Netflix and Chills: Horror Movie Megareview
I'm not someone who watches a lot of horror movies - mainly because I like to avoid getting so scared that I have to leave the lights on when I go to bed. But since Halloween is right around the bend, I decided to change that by watching a bunch of different horror films on Netflix and seeing what happened. So here's my megareview of every film I watched on Netflix over the past couple months, listed from worst to best! I vetted these films so you don't have to, so if you're browsing for a good movie, take a look here and see if there's something you like or something you'd like to avoid.
Image: IMBd
6. Cabin Fever
To say this movie is terrible would be a drastic understatement. A remake of the 2003 horror film of the same name (seems a little soon for a reboot, but okay) this movie features the usual horror trope of a bunch of horny college students going to a remote getaway, only for it to all go horribly wrong — in this case, because they come in contact with a flesh-eating virus. While the well-done gore will probably please some horror fans, it’s nowhere near enough to redeem this dumpster fire of a movie. The characters are so badly written that they don’t even qualify as clichés. Clichéd characters would actually be better than whatever the hell these people are supposed to be. They are the most unlikeable, detestable, arrogant group of characters I have ever seen wander across my laptop screen and I found myself cheering when they finally bit the dust. It doesn’t help that the best actor in this movie has only slightly more talent than your average potato. It also features those stereotypical mysterious hillbillies who don’t like no city folk pokin’ around where they shouldn’t be, with every goddamn horror movie redneck stereotype cranked up to eleven. If you ask me, the producers should be paying Netflix to have it on their website.
Image: Wikipedia
5. Triangle
This is a movie that started out decent, but ultimately lost me halfway through when it devolved into a confusing mess. After going out fishing on a sailboat with her friends, Jess (Melissa George) and company find themselves shipwrecked and stuck on an abandoned ocean liner. The film is great at first, slowly building up suspense as the mystery intensifies, but then it starts working with time paradoxes and by the time the movie ended I was pulling my hair out with confusion. I mean, it literally made zero sense by the time the movie was done. The acting is alright, but the actors aren’t good enough to redeem the atrocious script they were given. Skip this one.
Image: IMBd
4. Don’t Kill It
I’m not gonna lie, this one actually started out pretty good. The premise is pretty simple. There’s a demon that possesses people and turns its host into a killing machine, and when somebody finally kills the host, the demon then infects that person, and the cycle starts anew. In this movie, a demon hunter named Jebediah Woodley (Dolph Lundgren) teams up with FBI agent Evelyn Pierce (Kristina Klebe) to stop the killing. The movie starts out pretty strong, in large part due to Lundgren’s convincing anti-hero routine. But then, about halfway through the movie looses focus and devolves into some cheap slasher kills more reminiscent of a horror movie parody than a horror movie. The great dynamic between Pierce and Woodley is also lost as we’re introduced to some uninteresting and poorly written side characters, and the kills become more and more ridiculous. Give this one a pass.
Image: Wikipedia
3. 30 Days of Night
This movie is honestly more action than it is horror, but its a vampire movie with a good amount of jumpscares, so I’m putting it here anyways! The basic plot is that vampires invade an Alaskan town where the sun doesn’t rise for a full 30 days. As the vampires murder everyone and everything in sight, the remaining townsfolk are forced to band together in an attempt to outlast the bloodsucking freaks. Thanks to some great writing paired with some equally great acting, the movie gives us some very compelling characters who we genuinely start to care about as the movie goes on. The visual effects are pretty great as well, though the CG is a bit obvious sometimes. If you’re not in the mood for a particularly scary watch, then go with this one.
Image: Wikipedia
2. Insidious
This movie is so well known already that reviewing it honestly feels like cheating, but hey. This is what I watched. In any case, it more than lived up to the hype, with some grade-A spooks that nearly had me throwing my laptop at the nearest wall. If you’ve never watched it, this movie is about a family whose young child falls into a coma, and supernatural experiences begin happening to the family members. The characters are convincing, and the dialogue is compelling. So go watch this movie — watch it now. If you dare.
Image: Wikipedia
1. The Autopsy of Jane Doe
This movie is flat out amazing. There’s no other way to put it, folks, this is peak horror right here. In this film, two father and son coroners have to preform an autopsy on mysterious corpse taken from a crime scene. However, as they progress with the autopsy, they begin finding things that they can’t explain, and as mysterious events happen around the autopsy table, they’re forced to reckon with the fact that something otherworldly may be at work. This movie has a very low bodycount, which will probably turn off some horror fans who need to see a monster brutally slaying someone with a machete every five minutes, but it makes up for that with an incredibly tense, suspenseful atmosphere. The acting is also on point, with the two main actors giving off convincing performances that would qualify them for any number of awards. Trust me, folks, this thing is horror movie gold. Give it a shot.