10 horror shows to check out on Netflix this Halloween
Gear up for some Netflix and Chills this Halloween!
In the Tall Grass. (Image Source: Netflix)
I hope you like horror movies, because I've got a bunch for you. If you're thinking about whether to brave the lines at Halloween Horror Nights this year or spend the night in bed, maybe this list can help you make up your mind.
As the veil between worlds grows thinner this All Hallows' Eve, get your spooky on with these Netflix shows.
Marianne
Popular horror novelist Emma (Victoire Du Bois) is forced to return to her hometown of Elden, where she discovers that the past she thought she left behind isn't quite done with her yet. The evil she unwittingly unleashed as a child – a witch, really – is still very much present, and it's wrecking havoc on everyone around her.
Marianne is probably one of the scariest things I've watched in a while. The French series relies on masterful cinematography and camera work to deliver its scares, on top of an uncanny understanding of what exactly disturbs the human psyche. Creator Samuel Bodin has little need for jump scares and loud noises, not when he's so good at coaxing your imagination to conjure the horrors that lurk in its deepest recesses. Marianne is deeply unsettling, not least because of its artful use of disturbing imagery and ability to turn the most mundane things into a fount of horrors.
Veronica
This Spanish movie employs many of the usual horror movie tropes, but it hardly ever descends into overdone mediocrity. Veronica (Sandra Escacena) is a teenage girl who tries to make contact with her deceased father by using a Ouija board during a solar eclipse, which to no one's surprise, is a recipe for some supernatural disaster. Unsurprisingly, Veronica passes out during the seance, and really creepy things start to happen over the next few days. This movie is truly all your worst fears about a demon infestation rolled into one. Director Paco Plaza also directed 2007's REC, which is one of the scariest zombie movies ever made if you ask me, so Veronica is in some good hands.
To further amp up the fear factor, the movie is allegedly based on a true story. In August 1992, a young girl named Estefania Gutierrez Lazaro died in a Madrid hospital after months of seizures and hallucinations, which reportedly started after she performed a seance at school. You can easily look up reports on it by searching for the "Vallecas case", the name of the Madrid neighbourhood where Lazaro conducted the seance.
The Ritual
Four university friends go hiking along the Kungsleden in north Sweden. It sounds like an idyllic trip to honour the memory of a recently deceased member of the group, at least until one of them injures his knee and the group decides to take a shortcut through the forest. The Ritual reminds me vaguely of 1999's Blair Witch Project, sans all that found footage shakiness. It doesn't take long before the group starts to encounter strange things in the woods, from gutted animals to strange symbols carved into the bark on trees. Something's very wrong with these woods, and the movie taps into a very visceral source of dread as the friends start to realise they're hopelessly lost and that something they don't understand is stalking them.
If there's one thing that horror movies taught me, it's that you should never ever go into a forest. The Ritual is just further proof of that.
In the Tall Grass
We've been getting a lot of Stephen King movie adaptations lately, and I can't really blame film makers. After all, King is one of the most prolific writers of the last few decades, and his novels and short stories are uniquely unnerving. The field of grass in In the Tall Grass doesn't contain ravenous velociraptors, but that doesn't mean it doesn't still want you dead, or in its thrall, somehow. Siblings Becky (Laysla De Oliveira) and Cal DeMuth (Avery Whitted) wander into a field of grass after hearing a boy's (Will Buie Jr.) cries for help, but they soon find that the grass isn't what it seems and that they can't get out.
This is mostly calculated to appeal to King fans though. The film does wear thin at times, especially given its limited setting and novella-length source material. That said, the tension runs high in this film, and with the grass stretching as far as the eye can see, it keeps you wondering where it really ends.
The Perfection
Charlotte Willmore (Allison Williams) is an immensely talented cellist who trained at Bachoff, a prestigious music school that caters to young prodigies. But that simple premise is soon upended as the movie puts you through some tortuous twists and turns that make for a dizzying but exhilarating ride. Without giving away too much, let me just say that The Perfection is part slasher flick, part revenge drama, and part psychological thriller. It defies categorisation, and even if it sometimes stumbles with its convoluted shifts in direction, it never feels boring. There's also a particularly gag-worthy scene where a knife tears its way down the length of someone's forearm to the sound of ripping flesh. Ugh.
Wounds
Armie Hammer and Dakota Johnson star in this Babak Anvari-directed film that's based on Nathan Ballingrud's novel The Visible Filth. Hammer plays New Orleans bartender Will, who works at a cockroach-infested bar called Rosie's. Things start to go south when he takes home a mobile phone left behind by a group of university students. He receives ominous texts and pictures of bloodied teeth, and even starts to get the sense that something has entered his home. Will's girlfriend Carrie, played by Johnson, is affected too, and he comes home one day to find her staring at a picture of a seemingly endless tunnel on her laptop, all while sitting in a puddle of her own urine.
Wounds doesn't excel when it comes to tight storytelling, but its brand of body horror and talented cast are enough to keep it pottering along.
Apostle
It's 1905, and Thomas Richardson (Dan Stevens) is on a journey to a remote Welsh island to rescue his sister, Jennifer (Elen Rhys), who has been kidnapped and held for ransom by a religious cult. The air is heavy with tension and dread in this movie, as Thomas tries to blend in and find out where his sister is being held. He also stumbles upon the cult's unsettling practices, such as routine bloodletting into jars, as the movie takes you on a slow-burn build-up to its pretty epic climax.
Apostle is strange, disturbing, and absorbing, a real treat for those of you who enjoy folklore and religious crazies. It also manages to work in an exploration of the pitfalls of organised religion, if you're looking for slightly more incisive horror fare.
Gerald's Game
Here's another Stephen King adaptation, and I'm actually surprised by how good it is. Like In the Tall Grass, it plays out mostly in a single place, this time a bedroom in an isolated lake house in Fairhope, Alabama. Jessie (Carla Gugino) and Gerald Burlingame (Bruce Greenwood) are trying to set time aside to fix their marriage, and Gerald decides to enact a stranger rape fantasy and handcuff Jessie to the bedposts. Jessie's protests upset him, and he unfortunately dies of a heart attack after a heated argument. This leaves Jessie handcuffed to the bed, with no one around and seemingly no way to get out. As night falls, she must find a way to survive and battle the things that slither out of the shadows, both real and imaginary.
Gerald's Game provides a look inside an anguished mind as it works through trauma both past and present, all while trying to survive the ongoing crisis. When a wild dog is feasting on your husband's corpse as you lay cuffed to your bed, what do you do? The movie is riveting and tense and replete with gruesome imagery, making for a remarkable adaptation of King's novel.
Fractured
Fractured is more psychological horror than supernatural thriller, so expect plenty of crazy. Ray Monroe (Sam Worthington) takes his wife and injured daughter to a hospital emergency room, but the staff seem shifty, and the hospital may not actually be what it seems. When his wife and daughter disappear, he becomes convinced that the hospital is hiding something.
You might see the twist coming from a mile away, but it's still worth watching for the way Ray unravels. If anything, it's a character study into the pathetic.
Eli
Eli (Charlie Shotwell) is a young boy suffering from a rare disease that dictates that he must live his life in full protective gear, or risk suffering an intense allergic reaction from simply being exposed to the outside. His parents, played by Kelly Reilly and Max Martini, take him to Dr. Isabella Horn for treatment. Her facility is oddly located in a creepy, secluded mansion, but that's not the worst of Eli's problems. He's soon plagued by ghostly sightings – on his way to his room, he even sees a sinister robbed figure at the end of a dark hallway – eventually becoming convinced that the house is haunted. Along the way, he makes friends with Haley (Sadie Sink), who for some reason hangs around outside the house a lot and is always free to chat with Eli.
Eli's premise is not particularly novel, but the scares, including the cringe-worthy contortionist kind, are pretty effective. And then there's the sense that there's some sort of conspiracy afoot. What are the doctors doing? Why do the treatments hurt so much and what happened to the other patients? You'll want to finish the movie for the massive twist at the end though, which completely turns the film on its head.
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