V/H/S Beyond (2024)

For the past few years, I have been watching Shudder’s V/H/S franchise. In 2021, there was V/H/S/94, which was decently good. Then 2022 was V/H/S/99, which I liked better. While I didn’t review V/H/S/85 last year, I did watch it and enjoyed it. This year, it’s V/H/S/Beyond and it’s scifi themed. I can’t wait to talk about it.

The “through-story” framework for Beyond is set up as an alien abduction documentary. In between all of the movie segments, experts tell us about a family that suffered from alien and paranormal experiences. The first movie segment is “Stork,” where a police unit is tasked with breaching a house that may be the center in a string of disappearing babies. Despite the fact that they hunt monsters, the unit comes upon more than they expected to find. “Dream Girl” is the next segment. A couple of paparazzi are told they need to get footage of the latest Bollywood starlet. Unfortunately, she is not treated well by her management and lashes out in revenge. In “Live and Let Dive,” a group of friends is celebrating a 30th birthday by going skydiving. As they are having fun before the dive, a flying saucer appears in the sky next to their plane. Needless to say, their skydive did not happen the way they wanted. “Fur Babies” is probably the most disturbing of the segments. It is also the only one that doesn’t really fit the scifi/alien theme. A group of animal activists go to investigate a doggie daycare center. Little do they know that the owner of the center loves dogs much more than she likes humans. The last segment of Beyond is “Stowaway.” A woman is in the desert investigating possible alien encounters. She sees a light fall from the night sky, which leads her to an alien spaceship. Of course, she sneaks inside. Which is actually a terrible decision.

I know that I normally give you a much deeper description of each segment. However, of all of the movies in the V/H/S franchise that I have watched, Beyond is, by far, my favorite. I love the science fiction and alien themes that run through the segments. Thankfully, all of the V/H/S movies are standalone. You don’t need to have watched previous versions in order to understand newer releases. If you don’t watch any of the other movies in the series, you need to watch this one. You won’t regret it.

Rating: A+

In A Violent Nature (2024)

There were a few horror movies that popped up on streaming services in September that seemed interesting. In A Violent Nature was one of the movies Shudder produced this year. I wish that meant the movie was good…

A group of friends take a locket from the remains of a fire tower. Unfortunately, this was the only thing keeping the corpse of Johnny (Ry Barrett), a developmentally disabled man who died when he fell from the fire tower, in the ground. Johnny rises, stumbling through the forest in search of the locket. And he is willing to kill anyone who gets in his way.

In A Violent Nature is the most boring horror movie I have ever seen. The movie is based on the idea of “what if we followed Jason through the Friday the 13th franchise instead of following the victims? The answer is “please don’t do that. It’s stupid.” There are so many long, drawn-out shots with no soundtrack (beyond the natural sounds of the forest) of Johnny walking through the woods. And most of the time, we only see the back of him. There is one shot where we see his face and, to be honest, I wish we didn’t get that shot.

Most of the kills are also boring. The only interesting kill is the woman doing yoga on a mountain. Feel free to turn the movie off after that one. It doesn’t get any better. I have seen people say these are the best, most innovative kills they have ever seen. They are straight up lying.

Do not watch Violent Nature. As a matter of fact, let’s try to erase it from existence instead.

Rating: F

Destroy All Neighbors (2024)

My husband is a pretty big fan of horror movies. Personally, I prefer comedies. Horror-comedies like Destroy All Neighbors is a perfect middle point for both of us to watch and maybe enjoy.

William (Jonah Ray) has been struggling for the past three years to finish his prog rock album. Things keep getting in his way like his day job as an audio engineer or needing the right speakers or the neighbors making too much noise. When a new neighbor named Vlad (Alex Winter) moves in next door and starts making tons of noise, William is hesitant to confront him about it. Finally getting up the courage to ask Vlad to turn the volume down, William accidentally kills the man. And his prog rock idol. And another neighbor. But to William, they aren’t really dead. They are just another step on the road to prog rock godliness.

While Destroy All Neighbors isn’t as funny as Tucker & Dale vs Evil, it is a fun time. The comedy lies with the weird things Vlad says and the utter insanity of prog rock itself. Maybe not knowing if William was going insane or if the undead were actually real was supposed to be funny. But I don’t think there were any points where I actually laughed out loud, only chuckled a bit. Instead, the horror part takes a bigger foothold in the movie. There is quite a bit of blood and there is a sort of gory running joke.

Did I enjoy it? Yes. Would I watch it again? Probably not. I wish it had a little more comedy but that’s OK. I know not every horror comedy was meant for me.

Rating: C

It's A Wonderful Knife | 2023 Christmas Movies

We’re ending this year with a slasher film. It’s A Wonderful Knife on Shudder. Will I regret this?

One year after a masked slasher kills a bunch of people on Christmas Eve, Winnie Carruthers (Jane Widdop) wishes on the aurora borealis that she was never born. She is immediately transported to another dimension where she was, in fact, never born. In this dimension, Winnie did not kill the slasher so the slasher kept on murdering townspeople. Now it is up to Winnie to right these wrongs.

This was an interesting take on It’s A Wonderful Life. Pretty much everyone in Winnie’s life who survived the original “Angel Attacks” were awful people. The only exceptions were her aunt Gale (Katharine Isabelle), Gale’s girlfriend Karen (Cassandra Naud), and Winnie’s classmate Bernie (Jess McLeod) who everyone called “weirdo.” So it’s a little understandable why Winnie wouldn’t want to be around them any more. However, wishing that SHE didn’t exist was a little much and it seemed a little out of character for Winnie. If they had made her more despondent that she had killed someone, maybe it would make some sense. As it is, it sounded a little more “emo teen” than George Bailey.

There were some good points. Justin Long is good at playing a terrible person, even though his fake teeth were a little distracting. Widdop and McLeod did a decent job at bringing their characters to life. They did a lot of dumb things that teenagers would probably do in that situation. (Instead of other slasher movies where they act like teenagers would make all of the right moves to keep from getting murdered.) In the end, it wasn’t the best slasher movie but it was a pretty good Christmas slasher homage.

Rating: Stay for the end credit song. It’s a banger.

Christmas Bloody Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

It is time for another horror Christmas movie. This time it’s the slasher fest Christmas Bloody Christmas from Shudder.

A life-sized robotic Santa has been released to malls and toy stores this Christmas season. Unfortunately, it was based on a military robot and there is a malfunction that reverts the Santas back to their original programming. Tori (Riley Dandy), a record store owner, is spending Christmas Eve out on the town with her employee, Robbie (Sam Delich). Their first stop is to visit some friends who own the toy shop next door. Of course, they have one of the robotic Santas, which goes berserk. It follows Tori and Robbie around town, murdering everyone it sees along the way.

I’m not a huge fan of slasher films but I can appreciate that some people enjoy them. My husband is one of those people. Personally, I didn’t like Christmas Bloody Christmas that much. My first turn-off was the change to a first person point of view during Santa’s first two kills. It was very difficult to see what was going on as he was swinging his axe around. If they want me to know he killed someone, let me see the kill!

The next thing I didn’t like was the pacing. I believe the movie was supposed to be some sort of homage to Terminator , where it’s difficult to kill the robot. However, the beginning of the movie was very slow. There was a long section where nothing happened. We have the first two kills, which no one knows about and is never addressed, then the Santa has to take the long walk to Tori’s house for the next set of kills. When we finally get into the bulk of the kills, they all happen very quickly with little build-up. I may not know a lot about horror movies but I’m pretty sure there’s supposed to be some suspense to heighten our fear before the big event. That didn’t happen here.

Maybe if you are a fan of slasher movies, you might find some sort of enjoyment out of Christmas Bloody Christmas. Personally, I’d go watch Violent Night instead. It’s a much better movie.

Deadstream | Halloween 2022

Sadly, we are nearing the end of the Halloween season. There are only a few more movies to go before we reach the dreaded Christmas movie season. In the hopes of finding a really amazing Halloween movie this year, I turned on Deadstream, a Shudder original movie.

YouTuber Shawn Ruddy (Joseph Winter) has recently done a few things that caused him to get cancelled. After a six month hiatus, he is back with a livestream. He stream spending one night in a haunted house. When he accidentally releases vengeful spirit Mildred Pratt (Melanie Stone), the fight for his live becomes more than just an internet stunt.

There haven’t been a lot of good movies this season. Grimcutty and Sissy currently hold the top spots on my Top 5 list. However, Deadstream is fighting to get that top spot. If you have spent any time watching YouTubers, you will probably relate a lot to the audience watching Shawn’s livestream. We do see some comments from them occasionally and they are hysterical. From people not believing anything he’s doing to people making fun of him for being scared to people giving advice on what to do. The only thing the comment section is missing is the terrible racist/misogynistic/asshole people. Then again, Shawn is a young white guy. He probably wouldn’t get a ton of those comments anyway.

My favorite part of the movie, though, is how they add the comedy to the scary parts. Sometimes the ghosts will attach Shawn in a funny way, sometimes Shawn says something completely out of pocket, and sometimes it’s a combination of both. Every time I thought I was about to lose interest, there was something different to bring me back in. Deadstream isn’t like any other horror comedy movie I have watched. I might actually add this one to the annual list of movies to watch in my free time.

If you couldn’t guess by now, yes, I recommend watching this one. While I would classify any of the gory parts as “unrealistic gore,” there are some head explosions and whatnot. But they are all played for laughs, not for terror. I think Deadstream is pretty safe for any adult to watch. It’s probably not for the kids, though. Keep them away. Far away.

V/H/S/99 | Halloween 2022

Anthology series can be tricky. Sometimes you get a pile of really great stories, sometimes you get a pile of crap, and sometimes you get something in between. As a follow up to last year’s V/H/S/94, we are shot into 1999 with V/H/S/99. Where 94 was found footage, 99 is presented as a mixtape of sorts.

The first story we see is “R.A.C.K.,” which is an acronym for the lead characters - Rachel (Jesse LaTourette), Ankur (Keanush Tafreshi), Chris (Dashiell Derrickson), and Kaleb (Jackson Kelly) - as well as the name of their band. One night, the decide to break into a music venue that burned down during a show three years ago. The band that was playing, Bitch Cat, were trampled to death as the audience fled the fire. As R.A.C.K. was messing around, they get attacked by the zombie members of Bitch Cat. Things don’t end well for the pranksters.

“Suicide Bid” is the story of college freshman, Lily (Ally Ioannides), as she pledges the Beta Sigma Eta sorority. Four of the sorority sisters invite Lily out to a graveyard, where they dare her to spend the night buried in a coffin. Lily agrees and somehow puts up with the torture pranks the sisters pull on her. However, when a security guard comes to investigate what is going on, the girls leave Lily in the coffin in the pouring rain. As Lily’s coffin fills with mud and rain, she is…saved by a previous hazed student, Giltine (Chris Page), who died during the same prank. The sorority girls return the next morning to find the grave filled with water and Lily missing. Now it’s Lily’s turn to haze them.

Forcing us to remember old children’s adventure game shows like Legends of the Hidden Temple or Double Dare, “Ozzy’s Dungeon” shows us what can happen when those games go wrong. Donna (Amelia Ann) is competing to win a wish from Ozzy (Amelia Ann). Unfortunately, Donna suffers a major leg injury on the final obstacle, meaning she didn’t win the wish. Years later, the host (Steven Ogg) of the show is kidnapped by Donna’s mother, Debra (Sonya Eddy). Debra tortures the host until he takes the family to get their wish from Ozzy. Only Donna didn’t wish for things Debra wanted her to.

In between all of the episodes of V/H/S/99, we see stop motion movies with plastic army men. In “The Gawkers,” we find out that these little movies are being made by Brady (Ethan Pogue) with a camera owned by his brother, Dylan (Luke Mullen). Dylan and his friends take the camera back from Brady in order to record their hot neighbor, Sandra (Emily Sweet). The boys see Sandra getting a new computer delivered to her house. She has asked Brady to help her set up the webcam. Of course, the boys coerce Brady into setting it up so they can watch her from Dylan’s computer in the hopes of seeing her naked. But when Sandra starts to undress, the boys find out that she’s not the human they thought she was.

Finally, my favorite episode, “To Hell And Back.” Nate (Archelaus Crisanto) and Troy (Joseph Winter) are filming a ritual where a woman (Tori Pence) is offered as a sacrifice to the demon Ukoban (Dustin Watts). She will be the vessel he uses when he rises from hell. When the ritual begins, Nate and Troy see an uninvited demon, Furcas (James C. Morris), in the room. The witches cast him out but he takes Nate and Troy with him. As they try to escape, the men get help from Mabel (Melanie Stone), a tortured soul, with the promise they they would write Mabel’s name in witches’ book when they get back. Nate and Troy manage to hitchhike with Ukoban back Earth, where the witches kill them for ruining the ritual. Dying, Troy scribbles Mabel’s name in the book with his blood.

Unlike V/H/S/94, I thought these stories worked well. Each of them were a complete story with an actual ending and the camera wasn’t swinging all over the place (most of the time) so you could actually see what is going on. A lot of these stories are filmed with a handheld camera, meaning there is a bit of jerkiness to the visuals but it’s not nearly as bad as last year. There were some fun ideas in there. I would have liked to have seen “The Gawkers” tell a little more of Sandra’s background or “Ozzy’s Dungeon” flesh out Donna’s character a little more. Otherwise, “Suicide Bid” and “To Hell And Back” are the strongest stories of the bunch. I don’t know if we’ll get another V/H/S release next year but I hope that it continues to improve the stories it tells.

Raven's Hollow | Halloween 2022

Raven’s Hollow is the horror movie for all of the Edgar Allan Poe fans out there. The movie mostly revolves around Poe’s famous poem, The Raven, but there are some references to his other works.

In the autumn of 1930, West Point military cadet Edgar Allan Poe (William Moseley) is on a training exercise with four other cadets. The group finds an eviscerated man on a rack in the middle of nowhere. Before he dies, the man whispers one word to Poe, “raven.” Poe assumes this is a reference to the nearby village Raven’s Hollow so the men travel there to find the murderer. Unfortunately, the military cadets are not ready for the secrets hidden in the Hollow.

Last year, Shudder gave us some of my favorite movies of the season. Horror Noire, The Medium, V/H/S/94. This year, the movies have seemed very lackluster. With the exclusion of Sissy, I haven’t liked anything from Shudder. While Raven’s Hollow isn’t terrible or confusing, it isn’t great either. It felt like the entire point of the movie was to try to shove as many Poe references in as possible. The movie would have been much better if they had just pulled the key elements from The Raven poem and twisted them to fit into the horror story they were building. It would have been easy to take West Point cadet Poe and have him experience elements from the poem without having to include many of the other characters.

I believe most people will pick Hollow apart for its…not great acting. Maybe I have seen too many terrible films but I didn’t think the acting was quite that bad. Instead, I kept getting distracted by the references to Poe’s other works. It made me second guess my knowledge of The Raven. Then again, if you aren’t particularly familiar with Poe’s works outside of The Raven, this probably wouldn’t be an issue for you.

Should you watch it? It is probably worth a go. There are some very good scenes that I wish were fleshed out a little bit more but are still quite beautiful as they currently are. Don’t go in expecting too much, though. We’re looking at like a 5 out of 10 movie here. There are definite places for improvement but it’s not a complete waste of time either.

Dark Glasses | Halloween 2022

Italian horror movies are supposed to be some of the best. Of course, that usually goes along with being the goriest but I was willing to take that chance with Dark Glasses. Especially since this is from the “Master of Horror,” Dario Argento, who hasn’t released a film since 2012. This movie definitely has some big shoes to fill.

Sex workers in Rome are being murdered. Diana (Ilenia Pastorelli), who works as an escort, is attacked one night after work. A white van runs into the back of her car, pushing it into an intersection. Her car flips over another car, resulting in a brain hemorrhage that leaves her blind. Unfortunately, only a young child named Chin (Xinyu Zhang) survives from the other car. Despite her new disability, the killer will do what it takes to finally kill Diana.

I tried to go into Dark Glasses without any expectations. I knew the hype around Italian horror movies and this director in particular so I had high hopes. Sadly, I was let down. Instead of giving us a reason for the serial killer murdering all of these sex workers, the movie spends most of its time focusing on Diana’s blindness. The murder scenes aren’t even all that good. Most of them look extremely fake and we don’t get to spend enough time with the characters to care that they are dying. To be honest, Glasses feels like the first draft of a film student’s first production. Definitely not what I expected from Argento.

Yeah, you should go ahead and skip this one. It is both way too long and way too short. There is a good story hidden underneath the slow plot. Perhaps someone will remake the movie and do a better job. That would be cool.

Sissy | Halloween 2022

An influencer, a childhood friend, and a childhood bully. The perfect combination for a night of…well, murder. It’s spooky season. We knew this was going to end in murder.

Cecilia (Aisha Dee) is a mental health influencer. While out shopping, she runs into her best friend from childhood, Emma (Hannah Barlow). Emma invites Cecilia, formerly known as Sissy, to join her new friends at a bachelorette weekend in the country. Unbeknownst to Cecilia, Emma is still friends with Alex (Emily De Margheriti), Cecilia’s childhood bully. The weekend takes a dark turn when Alex continues to bully Cecilia and no one steps in to stop her.

Both my husband and I thoroughly enjoyed Sissy. The way that we got to see all of the ways that Emma bullied Cecilia, both in childhood and as an adult, was brilliant. It also highlighted poor Cecilia’s descent into madness. She wasn’t a psychopath, she wasn’t out for revenge, she just wanted the bullying to stop. Alex even got Emma’s new friends, Jamie (Daniel Monks) and Tracey (Yerin Ha), to participate in the bullying, even though they thought Cecilia couldn’t hear them. After all of this torment and trauma, Cecilia’s actions were not surprising. As a matter of fact, my husband and I agreed that there was only one person that didn’t deserve their bloody fate. No, I’m not going to spoil which one it was. I’ll let you watch the movie and guess yourself.

And, yes, I think you should watch Sissy. It does get bloody and a bit gory but it’s not prolonged gore. You can avert your eyes for a few seconds and still not miss any of the story. I’m not sure that the writers intended this to be an anti-bullying story. I think we’re supposed to feel bad for the victims. But I think this is a wonderful way to show people that they shouldn’t bully other people. You never know if the bullied person is going to finally go on the attack.