Passenger

PASSENGER
Director ~ André Øvredal
Writers ~ Zachary Donohue, T.W. Burgess
2026, US
Stars ~ Jacob Scipio, Lou Llobell, Melissa Leo

André Øvredal has submitted fun and agreeable horrors before (‘Troll Hunter’, ‘The Autopsy of Jane Joe’, ‘Scary Stories to tell in the Dark’ and ‘The last Voyage of the Demeter’, although I understand I saw an edit of the latter that was much better than what you’ll currently find)  but ‘Passenger’ is mostly dull and rote with an underwhelming characters, a meagre malevolent entity and laughable St. Christopher hocus pocus. It contains one vivid “outdoor cinema in the woods” sequence where Øvredal gets to show what he can really do and almost making this worth the pitstop, but it is tired folk horror stuff with a cruel rule of “Just don’t stop to help” and resolved by simply conforming.

FrightFest Halloween 2025

FrightFest Halloween 2024

 

Primate

Director ~ Johannes Roberts

Writers ~ Ernest Riera, Johannes Roberts

2025, USA

Stars ~ Johnny Sequoyah, Troy Kotsur, Jessica Alexander

 

Rabid simian versus privileged/uninteresting/obnoxious pretty young things. Fearing the audience isn’t one for a build-up, it starts by skipping ahead to its first kill, which is admittedly a good one for grabbing the attention. From there, we’re in a super-deluxe picturesque house on a cliff edge (why do they call for help? Who do they think will hear?) where the family keep a chimpanzee as a pet: unfortunately, sweet Ben gets rabies (the film even notes that Hawaii isn’t an area that gets rabies?) and goes on the rampage. It’s as if someone saw the more disturbing chimp sections in ‘NOPE’ and went, “oh! I have an idea!” (although there is a history of killer chimps from ‘Phenomena’ to ‘Link’). Good kills, nicely filmed and staged but distinctly standard fare. Its most impressive aspect is the performance of Miguel Torres Umba as Ben.

 

 

Deathgasm 2: Goremageddon

Writer + Director ~ Jason Howden

2025, New Zealand

Stars ~ Milo Cawthorne, Kimberley Crossman, James Joshua Blake

 

Crowd-funded and shot in Canada, this is the sequel to the 2015 original, which I remembered liking as being a sort of ‘Bill & Ted’ metal-horror funny crowd pleaser full of affectionate fun-making of the scene. This sequel is rude crude gory silly, occasionally amusing in its excess (the glory hole episode will likely be your test) but overlong, sometimes simply crass and more hit-and-miss.

Every Heavy Thing

Writer + Director ~ Mickey Reece

2025, USA

Stars ~ Josh Fadem, James Urbaniak, Barbara Crampton

 

Although opening with its weakest scene – bare breasts and vocal fry – there’s increasing intrigue, jazzed up with video effects and dream sequences that are integral. There’s a pleasing retro-futurist tone to these interjections. Josh Faden impresses as the “almost cool” Joe, an underachiever finding himself embroiled with serial killers and tech bro obsessions. There are women disappearing without a trace (even if there’s blood spray left behind?) and Joe isn’t feeling too good. The vibe is everyday living, which works well with the hint of Philip K. Dick-like “Failing Reality” and being caught up with another’s sociopathy, but there’s also a closing scattering of “that’ll do” that undermines any conclusion. A fascinating and ambitious near miss.

 

Dolly

Director ~ Rod Blackhurst

Writers ~ Rod Blackhurst, Brandon Weavil

2015, USA

Stars ~ Fabianne Therese, Russ Tiller, Michalina Scorzelli

 

Hitting that 16mm ‘70s Tobe Hooper and Wes Craven vibe hard, Blackhurst’s Don’t Go Off the Trail public service announcement is ugly and derivative in all the right places, making this a solid homage to those bareknuckle disturbing trendsetters. It introduces a formidable porcelain baby-faced monster, lots of ikkiness to do with her obsession with making a kidnapped woman her baby and some shock-gore that delivers exactly what it sets out to do. Fabianne Therese also makes for a better-than-average victim that must kick in her brutal survivalist mode to get out, as well as confront fears of monstrous motherhood.

 

Affection

Writer + Director ~ BT Meza

2025, USA

Stars ~ Jessica Rothe, Joseph Cross, Julianna Layne

 

The emotional and physical range of Jessica Rothe truly elevates what could have been a fun enough Who Am I? sci-fi thriller. She is scary in her confused state as well as warm and maternal as things evolve. Julianna Layne’s child performance is also above par, and Joseph Cross never gives up on the emotional motivations of his character. As a chamber piece of unravelling identities and revelations, the themes of gaslighting, mistrust, insurmountable grief and choosing what to care about again show that science-fiction can get to those nooks and crannies of the human condition that other genres can’t quite reach. It not adverse to plot holes and the other weaknesses, but it is fun, ambitious and full-blooded.

 

Posthouse

Director ~ Nikolas Red

Writers ~ Nikolas Red, Jericho Aguado, Kenneth Dagatan

2025, Philippines

Stars ~ Sid Lucero, Bea Binene, Andrea Del Rosario

 

The search to complete the first Filipino silent horror film and – of course – inadvertently unearth an ancient monster in the setting of an abandoned editing suite are winners, setting up strongly for the supernatural. Sid Lucero gives a fully rounded performance, torn between completing and owning his father’s legacy or his own future with editing commercials.  The supporting cast is mostly rudimentary, which leaves this chamber piece somewhat floundering. Despite its fascinating historical grounding, moments of creepiness and themes of an unshakable past (can you guess what the true ancient emerging monster is?), there is the sense of lost momentum and confused focus that leaves this an underachiever.

 

 

The Turkish Coffee Table

Director ~ Can Evrenol

2025, Turkey

Stars ~ Alper Kul, Algi, EkeÖzgür, Emre Yildirim

 

Remake of Caye Cassas’ dark farce original – one that goes into the “steel yourself!” pile when thinking of a rewatch – hitting most of the key beats of the original and therefore retains its shock, providing the darkest twist on cringe comedy. It was Turkish comedian Alper Kul that was integral to this being made. It is a little more blatant and changes the emphasis of the conclusion but nevertheless stands as a solid tracing.

 

 

Coyotes

Director ~ Colin Minihan

Writers ~ Tad Daggerhart, Daniel Meers and Nick Simon

2025, US

Stars ~ Justin Long, Mila Harris, Brittany Allen

 

Obnoxious, privileged characters must battle to survive attacks from bad weather, CGI coyotes and obnoxious direction. Despite Justin Long and Kate Bosworth knowing what they’re doing, plus a couple of genuinely amusing gags, there’s a lot of insufferable affectations and annoyance to get through, not least the most aggravating of teen daughter characters. Although the film drops cartoon character name cards (e.g. obnoxious direction) signalling we shouldn’t take it seriously, there’s also very little here to care about. Except maybe how CG the coyotes look. And yeah, it’s all about family, as if that’s justification.

 

 

Mag Mag

Director ~ Yuriyan Retriever

Writer ~ Eisuke Naitô

2025, Japan

Stars ~ Mai Fukagawa, Ôshirô Ma, Sara Minami

 

The opening of the first victim being killed by the ghost whilst pissing all over his friends should have been a clue. Then what follows is the pleasant comfort of J-horror tropes, looking like it will be a series of ‘The Grudge’ style vignettes (there’s even a knowing cameo by ‘Grudge’ director Takeshi Shimizu), and perhaps you are wondering how it will fill out its runtime this way; but then it takes a somewhat leftfield turn into hysteria, perhaps parody (the exorcism), heads off in its merry whim, skipping ahead of the audience, but ends up knowing exactly what it is doing. A revenge curse ghost – Mag Mag herself is pleasingly creepy – turns into a deeper tale of weaponizing various iterations of “love”, from obsessive crushes, abusive, to an innocent child. The chapter narrative means you never quite know where it will be heading and just when you think you do, it ups the stakes. Quite the rollercoaster oddity that delivers the long-haired ghost goods whilst also shaking up the genre to see what else is possible: art love, musical numbers, surrealism, body horror, a note on the corrosive power of loneliness, etc.

 

Lost Hearts

Lost Hearts

Director ~ Lawrence Gordon Clark

Writer ~ M.R. James, Robin Chapman

1973, UK

Stars ~ Simon Gipps-Kent, Joseph O'Conor, James Mellor

 

I’m a big fan of M.R. James, the granddaddy of the modern ghost story, straddling the oral tradition to its more modern shadings. Originally Montague Rhodes James wrote these stories to tell audiences at Eton and Cambridge University at Christmas in the early Nineteen-Hundreds, so it seems appropriate that he became a fundament of the BBC Christmas Ghost Story in the Nineteen-Seventies. He is master of the erudite, slightly aloof slow-build that delivers a sudden shock, not only of ghosts, but demonic and folk-horror unspeakables. They still shock.

 

‘Lost Hearts’ was broadcast on BBC1 on Christmas Day 1973, directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark and written by Robert Chapman. It makes great use of Lincolnshire locations and unforgettable library hurdy-gurdy music. As a story, it is an example that James was a far grislier author than assumed from his status as a purveyor of the Victorian Ghost Story. There is cruelty, brutalised corpses and psychology that doesn’t age, giving the influence of his short stories a longevity and permanence. The brief gore imagery and horror hokum of this adaptation reminds me of the crudity and disgust I felt as a child at the Horror top Trumps: something unpleasant and visceral.  

 

As a TV short, this ‘Lost Hearts’ adaptation has a Seventies execution that makes its tacky Halloween costume elements as disquieting and grim as only TV budget can achieve. It also casts an everyday drabness to a lost era rather than ornate set design, adding to the mundane atmosphere shocked by horror that captures the aura of MR James, a trait throughout the series of adaptations. 

 

There is a big English house, fog, clueless staff, the real threat of abuse and the jangly vengeance. Presiding over this is Joseph O’Connor outdoing the eccentricities of Michael Hordern’s mumbling-to-himself performance from Jonathan Miller’s ‘Whistle and I’ll Come to You’ ~ the 1968 black-and-white short film that started the MR James Christmas franchise across the Seventies. He is wonderfully ripe as a bumbling older peculiar academic whose performance is outlandish until it isn’t. There’s a distinctly spooky edge, the sense of something truly unspeakable, and the imagery of grinning ghosts mixed with almost antithetical hurdy-gurdy music is likely to be unforgettable.

 

Dead of Night

Dead of Night

Directors ~ Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton

Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer

Writers ~ John Baines, Angus MacPhail, T.E.B. Clarke

1945 ~ UK

Stars ~ Mervyn Johns, Michael Redgrave, Roland Culver

‘Dead of Night’ was Ealing’s first post-war release and their only horror, despite other-wordly elements in others. Although preceded by the German film ‘Waxwork’ (1924), this is generally considered the precedent for the portmanteau genre. Amicus and Hammer owe an obvious debt, and its template can be sensed through to the recent ‘V/H/S’ franchise, but it would seem there really wasn’t a cohesive British Horror genre beforehand. There was Tod Slaughter as Britain’s first Horror star, barnstorming through ‘Maria Marten’ and ‘Sweeney Todd’, but no genre properly established. Previously a lot was being derived from theatre, and this certainly seems to be the case when we start here with a drawing room drama with cut-glass received pronunciation.  

The over-arching tale of Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns) driving up in a in a 1938 Sunbeam-Talbot Ten drop-head coupe to a farmhouse to meet six people with an intrusive sense of déjà vu is strong. It’s not just bookending, it is an intrinsic narrative element itself, setting in motion the storytelling of the characters and justifying the incidental, anecdotal nature of the tales told. Where there are tonal shifts – creepy, romantic, dated comedy – the over-arching story keeps a momentum and cohesiveness that many anthologies don’t manage. The datedness offers the crisp Received Pronunciation dialogue, which is smart, spritely and engaging, endearingly old-fashioned. Drawing room debates punctuated by spooky anecdotes proves solid and arguably bolsters any slightness in the stories themselves. If wordy, educated slightly pricky drawing room banter appeals to you, ‘Dead of Night’ is rooted in this.  

A notable omission is a lack of reference to the very recent war. During wartime, horror films had been banned in Britain, and by extension this has the air of asking to be let back in if we don’t mention it. Conspicuous by omission, perhaps, but Jamie Russel’s BBC synopsis is helpful:

"Best remembered for their classic British comedies, Ealing Studios broke all the rules with this spooky psychological thriller, their first post-war release. Released in 1945, its dark tales of neurosis and obsession proved the perfect response to the trauma of the war years with five stories by four different directors capturing a brooding menace that's quite at odds with the middle-class world of the stiff-upper-lipped characters."

Indeed, premonitions of death, fear of latent violence, suicide and cracked mental health all feature. Also at the time, the second story would have had period echoes of the infamous case of Constance Kent, a teenager who murdered her brother. There’s a lot of trauma lurking.

Although Googie Withers and Ralph Michael stand out, it is Michael Redgrave’s performance as the ventriloquist that steals the show in the film’s most renowned episode, although . It’s one that especially nods to the psychological basis and interiority of the Horror genre to come and not just the failing reality and hauntings of the other stories. All along, the film is in debate with its only foreign element, the German psychologist Dr Van Straaten (Frederick Valk) who insists on scientific explanations, but its agenda is definitely spookiness in showcasing several writers and directors. With the mirror and ventriloquist stories coming latterly, only interrupted rudely by the dated misogyny and buffoonery of golfers’ episode, the film only gets better as it goes on.

Much of the pleasure is the period detail and set-design, full of bric-a-brac from a different era, and it retains a timeless sense of atmosphere and some genuine eeriness. Having vanquished its symbol of rationality, the film succumbs to its nightmare logic. Along with its sense of a supernatural bubble-trap, its denouement not only gives a genuine nightmarish conclusion but also excels by giving the stories a second ending which, especially for the ventriloquist’s dummy episode (three chilling endnotes, by my count), proves a neat trick and greatly satisfying.