May has been and gone, blessing us with two Bank Holiday weekends, and here is everything I have watched, read, and listened to, over this last month. Again, I’ve gone for things I find comforting or enjoyable, and leaned into the familiar. Here’s May’s media round-up!
Table of Contents
Musical Greetings
I’ve enjoyed my usual (private) playlist, and added a few more songs to it to keep it fresh – Paris Paloma, The Pretty Reckless, Halsey, Irama, Tarkan, The Struts, and Pinguini Tattici Nucleari have all joined the 2026 Favourites with some additional tracks.
For I Am Death by The Pretty Reckless has been on repeat this month.
Scrivile Scemo by Pinguini Tattici Nucleari has made me very happy.
Bazooka by Irama also made me happy, newly added this month.
Delle am Helm by Deichkind is still the only electro-rap track on my playlist so far but it’s a banger, I’m still enjoying it.
If I Had A by So Good is also a great track, punk/New Wave. NSFW. Deserves to be a classic.
I don’t have a playlist or album of the month this month, just these songs I’m currently obsessed with for no reason.
LIVE GIG OF THE MONTH
Live gig of the month: The Captain’s Beard, pirate folk rock at the Wessex Folk Festival. The Folk Festival is amazing, the main stage events are completely free, and we had a fantastic time. I can personally recommend the Tibetan momo stall and the salt & pepper squid stall, and Himself can recommend the crepes and the fish & chips. We didn’t do any of the ticketed events this time, but I really want to go back and make a proper long weekend of it if we can next year!
We also really loved the Morris dancers, Molly dancers, and the sword dancers. It was great to see so many young people dancing. Our favourites (although we didn’t get to see everyone perform!) were:
Anonymous Morris (based in Poole)
Holly Copse Molly (based in Bournemouth)
Dr Turberville’s Morris (based in Somerset)
Thrales Rapper (based in London)
I’m currently trying to figure out how to have a 40th birthday party that includes sword dancers…
Books & Audiobooks
Everything I read this month! It was a good month for my book choices.
The Devouring by A. M. Shilling.
I started this book in April and nearly finished it, but actually finished it in May. Also I really enjoyed it, so I’m including it twice. This is my round-up and nobody can stop me.
See my GoodReads review here. I also wrote a review for Divination Hollow here.
Throughout their marriage, Jason and Ayana’s lives always ran parallel but never entwined. It’s the perfect arrangement. He’s free to pursue his dangerous yet lucrative career as an elite assassin, and she can focus on conducting autopsies for the city’s forensic center.
But after Jason spares a witness to his latest murder, he becomes the prime suspect in his own brother’s homicide. While he hunts for the real killer, Ayana discovers an impossible illness in one of her cadavers. The couple quickly identify an unsettling connection between the two events—one steeped in religious fanaticism and occult conspiracy.
Jason and Ayana must learn to work together, using their wits, lies, and criminal connections to uncover the truth behind a mysterious cult and exact revenge. But human enemies are the least of their concern. Beyond the boundary of their world exists a cosmic threat of apocalyptic proportions, and it is trying to break through.
The Thorns We Wear Inside by Amy Avery.
I read a very early version of this story many years ago, and this is an ARC of the completely revised, rewritten version coming out in November with DAW Books. Everyone’s a lesbian, including the parasitic demons attached to our FMCs, and it’s cursed woman 4 cursed woman dynamic as they both descend into monstrosity for love. PREORDER NOW.
For fans of For the Wolf and Nettle & Bone comes a dark, romantic fantasy about a witch, a monster, and the two parasitic demons who’ll stop at nothing to keep them apart.
Raye is cursed. Living things crumble at her touch, drained by the demon who clings to her like a seductive, malevolent shadow. No wonder the townsfolk want her dead. Tormented and pursued, she seeks shelter in a mysterious castle at the heart of a forest.
The castle is an eerie place. Its residents lie trapped in time like flies in amber, all save one. Mir. Mir has a demon of her own, a creature that forces her to seek and crave blood. When the two women begin to use the castle’s trove of magic to unravel their curses, their demons unite. The parasites refuse to let their hosts escape, and perhaps even more dangerously, Mir can bear Raye’s poisonous touch: the first caress either of them has felt in years.
As monster hunters close in on the forest, both Raye and Mir will have to break both the castle’s curse and the binds of their twisted quadrangle before the past catches up with them.
Seductive and cinematic, this dark fantasy has teeth. Step into the castle. If you dare.
The Faceless Thing We Adore by Hester Steel.
I really loved this book. I’ve loved all the iterations of it that I’ve had to read over the years, but now it’s out and I got my hardback sprayed edges copy, and I’m hidden away in the acknowledgements, and it’s so nice to be able to hold the published version and see what Aoife became. I highly recommend this one.
Lemon, poppy seed, sun-warmed sand. These visions convince Aoife to quit her job, leave her manipulative boyfriend, and escape to the isolated shores of the Farmstead commune. There, among its charismatic and hedonistic residents, Aoife finds everything she’s been a community that adores her, the freedom to indulge, and the promise to be a part of something miraculous.
But darkness underpins her airy new way of life. A disappearing cave looms above an ocean no one dares step foot in, mysterious crying fills the night hours, and a rot is spreading across the island. But perhaps most concerning is the commune’s reverence for their leader, Jonah—a love tinged with fear that Aoife knows all too well.
When Aoife’s boring old life comes crashing into her bold new one, loyalties are tested, unleashing a spiral of unspeakable violence that threatens to fracture reality itself. At the helm, Aoife finds herself desperately trying to protect everyone and everything she’s grown to love. Awkward, clumsy Aoife, who was always told she was weak, will soon realize the depths of her strength—and the pleasures of her rage.
TV Shows & Mini-Series
TV Shows watched & radio plays/podcasts listened to this month! I went back to my roots…
Being Human (2008-2013), created by Toby Whithouse.
This is back where it all began for me, I think. When I saw this show in 2008 I knew I wanted to write a world like this, where loads of different entities lived together and tried to make a go of it. I wrote The Crows in 2013, and rewrote it in 2018.
I started rewatching Being Human S01 this month. I haven’t got very far into it.
A vampire, a werewolf and a ghost live together as they deal with the challenges of being supernatural creatures.
GHOUL (2018) dir. Patrick Graham.
This 3-part mini series is great. I’ve seen it before, after a Romancing the Gothic talk “The Spectral as Political in GHOUL (2018)” given by Rishiraj Pal. The talk is free, and on YouTube. Patrick Graham also co-directed Betaal, which tackles the political spectre of British colonialism in modern-day India. GHOUL is definitely worth a watch, and I think it’s really emotional.
A newly minted military interrogator arrives at a covert detention center to discover that some of the terrorists held there are not of this world.
Betaal (2020) dirs. Nikhil Mahajan & Patrick Graham, written by Suhani Kanwar & Patrick Graham.
Another one for the Indian Gothic crowd… this time, confronting the conflict between modern development and traditional life, interwoven with the questions of who is benefitting in modern India from its development and resources, and the cost of progress. In Betaal, the developers treat the villagers the same way as the British did, and in doing so unleash the same ancient curse from the mountain.
There are some obvious implicit parallels to be drawn between the greed and arrogance of the main developer, Mr Mudhalvan (played by Jitendra Joshi), and the arrogance of the British officer whose diary entry appears at the start. Both show a complete disdain for the villagers and their way of life, and both make the same fatal mistake of entering the cursed tunnel in the mountain.
While some ideas could be more fleshed out, it’s not really aimed at an audience who needs spoonfeeding. This is also an attempt by Graham to confront his own ancestry: he named one of the officers Lt. Col. John P. Lynedoch, after himself. (He’s of Scottish ancestry and is a descendant of Thomas Graham, 1st Baron Lynedoch and Lieutenant-Colonel John Graham. His full name is John Patrick Lynedoch Graham.)
The fact that the zombies are following orders from their zombie Lt. Col. John P. Lynedoch presents the idea of colonialism as zombification, a violent, forced assimilation into values and ideologies that run contrary to, and destructively oppose, traditional Indian ways of life and beliefs. Greed is the real antagonist. This is a virus that still lingers in the modern day, and is brought back to be physically reckoned with when the village is threatened by fellow Indians looking to profit from the new road development. The structures and demands of empire, whether a political/geopolitical/national entity or a corporate one, run on simple human greed, and greed creates monsters out of anyone it infects, no matter who they are. Those assimilated into its structures replicate its ideologies and values, until the monstrosity of it infects everyone and becomes its own norm. The only antidote is resistance; not just violent resistance, but cultural resistance, spiritual resistance, and communal resistance.
A remote village becomes the arena of a breathless battle when an undead East India Company officer and his battalion of zombie redcoats attack a squad of modern-day soldiers.
Marianne (2019-) written by Quoc Dang Tran and Samuel Bodin, dir. Samuel Bodin.
This is a chilling psychological folk horror series, an 8-parter that I kept starting and not committing to. I think I have seen the first 10mins about 3x. This time, I committed, and was hooked within the first episode. It’s exceedingly grim, lots of disturbing parts, moments of tension, just really good.
When a famous horror writer goes back to her hometown, she finds out that the evil spirit that plagues her dreams is also there in real life.
- “The Little Bounder“, West Country Tales episode S02 E06 (1983) written by Elizabeth Holford, dir. John King. This is a moving period family drama, not a horror, and I really liked it. It’s currently on YouTube, on the 5PY Heritage Channel.
- “The Healer” West Country Tales episode S02 E07 (1983), written by John King
& Terry Tapp, dir. John King. A con man sets out to have a new life in a rural village, and sets himself up as a faith healer.
- Primal (2019), created by Genndy Tartakovsky. I’m enjoying this one, but I’ve also seen too many episodes of Your Dinosaurs Are Wrong, and it can’t be a highlight because that form of homonid didn’t co-exist with dinosaurs in the Mesozoic era. HOWEVER – if that really doesn’t matter to you, 100% give this a go, and if you can overlook this, I’d say give it a go. It’s a great series from Adult Swim. [I wouldn’t write this in a proper review, but this is my post and I can be pedantic here if I like.]
Audiodramas
The Many Wrongs of Lord Christian Brighty, written by Amy Greaves & Christian Brighty. (Listen on Fourble).
A Regency sitcom I discovered on Instagram through following Christian Brighty (@brightybuoy), and found on my podcast app. It’s a lot of fun, with Bleak Expectations vibes, but Regency. I am listening before bed and looking forward to S02, as there are only 4 episodes of S01.
Lord Christian Brighty is the talk of the Regency ‘Ton’ – a celebrated libertine, a heartthrob and a hero to many. But close-up, he is a spoilt, impetuous, life-ruining bastard… Or at least he was. Because his carefree life of infinite privilege has been upended by an encounter with his new chambermaid – the uneducated but forthright Babigail – who became the first person to tell him the unvarnished truth about his selfish behaviour. Overnight, his lifelong trust that everyone loved him had been replaced with a gnawing fear that Babs was right.
So now, with his narcissism collapsing and a need to prove to Babs he is actually a good person, Lord Brighty is determined to fix all his past wrongs. And by extension all the ills of Regency society. Accompanying him in his quest are Babs (elevated beyond her station to a chambermaid-cum-adviser role), and his butler, Mr Churlington. Although Churley would prefer everything to stay exactly as it used to be (as would all Brighty’s friends, family and the entirety of high society).
Magnus Protocol (2024-) co-created and written by Jonathan Sims and Alexander J. Newall.
This is a really fun one, I enjoyed The Magnus Archives a lot and re-listened to that last year. Protocol is one I go back to and relisten to as well!
Alice and Sam, a pair of low-level civil service workers at the underfunded Office of Incident Assessment and Response, have stumbled across the legacy of The Magnus Institute. A legacy that will put them in grave danger.
Feature Films & Short Films
Highlighted watches for May are below! I’ve had a great run of films this month, with the usual not-quite-so-good run as well. Even films that weren’t ‘highlights’ for me were pretty good – Weapons is on that main list, and so is my favourite Jean Rollin film. I was just not in the best frame of mind this month, so I think that coloured my appreciation and experience. Anyway, do check out the list of non-highlighted films. I logged 44 films in total including shorts, only 18 of which were highlights.
Thingamajig (2024) dir. Andrew Alan K. 28mins runtime.
Short film, really spooky and well made. I really enjoyed this, it’s so deeply sinister. I really enjoyed the tension in this. One of the most effective shorts I’ve seen so far.
A man (Lace Williamson) wakes up in the night beneath a lone streetlight. Soon, he realizes that this light is the only visible illumination in the endless darkness. One by one, strange and cryptic chalk markings reveal themselves on the pavement and prove to be his only hope for safety in the increasingly dangerous environment.
Bullet Train (2022) dir. David Leitch.
Bullet Train is a certified banger, although I’ve never been a Brad Pitt fan. I really enjoy this one every time I watch it, and I’ve seen it a lot. I’d love to go on a bullet train. I’d love to try out every country’s trains in theory, but in practice I guess it depends on how adventurous I’m feeling. Anyway, this is a great action film, it’s a heist, it’s gangsters, it’s wild. Love it.
The end of the line is just the beginning.
Unlucky assassin Ladybug is determined to do his job peacefully after one too many gigs gone off the rails. Fate, however, may have other plans, as Ladybug’s latest mission puts him on a collision course with lethal adversaries from around the globe—all with connected, yet conflicting, objectives—on the world’s fastest train.
Dust Bunny (2025) dir. Bryan Fuller.
I love how whimsical this is, and also I love Mads Mikkelsen in this. Sophie Sloan (Aurora) is a little gem. Also, Sigourney Weaver! This was just really fun. There were lots of little moments I enjoyed, staging, shots, framing, the whole fantasy angle. I just had a lot of fun with it. Bryan Fuller should direct more fantasy stuff.
Sometimes there really are monsters under your bed.
Ten-year-old Aurora asks her hitman neighbor to kill the monster under her bed that she claims ate her family. To protect her, he must battle an onslaught of assassins while accepting that some monsters are real.
Byzantium (2012) dir. Neil Jordan.
This is such a good vampire film. It’s gritty and violent and deeply sad – it’s such a good mother-daughter relationship and a really good take on the vampire as well. It’s written by Moira Buffini, and I really like the script for this, and I think Jordan was the right director. Just a lot of good things coming together.
Irresistible. Immoral. Immortal.
Residents of a coastal town learn, with deadly consequences, the secret shared by the two mysterious women who have sought refuge at a local boarding house, the Byzantium.
ハウス / House (1977) dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi.
I love evil sentient houses, and this one is great. It’s a rewatch, and I have it on DVD. I love the cat, the piano scene, and everything about it. This is bubblegum body horror at its finest. I especially love all the dismembered limbs hopping around, the cat avatar, and the blood flood. Such a classic.
In the heart of a violet forest, an old house awaits young girls.
Hoping to find a sense of connection to her late mother, Gorgeous takes a trip with her friends to visit her aunt’s ancestral house in the countryside. The girls soon discover that there is more to the old house than meets the eye.
Witte Wieven / Heresy (2024) dir. Didier Konings.
This one has been on my radar since its festival release in 2024, and I’ve been desperate to see it ever since; I was not disappointed. It has some gorgeous imagery and an ending that didn’t leave me in puddles of sad tears. The village and her situation is very reminiscent of The Devil’s Bath, but then it strays into Hagazussa territory, but not as depressing and grim. Already rewatched this month.
Prayers won’t save you
In a medieval Dutch village, a young woman is caught between her faith, fanatic townsfolk and the dark forces lurking in the woods.
Лептирица/Leptirica (1973) dir. Đorđe Kadijević.
I really love this one, and I felt in the mood for it after Witte Wieven/Heresy. A village is haunted by an undead spirit killing its millers, while Radojka and her suitor just want to get married. But Radojka has a secret… It’s a really atmospheric, claustrophobic look at life in a small rural village. This is one I have on Blu-Ray from the Severin Films folk horror box set.
If fear has its name, then it is LEPTIRICA!
A young man wants to marry the beautiful daughter of a landowner who refuses to allow the marriage. To prove his worth, the young man becomes a miller in a vampire-infested local mill.
Sauna (2008) dir. Antti-Jussi Annila.
But Mel, didn’t you watch this last month? I did. What of it.
This is a wild ride on a second watch as well. It was definitely worth buying. Also, it works with the folk horror themes of the previous films.
Cleanse Your Sins.
It is 1595. Brutal wars have just ended in an uneasy peace between Protestant Sweden and Orthodox Russia. We focus on the spiritual defeats of two conquered Finnish brothers, one a hardened near-psychopathic war hero, the other a gentle scientist in an age with no use for such men. They find themselves in the swampy interior, demarcating the new border with a unit of sadistic Russians.
Hell House LLC (2015) dir. Stephen Cognetti.
This is still the best one out of the lot, and I just watched the Director’s Cut version (2023). I think it’s one of the best examples of found footage/mockumentary horrors out there, and although I don’t personally think the others in the series live up to the high bar this one sets, I really liked what this one was doing and I will be rewatching all the others as well.
New York’s Scariest Haunted House Tour
Five years after an unexplained malfunction causes the death of 15 tour-goers and staff on the opening night of a Halloween haunted house tour, a documentary crew travels back to the scene of the tragedy to find out what really happened.
The Woman in the Yard (2025) dir. Jaume Collet-Serra.
I really liked this. There’s such a lot going on, it’s really powerful. It’s got some really heavy, hard-hitting themes, and that’s what I loved about it. A really emotional watch, as well as being genuinely creepy. If you want to listen to a talk on this film coming up online Sat 08th Aug 2026, “The Horror of Black Motherhood: Navigating Fear, Family, and Survival” by Rochelle Patterson, get your tickets here (Eventbrite).
Don’t let her in.
In the aftermath of her husband’s death, widow Ramona’s struggle to raise her two kids is hindered by the arrival of a mysterious woman with supernatural abilities.
Shepherd (2021) dir. Russell Owen.
This was a solid 3 star watch the first time around, but one of my highlights for this month. I just felt the urge to rewatch it, given that I’ve been on a folk horror kick, and I enjoyed it more on the second viewing. It has some great shots of the island, it’s very atmospheric, and some bits are pretty gnarly. I like the premise, and Kate Dickie is in it! She’s obviously great.
Red sky in mourning.
When a deadly secret rots the mind of a grieving widower, the decision to work alone on a deserted island morphs into a terrifying race to save his sanity and his life.
Deathstalker (2025) dir. Steven Kostanski.
I wasn’t sure about this at all because I don’t always love remakes, but they made this one way less rapey than the original. I’m glad I gave this a go now, as it was SO much fun and really leaned into the camp and silly. I LOVED the 1980s style effects and rubber masks. Plus, I didn’t think we could go too far wrong with the director of The Void.
Evil has many names. Adventure has only one…
A powerful swordsman known as Deathstalker recovers a cursed amulet from a corpse-strewn battlefield. Marked by dark magic and hunted by monstrous assassins, he must face the rising evil and break the curse.
Hokum (2026) dir. Damian McCarthy.
This was great. I do think McCarthy is getting better with each film! I saw it in the cinema and had to try not to laugh too loudly as not everyone was laughing at the funny (to me) bits!!
We’ve been expecting you.
When novelist Ohm Bauman retreats to a remote inn to scatter his parents’ ashes, he is consumed by tales of a witch haunting the honeymoon suite. Disturbing visions and a shocking disappearance forces him to confront dark corners of his past.
Sator (2019) dir. Jordan Graham.
I rated this 3.5* on Letterboxd but it’s still a highlight for me, I think because I just really liked the way it’s shot. I like the use of the darkness, the whispers, the very slow build up, and spending time with this isolated family living in the woods. I like how deeply weird it is. Also, I love the nature shots, the forest colours, and everything.
After you have suffered, he will find you.
Secluded in a desolate forest, a broken family is observed by Sator, a supernatural entity who is attempting to claim them.
4 mosche di velluto grigio/Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971) dir. Dario Argento.
Although I gave this one 3.5 stars on Letterboxd for my first watch, it’s a highlight of the month for me this time around. A decent giallo – and parents:
(spoiler)
stop trying to force your kids to be the gender you prefer them to be. (Yes, one of those reveals, but I think that message is pro-trans rather than anti-).
When the flies start to crawl, so will your flesh…
Roberto, a drummer in a rock band, keeps receiving weird phone calls and being followed by a mysterious man. One night he manages to catch up with his persecutor and tries to get him to talk but in the ensuing struggle he accidentally stabs him. He runs away, but he understands his troubles have just begun when the following day he receives an envelope with photos of him killing the man. Someone is killing all his friends and trying to frame him for the murders.
Profundo Rosso/Deep Red (1975) dir. Dario Argento.
One of my favourite giallos. This one has a mummified corpse in a walled-in room, a murdered psychic, a gay pianist and his twink lover, and a disturbed little girl who tortures lizards. The climax of this one is really emotional, and pretty brutal. I said FUCKING Hell a couple of times, like this can’t get worse and then it does… It is a film with a lot to say, and has some really moving psychological elements.
When was the last time you were really scared?
An English pianist living in Rome witnesses the brutal murder of his psychic neighbor. With the help of a tenacious young reporter, he tries to discover the killer using very unconventional methods. The two are soon drawn into a shocking web of dementia and violence.
Phenomena (1985) dir. Dario Argento.
The Gothic Horror-Fantasy about a sleepwalking girl who loves bugs (Jennifer Connolly, fresh from the Labyrinth), with a great metal soundtrack, and Donald Pleasance. Honestly, the bit where she shuts up the mean girls at school when the flies are like STOP PICKING ON OUR FRIEND is so good. And the beetle that is like MATE WITH ME I LOVE YOU when they meet for the first time. There are also murders and stuff.
Jennifer has a few million close friends. She’s going to need them all!
A young girl, with an amazing ability to communicate with insects, is transferred to an exclusive Swiss boarding school, where her unusual capability might help solve a string of murders.
Tenebre (1982) dir. Dario Argento.
Another classic, this one was another of Argento’s films that grew on me. I like the twists and turns in this one, and even though I know who the killer is, I still really enjoy the journey of that discovery.
Terror Beyond Belief!
A razor-wielding serial killer is on the loose, murdering those around Peter Neal, an American mystery author in Italy to promote his newest novel.
- NoEnd House (2018) dir. Ethan Lindner. 14mins runtime. A decent short film, competently shot and edited, with some good acting. I liked the concept.
- Venom: The Last Dance (2024) dir. Kelly Marcel. A reasonable conclusion to the trilogy. I should have watched them all I guess, and the multiverse films that tie in with it, but I didn’t, so I didn’t quite get the most out of this. Also, as a film itself, it’s enjoyable and action-packed, but it didn’t quite make it for me as a highlight of the month. Tom Hardy is such a good actor though.
- Kraven the Hunter (2024) dir. J.C. Chandor. This wasn’t a highlight for me either, even though it theoretically had a lot of elements I enjoy. It was too long, for one thing, and there wasn’t enough to keep my attention the whole way through. It took an hour before any of the decent action kicked in with the emotional backbone to make me care about it, and even then, I just wasn’t 100% invested. I don’t know. I liked it, but it was a bit too much of a drag in parts.
- Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988) dirs. Donald G. Jackson, R.J. Kizer. The 1980s had a thing for rapey-romances, where consent wasn’t ever really assumed or asked for, and no usually meant yes. This appears in Harlequin and Mills & Boon, but also in lots of films of the era like this one. It’s a mindless action in a post-nuclear dystopia with frog people other than that, and it was a fun background watch. Don’t let the government own your genitalia, I guess!
- Haunted (1995) dir. Lewis Gilbert. Anna Massey is great in this – and there’s a young Kate Beckinsale as well! It’s a great slowburn Gothic chiller, full of the best tropes. If you liked Marrowbone, Crimson Peak, The Lodgers, and The Others, then this is a good one to add to the list.
- The Fifth Element (1997) dir. Luc Besson. I’ve somehow never seen this one before, I’d never had any idea what it was actually about, and I think I only vaguely knew Bruce Willis was in it. The lengths they went to to keep gay icon Ruby Rhod presenting as straight. Incredible. Milla Jovovich was fantastic. Gary Oldman, also great as Zorg.
- Štićenik / Ward (1973) dir. Đorđe Kadijević. A moody and unsettling 46min short from the director of Leptirica, which is a bonus film on the All the Haunts are Ours folk horror box set for the Leptirica disc. I’m not a fan of psychiatric facility films, but this one is a really interesting one. I think I just didn’t get as much out of it as I could have.
- Devičanska svirka / The Maiden’s Tune (1973) dir. Đorđe Kadijević. A very Gothic, sex-and-death meditation where two strangers meet after the accidental death of a child by a carriage, enmeshing their lives. Obviously, she’s a wrong ‘un. Another bonus film on the Leptirica disc, and by the same director. This one has a runtime of 55mins.
- The Boy (2016) dir. William Brent Bell. This is SO CLOSE to being a highlight for me, but it’s not quite there and I’m not sure what it was missing. I really enjoyed it, it was a lovely modern Gothic piece, and it’s one that has been on my watch list for ages. I would recommend this one as a cozy horror story. I’ll definitely rewatch it at some point.
- mother! (2017) dir. Darren Aronofsky. This is a really visceral, surreal psychodrama interpretation of God, Mother Nature, and humankind, played out as a cyclical domestic drama. It made me cry, but I’m never going to watch that again. It’s not a highlight as I’m not sure what I think about it. I had a lot of EMOTION but I’m not sure if I liked the experience or fully appreciate the metaphors. Like, I get it – I just didn’t like it.
- The Haunting (1999) dir. Jan de Bont. I love how nobody gives a shit about Todd. We don’t even attempt to care about him as a character. This is part of that tradition of 1990s spooky fantasy for grown-ups, with those special effects and lots of frantic screaming as Gothic furniture attacks people. It’s a very fun, not at all book-accurate, take on The Haunting of Hill House, anyway.
- Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel (2018) dir. Stephen Cognetti. This one isn’t as good as the first one by miles, and that’s largely because too much is shown or explained, and not enough is left to the imagination/inference. Also, what is explained is a bit… naff? It has its moments, but we know what to expect from the hotel and its various areas, so that also dampens the impact.
- Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire (2019) dir. Stephen Cognetti. This is where it picks up, and it is better than II, but then we get Billionaire Jesus to tie the trilogy up, and the mythology/messaging is a mess. However, it’s (to me) more effective in the scares than II is, so I usually rate this one a little higher than the 2nd one. The hellfire effects always let this down, as does the very end, which is just… I don’t know, sad, but also annoying. It’s a very ‘culturally US Evangelical’ franchise, with the surface themes and aesthetics, without being coherent.
- Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor (2023) dir. Stephen Cognetti. This one starts a bit too slowly for me, and while it has some really decent moments in it, it’s still not a highlight. I think this is another one that doesn’t quite work with the lore aspect of the original series, and it feels more bolted on. I do think the lore is where it falls down in this franchise overall. I hope we can all agree Margot can get in the bin. Lesbians, though.
- Hell House LLC: Lineage (2025) dir. Stephen Cognetti. This one does away with the found footage style, so this is a straightforward horror film in the way the others are not. The therapist just talks about her patients willy-nilly, and again we have some overarching lore to chew on. Some good moments in this one too, but then it has a cliffhanger ending… Boo.
- 825 Forest Road (2025) dir. Stephen Cognetti. In this one, the creepy dressmaker’s mannequin is a stand-in for the clown mannequin in the Hell House LLC franchise, it would seem. I only put this one on as it’s trending at #10 in the UK on Shudder this week, and I wanted to know what it was. I found it slower to get to the scares, but when it got to Maria’s ‘chapter’ that was more creepy and effective than the cosier chapters preceeding.
- Weapons (2025) dir. Zach Cregger. This one isn’t a highlight because the teacher really pissed me off. I don’t like it when men don’t take no for an answer, and I don’t like it when women don’t, either. I especially don’t like it when that’s in an alcoholism context. Her character was so grating, I know she was meant to be and that was on purpose, but I really hoped she would die and had to sit through the whole film to see if she would or not. I wasn’t watching it for gay rep, which was just as well. Honestly, Barbarian wasn’t a major hit for me either, so maybe it’s just the way Cregger tells ’em, I don’t know.
- Big Bad (2016) dir. Opie Cooper. This is set up as a werewolf flick but it’s a cryptid High School comedy-creature feature. It was fine, but it didn’t do a lot for me to be honest.
- Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism (2023) dir. Nick Kozakis. I really like Australian horror in general, and this is a pretty strong offering, especially from the perspective of an extreme Australian religious community. It doesn’t do anything ‘new’ with the genre, but it does a good job of the psychological horror over the supernatural, and which is the truly chilling thing.
- Le Frisson des vampires/The Shiver of the Vampires (1971) dir. Jean Rollin. This is one of my favourite Rollin films, but possibly as I’m not in the best frame of mind it wasn’t a highlight for me this time around. It’s one I’ve also seen a lot, and I’m really glad the full version in French is available on BFI Player, as the English dub version I’ve seen cuts the cousins’ speech about their ‘research’ and that’s an actual crime.
- Una lucertola con la pelle di donna/A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971) dir. Lucio Fulci. Apparently I put this on at some point, watched half of it, and never finished it. So I went back to the start and watched the whole thing. It is a fun giallo, very heavy on the lesbian repression tropes and psychosexual sex-and-death drama. Don’t watch it if you don’t like weird medical facility animal torture, but that scene is fairly brief.
- Inferno (1980) dir. Dario Argento. Absolutely wild loose sequel to Suspiria, and the second in Argento’s Le Tri Madre/The Three Mothers trilogy. This one is a typical Argento gorefest, with operatic tensions and drama, interweaving subplots, and witchy goings-on. I would have given it a highlighted space but the cat torture was the thing that spoiled it for me.
- Trauma (1993) dir. Dario Argento. This one… white US women don’t support or like foreign white girls, lots of sexualising a vulnerable anorexic 16yo girl who gets rescued and kissed by an older man, an abusive clinic, and a decent horror-thriller plot. Very not accurate ideas about anorexia. Asia Argento is good in this but I feel so bad for her as well. Lives up to the title. 90s lesbians.
- The Girl Who Got Away (2021) dir. Michael Morrissey. This is a drama-thriller, not really a horror, so going in with Horror genre expectations doesn’t do it many favours. As a drama, it’s fine, a bit messy, but the cast are pretty strong and I thought it really delivered. It’s not quite a highlight, but it’s one I might rewatch when I’m in the mood.
- The Red House (1947) dir. Delmer Daves. Not quite a highlight but a decent film! It has romance between mixed-up kids, a spooky house, and the ‘supernatural explained’ trope. A very chill mystery drama with Gothic overtones.
- The Bride! (2026) dir. Maggie Gyllenhaal. This one didn’t do much for me – I get why people love it, but it isn’t for me. I also liked, but didn’t love, Your Monster or Lisa Frankenstein. I didn’t think some of the meta stuff and the feminist stuff worked properly, and I tend to not relate to expressions of US [white woman] feminism in films, so I guess that’s partly why it didn’t land.
- Uzumaki (2000) dir. Higuchinsky. I really enjoy this one, it’s a very chill film I return to when I’m in the mood. I wouldn’t say it’s a highlight of this month, but it’s definitely weird and disturbing, and I don’t mind spending time with it when I’m in the mood.
- The Maze (1953) dir. William Cameron Menzies. Scottish Gothic Horror which is also supremely daft in its reveal. I really liked it though, it has a lovely central relationship/romance, and the costumes are lovely, and it’s just very atmospheric and fun.
Previous Media Round-ups
Media Highlights: The Best of the Best
I began my media round-ups in Nov 2025, so I thought I’d do a media highlight post of my Top 5 books, short stories/collections, TV shows, and films from Nov-Apr. Find out what made the ultimate cut!
April 2026 Media Round-Up
Everything I’ve watched, read, and listened to in April! Skim the highlights, or expand the details to see the full lists.
February 2026 Media Round-Up
What I read, listened to, and watched in the month of February! Skim the highlights, or expand the details to see the full lists and my thoughts.
January 2026 Media Round-Up
My monthly media round-up for January 2026 – all the books, podcasts, tv shows, and films I’ve been enjoying this month!
December 2025 Media Round-Up
My monthly media round-up for December 2025 – all the books, podcasts, tv shows, and films I read/listened to/watched this month.
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