I'm watching every film on Shudder so you don't have to

[Tasty]

This is not a paid advertisement.

Well probably not every single film, but I've been making a run of the catalog. My overall goal? To hone my horror sensibilities and learn from as many sources as possible as I try to finish three of my own horror scripts (one short, two features.)

With that out of the way, here are the movies I've seen so far and what I thought.

1. Ghostwatch (1992, dir. Lesley Manning)
4 / 5

2. Pulse (2001, dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
4 / 5

3. Last Shift (2014, dir. Anthony DiBlasi)
1 / 5

4. Dead & Buried (1981, dir. Gary Sherman)
4 / 5

5. Timecrimes (2007, dir. Nacho Vigalondo)
4 / 5

6. Terrified (2017, dir. Demián Rugna)
4 / 5

7. Don’t Leave Home (2018, dir. Michael Tully)
2 / 5

8. The Canal (2014, dir. Ivan Kavanagh)
4 / 5

9. The Witch in the Window (2018, dir. Andy Mitton)
3 / 5

10. The Beyond (1981, dir. Lucio Fulci)
4 / 5

11. We Go On (2016, dir. Andy Mitton and Jesse Holland)
4 / 5

12. Downrange (2017, dir. Ryûhei Kitamura)
2 / 5

13. Hell House LLC (2015, dir. Stephen Cognetti)
4 / 5

14. The Awakening (2011, dir. Nick Murphy)
3 / 5

15. Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel (2018, dir. Stephen Cognetti)
2 / 5

16. Starry Eyes (2014, dir. Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer)
4 / 5

17. The Nightshifter (2018, dir. Dennison Ramalho)
4 / 5

18. Ravenous (1999, dir. Antonia Bird)
3 / 5

19. Belzebuth (2017, dir. Emilio Portes)
2 / 5

20. Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire (2019, dir. Stephen Cognetti)
1 / 5

21. Haunt (2019, dir. Scott Beck and Bryan Woods)
3 / 5

22. Bliss (2019, dir. Joe Begos)
3 / 5

23. Dogs Don’t Wear Pants (2019, dir. Jukka-Pekka Valkeapää)
4 / 5

24. One Cut of the Dead (2017, dir. Shinichiro Ueda)
4.5 / 5

25. Empathy, Inc. (2018, dir. Yedidya Gorsetman)
4 / 5

26. 26. Four Hands (2017, dir. Oliver Kienle)
3 / 5

27. The Room (2019, dir. Christian Volckman)
2 / 5


There's some things on Shudder I've seen elsewhere and have probably reviewed before, so will work later on correlating those.

Up next is Dark Water, by the director of the original Ring Hideo Nakata .

[Tasty]

I'm looking for gems on the service if anyone else is a subscriber btw. They've been releasing good, new original movies every couple weeks for a while now.

[Tasty]

Lol as if Shudder could afford any advertisement

It's got the backing of A M C 

[Bebpo]

This is helpful for me, thanks Tasty!

Also Haunt at 3/5 seems a little generous. Thought the second half sucked.

And yeah, liked Hell House LLC and was gonna watch the sequels but read up on them and they sound terrible. Kinda shame they couldn't follow it up.

[Tasty]

This is helpful for me, thanks Tasty!

Also Haunt at 3/5 seems a little generous. Thought the second half sucked.

And yeah, liked Hell House LLC and was gonna watch the sequels but read up on them and they sound terrible. Kinda shame they couldn't follow it up.

Might have to rewatch Haunt. But yeah I remember the first half being really strong.

Hell House 3 might be worth checking out for how schlocky and cheap it gets. The first two movies kinda work within their budget but the third tries to go bigger and fails so hard.

[Tasty]

Lol as if Shudder could afford any advertisement

It's got the backing of A M C 

You mean the Breaking Bad Corporation?

More like The Walking Dead Network.

[toku]

https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/horror-noire-a-history-of-black-horror/e650978256281a67
https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/return-of-the-living-dead-iii/a3dd1ec74e8bf89d
https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/ganja-and-hess/50656fa11749aade
https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/cold-hell/5c8d436fc513001e
https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/the-old-dark-house/6980322275d84633
https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/monster-party/30c8b2ee73908867
https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/beast/69bd06128de16fcb
https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/ichi-the-killer/0e713567cb7b105c

[Great Rumbler]

2. Pulse (2001, dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
4 / 5

 

[Tasty]

28. Dark Water (2002, dir. Hideo Nakata)

Really good drama, fairly tense in parts but only has a handful of good scares. What keeps it compelling is the mother-daughter storyline, which these days almost feels like a cliche, but it's so sharply written here. It feels both realistic while letting the actors do the heavy-lifting. The final act elevates the movie to another level, but on the strength of its subtlety and character work, not horrors.

4 / 5

[Tasty]

Mike Flanagan's Absentia (2011) just got added, watching that next. Really liked Gerald's Game.

[Tasty]

https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/horror-noire-a-history-of-black-horror/e650978256281a67
https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/return-of-the-living-dead-iii/a3dd1ec74e8bf89d
https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/ganja-and-hess/50656fa11749aade
https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/cold-hell/5c8d436fc513001e
https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/the-old-dark-house/6980322275d84633
https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/monster-party/30c8b2ee73908867
https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/beast/69bd06128de16fcb
https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/ichi-the-killer/0e713567cb7b105c

Also all of these have been added to my list! Expect reviews soon-ish.

[thisismyusername]

Lol as if Shudder could afford any advertisement

It's got the backing of A M C 

You mean the Breaking Bad Corporation?

The Walking Dead comp---

Lol as if Shudder could afford any advertisement

It's got the backing of A M C 

You mean the Breaking Bad Corporation?

More like The Walking Dead Network.

--any. God damn it, Andy.

I also can't believe there's a streaming site just for horror films. What's next? "LiveTV! For $10 a month you can on-demand only TV series! No movies here!"
"...Why would I do that when I can pay $10 to Netflix and get ALL genres and movies/TV shows...?"
" "

[Tasty]

Because Netflix has been losing their best shit every month and their horror originals are nonexistent/dreadful outside of the aforementioned Mike Flanagan stuff.

"Cartoon Network? A network just for cartoons? This'll never take off. "

*CN takes off*

[TakingBackSunday]

ty for ur service

[thisismyusername]

"Cartoon Network? A network just for cartoons? This'll never take off. "

*CN takes off*

That's different: Cartoon Network is on a Live TV platform that you buy a package to. It's like Cartoon Network coming out with an app (Narrator: They did) that is specifically for their stuff when there is a general-package app (Netflix) out there already.

It's redundant. Just put your shit on Steam Netflix.

A better example for you would be Sirus XM radio: Where you have 70/80/90's music, genres (Country, Alternative, Rap, Rock)/focused stations like these apps. But you still pay for one service (Sirus) that gives you the whole package.

[Tasty]

You're a raspberry pi basic betch so I wouldn't expect you to get the desire for specialization and discreteness

[Tasty]

Is a subscription service to exclusively horror movies really discrete though?

TBH it's a pretty broad definition even still. There's a ton of variety on the service despite being limited to "one" maxi-genre.

[Tasty]

29. Absentia (2011, dir. Mike Fannigan)

Didn't know this was a Kickstarter movie going in, makes a lot more sense knowing that after the fact... Fairly poor production values and laughable performances kept taking me out of the film. Oddly I had apparently seen this in 2018, but forgot about it... even having rewatched the entire movie a second time. There's some decent attempts at tension, and most of the scares early on were fairly effective for being low-rent, but this movie swung way too hard in the "horror movies need THEMES" department IMO... I'm rating it lower on this apparent rewatch. It's fascinating in the aspect of being a low-budget Kickstarter movie, so you can check out a lot of the behind the scenes stuff, and I love seeing a movie come together, but aside from that there's not much reason to check this out.

2 / 5