Goodbye Hulu Sprint 👋🏻

 

Goodbye Hulu Sprint 

by Kristin Battestella

I was already working thru my Hulu queue to cancel it at the end of the year thanks to Disney's forthcoming complete takeover and unfortunate absorption of the platform. However, last week I expedited my final viewings and ended my subscription (held since Hulu began!) in response to Jimmy Kimmel's unconstitutional suspension. As Rose says, “I've never liked her,” and despite Disney's walk back on the decision, we must endeavor to do our small part in boycotting morally bankrupt entities. See also Target.

Ironically, these mystery miniseries, eerie documentaries, and Hulu original horror movies are middle of the road anyway – content designed for marathon filler perhaps rightly lost in the catalog instead of standing out by maximizing each's potential subject matter.

A Nasty Piece of Work – Intertitles demand an employee show initiative and adapt to achieve executive solutions because every task is a test in this 2018 Into the Dark Hulu/Blumhouse production. Ironic carols, exasperating attempts to impress the boss, shattered mirrors, and out of breath stress reiterate the corporate competition, desperation over the Christmas bonus, and the relatable, at the end of the cubicle tether. Unfortunately, late boss with the $75k golf clubs Julian Sands (Gothic) is cutting the huge executive bonuses so it's only fair that he give no bonuses to anyone. There is however a chance for promotion hobnobbing at his Christmas party amid jackass rivals, their trophy wives, and drunken innuendo from the boss's domineering spouse. The antique weapons, masks, and passive aggressive pranks are awkward, and the self-aware horror movie jokes about a guy hiding in the house walls are on the nose. The situation moves fast and gun play happens early, but the action comes at the expense of the taut Christmas on edge tension. Waxing on ballistics, security cameras, intruder alibis, or how to bury a body in the backyard are part of the promotion pop quiz, but the classism and corporate extremes driving us to violence should be a deeper commentary than it is. Quoting Dr. King while the Black servant scrubs the blood on the carpet or racism about not knowing the names of the ethnic catering staff are treated as throwaway moments. The decent employee is no longer the good guy once he's decided to stay rather than walk away from this how far are you willing to go horror challenge. Likewise, we don't feel sorry for the jerky rival crying that he's up to his neck in debt to maintain the upward mobile facade as their secrets come back to haunt them. Bathroom jump scares and wives used in the tit for tat lead to twists that our contenders say they aren't falling for again, but the predictable injuries and the lack of willingness to leave this so-called interview mount. Are we supposed to laugh at the boss messing with people because there's still a Schrodinger's chance they might get the job? Of course in the real world, the low man wouldn't be promoted, just blamed for the crimes committed herein, and this strays from the allegorical potential, losing steam despite being only seventy-eight minutes. Shouting, gunshots, and chases descend into back and forths played for illogical sardonic while one person runs away for comic relief and the staff peek around the corner. Cult men in white suits are tossed in for an easy solution with more jokes deflating the horror. This seems content to go for the lowest hanging concept rather than fully execute what the horror is saying, and it's up to the audience to know all the quips, pop culture references, and cliches to extrapolate our own views. I stayed for Julian Sands. I miss him, but despite the self-contained holiday possibilities, this just left me wanting much more.

Shardlake – Angry Cromwell Sean Bean (Sharpe) accents this four episode 2024 Disney/Hulu original based on the C.J. Sansom books. Doublets set the Tudor scene alongside the ecclesiastic mood, however the dark photography and modern digital gradient make this look contemporary and generic rather than period patina. Drone aerial footage is unnecessary as is orchestration that calls attention to itself. Arthur Hughes (The Innocents) is our titular hunchback investigator, but he has a scowling chip on his shoulder and the colorblind casting is reduced to being the murder suspects. Annoying sidekicks and comic relief hamper the case while Shardlake also talks to himself in the mirror. The dialogue is well spoken with fine performances when the ensemble is allowed to sit still and discuss the gory murder, precarious politics, and religious corruption. Unfortunately, such scenes are often spliced with the initial head chopping murder just in case the audience forgot it. Solving the crime should be straightforward; but stolen relics, suspicious hooded figures, sodomite finger pointing, and macho confrontations deviate from Cromwell's ultimate goal to blame the secretive brotherhood and seize the church assets. Already we're spinning tires with suicides, contrived bog perils, and silly chases about the steeples. Captivating moments forcing the viewer to pay attention are few and far between, sacrificed for deliberately cryptic ominous for the sake of it padding and run of the mill contemporary pace. Scenes away from Shardlake are frustrating with fatal toppers just for shock value and no apparent point to the second episode. Our crippled lawyer is put on the rack amid Boleyn twists, boat trips, and instantaneous riding to and fro – detouring when we should never leave the scene of the monastery crime. Clues and evidence the audience saw in the first episode are not deduced until the last hour via ghostly hints, repetitive plot points, and try hard flashbacks. Mounting deaths, uneven filler, and forced romance are as needed before an extremely busy final fifteen minutes tries to wrap up everything tossed at the screen. Even Sean Bean asks how has this murder has not been solved already, and the viewer has long lost interest in what should have been a two hour mystery.

Witches: Truth Behind the Trials – This 2024 six episode National Geographic documentary series begins with forty-five minutes dedicated to Salem before exploring the earlier European persecutions. The hyperbolic female narrator punctuates frenetic re-enactments while ominous, intrusive music emphasizes the sensational punchlines. Shadowed experts are filmed before dark backdrops, intercut with eerie imagery instead of being able to speak in full on the radical ministers. Opening with Salem's hysterical finger pointing at servants of color is meant to grab viewers. However there's nothing new presented and the irony of our current puritanical tailspin is apparent. Episode Two goes back to the German origins of the Malleus Maleficarum laying down the witch hunting rules, but the medieval belief in witches as both harmful outcasts or useful sages remains sensationalized. Innocent women are executed by the territorial theocracy thanks to the lack of scientific understanding. Self-appointed God-fearing committees get tips from conforming villagers about who's in league with the devil, and the invention of the printing press spreads all the torturous details. Naturally the Third Scotland episode sets the scene on Halloween, and despite the regional focus with different persecution extremes, each entry feels repetitive with a misguided tone hitting the viewer over the head on the scandalous accusations. Protestant versus Catholic takeovers against earlier folk practices as a reason for the hysteria is only briefly mentioned, but the Witch Act of 1604 means James VI's divinity guards him against witchcraft plots. Public humiliations gaining confessions are called “pressure” not “torture,” and this true crime style focuses on a few famous names whilst ignoring the massive scale of what happened. Nat Geo used to be quality but this puts shock strobe over history for a banal, crowd-pleasing overview. The short, superficial episodes feel redundant yet six episodes is overlong. This subject is now more important than ever, but I quit halfway through because Wikipedia's Witch Trial article series contains far more detail.

Splitting Family Horrors

 

Splitting Family Horrors

by Kristin Battestella

Despite feminine and non-white strides in their scary storytelling, these recent family-oriented household horrors make for some wanted-to-like-it-but split decision viewing.

Imaginary – Returning to the childhood home, titular games, and teddy bears doom a blended multi-racial family in this 2024 Blumhouse yarn starring DeWanda Wise (She's Gotta Have It). Opening spider transformations are just dream scares for our children's author and illustrator; fake startles and the stereotypical texting teen daughter get old fast. A lame boy next door also exists solely for bathroom stupids, and the toy bear zooming down the hallway for a monster fright is more filler than fearful. A break-in by the crazy ex-wife wastes time and our nonentity husband goes away on tour – making viewers question if we need anyone but our writer and the younger precocious stepdaughter conveniently named Alice. Thankfully, hide and seek leads to an ominous basement and our child voices both sides of the disturbing conversation with her new imaginary friend. Serious one on one family moments reveal backstory, feelings, and scars before well filmed video therapy chats make for an eerie psychosis. Psychologist worries, bittersweet visits with dad at the assisted living, uncovering childhood bear drawings, and history repeating itself phrases lead to stuffed animal surprises and missing children. Our bear's scavenger hunt is a spell for crossing over into the imaginary world – doing something that scares you, gets you hurt and in trouble with effigies, bugs, and matches. Unfortunately, it takes an hour to get to this fantastical leap, and the audience may not follow. Our teen does end up believing, however not because of her own family's encounters, but due to outside reinforcement. Obnoxious twists descend into overlong, contrived fun house set pieces, goofy sing songs, laughable creepy kids, and comical giant bears explained via Inside Out references from unnecessary exposition characters who are happy to be on the other side. The nonsensical, unable to see, too dark never world; but wait there's more self sacrifice; and saccharin faux escapes go on and on until burning down the house is the only recourse. Good luck explaining that to the authorities! The husband never comes back asking WTF, either – but there's another kid with another teddy bear that's apparently the same thing. This could have been a psychological versus horror twofer under ninety minutes highlighting Wise's well done repression. If you can chuckle at the silly choices done instead, this can be entertaining. However there's nothing scary about the LOL bug eye monster people.

Kept Woman – A robbery in the city sends our engaged couple to the suburban quaint with a too groovy to be true neighbor in this 2015 ninety minute thriller. The mortgage is precarious, and thus Jessica gets along better with every other man than her fiance. However, she also wastes time with online friends investigating true crimes when she's supposed to be writing a book. Our breadwinner mocks her whodunits, dismissing Jessica's nosy suspicions about their Professor of Men's Studies neighbor Simon. The first half hour is a little long in establishing their dynamic before a weak catalyst gets the weary Jessica alone with Simon – drugged and waking in a retro pink and yellow kitschy basement with the perfectly fifties Robin warning Jessica not to make Simon angry. Simon brings Jessica vintage gifts and insists Robin make her feel welcome while he packs her bags to feign having left her fiance. Her betrothed leaves a jerky voicemail that he'll apologize to her face later, but we shouldn't see anything outside once we are locked in the bunker. Creepy bedroom doo wop, betrayals, and apologies lead to revelations of a previous woman, iron burns, and punishment when you don't listen. Jessica has to play sweet, dress demure, and use her typewriter, but Simon vows to take care of which woman is pretending or lying – leading to sobbing in the bedroom and whirring saws. Unfortunately, the unnecessary, nonsensical outside storyline deflates the congested bunker disturbia. The couple's BFF cop never followed up on Simon admitting to a dalliance with a student, but the online crime group put the missing girls on campus pieces together. Wasting time on more tangents detracts from the lipstick on the collar and foreshadowed signals. We also never learn why the mid-century nostalgia. How did he afford this elaborate home? Why are there two bedrooms with two women when it repeatedly causes conflict – Madonna and Whore mommy issues? It takes our fiance the entire movie to get a clue, for he's more annoyed at her leaving him in a real estate lurch, throwing away her possessions while she's actually being assaulted and believing she found someone else because he cheated before their engagement. It's shitty that Jessica remains with her fiance when he gave up searching for her for almost two months, and the final fight is rushed for a silly one year later prison visit when I'd rather have seen the titular book success.

Nope – Keith David (The Thing) gravitas, Donna Mills (Falcon Crest) humor, and Michael Wincott (The Crow) cranky accent director Jordan Peele's (Us) 2022 weird western metaphors amid dusty California isolation, horses in fear, and fatal objects falling from the sky. Green screen wrangling and safety meeting spins from sister Keke Palmer (Scream Queens) are awkward, and brother Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah) is selling off horses to a neighboring theme park run by former child star Steven Yeun (Minari). The Black struggle for acknowledgment in The West and Hollywood is immediate with minority contributions ignored and animals misused. Flickering electricity and objects above acerbate our realistic, foul mouthed sibling relationship as they debate the preposterous and hook up cameras in hopes of recording the UFO stealing their horses in the moonlight. Freaky shadows in the barn, bugs on the camera, and mists coming down from the sky are a nope on that shit; yet digital versus film, vinyl, and walkie talkies chronicle our obsession with documenting everything. We view our world through a lens be it on television or own recording of our lives, exploited and exploiting ourselves. Daylight hovering increases as our territorial alien gets a taste for more than horses, and motorcycles in the old west theme park and on horseback rescues provide throwback action alongside the simplicity of not looking an animal in the eye and don't look up clues. Phones go down amid trapped in the truck perils and arguments about staying inside, feeding the monsters, and plans to go analog to defeat it. Unfortunately, silly contemporary references will date the social commentary for future audiences, and silence would have been better than the warped music distortions. Intercut restarts are piece meal not ominous – disjointed amid ill fated monkey sitcoms, morbid memorabilia, and unnecessarily drawn out scenes. Too dark to see cutaways break the UFO momentum for theme park pranks, on set detours, and inside the alien perspectives when we should never leave the family viewpoint. Desperation for the money shot results in a typical sacrifice, and anonymous screaming for a phone or camera even in death is bound by TMZ jokes. News reports, superfluous characters, backstory parallels, and public fatalities detract from the sibling encounters, ballooning 100 minute horrors into an overlong two hours plus. Though entertaining with likable characters, this looses steam with redundant elements that stray from the immediate story and taught metaphors.

Maligned 21st Century Horrors

 

Maligned 21st Century Horrors

by Kristin Battestella

Some of these bottom barrel contemporary horrors are not so bad with understandable faults. Others here in, however, are rightfully maligned and avoided.

Didn't Hate It!

Shadow Puppets – Black screens, heavy breathing, and thumps on the wall get right to the waking up screaming, padded white rooms, and eight trapped strangers in this 2007 intriguing if familiar isolation horror from writer and director Michael Winnick (Disquiet) starring Jolene Blalock (Enterprise), James Marsters (Buffy), and Tony Todd (Candyman). Wedding rings are missing from bruised fingers and their identities are unknown, but there's growling at the door, flickering lights, creepy orange tunnels, and industrial hazards. Although it's cold in their underwear, and some fearful, screaming acting is hammy; our unnerved amnesiacs admit this is weird – complaining about their attire and laughing over the naked woman in the swimming pool. Most are scared but others are casual about the ominous stairs, retro machinery, prison gates, beeping monitors, and damaged equipment because they are going to die anyway. Although knowledge and skills are intact, some look for the scientific explanation while others seek weapons. What good is a gun against mists and shadows? Impalement and injuries mount as the lights go out and they are helpless in the dark. Retro phone ringing they can't find and blood smears on the wall but no bodies escalate the finger pointing. Paperwork and computers provide their information, jobs, and connections; however the details on the machinery meant to wipe memories doesn't add up with the number of patients. Is someone suspect among them? The taut isolation is well paced with straight jackets and prisoners chained in a cell deepening the mystery. If they shut off the power to open the electromagnetic door, the lights will be out as well – necessitating a divide and conquer escape plan amid turnabouts in the dark and pool perils. Identity twists and questions on the comatose mind, body, and soul make viewers wonder why there is a monster at all rather than this being about the people betraying each other, for our shadow is merely taking the opportunities presented one by one. The audience may find certain effects hokey the more we see the shadows, but there are no panoramic awe spins or roars at the camera. Much of this is similar to Winnick's Disquiet indeed, and Blalock seems like she's still playing T'Pol when figuring out what's what. Some dialogue is totally laughable, but at least they find their clothes and one flashlight to thwart the monster. The talkative reveal provides some explanation if you don't think about it too much, and this does go on too long in the finale – degrading in to running from the shadow set pieces before a convenient sun rise makes you think how you would have ended it differently. Fortunately, this was better that I expected for a fun late night viewing.

Budget Clearly an Issue

The Ghosts of Borley Rectory – At eighty-three minutes, this 2021 investigative haunt doesn't have three minutes of opening credits to spare, however I appreciate the vintage black and white cast photographs setting the thirties mood. Although the period styles are fine, the generic music advertises this is low budget fare – as do the stilted dialogue, wooden jolly goods, and exaggerated pip pip cheerios. Paranormal investigator Harry Price has rented the eponymous estate, yet those budget constraints mean we don't see the hear tell gadgetry or cameras set up to prove our haunting. Fortunately, it's spooky as we follow the young assistant going from room to room with nothing but a lantern and a notebook. Sure, rattling objects, old rosaries, and eerie trees are cheap; but we're waiting for something to go bump in the night along with the frightened scientists. Vicar Julian Sands (Tale of a Vampire) must tell his god-fearing parishioners that the deceased move on, but his wife demands he disclose the horrors they've encountered. Local officials question the lack of credible evidence from prior experiments, and arguments on seeking to debunk versus proving paranormal activity lead to flashback witness testimony and warnings that something else is in the room. Feeling cold spots and hysterical screaming become inadvertently humorous, but a bemusing psychic and hokey séance turn eerie when the scared medium asks the unseen ancient energy its name. Neighbors claim there have been wild bells and lights at the rectory when of course there have been none, and the weakest assistant is singled out with phantom tapping and flinging books. Ghostly appearances are shrewd when we see them – a silent hand touching the arm or leaving maggots in the food – but the chilling scenes cut away to people talking and talking some more. Even our disappointed investigators say they aren't getting anywhere as weeks go by before Price steps up their tactics with flour sprinkled for ghostly touches and a surprisingly late preparations montage now that it's suddenly the final week of the six month rental. Bloody nuns, croaking voices, creaking ghost movements, and a spirit stepping into the frame and shushing people are freaky enough, yet this inexplicably ditches any slow burn build for a time jump and redundant speeches. Flashbacks telling us what happened pad the runtime and change the investigation from proving the haunting to freeing the nun's spirit. Every ghostly encounter ends with a person waking up (some even with double false wake ups), negating if there was any progress in the stereotypical self-sacrifice of it all. There's no resolution to the freaky goblin in the mirror saying but wait, there's more – only a few black and white reels about a fire six months after they leave and four minutes of closing credits. Financial constraints meaning there is no big shock and awe is okay; I like the idea of seeing as little as possible. Unfortunately this needed a tight structure to balance the choice creepy moments and talkative heavy lifting. There should have been more Julian Sands, too. Even if you can take the low budget make do fun here, it's all a lot of late night nothing. Watch The Banishing instead.

Skip It

The Small Hand – A Ghost Story – Scottish graveyards, creepy woods, and ominous garden paths set off this 2019 tale based on the titular novel as our antique book dealer hears child laughter alongside the rustling leaves and humming woman by the pond. Although I appreciate the lack of in your face boo shocks amid the scenic water perils, suspicious reflections in the window, and spooky encounters; there's a lot of driving to and fro with no idea what's happening almost a half hour into the picture. Rather than beginning with the creepy real estate inquiry – that he only wants to buy so he can live next door to his married paramour – this is very slow to start. Time is wasted on minutiae while dropping blink and you miss it important newspaper clippings, photos, and mentions of having visiting the house and gardens as kids. They tour the manor and then tour the manor some more but nothing comes of the weird stains on the ceiling, fire damage, or video of the tour. The waterbed is likewise just an excuse for some ghostly movements and an eerie dream that doesn't show anything. Despite a low budget production, the mystery and atmosphere have potential with not so innocent little ghosts knocking at the door and perilous falls down the stairs. Freaky mirrors and orange candle glows accent the ghostly women singing, shouting, and carrying pictures of dead sons. Unfortunately the illicit romance doesn't seem like that passionate a love story if they barely even kiss. The Mrs. enjoys the sneaking around only to aggravate her husband – telling her lover to invest in this tremendous undertaking when no romantic impetus for buying the manor would have been better. Our book dealer becomes even more unlikable when he is willing to risk his brother's mental health by asking him about the history of this new love shack. Living with the supernatural acerbating his past metaphors should have been the main plot, and the you-can-read-this-but-not-watch-it weak screenplay is apparent. The tension is not cinematic, deflating with too many characters and detours instead of building spooky momentum with the bloody bathtubs and chilling strangulation. Rather than state of mind versus escalating supernatural, the ghosts just seem to be messing with him, delaying the story being told before rushing important details, affair dialogue, and hectic fatal encounters with too dark to see action and sudden crescendos. More driving scenes begat a highway fake out, and a brief exorcism leads to childhood selves battling ghostly little shits with remote control cars, and the invisible fighting becomes humorous. The suppressed memories of past saucy, violence, and drowning are obvious to the viewer yet our passive protagonist is unaware what's haunting him – even bringing his brother and pregnant sister-in-law to the house because not enough people have died already. Carrying rolled up blueprints and new, puckering wallpaper implies he's been working on the house the entire time, yet all we ever see him do is ask questions of others instead of getting answers from the ghost himself. Flashbacks spell everything out before a holiday sacrifice that does nothing to appease the spirits. This is neither a midnight movie full of scares nor a casual mystery, so not knowing its audience and the poor pacing leave viewers wonder what the point was.

WTF did I just watch?

Tentacles – Desperate packing in a dim lit house and pleas for time apart open this Into the Dark Blumhouse/Hulu Original before time wasting credits, modern ballads, desert driving, burying cash, and open houses. There are a lot of cliches and none of this makes sense so far thanks to incidental dialogue, interior panning, distorted up close angles, and cameras peering around corners that don't reveal much about our nondescript white girl or the drunken photographer who's doing a photo essay on gentrification, lol. He's inherited his parents' big house and offers its renovation to this girl who refuses to share her background? The flirtations and furrowed brows over their mutual adulting is hard are weak. Having sex at an open house comes off trashy, and every scene makes things worse with deflections, cutaways, bangs, screams, and booms. Now she is a house flipping expert ready to paint, tear up carpets, and salvage the vintage fixtures – but also knows how to kill and where to dump the bodies, too! He wants to photograph her “seam” abdomen scar, but she feigns fearfulness amid black water in the bathtub and high pitched ringing in his ears. Nothing here is compelling, and a building a dark room montage followed by a comically sped up and blurred sex montage leads to months passing and a melodramatic proposal. We've seen no love, just unnecessary masturbation, bad sex, and poorly disguised mermaid/siren/succubus duplicity. Black out eyes, skin suits, BJs, and alluring powers of persuasion drag on alongside meetings between the used and abused dude bros – who think all women are lookalike bitches who corrupt, drain the life from a man, move on, and ruin him. Renovation revelations throw which chick is which questions into the mix, and the attempted commentary on codependency or mixed messages on reverse empowerment metaphors with women taking over men's bodies and stealing their ideas do not come across thanks to doppelganger stabbings and morphing into one another. The yawn-worthy final battles with not so clever twists just keep going on and on, and all I could do was keep checking the time because this is absolutely the wrong way to do sex and horror.

1 Good, 1 Bad House Horrors

 

1 Good, 1 Bad House Horrors

by Kristin Battestella

For every good house horror movie, there are certainly bad house horrors! Here is an exercise in what one haunt does wrong for its women in peril – and what another gets right about feminine horrors.

Skip It!

Treehouse – An infamous chef retreats to his estranged family's vacation home in this 2019 Hulu/Blumhouse Into The Dark entry. Our gourmet is angry at the wannabe chefs on his cooking show, and he can't give his undivided attention to his young daughter – sending her off with an assistant on the weekend of his ex-wife's remarriage. Oversharing dialogue, cars full of chicks, hip music, and creepy convenience store stops pile on the horror cliches alongside unnecessary pop culture platitudes that get old very fast. Every introduction is awkward and each sentence is littered with a tiresome joke or attempted cool reference in this frustrating script. The old family maid at their grand villa says it's the things she can't unsee that keep her up at night, but weird portraits of his father looming over the bedroom, bugs in the kitchen, and bloody gunk in the toilet don't amount to anything. Our chef thinks he is too cool for school, we get it, and helping the ladies next door with flashlights and candles after their generator fails leads to his offering to cook dinner for their bachelorette party. The women, however, are also obnoxious – rude, sassy, diverse yet checking every stereotype amid the self-referential Hulu quips and acoustic ballads by the fire pit. Lilith names, conversations about birth, and Celtic sister tattoos contrast his drunken foot in the mouth flirtations. Unfortunately, statements on women not having a voice and being forced to live with the terrible things that happen to them come off terribly tone deaf before for the sake of it weirdness, peacocks, distorted angles, mirrors, red flashes, and creepy tongues. The overgrown spooky and titular echoes are never used to full advantage despite twig effigies, freaky wooden masks, and a wild mushroom lady knocking at the door. Rather than playing sarcastic and coy, this should have gotten to the horror much sooner, but alas, paralysis and bound to the bed fears leads to bloody lips and ladies in lingerie because our sleazy cook still finds the seemingly evil women “would do” hot. They each re-enacted his past harassments with pentagrams, spells, nail clippings, snakes, and voodoo contortions. Of course, he thinks he can talk his way out of their revenge – taking pot shots with self-esteem insults, insisting a woman's suicide was not his fault, disbelieving his inferior position, and cracking jokes until the crossbows are aimed at his crotch. Escape attempts, aimless twists, family connections, and obvious secrets should be better than this rushed first draft lip service, and it all comes off as girl power turned nasty bully bitches as written by a man. It's such an elaborate set up for what isn't a surprise, and the lesson should have been from the women's point of view. He continues making excuses that there are two sides to every flirtation and he was a drunk teenager so the word “rape” doesn't apply. Instead of provocative commentary, this distasteful, erroneous, hollow, flat perspective misses the point entirely.

Well Done!

The Night House – A drifting boat, swaying wind chimes, as is rooms, and friends offering help left on the doorstep greet widow Rebecca Hall (The Awakening) in this 2020 study on deception and grief. The custom built, isolated lake house reiterates the home alone emptiness, wine, sad songs, chairs for two, and his bare side of the bed before alarm clocks, coffee, and other teachers whispering at school. The dialogue comes naturally – no one would blame her for taking time off, she's not sleeping well, she should get away from the house that her husband built. Beth is frank with a pissy parent, for her husband shot himself in the head so what do grades matter? The radio playing by itself, knocks at the door with no one there, unlocked gates, and muddy footprints create ominous as happy construction videos contrast the loneliness. These home videos aren't found footage for the viewer but Beth watching, crying, and packing away her husband's things. His journals are full of intriguing design configurations, reverse floor plans, symbols, and notes to trick it with puzzles and decoys but not trust it. The character focused horror drama comes in the uncomfortable conversational backstory – teenage Beth was dead for four minutes after car accident and only her husband knew she saw nothing but an empty tunnel. She was the depressing one but now she keeps his nonsensical suicide note in her purse while the sleep paralysis, sleepwalking, nightmares, and ghosts escalate. Rather than repeated scares going round and round for the audience, Beth uncovers evidence of more secrets. Chiming texts apparently from her husband are disturbing enough, but she dials his cell and someone answers. Her agitated, on edge frazzled increases thanks to distorted voices, duplicate images, other women seemingly in the house, and seeing herself sleeping on the sofa. The zigzagging dock stairs lead to bloody boats, red smoke across the lake, caressing winds, and swooning levitation in well done hazy transitions. Flashlight beams reveal women running in the dark, abandoned buildings in the woods, tarps, unfinished construction, and effigies. Bookstore clues and relatable confrontations only lead to more questions as the wronged Mrs. gets carried away in the false floors and gory discoveries. Creaking noises, clutter, and altered house perspectives force us to pay attention and see what may be there. The camera accentuates duality with twofer shots, lookalikes, and similar dreams, and the happy memories disappear once we realize our husband and wife didn't know each other as well as they thought. Friends tell Beth to leave the house, move on with her life and not fall into dark despair, but she mocks the idea before sobbing on the shower floor. The hard bitch solving the mystery attitude drops as the grief finally come forth. Ghostly writings, mirrors, reverse reflections, eerie voices, and distorted visuals accent spooky encounters, visions of past violence, and creepy maze-like attacks. Invisible whooshes and fights with oneself in the last half hour are a little odd. Some metaphors are obvious yet others are unclear and questions on who did what and why remain. However the Final Destination maturity doesn't overstay its welcome. My husband saw this before me, and he says seeing it a second time explains everything. Rather than in your face horror typical; crescendos, editing, and neon lighting punctuate the body contortions, multi level purgatory planes, and dual culmination.

Horror Hexes!

 

Horror Hexes, Oh My!

By Kristin Battestella

These diverse, contemporary scares accent their cultural horrors with hexes, charms, and chills. Read on for protection, warnings, and mistakes from the parables herein.

Evil Eye – Traditional, superstitious Delhi mother Sarita Choudhury (Homeland) worries when her New Orleans daughter meets a too good to be true, suave, wealthy stranger in this 2020 Blumhouse/Amazon tale based on an Audible original. The culture and customs are immediately felt thanks to the styles, music, and protection charms. Old fashioned Mom follows Hindu astrology and warns that it's easy for a relationship to be perfect in the beginning. She's displeased with the whirlwind jewelry and doesn't want them to move in together unless they're married. It's too soon and she loves her daughter too much. Their horoscopes are exceptionally compatible, almost suspiciously, and our father objects to mom's invasive hiring of a private detective. He thinks she is inventing things to worry about, but viewers spot the possessive, fast red flags as our daughter quits her job and moves without telling mom. Video phone calls visualize the bothersome intrusions – differing time zones mean one side is always waking or disturbing the other. Family strife and realistic unease beyond the horror make flashes of mom's prior violent experience unnecessary until we get the whole story in full. Rather than a typical research montage, the right versus wrong argument is refreshing as the upsetting past comes to light in heartfelt dialogue. Are we suspicious because our mothers taught us to be? Children don't know everything about their parents or why they do what they do, and the stalking effects linger – knowing he is always there is frightful enough. Although the ladies bond over crap men, mom's demands about unborn curses and reincarnation sound crazy and controlling. She says she'll drop everything and get rid of the charms in face to face split screens, but chilling evidence and eerie revelations lead to in person confrontations where blood proves stronger than romance or evil. Domestic action rushes an ending that feels more like a straight thriller with no mystical connections, for the supernatural spiritual here won't be esoteric enough for viewers expecting full on horror. Fortunately, the family relationships and cultural drama anchor the supposition.

The Old Ways – A possessed American reporter is abducted by Veracruz brujas in this 2020 Mexican ode with dungeons, chains, herbs, and rituals. Our victim states who she is as if that gives her license to do anything – out of touch with her own culture while the interspersed English and Spanish reflect the miscommunication layers. Despite face paintings, occult drawings, goat milk, and salt across the threshold, she insists she doesn't have the “it” they fear. Cell phones and escape attempts are dealt with swiftly as her local relatives warn her she went where she shouldn't have gone. They will help rid her of the demon, but she still manages to retrieve her bag and shoot the heroin between her toes. After being bound and painted, she pretends, lying to fake her way out of the ritual before snakes slither in amid blood, hair in the mouth, and dead chickens. Arguments with her cousin reveal her twenty year absence, longstanding family troubles, and forgotten protective talismans from their abuela. Occasional diegetic music and a retro fan add flavor and heat while candles flicker and viewers question what we may or may not see in the darkest dungeon corner. Rustic demon documents, a bilingual dictionary, and “psychic surgery” escalate to bulbous sacs with extra teeth, vomiting, and snakes in the stomach. Rather than delays contrived for the audience or drawn out torture porn, the well paced demon encounters are about the possessed coming to believe, ask for help, and understand the terror of looking in the mirror and having something else look back. Healers instead of modern medicine and past exorcisms gone awry are told with personal sadness and lifelong grief – tearful pain with no need for today's whoosh flashbacks. The opening history and brief flash intrusions here are indeed unnecessary – nothing should visually take us from the dungeon congestion – for the suffering turned cleansing experience does better when this sticks to telling its tale without such modern cinema conventions. Chilling demon hints accent the one on one journey and willpower carried by the small ensemble. Serious research and ritual prep begats bones cracking, death whistles, visions in the smoke, Nahuatl demonology, and fatal trades embracing who you are. The ritual is recognizably similar to traditional exorcisms yet stays true to its unique cultural elements for horror viewers looking for something special.

Spell– Pleas, violence, and lingering scars open this 2020 parable starring Omari Hardwick (Power) and Loretta Devine (Waiting to Exhale). Rising above childhood cruelty has led to fancy suits, wealth, and law firm success. The high rise offices are sleek and shiny, but the self-involved teenagers joke about the backwoods past when a funeral summons the family to rural Kentucky. Dad Marquis, however, is unwilling to punish and have his children fear him like his father. He insists on winning with words because it is expected of them to fight and give in to Black stereotypes. Flying his own plane to Appalachia shows how much the elite family stands out at the rusty gas station convenience store with skulls and potions on the shelves. Marquis laughs at the outhouse and doesn't believe in the Mojo bags for protection against conjuring. He and his wife argue over their entitled teens belittling the country folks, ramping up the tension inside the cockpit as a storm brews over the mountains with lightning, maydays, and alarms. Marquis wakes in an attic bedroom, injured but under the care of an old fashioned couple objecting to his cursing yet assuring their hoodoo effigy is the best medicine. Marquis demands to know what happened to his family, for they are nowhere to be found at the out of the past rustic farm house. Vintage sewing machines, candles, and colloquialisms provide a suspicious quaint while calming powders, birds, and boogities invoke the rootwork folk magic. Marquis will pay whatever it takes for an ambulance and proper rescue team, but Ms. Eloise has no phone. Such tools meant to heal or communicate only become dividers among us but salt at the window will keep out the devil. Although he's not actually bound, shrewd filming angles above the bed or through the frame visualize Marquis' incapacitated position. A foot injury that's not what it seems, rainstorms, and revival meetings with animal parts, sacrifices, and chanting make for perilous escape attempts. The foul afoot doesn't underestimate the viewer thanks to suspect food, vomit, and one on ones where Marquis has to play along despite his belief that it's all psychosomatic mumbo jumbo. He's been trying to escape his past but must embrace who he is to cast the bones and beat them at their own magic. Belying use of the color white in the bed frame, locked doorknob, and innocuous pearls accents the eerie close calls in the tight house quarters before flashlights in the woods, ritual carvings, and bloody evidence lead to agony and desperation. The anguish and disturbia is personal – not drawn out viewer shocks. Frantic searches and hysterical digging reveal grimoires with flesh of my flesh spells and boogity doll bindings for and against. Marquis re-injures himself to maintain the ruse as torches and knives help him believe in a little fiery hoodoo of his own. The blu-ray edition features a half hour of deleted scenes increasing the out of touch kids versus Marquis' passiveness – strengthening his later man of action with more isolation. I'm surprised this received negative reviews with complaints about derivative occult cliches that completely ignore the history, cultural subtext, social commentary, and Black experience setting off the blood moon reap what you sow.

A Disappointing Skip

Old – Tropical sand, surf, palm trees, and cocktails set the vacation mood for M. Night Shyamalan's (The Sixth Sense) 2021 adaptation. The resort manager directs our families to a private reserve where beautiful caverns and inlet vistas lead to nosebleeds, chest pains, and bodies in the lagoon. When our guests try to leave the beach; zooms, warps, and blackouts send them back where they started amid knives, arguments, healing wounds, and growing tumors. Unfortunately, the dizzying, frustrating camerawork makes the viewer wonder what's significant. We can't see major action or important developments because the camera is always panning and pointing somewhere else. Although a stylistic choice mirroring the blink and you miss it metaphors, it's a terrible way to tell a story. Clunky, repetitive, simplistic dialogue; precocious kids who unrealistically introduce themselves to every stranger and ask who they are and what they do; disconnecting couples reiterating their relationships; and constantly quoted insurance statistics get...old...fast. Even with emergency surgical incisions rapidly closing, increasing schizophrenia, numerous sicknesses, swift decomposition, expedited youths, and a quickly deceased dog; it takes the group far too long to realize the a la Lost creepy happening. Any commentary on beauty, ageism, wealth, or divorce is never fully realized for most of the violence, wrinkles, rapid eating, even faster pregnancy, and growing young adults still mentally children happens off screen while someone watches from the cliffs as if we aren't supposed to know this is some kind of experiment. There's a lot of math about the hours per aging but we never truly witness the expedited struggle of old age because the interfering aesthetics constantly call attention to themselves. Rather than accenting our aging fears, such audience awareness detracts from the climbing fails, blurred vision, broken bones, and contorted backs. Underutilized doctors and nurses behave stupidly because the plot says so while diverse characters that should represent the social or racist dynamics become superfluous. Contrived childhood answers and notebooks found on the beach lead to perilous swims and an unnecessary meta meta with our director as actor. Seeing the accelerated aging from a pharmaceutical or medical perspective might have been intriguing, but the tacked on comeuppance underestimates the audience. Like low budget horror with a writer/director wearing too many hats, the indulgent M. Night was not the best writer or director for this material. The resort bookends should have been excised for more taut introspection, leaving what should be a provocative concept with no rewatch value.

The "I"s of Horror

 

The “I”s of Horror 👀

by Kristin Battestella

Beware! These intriguing horror stories almost have it all, but some throwback allegory chills are better than the island isolation and exorcism could have beens.

It's Excellent!

In Fabric – Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Without A Trace) leads writer and director Peter Strickland's (Berberian Sound Studio) 2018 British throwback getting right to the edgy score, seventies style, and cursed red dress peppered with red nails, black panties, vintage fashion, and old school unease. Personal ads aren't exactly the truth amid forced smiles at the bank and that hypnotic, sale sale sale advertising allure. Our somewhat frumpy divorcee is jealous of her son's saucy, intrusive, French speaking femme fatale girlfriend, and the creepy sales girl insists a date is purely about the temptation of a sensational, risque garment worn to provoke pleasure. Dumbwaiters and grand old fashioned department store spooky accent the retro technology as cold answering machines relay character information and money tubes or vintage buzzers invoke off kilter startles while time is distorted when browsing the fashion catalogs. The previous model of our dress – colored “artery” – came to tragedy and the tight frock leaves rashes before sending the washer crazy with damage, cuts, and blood. There's an intimacy to doing someone's laundry, and the mannequins are cleaned in a ritual, sexual fashion that's bizarre without actually showing anything nasty thanks to overlay montages and through the lens double vision. Bald heads and pubic hair are both seemingly unattractive and misleading reflections, store windows, and bank partitions create physical barriers, yet our projection of self changes when we know it's for the gaze, voyeurism, and getting off on the standards of beauty. Instead of wowing the audience with special effects, there's a “what we think we see” in the vaginal imagery, red sheets, and cult euphoria of the staff rousing the end of the year holiday crowd waiting to enter the store. They are so bereft when a shopper says she is over the retail ecstasy! Customers ignore the increasing, freak mishaps because we're buying into the couture, but the red dress moves on for stag drag gags complete with pacifiers and peer pressure disguised as good-natured humor. Prior events in the newspaper and the perpetually perfect Size 36 dress fitting every body type are dismissed as are the potential banking and department store connections. Handyman temptations and awkward sex at home lead to winks about how even the nerdy man can be manly because he can fix her washer. This henpecked man named Speaks holds his tongue as his intimidating boss eats Speaks' employee card – adding male subtext and consuming symbolism alongside stockings, penis shaped gourds, and latent bankers offering to role play in Tudor costumes. Nightmare nurses, nasty babies, marred faces, and skeletal thinness are recounted by the dreamer, foreshadowing for themselves rather than a flashy, meaningless visual for the viewer. Supposedly decent ladies spit, loot, and fight at the register before fires, alarms, melting facades, and bleeding mannequins laugh at the all consuming commercial machine we're dying to be a part of before another takes our place. It's pleasing to see a past telling in order rather than intercut flashbacks as if the dress connection was a big secret, but it's not quite fair to call this realistically bitter satire a comedy, for there are many layers and connections worth multiple viewings. Some may be upset at the the lack of explanations, but the social media horror seeping into our blood allegory speaks for itself.

Almost Has It...

The Isle – Siren warnings, echoing vocals, and watery perils begat three shipwrecked merchant sailors and uncharted edge of the world Scottish isolation in this 2019 parable. Rather than some spectacle disaster, we meet our 1846 survivors lost in a row boat, arguing about the run aground decisions, fog, chaos, and screams. The titular inhabitants are hospitable when the men come ashore, but the women are hushed behind closed doors and information about the dwindling community is not forthcoming. Celtic music cues, windswept scenery, stone fireplaces, wooden wreckage, kettles, and lanterns accent the well done rural as the residents insist our restless sailors shouldn't go exploring. Risking a burial at sea in a small local boat leads to dark waters, ominous mist, ghostly ship bells, and echoes of others caught in this island's lure. The whispering winds, moss covered tombstones, and dangerous cliffs work organically in scene, however there are a bit too many lovely for the arty sake of it scene transitions and splitting up to search will obviously, stereotypically not bode well for our Black sailor. More modern constructs like a bathroom scare via the wash stand mirror, spooky flashbacks of famine and rival affections, and abstract dream snippets intrude on the period atmosphere before a totally tame bedroom montage. The siren enchantment is apparent without the opening poems or Greek references, and bizarre distortions aren't for the sailor experiencing the delirium but a calling attention to itself visual for the audience. The score ramps up the tension before the editing cuts away – feigning the something spooky without any actual action far too many times. While one shouldn't expect outright horror here, the contemporary storytelling cliches and lengthy credits pad what should really be a straightforward ninety-two minutes. The survivors don't unravel the mystery for themselves and viewers already know what's what, so going back to the original curse as if it were a surprise drags the more pressing get out of Dodge goal. Again the faults here stem from a small production with a writer/director husband and a co-writer/star wife who needed a second eye. Although melancholy and atmospheric for a late night watch, this potentially unique story and setting deserved another polish.

An Unfortunate Skip.

Incarnate – Aaron Eckhart (Olympus Has Fallen) and Carice Van Houten (Brimstone) star in this PG-13 Blumhouse Exorcist meets Inception thriller opening with neck snapping growls and youthful possessions. After meeting our divorced mother and son in peril, the story resets with night club strobe and a smooth demon hunter who can enter the mind of the possessed and convince them to resist the evil influence. The red lights and maze like escapes, however, lead to medical hook ups, cameras, and a wheelchair bound warrior not so cool in the real world. Bruises on the inside become real injuries as the fantastic science and high tech supernatural mix with old school paperwork and Vatican officials interested in this rare kind of incarnate exorcism. He doesn't work for the church or believe in any religious aspects for what is just a parasitic entity – Ember is a doctor not a priest. These official exorcisms, church cover ups, mind over evil methods, and demon vendettas might have made a neat show, so it's strange that we open with the family encounter first when the doctor's treating a demon like a disease to be evicted from the inside is the main story. The family details are also repeated in a file report with a complete background check. Traditional, off camera exorcisms have failed, and there's a lot of telling and ham-fisted explaining for the audience when mom gasping at the unseen video is a nicer moment for the character and not a viewer wow. The deep voice and whooshing maneuvers make the boy's possession bemusing, and the subsequent tearful car accident man pain feels laid on thick since the audience has already deduced the past angst. Mom has nothing to do but ask questions about frequencies and auras, and leaving to bring in the abusive, drunk dad to help breaks the exorcism tension. The demon resists with illusions its prey desires, but serious strides resort to laughable on the ceiling action and more recollections of what we already know. Expedited timelines crunch the conflict from years of searching right down to ten seconds left on the EEG, but switch-a-roos and detours don't get us anywhere. Mom is told to be strong when of course she must have been but we don't see her perspective until the brief, required bonding between the grieving adults. Any symbolism between Dr. Ember and the demon's name being Ash is unused, and the finale comes easy with carnivals, crosses, and sudden devotions leading to hospital chases, levitation, and sacrificial contortions. Rather than utilizing the tender performances, this over-relies on predictable scares. Viewers understand why this was filmed in 2013 but not released until 2016. Derivative leaps and miraculous contrivance don't make in world sense or explore the provocative possibilities – leaving what should be a touching and soul searching story downright hollow.

Female, Family, and Youth Horrors

 

Female, Family, and Youth Horrors

by Kristin Battestella

These feminine and international horror pieces offer an intriguing genre look at parental relationships, family breakdowns, and youths in peril amid grief, death, cults, and predators.

Blood Moon – Emma Tammi (The Wind) directs this 2021 Hulu/Blumhouse Into the Dark installment opening with snarling, cages, claw marks, and phases of the moon. Our waitress mother must protect her son Luna via unusual hardware purchases, tranquilizers, and remote real estate with a sturdy basement. She does her own sawing and welding amid home schooling, staying up at night, and avoiding the dogs at the bar. Certainly it's obvious what is what here. However the mountain skylines, desert nights, and dusty pick up trucks add western mood while past flirtations contrast the current on the road and always on edge frazzled routine. Although he's a nice kid with video games and bedtime stories, raw meat in the refrigerator catches his eye and it's essential mom has off during the full moon. Her pregnancy announcement was met with unique hereditary details, and now mom regales Luna with endearing stories about his father before the disturbing pains the child must endure. Our former lawyer loved her husband despite his condition, but we don't see any horrific special effects – just knowing they suffer is upsetting enough. Luna needs a bath the next morning and he's not hungry for breakfast, blending the family bonding, real world efforts, and underlying horror alongside racial profiling, fetishism, and predatory against which a single minority mother must prepare. Does this fearful little family risk putting themselves out there with one of the good guys and friendly convenience store connections? A seemingly innocent tooth infection means ducking out of the hospital once blood work is needed, and procuring fresh beef means there's no time to be pulled over by the nasty sheriff. The kid wants to be a kid but mom has rules for a reason, for work shifts and birthday parties on the night of the full moon cut the horror close. Subtle distortions and echoes add atmosphere as the calendar keeps pace – anchoring but not overtaking the characters struggling with lost in the night unknowns, incriminating smells when the meat's not fresh, well meaning but untimely guests, and interfering authorities. Some may be disappointed there are no awe-inspiring panorama fantastics or outright frights. However the camera remains on a helpless mother crying for her son amid growls and gunshots – keeping the instincts, fears, and relationships real. Mom has been forced to make terrible choices before, but one's true nature is nobody's fault in this well done little parable about what lengths a mother goes through for her son, horror and all.

Midsommar – Solemn forests, haunting vocals, no response messages, and disturbing goodbye emails open director Ari Aster's (Hereditary) 2019 US/Swedish co-production starring Florence Pugh (Black Widow). Sobbing and wailing blend with the distorted scoring as smartphones and technology are shrewdly used for negative communication – delivering the worst news and technically leaving our fragile Dani alone amid distant boyfriends, red emergency lights, and body bags. A friend invites everyone back to his isolated Swedish commune for the summer solstice pageant, and she latches on to the trip despite her boyfriend's scholastic goals and PhD research. In camera visuals reflect the couple's dissonance with talking to reflections and who's looming in the foreground or insignificant in the background. Arguments, weak apologies, and semantics on who said what or when acerbate the awkwardness over forgotten birthdays and culture shocks. Unique transitions, doors closing to change scenes, airplane to car window views, and upside down highways create an unnerving topsy turvy. Whispering trees and rippling visuals invoke unease while untranslated Swedish accents the peer pressure, disorienting mushroom tea, and midnight daylight off kilter. Despite rustic trails, quaint buildings, sunburst motifs, and festive music, there's an underlying weirdness to the skin the fool games, bear in a cage, love spells, foretelling tapestries, and white robes. Every shape, number, season, and position has meaning – yellow triangles, table arrangements, funeral pyres, and walking backwards are carefully coordinated. Chanting, processions, lookalikes, and slow motion ceremonies escalate with blood on the rune stones, suicide parallels, and ritual deaths. Violent blows and squishy gore mar the pretty as sacrificial red on white is said to be a joyful custom in the circle of life. Warped sounds and heavy silence set off temple break-ins and mutilation consequences as our appropriately named boyfriend Christian stands out among the dancing contests and flower crowns. Feasts and leafy visions contrast the sex rites and flesh in the garden as seeds are planted with drug trips and paralysis. Spirals, May pole montages, overlays, Dutch angles, and dizzying spins reflect the heady whirlwind, however the erroneous acceptance, disturbing made special, and bad boyfriend analogy could have been done in one hundred minutes or less. With repeated introductions, redundant dream sequences, too many characters, and local lore throwaways here already, I can't imagine what else is left to be said in the even longer director's cut. Although there's not a lot of repeat value in this overlong two and a half hours, perhaps it's worth two watches for the deft foreshadowing, unique touches, ironic exit music, and all consuming, broken cult mentality.

It Splits Itself

Intruders – Stormy Madrid nights and scary bedtime stories start this 2012 Spanish/UK production starring Clive Owen (Children of Men) and Carice van Houten (Black Death) off well before youthful witnessing and frightful figures on the balcony. The shadows are chilling, but the CGI monster is immediately silly, and the terror is erroneously dismissed as a dream fake out before London resets and grandma's countryside quaint. Bright, redundant UK establishing views jar with dark, dated quarters in Spain, and the dual storytelling isn't as meta voyeur as it thinks it is. Fine feline harbingers, gnarly tree hiding places, and ominous notes about Hollowface being woken lead to another storytelling switch as our too old for birthday parties and teddy bears twelve year old recounts the hooded peeping tom creeping at the window. Dad leaves his naked wife to comfort their daughter when she still runs to him over her nightmares, but any Electra opportunities or salacious subtext when she interrupts them is never explored because we're cutting away to placating church rituals and priests suggesting a psychiatrist instead. Devoid faces, creaking, light bulb pops, flashlights under the covers, and messy lipstick add tension, however visuals linking bleak London streets and dangerous Madrid concrete fail because of the disjointed narrative. Scarecrow effigies set on fire in the middle of the suburban night are silly – acerbating the fears our parents are trying to prevent amid useless police and underutilized security cameras. Repeat encounters and lame constructs stall any momentum as the back and forth undercuts the family drama. Our tween fears what she imagines will happen, yet she stops speaking and keeps writing about Hollowface's lair in her room. Doctors suspect this is a shared hallucination but nobody reads what the children have written and the adults are unable or unwilling to piece everything together. While dolly zooms shrewdly reflect the distance and separation from delusion, mirrors and notions on children being the division between parents fall prey to convenient clues. Telling the tale straight from the beginning would have been much better than delaying, teasing, and duping the audience with what we've already deduced. The youthful storytelling and rated R adult themes are unsure who the audience is as unnecessarily hidden information and faulty framework hamper the performances and any potentially provocative implications. Besides, his name is John and our daughter is Mia Farrow? Lolz.

Right and Wrong Women's Horrors

 

Right and Wrong Women's Horrors

by Kristin Battestella

Be she a grandmother, mom-to-be, or everything in between, these contemporary films represent the good, bad, and ugly when it comes to women in horror.

Decent!

The Manor – Ballerinas and birthday parties lead to distorted echoes and stroke scares in this 2021 Blumhouse/Amazon production written and directed by Axelle Carolyn (Tales of Halloween). Silver haired vixen Barbara Hershey (Beaches) doesn't want her family to see her diminish so she enters a grand historic home living facility where staff repeatedly ask if she is okay – ready to take care of everything even though she can handle the basics herself. Judith doesn't want to make crafts and be the fourth for bridge, but she has to accept that age slowly prevents you from doing what you love. Her grandson wants to take care of her at home, but no cell phone policies and hysterical roommates acerbate the arguing between the generations. Doctors discuss her treatment with her daughter only and tell Judith she is being dramatic about early dementia delusions. Thunderstorms, eerie dreams, foggy grounds, and dead birds accent the failing mind worry on top of fears of being watched in the night and manhandling orderlies. Compared to the usual monster in your face roars and unreliable fake outs, intriguing use of light and dark reveals the fragile struggle on what is real or perceived as well as the gnarly incubus a la The Nightmare giving or draining vitality. Family turns on its elders as the mother becomes the child, bound and drugged supposedly for her own good in a sadly realistic but pleasing to see ageism commentary. Even Judith jokes about diets, face lifts, and bathing in the blood of virgins, and she has a rebellious streak – wearing edgy graphic t-shirts, sneaking out, and not swallowing pills when she's forcibly returned. When not spotting wormwood in the garden and inquiring about absinthe or stashing a flask, Judith reminisces about smoking weed and dancing around the bonfire with her late husband. Unfortunately, crows and effigies under the bed escalate to creepy last words and lists of the dead as the freaky encounters move quickly. The realization that something is afoot doesn't underestimate the audience amid missing evidence and calendar clues. There's no time wasting rituals or elaborate explanations – just hair clippings, chilling chants, temptations, and sacrifices in the full blown horror finale. Why not end the suffering of the barely existing oldsters so you can dance under the moonlight? Granted, there are numerous genre cliches and obvious twists, but this taut eighty-two minutes expedites the realistic horror parallels, unique setting, and mature performances.

Had the Potential.

The Unborn – Wedding day tragedies and interracial lesbians fearing they're pregnant with a demon baby open this 2022 Tubi original. Onscreen gestation countdowns, ultrasounds, and heartbeats accent celebratory reveals before nosebleeds, nausea, jokes about not drinking or eating sushi, and nosy friends wanting to know how it all worked. Although her mother-in-law says it is a blessing, an ominous image on the sonogram slowly divides the couple. Our wife is inconsiderate and dismissive, belittling with what I should have said deflections and that's not what I meant strain rather than support. Check ups citing mere hormones or stress semantics and fetishizing men acerbate ghostly voices, scary eyes, automatic writing, Lilith mentions, and freaky accidents. Mom-to-be resents her obligation to carry because her wife is the breadwinner but pretends she freaked out over nothing during therapy. Jugular jabs and quality blood provide fine horror vignettes, but police inquiries force one to explain what we just saw in condensing, patronizing padding. Viewers can clearly tell this was written by a man – maybe even originally as a heterosexual couple – as the haggard horror of how tough pregnancy can be is never fully felt and a ridiculously monotone, overlong YouTube documentary spells out the Lilith connections for the audience rather than the person in peril. Halfway thru this ninety-four minutes, stereotypical psychics reiterate what the video just said, jumping the shark as the audience easily predicts the erroneous cops, exorcist jokes, and useless psychiatric holds. Trips to the cult ranch lead to laughably unrealistic twists and men tutting at the angry Black lesbian's foul language before she hits the culprit with their SUV and makes her pregnant wife run to the getaway car. The spirit passing from the womb incites unnecessary shootouts and interrogations tell us about what we just saw again with the satanic cult meaty also told rather than seen. Having a monster-esque transformation on top of the pregnancy changes may have been fine body horror, but all the Lilith hear tell remains just that. The masculine bad cop and his submissive Asian partner have an unexplored latent subtext amid their utterly pointless plot, and the Black family who had the faith to combat this demon influence completely disappears. Obviously suspicious creepers, kidnappings, and ghostly convenience begat contractions sending the possessions in and out and a mother strapped to a table who's supposed to deliver a baby on her own. Back and forth screams upon screams keep going and going before a five months later revived cult coda and direct looks at the camera. Derivative genre cliches and redundant detours hold the unique characterizations and real world women's horrors at arms length, and any diversity or provocative reproduction fears descend into the totally routine.

I Turned it Off!

The Victim – Michael Biehn (Aliens) stars, writes, and directs this 2011 eighty minute grindhouse tale co-starring his wife Jennifer Blanc (Havenhurst) and Danielle Harris (Halloween). Despite the rape and revenge summary, I was excited for the genre names attached. Unfortunately, this opens with herky jerky strobe credits and barely discernible newspaper headlines with no sense of context. You have to pause to even see anything clearly, and then the picture proper opens with sexy sounds and from behind roughness. It's initially unclear whether this is consensual or not, and the scene goes on for several disturbing minutes. After that, there's a ridiculously long driving montage, and with such a frustratingly bad start, I turned this off ten minutes into the movie. I expected horror favorites, not to be disappointed and immediately put off by every horror wrong. 

It wasn't planned, but it's fascinating how this trio all has “The” titles as if that is the only way we checkbox identify women – one at home, a breeder, and a victim. Hmph.