Movies
Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill! (V)
“As a horror film, Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill! is more gross than scary; a plethora of spilled brains and power tools stands in for the bargain-basement jump scares Hollywood routinely serves up like so much gruel. Cheap and nasty, EBKK is a film made for late-night movie marathons, preferably served up with cans of TAB Cola and Ding Dongs.”
What, exactly, does Chad Ferrin have against Ricardo Gray? In Someone’s Knocking at the Door he cast the young actor as a stuttering simpleton, and now – in the outlandish, just-released Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill! — Gray stars (in a larger role, at the very least) as a mentally handicapped teenager. What gives? That being said, at the risk of sounding completely ignorant I will cease commenting on Gray’s portrayal in the film, except to say that if I were you I probably wouldn’t watch it with the parents of an intellectually disabled child. What I will say is that his character, Nicholas, isn’t your average horror movie protagonist, just as Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill! isn’t really your average horror movie. Whether you’ll actually like the film really depends on your taste.
Raised by his loving but somewhat unbalanced mother Mindy (Charlotte Marie), Nicholas is a bundle of childish energy, prone to clapping his hands gleefully at the pop-and-scratch of his absentee father’s favorite record (oh, that absentee father), or exuberantly fawning over the sight of a soft, furry bunny (given to him as an Easter present by a mysterious homeless man pushing a shopping cart outside their house). As the film opens it’s Easter eve, and Mindy’s oily, bearded, no-good boyfriend Remington (Timothy Muskatell, appropriately slimy), who at the very beginning of the film we witness murdering the clerk at a convenience store, arrives at the family’s home wearing the plastic Easter Bunny mask he used to conceal his identity during the holdup. When Mindy’s normal “babysitter” Lupe (in a deft comedic performance by The Ghouls’ Marina Blumenthal) and her companion are told off by Remington, the sleaze-bucket is put in charge of keeping an eye on Nicholas while Mindy – attired in requisite slutty nurse uniform – heads off for a midnight shift at the local hospital.
And this is where the film, bogged down by a rather slow start, gets interesting. With Mindy gone, Remington proceeds to browbeat and degrade poor Nicholas, going so far as to pimp him out to an uber-creepy child molester (David Z. Stamp, stealing the show) in exchange for drugs. While Remington goes out to cruise for hookers, the whisper-voiced kid-toucher proceeds up the stairs, only to be greeted by…well, I won’t give it away, but if you’ve seen the poster art you’ll have a pretty good idea how to finish that sentence.
To be frank, Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill! is a pretty shallow exercise, but Ferrin seems to know that and doesn’t masquerade the film as anything other than what it actually is – a fun, pretense-free throwback to a bygone era of exploitation cinema. It’s this sense of play that slightly elevates the film above Ferrin’s Someone’s Knocking at the Door, a movie I felt tried too hard to be about something when it would’ve worked better by simply following through on its gonzo premise. There’s no such attempt at message-making in EBKK; it’s sheer camp, a tongue-in-cheek nightmare of blood-splattered psychedelia and over-the-top (albeit clumsily edited) kills.
One positive characteristic Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill! shares in common with Someone’s Knocking is in Ferrin’s attention to specifics – check out the molester’s oogy “molestation-kit” and long fingernails, or the way Lupe and her boyfriend comically interact with their non-Spanish speaking Latino counterpart in one of the later scenes. While Ferrin doesn’t possess the visual capabilities of similar trashcan-digger Tarantino (at least not with this budget), he has a similarly good ear for snappy lowlife repartee and a keen eye for the nooks and crannies of his freakish, off-center universe.
As a horror film, Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill! is more gross than scary; a plethora of spilled brains and power tools stands in for the bargain-basement jump scares Hollywood routinely serves up like so much gruel. Cheap and nasty, EBKK is a film made for late-night movie marathons, preferably served up with cans of TAB Cola and Ding Dongs. Indeed, like many of its inspirations, once it’s over you may feel the compulsion to scrape the phantom dirt from underneath your fingernails. If that sounds like an insult, let me relate this: over the closing credits, we watch a particularly hefty load of human excrement (real or of the chocolate-and-orange-marmalade variety I don’t know or particularly want to know) circling down a toilet drain. In other words, Ferrin will probably consider my above statement a compliment.
Ghostface is back on the big screen this weekend… well, sort of… with the release of Scary Movie, which marks the Wayans brothers’ return to the horror spoof franchise for the first time since Scary Movie 2 back in the day. It’s likely to be the talk of the horror community for the weekend, but don’t overlook the other six genre movies that were freshly unleashed today.
Here’s all the new horror that released on Friday, June 5, 2026.
The horror spoof franchise is back with Scary Movie now playing in theaters!
Marlon Wayans (“Shorty”), Shawn Wayans (“Ray”), Anna Faris (“Cindy”), and Regina Hall (“Brenda”) reunite for the new Scary Movie, with the cast also including Dave Sheridan, Lochlyn Munro, Cheri Oteri, Chris Elliott, Jon Abrahams, Damon Wayans Jr., Gregg Wayans, Kim Wayans, Benny Zielke, Cameron Scott Roberts, Heidi Gardner, Olivia Rose Keegan, Ruby Snowber, Savannah Lee Nassif, Sydney Park, and Felissa Rose.
Twenty-six years after outrunning a suspiciously familiar masked killer (“Ghostface”), the Core Four are back in the killer’s crosshairs and no horror movie IP is safe…
Scary Movie will slash through reboots, remakes, requels, prequels, sequels, spin-offs, elevated horror, origin stories, anything with the word legacy in it, and every “final chapter” that absolutely isn’t. A whole lot has changed in the horror genre since the Wayans Brothers were in charge of the franchise; their involvement ended with Scary Movie 2 back in 2001!
Michael Tiddes (A Haunted House) directs Scary Movie 6 from a script written by Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, original Scary Movie director Keenen Ivory Wayans, Craig Wayans (Scary Movie 2), and Rick Alvarez (A Haunted House).
From IFC, shark attack movie Chum is now available on Digital.
Alice Eve (Haunting of Queen Mary) stars in shark attack movie alongside Eric Michael Cole, Jim Klock, Elle Haymond, Lisa Yaro, Johnny Gaffney, and Sarah Siadat.
This one sounds very similar to last year’s Dangerous Animals…
Here’s the plot: “A newlywed couple joins friends on a Mediterranean yacht excursion, only to find themselves caught between a predatory shark and a psychopathic killer in their midst-transforming a sun-drenched escape into a fight for survival.”
Jonathan Zuck directs Chum, from a script by Jonathan Zuck and Joe Leone.
Samara Weaving (Ready or Not 2: Here I Come) and Kyle Gallner (Strange Darling) come together in Carolina Caroline, a sexy crime thriller now playing in theaters.
It’s not a horror movie, mind you, but it’s worth a mention here all the same.
Kyra Sedgwick (Family Movie) and Jon Gries also star in the romantic crime thriller.
Director Adam Carter Rehmeier’s film stars Samara Weaving as Caroline Daniels, whose desire to leave her small Texas town brings her into the orbit of a charismatic con man (Kyle Gallner), and together they weave a path of crime and passion across the American Southeast.
Adam Rehmeier previously directed the films Dinner in America and Snack Shack.
Tom Dean wrote the screenplay for Carolina Caroline.
Similar to Steven Spielberg’s upcoming big screen blockbuster Disclosure Day, Signal One explores humankind’s enduring question: what if we aren’t alone in the universe?
The sci-fi thriller is now available on Digital.
Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan), Josh Hutcherson (Five Nights at Freddy’s), David Thewlis (Harry Potter), Raoul Bhaneja (Possessor), Emma Ho (“The Expanse”), and Dennis Quaid (The Substance) star in Signal One from director Jonathan Sobol (The Art of the Steal).
When tech billionaire Sam Houston (Quaid) hires the brilliant computer scientist Annika (Fuhrman), she ventures to an isolated facility run by the brilliant, nihilistic creator of LITTLEMOUTH, a machine which can communicate with alien intelligence.
Annika soon learns some humanity-altering facts: that we are not alone in the universe, that alien intelligences are communicating around us at every moment, and that we are likely too primitive to even remotely understand what they are trying to tell us.
When the goal of the endeavor shifts from listening to talking back, the project rapidly devolves into chaos. With contact comes consequences, and soon Annika and the team must work to ensure the very survival of our species.
A schoolyard dare becomes an urban legend in the creepypasta-inspired horror anthology The Summoning. The indie film is now available on Digital from Brainstorm Media.
“A babysitting gig becomes a nightmare of urban legend when three teens summon Baby Blue. Survival depends on uncovering the past to escape a mother’s wrath from beyond the grave.”
Felipe Vargas (Rosario, Hive), Sergio Gonzalez, Brandon Piskorik, Corey Benson Powers, and Brian Sepanzyk direct the segments. Valeria San Martín, Justina Ceballos, Daniela Flombaum, Nannu Spannauss, Agustín Olcese, and Giovanni Onetti star.
The Summoning is written by Camilo Zaffora.
Happy Death Day actress Jessica Rothe stars as a mom struggling to keep her grip on her sanity and memory in the mind-bending Affection, now available on Digital at home.
In Affection, “Afflicted by a mysterious condition that resets her memory, Ellie becomes trapped in a cyclical nightmare with a man who claims to be her husband. She soon must uncover the horrifying truth of her existence—before she forgets it all again.“
Joseph Cross (“Big Little Lies”) and Julianna Layne (“Chicago P.D.”) also star in the sci-fi horror thriller. Affection marks the feature debut by writer/director BT Meza.
Daniel Kurland wrote in his review out of the film’s premiere, “Affection is steeped in existential questions and fears that plague modern society, while it embraces the ethos of the ’80s through bold body horror. Add to that Rothe’s revelatory performance, and Affection is a hidden gem that will connect with your mind, body, and soul.”
Lucile Hadžihalilović’s latest dark fairy tale, The Ice Tower, loosely reimagines Hans Christian Andersen’s fable “The Snow Queen,” and it’s now streaming on Shudder.
In the ’70s set film, “Jeanne, a 15-year-old orphan, witnesses the shoot of a film adaptation of the fairy tale The Snow Queen, and she becomes fascinated by its star Cristina (Marion Cotillard), an actress who is just as mysterious and alluring as the Queen she is playing.“
Clara Pacini stars as Jeanne. August Diehl and Marine Gesbert also star in The Ice Tower, and look for a cameo from director Gaspar Noé (Climax, Irréversible).
“For me, The Ice Tower solidified Lucile Hadžihalilović’s place amongst the most fascinating creators of fairy tales today,” said distributor Yellow Veil Pictures co-founder Joe Yanick.
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