Horror Report

Tag: horror

  • The Faces of Violations of Terms of Service

    The Faces of Violations of Terms of Service

    The infamous Faces of Death franchise is returning and already stirring controversy like the good ole days.


    The upcoming remake, directed by Daniel Goldhaber (Cam) and co-written with Isa Mazzei, is scheduled for theatrical release in 2026. The film reportedly stars Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery, Josie Totah, Charli XCX, and Jermaine Fowler. This modern reimagining shifts the premise into the internet age, centering on a moderator for a YouTube-like platform who stumbles across disturbing footage that blurs the line between staged horror and possible real-world violence.


    And then came the teaser.


    A grainy, black-and-white trailer surfaced online, featuring brief flashes of extreme and unsettling imagery, scenes involving violent deaths and brutal accidents, presented in a raw, almost documentary style. It was uploaded in a strange, low-key fashion rather than through an obvious official studio channel. Shortly after, YouTube removed it for violating its terms of service, most likely due to graphic content guidelines.
    Which, honestly, feels very on brand for Faces of Death.

    Now those showing the trailer are forced to blur the entire thing (they enjoy this too to drum up the bloodlust prior to the film release)


    This franchise has always lived in that uncomfortable space between taboo and curiosity. In the 1980s and 1990s, it wasn’t something you streamed. It wasn’t trending. It wasn’t algorithm-fed to you. It was whispered about. Passed around on VHS. Rented from questionable corners of video stores. Found at a friend’s house.


    And when you watched it… you weren’t sure what you were seeing.


    There are plenty of jokes about Gen X and early Millennials coming of age on Rotten.com or on Faces of Death tapes as teenagers. I remember an ex-girlfriend of mine tracking down a copy from some friends. We watched a portion of it, and it was appalling — surreal, nightmarish, deeply unsettling. We genuinely couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. We were dumb ’90s kids, and that uncertainty made it even worse.


    As we now know, much of the original footage was staged — though some real archival material was mixed in. That’s what made it so macabre. It wasn’t just gore. It was the ambiguity.


    Now, decades later, the franchise is stepping into the mainstream. But the mainstream doesn’t quite know what to do with it. The pulled YouTube trailer is proof of that friction. In the VHS era, controversy fueled mystique. Today, controversy gets flagged by community guidelines.


    Will the new film be banned in certain circles? Probably debated heavily? Absolutely. Will it be a blockbuster smash? Unlikely. But it may do something more interesting — it could usher a new generation into the cult mythology of Faces of Death.


    Or maybe we’re living in a time where reality already feels grim enough. Maybe the internet has made shock too accessible, too constant. Maybe we don’t need a fictionalized version anymore.
    Then again… maybe that discomfort is exactly the point.

  • Mike Flanagan midas touch: Exorcist gets another star

    Mike Flanagan midas touch: Exorcist gets another star

    We have the utmost faith in Mike Flanagan to elevate—and outright save—anything he touches, and now that includes The Exorcist franchise.

    We wish him well, and we fully expect something special.


    According to Deadline, another major star has joined the upcoming film from the acclaimed horror auteur. Academy Award nominee Diane Lane is the latest addition to the cast, joining previously announced stars Scarlett Johansson and Jacobi Jupe.


    There are details have been released regarding who Lane will be playing, though that’s hardly a surprise. The project is being kept tightly under wraps, which only adds to the intrigue surrounding Flanagan’s take on this legendary property. The plot has been hush hush but it is known he is bringing a new energy and story to the Exorcist universe as only he could.

  • Fortress was not a Christmas movie but its version of Santa was the scariest

    Fortress was not a Christmas movie but its version of Santa was the scariest

    It’s that Christmas movie season when we’re told about all the weird movies that are “Christmassy” but definitely not your normal holiday films. Things like Die Hard or, in our opinion, Batman Returns, which is probably the preeminent Christmas movie in my book.


    When it comes to scary Santa Clauses, there’s a number of different films out there that provide us with horror galore. We can look at Art the Clown when he’s dressed as Santa, or Silent Night, Deadly Night. But let’s put those aside for a moment. Let’s go back to 1985 to a movie called Fortress.


    Now, what really is eerie about the film is the main antagonist.. a villain that dresses up as Father Christmas. The mask is simple; it looks just like an evil, sadistic Santa, sort of like the Santa Claus that pushes Ralphie down with his foot in A Christmas Story. In this case, he’s not a mall Santa; he’s a highly criminal-minded, sadistic assailant who means harm to these children and the teacher.


    Fortress is a 1985 Australian thriller that became a bit of a cult classic, especially for those who remember it playing on HBO. While it wasn’t a box office giant, it carved out a niche among fans of offbeat thrillers. The film didn’t earn massive revenues, but it left a lasting impression with its eerie atmosphere and that unforgettable Santa villain. It’s got a lot of cheesy acting and effects, but there’s something still great about it if you’re lucky enough to watch it.


    In the end, that scary Santa Claus in Fortress probably goes down as, in our opinion, the scariest Santa in a film.. followed, of course, by that evil Santa in A Christmas Story who says Ralphie will shoot his eye out.

  • It was a Silent Night.. It was a deadly night for a movie called Silent Night Deadly night

    It was a Silent Night.. It was a deadly night for a movie called Silent Night Deadly night

    Picture it: November 1984.. Ronald Reagan just won re-election handily.. the nation was fearing a beat in the woods but raising the flag in patriotism…
    The chill is in the air.
    Christmas gifts are getting scooped up at those 1980s malls where the speakers are blasting 1980s music at a volume that feels illegal now.
    And right there, near the food court, near the arcade, you catch a glimpse of the movie times. Because maybe… just maybe… in the middle of the hustle, you’ll buy yourself a break. A breather. One big-screen, Hollywood-ish escape.

    In Cressona PA you see Prince and Purple rain.. but there is another one..

    Silent Night, Deadly Night.

    How bad could it be?

    You show up, ready for a cheesy seasonal slasher… and you find out you stand no chance. The movie’s getting pulled. Not “it’s selling out.” Not “we don’t have your showtime.” Pulled, as in: some theaters won’t run it, and the distributor starts backing away like it touched a hot stove.

    Because in 1984, people stood their moral ground… and this was a national argument.

    What makes it funny (in a dark way) is that today we live in an era where Christmas horror is practically its own aisle. We’ve got full-on gore carnivals, movies that treat the holidays like an excuse to paint the walls. Even Terrifier 3 was out here reminding everyone that December can be a bloodbath if a filmmaker wants it to be.

    So in 2025, Silent Night, Deadly Night almost looks… gentle. Like a troublemaker from a different generation.

    But in 1984? People didn’t see it as quaint. They saw it as a threat.

    When “Killer Santa” hit daytime TV

    A big part of this firestorm wasn’t even the movie itself but it was in big part, the marketing.

    TriStar ran TV spots that mashed up holiday cheer with the image of a Santa figure doing what Santa is not supposed to do—breaking in, weapon in hand, violence implied. And the big mistake? Those ads didn’t just run late at night for adults. They landed in daytime slots, when kids were watching.

    THIS was the ad that ill-fated the film:

    That’s the part people forget now: the outrage wasn’t abstract. It was parents seeing the commercial in the middle of normal life and concerned their child saw Santa with an axe.

    And then it became organized really fast.

    Variety reported protests in Milwaukee from a group calling itself Citizens Against Movie Madness, led by local mothers. The protests spread—New York, the Bronx, Brooklyn—signs and chants and that old-school civic energy that feels almost extinct today. The leader was Kathleen Eberhardt, then 32.

    Stations reacted too. According to reporting summarized in Vulture’s deep dive on the controversy, at least some TV outlets moved the commercials to late-night, and others yanked them altogether.

    Then the cultural heavyweight moment hit: Siskel and Ebert went after the movie hard on TV, and Gene Siskel aimed directly at the people behind it, calling the profits “blood money.”

    Suddenly, the controversy wasn’t a local protest story. It was national, loud, and embarrassing for a “respectable” distributor.

    We were even led to believe that a that a Lewisburg woman saw a TV spot for the movie during ‘afternoon cartoon hours.’ She didn’t recall the station.. sounds like an automatic urban legend to me.

    In 1980 a movie called CHRISTMAS EVIL featured an ax wielding Santa.. No outrage. But that is because the advertising campaign just was not there like it was for Silent Night Deadly Night..


    The other brutal truth: it started dropping at the box office

    Now here’s the other piece that matters, and it’s less romantic than the protest narrative:

    The movie also started slipping financially.

    Opening weekend, it pulled in $1,432,800 and played in 398 theaters.

    Second weekend? It dropped 45.4%..

    But it was also facing a huge problem: It was released the SAME WEEKEND as NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, a movie that was more widely accepted and not protested. It was just a child predator with knife fingers. Not Santa.

    TriStar publicly started wobbling right around then, talking about whether it would even be “commercially viable” to keep rolling it out.

    And once a studio starts speaking in that careful corporate language, you can feel the exit coming.

    The pullback was real enough that the Associated Press was describing it bluntly: TriStar was dropping the film from U.S. distribution after protests and poor early earnings.

    And one of the protest organizers, Kathleen Eberhardt with Citizens Against Movie Madness, celebrated the decision with the kind of quote that sounds like it belongs in a time capsule: “Wow. I think it’s great.”

    The irony: pulling it probably helped create the legend

    Here’s what I love about this story, even if the movie itself is… let’s be honest… not exactly Oscar bait.

    In 1984, people talked about it like it was the end of civilization. We already had Jason slashing through forests

    In 2025, it’s basically a campfire tale about a moral panic—an artifact from a time when Santa still had a kind of cultural protection around him, like you could get grounded just for disrespecting the concept.

    And the greatest irony? By pulling it, they may have cemented it.

    Because there’s a difference between a throwaway slasher and a forbidden slasher.

    If TriStar had just let it play, it might’ve come and gone like a hundred other low-budget horror flicks. But once it became “the movie they tried to stop,” it picked up that outlaw aura. People love a thing more when someone tells them they shouldn’t have it.

    And that’s exactly what happened over time.

    The film grew into a cult item, spawned sequels, and eventually inspired a remake in 2012 (titled Silent Night) and the newest 2025 incarnation..

    So 40 years after the chaos of the citizens against movie madness … angry moms … TV ads during cartoons (it that really even happened), SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT has become an annual Christmas much watch.. not because it is a great movie. But because it is just that bad.

  • Horror actually being recognized !? Weapons get some nods

    Horror actually being recognized !? Weapons get some nods

    In a year packed with big shiny titles like Wicked: For Good and all the usual awards bait, Zach Cregger’s WEAPONS quietly kept doing its thing… and now it just muscled its way into the Golden Globes conversation. The film landed two #GoldenGlobes nominations:

    • Cinematic & Box Office Achievement
    • Best Supporting Performance in a Motion Picture – Amy Madigan (Aunt Gladys)

    Not bad at all.

    Amy Madigan has been creeping up on every horror fan’s radar this year as a full-on horror icon, and now the Globes have stamped that in ink. She even said she was “incredibly moved” to be recognized for Aunt Gladys and for the film’s box office nod – calling it a testament to Zach Cregger’s vision and the whole team that built this terrifying character.

    Will it actually win? Who knows. But the fact that this twisted, grief-soaked horror movie about missing kids and one nightmare aunt is standing next to the “serious” films is unbelievable. Even if it walks away empty-handed, WEAPONS and Aunt Gladys are getting the attention they deserve.

  • Man Finds Tape, Faces of Death, and the New Age of Viral Horror

    Man Finds Tape, Faces of Death, and the New Age of Viral Horror

    Fangoria Magazine has an interview up right now with Peter Hall and Paul Gandersman, both involved with and creators of a shared found-footage horror film called Man Finds Tape. The Michael Gingold interview is pretty interesting on a few levels, especially if you’ve been watching the found-footage genre evolve since The Blair Witch Project.

    You should give it a read.

    People always say Blair Witch kicked things off, and sure, it definitely lit the fuse. But before that, we had Faces of Death being passed around like contraband in the ’90s. For better or worse, that was the “original” shared footage.. VHS tapes traded among teenagers who half-assumed it was all staged. Little did we realize there was some real footage mixed in with the fake.

    Disturbing when you think about it, right?

    Now we’ve moved from VHS to online, and the style has followed. Man Finds Tape is coming to theaters and digital platforms from Magnet Releasing and stars William Magnuson as Lucas, the operator of a YouTube channel called “Man Finds Tape.” The movie basically examines the way we share this stuff as a society, and how we consume found footage, viral clips, and disturbing imagery… it wraps that idea in an eerie mystery told through different formats.

    And honestly, that’s our real life now. We’re constantly finding things, posting them, and watching social media platforms race to either boost them or pull them down. As this is written, just last night in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a bus ran over a person, and yes, there was footage online, on a pretty big social site. The victim was thankfully blurred out, but the comments underneath were less than appealing, to put it mildly. So it’s not just “man finds tape” anymore; it’s everyone live-streaming horrors in real time.

    When something awful happens, our instinct now is to search. We look up the footage, the location, the angles, the aftermath. We want to know everything. I’m not sure what that says about us, but it’s definitely something horror is starting to chew on.

    Peter Hall told Fangoria there are a lot of rabbit holes on the internet, and they wanted to tell a story about someone exploring one of those viral rabbit holes. Paul Gandersman pointed out that for a long time, if you saw bizarre footage, you needed proof that it was real. Now it’s flipped: people automatically assume it’s fake, and you have to prove that it actually happened.

    With AI and all the new tools out there, that tracks. We’re much less willing to accept anything at face value. Show September 11th footage to some kids today with no context, and the first reaction might honestly be, “Is that AI?”

    The film itself sounds pretty interesting. The filmmakers said they worked from a fairly tight script, but there was room for improvisation. They gave the actors permission to find new dialogue or fresh moments in a scene, as long as what they were doing stayed within the structure of the movie. That’s actually pretty cool.. improv in a found-footage style can make the performances feel more natural, and it can open doors to character beats you’d never get in a locked-down script.

    The movie also leans heavily into religion. The filmmakers grew up around Catholicism, with some Judaism mixed in, and there’s a character who plays a reverend who actually grew up in an evangelical community in real life. That kind of background colors the whole atmosphere of the film and religious imagery mixed with found footage and internet horror is fertile ground.

    From the trailer alone, some of the imagery looks like it might be difficult for certain viewers. It leans into that “too real” feeling, where the production value is working against your comfort level by mimicking reality a little too closely. Viewer discretion is obviously advised. But it’s always interesting when horror goes beyond jump scares and actually comments on culture itself.

    The movie has yet to have a lot of user commentary but critics seem to really like it on Rotten Tomatoes.

    We have said before: horror is at its best when it digs deep into the moment we’re living in—our politics, our tech, our habits, and holds up a warped mirror. It lets the monster tell us something about ourselves.

    So in Man Finds Tape, who’s the monster? Whatever’s lurking on the recordings… or the people who keep hitting play?

  • Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 will be fine even if it is awful

    Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 will be fine even if it is awful

    Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 Is About to Chomp Zootopia 2

    Five Nights at Freddy’s Part 2, the sequel to the initial hit, is about to take down Zootopia 2 at the box office this weekend. If you look at the Rotten Tomatoes website, you’d never expect that to happen. Right now it’s sitting at one of the lowest critic scores we’ve ever seen ..just 12%. That’s it. That means the overwhelming majority of movie critics basically despise this film and think it’s a waste of time to watch and maybe even a waste of time to make.

    But this is a tale of two cities and two audiences. While critics hate it, people in general love it, with an 89% audience score from 500+ verified ratings. The original movie made about $297 million on a $20 million budget, and it’s expected that this sequel might actually do even better.

    Is it going to be Oscar-worthy material? Probably not. It might not even be the best movie you’ve ever seen. But it’s doing something critics haven’t really tapped into.

    For a long time, 80s and 90s nostalgia reigned supreme. That era is fading. People now can’t always relate to a time and place that’s long gone, but they can relate to a time when they were playing this game.. or when they were parents of kids who were playing it in the mid-2000s. That’s what we have here: an homage to new nostalgia, something different and unique to this generation of people growing up now, and to Millennials who are older and had kids who downloaded this game. Parents and kids alike enjoyed playing it.

    Remember from in the mid 2000 teens how many Five Nights at Freddy’s–themed birthday parties we saw? That’s the energy showing up at the box office now.

    What this really shows is how little critics matter anymore. There was a time when a movie poster could boast a perfect score with critics or a Roger Ebert quote on the back of the VHS and that meant everything. Those days are so far gone they’ve turned to dust. Now it’s word of mouth, social media, instant reviews, and live theater reactions that matter, and that’s what’s happening here.

    We haven’t seen Five Nights at Freddy’s Part 2 just yet. We will. And when we do, even if it’s the “worst movie of all time,” guess what?

    We will probably enjoy it.

  • This is a great Fangoria Kickstarter

    This is a great Fangoria Kickstarter

    Fangoria magazine is one of the preeminent horror publications and has been for so many years. It’s been the official record of horror movies, television, and pop culture for decades..

    So it was exciting to see that someone out there is running a Kickstarter campaign to preserve every issue, page by page, for posterity and historical purposes. That’s amazing.

    And by the way, we get no profit from this and have no motive for posting it beyond genuine appreciation for the magazine itself and what it has contributed to this corner of the entertainment world over the years.

    But it goes beyond Fangoria. We need to preserve more. Too many things get lost in the shuffle of online pop-culture representation, and we move so fast that the permanent record of what once was seems to vanish within seconds. Links go dead. Facts become blurry. Sources we once found are suddenly impossible to locate again.

    That’s what makes this Kickstarter—and others like it—so important. It preserves something that mattered, and it keeps that meaning alive long beyond our own existence on this earthly plane. So good luck to everyone involved. It’s a great idea, and everyone should be thrilled with the result if it all works out.

  • Looking forward to getting stuck in the backrooms in 2026

    Looking forward to getting stuck in the backrooms in 2026

    We’re really excited about the upcoming Backrooms movie, currently set for a 2026 release, even though we still don’t know too much about its development beyond the creative team involved.

    20-year-old director Kane Parsons is helming one of the most anticipated analog-horror adaptations ever — has announced that work on the Director’s Cut is officially complete. That doesn’t mean the Final Cut is anywhere near done, but it’s another step toward that 2026 release window.

    The Backrooms has always been something mundane and frightening at the same time, and that’s the magic of it. Honestly, I love the Backrooms so much that I’ve even fallen asleep to those endless looping YouTube videos of yellow hallways humming in the background. I know I’m not alone — a lot of us have had moments in life where a strange hallway or empty office building at night made us feel like we accidentally “noclipped” into level 0 ourselves.

    If the movie captures that eerie mix of nostalgia, dread, and liminal weirdness, the concept alone is strong enough to make this a huge success. We’re hoping for a lot here.

    In the meantime, I want to direct your attention to a TikTok creator named tater tot.


    Whoever they are, they’ve been doing God’s work: creating Backrooms videos using AI, trapping all sorts of figures — especially Ronald Reagan — deep inside the maze. And quite frankly, a full movie of Ronald Reagan wandering the Backrooms, confused and doomed, would absolutely work for me.

    2026 can’t come fast enough.

  • Betting on a Betty Boop bloodbath

    Betting on a Betty Boop bloodbath

    Popeye, Mickey Mouse, and Winnie the Pooh aren’t alone anymore—now they’re being joined by a bloodthirsty, horrific Betty Boop.

    More copyright licenses hit expiration, and Hollywood is wasting no time jumping on the trend.

    Furst Class Productions is moving ahead with a new horror take on the curly-haired icon, turning her into a full-blown villain.

    The story follows a group of horror podcasters who sneak into an abandoned theater, only to discover the legendary starlet herself—Boop—still lingering in the shadows and now very thirsty for blood.

    Betty Boop will be played by Devanny Pinn, with Katisha Shaw, Spencer Breslin, Colton Tran, and Eva Hamilton rounding out the cast.

    There’s going to be a lot of opinions on this one, especially from people who already feel like these horror remakes are the “degradation” of everything once meant for kids.

    And sure—maybe there’s some truth to that. But horror fans seem to love these approaches, and a lot of these public-domain reimaginings are becoming low-budget, surprisingly profitable cult favorites.

    Movies like this aren’t trying to win Oscars; they’re capitalizing on a moment in time when a famous character becomes available and blood and gore suddenly reign supreme