Cabin In The Woods Archives | Otaku No Culture

What Lies Beneath Bone Lake Isn’t Another Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc. Special

In Bone Lake, a stressed couple’s retreat turns nightmarish when their Airbnb is double-booked by strangers with hidden motives, unleashing paranoia, violence, and a Raimi-esque finale.

Bleeker Street
Now Available on VOD/digital

Although Bone Lake is thematically different from Swap, another movie I saw many months ago, the former is more of a thriller and the latter a vampire flick. I won’t say which is better. Both works have their merits. While both lean a little too far into erotic elements, neither is without scandal. Just how far one wants to sit through this work depends on your tolerance for the subject matter. Director Mercedes Bryce Morgan and writer Joshua Friedlander had an idea and explored it with a modest budget to make this isolated cabin-in-the-woods scenario feel genuinely dangerous.

Here, Sage (Maddie Hasson) and Diego (Marco Pigossi) are a couple who could use an escape. Although their relationship seems solid, things get thrown overboard after they arrive at a luxurious, secluded lakeside mansion by Bone Lake for a romantic weekend. Diego also has a novel he should finish, and at some point, he plans to propose. Since Sage has put her career on hold to support him, I suspect something deeper is simmering between them.

Continue reading “What Lies Beneath Bone Lake Isn’t Another Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc. Special”

Who’s The Dream Eater? When The Mythology Isn’t Wholly There.

Alex and Mallory flee to the woods to film his parasomnia, but Dream Eater never fully awakens its Lovecraftian or mythological promise. A found-footage descent into dreams and madness that teases Phobetor yet forgets his purpose.

Dream Eater Movie Poster 2025 Alex suffers from a strange case of parasomnia in the movie Dream Eater, and he’s headed to the woods with his girlfriend to assist in his therapy. Their plan is to live in a cabin while she records his moments. The hope is that someone can study the footage and understand why this is happening. With Mallory Drumm and Alex Lee Williams not only starring but also writing and directing, I can’t help but wonder if taking on too many roles behind the camera is part of the film’s problem. Even Jay Drakulic, who has a minor role, shares a directorial credit.

Somewhere in a quiet corner of Quebec, the couple faces more than the usual relationship woes. They’re getting on each other’s nerves as Alex descends into a deeper psychosis. His inability to tell whether he’s dreaming or awake drives most of the film’s tension. The genuine fear lies in what he might do when his subconscious refuses to stop him. It’s a compelling hook, at least in theory, to keep audiences invested.

Continue reading “Who’s The Dream Eater? When The Mythology Isn’t Wholly There.”

When The Demoness Declares All’s Fair in Love and Lust, Just What Can Horror Fans Expect?

The answer is lots of T&A action in an otherwise Scooby Doo style attempt to save a handful of relationships from The Demoness! Nothing will go wrong, really.

Well GO USA
Available to view Digtally/VOD

When Valentine’s Day nears, there will always be a group of filmmakers and storytellers wanting to explore the darker side of the tradition. When facing The Demoness, maybe Russian filmmaker Serik Beyseu and writers Oleg Kurochkin and Dmitriy Zhigalov have a good idea to show what it takes for any relationship to survive against evil. I think changing the film’s original title to something more generic was a bad idea.

Had this film stayed with The Succubus, everybody will understand what this movie is about. When this evil force is in charge of an island retreat, things will get bad. While couples think they’re headed there to repair their ailing relationships, there are other forces who will want to help numb it further! Here, the focus is on Stacy (Angelina Pahomova) and her boyfriend Michael (Anton Rival). Technically, the only reason she’s here is to find out what happened to her sister. When she’s doing her own Scooby-Doo style investigation, that’s when this film gets interesting.

Continue reading “When The Demoness Declares All’s Fair in Love and Lust, Just What Can Horror Fans Expect?”