Horror Film Review: This Is Not a Test (2025)

If you’re going to tackle a zombie horror these days, you need something fresh. Look at what Black Summer did in a market already overflowing with zombie lore: urgency, terror, impossible choices to survive. This Is Not a Test, set in the opening days of a zombie apocalypse, promised a sharp, emotional story about an abused teen and the slow awakening of a survival instinct after years of wishing she was dead.

Olivia Holt stars as Sloane, a traumatised teenager trapped in an abusive home when a violent zombie outbreak brings chaos to her town. She escapes her father and falls in with a group of classmates, eventually taking refuge inside their high school. It’s messy, brutal and chaotic, but This Is Not a Test seems to be trying to position itself as a cut above.

It’s a powerful concept based on the novel by Courtney Summers, a major YA author whose work should have translated into something far more impactful on screen. But it never does. I didn’t see it and, more importantly, I didn’t feel it. The best zombie films and series get under your skin. They create a mood, a lingering sense of dread that sticks with you long after the credits roll. I first fell for the genre with Open Grave, and that whole film was pure mood.

This Is Not a Test had no mood.

A lot of the problem comes down to telling rather than showing. We’re told Sloane is suicidal, that her father is abusive, that her sister left home. We see some of the abuse. Logically, it makes sense why a teen would feel hopeless. But that’s not work my brain should be doing. The film should have done that work for me.

The same applies when Sloane meets the other survivors and they move to the high school. We know some of these teens aren’t in the best headspace, but none of it really lands. This is the opening day of a zombie apocalypse after all. They’ve all already lost someone.

I expected more from these rising teen stars, but the film never gives them enough depth or direction. Froy Gutierrez (Rhys), Corteon Moore (Cary), Chloe Avakian (Grace) and Carson MacCormac (Trace) all feel like they’re trying to do what they can with thin material, especially when the film never even bothers to properly explain what caused the apocalypse.

I rarely dislike a zombie film, especially one leaning into gritty, emotional territory rather than comedy. But I felt nothing here, much like Sloane did at the start.

This is the second Olivia Holt film I’ve rated one star, the first being Heart Eyes. At this point, I’m starting to think she’s just not my cup of tea.

If you’ve made it this far reading because you too were disappointed, I’m sorry. But I can wholeheartedly recommend anything in the Walking Dead universe, or Z Nation and Black Summer.

For promising and failing to deliver a hard-hitting zombie apocalypse horror based on the work of the excellent Courtney Summers, I give This Is Not a Test one out of five stars.

★☆☆☆☆

A Shudder Exclusive Film, This Is Not a Test Premieres Exclusively on Shudder and AMC+ Friday 22 May 2026

Trailer: This Is Not a Test, dir. Adam MacDonald

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Horror Film Review: I Know Exactly How You Die (2026)

What would you do to overcome writer’s block? With a looming deadline and freshly ghosted by his girlfriend, struggling horror novelist Rian (Rushabh Patel) retreats to a remote motel to finish writing his book. Caught between a storyboard populated only by the first and last scene and bouts of frenzied bathtub writing, Rian begins to hatch a story about drug counsellor Katie on the run from an increasingly violent stalker (and possibly serial killer).

It soon becomes clear that Rian’s story is unfolding in real time.

As his path collides with the real Katie, can they stop the stalker before it is too late? And what exactly is Naja, the mysterious hotel manager, hiding?

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Glasgow Film Festival 2026 Review: Satisfaction

Quietly devastating and utterly spellbinding, Alex Burunova’s Satisfaction is screening at the Glasgow Film Festival this weekend. Fans of Mayor of Kingstown on Paramount+ will recognise lead actress Emma Laird from her role as Iris, and know that she doesn’t shy from difficult material, though this performance ventures into particularly dark territory.

Set against the sun-washed beauty of the Greek Isles, British composers Lola (Emma Laird) and Philip (Fionn Whitehead) exist together in a relationship defined less by love than by distance and silence. For all the tranquillity of their surroundings, an unbreachable divide spans between them. When Lola meets the enigmatic Elena (Zar Amir Ebrahimi), the fragile equilibrium between Lola and Philip begins to fracture, revealing a much darker portrait of people bound together by trauma.

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FrightFest Glasgow 2026 Review: Bone Keeper

So there's a mythical monster lurking in a cave and your father vanished trying to prove it existed. Thirty years later, your mother goes looking for it and disappears too. You decide to gather a few scientist friends to mount a rescue and naturally, one of them invites a vlogger known as the Bitch Hiker. What could possibly go wrong? Quite a lot, as it turns out, in Howard J Ford's Bone Keeper.

It does not begin badly. The opening scenes boast genuinely striking cinematography and intriguing effects work. With visual effects supervisor Giorgio Anita and prosthetic makeup effects Max van de Banks credited early on, my expectations rose sharply.

But there is also some really disorienting camera work, perhaps warning of what is to come. From that shaky foundation, Bone Keeper begins to unravel.

The characters in Bone Keeper know they are in a horror set up. They comment on the tropes, they clock the warning signs. And yet they still do exactly what they should not, most notably splitting up. Even if you're exploring caves without a legendary monster, you do not leave people behind. Honestly, the scariest thing here is the arrogance and stupidity of the characters.

Well, not quite. There are some deeply terrifying and grim scenes, credit again to the effects department and to the sound and music team, but you're rarely given enough time to fully take in what you are seeing.

Until you are.

That nest. That bone shrine. Those tentacles.

Ultimately, Bone Keeper earns few points for originality. The music and the cinematography are beautiful at times, shaky at others, but there is nothing particularly fresh about the plot. It is scary, of course it is, it is a monster horror. But it's also a monster horror that's uncomfortably aware of itself, and that makes the characters’ poor decisions harder to forgive.

To the cast's credit, they do a great job of portraying some thoroughly dislikable characters. John Rhys-Davies was criminally underutilised but I did like Nadia and Ravi, played by Sophia Eleni and Danny Rahim. Their scientific analysis, and what they uncover under the microscope, are genuinely compelling.

In the end, Bone Keeper wasn't wrapped up in a particularly satisfying way and, without giving anything away, it also made me want to scream, "That's not how things work here!"

As excited as I was to see a British monster horror premier at Glasgow Film Festival this year, Bone Keeper earns a slightly disappointed three out of five stars from me.

★★★☆☆

Scares ★★★☆☆| Love ★★☆☆☆ | Design ★★★☆☆ | Acting ★★★★☆ | Plot ★★☆☆☆

Bone Keeper will have its World Premiere on 6th March at FrightFest Glasgow, followed by a UK Digital Release on 6th April

Trailer: Bone Keeper (2026), dir. Howard J Ford

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Frightfest Glasgow 2026 Review: Bury the Devil

Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray for all the souls I keep

I love it when a film takes me by surprise. I went into Bury the Devil with modest expectations, shame on me, but it quickly became clear the film was something special. Adam O’Brien’s one-shot possession horror Bury the Devil is a standout at this year’s Frightfest Glasgow festival and comes from the team behind the 2024 festival favourite Mom.

On a dark and stormy evening, young hospice nurse Julia (Emmanuelle Lussier Martinez) helps her client Evelyn (Dawn Ford) prepare for bed for the night. Evelyn is slightly strange, but that is nothing out of the ordinary for someone with dementia. Following a visit from her estranged husband Randall (Bill Rowat), Evelyn's behaviour takes a turn for the worse and Julia begins to realise that all is not well in the house.

As the evening descends into chaos and violence, Julia must fight to survive the night and protect Evelyn. But what is she fighting against? What does Randall want from Evelyn? And is he the most dangerous entity in the house?

Bury the Devil is an intensely creepy film, so much so that the old house and the storm outside deserve credits of their own at the end. As Julia and Evelyn navigate the house, with all of its creaking floorboards and disturbing knocks, we begin to learn more about Evelyn through her artwork and the knickknacks that she collects.

The dynamic between the two women is powerful, despite their having met only that evening, and Canadian-born Martinez is flawless as Julia. Julia’s compassion and Evelyn’s rare moments of clarity contrast sharply with the palpable fear that grows as the film progresses.

What makes the film even more impressive is how it is constructed. After watching both Presence and Bury the Devil, I think one-shot horror might be my new favourite subgenre. Director Adam O’Brien uses the technique to create a deeply claustrophobic experience, with the camera trailing the actors through every corridor and room of the house and rarely allowing either them or the audience a moment to breathe.

It is an exhausting watch, as you cannot lose focus for a second lest you miss the craft, but it is also exhilarating. I counted just two cuts in the camera work, one through a keyhole and another through a window. While Presence had the advantage of a larger budget and big names attached, Bury the Devil is a truly independent film with a tiny budget, which only adds to its charm.

Not satisfied with this technical feat, O’Brien takes it further through his use of sound. Even when the screen falls into darkness, what we hear becomes as important as what we see. Instead of flashbacks, the backstory emerges through recordings and illustrated diaries, revealing the narrative as the tension continues to build in real time.

For a perfect performance from Emmanuelle Lussier Martinez and for blowing me away in terms of technique, sound and cinematography, I give Bury the Devil a resounding five out of five stars and name it the must-see film of Frightfest Glasgow 2026. In an interview with The Hollywood News, O’Brien shared that the film is the first in an intended trilogy. I very much hope that is the case!

★★★★★

Bury the Devil receives its world premiere at FrightFest Glasgow on 6 March

Trailer: Bury the Devil 2026, Dir. Adam O’Brien

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Horror Film Review: Dolly (2025)

What is horror? Is it what scares us? Makes us uneasy? Or is it the thing that makes our skin crawl as we recoil with revulsion? With disembodied doll parts, swarming flies and an unmistakeably foul atmosphere, Rod Blackhurst’s Dolly opts firmly for the latter from its opening scene and doesn’t relent for 82 minutes.

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Fantastic Fest 2025 Review: The Vile

There's something uniquely compelling about foreign-language horror films, how they blend culturally specific fears with those that are universally terrifying. In The Vile, an Arabic-language first for me, Emirati filmmaker Majid Al Ansari drives the audience to the edge of their seat from the very first scene and doesn't let go for the rest of the film.

Mother and daughter Amani (Bdoor Mohammad) and Noor (Iman Tarik) enjoy an afternoon of fun in suburban Abu Dhabi while waiting for husband and father Khalid (Jasem Alkharraz) to return home. Joy turns to horror in the blink of an eye when Khalid arrives with a pregnant second wife, both without the consent nor knowledge of Amani.

As Amani's sense of betrayal deepens, she becomes increasingly alienated in her own home and begins to suspect that something far more sinister flutters behind the seemingly innocent eyes of second wife Zahra (Sarah Taibah). Try as she might, her efforts to reach out to Noor fail as the teen, struggling with schoolyard bullying, finds solace in the younger wife's company.

Viscerally unsettling and deeply uncomfortable, The Vile is an intense reflection on gender and power, and the demons we let into our lives with our insatiable appetites for more.

A self-proclaimed "huge horror fan" Majid Al Ansari's passion for the genre is evident throughout this feature. Casting his eye on polygamy, which remains a cultural norm in the UAE, Al Ansari asks what happens when consent is removed from the equation and what monsters does this betrayal manifest?

The Vile rises on the strength of Bdoor Mohammad and Iman Tarik’s performances. There is one scene in particular, with Mohammad slowly turning her head to look backwards over her shoulder, which continues to haunt me long after the credits rolled.

With top marks for scares, acting and themes, it's the execution that trips The Vile up. For a film that so successfully blends psychological and paranormal horror, the resolution seemed a little heavy-handed, undermining the subtle tension built throughout. Nevertheless, it's a terrifying, thought-provoking and powerful film.

For an unsettling introduction to the world of Arabic-language horror, I give The Vile an excellent four out of five stars. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on what Majid Al Ansari, Bdoor Mohammad and Iman Tarik do in future.
★★★★☆

Following the World Premiere Screening at Fantastic Fest tonight, The Vile will enjoy a second screening at the Alamo Drafthouse on Wednesday 24 September before heading off to the BFI London Film Festival in October.

Trailer: The Vile (2025), dir. Majid Al Ansari

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