2020s horror movies – Horror Ghouls

Cuckoo (2024)

Posted on February 7, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Gretchen and her father Luis, Stepmother Beth, and the mute half-sister Alma moves to a resort town in the Bavarian Alps. Gretchen doesn’t really want to, but she can’t live with her mother anymore and needs to come with them. Yay. Her family are going to help building a new hotel there, and upon arriving the buoyant Herr König offers Gretchen a job at the front desk where she even manages to meet a love interest. So…maybe things won’t be so bad after all? Then, strange and bad shit starts happening of course. Several women are entering the reception desk while vomiting, and she also has an encounter with a terrifying hooded woman. Things start getting even more serious when Gretchen meets a detective named Henry, who is investigating a murder that happened on the premises. On top of it all, Alma starts having seizures. Gretchen feels compelled to both get the fuck away from there and also to find out what’s up with this resort, which soon proves to put both herself and her entire family in danger.

Cuckoo is a horror film from 2024, written and directed by Tilman Singer. It premiered at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival on February 16, 2024, and was then released theatrically in the US on August 9, and later in Germany on August 29.

This is one of those movies where you (unless you’ve gone and gotten the entire plot spoiler from somewhere beforehand) have no idea what it will be going for. All you know is that it’s going to be one of those unraveling mystery packages where you’ll be sitting like a bit of a question mark for some time during the viewing. And indeed, already from the start you are immediately teased with several little nuggets about the protagonist and her struggles, not knowing much more than that she misses her mother and keeps calling her. Her relationship to her stepmother and half-sister are barely existent, and her relationship to her father is strained and filled with underlying hurt. Atmosphere-wise, the Bavarian Alps and the beautiful landscape fits rather well to give off an isolated feeling, which ironically couldn’t make too much of a difference to Gretchen as she’s already alone and isolated with her own struggles. Everything Gretchen experiences almost feels like the result of a shroom-induced fever dream, where everything is just…well…off. Everything just feels weird, odd, and totally cuckoo, and this surreal vibe throughout is not even the movie’s raison d’etre. Let’s just say that the movie’s title is actually more literal than you’d imagine.

We do get a fair amount of time with Gretchen wandering around, taking her bicycle out for some exploring, finding out one piece of the mystery puzzle after the other until things start falling into place. Eventually, once the mysteries are revealed, we do venture into a total sci-fi-fiddle-faddle territory where it doesn’t really…make too much sense, I guess? It’s very much making up its own logic, and in some ways this makes for an even more surreal and trippy experience where nothing seems to be grounded in reality. Like one of those dreams you have that starts off with a certain familiarity to real life, and then everything ventures into total cuckoo-land where you later realize that dreaming is often like being temporarily mentally insane. I personally think the odd and surreal choices for the story in Cuckoo works pretty well, but I can see how some people might be put off by it.

Overall, Cuckoo is a weird film with a slightly dreamlike vibe to it, focusing a lot on a surreal mood and atmosphere and ends up going places you probably didn’t expect beforehand.

Writer and director: Tilman Singer
Country & year: Germany/USA, 2024
Actors: Hunter Schafer, Jan Bluthardt, Marton Csokas, Jessica Henwick, Dan Stevens, Mila Lieu, Greta Fernández, Proschat Madani, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Konrad Singer, Kalin Morrow
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12349832/

The Cursed (2021)

Posted on February 4, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

It’s 1916, during the Battle of the Somme. A French captain has been wounded, and brought to the medical tent. He’s got hit by three bullets, but when the army surgeon removes them he discovers an additional fourth bullet which is made of silver. How did that get there? Well, obviously the captain knows as he smiles and says “eight for silver“. Then we need to head back 35 years before the battle, to 1881 in rural France, in order to find out the origins of that silver bullet. The brutish land baron Seamus slaughters a Romani clan who have settled upon “his“ land, except it’s not really his, they have a claim to it. Seamus won’t have any of that, of course, and he gathers a bunch of men to have them brutally killed and one of them is even dismembered and put on a stake as a horrifying scarecrow. Yikes! But, as everyone should know, you do not wrong anyone from a Romani clan without suffering the consequences. The elderly woman of the clan is buried holding a set of silver dentures, which will now serve as a means for their revenge. Soon, the townspeople and Seamus’ children are having terrifying nightmares of the dismembered scarecrow and the silver fangs. One day, the children go to the place where the scarecrow is located and the silver fangs were buried, and a farm boy named Timmy digs it up in what appears to be a trance-like urge. He then puts them inside his mouth, and bites one of the other children’s throat. This is the start of a nightmare for the townspeople and Seamus and his family most of all.

The Cursed (aka Eight for Silver) is a gothic horror werewolf film from 2021, directed by Sean Ellis. It was shot in the Charente region of western France, filmed on 35mm with anamorphic lenses. The movie serves as a gothic spin on the werewolf mythos, of which there have been numerous interpretations over the years. All from the classical old-fashioned werewolf movies to coming-of-age movies like Ginger Snaps, or movies set in a more modern setting like Wer. This one belongs in the old-fashioned category but with twists and turns of its own. The director said he was inspired by the story of the Beast of Gévaudan from the 1700s, where a man-eating beast was terrorizing the people of the former province of Gévaudan in the Margeride Mountains of south-central France, where there had been 210 attacks and 113 deaths between 1763 and 1767. Historians are still unsure what kind of animal the “beast“ was, but most likely an unusually large wolf, perhaps the last of the extinct species the dire wolf. Needless to say, stories like this are the perfect fuel for myths and legends, and it’s easy to see how it could inspire one to make a werewolf story.

Visually, the movie is very good with some decent set-pieces. The misty landscape during the bleakest autumn is a perfect setup for a movie like this. I also like how the early scene with the slaughtered Romani people sets a certain presumption of what to come, this scene was more brutal than anticipated. And indeed, there are some gory and bloody scenes here, and the effects are overall pretty fine, especially the practical ones. There’s a perceptible feeling of dread from the very start, aided with the fear and anticipation amongst the characters. When the first victim turns into a werewolf and the killing starts, the movie still manages to hold on to the feeling of mystery and trepidation. The only downside is that the movie outstays its welcome a little bit too much, where the final parts of the movie feels much longer than they should have. The pacing was overall pretty good throughout most of the movie, but it could have fared much better if the runtime was cut a little shorter.

Overall, The Cursed (or Eight for Silver, which I personally think is a better and less generic title) is a pretty good werewolf movie with a gothic flair.

Writer and director: Sean Ellis
Country & year: UK/France/USA, 2021
Also known as: Eight for Silver
Actors: Boyd Holbrook, Kelly Reilly, Alistair Petrie, Roxane Duran, Nigel Betts, Stuart Bowman, Simon Kunz, Amelia Crouch, Max Mackintosh, Tommy Rodger, Áine Rose Daly, Millie Kiss, Tom Sweet
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9907782/

The Coffee Table (2022)

Posted on January 24, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Jesús Casas and Maria are a couple with a newborn son, Cayetano. They’re visiting a furniture store in order to buy a coffee table, where the salesman is offering them an expensive but high quality table which Jesús falls for immediately. Maria hates it on sight, though…and despite the salesman claiming that the glass is unbreakable and really tries his best to sell them the table, Maria still isn’t convinced. Jesús, however, really, really wants this table. He complains to Maria that she has not allowed him to choose anything for their home, so why not let him at least choose this coffee table? Well, he ends up purchasing it. In their apartment, which he inherited from his grandmother, he starts putting the table together. Upon doing so, he notices that a screw is missing, and he asks the salesman for another one. In the meantime, Maria leaves to buy some groceries in preparation for the visit of Jesús’s brother Carlos and his new, very young partner Cristina. And from then on…all hell breaks lose.

The Coffee Table (La mesita del comedor) is a Spanish black comedy horror movie from 2022, directed by Caye Casas and written by Casas and Cristina Borobia.

This movie is a perfect example of getting the best experience if going in totally blind, which was what we did. And oh boy, was it an intense ride! From the very get-go of the movie, you notice how the couple are having so many unresolved issues which cannot be fixed by simply buying a table. Maria is super-annoying and bitchy most of the time, while Jesús seems to have lost his spine a long time ago (and I would’ve said balls as well, but they just got a kid). You know it’s going to build up to something just based on the tension between the characters alone, but if you haven’t read any descriptions or a synopsis of the movie the experience will definitely be slapping you a lot more.

So…yeah. That’s pretty much how far I’m willing to go because I really don’t want to spoil anything. The Coffee Table is a pitch-black dark comedy horror movie which is best viewed when going in blind. If you want something dark and bleak which manages to be uncomfortably funny at times, go watch it and have a fun (or not so fun) time!

Directors: Caye Casas
Writers: Cristina Borobia, Caye Casas
Country & year: Spain, 2022
Original title: La mesita del comedor
Actors: David Pareja, Estefanía de los Santos, Josep Maria Riera, Claudia Riera, Eduardo Antuña, Gala Flores, Cristina Dilla, Itziar Castro, Damià Fustagueras Petit
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21874760/

The Soul Eater (2024)

Posted on January 21, 2025January 21, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

In a remote little French town located somewhere in the mountains, there have been a series of children’s disappearance cases. An old legend from the area, about a malevolent creature referred to as the “Soul Eater“, is resurfacing when the town also gets plagued by several violent and gruesome deaths which apparently defy explanation. Franck de Roland, captain in the national gendarmerie, comes to investigate the missing children’s cases, and ends up together with police superior Elizabeth Guardiano who is investigation some of the recent murders. They do not get together all that well at first, but once it becomes obvious that both the murders and the missing children cases are in some way linked together, they need to cooperate.

The Soul Eater (Le Mangeur d’Âmes) is a French horror thriller from 2024, directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, known for their impressive debut Inside (2007) and other movies like Livide (2011) and The Deep House (2021). The movie is based on a novel from 2021, called “Le Mangeur d’âmes“ by Alexis Laipsker. The French duo have undoubtedly made a mixed bag of entries in the horror genre, where they started off with a solid debut but have also had some releases which didn’t hold up as strongly (like the Leatherface movie from 2017). This movie is a bit different from any of their previous entries as it’s more a standard thriller than a horror movie, despite the trailer more or less leading you on to suspect some kind of supernatural flick.

On surface level The Soul Eater doesn’t offer something especially unique or truly unsettling, but the setup is quite good and the sleepy little mountain town works well for establishing the right tone. It’s a place where you can easily imagine the people creating their own folklore and myths, surrounded by mountains and endless forests. The isolated location makes for some decent scenery as well, and you get a believable feeling of how this town has kept to themselves without much intervention from outsiders. And it’s in places like those that all kinds of bad shit can start to happen, of course. Like any decent mystery thriller, the secrets are unfolding gradually, and while it did have a few pacing issues towards the latter part, I never found myself bored.

Some may have hoped that Bustillo and Maury would get back into their old tracks with this new release, and thus it may come as a bit of a letdown that this is more a crime thriller than outright horror. It’s pretty fine for what it is, though, and it does have a creepy build-up regarding the mystery and a nice setting. Overall The Soul Eater is a pretty good murder mystery thriller, and while it’s not having very strong horror elements it stands as a decent release from the French duo. It still seems like we’re a long way from expecting another move in the same vein as Inside from them, though…

Directors: Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury
Writers: Annelyse Batrel, Ludovic Lefebvre
Country & year: France/Belgium, 2024
Original title: Le mangeur d’âmes
Actors: Virginie Ledoyen, Paul Hamy, Sandrine Bonnaire, Francis Renaud, Malik Zidi, Cameron Bain, Lya Oussadit-Lessert, Chloé Coulloud
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28821588/

Renfield (2023)

Posted on January 10, 2025January 11, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Who’d think that Dracula was actually a full-blown narcissist? Wuut? Mr. Renfield, Dracula’s primary source of supply, which also includes being a scapegoat, slave, bitch, punching bag etc., can tell some stories. We’re in present day where Dracula (Nicolas Cage) has moved to a condemned hospital in New Orleans where he plans to turn the whole humanity into his slaves. USA is the big, great land of opportunity where dreams come true, after all (s a r c a s m).

Renfield (Nicolas Hoult, who also plays the Jonathan Harker version in the recent Nosferatu) is still his servant who’s been cursed with immortality, so Dracula can use him as long as needed. His self-esteem is down the toilet and his guilt for bringing his boss victims to satisfy his constant need for human blood, is eating him alive. So what he does next is to attend a therapy group for Co-Dependency / toxic relationships to hunt down the victims’ abusers to then hand them over to Dracula. What a wholesome idea. I guess he just watched Dexter.

The more he attends the group session, the more he realizes that something has to change, and Dracula (or just let’s call him Narcula) is not good for his mental health. No, you don’t fucking say. He starts reading self-help books like “How to Defend Yourself Against a Narcissist“, while I bet he’s already deep in the YouTube-rabbit hole of the subject. Narcula won’t have any of this, of course, and does all the familiar mindfuck games to distract him, such as the classic phrases like: I am the REAL victim here, YOU are the monster, and my dog stepped on a BEE..! Anyway … Plot thickens when Narcula joins forces with mafia queen Bellafrancesca Lobo (Shohreh Aghdashloo) while Renfield only has the frustrated police officer Rebecca (Awkwafina) by his side and gets the ability of super powers when chewing on bugs.

It’s a big understatement to say that Nic Cage has a fun time here, as he’d dreamed about playing Dracula on the silver screen since he was a kid. Rumors also say that he at some point visited Dracula’s ruins in Romania and spent a night there to get a sense of the atmosphere and its surroundings. All that being said, I must admit that I didn’t see much of The Prince of Darkness here, but rather the opposite of Dracula playing Nic Cage, something that only Cageula could get away with. A lot of fun regardless, as Cage is a top-shelf showman who’s always putting out a unique performance with high, manic energy. And with the make-up and the sharp razor teeth, I also kept wondering when he’s finally going to play Marilyn Manson in an X-rated biopic.

Renfield is co-written by The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, which also explains the gore, which goes from solid old school to pure, mushy CGI slop. Most of the latter, unfortunately. I’ve seen way worse, as said in the trailer. A subtle hint that the film is fully aware of what it is and goes full in on the silliness and wild over-the-top action scenes that made me think of some of the manga-splatter films from Japan.

Renfield is far more a parody of the Universal Dracula films than a respectful sequel. And parodies are very hit’n miss, comedies in general for that matter, especially in these days when modern, mainstream humor is nothing but a cringe and painful endurance test to sit through, even in a small trailer. Yes, I’m pointing at you, Marvel. Renfield has the right balance, which the amputated runtime of 90 minutes is maybe to thank for, as there’s more action and pacing than pause segments with insufferable jokes. More of this, please!

But what makes the film stand out and not just being a silly, lowbrow splatter cartoon show, is the metaphors of the non-stop widespread epidemic that is pathological narcissism. We’ve seen a more grounded take on the subject in films like Sleep Tight (2011), Gone Girl (2014) and The Invisible Man (2020), although I think it overall nailed it in a fun and morbid, colorful fashion between the Dark Overlord Narcula and the super empath Renfield. I have myself been there, and as painful as it is, the time will eventually come when you can lean back, enjoy a megapint and just laugh at these miserable clowns as a reminder that you’re not doing so badly in life.

Director: Chris McKay
Writers: Ryan Ridley, Robert Kirkman, Ava Tramer
Country & year: USA/UK/Canada, 2023
Actors: Nicholas Hoult, Nicolas Cage, Awkwafina, Ben Schwartz, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Brandon Scott Jones, Adrian Martinez, Camille Chen, Bess Rous, Jenna Kanell, Danya LaBelle, Rhonda Johnson Dents
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11358390/

Nosferatu (2024)

Posted on January 7, 2025January 7, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

A young girl named Ellen is filled with a soul-crushing loneliness, causing her to pray in despair and desperately seeking comfort from anyone…or anything. Unfortunately for her, her prayers are answered. Then, some years later in 1838, she’s happily married to a man named Thomas Hutter, and they live in the town of Wisborg, Germany. Her husband works as a solicitor and estate agent, but he’s struggling a bit financially and hopes to achieve some financial security for them both. His employer, Herr Knock, tells Hutter that there is a reclusive and eccentric count in Transylvania, Count Orlok, who wants to buy Schloss Grünewald, and asks Hutter to travel to the count’s place and seal the deal. Upon hearing this, Ellen is terrified and begs him to stay, but he dismisses her and heads off to the Carpathian Mountains while his wife stays with his wealthy friend, Friedrich Harding and his wife Anna. When he arrives in Transylvania, the locals try to warn him off, but of course he doesn’t pay heed to their superstitions. The evening he arrives at the castle, he meets the intimidating Orlok, dines with him and pretty much wants to finalize the purchase of Schloss Grünewald as soon as possible and get out of there. Instead, Hutter finds himself a victim to Orlok’s bloodlust. Finally managing his escape by falling out of a window and into the river below, he is later found by a nun who brings him to a nearby church where they start nursing him back to health. Meanwhile, Orlok’s coffin is on board a ship sailing towards Wisborg (and Ellen) bringing with him plague-infested rats and death.

Nosferatu is another remake/reimagined version of the 1922 silent movie by F. W. Murnau, a film that was a little too closely inspired by Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel from 1897 and almost ended up as lost media when Stoker’s widow took legal action and a judge ordered all copies to be destroyed. Thankfully, some survived, and there has since been several remakes and spinoffs made: Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) by Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski as Nosferatu, Nosferatu in Venice (1988) also starring Klaus Kinski as Nosferatu and originally intended to be a sequel to Herzog’s 1979 film and co-directed by Kinski together with Augusto Caminito, Shadow of the Vampire (2000) which is a movie based on the making of the 1922 film where Willem Dafoe plays Nosferatu/Max Schreck, and a 2023 crowd-funded remake with Doug Jones as Nosferatu. Not to mention all references in other media, even including Spongebob.

Robert Eggers had his directorial debut with The Witch (2015), and have since continued to impress with his blend of horror, mythology and folklore, which can also be seen in The Lighthouse (2019). A reimagining of Nosferatu done by this guy sounds like every folklore-horror lover’s dream. And while honoring the source material, he also adds his own flavour to it of course.

The development for Eggers version began in 2015, where he was very much thinking of it as a passion project. Many actors have been cast and re-cast since then, where Skarsgård was originally cast as Thomas Hutter, but then re-cast as Count Orlok (quite the change). To prepare for his role, he lost a significant amount of weight and worked with Icelandic opera singer Ásgerður Júníusdóttir so he could lower his vocal range. The prosthetic makeup took up to six hours a day to apply, and needless to say…he’s completely unrecognizable in this film. While you could clearly see some of his traits beneath his Pennywise makeup in IT (2017), he’s totally unrecognizable here. No wonder he considered his Orlok-transformation experience as “conjuring pure evil“. His looks as Orlok was also kept a secret prior to the film’s release, making a lot of people wonder what the result would be. And while some people found his moustache off-putting for some reason (sure, his looks differ a lot from the goblin/rat-like Orlok from the original) it’s easy to see what Eggers went for here, making him look more like an actual ancient Romanian count. Eggers have deliberately gone back to several of the actual folklore aspects regarding vampires and vampirism, where they were quite literally walking undead corpses.

The filming took place primarily in Prague at Barrandov Studios, and they were also shooting on location at the 14th-century Rožmitál pod Třemšínem Castle in Rožmitál pod Třemšínem, and Pernštejn Castle (also used as the location for Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre), Prague’s Invalidovna complex, and some exterior shots were captured in Corvin Castle in Romania, which is actually the castle where Vlad Dracula was briefly imprisoned. Great use of locations, without a doubt. The film was also shot on 35mm in color by cinematographer Jarin Blaschke,using special filters to adapt the desaturated look reminiscent of 19th century Romanticism. Another fun tidbit is that 5000 live rats were used in this film, and none of them were harmed or lost. There’s one scene featuring Willem Dafoe where he had to work with 2000 rats around him, which he didn’t mind as he’s an animal lover but admitted they could be a little unpredictable but were “great acting partners“. No musophobia to be spotted here, at least!

There’s certainly been put great attention to details in Nosferatu, with costumes, locations, sets and cinematography. Despite the film being dark and moody, it’s also manifestly gorgeous where it’s gracefully blending its grotesqueries with beauty. Regarding performances, I have to give praise to Lily-Rose Depp in her role as Ellen, she does a formidable job with her role as the haunted and possessed woman. Willem Dafoe is fun to watch as the Van Helsing-esque occult expert, and it’s especially fun to see him in this movie since he played Max Schreck/Count Orlok in the 2000 movie Shadow of the Vampire. The actors are all doing great, but there’s no doubt that the most impressive performance comes from Skarsgård himself where the transformation is utterly radical and he really does go all in. I have to admit, though, that I gave some involuntary chuckles when he first started speaking with the deep, slow, raspy voice where he sounds like he’s in desperate need of an inhaler. It took some getting used to, but once I did, I thought it suited the character pretty well, especially with how he otherwise looks like a literal decaying corpse. I also couldn’t really shake it from my mind how my brother, upon seeing a picture reveal of Skarsgård’s Orlok version, said he looked like “a grotesque Dr. Eggman“. Yeah…couldn’t really unsee it afterwards…thanks, bro.

There’s no doubt that the Eggers version of Nosferatu is a visual, stylish experience layered with ominous atmosphere and overt sexual undertones. It many ways it differs from both the original and its other remakes, with elements that will be enjoyable for some and off-putting for others, but we loved it through and through!

Writer and director: Robert Eggers
Country & year: USA/UK/Hungary, 2024
Actors: Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Bill Skarsgård, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Willem Dafoe, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, Adéla Hesová, Milena Konstantinova, Stacy Thunes
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5040012/

The Call (2020)

Posted on December 27, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Chris is the new kid in town, and has started hanging out with a group of other teens: Zack, Brett and Tonya. Story goes, that Tonya’s little sister disappeared several years ago after attending a now closed day-care center. The owner, an elderly woman named Edith Cranston, is put to blame by the teenagers and they have made it a tradition to torment and vandalize her property. Chris joins them for another such evening of vandalism, and while he does not take any part in it, he’s still getting a piece of Edith’s mind when she comes out, furious (and rightly so) and telling them all off. The teens, of course, don’t give a shit as they’ve already villainized the old woman and fails to see how the acts they’re committing could end up with dire conseqences. And of course, it does…Edith commits suicide, which causes her husband to contact the teens. The reason he contacts them is because Edith did something very strange prior to killing herself: she included them in her will. They will all inherit a lot of money, and all they need to do in order to get it, is making a call to a phone that has been installed in her casket…

The Call is a horror film from 2020, directed by Timothy Woodward Jr. and written by Patrick Stibbs. It’s starring Lin Shaye (known for her role in the Insidious franchise) and Tobin Bell (known as Jigsaw in the Saw franchise). It received generally negative reception upon its release, and while the movie is not exactly a masterpiece, it’s really not that bad. Sure, some of the experience might be a bit heightened due to the performances by some well-known horror actors, but the story is also fairly okay and the cinematography is quite decent, where some of the scenes have a colorful and vibrant halloween-vibe to them.

The story offers some twists and turns, and sure.. some of them can be seen from a mile away. It’s not exactly a spoiler to reveal that Edith’s suicide was all part of an elaborate act of revenge, and neither is it really much of a spoiler to reveal that the disappearance of Tonya’s little sister offers a bit of a twist reveal. The characters are unfortunately very bland, which is more common than not in many horror movies featuring a cast of teens (or “teens“, especially in older movies). It works for a storyline like this, though: an easy-going and slightly cheesy flick.

The Call isn’t very original, but makes for an entertaining enough halloween-ish movie with some fun appearances from horror icons Lin Shaye and Tobin Bell.

Director: Timothy Woodward Jr.
Writer: Patrick Stibbs
Country & year: USA, Canada, 2010
Actors: Lin Shaye, Tobin Bell, Chester Rushing, Erin Sanders, Mike Manning, Sloane Morgan Siegel, Judd Lormand, Randy J. Goodwin, Brooklyn Anne Miller, Leah Contreras, Toby Leeder, Aidan Bertola
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12971924/

I Saw the TV Glow (2024)

Posted on December 20, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

The year is 1996, and the teenagers Owen and Maddy start bonding over a TV show called The Pink Opaque. The show is about two teenage girls, Isabel and Tara, who use their psychic powers to fight the supervillain Mr. Melancholy. Owen, who isn’t allowed to stay up late enough to watch the show, sneaks over to Maddy’s house so they can watch it together. Both of them live rather isolated lives, but Maddy ends up wanting to run away in order to escape her abusive stepfather. She wants Owen to join her, but he finds himself not being able to go through with it. So, Maddy ends up missing, and at the same time, The Pink Opaque is cancelled…

I Saw the TV Glow is a supernatural horror drama film, written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun. The series in the film, The Pink Opaque, was inspired by 90’s TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997), Are You Afraid of the Dark? (1990) and The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994).

If you’re familiar with A24’s repertoire, you know that they often release some really artsy movies (like Beau is Afraid). This one belongs to this category, as another unconventional arthouse film which is naturally divisive. They are also often filled with loads of metaphors and allegories, surrealism and awkwardness. I Saw the TV Glow looks, on the surface, to be some kind of 90s nostalgia throwback film, but it’s also layered as a much more complex coming-of-age movie. The director started writing the script three months after having begun hormone replacement therapy, and while wanting to make the movie about the transitioning of coming out, the director made the choice of leaving this more ambiguous. This makes the movie work as an allegory for a lot more, and portrays a lot of themes and situations many of us can recognize.

Now, I was born in the 80’s. This means I was a teenager during the 90s, and watched several of the typical 90’s TV shows, remembering some of them fondly. And there is a scene, where Owen in his older days decides to re-watch some episodes of The Pink Opaque, only to see that they’re not quite the way he remembered them. I think many of us can very much relate to how certain things are so layered with the rose-colored glow of nostalgia that we remember them so differently…not because they were different, of course, but because we were different. How the sort of magic that exists in your youth cannot be replicated in adult life, no matter how hard you try…and how you must simply come to terms with that, and find a new magic in your life and fill it with new interests and new things to do. Some people are not so lucky, though. In I Saw the TV Glow, Owen and Maddy become so consumed by the TV show The Pink Opaque because they use it as a coping mechanism.

I Saw the TV Glow is an arthouse movie that’s mostly an allegory for finding your identity. More surreal drama than horror, and definitely not everyone’s cup of Mad Hatter’s tea, but if you’ve lived for some time on this arduous earth, you’re most likely going to resonate with at least some of the themes it represents.

Writer and director: Jane Schoenbrun
Country & year: USA, UK, 2024
Actors: Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Ian Foreman, Helena Howard, Lindsey Jordan, Danielle Deadwyler, Fred Durst, Conner O’Malley, Emma Portner, Madaline Riley
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15574270/

Sleep (2023)

Posted on December 13, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

A newlywed couple, Hyeon-soo and Soo-jin, are as happy as they can be together with their adorable little fluffy dog. That is, until one night Hyeon-soo starts sleepwalking, and acts in ways that are totally unlike him. It all keeps escalating, to the point where Soo-jin fears that he will harm either himself or her. Soon, they also have a baby on the way…how can they make sure that his sleepwalking stops being a threat? And is it all really just a simple case of sleepwalking?

Sleep is a South Korean horror thriller from 2023, written by Jason Yu in his feature debut and stars Jung Yu-Mi and Lee Sun-kyun. This is one of the final films that Lee Sun-kyun starred in, as he died the same year after an incident of drug use allegations, charged on suspicion of using cannabis and psychoactive drugs. He tested negative, which probably should have been the end of that if it wasn’t for South Korea’s high moral expectations of public figures, and a very strong social disapproval of drug use. On December 27th, 2023, he was found dead inside his car with a charcoal briquette in the passenger seat, which is commonly used in suicide via carbon monoxide poisoning in South Korea. So this gives the movie an even darker sentiment than from the subject matter alone…

Now, Sleep has a premise that may sound a bit simple, but the film manages to deliver an overall suspenseful story. You keep wondering if the husband’s sleep disorder harbors something darker and more dangerous, and as the movie progresses you’re not really sure what to expect. There are some incidents which proves that Hyeon-soo’s sleepwalking incidents are far more than a mere nuisance, where no one is safe. The husband is a loving and good-hearted person while awake, but once he sleeps, there’s no way to predict what he can do. At first, the couple tries everything…making him go to bed in a sleeping bag in the hopes of him not being able to get up and start his sleepwalking shenanigans, an attempt that proves to be completely futile. Soo-jin is at her wit’s end, and place a bell at the bedroom door so she will wake up when he leaves the room. And soon, the sleepwalking becomes a danger to everyone. In some ways, I think Hyeon-soo’s sleepwalking and the fears and danger Soo-jin is placed in because of it, can be a bit of an allegory to living with someone who’s a substance abuser or someone having a mental illness that changes their personality and behaviour drastically. Soo-jin never knows how dangerous things might become when her husband falls asleep, and lives in constant fear of what could happen. Her own sleep is totally disrupted since she can never relax, being watchful every night of what her husband might be able to do once he’s in the sleepwalking state. The tension is very palpable due to the strong performances, and you feel sorry for them both.

Sleepwalking is not a theme that’s got a lot of horror movies dedicated to it, so far we’ve only seen the Swedish 2000 thriller movie Sleepwalker which deals with the same subject matter. Thus, Sleep is another entry into this genre, a suspenseful thriller powered by strong performances, where a man’s sleepwalking habits turns him into a danger to his own family.

Writer and director: Jason Yu
Original title: Jam
Country & year: South Korea, 2023
Actors: Jung Yu-mi, Lee Sun-kyun, Kim Geum-soon, Kim Gook Hee, Lee Kyung-jin, Yoon Kyung-ho
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8209702/

Heretic (2024)

Posted on December 10, 2024December 10, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) are two Mormon Church Missionaries, who ends up at the home of a man called Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant) who has asked for their visitation. Reed is a bit of a reclusive, but the lovely smell of blueberry pie in the oven that he tells them his wife is preparing, is quick to put the young women at ease. They begin discussing religion, and Reed starts asking a lot of questions and makes a few uncomfortable comments about their faith. They are being served one red flag after another, until they have had enough and decide to leave. Only to find out that they can’t, of course. And now they are trapped in Reed’s house, where he puts them up to challenges and giving them lectures, claiming that he has found the one true religion. And he wants to show these young women his findings…

Heretic is a psychological horror film, written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (Haunt, 2019 and 65, 2023).

This is a movie where the few characters and limited location leave the actors with limited tools, but in the right setting such movies can work wonders in building up a tense atmosphere. This one certainly belongs in that category. The acting is good and the characters believable, where Hugh Grant really sells it as the coldly vicious villain. This was his second horror film since The Lair of the White Worm (1988), where romantic comedies have been his main department over the years. Well, it’s often nice to do something completely different after such a long time! Also, Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East were both raised Mormon so they carry their roles with what appears to offer a good insight and a convincing performance.

As can be expected, the underlying critique of religious structures and the control they maintain is served through much of Reed’s lectures. And while you’ll probably ponder a bit what the so-called “one true religion“ really is, which Reed claims he’s found, you probably won’t be too surprised once it’s revealed. The film also doesn’t hammer it down on your head which “side“ you’re supposed to agree with the most. In fact, Reed is undoubtedly completely right with many of the things he lectures about to the young women, but Barnes and Paxton also provides reasonable views and thoughts on their own beliefs. Now, I am not a religious person myself, but I did find myself agreeing with the young women on certain points even though they weren’t “right“…like how Sister Paxton mentions how prayer experiments have shown that praying doesn’t help, but she still considers it a nice thing to do in order to offer comfort to someone else. Reed might be right in a lot of his conclusions, but just like certain religious aspects which he’s eager to criticize, he’s using his beliefs to commit and justify his actions and thus inevitably placing him in the same category as other religious fanatics trying to control others.

I don’t want to spoil anything else as this movie is best watched while knowing as little about it as possible. Heretic is a suspenseful and dark theological thriller, very dialogue-driven but mastering it with great skill.

In the film’s credits, there’s the statement “No Generative Al was used in the making of this film“. So thumbs up for that!

Writers and directors: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods
Country & year: USA, Canada, 2024
Actors: Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East, Topher Grace, Elle Young, Julie Lynn Mortensen
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28015403/