Bloodshine, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (and The Beginning), and The Slime People

This week’s new release is “Blood Shine,” which we assume was a vampire story but isn’t. We’ll dismember and eat up two more Leatherface films, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (2003) and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning” (2006). Finally, we’ll come up from someone’s bowels with “The Slime People” from 1963– yuck!

All this, plus the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #60, for September 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

2026 Blood Shine

* Directed by: Emily Bennett, Justin Brooks

* Written by: Emily Bennett, Justin Brooks

* Stars: Emily Bennett, Brendan Sexton III, David Call

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

In an isolated country estate, a young filmmaker is held prisoner by a religious zealot. The beginning segment - about 16 minutes long - held promise, but things change after the opening credits. The two leads give it their all, but we both thought it was pretty dragging and dull.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on a creepy TV preacher talking about how our bodies are cages.

We cut to some guys working on a farm with cows; more newborn cows have died this year than have been born alive. The farm is failing, so the farmer lays off Keith, who’s obviously already broke. Keith’s truck breaks down on the way to another farm that was recommended to him – he’s not having a good day.

Keith walks to a farmhouse to make a phone call. The woman inside, Clara, offers to call him a tow truck. She invites him inside; he does seem safe, at least. She’s kinda plain-looking, but the more he looks at her, the better she looks. They start talking about being lonely and alone.

They touch hands, and we then get a glimpse of her and knife, and a trail of blood; she’s stabbed him, and now she wants him to stab her as well. He kills himself instead, even though she wants him to kill her. “You wasted it! You wasted all of it!” Credits roll.

We cut to Brighton West showing off his latest new horror short. He’s got an actress there auditioning for a new role, and he Weinsteins her. Later, he calls the producer and promises to finish writing the promised film. He’s going to go off to the country to force himself to finish the movie script for “Craven IV.” The producer is skittish because Brighton’s had addiction issues in the past.

At the cabin, Brighton meets Lucy, a neighbor, and avoids her. He ends up spending most of the evening at the local bar drinking. He admits to the bartender that he can’t find any inspiration here. Manny the bartender gives him directions to a nearby town where he’ll find some inspiration in a cave.

Brighton goes out to the woods and spots Clara there, naked in the river. Suddenly, he’s knocked out by a falling branch. He wakes up at Clara’s house. They talk about being single, just as she did with Keith earlier, and he admits that no one is home waiting for him.

Clara gives Brighton some drugged tea, and the next thing he knows, he’s chained up in a dark place watching a recording of the preacher telling him that he’s going to die. “In 26 days, you will die in agony.” We see that she’s got a whole videotape series about kidnapping and torturing for the cult. She beats, cuts, and shocks him daily after that.

Eventually, Brighton takes the hint and starts cutting himself on command; it’s easier than getting beat up first. Brighton figures out that he’s not the first one held here when he finds a message, “She’s afraid of the dark.”

There’s a long montage of torture, cult-speak, and suffering between the two. After a very long while, he sorta seduces her and trades places with Clara, chaining her to the floor in the dark.

After a great amount of discussion, the two are soon cutting each other and putting their hands under each other’s skin.

Eventually, it’s time. She hands him a knife and wants him to kill her, but he doesn’t want to do it. He does do it, and she thanks him before dying.

The other cultists arrive on the scene, along with the leader. All the other characters we’ve seen in the film are involved. The leader pokes out Brighton’s eyes, but Brighton doesn’t mind; he smiles and looks at the sun.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s all about loneliness, isolation, and of course, cult murder. It’s well acted and looks good, but the pacing is awful and it’s really, really slow at times. It’s really all about the two characters bearing their souls to each other, but it’s actually all pretty boring.

I was eager for it to end.

Kevin’s Commentary

The opening scene was so long, and with the main character being killed, it almost felt like two movies in one. Unfortunately, the first segment was really good, and I thought the rest of the movie dragged. The two leads were just acting their hearts out, but I thought it was pretty boring.

2003 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

* Directed by: Marcus Nispel

* Written by: Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper, Scott Koser

* Stars: Jessica Biel, Jonathan Tucker, Andrew Bryniarski

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 38 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

It’s a reboot of the 1973 movie by the same name. And while it is a sweaty movie with some grit, it doesn’t match the grimy feel of the original. It’s a polished modern (okay 23 years ago) horror movie. Though it is pretty well made and entertaining after a little bit of a slow start. In total, we liked it more than disliked it, but our attention wandered here and there. Kevin liked it a bit more than Brian did.

Spoilery Synopsis

We get a voiceover about the deaths of five young people thirty years ago. We get a video walkthrough of one of the murder sites. Credits roll.

August 18, 1973, a bunch of teens in a van are out in the country. Erin, Morgan, Pepper, Andy, and Kemper are annoying right off the bat. They’re all coming back from buying pot in Mexico; they’ve got two pounds in the car.

They almost hit a young girl walking in the road. The girl has clearly been into some bad things, so they offer her a ride. Kemper, the driver, doesn’t know where they are and drives her to the meat packing plant, where the girl kills herself in the back of their van. Most of the van people are asking “why did this happen to us?”

The group stops at a gas station. The woman inside calls the sheriff, who offers to meet them somewhere else. They drive to an abandoned-looking factory, but there’s no sheriff there. They go inside the old factory, but they aren’t alone. They find a little boy who seems to be living there alone.

They go to a huge old isolated house, and the man says they can call the sheriff from there. The sheriff finally shows up at the factory, and he’s a class act as he wraps up and takes the body away. Meanwhile, Erin and Kemper run into trouble with the old man in the house– oh, and Leatherface is there as well.

Erin returns to the other three, minus Kemper, and they wonder what’s happened. She takes Andy back to the old man’s house, and he sneaks in the back door. They soon run into Leatherface, and Andy loses a leg.

Erin runs back to Morgan and Pepper, but then the sheriff shows up to arrest them all for drugs. There’s a standoff between Morgan and the sheriff, and that goes badly for Morgan.

Meanwhile, Leatherface takes off his mask and works on what’s left of Kemper and Andy. After, he goes after the two girls, now alone in the van, but he’s wearing Kemp’s face. She runs to a mobile home with two women inside; “He knows better than to bother us in here. He’s a sweet boy.”

The sheriff and gas station lady are in cahoots with the old man and Leatherface, which is not at all surprising. They turn Erin over the big masked man, who puts her in the basement with Andy, who’s still not dead yet. He begs her to kill him, which she does. She then finds Morgan, who’s also still alive– at least for a little while.

Leatherface chases Erin across a field, but he trips and injures himself. She runs to the meat packing plant, where the two play cat-and-mouse. Somehow, it’s hard to tell with all the superfast edits, Leatherface loses an arm.

Erin runs outside and flags down a truck driver, who stops and picks her up. She freaks out and makes the guy stop– at the same gas station as before. Erin hotwires a car and runs over the sheriff repeatedly. She drives away with the kidnapped baby, right past Leatherface, who’s still out there.

We get a voiceover discussing how the case is still open.

Brian’s Commentary

This just seems to take forever to get to anything. It’s a very sweaty, dusty movie, but it just doesn’t give the impression of dirt that the original did; it’s just a little too professional and polished.

It was fine, but I admit I was checking my phone from time to time; it just didn’t grab me.

Meh.

Kevin’s Commentary

It’s certainly a sweaty and wet movie. With water leaking into rooms even before it started raining.

It was a nice touch bringing John Larroquette back for the voiceover again. He was an unknown at the time of the original.

I thought it was okay, liked it more than disliked it. But the original was better, and is more rewatchable. This isn’t that memorable.

2026 Short Film: A Good Death

* Directed by: Kaz Ps

* Written by: Kaz Ps

* Stars: Tracie Thomas, Jenny O’Hara, Stefanie Estes

* Run Time: 10 Minutes

* Watch it:

What Happens

Amalia is a “Death Doula,”someone who helps with terminal patients. She arrives at the house of a new client, and Tabitha, who answers the door, seems really eager to let her in. “There’s no such thing as unusual in this line of work,” she explains.

She could be wrong.

Commentary

The only thing creepier than monsters is seeing old peoples’ toenails.

Could it be elder abuse? Maybe, but not in the usual manner. I kinda figured this was the way the story was going to go, but it was well-executed, looked good, and even the special effects were fun.

Nice!

2006 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning

* Directed by: Jonathan Liebesman

* Written by: Sheldon Turner, David J. Schow

* Stars: Jordana Brewster, Matt Bomer, Diora Baird

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This one starts with Leatherface being born in 1939, and catches us up on what happened before the 2003 remake. We get to see how Hoyt became Sheriff and other fun things. Since it’s a prequel, we know some of how it’s going to end, but that didn’t stop it from being good. It’s well made, and we were both entertained. If you’re a fan of the 2003 reboot, you’ll probably like this one too.

Spoilery Synopsis

It’s August, 1939, and we’re at the meat packing plant. The woman working there grabs her belly and begs the boss for a break. She collapses, leaking blood all over the place and gives birth to a really ugly baby. Not long after another strange woman finds the ugly baby in the dumpster and takes him home to the house we saw in the previous film. “That’s the ugliest thing I ever saw,” says Charlie Hewitt. Credits roll.

We forward to July of 1969. The meat packing plant is now closed and condemned. Thomas Hewitt, the big guy who works there, doesn’t want to leave the job.

We cut to Chrissie and Eric messing around at the nasty motel pool. He’s heading back to Vietnam soon, and this is their last fling. Dean, Eric’s brother, is supposed to be going as well, but he’s not as enthusiastic about it. Bailey, Dean’s girlfriend, wants him to not show up for the draft.

Back at the meat plant, Thomas returns at night and beats the manager with a hammer. He then picks up a chainsaw and goes home. The sheriff finds out and goes to Charlie, Thomas’s adoptive uncle, for help. Charlie shoots the sheriff in the back. Charlie then takes the uniform and “becomes” the new sheriff. Charlie cuts up the old sheriff and feeds him to the family.

The four young people stop at a familiar looking gas station. There’s a whole bunch of sketchy looking bikers there, and the girls are eager to leave. Dean burns his draft card in the back seat; he’s not going. They run from a biker but crash into a cow, which is really juicy.

The “sheriff” shows up and immediately shoots the biker. He terrorizes the group, then takes three of them away in his car, leaving Chrissie on the road alone. Monty shows up with a tow truck and takes the wreck with him, along with Chrissie, who’s hiding in the back.

They all drive to the family home, and Tommy, AKA “Leatherface” takes the dead biker away for processing. Charlie tells the guys about how he learned to eat human flesh in the Korean prisoner of war camps.

Chrissie flags down another biker and tries to talk him into helping her.

Eric gets loose and goes into the farmhouse, threatening the old women inside. Sheriff Hoyt quickly regains control of the situation. Leatherface straps Eric down and starts measuring his face.

Meanwhile, Chrissie’s biker ally arrives at the farmhouse with his gun. He shoots Monty. Charlie and Leatherface take care of him– with the chainsaw, Tommy’s first chainsaw murder! Leatherface then goes back downstairs and finishes off Eric the same way. All except for the face, which he has use of.

Charlie gets Tommy to cut Monty’s wounded leg off with the chainsaw. “What is this?” “Surgery!” Tommy takes off both legs, just so that they’re even.

Chrissie sneaks in and releases Bailey, who’s been tied up all this time. Charlie catches her and “invites” her to dinner. There’s a whole family dinner scene, which is pretty much required in a TCM film. Chrissie, Bailey, Dean, and Uncle Monty are all pretty much unwilling guests of Charlie and Mama. Tommy shows up and kills Bailey, right there at the dinner table.

Chrissie gets loose and runs out of the house through the fields, and Tommy chases after her with the saw. She runs to the old meat packing plant.

Meanwhile, Dean wakes up to see Bailey’s corpse sitting next to him. He helps Chrissie fight off the big man, but he doesn’t last long in the battle.

Chrissie almost drives to freedom, but Leatherface is hiding in the backseat. With everyone dead, Leatherface slowly lumbers on back home.

Brian’s Commentary

This works backward from the previous film, bringing back most of the family that died in that one. Being a prequel, we already know who lives and dies, but it’s still very well done. It’s got good characters and pacing, and R. Lee Ermey really steals the show in this as the main baddie.

I think I rank this one third, after the original two films. The ones in-between have been pretty forgettable.

Kevin’s Commentary

I thought this one was very good in the series. Interesting seeing why Monty is in a wheelchair, how Hoyt became Sheriff, and other prequel tidbits. It’s well put together and moves well. I liked it quite a bit.

1963 The Slime People

* Directed by: Robert Hutton

* Written by: Blair Robertson, Vance Skarstedt

* Stars: Robert Hutton, Les Tremayne, Robert Burton

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 16 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Slime people from underground isolate an area of California under an impenetrable force field dome and release a deadly fog in an attempt to invade. But a heroic group fights them off. It’s not the worst movie we’ve seen, but it was featured on Mystery Science Theater for a reason. It’s low budget with mediocre acting and dialogue, entertaining at points but clunky in the pacing. We’d recommend you pass on this one.

Spoilery Synopsis

We open on… slime people walking through the fog– and there’s a dead man. Credits roll.

There’s so much fog that Tom can’t land his airplane. Los Angeles tells him to divert North, and they are very insistent. He lands anyway, and there’s no one anywhere in the airport.

Professor Galbraith and his daughters drive up and say he needs to go with them. Lisa and Bonnie explain how the slime men arrived and wiped out all the military. The family had been staying up in their remote cabin and missed the whole invasion.

Tom’s a sportscaster for the news, and he wants to go to the station to see if they have any footage of the slime monsters. He plays the newsreel, and sure enough, there are slime people invading Los Angeles.

They came from the sewers, not from outer space. They hide in the fog, which they make somehow. The fog can harden at times, which is lethal.

The group encounters a slime person and hides inside a studio. They run into Cal, a soldier. Cal tells them about the solid wall around the city that the fog made.

Bonnie likes Cal, and Cal likes Bonnie, so we stop the story so they can flirt.

Lisa takes care of the cooking and coffee while Tom and the professor theorize about the dome. Tom and Lisa get a bit romantic. And he helps with the coffee.

Tom, Lisa and the professor run into Tolliver the shepherd at his cabin. He’s a bit whacky, and says he doesn’t believe the slime people are dangerous. They bring him along but refuse to include his favorite goat. Cal and Bonnie are in a separate car, and they all go toward the wall to investigate it. The temperature continues to drop, which is what the slime people are trying to do so they can live above ground permanently.

Tom and the professor go into the woods toward the wall while the others stay behind. Then they just leave Tolliver behind as they head in. They try various chemicals to burn through the wall, but they don’t have much luck.

After all this, Tolliver still thinks the whole thing is irrational and not real. Reality hits him hard. The group hides in a butcher shop, but the creature gets Tolliver. The professor figures out that plain old salt will break down the fog wall.

Somehow, Bonnie gets caught by a monster and taken away. Tom and Cal go off to find her in the mist. They find a cave that the creatures are using as a headquarters and sneak inside. Cal finds Bonnie and leads her out as Tom fights with the slime men.

On the way back to the butcher shop, the trio find the machine that makes the fog. But there are too many slime people around to get close. They all head to the wall with salt water solution in buckets that the professor says will get them through. But Tom wants to go take out the generating machine.

After they battle the slime people, the wall machine blows up with a simple spear-throw, and all the fog immediately dissipates. All the slime men fall down dead without the fog to breathe.

With the wall down, soldiers pour in, and all the good guys ride away.

Brian’s Commentary

Slow-moving mudmen with spears and magic fog conquered Los Angeles? Well, OK then. The really scary thing? Look at the prices at the butcher shop; three pounds of bacon for a dollar!

The acting and dialogue are pretty horrible. The creatures are adequate for a movie of this period, but they aren’t very stand-out. Also, there’s a lot of fog to obscure the cheap-looking rubber suits. The pacing is really bad; I dozed off for a couple of minutes and didn’t miss a thing. There are a lot of scenes of driving and walking where not much else happens.

Bleah. Dull.

Kevin’s Commentary

The Slime People have the technology to project an impenetrable force field dome and generate a massive amount of climate changing fog, but walk around carrying spears and knives like a primitive tribe. Very strange.

Other than a fog machine and some people in rubbery costumes (which the trivia says took about half the budget), the effects are pretty minimal.

The acting and dialogue are pretty bad. It’s not a terrible story, but the pacing isn’t steady or very exciting. I wouldn’t recommend it.

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