I Got Shudder for a Month. Is It Worth It?

It was April 2019. I had recently watched Jordan Peele's Us, and had heard about a documentary he was featured in called Horror Noire. It sounded cool, but the only way to watch the documentary was a new streaming service called Shudder, which focuses on horror, cult, and genre movies. So I signed up for a week long free trial, but at the end of the week when I went to cancel my subscription, they offered me a month long free trial. So I said, "What the hell?" I was writing a horror movie at the time, and a little extra inspiration couldn't hurt. So I gave Shudder a try.

The following is a review of all of the movies I watched throughout the month.

Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (2019)

So I was pretty curious about this documentary, and I was on a Jordan Peele kick at the time so of course I checked this out first since it was a Shudder original. And it delivers. Now, I am very white, so I'm not really going to have any mind blowing insights on this movie other than I enjoyed it. Night of the Living Dead and Get Out are probably two of my favourite horror movies, so it was cool to see them in this context. The documentary also has interpretations of movies like King Kong and Creature from the Black Lagoon that I would've never considered because of different life experience and all that. It also introduced me to movies that I was unfamiliar with, that I am know really interested in watching such as Candyman and Tales from the Hood. Plus, anything about movies and movie history I'm going to find interesting, so this one was a good time for me.

You Might Be the Killer (2018)

This movie stars Alyson Hannigan and Fran Kranz. I really like Joss Whedon and The Cabin in the Woods is one of my favourite movies, so I figured why not. This movie starts off strong as a self aware slasher, but then slowly devolves into a very standard slasher by the end. They do this non-linear thing, where Fran Kranz is trying to remember what happened, which is interesting until you find out what really happened. I really like these actors, and it's fun to see them working together, but it's not really anything special. My main problem with this movie is that there is a huge missed opportunity at the end. So, SPOILERS. Skip to the next movie if you don't know how this ends. So Fran Kranz is the killer, and Alyson Hannigan is explaining to him how slasher movies work over the phone. They introduce this rule, that either Fran Kranz has to kill the final girl, or she has to kill him. But then the final girl kills Fran Kranz and the movie ends. What should have happened, was that Fran Kranz should have killed the final girl, and then gone to the video store where Alyson Hannigan was and had a final confrontation with her. That would've made the ending so much more interesting and compelling, since their relationship was the most interesting and the most compelling. Here's what I think happened: Fran Kranz and Alyson Hannigan's characters are named Sam and Chuck, coincidentally the names of two of the writers, Sam Sykes and Chuck Wendig. So I think they wrote themselves into the story as a way to comment on the genre, but then when they got the chance to cast Alyson Hannigan as Chuck, they leaped at the opportunity without thinking about how that changes the rules of the movie. If Chuck was just a nerdy video store employee who gave Sam advice, that wouldn't really effect the story very much. But because it's Alyson Hannigan, that unintentionally makes Chuck the final girl. It just feels like a huge missed opportunity that would have turned this movie from a like 3/5 to a 4/5.

Revenge (2017)

A pretty simple premise is elevated with incredibly interesting cinematography and direction. Girl gets raped and left for dead, girl seeks revenge and brutally murders her attackers. That's about it. But the creativity and the stylistic choices of the movie make every sequence extremely tense. I really like the main character's transformation; she becomes almost a completely different character by the end of the movie. I feel like she would make a really great cosplay. I think my main take away is just a question I have about revenge movies in general which is: Is it good storytelling to put characters through horrible things just so it's satisfying to watch them get revenge? Like I get it, it's thrilling and the tension comes from the survival aspect of the story. But is it feminist to have a character get raped just so she can kill her rapists? I don't know. I'm probably overthinking an exploitation genre based on primal emotions.

Oldboy (2003)

This is a movie that has been on my watchlist for a while and I was glad to finally give it a shot. It's a pretty straightforward revenge/mystery plot, but with a twist that only Korea could come up with. It's worth watching for the one-take hallway fight alone, but the rest of the movie is also very engaging. I had a strange viewing experience with this movie, because a few years ago, a guy I knew was telling me about this movie and he ended up spoiling the twist at the end. But, it was a while ago and I kind of forgot about it. Until, I got about halfway through the movie and was like, "is this how this ends?" And it was. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the twist, or the movie as a whole, but it is definitely one of the most unique movies I've ever seen.

From Dusk Til Dawn (1996)

I don't know why I hadn't seen this movie already because it is fantastic. Written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Robert Rodriguez, this is definitely both of these two at their best together. There's a twist about halfway through where the movie becomes a different genre, so if you haven't seen it I will just say check it out. If you have seen it, I will say, "boy is this a great vampire movie, or what?" It might even be the best vampire movie. There aren't that many great vampire movies, so it's probably this, The Lost Boys, or Blade. In any case, this movie is awesome and does so much with vampires. It feels like Tarantino made a list of cool vampire kills he wanted to see in a movie. I also really love Harvey Keitel's character in this movie. A priest who has lost his faith in God is the perfect character to have to fight vampires. It's like Signs, but makes a little more logical sense. An overall great time, and I highly recommend.

The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs

This show is the reason to get Shudder. If you don't know anything about Joe Bob Briggs definitely watch the Cinemassacre videos on him. Basically he used to do a show called Monstervision where he would host old horror movies on tv, and this show is essentially a revival of it on Shudder. Not only does Joe Bob Briggs have an encyclopedic knowledge of horror movies, but he is also really funny and charismatic in how he explains these movies. He does this thing where he counts how many deaths, breasts, and other stuff there are in a movie, which is really fun. It's kind of hard to explain what makes his hosting entertaining, without just showing it, so again I awkwardly recommend the Cinemassacre videos.

I only watched a few episodes of this show, but they were definitely worthwhile, and this is my recommended method of viewing for basically any horror movie. Joe Bob brings a lot of really interesting trivia to each movie, and it's fun to see the details he brings up when he likes a movie, but it's almost more fun to watch when he doesn't like a movie just to see him tear it to shreds. Anyways, here are the episodes/movies I watched:

C.H.U.D. (1984)

Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers or C.H.U.D. is a movie about monsters that live in the sewers of New York and eat people. I first heard of this movie when it was referenced in Jordan Peele's Us (because of underground people, get it?). But unfortunately, this one is pretty forgettable. Basically, there is too much talk, not enough mutants eating people. Or as Joe Bob puts it, "A whole lot of plot getting in the way of the story." This movie had a relatively small budget and unfortunately it shows. There's a couple good kills and some fun ideas, but not enough to warrant a recommendation.

Q or Winged Serpent (1982)

In this one, there is a giant lizard-bird monster living in the Chrysler building and terrorizing New York city. This movie is a bit better than CHUD, with more interesting characters, a wacky plot, fun stop motion effects, and a really fun climax. But I oddly found the CHUD episode more entertaining because Joe Bob actually likes this movie, but thought CHUD was kinda dumb. A solid B movie, but an average episode.

Wolfcop (2014)

Part man, part wolf, all cop. What more do you need to know? This is a Canadian movie, which, being Canadian, of course interested me. The filmmakers won a Cineplex contest and used the majority of their 1 million dollar budget on a single practical transformation scene, which, to be honest, totally pays off and looks fantastic. The second half of this movie is where it really takes off. He drives around town in a wolfcop-car and stops crimes. It's amazing. The first half of this movie is where it really suffers. You ever watch a movie and it just feels Canadian? I'm not entirely sure what it is—maybe the pacing or budget—but it's just this vibe. Wolfcop suffers from it big time in the first half. It's weird, there's talented Canadians that go on to make great movies in the US, and great American movies are filmed in Canada, but you rarely see great all-Canadian movies. This movie has some pacing problems, likely due to budget restraints, and the ending is pretty weak, but when this movie works, it is a blast.

So is Shudder worth it?

I think my biggest let down with Shudder was that it just didn't have quite enough content. There was a bunch of very specific horror movies that I wanted to see at the time that just weren't on the site. (Gremlins 2, Detention, Halloween 3) But is it fair to be hard on Shudder's selection if it didn't have exactly what I was looking for? Well, it also didn't have that many movies that I expected it to have. There's all these really interesting movies that they talk about in Horror Noire that aren't even on the platform, like Candyman, Attack the Block, Tales from the Hood, and even Get Out. The only one they did have was Night of the Living Dead, which is in the public domain so anybody can use it. I'm not a huge horror fan anyways, and I normally only watch horror flicks around Halloween, so I likely wouldn't have gotten the platform anyways (that and I'm broke). But when it doesn't even have that wide of a selection of movies that the platform itself recommends, that's kind of disappointing. But you know what does have Get Out? Netflix.

So where are we going with all these streaming services anyways? Netflix isn't as exciting as it used to be. The new season of Stranger Things is fine. But once Daredevil was cancelled I sort of lost interest. Disney just announced a bunch of stuff for their new streaming service, Disney+. But I'm tired of Disney's Star Wars, and after Endgame I want to be done with the MCU. Plus, none of the Marvel Disney+ shows are Daredevil, so I don't really care. It used to be really exciting whenever a new Marvel Netflix show came out, but Jessica Jones season 3 came out not that long ago and nobody noticed. I totally get why Disney is doing what they are doing; they own so many things that it was only a matter of time. But they've announced so many shows, and we have no way of knowing if any of them will actually be good.

On top of that, NBC is starting their own streaming service soon, so if you casuals want to watch The Office, you have to get that service too. It just feels like with every new streaming service announced, the ones that all currently exist take a hit. Is it really worth it to pay all these separate monthly fees, just to have the same amount of content that Netflix used to offer by itself? RedLetterMedia did a way better job of touching on this trend than I ever could with their recent episode of the Nerd Crew, but it still feels strange to me. Is this the death of streaming services? Should we just bite the bullet and bow to Disney who will soon own 100 percent of film and television companies? I don't know but I think this meme sums up my feelings pretty well.