How about a little ghostly triple feature? I look very briefly at three I watched on Netflix: DeadCon, Polaroid, and The Car: Road to Revenge—and yes, it’s a sequel.
DEADCON (2019)
The title of this one had me excited for a horror con horror movie. Instead it’s about a social media influencer con. Ugh. It’s as boring as it sounds. I cannot fathom how a movie this bland gets made.
What did I like about it? A backstory dating back to 1984, an 80s style score, and 80s throwback songs like this one from Psychic Twin:
Sadly the story is so convoluted the hubba hubba and I weren’t even clear on the point of this ghost tale by the end.
You’ll be shocked to learn that the characterization of the main social media influencers is totally shallow. They spend most of the film in rooms and hallways at a hotel. A very dark hotel. This is one of those movies that tries to create atmosphere by making sure no location has adequate lighting.
There’s a bunny head balloon. Occasionally there are hints of child ghosts. There are flashbacks to a guy basically using a Commodore 64. Oh how I wanted to like this.
Unfortunately, we continuously get setups for scares with no payoff. No one is killed until 55 minutes into this 77-minute movie.
Near the end, the movie suddenly becomes a found footage flick for 5 minutes and crams in every single cliché of the final moments of the subgenre. Sadly, the hubby and I both laughed at the same part.
POLAROID (2019)
The director of the new, highly entertaining Child’s Play gives us a tween slumber party movie that is a throwback to 00s horror: Shutter, The Ring, The Boogeyman, Pulse, etc.
A girl acquires an old Polaroid camera and eventually realizes that everyone she takes a picture of dies.
She and her friends spend the second half of the film hunting down the camera’s origins in order to save themselves from becoming a shadowy spectre’s next victims.
Just like DeadCon, every location is absurdly short on light, and this film is as derivative as it gets if you’ve seen all the movies I mentioned above.
However, the final chase and fight segment with the camera creepozoid is loads of fun with supernatural special effects that are definite horror eye candy, especially if you just sit back and enjoy it with popcorn and a cherry cola.
THE CAR: ROAD TO REVENGE (2019)
Would you believe there’s a sequel to the 1977 James Brolin classic killer car movie that pre-dates Stephen King’s Christine by 6 years?
It is very weird to see a movie set in a futuristic punk city like something out of 80s movies, but that’s also one of the upsides.
A powerful district attorney is targeted by an absurdly cartoonish punk gang that brutally tortures and kills him.
He then comes back for revenge…as an invisible spirit in his sexy car!
The first half of the film is as basic as it gets, with the car making roadkill out of its enemies. The kills are splatastic.
Meanwhile, horror hunk Grant Bowler (Steve Niles’ Remains, Painkillers) is the detective on the case. He teams up with the D.A.’s girl to uncover the truth behind the rash of killings.
Unfortunately, The Car horror of the film and the dark streets of the punk city are lost once this turns into a nonstop car chase action movie. Blah.
