Shudder Saturday: The Voices Of Our Mother (2026)

The second feature to be written and directed by Mark O'Brien (who has also been acting in front of the camera for a number of years, and gives himself a role here), The Voices Of Our Mother is part horror movie and part dysfunctional family drama. It's just a shame that none of it really feels original, despite an effective ending that makes up for some of the issues elsewhere.

Sheila McCarthy plays Harriet, a seriously ill woman who is joined by her children as they wait to see what will happen next. Will she improve, or will their visit be one last opportunity to speak with their mother? Annika (Georgina Reilly) is the most level-headed and responsible family member, William (O'Brien) and Therese (Carolina Bartczak) have a major issue between them that leads to a palpable sense of real animosity, and Martin (Alex Ozerov-Meyer) is the seemingly-obligatory family member with addiction issues. 

This could have been an effective and creepy little film. O'Brien has a lot of the right elements in place. He keeps everyone in a single setting, for the most part, he keeps his central cast small, and he works with a main premise that has the potential to go in any number of different directions. Unfortunately, either due to his instincts as an actor or due to a lack of commitment to the horror genre, he doesn't come close to realising the full potential of the thing. The bickering, the secrets being revealed, the problematic relationship with a parent, it's all been done time and time again. It was crying out for more chills and scares to be added, but O'Brien doesn't go down that route.

There's still enough to enjoy here, but that's down to the cast more than the writing and direction. Reilly is always very good onscreen, and does well here to hold her place as the lead. O'Brien and Bartczak are enjoyably unpleasant to one another, Ozerov-Meyer is saddled with the weakest role, but tries to do a good job, and McCarthy manages to make a strong impression, despite the fact that her character is so frail and quiet for most of the runtime.

As mentioned at the start of this review, however, the ending works. It's a surprisingly impactful and interesting way to tie everything up in a nice neat bow, even if it may also make you slightly resentful of the time spent elsewhere on less interesting developments. You could argue that the "quiet before the storm" makes everything better when it's time for the big ending, but I would have much preferred something that did a better job of interspersing the rest of the narrative with a healthy selection of surprises and scares.

O'Brien might yet have a great film in him. This isn't it, but he shows that he has mastered enough of the basics to put him in very good stead for whenever he gets his hands on a better screenplay, whether that is written by himself or someone else. He could even do himself a favour by disassembling and fully reworking this to see how much better he could make it.

5/10

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The Rats (2002)

John Lafia may have peaked fairly early on in his career, when he co-wrote the horror greatness that is Child's Play (although we all know it was very much Don Mancini's baby), but I wasn't about to pass over the opportunity to watch a TV movie he directed that was all about a dangerous outbreak of rat attacks. Especially one with a starring role for the lovely Mädchen Amick. So I watched The Rats, and I regret nothing.

It's quite simple. Things begin with one rat biting one customer (played by Kim Poirier) in a large department store. Amick plays Susan Costello, a woman who works in the department store. It eventually becomes clear that the store may have a slight rat problem, which means getting in hunky pest control expert Jack Carver (Vincent Spano). It also means struggling to get people to believe the enormity of the problem, even after a whole load of rats push through a vent and upset lots of kids in a swimming pool. 

Written by Frank Deasy, this is a film that hits all of the expected tropes you want to see from a movie with this premise. The dialogue is a bit cheesy and “on the nose” at times, but it’s also light and fun, only really becoming a bit more groan-inducing in the third act, where it slumps a bit instead of soaring.

Director Laguna does well in delivering the goods in a TV-friendly form. There are some decent set-pieces throughout, including that aforementioned swimming pool sequence, and the effects range from the impressive to the laughably bad (the worst being a rat face shown as it squeals/shrieks at a main character), but the big plus points here are the pacing and the leads, with Amick and Spano working well opposite one another.

Amick may be the person who has the rat details delivered to her in a way that informs the audience, but she is also allowed to play someone who seems far from helpless. Most of us dislike wild rats, her reaction to any encounters here show her staying calmer than I ever would, but she proves to be quite capable in helping to plan mass rodenticide, helped by her knowledge of the building (explained by knowing the place since her father worked there). Spano is a bit less watchable than Amick, but he is likeable enough in his role, manages to sound like he knows what he’s talking about, and plays the hero without being asked to overdo the full-on heroism. Daveigh Chase is a good child actor here, without being too annoying, Shawn Michael Howard helps to deal with the rats, and David Fonteno does decent work playing the kind of character who wants to keep downplaying the problem while events start to spiral out of control.

There isn’t much here that stands out, but this somehow still feels like a cut above many other TV movies, especially when we have now grown so used to the kind of fare that has populated the SyFy Channel for the past 10-20 years. Compared to many of those, this is slick and thrilling entertainment.

6/10

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Shudder Saturday: Anything For Jackson (2020)

Sometimes when I think about my movie reviews in terms of all of the different specifics I want to discuss, sometimes I have a general feeling that I want to convey, and sometimes I spend a lot of time simply figuring out where I land with my final rating, and retro-actively working out why I came to that result. Anything For Jackson is a film that I rate 9/10, because the more I thought about it, the less I could find to criticise.

Audrey (Sheila McCarthy) and Henry Walsh (Julian Richings) are a pair of grandparents who are still mourning the loss of their grandson, Jackson. They've also been investigating rituals that may allow him to come back, which is how they end up with the pregnant Shannon (Konstantina Mantelos) held captive in their home. They want to use her unborn child as a vessel for the spirit of their grandson, bringing him back from the world of the dead, but they don't realise that creating such a vessel ends up bringing forth more than just the invited spirit. Lots of souls see their chance to get back into our world.

Director Justin G. Dyck has a filmography that doesn't really make you think he would be a natural when it comes to delivering effective horror. It's full of TV movies, mostly Christmas TV movies (which everyone knows are my favourite kind of TV movies). Sadly, the last thing I reviewed from him was, I believe, 48 Christmas Wishes (a film that has him as a co-director).  Writer Keith Cooper has a similar filmography, and the two have worked together often over the past few years. It just goes to remind you not to judge anyone by their last movie, even though we continue to judge people based simply on their last movie.

Showing a real knack for creating startling imagery and genuinely unnerving moments, without feeling like people who have taken all their notes from the movies that make up "the Waniverse", Dyck and Cooper deliver something impressively intense and nerve-shredding. Although it's not laced with humour, there is something inherently darkly comedic about this plan being hatched, and executed, by a couple of kindly-looking elderly people, and that's enough to save things from being unrelentingly bleak throughout.

McCarthy and Richings are absolutely wonderful in their roles, sweet and sad, and yet staying firm in their resolve to see through their nefarious plan, even when things start to unravel and take some unexpected turns. Mantelos has to look trapped and scared, and she does so. Josh Cruddas has a unique presence, playing the character who knows more about the ancient ritual being conducted than either of the parties who actually started the ball rolling, and Lanette Ware is a detective looking for the missing Shannon. A few other people have some impressive moments, including Yannick Bisson (a handyman who offers to keep clearing snow from the driveway), Marianne Sawchuck (a "flossing ghost"), and Troy James (absolutely terrifying as a spirit credited as "Suffocating Ghost").

Set within a reality that feels grounded, and with believable character motivation, Anything For Jackson is a wild ride, a ghost train that becomes more and more intense as viewers are dragged through a brilliant third act, and I can think of very little wrong with it. It's almost perfect, hence the high rating I settled on before I started detailing my thoughts.

9/10

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Shudder Saturday: Still/Born (2017)

Movies are like jokes, in my opinion. They can be made about absolutely anything. what matters is the context and the motivation. But it's fair to say that some people may not be able to watch Still/Born, with the horror being derived from the aftermath of something that is a hugely traumatic experience for any mother to go through.

Christie Burke plays Mary, a young mother who now has a son named Adam. That's all well and good, but Adam was born with a twin brother named Jonathan, who was stillborn. Mary is obviously seriously affected by this, to the point where she starts thinking that a demonic entity is after her son. Unfortunately, everyone else simply sees Mary in a state of deteriorating mental health, and the only one who could cause harm to her son, as far as they are concerned, is Mary herself. Her husband (Jesse Moss) is sympathetic, to a point, and she also has some support from a good neighbour (Rebecca Olson) and her own mother (Sheila McCarthy). She's also seeing a doctor (Michael Ironside), but her refusal to be completely honest with him doesn't help. As things start to escalate, Mary becomes convinced that the only way to save her son is to make a sacrifice.

It's hard to be overly critical of director Brandon Christensen, who also co-wrote the script with Colin Minihan (still probably best known to genre fans just now as one half of The Vicious Brothers). Making his feature debut, Christensen has certainly picked a subject that contains layered levels of horror. It's something that needs to be handled just right, and both the script and direction allow time for a dark fog of sadness to permeate scenes in between the standard scares. Unfortunately, those standard scares are real mixed bag. The first hour is a slog, with a number of lazy, but admittedly effective, jump scares and some fleeting glimpses of graphic nastiness that some viewers definitely won't appreciate. It also makes for a tough viewing as you wonder whether this is a standard horror movie or a look at the world through the eyes of someone in a state of painful suffering after experiencing the worst loss of their life. That uneasy blend lasts right up until the final scenes, with a coda that feels equally dispiriting because of what it reveals to another main character. Some may argue that a scene between Mary and a mother who previously seemed to share her experience (played by Jenn Griffin) keeps the film rooted in more standard scares. I would have to disagree. It feels like a shared hallucination, mainly because of the way in which nobody else is ever brought in to the proceedings at the right time to offer help.

This is a film that floods the screen with a sense of helplessness, almost as if it dresses up the main character in heavy clothing and forces her to wade into deeper and deeper water. That's a hard thing to watch, at times, but would fit more in a film that wasn't also trying to deliver the required genre goods.

Burke is good in the lead role, managing to show her terror and paranoia without her performance devolving into a mass of wide-eyed hair-pulling and shrieking (as can sometimes happen). Moss does fine in his role, although he's at the mercy of a script that has him having to be kept out of the way while things get worse for his onscreen wife. Ironside is always good to see, and his small role here is uncharacteristically non-threatening, and Olson and McCarthy both do solid work.

Still/Born is good. It walks a fine line between being considerate to the central issue that spurs on the horror and being in completely bad taste, and I think I would recommend avoiding it if you are one of the many women who have experienced the loss that Mary goes through (or at least give yourself ample time to prepare for your viewing), but it just does enough to keep itself in the right. Only just.

6/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.
I also value anyone who reads this blog from other countries, I just don't have the time or space to list links for every different territory. Apologies.