With my latest self-isolation triple feature I was going for darker and scarier rather than predictable fun, but only one of these three satisfied. Was it Bloodline, Door in the Woods, or Shiver? Let’s find out.
BLOODLINE (2018)
Bloodline is really not my thing, despite starring Seann William Scott as a guidance counselor who murders anyone who hurts the troubled teens he works with. Maybe if he did all the killing shirtless I would have had something to cling to, but I’ve just never been a fan of the Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer type of movie. It’s hard to be scared when you’re basically in the mind of the killer and the victims are completely disposable.
There’s nothing new here, and the kills are bloody but all exactly the same—stab the belly then slice the throat.
I guess you could say there’s a twist or two, but I found any surprises no surprise at all. There wasn’t even anything to impress about Scott’s performance.
The most horrific part to me was an extremely graphic close-up of his wife popping a baby out of her vagina. I’m warning you, when I say graphic, I mean graphic.
DOOR IN THE WOODS (2019)
I was all about this Poltergeist style film at first, and wondered why it got so few stars on Prime.
A couple moves into a house with their son, they take a hike in the woods, and in the middle of a clearing they find a door just standing perfectly up straight with a lock on it and a key nearby.
What do these idiots do? Take it home, unlock it, refinish it, and use it as their hall closet door.
The door opens on its own. A little ghost girl roams around the house. The little boy dreams of scary monsters coming after him. Inevitably he disappears.
Luckily the wife sees a Tarot reader who sensed something was wrong, so he steps in to help them rescue their son from behind the door…back in the woods.
Right here is where the movie turns inexplicably laughable.
The Tarot reader, looking like he stole Madonna’s wardrobe from the “Music” video, sets up an altar in the woods, and with the help of the parents tries various rituals and psychic tools to communicate with the forces behind the door.
It is a goofy, slow-moving mess, and I don’t even know how the three actors made it through the scenes without either laughing or telling the director the script had simply fallen apart.
SHIVER (2008)
This Spanish film is the total winner for me. A classic tale of one kid knowing there’s a monster and no one believing him, it teleports us back to younger days when we were afraid of what lurks in the shadows.
A mother is convinced by her teenage boy, bullied because he is sensitive to sunlight, to move to a new town to start over.
The boy meets some new kids and they go on a hunt for a vicious animal one kid believes he saw in the woods.
People begin getting gruesomely murdered, so who better to suspect than the new boy with a vampiric condition? Awesome.
It’s up to the boy, his best buddy, and the one girl in town who likes him despite everyone else ostracizing him to prove there really is something in the woods, especially since it seems to be stalking him specifically.
This little gem filled with nail-biting scenes that had me on the edge of my seat really reminded me of teen-centric horror flicks of the 80s.
