We’ve got three new films, one newish film, and an oldie this week. We’ll begin with the much-hyped “Scream 7” and see how that holds up. We’ll then take part in a meta film about a horror writer with “I Know Exactly How You Die” and then go on a “Night Patrol,” all new films. “The Wailing” is from 2024, and the original “Ice Cream Man” from 1995 finishes us off.
All this, as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #55, is available! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link:
Mainstream Films:
2026 Scream 7
Directed by: Kevin Williamson
Written by: Kevin Williamson, Guy Busick
Stars: Neve Campbell, Isabel May, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Anna Camp, David Arquette, Matthew Lillard, Courteney Cox
Run Time: 1h 54m
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Years have passed, Sydney has a new town, new home, new job, a cop husband, and a teenage daughter in her 20s. Things are idyllic in the affluent area until, of course, the killings start again. And the who-is-doing-it begins again. It’s very well put together with a strong cast, but we didn’t feel like it was much different than the rest of the series. If you’re a Scream fan, you’ll probably like this one too. If you’re tired of the Scream movies, there’s not much reason to see this one.
Spoilery Synopsis
A couple of influencers arrive at the “Stab” house. It’s a murder house based on the movie series, which was also based on the real-life murders. Numerous murders happened here, but now it’s a themed-BNB museum, with body outlines on the floor and everything. They soon come across an animatronic Ghostface and a shrine to Stu, who legend says is still alive. Scott and Madison get “the” phone call about scary movies, which is a put on for part of the tourist experience. The whole trip goes very badly after that. Credits roll.
Ben crawls through his girlfriend Tatum’s bedroom window and points out that it’s just like in the first “Stab” movie. Turns out, it’s Sydney’s house, and she’s wise to his tricks. Her husband, Mark, knows all about Sydney’s past.
We spend a while meeting all of Tatum’s friends. Lucas wants to start a podcast about Sydney’s story. They’re all involved in an unrealistically elaborate school play for the theater club. Sydney still gets calls from the Woodsboro killer, but she doesn’t believe it’s really him. The killer Facetimes her, and she immediately recognizes that it’s Stu. He threatens to do something to Tatum at the theater, so Sydney gets the whole police force involved.
Ghostface kills a girl on stage, but then Sydney shows up and starts blasting. Tatum turns out to be fine, but two of her friends are killed. Mark, a policeman, swears that Stu is really dead. Ben is a computer whiz, and he could have AI-deepfaked that video of Stu, so he’s Sydney’s main suspect.
As Sydney and Tatum argue about leaving town, the killer pops out of the attic, inside the house. They hide in a safe room, but they both decide to sneak out to see how Mark is doing. There’s a lot of cat-and-mouse, but eventually, the killer is run over by Gale, who shows up out of the blue. They pull off the killer’s mask, and no one knows who that guy is. After a bit, we hear that he’s a former mental patient with no connection to anyone. “There’s always more than one,” Sydney points out. Sydney and Gale immediately turn their suspicions on Lucas.
Stu calls, and this time, he gets Gale. Gale and Sydney go to the mental hospital to research the now-dead killer, Karl. They show the orderly Stu’s photo, and the man recognizes him as a John Doe patient who spent a lot of years there. He was released two weeks ago. Stu and Karl were close friends.
Mindy and Chad, Gale’s intern camera people, talk to Tatum and discuss their suspicions. They talk about how horror-cliched it is that no one recognized Stu after all these years. They say it’s all about nostalgia and old movie franchises.
Meanwhile, Ghostface kills Mark. Gale interviews Sydney on TV to draw out the killer. He does call, and he’s right outside where all the kids are. Sydney calls Mark, who doesn’t answer because he’s already dead. Meanwhile, Tatum finds an AI-deepfake that Ben made and smashes his face thinking he’s involved, but there’s still another Ghostface out there. Inside, Mindy points out that they are locked inside and all their suspects have conveniently disappeared. Lucas, Chloe, Mindy, and Chad all die in rapid succession.
Tatum, on the other hand, is being chased through town by Ghostface. And since there’s been a curfew established, no one is in the entire downtown to help. Ben shows up and proves that he’s not the killer– by dying. Sydney and Tatum text each other but don’t call 911. Sydney talks to Tatum about how to use a gun and to shoot through the wall where the killer is standing. As usual with a horror movie, that doesn’t kill him. On the other hand, a second Ghostface shows up and they both get her.
Sydney runs home and confronts Sydney; “Stu” unmasks himself on screen, and turns into various dead characters we’ve seen before. Eventually, we see that it’s actually the hospital worker from the asylum. Mark is there, only mostly dead, with the other Ghostface, who is Jessica, the next door neighbor and Lucas’s mother. They talk about Sydney being a scream queen and final girl.
Mark secretly cuts Tatum loose, and they turn the tables on the baddie, but only briefly. Sydney’s had enough and stabs the Hell out of Jessica, and then Tatum shoots Jessica, but not in the head. Then she does, repeatedly.
Gale shows up, along with not-dead Chad and Mindy to report on the story.
Brian’s Commentary
I like that everyone suspected that the Stu calls were AI-faked; I’ve never seen anyone in a movie go down that route before.
We’re just spinning our wheels with this whole franchise at this point. There’s really not much new going on here. It’s well-made, highly budgeted, looks good, but there’s absolutely nothing new here.
Kevin’s Commentary
That was a very affluent high school.
There were some updates using current technology, but it just mostly seemed like more of the same. I can’t fault the quality. The cast, effects, sets, everything were top notch. But the Scream movies all kind of run together for me, and a little weariness is creeping in. Oh look, there’s more than one killer, and they have crazy reasons for taking over the Screamface persona. This didn’t do much to excite me.
2026 I Know Exactly How You Die
Director: Alexandra Spieth
Writers: Mike Corey (Screenplay)
Stars: Rushabh Patel, Stephanie Hogan, Bobby Liga, Summer Hernandez, Zachary Leipert
Runtime: 90 minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
When a horror writer working on a slasher story checks into a motel to get some work done on his book, the lines between reality and fiction start blurring. The problem he finds is that a writer can’t control every single thing in the world, and things get crazier as the story progresses. Who is really in charge? It’s got an ideal location where most of it takes place, the acting is good, the effects are effective, and it’s a clever script. We both thought it was quite good and entertaining.
Spoilery Synopsis
A man does laundry as another man comes in behind him and kills him excessively with a brick. Credits roll.
Rian, a writer, checks into a motel to self-isolate to get some work done. He tends to overshare and is a little bit of a creep. He gets to work writing his horror novel about Katie getting killed.
We watch as the real Katie parks her car at the very same motel and goes into a really sketchy restroom. A man comes in and has some kind of seizure, and she rescues him. She and Naja, the motel manager, watch a news report about Katie’s neighbor, who turned out to be a serial killer. Actually, she’s come to the motel to be away from the killer, who is still at large. As soon as she goes into her room, we see her stalker approaching the door with a brick…
Rian takes a break from his writing and goes outside to the indoor pool. As he swims, he thinks about Katie’s story some more. Someone steals his clothes, and then he’s attacked and kidnapped. No– he’s just dreaming, passed out on the pool room floor. Katie comes and helps him as well. Maybe that was all a dream.
Rian’s neighbors have sex 24/7, so he wants to change rooms. The new one is smaller and not as nice. He gets back to work. In another room, a woman is sick and doesn’t notice the killer breaking into her room. As the woman runs out of her room, Rian thinks he can actually hear her screams and looks out his window. He watches the woman be murdered out there, but then, when he goes outside, there’s no one else there. Could the story he’s been writing have come true?
Rian goes to Naja about the maybe-murder, and they look around the parking lot. Turns out, the woman is staying in the motel’s “haunted room,” where murders have happened before. The man who stayed there wrote down “his intrusive thoughts” and then killed his family. Rian thinks the motel makes written stories come true.
Rian tells his agent that he can “take control of my story.” Katie finds evidence that her stalker is in the area and tells Naja about it. She runs into Rian, who asks her if anything weird is going on. They find a room with the killer’s stuff in it and then hide as the stalker pounds on the door. They both find their cars sabotaged, so they can’t leave. It’s not long before they wind up in bed together.
Rian decides to “write them out of this” and gets back to work. He writes the scene we already saw with the laundry guy getting killed. He also kills the other woman we’ve seen in a nearby room. Katie finds another note, along with a bloody brick. Rian and Katie find the murderer’s room, but it’s got more victims than Rian’s story, so he loses confidence that he’s the one really in charge. The story is now writing itself.
As Rian rants to Naja and ends up restraining her in the closet. The serial killer gets her shortly afterward. Katie looks at Rian’s computer and reads the story, which is all about her. Rian tries to explain the story-thing to Katie, and she thinks he’s insane.
Rian writes that the stalker catches and sedates Katie. He then writes that the hero, Rian, storms in and saves the day. In the real world, the stalker grabs and strangles Rian.
The killer has filled a bathtub full of his victims’ blood and wants Katie to soak in it. This goes badly for the killer.
Rian finishes typing his story, but then she injects him with the same sedative the stalker used. Then she sprays him with bear spray. He put her through a lot, and she wants revenge…
Brian’s Commentary
There’s some CGI gore that’s pretty cheap-looking, but otherwise, the characters and situations are interesting and well done. This was all shot in and around a cheap motel, so they didn’t spend much on sets, which was smart on their part.
It was definitely confusing in a few parts, but it all resolves well. I liked it.
Kevin’s Commentary
I was especially impressed with the clever script. Rian does his best to write and manage his story. But there are a lot of details and free will and things happening in the background of a book, and Rian finds out there’s no way to control it all.
All the other aspects of it got the job done. I thought it was an entertaining piece.
2026 Night Patrol
Director: Ryan Prows
Writers: Tim Cairo, Jake Gibson, Shaye Ogbonna, Ryan Prows
Stars: Justin Long, Jermaine Fowler, RJ Cyler, Dermot Mulroney, Freddie Gibbs, CM Punk, YG, Flying Lotus, Jon Oswald, and Nicki Micheaux
Runtime: 1 Hour, 43 Minutes
Trailer Link:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
An L.A. cop is hot to get on the special Night Patrol section, and when he does he finds out they are indeed very special. It takes a little too long to get to anything that’s supernatural or even really horror, but once it does it goes full tilt. We went into it blind, but there are plenty of hints that it’s a vampire movie starting with the fangs on the poster. It’s a unique take on the genre, dealing with class and race. We both thought it was on the long side with a weak start, but good overall.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on a man in a police interrogation room, and he’s got a knife stuck in his side. A cop walks in and makes him sign a paper before he can get medical attention.
We cut to the same guy on a bicycle, painted with “Cripboy” on the side, who meets a woman in a car under a bridge. He gives her a ring and says it was his mom’s. She doesn’t want to get too close to him because of his gang affiliation. Suddenly, a police car shows up behind them and makes them both get out of the car for a search. Ethan gets out of the back of the police car and executes the girl. The guy makes a run for it, but when the cops see his ring, they back off and let him go. Credits roll.
We cut to Ethan, in uniform, talking about being a cop and “bad apples” to a bunch of kids. Suddenly, a gang member comes into the room, shoots Ethan, and terrorizes the class. No– it’s all just part of the show; the “gang member” was his partner, Xavier Carr, in a mask. We follow along with them on a few runs. Xavier used to be a Crip, but now he’s a cop.
Ethan asks Carr about a bicycle with “Cripboy” painted on it, and it might be Carr’s brother. He calls his brother, Wazi, who is the guy who ran into trouble last night. Afterwards, Wazi goes to see Bornelius, another gang guy, to tell him about the cops shooting Bornelius’s sister, Primo. They’ve all heard about “The Night Patrol,” and what they do.
The group goes to the scene of the shooting and finds pieces of the dead girl. Bornelius says there’s demonic energy in this place. They all talk about various conspiracies.
Ethan tells Carr that he’s gotten into the Night Patrol, but they’re all white guys, so Carr isn’t going to be invited.
Wazi goes home and argues with his mother, who gets angry over the ring. He tells her about what happened to Primo last night. She knows all about Night Patrol, and they’re not good people.
We cut to Night Patrol, out executing black people. Carr talks about his whole family being Crips; his and Wazi’s mother is into all kinds of weird African Voodoo stuff, and Carr says she’s crazy. Ethan says his dad was Night Patrol and died because of it. Ethan wants answers, which is why he wanted into the Night Patrol.
Ethan goes off with the Night Patrol guy, Deputy, and he’s got lots of background on Ethan’s military experience. Sarge is in charge of the Night Patrol unit, and he wants Ethan in. He’s ordered Ethan to take Wazi’s brother’s bike home to him– and then shoot him. Wazi recognizes him as the cop who shot his girlfriend. Ethan comes out and tells the deputy that Wazi wasn’t home.
Ethan gets taken to see Sarge, who is the leader of Night Patrol– and also Ethan’s “dead” father. He’s been reborn, or so he says. Ethan knows his father is dead. He talks about “Death defeating Death.” Sarge cuts his own wrist and makes Ethan drink his blood. “Drink it and live forever.” Then Sarge shoots him four times.
Carr talks to his supervisor about getting into Night Patrol. He says he’s a better cop than Ethan, and it’s not fair. He’s told to “Prove it.” Carr gets a new partner, Rivetta, and he’s weird.
Wazi’s mother wants help fortifying the house against demons. The neighbors think she’s crazy, too. Wazi calls Carr about the murder he witnessed. At the meeting, Carr’s mother kills Rivetti, and her friends beat up Carr. Meanwhile, Bornelius’s group of Bloods arms up and gets ready for war.
Sarge gives a speech to the members of Night Patrol and wants them to show Ethan how it’s done. He commands dead-Ethan to “Rise. Learn how to use your gift.” Ethan then wakes up. Their plan is to clean up the whole Colonial Courts neighborhood. Bornelius comes to Wazi’s house and declares a cease-fire with his mother, Ayanda; they all want to beat the Night Patrol.
Carr wakes up and heads to Colonial Courts, meeting up with Ethan along the way. Ethan’s not feeling quite right, but goes along. The rest of the Night Patrol puts metal vampire-fangs into their mouths and start blasting. As they kill people, they drain them of blood and fill tanks with the stuff.
Ethan can’t help himself as he bites Carr on the neck and drinks his blood. Wazi sees all this, and Bornelius shoots Ethan in the back, but that doesn’t stop him. Wazi tells them that they’re dealing with vampires, not lizard people.
Deputy terrorizes the prisoners from the neighborhood.
Wazi and Bornelius are taken prisoner and taken to a bunker to be bled out. Ethan shows up and goes against Deputy. Wazi uses the opportunity to escape. Sarge talks to Ethan telepathically, and loses control of his own body. He’s forced to drink blood, but he’s soon staked through the heart. .
Ayanda explains the vampires to Bornelius and Wazi; this is an old African Zulu thing.
Ethan wakes up; the stake through the heart didn’t kill him. He goes to the tank of blood and gets supercharged.
Ayanda tells Wazi where to find her guided missiles before she dies, but all that’s in the box is a Zulu mask and spear. His ring glows green, so he decides to go with the Zulu magic.
Wazi comes out to fight the Night Patrol in full Zulu warrior outfit. He confronts Ethan, who decides to go full-evil at last. They fight, and it looks like it goes badly for Ethan.
We cut back to the interrogation room from the opening scene. Wazi’s been stabbed and needs help. He tells the captain about the vampires. The captain knows all about the vampires and takes him to Sarge. Wazi pulls out the dagger from his side and stabs Sarge in the head, causing him to explode. Now he’s gotta beat all the others…
Brian’s Commentary
It’s nearly an hour before anything supernatural is introduced. We went into this one blind, not even knowing what kind of monster we were dealing with.
It’s got lots of racial tension, gang tension, ACAV tension, and lots more. If you want “gangs vs vamps,” this is the movie for you.
Kevin’s Commentary
I liked that it was a unique take on vampires, tying it in with cops and the hood, class and racism. It took too long to get to the good stuff, and it started to feel long. Then the ending was abrupt, and it could have used more. I wish some of the beginning could have been trimmed back, and more action tacked on to the end.
2024 The Wailing
Directed by: Pedro Martin-Calero
Written by: Isabel Pena, Pedro Martin-Calero
Stars: Ester Exposito, Mathilde Ollivier, Malena Villa
Run Time: 1 Hour, 47 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
In different times and locations, an invisible entity that only shows up on film stalks and torments several young women. It looks really good, with skilled acting and direction, but the story and explanation is a little lacking. It moves slowly, mostly steadily, and then ends kind of abruptly. Neither of us found it very satisfying.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open up to a woman at a party. She meets a guy there and they go to a dance club. As the strobes come, she has some kind of attack.
We cut to a small family having dinner. The oldest girl, Andrea, asks if there’s any news, and the father says no.
Andrea, 2022
Andrea’s in the middle of some Facetime sex with a boyfriend when the power goes out. On the way home from school, she hears someone crying, but there’s no one around on the street. Her boyfriend, Pau, is in Sydney and having a good time without her. She sends him a selfie, and he says he sees someone else in the room with her. She looks at the video, and there is someone there behind her. It’s just her father… maybe.
Andrea’s father talks to her about her adoption process back in 1999. They all live in Madrid, but she’s from Argentina, which displeases her. Also, her birth mother is dead. When Andrea researches her mother, Marie, she reads that she was a murderer who killed her friend Camila.
She looks at videos on her phone, and a lot of them have someone dark and shadowy standing in the background, just out of sight. Pau wants her to come visit, and they talk over a video call. She sees someone dark standing behind him in the video. This time, the figure comes out and beats Paul to death right on camera as she watches.
She tells her friends, but no one really believes the man who only exists on the camera is real. She starts sleeping with her camera on. We watch as the creepy man lays down next to her as she sleeps.
Two months pass, and her parents are concerned about her phone addiction problem. Andrea thinks there is something about her birth mother, Maria, that no one is telling her.
Walking home at night with her friends, they all heard the wailing in front of that same building. This time, she goes inside to investigate. Andrea sorta remembers this building from Argentina. Something bad happens in the dark, and Andrea gets locked inside with “the man.”
Camila, 1998
We cut to Camila in a film class, and she’s the smart one in the room. This is Camila, in La Plata, in 1998. She takes a bulky video camera out into the world to film “something real.” She sees an interesting-looking girl and follows her around for a while. The girl turns out to be Marie. The teacher doesn’t like the resulting video.
While out shooting, she hears a wailing cry near a familiar-looking building. She sneaks back to film Marie some more, and this time, she sees the same creepy bald man that we saw in Andrea’s video. He shows up again in several of the previous videos that she hadn’t noticed before.
Camila goes to the dance club looking for Maria and they soon become friends and spend the night together. Maria says she’s cursed and thinks she’s going crazy. Camila finds a used pregnancy test in the trash. Marie’s father talks about her mother to Camila; crazy seems to run in the family, but he won’t get specific.
Camila shows the videos to Maria, and she doesn’t know anything about the creepy old man. Suddenly, something invisible kills Camila and starts fondling Marie, just like in the video.
Marie
Marie, still in shock over all that, runs off, leaves her mother to find Camila’s body. She tells her father about the old man in the film, and maybe he’s the one who made her own mother crazy. He explains that no, her mother killed herself.
She goes to that same abandoned building and breaks in. The place is empty, but she still hears crying. The place seems to be full of crying ghosts, including her mother. The old man appears and then throws her out, where she’s arrested for murder…
Back in 2022, Lisbeth, Marie’s sister. Gets a call about Andrea from Andrea’s mother that “it’s happening again.”
Lisbeth 2023
The story continues, but the film does not.
Brian’s Commentary
It’s really slow moving, but it continually ramps up the mystery. Who is this weird old man and why does he keep showing up on video?
It’s well made, and the locations are interesting, but there’s not much here, plotwise, that we haven’t seen before, and it’s just way too sluggish.
And then it all just kinda ends. We don’t know who the old man is, why this is happening, and why that family gets to suffer.
Kevin’s Commentary
So, there’s a strange old man who is invisible and only shows up on video. But he can abruptly kill people and move things in the physical world because… We’re never told who he is or why he is and there’s nothing that could be done against him. Perhaps he’s supposed to be a metaphor for grief and madness or something but I didn’t pick up on that.
It’s a well made, well acted, well directed movie that failed to connect with me or impress.
1995 Ice Cream Man
Directed by: Norman Apstein
Written by: David Dobkin and Sven Davison
Stars: Clint Howard, Justin Isfeld, and Anndi McAfee
Run Time: 1h 26m
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Little Gregory is institutionalized after seeing an ice cream man killed in front of him. So, when he grows up and gets out, he becomes an ice cream man himself. And despite being out, he’s not at all sane. It’s weird and over the top. There is a body count and some horror for sure, but it’s oddly paced and dated. Brian was substantially more entertained by it than Kevin was.
Spoilery Synopsis
We start in black-and-white times, as a car pulls up and the man inside shoots the ice cream man in front of a bunch of children, including little Gregory. “Who’s going to sell me ice cream, Mommy?” he asks. Credits roll.
In the modern day, the ice cream man comes to the neighborhood, and it’s Gregory, all grown up. He growls at the children and makes them say “Please.” His ice cream has bugs in it.
Small Paul is reading about the Pied Piper, and that’s probably not going to be relevant later. Gregory watches a man spearing trash in the park and flashes back to his own treatment at the asylum. He then kidnaps little Roger and kills a dog. Johnny’s mother gets a call about Roger’s disappearance.
Gregory lives with Nurse Wharton, who is his caretaker. The police ask him about the missing child. We see that Gregory makes his own ice cream, using chopped-up children as ingredients.
Heather goes home and watches her reverend father get his mother to speak in tongues. Small Paul goes to the ice cream truck alone, and Gregory is weird. As Gregory grabs Paul and loads him into the truck, Tuna sees it all. Hiding, Tuna comes across Roger, who escaped from Gregory.
Tuna starts seeing Gregory everywhere and knows he’s being followed. Tuna finally convinces his mother that he’s seen something, and the police soon show up to search Gregory’s place– with an axe. They tear the place up extremely thoroughly, but they don’t find anything at all. Detective Gifford still thinks Gregory is involved, even without evidence.
Gregory has Small Paul hidden in a secret room, but he hasn’t hurt him. He talks to him and gives him butter brickle. Tuna, Johnny, and Heather pledge to bring Gregory to justice, but they’re just kids, so that’s gonna be hard. They follow him to the cemetery, where he disposes of a body. The police also follow him there. No, it’s not a body, it’s ice cream that he’s putting on the grave of the Ice Cream King, the man we saw gunned down in the opening scene.
Tuna and Johnny shoot at the cops, who pick them up and take them home. Heather takes some photos, and we get a great scene as she takes them to a place to get developed (how archaic!). Meanwhile, Gregory shows Small Paul how to make ice cream.
The police go to the asylum and learn that Gregory was Nurse Wharton’s favorite patient. They see all kinds of weirdness in the hospital. It’s a great place to be institutionalized.
Gregory grabs Tuna off the street and locks him in the truck’s cooler. “You’re ice cream!” he snarls. Johnny’s older brother Jacob wants to be a cop, and he has a gun. Gregory kills Jacob’s girlfriend, “Now that’s what I call brain freeze.” Johnny and Heather hide, but they end up getting a “puppet show” from Gregory using two dead cops’ heads.
The kids run to Nurse Wharton’s house to hide, and she lets them inside. She turns them over to Gregory right away. Small Paul pretends to be the Ice Cream King and lures Gregory inside the gigantic, oversized nut-chopping machine that chews him up good.
The next morning, the police are all over the place, and Nurse Wharton is still looking for her dog. The kids have invited Roger to join their group, but Small Paul has gone to therapy. He’s going to be the next Ice Cream Man…
Brian’s Commentary
This is a weird one, full of odd choices and goofiness.
It’s got really cheesy dialogue and funky acting, but it’s also got a lot of recognizable faces doing small cameos, and everything looks purposefully over the top. It’s oddly paced and feels a little out of date and slow.
It’s clearly making fun of horror movies, but it’s not a straight-up comedy. It’s like all the humor is derived from just how ridiculous this all is, rather than specific jokes.
It’s a little unusual, and it does have problems, but I was also very entertained.
Kevin’s Commentary
Everything about the movie is strange. And I’d go as far as saying it’s interesting. Clint Howard is a hoot, and there are a lot of recognizable faces. But I was a little bored and not very entertained. Though I did appreciate how horribly funny it was when he was using the cops heads as puppets.
Contact Info:
Email: mailto:email@horrorguys.com
Websites:
