Let's start the year 2026 with the hope that these empty cinema seats will be the only places to witness horrors and that horror will stay strictly confined to fiction. And the first opportunity to fill those seats will be during the upcoming film season - our first station is the Fantasy Filmfest White Nights on January 24 and 25, which is like a mini winter break weekend for horror fans. I usually only watch a couple of films during the White Nights, but this year I feel like 2025 wasn't that great of a year for horror, and I feel somewhat starved for more movies. So I decided to take a leave from Hammett on that Saturday and to watch all the films on the first day, and three films on Sunday. Let's take a look at the trailers and talk about them, in order of their appearance at the FFF.
Vieja loca / Crazy Old Lady (2025, Argentina/Spain)
A guy only wants to do his ex girlfriend a favor when he goes to check in on her mother who suffers from some sort of degenerative mental illness, maybe dementia. Next thing we know, he is strapped to a chair, unable to leave, yelling for help. And it looks like his ex coming back with her daughter isn't much help either, so unhinged is this "crazy old lady".
To me, this looks like a classic, decent thriller, I'm not expecting anything unexpected but a couple of suspenseful hours of survival horror at the hands of a crazy-minded person. Still, it looks like there are secrets to be aired and that might make for an interesting resolution.
Every Heavy Thing (USA)
Clearly a movie to be enjoyed for its cinematic and stylish qualities over the plot, right? I'm not sure, to be honest. We're following ad-seller Joe getting involved in a commotion after witnessing a murder, all against the backdrop of a series of women's disappearances in Hightown City.
One of director Mickey Reece's previous movies, the horror picture Agnes, wasn't my cup at all, and also has one of the lowest imdb ratings I have seen for a horror film, 3,8 stars. So I'm not really holding my breath, but the trailer looks somewhat compelling with its 70s flair and dramatic cinematography, doesn't it?
La valle dei sorrisi/The Holy Boy (Italy, Slovenia)
It's weird - when I first saw the trailer for The Holy Boy, I was so sure that they had filmed one of the stories in Luigi Musolino's short story collection A Different Darkness. The pictures, the visuals, the mountains, the one outsider boy in the town - it was all exactly the way I imagined his short story Black Hills of Torment before my inner eye. I think the boy in Musolino's story was, in contrast to what this trailer suggests, a cursed boy, he was said to be the spawn of Satan. The Holy Boy, on the other hand, follows a teacher who moves into the happiest village in Italy, and discovers the secret of their happiness is to embrace the titular boy to find healing from their suffering.
I wouldn't be a horror fan if I didn't expect a certain price to be paid for that happiness, right?
I was a little disappointed this wasn't the film adaptation of Black Hills of Torment, to be honest, it is still one of the festival films I anticipate most.
Dust Bunny (USA)
Exactly the type of movie I don't usually watch at festivals since it's mainstream and will be shown regularly as soon as February (but so will the other movies above), I still decided to see it because I don't know what to do for two hours between two films and, like everybody inhabiting this world, I like Mads Mikkelsen. It looks like a sweet and visually mesmerizing movie.
Dolly (USA)
When I heard that this is an homage to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre I knew that it would be a rough movie, but the trailer alone surpasses my every expectation. Bravo.
Macy is abducted by a monstrous figure in the woods who wants to raise her as their own child... Mind you, Macy is a grown ass woman. Ewww! I feel like this can easily go both ways, it may be horribly tacky but also brilliantly horrifying. My personal feeling is that this will be great.
The Turkish Coffee Table (Türkiye)
On Sunday I'm skipping the showings in the earlier noon and am starting with Can's movie, The Turkish Coffee Table. So there's unfortunately no trailer for this, but apparently it is a re-make of the 2022 Spanish movie The Coffee Table which is about a married couple buying a coffee table that will turn their lives upside down. This sounds like chaotic funny, and I'm all here for that!
I have to admit that to my shame I have never completely watched the first installment of the Deathgasm series, of which now the second part is being released. Goremageddon is a direct continuation of the first movie so I think that before the festival I will have caught up. It looks like dumb fun made with passion for heavy metal and horror.
Shelby Oakes (USA)
This movie has been causing waves within the horror community, as it was made by one of us, Chris Stuckmann, who is well known for his YouTube channel on which he reviews and gives his critique on movies on a very high level. Reviews from people who actually come from the industry or even have studied film are always very interesting and since we can't all of us study everything we want to, I find people like him very valuable, and he has definitely had an impact on my own reviewing.
So it is exciting to be able to see his first movie at the Fantasy Filmfest! Honestly, I have started watching it a couple of months ago but it wasn't the right moment and the mood, so it will be better to see it in the darkness of a movie theater. The film looks suspenseful enough, the story of a woman looking for her lost sister discovering a bigger evil than she would have thought, using elements of found footage and seemingly supernatural elements, so let's go!
Alright, these were the FFF films, but there are also a lot of interesting horror movies coming our way in regular cinema programs, at least the first half of this year. So let's take a look at some of them I have selected.
So the Zombie genre might be up for a revival, pardon my pun, if even I, who's not particularly fond of it, have two Zombie films on my list of movies I'm excited for. The first one of them, We Bury the Dead, is about a woman looking for her husband after a military disaster which turns dead people into predators. Not only do I really like watching Daisy Ridley, but this whole movie looks like a fantastic horror-action, and it's always nice to watch some action movies too every now and then. The Zombies do look scary.
Death Name (South Korea)
OK, so having watched this clip, there are so so so many questions on my mind - A young Korean woman finds out that her name is a curse and nobody can call her by her real name and is being warned by her family not to ever use it. Wasn't it the same family who gave her that name? How does this work? Why does she bring back a curse upon her family when she's not responsible for the name given to her? So many questions... Even though I sense the potential that this might turn out something very silly or something not understandable to me, I guess I will have watch the movie to find out.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (UK)
The second Zombie film on my list.
The tone shift at the end of 28 Years Later was so drastic that it was almost traumatic to my gentle mind, and for the last six months it left me perpetually wondering about this very imposing villain, Sir Jimmy Crystal, a man so consumed by lust of power that he's become a beast himself. So much so that I'm not even mad that the movie seems to take a shift towards Jimmy, and turns further away from Spike, our protagonist that I feel very fond of.
Spike seems integrated into the Jimmy Clan, all the while Dr. Kelson seems willing to team up with Samson, the terrifying Alpha Zombie.
I can't wait to see this, and you know what? The release date is this Thursday already, so I'll probably be at some Yorck Kino on Friday, Saturday after work and Sunday morning after breakfast busy watching and re-watching.
Return to Silent Hill (Various)
A franchise whose plot I really couldn't give a toss about, but whose aesthetics speak to me 100%. Really I only ever watch these movies for the guys in retro-futuristic space Egyptian design clothing and those chain machines working slowly slowly.
Psycho Killer (France, USA, Germany)
A movie I feel drawn to for similar reasons as the Silent Hill movies - I quite like the visuals. One of the reasons the visuals feel like an absolute treat is that this movie reminds me of Se7en, one of my all time favorite movies, and apparently it was written by the same writer, Andrew Kevin Walker. Of course him being the writer has nothing to do with the visuals, I just think that the filmmakers tried to go for that similarity. And it worked! That trailer is absolutely awesome, I love it.
Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (USA)
I loved the first installment of Ready or Not and I'm all here for the second. In the first movie Grace was subjected to a sadistic game by her new husband's family which backfired into their faces (or heads, more like, because they all exploded in the end -oops spoilered!-), and now she returns with her sister competing even some more. I'm really hoping that more heads will explode.
A couple of years ago I saw Oddity at the Fantasy Filmfest and really liked that quiet but yet effective little horror story made by Damian McCarthy, who now returns to the big screen with Hokum. We're following a horror writer visiting an Irish inn to scatter his parents' ashes, but the property is said to be haunted by a witch.
McCarthy's use of creepy props was something else in Oddity, and looking at the trailer, I guess we're in for some more scary puppet and witch fun in Hokum too, hooray.
Obsession (USA)
Curry Barker is a name that gradually appeared more and more in horror circles on social media and he's quite prolific. His first feature Milk and Serial is free to watch on YouTube, and so are numerous horror shorts he made. For his upcoming movie Obsession he was given a handsome budget of a million dollar by Tea Shop Productions to actually realize this production based on a Simpson episode (the one with the cursed monkey paw). So, that, my friends, is how horror legends are made.
I haven't seen Obsession yet, but I have seen the thoughts and reactions of notable horror reviewers I follow, and I think we might be dealing with the horror movie of the year 2026. Let's wait and see.
Other Mommy (Host)
The only reason I have Other Mommy on my radar is that it is the adaptation of Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman. Not that I'm a diehard fan, his writing is more hit or miss for me, if you know you know, but when a horror author has his book filmed, I go and see it out of principle.
So those were the exciting film releases ahead, now finally let's take a look at some book titles that might be interesting - in chronological order.
The Truth of Carcosa by Jacob Rollinson (January 13)
There is something extremely intriguing, compelling about forbidden books which hold an evil knowledge. A stable of the genre without ever risking becoming trite or dated, it seems eternally enjoyable and I'm always happy to discover a new example, especially if it sounds as well-made as The Truth of Carcosa. Written by exiled author Salvatore Archimboldi in 1984, the book is promptly forbidden for its evil effect, but there are hopes for a comeback when a researcher is looking for it years later. The story is told from the perspective of a madman obsessed with this book which is more than a book.
Although I wasn't very impressed by Robert W. Chambers' short story collection about the King in Yellow on my first reading, I think my appreciation needed to ripen a little and the first five stories of his collection are now my preferred stories from Lovecraft's general entourage. And it's an amazing motif to take and further develop in one's own writing, and I hope Rollinson made good use of that.
Humboldt Cut by Allison Mick (January 27)
Every couple of years I'll come across an eco-horror, the rarest of all horror subgenres, and it's an opportunity not to miss. Humboldt Cut is one of those opportunities.
We follow two estranged siblings Jasmine and James returning to their hometown, to a place their grandfather made a living deforesting the countryside, after the death of their godmother. There are dark secrets living in the forest that they need to explore.
According to some advanced reviews there's some B movie type splatter in here, and yes, I do want to read that, and I'm expecting a good message that humanity is going to ignore anyway, and also some dark humor, what's not to like?
By the way, the marketing people's comparisons are out of control: "An adventure that combines the botanical terrors of VanderMeer’s Annihilation and the psychological horror of The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones with a dash of Jordan Peele", what even is that? They should stop doing this, it only makes the book sound unoriginal.
Cruelty Free by Caroline Glenn (February 3)
As far as I understand, Cruelty Free is a silly and fun read that one shouldn't take too seriously.
A-list actress Lila Devlin leaves LA after her daughter is kidnapped and she is blamed for it, but returns ten years later for revenge.
Is there any better way to take revenge than to launch a radical new skincare
brand and reinvent yourself? No, there isn't. And when the going gets rough, she and her publicist Sylvie roam the streets to kill people and extract a certain secret
ingredient which makes the company’s success skyrocket.
This sounds so stupid, I'm not going to lie, that it might just become great from all its stupidity. Readers say you need to suspend all your disbelief and I think I'm ready for that if it's going to be fun.
For Human Use by Sarah G. Pierce (February 10)
Another silly read.
The dating app Liv matches people with dead bodies because dating between two living just doesn't work anymore. Millions of users prefer life with a corpse to conventional relationships.
But while the number of Liv users increases by the
day, so does the need for cadavers. What do you think will happen?
This, again, sounds very stupid, I don't really have much to say about it, but I really want to read it.
The Rise: Tales from the Gulp 3 by Alan Baxter (February 13)
Finally some more tales from the creepiest town on the Australian shore; Gulpepper.
I have read and reviewed both Gulp books here on my blog as you possibly know, and I could keep living my life comfortably knowing that every couple of years another Gulp book will be published, because I love them and they give me comfort. Gulp is a truly strange and dangerous place I wish never to visit some day.
Nothing Tastes As Good by Luke Dumas (March 31)
Obexity is the new hit among trendy weight loss methods and it is as horrifying as miraculous. Retail worker Emmett who weighs more than three hundred pounds volunteers for the clinical trial, and to his surprise he does lose weight, but suffers the unexpected side effects, like losing stretches of time and overwhelming cravings. And then his enemies start to disappear and Emmett suspects he is the perpetrator. But can he give up all the advantages this drug provides?
Of course we love a good body horror, especially in the context of esthetic procedures in the vein of The Substance or Ling Ling Huang's Natural Beauty, so please bring them on.
This'll Make Things a Little Easier by Attila Veres (April)
So Valancourt says this will be published in April now... 😭😭😭
Bodies of Work by Clay McLeod Chapman (April 7)
I do enjoy a good Clay Mc Leod Chapman story every now and then. After having published one novel after another in the last couple of years, this time it is a novella that's scheduled for April, and it's about a recluse, a janitor who is also a serial woman killer about to face the wrath of his victims.
Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun by Mónica Ojeda (April 9)
Ooooh I really dig books about South American mythology, mysticism, shamanism and throw in a little family drama and trauma, plus written by Mónica Ojeda, what else can I ask?Perdition: Stories by Brian Kubarycz (April 14)
I know literally nothing about these stories nor about Brian Kubarycz, but I'm willing to try and see, maybe his short stories are my thing.
Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear With Stephen King by Caroline Bicks (April 21)
Until very recently I didn't think there is such thing as my dream job, as I think you do what you have to do to pay your rent and buy some food and buy some books, try to save some and travel every once in a while, and just keep doing what allows you to keep doing that. When I found out that Caroline Bicks is the first scholar to be named the University of Maine's inaugural Stephen E. King Chair in Literature, I can say that for the first time in my life was I envious, nah jealous of someone because of their job.
It gets even better - she was allowed into King's private archives, a treasure trove of manuscripts documenting his creative process... She was allowed there for a whole year and explored his early drafts and hand-written revisions... I can't even begin to imagine what a pleasure that must have been.
Luckily, she shares her studies with us in her upcoming book, Monsters in the Archives, in which she focuses on five of his most iconic works: The Shining, Carrie, Pet Sematary, 'Salem's Lot, and Night Shift. It also includes new interviews! What a treasure this will be...
Meat Bees by Daner Erbach (August 4)
What can we expect from this book? People being eaten alive by wasps... Agonizing pain... Swarms of yellow jackets stripping the meat off humans' bodies...
Where do they come from and how to defeat them?
Well, friends, I know the world isn't at its best right now and there's more than ever reason to be anxious and scared. But it's also a time to give yourself something that makes you happy, like seeing movies and reading books. I hope I could give you some ideas for the coming half-year that will make you feel happy and give you some joy every now and then. Stay safe!
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