Movies
Frightful February: 23 Horror Movies, TV Shows and Video Games Coming This Month!
It’s a short month, but there’s no shortage of horror this February.
The nightmares begin on February 4 with the release of A Nightmare Wakes on Shudder! The new biopic from writer/director Nora Unkel follows Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, as her real-life and fictional worlds collide in the midst of an opium haze. In his review at Bloody-Disgusting, John Squires calls the film “a heartbreaking portrait of one woman’s pain and the enduring piece of art that it led her to create.”
Also on February 4 comes the video game Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood, for the PC, PS4, PS5, XBO and Xbox Series. The adaptation of the long-running role-playing game puts the player in the role of a werewolf who aims to take down a corrupt organization polluting the environment. And over on HBO Max, February 4 brings with it The Head, a mystery series set at an Antarctic station where the crew has either died or gone missing.
Horror and music fans rejoice, because John Carpenter’s Lost Themes III: Alive After Death comes out on February 5! The latest collection of music from the director and composter of Halloween emerges from Sacred Bones Records. In his review at Bloody-Disgusting, Michael Pementel says that “in all its technical depth, creativity, and vibrant delivery, Carpenter’s third Lost Themes installment proves to be his strongest release yet.”
You can listen to John Carpenter’s latest while you queue up the new release Invisible City, a supernatural series debuting on Netflix about a murder investigation that leads to a world of creatures from Brazilian folklore. The series also premieres on February 5.
‘The Reckoning’
February 5 also sees the premiere of The Reckoning, the latest from Neil Marshall (Hellboy). The film, debuting in theaters and on VOD, tells a story set in the 17th century, about a woman accused by her landlord of being a witch. Charlotte Kirk and Sean Pertwee co-star in a film Bloody-Disgusting critic Joe Lipsett says “isn’t quite the return to form for Neil Marshall that genre fans might have hoped for, but it’s nowhere near the misfire that Hellboy was.”
On February 9, audiences will get to experience a distinctive horror vision in Sator, a film about a demonic entity that has been preying on a family, interwoven with actual documentary footage of the filmmaker’s own family. Sator premieres on Digital, and Bloody-Disgusting’s critic Meredith Borders called the film “weird and fascinating, sometimes impenetrable, always enthralling.”
That same day, Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, From Beyond, Castle Freak) returns to the realm of Lovecraftian horror with Sacrifice, about a man taking his pregnant wife to Norway and uncovering a malevolent cult. Sacrifice debuts on VOD on February 9 before its Blu-ray premiere on February 23.
“Clarice”
Nearly six years after Hannibal went off the air, the works of Thomas Harris return to television with the all-new reboot Clarice, which stars Rebecca Breeds (The Originals) as FBI agent Clarice Starling, who solves more crimes after the events that took place in The Silence of the Lambs. The series premieres on February 11 on CBS.
In the world of streaming, February 11 brings the debut of After Midnight on Shudder. The new thriller tells the story of a man, played by writer/director Jeremy Gardner (The Battery), whose girlfriend disappears, and who is being stalked by a monster every night. Over on Netflix, February 11 sees the premiere of Red Dot, a Swedish survival thriller about a couple whose romantic hiking trip gets ruined by a mysterious sniper.
Or, if gaming is your thing, you could switch to your PC, PS4, Switch or XBO and play Little Nightmares II. The sequel features creepy children trying to shut down creepy hypnotic television signals that have captivated all the adults, in a creepy way. Little Nightmares II also debuts on February 11.
‘Saint Maud’
If you love horror then make sure you mark down February 12. That’s the day that Saint Maud finally debuts on Epix HD in America, after a brief (and long-delayed) theatrical release in January. The film, from writer/director Rose Glass, tells the story of a pious nurse trying to save the soul of her dying patient because she believes God told her to, but this movie is being written about on Bloody-Disgusting, so you can guess that it’s not a feel-good drama. In his review, our critic Joe Lipsett called Saint Maud “slow, and moody, and gorgeous, and powerful. It’s simply good cinema.”
Joining Saint Maud on February 12 is the new thriller Fear of Rain, about a mentally ill teenager who suspects her neighbor has committed a horrible crime, starring Madison Iseman and Katherine Heigl. The film debuts on Digital Demand, Blu-ray on DVD.
Or, if you’re looking for something VERY different, you can watch Nicolas Cage beat the living hell out of animatronic kids restaurant monsters in Willy’s Wonderland, a movie that seems to evoke Five Nights at Freddy’s without actually being Five Nights at Freddy’s. The film also debuts in theaters and VOD on February 12.
‘Willy’s Wonderland’
Also debuting on February 12 is the latest installment of Hulu’s Into the Dark! The monthly series of feature-length horror movies continues with Tentacles, a Valentine’s Day-themed psychosexual horror film with an aquatic element, directed by Clara Aranovich, who previously helmed last year’s installment How to Succeed in Business Without Really Dying.
And for younger horror fans, February 12 brings the premiere of the second season of Nickelodeon’s Are You Afraid of the Dark? reboot. The six-part storyline Curse of the Shadows features a new Midnight Society, full of teen horror fans who have to save their town from a monster called “The Shadowman.”
Fans of Paul W.S. Anderson’s particular blend of over the top, monster-fighting action who missed Monster Hunter in theaters (and who could blame you, it’s a pandemic) will get their chance to see the video game adaptation when it hits VOD on February 16. Resident Evil star Milla Jovovich plays a soldier who gets pulled into an alternate dimension, and has to team up with a mysterious warrior, played by Tony Jaa, to learn how to hunt gigantic monsters in order to survive. In her review at Bloody-Disgusting, critic Meagan Navarro said of the film, “There’s inherent silliness to it all, highlighted by some cheesy writing. Yet you’re likely to have a blast anyway.”
‘Monster Hunter’
Over on Shudder, horror fans can get Shook on February 18. The new thriller tells the story of a social media star who’s forced to play games or else her loved ones get murdered. And that’ll just have to tide you over until February 23, when the reboot of Wrong Turn debuts on VOD after a very brief theatrical premiere in January. The remake stars Emma Dumont (The Gifted), Bill Sage (We Are What We Are) and Matthew Modine (47 Meters Down), and features a new mythology for the franchise about homicidal people in the hills.
Retro gamers have a reason to get excited on February 25, because that’s when Ghosts ’n Goblins Resurrection debuts on the Switch! The original video game is still considered one of the hardest ever created, and the new horror-themed side-scroller looks to recapture the feel of the original.
On February 26, the festival favorite The Vigil finally makes its debut in theaters and on VOD. The new film from writer/director Keith Thomas is steeped in Jewish folklore, telling the story of a Shimera gone horribly wrong. In his review at Bloody-Disgusting, Joe Lipsett says “as an alternative to standard (and stale) Catholic religious horror […] this feels like a breath of fresh air.”
And finally… hey, did you hear about this zombie show called The Walking Dead? The tenth season returns on February 28. You may want to check it out. People seem to dig it.
Remember that all release dates and formats are subject to change, and have a frightful February!
“The Walking Dead”
Here’s what we know about Longlegs so far. It’s coming in July of 2024, it’s directed by Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter), and it features Maika Monroe (It Follows) as an FBI agent who discovers a personal connection between her and a serial killer who has ties to the occult. We know that the serial killer is going to be played by none other than Nicolas Cage and that the marketing has been nothing short of cryptic excellence up to this point.
At the very least, we can assume NEON’s upcoming film is going to be a dark, horror-fueled hunt for a serial killer. With that in mind, let’s take a look at five disturbing serial killers-versus-law-enforcement stories to get us even more jacked up for Longlegs.
MEMORIES OF MURDER (2003)
This South Korean film directed by Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) is a wild ride. The film features a handful of cops who seem like total goofs investigating a serial killer who brutally murders women who are out and wearing red on rainy evenings. The cops are tired, unorganized, and border on stoner comedy levels of idiocy. The movie at first seems to have a strange level of forgiveness for these characters as they try to pin the murders on a mentally handicapped person at one point, beating him and trying to coerce him into a confession for crimes he didn’t commit. A serious cop from the big city comes down to help with the case and is able to instill order.
But still, the killer evades and provokes not only the police but an entire country as everyone becomes more unstable and paranoid with each grizzly murder and sex crime.
I’ve never seen a film with a stranger tone than Memories of Murder. A movie that deals with such serious issues but has such fallible, seemingly nonserious people at its core. As the film rolls on and more women are murdered, you realize that a lot of these faults come from men who are hopeless and desperate to catch a killer in a country that – much like in another great serial killer story, Citizen X – is doing more harm to their plight than good.
Major spoiler warning: What makes Memories of Murder somehow more haunting is that it’s loosely based on a true story. It is a story where the real-life killer hadn’t been caught at the time of the film’s release. It ends with our main character Detective Park (Song Kang-ho), now a salesman, looking hopelessly at the audience (or judgingly) as the credits roll. Over sixteen years later the killer, Lee Choon Jae, was found using DNA evidence. He was already serving a life sentence for another murder. Choon Jae even admitted to watching the film during his court case saying, “I just watched it as a movie, I had no feeling or emotion towards the movie.”
In the end, Memories of Murder is a must-see for fans of the subgenre. The film juggles an almost slapstick tone with that of a dark murder mystery and yet, in the end, works like a charm.
CURE (1997)
If you watched 2023’s Hypnotic and thought to yourself, “A killer who hypnotizes his victims to get them to do his bidding is a pretty cool idea. I only wish it were a better movie!” Boy, do I have great news for you.
In Cure (spoilers ahead), a detective (Koji Yakusho) and forensic psychologist (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) team up to find a serial killer who’s brutally marking their victims by cutting a large “X” into their throats and chests. Not just a little “X” mind you but a big, gross, flappy one.
At each crime scene, the murderer is there and is coherent and willing to cooperate. They can remember committing the crimes but can’t remember why. Each of these murders is creepy on a cellular level because we watch the killers act out these crimes with zero emotion. They feel different than your average movie murder. Colder….meaner.
What’s going on here is that a man named Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara) is walking around and somehow manipulating people’s minds using the flame of a lighter and a strange conversational cadence to hypnotize them and convince them to murder. The detectives eventually catch him but are unable to understand the scope of what’s happening before it’s too late.
If you thought dealing with a psychopathic murderer was hard, imagine dealing with one who could convince you to go home and murder your wife. Not only is Cure amazingly filmed and edited but it has more horror elements than your average serial killer film.
MANHUNTER (1986)
In the first-ever Hannibal Lecter story brought in front of the cameras, Detective Will Graham (William Petersen) finds his serial killers by stepping into their headspace. This is how he caught Hannibal Lecter (played here by Brian Cox), but not without paying a price. Graham became so obsessed with his cases that he ended up having a mental breakdown.
In Manhunter, Graham not only has to deal with Lecter playing psychological games with him from behind bars but a new serial killer in Francis Dolarhyde (in a legendary performance by Tom Noonan). One who likes to wear pantyhose on his head and murder entire families so that he can feel “seen” and “accepted” in their dead eyes. At one point Lecter even finds a way to gift Graham’s home address to the new killer via personal ads in a newspaper.
Michael Mann (Heat, Thief) directed a film that was far too stylish for its time but that fans and critics both would have loved today in the same way we appreciate movies like Nightcrawler or Drive. From the soundtrack to the visuals to the in-depth psychoanalysis of an insanely disturbed protagonist and the man trying to catch him. We watch Graham completely lose his shit and unravel as he takes us through the psyche of our killer. Which is as fascinating as it is fucked.
Manhunter is a classic case of a serial killer-versus-detective story where each side of the coin is tarnished in their own way when it’s all said and done. As Detective Park put it in Memories of Murder, “What kind of detective sleeps at night?”
INSOMNIA (2002)
Maybe it’s because of the foggy atmosphere. Maybe it’s because it’s the only film in Christopher Nolan’s filmography he didn’t write as well as direct. But for some reason, Insomnia always feels forgotten about whenever we give Nolan his flowers for whatever his latest cinematic achievement is.
Whatever the case, I know it’s no fault of the quality of the film, because Insomnia is a certified serial killer classic that adds several unique layers to the detective/killer dynamic. One way to create an extreme sense of unease with a movie villain is to cast someone you’d never expect in the role, which is exactly what Nolan did by casting the hilarious and sweet Robin Williams as a manipulative child murderer. He capped that off by casting Al Pacino as the embattled detective hunting him down.
This dynamic was fascinating as Williams was creepy and clever in the role. He was subdued in a way that was never boring but believable. On the other side of it, Al Pacino felt as if he’d walked straight off the set of 1995’s Heat and onto this one. A broken and imperfect man trying to stop a far worse one.
Aside from the stellar acting, Insomnia stands out because of its unique setting and plot. Both working against the detective. The investigation is taking place in a part of Alaska where the sun never goes down. This creates a beautiful, nightmare atmosphere where by the end of it, Pacino’s character is like a Freddy Krueger victim in the leadup to their eventual, exhausted death as he runs around town trying to catch a serial killer while dealing with the debilitating effects of insomnia. Meanwhile, he’s under an internal affairs investigation for planting evidence to catch another child killer and accidentally shoots his partner who he just found out is about to testify against him. The kicker here is that the killer knows what happened that fateful day and is using it to blackmail Pacino’s character into letting him get away with his own crimes.
If this is the kind of “what would you do?” intrigue we get with the story from Longlegs? We’ll be in for a treat. Hoo-ah.
FALLEN (1998)
Fallen may not be nearly as obscure as Memories of Murder or Cure. Hell, it boasts an all-star cast of Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, James Gandolfini, and Elias Koteas. But when you bring it up around anyone who has seen it, their ears perk up, and the word “underrated” usually follows. And when it comes to the occult tie-ins that Longlegs will allegedly have? Fallen may be the most appropriate film on this entire list.
In the movie, Detective Hobbs (Washington) catches vicious serial killer Edgar Reese (Koteas) who seems to place some sort of curse on him during Hobbs’ victory lap. After Reese is put to death via electric chair, dead bodies start popping up all over town with his M.O., eventually pointing towards Hobbs as the culprit. After all, Reese is dead. As Hobbs investigates he realizes that a fallen angel named Azazel is possessing human body after human body and using them to commit occult murders. It has its eyes fixated on him, his co-workers, and family members; wrecking their lives or flat-out murdering them one by one until the whole world is damned.
Mixing a demonic entity into a detective/serial killer story is fascinating because it puts our detective in the unsettling position of being the one who is hunted. How the hell do you stop a demon who can inhabit anyone they want with a mere touch?!
Fallen is a great mix of detective story and supernatural horror tale. Not only are we treated to Denzel Washington as the lead in a grim noir (complete with narration) as he uncovers this occult storyline, but we’re left with a pretty great “what would you do?” situation in a movie that isn’t afraid to take the story to some dark places. Especially when it comes to the way the film ends. It’s a great horror thriller in the same vein as Frailty but with a little more detective work mixed in.
Look for Longlegs in theaters on July 12, 2024.
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