Reviews
WAR NEVER ENDS FOR THE DEAD: A Completely SPOILER-FREE Review of ‘BROOKLYN 45’
I’ve mentioned that Ted Geoghegan’s We Are Still Here is arguably the film that most influenced my current taste in horror movies. It’s a bombshell of a movie that completely sucker-punches you, with a climax that blew my mind when I first saw it. It’s my favorite ghost film of all time and a personal favorite I never get tired of watching. So, you can imagine how excited I was at the announcement of Brooklyn 45, and how worried I was knowing the expectations Geoghegan’s previous film had set. Although it’s an entirely different beast that shares some thematic similarities, Brooklyn 45 is both a worthy successor and just an incredible piece of cinema in its own right.
A Seance Gone Wrong
On December 27th, 1945, a group of lifelong friends who have come home from the war gather to comfort Clive “Hock” Hockstatter (played by Larry Fessenden), a colonel who lost his wife Suzie in a sudden and bizarre suicide on Thanksgiving. In Clive’s search for answers, he turns to the supernatural and requests the group perform a seance with him in a last-ditch effort for closure. When they agree, what answers their call to the afterlife turns a reunion into a fight for sanity, questioning who your friends truly are, with a deluge of secrets pouring out.
It would have been easy to make a pulpy, 1940s horror scenario out of this, something akin to the game Call of Cthulu (if your gm loved black-and-white war dramas). But Brooklyn 45 isn’t just an old-school throwback with some new-school sensibilities and modern special effects as the poster might suggest; it’s a lovingly crafted meditation on dealing with unexpected loss, and the hatefulness that can jump out of you as a result.
Exploring the Dark Power of Mourning
Many complex themes permeate Brooklyn 45’s story, but the most powerful of all is the dark, ugly power of mourning. Not grief, which you feel, but how you mourn to express that grief. There’s something dangerous about mourning and how it can change you: the fearful result of mourning ideals and codes, mourning the ones you’ve lost, mourning actions you’ve taken, and mourning the death of the choices you never got to make. Fans of We Are Still Here will be familiar with how that film deals with grief, given the plot.
But the difference between contacting the dead of an untimely death to contacting the dead of a suicide adds a new hard-to-swallow element that touches you in a way that is not deeper per se, but radically different and painful. That element is how mourning changes into something dangerous, and could change who you are (or who you’re trying to be).
Not all death is equal, and when you convince yourself that the blame falls on you, death can be leagues more devastating than you could ever imagine. The movie delves into the idea that when there’s an enemy, there’s a cause, but when you’re the enemy, the cause becomes much harder to fight for and discern. Mourning becomes less clear, and the fog of war inside consumes your thoughts. And Brooklyn 45 doesn’t just play with that fog; it forces you to investigate it and let it wash over you. You’re sent into an emotional no man’s land, accompanied only by a platoon that feels as likely to put a bayonet through you as they are to mend your wounds.
A Fully Thought Out And Dynamic Cast
And what a platoon it is! The cast here doesn’t just have this endless chemistry; they’re also all unbelievably in sync regarding their character dynamics. It’s one thing to be enjoyable as an ensemble, but to get you to believe these characters are playing out these decades-long relationships is a rare achievement that this film pulls off effortlessly.
Ezra Buzzington is especially enjoyable as Major DiFranco, who plays him with this stony demeanor and firmness of speech that I love, something reminiscent of Garland Brigg’s best moments from Twin Peaks. Archibald (Jeremy Holms) presents himself as all swagger and nice tailoring but slowly becomes the most emotionally complex character. It takes time for Bob (Ron E. Rains), the odd man out of the group being Marla’s husband, to come out of his shell, but when he does, it is glorious and genuinely heartbreaking. And it’s all thanks to Anne Ramsey as Marla that we get the tensest scene in the film, whose performance draws a line between two versions of the same character in an enjoyably dark way.
Larry Fessenden’s Show-Stealing Role
The star of the show is Fessenden, whose performance is uncanny. He shifts through the emotional spectrum in his monologue toward the film’s beginning in a way that makes you wonder how such an incredible character actor hasn’t been given heaps more movies to headline. From start to finish, he is pure dynamite, even with the state he’s in by the end.
These actors show off their full potential because of Geoghegan’s clever script, which utilizes a closed space perfectly. We get shocking twists throughout, with jaw-dropping dialogue that makes for some stunning interactions, all contained in one parlor room. Gripping scenes that evoke horror through paranoia and dashes of black comedy that make you jump between “that’s hilarious” to “that’s awful” feel like they’ve translated impeccably from the page of the screenplay.
Brooklyn 45 Is An Immersive Period Piece That Will Haunt You
I’ve talked a lot about how great this is as a dramatic thriller, which it is, but it is also a genuinely scary horror movie. Brooklyn 45 doesn’t fit into a neat genre box (most great horror films don’t), but when it fully embraces one of those genres, it does them perfectly. There’s tension built throughout the movie for the scares, and when they come, they hit hard.
While most of the special effects are simple, there’s an elegant execution to them that leaves a disproportionately massive impact. There are doses of shock throughout it, ranging from your run-of-the-mill frightening to downright horrifying. It’s not for gorehounds—don’t expect blood and guts flying, but it uses its most gruesome moments in a way that made me squirm in my seat. The final practical effect at the climax actually made me turn away from the screen, just because of how it’s shot, framed, and the amount of time you get face to face with it made me uncomfortable. Good uncomfortable, but good lord, that image will be burned into my brain.
Set design as bespoke as the period-accurate costuming makes the film’s vibes immaculate, as does a clean soundtrack that plays its part well. In this séance, all the visual candles flicker at the right time, the house audio rattles on cue, and the phantoms of cinematography come out to play. This is usually the part where I would say the things I didn’t like, but I’m hard-pressed to find them, so let’s get to the
Brooklyn 45 Is a Must-Watch Horror Film
Brooklyn 45 is the kind of film that completely immerses you and keeps you guessing what will happen until the final frames. It’s a haunted house that will have you pounding on the door, begging to be let out—but not for the usual reasons you’d expect. If you’re looking for a simple weekend watch that could be your next favorite, give this a try. It’s what happened to me. Watch it immediately.
Brooklyn 45 is now streaming on Shudder!
No way it’s the horror of 2026, but Hokum could be this year’s most solid “welcome to the big leagues, kid” horror. It’s a pill that’s got the potential to draw in new horror fans, but has enough flavor to satisfy a veteran for 101 minutes. Damian McCarthy definitely learned to polish up his idea of a nightmare from Caveat (2020), to Oddity (2024), to his best feature yet. Literally, sort of. With a single watch of each under my belt… Hokum has the same theme and tone as the previous two, just waxed and remixed. I’m not mad at it, though.
Hokum That Bridges Indie and Mainstream Appeal
Even the freaks like us who live in the underground horror tunnels can understand the public’s genre fatigue. I agree- it can seem like all these remakes and re-hashes are seriously weighing down blockbuster horror these days. The good indie stuff gets looked over, but McCarthy’s most recent film is a decent little in-between. It won’t bother you with a high cinema monologue, but it knows how to make you cringe, and will lock you in a dusty room with it.
It’s vague in exposition, not that a simple idea like this really needs to be super fleshed out. It stars Severance’s Adam Scott as Ohm Bauman, a famous Yankee novelist, a guy who grieves, and a big jerk. He arrives at a boutique Irish inn to scatter the ashes of his parents, and finish the last book in his trilogy. The challenge of writing an asshole lead that still has to convince the audience to root for them is damn refreshing. Scott’s performance holds it up too. He’s got a great jerk-face even without dialogue. He’s easy to pity, though- somewhere between Paul Sheldon from Misery, and a real life Stephen King, who shares the suspiciously balanced atmosphere that drove Jack Torrence nuts in The Shining.
Familiar Horror Influences with a Refined Execution
McCarthy borrows a lot from those two, and probably a catalog of blockbuster peek-a-boo scary movies. The reason Hokum is a good challenge for the horror gateway, is that it doesn’t try too hard to “elevate” (it does, though only a little) the genre. It listens and learns from its elders to complete the haunted hotel play-by-play. Not a repeat, but a re-do of the things that work for paranormal and folk horror. The aspect that Hokum brings home is the solid polycule made of production design, sound mixing, and cinematography. A happy, creepy home of cobwebs and jump scares.
The only hotel staff spared from Ohm’s terrible attitude is Fiona. When he learns she’s gone missing after a Halloween party he was famously blackout drunk for, he feels a responsibility to return the kindness and effort she had shown him. The last person to speak to Fiona was local kooky guy, Jerry (David Wilmot). His local status is confirmed by Ohm after Jerry claims Fiona is most likely dead in the honeymoon suite… because her ghost approached him and told him so. Jerry might be crazy, but Ohm has nothing to live for, apparently. Ohm agrees to investigate the suite that the hotel staff keep locked and out of service. It’s haunted by a witch, they say. Obviously.
Production Design and Sound Craft a Claustrophobic Nightmare
The suite, and the source of Hokum’s nightmares, is stunning work in the macabre department. Despite my distaste for them, it really is a playground for jump scares. Lighting and sound design do some real respectable heavy lifting that the viewer is forced (complimentary) to sit through. My personal playground, though, would be the dumbwaiter. The last time I had that much fun with one of those was when lowering Danny into the den of lizard aliens in Zathura (2005). Hokum’s dumbwaiter plays as much of a role as Adam Scott does in his.
Besides the horrors that persist in it, the honeymoon suite really comes alive with the one or two Resident Evil-esque puzzles in order to reach the meat of the mystery. A super engaging focus from cinematographer Colm Hogan to use frame ratio, and other visual camera tricks to induce the claustrophobia of the epicenter of scares. Bring back the dumbwaiter please.
Where Hokum Falls Short
What doesn’t work is excusable. The thin background information on Ohm’s trauma presents itself too often through a jump scare/flashback cocktail. Did this movie need to be 101 minutes, or could it have been 90? Did the viewer need to understand the weight of Ohm’s undesirable childhood? Not to this degree. I think these moments also risk confusion as to what supernatural thing we’re dealing with at the moment: the witch of the honeymoon suite, Fiona’s ghost, or the lasting haunt of Ohm’s mother’s tragic death? The film takes the “less is more” rule at about 70%- not awesome, but a passing grade, no doubt.
One of the most entertaining aspects of horror is its subgenres. Zombie films have an ever-branching group of sub-subgenres, as do slashers and paranormal films. It’s honestly exhausting to try to classify some of these films. Hell, my favorite bigfoot film, Night of the Demon, is a cryptid slasher film! Who knew that the slasher subgenre would ever have a cryptid branch to it?! But the straight-to-DVD times of the mid-aughts brought a series of weird slasher-ish films to the shelves of Walmart and FYE’s across the United States. One of those films that caught my eye (at too young an age) was a genuinely weird, trailer park, splatterpunk remake called 2001 Maniacs. (Would this technically fall under the Hellbilly slasher subgenre?)
What Is 2001 Maniacs About?
Anderson Lee (Jay Gillespie), Corey Jones (Matthew Carey), and Nelson Elliot (Dylan Edrington) are three college kids on their way to Daytona for Spring Break. As their college graduation looms, or lack of graduation, they want to go out with a bang. Literally. A detour leads the three and two other groups into the overly cheery town of Pleasant Valley. But this stuck-in-their-ways town has danger lurking beneath it. The town’s mayor, George W. Buckman (Robert Englund), who dons a Confederate flag eye patch, welcomes the eight travelers in with open arms. And just like that, the Guts n’ Glory festival is set to begin! Though who will make it out alive, and who will get turned into tonight’s pot roast?
A Movie that Shares Some Odd Company
I’ll be completely honest. I haven’t watched this movie in over a decade. There was a time in my life when I was hellbent on finding the most messed-up movies I could. As my watchlist grew, so did my desensitization. Movies like this, Freakshow (which proudly boasted it was banned in 47 countries), August Underground, and The Girl Next Door filled out my formative film-viewing years. While I can understand why some of these disgusting movies were made, some completely befuddled me as to why they were even made. Out of all of these films, 2001 Maniacs stuck in my head as the most perplexing of the bunch.
Writers Tim Sullivan and Chris Kobin, with direction from Tim Sullivan, are very competent voices in horror. They co-wrote Driftwood together, which, while not amazing, is better than the reviews suggest. Their work on Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror resulted in a great anthology film that gets overlooked in most conversations about anthologies. And Tim Sullivan wrote/directed the second-best segment in Chillerama, “I was a Teenage Werebear”. So, why this movie? Why remake Herschell Gordon Lewis’s just as perplexing Two Thousand Maniacs!?
2001 Maniacs’ Surprising Connection to Cabin Fever
Quick aside, since we’re also covering Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever this month. What’s interesting is that this film stars Giuseppe Andrews as Harper Alexander (who reprises his role of Deputy Winston in Cabin Fever 2). And towards the beginning of this film, Eli Roth reprises his role of Justin from Cabin Fever. So, Eli Roth exists in this world as his character from Cabin Fever, but Giuseppe Andrews exists as a completely different entity. That’s neither here nor there. Just an interesting observation that implies the flesh-eating disease also exists within this world. What are the odds? As much as I despise Eli Roth, it would have been fascinating to see this group of characters battle Confederate ghosts AND a flesh-eating disease.
Okay, where were we?
The Incredibly Shaky Acting in 2001 Maniacs
Nothing about this film works, except for a handful of practical effects. You can all hate me for what I’m about to say…and that’s okay. Robert Englund and Lin Shaye are not good actors. I will concede that Englud is great as Freddy, and he has worked his way into his legendary status. Beyond that? Not so much. Lin Shaye just…she’s a nepo sister who got in while the getting was good. Her high-pitched, high-energy line readings get old after more than 30 seconds of screentime. It’s easy to see why she has so many fans, and I’m happy that they have thousands of films to watch her in. I just think she took the spot of a potentially better actor. Though you should not mistake what I said as me saying the other actors in this movie are great. Because that is simply untrue. Nearly every scene feels as if the actors are reading their lines from a teleprompter slightly off-screen.
Do the Kills Make it Worth Sitting Through?
“But the point of this movie is the gory kills!” Okay, and? A few of the kills in 2001 Maniacs are fun and inventive, but you have to sit through endless filler until you get there. It gets to a point where this movie’s horniness becomes so over the top that even a hypersexual Joe Bob Briggs fan would become annoyed. You can say that it’s because this movie is a horror comedy, or that it’s supposed to be tongue-in-cheek. And I can come right back and say that there is not a single bit of ‘comedy’ in this movie that works. Vampires Suck is funnier than this. Hell, Disaster Movie is funnier than this.
2001 Maniacs is a Big Skip
2001 Maniacs is the closest I’ve come to a DNF when covering a film for Horror Press. The movie’s blatant racism-played-for-jokes becomes old before it even gets started. Decent practical effects are ruined by mid-aughts digital effects that would make the SciFi Channel cringe. God, how many times can you scream, “The South’s gonna rise again,” before it stops becoming satire and becomes weird? Calling this movie satire would be unfair because there is not a single moment of awareness throughout. Yes, they make Southerners look like pig-screwing dimwits, but it feels like it’s only done to cover their asses.
Do not watch 2001 Maniacs. It is a truly terrible movie. And that’s coming from someone who has watched nearly every SciFi Original, Mongolian Deathworm, and has sat through Verotika eight times.
The Horror Press Podcast Episode 59: Shudder & Sequels
[INTERVIEW] Alice Maio Mackay Talks ‘The Serpent’s Skin’
Overlook Film Festival: ‘Hokum’ Review
‘2001 Maniacs’ Is Spring Break…For Racists?!
‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’ Review: A Reboot With Mixed Results
5 Horror Movies To Watch When You’re Super Stoned
Everything You Need To Know About ‘From’
‘Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever’ Review: A Meth Trip That Never Ends
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The Crypt Keeper Takes Overlook Film Festival 2026
‘The People Under the Stairs’ Review: A Brilliantly Bizarre Horror Classic
‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ and The Story of William Afton Explained
Slappy Was the Blueprint: How the Dummy from Goosebumps Became A Horror Icon
Glen and Glenda: Don Mancini’s Reverence for Queerness in ‘Seed of Chucky’ (2004)
‘Truth or Dare’: Who Did it Best?
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The 11 Most Disturbing Horror Movies Ever, According to an Actual Horror Fan
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