Our Other Mommy review, fresh from the theater: Jessica Chastain plays a mom and the thing wearing her face, and it should have wrecked us. It didn't.

Rob Savage (Host, The Boogeyman) directs this adaptation of Josh Malerman's 2024 novel Incidents Around the House, produced by James Wan through Blumhouse-Atomic Monster. The cast is stacked: Jessica Chastain, Arabella Olivia Clark, Jay Duplass, Arian Moayed, Dichen Lachman and Karen Allen (yes, Marion from Raiders of the Lost Ark).

• Other Mommy gets 4 digs out of 10 from both of us; a stacked cast and great visuals can't fix a story with no build.
• Scare factor: Fun and Wild, with Light scares (and yes, we argued about it).
• Meaghan's tagline for the movie: "Don't lie to your children."

• The novel is told entirely from eight-year-old Bela's perspective, which Meaghan compares to Emma Donoghue's Room.
• In the book, the entity is tall, boxy, and wrong (eyes on its chin), and it stays in Bela's closet far longer.
• The book's ending is much darker than the film's, which Meaghan refuses to spoil on mic.
• Want the full book breakdown? Our friends at Drawn to Darkness are covering it.

• The Other Mommy movie reveals its entity in the opening minutes, before we know anyone in the family.
• One throwaway line explains why the entity can suddenly leave Bela's room.
• There's almost no ambiguity between Ursula and Other Mommy; the novel's impersonation scenes are where the real fear lives.

• The melting face and the seven-foot entity land some genuinely creepy moments.
• The ball pit to bedroom to ocean transitions look great (and feel very James Wan, very Insidious).
• The upside-down party sequence with babysitter Kelvin is Meaghan's favorite scene in the film.

• Jessica Chastain is grounded as Ursula and deeply unsettling as Other Mommy; her glued-on smile made a kid on set scream.
• Arabella Olivia Clark carries a hard role as Bela, and Jay Duplass makes Russ easy to root for.
• The film keeps the book's honest take on parenthood: you can love your kid and still want your own identity.

• Next week: Whalefall, Brian Duffield's adaptation of the Daniel Kraus novel.
• We're catching Fresh Meat, Dead Meat's horror shorts anthology.
• Not sure what to watch? Try the Horror Movie Picker at gravetonepod.com.

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Background music by: Steve Swisher from the Producer's Chair Podcast

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V/H/S/Mixtape review time, and this one is cuckoo nuts bananas. The ninth V/H/S film turns sound, music and heavy metal into the horror, and we came out of it with our jaws on the floor.

Arthur and Meaghan break down Shudder's newest found footage horror anthology, starting with GWAR's deranged MTV-style wraparound and moving through all four main segments: Renee Zhan's Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance (killer puppets from Jim Henson's Creature Shop, plus Barbara Crampton), David Moreau's Heartbeat (two urban explorers, a soundproof chamber and the sound of your own body), Ernest Dickerson's The Music of Mr. Sze (a film student, a violin and something cosmic living in the attic) and RZA's Death Tone (Neela Jolene, a dead producer's tape and a very literal hunt for the perfect sound). We also get into the two music video interludes, Flying Lotus's stop-motion Another Cabin and Tobias Forge's Premature Burial.

• The ninth V/H/S film, streaming on Shudder October 9, 2026, builds every segment around sound, music and heavy metal.
• Spoiler-free verdict: gory, wild, and easily one of the most unhinged V/H/S movies yet. Arthur compares its sound-horror focus to Undertone.
• How it stacks up against V/H/S/Beyond and V/H/S/Halloween, the two entries that got the franchise back on a roll.

• GWAR host a deranged, metal-only music video show that sets the tone in the first five minutes (don't eat dinner during this one).
• Flying Lotus directs Another Cabin, a stop-motion nightmare about a boy, his awful grandmother, and a 30-foot monster in the woods.
• Tobias Forge of Ghost directs Premature Burial, a metal music video about revenge and being buried alive.

• Renee Zhan's killer puppet segment: Jim Henson's Creature Shop builds Muppet-style monsters, Barbara Crampton plays the studio exec, and the song is a genuine earworm.
• Watch for the V/H/S/Halloween Easter egg in the warehouse and the post-credit scene.
• David Moreau's Heartbeat (from the director of MadS) traps two urban explorers in a soundproof chamber where their own bodies become the horror.

• Ernest Dickerson's The Music of Mr. Sze: a film student, a forbidden violin piece, and a cosmic entity in the attic. Lovecraft fans, take note.
• RZA's Death Tone: a dead producer's tape, a step-by-step recipe for the perfect sound, and a descent into madness carried by Neela Jolene.

• Digs: Arthur 8/10, Meaghan 7/10 (huge highs, a little less cohesive overall).
• Arthur's top two: Death Tone and Heartbeat. Meaghan's top two: Heartbeat and Death Tone.
• Plus favorite segments from past entries, including Mike P. Nelson's V/H/S/85 work and Kate Siegel's V/H/S/Beyond segment.

• Black Zombie, Maya Annik Bedward's documentary on the Haitian roots of the zombie.
• Other Mommy hits theaters, Dead Meat's Fresh Meat anthology is coming, and Brooklyn Horror Film Festival coverage is on the way.
• Find your next watch with the Horror Movie Picker Quiz at gravetonepod.com.

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Our Beware Boiúna review is here, and this giant snake movie does not care who it eats. Spoiler-free first, full spoilers after Gary's warning.

Meaghan and Arthur review Beware Boiúna, the new creature feature from director Mike P. Nelson (Wrong Turn, Silent Night, Deadly Night), shot on location in the Amazon rainforest near Leticia, Colombia. A team of doctors on a medical mission heads upriver, an illegal gold mining operation is tearing up the jungle, and the Boiúna (the colossal river serpent of Amazonian folklore) wants every last one of them gone.

• Mike P. Nelson's Amazon creature feature was shot on location near Leticia, Colombia, and it shows: sweaty, gritty and fully immersive.
• A stacked cast: Jessica Rothe (Happy Death Day), Kiana Madeira (Fear Street trilogy), Logan Marshall-Green (Upgrade), plus Juan Pablo Shuk, Will Close and Jackson Bews.
• Meaghan's tagline keeps it simple: stay out of the jungle.

• The Boiúna is the giant river serpent of Amazonian folklore, here roughly titanoboa-sized and grounded in that legend.
• An illegal gold mining operation sets the stakes, and the snake plays more like nature restoring balance than a monster looking for lunch.
• Real-world context: Indigenous communities are confronting illegal miners destroying the rainforest.

• The snake is digital, but the explosions, the collapsing structures, and a character getting flung into the air were done for real.
• From our interview: a flash flood wiped out a set and forced a reshoot that Mike P. Nelson now prefers.
• Huge credit to the stunt team, and to Kiana Madeira for that mud pit.

• Not silly snake fodder in the Anaconda mold; we're measuring it against Jaws and Jurassic Park.
• The snake hunts in the water, in the jungle, and in a machinery yard, by day and at night. No safe rock like in The Devil's Mouth.
• A midway twist (spoiler section) flips the movie in a direction we did not expect.

• Scare factor: Fun and Wild. Scare level: Solid Scares.
• Meaghan gives it 7.5 digs; Arthur gives it 8.
• Best seen in a theater with friends on a weekend.

• Mike P. Nelson is directing the next Saw film after reviving Wrong Turn and Silent Night, Deadly Night.
• Coming up on Grave Tone: Whalefall (October 16) and more Shudder drops.

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