I haven’t tapped into the Hulu horror selection in a while, so it’s time to check out a few of their newer offerings.
FRESH (2022)
Fresh is Boxing Helena meets Hannibal—with a very Gen X soundtrack thrown in for good measure.
The plot is simple. A girl starts dating a guy. They hit it off great. They go on a vacation together, and she soon finds herself chained up to become product in his business of selling “meat” to cannibals.
She can hear other women imprisoned in his secret home, so she begins to hatch a plan to escape.
And that’s when he does something to hobble her. Having had no idea what the film was about before starting the film, at this point I had to temporarily turn it off because I was watching it with my squeamish hubby. So I picked it up again later when he went to bed and found that the film becomes a fairly tame suspense thriller that is low on the torture porn or blood and guts.
Fresh is fun, has some dark humor, and features montages set to songs like “Obsession” by Animotion, “Restless Heart” by Peter Cetera, and “Endless Summer Nights” by Richard Marx.
THE DEEP HOUSE (2021)
I’m not going to lie—this film has a cool concept that’s equally dumb at the same time, yet I was highly entertained.
A young straight couple has a YouTube channel on which they post videos of them exploring abandoned buildings—and him always being an asshole and scaring her. They decide to do something different—explore the bottom of a lake that was created by a flood.
Down in the depths they find a sealed up house completely intact. My absolute terror of being underwater came through, because the cheapest scare ever made my stomach sink.
Anyway, they get in the house, and this basically becomes a haunted house found footage film. Like I said, it’s a silly yet oddly interesting concept.
It’s also especially effective if you’re underwater phobic like me. Things like dolls, clowns, and dead bodies submerged in murky water are twice as creepy as they are on land.
And the freaky factor only escalates when those dead bodies eventually turn into what are basically underwater zombies. Eek!
LANTERN’S LANE (2021)
If you just need a moment of not being elevated by your horror, you should check out this simple, satisfying slasher with the most primitive and delectable setup: kids stuck in a house in the woods being stalked by crazed killer wearing a sack for a mask.
A girl returns home from college and reconnecting with her friends, who she basically cut off communications with while she was gone. They decide to head to Lantern’s Lane, a spot in the woods ripe with urban legends, including sightings of a female ghost carrying a lantern and a house in which a killer did kids wrong in the past.
This being a horror movie, their car breaks down right in front of the house. So they go inside for shelter overnight.
Then comes the killer. What more can I say? There’s stabbing, screaming, running, and cat and mouse games, and plenty of aspects of this film make it pretty obvious the creators grew up watching Scream movies. A lot. Definitely worth a watch for slasher fans.
