FREAKS PART II
Zach Lipovsky, Adam Stein
2026, Canada
With its themes of parenting, prejudice and gory X-Men, ‘Freaks 2’ is increasingly engaging and entertaining with each new character introducing higher stakes. Lorelei Olivia Mote is a dead ringer for Millie Bobby Brown and when you have psychic powers into the mix, especially bleeding from orifices when you use your powers, ‘Stranger things’ comparisons are inevitable. Superior interactions and a pace that glides along without pit-stopping for superfluous heart-to-hearts, decent internal logic and concentration on motivations, escalating to some vivid body-horror. A fun and thoughtful blend of super-powers and horror, two genres that have long been siblings.
The Cull
JP Davidson
2026, Ireland
Despite an excellent turn by Ollie Mcfarlane as the local nihilistic trouble-maker wheeler-dealer, there is an essential dead weight at the centre of J.P. Davidson’s folk horror. Insisting it’s about revenge (and toxic masculinity?) without having any insight, it ricochets around its small cast without truly making the crime of the past vivid or of interest. Its “bad neighbour” plot taking up all the time without pending doom (see ‘Bestas’ or indeed ‘American Dollhouse’ for better representations); rather, lots of ugly inadequate people barking at one another. Lots of meaningful montages of birds, the moon and visitations by woodland monsters insist on its folk horror setting, but there’s an essential lack of clarity that misses the essential, compelling eeriness of, say, the mystery of Mark Jenkins’ work.
John Valley
2026, USA
Opening with arty tours through a dollhouse model, this homage to Seventies slashers is a film of two halves: comes on like an indie comedy-of-awkwardness before lurching into audience-pleasing genre tropes. The suburban horror of problem neighbours interfering with your troubled self, then outdoing your crazy. Superior performances, solid characters, an immediate iconic psycho, slightly satirical, slightly inventive, and while the music insists on a seriousness, this is fun and comedy for horror fans fluent in the genre. It doesn’t even need to tie everything up neatly.
Adrian Garcia Bogliano
2026, Mexico
Although the first act promising horror exploration of grief, a soon as the Friend-of-a-Friend-That-Sees-Dead-People-and-Supernatural-Stuff is introduced, it veers sharply into convention, with a bloody breast for good measure. The feints that so nicely pulled the rug from under you initially quickly descend into It Was Just a Dream and – less annoyingly – demonic deceptions. Gigi Saul Guerrero brings her all for the woman-mad-with-grief, but Eugenio Rubio as her husband is left ineffectual and baffled as a character. This is nothing a good exorcism won’t solve; and there’s no deeper exploration of the subject of treating a woman’s trauma as a dangerous supernatural problem to be solved (ref. Jason Yu’s ‘Sleep’). Adrián García Bogliano has proven an agile director that can pull off shock and sleight-of-hand (I am a fan of ‘Here Comes the Devil’ and ‘Evil Games/ Scherzo diabólico’), but there’s little of the playfulness found elsewhere in his work. Despite Guerrero’s performance, it all hues a little close possession tropes without asking enough questions to set it apart.
Michael Gabriele
2026, Canada
With a cast that know how to do this kind of thing, making fun of caricatures and stereotypes with obvious affection, ‘Unholy Night’ hinges its zombie spin on Italian family guilt and frictions. It is nicely played, fun, silly and often very funny. It also does that thing that comedies often do in thinking its drama is just as involving and forgets to be unserious in the final stages for the sake of reaching for some kind of emotional charge and message that isn’t needed. But when its playing in the realms of the problem of disgruntled relatives coming back from the dead to pay a family Christmas visit, it hits a pleasing mark.
Sean Hogan
2026, UK
Despite numerous notable performances that elevate the material – there was a lot of improvisation – the format of a fake documentary about the disappearance of a girl means that it takes ages to get to the point. As it is mostly interviews, the aesthetic is mostly talking heads with some TV-style recreations: it is a TV true-crime approach. There is an accumulated creepy atmosphere, a decent portrayal of a family torn apart and of social media, but as this format seems to always do, it fails in the closing stages because it keeps up its central deception of being a mockumentary (who added the drone? Did they add it for a broadcast? Doesn’t the footage prove a certain thing if proven real; and if so, why does the show stop there? etc.) A shorter, more forgiving context like the ‘V/H/S’ franchise context perhaps would have promoted its considerable strengths.
Marcel Walz
2026, USA
Homages all correct: ‘The Hills Have Eyes’, ‘Maniac’, ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ of course, and plenty more: despite the title, the most obvious influence is Seventies exploitation except with Eighties big hair. It looks like it should be bad taste brainless fun – along the lines of Troma, maybe – but forgets to be a parody of Hair Metal Horror, occasionally thinks it has serious drama inclinations and overall, is not fun and should know better.
Ángel Gómez Hernández
2026, United States-United Kingdom-Spain
‘Infestation’ for the ‘Spider Island’ crowd? A quarantined apartment block with unhinged and smart spiders, obnoxious residents that deserve what they get, a slightly unserious tone. Minor fun and horror frolics that doesn’t take itself too seriously or tiresome pretensions to higher dramatic stakes than it should have. Probably spiders in the elevator does it for me although there’s plenty of arachnophobia.
Dead Howling
John V. Soto
2026, Australia
Powered by Ryan Kwanten's considerable onscreen charm and triggered by your typical and annoying teenage girl stubbornness. Still, a werewolf in a zombie wasteland shouldn't be this seriously intended and pedestrian, as if we've come to see a human survival drama.
