Tag: Supernatural

What Really Spooks Janur Ireng, Sewu Dino the Prequel Isn’t Just a Curse

Kimo Stamboel’s Janur Ireng, Sewu Dino the Prequel sinks its claws into family rot, black magic, and inherited dread, delivering a culturally rich horror film that feels bleak, grotesque, and deeply unsettling.

Janur Ireng Movie PosterIf Kimo Stamboel had approached Janur Ireng, Sewu Dino the Prequel like Poltergeist, it might have lost me. Instead, what we get is something far more rooted in legacy, with a deep dive into a family’s past and the origins of the black magic that poisons it. The plantation setting isn’t just aesthetic; it matters, tying the horror to land, inheritance, and something festering beneath both.

Even without having seen Sewu Dino, this prequel is clearly building the bones of something larger. The film takes its lore seriously, pulling from Javanese beliefs and blending them with Christian imagery, especially through the recurring goat symbolism. Less concerned with explaining every detail, it’s more interested in letting that uneasy fusion of traditions sit under your skin.

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Old-School Magic Returns in Mirage 7, A Forgotten Crusade

Mirage 7 may follow a familiar action-adventure path, but its desert setting, survival-lite mechanics, and story-driven mystery give it enough character to stand apart. Its greatest strength so far is not reinvention, but how confidently it guides players through Nadira’s haunting journey.

Mirage 7 Game PosterDrakkar Dev

Within the heart of Mirage 7 lies a familiar game design framework. For this first-person adventure-shooter, the main difference is whether you are slinging rocks at targets or eating scorpions for dinner. Players switch between young Nadira, a desert dweller searching for her missing sister, and Jiji, the pet lizard who protects her while she sleeps. The concept itself is not especially new, but the game still has enough flavour to stand out, especially through its Arabian Nights-inspired setting and its blend of exploration, mystery, and survival.

After spending some time with the Steam version on PC, I was impressed with the story more than the actual gameplay. This game is familiar enough that the muscle memory developed by playing similar games like Tomb Raider quickly returns. The keyboard and mouse controls feel comfortable, and while I did not get a chance to test a controller, the game seems like it would lend itself well to that option too.

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The Invisible Half Proves There’s Someone There

Rockwell sang about paranoia in the dark, but The Invisible Half flips it, the terror isn’t that someone’s watching, it’s that your device sees what you can’t.

The Invisible Half Movie PosterEST N8

We have all been there at some point in our lives and that imaginary friend was also our bestie. Usually these contacts were harmless and were as innocent as our younger self. But when we grow up, darker impulses can manifest, and the ideas Writer-director Masaki Nishiyama thoughtfully explores in The Invisible Half delivers quite the supernatural scare! Here, Elena (Lisa Siera) becomes a victim, or perhaps is a case study! As a girl of mixed Japanese and British heritage, people ignore her and regularly bully her at school. If that is not enough, something appears that can only be seen through a smartphone camera.

At this point, I could not help but think this movie might have been made for the found footage crowd, except the story unfolds in the third person rather than the first. That would be an original approach, but for now, the film focuses more on a central question: what is reality?

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When Unhinged Pasts Are Revealed, What’s Diabolic (2026) Is Sure to Scare

Diabolic blends trauma, control, and the supernatural into a hallucinatory folk-horror trip. While the film leans heavily on its past timeline, Phillips’ visceral style shines once the weirdness bleeds into the present.

Diabolic (2025) Movie PosterStreaming on VOD (YouTube, Apple TV+)

Aussie-made films can sometimes lean on the outback, or curiosity about Indigenous culture, but Diabolic takes a different path. Though the story plays out in the proverbial outback of Utah, I couldn’t help wondering why foreign investors were more interested in helping Daniel J. Phillips make this film than backing local creators. It’s not a detail worth nitpicking since the movie was shot in the land down under, but it becomes noticeable when the landscape feels slightly wrong for its intended setting. Maybe that’s part of the hallucinatory effect Phillips is aiming for.

After Elise (Elizabeth Cullen, The Bureau of Magical Things) leaves The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she thinks she’s safe. She’s moved on, but the nightmares keep coming. Elise has PTSD, and that’s the terrain the film explores more than anything else. Thankfully, her boyfriend Adam (John Kim, The Librarians) and her adoptive sister Gwen (Mia Challis, Outer Banks) are understanding. Trouble starts when they take a camping trip to get away and bring drugs along, hoping to knock down the walls Elise has built so she can finally feel whole and free from her past.

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With Tales of Dark Romance in Comics, Love Hurts More Than It Heals

Love isn’t always soft, and comics know it. These dark romance comics lean into obsession, grief, and corrupted devotion, spotlighting new releases and older cult favourites that treat heartbreak as a weapon and a revelation.

Broken Heart Through Sun - Dark Romance in ComicsIn the name of dark romance in comics, some creators enjoy exploring its edges through works released for the season of hearts. When there’s no anti-Valentine’s icon the way Christmas has Krampus, these tales lean on the human condition instead. Rather than crafting a saccharine Harlequin fantasy, what’s presented here cuts deeper.

In the real world, love comes with sacrifice, compromise, and the understanding that some connections aren’t meant to last. That emotional friction becomes fertile ground for storytelling. The result is a slate of works that challenge the idea that love must be soft, safe, or everlasting. What’s offered here are current and upcoming titles that dare to be different, stories where affection and obsession blur, where devotion turns corrosive, and where heartbreak is as transformative as it is devastating.

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Just What A Useful Ghost Offers Is Not Seduction, But Suction

A Useful Ghost turns grief, spirituality, and social satire into one of the most offbeat supernatural films in recent memory. Blending heartfelt loss with possessed appliances and sharp cultural commentary, this Ghost Month standout is equal parts absurd and affecting.

A Useful Ghost Movie Poster
Playing at the Victoria Film Festival Feb 14th, 2026 at The Roxy (2657 Quadra St.) at 2pm. Buy tickets here.

Filmmaker Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke has crafted a supernatural film that doesn’t just tug at the heartstrings, it suggests grief doesn’t always need to be sucked up. A Useful Ghost (ผีใช้ได้ค่ะ) weaves several tales together to create the ultimate Ghost Month film. Originally debuting in August 2025 for Southeast Asian audiences, it’s now making a well-deserved splash across the international festival circuit.

The film introduces a series of suffocating situations. There is Tok (Krittin Thongmai), who dies at work from chest congestion. Elsewhere, an unnamed academic (Wisarut Homhuan) insists it isn’t dust but industrial pollution choking him. He buys a vacuum cleaner that promptly malfunctions. When Krong (Wanlop Rungkumjad) arrives to fix it, he has no idea he’s about to be seduced.

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