By Steve Newton
Last year I posted a blog in which I named five of my fave scary movies showing for free on Tubi.
Well, now that you’ve had more than enough time to see all of those several times, here’s my original reviews of five more worthy horror flicks now streaming on Tubi for zero dollars.
Take a hike, Netflix.
It Follows (2015, Radius-TWC). Review published on March 25, 2015.
Every once in a while a low-budget indie fright flick comes along that makes everything on the major studios’ horror plate look like a pile of steaming crap. It Follows is that film, right now.
Maika Monroe is note-perfect as Jay, a pretty 19-year-old college student getting by in her average Motor City life. But while they’re out on a date, her new boyfriend, Hugh (Jake Weary), chloroforms her after sex in the back seat of his car and binds her to a wheelchair in her undies in the middle of an abandoned parking structure.
Just when you fear that It Follows might turn into yet another gruelling Hostel-type torture-porn epic, we learn that Hugh has only restrained Jay so that he can explain something very important to her. When she comes to, he wheels her around until they spy a naked woman in the distance, shuffling toward them. “This thing, it’s gonna follow you,” he warns. “Somebody gave it to me, and I passed it to you.”
Hugh tells Jay that she can only rid herself of the “follower” by sleeping with someone, but fails to mention that, while slow-moving, it’s powerful enough to rip her limbs off. The rest of the film is a terrifying portrayal of the goodhearted girl’s ordeal as she tries to save herself from the converging ghouls—visible only to her (and us)—without bringing death to those around her.
Writer-director David Robert Mitchell takes the puzzling premise of It Follows and runs it straight into your nightmares. He’s aided by a standout cast of young actors whose naturalistic performances play out against an eerie-as-hell soundtrack by Disasterpeace that echoes the spooky ’70s-style synth work used in drive-in movies by the likes of Goblin, Tangerine Dream, and John Carpenter.
Depressing footage of a decaying Detroit heightens the sense of hopelessness that fuels the engine of fear propelling It Follows, which ultimately leaves you heavy with dread and the notion that it’s the finest horror flick you’ve seen in years.
The Descent (2005, Pathé Distribution). Review published on August 10, 2005.
A few weeks ago, we went camping at a lake near Powell River, and by camping I mean sleeping in a camper. I chose to crash at the very back of the rig, against the wall in the little bunk above the truck cab. Maybe it was the mixture of hot dogs, Pilsner, and smores, but I woke up in the middle of the night with a freaky feeling. I felt trapped and had to get out of that cubbyhole quick.
It was the first time in my life that I’ve experienced claustrophobia, and it wasn’t pretty.
The uncomfortable vibe returned last weekend, even in the spacious atmosphere of SilverCity Metropolis. It came while watching The Descent‘s six thrill-seeking girlfriends, on a weekend caving expedition in the Appalachians, squeeze themselves between tiny passageways of water and rock.
Writer-director Neil Marshall, who’d previously impressed genre fans with his 2002 soldiers-versus-werewolves saga, Dog Soldiers, does a brilliant job of preying on people’s natural fear of physical confinement.
The Descent is a regular Das Boot for the horror crowd.
Mind you, the Second World War German U-boat crew of that film only had Axis torpedoes to worry about. Here, the six chicks run into a race of humanoid creatures with faces that resemble the batlike vampire from Salem’s Lot but who have much nastier dispositions.
These blind but ferocious beings like nothing more than to rip open the tender necks and torsos of underground adventurers, but they find worthy opponents in this gaggle of adrenaline junkies, which include a blond Brit (Shauna Macdonald) who’s already survived the worst hell a wife and mother could endure.
The Descent is from Maple Pictures, the take-no-prisoners studio responsible for such gruesome terror titles as High Tension, the Saw films, and the ultra-disgusting torture epic, Hostel. So it goes without saying that the blood in this movie flows like an underground river; at one point, characters are actually submerged in it.
But the most disturbing scenes don’t involve the subterranean beasties getting their milky-white skulls impaled by climbing tools or their gooey eye sockets skewered by female fingers. Most of the audience’s squeals and squirms are reserved for the sight of a severely broken leg, the type that occurs on the world’s roadways and sports fields every single day.
It’s this skillful juxtaposition of the unreal and the common–along with believable performances, sharp editing, and crafty suspense–that makes The Descent a big winner. Although I wouldn’t quite agree with the joblo.com writer who claims it’s “the best horror-thriller since Alien”, I dare say that it’s in the running with The Hills Have Eyes as top horror flick of the year.
The Tunnel (2011, Distracted Media). Review published on August 3, 2011.
Remember the last part of The Blair Witch Project, where the supposed real-life documentary makers are freaking out and running around in that decrepit house in the woods and the chaotic camerawork has reached its jiggly apex and you’re wondering what the fuck is going on and what the hell’s going to happen next?
Well, the makers of The Tunnel must have studied those scenes religiously, because their low-budget flick manages to ooze that feeling of hysterical dread and panic quite often and most effectively.
Call it a rip-off if you must, but it’s nicely done.
The Tunnel’s story is told pseudodocumentary style via interviews with Australian TV reporter Natasha (Bel Deliá) and cameraman Steve (Steve Davis), incorporating footage they shot along with soundman Tangles (Luke Arnold) and producer Peter (Andy Rodoreda). Investigating rumours of homeless people disappearing in the abandoned train tunnels beneath Sydney—and a potential cover-up involving a scrapped government plan to recycle the water there—the quartet descends into the cavernous blackness to see what they can find.
Too bad for them.
It’s made clear early on that because Natasha and Steve are the only ones talking, Tangles and Peter never made it out alive. But that knowledge doesn’t diminish the edge-of-your-seat thrills that fans of claustrophobic, lost-in-the-dark flicks like The Descent will get from this engrossing feature.
Director Carlo Ledesma and writers-editors Julian Harvey and Enzo Tedeschi make great use of the less-is-more approach. When scary shit happens, the terror sticks with you because you’re never shown enough to be certain of anything.
By keeping moviegoers in the dark—literally, at times—the filmmakers force them to exercise their imaginations.
Then again, they didn’t hold much back in that scene with the eyeballs.
Creep (2015, Netflix). Review published on August 9, 2015.
I had a hankering for a scary movie late last night so took a look at the Horror Movies section on Netflix to see what was available.
The first five offerings were Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Prometheus, The Conjuring, Orphan, and World War Z, all of which I’d already seen, and all of which–apart from the totally decent WWZ–sucked the biggie.
The sixth pick was something from 2014 called Creep, which caught my attention with its eerie image of a man’s silhouette at the top of a flight of stairs. It stars Mark Duplass and Patrick Brice, which didn’t bode well because I remembered Duplass unfondly from The Lazarus Effect, that lame Flatliners rip-off from last February.
But I went ahead and watched Creep anyway, and man was it enjoyable.
It’s about an easygoing videographer named Aaron (co-writer and director Brice) who gets hired by a man named Josef (cowriter Duplass) to film him non-stop for a day at his semi-remote cabin. Josef explains that he’s been diagnosed with a baseball-sized tumor in his head, and only a couple of months to live, so wants to leave a video document for his unborn soon, like Michael Keaton did in My Life.
Josef comes off as bit of a strange bird, but at first you think that maybe he’s just quirky, or that his weirdness might be due to the fact that he’s facing imminent death. Soon enough, though, you come to see that he’s a total freak–especially when he confesses to a terrible crime against his own wife.
The bizarre relationship that develops between Josef and Aaron is hugely compelling, made more so as Josef’s potential danger to Aaron is both hinted at and revealed.
The fact that Aaron records every damn thing–even when he should be dropping the camera and running away–seems ridiculous at times, as it is in most found-footage horror flicks. But if you give yourself over to the idea that he’s a videographer whose instinct is to the keep the camera rolling, it’s not so hard to take.
Duplass’s whacked-out performance keeps you fairly riveted to the screen, wondering what crazy shit Josef’s gonna pull next–and how the tormented Aaron will respond. It’s one of the most memorable sicko roles I’ve seen in a while.
It definitely makes up for his wasted effort in The Lazarus Effect.
Creep is yet another project from Blumhouse Productions, which is best known for its supernatural horror franchises like Paranormal Activity and Insidious, but lately–with the thoroughly impressive The Gift–is doing great work portraying the evil that mortals do as well.
Way to go, Blumhouse! At this rate we might one day even forgive you for The Boy Next Door!
Child’s Play (1988, United Artists). Review published on December 2, 1988.
Were you ever frightened by dolls or other inanimate objects as a kid? Maybe you woke up in the middle of the night, and thought you saw something grinning evilly at you through the darkness of your bedroom?
If so, then Tom Holland’s new movie Child’s Play is just the right vehicle to make you feel like a (scared) kid again because it features a three-foot-tall plastic menace that walks small but carries a big knife.
Chucky is its name, and it’s an ever-popular “Good Guys” doll that’s gone bad thanks to mass murderer Charles Lee Ray. Played by character-actor Brad Dourif–who has portrayed loonies in such movies as The Eyes of Laura Mars, Blue Velvet, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest–Ray is seen in the film’s opening sequence as a killer pursued through the streets of Chicago by detective Mike Morris (Chris Sarandon of Fright Night).
When Ray stumbles inadvertently into a toy store, and is mortally wounded there by Sarandon’s character, he uses his last words to breathe unholy life into one of the hundreds of Good Guys dolls on display. Well-versed in voodoo, he manages to transplant his nasty soul into that of Chucky, a talking doll made popular via TV cartoons and kids’ cereal boxes.
As (bad) luck would have it, the possessed Chucky doll winds up in the arms of a sweet little six-year-old boy (Alex Vincent), and the poor kid gets into all kinds of trouble by following Chucky’s instructions and then saying, “But Chucky told me to!” Actually, it’s the doll itself that commits the really evil deeds, but the boy gets blamed.
Just when the hapless child is about to be committed for Chucky’s crimes, his mother (Catherine Hicks) finds Chucky’s batteries still in his display box, puts two and two together, and prepares to roast the doll in her fireplace unless he talks.
That’s when Chucky really comes to life, and–via the expert use of various radio- and cable-controlled puppets–steals the show with its miniature brand of murderous mayhem.
It’s hard not to chuckle whenever the former cutie-pie doll makes deranged faces, and it’s hard not to squirm when the little rascal’s threatening someone with a blade that’s made for choppin’.
With equal portions of frolic and fear, Child’s Play is a hilarious hair-raiser that is highly recommended for horror fans.
Go here to read more than 350 of my original reviews of scary movies released theatrically in North America between 1988 and 2018.