dispel the mood and kill the tension. Arguably, the new bits might even undermine franchise mythology, depending how viewers interpret them.

It is strange Gans took such a misstep, because has always maintained a good rep with fans for his understanding of and enthusiasm for the franchise. Indeed, Return does a lot of things right from the perspective of the fanbase, especially the score penned by Akira Yamaoka, the longtime composer for the games. Loyalists will likely also appreciate seeing Evie Templeton reprise her role as Laura, the strange street waif who somehow survived the town’s horrors, from the recent remake of Silent Hill 2, the game (not the movie).