Spooky Pre-Season 2026

01 Oct, 2026

Cemetery Man / Dellamorte, Dellamore

Impeccable weird 90s vibes. Surprisingly solid zombie action and really a very nice ossuary. Possibly the first movie I've seen with a motorcycle-riding zombie.

Evil Dead 2

It's Evil Dead 2, I'm this close to calling it a perfect movie. Some of the best gore on film, excellent physical comedy, just great all-round.

Evil Dead Rise

Featuring one of the best Chekhov's Guns in cinema. Does some neat things within the Evil Dead universe. Goes solidly in the bin of movies that could pretty much be Call of Cthulhu scenarios out of the box¹.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City

It's alright. Zombie effects are good but the CGI is noticeably bad. Suffers from trying to be both the first Resident Evil and the second in one movie. I will give Raccoon City points for including Lisa Trevor. I also noticed a reference to Tall Oaks off of Resident Evil 6, and even the disgusting burger from the intro to the Resident Evil 2 remake makes an appearance. But overall it's arguably not even better than the 2002 Resident Evil, at least that one's more coherent. Probably better than Resident Evil: Apocalypse though.

They Will Kill You

Very fun, surprisingly gory. Some excellent cinematography. One of the best fight scenes I'll probably see all year. Also a way of depicting The Devil I hadn't seen before. Honestly didn't expect to like this one as much as I do, it's great.

The Crazies (1973) / Code Name: Trixie

Awful sound mixing doesn't get too in the way of a satisfyingly dark story. I like how it's not clear how many of the people the military guns down are actually infected. This version is probably preferable to the 2010 remake, I remember that as a more generic zombie flick even if I prefer the ending of the remake.

Suffer

A decent dark fantasy flick, my only complaint is unfair: it looks too clean. I don't know much about filmmaking but looking like it was shot on modern cameras paradoxically makes the film look cheaper to me. Some film grain or something I think would give it some proper charm. But like I said, that's unfair. It's good for what it is.

Intruder

Takes a little while to get going but has a lot more gore than I was honestly expecting. Some really good kills in this one, they've got a lot of death machines in supermarkets! Certified gorehound cinema. A "twist" that's painfully obvious but that's not really why we're here, is it. It also has both Sam and Ted Raimi and a Bruce Campbell cameo!

The City of the Dead

This film is the source of that "superstition, fear, and jealousy" sample from the beginning of Rob Zombie's Dragula, but the "I'm told this was once a house of worship" exchange is sampled in another song I knew and it took me a while to figure out it was Black Soul Horde's Malediction of the Dead. Doesn't really have anything to do with the film itself but I spent like an hour digging through my music library and needed to share that somewhere. Anyway, the film itself is a solid creepy town flick, if a little basic these days. Great ending though.

Event Horizon

Sam Neill had a great career in film. There's Jurassic Park, of course. Possession is probably regarded as his best among those in the know, and In The Mouth of Madness is a classic for people like me. But for me, it's Event Horizon. I don't remember how or why or when I first watched it, but for a while it was the scariest movie I'd seen. The gravity drive that looks like something out of Hellraiser? Unbeatable. Still holds up on a rewatch.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse

You know, you could probably do worse. You could definitely do better! You know, I'm going to say that this actually has the edge over Welcome to Raccoon City by virtue of just focusing on its weird mashup of RE2 and RE3 and not having to worry about the mansion. That said the gross zombie children are about the only highlight I remember between viewings.

MAD GOD

First we lose Sam Neill, then Phil Tippett closes up shop. So I had to rewatch one of my favorite films. Only ~90 minutes and yet manages to feel like a 2-3 hour epic. A glorious achievement of cinema. One of those pieces of media that always feels like coming home. Also I spotted a Robbie the Robot easter egg on this watch, so that's nice.

Earth vs. The Spider

Kind of your minimum viable giant monster movie. Nothing really stood out to me. I guess the cave with the skeletons was kind of a cool location, if basic.