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[Review] ‘The Damned’ Has a Few Tricks Up Its Sleeve
FX artist turned director Victor Garcia’s new film The Damned (formerly Gallows Hill) features well-worn horror conventions and relatively generic thrills. Thankfully, it offers them up in a nice, atmospheric package devoid of many of the obnoxious filmmaking and editing techniques so many horror movies rely on nowadays. It gets off to a fairly slow start and barrages the audience with familial bickering that serves as backstory. Once it picks up though, The Damned offers up some decent thrills and surprises in a thickly eerie setting.
Peter Facinelli (Hollow Man II) plays David Reynolds, a man who travels to Colombia to retrieve his daughter Jill (Nathalia Ramos) from college. She refuses to go along with her dad because she despises his new fiancé Lauren (Sophia Myles). Ever since the death of her mother, Jill has been aggressively rebellious towards he dad, choosing instead to live with her aunt Gina (Carolina Guerra), a reporter in Colombia. Jill’s been getting romantic with her aunt’s cameraman, Ramón. Like I said, there’s a lot of family stuff going on in the first half.
Before the movie can turn into August: Osage County, the whole gang finds themselves stranded in a torrential downpour deep in the rainforest. They make their way to a secluded hotel, which is home to a sketchy old man (Gustavo Angarita) who warns them not to roam around the place. They of course do and find a little girl locked in the basement. When they attempt to free her, the old man turns violent.
This is where Garcia and screenwriter Richard D’Ovidio (Exit Wounds) start getting to the good stuff. Genre fans see where the story is going, but that doesn’t make the chills any less effective. Some of the jump scare moments and overtly gory stuff do fail to hit the mark. Where The Damned really excels is in its haunted house atmosphere and supernatural mythos. The evil being in the film, the “bruja,” has a really great story and Garcia really embellishes her story and role as a manipulative bitch.
There are a few moments during the excitement that threaten to drag the story down. These mainly involve the familial tensions that were set up early on. It’s handled in a pretty skillful way though, as the supernatural force uses it against Peter and Jill. By the end, Peter’s motivations become a bit muddled up, like Garcia and D’Ovidio weren’t sure how to wrap things up. Overall though, The Damned is a conventional horror film that manages to defy expectations enough times to make it a worthwhile watch.
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Watch the Opening ‘Mortal Kombat II’ Battle Scene Now Ahead of Physical Media Release in July
Sequel Mortal Kombat II is now available to watch at home on Digital before heading to physical media in July, but you can test your might now and watch the opening scene.
Mortal Kombat director Simon McQuoid returns to the helm for the new sequel from a script by Jeremy Slater (“Moon Knight,” Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire).
In Mortal Kombat II, the fan-favorite champions — now joined by Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) — are pitted against one another in the ultimate, no-holds barred, gory battle to defeat the dark rule of Shao Kahn that threatens the very existence of the Earthrealm and its defenders.
Adeline Rudolph, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Ludi Lin, Mehcad Brooks, Tati Gabrielle, Lewis Tan, Damon Herriman, Chin Han, Tadanobu Asano, Joe Taslim, and Hiroyuki Sanada are also part of the ensemble cast of Mortal Kombat II fighters.
Watch the opening below, which introduces a young Kitana (Sophia Xu) as Emperor Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford) prepares to conquer her father, King Jerrod (Desmond Chiam), and her kingdom of Edenia. It sets the sequel’s entire plot in motion.
From New Line Cinema, James Wan’s Atomic Monster, Broken Road Productions, and Fireside Films, Mortal Kombat II is rated R for “strong bloody violence and gore, and language.”
Look for Mortal Kombat II to arrive on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD on July 28, 2026.
The physical media release contains the following special features, as unveiled by IGN:
- Mortal Kombat II: Evolving the Saga (Featurette)
- Returning characters, new alliances and even bigger fatalities! Go behind the scenes to learn all that went into creating the latest chapter in the Mortal Kombat film saga and how the sequel expands the universe to bolder, bloodier heights.
- Building the Realms of Mortal Kombat (Featurette)
- From the decaying streets of Edenia to the terrifying Pit featured in the iconic video game series, discover how the Mortal Kombat II design teams blended practical sets with groundbreaking VFX to create the legendary realms in the film.
- Mortal Kombat II: Choose Your Fighter (Featurette)
- Awaken your Arcana as you meet the cast and explore the brutal weapons, epic costumes and fierce training that went into bringing their characters to life.
- Klose Quarters Kombat (Featurette)
- Cast members and key creatives share insights into how the stunt preparation, intense fight scenes and weapons training shaped both classic moves and new, merciless combat styles.
- A “Boon” to Gamers Everywhere (Featurette)
- Sit down with chief Mortal Kombat mythmaker and creator Ed Boon for a deep dive into the franchise’s storied history and ongoing evolution that spans three decades of near-infinite games, films and comics, culminating with the live-action sequel.