My Bloody Valentine turns 45 years old this year. The director, George Mihalka, was the guest of honor at this year's Portland Horror Film Festival. George was kind enough to speak with the Scariest Things, who are huge fans of the film. Lost cutting room footage was recently found when the producer was absorbed by Lionsgate, allowing some of the missing gory effects to be brought back into the movie. So, it's time to revisit this movie and talk to the creator about why it remains important today.
⭐⭐⭐1/2
Intensity: 🩸🩸🩸1/2
Intensity: 🩸🩸🩸1/2
Sure, it shares a name with the notorious (and notoriously bad) Faces of Death (1978). The twist? This one's actually a blast.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2
Intensity🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Intensity🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Graphic sex, graphic violence, with a clever twist that sends the story careening off in an unexpected direction. The latest from Derek Vasconi.
⭐️⭐️ .75 out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Intensity 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Intensity 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Horror allows the perfect mirror for society to look at the entirety of these fragile foibles to gain a better understanding of the truly precarious nature of the plight of the teen. In his feature length debut director Michael Pickle looks to tackle all these issues in the context of a troubled high school senior who is haunted by the worst kind of spirits —the malevolent kind.
⭐️⭐️ ⭐️.5 out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Horror films in the modern era tend to tilt towards the academic and erudite. Sure there’s still wealth of garbage floating around in the ocean, including Minnie’s Midnight Massacre, Spiders on a Plane, and Meth Gator. However, these two worlds — trash and highbrow — seldom come together in perfect harmony.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Obsession is the latest movie to apply the Monkey's Paw wish dilemma. Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it. This independent horror gem is the latest example of how original storytelling and great performances can launch a tiny-budget movie into the box-office stratosphere.
Indie horror filmmakers Gabby Rosson and Emily Tullock are creating Trash Queen, a sci-fi horror comedy, starring Tulloch and legendary scream queen Lynn Lowery. They joined the Scariest Things to talk about what goes into developing a self-funded independent horror film. It is the journey of many an ambitious creator, and we talked about all of the joys and difficulties of crafting a horror movie. If you have ever wanted to produce a movie yourself, this may be an instructive conversation, so join us as we take a trip to the dump, for all the right reasons.
⭐️⭐️ ⭐️ out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
What do you get when you mash up Alice in Wonderland with Rosemary’s Baby, add in hint of Midsommar, and include the American sister of the most famous scream queen, with an Italian writer and director for a film that’s shot in Germany? Why you get The Sect — AKA The Devil’s Daughter.
The Scariest Things, once again, is proud to be a sponsor of The Portland Horror Film Festival, and they have just announced their 2026 lineup. If you are attending, don't forget to join us for The Fifth Annual Horror Movie Greenlight Pitch event at Dot's Cafe following Saturday June 6th's movies at the Clinton Street Theater. We hope to see you there!
⭐️⭐️ out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Intensity 🩸out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Intensity 🩸out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
In the latest installment of the Breakfast Club meets Final Destination we’re treated to a modern fixation that clumsily follows a gaggle of hyper-stereotypical teens. This one has it all. The stoner (Rel), the loner (Chrys), the brain (Ellie), the jock (Dean), and the beauty queen (Grace). More miraculous? They’re all best friends. Even more miraculous? The loner is a former drug addict who is new to the school and everyone is dying to hang with her.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Intensity 🩸out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Intensity 🩸out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
There are certain things in life worth obsessing over. In fact, there may be a direct correlation between the importance of the obsession and the meaninglessness of the object of fascination. Your favorite soccer club. The hunt for the perfect slice of pizza. The original pressing of the 1971 German prog LP that no one — except for you — has ever heard of. All these things and many more deserve your undivided and undying attention.
Comfort Horror. It's a thing. It keeps the fandom fed. We come back time and again to get scared, and we love it. Why? This is the third of my series of Crypticon Seattle convention panel recordings. Panels are the lifeblood of this annual horror gathering, feeding the fandom's macabre knowledge cravings. Horror movies are the bonds this community shares, and to understand why, this panel examines the lure of horror for many of us. It seems antithetical that many of us crave the experience of being scared.
★★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
The Yeti combines nostalgic creature feature elements with modern filmmaking techniques to deliver a top-flight monster movie dead set on entertaining.
Feel the sweat and the tropical breezes; it's time to discuss Tiki Terrors and its tropical horror cousins. Transport yourself to an island in the South Pacific or the Caribbean. The exoticism and the removal from "civilization" provide the grounds for some evocative scares. These movies have been with us since the Golden Age. Think King Kong, The Mont Dangerous Game, and The Island of Lost Souls, and it found its heyday in the '50s and '60s. Listen and learn from veteran Crypticon panelists as they talk all things Tiki Terror.
Crypticon Seattle, the great Pacific Northwest horror convention, has once again come and gone, but the memories linger. The panels are what make the convention feel like a class reunion. The panels are produced entirely by volunteer experts from across the region and are the ultimate in fan interaction. This is what it feels like to create a horror community, sharing our ideas and experiences with each other. This year, I decided to record some of the panels I participated in and attended to give you a sense of what happens at these events. This Pets in Horror panel was hosted by Brien Gorham, and I participated in it along with Kathy Fennesy and Todd Johnstson.
At Crypticon Seattle, we held a Slasher Movie King of the Mountain Bracket Battle to decide the greatest slasher movie of all time. Cheers, groans, hoots, and pleading were all part of the event. I asked the audience to get loud, and they made it happen! The final four were from franchises that would not surprise you, but the actual champion was not a highly seeded favorite. Who won? Check out the full interactive bracket right here!
If you're a self-respecting horror fan then this film has been on your must see list for quite some time. Good news! The wait was worth it. This trailer pulls zero, and we do mean ZERO, punches.
It's been twenty years, and now we are getting a sequel to Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. I had a golden opportunity to interview Nathan Baesel, to discuss the announcement of the Kickstarter Campaign for the upcoming movie.
⭐️⭐️.5 out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
What if a film tried to mash up the Oedipus complex with vampires, Crips, Bloods, crooked cops, not-so-crooked cops, vampire cops, mother/son tensions, father/son tensions, and African mysticism? Not possible, right?
⭐️⭐️.75 out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Truth be told Dolly is a pretty boring affair. That said, the film is punctuated with some pretty exceptional pieces of gore — including one moment that may not have ever been laid down on celluloid.
★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
The Southern Gothic film Parasomnia dips into the "dream demon" trope, infusing it with a voodoo twist and a delicious betrayal to spice up the story. Solid performances and carefully crafted character relationships help offset a somewhat pedestrian depiction of the demon.
South Korea's Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival unveils its poster art for this year's 30th edition of the fest.
In reality hippos are pretty far down the list of the most dangerous animals with 500 kills a year, but it's safe to say that getting mauled by a hippo is a far worse fate than a nibble from THE most dangerous creature, the mosquito. No big deal, but mosquitos lay waste to nearly a million people each year -- but that's a different story.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Goody Goody delivers pregnancy horror aplenty!
One of our favorite directors, André Øvredal, is back again with more genre goodness. We've got the trailer and poster right here!
Filmmakers take note: Australia's Dark Nights Film Fest wants your fear fare as they call for entries!
Another year, another Overlook Film Festival, one of the premier genre festivals in the country. Unfortunately, this year, the main players of The Scariest Things were unable to attend the festival in person. Eric was able to get some of the films to stream, but, as is the norm, remote screeners were limited and did not include the showcase films. Fortunately for us, one of our loyal Patreon Contributors, Robin Marcotte, was in attendance again, and she helped fill in the gaps we missed. This year, there were a number of good films, and according to Robin, one GREAT film. This year, we watched fourteen films and thirty shorts. Give our recap a listen to hear our thoughts on the 2026 Overlook presentation.
There's a poster. There are rumors. Now there's an honest-to-god trailer. Late in 2025, when I read that THE Eli Roth was pulling together the craziest film he'd ever made, and that it would outdo Hostel, Green Inferno, and Cabin Fever, I knew that it was going to cram-packed with gore, glorious gore!
★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Buffet Infinity is a film as strange as its name. This lo-fi cosmic-horror oddity spins its story through local advertisements that slowly escalate from commercial competition to societal domination. It is a clever concept that takes a while to comprehend, but it manages to combine initially incongruent media into a cohesive story of dread and destruction.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
American Dollhouse is what you get when a slow-burning liminal horror film decides to step on the gas and slams you into psycho murder madness. Sarah is a woman who hasn't been given many breaks in her life. When she inherits her dilapidated childhood home, she thinks she has struck the lottery. Unfortunately, the house retains awful memories, and worse yet, has a psychotic neighbor who has a strange obsession with her. Tensions rise as the neighbor's behavior escalates into violence, pushing Sarah deeper into a nightmare that threatens everything around her.






























