It’s a buffet of subgenres I picked from my Hulu watchlist, so let’s get right into them.
GHOST TEAM (2016)
This supposedly satirical comedy about ghost hunting shows succeeds in doing one thing—reminding us of how charismatic Justin Long is on screen, even when he has absolutely nothing to work with.
If the goal here was to poke fun at how ghost hunting shows are total bullshit and there are never actually any ghost sightings, then I guess this film succeeds. Other than a ghost hunting theme, this is absolutely in no way a ghost movie when all is said and done.
Napoleon Dynamite gathers together a motley crew of people to go ghosting hunting on a farm in hopes of scoring a coveted spot on a popular ghost hunting show (there are appearances by actual members of the real Ghost Hunters show).
After a chunk of time is spent assembling the team, Napoleon and his group head to the farm. What follows is a whole lot of boring footage of them walking around, goofing off, and reacting to nonexistent scares, just like a real ghost hunter show.
There’s a twist that makes this not a horror movie, and the only two highlights are Justin Long wielding a paintball gun and the group singing Gary Wright’s “Dreamweaver” in the final moments of the film.
BLOOD (2022)
Combine Cujo, Let The Right One In, and Misery, and you get this predictable but still entertaining film from the director of Session 9.
A single nurse moves to a family farmhouse with her teen daughter, young son, and their dog. The dog runs off into the woods one night, and when it returns with glowing eyes it bites the son.
And then the son begins to change.
Soon the mom discovers the son needs blood to survive. So she starts stealing blood from the hospital where she works. But it isn’t enough. Soooooo…she’ll have to resort to an involuntary “donor”.
If you’ve never seen anything like this movie, I guess you’ll find it pretty damn awesome. But I’ve already seen everything it has to offer. Even so, suspense scenes are good, Skeet Ulrich plays the dad, and the inevitable finale is satisfying, so I’d say it’s worth a watch even for veteran horror fans.
ALONE AT NIGHT (2022)
I’m kind of tired of everything this movie is offering a social commentary on—live sex cam workers, reality shows, COVID isolation…. The highlight for me was the portrayal of a young woman who is in complete command of her sexuality and sexual desires.
Ashley Benson of Pretty Little Liars stars as a young woman who goes to stay at her friend’s isolated cabin (friend played by Sky Ferreira in a disappointingly small role).
It’s Halloween, but it’s cold so there’s some snow, and Ashley decorates the cabin in a blend of Halloween and Christmas décor. However, I’m going to stick this one with the Halloween movies on the holiday horror page because it’s officially Halloween time in the movie.
In between doing her job as a live sex cam worker, Ashley is put in unnerving situations with a myriad of visitors—food delivery guy, cable guy, neighbor, her friend’s cousin, a sheriff played by Pamela Anderson—and we just sit there wishing that one of them, any one of them, will be the killer and make this movie worth watching.
Instead, this is mostly a movie about being paranoid about everyone who shows up at your cabin door in the middle of nowhere…and yet welcoming every one of these strangers inside. Sigh.
Over an hour into the film, we finally meet the real home invader, and we get some fairly typical cat and mouse action. There’s just not a lot of horror meat to this movie. And making it worse are absolutely pointless scenes of a sort of Surreal Life celebrity reality show hosted by Paris Hilton.
