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Honest horror reviews of films, series, games and books — no hype, no spoilers, just whether it is worth your time and your nerves.

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Movie Review: Last Radio Call

Movie Review: Last Radio Call

Thousands of horror films are released every year with some being a hit and some being a miss, the latter is where the new film Last Radio Call falls. In the film, a cop goes missing during a call at an abandoned hospital. One year after his disappearance, his wife decides to make a documentary and seek answers to what happened. This is where my first “What the hell?” moment happens. A year, she waits a year? If it was my husband, my ass would be hunting for him within the first 24 hours. But anyway. After a year, she goes about interviewing his boss and partner but no one will talk to her. Finally, she actually goes to the hospital where things go from bad to worse for the woman. A lot of the movie is just this woman talking to a camera in her room. In all, there may have been fifteen minutes of real action and the

Continue reading →
4K Ultra HD Review: Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (1992)

4K Ultra HD Review: Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (1992)

One voodoo rite later, Officer Matt Cordell (Robert Z’Dar), better known as the Maniac Cop, is resurrected from the grave and is back on the beat… and by beat, I mean beating people to death, of course… Meanwhile, Detective Sean McKinney (a returning Robert Davi… which after hearing his thoughts on Maniac Cop 2 I simply can’t believe… ) is dealing with the fallout of a robbery going very wrong… so wrong his protégé, Officer Kate Sullivan (Gretchen Becker) is left braindead and saddled with the rap of having shot both perpetrator and hostage (whom the press have no idea was actually an accomplice to the crime). As the body count rises in and around that harrowing hospital Kate now calls home, McKinney will be up to his hard-boiled ass in ghoulish goings on thanks to ol’ Maniac C-dawg and the homeless Houngan (Julius Harris) that’s pullin’ the strings! While not the stunt showcase the second entry in the series

Continue reading →
Feb 6, 2022
'Harvest Nights' Gives Everything You Want In Horror And More

‘Harvest Nights’ Gives Everything You Want In Horror And More

Plot “A Lovecraftian horror tale inspired by Native American Myths and colonial times.” This is the description given for Ahmed Alameed’s horror novella Harvest Nights. When comparing to anything, immediate expectations are set and comparing to Lovecraft sets those expectations to lofty heights. With that said, Harvest Nights meets and surpasses those expectations. This unpredictable historical fiction is based in Native American Lore and woven into a gory, twisted, journey into unearthly and unnerving darkness. Based around the famous Comet of 1822, the cosmic event thins the veil between our world and the supernatural world releasing creatures who will do anything to eat. The plot is experienced and told through the young boy Chua (Snake), who teams with a group of people who will do anything to survive. Characters The characters in this story are built exceptionally well. Using both fictional and historical characters, it is a challenge to blend both fictional and historical information…Alameed does this seamlessly. Chua, as

Continue reading →
Feb 6, 2022
4K Ultra HD Review: Maniac Cop 2 (1990)

4K Ultra HD Review: Maniac Cop 2 (1990)

Following the demise of murder machine Officer Matt Cordell (Robert Z’Dar) Officers Jack Forrest (living legend Bruce Campbell) and Theresa Mallory (Hundra herself Laurene Landon) return to the force, but are assigned a shrink in the person of one Officer Susan Riley (Claudia Christian). This proves to be a moot point for our heroes however as Maniac Matt is back from the dead and he begins his murder biz once again resulting in their untimely demise. Now it’s up to Riley to contend not only with the resurrected Maniac Cop, but a stripper slashin’ lunatic named Turkell (Leo Rossi) prowling the streets… and that Manson mother fucker has teamed up with Cordell to form an evil alliance guaranteed to have the streets runnin’ red! Returning director William Lustig (Maniac) and writer Larry Cohen (let’s go with The Stuff this time) return to the scene of the crime with their follow up to 1988’s Maniac Cop (bet you didn’t see that

Continue reading →
Feb 6, 2022
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Short Film Review: Meat Friend (2022)

Short Film Review: Meat Friend (2022)

Ever wonder what ALF would be like if Gordon Shumway was constructed from 80/20 ground beef? No? Well you are readin’ the wrong column mother fucker! Speaking of “mother fucker”, those words start with the letters “M” and “F” just like the new short Meat Friend, which comes flingin’ our way from director/co-writer Izzy Lee! Meat Friend stars the eponymous creature (voiced and puppeteered by co-writer Steve Johanson), a living wad of hamburger meat with cataract eyes who befriends young Billie (a fantastic performance from child thespian Marnie McKendry), a kid that really needs to pick better people… or more accurately “ground chuck” to pal around with. To put it bluntly, Meat Friend is a Grade-A, U.S.D.A. approved psychopath and when he isn’t being resurrected (via Billie’s science prowess) after being rightfully tossed in the trash by Billie’s long-suffering mother (Megan Duffy), he’s giving life lessons learned straight from the streets of Hell and demanding strange meat-centric ceremonies take place!

Continue reading →
Feb 5, 2022
Game Review: 'Dying Light 2: Stay Human'

Game Review: ‘Dying Light 2: Stay Human’

In 2015 players and zombie fans were introduced to Dying Light, a twist not seen in the genre of survival horror, a zombie apocalypse where parkour is a means of survival, and when the sun goes down, the true terror begins. Now players are tasked with returning to the world of Dying Light but now the infection is no longer contained and ravaged the world and where they must fight not only for survival but to literally stay human, this is Dying Light 2: Stay Human. I want to give a big thank you to Techland for the reviewing opportunity! In Dying Light 2: Stay Human, players will play as Aiden, a survivor who wanders the wastelands rather than staying put for too long who are known in the game as “Pilgrims” who has arrived in the fictitious European city in search of his sister as well as clues to his past. Things get complicated as Aiden becomes infected by

Continue reading →
Feb 2, 2022
Watch Cosmic Horror Short "While Mortals Sleep" Now on Short of the Week

Short-Film Reviews: “While Mortals Sleep,” “Huella,” and “Kitchen Sink” (Sundance Film Festival)

While Mortals Sleep In writer/director Alex Fofonoff’s brilliant short While Mortals Sleep, Susan (Carie Kawa) is a cold case novelist who is going through a difficult patch so bad that she is rather reluctantly getting away from it all for a while at the vacation home of some friends. She spies a man named Eddy (Will Brill) ostensibly repairing a problem with black gunk who claims he is taking care of the property along with a woman named Abby (Grace Morrison). Abby asks the hesitant Susan to join her for tea, and things quickly get increasingly peculiar because of a startling sound before going full-on outré. Fofonoff packs his short with one mind-bending surprise after another in a story that blends a few different horror subgenres. The three leads are all superb, and excellent, startling visual effects and sound design combine to create an unsettling atmosphere and an unnerving slice of cinema that lingers long after the closing credits. Huella

Continue reading →
Feb 1, 2022
Movie Review: “Something in the Dirt,” “You Won’t Be Alone,” and “Emily the Criminal” (Sundance Film Festival)

Movie Review: “Something in the Dirt,” “You Won’t Be Alone,” and “Emily the Criminal” (Sundance Film Festival)

Something in the Dirt The filmmaking duo of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead consistently turn out compelling, thought-provoking genre films, and their fifth and latest feature, Something in the Dirt, may be their best yet. The duo proved in 2017’s The Endless that they are as solid in front of the camera as behind it, and they bring that multihyphenate magic on both sides once again here in a spellbinding tale of two men who witness what seems to be a supernatural miracle in one of their apartments. The event sends hard-luck case Levi (Benson) and religious neighbor John (Moorhead) down a rabbit hole where one conspiracy theory leads to another and so on. These two men, living on the fringes of society, see this as their big opportunity to get rich quick by way of putting together a documentary about the strange phenomena that they witness. This being a horror movie, things of course don’t turn out the way

Continue reading →
Jan 31, 2022
Blu-ray Review: Shock (1977)

Blu-ray Review: Shock (1977)

Dora Baldini (Daria Nicolodi), her kiddo Marco (Beyond the Door‘s David Colin Jr.), and her new husband Bruno (we don’t talk about Bruno no no… okay, we do, and he’s played by Yor: the Hunter From the Future‘s Overlord himself, John Steiner) make the dumbass decision to move into the old house where Dora lived with her first husband Carlo, a Joe Dirt lookin’ heroin addicted son of a bitch who supposedly died at sea (the dead part is true, the sea is hazy… ). Minus the obvious psychological damage moving back into that space would cause anyone, ol’ Marco (who I’m kinda surprised they didn’t go with a Peter Bark style of situation with… if ya know, then ya know… but if not, watch Andrea Bianchi’s 1981 zombie sleaze-fest Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror… you’ll thank me for it later) seems to getting rather horny for Mommy Dearest… and as the days pass, Dora seems to be coming

Continue reading →
Jan 29, 2022
Movie Review: “The Civil Dead” (Slamdance Film Festival)

Movie Review: “The Civil Dead” (Slamdance Film Festival)

If you are in the mood for something decidedly different, director Clay Tatum’s The Civil Dead delivers in spades. This offbeat horror-adjacent comedy gets dark and delivers an emotional gut-punch of a climax. The Civil Dead begins with quirky humor as unemployed photographer Clay (Tatum), left to his own devices when his wife goes on a business trip, scams people when he poses as a real estate agent and takes deposit money from potential renters, when showing his own home that he has no intention of leaving. One day while out shooting photos, he runs across acquaintance Whit (Whitmer Thomas) from his old hometown, and ends up reluctantly inviting him home for drinks. The next morning, Whit is still hanging around, and confesses he has nowhere to go — because he is a ghost. Whit just wants a friend because of the loneliness of being a specter, but Clay is a misanthrope and the idea of having unwanted supernatural company

Continue reading →
Jan 29, 2022

More from Reviews

Movie Review: Last Radio Call

Movie Review: Last Radio Call

Thousands of horror films are released every year with some being a hit and some being a miss, the latter is where the new film Last Radio Call falls. In the film, a cop goes missing during a call at an abandoned hospital. One year after his disappearance, his wife decides to make a documentary and seek answers to what happened. This is where my first “What the hell?” moment happens. A year, she waits a year? If it was my husband, my ass would be hunting for him within the first 24 hours. But anyway. After a year, she goes about interviewing his boss and partner but no one will talk to her. Finally, she actually goes to the hospital where things go from bad to worse for the woman. A lot of the movie is just this woman talking to a camera in her room. In all, there may have been fifteen minutes of real action and the

Continue reading →
4K Ultra HD Review: Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (1992)

4K Ultra HD Review: Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (1992)

One voodoo rite later, Officer Matt Cordell (Robert Z’Dar), better known as the Maniac Cop, is resurrected from the grave and is back on the beat… and by beat, I mean beating people to death, of course… Meanwhile, Detective Sean McKinney (a returning Robert Davi… which after hearing his thoughts on Maniac Cop 2 I simply can’t believe… ) is dealing with the fallout of a robbery going very wrong… so wrong his protégé, Officer Kate Sullivan (Gretchen Becker) is left braindead and saddled with the rap of having shot both perpetrator and hostage (whom the press have no idea was actually an accomplice to the crime). As the body count rises in and around that harrowing hospital Kate now calls home, McKinney will be up to his hard-boiled ass in ghoulish goings on thanks to ol’ Maniac C-dawg and the homeless Houngan (Julius Harris) that’s pullin’ the strings! While not the stunt showcase the second entry in the series

Continue reading →
Feb 6, 2022
'Harvest Nights' Gives Everything You Want In Horror And More

‘Harvest Nights’ Gives Everything You Want In Horror And More

Plot “A Lovecraftian horror tale inspired by Native American Myths and colonial times.” This is the description given for Ahmed Alameed’s horror novella Harvest Nights. When comparing to anything, immediate expectations are set and comparing to Lovecraft sets those expectations to lofty heights. With that said, Harvest Nights meets and surpasses those expectations. This unpredictable historical fiction is based in Native American Lore and woven into a gory, twisted, journey into unearthly and unnerving darkness. Based around the famous Comet of 1822, the cosmic event thins the veil between our world and the supernatural world releasing creatures who will do anything to eat. The plot is experienced and told through the young boy Chua (Snake), who teams with a group of people who will do anything to survive. Characters The characters in this story are built exceptionally well. Using both fictional and historical characters, it is a challenge to blend both fictional and historical information…Alameed does this seamlessly. Chua, as

Continue reading →
Feb 6, 2022
4K Ultra HD Review: Maniac Cop 2 (1990)

4K Ultra HD Review: Maniac Cop 2 (1990)

Following the demise of murder machine Officer Matt Cordell (Robert Z’Dar) Officers Jack Forrest (living legend Bruce Campbell) and Theresa Mallory (Hundra herself Laurene Landon) return to the force, but are assigned a shrink in the person of one Officer Susan Riley (Claudia Christian). This proves to be a moot point for our heroes however as Maniac Matt is back from the dead and he begins his murder biz once again resulting in their untimely demise. Now it’s up to Riley to contend not only with the resurrected Maniac Cop, but a stripper slashin’ lunatic named Turkell (Leo Rossi) prowling the streets… and that Manson mother fucker has teamed up with Cordell to form an evil alliance guaranteed to have the streets runnin’ red! Returning director William Lustig (Maniac) and writer Larry Cohen (let’s go with The Stuff this time) return to the scene of the crime with their follow up to 1988’s Maniac Cop (bet you didn’t see that

Continue reading →
Feb 6, 2022
Short Film Review: Meat Friend (2022)

Short Film Review: Meat Friend (2022)

Ever wonder what ALF would be like if Gordon Shumway was constructed from 80/20 ground beef? No? Well you are readin’ the wrong column mother fucker! Speaking of “mother fucker”, those words start with the letters “M” and “F” just like the new short Meat Friend, which comes flingin’ our way from director/co-writer Izzy Lee! Meat Friend stars the eponymous creature (voiced and puppeteered by co-writer Steve Johanson), a living wad of hamburger meat with cataract eyes who befriends young Billie (a fantastic performance from child thespian Marnie McKendry), a kid that really needs to pick better people… or more accurately “ground chuck” to pal around with. To put it bluntly, Meat Friend is a Grade-A, U.S.D.A. approved psychopath and when he isn’t being resurrected (via Billie’s science prowess) after being rightfully tossed in the trash by Billie’s long-suffering mother (Megan Duffy), he’s giving life lessons learned straight from the streets of Hell and demanding strange meat-centric ceremonies take place!

Continue reading →
Feb 5, 2022
Game Review: 'Dying Light 2: Stay Human'

Game Review: ‘Dying Light 2: Stay Human’

In 2015 players and zombie fans were introduced to Dying Light, a twist not seen in the genre of survival horror, a zombie apocalypse where parkour is a means of survival, and when the sun goes down, the true terror begins. Now players are tasked with returning to the world of Dying Light but now the infection is no longer contained and ravaged the world and where they must fight not only for survival but to literally stay human, this is Dying Light 2: Stay Human. I want to give a big thank you to Techland for the reviewing opportunity! In Dying Light 2: Stay Human, players will play as Aiden, a survivor who wanders the wastelands rather than staying put for too long who are known in the game as “Pilgrims” who has arrived in the fictitious European city in search of his sister as well as clues to his past. Things get complicated as Aiden becomes infected by

Continue reading →
Feb 2, 2022
Watch Cosmic Horror Short "While Mortals Sleep" Now on Short of the Week

Short-Film Reviews: “While Mortals Sleep,” “Huella,” and “Kitchen Sink” (Sundance Film Festival)

While Mortals Sleep In writer/director Alex Fofonoff’s brilliant short While Mortals Sleep, Susan (Carie Kawa) is a cold case novelist who is going through a difficult patch so bad that she is rather reluctantly getting away from it all for a while at the vacation home of some friends. She spies a man named Eddy (Will Brill) ostensibly repairing a problem with black gunk who claims he is taking care of the property along with a woman named Abby (Grace Morrison). Abby asks the hesitant Susan to join her for tea, and things quickly get increasingly peculiar because of a startling sound before going full-on outré. Fofonoff packs his short with one mind-bending surprise after another in a story that blends a few different horror subgenres. The three leads are all superb, and excellent, startling visual effects and sound design combine to create an unsettling atmosphere and an unnerving slice of cinema that lingers long after the closing credits. Huella

Continue reading →
Feb 1, 2022
Movie Review: “Something in the Dirt,” “You Won’t Be Alone,” and “Emily the Criminal” (Sundance Film Festival)

Movie Review: “Something in the Dirt,” “You Won’t Be Alone,” and “Emily the Criminal” (Sundance Film Festival)

Something in the Dirt The filmmaking duo of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead consistently turn out compelling, thought-provoking genre films, and their fifth and latest feature, Something in the Dirt, may be their best yet. The duo proved in 2017’s The Endless that they are as solid in front of the camera as behind it, and they bring that multihyphenate magic on both sides once again here in a spellbinding tale of two men who witness what seems to be a supernatural miracle in one of their apartments. The event sends hard-luck case Levi (Benson) and religious neighbor John (Moorhead) down a rabbit hole where one conspiracy theory leads to another and so on. These two men, living on the fringes of society, see this as their big opportunity to get rich quick by way of putting together a documentary about the strange phenomena that they witness. This being a horror movie, things of course don’t turn out the way

Continue reading →
Jan 31, 2022
Blu-ray Review: Shock (1977)

Blu-ray Review: Shock (1977)

Dora Baldini (Daria Nicolodi), her kiddo Marco (Beyond the Door‘s David Colin Jr.), and her new husband Bruno (we don’t talk about Bruno no no… okay, we do, and he’s played by Yor: the Hunter From the Future‘s Overlord himself, John Steiner) make the dumbass decision to move into the old house where Dora lived with her first husband Carlo, a Joe Dirt lookin’ heroin addicted son of a bitch who supposedly died at sea (the dead part is true, the sea is hazy… ). Minus the obvious psychological damage moving back into that space would cause anyone, ol’ Marco (who I’m kinda surprised they didn’t go with a Peter Bark style of situation with… if ya know, then ya know… but if not, watch Andrea Bianchi’s 1981 zombie sleaze-fest Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror… you’ll thank me for it later) seems to getting rather horny for Mommy Dearest… and as the days pass, Dora seems to be coming

Continue reading →
Jan 29, 2022
Movie Review: “The Civil Dead” (Slamdance Film Festival)

Movie Review: “The Civil Dead” (Slamdance Film Festival)

If you are in the mood for something decidedly different, director Clay Tatum’s The Civil Dead delivers in spades. This offbeat horror-adjacent comedy gets dark and delivers an emotional gut-punch of a climax. The Civil Dead begins with quirky humor as unemployed photographer Clay (Tatum), left to his own devices when his wife goes on a business trip, scams people when he poses as a real estate agent and takes deposit money from potential renters, when showing his own home that he has no intention of leaving. One day while out shooting photos, he runs across acquaintance Whit (Whitmer Thomas) from his old hometown, and ends up reluctantly inviting him home for drinks. The next morning, Whit is still hanging around, and confesses he has nowhere to go — because he is a ghost. Whit just wants a friend because of the loneliness of being a specter, but Clay is a misanthrope and the idea of having unwanted supernatural company

Continue reading →
Jan 29, 2022