Doctor Plague (2026) (UK)

⭐️

A serial killer is cursing London with butcherings while stylishly dressed up as those badass-lookin’ plague doctors just with a professional cosplayer upgrade. Why? Because it looks cool and it’s easy to get sinners to repent by killing them. It’s up to a world weary detective (ain’t it always) to put a stop to things. Opening credits play over lazy AI prompts for “grimy British crime thriller” and let you know that you shouldn’t be expecting too much effort from this one. Helpful prostitutes, frustrated locals, boiling tension, a lack of answers, family drama, “THE BRASS IS ON MY ASS!” and baffled police officers are all familiar notes being plucked but there’s also a forced edginess to everything that makes it pretty damn cringeworthy while it tries and fails like a teenager dressing up as an adult to get some booze from a particularly strict gas station attendant. There’s also a social media subplot that really blows and some strong-handed messaging about print journalism… so it has that working against it as well. Eventually our top cop (Martin Kemp, giving way more than this movie deserves) figures out there’s some secret society shenanigans going on and parallels to the Ripper murders that plagued London in the 1880s. Pretty damn dumb or daft, I guess, considering where it originated. There’s some hilariously awful splat and the dialogue seems like it was written by a chatGPT knockoff. A movie that really feels like Joe Estevez should be in it… take that as you will.

The Church (1989) (Italy)

aka Demons 3/Cathedral of Demons/Demon Cathedral/In the Land of the Demons

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Renovations at a cathedral built over a mass grave eventually bring some rightfully pissed-off spirits back into the world of the living. A large group a random people are soon trapped within the church and most come to messy ends. A good old fashioned train smashin’, facial self-mutilation, icky possession and sexy times with a demon are paraded across the screen like an Italian horror flick on a coke binge. Oh. Wait. This is an Italian horror flick on a coke binge. It's a wild and wonderful time that just keeps getting better with age. A cast full of familiar faces and the stunningly beautiful setting all add to the joyous explosion of spaghetti nightmare heaven.

Noroi: the Curse (2005) (Japan)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

A paranormal researcher uncovers a vast and dangerous curse when investigating what he thought to be several unrelated cases of supernatural occurrences. A mother who supposedly took home discarded embryos from her job at an abortion clinic, a cute actress who had a terrifying experience when she joined in on a ghost hunt for a variety show, a tinfoil-wearing psychic convinced ectoplasmic worms are taking over the world and a young girl with a strong telepathic gift are all woven into a story as complicated as it is horrific. The deeper the journalist digs, the more fatal the consequences are for anybody caught in the path of the unrelenting supernatural force at work. Unsettling all the way up to its violent ending, Noroi is must see horror for any fan of found footage or intelligent ghost stories.

Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (1996) (USA)

aka Deadly Harvest/Children of the Corn 4: The Fever

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Much like Juggalos, the corn-themed evil is gathering once again. But unlike those Juggalos, who shockingly build their bonds on a feeling of community for outcasts, this gathering is based on a community of evil children getting up to ancient malice and murdering adults. I’m not a Juggalo but I’ve known a few in my life and I have always found them to be respectful and slightly insane, I have never known a child from Nebraska and thanks to this franchise, I don’t wish to. Anyways, a lovely young nursing student (holy shit, it’s Naomi Watts) returns to her hometown just in time for all the children to get hit with a dangerously high fever… the kind of fever that causes convulsions and necessitates ice baths. The next day those kids are now acting like sinister little assholes and going by names of long-dead children connected to a troubling past. Of course our hero Grace is on the hunt for answers because her little sister has been infected by whatever ungodly force plagues the area and as we viewers familiar with Nebraska can tell you, it’s almost always He Who Walks Behind the Rows or some kind of corrupted religious bullshit. Grace’s mother (her majesty, Karen Black) is having horrifying nightmares which are causing agoraphobia and this is why the young woman has taken some dean-approved time off to take care of things at home. Watching a parent mentally deteriorate is tough enough, but imagine adding a biblical style terror that preys on kids to that scenario and you just got a whole bunch of stress. Working in the films favor are some violent deaths wiping out the older folks, Naomi Watts being a really fucking strong actress, a zombie antagonist with supernatural powers, William Windom convincing as a small town doctor, a wrongfully accused local man (a really good Brent Jennings who feels like he’s entered this flick from a buddy cop action movie) who figures out there’s something paranormal in the works, an interesting take on evil being a viral threat this time around and Karen Black being allowed to dig into her role with her usual aplomb. What this entry lacks in the stupid insanity of the prior two entries, it makes up for with some surprising character depth and viciousness. Do I prefer the confounding hijinks to mean streak tomfoolery? Of course I do, I’m an idiot but this is still one worthy sequel to a series whose worst entry so far has been the original… that will change soon.

Eyeball (1975) (Italy/Spain)

aka The Devil’s Eye/The Eye/The Secret Killer/Wide-Eyed in the Dark 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A tour bus full of Americans comes under suspicion when a psychopath wearing a red rain slicker and wielding a stiletto begins to remove the eyeballs of young women in Umberto Lenzi’s excellent giallo. Paulette (Martine Brochard) is followed to Spain by her unfaithful boss who begins to suspect that his mentally ill wife may have trailed him and is now doing away with members of the tour group and the local population. There’s a literal bus full of suspects and a senior police inspector one week from retirement on the case. Sleazy undertones, Bruno Nicolai’s fun and repetitive score, the exotically beautiful Mirta Miller, shitty humans, mucho nudity and a fucking excellent climax shape one heck of a good time. See it!

Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995) (USA)

aka Children of the Corn III: Urban Nightmare

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

It’s out of the corn fields and into the big city when Chicagoan foster parents take in two orphaned brothers (orphaned by their own hands thanks to taking care of an abusive and drunk papa by turning him into a scarecrow via cornstalk assistance) from the infamous town where “He Who Walks Behind the Rows” unleashed some adult-slaying havoc a few years ago. As the old saying goes: you can take the ancient-corn-evil-spirit-worshipping tendencies out of the country but you can’t take the ancient-corn-evil-spirit-worshipping tendencies out of the child. Or something like that. Younger brother Eli has that evil corn god taking up space in his head and has brought some of that Gatlin corn with him to grow in the abandoned factory next door to his new home. Mom, much like the audience, is unsettled by Eli while dad seems to show him favoritism. She’s right and Eli is doing his best to fuck with her. He’s also gathering students at his new school (filled with some of the most elderly 90’s teens to ever teen) to pick up the Evil One’s message of worship and parent slaughter. It’s gonna be up to older brother Joshua (who’s become a fan of the less stuffy city life… not to mention his cute neighbor) to put a stop to the wickedness that journeyed all the way from Nebraska to Illinois… a trip my great aunt would make every other week… so, not that impressive. The series continues to get better as it leaves the self-serious boredom of the first outing further in the rear view and leans hard into its ridiculous story involving murderous children and an agricultural deity with a mean streak. Hoops get played (Amish boy can ball!), our hero resembles Trey Parker, corn gets grown, Eli gets a goofy “monster voice”, the evil spreads, dad seems to lose his ethics, Michael Ensign plays a priest who has sepia toned nightmares of the Gatlin massacre, Rance Howard is there, corn fights back, Charlize Theron gets something to avoid throwing on her résumé, nasty (and sometimes silly) ends come to adults standing in Eli’s way, a killer scarecrow with a ridiculous head of straw hair shows up and a practical head and spine tugging stands out. Eli is super slappable which goes a long way to excusing his weak performance and his gang of followers may be the least threatening gang of “teens” I’ve seen roaming the streets of Chicago and I once drew the ire of a clan of mustachioed IPA enthusiasts. Another lovely outing from the series that only got good when it got stupid and the climactic corn field battle is my kind of garbage… helps that is closes with He Who Walks Behind the Rows showing up to kill some extras.

The Blackwell Ghost 6 (2022) (USA)

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Turner Clay is back and opens up about his wife passing away from a rare form of cancer months after the birth of their second child. He’s been back to the spooky cabin a handful of times, hoping that creepy-ass phone might ring and he’ll get the chance to hear his wife’s voice again. Alas, it’s not to be. A mysterious package is dropped off at his house one night (all caught by his security camera) and upon reading the note attached, he discovers a couple was hearing sounds coming from a keyboard up in their attic which quickly lead to magnetic letters being arranged into words on their fridge. It turns out the keyboard used to belong to his wife and the family returns it to him after discovering the receipt for the item in the box and watching Turner’s movies. Turner calls bullshit and thinks it’s just someone trying to get a little fame. Bumps in the night forces our guy to begin looking into what or who may be haunting his home. Phantom piano notes get him hopeful that his lost loved one ain’t as gone as believed and that would be a relief considering how whatever it is seems to be creeping around his kids in the middle of the night. After talking to the woman who dropped the keyboard off, he starts seeing a connection to his prior investigations into the Lightfoot house and it’s infamous specter. He ends up buying the place he’s spent so many restless nights at and the paranormal shit hits the spooky fan. The tension of the previous outings is mostly absent but would have felt kinda out of place considering the subject matter. It’s a sweet way to say goodbye to a loved one even if it may be the final nail in the coffin for any dope who believed these things were rooted in truth.