Is Mac and Cheese A Side Dish or A Main?: The Blackening (2022)

The Blackening (2022)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Grace Byers, Jermaine Fowler, Melvin Gregg

For the longest time, the whole trope of Black characters dying first in horror movies baffled me since, being a guy obsessed with slasher films, I can only count maybe five titles out of hundred-ish wherein this instance holds true. (New Year's Evil (1980), Alone in the Dark (1982), Slaughter High (1986), A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988), and Scream 2 (1997), to name a few) I now understand that this is more of a stab at the token minority trope, a problematic movie practice of sacrificing characters of certain ethnicities to the threat as bodycount fodder and/or motivation for the hero (typically a white male) to do better in saving the day. Over the years, through social push, more big-name Black actors are given more access to show off their talents, resulting to horror legends like the late-Tony Todd, Ken Foree, and Keith David, as well as modern horror creators like Jorden Peele and Misha Green, gracing the screen with a great deal of prominent Black characters in memorable leading roles.

With this turn, the "Black guy dies first" trope is occasionally uttered around nowadays as a tongue-in-cheek joke. The same kind of cheekiness that gets us fun and silly terror flicks like this house-in-the-woods survival slasher, The Blackening (2022)!

It's a Juneteenth weekend and a group of old college friends are meeting up for the first time after ten years; the assortment includes gal pals Lisa (Antoinette Robertson) and Allison (Grave Byers), and their gay bestie Dewayne (Dewayne Perkins); hunky African-descent Nnamdi (Sinqua Walls) and his former-gangster bro King (Melvin Gregg); life-of-the-party Shanika (X Mayo) and incredibly nerdy Clifton (Jermaine Fowler). They're all invited to a vacation house in the middle of the woods by their friends Shawn and Morgan, who are suspiciously missing the moment they arrived. Nonetheless, the gang starts celebrating like any people in backwoods slashers would, with a whole lot of Spades, diabetic Kool-Aid and a side of troublesome fling that may or may not open old heartbreaks. 

The good times can only go so long before the lights suddenly go out and, on their search to get the power back on, the group stumbles upon a hidden room full of board games. Including an obscenely racist-looking one called "The Blackening", consisting of question cards, a grinning Sambo fella on the middle of the board and, curious enough, game pieces seemingly made based on their specific personalities. When the game centerpiece starts asking them to pick a card and play, this is when things get really screwed up as everybody finds out that Shawn is dead and Morgan is about to be tortured by a masked killer somewhere inside the house. Making matters worse is the game room is rigged close and the only way everyone to get out alive is to beat the The Blackening, or die trying!

Keeping the record straight, The Blackening (2022) is less a horror-comedy and more of a comedy with horror elements. Yes, there are kills and killers, a sense of stake, and a mystery as to who is behind this entire bloody fiasco, though the approach taken here leans closer to satirizing slasher tropes through the eyes of sharply witty and street smart African-Americans. Think a Halloween episode of The Boondocks, only feature length and with a killer masked up to look like a damn minstrel show. This certainly meant that the movie has little in the sense of blood, tension and scares, but the unapologetic energy of its writing and characters when it comes to poking fun at horror tropes, as well as showcasing jokes outside of the horror spectrum, is incredibly infectious down to the funny bones! (A running gag involving conversations through eye contact only being my favorite!) 

A good deal of this workability stems from the incredible chemistry and performances the entire casts have, from the hearty humor surrounding around Lisa and Dewayne's friendship jeopardized by Lisa's love for Nnamdi, to the no-nonsense loudness of Shanika and Carlton's cringe-inducing awkwardness. Their reaction to the bloodshed practically lampoons the roles of Black people in horror media, mainly being quippy, lucky and even straightforward enough to actually best the killer in a lot of encounters despite some painful, embarrassing, and painfully embarrassing blowbacks on their part. (Splitting up. Accidentally hurting themselves with their weapons. Getting high on Molly while being hunted down. Y'know, the usual backwoods horror theatrics) Interestingly, it is through this lampooning that The Blackening (2022) also took its chances to examine how modern culture and its many attempts to define ethnic communities led to harmful judgement within these circles, a lot of it light-heartedly addressed during the times the friends are forced to play The Blackening and test their Black-ness, only to later resurface as a motive in this movie's plot twist. While nowhere a grandeur deconstruction, it is an intriguing insight to pull within the movie's remarkably coherent humor.

The Blackening (2022) is, without a doubt, very "Black" and I just love it for that! It may not do much as a horror flick, but as silly fun little movie you can sit back and relax to, it's a whole party, baby! So grab some Rap Chips, down some King's Kool-Aid, and treat yourself with this roaring riot of a comedy slasher!

Bodycount:

1 male shot on the neck with a crossbow

1 female killed offscreen

1 male repeatedly stabbed with arrow heads

1 male shot through the neck with a crossbow

1 male had his head pulped with a candlestick, stomped dead

1 male shot with a crossbow, kicked into a well (?)

Total: 6 (?)

Feeling A Little Devilish: Hell Of A Summer (2023)

Hell Of A Summer (2023)

Rating: ***
Starring: Adam Pally, Rosebud Baker, Fred Hechinger

At age 24, Jason Hochberg (Fred Hechinger) could have been working a real job. One that probably pays more than a hundred bucks a week. But, no, he prefers to cling on to an adolescent happy place and accept a lead camp counselor gig at his childhood Summer haven, Camp Pineway, after the owners have to take a leave of absence. Genuinely thrilled by this, Jason went on and about trying to befriend the latest turnover of young camp counselors, who are more or less your walking and breathing killcount tropes, only coated here with a fresh paint of Gen Z-stereotyping. Needless to say, Jason's overly-friendly approach to be one with the teen clutter is mostly taken with an awkward stance and a chuckle, maybe a couple of eyerolls at its worse, but this will drastically go South later that evening when someone in a handcrafted devil mask starts to hack aspiring social influencers dead inside their cabins, as well as decapitate vocal vegans with a mean meat cleaver, among many other gruesome bodily atrocities...

It's a backwoods slasher plot as old as time, though the direction and tone here is noticeably more focused on the coming-of-age comedy than throwing dismembered limbs on the air for a splatter-fest. A lot of the jokes and dialogue centers on the generational clash between Jason and the group of junior counselors who would rather speak about meat being murder, gathering online clout, or practicing their death shrieks for a stage play they're working on; occasionally, it's cute and worth the little giggle here and there for how cleverly written and edited some of these sequences are, though a few did fall flat, fumbling whatever gag they're building to, making the whole teen camp comedy angle a hit-or-miss. That said, though, it would be a disservice to the actors to not at least credit their talents as they did manage to pull off the one-note ridiculousness of their characters, yet still making them likeable enough to feel sorry for whenever they're in trouble. May it be from the killer, or their own stupidity. 

For the slasher side of things, it started strongly with two gruesome murders involving a guitar and a knife murder that's executed oh so deliciously, only for it to take a backseat until halfway into the movie when it makes a clumsy comeback; while it has its share of splashy kills like a gnarly axe to the head and a brutal rock beating, its more novel deaths were only teased such as the killer taking a mean-spirited advantage on a victim's nut allergy by dipping their knife in a jar of peanut butter first, though rather than showing the dirty deed, the next thing we see is the poor shmuck's lifeless red-faced body being dragged out. It's kinda frustrating, though not as frustrating as the killer's overused motive of doing it because of a sociopathic need to have eyes and ears on them, though I'll give credit to the twist reveal as I honestly didn't see it coming, plus I do dig the gradeschool craft devil mask and cloak combo! In the end, we're treated with a passable enough final act that ties things as neatly as a standard backwoods slashers would and it's, well, fine.

Hell of a Summer (2023) doesn't really need to much to be entertaining. Dare I say it's actually halfway being a decent backwoods bodycounter you can pop in anytime for a simple fun watch, but it held off a bit on the carnage and sets its gums on a more comical venture that only partially works. The end product is a half-and-half attempt, but, frankly, it could have been worse. So much worse.

Bodycount:

1 male found with his mouth impaled with a guitar neck

1 female stabbed in the head with a hunting knife

1 female hacked with a meat cleaver, head found in a refrigerator

1 male stabbed with a peanut butter-tainted kitchen knife, dies from allergic shock

1 female knifed in the back, beaten with a rock

1 male hacked in the head with an axe

1 male stabbed in the neck with a swiss army knife

1 female gets an arrow shot to an eye, stomped

Total: 8

The Douche Who Cried Axe: #ChadGetsTheAxe (2022)

#ChadGetsTheAxe (2022)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Spencer Harrison Levin, Michael Bonini, Taneisha Figueroa

Personally, I see fame as more of a bother than a benefit. Sure, you get the riches and recognition, but it comes with the pressure of meeting people's expectations and this often comes with the price of one's self-respect and decency. When fame becomes an obsession for clout, this need for attention can spiral towards notoriety and you'll become trouble. Or be troubled.

Though, I don't believe getting troubled by an axe-wielding maniac is something a fame-hungry moron would need to worry about. 

That much.

Based on a 2019 short film of the same title, #ChadGetsTheAxe (2022) follows vlogger "Spicy Steve" (Michael Bonini), couple Jennifer and Spencer (Taneisha Figueroa and Cameron Vitosh) of the beauty blog 'Spennifer", and uber-popular prankster Chad Ryan (Spencer Harrison Levin) plan a collaborative urban exploration video and stream for the weekend. The place they'll be exploring is one Devil's Manor, a dilapidated backwoods property near a swamp, which is said to be the hotspot of supposed cult activities around the area as a Satanist named William Burrows did have a mass murdering spree there many years ago. The night goes as you would expect it being populated by social media celebrities; they explore the manor while responding to comments, advertise their merch once in a while, and do obnoxious dares whenever their view count reaches a certain number. (One of which echoes the real life sickening stunt influencer Logan Paul did during his visit to Mount Aokigahara)

The fun times could only last long before things start to get unnerving; when one of them gets attacked, it's very well clear then that somebody else is inside the manor. Someone masked up, wielding an axe and not too pleased to have these people roaming around. Chad, unsurprisingly, is ready to dismiss this as a prank plotted by fellow pranksters until, that is, more of his friends disappear and all that's left for the mysterious masked maniac to hunt is him...

Shot through the rarely used Screenlife format, wherein we see the action unfold through the screen of a device via apps and sites (think Unfriended (2014), Spree (2020) and Deadstream (2022)), #ChadGetsTheAxe (2022) gets the benefit of being fun by satirizing the many stereotypes of click chasers while delivering a good dose of creepy imagery and set-pieces. It doesn't waste time getting into the main event, almost immediately throwing the streamers into the supposed haunted manor and simply letting the story develop as it goes by, showing us just what kind of people behind the camera phones are as the situation gravely escalates, as well as the reaction of the community they are catering to. The direction is pretty spot on to what we would normally expect from a weekend night stream hosted by an appalling content creator, pure unhinged and aggravating debauchery, and director Travis Bible practically knows we're here to see these idiots get their comeuppance for giving in to the almighty viewer count at the cost of common sense and a soul. Happy to say, we get what we came to see!

One by one, our streamers are picked off, a few clearly axed dead. Whenever #ChadGetsTheAxe (2022) slides in a creepy scene and build-up, it's all done with a straight face that's greatly effective. The villain doesn't ham it up, making their murderous assaults often jarring, even more so when the story finds opportunities to shed a sympathetic light on the victims, such as moments of clarity among the creators when some of them recognize how messed up the gags and situation are becoming, or slices of commentary on the unhealthy relationship between creators and their fanbases. It's not overly scary, per se, as the film still has its focus more on humor than frights, but it's a satisfying watch as the stalk-and-hunt onslaught with Burrows and his axe add weight to the horror side of this horror-comedy. 

This all leads to a third act where the story puts the hurt on Chad as he becomes an unwilling final boy dodging a masked killer's axe swings. He gets stalked through the woods, his means for escape repeatedly thwarted, and his cries for help dismissed by most of his viewers as either a joke, or just something they can cruelly exploit for fun. It's both cathartic and pathetic, impressively working both in a balance as we see this guy who spent most of his onscreen time being noisome reduced to a helpless whelp, more so on the movie's final act as a good twist reveals a hopeless situation hinted in a blink-and-you-miss moment in the chat. The end result is a grimly satisfying end full of desperation, axe falls and blood flowing on a live stream.

#ChadGetsTheAxe (2022) can be a little rough on the edges, but it understands the culture of online clout and the toxic people surrounding it. It uses those to its advantage, crafting a smart, funny and creepy backwoods slasher that shouldn't work, but did! Chad got the axe and I'm glad to have seen it!

Bodycount:

1 male body found rotting

1 male hacked with an axe

1 male hacked with an axe

1 male killed offscreen with an axe

1 female hacked with an axe

1 male killed offscreen with an axe

1 male hacked with an axe

Total: 7

Me Hoy Minoy!: Shiver Me Timbers (2025)

Shiver Me Timbers (United Kingdom, 2025)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Murdo Adams, Stephen Corrall, Paul Dewdney

Popeye The Slayer Man? Popeye's Revenge? And now, Shiver Me Timbers?! It looks like 2025 is going to be the year of Popeye slashers thanks to the old cartoon sea dog entering public domain and while I am not totally sure if I'm on board with this trend of vilifying heroic ole' Popeye The Sailor Man as a slasher monster, so long as the oddity of it all keeps it entertaining, I guess.

And odd is exactly the word for this one; taking place in 1986, siblings Ollie and Castor Oyl tag along their friends to camp out at a Northern Californian backwoods and watch the meteor shower accompanying Halley's comet, as well as the occasional booze chugging, weed smoking and premarital sexy time! In between all of this casualness, they nearly run over an old sailor guy who's out there to fish and, too, stop a pair of violent punks from beating up a poor vagrant who, in turn, doomsays that the comet is Evil!!!

True enough, a teeny-tiny piece of a meteor happens to float into the aforementioned sailor guy's pipe, which he thought nothing of and proceeds to smoke it. Little did he know, huffing and puffing the space rock has otherworldly consequences, mainly being mutated into a brawny monster man with a cartoonishly deformed face, with nothing but brutal murder in mind.

That said, guess who this mutant Popeye just happens to stumble upon no soon after?

With an obvious low budget and a firm tongue pressed in a cheek, Shiver me Timbers (2025) practically embraced the absurdity of making a slasher movie out of Popeye the Sailor Man, throwing in a weird premise involving deadly meteor showers, excessively splattery kills and one of the funniest looking Popeye killer so far, dubbed 'Monster Popeye", into a melting pot full of bad cheese! Granted that the shoestring production can get really distracting with all the bargain bin visuals populated by laughably bad computer graphics and store-bought practical effects, not to mention the caricature-quality character writing and acting, as well as the numerous sloppy editing, that's kinda the fun point of this movie. It's so bad, it's sort of respectable for how silly it can get! 

Shiver Me Timbers (2025) never feels like the kind of movie that'll detail why a meteor fragment caused one old sailor to hulk-out into a killer juggernaut, or go deep into Ollie's dilemma about leaving for college. No, it's the kind where a mutant man rips off a fat bloke's head while the fella uses an outhouse, and then follow the murder up with the head living long enough to horribly witness his killer pop a squat down on his freshly decapitated neck stump. Or have a finale that's greatly inspired by Evil Dead II (1987) as Ollie finds a giant gas-powered buzzsaw constructed by an crazy wheelchair-bound coot and do battle with it against a savage sailor man who, at that point, starts uttering Popeye quotes. It's the kind of movie that, honestly, isn't going to win a big crowd, but will sit well for those who wouldn't mind wasting a good hour and ten-ish minutes on a juvenile slasher littered with trashy charms and nasty kills just for the giggles!

In all honesty, the fact that we have a killer Popeye as a villain for a story that has barely anything to do with the cartoons is pretty much telling that Shiver Me Timbers (2025) is meant to be a joke. How well you take this joke, though, may depend on your tolerance for bad movies. Really bad movies. What say you, sailor?

Bodycount:

1 male had his head pulverized with a punch

1 male had his head torn off

1 male skewered through the arse with a baseball bat, exits to mouth

1 female seen decapitated

1 female gets a meteorite through the head

1 male found dismembered

1 male dunked inside a barrel of toxic waste, melted

1 male beaten to death with a wooden plank

1 male stomped on the head

1 male nearly sliced in half by an oversized gas-powered buzzsaw (?)

Total: 10 (?)

The Morbid Pursuit Of The Art Of Murder: R.S.V.P. (2002)

R.S.V.P. (2002)
Rating: ***1/2
Starring: James M. Churchman, Sharon Bruneau, Scott Workman

Picture Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) reimagined as a slasher, written by Kevin Smith and featuring Patrick Bateman from American Psycho (2000) as the killer. This is what R.S.V.P. (2002) is, for better or worse.

Criminology student Nick 'The Prick' Collier (Rick Otto) is hosting a leaving party for his friend Jimmy (Lucas Babin), as the guy prepares to relocate with his girlfriend Jordan (Brandi Andres), who happens to be Nick's ex. One by one, the guests arrive, consisting of their friends (among them Jason Mewes of Jay & Silent Bob fame playing a stoner, because of course), Jimmy's family, as well as their professor, Hal Evans (Glenn Quinn), and it's mostly fun and games with a bit of tarot card reading, weed smoking and cocktail mixing. There is also Hal's discussions circling around the idea of murder being an art form, something that puts plenty of the partygoers on a sour mood seeing how passionate, borderline obsessed he is about it. 

And there's the matter of Jimmy not showing up to his own party which is starting to worry some of the guests. Not to mention Nick acting a little suspicious about a particular piece of decorative chest in the living room. Needless to say, something is very off about the party and things are about to get way worse when Nick begins murdering away one unfortunate soul at a time, seemingly inspired by the very atrocities he learned studying serial killers...

Rather than your routine stalk-and-stab, R.S.V.P. (2002) has its focus more on dark humor and trenchant characters, often delving into situational comedy territory following Nick's attempt to juggle running a party, killing off the guests and then hiding away the bodies just to keep things running as smoothly as he plans it. We're pretty much in on the joke and, frankly, it is a intriguing set-up for a slasher, more so a homage to Rope (1948), as the plot keeps a constant academic yet reckless angle on the murders, mostly within dialogues shared between Nick and Prof. Evans as they pretentiously yet captivatingly run their mouths toward philosophizing serial killing, all in the midst of good acting and writing. It's without a doubt this movie's engaging highlight, though this does mean it can get a bit talky and flaunty in its direction.

The kills themselves have little blood to speak of, preferring showy deaths than over-the-top splatter which may drive away gorehounds, though the film makes up for it with flashy effects and editing, as well as a lot of quirky scenes of our killer finding fun ways to dispose the guests and the troublesome tasks of storing away the remains right after. It isn't long before we're back with the usual slasher climax of a final girl fending off the villain, though this one comes with a rather amusing confession as Nick points out the absurdity of serial killers always needing an alibi for their massacres, and how his killing spree is brag-worthy different as he did it because he simply could. The oddity of it all continues to the film's last few scenes, wherein our survivors relax with a roll of joint after defeating the killer, capping off that night's dreadful experience by stating the dilemma of them needing new friends to hang out with now. It's dumb but, hey, it could be so much worse.

R.S.V.P. (2002) is weird, but it's the agreeable kind of weird! Ostentatious, sure, but it makes for a quaint and eccentric watch! 

Bodycount:

1 male stabbed in the gut with a knife

1 female knifed to death, blood splash seen

1 female brained with a cane

1 male kicked down an elevator shaft

1 female had her neck snapped

1 male shot with a nailgun

1 female shot to death with a nailgun

1 male strangled to death with a guitar string

1 female drowned in a pot of boiling water

1 male stuffed inside a chest, suffocated

1 male found dead inside a garbage bag

1 male shot, stabbed with a broken bong

1 male knocked off a building, lands on a parked car

Total: 13

A Bad Case of Bad Frankie: Toga Party Massacre (1988)

Toga Party Massacre (1988 Short)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Raymond Whalen, Matt Kolata, Waltt Hunnicutt.

They say that if you dig into the bottom barrel bins deep enough, the bottom barrel bins will dig themselves up for you. When that happens, you'll either be soaked in bad celluloid slurry, or uncover a little gem hidden within the mess of bad lighting and horrible acting. 

That said: Toga Party Massacre (1988).

In response to the parents heading out for the night, two young ladies hold a toga party with their friends and learn about Frankie Robertson, who was supposedly killed back in 1964 after getting trapped inside and crushed dead by a collapsing house. No body was ever found from the rubbles and a new house was built ten years later at the foundation of the old one. The very same house where the toga party is behind held. Now, seemingly awakened by the noise, Frankie comes back to life, masked up as the Frankenstein Monster and with a real murderous streak.

Just 35 minutes short and made with little to no budget, Toga Party Massacre (1988) shouldn't work considering how thin the story is and there's nothing remotely grand about the massacre itself as not only are most of the kills done offcamera, those we do get to see are hardly splatter masterpieces. And yet, the sheer enthusiasm of the actors and the nonsensical energy of its direction have me laughing a good time, from people warning one another of an impending threat through charades, to wonky war veteran neighbors who the killer would rather walk away from rather than face a second time! This is a slasher parody made out of love for the subgenre and pure do-it-yourself spirit, a production so ineptly bad and carefree that it's comically good, at least in terms of bite-sized horror entertainment! 

While the shoestring quality can be distracting, nothing in this film is meant to be taken seriously and I'm saying that as a compliment! Toga Party Massacre (1988) is the kind of quick-and-easy video shlock one watches with a cool beer on one hand, popcorn bowl on the other, and a gullet full of chuckles!

Bodycount:

1 male slaughtered mostly offscreen, arm torn off

1 female slaughtered offscreen

1 male knifed in the back

1 female murdered offscreen

1 male ran through with a powerdrill

Total: 5

One Hell Of A Date Night: Heart Eyes (2025)

Heart Eyes (2025)

Rating: ****

Starring: Mason Gooding, Olivia Holt, Gigi Zumbado

Did you ever wish, as a slasher fanatic, those run-in-the-mill Hallmark rom-coms would get interrupted by an insane masked killer, chopping down one, two or, hell, maybe even an entire room of annoying characters just for the maniacal fun of it? Well, you lovable yet disturbed creature, set your heart for Heart Eyes (2025)!

For the past two years, a serial killer donning a mask with red cartoon hearts for eyes have been slaying couples every Valentines Day, terrorizing Boston, and then Philadelphia. For this year, the "Heart Eyes Killer" (Or HEK for short) picks Seattle as their next hunting ground, opening the scene with them attacking a hilariously botched, hashtag-worthy proposal at a vineyard, gorily snuffing out a photographer, a random worker, and the unfortunate couple. The media, of course, caught wind of the massacre, which reeks nothing but trouble for young advertising executive Ally (Lauren O’Hara), whose campaign for a jewelry brand includes commercials focusing on doomed couples such as Romeo and Juliet, Bonnie and Clyde, and Titanic (1997)'s Jack and Rose. 

The focus group is disgusted and outraged, calling the campaign exploitative. The company head is upset nobody told her about the masked loon brutally dispatching couples every Valentines for the last two years, thus making her look bad for approving the pitch. Both are practically out for Ally's head but, as luck would have it, she's instead given a chance to save her own arse and all she has to do is help out the new hire Jay (Mason Gooding), an in-demand concept master. Funny thing about this is that both Ally and Jay met earlier at a coffee shop, where the two not-flirt with one another with awkward banter and dad jokes. Now Jay is asking Ally to join him at a fancy restaurant later that night to discuss their plans on fixing the project, a suggestion that gets into Ally's skin as she's practically helping a guy who could easily replace her, not to mention that she's still reeling from a break-up, something not helped by her social media stalking her ex-boyfriend.

With Jay's attempts to make the smooth and suave dinner business talk work not doing too well against Ally's hard front, who sees his romantic act as a sham, the two eventually agrees to just head out for the night. That was until Ally spots her ex and his new girl heading to the same restaurant, thus mindlessly posturing a passionate kiss with Jay in an attempt to make her former beau jealous. A classic rom-com trope, for sure, one that caught the attention of a spying Heart Eyes Killer, mistaking it as a genuine act of love. For the rest of the night, hilarity ensues. As well as a rising bodycount.

You could say that Heart Eyes (2025) is the best of both worlds; as a slasher, it's brutally red with its murders and killer themselves are an awfully fun callback to gimmicky villains of the old golden days, the first few to come in mind being Ray from He Knows You're Alone (1980), who targets soon-to-wed women, and Harry Warden from My Bloody Valentine (1981), a murderous miner whose urban legend-esque presence terrorizes Valentines Days! Whenever the film decides to go down and bear its bloody teeth, it's played with a straight face as heads get the crossbow and groins get the machete, sidelined with good jump scares and a sweet deal of tight tension. And yet, it's never too hateful. Never too cynical and angry. It knows its assignment as a bloody good popcorn flick and you can pretty much tell this from the fact, again, our killer is wearing a mask with cartoon hearts for eyes and, yes, it all works swimmingly as a romantic comedy, too!

For a comedy to work, it's all about well-crafted jokes and enjoyable characters, and Heart Eyes (2025) has a fair share of both! As the Heart Eyes Killer themselves say, Ally and Jay have great chemistry thanks to O'Hara's and Gooding's stellar performances as the traditional rom-com couple: antagonistic at first, chummy at the halfway point, one chasing down the other at a crowded airport to confess their feelings by the end of it. Or at least around the climax. Though written as satires of chick flick lead couples, the two are given enough wit and wry in their personalities to make enough jokes and odd reactions land on a hilarious mark, the best gag being a running one where the couple keep failing to convince anyone that they're simply friends, killer included! The comedic timing simply feels as natural as the tender moments shared between Ally and Jay, which thankfully the film occasionally slows down for just to give the endangered duo, as well as the audience, a breather to soak in the situation, just be casual and real with one another through gentle heart-to-hearts. It's hammy, but it's a welcoming sweet kind of jovial ham, one that balances out nicely with a chunky kill count piled up by a serial killer's cat-and-mouse game.

If there's anything that is a bit of a letdown, it'll be the reveal of who's behind the Heart Eyes mask; after a romantic, comedic and horrific hide-and-prowl between Heart Eyes and the two lovebirds around a Valentines drive-in, the movie strolls into a rather pedestrian final encounter with the holiday serial killer, whose identity and twist fail to be anywhere as remarkable as it's implying to be. The culprit is partially obvious and their reason for the slayings simply boils down to they do it because they could, and it's fun for them. Still, lackluster unmasking aside, there's enough bloody splatter and a little good brawl in this finale, ending on a time skip, a cheeky sweet gesture and a funny mid-credit scene!

Heart Eyes (2025) is described by some as a 'date movie slasher' and it lives up good on that claim! Its humor focuses more on being cute, its violence is satisfyingly sharp in its edges, an entertaining melting pot of mixed goodies for slasher fans and their dates! 

Bodycount:

1 male stabbed through the eye with a machete

1 male shot on the head with a crossbow

1 male gets a throwing dagger to the face

1 female crushed to death inside a pneumatic press

1 male shot on the head with a crossbow

1 female skewered with a flagpole

1 male had his groin split with a machete, slashed

1 male stabbed with a machete

1 male stabbed in the mouth with a tire iron

1 female impaled through the mouth with a tire iron

1 male slashed across the throat with a machete 

1 male gets a throwing dagger to the back, hacked with a machete

1 female hacked down with a machete

1 male stabbed through with a machete

1 female pushed neck first through a concrete sword, head torn off

1 male shot death with a crossbow

Total: 16

We Are The Monsters, Babes: Get Away (2024)

Get Away (United Kingdom, 2024)
Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Nick Frost, Aisling Bea, Maisie Ayres

For the Smiths - Daddy Richard (Nick Frost), Mummy Susan (Aisling Bea), and angsty teen siblings Jessie (Maisie Ayres) and Sam (Sebastian Croft) - their holiday vacation to the small Swedish island of Svälta is the bonding experience they need as a family, especially when the divergent dynamics between the parents and the kids make a lot of conversations and activities awkward. The people they come across along the way, though, thinks their plan to visit and stay on Svälta is a terrible idea as the mainlanders there, lead by an ill-tempered crone (Anita Suikkari), doesn't take too kindly to outsiders, especially when their Karantan festival is nearing, celebrating a 19th century British-led massacre that drove its survivors into cannibalism.

And, to no one's surprise, the islanders aren't too pleased to see the family, even more so when they learn that one of Susan's ancestors took part of the massacre and she trivializes their traditions as a simple show to be gawked at. It isn't long before the residents of Svälta start showing up in the middle of the night wearing folk masks and tossing dead animals at the house the Smiths rented, not to mention the odd creaking noises coming from somewhere inside said house and the troubling sight of enough coffins for four being loaded onto boats. Believing the unwanted arrivals are a sign, the island elders ponder on the possibility to do a proper Karantan, a chance to resurrect a dormant tradition involving murder and the taste of fresh human flesh...

For the first hour, Get Away (2024) clashes the likes of folk horror inspired by movies such as The Wicker Man (1973) and Midsommar (2019), with the bumbling comedy of a family under constant confrontations and awkward situations just trying to get through their holiday by being as polite as possible, to the point many obvious red flags are ignored. While some of the jokes are a hit-or-miss with its tired jabs at vegan diets or culture clashes, the story itself is made tolerable by the entertainingly dysfunctional interactions of the Smiths as they get on each other's nerves, but open to surprisingly wholesome moments like Richard sharing his youthful experience with recreational weed with his daughter, or chuckle-worthy conversations about moist waffles during a family breakfast. 

The islanders, sadly, didn't get the same in-depth treatment considering most of them are portrayed as one-note fodder, filling out backgrounds as angry locals glaring daggers and being rude to the Smiths. The only one with any real sense of character is the head Svälta elder, who passionately believes the community she leads has lost its edge over the years, that it's about time they go back and hold the Karantan as it is intended to be, a gory vengeful act upon those who wrong them. We also got one Matts Larsson (Eero Milonoff), who owns the house the Smiths are renting and hinted to have something sinister planned for the family, though he's practically reduced to a creeper with a fetish for lingerie and voyeurism, spending his time on the movie being just pervertedly gross and upsetting. 

With only so much material to work around the premise of a hapless family butting heads with angry Swedes, the pacing did get a tad draggy near the film's climax, though this is remedied greatly by Get Away (2024)'s third and final act; without giving away much, let's just say the promised massacre did happen, just not in the way you may have expected. It's a killing spree that saved the movie for me, the sheer lunacy and maniac energy of it all bringing out a dementedly dark humor as the killers hack, stab, gut and decapitate everyone on sight, all the while sharing homely banter and playful teasing, reminiscing about old times and even sing gentle lovelies with one another. Some unfortunates do fight back, even managing to land a jab or two against the maniacs, which keeps the slaying fields all fair and fun, as well as interesting down to the cornball finale. This abrupt turn on who the prey and predators are may not sit well for some folks, but you got to hand it to the film, it's a very good twist on the account of all the shocks and surprises!

From cult-like folk horror to berserker slasher, all done with a British tongue pressed firmly against a cheek, Get Away (2024) may have its shortcomings, but the pay off in the end makes sitting through it worth every minute! Patient gorehounds be delighted!

Bodycount:

1 female stabbed in the neck with a kitchen knife

1 male stabbed in the neck with a kitchen knife

1 male knifed to death

1 male seen dying from a head wound

1 male seen murdered

1 male stabbed in the gut with a butterfly knife 

1 male knifed in the temple

1 female had her throat slashed with daggers

1 male stabbed in the chest with a push knife

4 victims seen dead

1 male gets a thrown hatchet to the back

1 female knifed in the gut

1 male seen being hacked to death

1 victim knifed in the head

1 female slashed across with a knife

1 female repeatedly knifed, ran through with a pike

1 male seen on fire

1 male seen being stabbed to death

1 female slashed across with a razor

1 male decapitated with a sword

1 male ran through with a sword

1 male stabbed to death

1 male knifed in the neck

1 victim seen on fire

5 heads seen 

1 male seen dead from a head wound 

1 male had his throat slashed with a knife

1 female had her head blown off with a shotgun

1 male shot to death

Total: 36

Bloody Hell Of A Retreat: The Cabining (2014)

The Cabining (2014)

Rating: ***

Starring: Mike Kopera, Bo Keister, Angela Relucio

With their recent slasher treatment scoffed down as tired and mediocre, as well as a looming long overdue rent threatening to kick them out on the street, horror screenwriters Todd and Bruce are desperately in need of an inspired terror tale to wow interested buyers and where else should they find said inspiration other than Shangri-La, weekend cabin retreat designed to help artistic types get their juices flowing.

Only, shortly after they arrive, the other artists staying there start to die in mysterious circumstances, a lot of which seems to be whenever a certain oddball sculptor named Jasper is around. The cops mostly disregard these deaths as accidents and Shangri-La's rather lax host dismisses the notion that Jasper could harm anyone. (Even though the guy carries a machete and casually bags a decapitated head) Then again, it's not like he's the only suspicious fella in the cabin; Todd's growing impatience and desperation appear to hint a shortening fuse that's about to go full murder, and then there's Bruce's overly jovial outlook on these recent string of dead people piling up...

The Cabining (2014) is, admittedly, one of those movies that you're not really going to lose sleep over, but it does enough right to be at least worth a look. For one, the two main leads simply carried the film with their frustrated yet cordial chemistry, as Mike Kopera's Todd, being the geeky yet responsible type, mostly just tagging along with the more outgoing and positive Bo Keister's Bruce to make sure his bestfriend-slash-idea guy doesn't end up in deep trouble. (Or will become the trouble) The two are portrayed as absolute chums and I love how natural they play their banter despite the clashing ideas and ideals, overlooking some questionable moments wherein Bruce can be a tad much with his misplaced positivity and flirty attempts, so much so that it borderlines suspicious along side comical.

As a slasher, The Cabining (2014) does lean closer towards a whodunit murder mystery than actual stalk-and-stab, with victims being discovered horrifically snuffed out by seemingly (and not so seemingly) accidental deaths, all the while the surviving cabin guests are trying to figure out who among them could be the killer. (Or, perhaps, find enough damning proof that the really eccentric sculptor is the murderer among them) A lot of the kills are offcamera due to this direction, but there's enough gnarly practical and make-up effects done for the resulting corpses, giving us a fair share of gory eye candy. There's also a semi-decent twist somewhere at the last third of the film, a bit of it kinda obvious but countered fairly by a villain reveal I never really saw coming. I would have liked the movie a lot more if it ended on this silly yet dark and gutsy note but, instead, it pulled off one more curveball under our noses. One that opted for a final scare before going down on a saccharine good note that felt overly rushed and sudden, hardly bringing up a solid motive behind the actual killer's murder spree, even. It could have been better but, also, could have been worse. Way worse. 

What could have been a dime-in-a-dozen backwoods slasher, The Cabining (2014) pulled some extra punches to do a little better and the result is, while not exceedingly phenomenal, admirable to say the least. Polished and written effectively as a horror comedy indie, try this one for the giggles!

Bodycount:

1 female found landed mouth-first on a tree root, head impaled

1 male head found

1 male overdoses on heart medication

1 male found killed by a triggered log trap

1 female found knifed on the back

1 male found dead with a hammer claw to the eye

1 female stabbed in the eye with a fountain pen

1 male ran through the back with a kitchen knife

Total: 8 

Film School Flopped: Harpy (2000)

Harpy (South Korea, 2000)

Rating: *

Starring: Lee Jung-hyun, Kim Rae-won, Ggoch-ji Kim

When a movie starts with a film class meeting where you could barely comprehend what the teacher is saying because the chatter from his students can be heard along his little talk, or the damn thing pauses randomly for the sake of creative editing, you know friggin' well this isn't gonna end good for any of us.

While working on an amateur slasher flick for a school project, shy musical prodigy Su-yeon (Lee Jung-hyun) falls for the motorbike-riding bad boy Hyeon-su (Kim Rae-won), who just so happens to be dating the class queen bee Yae-rim (Ggoch-ji Kim). As you would expect from a love triangle, drama and intrigue ensue, especially after someone begins to stalk Su-yeon and Hyeon-su with a camera after the two start seeing each other in secret. Photos of the meet-up are soon passed around school and Yae-rim, of course, isn't too pleased to know that her squeeze is squeezing another girl behind her back, so she corners and attacks Su-yeon at their classroom after spotting her working late one night, only for us to see another figure walking in to kill off the attacked girl no soon after. 

Or at least that's what it looked like as, a few days passed being absent, Su-yeon reappears looking rather okay despite the whole assault, much to Yae-rim's surprise and uneasiness. Su-yeon does appear to be quieter than usual, though, but with her being back on board, the film class can now proceed with their hack' n slash movie project and visit a remote villa where they'll be filming. This is when the shoot goes South for the gang as not only would they discover their props tampered with to cause actual harm, but someone dressed up as their balaclava-clad villain starts hunting them down one by one...

Now, see, Harpy (2000) here had the potential to be at least a serviceable enough murder mystery despite its sappy love triangle one hour act and often wonky characters. It's not a perfect plot, you can actually tell the twist from afar, but it at has the spirit of a passable yet fun B-grade slasher that you could catch whenever nothing else is good to watch on a weekend afternoon. This would have been the case if only, ONLY it wasn't edited into a schizophrenic dreck by people I assume were suffering from a mental breakdown. Or were high. Or both.

Basically, any sense of a stable direction was completely lost within all the noise and stylistic visuals our editor from hell decided to give this film, filling Harpy (2000) with a gobblecock of cartoon noises, randomized freeze frames and slowmo shots, odd voice overs spouting the most random shite here and there, apparently as a way to market this movie as a "horror comedy" in which, from what I read looking into this mess, wasn't even supposed to be the case. Based on what I can properly decipher, it was shot as a (mostly) straight slasher, but the added bells and whistles transformed it into an art house film experiment of the chaotic kind, one that failed to explain its own jokes or reward our patience with worthwhile entertainment. If anything, the whole shtick may have alienated it audience considering its sad box office performance and its relative obscurity. I wouldn't be surprised if none of the people who watched this could make head nor tail of what they're seeing here.

Harpy (2000) is, without a doubt, an experience. Just not a good one. Undoubtedly one of the strangest slasher titles I've seen out there, as well as, sadly, one of the more frustrating to sit through... 

Bodycount:

1 female beaten, stabbed with knife offscreen 

1 male snared with a chained grappling hook, later found hanging dead from a ceiling

1 female strangled with a chained grappling hook

1 female stabbed in the back

1 female stabbed in the chest with a dagger

1 male gets a knife pushed into his throat (mostly offscreen)

1 male knifed to death

1 male strangled to death with a chained grappling hook

Total: 8

Tickle Me Simon: Puppet Killer (2019)

Puppet Killer (Canada, 2019)

Rating: ***

Starring: Aleks Paunovic, Lee Majdoub, Lisa Durupt

A slasher with a killer muppet. Right. Normally, I would say 'Now, I've seen everything', but knowing how weird the horror subgenre can get at the most random times, I'm pretty sure there will be weirder shit out there waiting for me to discover. Still, the hell did I just watch with this one?

Ever since he was just a little baby, Jamie knows three things; he's never too young for good movies, his fluffy puppet Simon will always be his bestfriend and his love for his die-hard horror fan mom will be forever, even if cancer decided to take her from him so early from his life. Still, young Jamie tries to keep his love for dear mum alive by continuing a family tradition of watching shlocky B-grade horror flicks every Christmas, something his eventual stepmother finds rather uncomfortable to the point she lost it one night and starts trashing away his memorabilia. Unfortunately for her, someone didn't like this. Someone small. Fluffy. Wielding a deadly kitchen knife.

Flashforward ten years later, we now see Jamie as a high schooler (played by Aleks Paunovi who happens to be in his fifties...) and he's very much convinced his puppet pal Simon may have killed his stepmom. His dad, the ever supportive guy that he is, simply believes his son has quite the imagination and dismisses the claims (Or at least he's trying to), though Jamie's school counselor appears to take the fella's ramblings a little more seriously. Not that she believes him, of course, but she does constantly reminds him to take his meds, fearing something more psychological might be at play here.

Jamie, however, thinks he should get his closure from all of this killer puppet talk in his own terms and decided to do this by drunkenly relaxing this Christmas holiday with his girlfriend and friends (all teenagers played by people in their 40s...) at the old family cabin up in the woods where it all happened. Beers get chugged. Bonfires get razed. Some of Jamie's friends get it on at a jacuzzi. And who else but lil' Simon gets found hidden away in the basement, tucked inside a box of Christmas decors, much to Jamie's uneasiness.

Needless to say, this holly jolly cabin celebration isn't gonna stay jolly for too long as Simon, strangely enough, does turn out to be alive and pretty much homicidal, slashing a mean kill count as he goes after one middle-aged teenager at a time!

So, yeah, this is a movie where teenagers are played by grown men and women, being terrorized by a pink fuzzy puppet who sounds a lot like Elmo from Sesame Street. I think it's safe to say that Puppet Killer (2019) shouldn't be taken seriously at all and, hell, I think its own production knows that! It's a weird take on your typical cabin-in-the-woods hack'n slash, with our lead guy practically portraying an overly enthusiastic man-child and nearly everybody else is a swing on your classic slasher victims from the overly horny couple to the brooding emo kid and his frustrated stoner brother, all done with over-the-top performances that are purposely delivered in egregious tongue-in-cheek! There's a bit of a charm to how bizarre this direction is, frankly, even more so when the film eventually starts its killing spree; Simon simply goes muppet maniac on everyone in the cabin, throwing squeaky voiced one-liner giggles, donning costumes parodying top-of-the-line slasher villains like Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers, as well as dishing out surprisingly gnarly practical gore and kills for such a goofy little psychopath!

Out of all this craziness, though, what really caught me off guard is how much mood whiplash Puppet Killer (2019) planned for its finale; needless to say, it teased around the idea that all of this could have been the result of a broken psyche and the movie really took its time playing with this notion with Jamie practically under Simon's mercy, reducing him into a sobbing, blabbering mess. It's a sharp contrast to the mostly cheesy, joke-littered satirical horror jab that makes up a bulk of the film and it would have been a daringly grim ending to leave everything at if it wasn't for one final twist, a last minute shot implying something... otherworldly.

There's no doubt Puppet Killer (2019)'s one of the stranger slasher flicks I've ever come across and, as peculiar as it sounds, I sortah dig it! As a dumb hammy horror comedy, it's quirky and energetic, generous in splatter and occasionally creepy, it's a real fun mess that I'm sure will resonate with those who have the taste for the quaint and batty!

Bodycount:

1 female succumbs to cancer

1 female knifed to death

1 male garroted, dismembered with a meat cleaver

1 female drowned in a jacuzzi

1 male shot in the eye with an arrow

1 female gets a thrown machete to the head

1 male gutted with a clawed glove

1 female garroted, later found gutted

1 female had her throat sliced with a knife

Total: 9

Murderin' The Mollys: Totally Killer (2023)

Totally Killer (2023)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Kiernan Shipka, Olivia Holt, Charlie Gillespie

So we have time loops ala Groundhog Day (1993) get stabby with Happy Death Day (2017), body swapping ala Freaky Friday (1976) go bloody with Freaky (2020) and Christmastime existential dramedy ala It's a Wonderful Life (1946) hack' n slashin' a massacre with It's A Wonderful Knife (2023). Following this trend of slasherfying pre-existing intellectual properties, Totally Killer  (2023) joins the party with a terror time travel tale that's one part Scream (1996), one part Back To The Future (1985), and maybe a bit of Mean Girls (2004) thrown in there.

The suburban town of Vernon is one with a dark past; 35 years ago, three high school girls were murdered by an unknown assailant, stabbing them sixteen times on their sixteenth birthdays. The madman was never caught, the crime is unsolved after all these years and the victims happen to be the friends of one local mother named Pam (Julie Bowen), who basically raised her daughter Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) armed to the teeth in safety gear so she wouldn't meet a similar fate. The angsty seventeener, however, has grown irritable over her mom's anxious overprotectiveness and opted to see a concert one Halloween night, leaving Pam alone to fend for herself when someone dressed as the "Sweet Sixteen Killer" crashes in and murders her.

Shocked, sorrowful and very regretful for dismissing her mother's fears, Jamie investigates the murder with the help of the town's crime podcaster Chris (Jonathan Potts), who reveals to her a note left by the killer to Pam back in 1987, promising they would return one day to finish the job for good. Also helping her through the grief is her bestfriend Amelia, a super genius whose science fair project is an old photobooth-turned-time machine (!) which she warmly suggests possibly using to travel back in the past and stop the Sweet Sixteen Killer, just for that small chance for Jamie's mom to survive and live on. Fortunately for these girls, they get to see it work! Unfortunately, though, it happened after the Sweet Sixteen Killer swoops in to mangle the heart-to-heart moment, accidentally stabbing the machine which apparently triggers it. 

Caught in the resulting time warp and flung back to 1987, on the eve of the first murder, Jamie navigates through the 80s culture crash in a race against time to stop the victims-to-be from dying at the knife-wielding hands of a psycho, but this is rather a problematic mission when she discovers that her mother is the leader of a bullying clique, who are more or less prone to ticking all the right boxes of being the walking, talking, dying slasher victim stereotypes of drunken beef heads and bitchy prima donnas. 

Interestingly (and probably the film's most creative element), whatever changes Jamie causes in the past in her attempts to stop the murders are felt and noticed by characters in the present, much to some confusion. It's this film's little jab on a popular observed phenomenon known as the Mandela Effect, wherein a group of people collectively misremember facts or events in a consistent manner, and clever details like this is what keeps Totally Killer (2023)'s take on a time travel story fresh and watchable enough to be entertaining. On top of that, this film's approach on its comedy, something I can best describe as a cluster of 'fish-out-of-water via time misplacement' jokes meet low key meta-humor, occasionally lands a good laugh whenever the writing delivers a right amount of snark and smarts, something Kiernan Shipka's crotchety, impassive performance as our teen time traveler help make most of it work. There are occasions, though, where the funnies can get disappointingly predictable on moments that it veers into the usual time travel jabs of generational clash and culture shock. 

Totally Killer (2023)'s comedy-leaning direction also meant that the slasher goods often feel lacking in grandeur. Sure, it is brutal and bloody, and we do get a couple of great murder set-pieces that end with a shocking death or a ironically funny pay off, but there's hardly any variety to the kills and I just couldn't fully get into the villain's design which, perhaps, may have look cool and creepy on concept with the whole snazzy wear juxtaposed by their ghoulish, exaggerated grinning mask, but the resulting product simply looks too clean cut to be intimidating. Still, there's a neat twist to the identity of the killer that I honestly didn't see coming, paired with motives that's one end dreadful, another end silly yet in tune with the movie's overall tone, so it's not an absolute loss.

Production quality is pretty decent, capturing its retro 80s vibe quite nicely with a bopping soundtrack and stylized set work. It has a couple of loose wires and wear as a scifi horror comedy, but what do you expect from a movie where two generations of high schoolers are smart enough to create a working time machine out of a photo booth? (I mean, that kid should be in NASA or something!) Totally Killer (2023) is, for its worth, totally fine so long as you don't take it too seriously! 

Bodycount:

1 female stabbed to death with a hunting knife

1 female stabbed to death with a hunting knife

1 female stabbed to death with a hunting knife

1 male ran through with a scythe

1 female had her throat cut with a hunting knife

1 male stabbed in the head with a hunting knife

1 male disintegrated

Total: 7