Blood Barn (2025) | Blood Barn is basically Evil Dead in a farmhouse (with barn), but with rope demons and acting that never found rehearsal. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 4.3/10. Blood Barn tries to kick off its summer of terror with a camera glide straight out of The Evil Dead playbook. Something unseen crashes out a window, glides across a field, and slithers into a barn before settling inside a locked chest. Moody? Yes. Original? Not in the slightest. But hey, at least they let you know immediately what shelf they’re pulling from.

To celebrate their final summer before college, Josie (Lena Redford) invites six fellow camp counselors to her family’s abandoned barn. Within two minutes of meeting this crew of soon-to-be-demised twenty-somethings, they’re already openly questioning why they’re even friends with Josie. Nothing says “tight-knit group” like eye-rolling your host before the beer’s warm.

Amanda (Andrea Bambina) stands out as the resident bully, and honestly, she plays it well. Her mean streak conveniently masks her eventual possession arc. Although when your face is painted blue and black like a Halloween clearance rack demon, subtlety isn’t exactly hiding. Still, she commits.

The film leans hard into its 80s homage vibe. We’ve got camp counselors (hello, Friday the 13th), a remote location, flimsy logic, and a whole lot of practical effects. The group of guys? Completely interchangeable. You could swap their names mid-scene, and I would not have noticed. When they strip down for a lake dip, the grass literally sucks their clothes underground. Nature said, “Nope.”

The family backstory, which is supposedly central to Josie’s connection to the evil, is frustratingly thin. There are old photos, ominous hints, and then… nothing. No real explanation of what crawled out of that chest either. It looks like demonic rope. Or snakes. Or haunted extension cords. Your guess is as good as mine.

The possession spreads rapidly, leaving one uninfected friend scrambling to contain the chaos. What follows is a string of cheesy, energetic confrontations. Cheap props. Flimsy effects. Questionable acting (okay, none of them can act). I mean, Rachel is played by Chloe Cherry, and if that name sounds like it is from another genre, you are correct, porn (sorry, kids, no link). But there’s an undeniable low-budget charm. The wine-dripping-lightbulb moment - clearly inspired by Evil Dead - looks like they poured it down the side instead of into it because… physics is hard.

There’s even a gender-flipped nod to the infamous forest assault scene, which at least shows they’re aware of horror history, even if they don’t quite elevate it.

Look, I can’t fault indie filmmakers for wanting to craft their own Evil Dead. That’s practically a rite of passage. But I can fault them for doing such a messy job, unless the mess was the point. And honestly? It might’ve been. There’s a self-aware wink buried under the rubber snakes and dollar-store demon makeup.

Blood Barn (2025)

For horror fans who enjoy spotting references and appreciating all practical effects, Blood Barn offers some sketchy fun. For anyone else? It’ll feel like being trapped in that barn yourself, waiting for something interesting to crawl out of the chest.

https://jackmeat.com/blood-barn-2025/

Mutants of Nature Cove (2024) | You almost have to admire the naked cast's confidence, because everything else, especially the effects, is impressively terrible. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 2.1/10. Mutants of Nature Cove opens with what looks like stock footage of nuclear scientists conducting suspiciously generic “testing” at a beach, along with a few vague hints about radioactive contamination. It’s the closest thing the film has to a production value highlight, and also about the last time anyone appears on screen wearing clothes.

From there, the movie follows a group of party girls who drag shy Beth (Geneva Robinson) along to a supposedly secluded nude beach that’s crawling with hallucination-inducing mutants and one extremely committed spell-casting woman trying to resurrect her dead husband. Beth eventually decides that the soul-stealing mutants need to be sent back to hell permanently, but getting to that point is a long, awkward journey through one of the cheapest-looking productions you’re likely to see.

It becomes obvious almost immediately that the “beach” exists mostly inside a computer. The cast looks like they’ve been dropped in front of a green screen and told to pretend sand is between their toes. The backgrounds rarely match the lighting on the actors, and the illusion collapses constantly. The extras appear to have been filmed somewhere else entirely and pasted into scenes with all the subtlety of a middle-school video project. If you enjoy spotting visual effects mistakes, this movie turns it into a game. Around the 46-minute mark, I saw the green screen bleed-through start appearing in people’s hair, and from there, the errors pile up as if the effects team simply gave up.

The sound design somehow makes things worse. Dialogue echoes with the hollow acoustics of an elevator shaft, which is impressive considering the characters are supposed to be outdoors. Conversations drift in and out with little ambient noise, making every exchange feel awkwardly staged. It doesn’t help that the acting often looks like performers waiting for off-camera direction. Beth spends multiple scenes staring blankly into space in what appears to be less “deep emotional turmoil” and more waiting for Beau Mann to yell action so she knows when to swing the prop weapon.

Mutants of Nature Cove (2024)

The mutants themselves are spectacularly terrible, highlighted by dinosaur-headed snake creatures that look like unfinished animation tests. When the entire beach population joins in to fight them, the results are downright pathetic, with actors flailing at empty air while digital creatures float unconvincingly in front of them.

The movie makes constant attempts at landing jokes, but most of them fail. There is even a meta joke about how the beach is a great location to film a movie, followed by a weak dig at exploitation that somehow recognizes what the movie is doing without being clever or self-aware.

The oddest thing about Mutants of Nature Cove is the tone. Despite the nudity and the plethora of slow motion lotion and insect repellent application scenes, it feels strangely innocent instead of sleazy. The cast deserves some credit for their sheer confidence, because performing in a project like this requires a level of commitment most actors wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot boom mic. It appears as if only a handful of actors were ever filmed at one time and then composited together.

Unfortunately, confidence alone can’t save a movie this poorly executed. The effects are awful, the performances are stiff, and the production values barely qualify as amateur. Aside from my admiration for the cast’s willingness to go all-in on a very questionable project, Mutants of Nature Cove is simply a bad movie from start to finish. And if you’re expecting a trailer to preview what you’re getting into, be warned. With a cast that’s fully naked about 99.9% of the runtime, I really didn't think that was going to happen.

https://jackmeat.com/mutants-of-nature-cove-2024/

Hellfire (2026) | Grabbed this for the cast alone, and honestly, it’s a scrappy little 80s-style vigilante throwback for STV fans. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 4.8/10. I picked Hellfire for one reason and one reason only. The cast. You put Stephen Lang, Harvey Keitel, and Dolph Lundgren in the same small-town action flick, and I’m at least renting. And let’s be honest, Scottie Thompson isn’t exactly a stranger to my TV after all those years on NCIS.

The setup? A small, dying Southern town called Rondo is being terrorized by a politically connected drug kingpin. The locals are exhausted, worn down, and afraid. And they look it. Hope arrives in the form of a mysterious stranger known only as “the MAN.” Yes, capital letters. And yes, writer Richard Lowry goes to almost comical lengths to make sure Stephen Lang never gets an actual name. Not a nickname. Just a throwaway alias, Nomado. The commitment is impressive.

We open in a diner where Lena (Thompson) works for her father, which conveniently allows the town riffraff to stroll in and establish their bullying credentials. It doesn’t take long for things to feel familiar. The tension-filled meeting with Sheriff Wiley (Lundgren) has strong First Blood energy - small-town law enforcement sizing up an outsider who clearly didn’t wander in by accident. The broader setup smells heavily of Road House, too. I’m fairly certain Lowry has both on Blu-ray within arm’s reach.

Then we cut to an older man playing piano, because of course we do, and surprise! Keitel is the father of the local town bully. It’s a nice touch, but criminally underused. Keitel deserved more screen time. When you cast Harvey Keitel, you don’t keep him in the corner like a decorative lamp.

Director Isaac Florentine clearly knows his lone-vigilante cinema. The first big gunfight/car chase combo has serious The A-Team vibes, meaning Uzis blazing, shotguns pumping, enough bullets to restock a small army… and somehow no one gets hit. It’s almost nostalgic. But after that, the movie finds a mean streak and suddenly remembers bullets are, in fact, lethal. Bodies start dropping, and there’s even a surprisingly decent hand-to-hand fight scene mixed in.

The story itself? Completely by-the-numbers. You know this story of the battered town and the reluctant hero from before, and this one doesn’t deviate an inch from the formula. It’s highly implausible, at times bordering on ridiculous, and has one cringe-worthy war flashback that looks like it was taken straight from the ’80s straight-to-video bargain bin.

Hellfire (2026)

And honestly? That’s kind of the charm. Hellfire just feels like a lost 1988 VHS rental. Gritty, simple, and unapologetic. I wasn’t mad I spent 95 minutes with it. I just won’t be revisiting Rondo anytime soon. If you have a soft spot for old-school vigilante flicks and recognizable tough-guy faces, you might squeeze some fun out of this one. Just don’t expect it to reinvent the genre. It’s too busy paying tribute to it.

https://jackmeat.com/hellfire-2026/

Diabolic (2025) | Bravely confronting your past is commendable. Doing it by camping at the cursed cabin? Not my first choice. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 5.4/10. That poster caught my eye a few months back when I popped Diabolic on the weekly slider. What we have is hope for a miracle cure, which eventually turns into “maybe let’s not mess with cursed witches today.” Inspired by true events, right after a quick and deeply disturbing Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints fact drop, the movie opens with a creepy ritual full of ominous chanting and imagery that screams, “This will not end well.” Spoiler: it does not.

We jump ten years ahead to Eise (Elizabeth Cullen), who is understandably still haunted by her past. Earlier, we saw that she was forced into a baptism at a remote cabin. So naturally, the adult solution is to… go camping outside that same cabin. Nothing says emotional healing like pitching a tent next to your trauma.

The plan involves some kind of séance-slash-drug-induced spiritual ceremony designed to confront the past head-on. If you’re a fan of unexplained black ooze, shadowy demon figures, and “what exactly are we summoning here?” energy, you’ll get your fix. The visuals in these moments are effective, leaning into that grimy, occult aesthetic. When the horror shows up, it shows up.

But getting there takes a minute. Actually, it takes most of the runtime. The story moves at a slow simmer until the final ten minutes suddenly decide, “Oh right, we’re a horror movie.” The last stretch cranks up the intensity with some painful-looking practical effects and bursts of violence that feel appropriately nasty. If the entire film had matched that energy, we’d be talking about a much stronger flick.

John Kim plays Adam, the supportive boyfriend, while Mia Challis plays the best friend who, intentionally or not, looks genuinely bored for large portions of the movie. It almost becomes its own subplot: “Is she possessed, or just over this camping trip?”

Director Daniel J. Phillips does a solid job maintaining suspense within a very by-the-numbers cult framework. There’s some witch lore sprinkled in, but it never fully digs into anything fresh. The film hits most of the horror tropes you’d expect. Isolated cabin, ritual gone wrong, stupid decisions, you get the idea.

Visually, though, it’s strong. Michael Tessari makes South Australia convincingly stand in for Utah, and the cinematography gives the film a polished, moody look. The practical gore effects are well done; they’re just used a little too sparingly to leave a lasting mark.

Overall, Diabolic is watchable and competently made, but it doesn’t do much to stand out in the crowded “cursed cult witch” subgenre. A couple of decent jump scares, some solid practical effects, and then, and you knew this was coming, an ending that lightly teases a sequel. Apparently, evil black ooze is a franchise opportunity now.

Diabolic (2025)

https://jackmeat.com/diabolic-2025/

Mercy (2026) | It’s basically “prove you didn’t do it” to an AI judge who already kinda thinks you did. Log me in. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 6.3/10. In Mercy, the near future apparently decided that the best way to streamline the justice system was to hand it over to a shiny AI named “Mercy.” Because nothing says compassion like a machine that acts as judge, jury, and executioner. Subtle.

Chris Pratt plays Detective Chris Raven, who finds himself strapped to a chair on trial for murdering his wife. He has 90 minutes to prove his innocence to the AI system he once publicly supported. Yes, the same system that is now very politely preparing to kill him. That’s what I call a rough day at work.

The idea itself is strong right out of the gate. Prove your innocence to an algorithm or face execution. The Mercy system sounds less like AI and more like ICE without the “Intelligence.” It calculates guilt in decimal points, adjusts probabilities on the fly, and somehow treats discovering a whole new suspect like it’s a minor clerical update. In what universe does finding another viable suspect only drop your guilt level by 0.8 points? This thing is supposedly built on millions of prior cases. I’ve seen fantasy football apps with better analytics.

Raven’s defense strategy doesn’t exactly inspire confidence either. His go-to argument of “I couldn’t” isn’t the mic-drop he seems to think it is. It’s less an airtight alibi and more a shrug emoji. To be fair, the guy went off the rails and dove headfirst into the bottle after his partner, Ray (Kenneth Choi), was killed. Yes, that Kenneth Choi from 9-1-1. So the emotional instability angle doesn’t exactly scream “wrongly accused saint.”

What does work surprisingly well is the tension. For a film where the protagonist is literally tied to a chair for the better part of the running time, it does keep the pace going. The countdown clock does a lot of the heavy lifting, but it gets the job done. The pacing is extremely fast, sometimes almost too fast. You get quick bursts of character info, then bam, on to the next revelation. There’s barely time to process one plot point before another breadcrumb gets tossed your way.

The relationship between Pratt and Judge Maddox, played by Rebecca Ferguson, is one of the better aspects of this flick. Their growing partnership, which is both professional and slightly personal, is a much-needed addition to the film, which could have otherwise been a completely mechanical thriller. Ferguson brings that robotic presence that balances Pratt’s frantic energy.

The downside? The 90-minute limit and all the tools ot prove yourself (which, conveniently, only the accused can access - so I guess innocent people don't get cool tech perks?) leave little room to truly know the characters. It’s all urgency, all the time. Effective for suspense, not so much for depth.

That said, as a high-concept whodunnit with an inherent ticking clock, Mercy is entertaining. It handles its twists well enough to keep you guessing, even if the logic behind the AI sometimes seems like it was written in a lunch break coding session. If you're in the mood for something interesting with a possible caution flag and aren't particular about a few glaring algorithmic errors, Mercy is definitely worth watching.

Mercy (2026)

https://jackmeat.com/mercy-2026/

The Haunted Forest (2025) | For something called The Haunted Forest, the coming-of-age angle completely overshadows whatever horror this wanted to be. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 3.7/10. There must be something in the water that makes teenagers think the middle-of-nowhere make-out spot is the place for safe smooching. The Haunted Forest begins by gently reminding us that it is never the case. The scene is so tame it feels like a public service announcement sponsored by “Bad Decisions Anonymous.” If you are waiting for someone to be slaughtered, move along.

We follow Zach, played by Grayson Gwaze, a high school senior who lands his first job as a scare actor at Markoff's Haunted Forest. He quickly befriends the ragtag crew of year-round haunt employees, all of whom appear to be more interested in brooding than actually frightening anyone. When one of them dies tragically on the grounds, Zach begins to question his own obsession with death and the macabre, which sounds like the beginning of a horror movie, but for the most part just feels like a very low-energy coming-of-age story hiding behind a horror mask.

And when I say slow, I mean day-in, day-out, punch-the-clock slow. We spend an alarming amount of time watching people “work” at what appears to be a haunted attraction open 365 days a year for absolutely no reason. The dialogue doesn’t help. It’s stiff, cue-card-reading stiff. Like everyone is terrified of missing their line more than being murdered.

A couple of accidents shake things up, including the baffling decision to give mock chainsaws actual chains, resulting in an “oops, we cut his arm” moment. Not a horror movie maiming. Not a shocking severed limb. Just a workplace safety violation waiting to happen. OSHA would’ve been the real villain here.

The opening of the haunted forest is briefly in question...for roughly three minutes of screen time. Then, crisis averted, they reopen for Halloween, which at least justifies the existence of this place. Small victories.

The humor? Flat. The horror? Practically PG. Most of the early “kills” are suggested, like the movie is politely asking you to imagine something scarier than it’s willing to show. Later on, a few on-screen kills finally happen, but by then I had been waiting so long for the movie to start that I half expected an intermission.

The twist isn’t a twist. It’s more of a gentle narrative shrug. The writing feels lazy, especially when the marketing leans so heavily into the horror angle. Honestly, this plays like a movie trailer that oversold the product. Scary is the one thing this film never manages to be, no matter how many times it insists otherwise.

That said, the production values are solid. The sets look good. The atmosphere is there. And Meghan Reed as Carly is easily the most interesting character in the entire film. Every time she was on screen, I perked up, hoping the story would follow her somewhere more compelling.

Instead, The Haunted Forest is far more invested in its coming-of-age identity crisis than delivering actual chills. If you go in expecting introspection with a side of light slasher seasoning, you might get something out of it. If you’re expecting a genuinely scary experience? This forest doesn’t have much buzz.

The Haunted Forest (2025)

https://jackmeat.com/the-haunted-forest-2025/

Dinner to Die For (2025) | Shamilla Miller holds it together with a memorable ending, even if the road getting there was undercooked. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 4.5/10. I had no idea what I was getting with Dinner to Die For, but it serves up a fun premise with a sharp knife. Then spends most of its runtime trying to figure out which course it actually wants to be.

The film follows Hannah, played by Shamilla Miller, a culinary photographer with a taste for true crime, and her equally obsessed friend Evan, portrayed by Steven John Ward (serial killer-sounding name). The two decide to spice up their hobby by role-playing their own true crime scenario, complete with a killer meal and the “girl next door” trope. Naturally, because this is a thriller and not a Food Network special, fantasy and reality collide, and one deadly mistake ensures that no one at the table leaves with clean hands.

Here’s the main issue. This story definitely did not have to be 75 minutes long. It is either a tight and vicious 25-minute short film or a fully fleshed-out mini-series with time to breathe. Instead, it awkwardly falls right in the middle, like an uncooked entrée. The film completely skimps on the development of the recipe book angle, which could have easily been its own compelling thread. Then it rushes into a flashback structure that feels crammed. Each character’s psychological descent could’ve used a solid 30–40 minutes of dedicated focus. As it stands, the material just doesn’t fit the feature-length format.

That mismatch is the movie’s biggest drawback. The bones of a good story are here, but the pacing is all over the place. It skates around its concept without ever fully embracing it until the finale. And while memorable, it isn’t quite as explosive as it needs to be. The suspense never fully simmers. It kinda stays at a light boil (I will run out of cooking references LOL).

Performance-wise, though, the film is held together by Miller. She carries the emotional weight and makes Hannah feel grounded even when the story isn’t. Steven John Ward plays Evan as a complete doormat, which he absolutely has to be for the story mechanics to function, and he commits to it. You may find yourself wanting to shake him through the screen, but that’s part of the design.

The effects, when they show up, are decent enough. They don’t dominate the film, but they do their job without pulling you out of the experience.

For a first-time feature-length effort, director Diana Mills Smith shows promise. There is a good understanding of tone and character relationships, even if the execution isn’t quite there. With a different pacing or format that is more suited to the story, this could have been something unique.

As it stands, Dinner to Die For is an interesting concept, plated nicely, acted well, but served in the wrong portion size. Some of you may get more out of its psychological angle, but for me, the suspense just didn’t quite satisfy. Sometimes the recipe is good, but it just needs the right cooking time.

Dinner to Die For (2025)

https://jackmeat.com/dinner-to-die-for-2025/