(Welcome to Now Scream This, a column where horror experts Chris Evangelista and Matt Donato tell you what scary, spooky, and spine-tingling movies are streaming and where you can watch them.)
Matt: We’re still stuck in February so that means Chris and I are still writing about relationship horror! This time, in honor of Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, we have disastrous relationships in horror. The ones that make us shiver, our stomachs churn, and warp memories of “evil exes” into infinitely fonder daydreams. Love can be a savior, and love can be a monster. These picks we have lined up appeal more to the latter’s demeanor.
Chris: The Invisible Man is a timely tale of a woman being gaslit by her abusive boyfriend. But Leigh Whannell’s fantastic flick isn’t the first film to explore this storyline. So if you’re in the mood for more terrible relationship movies, Matt and I have put our heads together to bring you some that are streaming right now. Right this very second. Go watch them!
1. Girl On The Third Floor
Now Streaming on Netflix
Matt: I believe it was filmmaker Joe Lynch on Twitter who dubbed Travis Stevens’ Girl On The Third Floor “moist,” and how fitting a descriptor. One ugly word that makes you shudder and recoil, fitting for a haunted house flick that’s “slimepunk” or “googorey” or whatever words you end up inventing. C.M. Punk aka Phil Brooks renovates a rundown fixer-upper for his “growing” family, but forms an unhealthy relationship with his new home sweet home. What plays out is a sludgy washover that scrubs at toxic masculinity cultures while fluids ooze from drilled holes and electrical sockets. This production is sopping wet, its themes slippery, and execution fluid. Keep a cleansing bath ready for when the credits begin.
Chris: While I appreciate the goo and gore that’s all over Girl on the Third Floor, it ultimately didn’t work for me (what in the hell is that ending about?).
2. P2
Now Streaming on Hulu and Amazon Prime
Matt: Relationships still count if they’re one-sided, right? Like when Wes Bentley tried to score a Christmas date with Rachel Nichols by trapping her inside a concrete parking structure? Franck Khalfoun’s holiday horror cat-and-mouse is more frantic than generic architectures let on, with both actors overselling their mindsets. One the obsessed stalker, the other a workaholic fighting for more than her next raise. You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime – don’t try this way! Unless you’re making a creepy “passion thriller” that turns into a nightmare for one woman who just wants to spend Christmas Eve without being objectified and claimed by a “nice guy” she never knew.
Chris: P2 has some fun moments – mostly via Wes Bentley’s whacked-out performance.
3. Killer Sofa
Now Streaming on Amazon Prime
Matt: Killer Sofa. Yes. Hear me out. There’s a whole stalker obsession subplot going on in this movie about, uh-huh, a KILLER SOFA. Through some ritualistic vileness and whatnot, the soul of an unstable human is transferred into a recliner that starts slaying victims. Some deaths are actually gory, but my favorite moments are the satirical cutaways to the sofa making fun of generic suspense cinematography. A woman leaves her apartment, the camera tracks her down the driveway, it slowly pans up to reveal the sofa staring through the window as she walks away. Magic. Goddamn magic. Never the smartest midnight movie or splatteriest for that matter, but you know what, gets the job done with the right crowd or a few…um…substances.
Chris: Longtime readers of Now Scream This will likely not be surprised to learn I have never seen Killer Sofa.
4. Nina Forever
Now Streaming on Amazon Prime
Matt: I may have recommended Nina Forever on “Now Scream This” before, but when talking about nasty love triangles, it bears repeating: SEE NINA FOREVER. For those needing a quick logline, one man finds himself in a threesome sandwiched between his new girlfriend Holly (Abigail Hardingham) and his deceased ex Nina (Fiona O’Shaughnessy). For a while, things are going…fine? Then, as assumed, situations get messy (giggidy) in ways that no longer promote bedroom shenanigans. Ben & Chris Blaine achieve more than entertaining zombified hanky-panky, as photography is rather catching and Nina Forever unfolds as a sharp, hilarious, pitch-black take on relationship dramas.
Chris says: I’ve still not seen this, and who knows if I ever will? Life is fleeting!
5. Hansel & Gretel Get Baked
Now Streaming on Shudder
Matt: In this stoner’s version of “Hansel & Gretel,” the wicked witch (played by Lara Flynn Boyle) is serving up “Black Forest” of the dankest variety. No cakes, no cookies, just the ickiest, stickiest Mary Jane on the market. Gretel’s (Molly C. Quinn) boyfriend goes to pick some more up, but his munchies get the best of him and imprisonment follows. It’s up to Hansel (Michael Welch) and his sis to part the cloudy haze of confusion on this Grimm retelling, and maybe save all the token idiots who keep getting carved up by the cul-de-sac’s newest drug Queenpin. Ugh, and now I’m hungry.
Chris says: Haven’t seen this, either. But I have seen Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters…and I love it.
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The post Now Scream This: Don’t Get Gaslit By These Streaming Horror Movies appeared first on /Film.
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