Well, that was a year, wasn't it? True life horror didn't need much help, but independent horror came to the rescue. Many of the most anticipated studio productions like A Quiet Place 2, Spiral, Halloween Kills, and Antlers never made it to the big screen this year, but thanks to streaming Festivals, there were some great offerings to be had this year if you knew where to look.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★ More often than not the horror story teller is beset with complex stories, radical exposition, and meandering narrative. The horror fan and the horror filmmaker so desperately want to hear and tell a compelling and multi-layered story. But as we all know too well, these stories are overtaken by this well-meaning desire and evolve in to a product so complex that they forget their intended purpose -- the SCARES! The prescient and timely The Isolation Horrors is superbly aware of this exposition trap and manages to create an exquisite economy of horror story telling.
So many great intentions. This here podcaster was going to smash, crash, and rush to the theater to see all the latest spooky offerings Hollyweird had to offer. I "intended" to give a careful and thoughtful look at Halloween Kills (delayed to 2021), Antebellum (not willing to throw down for its initial asking price), St. Maude (weirdly delayed a bunch of times, but available for streaming overseas), and I'm Thinking of Ending Things (I saw this! But it was pretty so/so). 2020 was far from perfect, but despite all its real-world horrors, it brought a respite in the form of gaggle of scares, shrieks, and ghouls.
Have you had enough yet? Did you lose out on the last role of toilet paper? Are you debating the merits of the Exorcist vs. Exorcist III with your cat? Has the isolation started to creep under your skin and in to your psyche? Good! You're in luck. There's a new short horror anthology that looks at the dark and horrific side of ISOLATION!