Horrorfest 2026: When Evil Lurks

WHEN EVIL LURKS
Written and directed by Demián Rugna
Starring Ezequiel Rodríguez, Demián Salomón, Silvina Sabater and Luis Ziembrowski
Argentina, 2023

WHEN EVIL LURKS is an Argentinian horror movie about demonic possession, but not the kind where somebody gets tied to a bed while a priest waves a crucifix around. In fact, the movie takes place in a world where demonic possession is apparently a known phenomenon, and people have developed certain rules for dealing with it. Rules that, naturally, aren't always followed.

Ezequiel Rodríguez plays a farmer who, along with his brother (Demián Salomón), discovers that a neighbor has become infected by an evil presence. The brothers attempt to get rid of the problem, but their efforts only make things worse, and before long the evil begins spreading through the countryside. They set out to protect their estranged family, which proves to be difficult.

This is a brutal movie. There are some really nasty moments, and the makeup effects are appropriately disgusting. It's also beautifully photographed, with the rural Argentinian setting providing an unexpected backdrop for all the supernatural unpleasantness. 

One thing I particularly liked was the way Rugna introduces the rules of his supernatural world. The characters already know a lot more about what's happening than we do, and we gradually pick things up by listening to them argue about what to do. Nobody sits down to explain the mythology for the audience's benefit, and the movie is better for it. You never know what’s going to happen next!

But what really makes WHEN EVIL LURKS work is the main character. He's not an especially likable guy, and he makes some terrible decisions, but he's also a believable human being trying to deal with something unimaginably awful. Rodríguez is terrific in the role, and the rest of the cast is equally convincing. Even when I wanted to grab them by the shoulders and shake some sense into them, I was invested in what happened to them.

This is a bleak movie, and it doesn't offer much comfort by the time it's over. But for all the supernatural horror and spectacularly gruesome violence, it's the human stuff that makes it stick with you. 

Horrorfest 2026: Primate

PRIMATE
Written by Johannes Roberts and Ernest Riera

Directed by Johannes Roberts

Starring Johnny Sequoyah, Jess Alexander, Troy Kotsur and Gia Hunter

USA, 2026

I saw the trailer for PRIMATE and thought it looked like good, campy fun. A chimpanzee goes berserk and starts murdering people? Sounds like a no-brainer. Unfortunately, the movie itself turned out to be kind of a slog.

The story concerns a young woman (Johnny Sequoyah) who returns to her family's home in Hawaii with a group of friends. The family has a pet chimpanzee named Ben, who's apparently been living with them for years without incident. But then Ben contracts rabies and suddenly develops an appetite for murder.

The rabies thing caught me off guard. The movie introduces it almost immediately, as though the filmmakers felt they needed to provide a plausible explanation for why a chimpanzee might turn violent. But isn't keeping a chimpanzee in your house already a pretty questionable idea? I always assumed a chimp was perfectly capable of tearing somebody's face off without contracting a deadly disease first. Not according to this movie.

Anyway, once Ben starts attacking people, our characters find themselves trapped in the family's swimming pool, where they're relatively safe because Ben can't swim. He can speak sign language but he can’t swim. The problem is that they can't stay in the pool forever, and Ben is waiting for them to come out.

And that's pretty much the movie.

I don't necessarily need a horror movie to have an elaborate plot, but I do like it when things happen. PRIMATE gets its characters into one predicament fairly quickly and then leaves them there for most of the running time. It's not one damn thing after another. It's just one damn thing. The characters make occasional attempts to escape, Ben attacks somebody, and then we're back to waiting around the pool again. At least Jess Alexander, who plays one of the friends, is nice to look at.

The gore effects are impressive, and the chimpanzee itself is pretty convincing. There are moments when the violence is so over-the-top that the movie briefly delivers the outrageous entertainment I was hoping for.

But those moments are too few and far between. This flick’s a lot less fun than a movie about a homicidal chimpanzee has any right to be.

Horrorfest 2026: Clayface

CLAYFACE
Written by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini
Story by Mike Flanagan

Directed by James Watkins

Starring Tom Rhys Harries, Naomi Ackie, Max Minghella and David Dencik

USA, 2026

When I was a kid, I remember reading a Batman comic book that explained the histories of the various villains who had called themselves Clayface over the years. There were four or five of them, if I remember correctly, and I was fascinated by the idea that this relatively obscure Batman villain had gone through so many different incarnations. I don't remember much about the individual characters, but for some reason that comic book stuck with me.

So I was intrigued when I heard that DC was making a CLAYFACE movie, although I also thought it was a pretty strange choice for the new DC cinematic universe. Of all the characters they could have used to help establish this new continuity, they went with Clayface? Okay…

I was especially interested to learn that the movie was going to be an actual horror film rather than a conventional superhero adventure. That seemed like a promising approach, considering the character's grotesque shapeshifting abilities.

Tom Rhys Harries plays a rising movie star whose career is destroyed when a gangster horribly disfigures his face. Desperate to restore his appearance, he seeks help from a scientist (Naomi Ackie) who's developed an experimental treatment capable of regenerating damaged tissue. The treatment works, but it also gives him the ability to transform his body into just about anything. Unfortunately, he has a little trouble controlling it.

There's some great body-horror stuff here, and I appreciated the filmmakers' willingness to make things genuinely disgusting. One particularly memorable sequence involves our hero (or villain?) experiencing some unexpected changes to his face while flying on an airplane. His eyelids begin fusing shut, and he attempts to separate them with a pair of scissors while the plane bounces around in turbulence. It's an incredibly unpleasant scene, in the best possible way.

There are several moments like that, and the effects are generally terrific. The movie certainly doesn't shy away from the more horrifying possibilities of a guy whose flesh can melt, stretch and rearrange itself.

Unfortunately, the story surrounding all this is kind of a mess.

Clayface himself is a pretty empty character, although maybe that's intentional. He's an actor whose entire identity is tied to his appearance, and now he's literally lost his face. You'd think the filmmakers could do something with that. Instead, it eventually turns into a fairly generic story about a guy with superpowers taking revenge on the mobsters who wronged him.

I also couldn't help thinking about THE SUBSTANCE, which explored some similar territory involving beauty, identity and grotesque physical transformation. CLAYFACE has some impressive effects, but THE SUBSTANCE did this kind of thing better, and with considerably more purpose and focus.

And then there's the question of Batman. I understand that this is supposed to be a standalone horror movie, and I'm perfectly happy to watch a movie about a Batman villain without Batman in it. But since the whole thing takes place in his universe, I did find myself wondering where the guy was while all this craziness was going on. Isn't this exactly the sort of thing he ought to be investigating? There’s probably a hand-wavey explanation. Oh, this is before Batman became Batman. Or, he’s busy doing other shit. I get it. Still. Even if Batman was real, he wouldn’t be able to bust up every crime all the time. Still, you set a movie in Gotham City and let me get bored enough, eventually I’m going to start daydreaming about Batman. Okay?

Oh, and the soundtrack. There are some aggressively obvious needle drops that feel like the filmmakers are trying awfully hard to make everything seem cool. Sometimes a song can make a scene. Sometimes it can make a scene suck.

Horrorfest 2026: Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker

BUTCHER, BAKER, NIGHTMARE MAKER
Written by Stephen Breimer, Alan Jay Glueckman and Boon Collins

Directed by William Asher

Starring Susan Tyrrell, Jimmy McNichol, Bo Svenson and Julia Duffy

USA, 1982

BUTCHER, BAKER, NIGHTMARE MAKER is undeniably a great title, but it does little to describe the contents of this movie. It was also released as NIGHT WARNING, which is equally anti-descriptive. Whatever you want to call it, this flick was surprisingly entertaining and deserves to be better known.

Jimmy McNichol plays a high school student who's been raised by his aunt (Susan Tyrrell) since his parents died in a car accident when he was a little boy. Incidentally, this car crash opens the movie and it’s an intense, realistic and horrifying sequence. The aunt becomes extremely protective of her nephew, which is putting it mildly. She's devoted her entire life to raising him, and the prospect of his graduating from high school and going away to college is not something she's prepared to accept.

In fact, she's prepared to do just about anything to keep him from leaving.

Tyrrell is incredible in this movie. She gives us one of those characters who initially seems merely overbearing, but the more time you spend with her, the more you realize she's completely out of her mind. She's manipulative, possessive, sexually inappropriate and increasingly dangerous, and Tyrrell throws herself into the role with such conviction that it's hard to take your eyes off her. There are plenty of crazy mothers in horror movies, but crazy aunts don't get nearly as much attention. Tyrrell deserves a place in the pantheon.

Complicating matters is a murder investigation led by a police detective played by Bo Svenson, who turns out to be a spectacularly unpleasant individual. He's corrupt, aggressive and viciously homophobic, and he becomes convinced that our young hero’s high school basketball coach is involved in the crime.

What's interesting is that the coach is gay, and the movie treats him with a surprising degree of sympathy and respect, especially for an early-'80s exploitation picture. The detective, meanwhile, throws around homophobic slurs and seems more interested in persecuting gay people than solving the murder. It's an unexpected subplot, and one that gives the movie a little more substance than I anticipated.

I had a good time with BUTCHER, BAKER, NIGHTMARE MAKER, though I think it loses some momentum toward the end. Once the various secrets start coming out, the story becomes a little more conventional, and the final stretch isn't quite as much fun as everything leading up to it.

Still, Susan Tyrrell alone makes this worth seeing. Her performance is so wonderfully unhinged that I'm surprised it isn't better known among horror fans. 


Horrorfest 2026: Him

HIM
Written by Skip Bronkie, Zack Akers and Justin Tipping

Directed by Justin Tipping

Starring Marlon Wayans, Tyriq Withers, Julia Fox and Tim Heidecker

USA, 2025

HIM is a horror movie about professional football, produced by Jordan Peele and starring Marlon Wayans. That sounded like a pretty interesting combination to me. Peele has been responsible for some of the best horror movies of recent years, and I’m always down for some Wayans.

Unfortunately, the movie is kind of a mess.

Tyriq Withers plays a promising young quarterback who's hoping to become the next big thing in professional football. After suffering a serious injury, he receives an invitation to train with his idol, a legendary quarterback on the verge of retirement, played by Marlon Wayans, at a secluded compound where the training methods are, shall we say, unconventional.

It quickly becomes apparent there’s more afoot here than improving this kid’s throwing arm. There's something sinister going on, involving strange rituals, physical abuse and an almost religious (or blasphemous?) devotion to football. The movie starts suggesting that success in professional sports might require sacrifices considerably greater than the ones we're accustomed to hearing about.

There's plenty of horror to be found in the way professional athletes are exploited. HIM seems like it wants to do something with that idea, but it doesn't get very far.

Instead, HIM throws a lot of flashy imagery at the screen. Some of it looks great, but after a while I started feeling like I was watching a collection of music videos loosely connected by a football-related premise. It's a lot of style over substance. Remember THE SUBSTANCE? Now that’s a movie.

It doesn't help that our main character is pretty empty. Withers is certainly convincing as an athlete, but there's not much personality there. Maybe that's intentional. Maybe the idea is that he's so completely devoted to football that he doesn't have much of an identity outside it. If so, that's an interesting concept, but it doesn't make him especially compelling to watch.

Wayans, on the other hand, is wonderful. He's clearly having a ball playing this guy, and I wish the rest of the movie were as entertaining as he is. I'd love to see him do more roles like this.

Horrorfest 2026: From Beyond

FROM BEYOND
Written by Dennis Paoli
Based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft

Directed by Stuart Gordon

Starring Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Ken Foree and Ted Sorel

USA, 1986

For years I've been confusing FROM BEYOND with THE BEYOND, Lucio Fulci's Italian horror movie that I watched for a previous Horrorfest and didn't particularly like. So when FROM BEYOND came up on this year's schedule, I wasn't especially excited about it. Then I realized it was directed by Stuart Gordon and featured several members of the team responsible for RE-ANIMATOR. Oh! THAT FROM BEYOND. Never mind.

Like RE-ANIMATOR, this one's based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft, and it concerns a scientist who's conducting experiments that probably shouldn't be conducted. Ted Sorel plays Dr. Pretorius (like the guy from BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN! Neat, huh?), who has developed a machine called the Resonator that stimulates the pineal gland, allowing people to perceive an alternate dimension populated by all sorts of unpleasant creatures.

Unfortunately, the creatures can perceive us, too, which turns out to be a problem.

When Pretorius disappears during an experiment, his assistant (the great Jeffrey Combs) is blamed for his murder and locked away in a psychiatric hospital. A psychiatrist (the great Barbara Crampton) decides to investigate his story, and before long she's persuaded him to return to the laboratory and fire up the machine again. What could possibly go wrong?

The great Ken Foree, who I know best from George Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD, plays a police officer who accompanies them. It's nice to see him here, and he brings a welcome dose of common sense to a movie populated largely by people who seem determined to make bad decisions.

Of course, the real attractions are the creatures and the effects. There are all sorts of grotesque, slimy things crawling around, and the movie eventually descends (or ascends?) into a celebration of rubbery, pulsating flesh. This is exactly the sort of elaborate practical-effects extravaganza that makes '80s horror so much fun.

Combs has a particular talent for playing intelligent people who are completely overwhelmed by the horrifying consequences of their own curiosity. And Crampton gets to play a character whose scientific interest in the experiments gradually develops into something considerably stranger.

Horrorfest 2026: X-Ray (aka Hospital Massacre)

X-RAY (aka HOSPITAL MASSACRE)
Written by Marc Behm

Directed by Boaz Davidson

Starring Barbi Benton, Charles Lucia and Jon Van Ness

USA, 1982

X-RAY, also known as HOSPITAL MASSACRE, is an early-'80s slasher movie starring Barbi Benton, who was a Playboy model and Hugh Hefner's longtime girlfriend. And judging by the movie, the filmmakers were well aware of her qualifications.

Benton plays a woman who goes to a hospital for a routine medical examination, only to find herself trapped inside while a deranged killer stalks the corridors, murdering doctors, nurses and anyone else who happens to get in the way. Nobody seems particularly concerned that the hospital is turning into a slaughterhouse, and our heroine spends a good deal of the movie wandering around trying to figure out what's going on.

There's a backstory involving a childhood incident and a murderous Valentine, but the plot is so thin that I had trouble remembering much of it even shortly after watching the movie. What I do remember is that the camera spends an awful lot of time lingering on Benton, including an extended examination scene that seems to exist primarily as an excuse to get her undressed.