The big leader this year is Tarsier Studios’ REANIMAL, which has 10 nominations. Right behind it is Resident Evil Requiem with nine, while Silent Hill Townfall, Hellraiser: Revival and Silver Pines having eight nominations each. Project Songbird, The Skin Stapler and Tenebris Somnia all have seven. Andyland’s Endacopia has six, while Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake has five.

Making things really interesting this year is that all of those titles will be up for the coveted Game of the Year, alongside Routine, Directive 8020, Heaven Does Not Respond, No Means Nothing, Offering App, and The Blood of Dawnwalker.

Once again, co-creators Phil Dickens and Will Penkeyman will host the event with co-producer Ash Millman.

As in previous years, fans will vote on two awards categories – the Players’ Choice and Horror Content Creator of the Year – are entirely nominated and voted for by the public. The public will vote from now until November 11. The winners of the public vote will win their respective awards.

The nominees listed for all other categories were put forward by members of the jury, the accessibility jury and the developer jury. The top five in the public vote for each category will go back to the juries, who will subsequently vote as a single block on the winner. You can start here for voting.

And speaking of jury members, Dead Meat’s Zoran Gvojic is part of this year’s Jury, while Bloody Disgusting’s own Harrison Abbott is part of this year’s Critic’s Jury.

You can view the nominees and categories for this year’s awards here.

The post ‘REANIMAL’, ‘Resident Evil Requiem’ Lead Nominations for The Horror Game Awards 2026 appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

While there are plenty of Halloween-set frights to binge this weekend, this list is for those seeking visceral scares that’ll send shivers down your spine. These horror movies are designed to induce goosebumps, leave you on edge, and unleash pure nightmare fuel.

Here are eight terrifying horror movies you can and should stream this weekend.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe – Paramount+ with Showtime, Roku Channel, Shudder

André Øvredal goes full throttle for the scares in this quiet little chiller that sees a father and son coroner team stumped over the bizarre mysteries contained within the body of an unidentified young woman. Well-executed scares, clever twists, and earnest performances by Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch give this supernatural haunter serious heft. While the narrative bides its time unveiling the truth behind Jane Doe’s battered body, it’s heavily steeped in witchcraft. In other words, The Autopsy of Jane Doe presents a new take on the subgenre. More importantly, it’s seriously spooky.

The Dark and the Wicked – Hoopla, Shudder

Bryan Bertino, a filmmaker with a reputation for bleak horror, creates unrelenting dread and evil in the vacuum of loss here. Siblings Louise (Marin Ireland) and Michael (Michael Abbott Jr.) return to their childhood home to say their final goodbyes to their dying father, much to their mother’s disappointment. She’d warned them not to come, and it doesn’t take long to figure out why; an evil presence has taken root on the family’s rural land, and it wants them all. Ireland and Abbott Jr. get put through the physical and emotional wringer in a foreboding, nihilistic horror movie that feels evil.

The Descent – Fawesome, Shudder, Tubi

One year after a tragic accident, Sarah sets off with her friends on a spelunking adventure. Too bad pal Juno leads the group into an uncharted cave system, which traps them due to a collapse. As if no hope of rescue isn’t bad enough, this cave system happens to be inhabited by man-eating creatures. The fight for survival has never been quite as primal and bloody as it is in Neil Marshall’s fantastic entry in the annals of claustrophobic horror. It’s intense, unnerving, and epic.

Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum – Hoopla, Prime Video, Roku Channel, Tubi

Amateur ghost hunters in over their heads is a plot description that could apply to many found footage movies, let alone horror in general. If you’re going this route, you’d better find an innovative way to set it apart from the rest, or at least ensure the scares are plenty. Gonjiam nails it. In this Korean film, a horror web show crew plans a live stream event in one of the country’s most infamous abandoned hospitals. The host has rigged fake scares to spook his team for the sake of ratings, but they prove unnecessary thanks to the sinister forces haunting the place. While this movie doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it makes up for that with unrelenting terror. Turn the lights down low and prepare to get creeped out.

Hokum – Hulu

A surly, traumatized writer, Adam Scott’s Ohm, must break free from his self-imposed shackles of guilt when confronted by a wicked witch haunting a quaint Irish inn in the latest by writer/director Damian McCarthy (Oddity). The creepy as hell witch doles out some supernatural karma for crimes committed, but never in the way you’d expect.  Channeling Stephen King, this creeper plays like a traditional campfire tale in mood and style, infusing genuine scares with a sense of magic and heart. That means it delivers on spooky atmosphere and scares, and it also happens to take place over Halloween.

Sinister – Disney+, Hulu, Moviesphere+, Peacock, Pluto TV

True crime author Ellison Oswalt has uprooted his family and moved them into a home where a family was previously murdered, unbeknownst to them. He’s researching the murder for his new book, hoping the research will lead him to the whereabouts of the murdered family’s missing 10-year-old girl. When he finds a box of Super 8 home movies in the attic, he discovers the murder might be the work of a serial killer whose work dates back to the 1960s. Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill’s feature consistently ranks high among the scariest horror movies, and it’s not hard to see why. Eerie atmosphere, iconic jump scares, and a memorable boogeyman all make for a noteworthy genre movie.

Smile 2 – Paramount+

Smile 2 picks up days after the first film’s events, tracking the curse’s path to world-famous pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) just as she’s preparing to launch her new global tour. Two things become immediately clear: the entity seems much more savage this round, and Skye is a deeply flawed and fragile character. Writer/Director Parker Finn is much a more confident and assured filmmaker this round, injecting a more pronounced sense of humor and personality when not scaring the pants off his audience. Make no mistake, though, Smile 2 is far more vicious. It makes for a satisfying thrill ride of jaw-dropping horror and unrelenting dread; a perfect Halloween treat for those in need of a good scare — or twenty.

Terrified – Shudder

The cinematic equivalent of enjoying a haunted attraction, Demián Rugna’s feature is an onslaught of terror from beginning to end. Plot-wise, there’s not much to it, nor is there a lot of explanation for those who prefer answers. However, that doesn’t stop a cop on the cusp of retirement and a slew of paranormal experts from trying to get to the bottom of a series of bizarre activities plaguing a Buenos Aires neighborhood. With creative and innovative scares aplenty, Terrified is the type of horror film that lives up to its name; it’s freaking petrifying. Make it a Rugna double feature with visceral possession shocker When Evil Lurks, also streaming on Shudder.

The post 8 Terrifying Horror Movies to Stream This Halloween Weekend appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

So, in honor of Revival breaking the mold by actually paying attention to the narrative elements that made fans fall in love with this hellish world in the first place, and actually consulting with its original creator, today I’d like to highlight five other Clive Barker movies/stories that deserve their own interactive adaptations.

Naturally, this won’t be a comprehensive list of every single Barker yarn that could be developed into a fun video game, so don’t forget to comment below with your own ideas if you think we missed a particularly interesting story.

With that out of the way, onto the list!

5. Lord of Illusions

As a huge fan of investigative games where players are put in charge of solving some kind of overarching mystery (think The Wolf Among Us or even L.A. Noire), I can easily see how 1995’s Lord of Illusions could make for a compelling adventure title if adapted by the right team.

That being said, this one wouldn’t even have to be a straight adaptation of this particular story, as the paranormal detective Harry D’Amour is capable of shooting and drinking his way out of nearly any supernatural mystery the writers can throw his way. Of course, if it were up to me, the developers would bring Scott Bakula back to reprise his role from the underrated film – possibly in an interactive recreation of the Hellraiser crossover The Scarlet Gospels.

4. Mister B. Gone

I might be cheating by including this one since it’s technically the only entry on the list that was never even considered for a big-screen adaptation, but even the story’s harshest critics have to admit that the metafictional delights of Mister B. Gone could make for one hell of a mind-bending interactive experience in the vein of the Alan Wake games.

Think about it: there’s nothing stopping the literary demon Jakabok Botch from making the leap from the page to the digital realm. Once inside a game, it’s only natural that this cruel anti-hero would entice players to help him enact a variety of hellish schemes meant to bring him back to the physical world. Gameplay-wise, I can see this one being a mix of the stealth-action of Cyanide’s Styx titles combined with the darkly humorous puzzles of Shiver Games’ Lucius trilogy.

3. The Midnight Meat Train

I’ve always been a fan of serial killer simulators like Manhunt and Hotline Miami that make you question why you’re having so much fun engaging in virtual murder. Couple that with the recent trend of “job simulator” horror where developers subvert expectations by adding scary elements to seemingly innocent labor (think of The Closing Shift or even The Mortuary Assistant), and I think you’ve got a great pitch for a Midnight Meat Train adaptation.

After all, both Ryuhei Kitamura’s film and Barker’s original story make it clear that the Subway Butcher is working for the greater good, so a grungy urban horror game where you funnel potential victims into the train, execute survivors, and then prepare their meat for your ravenous masters could make for a disturbingly memorable recreation of one of the best Books of Blood yarns.

2. Tortured Souls 

We never got to see the rumored big screen adaptation of Barker and Todd McFarlane’s bizarre line of demonic action figures, but it would be a shame to let all of the established lore and disturbing visuals go to waste! That’s why I think a video game adaptation of this strange world of hellish body modification and disgusting monsters would be a good idea.

In fact, the ideal Tortured Souls video game could be developed by the very same team that gave us Hellraiser: Revival, with Saber Interactive having already proven themselves capable of transforming gnarly body-horror and twisted character designs into addictive action gameplay. Of course, I wouldn’t mind a freakier take on a classic monster battler either!

1. Nightbreed

Clive Barker’s 1990 adaptation of his novel Cabal may not have been a huge hit back when it was first released, but the years have been kind to this bizarre monster movie that feels more like a spooky take on the X-Men than a follow-up to Hellraiser. While there already was a pair of Nightbreed tie-in games released back in 1990, I don’t think either of them lived up to the potential of Barker’s surreal underworld.

Think about it: a whole civilization of super-powered monsters living on the run from human society is such a great premise for a blood-soaked RPG in the vein of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. That being said, a Nightbreed adaptation could also be reworked into a gory FPS where you hunt down monsters only to realize later on that you’re actually the villain of this particular story, and possibly even switching sides in order to aid the denizens of Midian.

The post 5 Clive Barker Stories That Should Be Adapted Into Horror Video Games Next appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Titled “A Story of Derry,” the special episode is now streaming on HBO Max.

The never-before-seen 30-minute special explores the origins of IT in Derry.

Hundreds of years before Pennywise, three youngsters venture into the Western Wood … where they encounter a terrifying ancient spirit. Stream “A Story of Derry” on HBO Max now.

Check out two teasers below for a small taste of the terror.

Pennywise will return to HBO in the upcoming second season of “IT: Welcome to Derry.” Season 2 will travel back in time to 1935, 27 years before the events of Season 1, and it will revolve around the bloody massacre of the Bradley Gang from Stephen King’s novel, bank robbers who finds themselves wrapped up in a mess of trouble when they stop off in Derry.

“We’re making something very exciting for Season 2 that I can’t talk too much about, but it’s got a different palette,” showrunner Brad Caleb Kane tells Entertainment Weekly. “It’s the Depression, it’s 1935. Beyond that, I can’t talk about it, but you can imagine a Warner Bros. gangster picture through the lens of Pennywise and Stephen King. That’s kind of what we’re doing.”

“We’re deep into the writers’ room now,” he continues. “We have multiple scripts, we’ve broken more than half the story for Season 2, and we’re edging into pre-production. Beyond that, I think I’ll get suffocated by somebody if I tell you too much more. But, yes, we are deep into it, and it is happening. It’s very exciting. It’s very, very bloody, and it’s very different from Season 1.”

The post ‘A Story of Derry’ – HBO Max Has Released a Brand New ‘Welcome to Derry’ Bonus Episode! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Another significant movie of the decade was David Fincher‘s Seven, in which a serial killer was modeling his crimes after sins from the Bible. This would be only Fincher’s first brush with these types of tales, as he would also release Zodiac and then develop the Netflix series Mindhunter. With only two seasons, the series has become a fan favorite, thanks to both Fincher’s presence and the lead performances by Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany.

McCallany is set to return to the world of serial killers with his new movie Paradise Disturbed, with Deadline revealing a first-look photo from the film, which you can see at the top of the page.

The outlet describes the movie as following “retired legendary investigator Ron Lee (McCallany), who is pulled back into the dark world he had walked away from when a series of ritualistic murders target him. A tense cat-and-mouse game unfolds as Ron matches wits with a brilliant and sadistic killer who is waiting to unleash their final masterpiece in this game of death.”

Zak Steiner (Euphoria), Lily Donoghue (The Summer I Turned Pretty), and Xander Berkeley (Apollo 13) also star in the movie, which was directed by James Khanlarian (The Ghost Trap).

“I can honestly say that working on Paradise Disturbed with this team was one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had,” writer-producer Peter A. Couture II shared of the project. “I can’t give Holt enough credit; he became Ron Lee.”

This first look at Paradise Disturbed comes ahead of the film going to sales at AFM.

While it’s exciting to see McCallany in anything, the new movie might not be the return to the genre Mindhunter fans had hoped for. Both seasons earned significant acclaim, yet Netflix still opted to cancel it. Fincher, however, has previously expressed how his shooting methods mean a TV show takes a lot of time and a lot of money to pull off, with the actual viewership numbers for the series not lining up with the resources required for a Season 3.

There is currently no release date for Paradise Disturbed.

Are you looking forward to the new movie? Let us know in the comments below!

The post ‘Mindhunter’s Holt McCallany Returns to the World of Serial Killers in First Look at ‘Paradise Disturbed’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

It’s a Halloween treat you don’t want to miss.

Stream the episode below. For more Michael Myers media, dust off our namesake coverage of the franchise by revisiting our 2018 inaugural season. Maybe it’s just us, but it’s probably best to start our deep dive into John Carpenter’s 1978 original.

Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, and RSS. New to the Halloweenies? Catch up with the gang by revisiting their essential episodes on past franchises such as Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Scream, The Evil Dead, Chucky, Alien, and the Universal Monsters. This year? Hellraiser!

You can also become a member of their Patreon, The Rewind, for hilariously irreverent commentaries (e.g. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Re-Animator, Darkman), one-off deep dives on your favorite rentals (e.g. Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Manhunter, ), and even spinoffs like their recent run Fortune & Glory: An Indiana Jones Podcast.

Facebook | Instagram | X | Patreon | Store

The post The Halloween Franchise Character Draft [Halloweenies Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

A horror short from director Cameron Dodd, The Cat and the Hatchet is a twisted horror parody of The Cat in the Hat. The film follows two siblings, Ellie and Connor, whose boring day takes a terrifying turn when Scratches the Cat shows up at their house.

What begins as a strange and unexpected visit quickly becomes a nightmare as Scratches reveals a twisted sense of humor that is far more sinister than anything they could have imagined…

Bloody Disgusting is exclusively debuting the official poster art for The Cat and the Hatchet (find it below) and we’ve also got some exclusive casting news to share this afternoon.

Bloody Disgusting has learned that Stephen Baldwin will be providing the voice of the narrator for The Cat and the Hatchet, a fun little nod to his brother Alec starring in the 2003 film!

Check out the poster below and look for The Cat and the Hatchet on Halloween day!

Mark Ricci stars as Scratches the Cat, with William Brandt Baker as Connor, and Lilah Hewson as Ellie. You’ll also find the official teaser for The Cat in the Hat horror short below.

The Cat and the Hatchet is produced by Kaleb Carmichael and Mark Ricci and directed by Cameron Dodd, with production from Six Side Studios and Prime Capitol. Prime Capitol recently released the horror short Simon Says which is currently available on Tubi.

The short is a non-profit parody unauthorized or affiliated with the official IP.

The post ‘The Cat and the Hatchet’ Exclusive Poster Reveal – The Fan Film Debuts on Halloween Day! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Understandably, a story about the drastic measures the police industrial complex took in order to secure peace and thwart crime has been relevant since the first movie was unleashed back in 1987, though an effective take on the concept is easier said than done. Prime Video, however, has finally made significant progress on their revival series, which includes casting Dan Stevens to play the main character.

During a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Stevens reflected on his love for the character and the experience of finally securing the role.

“Oh, my goodness, I was so thrilled. In fact, the announcement was made while I was on the set of Dexter,” the actor recalled. “I was teasing [producer] Scott [Reynolds] about it, like, ‘It’s this thing, but I can’t quite tell you about it,’ and then [looks at his watch] I was like, ‘Oh wait, it’s been announced!’ I was waiting to do a scene and Michael [C. Hall] came up to me, ‘Congratulations.’ It was a very surreal moment.”

He added, “And what an amazing universe to get to inhabit. The original left such an imprint on me as a young film watcher, and I think on most of my generation. I’ve never had so many texts from guys over 35 in one day as that day; people I haven’t heard from for 20 years.”

While the actor didn’t outright explain what the new approach to the material would be, he explained what he feels made the original movie so effective, which implies those elements will also be present in this new TV series.

“There seems to be an appetite for it. The original had two elements that I’m a huge fan of: extreme violence and satire,” Stevens pointed out. “And I think it is such a ripe paradigm for satirizing this moment that we’re in, with the police industrial complex. There’s so much to play with there, so I can’t wait.”

Peter Ocko will be the writer and showrunner, with James Wan executive producing for Blumhouse Atomic Monster. RoboCop co-creator Ed Neumeier is an executive producer.

At this time, it’s unclear when the project will begin filming or be released.

Are you looking forward to the new series? Let us know in the comments below!

The post ‘RoboCop’: Dan Stevens Teases His Satirical and Violent Prime Video Reboot Series appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The haunting lullaby is sung by witch Sarah Sanderson (Sarah Jessica Parker), who uses it to lure children to the Sanderson cottage. It was written by James Horner.

The slowed-down cover track is featured on the new EP Haunts, a collection of five acoustic Halloween reimaginings that’s available now. 

Vinessa Shaw and Freedom Fry released a limited edition 7” vinyl that features “Come Little Children” on Side A, with an exclusive a cappella version on Side B. The vinyl is available in three different editions, including signed versions, and can be ordered here.

Freedom Fry says, “Halloween is our favorite holiday, and the mood of the music and subject matter of the lyrics are way more exciting to us than typical pop songs. We started thinking about songs from some of our favorite horror and horror-comedy films like ‘Scream,’ ‘Halloween,’ and of course ‘Come Little Children’ from ‘Hocus Pocus.’ It felt good to keep everything acoustic and whispery, and really lean into the spookiness.

“Vinessa has an awesome voice with a huge range, and we love what she brought to the song. We hope these become songs that people want to put on when they’re looking for that Halloween mood but want something a little different and fresh,” the duo continues.

Vinessa Shaw adds, “I was a fan of Freedom Fry’s music before I ever met them in person. While they were working on their ‘Haunts’ project, they found out that I was creating my own music and contacted me to see if I wanted to collaborate. When they gave me the rough cut of the song, I freaked out. It sounded perfectly eerie, but in a classy, Mamas and the Papas kind of way. Coming from a barbershop quartet background, I had all these ideas about adding more harmonies to make it even eerier, and I even thought I’d risk doing a spoken-word part. I’m so happy we found each other and had the opportunity to create this unique take on a Halloween classic. And I love that this song happens to come from everyone’s favorite Halloween movie, one that shaped so many people’s childhoods, including my own.”

Haunts EP Tracklist:
1. Come Little Children (ft. Vinessa Shaw)
2. Red Right Hand
3. Thriller
4. Halloween Theme
5. Zombie Love (Acoustic)

The post ‘Hocus Pocus’ Star Vinessa Shaw Covers “Come Little Children” With Freedom Fry For New Halloween EP appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

From now until November 3, players can not only enjoy a double XP boost, but also boosts to Perk Points and Weapon XP. Happy Halloween, indeed!

And for those who haven’t picked up the game, or did and ended up putting it down for a while, Harrison has a one-month report on just what IllFonic and Gun Interactive have done in Halloween: The Game since its launch to address player concerns. Along with some nagging issues that will hopefully be addressed soon.

Halloween: The Game, along with its first post-launch DLC, is available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store.

The post Enjoy Double XP Now in ‘Halloween: The Game’ for the Weekend appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Long’s Long Lost & Mini Mart, directed by Julian Doan, took home the $100,000 first-place prize, the largest ever awarded at a short film festival.

The jurors faced an incredibly difficult task, evaluating 13 remarkable films that each made a case for the top spot. Even so, the festival’s distinguished jury, Tim Miller (Deadpool, Love, Death & Robots), Jean Lauer (Fantastic Fest), Lisa Ogdie (Sundance Film Festival), Neville Page (Avatar, Star Trek: Discovery) and Peter Phok (A24’s X trilogy), rose to the occasion and selected the most outstanding work.

“Last night, 13 filmmakers watched their work play on one of the most famous screens in the world, and this morning one of them walked away with $100,000 to launch the next chapter of their career,” said Charlie Cleveland, founder of Ripcord. “The fan vote was so close that we expanded the finals to thirteen films, because every one of these films earned its place. Congratulations to our first place winner, Julian Doan’s Long’s Long Lost & Mini Mart, and to every filmmaker who took this ride with us.”

The winners were revealed this morning at a filmmaker breakfast in Los Angeles, following last night’s screening of the finalists at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. The screening drew an audience of fellow filmmakers, press, genre tastemakers, festival jurors and programmers, and fans, and was followed by an afterparty. The finalists were chosen from a field of 50 shorts, curated from more than 500 submissions to the festival’s first edition, with fans voting online to help select the lineup.

The Winners

1st Prize – $100,000

LONG’S LONG LOST & MINI MART (17:53), directed by Julian Doan: In the back of a Little Saigon convenience store, a young customer reanimates his dead father for one last conversation.

2nd Prize – $50,000

ZIPPY’S HOUSE (12:40), directed by Sophia Parella: Forced to attend his strange classmate’s birthday, a teen discovers he’s the only guest at a house where the host’s brother is in permanent time-out.

3rd Prize – $25,000

HAROLD EATS MAUDE (12:32), directed by Carl Fry, Maxwell Nalevansky: An unlikely friendship between the infamous cannibal Coffin Feeder, who can’t stop eating priests, and his cannibal-curious stalker Faith.

Runner Up – $4,000

IT HELPS (9:07), directed by J. Zachary Thurman: Spencer, sleepless due to her brother’s eerie sleep machine, discovers it isn’t designed to soothe — but to keep an unspeakable presence at bay.

Honorable Mentions – $3,500 each

BLOSSOM NEEDS A RIDE HOME (9:19), directed by Tim Schwagel: After defeating a bloodthirsty maniac, Blossom needs a ride home. What a hassle.

BREEDER (7:14), directed by Sapphire Sandalo: A woman on the fence about having kids is hunted in her home by a demonic horse-man of Filipino folklore.

DIRTY FUZZ (15:00), directed by Daniel Chimes: When an idealistic rookie cop accidentally shoots her corrupt partner in the slimy underbelly of Shit City, she must team up with a surprising crew of underworld characters to cover her tracks.

DREAM CREEP (12:34), directed by Carlos A.F. Lopez: A couple awakens in the night to sounds emanating from an unlikely orifice.

HOUR OF BLOOD (17:29), directed by Marcella Ochoa: In 1915 Texas, when ranchers mysteriously go missing, a young girl must defend her family ranch against the dark threat.

MAKE ME A PIZZA (12:00), directed by Talia Shea Levin: BORED HOUSEWIFE seduces HOT PIZZA GUY for free pizza, but is desire worth $29.99?

RAT! (16:48), directed by Neal Suresh Mulani: When a disgruntled music journalist accuses a global pop star of queerbaiting, the singer’s devoted fans descend on his remote cabin to seek retribution.

SPANKED BY A GHOST (11:50), directed by Katelyn Douglass: Alone in her home, a woman is spanked by an unseen entity, awakening a force she cannot control.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT BALLOONS (5:44), directed by Jennifer Bonior: Dismissed by every adult in her life, a young magician unleashes an explosive final act that proves underestimating her is a fatal mistake.

The festival is only the beginning. In the coming weeks, Ripcord will begin adding independent genre features and shorts, as well as a series of online events  to the platform, giving fans a place to discover, support and follow the filmmakers they love. Independent genre filmmakers interested in bringing their films to Ripcord can learn more at ripcord.film.

The post Ripcord’s Halloween Film Festival: Full List of Winners Announced appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

And don’t forget that the clock jumps back an hour early this Sunday morning, which essentially gives us a whole extra hour of Halloween this year. More time to watch horror movies!

And you’ll need the extra time this week: ELEVEN brand new horror movies have arrived!

Here are the new horror movies that released October 26 – October 31, 2026.

Japanese horror movie Never After Dark is now available on Digital at home.

The official Never After Dark trailer features rave reviews from both Stephen King and Scott Derrickson (The Black Phone), with King calling the film “amazing and haunting.”

Scott Derrickson raves that Never After Dark is “intelligent, unpredictable, and bone chilling.”

In the film from director Dave Boyle, “A wandering medium, Airi (Moeka Hoshi, “Shogun”), spends her life guiding restless spirits out of the world of the living accompanied by her constant companion: her dead sister Miku (Kurumi Inagaki). Summoned to exorcise a spirit from an isolated country house by the new owner, Teiko (Tae Kimura), she comes face to face with a grotesque apparition with powers that defy Airi’s experience.

“Faced with skepticism from Teiko’s son, Gunji (Kento Kako), she digs deeper into the house’s past until a secret comes to light — and Airi finds herself hunted by a far more unpredictable force. For the first time, her greatest adversary is not the supernatural, but the living.”

Magnolia Pictures previews, “Boyle spins a uniquely terrifying and hauntingly atmospheric ghost story.”

Kento Kaku (“House of Ninjas”), Kurumi Inagaki (“House of Ninjas”), Mutsuo Yoshioka (Chime), Bokuzo Masana (“Tokyo Vice”), and Tae Kimura (“All Around Us”) also star.

Indonesian horror master Joko Anwar (Satan’s Slaves, Impetigore) is back with horror comedy Ghost in the Cell, and the film is now available on Digital outlets at home in the U.S.

The film is set in a high-security prison ruled by feuding gangs and a tyrannical warden.

“The arrival of a new inmate kicks off a series of mysterious gruesome murders that leave its victims on morbid display. The hapless inmates trapped in the prison must overcome their rivalries to unmask an invisible, otherworldly enemy. No one is safe as the cells cage in the horrors and a ghost roams the prison with murderous intent.”

Joko Anwar writes and directs Ghost in the Cell.

Abimana Aryasatya, Almanzo Konoralma, Aming Sugandhi, Arswendy Bening Swara, Bront Palarae, and Dimas Danang Suryonegoro star in the Indonesian film.

“We’re thrilled to bring Ghost in the Cell to North America,” said Well Go USA CEO Doris Pfardrescher. “As longtime fans of Joko Anwar, having previously released his film Gundala, we’ve seen firsthand how strongly his work resonates with audiences here. Ghost in the Cell is an absolute blast – it’s wildly entertaining and deliciously gory in all the right ways.”

Horror icons unite in the fairytale-inspired horror movie Ever After, with Kane Hodder as the Big Bad Wolf, Michael Berryman as The Huntsman, Malcolm McDowell as the Frog King, and Bonnie Aarons as The Witch. The film is now available on Digital at home.

In Ever After, “When a group of girlfriends head to a remote forest lodge for a bachelorette party, the fun quickly turns into terror as they discover the forest is home to bloodthirsty lunatics who perceive themselves to be characters from classic fairy tales. As the lines between fantasy and reality blur, survival becomes the girls’ only goal.”

The characters featured in this one include twisted versions of the Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf, The Witch, the Frog King, and even Rumpelstiltskin.

“As the celebration turns into terror, the women realize they’ve wandered into a ritual older than the forest itself. Trapped, hunted, and outnumbered, they must survive a night where innocence is mocked, fantasy becomes brutality, and fairy tales are enforced with blood.”

Mark Sheppard, Lydia Pearl Pentz, Rebecka Johnston, Riana Emma Balla, Miklós B. Székely, and Maria de Sá also star in the film. Laszlo Illes directed Ever After.

From Lionsgate, The Teenage Vampire sunk its teeth into Digital on Tuesday.

“When a straightlaced young woman moves into a chic bungalow in the Hollywood Hills, she imagines nothing but raging parties and romance in her future. But Sandra’s new dream house quickly becomes a den of horrors after she discovers her landlords are ancient vampires…and her first party guests are the victims of a bloody massacre.

“As the night grows more twisted, Sandra unearths the most terrifying secret of all.”

Starring in the movie are Jazlyn Nicolette Sward, Kelly Lynn Reiter (Deadlock, Guns Up, Mojave Diamonds), James Chalke (Renegades, Don’t Kill It, Dead Trigger), Spice Williams-Crosby, Luke Gregory Crosby, Courtney Akbar (Boneyard, Clown Fear, Ace & the Christmas Miracle), and Michael Cervantes (Night Carnage, The Salem Chronicles, 7 Days to Hell).

A new horror comedy from New Zealand that premiered this year at the Sundance Film Festival, Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant hit theaters earlier this month and it’s now available on Digital.

Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant is a wild body horror comedy following Mary, a messy millennial underachiever who accidentally becomes alien-pregnant and has to face skeptical doctors, a useless baby daddy and her oversharing mother in order to survive and reclaim her life.

Written and directed by New Zealand filmmaking duo THUNDERLIPS, the film marks their feature directorial debut and expands on their 2024 short Help, I’m Alien Pregnant, with Hannah Lynch reprising her role. Also starring Yvette Parsons (What We Do in the Shadows), Arlo Green (Shortland Street), and Jackie van Beek (co-creator of Australian The Office).

An eccentric poodle breeder unleashes hell in Breeder, which was released into select theaters across the country this past Wednesday from Independent Film Company and Shudder.

Breeder marks the feature debut from director Alex Goyette.

In Breeder, “An eccentric poodle breeder lures a broke college student to her remote ranch with a promise of research funding. But, as he soon learns, there’s a catch.”

Daniel Doheny, Dot Marie Jones, Maddie Phillips, and Tanaya Beatty star.

The horror movie made its debut earlier this year at Tribeca. Our review from the festival calls the film one of the year’s biggest surprises and singles out the villainous turn by Dot Marie Jones.

Genre-bending holiday horror-comedy Christmas at the Kringles is now playing in theaters.

Christmas at the Kringles from Briarcliff Entertainment and director Kevin Lewis is Rated R for “some strong bloody violence, language, and some sexual material.”

Ron Livingston (The Conjuring, Office Space) leads as a man over Christmas who finds himself teaming with Santa (Rob Riggle) to survive it. Expect a wild ride ahead as Willy’s Wonderland and Pig Hill director Kevin Lewis helms from a script by Zack Imbrogno (Slayers, Fear, Inc.).

Christmas at the Kringles follows the Seversons, a family starting fresh in a quiet suburban neighborhood, whose next-door neighbors, the Kringles, celebrate Christmas year-round.

What begins as charming quickly turns unsettling, as Mark and Julie grow concerned about their son’s growing attachment to the family.

After a heated confrontation, Mark heads next door to bring his family home, only to uncover the Kringles’ true intentions: to hypnotize and indoctrinate them.

What follows is a life-or-death rescue mission, as Mark teams up with a rogue, badass Santa in a high-stakes, action-packed fight to save his family.

Rachel Bilson, Arden Myrin, Beverly D’Angelo (Violent Night), and David Wain, with Thomas Lennon and Donald Faison also star.

Lewis previews, “I have been looking to do another zany and bonkers genre film in the vein of Willy’s Wonderland and I found it in Zack Imbrogno’s unique and original screenplay. I feel so fortunate to be surrounded by such a talented cast and crew to bring this crazy train of a movie to life.”

The sequel to the international hit zombie movie Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End, Spanish zombie movie Apocalypse Z: New World is now streaming only on Prime Video.

This second installment in the Apocalypse Z saga is based on author Manel Loureiro’s books, expanding the post-apocalyptic universe with more action and an ensemble tale.

The story takes us to the Canary Islands, which have become Europe’s last refuge following the outbreak of the TSJ virus. When a special mission sets out for the mainland in search of vital supplies, Roberto joins the team with questionable intentions. The dangerous operation turns into a desperate race for survival, and Roberto and his companions find themselves caught between hordes of infected and divided loyalties. Then the timeless question arises: save yourself, or risk everything to preserve what little humanity remains?

Carles Torrens returned to the director’s chair for the new sequel.

The cast for Apocalypse Z: New World includes Carlos Alcaide, Julia Martínez, Jose María Yazpik, Mónica López, Tamara Casellas, Santiago Vaca, and Berta Vázquez.

In the world of Apocalypse Z, a rabies-like disease spreads across the planet, transforming people into aggressive creatures. Manel takes refuge at home with his cat, using his wits to survive. Soon, they’ll have to leave for food, looking for safe places on land and sea.

Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End was a story of survival, both physical and emotional, with action, tension, a rabid infection… and a grumpy cat.

Jason Isaacs (“The White Lotus”) casts a vampiric spell on Nell Verlaque (Thanksgiving) in the gothic horror fantasy Vampire Carnival, which is now available on Digital at home.

Vampire Carnival follows a grieving young woman drawn to a mysterious traveling carnival that appears without warning in her small town. Seduced by its eerie spectacle and promises of escape, she soon discovers that the carnival is a gateway to a hidden world where vampires feed not on blood, but on human despair.

As she becomes ensnared in its seductive illusions, she must confront the trauma she’s been running from—or risk becoming the carnival’s next permanent attraction.

David Charbonier & Justin Powell (The Boy Behind the Door, The Djinn) direct from a script by Jason Filardi (17 Again, “Chapelwaite”) and Peter Filardi (The Craft, Flatliners).

Paulina Chávez (“Landman”), Kieron Moore (“Vampire Academy”), Eoin Macken (Resident Evil: The Final Chapter), Alicia Sanz (“From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series”), Cedrick Cooper (“Boots”), Corrado Martini, Alvise Rigo, and Elisabeth Sanjuán also star.

Based on the graphic novel, Brazilian vampire movie Love Kills is now available on Digital.

Love Kills follows Marcos, a waiter at a rundown São Paulo café who becomes fascinated by a mysterious regular. Helena always sits in the same corner and orders a coffee she never drinks.

When Marcos tries to rescue her one night, he discovers she doesn’t need his help: she’s a centuries-old vampire being hunted by a rival clan.

Luiza Shelling Tubaldini directed Love Kills.

A nice guy obsessed with the holidays winds up on the naughty list in Ralph’s Perfekt Christmas, the debut feature from Next Chapter Entertainment. The darkly comedic genre-bender receives a limited theatrical engagement beginning tonight, ahead of Bloody Disgusting parent company Cineverse’s digital release November 3 on both TVOD and Screambox.

Tom McLaren (“Expelled”) stars as Ralph, a likable family man whose fanatical obsession with Christmas pushes his wife towards divorce, leaving his life in shambles. Determined to win her back, Ralph devises a crazy plan involving kidnapping the former child star of his favorite Christmas movie.

When his ill-conceived scheme spirals wildly out of control, Ralph’s pursuit of his perfect Christmas takes increasingly dark and unexpected turns.

Ralph’s Perfekt Christmas stars Charlie Schlatter (Diagnosis Murder), Jill Schoelen (The Stepfather), Casey Burke (The Middle), Landon Gimenez (Resurrection), and marks the return to the big screen of Lynda Day George (Mission: Impossible, “Roots”).

The supporting cast includes Hollywood veterans Susan Blakely (The Towering Inferno), Marta Kristen (“Lost in Space”), Nicholle Tom (“The Nanny”), Trevor Lissauer (“Sabrina the Teenage Witch”), Bill Mumy (“Lost in Space”) and Angela Cartwright (“Lost in Space”, The Sound of Music).

Jeremy Padow and Tom McLaren wrote the screenplay, based upon an original story by Jeremy Padow. Matthew Bellamy and Tom & Mary McLaren direct the genre-bender.

The post These 11 New Horror Movies Released for Halloween Week appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

In a statement on X, FromSoftware stated that while development on The Dusckbloods is nearing its conclusion, the team has decided to move the launch window to 2027. “During the network test, we saw active interest in the core concepts of the game, including combat, strategic depth, and player expression. To further enhance these aspects, we have decided to move the launch, allowing time for final adjustments to game rules and balancing.”

The Duskbloods is a player-versus-player-versus-environment Souls-like, which sees up to eight players battling amongst themselves until one is left standing. Players take on the role as a member of the “Bloodsworn,” a group that has “gone beyond humanity” thanks to special blood. Their goal is to become the “First Blood.”

As human society reaches an end, First Blood flows in an event known as the ‘Twilight of Humanity.’ The Bloodsworn are summoned to the Twilight of Humanity across a variety of different times and places in a bid to obtain First Blood.

The post Switch 2 Exclusive ‘The Duskbloods’ Pushed to 2027 Release Window appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

His last pure horror film was 2009’s Drag Me to Hell – pure horror with a heavy dose of black humor – and his latest isn’t about to change that. Send Help is a darkly comic thriller and a fun time despite some fairly rough CG. I’m not against its use in general, but it just stands out so much in a film set almost entirely outside in nature.

Now keep reading to see what I heard on the 2026 commentary for…

Send Help (2026)

Commentators: Sam Raimi (director), Zainab Azizi (producer)

1. “I always loved the power and the majesty of the great 20th Century Fox logo,” says Raimi, and while he says the new 20th Century Studios one is “very good,” he really wanted a return to the older style. They created this one and petitioned the studio to let them use it. Azizi adds that it wasn’t easy getting that approval.

2. Linda Liddle’s (Rachel McAdams) shoes were nicknamed “the mules” on set.

3. McAdams had “a tremendous amount of input” in regard to every aspect of her character, from her wardrobe and appearance to the production design of her cubicle. Her grandmother had a pet bird and would share toast with it every night, so McAdams even incorporated that into her character, which required the animal trainer to teach Linda’s little bird to nibble on toast when offered.

4. Linda’s coworker, River, is played by Raimi’s daughter, Emma Raimi. His son, Lorne Raimi, is 2nd Unit Director on the film, too.

5. McAdams wore varying degrees of padding to make her look frumpy and unappealing to idiots. Early scenes had her in “stage one” thickness; later island scenes drop her to stage two, and it’s all gone by the time she hits the waterfall at 41:33.

6. Raimi’s infamous Delta 88 Oldsmobile – the classic car that has cameoed in his movies – appears in the parking garage at 15:03. “Well,” adds Raimi, “it is and it isn’t.” He says the original is “hidden somewhere in the United States” because “Bruce Campbell, my good buddy, has threatened to destroy it.” True or not, this is a stand-in used here.

7. They couldn’t afford to put the plane set on a gimbal – a big frame that allows a set to be moved in 360 degrees – so they resorted to using airbags to rock the plane’s interior side to side. Once it hits the water, the plane’s shell is actually being lowered into a train car filled with water.

8. The beach scenes were filmed in Phuket, Thailand, alongside a coconut grove. They had to remove all the coconuts from the trees beforehand to avoid injury or death from falling coconuts. Raimi makes *a lot* of jokes throughout the commentary, but this is not one of them. “For me it would be a very embarrassing way to go.”

9. The script originally featured a scene with a large coconut crab “the size of a small child” crawling towards Bradley (Dylan O’Brien) on the beach. They cut it for both cost and creative reasons.

10. They used a boar puppet on a wheelbarrow while filming the boar hunt scene as a way to give McAdams something to react to. Audiences, unfortunately, are stuck with the iffy CG effects that replaced it.

11. Raimi personally splashed blood onto McAdams’ face during the boar kill scene.

12. Azizi recalls the best description she saw of O’Brien’s laughter in the film is that he “has laughs in every font.”

13. Live sound recording was obviously difficult while filming on the beach due to everything from the waves to the wind to cicadas in the trees. “With the modern AI tools,” says Raimi, failing to read the room, “we were really able to clean up those tracks.”

14. “No animals were harmed on set,” says Raimi as a Thai water bug appears at 48:39. It’s real as it crawls along the rock, but it’s swapped for an edible treat with kicking CG legs. “I’m told by Dylan that it actually tasted like a meringue pie.”

15. Linda’s sushi spread is actually strips of lychee fruit. Azizi corrects Raimi’s pronunciation, and he reminds her that he’s a member of the California Rare Fruit Grower’s Society.

16. Linda helps nature by roasting some green bananas, and they appear to love the result. Raimi, having just learned about this from the script, tried impressing his girlfriend with the trick, but the end result was disgusting. “Don’t follow this film if you want to impress your girlfriend,” he says. “It doesn’t work.”

17. It was important that they kept track of the moral/human standing of the two leads. Linda is obviously the pure protagonist from the start, with Bradley being a smarmy villain, but there’s a shift that happens around the one-hour mark as the two talk by the fire. Viewers start opening up to him as he talks about his upbringing, and at the same time they’re starting to doubt Linda, knowing that she’s intentionally avoiding rescue. “That was a brilliant thing about the script that we really embraced, which was switching audience identification from Linda and Bradley.” The goal at that point was to somehow switch that loyalty back again by the time the end credits roll. They think they succeed, and your mileage may vary, but I’m of the opinion that she ends the film as a villain, as she killed two innocent people, Zuri (Edyll Ismail) and the boat captain (Thaneth Warakulnukroh).

18. “I hate to speak as another know-it-all,” says Raimi, “but I am also a member of the California Junior Winemakers Club.” He points out that making wine takes a lot longer than the two days mentioned by Linda here. To that end, they did shoot a scene at the house with Linda pouring vodka into her bamboo flask, but it was cut from the flashbacks.

19. A spider web with creepy arachnids is seen in the cave at 1:05:33, and they want it known it’s not a reference to Spider-Man. Instead, the CG shot was added in post-production because test audiences rightfully pointed out that Linda and Bradley should just be using the dry, warm cave as their base camp.

20. This scene still makes me sick,” says Azizi as Linda vomits onto Bradley’s face… four times. Raimi blames his editor, Bob Murawski, saying he has “a fascination with things coming out of people’s mouths.” Mmhmm.

21. They began pitching the film back in 2019, and Azizi recalls one executive saying they were “crazy” to include the scene with Linda poisoning/paralyzing Bradley with the octopus meal and then pretending to castrate him. “They were right,” replies Raimi.

22. The shot starting at 1:27:28 was performed in reverse to give Zuri’s rise and shambling walk an “EC Comics” feel.

23. The film’s writers, Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, described the fight between Linda and Bradley at 1:33:00 as “a feral fight, not one that you would see in a Marvel film.”

24. One of the reasons they filmed in Thailand, aside from the gorgeous location and incredibly kind people, was the tax incentive granted if they helped promote the country in the film. Linda’s line about there being “a frozen Massaman curry” in the freezer at 1:36:30: “and that counted as one of the boxes to check off.” The house the scene occurs within was located in Sydney, Australia.

25. An aside, but I will never understand Hollywood accounting. This is a studio production that filmed in Thailand, Australia, and elsewhere with two major stars, but they say they couldn’t afford things like fancy loafers for Bradley (the costume department had to fabricate some instead) or to tent the outside of the house in order to pretend it’s nighttime (they instead had to film the interiors on a tight nighttime schedule). I mean, they went to the Dominican Republic and South Africa to shoot a few minutes of beach/jungle footage! I don’t get it.

26. Raimi’s old assistant, J.R. Young, is now the Senior Vice President of Production at 20th Century Studios, which technically makes him Raimi’s boss now. “Like in the movie.”

27. Azizi thanks the writers for the script and asks them to hurry up on the sequel.

Quotes Without Context

“Americans use Vegemite all the time; we just have another name for it. Motor oil.”

“How do you make the most beautiful actress in Hollywood into Linda Liddle?”

“I don’t want to brag, but I am a member of the California Rare Fruit Grower’s Society.”

“Now you’re glad you bought this DVD. You learned something, kid.”

“The audience is always smarter than I give them credit for, except in the case of this audience that’s paid money for the DVD.”

Keep up with more horror commentary breakdowns here.

The post 27 Things We Learned from Sam Raimi’s ‘Send Help’ Commentary appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

In recent years, despite the home video market evolving into streaming and 4K restorations, we’ve seen studios embrace the trend of novelizations and contemporary titles are getting reimagined into published works. Thanks to the proven interest in such novelizations, this also means previously released novelizations are getting new printings.

Titan Books is confirmed to be printing a new edition of John Russo‘s Return of the Living Dead: The Official Novelization, which is set for a March 30, 2027 release. While this isn’t a new adaptation, it means it will be much easier for fans of the 1985 movie to get their hands on a copy.

The publisher describes the release, “The gore-filled meta sequel to George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead novelized by the screenwriter of the legendary film. Now considered a cult-classic due to its campy humor, punk rock aesthetic, and self-aware parody of the zombie genre, the novelization is perfect for all fans of gruesome, brain-eating zombies.

“They’re Back From The Grave and Ready To Party!

“When foreman Frank shows new employee Freddy a secret military experiment in a supply warehouse, the two klutzes accidentally release a gas that reanimates corpses into flesh-eating zombies. As the epidemic spreads throughout Louisville, Kentucky, and the creatures satisfy their hunger in gory and outlandish ways, Frank and Freddy fight to survive with the help of their boss and a mysterious mortician.”

While this release is described as an official novelization, implying that a script was converted into a novel, this release is a unique instance of the opposite. After the success of Night of the Living Dead, which Russo and Romero wrote together, the pair parted ways, though Russo retained the rights to “Living Dead” titles. He released the novel Return of the Living Dead in 1978, which served as a direct sequel to the 1968 movie, but it wasn’t until 1985 that elements of the narrative were adapted into a screenplay.

This new novelization seemingly isn’t the only new entry into the franchise on the horizon, as a sequel to the original movie has been in the works for years and has potentially been teased as getting a release before the end of the year.

Will you be grabbing a copy of the novelization? Let us know in the comments below!

The post ‘Return of the Living Dead: The Official Novelization’ Getting New Printing in 2027 appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Today, October 30, Screambox will premiere Your Dearest Darkest Friend, a new talk show hosted and created by Raimi, which follows the actor, producer, director, and writer as he simultaneously plays classic horror host and in-depth interviewer. Each episode features a conversation with a fellow horror icon, covering everything from the trajectory of their careers to the craft they apply to each project, supported by custom-created cocktails and, naturally, a puppet co-host named Mort (voiced by Ed Larson). 

The show’s premiere means that Raimi fans will spend a portion of their Halloween weekend with him and his guests, but how does Ted Raimi like to spend Halloween? What are his must-watch films that he resurrects every single October? 

Speaking to Bloody Disgusting via Zoom, Raimi explained that his Halloween is not complete without a few “tragedies,” movies where good doesn’t always prevail over evil, and the heroes actually often end up in a darker place than when they began. 

“The ones I watch every year are ones where the hero in the story fails miserably at the end,” Raimi said. “I do love gore, and I’ll always watch gore, but the ones I always go back to are character-centric horror, where the hero attempts something so outlandish and fails in a horror way. Those are the ones I love the most.”

So, which movies are included in his list of must-watch character pieces? 

“I would say number one is Cronenberg’s The Fly, the remake. Also The Dead Zone, another one where the character attempts everything he can and fails horribly at the end. Angel Heart, a detective-story failure. The Serpent and the Rainbow is another must-watch for the very same reason. I always go back to that during Halloween. Jacob’s Ladder, total soldier failure, but great. I love tragedies in horror, horror and tragedy.

“Another one I like is an early John Frankenheimer movie called Seconds. It’s from 1966; you gotta be in the right place to dig that. The Vanishing, I just watched that one the other day. The Spoorloos one from 1988. That is a character whose curiosity truly kills him in the end, in a gruesome way. Sorry, spoiler alert, but I’m not going to say how he dies. Finally, another Cronenberg film, The Shrouds, which came out a couple years ago, same thing. My girlfriend and I love that movie, and I’ll watch that a million times or more. Those movies are probably my top, whatever that is, 8 to 10 pictures.”

So, why does Raimi tend to go for tragedy rather than, say, a horror-comedy or something lighter? Because on Halloween, Ted Raimi likes to be truly, deeply scared. 

“Those are the things that frighten me the most,” Raimi explained. “I like a mixture of human tragedy with gore and body horror. You can always divorce yourself from gore when you get out of a movie. It’s like a roller-coaster ride. I love it, but you can divorce yourself from it. The movies that stay with you are the ones that also have personal tragedy in them.

“A good example is The Hitcher with Rutger Hauer and C. Thomas Howell. It’s another good example of that, where C. Thomas Howell is just a kid, and he’s just trying to drive a car across the country. That’s it. That’s all he wants. Everything horrible happens to him, and he loses at the end. Those movies really stick with me because of that.”

According to the man himself, if you go to Ted Raimi’s house on Halloween, you’re going to get a lot of movies that end on very sad notes. Fortunately, as with Your Dearest, Darkest Friend, you’ll also get cocktails to wash those movies down. So, what’s Raimi drinking during all of these cinematic tragedies?

“Everything,” Raimi said with a laugh. “For these movies, it’s usually classics. I don’t like too many fancy drinks with my horror movies. I’ll either do Old Fashioneds or Gin Martinis with olives, never with a twist because I like the tartness of the olives. You need that. If I drink something that’s too elaborate during a horror movie, I just focus on the drink, and I don’t want to do that.”

Ted Raimi’s Halloween Watchlist:

1. The Fly 
2. The Dead Zone
3. Angel Heart
4. The Serpent and the Rainbow
5. Jacob’s Ladder
6. Seconds
7. The Vanishing
8. The Shrouds
9. The Hitcher

Your Dearest, Darkest Friend with Ted Raimi premieres October 30 on Screambox. New episodes will release every Friday. 

The post Ted Raimi Reveals His Essential Halloween Horror Watchlist appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

It is said, that among the many monstrosities inhabiting the cursed continent, some rise to the rank of deities. Tsathoggua is one such entity: an evil being with a grotesque appearance reminiscent of an oversized amphibian. The Great Old One lurks somewhere deep within the bowels of the cursed continent, and only the most daring adventurers can flush it out.

In addition to an area dedicated to Tsathoggua, this update introduces other new features to The Mound:

• Revamped Treasure Shrines: Collecting valuable items will be riskier, as some of them may alert nearby monsters, summon creatures, or deal damage to players.
• New weapons and occult items to fend off monsters, and even pit them against each other.
• Revamped progression: Players can now reach level 70 and spend their earned skill points to unlock additional abilities, such as resistance to bleeding, extra stamina, or movement speed.
• New sanity effects: Are you sure you’re holding a sword or a spear in your hands…?

Inspired by the short story “The Mound” by H.P. Lovecraft, The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu invites solo players or squads of up to four members to set out for an uncharted continent in search of a legendary city containing priceless treasures. Armed with 15th-century weapons, the vulnerable squad must advance cautiously to face unspeakable horrors while keeping a close eye on their dwindling sanity, which will cause panic and confusion within the group.

For a quick refresher, check out Harrison’s review of the game.

The post ‘The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu’ Gets Into the Season with the Free “The Cult of Tsathoggua” Update [Trailer] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Confirming the popularity of the series, Netflix has confirmed today that Haunted Hotel has been renewed for a Season 3. The announcement was made on social media, which featured a Halloween-inspired piece of key art honoring the new season. Haunted Hotel is expected to return to Netflix sometime in 2027.

Looks like Halloween came early this year. HAUNTED HOTEL is renewed for Season 3, coming 2027! https://t.co/tqtcrM7EEx

— Netflix (@netflix) October 30, 2026

Season 2 of the series was described, “New ghosts. New employees. New undefined evils that we haven’t even discovered yet! Katherine and her family find their groove as more paranormal problems come looking for vacancies. But can a haunted hotel ever really feel like home?”

Haunted Hotel stars Will Forte (Sweet Tooth), Eliza Coupe (Future Man), Skyler Gisondo (The Quarry, Santa Clarita Diet), Natalie Palamides (The Powerpuff Girls), and Jimmi Simpson (Westworld, Black Mirror).

The series was created by showrunner Matt Roller (Rick and Morty, Community) and produced by Titmouse (Big Mouth, The Venture Bros). In the debut season, a single mother tries to run the world’s most haunted hotel with her ghost brother, two kids, a demon trapped in a little boy’s body, and an ever growing collection of ghosts, monsters, and supernatural disasters.

Erica Hayes (Rick and Morty, Carol & the End of the World) is the supervising director. Roller executive produces alongside Chris McKenna (Spider-Man: No Way Home, Community), Dan Harmon (Rick and Morty, Community), and Steve Levy (Rick and Morty, Community).

Even though this new season didn’t fully dominate the pop-culture conversation, given how much thrilling content has been released this month, Season 2 of the series has been received positively. There might only be a handful of published reviews calculated, but Rotten Tomatoes currently tallies Season 2 as having 100% positive reviews. It would seem that, for anyone who connected with the original season, the creators maintained consistency with its blend of humor and horror.

Stay tuned for updates on Season 3 of Haunted Hotel.

Are you glad to see the series will return? Let us know in the comments below!

The post ‘Haunted Hotel’ Renewed for Season 3 by Netflix appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Scott Poythress stars as reclusive nobody Andy Gersh, hired security for a private institute that’s a little more Jonestown than MIT. Anonymity shrouds comers and goers in a daunting glass building that offers a false sense of transparency. Andy’s routine is monotonous: clock in every day and relieve Willis (Johnny Sibilly) of the night shift. But when Willis disappears, Andy is assigned the overnight patrol, where he discovers ongoing construction on a top floor. The campus is eerie when empty, and Andy is alone—until he begins seeing naked figures in the construction site. Authority figure and Andy’s boss, Janica Vox (Alexis Louder), offers no answers but prods Andy about his response. It’s like she’s studying Andy as he confronts seemingly supernatural happenings after normal business hours.

Poythress’ performance is pivotal to Night After Night’s tension because he builds the character’s backstory in real time. Lobo and co-writer Rowan Russell introduce Andy as a cigarette-smoking everyman who lives in a motel and orders Chinese food, but then insinuations of a life left behind, plus his trips to the gun range, paint a clearer picture of a broken soul. Poythress channels Andy’s aggression as a character trait, playing into Janica’s interrogations, coaxing rage from within. In testing the emotional fragility of human conditions, Poythress feeds off lonely-male stereotypes while soaked in the sadness of a gun-loving loner who chooses confrontation over curiosity or compassion.

Night After Night dwells on the subjects’ impulses, obsessing over behavioral choices as they differ among guards. Why does Andy choose anger while Willis opts for paranoia, or why does AJ Bowen’s Harley Singer remain positively upbeat? Lobo knocks at the door of epiphanic sociological commentaries as Andy spirals into his unique mental purgatory, yet the whole package resembles a hodgepodge. Whether Janica’s running the next great Stanford Prison Experiment or the parables between colleagues are understood, Lobo’s ponderous approach gets lost in distracted headspaces. A film that questions urges and desires struggles to define existence, if only because we struggle to do exactly that on a daily basis.

It’s a lot to choke down, which I don’t presume Lobo would argue. Night After Night is a cyclical endurance test about the horrors of humdrumery. But as Andy listens to the metronome of his neighbor’s bedpost knockin’ or squeezes another trigger, structure comes into question. Fractured storytelling doesn’t help, since characters pop in and out at sporadic intervals. By leaving countless details undefined—the nameless remain nameless—it’s difficult to fully embrace the creeping sense of dread that rolls like molasses-slow fog. Messages are understood, but what’s missing is the sheer magnitude of events that instead play out in a chopped-up and less fulfilling fashion.

That said, Lobo’s technical eye sets apart Night After Night from similar indie efforts. The filmmaker doesn’t shy away from abstract visual compositions, with a confident command over material that’s anything but boilerplate. Cinematographer Bryce Holden plays with askew framing, black-and-white territory markings, and other camera tricks to accentuate the delusion tied to Andy’s worsening state. Then there’s Simon Waskow’s invasive, impressive score, which shifts from bouncy, sci-fi computerized riffs to rhythmic soundscapes that morph into an unsettling drone. It’s engrossing in unexpected ways, from the natural beauty of naked bodies accentuated by centerfold-ready photography to the numbness and discomfort achieved by choosing such a sanitized location. A mark of talent behind the camera.

In short, Night After Night will not please the masses. That’s never Lobo’s motivation. He’s created something anxious, existential, and communal that will resonate with audiences who appreciate his quiet, take-your-time brand of horror. For the rest, you’re here for the craftsmanship, the performances, and the chance to break the chains of Hollywood normality. It’s true, pacing issues make Night After Night harder for adrenaline junkies to endure, but on a purely artistic level, Lobo earns deserved praise that will hopefully inspire him to keep whatever comes next just as weird and just as personal.

Night After Night screened at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

The post ‘Night After Night’ Review: The Night Shift Becomes an Existential Nightmare appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

After years of focusing on real and confirmed creatures, Animal Planet experimented with pseudoscience. In hindsight, Lost Tapes was a sign of things to come, seeing as how cryptozoology went from niche to mainstream in the 2010s. For instance, Finding Bigfoot, one of Animal Planet’s highest-rated programs, was only a few years away at that point. And how can we forget the controversial documentary, Mermaids: The Body Found?

Lost Tapes, on the other hand, didn’t waste your time like Finding Bigfoot and other similar shows. No, you were guaranteed to see a weird beastie or monster of some kind in every episode of this mockumentary, even if it was nothing more than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sort of moment. Not to mention, those darting shadows and peripheral figures were quite fearsome.

It was the night before Halloween of 2008 when Animal Planet delivered a sneak preview of Lost Tapes, ahead of its official season premiere the following January. Gateway episodes “Chupacabra” and “Bigfoot” tackled two of the best-known cryptids in North America, as well as established the series’ format. Using a combination of real-life footage, reenactments, and interviews from experts, Lost Tapes quickly set itself apart from other monster hunting-type shows, such as Destination Truth.

It’s hard to be fooled by something like Lost Tapes, especially when every episode opens with the lines “the presence of hidden creatures is the subject of continued debate” and “the following story is inspired by the possibility of their existence”. Right there you’re told this is a work of fiction. The style of each episode, however, submits a notion of reality that’s based on our histories with documentaries. We know better than to think any of this is real, but the presentation messes with our brains.

Found footage didn’t immediately take off after the success of The Blair Witch Project. Indeed, there were attempts to cash in on the style, but Blair Witch parodies tended to receive the most attention back then. It was only after Paranormal Activity that found footage saw a substantial resurgence not only in cinema, but also on television, albeit to a lesser degree for the latter. Lost Tapes preceded both The River and Siberia, two shows that aired on big broadcast networks. However, out of the three, only Lost Tapes lasted more than one season.

Unlike the aforementioned shows, Lost Tapes didn’t have a continuous plot. It was more in the vein of classic anthology television that focused on self-contained storytelling. And in a little under thirty minutes, you could get in and out of any given episode with no fuss. You went in knowing these were essentially miniature found-footage horror movies, and that’s exactly what you got.

A basic installment of Lost Tapes followed the routine of most cinematic found footage; a third party compiled video shot by whoever crossed paths with the unexplained. They then padded that with the contributions of cryptozoologists, scientists and folklorists, plus any real-life footage and scientific tidbits that supported the subject matter. These traumatic encounters, by the way, didn’t always end in death for the humans involved. Some escaped their ordeals, whereas plenty others disappeared.

On the same channel, you could find Cats 101 and Too Cute was now a show prefaced with a “viewer discretion is advised” warning. Seasoned horror hounds would struggle to be frightened of anything here, but fans of cheap thrills would be absolutely delighted. Those reenactments of people’s run-ins with cryptids and whatnot were the small-screen equivalent of jump-scares found inside a haunted attraction, although less coherent. Money shots of the monsters were not ever certain, either.

In the show’s humbler beginnings, you could expect to see a whole lot of nothing. A creature’s being was hinted at, or if you were lucky, briefly shown under a veil of darkness. Gruesome makeup on the actors, courtesy of artists like Scott Conner, helped drive home the ferocity of these monstrosities. However, it wasn’t until Season Two that an episode’s subject was occasionally seen in plain view. Their time on screen was, once again, limited to a matter of mere seconds, or they were conveniently obstructed. It’s understandable that the show was minimizing your seeing an obvious costume, but somehow it’s actually more effective to have cryptids, and their ilk, exist in flashes and fragments.

It was in the third and final season that Lost Tapes introduced a recurring character of sorts. That impulse to raise the ante on otherworldly matters had already happened with the Season Two episode “Alien”, but now zombies, ghosts, and the deity Quetzalcoatl had been thrown into the mix. And a few of these more out-there additions to this show’s cabinet of creepy curiosities were confronted by a group called the Enigma Corporation. This private security firm popped up every now and then, in lieu of civilians, and their presence suggested an underlying plot that, unfortunately, never got the chance to grow.

Nowadays, Lost Tapes comes across as silly and lightweight. Having said that, this show gave us a fresh and fun way of investigating cryptozoology and the paranormal on television. The artifice is easy to see through, and the episodes are formulaic, but in an age where Bigfoot and the like have been sterilized by pop culture, it’s nice to remember a time when they were depicted as mysterious and scary.

The post Animal Planet’s ‘Lost Tapes’ Was the Perfect Blend of Found Footage and Cryptid Horror appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The new series will tell a completely original story, separate from the video games. Under director Takayuki Sano, the hand-drawn animations have been brought to life by renowned studio E&H Production (NINJA KAMUI, BULLET/BULLET, Magic Knight Rayearth).

Death Stranding Isolations is set in North America and takes place immediately after Sam, the game’s protagonist, reconnects the continent by means of the Chiral Network. However, as America is reborn from the ashes, the renewed connections that bind it together bring about new and unforeseen consequences.

“In this tumultuous new landscape, there are some who walk a different path to the one chosen by Sam and his Bridges comrades: a wise old man who connects people through a method that defies all reckoning; a female soldier ensnared in a cycle of war and destruction; a boy who seethes with rage at the absurdity of his life…and of course, the girl who chose to sever all ties with the outside world…Fate has other plans for her, however, and chance encounters see her launched headfirst into a world she does not recognize.”

“One of the unique abilities of entertainment is its power to enhance the spirituality of those who consume it, and I think this is something that Mr. Kojima’s works have always achieved. As a result, I approached this production with an exceptionally strong sense of duty and responsibility. I knew that no matter what, I needed to accomplish the same thing,” said Takayuki Sano.

The series’ original character designs are by Ilya Kuvshinov, with screenplay by Tow Ubukata. Hideo Kojima executive produces.

As of June 2026, the Death Stranding series has reached a cumulative player base of over 27 million worldwide. Death Stranding: Director’s Cut is currently available for PlayStation5 and on PC, available through Steam or the Epic Games Store, while Death Stranding 2: On The Beach is currently available for PlayStation5 and on PC, available through Steam or the Epic Games Store

A live-action Death Stranding film is in development from A24 with Michael Sarnoski (A Quiet Place: Day One) set to write and direct, while an animated Death Stranding movie is also in the works with Aaron Guzikowski (Prisoners) penning the script.

Watch the new Death Stranding Isolations teaser below.

The post ‘Death Stranding Isolations’ Gets First Teaser and Poster Ahead of 2027 Disney+ Release appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The news was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter last night.

Kenneth Branagh has been cast to voice the titular Goblin in the upcoming A24 movie, with the character said to be “green-colored” as well as “anatomically correct.”

Skyler Gisondo (Superman) is reportedly playing the Goblin’s human best friend, with the announced cast also including Will Forte (“The Four Seasons”).

The mysterious project sounds a bit like films including A Gnome Named Gnorm and more recently, Frankie Freako, though it’s important to note that it’s not billed as a horror movie.

Deadline details, “After [Mikalson] hatched the idea to make an outrageous buddy comedy about a goblin, using a practical puppet and operating outside the Hollywood system, his script quickly got him a rep team. While others might have eyed the raunchy comedy as a writing sample or planned to wait to see the micro-budget version Mikalson has been directing in Kentucky, A24 jumped all over it. The hot indie essentially has agreed to finance a full feature.”

“There was a lot of interest, but A24 came with what Mikalson really wanted, after spending all his money crafting the puppet title character: they acquired the movie and agreed to let him make it with a significantly increased budget than what he had left after creating the anatomically correct title character,” Deadline’s report goes on to explain.

What does the titular Goblin actually look like? Well, a cake that Mikalson had whipped up for his reps might give us our first look at what to expect. Deadline explains the photo you’ll see down below, “Take a look at the cake he commissioned with Marc Gravelle at Cake Art in West Hollywood, to present to his reps as thanks for making his dream come true.”

The post Chase Sui Wonders in Talks to Join A24’s Raunchy Little Monster Movie ‘Goblin’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

As part of his new Sam: The Soul of Halloween initiative, a new multimedia project that gives Sam his own online home for the very first time, Dougherty has unleashed Season’s Greetings 2: Mischief Night with a Grindhouse-style trailer for a Season’s Greetings sequel!

Is this a real upcoming movie or merely a faux trailer? We’ll let you decide…

The Season’s Greetings 2: Mischief Night trailer was directed by Michael Dougherty and animated by Cyrus T. Hayley at Dragline Pictures. Click the play button below to give it a watch.

It’s been seventeen years since Michael Dougherty’s anthology film Trick ‘r Treat arrived on the scene and became an almost instant Halloween classic, but the origins of the beloved Halloween icon Sam actually date back even further. Sam was first introduced by Dougherty in his 1996 animated short Season’s Greetings, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.

Just in time for spooky season, new original Sam content is being released across Sam’s new website and social channels, including animated shorts, illustrations, artist collaborations, merchandise and other bite-sized glimpses into Sam’s peculiar corner of Halloween.

Dougherty invited a growing roster of talented artists to interpret Sam through their own creative voices. As a result, Sam will wander through wildly different styles, mediums and imaginations.

“Trick ’r Treat obviously became a huge part of Sam’s story, and I remain incredibly proud of that film,” says Dougherty. “But Trick ‘r Treat wasn’t the first chapter in Sam’s story, and it won’t be the last. It really started with this weird little hand-drawn animated short I made as a film student. And for the 30th anniversary, it felt like the perfect time to go back to those roots — handmade, independent and artist-driven — and see where Sam might wander next.”

The launch also marks the debut of the official Sam online shop, featuring exclusive limited-edition merchandise created specifically around Dougherty’s original animated incarnation of Sam.

Follow Sam: The Soul of Halloween on Instagram and Twitter now!

The post ‘Season’s Greetings 2: Mischief Night’ – Halloween Icon Sam Is Back in New Grindhouse-Style Trailer appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Francesco Lucente writes and directs. 

Mazzello will play “Tom, a filmmaker down on his luck who pays the bills scrubbing toilets and can’t stop reworking the one script he has. A friend steers him toward ‘Böse,‘ a lost silent picture from 1931, and Tom’s hunt for an artistic breakthrough pulls him toward a dark secret.“

Max Beesley (“The Outsider”) is set to play producer Joe, with Wes Studi (Avatar: Fire and Ash) as Nic, Carl Lumbly (A Cure for Wellness, Captain America: Brave New World) as Henry, and Arnetia Walker (“Bookie“) as Chelsea. 

“‘A Grim Life’ is a deeply personal project for me, one that explores the darker side of ambition, obsession, and the sacrifices we make in pursuit of our dreams,” Lucente said. “The Cecil Hotel provides an extraordinary and haunting backdrop for a story where the boundaries between reality and the supernatural begin to disappear.”

The Cecil Hotel is one of Los Angeles’ most infamous buildings, with a history of suicides, drugs, and serial killers. It might be best known for the mysterious disappearance and death of Elisa Lam, whose body was found in the hotel’s water tower without any explanation as to what may have happened. The case inspired a season of “American Horror Story,” paranormal investigations, and nearly inspired a feature film in 2016.

A Grim Life heads into pre-production this December ahead of a January 2027 shoot. Stay tuned.

The post ‘Jurassic Park’ Actor Joseph Mazzello To Lead Cecil Hotel Horror ‘A Grim Life’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

After listening to player feedback, the devteam has introduced public lobbies, where instead of mandated group play and lobby codes, the update makes it easy for players to queue, find a group, or set up their own lobby, with group sizes of 2-8 players. The update also updates session and shift timing, balancing the difficulty for smaller groups to be able to complete shifts in full.

And of course, for those who love lore, the update adds plenty of it! Search every nook and cranny again and AGAIN, as 12 more mysterious notes have been scattered around the factory, along with strange posters on the walls and seemingly random VHS tapes that can also be discovered throughout the facility. But who put them there, and to what end?

Meanwhile, the roadmap for Escape From Playtime shows the game will see further cosmetics updates, as well as new items, areas and more.

Escape From Playtime is available in Steam Early Access, with a limited-time 10% launch discount until November 4. Players who own the free-to-play Poppy Playtime: Chapter 1 will receive an additional 10% off.

The post “Lobby Doors Open Update” for ‘Escape From Playtime’ Adds Public Lobbies, Additional Lore and More appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Twenty three horror-loving YouTubers have gotten together to create Tales from the Tube, a new “YouTuber Horror Anthology” novel that’s now crowd-funding over on Kickstarter.

Tales from the Tube launched on Kickstarter earlier this month and has already smashed through its $10,000 initial goal, raising $10,950 at the time of this article being written.

The team previews, “What happens when you take 23 YouTube creators, remove the cameras, editing software, thumbnails and algorithms, and give them nothing but a blank page? Then tell them: SCARE US. No cameras. No editing. No production crews. No algorithm. Just the story. Twenty-three creators accepted the challenge. The result is Tales from the Tube.”

Tales from the Tube is an original horror anthology bringing together creators from 23 YouTube channels to tell 23 completely original horror stories, with no generative A.I. anywhere in sight.

The list of contributors includes…

• Sean Chandler — Sean Chandler Talks About…
• Cody Leach — Cody Leach
• Adam Olinger — Adam Does Movies
• Riley Lorden — Slash ‘n Cast
• Vincente DiSanti — Womp Stomp Films
• Daryk “The Maniacal Cinephile” Nowak — Stitched Together Pics
• Antonio Piluso — Hack the Movies
• Kylie Roseanne — Haunted Hippie
• Lee McCoy — Drumdums
• Cecil Laird — The Horror Show Channel
• Chris Stanley — Chris Stanley Official
• Ken, Ashley & Khloe Sledge — Sledgehammer Horror
• Dave McRae — Dave McRae Official
• Jason Smith — Sinister Cinema Reviews
• Braden Timmons — BradenTimmons
• Antonia Carlotta — Universally Me
• Danny Knightmare — Horror Addicts
• Rudy Apolinar — Gen EX Reviews
• Chauncey K. Robinson — Chauncey K. Robinson
• Courtney Leigh — By Courtney Leigh
• Hlaleleni Walker — HorrorFreq
• Jaime En Fuego — Enfuegotainment
• Chris Brennan — Storybreakers

And here’s a little taste of some of the stories they cooked up…

• A zombie-bitten father desperately tries to save his toddler before it’s too late.
• A mysterious door hidden inside a man’s home leads him towards a forgotten experiment.
• A camping trip is interrupted by a giant, prehistoric predator.
• A seemingly harmless garden gnome has one man convinced that it is anything but harmless.
• A property owner discovers that removing an old fence may have disturbed something that was there long before him.
• A woman returns home to find her front door open and soon discovers something much worse than an intruder.
• A man wakes up to realize his problems have only just begun when he notices he no longer has a head.

Head over to Kickstarter to pre-order your copy of Tales from the Tube now!

The post ‘Tales from the Tube’ – 23 YouTubers Got Together to Write a Horror Anthology Novel appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Update 1.6.0 includes a new Hard difficulty mode, as well as rebalancing gameplay elements across all difficulty modes to account for the new difficulty mode. The result aims to offer players a ‘smoother difficulty curve’. This includes changes such as resource adjustment, as well as making the player’s position visible on the map. Enemy hearing sensitivity now varies by difficulty, which will increase with the difficulty level. Finally, the Weight’s attack severity reduction is limited to Story Mode only.

The update also UX / UI improvement, as well as adding the DLSS Ray Reconstruction option for PC, along with the usual bug fixes.

Developed by Screen Burn and co-published by Annapurna Interactive and Konami, Silent Hill Townfall is available for PlayStation 5, and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store. And in case you missed it, a recent report claims that Bloober Team’s upcoming remake of the original Silent Hill is apparently eyeing a 2027 release.

The post Update to ‘Silent Hill Townfall’ Adds New Difficulty, Rebalances Existing Difficulty Options appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

On the one hand, some have seen it as a surface-level horror movie in which a wish from Michael Johnston‘s Bear goes horribly wrong, transforming Inde Navarrette‘s Nikki into something villainous. Other takes on the story, though, consider the events of the movie to be a metaphor for abuse and that it was Bear’s male entitlement that caused everything Nikki suffers, which makes for a much darker experience.

Understandably, those who see Nikki as the victim in the movie, who pays the price for Bear’s recklessness, have had mixed feelings about Universal Studios Hollywood featuring a roaming character acting as Nikki at their Halloween Horror Nights event. Navarrette, however, fully supports the character’s involvement.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Navarrette explained, “I don’t think [Halloween] Horror Nights is portraying her as a villain … I think they’re wanting to have people experience a character that they’ve gotten to love, and I think that’s really f—ing cool.”

Nikki’s involvement at the event and Navarrette’s comments offer an interesting perspective on the entire experience. The event highlights a variety of monsters and villains each year, with some of those figures having delivered immense amounts of on-screen violence. Even this year, Terrifier‘s Art the Clown makes an appearance, who has unleashed some of the most disturbing acts of on-screen violence of the last decade.

The issue, then, isn’t that the event is embracing horror mascots as characters we are excited to come face to face with, so much as it is the inherent nature for guests at Halloween Horror Nights to be antagonized by scare actors. These performers, though, normally have their identities obscured by wearing masks or makeup, while the Nikki performers are merely women covered in blood. This environment, in which guests are coming face to face with actors in aggravating environments, could put the performer in a vulnerable position. Multiple videos have emerged online of individuals antagonizing and harassing Nikki performers, which likely only scratches the surface of inherent tensions.

Another point of contention comes from whether the event is conveying the idea that Nikki is a villain, like Art the Clown or other figures involved in the event, or if the character of Nikki is being exploited as a victim, much like how she appears in the movie itself.

Naverrette’s comments, however, were those of support both conceptually and for the performers she met at the park.

The actor confirmed she “wanted to go give [the scare actors] a high-five” because “I can’t imagine, viscerally, every single day what that must feel like” to portray the character each night for thousands of guests.

“I just wanted to tell her that I am so proud of her and that she’s doing a great job. It was great because I got to meet two actresses in one night. It was phenomenal,” Navarrette added. “She’s doing a great job.”

Navarrette is set to host this week’s Saturday Night Live.

What do you think of the situation? Let us know in the comments below!

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Written and directed by Robert Hiltzik, 1983’s Sleepaway Camp is full of countless memorable moments. The movie follows cousins Ricky (Jonathan Tiersten) and Angela (Felissa Rose) at summer camp, as they navigate bullies, relationships, and their fellow campers. When murders start to occur at camp, a number of suspects emerge, eventually leading to one of the most shocking and unexpected endings in a horror movie of all time.

Fans of the film were given some exciting news today, as Scream Factory took to social media to confirm that an original negative of the movie had been found and that they were pursuing a 4K restoration of the slasher.

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Sleepaway Camp has already earned a number of home video releases, from VHS to DVD to Blu-ray, so longtime fans likely own some version of the movie on physical media, but 4K fans will appreciate getting to enjoy the experience to the fullest potential.

One interesting note about this movie specifically, though, is that the upgrade to the technical specs could come with some unintended consequences. For example, one sequence in the movie shows the movie’s killer being lit from a light source behind them, only offering a glimpse of their silhouette. In previous versions of the release, the quality of the scene meant that the identity of the killer was shrouded in darkness. However, anyone who has seen the HD upgrade on streaming or Blu-ray likely noticed how much clearer the picture is and that the identity of the killer is seemingly fully exposed.

Another such example is that Allen Breton, who plays Officer Frank Breton, sports a mustache early in the movie. Later in the movie, though, the officer reappears and is sporting a very fake mustache, seemingly due to the actor shaving after filming his initial scenes. If the movie is restored, it’s possible that these more glaring mistakes will become all the more evident. Still, these errors only add to the enjoyment of the experience, so we’ll still keep our eyes out for the remaster.

Stay tuned for updates on the 4K restoration of Sleepaway Camp.

Are you exciting to see the movie get restored? Let us know in the comments below!

The post ‘Sleepaway Camp’ Set to Get a 4K Restoration From Scream Factory appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Per press release:

Universal Horror Unleashed in Las Vegas is decking the halls with dark holiday frights as Krampus & Kin returns with new screams of the season. During this limited-time holiday celebration, guests will step into a twisted winter wonderland with transformed immersive areas, encounter legendary characters of winter folklore, experience a haunting musical procession, and savor fiendishly festive food and beverages. Those brave enough can celebrate the darker side of the holidays on select dates November 19 through January 10, 2027, at the ultimate horror experience.

Twisted Holiday Horrors

As guests enter Universal Horror Unleashed, they’ll discover eerie holiday music, haunting decorations and familiar characters revealing their holiday alter egos.

• In Frost Bite, Dead Storage becomes an icy feeding ground ruled by the Vampire Frost Queen, with her Frost Guard and Frost Stalkers hunting unsuspecting visitors.
• At Kill Vault Video, guests can browse holiday horror films before uncovering the disturbing secret concealed behind the video wall.
• Meanwhile, Home for the Horrordays transforms Prop Graveyard into a twisted family gathering, where the Twin Sister and Twin Brother host their most disturbed friends for a gruesome Christmas celebration.
• In Yuletide Legends near Krampus Haus, guests can come face-to-face with Krampus and explore oversized storybooks bringing sinister winter folklore to life. Returning creatures Grýla and Kallikantzaroi are joined by Mari Lwyd, Hans Trapp and Frau Perchta.

A haunting, lantern-lit musical procession brings the legends together throughout the night, leading to a dramatic lighting moment around Krampus’s towering black holiday tree. Guests can also capture chilling memories on Krampus’s skull-encrusted throne and in Grýla’s cauldron.

The celebration wouldn’t be complete without Jack the Clown and his Maniacs bringing to life, or death, a sinister holiday twist to Demented Circus in Premiere House, with high-energy rock music, specialty acts, dark comedy and theatrical kills turning the season of giving into a night of terror. Reservations are now available for guests ready to add a little mayhem to their holiday plans.

Frightfully Good Food & Beverage

Those who work up an appetite can step into Krampus Haus, a Bavarian-inspired beer garden in Jack’s Alley with four themed food stalls, seasonal beers on draught and specialty cocktails available for purchase. Featured food offerings include:

• The Chains of Krampus, a Bavarian-style pretzel with blonde ale cheese fondue and Bavarian mustard dip
• Naughty, Naughty, smoked cranberry-glazed chicken drum pops
• Feast of the Holy Innards, spiraled Feuerwurst sausage with fire-roasted pepper relish and Bavarian mustard
• Perchta’s Pie, fried apple pie chebureki with bourbon-spiced vanilla bean icing

Guests can purchase a Krampus-themed dining pass redeemable for four food selections, choosing their favorites or sampling a variety of offerings.

Seasonal beverages are also conjuring up the fun with:

• Devil’s Blood, a gin cocktail with cranberry, citrus, cherry and clove-infused honey
• Krampus Punch, a spiced mulled wine
• Shot Ski, made with Aquavit
• Nice List, a festive blend of cherry juice, apple cider, orange juice, honey, clove and ginger beer

*Guests must be 21 or older with valid photo identification to purchase and consume alcoholic beverages.

Guests can also embrace the darker side of the season with the Krampus & Kin merchandise collection, featuring apparel, accessories and collectible keepsakes celebrating Krampus and other legendary winter creatures from folklore. Available at the Universal Horror Unleashed retail store, the collection offers fans a chilling way to commemorate the screams of the season and bring home a souvenir of their Las Vegas visit.

Guests can experience Krampus & Kin as part of General Admission to Universal Horror Unleashed, alongside its four haunted houses and immersive entertainment. Seasonal food, beverages and merchandise are available for purchase separately. To purchase tickets and learn more, visit UniversalHorrorUnleashed.com.

Will you be checking out the event? Let us know in the comments below!

The post Krampus Comes to Universal Horror Unleashed in Las Vegas for the Holidays appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Sony Pictures picked up the feature film rights to the video game from developer Wrong Organ, with Scott Derrickson (Sinister, The Black Phone) attached to produce the movie.

C. Robert Cargill and Vince Cheng will also produce for Crooked Highway.

Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay (The Invitation) will write the screenplay for Kusama to direct.

Mouthwashing follows five crew members stranded aboard the space freighter Tulpar, which crash lands on an asteroid. Dwindling supplies, isolation and mounting paranoia expose the fractures between the crew.

The Hollywood Reporter details, “The first-person game combines surreal imagery with a nonlinear narrative exploring responsibility, denial and the consequences of unchecked power.”

Mouthwashing was selected as one of Bloody Disgusting’s Best Video Games of 2024.

Aaron Boehm raved, “It’s hard to capture what makes Mouthwashing so special just from a quick description. The setup could describe all sorts of sci-fi horror stories, but the twists and turns it takes towards its nail biting ending consistently surprise, thanks to captivating characters and a thrilling structure that keeps you on your toes.”

“You’re often doing simple adventure game-style puzzles, interacting with people and exploring the ship, but the game shines when it starts veering into more surreal P.T.-like dream logic,” Aaron’s review continued. “Its beautiful low poly-art style captures the nightmare perfectly, creating some truly striking images throughout.

“Mouthwashing runs about two and a half hours, so you can finish it in a long sitting, giving you one of the most memorable narrative experiences of the year, in any medium.”

Read Bloody Disgusting’s full review of Mouthwashing here.

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Novak shared, per The Hollywood Reporter, that Stewart died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles following “a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia.”

She added, “He has been held in the warm embrace of family and friends, surrounded by live music, prayer, tears, laughter and the kind of profound emotion that only he could inspire after a lifetime of devotion to us all … We will forever cherish the peaceful ease and reflection on his face, an enduring reminder of his invincible grace.”

Given his prolific career, it’s hard to pinpoint his one most beloved role. However, if it did have to be boiled down to his landmark performance, it would likely be Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Stewart brought the role to life in four movies: Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek: Nemesis. He returned to the role for the Paramount+ series Star Trek: Picard.

Continuing his work in genre projects, Stewart played Professor Charles Xavier in 2000’s X-Men, in what is arguably some of the all-time best casting in a superhero movie ever. He subsequently starred in X2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and Logan. Following Marvel Studios acquiring 20th Century Fox, Stewart returned to reprise the role of Professor X for the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, where he will finally get to cement the legacy of the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Perhaps a testament to how beloved and warm of a presence the actor was throughout the decades, he has only a few horror credits to his name. He starred in Tobe Hooper‘s Lifeforce before he took on the role of Picard. In 2016, he took on a completely against-type role in Jeremy Saulnier‘s Green Room, in which he played the leader of a Neo-Nazi gang and a punk club in Oregon. A testament to what a powerhouse performer he was, his turn as the antagonist was an absolutely chilling role.

Our thoughts go out to Stewart’s family and friends in this difficult time.

The post Cinematic Icon Sir Patrick Stewart Passes Away at 86 appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The movie caught the attention of various prestigious awards groups and earned del Toro multiple Oscar nominations, which opened up a number of doors for him in Hollywood. It might have taken another decade before he scored an Oscar for Best Director and Best Picture with The Shape of Water, but many still regard Pan’s Labyrinth as his masterpiece.

After securing a theatrical re-release in honor of its 20th anniversary, Pan’s Labyrinth is heading to home video. Pan’s Labyrinth will be available to own digitally beginning November 10, followed by the 4K + Blu-ray Collector’s Edition SteelBook and Blu-ray Collectors Edition on December 1. It will then be available for digital rental (VOD) on December 8, and due to overwhelming demand, Cineverse will release a 4K + Blu-ray Collector’s Edition on December 29. The physical pre-order has already set a record as the number one home entertainment pre-order launch of all time for Cineverse.

This follows a return to theatres, including first-time releases in 4K and 3D, that grossed more than $2 million at the box office, and led to increased interest in the film and the human-led creativity and imagination that has led to three Oscar wins plus critical and fan acclaim since 2006, including a record standing ovation at Cannes.

The 4K restoration was overseen by del Toro, taken directly from the original 35mm elements.

Special features on the upcoming 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray are as follows:

NEW BONUS FEATURES

• Retrospective Doc: Long Ago, In The Underground Realm
• Actors on Pan’s: Fables And Reflections
• Director’s on Pan: A Story, Like Those We Were Told

LEGACY BONUS FEATURES

• “The Power of Myth” Featurette: A Discourse on the Use of Fairy Tale Mythology in Pan’s Labyrinth
• “Pan and the Fairies (El Fauno Y Las Hadas)”: A Comprehensive Look at the Prosthetic and Visual Effects Crafted for the Film
• “The Color and the Shape” Featurette: Del Toro Unravels the Intricate Color and Texture Coding Present in All His Work
• “The Melody Echoes the Fairy Tale” Featurette: Exploring the Lullaby Theme
• 2007 Original Director Commentary

You can get Pan’s Labyrinth on Digital on November 10 and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray on December 1.

Will you be adding the movie to your collection? Let us know in the comments below!

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Warner Bros. Clockwork tweets, “if it’s not playing near you, call your local theater and demand it.” Check your local listings and get your tickets now to experience Ken Russell’s The Devils.

To date, the limited release has generated $3.3 million in ticket sales. Given the film is 55 years old and this is an NC-17 theatrical release, it’s one of the cooler box office stories of the year.

The special release is the definitive cut of The Devils, and no other director’s cut formally exists. This cut was originally reconstructed in 2004 under the supervision of Ken Russell and the film’s editor Michael Bradsell, with the collaboration of Mark Kermode and Paul Joyce. The 4K restoration was completed using the original camera negative at WB Water Tower Color, with audio restoration completed using original composite 35mm mag film at WB Sound.

Warner Bros. Clockwork’s release marks the first time Russell’s defining masterpiece will officially be made accessible to the public.

Based on Aldous Huxley’s 1952 non-fiction novel The Devils of Loudun and its 1961 stage play adaptation, Ken Russell’s The Devils is set in 17th-century Loudun, France.

Oliver Reed stars as Grandeur in the film, complete with the sex appeal that has all the ladies swooning, including the hunchbacked Sister Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave). Jeanne is exceptionally lustful for Grandeur, which pushes over into wrathful jealousy when she learns of his relationship with the young and stunning Madeleine (Gemma Jones). Cue the demonic seduction accusations, and hysteria and chaos ensue. 

Joe Lipsett wrote in his 5-skull review for Bloody Disgusting, “This new restored 4K is the defining version of the film; this is how it was meant to be seen – both technically and with its previously censored scenes restored. The result is one of cinema’s most controversial works, resplendently preserved in all of its outrageous button-pushing glory.“

The post NC-17 Director’s Cut of ‘Ken Russell’s The Devils’ Staying in Theaters INDEFINITELY appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

As confirmed by Deadline, Alliance Media Partners (AMP) has secured worldwide sales on Modem. The movie is described, “The picture unfolds against the backdrop of a family digital detox vacation in a house in a Swedish forest which takes a terrifying turn when a teenager discovers an old modem and unwittingly awakens a dormant, sadistic demon when it is fired up. The sinister presence torments the family, and when their two-year-old suddenly vanishes, fear spirals into hysteria and paranoia as the family confronts a terrifying force that has turned their connected world against them.”

Modem stars Josh Burdett, Amanda Renberg, Nika Tallroth, Frederik Gunnarsson, Ylva Loof, and Henrik Lundstrom. The movie marks the directorial feature debut of Tim James Brown, who also wrote the script.

“What makes Modem so intense is that it plays on the paranoia of technology – a paranormal stalker voyeuristically preying on its victims through their own digital devices. You can’t see it – it sees you,” Brown shared of the project.

“Modem is exactly the kind of high-concept horror we’re excited to bring to the international market,” AMP’s Head of Sales and Acquisitions Anthony Buckner added. “It taps into a universal modern-day obsession with being online and turns something we rely on every day into a source of genuine terror. With its compelling premise and chillingly relevant themes, we believe the film has strong potential to connect with young audiences worldwide.”

Modem has played at Raindance, the Stockholm City Film Festival, and at the New York International Film Awards.

Based on this description, the movie feels reminiscent of Kiyoshi Kurosawa‘s Pulse, in that it blends together technology with the supernatural. Given how that movie is considered a landmark in A-horror, we can only hope that Modem is even marginally as effective as Kurosawa’s movie.

Stay tuned for updates on the release of Modem.

Are you looking forward to the new movie? Let us know in the comments below!

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Variety details, “Apple TV and Legendary Television are currently in talks for a third season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, but with some major changes. According to an individual with knowledge of the situation, Season 3 of the show would be helmed by a new showrunner and new writers, and would feature new Titans from Legendary’s Monsterverse.”

“No word yet on if that would mean characters from the first two seasons would not carry on into the third,” Variety’s report this afternoon goes on to explain. “Sources say that multiple individuals have been approached about potentially taking over showrunning the series.”

Chris Black and Matt Fraction created “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” for Apple TV.

The series follows members of the Monarch organization as they encounter Godzilla and other monsters called Titans, across a half century. The series, which premiered in 2023, stars Anna Sawai, Kiersey Clemons, Ren Watabe, Mari Yamamoto, Anders Holm, Joe Tippett and Elisa Lasowski, alongside son-father duo Wyatt and Kurt Russell in the shared role of Lee Shaw.

Season 2 of “Monarch” premiered earlier this year on Apple TV.

Originally announced back in December, “Obi-Wan Kenobi” showrunner and “Monarch” executive producer Joby Harold will serve as showrunner on the untitled Lee Shaw spinoff series.

The series will follow Colonel Lee Shaw, an American operative who in 1984 went on a secret mission behind enemy lines in an attempt to stop the Soviets from unleashing a horrific new Titan big enough to destroy the U.S. and turn the tide of the Cold War.

Wyatt Russell told Collider earlier this year, “you’ve got absolutely no fucking clue what to expect. I think people are going to expect one thing and be like, ‘Holy shit, this is not what I expected.’ It’ll go deeper into Lee’s experience after he came up, and being sort of put on ice, in 1982, and then what happens after that, and why he’s needed and the mission he goes on.”

The post ‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ Season 3 Will Feature New Showrunner, New Writers, New Titans? appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

If you recall, the Losers are counting down Stephen King’s published novels — specifically, novels (no collections) — from worst to best in 2026. For this past October’s installment, they close in on the Top 20 with some last trips to Mid-World, a couple pit stops in Castle Rock, and more. The long walk is almost over, folks.

Stream the episode below and let us know your thoughts in the comments below. For further adventures, join the Club over long days and pleasant nights via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS. You can also unlock hundreds of hours of content in The Barrens (Patreon).

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Below, you can catch up with the entire run…

The post The Definitive Stephen King Book Ranking: #16-11 [The Losers’ Club Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Following months of closed playtests, Beta 2 is the second chance for most players to try God Save Birmingham since the beta test that took place this past June. During Beta 2, players can attempt to survive the harsh medieval setting with their friends in an alpha build of co-op. The game also has had a save feature added, giving players some extra security while they try to fend off zombies. There are also plenty of general gameplay upgrades, including more ways to cook, additional items to craft, and new weapons to wield.

In addition to new features, Ocean Drive Studio has made numerous tweaks based on player feedback: zombie aggression and general behaviour is now more varied based on the zombie type, clothing provides different levels of warmth for the player depending on the material, and more types of doors and windows can be barricaded or latched.

If you’re itching to jump into the playtest, simply head to the God Save Birmingham Steam page from next Monday, and click the “Request Access” button. You’ll be granted instant access and get to experience a taste of zombie-filled, Middle Ages England.

Set in 14th-century Birmingham, England, God Save Birmingham sees you as the lone survivor of an undead plague that has besieged the medieval market town. As a result, you must forage for supplies, craft tools and weapons, as well as hunt for food, water, and shelter, with only your wits to protect you. All the while, the undead horde creeps closer.

The post Next Playtest for ‘God Save Birmingham’ Kicks Off November 2 [Trailer] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

A healing retreat meant to deliver a fresh start instead leads to terror in Pendulum, which receives a very fitting New Year’s release in theaters from Vertical on January 1, 2027. 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception), Phoebe Dynevor (Remain, Thrash), Jacki Weaver (Bird Box), Jena Malone (Love Lies Bleeding, The Neon Demon), and Norman Reedus (“The Walking Dead”) star in the upcoming horror film

In Pendulum, married couple Patrick (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Abigail (Phoebe Dynevor) journey to a new-age retreat in New Mexico, drawn by the possibility of healing after a traumatic event. Patrick is willing to do anything to help his wife, but becomes distrustful of the retreat’s enigmatic leader (Jacki Weaver) even as Abigail falls under her spell.

As paranoia builds, the couple must determine if the group’s spiritual practices offer genuine healing – or mask a terrifying truth that threatens to consume them both.

Darren Aronofsky produces through his label Protozoa Pictures.

“This movie is deeply personal and inspired by my family lore,” writer and director Mark Heyman said in a statement. “Shooting it in New Mexico, where I grew up and where the real events took place, elevated every scene and made it all the more surreal. Add to that a cast firing on all cylinders, and you have a horror movie I’m immensely proud of and excited to unleash on audiences come the new year. What better way to ring in 2027 than with a freaky head trip?”

“Featuring incredible performances by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Phoebe Dynevor, Pendulum is an impressive, terrifying debut from acclaimed screenwriter Mark Heyman,” adds Vertical’s Peter Jarowey. “We are proud to be partnering with producers Darren, Jacob, and Dave, and are looking forward to ringing in 2027 by scaring the hell out of audiences.”

Things get a little trippy at the new-age retreat in the trailer below.

The post ‘Pendulum’ Trailer Takes Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Phoebe Dynevor on a Terrifying Spiritual Journey appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Purnell then joined the highly anticipated adaptation of the video game series Fallout for Prime Video, where her bright-eyed Lucy embarked on a mission in a post-apocalyptic world in hopes of finding her father. Her naivete as she navigated the wasteland was immediately endearing, anchoring what could be a downtrodden show in much more delightful territory.

Her Starz series Sweetpea, on the other hand, is a much more ruthless experience, as she plays a character pushed over the edge and into the realm of violence. A new trailer for Season 2 of the series has been released, which you can see below.

Season 2 sees wallflower-turned-killer Rhiannon Lewis (Purnell) navigate a new promotion, an irresistible rebound, and a copycat killer threatening to expose her. The kill list is mounting, and she is forced to question whether her perfect ex, AJ, was right: is she a monster?

Jon Pointing, Jeremy Swift, Leah Harvey, Ingrid Oliver, Nitin Ganatra, and Alexandra Dowling return to star in Sweetpea Season 2 alongside Ella Purnell. New additions include Rish Shah, Tamsin Greig, Taj Atwal, and Jenny Walser.

Created by Kirstie Swain, Sweetpea is based on the 2017 novel written by CJ Skuse.

While the narrative itself is compelling enough in its own right, as audiences have watched the descent of Rhiannon into a dark and disturbing place after she’s pushed too far, what makes the adaptation all the more engaging is how it showcases Purnell’s range as a performer. Her role in Fallout similarly forces her to embrace a more aggressive approach to the world around her, though in a way that’s necessary for survival. Sweetpea, though, might deliver glimpses of empathetic moments due to the way her character is treated, but it’s also challenging to root for her to continue to descend down such a dark path.

Season 2 of Sweetpea is set to launch on Sky in the UK in November and early 2027 on Starz.

Are you looking forward to Season 2 of the series? Let us know in the comments below!

The post ‘Sweetpea’ Is Back for More Blood in Season 2 Trailer for Ella Purnell’s Serial Killer Series appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

If you ask me, the best explanation for this tradition happens to be the one cooked up by Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson in the Scream franchise. In those films, Ghost Face is more of a mantle than a true character, with disgruntled killers donning the iconic costume as a way of adding to the mythology of the original Woodsboro murders. That’s why the franchise has seen nearly twenty characters wear the infamous Fun World mask since 1996!

With the franchise showing no sign of stopping even after three decades of meta scares, and NECA‘s Ultimate Ghost Face action figure, fully articulated and equipped with a horrifying haul of accessories, I’ve decided to come up with a list ranking every incarnation of Ghost Face that we’ve seen so far.

Naturally, this ranking is purely based on personal opinion, though I think it’s worth mentioning that I’ll be evaluating killers according to their skill, motivation, and charisma/scare-factor – not the overall quality of the movie they appeared in. I’ll also be bundling groups/pairs of killers together in order to keep things simple.

That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own personal Ghost Face rankings if you have a different take.

With that out of the way, onto the list!

9. Jessica & Marco – Scream VII (2025)

The seventh entry of the Friday the 13^th franchise already had Jason Voorhees facing off against a super-powered Carrie knock-off in an attempt to keep things fresh, so you can imagine that the creative team behind Scream VII had their work cut out for them when they had to come up with yet another original whodunnit without resorting to supernatural shenanigans.

Unfortunately, after so many variations of spurned lovers and vengeful film nerds, having the new pair of killers simply be a middle-aged couple motivated by Sidney’s absence in the previous Ghost Face murders just wasn’t going to cut it. And while I’ll concede that Jessica and Marco had a few brutal kills, that’s not enough to keep them from being the least interesting murderers in the series – especially after all that teasing about Stu Macher possibly still being alive.

8. Jamal & Beth – Scream: Resurrection (2018)

As a fan of the first two seasons of MTV’s Scream, it took me a while to accept Scream Resurrection as a worthy follow-up, even though I’m still sour about the previous show’s lack of a proper conclusion. While Resurrection certainly has its moments, the final reveal behind this urban whodunnit felt pretty underwhelming.

Jamal’s telenovela-like character arc involving twins swapping lives was silly enough, but having his partner’s motives turn out to be pretty much the same as Charlie’s from Scream 4 only compounded the disappointment even if their actual kills weren’t half-bad.

7. Piper & Kieran (+ Tom) – MTV’s Scream (2015-2016)

MTV’s Scream had a lot riding against it when it first came out, with the show not being allowed to use the iconic Fun World mask and presenting itself as more of a teen drama with slasher elements than a proper horror show. However, I’d argue that the showrunners were still able to tell a compelling story within those limitations, with their choice of Ghost Face killers suggesting that they understood what fans loved about the movies.

For instance, the scheming Piper felt like an effective combination of Gail’s darker side with a tinge of inherited fury like we saw in Sam Carpenter later on in the franchise, and I always thought Kieran made for a compelling follow-up to the Billy Loomis bad boy archetype. Hell, even Tom Martin made for an interesting killer despite being the most obvious suspect in the Halloween special, though a lot of that is due to Alexander Calvert’s natural charisma.

6. Richie & Amber – Scream (2022)

Dealing with toxic fandom may be rough, but it’s certainly not as big of a deal as Scream’s ultimate killer reveal makes it out to be – especially since the rest of this requel is more about criticizing the diminishing returns of Legacy Sequels rather than exploring the consequences of having a rabid fanbase.

Thankfully, memorable performances by both Jack Quaid and Mikey Madison more than make up for their characters’ flimsy motivations, with this killer couple being a big part of what made the movie such a big hit. That being said, I’m still a little mad that this is the duo who took out my favorite character in the franchise.

5. Ethan, Quinn & Wayne (+ Jason Carvey) – Scream VI (2023)

I wasn’t a fan of having a killer be motivated by the death of a previous Ghost Face even when Scream 2 did it back in ’97, but I’d argue that the triple threat of Ethan, Quinn and Wayne makes up for the recycled premise by being the most brutal ensemble of killers in the entire franchise.

From shotgun blasts at point-blank range to Anika’s prolonged suffering before falling to her death, Scream VI’s Ghost Face is likely the scariest version of the “character” so far. It’s just too bad that the masked figure loses much of that mystique once the killers’ identities are finally revealed.

I’d also like to give a shout out to that Jason Carvey cameo towards the beginning of the film, as his fake-out killer reveal feels like something straight out of a Stab film.

4. Nancy Loomis & Mickey Altieri – Scream 2 (1997)

While I get the irony of having the sequel’s vengeful killer serve as an inverted callback to Friday the 13^th’s Pamela Voorhees, Nancy and her psychotic protégé, wonderfully played by Timothy Olyphant, didn’t quite live up to the over-the-top perfection that was Billy and Stu.

However, that doesn’t mean that Mrs. Loomis and Mickey were any less threatening while wearing the iconic Ghost Face costume, with Scream 2 serving up some of the most thrilling chase sequences in the entire franchise – not to mention a gloriously meta opening kill.

3. Roman Bridger – Scream 3 (2000)

The identity of Scream 3’s solo killer may not make a lot of sense if you pay close attention to the film’s timelin, and pulling a criminal mastermind half-brother out of thin air was a sign that the franchise desperately needed a time-out, but I’m still of the opinion that having the final Ghost Face of the original trilogy be a movie director was a deliciously meta idea.

Not only that, but Roman Bridger was Ghost Face at his most playful, especially with that silly new voice-changer, with the villain tackling Hollywood corruption in what felt like a natural conclusion to a satirical trilogy about the dark side of genre media.

I also love that this is technically the only Ghost Face to have ever performed alongside Creed!

2. Jill & Charlie – Scream 4 (2011)

Hearing a packed theater collectively gasp as Emma Roberts violently injured herself in order to convince the cops that she was a Final Girl remains one of my all-time favorite moviegoing memories. It was also one hell of a way to establish that the mastermind behind this particular murder spree was even more unhinged than her predecessors.

However, it’s not the surprise behind the reveal that Sidney’s own cousin and her cinephile friend Charlie were behind the killings that makes this incarnation of Ghost Face so memorable, nor the creativity behind the death scenes themselves, but the fact that Craven and Williamson so accurately predicted the rise of clout-chasing influencers willing to do anything for fifteen minutes of online fame.

Not only that, but you can also interpret Jill’s plan to force Sidney to “pass the torch” to a new generation as something of a condemnation of Legacy Sequels before they became such a popular way of reviving older horror IPs!

1. Stu Macher & Billy Loomis – Scream (1996)

I don’t think anyone will be surprised with my number one pick, as it’s hard to overstate just how shocking it was back in the day when the original Scream revealed that its movie-obsessed killer was in fact a pair of deeply disturbed high-schoolers!

This unique choice of murderers fit perfectly within the film’s meta exploration of a culture that might be a little too obsessed with media, but Skeet Ulrich and Mathew Lillard’s oddly sexy rapport was also so iconic that the franchise is still struggling to recreate that once-in-a-generation movie magic three decades down the line!

That’s why no one else could have taken the number one spot!

You can bring the Ultimate Ghost Face home for Halloween.

The post Ranking Every Ghost Face Killer in the ‘Scream’ Franchise appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Throwing on a horror movie is one way to get your fix of terror, as a complete journey into the macabre can be completed within two hours. With a horror TV show, however, the tension is stretched across multiple hours, making for a prolonged sense of unease that can keep us on the edge of our seats for days. While there are plenty of horror movies that are dominating streaming services, a number of 2026 horror series have also been climbing the ranks in recent months.

Over at JustWatch, the service that alerts you to the availability of movies and TV shows available on streaming platforms, the most popular 2026 streaming horror and thriller series for Halloween have been revealed. The top 10 are as follows:

1. Widow’s Bay (Season 1) — Apple TV
2. FROM (Season 4) — MGM+
3. Carrie (Season 1) — Prime Video
4. American Horror Story (Season 13) — Hulu
5. Crystal Lake (Season 1) — Peacock
6. Below (Season 1) — Netflix
7. The Beauty (Season 1) — Hulu
8. YAGA (Season 1) — AMC+
9. Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen (Season 1) — Netflix
10. The Vampire Lestat (Season 3) — AMC+ / Prime Video

Widow’s Bay has become one of the year’s biggest surprises. Created by Parks and Recreation alum Katie Dippold and starring Matthew Rhys, there was plenty to be excited about, though no one was prepared for just how hilarious and frightening a show about an island community off the coast of New England plagued by otherworldly forces could be. The series didn’t only appeal to genre fans, as it went on to score a record-breaking 14 Emmy Awards, the most ever for a single season of a comedy series.

FROM, meanwhile, has slowly but surely amassed a devoted fan base, as proven by the fact that even on a niche service like MGM+, the story of travelers getting trapped in small town has become one of the most popular shows of the year. A new Mike Flanagan show is always something worth celebrating, as is a new Stephen King series, so the two creatives uniting on Carrie has understandably made it a strong performer on streaming.

Ryan Murphy has been a major force in genre TV for years, so it’s no surprise that two of his 2026 series, American Horror Story and The Beauty, both landed in the top 10. Just weeks after its debut, the Friday the 13th prequel series Crystal Lake has become one of Peacock’s most popular series, while Netflix’s Below has also quickly gained prominence in just the few short weeks on the platform.

Two AMC series have made their way into the top 10, courtesy of YAGA and The Vampire Lestat, and even though Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen debuted all the way back in January, clearly fans still can’t stop thinking about it.

Which of these TV series have you checked out? Let us know in the comments below!

The post The Top 10 Most Popular 2026 Horror Series to Stream on Halloween, According to JustWatch appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Mama Bear is written, directed and edited by Curry Barker, and the cast includes Jon Lee Richardson as Floyd, Katie Sarife as Lacey, Ericka Kreuz as Ms. Wilson, and Joshua Snyder as Floyd’s Doppelgänger. The short reunites Barker with Obsession production designer Vivian Gray. 

Mama Bear feels like it’s plucked right out of the Obsession universe, with somebody somewhere cracking open a One Wish Willow some time before the events of the short. It’s not a horror short about obsession, however, but rather one that plunges a man into a nightmare that begins with a chilling phone call and ends with the reveal that he’s not the only version of himself.

He’s got a Doppelgänger, and that Doppelgänger has just done something terrible…

Obsession may have made Curry Barker a highly in-demand filmmaker, but it was his viral YouTube horror shorts like The Chair that paved the way for his breakout hit. Milk & Serial was Barker’s second horror project, released on the comedy channel That’s a Bad Idea.

Mama Bear returns Barker to his short film roots this Halloween. Watch it below.

The post ‘Mama Bear’ – Watch Curry Barker’s Brand New Horror Short appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

In case you need a refresher, Demon Spore casts you as a top scientist at Protagenics, a cutting-edge genetic research laboratory. You’re racing to solve the problem of feeding an ever growing population. In the process, your team has overstepped ethical boundaries with gene editing in an attempt to breed a new form of livestock that will grow at 100 times the rate of normal animals.

The result is their experiment being mysteriously tampered, resulting in a virally spreading mass of cells that is consuming everything in its path and evolving into a creature from hell. You must use your scientific experience to learn how the organism behaves, exploit its weaknesses and fight your way to safety.

The new demo has you scrambling across the first floor of the Protagenics lab to start your escape – if you can make it to the elevator, you’ll be well-prepared for the horrors in the full release. If the challenge is too much alone, team up with 4 players on the couch, across the world with Steam Remote Play Together, or a mix of both. The full release of Demon Spore will support online co-op.

Strike back against the mass using six experimental weapons, including a tesla coil gun and a scalpel thrower, with more weapons to come in the full release. You may not make it on your first try, but giving up is not an option. Each treacherous attempt has a new layout and new equipment, so choose your route carefully.

The post New Demo for Twin Stick Shooter ‘Demon Spore’ Out Now [Trailer] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

What’s next?

Salt Entertainment today announced an agreement with Clive Barker and Park Ave Ent. LLC to develop and publish a new line of officially licensed Hellraiser tabletop games, including board games, tabletop roleplaying games and original games for the retail market!

The first Hellraiser games are planned for release beginning Halloween 2027, marking the 40th anniversary of Clive Barker’s 1987 horror film.

“Hellraiser has been my favorite film since I saw it at a way-too-young age, so the opportunity to work with Clive Barker, one of the great creative visionaries of our time, is genuinely a dream come true,” said Geoff Skinner, President of Salt Games. “It’s an extraordinary world with four decades of mythology to explore, and one that lends itself beautifully to tabletop gaming. The Lament Configuration is literally a puzzle that opens a door you probably shouldn’t open. How do you not want to play with that?”

Salt is developing the property as a broad tabletop program rather than a single release, with games designed for both long-time Hellraiser fans and players discovering the franchise for the first time.

The initial slate includes three accessible retail games: a fast-playing dice game built around temptation, risk and how far players are willing to push their luck; an escape-room-style tabletop game inspired by the mysteries of the Lament Configuration; and a social deduction game in which hidden desires, shifting loyalties and questionable choices make it increasingly difficult to know whom – or what – to trust.

Veteran game designer Michael Shinall will design a major new Hellraiser board game for Salt Entertainment. Shinall’s credits include Bloodborne: The Board Game, Marvel Zombies and A Song of Ice & Fire: Tabletop Miniatures Game.

“Horror has always fascinated me, particularly the way it gives us a space to explore unease, tension and dread,” said Shinall. “Many franchises focus on threats from outside, but Hellraiser understands that the deepest horrors come from within the human psyche. Bringing those themes to the tabletop has been a personal ambition of mine for years, and now I’ve been given the perfect vessel. In short, I have such sights to show you.”

Acclaimed designer Francesco Nepitello, co-designer of The One Ring Roleplaying Game and the award-winning War of the Ring board game, will design a new Hellraiser tabletop roleplaying game (RPG), opening the franchise’s world to original stories built around temptation, desire, consequence and the terrifying unknown beyond the human world.

“I wanted to design a horror roleplaying game for years,” said Nepitello. “Getting to do it with Hellraiser is incredibly exciting. Its blend of dread, desire and forbidden knowledge offers so much to explore at the gaming table. I can’t wait to open the box with the players.”

“There’s something wonderfully intimate about gathering around a table to frighten one another,” said Clive Barker. “Everyone brings an imagination, a few secret fears, and perhaps a little too much confidence. I’m delighted that these Hellraiser games invite players into unexplored corners of the mythology. Curiosity is both the invitation and the trouble. I suspect they’ll know certain doors ought to remain closed. I’m counting on them being unable to resist.”

Stay tuned for much more on all things Hellraiser as we learn it.

The post ‘Hellraiser’ Tabletop Games Coming Next Halloween from Salt Entertainment and Clive Barker appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The game I chose to run was the 2015 RPG Ten Candles by Stephen Dewey, which is billed as a “game of tragic horror.” Not only is it a game with simple rules that are easy to learn, but it also encourages a stellar atmosphere at the table.

If you’re thinking of running Ten Candles, the first thing you should do is emphasize to your players that it’s bleak. By the very structure of the game, no one will survive.

Instead of a traditional journey of heroes overcoming odds to save the world, characters will be desperately trying to make a small difference as they fight through their last moments before the end. This desperation is not only because of the dour setting, which is purposefully loose but with just enough definition, but also because of the pacing mechanics that shift the balance of narrative power as the game progresses.

Ten days ago, the world went dark. The cause is unknown, but the effect is total. With the darkness came vicious creatures that people simply took to calling “Them,” and supplies are beginning to run out for survivors. This is the general setup, which allows you to get a great idea of the tone while still giving your group room to fill in the specifics through play. Even the modules included in the book are starting points rather than fully prepped scenarios, which emphasizes the collaborative nature of the game.

Why the Candles Are More Than a Clever Gimmick

If you’ve heard of Ten Candles before, it’s likely because of its gimmick, which goes far beyond just an attention-grabbing trick. You play in the dark, with your only light being provided by ten tea candles that you have placed in a circle around your playspace. These act as your timer for the characters’ eventual demise. As your dice rolls fail, you’ll put them out one by one, slowly making the physical space you’re playing in darker as the story’s tone gets more grim.

In addition, inadvertently putting out candles just by moving at the table will also have consequences, which adds a layer of physical tension that’s hard to get. It’s rare that I’ve seen a game that has so perfectly melded its story and mechanics to create a unique environment around the physical table, and it makes the game top in class.

The dice themselves are linked directly to the candles, shifting the balance of narrative power as the light dwindles. Anytime the story gets to a place of uncertainty, the GM can call for a Conflict Roll. When this happens, the player rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to the number of lit candles while the GM rolls dice equal to the number of unlit candles. Whichever person ends up with more sixes has narrative control over what happens next. On a success, if any ones are rolled, those are removed from the dice pool for the remainder of the scene.

How the Dice System Builds Tension Naturally

As you can see, the game begins pretty easy. When trying to search for supplies or sneak down a dark alley, it will be fairly trivial to succeed given the sheer amount of dice you will be rolling. But sixes aren’t guaranteed, and eventually the odds will catch up to you, causing you to lose a candle, slowly making each scene more and more dangerous. Late game rolls truly feel desperate, as you are praying for even just one six while hoping beyond hope that your GM has a bad roll.

Once things start to go bad, everything goes downhill quickly until all your players have met their tragic end. It’s such an elegant system that mechanically reinforces a very natural horror arc in a way that makes everyone at the table feel like they are contributing to the terrifying tale being told.

To further add to the mood, there is a ritual-like process you go through every time you fail a roll or end a scene. The GM starts off this phase by saying, “These things are true: the world is dark.” After that, the players and the GM will go around the table and establish truths about the situation equal to the number of remaining candles, with the final truth, said collectively by the group, being “and we are alive.”

Not only does this create an interesting rhythm to the game, making it feel unique and atmospheric, but it’s a powerful resource for the players to take control and move the story where they want to. Truths can be things like, “and we arrived safely to the police station” or “we find a survivor on the road,” so it’s an exercise in collectively figuring out where the next scene will pick up. Since everyone is bought in on telling this tragic tale, this shouldn’t be something that’s abused to ‘win,’ but rather to continue to craft a compelling narrative that everyone can enjoy.

Even if your truth is something like “and I find a gun,” the GM can always make “with only one bullet” a truth on their turn, so it becomes a push-and-pull improv game of getting what you want with the knowledge that it will come crashing down later.

Collaborative Storytelling at Its Most Powerful

In line with the collaborative spirit of the game, character creation is also done collectively. Characters are made up of traits (a virtue and a vice), moments, and brinks, which are all written down on individual index cards. Rather than writing your own traits, these will be chosen by the players to your left and right and handed to you. Once you have your virtue and vice, you’ll come up with a general character concept and a moment, which will be a scene of your character finding hope that you will weave into the story at some point.

Once you have that, you’ll get a brink from another player next to you, and that will be a situation where you have been pushed to the edge by desperation. Importantly, one person will actually write a brink for the GM that will define an aspect of Them, allowing at least one player to have some narrative control over the horrors that they face on their journey.

These index cards are placed in a stack in front of you, and you can use the top one in order to gain specific benefits during the game, generally in the form of rerolls. This gives you a resource to fight back against failure, as long as you are able to narratively tie in whatever you are spending into the action being performed. To keep everything focused on the titular candles, the way you expend these characteristics is by physically burning the index card you’re using.

It’s truly something to watch a piece of your character actually burn in front of you, making for a compelling touch that just adds to the mystique of the game.

The Recording That Delivers One Final Emotional Gut Punch

The final piece of the puzzle before you start in earnest is the recording, one of the most emotional twists to the game. After character creation is done, the GM passes around a digital recording device, and each player takes a moment to record a parting message before they set off on their final quest. This could be something like a note for a family member or a report to a superior officer, whatever makes sense for the character you’ve created.

The GM then holds onto this recording and plays it at the very end of the game after all characters are dead and the players are left sitting in the darkness. It’s a surprisingly emotional touch, hearing the characters’ previous moments of hope or optimism play after the moment when all is lost. It’s a perfect way to end such a unique and flavorful game, wrapping it up in a way that feels almost cinematic in its delivery.

As much as the mechanics shine, everything in this brief 81-page rulebook is laser-focused on helping you create atmosphere at the table. Not only is the book clear in its depiction of the rules, but the writing itself is wonderfully evocative. In the intro of the book, it describes the stories you tell through Ten Candles as “the sort of story that has sharp edges. The kind that lingers long after it’s gone, nesting in nightmares and drifting on every shadow.”

It’s such a beautifully written book that puts you in the right headspace for playing it with every turn of phrase.

Why Ten Candles Still Stands Above Other Horror RPGs

I’ve run many, many games since that first game of Ten Candles, but few are as memorable or impactful. I’ll always remember the raving artist that stalked my players through the woods, or the horror of seeing his creations come to life when they reached his “gallery” that was set up in the military base they thought would be their sanctuary. The moments of victory after succeeding at an impossible roll or the defeat of failing after sacrificing one of their traits.

Even though everyone ‘loses’ in the end, it feels like you’ve truly collaborated on a horrifying tale on par with many genre classics, all while basking in an atmosphere unlike any other I’ve experienced at the table.

Roleplaying games already have a lot in common with rituals, and Ten Candles leans into that idea as hard as possible, creating an unforgettable experience.

Ten Candles is available for purchase from Calvary Games.

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On top of all the popular and well-known titles it features, Tubi boasts a number of hidden gems. These are movies that have gone unnoticed by the masses, or they’ve been forgotten. In either case, they’re entertaining and deserve more eyes on them.

The following are ten horror hidden gems that can now be found at Tubi.

Death Weekend (1976)

You may know Brenda Vaccaro from her stage work, from movies like Midnight Cowboy, or that Golden Girls episode where she played Sophia’s daughter-in-law. Regardless of how you recognize Vaccaro, don’t overlook one of her most visceral and vulnerable performances. After being hard to find for a number of years, this Canadian slice of exploitation is now tucked away on Tubi. It’s presented in the 4:3 aspect ratio, but that only elevates its drive-in quality. In William Fruet‘s Death Weekend (a.k.a. The House by the Lake), a couple’s romantic getaway is disrupted by a group of cruel home invaders.

The Enchanted (1984)

Folk horror varies from movie to movie, but for the most part, they’re about someone’s unusual beliefs. This applies to the spellbinding The Enchanted, a regional folktale shot in rural Florida. Here, a sailor (Will Sennett) returns from sea, and while fixing up an old ranch, he meets a local family. A neighbor played by Julius Harris advises him to steer clear of Miss Twyla (Casey Blanton) and her weird kin, but of course that warning goes unheeded.

The Caller (1987)

You’re advised not to read a thing about Arthur Allan Seidelman‘s The Caller beforehand. It’s best to go in not knowing any details about this movie other than the setup. In this two hander, the only characters, who are simply credited as The Girl (Madolyn Smith) and the Caller (Malcolm McDowell), are trapped with each other’s company. The Girl allows this random stranger into her remote house in the woods, unaware of his intentions. Keep in mind, his host has secrets of her own. Once again, do watch The Caller without spoiling yourself. That way the ending will come as more of a shock.

Demonwarp (1988)

From the director who brought us New Year’s Evil is this wild-as-hell Bigfoot movie. Emmett Alston‘s Demonwarp looks to be a basic cryptid slasher, but soon it turns into something else entirely. The schlock factor, however, never fades. Here, George Kennedy and his young co-stars are in for a nightmare as they deal with not only a rampaging Bigfoot, but also the strange forces lurking in these woods.

The Wrong Door (1990)

Fans of regional horror may be interested in Bill Weiss and Shawn Korby‘s The Wrong Door. Shot on Super 8 and for very little money, this largely all-in-one-night suspense tale is worth seeking out. The trouble begins after mystery-loving college student Ted (Matt Felmlee) gets mixed up in a mystery of his own. During his part-time job as a singing telegram deliverer, he briefly goes to the wrong address. The woman who answered is mouthing things like “help me” to him, but Ted doesn’t understand. That is until the same woman later turns up dead, and the killer then comes after Ted.

Campfire Tales (1997)

Conceived in 1995, and almost put into theaters, the anthology Campfire Tales has garnered a following, in spite of its relative unavailability for some years. Then all of a sudden, it found its way to streaming. In this omnibus, which was co-directed by Martin Kunert, David Semel and Matt Cooper, four young people (including The Craft‘s Christine Taylor) are stranded in the woods after a car accident. They then bide their time by telling tales based on urban legends and ghost stories. Other before-they-were-famous stars in the movie are James Marsden, Ron Livingston and Amy Smart.

The Paranormal (1998)

To all the shot-on-video enthusiasts reading this, your assignment is to watch The Paranormal ASAP. Todd Norris‘ Kansas-shot movie is more charming than scary, but that’s no reason to let it collect more dust. This lo-fi production centers around a paranormal academic (Norris) who’s given a new field assignment; a theater in his hometown is reportedly haunted. Any assumptions you ever had about SOV will be challenged after one viewing of this sharp and well-made movie. Oh, and be on the lookout for Darren Lynn Bousman; he played a zombie here before directing movies like Saw II and Repo! The Genetic Opera.

Infection (2004)

Infection (a.k.a. Kansen) hails from a series of movies called “J-Horror Theater”. Other installments in this line include Takashi Shimizu‘s Reincarnation and Kiyoshi Kurosawa‘s Retribution. In Masayuki Ochiai‘s entry, a hospital is overcome by what seems like the supernatural after a doctor (Kōichi Satō) and his team make a grave medical error.  This goopy, creepy movie is based on Ochiai’s segment in the 1991 anthology Tales of the Unusual: Spring Edition; the story was inspired by the hospital setting of The Exorcist III.

Butterfly Kisses (2018)

Tubi is a fountain of found footage, but as many would agree, it can be tough to sift through everything there. Even so, you can always count on Butterfly Kisses, a movie from the last ten years that has rightfully gained a sizable fanbase. Erik Kristopher Myers concocted a frightfully fun urban legend, then spun it into a story that’s both terrifying and affecting. One of this movie’s additional strengths is the attention paid to its complex main character.

Initiation (2020)

While it’s not a remake of 1984’s The Initiation, John Berardo‘s Initiation is also a slasher. And unlike the former movie, this is a rather grounded take on the formula we all know and love. However, the story is timely with its themes and content; a case of sexual assault on a college campus leads to a spree of brutal murders committed by a mysterious, masked killer. Initiation is definitely heavier than some of its contemporaries, but it also never forgets to be a slasher. You can expect suspenseful chases, vicious kills, and a surprising unmasking.

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As mentioned, Moonlit Vigil casts you as the cemetery’s new caretaker. Less gruesome than being a mortuary assistant (but just as scary), as you go about your duties in the cemetery, stranger and stranger things start to happen, quickly turning your first shift into a nightmare. Players will explore the cemetery grounds and uncover what really happens to bodies once they’ve been buried.

Combining exploration, environmental puzzles, and a talking crow (?!), you’ll discover that every living and dead being in this place has their own story. You’ll need to observe closely in order to piece together what really happened in the cemetery. There are also plenty of “blink and you’ll miss it” scares for those in the mood for some jumpscares.

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The story concerns spatial anomalies known as “Otherworlds”, which have appeared on earth without warning. The government’s “Special Danger Zone Countermeasures Office” has been unsuccessful in repelling the threat and determining the origin of the anomalies. Players take control of investigator Reona Minazuki, who has been awakened from a 10-year slumber inside an anomaly known as the “Sarcophogus” and acquired a keen sensitivity to the Otherworlds. Reona must rescue her lost friend, determine the origins of the Anomaly Zones and navigate the mystery of her new powers.

Players will have to manage resources while fending off otherworldly creatures, upgrade and exploit 12 unique game-changing powers, and customize their weapons and outfits with numerous possibilities and stat-altering functionality. All the while, you’ll be exploring strange worlds such as an apartment complex with inverted gravity, shopping streets that seemingly extend infinitely, or a dark hall that seems to be writhing with a life of its own.

“FURYU is incredibly excited to finally share our first survival horror shooter with both our long-time fans as well as horror lovers looking for new experiences and thrilling stories,” explains ANOMALITH producer Gai Kidokoro. “ANOMALITH is something very different for us, but rest assured aspects like the worldview, characters with compelling storylines, and moving music are part of this title too. We’re honored to put our stamp on the world of survival horror action and look forward to players experiencing our take on one of our favorite game genres. ”

Currently, those looking to purchase the game on Steam can enjoy a 10% launch discount from now until November 11.

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Finn will remain on board as producer and was the one who came up with the framework for the third installment. Smile and Smile 2 each saw their protagonists unravel after witnessing a traumatic event resulting in the death of someone bearing a sinister grin. It’s assumed the third will shift to a new unlucky victim of the entity.

Of course, no other details on the threequel have been divulged so far, but when previously speaking to Finn about the potential for a third film and how to beat the entity, he told Bloody Disgusting, “I want to make sure that if Smile continues, I think it could grow larger and could go in so many different directions. What’s important to me is that while we have the Smile entity and the curse as sort of this throughline, the storytelling remains very intimate and personal and really about the characters. I think Smile’s at its best when the supernatural component is a slight push that causes the human horror to explode.“

He added, “That’s really important to me and something that I hope will continue with Smile.“ 

Finn wrote and directed 2022’s Smile and the 2024 sequel Smile 2. The former became a huge sleeper hit, earning $105 million domestically and $217 million globally.

The franchise is being handed off to capable hands. David Bruckner is known for horror films like The Ritual, The Night House, and Hellraiser (2022), while Nick Antosca is behind series like Channel Zero, Cape Fear, and Brand New Cherry Flavor.

Finn’s new take on Possession is expected in theaters on June 11, 2027. Stay tuned for more on Smile 3 as it arrives.

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