Intensity: 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Mārama brings the cultural heft of colonialism to a stunning-looking Gothic revenge-horror story. Add on a layer of creepy misogyny and a ghostly touch, and you have a fist-pump-worthy event. Ariana Osborne brings a visceral rage to a Māori warrior forced into a Victorian ball gown. She is defiance incarnate. If you like your horror to come with a message, embrace this film.
Intensity: 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Break a Leg is a two-hander horror comedy that deftly packs in more character arcs than a sine wave convention. Australian Kaitlin Boyé's feature directorial debut reveals a filmmaker of immense potential. If you prize snappy dialogue and sarcastic wit more than a big body count in your horror movies, then this is the movie for you. Realistically, that isn't the typical horror fan demographic, so it may struggle to find a big audience, but the writing is so fantastic and the performances so endearing that it deserves to be sought out when it becomes available to watch near you. Break a Leg screened as part of the Popcorn Frights Film Festival Virtual Program.
Intensity: 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Demonetize documents the story of failed TV ghost chasers who concoct a scheme to recover their fame. They invite a group of mostly annoying online influencers to draw out ghosts that are attracted to content-creator vibes. Everybody gets more than they bargained for. This cute movie feels like empty calories. It has its moments, but for a film that promotes itself as a wild horror-comedy, the jokes didn't hit often enough. This was a featured film in Popcorn Fright Film Festival's streaming catalog this year.
Intensity: 🩸🩸1/2 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
My first five-star movie of the year! The End of Oak Street is the most fun I've had at the movies in 2026. It is without a doubt the best dinosaur movie since the original Jurassic Park film, feeling like an old EC Weird Science tale or a Twilight Zone episode. Adventurous in thought, and wildly entertaining in execution. In 1982, solar flares create time/space anomalies that switch a neighborhood from modern times to the Mesozoic Era. Slowly, at first, then all at once in a flash of light in a glowing sphere of altered physics. The story of the Platt family, led by Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor, elevates this film above its peers. The struggling but loving family faces the severe task of surviving the impossible.
Intensity: 🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Adult animation can be a wild, confusing ride. Big City Pizza shoots for the moon and hits a bullseye with its hypnotic and amusing slice of pizza life. We follow skeleton delivery man Boney and his wild adventures delivering Big City Pizzas. It threatens to be too weird to watch, as it dances right on the edge of being too artsy. We've all been there with independent animation films, particularly in this genre. However, the pacing is perfect, and it is filled with raunchy, hysterical moments with wonderfully colorful characters. I had a blast with this film, which played on the Popcorn Frights Streaming Program.
Intensity: 🩸1/2 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Cat Cam marries up the themes of Paranormal Activity and Good Boy. It utilizes stationary cameras (by way of "cat cams") to document the goings-on of a haunted house. The couple who own the house prepare to leave for a French vacation, and the underachieving little brother is left to cat-sit while they are away. When the owner's away, the ghost will play, and Nug knows what's up. Cats have that extra sense, plus the cunning instincts to know to stay away from the ghost.
From the jump audiences are treated to a treasure trove of songs that sound like they were ripped straight from a 1979 Italian Giallo film. In fact, true blue Giallo fans will recognize some melodies that are reminiscent of the Ennio Morricone's work on the Argento classic the Bird with the Crystal Plumage. It’s a pure and loving homage that’s employed in a way that practically lulls audiences into a false sense of security only to be jostled into gory mayhem.
Intensity: 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
The Deep Dark takes a trip into a coal mine in France, where an ancient evil being awaits. An overzealous archaeologist hires a group of miners to unknowingly help him find the crypt. Stylish but stiff, this subterranean horror show utilizes stock characters and subjects them to a predictable script. The monster is visually impressive until it moves and reveals itself to be an awkward puppet. On the plus side, the production team at least tries to apply actual mining terminology. (Though I am no expert in such things.) The film can be entertaining at times, as a generic monster movie, but it can't elevate itself beyond a semi-mummy trope.
Intensity: 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
It's finally time to do a review for Backrooms. I know, I know. I'm a little late to the party. The great uncanny valley that is the Backrooms phenomenon led to the great unexpected hit of the summer. How the hell did a slow-burning philosophical liminal horror movie manage to beat Star Wars straight up at the Box Office in the summer of 2026? Even after seeing the film, the improbability stuns me. The power of alternate media certainly plays a part, but it's not the whole story. Two tremendous performances by Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve sold the wildly original story, and word of mouth could not have been better. Let us dig in to how this came to be.
Intensity: 🩸🩸🩸1/2 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present to you the most violent horror movie I have seen this year: They Will Kill You. This stylish and gleefully gory action-horror-comedy takes on a familiar theme and injects it with nitro boosters. Zazie Beetz plays Asia Reves, a woman searching for her sister at her last known location: a New York Hotel that is secretly a Satanic Temple. Is she trapped? Or are the cultists inside the ones who are stuck with a woman with some serious fighting mojo? It's a bit of both. This is a fan-favorite film from the 2026 festival circuit, now available on HBO.
Intensity: 🩸1/2 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
In a meta reboot brimming with promise, the re-imagined Anaconda (2025) lost the plot early and often. The cast? Star packed. The trailer? Very funny. The concept? Surprisingly original, but the story meanders and squanders the core ideas. The snake? We didn't see enough of it, and it has been done better in movies with much smaller budgets. Was it scary? Not in the slightest. This was a lost opportunity.
Mummies have been around since…well…maybe forever? Some Asian cultures were way ahead of the mummy curve and jumped into mummification nearly 14,000 year ago. Mummies are definitely part of our collective consciousness. Whether it’s the goofy mummy from Hotel Transylvania, or the super sexy and sumptuous mummy from 1971’s Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb, mummies have captured our attention.
In the new horror comedy, Dead Media, director Joseph Scrimshaw explores the concept of physical media. Is it better to unwind by mindless scrolling through a seemingly endless array of streaming options, or will you be rewarded by exploring the dark recesses of the Salvation Army to find that perfectly imperfect VHS copy of The Mutilator?
Intensity: 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Does working in today's economy feel like you are on a treadmill that is getting too fast for you? Has your job killed your dreams? Employment in the modern world can be, in a word, a Grind. Grind is a timely anthology that is neatly stitched together and explores how working for the Mega-Corporations (TM) can erode your sense of being and may cost you more than a diminished paycheck. If you ever thought "This job is gonna kill me." Grind will resonate with you.
Intensity: 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Hungry (2026) presents a rampaging hippopotamus that wrecks an alligator-touring flatboat group in the Louisiana bayou. The film paddles through familiar territory, but swaps out the traditional crocodilian menace for a legitimately dangerous mega-mammal. Capable and earnest performances and impressive visuals bolster what would otherwise be a by-the-numbers production.
Intensity: 🩸🩸🩸🩸1/2 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
In Evil Dead Burn, it's all gas, no brakes, with copious gory violence but not a whole lot of plot, in the most recent edition of the Evil Dead Franchise. This film is a white-knuckle ride. It upholds the franchise's tradition with extreme elements that will please many loyal fans. It does not, however, provide the charm and certainly lacks the goofiness of the Raimi movies. From the moment the movie starts, the action doesn't let you up for air. For some, that's a thrill. For others, it may prove exhausting.
Intensity: 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Friday the 69th prescribes a gonzo premise: What if a porn studio tries to rescue its fortunes by going straight and making a mainstream horror movie? This debut film from Alex Montilla was featured at the Portland Horror Film Festival. This retro grindhouse spoof behaves itself... mostly. The movie isn't nearly as dirty as it potentially could have been. It pays homage to the slasher movies of the early '80s and has subtle nods to the adult-film roots of the characters making the movie-within-the-movie. The comedy is a bit uneven, but it hits often enough to put a smile on your face.
Intensity: 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Sometimes it takes an indie take on a classic to make the story scary again. Dracula: The Night Around Us does exactly that. It is a dark, brooding, modern take on the Bram Stoker classic. Literal chills ran through my nervous system. This film won the Goul D'Or award at the Portland Horror Film Festival for the best Feature at the Festival in 2026.
Intensity: 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
The Frogman is back! The first Frogman was something of a found footage cult hit. Now, both the actual film and the film within the film have a bigger budget this time out, and the results go gonzo crazy. Forget the cryptids; this sequel takes the concept into cosmic insanity. See this in a full theater, as the audience I saw it with went completely bananas. It starts out like a natural extension of the first film, but expands the story into realms practically unthinkable. This feature won the Horde Award at the Portland Horror Film Festival as the audience choice for best film.