Lower-budget creature features were a staple of my high school years. I was obsessed with films like The Descent, Ice Spiders, Abominable, Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes, and Pumpkinhead: Blood Fued, among many others. Some of these films were heavy on practical effects, some were heavy on (crappy SyFy) digital effects, and some were a healthy mixture of both. Creature features have always checked all of the right boxes for me. Nowadays, creature features have lost some of their gusto. I was wowed last year by Bakemono and wondered if 2025 would give us another astounding creature feature.
Round the Decay follows residents and visitors in Newport’s Valley. The two main players are Kenzie Rhodes (Victoria Mirrer), Roz (Sienna Hubert-Ross), Bart Blakewell (Cary Hite), and Munroe (Damian Maffei) (among a couple of others). Kenzie is back in town sometime after her husband’s untimely death in the woods, Roz is a down-on-her-luck single mother looking for an opportunity, Bart is the new proprietor of the Barn Owl Inn, and Munroe is a long-lost Winchester brother in town to hunt some monsters. This ragtag group of protagonists finds themselves against the claw of an ancient creature set to wreak havoc on those who “don’t belong”.
Adam Newman’s fourth feature film throws a lot at the wall, and most of it sticks. Newman’s script succeeds in making interesting surface characters; people you want to see beat the overwhelming stalking evil. He surreptitiously interweaves timeline jumps that feel forced to start but eventually work out the kinks to eventually tell an enjoyable story. Round the Decay takes a good portion of its run time to build, which will be a deciding factor for audience retention. Round the Decay comes in at one hour and 46 minutes, which feels a little too long for a film like this, and you can feel the strain every now and then. But those who stick it out will be met with a bloody and well-crafted denouement and a strange feeling of empathy.
When it comes to a creature feature a lot of the pressure falls on the creature design and effects. There are many moments in Round the Decay where you can feel the budget, and thankfully, only one or two of those are creature-based. Head Special Effects Makeup and Creature Designer Greg McDougall created an impressively terrifying creature for this feature. McDougall’s Wrexsoul (Rachel Pizzolato) looks great, sounds great, and moves great. The kills are fun for whatever this film’s budget was, but if I were to judge this film based on the creature alone, it would be a big fat A.
For the most part, the acting in Round the Decay is solid. Some takes feel like first takes, but that doesn’t negatively affect the film. There are two unbelievable standouts in this film. Cary Hite gives an incredibly earnest and authentic performance as the new town transplant and business owner. Secondly, you have Damian Maffei. The Haunt, The Strangers: Prey At Night, Wrong Turn (2021), Black Eyed Susan alumn doesn’t get the love he deserves. Maffei’s range is astounding. Whether he’s masked or not, Maffei puts his all into everything. Whenever I see his name in a cast, I’m immediately intrigued.
Despite some flaws and budgetary issues, Round the Decay is a fun and well-crafted creature feature. Newman injects moments of dark comedy to break the tension in ways that feel fresh and unforced. If you like creature features, specifically Pumpkinhead, then Round the Decay will do the job for you. Oftentimes, studios dump the projects they don’t believe in into theaters around January and February, but Round the Decay is not one of those films. You can feel the passion from those involved, and it plays well on screen.
Round the Decay hits theaters on January 31st.
