Movies
[Sundance ’14 Review] ‘The Babadook’ Part Kid’s Movie, Part Boogeyman!
There was quite a bit of the Boogeyman in the news yesterday, with the release of the art and trailer for The Babadook.
The creature from under the bed and in the closet took Sundance by storm, allegedly scaring the living shit out of the audience.
Ryan Daley was on hand at one of the screenings, and was impressed as well by Jennifer Kent’s supernatural horror.
“One part boogeyman movie, one part creepy kid movie, and one part Mario Bava homage, The Babadook is like a simple, gap-toothed jack-o-lantern––it has enough love for the horror genre to earn our respect, even if it lacks originality,” says Daley in his review. You can read his entire thoughts by clicking the aforementioned links.
Before updating the video nasty Faces of Death, director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei explored the dangers of online life in tech-thriller Cam, their feature debut that was acquired by Netflix in 2018 after making waves on the festival circuit.
At the end of last year, the Netflix exclusive quietly departed from the streaming platform, left without another streaming home.
It’s not an isolated story; Mike Flanagan’s Hush also left streaming entirely for a period until it was finally picked up on both physical media and other streaming services.
While the tech-thriller currently isn’t available to watch on Netflix, Tubi, Hulu, or any other platforms, that’s not a problem for Cam thanks to a very cool move by Goldhaber: the director has made his breakout film accessible to watch online for free via his website.
As his site notes: “CAM is unfortunately not currently available to view on any platforms, so you can watch it here if you like :).“
No subscriptions or fees necessary, just hit play.
Cam follows Alice (Madeline Brewer), who works as an online cam girl obsessed with her ranking on the cam site. The higher her ranking goes, the more it draws unwanted attention, and Alice soon finds herself replaced on her own show with a doppelganger.
Written by Mazzei, a former camgirl, it uses the horror thriller premise to examine the life of a sex worker; Alice’s career ambition is directly at odds with the shame it brings to her family, and how she tries to spare them from it by keeping them in the dark. It only compounds her danger when the doppelganger enters the equation in Goldhaber’s engaging thriller.
For a deep dive into the treacherous world of Cam, listen to Horror Queers’ episode on it now.
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