September 11–18, 2026 Credits roll. Score locks.
Spoilers ahead.
This turned into a horror week, mostly because I spent a lot of it testing DVDs for Street Trash, the video store my wife and I run in Jacksonville, Illinois. That meant revisiting a few old favorites, digging through a questionable four-film set, and disappearing into some much stranger corners of MUBI.
Hostel (2005): 6.7/10
DVD | Rewatch
Hostel remains a grimy artifact of mid-2000s horror, when cruelty itself was often treated as the selling point. It is ugly, mean, and more effective than I sometimes want to admit. Eli Roth knows how to make the ordinary discomfort of traveling somewhere unfamiliar curdle into something much worse, even if the movie occasionally enjoys its own nastiness a little too much.
The Tattooist (2007): 4.5/10
DVD | First watch
There is not much to say about The Tattooist. It is simply not very good. The movie never gives me much reason to care about what is happening, and by the end it already feels forgettable. The clear weak link in the four-film set.
Hostel: Part II (2007): 6.8/10
DVD | Rewatch
The sequel is a little more controlled and self-aware than the first film. It understands the machinery behind the organization, gives the victims more personality, and finds some genuinely nasty ways to turn the expectations established by Hostel against the audience. Still excessive, but slightly better built.
The Return of the Living Dead (1985): 6.5/10
DVD | Rewatch
Punk rock, practical gore, stupid decisions, and zombies who refuse to follow the rules. The Return of the Living Dead is chaotic in exactly the way it wants to be. It may not entirely work for me, but its personality is undeniable, and horror movies this proudly weird are always worth revisiting.
The Hunt for the BTK Killer (2005): 4.9/10
DVD | First watch
Robert Forster is the only real positive here. He is good, as usual, and gives the movie more weight than the material deserves, but even he cannot save it. The rest is pretty bad across the board. Then Jim Lahey shows up. Oh shit. That helps, but not enough. 4.9.
Assassination (1987): 5.2/10
VHS | First watch
Pretty low on the Charles Bronson totem pole. How many times do you have to shoot at a dude on water skis? Still, it is an okay action movie, and Bronson doing Bronson things carries it farther than it probably deserves to go.
Drag Me to Hell (2009): 6.1/10
DVD | Rewatch
Sam Raimi spends the entire movie bouncing between supernatural horror and gross-out slapstick. Some of it works better than the rest, but there is real pleasure in watching a studio horror movie behave this badly. It is loud, nasty, ridiculous, and unmistakably Raimi.
The Wailing (2016): 7.6/10
Tubi | First watch
At 156 minutes, The Wailing takes its time building a world where superstition, religion, illness, and plain human panic become impossible to separate. Na Hong-jin keeps shifting who and what we trust until certainty itself becomes the monster. It is long and occasionally exhausting, but the dread keeps spreading long after the movie ends.
We're All Going to the World's Fair (2021): 6.2/10
MUBI | First watch
A sad, convincing look at the lonely people who disappear into the internet, searching for connection through creepypasta challenges and the stranger corners of YouTube. Jane Schoenbrun creates an impressive amount of atmosphere on a tiny budget, and it feels more honest about online isolation than most movies. It also moves painfully slowly at times, which kept me from fully connecting with it.
Revenge (2017): 6.5/10
MUBI | First watch
A decent modern rape-revenge movie, clearly descended from The Last House on the Left and I Spit on Your Grave. It is better acted and more polished than those grimy exploitation films, making it easier for a broader audience to stomach, although it still gets brutally nasty when it wants to. Slicker and tamer, but not toothless.
The Final Tally
Ten movies this week. The Wailing was easily the best at 7.6, while The Tattooist landed at the bottom with a 4.5. The average came out to 6.1, which feels about right for a week built around a questionable horror four-pack.