In Justin Benson and Aaron Morehead’s first film, Resolution, two friends retreat from society to an isolated rental property so one of them can get sober. Things don’t go as planned. Now, a decade later, make the duo sisters and you have the synopsis for Jack Dignan’s Puzzle Box, an Australian found-footage horror pic.

Kait (Kaitlyn Boyé, 2019’s The Furies) is the addict brought to a beautiful, multistoried home in the middle of the woods by her sis, Olivia (Laneikka Denne in her feature debut). Olivia camcords the events to document Kait’s rehabilitation.

Once darkness engulfs the sky, the house inexplicably begins to “glitch,” as stairways extend and doors lead to new hallways and unexpected rooms, like a B&B Backrooms. Seconds before the siblings are separated, Kait takes possession of the camera. Turning on its night-vision mode, she attempts to escape from this labyrinthian nightmare, only to be chased at every turn by some bleeding, shrieking woman (Cassandre Girard, Dignan’s After She Died).

Initially, that’s a neat bit of freakery; after 10 straight minutes of it, not so much. Following a slight breather, Puzzle Box returns to it yet again. In essence, Dignan not only rides that one-trick pony like a thoroughbred, but toward the Triple Crown. Put aside any hopes of the movie transcending its found-footageness. It follows the template established in 1999 by those three nosy youngsters in Burkittsville, to-the-camera confessional included. As the house’s hosts’ notes taunt, enjoy your stay! —Rod Lott

Father doesn’t know best in The Beast Within. That’s because every full moon, he turns into a werewolf, requiring him to be chained in the British wilderness to keep his loved ones safe and sound.

Eternals’ Kit Harington headlines as Noah, the current owner of the gosh-darned generational curse. “I am a coward and I am a monster,” he says to his 10-year-old daughter, Willow (Caoilinn Springall, Stopmotion), who’s begun to suspect as much anyway. Kids these days be smart.

With Within, documentarian Alexander J. Farrell (Making a Killing) makes a move to fictional features. This first attempt is inauspicious, however, being laboriously paced and predictable; regarding the latter, when the script introduces Willow as suffering from life-or-death breathing issues, you know Farrell’s doing so to establish Chekov’s oxygen tank. With intended scares overly dependent on either the eye-through-keyhole variety or the just-a-dream conceit, the movie plays too conventionally.

And not conventionally enough, where the werewolf is concerned: rarely spotted outside of shadows and, when he is, clearly built in cash-deficient CGI that belies the beauty of the West Yorkshire forest. Either way, we’re left wanting more. Like the scene with the splinter plunged underneath one’s fingernail — at least that, we feel.

While The Beast Within is not a remake of 1982’s same-named raping cicada movie, maybe it should be? —Rod Lott

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Sung to the tune of “The Muffin Man”:

Do you know the pumpkin man
The pumpkin man, the pumpkin man
Oh, do you know the pumpkin man
In Jack-O, he’s very lame

Because good Christians in the olden times don’t cotton to sorcerers, a man by the last name of Kelly kills a warlock. To get revenge, that wizard, played by (visibly deteriorated stock footage of) John Carradine, conjures up a scythe-swingin’ man with an oversized pumpkin for a noggin. Call him Jack-O if you like, even though the movie Jack-O never does.

As Halloween nears in modern-day Florida, Jack-O (née Lantern) goes after a grade schooler in glasses named Sean (Ryan Latshaw, son of Jack-O director Steve Latshaw) because he’s the last of the Kelly clan. In the climactic scene, li’l Sean even goads his monstrous pursuer with, “Come and get me, pumpkin man!” Them’s fightin’ words, kid.

Meanwhile, babysitter Linnea Quigley takes a shower; Cameron Mitchell posthumously appears on TV via leftover footage; Sean’s ineffectual father (one-and-doner Gary Doles) turns his garage into a spookhouse; and Sean’s mom (Rebecca Wicks, Latshaw’s Biohazard: The Alien Force) forever looks like an unblinking deer caught in headlights. I dunno, maybe it’s just her perm.

It shouldn’t be hard to make a passable horror movie out of a gourd/guy hybrid, yet for about an hour and a half, Latshaw and his frequent producer, Fred Olen Ray, show you how soundly they failed. Their monster (Patrick Moran, Latshaw’s Dark Universe) looks cool, but — like the flick itself — barely bothers to move. —Rod Lott

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Whilst scouring for booze in the Catskills mansion they’ve rented for a birthday blowout, seven stupid collegians explore a basement full of astrological shit, including a — spoiler — deck of tarot cards. Haley (Harriet Slater, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) reads everyone’s fortunes. And I do mean everyone’s, which takes up a lot of time. 

Before long, the kids start to perish in ways their readings predicted, each carried out by the supernatural character on the card in question. For example, the birthday girl is the first to go, attic-laddered to death by The High Priestess. 

Tarot is the kind of dead-teenager movie that, 20 to 25 years ago, would have starred the likes of Chad Michael Murray and/or Rebecca Gayheart. However, the most recognizable face is this cast belongs to Jacob Batalon (Ned from Jon Watts’ Spider-Man trilogy), who essays one of the more annoying stoner characters the genre has seen this millennium. 

In today’s horror-film landscape, the concept is the true star. This one comes courtesy of Horrorscope, a forgotten (if ever known) 1992 paperback, but the source matters not with co-writers/co-directors Spencer Cohen and Anna Halberg squandering nearly any potential. Visually, the film looks drawn with only the darkest-colored crayons, so it’s difficult to discern what you’re seeing when it most counts: with the kills!

Among the death sequences, those featuring The Fool, The Hanged Man and The Magician emerge as the most notable almost by default, by virtue of at least getting a fair glimpse of the architects of these kids’ fates. (And you just know producers have a whole “Tarotverse” in mind with spin-offs spotlighting each villain.) Tarot is pedestrian at best, and it’s never best. —Rod Lott

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Much of the promotional material for A Return to Salem’s Lot features the caped, grotesque figure of Barlow, the head vampire from Tobe Hooper’s adaptation of the Stephen King novel ’Salem’s Lot. Fans of that 1979 TV miniseries will be disappointed to learn, however, that Barlow does not actually appear in the sequel, which strays pretty far from King’s source material.

Written and directed by Larry Cohen, creator of satirical horrors It’s Alive, Q: The Winged Serpent and The Stuff, among others, the film teases a few interesting ideas about the origins (and symbolism) of vampires in society, but never fully ties these concepts together.

The plot follows anthropologist Joe Weber (frequent Cohen collaborator Michael Moriarty), who must look after his troubled, foul-mouthed yuppie son, Jeremy (Ricky Addison Reed, in his only onscreen role). The father and son decide to restore a house left to Joe by his deceased Aunt Clara in the little town of Salem’s Lot, Maine.

They of course quickly learn that the townsfolk are all vampires, led by Judge Axel (Andrew Duggan), and they have a proposal for Joe: Study their ways and create a “Vampire Bible” to formally introduce the oldest race of creatures to the rest of the world. Joe appreciates the anthropological implications of this proposal, but isn’t sure about helping the bloodsuckers out.

Meanwhile, the vampire children of Salem’s Lot, primarily Amanda (a young Tara Reid), tempt Jeremy with a life of eternal youth, and a crusty Nazi hunter (cult director Samuel Fuller) comes snooping around town. Will Joe and Jeremy choose evil over good, or will they “do the right thing” and fight the vampires?

Ultimately, the film isn’t sure what the right thing is, and thus, neither is the audience, leaving viewers more confused than ponderous. On top of this, A Return to Salem’s Lot is neither scary nor funny, making it a rather tepid entry in Cohen’s otherwise outstanding body of work. —Christopher Shultz

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