Monsters

Wind and Bone (2024)

The problem with Algonquin cannibal spirits is they never know wendigo.

In Wind and Bone, budget-conscious filmmakers Michael Tuthill and Kevin Troy drop us in the wild woods of West Virginia, where a carload of reasonably attractive campers decide to pick up Sierra (Julie Kashmanian), a reasonably attractive hitchhiker stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Lacking any sort of excuse, Sierra accepts an invitation from Alistair (Eric Henderson) to join his friends at a nearby cabin in the woods to celebrate a possible proposal from alpha dickhead, Jeff (Joshua Cody) to April (Alex Cody).

Along for the ride is Curtis (Guy Wellman), a Native American guide, who’s only there for seasonal work, and proves to be less than capable when the company is marked for destruction by a local legend that feeds on pain and misery

“I thought you were supposed to be an expert tracker,” Jeff growls.

“I’m from the Burbs, bro,” Curtis confesses.

Let the body count commence!

Only Sierra, the stranger in their midst seems to have the fortitude to fight back, as her newfound camping buddies succumb to a host of attacks by the creature itself, and each other under the wendigo’s malign influence.

Tuthill and Troy wisely elect to go with practical creature effects, pasting an elk-horn helmet on a handy stuntman as a reminder that there is, in fact, a monster on the loose. Periodically we hear it whispering in the trees.

Yes, West Virginia, there is a wendigo.

There are antlers all over the place in Wind and Bone, hanging from trees and peeping around the shrubbery. Thanks to the success of The Ritual, based on the Adam Nevill novel, antlers have become the ubiquitous symbol of folk horror, much like tentacles indicate the presence of Lovecraftian cosmic horror.

Wind and Bone is not nearly as good a movie as The Ritual, but it’s good enough for a fast folk horror fix.

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (2026)

So where’s the mummy?

I can’t help but notice that anyone attempting to resurrect the mummy monster concept avoids the subject. Oh sure, we get Egyptian set dressing, maybe a fez or two from down Cairo way, but there are a distinct lack of bandaged baddies bringing undead justice from the tomb.

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (not to be confused with Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy) is an awkward mix of family drama and occult investigation with all the blood and guts you can eat thrown in at no extra charge.

The story is all over the map to the point where we can’t remember if they’re in Egypt or New Mexico. Oh well, both locales have sand and rocks aplenty.

While stationed in Cairo, TV reporter Charlie Cannon (Jack Raynor, who looks like Seth Rogan’s health-conscious cousin) loses track of his daughter Katie (Natalie Grace) after she’s spirited away by a mysterious woman (Hayat Kamille).

Eight years later, the Cannons are numbing through their shattered lives in Albuquerque, when they are notified that Katie has been found living in a basalt sarcophagus.

Kids today! Am I right?

With no fanfare or preparation, the mostly nonverbal Katie is re-homed with Charlie, his long-suffering wife, Larissa (Laia Costa), invisible son (Shylo Molina), and new daughter Maud (Billie Roy).

From a catatonic cocoon, a new Katie messily emerges, shedding layers of skin at every turn in order to reveal herself as … a possessed murderous child!

Thud.

Irish filmmaker Lee Cronin (Evil Dead Rise, The Hole in the Ground) takes way too long to tell the tale, and the occasional grisly scene or splashy murder is only a reminder that there’s still lots of movie to go, much of it painted in familiar Raimi Day colors.

It’s not all bad news, by any means. Lee Cronin’s The Mummy offers damn fine freaky details and artisan-level craft in its depiction of an ancient curse that just keeps getting grimmer and grosser.

I dare you to watch it and not say “ewww” at least once or twice.

At a running time of two hours and thirteen minutes, you’ll have ample opportunity to admire Cronin’s technique and taste level in creating a competent creature feature, even though we don’t know whether to call a cop or an exorcist.

But you know what? I still miss my Mummy.

Widow’s Bay (2026)

If you’re late to the game, Widow’s Bay has been picked up for a second season by Apple TV! Hooray!

Fright fans are flocking to Widow’s Bay and with good reason. It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet of small-town terrors that somehow walks the finest line between horror and comedy imaginable.

Even the choice of font used in the title (Horror Paperback?) smells authentic to my nose.

Matthew Rhys (The Americans) is inspirational as Tom Loftis, the beleaguered mayor of the titular island town that may well be the most heavily cursed real estate on the East Coast.

His job, trying to get the island’s populace to tone down the spook talk while entertaining prosperous tourists proves an impossible task, but a highly amusing one.

Loftis does his darndest to disavow and debunk the many, many legends that plague Widow’s Bay, but soon realizes he’s in over his head against witches, hags, ghosts, undead killers, haunted fog, and an entire town of charming eccentrics that seem to be better informed on occult matters than he is.

Tom’s trusty assistant Patricia (Kate O’Flynn, who steals scenes, left and right), survived a murderous rampage by local maniac the Boogeyman, while she was a teenager, but finds him back in her life as an adult.

Lonely Patricia feels guilt about the girls who died, wondering why she was spared. The learning of lessons and the potential for personal growth amidst the vivid nightmare scenarios gives Widow’s Bay an extra gear, as we cheer Patricia’s steely determination in dealing with an uncanny enemy.

The third pivotal character is Wyck (Stephen Root), a, crusty, but well-read fisherman with a head full of arcane knowledge, including harrowing details of the original curse that befell Widow’s Bay hundreds of years ago.

There are satchels of intriguing subplots in the mix, but the one that affects everyone is the matter of whether or not you were born on the island—and what happens to people who try to leave.

Widow’s Bay is a big bowl of mystery with enough ghoulish garnish to tickle the fancy of folks in search of their next quality horror hang.

Series creator Katie Dippold is a former Parks and Rec writer, and clearly has a knack for birthing oddball and outré citizens that somehow steal our hearts.

Looking forward to Season 2, but a rewatch of the first is recommended. Lots of stuff going on here.

Life (2017)

Less.

Lifeless would be a more accurate title.

Even with Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, and Ryan Reynolds attached as astronauts in distress, this one never reaches orbit, and instead achieves only minimal trajectory.

Six crew members on the International Space Station discover a single-cell organism among recent samples from Mars. What starts out as a wondrous moment, the meeting of intelligent life forms, quickly becomes another bug hunt, when everyone freaks out.

The astronauts get popped off one by one, as the rapidly adaptable alien known as Calvin, decides the crew is expendable.

The creature effects are decent, giving Calvin a gliding tadpole-starfish-octopoid fluidity through the thin atmosphere as it chases down its prey.

Unfortunately, it’s not frightening, so there’s little tension at play, even as the two survivors race for the escape pods on a space station that’s set for self destruction.

As silver linings go, Life is at least good to look at. The modeling and effects techs do a bang-up job. The International Space Station registers strongly as both a vast and miraculous piece of technology, and a potential tomb that’s getting smaller all the time.

To his credit, director Daniel Espinosa handles the effects deftly, but the script by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick is a lemon, unfolding in all-too-familiar fashion—with one exception.

The end of Life is not a happy one. Is it worth sitting through the rest for a mighty grim payoff?

I’m trending negative on this issue.

What Lives Here (2024)

Nice to have something to fall back on.

What Lives Here, a gore-strewn bloodbath about a hapless moving company hired to clear out a haunted house, is co-written (along with his wife Michele), directed, and starring New Jersey construction boss Troy Burbank, who deserves mention alongside other inspired dilettante filmmakers.

I can’t help but think of Harold P. Warren, the Texas fertilizer salesman responsible for Manos: The Hands of Fate, for instance, or welder Anthony Cardoza partnering up with Coleman Francis to make stupefying entertainment like The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961) and Red Zone Cuba (1966).

For a paltry $25,000, Burbank and a bunch of his friends filmed in and around the Strauss Mansion in Atlantic Highlands for 10 days and the result is What Lives Here, a movie that takes its sweet time about getting anywhere, but erupts with enough bloody mayhem to justify its existence.

There is a story here, about evil twins escaping from a mental hospital and taking up residence in the very house that Lee Duncan (Jeff Swanton) and his band of blue-collar boobs are scheduled to clean out.

But let’s not rush into anything. First, Duncan and his men have to drive from Pennsylvania to New Jersey for the job. This means stopping at a crummy dive bar to eat cheeseburgers for like eight minutes.

One character uses this opportunity to “go take a piss.” And the camera follows him!

Then they arrive at the mansion, and immediately leave again to go get something to eat, leading to another long sequence of beer drinking and crap dialogue.

Meanwhile, a delivery man and a nosy teen stop by and fall victim to one of the murderous grannies running amok in the old house that also very obviously serves as a local historical society, since there are glass display cases and newspaper clippings in every room!

The movers themselves and the Barfly Bettys they meet at the second bar and bring home to be eviscerated, are beer-swilling, working-class zeroes that have nothing on their minds but sex, food, and a paycheck, by gawd.

In other words, easy pickings for old ladies in their nightgowns. Indeed, the deaths carry What Lives Here, as the makeup effects of bodies being hammered, stabbed, and sliced, are actually worth sitting through the abundant blue-collar B-roll.

Even a construction boss director knows you’ve got to deliver the gross goods, or get outta the horror business.

Outpost (2008)

Somewhere in Eastern Europe, government forces are battling insurgents in an unending cycle of carnage.

In Outpost, Hunt (Julian Wadham), a determined financier employs mercenary captain DC (Ray Stevenson) and a band of “hired swords” to accompany him on a hazardous mission to retrieve a piece of Nazi hardware from an underground compound.

Shortly after securing the site, the soldiers find themselves under attack by an unseen enemy, one that can seemingly appear and disappear at will, which makes for a very nervous company.

Meanwhile, Hunt has found his infernal device, risking life and limb to jumpstart an ancient contraption in order to control undead Nazi hordes that are rapidly regrouping on the ground floor.

“You said that that machine of yours was made to control them?” DC shouts at Hunt.

“Not control, contain,” Hunt says. “But they obviously got the maths wrong.”

Director and cowriter Steve Barker correctly understands that Germany’s rumored use of occult practices toward the end of the war is a well-stocked pond of possibilities, and makes the most of it.

After a slow start, Outpost gains momentum as the mercenaries realize they’re up against an opponent beyond their comprehension—an army of teleporting super soldiers that have held their position since the end of the Second World War.

Fortunately, they aren’t advancing. Yet.

Ash (2025)

Get off the planet, or don’t! Makes no difference to me.

Directed by musician Tiny Lotus, Ash is an artsy, indulgent amalgam of sci-fi/horror plot points (from Alien, The Thing, Invasion of the Body Snatchers) that never coalesces into anything terribly original or memorable.

Riya Ortiz (Eiza Gonzalez) is the only survivor of a crew of terra-farmers on KOI-442, a dark, distant planet nicknamed Ash, due to its volcanic activity. Her fellow farmers have been murdered and Riya’s own memories of the traumatic incident are bloody, strobe-light fragments, that Tiny Lotus thoughtfully inserts every few minutes or so.

She is soon joined by another crew member, Brion (Aaron Paul), who’s dropped in from the observation satellite after receiving a distress call. Is he here to help or does he have his own agenda?

Ash provides a teachable moment for aspiring directors. If you’re going with a tiny cast, a little time spent on character development would help immeasurably. Riya and Brion are cyphers in space, and might as well be Nancy and Sluggo for all we care.

A 50-50 chance that one of these nonentities has been infected by a vague assimilating presence from the planet’s defense system isn’t really bringing anything hot and tasty to the table.

Add to this a halting narrative told in flashback, a meandering pace, low lighting (when it’s not strobed), and an intrusive techno score, and you have ample reason to skip it.

Tiny Lotus has his moments as a visual stylist, creating a believably unstable alien landscape. But there’s nobody home, dramatically speaking.

When TL reheats a trope from a better movie, it’s just a bitter reminder that Alien, The Thing, etc, are superior examples of dynamic genre filmmaking—that we could be watching instead.

Whether or not Ash is a complete waste of time depends on one’s fondness for a concept that’s already used up several miles of celluloid, namely, who, what, where is the alien menace and who can I trust?

Trust me, you’re not missing anything interesting on planet Ash.

Marrowbone (2017)

I very much recommend Marrowbone, a visually splendid example of gothic storytelling, and I want everyone to see it.

Then you can tell me what happens at the end! Send your theories to horrificflicks@gmail.com.

Written and directed by Sergio Sanchez, it’s a tragic romance, a ghost story, and a murder mystery focused on the reclusive Marrowbone siblings, who live with their ailing mother on her family’s tumbledown estate in Maine.

The Marrowbones fled England, leaving behind their father Simon, a prodigious murderer, and all-around evil bastard, to rot in jail while hoping for new hopes in the New World.

Jack (George MacKay) is the eldest son, tasked with keeping the family together at all costs, as instructed by his bedridden mother Rose (Nicola Harrison), shortly before she shuffles off her mortal coil.

Fearing that the Marrowbones will be divided up, Jack, Billy (Charlie Heaton), sister Jane (Mia Goth), and youngest brother Sam (Matthew Stagg), continue to insist that Rose is still alive to any interested parties.

The most interested party is Tom Porter (Kyle Soller), a nosy lawyer handling the transfer of the estate over to the now deceased Rose, necessitating Jack and Jane to forge documents and lay claim to ill-gotten family funds.

Tom proves to be a recurring problem, because he’s also got a thing for Jack’s beautiful neighbor Allie (Anya Taylor-Joy). Which is too bad, because Jack saw her first!

As if that crisis wasn’t enough, their notorious daddy escapes from prison and is reportedly on the trail of his absent kinfolk!

Marrowbone is a gorgeous movie to watch, like a creepier Days Of Heaven. Sergio Sanchez photographs the dilapidated mansion with natural light making it into both a living place filled with new opportunities, and a sepia-toned memory in the corner of Jack’s mind.

The cast really brings it, with Mia Goth standing out as the sensitive sister with her own tragic backstory, and Anya Taylor-Joy exudes unwavering love and support for the troubled Marrowbone clan.

Allie’s devotion is one of many questions that will occur to wide-awake viewers, and to the best of my knowledge, Sanchez offers only hazy clues leading to dark possibilities. The lack of concrete answers might sink a lesser film, but Marrowbone is worth puzzling over on a number of fronts.

If it was merely a well-made gothic ghost story, then that would be the end of the discussion. However, that there continues to be Reddit debate as to what actually takes place onscreen, nine years after its release, is evidence of a movie with genuine staying power.

Join the discussion and get back to me, please.

A Desert (2024)

Remember, everything in the desert is trying to kill you.

Yuppie art photographer Alex Clark (Kai Lennox) is returning to the Mojave, in search of fresh inspiration. His artistic milieu includes sun-baked landscapes bereft of humanity, abandoned structures left to the forces of ruination.

Alex is seeking freedom, he explains to his wife Sam (Sara Lind) over the phone. She duly reminds him of his financial obligations awaiting him back in Los Angeles.

Trying to salvage the remains of his enthusiasm, Alex makes friends with Renny (Zachary Ray Sherman), and his blistering hot sister Susie (Ashley Smith), the next door neighbors at his seedy hotel in Yucca Valley.

And quicker than you can say Trap Door Spider, Alex obliviously falls under the influence of Renny, a diabolical desert rat with Manson eyes, freshly emerged from the depths of heck itself.

Renny, as we discover in about two seconds, is a 100 percent, 24-7 predator that sees the agreeable Alex as an easy mark—and so he is.

Back home, Sam hires troubled private investigator Harold Palladino (David Yow) to track down her absent hubby.

Writer-director Joshua Erkman has worked with Ty Segall (who composed the brassy soundtrack) as a video director and he brings a keenly developed eye to the minimalist, sunstroke noir of A Desert.

There is one shot in particular, of Renny sleeping shirtless in a culvert of old electronics gear, that absolutely screams “vampire in his coffin.” Yes, the sun is out, but this guy is as bloodthirsty as the next Count.

We are witness to all the expressive catharsis that Alex is seeking, even as he’s being stalked by one of the creepiest villains in recent memory. Zachary Ray Sherman’s portrayal of Renny is unnerving; a charming opportunist killer with a better game face than Norman Bates.

A Desert is visually dazzling and highly recommended, but upbeat it ain’t. Shit gets mighty grim out there. This moral wasteland is where weaklings go and are never heard from again, becoming a tiny part of the vicious and unforgiving topography.

Don’t ask directions, just flee.

Bad Fish (2024)

If Shadow Over Innsmouth was adapted as a Grade-Z horror film, it might play out something like Bad Fish, written and directed by West Coast indie filmmaker Brad Douglas.

Filmed for measly money over a two-year period in locations near Brookings, Oregon and Crescent City, California, Bad Fish follows alcoholic marine biologist John Burton (Jonny Lee) on a quest for clues in a remote coastal community where fishermen’s body parts keep washing ashore.

After confabbing with Sheriff Porter (Mark Schneider), Burton examines a mangled torso and concludes that this was no boating accident. But it wasn’t a shark either, he decides.

Giant squid? Not known to inhabit these water. And what’s driving away all the salmon?

Turns out it’s all the work of Abby (Abby Wathen), the beguiling bartender at the local boozer, who comes with a whopper of a backstory. Seems when she isn’t mixing martinis, Abby is the leader of a nasty deep-water cult in search of fresh blood (and other fluids).

Despite a few too many talky scenes enacted by amateur thespians, Bad Fish is an admirable, atmospheric, small-town mystery that concludes with Burton getting left without a leg to stand on in a very bad domestic situation.

Not to worry, Douglas has Bad Fish II in the works, so maybe someone will throw the poor sap a lifeline.

Just don’t buy him socks for Christmas.