This is going to be a hard one to review, not only because itās a controversial remake (in name) of a classic, but also because itās chaotic as a movie, too. The only spoiler that Iām giving in this review is that a prominently featured unicorn figurine with an extraordinary large horn is disappointingly *not* utilized in any type of maiming or killing, which was a real missed opportunity.
The Plot:
I say that it’s a remake in name because it’s quite different from the original (1974) and remake (2006).
Riley and her sorority sisters are getting ready for winter break as she is still struggling with a sexual assault that occurred in her past. She mentors another sister, Helena, while being friends with Marty, Jesse, and the out-spoken Kris. She begins to get weird texts via their schoolās notification system after she and her friends perform at a talent show, opening mocking the fraternity her assailant belongs to.
Soon, the strange texts escalate and they realize that theyāre being hunted by a masked figure. They must work together and fast to discover the secrets behind the universityās history and unravel its dark past, terrifying present, and devastating future…
The Good:
The acting from Imogen Poots exceeded my expectations. It
was not an easy role, and had challenging dialogue to not only convey but to
make believable. Good use of body movement, especially when solitary and during
quiet moments, for example in the blue portrait hallway before the talent show.
I think sheād be great in an indie horror.
Same with Aleyse Shannon, especially when a lot of her
dialogue was very clunky. I hope sheās in more Scream Queen parts, especially in
different roles.
Set design is beautiful with the āold traditionā narrative of the story. Every creak of the floor is real and genuine-feeling, and not a manufactured sound in post-production. Whoever scouted the areas did an amazing job.
Thoughts: Brain Roll Juice
Soā¦.yeah. Itās a heavy-handed #MeToo feminist film, so your tolerance and taste for the movie are going to be dependent on your opinions of the #MeToo movement. And itās not subtle winks and nods, itās most of whatās on screen, down to the pink snow shovel and diva cup used as weapons (in different ways).
And itās told in the lens of Blumhouse Productions, so we get pink cat-ear headbands; Secret Santa vibrators; putting in a tampon in front of a roommate; thong-talk; the phrase āboy-cottedā; push-up bras; and the many times when people are corrected for using the term āgirlā instead of āwomanā. Surprisingly, there was not white wine, yoga pants, or pumpkin-scented candles present. Ā Ā Ā
What Iām saying, is that while there are things being said, things that rightfully should be said, itās through a tight and mediocre lens. It felt more like an episode of Riverdale mixed with 13 Reasons Why than a remake of a classic slasher film, including the off-screen deaths and lack-luster ambiance.
Also, thank goodness that the characters had stockings with their names, or literally necklaces of their names, so I knew who was who because they so often blurred together. Which is fine, almost standard, for a horror/slasher film, but not when your message is that we should care about these women from the beginning.
Character-wise, I knew almost nothing about them, any of them. It was even a throw-away line that we learned our main characterās parents had died, and this was never brought up again.
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My wild guess is this: this was not originally a Black
Christmas remake; it was a script about a sorority house that was slapped with
the title to promote it. Itās so disjointed -plot and script- that I think
there were a lot of scenes cut by the studio because they either got worried by
the message or decided to double-down on the message. I think these scenes
would have made it flow better and given more character development, maybe even
a better ending (which didnāt make a lick of sense).
I donāt think the changes would have made it a great movie, but I think it would have been a better one. And donāt get me wrong ā there have a lot of subpar movies made since the dawn of film, and this one is better than most, if just for the effort of trying to say something, especially in a male-dominated field of horror. Props to that. But at the end of the day, will this get more hate/vitriol than Blumhouseās Uncanny Annie or Truth or Dare, even though they were of equal or lesser value? Yeah. Will a lot that hate/vitriol come from people reading a few keywords and not actually watching the movie? Sure. Maybe that’s the real juice to roll your brain in.
One last thing of note before I sink back into the darkness. I find it odd that with PG-13, we canāt watch a human being bleed after getting stabbed in the chest by an icicle, but we can watch a woman be assaulted multiple times, and that meets quality standards for a 13-year-old.
Oh, and Riki Lindhome co-wrote the song for the talent show.
Bottom-line:
Donāt watch this as a first date movie – super awkward.
(2.5 / 5)
When not ravaging through the wilds of Detroit with Jellybeans the Cat, J.M. Brannyk (a.k.a. Boxhuman) reviews mostly supernatural and slasher films from the 70's-90's and is dubiously HauntedMTL's Voice of Reason.
Aside from writing, Brannyk dips into the podcasts, and is the composer of many of HauntedMTL's podcast themes.
We’ve reached the final episode of American Horror Stories, season three. After the ups and downs of the season, I didn’t know what to expect. I felt that we were due a big finish, Killer Queens. But I feared we were in for a big letdown.
As it turns out, The Thing Under The Bed was neither.
The story
We begin our story with a little girl named Mary, who is scared of something under her bed. She sneaks out of her room, only to be caught by her father and sent back to sleep. And of course, there is something horrible waiting for her under her bed.
This scene cuts away to a woman named Jillian. She has strange dreams, including one about Mary. But her husband, Mark, doesn’t want to hear about it. He’s only interested in a little lovemaking because he wants a baby. Jillian doesn’t, which makes total sense because she’s already married to one. But her irritation with her childish husband goes away when he goes away. And by goes away, I mean heās sloppily devoured by something vicious under their bed.
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What worked
In short, this episode just worked. The acting was professional and believable. The cinematography and lighting work were wonderful, adding spooky effects and startling moments without impairing visibility.
Best of all, the story was solid. There were no plotholes to be found. Our main character, Jillian, was relatable and sympathetic.
This was maybe my favorite part of the story. I thought Jillian was a remarkably sympathetic character. She was dealt a hand she never asked for, having her husband slaughtered in their bedroom. I don’t think she missed him, so much as she was afraid of the legal ramifications of being caught with literal blood on her hands.
Then, when it would have been safest for her to just lay low and save up for a good defense attorney, she instead goes into unlikely hero mode. She does her best to save people, putting herself in legal and physical danger. Itās hard not to root for her.
Itās also a little hard not to root for the antagonist, too. I donāt want to ruin the twist for you, so Iām going to tread lightly here. But itās great when you have an antagonist who might be off their rocker, but also maybe has a point.
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What didnāt work
I can only really think of one complaint with this episode. And that is how frequently one character says the word Chickadee. And if youāve seen the episode, you know what I am talking about.
I get it, he has a pet name for his daughter. It’s adorable. It’s meant to convey that the two of them have a healthy loving relationship and I get it. We all get it. Blind monks get it. But the fact remains that no parent on Earth calls their kid by their pet name every single time they speak an individual sentence to them. It was just too damn much.
All in all, this was a good episode. It was a classic story, turned on its head, told by professionals from start to finish. And I hope that if there is another season, we see more stories like this one. But after the efforts put into this season at large, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the last we see of American Horror Stories.
If you’ve watched enough short-form horror anthology shows, you’ll notice that some stories are mainstays. Each show seems to put on the same sort of episodes, with the occasional surprising storyline that we’ve never (or at least rarely) seen before.
Leprechaun was an example of a repeated storyāthe story of a greedy thief whose punishment far outweighs the crime.
The story
We begin our story in 1841, with a drunk man leaving the bar one late night. Heās distracted by something glowing at the end of the well. When he reaches down for the glowing thing, he falls in. Moments later, he screams.
We then cut to the modern day. The well is still there, and now it’s surrounded by a dying town. In this town lives a young man named Colin. He’s married, his wife is pregnant, and he’s out of work. Like many of his friends.
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Desperate for cash, Colin and his friends decide to rob a bank. They put together an Equate version of Oceanās Eleven, and break in one night. But, of course, they find that the gold is nothing more than bait. And the creature waiting for them is something they never expected.
What worked
The first thing I want to point out is how real this episode felt. At least to anyone currently living in the same small town they grew up in. These characters felt like guys I went to school with. Guys I would see at the bar.
I appreciated the real anger and frustration these characters are feeling. Especially Colin. He’s bitter, and maybe he has a right to be. He did exactly what he was supposed to do to succeed. He went to school and invested in his career, and yet now he’s out of work and struggling to support his family. I probably don’t need to tell you how that feels. Because of this, we can all kind of understand why he was tempted to rob a bank.
I also want to talk about the fact that this was, as I said, an often-explored story. That can be a bad thing, but it can also be a good thing. This story is told over and over because it’s a good story. A relatable story. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
What didnāt work
That being said, this version didn’t try to do much to break out of the mold.
Because we have seen this story so many times, most of us could tell the story themselves. I would have expected something new, or some twist. But, in the end, the story didn’t bring anything new to the discussion.
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Maybe because of this, the ending left a lot to be desired. Trapped in the basement of the bank, everyone just sort of stares at everyone else, until the thieves give up. And that’s it. The ending wasn’t scary, shocking, or funny. It was just sad, on multiple levels.
Overall, this was an okay story. It was entertaining, if not surprising. I would compare this episode to homemade macaroni and cheese. Everyone’s got their own version, they’re all pretty good, and none of them are exciting.
Thereās just one episode left in this season of American Horror Stories. Letās hope theyāve saved the best for last.
We begin our story late at night, with a hospital security guard named Malcolm. He is frightened one night when he sees a woman with a distorted face in the hospital parking lot.
We then joined an RN named Claire. She’s doing her best to explain to a struggling mother that the hospital will not be able to treat her son with cancer because she can’t afford the treatment.
Not like sheās happy about it.
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Fortunately, Dr. Nostrum, played by the legend Henry Winkler, swoops in at the last moment to tell the mother that her son qualifies for a special place in his cancer treatment clinic.
Claire is lamenting the fact that she became an RN to help people, but it feels like she isnāt doing anything good. Then, she and her friend Lilly stumble upon the same woman who menaced Malcom the night before.
While Claire is trying to figure out whatās wrong with this woman, she brutally slaughters an orderly and vanishes into the hospital. But not before struggling to say two words to Claire. Ward X.
What worked
I want to start by praising the effects of this episode. Because they were fantastic. Aided by the black and white filming, the bloody and distorted faces of Alice and her fellow victims are nightmarish. They look like a horrific version of Lockjaw taken to a terrifying extreme.
I also want to discuss the fantastic work of Henry Winkler. He is an absolute legend and never has a bad project.
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Winkler’s character in this episode was exactly what we’d expect from him. He seems genuinely warm and kind, concerned about others’ well-being. Even when he’s planning to kill Claire, he comes off as such a caring guy.
Finally, I want to talk about the historical significance of this story. Because, like I always say, the scariest stories are the ones based on truth. And I’m sorry to say, this story has a basis in truth.
Mankind has a dark and twisted history when it comes to medical advances. Most doctors and scientists are good, moral people who abide by the first line of the Hippocratic oath, to first do no harm. Some, historically, are little more than monsters in white coats. Consider the Tuskegee Experiment, Unit 731, and the horrific acts of Josef Mengele. If you’re going to look up that middle one, be warned that it is NSFL.
While this episode of American Horror Stories was a work of fiction, it wasnāt that far off. I donāt think many of us want to admit how close to real life it was. This is the gift of good horror, to force us to come face to face with the worst aspects of humanity. To acknowledge them, accept them, and change them.
All in all, this was a perfect episode. The acting, the effects and the story were all top-shelf. And it’s certainly a story that will stick with you.
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There are just two episodes left in this season of American Horror Stories. Letās hope that they reach closer to the quality of X, and away from the dull and dismal episodes that began the second half of this season.
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