Baby, it's cold outside ❄️, Browse our winter horror recs 📼, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come invites us in 💍, & more

Intro by Sarah Stubbs | Bluesky | Instagram | Letterboxd

Happy December! Snow is starting to fall in various parts of the country so we thought we'd dedicate this issue to wintery horror that is sure to chill you to the bone! We also have a new guest writer, Candi Norwood, who will be sharing some reading recommendations and is kicking off with a book review of a wintery book you're going to want to pick up! Lots of thrills and chills this week that you're not going to want to skip!

IN THE NEWS

Brett Petersel | Bluesky | Instagram | Letterboxd 

⛓️ Hellraiser (2022) finally gets a physical release
Turbine Media will release David Bruckner’s 2022 film in 4K UHD and Blu-ray (and region free!) this month.

👻 A new Paranormal Activity film’s on the way via Blumhouse & Atomic Monster
Just when you think the Paranormal Activity franchise is over, an eighth film is on the way. With both Jason Blumhouse and James Wan producing, a new film may be coming in 2026. No full details yet on how it’s going to be a part of the universe, but let’s wait and see. Stay tuned.

🖼️ Dylan Clark’s short Portrait of God to become full-length feature with Jordan Peele and Sam Raimi
Dylan Clark’s short film, Portrait of God, is being made into a feature-length film with two of horror’s most-celebrated icons, Jordan Peele and Sam Raimi. Clark will co-write the script. Check out the short film here.

DOUBLE TROUBLE

Bee Delores | Bluesky | Instagram | Letterboxd

There’s nothing quite like small town bars. The locals, so often wild and wily characters of the sordid, petty kind, gather around the watering hole to swap war stories, stories about that time they beat Jim Bob down the street to a pulp, and even stories about their loneliness. Cody Calahan’s The Oak Room is a low scale, intimate story about one such small town bar that finds itself both in the eye of a blizzard and a raving lunatic. It’s so moody and claustrophobic that it’s no surprise it’s based on a stage play (of the same name, written by Peter Genoway); there is something innately ornamental about the presentation and the performances. And that’s why it works. In the end, all we really have are stories: stories about living and our many adventures, stories about our pain, stories about out fleeting happiness. The Oak Room masterfully hammers the importance of stories and storytelling deep in the viewer’s mind. Whether we’re posting selfies on Instagram or piecing together a thread about our new favorite film on Bluesky, our whole existence is nothing but stories. Cody Calahan’s feature is one fine example that you don’t need smoke or mirrors to tell a thrilling horror story.

There’s something charmingly resonant about mumblecore. It’s not trying to be anything other than a bland slice of life. Our lives aren’t want social media makes it out to be; by most metrics, we see the same people and do the same things, day-in and day-out. Slap a pandemic on top of it all, and what we’ve got is a slog of an existence. When it comes to a film like It Cuts Deep, writer and director Nicholas Payne Santos, in his feature directorial debut, force feeds you the most banial of conversation between your average millennial couple. And that’s most assuredly the point. It’s awkward as hell, too, and Gould and Jackson’s timing is so perfectly in-tune you can’t help but cringe and then laugh at the absurdity of it all. It Cuts Deep is delightful and crude, a film with lean but fatty meat, and while it takes 20 minutes to rev up its engines, the second half burns some serious rubber and delivers quite a psychotic 1-2 punch.

RIYL: 30 DAYS OF NIGHT (2007)

Are these creatures cold blooded or is it just winter? Check out our recommendations on Letterboxd to find out.

GORE-MET PAIRINGS

Sarah Stubbs | Bluesky | Instagram | Letterboxd

Movie: Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings

Why I Chose This Film: I am a staunch defender of Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings. It's one of my favorite entries of the Wrong Turn franchise in fact. It's wintery setting sets it apart from the other films. It serves as a bit of a prequel as well. All that said, the kills in it are what elevate it for me. Cannibalism and backwoods horror can get predictable, but this doesn't. The kills are brutal and creative. So much so, that one of them inspired the pairing idea!

Pairing Idea: As I mentioned above, my pairing idea comes directly from the film itself. One of the most creative kills comes from the cannibals turning one of the victims into fondue! I'd never seen this before in a horror film so it's definitely stuck with me! Fondue also holds a special place in my heart because every year for New Year's Eve my husband and I make fondue and watch TRON and TRON: Legacy, a tradition we refer to as TRONdue! The beauty of fondue is that it is so versatile! You can use oil for meat, cheese for dipping, or even go the dessert route! I definitely recommend picking up a fondue pot and giving it a shot yourself!

WHAT TO WATCH

TIMEWARP

Bee Delores | Bluesky | Instagram | Letterboxd

Backlash: The Criminally Overlooked Indie Short

This review originally appeared on B-Sides & Badlands

There takes great craftsmanship to build tension that worms under the skin. A balance must be struck, a teetering see-saw between strong character work, perhaps even subtly burning below the surface, and well-outlined story beats that propel forward. From Hereditary to The Lodge, feature films have a way of utilizing every inch of their runtimes to explore deep crevices of humanity and our darkest, most troubling fears. In the case of short, 13-minute thriller Backlash, directed by Max Moore, the narrative is strung together through two timelines, the past cobbled together with a brutal, violently gory present.

The opening shot, the camera slowly peeling over to reveal blood-sloshed walls and a grieving young woman, cements Moore’s sensibilities as a director. He shoves the gruesome imagery down your throat before ripping it out again, only satiating your bloodlust until much later. Bits and pieces slowly reveal themselves throughout the film, and the unexplainably ominous mood slides like a serrated edge into a deer’s lifeless carcass. Backlash follows Joel Murrary’s Tim, a factory worker trying to do right by his family, as he must also navigate murky waters of a corporation’s greed and negligence no one could possibly have anticipated.

A style not unlike FX’s Fargo, the independent film ⏤ also starring Eliza Coyle (Dharma & Greg, Strip Mall), Molly Brown (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Vincent Clawson, Alea Jazierski, and Kelsey Carlisle ⏤ litters with mundane, frivolous dramas American-made in small town life. Moore’s work is downright spellbinding, as he toys with the viewer, dancing between timelines, provoking an inky, inescapable dread to fill your veins. Such storytelling tricks don’t always land, but Moore performs an acrobatic routine and plops firmly on his feet. So, when the final few moments begin to unravel, a tremendous, stabbing pain and misery floods the screen. The onscreen tragedy, an exclamation point on Moore’s cinematic setpiece, is like a sucker punch to the stomach, knocking the air from your lungs.

Even when members of the cast might not always captivate, Backlash, featuring a score composed by indie-pop band Halfloves, is a damn treat.

RECOMMENDED READING

Candi Norwood | Bluesky | Instagram | Letterboxd

Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice

The blank spot at the top right hand of the screen where the signal strength bars should be. The words “Page cannot be reached” instead of your favorite online game’s homepage. Snow and white noise acting like a portent of what’s to come replaced the morning’s kids’ shows.

In Moon of the Crusted Snow, Waubgeshig Rice shows us immediately that all is not right with the world, creating a feeling of unease while making us feel like a part of the world he’s introducing us to.

Cell, internet, and TV down at the same time is inconvenient and frustrating, but when it’s followed within hours by the landline phone and the power, it’s well on the way to serious for Evan Whitesky, his partner Nicole, and their family and friends which make up the Anishinaabe community who live on a fictional reservation in northern Canada.

For now, they have enough fuel to keep their small power grid running on generators, but a blizzard - and worse - is coming.

Living in the northern part of Canada (where they were driven from the Great Lakes region generations ago by colonial settlers), the band is an afterthought to the government - they only have cell towers, internet, electricity, and even some buildings because of government projects that happened to take place in and near their village, and it was all left behind when the projects were completed. Only a generation ago, this infrastructure didn’t exist, so while it won’t be as easy to deal with as it once would have been, they are used to self-reliance and preparing for winter.

The village is surprised to learn that the infrastructures of the larger cities in the south have collapsed as well, and the challenges of the snow and looming lack of resources are just the tip of the iceberg (see what I did there?) when white refugees from the South make their way to the reservation.

Time passes, resources become scarcer, panic sets in, and lines are drawn between those loyal to the band’s leaders and those aligning with the refugees and their violent leader.

In the meantime, Evan’s father, Dan, Nicole, and Evan himself have prophetic dreams about the impending winter, but though the snow and cold provide the conditions for it, the true horror in Moon of the Crusted Snow comes, as it often does in apocalyptic scenarios, from other people. “Other People” means the white people from the South seeking food, shelter, and ultimately more from the reservation, but it also means each other.
Walter, one of the community leaders, had to practically beg when reminding them, “We have to act like a community,” but that was just the start. The stage is set, and I’m not going to give any more plot details at this point; it’s just too good, go read it.

Moon of the Crusted Snow is probably what they call “literary horror” because it’s about colonialism and the historical - and current - atrocities committed by white people against indigenous people and about their resilience, but i don’t want to call it that because that makes it sound unapproachable, and it is not.

Rice’s story is about people and how they react when their world is upended, and it’s for anybody who feels cabin fever when the world is covered in snow, for people who enjoy their horror to be filled with characters they care about, and, frankly, for those of us who need to read more diversely (a lot of us).

Random Thoughts:
This was written pre-COVID, but some fragments such as when they can’t remember what day it is and time has no meaning felt just like the height of lockdown.

“Our world isn’t ending. It already ended.” Heartbreaking.

TRAILERVILLE

FAVORITE WINTERY HORROR FILMS

There is a chill in the air, but that's not the only thing give viewers the chills. These wintery horror films are may not leave you feeling warm inside but they are worth a watch! Check out our picks on Letterboxd here.

MACABRE DAILY: WEEKLY UPDATES

💀 Sarah Stubbs Selects Her Favorite Flicks From SOVember! [LINK]
💀 FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S 2 (2025) Delivers Lore and Legacy In Darker, Fan-Centric Sequel (REVIEW)
💀 Macabre Daily's Horror-Ble Holiday Gift Guide! [LINK]
💀 Keep Warm This Winter With Arrow Player's Hot Lineup Of Titles To Stream! [LINK]

THE HORRORVERSE TEAM

Check out our Screaming Soon list on Letterboxd for the latest release information and what’s coming out in theaters and/or on demand.