There is an inevitable weight that accompanies the Romero surname when attached to a zombie film.

For more than half a century, George A. Romero’s undead were never simply flesh-eating monsters. They reflected society back upon itself, exposing consumerism, prejudice, class division and humanity’s remarkable ability to self-destruct. With Queens of the Dead, Tina Romero wisely avoids trying to recreate her father’s legacy. Instead, she carves out a space that feels distinctly her own—a vibrant horror-comedy that places queer community, chosen family and unapologetic self-expression at its centre.

The result is an energetic and often charming debut that delivers plenty of laughs and personality, even if its bite isn’t always as sharp as its premise promises.

Set during an enormous warehouse party in Brooklyn, the film throws together drag performers, DJs, club kids and long-standing rivals just as a zombie outbreak begins to consume the city. What follows is less a conventional survival horror than a colourful ensemble comedy, where glitter, high heels and quick wit prove almost as valuable as any improvised weapon.

The setting immediately distinguishes Queens of the Dead from the countless zombie films that have preceded it. Romero understands the nightclub as a world of performance and reinvention, where identity is celebrated rather than concealed. That atmosphere gives the film an infectious energy, transforming what could have been another generic apocalypse into something far more distinctive.

Its greatest strength lies in its cast.

Rather than relying on familiar horror archetypes, Queens of the Dead embraces an eclectic ensemble whose chemistry frequently carries scenes that might otherwise feel narratively slight. The humour rarely stems from mocking its characters; instead, it celebrates their individuality, allowing each personality to contribute something different to the group’s increasingly chaotic fight for survival.

That generosity extends to the film’s broader themes. Beneath the camp humour and splashes of gore lies an affectionate portrait of community under pressure. The apocalypse becomes another challenge to overcome together, reinforcing the importance of solidarity in spaces that have historically relied upon chosen family for survival.

There is also an amusing contemporary twist to Romero’s undead. These are “scrolling zombies,” creatures whose mindless behaviour draws obvious parallels with modern digital culture. While the satire is never especially subtle, it offers enough playful commentary to give the film an identity beyond its colourful aesthetic.

Unfortunately, Queens of the Dead occasionally mistakes enthusiasm for momentum.

Its ensemble cast is undeniably engaging, but the screenplay spreads its attention so widely that individual character arcs often feel underdeveloped. Moments that should carry genuine emotional weight are sometimes rushed in favour of another joke or energetic set piece. The pacing similarly fluctuates, with the middle act occasionally losing sight of the escalating danger as it juggles multiple personalities and subplots.

For a zombie film, the horror also proves surprisingly restrained. There are enjoyable practical effects and flashes of inventive gore, but genuine suspense is relatively scarce. Those expecting relentless tension may find themselves wishing the film embraced the darker implications of its premise more fully.

Yet perhaps that isn’t Romero’s intention.

Where George Romero frequently used zombies to expose humanity’s capacity for cruelty, Tina Romero appears more interested in celebrating resilience. Even amid social collapse, her characters retain humour, compassion and defiant joy. It’s a noticeably warmer worldview—one that values connection over cynicism.

That tonal shift won’t satisfy everyone, but it gives Queens of the Dead its own identity rather than reducing it to an exercise in nostalgia.

The Prognosis:

Queens of the Dead may not reinvent the zombie genre, nor does it possess the satirical precision of the Romero films that inevitably cast a long shadow over it. However, Tina Romero demonstrates a confident voice, delivering a lively horror-comedy that celebrates queer culture with warmth, humour and infectious energy.

While its narrative occasionally loses focus and its horror rarely achieves genuine menace, the film’s vibrant ensemble and affectionate sense of community ensure it remains entertaining throughout.

Like the warehouse party at its centre, Queens of the Dead is at its best when it embraces chaos, individuality and the simple joy of bringing people together—even if the undead threaten to crash the dancefloor.

• Saul Muerte

Queens of the Dead premieres exclusively on Shudder and AMC+ Friday 7 August

There was a time when horror cinema and heavy metal seemed inseparable.

By the mid-1980s, both were being accused of corrupting young minds. Parents worried about the rise of occult imagery, religious groups condemned devilish iconography, and politicians questioned whether popular culture had become dangerously enamoured with darkness. At the centre of it all stood a procession of larger-than-life rock stars who embraced horror not as something to fear, but as something to celebrate.

Few embodied that collision of music and macabre more completely than Alice Cooper.

For more than a decade, Cooper had transformed the concert stage into a theatrical house of horrors. Guillotines, electric chairs, snakes, fake executions and gallons of stage blood became as much a part of his performances as the music itself. Long before shock rock became commonplace, Alice Cooper understood that horror wasn’t merely something to sing about.

It was something to perform.

So when Monster Dog arrived in 1986, casting Cooper as its leading man, it felt less like an unusual career move and more like an inevitable extension of the persona he had already perfected.

Whether it resulted in a great film is another matter entirely.

More Than a Werewolf Movie

Viewed purely as a werewolf film, Monster Dog struggles to stand alongside the genre’s finest examples.

Its pacing often falters, the performances are uneven, and the modest budget occasionally limits its ambitions. Even by the standards of 1980s creature features, it never quite delivers the visceral transformation sequences or sustained suspense audiences had come to expect following films such as An American Werewolf in London and The Howling.

Yet judging Monster Dog solely on those terms overlooks what makes it genuinely interesting.

This isn’t simply a horror film starring Alice Cooper.

It is an Alice Cooper performance stretched across ninety minutes.

The werewolf mythology provides the framework, but the real attraction is watching one of rock music’s most iconic theatrical figures inhabit a world that already feels tailor-made for his macabre sensibilities.

The film isn’t asking audiences to believe Alice Cooper could become a monster.

By 1986, popular culture had already decided he was one.

When MTV Invaded Horror

One of the more overlooked aspects of Monster Dog is how completely it embraces the visual language of the MTV generation.

The 1980s witnessed an explosion of music videos that prioritised atmosphere, stylised lighting and striking imagery over traditional narrative. Smoke drifted endlessly through abandoned buildings. Blue moonlight illuminated every corner. Wind machines blew dramatically through perfectly coiffed hair.

Narrative often became secondary to mood.

Monster Dog feels remarkably similar.

Rather than grounding itself in realism, the film leans into spectacle, constructing an almost dreamlike environment where rock concert aesthetics merge seamlessly with Gothic horror. The result often resembles an extended Alice Cooper music video more than a conventional feature film.

Ironically, that may be precisely where its greatest appeal lies.

Viewed through a contemporary lens, the film serves as a fascinating time capsule of an era when horror cinema increasingly embraced the stylised excesses of music television.

The Satanic Panic’s Favourite Son

It is impossible to discuss Monster Dog without acknowledging the cultural climate that surrounded its release.

The mid-1980s represented the height of the Satanic Panic.

Heavy metal bands were accused of promoting devil worship. Album artwork was scrutinised for hidden meanings. Parents feared that theatrical stage shows concealed genuine occult influence. Organisations such as the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) fuelled debates surrounding censorship, morality and the supposed dangers of popular music.

Alice Cooper found himself at the centre of many of those anxieties.

The irony, of course, is that Cooper’s stage persona was never rooted in genuine menace.

It was theatre.

Like the Grand Guignol productions of the nineteenth century or the Universal Monsters before them, his performances revelled in exaggerated horror with a knowing wink to the audience. Beneath the makeup and the mock executions was an entertainer who understood that fear and fun had always shared the same stage.

Monster Dog extends that theatrical tradition.

Rather than attempting to reinvent Cooper as a dramatic actor, the film wisely allows him to inhabit the persona audiences already recognised. He becomes less a traditional protagonist and more a living extension of the myth that had surrounded him throughout his musical career.

Celebrity as the Real Monster

Perhaps the film’s most intriguing idea emerges almost accidentally.

Throughout Monster Dog, people project expectations onto Alice Cooper’s character before he has done anything at all.

They assume darkness.

They anticipate violence.

They expect transformation.

In many ways, the audience does exactly the same.

The werewolf becomes almost incidental.

The real subject is celebrity.

More specifically, the way society constructs monstrous identities around public figures who challenge convention.

Whether intentional or not, Monster Dog captures that phenomenon remarkably well. Cooper spends much of the film playing a version of himself burdened by other people’s expectations—a man whose reputation often arrives before he does.

That tension proves more compelling than the creature feature surrounding it.

A Cultural Artefact

None of this suddenly transforms Monster Dog into an overlooked masterpiece.

Its narrative remains uneven, its pacing inconsistent and its creature effects rarely rival the best genre offerings of the decade.

But perhaps greatness was never the point.

Instead, the film preserves a unique cultural moment when horror cinema, heavy metal and music television briefly occupied the same creative space.

For ninety minutes, they speak the same visual language.

Blood becomes stage makeup.

Moonlight becomes concert lighting.

The monster becomes the rock star.

The Prognosis:

Monster Dog may never earn a place among horror’s greatest werewolf films, but it deserves recognition as one of the most fascinating intersections between heavy metal culture and horror cinema.

While its storytelling often struggles beneath the weight of its ambitions, its cultural significance has only grown with time. It captures an era when shock rock dominated headlines, MTV reshaped visual storytelling and horror enthusiastically embraced theatrical excess.

Alice Cooper didn’t become a horror icon because he played monsters.

He became one because he understood that the greatest monsters have always been performers.

Forty years later, Monster Dog remains less a forgotten werewolf film than a compelling snapshot of the moment when heavy metal and horror looked at one another—and realised they were already part of the same show.

• Saul Muerte

Most horror franchises are built upon familiarity. Audiences return expecting the same masked killer.

The same final girl.

The same summer camp.

The same suburban street.

Comfort arrives through repetition. Innovation often comes second.

The Evil Dead franchise has survived for more than four decades by embracing the opposite philosophy. It refuses to stand still. Every new chapter tears down what came before, rebuilding itself around a different tone, a different style and, occasionally, an entirely different idea of what Evil Dead should be. And remarkably… It still feels unmistakably like Evil Dead. That may be the franchise’s greatest achievement.

A Cabin in the Woods

When Sam Raimi released The Evil Dead in 1981, the formula appeared deceptively simple.

Five friends. A remote cabin. An ancient book. A force that possesses the living. Yet beneath that familiar premise lay extraordinary ambition. The film blurred supernatural horror with relentless camera movement, savage practical effects and an almost punk-rock energy.

It wasn’t polished.

It wasn’t elegant.

It was raw.

Every frame felt as though it had been willed into existence through sheer determination. The cabin became horror’s perfect pressure cooker.

Isolated.

Claustrophobic.

Inescapable.

Most franchises would spend the next forty years returning to that same location. Raimi did something far stranger. He blew the cabin apart.

When Horror Learned to Laugh

Only six years later, Evil Dead II arrived.

Neither straightforward sequel nor conventional remake, it remains one of horror’s most audacious reinventions. Where the original embraced terror, the follow-up leaned gleefully into slapstick. Limbs fought their owners. Furniture laughed. Blood became choreography. Bruce Campbell transformed Ash Williams from terrified survivor into horror’s most reluctant action hero. Many filmmakers fear changing tone. Raimi understood that horror and comedy spring from the same source.

Timing.

Tension.

Release.

The result was a film unlike anything audiences had seen before. Instead of repeating success… It reinvented it.

Medieval Mayhem

If Evil Dead II surprised audiences… Army of Darkness bewildered them. Suddenly, the haunted cabin gave way to medieval castles. Chainsaws shared the screen with knights. Stop-motion skeletons battled wisecracking heroes. Fantasy collided with horror. Ray Harryhausen met The Three Stooges. It was gloriously absurd. Some fans longed for the terrifying intensity of the original. Others embraced Raimi’s fearless creativity. Regardless of preference, one truth became increasingly clear. The Evil Dead series had no interest in becoming predictable.

The Weight of Horror Returns

Following a lengthy silence, director Fede Álvarez resurrected the franchise in 2013. Many expected nostalgia. Instead, they received something almost merciless.

Gone were the jokes.

Gone was Ash.

In their place came addiction, trauma and astonishing practical gore. The familiar cabin returned, but its purpose had changed. Rather than celebrating the past, Álvarez stripped Evil Dead back to its most primal elements.

Isolation.

Possession.

Survival.

The result became one of the strongest modern horror remakes precisely because it resisted becoming a tribute act. It respected Raimi’s spirit. Not his formula.

Taking Evil Upstairs

Then came Evil Dead Rise.

Once again, expectations shifted.

The forest disappeared.

The cabin vanished.

Instead, evil emerged within a decaying apartment block. Vertical rather than horizontal. Neighbours instead of woodland. Family replacing friendship. The setting changed. The emotional stakes changed. Even the Book of the Dead evolved. Yet audiences recognised the franchise instantly. Because Evil Dead has never been defined by geography. It has always been defined by escalation. Every chapter asks the same question. How much worse can this become? Then answers… Far worse.

The Constant Among Chaos

If locations change…

If protagonists change…

If tone changes…

What exactly makes an Evil Dead film?

The answer isn’t Ash Williams.

Much as Bruce Campbell’s performance remains iconic, the franchise has demonstrated it can survive without him. It isn’t the cabin. Nor the chainsaw. Nor even the Deadites themselves. It is the Necronomicon. The cursed book has become the franchise’s true protagonist. It is the thread connecting every era. The catalyst that transforms ordinary lives into unimaginable nightmares. Unlike Dracula or Frankenstein’s Monster, the Necronomicon possesses remarkable flexibility.

It travels.

It waits.

It tempts.

Every generation discovers it anew. In many ways, the book reflects the franchise itself.

Forever changing.

Forever returning.

Reinvention as Survival

Many long-running horror franchises eventually become prisoners of nostalgia. They recreate familiar scenes. Repeat iconic dialogue. Resurrect beloved villains.

Sometimes this offers comfort.

Sometimes it exposes creative exhaustion.

Evil Dead has largely avoided this trap. Rather than asking audiences to relive old memories, each filmmaker contributes a fresh interpretation of Raimi’s original idea. Every generation receives its own version. Not a replacement. A continuation. The franchise has become less a single narrative than a shared mythology. A haunted framework within which different voices can flourish. That willingness to evolve explains why Evil Dead remains culturally vibrant after forty-five years. It refuses to become a museum piece.

The Prognosis:

Perhaps the greatest horror stories aren’t those that remain unchanged. They’re the ones brave enough to mutate. Like the demonic force that courses through its pages, Evil Dead has never stayed still.

It moves.

It possesses.

It transforms.

From isolated cabin…

To medieval battlefield…

To blood-soaked apartment tower…

The franchise continually sheds its skin without ever losing its soul.

Few horror series have reinvented themselves so completely. Fewer still have succeeded every time. As a new chapter begins with Evil Dead Burn, one thing seems certain. The Necronomicon has another story to tell.

And somewhere…

• Saul Muerte

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Long before revisiting the Evil Dead franchise for this retrospective series, I dedicated a trio of podcast episodes to Sam Raimi’s original trilogy. Listening back today, it’s fascinating to hear how my own appreciation of these remarkable films has evolved—but the enthusiasm remains exactly the same.

If you’d like to continue the journey, revisit these conversations from the archives:

🎧 The Evil Dead (1981)

🎧 Army of Darkness (1992)

🎧 The Evil Dead (2013)

Look at me, Damien. It’s all for you.

Few horror franchises have enjoyed a journey as strange, uneven, and ultimately rewarding as The Omen series.

Unlike many genre properties that quickly devolved into increasingly elaborate body counts and diminishing returns, The Omen was born from a remarkably sophisticated concept. Beneath the supernatural horror lurked questions about faith, destiny, political power, family, and the terrifying possibility that evil might not emerge from the shadows but from the very institutions designed to protect us.

At its best, the franchise transformed biblical prophecy into deeply personal horror. At its worst, it struggled beneath the weight of its own mythology. Yet fifty years after Damien Thorn first appeared on screen, the son of Satan continues to fascinate audiences, proving that some nightmares never truly die. They simply wait for another resurrection.

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The Birth of the Antichrist

When The Omen arrived in cinemas, religious horror was already enjoying a renaissance thanks to the enormous success of The Exorcist. Rather than attempting to replicate demonic possession, however, director Richard Donner and screenwriter David Seltzer pursued a more insidious idea. What if the Antichrist had already arrived? Not as a horned beast. Not as a supernatural invader. But as a child. Raised within wealth, privilege, and political influence. The result was one of horror cinema’s defining masterpieces.

Anchored by extraordinary performances from Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, and Billie Whitelaw, alongside Jerry Goldsmith‘s legendary Oscar-winning score, The Omen succeeded because it grounded apocalyptic horror within emotional reality.

This was not merely a story about Satan. It was a story about parenthood. About doubt. About the terrifying moment when love collides with truth. The film’s ending remains one of horror’s most unsettling final images. Damien survives. The prophecy remains intact. Evil has not been defeated. It has merely advanced to the next stage.

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Growing Up Evil

The franchise’s greatest strength would emerge through its willingness to embrace the logical progression of its central idea. Damien could not remain a child forever.

With Damien: Omen II, the series transformed into a dark coming-of-age story. Adolescence becomes an awakening as Damien slowly discovers his true nature and destiny. The sequel remains one of horror’s most underrated follow-ups because it understands something crucial: The real horror is not discovering evil. The real horror is accepting it. By the conclusion, Damien no longer fears who he is. He embraces it.

That evolution continued in Omen III: The Final Conflict, where an exceptional Sam Neill portrays the fully realised Antichrist as a charismatic political and corporate leader. This was a fascinating direction for the franchise. Damien no longer needed supernatural theatrics. Power itself became his weapon. The devil had learned how institutions worked. And he was thriving within them.

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When the Apocalypse Runs Out of Steam

By the early 1980s, however, horror itself was changing. The rise of the slasher film shifted audience expectations. Villains became icons. Gore became spectacle. Franchises increasingly focused on repetition rather than mythology.

The Omen found itself caught between two eras. Its religious themes and biblical ambition suddenly seemed less fashionable than masked killers and body-count formulas. A decade later, Omen IV: The Awakening attempted to revive the series by introducing a female heir to Damien’s legacy. The results were mixed.

Produced for television, the film lacked the scope, confidence, and atmosphere that had defined the original trilogy. While it contains moments of intrigue and occasional flashes of the franchise’s theological imagination, it ultimately feels like an echo rather than a continuation. The apocalypse had become smaller. The mythology felt exhausted. For many years, it appeared Damien Thorn’s story had finally reached its conclusion.

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The Devil Goes Digital

Like so many iconic horror properties, resurrection eventually arrived through the remake machine. Released on the appropriately marketed date of June 6, 2006, The Omen sought to introduce Damien to a new generation.

Directed by John Moore and starring Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles, the remake largely chose reverence over reinvention. Its greatest strength proved to be its greatest weakness. By remaining so faithful to the original, the film successfully preserved the mythology but struggled to justify its own existence. It was competent. Professional. Respectable.

Yet it also highlighted an uncomfortable truth. Some horror classics derive their power from atmosphere, cultural context, and historical timing as much as narrative itself. Those elements are difficult to recreate. No matter how advanced the technology becomes.

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A Forgotten Son

The franchise attempted another reinvention through television with Damien. Unlike previous entries, this continuation imagined an adult Damien who had spent decades unaware of his true destiny. It explored questions of identity, denial, and self-discovery while attempting to modernise the mythology for contemporary audiences. The premise was promising. The execution occasionally compelling. Yet despite positive reactions from sections of the fanbase, the series failed to find a sufficiently large audience and was cancelled after a single season. Once again, Damien disappeared. But perhaps not for long.

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The Unexpected Resurrection

For many fans, the greatest surprise arrived with The First Omen. Expectations were modest. After all, horror history is littered with unnecessary prequels attempting to explain mysteries that never required explanation. Yet against the odds, The First Omen emerged as one of the strongest entries the franchise had produced since the original film. Rather than merely recycling familiar imagery, the film expanded the mythology while preserving the atmosphere of dread that made the series so effective. It embraced religious horror, institutional corruption, bodily autonomy, and conspiratorial paranoia with genuine confidence. Most importantly, it understood what The Omen had always been about.

Not jump scares.

Not spectacle.

Not Satan.

Fear.

Specifically, the fear that powerful institutions may willingly create the horrors they claim to oppose. For the first time in decades, Damien Thorn’s mythology felt vital again.

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Why Damien Endures

What separates Damien from so many horror villains is that he represents more than death. He represents inevitability.

Michael Myers kills.

Freddy Krueger stalks dreams.

Jason haunts campgrounds.

Damien threatens history itself.

The franchise succeeds whenever it remembers this. Its most effective entries understand that the Antichrist is not merely a monster but an idea. A manifestation of fears surrounding political power, religious extremism, institutional corruption, inherited privilege, and uncertain futures. Every generation finds new reasons to fear those things. Which means every generation finds new reasons to fear Damien.

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The Prognosis:

Few horror franchises have travelled a more unpredictable road than The Omen series. From the near-perfect terror of the original through the ambitious mythology of Damien: Omen II and Omen III: The Final Conflict, through periods of decline, reinvention, cancellation, and eventual rebirth, Damien Thorn has repeatedly proven more resilient than prophecy itself. The franchise has stumbled. It has disappeared. It has occasionally lost sight of what made it special. Yet it endures because its central fear remains timeless. The devil is rarely at his most frightening when he arrives with fire and brimstone. He is far more terrifying when he arrives as a child.

Smiling.

Waiting.

Ready to inherit the world.

• Saul Muerte

There is something inherently transgressive about the premise of Touch Me, the latest feature from Addison Heimann — a film that fuses intimacy, addiction, and cosmic horror into a heady, often abrasive cocktail. It is, at once, deeply personal and wildly conceptual; a story of co-dependency refracted through the prism of alien encounter.

And like many works that attempt to balance the human and the unknowable, it does not always land cleanly.

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Addiction as Contact

At its core, Touch Me is less about extraterrestrial invasion than it is about emotional entanglement. Two best friends, bound by a fragile, codependent dynamic, find themselves seduced — chemically, physically, psychologically — by an alien presence whose touch delivers euphoric release.

The metaphor is hardly subtle. This is addiction in its purest cinematic form: immediate gratification, escalating need, and the gradual erosion of autonomy.

What elevates Heimann’s approach is the layering of that addiction within intimacy. The alien is not simply a threat — it is a conduit. A provider. A manipulator. Its influence seeps into the emotional architecture of the central relationship, amplifying fractures that already exist.

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The Lovecraftian Body

There is a distinctly H. P. Lovecraft-adjacent sensibility at play here — not in the traditional tentacled sense, but in the idea of cosmic intrusion through the body. The unknowable does not arrive from the stars with grandeur; it arrives through touch, through sensation, through the dissolution of boundaries between self and other.

Heimann leans into this with a visual language that oscillates between the sensual and the grotesque. Flesh becomes porous. Identity becomes unstable. The film’s horror is not simply what the alien does, but what it reveals — that the characters are already primed for collapse.

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A Difficult Entry Point

And yet, for all its conceptual ambition, Touch Me is not an easy film to inhabit.

Its characters — intentionally flawed, often abrasive — create an initial barrier. Their codependency is not romanticised; it is messy, frustrating, and at times alienating in its own right. The audience is not invited to sympathise so much as to observe.

This is where the film risks losing its grip. It takes time to acclimatise to its rhythm, to its tone, to its deliberately uncomfortable interpersonal dynamics. For some, that investment may not fully pay off.

But for those willing to push through, something more substantial begins to emerge.

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Genre as Expression

What ultimately distinguishes Touch Me is its refusal to sit neatly within genre confines. It is horror, certainly — but also satire, relationship drama, and a kind of psychedelic character study.

Heimann, building on the sensibilities explored in his earlier work, demonstrates a clear interest in using genre as a vessel for emotional excavation. The alien is not just a plot device; it is an extension of the characters’ internal states — a manifestation of their need to feel, to escape, to connect.

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Performances and Fractured Intimacy

The central performances from Olivia Taylor Dudley and Lou Taylor Pucci anchor the film’s chaos, grounding its more surreal elements in recognisable emotional beats. There is a volatility to their dynamic that feels authentic, even when the surrounding narrative veers into the abstract.

Their chemistry — by turns tender, toxic, and destabilising — is what ultimately sustains the film.

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The Prognosis:

Touch Me is a film that demands patience. It resists easy engagement, presenting characters and ideas that are as prickly as they are provocative. Yet beneath its abrasive surface lies a thoughtful exploration of addiction, intimacy, and the porous boundaries of self.

An uneven but compelling descent into a sexualised, Lovecraftian nightmare, where the true horror lies not in the alien touch, but in the human need for it.

• Saul Muerte