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Has anyone else felt like the last few years have been worse than usual? As if someone unearthed an ancient curse and it descended upon us. The premise of this movie centers around a similar idea, that an ancient relic could bring hell to earth. The 8th Night came out in 2021 on Netflix, a South Korean movie directed by Kim Tae-hyoung. The main character, Park Jin-soo played by Lee Sung-min, is a former monk now turned construction worker who’s destiny it is to stop the two eyes from uniting and bringing hell to earth. The whole plot hinges on an ancient legend about a monster who wanted to create suffering amongst humans and create a bridge between hell and earth. One red eye and one black eye, black representing anxiety and red representing agony. To watch The 8th Night on Netflix now click here . Buddha stopped this monster by taking both eyes from the monster but the red eye managed to get away and use seven stepping stones, or humans, to hide and get away. The last stepping stone or person is the Virgin Shaman and the Buddha stopped it before it reached this last stepping stone and placed both eyes in caskets in the Far East and one in the Far West. A professor finds the red eye that had been placed in the desserts of the Far West and thinks that he has proven that the legend is true. The public however turns on him when the casket is declared to be a forgery. Full of anguish from having his career and life ruined, this professor waits fourteen years for the lunar eclipse that turns the moon red to pour vials of blood he has collected onto the red eye and awaken it to seek out the black eye. The guardian of the black eye is alerted to its awakening and he sends our other main character, Chung-seok, played by Nam De-reum, to seek out the banished monk, Park Jin-soo, so that he can stop the two eyes from joining together. This movie is a tad on the long side and at times the story gets complicated to follow. There are multiple story lines and reveals along the way that all come together in the end. I particularly enjoyed the story between Chung-seok and Park Jin-soo and their past coming together to their final moments where they are able to set aside their feelings in order to save the world from the evil that would be unleashed. I have to say the design and costume for the characters infected by the eye, or carrying the eye, is haunting and terrifying. From cracking bones to eyeballs appearing in split cheeks every time one of the characters portrayed the possessed version of themselves I literally jumped. There’s a creepy, dead eyed smile that accompanies this possession and all of the actors are amazing at portraying this. The only thing I didn’t like is how slow the infected would walk despite there only being eight days to complete the task at hand. There is an air of confidence with those affected by the eye but a simple ax is capable enough to take out the threat in the end. I wanted the final battle scenes to be a tad more intense than they ended up being but the emotional draw during those scenes somewhat made up for the lack of physical action. One of the biggest emotional moments is learning that Chung-seok is the son of the woman who killed Park Jin-soo’s family while drunk driving. It’s an emotional scene when Park Jin-soo can overcome his hatred towards Chung-seok and see him as a son after their journey together throughout the movie. We are also faked out by believing that Ae-ran, played by Kim Yoo-jung, is the Virgin Shaman that Park Jin-soo must kill but is actually a ghost. A girl who had been the adopted daughter of the disgraced professor who commit suicide as a sacrifice in bringing the eyes together. This particular storyline could’ve been explored more and felt somewhat of an afterthought. Though finding out that it wasn’t actually Ae-ran who brought the black eye to the red eye but instead a tricked Chung-seok. Another thing I wanted more of is the actual murders and the eye passing from person to person rather than the slow build of the story between the other characters. We mostly just saw the rapidly decomposed bodies with the holes in their skulls for a moment or two. In contrast to that complaint I did like the connection of the stepping stones being people that had attempted suicide in the past and then sought comfort in the meditation group organized by the professor. All in all I enjoyed this movie. I found it scary at the times it meant to be frightening and emotional when it intended to convey a deeper message. I did think it could’ve been thirty minutes shorter and have less build up to get to the point. I also think as mentioned before that the fight scenes between the infected and other people could’ve been more dramatic and intense, more high stakes. The end had been fairly predictable once all of the pieces settled into place but still a decent one time watch.

Disclaimer: Review originally posted December 30, 2021 and updated July 2025. If you're looking for New Year's Eve holiday horror movies Into the Dark: New Year, New You (2018) anthology film follows a group of girlfriends having a New Year's get together that takes a horror turn. Directed by Sophia Takal New Year, New You follows a reunion of friends who have fallen out of touch with their fourth group member, Danielle Williams, played by Carly Chaikin (Darlene in Mr. Robot and Dalia in Suburgatory ). Danielle is now a famous social media influencer, the film releasing in the height of the influencer craze takeoff. Danielle is on one of those meteoric rises that can happen on social media and her 3 friends, Alexis, Kaela (portrayed by Kirby Howell-Baptiste ), and Chloe (portrayed by Melissa Bergland ) are not pleased about her brand or success. Alexis, played by Suki Waterhouse , is the main protagonist but who to root for is a bit twisted. Danielle is portrayed as the antagonist despite the actual action that takes place at this get together. To watch New Year, New You on Hulu now click here . New Year, New You (2018) spoilers past this point Early on it is alluded to that something went down between Danielle and the rest of the group that caused them to stop communicating. It's revealed that they haven’t been in contact since whatever this event was combined with Danielle feeling above them in social status now. Danielle is the stereotypical social media influencer of the time, someone with very disingenuous intentions and who promotes the idea of living the “best life” no matter what that life actually looks like. Her fanbase is referred to as a horde of mindless zombies at least twice which goes to the point that she's portrayed as cultivating a fake persona. 2 of the women, Kaela and Chloe, however seem somewhat caught up in the status that Danielle inserts into most interactions in contrast to Alexis who seems aggitated with Daneille. Chloe in particular cozies up to Danielle and it becomes clear that she is seen as the failure to launch and feels the most down about her life. Kaela on the other hand is the most balanced character, fence sitting and willing to be persuaded to anyone's side which leaves her true intentions vague to the viewer. Her backstory of being a closest-ed lesbian in high school makes sense for how the character behaves and she is flourishing in life now that she's started dating a great woman and pursuing a fulfilling career. She seems to have a good relationship with each of the other group members individually and plays devil's advocate multiple times, trying to reason with her unhinged friend group. Since Alexis the driving force behind their planned attack on Danielle she is the most unhinged and has the worst intentions for the night. The setting is her parent's home and she has a scar on her jaw that alludes to an accident that's caused her to be vengeful now. It's mentioned that she had a breakdown and left college due to whatever happened back in high school between the group of women. Danielle is very obviously putting on a false nice front but her intentions for this aren't revealed up front and her behavior is a bit out of place, more evidence of the wedge between the group members and her. She shows up and immediately wants to jump right back into their friend group, wanting to share vulnerabilities despite having ghosted them after high school. She constantly brings up influencer related topics and attempts humble brags about her lifestyle that ring obviously hollow. During the scene where we learn more about each character’s background she opts to share nothing about herself but rather push the other characters to bare their souls to her. She’s manipulative and crafty but again, the true reason isn't clear. So it’s not all too surprising that when she is confronted by the other three’s true motives of the night she quickly turns from victim to villain and uses her ability to get inside their heads to attempt to get herself free. See, the three women have lured Danielle here to force her to confess that she bullied a high school classmate of theirs which resulted in that person committing suicide. In spite of Danielle planning to go more mainstream in the upcoming new year they feel it is only right that the public know the truth about her and essentially get her canceled to stop that rise. Once they have her tied up though Danielle flips the script and reframes the incident when they try to record her confessing, making them out to be the bad guys rather than actually confessing to anything. This works and buys Danielle time so that while Kaela is on FaceTime with her girlfriend and Alexis goes to talk to Kaela, Danielle uses their absense to convince Chloe, the weakest link. As the most weak willed of the group, Danielle convinces her that she can help her live her best life and become social media famous if she lets Danielle go. Chloe of course falls for this and they are now on the same side, the “kill the other 2” side rather than the "extort a confession" side. This leads to Danielle and Chloe locking Kaela and Alexis into the sauna in the mansion and turning the heat up. They plan to kill them in the sauna to make it look like a plausible accident and then call the police and claim they just discovered the bodies. This is a brutal way to kill someone, especially someone just called a bestie but their plan doesn't reach fruition. Instead Alexis and Kaela bust out of the sauna and go find their devices following storing them away for the no tech rule at the start of the night. The foil to the original plan allows more plot to unfold and them being trapped evens out the moral playing field between the group members. Sure, they decided to extort Danielle but Danielle would rather kill her friends than confess to a seperate crime, so everyone sucks here. Unfortuneately Chloe kills Kaela because Chloe believes she’s coming in between her and her new and better life but that by eliminating her Chloe can have everything she wants. She has a me or them approach and mentality that aligns well with Danielle and her plan. Chloe and Danielle then hunt Alexis around the house like a high stakes game of hide and seek, winner lives. Since she hasn't heard from her Kaela’s girlfriend, Frankie (portrayed by Michelle Haro ), shows up concerned which allows Chloe to stab her. It is revealed that her and Danielle have a plan to pin all of the murders on Frankie and frame it as a jealous lesbian gone mad with murderous rage. Luckily, Chloe gets smacked in the head by Alexis and falls down the stairs to her death before this which leads to Danielle and Alexis facing off on the 2nd floor. After a back and forth battle Alexis pushes Danielle through an upstairs window after Danielle almost kills her. It is in a poetic justice sort of way since the high school situation that kicked everything off resulted in Alexis falling out of the same, now repaired, window. Alexis isn't a hero however and instead steals Danielle and Chloe's plan to pin the murders on Frankie and then absorbing Danielle's social media career. The film ends with Alexis doing a self defense demonstration, something Danielle had said she would do after getting out of the near death experience at the house to capitalize off of the tragedies. Ultimately a gay person goes down for a Home Alone Battle Royale winner-takes-all battle and a detailed version of the high school events that led to the attack aren't revealed. That Alexis didn’t feel any responsibility is interesting in light of the responsibility that she placed on Danielle when she was in the opposite role. All of the characters do this switch during the film and manipulate reality to fit their narrative best which feels like a nod to influencer culture or could be an accidental deep angle I'm drawing. All 4 women are present and involved in every event but they are jealous of and secretly covet what that one woman has. It is apparent that no character in this movie is totally in the right or righteous, even those that might be close to being in the right do things to facilitate or commit crimes they find heinous. Alexis is clearly mentally unstable but it's unclear if it is because of the high school incident and subsequent breakdown or if she'd always been destined to lose it at some point. Chloe’s character on the other hand is fairly transparent and clear, just maintaining desperation throughout to be perceived in a positive light. With Danielle she wore a mask and eventually was forced to show her true colors when faced with a trying circumstance. New Year, New You serves as a time capsule of the social media influencer trope that reached a peak around the end of the 2010's decade. Much of what we accept as common knowledge now was simply theory or speculation before, like the idea that influencers were all vapid and self-serving. Now, this seems like a no brainer but the horror twist on it in New Year, New You feels new even many years after this fad has come and gone. Like many other Into the Dark movies it's a rather quick feeling watch but there are some lulls in action that are used to build suspense but don't feel necessary or that they add that much. A lot of the tension building felt like filler because of this and the plot is obvious from the very beginning, more so providing red herrings to make you question your gut feeling rather than it being a misdirect all along. By no means a terrible film and one that's a decent quick watch if you're searching for New Year's horror which is a very small pool of options.

Disclaimer: This article was initially posted December 24, 2021 and updated on July 9, 2025. The Children  directed by Tom Shankland is a British horror thriller film that came out in 2008 with little pomp and circumstance around that release. This is rather unfortunate because this is a true hidden gem of a horror movie that handles the premise well and features some of the most insane and solid horror acting performances by children. Prior to looking into the film for this post I assumed that the plot took place before Christmas and that the planned celebrations had merely been interrupted by the murderous children but discovered it's after  Christmas and around the New Years holiday. The original version of this review was part of a holiday horror series and posted around Christmas because of this mix up on my part. The Children is really hard to find to watch, not available to rent, but I was able to find it on the internet archive site by clicking here  & if you're interested in adding The Children to your physical media collection please click here . The Children 2008 spoilers past this point The movie opens on a quiet winter night, the ice beginning to melt indicating it is the tail end of winter when the snow goes between slush and frozen throughout the day. The quiet is interrupted by a car coming down an isolated road through the forest setting, loud inside with what is a family. Casey, played by Hannah Tointon, is a teenager and one of the main protagonists throughout the film who is the first character revealed in the film. The noise around her informs annoyance with her younger siblings, Miranda portrayed by Eva Sayer and Paulie portrayed by William Howes. It’s revealed their mother, Elaine portrayed by Eva Birthistle and her husband, Jonah portrayed by Stephen Campbell Moore, are in the front portion of the car. As they arrive at their destination Miranda asks why they can’t live in a nice house like “Auntie Chloe” who is Elaine’s sister and portrayed by Rachel Shelley. Jonah responds to her that anything is possible through hard work and dedication in the way you would say that to kids as the mansion dominates the screen, still decorated from the Christmas holiday. The family in the car is greeted by 2 kids and 2 adults screaming and running from inside a garage “yay!” with excitement to which everyone but Casey excitedly responds back, jumping out of the car. The 2 adults are Chloe and her husband, Robbie portrayed by Jeremy Sheffield, and the 2 children are theirs, Nicky and Leah, portrayed by Jake Hathaway and Rafiella Brooks respectively. Both of her kids are around the same age as Casey’s younger siblings and Casey is the only teenager amongst the group. An awkward almost kiss happens between Jonah and Chloe as they greet one another, both going the same direction for a cheek peck. Casey doesn’t immediately exit the car with the rest of her family, showing the clear divide between her and the group even this early on in the movie. Jonah, her stepdad and her sibling’s biological dad, knocks on the window to attempt and coax her out while the rest of the 2 families begin to move inside. Nicky approaches Casey with equal excitement as he did for everyone and she is snarky in response right as Robbie approaches to hug and  kiss her. Casey’s family has brought Christmas presents, indicating they haven’t seen their relatives recently and Chloe helps Elaine unload them, mentioning her daughter Leah’s health struggles. Elaine’s mood falls immediately when Casey is brought up and this whole dance amongst these characters is fairly similar to how they relate to one another for much of the build up to a terrifying and faster paced 2nd half full of gore and discomfort. The groundwork for the initial horror kicks off in this scene when Casey expresses she’s upset she’s missing a party to Elaine and Elaine calls her Mouse, a term of endearment between the 2, to soften her anger and reason with her Elaine's decision to not let her go. This interaction is disrupted by Paulie, Elaine’s youngest, screaming for help and throwing up near the edge of the driveway which sends her running to help him, disgusting Casey which she expresses with a snide comment. Elaine then asks for Casey to be in a positive mood and help with her siblings, particularly Paulie, and all of this comes into play with the interpersonal relationship aspects of the plot that play out with the family. Already it becomes clear Chloe is the “good” sister, the more natural and active mom with a conventional family structure who has wealth and Elaine is the sister who’s had a less traditional path and perceived as less put together with a shakier financial situation. This information is shared amongst the adults comments towards and about one another, particularly between the 2 sisters while the kid’s open presents right after everyone settles in. It’s also clear that Casey’s Aunt Chloe has weird energy towards her, of a jealous or judgmental nature depending on who Casey is interacting with. She is upset but won’t admit she is that Casey got Leah a kid’s makeup kit as a present, everyone noting that their presents weren’t the best because  Casey got them. It wasn’t totally clear if Elaine actually got the presents and just blamed Casey when it went awry because Casey looked amused when Elaine pointed the finger at her. Despite smoking cigarettes in front of the kids in the same scene Chloe is really concerned about vaccinations and how dangerous they could be for her kids. During this family present opening sesh Paulie also hits Jonah in the face, which alludes to another weird dynamic of favoritism in Casey’s family that is openly acknowledged and used to upset one another. Every physical horror aspect has an equally horrifying emotional or mental aspect during this family’s holiday vacation but things start out only mental and emotional for the first 1/3 of the film. Casey’s uncle Robbie, who is judgmental Chloe’s husband, immediately offers Casey alcohol which Miranda tattles on her  about it only to be ignored by everyone but Jonah. With the promise of a “gold star” on her micromanaging chore board Chloe coaxes Miranda to take Leah back upstairs when she comes down to share that Paulie is freaking her out. Chloe acknowledges prior that Leah had been excited to see Paulie before, implying that he’s acting odd without having to show what he was like pre-movie and pre-infection. The sisters take the opportunity of no little kids around to debate who’s the better mom more openly and Jonah tries to create a seguewey for his business pitch to Robbie which is cut off quickly. Cut aways show that Leah is still afraid of Paulie and rightfully so because he’s staring at her with a blank expression while smacking a children’s xylophone. Back with the adult-ish group Robbie shows Casey where she can get reception in the woods, leaving her with a flashlight to call her friends as he made his way back to the house. Casey calls her friend Lisa to confirm that she’s getting picked up tomorrow afternoon to attend the party and after her call she hears a cat, which she thinks is the family’s missing cat, Jinxie. She doesn’t find the cat despite hearing the jingle of its collar in the woods by the reception spot. Casey makes it back to the house, passing Chloe and Robbie having a conversation about kids on the porch as he chops wood. Chloe shoots her a look and then makes a look to Robbie like he’s meant to know exactly what she means, like she’s definitely expressed negative opinions about her niece. In their own room Elaine and Jonah settle in while Jonah interrogates and then reprimands Elaine for feeling cut off earlier when he wanted to pitch his business idea that is centered around Chinese medicine. Their dynamic is stinky, bad vibes through and through, in particular with Jonah but Elaine has bad vibes also and Casey seems to be the scapegoat. Back in the kid’s room Miranda has received her gold star for helping and Chloe kisses Leah goodnight, who is still watching Paulie. Paulie is looking out the window dissociated but none of the adults seem too concerned about his behavior or what Leah had to say. Earlier Leah also began coughing like Paulie and wiped something she coughed up onto her pillow which also goes unnoticed by supermom Chloe. Images of microscopic amoeba looking specimens flash over the screen that cut to the particles in a snow globe that transitions the scene. The following morning everyone is having a snowball fight outside and sledding down a hill intermittently. Paulie, having stayed up all night staring, is still smacking his xylophone and Jonah attempts to stop him to no avail. Chloe warns Robbie not to sled down the hill anymore because it will be too icy and he’ll crash out because he’s a full grown man, which is a foreshadow. Things build as the characters are doing their own thing: the children are being weird in the tent while becoming increasingly ill, the 2 moms are making hot chocolate in the kitchen, Robbie and Jonah are also outside playing in the snow with the children not in the tent, and Casey goes off into the woods to confirm the plan and location to meet her friend Lisa. Lisa suggests that Casey quote, “hook up with her horny uncle to kill time,” while she waits for Lisa to come get her, gross. She makes her way back to the house and Miranda shouts at her that no adults can come in the tent to which Casey brushes off to go play wrestle with Robbie. This playing in the snow catches Elaine’s eye from inside the house and she takes that as a sign to ask Chloe about her and Robbie’s relationship and if it is going well. She implies that his going on business trips could make Chloe worry that he might cheat but the topic flips to Elaine wanting to spend more time with everyone as a family. Chloe asks if Casey knows about Elaine’s plan and if she approves of it seeming skeptical about Elaine’s claims. Outside Jonah has finally cornered Robbie to make his business pitch, with his materials and everything, which kicks off with Casey remarking what Jonah is showing him is another internet scam he fell for. Robbie is clearly more interested in Casey and the children rather than the business plan, trying to make it obvious he’s not interested and laughing when Jonah tries to show him the positive impacts of the Chinese medicine protocol only for the images to have been drawn on by the children. Jonah is pissed  when he realizes and shortly after the moms come out carrying trays of hot chocolate free off the stove. Paulie from atop the hill sends the sled down and it knocks into Chloe when she brings out the tray and the hot liquid spills all over Jonah and the kid’s table they’d been sitting at. Jonah becomes incensed and jumps up, runs over to Paulie, throws him down on his stomach and spanks him several times while he screams. This imagery is upsetting for viewer and character alike (though it is filmed in a way that clearly no child was actually harmed to make the scene) and Robbie and Chloe immediately call him out for physical discipline, condemning him. Rather than take responsibility for his reaction blames Casey and demands to know why she wasn’t watching Paulie. Back inside Miranda doesn’t want to be in the room with the kids and Nicky also says that he is sick but Miranda is bribed with more gold stars by Chloe to continue watching them and helping out. Chloe is annoyed to find Leah has put some of the play makeup on, which makes her dead pan stare even scarier, and Chloe tries to rub some of it off which makes it even more eerie. The 3 youngest now infected are all on a top bunk staring down at Miranda, still not infected but looking and acting more ill, before the scene cuts to Robbie smoking in the outdoor greenhouse. Casey comes into the greenhouse while he’s smoking and asks if she can have some, coughing when she goes to inhale some. She confides in him that Miranda and Paulie are nightmares and he advises that they need boundaries but that Casey does also, just yucky. Casey goes to pull down her shirt that lifted when she coughed and Robbie sees her tattoo and asks what the tattoo is. The tattoo is of a small baby with an umbilical cord like strand connecting it to Casey’s belly button and she explains that she is the “abortion that got away” and that it’s a self portrait. Robbie is shook but Chloe comes in then and interrupts this heinously odd interaction to find Robbie and Casey lies that she’d been looking for Miranda. Chloe suggests Casey look for her amongst the other kids as she rushes out and the scene cuts to dinner shortly thereafter. At the New Year’s dinner they wear paper crowns and cheers toasts wishing Happy New Year all around but Paulie is being moody and defiant while Leah starts having violent flashes of a bloody babydoll in their yellow tent which flash across the screen. After one of these flashes she grabs a knife and holds it the doll she’s playing with but the knife is quickly taken away by an adult. Nicky is also being aggressive and defiant at that point and Jonah is still trying to pitch his business endeavor. Robbie finally has to let him down harsh and calls Jonah unrealistic because they have integrity in their brand and don’t think there’s proven science behind his plan. Chloe takes the opportunity to call out Casey’s tattoo, pretending she assumed Elaine already knew like some weird 4-D chess attempt. This is weird because Casey is a literal child and Robbie is a creep for hitting on or flirting with that child and Casey doesn’t need to be “punished” for the interaction but I digress. Elaine is upset that Casey never told her about the tattoo, but it is fairly visible and noticeable based on the few outfits Casey has worn. Casey stands up at the table to pull up her shirt and show everyone the tattoo and Jonah says that it is very seasonal while it causes Leah to have another violent flash. Robbie tells Casey it is a cool tattoo even after she says it is a self portrait and shoots her a look that both Elaine and Chloe catch. Suddenly Miranda cries out which starts all of the kids groaning louder and louder becoming a chorus of annoying and overwhelming noises. Chloe’s solution is to offer a gold star because she ate her peas despite this breakdown and Miranda snaps, attacking her and injuring her head. Jonah then intervenes and lifts Miranda out of there, her still screaming and thrashing around for what appears to them as no reason. Paulie has flashes of the kids standing at the top of the snowy hill looking down and staring, this made me think they are having some sort of interconnected visions or communication to know what the plan is without saying anything. Robbie and Casey take the children outside while Jonah handles Miranda and Elaine helps Chloe who is distraught at the series of events. Miranda can be heard screaming in the background of the 2 scenes she’s not in and I love this continuity and immersion into the events on screen no matter where on the property you’re tuning in. Elaine suggests Miranda could be behaving how she is because of being sick and Chloe berates her for bringing a sick kid to their house because of Leah’s health issues. They argue because Elaine rightfully believes she couldn’t predict anyones future or possible illnesses. Casey goes into the woods again to call her friends while the kids set into motion a sinister plot that seems like a coordinated and deliberate efforts. Leah and Paulie pretend to be excited and playful to lure Robbie to the top of the hill they’d sled down earlier that Paulie had recent visions of. Down at the bottom of the hill by the yard’s stone wall and gate Nicky pulls a red cart with tools and toys on it into the path of the sled. Paulie positions the sled and Lead guides Robbie over, his weight doing the rest of the work to push him downhill. As soon as the sled takes off and his fate is set the 2 kids stop smiling and laughing, then silently looking on instead. Just as Robbie is picking up speed down the hill it is revealed that a metal tool from the cart has dislodged and is directly where his head is headed. As Robbie is hit off screen Casey falls and Miranda attacks Jonah but everyone hears Leah scream, including Elaine and Chloe. Everyone rushes to the site of the screams and Chloe runs to Robbies side, his head bleeding as he lay in the snow, blood pooling in the white beneath him. Robbie’s face was mangled by the tool and a piece of his skull flaps back when they lay him on his back, showing severe head trauma and likely brain damage. Understandably everyone is panicked so Casey and Jonah collect the kids while Elaine dials emergency services and Chloe tends to Robbie who’s barely hanging on. Paulie proceeds to cut Jonah with a knife when he attempts to wrangle him and Elaine is informed the police will be at least  a half hour before they can get to them because the road conditions are bad. Elaine is concerned about Paulie rather than Jonah when she learns of their incident after she hangs up with emergency. Paulie has run off outside after this and Elaine goes off to follow him and Casey follows closely behind but they’re stopped when they see Chloe is over a now-dead Robbie sobbing. Chloe starts to realize after they approach that the kids aren’t around any longer and demands that someone search for them in the woods, trying to go herself as well. In the woods Elaine yells for Leah and Nicky but instead is jump scared by Casey approaching and hugging her, relieved to see her. Elaine asks Casey what happened and she explains she doesn’t know, which confuses Elaine because she believes Casey was helping Robbie with the kids. Casey admits she was going to meet her friend to go to the party her mom had forbid her from going to because of the family holiday. Upon realizing this Elaine’s demeanor changes and she seems distant and disgusted with Casey, telling Casey to look for the kids because she should be with Chloe. She goes off and Casey receives a text from Lisa asking where she is just as she sees a flash of Leah’s coat through the foliage. Casey chases after her, not bothering with the party business in order to look for the children now, following noises she’s hearing like coughing or crying. As Casey approaches the noises start to sound more like giggling than crying and in the blurry background Nicky rises from the bushes with his arm raised to attack, the 2 having set up a trap for Casey. When Casey gets close enough she sees Leah is stabbing and playing with their dead cat and falls back into a pile of vomit goo. Inside Miranda asks if Jonah is angry with her and asks about Robbie despite looking infected and ill like the other kids and she further proves she’s manipulating when she blames everything on Casey. She claims she’s upset because of Casey just as Elaine and Chloe come in because emergency services advised they can’t move Robbie. The scene fade cuts to Jonah pacing in the living room, noting that services have taken way longer than a half hour to arrive on scene. Everyone is ready to go in anticipation of the arrival which they are advised is still over a half hour due to conditions outside. Elaine goes to get someone’s jacket and sees in passing that Robbie’s body isn’t where it was when her and Chloe left it. She goes to investigate outside which is a dope birds eye view of the blood splatter and trail in the snow, the blood tracks implying Robbie’s body was put back on the sled to be moved. Elaine slowly follows the trail, her dread increasing with each step as Leah’s giggles are heard inside the tent despite her refusal to answer when called out to. Elaine begins to unzip the tent but then hears Paulie in the distance and goes immediately to help him. She finds Paulie on top of a frozen monkey bars set crying for help, immediately sending her up the icy ladder in her heeled boots. As she climbs the structure however Paulie inches back more and more, causing her to go up more and more steps on the ladder until she’s practically reaching across the top of the bars to him. Once she’s at the top she slips and falls backwards, her leg caught in the bars as she falls and snapping her shin in half before she falls onto the snow which cuts the scene to black. A close up of Elaine’s eye and her blood spilling into the snow bring the focus in granularly as the background sounds fade, simulating the shock Elaine is experiencing after her accident. Casey breaks this up as she rushes to her mother’s side and begins helping her by taking her into the greenhouse and using wood poles and makeshift tourniquets to stabilize the break. As she is doing this they hear Paulie’s xylophone’s signature out of sync tones and both her and Elaine stop dead in their tracks until Nicky throws a rock through a window. Paulie starts climbing through the broken window pane through the wall shelving like Chucky, full of determination to finish off Elaine. The breaking of windows alerts Chloe, Miranda, and Jonah who’d been cuddling on the couch together in that order. Nicky is attacking from the outside while Paulie is acting as a lure and Leah runs off, making Elaine send Casey after her. Inside the tent Chloe finds a bloody sheet and begins to take it off, revealing it is Robbie. She removes the remainder of the sheet and to her horror finds Robbie’s abdomen has been cut up and Leah’s baby doll has been crudely shoved and twisted into his abdomen, now sticking up like Leah’s violent flashes earlier. The doll’s voice motor is dying making it sound deeper as it repeats “mama” over and over. Robbie then jump pops awake, still alive somehow, and Nicky starts slashing the tent with a sharp gardening tool from outside as Robbie fades away again. Just then Casey comes into the tent to rescue Chloe with a gardening tool but Chloe assumes that Casey is the perpetrator and locks Casey out of the house. Back in the shed Paulie tries to stab Elaine, slowly advancing on her, but Casey arrives and pushes him into a glass pane that shatters with one long, sharp shard sticking up still. Casey then falls and is trapped until a fallen shelving unit and Paulie approaches to stab her instead of Elaine and seeing this Elaine yanks his hoodie to pull him back from hurting Casey. This action causes Paulie to fall back on the shard of broken glass which impales him and leaves a trail of blood spilling out beside him. This is also filmed in a way where you don’t see  anything but rather you hear what is meant to be happening and then see a blood trail to confirm prior to Jonah lifting him and the child actor crushing their performance in playing dead. This is obviously unintentional but also Elaine’s fault kind of so she’s very distraught and blaming herself whilst facing the shock of everything. Jonah is consoling her until Casey reveals that Elaine killed Paulie to save Casey which makes both Jonah and Chloe turn on her as they believe Casey is the issue and blame Elaine for making her their issue. They don’t believe Casey at first until Elaine confirms that she hadn’t meant to kill Paulie or sacrifice him for Casey. Chloe accosts her that despite their mother sucking even she wouldn’t kill her own children and turns to Jonah for guidance on what to do now. Chloe becomes increasingly agitated when it’s suggested they leave to get help and when an altercation is about to pop off Jonah throws Casey across the room into Elaine’s leg to protect Chloe. Jonah tells Elaine to stay and wait for authorities while he and Casey look for the kids but Chloe freaks out at that suggestion and screams at Casey to stay away from her kids and runs out with Jonah following right behind her. Casey attempts to talk to Elaine and console her, using their nickname, Mouse, to try and break through to her in her dissociative state. She explains to Elaine that she needs to stay away from the kids because they are sick and dangerous but Elaine doesn’t want to hear that and shushes her. Outside Chloe is looking for her kids and Jonah finds a bloody rock in the woods before Chloe pushes him to the ground and screams at him to take control. He pushes past her and goes back inside at this suggestion while Miranda approaches Elaine inside. She’s trying to take out the stabilizing wood pieces from Elaine’s makeshift splint and pretending to want to console Elaine but Casey interrupts and makes Miranda come help her look for the missing landline phone. Leah runs up to Chloe outside and she’s worried about Leah’s state of possible hypothermia, noting her blue toned skin and frosted icy portions of her face. Unbeknownst to Chloe but shown via the camera angle Leah has some sort of growth behind her ear that looks like it is part of whatever illness is taking over the children. As she examines Leah Nicky crashes into them both which is utilized as a jump scare that cuts away to the action back inside of the house. Elaine is on the couch while Miranda and Casey presumably search for the landline and has the knife that Casey gave her to defend herself. She’s lining up the blade on her wrist and indicating that she is contemplating killing herself in light of the events that are unfolding. All of these scenes are intercut with one another and the shot of Elaine cuts to Casey searching for the phone and following cat noises coming from the far side of the kid’s room. She walks slowly forward as the sound becomes weirder and less cat like but more little girl like and it is revealed to her horror that Miranda is the source of the noise and she is gripping the landline phone. Meanwhile Chloe is trying to talk to the kids who become infatuated with her earring, Nicky pulling it harder and harder until she’s lying back on the ground. Leah grabs a sharp object while this happens and proceeds to stab Chloe through the eye just as Jonah comes into the room Casey and Miranda are in and finds Casey overtop Miranda choking her. Jonah throws her off of Miranda and she tries to keep coming for her but Jonah smashes her in the head with a jar and she falls to the floor with a bleeding head wound. He threatens her if she goes after Miranda again and she looks up at him shocked saying, “Dad?,” but he just looks on at her in disgust and disappointment, shaking his head as he leaves the room. He locks Casey in the room and Miranda runs down the stairs into Elaine’s arms, who is confused about the commotion. Jonah follows and with a blank stare grabs Elaine and throws her back onto the couch and tells Elaine that her and Casey deserve one another. Miranda hugs Elaine then and tells her goodbye as Jonah is collecting their coats and car keys then tells Elaine to be nice to the other children before yanking both pieces of wood from her splint. Elaine cries out in pain as her broken shin falls apart again while Jonah picks up Miranda and heads out to the garage to take Robbie and Chloe’s nicer car. They head out and from the upstairs room Casey sees the car driving away from the house and believes that Elaine has left her and she falls to the ground crying. Back outside Leah and Nicky confirm Chloe is dead and then head back to the house while snow begins to fall again, covering the blood patches in the yard to look pristine again. The door to the yard is still open from all of the earlier action but Elaine is now convinced something is wrong with the children following her interaction with Miranda and starts to hobble over to the stairs to let Casey out. Upstairs Casey sees Leah and Nicky through the window as they stand at the stone fence in the yard staring up at the house and her in the window. Casey freaks out and begins bashing into the locked bedroom door trying to break it down and run away. Elaine hears this and calls out to her which makes Casey relieved to know she is still there and Casey alerts her to the open door which Elaine just barely closes in time. Unfortunately the camera lingers on the cat door, implying that the children can easily still get into the house. Elaine makes her way quietly up the stairs backwards as she drags her broken leg and body up the stairs with a fire poker across her lap. The kids have made it inside but they don’t know where Elaine is so she continues up the stairs as Casey watches helplessly from the keyhole. Elaine knocks a toy down a step that clatters despite her catching it before it gets worse but Casey freaks out goes full force on the door. The 2 children scarily appear with blank stares and faces sallow with cold and the illness just staring at Elaine on the stair landing. Elaine tries to talk to them normally but sees Chloe’s hoop earring in Nicky’s hand as he plays with it and a piece of Chloe’s earlobe is still attached to it. She holds the fire poker out as a deterrent but the kids keep advancing until they’re right in her face and she realizes she’s incapable of hurting the children, apologizing to Casey because she folded when Leah asks her where her mommy is. The makeup design for the children is spooky and coupled with their performances it sucks you into the on screen suspense and fear extremely effectively. Leah approaches Elaine and strokes her hair as she turns away in utter terror, extremely afraid of the children’s next move. Leah then lifts Elaine’s shirt and Nicky reveals he has a garden sheer and a Blair Witch Project looking object, yarn like string tied around crossed sticks that they place over Elaine’s stomach, indicating a similar situation to Robbie’s body in the tent. Luckily for Elaine Casey smashes through the door then and grabs Nicky through the broken door pane and impales him on a spike of wood still in the bottom of the frame, similar to Paulie but face first rather than back first. She goes to grab Leah also but Elaine pleads with her to let her go which she does. They make it out to the car with Elaine leaning on Casey and limping then get the car started after a few scary transmission failures. Elaine apologizes to Casey and she responds that she told her mom Jonah was a knob. The movie could end there, believing the incident to be isolated to this house and now going off to face whatever world exists with Miranda spreading the virus. As Elaine and Casey make their way down the wooded dirt road they run into the car Jonah fled in swerved off the road and crashed into a tree, the car’s hazards still flashing with doors hung open. It seems clear that they’ll find at least one person dead in the car and Elaine goes to motion to get out of the car to go investigate but Casey stops her and volunteers instead. She approaches the car slowly and sees that the driver, Jonah, crashed through the window and she tries to find him, seeing a patch of red in the snow that is still falling. That patch ends up being Jonah still alive and behind her Miranda appears across the road with a raised arm and tire iron in her hand, locked onto Casey. Elaine sees this and tries to scream to warn Casey but can’t so she slams on the gas and crushes Miranda between her car and Robbie’s crashed car. From inside the car the camera angle shows Miranda slide down the car window which leaves a trail of blood behind as her body collapses in the snow. Right after this happens Casey walks across the road and vomits in the snow, appearing to be the same bright greenish color of the children’s vomit when they’d become ill. She could be vomiting due to the intense situation and death of her sister right in front of her as she looked on at her stepdad dying in the snow but it isn’t made clear. She looks up at Elaine in shock and terror just as another kid appears in the distance, strikingly not dressed for snow but seemingly not cold. This reveals that the circumstances aren’t isolated to them and possibly help explain the lack of emergency services being available. More kids reveals in the forest, some further away and some much closer who pose an immediate threat. Elaine and Casey are freaked out by this realization and Casey runs to the car but it’s locked and Elaine looks ahead for a moment contemplating not letting Casey in. She finally decides to unlock the door and let her in and they are able to pull past the wreck and continue down the road at an increasing speed. Just as they pull out Leah appears, having followed them through the woods somehow knowing exactly where they are. Inside the car Casey stares off into the distance which happens to be towards the camera as the car rocks her side to side. Her spaced out look is reminiscent of the children’s when the illness began to take them over and the camera zooms in on her slowly before cutting to black. This seems to indicate that she too is infected which begs the question who is at risk of being infected and still unknown about what  they are being infected with. It’s possible that the illness will infect everyone and just began with the weaker immune systems of children but it’s also possible that Casey is a child and is still capable of being infected which further drives home the notion that the adults are fucked up for treating this child as an adult. Completely not sure but I also don’t think that makes the movie bad in any way and actually think leaving it vague made it more haunting and impactful. Rather than tempting a possible answer and it falling flat the viewer can walk away with questions that make them remember that spooky feeling when they recall the movie. This is a hard movie to find in non-seasonal times and hasn't been readily available since I first wrote the post. Hopefully the link above still works to access the film on Internet Archive because it really is worth a watch, especially if you're looking for a seasonal film that leaves you shocked by the conclusion.

Disclaimer: This was originally posted December 21, 2021 and updated July 2025. When it comes to Better Watch Out , the 2016 Christmas film directed by Chris Peckover, I didn’t plan on being fully engaged when we put this movie on. It was more of a random choice from a list of holiday movies but I was pleasantly suprised how engaging the seemingly obvious plot becomes. I went in assuming Better Watch Out would be a typical babysitter horror film of being confronted by evil and must defend the child against that evil. Sooner than I anticipated this anticipation was met with an outcome I didn't quite predict. I expected a burglar or group of burglars break in and then attempt to murder them but instead the danger lurked in a more unexpected origin. If you're interested in watching Better Watch Out (2016) it's available on Amazon Prime by clicking here and Peacock Premium by clicking here . Better Watch Out spoilers past this point The main protagonist doesn't change however, the babysitter, Ashley, played by Olivia DeJonge, gets more than she bargained for. While she’s babysitting, Luke, played by Levi Miller, has set up a fake intruder with the intention of saving her and then using that knighthood try and seduce her. He believes there's a mutual like between the pair and gives off massive budding-incel energy, which comes to fruition when he literally feels it is his right to date his babysitter. Enlisting the help of his friend, Garret, played by Ed Oxenbould, helps him accomplish this feat which she does believe initially. The 2 young boys go as far to convince Ashley that the murderer kills Garret, really instilling just how dangerous they want Ashley to believe the circumstances to be. Despite the audience becoming aware the revelation that Luke is behind the night she is alarmed and angered. She rightfully tells this demon child to get therapy and attempts to leave. Unfortunately Luke’s obsession knows no bounds and upon this attempt Luke slaps Ashley who falls down the stairs. An unconscious Ashley is then duct taped to a chair and Luke proceeds to torment her with a twisted game of ‘Truth or Dare’. Ashley’s boyfriend Ricky, played by Aleks Mikic, arrives on scene and after an unsuccessful attempt to knock him out he’s coaxed into being duct taped to a chair alongside Ashley with the threat of being shot. I have to say, as much as Luke is doing awful and terrible things, the actor’s portrayal of this character is what truly makes the movie. From voice cracks to the well acted juxtaposition between sociopathic actions and middle school boy thoughts Miller’s performance is what kept my interest. In a horrifying scene which I am glad they did not fully show, Luke decides that he wants to know what would actually happen if you smashed someone’s head with a swinging paint can like in the movie Home Alone. I have to give it to the actors because despite them not showing it, the reactions of the actors told me everything I needed to know about the gruesome outcome of this wretched experiment. After this murder the twelve year old mastermind even gets Ashley’s ex-boyfriend, played by Dacre Montgomery (shout out Stranger Things ), to come over who he then convinces to write an apology letter to Ashely outside before coming in. Seeing Billy from Stranger Things in 2010’s ‘swag’ fashion had me shook to the core in the best and most hilarious way. Nonetheless, while this is happening Garrett is finally being of some use and coming to his senses as Ashley convinces him that he’s expendable to Luke and the best thing to do is to let Ashley, now tied up in Christmas lights, go. He agrees and begins to untie her. Luke however is outside killing the boyfriend by stringing him up over a branch, armed with what looks like a suicide letter he is confident this murder will just look like the ex-boyfriend, now framed as a guilty killer, taking himself out. After this Luke goes inside to find Garrett trying to free Ashley and after some dialogue Luke shoots Garrett in the chest, killing him. I didn’t feel as bad as I should have about this because he should’ve stopped Luke far before anyone got killed but then again he did agree to participate in the original fake murderer plan so how innocent was he to begin with. Now defeated and resigned to her fate, Ashley shares a moment with Luke just before Luke stabs her in the neck, killing her. This next part had me triggered. I have been led to believe through the actions of this character that Luke is a criminal prodigy of sorts, willing to go the distance and conscious of evidence that will point his way. He’s even aware of the story of the crime and making it make at least some sense. Do I think he’s created a hard to believe mess? Absolutely. But, I do believe that not many would have assumed he had anything to do with it. However, his grand plan is to pretend that he slept through the whole massacre happening downstairs?!! Not only that but that the killer had zero interest in harming him or even making sure that he couldn’t identify them. It makes absolutely zero sense to me that police would believe this shit. There are four….. four dead bodies downstairs all killed in gruesome and very loud ways, how the fuck would he have not woken up, even drugged. Also, why would the killer drug him? I understand that the police believe that the ex-boyfriend commit these murders but what a weird way to go about it. If the ex really wanted to kill Ashley why would her babysitting be the time to strike and not when she’s walking outside alone, or home alone, etc. Whatever, this just pissed me off because it made a lot of sense up until he got into bed completely untouched to complete his story and didn’t stage that he’d been tortured and traumatized too. Now, I really liked this next part. After whining to his parents that he has no idea what’s going on and they confirm he’s safe blah blah blah they look out of the upstairs window to see Ashley, my girl, being rolled out of the house on a stretcher into an ambulance. They’re informed that she miraculously survived by placing duct tape over her neck wound, slowing the bleed. Ashley then flips off Luke who is still watching from the upstairs window, and Luke mentions he wants to visit Ashley in the hospital. I would hope that Ashley spills as much as possible in the ambulance ride and at the very least casts suspicion on Luke. Regardless, we hit the credits at this point. Better Watch Out (2016) ended up being a nice accidental find. A Christmas themed horror movie that doesn’t follow many of the clichés and even nods at being a darker version of Home Alone (1990) . If you’re looking for something a little more bloody than your average Christmas movie that isn’t littered with Christmas tropes I would recommend Better Watch Out.

Try as I might, despite my best efforts to watch a holiday themed horror movie this week I just couldn’t do it. It doesn’t really feel like Christmas this year and frankly after watching all three Black Christmas movies I needed a break. So, instead of a holiday movie this week I watched Hypnotic 2021 , a Netflix original starring Kate Siegel as the protagonist and Jason O’Mara as the antagonist respectively. From the opening scene I assumed the therapist, Dr. Collin Meade (O’mara) bared resemblance to a Criminal Minds episode where the serial killer uses his patients' phobias to kill them. A woman is crushed in an elevator and I have to assume that he doesn’t have Saw level abilities to make her wander into a mechanically altered elevator that crushes her without the news getting a hold of the story. I did however find it interesting to see what someone might experience inside of their head when having a phobia, like claustrophobia, come into play. We are introduced to the main character Jenn Tompson (Siegel) as she arrives at a friend’s get-together. We are informed through dialogue that she is struggling, hints like her bringing a dead plant because she drank the bottle of wine she meant to bring are made apparent. My problem with this throughout the movie is that she is a really put together appearing woman for someone struggling, unemployed, and in need of a life changing therapist. Her hair is done, her clothes are cute despite the costume designers best efforts to make Kate Siegel look frumpy in a knit sweater. Also in this scenario we meet the therapist himself, Meade, who shouldn’t even be at this party considering he is treating Jenn’s close friend, Gina Kellmen, played by Lucie Guest. Already I know he is no good based on this fact alone and his general lack of boundaries having the audacity to give Jenn a card in the first place knowing the association between his patient Gina and Jenn. We also learn that Jenn has an ex-boyfriend Brian Rawley, played by Jaime M. Callica, whom she has a sorted past with but clearly still cares about. Of course Jenn ends up going to see Meade for therapy and goes under hypnosis. We as the viewer are not privy to what happens in this session, as neither Jenn is, she goes under and then wakes up and that’s it. We do however learn that within three months of that session she has secured a good job and per her therapist's urging is going to have dinner with Brian to discuss their issues surrounding the death of their newborn son years before. As she is leaving to get groceries for said dinner she gets a call from an unknown number, she answers and then blacks out only to come to with Brian choking in her bathroom. Despite me thinking he would for sure be the first murder victim of Meade in Jenn’s life he is alive on a ventilator. Jenn blames herself only to piece together with memories and clues that she in fact bought sesame oil, Brian’s allergy, and put it in the salad for him during the blackout. In a surprising twist Jenn doesn’t just ignore this but instead starts to investigate hypnosis and crimes committed under hypnosis. The discovery that you can in fact be hypnotized and then be made to carry out crimes she compiles evidence and takes it to an officer who previously investigated Meade for this very crime, Detective Wade Rollins, played by Dulé Hill. She’s also roped her friend Gina, the one who introduced her to and recommended Meade, into this investigation despite Gina not believing her at first. Rollings is sympathetic but can’t do much at the moment as he has tried in the past and the police bureau uses hypnosis in crime investigations and doesn’t believe him about Meade. This is annoying but ACAB so it makes sense. As they leave Gina decides to mention that despite his protests before Meade has also used hypnosis on her, and at this moment I know that she will either be killed or try to kill Jenn. Before that happens however Jenn tries to catch Meade by recording him during one of their sessions. She’s not great at deceiving him and he has been stalking her anyways and is aware that she went to talk to the police with Gina. He lets her record it anyways and just uses the time to interrogate her about her mistrust around him. He creepily calls her “my love” which will become important later and I will bitch about that. As predicted he calls Gina and puts her under hypnosis to kill her, my problem with this is why the hell would she continue talking to him when she heard it’s him on the phone knowing damn well he uses death mind control on people? Also, she starts seeing a spider on her while driving with her husband but like she doesn’t have to crash or accelerate into traffic, she could’ve just pulled over and gotten out. Either way, she and her husband die in the crash. There’s some cat and mouse between Rollins and Meade, with Rollins being far too trusting in his presence even drinking his alcohol. It’s apparent that Meade only uses hypnosis on certain patients but we still aren’t privy to why that is at this point in time. I can’t believe that he’s letting Meade not only know he’s onto him but also calling him out on his turf, is this a man thing? Anyways, Rollins goes and tells Jenn his findings and warns her and then leaves only for Meade to show up moments later and use force like power to stop her dead in her tracks. Rollins gets attacked in his apartment by another one of Meade’s patients under hypnotic mind control, she’s somehow good at fighting and practically kicks Detective Rollins’ ass. He ends up in the hospital which I appreciated because I like his character and it annoys the hell out of me when they kill a character too soon and make the villain seem invincible only for him to be easily thwarted later. Jenn ends up going to see another therapist to talk about the hypnosis and maybe be hypnotized again and fuck that. I would never be able to trust another therapist again after this bullshit. Alas, this sweet lady puts her into a hypnotic state where she starts choking in the real world but in her subconscious she has visions of a house and a bracelet with the date of March 6th on it being given to her by Meade himself. Once she breaks out of this state to a horrified therapist they determine that that darn Meade has placed stop gaps in her subconscious so she can’t be hypnotized and released from his bullshit by anyone else. They do decide however to place their own suggestions in her subconscious as a defense against Meade. Now right here I thought, damn that’s genius, I wonder how this will play out. Well, not as intelligently as I assumed. Like every gung-ho horror movie idiot, Jenn goes to the place from her dreams alone, despite learning that it’s Meade’s dead mentor’s home, in the middle of nowhere. Before she leaves she updates the recovering Rollins, cause he can’t catch some peace. This freaks him out but he stays his ass in the hospital bed where it belongs. Unfortunately, he gets a call shortly after that Meade is actually the son of the “mentor” who had ties to MKUltra and implanting false memories into patients. Xavier Sullivan, the mentor, refused to retire like most white men with ideas of grandeur. When Jenn gets there we are shown that uh-oh, Meade is actually Jamie Sullivan, the creepy son of creepy Xavier. I’ll admit some of these events might of occurred out of the order I’ve described them but it’s all the same in this scenario. In the face off between Jenn and Meade/Jamie we learn that he has been trying to recreate his wife and their happy moments with lookalikes and that Jenn has made it the furthest up in here. He has her hypnotized to sit still as he describes his creepy agenda. In a cliché he gets angry when he’s called insane. This bothers me because I think we can all agree that you can be insane and still be aware of being insane especially if you’re a trained therapist who has knowledge of what is psychologically “normal” and “abnormal”. Some more stuff happens and then we get to the point where Rollins is there trying to find and shoot Meade and Jenn is able to break out of the hypnosis kind of. Side note, during the altercation between Meade and Rollins Meade uses a tire iron to hit Rollins and I want to know why everyone in horror movies just has tire irons laying around, I don’t think I’ve owned one in my life. Jenn gets the gun and shoots a fighting Rollins and Meade and thinks she has shot Meade and killed him waking up in the arms of Rollins on the couch. He calls her “my love” though and she instantly knows based on the stop gap placed by the good therapist that she’s under hypnosis. This pissed me off. Why the hell weren’t there far more stop gaps in place, was it a time issue, was it a fear it wouldn’t work? My thinking is that Jenn and the viewer both know he’s used words such as ‘stop’ and ‘sleep’ so couldn’t they have just added those to the counter measures to stop some of this extra shit from happening? It seems like a pretty base level insurance policy to stay protected in face of an odd situation that is just missed. Regardless, she gets free, kills Meade, and Rollins survives. Like every disgruntled woman she cuts bangs in the flash forward. She has a great job and waits dutifully by the side of Brian for him to wake up from whatever is up with him. Was it a great movie, no, was it a nice break from Christmas horror, yes. I didn’t have to think much, the plot, while predictable, also had satisfying elements. Not particularly scary other than the notion that someone could fuck up your whole life because they put you under hypnosis. I assume that the level to which he’s able to control her isn’t possible but I honestly don’t want to know if it is because the idea of people walking around being mind controlled in real life is actually terrifying. I left this viewing never wanting to be put under hypnosis.

Disclaimer: This article was initially posted December 9, 2021 and updated on July 8, 2025. These days Christmas, a commercially motivated holiday, is focused on giving, joy, and often miracles thread through those more profit driven goals like gift giving and holiday event attending. From that commercial aspect grew the modern Santa Clause, a man in a sleigh who watches your children all year long then determines who is deserving and undeserving of material gifts, specifically toys. As with most things this too can have a horror spin on it however. Though the horror genre isn’t typically associated with Christmas I feel there are inherently sinister elements of the Christmas season that fit perfectly with horror. I'm a huge fan of both horror and Christmas and right after Halloween passes I look forward the holiday season with a mixture of Christmas-themed horror mixed in. Watch Black Christmas now by clicking links below As of updating this post Black Christmas (1974) is available to watch free with ads on Roku by clicking here , Black Christmas (2006), Black Christmas (2019) is also available for free with ads by clicking here , and Black Christmas (2019) is available on Hulu by clicking here . Though the 3 Black Christmas movies aren't considered a series or franchise at least one of the 3 renditions typically makes any Christmas horror list. As is customary with many remakes changes to the plot and circumstances are made to modernize it for the new time period. Additionally this is a great set of movies to show trends in the horror genre throughout different eras of horror. The 1974 original is quintesential in that it innovates on the genre similarly to the other horror movies of the 70's that sought to push bounds and try new filiming techniques, methods, and technology. The 2006 remake of the original is a Rob Zombie film and is very bare bones in the plot department but over the top in distasteful subject matter, gore, and color. The most recent rendition that released in 2019 incorporates social issues surrounding gender, particularly in the college setting, and opts for a twist ending that differs from anything in the other 2 Black Christmas films. Black Christmas movie spoilers past this point All 3 films have the same base plot: a group of sorority girls living in a Greek house on a college campus are still there after most everyone has left for Christmas break when they start to die one by one. Each group becomes aware they are under threat in different ways but the big shock of the film that pushed the original 1974 film to it's place in horror history that the killer after them is in the house with them from the start. All take place on a snow filled and festively decorated campus with the addition of a few male characters who are either parents, boyfriends, or police. In addition to those through threads there is a closet kill or fake out scare, prank phone calls of a creepy nature, a ski trip is mentioned, and a decorative glass unicorn figurine becmoes a weapon. The first 2 films, the first coming out in 1974 and the second in 2006, have very similar stories with the second one going more into backstory for the killer and explaining some of the vaguer plot points that the 1974 Black Christmas left that way. The 2019 remake however has a very different plot and only shares basic similarities like the setting and basic framing of the story. Black Christmas 1974 The original movie, Black Christmas (1974), considered by some to be the first slasher POV popularly used in a horror movie. Written by A. Roy Moore and directed by Bob Clark the plot is based on an urban legend about a babysitter and the 1943 case of a 14-year-old murdering his family. On opening a group of sorority sisters and frat guys are having a holiday kick back. Nothing of note happens here except the men getting kicked out followed by a phone call. This phone call switches the tone from jovial to fear, and it's revelaed that a person who the women have named “the moaner” has been calling and saying crude and unusual things. They explain that when they answer the moaner says things that make little to no sense and are usually sexual in nature. These statements from the moaner were added in post production to be more vile for the time without the actors knowing. One particularly iconic kill scene is filmed with a handheld camera as the killer hides in a closet and then attacks Clare. After killing her the killer places her body in the attic window like an ominous watch over to the murders of her friends. Her body, sat in a rocker, is the actress with a plastic bag over her head which seems potentially dangerous from our more safety focused perspective of today. Throughout the movie we revisit the attic and the killer at some points even interacts with Clare’s body, further driving home the psychologically disturbed nature of the murderer. The first half of the movie is following Clare’s dad trying to find out what the hell happened to Clare; it's odd to follow a male character despite the film being about a sorority house. The other iconic scene that is usually noted is the killer, Billy, using a unicorn glass figurine to stab to death a rather interesting character, Barb, while she drunkenly sleeps. Ultimately one of the sorority boyfriends, Peter, who is a rude but not murderous guy, gets blamed for all the killings. Peter is thus taken away while the actual killer and obscene amount of bodies are still in the house, and just then the phone rings. This alludes that the killer is calling, not in the back of the police car but still on the loose, which the audience is privvy to. The ending of the first Black Christmas is intentionally vague, leaving many plot points unfinished and open to the imagination of the viewer to what will happen next. This was more common in earlier horror films, particularly in the seventies, a story could end with little resolution but just as a standalone snapshot in time. Now, audiences anticipate endings that make sense and feel easy to continue into the future and imagine what sort of life the characters could come to live. Upon initial release Black Christmas , actually released under an alternate title to avoid accusations of Blaxploitation, something popular at the time. Initially the film received mixed reviews from audiences, some finding it to be too obscene and grotesque to be enjoyable. I can see why it would be called obscene and myself felt squeamish and uncomfortable during certain scenes filmed under the harsh lighting that really felt like you saw through the POV of a disturbed, mouth breathing individual. Despite this mixed reaction Black Christmas became the 3rd highest grossing film in Canada at the time at $2 million. Costing about $620K to make the film earned $4.1 million from the international box office by the end of the release. A few years after the initial release in 1978 the film faced unexpected controversy around the TV premiere date about 2 weeks prior to it. The man we now know to be Ted Bundy broke into the Chi Omega sorority house in Tallahassee, Florida and murdered several women, understandably ringing a bit too close to the Black Christmas premise. In response the Florida governor requested the film not air in Florida and the network allowed Georgia, Florida, and Alabama to air an alternate movie during the time slot they planned to air Black Christmas . This makes a lot of sense and mirrors what the film industry has done in recent eras in light of unexpected disasters and horror plots that might be too similar for comfort (the first Final Destination and the 9/11 terror attacks occurring the same year). Black Christmas 2006 The story gets weirder in the 2006 rendition however, intentionally casting many attractive young starlets to not be able to distinguish who the final girl is, eliminating that as a spoiler to who lives. Still following Billy this 2006 version makes significant changes and additions to his backstory, filling in missing plot holes from the original. These plot fills are interesting to say the least and I don’t even know how to describe how bizarre things become in this movie. From obscenely grotesque scenes to jarring acts of incest over music and tone that don't match that intense of a topic to shown assault this movie genuinely made me uncomfortable. To clarify this discomfort was more in a triggered manner than a fearful one. Things are fairly basic A+B=C in regard to the horror elements in the story and the "Agnes" mentioned in the original movie’s phone calls is revealed to be Billy’s younger sister. This doesn't really clear things up unfortunately, as it is also revealed that Billy's sister is also his daughter whom was conceived via his mother assaulting him. He is contained to the attic for his entire life alongside Agnes, kept captive there by their mother. Billy is also yellow , like bright highlighter SpongeBob yellow but a deeper shade. He’s meant to be jaundiced but instead he looks like a Sin City character or Ralph Finneas in 28 Years Later. Aside from being essentially glow in the dark bright Billy alongside Agnes are a killing duo in this version rather than a solo Billy. A multitude of wild murders occur, a varying level of play on the female aspects of the characters, playing into stereotypes or misconceptions. Despite believing they've defeated the killers after a battle sequence the killer duo somehow survive a fire and once at the hospital attempt to take out the final girl. The alternate ending was actually Billy being impaled by a Christmas tree, pushed while battling the final girl, and his entrails becoming stuck to the top on the star and threading the tree like additional decor as the very yellow Billy slides down. This monstrosity of a visual creation is that of the Weinstein’s and the studio that made this film, ultimately becoming the final version. I'm less than a fan of this version, it dials up all of the qualities that I disliked about the first film and dialed back on the hidden gems. It is odd that Agnes stayed in the attic for so long without detection despite the sorority house and the activities within it commencing down below. While they explain Billy being absent from the property leading up to the events of the film, I don't recall this being explored in the detail it warranted. Regardless I found this movie relied too heavily on tropes while also seeming to believe itself above them. Black Christmas 2019 The 3rd and most recent Black Christmas released in 2019 and takes a completely different turn than its predecessors. I often think of movies like this when I imagine what direction horror would've headed in had the pandemic and resulting strain on the film industry not occured. I wonder what projects might've come to fruition and if another Black Christmas following this story's setup would come out. The only out of the 3 directed by a woman, Sophia Takal's perspective is felt throughout the on screen action from story to costume to portrayals. It's clear that Takal took advantage of top of mind issues that college aged women were facing during the first TACO presidency and incorporated them into the horror which paid off well. I find the 2019 remake interesting to watch from start to finish, enjoying the characters, the group of women's friendships, and the supernatural frat cult turn of the story. Feeling drawn from headlines the main antagonist is a fraternal order of men who have been taken over by the misogynistic founder’s evil spell. Their goals are to have men rule the world attack and during the Christmas break resolve to attack the house of sisters still on campus. Ultimately they hope to indoctrinate all men on campus and then the world with the aid of dark magical forces. Fortuneately this is stopped in an epic fight scene by the pissed off surviving sorority sisters. The evil is ultimately ended when the founder's supernatural bust is smashed to pieces and the frat house burns down while the sisters and the one woke guy who survives look on. While it doesn’t have much in common with the other two movies aside from the intial circumstance of sorority sisters at their house as Christmas Break begins it treats its female plot subjects completely differently which pays off in a better film. Woman aren’t objects in the third one and not plot devices like in the first one but rather have complex and deep relationships while having one another's backs. Rather than making fun of sorority girls or enjoying evil things happening to them they are actually the subjects to root for and empathize with. While this feels normal in modern horror it is important not to forget that not long ago this was new. All the characters are multidimensional and have motivations outside of a horror movie plot, another aspect not as common in earlier horror or films. Also, not a huge fan of the Billy killer so I did not miss him in the slightest but found this to be a far more interesting antagonist for the women to battle. This was my first time watching any Black Christmas movies and I was definitely intrigued due to the 2019 remake becoming available to watch. While I'm not a huge fan of the first 2 versions I am thankful to have them as a reference point for what I really do like and appreciate about the 3rd and most recent film. I have major respect for some of the horror techniques pioneered with the first film like the killer POV camera shots and the killer contacting the victims from inside of the house the whole time. I imagine in the seventies your home was even more of a safe space than it is now so to think to check that space seemed like an unneeded overreaction. Despite the more lax approach to the sorority sisters in the 1st movie I do think that Clark accomplished the goal of portraying young adults as more capable rather than partiers in comparison to other media at the time.

Original Shudder Post - November 24, 2021 If there is one thing that drives my opinion on applications, it is user experience. It always feels like a lot of the problems like minor annoyances to the consumer can be easily fixed with a little tweaking. Yet, a lot of streaming platforms don’t seem to notice or care to fix those little annoyances. That is one thing I will always say positively about Netflix, their user experience and how it is ever evolving in the right direction. Most of my Shudder opinion is going to focus on user experience for these reasons. Aside from being horror focused, which I am appreciative of, it is at the end of the day another streaming platform. With so many options for streaming platforms out their user experience is what I typically use to determine what platforms I will be subscribed to and which ones won’t make it past the free trial period. To start, Shudder is a streaming platform dedicated to horror content. It has recently been revamped and creates platform specific content as well as streaming horror content in general. Now that alone is a tick in the box of reasons to stay subscribed, that there is a possibility for horror content that is new but unavailable on other platforms. However, I haven’t had the chance to watch anything other than V/H/S 94 (which is a good watch) so it is still open for debate whether that platform specific horror content is worth the watch. So far, I have only been able to access Shudder on the internet, Apple phone/tablet, and Samsung Smart TV. It isn’t available through Xfinity boxes or PlayStation. I don’t have access to other modes so if or if not they are available is a non-issue to me. In the accessibility area that isn’t bad, could be better but could also be worse. Now to using the app, which is where my minor grievances come in. The search function leaves room for improvement. I specifically went onto Shudder to watch V/H/S 94, the newest installment of a series I am a fan of. Unfortunately, finding the movie became more difficult than anticipated. It wasn’t featured on the homepage for me, which I found weird since I assumed it would be something used to draw people into using Shudder. When I tried to find it through search not only is there not predictive text, but I also couldn’t find the movie using “VHS” or “V/H/S” or even just “V”. It’s truly bizarre that search terms that should pull up at least an associated movie pulled up zero search results. Not everyone can have an algorithm like Netflix where even movies they don’t have are predicted and similar ones recommended, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask that at the very least the first letter of the title pulls up the movie as a result. Eventually, I found the movie in the new section after scrolling through a few rows of titles. Now for the biggest gripe I could find, subtitles/closed captioning isn’t working for me. I personally am not hard of hearing, but I prefer the subtitles always being on. However, there are a lot of people who genuinely need closed captioning to be able to watch media and not having that function working is just not something a big platform should be doing. The world is already not accessible enough for people who are differently abled, the least we can do all that’s in our power to limit that inaccessibility and closed captioning is the bare minimum. Even TikTok has closed captioning functions. All in all, I found the app to be usable (aside from the closed captioning malfunction which could just be an issue with my personal technology…hopefully) with a wide array of selections. To be clear though I am fully aware these are the most first world problems and at the end of the day it’s just an app, an app that I am thankful exists. Also, an app I highly recommend checking out for any fan of the horror genre. July 2025 Post Revisit The above post was originally posted November 24, 2021 and Shudder has changed a lot in new features and stayed pretty much the same for the preexisting features. The live TV channel-style feature has more than a couple of times introduced me to movies I wouldn't have watched otherwise but was glad to have seen, making it a worthwhile feature in my opinion. I think the inventory options ebb and flow, there will be bursts of new conent that seems really interesting but then I won't hear much chatter about Shudder for a few months.

Like many young Americans I'm not a fan of Thanksgiving and rather look forward to a Federal Holiday guaranteeing a day off following earlier years of Black Friday shifts that began around 2 AM. Unlike more jovial holidays like Christmas and Halloween, also based around consumerism in America but still more festive than the history surrounding Thanksgiving. My first thought was shock that more than one Thanksgiving-specific horror movie existed but a horror movie about a horrifying holiday actually makes more sense than anything. The history of Thanksgiving is rooted in the same themes common throughout all United States history, whitewashing a rather crude and evil truth to favor the pilgrim settlers as heroes they were not. Rather than heroes pilgrims relied heavily upon indigenous populations knowledge and kindness throughout the harsh winter in a rugged land they were not prepared to survive in. The pilgrims and many generations of them to come in many different forms repaid these tribes by stealing from, lying to, cheating, and even murdering them. Instead of a day of rememberance for the lives lost to the imperial conquests of the fledging USA colonies it became a day to celebrate that very predating act of meeting with the natives prior to their hatred sweeping through the land like rot. On the contrary the central theme of Thanksgiving by the eighties centered around being thankful, or rather grateful , for the life that you have and what you have within that life. Similar to rags to riches stories this serves as a way to put negative feelings back on a society rather than addressing that those feelings could be possible side effects. It is more clear than ever that history is a more fragile concept than we'd previously felt it to be, that it takes one unchecked institution, person, or administration to threaten the sanctity of historical fact and record keeping. Nonetheless, it is a holiday mired in horror both real, cultural, political, and otherwise. Pilgrim 2019 spoilers past here Luckily, there is one character in this movie who not only is aware of the aforementioned facts but challenges the other characters during the celebratory events surrounding Thanksgiving. I was thankful throughout for this character, also wanting to question the Pilgrim’s religious teachings and gender roles from early on. We open on a scene of the back of a little girl’s head with two adults arguing in the background. The background is fuzzy, but we can gather that it is most likely a little girl and her two parents arguing. A flash forward takes us to the present day where we can gather that the little girl is now a teenager and the main character, Cody, played by Reign Edwards. Before going any further I need to address Cody’s wig. Cody is clearly a biracial woman (based on the knowledge that her father, Shane, played by Kerr Smith, is white) and I am going to infer that rather than show her natural hair they wanted her to wear a wig, which would be fine. Except that the wig is horrid. Not a lace front, shiny like they didn’t even attempt to make it look natural and with a curl that looks fresh out the box, not styled. This brings me to a mini rant about how black women and women of color with type 3 and especially type 4 hair are not treated with the respect and dignity they deserve to be when it comes to hair and makeup. You should not be a makeup or hairstylist on movie or fashion sets if you cannot do all types of hair. It makes zero sense that you would cast people of color and then have them on screen lookin a damn fool because you didn’t vet if anyone could lay a damn wig. They had the audacity to film this wig on Cody’s head underwater where you could see her natural hair line and the band on the inside as the wig lifted. As if the hair didn’t look bad enough outside of the water. Honestly now that I think about it the wig looked better and more realistic after she came out of the water. Anyways, during a character establishing dinner we learn that Cody’s mother isn’t in the picture, her workaholic dad, Shane, pays around $60,000 a year for her to attend boarding school, Cody skips class, and hates her try hard stepmother, Anna, played by Courtney Henggeler. We also learn that Cody has a half-brother, Tate, played by Antonio Raul Corbo, with whom she has a decent relationship. In a misguided attempt to bring the family together Anna has decided that they will be hosting Thanksgiving pilgrim re-enactors who will take them through a traditional, historic celebration. Which just off rip sounds horrifying. We then get this seemingly unimportant scene of Tate and Cody breaking a wishbone where we hear a voiceover of Cody wishing that her stepmother’s Thanksgiving plans blow up in her face as Cody breaks off the larger piece of the wishbone. So clearly this is a foreshadow that this holiday is about to go awry. For no reason at all we hear a distorted voice repeat what Tate says. This is an unimportant detail but extremely bizarre because it is the only time that this occurs in the whole movie. For the sake of not going over every detail the next few scenes entail an HOA meeting hosted by Anna where we learn that she isn’t well liked and seen as a fake social media brag. We also establish that Cody is dating a neighbor boy, Finn. Mid-party the pilgrim re-enactors, Ethan, and Patience, arrive early and don’t break character for one second. Cody is the only suspicious one and Anna passes Patience, played by Elyse Levesque, off to Finn’s mom, Katherine. Late at night Cody finds Ethan, played by Peter Giles, telling Tate a bedtime story, alone in Tate’s room which is red flag central. Cody can’t find any information about this reenactment group online, but Finn tells her to chill out. We learn Ethan is all about gratitude and has some sort of sordid history with his family. Katherine makes the mistake of being ungrateful about her life when she’s talking to Patience in her kitchen who then makes her some sketchy herbal tea. Back at Cody’s we discover that creepy Ethan has made an entire shed in their backyard overnight. Anna and Ethan are replacing the lights with candles and lanterns and are requesting that all electronics be given to them. How could this possibly go wrong. They inform Cody that Tate and Ethan have gone foraging and gotten berries for the feast but warn not to eat the green stemmed ones because they’re poisonous. To this I say why the hell would you bring the poisonous ones back to the house unless they’re a plot device to be revisited later. We flash to Finn in his house where he puts his phone on a table by the front door to charge, the weirdest action by a teenage character ever. He looks for his mom, Katherine, only to find Patience churning butter so aggressively that her hands are bleeding while she stares out the window. Terrified by this creepy pilgrim lady Finn backs out of the room to find his mother dead on the floor. He runs downstairs to his table phone but when he picks it up to call for help, he’s attacked from behind. Should’ve just went out the front door but whatever. Cody finds Ethan trying to indoctrinate Tate into their weirdo religion in the shed and confronts him. More pilgrims are now around with no explanation from Ethan other than what their roles are like “builder” when asked. Disturbed by this Cody goes to find Finn only to find his body in the front closet. While this is happening Shane and Anna are captured, dressed in pilgrim era garb, and put into (HEAD SHACKLE THINGY). They’re lectured about not appreciating their lives and being so focused on technology rather than one another. Ethan proceeds to brand both Anna and Shane which he follows up by maniacal laughter. Cody goes home rather than going to find help after discovering a crime scene and frees her parents. In a bonding moment, all three take down a pilgrim together. The family’s plan is then for Cody to go get help and for Anna and Shane to sneak into the house to rescue Tate from inside without alarming the pilgrims inside. This clearly doesn’t go well because not nearly enough has happened for the movie to be over, so Cody is captured in the driveway and Shane is stabbed, falls, and then gets the axe from Patience. Cut to Cody and Anna tied to chairs in the backyard, Anna gagged and being slapped. Random but Anna sounds like a turkey gobbling during this scene which is very on brand for the movie. Then in truly annoying fashion the pilgrims, directed by Ethan, lift Cody over the pool and dunk her in and out. This is the scene where we get shots of that horrid wig underwater. Cody is almost drowned as Ethan yells and asks if she is grateful. Once Ethan is satisfied that she has faced death and is grateful she gets to come out of the torture contraption. The pilgrims and their captives then go inside to have Anna shuck corn and Cody smash berries for the Thanksgiving feast. Realizing they are screwed Cody plays along and declares all the things she’s been ungrateful for and that it’s true they didn’t appreciate their lives. Anna decides bump that and even though she’s the reason they’re in this mess she doesn’t repent. Cody with the quick thinking picks up a sharp tool and stabs patience in the hand and head and Anna realizing this is their moment throws flour into the candles, causing a mini blaze? Not sure why this is even a thing but it’s a thing. They capture them of course and Cody’s wish comes up. Back in captivity Anna and Cody are about to be forced to enjoy the feast. The main dish is none other than Shane himself, revealed to them when a cover is taken off a dish and his head with an apple in it is the centerpiece. Uh-oh these pilgrims are cannibals. They proceed to enjoy their feast of Shane and force Anna and Cody to eat parts of Shane that they proceed to spit out. At this point I’m thinking do they even want to survive this event. Suddenly, the pilgrims start to choke and cough up blood. This leads to a truly disgusting scene of Ethan forcing himself to vomit and a shower of said vomit raining down on another dying pilgrim. This scene is truly gross, but we have managed to get one over on the pilgrims. We learn that Cody, when mashing the berries earlier, put the poisonous ones in and all of the pilgrims proceeded to eat that poison. Patience is looking for Tate upstairs but succumbs to the poison. Tate then frees Anna and Cody. But wait, Patience wasn’t dead. We then have two battles, one between Anna and Patience and another between Ethan and Cody. Highlights from these battles is Anna using Shane’s head as a weapon to hit Patience with who she then stabs in the neck. Anna and Cody then confront Ethan, beating him together. Cody asks Ethan why the hell they’d do all of this, and he says it’s to make them grateful and aren’t they grateful. He also asks Cody isn’t this what she wished for. Upon hearing this Cody takes an axe and says, “Happy Thanksgiving” and then off camera kills Ethan. We see his feet go lax and then his hand open to reveal none other than that damn wishbone from the beginning of the movie. All things considered this Thanksgiving themed romp could’ve been a lot worse. I appreciated that Cody called out how odd and potentially dangerous this whole ordeal was from the beginning however I am far brattier and would’ve said, “I leave or the pilgrims leave” because no way that this was ending any way but horribly. Not particularly scary in any sense with minimal jump scenes and the gore mostly confined to the final act, it’s still a decent watch. It’s not too long that you’re sitting there wondering how certain scenes made the cut but not too short that you’re left wondering why nothing had an explanation. I like the fact that there isn’t really confirmation if this is a group of crazies or rather some supernatural manifestation tied entirely to Cody’s wish. Considering that Ethan has knowledge that only he could have and that the pilgrims don’t break character I’m leaning towards supernatural. That also begs the question however, do these pilgrims have a history of rolling into town on Thanksgiving to terrorize family’s they perceive as ungrateful? There is a newspaper clipping in the beginning credits that showed a missing family, so I assume that this family is not the first. I also wonder why the pilgrims are not at all shocked by modern technology, clothing, or trends. With a movie like this though I will give it a pass on answering all the questions simply because that would take a lot of the mystery and intrigue out of the viewing experience. If you’re looking for a Thanksgiving themed horror movie during the holiday season, I would recommend Pilgrim (2019) even if it’s only to yell at your screen asking characters why they would make those choices.

The beef is more of a general issue with modern media but nonetheless still a problem and that problem, to put it simply is: the endings don’t make sense anymore. We all remember the final season of Game of Thrones . Eight seasons of beautiful character and world building culminated in a final battle viewers couldn't see and bizarre endings for the most beloved characters. The predictions, hopes, and insights went unanswered and a desire to rewrite history. Personally, Daenerys' fate still doesn't make sense and felt like a u-turn from the original direction for her. Granted, the knowledge that she is meant to be the villain from early on makes their decisions less offensive. Despite doing unquestionably harsh and evil things Emilia Clark still had us feeling like Daenerys had the right and we related to her struggle against what we'd call "The Man" for our society. Regardless, it's like all logic will suggest the show is dropping hints and reasonable setups for future plot points, that you're an investigator collecting clues to solve the mystery. When you finally feel comfortable in your prediction you are caught completely off guard by the reality of the ending. This would be fine if the ending made sense, but unfortunately it's more The Open House (2018) , at the time one of the new scary movies on Netflix, than it is M. Night Shyamalan masterpiece. All of a sudden like a circa 2007 GPS inaccurately changing directions on short notice, the story is almost unrecognizable. What you thought to be aliens is really a sentient television creature that wants to harvest human bodies for some unknown reason like the ending of Await Further Instructions . It doesn't matter if it's a pick from the scary movies on Netflix or one of the new horror movies to hit theaters, the risk of experiencing a bad ending has increased considerably. The person who had been obviously cleared of being the killer is suddenly holding the weapon. Or worse yet, an ending like A Classic Horror Story , the whole plot of atrocities interwoven with mystique is actually just one man's attempt to create a real life horror movie. The let down is swift and once the big, nonsensical reveal occurs the story doesn’t take nearly enough time to explain what the hell just happened. The events fold out how they would after any climax and then just like that screens fade to credits and you’re left underwhelmed at best and most likely utterly annoyed. It would be preferable for a predictable and satisfying ending to play out like the cherry on top of the finale sundae. What could've been a great movie is now relegated to it's bizarre ending and misfire of a climax. Whenever the idea of rewatching comes up you have to consider if you can handle the let down again. Attempts to create the most unpredictable endings and reveals are extremely present in the horror, and horror adjacent pieces. Despite best efforts this sometimes backfires and ruins the entire story. When the option presents itself it seems that picking the best ending regardless of how generic or predictable it is turns out better. With better endings movies in the horror genre have a better chance at transcending past just the horror audience and becoming award worthy installations in media.

The movie Candyman  2021 delivers on the promises that the trailer makes, particularly if you're going in not expecting the previous movies to be entirely intertwined in this installment. In the original Candyman  that came out in 1992 Tony Todd portrays a fictional but vengeful spirit that kills people who speak his name 5 times into a mirror. Much of the first movie doesn’t pertain to the modern remake and instead takes the legend and develops it into a narrative fit for the time and style of 2020’s horror films. Taking place around the real Cabrini-Green Homes public housing project in Chicago, Illinois that has since been demolished, murders in the area sometimes being attributed to Candyman and the victim inviting him to take them by saying his name. To digitally rent or buy Candyman 2021 now click here and to purchase the DVD version to add to your physical collection click here . Todd's portrayal in the original brought the supernatural horror to life on the big screen, a performance that is still famous to this day. His performance stands apart in part because of the scenes he filmed covered in real, live bees. In addition to being covered in bees he filmed the bees coming out of his mouth, which is a truly horrifying and haunting scene that lives as an image in horror fame. The idea of bees coming from inside of your body and out through your mouth is insane and a drastic way to show the internal decay of Candyman. Although Todd is included in the 2021 remake he isn't actually seen on screen until the very end which is a good device to build suspense for fans while also lightly incorporating the lore from the first film. Showing scenes from even earlier than the first film Candyman  2021 opens in 1977 with the murder of a Black homeless man with a hook for a hand. His name is Sherman Fields and he’s accused of giving candy to a white child that had a razor blade in it due to being known to give out candy to children. He’s beaten to death by police but he’s silently absolved after his death when the razor blade incidences continue occurring. This already shifts the tone of the movie to directly include police violence which hadn’t been the case in the 1992 version. Fields’ murder is seen by a young boy in Cabrini-Green which sets forth events revealed later in the movie. Spoiler and Content Warning Prior to watching the newest Candyman  I hadn’t been big into the series, finding the movies difficult to watch but wanting to support Todd as a Black lead horror villain. The Black community in America has had a tempestuous relationship with horror that has culminated in somewhat of a Black horror renaissance in recent years. If you’re interested in a full post about the Black horror subgenre click here to redirect to that post. The remainder of this post will include spoilers about Candyman 2021 through a plot summary and overview. If you’re not interested in reading that and want to skip to the spoiler-included conclusion then click here or click here to go to all posts . Candyman  2021 Plot Summary Following the flashback to 1977 the opening shots that include the credits are disorienting with the use of backwards studio logos, upside down shots of downtown Chicago, and unsettling higher pitched string music. The elements effectively set the atmosphere on edge, like a fragile balance destined to be broken. Following the police murder of Sherman Fields (portrayed by Michael Hargrove ), mentioned earlier in this post, and the unsettling upside down shots of Chicago as the sun sets, Troy Cartwright (portrayed by Nathan Stewart-Jarrett ) is shown walking down the street with his boyfriend Grady Greenberg (portrayed by Kyle Kaminsky ). The couple have flowers and wine in the year 2019 and they’re on the way for Grady to meet Troy’s sister, Brianna “Bri” Cartwright (portrayed by Teyonah Parris ) at her place. Once inside we also meet Anthony McCoy (portrayed by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II ) who is Bri’s boyfriend she lives with. She disses Grady’s wine and Troy then disses Anthony, claiming he hasn’t made a new piece in 2 years to which Bri ends up commenting Troy is salty they didn’t use him as their realtor for the apartment they’re in. Bri argues she paid more for her place because she liked the location is close to her gallery but Troy retorts that he warned her the place was haunted. Anthony adds the backstory of the place to their conversation: it used to be Cabrini-Greene projects that were torn down. He comments that the place has been gentrified after it was demolished, a very modern issue many lower income communities are facing or were facing in America. Bri informs Troy and Grady that the developers and city lied to the Cabrini-Green residents that they would make the housing project better and moved the residents around frequently. She says it was a bid to develop the areas around Cabrini-Green to further drive up the value of the eventual residences. Grady calls the group out about their disdain for this situation that they too are technically those people because they purchased one of those residences where Cabrini-Green used to stand. Everyone is silent and to break up that silence Troy offers to tell a ghost story and although Bri declines he proceeds, first setting the atmosphere by turning off the lights and lighting candles in the middle of the group. He begins with, “This is a story about Helen Lyle,” which is the name of the main character from the 1992 original. This monologue feels like informing the audience what former movies will or won’t be included, focusing and honing in on the 1992 base story as a jump-off point. Troy makes note of Helen being a white grad student and explains that she set out to do her thesis on Cabrini-Green’s urban legends. The flashback style for this movie is giving Tim Burton and I don’t hate, backlit cutouts and puppet like people figures emulate the spoken action on screen as Troy tells the story of the first film. He specifically mentions Helen’s pictures of graffiti and asking questions of the residents and says that she just snapped one day, the shadow figure grabbing a meat hook. He explains that she beheaded a dog and did snow angels in blood when the police arrived, taking her into custody that she immediately escaped. Troy insists that what he’s saying is true but his source is “look it up” as he continues  his ghost story. Troy says that Helen went on a killing spree and then took a Cabrini-Green mother’s baby then on the night of the annual bonfire Helen arrived and presented the baby as an offering to place in the fire but the residents jumped on her, fighting her and claiming she was in a phuge state. They saved the baby but Helen walked into the fire and died there in the middle of the projects. Rather than even talking about Candyman legend that rolled into the legend of Helen Lyle she’s now the most prevalent urban legend of the area which has somewhat transformed how it’s spreading. Bri and Anthony seem spooked by the story but Troy is still generally light hearted and just encourages Anthony to paint on his way out. This sets Anthony up for failure in the sense that once he hears the legend of Candyman from his girlfriend’s brother he experiences no hesitation to dive in and learn more. Not only does Anthony feel drawn to the legend but he feels compelled to research the area and use the legend as inspiration in his work for an upcoming art show he is meant to be featured in. His art piece invites viewers to look into a mirror and summon Candyman by saying “Candyman” five times. Before that however we cut to the following day from the dinner and Anthony presents work to an art dealer, Clive Privler (portrayed by Brian King), who tells him his work is the same stuff he did 2 years prior. Clive threatens to replace Anthony in the upcoming summer show, revealing he took a risk by giving Anthony a solo show since he just got out of graduate school, presumably for painting. Clive wants him to dig into his history and fulfill a niche of a Black backstory of Chicago for the art show. Anthony explains he’s thinking about a piece on white supremacy and how it creates spaces that neglect communities of color’s needs aka gentrifying an area. Anthony claims he’s from Bronzeville or the South Side of Chicago but Clive calls that background “kind of played” in response. Anthony offers up Cabrini-Green as an alternative focus and Clive seemingly takes this as Anthony is then shown searching the area on Google. During his research he finds the story of Helen Lyle that Bri’s brother told and is inspired by the before and after the area. Anthony then goes to the projects to capture photos of what the projects look like now and he’s stung by a bee that is immediately eaten by a swarm of ants, leaving a bump on his hand. He breaks into one of the Cabrini-Green buildings and sees graffiti covered walls that include a chilling image of a monstrous figure resembling Candyman and he takes a flash photo of this, closely mirroring what Helen did in the first film. Anthony ducks behind a building when he hears incoming sirens and a man, William Burke (portrayed by Colman Domingo ), starts telling him that the cops used to leave the area alone but now frequent it. They end up at William’s laundromat that is also where he lives and he tells Anthony that things have stayed the same after Anthony asks about Helen. William means that despite many Black girls dying in the hood no one, particularly the white gentrifiers, know those victim’s names but they know the one white woman that died in the hood. Anthony not so slyly floats what would make someone snap like Helen did to dig more details from William. William very matter-of-fact tells Anthony that Helen was looking for Candyman in the area. This is another mirror moment where Anthony is doing exactly what Helen did, asking questions of the Cabrini-Green residents about lore obvious to them and clearly brushed aside to the onlookers. William believes that Helen found Candyman out in Cabrini and says his Candyman was Fields, explaining Fields used to stare but also he’d hand out sweets to children. He explains the tale of the razor blade miscarriage of justice that I covered earlier in this post. He tells Anthony that the day he saw Fields killed wasn’t the last day he ever saw him and in the flashbacks Fields is wearing the iconic yellow coat, which feels like another addition of lore that differentiates this remake from the original. The retelling is paused while Anthony crafts his newest work, his passion ignited for using the Cabrini-Green story in his work. When Bri gets home he excitedly shows her the new painting, and he explains that Fields started appearing around the area as a ghost and eventually the legend becomes Candyman instead of Sherman Fields. Anthony tells Bri that this story and work is calling to him and that he feels like what he’s supposed to be doing. Now he tells her the legend at the core of everything: say Candyman five times in the mirror and he’ll appear and kill you. Like a goof he suggests that they do it and Bri wisely declines but Anthony proceeds to say it despite her protests and does so into the reflection in the window behind her. Following this initial piece and pitch to Bri going alright Anthony creates his entire show piece around the concept of the Candyman legend. It ends up being an interactive piece that includes a mirror to say Candyman into 5 times that opens into an alternate scene in another space of his abstract painting. Anthony explains the meanings are pretty literal in his work and it’s shown that one of the critics he’s trying to impress rolls her eyes at it behind his back. She calls him out for being an artist because she believes they are some of the worst gentrifiers, making the piece hypocritical in her view. Anthony proceeds to get drunk and then doesn’t take the criticisms disguised as compliments well and calls Bri’s group of associates out, being guided out by Bri while he continues shouting back and forth with Clive. Later on, back at the studio Clive closes up after everyone has left with his employee’s assistance as he rants that Bri is finished due to backing Anthony. The employee goes to examine the Say My Name piece and Clive warns her not to do it as a cool camera movement uses the reflection behind her to show Clive talking and the red-lit background in the studio from another piece while also showing her. The 2 start to hook up intercut with Anthony staring into a mirror in his workspace as a bee buzzes near his ear. During the hookup the employee starts saying Candyman as part of their foreplay and the bee begins tapping against the mirror’s glass. A creative angle is used to show Candyman in the reflection, exposing he’s in the background of the studio right before he kills the couple. He’s invisible to Clive and is only visible in reflective surfaces despite impacting the environment around him like cutting the projection screen with his meat hook. Clive is hooked to the employee as part of a kink he’s delayed from running out of the studio and is drug back from the glass doors, the invisible form lifting his legs as he’s drug next to the girl’s body then hooked under the chin and lifted off the ground. Both Clive and his employee’s bodies are discovered by Bri the next day when she arrives at the studio and Anthony is even more inspired to paint than previously. The area that he received the bee sting is starting to fester looking increasingly infected and grotesque, spreading from the initial bite over half of his hand and down towards his wrist. A cut away shows him watching news coverage of the murders and he’s visibly happy when he realizes the coverage includes the mention of his art piece, Say My Name. He is proud and in awe and says, “they said my name,” which is a foreshadow for events to come. Bri and Troy are disturbed by Anthony’s reaction to the gruesome murder that she found of her associates. Later on that night we are from Bri’s POV and she dreams of her dad sitting in a window sill. He looks back at her to say he can fly before jumping out of the window intercut with her finding Clive and his intern, drawing a connection of the 2 events in her mind. She awakes in a panic to find Anthony missing from the bed and in the bathroom, stuck in a trance like state. The next day Anthony is at the university library of the school Helen attended and an archivist is able to find a tape recorder and a file. The tape starts playing as a voice over and Helen is talking about Cabrini-Green and the violent occurrences that took place in the first movie. She hypothesizes that violence is a ritual in the area and that the “summoning game” is actually just a cover for that violence and a scapegoat. She believes them not wanting police involved is connected to the prevalence of Candyman being blamed for murders in the area, residents saying Candyman did it rather than the truth. Helen believes that the mere suggestion of being followed after doing the summoning game explains the feeling of it happening for real rather than the victims telling the truth about things. While she talks about something lurking in a reflection the elevator Anthony is in that is entirely made of mirrored walls on the interior starts to malfunction. His disgusting hand is shown in more light and clarity when he takes his headphones out. Suddenly a piece of candy falls to the floor with a pink and for some reason he decides to open it, cutting his finger on the wrapper in the process. He then looks up to see a bloodied and beaten Fields reflected back at him with a wild grin, startling Anthony but disappearing when the elevator doors open. After leaving the university he paints in a crazed trance state holed up in his work space while listening to Helen’s tapes. These tapes include interviews with residents that describe the Candyman murders from her 1992 research into the legend. Anthony decides to visit the critic from his show, Finley Stephens portrayed by Rebecca Spence, at her apartment to discuss the piece she’s writing. She wants to get quotes from him about his work in light of the events, now interested instead of scoffing at his work. She calls his work eternal now that the murders happened and Anthony says he’s expanding the work into a series and plans to do a solo-show all about Candyman even saying, “spread the word,” like it’s some kind of charitable cause and she tells him she loves that, now clinging to his words rather than tuning him out. He calls out her switch up and she says it grew on her. While she’s away in the bathroom Anthony starts picking at his nasty hand and steals a fabric napkin of hers to cover his rotting flesh, going to look for her. In her hallway is a  mirror however that Anthony believes he sees Candyman reflected in but suddenly instead of Candyman it’s his reflection as Candyman—seeing that his movements mirror the terrifying hook-handed figure in the mirror. Anthony also sees that Fields has a hook for a hand that mirrors his own rotting hand. Startled and disturbed Anthony runs out of the apartment but after he does the camera pans out to the outside apartment through the wall length windows and Finley is shown being violently lifted off the floor by an invisible force, likely Candyman, and thrown against the window and then back into the apartment. Presumably Candyman has killed her after Anthony has left her apartment, another victim in his wake. Meanwhile at the important dinner with Bri and her colleagues that they’ve discussed multiple times his hand continues rotting and he’s distracted. In the midst of poaching Bri for their own abruptly everyone’s phones alert that Finley has been found dead and her husband is a suspect. In light of this news Anthony rushes out of the restaurant, causing a scene and alerting everyone to his weird behavior. He then goes to the laundromat to speak with William and he’s more than ready to yap about the urban legend. William explains that Candyman isn’t a “he” but rather the hive, trying to more closely incorporate the bee elements in this retelling. He lists 2 cases in addition to the Fields one that’s already been discussed; one is William Bell, who was lynched in the 20’s and Samuel Evans, who was killed during the white housing riots in the 50’s. William states that there was an original however before all the rest, and while explaining this the scene is intercut with the images Anthony has been furiously painting, which appear to be the men from these legends. He says that Helen found the OG story also, taking place in the 1890’s about Daniel Robitaille. The story is shown through the cutout puppets from earlier in the film with audio additions like crying and an angry mob. Daniel painted portraits for the wealthy all around the country and was loved by his clients. Things went wrong after he was commissioned to paint a wealthy Chicago man’s daughter who he started an affair with. She got pregnant and went to her father to confess the affair which causes him to hire men who he tells to “be creative” to hunt down Daniel and kill him in revenge. After being chased Daniel ended up at the tower in the Cabrini-Green area, collapsing from exhaustion and the mob proceeded to beat him. William explains they tortured him and cut his hand off and that they even shoved a meat hook where his hand once was. The hook is lore from the original movie and I’ve always wondered why they did that when the hook would be a weapon and figure it just needed to be explained but it was a wanted addition to the Candyman character. The mob then smeared his chest in honey from the hives in the area which then made bees sting him relentlessly, explaining the rib cage bee hive that Todd reveals when he opens his trench coat in earlier films. A crowd watches Daniel as he is set on fire, which ultimately kills him right there in Cabrini-Green. William says a pain and subsequent story of pain like Daniel’s aka Candyman’s lasts forever and that that is what Candyman is—the stories of grievous harm that will always tinge an area even if it is unspoken. Still confused Anthony asks again if Daniel is who Candyman is and William proclaims that all of the men who’s stories comprise the Candyman legends are real. He says that Candyman is how the community deals with the atrocities that have happened and still happen to them. Back at their place Bri has broken into Anthony’s studio and found his paintings, disturbed by them and his behavior. When he gets back he tells her he thinks he made a mistake and shows her his hand as evidence of how dire things have gotten. He tells her about William and that he knows about Candyman but she insists it isn’t real. Anthony lashes out after more back and forth and she leaves, insisting Anthony not follow her. The POV then switches back to Bri’s instead of Anthony’s to show her being consoled by Tony and Grady who express having trepidations about Anthony all along. Switching again the POV is then across town and focused on the teen from the gallery opening, Finley’s daughter, who is in a high school bathroom with 4 other friends. She asks if they know about Candyman and suggests they do it. They agree and recite it in the mirror in unison. When they go to leave the door won’t open and one that is using a compact mirror hears buzzing and sees something behind her. One girl goes back for her vape and is brutally killed, a curtain of blood falling down as some of them look beneath the stall before the one of them approaches that area. Cut to screaming and a student hiding in the stall who is listening to music but hears the screams and violence over her music and believes she’s being pranked. Meanwhile Anthony’s hand is rank, fingernails falling off and everything so he finally decides to go to the hospital. Across town speaking with a colleague from their dinner who’d previously been interested in her talents reveals that her interests are more due to her connection to the tragedies and her own father’s tragedy. She’s interested in Anthony’s work, hoping to use Bri as a connection to get to him. Back at the hospital a doctor approaches Anthony and tells him, “Welcome back,” to which he’s confused, not remembering visiting the hospital ever before. She tells him that his chart indicates he was born at the hospital but he protests he believes he was born in South Side. Regardless she wants to admit him immediately for testing and monitoring after bandaging his hand up but he leaves in his painter scrubs. He ends up visiting his mom, Anne-Marie McCoy portrayed by Vanessa Williams who also played the character in the first film. This reveal is more confirmation that Anthony is the baby from the first movie who was also named Anthony. Anne-Marie asks about his hand and he explains the hospital near Cabrini fixed him up but a side shot shows the infection has spread up his neck and coming along his jaw on the side of his face. He tries to talk about the fire in Cabrini, Helen and the baby but after he says the name she shushes him quickly and claps over her mouth, telling him to not say it. She admits that he was born in Cabrini and lived there 2 years but that she lied to protect him and give him the chance to grow up normal. She also admits that he’s the baby that Helen took, removing any doubt if it remained about his past. She claims that she thought Helen committed the murders at first which cuts to more cutout figure puppets portraying the action she describes as she tells the story. She tells him that Candyman had a purpose for Anthony and chose him to be one of his victims in the fire and that Helen saved him. She says that she thought Helen killed Candyman in the fire, and the people in the area vowed to never say it again. She figures since he knows and used it in his art show that people yapped about Candyman despite the pact. Now, despite her efforts Candyman has found Anthony again and is taking him to be his victim. Anthony is angry, enraged by the confirmation and leaves in silence despite her begging him to stay. He is then in Cabrini as the sun is setting, drawn to a particular building when the lights flash and in a trance. Cut to Bri at their apartment with Troy and Grady, getting her belongings and leaving Anthony a note. Worried however by him not being around she visits the laundromat that Anthony mentioned looking for him, making her way into the back office and opening a door that looks like it leads to a basement before saying “nope” and closing it. Unknowingly she locked herself in the back office however and is snatched by William before she gets the attention of a patron to help her. Without warning a flashback takes over of William, but he’s Billy—the child version of him, begging to hang out with his older sister and her friend. They are going into the bathroom and after shutting the door do the summoning game in the mirror, which he overhears. After saying the name 5 times he hears thuds and opens the door to see blood covered walls and his sister and her friend’s bodies on the floor. He also sees Fields in the reflection, smiling from the shower as bees buzz around the room with his hook raised to his face. Back in the present William states that they have a witness and drags Bri’s body out of frame. Another cut takes the scene to the inside of an abandoned church with a phone call in the background overheard. It seems like a 911 call and the caller claims they saw the “Say My Name” killer, who he describes as a Black man in his 30s with a hook, over in Cabrini-Green recently. The voice sounds like the white man version of a Karen but it is revealed to actually be William once he ends the call. William then tells Bri he was baptized in the church they’re in. Anthony is behind him, facing a wall while whispering in a trance. He says that Cabrini-Green got caught in a loop of occurrences that stained the area repeatedly, thinning the fabric between that place and another. William believes that it rotted the neighborhood from the inside out before it was torn down to be replaced for white people to move back in. Next William reveals a rotting away Anthony that looks like a hive of holes is over his body now spread over his eye, turning it white. He then cuts off Anthony’s rotting hand and replaces it with the hook, Anthony clearly in pain in his trance, a tear running down his frozen face and whimpers escaping his mouth. William starts reciting the new legend: Anthony McCoy was an artist who lost his mind and then the cops came and shot him in cold blood. He intends for people to tell the story so that Candyman can live forever as the police sirens begin in the background, William saying it’s the swarm coming. He pulls out candy that he says is the sacrament and he had me until he did that, that drives home he’s crazy. Bri manages to escape however while he’s wrapped up in his monologue and he yells after her asking if she wants a sweet. Off screen we hear flesh noises and yelling in pain as William concludes shouting and Bri keeps running through the ruined neighborhood away from him. Her and William get into a scuffle after some cat and mouse in the ruined area and she stabs him to death in one of the abandoned homes. Anthony then approaches and says her name, collapsing into her arms as she begs him to get up. He tells her it’s okay as the approaching sirens get louder and police come in; off screen but lit with police lights Anthony is shot after screaming to put his hands up without a further question. I think it’s powerful to not show the cop but rather Bri to keep the focus on her and the emotional impact rather than the imagery of Anthony’s death or the perpetrators. A shocked Brianna is arrested aggressively by the officers who are already crafting a story in the background for shooting Anthony on sight. They place her in a car and have muffled conversations amongst themselves, before one officer gets in. He starts talking to her in a condescending and accusatory tone. He claims cooperation will help and says that the officer who shot Anthony had to shoot because he was charged at. The officer tells Bri in not so many words that she needs to corroborate their story in order to make the shooting of Anthony justified self defense, making eye contact with her in the rearview mirror. He says that the other option is she’s an accomplice of Anthony’s and will go to prison for the crimes he committed and demands she pick from the 2 options. She asks if she can see herself in the mirror, agreeing to talk if he lets her. The officer reluctantly moves the mirror for Bri to see herself and she says Candyman, once quietly at first then another time with slight hesitation. The cop hears between the second and third times and she’s saying it more confidently by the third. She starts smiling as she says it a fourth and fifth time, the officer in the car getting scared because it’s weird behavior out of context. Just as she finishes the 5th recitation string music picks up and the car doors automatically lock. While this happens outside the car an officers throat is slashed and this causes the other officers to begin shooting into that direction towards what looks like Anthony in Field’s bloody trench coat, surrounded by a swarm of bees and using his hook hand to slash them. We are able to see him through the car window past Bri with her still in frame, avoiding any glances towards the screams and sounds of carnage. Another officer tries to get in the car, banging on windows to be let in but he’s brutally killed by Anthony from behind, Bri crying and shaking but not looking. Anthony then stops and looks into the car at Bri who still won’t look, bees buzzing around him. The cop still locked inside the car whispers in stunned fear, “who are you?,” which leads into a voice over monologue. Anthony’s monologue response to the question is as follows: “I am the writing on the walls. I am the sweet smell of blood on the street. The buzz that echoes in the alleyways. They will say I shed innocent blood. You are far from innocent but they will say you were. That’s all that matters.” I wanted that to be just a little bit more impactful to really tie together Candyman’s new motivations that incorporated the original lore. I felt like this kinda bridged the gap for me but ultimately left me wanting just a little more pizazz and depth in presentation, drawing out the scene more since it is seemingly a culmination of buildup. That’s another thing: there’s a lot of stories and side stories going on due to the nature of the hive concept and it’s hard to keep track of all the significances each detail means to each story or what stories. The car just unlocks at the end of the monologue, which is kinda lame and anticlimactic, and the officer just runs down the street terrified. Bri cautiously gets out of the now unlocked car and makes her way down the street towards where the cop ran. She happens upon Candyman, his head replaced with a swarm of angry bees and levitating off the ground, lifting the cop that ran up against a wall through a metal gate. Bri watches on in horror as the cop is killed and the figure floats towards her, the bees clearing little by little as he gets closer. Tony Todd is then revealed as the face within the swarm and he tells Bri to tell everyone, the final words of the film before it cuts to the title. In this scene the use of CGI is apparent to age revert Todd back to what he looked like in previous Candyman films which takes some of the bite out of the scene’s intensity. I almost wish more real effects could’ve been used to regress his appearance to make the scare possibly stick better. Again, I get it but I have to do a bit more legwork than I’d like to make the puzzle pieces fit on behalf of the movie. Some of the aspects were over-explained, like gentrification, while other aspects like exploitation, inter-community violence, and police brutality are mentioned but not expanded on enough to be pieces of said puzzle upon only watching Candyman 2021. Topics like gender roles in the Black community, the phoniness of some modern art spaces, childhood trauma, and relationship violence are brought up but only in cursory fashion. While I do like the movie and the way it crafts an entirely new narrative from a story while still maintaining much of the same material and bones of the original story is beautifully done I still wanted a little more focus in the narrative. I felt a little all over the place and then stumbling into the end rather than a gradual build that really packed the full potential punch of the ending. Spoiler Filled Conclusion At the time this film came out I found it to be revolutionary in the willingness to sort of display vengeance against the police and somewhat advocate for a push back towards police brutality. I was a bit confused because the limited knowledge I had of Candyman informed me that he seemed to target a lot of Black folk for a spirit that aimed to protect the Black community. Perhaps they mean he’s developed over time alongside the neighborhood to match the needs but that’s the sort of extra thinking I wish the movie did on behalf of the viewer. I did like explaining the first movie with the outlines to include the plot as through thread that played a central role in Anthony’s own story. For example here’s a snippet of what I wrote at the time and the original content of this post: “I absolutely loved this movie and left feeling unsettled, angry, betrayed, upset, and thoroughly pleased. Not only is the movie amazing but the social commentary throughout connects it to modern day racial struggles that the original touched on but didn’t explicitly focus on. Overall, I highly recommend any horror fan go out and see this movie while it is still in theaters, I know I’ll be purchasing a digital copy as soon as it’s released.” I ended up not buying a digital copy (though I had rented it more than once before it became available to stream on Peacock ). Since the release of this movie much in the political landscape and racial issues have changed, particularly after the 2024 presidential general election. While I did feel that it expanded on the legend and still do I no longer think that the social commentary is anything crazy woke anymore. It seems like an obvious fact now in many circles that police target and kill Black people disproportionately and that many of these problems are deeply ingrained within the police communities serve Black constituencies. We’re also under agreement that racism is alive and well—something that not even a decade ago would’ve received major pushback and disbelief. With this newer perspective I view Candyman as a half baked idea that could’ve been spectacular with more focus. I wish it did one issue really, really well rather than trying to cover a bajillion issues slightly. In stark contrast the original story focused heavily on the character Helen Lyle (portrayed by Virginia Madsen), a white masters student researching incidences she believed to be part of an urban legend myth at Cabrini-Green for her thesis. The distance between the subject matter and the character allowed the racial elements to be parallel to the story happening to Helen rather than the story happening to her that is ingrained in her. She had a choice whereas Anthony is predestined. In the new 2021 version however the origin of Candyman is more closely intertwined with the brutal killing rather than the interracial relationship or Daniel’s desire. The brutality and unjustified nature of this and the subsequent murders on the same land is said to leave a stain on that place, and in Cabrini-Green’s instance this is Candyman, a vengeful spirit that has ever evolving motivations.

Come Play (2020) , written and directed by Jacob Chase , is about a child who is communicating with a monster entity that seeks to take this child. I'd wager that the probability of a well-rounded horror movie along those vague lines of having about 30% chance of being fire and 30% chance of being mid and 40% of being trash. Come Play doesn't disappoint and offers surprises coupled with intrigue throughout the film despite much of the core horror elements being known from the trailer. The main character is a lonely child named Oliver who happens to have autism, portrayed by Azhy Robertson ; this young actor's performance is amazing and he ties it together in ways that most child roles in horror don't typically do. This child, Oliver, is frankly one of the only characters to root for throughout the movie. To watch the movie now with an Amazon Prime subscription click here . Come Play 2020 spoilers past this point From the start we jump right into the action, the monster, Larry, seeks to take children and lure them through communicating via en eBook called, “ Misunderstood Monsters ,” that updates throughout the movie. The story updates are part of the tool that Larry uses to communicate with the children it is grooming to take. It is quickly apparent that Oliver's parents struggle with raising a special needs child, his mother, portrayed by Gillian Jacobs, in particular struggling with a lack of understanding for Oliver and his father, portrayed by Winslow Fegley, struggling with caring for Oliver while dealing with the relationship frictions between Oliver and his mom. Solid tension that brings the viewer to the edge of their seat is built through the use of crunching noises accompanied by flickering lights and moaning sounds whenever Larry is present or closing in. Along with sounds the ability to only see the monster, Larry, through phone and tablet cameras makes it feel the monster could be anywhere, even right in front of the characters, at any time. At one point we even see Oliver using a distance measuring tool to show that Larry is swiftly approaching Oliver to attack and despite those being the only elements in the scene it's scary, intense, and well done. This is a really cool way to make horror without having to show the monster in every scary scene and avoiding sub-par CGI or bad cloak and dagger devices. Due to Oliver's struggles making friends at school Larry hones in on his loneliness and seeks to remove him from what Larry considers a phone obsessed and lonely world. His loneliness is what attracts Larry to Oliver to begin with and seems to be the driving force behind the luring and connection. His mom makes circumstances more difficult unbeknownst to him like lying to a classmates mother and putting him in social scenarios where he is set up to fail. It is infuriating to watch Oliver be bullied by classmates but the performance by those young actors are extremely good and able to invoke a feeling of anger towards the behavior due to the believability and fluid action of the scene typically scene in scenes with adult actors. It is clear that Oliver's mom is meant to be on the not-so-awesome side of the spectrum when her character arc results in her sacrificing herself to save Oliver. She takes Larry's hand instead of Oliver's in a scene that is the horrifying culmination of events, the full abilities of Larry having been displayed at this point. Throughout the movie it isn't clear the extent of Larry's abilities due to the ever reaching tendrils technology has reached into everyday life. The concept of smart devices being used to haunt and torment families is no longer a new concept but I think this movie tells that story really well and creatively while being extremely modern. Come Play is available on Amazon Prime at the time of updating this post June 23, 2025.

Directed by James Wong and written by Glen Morgan and James Wong the 3rd installment of Final Destination follows a similar formula to the first 2 films. In the review of the first film I went over the first film which was inspired by Jeffrey Reddick’s spooky experience while traveling. The first 2 films in the series are connected by a main character, Clear Rivers portrayed by Ali Larter, who is an original victim of Flight 180, the central accident in the first film, and helped the U.S. Route 23 pile-up survivors from the central accident of the second film. She is able to jump start their journey by telling them her story after they track her down at a mental hospital, voluntarily entered for her own protection. Anyone who visits her must surrender any sharp objects or potential death-traps before seeing her, keeping herself off Death’s metaphorical list and alive. WARNING: The post past this point will contain spoilers for Final Destination 3 (2006) as well as the other films in the franchise. There are no spoilers for Final Destination: Bloodline s but I will be posting a full Franchise Marathon style post that covers this film. The full post will also include reviews of the films in the franchise without individual posts (2nd, 4th, and 5th). Jump to the third film however and we are following a completely disconnected group of high schoolers, seemingly random as far as the franchise is concerned. While the second film begins this way this film has virtually zero callbacks to the previous characters aside from Tony Todd’s William Bludwurth. The 3rd installment also jumps directly into the action with no background on the characters which is unlike the first 2 films that showed parents and the group arriving at the scene of the accident. This film jumps right into the action which is happening around a senior night at an amusement park in Pennsylvania. Nearing graduation the students are celebrating with an assortment of rides, carnival games, and more. The main character, Wendy Christensen portrayed by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, is introduced as one of the school’s yearbook photographers. She’s armed with a digital camera and approaching various students to capture shots of the night—which will become important. This is an effective tool to introduce the key characters and eventual victims while showing their archetype which informs about their traits. A jock who breaks a strongman game, 2 popular girls who value appearances trying to get away from a predator with a video cam trying to hit on them, an outcast couple that includes a guy way too into weapons and a girl really into eyeliner, and finally we meet Wendy’s little sister—a junior who has snuck in. The jock is named Lewis Romero portrayed by Texas Battle, the 2 girls are Ashley Freund and Ashley Halperin played by Chelan Simmons and Crystal Lowe, and then the predator guy is Frankie Cheeks portrayed by Sam Easton. The emo couple is made up of Ian McKinley portrayed by Kris Lemche and Erin Ulmer portrayed by Alexz Johnson, the pair inseparable before and after the accident. Wendy’s sister is Julie Christensen played by Amanda Crew and Wendy is accompanied by her best friend, Carrie Dreyer played by Gina Holden, and her boyfriend Kevin Fischer played by Ryan Merriman. While Wendy’s interactions provide context to these characters the character that provides that most context for her is her boyfriend, Jason Wise played by Gina Holden. The initial context for Wendy is provided by Jason on the way to ride one of the biggest roller coasters at the park, Devil’s Flight. Wendy is nervous and hesitant, preferring to stay back all together than get on the roller coaster. She sees a sign on their way in reading, “No exit after turnstiles. I’ll see you soon,” with the image of a devil and skulls surrounding the sign. The whole ride is entered via stone tunnel past this sign and it’s very intense on the hell theme, with screaming ghost figures coming out of the stone ceilings. While in line Jason and Wendy talk to Ian and Erin who inform them the odds of dying in a roller coaster which doesn’t ease Wendy. Jason has to convince Wendy and promise to sit with her and comfort her during the ride, showing they seem fairly into each other. While this relationship seems mutual Carrie reveals in a hushed conversation with Wendy that she plans to break up with her boyfriend and Jason’s friend, Kevin, after they all graduate. When the group of 4 is at the front of the line the attendant directs them to take the front cars but Wendy objects, she’s afraid to sit in the front and be able to see the tracks. Kevin tries to help and suggests that Carrie sit in the back with Wendy and ride together then the 2 guys will sit in the front and ride together. This time Carrie objects however because she doesn’t want to be relegated to the back due to being a girl. Wendy feels bad and tries to convince Jason she’s fine with sitting in the back alone. Then Kevin feels double-bad and offers to flip a coin with Jason to determine who will sit in the back with Wendy so she’s not alone. Jason wins and goes to sit in the front car with Carrie and tells Kevin to keep an eye on Wendy because she’s freaked out, which Kevin agrees to do. The aforementioned squad of characters happen to be the people in the same group for this ride, each in 2 person cars linked together in a chain. Wendy approaches her stall and sees it’s the number 6, obviously referring back to the Devil. Distracted by this and Jason telling Kevin to keep his hands to himself and Kevin responding he might need to comfort Wendy allows creeper Frankie to slither past them and secure the car behind Ashley and Ashley. Kevin and Wendy walk further down the way to the open cars and are beat to them by kids while Jason yells after Wendy that he’ll see her after the ride. The kids that get onto the ride and take the last remaining open cars are removed by an attendant which allows Kevin and Wendy to get on the ride after all. The car behind them is empty and both Lewis and Frankie aren’t sitting next to anyone when the handlebars come down. The attendant pushes Lewis’ further down, making the hold tighter, and the camera cuts to under the cars where fluid is now leaking. Frankie tells the 2 Ashely’s to show him their boobs on the ride, his camera still out until he overhears Wendy getting told to put her loose object aka camera away. He sneaks it into his jacket pocket to hide it as the ride starts up and Kevin puts his hand in wet gum that sticks to his hand. Kevin is very golden retriever energy and tries to hype Wendy up but she isn’t having it, instead she’s noticing all of the clangs and cranks of the climbing roller coaster cars. They clink to the top of the first incline and Frankie’s dumbass has his camera out. Cheering in anticipation the group is hyped while Wendy is panicked about the height. They begin their descent on the ride and the undercarriage of the cars is shown to still be leaking liquid. Things go normal for the first portion of the ride, Wendy feels uncertain about the safety but everyone else is raising their arms and cheering. Frankie keeps filming and when they are upside down he screams for the 2 girls to show him their boobs and then drops the camera. The video camera falls to the bottom of the loop and wraps itself around one of the tracks by the strap. Not long after the roller coaster car runs over the camera, crushing it and busting its connection with the tracks. The collision causes a chain reaction under the cars and the mechanisms used to control them start to bust. The handlebars that hold them in their seats suddenly pop up as if released at the end of the ride. Panicked and shaken the teens reach for them as quickly as possible, trying to keep them down enough to stay in their seats. Everyone survives this but then wheels starts to stall on the tracks, becoming broken and looking like they’ll bust off the cars at any moment. Someone screams that they are going to fall off the tracks as they continue to spiral, holding the handlebars down. As the wheels fail the car is just bare on the track causing sparks to fly up as the ride becomes increasingly turbulent. Just when it seems like the ride could come to an end with minimal injury if it keeps up this way they hit a snag on the track and a cart pops off sending the passengers in it, Carrie and Jason, flying. Lewis is also propelled out but catches himself and is hanging on the side of the cars until he’s thrown back. Kevin catches him and tries to hold on but he flies off and ends up hanging onto the back until a piece of stray metal knocks him into the roller coaster’s metal frame. The surviving riders end up upside down on one of the roller coaster loops when their cart stalls. Erin and Ian fall out of their seats, hanging on by their now open handle bars. Still upside down but in their seats Wendy and Kevin shout at the them to hold on as they frantically try to hold down their own bars. Ian falls first and then Erin both presumably dying but not shown on camera before another unnamed student falls out of their car. Wendy looks below them and sees their bodies and Kevin gets the idea to rock back and forth to get them moving again. With Wendy’s help this works and the pair go barreling backwards on the tracks, the last 2 remaining riders. Kevin is standing up now as the roller coaster cars pick up speed and the camera flashes to a piece of metal sticking up from the crash. As they approach he’s trying to get back in his seat with his handlebars still standing up and that piece of metal cuts his body in half above the waist. Blood splatters onto Wendy and she screams as the cars shoot towards a sudden break in the tracks. When the cars hit it the whole line goes off the track and flies into the air sending Wendy flying out of her car. She is rushing towards the tracks nearest the ground and her premonition ends as the impact would have happened. She has tears in her eyes and looks around to see she’s at the start of the ride again, right as the attendant is waving his hand in front of her camera and telling her to put it away. Obviously Wendy is even more panicked when Kevin touches the gum from her premonition, she starts screaming that the ride is going to crash and a manager comes out and signals to the attendants to release the bars. She warns him that the track is collapsed and that the crash will happen and Lewis is super rude and misogynistic about Wendy, giving her shit for crying. Kevin goes to confront Lewis for this and their physical altercation starts with bystander Erin getting slapped. Once she’s been hit Ian jumps into the scuffle and it’s revealed that Jason and Carrie are still locked into their roller coaster car. The attendant tells Jason that no one gets off the ride as a bunch of people get off the ride including Ashley and Ashley who proclaim the fight and scenario is “so high school”. Frankie decides to leave because he’s only there for the 2 girls anyways. The group in the back cars who got off the ride are escorted out by security and the front car passengers haven’t been released and attendants start the ride. As the ride starts Jason screams at them to try and get off and as she’s walking out Wendy hears the ride start up and realizes that Jason didn’t get off. She makes it back to see the cars ascending up the first incline but she’s tackled by security when she screams after Jason. Her and Kevin are kicked out of the ride through the back just as the cars derail and fly off the track. Wendy scream-cries Jason while looking up at the accident unfolding. Rather than jump to an interrogation or police interview after the accident this Final Destination time jumps to their graduation. Tributes have been erected around the school to honor those who died in the Devil’s Flight crash. Wendy walks around the school in the overcast rain and takes note of these memorials on her last day of school which confirm that Jason and Carrie died in the crash. Kevin tries to talk to Wendy about graduation, telling her he is also struggling from the loss of Carrie and Jason. Wendy tells Kevin she is going to leave their town and never look back because there’s nothing in the town she cares about without Jason. Kevin protests that he made a promise to take care of her but she slaps that down by telling him they wouldn’t have been friends if not for their partners and each being friends with the other’s partner. Ashley and Ashley see Wendy leaving and approach her inviting her to come tanning with them for graduation. One of them gives her their phone number and they pat themselves on the back for extending kindness. Luckily for the sake of the plot Kevin doesn’t quit and runs after Wendy telling her about Flight 180. He is able to provide the background that lets us skip the needing to put things together phase of the movie. By the 3rd installment it’s nice that referencing back to the other films in the same universe allows the plot to skip the monotonous figuring out stage. Kevin informs Wendy that the passengers that survived died in the order they died in the premonition. She’s not down with this and tells him to fuck off but  the information is planted in her head. That night Wendy is confronted by Julie for stealing an heirloom necklace and Wendy breaks down confessing her guilt. This reconnects their icy relations and Julie asks to borrow the school camera for graduation. Wendy offers to recharge it while she gets ready and Wendy realizes that there are pictures from their senior night she hasn’t seen. While this is happening the 2 Ashleys are at the tanning salon and have brought a slushy into the room despite warnings not to. This melts in the heat and water travels down the electric wires of the tanning beds which causes them to short circuit. The owner of the salon mistakenly locks himself out while they are in the beds and doesn’t notice at first. They leave a note on the front and that door locked as well and then set up with headphones in both listening to Roller Coaster of Love. Intercut with Wendy putting together that the photos are her hints to the deaths of the people that got off. She starts to worry and decides to call one of the Ashleys to check on the pair after she sees the photo of them is overexposed and makes them look almost on fire. The heat they turned on pushes a coat hanger over that then falls onto a CD shelf that breaks off the wall as a flat piece of wood. This piece falls off one of the tanning beds and then slides horizontally between the two beds, effectively trapping both girls in the beds. The beds start to heat up as this is happening to the point that they notice something is wrong but when they got to lift the lids of the beds they realize they are trapped and panic. Skin bubbling, glass shattering heat continues to rise and visibly burns the girls skin. Eventually both beds break through the bottom on fire and the 2 are burned alive in the beds, side by side. The shot transitions from above the beds with the fire coming out of the sides to 2 white coffins next to each other over open graves at a funeral. The funerals are packed with locals including McKinley and Erin; McKinley taking it upon himself to respond to the sermon out loud, drawing attention and ire from the crowd. He is upset that 2 girls that didn’t do anything to anyone are dead while there are evil people alive and well. Lewis and Kevin take it upon themselves to remove him from the crowd but he goes pretty willingly. Frankie makes it about himself and how he viewed women leading them to change their appearance to impress him. It’s gross and weird as one would expect from his character type, Julie is visibly grossed out by his comments but he perceives it as a good time to make a move and goes to kiss her. She face palms him while walking away with her friend Amber, another junior who secretly attended the senior night. McKinley and Erin get in his truck to leave the funeral service with Kevin and Lewis in tow, making sure they leave without causing more trouble. He peels out of the parking area leaving the 2 boys behind and Lewis tells Kevin to bring him a PSP if he ever has to come to his funeral, an ominous foreshadow. Wendy calls Kevin from Jason’s grave in the same cemetery, a gesture she’s ready to talk and he comes to her because she didn’t want to upset anyone with her presence. Wendy tells Kevin about the last convo she had with Jason and that she wonders if him pointing out her lack of control induced fear that caused her vision. None of the other protagonists with visions try to come up with a chain reaction for the visions that isn’t related to a prior near death experience but rather a random comment. She describes a presence around her that she knows isn’t Jason because it is, “cold and terrifying,” which triggers a gust of heavy wind that only impacts the pair. After the gust passes Wendy pulls out printed photos and shows examples of photo anomalies that could be predictions of events like Lincoln’s assassination and the September 11 attacks but then includes a photo of a plane fire that had “180” in the background exactly 1 year prior to the accident. This is when Wendy expressly states her theory that the photos she took that night contain clues about upcoming deaths and possibly the manner of death. She believes they can utilize these clues to save people who got off the ride with them by intervening in the event of their deaths. Wendy almost passes out which cuts to the pair in a car passing a Tri-Centennial sign for their town as they continue on. Distracted by the photos Wendy is showing him Kevin almost hits a man opening his truck door on the side of the road and must swerve to avoid him. They decide to go to a fast food place and Wendy demands they go through the drive thru so that no one overhears their conversation topics. They pull into line at the drive thru and look at Frank’s photo while they wait, believing he is next because he sat behind the Ashleys on the roller coaster during Wendy’s premonition. I like the use of the real world object like a photo to trigger a clue or memory of a premonition in this installment. This feels more realistic and adds to the believability despite the more outlandish deaths like that in the tanning salon. Based on the photo Wendy has of Frankie they think his brush with death could have something to do with water because of a SpongeBob prize behind him. After a cranky couple honks at them to pull forward Wendy sees a message in the order menu just as the radio changes on it’s own and a moving truck with a lift on the back rams into the side of Kevin’s truck. The trucks pins Kevin’s car just as another truck, the one he almost hit earlier, begins barreling down the hill towards them out of control without a driver behind the wheel. Wendy peeps this through the back window and her and Kevin realize the doors are pinned too shut for them to squeeze through. Panicking they honk for the person in front of them to move forward but get the finger instead. The couple behind them is also oblivious to the impending danger because they’re in full blown argument until the very last moment. The driver spins out backwards leaving just Kevin’s truck to get hit. Thinking fast Kevin kicks out the front windshield and helps Wendy climb out onto the hood. They are able to jump out of the way of the incoming collision between Kevin’s truck and the incoming truck just in time, Kevin’s arm around Wendy to keep her semi protected. The impact send the car’s engine flying forward into the convertible in front of them, blades first. The blades rip the back of his head open, killing him hopefully instantly because it is a rather brutal death otherwise. The bloodied PlayBoy necklace the victim was wearing is on the ground and they realize it is Frankie who just got killed, the guy they were looking for. The engine blade is still stuck in his head when they approach the vehicle and it spurs one more time throwing his head forward and startling Wendy. Kevin declines a ride home for either of them, offering to drive Wendy after they walk back to his house, telling the first responders that they will be alright. Wendy immediately asks if they will be when her and Kevin are alone and when he says they will be okay she tells him she feels like there’s a viciousness to these deaths. Kevin however thinks that Frank’s death proves her theory wasn’t true because nothing he remembers from the photo of Frank indicated his death would be like how it was. Wendy wants to leave again but Kevin is able to get her to stay in town, telling her after that he’s not an idiot despite what people may think about him. They decide to take a closer look at the photos together and see if the order is correct. The picture they have of the full line of cars is half blocked by the attendants hand, making it hard to determine everyone who was on the ride. They keep going through the pictures and stop on one of Carrie, Kevin telling Wendy he’d planned to propose to Carrie after graduation. She wisely says nothing because telling him what Carrie told her would be cruel. They then stumble across a mistaken photo that is more of an up-skirt shot than Frank even took. Behind that up-skirt shot Frank is making a goofy face captured mid-movement and there’s a fan right above his head. The angle of the photo and Frank it looks like the fan is going into his head, symbolic of his actual death. With confirmation that the photos predict the impending death they go back to Lewis’ because he was sitting directly behind Frank, making him next. They believe that the swords above Lewis in the photo are because he’s at a football came that has mascots with swords. They ultimately decide to warn Lewis after Wendy calls out Kevin for wanting to intervene now when he’d previously advocated to be willfully ignorant. Now however he believes if they can beat it they have to try or he’ll obsess about it. He didn’t want to see his photo but he asks Wendy if it’s bad like potentially embarrassing. They’ve resolved to go to see Lewis and tell him in person rather than risk calling him and him being less likely to believe it. Despite showing up however Lewis tells them they are “—on crack. Both of you,” in between sets at his football training camp. Kevin explains that Ashley and Ashlyn both died, then Frankie Cheeks who’d been directly behind them and that he’s next which isn’t a bad argument to make even without the other supporting occurrences of this phenomenon. Wendy starts noticing all of the similar items in the photo and gym like the crossed blades and bears but specifically the danger that the gym versions present to Lewis. Lewis’ stance is that he controls his own destiny and his monologue is very reminiscent of Carter in the first Final Destination. He has given himself credit somehow for Wendy’s premonition and him being accidentally saved. The gym is a walking liability with puddles of water coming out of the drinking fountain right next to a boom box plugged into the wall. Lewis proclaims that in 4 years time he’ll be a second round NFL draft pick going to Oakland, which is sad because Oakland no longer has a team. He talks about super bowl rings and completing 15 seasons, having earlier cited his injury free high school run as evidence of his durability. He’s continually increasing the intensity of his reps and slamming the equipment around in this violation of a gym. A chain of events is set off when a guy going hard in front of a taxidermy bear in the gym snaps one of its claws off. That claw flies across the room and hits a man doing squats in the eye, causing him to drop his weights and stumble back. This commotion causes the blades to come loose of their mounts above Lewis’ machine that cuts 2 of the wires of the machine which causes everyone to stop and hold their breath in anticipation of something bad. Lewis celebrates that he wins, even in the face of death he feels he wins, and he goes to do a celebratory rep with full force. This causes the now broken machine to malfunction and send the weights crashing back down on either side of Lewis’ head, crushing his head and killing him. Blood and other matter flies out at Wendy and Kevin, standing the closest to Lewis when his head is crushed. Cut to them leaving the field, arriving back at their car with bags and wearing new gym clothes with the school’s logo, cleaned up from the earlier scene. Wendy asks Kevin if she did something to make the accident and subsequent deaths on everyone but he responds he doesn’t know why. This girl has had this same look of cry-panic most of this movie even before the accident, Wendy always pisses me off a little bit. The next scene opens on McKinley and Erin at what looks like a Lowe’s unbranded knockoff and he proceeds to use the lift to get to the top shelf to shoot pigeons with a nail gun, killing at least one. Communicating via walkie talkie because of course they are Wendy and Kevin approach Erin who then calls over McKinley. The pair are stocking merchandise in the vast hardware department store and McKinley messes with the lights to freak them out. Wendy demands to know who was sitting behind them on the ride but he fucks around and makes a joke, being evasive. Erin jokes that the person behind them was a man in a black cloak with a scythe, implying it was the grim reaper to mess with Wendy. The group has a discussion about death and if it’s a person or force that is after them if death is indeed after them. McKinley goes on a diatribe about death and reincarnation but in an edgy 4chan way. He says that everything in life is a force going from one thing to another. He keeps talking as Erin hands him items to stock and Wendy starts getting the ominous feeling that precedes an accidental death. She sees banners and thinks that is the clue from the photo, honing in on that and things above them where McKinley has just lifted to. She points this out to Kevin who then yells at McKinley that he needs to watch out for the boxes which causes McKinley to swerve the lift suddenly and a bag of bird seed ends up falling to the ground now ripped open. They try to reason with a sassy McKinley who makes fun of their attempts to help him, however panicked those attempts might be. After saying that he doesn’t know “yet” he scoffs at them but Erin wants to know who’s next in the order. Wendy explains that because they don’t know which Ashley died first they don’t know how the order works for people sitting next to one another. I like that this is included and not assumed that there’s an obvious way that the order would go, either left to right or right to left. Erin brushes them off however and says that death is complicated but Wendy disagrees, McKinley siding with Erin that life is rather meaningless. He accidentally knocks things off the shelf as he stocks and Erin picks up nails with a magnet that starts a chain reaction. The magnet causes a roll of chain link to start unrolling which falls down and hits the keys on the other lift that McKinley isn’t on. This turns the machine on and then McKinley’s careless driving causes the forklift claws to hit a shelf and cause caulking tubes to fall down which knock a box loose that McKinley earlier pushed back to fall off the shelf and get caught between shelves. This box perfectly lands on the gas pedal of the now turned on lift and it starts rolling forward, knocking over liquid bottles on the way. Wendy keeps looking for clues in the photo of the couple as McKinley turns on a saw and almost slips into it in the unswept sawdust. The soaped up lift wheels make it through the bottles and into a wall of tools, one of which is a hammer that knocks a lever on the lift. Another hammer falls and hits another lever that pushes the lift forward into the shelves. McKinley is messing with Wendy and Kevin while the chain reaction continues, Erin looking on. Wendy realizes that wooden stakes above McKinley are in danger of falling just as they are hit by the forklift pushing the shelves into ladders that then knock into the shelf the box is on, sending it flying down. She tackles him out of the way to save him and her, Kevin, and McKinley are crushed by flat wood boards falling from a higher shelf also knocked over by the lift. The fall and crashing of the wood causes a sharp piece to fly out and slice an air pump open which causes sawdust to go flying into Erin’s face which knocks her off her feet. She falls backwards into McKinley’s nail gun that he’d used to shoot birds earlier in the night. The nail gun goes off a considerable amount of times seemingly just by her head propelling backwards into it and the nails go through the back of her head and through her hand she’d raised to shield her face. This death is pretty gruesome and particularly cruel from the invisible antagonist and it doesn’t seem instant, Erin able to look down as blood spills from her head, in complete shock. Cut to Wendy leaving the police station, the officers looking menacingly after her and Kevin who waited for her outside the station. Kevin explains that he didn’t tell them anything but Wendy says that she told them everything including the background about Flight 180 and the connections of the current deaths. The officers didn’t believe her and she doesn’t necessarily blame them for that. Kevin worries that they missed their chance to save whoever was behind Ian, believing that it’s skipped him since Wendy saved him by intervening in his death. They assume that he’s next and then Wendy but they part ways to take care of respective business—she’s going to review the photos and he’s being picked up by his dad for his volunteer security shift at the Tri-Centennial. Back at their house Julie steals the charm bracelet her and Wendy have been beefing over while Wendy sleeps, passed out on her desk staring at the photo of the mystery passengers next on the list. She wakes up with the photo of the mystery passengers on the ride and notices the very bold charm bracelet on the wrist of the rider, which she now realizes is Julie. She then sees the bracelet is gone and doesn’t catch Julie before she leaves, trying to call only to get voicemail. She tells Kevin to look for Julie and he asks her to look at his photo so they have an idea of what to look out for if they can’t save Julie. His looks like something blowing up in his face like a flash and hers is normal but Jason’s face is all blurred and she’s wearing a McKinley High shirt. They think that he needs to stay away from fireworks and she needs to stay away from McKinley, which becomes hard when his car appears behind her as an ominous song begins playing on the radio. Every which way Kevin looks is danger at this celebration, from old weapons to handmade fireworks, electrical equipment in the middle of the field, to horses, and so on. Wendy rushes to the celebration to warn both Julie and Kevin about their impending deaths. Her radio turns on without warning and starts tuning through random channels before stopping on this film’s motif song about a person following another person, “Turn Around Look at Me” by Johnny Mathis. I like that each film has a motif song that harkens back to that accident, generally something that was playing nearby or during the accident. This one is a little random and rather fits the ominous tones of more personified death than previous installments. It doesn’t play during or before the accident in a noticeable way but it does appear often and is a hint to Wendy about possible danger around. She looks in her rearview and sees Ian’s van, assuming there’s not many vans like his in their Pennsylvanian town. This combined with the notion that McKinley will cause her death, the motif song is playing on it’s own from her car stereo, and now McKinley is hot on her ass following her like an ominous shadow. A random wolf walks into the road that Wendy is able to swerve around before she hits it but McKinley is stopped by it and falls further behind her trail. With this extra time Wendy arrives before Ian and heads into the fair grounds to find Kevin while keeping an eye on her back. Kevin sees Julie and tries to get to her while the crowd moves for the fireworks show. One of the Colonial War reenactment soldiers puts a canon tool leaning against the canon to help with crowd control. This piece falls and knocks over the top canon ball, sending it flying under a tent and causing a train reaction to start. This ball knocks a stand keeping a cart with fireworks stationary just as Kevin finds Julie and tries to confront her about death’s list and the danger she’s in. The fireworks understandably upset the horses that are part of the reenactment but it doesn’t help when 2 teen boys light small fireworks by a horses hooves. The explosion sends the horse running, breaking free of his anchored stake, still following along on a rope attached to his saddle. Julie keeps running from Ian and Wendy’s confrontation then turns and flips off Kevin like she flipped off Wendy in the photo and as she does that Wendy flashes back to the photo. She screams for them to look out and Kevin pushes Julie out of the way of the incoming runaway horse, which sends her to the ground. The stake trailing the horse hits Julie’s neck and the rope wraps around her, dragging her behind the horse. The horse stops for a moment but is sent running again when the fireworks sound off again, and Kevin grabs one of the reenactment swords as Julie starts being drug again. The horse jumps over a cart and Julie is heading towards the spikes under it at full speed, pulled by the horse. Luckily, Kevin is able to intervene and slice the rope, saving Julie and thus skipping her. Despite being happy she’s okay Wendy and Kevin demand to know who was on the ride with her because they are next. The upset horse is being tended to by police and it starts to panic again when another round of fireworks go off just as Julie’s 2 friends come running up to her and Wendy in the field. As they approach they hear Wendy explaining the urgency to find who was next to her on the ride and it becomes clear as one of the friends freaks out and goes to stand up like she’ll run away. Just as she does this another chain reaction the horse set off sends a flag pole with a spear like end flying through the air. It impales Julie’s friend Amber, confirming that she’s the next one on the list, or was the next one. This is an instance of someone in the accident group that is a surprise, not confirming until the death which of Julie’s 2 friends got on the ride with her. In shock from Amber dying in front of them Wendy realizes that Amber’s death means Kevin is next and in immediate danger. She takes off running in the direction he went off in after the horse just as he is flung into a food cart and a shish kebab stick punctures a gas canister pipe. The bust causes an explosion that happens in Kevin and Wendy’s faces, mimicking the face he made in the photo Wendy took but not killing Kevin because she intervened. Julie comes running up as they land and they go to lift Kevin as McKinley sees them and is definitely hunting Wendy. He feels invincible and tells them he believes what they told him before after seeing it himself. He demands to know what is in Wendy’s photo that predicts her death and the look she gives him is really obvious. McKinley immediately registers that Wendy’s look and clear desire to get away from him ASAP means he is involved in her death somehow, that he causes it. He wants to get things over with and she offers to just pass without a conflict so it can skip her. He tells her he doesn’t care about what happens to her and feels he won’t die now because he survived his death. As he screams about how he won’t die the fireworks cart that the horse knocked loose earlier flies up just as they go off. Wendy sees this as it is happening and is able to get her, Kevin and Julie down and out of the way as the cart pops forward sending the fireworks shooting. Each firework zips past McKinley in spectacular fashion coming close to him on either side and above but ultimately hitting a structure behind him and missing him all together. This makes McKinley even more confident that he’s invincible and protected from death now. Wendy realizes however that what really occurred is that Wendy’s death was intervened on when the group ducked down out of the way. At that time McKinley wasn’t next so the fireworks missed him as he wasn’t the intended target. Unfortunately he is the next person on the list so Death had a little surprise for him, the fireworks that hit the structure cause the lift to break and send the giant McKinley billboard crashing down over him. This smashes him and sends a chunk of his upper body still twitching flying out. He dies flipping the bird missing the majority of his body. His death means Julie is technically next again. Wendy is in shock with blood still on her face as a tear falls down, partially relieved. The image of Wendy with a tear down her cheek lying in the grass in shock fades to white and that white image then fades into a shot from subway train tracks up towards the ceiling with the words “FIVE MONTHS LATER,” across the bottom. As the train comes towards the camera the shot cuts to inside a train car, a man is playing guitar and singing songs. The shot pans behind him to a group of 3 young adults asking about which place to get food. It’s revealed that one of them is Wendy and she goes to check the map only to hear the singer’s song transition to the Johnny Mathis motif song. Her mood immediately falls to terror and she starts to see more signs like her blurred reflection in the subway window which makes her recall her photo and how Jason’s face was blurred. The subway doors she’s been staring at her reflection in open as she stands panicked and frozen in front of them. She is pushed back by passengers and goes to sit down near her friends as the man with the guitar exits, following him with her eyes. Due to looking to follow him she catches the number “180” in a reflection at the train station. Even more panicked Wendy then sees ads on the top of the subway that are related with the deaths like Buildit, the place Erin died, Phoenix Tanning Co. where Ashley and Ashlyn died, and a sign that mentions the inevitability of death. The intercom comes on and warns that the next stop is, “The end of the line,” and to exit if your final destination is not the last train stop. Despite their stop being the last one of the line Wendy tells her friends they should get off at the second to last and just walk. They protest that it’s really cold and as they pull into the 2nd to last stop a ton of event fans are crowding the station waiting to get on. One of the fans drops a candy bar that is knocked off onto the tracks by the wind from the passing train. A rat runs along the train track infrastructure to eat the candy bar next to open wires. Wendy goes to exit with her friends but they are pushed back onto the train by the fans and then Julie enters and Wendy gets distracted. Their group is now stuck on the train and Wendy goes to catch up with Julie who she didn’t expect to see until later. Wendy tells Julie she sensed that Julie was coming at this time and that she has a feeling like the night of the accident. Julie is quick to tell her things are over and that without Ian to cause her death coupled with them being skipped they are all safe. Julie says she ran into Kevin at home which means that Wendy is safe since both her and Kevin have to die in order for her to be next. She goes to introduce Julie to her friend and roommate and she notices Kevin at the back of the car, with headphones in. He’s excited to see them and he says he came to see the game and planned to text her after that he was in town. The rat in the tunnel gets too close to the open wire which causes it to short circuit and stop the track from switching completely, stuck between 2 directions. The train barrels into this derailment not unlike the roller coaster train earlier in the film. The subway starts rocking and crashing, electricity cut off causing the car to be dark. Just as quickly as they are safe each of them dies in gruesome ways, Julie being knocked by flying metal debris through the train car. Kevin is pushed up against a car window that cracks and his face is similar to his face in the photo. Kevin is ground to a pulp when the window gives way under his head, killing him. Now with both Kevin and Julie dead Wendy is next up and she’s thrown from the crashing subway car onto the tracks. The whole station is in shambles and a ton of people have been killed in this crash as Wendy realizes her leg is broken and she’s stuck on the track. Another train comes barreling down the tracks while Wendy is still pinned. She screams as it approaches and just as it’s about to hit her the camera pulls back like other premonitions to reveal that this is Wendy’s second premonition of an impending accident. It’s revealed she’s having that premonition as Kevin is talking and they are already trapped on the train car. Kevin goes to pull the emergency lever to stop the train and they rush to the doors to try to open them. The train car starts to loose electricity like in the vision and someone is screaming to stop the train before the screen cuts to black. The sound of the crash plays over the sound of the crash as “Love Train” comes on while the credits begin rolling. The third installment is my favorite of the movies, I think it is the most effective at breaking out of the original story connections and still standing as its own film. I think there’s a good level of camp in this one that helps personify death and give it more flare but it doesn’t push it too far into comedy territory. The deaths are outlandish in this film but so are those in the other films so when not separating it from those these deaths are fairly similar in creativity and shock. The fake outs are decent and it is interesting to see what clue from the photo or photos indicated about that person’s death. The story flows decently despite a noticeable cut back on pre-accident background that helped shape some of the narratives around the characters in the first 2 films. There isn’t much difference between pre and post accident Wendy which seems to be different from both Alex and the 2nd film’s lead. I appreciated the attempt at the relationship portion, that becoming another repeating element in Final Destination films, a man and woman duo who become couple-like while facing off against death. Despite saying she didn’t like him early in the film by the end Wendy and Kevin are really cool with one another, having some close moments along the journey before the time jump. That they both lost their significant other in the crash made their connection more interesting and layered despite how awkward it could be at times. Wendy pisses me off sometimes and is in a state of emergency at all times even before the crash. She believes she’s responsible for it which isn’t necessarily something that the other characters face. In the first and second films the main characters are upset they couldn’t save all of their friends despite saving random people but in this one Wendy feels she is literally the reason that death decided to chance upon them that night. This film also lacks the connection of other near death experiences leading the characters to all be around one another at the time of the accident. This was an expansion on the lore from the second film that was discarded in the plot of this installment, opting for the connection as high school peers similar to the first film but without even a teacher this go around. Adults are noticeably absent from this version, we don’t meet Julie and Wendy’s parents despite multiple scenes in their house that even include reference to their parents. This could be because the characters are presumably all eighteen or older but it is noticeably different from the first film that heavily featured Alex’s and Tod’s parents. They were another obstacle and element for Alex to deal with while facing the antagonist of death whereas we only see Kevin’s dad in 3. I think 3 exemplifies the franchise catching its stride, perfecting a formula for the franchise that could be transposed onto other accidents, free from the relational connection to the first film’s characters. With the widespread use of internet becoming popularized Final Destination can scrap information about death’s list being spread from character to character and instead we have a research montage often found in movies after the mid-aughts. Rather than finding an old woman on a hill to tell you a town legend over suspicious tea the character can spend a couple of nights researching news articles and forums about similar accidents. This is something present in the other films but it is used in addition to information being given to characters as opposed to the main source of background information in 3. Three will always be my favorite that I’ve watched over and over, a good one to put on in the background that usually captivating my attention in at some point. I cannot say the same for the 4th film in the series. While I love 3 and 2 but find 1 to be just alright I’m actually mad about 4. I was pleasantly surprised about 5 after what 4 had to offer, going into it with zero expectations of it being solid due to the mockery that 4 is in its entirety. The 3D of it all is not even the worst of it but if you’re interested in reading a full Franchise Marathon review of the Final Destination films the full post will be up by May 21st. That post will also include a review of the newest film coming out tomorrow at the time of posting this. To watch the films on Max now click here and to get the 5 film DVD collection click here .