Tag Archives: horror comedy

Horror Film Review: The Babysitter (dir. by McG)

Posted on by Arleigh

“Well, I like weird, all of the time.” — Bee

The Babysitter is, above all else, Samara Weaving’s coming-out party—a wildly entertaining showcase that proves she can carry a horror movie with charm, menace, and complete comedic fearlessness. McG’s 2017 Netflix film, written by Brian Duffield, is built around a simple, absurd premise: a lonely kid discovers his beautiful babysitter is part of a Satanic cult. The movie lives and dies on Weaving’s performance as Bee, and she delivers enough star power, humor, and danger to turn a thin genre premise into a fast, colorful, gleefully violent horror comedy.

The story follows Cole, played by Judah Lewis, a nervous twelve-year-old who is still young enough to need a babysitter but old enough to hate that fact. His parents leave for the weekend, leaving him in the care of Bee. Cole has a massive crush on her, which makes the movie’s central betrayal sting even more. After staying up past bedtime to spy on the adults, he sees Bee and her friends murder someone as part of an occult ritual. Suddenly, the cozy suburban house becomes a battlefield, and Cole has to survive a night of Satanic murder, increasingly absurd violence, and the horrifying realization that the person he trusted most is trying to kill him.

Without Weaving, this premise could easily collapse into forgettable direct-to-streaming filler. Bee could have been nothing more than a one-dimensional “hot evil babysitter,” but Weaving gives her real charisma. She is funny, flirtatious, warm, and completely unhinged, often within the same scene. The film understands that Bee works best when she is both genuinely likable and genuinely dangerous. Cole trusts her because she treats him kindly, and that makes the reveal hurt. Weaving also gets most of the movie’s best lines and biggest moments, and she plays them with the kind of gleeful theatricality the material demands. This is the performance that announced her as a major modern horror presence, and it is easy to see why filmmakers and audiences took notice.

What makes The Babysitter work beyond Weaving is its total commitment to the bit. The film is essentially Home Alone filtered through a Satanic slasher and a teenage sex comedy. Cole fights back with household objects, improvisation, and pure panic, while Bee and her friends keep getting killed in ways that are gruesome, creative, and often funny. The movie never takes its mythology seriously enough for the ritual stuff to become dull. The cult’s plan is mostly an excuse for carnage, but the carnage is lively enough that the thin plot barely matters. This is a movie where a kitchen can become a weapon, a pool can become a crime scene, and a teenage cultist can be defeated by the kind of slapstick logic usually reserved for cartoons.

The supporting cult members are broad, ridiculous characters, but they fit the movie’s tone. Robbie Amell plays Max, a jock who clearly believes he is the coolest person in any room. Bella Thorne’s Allison is glamorous, vain, and increasingly undone as the night falls apart. Hana Mae Lee’s Sonya is the quiet, strange one, while Andrew Bachelor’s John is the guy who thinks he is more essential to the group than anyone else believes. None of them are deeply developed, but they do not need to be. They are archetypes, and the actors lean into that. Their banter is often juvenile, sometimes forced, but it matches the movie’s hyperactive, self-aware energy.

McG’s direction is both part of the film’s appeal and one of its biggest problems. He directs it like an extended music video: saturated colors, quick cuts, pop songs, pop-culture references, and a camera that rarely wants to sit still. When the style clicks, The Babysitter feels punchy and alive, with the energy of a comic book come to life. But McG leans so heavily into the comedy side that the movie often loses its horror footing. The jokes, quips, and broad performances are constantly pushed to the front, and when the film tries to shift into an actual horror beat, the moment frequently lands flat. The cult members are too goofy, the kills too cartoonish, and the tone too jokey for the movie to build much dread. Some jokes land with a thud, some references feel dated already, and the constant visual busy-ness can overwhelm the simpler pleasures of the premise. The film succeeds despite McG’s excesses, not entirely because of them.

The horror is more splattery than scary. Anyone expecting real dread, slow-building tension, or a genuinely unsettling villain will likely be disappointed. The movie’s comedy comes from the collision of childhood anxieties with extreme genre nonsense. Cole is afraid of bullies, girls, being alone, and growing up; the film literalizes those fears by putting him in a house full of murderous adults who want to sacrifice him. Beneath the blood and jokes, there is a surprisingly sincere coming-of-age story. But because the comedy is so relentless, the horror rarely gets room to breathe, and the movie’s scarier moments feel more like brief interruptions than genuine escalations.

Cole’s arc gives the chaos a little heart. At the beginning, he is passive, scared, and constantly humiliated. By the end, he has been forced to confront every fear he has, usually while covered in gore and running for his life. Judah Lewis is not giving a nuanced performance, but he is likable and believable as a terrified kid pushed past his limits. His friendship with Melanie, played by Emily Alyn Lind, adds another layer of warmth. Melanie encourages him to stand up for himself, and their awkward middle-school dynamic gives the movie a sweet emotional center beneath all the occult murder.

The film’s biggest weakness is its willingness to sacrifice logic for a joke. Characters make choices that only make sense because the plot needs them to. The cult’s plan is not especially well thought out. Adults and neighbors are conveniently unaware of gunfire, explosions, and general mayhem. The movie also sometimes views its female characters through Cole’s adolescent gaze, especially early on, which can make Bee and Allison feel more like fantasy objects than full people. The film gives them more agency as it goes, but the perspective remains very much that of a horny, terrified twelve-year-old boy. Whether that works for you depends on how much patience you have for that kind of teenage-male fantasy.

Still, The Babysitter has personality to spare. It is bright, brash, mean in a playful way, and unapologetically silly. It does not have the atmosphere of a prestige horror film or the emotional weight of the genre’s best work. It is not trying to be The Babadook or Hereditary. Instead, it is trying to be a bloody, funny, high-energy midnight movie, and it mostly succeeds. It is the kind of film best watched late at night, with low expectations and a high tolerance for cartoonish violence.

By the time the credits roll, The Babysitter has done exactly what it set out to do: deliver a loud, bloody, ridiculous good time while making Samara Weaving impossible to ignore. McG’s direction can be excessive, the comedy often crowds out the horror, and the scares are mild, but the film has enough energy, humor, and personality to make up for its flaws. Weaving turns Bee into one of the most entertaining horror villains of the Netflix era and uses the role as a true coming-out party for her career. Cole’s survival story gives the mayhem a surprisingly sweet coming-of-age core, but Weaving is the true engine of the film. It may not be a horror classic, but it is a very enjoyable piece of genre junk food: loud, colorful, violent, ridiculous, and much more fun than it has any right to be.

4 Shots from 4 Horror Films: Sam Raimi Edition

Posted on by Arleigh

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films is all about letting the visuals do the talking.

Evil Dead II (1987, dir. by Sam Raimi, DP: Peter Deming)
Army of Darkness (1992, dir. by Sam Raimi, DP: Bill Pope)
Drag Me to Hell (2009, dir. by Sam Raimi, DP: Bill Pope)
Send Help (2026, dir. by Sam Raimi, DP: Bill Pope)

Horror Film Review: Army of Darkness (dir. by Sam Raimi)

Posted on by Arleigh

“Well hello, Mister Fancypants. Well, I’ve got news for you, pal: you ain’t leadin’ but two things right now: Jack and shit… and Jack just left town.” — Ash Williams

Few cult movies embrace their own insanity as joyfully as Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness. Directed by Raimi and released in 1992, the third chapter in the Evil Dead series takes Ash Williams out of the isolated-cabin horror setting of The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II and drops him into a sword-and-sorcery adventure full of skeleton armies, haunted forests, miniature doppelgängers, exploding Deadites, and more quotable one-liners than most action comedies manage in an entire franchise. It is still technically a horror movie, but calling it just a horror movie misses the point. This is a slapstick fantasy-action comedy with monsters, and its ridiculousness is exactly why it has endured as a cult favorite.

The story picks up almost immediately after the end of Evil Dead II, with Ash getting sucked through a portal and landing in medieval England. Rather than being welcomed as some prophesied savior, he is immediately treated like a suspicious outsider and thrown into a pit with a Deadite. That opening alone tells you what kind of movie this will be. Ash is no longer simply a terrified everyman trying to survive an impossible nightmare. He is now a chainsaw-handed loudmouth who shoots first, insults everyone around him, and somehow carries himself like the greatest warrior in history despite constantly making situations worse through his own arrogance.

Bruce Campbell is the entire engine of Army of Darkness. Ash has become a full-blown cartoon hero by this point, halfway between a B-movie John Wayne, a professional wrestler cutting a promo, and a smug department-store employee who has somehow convinced himself he is a legendary warrior. Campbell plays the role with total commitment, which is the key to why the comedy works. He never acts embarrassed by the dialogue or tries to make Ash seem cooler than he is. The character is funny because he is deeply incompetent beneath all the bravado. Ash talks like a conquering hero, but his victories usually involve panic, luck, explosives, and a lot of property damage.

The familiar “Groovy” attitude from Evil Dead II gets pushed even further here. Ash is not meant to be a noble fantasy protagonist. He is selfish, crude, lazy, and usually more interested in returning to modern life than helping the people trapped in a medieval war. That makes him a funny fit for the genre. In a normal fantasy film, the chosen hero would humbly accept his destiny, train with a sword, and unite the kingdoms. Ash complains about the inconvenience, makes demands, insults the locals, and uses his knowledge of basic mechanics to become a magical figure in their eyes. His improvised metal hand, shotgun, chainsaw, and homemade weapons make him look like a mad scientist dropped into an old Ray Harryhausen movie.

Raimi’s direction is as energetic as ever, even if Army of Darkness is noticeably cleaner and more studio-sized than the first two films. The early Evil Dead movies had a grimy, do-it-yourself quality that made their horror feel unusually mean and immediate. This one has a broader, more polished adventure-movie look. There are castles, battlefields, elaborate costumes, large-scale miniature work, and a full army of stop-motion skeletons. It is still cheap-looking in places, but that is part of its charm. The effects do not need to be seamless because the movie’s entire personality is built around heightened artifice. When skeletons leap around in exaggerated stop-motion or a tiny Ash attacks the full-sized Ash in a windmill, the film feels like a live-action cartoon with blood, dirt, and medieval armor.

The windmill sequence is probably the purest expression of what makes the movie special. Ash enters a windmill to escape danger and ends up trapped with miniature versions of himself, eventually swallowing one by accident. It has almost nothing to do with the larger plot in any serious sense, yet it is hilarious because Raimi keeps escalating the gag. Instead of treating the tiny Ash as a brief visual joke, the movie turns him into a recurring problem that literally grows into Evil Ash, Ash’s undead double and the leader of the titular army. That progression makes perfect cartoon logic: a small annoyance becomes a full-scale apocalypse because Ash was too careless to deal with it properly.

The horror elements are lighter than they were in the first two films, and that will probably be the biggest dividing line for viewers. Anyone expecting the nasty isolation, body horror, and relentless dread of The Evil Dead may be surprised by how openly silly this installment is. The Deadites are still grotesque enough to keep the supernatural threat alive, especially in the opening pit fight and the later siege, but they are no longer as frightening as they are funny. Raimi is much more interested in visual gags, wild camera movement, and action-movie momentum than scares.

That tonal change does not make Army of Darkness a lesser movie; it just makes it a very different one. In fact, it may be the most accessible entry in the original trilogy for people who do not normally enjoy horror. You can watch it without being especially invested in the mythology, because the plot is basically a delivery system for set pieces. Ash needs the Necronomicon to get home. He says the magic words wrong. Evil Ash rises. A skeleton army attacks. Ash helps defend the castle. The movie keeps moving, rarely pauses to explain itself, and never tries to make its fantasy world feel more serious than necessary.

The final battle is a great example of Raimi getting the maximum entertainment out of a relatively limited toolbox. Ash turns medieval villagers into a makeshift modern army, complete with explosives, contraptions, and a vehicle that feels hilariously out of place in the period setting. The action is messy, noisy, and deliberately overblown, with exploding skeletons and clashing armies staged more like a rowdy theme-park spectacle than a conventional epic. Raimi understands that the point is not realism. The point is seeing Ash yell at an undead army while wielding a chainsaw and acting like he personally invented warfare.

The movie’s dialogue is another major reason it remains so beloved. “This is my boomstick” has become the obvious classic, but Army of Darkness is packed with lines that sound like they were designed to be repeated by friends after midnight screenings. Campbell’s delivery turns even the dumbest insult into something memorable. The movie knows Ash is absurd, but it also understands that he needs to be just cool enough for the audience to enjoy watching him survive. He is a lovable jerk because he is never actually in control for long. The universe keeps humiliating him, and Campbell makes every humiliation feel like another opportunity for a louder comeback.

Army of Darkness is not the scariest Evil Dead movie, the most atmospheric, or even necessarily the best constructed. It is uneven, shamelessly goofy, and occasionally held together by pure momentum. But it has a distinct personality that most franchise sequels would kill for. Raimi and Campbell take a low-budget horror premise and stretch it into a medieval monster comedy without losing the series’ manic spirit. It feels handmade even when it is big, silly even when it is violent, and weirdly triumphant despite Ash being one of the least heroic heroes in fantasy cinema. For fans of practical effects, stop-motion creatures, quotable cult movies, and Sam Raimi operating with absolutely no interest in restraint, Army of Darkness remains a blast.

Horror Film Review: Evil Dead II (dir. by Sam Raimi)

Posted on by Arleigh

“Swallow this.” — Ash Williams

With Evil Dead II, Sam Raimi took the basic cabin-in-the-woods nightmare of The Evil Dead and turned it into a frantic horror-comedy fever dream. Released in 1987, the film occupies a strange and wonderful place between a genuine continuation of The Evil Dead and a wildly exaggerated reimagining of it. It is nastier, funnier, more technically ambitious, and considerably more confident than its predecessor, yet it retains the homemade, anything-can-happen energy that made the original such a cult landmark. If The Evil Dead was a lean, rough-edged cabin-in-the-woods nightmare made by young filmmakers determined to prove themselves, Evil Dead II is Raimi and star Bruce Campbell returning with more resources, sharper instincts, and a total willingness to push every idea until it becomes cartoonishly grotesque.

The film begins with Ash Williams and his girlfriend Linda arriving at the infamous isolated cabin in the woods. It does not take long for them to stumble across the Necronomicon, the ancient book responsible for awakening flesh-hungry Deadites. What follows is an escalating barrage of possession, bodily mutilation, flying blood, demonic laughter, severed limbs, possessed household objects, and increasingly deranged attempts by Ash to survive the night. On a basic story level, it is familiar material. A group of people trapped in a remote location awaken evil forces and become possessed one by one. Raimi’s great achievement is that he never treats the formula as a limitation. Instead, he turns it into a delivery system for visual invention, slapstick timing, and creative violence.

The question of whether Evil Dead II is a sequel, a remake, or both has followed the movie for decades, and the honest answer is that it is effectively a sequel with a condensed remake-style opening. Raimi could not simply reuse footage from The Evil Dead, so the beginning retells the essential premise of the first film with Ash and Linda as the only characters at the cabin. That recap changes details, leaves out the original group of friends, and presents a shortened version of Ash’s first encounter with the Deadites. Once Ash survives the opening stretch and the evil returns, the movie continues beyond the events of The Evil Dead, making it a genuine sequel. Still, because the first act recreates so much of the original’s setup in a more polished and heightened form, it understandably feels like a remake before it becomes a continuation.

Bruce Campbell is the center of everything, and his performance is a huge part of why the film remains so beloved. Ash begins as an ordinary, frightened guy in over his head, but Campbell slowly transforms him into the character audiences recognize today: bruised, filthy, angry, absurdly resilient, and just arrogant enough to make his suffering hilarious. One of the movie’s most impressive qualities is how long Campbell can hold the screen almost entirely by himself. For substantial stretches, Ash has no real human companion to play off. He is acting opposite fake hands, props, stop-motion creatures, splattering fluids, camera movements, and the hostile architecture of the cabin. Campbell has to sell physical terror while also land jokes with the precision of a silent-film comedian.

The famous scene in which Ash’s possessed hand attacks him is probably the clearest example of what makes Evil Dead II special. In another horror movie, a man losing control of his hand might be played as disturbing body horror. Raimi turns it into a manic live-action cartoon. Ash battles his own hand with plates, books, a mousetrap, and anything else within reach, while Campbell throws himself around the room with astonishing commitment. The scene is funny because it is so excessive, but it never entirely stops being gruesome. Ash is still bleeding, suffering, and increasingly losing his mind. That balance is essential to the movie. Raimi does not abandon horror for comedy; he makes the comedy emerge from the intensity of the horror.

The cabin itself becomes one of the film’s great characters. In The Evil Dead, the location feels claustrophobic and decayed, a believable place that happens to become a site of supernatural violence. In Evil Dead II, it becomes something closer to a haunted funhouse. The walls seem alive, furniture appears to mock Ash, mounted animal heads laugh at him, and the entire building seems to participate in his breakdown. The sequence where Ash starts laughing alongside the room’s objects is especially memorable because it captures the film’s unstable tone. It is visually ridiculous, but there is genuine unease underneath it. Ash may be seeing a supernatural manifestation, losing his sanity, or both. Raimi keeps the audience off-balance by making laughter and fear feel almost inseparable.

Raimi’s direction is ferocious. The camera is constantly moving, rushing through forests, crashing into rooms, swooping toward characters, and creating the impression that the evil itself is an invisible force with a point of view. The “demon-cam” technique, in which the camera races through the woods toward its victims, returns from the first film but feels even more aggressive here. It gives the Deadites a strange presence despite the fact that they are often unseen. You do not merely hear something approaching; you feel the camera barreling toward Ash as if the movie has become possessed.

The practical effects remain a major reason to watch the film. They are intentionally messy, tactile, and sometimes obviously artificial, but that artificiality is part of the charm. The Deadites look like diseased puppets dragged out of a nightmare, their faces stretching into exaggerated masks of rot and rage. Blood does not behave like blood; it sprays in impossible volumes and bizarre colors. Bodies deform, heads spin, limbs detach, and tiny monsters swarm the frame. Rather than striving for realism, the effects aim for maximum impact. They create a world where physical rules have broken down, which suits a story about ancient evil invading the ordinary world.

The film’s humor also deserves credit for never making Ash too cool too early. Later installments, especially Army of Darkness, would lean more heavily into the swaggering, wisecracking version of the character. In Evil Dead II, he earns every bit of confidence through suffering. He is not a superhero with a chainsaw hand; he is a man forced to improvise a grotesque solution because he has no better option. When he straps the chainsaw onto his stump and prepares for battle, it is triumphant, but it is also the result of one of the most painful and grotesque scenes in the movie. The iconic image works because Raimi lets the audience experience the desperation behind it.

The supporting cast arrives later than expected, including Annie Knowby, daughter of the archaeologist connected to the Necronomicon, along with several others whose involvement predictably goes terribly wrong. They are not developed with the same attention as Ash, but that is not really the point. Their function is to give the Deadites fresh bodies to possess, create new complications, and help move the story toward its gleefully chaotic finale. Sarah Berry gives Annie an appealing mix of intelligence and panic, while Ted Raimi’s Henrietta becomes one of the movie’s most monstrous creations. The cellar scenes involving Henrietta are nasty, darkly funny, and among the strongest reminders that Raimi still knows how to make the audience uncomfortable even amid all the comedy.

By the time the film reaches its ending, Evil Dead II has become larger than its cabin setting. Its final twist sends Ash somewhere no viewer could reasonably have expected, turning what began as a contained survival-horror story into the launching point for the more openly fantasy-driven Army of Darkness. Yet the ending works precisely because the entire film has trained us to expect escalation. Every scene somehow finds a way to become more exaggerated than the last. A possessed girlfriend becomes a dancing corpse. A severed hand becomes a homicidal creature. A cabin becomes a carnival of insanity. A man with a chainsaw becomes an accidental hero.

More than three decades later, Evil Dead II still feels alive because it has a personality that no polished studio production could replicate. Its effects are physical, its performances are fearless, and its direction is so energetic that the movie seems ready to burst through the screen. It is gross, loud, silly, inventive, and sincerely scary in flashes. Raimi understands that horror can be horrifying and hilarious without weakening either quality. Evil Dead II is not merely a cult classic because people quote Ash or remember the chainsaw. It is a cult classic because it transforms limitations, madness, and handmade craftsmanship into a one-of-a-kind cinematic experience.

Horror Review: Trick ‘r Treat (dir. by Michael Dougherty)

Posted on by Arleigh

“All these traditions, jack-o’-lanterns, putting on costumes, handing out treats, they were started to protect us, but nowadays… no one really cares.” — Principal Steven Wilkins

What better and more fun way is there to celebrate the full month of scares and horror that October has become than with Michael Dougherty’s 2007 film Trick ’r Treat? It is the kind of Halloween movie that feels less like it was merely set on the holiday and more like it was built out of everything people love about it. Trick ’r Treat has jack-o’-lanterns glowing on porches, costumes ranging from charming to grotesque, chilly nighttime streets, old local legends, candy bowls, haunted-school-bus stories, werewolves, serial killers, and that ever-present feeling that something is watching from behind a tree. It is funny, nasty, creepy, and strangely cozy at the same time. More than almost any modern horror film, it understands Halloween as a whole atmosphere rather than a collection of familiar props.

At first glance, the movie looks like an anthology film. It is divided into several distinct stories with their own central characters, premises, and horror styles. One segment involves a principal with a murderous secret, another follows a group of kids investigating a grim local legend, another centers on young women looking for dates at a costume party, and another focuses on a bitter old man dealing with a small but persistent visitor. Each story could almost function as its own short horror movie. Dougherty clearly enjoys shifting tones, moving from slasher material to ghost-story melancholy, then into monster-movie lunacy and dark comedy. But the key difference is that Trick ’r Treat is not simply an anthology stitched together by a host or a framing device. Every story told in the film ties into an overarching story unfolding across one night of Halloween.

That structure is one of the movie’s smartest features. Characters drift in and out of one another’s narratives, sometimes briefly and sometimes in ways that completely change the audience’s understanding of what they have already seen. A person who seems like a background extra in one sequence becomes the focus of another. A strange sound, a distant scream, a passing school bus, or a visual detail in one story can gain much more meaning when it reappears elsewhere. The movie plays with chronology too, allowing events to overlap and occasionally revealing that scenes which seemed straightforward were occurring at a different point in the night than viewers assumed. It rewards attention without becoming confusing for the sake of being clever.

Dougherty handles those connections smoothly because the film never stops feeling like one continuous Halloween night. The transitions are playful rather than showy. The camera may follow a character down a street, past a decorated yard, into another group’s story, and suddenly the audience has entered a different kind of nightmare. That makes the town itself feel like a character. It is not a generic horror-movie setting where bad things happen because the script requires them to. It feels like a community with traditions, buried crimes, local myths, annual rituals, and plenty of people who are either hiding something or about to discover something unpleasant.

The town’s Halloween obsession is also what gives the film its personality. Trick ’r Treat treats Halloween rules almost like ancient laws: wear a costume, hand out candy, never blow out a jack-o’-lantern before midnight, and always respect the dead. Breaking those rules does not guarantee immediate punishment in a simple moralistic way, but it certainly puts people at risk. The film’s central icon, Sam, embodies that idea. Wearing orange pajamas, a burlap sack mask, and carrying a lollipop that can become a weapon, Sam is one of the great modern horror mascots because he is both adorable and deeply unsettling. He is not presented as a typical slasher villain with a detailed backstory or a conventional motivation. He feels more like the living spirit of Halloween itself: mischievous, ceremonial, cruel when necessary, and completely devoted to the holiday’s traditions.

Sam’s presence gives the movie a connective thread beyond plot mechanics. He appears in the background, watches over events, and eventually takes center stage in a way that is both amusing and genuinely tense. There is something almost storybook-like about him. He resembles a child going door to door for candy, but his behavior suggests an old supernatural force enforcing rules everyone else has forgotten. The movie wisely never overexplains him. Horror icons often become less interesting once every mystery is reduced to lore, family trees, and exposition. Sam works because Dougherty lets him remain partly unknowable.

The cast is another reason the film holds together so well. Dylan Baker is excellent as Steven Wilkins, the seemingly mild suburban principal whose cheerful politeness becomes much more disturbing once the movie reveals what he is doing after dark. Baker has a talent for making every smile look just slightly too controlled. His storyline is especially effective because it mixes grotesque humor with an unsettling domestic quality. He is not stalking victims through a foggy forest or living in an abandoned asylum. He is cleaning up a mess in his backyard while trying to maintain a normal family routine. That contrast makes his scenes nastier and funnier.

Brian Cox brings real weight to Mr. Kreeg, the grumpy old man at the center of the film’s most memorable Sam-focused material. Cox could have played him as a broad caricature, but he gives the character enough fear, frustration, and hidden sadness to make the confrontation feel more substantial than a simple old-man-versus-monster sequence. The movie’s final act uses his house almost like a haunted maze, with the warm, cluttered interior gradually becoming a battlefield. The tone remains playful, yet there is a real sense of danger whenever Sam drops the cute disguise and shows what he can do.

Anna Paquin also stands out in the segment involving Laurie and her friends. At first, it seems like the film is setting up a familiar vulnerability narrative: young women in costumes, a dark forest, strange men, and the possibility of a predatory attacker. Then Trick ’r Treat gleefully twists expectations. The reveal is not subtle, but it is staged with enough energy and confidence that it lands as a crowd-pleasing monster-movie moment. Dougherty knows that horror does not always need to be grim to be effective. Sometimes the best reaction is an audience laughing in surprise right before a scene turns bloodier than expected.

The school-bus story is probably the film’s creepiest material. The idea of children killed by adults and returning as drowned, decayed figures could have been handled in a cheap or overly cruel way, but the movie gives it a sad, mythic edge. The ghosts are frightening, but the story is also about guilt, buried history, and a town that has allowed its ugliest secret to become a campfire legend. The children may be supernatural monsters by the time they reappear, but the adults who wronged them are even more horrifying. That is a recurring theme throughout Trick ’r Treat: Halloween monsters are dangerous, but human selfishness, cowardice, and cruelty tend to create the worst consequences.

Visually, the film has aged remarkably well because it does not chase a slick, overly polished look. It has a rich autumnal color palette full of oranges, blacks, deep reds, and warm porch-light yellows. The night scenes are dark enough to feel threatening but clear enough that viewers can appreciate the costumes, decorations, and production design. Every street seems covered in leaves, every house has candles or carved pumpkins, and every shadow seems capable of hiding a creature. It feels like a heightened version of childhood Halloween memories, except those memories have been invaded by murderers, werewolves, demons, and ghosts.

The practical effects and creature work add a lot to that charm. The movie uses CGI when needed, but it does not depend on weightless digital spectacle. Sam’s physicality, the werewolf transformations, the decayed school-bus children, and the various masks and props all have a tactile quality. They look like things that belong in a haunted attraction, a particularly elaborate costume shop, or an old EC Comics-style horror story. That handmade texture fits the film perfectly. Trick ’r Treat is polished, but it never feels sterile.

What makes the movie so rewatchable is how comfortably it moves between tones. It can be goofy without becoming stupid, gruesome without becoming exhausting, and sentimental about Halloween without turning saccharine. It embraces the holiday’s childish excitement while acknowledging the darker folklore underneath it. There is candy, costumes, and neighborhood fun, but there are also old grudges, punished sinners, restless dead, and things that hunt after midnight. Dougherty understands that those two sides belong together. Halloween is fun partly because it lets people play with fear in a safe, communal way, and Trick ’r Treat captures that balance better than most horror movies.

The film’s anthology-like design gives it variety, while its overlapping characters, recurring events, and shared setting make it feel like one cohesive story rather than a disconnected collection of shorts. Its lasting popularity has also made the lack of a sequel feel increasingly strange. Fans have been clamoring for another trip through Sam’s Halloween night for years, and Dougherty has repeatedly hinted that he has ideas for where a follow-up could go. He has discussed multiple script drafts, storyboards, concept art, and the possibility of giving Sam a new adversary, but the project still has not received an official greenlight.

That uncertainty is frustrating, especially because Trick ’r Treat feels like a world with plenty more stories left to tell. At the same time, it is probably better that Dougherty has not rushed out a sequel just to cash in on the film’s cult status. The original works because it feels carefully constructed, visually specific, and completely committed to its Halloween setting; any follow-up would need to preserve that same mix of horror, comedy, folklore, and interconnected storytelling. For now, Trick ’r Treat remains an annual October rewatch because it honors Halloween’s old traditions while creating its own: a funny, spooky, blood-soaked celebration of costumes, candy, campfire legends, and the things that come out once the porch lights go dark.

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (dir. by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett) Review

Posted on by Arleigh

“You call it tradition. I call it rich people practicing murder.” — Grace

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come returns to the savage, high‑class dystopia of the Le Domas bloodline with a more manic, more crowded, and far bloodier version of the original’s “game‑night‑from‑hell” premise. Picking up years after the events of Ready or Not (2019), the film keeps Samara Weaving’s Grace at the center but expands the stakes beyond one family’s cursed estate into a loose oligarchy of ultra‑rich cultists, each with their own warped sense of tradition and entitlement. The result is a horror‑comedy that feels less like a slow‑burn ambush and more like a running, blood‑slicked marathon, where the line between satire and spectacle blurs but rarely collapses.

What distinguishes Ready or Not 2: Here I Come from many sequels is how deliberately it both leans into and pushes past the formula that made the first film such a cult hit. Rather than replay a single night of hide‑and‑seek in a shuttered mansion, this chapter sends Grace and her newly introduced estranged sister Faith (played by a suitably frazzled and sardonic Kathryn Newton) hurtling through multiple estates, country clubs, and private compounds, each governed by its own set of sadistic rules. The “game” is no longer a one‑family ritual but a broader network of wealthy families that have weaponized occult tradition as a way to justify their casual cruelty. This widening of the universe gives the film a more sprawling, almost procedural feel, as if the audience is being dragged through a gauntlet of different flavors of rich‑person depravity.

The script’s decision to pair Grace with another female lead is one of the film’s stronger creative choices. The strained sibling dynamic between Grace and Faith mirrors the original’s examination of family, but through a more grown‑up, emotionally messy lens. Their bickering and reluctant cooperation prevents Grace from simply repeating the same resilient‑final‑girl schtick; instead, she becomes a kind of worn‑out mentor forced to drag someone else into the nightmare she barely survived. The sisters’ chemistry—equal parts snark, vulnerability, and grudging solidarity—stops the film from devolving into pure nihilism and keeps the audience invested in their survival, even when the body count around them threatens to overwhelm the narrative.

Visually, Ready or Not 2 leans harder into its gore‑buff aesthetic than the first film did. The kills are more elaborate, more inventive, and frankly more grotesque, with set‑pieces involving everything from industrial kitchen equipment to ritualized animal sacrifice and spiked pits. Director Matt Bettinelli‑Olpin and Tyler Gillett, collectively known as Radio Silence, understand that the franchise’s appeal lies as much in its darkly comic carnage as in its social commentary, and they lean into that balance with gusto. The camera lingers on the absurdity of seeing millionaires in bespoke suits and designer gowns being dismantled in grotesque, almost slapstick fashion, which heightens the film’s “eat‑the‑rich” subtext without feeling like a lecture. The horror is still visceral, but it’s also frequently absurd, which fits the tone they’ve established since the original.

The escalation of violence, however, is also the film’s most obvious point of tension. Some of the more extreme set‑pieces verge on the gratuitous, and the pacing occasionally stumbles when the movie pauses between massacres to re‑establish lore or introduce new cult families. Not every supporting antagonist lands with the same impact as the original Le Domas clan; a few of the new patriarchs and matriarchs feel more like walking punchlines than genuinely threatening presences. The film compensates by front‑loading its energy with early, high‑impact kills and goofy one‑liners, but there are stretches where the plot feels like it is waiting for the next big set‑piece rather than organically building toward it.

One of the more interesting additions to the cast is Sarah Michelle Gellar, who pops up in a mid‑film role that taps into genre‑fan nostalgia while also deepening the film’s exploration of complicity and corruption. Gellar’s character is not the altruistic hero she personified in earlier horror‑adjacent roles; instead, she embodies a kind of jaded, self‑interested survivor who has learned to weaponize the same systems of privilege that the Le Domas exploited. Her presence calls attention to the cyclical nature of abuse and privilege in the film’s world: evil tendencies don’t disappear with one family’s downfall; they simply migrate to the next generation of the wealthy and powerful. This commentary on systemic rot is not subtle, but it also doesn’t feel out of place in a franchise that has always mixed political anger with slapstick brutality.

Where Ready or Not 2 arguably falters is in its structural confidence. The original film’s strength lay in its tight runtime and single‑location claustrophobia; the sequel’s sprawling geography and ensemble of killers make it feel looser and more episodic. The middle section in particular risks feeling like a series of vignettes tied together more by tone than by forward momentum. Some of the attempted twists and revelations toward the end rush past the audience before they can fully land, and there is at least one late‑stage development that feels less like a surprise and more like a contractual obligation to franchise‑building. The film clearly wants to set up a possible trilogy, but in doing so it occasionally sacrifices the emotional and narrative payoff that would make its closing sequences truly memorable.

Even with these flaws, the core appeal of Ready or Not 2: Here I Come remains intact. Samara Weaving continues to command the screen with a mix of physical toughness and wounded intelligence, and she’s paired here with a credible foil in Kathryn Newton who pushes her character into new emotional territory. The film also maintains the sharply satirical DNA of its predecessor, using its murderous rituals as a funhouse‑mirror reflection of real‑world conversations about wealth, inheritance, and generational trauma. The kills are over‑the‑top, the politics are broad, and the pacing is uneven, but the movie never loses sight of what it wants to be: a darkly comic splatterfest that lets audiences cheer for the underdog while watching the decadent one percent spectacularly implode.

Review: Ready or Not (dir. by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett)

Posted on by Arleigh

“This is some Lord of the Rings bullshit!” — Grace

Ready or Not is a sharp, nasty, and often very funny horror-comedy that turns a nightmare wedding into a vicious class satire. It works best when it embraces its wild premise with full confidence, even if some of its deeper ideas are only lightly explored.

Directed by Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, the film follows Grace, played by Samara Weaving, on what should be the happiest night of her life, only for her new in-laws to force her into a lethal game of hide-and-seek. That setup is simple, but it gives the movie a strong engine: one part survival thriller, one part dark comedy, and one part social commentary about money, power, and inherited privilege. The elegance of the concept is that it does not need much explanation to be effective, because the rules are clear, the stakes are immediate, and the movie wastes little time before letting the chaos begin.

The biggest strength of Ready or Not is Samara Weaving’s performance. Grace is written as someone who feels believable under pressure, which matters because the film asks her to go through absurd, increasingly brutal scenarios while still retaining her humanity. Weaving handles the tonal balancing act extremely well, moving between fear, frustration, disbelief, and darkly comic determination without losing the character’s core. She gives the film an emotional anchor, and without that, the movie would risk becoming just another splatter-heavy genre exercise.

The supporting cast also deserves credit because the Le Domas family is not just rich, but memorably awful in different ways. Adam Brody, Andie MacDowell, Henry Czerny, and the rest of the ensemble help create a household that feels polished on the surface and rotten underneath. Their performances are broadly heightened, but that fits the movie’s tone. The family’s panic, incompetence, and stubborn devotion to tradition become part of the joke, and the film gets a lot of mileage out of watching these people unravel while trying to appear dignified.

Tonally, the movie is strongest when it leans into the tension between horror and comedy. The violence is graphic, but the film rarely treats gore as the whole point; instead, it uses bloodshed as part of a larger joke about entitlement and ritual. That gives the movie a mischievous energy. It wants you to laugh at the absurdity of the situation while still feeling the danger, and for the most part it succeeds. The pacing is also a real asset, since the film avoids spending too long on setup and gets to the conflict quickly. Once the game begins, it keeps finding new ways to escalate the mayhem.

Thematically, Ready or Not is clearly aiming at class resentment and inherited wealth, and that angle gives the film bite. The Le Domas family represent old money, secrecy, and self-preserving tradition, and the movie uses their ridiculous customs to expose how fragile that world really is. There is a satirical edge to how the film portrays privilege as both absurd and dangerous, especially when the family’s traditions are treated with near-religious seriousness. At the same time, the movie is not especially subtle about this, and that can be either a strength or a limitation depending on what you want from it.

That lack of subtlety is one of the film’s few weaknesses. The “eat the rich” angle is easy to understand, but it is not always developed with much nuance, and some viewers may wish the script pushed its social ideas further. The mythology behind the family’s tradition is also deliberately loose, which helps the movie stay nimble but can make the lore feel less important than the film suggests it should be. In addition, the third act gets increasingly outrageous, and while that is part of the fun, not every twist lands with the same force. A few viewers may find the ending more satisfying than the logic that gets it there.

Even so, the film’s swagger largely carries it through those rough spots. Ready or Not understands that tone is everything in a movie like this, and it keeps its balance surprisingly well for something so gleefully chaotic. It is gory without becoming tedious, funny without undercutting the danger, and mean-spirited without losing sympathy for its lead. That is not an easy combination to pull off, and the filmmakers deserve credit for making the material feel brisk and controlled rather than sloppy or overextended.

What makes Ready or Not memorable is that it knows exactly what kind of movie it is. It is not trying to be profound in the heavy, prestige-drama sense, but it is smarter than a simple bloodbath and more disciplined than a pure shock machine. Its pleasures come from its energy, its attitude, and its willingness to let a ridiculous premise keep escalating without apology. The result is a horror-comedy with enough style, bite, and performance power to remain entertaining even when its thematic ambitions are a little broader than deep.

In the end, Ready or Not is a highly watchable genre piece with a terrific lead performance, a savage sense of humor, and a premise that stays potent from beginning to end. It is not perfect, and its satire can feel a little blunt, but it delivers exactly what it promises: a tense, bloody, darkly funny ride through a family dinner from hell.

Review: The Monster Squad (dir. by Fred Dekker)

Posted on by Arleigh

“Creature stole my Twinkie.” – Eugene

Released in 1987, The Monster Squad has lived one of those strange afterlives that cult films sometimes enjoy—ignored or even ridiculed upon release, only to become a beloved artifact for the generation that found it later on VHS. Directed by Fred Dekker and co-written with Shane Black, the movie occupies an awkward but endearing space between horror, comedy, and kids’ adventure. It never fully settles into one tone, and that’s part of both its charm and its problem. Watching it today, the film feels like The Goonies took a detour through a drive-in double feature of Dracula and The Wolf Man. It’s clunky, funny, occasionally mean-spirited, and loaded with enthusiasm—qualities that make it a thoroughly guilty pleasure for fans of ’80s genre mashups.

The story wastes no time getting into its madcap premise. A group of suburban preteens calling themselves “The Monster Squad” find that the classic Universal-style monsters are real, and worse, they’ve come to town. Count Dracula has a plan to plunge the world into darkness using an ancient amulet, and to succeed he enlists a roster of familiar faces: Frankenstein’s Monster, the Mummy, the Gill-Man, and the Wolf Man. This roster is fan-service before fan-service was a marketing term—a kid’s monster toybox brought to life. The squad, of course, must stop them, armed with comic-book knowledge, wooden stakes, and a blend of reckless courage and youthful sarcasm.

Dekker’s direction and tone play like a movie made for kids but smuggled in some heavy teenage energy. There’s violence, crude jokes, and occasional language that Hollywood would never let slip into a PG-friendly franchise today. Yet that rough edge is part of why The Monster Squad aged into cult status. It’s unapologetically of its time, operating on the belief that kids can handle scares as long as they’re fun and that suburban fantasy can, for a while at least, coexist with real danger. The movie’s depiction of childhood feels filtered through a stack of comic books and Creepshow issues—hyper absurd but still emotionally grounded in a way only ’80s adventure films seemed to pull off.

The kids themselves are a mixed bunch of believable archetypes. There’s Sean (André Gower), the de facto leader with a bedroom plastered in monster movie posters; Patrick (Robby Kiger), his wisecracking sidekick; Rudy (Ryan Lambert), the too-cool-for-school older kid who smokes, rides a bike, and somehow becomes the squad’s weapons specialist; and Eugene (Michael Faustino), the youngest, who still sleeps with his dog and writes letters to the Army for backup. They’re joined by Horace, nicknamed “Fat Kid,” played with surprising vulnerability by Brent Chalem. Each character is drawn broadly but memorably, and even when the dialogue veers into dated humor, there’s an underlying sincerity. You can tell Dekker and Black really liked these kids. They might use slingshots and one-liners, but what unites them is their intense sense of loyalty to one another—the kind of friendship that survives both bullies and broomstick-wielding vampires.

If there’s an emotional anchor, oddly enough, it’s the relationship between the squad and Frankenstein’s Monster, played by Tom Noonan in an unexpectedly gentle performance. When the creature befriends the kids, particularly little Phoebe (Ashley Bank), the film shifts momentarily from wisecracks to something close to tenderness. Noonan gives the character a shy uncertainty, a weary loneliness that offsets the visual absurdity of the rubbery monsters around him. There’s even a tinge of tragedy in his final act, which echoes Frankenstein’s literary roots—a moment of real feeling buried inside an otherwise loud and gleefully messy creature romp.

The monsters themselves, created by legendary effects artist Stan Winston, are among the film’s biggest draws. Each design feels like a loving upgrade to the old Universal look—recognizable but more feral, angular, and rooted in late-’80s aesthetics. The Wolf Man, for example, looks simultaneously comic and menacing, while the Gill-Man costume still impresses for its texture and movement decades later. The decision not to rely on stop motion or heavy opticals gives the monsters a tactile presence that CGI could never capture. There’s something about watching full-bodied suits and prosthetics move in real space that makes the threats feel tangible even when the stakes are goofy. These creatures are fun to look at, even when the script doesn’t give them much to do beyond roar and stalk across smoke-filled sets.

Shane Black’s fingerprints are all over the dialogue—the sardonic banter, the genre in-jokes, the affection for both pulp tropes and subverting them. But perhaps because the film was marketed partly as family adventure and partly as horror spoof, it often can’t decide whether to play sincere or ironic. Some scenes lean heavily on nostalgic affection for monster movies, while others feel almost mean in their mockery of small-town innocence. The tone whiplash means The Monster Squad doesn’t build much consistent momentum; one minute it’s heartfelt, the next it’s a barrage of sarcastic one-liners. Still, its rough tonal juggling has a ragtag energy that keeps it lively, and the sheer commitment to blending genres is endearing.

When it comes to pacing, the movie flies by in under 80 minutes, which turns out to be both blessing and curse. On one hand, there’s no filler—every scene moves briskly to the next piece of monster mayhem. On the other, the movie’s emotional beats and mythology barely have time to breathe. We get glimmers of backstory (like Dracula’s cryptic hunt for the amulet and Van Helsing’s prologue battle) that hint at a larger world that the film never really explores. You sense that Dekker and Black were operating under the fantasy logic of childlike storytelling: don’t explain too much, just move fast enough that no one questions it. It works, more or less, because of the film’s sheer enthusiasm, but it leaves you imagining a richer version of this story that never quite made it onscreen.

Looking back from today’s lens, some parts of The Monster Squad show their age more harshly. Certain lines and stereotypes that went unnoticed in the ’80s now feel jarring, even uncomfortable, and the film’s cavalier tone sometimes undercuts moments that should feel more innocent. Yet despite that, most viewers who revisit it with awareness of its era find themselves disarmed by its sense of fun. There’s no cynicism driving it—it’s pure genre love, messy and sincere, like a handmade Halloween costume that’s somehow cooler precisely because it’s imperfect. The film represents a time when kids’ movies were allowed to have teeth, blood, and a few scary moments, trusting that a young audience could handle being spooked without needing everything smoothed over.

For many fans, The Monster Squad works less as a polished film and more as an experience—a flashback to VHS sleepovers, bad pizza, and rewinding favorite scenes. The movie’s newfound appreciation, fueled by screenings and documentaries like Wolfman’s Got Nards, speaks to that nostalgic bond. It’s less about objective greatness and more about the feeling it preserves. Sure, some of the jokes fall flat, and the plot functions mostly as connective tissue between monster gags, but few movies embody the gleeful chaos of late-’80s pop horror as affectionately as this one does.

The Monster Squad earns its title. It’s not a flawless film, nor even a particularly coherent one, but it’s deeply fun, carried by the conviction that monsters—real or imaginary—are made to be fought with courage, humor, and friends who have your back. Watching it now is like flipping through an old comic book you used to love: you can see every crease and faded color, but that doesn’t make it any less special. And in a cinematic era saturated with irony and nostalgia pastiche, The Monster Squad still feels refreshingly earnest about its own weirdness. Maybe that’s its secret power.

Review: Rare Exports (dir. by Jalmari Helander)

Posted on by Arleigh

“The real Santa was totally different. The Coca-Cola Santa is just a hoax.” — Pietari Kontio

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is a quirky Finnish film that turns the cheerful Santa story upside down, mixing horror, laughs, and holiday vibes in a bold way. Directed by Jalmari Helander in 2010, it builds on his earlier short films and unfolds in the bleak, snowy wilds of Lapland. Starting with a kid’s innocent curiosity, it dives into creature-filled madness, offering a fun alternative to typical Christmas movies. The film’s unique premise grabs you right away, promising something far removed from the sanitized holiday fare we’re all used to, and it delivers on that with a blend of folklore, tension, and unexpected twists that linger long after the credits roll.

The plot centers on young Pietari in a remote village where his dad and neighbors herd and slaughter reindeer for a living. An American-backed dig nearby uncovers something ancient and icy, sparking trouble like missing kids and odd thefts. Pietari reads from a book portraying Santa as a terrifying punisher rather than a gift-bringer, and soon the village captures a wild, elf-like creature to exploit, only to confront the bigger threat emerging from the frost. This setup masterfully builds suspense through everyday rural life clashing with supernatural intrusion, where the slow reveal of the mound’s secrets heightens the stakes. Pietari’s journey from wide-eyed boy to resourceful hero forms the emotional core, as he grapples with myths coming alive while the adults bumble through denial and desperation. The narrative weaves in economic pressures on the herders, adding a layer of realism to the fantastical elements, making the horror feel grounded in human struggle.

The movie’s mood captures that chilling isolation of deep winter, with vast snowscapes and biting winds making every sound feel ominous. Practical effects bring the skinny, feral beings—wild-eyed old men with fangs who move like beasts—to life in a raw, creepy style that avoids digital gloss for something viscerally unsettling. Pietari, played with earnest intensity by a young actor who nails the mix of fear and determination, anchors the emotion as he outsmarts the clueless grown-ups. It blends youthful adventure with sharp violence, from brutal bites and chases across frozen lakes to fiery clashes that punctuate the cold palette. Cinematography plays a huge role here, using long takes of barren landscapes to evoke vulnerability, while close-ups on the creatures’ grotesque features ramp up the dread without relying on jump scares. The film’s pacing ebbs and flows like a blizzard—calm buildup giving way to frantic bursts—keeping viewers on edge throughout its compact runtime.

Humor keeps things lighthearted, skewering Christmas clichés with glee, from red-suited abominations to the absurdity of weaponizing holiday icons against ancient evils. Burly locals stuffing their caught creature into a Santa outfit for a quick ransom scam leads to hilarious chaos, blending slapstick with dark undertones as plans unravel spectacularly. The short runtime flies by, blending Finnish authenticity—complete with subtitles that capture the dry wit—with brisk energy that never lets momentum sag. Deeper notes on faith, family bonds, and rural struggles hide under the fun, all tied to old pagan roots of the holiday myth, prompting thoughts on how modern traditions mask primal fears. These comedic beats provide relief without undercutting tension, creating a tonal tightrope walk that Helander navigates with confidence, much like his protagonists dodging fangs in the snow.

Still, it has rough edges holding it back from perfection. Some plot turns feel too convenient, like the hasty shift from fear to scheming among the villagers, which can pull you out of the immersion if you’re paying close attention. A few characters lack depth, especially the overconfident American outsider whose motivations come off as cartoonishly smug without much backstory to flesh them out. Women barely appear, relegated to minor roles or off-screen mentions, giving it an old-school, male-dominated feel that hasn’t aged as gracefully in modern viewing. The monsters, while initially shocking, grow predictable in their attacks after repeated encounters, diluting the novelty midway through. The wild finale, packed with explosive action and a cheeky resolution, might leave straight horror seekers cold—it’s more a playful genre mash-up than nonstop unrelenting terror, prioritizing fun over lingering nightmares.

The real locations sell the unforgiving outdoors, with Finland’s rugged terrain ramping up the ancient-evil vibe through authentic blizzards and icy caverns that no studio set could replicate. A clever soundtrack pairs eerie hums and dissonant strings with festive twinkles for ironic tension, underscoring scenes of quiet horror or frantic pursuits without overpowering the natural sounds of cracking ice and howling gales. Acting feels grounded across the board, with the dad character delivering tough warmth through gruff line delivery and physical comedy, while the ensemble of villagers comes across like real, weathered folks rather than polished performers. Helander expands his original shorts smartly, keeping the cheeky core intact while scaling up the stakes for feature-length thrills, showing a director comfortable with both intimate scares and big set pieces.

Beyond the surface-level scares and laughs, Rare Exports invites reflection on cultural myths and commercialization—how Santa’s image has been sanitized from something feral into a mall mascot, and what happens when the wild origins claw their way back. It’s a film that thrives on subverting expectations, starting as a kid’s adventure tale before morphing into a survival thriller with creature-feature flair. The practical makeup and prosthetics on the beasts deserve special mention for their handmade creepiness, evoking classic horror without the uncanny valley pitfalls of CGI. Editing keeps the energy taut, cutting between Pietari’s discoveries and the adults’ mishaps to build parallel dread.

As holiday counterprogramming, Rare Exports shines for fans of weird cult picks, great for group watches where reactions to the escalating weirdness become part of the fun. It holds up on repeats with hidden nods to its short-film origins, like recurring motifs and visual gags that reward eagle-eyed viewers. If you like folklore twists in films with adventure flair—think pseudo-documentaries hunting trolls or rural legends gone wrong—this delivers original entertainment despite its quirks. Ultimately, its charm lies in balancing the grotesque with the gleeful, crafting a Christmas tale that’s equal parts frightful and festive, proving that sometimes the best gifts come wrapped in fangs and fur.

Horror Trailer: Send Help

Posted on by Arleigh

Send Help is a darkly comedic psychological thriller directed by Sam Raimi. The film centers on two coworkers, Linda Liddle and Bradley Preston, who are the only survivors of a plane crash that leaves them stranded on a deserted island. Two people who shouldn’t be together in the same room must now collaborate to survive. The film looks to play on the two characters darkly comedic battle of wills and wits to what looks like survival of the fittest. The film is a mix of survival drama, sharp psychological tension, and Raimi’s signature style, blending horror and black comedy elements.

The film stars Rachel McAdams as Linda Liddle and Dylan O’Brien as Bradley Preston, with a supporting cast including Edyll Ismail, Dennis Haysbert, Xavier Samuel, Chris Pang, Thaneth Warakulnukroh, and Emma Raimi. Send Help is produced by Sam Raimi and Zainab Azizi, with a screenplay by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, and features music by frequent collaborator, Danny Elfman. It is scheduled for theatrical release nationwide on January 30, 2026, distributed by 20th Century Studios.