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lucymonsterMe when I catch my kids' cold: 🙁🤧
Me when my husband doesn't catch our kids' cold, meaning I get to spend like half the weekend watching horror movies in bed while he takes over the heavy-duty parenting: 😈😈😈😈😈
Get Out (2017): HOLY SHIT WOW OKAY. WOW. I confess to being surprised back in 2017 when the whole world suddenly started saying that Jordan Peele, who I knew only as one of the two guys who made silly skits about hats, was actually a huge horror genius. I get it now. This was absolutely terrifying, but in a way that feels very different from any of the other horror I've been binging over this last couple of months. It has all the cleverness and humour you'd expect from a career comedian turned wunderkind of elevated horror, coupled with villains who are straight-up bloodcurdling in their fetishistic admiration of Blackness and cold disregard for real Black lives.
Chris is a young Black photographer on a trip out of town to meet his white girlfriend's family for the first time. They present as stereotypical white Liberals: wealthy but self-effacing, welcoming but awkward, proud of their self-avowed colourblindness but incapable of meeting an actual Black person without being deeply weird about race. And of course, all those smiles and good intentions turn out to be a deliberate front: the Armitage family has a secret, incredibly sinister plot to acquire and exploit Black bodies, and Chris finds himself ensnared in it before he has time to realise his unease is a gut response to something much darker than a few fumbling microaggressions. This film blew my mind. It was scary, it was funny, it was FUN, and underneath all that it was an extremely clear-sighted callout of a kind of covert racism that almost a full decade later still often seems to get a pass.
The Conjuring (2013): I loved this! It's a straightforward haunted house/demonic possession type story - family moves into creaky old country house, bad supernatural things happen, demonologists come to the rescue with a terrifying climactic exorcism scene - but every part of it is executed to spooky perfection. It's aesthetically beautiful (of the several posters/covers, this one best captures the ~vibe imo), has a cast of likeable characters I was cheering for the whole time, and manages to sustain an immaculate atmosphere of paranormal suspense livened up with just a small handful of well-timed jumpscares. No complaints. Prime material for a semi-regular Halloween rewatch.
I've always found stories involving professional exorcists, paranormal investigators etc. oddly comforting, no matter how scary they try to be. I know I should be alarmed by the idea that the supernatural not only exists but is sufficiently widespread to have spawned a viable career path, but it's just so nice to think that if you're ever in a situation where traditional law enforcement fails you, there's some stake-wielding hero or beautiful clairvoyant or quietly powerful magic shop owner out there who will put their own life on the line to help you. It's even nicer in stories where the rules of Christian folklore apply, and you can cling to a crucifix or a bottle of holy water for protection during your hero's brief but unavoidable offscreen time. The Christians do very much have to be Catholic, though. This is theologically disappointing but aesthetically essential. Imagine if you were in one of these movies, cowering in some dark, haunted corner as you wait for your exorcist to arrive, and then in walks some Protestant fresh from his drab conference-hall worship centre wearing his clerical collar with jeans. Dude doesn't even know Latin, probably. He and the demon are going to have to communicate through Google Translate.
Paranormal Activity (2007): Katie has been experiencing terrors in the dead of night since she was eight years old. Her shitty boyfriend Micah, finding out about them after they move in together, decides to "help" her by treating the whole thing as a sleuthing game and antagonising the demon attached to her while filming the whole thing. This is some seriously stripped back horror: something like half the runtime is just footage of the couple sleeping, while the other half is an increasingly weary Katie begging Micah not to film her, all happening inside the same few rooms of a neat, modern, unremarkable suburban American house. And it is SCARY. It had me on tenterhooks the whole time, heart leaping into my throat with every footstep noise or flicker of shadow. The final shot almost had me out of my seat.
Unlike The Conjuring, there are no comforting demonologists to save the day here; they exist, but they're, like, super busy and can't help you. I think that part might actually have been even scarier than the demon.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): A group of teens start having vivid nightmares about the same disfigured man with knives on his fingers; if he kills them in their dreams, they die in real life. Now, this one I definitely did watch back in high school! Almost none of it actually jogged my memory, though, besides the Freddy costume itself and the scene where he slits his abdomen to reveal all those maggots. Man, though, what a fun slasher. I'd forgotten how funny Freddy is, the way he does his murders like they're playful capers - and then how scary it is at the end, when he loses his temper at being bested by Nancy and that playfulness turns to unbridled rage.
Me when my husband doesn't catch our kids' cold, meaning I get to spend like half the weekend watching horror movies in bed while he takes over the heavy-duty parenting: 😈😈😈😈😈
Get Out (2017): HOLY SHIT WOW OKAY. WOW. I confess to being surprised back in 2017 when the whole world suddenly started saying that Jordan Peele, who I knew only as one of the two guys who made silly skits about hats, was actually a huge horror genius. I get it now. This was absolutely terrifying, but in a way that feels very different from any of the other horror I've been binging over this last couple of months. It has all the cleverness and humour you'd expect from a career comedian turned wunderkind of elevated horror, coupled with villains who are straight-up bloodcurdling in their fetishistic admiration of Blackness and cold disregard for real Black lives.
Chris is a young Black photographer on a trip out of town to meet his white girlfriend's family for the first time. They present as stereotypical white Liberals: wealthy but self-effacing, welcoming but awkward, proud of their self-avowed colourblindness but incapable of meeting an actual Black person without being deeply weird about race. And of course, all those smiles and good intentions turn out to be a deliberate front: the Armitage family has a secret, incredibly sinister plot to acquire and exploit Black bodies, and Chris finds himself ensnared in it before he has time to realise his unease is a gut response to something much darker than a few fumbling microaggressions. This film blew my mind. It was scary, it was funny, it was FUN, and underneath all that it was an extremely clear-sighted callout of a kind of covert racism that almost a full decade later still often seems to get a pass.
The Conjuring (2013): I loved this! It's a straightforward haunted house/demonic possession type story - family moves into creaky old country house, bad supernatural things happen, demonologists come to the rescue with a terrifying climactic exorcism scene - but every part of it is executed to spooky perfection. It's aesthetically beautiful (of the several posters/covers, this one best captures the ~vibe imo), has a cast of likeable characters I was cheering for the whole time, and manages to sustain an immaculate atmosphere of paranormal suspense livened up with just a small handful of well-timed jumpscares. No complaints. Prime material for a semi-regular Halloween rewatch.
I've always found stories involving professional exorcists, paranormal investigators etc. oddly comforting, no matter how scary they try to be. I know I should be alarmed by the idea that the supernatural not only exists but is sufficiently widespread to have spawned a viable career path, but it's just so nice to think that if you're ever in a situation where traditional law enforcement fails you, there's some stake-wielding hero or beautiful clairvoyant or quietly powerful magic shop owner out there who will put their own life on the line to help you. It's even nicer in stories where the rules of Christian folklore apply, and you can cling to a crucifix or a bottle of holy water for protection during your hero's brief but unavoidable offscreen time. The Christians do very much have to be Catholic, though. This is theologically disappointing but aesthetically essential. Imagine if you were in one of these movies, cowering in some dark, haunted corner as you wait for your exorcist to arrive, and then in walks some Protestant fresh from his drab conference-hall worship centre wearing his clerical collar with jeans. Dude doesn't even know Latin, probably. He and the demon are going to have to communicate through Google Translate.
Paranormal Activity (2007): Katie has been experiencing terrors in the dead of night since she was eight years old. Her shitty boyfriend Micah, finding out about them after they move in together, decides to "help" her by treating the whole thing as a sleuthing game and antagonising the demon attached to her while filming the whole thing. This is some seriously stripped back horror: something like half the runtime is just footage of the couple sleeping, while the other half is an increasingly weary Katie begging Micah not to film her, all happening inside the same few rooms of a neat, modern, unremarkable suburban American house. And it is SCARY. It had me on tenterhooks the whole time, heart leaping into my throat with every footstep noise or flicker of shadow. The final shot almost had me out of my seat.
Unlike The Conjuring, there are no comforting demonologists to save the day here; they exist, but they're, like, super busy and can't help you. I think that part might actually have been even scarier than the demon.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): A group of teens start having vivid nightmares about the same disfigured man with knives on his fingers; if he kills them in their dreams, they die in real life. Now, this one I definitely did watch back in high school! Almost none of it actually jogged my memory, though, besides the Freddy costume itself and the scene where he slits his abdomen to reveal all those maggots. Man, though, what a fun slasher. I'd forgotten how funny Freddy is, the way he does his murders like they're playful capers - and then how scary it is at the end, when he loses his temper at being bested by Nancy and that playfulness turns to unbridled rage.
no subject
Date: 2026-03-15 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-15 03:18 pm (UTC)I'm so glad you finally got to Get Out. Now you understand the hype! And you'll understand what people are referring to with the "Sunken Place," if that's still a meme. It's so, so uncomfortable. I've definitely met other white people who said "I would've voted for Obama for a third term!" with no trace of irony, and proudly display their weird tribal "art" in their homes.
"Imagine if you were in one of these movies, cowering in some dark, haunted corner as you wait for your exorcist to arrive, and then in walks some Protestant fresh from his drab conference-hall worship centre wearing his clerical collar with jeans. Dude doesn't even know Latin, probably. He and the demon are going to have to communicate through Google Translate."
LOL--now you're giving me ideas! Like I don't have enough plot bunnies. I do enjoy the Conjuring movies. The Annabelle spinoff wasn't that great from what I remember, but the clapping game, and the whole bit in the basement--classic!
I don't know if you have the Insidious franchise in your queue, but that's a similar vibe, if you want more. I like those just a smidge more, honestly, because there you get Lin Shaye as the expert demonologist they keep calling for help. I love to see an older woman thriving in this genre!
The first Paranormal Activity was really good. I've watched ALLL of them. They don't get better. After the first three I'm not sure why I kept going, but I did? Possibly just to say I did it? But yeah, the first one is easily the best.
Nightmare On Elm Street is FABULOUS. I haven't seen all of them, because for some reason they're never all available in the same place at the same time, but I'm getting there. The third one, Dream Warriors, is a personal favorite; and New Nightmare is fun on a meta level.
no subject
Date: 2026-03-15 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-15 11:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-15 11:57 pm (UTC)I am all about older women being badasses in dangerous fields! How is the franchise on child death/harm? I am really loving this whole subgenre of paranormal horror and have an appetite for more in the same vein, but I’m still feeling very hesitant to push that one specific trigger too far right now. I know I looked up the first Insidious movie at some point, saw there was a prominent child character, and didn’t check any further because there were so many other things on the list I was looking up.
I was just grousing to Snickfic as well that I’m sick of everything always being a series or franchise - I love standalones! Where are the standalones? - but A Nightmare on Elm Street is one I can absolutely see myself binging all of in the near future. If “feel-good horror” isn’t too much of an oxymoron then surely that’s what this is. Just silly, compulsively watchable, scary-but-not-too-scary fun.
no subject
Date: 2026-03-15 11:58 pm (UTC)Oh my GOD, yes. I swear I almost physically felt my heart try to leap out my mouth.