The Lineup for the Spring Horror Festival at Home is Ready!

Photo by Felix Mooneeram

I'm always excited about new horror movies and right now I'm downright psyched there are so many new pictures I can watch for my upcoming lockdown spring film festival at home.

Unluckily, the release dates of some movies I have been dying to see have been postponed AGAIN (looking at you handsome Sir Gawain, sigh) making it impossible for me to watch them in the near future. But as another Sir once said you can't always get what you want, so let's take a short look at the movies I do have a very probable chance of seeing this spring.

I'll begin this with the two movies I have already watched (because we're already halfway into March) and can say a little more about.

Let's start with Sator, let's start dark... Figuratively as well as visually very dark...  Not only should the story of a young man who lives alone in the woods and whose family has a special kind of bond with the titular forest demon be the definition of atmospheric horror in dictionaries, it already is the definition of dreadful terror in my book. So much so that it seriously freaked out a horror veteran like me. To grasp the creepiness of this film that is partly based on real life events, check out director Jordan Graham's interview on the making and the background of this movie. I really intensely recommend everybody watch this movie!

When I first heard that The Cleansing Hour is a series that broadcasts live exorcisms, I couldn't contain my joy but it quickly got overshadowed by the guilty shame of me wanting to watch other people's sufferings in such abominable mess. It later turned out this isn't a show that broadcasts exorcisms, it is a movie about such a show and the show is a hoax that millions of people all around the world watch glued to their screens (as I personally never would). So does Satan himself and he thinks you eventually get the horns if you play with the bull, arranging a cameo appearance in which he literally unleashes hell. This movie was OK but I think they could have gone a little further in terms of scares and nastiness. We're talking about the devil himself, after all.

These were the movies I watched, here I go ahead with the trailer reviews of my spring-lineup;

 

I never had an imaginary friend as a kid, but seeing the trailer of Daniel Isn't Real I think that no thank you, I'm good. I wasn't much attracted by the premise of a childhood imaginary friend coming back to awaken the darker sides of your subconscious; it just doesn't seem very original or inventive to me. But one of my favorite youtubers E.Lorn is praising it very highly, so I will give it a try, why not.

Am I wrong or is there an intense revival of the genre "young US American tourists get in trouble on their trip"? Wrong Turn certainly isn't the only movie dealing with friends hiking somewhere exotic to them and finding some old folkloric/cosmic dread, not even in my selection here. Still, I'm curious as to what they made of that trope and hopefully it's something good.

 

Spiral. It's about time they start making LGBTQ-horror and this story of a same-sex couple moving into the suburbs and getting involved in some culty endeavors looks really good to me. Unfortunately, Spiral was released pretty much at the same time with the last installment of the Saw-franchise with the same title, and I kept mistaking and confusing recommendations about "Spiral" for the latter one. And that's the story why it took me so long to discover this (hopefully) gem, guten morgen everyone!

Satan has always been a compelling horror villain. Which explains the series of revivals that exorcisms have gone through lately leading up to the revival peak every fan has been waiting for, ever: the sequel of The Exorcist. Considering that all huge productions are being postponed due to locked down cinemas, I'm pretty sure that it will last a while until we can finally reunite with little Regan and Father Merrin but until then we can pass the time by watching Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on the Exorcist where director Friedkin describes the filmmaking process of this quintessential movie on expulsion of evil forces from the human body.

 

And if that is not enough exorcism for you, upcoming The Seventh Day may scratch that itch. Although there can be no comparison whatsoever to The Exorcist, we can watch Guy Pierce and Vadhir Derbez as very cool and timely action figure exorcist priests, and that has to be worth something.

 

And if that STILL doesn't cut off your lust for religious dread then this year's Easter surprise The Unholy surely will. I'm actually very much looking forward to this one, mainly because it is based on the 1983 novel Shrine, of British The Rats - author James Herbert. But also, come on, look at that trailer! It's about a young woman who can heal people and claims to be the reincarnation of Mary. But what if it is some deceitful evil who actually possesses her? This looks like it will be either completely ridiculous or give sleepless nights for a few consecutive weeks, we'll see.

 

Gaia looks downright awesome to me. A soldier entering the jungle for some reason and encountering two men who chose the postapocalyptic lifestyle, claiming that God lives in their woods. Don't mean to be biased, but frankly Gaia promises the potential to win the spring festival, as it has everything I find good in a horror movie: beautiful nature shots, a story that sounds very interesting, eeriness, mood and atmosphere, mushrooms... Excited for this!

Son - Nice, a movie about cults!!! Another trope that has been gaining popularity since Hereditary and the unstoppable expansion of good old Howard Lovecraft's myths in written and visual fiction. I'm not very sure about this trailer, but it looks chilling, so let's wait and see.

The Sadness - The phrase "revel in gore" has never been more spot-on than for the trailer of this ridiculously bloody Taiwanese zombie thriller. Is it even a zombie movie? I have no idea, I just saw red. Not for the squeamish!  

 

Dementer - Another cult! Seeing that this is set in a home for people with learning disabilities I was first a little troubled that as ever so often people with disabilities might be represented in an exploitative way and I really have had enough of that. However, a little research lead me to director Chad Crawford Kinkle's interview with bloodydisgusting, which totally got me sold. Plus, this is the only movie in my lineup that has a shoestring budget and actually looks it, I kind of dig that.

 

Honeydew - No movie trailer should be purposely this revolting. I laughed out loud watching this, only so I wouldn't gag. Disgusting. I have no idea what this movie is about, but having seen the trailer, I think I may never want to eat again.

Since I don't want my spring program to erupt only glorious awesome horror alone, I decided to throw in a couple of movies... not that promising. Here they are:

The first of them is The Canyonlands which looks horrible, there's no way around it. Survival horror at its worst, stilted redneck bad guy and native American myth clichés, I feel bad just writing about it. But it has an indie feeling and the makers were bold, I appreciate that in a movie. 

Old - Well... Nothing says despondency like a M. Night Shyamalan film. His every new picture raises my hopes that it might be a new "Sixth Sense" or "Unbreakable" and then shatters them. The "Split" movies were a welcome break from that circle of eternal anticipation and letdown, but I wouldn't extend that optimism to his other movies. Take "Old", for instance, a beach where people get prematurely old. I feel embarrassed by that premise alone and on top of it the trailer too looks a cheap tv movie. This is not your next blockbuster. But it's a Shyamalan and that's why I will watch it, I guess.

Z Dead End. I'm so not believing my eyes that I seriously think this is a click bate movie whose only trick is the silly idea of making zombies rain from the sky. No movie trailer should purposely be this bad.

Well, this is my spring selection! I can only repeat my observations for the Fall Festival at Home that I probably won't even be able to watch all of them, some of them won't be released due to COVID19 and some of them won't be available in Germany. But this is my goal nevertheless. Festival's on!