It’s another smorgasbord of subgenres from my watchlists, so let’s get right into them.
STOKER HILLS (2020)
This is a third-person POV/found footage hybrid that jumps back and forth between detective hunting for missing film students and the footage they found of what the students were experiencing before they disappeared.
The film begins in film class, with the late Tony Todd as the teacher. The group of students plans to make a film about zombie prostitutes.
When they head off in their car to work on their film, one of them ends up getting abducted. The others give chase and are soon in an abandoned building of horrors. Within minutes they are being chased by a hooded figure with a gun. No! Why a gun??? Yawn. On top of that, there’s a very Saw-like killer motivation in the end.
Depending on how you feel about police procedurals, you might find the addition of the investigation segments either boring or a fresh break from the found footage moments. Personally, I found the breaking of the case and killer motivation pretty incidental, because I just wanted to be in the thick of the horror the kids were experiencing.
Either way, the horror, as in most found footage films, doesn’t explode on screen until the final act, which is intense and gritty in the killer’s lair, with plenty of violence, slashing, and action.
SOMETHING IN THE WOODS (2022)
This short, 75-minute film is one weird, anticlimactic creature feature that didn’t make much sense to me.
After we get a little too much filler of a reporter at her home, she is kidnapped and driven into the woods by the daughter of a senator who committed suicide after a story the reporter ran ruined his life.
I think the daughter wants to send the reporter into the woods to then hunt her down, but instead, the tension between them neutralizes pretty fast and they spend time in a house in the woods together.
Eventually they encounter an alien-like creature and have to work together to escape the woods. We’re suddenly hit over the head with this weird, infectious cannibalistic plot element that isn’t fully fleshed out and leaves viewers to fill in the gaps. On top of that, there is no tension and not enough creature action.
TAROT CURSE (2025)
The director of Rave Party Massacre gives us a simple, slightly sloppy throwback to the paranormal killer flicks of the early 2000s. This one really feels like Final Destination…with tarot cards.
After an awesome head splat opening kill, we meet high school friends heading to New Orleans for a birthday celebration. How I wish this film had taken place entirely in New Orleans, but unfortunately, it’s just a short segment to facilitate the tarot curse. Really, they could have just stayed home and gotten cursed by a local tarot reader since they clearly weren’t even filming in New Orleans anyway.
The two best characters are left behind in New Orleans—one of those voodoo priest guys, and the witchy tarot reader who curses the kids.
The kids come back home and begin getting picked off supernaturally, with a tarot card left behind after each death. The kills are surprisingly gory and this movie will make you never dare to slip your hand inside a vending machine again or drop a bowling ball on your head (in case you’ve thought of it). The hubby and I also laughed out loud at the abrupt pacing of a prom king kill. Best scene in the whole movie.
In between the kills, there’s lots of soap opera drama, a mystery woman showing up at every funeral, and the kids figuring out that when the predictions made by their tarot readings come true, they die.
Thankfully, the sole survivor heads back to New Orleans for another encounter with the voodoo priest and a final battle with the witch…a harsh reminder that we so needed more voodoo priest and witch.
