Blow The Whistle, Baby! Here We Go!: Whistle (2025)

Whistle (2025)

Rating: *1/2

Starring: Dafne Keen, Sophie Nélisse, Sky Yang

This should have been the kind of movie that'll win me over; a supernatural slasher revolving around the Ehecachichtli, also known as the Aztec death whistle, an instrument formerly used by the Mexica people to scare off foes as the noise it makes resemble either wind or, most macabre, a high-pitched scream. Have that badassery incorporated into an otherworldly massacre done in your classic teen-kill plot and this title could have been an interesting bodycounter. But regrettably, Whistle (2025) hardly bothered with what it presents.

At a Pellington high school basketball game, star player Mason is terrifyingly distracted by visions of a charred figure slowly approaching him. Despite this, he wins the match and, immediately afterwards, seemingly ends whatever haunting that's going on by destroying an artifact from his locker: the Aztec death whistle. This, unfortunately for the kid, didn't stop the charred man from finally catching up to him, burning Mason alive in the school showers as everybody else occupying it watch in horror. 

Six months later, recovering drug addict Chrys leaves Chicago to attend Pellington following her father's death, hoping for a fresh start to her life post-rehab. She's living in with her cousin Rel, who also happens to be a student there, and the two gets into a lick of trouble when Dean, one of the jocks, learns that Chrys is now using Mason's locker, a matter that he deems disrespectful to his late friend. The altercation escalates to the basketball player getting his balls kneed, a fight that Dean's girlfriend Grace and a do-gooder bystander Ellie tried stopping. However, a schoolteacher (played by Shaun of the Dead (2004)'s Nick Frost in what's basically a glorified cameo) witness the fight and issues all five teens to detention.

Things further go from frustrating to strange as, inside her locker, Chrys finds the Aztec death whistle, whole once more. Thinking it belongs to Mason, she brings it along to detention after school, where the schoolteacher decides to hold on to it as school property. Sellable school property. It ain't long, though, before this fella gets his comeuppance as, after ending detention early to get rid of the kids, he blows into the whistle to see if the antique still works, unknowingly summoning a gaunt balding figure that proceeds to murder him through what appears to be an accelerated sickness. 

Having forgotten a comic book, Rel returns to the classroom and spots the whistle all on its own. He pockets it because, well, it's cool, and he brings the damn thing along to a group meeting/party at Grace's house where they're supposed to be working on an assignment. As you expect, the skully trinket gets blown into again, its noise now heard by Chrys, Rel, Dean, Grace and Ellie. 

Eerily mangled, aging and/or slaughtered visages of themselves begin to terrorize the main casts then, a ghoulish predicament that Chrys and Ellie readily accept as the doing of the cursed whistle after some slight research, and a quick visit to Mason's home where his Grandmother Ivy lore dumps what the thing does; as it turns out, hearing the whistle's cry causes one's future death to arrive sooner in the form of a shambling doppelganger, which is frankly the movie's strongest element. 

We see a good array of these deathly doubles ranging from brittle seniors running amuck, to horrifying flesh sacks loosely held together by broken bones, all of them stalking and chasing their victims one by one. A good deal of make-up and CG work were done for their scenes, leading to gruesomely creative deaths that earn this movie it's R-rating with all the blood and gore in display. Sadly, these are the only positives I can see from Whistle (2025) as everything else is your run-in-the-mill cursed object spiel done in the barest of bones and borrowed points.

Basically, the writing is cheap with expositions and one-note characterizations, following a simple paint-by-number direction of kids fucking around and finding out, then trying to survive and mostly failing. Cliches upon cliches are tiresomely ever present as, of course, the one person who knows what's going on fails to explain how to stop it the first time they're asked, only to hint it later when all that's left are two and a half of the casts. But even then, Whistle (2025) fails to be impressive with its surprises since the way to stop this curse is ripped off from Final Destination 2 (2003), Final Destination 5 (2011) and The Evil Dead (2013), just done more complicatedly and dramatically. Wouldn't you know it, too, the film just has to end with a mid-credit scene that suggests a potential sequel. Yeah, sure. Smile 2 (2024) you are not, movie. 

Underwhelming. Just underwhelming. Whistle (2025) may have delivered the gory goods, but the painfully generic story drags everything else down to a forgettable slop. 

Bodycount:

1 male set ablaze

1 male suffers through an accelerated cancer

1 female aged to death

1 female passed away from cancer

1 male mangled

1 male minced and shredded into pieces

1 male gets a gunshot wound, suffers from a water death

Total: 7

Double The Booking. Double The Hooking: Bone Lake (2024)

Bone Lake (2024)

Rating: ***

Starring: Alex Roe, Maddie Hasson, Marco Pigossi

When the first scene you see in a movie is a naked couple being chased through the woods by a shadowy figure brandishing a crossbow, hitting one victim through the balls in an unapologetic gratuitous shot, I think it'll be more than understandable to expect nothing but trashy horror in Bone Lake (2024). And, yes, the movie does lean on the sleazy side, but it's also playing a different kind of game. One that's going to test our character's will to commit, to trust, and to survive one night in the damn woods in one piece.

Former teacher and aspiring writer Diego (Marco Pigossi) is hoping to spend a (clothing optional) weekend in a rented lake house with his girlfriend, Sage (Maddie Hasson). Not long after just settling in (and doing each other on a bearskin rug), another more spirited couple, Will (Alex Roe) and Cin (Andra Nechita) show up ready to have their own happy weekend at the same cabin, but are a tad confused to find the house already occupied. It seems a booking screw-up have both couples scheduled to enjoy the forest-bound vacation home and with neither pair wanting to leave, they mutually agreed to spend the weekend together as new friends.

And as friends, the two couples share experiences, little secrets and tips for a spicy relationship, as well as engage in other fun times like sharing scary stories behind the lake's name, 'Bone Lake', which has less to do with the fact that it's a popular sex spot for lovers, and more on the fact that it's a dumping site for victims killed by a serial killer back at the 1950s. There are also the three suspicious rooms the house owner keep locked tickling the couples' curiosity, which they drunkenly proceed to open two, revealing a sex dungeon and a macabre room dedicated to the lake's dark history. What of the third room, though? Well...

As morning comes, trouble starts brewing; Will steals a wedding ring Diego was planning on proposing to Sage with and uses it to propose to Cin. It turns out the girl cheated on Will some time before and, out of desperation, he made the proposal as a way to keep her by his side. Diego, though outraged at first, somewhat understood Will's predicament as Sage also cheated on him early into their relationship, thus forgiving his new buddy so long as he does bring him back the ring before the weekend's end. 

This, unfortunately and unsurprisingly, does little to help with Diego's self-esteem as he fears he's not sexually satisfying enough after catching Sage pleasuring herself in a bathtub the day before, but it appears temptation is rearing its horny head for him as it looks like Cin's up to her old cheating tricks again, this time seducing Diego. To further complicate matters, Will is suddenly taking his shots on Sage, too, while driving to town together for groceries, promising her a good time that nobody else would ever know. 

Will the two take the bait? 

As you can tell by now, Bone Lake (2024) sets itself as a twisty erotic thriller highlighting the flaws of our main casts as both relatable figures and lovers, played with a B-grade tongue firmly pressed in a cheek and fair amount of steamy sex scenes. Yet, the film still finds the time to slow down and properly give our hapless pairs the time to grow as they share their vulnerabilities and insecurities behind their partners' backs, only to eventually face them when shit hits the fan and, by that, I mean the movie delivers a decent twist to what's really happening here, making way for a very backwoods slasher-inspired third act; chainsaws, crossbows, wise-cracking maniacs and all! Without a doubt, it takes a real long while before we do get to the splattery action, but by then insane motives and backstories were monologued, giving us a real demented and icky pair of psychos to terrorize our screens, and the movie does reward our patience with surprisingly decent stalk-and-stab sequences, visually enriched with awesome practical gore and some of the most satisfying kills to grace a forest-bound horror thriller.

Bone Lake (2024) may have the sweet and tangy coating of an inviting eye-candy exploitation and, in a lot of aspects, it is, the movie thankfully remembers to be fun with its horror thriller elements, playing us a genuinely intriguing situation of seductive temptations and moral reproach, then escalating the dangers from emotional and psychological to downright horrific and viscerally messy for our inner gorehounds! Its writing also fascinates the brooding situation without being overly titillating and prude, balancing the sexism and mystery along its well-rounded set of characters to both root for and be wary of, which is something I openly welcome if it means a real fun watch in-between all of the sleaze and slaughter. 

Delirious and debauched, Bone Lake (2024) promises outlandishly bunkum and a savage finale, just a good snatch to catch if you ever see yourself looking for something wilder and more bodacious from your typical horror thriller fix! 

Bodycount:

1 male repeatedly shot with a crossbow

1 female lands gut-first on a dead branch, killed offscreen with a crossbow

1 victim seen murdered, body being dragged and dumped into a lake (flashback)

1 victim mentioned murdered

1 male hacked on the head with an axe, lands face first on a chainsaw

1 female had her jaw whacked off with an axe and her hair caught on a boat propeller, dismembered

Total: 6

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 (?)

A Birthday Wish To Perish: The Debutantes (2017)

The Debutantes (Philippines, 2017)
Rating: *
Starring: Sue Ramirez, Miles Ocampo, Michelle Vito

Stop me if you heard this before: a weird lonesome girl gets befriended by someone from a popular clique and then invited to a party where she's humiliated by a prank, resulting to unspeakable horrors to those responsible.

Yep, that's Stephen King's Carrie. 

The Debutantes (2017) by Filipino director Prime Cruz is basically this for a good deal of the run, following quiet kid Kate (Sue Ramirez) as she befriends her classmate and neighbor Lara (Mile Ocampo) while helping her out with some math lessons. Grateful for getting her grades up, Lara invites Kate to a debut party (A Filipino celebration of a girl's 18th birthday) where Lara's circle of bullying buddies, unfortunately, decide to traumatize the lonesome girl by undoing the top of her dress, revealing some rather unsettling scars to the entire crowd. Humiliated, Kate rushes home, while Lara, who wasn't in on the so-called prank, chastises the group for their actions.

It isn't long before something is making sure the girls are properly punished for their part on embarrassing Kate, involving ghostly doppelgangers, a creature that kinda looks like a man made from soggy black mush, and deaths. Uncreative, boring, vanilla deaths.

I mean, the first kill was staged pretty okay, with creepy visuals, some good tension with the possessed self-diving car, and a good bloody payoff at the end. But the rest, we have someone getting strangled with a necklace, an abuser suffering a heart attack, and a swimmer getting drowned. Not, uh, not really impressed, sad to say. As if the predictable plotting and twists aren't lame enough to slowly knock me out into sleeping. (A twist character here is only onscreen whenever Kate is around. Who wouldn't connect the dots and see that reveal coming?!)

Cinematography is alright, though, I'll give the movie that. Acting is so-and-so, focusing a lot on the teenage dramatics in the film's attempt to establish some form of depth around its really small casts. (Like, really small. Where the hell are these girls' parents?) The quick pacing of the direction, its paper-thin characters and an abundance of hammy lines, however, didn't do much good for The Debutantes (2017)'s approach on emotional and psychological turmoil, resulting to a very stale horror shlock that's been done better.

Needless to say, The Debutantes (2017) is a supernatural slasher hokum I find hard to praise as there's hardly anything to praise at all. The story is done to death, the deaths lack spectacle, and the spectacle is missing in its execution. What else is there to say but go watch Carrie (1976) instead. Or Evilspeak (1981) if you're in a slasher mood. 

Bodycount:

1 female gets into a car collision against a truck, smashes through a windshield

1 female strangled with a necklace

1 female drowned in a pool

1 male suffers a heart attack (flashback)

1 female stabbed in the gut with a knife

1 female killed offscreen

Total: 6

A You'tombed Prank Video: Milk & Serial (2024)

Milk & Serial (2024)

Rating: ***

Starring: Curry Barker, Cooper Tomlinson, Adlih Alvarado

It all started as a Youtube video for a channel called "Prank Bros", wherein social media personality Seven plans to pull a birthday prank on his roommate, bestfriend and creative partner, Milk. After acquiring a gun from a shady arms dealer and getting an acting class friend to agree playing the part of a terrorizing crazed gunman, Seven's gag goes swimmingly well with Milk laughing it all off once he gets past the initial shock, even admiring the elaborate planning that went into making it.

Funs and games continue for the party until an odd fella who claims to be Seven and Milk's neighbor arrives to complain about the noise. Creepily. Milk, thinking the guy is a part of an ongoing prank by Seven, antagonizes him, resulting to stranger things happening in the following days after the party. Things involving deadly secrets, manipulations and harrowing deaths.

Written, directed and starring actual Youtuber Curry Barker, despite being advertised as a slasher, Milk & Serial (2024) has more common grounds with a serial killer thriller, one that's done as a twisty, hour-long $800 found footage free to watch on Youtube. It may not sound much, but the film does surprisingly succeed in places one wouldn't expect from a micro-production like this, mainly the acting and the grounded tone its working with. The mystery as to what's going on after the surprise birthday prank could've been a lot better if some of its twists weren't so obvious (the movie is called Milk & Serial and its poster features a creepy blonde man in a transparent mask. Guess who's nicknamed "Milk" and also happens to be blonde?), but the sinister downward spiral to escalating horrors still makes this little passion project a captivating watch for how fluid the direction can get, plus Curry Barker and Cooper Tomlinson play their roles of Milk and Seven respectively with such an impressive range, it's hard not to feel a bit invested to where the plot is leading to. (Overlooking the odd nicknames, of course)

Seeing there's more emphasis here on a nightmare situation brewing than the hands-on handiwork of a masked killer, Milk & Serial (2024) is a little low on the creative kill count and splatter. The most brutal this film got is a savage neck stabbing, but apart from that, it's mostly gun kills and one beating that's mostly offscreen. This is likely not going to serve well passionate gorehounds expecting the typical bodycounting affairs, but if you're in it for unsettling creepiness and distress, then this may not be that big of a set back. 

Though far from reinventing anything, Milk & Serial (2024) shows quality you don't typically find in a lot of do-it-yourself horror titles and that's a respectable feat. Nothing too fancy, but a slight step above low-budget shlock, it's a creeper of a movie that's good enough to try!

Bodycount:

1 male shot

1 female brained with a brick, beaten to death

1 male knifed in the neck

1 male shot

1 male shot

Total: 5

A Star is Torn: Pearl (2022)

Pearl (2022)

Rating: ****1/2

Starring: Mia Goth, David Corenswet, Tandi Wright

While Ti West's backwoods slasher X (2022) is a throwback shocker to 70s bodycounters and porn culture, his follow-up entry to this in-film universe is a loving yet nightmarish tribute to old Hollywood psycho-dramas, wherein we explore the maddened origins of a tragedy. A tragedy named Pearl.

It's 1918 and in the midst of Texas' Spanish flu outbreak; Pearl (Mia Goth) lives a life of near-isolation with her immigrant German parents, tending to their farm and running chores while her husband is out fighting a war in Europe. She wishes more to this life. More than cleaning after her wheelchair-bound invalid father. More than just trudging her days away following the orders of her joyless mother whose spirit was broken just to set foot in America. More than feeding animals and running to drug stores. No, Pearl wanted fame. To be Hollywood's next chorus girl, or even it's next biggest star. And she sees the opportunity for this when, while sneaking off to see a movie at the local town, she spots a dance audition to be held at her local church.

Though encouraged by her sister-in-law Mitsy and a handsome, young projectionist to try out, Pearl's enthusiasm for the chance gets seemingly crushed by her mother's stern and sharp tongue one fateful night, only to end in an accidental blaze which leaves the matron roasted and dying. Seemingly free from the weight of her parents dragging her down, Pearl sets her heart and feet to wow the judges with nothing but sheer determination and a head high in the clouds. 

Given, that is, she doesn't break down and continue her new found bloodlust for a spree killing, temper flaring and desperation growing...

With a collaborated script written by director Ti West and lead actress Mia goth during a mandatory 2-week COVID-19 quarantine at New Zealand prior to filming X (2022) (leading to both films being shot secretly back-to-back), Pearl (2022) is a dark coming-of-age character study showcasing the declining mental stability of the titular disturbed farm girl with illusions of grandeur and a boiling murder streak. Filled with lively technicolor and surreal imagery conjured up by Pearl's fantasies (this including a spectacular dance number with fireworks, and too a rather hilarious shot of a scarecrow with David Corenswet's head on it, injecting some bit of levity), the film sets us in a position to find sympathy for the Devil, a slowburn descent to madness carried powerfully by Goth's performance as she navigates her character from being uneasy yet sweet, to downright creepy and unhinged, a masterclass of acting that delivers horrors of both psychological and emotional kind.

Indeed, the story here is an exercise on resentment and turmoil, ripe with enough pulpy savagery as Pearl's horrifying confliction have her both enjoying and regretful of her terrible thoughts and deeds. One one end, she wants nothing but love and understanding from those around her, and yet she'll strike down with furious anger at the same folks the moment they do something that go against her wishes, cultivating to a third act that dishes out a body count, as well as an impressive screaming fit during the auditions and a five-minute single-take monologue that taps into Pearl's broken psyche when she's given the opportunity to let all the dirty laundry out, this including her murders. (Much to the requester's regret) Heck, even the end credits showcase just how broken Pearl would become, with the entire thing done with Goth simply holding out a smile to the camera for almost two minutes, face straining and eyes tearing up as the credits roll and Tyler Bater's impressive score transitions from disturbingly whimsy to haunting. (Though, apparently, this was unplanned;  Ti West refused to call "cut" during the shoot as he wanted to see how long Mia could hold up the smile, making the unhinged grimace uncanny rather effectively) 

As much of the focus centers more on Pearl's plight and ambitions, the kill count here isn't that high and about half of them occur offcamera, though those we do get to indulge onscreen did boast some worthwhile brutality and chunky gore effects, particularly one involving an axe murder that I believe is a tribute to the Joan Crawford proto-slasher Straight-Jacket (1964). The theme of sex as taboo is also looked into here as one of Pearl's repressed indulgences, in which she's so starved for love and attention that she's seeking courtship from anyone - or even anything- only to feel guilty, disgusted and shameful for herself for breaking her vows with her husband which further fuels her inner dilemmas.

Greatly a melodrama period piece with a slasher-adjacent climax, Pearl (2022) simply works. It just works! It's an impressive feat of horror fiction, creepy yet heartbreaking, chilling yet sympathetic, an unbridled dive down the mind and heart of a brand new horror icon that steals the show with grit and glee. Yes, it may take a while for the absolute gruesome to get going, but the path through the story has enough interest and drama to steal the scene, thus an overall rewarding watch for the patient. What else is there to say but see this gem of a film!

Bodycount:

1 male stabbed to death with a pitchfork

1 male smothered with a towel

1 female hacked to death with an axe

1 female dies from burn wounds

Total: 4

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

The Long Walk: In A Violent nature (2024)

In A Violent nature (Canada, 2024)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Ry Barrett, Andrea Pavlovic, Cameron Love

Advertised as a subverted take on traditional slashers, where we'll be witnessing the bloody massacre through the perspective of an undead monster, In a Violent Nature (2024) undoubtedly delivers on this promise. 

The story is relatively simple: a gold locket gets taken away from the remains of an old fire tower, leading to the resurrection of a long dead-and-buried maniac named Johnny and his long journey through the thick forest under the morning sun to the guiding moon, as he looks for the people who took his precious item. Along the way, he causes murder and mayhem to just about anybody he comes across, may it be loud teens keeping warm near a bonfire or even forest rangers who they once had a past with. 

As an arthouse exercise, In a Violent Nature (2024) mostly did itself right as an experimental approach to your classic backwoods slasher film, in which instead of going through the usual exploits of rowdy teenagers typically found in your bodycounters flicks, the entire movie centers itself on what exactly goes through the days of B-grade lumbering masked maniacs menacing old campgrounds and the surrounding forest. With the exception of a few scenes of teen victims sharing old campfire tales or them opening up old wounds of romantic affairs, narrative is almost non-existent here and there's more going on for aesthetics and gimmick as we're basically tagging along with Johnny's lengthy trudges through dense verdure, interacting with trinkets and tools, as well as observing people from afar before mundanely walking his way to them for a good kill or two. These hikes are often beautifully shot with its vibrant and natural scenery, yet there's an underlying eeriness to it all considering we're walking along the steps of a loon who will slay anyone in a heartbeat, emphasized by the movie's notable lack of score. 

On that note, In a Violent Nature (2024) grandly delivers on the slasher chaos, with Johnny himself being an obvious tribute to Friday The 13th's Jason Voorhees, echoing similarities like his slow mental state and the fact that he supposedly died as a child from a prank-gone-wrong, only to come back slicing and dicing people as a grown adult undead. He's a rather fascinating fella overlooking his affinity for silent strolling as the film isn't shy on giving him some form of personality through body language whenever it has the chance, such as a surprisingly adorable moment where he got distracted by a toy car keychain. Plus, the fella just knows how to dress to impress, sporting a creepy vintage fireman's mask to go along with his signature weapons, a pair of drag hooks and a hatchet! When it comes to the kills, it's a showcase of variety ranging from the tame yet bloody, to the downright gorehound gruesome (most memorable of the bunch being that of a woman who's into yoga, which got a little too twisty), all done in a manner so workaday, it's oddly calmative.

Frankly, the platitudinous direction is what makes In a Violent Nature (2024) a fascinating watch; almost everything about it goes against what makes a slasher film thrilling or scary, and yet it presents an engrossing alternative that's just as disturbing and may be as effective. Yes, it's an approach that's may not do well for those expecting and wanting a more traditional bodycounter set-up and I personally believe the film could have done better if it was fifteen minutes shorter, ditching the odd shift of focus to the rather ineffective final girl of this picture, but the result is still this engrossing practice of uniqueness over what could have been just another slasher in the woods type. Schismatic yet transfixing, this is a movie that definitely rewards the more patient and open among slasher fans, assuring them a fine dine of brutality and other ghoulish delights. See it!

Bodycount:

1 male mutilated offscreen

1 male gets a wood saw pulled through his jaw, decapitated

1 female drowned in a lake

1 female ran through the gut and hacked on the head with drag hooks, contorted

1 male gets a thrown axe to the head

1 male had his head crushed with a rock

1 male decapitated with a log splitter

1 male had his head hacked to a pulp with an axe

Total: 8

Vae Victis: Open Graves (2009)

Open Graves (2009)

Rating: **

Starring: Mike Vogel, Eliza Dushku, Iman Nazemzadeh

While vacationing in Spain, American surfer Jason gets a free antique board game from a creepy dude with stumps for legs. It's called Mamba and the goal of the game is to dice roll your way to the middle of the board, where you drop your token into a model of a snake-headed tower and make a wish. Supposedly, it'll grant said wish true, but for every dice roll that land on an "open grave", players are hindered by a card draw which may contain a cryptic, rhyming message about their fates, thus kicking them out from the game.

So, yes. It's cursed. Very. 

That news comes very late for some of Jason's companions who lost at the game when they decided to try it out for shits and giggles. One gets nibbled and pinched to death by bad CGI crabs. Another gets bitten to death by bad CGI Black Mambas. A girl gets aged to death, while another gets a low-budget Final Destination-style outing. Frankly, it's all very mediocre with a laughable amount of cheese due to how dated the computer effects were for the deaths, creature effects and some oh-so-spooky shots of ghostly apparitions. 

To be fair, Open Graves (2009) has a neat idea, but its direction and execution lack the proper grit and flair to make the story scary or thrilling enough to be above tolerable, leaving us with a monotonous and uninspired letdown of a movie despite all the little things throw in. The second act, for example, practically rips off Wishmaster (1997) with the whole "I'll fix this by wishing to undo everything" shtick, only it's easier thought than done as the game has a terms and conditions to be followed, which further complicate matters, add more minutes to the run time and gave the game more personality than the characters piling up the kill count. By the end of it, the film was simply going nowhere new or exciting, which might be okay if you're just in it for the ham and disappointed laughs, but we can certainly do better than this mess.

Bodycount:

1 female tortured to death

1 male found flayed

1 male falls off a cliff, eaten alive by crabs

1 male bitten to death by venomous snakes

1 female rapidly aged to death

1 female caught in an explosion, burned to death

1 male shot to death

Total: 7

Do You Love Camping?: KillHer (2022)

KillHer (2022)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: M.C. Huff, Emily Hall, Jenna Z. Alvarez

Yeah, you lot have heard of this song before: a group of ladies drive up to the mountains to camp, only to meet their demises at the hands of a psycho. It's the backwoods slasher and it is pretty much a staple in the horror subgenre for its simplicity. KillHer (2022) could've been another round of your typical "people go to the woods, people get killed" plot and for a while it is. Until it isn't.

Mattie is about to get married to a hunk named Jagger and to celebrate this happy occasion, she and her bestfriend Eddie plan a camp out deep into the mountains with Mattie's two other best buds, Jess and Rae, as a pre-bachelorette party. From here, we can tell the dynamic isn't too peachy fine between these girls as Jess and Rae aren't too fond of Eddie's weird sense of humor, though they're toughening it out for Mattie's sake. This situation gets a little testy, however, when it turns out that Eddie have surprises planned out for the entire camping trip involving Jagger showing up at some point, seeing that he gave her the GPS location of where his camp's at. Mattie loves it, Jess isn't buying it, and Rae's just trying to make the best of the situation. 

Problems arise when, after the girls pitch their tent next to an empty one they assume belongs to Jagger, they're awfully surprised to find it occupied by a burly man named Mr. Rogers instead. The fella is gruff. The fella is big. The fella has a chainsaw and a gun back at his tent and he's not too pleased to be camping next to some loud girls. Night soon falls and the pre-marriage festivities of dancing around the bonfire and discussions of bear-related camping tips would soon pave way to something pretty concerning when a scream is heard, followed by the roar of a chainsaw...

Admittedly, KillHer (2022) isn't a slasher film in the strictest sense; it borrows the set-up of your classic backwoods horror-type, using it as a backdrop to what's practically a mystery thriller toying around with character motives and the plot's overall direction, playing up the tropes to hide where and what exactly the film's building up to. The first half of the movie, in turn, focuses solely on building its premise, who these girls are and what could be going on behind their little camping trip, often at times jumping back and forth to flashbacks that spill a little bit of what went on during offscreen scenes. It can get uneven pacing-wise, but I personally find the casts intriguing despite their flaws and the unconventional build-up to its unraveling plot have all the right twists, turns and revelations to keep me glued on the movie and focused. 

That said, the film would eventually dip into bodycounting elements for its thrills, spills and scares halfway into the run, right about the time our killer finally shows their crazy and the bloody mess that comes along with it, both figuratively and literally: one one end, the reveal as to who the real threat here isn't much of a surprise seeing how much the film works its way around subverting tropes and, in all honesty, the way the killer's characterized prior to the reveal was practically a dead giveaway. On the other hand, now that our villain isn't hiding behind a façade anymore, their delightfully unhinged shenanigans have them murdering in glee and plotting seriously messed-up scenarios for the perfect killing spree, just a real treat for slasher fanatics who love little villains with a bit of personality and mischief. It's a workable display of crazed kookiness, even more so when our killer opted to play with some of their victims by setting them up in traps where they're left to die, all the while continuing to taunt and mock them in their predicament just to further break their spirit. 

The backwoods nightmare would soon reach our lead gal Mattie as she's held at gunpoint and forced to discover the horrid truth about the entire trip, including the unkind fate that fell on her loved ones. This is when KillHer (2022) shifts its gear again and morphs into a cheesy action thriller as those who survive our sly maniac join forces to put a stop to them, arming to the teeth with ammo, combat knives and one mean travel van. The resulting brawl is as cheeky as it is gory and intense, a rather entertaining and oddly cathartic fight that closes on a 'feel good' note that's all but fitting to the tone of this entire fiasco of a camping trip. 

To put it simply, despite its snark and subversions, KillHer (2022) is a stab at the backwoods slasher tropes that's just buzzing with palpable enthusiasm for the subgenre. You can see it in its lively camerawork and witty writing, and too the gory kills and the demented killer responsible for them. It may have gone off its rails, sure, but that's just the fun of it! The craziness in its direction is a welcome approach, all the better to keep slashers fun and fresh! 

Bodycount:

1 female seen beaten dead with a rolling pin

1 male seen murdered in a bathtub with a knife

1 female hacked with a garden claw

1 male had his throat cut with a knife, bludgeoned with a trophy

1 male knifed through the jaw

1 female killed offscreen

1 male stabbed to death with a hunting knife

1 male shot to death

1 female stabbed with a hunting knife, gutted with a chainsaw and repeatedly driven over with a car

Total: 9

Mukhayam Alshaati Aldamawii: Camp (2008)

Camp (Egypt, 2008) (AKA "Kamb")

Rating: ***

Starring: Yasmen Abaza, Amr Abdelaziz, Amr Abdullatif

It's not very often we see a horror film straight out of Egypt due to the country's strict censorship, so the fact that we even got this teen slasher from them is no short of a miracle and a real ham of a treat for us bodycount fans. 

The scene starts at a luxurious birthday party of one Wael, who we see having a bit of a talk with his on-again-off-again fiancé Shirin before she has to leave on the account of a family emergency. Right about that time, the rather beautiful Shaky arrives with her date Gamal to join the festivities and then the story jumps ahead a year later. And Shaky is now dead.

After visiting her grave, Wael, Shirin, Gamel and the rest of their gang (plus Shirin's kid sister for some reason) drive to the titular camp, which is less of a camp and more of a nearly-barren hotel manned by its owner and his promiscuous wife, a trolley guy with a case of sticky fingers and a mute cleaning lady who eyes the guests suspiciously. The group's there to celebrate their graduation by having a great time at the beach, dining fine and dancing around a bonfire to some spicy salsa music. Trouble comes bickering when talk of romance, cheating and doing the nasty out of wedlock gets brought up within the group, but that would soon escalate to more dire problems like random fires down hallways, creepy shadows looming across windows and their cars' batteries going dead. 

Dire turns deadly when a killer resembling a pale ghoul shows up to terrorize the doomed partyers, stabbing and hacking people to death, stirring up a whole mess of accusations and suspicions as the victims try to uncover who's hunting them all down...

Focused more on building suspense and intrigue rather than a high kill count or a messy spot of gore, Camp (2008) works its way through the interpersonal problems and relations of its casts for a good bulk of the plot, building enough drama and red herrings for the eventual killing spree to make it as twisty in its turns as possible. It's an approach that would've functioned better if it wasn't for the bits of comedic outings that clash with the movie's more serious moments, not to mention the sudden amount of overacting and breakneck editing around the second half which knocks off any earnest sense of chill or fright from the murders. Still, the film is shot with a modest quality and there's an undeniable fun factor to be found so long as you don't mind a dose of cheese and what's practically a run-fest of victims fleeing all over the hotel while the killer either legs after them or show off their parkour skills. It doesn't always fly well, nor does it make sense, but it's gorgeous to look at and it surely does help not to overthink how quickly our killer can change in and out of their cosplay-level disguise, among many other things.

The kills aren't too graphic and are mostly implied offscreen to appease Egypt's censors, not quite that big of a problem personally since the scenes around the attacks work well enough entertainment-wise. The finale is, shall we say, up for the audience's interpretation: it would have been your standard unmasking and reveal with a flashback to compliment the twist, only made just that complicated and confusing by adding one little detail that simply doesn't make any lick of sense at all. The film just threw it at us at the near end and left it at that, but the very gist of the whole fiasco's basically one big revenge plot and so long as that's clear at least, I can roll with it.

Camp (2008) undoubtedly could have been better, but for what it is able to accomplish, I can appreciate. It has the look and feel of an 80s slasher done right, one that isn't too coy on hamming it a bit with its thrills and spills. A neat little bodycounter flick from a different culture!

Bodycount:

1 male hacked on the neck with a curved knife

1 female found dead from a cut throat

1 female hacked on the head with a curved knife

1 male stabbed in the back with a curved knife

1 female stabbed in the back with a curved knife

1 male found stabbed in the back with a curved knife

1 female killed offscreen, later found stabbed in the chest with a curved knife

1 male found stabbed on the back with a curved knife

Total: 9

The Beast of Meteorite Acres: Splatter-Saurus (2023 Novella)

Splatter-Saurus

Author: Judith Sonnet

Publication Year: 2023

Chapters: 14

Rating: ***

A dinosaur-centered Youtube channel once covered this book and described it as 'dinosaur splatterpunk'. Seeing this is written by Judith Sonnet, whose stories often dip into Extreme horror, I'm not too surprised. What did tickle my curiosity, however, was upon further looking into it, some people also consider this a 'backwoods slasher'. And that, ladies and gents, is how I ended up owning this rather gruesome, exploitative novella about a random dinosaur on a feeding frenzy deep in some woods. 

The story does resemble a typical backwoods slasher plot of young adults visiting a cabin at Meteorite Acres for some rest and relaxation; drinks were drank, drugs were suggested, some hanky-panky time was considered despite some characters wondering how their partners would react if they finally decided to come out of the closet, but what these lads and ladies didn't come to account for is the orange-scaled dinosaur that's rampaging all over the nearby forest and pond! Devouring already the small family who owned the cabins and a few very horrible rednecks, this bipedal monster is now dead set on gorily sinking its teeth down on some nubile college kids...

In the afterword of the book, Sonnet wrote that Splatter-Saurus is a homage to cheesy dinosaur flicks one would typically catch on channels like SyFy or streaming sites like Tubi and, frankly, she is mostly on point; the book reads like the most hardcore creature feature exploitation piece involving a prehistoric theropod, one that the likes of the Carnosaur movies would have been if they delivered a bit more bad taste into their plots, such as overly-detailed traumatic deaths and a pinch of hicksploitation grindcore with a pair of redneck brothers who are into very disturbing and upsetting ideas of fun, examples of which apparently involve torturing lady hitchhikers and swiping babies away from mothers. 

This being a short horror piece, the story is straight-to-the-point and a quick read, barely diving away from the shallow plotting of a dinosaur brutally hunting and eating side dish cannon fodders before moving in to the main course chilling inside a cabin. Wordplay is descriptive enough to really really paint the gross gruesomeness of these attacks, as well as attempt a bit of layer and humor during the story's few lulling moments, making this a promisingly intense and intriguing B-grade horror read. The only qualm for me here is that the last twist and the resulting ending feels like it pushed the silliness a tad too far, making the conclusion overly random for the sake of cheese and shock, maybe a bit rushed as well. In all sincerity, it could work as the author did say she wanted this book to be stupid yet fun, but I personally think it could have been articulated and written better so it wouldn't be so janky.

Still, Splatter-Saurus done enough tooth-and-nail bodycounting to make it a good read, given that is you got the iron stomach for some extreme horror literature because it can get real nasty! This novelette is ridiculously wrong and splattery, but if you love a bad dinosaur creature feature, even more so a slasher with a generous offering of blood and body parts, then give this backwoods slaughter-fest with a prehistoric twist a go!

Bodycount: 13

Notable Kills: "...The bulky brute's body lifted Angus up and sent him spinning like an organic frisbee. Angus's scream warbled comedically before his body struck a nearby tree.

Paul watched in shock as his brother wrapped around the sturdy shaft of the tree."

Door-To-Door Nightmares: Door (1988)

Door (Japan, 1988)

Rating: ****

Starring: Keiko Takahashi, Daijirô Tsutsumi, Shirô Shimomoto

Yasuko, a housewife, lives a rather regular life in a high-rise urban apartment with her husband Satoru and young son Takuto, with the only snags in her happy mundane days being Satoru's workaholic tendencies which often have him spending more time in the office, as well as the constant barrage of spam messages from phone calls, mails, and door-to-door sales. Little did she expect, unfortunately, that a particular visit from an uncomfortably forward salesman one day would set off a series of stalking and harassment, hurling Yasuko down a disturbing path of distressing encounters and increasing violence which soon ends in an unsettling and brutal home invasion.

Marketed as an extremely rare late-80s home invasion slasher flick that never got a screening outside of Japan until very recently, Door (1988) is more of an Italian giallo-inspired stalker horror that leans towards style and direction rather than an increasing bodycount. The story is simple and straightforward, slowly burning its way from the everyday normalities of a small family, to the sinister scares and creepy set-pieces perpetrated by either our villainous stalker or Yasuko's growing paranoia, all in a pace that's best described as organic. It does take a while to get to the action going, in turn, and a few scenes did feel like they're padding for time, but the build-up is made mostly bearable and captivating thanks to the lurid cinematography and free-floating camera work effectively capturing just how alone and helpless Yasuko is in her predicament. A good portion of visual shots are even done in positions showing wide spaces behind or around certain characters to further convey this sense of isolation, greatly working with the narrative as it soon establishes that Yasuko's husband, Satoru, is essentially neglecting his family being so focused on his job, plus her neighbors would prefer to turn a blind eye to the attacks as they retreat to the safety of their own apartments and the cops are unable to help Yasuko that much as she never got a good look at the salesman so she couldn't provide them a proper description of her stalker. All of these elements melded well to create an intense and atmospheric plot that'll only get more shocking as it reaches its climax.

These last 20 minutes of Door (1988) is this movie's cream of the crop, an impressive scattershot of bloodwork and ferocity as Yasuko and her son Takuto, now trapped in their own home, are forced to flee from room to room and fight with whatever they can against a deranged salesman gone full maniac on them, knife at hand on one moment, a roaring chainsaw in the next. Gore makes its welcome presence around these parts, not overly splashy but a gnarly display nonetheless. Cinematographer Yasushi Sasakibara's phenomenal camera work captures the pure chaos and claustrophobic terror in an array of interesting shots, while Junichi Kikuchi's wild editing helps keep the hectic pace of the attacks, juxtaposing with the eerie slow burn that came before. Granted all of these end with a single kill only, the gradual escalation of edge and suspense made the wait all worth it, even more so when the death itself is crazy violent, cathartic in a very macabre way.

Keiko Takahashi, wife of Door's director, Banmei Takahashi, carries the film as our lead Yasuko, doing a fantastic job making the character sympathetic enough to make us feel for her during her loneliest and most helpless plights, definitely selling a lot of the film's more crucial moments. In turn, Daijiro Tsutsumi, playing our stalking salesman Yamakawa, lands quite an impression with his transition from a calm yet disturbed creep to a manic madman prone to sexual violence, despite the character having very little background to explain his sudden spiral to depravity. He's simply crazy. Dangerous. Sometimes that's all we need from a good horror villain and Tsutsumi nailed his part.

Door (1988) undoubtedly have most of its bits and pieces working in its favor, resulting to a terror flick that swims in shuddersome unease and nightmarish fear before rewarding us with a bout of thrilling savagery. A psychological horror with grit in its teeth, I say don't miss this one! 

Bodycount:

1 male stabbed with a barbecue fork and brained with a bat, nearly decapitated with a chainsaw

Total: 1