Category: 2020’s

Directed by Bradley Steele Harding [Other horror films: N/A]

I really wanted to like this one. The opening was quite interesting, and struck me as promising, so I went into this movie hoping – really hoping – that it could work out.

Regrettably, I just don’t know if the idea here was executed that well.

No doubt, the base story here is quite interesting – a somewhat reclusive young woman, following the death of her aunt, finds old records of scary stories (think modern-day podcasts, like the No Sleep Podcast, only on records) and soon discovers herself in a dark and scary world. Sort of.

Part of my issue, and perhaps my biggest issue, is that I’m not quite sure what’s happening in the film. When a movie is subjective (technically, I know, you could argue any movie is partially subjective, but that’s not the point here) in terms of the events – such as having events that could be explained either by supernatural events or mental breakdowns – I lean toward mental problems, as I don’t have much truck with the supernatural.

There is a conclusion here that tries to explain things, but I’m not sure if I got it. It’s not clear to me, for instance, how much of the events of the film were supernatural-based or mental instability-based. I’m likely not explaining this well, but I guess I just have a difficult time understanding what exactly happened in this movie, insofar as the central character’s reality is concerned (and not the possibly confused experiences of the said character).

I liked the records of scary stories here, but I didn’t always get how much the main character experienced them. Again, that might not be phrased correctly, and so I’ll go into as much detail as possible.

The movie sometimes did a thing where the main character Agatha was doing something, such as going into a spooky house in the neighborhood, or defending herself from an aggressive lover. During those sequences, there would be one of these scary stories overlaying the scene. It wasn’t playing in the real world – it was purely for the audience (to my understanding). What I’m not sure about is whether or not Agatha had listened to these stories previously, and was relating that to the situation she was facing presently.

I have no idea if that’s nit-picky, or if that confusion is even coherently stated, but it’s just another element that I had a difficult time getting my head around. I didn’t really understand the finale entirely. I mean, I got parts of it, but then bodies were possibly raised from the dead (or was it just a hallucination?), and I just lost the thread of things. I hate to harp on this, but I just don’t know what was actually happening here.

There’s a sequence in which Agatha’s going through a house (it’s not clear to me why she was doing this, on a side-note), and finds heroin, which is somehow related to the death of her aunt? And there was an old woman in the house – the story that’s playing while this is going on describes her as a witch, if I recall, and she might be? Maybe? I just don’t know. Maybe someone can make sense of this, and perhaps the fault is all mine, but I had a difficult time understanding the connections and the story here.

Despite my personal issues with the plot, I’m done going after it, because despite my problems, I did appreciate the ambitious ideas that this independent movie was tackling. It was filmed in Dallas, Texas, and the locations looked quite nice. The budget was low, sure, but the movie looked decent.

On a really random side-note, I noticed in the ‘Thank You’ portion of the credits, thanks were given to Anthony Brownrigg and Maegan Brownrigg. I don’t know who these two people are, but a part of me wonders if they’re related to the Brownrigg family – S.F. Brownrigg was a regional horror director (behind films such as Don’t Look in the Basement and Keep My Grave Open), and his son, Tony Brownrigg, is both an actor and director (and in fact, directed Don’t Look in the Basement 2). The ‘Anthony Brownrigg’ mentioned could actually be Tony Brownrigg; I have no idea, and this speculation may be meaningless, but I found it interesting and worth noting.

Though I didn’t understand her character, I thought Bridie Marie Corbett was solid as the lead. I’d have liked to understand her character more than I did, but hey, she wore nice skeleton gloves. And honestly, she’s the only important performance. Van Quattro (Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker) had a couple of scenes, and his character was decent, and both Lara Clapp Williams (Amityville Cult) and Daniel Frank (Anna 2) have their moments, but it’s mostly focused around Corbett’s character.

The film does open, though, with a poem recited by Udo Kier. Kier’s been in a lot of things – from Feardotcom and Shadow of the Vampire to Mark of the Devil and Flesh for Frankenstein. I know the German actor best, though, as the voice of Professor Pericles, a character in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (one of the best renditions of the franchise, in my view), and hearing Pericles reciting a poem to open the film was pretty fun.

As far as the special effects go, while there weren’t a ton in the film, when they popped up, they were decent. Someone was stabbed in the eye, another stabbed in the gut. Nothing too much insofar as gore goes, and what probably works better is the atmosphere of the film.

Like I said early on, I went into 13 Tracks to Frighten Agatha Black with the hopes that it’d come out a well-executed film, and I don’t think it quite made it. I think it’s a really interesting movie, and I would like more people to see it, if only so I could discuss it with others, but it’s not a movie I can honestly say I enjoyed once the credits started rolling. For some audiences, I suspect the movie would work, but at least with one watch, it didn’t do much for me aside from disappoint me.

That said, it is a movie I’d be willing to give another shot to, and if that ever happens, perhaps my somewhat negative views on this movie would change. Certainly I can always hope, as for now, it’s clearly a below-average film.

5.5/10

Directed by Justin Shilton [Other horror films: N/A] & Rob Zazzali [Other horror films: N/A]

I have to be honest: Shark Girl surprised me.

To be very blunt, I wasn’t expecting to care for the movie. I just didn’t think it’d be my type of thing. The production looked good, but I was worried the story would be its downfall, similar to Truth or Double Dare (TODD), which had a solid production, but it has what I feel is a soulless story.

Here, though, while the opening does look a bit on the cheap side, we generally have a pretty solid story, and even when things move a different direction around 47 or so minutes in, they keep things engaging enough to work. Hell, even the finale, with a little bit of sequel bait, was pretty fun, and that’s not something I see done well all that often.

Before carrying on, I do want to state for the record that I watched this upon request. One of the directors contacted me, wondering if I’d be interested in reviewing it. To my embarrassment, for a variety of factors, I didn’t actually see this email until something like a month after it was sent – I mean, you play with the Jiggy, you get the delay. In all seriousness, I felt bad, so I was committed to watching whatever it was, regardless of my personal interest.

Obviously, that’s playing with fire, but luckily, it didn’t matter this time around. Shark Girl surprised me – I honestly didn’t think I’d enjoy it, but I had a lot of fun with this. I thought the tone would be campier, but they kept things mostly played straight, save Alexandra Corin Johnston’s role as a young influencer, Heidi, who, through no fault of her own, gets attacked by a shark and finds herself craving human flesh. A role like that does need a certain amount of ham to it, and I thought Johnston did a great job.

In fact, I found her story quite interesting anyway. Sure, she’s an influencer, but her attitude generally seemed decent (despite Ryan Bertroche’s opinion that she’s toxic, in a line that legit made me laugh), and once she gets these urges, with it comes increased independence – she’s not going to settle for her boyfriend pushing her to the side for other models, or treating her poorly. In fact, in one of my favorite sequences, after a photoshoot goes astray because John Griffin’s character is an utter asshat, Heidi goes after him for berating an intern. That, and what follows, was very much just desserts, in my view.

Had it stopped with Heidi going after only those who were utterly insufferable (to be fair, her first victims, a couple on the beach, don’t fit that bill, but that was before Heidi had any real idea of what was going on), I doubt that many people would care. It’s beyond her control, though, as these urges become stronger, and she finds herself going after those closest to her. Still, there’s a sense of liberation in Alexandra Corin Johnston’s performance, and I appreciated that.

In fact, I’d say most of the central characters here were pretty solid. Alexandra Corin Johnston (Dead List), I’ve talked about at length, and it seems that she had a lot of fun in this role. Ryan Bertroche’s character was an utter tool, but luckily, we’re not forced to spend that much time with him. More interesting are both Sumayyah Ameerah (Confined) and Nick Tag, who I think worked quite well together. Ameerah’s character was important anyway, given the marine biology background (which I want to touch on briefly later), but she was also quite good here overall. Both John Griffin (Deadlock) and Delaney Hogan did well playing utterly insufferable characters, so kudos there.

Lastly, I wanted to mention Brian Guest, who was sporting a Gotham-era Donal Logue attitude. Guest (Infection: The Invasion Begins, Evil Unleashed) doesn’t get a lot of time here to shine, but he’s certainly able to with his brief time on-screen, which I dug.

I was worried about how they’d attempt to tie up the ending. A character winds up dead, and it’s almost set up as though it’s an assassination. I wasn’t sure if they’d be trying to bring in some type of government cover-up angle, or exactly where it was going, but I think they handled it pretty well. Somewhat related, Sumayyah Ameerah’s character has a dream nearing the finale, which sort of clues her into where Tag’s character disappeared to.

Normally, a random dream revealing a piece of the puzzle to a character wouldn’t do it for me, but in this case, I actually thought it made perfect sense. Given her background in marine biology, it makes sense that perhaps her subconscious might relay to her information she knows, but hasn’t been fully able to process into this situation yet. It doesn’t really matter, but the fact that the dream can be explained, and it’s not just some random occurrence, does help things. If it had been another character, like Tag’s, who had this dream, than that would have been a problem.

Oh, and this is also worth mentioning, and it ties partially into why I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. After reading the plot on IMDb, it got in my head that this would be a body-horror type situation – that, over the course of the film, Alexandra Corin Johnston’s character would slowly turn into a shark. I have always had personal issues enjoying body horror elements (how I got through Contracted, I’ll never know), but the movie doesn’t really go that direction, which I appreciated.

Because of that, there’s not necessarily great diversity in the kills, but at the same time, it’s not like people watch a movie like Mississippi River Sharks or Malibu Shark Attack to see some creative deaths, so that’s not really a barometer you should really use. There’s some blood, some chunks of flesh ripped out by bites, but it’s generally pretty tame, and far from the focus of the film.

I’ve said time and time again that I don’t know the details of what goes down when making a movie. I sit here and watch the final product, and can only imagine how difficult the process of filming a movie is, not to mention all the post-production editing that I imagine most movies do. I’m not a behind-the-scenes guy; I watch a movie, and sometimes it works for me, other times it doesn’t.

In Shark Girl’s case, it worked for me, and I really didn’t think it would. It’s a fun movie (without veering anywhere close to becoming too goofy) with decent characters, occasionally some amusing pieces of dialogue, and solid performances overall. It’s a movie I could easily see myself revisiting in the future, and save for that hideous club music that plays throughout, Shark Girl is a movie I think is worth seeing at least once.

7.5/10

Directed by Karen Lam [Other horror films: Evangeline (2013), 7 from Etheria (2017), Shevenge (2019, segment ‘Doll Parts’), The Curse of Willow Song (2020)]

Being the first horror film I’ve seen from 2022, Bring It On: Cheer or Die had a lot to live up to, and while this Syfy original has some problems, I can’t say that I didn’t have fun.

In part, likely a large part, I imagine this has to do with the film being a slasher. Syfy have made some decent originals before, such as Killer High, Neverknock, and They Found Hell, but I can’t think of many original slashers of theirs, and luckily, this one was decent.

To be fair, I don’t think they stuck the landing (see, I tried to use cheerleading terms and nailed it, amiright?), and the finale isn’t great. The identity of the killer, and the reason behind the killing, struck me as a bit ridiculous (and by ‘a bit,’ I actually mean ‘a lot’).

Also, some of the humor, such as the Cheer or Die portion (basically, the insane killer revealed themselves, and is now forcing those still alive to perform cheer moves; if they mess up, they die), or how sometimes by performing a cheer move, someone can dodge being struck by an arrow, but it’s overall not as bad as you might think.

I should now mention that I don’t know a thing about Bring It On, which is apparently a cheerleading movie series that started in 2000. I have no idea if this is supposed to be a spin-off, or completely unrelated, but to be honest, as I will never watch a Bring It On movie in my life, I doubt it matters. It’s certainly an interesting use of an idea that some people already know – to be honest, I’ve possibly never once thought about cheerleaders in the last ten years, so this was different.

Also, it’s modern, and by modern, I mean I feel like an old fogey watching it. There’s one scene in which it shows people on their phones, and the texts they’re writing pop up on the screen (like Non-Stop, an action movie I saw once). It only happens once, but reeks of the modern age. There was a joke made about eggplants and tacos – I still use a flip phone, but I was able to follow along with the intended joke well enough.

Like I said, not all the humor hits.

When it comes to performances, I was expecting a little more from Gino Anania and Samuel Braun, but that’s more where the story takes them. I don’t think that Makena Zimmerman’s character was fleshed out that well, and Tiera Skovbye (Summer of 84, Forever 16, Even Lambs Have Teeth) didn’t appear as much as I was hoping.

Even so, much of the central cast of nine is good – Kerri Medders, Alexandra Beaton, Alten Wilmot, Sierra Holder, Rudy Borgonia, Sam Robert Muik, Marlowe Zimmerman, Madison MacIsaac, and Erika Prevost mostly all brought something to the movie. Not all were necessarily memorable – Erika Prevost, Marlowe Zimmerman, and Rudy Borgonia didn’t get a lot of good characterization – but all were at least manageable.

I do think Kerri Medders (Do Not Reply) made for a solid lead. She wasn’t notable insofar as personality goes, but she did well as the main character. For comedic relief, Alten Wilmot was great – his line ‘Oh my God, were the chains on sale?’ cracked me up quite a bit – and I did dig his character. I wasn’t moved by Sierra Holder at first, but then she had a scene with Alexandra Beaton that I thought was awkwardly cute.

See, Beaton’s character finds a notebook with a list in it of the nine characters – not by name, but by stereotype (stoner, slut, jock, badass, klutzy nerd, ditz, sexy blonde, basic bitch, and final girl). Beaton, who sprained her ankle early on in the film, was complaining to Holder that she didn’t find it fair to be labeled the ‘klutzy nerd,’ to which Holder replies, ‘Well, you could be the sexy blonde.’ It wasn’t clear to me if this was intentional flirting or not (as it turns out, it was), but I found it awkwardly cute, and I shipped it immediately.

Sam Robert Muik (A.M.I.) only got one scene to really shine; being a stoner doesn’t usually grant much in the way of staying power in horror movies, unless you’re in The Cabin in the Woods. Even so, he was fun for his moments on air. Lastly, Madison MacIsaac did pretty well as a ditzy blonde. At times, she felt a bit too airheaded, but she was still reasonably fun.

And actually, maybe she wasn’t too airheaded. I remember, back in high school, a teacher was discussing nuclear power plants, and there was a girl in my class who was confused about how plants could be dangerous. She was thinking about plants that grow in the ground, as opposed to power plants. It’s small moments like that which lend credibility to some silly airheaded moments MacIsaac’s character has on-screen.

Unfortunately for a slasher, none of the kills were particularly good. That can’t be a big surprise, given this is a Syfy original and, as such, made-for-TV, but even so, it’s a disappointment. Someone got suffocated with a pom pom, another got their head bashed in, someone else took an ax to the back, but nothing here is at all gory. Also, while the killer’s design is okay – simply the mascot of the school these girls are cheering for – it’s nothing that really stands out much.

Bring It On: Cheer or Die isn’t a good movie, but I can’t say that I didn’t have a decent amount of fun with it. The finale doesn’t do the rest of the film justice, and I could have done without a couple of the sillier moments, but honestly, I had an okay time with this one, and could easily see myself giving it another watch, if only because some of the characters and dialogue were solid. Below average, sure, but not a bad time at all.

6.5/10

Directed by Jane Schoenbrun [Other horror films: A Self-Induced Hallucination (2018), I Saw the TV Glow (2024)]

This movie has been on my radar since the beginning of 2022 (currently writing this on October 8th, 2022 – God knows when it’ll be published), and was one of the movies I was interested in seeing for my annual marathon of horror films for the previous year (which is why I watched films such as The Power, In the Earth, The Land of Blue Lakes, and Broadcast Signal Intrusion).

Alas, early on this year, it wasn’t available for easy viewing. Luckily, it hit HBO Max, and since I love spending money I rarely have on streaming services I rarely use, I have a subscription to HBO Max, and so was quite eager to watch this one.

Going in, I didn’t know much – I had read the plot outline on IMDb, but didn’t look any further, as it seemed to me the type of movie that might be quite the treat going in blind. After having watched it, I certainly think that We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is an interesting movie, but unfortunately, I don’t think it’s great.

The narrative is a bit unconventional in that there’s only two characters of relevance, being Casey (played by Anna Cobb) and JLB (Michael J Rogers). The story is simple enough – a socially awkward and isolated teen girl takes an online challenge, and seems to be going through some type of change in her mental state.

I will say, as flawed as the final product might be, I do think this is a solid showcase on how mental illness could impact teens, especially lonely, isolated kids who spend much of their time on the internet. I was never much for Reddit or 4chan, or wherever kids went back in the early-to-mid 2000’s (I was born 1993), but the type of isolation – while technically, with the internet, much of the world is at your fingers, but you still feel just as disconnected as always – this movie portrays is something I personally struggle with also.

It’s the final 15 minutes, though, that I found somewhat troubling. While I do think the film suffers from a rather anticlimactic finale, it’s something that we find out right toward the end which, in a way, takes a bit of feeling and meaning away from the movie. I’m not saying it ruins the whole thing, because it doesn’t, but had they approached things differently, it might have done more for me.

All of which I know is rather vague. There were a few small things I found difficult to reconcile given what we know toward the end, which was another problem, but I just think the movie loses a bit of it’s impact once we hit the final 15 minutes.

No doubt in my mind, though, that Anna Cobb gave a great performance (in her first film). She did stellar showing how isolationing and lonely life can be, not just in general, but especially for teenagers. Again, things are given a different light toward the end, which does harm the character in my view, but Cobb’s performance was great. I wanted a little more from Michael J Rogers’ (Beyond the Black Rainbow, Children of the Corn: Revelation, Demonic) character, but it was a film focused on Cobb, so I can’t be too bitter.

While disturbing in some aspects, this isn’t at all a gory movie. There might be some minor elements of body horror – in a video that Casey watches, a man pulls ticket stubs out of his arm – but far more than that, it’s the horrors of mental illness. During one sequence, Casey is recording herself singing a song called ‘Love in Winter,’ and toward the finale, apropos of nothing, she starts shrieking. This lasts for perhaps five seconds, and then, without reaction, she goes back to singing the song.

The character of Casey is a self-professed horror fan, and name-drops Paranormal Activity in the film. I should add, on a side-note, that I’m an old fogey, and it amazes me to think that there are kids born who, when they think of the horror films of their childhood, they go to Paranormal Activity. Obviously, if someone was born in the late 1990’s or early 2000’s, it makes sense, but even so, it shows how fleeting this life is.

I should also add that much of this film is inspired by Creeypasta subcultures. I’ve never really understood the Creepypasta thing (I don’t even know if it should be capitalized) – they’re just scary stories, are they not? In the film, the World’s Fair Challenge is sort of a Creepypasta thing, in which there’s multiple videos online of people taking the Challenge and in different, disturbing ways, they change.

Not much is touched on this exact topic – we do hear from Michael J Rogers’ character a bit about different theories, such as what the fair is, or how Loop Theory might mean life itself is all, more or less, not true reality, but this type of stuff is on the periphery, and not at all the focus (really only popping up in a single conversation). Still, it’s interesting, especially as we see a clip of a sort of text video game that could be related to the origins of this thing/Creepypasta/Challenge.

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair isn’t an easy movie to discuss. It can often be uncomfortable, with Cobb’s character just staring into the camera, or making her awkward videos, and may even seem dull to some. I was never disengaged, but I know this movie won’t be for everyone. I certainly liked portions of it (and was reminded a bit of ‘The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger,’ the only segment worth anything from V/H/S), but it’s definitely a movie that’s plenty flawed.

6/10

Directed by Shawn Wright [Other horror films: N/A]

While a rather simplistic movie in many ways, Night of the Axe is an indie slasher that made me a happy lad, and what it might lack for in budget and special effects, it makes up for in heart.

In the vein of independent slashers such as You’re Not Getting Out Alive and Don’t Go to the Reunion, and even non-slashers like Vampire Ticks from Outer Space, Night of the Axe is a very simple movie. It’s a short one too, running at just over an hour. The special effects are minimal, the story is somewhat thin, and the performances are so-and-so. It’s not a movie for those who haven’t delved into independent horror, but if you have, it can be a rather fun time.

Sure, the performances can be shaky, but that’s just how independent films be. Honestly, most of the cast did fine. We never really learned much about the characters, but they could be reasonably fun, but that may be because half the characters were stoners, and I appreciate that lifestyle. Shawn Mongold had some quality vibes to him, Justin Sisk had a good, straight man feel to him, and Angel Nichole Bradford brings some of that flesh to the table. Others that are worth a mention include Amanda Megan, Tony Giannott, Gary Carper, Lera Savannah, Kaci Frick, and Nate Nelson.

Given the film is about a hulking escaped mental patient with an axe, there is some gore here, the best of which may be early on when someone’s arm gets lopped off. However, we also have someone’s brains burst from their head, another individual’s head gets stomped on, someone gets beaten with a hammer, and a simple, yet effective, axe to the face. Look, this is a low budget movie, so don’t expect any of these kills to look great, but I found that most were serviceable.

I also should mention that I enjoyed the synth music of the film. It felt like a retro throwback to the slashers of old, and I appreciated that. They even had a song during the end credits titled “Beast on the Loose” (performed by Black Phantom), which, while not great, reminded me of the theme-songs from Madman and My Bloody Valentine.

Oh, and the last sequence entirely cribs Halloween, which amused me.

It’s clear when you start this up that they knew exactly what type of movie they were making, and if you’re into indie horror, than I think you could have a good time with it. If indie horror’s not something you’ve had much experience with, though, I think it’s safe to say that this movie may not be for you. Personally, though, I found Night of the Axe quite fun.

7.5/10

Directed by Nick Gregorio [Other horror films: N/A]

I didn’t have much expectations going into Old Strangers. I liked the idea of the plot, and just went in hoping for the best. After seeing this, while I don’t think the film’s great, I definitely don’t think it’s that bad, either.

The plot is what pulled me toward this one – three friends meet up at a secluded cabin in a mountain town, and run across something “dark and terrible in the deep woods.” I had no idea where exactly the movie was going – it could have been some werewolf story, perhaps another monster of some kind. Maybe dangerous plants, maybe some alien parasites. Truth be told, “dark and terrible” does not a descriptive quality make.

Because of that vagueness, I feel I can’t touch too much on the actual details here. The good thing about that is Old Strangers is a short film – it runs for just an hour and two minutes – so if you want to figure out what that “dark and terrible” thing is, it won’t take too much of your time.

I can say, though, that there are minor elements of body horror here, a little bit of slasher, and a little bit of unknown organisms. We are given a clearer picture toward the end insofar as the nature of the evil is concerned, which was nice, but it’s also fair to say that given the film was quite short and limited in scope, it doesn’t quite have as much meat as one may like.

There’s no doubt, though, that the film looked quite nice. Truth be told, when I watch a lower-budget film on Tubi, I expect, well, lower-budget camera-work. That’s not the case here, as Old Strangers had rather solid cinematography. I was actually surprised by some of the shots and techniques (such as a timelapse, which looked rather nice) used here. There was even a sequence which showed a meteorite flying through space, which didn’t look amazing, but certainly felt ambitious.

Performances were also pretty good. My personal favorite was Ted Evans, as I liked his style, and he seemed a cool guy, but Madeleine Humphries made for a fair focal point. Colton Eschief Mastro didn’t get quite as much time to shine, but he was good with what he had, and director Nick Gregorio even popped up in a scene. I actually expected to see his character again toward the end, just to tie a few more things together, but as the man said when he looked into the used Monopoly game, “no dice.”

Like Last the Night, the movie is very much of the time period. These three friends are escaping the quarantine they’ve been under, and before getting together, all got tested, showing each other the results before removing their face masks. When they’re interacting with a police officer, their face masks stay on, only to be taken off once a character points out they’re standing six feet apart. There’s also references to Airbnb and Kanye West’s amusing 2020 presidential run. It’s a product of it’s time, and so feels fresh, while also keeping with a traditional sense of suspense and science-fiction fun in the latter half of the film.

There’s a lot to appreciate about Old Strangers, despite the lack of depth I’d have personally preferred. The movie looks damn nice, and while it was short, what with the performances, plot, cinematography, and honestly, many aspects, it stood out quite nicely. My one concern is that I feel it could have had a bit more to it, and because of that, won’t end up being that memorable, ultimately. Still, if you want an okay time, I don’t think checking this one out would be that poor an idea.

7/10

Directed by Michael Crum [Other horror films: Cypress Creek (2014), Anna (2017), Fall of Grace (2017), Lake Fear 3 (2018), Anna 2 (2019)]

To be frank, I was expecting far more from Mold than what I got.

Admittedly, that’s my fault. When I read about this movie on IMDb, I was sort of hoping for something like Splinter. I didn’t know that instead, it’d be a mix of body horror and monster movie, and unfortunately, neither of those sub-genres do much for me (especially the body horror aspect).

At first, though, things are okay. There’s some decent cinematography, interesting lighting at times, and some occasionally solid sequences. For instance, there’s a random softball scene that was solid (though it also didn’t tie into anything, as far as I could tell, and for a scene so dramatic, to not have it relate to anything else in the film, just felt bizarre beyond words).

Despite those positives, I couldn’t get into this past the first 25 minutes. Once the first mold monster pops up, I was outtie. See, there’s three main characters – one is sort of trapped in his apartment for a good portion of the film. The other two are trapped in another apartment. To add to the joy, these mold monsters (yes, there are multiple, and no, we never learn a thing about their origins) primarily hunt by hearing. They don’t seem to have sight, but they can hear with the best of them, so the characters don’t often speak.

And it was just awful. For large portions of the film, there was absolutely minimal dialogue, which, perhaps in better hands, could have been quite suspenseful, but personally speaking, I was bored out of my fucking mind. I was mentally gone by the end of this, and given that I thought the first twenty minutes really did have promise, it was a damn disappointment.

Oh, and along with large swaths being free of dialogue, the last two-thirds of the film had some dark scenes at times. It was sometimes hard to tell what was actually going on, and that didn’t do Mold any wonders either.

I don’t have much to say about the cast. My favorite character was played by R. Steven Blake – this guy didn’t get much screen-time, which is a tragedy, as his stereotypical gay persona was a lot of fun. Honestly, he was the one fun thing in the film, and he appears the least, which was #disappoint. Leads Gerald Crum (Anna, The Ouija Experiment 2: Theatre of Death, Blood Vow) and Shanon Snedden (Cypress Creek) did very little for me, though I thought they had potential, and I never cared for Harmini’s character. Harmini, on a side-note, seems to be a rapper from Texas, so if you’re curious as to why he just has the one name, well, there you go.

One thing I will admit to appreciating, aside from the few aspects I listed above, is that a public domain movie appears here, and it’s not Night of the Living Dead, which was a nice surprise. Instead, we get some action from The Screaming Skull, which is a movie that I swear I’ve seen around three times, but I’m not positive I’ve ever gotten through it without falling asleep. Still, it was nice to see a random public domain film like that utilized as opposed to more popular options.

More than anything, Mold was just tedious to get through. The large portions with minimal dialogue were tough to watch and keep focus on, and honestly, I just feel really disappointed about this one. It had promise, but it couldn’t do anything with it, at least in my opinion.

4/10

Directed by Christopher Leto [Other horror films: If I Can’t Have You… (2010), The Housewife Slasher (2012), Die Die Delta Pi (2013), Rough Cut (2013), Theatre of the Deranged II (2013, segment ‘My Aunt is Coming to Town’), Crazy Lake (2016), Sammy Slick: Vampire Slayer (2023), Psycho Science (2024)]

I was careful to approach this one with mild expectations. From the first time I saw the title, I wanted to give this one a go, but I also knew that the chances it’d be a good movie were somewhat slim. Luckily, though, my hesitation wasn’t borne out, and while The Cheerleader Sleepover Slaughter certainly had some flaws, I thought it was a decently fun movie.

For a lower-budget independent film, I thought the production value looked quite nice. It reminded me a bit of Truth or Double Dare (TODD), albeit with quite a bit more feeling. This was apparently filmed in Florida (in New Port Richey and Oldsmar, specifically), which was fun. While I was watching it, I got the sense it was a coastal community, but I was thinking the Northeast, perhaps in Maine or Massachusetts, so I was half right.

To be fair to those who didn’t care for this one, it is true that there’s some obvious padding here. Given the total length of the movie is just an hour and two minutes, it’s not like they padded the hell out of it, but there were two scenes which definitely could have been cut down – we see the cheer squad performing their moves during a game, which is something like a two-and-a-half minute sequence, and we also get two minutes of a ‘twerk off.’ Certainly I can imagine worse ways to spend time, but even so, that sequence didn’t just look ridiculous, but also felt longer than necessary.

It’s also true that the movie doesn’t really reinvent anything. There’s nothing new or innovative here. I did appreciate the opening titles of the film – it’s designed as though the cast and crew were in a yearbook, so that was cute – but everything here’s been done before. The kills weren’t great, the finale was just so-so, and given the film’s so short, it’s not like we got a whole lot of understanding on the characters we had.

And boy, were there characters.

I’m not great with faces. If I don’t know the actor or actress, I’m screwed, and so I often keep a handwritten list of the characters and, if possible, any attributes I can link to them (for instance, black wavy hair, or straight bleach blonde hair). It’s quite useful when watching slasher films that can have 8+ different people who, to me, all look quite similar.

Here, we have Lisa (Indica Jane), Summer (Mikayla Kane), Ali (Vera Marlowe), Renee (Sydney Spaulding), Kelly (Aja Toombs), Brandy (Sydni O’Nan), Marcy (Sushii Xhyvette Holder), Kayla (Michelle Jones), and Lori (Taylor Herd), and for the guys, we had Jason (Jayden Leto), Joe (Collin O’Neill), and Bo (Beux Leto). True, the film did start out with a cheerleader roll call, with each of them calling out their names, but it still took a while to fully separate some of these characters.

On that note, it’s hard to say that there was any one stand-out performance. I really did like Jayden Leto here; I found his character fun, not to mention sassy. Taylor Herd made for a decent focus, though I’d have preferred if a bit more of her character had been delved into. The others all did well (though I think that Aja Toombs did have one bad piece of dialogue), but I don’t think any of them made a giant impression.

Oh, another thing I felt may be worth mentioning. While there’s not a ton of nudity in this film, there are a couple of spicy portions that may be of interest to the lads out there, not to mention the ladies who lean toward the ladies. I’ve largely felt I’ve grown past the point where I point out nudity in a film, but in this case, should that be something you look forward to in a movie with both “Cheerleader” and “Sleepover” in the title, you probably won’t be disappointed.

Here’s another thing that I learned throughout the course of writing this review: there’s a piece of dialogue toward the finale that rang a bell to me, dealing with murders at a sorority house. The dialogue was quite specific, and I was sure it was a reference to something. After looking through Christopher Leto’s other films, I noticed that he was one of the directors behind Die Die Delta Pi, a movie which I saw back in 2017. This movie appears to be a loose sequel. To be sure, if you’ve not seen Die Die Delta Pi, I can’t imagine you’d dislike this film any more, but it does give a piece of added context, and I’m at least glad I have vague memories of the film.

Certainly there have been better independent slasher films. One that I always have to mention is Don’t Go to the Reunion, which I found great. Still, The Cheerleader Sleepover Slasher had a lot of charm to it, and despite the padding and lack of interesting kills, I had a decent time with this one. It’s nothing mind-blowing, but if you enjoyed Bring It On: Cheer or Die, then I think this would work for you also.

7/10