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Horror Weekly

Horror Weekly

By: Brian Schell and Kevin L. Knights
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 Join Kevin and Brian for a weekly podcast episode. Every Friday, the guys release both a video and audio podcast episode that covers everything new in horror, along with a handful of great (and awful) movie reviews!

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Episodes
  • The Long Walk, The Conjuring: Last Rites, Dorothea, Godzilla vs Mothra: The Battle for Earth, and The Benefactress: An Exposure of Cinematic Freedom

    The Long Walk, The Conjuring: Last Rites, Dorothea, Godzilla vs Mothra: The Battle for Earth, and The Benefactress: An Exposure of Cinematic Freedom
    Nov 9 2025
    We’ve got a mixed bag this time around: four new films and one classic. We’ll start out with the much-hyped “The Long Walk,” “Dorothea,” “The Benefactress,” and “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” all recently released. For our oldie, we’ll look at “Godzilla vs Mothra: The Battle for Earth” from 1993.“The Horror Guys Guide to the Horror Films of Christmas” is available now wherever you get your books. Seventy-Five holiday-themed films are included— it’s our biggest book yet!This as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #50, are on sale now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2025 The Long Walk* Directed by: Francis Lawrence* Written by: JT Mollner, Stephen King* Stars: Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing* Run Time: 1 Hour 48 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneA group of fifty young men is chosen by lottery to participate in “The Long Walk,” an annual elimination contest with one winner - one surviving winner - at the end. How they get there is surprisingly interesting to watch. And kind of sad and gruesome as you might imagine, and also uplifting and funny at times.Spoilery SynopsisWe read Raymond Garraty’s acceptance letter on screen. He’s been accepted through the lottery, and has a chance to win a wish and a huge amount of money. We hear on the radio that in the past, America had a war that ruined everything, and poverty is rampant but it has been 19 years and things are on the mend.Raymond’s mother doesn’t approve and wants him to drop out, but he says it’s too late. Fifty young men will compete, one from each state, but only one will win. As he checks in, he meets Peter, another contestant. Stebbins, Hank, Mark, Curly, and some of the others make themselves known. We see various other characters as well.The Major pulls up in his jeep. He has them all take numbers to wear around their necks, it’s a lot like a marathon. He explains that the broadcast of The Long Walk increases production, which helps the economy. “Walk until there’s only one of you left. If you fall below three miles an hour, you get a warning. The goal is to last the longest. There’s one winner and no finish line. Remember– anyone can win.”And they’re off! The first few miles, the walkers talk about how desolate the landscape is. They also talk about their strategies. One guy gets a rock in his shoe and stops to fix it; he gets a warning. And then a second warning. The soldier behind him raises his rifle. He gets up and moves on. Raymond talks about how social pressure makes everyone apply to The Walk, so they really don’t have a choice.Eventually, Curly gets a cramp, gets three warnings, and gets shot, the first loser of the race. Yes, there’s only going to be one survivor. Credits roll.Player 1 falls down, foaming at the mouth, he’s having some kind of epileptic seizure of some kind. The soldiers shoot him as well.Twenty-five miles in, everyone’s getting pretty tired. Barkovitch goads another guy into fighting with him, and it goes badly for one of them. Harkness is writing a book, and he talks about the “pooping issue” just as another walker dies because of it.As night falls, The Major gives them all a pep talk. Everyone is more or less walking in their sleep. Ray gets three warnings, but if he can keep walking for three hours, those will go away. They hit a steep grade in the road, and several players are killed; this motivates the rest. This clears out the crowd, as there are far fewer players now, only 18 left.When the sun comes up, they’re on mile 59. Reality is setting in for most of the walkers. Ray and Pete both doubt they’ve got what it takes to win. Harkness has been walking for miles on a twisted ankle, but he’s done. At the 100 mile mark, the group passes through a small town, and it’s extremely poor-looking.The second night, it rains.On day 3, there aren’t many walkers left. Ray tells the story about how his father was executed by The Major for reading banned books. Ray’s secret plan is to kill The Major. The winner gets a wish along with all the money, and he plans to use it to kill The Major. Pete tries to talk him out of those negative thoughts.At the 170-mile point, they lose more people. Hank gives up and they almost lose Baker because of it. As the survivors bond, they’re all getting closer, which makes each loss harder on them.Day 4, 209 miles in, and it looks like there are six left. They’ve all got problems. Barkovitch goes crazy and kills himself, mostly. The third warning finishes him off. At 278 miles, the landscape just gets bleaker and bleaker, with junk bicycles and burning cars. Ray’s shoe wears out, so he goes barefoot; he passes his mother on the side of the road.Baker gets a nosebleed that won’t stop for the next thirty miles or so. He knows he’s done for and asks the others not to watch ...
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    36 mins
  • Woken, Traumatika, Ghost Killer, Insidious: The Last Key, and Demon Seed

    Woken, Traumatika, Ghost Killer, Insidious: The Last Key, and Demon Seed
    Nov 2 2025
    Fun films this week! We’ll start off with the sorta-sci-fi “Woken” from 2025, then get traumatized by “Traumatika,” also from this year. “Ghost Killer” was released last year in Japan, but it’s also new here recently. “Insidious: The Last Key” from 2018 winds up our coverage of that series (at least until the next one). Lastly, we’ll look back at “Demon Seed” from 1977– does it still hold up?“The Horror Guys Guide to the Horror Films of Christmas” is available now wherever you get your books. Seventy-Five holiday-themed films are included— it’s our biggest book yet!This as well as the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #49, are on sale now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2025 Woken* Directed by: Alan Friel* Written by: Alan Friel, Rebecca Pollock* Stars: Erin Kellyman, Maxine Peake, Ivanno Jeremiah* Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneAnna wakes up pregnant with no memory of where she is or who the people she’s with are. But everything and everyone seems so normal, what could go wrong? Things go slowly until they abruptly don’t, and the tension mounts. It definitely has a science fiction element with low-key simmering horror. We both thought it’s a winner.Spoilery SynopsisAnna runs to the cliff and looks down in a panic. She jumps. Credits roll.Later, she wakes up in a bed with her head bandaged. When she wakes up, there’s a strange woman there who’s taking care of her. “Don’t worry, the baby’s fine,” she says. The woman, Helen, brings in a book with photos of Anna, but Anna doesn’t remember Helen or anything. James comes in and is introduced as Anna’s husband, but she doesn’t remember him. His version of what happened on the top of the cliff differs from what we saw.Helen explains that they’re on an isolated island, and she can help deliver the baby when it comes. Anna meets Peter, Helen’s husband, and he’s a little weird. The group has whole lobsters for dinner, and it’s all pretty revolting to pregnant Anna. She doesn’t know them, so James shows her some videos. Helen and Peter are their neighbors, the only ones on the island.Dr. Henry comes for a visit to examine Anna. He pulls out one of her hairs before examining the baby. It’s due in about two weeks. Anna suggests that a visit to the mainland might help her memory, but James insists they wait until after the baby.Anna sees two people on a swan pedal-boat out on the water. When Helen sees it, she sounds an alarm. When Anna runs to welcome the people, she sees that they’re disfigured and monstrous. Helen shoots both of them, then James burns the bodies and the boats. “You’ve been exposed– We’ve all been exposed” Helen shouts. They all strip and burn their own clothes.James explains that ¾ of the population are dead. You can catch it a whole bunch of ways, and no one knows what started it. They lock her in the bedroom for a quarantine, but they don’t explain much.Some soldiers in hazmat suits come to the house, and James insists that Anna is uninfected. Dr. Henry is with them, and he examines her again. He says that both she and the baby are healthy. He seems excited, but tells her it’s “Nothing for you to worry about.” Clearly, these people still have some secrets.Anna finds the knitting basket, and it’s full of little knitted baby shirts, all identical. Helen and James whisper about Anna when she’s out of the room. She grinds up some pills she was given but didn’t take and puts them into James’s soup, but he’s suspicious and doesn’t eat it.Anna sneaks out in the morning and goes to the part of the island she’s been told not to go to. She passes a “Forbidden” sign and comes to Helen and Peter’s house. Peter complains that Helen’s getting too attached, and this happens to her “every time.” Also, Helen has a small black child that clearly isn’t hers or James’s. And there’s a baby crying– or maybe that’s a goat.Anna sneaks into their house and looks around. She runs into little Joshua, who says she promised to never leave him but did. Helen interrupts and tells her to go back to the cottage. Just as she’s about to get answers, James chloroforms her.Anna wakes up restrained to a table in a lab. James comes in, and he says that’s not his baby inside her, he’s just here to protect her during the pregnancy. He says she doesn’t really want to know what’s going on. Helen and Peter appear to be scientists. “Always a pity to cut you up,” says Peter. Anna gets an arm free and stabs him in the neck with a syringe. Through an accident, Peter shoots himself, and Anna gets off the table.Anna watches videos of her being experimented upon– and dying. She sees computer records of at least 17 past failures where she and the baby died. She opens a machine and sees that they are already working on her...
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    29 mins
  • Dracula: A Love Tale, Night of the Reaper, The Velocipastor, Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, and Santo and the Blue Demon vs Dracula and the Wolf Man

    Dracula: A Love Tale, Night of the Reaper, The Velocipastor, Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, and Santo and the Blue Demon vs Dracula and the Wolf Man
    Oct 26 2025
    That might be the longest title we’ve ever had. We’ll open on the brand-new “Dracula: A Love Tale,” which redoes Dracula yet again. We’ll then go to “Night of the Reaper,” a twisty slasher film. We’ll finally get around to watching “The Velocipastor” from 2018, and then go back in time to “Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah” from 1991 and “Santo and the Blue Demon vs Dracula and the Wolf Man” from 1973.The latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #49, is on sale now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.comMainstream Films:2025 Dracula: A Love Tale* Directed by: Luc Besson* Written by: Luc Besson, Bram Stoker* Stars: Caleb Landry Jones, Christoph Waltz, Zoe Bleu* Run Time: 2 Hours, 9 Minutes* Trailer: Spoiler-Free Judgment ZoneThis is a big budget production with elaborate costuming, amazing sets, and excellent makeup and special effects. It kept reminding us of 1992’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” but even more so. If you’re a fan of Dracula and vampire movies, you really should check this one out. It’s great.Spoilery SynopsisIt’s 1480 AD, and Vlad and Elisabeta are in love, either that or it’s a teenage slumber party, it looks about the same. Soldiers come to the door and need King Vlad to lead them into battle. He reluctantly gets all armored up and goes with them after getting a blessing from the priest. Vlad makes a deal with the priest to watch over Elisabeta while he’s gone. While he goes off to battle, she’s taken across the country to a safe place, but the party is ambushed.Vlad rushes to the rescue, but she dies in his arms; he is not happy. He goes home and blames the priest. This goes badly for the priest– very badly. Vlad renounces God and bad things happen.Four hundred years later, in Paris, Dr. Dumont welcomes the priest to his church. Dumont has a very strange medical case that he needs help with in his mental asylum. He has a woman, Maria, whom he thinks is possessed. She’s got fangs and glowy eyes. She’s a vampire. She’s the first one taken into captivity, but the priest has seen them before. The doctor finds it all a little hard to believe, but it’s obviously true. The church has been looking for the Master for 400 years. She says the Master is coming to Paris to take a princess soon.We cut to Jonathan Harker, who is visiting Count Dracula’s castle. It’s surprisingly nice inside, and Prince Vlad is looking extremely old– but not monstrous. He has a habit of moving things without using his hands, which Jonathan finds very entertaining thinking it’s magic tricks and not realizing it’s real.The priest goes to see Henry Spencer, Maria’s husband. He goes through the woman’s bedroom looking for clues, like a detective. She has a page torn out of the book that Jonathan is reading back in the castle; it’s a drawing of Princess Elisabeta.Meanwhile, in the castle, Jonathan explores the place and finds Dracula’s tomb. He’s attacked by living gargoyles and hung upside down. Vlad explains himself to Jonathan, and we get a flashback to the rest of his origin story. Vlad’s been waiting for Elisabeta to be reincarnated, and it’s been a hard search. He developed a fragrance into a perfume that made all women love him, as well as some of the men from the look of it. There’s a montage of him combining his mind control with the power of the perfume to make rooms full of people in different eras dance to his tune as he searches for her. That didn’t work out so well for him or the entire court of France. He turned them all into servants and sent them out to look for her. Since then, he’s waited in that castle. Jonathan shows Vlad a picture of his own fiance, Mina, and guess who she looks like?Back in Paris, the priest explains the vampire curse to Dr. Dumont. Dumont’s assistant points out that Mina is in the next room. She’s a friend of Maria, and tells the story of what happened to her. She admits that she’s engaged to Jonathan, but also that she feels like she doesn’t really belong in this time.Meanwhile Dracula gets a bite of food on the road; he drains an entire convent full of nuns. He then travels to Paris, looking much younger now after feasting, and heads straight to the asylum where Maria is held prisoner. He breaks her out and feeds the orderly to her as a reward for her help. The priest and the doctor rush to warn Mina.Along the way, Jonathan makes a difficult escape from the castle.Meanwhile, Maria goes to Mina and says she’s been released from the hospital. They go to a hotel where she meets Dracula. He tags along with them around the carnival like a stalker. It’s all surprisingly romantic, and just maybe it’ll work out for Dracula this time. During their date, she gets repeated flashbacks to her earlier life.When Mina goes home that evening, she finds Jonathan there along with the priest and doctor. The priest explains the facts about ...
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    34 mins
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