Winter Chills

This winter saw a fair number of horror films surface on screens both big and small. Let’s take a look at how some of them stacked up!

Sick

Premiering on Peacock this past January, Sick is a slick thriller from Scream scribe Kevin Williamson that’s set during the height of the COVID pandemic. And while it definitely shares some DNA with Williamson’s breakout hit (both feature masked killers, clad in all black, with penchants for toying with their potential victims via cell phone shenanigans), Sick has something going for it that was sorely missing from Ghostface’s most recent outing: an all-out, balls-to-the-wall, chase scene. In fact, you could argue that the whole third act is just one extended chase scene, and you wouldn’t be wrong. And I am here for it.

Set largely at a secluded lakefront cabin where some college friends are “quarantining”, Sick’s languid pace kicks into high gear once the gang find themselves the target of one very uninvited guest. Despite a near-derailment near the end when the significance of the COVID of it all is revealed, the film manages to be a tense and tight delight. Especially for those who appreciate horror movies that try to keep viewers on the edges of their seats as well as jumping out of them.

M3GAN

M3GAN, the titular robotic little girl/meme generator with killer moves and killer tendencies, has become the surprise hit of the season. While not so much a horror film as it is a satirical look at technology and consumerism that just happens to have a body count, M3GAN delivers when it comes to creepiness, as only an evil AI doll with a soulless stare and an iron vise-like grip can.

Some people have just dismissed M3GAN as a female version of fellow diminutive psycho, Chucky from the Child’s Play franchise. But that’s not really a fair comparison, because in those films, good ol’ Chuck is actually a serial killer whose soul has been transferred into a child’s toy, while our gal M3G is 100% wires, bolts and motherboards.

But what IS interesting is that M3GAN does have a lot in common with the other Chucky – the one from Child’s Play (2019). For that remake, they ditched the soul-transfer angle and instead made Chucky an AI-powered doll that a disgruntled worker removes all the safety protocols from after being fired, which results in a doll who bonds with its owner and will stop at nothing – not even murder – to ensure his well-being.

Which, if you swap in “forgetful inventor” for “disgruntled worker”, is pretty much M3GAN’s origin story, note-for-note.

Still, borrowed plot or not, it’s an enjoyable romp that may not offer up much scares, but does provide a few chuckles with its chills.

Skinamarink

And then there’s this. Skinamarink gained some recent buzz due to being a micro-budgeted movie ($15,000!) that managed to get picked up for a limited theatrical release. Ultimately, it pulled in over $1 million at the box office ahead of its arrival on the horror streaming service, Shudder. So, well done, all.

Now, about the film itself. Skinamarink is an experimental film, and I’m pretty sure the goal of that experiment was to answer the question, “How long will people watch a movie that looks like it was pulled entirely from low-res security cameras that had been knocked off their mounts and never re-set?”

The “story” concerns two young siblings who wake up to find their dad missing, along with all the doors and windows in their house. Sounds scary enough, right? Welp, after 40 repetitive minutes consisting of static shots of walls, ceilings, and furniture, dimly-lit rooms, the occasional floor-level close-ups of tiny feet padding down carpeted hallways, free-domain cartoons playing endlessly on a loop, and unintelligible audio cues, the only scary thing that I found about Skinamarink was that there was still 60 more minutes of the movie to go.

Brrr…chilly, indeed!