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

Slithering & Slaughtering: Kiss of The Serpent (1988)

Kiss of The Serpent (1988) (AKA 'Snake Island')

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Chris Moore, Murray McDougall, Jeff Greenman

The scene starts at 1979, with a father attending a snake cult ceremony and begging its members to release his son from a curse. This fellow is herpetologist Dr Waylan, who runs a local Serpentarium and is guilty of stealing the cult's sacred white snake for an experiment involving venom, creating some sort of miracle cure. The cult, however, claims that it is too late to release his boy, Michael, from their snake god's wrath even if he returns the serpent to them, so Waylan has another member of this cult, a Native American friend, promising to take care of his son should anything happen to him.

And, wouldn't you know it, one 4th of July night, a gaggle of loud and horny teenagers choose to celebrate the holiday by taunting Michael with fireworks, lighting them outside the Serpentarium where the boy's entire family resides. This gravely escalates into an accidental arson, killing Dr. Waylan, his wife and his daughter. Michael, strangely, is nowhere to be found...

Moving ahead eight years later, the same teenagers are now in their twenties and are, unsurprisingly, just as loud. And horny. They're celebrating 4th of July by taking a yacht out to open waters, unbeknownst to them that someone has sabotaged the ride, making sure it crashes near a small, isolated isle known as 'Snake Island' which is populated mostly by, what else, snakes. Upon arriving there, our sultry subjects opt to make the best of their predicament, as being marooned does little to sway them off sex and booze, unaware that whoever plotted their unconventional stay has set their fangs on killing them off one by one to appease a serpent god and finally rid them of a curse. 

As a slasher fan, nothing catches my interest faster than the word 'obscure' and, time to time, I do end up enjoying the obscurities I get to see. Yes, there were some duds (looking at you The Intruder (1975) and Shaman (1988)), but hunting down rare slashers did lead me to seeing some rough hidden gems like Bloodstream (1985), Arboy Day (1990), The Stoneman (2002) and even the original cut of A Night of Dismember (1983)! 

That said, Kiss of The Serpent (1988) (AKA 'Snake Island') may as well join my collection cheesy guilty finds; it's nowhere near being a good movie with its distractingly choppy editing and muffled audio mixing. Not to mention the inconstant acting chops and line delivery from our casts, working on a script that walks a fine line between sleazy and unintentional satire. But what it lacks in quality production, the movie makes up for it with its creativity and ambition to be a little more than your average hack 'n slasher, even if said execution can be laughable for how on-the-nose and hammy it can be.

Given how many cult-themes slashers are out there, Children of the Corn (1984) and Blood Cult (1985) just to set examples, the supernatural angle of Kiss of The Serpent (1988) would have been nothing too special, if it wasn't for the killer being dedicatedly on brand with their cult's snake themes when it comes to their murders. Stabbing and slashing a victim? They'll do it with what looks like a hand-puppet snake head with twin metal blades for fangs! Need to shoot someone dead? Our murderer happens to have arrows tipped with open-mouthed, decapitated snake heads that they can shoot with a crossbow! And the sheer ridiculousness doesn't stop there as, while the majority of the plot follows your typical revenge-against-the-guilty jig, the last act of the movie shifts into creature feature territory as our slasher, finally succumbing to the curse, slowly transforms into a giant snake to attack one last victim. It's unhinged, yes, and I wouldn't have it any other way, though I do wish the kills could have been gorier, if not bloodier at least.

From what I can gather, Kiss of The Serpent (1988) never had a North American release and, instead, went straight to VHS internationally, contributing greatly to its rare status which is either a shame or a relief depending on how well you can swallow bad slashers. Still, I enjoyed its craziness enough to give it a pass, and if you don't demand much from your low-grade slashers and love a good enough rarity, then this is a title worth looking into.

Bodycount:

1 male seen killed in a fire

1 female and 1 girl mentioned killed in a fire

1 female garroted with a thin wire

1 male had his throat stabbed with a bladed snake glove

1 female stabbed to death with a bladed snake glove

1 female pulled underwater, decapitated

1 male repeatedly shot with a snake-headed arrows

1 female buried up to her neck, head set on fire

1 male bitten to death by snakes

1 male locked inside a room with a python, later seen dead with a throat wound

1 female slashed across the face with a bladed snake glove

1 male had his head blown off with a shotgun

Total: 13

The Devil's Father's Brother's Nephew's Cousin's Former Roommate: Bloodspell (1989)

Bloodspell (AKA 'The Boy From Hell', 'To The Devil a Son') (1989)
Rating: **
Starring: Aarin Teich, Anthony Jenkins, Twink Caplan

Ever wondered what The Omen (1976) would have been like if, instead of the baby Antichrist being taken in by a wealthy couple with ties to the government, spreading his influence across the world under the unholy ploy of the Devil himself, we have a teenager being dropped off at a care home for troubled kids by his frightened mother because his estranged Satanist father is looking to awaken his son's inner-devil and have him create the Anti-Christ with the girl of his choice by the time he turns eighteen?

If you answered 'yes', you're a weird lil' fella. And this is the movie you're looking for.

 

During his stay at St. Boniface Evaluation Center for Troubled Kids (where said 'kids' are played by actors pushing somewhere between late-20s to early-30s, acting like pre-schoolers), aforementioned bringer of darkness Daniel (Anthony Jenkins) is starting to show a lot of supernatural evil like causing windows to shatter to cut someone's face, making a remote explode at a kid's hand after they hog a TV, and murdering a pair of nasty bullies through grisly accidents. He's also been talking to the demonic apparition of his father who, after finally catching up to sonny, tells him of his destiny to sire the Anti-Messiah by the time he comes of age. Which, unfortunately for the residents of the center, is just a few nights away. 

Recognizing the danger after noticing that Daniel's present during these incidents too many times, jittery Charlie (Aarin Teich, in his late twenties) tries to warn the rest that the new kid is evil, but this is proven to be a lot difficult to do seeing he has the mental maturity of a tantrum-throwing twelve-year old who bonks his head on a tree-root when his suicidal girlfriend refuses to talk to him after, out of the blue, he asked her why she tried killing herself. Yeah. Is it any mystery, too, why he's also the butt of many jokes and bullying going around the center? When he gets upset, he gets intensely upset. Over-the-top and many screws loose.

Still, what remains of the group eventually figure out that Daniel is demonic when a visiting psychiatrist suffers a heart attack trying to run away from a session gone spooky. With Daniel's evil growing stronger, it's up to Charlie, House mother Jenny (Twink Caplan) and live-in guidance counselor Tony Montana (Edward Dloughy) to stop the Boy from Hell from bringing forth the devil's spawn, as well as killing anybody else who gets in his way.

As much as this movie is a laughable car wreck when it comes to acting and dialogue, the story does play around enough predictable horror-of-the-demonic tropes to make it an interesting watch. It's a terrible movie, sure, with cheap effects and cockeyed editing, but there's a charm to how well it wears its badness over the craziness of its story, making it quite easy to see Bloodspell (1989) as a guilty pleasure for lovers of bad cinema. Like, what other slashers out there have a finale overblown with cheese courtesy of a group hug and sappy end credit music right after divine intervention helped save the day? Not a lot, I imagine.

If you like your supernatural slashers absurdly ridiculous and fun for being that terrible, then seek out this hammy gem and enjoy!  

Bodycount:
1 female strangled to death
1 male set ablaze
1 male shredded through a woodchipper
1 male suffers through a heart attack
1 male ran through with a pike, struck by lightning
Total: 5

Murky Visions: Scalper (2023)

Scalper (2023)

Rating: *

Starring: Susan Priver, Jake Busey, Bai Ling

Y'know, it's hard to get excited for a slasher when the first kill involves a dirty fat fella getting sodomized with a dagger until the weapon is caked in blood and shit. Yeah.

Clementine Carver (Susan Priver) is a psychic, as well as a surviving victim of a serial killer dubbed The Scalper, named so after their habit of scalping women. It's been some time since the maniac was killed off and with her niche of having powers that helped track down The Scalper, Clementine sees herself getting interviewed for a radio show one day, with her friend, Jade Mei, excitedly calling the station for give the psychic some support over the air. Horrifyingly, Jade finds herself attacked by a man masked in black, her screams for help broadcasted over the airwaves. Clementine, in turn, goes into a seizure-like trance wherein she sees what happened to Jade, which is nothing short of a full-on slaughter that ends with her face and scalp being sliced off.

When Clementine comes through, she's greeted by Detective Hayden (Jake Busey) and his partner Detective Lupino (Kate Patel), who are already on the case of the recent murder and hoping to have her otherworldly abilities help them investigate what appears to be a copycat Scalper killing. Unbeknownst to them, this new wave of scalp murders has a more personal touch to it, all of which seems to lead down to Clementine herself...

Now, see, this is fine and all but, not going to sugarcoat anything, the production of this movie blows; aside from the downright horrendous writing and the very questionable set of C to Z-grade talents involved in bringing this murder mystery to life, Scalper (2023) tries to be this slick and creepy supernatural slasher by involving the previous victims of the titular killer in helping solve their own murders and, too, the new killings, via our heroine's psychic connection. Just for it all to fall embarrassingly flat when the shoddy editing, lowbrow CG effects and dollar store practical make-up distractingly and hilariously highlights how cheap this movie really is.

You could argue that this may be the intention, to bring a bit of humor to the plot, but the direction of the film is clearly aiming for something serious with how much it builds around the police procedural, and the trauma Clementine is going through being nearly another victim of the Scalper. Not to mention her worries of losing her father after he himself became a target of the serial slayer, presented here with her transversing the afterlife to convince his soul to return. Only, for some reason, the afterlife is a highly tinted barren of ruins, but not really since you can see moving traffic just way over the horizon. Yeah. Hard to take these heart-wrenching emotional moments seriously with all of that clunky production showing up.

You may be wondering, then, if I find this movie as absolute horse crap, why did I still give it a single star? Well, I'm awarding that to this movie's single highlight, which is the killer's design. Under the right lighting and angle, the fella is genuinely creepy with their flesh face mask and messy wring of a scalped hair, and I applaud Scalper (2023) for that.

That said, take this shitty movie out of my face and kick if off a trash heap.

Bodycount:

1 male sodomized with a dagger, scalped

1 male sodomized with a dagger, scalped

1 female slaughtered with a dagger, face flayed and scalped

1 female killed with a dagger, face flayed

1 female killed with a dagger, face flayed

1 male stabbed to death with a dagger

1 female sodomized with a dagger, face flayed

1 male stabbed through the neck with a dagger

1 male gets a dagger through the head

1 male found murdered

1 male stabbed with a dagger

1 male stabbed to death with a dagger

1 female decapitated with a dagger

1 male shot on the head

Total: 14

Lots of Tricks, Little of Treats: The Jester (2023)

The Jester (2023)
Rating: **
Starring: Michael Sheffield, Lelia Symington, Delaney White

Based on a series of Youtube short films from 2016 to 2019, The Jester (2023) should have been about the exploits of a mysterious masked jester as he terrorizes a small town celebrating Halloween with twistedly deadly magic tricks, but it instead focuses mostly on soapy drama between two estranged half-sisters who are meeting for the first time after their father seemingly committed suicide. (Read. Seemingly) This draggy attempt of a plot spends its run rubbing in the fact that it have some form of depth going here, with the women discussing their issues of having a father who abandoned a family to move on to another; one of them is rightfully pissed at him for leaving her and her mum, while the other just wants to patch things up and, hopefully, help her sister move on from the pain.

This is all easier said than done when, somehow, a supernatural masked magician gets connected to all of this. And I don't mean this in a way that the girls had a chance encounter-gone-hellishly wrong with the Jester while out for coffee and swapping around childhood stories, no. That would have been preferrable. Rather, the maniac magician just happens the one who killed their father after the guy failed to gain the forgiveness for ditching a family, which implies that the Jester has some bit of history with the guy, even more so when the ghoul starts berating one of the sisters with frightening visions of their undead pa scolding them for being unforgiving and cold. The story never bothered to explain, though, why the masked creep is this invested with the family, opting to hide this fact behind more conflicted melodrama and strived emotional horror of the B-grade kind, which makes the whole gag of the movie having some semblance of layers feel boringly cliched, flimsy and borderline pretentious. 

You can clearly tell The Jester (2023) wanted to make something out of its titular villain, perhaps a representation of grief or trauma given the ending narrative. A novel goal, sure, but greatly lacking in execution. If anything, the whole movie is unnecessarily dramatic and could have benefitted more as a straightforward supernatural slasher seeing that the best moments here are The Jester doing his killer tricks. From an elevated strangling and death by tied shoelaces, to an entire head disappearing via magic hat and body parts removed ala cup tricks, our ghastly grinning ghoul does all of this magical terror through enigmatic yet playful pantomime body language, with special effects that are delightfully practical. The whole concept of a mute killer magician murdering their victims via paranormally empowered parlor tricks should have opened an opportunity to be wild and imaginative with the story, but, once more, the movie shackled itself as overly serious psychological horror, thus reducing the villain's role to almost just a lingering presence, his whimsically twisted kills an afterthought 

The Jester (2023), by the end of it, is plainly underwhelming. Clumsily mixing psychodrama with slasher tropes that barely benefits one another, the movie is a misfire of missed opportunities. Its story would have worked better with a different, less flashy villain. Its villain would have worked better with a cheesier, more popcorn-friendly story. All in all, a hardly passable affair.

Bodycount:

1 male strangled by an elevated noose

1 male trips on a tied shoelace, hits his head on a tombstone 

1 male gets an entire apple rupture out from his throat and mouth

1 male had his head removed via hat trick, shot

1 male killed offscreen

1 male had his eyes and teeth removed via a cup trick

Total: 6

Death Comes For Legacies: Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025)

Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Teo Briones, Rya Kihlstedt

It's been, what? Fourteen years since the last Final Destination movie? In all honesty, Final Destination 5 (2011) would have ended the franchise on a high note by being an absolute godsend entry for managing to still keep the idea of Death personally picking off disaster survivors brutally frightening and morbidly fascinating within its back-to-basics story. Not to mention that one neat twist in the near end that I'm sure surprised a lot of the audience the first time they saw it! But through the next years, the rumor mill kept hopes of another round of the "howdunnit" bodycounting alive, this including talks of a story set at the medieval ages, to ones focusing on a group of first responders. (Frankly, a period piece Final Destination movie would have been interesting. Maybe then they would finally address who or what the flying fridge kept giving these random people visions of terrible disasters?)

Now, Death is back once more, and this time it takes a bloodied flying log through the legacy sequel trend, with a big emphasis on "legacy".

The scene starts at 1968; young Iris is surprised by her boyfriend Paul with a fancy dinner high up at a newly opened Skyview Tower, a classy restaurant built hundreds of feet above ground. What Iris didn't know is that her man plans on proposing to her there, all the while Paul isn't aware that the love of his life is carrying his child. When the two learns of each other's little secrets, the couple couldn't be happier for themselves and one another, thus everyone clapped and is happy.

Until some brat's coin toss somehow leads to the tower's glass dance floor shattering, a massive explosion, and the structure falling apart, killing everyone.

As Iris falls to her death, this turns out to be no more than a recurring nightmare and the source of night terrors for one Stefani, a present day college student. It's been two months since she started dreaming the disaster and, hoping to find its source so she can live normally again, Stefani pries information out from her extended family who hesitantly reveal to her that Iris is her grandmother, driven insane by her constant lookout for Death ever since that visit to the Skyview and is now dwelling inside a fortified cabin at a secluded mountain clearing.

Tracking her grandmother down, Stefani learns that Iris was successful in preventing the tower's collapse, saving the lives of everyone there. Of course, Death didn't like that its plan got screwed up, so it starts to kill off every survivor in the order they would've died that time, along with their respective descendants who shouldn't exist to begin with. The matter that everyone walked off living and breathing from that tower meant Death took a very long while to eventually get to Iris' bloodline (so long, dare I say, that if it was a movie, it would take three or four sequels just to do it justice), but with Iris now terminally ill, she theorizes Stefani's getting these dreams as a sign that her family's next to bite as soon as the cancer finally do her in. 

Stefani didn't buy any of this at first, but a well-projected weather vane through grammy's head moments after their meeting was enough to make a believer out of the girl, who then starts to go through and take to heart Grandma Iris' impromptu gift, a Bible-thick journal full of tips and tricks on how to avoid Death. The rest of her family, as you would expect, was skeptical by all of this until, that is, someone's dad got his face mulched by a runaway lawnmower and a cousin gets a gruesome yet unusually humor-driven incident involving a garbage truck. By then, it's a desperate race against time to find a way to break the cycle, which may include a heartfelt final appearance of Tony Todd as the mysterious mortician William Bludworth, a kooky plan to kill-and-resurrect a cousin through a triggered peanut allergy, and maybe even a darkly humorous suggestion of infanticide to steal the fresh soul's years, though thankfully nobody bothered to do after, perhaps, one of this film's best exchanges.

In fact, one of the key good points of Bloodlines (2025) is how the two families are written and portrayed, just a colorful bunch of fun and likeable characters despite their flaws. The film generously gives good bits after good bits of just how close they all are (Uncle Howard's kids and their cousin going through the house looking for a tiny adorable pet turtle, for one. And then there's Richard Harmon's Erik, a tattoo and piercing-studded assholey joker-type, shown to have a photo of his dad giving him a fatherly smooch on the cheek set as his phone's wallpaper, which successfully tugged my heartstrings), and it's this warm bond that's something mostly absent throughout the franchise, thus greatly welcomed here for giving the movie an identifiable theme and tone, as well as a relatable raise of stakes.

When it comes to the messy meat and bone of the movie, Bloodlines (2025) does kick things off with one of this franchise's best opening disaster next to Final Destination 2 (2003)'s vehicular pile-up; just brutal carnage all over. Blood, guts and charred bodies grace the screen full of splatter and a dash of dark comedy here and there. (Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head plays on a radio before hapless dancers start getting splattered on the hard concrete from a fall. A penny's weight causes a piano to tip over and fall through and, satisfyingly, on top of an obnoxious character. Just to name a few) This dip into grim comedy occasionally shows up across the rest of the death scenes, making the massacre here oddly balanced in terror, gore and cathartic laughs as MRI magnet flies metal debris through soft flesh, or an accidentally-chained nose piercing escalates to a deadly blaze.

The excitement, unfortunately, starts to fizzle down around the final act as the remaining family decide that the best course of action to keep Death at bay is to have them, or at least one of them, fort up inside late-Grandma Iris' "deathproof" cabin as long as they could, so the rest can live their lives to the fullest. Now, see, this is when Bloodlines (2025) starts to get sloppy with its direction as, for one, this plan is just dumb; with Death managing to kill off Iris using the structure of the cabin against her, the whole place is basically imperiled and this is further hammered down by the number of hazards originally meant to keep the Grim Reaper off now posing as dangers against the doomed family. And, yet, they continue ahead, resulting to even more deaths and a near-death experience that may or may not have broken the cycle.

I could have tolerated this shortsighted turn of events as it did still feature a few nicely executed set-pieces, but even when the movie rears up its inevitable twisty final disaster, Bloodlines (2025) couldn't even bother to come up with a more creative exit. Practically speaking, they just did the ending for Final Destination 3 (2006) again, only with little to no exciting build-up, looking awfully cartoonish and has Final Destination 2 (2003) logs thrown in because, well, fanservice. Yawn.

Quite a shame, really, as I would have given this entry a better rating given that they tried harder and better for its finale. Still, the journey before that is a whole baggage of fun, one that isn't shy to toss around an emotional core in the midst of all the crushed bodies and witty jest, reminding us to cherish our time with our loved ones. All I can say is I'm glad we have Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025)! It's imperfect, but worth a watch! 

Bodycount:

1 elderly female gets a projected weather vane through her head

1 male had his face shredded by a lawnmower

1 female crushed to death inside a trash compactor

1 male gets a magnetized wheelchair crush and impale him into a malfunctioning MRI machine

1 male gets a magnetized metal spring through his head

1 female crushed by a falling light post

1 female crushed by an airborne log

1 male crushed by an airborne log

Total: 8

Images (c) Google

A Sailor Man Disgustipated: Popeye The Slayer Man (2025) and Popeye's Revenge (2025) Double Bill Review

Very much like the case of Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey (2023), beloved spinach-eating, bad guy-bopping Popeye The Sailor Man joins the troublesome train of childhood characters getting reformed into brutal killers once he entered public domain in 2025, resulting to movies like Popeye The Slayer Man (2025) and Popeye's Revenge (2025)! Now, as a kid who grew up watching the sailor beat away villains and saving his dame, Olive Oyl, time and time again (Oh, those cherished Monday nights!), seeing him turned into a massacring monster should've got me feeling disgustipated, but as a hardcore slasher fan, I just got curious.

So curious, in fact, I watched these two back to back! Was I crazy to do that? Of course! But I had a warm cheeseburger and a pack of fresh onion rings that evening, so why not pair those with a couple of dumb movies? 

~~~

Popeye The Slayer Man (2025)
Rating: ***
Starring: Jason Robert Stephens, Sarah Nicklin, Angela Relucio

Blow me down. I actually like this one!

University student Dexter is doing a video documentary about a local town legend known as the "Sailor Man", who apparently haunts the abandoned and soon-to-be demolished Anchor Bay spinach cannery. He's joined by his bestfriend Lisa, her boyfriend Seth, their friend Katie, and a mysterious newcomer named Olivia who's deeply interested about the urban legend. The gang plans on filming around the factory later that night for quality shots, as well as do a bit of junior investigation around what exactly led to the place shutting down two decades ago. While all of this is happening, Katie's abusive boyfriend and his cronies are convinced she's cheating, so they start stalking the place to confront her.

Unbeknownst to all of these hapless souls, the Sailor Man is real; with his deformed face and equally misshapen, overly muscular arms, he stomps around the factory to crush some heads and tear off a few limbs. Particularly of those who dare enter his territory...

Popeye The Slayer Man (2025) is what it is, a cheesed-up slasher with a ridiculous premise, one that actually brought some good material to poke fun at; while the characters are your trope-types ranging from the nerdy protagonist and his cool girl love interest, to the lovey-dovey couple and despicable douchebags that are just in it for the kill count, they're set around a story that's basic yet workably outrageous, centering on bad spinach cover-ups and a mutated man-monster with distinctive brutality. It walks a fine line between being a satire of the Popeye franchise with its name drops and visual Easter eggs (I guess that guy will have to pay another food joint Tuesday for a cheeseburger today), and a murder-focused B-grade bodycounter that generously delivers splashy kills and chunky gore, the resulting product being this odd yet entertaining ham of a movie that can get predictable with its direction, but makes up for it with a few laughs and loads of the red stuff. Loads.

At times, the low budget does show whenever we get a good look at our killer Popeye up-close, the rubbery texture of the practical effects done for his face and tumorous arms visibly obvious. Due to this, it's sometimes hard to feel scared for our characters whenever the Sailor Man is out getting them, though we do have some expressive lightning here and there that definitely gave him an intimidating presence, as silly as he looks with his caricature face, bulbous arms and his strangely prim sailor uniform. (Like, he's been hiding in that dusty spinach factory for years, how the heck is that uniform not worn out?) Plus, he has lore. The movie actually took the time to build a silly lore behind this monster, one involving unsanitary canned vegetables, whistleblowers and a long lost swee'pea that, somehow, makes him sympathetic, even! I have to give the movie points for that!

To simply put it, Popeye The Slayer Man (2025) is a movie not meant for serious eyes, but for those who love a bad slasher! Cheesy to the core, too silly to ignore, pop this Popeye in with hot popcorn and anchors away!

Bodycount:

1 male disemboweled

1 male had his head crushed open, brain spilled out

1 female killed offscreen

1 male had his head stomped

1 female had her scalp torn off, crushed in a hydraulic press

1 male had his eyes thumbed, head twisted

1 male had his neck crushed with an anchor, decapitated

1 male impaled by dropped steel rods

1 female falls unto steel rods, impaled

1 male beaten to death with his own torn arm

1 male had his head crushed 

Total: 11

~~~~

Popeye's Revenge (United Kingdom, 2025)
Rating: *1/2

Starring: Emily Mogilner, Connor Powles, Danielle Ronald

From ITN Studios, who produced the infamous Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey franchise, comes this darkly tale of a deformed boy who drowned in a lake, now haunting the woods as a supernatural undead hulk, hellbent on murdering he comes across. 

Yeah. Hadn't heard of that before. Totally original. (If I had a nickle...)

Popeye's Revenge (2025) starts with an animated narration about a boy named Johnny (Nicknamed "Popeye"), who was born with a cartoonish chin, even more cartoonish forearms, and immense strength. Because of his odd appearance, he's constantly bullied at school to the point he eventually snaps one day, strangling another kid dead. Horrified by this, Johnny's parents hide away him in a basement until this whole thing blows over, his only companion a mysterious pen pal who passes him notes through a secret door. It isn't long before the angry mob find out where the boy is hidden and they torch down the house, killing Johnny's family and him barely escaping the blaze, only to seemingly drown in a nearby lake. Now, it is said that Johnny's spirit lives within the lake's fog and whenever it rolls in, it means nothing more than the arrival of a vengeful burnt brute. (Dressed as a sailor)

Cut to the present and we learn that Johnny's old home was rebuilt mysteriously over the years, and a young adult Tara has inherited it after her gramma passed away. Hoping to turn it into a haunted attraction to help her folks with their money problems, she invites her friends over to get the place cleaned up, unaware that the foggy presence of "Popeye" and a mysterious accomplice has set their eyes on hunting and ending them the moment they arrive.

As you can tell, Popeye's Revenge (2025) takes a different stab on ole' Popeye The Sailor Man, one that's barely Popeye at all. There's little to no reference to the cartoon source material and, instead, simply have its killer dress up as a half-burnt sailor (in a lake) and beef up his arms a bit. In fact, take all the Popeye stuff away and just make Johnny a random vengeful revenant cursed with deformity, you'd still have the same picture show! Sadly, the story it chooses to tell is barely showcasing anything new, with the killer's origins, for one, a hodge-podge of Friday The 13th's Jason Voorhees, A Nightmare on Elm Street's Fred Krueger and even a bit of the undead ghosts killers from John Carpenter's The Fog (1980). The plot dearly tries to make something unique out of this monstrosity, but its supposed supernatural angle is handled so poorly, it's practically nonexistent and pointless, leaving us with nothing more than another killer-in-the-backwoods dead teenager movie littered with boring and unlikable youngsters. 

If there's anything to praise here, it would be the fact that Popeye's Revenge (2025) has some decent camera work here and there, its sizeable kills are never dry of blood (Though some of the props used are obviously Halloween decors, just look how stiff that freshly torn spine is!), and its "Popeye slasher" looks intimidating given that you ignore the silly matter that he's wearing a cartoon sailor's uniform in the middle of the damn woods for some reason. (In fact, why was he wearing a sailor's uniform when he was still alive?) It has that faint whiff of cheese, sure, but it doesn't really feel like it's openly approaching its silliness that much, focusing more on straight shlock that partially works.

In the end, uninspired plotting and clumsy execution is the undoing of Popeye's Revenge (2025), and no amount of splatter and slaughter can save itself from being a tired effort. That's all I can stands, an' I can stands no more! 

Bodycount:

1 boy strangled until his eyes popped off (flashback)

1 male and 1 female burned to death (flashback)

1 boy caught on fire, drowned in a lake (flashback)

1 female hacked with an anchor, head stomped

1 female punched through the chest

1 male had his head crushed

1 male garroted to death

1 female had her throat crushed with an anchor, drowned in a jacuzzi

1 male gets an anchor to the groin, spine and head torn off

1 male shoved eye-first to a broken plank

1 female shredded through with a riding lawnmower

1 female strangled with a length of chain until her eyes popped off

1 female caught in an exploding car

1 male knifed to death

1 female set on fire

1 female had her neck broken

Total: 17

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 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

Psychometric Situations: Departing Seniors (2023)

Departing Seniors (2023)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Ignacio Diaz-Silverio, Yani Gellman, Ireon Roach

Tired of being on the receiving end of homophobic bullying, Javier (Ignacio Diaz-Silverio) wanted nothing more right now than just to graduate out of Springhurst High and move on with his life. Until then, he soldiers through the final days of high school, finding comfort from his spunky bestfriend Bianca (Ireon Roach) and a sympathetic English teacher Mr. Arda (Yani Gellman), as well as on the graceful chance of finally hanging out with new student he's been crushing on, William (Ryan Foreman). 

Javier's would-be fling, however, gets exploited by the bullying ringleaders, star student Ginny (Maisie Merlock) and her meathead jock boyfriend Trevor (Cameron Scott Roberts), faking an invite to lure Javier out to another round of harassment afterschool. Finally having enough, Javier lashes back and outs another bullying jock, Brad (Sasha Kuznetsov), as a closeted gay, bringing up romantic flairs that's been happening between them behind everyone's back. Outraged, the jocks chase Javier and accidentally knocks him unconscious after he get thrown down a flight of stairs.

Waking up later in a hospital, Javier discovers, much to his shock and initial horror, that he can now randomly see glimpses of the past or future of whoever he touches, or by touching objects that belong to them. Unsure what to make of this at first, Javier quickly learns that he may need to use his new clairvoyant abilities to save the very people that tormented him when a prowler in a stylized Greek theatre mask starts snuffing out the bullies, staging them as suicides. Can Javier convince his aggressors of the dangers in time? Or will they all fall victim to the blade of this mysterious killer?

Visions in slasher films isn't exactly a new party trick given the likes of Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988), Fear (1990) or even the Final Destination movies already tormenting clairvoyants with killings to come, courtesy of a vicious murderer. Departing Seniors (2024) practically follows the same beat with Javier and Bianca racing against time to stop these deaths from happening and hopefully put an end to the killer's terror, only there's more happening around the slayings than the actual slayings itself. 

While Javier's ability to see visions is often given a comedic pass, with characters quirkily citing similar instances from various movies and TV plots, it also becomes a catalyst to the film's warmly emotional moments as it taps into the more vulnerable sides of the people surrounding Javier, this including his bullies who, through psychic foreshadowings and flashbacks, turns out to be surprisingly sympathetic despite their horrible behavior, having to deal with their own plights of insecurities and personal dilemmas which they hide behind an intimidating front. We get to see them mourn their losses and even try to better themselves, building a refreshingly solid cast to be cathartically killed off, but with the bulk of the plot centering on the drama, as well as the mystery behind who's doing away the bullies, Departing Seniors (2023) is light on the kill count and even lighter on the blood shed as the killer prefers to stage the murders as suicides to cover their tracks.

The film makes a good effort on twisting suspicions around with clever misdirection and plausible red herrings to keep the whodunnit angle fun and engaging, though with the casts so little, it's not too hard to eventually figure out who the culprit is. Even more so their motive behind the killings given the film's stance concerning bullying. The climactic confrontation is hammed-up, to say the least, with the killer breaking into angry monologues and one of the victims taking a little longer to realize how deep into trouble they are, going as far as chastising the villain for their threatening behavior. It's a passable finale with a few good fights and one that ends with the killer being arrested rather than killed, something you don't often see in a teen slasher.

It may not have the messiest bodycount, nor much of an exploitative edge, Departing Seniors (2023) still works as a slasher drama with a fun cast, a crisp production quality and the right amount of heartbreak and blood spill. Recommended for warm murder mystery afternoons!

Bodycount:

1 male had his wrists slashed with a hunting knife, drowned in a pool

1 male hanged with a fire hose

1 male beaten against a steering wheel, pushed off a building

Total: 3

Just North of Michigan, A Hunting Ground: Deer Camp '86 (2022)

Deer Camp '86 (2022)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Noah LaLonde, Jay J. Bidwell, Arthur Cartwright

The year is 1986 and it's deer season; after spending some time sulking over a nasty breakup, Wes finally decided to get out of the emotional muck and join his friends on a deer hunting trip out in the Michigan wilderness. We see him and the gang already driving to an old hunting lodge with a freshly killed doe strapped on top of their Chevy Suburban, stopping at roadhouse for some directions, drunken shenanigans and, for Wes, a darling attempt for another love life as he flirts with the feisty Native American bartender named Star. A flirt that she seemingly reciprocates.

Unbeknownst to Wes, sadly, their little spark of romance isn't meant for long when Star gets killed behind the bar by an unknown assailant just as the gang's leaving once again for their trip. He wouldn't know about this tragedy until the following morning, when the local sheriff stops by to speak with them about anything they may have known about the murder. Suspiciously enough, the sheriff isn't all too surprised about the death. In fact, this appears to be an occurrence every deer season and it always ends with even more deaths and mutilation. 

And, true enough, once the group continues on with their deer-shooting escapades, something otherworldly begins to take hold of the hunt; fresh kills are found infested with maggots, electronics going haywire with ghostly voices and, most concerning of them all, an animal skull-wearing figure brandishing a tomahawk is seen prowling the woods, hunting the hunters...

Taking cues from slasher classics like Friday The 13th (1980) and The Burning (1981), Deer Camp '86 (2022) approaches its tale of backwoods massacres building around our band of knuckleheads from Detroit first, focusing on their beer-guzzling, rifle-totting misadventures in deer hunting, as well as broodingly hinting the horrors to come. It's a direction that works swell enough with the crafted caricatures filling out our crew; Wes (Noah LaLonde), our defacto leader, has his occasional swing as a sweetheart despite sometimes coming rather bland; Simon (Arthur Cartwright), the token black guy, characterizes himself as the sensible one, thus knowing when to play it safe; J.B. (Brian Michael Raetz), the group drunk, who can be good with a camcorder and a truck given he's not boozed out; Karlos (Josh Dominguez), a war veteran suffering from a serious case of intensity, making him a bit too into the hunt; Buck (Jay J. Bidwell), a large and rotund fella who's quick with the jokes; and poor Egbert (David Lautman), the meek and dorky butt-monkey in his first hunt. Not everyone is written out to be complex or absolutely likeable, but they're loud, brash and often trashed enough to make themselves entertaining and fun, even more so when the jokes and quips these fellas throw out land a good laugh, if not a giggle at least.

As the good times roll, the danger that seems to have latched unto the group would eventually make its move in the flesh after spending a decent run as a brooding presence, or as a creepy ghostly occurrence. Though the kill count is a little low and it's a swig lacking on the creative side, I do dig the killer's get-up of fur cloaks and a large animal's skull, boasting supernatural prowess that easily establishes themselves as a threat. The lore surrounding them is peppered throughout the film, tying in folklore and even some social commentary regarding the ongoing cycle of prejudice and hate, but the gist of it is that this creature is vengeance on two legs. One that comes with a surprise twist reveal, which is then followed up by a rather confusing final shot.

Truth be told, Deer Camp '86 (2022) isn't winning points for innovating the basic slasher plot. It's more of the same campout-gone-wrong deal we've seen plenty by now, albeit not without a few good turns and ideas. I like the beer-fueled comradery of the group and their over-the-top hijinks. I like how the last act is practically a showcase of the slasher being the bigger predator out in the woods. There's room for improvement, no doubt about that, but the end product is still an agreeable B-grade bodycounter. 

Bodycount:

1 female stabbed in the head with a buck knife

1 male killed offscreen, later found disemboweled

1 male hacked on the head with a tomahawk

1 male hacked on the chest with a tomahawk

1 male stabbed in the head with a buck knife

Total: 5