Tubi is pumping out exclusive horror flicks, so I added a bunch of new ones to my watchlist. Here are my thoughts on the first three I checked out.
CARNIFEX (2022)
This is about us uneventful and generic as a backwoods creature feature can get. A documentary filmmaker and two conservationists head to the woods in Australia after wildfires decimate the animal population.
We spend a majority of the film watching them explore the forest and photograph a variety of nature’s species.
Something unseen kills a couple of other people here and there.
There’s more than one bogus jump scare resulting from a bird flying by.
They don’t discover the creature until an hour in.
When you brighten a screen capture for a blog post, you discover the creature is kind of cute and looks like a koala.
The environmental message is that true conservationists respect all creatures.
CAPTIVE (2023)
The opening scene of Captive features a hot jogger at night getting spooked, and it’s a clear sign that the director knows how to do horror right.
Then we meet Scout Taylor-Compton and her friends. They decide to sneak into a house and party when the owners are away. They whip out the Ouija board and almost immediately hear banging.
Turns out there’s someone chained up in the basement. Silly Ouija. Tricks are for kids.
It also turns out the house has a vampire problem….
The vampire situation gets a little romanticized for a while, but it’s great to see Scout given the opportunity to act outside of her final girl comfort zone.
It’s a bit of a slow burn until a big party in the final act turns into a vampire bonanza. This film is sleek and sexy and I had a good time with it.
THE AMITYVILLE CURSE (2023)
Considering the 1990 movie with the same title was also based on the cheesy Hans Holzer novel, you could argue that this is a remake. However, that film takes place in a random church converted into a house while this one actually takes place in the Amityville house.
This movie is a mess. A group of friends pool their resources and buy the Amityville house. The fact that two of the people were almost married and now have a contentious relationship make this concept ridiculous right from the start.
And then, after some bumps in the night and lights flickering, people just start dying left and right.
Like, to the point that the police would suspect someone in the damn house was murdering all the residents, not that they were accidents or suicides. Apparently the Amityville police aren’t very smart as far as this movie is concerned.
As the number of owners of the house dwindles, they call a ghost-hunting podcaster in, they call a reverend in too bless the house, and they call a ghostbuster in.
None of that does them any good, because in the end one of them becomes possessed and chases the others around with a sledgehammer.
Worst of all, the film sets us up for a sequel (I’ll so be watching it if it happens…).
