Indie horror master LarryFessenden has secretly shot Trauma, a monster mashup sequel that unites three of Fessenden’s monsters in one film, Variety reports today.
Larry Fessenden’sTrauma Or, Monsters All serves as a sequel to three monster movies that he’s written and directed: 1995’s vampire movie Habit, the 2019 Frankenstein riff Depraved, and his 2023 werewolf feature Blackout.
When we previously spoke with the filmmaker about the latter, he shared his desire to see how all three monsters would fare in one monster mashup feature. “No, what I’m more interested in, I could just say this, is doing a mashup, and that would probably end my business of recreating the Universal Monsters. I want to see them all together, and what would that look like? So, that’s actually what I’m thinking about, and I don’t know who would finance that.”
With the upcoming Trauma, that project becomes a reality.
Fessenden reprises the role of Sam from Habit, while Alex Breaux returns to portray Adam from Depraved, and Alex Hurt revives his role as Charley from Blackout.
Also starring are Laëtitia Hollard (“The Pitt”), Aitana Doyle (“If That Mockingbird Don’t Sing”), and returning actors from Fessenden’s past films, including Addison Timlin, James Le Gros, John Speredakos, Cody Kostro, Marc Senter, Rigo Garay, Joseph Castillo-Midyett, Joshua Leonard, and Barbara Crampton.
As for plot, the logline reads that Trauma “places the filmmaker’s beloved visions of this trio of ghouls under one roof, offering up an unexpectedly humanist and uncanny tale.”
“It was a slightly absurd mission to present my existential take on these monsters in a contemporary mashup, but I enjoyed the challenge and I hope the film will feel both familiar and provocative,“ Fessenden said in a statement, which also shared that he is “a lifelong fan of Universal Monster classics and the powerful messages about us that they can convey.”
The shoot quietly took place on and off in upstate New York over three months and is now in post-production. Stay tuned.
“It’s worse than you think.” That’s the actual tagline featured in the trailer for War of the Worlds, a new adaptation of the H.G. Wells sci-fi classic that seemingly came out of nowhere last week. The trailer was released online just a few days before the movie was released exclusively on Prime Video, leaving many to wonder where the hell this thing even came from.
Now that many people have taken the time to actually watch the movie, well, War of the Worlds (2025) has gone viral on social media for one particularly noteworthy reason: with 13 reviews currently submitted at this time, the movie has a 0% Rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes.
From director Rich Lee and producers Patrick Aiello and Timur Bekmambetov, War of the Worlds premiered on Prime Video on July 30, and the new twist on the classic tale presents the alien invasion through the lens of the “screenlife” subgenre, where literally everything in the movie takes place on a computer screen. It’s a style Bekmambetov has practically cornered the market on with films including Unfriended, Searching, and Missing, and the idea to give War of the Worlds the screenlife treatment was born out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
And yes, the film stars Ice Cube in the leading role, with the screenlife format allowing Cube and co-stars like Eva Longoria to film their parts at a distance from each other during the early days of the pandemic. Aiello said in a statement, “For the first time ever, a studio-scale sci-fi epic has been produced using a format that places audiences inside the action through the lenses of phones, computers, and tablets. It’s a visceral, first-person experience designed for big screens in a language and format that is now natural within our daily lives.”
Bekmambetov teased in his own statement, “It’ll be exciting for audiences to watch the movie and ask themselves: if aliens invaded today, how would we experience it? Most likely, we’d be watching it on our phones. In that way, it’s kind of a modern spin on Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds. Back then, he used radio, the most popular technology of the time, to make people believe the invasion was real. Today, that medium is the screen of our devices.”
Those best laid plans, well, it’s safe to say they fell apart somewhere along the way. War of the Worlds has quickly become one of the most panned movies of the year, the sort of movie that misfires so hard that it’s actually becoming a must-watch. The term “so bad, it’s good” comes to mind, reserved for those rare movies that are notable precisely because they’re so bad.
This modern-day adaptation follows “Will Radford (Ice Cube), a top cyber-security analyst for Homeland Security, who spends his days tracking potential threats to national security through a mass surveillance program, until an attack by an unknown entity leads him to question whether the government is hiding something from him… and the rest of the world.”
“It is silly, shoddy and features far too much of rapper-turned-leading man Ice Cube staring at a computer screen while looking as if he’s working through a reasonably urgent digestive ailment,” writes Ed Power in his review for The Daily Telegraph.
Adam Does Movies proclaims, “I really don’t like how a lot of modern reviewers say outlandish statements like “This is the worst movie ever made.” Mainly because it devalues films like War of the Worlds, who had to work really hard to actually be one of the worst movies ever made.”
Giant Freakin Robot chimes in, “It’s noteworthy because of all the attempts to adapt this story, this is the worst one.”
Austin Burke from Flick Fan Nation says, “Poorly written and awkwardly paced, War of the Worlds in contention for one of the worst movies of the decade so far.”
And the film’s most notable review comes from Variety critic Peter Deburge, who had this to say: “Even with a Prime subscription, you have to sit through two minutes of ads to watch 90 more of what amounts to a feature-length commercial for all things Amazon.” It’s one of many reviews that points out the Amazon product placement within the, well, Amazon Prime movie.
Curious to see this one for yourself? The 1 hour, 29 minute War of the Worlds (2025) is now streaming on Prime Video. Or you can stick with the trailer, which might be enough for most…
The legend of the Kraken comes to the screen in the upcoming Norwegian monster movie Kraken, and two teaser trailers promoting the Norwegian release have been unleashed.
The film releases in cinemas in Norway in October and has been picked up by Samuel Goldwyn for United States distribution. Stay tuned for more on the U.S. release as we learn it.
Watch the Norwegian teaser trailers for Kraken deep down below!
Here’s the synopsis for director Pål Øie’s (The Tunnel) movie: “A marine biologist encounters several strange occurrences while researching a fjord, including the brutal deaths of two local teenagers. At the bottom of Norway’s deepest fjord rests a mythical monster as large as a mountain, with a myriad of arms ready to crush and devour anything they can grab.”
Sara Khorami, Mikkel Bratt Silset, Ingvild Holthe Bygdnes, Steinar Klouman Hallert and Jenny Evensen star. Vilde Eide wrote the screenplay for the upcoming movie.
Deep in the south, a storm is coming – but there is no escape from sin in Death Letter Blues.
The supernatural mystery thriller hits select theaters and VOD this Friday, August 8, via Dark Sky Films. The trailer is playing below.
A small town is rattled by the sudden and mysterious death of Feral Boy, a local legend since his discovery in the woods as a child. Father Moss, a priest with a loose grip on the faith, attempts to counsel the forlorn couple that raised the boy. He soon uncovers haunting parallels between this grisly incident and his own recurring nightmares.
Sherman Augustus (“Stranger Things,” Virus) stars with Karole Foreman, Ramsay Midwood, Arianna Ngnomire, and Keylor Leigh.
Strack Azar and Michael Stevantoni co-write and co-direct. Augustus produces alongside Sho Schrock-Manabe and Michael Nicholas.
Not only is The Toxic Avengeropening in theaters unrated across the US on August 29, it’s also infecting the UK and Ireland the same day.
Watch Signature Entertainment’s UK trailer below, where you’ll also find a quad poster for the superhero horror-comedy.
Produced by The Toxic Avenger creator Lloyd Kaufman, the fresh take on Troma’s 1984 cult classic is written and directed by Macon Blair (I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore).
Downtrodden janitor Winston Gooze is exposed to a catastrophic toxic accident, transforming him into a mutant vigilante. Toxie must rise from outcast to savior, taking on ruthless corporate overlords and corrupt forces who threaten his son, his friends, and his community.
Peter Dinklage (“Game of Thrones”) stars with Jacob Tremblay (Doctor Sleep), Taylour Paige (Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F), Julia Davis (Phantom Thread), Jonny Coyne (“11.22.63”), Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings), and Kevin Bacon (Friday the 13th).
Dial 1-802-377-FILM to hear Toxie as the voice of Moviefone, then get your tickets to see the radioactive riot.
