Reviews
‘The Boulet Brothers’ Holiday of Horrors’ Review: A Bloody Christmas Anthology
The Boulet Brothers’ Holiday of Horrors is an exceptionally quick foray into the world of anthology horror that landed on Shudder just in time for Christmas. Coming in at just under 40 minutes, excluding its credits, what it manages to achieve with its truncated runtime is an extraordinarily fun and odd cluster of segments. Still, it stands to gain something from expanding these shorts just a hair more, giving each more time to breathe.
The Boulet Brothers’ Holiday of Horrors: Aggressively Short, But Still Fun & Festive
This foray outside the typical The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula fare is reminiscent of the best extermination segments from their show, as we see an assortment of characters subjected to gruesome deaths around the Yuletide season. And that’s about all you need to know; the fat has been trimmed significantly here, so it’s only appropriate that this review will be shorter than most. It’s exceedingly simple, with a very barebones framing device as our hosts Dracmorda and Swanthula Boulet tell tales of doom around the fire (accompanied by a rotting version of David Dastmalchian, who serves as their yearly undead guest).
“Gaudete” Brings Solid Creature Makeup but Soft Story
Our opening segment, “Gaudete” feels more like a music video than anything else, with the majority of it showcasing Bonnie Aarons stalking out of the grave and around a house to the tune of the titular Christmas carol. There’s some incredible creature makeup on Aarons, whose brief time here is as impactful aesthetically as it is short.
That being said, its vampiric design hogging the spotlight leads to a short film with a story that’s not unlike a gingerbread out of the oven too soon: soft in the middle, and the slightest bit underbaked. But hey, I’m still going to eat the cookie. I don’t know what you expected. It’s a good-looking cookie.
David Dastmalchian’s High Potential Yeti Short is Delightful
The same can’t be said of what follows it, with Dastmalchian’s guest spot “Yeti or Not” being undeniably charming in spite of its plain Jane look and breakneck pacing. Though Dastmalchian’s directorial contribution is very low fidelity and isn’t as well-lit as I’d like, it’s still awfully creative as far as horror shorts go. It’s a concept that I’m confident could be expanded into a full 10 or 15 minute short, with a twist that is fantastic. It’s hard to go wrong with this anthology, thanks to what this short has to offer.
Akela Cooper Emulates the Best of Creepshow
Akela Cooper proves once more she can set the tone and set it strong with her segment “Old Acquaintance”. The longtime James Wan collaborator and screenwriter on hits like M3GAN and Malignant has cemented her directing chops quickly with this atmospheric one-off.
This is one of the only shorts that achieves that mean-spirited and dark side Creepshow and Tales from the Crypt would often splash into, which is especially impressive given how skeletal the script is. You also get a cool feature from Dragula alumni Abhora, playing this segment’s devious demon (one that feels straight out of a James Wan project).
Kate Siegel’s Christmas Surprise Steals the Show
And of course, the Boulets have saved the best for last. “Down the Chimney” by Kate Siegel is put at the end of this anthology for obvious reasons, given that it’s just shocking all around. Shockingly irreverent, shockingly gross, and also slightly shocking in terms of directing. The last time we saw Siegel in the chair was with her soberingly sad segment “Stowaway” in V/H/S/Beyond. “Down the Chimney” is not that. It’s a completely unexpected contribution of demented puppetry that would make the Robot Chicken team blush, and blush hard.
All in all, The Boulet Brothers’ Holiday of Horrors hits all the right buttons needed to make a holiday horror anthology, delivering a set of shorts that are scary, silly, and surprising. Though I wish it were longer, I also wonder if it would lose some of its cheery charm, taking more time to expand its shortest bits. I guess we’ll never know. But what I do know is that of all the horror you should be watching this holiday season, Holiday of Horrors is high on the list.
Haunted house stories are a staple in the horror genre. But it’s not often that a haunted house film digs its way under your skin and stays there long after the credits roll. Enter Recluse, celebrating its world premiere at the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival.
A Disturbing Return Home Fuels Recluse’s Story
Joan Wyatt, a young and troubled audio engineer, is called back to her childhood home following a bizarre accident in which her father, the famous artist Lawrence Wyatt, was engulfed in flames and left in critical condition. Joan has been estranged from her father for quite some time, so when his longtime housekeeper Lydia leaves a voicemail telling her that he likely doesn’t have a lot of time left, she ignores it. But then Lawrence himself calls, telling Joan that he’s been seeing her mother—who disappeared when Joan was a child—around the house.
Joan arrives to find Lydia armed with a crossbow to ward off Lawrence’s obsessive fans. Her father is bed-bound with severe burns, and is being cared for by a hired nurse around Joan’s age named Emily. Lawrence, who notoriously experimented with psychedelics and occult practices during his career, is barely coherent and keeps his face concealed underneath a crude plaster mask. He keeps asking about his “little spider.” It’s disturbing and deeply upsetting, especially since Joan already has a lifetime of trauma associated with the house. Now that she’s back, she begins to suspect that these “ghosts” aren’t metaphorical. Lawrence was not a good man… but something even more sinister may be lurking in the house.
Henry Chaisson Reinvents the Haunted House Formula
Recluse, written and directed by Henry Chaisson, is a masterfully crafted debut feature that takes familiar elements of the haunted house genre—like a remote mansion as the setting, traumatic family secrets, and supernatural mischief—and twists them into something fresh and, well, twisted.
Sasha Frolova Leads an Exceptional Ensemble Cast
Sasha Frolova stars as Joan, delivering a performance that is both believable and compelling. She’s easy to root for throughout the film, especially as she contends with her father’s unwaveringly loyal housekeeper Lydia, brilliantly played by Toby Poser. Mia Vallet’s portrayal of Emily is also noteworthy, commanding attention from her first appearance all the way to the end. Kimball Farley plays Lydia’s son and Joan’s friend Todd with the perfect balance of levity and tension. Frankie Seratch is enjoyable to watch as the opportunistic nepo baby art dealer Tom. Rounding out the cast is Xander Berkeley as Lawrence; even from behind a mask, his performance is intense and chilling. Berkeley even provided some of his own art to be used in the film.
Sound Design and Cinematography Create Unrelenting Terror
The cast is far from the film’s only strength, though. Sound design by Matthew Rollins will have you death-gripping your seat in the best way, and serves as an integral part of the story itself. Production designer Yulanda Yo-Rong Shieh and art director Ana María Kalvo absolutely nailed the set and made the Wyatt family mansion simultaneously sprawling and claustrophobic.
Finally, we have the beautiful and (appropriately) haunting cinematography by Bryce Holden, supported by the editing prowess of Nik Voytas, Josh Lobo, and Henry Chaisson. Not only did they maintain an air of unrelenting suspense throughout the entire film, but they also executed some of the most disturbing and bone-chilling jump scares I’ve seen in recent years.
Seriously: One of those jump scares made me feel physically ill. You’ll know it when you see it for yourself.
Recluse had its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival 2026.
One of my favorite special interests is the Mormon-millionaire-real-estate-tycoon-owned Skinwalker Ranch. Mormon millionaire Brandon Fugal has crafted a wonderfully apophenic history in his post-Bigelow ownership. His perfectly curated release of pseudo-information through the lens of a History Channel TV show did wonders not just for his wallet but for docu-dramas as a whole. Fugal did what The Curse of Oak Island could have only wished to accomplish. BUT, three years before Joseph Smith’s teachings made their way to the Uinta Basin, a group of filmmakers set out to capitalize on one of America’s strangest phenomena. Skinwalker Ranch is a film that is as perplexing as it is insufferable.
Skinwalker Ranch: Missing Children, UFOs, and Found Footage Chaos
In 2010, Hoyt’s (Jon Gries) son disappeared in a blinding ball of light. Some time later, Modern Defense Enterprises sent a team of experts to Hoyt’s property to study what happened to Cody (Nash Lucas). Upon arriving at the property, MDE sets up a reality-TV-like number of security cameras in the hopes of finding anything. But what they found may just make them wish they hadn’t set foot on this property.
The Real History Behind Skinwalker Ranch Lore
As stated, the story of and behind Skinwalker Ranch is one of my favorite bits of Americana. From the Sherman family’s story, through Robert Bigelow’s ownership, all the way to its current Mormon occupation, the history behind Skinwalker Ranch runs deep. Dire wolves, dino beavers, and disappearing orbs, oh my! Whether you believe in the stories or not, Skinwalker Ranch is one of America’s biggest pieces of lore.
One of my favorite theories is that a resource-observing beacon was placed by, for lack of a better term, aliens when Pangea existed. Throughout the years, the dissolution of Pangea shifted the location of where the aliens placed the beacon to what is now considered the Mesa on the northern portion of Skinwalker Ranch’s property. The said beacon could very possibly be what causes the mysterious 1.6 GHz signal on the ranch, or why there are so many UAP sightings around the Mesa.
How Skinwalker Ranch Wastes Its Fascinating Premise
Now, I know all of this has been discovered post-Skinwalker Ranch (movie), but Hunt for the Skinwalker and Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, by Colm Kelleher and George Knapp (and James T. Lacatski for Pentagon), had already been released. Dino beavers on Skinwalker Ranch had already been discussed. The true terror of Skinwalker Ranch had been disseminated by three highly regarded UFOlogists. So, for writer Adam Ohler (and story by Devin McGinn, Steve Berg, Ken Bretschneider, and Murphy Michaels) to craft such a plain story that doesn’t even scratch the surface of what makes Skinwalker Ranch even slightly interesting is confounding. It feels as if the writer/story creators heard the term “Skinwalker Ranch” and decided to focus on that, and that alone. Skinwalker Ranch has zero world-building, and hopes that the title is titillating enough to get someone to click ‘play’.
The singular great aspect about Skinwalker Ranch is the casting of Jon Gries (Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite) and Michael Horse (Deputy Hawk in Twin Peaks). Gries does enough carrying in this film to make up for dropping that winning pass. And it’s just wonderful to see Michael Horse in a film, even if he’s cast as a token Native American whose only purpose is to make the writers feel better for capitalizing on Native American lore. Besides that, the acting in Skinwalker Ranch is beyond atrocious. In fact, the acting feels so unnatural that I honestly thought the team from MDE was going to turn out to be the aliens that kidnapped Cody. Turns out, the story doesn’t even attempt to be 1% as clever as that.
A Massive Found Footage Failure
Skinwalker Ranch not only fails at being an interesting sci-fi horror flick, but it also fails at being a found footage flick. Full of awful CGI, bad acting, and an even worse script, Skinwalker Ranch exists as nothing more than a time waster. In fact, Travis Walton’s experience in Fire in the Sky would be more entertaining to take part in than watching even two minutes of this film–I’d rather get dry probed by the Hyperboreans than ever think of this movie again.
