The film MaleVolent is about a pair of siblings Jackson and Angela who run a profitable ghostbusting company, using fake Psychic Angela to hook desperate homeowners. When they are hired to investigate a haunted foster home, they discover that it is the same place where a group of young girls were silenced by a sadistic killer. Angela starts having issues, seeing and hearing things that aren’t there, or at least that aren’t supposed to be there. But they find that the supernatural is not their problem, and humanity might be.
 
The beginning of the movie didn’t grab me much, mostly because I thought that it was the same as a lot of other movies just like this. A group of people faking the ghosts, get money by making people believe they have gotten rid of the ghosts, and instead they end up being killed by a real ghost, but instead it isn’t the ghosts that people have to worry about, it is the real people.
 
When the sibling and their crew arrive at the old foster home they find the mother of the home to be off-putting and aggressive. Her son is a known murderer, having murdered several of the young girls she had taken into her foster home. He not only tortured the girls, but sewed their mouths shut, before killing them and placing them on display. The mother claims that the girls were the problem and that her son was the innocent victim, only doing what they forced him to do.
 
This movie wasn’t great, as there were some very slow moments that made the movie drag at times. But, there were also a lot of frights, and I got goosebumps several times as the creepiness of the movie built. There were some good moments that didn’t rely on jump scares, like most movies do these days, jump scares for ghosts.
 
The end of the movie moved a little too far into the grotesque, and it wasn’t needed as it was creepy enough. I feel like they might have added it so that there were some moments of torture to shock the audience. It was also incredibly sad as Angela realizes that her life is never going to be normal again.
 
Not a fantastic or great movie, but to watch it on streaming, it wasn’t bad. The time used to watch it was worth it for the end, and the revelation that sometimes things are not always what they seem, and sometimes people deserve to have the ghosts haunting them.

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware should have been an interesting book, it should have been a fabulous and suspenseful book, but it was in fact not. Not because of the book itself, no, it was because of other books like it.
 
Nora is a fictional crime author, one who doesn't often leave her flat. She is invited to her once best friend’s "hen" party, a party for brides-to-be before their weddings. She hasn't seen Clare in ten years, so it is all a surprise to her that she is invited, that is until she finds out who the groom is. Once at the party site Nora, her old friend Nina, Clare, and a few of Clare's friends, Flo, Melanie, and Tom, start the party. Flo wants the party to be perfect, for some reason she feels Clare has saved her life, although we only find out a little bit about that. Nora finds out a devastating fact, and things wander around from there. In the end the reader sees Nora in the hospital, being questioned by the police, about the last day of the hen party, and a shooting that happened.
 
The issue I have with this novel is not on that is based on the novel itself, but instead it is based on other novels like this. I can compare this novel to Girl on a Train, Final Girls, Our Little Secret, or Tell Me What Happened Again. All of these books have one thing in common, they all involve a woman who has lost part of her memory after some sort of trauma or tragedy, and the police are wondering what happened, and trying to figure it out. In a Dark, Dark Wood, would have been better if it had been the first of this trope that I had read, but unfortunately, it was not, and the story is one that has already been told and I have already read.
 
While Nora could have been an interesting character, I think both Nina and Flo were more interesting characters, and I honestly wouldn't have minded getting to know Tom a little more. Melanie seemed to be a superfluous character, and besides being there to set Flo off a little more and make her seem a little more unhinged, she didn't seem to be a necessary character.
 
Beyond the fact that this is like a lot of other books I have recently read, it is actually well written, and more interesting than some of the others mentioned above. I do not think that due to this book trope being overdone that I will never read anymore of Ruth Ware's novels. In fact, I look forward to reading more of her books, I'm just not sure which. I need to get through more of my TBR pile before I pick up a brand new book and bring it home.

Mark of the Demon by Diana Rowland was not at all what I was expecting. I thought there would be more demons and less police work. In fact, there was a lot of police work and very few demons.
 
A young police detective named Kara Gillian is learning the ropes of her new job, a homicide detective. Her first case, the murders of a serial killer called "The Symbol Man" due to the symbols he leaves on his victims’ bodies. The reason she is given the case is due to the fact that in her preparation to while she waited for a case she read and reread the Symbol Man case. During all of this she fights a demon she didn't summon, the attraction she feels for an FBI agent, and the disgust of the Chief of the entire department.
 
The beginning of this was a little tedious and long, all describing one scene in which Kara is summoning a demon, and an intruder breaks into her house. I will admit by writing this I am not giving anything away, so don't worry about spoilers because it isn't one. Throughout the novel Kara has lots of moments where she is supposed to be summoning a demon, or thinking about summoning a demon, or dreaming about demons, or being hurt by demons, but there is not much of a backstory into how she knows all of this except her aunt is a summoner as well. I wanted more backstory, how she started, what happened to her parents, why she was living with her aunts, why she didn't have many friends growing up, and how she went from being on the police force for seven years to becoming a homicide detective?
 
The rest of the book drifted from one killing to the next, with a few people understanding and knowing what Kara is, and what the "arcane" is. Which frankly annoyed me because the "arcane" was not really described for the rest of us, and a writer can describe things in several different ways. Another thing that annoyed me was, why would a brand new homicide detective be given a cold case once a new body turns up, even if she has read through all of the files available more recently than anyone else in the department? It wasn't believable.
 
Now, I didn't hate the book, I felt it was a little too back and forth, a little too focused on the bodies being found and how often they were, and the demons that weren't really involved in the story. The ending was a little abrupt, and the bad guy seemed a little far-fetched, but I feel that some of the writing was solid. It just didn't keep me interested. It also didn't make me care who was the killer, plus it didn't give me a reason to care about the people who were being killed.
 
I probably won't read the next in this series, as I thought the White Trash Zombie series was better, but I don't think I will read any more of those novels either. Sometimes, after you read a series for even a few books you get tired of the characters doing the same things over and over. This is the reason I've stopped reading the Alex Cross series by James Patterson, the character is no longer growing.

I was hesitant to watch Hellraiser: Judgement because Hellraiser: Revelations was just so damn awful that it just about ruined Pinhead for me. Not only was the actor in Revelations awful, but the entire plot of the movie was also terrible. When I found that Judgement had been released I was leery, but decided I would give it a shot, and if it turned out to be as bad as Judgement I’d just give up on any new movies made in the Hellraiser series.
 
Before I start this review, I want to say that I will always find Doug Bradley the best actor for Pinhead, and no one else quite grasps the character. I wish he had returned, but understand that because he didn’t sign a non-disclosure agreement he wasn’t going to reprise the role. I do have to say the actor who plays Pinhead in Judgement was not as bad as the actor who took on the role in Revelations, and they took the makeup closer to what the original makeup looked like in the original movies.
 
Judgement involves a cop and his partner, who is also his biological brother, who are running after a serial killer who kills those who are “sinners” of sorts. As the movie moves on we find ourselves in the office of a cenobite who has the job of finding the guilty and punishing them.
 
There are little bits of both heaven and hell in this movie, as we get to see both sides of the story, and what happens when one side wants the accused to live. There are such sights to see, but the question is who is in control, and who gets to open the box.
 
A lot happened in this movie. A young female detective is sent to find out which brother may be having a breakdown. There is adultery, which is standard in a Hellraiser movie, as whoever opens the box has something to offer, and usually it is their destructing soul. In the end, everyone gets what they deserve, like most of the Hellraiser movies. And we get to see just what happens when one disagrees with Heaven and doesn’t quite do what is asked of them.
 
I thought this was more interesting than the last movie, but nothing could be worse than that travesty of a film. I enjoyed the direction and the new cenobites I was introduced to. I also thought the theme of being judged before being sentenced was interesting. There wasn’t quite enough Pinhead in this to make it follow the rest of the films, but that could just be me because I thoroughly enjoy the idea of him. I also have to say that I really loved the ending, and thought it was a creative way to end the film, sending someone back to be who they were, making them relive what they had tried to escape.
 
Don’t be afraid of this film. It is better than it looks and is 100% better than the last monstrosity was.

The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson has a plot that reads as:

Every time she bleeds a murderer is born. The rule is simple: don't bleed. For as long as Molly Southbourne can remember, she's been watching herself die. Whenever she bleeds, another molly is born, identical to her in every way and intent on her destruction.

Molly knows every way to kill herself, but she also knows that as long as she survives she'll be hunted. No matter how well she follows the rules, eventually the mollys will find her. Can Molly find a way to stop the tide of blood, or will she meet her end at the hand of a girl who looks just like her?

When reading the plot and premise of this book I was intrigued, and it didn't disappoint. This is the first in a trilogy, and I will be honest, I think the entire trilogy could have been put into one book as this was only 134 pages long, and I read it in two days (only because I started it really late and didn't feel like finishing it, instead I decided to sleep).

Molly is a girl who should never bleed, because when she does a new molly is born from her blood. This has apparently been happening since she was born, and it made me wonder not only about her birth, but also about other childhood incidences that happen to make children bleed. I also wondered about how the parents discovered that all of the mollys wanted to kill Molly herself?

As I write this there were quite a few unanswered questions: how did they discover the issue, if they had Molly in the hospital how did they keep the issue from the doctor, what did they do with all of the bodies, how fast was a molly born from Molly's blood, and a few more that weren't answered. I feel that, while this was a fun and new idea to me, it didn't quite go as far as it could have, instead focusing on Molly and her rage then acceptance at having to continually kill herself, or watch her parents kill versions of her. I would have like a little more, besides the angsty teen Molly who lets all mollys live and becomes overrun with them.

All of that being said, I did find this enjoyable, and at the end I did want to know what was going to happen next. My issue with this really is that I think the trilogy should have all been one book, because I don't know that I am willing to pay another $12 for the next book if it is this short. Not that I think it isn't worth it, I feel as if things were drawn out to get more money out of it, and that bothers me a little. I absolutely support authors and artists making money, and support as many people as I can, but this seemed a little over what I was willing to do or pay.

I do recommend this novella (?). It was an interesting premise, and it reminded me a little of Pretty Dead Girl, which I enjoyed until the end.