31 Nights of Halloween: Elevator Man

Welcome to this year's 31 Nights of Halloween! Instead of splitting the action between two blogs, the terror will be focused here. We're starting off with another mysterious menace from a mainstay of these annual festivals -- Alex Magana!

It's a great little morsel to get the month started!

Elevator Man (2026)

Starring: Julia Burkholder and Kyron Cantelo

Director: Alex Magana

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

31 Nights of Halloween: No Sleep Tonight

Here's a friendly reminder that, this time of year, you should always check for monsters under your bed before turning in for the night.

No Sleep Tonight (2024)

Starring: Saffron Richardson and Verity Richardson

Director: H. Owen Richardson

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

31 Nights of Halloween: Jumper

This first short film of this year's 31 Nights of Halloween celebration is a treat! Or maybe a trick? Or maybe both? Watch it and see for yourself... and let us know what you thought of it!

Jumper (2021)

Starring: Madison Reimer and Randy Swanson

Director: Isaac Carlton

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

31 Nights of Halloween: It's Quija Wednesday!

Look for tales of Ouiji Board misadventures in this space, each Wednesday from now until the Big Night is here!

Quija (2022)

Starring: Marielena Rodriguez

Director: Alex Rendon

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A girl (Rodriquez) learns why it's a bad idea to play with Ouija Boards when you think you alone.

"Ouija" is a decent entry into the "don't mess with Quija Boards" sub-genre of horror films. Sadly, it drops the ball at the end. Or so it seems to be. Take a couple minutes to check out the film and let me know in the comments if you agree or disagree.

This is the first time I've come across the work of Alex Rendon. I will be checking out more of his movies and see if one or two more need to be brought to you during this year's 31 Nights of Halloween. (Say... what is it with people named Alex and horror short films? I seem to be gathering a collection of directors with that name....)

31 Nights of Halloween: The Nun

 

Over the past couple years, filmmaker and writer Alex Magana has become something of a mainstay of the 31 Nights of Halloween celebrations. I'm a tremendous fan of his work, and I hope to feature his work here at least once every week until Halloween. As the title of this one might imply, Sunday is the perfect day to bring this film to you!

The Nun (2023)

Starring: Erin Sunisa, Shaun Holmes, and Eteri Sher

Director: Alex Magana

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

While "The Nun" may not be the best Magana has brought us so far, it's still an excellent little horror film. It's only flaw, in my opinion is that Magana let the film run for one jump scare too many. I feel like he had a chance to give us a perfect and extremely creepy ending, but he blew it. (It's not just my general dislike of jump-scares at play here... it's that this particular jump-scare undermines the film's story.)

That complaint aside, I like everything else about "The Nun", especially the fact that it's a thoroughly modern film, with a couple of YouTubers making content for their channel by testing an urban legend. I also continue to be amused by Magana's blatant product placement in his films by having actors wear shirts with his production company's logo on the front. It reminds me of how many independent filmmakers and even large studios during the early days of silent movies would put their company logos somewhere on the sets of their films in an effort to stop unauthorized distribution and theft of their films through retitling/rebranding. I wonder if something similar is motivating Magana here, what with the way some YouTube channels do nothing but "borrow" from filmmakers and repost their films without so much as a link back to the source.

Maybe I'll drop him a line and ask some day. Although, it's probably a fact that the simple answer is the right answer: Characters wear the ACM-branded shirts because Magana wants to move the stuff for sale in his YouTube channel's merch store.

Ouija Board Wednesday: Ouija 2

Ouija 2 (2022)
Starring: Juliett Rojas and Eteri Coast
Director: Alex Magana
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Two sisters (Coast and Rojas) receive a mysterious package containing a Ouija board. They decide to try to reach out to the spirits... with a dire outcome.

 "Ouija 2" is predictable but well executed and creepy. It's well-staged, well-paced, and stars a pair of talented child actors. It may not be one of Magana's best films, but he's working with confining material and trodding well-covered ground in a very traditional way... and he delivers what viewers should expect.

31 Nights of Halloween: Not Alone

Tonight's selection reminds us that the supernatural is always waiting to strike during the 31 Nights of Halloween!

Not Alone (2020)
Starring: Mariah Chileshe
Director: Skulo Banda

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A young woman (Chileshe) is settling in for a quiet night in front of the television... but a mysterious entity has different plans.

Like the previous short film from Skulo Banda that we've featured here at Terror Titans, "Not Alone" could have benefitted from a little editing to make it tighter and tenser. Banda also made the odd choice of putting more opening and closing credits against black screens. This might be just a pet peeve on my part, but opening credits on short films like this one that are longer than just the title and maybe the names of the stars and the director annoy me. Frankly, when it comes to something this short, I really don't want to have to sit through the list of creators involved before I can get to enjoying their work.

With all this negativity out of the way, I will say that I enjoyed the aura of weirdness that permeates this film, and I think you will, too. Just be patient with those useless opening credits... or skip them. You'll get the same information (and more) at the end of the film.)

31 Nights of Halloween: Facetime Call

Facetime Call (2022)
Starring: Jade, Mikayla, and Anthony
Director: Harrison Fraser
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A student struggling with a homework assignment soon discovers she has bigger things to worry about after blowing off a friend during a Facetime call.

 For what it is--a film made by inexperienced filmmakers, with inexperienced actors, and a story that was essentially made up as production progressed--this is pretty good effort. The pacing is solid, the camerawork is good, the lighting is effective, the two girls playing the leads give decent performances. When compared to other student films I've found trawling through the depths of YouTube, this is pretty good.

There is no doubt, though, that this would have been even better film if it had been guided by a carefully written script. At the very least, all that is good about it would not have been nearly overwhelmed by the main character behaving in ways that are inexplicable (even if one assumes that she is the rudest person to ever walk the face of the Earth).

But go ahead and check out "Facetime Call" yourself. I think you'll be impressed when the inexperience of the creators involved is taken into account... even if you'll also be hoping the villain will drag the main character up to her room, sit her down in front of the computer, and teach her how to behave better when talking with people over video chat.

31 Nights of Halloween: Ping

Ping (2021)
Starring: Becca Breitfeller
Director: Josh Breitfeller
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

After her cellphone goes missing, a young woman (Briefeller) tries to locate it by "pinging" it with her smart-watch.

Technically, this is a well-done film. The sound is good, the lighting is great, and the camerawork is excellent. The acting is good and the pacing is spot on. I really like what's here. Before the review continues, perhaps you should watch "Ping" so I don't taint your experience with the negativity (and minor spoilers) that are coming.

What is lacking in "Ping" is a proper set-up. I often comment on the slow-wittedness of horror movie characters, or their complete lack of  survival instinct... but I don't recall encountering a character quite as dim as this one before. Or so she seems, because there isn't a proper set-up for why she behaves in such an inexplicably dumb fashion.

Maybe it's a generational thing, but I can assure you that if I was alone in my home and my cellphone mysteriously moved from one part of the house to one I hadn't been in for a while, I wouldn't go looking. No, I'd leave the house and to borrow a neighbor's phone to call the police or a gun-owning friend or two. For most of "Ping", I was swinging back and forth between thinking "this is really well done" and "they didn't think this one through, did then?"

This very technically competent film is undermined by a badly constructed story. It needed to establish why the main character is so calm about her phone seemingly migrating from in front of the TV to a closet in an upstairs bedroom. This could easily have been done with perhaps a bunch of beer cans and liquor bottles around the living room and on the kitchen counter, and the character remarking to herself that she must have blacked out again (or something similar). Or maybe there could have been a minute at the beginning to establish there might be someone else in the house who is an annoying prankster?

This could have been a great little movie with just a bit more story/character development. As it is, it's still worth seeing, but it's not what it could have been.

31 Nights of Halloween: Dead Lyft

When us Gen Xers were kids, we were taught to never get into a cars driven by strangers. That admonition carried into adulthood, at least for young women. With the arrival of "ride-sharing apps" like Lyft and Uber, that warning has gone by the wayside... now EVERYONE gets in cars with strangers, and they're letting strangers get into their cars.

This can be a very, very bad idea. Especially during the 31 Nights of Halloween....

Dead Lyft (2020)

Starring: Orlando Suazo Jr.

Director: Steven Belcher

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

31 Nights of Halloween: The Doppelganger

 

We feel this is the perfect treat for our visitors on this, the second of the 31 Nights of Halloween. It's the tale of a man who has his peaceful evening alone at home interrupted by... himself!

The Doppelganger (2021)

Starring: Stuart Hamilton

Director: Stuart Hamilton

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

(We also felt it was okay to that a trick came along with the treat... we hope you agree!)

Terror on the 13th: Smiling Woman 3

The yellow-clad, text-messaging ghost of the Smiling Woman series engages in a little home invasion to pass along the curse in this installment of what is something of a signature series for filmmaker Alex Magana.

Smiling Woman 3 (2021)

Starring: Teru Hara and Prathyusha

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Bloody Mary Monday

The first Monday of every other month during 2022 is Bloody Mary Monday here at Terror Titans; it's the day on which we bring you short films about young women trying to summon evil spirits in front of bathroom mirrors.

It's easy to see why the young woman in tonight's offering didn't get the result she was looking for: She does everything wrong.

Bloody Mary (2021)

Starring: Tiza Chibesa

Director: Skulo Banda

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

(I like the variations and mixing of spooky stories in this one, but I wish the filmmaker had either put a little more effort into the sound mixing or just omitted some of the sound effects entirely. The film could also have benefitted immensly if the second half had been tighter.)

Terror on the 13th: Cursed Neck

 
I recently came across writer/artist/filmmaker Yuki Shinyokoyama's YouTube channel, and he has a bunch of really interesting little horror filmlets there. They are a bit rough around the edges and the special effects leave a little to be desired, but they are still neat, ghost-centric horror shorts.

Here's the first of a handful of films that'll be featured here at Terror Titans, as we wait for the 31 Nights of Halloween to return. Here's hoping it doesn't put you off hiking!


Cursed Neck (2021)

Starring: Yuki Shinyokoyama

Director: Yuki Shinyokoyama

Rating: Five of Ten Stars

You can visit Yuki's website here.

We Wish You A Scary Christmas!

Writer/director Alex Magana returns to Terror Titans and offers up a little holiday fear!

Gift Wrapped (2020)

Starring: Dylynn Abbey

Director: Alex Magna

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Murder, Mayhem, a Cat--Oh My!

Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye (1973)
Starring: Jane Birkin, Hiram Keller, Anton Diffring, Doris Kuntsmann, Françoise Christophe, Dana Ghia, and Venantino Venantini
Director: Anthony M. Dawkins (aka Antonio Margheriti)

Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Corringa (Birkin) returns to her ancestral home after being expelled from an elite Catholic boarding school. As if reuniting with her quirky family and the strange servants and hirelings that are hanging about wasn't bad enough, people start turning up murdered.

"Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye" hits all gothic horror notes--it's set in an isolated castle that's full of secret passageways, and which is inhabited by a noble family with a fading reputation that's either cursed, corrupt, crazy or some mixture of all three. And there's the wide-eyed maiden who goes running through the shadowy halls in a diaphanous gown while carrying a lantern or candelabra, while spending equal amounts of time conducting half-assed investigations, being targeted by the killer, and being the vessel of love and kindness through which the handsome and bitter--but ultimately goodhearted--male protagonist is brought to redemption. There's also the doctor with questionable ethics and motives, the priest/spritual advisor who may or may not be too good to be true... and so on, and so forth.

Unfortunately, while all the elements are present to make this an excellent and spookily fun film, they aren't deployed as effectively as they could be, due to flat and uninteresting characters and a script that is so sloppy that what should have been central characters barely appear in the story. For example, the sensitive and wise priest played by Venantino Venantini, known for playing romantic and/or heroic leads and thus his casting here was a bit of brilliance given the character's important place in the film's central mystery and for what is motivating the murders... but the Big Reveal doesn't have the full impact it could have had if the character had been more present as events unfolded.

But instead of a scene or two that could have bolstered Venantini's presence in the film, we're treated to truly pointless bits about a pet gorilla (which inexplicably gets referred to as an orangutan on a couple of occasions) because they serve no purpose in the plot. There are also lame attempts to make it feel like there might be a supernatural component to what's happening in the castle; we know as viewers that there is no curse or ghosts in the mix here, and the characters in general aren't buying into that nonsense either, so why are the filmmakers wasting our time and theirs with it, when there are real issues that needed to be addressed? In the end, the story is so poorly put together that the characters just seem to be drifting from plot point to plot point, and the viewers never become all that invested in them to care if they live or die. Sometimes, problems like these are created when a film gets re-cut for markets outside Italy (this film's country of origin), but the version I watched was "restored", and the scenes added back in didn't solve any of the problems mentioned.)

Maybe if a little more effort had been put into shaping the script in general and the characters in particular, I wouldn't have been quite so annoyed at the forced romance between Birkin's Corringa and Keller's Lord James. Likewise, I think what is an okay climax of the film would have been an excellent one--if there had just been more of a drive to establishing characters and possible motivations.

The effectiveness of the film is also undermined by the dialog being iffy (sometimes overblow, sometimes just nonsensical) and the voice actors doing the English aren't the greatest; it seems more like they thought they were voicing a comedy, given the goofy accents they're doing. As such it's hard for me to judge whether the actors on screen were good or bad. All I can really tell is that Jane Birkin did a good job as the imperiled maiden, Hiram Keller did a good job as a crazy noble, and Anton Diffring did... well, Anton Diffring was Anton Diffring, so I once again loved to hate him. I think the character I cared most about in the film was the poor cat who wanders around and sees all these people get murdered.

If you enjoy gothic tales, you'll find a lot to like in "Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eyes", and I think you'll be glad you did. It's not great in that respect, but it's also not terrible. If you're hoping for a gory Italian horror flick, then this is not it.

--

This post was made on Jane Birkin's 75th birthday. A celebratory post of pictures was made at our sister blog, the Shades of Gray. Click here to check it out.

Terror on the 13th: Car Trouble

There's in media res... and then there's this terror vignette from the team of Dubock and Steinheimer. Check it out! It's part of our efforts here at Terror Titans to tide you over until the 31 Nights of Halloween are upon us again!

Car Trouble (2020)

Starring: Leo Prusakov and Marrisa Steinheimer

Director: Josh Dubock

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

31 Nights of Halloween: Not So Fun

 

If you haven't noticed yet, Saturdays are Creepy Clown Time this year during the 31 Nights of Halloween. This week's film--where Gaby Corea stars as a young woman being stalked by a creepy clown--is in need of some trimming throughout--but the ending is so perfectly done that we simply had to feature it.

Seriously. Stick with "Not So Fun" until the end. You'll enjoy the freshness in the approach.

Not So Fun (2019)
Starring: Gaby Corea and Rafael Melgar
Director: Cesar Liang

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

(Trivia: This is the first time we've featured a film made in Honduras, by Honduran filmmakers.)

31 Nights of Halloween: Seeing Someone Else

Today's offering is short and to the point, at only 14 seconds in length. But it's plenty spooky... and a reminder to use passwords everywhere for everything and with everyone during the 31 Nights of Halloween!

Seeing Someone Else (2016)
Director: Sebastian Matthias Weissbach
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

31 Nights of Halloween: Tap Tap

The 31 Nights of Halloween can be a stressful time, what with all the party planning, deciding what costume to wear, and the constant looking under the bed and in the closet to make sure monsters haven't moved in. It might be tempting to draw a hot bath and just soak in the tut to unwind.

Don't do it. 

You should only take showers during the month of October, and even then you should be extra careful. We present tonight's selection as a cautionary tale; we want all our visitors to be safe and to be around to see the arrival of November, so we hope you will keep this young woman's experience in mind.

Tap Tap (2018)

Starring: Issy Knopfler

Director: Dan Allen

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

(By the way, I had a hard time deciding to give this film a Six or Seven Rating. In the end, I gave it a High Six, because the sound design seemed a bit ham-fisted to me. The water and creature effects were nicely done, though.)