Welcome to another weekend edition of Creepy Catalog’s daily horror digest! We have some good birthdays today, a tiny bit of anime news, and a short review of a new horror/thriller film on Tubi.
What I Watched Last Night
Last night’s movie was Please Don’t Feed the Children. It is Destry Allyn Spielberg’s debut feature as a director, and it was okay.
The story is set in the aftermath of a pandemic that decimated the adult population. The virus turns people cannibalistic, and it was determined that anyone infected had to be killed. However, the virus only affects about 1% of the population under 18 years old. The adults came to blame/resent kids, and many youths orphaned by the virus were sent to concentration camps.
As the story begins, a teen named Mary (Zoe Colletti) who escaped from a camp is trying to find a way out of the country. Her hope is that anywhere else will be better than here. She winds up joining a group of five other runaways, but they’re all forced to find help after a violent incident at a gas station. Clara (Michelle Dockery) takes them in and offers aid, but it isn’t long before she’s taken all the teens hostage for a deadly reason.
Overall I enjoyed Please Don’t Feed the Children. The plot about the kids trying to escape captivity, and of Mary being given special treatment by Clara, is interesting enough. The pacing was decent, and the reveals in the final scenes were worth the wait. The trouble is, everything just fell a little flat.
The biggest problem is that the characters aren’t developed enough. Mary has a dream about her past and then immediately explains it, but it feels a bit perfunctory. Clara has issues concerning her daughter that drive many of her actions, but the connection feels too vague. There is also a trio of siblings among the teens, but their emotional bonds are barely given time to develop with all the plot that’s happening. Like, we get the information we need to understand why people make the choices they do, but it’s just the bare minimum. It makes everything feel a little underdeveloped and emotionally stunted.
There’s also a high degree of predictability in the story. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but the suspense isn’t always increased to compensate for knowing what’s going to happen next. Despite my gripes though, I still enjoyed the movie enough. It’s a fun thriller worth a stream.
If you want to check it out, Please Don’t Feed the Children is streaming free on Tubi.
Birthdays
Today’s birthdays start with artists working behind the camera. Legendary animator and special effects master Ray Harryhausen was born on June 29, 1920. His most referenced visual effects appeared in Clash of the Titans (1981) and Jason and the Argonauts (1963), but a couple of my personal favorites are Mighty Joe Young (1949) and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953).
Also born on June 29, in 1911, is composer Bernard Herrmann. His musical score for Psycho (1960) has to be his most recognizable and enduring work, but he also served as the composer for other classics like The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Citizen Kane (1941), and Vertigo (1958). He even did the music for a few of Ray Harryhausen’s movies including Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958).
Moving in front of the camera, June 29th is the birthday of Gary Busey (1944) whose best horror movie is Silver Bullet (1985). Maria Conchita Alonso was also born on this day, in 1955. Maria’s most memorable role for me was in The Running Man (1987), but she also appeared in Lords of Salem (2012), and she was in Predator 2 (1990) with Gary Busey.
The oldest birthday I’m talking about today belongs to Robert Frazer who was born on June 29, 1891. Robert’s most notable horror movie was White Zombie (1932) in which he played Charles Beaumont, the owner of the plantation who is in love with a woman getting married to someone else. He was also in The Vampire Bat (1933) with actors very familiar to fans of classic horror, Fay Wray and Dwight Frye.
Events on This Day
The biggest horror-adjacent movie released on June 29th is War of the Worlds (2005). This isn’t my favorite adaptation of H.G. Wells’ story, but I dislike it less now than I did when it first came out. I know it’s generally well-regarded at this point, so maybe I need to give it a serious re-watch and re-evaluation.
Tomie: Forbidden Fruit was released in Japan on this day in 2002. This is the fourth movie based on Junji Ito’s creepy creation, and the fifth overall live-action adaptation if you count the made-for-TV anthology film Tomie: Beautiful Girl of Fear.
Also released today, on VHS in 2004, is Suburban Nightmare. This is a low-budget horror film about a married couple who are going through a rough patch. They’re also serial killers. Suburban Nightmare was written and directed by Jon Keeyes, with scream queen Debbie Rochon being credited for story contributions and as a producer.
In the News
Weekends tend to be slow for horror news, so I’ll just leave you with this. Crunchyroll dropped the trailer for Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Infinity Castle. This movie serves as a direct sequel to the fourth season of the anime series, and it’s the beginning of a film trilogy. It will be released in North American theaters on September 12, 2025.
I know yesterday I said I needed to catch up on movies, but right now I think I should start catching up on all the Demon Slayer I failed to watch. I got pretty deep into it, but somewhere along the way I moved on to something else. A full re-watch is in order before the new movie hits theaters!
