There's Someone Inside Your House | 2021 Halloween Movies

When I turned on Netflix, There’s Someone Inside Your House was billed as a throwback to old school horror movies. Teenagers, sex. parties, and murder. What else do you need?

Makani (Sydney Park) has moved from Hawaii to Nebraska to live with her grandmother. Starting over with a new last name and new friends, Makani thought she could escape her past. But a serial killer is stalking the students of Osborne High School, exposing their darkest secrets before murdering them. Will Makani’s past be exposed or will she be able to stop the killer in time?

This movie is based on a 2017 book by Stephanie Perkins. I haven’t read the book so I can’t say whether this was a faithful translation. From what I can tell, this is the first horror story from Perkins but it’s also the first horror movie from screenwriter Henry Gayden. Whoever is to blame for this really needs to sit down and watch some better teen horror movies.

My first issue with the movie was how much time lapsed between each kill. The movie is 96 minutes long. In that time, there are four murders. Four. There are a couple of close calls but there aren’t any more kills. For comparison, 1996’s Scream was 111 minutes long and had eight murders. Fifteen minutes longer and twice as many deaths. That is a horror movie.

Next, Makani’s big secret is stupid. Really, all of the secrets are kinda stupid. There’s a couple of seriously violent hazing incidents, a racist, and a drug addict. Now the hazing incidents were already known by other people….they were there. The drug addict didn’t do a very good job of hiding his addiction. And the racist is also no big surprise. All of these things suck but I’m not sure any of them were worthy of murder. Well, maybe the hazing incidents….

Again, There’s Someone Inside Your House is just boring. There isn’t anything worth watching here. Let’s just pretend it doesn’t exist. OK?

Midnight Mass | 2021 Halloween Movies

Midnight Mass is our second 2021 horror series from Netflix. They did pretty well with Squid Game but can the Americans outdo the South Koreans when it comes to horror? Let’s get to it.

Crockett Island is an isolated fishing village with a population of 127. Most people left the island for the mainland. However, a few have returned. Riley (Zach Gilford) has returned after spending a few years in prison for a drunk driving incident that killed a young woman. Erin (Kate Siegel) has also returned, although now she is pregnant. In addition. a new priest, Father Paul (Hamish Linklater), has arrived to temporarily replace the elderly Monsignor while he recovers from an illness. Shortly after Father Paul has taken over, miracles begin to happen. Leeza (Annarah Cymone), a teenager confined to a wheelchair, is able to stand and walk again. Older members of the community are beginning to feel the aches and pains of aging fade. Is God blessing the community or is something more sinister going on?

It isn’t often that I get blindsided by a twist in a movie. By the time the third act starts, I frequently know how things will end and I can just cheer for the main character. Midnight Mass not only surprised me, it kept me guessing about what was going to happen next. Would the show follow the lore or the religion? Would the characters figure out what is happening in their town? My husband and I would have long conversations about what we thought would happen in the next episode. While I’m not sure where the story would go from here, I really do hope that there is a sequel. Perhaps this could turn into an anthology like American Horror Story . It would make a pretty cool series where things are kinda related but also very different.

Just because I’m talking about the story, don’t think that the actors are lacking. Everyone is so convincing in their roles. I truly felt bad for them when things started to go badly. Well, I felt bad for most of them. There were some that I was hoping would get taken out. I’m looking at you, Bev (Samantha Sloyan). But every good show needs someone to offset the protagonists. And they were very good bad guys.

Now even though I enjoyed the series tremendously, I don’t think that everyone should watch it. If you are super religious, you might find the show a little offensive. But if you are comfortable in your faith or if you aren’t Catholic, I think you would enjoy the series. It is only seven episodes long. And I wish it were longer.

No One Gets Out Alive | 2021 Halloween Movies

Since No One Gets Out Alive is from the UK, it falls under the category of foreign film. So far, the foreign horror/thriller films have been pretty hit or miss. Maybe I need to start a tally sheet…

Ambar (Cristina Rodlo) is an undocumented Mexican immigrant living in the United States. In order to save money to buy a fake ID, she moves into a boarding house for women run by Red (Marc Menchaca) and his brother, Becker (David Figlioli). Soon, Ambar notices strange things happening at the house. Wanting to get her ID sooner, Ambar convinces Red to give her back the deposit she left for her room. Becker doesn’t agree with his brother about the money. Unfortunately, Ambar learns what is happening to all of the women in the house. Now she is doomed to the same fate.

I didn’t realize that this was a British movie. I thought it was from a Latin American country. Now that I know it’s British, some of the issues with the movie make a little more sense.

While No One wasn’t terrible, it has a pacing problem. A majority of the movie is spend with Ambar trying to hide the fact that she is undocumented. And I don’t mean that we see her facing racism or classism, unless you count her crappy job with her crappy boss. Most of the time that we see Ambar, she is trying to get a fake ID from her co-worker, Kinsi (Moronke Akinola). I think that this was supposed to make us feel bad for her but it doesn’t. Her undocumented status doesn’t isolate her from anyone. Almost the opposite. She has a job, even though she is terrible at it. She has a cousin (or maybe an uncle? I think he gets referred to as both) who invites her over for dinner and gives her a nice winter jacket. She even has friends, though Kensi is a terrible friend. The undocumented thing should have been nothing more than a footnote in her life.

Since this fake ID thing takes up so much time, we don’t really get to the “thriller” part of the movie until it’s almost over. We know that people in the house are dying. It’s the freaking title of the movie. However, we don’t see why until about the 60 minute mark. The movie is only 85 minutes long. I would have loved to have seen the “why” earlier in the movie in order to give Ambar a little more time at the end to react to the outcome. As it is, I’m not completely sure what happens to her when the credits roll.

I honestly don’t know how to rate this film. I wanted it to be more like a terrifying Pan’s Labyrinth but instead got The Mist. Is there a way you could just watch the last half hour or so? The rest of the movie isn’t really necessary for it. Otherwise, just go watch something else. There are better movies that came out this year.

The Guilty | 2021 Halloween Movies

The Guilty is yet another movie that I knew nothing about going in. I actually didn’t even know that Jake Gyllenhaal was in it until Facebook heard me talking about watching the movie and threw me an article naming him in the headline. So, I mean, it must be a good movie if Jake Gyllenhaal is in it, right?

Joe Baylor (Gyllenhaal) is a LAPD officer working the 9-1-1 call center. This doesn’t seem to be his usual job. It seems like he has been put on “desk duty” for some unknown reason. While answering calls, he is either angry or dismissive toward the people calling him for help. Until he gets a call from Emily (Riley Keough). He believes that she has been abducted. Joe stays after his shift is over, talking with various members of the California Highway Patrol and the LAPD in order to find Emily and save her family.

This year is the year of the pandemic movie. The Guilty has a small handful of actors in person (I think there are 5 or 6 total) who are spaced fairly far away from each other. All of the other characters are only voices. As a matter of fact, the director (Antoine Fuqua) had contact with a Covid-19 positive person and directed the entire film from a van. It gives the whole movie this weird disconnected feel. You can see people are there but they aren’t really interacting with each other. It’s kinda creepy.

Unfortunately, that is the only creepy thing about this movie. Netflix has it listed as a thriller. I didn’t think there was anything particularly thrilling about it. I had a difficult time understanding a lot of the dialog because it’s almost entirely over a phone (there are, I think, three characters that Joe talks to in person) and a majority of the characters are either sobbing or screaming. It can be difficult to understand what someone is saying when they are crying and you can see their face. It’s almost impossible when the conversation is over a phone, which would have been a great commentary on the difficulties of working in a 9-1-1 call center but Joe didn’t seem to have a lot of trouble understanding her. (He had the script, duh.)

To be honest, I found a lot of the movie really boring. I completely understand the restrictions placed on the production due to the pandemic. However, this is a remake of a 2018 Danish movie, which was made before the pandemic and still involves mostly voice-overs. A lot of reviews say the original was much better. For one, the set is dramatically different. In the 2021 version, the call center has giant screens showing news footage around California (mostly of wildfires). The 2018 version has them sitting in a small drab office, which is closer to reality. I’m not sure if the original is available to stream in the US but I am definitely interested in seeing it. It can’t be any worse than this, right?

Nightbooks | 2021 Halloween Movies

The phrase “family friendly” is a bit of a double edged sword. On one hand, there are some amazing PG rated movies out there. On the other hand, calling something “family friendly” tends make people think a movie is dumbed down or boring. This year, Netflix released Nightbooks, a movie based on a 2018 horror-fantasy children’s book. It definitely piqued my interest.

Alex (Winslow Fegley) loves writing scary stories. After a particularly bad day at school, he trashes his room and decides to destroy all of his “Nightbooks,” the notebooks that house his creations. On the way to the apartment building’s furnace, he gets coerced into one of the other apartments. Soon, he finds that he is trapped in the apartment of an evil witch, Natasha (Krysten Ritter), who forces him to tell a scary story every night after dinner. Along with Yazmin (Lidya Jewett), another child Natasha trapped, Alex must find a way to leave the apartment and get back to his parents.

It took me a little while to get into the plot of Nightbooks. I thought it was going to be another anthology movie like Twilight Zone: The Movie or Tales from the Darkside. Boy, was I wrong. The stories within the plot are but a small part of the actual storyline. As a matter of fact, when I thought we were reaching the end of the film, I found that we were actually only halfway through it. I couldn’t figure out how they were going to squeeze another 45 minutes out of a story that seemed to be over. And those 45 minutes were the best parts of the movie.

On top of the pretty amazing storyline, the acting was superb. Krysten Ritter was breath-taking as Natasha. Part of it was the special effects when she used her magic but a lot of it was Ritter’s take on the character. That’s not to say the kids didn’t do a great job as well. There wasn’t a time that I wasn’t convinced that these kids were scared that they were going to die at any minute.

I loved Nightbooks so much. This was the perfect example of how you could make a terrific movie with an extremely small cast. Yes, this was filmed at the end of 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. Any movie that doesn’t look at this and feel bad that they couldn’t pull off something so wonderful should feel ashamed of itself.

Well, I think you get the idea. You should definitely watch this movie. Actually, you should add it to your annual Halloween movie list along with Hocus Pocus and The Nightmare Before Christmas. I hope they make a sequel and I hope it is just as good.

Lego Star Wars: Terrifying Tales | 2021 Halloween Movies

Not all Halloween movies have to be bloody or spine-chilling. This year, Disney+ gives us a new Lego Star Wars special titled Terrifying Tales.

Poe Dameron (Jake Green) and BB-8 are cruising the skies taking out the last of the Empire’s fighters. When their ship takes damage, they are forced to crash land on the planet Mustafar. There just happens to be a Hutt named Graballa (Dana Snyder) trying to turn Darth Vader’s old castle into a hotel. Poe tries to get Graballa to let Dean (Raphael Alejandro), a plucky young mechanic, fix his ship. Instead, they end up on a tour of the inside of the castle, led by Vader’s servant, Vaneé (Tony Hale). The group is forced to listen to three creepy stories linked to Kylo Ren, Darth Maul, and Darth Vader. But the stories are more than just stories. Can Poe and Dean stop Vaneé from completing his sinister plan?

To start off, I’m not the biggest Star Wars fan. I like it just fine but I’m not fangirling over the characters or searching out every piece of information on the plot. That said, Terrifying Tales was cute. It wasn’t particularly scary, considering it is aimed at small children. But there are some cute zombie-ish motifs going on.

If you are a fan of the Star Wars universe or just Lego Star Wars alone, you might find the special interesting. Hey, even if you aren’t a fan, at least there are some adorable BB-8 moments that you should enjoy. Keep an eye out for BB-8s jack-o-lantern costume!

Squid Game | 2021 Halloween Movies

I struggled when I was deciding whether or not I wanted to add horror series to the 2021 Halloween list. On one hand, there are some interesting series that I would really like to see. On the other hand, a series takes a lot longer to watch and I only have so much time to watch all of the movies! As you can tell, I decided to attempt to watch all of the series, as well as the movies, this year. The South Korean Netflix series, Squid Game, was first on the list.

A group of 456 people, most of whom are severely in debt, participate in six children’s games in order to win a large sum of money. However, they aren’t told that if they lose a game, they lose their life. Once they find out that little twist, how will that change how they play the games?

When I first started watching Squid Game, it reminded me of the 2007 Japanese drama Liar Game. In both of them, the main character has a debt that needs to be repaid and they are invited to play a game in order to win money to pay off said debt. The big difference is that people die in Squid Game. They just go into more debt in Liar Game, which the contestants act like they will die from it.

I don’t want to spoil the show too much because Squid Game really is something that you should watch. Besides the expected deception and bloodshed, there is a lot of heart in some of the characters. Though I think my favorite part is that you really don’t know what is going to happen. There’s a lot of horror movies where I can guess who is going to die or what the villain is going to do next. I figured that the main characters were going to make it pretty far but as Game of Thrones has shown us, main characters can die early in a series.

While the creator hasn’t said anything about a season 2, I do hope that there will be another season. I really want to see where the characters go from here.

OK, stop reading now and go watch it immediately! Go!

Intrusion | 2021 Halloween Movies

Netflix has quite a few Halloween releases this year. While Intrusion isn’t a horror movie, it is listed as a thriller. So Netflix put it on the Halloween roster. I’m not completely convinced it belongs there.

Meera (Freida Pinto) and her husband, Henry (Logan Marshall-Green), have moved into their dream home - an ultra-modern house that Henry designed. Unfortunately, the house is in an extremely isolated location. So when their house is broken into while the couple is out on a date, there aren’t any neighbors to witness the act. A few days later, the thieves return and violence ensues. Henry ends up killing one of the intruders, which upsets Meera greatly. Even worse, Henry wants to continue their regular lives - including holding a housewarming party they were planning. Meera, disturbed by Henry’s actions, decides to investigate what he has been doing. What she finds is worse than she ever imagined.

Uuuuuuggghhh. Everything about this movie bothers me. Meera’s actions border on unhinged, Henry is suspect from the first minute he is on the screen, and nothing really makes sense.

WARNING: I am doing to spoil the movie. If you don’t want to see spoilers, stop reading now. But know that you absolutely should not watch this pile of crap.

Here’s the big (non) spoiler - Henry is the bad guy. I knew it the second he showed up. My husband chuckled because in the first ten minutes of the movie, I said “Girl! Your husband gonna kill you!” Yep.

Anyway, Henry kidnaps this college girl, Christine Cobb (Megan Elisabeth Kelly), for no apparent reason. Christine doesn’t remember Henry doing anything besides watching her as she was tied to a chair. Henry just says he’s always had these urges but never acted on them until now. But, like, WHAT URGES? There’s a vague reference that maybe Henry raped Christine (Christine’s dad, who helped build the house, said he didn’t like the way Henry looked at her) but no one says it actually happened. Henry just sits and looks at her. WHAT THE HELL, HENRY?

And Meera is not much better. Nothing she does make sense. When she finally realizes that Henry probably did something to Christine, she goes into Henry’s home office…during the party…when there’s a house full of people AND Henry…to poke around to try to figure it out. Um, this is something you do when no one is there. Then, when she finds the hidden room and Christine, she gets herself captured by Henry because she decided to stand there and call the police instead of doing anything useful. Sure, he’s going to let you talk to the police while he’s standing there next to a baseball bat. She’s just dumb.

Just don’t bother with Intrusion. It’s slow and boring and the characters suck and it’s not scary. (OK, there is one jump scare that got me. This movie is not worth that.) Two boring movies in a row. I hope this isn’t a trend for the year.

Prey | 2021 Halloween Movies

Netflix has a few foreign films (or series) on their roster this year. Prey is the first one that crossed my path. Despite my German heritage, I’ve never watched a German movie before. It did make me wonder how Germans would handle a horror movie.

Roman (David Kross) is celebrating his upcoming wedding with his friends. The five men have decided to spend the weekend in the mountains. When they begin to hear gunshots, the group thinks there are simply some hunters nearby. Little did they realize that they are the ones being hunted.

This may be the shortest review I have ever written. Prey is a terrible movie. Now I’ll admit that I watched it dubbed in English instead of in the original German language but I don’t think the original language could have made this any better. There is very little plot or characterization going on. The entire plot is literally this group of men being killed. We get a tiny glimpse into why the killer is shooting people but at no point does the movie tell us why these particular men are being killed. The reason we are given makes very little sense.

In addition, we don’t get to know anything about the men in order to make us sympathetic toward them. Sure, murdering people is bad but we don’t get any sense that these particular men don’t deserve it. We get some weird flashbacks of Roman with his fiancée, Lisa (Livia Matthes), but these don’t really tie into what is going on currently. I mean, we do learn a secret about Roman’s brother, Albert (Hanno Koffler), but it feels very tacked on and there are no repercussions to the secret.

It’s just a bad and pointless movie. Don’t bother watching it unless you are having trouble falling asleep. Though maybe you shouldn’t fall asleep to a murder movie.

Malignant | 2021 Halloween Movies

Most of the time, scary movies are far off my radar. I may know some of the movie titles as I browse through the theater listings but I rarely know more than that. This time, however, there was a lot of buzz surrounding Malignant. And I only heard good things. So, for once, I was looking forward to a horror movie. Let’s see if it lived up to the hype.

Madison (Annabelle Wallis) has a difficult life. She has had multiple miscarriages and her husband is rather abusive. When she, once again, loses a pregnancy at the same time her husband is murdered, her life turns upside down. She begins having visions of other murders in town. It’s up to her sister, Sydney (Maddie Hasson), to dig into Madison’s mysterious childhood to find out what is going on.

My least favorite type of Halloween movie is a gory slasher flick. Thankfully, this doesn’t have a lot of gore in it. There are a lot of stabbing/slashing types of murders but it’s nothing too over the top. In my opinion, it’s the perfect amount of scary murdery stuff without organs spilling out all over the place.

However, my favorite part of Malignant is the cinematography. There are some absolutely gorgeous shots paired with interesting camera angles. Sometimes we’ll see an entire scene take place from the ceiling, as if we were crawling above the characters. Sometimes we’ll get a strange angle that makes us question whether what we are seeing is real or fantasy. That is what kept me intrigued.

The plot has been done before. It’s nothing particularly new. I was able to pretty accurately guess the “twist” before it came up. It’s actually the amazing talents of Marina Mazepa, a contortionist who brings the villain to life, that makes the movie special. If it wasn’t for her, there is no way the movie would have been as interesting.

Do I think you should watch Malignant? I think it’s worth watching. Especially if you enjoy the filmmaking aspect of a movie. But if you are looking for good cop-work, skip it. These cops are nothing more than stereotypes. Come for the visuals, stay for the…visuals.