Movies
Murder Loves Killers Too (V)
“Despite the budget shortfalls and the crazy notion that a cabin-in-the-woods film can still be original, Murder Loves Killers Too, amazingly, works to deliver a story that at a breezy 80-minutes should leave open-minded genre fans with a new underground fave.”
Truly independent horror films almost all suffer from the same debilitating problem—total lack of funding. When you have no money, you have no options. So, you take a friend’s cabin in the woods and you cast a few good looking twenty-something newbie actors to populate the ready-made set. You bang out a script using every available resource, and you shoot the film when you can make the time. What you get nine ti bmes out of ten, is the same stand ’em up and slash ’em down shocker wannabe. But sometimes, that tenth time, you get a hell of a lot more than you paid for.
Writer/Director Drew Barnhardt did all the things I just mentioned above and he did them with a style that bodes well for the filmmakers future. See, the difference between most low budget slasher films and the granddaddy’s of the genre (which if you remember, were all low budget too) is vision. And, Drew Barnhardt has vision…really warped vision.
Murder Loves Killers Too is a mouthful of a title that hasn’t really got a ton of point when it boils down to it. On the surface the film looks like any other weekend movie massacre. College kids take a trip to their friend’s lush wooded cabin retreat, where one by one they are systematically stabbed and slaughtered by a madman. Yep….that’s it….Stop me right there if you think that the writers of the new Friday the 13th reboot have a case against Barnhardt! But, that’s the beauty of this film. It’s setting up conventions just so it can totally fuck with them. This isn’t Jason Voorhees. It’s not The Prowler. This killer isn’t hiding in the shadows, chasing his victims through the dark in reckless POV camera shots. This nut job is standing around in broad daylight wearing a robe and slippers, snatching the clueless kids right out of the living room.
Big Stevie (star Allen Andrews, whose a dead ringer for SNL/Reno 911 alumni David Koechner) is just your everyday, neat-freak, serial killer, who takes pleasure in stabbing you with a meat hook and sticking you with a knife and playing with your intestines. He’s a big teddy bear of a demented freak who just needs a little love. Unfortunately for her, Aggie (Christine Haeberman) is the apple in Big Stevie’s eye. But to make with the nice-nice, he’s gotta get her alone, so, he dispatches her friends with relative speed (in fact the first kills are off and running almost immediately). But once he gets her….what’s he gonna do with her.
Barnhardt’s film is almost as schizophrenic as the mass murderer at its center. It begins with a serio-comic “Masterpiece Theater” voice over by British thespian Nigel Lambert that introduces the story in only the vaguest of terms. Next up we get the reckless abandon of youth blasting down the woodland roads, laughing like lunatics until the car breaks down. Once we get to the house the sex and murder start within seconds. But, once Big Stevie has only Aggie left, the film stops almost completely and becomes a measured dramatic thriller with some serious psychological undertones. The end of the film adds almost a black comedy climax to its absolutely bizarre story structure.
Still, even with the script’s moments of anarchic brilliance the film’s character development and performances are still on-par for what you’d expect given the budget the filmmakers were working under. But all that is forgiven because, the thing that really sets Murder Loves Killer Too apart from the pack is the look and feel Barnhardt and Cinematographer Kevin M. Graves bring to the production.
The film employs some impressively long tracking shots that take advantage of the location. And that’s one of the key highlights about the movie. Other than just establishing location inside the house, it is through these tracking shots, that the cabin itself becomes a character in the film. This is more important than you think, because understanding the layout of the house allows the viewer to anticipate where the scares are going to occur. Like most horror films that employ omniscient storytelling techniques, we mainly follow the victim, but, we always know what the killer is planning next–the horror lies in the victims not knowing and our anticipation of her finding out. This film executes that technique very well.
Despite the budget shortfalls and the crazy notion that a cabin-in-the-woods film can still be original, Murder Loves Killers Too, amazingly, works to deliver a story that at a breezy 80-minutes should leave open-minded genre fans with a new underground fave.
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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