Editorials
SCREAMBOX Hidden Gems – 5 Horror Movies You Should Stream This Summer
The Bloody Disgusting-powered SCREAMBOX is home to a variety of unique horror content, from originals and exclusives to cult classics and documentaries. With such a rapidly-growing library, there are many hidden gems waiting to be discovered.
Here are five recommendations you can stream on SCREAMBOX right now.
Night of the Demon
Not to be confused with the 1957 film of the same name (also on SCREAMBOX), 1980’s Night of the Demon is an unforgettable Bigfoot experience. It’s no surprise that the gory exploitation flick was prosecuted as a “video nasty” by the British Board of Film Classification upon its initial release. It’s best remembered for a scene in which Bigfoot rips off a guy’s manhood — and that’s not even the most outrageous death scene!
The cheesefest plays like an early slasher, but instead of a masked killer lurking in the woods, it’s a guy in a cheap gorilla costume. The premise follows an anthropology professor (Michael Cutt) and a group of students on an expedition into the woods of Northern California in an attempt to prove the existence of Bigfoot after a rash of brutal murders. An integral subplot introduces a recluse (Melanie Graham) who was gratuitously molested by the creature.
Night of the Demon may not be a high mark of cinema — this one falls squarely into the so-bad-it’s-good category — but I’d argue that it’s the most entertaining Bigfoot movie. Beyond the wild kills, the plot itself is just as bonkers, riddled with so many vignettes about the cryptid’s previous victims that it could be mistaken for an anthology. It culminates with a five-minute slow-motion finale in which Bigfoot mercilessly obliterates most of the cast.
Under the Bed
If you have a kid that can handle Ghostbusters and Gremlins but isn’t quite ready for the likes of Insidious or IT, Under the Bed is a great way to help them transition to full-blown horror. In terms of scares and intensity, it’s in the same ballpark as Poltergeist, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and Stranger Things, albeit with enough bloodshed to earn it an R rating.
Directed by Steven C. Miller (Escape Plan 2: Hades, Silent Night) and written by Eric Stolze (Late Phases), the film stars Jonny Weston (Project Almanac) and Gattlin Griffith (Changeling) as troubled brothers who team up to defeat the boogeyman under the bed that torments them. The first half meanders a bit as an Amblin-esque coming-of-age tale, but it eventually transforms into a supernatural monster movie with a cool, practical creature. It’s surprisingly effective, spooky, and gory.
Aenigma
The Beyond (also streaming on SCREAMBOX) is generally considered Lucio Fulci’s magnum opus, and for good reason, but Aenigma is a great stepping stone if you’re looking to delve deeper into his filmography. The 1987 supernatural horror film is the Italian horror maestro’s answer to Carrie, an influence he openly acknowledged. Parallels can also be drawn to Patrick as well as the works of Fulci’s cinematic rival, Dario Argento.
In the aftermath of a humiliating prank at the hands of her cruel boarding school classmates, awkward teen Kathy (Milijana Zirojevic) is rendered comatose. Shortly after, Eva (Lara Lamberti, Red Sonja) transfers to the prestigious college and moves into Kathy’s old room. Eva shares an inexplicable telepathic link with Kathy, which she uses to enact revenge on her tormentors; killing them one by one under mysterious circumstances. Dallas’ Jared Martin receives top billing as Kathy’s neurologist who becomes embroiled in the scheme.
Aenigma is somewhat tame by Fulci standards — no eye trauma here! — but his signature style is present in the dreamlike atmosphere, elaborate cinematography, and inspired deaths. Fulci and co-writer Giorgio Mariuzzo do for snails what they did for spiders in The Beyond: turn them into nightmarish killers in the film’s most memorable sequence.
Blood of the Tribades
Looking for an outside-the-box viewing in celebration of Pride Month? Blood of the Tribades is a love letter to the 1970s Euro-horror subgenre centering on lesbian vampires from the likes of Jess Franco, Jean Rollin, and Hammer Films. It’s not a comedic send-up — although it is a tad goofy — but rather an homage to the era through a modern, feminist lens. Instead of the gratuitous male gaze associated with the sleazy trope, this one offers equal opportunity eroticism.
Writers-directors Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein’s esoteric vision — centered on a vampire culture divided by their differences in gender, race, and beliefs — may be off-putting to some, but the ambitious worldbuilding is admirable for an indie film. Exterior shots are lush, but the low-budget seams show in the cramped, bare interiors. It’s a bit slow moving despite clocking in at only 78 minutes, but a dreamy aesthetic keeps it interesting. Make it a double feature with Vampyros Lesbos, also on SCREAMBOX.
Road Head
If you’re planning any road trips this summer, Road Head will make you reconsider your vehicular activities. The 2020 horror-comedy is far more competently made than one might expect from such an explicit title, with director David Del Rio and writer Justin Xavier delivering a quirky mash-up of The Hills Have Eyes and Mad Max with a sense of humor.
The film follows three 20-something friends — cheeky technophobe Alex (Damian Joseph Quinn), his photographer boyfriend Bryan (Clayton Farris), and third-wheeling lovesick stoner Stephanie (Elizabeth Grullon) — on a fruitless road trip in which they encounter a sword-wielding savage collecting the heads of anyone who crosses his path in the desert. The characters are messy in a relatable way, and the performances are good despite some questionable story beats. There are several good laughs, practical effects, and twists along the way.
Visit the SCREAMBOX Hidden Gems archives for more recommendations.
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Editorials
The Lovecraftian Behemoth in ‘Underwater’ Remains One of the Coolest Modern Monster Reveals
One of the most important elements of delivering a memorable movie monster is the reveal. It’s a pivotal moment that finally sees the threat reveal itself in full to its prey, often heralding the final climactic confrontation, which can make or break a movie monster. It’s not just the creature effects and craftmanship laid bare; a monster’s reveal means the horror is no longer up to the viewer’s imagination.
When to reveal the monstrous threat is just as important as HOW, and few contemporary creature features have delivered a monster reveal as surprising or as cool as 2020’s Underwater.
The Setup
Director William Eubank’s aquatic creature feature, written by Brian Duffield (No One Will Save You) and Adam Cozad (The Legend of Tarzan), is set around a deep water research and drilling facility, Kepler 822, at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, sometime in the future. Almost straight away, a seemingly strong earthquake devastates the facility, creating lethal destruction and catastrophic system failures that force a handful of survivors to trek across the sea floor to reach safety. But their harrowing survival odds get compounded when the group realizes they’re under siege by a mysterious aquatic threat.
The group is comprised of mechanical engineer Norah Price (Kristen Stewart), Captain Lucien (Vincent Cassel), biologist Emily (Jessica Henwick), Emily’s engineer boyfriend Liam (John Gallagher Jr.), and crewmates Paul (T.J. Miller) and Rodrigo (Mamadou Athie).
Eubank toggles between survival horror and creature feature, with the survivors constantly facing new harrowing obstacles in their urgent bid to find an escape pod to the surface. The slow, arduous one-mile trek between Kepler 822 and Roebuck 641 comes with oxygen worries, extreme water pressure that crushes in an instant, and the startling discovery of a new aquatic humanoid species- one that happens to like feasting on human corpses. Considering the imploding research station, the Mariana Trench just opened a human buffet.
The Monster Reveal
For two-thirds of Underwater’s runtime, Eubank delivers a nonstop ticking time bomb of extreme survival horror as everything attempts to prevent the survivors from reaching their destination. That includes the increasingly pesky monster problem. Eubank shows these creatures piecemeal, borrowing a page from Alien by giving glimpses of its smaller form first, then quick flashes of its mature state in the pitch-black darkness of the deep ocean.
The third act arrives just as Norah reaches the Roebuck, but not before she must trudge through a dense tunnel of sleeping humanoids. Eubank treats this like a full monster reveal, with Stewart’s Norah facing an intense gauntlet of hungry creatures. She’s even partially swallowed and forced to channel her inner Ellen Ripley to make it through and inside to safety.
Yet, it’s not the true monster reveal here. It’s only once the potential for safety is finally in sight that Eubank pulls the curtain back to reveal the cause behind the entire nightmare: the winged Behemoth, Cthulhu. Suddenly, the tunnel of humanoid creatures moves away, revealing itself to be an appendage for a gargantuan creature. Norah sends a flare into the distance, briefly lighting the tentacled face of an ancient entity.
It’s not just the overwhelming vision of this massive, Lovecraftian entity that makes its reveal so memorable, but the retroactive story implications it creates. Cthulhu’s emerging presence, awakened by the relentless drilling at the deepest depths of the ocean, was behind the initial destruction that destroyed Kepler 822. More importantly, Eubank confirmed that the Behemoth is indeed Cthulhu, which means that the humanoid creatures stalking the survivors are Deep Ones. What makes this even more fascinating is that the choice to give the Big Bad Behemoth a Lovecraftian identity wasn’t part of the script. Eubank revealed in an older interview with Bloody Disgusting how the creature quietly evolved into Cthulhu.
The Death Toll
Just how deadly is Cthulhu? Well, that depends. Most of the on-screen deaths in Underwater are environmental, with implosions and water pressure taking out most of the characters we meet. The Deep Ones are first discovered munching on the corpse of an unidentified crew member, and soon after, kill and eat Paul in a gruesome fashion. Lucien gets dragged out into the open depths by a Deep One in a group attack but sacrifices himself via his pressurized suit to save his team from getting devoured.
The on-screen kill count at the hands of this movie monster and its minions is pretty minimal, but the news article clippings shown over the end credits do hint toward the larger impact. Two large deepsea stations were eviscerated by the emergence of Cthulhu, causing an undisclosed countless number of deaths right at the start of the film.
Norah gives her life to stop Cthulhu and save her remaining crewmates, but the Great Old One isn’t so easily vanquished. While the Behemoth may not have slaughtered many on screen here, his off-screen kill count through sheer destruction is likely impressive.
But the takeaway here is that Underwater ends in such a way that the Lovecraftian deity may only be at the start of a new reign of terror now that he’s awake.
The Impact
Neither Underwater or Cthulhu overstay their welcome here. Eubank shows just enough of his Behemoth to leave a lasting impression, without showing too much to ruin the mystery. The nonstop sense of urgency and survival complications only further the fast-paced thrills.
The result is a movie monster we’d love to see more from, and for horror fans, there’s no greater compliment than that.
Where to Watch
Underwater is currently available to stream on Tubi and FX Now.
It’s also available on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital.
In television, “Monster of the Week” refers to the one-off monster antagonists featured in a single episode of a genre series. The popular trope was originally coined by the writers of 1963’s The Outer Limits and is commonly employed in The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and so much more. Pitting a series’ protagonists against featured creatures offered endless creative potential, even if it didn’t move the serialized storytelling forward in huge ways. Considering the vast sea of inventive monsters, ghouls, and creatures in horror film and TV, we’re borrowing the term to spotlight horror’s best on a weekly basis.
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