This was an intriguing and random selection of movies from my Tubi watchlist, and it was also a pretty satisfying one.
DEMON BEHIND THE GLASS (2023)
Despite a plot that becomes hard to follow and only slightly makes sense when all is revealed in the final act, this little indie has a classic, mid-80s, direct-to-VHS feel. We’re talking loads of action featuring the main creepy demon ghoul in billowing mist. I was so feeling the atmosphere of this one.
A journalist going through hard times is renting a house in a small town. Of all things, would you believe he finds a corpse behind the mirror in his bathroom? EEK!
There are some odd reactions to this discovery, especially by the cops, who write the corpse off as a peeping Tom who just got stuck in the wall…and then want the journalist to pay to have the body removed. Say what?
The journalist also finds a document in the wall that talks about a demon that needs to harvest seven spirits to make itself stronger. Before long, this demon corpse is coming for him and anyone he interacts with!
The demon basically begins getting passed off from one person to the other like possession, so there’s a whole lot of horror fun going on here.
The effects, a mix of practical and CGI, totally work with the throwback vibe, the mostly single setting in the rental house really centers the action, and I was loving the creepiness of the demon so much that I was able to just go with the confusing plot.
SKIN WALKER (2019)
This is a deceivingly titled horror flick, and that Castle Freak looking thing on the poster art isn’t what it appears to be. I also found the whole point of the movie to be really predictable, so there were no surprises for me here.
The film is definitely tightly produced and has some great visuals and atmosphere. It’s also trippy and bizarre. It starts off seeming to make sense, somewhere in the middle it all gets weird and confusing, and in the end it all makes perfect, predictable sense.
We meet a young woman who returns home to see her father, played by horror king Udo Kier.
This young woman hasn’t had a pleasant family life. Her mother lost a baby boy at birth and is now in a mental institution. Her psychiatrist has been sexually abusive to her. Her grandmother has just been brutally murdered. And a man comes to her to tell her that her whole family has been lying to her, that he is actually the father of her brother, and that her brother didn’t really die and is now back seeking revenge on those that sent him away as a child.
As she tries to come to terms with everything else, she is plagued by the horrors of her own mental state. Seriously, all the nightmares and recollections she has make it pretty clear she’s insane, so it’s fairly obvious how this trauma porn is going to climax.
It starts to feel like a sinister fairy tale as her haunting, psychotic visions encroach on her life. Yes, she does eventually encounter her now grown, deformed brother, but don’t expect this to be a movie about a monstrous killer brother, because it’s not. It’s a fairly good story if you’re new to the horror genre, but it’s nothing new if you’re…well…old to the horror genre.
LOOP TRACK (2023)
If you know my taste in horror based on my opinions when I cover movies on Boys, Bears & Scares, you know my attention span doesn’t have patience for many slow burns, with some notable exceptions. I was hesitant to even go into this 95-minute movie after noticing some of the headlines of reviews on IMDb, but I kind of just had to know, so I hit the play button on my Firestick remote.
We meet a man whose acting is a large part of what makes this so watchable. We don’t learn much about him other than that he feels he’s a fuck up, feels he’s weak, and is totally paranoid. It’s so unnerving. He has come to the woods to escape life, but unfortunately, life finds him.
He gets drawn into a small group of strangers sharing a cabin in the woods…it’s like this thing where there are little “safe houses” sprinkled throughout the wilderness for hikers to crash in. As someone who doesn’t like to even walk between two trees in my own backyard, I’m not sure…is this a thing in national park forests?
We also learn very little about the main guy’s new roommates. There are two young female friends, a straight couple, and a single guy looking to mingle. The group ends up exploring the woods together, and our main guy becomes convinced there’s something following them, because he keeps seeing a dark figure in the shadows in the distance behind them on the trails.
His fears steadily intensify, and the others begin to think he’s crazy. The viewer starts thinking the same thing, and we start to imagine what horrible things he might do to others. Is he a killer? Is he working with someone else? Is he a shape-shifting monster? OR…is it all in his mind?
All I’m going to say is that if you love movies where it’s what you don’t see that is scariest, you will totally be invested in this film. If, on the other hand, you need some sort of visual payoff, you should be invested in this film. The last twenty minutes totally deliver.
What you see might make you roll your eyes, or it might just make you amazed at how out-of-the-box the threat is. It looks great, it’s totally unexpected, there’s no explanation for it, and the end of the film is so perfectly inconclusive while also providing a tidy conclusion.
