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Horrors of Netflix for January Includes ‘Constantine’ and ‘House of Wax’
While we only saw a few new genre additions to Netflix this December, the New Year really opens with a bang.
Streaming immediately on January 1, 2016 are three that you should immediately add to your queue.
Before the television series, “Hellblazer” was adapted into the feature film Constantine by Francis Lawrence. It starred Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz and Djimon Hounsou. Constantine tells the story of irreverent supernatural detective John Constantine, who has literally been to hell and back.
It also featured the criminally underrated Tilda Swinton, who can also be seen in Lynne Ramsay’s 2011 We Need to Talk About Kevin on the same day. The film was a breakout performance by Ezra Miller, who plays the title character, on the verge of doing something horrific.
Lastly, people cheered when Paris Hilton met her fate in Jaume Collet-Serra’s awesome House of Wax (In Defense of House of Wax), the 2005 remake about a group of unwitting teens that are stranded near a strange wax museum and soon must fight to survive and keep from becoming the next exhibit.
On January 17th Syfy’s second season of “Z Nation” will be streaming. The series takes place three years after the zombie virus has gutted the country, a team of everyday heroes must transport the only known survivor of the plague from New York to California, where the last functioning viral lab waits for his blood.
The most interesting upcoming releases is that Curve is quietly being dropped here on January 19th. The film is another Blumhouse production that didn’t quite make it into theaters, but had a small festival run this past year. Directed by Hackers and The Skeleton Key‘s Iain Softley, a young woman (Julianne Hough) becomes trapped in her car after a hitchhiker causes her to have an automobile accident.
Those of you who enjoy the idiotic “Sharknado” franchise can watch the third with your parents (who are attempting to look cool) on January 22nd. Anthony C. Ferrante directs Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! starring Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, Frankie Muniz, David Hasselhoff, Mark Cuban, and Cassie Scerbo. In it, a monstrous tornado unleashes ravenous sharks from Washington, D.C., all the way down to Orlando, Florida.
If you’re keeping up with El Rey’s “From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series,” the second season will be streaming on January 25th. On the same day you can enjoy the post-apocalyptic Turbo Kid, which made my list of top 10 films of the year. The film takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where a comic book fan dons the persona of his favourite hero to save his enthusiastic friend and fight a tyrannical overlord.
Synopses via IMDB.
After scaring up a strong theatrical run, Oddity director Damian McCarthy’s Hokum heads home to Digital this week.
Settle in for a spooky supernatural chiller as Hokum arrives on all Digital platforms to rent or own beginning June 2, followed by a Blu-ray/4K Ultra HD Combo and DVD release on August 11, 2026.
Adam Scott (“Severance”) stars in Hokum as reclusive novelist Ohm Bauman. When he retreats to a remote Irish inn to scatter his parents’ ashes, the staff’s tales of an ancient witch haunting the honeymoon suite take hold of his mind. Disturbing visions and a shocking disappearance draw Ohm into a nightmarish confrontation with the darkest corners of his past.
Peter Coonan (“The Alienist: Angel of Darkness”), David Wilmot (“Station Eleven”), Florence Ordesh (“Departure”), Michael Patric (“Frontier”), Will O’Connell (“Game of Thrones”), Brendan Conroy (“Bodkin”), and Austin Amelio (“The Walking Dead”) also star.
Get a peek at the upcoming physical media release below, including a few special features.
Spooky Pictures’ Roy Lee (Weapons) & Steven Schneider (Insidious) produce alongside Image Nation’s Derek Dauchy (Late Night with the Devil), Tailored Film’s Ruth Treacy, Julianne Forde, & Mairtín de Barra, and Cweature Features’ Ken Kao & Josh Rosenbaum.
I wrote in my review for Bloody Disgusting, “A quaint Irish hotel with a deeply haunted history awaits an American writer in McCarthy’s third outing, continuing his streak for folkloric tales of supernatural karma and spine-tingling terror with a dark sense of humor.”
What’s next from Damian McCarthy? He’s currently writing a haunted house movie, but recent comments suggest he may be moving into other genres beyond that upcoming project.
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