Across five films, Stephen Cognetti has quietly built one of the more curious mythologies in modern horror — a patchwork of haunted architecture, cursed tapes, and cyclical tragedy orbiting the ghostly epicentre of the Abaddon Hotel. Hell House LLC: Lineage seeks to close this circle, but in doing so, becomes trapped within it.
Forsaking the found-footage style that once defined the franchise, Cognetti’s latest entry opts for a more traditional, narrative form. It’s an understandable evolution — and yet one that inadvertently severs the series from its greatest source of dread: immediacy. Where Hell House LLC (2015) thrived on grainy footage and fractured perspective, Lineage feels distant, almost elegiac. Its horrors unfold with the politeness of recollection rather than the panic of experience.
At the centre is Vanessa Shepherd (Elizabeth Vermilyea), a woman tethered to Abaddon by blood and dream, her life dissolving beneath the weight of inherited trauma. Vermilyea brings a weary conviction to the role, grounding the supernatural within something painfully human — grief as a form of haunting. Around her, Cognetti threads familiar motifs: the flicker of dying light, the whisper of unseen presences, the inescapable architecture of fate. These moments remind us why the director’s early work resonated — his ability to make space itself feel sentient.
But Lineage, for all its ambition, buckles under the burden of its own mythology. The film drifts between closure and repetition, explaining away its mysteries rather than deepening them. The Abaddon myth — once an unknowable wound — becomes over-articulated, every secret illuminated until nothing remains in shadow. What was once terrifying for its ambiguity now feels embalmed by overexposure.
Cognetti’s direction still glimmers with craft — a movement in the periphery, a dissonant hum in the sound design — yet the sense of discovery is gone. Lineage isn’t so much a haunting as it is a requiem, mourning what the series once was: a small, scrappy miracle of lo-fi horror ingenuity.
The Prognosis:
Hell House LLC: Lineage closes the curtain with a sigh rather than a scream. It is a ghost story about the exhaustion of storytelling itself — beautiful in fragments, hollow in execution. The Abaddon Hotel may still echo, but the fear has long since checked out.
When Saw II was released in 2005, it had an impossible task: to follow the breakout success of James Wan’s original and prove that Saw wasn’t just another low-budget horror one-off, but the beginning of something larger, more sinister, and self-sustaining. Against all odds, Darren Lynn Bousman’s entry did exactly that — sharpening the film’s identity, expanding its mythology, and cementing the Jigsaw Killer as a horror icon for a new generation.
Picking up not long after the first film’s shocking conclusion, Saw II takes the bones of its predecessor — moral punishment, psychological manipulation, and fiendish traps — and amplifies them to grotesque, crowd-pleasing extremes. This time, the carnage unfolds within a locked house where eight strangers must endure a gauntlet of Jigsaw’s cruel “games.” Meanwhile, Detective Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) squares off with the captured Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) in a battle of wits that quickly devolves into psychological warfare.
It’s here that the Saw mythology truly begins to click. Bell’s chilling, deliberate performance transforms Jigsaw from a mystery man into a complex, almost philosophical monster. His calm demeanor and twisted logic give the sequel an intellectual edge — a villain not motivated by chaos, but by ideology. Bousman understands this perfectly, letting Jigsaw’s moral justifications simmer beneath the bloodshed, giving the film a strange sense of purpose amid its brutality.
Stylistically, Bousman builds on Wan’s blueprint but injects it with a slicker, more frenzied energy. The editing — all whip cuts and strobing flashbacks — feels very much of its era, yet it works to maintain a sense of claustrophobia and panic. The traps are nastier, more elaborate, and more narratively integrated, a formula that would define the Saw sequels for years to come. The infamous needle pit alone remains one of horror’s most viscerally memorable moments.
Shawnee Smith’s return as Amanda adds emotional texture to the series, elevating what could have been mere torture porn into something approaching tragedy. Her character’s deepened arc — and the film’s final twist — deliver one of the franchise’s most satisfying payoffs, setting a gold standard for the Saw saga’s trademark rug-pulls.
While it lacks the lean precision and bleak originality of the first film, Saw II compensates with confidence and scope. Bousman proves himself adept at juggling the franchise’s moral ambiguity with its appetite for shock, crafting a sequel that’s both grimly entertaining and foundational to what Saw would become.
The Prognosis:
A deftly executed sequel that turned a clever horror film into a cultural phenomenon, Saw II expanded the lore and gave the Jigsaw Killer his voice. Darren Lynn Bousman’s confident direction, Tobin Bell’s chilling gravitas, and Shawnee Smith’s tortured return all combine to make this one of the series’ strongest entries. It’s the moment the Saw machine really started to hum — and slice.
From the sinewy shock of Barbarian, Zach Cregger already marked himself as a horror director to watch. With Weapons, he doesn’t just advance — he detonates expectations. This second feature is not merely a follow-up; it’s a recalibration. It announces that horror’s pulse today beats in the fissures beneath the suburban façade, in the worn edges of trust, in the vanishing of innocence — and in the uncomfortable realisation that the scariest weapon might already be inside us.
Disappearance as the new nightmare
The opening image of Weapons is deceptively simple: at exactly 2:17 a.m., seventeen third-graders leave their homes in a quiet Pennsylvania town and vanish. One child remains. One teacher becomes suspect. One grieving parent begins to hunt. On paper, it’s a disappearance-mystery. In execution, it becomes a sprawling meditation on what gets lost when the promise of security dissolves. Wikipedia+2High On Films+2
Here, Cregger takes the school as a metaphor for safety, the teacher as a figure of authority, the parent as wounded faith. But the vanishing children — they become more than victims; they are the unlost ghosts of generational damage. As one analyst proffers, the “weapons” of the title are not just guns or hooks, but systems: fear, manipulation, the warp of hope. High On Films+1
Style, structure and the fracture of form
What distinguishes Weapons is how formal mechanics mirror thematic unease. Cregger and cinematographer Larkin Seiple create a visual rhythm that is at once pristine and off-kilter: children running in long-takes, snow-white lawns under dawn light, the teacher caught in surveillance shots, the father hidden behind phone-screens. NME+1
The narrative fractures into multiple perspectives: the teacher (Julia Garner), the parent (Josh Brolin), the cop (Alden Ehrenreich), the one remaining child (Cary Christopher). The result is less a linear mystery and more a mosaic of dread. As one review put it: “It’s a puzzle you’re almost too afraid to solve”. Heaven of Horror+1
This is significant because horror today often demands instantaneous clarity; Weapons gives the opposite. It gives blur, ambiguity, the feeling that you’re running in corridors of your own assumptions. In its uncertainty lies its power.
Grief, legacy and the weight of genre
Cregger has admitted that the film was born of very personal trauma — the sudden death of a close friend. Polygon+1 This grief is not neatly transmuted into “the monster”, but folded into the film’s architecture: the teacher slipping into alcoholism, the parent’s rage, the town complicit in its own blindness.
In this sense, Weapons speaks to horror’s evolving ambition. No longer content with jump-scares or superficial transgression, it invites emotional excavation. The “missing children” are shadows of lost futures; the investigation is a metaphor for the long haul of trauma. That it arrives with mainstream box-office success (grossing in the hundreds of millions) means more: it signals that audiences are open to horror that doesn’t just frighten — it unsettles and lingers. Wikipedia
Why it matters for Halloweekend
As you craft your Halloweekend marathon, Weapons deserves a place not just as a scare-ritual but as a statement piece. It isn’t the easiest watch — the payoff is less about shock and more about reflection. But that makes it an essential counter-balance to more straightforward fright-fests.
It offers:
Depth – an exploration of communal wounds rather than a lone killer.
Style with substance – formal horror mechanics married to emotional weight.
Conversation starter – the kind of film viewers will talk about long after the credits.
This is the horror film that proves the genre still has places left to unearth. In between the classic chills and the fun cult throwbacks, Weapons is the grown-up scare that stays with you when the children have finally gone to bed.
The Prognosis:
Weapons may not offer the catharsis of a neatly tied-up thriller, but perhaps that’s the point. In a world where so much is unresolved, to leave with a question instead of an answer is the greater horror and the greater gift. Cregger invites us into a house of mirrors — only to show that the reflection we fear is our own. Watch it not just for the chills, but for the echo that follows.
When Vampire in Brooklyn (1995) first hit cinemas, it seemed like a sure thing. Eddie Murphy, still one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, teaming up with horror maestro Wes Craven — fresh off New Nightmare and on the cusp of Scream — for a supernatural horror-comedy that promised both chills and laughs. On paper, it sounded like a bloody good time. In execution, however, it became a messy, tone-deaf experiment caught between two creative egos and a studio unsure of what it wanted.
Murphy, who also co-wrote and co-produced the film, was eager to move beyond the wisecracking cop persona that had defined his career. He envisioned Vampire in Brooklyn as a darker, more serious take on horror — a stylish Gothic thriller with him at its centre as the suave, seductive vampire Maximilian. Paramount, however, saw something very different: a horror-comedy vehicle for its bankable star. What emerged was an uneasy hybrid that fails to find its footing, unsure whether to scare or to entertain.
Craven, ever the craftsman, tries valiantly to balance the clashing tones. There are flashes of his visual flair — an eerie opening sequence aboard a derelict ship, the crimson-lit interiors of Maximilian’s lair, and a few moments that recall his knack for the grotesque. Yet, it’s clear he’s wrestling with a script that doesn’t know what film it wants to be. The result is a workmanlike effort from a director capable of brilliance, dulled by interference and conflicting visions.
Murphy’s performance doesn’t help matters. As Maximilian, he is clearly struggling to play it straight in a film that refuses to let him. Worse still, his multiple side characters — including a shapeshifting preacher and a slick Italian hood — are cartoonish distractions that undercut any atmosphere the film manages to build. The humour feels forced, the scares are neutered, and the pacing plods.
The film’s saving grace is Angela Bassett, whose portrayal of Detective Rita Veder adds depth and gravitas where the script provides little. Bassett commands every frame with her trademark intensity, grounding the absurdity around her with genuine emotional weight. In a better film, her character’s arc — caught between duty and seduction — might have resonated as a modern Gothic tragedy. Here, it merely hints at what Vampire in Brooklyn could have been.
Wes Craven would rebound just a year later with Scream, proving his instincts were still razor-sharp when given the right material. Vampire in Brooklyn, by contrast, feels like a creative crossroads for all involved — a misfire born from too many competing intentions and not enough cohesion.
The Prognosis:
A muddled mix of horror and humour, Vampire in Brooklyn never finds its bite. Caught between Murphy’s comedic impulses and Craven’s horror pedigree, it flails when it should fly. Angela Bassett alone keeps the film from turning to dust, but even she can’t save this lifeless experiment from the shadows.
In the mid-’90s, the serial killer genre was everywhere — a time when Seven and The Silence of the Lambs defined the psychological thriller as both intelligent and unnerving. Nestled among these giants was Jon Amiel’s Copycat (1995), a sleek and surprisingly tense entry that continues to hold up thirty years later, largely thanks to its powerhouse performances and sharp sense of restraint.
Sigourney Weaver stars as Dr. Helen Hudson, an agoraphobic criminal psychologist who becomes the target of a copycat killer recreating the crimes of history’s most infamous murderers. When Detective M.J. Monahan (Holly Hunter) enlists Helen’s help, the two form an uneasy alliance that becomes the film’s emotional anchor — a pairing as compelling as it is understated. Hunter brings grit and quiet empathy, while Weaver’s portrayal of trauma is as convincing as anything she’s ever done. Together, they elevate what could have been a routine procedural into something hauntingly human.
Jon Amiel directs with a cold precision, avoiding sensationalism in favour of tension that feels methodical and real. There’s a creeping paranoia throughout — wide, sterile spaces become cages for Helen’s fears, and the film’s rhythm mirrors her anxiety, fluctuating between moments of stillness and sudden panic. Dermot Mulroney and Will Patton lend solid support, but it’s Harry Connick Jr. who leaves the deepest scar. As Daryll Lee Cullum, the unhinged killer from Helen’s past, Connick gives an unexpectedly chilling performance — all sleaze and psychopathy, laced with just enough charisma to make the skin crawl.
While Copycat never reached the cultural heights of its genre peers, it arguably deserves more recognition. It’s intelligent without being pretentious, disturbing without resorting to excess. Its greatest strength lies in its empathy — the way it treats trauma and obsession not as spectacle but as psychological weight.
Thirty years on, Copycat remains a taut and classy thriller that bridges the gap between mainstream suspense and thoughtful character study. In an era of imitators, Amiel’s film proved that imitation itself could be both the weapon and the wound.
The Prognosis:
A tight, mature thriller carried by two phenomenal leads and a chilling supporting turn from Harry Connick Jr. Copycat might have arrived in the shadow of greater hits, but time has revealed its precision and heart.
When Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 arrived in 2000, it was less a haunting continuation than a jarring detour — an ill-fated attempt to capitalise on the cultural storm whipped up by The Blair Witch Project just a year earlier. Directed by acclaimed documentarian Joe Berlinger, known for his work on true-crime investigations, the film promised a layered, self-aware dissection of horror fandom. Instead, it spiralled into a confused and heavy-handed meta-experiment that buried any sense of dread beneath studio interference and incoherent storytelling.
Set in a world where The Blair Witch Project is treated as a fictional film, Book of Shadows follows a group of obsessed fans who embark on a tour of Burkittsville’s cursed woods. After a night of drinking and ritualistic dabbling, they awaken with no memory of what occurred — only to discover that something unspeakable has followed them back to civilisation. It’s a concept that could have worked, especially given Berlinger’s fascination with media, hysteria, and the blurred line between truth and fiction. But what unfolds is a tonal nightmare: part supernatural horror, part psychological thriller, and part MTV-era montage stitched together under studio panic.
Gone is the quiet, creeping terror that made The Blair Witch Project revolutionary. In its place are slick edits, forced symbolism, and a heavy-metal soundtrack that feels more Hot Topic than haunting. The atmosphere never gels; Berlinger’s original vision — a slow-burn descent into mass paranoia — was hacked apart in post-production, leaving behind something neither smart nor scary.
Even the performances, led by Jeffrey Donovan and Kim Director, struggle against the chaos. There’s a glimmer of an idea buried in there — a commentary on obsession and media manipulation — but it’s drowned by overwrought exposition and desperate attempts to shock.
Twenty-five years later, Book of Shadows remains one of horror’s most perplexing sequels: too ambitious for its own good yet too compromised to deliver. Whatever spirit haunted the woods of Burkittsville was lost in translation — and Elly Kedward would indeed be spinning in her grave.
The Prognosis:
A muddled, misguided sequel that confuses provocation with profundity. Berlinger’s vision was strangled by studio meddling, leaving behind only echoes of what might have been.
As Halloween draws near, horror once again becomes a shared ritual — a season of remembrance for stories that refuse to stay dead. Surgeons of Horror continues its Halloweekend celebration by exploring two of the year’s biggest horror sequels — The Conjuring: Last Rites and I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) — both of which resurrect familiar spirits for a new generation. Each film proves that in horror, the past is never truly buried. It lingers, waiting to be summoned.
In horror, nothing stays buried for long. The genre thrives on return — the killer who rises again, the curse that refuses to fade, the franchise that won’t go quietly into the night. As Halloween approaches, two recent releases — The Conjuring: Last Rites and I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) — embody that familiar resurrection instinct. Both reach back into the collective unconscious of horror fandom, summoning their mythologies for one more invocation. The result? A cinematic séance with two very different spirits.
Where The Conjuring franchise has become synonymous with ecclesiastical dread and the poetics of possession, Last Rites marks its most reflective chapter yet. It is less about the shrieks in the dark than the quiet toll of faith under siege. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga return with a weary grace, embodying spiritual endurance as Ed and Lorraine Warren face a final reckoning. The film’s success — the highest-grossing in the series to date — suggests that audiences still crave the sacred amid the spectral. Horror, after all, has always been the Church of the uncertain.
Director Michael Chaves, whose previous entries divided fans, appears here at his most composed. The film leans on ritual and rhythm, crafting its horror from slow encroachment rather than surprise. Where early Conjuring installments sought to make the invisible visible — the demonic literalised through spectacle — Last Rites internalises the terror. It becomes about spiritual corrosion and the limits of belief. The scares are fewer, but the unease lingers longer, like a stain that refuses absolution.
THE CONJURING: LAST RITES: BUY OR RENT NOW
If The Conjuring franchise operates as a gothic cathedral — all solemnity, candlelight, and conviction — then I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) is its neon-lit funhouse mirror. Twenty-eight years on from the original, the slasher that once defined late-’90s cool has been reborn for a postmodern audience weaned on legacy sequels and self-awareness. The returning players — older, guiltier, carrying the weight of past sins — are now haunted less by the killer with a hook than by the cultural echo of their own youth.
The new Summer trades the slick polish of the original for something darker and more psychologically knotted. Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson injects a contemporary anxiety into the glossy nostalgia — an unease about memory, mythmaking, and the impossibility of escape in a world where the past is always trending. It’s a film about being haunted by an earlier version of yourself, both on-screen and off. If The Conjuring: Last Rites examines faith as a haunted institution, I Know What You Did Last Summer dissects nostalgia as a haunted emotion.
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER: BUY OR RENT NOW
Taken together, the two films form an accidental dialogue about horror’s relationship with repetition. The genre has always been cyclical — the curse that returns, the scream that echoes — but in 2025, the loop feels newly self-conscious. We no longer revisit the past merely to reanimate it; we revisit to interrogate it. What does it mean that we find comfort in repetition? That audiences continue to gather for another exorcism, another confession, another reckoning with sins once buried? Perhaps the modern horror franchise is the truest ghost story of all: one where the spectre is the story itself, forever refusing release.
It’s telling that both films found such success not by reinventing their formulas but by leaning into legacy. The Conjuring: Last Rites positions itself as a summation — the solemn benediction of a franchise that once defined a new wave of studio horror. I Know What You Did Last Summer, meanwhile, taps into the ironic nostalgia economy, where a wink to the camera can coexist with genuine bloodletting. Between them lies the spectrum of modern horror’s obsessions: belief, guilt, and the inability to let go.
As studios mine familiar IPs for one more scare, it’s easy to be cynical. Yet these films remind us that the franchise model, at its best, functions like folklore — stories retold, reshaped, and reinterpreted for each generation. Every return is an exorcism, every revival a confession. And as long as we keep watching, the ghosts — cinematic or otherwise — will keep coming back.
In this year’s crowded Halloween line-up, Last Rites and I Know What You Did Last Summer stand not as nostalgic curios, but as mirrors reflecting horror’s restless soul. The genre’s truest power has never been novelty, but endurance. Horror doesn’t die — it reincarnates, forever compelled to haunt itself.
Saul Muerte
This article is part of Surgeons of Horror’s 2025 Halloweekend coverage — a series of features and retrospectives exploring horror’s many faces, from sacred hauntings to nostalgic revivals. Stay tuned for upcoming deep dives into Weapons, The Toxic Avenger, Freakier Friday, The Evil Dead, and HIM — because Halloween isn’t just a night. It’s a ritual.
Halloween rarely stays confined to a single night. The ritual of the Halloweekend—a three-day communion of darkness, nostalgia, and popcorn—has become an annual rite for horror fans. It’s a time when the barriers between the cinema and the living room dissolve, and the flicker of the television once again becomes our campfire glow. This year, as October 31st falls on a Friday, it’s the perfect excuse to transform your home into a theatre of the uncanny.
From franchise resurrections and genre experiments to reanimated cult icons and family-friendly frights, this year’s home entertainment line-up offers a spectrum of screams for every taste. Whether you crave dread-laden mythology, subversive satire, or a gentle chill that still lets the kids sleep at night, here’s your guide to building a Halloweekend Movie Marathon worthy of the season.
The Franchises Return: Evil Never Dies, It Just Streams Differently
Sequels are the lifeblood of the horror ecosystem, and 2024–2025 has delivered them with unholy enthusiasm. The Conjuring: Last Rites has become the highest-grossing entry in the franchise—proof that James Wan’s universe of haunted faith still has audiences under its spell. The film closes the Ed and Lorraine Warren saga with ritualistic grandeur, blending theological terror with operatic spectacle. It’s horror as folklore, deeply Catholic yet oddly romantic, and best watched with the lights off and the volume indecently high.
Hot on its spectral heels comes I Know What You Did Last Summer, the long-awaited sequel that trades the 1990s teen slasher sheen for something darker and more mournful. Age has crept into its survivors, and the sins of the past feel heavier, more human. Together, these two films form the perfect one-two punch for a Friday night of ghosts and guilt—two hauntings from opposite ends of the horror spectrum.
If you still have stamina after that, revisit The Black Phone. Scott Derrickson’s original remains a masterclass in slow-burn suspense, and Ethan Hawke’s masked performance feels destined to be rediscovered each Halloween.
Weapons of Fear: The New Face of Prestige Horror
For those who prefer their terror thoughtful, Weaponsstands as this year’s dark horse—a meticulously constructed nightmare that unfolds with existential precision. Director Zach Cregger’s follow-up to Barbarian dissects masculinity and violence through a lens of cosmic dread, proving once again that the most terrifying monsters are often human. It’s not just horror; it’s arthouse apocalypse.
And just beyond the horizon lurks HIM—available to pre-order now and set to release in early November. Word from festival circuits teases something Lovecraftian, something deeply unsettling. If Weapons is about human violence, HIM promises to explore the unfathomable violence of the universe itself. For the serious horror aesthete, these two titles belong at the heart of your Halloweekend viewing.
Horror Meets Humour: The Body Horrific
Sometimes the only way to survive the darkness is to laugh through the blood. Together, starring Alison Brie and Dave Franco, does exactly that—fusing body horror with relationship disintegration in a way that’s both hilarious and grotesque. It’s Cronenberg by way of couple’s therapy, proof that the boundaries between love and revulsion remain dangerously thin.
Then there’s The Toxic Avenger (2025), the riotous revival of Troma’s most beloved mutant. Director Macon Blair reimagines the cult classic for a new age of environmental anxiety and pop-cultural absurdity. With Peter Dinklage and Kevin Bacon leading the chaos, it’s a delirious love letter to 1980s splatter cinema—messy, magnificent, and defiantly unclean. Expect a full-length exploration of this one soon on Surgeons of Horror, because The Toxic Avenger deserves more than a mere mention; it’s a mutation worth celebrating.
Family Frights: When the Night Belongs to Everyone
For those who prefer their ghosts gentle and their monsters misunderstood, Halloween can still be a shared experience. Freakier Friday offers body-swap comedy with a spectral twist—perfect for a family-friendly movie night that nods toward the macabre without the nightmares. Meanwhile, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride remains a perennial classic, a gothic romance that continues to delight and haunt with its delicate stop-motion melancholy.
Pair these two for Sunday evening—an epilogue of warmth after the chaos, proof that the spirit of Halloween can be cosy, not just cold.
Classics Reawakened: Blood and Memory
No Halloween is complete without returning to the foundations. The Evil Dead (1981), Sam Raimi’s kinetic debut, remains one of the most visceral horror experiences ever committed to film. Its mixture of slapstick terror and relentless energy forged the DNA of modern horror filmmaking. Forty years later, its influence is still bleeding into the genre’s veins. Watching it today is like summoning the raw essence of what makes horror eternal: audacity, invention, and the thrill of transgression.
Curtain Call: The Comfort of Fear
Halloween on screen has evolved beyond simple scares—it’s a shared ritual, a space for collective catharsis. The modern horror fan might binge on supernatural sequels, dissect social allegories, or seek comfort in gothic animation. Yet the result is the same: we gather in the dark to feel alive.
This Halloweekend, the ghosts aren’t outside—they’re waiting in your queue. So dim the lights, queue up your terror of choice, and let the screen glow like a candle in the night.
By 2005, Tobe Hooper’s once fearsome reputation as a master of horror had begun to fade into something far more uncertain. Mortuary, his final American feature before his death, feels like a strange, uneasy echo of the brilliance that gave us The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Poltergeist. Set in a decrepit Californian funeral home and built around a familiar haunted house premise, it’s a film that wants to be both grotesque and gleeful — a late-career experiment in dark comedy that never quite rises from the slab.
The story follows a widowed mother (Denise Crosby) and her two children who relocate to take over an old mortuary, despite the locals’ warnings of curses, restless dead, and black ooze seeping from the earth. Before long, things decay in true Hooper fashion: corpses twitch, strange fungi spread, and reality slips into chaos. Beneath the mess, though, is a faint pulse of humour — a macabre self-awareness that nods toward Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, where he first married horror and absurdity in equal measure.
But here, the tonal blend doesn’t quite hold. The gags are awkwardly timed, the scares too routine, and the effects — though spirited — never disguise the low budget. Still, there’s something oddly endearing about Hooper’s refusal to take it all too seriously. The film occasionally sparkles with flashes of his old, anarchic wit — a momentary reminder of the director who once turned rural America into a living nightmare.
Unfortunately, Mortuary never finds its footing. What should have been a campy, self-aware romp too often feels sluggish and shapeless, as though Hooper was wrestling with the ghosts of his own filmography.
The Prognosis:
A faint echo of a great filmmaker’s past glories — Mortuary is too uneven to resurrect Hooper’s legacy, but its dark humour and decaying charm make it a curious, if minor, entry in his body of work.
In Strange Harvest, Ortiz reshapes the language of true-crime horror, transforming the procedural form into a conduit for cosmic unease — a subtle evolution from his Grave Encounters origins.
In Strange Harvest, Stuart Ortiz — one half of the duo behind Grave Encounters — returns to the found footage-adjacent horror landscape with a surprising degree of control and maturity. Where Grave Encounters (2011) revelled in its haunted asylum chaos and digital distortion, Strange Harvest feels leaner and more deliberate, channelling that same eerie energy into a faux true-crime format that plays like Zodiac meets The Fourth Kind.
The film opens with what seems like a procedural—detectives responding to a welfare check in suburban San Bernardino—but quickly descends into something far darker. A murdered family, strange symbols written in blood, and the re-emergence of a serial killer known as “Mr. Shiny” set the stage for a horror narrative that thrives on implication and dread. Each new crime scene pushes the story further into cosmic territory, hinting at malevolent forces that exist well beyond the scope of human comprehension.
Ortiz demonstrates that he’s learned from over a decade in the horror trenches. His handling of the faux documentary format feels both grounded and authentic, using interviews, news footage, and handheld police recordings to build a layered mythology around the murders. The pacing is steady but tense, and the editing keeps the viewer in that unnerving space between realism and the supernatural — a sweet spot Ortiz has always excelled at.
While the premise is simple, that’s part of its strength. Strange Harvest doesn’t overcomplicate its narrative or chase high-concept spectacle; instead, it leans into its lo-fi authenticity, letting the horror emerge through atmosphere and suggestion. There are shades of procedural TV mixed with cosmic unease, but Ortiz ties it together with a firm grasp of tone and an eye for unsettling imagery.
It’s a testament to Ortiz’s craft that what could have been another run-of-the-mill mockumentary instead feels genuinely unnerving. Strange Harvest proves that the Grave Encounters legacy wasn’t a one-off fluke — Ortiz remains a filmmaker who understands how to weaponise form, texture, and the illusion of truth to make horror hit a little too close to home.
The Prognosis:
A deceptively simple yet chilling faux true-crime horror that tightens the screws through atmosphere and implication. Ortiz’s strongest solo work to date.
Surgeons of Horror 