The End of Oak Street, Black Box, Goodnight Mommy, and Ju-On: The Grudge

This week’s new releases are “The End of Oak Street,” and “Black Box” both from this year. We’ll also look at a couple of classics, “Goodnight Mommy” from 2014 and the original “Ju-On: The Grudge” from 2002. Mostly good stuff!

All this, plus the latest issue of “Horror Monthly,” issue #60, for September 2026, is out now! Check out all the back issues, as well as our other books, with one easy link: https://horrormonthly.com

Mainstream Films:

2026 The End of Oak Street

* Directed by: David Robert Mitchell

* Written by: David Robert Mitchell

* Stars: Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

The Platt family bands together for survival when their whole neighborhood is transported back to an era when dinosaurs were thriving. The title has a double meaning of the end of Oak Street and perhaps the literal end of Oak Street. They nailed the retro vibe setting it in 1982. The blood and gore is surprisingly tame considering the violence. Somehow they managed to avoid an R rating. The special effects are good as is the story, and we thought it was very entertaining.

Spoilery Synopsis

There’s a big block party on Oak Street, and Denise, Greg, Audry, and Brian Platt are all having a great time, probably because this is vaguely the 80s, when everyone was happy (Carl Sagan was alive and Chrysler was still a thing). Denise and Greg are having some martial issues because he’s working too many jobs. There’s a radio report of strange waves out in space.

Denise has written a book, and the old lady who’s editing it shows her a weird plant in her back yard that she can’t identify that’s grown really fast. The kids and the dog have typical problems. That night, there are weird lights in the sky; only Brian and the dog see them.

In the morning, nasty neighbor Mel comes over and blames the kids for piling hundreds of pounds of poop in his backyard. Later, the local bully, Kaden, chases Brian around the neighborhood. That night, the strange lights in the sky return, and everyone sees them this time. The power goes out and the rain instantly stops. They all hear screaming, so Greg goes out to investigate. When he returns, he warns them all to lock the doors before going back to bed.

In the morning, the power is still out. The water isn’t working either, which is unexpected. Greg and Denise go out for a walk, and it’s very quiet– almost too quiet. They hear lots of unusual animal noises.

Denise finds her elderly neighbor friend half-eaten in her kitchen, and there’s a full-on jungle in her backyard that wasn’t there yesterday. Greg, on the other hand, gets chased around the neighborhood by a dinosaur. They run home, and there is much screaming and panicking.

Everyone hops in the car, but all the roads out of the neighborhood stop in forests, as if the whole subdivision was transported into a dinosaur-infested jungle. The camera pulls away, and we see that that’s exactly what has happened. They all rush home and start boarding up the windows.

Greg admits that he was recently laid off and didn’t want Denise to worry. Denise’s book got destroyed when the basement flooded. The kids are terrified. Good times all around. The small dinosaurs hear something that scares them away. They talk about portals through time; could they be in the past?

That night, they watch as Mel is torn apart by flying reptiles. We see larger dinos slowly moving into the area. Brian runs out after the dog, and Audrey runs out after Brian; the parents soon notice and go out again, looking for them. Something big attacks the car, so that doesn’t last long.

Brian and Audrey run into Jeannette, the new kid at private school, and her parents have already been eaten. Greg and Denise find a portal that appears to lead back to the normal world, but it vanishes before they can do anything. There’s a lot of running around and being chased until Greg gets caught by a big one and eaten.

There’’s a fire that’s coming, and it’s going to burn everything.

They spot another portal, but it’s way across town. The group gets there without too much trouble and goes upstairs, where the portal is. Mr. Valcourt, the town’s librarian, is there with a shotgun. The elevated portal is blinking on and off, so they need to time their jumps. Jeanette goes through, no problem. Brian’s not so lucky and falls three stories to hurt his leg.

They retrieve Brian and then go back to the roof, where they all jump together, even the dog. They wind up in 1982 in someone’s swimming pool, and the owner isn’t happy. Their neighborhood is still there, like nothing happened. It’s the night the portal came, in twenty minutes from now!

Can they save all the people? Jeanette runs off to save her parents. Denise runs to a phone booth and makes a call. Turns out, she ordered a pizza from the company Greg has been working for, and that gets him out of the “transport zone.” The family watches as the lights cover the part of the city around their home and it all vanishes and is replaced with a chunk of dinosaur jungle.

Two years later, a news report explains what’s been going on. Turns out, Denise called a lot of people, warning them to get out, and ended up being a local hero for it. She then wrote a book about the whole ordeal. Everyone’s got a happy ending (including TWO Jeanettes)!

Brian’s Commentary

The easy comparison here is the recent film, “The Last House” (2026), which is similar in a lot of ways. “Jurassic Park” also comes into play heavily here.

Ewan McGregor’s “American” accent is not great.

Special effects for dinosaurs aren’t exactly new, but they are very well done here. Many are more birdlike, with hair and feathers, something scientists didn’t know about when Jurassic Park was made, but they added it here. The portals aren’t really explained in much detail, but we don’t need to know.

The blood and gore is pretty minimal, but a lot of people are killed and eaten, so it’s borderline on the horror scale, but we’ll count it anyway because it’s pretty good!

Kevin’s Commentary

I know that it’s more scientifically accurate, but after growing up with all lizard dinosaurs I feel irrationally annoyed at some dinosaurs being depicted with fur and feathers now.

I agree that Evan McGregor’s accent sounds kind of unnatural. At least it’s consistent.

I thought it moved well and was entertaining. I’d give it a thumbs up.

2026 Black Box

* Directed by: Steven Quale

* Written by: Stephen Susco

* Stars: Tom Brittney, Holly White, Betsy-Blue English

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 25 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

It’s stuff on a plane. Flight 298 from New Orleans to Seattle encounters strange events in the air. Things go on for quite a while being weird and random before any kind of explanation surfaces. It’s entertaining, above average in quality, but overall neither of us thought it was really great.

Spoilery Synopsis

We get a cryptic message from a man aboard a plan that swears what we are about to see is real. He says it would be terrible if what’s on this plane makes it to the ground. We then see some found footage of the passengers in the airport before the flight. Black Box: Flight 298 comes on, and we hear the pilot talking about a hurricane and electrical disturbances just ahead, and then contact is lost.

We watch the various passengers board the plane, not as found footage, and many of them seem obnoxious and rude. We also see a large crate being loaded “handle with extreme care.” Chen puts on a tin-foil hat to avoid the cosmic rays up there.

The plane takes off normally, but before long, one man starts coughing. Another guy is a stereotypical privileged businessman-jerk. Jeremy is sad over a break-up, but he makes friends with Chloe, a little girl waiting for the restroom the sick man is camped out in. He then makes friends with Emma, one of the stewardesses.

The sick old man sees a light outside the plane and starts yelling, “We’re all gonna die up here!” After a few minutes of panic, he grabs his chest and tries to open the door. He then coughs up a bunch of blood and passes out. Jeremy is a doctor, and it’s soon clear that the old man is dead.

Suddenly, all the dogs in the hold start barking all at once. The copilot goes down to check, but it looks normal. He speaks to them, and they all get real quiet, real fast. Jeremey notices that the lightning outside is not normal; it’s red and green and moving.

Jeremy and Chloe, the people who see the lights, start getting headaches. Their ears are bleeding. Or was it their contact with the sickly old man? Turns out, a lot of people on the flight have started feeling bad. The captain decides to divert to another airport.

The pilot and co-pilot see weird lights in the sky, and it’s not lightning. They call to see if the military is testing anything tonight, and they aren’t since the weather is too clear. Our plane, however, is in a major storm. The pilot says it looks like a category five hurricane.

The pilot and co-pilot stop responding for no obvious reason, and the plane might not have anyone flying. From outside, we see a special cloud surrounding and following the plane, and it’s full of lights.

Suddenly, the turbulence stops; have they landed? Could they be on a black site for quarantine? Jeremy takes another look at the old man and comes to the conclusion that the electrical system blew up his pacemaker. They all hear footsteps on the roof of the plane.

Something’s trying to get in. The door opens, and tentacles pull one of the passengers out. The businessjerk, who’s been hiding in the restroom, gets splattered in the face and might be possessed. A spider-like tentacle monster then comes on board and starts killing people.

Things get weird at this point. The characters that we know hide in the cargo area, but they probably aren’t alone. The dogs have been taken over, as is the Air Marshal.

Jeremy opens the door, and they see that they haven’t landed, they’re just sorta floating high in the sky. As they look for parachutes, one guy tries to open that big crate we saw earlier. Turns out, that’s Jeremy’s recently dead wife. They find the parachutes, but it’s not enough for all of them. They all record messages on their phones in case they die.

Chloe hears her (dead) mother’s voice, telling her to open the door. She opens it, and the monster gets her. Emma jumps out of the plane with a chute, but Jeremy stays behind. Emma gets pulled back up and drawn back to the plane, but she does drop the bag of cellphones.

The plane starts to move again, so Jeremy makes his way out of hiding. One of the alien bugs has taken over Jeremy’s dead wife’s body and they have a talk. She explains that this happens to most airplanes, as the aliens slowly possess one set of passengers after another. “We will have taken your world, one body at a time…”

The pilot reports that everything’s fine now, no one is sick, and they’re ready to land. Jeremy comes out of the cargo area and sees that the plane is full of passengers, just like before. They all look normal. He kills the pilot and co-pilot and takes over the plane. He points it down and tries to crash it, but the auto landing system takes over and lands the plane safely.

The SWAT team comes in and takes Jeremy into custody. He sounds like a lunatic, so no one listens to his warnings.

Brian’s Commentary

It’s a mix of stuff happening on the plane mixed in with found footage of… other stuff. Fortunately, the found footage bits are few and far between once the action starts. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the beginning that never really gets explained, but most questions are answered by the end.

I was entertained, but it’s not great.

Kevin’s Commentary

It was feeling too weird and random for quite a while, but it does eventually explain things a bit.

I wondered if it was going to go full found footage, but that was only something sprinkled throughout.

It was pretty entertaining, but also pretty forgettable. Like eating potato chips. The details won’t stick with me.

2014 Goodnight Mommy

* Directed by: Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz

* Written by: Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala

* Stars: Lukas Schwarz, Elias Schwarz, Suzanna Wuest

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Twin boys have moved to a big new house with their mother - who is bandaged and unrecognizable after facial surgery. But things seem off, and they get more so as the story unfolds and we get clues about what’s going on. It’s well made and acted, but it really drags. Kevin thought it was okay. Brian thought less of it than that. It makes lists of must-see horror films, but we aren’t sure why.

Spoilery Synopsis

After a creepy goodnight lullaby, we cut to two boys playing hide-and-seek in a cornfield. Elias and Lukas are twin brothers. Credits roll.

A car drives up, and the boys run to meet their mother, who has returned home after surgery. Her face is all bandaged, and the boys are a little afraid of her. Mother makes dinner for Elias but ignores Lukas entirely. Is he real?

Mother has new rules: she wants no noise at all and no visitors. She needs to avoid sunlight. The boys whisper to each other that she’s different, not like their mom.

One day, the boys find a pit full of skulls and bones. That’s OK, because there’s a cat there they can play with. They take the cat home with them, but mother doesn’t see it.

When night comes around, mother takes off all her clothes and walks through the dark woods. The twins collect giant cockroaches, and they put one in her bed that night, and she swallows it in her sleep.

They boys go online and see that their house is for sale. They put a baby monitor in her room under the bed to spy on her. Mother talks about making him face it. They boys go looking for the cat, but can’t find it. When they do find the cat, he’s dead.

Elias accuses the mother of not being their mother, and she gets upset at that. She punishes him but seems to ignore Lukas entirely. He dreams about cutting her open and letting out all the cockroaches inside her.

Eventually, mother loses the bandages, looking like her old self, but the boys are still suspicious. They boys run away to the nearby town, which seems mostly deserted. They go to a church there asking for the priest to take them to the police for help, but the man simply drives them home. She talks to the priest, “It was all a bit much– the accident, the separation.”

In the morning, Mama wakes up tied to the bed. The boys want to know where their mother is. This goes on for quite a while, as Elias torments her. He’s about to release her when he realizes the mole on her face is only drawn on; his real mother had a real mole. She says it was removed in the surgery. They torture her with sunlight through a magnifier to burn her.

For some reason, the Red Cross stops by wanting a donation. Mother’s gagged and can’t make much noise, so the boys say she’s out. They decide to wait for her return. Finally Elias gives them a 50 out of mom’s purse just to get them to go away. They end up supergluing her mouth shut, but then they have to cut it open to feed her.

Elias eventually cuts her loose to change the bedsheets, and she runs off. They’ve got the place booby-trapped, so she doesn’t get far. She promises to talk to Lukas again if he lets her go; “He’ll be alive again.” She tells him the accident wasn’t his fault. Lukas tells Elias that she’s lying.

Elias sets the house on fire, and Mother is glued to the floor. She burns to death, so Elias goes to hide in the cornfield. Now he sees his real mother, right there with Lukas!

Brian’s Commentary

No one ever seems to notice Lukas, so we figured early on that he was imaginary, or a ghost or something. This question takes far too long to play out, and it becomes so obvious after a while.

I’ve seen this on several “Top Horror Films” lists, and thought it ought to be pretty good. It was not. I don’t see the attraction to the film at all. The “twist” was pretty obvious, even early on, and the rest was pretty drawn-out and dull.

Kevin’s Commentary

There were enough clues given that I guessed early in the film that Lukas was dead and Elias was imagining him still alive. And it becomes more clear later.

Well into the movie, Brian commented that he’s tired of boring horror movies, and I had to agree. This is mighty slow moving for the first long part. Things build very slowly for a long time. The finish livens things up a little.

Those were the two pushiest and entitled Red Cross volunteers ever.

I thought it was too easy to figure out what was going on too early and getting to the conclusion seemed like a bit of a slog. It’s well made, and I was impressed with the acting. But I give it low marks for entertainment value.

2002 Ju-On: The Grudge

* Directed by: Takashi Shimizu

* Written by: Takashi Shimizu

* Stars: Megumi Okina, Misaki Ito, Misa Uehara

* Run Time: 1 Hour, 32 Minutes

* Trailer:

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

IMDB.com describes this as “A mysterious and vengeful spirit marks and pursues anybody who dares enter the house in which it resides.” The order and timeline are strange and a bit hard to follow, with the focus changing from character to character in different sections. It’s jumbled and didn’t fit together for us as a plot. Neither of us get the appeal. We didn’t like it.

Spoilery Synopsis

We’re told that Ju-On is a curse of one who died in the grip of a powerful rage. Those who encounter it die, and a new curse is born. We open on blurry photos of a man torturing a cat with a little boy in the next room. Credits roll.

At the Social Welfare Center, Rika gets a new case assignment. She’s only a volunteer, but the last guy just sorta quit without notice. When she gets to the Tokunaga house, it’s not very well maintained, and she gasps. She introduces herself to the old lady inside, but the old woman doesn’t have much to say.

As Rika cleans up the house, she finds a torn-up photo of what she assumes is the old woman’s family. She goes upstairs to a closet and opens the door, where she sees a little boy hiding. The boy says his name is Toshio. Suddenly, a scary black ghost comes and leans over the old woman; Rika faints.

A couple gets ready in the morning, and she sees him off to work, leaving her with an aging mother to take care of. It’s the same house, maybe a little earlier. The woman, Kazumi, sees Toshio and goes to investigate. There’s a jump scare involving a cat, and the next thing we get is the husband coming home from work. He finds Kazumi in a trance on the bed. We keep seeing the little boy behind him, but he keeps missing the boy. Another young woman comes in with groceries and speaks to mother, who does not respond. Meanwhile the husband is hiding Kazumi’s body upstairs. Hitomi finds him sitting on the stairs, they are siblings, and he keeps repeating “It’s not my child” over and over. He pushes her outside and heads back upstairs.

Later, Hitomi calls Kazumi to ask about their elderly mother. She’s in the restroom of a hospital and sees the black ghost. She runs back to the security office and watches the creature on the security camera; it’s still there. She runs for it, takes the elevator to her apartment upstairs, and every floor she passes has the little boy on it. She keeps hearing the croaking sound the boy makes, even on TV. Turns out, the adult woman ghost is right there in her bed!

Toyama comes to the Tokunaga house that we saw earlier. He’s Rika’s boss, and he finds both her and the old woman inside, nearly comatose. He calls the police, who also find Kazumi and her husband up in the attic.

Mariko comes to visit Rika in the hospital. The police are very interested in hearing more about the child she reported seeing. She suspects that something bad happened at that house, and the police detective is evasive. Turns out, the families who lived in that house before the Tokunagas disappeared or were killed too.

A man named Tokeo Saeki killed his wife there, and he was found later dead on the road. They had a son, Toshio, and yeah, it’s the same child. They go to talk to the former detective who was in charge of that case, and he’s not happy to be involved. Toshio’s body was never found– five years ago. Meanwhile, the bodies of people involved in all this keep stacking up. The former detective watches a video of one of the killings, but it’s a little too real for him.

That night, Rika gets a visit from the little boy and the big ghost as well. Meanwhile, Toyama, the former detective tries to burn down the haunted house, but gets a vision of his daughter, Izumi. He spots the big ghost and goes crazy; she gets the other two detectives.

Izumi wonders about her missing friends. She’s upset about something; someone suggests she might have ESP. The teacher at school has photos of all the students, and he has to go find Izumi’s. They go to Izumi’s house and find that she’s there, terrified. “The three of them keep looking in at me,” about her three missing friends.

Izumi explains that she and her three friends went to the local “haunted house” on a dare. She got spooked and left, but the other stayed, and they haven’t been heard from since. Her photos are all cursed as well.

Izumi’s three dead friends come for her that night, as do the other ghosts.

Kayako talks on the phone while the old man behind her makes faces at someone she can’t see; it’s Toshio. Later, she meets up with Mariko to talk. She has lunch with Rika later, and Rika’s not quite right– she’s still seeing Toshio. She gets a call from Mariko, who is now at Toshio’s house. Rika rushes right over there.

Mariko suddenly can’t find Toshio and goes upstairs looking for him. Rika arrives and finds footprints in the dust. She follows them just in time to see Mariko dragged into the attic. She finally figures out the secret to seeing the ghosts through her fingers. She then gets a vision of the man who killed his wife many years ago. He kills her.

Brian’s Commentary

I’m sure I saw this when it came out, but other than Toshio, I didn’t remember much about it. It’s confusing when the narrative jumps from one character’s point of view to another, as we’re not sure how the timeline works. Also, there are a lot of characters

Maybe it was the subtitles, but I didn’t really understand a lot of this one. It’s highly regarded and led to many sequels, in Japan and Hollywood, so I’m gonna maybe just suggest that I missed something along the way.

Kevin’s Commentary

I thought this was hard to follow and dull. The story changes from person to person as the main character as we see different parts of the story at different times. And the rules are that the ghost kills or vanishes or makes a ghost of anyone who so much as visits the house, because it’s an angry ghost, or ghosts, holding a grudge. Unless you’re a security guard who never visited the house or had anything to do with it.

I saw the US remake some years back and remember enjoying it. I didn’t care for this one a bit.

Short Film:

2023 Short Film Juliette Wasn’t Invited Tonight

* Directed by: Michael Lazovsky

* Stars: Juliette Cacciatore, Linnea Quigley

* Run Time: 5 Minutes

* Watch it:

What Happens

Juliette wasn’t invited to go out with her friends tonight. She knows this because she’s watching them party on their social media feeds. She gets a text message from someone with a really weird avatar who wants to have a sleepover. The creature sends her a photo taken right outside her window…

Commentary

I guess turning on the light never occurs to people in horror films. Neither does calling 911 with the phone right there in your hand.

We’ve seen this kind of thing before with cameras, phones, and stalkers, but it’s well done, shot in interesting ways, and never has time to slow down. It’s nicely done!

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