The Fair-Haired Child (2006) (USA/Canada)

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

“Master of horror” William Malone (such universally recognized classics as Feardotcom and the remake of House on Haunted Hill… which I know isn’t all that great by critical standards but I do fucking love) works from a Matt Greenberg (the man who blessed the world with screenplays for both Reign of Fire and Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest and no, there is no sarcasm in that statement) for this Masters of Horror outing. Teenage outcast Tara gets herself abducted by a psychotic couple and because she’s no idiot, ends up locked away in the basement of their isolated estate after figuring out some bullshit is going down when she comes to in a supposedly care facility. Anton and Judith (fuck yes, it’s Lori Petty and the always welcome William Samples) have made a pact with something ancient to bring their drowned son back from the dead. Said pact calls for the sacrifice of twelve virgin teenagers and our girl Tara happens to be the final one. What a horrible way to be needed for the first time. Tara shares the cellar with the couple’s teenage son who is definitely off because black magic is no way to adapt to death, even if it’s not by your own doing. She rescues him from an attempted suicide upon waking up in the basement and assumes he’s another victim of the lunatics. The longer Tara stays in the basement, the more convinced she becomes that there is something supernatural in the works and she really needs to get her ass out of her current situation. Judith is dead-set on bringing her departed boy back but Anton seems to be losing his marbles the deeper they get into the unsavory business of resurrection. Tara and the mute boy she has befriended uncover more and more awfulness as they await the girl’s fate and do what they can to escape. Warnings of a “fair-haired child” etched into the walls point towards the fact they do not want that ticking timer to come to an end. There’s a nice weird edge to everything and this outing from the first season proves to be one of the more pleasant surprises to get produced. It successfully comes off like a Lovecraft outing from his cycle before he went balls deep in the Elder ones and is purposefully melodramatic and harnessing the right level of camp for something this inspired by a late 60’s American International horror flick and reruns of Night Gallery. A charming slice of macabre that I really feel like the Masters of Horror series should have aimed for more than it did. A likable leading lady, a couple of intriguing villains and a weird-ass monster… that’s all I really want.

Cigarette Burns (2005) (USA/Canada)

⭐️⭐️⭐️

John Carpenter enters the Masters of Horror fray and tackles the always interesting idea of lost media. Of course, the lost media in question is a notorious film that was screened once and supposedly drove the audience into a homicidal frenzy. Now an eccentric private film collector, the enigmatic Mr. Bellinger (the enigmatic Udo Kier), hires a bankrupt theater owner with the kind of bendable morals desperation causes (Norman Reedus before he had a real handle on dramatics) to unearth the lost film La Fin Absolue du Monde. After Berlinger shares a horrific souvenir with the young man, Kirby Sweetman begins hunting down what information he can and discovers a history of death for the people behind the movie and a curse that supposedly comes along with the film that may be better left unseen. Bellinger is completely aware of the power the rare cinema holds but he has no qualms about the dangers or the cost of a single viewing. There’s tragedy in Sweetman’s past and the downward journey into Hell he’s traveling on is going to rip those wounds right open as he navigates cryptic critics, snuff filmmakers and the dangerous power of cinema. An incredibly satisfying story helps this bad boy along even if some shaky performances and melodrama produces a few hiccups along the way. So, excellent inspiration, it’s the execution that falters.

House at the Edge of the Woods (2025) (USA)

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

A documentary crew is brought to an isolated home when the unstable man living there begins to experience strange things. He shares footage with the crew of his dad wandering out into the woods in the direction of bright lights, never to be seen again. The crew is there to document and get to the bottom of what strangeness is going on. It would seem there is something supernatural inhabiting the surrounding woods and you better believe the team of filmmakers are going to have to journey deep into the unknown to get any answers. The homeowner shares that things got disturbing with his son after grandpa vanished and a government agency started poking around. One hell of an obnoxious cameraman is also the main character, so he haunts the runtime with his tucked-in shirt and novice rockabilly sideburns. I may be overdramatic there. He’s not unbearable and surprisingly ends up being kinda likable when the shit hits the fan… a complete reverse on the usual character flaws of the found footage obnoxious cameraman. Actually, the quartet are all pretty damn likable and the young man who owns the property may give off Charles Fleischer in Zodiac vibes but I still didn’t mind him and he’s supposed to be suspicious enough to keep ya on your toes. The paranormal tomfoolery festering in the darkness is interesting and well-crafted considering the tight budget our filmmakers were working with. The desperation of the team’s leader inspires some dangerous decisions but at least the motivation makes sense. I’m a sucker for high strangeness and this is some fine high strangeness that just lets itself sink into the weirdness of all of it. Of course, I don’t think your found footage film should have a score if it’s not wrapped up in a mockumentary package but whatever, it admittedly elevates the climax.

The Third Shift a Paranormal Horror Story (2026) (UK)

⭐️1/2

Gloucester prison is reportedly one of the most paranormal locations in all of the United Kingdom. It’s easy to make this claim when there’s no scientific basis for anything except the self-fulfilling pseudo-science being used but I digress. A team of five paranormal investigators descend upon the haunted hotspot unaccompanied and, as paranormal investigators exploring the confines of a super haunted location are want to do, vanish without a trace. Well, there’s a trace and it’s this footage. Opening credits immediately tell you to do some stretching if you want to buy this as actual found footage and the footage of some guy watching a news report as electronic disruption happens pretty much takes that suspension of disbelief out back and fires a bullet into its head. Rambling introductions from the very British team let us know who we’ll be following around and the team reveals they landed on this location after reading favorable Google reviews. I found that hilarious. We spend time wandering around with the group as they make small talk and hear noises. So, the banality of ghost hunting is presented for you… the viewer at home. It seems that a team of ghost hunters shot uninteresting footage at an abandoned prison, realized there was no value to it and then decided to make the trip worth their time by attaching a bullshit psychopath plot to the proceedings in a desperate attempt to salvage a found footage horror flick out of it. The problem with building your half-baked story around meandering footage of walking around in the dark is that the meat of your adventure offers no real thrills… unless a moving ball gets your heart racing and loud bangs give you goosebumps because the laughing lunatic that eventually shows up just feels like it was shoehorned in for no good reason. If so, man it must be nice to be that easily amused. Good for you. I’m a little jealous. You will see a stainless steel colander used as a helmet for an electric chair, a group of paranormal enthusiasts attempt to act and a discount Halloween shop mask as a signature look. So, in the end this is either a really stupid ghost hunt or a really pathetic movie. Either way, the I’m the sucker who watched the whole damn thing.

Deer Woman (2005) (USA/Canada)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A string of murders has a detective tracking down a Native American legend in this Landis family (directed by John and written by he and Max) outing for the Masters of Horror series. A truck driver is trampled to death is his own tractor with witnesses claiming he was last seen in the company of a gorgeous woman. More bodies pop up showing similar destruction and the only lead our detective (assigned exclusively to animal attacks) has is stories about a beautiful woman with deer hooves who murders the targets of her seduction. Hey. A lead is a lead. Even if it makes about as much sense as the gorgeous Cinthia Moura coming onto your standard quality over the road truck driver. An interesting story shoots some much-needed energy into this middling series with fleshed out characters, a nice streak of humor and a folkloric hook that makes me very happy. The mental crime reenactment scene is a standout, I’m always happy to see Alex Zahara (Psych and Supernatural alum), the awkward new partnership our hero shares with a slightly awkward officer (Anthony Griffith) is charming and the movie exists in the same universe as Landis’ most famous horror flick. “Be a lot easier to think of this objectively if it wasn’t so damn stupid.”

Homecoming (2005) (USA/Canada)

⭐️⭐️1/2

Joe Dante gets a little ham-fisted in his outing for the Masters of Horror series when he puts his directorial hand to a short story from Dale Bailey about warmongering political bullshit and the lives it costs. During the re-election season, hotshot White House spin doctor David Murch mentions on a tv morning show how he wishes those soldiers killed in the ongoing conflict supported by the president could come back and vote for the man he’s attempting to get in for another term. Soon after, the president uses this statement in a speech and the old “be careful what you wish for” term comes into play. The soldiers that made the ultimate sacrifice have risen from their graves and they would like to be heard. This is bad news for the politician and his team seeking four more years. Consequences finally come to those gasbags in power but can even the dead Americans who died for this country actually make any kind of change when the deck is stacked in the favor of the politicians? A zombie film that ain’t exactly a zombie film which is kind of what you need your zombie film to be if you want to catch my attention. Dante shows that he still knows how to have some fun, even if the whole thing is bit too on the nose. That’s just my taste and I fully acknowledge politics and horror have been working in unison for as long as the genre has existed. It’s corny but it’s just on the right side of watchable. Robert Picardo steals the show to the surprise of nobody as the president’s morally corrupt advisor.

Creature of Destruction (1968) (USA)

⭐️⭐️

The best part of 1956’s The She Creature was its impressive monster costume. So naturally that’s the one thing we don’t get in this cheapjack remake because ain’t no way anyone behind this had that kind of money. A hypnotist successfully predicts death for folks and he’s able to do so by controlling a prehistoric sea monster that his assistant happened to be in a past life. With proper predictions proving his power, Dr. John Basso is looking to finally taste the fame and celebrity that only the best of stage hypnotists can achieve. The shoddy monster does away with the Carradine wannabe’s targets and the squarest band to ever play music at a beach resort performs. The beachfront resort owner laughs off Basso’s claims of a prehistoric beast taking lives but his daughter’s psychologist and psychic researching boyfriend (for the army?) has a far more open mind. On regular life, I would say being skeptical about the mesmerists claims of a killer monster is the smart course of action… but this is an American International production. A police lieutenant is snooping around and doing very little to prevent the deaths of others. Basso’s assistant hates his ass with good cause and it’s obviously going to end up costing the scumbag. There’s also money to be made in the success of Basso and this has the resort owner seeing dollar signs. He want’s his daughter’s husband-to-be to get in on the action with him but the man has morals. Long stretches of dialogue pollute the runtime as points of interest are left to be explained by folks that look like they belong in a black and white photo of the people who founded the company your dad worked at. Les Tremayne is wonderful hamming it up as the hypnotist with delusions of grandeur and the ability to sometimes be a real catty bitch. There’s a slight charm to it that smells like lukewarm Hamm’s and a rumpus room carpet stained with decades of cigarette smoke. That will only get you so far and if you’re even the slightest bit tired, you’ll probably nod off.