Movies
[LAFF ’12] ‘Saturday Morning Massacre’ Scares Up Some Tasty Treats
First things first. I have been helping out as a heavy metal consultant and true crime expert on a short film called Black Metal that will be directed this summer by Kat Candler and will star Jonny Mars. Candler received one of the “Story By…” credits for Saturday Morning Massacre (SMM) and Mars is a lead actor, producer, and also received a “Story By…” credit for SMM. This film also features a closing credit song by Vesperian Sorrow, an Austin, Texas “extreme dark metal” band that I helped select for Black Metal.
Alright, now that that’s out of the way — on to Saturday Morning Massacre!
SMM premiered tonight at the Los Angeles Film Festival, hopefully in front of a raucous crowd ready for a fun horror thrill ride. I caught it earlier in the week in a room filled with several jaded film reviewers and even they clearly enjoyed themselves.
SMM is Scooby Doo done the right way, not that CGI cheesefest we were subjected to years ago. This version is the tale of a group of four paranormal investigators, down on their luck, but not out just yet. After a hilariously botched investigation, the Fearful Foursome, comprised of Nancy (Ashley Rae Spillers = Velma), Floyd (Jonny Mars = Shaggy), Gwen (Josephine Decker = Daphne), and Chad (Adam Tate = Fred), and their trusty canine companion, Hamlet (played by Hamlet = Scooby Doo), take on what could possibly be their final ghost-hunting gig. If this one doesn’t pan out, they will have to close up shop for good.
The gig seems fairly simple. A bank has acquired the old Kyser schoolhouse in a foreclosure and needs to clean it up for re-sell, however, there are rumors that ghosts haunt the building and are scaring away the custodial help. Despite warnings of Satanic sacrifices, ghosts of missing children, and lousy cleaning skills by squatters, the group opts to spend a few nights in the mansion to debunk, or discover, what ghosts lie inside.
It’s at this point where SMM truly finds it own distinctive voice. I was a bit concerned that we were about to traipse into “mumblegore” territory, but director Spencer Parsons does an excellent job of making you care about this diverse collection of haunting hunters. The relationships between the two unique couples ring true and never feel obligatory.
Also, the humor is solid, not coming across as forced or sitcom-y. The laughs are not piss-your-pants funny, but rather realistic responses to scary situations. Non-Scooby gang member, Officer Lance (Paul Gordon), is aces when it comes to stealing most of the funniest bits. His laconic delivery is rather off-putting at first, but soon begins to flow and make more sense. Once it fully kicks in, his character is simply a riot. A throwaway line about something he discovered inside the school is funnier than any line in The Cabin In The Woods (and I loved that film!).
I despise film reviews that give away too much. As such, I will only say that SMM takes the viewer on a truly funny and scary trip into a haunted mansion, only to end up somewhere much more visceral, lethal, and frightening. It culls from and pays respect to some of the best horror films of the past 40 years including The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (and even TCM II), The Hills Have Eyes, Night Of The Demons, The Blair Witch Project, and Halloween. Mix in a healthy respect for the genre, a glimpse into an adult Scooby Doo mystery, solid acting from all five main actors, liberal doses of honest humor, and some genuine scares, and you have one hell of a horror film.
-CM
Corey Mitchell is a best-selling author of several true crime books and is currently helping former Pantera frontman Philip Anselmo write his autobiography.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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