It’s monster mania with a gay guy and a girl vs. a Velociraptor, a girl vs. a supernatural entity, and a cute cop vs. giant slugs.
CLAW (2021)
I did not expect Claw to be a horror comedy buddy movie in which one of the buddies is a gay guy and the “claw” is attached to a Velociraptor…but I’m so glad that’s what I got. This one lands a spot on the does the gay guy die? page.
Minus end credits, Claw runs about 66 minutes long. There’s no drawn out explanation as to why the dinosaur is running loose. We just get straight to the meat of the movie.
A stand-up comedian and her theatrical, campy, gay BFF are on a road trip on a desert road to L.A. when they get stuck in a ghost town. They meet up with an old guy who lives there, and soon the trio is playing a cat and mouse game with the Raptor.
Along with suspense and some good jump scares, the comedic interactions and reactions of the three characters are loads of fun. However, that means you don’t want any of them to die…while of course wanting someone to get eaten!
The Raptor is cool, but at times he does look like he’s nothing more than a cut and paste job from Jurassic Park.
There’s a brief explanation for the Raptor’s existence at the end, and a tease for a possible sequel.
TAKE BACK THE NIGHT (2022)
This refreshing take on the supernatural specter subgenre is a female-focused film that explores women watching out for other women…or not. Everyone in the main girl’s life—detective, lawyer, sibling, TV interviewer, etc.—is a female, and some do and don’t believe her story after she’s attacked by a shadowy presence.
In essence the film considers the repercussions of blaming and not believing the victim. Our main girl has a less than pure history, so when she’s attacked in an alley after a drunken and drugging night out, she’s basically on her own in proving that there is some sort of creature lying in wait in the darkest corners of that alley.
The film serves as a metaphor for rape, and both the creature attacks and what the woman must endure during the physical and psychological exams afterward highlight the invasive horrors rape victims experience multiple times.
Remember that when you see anti-woke douche bags whining about this being a “female empowerment” film. If you watch a horror movie that graphically and disturbingly delves into the horrors a rape victim faces and you’re more bothered by the fact that there are too many women and lesbians in it, that says a lot about what you think of women.
There is no body count here. It’s all about our main girl broadcasting herself over the Internet as she makes herself the bait again and again to try to get the creature to show itself. There are some damn good suspense scenes filled with tension and atmosphere, beginning with the unsettling alley attack and leading right up to the final chase, but the creature is never fully exploited visually—it’s left mostly to imagination as it is presented in a cloudy black form through quick edits. I really had fun watching this one.
THEY CRAWL BENEATH (2022)
An adorable leading man and cool slug monster effects are the highlights of this little indie that will most likely get compared to Tremors. However, while Tremors films include an ensemble cast, They Crawl Beneath is virtually a one-man show, so it begins to get repetitive after a while.
Our cute leading man is celebrating Thanksgiving with his uncle (played by Michael Pare), which lands this one on the holiday horror page.
But don’t expect anyone to sit down to a turkey dinner. The holiday is just referenced a few times before this becomes a story of one man trapped under a car in a garage as big slugs start coming out of the woodwork. They’re big, but nowhere near as big as Tremors.
Minor subplots include the leading man’s relationships with his ex-girlfriend and his mother, but the focus is on him fighting off slugs while trying to get out from under the car…and also experiencing hallucinations, which, in my opinion, pads the film with a little too many bogus horror moments.
Note that the first slug attack doesn’t hit until 42 minutes into the movie, but our leading cutie definitely carries the film by himself.
