THE BOY FROM BELOW (2026)

New On Demand from Epic Pictures!
Directed by Tory Jones.
Written by Tory Jones, Jerron Spencer.
Check out the trailer here! !

It’s Halloween Night in 1997 and the small town of Carpenter Falls became infamous when the son of a local celebrity murdered his own family. Thirty years later, the masked killer seems to have returned on Halloween Eve just in time to crash a party where a bunch of twenty somethings acting like teens are hanging out, watching horror movies, and of course, getting up to some nookie! As the murderer knocks off the cast one by one, the real question is, will this get in the way of two best friends who begin to have deeper feelings for one another from going to the Lilith Fair some day in the future. No, you’re not going crazy. That’s the second time I used that joke in this video.

Man, what a weird experience this movie was. I saw this movie before I saw DEATHWOODS and as it went on, I had to check, and yep, the film stars at least two actors from DEATHWOODS; Anthony Dain and Felissa Rose, as well as stars an actress named Leah Voysey who is a dead ringer for the lead actress in DEATHWOODS, KateLynn E. Newberry. So much so that I had to stop THE BOY FROM BELOW and check IMDB. I guess these actors must have the same agent or something, but reviewing both DEATHWOODS and THE BOY FROM BELOW in the same week was a mindfuck.

Especially since the two films are like night and day. I’ll talk about DEATHWOODS in a bit, but THE BOY FROM BELOW really didn’t work for me. In many ways, it celebrates the 80’s slasher films and it’s obvious that filmmaker Tory Jones seems to have a deep love for that subgenre of horror. But while DEATHWOODS seems to emulate everything that the slasher did right and improve on it. THE BOY FROM BELOW spends a lot of time ragging on the 80’s slasher and at the same time, being not even worthy of holding the jockstraps of any of them, even the worst of the 80’s. The film tries to put 80’s slasher down for having bad dialog and bad actors, but while there seem to be quite a few talented actors in THE BOY FROM BELOW, the film is clunky, cliched, and mean-spirited to boot which undercuts those performances. The clips from the horror films are made by the director and done cheaply and acted hammily. But when it cuts to the really-real world of the movie, the lines aren’t much better. It’s this SCREAM style attitude that this film is so much better than the slashers of old, but it couldn’t be further from the case here.

Those films weren’t perfect, but there was something deeper to the 80’s slasher film and that concept is missed completely in THE BOY FROM BELOW. The film swipes whole scenes from HALLOWEEN, such as the killer disturbing the grave of a loved one on the day before Halloween (here it is the killer’s mother, so I guess that’s considered different). There’s a scene where the killer is stabbed and he acts dead for a moment, only to have him sit up straight like the iconic HALLOWEEN scene. Worse yet, the film seems to be emulating Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN of all films as the younger version of the killer sports a pumpkin design painted on his face as he kills his own family for…reasons. The script just isn’t as clever as it wants to be. Everyone is snarky and though they are supposed to be looking forward to watching the horror movies on Halloween night, the group spend most of the time acting like that’s the last place they want to be.

As with STRAIGHT ON TIL MORNING, the LGBTQ subplot is prevalent and seems to have had the most work done on it. Again, I must scream this so the cheap seats can hear it. I’m fine with all genders and preferences represented in these movies. But if the relationship takes center stage over, say, everything else in your slasher movie, you’re doing it wrong. Sure, a lesbian make-out session is fine, but to dedicate fifteen to twenty minutes on this relationship, when it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the main plot of, you know, the killings going on, that means you are missing the point. If anything, they could have had the girls’ relationship have something to do with the killings but that doesn’t happen. The main problem is that there is no reason the killer should be tracking down and killing this group in the first place. They have no ties with the killer. They just hang out in the local video store. This killer’s relentless pursuit of the kids is completely unsubstantiated in the story and that’s…bad.

There is one entertaining kill where Felissa Rose is stabbed in the eye socket with the broken bone from her own hand that the killer rips off her. Rose, ever the professional and giving her all in these small roles she gets, screams “Oh fuck!” as the fingers of the hand move. It’s a fun kill that is a standout from the rest of the mundane offings.

And before I end this review, I really think we need to put a moratorium on the stitch-face burlap bag mask. Specifically, this one. I know this film is supposed to be an updated version of THE WICKED ONE and THE WICKED ONES, two films which may or may not have used the stitch-faced bag first, but this overstitched look never made sense to me. Are we to believe the killer stitched this mask together himself? I’m a fan of Jason’s look in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 and the sack headed killer in general, but this Spirit Halloween store burlap mask with all the Slipknot stitches has been used in everything from GOTHAM for the Scarecrow to I don’t know how many slashers over the past ten to fifteen years is just not scary and needs to stop being a thing.

I’m sorry to go off on THE BOY FROM BELOW. I see what it’s trying to do and there are some fun scenes here and there, but it also seems to have an attitude of superiority towards those slashers of old that I just can’t stand. It’s trying hard to be a new slasher film with hopes of being the next TERRIFIER. Even some of the kills are more torture-esque — more like something Art the Clown would do rather than any slasher from the 80’s. But aside from the aforementioned Felissa Rose death, which is the best part of the film, I’m really having a tough time saying anything positive about this one. OK, how’s this? It was fun seeing Tommy Lee Wallace, Dee Wallace, and mother-fuckin’ Richie Ramone as the cemetery keeper. I also love the name of the lead actress, Spooky Spring. But sorry, this one didn’t work for me at all.