Editorials
Stay Home, Watch Horror: 5 Intense Horror Movies Under 90-Minutes to Stream This Week
There’s a lot to appreciate about a lean, mean horror movie that impresses in the way it sustains suspense or dread throughout without overstaying its welcome. This week’s streaming picks are dedicated to precisely that type of movie. The intense horror movie that gets your adrenaline pumping in a short window, then never eases up for its entirety.
If you’re in the mood for scares but don’t have much time to spare, these five movies should do the trick.
As always, here’s where you can stream them this week…
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre – AMC+, IMDb TV, Showtime, Shudder, Tubi
Tobe Hooper set the bar high with this stone-cold classic. Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns), her brother, and their friends take a road trip to visit her grandfather’s grave in Texas. While strolling down memory lane, the group falls prey to a family of cannibalistic psychopaths. Trade the woods for rural flatlands, but the strange locals’ scenario still applies. Hooper infuses his disturbing debut with some twisted humor. It’s always the perfect time to revisit this classic. But perhaps now, even more so, with a new sequel on the way this year.
Terrified – AMC+, Shudder
The cinematic equivalent of enjoying a haunted attraction, Demián Rugna’s feature is an onslaught of terror from beginning to end. Plot-wise, there’s not much to it, nor is there a lot of explanation for those that prefer answers. However, that doesn’t stop a cop on the cusp of retirement and a slew of paranormal experts from trying to get to the bottom of a series of bizarre activities plaguing a Buenos Aires neighborhood. With creative and innovative scares aplenty, Terrified is the type of horror film that lives up to its name; it’s freaking petrifying.
The Loved Ones – Pluto TV
This brutal feature introduces Lola, who wants nothing more than to be a princess and find Prince Charming. She decides that Brent is the one and invites him to the school dance. When he rejects her offer, and she sees him with another girl, well, Lola decides she’ll get what she wants one way or another. Lola doesn’t take rejection lightly, and things get downright brutal. The truth is that maybe no one will love her as much as daddy, and that’s most terrifying of all. Love hurts.
Them (Ils) – Criterion Channel, IMDb TV, Shudder, Vudu
Them, also known as Ils, predates the more well-known The Strangers by two years yet rivals it in terms of bone-chilling suspense from start to finish. Lucas and Clementine live quietly alone in their rural countryside home. Their peaceful existence gets shattered one night by the arrival of hooded assailants that begin to terrorize them throughout the evening. This French-Romanian home invasion movie brings intensity and nail-biting tension. While touted to be “based on a true story,” it also rivals The Strangers in its unsettling one-liner in terms of the killers’ motivation.
[REC] – AMC+, Roku
The idea behind 2007’s [REC] was born from Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s desire not just to make a scary horror movie but to make the audience an active participant in the fear unfolding on screen. The film follows reporter Ángela Vidal (Manuela Velasco) and her cameraman Pablo, played by unseen actor Pablo Rosso, as they cover the night shift of a local fire station for their television series “While You’re Sleeping.” It begins as a quiet evening but spirals into abject terror when they become trapped in quarantine with a deadly outbreak. [REC] gives the subgenre a new, bone-chilling twist, making for a non-stop horror assault that puts the viewer right in the thick of the terror.
Editorials
‘The Vampire Lestat’ Concert Event Launches New Season With The Ultimate Expression Of Fandom
There are thousands of passionate fans decked out in gothic chic and champing at the bit like feral creatures. They’re screaming for Lestat, a legendary vampire-turned-rock star, as if the entire crowd has been glamored into submission.
The entire experience is magic, but not because some supernatural thrall has been activated. What’s going on is even more special. It’s the power of the effusive fandom that’s been authentically assembled by AMC’s sublime Immortal Universe, namely Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, now, The Vampire Lestat.
The Vampire Lestat is far from the first Anne Rice adaptation, and it’s not as if there’s been a lack of erotic vampire material for audiences to sink their teeth into. On June 2nd, during a one-night-only spectacle, New York City’s prestigious Beacon Theatre shook from Sam Reid’s bravado performance and an audience full of adoring fans who had already memorized Lestat’s songs.
It’s clear that The Vampire Lestat just hits differently than its predecessors. It’s become more than just a TV series at this point, and this opulent display of ego, swagger, and pure sex is the perfect way to premiere the new season and give back to the fans who helped make Interview with the Vampire/The Vampire Lestat such a breakout success. It’s exactly the sort of hyperbolized hedonism that would make Lestat cackle.
For all intents and purposes, AMC has successfully created the illusion that this concert/premiere is just one of the many destinations on Lestat and his band’s 54-stop tour that is simultaneously playing out on this season of television. It’s such a sophisticated and thorough level of interactive fan engagement that the audience doesn’t just understand, but also manages to accentuate through its involvement.
It’s a level of seamless synergy that’s not unlike the give-and-take relationship of vampire and victim.
Before the concert started, “LeStans” were sitting in the Beacon and flipping through a fake Rolling Stone issue with Lestat emblazoned on the cover, complete with interviews with the undead frontman inside. Other fans were admiring the vinyl pressing of Lestat’s EP as they walked past a section of undead band merch. Fandom and fantasy blur together, and it all becomes this elaborate, immersive experience. Fan celebration, erotic gothic fantasy, and a lavish rock concert transform into one beautiful thing.
To this point, AMC Global Media’s Chief Content Officer and President of AMC Studios, Dan McDermott, introduced the event by reiterating to fans, “You are the heartbeat of the series.” That’s abundantly clear on nights like this as that heartbeat collectively pulses to this performance. In terms of how AMC engages with The Vampire Lestat’s fans, it’s as bold a reinvention as the season itself.
This intuitive gamble speaks to AMC’s creativity in this department and a fandom that is eager to seize such opportunities. It’s the same innovation that led to zombie walks for The Walking Dead and real-life Los Pollos Hermanos restaurant pop-ups from Breaking Bad. It’s a great way to pump up the audience for The Vampire Lestat and then maintain that enthusiasm for the whole season.
For most series, a rock ‘n’ roll concert just doesn’t make any sense as a promotional tool. The Vampire Lestat finds itself in a very unique position where it can deliver an excellent concert at an iconic theater, but also use it to showcase The Vampire Lestat’s music by Daniel Hart (who was shredding on stage alongside Reid and the rest of their band) and, more than anything, Sam Reid’s endless charisma.
The way in which Reid feeds off of the crowd’s energy, modulating his performance and giving different sections of the Beacon life, is a perfect distillation of the series’ thoughtful relationship with its audience and how it’s become such a breakout success for AMC. AMC Studios President Dan McDermott emphasized that the fans are the reason that the show is still here and why an event like this is even possible. It’s rare to see a series in which every single cog in the machine is so perfectly attuned to its fans. Reid’s fans already cheer whenever they see him, so why not translate that to a concert setting?
It’s clear in this season of television that Reid was born to be a rock star, but it’s surreal to see him effortlessly command the stage — and the audience — at every step of the concert. He recites Shakespeare monologues and bitches out Armand between songs, all while the audience screams in support. For the duration of this concert, Reid is Lestat, and he’s given thousands of fans a memory that’s as immortal as any vampire.
Now bring on the encore and get this show on the road!
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