Lots of fun things this week. We’ll start off with “Bone Keeper,” a cool monster flick that just released. We’ll then get really weird with a “Dead Lover” that you’ll either love or hate. “The Kinderhook Creature: In the Shadow of Sasquatch” is the newest in a long line of cryptic documentaries. We’ll wrap up the series with “The Strangers: Chapter 3” and then continue the anime Godzilla trilogy with “Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle” from 2017.
All this as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #54, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link:
Mainstream Films:
2026 Bone Keeper
Director: Howard J. Ford
Writers: Howard J. Ford
Stars: Sarah Alexandra Marks, Louis James, Tiffany Hannam-Daniels, and John Rhys-Davies
Runtime: 96 minutes
Trailer Link:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A group of seven young folks explore a cave infested with creatures that arrived thousands of years ago by meteor. As you might guess, it goes badly for them. The basics are laid out right away.
The effects look very good and it was entertaining. We both enjoyed it.
Spoilery Synopsis
We watch a meteorite crashing down as credits roll. Whatever it is, it’s got tentacles and slithers into a cave. It’s 400,000 years ago, and the cavepeople of the time fear it since it eats them.
In 1976, a woman narrates about her grandfather, a journalist, who went exploring in a cave. He sees cave paintings and skeletal remains. Then the monster gets him.
In the present day. Professor Harrison looks depressed. “I’ve killed him. I killed her, too,” he yells.
Olivia and Annabelle want to go search for her mother, who has gone missing while investigating the grandfather’s disappearance; the police aren’t doing enough.
They, and their friends, a group of monster hunters, head to the remote location and pick up Ashley, a travel blogger. They’re off to find the “Bone Keeper.” With the addition of Ashley, the trip just got a lot less scientific. Ethan, Nick, and Ravi plan to find the monster, and maybe get lucky with the girls in the process.
The group goes to the local pub, and everyone watches them as they come in. They look at all the “Missing Persons” posters on the wall. They’re here to meet Professor Harrison, and the locals are strangely hostile.
Harrison knew Olivia’s father, and he warns them not to go into the caves. Everyone who has ever gone in there has… stayed in there. He really doesn’t want to tell them which cave has the monster; too many people have died. He even has Olivia’s grandfather’s film footage of what happened in the cave. He even thinks the monster is an ancient alien.
The next morning, the seven characters go to the cave that Harrison told them about. They climb, crawl, and do all the usual cave-explorer-y things. They find some slime, and Ravi looks at it in the microscope he’s apparently carried into the cave with him. Ashley stays behind to film some vlogging stuff and the monster grabs her. For some reason, the others can’t hear her screaming as it rips her apart.
The others find some hair with a bit of skull attached, so they know someone has died in this cave. Nick goes looking for Ashley, but he finds what killed her instead.
Ravi and Nadia actually see one of the tentacles and get all excited. When it grabs and kills Nadia, they get even more excited.
Ravi catches up with the others and reports what he saw. There’s a whole nest of the alien creatures down here. They find a huge mound of slowly digesting merging melted bodies, including Olivia’s mother.
They decide it might be a good time to head for the exit, but now they’re lost. They find the exit, and Ethan even gets a few photos of what’s left of Nick still crawling around.
Outside now, Olivia, Annabelle, and Ethan tend to Ravi’s severe wounds. “It gets inside you. It becomes you,” Ravi rants. Ethan calls Harrison and sends him all the footage he’s taken.
The tentacle-monster attacks the girls in the campsite, outside, and Ethan runs to help. It drags Ethan and Ravi back down into the cave. When Olivia and Annabelle see just how big the thing is, they run for the road, but Annabelle is grabbed next.
Olivia hears her mother singing and prepares to go back inside. She goes through all the caves, back to the big digesting mess, and retrieves her mother’s necklace.
Outside, Harrison and the military show up and plant explosives at the cave entrance. They shoot at the many monsters inside and find Olivia, still alive. Then they blow up the cave entrance.
Six months later, Olivia wakes up in the hospital, and the doctor says she’s pregnant. They do an ultrasound, and it’s a little baby tentacle monster. Nope-just a nightmare. She’s with the soldiers and Harrison, who says blowing up the caves may not be the end of the creatures.
Naturally, for the final shot, we see that it’s definitely not over.
Brian’s Commentary
None of these people are spelunkers or regular cave explorers, and yet none of them are claustrophobic or terrified by the caves alone.
Despite being specifically warned to stick together, the group continually splits up so that one person can die at a time. One after another, they die, and no one else ever seems to hear the screams. That’s nowhere near as stupid as Olivia going back inside the cave after seeing what the creature really is.
The creatures are pure CGI, but they are really well done. We see more of them than I expected we would, and they all look good. John Rhys-Davies is too old to be climbing around in caves, but he still has a significant amount of screen time here.
Other than the stupid choices the characters made, the film is really very good!
Kevin’s Commentary
One point that deeply troubled me was the way there would be attacks and rock collapses causing much commotion, and the others who were not that far away in the cave heard absolutely nothing or very little.
That aside, the story is basic but pretty effective I thought. The creature and gore effects look really good, slimy and creepy. The cast does a nice job with it. There’s some issues here and there, but all in all I’d call it a win. I was very entertained.
2026 Dead Lover
Director: Grace Glowicki
Writers: Grace Glowicki, Ben Petrie
Stars: Grace Glowicki, Ben Petrie, Leah Doz, Lowen Morrow
Runtime: 83 minutes (1 hr 23 mins)
YouTube Trailer Link:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A lonely and smelly gravedigger laments she can’t find love, then finds a man who adores her just as she is. And when she loses him, she goes to extremes to bring him back from the dead. This was a fun story with lots of chuckles and some real horror at the core. It’s unique, with the look of a stage play, and we both really enjoyed it.
Spoilery Synopsis
We’re told that this is done with “Stink-O-Vision,” where a number appears on the screen at various points, and we’re supposed to scratch-n-sniff at various times.
A strange-looking woman plants seeds as credits roll. She’s a grave digger and doesn’t smell very good. She’s trying to make a perfume to hide the smell of death on her. She tries to seduce the priest at a funeral; her perfume doesn’t work. When no one shows up for the funeral, the gravedigger tells us all about the too-generic dead woman.
Three old women with big hair talk about the gravedigger and the dead opera singer. We cut to the funeral and the woman’s weird funeral guests. The opera singer’s brother runs off in anguish and is attacked by a wild wolf, but the gravedigger saves him. He smells her and doesn’t hate it; could it be the smell of the wolf’s blood that makes her attractive to him?
The two go for a wash in the ocean, and he “wants to lick your stink. I want to shower in your rot, the feast on your fetid funk. I want to pick up a piece of your poo and eat it like a banana.” (Which Kevin notes might be his favorite monologue and following sex scene ever.) He might be a little weird, but then she has sex with him while holding her shovel.
The two get very close and talk about their needs and dreams. He leaves her because he can’t have children; he goes overseas for an operation to possibly fix that. His postcards are quite descriptive. In the meantime, she works on growing a rosebush to make her smell better; he loves her because of the stink. On the way home, he’s lost at sea, all but his finger. Some foreign fishermen find the finger and bring it to the gravedigger.
We-have-Johnny-Depp-at-home lights his opium pipe, and dreams of the dead opera singer, his wife.
The gravedigger gets the finger returned to her, but she’s not really willing to let her dead lover go. She thinks about the flowers and fertilizer; can she re-grow him? She starts catching lizards and stealing their regeneration-juice. She injects the finger with lizard-elixir and creates a whole Frankenstein’s Lab setup to bring him back. It works– sorta. The finger comes to life and grows… into a very long finger.
What can a lonely woman do when her lover is only one long finger? Well, yeah, that.
The finger wants a body, and the gravedigger is well-equipped to get one. How about the dead man’s sister, the opera singer? She grafts on the special finger to the dead woman’s corpse and zaps it with lightning power.
The opera star with the very long finger doesn’t look too happy to be alive at this point. She likes the lizards more than the gravedigger. The three tall-haired women go to the Dollar-Store-Depp and tell him that the gravedigger has dug up his dead wife; they also tell the priest. He goes to the gravedigger’s house and sees his undead wife there. They fight, sword vs shovel, and shovel wins.
The opera star’s husband takes the gravedigger hostage as the opera star hooks up with a blind fisherman. The gravedigger gets out of her restraints and runs off into the night. The priest, the tall-haired women, and the foreign fishermen all come after the gravedigger as an angry mob. She makes a stink that knocks the priest right out. The widower also comes to her defense and kills the tall-haired women, the foreign fishermen, and the priest.
The gravedigger finds the opera star with the long finger and realizes she’s been cheating on her with the dead, blind fisherman. The opera star gives her the finger, fatally.
The opera star makes her own dead-finger creation and lives happily ever after.
Brian’s Commentary
Note that we didn’t have a Stink-O-Vision card, so the whole Stink-O-Vision didn’t do much for us. I did fart a time or two, and that livened up the show, albeit only briefly and without much variety of scent.
There’s only a cast of four actors who play all the various characters. The sets and lighting are all very plain, giving it a very stage-play look. It’s very obviously made with a super low budget, but they still use a lot of interesting camera shots and lighting to make it visually interesting. The dialogue is ridiculous and perfect at the same time.
I wasn’t expecting much from the trailer, but it’s very funny, paced well, and super creative. I liked this a lot.
Kevin’s Commentary
The sets and the way it’s filmed and the costuming seem very much like a stage play, and actors playing multiple characters add to that vibe. I saw that it was actually filmed on a couple of black box stages, and Grace Glowicki (who co-wrote, directs, and plays the lead) wanted the vibe of experimental theater. Mission accomplished.
I wish we had our Stink-o-vision cards. They are real, I read about them online, but I couldn’t find where we’d get some. We had to imagine the smells. And it is a very smell-focused movie. So marketed only to theaters? Will home releases come with cards enclosed?
I thought it was great. Raunchy and funny, making some real horror something to laugh at. The writing is terrific. My only complaint is a big feature/gimmick of the movie that we couldn’t participate in because it was a home screener.
2026 The Kinderhook Creature: In the Shadow of Sasquatch
Director: Seth Breedlove
Writers: Bruce Hallenbeck (Author of the companion book, The Kinderhook Creature and Beyond: A Personal Reminiscence)
Stars: Bruce Hallenbeck, various eyewitnesses
Runtime: 1 Hour, 12 Minutes
YouTube Trailer Link:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s a documentary profiling a town in New York called Kinderhook that has a long history and maybe a big hulking creature lurking around in the woods. Bruce Hallenbeck gives us first hand memories of the place. Neither of us had heard of this cryptid before this viewing. The film is well put together, weaving in some Washington Irving history and the past of a really old town. There’s plenty of UFO talk too for folks who are into that. It was interesting and well put together.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on a man talking about his grandmother living in what might be a haunted house. Kinderhook is an old rural town north of New York City, an hour southeast of Albany. We get some initial history of the town, founded in the 1600s, and famous people who have some affiliation with the area. This was the source of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” story.
Bruce Hallenback’s story soon turns to the Hudson Valley’s cryptids. There’s been lots of UFO activity there, as well as a white energy “blob” he found in 1962. His father tells us his own experience with the white blob. There is a bit of discussion about ghosts, poltergeists, and hauntings in the area.
The Kinderhook Creature, basically Bigfoot, is up next. We get an old video of Bruce’s grandmother talking about the creature on an old interview show in the 70s. Something was stealing her trash and taking the food out of the bags. Also, she saw the creature sleeping in the backyard once. Turns out, lots of people in the region had seen something like that creature and it started to become famous.
The rest of the film is Bruce and various family members telling us stories of their supernatural encounters…
Brian’s Commentary
It’s another of the “Small Town Monsters” documentaries, and we’ve done a bunch of these by now. It’s a collection of interviews, re-creations, and stories about a creature that I’ve actually never heard of before. As always, the production values are good, the visuals are decent, and the interview subjects are interesting.
The majority of eyewitnesses here are members of Bruce Hallenback’s family, which is a bit suspicious, but overall, the story is well told and kept me entertained for the runtime.
Kevin’s Commentary
It was very well put together weaving in Bruce Hallenbeck’s memories of the place with other folk’s stories and oral histories. I was expecting just Bigfoot stuff, but there’s ghost and UFO stuff too. He even manages to throw in a leprechaun story. So it covers a lot.
It might be kind of cool living somewhere with your yard backed up to the woods where you might see deer and bear and big mysterious creatures.
I thought it was interesting and entertaining.
2026 The Strangers: Chapter 3
Director: Renny Harlin
Writers: Alan R. Cohen & Alan Freedland
Stars: Madelaine Petsch, Gabriel Basso, and Ema Horvath
Runtime: 91 minutes
Trailer Link:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
The carnage continues with this conclusion of the reboot/trilogy/sequel/prequel. Maya from the previous two movies is still on the run, and we get some flashbacks showing the origin of the Strangers. Quite a bit is explained, but some points you really don’t want to analyse too deeply. We both felt this was the best of the three, with the most going on and the most backstory. And there’s not an after credit scene, but the closing credits are very cool.
Spoilery Synopsis
It is three years ago, when a woman goes to a cheap motel and the woman behind the counter is a little off. That night, there’s a knock at the door. “Is Tamara here?” Dollface takes the woman and ties her up for some wholesome torture. “Why?” “Because you’re here!” Scarecrow and Pinup watch her work and kiss. Credits roll.
Back in the present day, Maya watches as Scarecrow looks at the dead Pinup’s body and hacks at her with his ax. They all get in their truck and drive away, leaving Maya on the road. Not long after, Sheriff Rotter drives past, but Maya hides from him.
Maya comes to an old church and runs into creepy Gregory there. “Relax. Nobody has a mask here,” he says. She’s pretty sure he’s Scarecrow, but it’s not absolutely clear, because he lets her leave. She runs into the sheriff outside, and she has to go with him this time. He’s over-the-top weird at every turn, and she ends up stealing his car.
She soon crashes the car into a tree because she’s in a horror movie– right next to Scarecrow was apparently waiting for her. He throws her in the back of his truck and drives off.
We get a flashback to the trial for Tamara’s murder. The boy is Sheriff Rotter’s son. A few weeks later, the boy and his friend kill a hiker in the woods, and Rotter helps them dispose of the evidence. “I’ll fix it. No more townsfolk, you understand?”
Dollface and Scarecrow take Maya to an old lumberyard. Scarecrow turns on the shredder and puts Shelly/Pinup’s body into it. He then hits Maya with the ax.
In the morning, Maya’s family arrives in town looking for her. They ask the whole group at the diner, but no one says much. The waitress, Annie, says she’s sad that it’s all happening again; non-local people often go missing around here. She says the sheriff knows everything.
Deputy Walters wants to call in the State Police, and the sheriff kills him. Maya’s sister and family watch the sheriff carry Howard’s body out of the morgue and follow him.
Maya wakes up, not dead, to find that Scarecrow has tattooed a smiley-face on her, just like they have. He makes her put on Pinup’s mask. Then he leans in for a mask-to-mask kiss, which she doesn’t like.
Twelve years ago, young Scarecrow and Pinup scout out victims at the truck stop. They follow a pair of likely victims to the motel and do the whole “Tamara” thing. When they go in, the woman inside has already killed her boyfriend.
Back in the present, Maya, in the Pinup mask, rides along with Scarecrow and Dollface to the motel and they make her do the “Tamara” thing. They insist that she kill one of the people inside. As Scarecrow hacks up the man, Maya uses the opportunity to kill Dollface. He then makes Maya kill the woman in the motel room.
The sheriff realizes he’s being followed and leads Maya’s sister, Debbie, to the sawmill; he calls Scarecrow to meet him there. The PI that Debbie hired goes into the sawmill and finds the meat grinder– and the sheriff, who shoots him very dead. Scarecrow kills Debbie’s husband and drags her to the truck where Maya is and kills her too, as Maya watches.
Scarecrow unties Maya and leaves her alone in his truck with Debbie. She starts to drive out of town, but then decides to go back. Somehow, she knows to go to a huge underground maze of dungeons and tunnels with electricity out in the woods. She finds the sheriff there and shoots him a few times.
Maya goes to a room full of candles and photos and sees a sort of shrine to all the victims. Scarecrow comes in behind her and sits down. “I freed you,” he says. He takes off his mask, and it’s Gregory. (Which was not a surprise at this point.) “All these years, you’re the only one who’s survived.”
Everything Maya cared about is gone, and she came here to kill him, but now she reconsiders. “You’re all that’s left.” They start getting romantic, at least until she stabs him. As he lays there on the floor, she grabs his ax and finishes him off.
Maya walks off into the woods, but she’s carrying the Scarecrow mask as she goes. Will she continue as… The Stranger?
Brian’s Commentary
None of the locations in this movie (or the previous one) ever have any other people around, even the busy motel is empty, like the hospital in the previous film.
In this conclusion, we finally get answers as to how this all got started and who the people involved really are. I don’t see how the sheriff could possibly have covered up that many deaths, but I guess that’s a minor thing to nitpick about with some of the stuff going on here.
The soundtrack was very good, as was the casting. Richard Brake should have won some kind of award for creepiness in this one.
Still, this episode explains it all, has a lot of action, and things actually happen (unlike the second film), so all in all, it’s the best of the three.
Kevin’s Commentary
I do appreciate that there was more to the trilogy than just the home-invasion-slowly-torment-and-kill-a-couple formula of the original. On the other hand this was three full length movies that probably would have been fine with just one long one.
The casting was excellent for the young versions of the Strangers, the resemblance was strong..
This third movie was the best of the three, with the most steady action, explanations, and a wrap up. Or maybe a new beginning.
2017 Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle
Directed by: Hiroyuki Seshita, Kobun Shizuno
Written by: Gen Urobuchi, Sadayuki Murai, Tetsuya Yamada
Stars: Mamoru Miyana, Takahiro Sakurai, Kana Hanazawa
Run Time: 1 Hour, 41 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is the second animated movie in the trilogy after “Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters,” and continues the story right where it left off. Far in the future, Earth belongs to Godzilla and humans returning to the planet hatch a plan to get rid of the big lizard once and for all. But since we know there’s a third movie, things are still left unresolved. The animation is cool, the story is gripping and full of action, it entertained us both.
Spoilery Synopsis
We hear a report from Earth’s surface that now there’s another Godzilla. It’s been growing for 20,000 years and is the size of a mountain. His heat ray is powerful enough to kill them in orbit, so they retreat to the moon. Credits roll.
Sakaki wakes up, surprised to still be alive. He quickly meets up with a human survivor from Earth. The humans must have adapted to the changed atmosphere. He follows after the strange girl and wonders where his crewmates have gone.
Yuko’s group shoots at the girl, and Sakaki shows up right after. Then others show up and surround the group and lead them away to an underground city. Professor Martin is there, and he’s made some observations about the human-ish descendants.
Two of the natives are twins, and they seem to be telepathic. They aren’t happy about the bombings that the humans did before landing. Godzilla is the ancient enemy of their god. There are several subspecies of Godzilla now; most of the lifeforms in the forest now shares some of Godzilla’s DNA.
The group is released to find a landing ship and signal the mothership. The twins go with the group. They fight some monsters and reunite with Metphies, the Exif; they soon call for an evac. Galu-Gu and Belu-Be, the Bilusaludos, come up with a plan to beat the big Godzilla. They want to use the nanometal from the locals’ speartips. The self-regenerating metal was originally used for Mechagodzilla, but that didn’t work out so well. They all decide to search for Mechagodzilla and see how that turns out.
They find an entire city made of nanometal; it’s grown here from Mechagodzilla’s carcass. Yes, it’s “Mechagodzilla City.” The Hauta twins call it “Sinister. Evil. Poison.” The group enters the city and finds the head of Mechagodzilla. They reactivate it, and it starts to regenerate the control center.
Sakaki explains his plan to capture and kill Godzilla using the whole city as a trap. They build a new flying weapon, the Vulture, and they want to use it to lure Godzilla into the trap.
Professor Martin has noticed that the people who were treated by the Hauta seem to be feeling sick, as if their treatment and the nanometal aren’t compatible. Metphies also doesn’t like the whole idea of the nanometal, and they’re all starting to get a little creeped out. There’s also some friction between the Bilusaludo and Exif ideas. Metphies explains that his own world was destroyed by a monster far worse than Godzilla, but we don’t hear its name.
The Bilusaludo want to join with MechaGodzilla city to evolve into a superior life form. Some of them are volunteering to join with the machines. The city starts thinking for itself, and that might be trouble.
Meanwhile, the Hauta talk about their egg.
Godzilla notices the city and approaches. Everyone gets ready for a big battle. Sakaki and Yuko fly out in three vultures to slow him down. They lead him to the trap point and spray Godzilla with liquid nanometal as planned. They shoot and shoot until Godzilla’s shield collapses, then they shoot him with an EMP harpoon. Godzilla collapses but doesn’t die.
The barometric pressure suddenly changes; Godzilla’s not exploding, his temperature’s rising. It’s going to melt the city, and the vultures can’t get close enough to hurt it.
Galu-Gu becomes one with the machine and tells Yuko and Sakai that they need to join the nanometal as well. Yuko starts to change, but Sakaki’s body rejects the change. Galu-Gu and Metphies get into a philosophical argument about the war, and Sakaki has to make a decision. Sakaki blows up the command center and Galu-Gu as well.
Godzilla gets up, and he ain’t happy. He wipes out what’s left of MechaGodzilla City with his super-atomic-breath. Sakaki lands his vulture, but Yuko dies from the half-completed conversion.
Brian’s Commentary
This picks up immediately after “Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters.” It has the benefit of not needing to explain the whole situation and characters this time, but it’s definitely still the middle of the story. There’s lots of action, and it’s easy enough to follow and understand what’s going on at all times.
I liked it.
Kevin’s Commentary
I am impressed with how detailed and rich the animation is. And I enjoyed this one much more than the first movie in the trilogy. There was less gibber jabber and more action.
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