It’s three more films from Tubi, the only place where I have a substantial watchlist, and this is a total smorgasbord of subgenres.
ALICE IN TERRORLAND (2023)
Trauma porn meets fairytale horror in a film that relies mostly on a series of nightmare sequences to deliver any sense of horror. Blah.
Running about 75 minutes long, which was more than enough bogus scares for me, the movie follows Alice, who goes to live with her aunt after her family dies in a fire.
Racked with guilt and grief, Alice begins getting terrorized by various specters culled from the pages of the Lewis Carroll classic, including takes on the White Rabbit (a guy in a rabbit mask), and the Queen of Hearts.
It’s pretty obvious from the start that there’s something suspicious about the aunt, who warns Alice to stay out of the woods when she explores the sprawling grounds of her property.
That’s really about all I can offer. There are some nicely dark nods to the children’s classic, but there isn’t much of a horror story to sink your teeth into, and as I said, all the scares are bogus dream sequences.
NIGHT OF THE BASTARD (2022)
This is another take on the home invasion/cult surrounding the house genre. The only way I see anyone getting any thrills from it is if they’ve never seen a movie like this before.
The opening scene is one of the best parts, with a couple encountering the cult when they’re headed for a party at a house in the desert.
40 years later we meet a recluse living at a house in the desert. He boots some kids partying on his land. When they leave, they encounter a cult, but one girl gets away.
She ends up at the recluse’s house, and together they must fend off cult members that try to invade the house…in between a lot of talking with nothing in the way of scares or suspense.
On the bright side, the eventual cult ritual has sexual, satanic elements, one cult member is awesomely witchy, there’s some violence and gore, and there’s a pervy little twist added to the otherwise simple plot right near the end. I was definitely feeling the final act.
LAS VEGAS FRANKENSTEIN (2023)
Las Vegas is a lofty goal to use as the setting for a low budget movie, which becomes glaring when this larger than life destination is represented by a few cheap sets, in this case mostly a basement dressing room, a small performance space, and a little occult store.
It’s also a shame that this movie about a hypnotist that decides to enliven his show by making a Frankenstein monster waits until the last half hour to actually do something focusing on the premise. We spend most of the time watching the shirtless, rocker-looking hypnotist talk to his girlfriend and his slow assistant dude.
Seriously, nothing really happens, and a majority of the film is pointless banter with no humor, despite the quirky vibe that the movie tries to establish. With thirty minutes to go, the plot that should have carried the whole film kicks in.
The hypnotist has his assistant lure men into the basement so he can kill them off to gather parts to make his monster (including a hot baldy).
This movie would have been so much more interesting if it had explored a gay angle that is just hinted at—the slow assistant dude could have been luring men to the basement for sex, and after he used their bodies, he could hand them off to the hypnotist to repurpose.
Things get super bloody in the final act, with practical effects, and the monster looks quite gnarly. Unfortunately, his screen time is short-lived. He runs off and walks through the crowds in Vegas as hypnotist and friends hunt him down. The finale is very anticlimactic.
