Happy March, everyone! February may have been a short month, but it wasn’t short on new-to-me watches! Speaking of shorts, I decided to add a few to my February recommendations because I saw a couple of silent shorts worth sharing. Eventually, I’ll get back to more contemporary horror recommendations for y’all, but this is not the month.
February 2026 Recs
- The Doll’s Revenge (1907)- This silent short is a story of a boy who breaks his sister’s doll, which then repairs itself and exacts its revenge. This is one of the earliest representations of killer dolls in film. It’s very short but still quite effective and dark in its tone. You can watch it on YouTube.
- Paganini Horror (1989)- For one of last month’s Horrorverse issues, we dove into Italian Horror, so I thought it was time to watch this one. It felt so quintessentially 80s. Female rock band, a music video being shot in a creepy mansion, satanic rituals, and a weird killer. What more could you ask for? I’m glad I have the Severin release of this one because I’d visit it again!
- Primate (2025)- If I’m honest, I wasn’t really excited about this going in. I love Johannes Roberts’ work, but animal violence is such a huge turn-off for me. Fortunately, I was misguided and should have trusted Roberts. The idea of a killer animal with rabies isn’t new. I feel it would have been more interesting to go with a story about captivity causing rage (something that has actually happened). That said, it’s still a good time, and due to the chimpanzee suit feeling slightly off, it never really feels like animal cruelty.
- The Bat (1926)- Did you know that some of the inspiration for Batman came from a silent film? You do now! Roland West’s The Bat has a killer in a bat suit and even a light with a bat silhouette. There are a lot of “old dark house” and Scooby-Doo vibes as well. For me, this would have been a perfect movie if not for some dated racial stereotypes. Fortunately, they are brief moments and have little impact on the rest of the film.
- The Telltale Heart (1928)- This retelling of Poe’s classic story is really interesting. It has a bit of an avant-garde style mixed with German expressionism. The style of the intertitles was also really cool looking. In this part of the silent film era, there were a ton of Poe adaptations, and I definitely think this is one of the stronger ones. It’s also available to check out on YouTube.
I hope y’all enjoy my February watch recommendations! I had fun this month and last, so I’m pretty sure I’ll be doing this monthly to share what I’ve been watching! What did you check out in February? Let me know in the comments below so I can add more movies to my ever-growing watchlist!