All the Devils Are Here (2014) (USA/Bahamas)

aka Sleepwalkers 

⭐️⭐️1/2

Somewhat enjoyable but mostly forgettable flick has a nice late 80s Italiano splatter vibe but kind of gets lost up its own ass and ends up feeling just a bit too forced. Five youngish folks head out to the prickish Owen’s family property in the middle of a central Florida nature reserve. Conveniently (for the viewer, not the characters) the area has recently run into trouble with what some locals think are demons from Hell. They’ve come up from the ground and are pretty much ruining everything. Their bites are highly infectious and they don’t just kill you... they turn you into one of them. Our heroes eventually cross paths with a local gas station attendant (Dale DaBone who played Iron Man in the timeless Avengers XXX 2) and two recently escaped criminals. Poor decisions and bullshit heroics follow as one by one the humans become victims of whatever the hell these creatures are. Two cops stumble upon a cave and witness the graphic birth of one of these ugly bastards and eventually the film’s heroine is dragged to the same cave... yeah, that won’t end well. There’s some great gross outs throughout and enough fog the cause a dozen shipwrecks but unfortunately it never feels like it’s genuinely trying to be more than an homage. Close, but not quite there.

The Bosk (2026) (USA)

⭐️1/2

THAR’S SUMP’N IN THEM THAR WOODS!!!!! Two besties in the middle of a forested (and gorgeous) nowhere can’t get the car started after they stop to take a leak. Erin takes a look under the hood but he’s no mechanic and has no idea what’s wrong or how to go about repairing it. Kim has no signal on her phone and some noises from the forest get them a tad spooked so they jump back in the dead car. Time passes, birds chirp and the duo’s idea of waiting for help from a good samaritan proves fruitless as nobody passes by. With nighttime approaching, Erin decides to run the few miles to the last gas station they passed. Kim is not a fan of this idea but there ain’t much else to be done. Kim waits, Erin walks, branches snap and birds chirp. Erin stumbles upon a Native American doll buried under rocks and the ominous music lets us know this is bad news. The fact that he and his Crocs are dragged off soon after by some Native American woman with a painted face hammers home just how bad this news is. Kim wakes from a car nap and goes to take another piss (nature always be callin’) and she hears branches snap and an eerie whistle. Back to the car she runs and the birds will chirp and a stalking POV cam will linger and Kim will wait and Kim will nap. She wakes up to pitch-black night and something creeping around the car, making plenty of noise. When she goes out to have a look she finds Erin hanging from a tree above the car, his shoes scrapping the top and bleeding out from a neck wound. He’s still alive and struggling but she jumps back in the car because Kim must wait and Kim must sit and Erin’s pretty much fucked anyways. Spooky Native American lady stands around and Kim pulls a knife out of her bag and then decides to lay down and wait till dawn. She wakes up, has a cry and then heads out into the woods following the sound of a ringing cellphone. Creepy creeper is waiting nearby and the chase is soon on… back to the car… where Kim will sit, where Kim will wait, where Kim will gather the courage to hike out to safety or at least some spot that has a fuckin’ signal. Instead of finding a phone signal, she discovers a patch of land littered with body parts (charmingly rubbery) and the rotting corpse of the friend she left hanging (literally) around a burning fire. The creeper returns and Kim hides behind a bush but like, right in her eye-line. Granted, it lets her get a good view at cannibalism in action but she’s one sneeze away from being spotted. All the human meat puts the hungry lass to sleep and Kim sneaks away. Or she would but she crunches a branch and then loudly gasps, waking up the flesh eating Native American. The chase is on and Kim will run and Kim will gasp and the birds will chirp and Kim will injure herself. She eventually manages to call someone (not the authorities) and offers up the helpful location of “All I can see are trees!” when she’s not crying about what happened. She’s warned to hide and if she can’t, to fucking fight. And the birds will chirp and Kim will limp and Kim will search for another signal for some reason and Kim will come across an abandoned cabin and Kim will wait and Kim will sit and Kim will sob and the birds will chirp. It’s not terrible it’s just kind of not necessary as alot of time is spent with nothing and not the mood establishing nothing of isolation but the butt-numbing nothing of “This would work much better as a short film.” I get that a limited budget can only go so far and I respect anyone out there getting a movie made for the love of having something of your own but not every story needs a full runtime. A beautiful setting helps and the cast isn’t horrible (Kim has some issues but Tatum Wesloski is solid as the possibly supernatural threat) or anything but dullness runs through its veins and I will sit and I will wait and I will nap. 

The Shimian (2022) (UK)

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Celebrating a birthday and working on some strained relationships has a family camping in some lovely English wilderness. A pre-credits binding ritual in an abandoned building nearby has unleashed something called The Shimian. Ya see, the attempt to trap an old family curse failed and now our likable family (papa, teen daughter Emma, her best friend Claire and the new woman in dad’s life Sarah) has to deal with something they had no hand in bringing about. Emma ain’t a fan of Sarah because she doesn’t want anyone replacing her dead mother and worries about abandonment but it’s the right kind of sarcasm masking legit fears birthed from her father’s downward spiral thanks to depression and Sophie Simmons has enough natural charm to make her teenage character feel legit instead of a caricature of teen angst. It also helps that Margot Lin works as a perfect counterweight as her supportive bestie. While Ashlea Winfield’s Sarah works so well because she understands where Emma’s coming from and tries her damndest to bond without coming across like a naive dink. Rounding out the small cast is Blake Hutchings as the father, Tony, who is believably just trying to juggle the family drama and the unprecedented predicament they end up in. I know I usually don’t dive too deep into casts outside of “Hey! Paul Naschy!” or “Oh my Lordy, it’s Queen Shepis!” with the occasional “Why isn’t Chrissie Wunna in this?” but when a budget is this thin and performances make or break a production, it’s always good to show some respect to the performers who make it way easier to watch. Anyways, Sarah encounters the occult specialist we saw in the opening just staring at her while she pees, looking the worse for wear. It rightfully freaks her out but Tony calms her down and they carry on. Around the campfire Claire tells a ghost story about the area which ties into that opening scene and some strange growls from the darkness raises concerns. They intelligently decide not to investigate and hit the sack instead. Something creeps around the tents during the night and causes minor destruction which freaks Emma out and she doesn’t believe it’s an animal. The group tries hiking out but they get lost (through possible supernatural tomfoolery) and they run into that pee-watchin’ bloke who looks like me a couple of pints in, he just wanders off without saying anything… just like me a couple of pints in. Frustration and stress has the likeliest of candidates getting testy with each other and they are forced to spend another night where they don’t want to. Drunk me attacks and the team flees to the abandoned building from the opening. Luckily, Claire’s knowledge of folklore has her pinpointing just what’s after them. Convenient. Unfortunately, the likable character traits fall apart as bickering brings everything to a head and annoyance prevails. They split up to look around allowing Sarah and Emma to have a heart to heart before running into trouble. Epic music plays where it really shouldn’t, Tony quotes Arthur Brown which is a good way to endear yourself to me, a piano plays itself, stupid choices are made and a Halloween shop creeper shows up to take some lives. It’s foray into characters turning on each other is thankfully brief and the constraints of the budget are noted in just how much it can show but they did their damndest with what they had and it’s way better than a good amount of the sludge that makes it out into the world with no damn heart.

#ChadGetstheAxe (2022) (USA)

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Obnoxious influencers join forces and journey to the abandoned stomping grounds of a satanic cult. The place is called Devil’s Manor and the history there is a violent one. Spicy Steve specializes in supposedly haunted and abandoned buildings. Chad Ryan is one of those extremely annoying prank specialists who just suck at life and really need to get punched. He recently pranked Spicy Steve during a ghost hunt which led to embarrassment of the pants-pissing variety. Going along with Chad and Steve is the makeup tutorial couple of Spennifer… that’s Spencer and Jennifer. There’s also the Benson Brothers who are currently in the middle of a prank war with Chad Ryan. They haven’t been invited along by Steve but they may not be passing up the opportunity to get one over on Chadpion. Can’t say I blame them. So, this group of dopes are chasing them views and Spicy Steve seems like he may be a little off his game thanks to Chad getting one over on him. The whole cast is really good at turning the irritation up a few notches and playing some truly convincing social media “celebrities”. If they failed there, this movie would have broken both its ankles before even starting the race. So, I don’t often congratulate folks on being annoying as all hell but kudos to this group. We spend some time with the quartet doing whatever the hell it is they do before finally arriving at the Louisiana plantation which housed a cult formed by a man with a penchant for axe murdering. It’s not known what happened to the cult but the house still stands and the legend makes for some interesting fodder to get that viewer engagement going. Shades of Logan Paul in Japan plays out when a hanging corpse is found in the attic and the increasing views inspire dumber and dumber decisions. Spennifer want out after the desecration of the corpse and grab the car keys before making their exit. Blowback from viewers gets Steve regretting his action and Chad decides to start his own livestream, keeping things sleazy. Steve goes back for his hat and the body is gone. Spicy Steve thinks he’s getting his ass pranked again but it doesn’t take all that long for the viewers to see that the shit is about to hit the fan. Spennifer decide to head back to the house when views keep flowing in and they’re called out as being boring. Well, Jennifer wants to jump back in, Spencer just wants to hit up a hotel and call it a day. When it looks like Steve gets attacked, Chad is convinced he’s teamed up with the Bensons. It’s easy to see why they’re all gonna meet the business end of an axe. The movie reaches the usual endpoint about fifty minutes in which leads to a last act that delivers a few comedic beats that had me laughing pretty hard and a expert shift into a slasher flick but from the POV of a social media addict. It’s all well pieced together from various devices and just as idiotic as the videos it’s aping. It’s fun, it’s clever, its humor is dark and there’s some expertly crafted bits of found footage thrills. I dug it, and I did not think I would.

The Night Strangler (1973) (USA)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Carl Kolchak turns up in Seattle (as well as his ever-suffering editor/friend Tony Vincenzo) and goes up against a 144-year-old alchemist collecting the blood of women to maintain his immortality. Of course Kolchak proves to be a stick in the craw of the Seattle police department and faces another conspiracy of silence. The reporter’s second outing shows Darren McGavin already wearing the Kolchak character like an expertly tailored suit, Simon Oakland losing his cool and cementing one of my all time favorite love/hate relationships and cute as hell Jo Ann Pflug as a belly dancing undergraduate helping the reporter out when no one else will. The villain is a decaying civil war doctor haunting the Seattle underground and cameos include Al Lewis as a hermit with plenty of ailments, Wally Cox as a helpful records keeper at Kolchak’s new paper, Margaret Hamilton as an anthropology professor/occult expert and John Carradine as Kolchak’s no-nonsense boss. Its premise is similar to the landmark original but seems to be having a bit more fun with everything. A superior sequel to an already excellent original.

The Night Stalker (1972) (USA)

aka Kolchak/The Kolchak Papers 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Legendary made for television movie follows Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin who, thanks to this role and his turn as The Old Man in A Christmas Story, is a permanent hero in many a monster kid’s eyes) as he tangoes with the centuries-old vampire Janos Skorzeny in Las Vegas. The dead women drained of blood are a major problem but the bigger issue Carl has to navigate is the conspiracy of silence playing out within the local government and police department. If he can survive the vampire, it seems the higher-ups may just eat him for breakfast. McGavin is a treat as the sarcastic and intrepid reporter who believes the people have the right to know what dangers are out there above all else. His long suffering editor, Tony Vincenzo, is portrayed by Simon Oakland who beautifully plays his character with a stubborn respect for the thorn-in-his-side employee. Their chemistry is fantastic and it’s no wonder Tony followed Carl to Seattle for the next film (The Night Strangler) and then to Chicago for the short-lived but much-loved television series. Recognizable guest stars fill out the cast and the film races on towards its surprisingly downbeat ending. A must!

1974: La Posesión de Altair (2016) (Mexico)

aka 1974 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A leg up from the start, 8mm film not only plays well with the time of occurrence but adds an extra spike of atmosphere to the found footage shenanigans. Filmmakers, take note. Altair and Manuel are happily married new dog owners with an active social and sex life. Everything seems hunky dory in their new pastoral home as Manuel captures the good times on trusty Super 8. Attitudes change when school teacher Altair grows distant soon after her birthday. This wouldn’t be all that concerning on its own because it happens to everyone, what’s concerning is her new fascination with using black-painted bricks to build a doorway in the couple’s bedroom and basement following intense dreams and hearing voices. Even more concerning is her claims that it’s a sure-fire way of communicating with God, at least that’s what the angels have told her. Grainy news footage opens things up and there’s talk of screams, explosions and four missing people. A journalist tries to get a word from a psychoanalyst hurriedly leaving the home with a box full of super 8 film and the camera that shot it all. The doctor rudely brushes him off and an interview with a farmhand paints a picture of a nice young couple who seemed to be frightened of something. Welp, no question that bad things are coming to everyone. Picnics, puppies, birthday celebrations and bedroom role play paints a healthy picture of two likable young people in love but erratic behavior and odd events has the unease expertly seeping in and dragging things to the inevitable awfulness. Manuel gets his friend involved to help investigate and Altair’s sister and her childhood doctor (the man we saw leaving with the footage in the opening) also eventually get dragged in as the girl acts stranger and stranger. A haunting? A demonic possession? Or something, somehow worse? I won’t tell ya but I will say it’s nice to use the word diabolical and actually mean it. Sinister soundscapes keep the viewer on edge before the more nefarious scares hit and it’s the kind of gradual terror I can really get behind. Even more unsettling is how quickly everything just slips out of control. It’s not often I can overlook some nagging questions whilst sitting through a shaky-cam nightmare but I was so immersed in this one I never once asked “why are they still filming?” or “why did they add music?” and that’s the hallmark of some quality nightmare fuel.