Yep. The similarities in the poster designs are the only reason I lumped these three together.
DEEP HATRED (2022)
This is like a supernatural backwoods slasher that forgets the slashing.
After an opening scene of a man being tossed in a lake, we meet our main girl, who is joined by her friends when visiting her family home after the passing of her father.
The neighbors are friendly but odd, and there are scarecrows meant for keeping away spirits around the property. As the foursome of young people deals with relationship drama and lounges around the pool, the main girl’s man starts to experience weird shit, like droplets and puddles of water in odd places.
Strange occurrences continue, including flashes of a mummy-like creep, leading to the kids trying to delve into the main girl’s family history and determine what became of the father. Personally, my concern would be why all the horror is happening to my boyfriend when it’s my damn family curse.
Deep Hatred is not particularly compelling as a supernatural mystery, and the “slasher” elements begin when there are only 15 minutes remaining. They are also not very compelling. The movie just feels underdeveloped all around, but I did like the atmosphere in the final act with the killer.
HABITUAL (2022)
This film explores the intersection between psychiatric drugs and mental illness…by putting us through a psychotropic experience at a rave.
There’s not much of a story here. If I was following right, a group of self-involved kids goes to a rave after killing a man (in an opening series of events that stars C.T. from MTV’s The Challenge).
Meanwhile, a crazy dude connected to them by six degrees of separation escapes an asylum.
The rave happens to be at an abandoned asylum.
The main characters stray from the main rave room and explore the derelict building. It’s hard to tell if they’re dealing reality or a drug trip as they experience gruesome situations.
Eventually a killer known as “Blight” violently murders them all. But it’s not like a stalking, chase-filled slasher movie. Everyone just seems to walk right into his trap. But damn, the gore is juicy, and the killer is nasty.
In the end, it seems like the whole point of the movie is revenge by someone who doesn’t want to take responsibility for their own actions and needs to blame their drug problem on their drug dealers.
THE TOYBOX (2018)
When I saw that The Toybox stars Mischa Barton and Denise Richards, I figured how good could it be? That’s why I simply had to watch it.
Sometimes a movie is just so asinine and takes such ridiculous risks that it becomes the epitome of so bad it’s fucking awesome, and this is one of those movies. The Toybox don’t give a fuck what your opinion is—it’s going to be as weird as hell every step of the way and not give a shit if you go on the internet to say it’s the worst movie ever.
A father gathers his grown children and their families on an RV for a road trip. Along the way, they come across Mischa Barton and her brother stuck on a desert road, give them a lift, and then…
…the audience gets hit with the crazy truth—the RV is haunted, has a mind of its own, causes a crash that leaves the family stranded, and then begins killing them off one by one in between haunting individual members with sightings of mutilated ghosts.
Side note: Ever notice how every time a child gets hit by a moving vehicle in a movie, somehow they lose a sneaker and it’s the only thing left behind?
This movie revels in being bizarre, and there’s even a psycho killer on board by the end with some sort of supernatural link to the very physicality of the RV.
Really, you have to see this movie to believe it.
