We have a fun question for you: Who did it better?

Did you ever notice how similar the 1992 poster for Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive is to Wes Craven’s Scream that came out in 1996? They aren’t identical, but they could be considered spiritual sisters.

Not much is known about the Dead Alive poster. It appears to have its lead actress, Diana Peñalver, front and center with eyes wide open and mouth agape. It was a shocking image for a one-sheet at the time, but it was fitting for the film, which used over 300 liters of fake blood in the final scene.

Dead Alive was also controversial. In the UK and Australia, it was shown in its entire 104-minute run. But it had to be cut down to 94 minutes when it hit the German and American markets. Originally titled Braindead, it was renamed Dead Alive in those countries.

As for the Scream poster, we know it’s Drew Barrymore‘s face; she also has her mouth agape and her eyes wide open like Peñalver‘s.

In a classic on-theme misdirect, Barrymore appears to have a major role in Scream, given how prominent she is in the poster. In reality, she is only onscreen for 13 minutes.

Scream’s photo was taken by an unknown photographer. It doesn’t capture Dead Alive’s comedy element, but Scream wasn’t exactly a straight comedy. Its humor was more in the meta references.

It’s happening.

Indie horror fans have a new killer obsession—Axes and Os, the wildly original Valentine-themed slasher that blends classic stalk-and-slash thrills with a monstrous creature-feature surprise. The film is now streaming and delivering blood, laughs, and a brutal new horror icon.

Love Hurts — Literally

Set during a chaotic Galentine’s getaway, Axes and Os follows four young women who escape to a quiet small town for a weekend of romance, friendship, and fun—only to find themselves hunted by the legendary Valentine’s Day Ax Killer, Luther Dremel.

But this isn’t just another masked slasher story. When one of the girls undergoes a shocking transformation, the hunted becomes the hunter, and a brutal showdown erupts that turns the holiday of love into a full-on survival nightmare—a literal fight to the death. 

A Cast Packed With Genre Favorites and Rising Stars

Axes and Os features horror icon Jamie Bernadette alongside rising star Cass Huckabay, who won two Best Actress awards during the film’s festival run. Madison M. Bowman and Sara Wimmer round out the ensemble, delivering both laughs and scares designed to appeal to a wide range of genre fans. Brandon Krum brings terrifying intensity as the relentless Axeman, Luther Dremel.

A Fresh Spin on Slasher Tradition

While Axes and Os pays tribute to classic slashers, it flips the formula with a creature-feature twist that sets it apart from typical holiday horror fare. Think traditional masked killer meets monstrous transformation—romance colliding with rage, friendship colliding with fear. The film blends humor, gore, and heart, striking a tone somewhere between Ready or Not, The Final Girls, and classic ’80s slashers—while still delivering modern indie edge.

A Festival Darling With 11 Award Wins

During its festival run, Axes and Os quickly became a standout on the indie horror circuit, bringing home 11 awards, including six Best Feature Film wins, three Best Director awards, and two Best Actress awards for Cass Huckabay. Notable wins include The Freak Show horror film festival, Spooky Empire Horror Film Festival, and the Nashville horror film festival. 

The film’s mix of genre-bending horror, strong performances, and crowd-pleasing tone earned praise from festival juries and audiences alike, helping build early buzz ahead of its streaming release.

Why Horror Fans Should Care

Holiday slashers are having a moment again, but Axes and Os brings something rare: a true genre mashup with a female-driven cast, festival pedigree, and a killer premise that doesn’t play it safe.

With festival awards, strong early audience reactions, and a bold creature-driven finale, Axes and Os is poised to become a cult favorite for Valentine’s Day horror marathons.

Now Streaming

Axes and Os is now available to stream on Prime Video and Screamify

Love is in the air. So is the blood.

Four females on a Galentine’s weekend are hunted by legendary ax murderer LutherDremel, until one female turns out to be something otherworldly and battles the iconic axeman.

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On December 17, 2025, Vertical Entertainment unveiled the first trailer for Dracula: A Love Tale (or simply Dracula), Luc Besson’s sweeping new take on Bram Stoker’s immortal vampire, set to arrive in theaters February 6, 2026. Starring Caleb Landry Jones as Dracula, Christoph Waltz as a mysterious priest, and Zoë Bleu in the dual role of Elisabeta and Mina Murray, the film positions itself less as a creature feature and more as a centuries-spanning romance steeped in blood, longing, and obsession.

With its origins set against the brutal backdrop of 15th-century Wallachia, Prince Vladimir returns from battle to find his wife Elisabeta dead. In his anguish, he renounces God — a defiance that seals his fate. For more than 400 years, he searches for the reincarnation of the woman he lost, drifting through eras and cities while quietly shaping the world around him to bring her back to him. An ancient order follows in his wake, intent on ending his curse and shielding Mina once they recognize her connection to him. But the heart of the story remains Dracula himself; not as a conqueror or predator, but as a man sustained by love, driven by devotion so profound it refuses to die, no matter how many centuries pass.

Luc Besson has been clear that this approach is intentional. In an interview earlier this year, the director described Dracula as, at its core, a love story that history, and cinema, have long reframed as horror. According to Besson, the novel’s emphasis on blood and monstrosity overshadowed what he sees as its romantic tragedy. The trailer fully embraces that philosophy, favoring lowlit interiors, lingering glances, and mournful narration over outright scares.

Visually, Dracula: A Love Tale bears Besson’s unmistakable signature. Lavish costumes, stylized violence, and operatic compositions recall the heightened worlds of Léon: The Professional (1994), The Fifth Element (1997), and Lucy (2014). The imagery leans into theatricality in a way that feels deliberately romantic, using light, shadow, and religious iconography to amplify longing, devotion, and emotional excess.

Casting Caleb Landry Jones as Dracula may be the film’s boldest and most intriguing choice. Known for his intense, often unsettling performances in Get Out (2017), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), The Florida Project (2017), and his Cannes-winning turn in Nitram (2021), Jones brings a volatile emotionality that feels well suited to Besson’s vision of a romantic antihero. This marks the second collaboration between Besson and Jones following Dogman (2023).

Christoph Waltz adds immediate gravitas to the film. With two Academy Awards and a career defined by morally complex authority figures — from Inglourious Basterds (2009) to Django Unchained (2012) — his presence looms large over the trailer. His casting feels especially notable given his recent appearance in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (2025), placing him at the center of a renewed wave of prestige gothic book-to-film adaptations.

Zoë Bleu, portraying both Elisabeta and Mina Murray, serves as the emotional axis of the story. While her previous work has largely flown under the mainstream radar, the dual role positions her as both memory and destiny — the past Dracula cannot let go of and the future that may damn or redeem him.

What may surprise longtime Dracula and vampire fans is just how confidently the film leans into romance. There are flashes of blood and violence, but the emphasis is unmistakably emotional rather than horrific. This is not a story about heroes hunting a monster; it’s about a monster who refuses to stop loving, even when love itself becomes the curse.

And honestly, that feels perfectly timed. In an era where AMC’s Interview with the Vampire (2022) has proven just how powerful — and devastating — romantic vampire storytelling can be, Dracula feels less like a departure from the genre and more like a continuation of its evolution. Audiences are ready for vampires who ache, yearn, and love fiercely, and Besson’s film appears eager to meet that hunger head-on.

One thing is certain: this is not the Dracula we’ve seen before — and if the trailer is any indication, Luc Besson seems determined to make us fall in love with him.

Watch the trailer below!