Drugs and horror movies are similar in that they’re both addictive. But drugs taken out of moderation can wreck your life and/or face, whereas horror movies are nutritious and watching them makes you a better — and healthier — person. That should be a goal for 2017 — to become a horror movie addicted, better and healthier YOU.
I should be a life coach. I don’t know about you, but here’s how I plan on staying healthy this year…
BEWARE THE SLENDER MAN (January 23, 2017/HBO)
“Slender Man is a fictitious, abnormally tall, faceless man with long arms who stalks and abducts children. In 2014, he inspired real-life horror as two 12-year-old girls in Wisconsin lured a friend into the woods and stabbed her 19 times in an effort to “appease” the fictional entity.”
2017 might very well be the year of Slender Man, with this and another movie slated for release before the spring. If he catches on you might see some cool cross marketing, like Slender Man Weight Loss programs, where you don’t just cut calories, you kill them. Heh.
THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS (January 26, 2017/DirecTV; February 24, 2017/VOD limited)
“The near future — humanity has been all but destroyed by a mutated fungal disease that eradicates free will and turns its victims into flesh-eating “hungries.” Only a small group of children seem immune to its effects.”
Pffft — the “mutated fungal disease that eradicates free will” has been around for years. It’s called “television.”
PERSONAL SHOPPER (March 10, 2017)
“Kristen Stewart stars as a high-fashion personal shopper to the stars who is also a spiritual medium. Grieving the recent death of her twin brother, she haunts his home, determined to make contact with him.”
I wish I had a personal shopper/spiritual medium. It’d be neat to have someone go to the Piggly Wiggly Superstore™ and buy me some new britches and then divine whether or not people will like them. Could save a lot of emotional grief if you ask me.
BEDEVILED (2017)
“Alice and her friends are teens like any other — social and tethered to their devices. When they download the latest Siri-like app offering quick solutions to life’s quotidian, the friends soon discover the app offers much more than directions and places to eat. So much more. The app probes the teens’ deepest fears, manifesting these fears in the real world in a diabolical quest to terrorize its unwitting users to death.”
Quotidian? Only a few days into the new year and that is easily the most pretentious word display in a horror movie press release for 2017. (Quotidian means “ordinary or everyday, especially when mundane,” which seems to apply to Bedeviled’s plot.)
Drinkin' & Drive-in 