Recently Watched Horror Movies
Apr. 4th, 2022 11:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
singedsunI haven't done a quick round up of recent horror movies in a long-ass time, so here, let me give you a quick spoiler-free synopsis of several from my recent list. I'm skipping the ones that come from my weekly Bad Movie Night group, but if people ever want a few thoughts on the truly breathtakingly awful movies my friends and I watch every week for Bad Movie Night, I will make a post about them.
Not counting those:
Night's End I think this is a Shudder exclusive, so it may not be available to rent or watch elsewhere, but if you have Shudder or have been thinking about getting it for a little while, this is definitely one worth watching. It's the story of a Black man who for reasons we don't understand at first, is living alone, isolated and hermited in his apartment. His only connection to the outside world is his friend and his ex-wife and her new husband whom he talks with over zoom/facetime something. This man is making YouTube videos from his apartment about the stuff he likes: birds, plants, what have you. His friend points out a random thing that happens in the background of his video. The video gets around as people latch onto this "ghost sighting" in his video. He makes more videos. Weird shit happens. His videos catch the attention of a popular YouTube paranormal video collection site to which he wants to be invited.
This movie is wonderfully acted, beautifully atmospheric and very chilling for someone alone by choice in a new apartment with literally few other residents and a very sketch history. I really liked it. And would recommend.
The Bunker Another Shudder original. This is a huge pass. It had promise - a group of LARPers at a get together that gets shut down, they're locked in... weird shit ensues. Only no where in the description I read did it tell you that the LARP they're doing is in an old locked bunker with a WW II backdrop. It's bad for that reason. But then the rest of it is also, just bad. The acting isn't great, the story isn't great. It feels like it relies far too heavily on bad lighting and mediocre acting.
The Scary of Sixty-First This was I think a Sundance picture last year (don't quote me on that though, I just know it had some advance play at festivals. I watched it on Shudder, but I think it's probably more widely available too. This is... You know, I don't know how to classify this. It's written by two of the three women at the heart of the story, but I feel like that doesn't make it better at all. These two women who are 'best friends' (they're not, one of them treats the other horridly) move into a new fully furnished apartment together. They find out later it may have formerly belonged to a certain billionaire who was jailed for preying on VERY young women and is now dead.
Anyway, the women find this out and one of them goes literally kind of bonkers, acting like a child, doing a bunch of stuff that's just vile. The other makes friends with a third woman who gets her high while they go over the facts of the "trial" and whatever, they're obsessed with finding out more. Big conspiracy vibes from them both about everything related to Epstein. They figure out that the 'friend' is literally obsessed with Prince Andrew who was also implicated in the documentation from the trial (I think we're supposed to assume she was one of 'his girls' IDK nothing is made clear). Things are weird, sort of dreamy and watching it feels like YOU are on something? Anyway. It's bad. Don't bother.
Fresh This is the Sebastian Stan is an adorable doctor dreamboat who might or might not want to murder the new woman he's seeing. Honestly? This is a winner in my book. It's beautifully shot, it's light on the actual gore we know is happening behind the scenes, and there's STILL somehow an earnestness in both the main characters. For a horror movie, it's kind of delightful? If by delightful you understand that I mean, nothing that happens here could be out of place in an episode of Hannibal.
The Deep House A documentarian couple goes on a dive to take video of a house at the bottom of a lake. It's haunted. The end. (This movie was a boring waste of my time and I do not understand the ruckus people made about it when it came out.)
Untitled Horror Movie :chefs kiss: This movie. I loved it. (Also it stars Emmy Raver-Lampman from Umbrella Academy which was a selling point for me.) These are six out of work actors from a big soap opera due to COVID. One of them is writing a screenplay, they encourage him to write more, they get together and read bits and pieces of what he's writing and eventually decide to try and shoot the thing remotely, each of them in their own spaces. I'm very much about these modern horrors using modern technology to do new things with the genre. This one delighted me. If you liked HOST from 2020, you'll like this one.
Last but not least, I did watch Scream 5 but there's not much to say there. It's a Scream movie, it did what a Scream movie does and I thought it was fun and worth the watch. If slashers or meta-takes on the horror genre aren't for you, then this isn't for you.
Anyway. That's from the last couple of weeks. I'll try and do more of these if people like them.
Not counting those:
Night's End I think this is a Shudder exclusive, so it may not be available to rent or watch elsewhere, but if you have Shudder or have been thinking about getting it for a little while, this is definitely one worth watching. It's the story of a Black man who for reasons we don't understand at first, is living alone, isolated and hermited in his apartment. His only connection to the outside world is his friend and his ex-wife and her new husband whom he talks with over zoom/facetime something. This man is making YouTube videos from his apartment about the stuff he likes: birds, plants, what have you. His friend points out a random thing that happens in the background of his video. The video gets around as people latch onto this "ghost sighting" in his video. He makes more videos. Weird shit happens. His videos catch the attention of a popular YouTube paranormal video collection site to which he wants to be invited.
This movie is wonderfully acted, beautifully atmospheric and very chilling for someone alone by choice in a new apartment with literally few other residents and a very sketch history. I really liked it. And would recommend.
The Bunker Another Shudder original. This is a huge pass. It had promise - a group of LARPers at a get together that gets shut down, they're locked in... weird shit ensues. Only no where in the description I read did it tell you that the LARP they're doing is in an old locked bunker with a WW II backdrop. It's bad for that reason. But then the rest of it is also, just bad. The acting isn't great, the story isn't great. It feels like it relies far too heavily on bad lighting and mediocre acting.
The Scary of Sixty-First This was I think a Sundance picture last year (don't quote me on that though, I just know it had some advance play at festivals. I watched it on Shudder, but I think it's probably more widely available too. This is... You know, I don't know how to classify this. It's written by two of the three women at the heart of the story, but I feel like that doesn't make it better at all. These two women who are 'best friends' (they're not, one of them treats the other horridly) move into a new fully furnished apartment together. They find out later it may have formerly belonged to a certain billionaire who was jailed for preying on VERY young women and is now dead.
Anyway, the women find this out and one of them goes literally kind of bonkers, acting like a child, doing a bunch of stuff that's just vile. The other makes friends with a third woman who gets her high while they go over the facts of the "trial" and whatever, they're obsessed with finding out more. Big conspiracy vibes from them both about everything related to Epstein. They figure out that the 'friend' is literally obsessed with Prince Andrew who was also implicated in the documentation from the trial (I think we're supposed to assume she was one of 'his girls' IDK nothing is made clear). Things are weird, sort of dreamy and watching it feels like YOU are on something? Anyway. It's bad. Don't bother.
Fresh This is the Sebastian Stan is an adorable doctor dreamboat who might or might not want to murder the new woman he's seeing. Honestly? This is a winner in my book. It's beautifully shot, it's light on the actual gore we know is happening behind the scenes, and there's STILL somehow an earnestness in both the main characters. For a horror movie, it's kind of delightful? If by delightful you understand that I mean, nothing that happens here could be out of place in an episode of Hannibal.
The Deep House A documentarian couple goes on a dive to take video of a house at the bottom of a lake. It's haunted. The end. (This movie was a boring waste of my time and I do not understand the ruckus people made about it when it came out.)
Untitled Horror Movie :chefs kiss: This movie. I loved it. (Also it stars Emmy Raver-Lampman from Umbrella Academy which was a selling point for me.) These are six out of work actors from a big soap opera due to COVID. One of them is writing a screenplay, they encourage him to write more, they get together and read bits and pieces of what he's writing and eventually decide to try and shoot the thing remotely, each of them in their own spaces. I'm very much about these modern horrors using modern technology to do new things with the genre. This one delighted me. If you liked HOST from 2020, you'll like this one.
Last but not least, I did watch Scream 5 but there's not much to say there. It's a Scream movie, it did what a Scream movie does and I thought it was fun and worth the watch. If slashers or meta-takes on the horror genre aren't for you, then this isn't for you.
Anyway. That's from the last couple of weeks. I'll try and do more of these if people like them.
no subject
Date: 2022-04-05 12:36 pm (UTC)Sorry to ask you about another movie in your extensive movie wrap up but...are you planning on watching X? It's an A24 film directed by Ti West: porn + horror + '70s influenced, esp. Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It would have passed me by except Owen Campbell is in it and I love him. I might watch it? Texas Chainsaw Massacre is on my "if you only watch ten films watch this" list. But I am also very wimpy.
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Date: 2022-04-06 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-05 03:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-06 03:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-05 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-06 03:41 am (UTC)And I will definitely write something up on recent bad movies we've watched. :)
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Date: 2022-04-05 06:14 pm (UTC)Yes please!!
You do make Night's End sound very appealing, so I'll put that on the list, and somehow I've got to find a way to watch Fresh, because everyone says such good things about it.
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Date: 2022-04-06 03:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-05 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-06 03:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-05 07:12 pm (UTC)Thanks for the other reviews, I'll keep my eyes open for Night's End-- maybe, because actually I'm chickenshit. ;)
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Date: 2022-04-06 03:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-10 01:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-10 09:35 pm (UTC)I feel like I should watch the other Scream films before I watch Scream 5?
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Date: 2022-04-13 02:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-13 05:50 pm (UTC)