Tag: Horror

Resident Evil (2026) | REVIEW

Austin Abrams behind the steering wheel while being bothered by an infected individual in RESIDENT EVIL — PHOTO: Sony Pictures Releasing / TriStar Pictures.

Directed by Zach Cregger (Barbarian; Weapons) — Screenplay by Zach Cregger and Shay Hatten.

The Resident Evil franchise is one of horror gaming’s most popular, and yet it has struggled to find the same critical success on the big screen that it has reached through multiple video games. The Paul W. S. Anderson-shepherded films starring Milla Jovovich made money, but none of the six Jovovich-led films resonated with critics or audiences. Johannes Roberts’ Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City from 2021 was meant as a more faithful adaptation of the early Resident Evil games, but still, audiences and critics were left underwhelmed. Now Zach Cregger is giving it a go, following his critically lauded horror-thriller films Barbarian and Weapons. The on-the-rise horror filmmaker with a keen understanding of how to plant comedic beats in even the darkest storylines has opted for a different strategy than Roberts. Cregger has deliberately decided that he would not slavishly recreate the story of the games. However, he has nonetheless managed to honor the games in his own way while, at the same time, turning in a genuinely thrilling film.

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No Rest for the Wicked (2026) | Fantastic Fest 2026 | REVIEW

Pilou Asbæk biting Egor Venned’s chest in Kasper Kalle’s NO REST FOR THE WICKED. Image provided by Fantastic Fest. Courtesy of SF Studios / Obscured Pictures.
Pilou Asbæk biting Egor Venned’s chest in Kasper Kalle’s NO REST FOR THE WICKED. Image provided by Fantastic Fest. Courtesy of SF Studios / Obscured Pictures.

Directed by Kasper Kalle – Screenplay by Rasmus Birch.

Following its world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival earlier this year, at which it won two awards for directing and acting, Kasper Kalle’s No Rest for the Wicked just had its US premiere at this year’s Fantastic Fest. It is a remarkable horror-romance film that I found to be deeply moving and often outright stunning. 

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Yndige Mennesker (2025) | REVIEW

Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt in the Danish horror anthology film Yndige Mennesker (int. title: Adorable Humans) — Still image from the international trailer.

Directed by Anders Jon, Michael Kunov, Kasper Juhl, and Michael Panduro.

Yndige Mennesker (or, Adorable Humans) is a Danish horror anthology film from four Danish directors, none of whom are household names in their home country. Each story is loosely inspired by select stories originally written by world-renowned Danish writer and poet Hans Christian Andersen, who is primarily known for his many beloved fairy tales. Although Lars von Trier’s Riget series (int. title: The Kingdom) and Ole Bornedal’s Nattevagten (int. title: Nightwatch) are both beloved titles in Denmark, the country isn’t known for the horror genre, and it is very rare for Danish horror to land well over here. In recent years, the most successful Danish horror title is Christian Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil, which has already gotten an American remake. Indeed, perhaps a new generation of filmmakers is now ready to make the horror genre feel more at home. In any case, Yndige Mennesker shows that some Danish filmmakers are trying to tell stories in the genre.

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Evil Dead Burn (2026) | REVIEW

Erroll Shand as ‘deadite’ Edgar Price in EVIL DEAD BURN — PHOTO: Warner Bros. Pictures / Sony Pictures Releasing International (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Sébastien Vaniček — Screenplay by Sébastien Vaniček and Florent Bernard.

It has been fascinating to watch how the Evil Dead film series has evolved from being the genre-fluid horror brainchild of auteur Sam Raimi to now being a franchise that essentially offers an opportunity to on-the-rise filmmakers to play around with Raimi’s creations. In 2013, it was Fede Álvarez who made his feature directorial debut with the reboot simply titled Evil Dead, and he has since gone on to make films such as Don’t Breathe and Alien: Romulus. Ten years later, it was The Hole in the Ground director Lee Cronin who got to tell his story with Evil Dead Rise, and earlier this year, Cronin released a The Mummy film that is, essentially, an Evil Dead film in everything but name. Now, in 2026, it is French filmmaker Sébastien Vaniček who has taken hold of the reins of the series of films. The fact that he was attached to the franchise was something that made me quite excited, because I was a big fan of his Arachnophobia-meets-Attack-the-Block spider-horror flick Infested (also titled Vermins). Like Cronin and Álvarez before him, Vaniček has made an entertaining and brutal horror flick. Although it’s not a perfectly smooth ride, Evil Dead Burn is yet another solid entry in the beloved series of films, which is still going strong.

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Widow’s Bay – Season One (2026) | TV REVIEW

Kate O’Flynn, Matthew Rhys, and Stephen Root in “Widow’s Bay,” now streaming on Apple TV.

The following is a review of the complete first season of Apple TV’s WIDOW’S BAY — Show created by Katie Dippold.

Katie Dippold’s Widow’s Bay is a comedy-horror series that follows Tom Loftis (played by Matthew Rhys), the ambitious but nervous mayor of the titular island location, as he tries to get more tourists to visit the place that he and his troublesome son, Evan (played by Kingston Rumi Southwick), call home. Despite evidence to the contrary, Tom is skeptical of the locals who insist that the island is cursed. Chief among the local believers is Wyck Crawford (played by Stephen Root), who is a constant thorn in Loftis’ side. When Tom starts experiencing supernatural events firsthand, he, however, must team up with Wyck and his own assistant, Patricia (played by Kate O’Flynn), a spirited social outcast whose own prior history with the island’s legends becomes the focal point of some of the season’s best episodes.

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Obsession (2026) | REVIEW

‘Bear’ (played by Michael Johnston) on the phone, while his eerily spellbound date, Nikki (played by Inde Navarrette), walks into the frame to look for him in Curry Barker’s OBSESSION — PHOTO: Focus Features / Universal Pictures (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Curry Barker (Milk & Serial) — Screenplay by Curry Barker.

One of the more interesting recent developments in the film industry is that certain online personalities — YouTubers and TikTokers — are being afforded the opportunity to become filmmakers. The primary example of this is arguably Danny and Michael Philippou, the Australian twins who went from YouTubers to significant horror filmmakers, and their films Talk To Me and Bring Her Back. But it doesn’t stop there. Last year, YouTube film critic-turned-filmmaker Chris Stuckmann had his feature debut, Shelby Oaks, released by Neon. Earlier this year, Mark ‘Markiplier’ Fischbach self-released an adaptation of an indie video game (Iron Lung), while it was announced that Seán ‘jacksepticeye’ McLoughlin would be a producer on an animated feature film adaptation of the video game Bloodborne. In fact, just a few weeks from now, the horror film Backrooms will be released, which was directed by YouTuber Kane Parsons, whose own project the film is based on. This modern wave of online personalities breaking through in the industry is fascinating, and another example of this new wave is Curry Barker, previously best known for his online sketch comedy duo, that’s a bad idea, with Cooper Tomlinson. After years of making short films and online skits to feature on YouTube and TikTok, he self-released his hour-long found-footage horror film, Milk & Serial, in 2024, the positive response to which likely landed him on the radar of many people in the industry. Just a year later, his second feature, Obsession, premiered to raves at the Toronto International Film Festival, and major industry companies like Blumhouse and Focus Features attached themselves to and acquired it. Now, Obsession is out in theaters all around the world. I just saw it last weekend, and I can say that it is not only Barker’s best and most ambitious project yet, but it’s a fantastic horror film with a jaw-droppingly good performance at its center.

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Shelby Oaks (2025) | REVIEW

Camille Sullivan in SHELBY OAKS — PHOTO: Neon (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Chris Stuckmann — Screenplay by Chris Stuckmann.

I don’t think it was possible to frequent YouTube in the 2010s as a film fan without eventually running into a film review uploaded by Chris Stuckmann. Stuckmann earned himself a loyal following over the years and became one of the premier YouTube film critics until the early 2020s, at which point he admitted to wanting to focus on filmmaking. He stated that he felt it wouldn’t be right for him to speak negatively about projects going forward if he wanted to break into the industry. Although his channel still posts videos wherein he talks about new releases, this change in approach has led to a litany of videos scolding him for his decision-making. But, at the same time, Stuckmann did get his wish, as his feature debut as a filmmaker, Shelby Oaks, was released theatrically in North America in 2025. This was notably after Neon picked the film up for distribution and prominent horror filmmaker Mike Flanagan attached himself to the project as an executive producer. I finally got the chance to see Stuckmann’s first film as a writer-director yesterday, and, well, while I thought it was nice to see Stuckmann’s dream come true, the film didn’t do much for me.

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Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (2026) | REVIEW

Natalie Grace as “Katie,” the titular mummy in LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY — PHOTO: Warner Bros. Pictures (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Lee Cronin — Screenplay by Lee Cronin.

Given that more than a dozen movies about a mummified corpse coming back to life have been released over the years, including but not limited to the Universal Classic Monsters films, you can’t just name your movie The Mummy anymore without confusing audiences. To distinguish their latest film from the multiple other films called The Mummy — including the iconic Boris Karloff-led original, the beloved Brendan Fraser-led action-adventure film from 1999, and the Tom Cruise-led 2017 film, which was designed to kickstart a shared universe of Universal Monsters (called the Dark Universe), which was cancelled as a result of that very 2017 film failing — producer Jason Blum suggested that they should put their writer-director’s name in the title of the film, despite Lee Cronin by no means being a household name, not even with many horror film fans. Cronin, however, did put himself on the map with his sophomore feature Evil Dead Rise, which was both a critical and box office success. Because I really liked his Evil Dead installment (and some pretty strong trailers), I was really excited to see his vision of The Mummy. Having now seen it, I can say that while there are things that I really liked here, this is a pretty significant step down from his aforementioned sophomore effort.

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Thrash (2026) | REVIEW

Trailer title card — PHOTO: Netflix (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Tommy Wirkola — Screenplay by Tommy Wirkola.

Norwegian filmmaker Tommy Wirkola, best known for the Christmas action-comedy film starring David Harbour titled Violent Nights, is the writer-director behind this week’s big Netflix film release, Thrash. Thrash is a survival thriller with a, as you might expect given Wirkola’s involvement, tongue-in-cheek comedic approach. It is a film about shark-infested waters in a flooded American town that has been hit by intense waves as a result of an intense hurricane.

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Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (2026) | REVIEW

Kathryn Newton and Samara Weaving in READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME. Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2026 Searchlight Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (Scream; Abigail) — Screenplay by Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy.

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s Ready or Not 2: Here I Come kicks off right where the popular first film left off. Grace (played by Samara Weaving) has just survived a crazy ordeal moments after getting married. Her new family — the Le Domas’, who were secretly satanists — tried to kill her before sunrise, as they believed they would all die if they didn’t. Grace, now in a bloodied wedding dress, survived the night, while her in-laws and her new husband all exploded at dawn for not fulfilling their satanic bargain. But things aren’t over for our bloodsoaked heroine. When she meets up with her sister Faith (played by Kathryn Newton), with whom she hasn’t spoken in years, at a hospital, they’re both incapacitated and taken to the manor of a wealthy and influential family known as the Danforths. The Danforths are one of multiple families with a seat on a council of elite families, who all owe their successes to their supernatural satanic lord known as Le Bail. Because Grace survived the night, the families must compete in another game of diabolical hide-and-seek to determine who will have the ‘high seat’ on the council and, essentially, control the world. To survive, Grace, now alongside her sister, must again overcome the odds and hold out until dawn.

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