Editorials
10 MORE Horror Gems On Netflix!
It’s only been a couple of months since we last combed through Netflix’s horror offerings to find the best options for a movie night, but since their library is ever-changing, we thought we would dive back in and find some more gems that the streaming service is currently offering!* There is a lot of crap when it comes to horror on Netflix, so we thought we’d help you out by making your search on a Friday or Saturday night just a little bit easier so you’re not stuck watching something like Visions or The Veil. It should be noted that it’s difficult to find a true “gem” on Netflix, so not all of these may be 4- or 5-skull films, but they’re all still worth a watch!
*This is for films on American Netflix as of February 20, 2016.
Hellions
Our own Chris Coffel wrote a fairly positive 4-skull review of Hellions, and while there may be a few opposing opinions out there, you could do a lot worse than Hellions, the latest film from the director of Pontypool (a film that actually made my last “Netflix Gems” list). The film centers around Dora (Chloe Rose), who must face off with a bunch of mysterious masked children on Halloween while also dealing with a rapidly accelerating pregnancy. It isn’t the most coherent film, but it sure is visually stunning and has several creepy moments.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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