Talking Terror Monthly Roundup: August 2025
- Rob Binns
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
Hello again, everyone! And happy winter’s-nearly-over-and-spring-is-just-about-here day, for all those who celebrate. It’s the last day of August, the days are getting longer, the sun is seeping back into the sky – and, as foreshadowed in Talking Terror’s July roundup, I have some big news to share…
I bought a house! Yep – my partner Melissa and I bought our first home at auction, and we couldn’t be happier. Which means if you notice a dearth of content in the next month or so, I haven’t renounced my horror affiliations and quit the game: I’m lugging cardboard boxes from one part of Melbourne to another.
The other news from me this month is that my life became a horror movie for a few days, after I had all four wisdom teeth extracted.
I was just under local anaesthetic, which meant the whole time I was acutely aware of the snapping, crunching, rending sounds as each tooth was pulled out of my head – and I had to receive several top-up jabs from the needle over the two hours in the chair as (yes, you can gasp) the numbing fluid began to wear off mid-procedure!
That period of convalescence meant I was freer than usual to indulge in my love of horror, and I got through a whopping 32 feature-length films (plus one short film, 2013’s Cargo) –more than one for every day of August.
What were those films, you surely ask? Let’s find out!
Bottle-Spinning and Bali-Sinning
First up in August was M3GAN 2.0 (2025) – a sequel that, even if it inevitably feels less fresh than its predecessor, still rivals it in terms of style and smarts – followed by Weapons (2025) in a packed-out theatre. (Don’t miss my Weapons review and ending explained piece, by the way – you can find it right here on Talking Terror!)
Away from the theatre, against a more private backdrop, I treated myself (or more like subjected myself) to some truly bad movies. The exhaustive list included Spin the Bottle (2024) – trite, overly long, and featuring performances as cringe as any I’ve seen committed to celluloid – plus Zombie Nightmare (1987), Deadtime Stories (1986), and Cheerleader Camp (1988). Mystics in Bali (1981) should probably go on this list too, but I don’t rate it quite as badly as the others – simply because I find the idea of a floating, flying head, connected still to the majority of its innards and circulatory system, so fascinating.
Rebellious Robots and Evil Electricity
August saw me continue my recent fascination with 80s B-movies, which this month included – in order of release – Mother’s Day (1980), Evilspeak (1981), Madman (1981), Terror in the Aisles (1984), Chopping Mall (1986), Demons 2 (1986), Pulse (1988), and Intruder (1989). I’m also hoping to catch Macon Blair’s Toxic Avenger reboot soon, so I got ready with a revisit of the original, The Toxic Avenger (1984). (Although I’m not willing to go through all the sequels just yet!)
While it was the 80s that inevitably dominated my filmic lineup in August, though, there was one token film from the 50s – Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957) – and the 90s still got plenty of love. I watched The Craft (1996) for the first time – and absolutely loved it! – and treated myself to Stuart Gordon’s Castle Freak (1995). I also finally got around to Two Evil Eyes (1990) – a movie that, considering it’s Dario Argento and George A. Romero adapting Edgar Allan Poe’s stories – has been seen and talked about far less than it deserves to be.
Speaking of Romero, I also saw his lost film The Amusement Park (1975) – made half a century ago and rediscovered after his death, before its release in 2021. This one was a bit of a tricky watch – I suppose I liked it, and it’s extremely effective (albeit a little didactic) in making its points around elder abuse and the societal marginalisation many older people face. Yet it’s light on entertainment value, and it’s not one I’ll be recommending to Mum.
One I will be recommending is 2023’s The Passenger, which features Kyle Gallner doing incredible work and a plot that keeps you engaged as much as it keeps you guessing. Also from that year, I found Infinity Pool (2023) suitably enthralling, and it contains some of the weirdest, wildest imagery that fails to subside long after the final frame has ebbed, like the titular body of water, away.
It Doesn't Always Have to Be About Horror... Does It?
From a non-horror perspective, August included The Parent Trap (1998), Caddo Lake (2024), and The Thursday Murder Club (2025) – a book series my partner is obsessed with (I’ve also read the first one – and which came out on Netflix this week. It’s got a superb cast (including Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren, and Pierce Brosnan), and I enjoyed it; although the quintessentially British nature of the humour and setting means it won’t be for everyone.
Some of the more recent films I saw in August included the underwhelming The Third Saturday in October (2022), the equally shoulder-shrugging Subject (2022), and the excellent Aussie shark yarn Dangerous Animals (2025). I also flicked on Good Boy (2022) – thinking, in my ignorance, that it was the 2025 horror gaining acclaim for telling the story entirely from a dog’s perspective – but ended up stumbling upon this Norwegian gem of the same name. Without spoiling anything, let me just say that it’s a twisty, nail-biting thriller based around a woman who starts seeing a man with an…odd choice of pet. The ending was a bit of a let down, but it’s still well worth a watch – especially at an 80-minute runtime.
The other new release I caught in August was Hallow Road (2025) at the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) with a friend. If you haven’t seen it, do so. If you have seen it, don’t miss my Hallow Road ending explained!
Actually, Yes. Yes it Does!
Finally, I want to spare a word for Combat Shock (1986) – surely one of the darkest, bleakest, most hopeless hour and a half’s worth of cinema ever made. I watched this one morning, in bed, with it still dark outside after waking up around 5am. (Something I’ve been strangely prone to doing lately – don’t ask me why!) Yet weirdly, despite the subject matter – a Vietnam veteran who returns from the war to a deformed baby, zero job prospects, a nagging wife, a loan shark snapping at his heels, abject poverty, and – ultimately – death and insanity – I didn’t go into my day with a sense of sadness or nihilism, but with optimism and positivity. And I think this basically sums up what I love about horror – that power it has to allow us to process the fears and issues we have less control over in a sort of voyeuristic, vicarious sort of way; freeing up our mental energy to tackle the things we do have control over with more grace and gusto.
Still, Combat Shock is another I won’t be recommending to anyone anytime soon!
Thanks for reading – catch you in September, and be sure to follow Talking Terror on Letterboxd for hot horror tips and terrifying tastemaking!