Editorials
‘Old People’ – German Elderly Kill in Droves in New Netflix Horror Movie [Horrors Elsewhere]
Horror has a tendency to depict older folks as weak and vulnerable; they’re easy prey for a fast monster or a wanton murderer. On the genre’s flipside are those occasional movies where seniors are far less susceptible. Their advanced age gives them the illusion of kindness and fragility, but deep down they harbor resentment and rage. They seek to hurt everyone, specifically those unlike them, or those who remind them of their lost youth and opportunities. Netflix’s Old People belongs to the second category, though one certain factor sets the German movie apart from other elder horrors. This isn’t an isolated incident; there’s an entire legion of gray-haired killers on the loose.
From wicked adoptions to antisocial teens to demon spawn, the horror genre has always viewed youth as a potential threat. Yet the latest horror movie from Urban Explorer director Andy Fetscher shows children on the receiving end of terror. In Old People, Germany is rocked by a series of murders all committed by the elderly. A mysterious event sets off the octogenarian crowd, causing them to enact violence wherever they go. And for one unlucky family celebrating a recent marriage, these sinister seniors are heading their way.
The movie begins with a needless foreword explaining how an avenging spirit once inhabited older people and drove them into a “blind rage.” The story lightly touches on this again when two teenagers come upon an outdoor monument symbolizing their ancestors and the importance of family togetherness. Whether or not there’s actually a supernatural force at play here is unclear, but for the crowds preferring answers over vagueness, Netflix’s Old People promptly provides a direct explanation for what’s to come.
Following the opening scene, a cut-and-dry sample of the geriatric grisliness in store, the story shifts to the central event and characters. Ella (Melika Foroutan) has returned to her countryside hometown to see her sister Sanna (Maxine Kazis) get married. What is meant to be a joyous occasion with her children, Laura and Noah (Bianca Nawrath, Otto Emil Koch), turns into a sorrowful reunion between daughter and father. When Ella goes to pick up her father Aike (Paul Fassnacht) at the retirement home, the sad state of the place and the residents leaves Ella shaken and remorseful.
Aike isn’t the only thing from her past that Ella has to confront on her trip home; she runs into her ex-husband Lukas (Stephan Luca) at the wedding. They’re surprisingly cordial with one another despite the fact that Ella left Lukas to have a life and career in the city. Shared glances and lingering moments, however, suggest their romance isn’t entirely over just yet. Lukas’ current girlfriend Kim (Anna Unterberger), who happens to work at the retirement home, isn’t oblivious, and her growing jealousy leads to some surprising developments once the danger commences.
Old People smartly skips the wedding ceremony at the village church and gets straight to the horror. The remaining residents at Saalheim Retirement Home form a murderous mutiny and dispose of Kim’s coworkers in gruesome fashion. Their leader, simply credited as The Old Man (Gerhard Bos), then directs everyone to Sanna’s wedding. Gaiety is replaced with dread as the movie’s namesakes gather outside homes like the walking dead, biding their time and unnerving their prey. Although it’s odd for Ella and her kin to immediately assume their elders are out to hurt them, the story removes any of the usual doubts by leaning hard into the antagonists’ menacing presence. Their true intentions become unquestionable even before the dead bodies show up.
The yellow and warm glow of earlier scenes is temporarily replaced by doleful grays. A local electricity blackout augments the creepy atmosphere as well as urges the strategic use of flashlights to reveal hidden threats in the dark. The grimly howling wind and malevolent music both fill in any silences. The gloomy environment wears thin after a while, but as the surviving characters get closer to finding an escape, the light and colors slowly start to return on screen. Old People has an impressive look to it, even if that look is admittedly routine nowadays.
Andy Fetscher essentially remade Night of the Living Dead, but with decrepit and sadistic humans standing in for the zombies. And while the movie can and will be taken at face value — possibly possessed oldsters carry out their revenge against their familial neglectors — there is another metaphor looking right at the camera. One that can be applied to any society where unfair rules are decided by and benefit only the older generation. These dinosaurs disregard the young or different, and they actively harm their future and safety. Those who go along with their plan are eventually swept up in the damage as well. Even without the additional interpretation, Netflix’s Old People is already a woefully bleak movie.
The more obvious message here is delivered without any kind of subtlety, and for some viewers, that kind of metaphorical awkwardness is hard to overlook, much less endure for nearly 100 minutes. For others, golden-agers wreaking havoc is more than enough reason to watch. Aged antagonists have yet to really catch on in contemporary horror, but in light of today’s generational wars, the possibility of seeing more movies like Old People in the near future seems high.
Old People is now streaming on Netflix.
Horrors Elsewhere is a recurring column that spotlights a variety of movies from all around the globe, particularly those not from the United States. Fears may not be universal, but one thing is for sure — a scream is understood, always and everywhere.
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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