The Final Girls' turns 10 🗡️, Our favorite Teen Horror ☠️, 'Pins and Needles' draws blood 🩸, & more!

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Ryan Coogler's Sinners is finally coming to streaming services. Well, just one, MAX, which will stream the film exclusively beginning July 4, 2025. Get ready to sink your teeth into one of the year's best films.

We have a new trailer for The Strangers: Chapter 2. A direct sequel to last year's Chapter 1, Madelaine Petsch returns as Maya, and must fight for survival once again. Read more about it on Macabre Daily.

Neon Rated has some goodies for collectors with the release of 4K UHD and Blu-ray releases for The Monkey, Longlegs, Revenge and more. Head to their shop here.

According to Variety, Doug Liman will be directing a new film for Stephen King's The Stand. Yes, there will be ANOTHER one.

Justin Seaman is back with another Barn film! The Barn III begins production this month. Get involved via their indiegogo.

Bette Davis Eyes: The Tragic Beauty of The Final Girls

Out of all life experiences, death is easily the most brutal. You can never be ready for it. It comes barreling down life's tracks when you least expect it. Todd Strauss-Schulson understands the brutality of the Grim Reaper and the grieving process - they're both forever tethered together and never seem to end. The Final Girls fuses a Scream meta-awareness with the heaviness of losing someone and how the smallest things can recall their living memory. Smells, sights, and sounds can trigger a flood of new emotions, raw and unfettered. Whenever I hear certain songs, I'm taken back to another time and place, as though I'm trapped there, unable to breathe or scream.

In Strauss-Schulson's film, he uses Kim Carnes' iconic "Bette Davis Eyes" as an emotional linchpin for the lead character, Max (Taissa Farmiga). In the opening scene, her mother Amanda (Malin Akerman) leaves an audition deflated when casting only remembers her from a 1980s slasher, Camp Bloodbath. "Am I ever gonna live that movie down?" she sighs, looking over at Max, who sees her as the movie star she is. On the drive home, their favorite song "Bette Davis Eyes" comes on the radio. Amanda turns up the volume and begins to dance. Max smirks and bobs her head. When she spills coffee all over Amanda's headshots, they are side-swiped by another car, and they go rolling down the quiet street. The song fades out, leaving a devastating image. Cut to the opening title card. That moment hangs over the rest of the film.

During a screening of Camp Bloodbath and its sequel, which happens to mark the three-year anniversary of Amanda's death, a fire breaks out ala Final Destination style. Flames consume the entire movie theatre. The group, including Gertie (Alia Shawkat) and her step-brother Duncan (Thomas Middleditch), Chris (Alexander Ludwig), and Vicki (Nina Dobrev), darts to an emergency exit behind the projection screen. In doing so, they transport themselves into the movie. When they shake off their dizzying stupor, it becomes clear that the only way to escape is to avoid serial killer Billy Murphy's blade.

Because they're not on the counselor's roster, they become wild cards in the story. Their presence causes an outward ripple, but even they can't stop the inevitable stack of bodies. Many of the core group fall by his machete, and their oozing blood remains another reminder that you can't escape death.

While The Final Girls satirizes your micro-budget '80s slasher, the movie itself is not your typical slasher. Max's journey threads throughout the entire story, as she confronts her mother's death and learns that it's all part of life. The most vital scene arrives in the finale, when only Max and Amanda's Nancy character are the last women standing. In their conversation, Max pleads with Nancy not to go outside and become another of Billy's victims. But, as Nancy replies, she's not meant to be the Final Girl; Max is. "That's not who I'm supposed to be, remember?" Nancy says. "Honey, let me do this... Max, I'm not afraid."

"I've never felt more real or more alive ever before," she adds, her eyes glistening with tears. Max, in her panic, calls her mom and says that she has a daughter. But Nancy replies that she is not gone. She's right here, and she'll always know where to find her - in Camp Bloodbath. As I hold back tears, even writing this, I'm reminded of all the people I've lost in my life - my dad, mom, sister... and countless friends along the way. That heartbreak is never gone, I know that. It just fuses with who I am.

The film punctuates its message with "Bette Davis Eyes." Nancy leaves the rickety church and steps out onto a purple-hewn lawn. She turns to Max and dances to the beat. Moments just before Billy Murphy appears and kills Nancy, Max swallows Nancy's words and realizes, in part, that she's right. Her visage will always be around, immortalized on film in a slasher movie. That's where she can find her mom again.

As I push play on The Final Girls (again), I know that this is how we heal - through our favorite comfort films. Even the films that make us cry can provide a cathartic quality. It's all about healing in some way. Whether it's to cope with a dumpster fire of a country or the death of loved ones, horror movies serve as a unique vessel that you can't find anywhere else. In showing death without any pretext, we can learn so much about life and death, and learning to live again and wallowing in pain. It's all part of the long, winding process of grief. The dying out of one's life may stain our hearts, but we all recover eventually. It's a cliche... but time really heals all wounds.

Sure, you might fall into an abyss of reliving that misery from time to time - but it's always necessary if we want to breathe again.

"She's precocious, and she knows just what it takes to make a pro blush. She got Greta Garbo's standoff sighs, she's got Bette Davis eyes."

Teen Horror has been around for years, but has evolved with the introduction of modern day technology. If you look at classics such as Friday the 13th and Sleepaway Camp, there are no cellphones or gaming devices. They're pure off-the-grid fun full of sex, drugs and rock & roll. Like, totally, go see our picks on Letterboxd.

Wes Craven's Scream was a big hit in 1996. Since then, we've had (soon) six sequels, but there are a number of films who reek of Scream's influence. A masked killer (or killers) preying upon vulnerable teens (and adults), killing them in creative ways. It's a regurgitated formula that sticks like corn syrup, but works to its advantage. Check out the list on Letterboxd.