horror

Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025)

Note: Final Destination: Bloodlines works just fine as a stand-alone feature. It’s not necessary to be familiar with the previous films, but it helps provide context.

The Final Destination franchise is pure boilerplate. Someone has a realistic, sweat-inducing vision of an impending disaster and manages to save lives that would have otherwise been lost in the carnage.

In Bloodlines, it becomes painfully clear that rules are rules when it comes to your expiration date. Through careful vigilance, Iris Campbell (Gabrielle Rose)—who saved a ton of folks from perishing in the nerve-wracking collapse of a Space Needle-like restaurant 50 years ago—is able to keep the Reaper at bay by cloistering herself away as a hermit in a one-room fortified cabin in the middle of nowhere.

Even so, you can’t hide forever.

Iris’s granddaughter Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) and Stefani’s younger brother Charlie (Teo Briones) are next in line to be shredded out of existence unless they can somehow solve the pattern of Death’s List.

Recurring character William John Bludworth (Tony Todd) is a mystical mortician who provides cryptic clues for at-risk protagonists throughout the six-film series. As he tells the latest batch of soon-to-be goners, “Death doesn’t like being cheated.”

Note 2: This was Todd’s last screen performance, and the distinguished horror actor exits in classic fashion, addressing the characters (and us) thusly: “I intend to enjoy the time I have left, and I suggest you do the same. Life is precious. Enjoy every single second. You never know when. Good luck.”

The prospect of being exceedingly vulnerable to dismemberment in everyday situations is the cake and frosting in this formula. Here is the reason we bought the tickets. How do these poor fools meet their doom? Will it be artful and intricate or just the sudden splat of another ill-timed bus?

As usual, the focus falls on objects seen around the house or existing in nature, and directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein helpfully tick off all the nearby instruments of destruction for our consideration, just before the tragic events unfold in Rube Goldberg fashion.

A wayward shard of broken glass in someone’s cocktail should cause a bloody catastrophe, and it does, but the process is open to variables coming into play.

The only certainty here is someone is going out with a bang, style points appreciated.

“Death doesn’t take no for an answer,” Bludworth reminds us.

So it’s no surprise when Death catches up with you, he’s justifiably pissed that you got away, and that’s why the elements leading to the inevitable demise are so squishy and graphic. It’s a warning to anyone who thinks they can escape a (gruesome) fate.

It also provides us with the “aahhh” moment; a cathartic conclusion of a fancy fireworks display.

Final Destination: Bloodlines is a succinct, stylish summation of the entire series, an invitation to certain death that deals us in; a rousing game of Clue with extra corpses.

Like a heckling a good/bad movie, the joy of watching Final Destination: Bloodlines is best shared interactively with friends and family. Everyone can choose a victim and figure out their own Mousetrap method of mutilation.

Wheee!

Sinners (2025)

Enthusiastically recommended and watch out at awards time!

Sinners is the fifth collaboration between writer-director Ryan Coogler (Creed, Black Panther, Fruitvale Station) and star Michael B. Jordan, and it’s an epic whopper of a movie with a blistering blues soundtrack and a depth of soul not typically found in an era of easily disgested entertainment options.

Twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Jordan) return to Clarksdale, Mississippi—after working for Al Capone’s mob in Chicago for seven years—determined to open a juke joint, a place where hard-working sharecroppers and field hands can be free to eat, drink, and dance the night away.

The brothers have contrasting demeanors, but their ambition, to own something free and clear that’s designed to serve the black community, is helped greatly by the large amounts of cash they’ve brought back from the Windy City.

Smoke recruits his former lover Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), a New Orleans hoodoo practitioner, to cook catfish for the crowd, while Stack hustles hooch and henchmen in an effort to keep the peace in their new joint.

On opening night, the club is jammed with folks stomping away to spirited music provided by guitar prodigy Sammy Moore (Miles Caton) and blues elder statesmen Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo).

Coogler is in absolute artistic control of the frenetic proceedings, and the verve and excitement he is able to capture during the dance sequences is unreal. We’re talking mesmeric scenes flowing so organically they’re worthy of repeated watches on their own.

While patrons shake and shimmy, Coogler enlarges the cultural lens to include a heartfelt vision of artists—past and future—caught in the dervish rhythms of the juke joint, and the effect is breathtaking.

“Blues weren’t forced on us like that religion,” Slim tells Sammy. “We brought this with us from home.”

Just when we’re having a peak cultural moment, a trio of vampires disguised as itinerant Irish folk musicians, crash the party and a bloodbath ensues.

There is no reason to believe, as some grumpy critics have implied, that Sinners unexpectedly goes off the rails at this point. Coogler doesn’t bring in the undead as a deux machina or as a concession to a larger, edgier demographic.

The taking of blood and the quick assimilation (exploitation) of blacks into a “protective” white society is a historical hot-button issue at play in Sinners, but it’s far from the only one.

There’s subtext and pointed references worth investigating everywhere, including a mysterious connection between the Choctaw Tribe and Irish immigrants. It’s all intentional on Coogler’s part, as he dares us to consider alternative histories to the ones we’ve been spoon fed.

Visually, musically, and dramatically, Sinners kicks more ass than a 1000 superhero flicks. Add yours to the queue.

The Gorge (2025)

So many genres, so little time.

When the creative team in charge of a film project gets carried away trying to please each and every imagined audience member, the results are usually a load of crap.

The Gorge, written by Zach Dean and directed by Scott Derrickson, seemingly utilizes this kitchen-sink approach, tossing a zesty, messy melange of romance, action, horror, and conspiracy theory that’s a just a tad over two hours in length.

And somehow it works pretty damn well as a super-engaging popcorn flick!

Levi (Miles Teller) and Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy) are two highly trained snipers from different countries assigned guard duty at opposite watch towers on either side of the enormous and mysterious titular gorge.

The mercenaries are armed to the hilt and instructed not to contact each other, but the need for company proves too much for Levi and Drasa, and soon they’re flirtatiously firing rounds, demonstrating their skill and accuracy, while a Ramones record plays.

“I guess this qualifies as a Meet Cute,” I whisper to Mrs. Sharky.

Though separated by a chasm that occasionally spits out monstrous hybrid humanoids called Hollow Men, the hired guns overcome logistical challenges and use a zip line to hook up and become not just a couple, but an elite and capable survival team.

This comes in handy when their military handler (Sigourney Weaver) decides they can no longer be trusted.

Once the protagonists figure out that this version of the future has no future, their decision to join forces is logical and inevitable. Besides, they’re a hot couple, and Drasa is clearly the aggressor, eventually rescuing Levi from an unexpected plummet into the abyss.

Through waves of decent monster attacks and fabulous fire fights, we actually grow fairly attached to Levi and especially the badass Drasa, which helps keep the viewer grounded during the mood shifts and infrequent talky interludes.

The Gorge is also a very impressive example of world-building, an important component to any successful popcorn operation. The mise-en scene has been carefully considered providing a foundation of future realism that looks like it was designed by the prison industrial complex.

No wonder no one want to hang around!

Wolf Man (2025)

The most impressive thing about Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man is that it got made.

Whannell, the Australian horror maestro who introduced us to the Saw and Insidious franchises, clearly has serious show biz clout to get this turkey green-lighted.

This was obviously a “troubled” production.

Blake (Christopher Abbott) is a stay-at-home dad married to busy magazine writer Charlotte (Julia Garner). While Charlotte earns bucks, Blake looks after their daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth), until he’s notified that his father Grady (Sam Jaeger) has been declared officially dead, after being reported missing for several years.

Now the owner of the family farm, Blake drags his dubious brood out to the Middle of Nowhere, and in real time they are attacked by a strange creature (see the film’s title), and spend the evening running and hiding from same.

Meanwhile, Blake, the dutiful husband and father, begins to change into something remarkably similar to the beast that’s stalking them.

Wow. Didn’t see that one coming.

There is little dialogue, which lends itself to Mystery Science Theater ad-libbing during the howlingly bad action sequences, such as Blake gnawing on his own arm, and two guys in simian rubber masks wrestling on a dark floor.

What are we watching?

Wolf Man is simply godawful, and since Whannell directed and cowrote this mess, he gets the lion’s share of the blame.

It’s a complete waste of Julia Garner’s talents, and hopefully won’t interfere with her trajectory as one of Hollywood’s best young actresses. She’s given very little to do besides wander through the night with a flashlight.

I’ve said this before when reviewing werewolf movies and it certainly applies to Wolf Man: If you can’t come up with better transformation effects than The Howling or American Werewolf In London—both of which were made 43 years ago!—then don’t bother.

The Substance (2024)

Your attention horror shoppers!

The Substance should be seen, full stop.

Nominated for five Oscars including best actress for Demi Moore? As it should be.

French writer-director Coralie Fargeat (Revenge) turns up the rage to Nova, and opens the taps at the blood bank in a body horror spectacle that will likely leave a bruise on your soul. It’s definitely worth the uncomfortable moments.

Fargeat gives us the impression that The Substance is another tale of dashed dreams in the Hollywood meat grinder, and it certainly is. In fact, the meat grinding has never been portrayed in such glaring and grotesque detail.

Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is a beloved fitness guru who has gotten too long in the tooth to pump up sponsor sales. She is unceremoniously dumped by the venal head of the network (Dennis Quaid), who announces his plan to find a younger model, while angrily taking a pee.

Fearing for her fading career, Sparkle takes a chance on a miracle rejuvenation drug called The Substance, which promises a “a younger, better version” of yourself.

Her decision to join the program, which includes a grumpy operator, a squalid post office box, hellish injection regimen, and the gradual draining of her own vitality, is the trap springing shut.

It’s only proper that a trouper like Demi Moore has enough presence and pathos to make her vainglorious plight extremely moving, as she’s forced to grapple with her younger, better self (Margaret Qualley) for limited consciousness.

Of course, things get worse, and by the time the finale rolls around, with a mutated star trying to host a live New Year’s Eve special, it’s a straight-up Frankenstein heartbreaker, with an angry mob in pursuit.

Each time Coralie Fargeat reaches a narrative turning point in The Substance, she amps up the gore to the point of anguish, and I admire that audaciousness in the telling of this particular story.

Fargeat never delivers half measures or wimps out in any way, and in Demi Moore she has the perfect vehicle to bring home a brutal point.

“Women are bloody,” my wife reminds me. “Birth, menstruation, it’s gross.”

I get the picture, and so will you.

Heretic (2024)

This is a different Hugh Grant, though there is a passing resemblance to the rom-com Don Juan with the aw-shucks manner.

Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, Heretic is another film set during a storm that makes the most of its few sets and small cast. Sister Paxton (Chloe East) and Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) are young Mormon missionaries on bicycles visiting the home of Mr. Reed (Grant), a seemingly absent-minded scholar with an interest in religion and spiritual knowledge.

An approaching deluge induces the girls to accept Mr. Reed’s hospitality and enter his surprisingly roomy cottage. He mentions that his wife is in the kitchen making blueberry pie!

The front door closes and the camera backtracks down the foot path that approaches the house. It seems like a long way from the road.

Trap sprung.

Mr. Reed proves to be a highly intelligent and extremely well-read individual, who goes from asking questions about Mormonism to lecturing the girls on his own personal quest for the “one true religion.”

At times, he is a professor impressively expounding on several subjects at once to a class of freshmen, and Barnes and Paxton soon find themselves in over their heads as the subject matter becomes increasingly uncomfortable.

The time passes in conversation and the smell of blueberry pie fills a cozy sitting room that begins to look suspiciously normal.

Beck and Woods do a masterful job of gradually goosing up the tension without turning Mr. Reed into Dracula. Can this old duffer even be considered a physical threat?

Reed mostly remains reasonable, but the red flags are starting to pile up. Cell phones don’t work and the front door is on a time lock that won’t open till morning (!), so if the girls want to leave (and they’re always welcome to), they’ll have to exit through the back of the house.

Credit must be given to Chloe West and Sophie Thatcher for instilling their characters with brains and backbones, the ability to think and reason even when their situation hits nightmare territory.

As for Grant, the charmingly awkward Brit with the hots for Andie McDowell is a faded lobby poster, but he can still badger and beguile a captive audience. The ingratiating tendencies and ability to spin complex thoughts into amusing, provocative word bubbles remains intact in Heretic, and Grant digs deep to reach a rich vein of menace.

Dr. Giggles (1992)

“Laughter is the best medicine.”

As played by a thoroughly committed Larry Drake (Benny Stowitz from L.A. Law!), this titular sawbones could have been a contender, worth at least two sequels, minimum.

Dr. Giggles is an early release from Dark Horse Comics, so no reason for there not to be a franchise.

As a child, Evan Rendell Jr. (Drake) watched the angry citizens of Moorehigh haul his father, the town doctor, out of his home office and stone him to death. Apparently, the locals were none-to-pleased with Rendell Senior’s research methods, which included killing seven patients in search of a healthy heart to transplant into his own dying wife.

Hey! You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

Young Rendell is institutionalized and grows up into an adult lunatic with a fixation on physicians. He escapes after dissecting his captors, and heads back to Moorehigh tittering like a freshly sprung Michael Myers.

Final Girl Jennifer Campbell (Holly Marie Combs, Piper from Charmed!) is an anxious high school student with heart valve problems set on a collision course with the hysterical healer, while a bunch of her friends and neighbors fall victim to Rendell’s house calls, dying horribly under the madman’s medical ministrations.

A hearty round of applause to Drake, who giggles and puns his way through the slaughter with verve and panache, a maniacal glint in his bulging eyes.

“Wait till you see my bill,” he crows after skewering another unlucky chump with his antique surgical implements.

Like any good doctor, Rendell is torn between his duty to the community (killing them), and carrying on his father’s quest to find a heart, in this case to “save” Jennifer.

The fact that he’s a self-taught surgeon doesn’t inspire much confidence, though. That’s why the patient needs to be strapped to the table—for her own good.

Dr. Giggles is premium slasher carnage punctuated with corny jokes. If it’s wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

The doctor will slay you now.

In A Violent Nature (2024)

There’s quite a bit more here than meets the eye.

In A Violent Nature is not, as I had been told, a slasher movie told from the killer’s point of view.

Instead, writer-director Chris Nash dials up a multitude of perspectives, as if the doomed campers were being chased through a high-tech forest equipped with dozens of surveillance angles to choose from.

Stupid, soon-to-be-deceased college students rent a cabin in the woods. While hiking they disturb a memorial to Johnny, a mentally challenged boy who got bullied to death 70 years before.

Straight away we witness a now monstrous Johnny rise from the grave to seek revenge, and we spend considerable time riding shotgun alongside this unstoppable fiend as he makes an inspired mess out of the clueless kids.

Sometimes the murders are super gory, (the girl doing yoga gets some major stretching bodywork done) and some happen at a distance in the blink of an eye, as when a comely swimmer disappears below the waterline with a yelp from across the lake.

Nash keeps refreshing the views. He employs a static wilderness cam that dispassionately records long shots of the killer walking from one side of the frame to another. Next thing you know, we’re sitting on his shoulder, then a bird’s eye view, then a worm’s eye view.

With a string of cameras at his disposal, Nash asks us to consider the single-minded plight of a creative mutilator, in this case one that wears an old-time fireman’s mask, giving him the appearance of a predatory insect.

When Johnny occasionally pauses in his gruesome quest, we can get inside his horrible head and watch the wheels turn as he considers how best to maximize his menace, though he does remove his mask to play with a toy car at one point, a tragic reminder that this thing was once a happy child.

The undead death dealer featured in In A Violent Nature isn’t a killing machine, however. He wordlessly seems to enjoy the hunt and clearly takes pride in his victim-stalking and construction of murderous tableaux.

Johnny is obviously an artist, inviting us along to spy on his process. Now there’s a view you won’t see every day.

Oddity (2024)

Irish filmmaker Damian McCarthy made a bit of a splash with his debut, Caveat (2020), an indie-horror shocker that more than recouped the measly 250,000 pounds spent on its production.

Oddity is McCarthy’s second film, and the raw talent revealed in Caveat gains both power and polish, anchored by an incendiary performance by Carolyn Bracken, as twin sisters Dani and Darcy Timmins—the former a murder victim, the latter a blind collector of cursed objects.

Darcy decides that her sister’s murder at the hands of an escaped mental patient (Tadhg Murphy) is just a little too coincidental, considering her sister’s husband Ted (Gwilym Lee) is a psychiatrist at the nearby asylum from whence the killer came!

As if that weren’t enough to put a bee in her bonnet, Darcy discovers that Ted has a new girlfriend (Caroline Menton) less than a year after her sister’s brutal death by bludgeoning.

Through a magic ritual involving the glass eye of the alleged killer, Darcy figures out who the real culprits are and rebrands herself as an instrument of vengeance.

The obvious care and attention to detail provided by writer-director McCarthy is a pleasure to behold—the atmosphere of the mostly single set of a remote country house successfully develops layers of menace with each scene.

The narrative is bone simple, as Darcy arranges a sinister fate for the conspirators responsible for her twin’s demise, disguised as a bizarre housewarming gift: a life-sized wooden man that appears to be distressingly ambulatory.

The actual business of the revenge plot isn’t terribly intricate, but McCarthy consistently avoids the obvious choices, and the viewer is all the better for it.

Oddity is a first-rate horror experience that belies the lack of a body count, and indicates that Damian McCarthy is emerging as a confident comer in modern genre filmmaking.

Don’t believe me? See for yourself!

Abigail (2024)

“What are we talking about, like an Anne Rice or a True Blood? You know, Twilight? Very different kinds of vampires.”

So wonders Sammy (Kathryn Newton), one of a crew of professional criminals hired to kidnap the 12-year-old daughter (Alisha Weir) of a powerful crime boss.

This isn’t one of those vampire movies where the characters behave like they’ve never seen a vampire movie.

Quite the opposite, and directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett use the opportunity to remind us that maybe we don’t know shit about Nosferatu Nation.

“The thing about being a vampire is, it takes a long time to learn how to do the cool shit,” explains Abigail, the ballerina from hell at the center of the horror-thriller-comedy that bears her name.

Abigail is a blast, and way too freaking much fun not to earn my humble endorsement.

A group of Usual Suspects are promised $50 million to snatch the fancy dancing Abigail and bring her to a safe house to await a ransom payment from her father, Kristof Lazaar, a legendary criminal mastermind spoken of with Keyser Sozé reverence.

There’s Frank (Dan Stevens), the leader, a paranoid ex-undercover cop; Joey (Melissa Barrera), the empathetic army doctor trying to kick a drug habit. Peter (Kevin Durand), is a massive mob leg-breaker, Rickles (Will Catlett), a Marine sharpshooter, Sammy, the cute punky hacker chick, and Dean (Angus Cloud), a loose-cannon getaway driver.

The crooks, forced to hole up, quickly get on each others’ nerves with well-written, zesty crook dialogue leading us to believe we’re watching a hard-boiled caper flick, like, The Usual Suspects.

The similarities don’t end there.

As the captors settle in for a 24-hour babysitting gig, the frightened little girl reveals herself to be a vicious, sadistic bloodsucker who wants to “play with her food.”

We’re swept along as the tiny dancer turns the tables, easily terrorizing and dominating the band of seasoned professionals, usually accompanied by the thunderous strains of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.

It is at this point that Abigail reaches its comedic zenith, and it’s a dilly.

Joey: Why didn’t she kill you?

Frank: She is fucking with us!

Joey: I’m guessing none of the weapons worked.

Frank: Well, the stake worked on my fucking leg, and she used the crucifix on Peter like a fucking pincushion and the garlic did fuck all!

Amidst the copious blood-letting , savage sucking, and decapitation, bargains are made and broken as further scheming by henchmen complicates the caper considerably.

And then her father shows up, and we get some tips on the finer points of parenting. Abigail moves at a breathless pace, only slowing occasionally for a tactical pause before further mutilation occurs.

I’m clapping. Really!