Movies
Splice
“All the way up until the end. Oh, that ending. It’s hard to believe the script made it past Brody and Polley’s agents. Maybe nobody bothered to read the last 20 pages. I don’t know. But I do know that in the annals of bad movie history, the batshit crazy, Jeepers-Creepers-via-Flowers-in-the-Attic ending of Splice will always be remembered. If not fondly.”
Read BC’s positive review here:
As an online critic, I try my best to avoid dropping “spoilers” in my reviews. That can be harder than you might think. Take Moon, for example. Am I allowed to mention the fact that Sam Rockwell finds another Sam Rockwell out in space? It’s a twist that happens in the first half hour, and it’s a plot point revealed in the movie trailer, but to cite it in a movie review could still spoil that twist for someone who doesn’t watch trailers or read entertainment news. Or take the films of David Lynch. How do you review a David Lynch film without divulging any “spoilers”? The whole trippy movie is just one big spoiler.
And how do you review Splice without discussing its final 20 minutes, an ending so bizarre, pervy, and ill-advised, it completely defines the rest of the movie? It’s an ending that had the Sundance Film Festival audience giggling in bewilderment. It’s an ending that took the movie where nobody wanted it to go. And yet, bound by the constraints of the “spoiler” code, I am not permitted to mention any of it. It’s a sad world we live in.
But let me back up a little bit. As Splice begins, scientists Adrian Brody and Sarah Polley are on the verge of a huge medical breakthrough: the splicing of animal and human DNA. When the plug gets pulled on their research project, Brody and Polley decide to secretly conduct the DNA-splicing experiments on their own. After several failed attempts, they finally manage to create a human-animal hybrid that looks like a big, gross tadpole. While deliberating whether or not to put it out of its misery, a second creature bursts from the gross tadpole, Alien-style. The stage two creature looks like a little humanoid with T-rex arms and a tail stinger, and Polley thinks it’s cute, so she decides to hide it and raise it as a daughter. (I’m completely serious.)
Parental angst ensues as the mutant girl baby begins to go through several different metamorphosis over her relatively short life-span. Polley does her best by putting her in frilly dresses and attempting to teach her to read. Brody walks around flaring his nostrils and doing his whole plaintive eyebrows thing. And the mutant daughter (a mixture of CGI, and makeups by Nicotero and Berger) makes adorable chirping attempts to communicate with her new parents. Playing out like a cross between Harry and the Hendersons and a Learning Channel special on raising mutant babies, Splice is way too melodramatic to be considered a horror movie. I kept waiting for it to make the jump into genre territory, but it insisted on clinging to a weird dramatic vibe throughout.
All the way up until the end. Oh, that ending. It’s hard to believe the script made it past Brody and Polley’s agents. Maybe nobody bothered to read the last 20 pages. I don’t know. But I do know that in the annals of bad movie history, the batshit crazy, Jeepers-Creepers-via-Flowers-in-the-Attic ending of Splice will always be remembered. If not fondly.
The holiday weekend means a light week for new horror releases, but it does bring the return of Dark Castle Entertainment to select theaters. It’s being joined by 6 new horror movies.
Here’s all the new horror releasing June 29, 2026 – July 3, 2026!
For daily reminders about new horror releases, be sure to follow @HorrorCalendar.
You wished for it. The highest-grossing horror movie of the year (so far), Curry Barker’s Obsession, arrived on Digital on June 30.
In Curry Barker’s theatrical debut Obsession, after breaking the mysterious One Wish Willow to win his crush’s heart, a hopeless romantic finds himself getting exactly what he asked for but soon discovers that some desires come at a dark, sinister price.
Michael Johnston (“Teen Wolf”), Inde Navarette (“Superman & Lois”), Cooper Tomlinson (“That’s a Bad Idea,” Milk & Serial), Megan Lawless (The Death That Awaits), and Emmy Award-nominee Andy Richter (“Conan,” Elf) star.
Based on a story by director James Kondelik (Behind The Walls) and a screenplay by Canadian writer Victor Rose, survival thriller Pitfall headed home to Digital on June 30. Family is murder in this Cineverse release.
In Pitfall, a young man becomes separated from his friends in the woods and plunges into a ten-foot pit lined with spikes, impaling his leg and leaving him helpless. As reality sinks in and his situation grows dire, he realizes the fall wasn’t an accident.
The film stars Richard Harmon (Final Destination: Bloodlines), Alexandra Essoe (The Pope’s Exorcist), and UFC champion Randy Couture (The Expendables) as the ruthless killer who stalks his prey in the woods. Marshall Williams (The Ice Road), Jordan Claire Robbins (The Umbrella Academy), and Matt Hamilton (Murder for Sale) also star.
The Amityville IP leans into Jaws with Amityville Shark House, just in time for the Fourth of July holiday too, as it released on Digital June 30.
Will Collazo Jr. (Amityville Thanksgiving) and Shawn C. Phillips (Amityville Karen) co-direct from a script they wrote with Julie Anne Prescott.
In the movie, after discovering an ominous shark idol hidden beneath the decaying floorboards, Richard unknowingly awakens an ancient and savage force. As the entity begins to merge with him, a quiet coastal town descends into blood-soaked chaos.
With each victim claimed, the monstrous predator grows stronger, fueling a cult’s belief that their dark god has been reborn. Now, the race is on to stop the carnage before evil consumes everything in its path.
Phillips and Prescott also star alongside Tasha Tacosa, Maritza Brikisak, Gigi Gustin (The Retaliators), Adam Marino, and Carl Solomon.
Available on Digital, Blu-ray, and DVD as of June 30 is Jacked, directed by John Fucile from a script he co-wrote with Simon Fraser.
The synopsis: “Set in the summer of 1987, JACKED follows two small-town teenagers whose day at the lake turns into a fight for survival after their car breaks down and they encounter a violent stalker.”
Marla Jean Robison, Tom Koch, Anthony Cipriani, Wynn Reichert, Kam Perez and Bella Marie star.
Get ready to work up a killer sweat and maybe spill some blood with Slashercise, a workout meets slasher hybrid that arrived exclusively on Bloodstream on July 1.
Written and directed by Ama Lea (Deathcember), the retro-styled feature follows “a masked killer known only as Meathead as he stalks the fitness clubs of Los Angeles, turning workout sessions into blood-soaked nightmares. As the city’s top trainers are picked off one by one, a group of determined fitness fanatics must fight back before they become the next bodies on the mat.”
Vanessa Decker (Stiletto), John Bloom (The Last Drive-In With Joe Bob Briggs), Spencer Charnas (Ice Nine Kills), Sarah French (Blind), Kelli Maroney (Night of the Comet), Sarah Nicklin (V/H/S/Halloween), Diana Prince (The Last Drive-In With Joe Bob Briggs), Jared Rivet (The Once and Future Smash), Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp), Tiffany Shepis (Victor Crowley), and Lisa Wilcox (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master) star.
After a record-breaking box office run, A24 and director Kane Parsons’ feature debut is heading back to theaters with bonus footage. AMC Theatres is unleashing Backrooms: Everything Must Go Editiontoday, July 3.
In the film written by Will Soodik, the owner of Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire discovers a strange doorway in the basement of the furniture showroom. He sets out to explore the mysterious, liminal space, walking headfirst into a creepypasta nightmare.
Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsvestar.
AMC describes this release as a “theatrically exclusive post-credit” with additional footage from Kane Parsons. Expect 16 minutes of bonus footage, with the new version clocking in at 2 hours and 6 minutes.
The Last Exorcism director Daniel Stamm and Dark Castle Entertainment are back with Lockbox, in select theaters July 3. It adapts Soren Narnia‘s Knifepoint Horror Podcast story “Winthrop” by Emmy-winning playwright Justin Yoffe.
In Lockbox, “Seeking peace after her mother’s death, Ellen retreats to a rural town and takes in her severely traumatized cousin Winthrop. Their fragile domestic balance shatters when an erratic neighbor warns that Winthrop is dangerous. As strange phenomena escalate, Ellen must put everything on the line to defend Winthrop from a dangerous otherworldly entity determined to track him down.”
Lou Taylor Pucci (Touch Me, Evil Dead), Carla Gugino (The Haunting of Hill House, Gerald’s Game, The Fall of the House of Usher) and Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps, Backrooms) star.
This week’s new release roundups are presented by Lockbox.
Be careful who you let in. Carla Gugino and Lou Taylor Pucci star in Lockbox, only in select theaters this Friday. Get tickets.
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