Dacre Montgomery (“Stranger Things”) stars alongside Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread) in Went Up the Hill, a haunting ghost story that’s coming to theaters on August 15, 2025.

Watch the trailer for Went Up the Hill, which features rave reviews from outlets including The Hollywood Reporter. They call it “one of the most startlingly original ghost stories in years.”

Dacre Montgomery and Vicky Krieps star as strangers brought together by a family connection in this haunting tale of grief, possession and breaking free from the past.

“The film will chart how after being abandoned as a child, Jack (Montgomery) ventures to remote New Zealand to attend the funeral of his estranged mother and there meets her grieving widow, Jill (Krieps). His search for answers becomes dangerous when his mother’s ghost returns to inhabit both Jack and Jill, using each of their bodies to speak to the other, and instigating a life-threatening nocturnal dance between the three of them.”

Samuel Van Grinsven directs from his script co-written with Jory Anast.

Deadline notes that the film is “being produced by Samantha Jennings and Kristina Ceyton of Causeway Films with Vicky Pope of POP Film (Savage). Bankside Films has worked with Causeway on a number of projects including Talk To Me, You Won’t Be Alone, Of An Age and Cargo. Causeway’s additional credits include The Babadook and The Nightingale.”

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In addition to his werewolf movie Werwulf, Robert Eggers (The Witch, Nosferatu) will also be directing a new take on A Christmas Carol for Warner Bros., Deadline reports tonight.

Eggers will write and direct his own adaptation of the classic Christmas ghost story, with frequent Eggers collaborator Willem Dafoe reportedly being eyed to play Ebenezer Scrooge.

Deadline notes, for clarity, “Insiders add while negotiations are not under way with any talent, Eggers is writing the role of Ebenezer Scrooge for his longtime collaborator Willem Dafoe as the top choice to play the classic Charles Dickens character.”

Chris Columbus and Elenor Columbus (Nosferatu) are attached to produce.

Written by Charles Dickens, the holiday classic tale of A Christmas Carol has of course been adapted for the screen countless times over the years, with notable film adaptations including Scrooge (1951) starring Alastair Sim, Scrooge (1970) starring Albert Finney, A Christmas Carol (1984) starring George C. Scott, Scrooged (1988) starring Bill Murray, The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) starring Michael Caine, and A Christmas Carol (2009) starring Jim Carrey.

In the classic tale, “Ebenezer Scrooge, a curmudgeonly, miserly businessman, has no time for sentimentality and largely views Christmas as a waste of time. However, this particular Christmas Eve, he will be visited by three spirits who will show him the error of his ways.”

A Christmas Carol is classically a period piece ghost story, which makes it perfect fodder for Robert Eggers to put his personal stamp on. As Luiz H.C. wrote here on Bloody Disgusting just last year, “Isn’t it weird how the single most influential piece of Christmas-related media is technically a horror story? One can even make the argument that Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carolpaved the way for the rise of Victorian Spiritualism during the following decade.”

Stay tuned for more on Robert Eggers’ A Christmas Carol.

Pictured: ‘Nosferatu’ (2024)

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Blumhouse isn’t letting her drink alone; sequel Ma 2 has enlisted Emmy-winner Ashley Nicole Black (“Shrinking,” “Ted Lasso”) to write the screenplay, per Deadline. 

Octavia Spencer was recently confirmed to return at Blumhouse’s The Business of Fear event.

“Ma has proven to be a social phenomenon since its release in 2019, with fans eagerly embracing the film and Octavia’s iconic performance as Ma. Ma likes to say ‘Don’t make me drink alone,’ so we’re thrilled Octavia will join us again for a second round,” said Blumhouse Founder/CEO Jason Blum.

Spencer played Sue Ann, a loner who keeps to herself in her quiet Ohio town. One day, she is asked by Maggie, a new teenager in town (Diana Silvers, Glass), to buy some booze for her and her friends, and Sue Ann sees the chance to make some unsuspecting, if younger, friends of her own.

While no director has been announced as of yet, Tate Taylor helmed the 2019 original from a script by Scotty Landes. Taylor previously detailed that Sue Ann’s fate was intentionally ambiguous, so the door was open for a return. 

That Ma earned more than $60 million at the global box office meant a sequel was practically inevitable.

Ma also starred  Juliette Lewis (August: Osage County, Natural Born Killers) as Maggie’s mom, Luke Evans (Beauty and the Beast, Dracula Untold) as a local dad, Missi Pyle(Gone Girl) as his girlfriend, and McKaley Miller (TV’s “Hart of Dixie”), Corey Fogelmanis (TV’s “Girl Meets World”), Gianni Paolo (TV’s “Power”) and Dante Brown(“Lethal Weapon“ TV series) as Maggie’s friends.

Ashley Nicole Black’s background in comedy suggests that this sequel may lean even further into Sue Ann’s eccentricities. Stay tuned.

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The Ho-Ho-Horrordays are coming in 2026; Violent Night 2 has officially set a release date.

87North and Universal will release Violent Night 2 in theaters December 4, 2026.

What’s interesting, is that while Santa Claus actor David Harbour confirmed his return recently, Deadline reports that it remains unclear whether director Tommy Wirkola will be back to helm the sequel.

Last we heard, Pat Casey and Josh Miller will be back to write Violent Night 2. “There’s stuff we left on the floor like the North Pole, Mrs. Claus, the elves,“ director Tommy Wirkola noted last year. “But story-wise, I think we have a really, really cool idea that expands on the world and scope but still keeping that tone that we love from the first one.”

In 2022’s Violent Night, “A team of elite mercenaries breaks into a wealthy family compound on Christmas Eve, taking everyone inside hostage. But the team isn’t prepared for a surprise combatant: Santa Claus (Harbour) is on the grounds, and he’s about to show why this Nick is no saint.”

Violent Night is essentially a bloody mashup of several holiday classics including Die Hard, Home Alone, Christmas Vacation, and Bad Santa.

John Leguizamo, Beverly D’Angelo (Christmas Vacation), Alex Haskell and Alexis Louder also starred in Violent Night, featured alongside Edi Patterson and Cam Gigandet.

I wrote in my review for BD, “Director Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow) infuses his gore-soaked sense of humor into an amalgamation of familiar holiday fare, ushering a new crowd-pleasing Christmas-set actioner eager to splatter the snow red.”

87North founders Kelly McCormick and David Leitch are back as producers.

With a release date now set, details about the sequel should be forthcoming, including whether Wirkola will officially return. The filmmaker’s next project is shark horror movie Shiver, set for 2026.

Stay tuned for developments on Violent Night 2.

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Terror has entered the chat in the trailer for Don’t Log Off, which brings to mind the likes of Unfriended and Host.

The (mostly) screenlife horror thriller opens in select theaters on July 11 before hitting VOD on July 15 via Dread.

“Modern Family” actress Ariel Winter produces and stars in the film, which marks the feature debut of writers-directors Brandon & Garrett Baer.

When Sam vanishes mid-video call, her friends race to uncover what happened. As they dig online, they vanish one by one. A sinister force is at play — can they solve the mystery before they’re next?

Brielle Barbusca (“Scandal”), Luke Benward (Dumplin’), Sterling Beaumon (“The Killing”), Jack Griffo (“The Thundermans”), Kara Royster (“Pretty Little Liars”), Ashley Argota (“The Fosters”), and Khylin Rhambo (“Teen Wolf”) also star.

“Don’t Log Off is about a group of friends trying to protect one another while the world drastically changed around them in March of 2020. We felt the most honest way to tell that story was by mixing screenlife and traditional filmmaking elements in order to push the boundaries of this suspense thriller,” said the Baer brothers.

“We intend our film to exist as a time capsule — a testament to this insane technologically-dependent period of all of our lives. While others have relied on ghosts or supernatural elements, we felt the real world was scary enough.”

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