Editorials
[Special Feature] ‘Dredd 3-D’ vs. ‘The Raid: Redemption’
When Lionsgate released their trailer for Dredd 3-D way back in July, we all basically thought the same thing: “Hey, this looks an awful lot like The Raid.”
It’s no wonder why. Just like The Raid, Dredd’s trailer sells a film in which an outmatched badass must take on an entire building of villains, battling level by level to the top floor where he must kill a drug kingpin who waits among cool, mini-boss henchmen.
You can cry foul all you want, but sometimes these things aren’t so simple. According to Wikipedia, Dredd started filming in Novemember 2010, while The Raid began its shoot four months later in March 2011. So there appear to be no shenanigans here to curse. We instead have something a bit more complicated. Two movies, completely independent of each other, both utilizing the completely awesome conceit of containing their action film within dangerous high-rises.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun comparing the two, if only to highlight what an embarrassment of riches we action fans have been enjoying recently. Head inside for the death match!
THE BUILDING:
Dredd’s building is way taller than the relatively diminutive domicile featured in The Raid. Both buildings house innocent poor people as well as badasses, though Dredd’s appears to have a much higher poor innocent to badass ratio. As a result, The Raid’s tenement feels immensely more dangerous to walk around. That’s illustrated in each films’ respective number of action sequences. Dredd has a handful, while The Raid is pretty much all action from beginning to end.
Raid-1, Dredd-0
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THE SHUTDOWN:
In both films, our heroes cannot leave due to a building lockdown demanded from the main bad guy. In Dredd this basically amounts to a bunch of metal blast shields covering all exits. In The Raid, all exits are covered by snipers.
I personally found the snipers more threatening. Not only that, but there’s a part in Dredd where he actually gets out of the building and chooses to reenter, so the whole lockdown thing is clearly less important than in The Raid. For that reason alone, The Raid wins this one.
Raid-2, Dredd-0
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THE CITY:
Finally, Dredd gets a little love. While I enjoy The Raid, its action is so simple and compact that we learn very little about the surrounding area other than it’s dangerous and corrupt. Dredd, however, takes place in an overpopulated future city with all kinds of interesting stuff going on. Just the one moment in which we visually see how overwhelmed the Judges are with crime does wonders for delivering a fun and new cinematic setting. They don’t do as much with it as they could, but that’s the price paid for the simple plot set-up, which is worth it in my book.
Raid-2, Dredd-1
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ACTION:
This one seems more obvious than it actually is. While The Raid’s all out kung-fu assault gets everyone excited in all the right ways, Dredd’s slow-motion face shooting should not go overlooked. Even when Dredd goes hand to hand, we get that incredibly icky throat smash kill. Add Dredd’s super cool futuristic guns with their wide array of voice-activated ammunition, and you have a surprisingly strong showing from this masked underdog. Unfortunately, it’s just not enough to overcome The Raid’s truly amazing scenes of physical combat, snipers, and refrigerator bombs.
Raid-3, Dredd-1
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SIDEKICK:
When Dredd was just a mere trailer, its use of a female rookie sidekick raised a lot of red flags. Now that we’ve all seen it, however, Potential Judge Anderson ends up helping rather than hindering Dredd’s awesomeness. She’s a psychic who can totally hold her own both mentally and physically against The Wire’s Avon Barksdale. Furthermore, she and Dredd never have a boring, forced love story.
The Raid, in its infinite wisdom, had a pesky sidekick but shoves him out of the way as soon as possible, leaving Rama free to roam the halls like the lone wolf we wanted. Still, I’m kind of more impressed with Dredd’s successful use of a pesky sidekick rather than The Raid’s dismissal of the trope.
Raid-3, Dredd-2
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VILLAIN:
Dredd goes up against a narratively hyped and visually interesting Ma-Ma (played by Game of Thrones’ chilly Lena Headey). The Raid’s Rama has to deal with drug kingpin Tama Riyadi, a character we learn very little about. This one’s kind of a draw overall. Ma-Ma looks cooler, has a better backstory, and gets the better demise. But Tama seems far more raw and dangerous. Plus, he sounds really cool when he speaks.
Raid-3, Dredd-2
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VILLAIN KILLS OTHER VILLAINS SCENE:
So if that’s a draw, lets get more specific. Both films show us how bad their villains are by offering scenes in which they deal with internal conflicts (i.e. offing henchmen). In Dredd, Ma-Ma skins three guys alive and hits them with slow-mo just before dropping them 200 stories to their death. Pretty brutal.
The Raid’s Rama, on the other hand, just shoots his guys in the head. When he runs out of bullets on the last guy, he beats his head in with a hammer. Less showy, but equally effective.
Here’s the important difference: While Ma-Ma wins for sheer inventiveness, the slow-mo bit was not her idea. Furthermore, she does not dish out the punishment herself. Rama on the other hand, does his killing with his own hands. Therefore, he wins.
Raid-4, Dredd-2
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MINI-BOSS:
Ma-Ma has one traditional henchman, but Judge Dredd throws him over a balcony without much trouble. That would put her out of the contest, but she then calls up four dirty Judges to kill Dredd. They don’t succeed, but it’s a pretty cool move.
Unfortunately, The Raid has Mad Dog. No film is probably ever going to out-do Mad Dog as far as badass mini-bosses go. That little guy is just too insane.
Raid-5, Dredd-2
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Poor Dredd. In all honesty, it’s just not fair to put even the best action films up against The Raid. Dredd suffers but only by comparison. Action movies as pure and visceral as The Raid don’t come everyday. Dredd can reach some impressive cinematic highs and still be the inferior film. For my money, 98% of the film’s I have ever seen are inferior when it comes to The Raid.
At the end of the day, some concepts just make especially exciting films. Dredd and The Raid happen to share one of them. I wouldn’t mind a new version of the “Awesome badass fights an entire building of bad guys” sub genre once every year, regardless of how derivative of this or that film they may end up. I didn’t like The Hunger Games much, but I’m always ready for more films where kids have to hunt and kill each other. After all, how many movies do we have where a dude in a mask chops up teenagers? It’s a concept, and there are films enough to share.
If you haven’t seen Dredd yet, what are you waiting for? It’s an awesome, gory, action, science fiction film, the kind most people complain about missing lately. Karl Urban totally brings the hammer down on the role and the film manages to sidestep most of the stupid business that derails its ilk. Check it out and support R-rated sci-fi films while you still can.
There’s a lot of reading left to do in 2026, between the glut of summer releases and the approach of fall, when horror titles get a special push from publishers, but this has already been an incredible year for horror literature.
Some of the biggest names in the genre have turned in outstanding work, rising stars have made their mark, and we’re only halfway through the year.
To celebrate the midway point of 2026, with plenty of horror books still to come, we’re taking a look back at the best horror books we’ve read this year so far, listed alphabetically by author.
If you missed any of these books earlier in the year, consider this your reminder to catch up.
Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker
A student running from a crime he may or may not have committed escapes to his father’s country home in Japan, only to find himself haunted by strange apparitions, while in the past, a young samurai tries to find salvation for her family and finds a door to the future instead. Kylie Lee Baker’s Japanese Gothic begins with this dialogue between past and present, and then blossoms into so much more, a cross-time ghost story about old wounds and what it really takes to finally heal them. I got so happily lost in this one that I would have read at least 200 more pages.
Persona by Aoife Josie Clements
In this tale of shut-ins, sex workers, artists, and the horrors they both summon and recoil from, Aoife Josie Clements weaves something that feels less like a story to be experienced and more like a psychic wound to be endured, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. Evocative in its prose and nightmarish in its imagery, Persona is a story of the masks we wear, and the understanding that not all of our masks are particularly pretty or even easy to breathe through. It’s a dense, literary, unnervingly vicious book, and while it’s already attracted an audience, it deserves a much bigger one.
Dead First by Johnny Compton
Johnny Compton’s latest novel opens with a throwing down of the gauntlet, a sequence that made me instantly think “How on Earth is he going to top this?” It’s a story that begins with a billionaire hiring a private investigator to determine why, despite trying in many brutal ways, he cannot die. That premise, and the scene which sets it all off, is so alluring and delightfully gruesome that you almost can’t believe it’s the way a book begins, and then Compton just keeps going, delivering a supernatural mystery that I could not put down.
Make Me Better by Sarah Gailey
A woman grieving for the life she wanted visits a mysterious island renowned for the healing salt its residents harvest and sell, seeking renewal and relief. What she finds instead is a strange cult with a twisted history with surprising resonance in her own life, and a people who are more than willing to grant the relief she wants, for a price. Laced with beautiful prose and moments of profound realization alongside folk and even cosmic horror, this is vintage Sarah Gailey.
Partially Devoured by Daniel Kraus
If you love horror film history and analysis, Partially Devoured is an essential. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Daniel Kraus, the book is a deep dive into his favorite movie of all time, George A. Romero‘s Night of the Living Dead, complete with exhaustive research into the making of the film and passages of deeply moving memoir woven in. If you’ve ever wanted to know what the eerie music that opens the film is called while also bursting into tears at how horror movies can save your life, this is a must-read.
Wretch by Eric LaRocca
Our reigning King of Extreme Horror, Eric LaRocca weaves books of uncommon beauty out of the most nightmarish parts of humanity, and Wretch is no exception. The story of a grieving man who longs for relief and searches for it amid a strange support group that might be a cult, Wretch is a brutal journey into the darkest part of us all, and explores what salvation we might find when we get to the rotten core of the world and peel back its layers. LaRocca’s on a tear of great work right now that few other genre writers can match.
Headlights by CJ Leede
A mystery, a serial killer horror show, a tribute to Stephen King‘s The Shining. All of these things describe CJ Leede’s Headlights, and yet they don’t begin to cover the full breadth of horror awaiting you in this novel. The story of a former FBI agent drawn back into the cold case that haunts him most, it’s a shocker brimming over with vivid moments that’ll live behind your eyes. CJ Leede has now published three novels, and they’re all bangers, so it’s time to get on board if you haven’t already.
It Came From Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo
Cynthia Pelayo has been one of our finest genre writers for years now, but It Came From Neverland is my favorite thing she’s written, and it’s not even close. A dark take on Peter Pan from the perspective of an adult Wendy Darling living in World War I-era London, Pelayo’s book works as both a satisfying horror narrative and a rich exploration of what it really means to never grow up. The horror never loses its potency, but it’s the search for the meaning behind the Peter Pan phenomenon in our own lives, and what we can do about it, that sticks with me most.
Filth Eaters by Ito Romo
Ito Romo’s Filth Eaters is a slim volume, one you can read in just a couple of hours if you’ve got the inclination, but it has the feel of a generation-spanning epic. The story of a breed of vampires born in Central America, the European vampires who encounter them, and the offspring they eventually produced, it spans centuries and packs loads of juicy lore into its pages while never losing its grip on character and narrative drive. I would read hundreds more pages of this world, but I’ll settle for this uncommonly grand-scale novella for now.
Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay
A former pro gamer gets a job at a tech company to pilot a brain-dead human body across the country, and so Paul Tremblay’s sci-fi-horror juggernaut begins. Indebted to Philip K. Dick, the primal snarl of Harlan Ellison, and the quirky comedy of The Big Lebowski, and yet wholly original, this is a towering and ambitious novel by one of horror’s most respected voices. What starts as a high-concept tech thriller soon becomes a startling meditation on the value of stories, who gets to tell them, and what happens when we cede too much control to machines we don’t understand. It’s a stunner.
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