So this year I got the opportunity to attend London's FrightFest from the comfort of my own home, and in this and the next three posts I'll cover the 30 movies I managed to watch and, in some cases, suffer through (Parts 2 and 3 will assemble all the UK entries). Many of these reviews have also appeared on the Bloody Flicks website, in slightly different versions.
Big Baby (USA 2025: Dir Spider One) Poor Adam (Brandon Scott) has hit a bit of a wall. A reasonably successful horror script writer, his latest, for a film called ‘The Blackest Moon’, has just been ripped apart on a movie podcast, and he despairs both for what he terms “unchecked, uninformed criticism” and for a creative spark. His partner Kate (Krsy Fox), who one senses supports them both financially, is sympathetic.
But things change when Adam has a vision of Kate being knifed to death in her bed by a sinister guy with a baby mask; mercifully it’s just a dream, but he feels there might be some mileage in working up the ‘Big Baby’ serial killer idea, although he’s never written a slasher script before. More disturbingly, the morning after the dream he finds their bed sheets ripped by what looks like a large blade.
This is the jumping off point for the curiously named Spider One’s latest horror film (real name Michael David Cummings and brother of Rob Zombie) following his well-received chiller Little Bites from a year earlier. Arguably Big Baby is stronger as a relationship in peril drama than a slasher, partly because the bond between Adam and his creation remains unfocussed. The writer’s vision crosses over from the page to the real world with a mission; Adam needs to script the murder of all those responsible for making BB what he has become, and even though Adam has supposedly created the killer’s origin story, people start dying in real life, following the pattern of the script.
Scott and Fox are initially believable as the couple whose relationship flounders, less so as things move to a climax; this is also one movie where less gore might have been favourable to preserve the mystery of the piece, although the carnage does at least underline that Adam had one great slasher script in him.
Blood Secret (USA 2026: Dir Cameron Francis) A $3,500 budgeted micro murder drama featuring a tiny cast set in a Florida bungalow doesn’t promise much. But Cameron Francis’s two (ish) hander surprises with some deft wit and narrative rug pulls.
Anti-depressant chugging Madison (Tiana Akers) hasn’t picked the best day to patch things up with her close friend Anna (Katherine Lozon). It’s their mutual and late friend Nadine’s birthday, and Maddie is harbouring a lot of guilt about her death (an accident at the beach while Nadine was drunk).
Arriving at Anna’s, Maddie’s pills (she’s taken more than usual) and a shared bottle of wine have a rather disorienting effect. Things aren’t improved by the fact that Anna has found out that Maddie and her husband Roman (Cory Stark) had an illicit lunch appointment; Roman has since argued with Anna and left on an extended fishing trip.
Anna and Madison’s friendship goes back to University, and there’s clearly some low level aspirational issues on the part of the former. But any reconciliation is marred by news that Anna is now pregnant, some problems with lunch necessitating a takeout, and Maddie’s increasing strungoutness, including some rather disturbing visions.
With such a small cast it ain’t difficult to work out what’s happening, but it’s a fun ride and Francis handles the darkness of his comedy/drama well, setting it anonymously on an estate of identikit tract housing, ensuring that attention is focused on the two friends as their lives – and minds – unravel. Good fun.
Slay (USA 2026: Dir Kyra Elise Gardner) Chloe (Zoe Luna, whose control of the project extends to doing her own makeup) is a trans girl navigating – and currently living her best - life, with a supportive mother but a father who doesn’t recognise her as a daughter. On her online show ‘So Chloe’ she’s a big hit, a self-confessed film fan, from fright flicks to
Clueless: “sometimes it’s videos, sometimes it’s clothes, sometimes it’s horror movies” is how she summarises her content.
But Chloe is not without haters, and her outspoken ways can get her into trouble; like when she’s on a chat show with her trans friend Harmony (Reise Alexander) baiting a non progressive interviewer Jenna (Shawnee Smith) to the point where Harmony throws a make up compact at the host. Jenna would disown her own son if he as much as wore makeup, she tells them.
As a result of this, and without consulting any of the friends who support her ventures, Chloe decides to step away from the limelight, desiring to be “famous more for what she does than who she is,” landing on her feet by securing a part in a forthcoming horror movie. To celebrate her mother rents a cabin in the woods; when Harmony is cruelly murdered at home, it looks like the trip may be off, but Chloe and her friends choose vacation over mourning.
The cabin is, predictably, delightful, all wooden beams and hot tubs; later a game of truth or dare will end up with Jordi (Sean Giambrone), an odd chap with a couple of crushes and a sideline in dressing up, supposedly dead from an axe to the chest. But later his body disappears; as the party guests learn that they can’t trust each other and the red herrings pile up, it’s every self absorbed person for themselves.
Kyra Gardner’s first feature, after her 2022 documentary Living with Chucky, scores its biggest hit in not centring trans issues (although tensions are definitely there) but choosing instead to look at Chloe’s friendship circle; and a convincing group of mates they make too. As a comedy Slay doesn’t always hit the right notes; a humorous stoner (Ruby McCollister) grates rather than amuses, but some of the smaller roles, particularly Jimmi Simpson’s general store owner, are funnier. The movie messes with slasher cliches too, albeit with Scary Movie subtlety.
The biggest issue of Slay is the overall tone. The transition from friendship comedy to slasher is well handled, but the subsequent plot twists are unconvincing and a little baffling. It may be aiming for Scream, but it fires off in too many directions, and the denouement (“If you lived through it, you better monetise it!”) underlines a cynicism which I didn’t really need.
The Latcher (Australia 2025: Dir James Hunter) When we first meet Alice (Lucy Lovegrove), a midwife by profession, she’s being let down lightly, being described as good at her job and committed to her patients, despite what she’s been through. “You just need time”, she’s told.
Alice is about as low as you can go. At some point after losing a baby in childbirth, her partner Jason also departs, presumably because of Alice’s inability to move on from the loss. But the hallmark of Hunter’s debut feature is that nothing is explained; all is filtered through Alice’s distracted mind, as she sits among unneeded baby clothes, which, boxed up, later hatch moths. Alice now lives remotely somewhere in Australia; no geographic pointers are given as to how isolated she is.
Jason’s sister, who’s pregnant, comes to check on Alice (a photograph shows that the pair were with child at the same time). She wants to help, clumsily offering to take away some of Jason’s things; it is assumed that his departure was unplanned.
Lost in her cycle of grief, Alice still wants to work, applying for a midwife job she is clearly in no position to take; she falls apart when the heavily pregnant interviewer asks whether Alice is a mother. She also goes on a date, which predictably does not end well. “I want a family,” she tells him on their first night.
While scrolling through the job links online, she reads an item about the ‘Mystery of the Midwife Witch’, a 19th Century American folk healer named Ada Landrake who moves to Australia, successfully prospects for gold and is subsequently hanged as a witch when babies start dying. Alice has felt a presence in the house with her and begins to imagine that she is being haunted by the witch; a way to try and find justification for the cruelty visited on her.
The Latcher is a dreamy - actually make that woozy - look at grief and its effect on those who suffer. Early scenes of Alice’s disassociation in her sparse, untidy home and her later obsession with its occupying force, reminded me of Polanski’s Repulsion; the movie remains a little formless, although affecting, and filtered to within an inch of its life. But Lovegrove is distractedly convincing and there are some effective touches; the horror is there but at arms length, or barely glimpsed, which works in its favour.
Our Effed Up World (Australia 2026: Dir Alice Maio Mackay) At a mere 22 years old Mackay has, in the last ten years, directed fifteen shorts, features and items for TV; maths fans will have worked out that her CV amounts to one or two projects a year.
Her films often feature great ensemble playing with a focus on gender issues, usually framed within a horror setup. And Our Effed Up World is no exception. Sheri (Shara Thompson) lives with the ongoing grief caused by the death by suicide of her cancer ridden grandmother Grace (Kerry Armstrong), a surrogate mother in that Sheri’s own mum was not around for her growing up.
Sheri’s dad Hank (Scott Major) is a keen astronomer, moving the family out to a remote location to pursue his passion. He’s a practical sort, at one point explaining to his meteor fearing daughter that the green brightness she sees is only the effect of magnesium and nickel combining; but he’s also indecisive, not something his daughter needs.
Sheri’s own life is uneventful, balancing school and a dead end job, her only social connection being the local video shop. Well it’s sort of a shop, having been bequeathed to its young owner Finn (Jess MacLeod, also this year to be seen in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma) by an uncle, but it’s mainly a place for her, Sheri and her workmate Poppy (Annapurna Sriramheri). Sheri’s wise enough to know that her relationship with loser boyfriend Henry (Jordan Dulieu) is going nowhere, preferring the company of her female friends.
Into this amiable slacker setup, a meteor lands near home and disgorges an alien creature, which has the power to impersonate those whom it consumes; starting with Henry. Mackay uses the alien as just one more problematic bloke (it’s male in appearance) with whom she has to deal, and which ruins the quality time she wants with her besties.
The creature itself, which seems to have strayed in from a cheesy 1980s sci fic pic, fits in with the video shop environment in which the girls hang out. Sheri’s grandmother, whose life was spent in activism, recognises a similar fire in the eyes of her granddaughter and, sure enough, it’s that resourcefulness which comes in useful; although not without sacrifice.
Others have commented that the ‘fantastic’ elements introduced into Mackay’s films feel forced, but I’d disagree; Our Effed Up World, from its great title onwards, sees everything, terrestrial or otherwise, as a massive pain in the arse, just something else for the characters to overcome in their aimless lives.
Dead Eyes (Australia 2026: Dir Richard Williams) After the mixed reviews of Richard Williams’s 2023 suicide pact drama
White Blood, the Australian director returns with that most divisive of vehicles, the POV feature; not ‘found footage’ but a whole movie filmed from the perspective of the lead character.
The POV subject in this case is Sean (Rijen Laine) who, when we first meet him – ok we never actually meet him but you know what I mean – is recovering from some kind of fainting spell while out in the woods. With him are his trainee nurse fiancée Grace (Ana Thu Nguyen), annoying friend Eric (Charles Cottier) and Eric’s med student girlfriend Kate (Alea O’Shea). The reason for the camping trip, in part, is for Sean to track down his missing geneticist father Paul (Stephen Phillips) but also to drink and have a lot of sex with Kate. Practical Grace, who one assumes is saving herself for marriage, disapproves of all this; she is a fixer by profession and inclination, unafraid to face challenges and obstacles. And as the movie progresses, this will be useful.
For Sean is a chap with stuff going on. Still recovering from the death of his younger sister Lily (Mischa Heywood), he’s prone to blackouts and vivid dreams in which he sees sis in various dead and deformed states. It becomes more and more difficult for Sean – and therefore the audience – to work out what’s real and what’s nightmare in his visual world. Eric’s offer of weapons grade shrooms, ostensibly to try and lift his friend’s demeanour, only makes things worse. But the discovery of an isolated cabin, potentially the location of Sean’s father’s experiments, is the cue for some serious next level WTFery.
William’s film is ambitious – not just because of the POV aspect but also the small cast (for the most part it’s a three hander) – and increasingly abstract. It’s a movie to experience rather than understand, although its themes of cloning and illicit experimentation have been done many times, but some of the photographic effects are genuinely trippy, there’s some surprising gore and a couple of jump scares I didn’t see coming.
Ponderosa (USA 2026: Dir Rob Rice) There’s something rotten in the state of America – well certainly in Illinois, the state in which
Ponderosa is located. The name reaches back into history but, for the purposes of Rob Rice’s satirical movie, is one given to a chain of family buffet restaurants.
Young Zeke (Jack Dylan Grazer) lives with his often ill mother Sandra (Alexis Bledel), who works at the restaurant and has raised her son alone; it’s a fact that hasn’t escaped the rather creepy attention of George (Bill Camp), a Ponderosa regular. Although Sandra and Zeke’s blue collar existence doesn’t allow for many frills – and mum is often exhausted at the end of her shift – the pair get along ok. That is until they receive news that the restaurant is to close. George sees an opportunity to inveigle himself into their lives, offering Zeke employment (which he can scarce afford to refuse) and generally playing the missing dad role. But George’s motivations aren’t entirely philanthropic; there are players behind the scenes (and in plain sight) looking to influence events, while Zeke benignly leads himself into George’s world.
On the plus side, Ponderosa’s biggest success is its sustained atmosphere of polite malaise. Filmed in a clean static style that emphasises vast skies and isolated housing estates, the Illinois of the film is as soulless as the inhabitants in front of us. These days most films made in the US are examined for ‘Trumpian’ elements, and the role of (Republican) men in 21st Century is clearly under the microscope here; and Rice clearly feels his country wanting, judging by the movie’s confusing end coda.
Unfortunately the atmosphere is compromised by a too slight script and a 45 minute idea stretched just that bit too long. It’s all pleasantly wonky – and occasionally sinister and plain weird – but there’s not enough to get hold of to sustain interest, despite a standout performance by Camp which ups the cringe to almost unbearable levels.
Faces of Death (USA 2026: Dir Daniel Goldhaber) “The algorithm loves remakes”, states the
Faces of Death obsessed killer in this not-quite-a-do-over of the infamous mondo shockumentary.
Margot (Barbie Ferreira) is a content moderator for online company Kino; her job is to watch reported online videos and decide whether they should stay up on the platform. Ironically anything advocating drug use is immediately taken down, whereas decisions on violent content tend to be based on what encourages clicks: “DIY horror is trafficking”, concludes Josh (Jermaine Fowler), Margot’s boss.
Clicking on through a seemingly endless clip collection of suicides, animal abuse and all round prankery, Margot comes across a video of what looks like someone being beheaded. Another moderating session throws up a guy being electrocuted and another scalped. Querying the veracity of the clips, Margot breaks a house rule and shares them with an online community full of experts on this kind of thing, the general response being that they seem ‘real’ and maybe copycat versions of scenes which occurred in the original Faces of Death movie. Courtesy of her 70s/80s obsessed apartment mate Arthur (Dacre Montgomery) Margot accesses a tape of FoD and confirms the similarity; someone is out there killing people in the style of the mondo movie’s on screen deaths, but before she knows it, Margot gets added to the killer’s list.
The overall self-reflexiveness of Goldhaber’s movie can seem a little dizzying, but if you are going to mount a remake of one of the most notorious documentaries ever, which wound up on the UK’s ‘video nasty’ list back in the early 1980s, then it’s really only possible to do it this way ie as a self referential story rather than a straight remake; I mean we have computer world for that, right?
The movie’s metaness extends to Margot’s own back story; her sister was killed in the pair’s self-filmed train dodging video which went fatally wrong and was subsequently shared virally, leading to survivor Margot gaining a reputation as ‘train girl’. Her choice of job as moderator, in part to deal with the aftermath of the whole thing, brings to mind Niamh Algar as Enid in 2021’s
Censor. But where Enid operated in the pre internet age, similarly the notoriety of the original
Faces of Death has effectively been supplanted by the proliferation of similar content on the world wide web.
Goldhaber’s movie is arguably less interesting in the second half, which becomes an admittedly tense cat and mouse game between killer (who models himself on Tom Noonan’s Dollarhyde from 1986’s Manhunter) and victim, but this is overall a cleverly constructed thriller which tidily summarises the much repeated quote about the old immorality becoming the new morality.
The Fright Stuff (USA 2026: Dir Mike Meyer) Meyer’s fabulous high speed look at the US ‘haunt’ phenomenon may suggest that this is a uniquely American phenomenon, so it’s good to see the documentary acknowledging that the first such attraction, all the way back in 1915, was based in Hampshire, England!
The Fright Stuff charts the development of the haunt from the original ‘dark rides’ (often utilising and re-purposing abandoned mines which already had supplies of passenger cars) to the rise of home haunts and eventually professional haunted houses, an industry that remains incredibly popular but economically precarious, and which was at one point co-opted by the charitable sector and even Christian organisations!
Eschewing the oft-held belief that the people who run these things are just, as one interviewee comments, “carnies that make money” the documentary is keen to emphasise the often family run nature of haunt outfits and the camaraderie enjoyed by those working in them. Such attractions are now an almost year-round business, employing scores of people now relishing the ability to let their freak flag fly in a country now more accepting of geekdom.
The Fright Stuff also focuses on the ‘haunt’ industry, complete with ‘haunted house’ trade shows and the need for installations to constantly up the ante to attract crowds who may, because of social media, be more cynical about being scared.
Although home haunts are still a thing in the US (a subject covered in a very good 2012 documentary The American Scream) it’s clear that the big attractions are where it’s at, and Meyer’s film is an excellent homage to the crazy people who often invest all of their savings to realise childhood dreams, while roping in their entire families – willingly or otherwise – to make it happen.
Ghostkeeper (Canada 1981: Dir Jim Makichuk) Writer/director Makichuk’s debut - and only -theatrical feature was the second time a Canadian movie had utilised the ‘wendigo’, the first being an obscure 1978 flick by Rodger Darbonne called, appropriately,
The Wendigo. In legend the creature is depicted as a malevolent, cannibalistic spirit;
Ghostkeeper introduces the beast as “a ghost who lives on human flesh”.
It’s New Year’s eve in the Canadian Rockies (Makichuk’s movie is impressively filmed in and around Lake Louise); the snow is abundant and three partygoers equip themselves with a couple of snowmobiles and head out from their friends at the lodge for a bit of sightseeing.
Geological engineer Marty (Murray Ord), his girlfriend Jenny (Riva Spier) and their friend Chrissy (Sherri McFadden) are the partygoers in question; Jenny and Marty’s relationship appears to be in trouble, possibly because Jenny harbours fears that she may have inherited her mother’s insanity, while Marty seems unusually attentive to the flirtatious Chrissy, who will later regale her friends with a prostitution fantasy. The trio predictably end up lost in a blizzard after ignoring a ‘Private Property – Keep Out’ sign and, due to an accident, find themselves down a snowmobile, when they happen across a possibly abandoned facility, the Deer Lodge motel (which still exists, now much expanded) in which they seek shelter.
Inside they find an older woman, referred to in the credits as ‘Ghostkeeper’ (Georgie Collins) who agrees to put them up for the night; the hotel is largely closed because of a lack of business and they are the only guests. Later, while taking a bath, Chrissy is abducted and murdered by the Ghostkeeper’s son (Billy Grove) and fed to a misshapen beast, the aforementioned wendigo (John MacMillan). Jenny and Marty work out that their lives are in danger, a position not helped by Jenny’s fears about her unstable mental health becoming true.
Not a lot happens in
Ghostkeeper. Made in a golden period of independent horror filmmaking where, because of low budgets, movies were usually about atmosphere and mild grotesquerie rather than thrills and fast pacing, the authentically intense winter weather does a lot of the heavy lifting here, coupled with the creepy confines of the motel. A decidedly odd conclusion, creepy old Georgie Collins running around (and the aforementioned white stuff) have drawn comparisons between this and the previous year’s
The Shining, although
Ghostkeeper at least authentically locates its action in the Rockies rather than Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire.
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