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This Week in Dead Meat | March 30

This Week in Dead Meat | March 30

Final Destination returns, there's a new Pamela Voorhees, and James' thoughts on 2025 Horror

Ben Bellevue & James A. Janisse
March 30, 2025

Well the biggest Dead Meat news from last week is the launch of this newsletter, but if you’re here you already know that!

Like we said last time, this is an evolving project for us, so any and all feedback is welcome. Something you’d like to see added? Removed? Changed around? When there’s an announcement (like new merch or a live show) on non-newsletter days would you like to get a newsletter email anyway?

Let us know!

James’ Corner

A Look Outward to 2025 in Horror

I'm writing this from a hotel in Monterey, California - Chelsea and I are here for a friend's wedding. It's the first of three back-to-back trips we have, each one farther and farther from our home in Los Angeles. The final leg is in Scotland, where we'll be tabling at a convention and (just confirmed before we left) hosting a live show at a cute venue called The Garage in Glasgow.

While I can't wait to see Scotland for the first time, I find myself most anticipating the middle trip, which will see us travel to New Orleans for the Overlook Film Festival. This will be the first film festival Chelsea and I attend for Dead Meat, and I can't wait. I mean, our job for 4 days will be watching movies and meeting filmmakers. It doesn't get any better than that.

Some of the movies I'm most excited to see at Overlook include Drop, the latest Blumhouse effort. It stars Meghann Fahy, who gave a standout performance in season 2 of The White Lotus. I've only seen the first trailer for Drop but that's enough for me - it seems like a taut and exciting thriller, and I know Miz Fahy is going to deliver.

I'm also pumped to see The Ugly Stepsister, the Nordic film whose trailer we watched recently on a Monday morning livestream. I know the trailer was edited to evoke The Substance, but I hear the movie itself is its own thing. And the writer/director Emilie Blichfeldt will be in attendance for a Q&A, which is even more exciting.

Finally, I can't wait for Clown in a Cornfield. I read the novel it's based on by Adam Cesare and devoured it in just a few short days. It's a little YA in style but full of fun intrigue and pretty brutal kills. Plus, the movie co-stars my man Kevin Durand, who was absolutely effervescent when we interviewed him for Scream Dreams at Midsummer Scream last year.

I'm hoping Clown is good and I think it could do well at the box office - it seems like a movie made for teenagers and young adults, but one that won't hold back when it comes to gore. I think that'll be the next mini-boom in horror: Fun slashers that are more "popcorn entertainment" than so-called "elevated horror". I think the revival of the Scream franchise helped usher in this trend, just as the original Scream did in 1996.

One of the most popular post-Scream "slashers" was the original Final Destination, released in 2000. The trailer for the franchise's sixth entry just came out and became the 2nd most-viewed horror trailer of all time, just after It. My prediction is that Final Destination Bloodlines will become the highest-grossing horror film of 2025 (if not globally then at least domestically).

I just think all the ingredients are there. The series has been dormant since part 5's release in 2011. 14 years feels like the perfect amount of time for a new entry to blow up at the box office. It's long enough for nostalgia to set in but recent enough that it still has an audience.

In fact it probably has the perfect audience: the kids and teenagers who saw (and were traumatized) by the original films are now older, with more disposable income, and hopefully ready to face their fears in a theater. And even in the absence of new films, the franchise has stayed in our collective consciousness - everyone knows what you mean if you say you don't want to get Final Destinationed. Everyone thinks of the movies when they see a log-hauling truck on the highway.

In any case, it looks like we've got another exciting year of horror ahead of us, especially with sequels - besides Bloodlines we've got 28 Year Later, Megan 2.0, The Black Phone 2, the new I Know What You Did Last Summer, and of course, the most anticipated of all, The Strangers: Chapter 2.

Okay, just kidding on that last one.

What’s Going On In The World

Linda Cardellini To Star In 'Friday The 13th' Prequel 'Crystal Lake': For those that don’t know, Linda Cardellini rules.
The Mummy Lands Jack Reynor: The Midsommar star is returning to the world of horror for Lee Cronin’s new take on the Universal Monster.
HELL HOUSE LLC: LINEAGE Scares Up A Theatrical Release: For the first time, the Hell House LLC franchise will be getting a theatrical release with its next (and supposedly final) installment.

Trailers

Final Destination Bloodlines: After over a decade, we return to the world of Final Destination in what has become the second most viewed horror trailer of all time.
The Ritual - Teaser: If there are two things the horror genre will keep coming back to, they’re exorcisms and “based on a true story.” This latest iteration stars Dan Stevens and Al Pacino!

Announcements

Like James mentioned in James’ Corner, he and Chelsea are in Monterey this weekend and that means the News Stream will be delayed to Tuesday morning at 9am PST.

Announced Videos

April 2nd: Companion (Dead Meat Podcast Ep. 234)
April 11th: Last of Us | KILL COUNT GAMES
April 18th: Maniac (1980) KILL COUNT
April 25th: As Above So Below (2014) KILL COUNT
April 26th: Dead Meat Horror Awards - 1PM PST Premiere
- See the Nominees Here!

Live Events

Want to see James and Chelsea in person? Good news, they’ll be places! Here are some of the live events they’ll be attending this year. More to be announced in the future.