Category Archives: Movie review

Nightborn (2026): Mother Knows Best… But Does the Film?

31 Friday Jul 2026

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There are few fears more primal than the uncertainty of new parenthood.

The sleepless nights, the anxiety, the overwhelming sense of responsibility and the quiet terror that something might be wrong. Horror has long recognised the emotional potency of this vulnerability, from Rosemary’s Baby and The Babadook to more recent explorations of maternal dread. Nightborn enters this lineage with an intriguing premise and an evocative Finnish setting, but despite moments of genuine unease, it struggles to nurture its strongest ideas into something truly memorable.

Set deep within the forests of Finland, the film follows Saga (Seidi Haarla) and her husband Jon (Rupert Grint) as they return to Saga’s childhood home in the hope of beginning a new chapter. Following the birth of their son, however, Saga becomes convinced that something is deeply wrong with the child. Her growing paranoia places increasing strain on her marriage, leaving Jon caught between concern for his wife and disbelief in her increasingly desperate claims.

The film’s greatest strength lies in its atmosphere.

The Finnish wilderness provides an appropriately isolated backdrop, with dense forests and remote homesteads creating an ever-present sense of unease. Nature itself seems to watch the characters, quietly reinforcing the feeling that they have wandered into a place governed by older, darker traditions. The cinematography frequently favours silence over spectacle, allowing tension to accumulate rather than relying on conventional jump scares.

Seidi Haarla delivers a committed performance as Saga, convincingly balancing maternal instinct with psychological uncertainty. The audience is never entirely sure whether her fears stem from post-partum trauma or something genuinely supernatural, and Haarla handles this ambiguity with impressive restraint.

Rupert Grint, meanwhile, provides a grounded counterbalance. His Jon is less a sceptic than a man desperately trying to support his wife while struggling to understand what is happening around him. It’s a quietly sympathetic performance, even if the screenplay doesn’t always give him enough depth beyond that role.

Unfortunately, Nightborn never fully commits to the questions it raises.

The film repeatedly hints at fascinating ideas surrounding motherhood, inherited trauma, folklore and the fear of passing unseen burdens from one generation to the next. Yet rather than exploring these themes with confidence, it often retreats into familiar horror conventions. The psychological tension that proves so compelling in the opening act gradually gives way to narrative choices that feel more predictable than revelatory.

This uncertainty extends to the film’s identity.

At various points it wants to be folk horror, domestic drama, psychological thriller and supernatural mystery. Each approach contains promise, but they never quite coalesce into a satisfying whole. Rather than enriching one another, the competing tones dilute the impact of the central story.

There are moments where Nightborn genuinely unsettles. Its strongest sequences exploit the universal anxieties surrounding new parenthood with sensitivity and restraint, reminding us that horror needn’t always rely on monsters when fear already exists within the everyday experience of raising a child.

Ironically, those grounded moments prove more effective than the film’s supernatural ambitions.

As the mystery unfolds, many of the early ambiguities are exchanged for explanations that feel less compelling than the questions themselves. The result is a conclusion that lacks the emotional punch the opening acts seemed to promise.

That isn’t to say Nightborn is without merit. Its atmosphere remains consistently impressive, Haarla anchors the film with a compelling lead performance, and the Finnish landscape lends the production a distinctive visual identity rarely seen in contemporary horror. But strong atmosphere alone cannot compensate for a narrative that struggles to decide exactly what kind of horror story it wishes to tell.

The Prognosis:

Nightborn contains the ingredients for an unsettling exploration of maternal fear, grief and inherited darkness, yet never quite brings them together into a cohesive whole. While its performances and atmospheric setting provide plenty to admire, the film ultimately feels caught between psychological subtlety and supernatural convention, never fully embracing either.

Like the forests that surround its characters, Nightborn is rich with mystery and promise. It simply loses its way before reaching its destination.

  • Saul Muerte

Nigthborn is streaming on Shudder from Jul 31.

Obsession (2025): When Love Becomes Possession

09 Thursday Jul 2026

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There is a dangerous lie embedded within modern romance.

We are told that persistence is passion. That determination proves devotion. That if we want something badly enough, we should fight for it. Popular culture has long celebrated the hopeless romantic—the dreamer willing to cross impossible distances in pursuit of love.

But what if that pursuit isn’t love at all?

What if it’s simply obsession?

Director Curry Barker’s Obsession takes that uncomfortable question and twists it into a surprisingly intelligent slice of supernatural horror. On its surface, it presents a familiar cautionary tale about wishes granted at a terrible cost. Beneath that, however, lies something far more unsettling: an examination of desire stripped of empathy, where affection becomes ownership and fantasy begins to overwrite consent.

The premise is deceptively simple. After breaking the mysterious One Wish Willow in an attempt to win the heart of his crush, a lonely young man discovers that his wish has indeed come true. Yet as reality begins to warp around him, he realises that some desires demand far greater sacrifices than anyone could anticipate.

The brilliance of Barker’s screenplay lies in its refusal to treat obsession as romantic.

Too often cinema blurs the distinction between relentless pursuit and genuine affection. Characters are encouraged to ignore rejection, persist beyond reason and eventually earn their happy ending through sheer determination. Obsession dismantles that fantasy piece by piece.

Love requires two people.

Obsession only requires one.

It is here that the supernatural elements become more than narrative devices. The cursed wish functions as an external manifestation of entitlement, exposing the dangerous assumption that happiness can somehow be taken rather than shared. The horror doesn’t emerge from monsters hiding in the shadows; it grows from a mind convinced it deserves another human being simply because it wants them enough.

That is a genuinely frightening idea.

Barker understands that horror has always been most effective when it exposes uncomfortable truths about ourselves. The film isn’t asking us to fear the One Wish Willow.

It’s asking us to question the stories we’ve been telling ourselves about romance.

There is also something refreshingly contemporary about Obsession. Rather than relying solely on traditional horror conventions, Barker captures a generation shaped by loneliness, social media and carefully curated fantasies. In an era where parasocial relationships and idealised online identities have become increasingly commonplace, the film feels acutely aware of how easily longing can become fixation.

Without ever becoming preachy, it quietly interrogates the difference between connection and consumption.

Technically, Barker continues to demonstrate why he is one of the more exciting emerging voices in independent genre cinema. His direction balances moments of tenderness with escalating dread, allowing seemingly innocent encounters to slowly curdle into something deeply unnerving. The supernatural flourishes never overwhelm the emotional core, instead reinforcing the psychological deterioration unfolding before us.

The cast similarly embrace that balance. Performances remain grounded even as the story ventures into increasingly surreal territory, ensuring the emotional stakes never disappear beneath the horror.

Perhaps most impressive is the film’s confidence.

Many modern horror films feel compelled to explain every mystery they introduce, as though ambiguity were somehow a weakness. Obsession is content to leave certain questions unanswered, trusting its audience to wrestle with the implications rather than simply providing solutions. That confidence gives the film an air of unease that extends beyond its central premise.

If there is a criticism, it is that some of the film’s supporting characters occasionally feel underdeveloped, leaving a handful of emotional beats with less impact than they might otherwise have carried. Yet these are relatively minor shortcomings within a film that remains remarkably assured in both its thematic ambition and execution.

What ultimately elevates Obsession above its supernatural premise is its understanding that horror often emerges from ordinary human emotions pushed beyond their natural limits.

Love can nurture.

Desire can inspire.

But obsession…

Obsession seeks to possess.

By the time Barker draws those distinctions into sharp focus, the film has quietly transformed from an entertaining supernatural thriller into something far more thought-provoking.

The Prognosis:

Obsession is far more than another “be careful what you wish for” horror story. It is a thoughtful exploration of modern desire, loneliness and the dangerous confusion between affection and ownership. Curry Barker demonstrates impressive confidence as both a storyteller and filmmaker, crafting a horror film that is as psychologically engaging as it is unsettling. Smartly written, elegantly directed and underpinned by ideas that deserve reflection, Obsession proves that some of the darkest monsters are not supernatural at all—they are the stories we tell ourselves about what we believe we deserve.

  • Saul Muerte

Now available to Rent or Buy

Apple TV – Foxtel Store – Prime Video – YouTube – Google TV – Fetch – Sky NZ

Evil Dead Burn (2026): Burning Bright, But Without a Soul

08 Wednesday Jul 2026

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Since Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and Robert Tapert threw audiences into a ramshackle cabin in the Tennessee woods more than four decades ago, the Evil Dead franchise has become something of a creative playground. Rather than endlessly repeating itself, each instalment has dared to evolve, shifting from visceral survival horror to slapstick comedy, medieval fantasy and urban nightmare. It is a series that has thrived through reinvention.

With Sébastien Vaniček stepping into the director’s chair following the ferocious Vermines (Infested), expectations were understandably high. His debut demonstrated an extraordinary command of tension, practical effects and claustrophobic action, making him an inspired choice to shepherd the next chapter in one of horror’s most fearless franchises.

On paper, Evil Dead Burn appears to continue that tradition.

The film centres on a grieving widow who, following the death of her husband, retreats to the home of her in-laws in search of refuge. Instead, long-buried wounds are violently reopened as the family is consumed one by one by Deadites, forcing her to confront horrors that extend far beyond the supernatural.

The central metaphor is clear.

Like the franchise before it, Evil Dead Burn understands that the most terrifying demons are often the ones we bring home.

This time, however, the story explores the lingering trauma of domestic violence and the devastating ways abuse can continue to shape families long after the violence itself has ended. It is an important and timely subject, and Vaniček deserves credit for attempting to weave genuine social commentary into the relentless carnage.

Unfortunately, the film never fully earns the emotional weight its themes demand.

The domestic trauma feels less like the beating heart of the narrative and more like a framework upon which another Evil Dead story has been constructed. The metaphor is present, but it remains frustratingly underdeveloped. Rather than allowing its characters the space to breathe, the screenplay rushes from one violent set piece to the next, often mistaking intensity for emotional investment.

As a result, the horror frequently becomes spectacular without ever becoming genuinely affecting.

That is particularly disappointing because Souheila Yacoub delivers a committed and compelling central performance. She grounds the film with remarkable conviction, carrying scenes that occasionally ask more of her than the script is willing to provide. Even when the narrative falters, she remains entirely believable, offering flashes of vulnerability amid the escalating chaos.

Visually, however, there is little to criticise.

Vaniček once again demonstrates an impressive eye for physical action. The choreography of the Deadite attacks is inventive, kinetic and frequently brutal, while the practical effects embrace the franchise’s gleeful commitment to blood-soaked excess. Fans of the 2013 remake’s uncompromising violence will undoubtedly find much to admire here.

The film rarely lacks energy.

It simply lacks emotional gravity.

That absence becomes increasingly apparent as the story unfolds. One of the enduring strengths of the Evil Dead series has always been its ability to anchor even the most outrageous horrors in memorable characters. Whether it was Ash Williams’ reluctant transformation from everyman to hero, Mia’s battle with addiction in the 2013 remake, or the desperate family dynamics of Evil Dead Rise, there was always something human beneath the gore.

Evil Dead Burn struggles to establish that same connection.

Its characters remain broadly sketched, their relationships more implied than explored. Consequently, when the inevitable possessions begin, there is surprisingly little sense of tragedy. The violence is expertly staged, but without meaningful emotional investment, it often becomes an exercise in endurance rather than suspense.

Ironically, the film’s greatest weakness emerges from one of Raimi and his collaborators’ greatest strengths.

Their willingness to invite distinctive filmmakers into the franchise has ensured that Evil Dead never grows stale. Each director brings a unique perspective, allowing the mythology to evolve while retaining its anarchic spirit. It is an admirable philosophy, and one that continues to keep the series creatively alive.

Yet reinvention alone is not enough.

There must also be something that binds these stories together beyond the Necronomicon and the Deadites.

Here, that connective tissue feels unusually thin.

Strip away the familiar iconography, and Evil Dead Burn often feels like a competent supernatural horror that has been retrofitted into an established franchise. It borrows the mythology, embraces the brutality and honours the practical carnage, but rarely captures the mischievous personality or emotional investment that have long distinguished Evil Dead from its imitators.

It is telling that some of the film’s most memorable moments are its individual sequences rather than its overall narrative.

Vaniček continues to prove himself an immensely talented visual filmmaker, and there is little doubt that his career will continue to flourish. Few contemporary directors stage visceral horror with such confidence or physicality. The problem is not one of execution.

It is one of connection.

The Prognosis:

Evil Dead Burn contains flashes of the bold filmmaking that made Sébastien Vaniček such an exciting choice for the franchise. Its practical effects, relentless brutality and assured direction deliver several exhilarating moments, while Souheila Yacoub anchors the film with a committed performance. Yet despite its impressive craftsmanship, the emotional core never fully ignites. By leaning so heavily into violence without first giving audiences characters to truly invest in, the film ultimately becomes the least affecting—and perhaps the least distinctive—entry in the Evil Dead series to date.

It burns fiercely.

But unlike the franchise’s finest chapters…

It leaves surprisingly little behind once the flames have died.

  • Saul Muerte

🩸 Continue the Journey Through the Evil Dead

With the release of Evil Dead Burn, there’s never been a better time to revisit one of horror’s most inventive and enduring franchises.

Explore the full Surgeons of Horror Evil Dead retrospective series, where we chart the evolution of the Deadites from Sam Raimi’s groundbreaking 1981 original through to the franchise’s latest incarnation.

Read the series:

📖 The Evil Dead (1981) at 45 – How a group of friends created one of the most influential independent horror films ever made.

🎥 Watch on YouTube

Expand your journey through the world of the Deadites with two special companion series:

📚 Library of the Occult – The Necronomicon: The Book That Escaped Fiction
A four-part documentary exploring the extraordinary history of horror’s most infamous fictional grimoire—from H.P. Lovecraft’s imagination to its iconic role in The Evil Dead.

Whether you’re rediscovering the original cabin in the woods or venturing into the franchise’s latest nightmares, there’s always another page waiting to be turned…

Leviticus (2026) Love as Monstrosity: Adrian Chiarella’s Haunting Examination of Desire, Repression and Fear

22 Monday Jun 2026

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“It will never stop.”

Horror has long understood a truth that society frequently struggles to acknowledge: the things we repress rarely disappear. They fester. They mutate. They return to us in unfamiliar forms, demanding recognition.

In Adrian Chiarella’s remarkable Leviticus, repression becomes a monster.

Quite literally.

The premise is deceptively simple. Two teenage boys find themselves pursued by a violent entity capable of assuming the form of the person they desire most — each other. What unfolds from this elegantly terrifying concept is not merely a supernatural chase film, but a deeply affecting exploration of loneliness, internalised shame and the psychological violence inflicted upon those forced to exist on the margins of acceptance.

Like the finest works of queer horror, Leviticus understands that monstrosity often originates not from within, but from without.

The true horror lies in being told that your capacity for love is itself monstrous.

Fear Made Flesh

The genius of Chiarella’s central metaphor lies in its fluidity.

The entity haunting these young men is terrifying not simply because it pursues them relentlessly, but because it embodies contradiction. It is simultaneously desire and destruction, tenderness and violence, attraction and revulsion.

It is love transformed by fear.

Throughout the film, fear functions almost as a transference of trepidation; anxieties long suppressed are projected outward until they assume physical form. The boys are not merely running from an external force. They are running from themselves, from feelings they have been conditioned to distrust and from a society that has taught them to view intimacy through the lens of guilt.

The result is profoundly unsettling.

Every act of tenderness carries the potential for violence.

Every expression of affection risks becoming an act of self-destruction.

The line separating love from hate grows perilously thin.

The Violence of Repression

There is an old adage that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.

Leviticus suggests something more troubling.

That love and hate may, under sufficient pressure, become indistinguishable.

Chiarella deftly explores this uneasy terrain, charting the emotional oscillation between anger and tenderness, longing and resentment, intimacy and aggression. The boys’ relationship exists in a constant state of tension, shaped as much by external hostility as by their own uncertainty.

This emotional volatility gives the film much of its dramatic power.

Heartache becomes inseparable from fear.

Desire becomes inseparable from shame.

The violence that erupts throughout the narrative often feels less like supernatural intervention than the inevitable consequence of prolonged emotional repression.

The monster may be fictional.

The wounds are not.

The Ghosts We Carry

One of Leviticus’ most poignant observations is that trauma, prejudice and hatred are not easily discarded. They do not simply vanish once we recognise them for what they are.

They linger.

They settle into the psyche, quietly shaping our perceptions long after the initial wound has been inflicted.

Chiarella understands that emotional scars possess a troubling afterlife. Years of repression, condemnation and social hostility cannot be shed overnight. Instead, they fester, returning in moments of vulnerability, distorting relationships and poisoning intimacy. Even when love is finally permitted to flourish, the residual weight of shame and fear often remains.

In this sense, the entity pursuing the boys becomes more than a supernatural antagonist. It is the embodiment of accumulated trauma—the manifestation of prejudices both external and internalised. It is the voice that insists happiness is undeserved, that desire is dangerous, that acceptance comes at a cost.

The true tragedy of Leviticus lies in recognising that escaping such horrors is rarely as simple as outrunning them.

Some monsters continue to haunt us long after the chase is over.

Isolation and the Architecture of Anxiety

Perhaps the film’s most devastating achievement is its portrayal of isolation.

Isolation is rarely passive in horror. It distorts perception. It amplifies fear. It transforms private anxieties into all-consuming realities.

In Leviticus, isolation operates on multiple levels.

There is physical isolation — the sense of being cut off from community and safety.

There is emotional isolation — the inability to articulate desire without fear of rejection or reprisal.

And perhaps most painfully, there is existential isolation: the experience of confronting one’s own identity within a world that refuses to acknowledge its legitimacy.

When individuals are denied acceptance, they are often forced into relentless self-examination. Every gesture becomes scrutinised. Every feeling becomes suspect.

The self becomes both sanctuary and prison.

Chiarella captures this experience with remarkable sensitivity.

The film recognises that heightened anxiety is not irrational when the world itself feels hostile.

Religion, Taboo and Collective Fear

The title Leviticus immediately signals the film’s engagement with religious discourse, and Chiarella proves unafraid to confront the destructive intersections of faith, taboo and social conformity.

The film does not indict spirituality itself. Rather, it interrogates the ways religious doctrine can be weaponised by zealotry and group mentality.

Communities built upon exclusion frequently justify themselves through appeals to morality, tradition or divine authority. In doing so, they create environments where difference is not merely discouraged but actively condemned.

Within such spaces, fear becomes communal.

Prejudice becomes ritual.

Cruelty becomes righteousness.

The horror of Leviticus emerges not simply from the supernatural entity stalking its protagonists, but from the social structures that made such a monster possible in the first place.

The creature is merely the symptom.

The disease is intolerance.

A Timely Voice in Contemporary Horror

With Leviticus, Adrian Chiarella joins a growing lineage of filmmakers using horror as a vehicle for examining contemporary social anxieties through distinctly queer perspectives.

Yet the film never feels didactic.

Its themes emerge organically through character, atmosphere and metaphor rather than overt polemic. Chiarella trusts audiences to navigate ambiguity, allowing emotional truths to surface gradually through moments of vulnerability, terror and unexpected tenderness.

This restraint proves crucial.

For all its darkness, Leviticus remains deeply compassionate.

It understands that confronting oneself can be frightening.

It also understands that self-acceptance may be the only means of surviving.

The Prognosis:

Leviticus is an intelligent, emotionally resonant and deeply topical work of queer horror that transforms supernatural terror into a poignant meditation on repression, loneliness and the enduring struggle for acceptance.

Anchored by Adrian Chiarella’s assured direction and a powerful central metaphor, the film explores the fragile boundary between love and hate, fear and desire, violence and tenderness with rare nuance.

Chiarella reminds us that trauma, prejudice and hatred are not easily shed. They linger, fester and leave scars upon the psyche, shaping the way we love, fear and ultimately understand ourselves.

In a world that too often demands conformity, Leviticus asks a simple but devastating question:

What happens when society teaches us to fear the very people we love — and, ultimately, ourselves?

The answer is horrifying.

And heartbreakingly human.

  • Saul Muerte

Exit 8 (2026): A Haunting Modern Labyrinth Where Every Step Could Be the Wrong One

15 Monday Jun 2026

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The daily commute. The same corridors. The same conversations. The same routines that slowly blur one day into the next until time itself begins to feel meaningless. It is a concept that philosophers, writers and filmmakers have explored for centuries, perhaps most famously through the Greek myth of Sisyphus, condemned by the gods to endlessly push a boulder uphill only for it to roll back down again.

In many ways, Exit 8 feels like a modern horror interpretation of that ancient tale.

Directed by Genki Kawamura, this adaptation of the cult video game takes a deceptively simple premise and transforms it into a tense psychological puzzle box. A lone man finds himself trapped within an endless sterile subway passageway. The rules appear straightforward: continue walking if nothing seems unusual, turn back if you discover an anomaly, and eventually find Exit 8. Fail to spot even the smallest irregularity and you are sent back to the beginning.

Simple.

At least in theory.

What unfolds is an increasingly unnerving descent into paranoia, where the audience becomes just as invested in spotting the abnormalities as the protagonist himself.

The Horror of Observation

One of the film’s greatest strengths is its ability to weaponise the mundane.

The subway corridor is almost aggressively ordinary. Fluorescent lighting illuminates spotless walls. Posters line the passageway. Commuters occasionally pass by. Nothing screams horror.

Yet that normality becomes the film’s greatest source of tension.

Every frame invites scrutiny.

Did that sign move?

Was that man always standing there?

Has the corridor become slightly longer?

Kawamura understands that true suspense often emerges not from what is present but from what feels subtly wrong. The audience quickly finds themselves scanning every inch of the screen, searching for details that might reveal the next anomaly.

The experience becomes strangely interactive.

Like the protagonist, viewers are trapped inside an endless game of observation.

The Curse of Repetition

The film’s strongest thematic thread lies in its exploration of repetition itself.

Like Sisyphus eternally rolling his boulder uphill, the protagonist repeatedly finds himself returned to the beginning despite making apparent progress. The endless corridor becomes a metaphor for routine, anxiety and the human desire to find meaning within seemingly endless cycles.

There is a distinctly existential quality to the narrative.

The further the protagonist travels, the more uncertain both he and the audience become regarding whether escape is even possible. The goal remains visible, yet perpetually out of reach.

It is a simple concept executed with surprising depth.

Breaking the Cycle

To its credit, Exit 8 recognises the dangers of becoming trapped by its own premise.

The film occasionally suffers from the very repetition it seeks to explore. There are stretches where the narrative momentum slows and the structure risks becoming predictable. Audiences may find themselves wondering whether the concept has enough substance to sustain its running time.

Fortunately, Kawamura repeatedly finds ways to reinvigorate the experience.

Particularly effective are the moments where the film shifts perspective and broadens its focus beyond the central character. These narrative pivots arrive at precisely the right moments, offering fresh emotional context while preventing the film from becoming trapped within a single repetitive rhythm.

Each shift subtly alters the audience’s understanding of what is happening and why, transforming what could have become a one-note exercise into something considerably richer.

Minimalism as a Strength

Much like films such as Cube, The Platform or Vivarium, Exit 8 demonstrates how a limited setting can become a fertile playground for ideas.

The minimalist approach forces attention onto performance, atmosphere and concept rather than spectacle. Kawamura never relies on elaborate visual effects or excessive scares. Instead, he allows uncertainty and anticipation to do the heavy lifting.

Not because of shocking imagery, but because it taps into something universally relatable: the fear of being trapped within a system whose rules we only partially understand.

The Prognosis:

Exit 8 is a clever, unsettling and surprisingly philosophical piece of genre filmmaking that transforms a deceptively simple premise into an absorbing exploration of repetition, observation and existential dread.

While the narrative occasionally slows under the weight of its cyclical structure, Genki Kawamura consistently finds inventive ways to pull audiences back into the mystery through clever shifts in perspective and an ever-present sense of uncertainty.

Like Sisyphus pushing his boulder uphill, the protagonist’s journey may appear repetitive on the surface, but each attempt reveals something new about the nature of the labyrinth he inhabits—and perhaps about ourselves as well.

Tense, thought-provoking and quietly haunting, Exit 8 proves that sometimes the most terrifying journeys are the ones that never seem to end.

  • Saul Muerte

Home Entertainment Release:
Australian audiences can experience Exit 8 at home through Umbrella Entertainment’s Collector’s Edition release, available here:

Exit 8 (2025) Collector's Edition

It Will Find You (2026): A Supernatural Curse Rooted in Generational Trauma and First Nations Storytelling

02 Tuesday Jun 2026

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“Some things don’t stay buried. They wait.”

Horror has always thrived on inherited fear.

Curses passed from parent to child. Sins revisited across generations. Ancient evils clawing their way into the present through bloodlines unable to escape the past. Yet for all the genre’s fascination with ancestry and buried trauma, relatively few Australian horror films have explored those ideas through an authentically First Nations lens.

That is where It Will Find You finds its greatest strength.

Directed by Chris Broadbent and Enzo Tedeschi, this independent supernatural horror may operate within familiar genre frameworks, but it distinguishes itself through cultural specificity, emotional sincerity and a willingness to foreground Aboriginal storytelling rather than simply use it as aesthetic dressing.

The result is a film that occasionally shows the limitations of its budget yet consistently punches above its weight through atmosphere, mythology and heart.

The Horror of Inheritance

The story follows Emily, a young woman whose decision to move out of home inadvertently awakens a generational curse dormant for twenty-five years. As those around her begin dismissing her experiences as paranoia or psychological instability, Emily is forced to reconnect with her ancestry and confront the vengeful “giniirr” — a supernatural force demanding repayment for ancestral sins.

The premise itself is not radically new. Horror cinema has explored family curses countless times before. Yet It Will Find You succeeds because it roots those familiar ideas within cultural identity and intergenerational memory.

This is not simply a monster story.

It is a story about disconnection.

About fractured lineage.

About the danger of severing oneself from history and community.

The supernatural threat becomes inseparable from cultural trauma, giving the film emotional resonance beyond its scares.

A Powerful First Nations Voice

Perhaps the most refreshing aspect of It Will Find You is the way it foregrounds Aboriginal mythology without reducing it to exotic spectacle.

Too often genre cinema approaches Indigenous spirituality from the outside looking in, transforming sacred traditions into mysterious background texture for predominantly non-Indigenous narratives. Here, the mythology feels integrated into the emotional fabric of the story itself.

The film understands that horror works best when the supernatural carries symbolic weight.

The “giniirr” is frightening not merely because it stalks or kills, but because it represents unresolved history returning to demand acknowledgement. The curse operates almost as a manifestation of generational pain — something inherited, suppressed and ultimately impossible to ignore.

That thematic undercurrent gives the film surprising depth.

Kylah Day Holds the Centre

At the heart of the film is a compelling performance from Kylah Day.

Day carries much of the film’s emotional burden, grounding the supernatural chaos with vulnerability and determination. Emily’s fear feels genuine precisely because the performance never drifts into exaggerated horror theatrics. Instead, Day plays the role with an emotional realism that keeps the audience tethered to her experience even when the narrative veers into more familiar genre territory.

There is also something quietly powerful in the way the character’s journey mirrors the film’s broader thematic concerns. Emily is not merely fighting a monster; she is attempting to reclaim understanding of who she is and where she comes from.

That search for identity becomes the film’s true emotional engine.

Atmosphere Over Excess

Working with a clearly limited budget, Broadbent and Tedeschi wisely avoid overreaching.

Rather than relying heavily on visual effects spectacle, It Will Find You leans into atmosphere, tension and suggestion. Shadows linger longer than expected. Silence carries weight. The Australian landscape itself becomes part of the unease, simultaneously beautiful and isolating.

There are moments where the film’s ambitions visibly stretch against its financial constraints, particularly in some of the larger supernatural sequences. Yet there is also a sincerity to the filmmaking that compensates for those rough edges.

The directors understand mood.

More importantly, they understand restraint.

The horror often works best not when the film explains everything, but when it allows uncertainty and folklore to bleed together.

A Familiar Framework with a Distinct Identity

There are undeniably moments where It Will Find You falls into recognisable supernatural horror rhythms. Audiences familiar with modern possession and curse narratives may anticipate certain narrative turns before they arrive.

Yet dismissing the film on those grounds would overlook what makes it noteworthy.

Its identity.

Its perspective.

Its voice.

The film does not reinvent supernatural horror, but it does enrich it by telling a story rarely explored within mainstream Australian genre cinema. That alone gives it significance.

And when the emotional sincerity, strong central performance and cultural depth align, the film becomes genuinely affecting.

The Prognosis:

It Will Find You may not possess the polish or scale of larger studio horror productions, but its strengths lie elsewhere. Through committed performances, effective atmosphere and a powerful engagement with First Nations storytelling, the film transforms familiar supernatural ingredients into something culturally resonant and emotionally grounded.

A horror film shaped not simply by ghosts and curses, but by ancestry, memory and the lingering scars of inherited trauma.

Even when uneven, it remains compelling.

And in a genre landscape increasingly hungry for fresh voices and perspectives, that matters.

  • Saul Muerte

The Bride! (2026): Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Punk-Goth Frankenstein Symphony Stitched Together from Beautiful Mistakes

30 Saturday May 2026

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“Here comes the motherf%#ing bride.”*

Lightning crashes.

Cadavers twitch.

Jazz howls through smoke-filled Chicago streets while grief, lust, feminism and monster mythology stagger drunkenly through back alleys looking for salvation.

Somewhere inside this stitched-up fever dream sits The Bride!, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s gloriously uneven, wildly ambitious Frankenstein remix — a film that often feels like it was assembled from spare cinematic body parts stolen from completely different movies and somehow jolted into life through sheer artistic conviction.

Part gangster picture.

Part Gothic horror.

Part screwball comedy.

Part feminist reclamation.

Part midnight punk opera.

And somehow, despite all evidence suggesting otherwise, it works.

Well… mostly.

Audience reactions have understandably split down the middle. Some viewers will recoil from the film’s tonal chaos and deliberately theatrical excess. Others will embrace it precisely because of those imperfections. Much like Frankenstein’s creation itself, The Bride! is a collection of mismatched pieces searching desperately for coherence and identity.

That may ultimately be the point.

Because between the stitches is where the real beauty lives.

Set within a grime-soaked vision of 1930s Chicago, the film follows a lonely Frankenstein monster seeking companionship from the brilliant Dr. Euphronious. Together they resurrect a murdered woman who emerges not merely as a bride, but as something altogether more dangerous: a being suddenly awakened to the brutal realities of womanhood, oppression and agency within a world built by men.

At the centre of this chaos stands Jessie Buckley, delivering the kind of performance that feels simultaneously possessed and feral. Buckley does not simply play The Bride; she inhabits her like a soul clawing its way out of the grave. There is something distinctly Mary Shelley about the performance too, as though the spirit of Frankenstein’s creator has possessed Ida herself — reclaiming authorship from nearly a century of cinematic interpretations traditionally filtered through masculine perspectives.

The result is fascinating.

The Bride is no passive creation here.

She is fury wrapped in lace.

Trauma dressed in corpse paint.

A walking rejection of the idea that women should exist merely to complete broken men.

Gyllenhaal smartly reframes the Frankenstein myth not as a story about scientific hubris alone, but about ownership. Who controls creation? Who defines beauty? Who gets to decide what a woman should become once she has been “made”?

These themes pulse beneath every frame even when the film threatens to derail beneath its own stylistic weight.

And derail it occasionally does.

There are stretches where The Bride! feels like three different films wrestling each other for dominance. One moment the film channels hard-boiled detective noir straight from a rain-soaked pulp paperback; the next it explodes into anarchic Bonnie and Clyde energy before veering into rapid-fire screwball banter reminiscent of His Girl Friday filtered through Goth cabaret hysteria.

Not every creative choice lands.

Some scenes feel intentionally abrasive.

Others border on indulgent.

Yet criticising The Bride! for inconsistency almost feels beside the point. This is not a film striving for polished elegance. It is trying to become something alive. Something unstable. Something unpredictable.

Like Frankenstein’s monster, its awkwardness becomes inseparable from its humanity.

Visually, the film is intoxicating. Gyllenhaal drenches the screen in cigarette smoke, bruised neon, Gothic shadows and decaying glamour. The aesthetic resembles a haunted comic strip left overnight in a jazz club ashtray. Punk sensibilities collide with old Hollywood artifice, creating a world that constantly feels on the verge of collapse.

Which again mirrors the emotional architecture of the story itself.

Broken people trying desperately to build themselves anew from ruined parts.

For all its stylistic chaos, there is genuine emotional tenderness lurking beneath the scars. The monster at the centre of the film remains tragic not because he is grotesque, but because he longs for connection within a society terrified of difference. That aching loneliness gives the film surprising heart amidst all the madness.

And perhaps that is where The Bride! ultimately succeeds.

Not as a perfect film.

But as a deeply personal one.

You can feel Maggie Gyllenhaal reaching for something larger than conventional horror storytelling. Like her previous directorial work on The Lost Daughter, she remains fascinated by fractured womanhood, suppressed rage and the uncomfortable messiness of identity. Here she simply filters those obsessions through grave robbing, lightning strikes and corpse romance.

The result is divisive.

Beautifully so.

The Prognosis:

The Bride! may frustrate viewers seeking a clean or traditional reimagining of Frankenstein mythology, but its chaotic ambition becomes part of its appeal. Maggie Gyllenhaal delivers a bold, deeply textured and visually arresting work that embraces imperfection as an artistic principle rather than a flaw.

Held together by an astonishing performance from Jessie Buckley, the film transforms female oppression, identity and empowerment into a Gothic punk opera stitched together from cinematic scraps and raw nerve endings.

Not every seam holds.

Not every experiment succeeds.

But monsters were never meant to be perfect.

And neither was this.

  • Saul Muerte

Scream 7 (2026): Ghosts of Woodsboro: When Nostalgia Becomes the Killer

23 Saturday May 2026

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What’s your favourite scary movie?

Nearly thirty years after Scream reinvented the slasher genre, that question still echoes through horror cinema like a taunt from beyond the grave. Entire generations of fans have grown up alongside Ghostface. They have survived sequels, reboots, legacy-quels, television adaptations, and enough meta-commentary to fill an entire film studies curriculum.

With Scream 7, the franchise returns to perhaps its most familiar face: Neve Campbell‘s Sidney Prescott. It is a decision that feels both inevitable and deeply symbolic. As modern horror increasingly mines its own history for inspiration, Scream 7 asks whether a franchise built upon deconstructing nostalgia can continue surviving by embracing it.

The answer, much like the film itself, is complicated.

The Return of Sidney Prescott

The return of Sidney was always going to be the headline. For many fans, she remains the beating heart of the franchise. Not merely a final girl, but one of horror’s most enduring survivors. Across decades of violence, manipulation, and unimaginable personal loss, Sidney evolved from traumatised teenager into a symbol of resilience. Bringing her back carries undeniable emotional weight.

The film wisely understands this. Rather than reducing Sidney to a cameo or nostalgic accessory, it places her firmly at the centre of the narrative once more. The threat against her daughter provides a natural extension of the franchise’s long-running exploration of generational trauma and inherited fear.

Yet this choice also highlights a growing tension within modern horror. How many times can the same character endure unimaginable suffering before the trauma itself begins to lose meaning? At a certain point, survival becomes expectation rather than triumph. The wounds remain. The impact diminishes.

Kevin Williamson Finds His Voice Again

Perhaps the most fascinating element of Scream 7 is not Sidney’s return but the presence of Kevin Williamson behind the camera. For decades, Williamson’s voice has defined the DNA of Scream. His scripts transformed slashers from simple body-count entertainment into self-aware reflections on horror itself. Long before “meta” became an industry buzzword, Williamson understood audiences wanted more than scares. They wanted conversation.

The move to the director’s chair gives Scream 7 a distinctly different energy from recent instalments. There is a confidence in the dialogue, a familiarity with the franchise’s rhythms, and an understanding of what made the original so culturally significant. The film frequently feels like Williamson reflecting on his own creation. Not always successfully. But often compellingly. In many ways, Scream 7 functions as a conversation between the franchise’s past and present. Sometimes those conversations become arguments.

The Stu Macher Problem

No discussion of Scream 7 can avoid the elephant in the room. Or perhaps more accurately, the corpse in the attic. For years, fans have speculated about the possible return of Stu Macher, despite his apparent demise in the original film. The theory became one of horror fandom’s longest-running debates, fuelled by conventions, interviews, online speculation, and increasingly elaborate attempts to explain how a teenager crushed beneath a television might somehow survive.

Scream 7 finally addresses that mythology. Whether viewers embrace the decision will largely depend upon their tolerance for nostalgia-driven storytelling. On one hand, the return provides genuine excitement and taps directly into decades of fan investment. Horror has always thrived on myth-making, and few characters have inspired more speculation than Stu. On the other hand, bringing back the dead risks undermining the grounded reality that once distinguished Scream from its supernatural contemporaries. The franchise built its reputation on exposing horror clichés. Now it occasionally indulges them. The irony is difficult to ignore.

Nostalgia as Comfort Food

Modern horror franchises increasingly resemble family reunions. Familiar faces return. Old references resurface. Legacy characters reclaim the spotlight. Audiences cheer because they recognise what they loved twenty or thirty years ago.

Scream 7 understands this dynamic completely. The film is packed with callbacks, emotional echoes, and reminders of the franchise’s rich history. Some work beautifully. Others feel less like storytelling and more like fan service carefully engineered for social media reactions and opening-night applause. This creates one of the film’s central contradictions.

The nostalgia often delivers its strongest emotional moments. It also prevents the franchise from fully evolving. Every glance backwards is a step not taken forward. The result is a film caught between reinvention and preservation, never entirely comfortable choosing one over the other.

Trauma Fatigue

Perhaps the most interesting question raised by Scream 7 concerns trauma itself. The franchise has always been interested in psychological scars. Sidney’s journey was revolutionary because it treated survival as something messy and ongoing rather than triumphant and complete. But nearly thirty years later, trauma has become one of horror’s dominant languages. From elevated horror to prestige television, characters constantly process grief, abuse, anxiety, guilt, and emotional damage. Trauma is no longer subtext. It is text. Front and centre.

Scream 7 attempts to continue that tradition, yet occasionally feels trapped by it. The emotional wounds remain theoretically devastating, but audiences have become so accustomed to trauma narratives that the impact can feel strangely muted. This is not necessarily the film’s fault. It may simply reflect a broader cultural shift.

Perhaps horror has spent so long examining trauma that viewers have become desensitised to its narrative power. What once felt revelatory now feels expected. The challenge facing Scream 7 is that it simultaneously critiques and participates in this phenomenon.

The Problem With Looking Back

The original Scream succeeded because it felt dangerous. It challenged established rules. Mocked convention. Questioned audience expectations. It looked forward while dismantling the past. Scream 7 often does the opposite. It celebrates the past. Protects the past. Revisits the past.

There is value in that approach, particularly for longtime fans seeking emotional closure. Yet there are moments when one cannot help wondering what Scream might become if it stopped examining its own reflection. The franchise remains clever. It remains entertaining. But it occasionally feels trapped inside its own mythology. A victim of the very legacy it once gleefully deconstructed.

The Prognosis:

Scream 7 is an enjoyable, thoughtful, and frequently engaging return to Woodsboro that benefits enormously from the presence of Neve Campbell and the creative influence of Kevin Williamson. It understands the emotional attachment audiences have to Sidney Prescott and delivers enough suspense, wit, and self-awareness to satisfy longtime fans.

Yet it also exposes the limitations of nostalgia-driven storytelling. The return of familiar faces, the continued mining of past trauma, and the reliance upon franchise mythology create diminishing returns where innovation once flourished.

The original Scream asked where horror was going.

Scream 7 spends much of its time asking where it has been.

The answer remains entertaining.

Whether it is enough is another question entirely.

  • Saul Muerte

Desire, Identity, and DIY Nightmares: The Serpent’s Skin (2025)

14 Thursday May 2026

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There is something undeniably fascinating about the emergence of Alice Maio Mackay as a modern underground horror voice.

In an era where independent genre cinema often bends toward algorithmic familiarity or nostalgia-driven imitation, Mackay’s work feels defiantly personal — rough around the edges, fiercely expressive, and deeply invested in stories of identity, transformation, queerness, alienation, and emotional vulnerability. Her films do not merely use horror as metaphor; they inhabit it as lived experience.

With The Serpent’s Skin, Mackay once again returns to those recurring thematic obsessions, crafting a supernatural relationship horror steeped in desire, insecurity, and bodily transformation. The result is a film bursting with sincerity and ambition, even if its execution occasionally struggles beneath the weight of its ideas.

Horror as Emotional Expression

At its core, The Serpent’s Skin is less concerned with demonic mythology than emotional rupture.

The narrative — centred on two young women whose growing romantic connection awakens supernatural powers and inadvertently unleashes a destructive evil — functions primarily as a framework for exploring intimacy, repression, guilt, and self-perception.

As with much of Mackay’s work, the horror emerges from emotional instability rather than external threat alone. The demon haunting the film feels symbolic of unresolved trauma and insecurity — a manifestation of emotional damage infecting the relationships around it.

This approach gives the film a deeply personal energy, even when its storytelling becomes uneven.

The Voice of Alice Maio Mackay

What continues to distinguish Alice Maio Mackay is the clarity of her voice.

Her cinema exists within a fascinating lineage of queer DIY horror filmmaking — openly embracing melodrama, camp, supernatural iconography, and emotional rawness while rejecting the polished sterility that often dominates contemporary independent horror.

There is an immediacy to her work that feels refreshingly unfiltered.

Mackay’s films frequently centre outsiders searching for identity and belonging within worlds that threaten to reject or consume them. In The Serpent’s Skin, desire itself becomes transformative and dangerous, blurring the boundaries between liberation and destruction.

The film understands that vulnerability can be terrifying.

Style Over Structure

Where The Serpent’s Skin falters somewhat is in its narrative cohesion.

The mythology surrounding the demon and supernatural powers often feels underdeveloped, with certain emotional and narrative beats arriving before the film has fully earned them. Tonal shifts occasionally create a sense of fragmentation, as though the film is torn between intimate character drama and heightened supernatural horror without fully reconciling the two.

Yet paradoxically, some of these imperfections also contribute to the film’s charm.

There is something admirable about a filmmaker prioritising emotional honesty and thematic expression over rigid structural precision. Mackay’s work rarely feels calculated. It feels instinctive — driven more by feeling than formula.

Bodies, Desire, and Transformation

Like much queer horror, The Serpent’s Skin uses supernatural transformation as a metaphor for internal change.

Desire leaves marks here — emotionally, psychologically, physically. Characters shift and unravel under the weight of longing, shame, and unresolved past trauma. The film repeatedly frames identity as fluid, unstable, and vulnerable to corruption, reflecting the anxieties tied to self-discovery and emotional dependence.

This thematic throughline proves far more compelling than the film’s literal mythology.

The true horror is not possession.
It is emotional exposure.

A Rising Cult Voice

Despite its flaws, The Serpent’s Skin reinforces why Mackay remains such an intriguing figure within contemporary independent horror.

She represents a generation of filmmakers reclaiming genre cinema as a space for deeply personal storytelling — unconcerned with mainstream expectations and more interested in emotional truth, queer identity, and artistic self-expression.

Not every experiment fully succeeds, but the sincerity behind the work is undeniable.

And increasingly, sincerity itself feels radical.

The Prognosis:

The Serpent’s Skin is an ambitious, emotionally charged supernatural horror film that further cements Alice Maio Mackay as one of underground horror’s most distinctive emerging voices.

Narratively uneven but thematically rich, the film thrives most when embracing its raw emotional vulnerability and DIY gothic sensibilities.

  • Saul Muerte

Buried Deep: Hokum (2026)

08 Friday May 2026

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With Hokum, writer-director Damian McCarthy continues his ascent as one of contemporary horror’s most distinctive voices — a storyteller deeply attuned to atmosphere, folklore, and the psychological wounds that fester beneath grief.

Following the unnerving precision of his earlier work, McCarthy delivers perhaps his most accessible feature to date, but crucially, accessibility does not come at the expense of identity. Hokum still bears all the hallmarks of his cinema: oppressive mood, fractured psyches, dark humour, and mythology that feels less invented than unearthed.

This is horror that creeps rather than lunges.
A ghost story told through rot, memory, and rebirth.

The Inn as Psychological Mausoleum

The premise is deceptively intimate. Novelist Ohm Bauman retreats to a remote inn to scatter his parents’ ashes, only to become entangled in whispers surrounding a witch tied to the building’s infamous honeymoon suite.

But McCarthy understands that isolated settings are never merely locations. They are psychological extensions of the characters trapped within them.

The inn in Hokum becomes a liminal space suspended between mourning and transformation — a decaying threshold where unresolved trauma manifests through folklore and hallucination alike. Every creaking corridor and dimly lit room feels infected by memory.

The one-location approach works beautifully here, amplifying the claustrophobia while forcing the audience into the same suffocating emotional space as Ohm himself.

Folklore as Emotional Architecture

What separates McCarthy’s work from more conventional supernatural horror is the way he embeds folklore into the emotional core of his narratives.

The mythology in Hokum never feels expositional or over-explained. Instead, it exists like oral tradition — fragmented stories passed down, distorted through fear and repetition. The witch haunting the inn becomes less a singular entity and more a manifestation of communal grief and inherited guilt.

McCarthy understands an essential truth about folklore:
its power lies not in certainty, but in ambiguity.

The horror emerges from what cannot be fully understood.

Grief, Decay, and Rebirth

Beneath its supernatural framework, Hokum is fundamentally a film about grief — specifically the way grief reshapes identity.

Ohm’s journey is not simply about uncovering the inn’s secrets, but confronting the emotional debris left behind by loss. McCarthy explores mourning as something cyclical and transformative, where death inevitably gives rise to reinvention, however painful.

This theme of rebirth surfaces repeatedly through the film’s recurring rabbit iconography — creatures traditionally associated with fertility, resurrection, and transition between worlds. Here, the rabbit imagery becomes deeply uncanny, suggesting both vulnerability and metamorphosis.

It is one of the film’s most effective symbolic threads, quietly reinforcing the idea that trauma changes us into something new… whether we wish it to or not.

Humour in the Darkness

What makes Hokum particularly compelling is its willingness to puncture its own dread with moments of dry, almost uncomfortable black humour.

McCarthy has become increasingly adept at balancing tonal shifts without collapsing the atmosphere entirely. The humour here does not undercut the horror; it humanises it. It reminds us that absurdity often accompanies grief, that fear and laughter are not opposites but uneasy companions.

This tonal elasticity gives the film texture, preventing it from disappearing entirely into self-seriousness.

Damian McCarthy’s Rising Voice

With Hokum, McCarthy further establishes himself as part of a modern wave of horror filmmakers reclaiming atmosphere and folklore as vehicles for deeply personal storytelling.

There are traces of classic ghost stories here, certainly, but also something distinctly contemporary in the film’s focus on emotional inheritance and psychological fragmentation.

More importantly, McCarthy continues to trust the audience — resisting over-explanation in favour of mood, suggestion, and symbolism. In an era where many horror films feel compelled to spell out their mythology, Hokum allows mystery to remain unsettlingly intact.

The Prognosis:

Hokum is another strong entry in Damian McCarthy’s growing body of work — a haunting, folkloric meditation on grief, identity, and transformation wrapped inside an eerie one-location nightmare.

Atmospheric, psychologically rich horror that finds beauty in decay and terror in rebirth.

  • Saul Muerte