I took on three from my Shudder watchlist, including a gay flick from the early 90s. Let’s get into all three movies.
DEATH ON THE BEACH (1991)
This could have been an interesting portrait if dated portrait of a gay serial killer slasher if it wasn’t so damn cheesy—particularly a totally mood-killing, hokey score that sounds like something out of a wholesome, early 80s action show (think BJ and the Bear, The A-Team, etc.). On the other hand, the movie is so fricking gay, with plenty of pretty boys in Speedos, so it’s going on the complete homo horror movies page.
The opener holds so much gay horror promise. We see the POV of someone sneaking into a naked sleeping guy’s room before killing him and ramming a rod up his fuzzy ass.
Then we are immediately scammed with a heterosexual sex scene! Blah! There’s this rich woman who is about to marry her man and has to break the news to her high school son, who is returning from school after the mysterious murder of a teacher.
A good chunk of the film has the mother and her boyfriend trying to force girls onto the son, but he’s having none of it. Meanwhile, guys are trying to force themselves on him as well.
Inevitably he starts killing everyone…mostly by pushing them off cliffs and out windows. There’s something too funny about the way the scenes are choreographed, so there’s no shock or horror to be had.
More unnerving is a scene where the son taunts a deaf alcoholic dude with a knife, as well as another scene that gives Psycho a homoerotic twist (in other words, naked dude showering). This is the one scene set to appropriate, suspenseful music. Too bad the rest of the movie couldn’t have done the same.
Meanwhile, the mom’s boyfriend is onto the son being both gay and a killer, and wants to expose the truth to her, because she is totally in denial. It is like a bad, homophobic telenovela (this is a Spanish movie).
In the end, we get to see some major wiener, there’s the kind of major momma’s boy dynamics you’d expect from a movie of this era, and there are some other stereotypical ideas about gay men from that era. It’s silly but it’s sexy, and it only runs like 75 minutes long.
SATANIC HISPANICS (2022)
This horror anthology is mostly more about Hispanic creators than inherently Spanish plots, but it does have its moments. There are plenty of horrific visuals, but in general I found the stories to mostly be abstract rather than concrete.
In the wraparound, police break into a house full of dead people and bring a lone survivor to the station for questioning, which is when the stories are told.
1st story – A man uses light to see entities in his apartment and ends up being terrorized by a hideous, crawling, mutilated human. Eek!
2nd story – In this campy story, a vampire discovers he has less time to take advantage of being out in public on Halloween night than he thinks because of daylight savings. This is a whimsical tale as he tries to make his way back home in record time.
3rd story – A paranoid dude in a house with a gun is sure someone’s coming for him. I take it this is a metaphor for ICE and being an undocumented immigrant. The guy is jumped and becomes part of a nightmarish voodoo ritual. I didn’t understand any of it, but it was definitely a freakish treat with some man-on-man face licking.
4th story – A man and woman meet at a restaurant for a reunion and before long he’s battling demons. Awesome.
The wraparound concludes with a dark force infiltrating the police station. As with most horror anthologies, you’re bound to find a tale or two that satisfy.
STOPMOTION (2023)
You’ll never look at Rankin/Bass holiday specials the same way. Sure, there are plenty of gnarly visuals in this film about a stopmotion animator whose creations begin to blur the line between movie and reality, but for me this was just all too surreal to be scary.
Nothing seems normal here. The woman, who is dealing with her mother being in a coma, meets a young girl in the apartment building in which she’s living who wants her to start using meat to make her figures.
So…she does. This little brat is crazy, but the woman goes along with her psychotic suggestions without much pushback.
The girl helps her devise a stopmotion move plot that is basically about a woman being stalked by a creep at a cabin in the woods. Eventually the monster begins to manifest itself in reality. Don’t expect a clean and concise stopmotion killer on the loose movie.
This is an artsy film attempting to go the elevated horror route. Personally, I was bored watching characters that looked like melting wax voodoo dolls running around and experiencing all the horror instead of actual people.
