Tag: horror

Review: ’28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,’ starring Ralph Fiennes, Jack O’Connell, Alfie Williams, Erin Kellyman and Chi Lewis-Parry

January 16, 2026

by Carla Hay

Ralph Fiennes and Jack O’Connell in “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” (Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures)

“28 Years Later: The Bone Temple”

Directed by Nia DaCosta

Culture Representation: Taking place in England, the horror film “28 Years Later” (the fourth film in the “28” horror series) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Asians and black people) who are uninfected survivors and zombies in a post-apocalyptic world.

Culture Clash: A structural engineer, his wife and their teenage son seek out an almost-mythical crater paradise after their underground bunker is destroyed by post-apocalyptic earthquakes and explosions.

Culture Audience: “Greenland 2: Migration” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the 2020 “Greenland” movie, and formulaic disaster action flicks that don’t want viewers to think about all the plot holes in the story.

Chi Lewis-Parry and Ralph Fiennes in “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” (Photo by Miya Mizuno/Columbia Pictures)

“28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” is a rare sequel that is more innovative than its predecessor. Ralph Fiennes and Jack O’Connell give performances that make this unhinged movie an instant horror classic. There’s also some subversive comedy mixed in with all the bloody gore. The movie isn’t perfect though. People really need to see 2025’s “28 Years Later” (which was filmed back-to-back with this sequel) to really understand everything in “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.”

Directed by Nia DaCosta and written by Alex Garland, “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” is the fourth movie in the zombie apocalypse franchise that began with 2002’s “28 Days Later” (directed by Danny Boyle and written by Garland); 2007’s “28 Weeks Later”(directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who co-wrote the screenplay with Rowan Joffé, E.L. Lavigne
and Jesus Olmo); and “28 Years Later,” directed by Boyle and written by Garland. The movie franchise follows a group of people living in the United Kingdom during a zombie apocalypse, which happened through a virus (called the Rage Virus) that quickly spread through infected lab animals. The movies in the franchise are filmed on location in the United Kingdom.

In this zombie apocalypse, the people become zombies within minutes of being infected through bodily fluids. The zombies can run quickly and have superhuman strength. In “28 Years Later,” the British Isles are under strict quarantine, while continental Europe has the virus contained. At the end of “28 Years Later,” (spoiler alert), a 12-year-old boy named Spike (played by Alfie Williams) has left his estranged widower father Jamie (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson) in the Scottish Highlands to live on his own the Scottish mainland. Spike is then kidnapped by a small cult of young-adult and teenage murderers, led by a deranged fanatic in his mid-30s named Sir Jimmy Crystal (played by O’Connell), who styles himself like the deceased media personality/accused pedophile Jimmy Savile (wigs of messy platinum blond hair, track suits, bad teeth), and he expects his followers to do the same.

All of Sir Jimmy’s followers have been given new names by him, with their first names being Jimmy or a variation of Jimmy. The followers call themselves the Fingers. In the beginning of “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” Jimmy’s followers are Jimmy Shite (played by Connor Newall), Jimmy Jones (played by Maura Bird), Jimmy Snake (played by Ghazi Al Ruffai), Jimmy Jimmy (played by Robert Rhodes), Jimmy Fox (played by Sam Locke), Jimmima (played by Emma Laird) and Jimmy Ink (played by Erin Kellyman). Sir Jimmy (whose father was a minister who died in the first virus outbreak) uses religion to preach to and control his cult.

Jimmy has brainwashed his followers to believe that he is the son of the devil and forces them to commit barbaric acts of torture and murder on uninfected human survivors. The cult members also kill zombies, but they get more pleasure out of killing uninfected survivors. Spike has to go through a cult initiation process of torturing and murdering innocent people, in order to prevent the cult from killing Spike. Spike is terrified and reluctant to participate in the cult’s serial killings. Jimmy Ink shows empathy to Spike and is the only one in the cult who is most likely to become Spike’s friend.

Meanwhile, an eccentric loner named Dr. Ian Kelson (played by Fiennes) has been working for years to find a cure for the virus. Dr. Kelson lives in a remote place that he calls the Bone Temple, because he has collection of Christmas-tree-shaped mounds comprised of human skulls. The mounds are his monuments made in memoriam of people who died for various reasons. Dr. Kelson lives in mainland Great Britain’s Northumberland region, in an isolated area where there is no Internet service or phone service.

In “28 Years Later,” Spike and his mother Isla (played by Jodie Comer) met Dr. Kelson when they sought out alternative medical treatment for Isla’s cancer. Isla’s death is one of the most emotionally moving parts of “28 Years Later,” which is why when her death is mentioned in “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” it’s important to know the context in which she died and how Spike and Dr. Kelson met when they encounter each other again in “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.”

Another character from “28 Years Later” who makes his return in “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” is a 6’9″-tall zombie whom Dr. Kelson has named Samson (played by Chi Lewis-Parry) because of the zombie’s height and long hair. This “alpha male” zombie was the most vicious one shown in “28 Years Later.” However, in “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” Dr. Kelson is able to slowly game Samson’s trust and tame Samson with morphine, so that Dr.Kelson can experiment on Samson to find a cure for the virus. An unlikely friendship bond develops between Samson and Dr. Kelson.

“28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” goes back and forth between showing that Sir Jimmy and his cult are doing and showing what Dr. Kelson and Samson are doing, until the worlds collide because of Spike. The movie has some hilarious quirks, such as showing that Dr. Kelson is a big fan of Duran Duran. In his cluttered home, he has Duran Duran’s 1982 “Rio” album on display. He plays Duran Duran vinyl records on a turntable. And he’s shown singing and dancing along to Duran Duran songs such as “Girls on Film,” “Rio” and “Ordinary World.” Dr. Kelson also dances with Samson, with Duran Duran music playing.

Dr. Kelson’s taste in music from the 1980s and 1990s is also on display in the movie’s most memorable scene, where Iron Maiden’s 1982 song “Number of the Beast” is playing. Sir Jimmy also has a thing for nostalgia. He talks fondly about the Teletubbies, the fictional stars of the 1998 to 2001 children’s TV show of the same name. People who saw “28 Years Later” might remember that Sir Jimmy was watching the “Teletubbies” TV show with his siblings when the zombie outbreak hit their community.

“28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” director DaCosta brought in an entirely new crew for areas such as production design, cinematography and editing, which give the movie a fresh approach instead of falling into sequel trap of re-using the same techniques in telling the story. One of the movie’s technical highlights is composer Hildur Guðnadóttir’s foreboding score music, which is a superb complement to the well-known soundtrack songs. Credit should also be given to Garland for crafting a screenplay that’s a departure from the usual compilation of “human versus zombie battles” that tend to be the format of most zombie films. In “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” the biggest villains aren’t the zombies but are humans.

Spike’s backstory is already shown in “28 Years Later,” so “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” doesn’t spend a lot of time rehashing it, although the movie does have a few flashbacks to what happened in “28 Years Later.” What the movie does that’s most unexpected is show a few details about who Samson was before he became infected. It’s a hint of a possible storyline in a sequel.

“28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” drags a little bit in the middle of the movie that shows a Sir Jimmy and the Fingers doing a home invasion of a farm inhabited by six people: a man in his 20s named Tom (played by Louis Ashbourne Serkis); his pregnant partner Cathy (played by Mirren Mack); a middle-aged man named Jonno (played by Gordon Alexander); an elderly man named George (played by David Sterne); a man in his 30s named Matthew (played by Elliot Benn); and a middle-aged woman named Jane Ji (played by Lynne Anne Rodgers). All of these six inhabitants except one are kidnapped by Jimmy and his cult and taken to another location.

If “28 Years Later” was about Spike’s family problems during this zombie apocalypse, then “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” is about contrasting and ultimately conflicting lifestyles of two different “families”: Sir Jimmy and his cult versus Dr. Kelson and his new-found companion Samson. These two factions have different agendas (healing versus harming), and both want Spike on their side. It’s a battle of wits and psychological manipulation, more than physical strength.

Fiennes gives a masterful performance as Dr. Kelson, whose mysterious image from “28 Years Later” slowly reveals that he is actually a deeply complex person who cares about the future of humanity and had a family of own before the zombie apocalypse. (That story is hinted at in photos that he keeps on display in his home.) O’Connell is a scene stealer in his own right and makes Jimmy completely unpredictable, even when his intentions seem to be transparent. “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” has a widely reported cameo appearance from “28 Days Later” star Cillian Murphy, who is in the last 10 minutes of “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.” This appearance announces that Murphy’s Jim character is alive and well and should be a vital part of a sequel in this franchise, which now stands as one of the best zombie franchises in cinema history.

Columbia Pictures released “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” in U.S. cinemas on January 16, 2026.

Review: ‘Primate’ (2026), starring Johnny Sequoyah, Jessica Alexander, and Troy Kotsur, Victoria Wyant, Gia Hunter, Benjamin Cheng, Charlie Mann and Tienne Simon

January 16, 2026

by Carla Hay

Miguel Torres Umba and Johnny Sequoyah in “Primate” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

“Primate” (2026)

Directed by Johannes Roberts

Culture Representation: Taking place in Hawai’i, the horror film “Primate” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Asians and black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A chimpanzee named Ben, who lives with a family in a cliffside home, gets rabies and goes on a deadly rampage.

Culture Audience: “Primate” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of horror movies about animals that turn homicidal.

Benjamin Cheng, Victoria Wyant, Jessica Alexander, Johnny Sequoyah and Miguel Torres Umba in “Primate” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

“Primate” is exactly what you might expect from a horror movie about a beloved pet that gets rabies and turns into raging killer. It’s schlocky and suspenseful, but it doesn’t pretend to be a groundbreaking movie. This is the type of horror flick that relies on lapses in logic from the main characters, but some of these illogical actions can be forgiven because they’re done while people are panicking. People have done a lot stupider things in real life-or-death situations.

Directed by Johannes Roberts (who co-wrote the “Primate” screenplay with Ernest Riera), “Primate” had its world premiere at the 2025 edition of Fantastic Fest. The movie takes place in Hawai’i but was actually filmed in the United Kingdom and on Portugal’s Madeira Island. Much of the movie’s horror comes from the fact that the Hawai’i does not have indigenous rabies, so when the pet chimpanzee in the story gets infected with rabies, it’s a massive surprise to the people in the household.

“Primate” begins by showing the pet chimpanzee doing his first human killing, which happens at night. The chimp’s name is Ben (played by Miguel Torres Umba), and he’s kept in a large cage in the backyard of the home of a scientist named Adam Pinborough (played by Troy Kotsur), who has raised Ben since Ben was an infant. Adam is a widower who happens to be deaf. His wife, who was also a linguistics professor, raised orphaned Ben as part of an academic study on primates learning human forms of communication.

Adam had asked his veterinarian colleague Doug Lambert (played by Rob Delaney) to check on Ben because Adam had noticed that Ben has a recent bite mark from a mongoose. Doug brings some snacks to entice Ben, who comes from out of the shadows and drags Doug into the cage. The sounds that are heard after that make it obvious that Doug has been slaughtered by Ben.

“Primate” then flashes back to 36 hours earlier, to show the characters who will later be trapped in the house with rampaging Ben. Lucy Pinborough (played by Johnny Sequoyah), who is about 18 or 19 years old, is on an airplane flight to go back to her home state of Hawai’i for a summer vacation after her first year in college. She is accompanied on this trip by her longtime best friend Kate Hodges (played by Victoria Wyant) and Kate’s friend Hannah (played by Jessica Alexander), who is a rival to Lucy for Kate’s attention. Lucy and Hannah don’t really like each other, and Kate is caught in the middle trying to keep the peace among them.

Lucy is also envious of Hannah because Hannah is a confident “party girl,” while Lucy is a straight-laced introvert who is insecure when it comes to dating. Hannah thinks Lucy is a nerdy and sheltered misfit. Lucy has had a crush for years on Kate’s brother Nick Hodges (played by Benjamin Cheng), who still lives in the same Hawai’i hometown where they all grew up. Nick doesn’t feel the same way about Lucy and treats Lucy like she’s his younger sister. You can easily predict the love triangle that happens after Nick meets seductive Hannah.

On the airplane, Hannah and Kate flirt with two guys who are about the same age: Drew (played by Charlie Mann) and Brad (played by Tienne Simon), who are good pals with each other. Lucy, Hannah and Kate tells Drew and Brad that they will be staying at Lucy’s cliffside house and hint that they’d like to meet up with the guys later to party with them at the house. They all exchange phone numbers.

When the three women arrive at the house, Lucy finds out that her younger sister Erin Pinborough (played by Gia Hunter), who’s about 14 or 15 years old, has a lot of resentment toward Lucy because Lucy cut off communication with Erin for several months because Lucy was too caught up in her new life away from home. Erin feels abandoned and neglected by Lucy. Lucy tells Erin that she’s sorry, and the two sisters begin to mend their estranged relationship.

Hannah is very frightened when she first sees Ben, but everyone assures her that Ben is a harmless family pet. Ben can communicate in limited ways by using a soundboard. One of the things that Adam’s wife was trying to do when she was alive was find ways to improve communication between primates and humans. You can bet that this soundboard will be featured prominently in the movie.

Adam is a published author who has to travel to promote his most recent book. He will be away for a few days, and the teens use his absence as an opportunity to party. Before Adam leaves, he makes arrangements for Doug to do a medical check-up of Ben about the mongoose bite. This check-up results in Doug’s death that is shown in the beginning of the movie. Doug’s visit happens after Adam has left for his trip. The mongoose has been found dead and is being tested for rabies.

The rest of “Primate” is about what happens when Ben goes on a rampage that leaves Lucy, Erin, Kate, Hannah and Nick trapped in the house. The only place where Ben is afraid to go is in the swimming pool. because animals infected with rabies have a fear of water. Predictably, when the rampage happens, the terror victims run away in a panic and leave their phones in areas that are hard to get to without getting past Ben.

The terror scenes in “Primate” can get over-the-top with how Benz, even in his demented and rabid state, has the presence of mind to do things that you would see a human do to prevent captive people from leaving. The movie doesn’t skimp on the gore because there are multiple scenes of Ben killing people by forcing open a victim’s mouth and ripping out the lower jaw.

“Primate” does a good job of incorporating Adam’s deafness into the movie. (Kotsur, who won an Oscar for his supporting actor performance in 2021’s “CODA,” is deaf in real life.) When Adam is in a scene, the movie switches to his perspective by having silence in the scenes so that hearing viewers experience what Adam is experiencing. The sound design then switches back to audio noises to give to demonstrate what the hearing characters are experiencing.

The cinematography (by Stephen Murphy) in “Primate” is above-average, making good use of the cliffside location, mood lighting throughout the house, and the swimming pool that turns into a prison. Some parts of the movie will be very hard to watch for people who don’t like to see any cruelty involving animals. But if you go into a movie like “Primate” expecting the rabid chimp to be treated like a helpless pet, you probably shouldn’t be watching “Primate” in the first place, unless you want to be very disturbed. The performances in “Primate” are on par with what this movie is: nothing spectacular but delivering exactly what a slasher flick is supposed to deliver.

Paramount Pictures released “Primate” in U.S. cinemas on January 9, 2026.

Review: ‘Silent Night, Deadly Night’ (2025), starring Rohan Campbell, Ruby Modine, David Lawrence Brown, David Tomlinson and Mark Acheson

January 13, 2026

by Carla Hay

Ruby Modine and Rohan Campbell in “Silent Night, Deadly Night” (Photo courtesy of Cineverse)

“Silent Night, Deadly Night” (2025)

Directed by Mike P. Nelson

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in Hackett, Minnesota, the horror film “Silent Night, Deadly Night” (a remake of the 1984 film of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: After witnessing his parents getting murdered by a man dressed as Santa Claus, a boy grows up to be the same type of murderer. 

Culture Audience: “Silent Night, Deadly Night” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching formulaic slasher movies with sluggish pacing and boring characters.

Rohan Campbell in “Silent Night, Deadly Night” (Photo courtesy of Cineverse)

The 1984 horror movie “Silent Night, Deadly Night” is so terrible, it’s become a campy classic, mainly because the movie seems to know that it’s trash. The same can’t be said for the disappointing 2025 remake of “Silent Night, Deadly Night,” which takes itself too seriously to be truly entertaining to watch. This overrated slasher remake thinks it’s smarter than it really is, in a dreadfully dull story about a serial killer dressed as Santa Claus. A supernatural spin to the story and a new ending don’t make the kills and the characters any less boring. The acting performances are so tedious and lackluster, it will make viewers cringe from that sinking feeling of watching a time-wasting movie instead of making viewers cringe with terror.

Written and directed by Mike P. Nelson, the 2025 version of “Silent Night, Deadly Night” is one of several “Silent Night, Deadly Night” movies that haven’t been able to do much with the story except appeal to the lowest-common demominator of slasher flicks. The 1984 “Silent Night, Deadly Night” movie (directed by Charles E. Sellier Jr. and written by Michael Hickey) was based on an unproduced screenplay titled “He Sees You When You’re Sleeping,” written by Paul Caimi. There have been several false reports that Caimi wrote a book titled “Slayride” that was adapted for 1984’s “Silent Night, Deadly Night” movie. “Slayride” was actually the original title of Hickey’s “Silent Night, Deadly Night” screenplay before it was made into a movie.

The 1984 film (which was despised by most critics) spawned several forgettable sequels. The 1984 film had an underlying message about the dangers of untreated mental illness and the damage caused when trying to deny chilhood trauma. The 2025 film just makes the story a stereotypical “evil spirit” horror flick. The 2025 “Silent Night, Deadly Night” also takes entirely too long before the troubled protagonist is shown on a killing spree, which doesn’t happen until nearly halfway through the movie.

The 1984 and 2025 “Silent Night, Deadly Night” movies both have the same concept of a boy who witnesses his parents getting murdered by a man dressed as Santa Claus, and then the boy grows up to also become a killer dressed as Santa Claus. In both movies, his murder spree is triggered when he is forced to dress as Santa Claus at his retail store job, after the employee who normally wears the Santa costume is unavailable to do it. The 1984 movie told the story in chronological order, while the 2025 movie tells the story in non-chronological order, by having disjointed flashbacks.

The 2025 version of “Silent Night, Deadly Night” begins in a similar manner to the 1984 version of the movie. A boy named Billy Chapman and his parents visit Billy’s paternal grandfather in a nursing facility. When the parents aren’t in the room, the grandfather warns the boy about Santa Claus being dangerous.

When the boy and his parents are going home in their car, the father (who’s driving) stops the car for a man who is dressed as Santa Claus. The costumed Santa Claus then slaughters the parents in front of the boy. Billy grows up fearing and hating Santa Claus.

In the 1984 movie, at the time of his parents’ murders, Billy is 5 years old in 1971, and he has a younger brother named Richard “Ricky” Chapman, who was a baby at the time of their parents’ murders. The 1984 movie also shows Billy and Ricky during their time in an orphanage in 1974, as well as in 1984, when Billy is 18, the age when he becomes a serial killer.

The Billy Chapman character in the 2025 version of “Silent Night, Deadly Night” has no siblings, and there are no scenes of his childhood in an orphanage. It’s shown later in the movie that Billy had a foster mother (played by Kristen Sawatzky) after his biological parents were murdered. The movie begins by showing Billy at 8 years old (played by Logan Sawyer) with his biological parents Geoffrey Chapman (played by Erik Athavale) and Tara Chapman (played by Krystle Snow), as they all visit Geoffrey’s unnamed father (played by Darren Felbel) in a nursing home.

The family of three are driving home when they encounter the killer Santa Claus, whose real name is later revealed to be Charlie (played by Mark Acheson), who rear-ends the family’s car before shooting Geoffrey and Tara. In the 1984 movie, the killer Santa Claus got the father to stop the car by pretending to be a stranded motorist with car trouble. The 1984 movie showed 5=year-old Billy escaping into a nearby wooded area, which is why he wasn’t killed.

In the 2025 version of “Silent Night, Deadly Night,” the scenes with adult Billy (played Rohan Campbell), who in his late 20s, take place between December 20 to December 24 in an unnamed year. Billy as an adult is first seen in a motel when he wakes up from a nightmare where he relived the murders of his parents. His childhood is only shown as very quick flashbacks that include a few scenes of teenage Billy (played by Kowen Cadorath) with his foster mother. These short flashbacks are in contrast to the 1984 movie, which goes into detail about misfit Billy’s unhappy childhood in a strict orphanage operated by Catholic nuns.

Unlike the 1984 movie, the 2025 movie shows Billy always hearing the voice of the man who killed his parents. Charlie’s voice can be heard in annoying voiceover narration throughout the movie. The reason for Billy constantly hearing Charlie’s voice is explained in a “reveal” toward the end of the movie. The reason is not schizophrenia but the most obvious supernatural reason why Billy is acting like he is continuing Charlie’s legacy.

At the motel, Billy notices that a state trooper named Max (played by David Tomlinson) and another cop are in the motel’s parking and are looking for him, but they don’t see Billy. It’s soon revealed that Billy has already become a serial killer who is being hunted by police. Billy makes a quick escape and gets on a bus. He ends up in Hackett, Minnesota, where he quickly gets a job at a gift shop owned by a widower named Dean Sims (played by David Lawrence Brown), whose daughter Pamela (played by Ruby Modine) also works in the shop.

Billy got the gift shop job because he stalked Pamela (who’s about the same age as Billy), after seeing her on the bus to Hackett. Billy is completely smitten with her. Pamela knows that Billy is weird and stalker type, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She half-jokingly warns Billy that her father says Pamela has “explosive personality disorder” because of her tendency to explode with anger.

Pamela isn’t kidding about having a nasty temper: She lands in jail for beating up a boy who bullied her pre-teen nephew at the children’s hockey practice. Billy sees this assault because Pamela invited Billy to go with her to watch this hockey practice. Because Billy is a secret serial killer, Pamela’s violence doesn’t really bother him. “Silent Night, Deadly Night” has a very tepid romance between Billy and Pamela, who do not have believable chemistry together. They are just two emotionally damaged people who are lonely and looking for companionship.

And what a coincidence: Pamela’s ex-boyfriend happens to be state trooper Max, who is at the jail where Pamela is held until she’s released on bail. Another coincidence: A woman named Delphine Anderson (played by Sharon Bajer) was at the hockey practice where Pamela assaulted a boy. Delphine seems to be a concerned citizen. But, of course, she shows up later and reveals a different side to herself.

The gift shop has a tradition of having Santa Claus meet-and-greet with local kids. George Vilmo (played by Tom Young) is the employee who usually dresses up as Santa Claus for this event. However, George becomes unavailable this year, so Billy is asked to substitute for George and dress up as Santa Claus. And you know what that means.

Much later, the movie quickly dumps in a backstory for why Billy became a serial killer when he was 17. This backstory should’ve been told much earlier in the film, which makes Billy a hollow mystery for too much of the story. In the 1984 movie, Billy becomes a product of his cruel upbringing and untreated mental illness. As bad as the movie is, the 1984 version of “Silent Night, Deadly Night” had something to say about systemic failures in child welfare.

The 2025 movie tries to give Billy a more “noble” purpose, by making him a vigilante with supernatural powers. By attempting to portray Billy as a more sympathetic villain, the 2025 version of “Silent Night, Deadly Night” just dilutes how terrifying this killer is supposed to be to ordinary people who aren’t doing anything wrong. “Silent Night, Deadly Night” also misses many opportunities to incorporate more Santa Clause lore into the story.

The movie also makes the mistake of telegraphing who is going to get killed next because Billy literally envisions the words ordering him to murder whomever the next victim will be. The 2025 version of “Silent Night, Deadly Night” plods along with tedious repetition and no suspense. This movie, which hints at a sequel, is more like a lump of coal than an appealing gift for horror fans.

Cineverse released “Silent Night, Deadly Night” in U.S. cinemas on December 12, 2025.

Review: ‘Beast of War,’ starring Mark Coles Smith, Joel Nankervis, Maximillian Johnson, Lee Tiger Halley, Sam Parsonson, Tristan McKinnon and Sam Delich

January 10, 2026

by Carla Hay

Pictured clockwise, from left: Lee Tiger Halley, Mark Coles Smith, Maximillian Johnson and Joel Nankervis in “Beast of War” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)

“Beast of War”

Directed by Kiah Roache-Turner

Culture Representation: Taking place in Australia and in the Indian Ocean’s Timor Sea, in 1942, the horror film “Beast of War” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Asian and indigenous people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: After their ship crashes and overturns, seven World War II Australian soldiers get stranded in the Indian Ocean’s Timor Sea, where they are attacked by a great white shark. 

Culture Audience: “Beast of War” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching faking-looking monster movies that are derivative and have laughably bad dialogue.

Mark Coles Smith in “Beast of War” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)

“Beast of War” is a poorly staged and sloppily edited movie about World War II soldiers attacked by a great white shark while stranded at sea. The acting is as terrible as the idiotic dialogue and awful visual effects. None of it looks believable.

Written and directed by Kiah Roache-Turner, “Beast of War” is supposed to take place mostly in the Indian Ocean’s Timor Sea. But all the scenes that are supposed to be in large bodies of water look like they were filmed in a very controlled studio. The movie is also lighted unnaturally, with glowing hues that wouldn’t be found in this environment in real life. This moody lighting is something you might see in a nightclub, not in shark-infested open waters. This phoniness is why “Beast of War” relentlessly insults viewers’ intelligence.

“Beast of War” (which takes place in 1942) begins by showing the soldiers during boot camp in an unnamed wooded area in Australia. The main protagonist is Leo (played by Mark Coles Smith), a heroic type, who immediately clashes with arrogant sleazeball Des Kelly (played by Sam Delich), which leads to a rivalry that affects what happens later in the movie. As shown in the movie, Des has a grudge against Leo because Leo ambushed Des and defeated Des during a boot camp combat training exercise.

The movie wastes some time showing mostly small talk and other activities that reveal nothing about these soldiers’ personal backgrounds or personalities. Leo is portrayed as a stereotypical “good guy,” while Des is portrayed as a stereotypical “bad guy.” All the other soldiers in the movie have generic personalities, except for an eccentric loner named Thompson (played by Sam Parsonson), whose nickname is Tommy.

“Beast of War” has a few scenes where Leo and his boot camp pal Will (played by Joel Nankervis) flirt with two nurses named Susan, nicknamed Susie (played by Laura Brogan Browne), and Hazel (played by Lauren Grimson), who slow dances with Will when Leo and Will sneak off to the nurses’ camp to meet up with Susie and Hazel. These nurses are never seen again in the movie.

That’s because after this rendezvous, the soldiers go on a ship somewhere in the Timor Sea. An explosion (presumably a bomb) causes the ship to crash and sink in the ocean. Most of the people on the ship do not survive this explosion.

However, seven of the soldiers end up on a wooden raft as they fight for survival: Leo, Des, Will, Thompson, Bobby (played by Tristan McKinnon), Teddy (played by Lee Tiger Halley) and Stan (played by Maximillian Johnson). They’ve got one gun, three grenades, a tin of peaches, a can of gas, a knife, two rescue flares and no fresh water. It’s also very foggy during the beginning of their ordeal.

The raft is not too far from a small motorboat that could be their way to get to shore safely. They don’t know if the motorboat will work, but someone has to swim to the motorboat to find out. The stranded soldiers are also at risk of being attacked by Japanese military that’s monitoring the area. And there’s another big problem: Soon after the stranded soldiers end up on the raft, a great white shark attacks.

The first time the shark attacks, it leaps out of the water to bite someone on the raft. And even though the shark is large, there’s no mistaking what it is, someone still screams: “What the fuck was that?” Leo answers, “Shark. A big one.” This is the type of brain-dead dialogue that pollutes the film. Some of the dialogue is also too modern for 1942.

Leo knows a lot about sharks because his younger brother Archie (played by Aswan Reid) was killed by a shark, as seen in flashbacks. Leo witnessed this brutal death, and he is still haunted by it. That’s the only backstory that’s given to Leo, who gets more background information in the movie than the other characters get.

In every shark attack movie, at least someone seems to lose a limb. In this movie, it’s Stan who has this unlucky fate first. His left leg is bitten off by the shark. There are some unrealistic “shark versus man” scenes underwater. And the movie gets more ridiculous as it goes along.

“Beast of War” has a lot of shouting and bloody scenes, but it’s just gory noise that has no creativity or real suspense. It’s a horror movie that’s never very scary, especially because the shark looks like a throwaway animatronic from an amusement park. It’s also very easy to predict and who will die in this movie. A caption in the beginning of “Beast of War” says that the movie is “inspired by true events,” but this low-quality abomination looks as realistic as a shark assembling a gas station toilet.

Well Go USA released “Beast of War” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and on VOD on October 10, 2025. Shudder and AMC+ will premiere the movie on January 16, 2026.

Review: ‘We Bury the Dead’ (2026), starring Daisy Ridley

January 2, 2026

by Carla Hay

Daisy Ridley in “We Bury the Dead” (Photo by Nic Duncan/Vertical)

“We Bury the Dead” (2026)

Directed by Zak Hilditch

Culture Representation: Taking place in Australia, the horror film “We Bury the Dead” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few indigenous people and black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: After a nuclear accident in Australia’s island state of Tasmania leaves about 500,000 people dead and turns other people into zombies, a physical therapist travels to Tasmania to find her husband and has unexpected encounters. 

Culture Audience: “We Bury the Dead” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Daisy Ridley and zombie movies that are less about gore and more about the psychological impact of a zombie apocalypse.

Daisy Ridley in “We Bury the Dead” (Photo courtesy of Vertical)

“We Bury the Dead” is a different type of zombie apocalypse movie that is more about psychological effects for uninfected survivors than on gory action scenes. The movie has unanswered questions but interesting performances. “We Bury the Dead” will frustrate viewers who are expecting to see a lot of battle scenes between uninfected zombies and uninfected human survivors. The movie has some zombie/human fight scenes, but they are mostly one-on-one fights, and they don’t get a lot of screen time in “We Bury the Dead.”

Written and directed by Zak Hilditch, “We Bury the Dead” had its world premiere at the 2024 Adelaide Film Festival and its North American premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival. The movie takes place mostly in Australia’s island state of Tasmania. “We Bury the Dead” was filmed in Australia’s Great Southern Region, particularly in the city of Albany.

“We Bury the Dead” begins by showing a flashback to the wedding of physical therapist Ava (played by Daisy Ridley) and renewable energy executive Mitch (played by Matt Whelan), who are both in their 30s. Ava is American. Mitch is Australian. Their wedding is a happy occasion, but these wedding scenes are interrupted by a present-day voiceover of Ava frantically leaving voice messages for Mitch.

“Tell me you’re okay,” Ava says while breathing heavily, as if she’s panicking. “I’m scared. I need you. I love you. I’ll keep trying.” It’s later revealed that Mitch and Ava do not have children, but they have been trying to start a family, with no luck.

News reports on TV show that Australia has recently experienced a disastrous tragedy: The U.S. military accidentally deployed an experimental weapon off of the coast of Tasmania the week before. About 500,000 people across Tasmania died as a result of this catastrophe. The city of Hobart was completely decimated. An untold number of other people are “undead” zombies.

Mitch had traveled to Tasmania for a business conference/retreat and was staying at a place called Enso Resort when the disaster happened. The resort, much like most of Tasmania, is now considered a disaster area, where there is no communication available through technology. Mitch is considered a missing person.

Ava is determined to find Mitch. And so, she travels by airplane to Tasmania, on a flight where many other loved ones of missing people are also taking this trip for similar reasons. The Australian government has a volunteer “body retrieval” program, where adult civilians go to Tasmania and get bodies that need to be buried or cremated. Ava has signed up for this volunteer program because it’s the best way to get access to areas that are otherwise off-limits to the general public.

When she gets to the check-in area for the body retrieval job, Ava mentions to a briefing colonel (played Kim Fleming) that Ava’s husband is missing in Tasmania. The colonel warns Ava that if Ava uses her work time to find Ava’s husband instead of retrieving bodies, then Ava will be sent home. Ava says she understands, but you can tell Ava doesn’t care about this warning because her main goal will still be to find Mitch.

Ava attends a very short orientation session with other new volunteers. A military official named Captain Vance (played by Dan Paris) informs the group that the stories that they might have heard are true: There are survivors in Tasmania who are walking around as if “the lights are on but nobody’s home.” He doesn’t use the word “zombie,” but his message is clear: Be on the lookout for these zombies. Ava also finds out that the longer these survivors are in a zombie state, the more aggressive and violent they get.

“We Bury the Dead” has a few flimsy plot holes that are not adequately addressed. The volunteers are given no real training on how to do body disposals and are not required to wear any safety gear (such as hazmat suits) and are not supplied with any weapons. It’s a very irresponsible for a government to put civilians (most of whom are untrained rescue workers) in this type of danger, when it’s still unknown what the hazards and side effects will be of disaster caused by a weapon of mass destruction. You don’t have to be scientist to know that the existence of zombies is proof that people have been infected.

In the beginning of the movie, “We Bury the Dead” makes a brief mention of the international political fallout of this disaster. A TV news report says that protests in Washington, D.C., have escalated. Pressure has reached a “fever pitch” from the United Nations and the Australian prime minister to hold the U.S. president accountable for this disaster. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense that the Australian government would put Australian residents in more jeopardy by starting a volunteer “body retrieval” program without giving the volunteer workers any common-sense protections.

Questionable government decisions aside, “We Bury the Dead” is mostly an intimate portrait of how this work affects Ava. The volunteer body retrievers are supposed to work with at least one partner. Ava’s first partner (played by Deanna Cooney), who doesn’t have a name in the movie, ends up quitting immediately because the job is more traumatic than she thought it would be, and she wants to go back home to her daughters.

Ava’s next partner is a roguish type named Clay (played by Brenton Thwaites), who takes a hardened and cynical approach to this type of work. Ava is more emotional and is more concerned about following safety protocol than Clay is. At first, Ava wears an optional gas mask on the job, but Clay mocks her for it. Ava, just like Clay, ends up wearing no safety gear. As for weapons to fight the violent zombies, Ava’s weapon of choice is an axe, which she finds on her own. Just like in other zombie movies, “We Bury the Dead” shows that zombies can be killed by blows to their heads.

It takes a while, but Clay and Ava eventually open up to each other about their closest relationships and why they decided to volunteer for this body retrieval job. But another shortcoming of the movie is reveals nothing about the families of Ava and Mitch. It’s possible that Ava and Mitch could be estranged from their families, but the movie doesn’t say either way.

“We Bury the Dead” does reveal some more information about what Ava and Mitch’s marriage was like before Mitch went on the business trip. The movie also shows if Clay agrees to help Ava find Mitch. During their time together, Ava and Clay encounter a lone military official named Riley Harris (played by Mark Coles Smith), who has an agenda of his own. Something to do with Riley’s personal life ends up being a factor in the movie’s climactic scene. This low-budget film has believable visual effects, as well as convincing makeup and hairstyling for the zombies.

“We Bury the Dead” is somewhat of a “buddy movie” that shows how two people with differences in their personalities and backgrounds can meet under unusual circumstances and learn to trust each other while working together. Thwaites is believable in his role as rebellious Clay. Ridley gives a fairly adequate performance that is slightly marred by her inconsistent speaking accent for this role. Ava is American, but Ridley (who is British in real life) sounds American or British in her portrayal of Ava. It’s a minor flaw that doesn’t ruin the movie, but it’s a distraction that could’ve been prevented with better direction.

One of the best aspects of “We Bury the Dead” is the visually artistic cinematography by Steve Annis. The movie skillfully conveys the dichotomy of being in an area with wide open spaces but still feel doom and claustrophobia of being stuck in this area because zombies can suddenly appear and attack. “We Bury the Dead” will bore or annoy people who expect the movie to be a more typical zombie film that has epic chases and fight scenes. But for people who are open to a more introspective look at surviving a zombie apocalypse, “We Bury the Dead” can be a satisfying movie experience.

Vertical released “We Bury the Dead” in U.S. cinemas on January 2, 2026. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on December 22, 2025.

Review: ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,’ starring Josh Hutcherson, Piper Rubio, Elizabeth Lail, Freddy Carter, Theodus Crane, Wayne Knight, Mckenna Grace and Skeet Ulrich

December 4, 2025

by Carla Hay

Toy Freddy (voiced by Kellen Goff), Elizabeth Lail, Piper Rubio and Josh Hutcherson in “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” (Photo by Ryan Green/Universal Pictures)

“Five Nights at Freddy’s 2”

Directed by Emma Tammi

Culture Representation: Taking place in 2002 (with a brief flashback to 1982), in the fictional an unnamed city in Minnesota, the horror film “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” (a sequel to 2023’s “Five Nights at Freddy’s” and based on the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” video game franchise) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Asians and Latin people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A man and his 11-year-old sister are pulled back into the horror antics of killer animatronic robots from a defunct family entertainment restaurant called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. 

Culture Audience: “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” franchise, the movie’s headliners, and poorly made, repetitive horror movies that have no surprises.

David Andrew Calvillo, Mckenna Grace and Teo Briones in “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” (Photo by Ryan Green/Universal Pictures)

The lackluster and sloppily made horror flick “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” only manages to confirm two truths in movies: (1) Most sequels are inferior to the original. (2) Most video game adaptations are terrible. “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” is just a boring and more incoherent rehash of 2023’s “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” which was one of the worst horror movies released by a major studio that year.

“Five Nights at Freddy’s” was directed by Emma Tammi and written by Tami, Scott Cawthon (who created the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” video game series) and Seth Cuddeback. For “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” Tammi returns as director, but the screenplay was only written by Cawthon. This is clearly not a case where the creator of a video game can blame other screenwriters for making awful movie versions of the video game.

Is it necessary to see or know what happened in the first “Five Nights at Freddy’s” movie before seeing “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2”? Yes. “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” has several references to spoiler information that was in the first “Five Nights at Freddy’s” movie. The plot of “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” is already messy. Anyone who doesn’t know what happened in the first “Five Nights at Freddy’s” movie will be even more confused when watching “Five Nights at Freddy 2.”

“Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” (which takes place in an unnamed city in Minnesota) begins by showing a killing that took place in 1982, at a family entertainment restaurant called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, which is part of a chain of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza entertainment restaurants that are similar to the real-life Chuck E. Cheese restaurant chain. (“Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” was actually filmed in Louisiana.) Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza has human-sized animatronic figures of animals, including the company mascot: a bear named Freddy Fazbear.

A girl named Charlotte (played by Audrey Lynn Marie), who’s about 11 or 12 years old, is sitting cross-legged near a trap door in the middle of a stage. Charlotte’s best friend Vanessa (played by Miriam Spumpkin) tries to coax Charlotte away from the trap door and invites Charlotte to sit with Vanessa and her friends. Vanessa tells Charlotte that Charlotte shouldn’t think that Charlotte’s deceased mother is “down there,” as in underneath the trap door. Charlotte seems sad and oblivious to what Vanessa is saying.

Charlotte continues to sit by herself when she sees a boy, who’s about 7 or 8 years old (played Logan Horwitz), being lured outside by someone dressed as a yellow rabbit. Charlotte frantically tells several adults what she just witnessed, but they are dismissive of her. Charlotte decides to take matters into her own hands and try to find the boy herself. She sees the yellow rabbit figure in the restaurant’s kitchen, with his back turned while he is using the sink. The boy is unconscious on the floor.

As Charlotte is carrying the boy out of the kitchen, the Freddy figure sees her, chases after her, and then stabs her. Charlotte staggers wounded onto the stage while the rescued boy runs back to his mother. Charlotte falls into the trap door and is next seen when a human-sized marionette figure (whose face somewhat resembles Billy the Puppet from the “Saw” movies) emerges from the trap door and is carrying Charlotte’s dead body. All the people in the room just stare in silence. It looks as phony and unconvincing as it sounds. The Marionette monster becomes one of the serial killers in “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2.”

“Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” then fast-forwards 20 years later, to 2002. Vanessa has grown up to be a local police officer named Vanessa Shelly (played by Elizabeth Lail), who has recovered from the injuries that she received in the first “Five Nights at Freddy’s” movie, which took place in the year 2000. As already revealed in the first “Five Nights at Freddy’s” movie, Vanessa is the daughter of William Afton (played by Matthew Lillard), a serial killer of children in the 1980s. William would lure his victims from Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza while he was dressed as a character named Yellow Rabbit. (It’s the same murderer who killed Charlotte.) William appears in a few hallucinations and in a brief dream sequence in “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2.”

In the first “Five Nights at Freddy’s” movie, the souls of William’s victims haunted the killer animatronic toys at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, which shut down back in the early 1980s, when kids started disappearing from there. A financially struggling young man named Mike Schmidt (played by Josh Hutcherson) took a job as a security guard at the shuttered and abandoned Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. Mike’s parents are deceased, so he is the guardian of his younger sister Abby Schmidt (played by Piper Rubio), who was 9 years old in the first “Five Nights at Freddy’s” movie. Mike and Abby discovered the secrets of the animatronic toys that came to life.

Abby grew emotionally attached to the animatronic toys that included Freddy (voiced by Kellen Goff), who makes his return in “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2.” “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2″ has also has these animatronic toys that go on a murderous rampage with Freddy and The Marionette: yellow chicken Chica (voiced by Megan Fox); red pirate fox Foxy (also voiced by Goff); and blue rabbit Bonnie (voiced by Matthew Patrick). In Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” Abby (who is now 11 years old) misses interacting with her animatronic “friends,” so she secretly attempts to revive them.

And what a coincidence: Abby (who is a student at East Lake Middle School) is learning robotics in her science class, which has a mean-spirited teacher named Mr. Berg (played by Wayne Knight), whose fate in the movie can easily be predicted. A lot of kids in the community want to go to a Fazfest event that is a morbid tribute to the animatronic toys from Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. Mr. Berg has strictly forbidden his students from going to Fazfest, which is taking place at the same time as the East Lake Middle School science fair that Mr. Berg is requiring the students to attend. For the past three years, Mr. Berg has been the teacher of the class that wins the science fair’s competition, and he wants to win again this year.

Meanwhile, three teenagers who have a TV show called “Spectral Scoopers” (for paranormal investigations) have gone to the original Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza location (which is still run-down and abandoned) to film what they find there. The three teenagers are Lisa (played by Mckenna Grace), Rob (played by David Andrew Calvillo) and Alex (played by Teo Briones), who seem to be the only people working on this low-budget show, which is mostly likely on a public-access channel. Alex is the camera operator and Lisa and Rob are the hosts. The three teens (who are mostly generic characters) are taken to this location by a creepy guy named Michael (played by Freddy Carter), who is obviously up to no good. Michael has a secret that is eventually revealed toward the end of the movie.

“Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” has a flimsy story with many plot holes, basically showing that the murderous animatronic toys are looking for new souls to inhabit them. Therefore, the movie is just a bunch of chase scenes with some people getting killed or having their souls stolen by the serial killer toys. The movie’s visual effects aren’t very impressive. And the scares are very limp, cliché and uninteresting.

Supporting characters in “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” include Mike’s loyal friend Jeremiah (played by Theodus Crane) and engineer Henry Emily (played by Skeet Ulrich), whose daughter Charlotte was shown murdered in the beginning of the movie. All of the movie’s cast members give mediocre performances, with Rubio making the most effort to have a relatable character. “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” (which has a mid-credits scene that hints at an inevitable sequel) is the epitome of a lazy “cash grab” movie whose only creative accomplishment is making “Five Nights at Freddy” one of the most boring and most idiotic horror movie franchises of all time.

Universal Pictures will release “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” in U.S. cinemas on December 5, 2025.

Review: ‘Keeper’ (2025), starring Tatiana Maslany and Rossif Sutherland

November 14, 2025

by Carla Hay

Tatiana Maslany and Rossif Sutherland in “Keeper” (Photo by Asterios Moutsokapas/Neon)

“Keeper” (2025)

Directed by Osgood Perkins

Culture Representation: Taking place in 2023, in an unnamed part of Canada, the horror film “Keeper” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with one Asian person and one Latina) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A medical doctor and a painter artist, who have been dating each other for one year, take a getaway trip to the doctor’s family cabin in a remote wooded area, where the woman in the relationship has terrifying experiences. 

Culture Audience: “Keeper” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Osgood Perkins, and people who don’t mind watching vague horror movies that rush through a muddled plot reveal.

A scene from “Keeper” (Photo by Asterios Moutsokapas/Neon)

“Keeper” is a series of creepy and grotesque images in search of a coherent plot. Most of this mopey “cabin in the woods” horror flick is a boring waiting game for the biggest scares to happen. Although some of the visual imagery is unique, it’s not enough to make “Keeper” a genuinely interesting film because the story ideas are too underdeveloped.

Directed by Osgood Perkins and written by Nick Lepard, “Keeper” had the potential to be a terrifying mystery with fascinating characters. Instead, the characters are merely vague sketches of personalities with drab dialogue. And although horror movies often rely on having characters who make stupid decisions, the protagonist shows an astounding lack of common sense that’s all in service of the movie’s flimsy reason from why the protagonist is “stuck” in the woods.

“Keeper” is yet another horror movie about deadly things happening to people who are in an isolated wooded area. “Keeper” takes place in an unnamed part of Canada. The movie was actually filmed in Vancouver.

“Keeper” begins by showing a montage of four women in different time periods. Louise (played by Claire Friesen) is in 1788. Julia (played by Erin Boyes) is in 1956. Francis (played by Gina Vultaggio) is in 1978. Leslie (played by Christin Park) is in 1983. It’s the first indication that the horror in the story has been happening for centuries.

Each woman is seen with various expressions on their faces in these scenarios: (1) looking at a love interest for the first time: (2) being in a romantic relationship with this love interest; and (3) feeling disillusioned and disgusted by this love interest. No words are spoken in these montage scenes, and the person they are looking at is not seen on camera.

“Keeper” than fast-forwards to November 2023. Medical doctor Malcolm Westbridge (played by Rossif Sutherland) is taking his painter artist girlfriend Liz (played by Tatiana Maslany) to a remote wooded area where his family has owned a cabin and guest house for years. Liz is a city dweller who’s uncomfortable with being in rural environments. However, she has accompanied Malcolm on this trip because she wants to please him.

This will be the first time that Liz is going to this family property. It’s mentioned early on in the movie that Malcolm and Liz have been dating each other for a year. It’s actually the month of their one-year anniversary. Later, in a conversation between Malcolm and Liz, it’s revealed that the couple met when Malcolm bought one of Liz’s paintings.

Before going to the cabin, Liz is seen talking on the phone with her best friend Maggie (played by Tess Degenstein), who expresses surprise that “subway rat” Liz would want to be in this remote area for any length of time. Liz considers herself open-minded enough to try new things. She also thinks this could be a romantic getaway trip.

Malcolm and Liz are affectionate with each other, but there’s some underlying tension between them. One of the first things that they see when they arrive in the cabin is a cake box on the front porch. Malcolm explains that the cake was left as a gift by the property’s female caretaker, who likes to give this cake as a “tradition.”

The first third of “Keeper” consists of monotonous conversations between Malcolm and Liz, who feels increasingly uncomfortable because she’s been having strange visions and dreams. An eerie scene in the movie shows Liz taking a warm bath and something unseen draws a heart on the steam-misted window behind her. There are also indications that a strange creature with very long arms is lurking in the woods can can sneak into the house.

Malcolm and Liz get an unexpected visit from Malcolm’s younger cousin Darren (played by Birkett Turton), a sleazy and sexist jerk who stays in the guest house when he comes to visit. Malcolm was not expecting Darren to be there, but since it’s family-owned property, Darren feels entitled to show up whenever he feels like it. Malcolm and Darren give the impression that they don’t like each other very much.

Darren is accompanied by an Eastern European model named Minka (played by Eden Weiss), who doesn’t speak much English and is only there to be Darren’s most recent trophy girlfriend. Darren is sure to announce to everyone that Minka is a party girl who likes molly (slang for Ecstasy), and he’s the one in control of the relationship because he pays for everything that she enjoys with him. Minka seems to be aware and consenting of this transactional relationship.

The chocolate cake that was in the cake box is on the kitchen counter. One of the few things that Minka says in English is when she nods toward the cake and tells Liz that the cake “tastes like shit.” It’s at this point that you know Liz is going to eat that cake.

And sure enough, after Darren and Minka have left, Malcolm persuades a reluctant Liz to eat a piece of the cake. Liz doesn’t want to eat the cake at first because she tells Malcolm that she doesn’t like chocolate. However, he convinces her to eat some cake by manipulating her into thinking that if she does it, it will prove that she’s loyal to him. As soon as Liz eats the cake, you know things are going to get worse for her.

A day or two later, Malcolm says he has to temporarily leave the cabin because of a work-related emergency. He tells Liz that an elderly patient named Mrs. Portnoy is coming out of a medically induced coma, and he needs to be there when Mrs. Portnoy regains consciousness. Malcolm leaves in the car that he and Liz took to get to the cabin, so Liz is now stuck with no transportation. You can easily predict that when Liz is alone in the house, there will be more jump scares and unexplained sightings.

One of the things that will alienate viewers from Liz is that when she has conversations, she has a smug and sarcastic attitude where she seems to think she’s the smartest person in the room. However, Liz isn’t as intelligent as she thinks she is because when things get to be too uncomfortable and frightening for Liz at the cabin, she only calls Maggie to give her a ride out of this place, as if Maggie is the only person who could possibly give her a ride. Hasn’t Liz heard of car services? Apparently, the filmmakers of “Keeper” expect viewers to forget car services exist.

“Keeper” then lumbers along until the last third of the movie, which is a parade of memorable but ultimately shallow imagery of certain beings that look like they would fit right in at an amusement park’s haunted house attraction. And just like a haunted house attraction, the jump scares in “Keeper” are fleeting. The movie’s visually striking cinematography (by Jeremy Cox) and effectively spooky music score (by Edo Van Breemen) are two of the few assets for “Keeper.”

The performances in the movie are serviceable, with Maslany as the only cast member who’s required to show a myriad of emotions. Maslany is certainly skilled at being a “scream queen,” but her Liz character just isn’t very believable with all of Liz’s lapses in logic. And it’s too easy to figure out very early in the story who the chief villain is.

In a story already filled with plot holes, the ending of “Keeper” seems cobbled together, like a screenplay that wasn’t completely finished before a deadline. “Keeper” also missed huge opportunities to tell more about Louise, Julia, Francis and Leslie. The movie couldn’t even make the protagonist a well-rounded character. And that’s why it’s not surprising that everyone else in “Keeper” is also just an empty vessel in a very flawed horror movie that has more style than substance.

Neon released “Keeper” in U.S. cinemas on November 14, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on December 9, 2025.

Review: ‘Jatadhara,’ starring Sudheer Babu, Sonakshi Sinha and Divya Khosla Kumar

November 13, 2025

by Carla Hay

Sonakshi Sinha and Sudheer Babu in “Jatadhara” (Photo courtesy of Zee Studios)

“Jatadhara”

Directed by Venkat Kalyan and Abhishek Jaiswal

Hindi or Telugu with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in an Kerala, India, the horror film “Jatadhara” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A ghost hunter, who says he doesn’t believe in ghosts, fights a supernatural demon of greed. 

Culture Audience: “Jatadhara” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and people who don’t mind watch idiotic horror movies.

Jhansi Laxmi, Naveen Neni and Sudheer Babu in “Jatadhara” (Photo courtesy of Zee Studios)

No horror movie fan should endure the sloppy and incoherent dreck that is Jatadhara. It’s a badly acted and tedious jumble of nonsense about a ghost hunter whose family legacy is tied to Dhanapisachini (a female greed demon), with tacky visual effects. Adding to the ridiculousness of it all are song-and-dance numbers that look very out of place.

Directed by Venkat Kalyan and Abhishek Jaiswal, “Jatadhara” was written by Kalyan. The movie has choppy film editing that makes this already messy story even messier. “Jatadhara” takes place in Kerala, India, where Malayalam is the official language. And yet, “Jatadhara” was filmed in Hindi and in Telugu. Don’t expect an explanation.

The movie’s main protagonist is Shiva (played by Sudheer Babu), a self-described ghost hunter, who says he doesn’t believe in ghosts. Shiva has a day job selling technology devices. Shiva has two sidekicks in his “debunking” ghost-hunting missions: Rajesh (played by Naveen Neni) and Janki (played by Jhansi Laxmi), a couple who get engaged during the course of the story.

The first half of “Jatadhara” drags with repetitive scenes of Shiva, Rajesh and Janki doing things like poking around caves and dark buildings with flashlights as they look for ghosts. In an early scene in the movie, the trio goes into a factory that is supposedly haunted by the ghost of the factory owner, who allegedly raped and murdered children.

Even though Shiva says he doesn’t believe in ghosts, strange paranormal things are happening to him. At night, he wakes up to find his bed levitating. He also has unexplained nightmares. In one of the nightmares, he keeps seeing a woman holding a knife over a baby in a crib, as if she’s about to kill the baby.

None of these scenes are terrifying and just highlight how fake the movie’s visual effects look. After Rajesh and Janki get engaged, the movie then has a horrible and abrupt shift to a song-and-dance scene at Rajesh’s bachelor party, where Shiva and a random exotic dancer do some “bump and grind” dancing.

Shiva gets a love interest named Sithara (played by Divya Khosla Kumar), an archeological researcher. Shiva and Sithara have their “meet cute” moment when she pepper sprays him because she mistakenly thinks he’s going to harm her. Later on, Shiva and Sithara are officially introduced to each other because Shiva’s mother Devi (played by Indira Krishnan) knows Sithara’s unnamed mother (played by Rupa Laxmi). During this re-acquaintance, Sithara tells Shiva that she’s sorry for using pepper spray on him.

Shiva finds out that his bizarre paranormal experiences are the result of a family curse that awakened Dhanapisachini (played by Sonakshi Sinha) because someone in his immediate family got greedy for gold and offered Shiva as a sacrifice when he was a baby. The other people in his immediate family are his parents Devi and Vasu (played by Ravi Prakash), Shiva’s aunt Shobha (played by Shilpa Shirodkar), and Shiva’s uncle Balraj (played by Rohit Pathak). Devi is Balraj’s sister. Supporting characters in the movie include ghost hunter Manish Sharma (played by Srinivas Avasarala), priest/pandit Neelkanth Shastri (played by Subhalekha Sudhakar) and an unnamed tantrik (played by Pradeep Rawat).

Much of the last third of “Jatadhara” has long-winded flashback scenes of the events that led up to the family curse. It’s a chaotic mishmash of people chanting rituals while sitting on a pentagram; a shrieking Dhanapisachini swooping around the room, as she sticks out her tongue and waves her arms around to try to scare people; cattle being sacrificed as part of the ritual; and people occasionally getting demon-possessed and doing things like licking blood off of the floor. Most of it looks silly instead of scary.

It all leads to an inevitable showdown between Dhanapisachini and Shiva, who obviously has to rethink his disbelief in ghosts. The movie’s characters and dialogue are very shallow, while the terrible acting makes everything worse. The only people who should be horrified from watching “Jatadhara” are the people responsible for making this embarrassing flop.

Zee Studios released “Jatadhara” in U.S. cinemas and in India on November 7, 2025.

Review: Diés Iraé (2025), starring Pranav Mohanlal, Gibin Gopinath, Sushmita Bhat, Jaya Kurup and Arun Ajikumar

November 2, 2025

by Carla Hay

Pranav Mohanlal in “Diés Iraé” (Photo courtesy of Home Screen Entertainment)

“Diés Iraé” (2025)

Directed by Rahul Sadasivan

Malayalam with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in India, the horror film “Diés Iraé” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A wealthy heir to an architecture fortune believes he is being haunted by a vengeful spirit because of the suicide of a woman whom he briefly dated and callously dumped.

Culture Audience: “Diés Iraé” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and supernatural horror movies that have some unexpected twists and turns.

Gibin Gopinath in “Diés Iraé” (Photo courtesy of Home Screen Entertainment)

“Diés Iraé” is a horror movie that is more hit than miss in this story about a man who’s being haunted by a mysterious ghost. This suspenseful film has excellent sound design, good acting and a few plot twists that overcome the occasional dull pacing. The ending of the movie might get mixed reactions from viewers, but it’s an example of how the movie refuses to be too predictable.

Written and directed by Rahul Sadasivan, “Diés Iraé” (“Day of Wrath” in Latin) begins not by showing the protagonist but by showing someone who ends up helping the protagonist in the paranormal investigation that is in most of the movie, which takes place in an unnamed city in India. Madhusudanan “Madhu” Potti (played by Gibin Gopinath) is construction contractor who also happens to be a Brahmin whose specialty is in the occult and paranormal activities. Madhusudanan, who is in his 40s, is also a descendant of Kodumon Potti, a character in Sadasivan’s 2024 movie “Bramayugam.”

Madhusudanan, who lives with his unnamed mother (played by Manohari Joy) is at a construction site of a high-rise building when he gets a phone call to come back to his home because something is going on at a house near where he lives. When Madhusudanan arrives, he sees a small crowd has gathered to watch a dead woman’s body being lifted out of a well. It’s a gruesome sight because her body is already starting to decompose.

It’s soon revealed that the woman was named Kani (played by Sushmita Bhat), was a bachelorette in her early 30s. The cause of death is quickly determined to be suicide. Kani’s immediate family—her brother Kiran (played by Arun Ajikumar), her unnamed father (played by Madan Babu K.), her unnamed mother (played by Sreedhanya) and Kani’s grandmother (played by Sudha Sukumari)—are all devastated by this tragic death. Why did Kani commit suicide?

Rohan Shankar (played by Pranav Mohanlal), a wealthy bachelor in his early-to-mid-30s, thinks he knows why. As he confesses later to Madhusudanan, Rohan and Kani briefly and casually dated soon after seeing each other at a college reunion. Kani had stronger feelings for Rohan than he had for her. She wanted the relationship to become more serious. However, Rohan “ghosted” (cut of communication with no explanation) Kani. She reportedly took this breakup very hard.

Out of guilt over her death, Rohan goes to Kani’s house when no one is there and walks around to see if there are any clues over why she committed suicide. When he gets to her bedroom, he takes a hair clip (as a memento) from her bedroom. Rohan, who divides his time between living in India and in the United States, lives alone in an upscale house built by his architect mogul father.

Rohan has been living the life of a carefree, hard-partying, spoiled heir, but things change almost immediately after Kani’s death. He begins to have nightmares where he sees her dead body. And then, when he’s awake, he’s certain that he’s being haunted by a ghost. Strange things start happening, such as Rohan getting dragged on a floor by an unseen entity, or Rohan losing control of his limbs in a way that indicate something else has taken over his body.

Rohan has four employees who are at his house on a regular basis: a maid named Elsamma (played by Jaya Krupp), an unnamed maid (played by Priya Sreejith) and an unnamed cook (played by Nidhinya Pattavil) and an unnamed security guard (played by Manoj Moorthy), who only works at night at the house. None of these employees has seen or heard anything unusual. Desperate to get answers, Rohan hears about Madhusudanan and Madhusudanan’s psychic abilities, so he asks Madhusudanan for help and tells him

Rohan tells Madhusudanan about why he thinks Kani is the ghost who’s haunting him. Madhusudanan agrees to help Rohan. And so begins their paranormal investigation. One of the first people they interview is Elsamma, who lives next door to where Kani used to live.

Before they interview Elsamma, something very disturbing happens in Rohan’s home. Kani’s brother Kiran, who is a good friend of Rohan’s is visiting, when a mysterious, unseen force picks up Kiran and throws him off of the balcony. Kiran nearly dies and end up in critical condition in a hospital.

If this vengeful ghost is Kani, then why would she want to harm her own brother? More clues are uncovered until the truth is eventually revealed. “Diés Iraé” keeps this ghost mystery fairly simple and doesn’t overstuff the movie with too many characters or too many subplots. The attack on Kiran is probably the most gruesome part of the film, which has more terror in what is unseen rather than any gore that’s seen.

Mohanlal and Gopinath really carry the movie with their performances, because so much of the story is about Rohan and Madhusudanan teaming up for this investigation. The acting is solid, while the movie’s sound, Shehnad Jalal’s effective cinematography and Christo Xavier’s haunting music score are all assets to “Diés Iraé.” The movie’s visual effects are convincing but not spectacular.

The movie’s biggest flaw is a showdown scene where certain people stay in a burning building for too long when they could have and should have exited the burning building a lot sooner. However, this scene doesn’t ruin the movie. “Diés Iraé” is not a groundbreaking film, but it is a worthwhile option for anyone looking for a horror movie that isn’t too gory and is a gripping supernatural thriller.

Home Screen Entertainment released “Diés Iraé” on October 31, 2025.

Review: ‘Dream Eater’ (2025), starring Alex Lee Williams and Mallory Drumm

October 29, 2025

by Carla Hay

Mallory Drumm and Alex Lee Williams in “Dream Eater” (Photo courtesy of The Horror Section)

“Dream Eater” (2025)

Directed by Jay Drakulic (also known as Justin Hewitt-Drakulic), Mallory Drumm and Alex Lee Williams

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in Canada, the horror film “Dream Eater” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with two black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A documentary filmmaker and her unemployed boyfriend go to a remote house in the woods to document his parasomnia for medical purposes, and they experience terror from an evil supernatural presence.

Culture Audience: “Dream Eater” will appeal primarily to people who people who don’t mind watching a sluggish and uncreative horror movie that copies too many ideas from “Paranormal Activity.”

Alex Lee Williams in “Dream Eater” (Photo courtesy of The Horror Section)

“Dream Eater” has a title that refers to this horror movie’s supernatural villain. The title could also apply to how this slow-paced and awful ripoff feeds like a parasite on the original ideas of 2009’s “Paranormal Activity.” “Dream Eater” is nothing but an amateurly made, boring rehash of the “Paranomal Activity” concept of “found footage” that documents someone being possessed by a demon in a house. Considering the numerous other horror movies that have copied the same concept, ever since “Paranormal Activity” became a blockbuster hit and spawned a “Paranormal Activity” franchise, “Dream Eater” is just a substandard and forgettable entry that belongs at the bottom of the heap.

Directed, written and produced by Jay Drakulic (also known as Justin Hewitt-Drakulic), Mallory Drumm and Alex Lee Williams, “Dream Eater” doesn’t have any original ideas during the entire movie. “Dream Eater” is the second movie released from The Horror Section, an independent film distribution company co-founded by Eli Roth and aimed at releasing horror movies from non-mainstream horror filmmakers. The Horror Section’s first release was 2025’s “Jimmy and Stiggs,” an unimpressive and obnoxious splatterfest about two friends fighting space aliens in an apartment unit.

Although it can be commended that The Horror Section is giving distribution to low-budget feature films that might not otherwise get distribution, The Horror Section should at least give these opportunities to films that have true creativity and originality. (It can be done. The horror-oriented streaming service Shudder, which releases many of its original movies in theaters, is an example of how to do it right, when it comes to distributing low-budget movies from lesser-known horror filmmakers.) The Horror Section’s movie releases so far come across as short films masquerading as feature films because they’ve stretched their lengths by inflating their flimsy plots with a lot of dull repetition.

“Dream Eater” is a 90-minute film, but the story could’ve been told in a film that was 30 minutes or less. The movie takes place in an unnamed city in Canada. “Dream Eater” was film in the Canadian province of Ontario. In the movie, Mallory (played by Drumm) and Alex (played Williams) are a troubled , unmarried couple who live together. Mallory is an independent documentary filmmaker. Alex is unemployed.

An opening caption says that the movie’s story takes place from January 29 to March 27, in an unnamed year in the 2020s. During the course of the movie, Alex turns 30 years old. Everything except the movie’s last scene happens at a remote two-story house in the woods. The movie begins with an audio recording of the emergency phone call that Mallory makes when all hell breaks loose. “Dream Eater” circles back to this scene toward the end of the film.

Conversations in “Dream Eater” reveal that Alex and Mallory have rented this house to document Alex’s sleep patterns because he’s been having parasomnia episodes. (Parasomnia includes sleepwalking and nightmares.) Alex’s parasomnia began shortly after Alex quit his unnamed job. A doctor treating Alex for his sleep disorder recommended that Alex go on a getaway trip to rest and suggested that Alex’s sleep patterns should be documented.

Mallory is filming everything that happens while they are at this rental house. In the week before going to this rental house, Alex lashed violently, but this poorly written movie doesn’t go into details. It was Mallory’s idea to rent this house because she wanted to go to a place for a few weeks so there wouldn’t be any distractions. This decision to rent this house has caused tension between Mallory and Alex, who is annoyed because he thinks renting this house is something this financially struggling couple doesn’t need right now. From the outside, it looks like the house has four or five bedrooms.

Alex gets even more annoyed when he sees that the house, which looks upscale on the outside is really shabby on the inside. Mallory’s excuse is that it’s the only rental house with indoor plumbing that she could find and that was within their affordability range. A note left by the house’s owner says that the house’s electricity has “rolling blackouts,” but the electricity can be restored with the circuit breaker in the cellar. It’s really just the movie telegraphing that the house will have power outages during some “jump scare” parts of the movie. Alex half-jokingly remarks that the cellar is bigger than the couple’s apartment.

About 80% of “Dream Eater” is a repeat loop of Alex having parasomnia episodes where Mallory wakes up late at night to see Alex in a sleepwalking trance, and when he comes out of his trance, he has no memory of what he did while in the trance. While in a trance, Alex acts terrified and says things such as “They won’t let me sleep” and “He’s here,” but he won’t say who “he” is. Alex also says he hears a male voice talking to him sometimes when he’s alone.

Alex’s sleepwalking episodes become more disturbing as time goes on. And yes, “Dream Eater” is one of these movies where terror attacks happen in a haunted house, and the people in the house still stay for several days, when people with common sense would’ve left a long time ago. Even in the scene where Alex and Mallory decide to leave, they go as far as putting some items in their car, but Mallory and Alex still remain at the house. It’s all so tedious and cliché. “Dream Eater” is filmed in a very drab manner that’s made worse by Drumm’s very wooden acting.

In between the repetitive parasomnia incidents, the movie shows arguments between Alex and Mallory. Alex is paranoid that Mallory is exploiting his parasomnia to make a documentary where she could possibly profit from it. Of course, Mallory denies those are her intentions and says she only wants to help Alex. Mallory and Alex do not have believable chemistry as a couple, even as a quarreling couple.

The movie also shows a few video calls being made from the house. These video calls break up some of the monotony happening during the rest of this movie that revolves around the lackluster relationship of Alex and Mallory. In one scene, Alex and Mallory do a video call with a sleep disorder specialist named Dr. Marsha Snape (played by Dainty Smith), who tells them that Alex should do a clinical sleep study that would cost $5,000. It’s an amount that Alex and Mallory can’t afford, so that’s something else for grumpy Alex to complain about in the long list of things that he’s unhappy about in his life.

It’s mentioned in the movie that because Dr. Snape knows Alex and Mallory don’t have health insurance, so Dr. Snape is giving them a discount for her services. But if this movie is supposed to take place in Canada (Alex and Mallory have obvious Canadian accents), doesn’t Canada have universal health care that would cover these expenses? A plot hole like this is a small detail that doesn’t derail the plot, but it’s an example of how “Dream Eater” isn’t well-written.

When Alex was a baby, he was placed in the foster care system and ended up being raised by a family where he had a sister named Tammy (played by Robin Akimbo), who has some clues to Alex’s murky past. Alex doesn’t like to talk about his past and doesn’t seem interested in finding out who his biological parents are. Mallory discovers from a ridiculously quick Internet search that other people in the world have been having parasomnia incidents that are similar to what Alex is having.

Mallory finds out from further research that an expert on this phenomenon is Dr. Armitage (played by David Richard), who ends up doing a few Zoom calls with Mallory. DR, Armitage tells her about an ancient entity called Fuller that is described as a sleepwalking zombie that eats the souls of sleepwalkers who are in the same bloodline. Mallory’s detective work falls into place way too easily and looks too fake. The obvious truth about what’s haunting Alex is revealed in a lazily conceived exposition dump that often happens when almost the entire movie takes place in one location.

The acting in “Dream Eater” ranges from mediocre to terrible—although Williams makes an effort to be convincing in the terror scenes, even if some of his performance is amateurish. “Dream Eater” is unrated by the Motion Picture Association, probably because there’s full-frontal male nudity in the movie. The ending of “Dream Eater” is abrupt and quite silly. This creatively bankrupt horror flick has nothing that hasn’t already been seen and done in other horror movies. “Dream Eater” is more likely to conjure up disappointment and boredom instead of fear and terror.

The Horror Section released “Dream Eater” in select U.S. cinemas on October 24, 2025.

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