Movie Reviews

Review: ‘Unhuman’, A Blumhouse After School Special

Published

4 years ago

May 31, 2022

As the newest film in an eight-picture tv-movie partnership between EPIX and Blumhouse Television, Unhuman proudly opens with a title card claiming it a “Blumhouse Afterschool Special”. The film proudly leans in to this special descriptor, tossing in a teen morality tale that makes Unhuman more than just your typical zombie fare.

Unhuman follows a group of students on a high school field trip gone horrifically awry. Their bus is derailed en route and the scrappy blend of misfits and popular kids must set their differences aside to band together against a growing gang of unhuman savages.

At first glance, the film seems to be set in the late 90s. But then someone pulls out an iPhone and you realize fashion is cyclical and the whole setting of the film kind of record-scratches while you realize you’re just an elder millennial making wild assumptions.

Starring Brianne Tju (I Know What You Did Last Summer), Benjamin Wadsworth (Your Honor), Uriah Shelton (Freaky), and Ali Gallo (The Sex Lives of College Girls), Unhuman shows the stereotypical teen archetypes we’re well familiar with. The colors and pieces used in the costume design make their personalities and roles immediately recognizable. It’s The Breakfast Club for Gen Z teens who like a bit of blood in their coming-of-age comedies.

Unhuman is a teen scream for the modern age. With themes that touch on bullying, the true value and heartbreak of friendship, and toxic entitlement, the Afterschool Special descriptor actually works well here. It addresses the more predictable elephant in the room and adds a bit of a satirical element.

Directed by Marcus Dunstan (The Collector trilogy) and written by Dunstan and Patrick Melton (the writing duo behind Feast and Saw IV through VI), the teen horror treads familiar ground, but allows it to derail itself and – in doing so – becomes a more interesting film that offers a deeper conversation.

Dunstan and Melton really focus on the bullying element as a learned lesson. But – more importantly – they address the lasting long term effects of bullying, and how this can manifest in even more dangerous ways.

There is a great deal of hope and heart in the film. With a final voiceover that feels straight out of a John Hughes film, Unhuman finds the friends we made along the way. It opens itself up to the complexities of personality; who we think we are and who we try to be, and how that doesn’t always line up with how we present ourselves to others.

Like any good teen-driven story, Unhuman has an optimistic core that leads the way to self-discovery. Personal assessments are guided by violent acts, and acceptance is born from the wreckage.

The anti-bullying message does get a bit muddled by the numerous (successful) attempts to humanize the bullies, but it adds an empathetic and surprisingly modern element to Unhuman that goes beyond the stock stereotypes that can be found in some 80s horror. Parts of it can feel very kumbaya-around-the-campfire, but let’s be honest, in a world that can be dark and isolating, it’s kind of nice to see that glow.

Tonally, it’s not quite as strong as Dunstan’s other work. But as an afterschool special, Unhuman hits its teen target. It’s a cheeky, bloody brawl with a stylized punch. Teen horror fans deserve that kind of easily accessible mayhem.

Unhuman will be available On Digital June 3 on Paramount Home Entertainment. Stay tuned for my interview with co-writer and director Marcus Dunstan.

Unhuman

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Movie Reviews

Self Driver Runs Out of Road

Published

20 hours ago

May 12, 2026

Luna Gray

Every few years someone makes a movie where a desperate person takes the money and watches his conscience become negotiable. I am always there for it. Cheap Thrills. Would You Rather. The whole subgenre of moral erosion for cash that does not have a name but absolutely should. Self Driver walks directly into that territory and for the first half of its runtime, it delivers.

Nathanael Chadwick plays D, a cab driver trying to keep his head above water, who gets recruited onto a mysterious new rideshare app that promises fast money and asks for increasingly terrible things in return.

Writer-director Michael Pierro shot this on cellphones with a skeleton crew. That constraint should work against the film. For the first act, it does not. Chadwick earns your sympathy without doing anything obvious to ask for it, and Pierro keeps things tense enough that the premise does exactly what it is supposed to do.

Then the psychedelic angle shows up.

I want to be fair about this. I understand the intention. But it lands the way a plot fix lands. You feel the seam. By the halfway point the script has accumulated a lot of threads, and the psychedelic detour is where those threads stop being pulled. They do not resolve. They just stop mattering.

That is the consistent frustration with Self Driver. It is not short on ideas. It is short on follow-through. Almost every interesting thing Pierro introduces gets picked up, examined, and set back down before it earns its place in the film. The bones of something genuinely great are visible throughout. The second half just never shows up to finish the job.

Chadwick won Best Actor at Grimmfest for this role, and it is not hard to understand why. He is doing real work here. He makes D worth following even when the film is not fully following through on its own premise. That is harder than it looks.

Self Driver is out now on UK digital via GrimmVision. At 2.5 out of 5, it is worth your time if you have patience for low-budget genre work and can make peace with a film that is better than it finishes. Pierro has instincts. Watch for his next one.

Indie Horror

Panic Fest 2026 Review: ‘Frogman Returns’ Is A Thrilling Sequel That Goes For The Croak!

Published

6 days ago

May 6, 2026

Jacob Davison

Horror as a genre has a greater propensity for sequels than almost anything else in the world of cinema. There have been scores of slasher sequels from the likes of Friday The 13th to A Nightmare on Elm Street to even sequels to seemingly stand-alone affairs like The Exorcist and The Blair Witch Project. While some may be seen as cash grabs or of diminishing returns, it cannot be argued that there have been some phenomenal sequels to horror films such as Aliens and Evil Dead 2 among many others. So imagine my pleasant surprise to see that 2023’s Frogman is back in the aptly named Frogman Returns!

The sequel picks up not too long after the original’s cryptid catastrophe. The Loveland, Ohio Frogman and surrounding cult that was exposed by amateur filmmaker Dallas (Nathan Tymoshuk) has since disappeared and the terror of the magic wand wielding amphibian seemingly ended. Having lost his friend Scotty (Benny Barrett) and a falling out with Amy (Chelsey Grant), Dallas has found a new life heading a cryptid reality web show. But when strange forces call him and his team back to Loveland, will he have to face the Frogman for a final battle?

I was a big fan of the original Frogman upon release, and was interested in seeing where director Anthony Cousins was going to take the story. I’m happy to report that he did the best kind of thing you can do for a sequel like this: made it weirder and wilder! Not only is there Frogman, but a number of classic cryptids have encounters as the genie is out of the bottle and Dallas irrevocably proved that there are truly monsters among us. There is a pretty memorable scene involving a run-in with the living pants-like Fresno Nightcrawler creature that establishes what a brave and bizarre new world things have become since the previous film. Monsters are basically a fact of life now. So, of course, people are finding ways to profit from it.

Dallas’ arc continues from the first film and I do like how he carries the weight and guilt of Scotty’s disappearance and his disconnection with Amy. There are real consequences to the ways things went wrong previously and Dallas is haunted by the consequences of his obsession. Now he attempts to make things right in some form as his adventures bring him back to where it all began. And for those here for Frogman… without spoiling too much, everyone’s favorite amphibious cryptid does make a triumphant return. With a neon explosive finale that left me craving even more.

Frogman Returns does a fine job of documenting the new adventure in the traditional found footage format, with the foundation of Dallas’ new reality web show keeping the cameras rolling. Combining that with ample and memorable practical fx for all manner of beasts and gore to see. Exploding heads, zapped limbs, and so much more get captured on camera in all their visceral glory.

Overall, if you were a fan of the first Frogman, then Frogman Returns is a more than worthwhile follow up to digest.

Indie Horror

Panic Fest 2026 Review: ‘Creature Of The Pines’ Is An Interesting Found Footage Horror That Walks A Beaten Path

Published

1 week ago

May 5, 2026

Jacob Davison

There are certain parts of the world that have an inherent evil or cursed nature to them. The Bermuda Triangle, where so many ships have vanished in its waters. Death Valley, where many have met their end in the unforgiving desert. And then there’s The Pine Barrens of New Jersey. A woodland infamous for the cryptid named The Jersey Devil.

While The Jersey Devil may be the mascot or face of sorts for the area, there are other dangers within those woods. Specifically, an area known as Pine Hollow. Infamous for numerous disappearances of local and hikers. While some attribute it to natural hazards, others say the source of these incidents may be tied to folklore. An ancient mimic of indigenous legend that targets those wandering its woods. After a trio of hikers disappear and leaves only one shell shocked survivor and witness wandering the wilderness, a documentary crew attempts to clarify between fact and fiction… only to find themselves subject to their own torments.

Creature Of The Pines is a decent found footage/mockumentary endeavor, and I’m always a sucker for that kind of framing. I will also give points for taking an original approach on the region rather than using a more well known cryptid or monster. Instead, crafting their own beast with the shapeshifting demon of indigenous lore. It did make it more interesting than relying on a more infamous antagonist, allowing the movie to make up its own rules and history behind the titular creature.

Unfortunately, the story does fall into a lot of the cliches of the sub-genre as well. Lots of scenes building up strange sounds coming form the woods leading to some shaky cam segments as a character is dragged off by an unseen force and such. The talking heads portions of the mockumentary featured some decent actors and subjects that kept things fairly fresh. Especially the former forest ranger who discussed the dark and terrible history of Pine Hollow.

Even still, the third act was kind of a mixed bag with the final confrontation and reveal of the horror. Ambiguity tends to work better in found footage for a reason, sometimes its better to leave the evil up to the imagination. There’s also a twist to the ending that felt a bit obvious considering the build up.

But, if you’re a big fan of found footage and mockumentary horror like I am, (especially for New England based horror) then Creature Of The Pines is worth at least a watch.