Loads to try there, cheers chief. =]
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Man, havenāt updated this thread in ages. What have I seen recentlyā¦
Frankenstein - finally bit the bullet and watched this. I guess I enjoyed it more than Nosferatu tbf? Thought this was fairly overblown and boring overall. Enjoyed the switch of perspectives halfway through, but still didnāt feel that this warranted 150 minutes. Some it looked great. Some of it looked like ropey cgi. Still not sure thereās been a really good Frankenstein adaptation (special dispensation for Frankenweenie obvs).
The Bride - why not follow up Frankenstein with another modern adaptation, only one that got very middling reviews and lost a ton of money? I like most of the stiff that Maggie Gyllenhaal has been involved in, but itās hard to really say what she was aiming for here - itās part feminist treatise, part doomed Bonnie and Clyde, part deliberately weird and equally part unintentionally weird. The whole thing is a hot mess. And yetā¦itās not unenjoyable. Jessie Buckley is great throughout, although this is another film that feels far too long at 125 minutes. Penelope Cruz is good value in her supporting role. Kudos to the director for casting both her brother and her husband in this too. Definitely more fun than Frankenstein however.
Forbidden Fruits - reviews of this one has mostly referenced the same touch points; The Craft, Mean Girls, Heathers. Itās definitely trying to channel all of those but fails to get close to any of them imo. I generally like witchy stuff, but this doesnāt really deliver on its setup of of a teen coven at all. The mystery elements and payoff are fairly unsatisfying. Attrative cast though.
Decibel - a film about a billionaire misusing the potential of AI? Dunno who this one could be based on. Was excited about this as it has an interesting premise, where a musician is whisked away to isolation to help train the perfect AI music/voice. Unfortunately the budgetary constraints are pretty obvious and this canāt quite deliver. Aleyse Shannon in the lead is very watchable however.
Citadel - got stuck on a train with decent wifi, so had a quick look at what were the best films available on YouTube and watched this one as Iām sure the director intended, on my phone. Super low budget, but makes the most of its grimy locations to create an unsettling atmosphere. Also features child endangerment which always gets to me. Features a young Wunmi Wosaku who has since gone on to do loads of good genre stuff outside of her MCU role (His House, Lovecraft Country, Sinners). Decent.
Wolf Creek 2 - love the original of this film but had always assumed the sequel would be garbage (despite being by the original writer/director) so had avoided it. Then I stumbled across an article on the best outback horrors, and I do adore an outback horror, which featured this on it. A quick check on IMDB revealed that this had a solid 6.2 so I gave it a go. It is, of course, garbage. Mick Taylor is a genuinely scary antagonist in the first one, but here heās given the Freddy treatment and spends the film cracking one liners as he dispatches hapless backpackers which makes the whole thing comical rather than frightening. I see thereās a TV series coming so hopefully that does better than this.
Affection - really enjoyed Jessica Rothe in the Happy Death Day films so was excited to see her back in horror. This is shot really nicely in a small number of locations with a tiny cast. Itās quite a vibesy film, but then pivots away from building tension to something a bit more sci-fiy and Iām not sure really sticks the landing. Decent enough, and gets an extra point for getting everything done in 90 minutes.
Over Your Dead Body - this is a remake of The Trip from a few years back starring Noomi Rapace. Here sheās replaced by Samara Weaving who continues to kick ass as she did in the Ready Or Not films. The script is blackly comic, thereās plenty of over the top violence and a nice mid film twist. However, given that in addition to SW this features Jason Segal, Timothy Olyphant and Juliette Lewis, itās never quite as good as the original.
Obsession - ah, the big one. Had managed, somehow, to not have this spoiled for me. Turns out that my 13 year old had already seen many of the key scenes as they have taken on life as memes. This has been a genuine sensation on a $1m budget so interested to see what the writer/director does next. Felt very Zach Cregger universe.Thought Inde Navarrette was genuinely great in the lead - equal parts manicly comic and terrifying. Film that actually deserved the hype.
Iron Lung - ah yes, another YouTube creator film. I donāt know the game, but this definitely had the vibe of watching someone play a puzzle out. Had some stuff that I liked - some of the visuals and the overall aesthetic was great. However, this was ponderously slow and the main guy (and writer/director) can not act. Plus another length complaint from me - did not justify 125 minutes.
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Also finished Widowās Bay. Man, I enjoyed this a lot. Went into it expecting some kind of episodic anthology but ended up loving it for the humour. All of the main cast are piss funny, but the incidental characters are also gold. Thought that the ending landed well while also leaving it open for another season. Might watch againā¦
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That came out ten years ago 
(From memory it is the films but longer)
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You are correct, itās actually a third film coming out!
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Oooh and itās even got a meaningless subtitle. Canāt wait!
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this was originally supposed to be about a relative of the German backpacker going after Mick, which I would have watched. Seems like theyāve completely changed that and are going for more of the same.
I did find the TV series oddly watchable and well made - also sick as fuck. If you can accept Mickās plot armour and go along for the ride
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watched this last night, hadnāt heard of it before. weirdly the Youtube version I watched censored every swear word which was a bit annoying but I agree, made good use of the location to hide the clear microbudget. quite liked at the heart of it was an almost 70s b movie explanation for it all , would like more of that
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After this, any recs for really bleak horror? Bit Eden Lake or Speak No Evil!
Angst, The Vanishing, It Comes at Night, Tony (I think, been about 10 years since I saw it), Deranged
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I probably watch too many of these kind of film 
Inside/LāIntirieur, Ils/Them, Calvaire/The Ordeal - all mostly foreign language
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Red, White & Blue - a film Iāve crapped on about on here loads but seems to remain under seen.
Coming Home In The Dark, Soft & Quiet, Chained, The Loved Ones, The Snowtown Murders, The Nightingale.
Been planning a German double bill of Angst and The Golden Glove but have not been in quite the right mood just yet
Watched Killing Ground on Prime the other week and thought it was decent.
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HAPPINESS Summary
Started watching a khorror series on Netflix called Happiness. Itās yet another Korean zombie show, but with a couple of twists: the virus manifests intermittently, so people zomb out then return to normal with no memory of what they did. Only sometimes they do remember what they did. And other times they get turned permanently, I think if theyāve been bitten by an infected. The virus is caused by performance enhancing drugs, you see, so I think people who took the roids are the ones who turn zombie on and off randomly. And thereās something about water too, infected people drink loads of water. Also the government has somehow found a way to secretly monitor, track and imprison scores of infected people in fridge trucks at this black site, but it doesnāt matter because the virus is apparently spreading around the world, and anyway some other infected people get loose in this apartment complex.
It also focuses on my favourite bit of all zombie tales: the slow build to the outbreak, when life is otherwise normal but unnerving things are happening on the news, on the periphery. Theyāve apparently decided to take the first 20 minutes of most zombie films and make an entire season about that, sort of like the first season of Fear the Walking Dead but much better.
The apartment complex is where most of the action takes place. We follow our two leads, a couple of hotties who are cops and childhood friends, who we first meet in a flashback prologue when Yoon Sae-Bom heads up to a rooftop at school to talk down Jung Yi Hyun, who is depressed after a broken leg has ended his dreams of a major league baseball career. Only heās not actually suicidal, he just wanted some air, but the emergency services have responded anyway. sae-Bom shoves him off the roof and he lands on a crash mat the fire department set up for him. Subsequently they join the police - Sae-Bom is a counterterrorism agent and Yi Hyun is a savant detective with ace MMA skills. They decide to pretend to be married so they are granted tenancy of a swank apartment on the government tit as a reward for services rendered by Sae Bom, who neutralises an infected early in ep 1 and helps the Korean department of health with their research. She gets social points or something for her turn but needs the fake wedding to tip her into eligibility for the pad.
I didnāt realise just how much bollocks exposition you have to wade through before the story properly begins around episode 4, but yeah itās a lot of bollocks.
What itās really about, as with pretty much all kzombie stuff, is Koreaās gross inequality and class structure. Now the shit has hit the fan and tenants are beginning to turn on each other as the virus spreads outside the tower block, and Iām guessing Sae-Bom and Yi Hyun will inevitably fall in love for real.
So far itās engaging and the weird tonal shifts - sci-fi body horror, to offbeat romcom, to quirky Ballardian social satire, to espionage thriller, all with truly odd and incongruous soundtrack choices that work anyway - are just about fitting together. And it does the thing kzombie stuff usually does (which I dig) where they must have a logical cause for the virus grounded in some kind of faffy science, and a clear set of rules and logical ways to navigate the outbreak. Falls down a bit here because of the inconsistent rules around turning, but I think theyāve mostly become proper zombies at this point.
Itās not All of Us Are Dead or Train to Busan, but itās definitely worth your time. But you have to appreciate that the showrunners saw 28 Days Later and thought, why donāt we literally explore, at slowest of slow burn pace, what would happen during the 28 Days?
Didnāt mean to write a fuck off essay sorry
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Kdrama seems to be the only place outside Boyle and Garland who can make zombie stuff in 2026 that doesnāt have a gnarly reactionary undercurrent. Idk maybe Iām wrong.
Of a mind to go through all the zombie slop on Netflix to snuffle out the treats. Seen a fair amount of it but not all. Will report back here as I go. Itās a super tired genre, but i canāt resist a zombie story.
Sweet Home is monsters/mutants but Iāll include it.
extremely bleak