I am not the crazy horror person that Ava is. I’ve only started to get into horror media in the last two years or so, with the help of both Ava and my boyfriend. I’ve seen some of the classics now, like Scream and Friday the Thirteenth, and even some newer films like The VVitch and Weapons. My horror books have also expanded, with many Stephen King volumes and some other books like Incidents Around the House and Slewfoot. I’m starting to get better with horror!
As a kid (and even now), I scare very easily. Hearing music from Luigi’s Mansion still gives me chills, and I get anxious if I think about Freddy Fazbear being in my closet (even though Foxy is the one in the closet. I don’t know either). I’m learning to enjoy it, even if it means almost peeing my pants in the process. Now, I’m excited to share with you my thoughts on the horror media I watched and read this spooky season, how much they scared me, and if I would recommend them to you all. I unfortunately didn’t get through as much as I would have hoped to, but I have enough that’s worth talking about.
Resident Evil (2026) dir. Zach Cregger
Movies in theaters scare me so much. There are few horror movies I’ve seen in theaters for a reason. The last one before this was The Backrooms, which was more atmospheric than it was traditionally scary. But this? This insane experience of a movie? It shook me to my very core.
I’ve watched Ava and my dad play some of the Resident Evil games and have enjoyed the franchise casually, but this was my first experience watching one of the movies. I don’t think I’ve ever been more stressed than I was while watching this movie. It was created in a lab specifically to scare me. Let’s talk about why.
If you don’t know, the Resident Evil franchise is largely about the fallout of a virus created by the Umbrella Corporation, which infects humans and animals, making them into mutated monsters, usually resembling zombies. The movie follows Bryan, a medical courier, who decides to take one last job for the night to deliver to a nearby hospital in the mountains. Unbeknownst to him, the hospital is the starting point of the virus, and he’s headed right into the fray. The medical cooler he’s delivering has the final piece needed for the cure to the virus, so it’s paramount that he delivers it safely to save the world.
This movie is intense and comedic all at once, something I’m very grateful for. If it weren’t for the moments of brevity, I honestly may have walked out, that’s how bad this movie was for me. Chase scenes, lots of suspense, and scary humanoid monsters all in one? No thanks! I’ve heard that most of the jokes were cut, which was shocking to hear. I thought the balance was really well done, and I think they did a great job. Our protagonist is very much an average Joe. He makes lots of one liners and anxious comments that made him feel relatable.
In addition to the comedy, I also really liked the cinematography. The movie looked great, even with most of it being set at night. The creature design was perfectly horrible, and the way the movie was shot did a great job of reminding you that this is a video game movie, after all, with some great shots in both first and third person to pay homage to the source material.
Overall, I hated watching this movie, but love everything that it did. As a very casual fan of the games and a baby when it comes to horror, I’d say this was a great movie to start off spooky season.
Midnight Mass (2021) dir. Mike Flanagan
Ava planned a weekend for the friend group to watch a ton of things by Mike Flanagan, one of her favorite directors. I hadn’t seen anything he’s done, so my first taste was his show Midnight Mass. I’ll go ahead and spoil that this was my favorite of the media watched over our Flanagan Fling weekend.
I knew nothing going into this show, but I was pleased all around. The setting of a shrinking island community, the religious theming behind the whole plot, and the slow but steady build-up of the mystery was very well done. I won’t spoil too much because I really think this deserves a watch. Trust me when I say it’s perfectly spooky and did a wonderful job keeping you engaged in the story. It also had some wonderful discussions of faith and belief that were really compelling. You empathize both with the atheist main character and those who embody the beliefs of a true, humble Christian. Oh, and the best part was how not totally scary it was. Just enough to keep you on your toes, but not enough to send me crying. Give this one a go. Just maybe don’t watch it all in one sitting like we did.
Oculus (2013) dir. Mike Flanagan
On day two of the Fling, we watched the movies. This was the first of three, and maybe my least favorite of the batch. It’s not a bad movie at all, but you’d better be prepared to not know what’s real and what’s fake. This movie is about a pair of siblings who reunite after years of being apart. As kids, a traumatic supernatural event wound up with their parents dead. The sister was put into foster care, and the brother into a mental hospital. After he’s released, his sister insists they get closure on what happened to them as kids by proving the mirror that was hung in their house was the cause of their parents’ insanity.
Over the course of the night, they are pushed and pulled by the influence of the mirror, which distorts what they see, influences their actions, and does whatever it can to protect itself. The whole movie makes you question what’s real and what’s fake, which was both a boon and a burden while watching. While it certainly made things spooky, and the blurring of the lines between past and present were cool, it ultimately made me question too much and not trust anything. Which was the point, but I’m still allowed to not like that part. I also wish we got more origins of the mirror. How could it do what it did, and why. Maybe we need a prequel. Good visuals, great acting from the child actors, and an ending that was depressing. Good horror, not my favorite movie.
Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016) dir. Mike Flanagan
The second movie was the Ouija prequel. I haven’t seen the original and might now, since it’s apparently not that great, but it’s not necessary to enjoy this movie. It’s about a family who are mourning the recent loss of their husband/father. The mother is a ‘psychic’, who employs the help of her daughters to falsify readings for their patrons.
The elder daughter suggests they start using a Ouija board in the act, only for the younger daughter, Dorris, to actually be able to connect with spirits. She thinks she’s talking to her father, but is actually communing with the evil spirits that haunt their house. Lina, with the help of her mother and the priest from their school, must figure out who is haunting the house and how they can free Dorris from its influence.
This movie does not have a happy ending, considering how it’s a prequel and all. But you usually don’t watch horror for happy endings. I liked the clear explanations for how the family is haunted and why, and think it used the mystery and intrigue of the Ouija board well. Unsettling, not too scary, and plenty spooky.
Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Spooky book time! Ava has hyped up Tchaikovsky for a while now, and this was my first taste of his writing. We picked this book for book club forever ago, and it was a happy coincidence to be reading it now. He is more sci-fi than he is horror, but this book had plenty of suspense and alien-themed scares. I really enjoyed it, and I’m glad that it’s one of the book I got to read this month.
This book is about a crew of humans who are sent to work on research and exploration of a far off moon. Humanity needs resources, and their job is to figure out the practical uses of the moon, which they call Shroud. Their orbital ship malfunctions early on, and two of the crew mates are saved by sheltering in a pod that was meant for a manned exploration, and they are now the unwilling guinea pigs. Shroud is entirely hostile to humans, and the locked-orbit means they have no light to guide them. Their only hope of survival is to traverse the moon’s surface to find the one point where humans may still be monitoring.
The horror in this book comes from both the stress of survival under bleak circumstances, as well as the fauna they find on Shroud. It’s inhabited by insectoid creatures who seem intelligent, but unable to communicate. In addition to the grueling landscape of Shroud, the two survivors need to learn to understand the creatures they now exist alongside.
I didn’t find the aliens particularly scary, mostly because they were shown to us in such a scientific way. What I found more frightening was the descriptions of human life in this new future. Humans are trained and raised in colonies and must fight to be deemed useful. Humans who are unneeded are frozen in cryo until a use for them comes up. The characters bring up many times how they need to continue to be profitable and useful to their project, lest they be frozen again. I really liked this bleak outlook on humanity, where resources are so scarce that sometimes you’re deemed too much of an expense to be kept eating and breathing.
Long story short, good book! Not terribly scary in my opinion, but it had a great spooky environment and good discussions of humanity and what could happen in the far out future when resources are insufficient. Go read this book if you like aliens, science, and discovering new life.
Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) dir. Jim Sharman
So is this movie horror? Ehhhh. Am I going to talk about it because it has ‘horror’ in the title? Yes.
This movie is wonderful. I had the chance to see a shadow-cast production of it in college and it was a great experience. No movie experience will compare to this one. If you’re unaware, this movie has a cult following and is known for audience participation, even in theaters. Viewers will talk back to the characters, put on party hats, and even throw rice, toast, and toilet paper when the time is right. And it’s the perfect movie to be silly with, as the movie is ridiculous and doesn’t need your full attention to make sense, because it doesn’t make too much sense in general.
What I like most about the movie is the culture surrounding it, but it’s fun in general, and does some interesting things with the horror genre that it barely qualifies for. It’s a musical, for one, which you don’t see too often. You laugh more than you jump or cringe. But there is a Frankenstein-esque plot line, murder, betrayal, and a twisting of morals that leaves the characters forever changed.
If you can, go find a showing of this movie near you, even if it isn’t a shadow-cast. Trust me, you’ll enjoy it, and have a great time participating in a tradition that has been a part of the Halloween season for years.
Thinner by Stephen King
So I’ve been slowly reading this book since August, since it’s my physical read and I always take a long time on those. And I technically still haven’t quite finished it, but I probably will in the next few days. So I’m going to talk about it.
The novel is about a man named Billy who is successful and happy. His main plight in life is being a bit overweight and unable to lose the pounds. He has a loving wife, a wonderful daughter, and a stable career. This all changes when he accidentally strikes a woman with his car when she came out between two cars. She dies in the process, and the incident goes to court.
Billy has a lot of lawyer connections, being one himself, so he gets off fairly easy. The woman was jaywalking, after all. He still feels bad, but he tells himself there’s nothing he could have done. But when leaving the court on the final day, he’s approached by an old man who was present at the trials. The old man touches him and whispers the word “thinner” and leaves.
Billy soon comes to discover that he’s losing weight. This starts off as a nice surprise, until the pounds begin melting off at an alarming rate, to the point that his wife and doctors begin to get concerned. Billy remembers what the old man said and begins to worry he’s cursed. He calls his lawyer, who he discovers has left town because his skin has started to turn to scales. The officer who testified for Billy has begun to have giant pustules on his skin. And the man who Billy realized cursed them all is no where to be seen, his traveling group having left the state.
This starts Billy’s search for the old man, to see if he’s somehow be willing to reverse it before it’s too late. I have no idea how the book is going to end, and I’m excited to find out. So far, the tension has been really great. One of the best details of the book is that many of the chapters are simply titled as numbers, showing Billy’s weight and how it’s decreasing. There is a growing sense of dread as you read and see how Billy is being affected by his fear and eventually rage. I wouldn’t call this book scary per se, but the horror is 100% present and it’s had me at the edge of my seat many times. I can hardly wait to finish.
And there we have it! My spooky stuff from the last six weeks or so. Like I said, it wasn’t as much as I was hoping for, but life likes to get in the way of things. I’m sure I’ll read and watch more great pieces of horror soon, and I’m already excited for spooky season next year.
Boo!
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