leebutler Horror, Mystery, Netflix, Review, Thriller

Fear Street: Prom Queen (2025) – Down With Prom

Released: 23rd May
Seen: 24th May

In 2021, a horror film event happened that really showed the potential for what could be done with a streaming platform that wanted people to notice what it was releasing. Over the course of three weeks Netflix released the Fear Street Trilogy, a set of horror films inspired by the R.L. Stine books that all took place in different time periods, played around in different eras of the horror/slasher genre, and all connected to create a grand overarching story. It was dark, twisted, queer and just a ton of fun. I even named the entire trilogy as one of the best films of 2021, which is a choice I stand by because every single entry did something truly great within the slasher genre. They were films that understood what makes the genre fun and their success as an event pretty much guaranteed that there was going to be more. When they announced that we were going to get a new entry with the subtitle Prom Queen, this reviewer was excited at the prospect… never be excited about things, it leads to disappointment.

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leebutler Horror, Review

Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025) – Dead Perfect

Released: 15th May
Seen: 24th May

The Final Destination franchise has straight up ruined an entire generation of people. Don’t believe me, find a person born roughly around 1985-1990 and put them on a highway with a single log truck within their field of vision and I can guarantee you they will have a panic attack and pull the car off the road because they vividly remember the opening of the second movie. For years the Final Destination series was a Horror movie joyride, a franchise built around the idea of one person having a premonition of a major accident with a death toll in the hundreds and getting their friends and a few strangers out in time to avoid it. Naturally, death would take out those remaining victims in a very specific order using Rube Goldberg devices of death that would end in some truly insane sequences. For 5 films between 2000 and 2011, audiences were treated to a glorious wave of catastrophic carnage but it felt like that was going to be it. Sure there were talks about reviving the franchise for years but it never happened so it became a nostalgia property for a specific generation of people… and now thanks to Final Destination: Bloodlines, this campy little franchise is back for more and it’s truly glorious.

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leebutler Comedy, Horror, Mystery, Review

Heart Eyes (2025) – Love

Released: 13th February
Seen: 13th May

The Holiday Slasher is an idea that basically defined the boom period of the slasher genre back in the 80s, the idea being that a producer could just pick any random holiday and make a movie around it. This simple idea led us down the rabbit hole of My Bloody Valentine, Leprechaun, Silent Night Deadly Night, Thanksgiving and about a hundred other horror films of varying quality. Of course, lately there’s been a lot less of this kind of film, mostly because every holiday was already handled by a film from the 80s, so there’s not much new territory to tread on here. If you can’t do something new though, at least do something fun, and Heart Eyes is doing something very fun.

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leebutler Comedy, Drama, Horror, Review

The Ugly Stepsister (2025) – Cinder-hell-a

Released: 9th May
Seen: 11th May

The story of Cinderella is one that’s been told more times than anyone would be insane enough to count. It’s been animated, it’s been turned into multiple musicals, it’s been parodied and referenced and put in every position that the insane creative mind can consider. It’s even been the subject of many horror films over the years, which makes sense considering the Brothers Grimm iteration of the story is particularly brutal. Indeed several major versions of the story lean into some pretty violent imagery, the Into The Woods version of the story has the stepsisters cutting off their heels in a direct reference to the Brothers Grimm while the Revolting Rhymes version by Roald Dahl had the prince lopping off heads, so this is a story that’s perfect for a horror retelling. The Ugly Stepsister tackles the story from the genre of Body Horror and does a beautiful job at it.

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leebutler Action, Drama, Horror, Review, Thriller

Sinners (2025) – Hellishly Great

Released: 17th April
Seen: 10th May

Ryan Coogler is one of the most surprising directors in recent years. After breaking onto the scene with Fruitvale Station, Ryan was handed the keys to two important pieces of cinematic IP. The first was Creed, a spin-off from the Rocky franchise that absolutely made him into a mainstream figure, which he then was able to use to helm Black Panther and Wakanda Forever, cementing him as a masterful blockbuster director that should not be underestimated. Of course most of his work is in known IP, in franchises people previously knew but hadn’t yet been able to actually go for broke with something original… until now, thanks to his absolute barn burner of a horror film Sinners which should cement Ryan Coogler as one of the best directors of this generation.

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leebutler Horror, Review

Wolf Man (2025) – Hairy

Released: 16th January
Seen: 25th April

On May 22nd 2017, Universal announced that it was launching a new franchise that would feature all of their legendary movie monsters in a shared universe. It was intended to culminate in a grand team-up, The Avengers of horror to be combined into a little franchise known as the Dark Universe. Their inaugural movie was 2017’s The Mummy starring Tom Cruise, and it bombed so hard that the Dark Universe as a concept was dead by June 10th (the day after the release). No one wanted to touch this franchise, it had so royally fucked itself that the entire concept of these legendary horror creatures was gone… right up until someone thought to try again but without the gimmick of a team up, just make some good films with these characters.

The first one off the line was The Invisible Man in 2020, which is still one of the best horror films of the last decade. Its writer/director, Leigh Whannell, had managed to modernise the horror legend and make it something special so when the announcement came out that Leigh was going to try it again with Wolf Man, it was hard not to be excited. Now, this isn’t a failure on the level of The Mummy, but it’s not an undeniable legend like Invisible Man either.

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leebutler Horror, Review, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Companion (2025) – Hearty

Released: 30th January
Seen: 21st April

One of the best things in a good horror film is a twist, a moment when the narrative takes a sharp left-hand turn out of seemingly nowhere and takes the audience on a thrill ride. There’s been a few recent horror films that have been spectacular at this, things like Barbarian where it set itself up as a film about two people stuck in an Airbnb overnight and ended up being one of the most demented films of the year or The Perfection which took the concept of a ‘twist” and dialled it up to 11 to see just how many twists it could fit into 90 minutes without the audience losing its mind. Today’s film, Companion, is a terrifically twisted take on the romance film that takes a few big swings and mostly makes them work.

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leebutler Horror, Review

Popeye The Slayer Man (2025) – It Is What It Is

Released: 21st March
Seen: 20th April

Over the last few years, a trend has been getting more common, namely that major well well-known works are entering the public domain, meaning that anyone can use them without a problem. For a long time, nothing was entering the public domain thanks to a certain set of laws being adjusted, but now major characters are turning up in the communal toy chest that we can all reach into at any time. What has also become something of a tradition is that people making low-budget horror films have been grabbing these new toys, slathering them with blood and using them to fill digital shelves with their low-budget fare. Most of these haven’t been great (Blood & Honey and The Mouse Trap both ended up on my worst film lists for their respective years) and there’s been some that show improvement (Blood & Honey 2 is still a genuinely fun time) but we’ve yet to have one that just got the joke right off the bat and made something that was enjoyable… until someone ate their spinach and presented us with Popeye The Slayer Man.

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leebutler Horror, Review, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Alien: Romulus (2024) – Shocker

Released: 16th August 2024
Seen: 9th February 2025

Alien Romulus Info

2017 is the last year that we had a new instalment of the Alien franchise, a film that made about 250 million worldwide but didn’t get the best critical reception. It still made money and still had its fans (I counted myself among them at the time of its release) so it was almost inevitable that we would get another sequel where another group of people would happen upon a xenomorph colony and get their shit fucked up by the iconic acid-blooded creatures. Sure enough last year we got such a film with Alien: Romulus, the 7th entry in the long-running franchise which dared to ask the question “What if a bunch of people found the original ship from Alien and there were still aliens on it who would like to face fuck them all to death?”.., an important question that the film deftly answers.

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leebutler Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Review

Nosferatu (2025) – A Symphony Of Brilliance

Released: 1st January
Seen: 3rd February

The 1922 film Nosferatu: A Symphony Of Horror feels like some kind of miracle, namely that we still have access to the film at all. Made in Germany as an unofficial adaptation of the Dracula novel, the original film was the subject of a copyright lawsuit brought on by Bram Stroker’s widow and all copies were supposed to be destroyed by fire. Somehow, a few copies of the film managed to survive and would soon be circulated around the world where it would become not only a cinematic classic but one of the most influential horror films of all time. People have referenced Nosferatu for almost a century now, the infamous shot of Count Orlock’s shadow against the wall with his fingers stretched out alone has been copied by more films than one would dare count and so many vampire films have copied the visual appearance of Count Orlok to some degree. It’s a film that has influenced many and even been the subject of a few remakes, including this remake by Robert Eggers which manages to take the classic material and elevate it in a way only Eggers can.

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