As a triple feature plucked from my Tubi watchlist, these three indie films actually worked well together in terms of look and feel. As for the level of horror they delivered, it’s a mixed bag.
DEATH’S SONATA (2024)
Landing this one on the stud stalking page, hunky hot director/co-writer Douglas Downing III also plays the hunky hot psycho killer Charles in this low budget slasher that tries to go deeper with its portrait of a serial killer and a commentary on mental illness. However, in the end, it really feels like an unfocused, direct-to-video indie that runs way too long at 103 minutes.
This is the basic premise. Psycho Charles has the grim reaper sitting on his shoulder–actually standing by his side–coaxing him to kill people.
So he does. Lots of people. Nameless, irrelevant people. He just keeps going around killing locals in a rural town while dramatic organ music plays. There’s some nasty gore, but occasionally you see his rubber axe bounce during kills. And although there’s a gritty vibe, there’s no suspense, tension, or scares, especially since the mask doesn’t hide any surprises, because Charles takes it off whenever he’s done killing. But dang does Charles have nice arms to go with that face.
Anyway, the therapist who worked with Charles wants to catch him and help him more since he did such a bang-up job the first time. So…the therapist asks his young male bipolar patient with a drug problem to help him track down Charles. Huh?
It is a bizarre plot idea that takes quite a while to unfold. Meanwhile, there’s a detective that suspects the therapist of being involved in the murders, but like all of the characters here, the detective isn’t well developed. However, Charles’s arms are.
There are a few odd twists in the final act that paint mentally ill people as seriously sick in the head, and then Charles gives us a heavy, philosophical monologue at the end.
Did I mention that Charles the killer is a really hot hunk?
BACK ROAD (2021)
No new ground is broken here, but if nasty, sleazy, gory, low budget backwoods family horror is your comfort fear, this one might just work for you.
It wastes no time in showing you what you’re in for…a dude gets his dick bit off. For reference, this is what it would look like if you followed through when someone told you to eat a dick.
Next, we meet a group of friends heading to a cabin in the woods on 4th of July weekend, which lands this one on the holiday horror page. Although they never get around to celebrating, if I’m not mistaken, one of the members of the hillbilly psycho family they encounter actually has an American flag hat on (that totally tracks these days).
Anyway, the group stops at a gas station, and the muscle goon of the bunch quickly shows himself to be a fucking douchebag (also tracks). He is abusive to a pregnant woman, uses racial and anti-gay slurs excessively, and pretty quickly allows his temper to get the group into an I Know What You Did Last Summer situation.
As soon as they cover up their mess and get to the cabin, the hillbillies come crawling out of the woods to terrorize them. It’s kind of horrible what the group of friends is put through, but they also aren’t painted in the best light, so it’s hard to feel bad for them.
The proceedings are familiar and predictable with no scares or suspense, but a fetus is torn out of a woman and eaten, there’s running and screaming through the woods, there’s a severed head and rape (literally at the same time), a dinner table scene, vomiting, a bear trap, heads blown off by shotguns…you know, the usual.
The dialogue audio volume is very uneven, the blood and gore use practical effects, and the look and tone are very grindhouse, so I do think fans of the subgenre will find something to like about this one.
COMING BACK FOR YOU (2022)
Seriously, this is a lesbian love story with only psychological horror elements, and our main lesbian couple makes for the worst representation for lesbian love ever.
It opens with the couple arguing. One is having a mental breakdown, wielding a knife, and accusing the other of cheating. She leaves the house, and I assume based on the sound effects during the opening credits that she gets into a car accident.
Flash forward two years, and the alleged cheater picks her accuser up from jail! What? I guess it was a really bad car accident.
The couple decides to stay at a summer home to escape it all. Their conversations and bickering are so whiny it makes me glad to be a gay man. Yeesh. Are female-female couples really like this?
We get lesbian strip tease and lesbian romance montages, and the couple gets themselves–would you believe this–into an I Know What You Did Last Summer situation!
Soon, the guilt is eating away at them and haunting them. There’s pill-popping, nightmares of a dead body drenched in red horror light and lurking around the house, and a nosy detective. But mostly, there’s more lesbian whining and bickering.
However, there are some interesting twists from a non-horror perspective because, well, this is mostly not a horror movie at all.
