Grave Tone: Horror Podcast

Our Resident Evil 2026 review, and the short version is that Zach Cregger cracked the video game movie. Arthur and Meaghan sat down right after seeing Resident Evil in theatres, and this is one of those episodes where the two of us do not land in the same place at all. Austin Abrams plays Bryan, a medical courier taking a package up to Raccoon City General Hospital on a night that goes very wrong. That is basically the whole premise, and it works. No Leon, no Jill, no legacy characters, just an everyman with a handgun and a delivery to finish. We get into why going off-script inside the Resident Evil universe might be the smarter move after seven previous films, what the practical creature design actually accomplishes, and whether the humour helps or dilutes the horror. Zach Cregger's Resident Evil Reboot and the Off-Script Gamble Cregger wrote Resident Evil as an original story with Shay Hatten and dropped it inside the game universe instead of remaking a game. No Leon, no Jill, no legacy roster. Eight films in, we argue a tangential character at the eve of the Raccoon City outbreak beats another straight reboot. That is the question of the episode. Meaghan rewatched the 2002 original before this and still found it badly explained, which is a big part of why this one works for her at all. Cregger's Barbarian and Weapons DNA is all over the tone, especially the way the jokes land in the middle of the gore. Austin Abrams Carries the Whole Movie Abrams plays Bryan, a medical courier, and he is on screen for nearly every minute. Arthur's take: without him, there is nothing here. Meaghan's point about the everyman quality is the best argument in the episode. No celebrity sheen, just a guy having the worst night of his life. The wet socks moment. The grumbling to himself. A lot of the humour in this film is one actor alone in a room. Sara Paxton, Cregger's wife, voices Michelle on the phone, continuing her cameo streak from Barbarian and Weapons. Creature Design, Practical Gore and the Rooftop Drop The infected are not tame Resident Evil zombies. They fuse, grow limbs, puke acid, and the final design is the best of the lot. The rooftop drop sequence was done practically with weighted blood bags on cranes, and one of them landed inches from Austin Abrams. The sewer creature is a Whopper-style bruiser, or as Meaghan put it, the fat vampire from Blade. Meaghan's comparison point for the creature's movement: the alpaca creature in Color Out of Space. Video Game DNA: Save Rooms, Padlocks and Weapon Upgrades The typewriter room got an audible cheer in our theatre. If you have played the games, you know why. If you have not, we explain it. Weapon progression from handgun to hunting rifle to Uzi is straight out of a game loop. The padlock running gag is the tagline: don't lose your keys. Shooting the lock does not work because the game says find the key. The settings work like levels. Hospital, road, farmhouse, Raccoon City, then the hospital building. Scores, Scare Rating and What Is Next Scare factor: Fun and Wild. Scare level: Solid Scares. Arthur: 8.5 Digs. Meaghan: 6.5 Digs. Meaghan's criticism is fair and worth hearing: it is a great time with very little under the surface. Coming soon: our Mike P. Nelson interview for Beware Boiuna, in theatres October 2. Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hope (2026) movie review: Na Hong-jin spent ten years away and came back with a creature feature that is not a creature feature at all. Arthur and Meaghan review Hope, the Korean sci-fi horror epic that premiered at Cannes, opened in South Korea in July, and finally hit North American theatres on September 9 through Neon. The setup is small. A remote fishing village called Hope Harbor, a police chief who is in way over his head, a dead cow that a bear did not kill. Then the thing in the mountains walks through a concrete wall in broad daylight, and the movie gets very, very big. This Hope movie review covers what works (creature design you can actually see, a setting that feels lived in, characters who make smart decisions and bring grenade launchers), and what does not (a middle section that lags, ten straight minutes of toilet humour, and a lore drop saved for the last twenty minutes). Hope (2026) Movie Review: Na Hong-jin's Creature Feature Swing Na Hong-jin's first film since The Wailing opens small and gets enormous, and the scale jump is the whole experience. Both hosts land on a six out of ten. Good movie, real problems, no hedging about either. The middle section lags and the toilet humour runs about ten minutes past funny. Creature Design and Practical Effects in Hope The creatures show up in broad daylight, in slow motion, in full view. No one-tenth-of-a-second monster nonsense here. Each alien is designed differently, and the close-up work holds up even when the chase CG does not. Arthur's number one pick of the episode, and the reason the first reveal lands so hard. Hope Harbor: Setting, Scale, and the DMZ A shabby little fishing village near the Korean Demilitarized Zone, full of elderly residents and no backup coming. Meaghan's favourite element: storefronts that feel real, forests that feel enormous, overhead shots worth the ticket. Communications are cut, and reinforcements are off fighting wildfires, which is how a small town becomes a sealed box. The Alien Reveal and the Lore Drop What looks like a Korean folklore sea monster turns out to be something else entirely. Four aliens, four designs, a language built from a Mongolian dialect and actually spoken by the actors. The lore arrives in the final stretch and answers maybe half of what you want answered. Casting Fassbender, Vikander, Russell, and Britton Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander perform through motion capture as Ma'veyyo and J'aur. Taylor Russell plays Ai'dovor, and Cameron Britton plays Va'migere. Britton is the Mindhunter and Umbrella Academy guy. Hwang Jung-min carries the human half as a police chief who is scared, hesitant, and completely out of his depth. Hope Ending Explained and Sequel Talk The ending opens more doors than it closes, and the hosts argue two different readings of why the aliens are here. Na Hong-jin has a sequel script written. Nothing is greenlit. Closing question of the episode: is Asian cinema the only place keeping action movies interesting? Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Return to Oz and The Peanut Butter Solution both came out in 1985; both were sold as children's movies, and both are genuinely upsetting. Meaghan and Arthur team up with Annie and Caroline from the Drawn to Darkness podcast for a Childhood Trauma double bill made entirely of films that were technically made for kids. RETURN TO OZ: THE DISNEY SEQUEL THAT STARTS IN AN ASYLUM The first thirty minutes are a straight horror film. Dorothy has insomnia, Aunt Em hands her to Dr. Worley, and we get a silent nurse, a dark corridor, restraints, and screaming from other rooms. The electroshock therapy is a Disney invention. It appears nowhere in L. Frank Baum's Oz books. Fairuza Balk was actually the right age for the character in her feature debut, which makes the stakes land harder than the 1939 version ever did. The lightning cuts the power right before the machine fires. Everyone on this episode thinks it worked anyway. THE OZ BOOKS, MGM'S COPYRIGHT, AND WHAT DISNEY COULD NOT USE The film combines The Land of Oz (1904) and Ozma of Oz (1907). Baum wrote fourteen Oz novels before he died in 1919. MGM owned the 1939 designs, so Disney paid for the ruby slippers (silver shoes in the book) and left the gingham dress alone. Book two is a girls' revolt fought with knitting needles, and the messaging has not aged into anything coherent. The Gump's reward for saving Ozma is asking to be taken apart. That is in the novel. PRINCESS MOMBI, THE WHEELERS, AND THE NOME KING Jean Marsh plays Nurse Wilson and Princess Mombi, the same doubling trick the 1939 film used. She also played Bavmorda in Willow. Mombi's hall of heads is Elizabeth Bathory logic in a Disney film. Trophies, kept young, screaming. The Wheelers sit between Freddy Krueger's stretched silhouette and Biff's gang in Back to the Future Part II. The book defuses them. The film does not. Nicol Williamson plays Dr. Worley and the Nome King, so Dorothy's real trauma follows her into Oz wearing a different face. THE PEANUT BUTTER SOLUTION AND QUEBEC'S TALES FOR ALL SERIES The second Tales for All entry, directed by Michael Rubbo and produced by Rock Demers. The series now runs to twenty-seven films and markets itself as family-friendly. Michael gets a fright, loses his hair, ignores the ghosts' measurements, and everything after that is consequences. The art teacher kidnaps a neighbourhood of kids for a paintbrush sweatshop and wears Michael's hair as a jacket. His dog gets a matching vest. Celine Dion recorded her first English-language songs for this soundtrack at seventeen. MONTREAL ON SCREEN AND TRAUMA THAT ACTUALLY STICKS Three characters are brothers with three different accents, none French Canadian, which contradicts a claim made on the How Did This Get Made episode. Return to Oz earns real credit for admitting the first film broke its protagonist, then tells her to keep quiet or go back to the asylum. Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jonathan Janz on Marla, the horror novel that sold out before it went on sale and then spent four years being the book nobody could find. Now it is everywhere, and he came back to Grave Tone to explain how that actually happened. Marla was published in 2022 by Earthling Publications as a 500-copy limited edition hardcover. That was the whole run. Paul Miller told Janz it was the most requested post-sellout book he has ever had. Four years, one agent change, one manager change, and a three-book deal later, Weird Tales and Blackstone Publishing gave Marla a wide release on August 18, 2026, and Janz walks us through every turn of that road (including the parts most authors would not say out loud). Marla, From 500 Copies to Everywhere Marla was a 2022 Earthling Publications limited edition, 500 copies, and that was the entire run. Paul Miller told Jonathan Janz it was the most requested post-sellout book he has ever had. Weird Tales and Blackstone Publishing released it wide on August 18, 2026, with a foiled cover, sprayed edges, and interior art. The text is about 98 percent identical to the 2022 edition after a full editorial pass. If you read it in 2022, you are not getting a different book. Inside King's Branch: Marla, Carl, Annie and Dylan A reclusive young woman lives with her mother Irene in a house on the edge of town. Some say witch, some say prisoner, and nobody actually knows. Detective Carl Lancaster connects her to a string of murders. Social worker Annie Frost carries a vague memory of her. Twenty-one-year-old Dylan Ellison sees someone he wants to know. Moonflowers and the Marla TV Series Marla is in development for television through Weird Tales and Lit Entertainment. Janz is working with a showrunner he cannot name yet. Moonflowers is an 11,000-word novelette prequel covering the Halloween night eleven years before the novel. It ships with the hardcover and the audiobook. The prequel introduces a character intended to matter in a possible second season, and it came out of Janz and the showrunner building the lore together (there is a Pinterest board). How Marla Got Here: Agents, Managers, Weird Tales A former agent read Marla as a reprint that would not sell. Janz disagreed; they parted, and he is clear that nobody was a villain. Ryan Lewis introduced him to Patrick White at Lit Entertainment; Adam Kolbrenner became his manager. Lane Heymont at The Tobias Literary Agency opened their first call with what the hell is going on with Marla. John Harlacher at Weird Tales read it and offered a three-book deal. Next up: The Stars Have Left the Skies, then Panopticon. Adapting Books to Screen Without Being Precious Janz has taught film lit for twenty-five years. Asked how he handles adapters changing his work, his answer was let the ultraviolence begin. Patrick White wrote a 35-page treatment of Marla and pitched it as The Outsider meets Mare of Easttown, which is why it went to series instead of feature. Widow's Bay, Horror Towns and Staffing One Janz, Meaghan, and Arthur all love Widow's Bay. Patricia, the painting scene, the taser episode. Derry and Castle Rock get their due as towns that feel lived in. We played a game where we asked Jonathan to staff a fictional town with horror characters. These were his awesome choices that we totally agree with! Sheriff: Stu Redman. Doctor: Beverly Marsh. Teacher: Patricia. Funeral director: Clancy Brown's mortician from The Mortuary Collection. Neighbor: Eddie Dean, with Oy included. Patricia Santomasso and Sean Patrick Hopkins narrate the Marla audiobook. Janz cried at his own book during a lunch break. Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Daniel Barnett built a horror epic out of eternal night, and the Nightmareland omnibus is only the halfway point. Twelve volumes are planned. We sit down with horror author Daniel Barnett to talk about the Nightmareland Chronicles, the horror fantasy series he pitches as The Dark Tower meets The Last of Us (the games, and he is a purist about that). John Hawthorne is crossing a darkened America to reach his daughter's blue house by the Atlantic Ocean, with Mariah Nowak and thirteen-year-old Marcos Walker beside him. Marcos is deaf, and in this world, that turns out to be a defense rather than a limitation. Nightmareland Chronicles: Premise, Scope and the Omnibus Daniel describes Nightmareland Chronicles as one man's journey to reach his estranged daughter in a world claimed by eternal night, then admits that the logline does not cover all of it. The illustrated omnibus collects volumes one through six, a complete first season rather than an arbitrary halfway cut. Twelve volumes are planned; he originally thought ten. Individual volumes stay available for serialized readers. Dark Tower Meets The Last of Us: Influences and Genre His pitch is The Dark Tower plus The Last of Us, the games specifically. John Hawthorne shares an archetype with Roland; his dark tower is a blue house by the Atlantic. The revenge odyssey of The Last of Us Part II fed the dread of volume six. He also notes an accidental overlap: both stories put a brother in Wyoming. Nightmareland has fantasy bones (a quest, a small party, a great evil) but the architecture is all horror. Building the Book: Illustrations and Design Leslé Kieu created six original black-and-white illustrations that run in both the hardcover and the ebook, so digital readers get the art too. Daniele Serra's volume cover artwork runs as chapter title page backgrounds in the hardcover. Todd Keisling assembled the package. Writing Process: Gardens, Lullabies and Unwritten Lines He compares drafting to tending a garden; some things you plant will not bloom for years. A key lullaby in the first six volumes originally belonged to someone else. Moving it years later made it much more significant. The biggest lines at the end of volume six were never written down. He let them burn in him for years, so writing them became the reward. Lily is the book he always set out to write. Found Family in the Dark: John, Mariah and Marcos The trio is John Hawthorne, Mariah Nowak, and Marcos Walker, a deaf thirteen-year-old whose deafness is a real protective advantage here. Asked how long he would survive in his own universe, his answer is short: grab the dog, run somewhere remote. The defining survival trait is enduring and holding onto hope, the thematic spine of the whole series. Horror Is a Big House: Stigma and Recommendations His horror origin story is being shown Legend at two years old by a father who still claims he does not like horror. [LINK: Legend] He argues horror is a foundational genre, and emotional resonance rings sharper against the darkest material. Recommendations: the original version of The Stand, Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice, and Doctor Sleep, which he says almost makes up for what Kubrick did to The Shining. Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Buddy (2026) review: Casper Kelly's killer unicorn horror comedy is the most unhinged thing in theaters this week, and we are fully on board. Meaghan and Arthur caught Buddy at its international premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival, about a month before the wide theatrical release, and walked out of that screening loud about it. Casper Kelly (the Too Many Cooks guy, the Adult Swim Yule Log guy) built a pitch-perfect recreation of a 1990s children's television show called It's Buddy!, then let the giant orange unicorn at the center of it start turning on the kids. That is the setup. What the movie does after that is stranger, funnier, and a lot meaner. Casper Kelly Goes Feature Length with Buddy Casper Kelly made his name on Too Many Cooks, the 2014 Adult Swim short that ate the internet alive. Buddy is his feature directorial debut, co-written with Jamie King. The same obsessions carry over: disposable 80s and 90s family media, hand-built sets, puppetry, and post-production elements treated as real things characters have to survive. It premiered in the Midnight section at Sundance in January 2026, then took its international premiere at Fantasia on August 1 before Roadside Attractions and Saban Films opened it wide. What If Barney Was a Horror Movie The film builds a fake 1990s kids show called It's Buddy! and commits to it completely, down to the theme song, the credits, and the episode reset. Barney & Friends ran fourteen seasons and 268 episodes between 1992 and 2010. That is the shape Kelly is working from, and the recreation is close enough to hurt. Kelly's hook came from a real question: what if one of the kids refuses to follow the script? Five minutes in, we find out. Buddy Cast and the Young Performers Delaney Quinn plays Freddy, the first kid to clock that something is wrong. She is the reason the film works, and she told Kelly she wanted to play a final girl. Cristin Milioti (Emmy winner for The Penguin) plays Grace, a suburban mother running a parallel modern-day storyline. Topher Grace plays her husband Ben. Keegan-Michael Key voices Buddy, Patton Oswalt voices Strappy the sentient backpack, and Michael Shannon voices Charlie the Train and Willie. Every kid in this thing is believable as a child trapped in an impossible situation, which is harder than it sounds. Practical Effects, Puppets, and Production Design The practical effects work is the headline. Buddy takes damage across the runtime, and the costume changes tracking that damage are excellent. The set is period accurate in a way that feels almost aggressive: oversized cartoonish props, matte painted woods, a clubhouse, a treehouse, and the Worry Well. Supporting characters include Mr. Mailbox, Betty Bunny, Charlie the Train, a bluebird, a junior puppeteer designed, and talking flowers. None of it feels out of place. Every lesson arrives as a song, exactly like the shows it is riffing on. Diamond City, Wizard of Oz, and the Lore Buddy tells the kids their missing friend went to Diamond City. The kids come to believe it is a way out. The Wizard of Oz influence is all over the escape, and Kelly has named The Shining as another touchstone. There is a spin-off tease planted in the film, and Kelly talked about wanting to do more if this one connects. Content Warnings and Where to Watch Rated R. Children are in real danger throughout, and the violence is not implied, so know that going in. Runtime is 95 minutes. It plays best loud, in a full room, with people who react. Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Colony (2026) review: Yeon Sang-ho went back to zombies and made them learn. Meaghan and Arthur break down the Train to Busan director's newest outbreak. Colony traps biotechnology professor Kwon Se-jeong (Jun Ji-hyun, credited internationally as Gianna Jun) inside a mixed-use Seoul high-rise when disgraced scientist Seo Young-chul (Koo Kyo-hwan) releases an engineered virus at a biotech conference and announces that he is the only vaccine. The infected do not just bite. They share a hive mind, they trade information, and they get better at hunting you every hour.### Colony 2026 Review: Yeon Sang-ho Returns to the Zombie Movie Colony is a standalone story with no ties to the Train to Busan timeline, and the outbreak starts in a completely different way. World premiere at Cannes Midnight Screenings on May 15, 2026, South Korean release May 21, Canadian premiere at the 30th Fantasia International Film Festival, North American theatrical release August 28, 2026 through Well Go USA. Scores: Meaghan 7.5, Arthur 8. [LINK: Colony] Hive Mind Zombies and the Fungal Virus Explained The infected share information across a hive mind, so a skill one of them picks up spreads to all of them within minutes. They start on all fours like animals, then stand, then learn to use their senses, then start throwing each other at people. The fungal and spore basis gives the film a real Last of Us flavour, and it is also why everything eventually turns sticky. The Colony Cast and Who Survives the Lockdown Jun Ji-hyun (Gianna Jun) plays Kwon Se-jeong, a blunt biotech professor attending the conference with her ex-husband Han Gyu-seong (Go Soo). Koo Kyo-hwan plays Seo Young-chul, the ousted scientist who engineers the virus, keeps the only vaccine in his own body, and has a real reason for doing it. Ji Chang-wook is security guard Choi Hyun-seok and Kim Shin-rok is his older sister Choi Hyun-hee, an IT employee and wheelchair user spending the day with him. Shin Hyun-been plays scientist Gong Seol-hee, working the outbreak from outside the building. A Sealed Seoul Tower: Mall Horror After Dawn of the Dead Retail at the bottom, office tower above, and the whole thing locked down once the authorities clock the bioterror attack. The film uses the full building (mall floors, offices, parking garage) with an actual reason to move each time, rather than clearing levels like a video game. Very Romero, with a bit of [REC] in the quarantine. Zombie Choreography and Practical Body Horror Movement was designed by choreographer Jeon Young, who also shaped the zombies in Train to Busan, Peninsula and Hellbound, using breakdancers, contortionists and modern dance troupes. The first person to turn gets an iconic contortion scene, the same way Train to Busan handled its first turn. The set degrades across the runtime, going from clean and shiny to fully overtaken, and characters start getting stuck to walls. The horde reminded us of the dancer sequence in Smile 2. Is the Zombie Subgenre Oversaturated in 2026? Measured against We Bury the Dead, This Is Not a Test and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, plus a decade-plus of The Walking Dead spinoffs. The verdict: the standard zombie is exhausted, but the twists are not. Colony and The Bone Temple both prove there is room left. Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Insidious: Out of the Further review, and we did the homework first. We rewatched all five previous Insidious films in one week, then walked into the sixth one with fresh eyes and a much better understanding of what this franchise is actually building. Vote for us at the Sacred Crypt Awards for the Rising Star category! Vote here , thank you! Insidious: Out of the Further Review and Our Rating We rewatched all five previous Insidious films before seeing the sixth, and it changed how much of this one landed. You do not need to, but it helps. Both of us landed on 5.5. It is a solid installment that does more with its lore than we expected going in. Not scary so much as gross. Multiple "ew, yuck" moments and almost no gore, which is a strange trick to pull in a PG-13 supernatural horror movie. The makeup and practical effects are the best they have looked in a few installments. Cast: Amelia Eve, Lin Shaye and Sam Spruell Amelia Eve plays Gemma Hall, a single mother raising her daughter Maya (Island Austin) in her childhood home. Lin Shaye returns as Elise Rainier, the only person to appear in all six Insidious films. Sam Spruell plays Cyrus Lam, a cult leader who kept the job after death. Tall, blindfolded, genuinely menacing. Brandon Perea (Nope) plays Nick, Maisie Richardson-Sellers plays Clare, and Joseph Lopez turns up as Lester after starring in Passenger earlier this year. Set Design, Lighting and the Pillow Fort Sequence The pillow fort scene is the best set piece in the movie. It looks soft in the trailer; it is metal underneath, and she cannot get through it. Rooms in the Further open outward as the camera moves, revealing four walls floating in nothing. Clever, cheap, effective. Insidious has always loved a nice house, from the Lambert home to Elise's childhood place to Dalton's dorm in The Red Door. Take a safe space, make it unsafe. Six movies in, someone finally bought a working flashlight. You can actually see things. Further Lore, the Doors and the Post-Credits Scene The entities in the Further have a hierarchy, and Cyrus brought his cult with him. Everyone over there wants out. Gemma does not just astral project. She can pull things out and shove them back in, which is a genuinely new ability for this franchise. Every film pushes harder toward our world. This one gets the furthest without fully succeeding, and we think that is deliberate. The post-credits scene resolves Cyrus and leaves the door open (literally and otherwise) for whatever comes next. Our Biggest Gripe: No Specs and No Tucker Specs and Tucker have appeared in every other Insidious film. They are not in this one at all. Not even a cameo. Clare fills their narrative slot as the in-between helper, except she has an ability and they never did. Spectral Sightings, their in-universe company, used to have a real website. It is now a parked domain for sale. Huge missed marketing opportunity. If we missed a second credits scene, tell us in the comments. We checked. Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Fantasia Film Festival 2026 is over, and we saw more than 20 films between us. These are the six that stuck. Meaghan and Arthur close out Grave Tone's Fantasia Film Festival 2026 coverage with a mini wrap-up of their best horror films of the fest. No ranking (Meaghan ranked hers anyway). Just the movies that are still living in our heads two weeks later, plus honorable mentions and the release dates you actually need. Fantasia Film Festival 2026 wrapped , and we saw more than 20 films between us. No ranking, just the six that stuck, plus when you can watch them. Fantasia 2026 Vampire Horror: No Rest for the Wicked Kasper Kalle's queer vampire period piece , set on the Faroe Islands in 1862, follows a young fisherman and a stranded whaler. The vampire lore here is not the lore you know, and that is the whole point. Gorgeous start to finish (the Robert Eggers comparison is earned) with chemistry that carries the entire film. Won two Cheval Noir awards at Fantasia. Opens in Danish cinemas September 3. No North American date yet. Korean Zombie Horror: Colony from Yeon Sang-ho The Train to Busan writer-director returns to zombies a decade later, and it is nothing like Train to Busan. A biotech conference gets sealed off after a bioterrorism attack. The infected share information through spores and function as a hive mind. Characters make smart decisions, which is Arthur's entire personality at this point. Yeon Sang-ho's zombie run: Train to Busan, the animated Seoul Station, then Peninsula in 2020. Colony is a standalone. Killer Mascot Horror: Buddy and the Too Many Cooks Effect Casper Kelly (Too Many Cooks, Adult Swim Yule Log) made a horror movie that asks what if Barney was a monster. We caught the international premiere at Fantasia and stayed for the Q and A. It uses the uncanny sitcom-credits trick from Too Many Cooks and pushes it somewhere much worse. Funnier than you expect and considerably gorier than you expect. Superpowers as Horror: Freaks Part II Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein's sequel closed the festival as a world premiere. Think X-Men, except the powered people are the ones being hunted. Each generation born to powered parents comes out stronger, which is where the sequel expands past the first film's isolation. The original Freaks (2018) is streaming free with ads on Plex. Watch it first. Queer Slasher Joy: Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma Jane Schoenbrun's film is a full 180 from the sadness of I Saw the TV Glow. Made from joy and love for the horror genre, and every frame shows it. Self-aware about slasher tropes without ever sneering at them. Instant cult classic (the merch already exists). Our full review episode is up. Honorable Mentions and Release Dates The Leader dramatizes the Heaven's Gate UFO group, with Vera Farmiga and Tim Blake Nelson. Colony and Buddy both land in theatres the same day at the end of August. Make a weekend of it. Freaks Part II has distribution but no date yet. More Grave Tone incoming: mini episodes, childhood trauma entries, and interviews. Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Junction Row review time, and this Fantasia 2026 world premiere is the one that split us right down the middle. Meaghan and Arthur close out their Fantasia International Film Festival minisodes with Ashlea Wessel's feature debut, a Canadian sci-fi horror creature feature starring Katharine Isabelle as Juno, an army veteran in recovery who returns to the housing compound she walked away from. Her friend Ruby is missing. A new drug called The Link is tearing through the place. And something underneath Junction Row is a lot worse than the dealers running it. Junction Row Review: Ashlea Wessel's Sci-Fi Horror Feature Debut Ashlea Wessel moves from festival shorts (Tick, Weirdo, and segments in the anthology Creepy Bits) to her first feature, and the ambition is all over the screen. Katharine Isabelle plays Juno, an army veteran in recovery who returns to the Junction Row compound to find her missing friend Ruby. Co-written by Wessel with Adam Cesare (the Clown in a Cornfield novels) and Matt Serafini. Meaghan came out of it satisfied. Arthur wanted the film to reveal more instead of asking him to reverse-engineer it. Katharine Isabelle as Juno and the Junction Row Cast Making Juno an army vet is a real choice, not set dressing. She has the tactical knowledge, she can fight, and she can plan an infiltration. Isabelle kicks a genuinely absurd amount of ass here (Ginger Snaps and American Mary fans, this is your action-star era). Kyle Mac plays Miles, Juno's former dealer, and steals every scene he lands in. He is an asshole, and he is very funny about it. A lot of familiar Canadian faces round out the compound, which Meaghan is never going to stop enjoying. Sci-Fi Horror Design: Retro Ads, Future Tech, Budget Limits The film mixes 60s and 70s styling in its advertising and posters with technology that feels well ahead of ours. The phones and tablets look like sheets of paper. A pharmaceutical company is weaponizing addiction inside the compound with a new drug, and what it does to people is where the horror lands. Some of the visual effects get wonky, which is what a lower budget buys you. Meaghan is fine with that here and would not be fine with it from a studio sitting on all the money in the world. Sci-Fi Horror That Withholds: Meander, Coherence, and Ambiguity Arthur's whole issue is explanation. He wants a film to reveal more as it goes, even if the ending stays strange. Coherence is his counter-example for slow, conversational sci-fi that still tells you what is happening. Meaghan raised the same complaint about Home Bodies a few episodes back and it did not bother her at all here. Junction Row's open ending worked for her. Bagman Short Film Review: Wildlife Cams and Recursive Dread Bagman, from brothers Connor Gaston and Vaughn Gaston, screened with Junction Row and Arthur loved it. [LINK: Bagman] Nat monitors a wildlife camera feed tracking deer and bears. One frame there is nothing, the next frame there is a black garbage bag in the brush. Her supervisor goes to check it out while she watches through the live feed, and it gets very bad very fast. The ending did not land for Meaghan. Arthur calls it a solid jump scare with recursive implications that get worse the longer you sit with them. Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Glorious Dead review: the Adams Family wake a small town to blood in the taps and dead that will not stay buried. Meaghan and Arthur close out their Fantasia 2026 coverage with a mini review of The Glorious Dead, the sixth consecutive film from the Adams Family to world premiere at Fantasia. John Adams and Toby Poser wrote and directed it. Poser stars as Sheriff Deb McCloud, who wakes up on her day off to a total blackout, blood coming out of faucets, missing people, holes in the ground that should not be there, and creatures in the woods. Zelda Adams plays her deputy Mikey. The whole thing unfolds over roughly twenty four hours in the dead of an upstate New York winter, and it goes exactly where you do not expect. The Adams Family and Their Sixth Fantasia World Premiere John Adams and Toby Poser write and direct together, Poser stars, and daughters Zelda and Lulu Adams act in the films. They shoot, score, and edit as a unit out of upstate New York. The Glorious Dead is the sixth consecutive film from the family to world premiere at Fantasia, following The Deeper You Dig, Hellbender, Where the Devil Roams, Hell Hole, and Mother of Flies. John Adams told the room before the screening that Fantasia is where they find out what their movie is actually about. They screen it, they read the reaction, then they know what they made. The Glorious Dead: Blood in the Taps and a Town Coming Apart Toby Poser plays Sheriff Deb McCloud, woken on her day off by a full blackout in the dead of an upstate New York winter. No power, no wifi, no cell service. The cars still run (do not think about it). Zelda Adams plays Deputy Mikey, bringing in reports of blood from faucets, missing people and holes in the ground that nobody can explain. The story covers roughly twenty four hours. Calling it a zombie movie is technically true and completely misleading. Adams Family Style: Quick Cuts and a Heavy Metal Score Fast interspersed cuts, deadpan performances everyone fully commits to, and a metal score the edit syncs to. There is a shot of windshield wipers moving in time with the beat and it rules. Every film in their catalogue is a different subgenre: supernatural thriller, folk horror, Great Depression period piece, creature feature body horror, dark fantasy. Mother of Flies is streaming on Shudder now if you want an entry point The Ratings and the Ending Nobody Called Meaghan started around a six on the night and moved up to a seven after a few days. The first two thirds landed immediately, the ending took time. Arthur went a hard seven, setting the film's closing message aside. The last ten minutes are wild enough that he wanted more of that energy earlier. TERM: Dean Norris, Mark Hamill and a Hell of a Short Written and directed by Chadrick Preuss, also a Fantasia 2026 world premiere, playing before The Glorious Dead Dean Norris of Breaking Bad carries the whole thing basically alone as a state senator facing a miracle that turns into a nightmare across one night before a major vote on abortion. Every other character speaks to him over the phone, and one of those voices is Mark Hamill. The producing team reached out to Hamill on a maybe and got a yes. Ask for the thing. Where Fantasia Shorts Go After the Festival Shorts this good are almost impossible to watch again once the festival ends, and that is a real problem worth naming. Fingers crossed for a Shudder pickup on The Glorious Dead, since most of the family's catalogue already lives there. One more Fantasia 2026 minisode is coming for the closing film Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Home Bodies review time. Casey Walker's Canadian sci-fi horror had its world premiere at Fantasia 2026, and it left us with a lot to chew on. Two children, Red and Blue, have been raised in total isolation by an automated house. The fridge restocks itself the second you close it. The dishes vanish into the trash. A disembodied voice they call Papa runs the whole operation. Then a stranger arrives as a Christmas gift, the kids name it Pal, and twelve years of routine come apart. Home Bodies Fantasia 2026 World Premiere Home Bodies had its world premiere on July 23, 2026, at the 30th Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal. Casey Walker directs. The pitch is simple and nasty: two children raised in total isolation by an automated house start asking questions after an enigmatic stranger arrives from outside. We call it dystopian science fiction more than straight horror, but the premise alone is horror enough if you sit with it for a second. No wide release date yet. VVS Films is handling distribution, and the film also screens at Tubi FrightFest 2026 in London. The Cast: Emma Ho, Ian Ho, and Ess Hödlmoser Red and Blue are played by real-life twins Emma Ho and Ian Ho, and that is the single biggest reason the film works. The arguments land because the chemistry is real. Ess Hödlmoser plays Pal, the silent gift who arrives at Christmas. Hödlmoser is a Toronto contortionist, aerial performer, and stunt artist. Their credits are a genre deep cut list: Pennywise motion capture and contortion work on It, Cindy on The Boys, S on Station Eleven, M on Motherland: Fort Salem, plus The Expanse, Titans, Code 8, Star Wars Outlaws, and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Retro-Futuristic Production Design That Steals the Movie The house is the best thing in Home Bodies. Seventies futurism, worn in and lived in, and every appliance is doing thematic work. Close the fridge and it restocks. Throw dishes in the trash and they disappear. Arthur wants to live there. That is a problem the film is aware of. Total automation is why the kids never learned to take care of themselves. The convenience is the cage. Cain and Abel: The Sibling Dynamic One sibling starts questioning everything. The other does not want to anger Papa. That split is the engine of the whole film. Pal's arrival is what tips the balance. Two becomes three, and the routine that held their world together stops holding. Screenwriters Adrian Murray and Marcus Sullivan build the rules carefully, which makes the breaks land hard. Where Home Bodies Loses Us Meaghan's issue is the final quarter. Too much gets revealed too quickly and there is not enough time to sit with any of it. Arthur's counter is that we only ever see what the kids see, so the abruptness is the point. Take your pick. Both of us want more. The door for a sequel or an expanded universe is wide open, and we would watch it. Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Los Vampires review, plus The Leader, both caught at Fantasia 2026 and both built on things that actually happened. Meaghan went to these two solo (Arthur could not get into either screening) so this one runs as a spoiler-free double feature. Los Vampires is Craig Mitchell's fictionalized account of the 1931 Spanish Dracula, the version George Melford shot overnight on Tod Browning's sets while Bela Lugosi's crew slept. Henry Ian Cusick plays Luis de Ossario, the Spanish actor handed the Count and ordered to copy every mannerism off the dailies of Kürt Orlov (Thomas Kretschmann), his English-language counterpart. The rivalry turns ugly. Then people start dying on the soundstage. Meaghan calls it the more fun of the two and the period detail is why: 1930s costumes, one location worked every way it can be worked, English and Spanish trading off inside the same scene. It runs a little long and starts repeating its ideas, which is the only real knock. Rating: 8/1- digs. The Leader is the harder watch. Michael Gallagher wrote and directed this one about Heaven's Gate, the UFO cult that ended in 39 deaths at Rancho Santa Fe in March 1997. Tim Blake Nelson plays Marshall Applewhite. Vera Farmiga plays Bonnie Lu Nettles, the nurse who went from dissatisfied wife and mother to co-running one of the most notorious cults in American history. Jim Parsons plays Warren, a follower, and it is one of the best things he has done. The tone swings between absurd and awful on purpose. Not horror by category. Real-life horror by every other measure. Rating: 9/10 digs. The Spanish Dracula Night Shoot That Los Vampires Rebuilds In 1930 Universal ran two Dracula productions on the same sets. Tod Browning had the day with Bela Lugosi. George Melford had the night with a Spanish-speaking cast, because dubbing technology did not exist yet. The Spanish version starred Carlos Villarías as the Count and Lupita Tovar as Eva Seward. Tovar died in 2016 at 106. Plenty of critics now argue the Spanish cut is technically the better film. Melford's crew watched the day's dailies before shooting, which is the exact detail Los Vampires builds its entire rivalry on. Los Vampires Cast, Craig Mitchell, and What Actually Works Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond Hume on Lost, Marcus Kane on The 100) plays Luis de Ossario, the Spanish actor handed the Count. Peruvian-Scottish, debonair, exactly right for the period. Thomas Kretschmann plays Kürt Orlov, the Lugosi stand-in. Their scenes in the dailies room are where the tension actually lives. Oscar Nuñez (The Office), Daniela Couso, Jefferson Mays and Jorge Diaz fill out the cast. The film switches between English and Spanish and it never feels forced. The real complaint: it runs long enough to start repeating its own ideas, and the single-location staging starts to feel like a play. Meaghan's rating: 8/10 digs. The Leader and the Heaven's Gate Story Michael Gallagher wrote and directed. World premiere at Tribeca on June 5, 2026, Canadian premiere at Fantasia, with distribution reportedly in motion for the US, UK and Canada. Tim Blake Nelson (O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Minority Report, Syriana, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs) plays Marshall Applewhite. Vera Farmiga plays Bonnie Lu Nettles, and she was at the Fantasia screening. Jim Parsons plays Warren, one of the followers, and it is one of the best things he has done since The Big Bang Theory. The film tracks Nettles from nurse and unhappy wife to cult co-leader, which is the 180 that makes the whole thing land. Why a Cult Movie Belongs on a Horror Podcast The tone swings between absurd and awful on purpose. You laugh at what these people believed, then the next scene is a humiliation ritual and it stops being funny. Heaven's Gate taught that the body was a vehicle to be shed, and sexual desire was repressed hard. The film gets into what that did to people. Bonnie Nettles died of cancer in 1985, twelve years before the 39 deaths at Rancho Santa Fe in March 1997 that were timed to Comet Hale-Bopp. Meaghan's rating: 9/10 digs. Not horror by category. Real-life horror by every other measure. What Is Coming Next From Fantasia 2026 Colony from Yeon Sang-ho, Buddy from Casper Kelly (the Too Many Cooks guy), and Freaks Part II from Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, which closes the festival. Shorter episodes are coming while festival coverage runs, and most stay spoiler-free since wide release dates are not locked yet. Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

No Rest for the Wicked is a queer vampire love story from the 1862 Faroe Islands, and it wrecked us in the best way. This one had our attention before the festival schedule even dropped, and it earned every bit of that hype. Kasper Kalle's world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival follows Baldur (Egor Venned), a young fisherman stuck caring for his widowed mother on a treeless island in the North Atlantic, and Helge (Pilou Asbaek), the drifting whaler who washes into his life and changes everything. What starts as a reluctant friendship turns passionate, then turns strange; there is a supernatural element folded into the story that gives us one of the most unusual takes on vampirism we have seen on film. A Queer Vampire Love Story in the 1862 Faroe Islands Kasper Kalle's world premiere follows Baldur (Egor Venned), a bored young fisherman caring for his widowed mother, and Helge (Pilou Asbaek), a drifting Danish whaler who washes into his life. A reluctant friendship turns into a passionate, secret relationship on a tiny, deeply religious island where hiding is survival. Set on a treeless island in the North Atlantic, with dialogue in both Faroese and Danish (yes, it is subtitled, and worth it). The Cast: Egor Venned and Pilou Asbaek Carry It Newcomer Egor Venned (himself from the Faroe Islands) plays Baldur, and we would have handed him a performance award too. Pilou Asbaek (Euron Greyjoy in Game of Thrones, Overlord) plays Helge, a full swing away from the villains he usually gets, and it is a great look for him. Sofia Nolsoe Mikkelsen plays the mother, and Johannes Haukur Johannesson (Succession, Captain America: Brave New World, Vikings: Valhalla) turns up as a villager. Robert Eggers Vibes and Nordic Gothic Atmosphere The natural light, the fog, the night shots with barely any lighting (because 1862): it all felt very Eggers-esque, just softer and more romantic. The score is beautiful the whole way through, and there is a funeral song halfway in that nearly had Meaghan crying in the theater. The film leans on the real landscape instead of manufactured spectacle, and it earns that authenticity. A Vampire Movie Unlike Any We Had Seen This is a vampire film at its core, but nobody is running around biting the village. The supernatural element is quieter, stranger, and much more beautiful. No Dracula crossing from Transylvania, no jump-scare machine. The dread is woven in naturally, and the horror stays understated. Underneath it all: religious oppression, repression, and a real theme of acceptance by the end that a lot of these stories skip. Fantasia 2026 Awards and Where to Watch No Rest for the Wicked won Best Director (Kasper Kalle) and an Outstanding Performance award (Pilou Asbaek) in Fantasia's Cheval Noir competition. Screening at the New Zealand International Film Festival on August 9, with a Denmark release on September 3 through SF Studios. No North American release confirmed yet. We are hoping for a VOD or limited theatrical run, so keep an eye on a cinema near you that plays foreign genre films. Coming Up on Grave Tone: Fantasia Closing Week The Glorious Dead, the new one from the Adams family (Hellbender, Mother of Flies, The Deeper You Dig). Junction Row, the Katharine Isabelle creature feature, plus the Comic-Con darling Buddy and the festival closer Freaks Part II. Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Penny Lane Is Dead review: the 1986 Ozploitation slasher that dropped a Fantasia audience member on the floor, plus the world premiere of Someone's Daughter. PENNY LANE IS DEAD The feature debut from Australian writer-director Mia'Kate Russell, and a straight throwback to 1980s Ozploitation. It is 1986, three friends are celebrating at an isolated beach house, and Penny's jealous cousin Kat turns up with a container of spiked cupcakes. What starts as a prank collapses into a home invasion and then into a revenge film. Meaghan covers the content warnings up front, the tonal wobble between dark comedy and genuine brutality, the practical effects (excellent), the final girl payoff, and the audience member who fainted during the Fantasia screening. Streaming on Shudder August 28. Meaghan gives it 7 digs. Cast: Bailey Spalding, Tahlee Fereday, Alexandra Jensen, Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn, Ben O'Toole, Steve Le Marquand, Fletcher Humphrys. SOMEONE'S DAUGHTER The world premiere of Wiebke von Carolsfeld's survival thriller, shot in Quebec's Eastern Townships. A criminal defense lawyer and the client she once got acquitted of an assault charge wind up stranded together in the wilderness, and the longer they walk, the less certain she is that she was right. Pascale Bussieres and Francois Arnaud carry nearly the whole film. Slow burn, very quiet, gorgeous, and not as twisty as the thriller label suggests. Meaghan gives it 7.5 digs. PENNY LANE IS DEAD: MIA'KATE RUSSELL'S OZPLOITATION SLASHER DEBUT - Feature debut from Australian writer-director Mia'Kate Russell, who previously screened shorts at Fantasia. Premiered at the Adelaide Film Festival in October 2025. - Set in 1986. Three friends celebrating at an isolated beach house, one jealous cousin, one container of spiked cupcakes, and a prank that turns into a body count. - Prank-gone-wrong film, home invasion film and revenge film stacked on top of each other. - North American premiere at Fantasia on July 20. Streaming on Shudder August 28. CONTENT WARNINGS AND THE TONAL BALANCE PROBLEM - Meaghan flags the assault sequence up front. It happens off-camera but is heard, and the film sits in rape-revenge territory. Go in knowing. - The film plays as horror dark comedy, but the brutality keeps overriding the jokes. Some laughs did not land in the room. - Reviews are split, and Meaghan gets why. Australian horror runs mean, and this one leans all the way into it. - Comparison point on-mic: The Loved Ones. THE CAST, THE GORE AND THE FANTASIA FAINTING - Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn as Kat is the engine of the whole film. Ben O'Toole as Angus is genuinely unhinged. - Bailey Spalding plays Penny, Tahlee Fereday plays Toni, Alexandra Jensen plays Amy. Jensen was also in Talk to Me from Danny and Michael Philippou. - Practical gore and makeup effects are the highlight, and the final girl payoff earns its catharsis. - Yes, someone fainted at the screening. Meaghan was there and is not convinced the film gets the credit. SOMEONE'S DAUGHTER: A QUIET QUEBEC SURVIVAL THRILLER - World premiere at Fantasia. Directed and co-written by Wiebke von Carolsfeld, whose Marion Bridge won Best First Canadian Feature at TIFF in 2002. - Criminal defense lawyer Sam ends up stranded with Paul, the client she once got acquitted of an assault charge. The longer they walk, the less sure she is. - Pascale Bussieres and Francois Arnaud carry nearly every frame. Peter Outerbridge turns up early. - Shot in the Eastern Townships, and the landscape works as a third character. Meaghan gives it 7.5. SHORT FILM SPOTLIGHT - Best Friends with the Devil, from writer-director Hugo de Sousa, played before Penny Lane Is Dead. Nine minutes, a missing friend, a hiking trail, and a comedy of errors that keeps escalating. - Someone's Daughter screened without a short. Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Nightborn review time. Hanna Bergholm's Finnish folk horror lands on Shudder July 31, and we caught it at Fantasia first (the North American premiere, no less). This is her follow-up to Hatching, and it takes the motherhood horror thing somewhere darker and a lot more visceral. The Setup: Hanna Bergholm's Folk Horror Follow-Up - Nightborn is Hanna Bergholm's second feature after Hatching (2022), and it pushes deeper into body horror and Finnish folklore. - Saga (Seidi Haarla) and her British husband Jon (Rupert Grint) move into her crumbling childhood house deep in the forest and start a family. - World premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February; North American premiere at Fantasia Film Festival on July 22 as part of the festival's 30th anniversary. Motherhood Horror as Allegory - The whole film reads as an allegory for postpartum and first-time motherhood, the fear, the isolation, and nobody believing you. - Saga names the baby Kuura (frost) and refuses to call him anything but 'it' while everyone insists she is the one who needs help. - It lands somewhere between Rosemary's Baby and We Need to Talk About Kevin, run through Finnish folk horror. Use of Space, Set Design, and the Score - The house does storytelling work: the broken floor, the renos, the tree growing up through the middle as Saga's bond with the child shifts. - The gothic-in-the-woods nursery is a standout, dark greens and muted grays with a cloud light and hot air balloon over the bassinet. - The score is by Eicca Toppinen, Finnish cellist and founder of Apocalyptica, and it carries the tone scene to scene. Body Horror, Gore, and the Growling Baby - There is a real amount of gore here, plus visceral childbirth and body-transformation makeup that earns its warnings. - The CG baby munching meat and growling tips into accidental comedy, which becomes part of the experience. - Content note for parents especially: some of the motherhood and childbirth material hits hard. The Verdict - Seidi Haarla carries the whole film and makes the impossible stuff believable; her performance is the anchor. - Arthur landed closer to a seven; Meaghan sat around a six, with the tonal 'too on-the-nose' quality as her main sticking point. - If you like folk horror and films about the harder edges of motherhood, this one is worth your time. Nightborn streams on Shudder from July 31. Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Fantasia 2026 reviews: Tight Lettuce and Attack on Paradise, two world premieres, spoiler free and we loved both! Tight Lettuce: A Quebec Family Drama Built on a True Story Harrison Houde's debut feature had its world premiere at Fantasia on July 18, and his co-writer Dakota Daulby stars as Joel. Emmanuel Bilodeau plays Bodo, a father who moved from heroin to fentanyl about five years back. That performance is the whole reason to see this one Joel lives near the Ontario and Quebec border, works construction, and has built his adult life around saving his dad The film closes on real documentary footage of the man it is based on, and it lands hard The Opioid Crisis On Screen and What It Costs to Love an Addict Films usually show addiction across a bad few years. This one shows decades, and that changes everything about how it plays Maxim Roy plays Joel's mother Lucy and Christie Burke plays his partner. Every character makes a different call about how much they can carry. Joel's whole operating theory is that loving someone hard enough will fix them. The film takes that apart carefully The comedy is real and it never undercuts the drama, which is a difficult thing to pull off Attack on Paradise: The Raid Meets Die Hard in Antwerp Bob Colaers' Belgian and Dutch co-production world premiered at Fantasia on July 19, in Dutch and Arabic [LINK: Attack on Paradise] Saïd Boumazoughe plays Suleyman, out after seven years, walking into an apartment block run by Prince Hamza (Achmed Akkabi) The cops raid the building the same day, so he is boxed in from both directions and wants no part of either Injuries stick. He takes one in the shoulder and the arm stops working, which is a small thing that changes the whole texture of the action The Everyman Action Hero and Why This One Matters John McClane, John Wick, Monkey Man, and exactly where Suleyman fits between them Boumazoughe originated the story because he did not see anyone who looked like him leading these films The 80s and 90s build (Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Van Damme) against an action lead who reads like an actual person Also a genuinely great look at how a crime lord gets seen as a protector by the people living under him What's Next From Fantasia 2026 Nightborn is up next for us, screening at Fantasia on July 22 and streaming on Shudder July 31 More Fantasia 2026 coverage , reviews and dispatches are collected over on the site. Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Her Private Hell is the most beautiful movie we couldn't explain. Nicolas Winding Refn's first film in a decade opened the 30th Fantasia International Film Festival, and we sat on this one for days before we could even record (we needed to). This is our Her Private Hell review, and honestly? We're still turning it over. Refn's neon fever dream drops Sophie Thatcher's Elle into a futuristic metropolis swallowed by fog, while Charles Melton's soldier hunts for his missing daughter and a masked killer called the Leather Man picks off young women. Two movies in one, a father-daughter subplot running through both, and a color palette so stunning it almost carries the whole thing (there is no green anywhere in the film, and there is a reason for that). Nicolas Winding Refn's First Film in a Decade The Neon Demon (2016) was his last feature; Her Private Hell is his first in roughly ten years, and you can feel him swinging for it. Refn has said a near-death experience (25 minutes) reshaped the film's obsession with rebirth and reinvention. Fantasia handed him the Cheval Noir Career Achievement Award as the 30th edition kicked off. The Cast, and the One Who Steals It Sophie Thatcher plays Elle, a model-actress worn down by an industry that chews women up. Charles Melton plays a soldier searching for his missing daughter, fresh off Beef season 2 and still Reggie to the Riverdale crowd. Kristine Froseth (Hunter) has the best comedic timing in the film; the ditzy-blonde bit is funnier and more honest than it has any right to be. Dougray Scott and Havana Rose Liu round out a genuinely stacked cast. Beautiful to Watch, Hard to Explain The color palette is stunning, and there is no green anywhere in the film (the director is colorblind, and it shows on purpose). Pino Donaggio's score, from Brian De Palma's longtime collaborator, was written first; Refn built the movie to fit the music instead of the other way around. Surprisingly phenomenal action sequences, a Neo-Tokyo look somewhere between Blade Runner and a dark Jetsons. The Spoiler Talk (Two Movies, One Fog) Our read on the Leather Man: he stands in for the industry itself, swallowing women whole. The sapphic storyline Refn added halfway through filming feels shoehorned in, and because he shot in sequence, you can see the seam. The ambiguity is a lot; loving how a film looks doesn't cancel out leaving with zero real answers. Fantasia 2026 and What's Next Her Private Hell opened the 30th Fantasia International Film Festival; Freaks Part II closes it. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga both hit the festival, so we're still holding out for a Conjuring reunion. More Fantasia coverage is dropping almost every other day through early August. Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma review, spoilers included, straight off its Canadian premiere at Fantasia. Jane Schoenbrun made a queer slasher that loves slashers, and we did not see it coming. Hannah Einbinder plays Kris, a director handed a dead franchise (a "zombie IP," in her words) to reboot; Gillian Anderson plays Billy, the original final girl who vanished into a reclusive Hollywood mystery. The two of them meet at the abandoned camp where the first film was shot, and things get bloody, horny, and genuinely strange from there. JANE SCHOENBRUN'S QUEER SLASHER LANDS AT FANTASIA - Camp Miasma had its Canadian premiere at Fantasia Festival , with Jane Schoenbrun on hand for the post-screening Q&A. - It's Schoenbrun's third feature after We're All Going to the World's Fair and I Saw the TV Glow, and easily their funniest and brightest. - The film goes wide in theaters August 7 via Mubi; it opened Un Certain Regard at Cannes and won the Queer Palm. THE CAST IS FANTASTIC - Hannah Einbinder (Hacks) plays Kris, the director handed the reboot; Gillian Anderson plays Billy, the reclusive original final girl. - Jack Haven plays the killer, Little Death, reuniting with Schoenbrun after playing Maddy in I Saw the TV Glow. - Jasmin Savoy Brown (Yellowjackets, Scream) plays Mari, with Sarah Sherman, Patrick Fischler, and Montreal's own Kevin McDonald rounding it out. A HOMAGE THAT LOVES THE SUBGENRE - The opening credits sequence tears through the whole life cycle of a slasher franchise (sequels, space, arcade games, a reboot) and it's brilliant. - There's a fully playable Camp Miasma board game the production team built, rulebook and all, that surprised even Schoenbrun. - Little Death's design is the standout: a box-within-a-box head, a hazmat suit, and a spear that flings victims around like a flag. SEX, DEATH, AND LITTLE DEATH - The killer's name translates straight from la petite mort, the French phrase for an orgasm, and the film weaves sex and death together on purpose. - It sits with the problematic history of older slashers (the transphobia of Sleepaway Camp, the homophobia stitched into the genre) without losing its love for them. - We kept spoilers light since the film isn't out until August 7. Watch it, then come back and yell at us. Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Infernal Tramps: Tales of Weird Terror is out today, and Alex Grass sat down with us for a horror author interview that went everywhere we hoped it would. He traces his horror education back to a father who took him to see Terminator 2 when he was six, and a mother who kept buying him pulp paperbacks based on how cool the covers looked (she had no idea what was inside). The Fly is the one that did the real damage. The body horror hooked him, but it was the descent into the beast that stuck. INFERNAL TRAMPS: WHAT IT ACTUALLY IS - Seventeen stories, flash fiction up to novelettes, and they do not connect. Start in the middle, at the end, wherever. - His standing pitch: if you want the experience of David Cronenberg and Clive Barker smoking bath salts together and then writing short stories, he has that for you. WHERE TO START READING - “A Woman of Distinction” for short, punchy and kind of funny. Dark, but one of the less weird ones. - “A New World Basement” if you want to start dark. - “The EP™ Implant” if you want to start weird. This is his pick for the weird entry point. HOW ALEX GRASS GOT INTO HORROR - A father who took him to Terminator 2 at six, and a mother who bought him pulp paperbacks because the covers looked cool (she had no idea what was inside). - The Fly is his childhood trauma pick. Body horror hooked him, but the descent into the beast is what stuck. THE GROTESQUE AND THE LINE OF WEIRD - Horror done right holds a wistful beauty and a brutality at once. Alex points at real life: dying is not pretty, and you remember the good times anyway. - The inversion is aspiring toward beauty and creating the grotesque instead. He calls it the silicone industrial complex. Arthur clocks it: sounds like he has seen The Substance. He has. He loves it. - Defining weird takes a rollerblader in lingerie and a man walking an ocelot through Bushwick. The line is where benign deviancy starts causing somebody pain. The Elvis version is even better. PROCESS, OR THE LACK OF ONE - He planned two of the novels. Short stories have too much flex in the joints; his outline would read “one, eggs. Two, eggs with spider legs.” - It is not that the settings are mundane; it is that terrible things wait inside mundanity, and power gets wielded dumbly and cruelly inside bureaucracies. - The notebook he carried while drinking produced “what if cheese pocket” and “soda cans equals hypocrisy.” Usable ideas out of it: zero, not once. - The routine is 300 words, day off, 3,000 words, day off, reset. He is not trying to fix it. HORROR BOOKS ALEX GRASS RECOMMENDS - Reggie Oliver, for M. R. James-style English academic occult stories. “The Mortlake Manuscript” runs a lineage from John Dee to Aleister Crowley. - Clive Barker’s Rawhead Rex, closer to what Alex writes. - Bentley Little, who made the bank, the store, and the town terrifying. People keep asking for a horror story about an HOA. He wrote it. It is appalling. - Attila Veres out of Hungary via Valancourt Books, hallucinatory stuff about a vineyard serving something that is not quite wine. - The Butcher of Nazareth by David Scott Hay, and not the anti-Christian book Alex expected. Find Infernal Tramps on Amazon (search “Infernal Tramps by Alex Grass,” G-R-A-S-S, like the green grass) or at infernaltramps.com. Follow us & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcast TikTok Instagram Threads Grave Tone Horror Podcast Website Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.