Tag Archives: Shudder

Nov 21 2025

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Abraham’s Boys

Abraham’s Boys (2025)
Titus Welliver, Brady Hepner, Judah Mackey, Jocelin Donahue, Aurora Perrineau, and Jonathan Howard
Directed by: Natasha Kermani

This one popped up on Shudder the other day, and being the vampire fanatic that I am, I was excited and put it on as soon as I had time. And… oh boy.

Years after defeating Dracula, Abraham Van Helsing and his wife Mina are raising their 2 sons on a seculded ranch. After finding a woman locked up under the house, the boys are told that the evil has followed them, and the monsters must be erradicated. But who’s the real monster?

SPOILERS INCOMING

Now listen. The concept is amazing. 10/10. It’s based on a story written by Joe Hill, so I’m not overly surprised. But the execution… eh. I’ll start with the acting, which ranged from mediocre to laughably bad. I don’t like to harp on child actors, cause it’s a tough gig, but man. There are good child actors out there. The movie looked decent. They got a suitably creepy old house to film in (not sure if it’s “new old” or “old old”), and the dusty, desolate landscape just adds to the ambiance they were going for.

The idea that Van Helsing is simply a murderer that tricked people into thinking there were real vampires is actually really solid. I guessed it from the beginning of the film, but that’s because I’ve seen movies before. I know how they work (most of the time. I still get surprised every so often.) I tried to track down the source material, but could not find it for the life of me. Should anybody read this and knows where to find it, please let me know. The pacing was all over the place, sometimes so slow that you wonder if anything is happening at all, and other times almost frenetic with its movements. I’m not sure what they were going for, but whatever it was, they failed.

So do I recommend it? Eh. Not really. Unless you’re a diehard fan of vampires. But then again, there were no vampires in this vampire movie. Vampire adjacent? Yeah, that’s it. 5/10

M.

This film is currently on Shudder.

Apr 25 2025

Mel’s 5 Second Review Double Feature: Superdeep & The Cleansing Hour

Superdeep (Kolskaya Sverhglubokaya) (2020)
Milena Radulovic, Nikita Dyuvbanov, Kirill Kovbas, Vadim Demchog, and Sergey Ivanyuk
Directed by: Arseniy Sukhin


So, I watched this one on a whim. I’d heard of the borehole, and the supposed recordings that came from it, and I thought that it made a good concept for a movie. Well, let me tell you, this was definitely not what I was expecting!

The Kola Superdeep borehole is the largest Russian secret facility. In 1984, at the depth of 12 kilometers below the surface, unexplained sounds were recorded, resembling screams and moans from hell. Since these events, the facility has been closed. A small research team of scientists and military personnel go down below the surface to find the secret hidden all these years.

So first, I watched this on Shudder, and they only had the English dub available. I usually don’t watch movies if they’ve been dubbed, so I’m not sure why I watched this one, but here it is. The actors they got for the dub were horrible. Simply wretched. The lead actress conveyed all the emotion of a stale scone. No matter what she was supposed to be doing or feeling, she had the same tone of voice. And the fact that the lips don’t move along with the voice drives me nuts.

The concept also didn’t seem to fit with what was advertised. “Sounds of hell” to me seems like it would involve demons, maybe ghosts, something in that line. What I got instead was a massive, cordyceps-like parasite. (If you don’t know what cordyceps are, they’re parasites that take over an ant’s nervous system, walks it back to its nest, or up to a high spot, and then spores will explode from the ant’s body, infecting everything around. Pretty creepy stuff.) In any case, it was still an interesting concept, so I kept watching. And while I don’t fully regret it, I can’t say it’s a great movie. It’s over-long, clocking in at 115 minutes. Half an hour could have easily been shaved off this thing to make it more palatable. It felt disjointed and the characters seemed like caricatures. What I will praise the film for is the practical effects. The make-ups were beautiful. And the creature, holy shit was that thing creepy! Just thinking about it gives me the willies.

All in all, I didn’t hate it, but I definitely didn’t love it. Maybe it’d have gotten a higher score had I seen it in its original Russian, but as it is, it gets a 5/10.

…

The Cleansing Hour (2020)
Ryan Guzman, Kyle Gallner, Alix Angelis, Chris Lew Kum Hoi, Daniel Hoffmann-Gill, and Emma Holzer
Directed by: Damien LeVeck


This one has been on my to-watch list since it came out, and I’ve just now got around to it. I’m glad I finally did.

Max and Drew are millennial entrepreneurs who’ve made themselves famous with a webcast they created called “The Cleansing Hour,” which streams live exorcisms. The catch? Each exorcism is elaborately staged. Until today, when Drew’s fiancé, today’s actress in the chair, turns out to actually be possessed!

Unlike Superdeep, this was very much exactly what I was expecting it to be. No shade intended! Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best ones. All the acting was great, especially Kyle Gallner, but no surprise there, he’s wonderful. The makeup and vfx were nothing special, but not awful, either. This was very overt, though. No “is she really possessed?” kind of thing, they make it known right from the get-go that she is. So I missed that sense of mystery a bit. It was also very loud, the sound design was a little jarring. But I suppose that’s to be expected from a film that’s basically one long exorcism. But in the end, I had a good time watching it, so it gets a solid 7.5/10.

M.

Both these films are currently on Shudder.

Apr 6 2025

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Skinamarink

Skinamarink (2023)
Lukas Paul, Dali Rose Tetreault, Ross Paul, and Jaime Hill
Directed by: Kyle Edward Ball

I was apprehensive going in to this film because of the mixed reviews. I generally try to go in as blind as I can to films, so there’s no spoilers. And while nothing was spoiled for me, I did notice how polarizing the film seemed to be. People were either raving about it, or saying it was a piece of shit. I decided to give it a shot.

The setup was simple enough. A brother and sister wake in the middle of the night to find their parents are missing, as are all the doors and windows out. They put the tv on in the living room to distract themselves, but soon realize they aren’t alone any more.

First off, this film is VERY artsy. If that’s not your bag, skip this one. The weird camera angles give the whole thing a surreal, dreamlike quality, which I imagine is what the filmmaker was going for. The sense of hopelessness and dread is very heavy through the whole film, and even though nothing is shown, the imagination takes over (did that shadow just move??). I generally am not fond of art house films, I tend to think they’re pretentious bullshit. And yet, with this one, I couldn’t look away. MILD SPOILERS, MAYBE? My theory is that this isn’t something that’s literally happening. This, to me, seems like what a neglected and/or abused child would feel, trapped in a nightmare they can’t escape. I give it 6/10 because, while I applaud what they were trying to do, in the end, artsy films just aren’t for me.

M.

This is currently streaming on Shudder.

Aug 25 2020

Mel’s 5 Second Review: The Wailing (곡성, Gokseong)

The Wailing (곡성, Gokseong) (2016)
Kwak Do-won, Jun Kunimura, Kim Hwan-hee, Kim Do-yoon, Son Gang-guk, Jang So-yeon, Hwang Jung-min, Chun Woo-hee, Her Jin, and Kil Chang-gyoo
Directed by: Na Hong-jin

So, I’m not quite sure what to make of this one. It was so all over the place. I’m not even sure if I liked it or not.

After a bizarre Japanese man comes to their village, some of the inhabitants seem to lose their minds and become homicidal. A hapless police officer goes to great lengths to protect his daughter who has started showing signs of the infection.

First of all, I hated the first 40 minutes or so. All the characters act really dumb, and it feels more like a slapstick comedy than a horror film. After that they calmed down with that aspect, and the film finally started. It had great ambience, some really tense moments, but it was all so confused and complicated that it took away a lot of the good they were laying down. There were so many twists that I got whiplash. So many things that the characters do simply don’t make sense, and the film does nothing to explain it. The acting was mostly stellar, especially from the possessed child, but again, it get lost in the over-convoluted story. And can someone please tell me who the woman in white was? All I can figure is she’s a creature from Korean folklore, and since I know nothing about that, I simply didn’t get it. And holy hell was it long. At 2 hours and 36 minutes, I think it’s the longest horror film I’ve ever seen. All in all, it wasn’t a bad film, but it’s definitely not something I’ll ever watch again. It gets a decent 7/10 from me.

M.

This film is currently streaming on Shudder.