Halloween arrives early this season — at least at movie theaters and on streaming platforms. Here’s a look at a variety of new films aimed to get you into the spirit.
“It’s What’s Inside”: Director/screenwriter Greg Jardin’s brainy, clever feature debut shakes a finger — you know which one — at the cruel head games that selfish lovers and jealous friends sometimes resort to playing. A batch of close friends gather to party at a groom-to-be’s (Devon Terrell) dead mom’s mansion the night before the nuptials. Old-time jealousies, longtime crushes and dirty secrets come to the fore when a techie inventor (David Thompson) hauls out the ultimate party trick — an electrode he cooked up in Silicon Valley that leapfrogs the soul of each “player” into someone else’s bod. The game starts out as weird drunken fun but takes a serious turn as the role playing goes to new extremes, and widens an already deep riff in the flat-lined relationship of Shelby (Brittany O’Grady) and Cyrus (James Morosini). Jardin milks the scenario for every creative ounce it’s worth and keeps the audience off-kilter throughout (even camera angles refuse to conform to the norms). Executive produced by Colman Domingo, “It’s What’s Inside” resists being caged by a specific genre, leapfrogging from horror to sci-fi to drama and beyond. The ensemble is perfect. I had so much fun watching it and can’t wait to watch it again so I can see how the heck Jardin pulled it off so successfully. Details: 3½ stars out of 4; drops Oct. 4 on Netflix.
“Salem’s Lot”: After a flurry of on-again/off-again release dates, this beleaguered version of a Stephen King bone-rattler rises from a 2½-year slumber in a studio coffin. Should it have stayed dead and buried? Nope. But it’s no great shakes either, more of a minor-league effort (there have been two TV series before) that bungles the King of Horror’s crackerjack Drac premise about a best-selling writer visiting his small Maine hometown where a bloodsucker reigns. There are some freaky moments (a floating dead boy tap-tap-tapping on an upstairs window gives you the willies) and a fiery finale at a drive-in that’s pure popcorn fun. But much of the time it’s more silly than scary, and a lot of it is outright dumb (has any character in it seen a vampire movie, for pity’s sake?) When screenwriter/director Gary Dauberman veers from the vampire stuff (a mildly passable Nosferatu-like creation) and zeroes in on mid-’70s nostalgia, “Salem’s Lot” pops to life. Too often, though, it’s listless and overloaded with bloodless characters. Lewis Pullman as author Ben Mears emerges mostly unscathed while the great Alfre Woodard as a town doc gets reduced to exclaiming and explaining. She deserves better. So do King fans. Details: 1½ stars; available Oct. 3 on Max.
“House of Spoils”: More creepy than frightening, directors/screenwriters Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy’s feminist culinary horror tale holds in its hand one winning recipe: An imposter-feeling “Chef” (Ariana DeBose) realizes her dream/nightmare when she quits a lauded restaurant gig and then opens, as main chef, a cutting-edge farm-to-table dining experience in a rundown estate. The catch? The area has deep roots in witchcraft. Not all goes right for her and her business partner (a very entertaining Arian Moayed) as bugs and roaches and other creepy crawlies pop out of freshly made entrees while mold ruins other delectables. Are the bugs real or the product of Chef’s obsessed, paranoid mind? “House of Spoils” is a cut above most recent Blumhouse movies and is observant to the insane pressures of the restaurant biz (“I haven’t had a day off in seven years,” Chef remarks). It’s puffed up by dedicated performances, including from Barbie Ferreira as Chef’s questioning sous chef. But it too lightly seasons in the frights and should have carved out more time to explore the past of the buggy kitchen and garden to make it a complete, more satisfying meal for horror fans. Details: 2½ stars; drops Oct. 3 on Prime Video.
“Hold Your Breath”: An overprotective mom (Sarah Paulson) is stuck with her two daughters in a tiny, ominous community in the dust-stormy Oklahoma Panhandle in 1933. In an ambitious narrative thread, she senses a menacing presence in all that dust — or is she going mad? The mystery distinguishes directors Karrie Crouse and Will Joines’ psychological horror parable. It works more often than not, even if it shoots off in too many directions that don’t lead anywhere. Paulson is riveting as an unhinged, sleep-deprived mom getting more twitchy and agitated over outside forces — including a drifter of a preacher (“The Bear’s” Ebon Moss-Bachrach). “Hold Your Breath” taps into a national mood of paranoia and escalating anxiety and that makes it all the more chilling, all the more relevant. Details: 3 stars; drops Oct. 3 on Hulu.
“V/H/S Beyond”: A lack of consistency often proves fatal for horror anthologies. But in this dynamite seventh installment of the popular found-footage series, each chapter is killer. Out of the six tales of terror, all anchored around alien encounters, my four faves are: Justin Martinez’s unhinged “Live and Let Dive,” wherein a 30th birthday sky-diving party goes extremely wrong; Christian and Justin Long’s demented “Furbabies,” which exposes a chipper doggie day care provider’s devious motivations; Virat Pal’s super-smart “Dream Girl,” with a Bollywood celebrity seizing the moment after being hounded by jealous paparazzi; and Kate Siegel’s unsettling “Stowaway” — written by hubby Mike Flanagan (“Fall of the House of Usher”) — in which an alien-chasing vlogger ventures into the Mojave Desert where she has a close encounter that she might live to regret. “V/H/S Beyond” grossed me out, made me laugh and made me jump — and it set a high bar for ensuing entries to jump over. Details: 3 stars; drops Oct. 4 on Shudder.
“Gremlins: The Wild Batch Season 2”: A magic portal under a Shanghai movie theater whisks 11-year-old Sam (voice of “Didi” star Izaac Wang), friend Elle (Gabrielle Nevaeh Green) and mischievous furball Gizmo onto Alcatraz Island where they meet the handsome but clueless Chang (Simu Liu) and then head over to Chinatown. The second season of Max’s animated series (executive produced by Steven Spielberg with live-action director Joe Dante serving as consulting producer) is crisply animated (particularly when it ventures into SF’s Chinatown) and gives us a multi-layered fantasy that’s unpredictable and even addresses issues of racism, sacrifice, family dysfunction and defying how others label you – without becoming pedantic. The impressive voice cast includes BD Wong, James Hong, George Takei and Lafayette native Will Forte (in one episode). Guaranteed to keep the kids and the adults entertained. Details: 3 stars; first five episodes drop Oct. 3 on Max with the second half arriving later this year.
“Little Bites”: Cher and son Chas Bono (who also costars) executive produced this all-over-the-map horror entry that flubs a promising premise: Single mom Mindy Vogel (Krsy Fox) allows a voracious vampire-like demon to munch on her in hopes of dissuading him from consuming her daughter. Musician Spider One’s third feature fails not in its macabre concept but in its execution, rambling on too long in some scenes and then zipping too fast through others. An awkward third act culminates with a respectable twist, one that deserves better than this film. A highlight arrives when Mindy lures a lonely man (a terrific Chaz Bono) to her home as a food source substitute. There is an attempt to comment on the sacrifices that moms make, but it gets squelched by its own unevenness.“Little Bites” doesn’t lack bite, but it does lack a clarity of purpose. Details: 1½ stars; available to rent Oct. 4.
Contact Randy Myers at [email protected].