Reviews
NO REST(STOP) FOR THE WICKED: ‘Glorious’ Review
J.K. Simmons voice acting shines in this gloomy, filthy horror dramedy from “Doctor of Horror” Rebekah McKendry. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: an eldritch demi-god and a sad drunk walk into a rest-stop bathroom. Of course, you haven’t cause Glorious is something else entirely. The second film with director Rebekah McKendry at the helm is a big step up creatively from her previous endeavor, “All the Creatures Stirring,” telling a tale that is as ambitious as it is cleverly contained. See, this was one of the bottle films from the height of the pandemic, but unlike something like Shadow in the Clouds, where that feels distractingly obvious, Glorious is just gloriously weird and thoughtful enough to keep you from realizing it.
The film follows Wes, a man who gets wasted after a messy breakup and finds himself beyond rock bottom in a rest stop bathroom after he becomes entangled in the plans of self-proclaimed god Ghatanothoa (Ghat for short). As Wes tries to escape the restroom and fight against his supposed destiny, he only finds himself getting pulled further into the gears of a long-running feud and dragged way beyond his depth.
Writers Todd Rigney, Joshua Hull, & David Ian McKendry pen a clever and darkly humorous script that doesn’t lay it on too thick with the comedy of it all; after all, the title of the film itself is a gloryhole joke; it could have easily done so and burned any of the tension in the movie. It reminds me a lot of The Color Out of Space & my favorite horror film of 2016, The Void, but on a smaller scale and with a more philosophical slant.
Glorious dwells primarily on what engenders the ever-growing culture of nihilism many people find themselves sinking into, the film running on philosophical fuel with references to Beckett, Sartre, Hobbes, and other greats I probably didn’t even pick up on a first watch scattered throughout this conversation of human nature.
Overall, I appreciate the film for taking one of the key aspects of cosmic horror and flipping it on its head by asking the question: what if one of those unthinking, unfeeling elder gods started to feel and care? And how disastrous could that be? And though its execution is a bit clunky, the twist of the film drives a double-wide trailer-sized knife through your gut as you try to keep up and recontextualize everything you’ve seen and suddenly get washed over with a feeling of ick.
But what of our leads having this conversation? Well, Ryan Kwanten, True Blood alum and the lead of the underrated James Wan vehicle Dead Silence is delightful in this. He portrays the perfectly pathetic end of a relationship and its consequences greatly, and he gets to engage in a lot of actors’ dream roles as the surprisingly complex Wes becomes gradually more and more unhinged through the course of the movie, making you wonder what his choices will be up until the film’s finale.
And of course, do I even need to say it? JK Simmons is the treasure of this film. He gives a wonderful and very calculated performance where his speech mannerisms, down to his choice of awkward words, and the cadence of his iconic and explosive anger. It’s clear that he had a lot of love for the character and the film as a whole and sculpted Ghat through his acting. If you love him as much as I do, and you’ve been waiting to hear his smooth voice since Season 1 of Invincible, you’re pretty much obligated to check this. He kills it here.
In terms of the cinematography, McKendry is clearly not referred to as a Doctor of Horror for no reason. She, alongside Jakob’s Wife DP David Matthews, have a great sense of space and framing that makes the most of their location and helps construct that “out there” vision of the film when it gets particularly bizarre. There is one scene that will make you believe it can rain inside of a bathroom (I know that sounds weird but trust me on this). The movie looks dead to rights disgusting, and if you’re squeamish, you’re going to be squirming thanks to the movie’s styling, which embodies mephitis. It takes a special talent to create a mise en scene that makes you want to hose down with a decontamination shower after seeing it, and it just gets worse in the best of ways as the story continues.
Despite how fun the movie is, it isn’t perfect. I’m not entirely a sycophant for this. Horror movies with big cosmic entities as their main villains rarely get the budget they deserve to portray the titanic nature of these shambling extra-dimensional horrors that make it into their scripts, and that’s no different here. While the practicals we see at the end are very well done, the CGI is clunky and probably could have avoided showing the big bad outright.
The film is also surprisingly short, coming in at very tight 80-some minutes. I think this film will benefit from a director’s cut, so I’d like to see what weird visuals and philosophical dialogue the McKendry’s and company have in the tank if an uncut version turns up.
BOTTOMLINE: This is a short, tightly contained watch with a surprisingly philosophically ponderous plot—you know, given this is a movie about a Lovecraftian horror stuck in a toilet stall. With well-paced humor and some absolutely batshit visuals sprinkled throughout, I’m excited for when this hits Shudder to see other people revel in the curious oddity that is Glorious.
Glorious premieres on Shudder Thursday August 18th.
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.
