Few slasher villains bear weaker origin stories than Mark, the killer of Hollowgate: As a child, he was nearly drowned by his alcoholic dad for lackluster apple-bobbling skills at a Halloween party.

Ten years later, to say the adult Mark (Addison Randall, Hard Vice) is an antisocial creep is an understatement, what with all his killing a girl for refusing a date and exploding a bully with flaming panties. Rather than lock Mark up, our exemplary justice system releases him to the care of his wealthy grandmother at her Hollowgate estate.

The next 10/31, en route to a party, two young couples stop for “submarine sandwiches” and a $9 sparkle wig. In exchange for the latter, which they can’t afford, the four agree to deliver 12 costumes to Hollowgate. See, Mark’s throwing a shindig of his own; all he needs are attendees, because being freshly murdered, Grandma can’t make it.

With this, one-time writer/director Ray Dizazzo gives his flick’s felon a good-enough gimmick: As the college-aged kids attempt to penetrate the mansion’s electrified perimeter for escape, Mark dons a different costume — soldier, cowboy, doctor and, um, fancy fox hunter — for each individual kill. (One involves a farm combine so slow-moving, of course the Dumb Hot Girl stands in front of it, ensuring doom.) Adopting the proper accent and (occasionally racist) vocabulary with every change, Mark’s a regular Pistachio Disguisey!

In his first of almost two dozen collaborations with PM Entertainment producers Richard Pepin and Joseph Merhi, Randall delivers an off-his-meds performance that’s a tour de force of, well, something. I know this much: I love his commitment. He tears into the material like an unneutered puppy to any stuffed toy concealing a squeaker.

Nearly matching his intensity is Richard Dry, 25% of the beleaguered victim pool. Resembling third runner-up in a Lewis Skolnick lookalike contest, Dry boasts a voice in the David Schwimmer octave (minus the timing) as he plays agitation and hysteria like a Juilliard monologue (minus the practice).

Hollowgate deserves status as a Halloween perennial specifically because of its shoddiness and a beguiling, complete misread of human behavior. For those who paid attention, Mark gets to use only four rented costumes, leaving eight others untouched. Legacy sequel, Mr. Dizazzo? A man can dream of things other than those submarine sandwiches. —Rod Lott

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Late one night, all-girl punk group Kill, Pussy, Kill! (exclamation certainly not mine) gets stranded on the road to the next gig. The band members are kidnapped by a would-be Good Samaritan (’90s TV heartthrob Richard Grieco), who tosses them into the basement of a former American solider now calling himself “the Mastermind,” a self-ascribed moniker as pretentious as it is mysterious.

Voiced by Megadeth founder and frontman Dave Mustaine (not that his speaking voice triggers such recognition) and played by Jed Rowen (That’s a Wrap) in physical form, the Mastermind is all kinds of fucked up after being captured, tortured and facially mutilated by the enemy in Pakistan on Halloween 2004.

Now, from the confines of his wheelchair and Darkman getup, he teaches lessons in sacrifice to clueless, carefree youth. In a progression of dingy cement rooms that look the same, the Mastermind forces Amber Stardust (Sara Malakul Lane, Beyond the Gates) and her fellow pawns through tasks and traps involving a motorized rifle, sarin gas and old-timey Oscar winner Margaret O’Brien (Meet Me in St. Louis), presumably because Marcus Welby, M.D. episode royalties ain’t what they used to be.

With Halloween Pussy Trap Kill! Kill!, prolific writer and director Jared Cohn (Street Survivors: The True Story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash) takes the concept of Grand Guignol gamesmanship to new lows of attempted viewer engagement, so prepare to Saw some logs. When the sight of Grieco (who’s actually good here) is ultimately more welcome than nudity, you might feel as imprisoned as the leads.

While Cohn’s idea isn’t original, it’s certainly ripe for exploitation. But also with better execution. A failed Rob Zombie imitation, Pussy Trap aims for an oil-and-water mix of heavy transgression and light comedy. I did laugh once, when trick-or-treaters complain about the candy offered at the Mastermind household, so Mrs. Mastermind (Kelly Erin Decker, Dracula in a Women’s Prison) blows them up with a live grenade. That’ll teach ’em.  —Rod Lott

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I truly liked the 1989 adaptation of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, not to mention the rocking theme song by the Ramones. And I kinda liked the 1992 sequel, even if it shouldn’t have been made, but I dug its early ’90s atmosphere, even it if was a broken fog machine with too much dry ice. I was not enthused by the 2019 remake, with good reason: It was a broad, cynical movie that played like I was trapped in a Spirit Halloween shop on the grounds of an abandoned CVS drugstore. Spooky!

And, in the undead spirit of nonliterary gravedigging, the new prequel, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, is more of the rotting same, with 50% more David Duchovny. Thank you? (It’s presented by the Paramount Players, a production company which sounds like an ensemble cast of stage and screen actors brought to you by the DuMont Television Network, but not as sociable or talented. Discuss…)

Set in 1969, the film follows Jud Crandall (originally played by Fred Gwynne, then John Lithgow, but here essayed by Jackson White with no Maine accent) and his girlfriend as they leave town to join the Peace Corps. That seems like a good deal until a bird flies into their car window — and, into the front, a growling, disheveled dog on the road.

Taking the dog to his former friend’s house who just came back from the war, where, apparently, a Miꞌkmaq demon possesses you and turns you into a clinically depressed jerk with a chronically bad attitude. Following a pro-war speech, the dog mauls the girlfriend furiously, or as much as the budget will allow.

Meanwhile, Jud’s friend Manny (Forrest Goodluck) — here they insert some Indigenous teachings that are half-baked, for the most part — finds his sister murdered, then resurrected, albeit zombified. In a series of flashbacks, we learn it’s due to an ancient curse. You should know the one. 

Either way, the last 15 minutes are so badly, lit I couldn’t tell what was happening. Sometimes, dead is better than an unlit film, even if it premieres on a streaming service?

Sure, it seems like these movies are part of some Injun sideshow, featuring stereotypical use of the Indigenous tribe; once again, the Miꞌkmaq tribe and their stories are used in a degrading way. But what about how Samantha Mathis, who I thought had been dead for years, is wasted in a nearly wordless role.

Sometimes, with Bloodlines … ah, never mind. —Louis Fowler

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Of the myriad horror franchises alive and kicking today, I consider the 13 Cameras trilogy as the Little Franchise That Could. It’s so under the radar, you may not have realized the 2015 original birthed a sequel, let alone a pair now. Heck, it’s so under the radar, it brushes shoulders with the fighter pilots in Top Gun: Maverick whose planes hug the desert floor to sneak up on bombing the bad guys’ uranium plant, if the speed and gravitational pull don’t kill them first.

And if those things don’t, well, you know the peeping, pernicious Slumlord sure will try. Yep, like all serial killers worth their salt, the sweaty, antisocial Gerald now carries a media-friendly moniker. He’s also now played by James Babson (Ghost Team One) as a reasonable facsimile of Neville Archambault, who died way too young last year (and to whose memory this unexpected second sequel is dedicated).

If 14 Cameras took the linear route in continuing 13’s story, but from a differing vantage point, 15 Cameras takes an off-ramp to explore our nation’s current obsessions with true crime and social media. Closely intertwined, both essentially operate as extensions of the voyeurism in which the Slumlord specializes.

Cool girl Sky (Angela Wong Carbone, 2022’s Resurrection) is utterly, completely fascinated with the Slumlord’s still-raging reign of terror, as depicted on a Netflix-style documentary series. A large part of her inability to look away is because her new residence was one of his hidey-hole homes of homicide. Sky’s slacker husband, Cam (Will Madden, The Beta Test), seems immune to her morbid thrill of association … until he finds a secret room the cops somehow missed, with Gerald’s surveillance system across every corner of the duplex still fully operational.

Suddenly able to peep on his sister-in-law (Hilty Bowen, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates), Cam — oh, the irony of that name! — is equally transfixed. And when two hot college girls move in next door? You bet he’s binge-watching that livestream.

With this setup, director Danny Madden (Beast Beast) and writer PJ McCabe (who starred in 13 Cameras) make us complicit in Cam’s crimes. As viewers, we know Cam’s eye-in-the-sky (and -shower) actions are wrong — in bold, italics and all caps — yet there we are, wanting to witness every flickering, low-res frame as his eyeballs. Guilty, your honor!

Rather than merely rehash, the film builds on the previous chapters with clever turns, committed performances, tangible suspense and cameos from 13’s surviving victims (Brianne Moncrief and Jim Cummings). 15 Cameras culminates in an über-gruesome driller-killer of a scene that’ll leave horror enthusiasts happy and hopeful for a 16 Cameras. Logicless nomenclature aside, I’ll be ready to move in, provided the creative powers that be find yet another, um, angle from which to gaze. –Rod Lott

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It’s hard to believe in David Gordon Green, let alone any follow-up to William Friedkin’s traumatizing classic. Unlike horror franchises with a gratuitously marketable villain — like Halloween, Friday the 13th or C.H.U.D. — The Exorcist has to make do with a concept. And you can’t exactly trademark demonic possession, hence the wave of exorcism films that erode the legacy of the original. (Hell, just Google “the exorcism of” and you’ll stumble upon so many uninspired films, you’ll question why it took until 2021 for someone to finally produce The Exorcism of God.)

Even though The Exorcist influenced a heap of bargain-bin fillers, you also could argue it’s responsible for iconic flicks like Hereditary, The Evil Dead and Amityville Karen. It makes sense The Exorcist series persists. What doesn’t make sense, however, is putting Green at the helm of its revival — even more so after the director proved his recent Halloween trilogy should’ve ended before we endured two half-baked sequels. Unfortunately, The Exorcist: Believer doesn’t rid Green of whatever curse haunts him.

Thirteen years after his wife’s death, Victor (Leslie Odom Jr., Glass Onion) struggles to raise his daughter, Angela (Lidya Jewett, Black Panther), in a secular household. At the same time, devout Baptists Miranda (Sugarland vocalist Jennifer Nettles) and Tony (Norbert Leo Butz, 2010’s Fair Play) prepare for the baptism of their daughter, Katherine (newcomer Olivia Marcum). The week before the ceremony, Angela and Katherine disappear for three days when they ditch school to try and commune with Angela’s mother. Once found, the two act out by wetting their beds, masturbating during a Sunday service and psychically levitating furniture. (You know, teen stuff.)

Notice anything missing from that premise? Maybe, I don’t know, an exorcist? Ann (Ann Dowd, Compliance), a would-be nun turned nurse, plays the new Damien Karras. She even has a compelling background, as the shame of an abortion before her confirmation sets her up for a redemption arc. Tragically, Green makes no conscious effort to explore this beyond rushed exposition dumps.

What the filmmaker misses — and will probably keep missing — is what most imitators fail to capture, too. The Exorcist doesn’t earn its staying power through the gratuitous and demonic possession, but with compelling characters. In Believer, Green and co. almost get it with Victor and Ann’s background, but they repeatedly avoid exploring people in favor of cheap thrills and frankly boring sequences. At the same time, they reaffirm the idea of faith (specifically, Christianity) so much, there’s no room for doubt to emerge as a meaningful theme.

Beyond revenue, it’s hard to imagine what gave Green (or anyone involved with this garbage fire) the confidence to move forward with Believer. It’s as if the demon of boring horror requels — let’s call it “Pasnoozu” — has grown more powerful.

Granted, Believer is so bad, it might make the rest of the trilogy better by extension. After all, when the bar’s so low it’s basically in hell, 2025’s The Exorcist: Deceiver can’t be worse, right? Right?! —Daniel Bokemper

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