Today, we set out to watch genuinely scary movies. Spoiler alert: we failed.
First up was Green Room starring the late Anton Yelchin. A struggling punk band plays their failed tour’s final show at a white supremacist bar. After a rousing cover of the Dead Kennedys’ “Nazi Punks Fuck Off”, they find their audience slightly less receptive. After finding themselves witness to a crime, the Nazi bar owner (a strangely genteel Patrick Stewart), decides to murder the band and frame it as trespassing. The band must then fight their way out. This was actually a good movie, but not technically horror. We picked it after seeing it on a couple of top horror lists. There was a slow start, but once the pressure was on, it stayed on. Overall, we’ll give this 3.5 dead nazis out of 5.
(💀💀💀1/💀)
Next movie was It Comes At Night, which was purportedly a “post-apocalyptic” “horror” movie with “zombies”. A family is surviving the apocalypse in their home during a highly contagious outbreak that has wiped out most of humanity when they discover a man trying to break into their house. He tells them that he’s looking for supplies for his young family and they take them in. Both families must survive together, but the real terror is the paranoia that pervades their simple life. Admittedly, this movie had good pacing and a decent premise, but it kind of fell short and didn’t satisfy any of the questions it brought up. And there weren’t actually any zombies. Our rating is 0 nonexistent zombies out of 5.
Finally, after a day of intense movies, we finished with a horror/comedy movie that was definitely a pleasant surprise: Tucker and Dale vs Evil. Best friends and good ol’ boys test their mettle against ignorant college students who mistake Tucker and Dale for murderous hillbillies. After some ensuing jocularity, the two rednecks have to fight for their lives. This movie put every single slasher movie trope and turned them on their heads. Very enjoyable palate cleanser and (spoiler alert), finally the dog lives. 6 banjos out of 5 (
)
Movies With My Dad 