lightninli
JoinedMarch 18, 2018
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By day, Eric is a mild-mannered Architect, bringing great buildings to the good boys and girls of his hometown of Portland, Oregon. By night, he is a disreputable podcaster looking to promote the best and worst of horror movies!
A woman with long, wavy hair looks thoughtfully at a man holding a knife in a lush, green outdoor se.

Send Help (2026) Review

★★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★

Intensity 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

Send Help is pure wicked entertainment. It borrows tropes from many genres. The ugly duckling turning into a swan. The horrible boss. Disaster survival. Obsession. All of these familiar elements are blended into something more than the sum of their parts. It's funny, brutal, and puts both of its main characters through real ethical paces. Your rooting interests may shift over the course of the movie, but it ends with a cynical twist that turns into the perfect sunset. (Fist pump!)

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Cognitive (2025) receives a Wide Streaming Release

One of our favorite films from the Another Hole in the Head Film Festival back in 2024 is now available streaming. AHITH is known for its quirky, proudly independent genre films, and this movie does not disappoint. It can be difficult for little independent films to get good distribution. Sometimes good things come to patient filmmakers who wait for the right deal. Now, Cognitive has received a proper launch. Cognitive had a limited theatrical release in Los Angeles last month and is now available to the general public on Tubi, Sling TV, and Fandango.
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A cat playing with a litter scoop in a cat litter box.

The Worst Horror Movies of 2025: Episode 208

Here come the stinkers! It's time to discuss the Worst Horror movies of 2025. Of course, just like our favorites, our disappointments are highly subjective. You may be surprised to discover that some of the movies we didn't enjoy have received plaudits from other critics. We have some fun internal disagreements, for sure. We know you love hearing us throw shade on movies. Enjoy the hot takes!
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Presence (2025): Review

★★★★ out of ★★★★★

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Presence observes a family nearing a breaking point. The Paynes have just moved into a substantial craftsman home, and it came with a poltergeist. The audience watches from the ghost's perspective as it meanders around the house, ducking into closets and the shadows when necessary. This is a family drama first, with the apparition being the witness. You travel from room to room listening in on conversations intended to be private, and watch as certain decisions pull at the threads that threaten to undo the family. Presence is a quiet and beautiful film, though it is wrenching to watch. There is horror, but not in the traditional sense, and it arrives with a flourish at the conclusion of the movie.

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Night of the Zoopocalypse (2025): Review

★★★ out of ★★★★★

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Night of the Zoopocalypse is a zany, goopy gateway horror film inspired by a Clive Barker graphic novel. A meteorite crashes into the Culpepper Zoo and infects the animals trapped inside, turning them into gelatinous mutant monsters. A wily wolf and a cantankerous mountain lion team up to try to save their zoo, with the help of a wacky assortment of untainted zoo-mates. This is a simple story, but it is a fine introduction to light horror for kids who want something a little gross and a little spooky.

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The Top 10 Horror Movies of 2025: Episode 207

If it's January, you know it's time for our Top 10 Horror Movies of 2025. You might think there is a group consensus, in a year that had so many good horror movies... but you'd be wrong! The best part of having a great sampler platter of movies to pick from is that there is something for everybody. This year, the box office and the awards programs agree, 2025 had a lot to offer.
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Indy the Dog wins Astra Award for Best Acting in a Horror/Thriller for Good Boy!

Who's a good boy? Why, you are, Indy! In a monumental achievement, Indy the dog's performance in Good Boy earned him the Astra Award for Best Performance in a Horror or Thriller, beating out his esteemed human competition. In a year that has started off with so much social friction, it is amazing news like this that gives us hope. This win is for the underdog. How did Indy do it? Listen to my interview with director Ben Leonberg about how they pulled off this miraculous feat.
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Terrified woman filming herself in a mirror with a scared expression and messy hair.

V/H/S: Halloween (2025): Review

★1/2 out of ★★★★★

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Hot take: It's time to shelve the V/H/S franchise and do an autopsy scrub. V/H/S Halloween is the latest iteration of the venerable horror anthology franchise. V/H/S has become an enabler (and, by way of production, Shudder and Bloody Disgusting as well) of ugly, uninspired, and dull shaky-cam short films. With one exception, I don't think any of these segments would be good enough to make an average horror-film festival short-film block. It's a sad indictment of a once-proud series.

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Abandoned woman holding cat with a young boy with scars on face, emotional scene from The Scariest Things.

The Best Horror Movies of 2025: Eric Li’s List

The end of the year means delivering on our opinions of the Best Horror Movies of 2025. I have now been playing horror journalist for my ninth year at The Scariest Things. Every year, I exclaim that we are in the midst of a Horror Renaissance. Never has that feeling felt more impactful than this past year. 2023 was close, but 2025 delivers the box office rewards as well as the critical praise. This was a year for new, fresh stories, supported by the studios and justified by the audiences. It also helped that a few franchises performed well, and we are likely to see the fruits of their success come Oscar season. On with the list!
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Feel-Good Horror: Episode 206

Consider Feel Good Horror as a palate cleanser for those of you looking for a bit of optimism and good vibes in your horror movies. For those of you who may have followed up on our recommendations from Episode 205: Mean Horror, we're making it up to you now. Triumph over evil! Protagonists for the win! Fist pumps all around. It's time for some emotional healing through horror with Episode 206: Feel Good Horror.
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A man with a shocked and scared expression, wide eyes and slightly open mouth.

Kombucha (2025): Review

★★★★ out of ★★★★★

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Kombucha brings body horror to the workplace. Symbio is a company that positions itself as a place where struggling Liberal Arts creative types can achieve the same professional success as those who went into the technical fields and prospered. Luke is a struggling musician who takes the bait. Soon, he will find out that Symbio's secret to success lies in the mysterious drink Kombucha.

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1. Bloodied football player with liquid blood running down torso in a horror scene.

Him (2025): Review

★★ out of ★★★★★

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False start. Production team. Five-yard penalty. Retry third down. Him (2025) is a rare commodity: a sports horror film, and sadly, it fumbled the opportunity away. The production is artistically very ambitious, but it fails to make much of its visual assertiveness. Too weird for your average football fan. Too much football for your average horror fan. Him proudly bears the backing of horror mogul Justin Peele, has the cinematic flair of a Peele film, but it lacks the skilled storytelling that the producer is known for.

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Explosion on the Seattle Space Needle with fire and smoke during sunset, creating a terrifying spectacle.

Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025) : Review

★★★★ out of ★★★★★

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Final Destination has taught us that you can't cheat death. In Bloodlines, we reset the clock back to what might be the original sin for cheating death. It is 1969, and the site of the impending disaster is the Space Needle-like Sky View Tower. As is tradition for this series, a premonition of disaster saves all the would-be victims. Death is nothing if not patient, and it pursues the lucky survivors... and their descendants. This was a breath of fresh air into a series that had become stale.

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Haunting detective reflection in mirror, crime investigation posters on wall, suspenseful scene from The Scariest Things.

Mean Horror: Episode 205

Great Horror movies can often be a bummer. Vicious, unrelenting, and cruel films that deny us the happy ending and the victorious fist pump. Many horror fans, and a couple of the podcasters for The Scariest Things in particular, seek these films out. We are crossing bridges too far. No punch pulling. Beware and behold Episode 205: Mean Horror.
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I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025): Review

★★.5 out of ★★★★★

Intensity 🩸🩸.5 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

We return to Southport in the reboot/sequel I Know What You Did Last Summer. A new crew of pretty teens is put through very similar paces to the 1997 cast. Bad decisions lead to murderous revenge from an assailant in a fisherman's slicker, wielding a meat hook. It's a better-looking movie than its predecessor, but it lacks the star power and charisma of the original. Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. return to lend credibility to the film, and the writing struggles to effectively use the legacy cast. Unfortunately, like its source material, The Fisherman is an uninspired generic villain.

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The Rule of Jenny Pen (2025): Review

★★★★.5 out of ★★★★★

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Judge Stefan Mortensen suffers a stroke during a trial and is sent to a nursing home to recover. As the wheelchair-bound judge struggles with his physical ailments, he encounters Dave Crealy, a psychopathic resident who bullies all of the other residents with a puppet-clad fist. Stefan clings to reason and rules but is overwhelmed by Dave's chaotic presence and has become the focus of the madman's rage. Two great actors, Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow, bring their A-games to this elder-care thriller.

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Keeper (2025): Review

★★★.5 out of ★★★★★

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In Keeper, a dating couple takes the next step by going to the boyfriend's lodge in the woods, which, given the opening credit montage of screaming women, might not be the best idea. Osgood Perkins delivers a stylish modern thriller delivered on the bones of a folk horror skeleton. Tatiana Maslany is in top form as a horror actress, delivering quirk, pathos, and proper survivor smarts. The plot hides its secrets well. Perhaps too well, as you might leave the theater still trying to fill in the mental puzzle pieces.

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Predator: Badlands (2025): Review

★★★★ out of ★★★★★

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The revisioning of the Predator franchise is in full swing and continues to impress. Dan Trachtenberg is revitalizing what was a brand that was stuck in neutral, and now bristles with excitement and fresh turns. In Predator: Badlands, we flip to the Yautja (the name now given to the Predators) point of view. Dek is a young Yautja looking to redeem his honor by claiming a trophy prize from an unkillable creature of legend. On his hunt, he partners with an unlikely android on a planet where every living thing is out to kill them. The movie is much more action-hero than horror, and it uses the Marvel M.O. of destroying lots of non-humans to stay in the PG-13 category. It's still plenty violent, despite the lack of human bloodshed. Predator: Badlands makes up for the lack of gore with a superior story and wonderful character interactions.

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Dangerous Animals (2025): Review

★★★★.5 out of ★★★★★

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The Dangerous Animals of the title are sharks, but they are the weapons, not the killers. Jai Courtney is Tucker, a serial killer who uses his shark dive boat as an excuse to take victims on a one-way trip out to sea. Zephyr is a target who proves to be a greater challenge than most of his prey, and Tucker likes a victim with some spunk. Oz horror is notoriously brutal, where happy endings are rare. The man who brought you The Loved Ones and The Devil's Candy has returned with a highly entertaining and original variant of the serial killer film.

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The Long Walk (2025): Review

★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★

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The Long Walk delivers exactly what it promises: a death march competition across the backroads of Americana, where fifty young men look to be the last one standing, where death awaits the rest of the competition. Themes of brotherhood and complacency within an autocratic society are explored. Primarily, however, it's a pretty thin plot bolstered by a pair of terrific leading young actors.

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Upon Second Thought – Reconsidering Horror Movies : Ep 204

You know? That movie was better than I remembered. How often do you tell yourself that? Or, alternately, "What was I thinking? This movie was awful!" We've all been there. The movies don't change, but we do. We get older. Our tastes change. Sometimes we weren't in the right headspace to appreciate a film for the first watch. The Scariest Things gets contemplative in Episode 204 and reviews movies that we believe should be re-evaluated... for better... or worse.
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The Great Horror Recast Podcast: Episode 203

Horror movies love sequels and reboots. So, a recast is always around the corner. The Scariest Things is going to do what everybody fears: recasting movies that really shouldn't be rebooted. BUT WE'RE DOING IT ANYWAYS! Redoing A Nightmare on Elm Street with blockbuster casts. Check! A reboot of Jaws with women in the lead? Done! Extending the It story to 27 years, for a Chapter 3 using a senior citizen cast. You betcha! And Hereditary, but swapping out for an all black cast? We can do that! Sacrilege? Absolutely, but you know you want to know who we picked!
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Edgar Allan Poe’s The Oval Portrait (2025) Review: H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival

★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★

Intensity: 🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

Edgar Allan Poe's The Oval Portrait is an adaptation of one of Poe's shortest works. It visits the intersection where life, art, and death collide. The story is brought to modern times, where a thief, an artist, and an art dealer are all drawn into the influence of a spirit bound to a remarkable portrait. As is the tradition for translations of Poe's stories, the film is suitably melancholy, but it injects some welcome humor into the proceedings, while maintaining the core theme of the original story.

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A Blind Bargain (2025) Review: H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival

★★★★ out of ★★★★★

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Betrayal. At its core, A Blind Bargain is a movie about the worst kind of betrayal you can imagine. Desperation and greed convince a young and troubled Vietnam veteran to submit his own mother to the schemes of a mad scientist. This groovy '70s retro thriller takes a cosmic turn through life-extending experimentation. This was the centerpiece movie of the 2025 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival.

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Tribe (2025) Review: H.P Lovecraft Film Festival

★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★

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Curiosity is a dangerous thing. In cosmic horror, the exploration of truths can lead to fates worse than death, and yet, people will still seek to know things they really should leave alone. In Tribe, a man lost in the remote badlands in the southern Sierras is going through a horrible physical transformation. His hope is that some media drives he found in his Airstream trailer will tell him why he is in the predicament he is in. His salvation may come in the form of his own found footage material, but it also may foretell his own doom.

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The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025) Review

★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★

Intensity: 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

The Conjuring: Last Rites is another solid entry into the Warren Saga. Once again, Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson are on point as Lorraine and Ed Warren, providing grounded and passionate performances. The film is once again loaded with first-rate jump scares and fantastic period piece production design. The ghost story this time out is a muddled mess, though, and some of the secondary characters feel forced, preventing it from achieving the greatness of the first entry in the franchise.

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Reptile and Amphibian Horror: Episode 202

Are you afraid of reptiles? Horror movies suggest that you just might be. There is an abundance of movies with reptile and amphibian horror themes. Snakes? Lots of you. Betting odds would suggest that you either fear spiders or snakes, or both. Alligators and crocodiles? Probably not something that applies, unless you live in Florida or Egypt. But, how about frogs? Or turtles? If you are, then this episode is made for you.
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Musing the Symbolism in Alien: Earth (Review)

Apparently, the long TV format suits Alien perfectly. Fox continues its remarkable rehabilitation of its two valuable action/horror IPs, with Alien Earth doing for the xenomorph franchise what Prey did for the Predator franchise. It has injected lyrical symbolism into a series that has waxed and waned in intellectual rigor.
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