Unearthed Films is bringing director Doug Roos’ 2023 Japanese monster movie Bakemono to US home video with its first-ever wide-release Blu-ray edition this September. Featuring 100% practical special effects, creature design, and gore, the film offers a blood-soaked trip into body horror and classic monster cinema. An Apartment Full of Victims and a Ghastly Resident […]
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Buenos Aries is absolutely up to it’s ass in flesh-eating ghouls. Such is the premise of 2024’s Portraits of the Apocalypse, a multi-tale fright flick that examines the apocalyptic event from a multitude of perspectives. Directors Nicanor Loreti, Fabián Forte, and Luca Castello each take turns telling stories of a world gone mad, and things […]
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If your weekend plans involve looking for something extraordinarily bloody, wildly unhinged, and fast-paced, director Yeon Sang-ho has you covered. The workaholic maestro behind Train to Busan and Peninsula doesn’t believe in taking intermissions. Fresh off the release of The Ugly, Yeon is jumping right back into apocalyptic K-Horror. But if you think you know what a zombie outbreak looks like, Colony is here to completely rewrite the story. It swaps clumsy, lumbering ghouls for eerie, hive-like synchronization and speed. Biohazard Disasters The story wastes zero time plunging into high-octane corporate terror. Biologist Se-jeong (Jun Ji-hyun) is stuck inside a sleek corporate skyscraper for a routine job presentation, accompanied by her ex-husband Gyu-seong (Go Soo). Things quickly derail when another biologist, Young-cheol (Koo Kyo-hwan), frantically calls the police to blow the whistle on a bioterror experiment. However, before anyone can digest the claim, Young-cheol stabs the company’s CEO with a syringe. This instantly triggers a grotesque zombie transformation. Within seconds,
Continue reading →
Directed by Rec. Revana and written by Cahangir Suleymanov, the official trailer for Obitus has arrived. Hailing from Azerbaijan, which borders Russia, this bleak English-language survival thriller blends atmospheric regional isolation with stomach-churning parasitic terror. The newly released footage offers horror fans a haunting first look at a world where natural catastrophe is merely the prelude to an altogether more insidious nightmare. Isolation, Ruin, and Biological Terror Set in the immediate aftermath of a devastating natural disaster, Obitus follows the surviving inhabitants of a remote, cut-off village. As if battling extreme environmental conditions and collapsed infrastructure were not enough, the disaster unearths a malicious, invasive organism. As the parasitic force begins to infiltrate and hijack human hosts, paranoia spreads faster than the organism itself. This turns neighbors against one another in a claustrophobic fight for biological survival. Emerging Genre Cinema to Watch By anchoring its visceral body horror in a stark, isolated rural setting, Obitus carves out a distinct niche
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Armageddon Road (Canada, 2026) Official Synopsis What happens in Vegas . . . might end the world. An ex-con with big dreams, Steve is hired to chauffeur a mob boss’ girlfriend for a night. He’s unaware that his passenger is dead and possessed by one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Review What an absolute blast writer/director Karen Lam’s 1970s-set Armageddon Road is! Steve McNaulty (Brian McCaig) is a down-on-his-luck Las Vegas dreamer who hopes to find the funding to turn a parking lot into a themed attraction building. Doing what he can just to try to make ends meet, he is given the job of chauffeuring mob boss’s moll Delilah (Natalie Grace) for the evening, but when — unbeknownst to him — she dies in a bathroom and a supernatural entity takes over her body, the night’s going to get progressively stranger. I don’t want to give away any more than that, because Armageddon Road is loaded with
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Official synopsis After a drug-fueled car crash, two entitled private-school graduates flee into Melbourne’s nightlife, where a night of excess spirals out of control and exposes the cost of their privilege. Review Often genre films that deliberately feature despicable, unlikable main characters with no one for whom to truly root offer little to no reason for viewers to get invested. Thankfully, writer/director Gideon Aroni’s Australian thriller Pure Scum bucks that trend marvelously as its pair of drug-fueled young men make one idiotic decision after another, making for a mesmerizing ride. Ayden (Will Hutchins) and Jesse (Nikita Chronis) are friends who met in private school, from which they have recently graduated. Both come from well-off families/ Jesse has a reputation as a drug user and bad boy, and Ayden falls into Jesse’s group after a seemingly more innocent upbringing. Pure Scum involves news magazine-type interviews with family and friends of the two young men taking place after the fateful night where
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Once again, our coverage of Bucheon International Film Festival (BIFAN) reviews is cowritten by Film Festival Editor Joseph Perry and Guest Contributing Writer Chris Weatherspoon. A man of the world, guest reviewer Chris Weatherspoon has lived in South Korea for “quite a bit.” A huge fan of all cinema, Chris also works locally in the entertainment industry, and knows what he is talking about . . . alright!? Focus (South Korea, 2026); review by Chris Weatherspoon Director Sim Gyu-ho’s Focus is a slowly unraveling ghost story about a man who can’t stop looking through a lens even when it’s costing him everything in front of it. The film opens on a campsite, where photographer Kim Eun-ho and his girlfriend Woo-jung are settling in for the night; a walk to borrow salt turns into something stranger, something the film wisely doesn’t explain. After the opening sequence, we learn that Eun-ho is a struggling photographer who has been with the same girlfriend,
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Italian filmmakers well and truly got balls deep into any and all American genre cinema trends in the ‘70s and ‘80s in order to make some dough. That eloquent statement brings us to the subject of Discoploitation… yup, that’s right, or pals in Italy saw Saturday Night Fever and said “Fuck yeah, we can do that!” And they did… in a way… and now I’m going to take a gander at the results courtesy of Severin’s new Blu-ray boxset; Disco Italiana! Things kick off with American Fever (1978)… Our hero Tony (Mircha Carven, SS Experiment Love Camp) works as a mechanic by day and tears it up in his white suit on the disco floor at night… he’s also an aspiring actor. All isn’t carburetors and the Hustle however, and Tony finds himself getting involved with Lisa (Zora Kerova, Antropophagus, Cannibal Ferox)… yet another aspiring thespian that he talks down from a suicide attempt. While contending with that, Tony has
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Unholy Night (Canada, 2026) Official Synopsis Gino’s traditional family Christmas Eve turns into a bloody battle for survival when his long-dead grandma drops by and goes on a murderous rampage. Amid the chaos, Gino reunites with his ex and the dysfunctional duo must avoid his dead Italian relatives popping up all around the neighbourhood as they search for a way to get rid of these Yuletide revenants and survive his family Christmas. Review Unholy Night is a horror comedy with heart. Squabbles between the Italian family members on Christmas Eve and the problems that arise when relatives return from the dead drive the comedy elements winningly. Director Michael Gabriele balances the humor and the horror nicely, along with relationship and family drama. The ensemble cast members all give solid performances, and the makeup for the revenants is satisfyingly creepy. These living dead can speak, cook, and move around well, and can sometimes be calmed down when they become aggressive enough
Continue reading →
Official Fantasia synopsis from program notes written by Vincenzo Nappi After learning of an evil rock ’n’ roll music promoter’s plan to use heavy metal as a means of enforcing society’s cyclical self-destructive nature and to keep individuals from true self-realization, a metallic-skinned and incredibly well-dressed alien beams down to earth to try to save humanity. However, as his presence attracts the attention of private investigators and corrupt police forces, the stranger must fight to keep society from reaching its hedonistic end. Review Devotees of genre-film musicals that combine horror and science fiction elements with rock and roll are bound to get a kick out of Canadian International Pictures’ terrific new 4K restoration of director Tibor Takács’ 1978 Canadian feature Metal Messiah. Written by Stephen Zoller and based on his play, the film is a gritty journey from the mind of noirish detective Philip Chandler (Richard Ward Allen) to the streets and rock clubs of late seventies Toronto, to places
Continue reading →
Unearthed Films is bringing director Doug Roos’ 2023 Japanese monster movie Bakemono to US home video with its first-ever wide-release Blu-ray edition this September. Featuring 100% practical special effects, creature design, and gore, the film offers a blood-soaked trip into body horror and classic monster cinema. An Apartment Full of Victims and a Ghastly Resident […]
Continue reading →
Buenos Aries is absolutely up to it’s ass in flesh-eating ghouls. Such is the premise of 2024’s Portraits of the Apocalypse, a multi-tale fright flick that examines the apocalyptic event from a multitude of perspectives. Directors Nicanor Loreti, Fabián Forte, and Luca Castello each take turns telling stories of a world gone mad, and things […]
Continue reading →
If your weekend plans involve looking for something extraordinarily bloody, wildly unhinged, and fast-paced, director Yeon Sang-ho has you covered. The workaholic maestro behind Train to Busan and Peninsula doesn’t believe in taking intermissions. Fresh off the release of The Ugly, Yeon is jumping right back into apocalyptic K-Horror. But if you think you know what a zombie outbreak looks like, Colony is here to completely rewrite the story. It swaps clumsy, lumbering ghouls for eerie, hive-like synchronization and speed. Biohazard Disasters The story wastes zero time plunging into high-octane corporate terror. Biologist Se-jeong (Jun Ji-hyun) is stuck inside a sleek corporate skyscraper for a routine job presentation, accompanied by her ex-husband Gyu-seong (Go Soo). Things quickly derail when another biologist, Young-cheol (Koo Kyo-hwan), frantically calls the police to blow the whistle on a bioterror experiment. However, before anyone can digest the claim, Young-cheol stabs the company’s CEO with a syringe. This instantly triggers a grotesque zombie transformation. Within seconds,
Continue reading →
Directed by Rec. Revana and written by Cahangir Suleymanov, the official trailer for Obitus has arrived. Hailing from Azerbaijan, which borders Russia, this bleak English-language survival thriller blends atmospheric regional isolation with stomach-churning parasitic terror. The newly released footage offers horror fans a haunting first look at a world where natural catastrophe is merely the prelude to an altogether more insidious nightmare. Isolation, Ruin, and Biological Terror Set in the immediate aftermath of a devastating natural disaster, Obitus follows the surviving inhabitants of a remote, cut-off village. As if battling extreme environmental conditions and collapsed infrastructure were not enough, the disaster unearths a malicious, invasive organism. As the parasitic force begins to infiltrate and hijack human hosts, paranoia spreads faster than the organism itself. This turns neighbors against one another in a claustrophobic fight for biological survival. Emerging Genre Cinema to Watch By anchoring its visceral body horror in a stark, isolated rural setting, Obitus carves out a distinct niche
Continue reading →
Armageddon Road (Canada, 2026) Official Synopsis What happens in Vegas . . . might end the world. An ex-con with big dreams, Steve is hired to chauffeur a mob boss’ girlfriend for a night. He’s unaware that his passenger is dead and possessed by one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Review What an absolute blast writer/director Karen Lam’s 1970s-set Armageddon Road is! Steve McNaulty (Brian McCaig) is a down-on-his-luck Las Vegas dreamer who hopes to find the funding to turn a parking lot into a themed attraction building. Doing what he can just to try to make ends meet, he is given the job of chauffeuring mob boss’s moll Delilah (Natalie Grace) for the evening, but when — unbeknownst to him — she dies in a bathroom and a supernatural entity takes over her body, the night’s going to get progressively stranger. I don’t want to give away any more than that, because Armageddon Road is loaded with
Continue reading →
Official synopsis After a drug-fueled car crash, two entitled private-school graduates flee into Melbourne’s nightlife, where a night of excess spirals out of control and exposes the cost of their privilege. Review Often genre films that deliberately feature despicable, unlikable main characters with no one for whom to truly root offer little to no reason for viewers to get invested. Thankfully, writer/director Gideon Aroni’s Australian thriller Pure Scum bucks that trend marvelously as its pair of drug-fueled young men make one idiotic decision after another, making for a mesmerizing ride. Ayden (Will Hutchins) and Jesse (Nikita Chronis) are friends who met in private school, from which they have recently graduated. Both come from well-off families/ Jesse has a reputation as a drug user and bad boy, and Ayden falls into Jesse’s group after a seemingly more innocent upbringing. Pure Scum involves news magazine-type interviews with family and friends of the two young men taking place after the fateful night where
Continue reading →
Once again, our coverage of Bucheon International Film Festival (BIFAN) reviews is cowritten by Film Festival Editor Joseph Perry and Guest Contributing Writer Chris Weatherspoon. A man of the world, guest reviewer Chris Weatherspoon has lived in South Korea for “quite a bit.” A huge fan of all cinema, Chris also works locally in the entertainment industry, and knows what he is talking about . . . alright!? Focus (South Korea, 2026); review by Chris Weatherspoon Director Sim Gyu-ho’s Focus is a slowly unraveling ghost story about a man who can’t stop looking through a lens even when it’s costing him everything in front of it. The film opens on a campsite, where photographer Kim Eun-ho and his girlfriend Woo-jung are settling in for the night; a walk to borrow salt turns into something stranger, something the film wisely doesn’t explain. After the opening sequence, we learn that Eun-ho is a struggling photographer who has been with the same girlfriend,
Continue reading →
Italian filmmakers well and truly got balls deep into any and all American genre cinema trends in the ‘70s and ‘80s in order to make some dough. That eloquent statement brings us to the subject of Discoploitation… yup, that’s right, or pals in Italy saw Saturday Night Fever and said “Fuck yeah, we can do that!” And they did… in a way… and now I’m going to take a gander at the results courtesy of Severin’s new Blu-ray boxset; Disco Italiana! Things kick off with American Fever (1978)… Our hero Tony (Mircha Carven, SS Experiment Love Camp) works as a mechanic by day and tears it up in his white suit on the disco floor at night… he’s also an aspiring actor. All isn’t carburetors and the Hustle however, and Tony finds himself getting involved with Lisa (Zora Kerova, Antropophagus, Cannibal Ferox)… yet another aspiring thespian that he talks down from a suicide attempt. While contending with that, Tony has
Continue reading →
Unholy Night (Canada, 2026) Official Synopsis Gino’s traditional family Christmas Eve turns into a bloody battle for survival when his long-dead grandma drops by and goes on a murderous rampage. Amid the chaos, Gino reunites with his ex and the dysfunctional duo must avoid his dead Italian relatives popping up all around the neighbourhood as they search for a way to get rid of these Yuletide revenants and survive his family Christmas. Review Unholy Night is a horror comedy with heart. Squabbles between the Italian family members on Christmas Eve and the problems that arise when relatives return from the dead drive the comedy elements winningly. Director Michael Gabriele balances the humor and the horror nicely, along with relationship and family drama. The ensemble cast members all give solid performances, and the makeup for the revenants is satisfyingly creepy. These living dead can speak, cook, and move around well, and can sometimes be calmed down when they become aggressive enough
Continue reading →
Official Fantasia synopsis from program notes written by Vincenzo Nappi After learning of an evil rock ’n’ roll music promoter’s plan to use heavy metal as a means of enforcing society’s cyclical self-destructive nature and to keep individuals from true self-realization, a metallic-skinned and incredibly well-dressed alien beams down to earth to try to save humanity. However, as his presence attracts the attention of private investigators and corrupt police forces, the stranger must fight to keep society from reaching its hedonistic end. Review Devotees of genre-film musicals that combine horror and science fiction elements with rock and roll are bound to get a kick out of Canadian International Pictures’ terrific new 4K restoration of director Tibor Takács’ 1978 Canadian feature Metal Messiah. Written by Stephen Zoller and based on his play, the film is a gritty journey from the mind of noirish detective Philip Chandler (Richard Ward Allen) to the streets and rock clubs of late seventies Toronto, to places
Continue reading →
