All through October, I’ll be posting reviews of the best of the best films in the horror genre released since October 1, 2023, through September 30, 2024. As an added bonus, I’ll be adding a secondary review that may be somewhat related to the main review or slightly missed the countdown by inches. Follow along the countdown every day in October. Feel free to agree, disagree, or better yet, give me your own picks for your favorite horror movies of the year. Happy Halloween!

#26 – BEEZEL (2024)
Released on September 24, 2024, and available On Demand and digital download from DREAD!
Directed by Aaron Fradkin.
Written by Aaron Fradkin, Victoria Fratz Fradkin.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/0CGire4Yqg0
A simple house in a typical suburban neighborhood is the site of numerous horrifying events which begins in 1966 and continues until present day. The origins of these evil phenomena seem to come from a blind witch who haunts the dark basement of this home.

Because it takes place in the winter for most of the film and there is a tendency to flip between film stocks from celluloid to VHS to digital cameras, BEEZEL felt like a low budget cousin of LONGLEGS. There is definitely a creepy vibe immediately as the drone shot scans over a cold and barren landscape filled with bare trees and snow covered back yards. Tone is something I’m going to be referring to a lot in this review because BEEZEL excels in capturing a dire and dangerous tone over and over again in this multi-structural story. Without giving away too much backstory other than roughly edited footage of what looks to be home movies, spliced with what appears to be a murder scene, BEEZEL opens with a cameraman (LeJon Woods) being lured into the home of the homeowner (Bob Gallagher) and then after a brief introduction to the two characters, the same cameraman is lured into the basement. Immediately, there is a sense that none of this should be happening and something terrifying is lurking around the next corner. It’s a feeling that continues pretty much for the entire runtime of BEEZEL. Maintaining that tone is no easy feat and while the film does take some beats to allow your heart to normalize, it rarely shakes that ominous feeling of dread that something even worse is coming.
Split into four timelines, the story basically functions as an anthology with each story building off of the next as time goes on. We jump from 1966 to 1987 then to 2003 and finally 2013 through the course of the film, each segment referring to the one before it, but telling an altogether different story all occurring within the same house. It is a testament to the writers to come up with so many creepy and tension laden scenes, all different from one another, yet focusing basically on the same monster, this blind witch.

The acting is hit or miss as none of these actors are household names, but for the most part, they play the roles well. Standouts include the aforementioned LeJon Woods and Bob Gallagher, who star in the first and one of the most unsettling segments.

BEEZEL also reminded me of an underseen film released in 2022 called TWO WITCHES, which not only had a great dark tone, but utilized the anthology format to tell one story, and of course, all of the witchery going on. BEEZEL is a highly enjoyable film. It feels dark and wrong, but also has a sort of playful sense of humor, knowing that it isn’t above making one dart back in their seats with a well-timed jump scare with a horrifying payoff. In the end, this is a movie about the ongoing story of a haunted house that terrorizes its occupants every generation and will do so seemingly forever.

THE FRESH HELL TRILOGY – THE EXORCISM OF SAINT PATRICK, WOLVES AGAINST THE WORLD, DEAD TEENAGERS (2024)
Released on August 27, 2024, and is available On Demand and digital download from Cranked Up and Good Deed Entertainment!
Directed/Written by Quinn Armstrong.
Trailer for DEAD TEENAGERS: https://youtu.be/GUL64kVsJVg
Trailer for WOLVES AGAINST THE WORLD: https://youtu.be/3RFaIlomyQg
Trailer for THE EXORCISM OF SAINT PATRICK: https://youtu.be/JPdFvOic1Bk
A young boy confused about his sexuality is sent by his disapproving parents on a hiking trip with a priest to undergo a radical conversion therapy. A former member of a neo-nazi death metal band (who also happen to be werewolves) visits his old friends and must grapple with his violent and racist past. A group of teenagers find a script in the woods outside of their weekend vacation cabin that seems to indicate that they are in the middle of a slasher film. These are the three unique and unflinching, full-length feature films from writer/director Quinn Armstrong called the Fresh Hell Trilogy and all three are fascinating watches.

You see, there is this absolutely asinine theory out there in the entertainment twitterverse that if you write about a controversial subject, and give it any kind of complex treatment of it or look at it from a three-dimensional way, then that means the writer/filmmaker/comic book creator sympathizes with that subject matter. This means if you make a character that is a Nazi or a pedo or, let’s face it, a Republican with any type of dimension, making the character sympathetic, then that means you are one of those people. It’s that train of thought that leads to cardboard characters facing odds that offer no challenge or any kind of complex range of thought or emotion to the story. Basically, it encapsulates mainstream writing and commentary to a tee and it is the reason why people sound more like sheep today as the content they produce, be it scripts, reviews, comics, or whatever, is predictable and interchangeable.
That’s why I absolutely love these three films that make up the Fresh Hell Trilogy. Quinn Armstrong is from my home state of Ohio and is proof that creative talent is alive and well between the coasts. I don’t want to give these three films a disservice by lumping them all together, but I think what impressed me the most is the maverick voice apparent in all three films. Armstrong doesn’t take the easy way out of his stories. Characters have made mistakes in the past and still do. They feel more real than most mainstream movies you’ll see on the countdown and it makes the films better for it.

Of the three films, I was most impressed with the meta-slasher DEAD TEENAGERS, as it starts out with a typical slasher scenario and then flips it on its head. While it is reminiscent of the excellent film, THE FINAL GIRLS, it takes the subject matter more seriously and once the kids realize they are in a slasher film, plunges to the depths of surreal depravity pretty quickly. While this is probably the least controversial of the three films, it is the one that felt the most creative. Expect some heinous kills, plot acrobatics, and likable characters who turn cutthroat once they know the way the script goes. I love the detail that as the film goes on, little flubs like the boom being in the shot and someone off camera popping in to add makeup to the actors. It’s little moments like these that make this film so ingeniously watchable.

I loved the way Armstrong delves into the horror of guilt in WOLVES AGAINST THE WORLD. The lead character Louis (played by Michael Kunicki) is a former member of a neo-Nazi death metal band and has the giant swastika tattoo on his back to prove it. He now attempts to atone for his sins in a support group. But when he gets a call from one of his old friends from the past, he challenges himself to visit his friend and see if he can get him to change his ways too. But once he goes back, he finds it’s never easy to go home again. Oh, and Louis and his former bandmates are also werewolves. Now, this film is going to ruffle a lot of feathers. It never sympathizes with the beliefs of Nazi-ism but it does flesh out Louis’ former friend Anders (played by writer/director Quinn Armstrong himself) and shows the strength of their friendship that began as kids before either were tangled up with racism and lycanthropy. Lous and Anders’ love of music is what brought them together and while they try to rekindle that passion by making music again, the wolfy-ness and whole Nazi thing proves to be too hard a difference to overlook. This is a film about coming to grips with one’s past, warts and all, and how, with perspective, something one once believed wholeheartedly, can be so different than the way one feels now. The performances in this one are fiendishly good. WOLVES AGAINST THE WORLD is a brutal and gory film as new rituals and beliefs have overcome his former pack and their plans for expansion truly are scary to watch. I love how Armstrong is unafraid to tell a story like this, which I know Hollywood wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.

Finally, though it is my least favorite of the three, THE EXORCISM OF SAINT PATRICK still goes places most fear to tread. It’s about the horrors of conversion therapy as a troubled teen is sent to a private conversion therapy session in the middle of the woods with a priest with radical methods of treatment. Sounds fishy? Well, it is. Torturously so. The film knows that this kind of therapy is wrong and pulls no punches in the long conversations between the priest Pat (Steve Pinder) and the teen Trick (Michael J. Cline) discussing Trick’s sexual urges, darkest secrets, and personal feelings. These are intimate and brutally honest sessions that make you feel embarrassed eavesdropping on. In many ways, Pat’s methods are typical therapy, attempting to understand Trick. But things get dark quickly and it is a truly uncomfortable watch. Again, director/writer Armstrong never shies away from showing some extremely disturbing stuff or talking about some things that could get you banned from saying on most social media platforms. Still, it serves as a character study of two vastly different characters. While the ending proved to be somewhat predictable, the trip there is one I couldn’t believe I was watching. It really took some balls to make this movie in this day and age and I admire Armstrong for doing so.

The Fresh Hell Trilogy is low budget, but you wouldn’t know it by the creative way the ideas are conveyed or the look of the film. The actors aren’t household names, but all are committed to their roles, give their best to the material, and are more relatable because they feel like real people you might run into at the grocery compared to the plasticized people from Hollywood. Everything is professionally done; from the edits to the limited effects to the acting and everything. Armstrong shows that he has the right stuff to bring interesting stories to life on a minimal budget, something most filmmakers struggle with.

So if you aren’t afraid to think a little and if you don’t mind watching something that may make you a little uneasy, give the three films that make up THE FRESH HELL TRILOGY a shot. If you do, you’re most likely going to see the work of a talented filmmaker (along with some great acting) who I expect great things from in the future.

The Best in Horror Countdown 2023-2024
#31 – HERE FOR BLOOD (DESTROY ALL NEIGHBORS)
#30 – THANKSGIVING (THE SACRIFICE GAME)
#29 – MILK & SERIAL (LOWLIFES)
#28 – PROJECT SILENCE (FROGMAN)
#27 – THE SEEDING (DARK HARVEST)
#26 – BEEZEL (THE FRESH HELL TRILOGY)

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Music Written by Tim Heidecker
Music & Arrangement by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy https://youtu.be/PDySbxQgZMg
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