leebutler Horror, Netflix, Review, Thriller

Thrash (2026) – Fishy

Released: 10th April
Seen: 16th April

In 1975 Steven Spielberg changed the world of cinema forever by introducing the world to a shark named Bruce in the movie Jaws. Jaws was the original summer blockbuster, proving that action spectacle done well can be a massive hit at the box office. It’s also the quintessential shark movie, laying a blueprint for all other movies about sharks that would inevitably follow over the years. Shark movies are kind of ubiquitous at this point, every year there’s at least a couple and they can range from being surprisingly good to absolute dog shit, from serious to goofy. Then you get a film like Thrash which seems to be trying to see just how many kinds of shark movie it can copy during its runtime but just ends up making for a film that’s at best just kind of OK.

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leebutler Horror, Review

Primate (2026) – Monkey Business

Released: 22nd January
Seen: 14th April

On Feb 16th 2009, a chimpanzee named Travis mauled a woman. Travis was owned by Sandra Herald and on this day he was acting oddly, including stealing Sandra’s car keys and refusing to stay inside the house. Sandra asked her friend Charla to help get Travis inside, using his favourite toy as bait to try and lure him… Travis would end up disfiguring Charla, tearing off her face, destroying limbs and leaving her blind for life. He would be shot 4 times by police officers and still somehow had the strength to walk to his enclosure where he died. Charla would need extensive surgery, including a face transplant but she is still currently alive. This event really was a moment where a lot of people realised that chimpanzees could be incredibly violent and do a lot of damage to the human body… naturally this means a horror movie was kind of inevitable and damn, Primate is brutal in the exact way you would kind of want a movie like this to be (and yes, we can enjoy a film that does a fictional take on a real horror like the one that I just described, if we couldn’t then we just couldn’t enjoy films in general)

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leebutler Horror, Review, Sci-Fi, Thriller

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026) – Bonkers

Released: 15th January
Seen: 1st April

28 Years Later was genuinely one of the best additions to the zombie movie genre in recent years, a visual treat filled with some of the most purely horrifying imagery. It was an absolutely great entry into the 28 Days Later franchise that promised to be the start of its own little trilogy, continuing the post-apocalyptic story by pushing it into a bold new direction. Well, if 28 Years Later was this franchise swinging for the fences, then 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple loads the franchise into a catapult and throws it over the fences with absolute fucking glee while doing so.

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leebutler Horror, Review, Thriller

Twisted (2026) – Uninspired

Released: 6th February
Seen: 1st April

The label Torture Porn was first used around 2006 when it was applied to films like Saw, Hostel and Wolf Creek. It was an easy way to describe some of the more extreme horror-slasher films of the era that almost revelled in how much gore they could get away with showing. They were some of the most extreme films in the genre that were also major hits in the mainstream cinemas and kind of opened a floodgate that we’re still dealing with. One of the people whose films first got this label, who really just seems to have embraced it in the years since, is the director of Saw 2-4 Darren Lynn Bousman, who used to be really good at making these films… but sadly, Twisted is far from his best work.

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leebutler Documentary, Review

1000 Women In Horror (2026) – Edifying

Released: 20th March
Seen: 29th March

Nowadays, it feels like talking about representation in the media is a touchy subject. Not because we aren’t doing enough (we’re not) or because the representation isn’t good (it could be better but we’re working on it) but because even talking about how cinema can represent a minority group of any form tends to make the morons who think DEI is a bad thing lose their fucking minds. Those morons are probably the ones who need the education that could be provided by a film like 1000 Women In Horror but they’re also the least likely to see it which is a shame because it’s quite good.

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leebutler Documentary, Review

I’m Chevy Chase And You’re Not (2026) – LIVE

Released: 1st January
Seen: 28th March

There are some things in life that are just undeniably true. The sky is blue, water is wet, Chevy Chase is a massive asshole. These things are facts that one cannot reasonably argue with anyone. That last one is a truth that people have really known for over 50 years, since his first appearance on TV the easy way to describe Chevy has been “Asshole”, for a period of time you might even put the word “Lovable” before “Asshole” but the general consensus has always been that Chevy Chase is an asshole… but what if there was more to him than just being a legendary entertainment asshole? Well, that’s what the documentary I’m Chevy Chase And You’re Not hopes to prove… if only its main subject would stop getting in the way.

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leebutler Horror, Review

The Strangers: Chapter 3 (2026) – Zzzzz

Released: 5th February
Seen: 28th March

When I tried to watch the movie I plan on reviewing today, I decided to watch it using my Chromecast on my TV. I have one of those Chromecasts that uses apps so I can just open up the AppleTV app and watch anything I’d bought on iTunes on my TV, it’s very handy. So, I rented The Strangers: Chapter 3 and started to try and watch it and on no less than 4 occasions during the movie, the video stopped and the Chromecast proclaimed there was an error and it needed to stop… I should’ve taken that as an omen, the Chromecast was trying to protect me from absolute garbage but nonetheless I persisted.

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leebutler Editorial

Best Performances of 2025

Every year, I try my best to put together a list of the 20 best performances of the year, though last year I was only able to make a 10-person list due to personal reasons. This year, I more than made up for it with a 20-person list of performances that were the best of the year. Now, as usua,l I wish to bring up that “Best” is a marketing term which really just means “Shit that I liked a lot”, these aren’t going to be the award winners or things that might be considered the height of the craft but they are the most fun, interesting or jaw dropping performances of the year that I just couldn’t stop thinking about. Of course, every list needs some honourable mentions, so here’s mine with no explanations for why they’re here (Ask nicely and maybe I’ll explain them… or not)

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leebutler Horror, Review

Silent Night, Deadly Night (2025) – Gifted

Released: 14th August
Seen: 11th December

In 1984, Silent Night Deadly Night was released right at the height of the slasher boom of the 80s. It was made pretty much for the same reason a lot of horror films were made then, namely “Oh Halloween was popular, so pick a holiday and stick a killer on that date and we can print money” and sure enough they made a silly little horror film for just under a million dollars and expected it to do good business and that was that. What happened instead was that it became one of the biggest controversies of that era, the poster sparked massive protests, and critics tore the film to shreds for the crime of making Santa Claus a murderer. The film was pulled from cinemas due to those protests and in that moment, the protestors inadvertently gave Silent Night Deadly Night a place in horror infamy, which in turn resulted in the franchise becoming a cult hit. It would end up getting four sequels, one of which gave us the legendary “GARBAGE DAY” clip that was a hot meme for a while, and the film was remade back in 2012 because every slasher film got a remake in that era. Now once more it’s time for them to throw an axe in Santa’s hand and see what he does… and this time, it’s actually pretty good!

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leebutler Horror, Review, Thriller

Influencers (2025) – Like

Released: 13th December
Seen: 12th December

In 2023, Shudder released Influencer which was immediately a critical hit and got pretty good viewership numbers, at least good enough to warrant making a sequel. Now, at the time I was one of the few who didn’t love the film, I thought it had good ideas but I wasn’t a fan of the execution. Upon a recent rewatch I’ve slightly changed my mind, mostly because the central performance of the character CW grew on me. It still felt a little bit lackluster to me, but it moved to just being generally good so I was hopeful about the sequel… and sure enough, Influencers turned out to be absolutely brilliant.

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