Editorials
Six Badass Horror Martial Arts Movies!
It’s not a secret that horror is a very malleable genre. Alien proved that it can be meshed perfectly with sci-fi and Predator is one of the quintessential action/horror hybrids. When it comes to comedy, we can all rattle off gems like Housebound, Evil Dead II, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, and several more. And mixing it with psychological thrillers? Pfft, let’s just look at Session 9 or The Silence of the Lambs and nod our heads in agreement. But one genre mashup that we don’t really talk about too much here on Bloody-Disgusting is when horror meets martial arts for a blast of kung fu badassery!
That’s what I’m here for today. I’m here to give you all six such titles that take the world of darkness and give it a Liu Kang WHAAA right to the face!
Take a look at the titles below and then let me know if I missed any that everyone should check out!
The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires
A co-production between England’s Hammer films and Hong Kong’s Shaw Studio, this film bills itself as, “The First Kung Fu Horror Spectacular!” and has Peter Cushing reprising his role as Dr. Van Helsing, which he had played four times previously.
The plot here is rather simple: Van Helsing travels to China to research a supposedly cursed village that is beset upon by seven vampires. However, he’s unaware that their return was actually heralded by none other than Count Dracula.
The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires is exciting, it’s cheesy, and, perhaps most surprisingly, it’s quite grotesque at times. If you can find a copy of this, I’d absolutely give it a shot!
Brotherhood of the Wolf
Not all martial arts horror movies need to take place in Asia, y’know. And when it comes to genre mashups, Brotherhood of the Wolf has it in spades! On top of horror and martial arts, it’s also got romance, a dash of comedy, and loads of adventure. It’s also directed by Christoph Gans, who directed the Silent Hill adaptation.
For those who want another horror connection, the composer was Joseph LoDuca, who composed the Evil Dead films.
Big Trouble in Little China
The ULTIMATE in genre mashups, the main foundations of John Carpenter’s tongue-in-cheek classic are 100% supernatural horror and martial arts. This movie is one of my absolute favorites and I can watch it any time, any place, no questions asked.
Riki Oh: The Story of Riki
I don’t think this movie needs much of an introduction. It’s known everywhere for its wild excess of gore and over-the-top, well…everything! My recommendation? Grab a ton of friends, a couple six packs of beer, a few pizzas, and have yourself one helluva party!
Rigor Mortis
The most recently released entry on this list, this is a fun and sleek mixture of horror and martial arts.
The overall plot is that a formerly successful actor moves into a public tenement that is beset by loads of ghosts. Together with the living residents, they team up to tackle the ghost issue once and for all.
It’s not a flawless movie but it’s a damn good time!
Versus
I remember buying a DVD four pack of J-horror films off of Ebay when I was a teenager. It included Ju-on, Kairo, Ringu, and Versus. While each one of those movies is fantastic, it was Versus that I came back to probably the most (followed by Kairo). The blend of wild action and gory martial arts scenes was simply irresistible and I showed it to as many friends as I could!
If you haven’t seen this movie, just make it happen somehow this weekend. Trust me when I say you won’t be disappointed!
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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