Horror Movie Talk

In the exciting conclusion to the Midnight Mass Aftershow, we cover Book VII: Revelations. We breakdown the horror and metaphysical aspects of this last episode of Midnight Mass.

• (0:46) – Welcome
• (1:51) – Opening Prayer
• (3:10) – Synopsis
• (11:02) – Sermon

Synopsis

In the finale, we see the resulting chaos of what happened in the church. Lines are drawn the turned and unturned, and Bev self righteously appoints herself as the leader to guide the islanders.

While continuing the heavy violence from the previous episode’s finale, this final book takes a hard turn into the metaphysical as many characters confront their life choices, and their impending death.

Just released, Horror Movie Talk presents the Midnight Mass Aftershow. We’ll breakdown each episode of the upcoming seven-part horror series by Mike Flanagan on Netflix with a companion aftershow episode.

About Midnight Mass

When Father Paul’s appearance on Crockett Island coincides with unexplained and seemingly miraculous events, a renewed religious fervor takes hold of the community. But do these miracles come at a price?

From Mike Flanagan, the creator of The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass tells the tale of a small isolated island community whose existing divisions are amplified by the return of a disgraced young man and the arrival of a charismatic priest.

Subscribe Now

Subscribe to Horror Movie Talk on your favorite podcast platform so that you can binge the entire aftershow on the same day that you binge Midnight Mass on Netflix.

We watched Paranormal Activity 3 and I literally had nightmares. This movie has taken the tried and true formula from the first few, sharpened it, and really knocks it out of the park in terms of scares.

Watch Paranormal Activity 3

Watch on Amazon

Click here to Watch

Synopsis

While the first movie in the series focused on Katie (Katie Featherston), and the second focused on her sister, Kristi (Sprague Grayden) while they are in the present, the third installment focuses on their childhood.

Katie and Kristi are at home in Carlsbad, CA in 1988 with their sexy mom, Julie (Lauren Bittner) and her remarkably likeable boyfriend, Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith).

Strange sounds and movements start to happen throughout the house and Dennis, who owns a wedding video film taping company takes a big interest in catching this on tape.

Kristi, the youngest girl, has an imaginary friend named Toby, and well, Toby fucking sucks.

Julie’s mother doesn’t seem to approve of her dating Dennis.

Eventually our ill fated family get more paranormal activity than they bargained for.

Review

Directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, Paranormal Activity 3 blows me away. So much about this movie works and it scares me to death. 

With the kids being a central focus of the happenings in the house, I am basically on high alert right from the beginning. 

The stationary cameras that are the calling card of this series are done so well in this that I still think about it when I think about framing and timing perfection within film.

There is a reason for almost everything that happens in Paranormal Activity 3 that is rooted in decent enough logic and for everything else the scares are so intense that I can’t be upset.

The way this movie uses sound is masterful. The slight movement of boring objects around the house keeps me on the edge of my seat. 

Producers, take note. For the low cost of some fishing line, you can scare me way more than if you pay a huge crew of computer animators to design a monster that runs around and skins people.

Mostly, the tension is the highlight of Paranormal Activity 3. While it may not work for everyone, I think the build and release cycles of tension in this are second to none. Every single time it day turned to night in this film, I was shook.  

Score

10/10

Final Recommendations

If found footage is something that you even mildly enjoy, this is a master class. Of the first three, I think this one is the scariest to me, and I love the oscillating fan cam!

Why start an aftershow before the show is available to watch? Because we are going to first give our overall review and tell you that you need to watch Midnight Mass.

• (0:00) – Welcome
• (1:33) – Synopsis
• (4:37) – Themes
• (17:56) – Score
• (20:20) – A Letter From Mike Flanagan

Synopsis

An isolated island community experiences miraculous events – and frightening omens – after the arrival of a charismatic, mysterious young priest.

Riley also returns home to Crockett island following his incarceration for the accidental slaying of a young woman while he was driving drunk.

As we experience a community threatened by the death of their fishing industry, and an aging populace, we suddenly see new life being breathed into the church. 

Midnight Mass brings us an even handed look at the themes of religion, death, and what it means to live a good life amongst those who do evil even when they believe themselves to be acting in the name of God.

Score

10/10

A Letter From Mike Flanagan

Welcome to Crockett Island.

I’m just going to admit it—Midnight Mass is my favorite project so far. I don’t like saying things like that, as filmmakers are meant to fall in love with whatever we are working on at a given time—it’d be impossible to do the work if we didn’t—but this one is truly special to me.

This project is more than a decade in the making. You may have noticed Midnight Mass as Maddie’s novel in Hush, or on the shelf in Gerald’s Game—two cameos that let me keep the project alive when it looked like no one would make it. When people on set asked me what Midnight Mass was, I smiled and told them it was the “best thing I never made”.
As a former altar boy, about to celebrate 3 years of sobriety, it’s not hard to see what makes this so personal. It is also born of the things that scare me the most. The ideas that animate my work always scare me—but the ideas at the root of Midnight Mass terrify me to my core.

Horror is an essential genre. It helps us develop bravery and courage in very small increments. It also gives us a safe place to examine the most uncomfortable truths about ourselves as individuals and as a society. The horrors and mysteries of Midnight Mass are some of the deepest—and the darkest—I’ve ever explored.

The isolated community of Crockett Island sits, surrounded by grey water and overcast skies. While there are dark forces at work that are absolutely supernatural, this show is also about the most potent types of horrors—the horrors born of human nature. Horrors of fanaticism, corruption, and blind faith.

Along with the figures who lurk in the shadows, whose plans for Crockett Island are far more sinister than we know, this show is about how belief shapes our communities, our world, and our fates. It’s a show about faith, fanaticism, addiction, recovery, destruction and redemption.

The darkness that animates this story isn’t hard to see in our world, unfortunately. We see it in religious and political fundamentalism, in tribalism and racism, in science-denial, in systemic corruption, and in the eyes of normal citizens moved to acts of violence and horror by belief systems that have exploited their prejudices, fears, and blind faith. It speaks to a malignant insanity that has become absolutely normalized in our world. And as Carl Sagan said, “there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”

It’s about something else as well: faith itself. One of the great mysteries of human nature. How even in the darkness, in the worst of it, in the absence of light—and hope—we sing.

I hope you enjoy our song.

Mike Flanagan

Creator/Showrunner

Midnight Mass Press Materials

Coming September 24, Horror Movie Talk presents the Midnight Mass Aftershow. We’ll breakdown each episode of the upcoming seven-part horror series by Mike Flanagan on Netflix with a companion aftershow episode.

About Midnight Mass

When Father Paul’s appearance on Crockett Island coincides with unexplained and seemingly miraculous events, a renewed religious fervor takes hold of the community. But do these miracles come at a price?

From Mike Flanagan, the creator of The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass tells the tale of a small isolated island community whose existing divisions are amplified by the return of a disgraced young man and the arrival of a charismatic priest.

Subscribe Now

Subscribe to Horror Movie Talk on your favorite podcast platform so that you can binge the entire aftershow on the same day that you binge Midnight Mass on Netflix.

This is not the greatest horror movie in the world, this is just a tribute. James Gunn’s love letter to monster movies is a shining star in the morass of 2000’s horror, It’s surprising that it doesn’t get more love.

• (0:34) – Intro
• (8:45) – Trailer
• (10:39) – Synopsis
• (11:19) – Review
• (17:15) – Score
• (21:48) – Spoilers
• (52:10) – Attack of the Rotten Tomatoes Game
• (1:01:01) – Outro

Synopsis

Slither tells the story of a loving husband trying to have sex with his wife by any means possible. He discovers a lot about himself and makes a lot of friends along the way.

Actually it’s about a parasitic worm that arrives from space to terrorize a small town in South Carolina. The worm inserts itself into a sexually frustrated local businessman and multiplies until it takes over most of the town. Along the way a ragtag group of townspeople join together to fight back against the slithering invasion.

Review of Slither

Slither is written and directed by James Gunn, before he got canceled and then uncanceled by Disney. His style shows here with just the right amount of humor and winking at the audience. It was obviously a love letter to the horror genre, as it imitates about a dozen other horror classics such as The Thing, Society, The Blob, Rats: Night of Terror, and Star War The Phantom Menace.

The cast is great, the premise is fun, and the story is executed well. It drags at some points, but has some genuinely great scenes and set pieces that overshadow any momentary boredom. 

More than anything, this is a fun ride and probably deserves more attention than it gets. 

Score

7/10

Watch Slither Now

Watch on Amazon

Click here to Watch

Get 13% Off your order at NightChannels.com when you use code HMT at checkout.

Mentioned in the Episode

We watched Cube from 1997 and it held my attention from start to finish with an interesting premise and very little in terms of budget.

Synopsis

Cube has a simple premise, an assortment of individuals wake up and find themselves trapped in a maze of cubes. Each side and the ceiling and floor of each room they enter has a door on it. 

Some cubes are booby trapped, and others are safe. Each individual brings a unique perspective and talent to the party, and they all must work together to escape the Cube. 

In the end everyone gets more cube than they bargained for.

Review

Cube is an interesting low budget, sci-fi horror from the 90’s. While that low-budget feel is present in Cube, director Vincenzo Natali does a great job of masking it with a variety of clever choices.

Saw, which came out in 2004, feels as if it were modeled after Cube, or maybe a loving tribute to the Cube. But it’s interesting to see what feels like the start of the puzzle gore genre.

The setting and premise of Cube are compelling and force the audience to imagine the setting that they aren’t allowed to see. Whenever a movie makes me imagine the larger scale universes or sets that they hint at, it works quite well for me.

The primary focus of this movie is on a handful of Cube dwellers and their attempt to escaped the Cube. 

These are very highly exaggerated stereotypical 90’s protagonists that can fit into their own little boxes. These protagonist tropes range in the following ways:

• Nerdy student who wears glasses and can do math
• Disaffected office worker 
• Overly aggressive cop
• Empathetic doctor
• Autist
• Escape artist

The puzzle aspects of Cube are often explained through confusing dialog with questionable logic, but I never found myself hung up on these problems. Instead I just had a little chuckle to myself about “simpler times” and let the movie unravel.

At the end I found myself engaged and interested in the story and the reason for the Cube and I will be watching Cube 2: Hypercube.

Watch Cube

Watch on Amazon

Click Here to Buy or Rent

Score

6/10

Get 13% Off your order at NightChannels.com when you use code HMT at checkout.

A soft-reboot of Candyman (1992), this new Jordan Peele written/produced feature re-invents the legend of Candyman into a fresh, new, and boring villain.

Synopsis

Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is an up and coming black artist living in the gentrified Cabrini Greens. Searching for a muse, he stumbles upon the legend of Candyman by talking to the lesser known Laundryman. McCoy’s output increases and he starts getting much wanted attention for his work as he goes down the rabbit hole of the legend and becomes obsessed. Mysterious deaths start to happen surrounding his work, and slowly Anthony gets more unstable mentally and physically as he realizes there may be a Candyman or Candymen in the house.

Review of Candyman (2021)

Candyman (2021) lures you in with the sweet sweet promise of reviving a seductive and unique horror villain icon, and ends up remolding the legend of Candyman into a more generic set of boogeymen that fail to capture the imagination in the same way. Nia Dacosta attempts to expand the lore of Candyman by expanding the scope of his representation of historical and contemporary black trauma. It’s an ambitious goal, and unfortunately never quite hits home. 

A lot of ideas and plot points in the film were interesting, but lacked some of the connective tissue to make a compelling whole. The most disappointing aspect of the film is how much flavor and charm from the original that they left behind. I kept asking myself, where is the sexy, seductive menacing Candyman? By making the Candyman legend into abstraction and less of a personality, it becomes slightly more interesting intellectually, but vastly less compelling emotionally.

The protagonists of this film are never really compelling. Anthony’s obsession and vanity are the real driving forces for his motivation, but they seem to appear out of the blue, and never culminate in a satisfying end for the character.

The end of the film is probably the most disappointing aspect. It just kind of happens. I was literally dozing off at what should have been the most exciting part of the movie. The reveal and transformation at the end seemed obvious and arbitrary at the same time.

I’m maybe being harsh on the film, because it’s not a bad movie, it just pales in comparison to the original and I had high expectations. 

Score

5/10

Watch Candyman Now

Watch on Amazon

Click here to Watch

Get 13% Off your order at NightChannels.com when you use code HMT at checkout.

Mentioned in the Episode

We went and saw The Night House and I was blown away by the depth of storyline, the way the movie played with tension, and the insane twist.

Synopsis

Beth (Rebecca Hall) which you will remember most recently from Godzilla vs. Kong has just lost her husband, but not to natural circumstances. He killed himself on the lake, in their boat. 

This is an incredible surprise to Beth because not only was it sudden, but her husband never showed any signs of depression or mental illness.

As we follow Beth in her shocked grief, we learn more and more about her husband who seemed to be hiding an alternate life.

He went to great lengths to keep this other life hidden from Beth which is concerning enough without the nightly visits she gets from an ominous presence that may be human, or may be paranormal in nature.

As Beth digs deeper into her husbands past, she finds a terrifying secret that he kept from her which left me quite emotional.

Review

The Night House came out of left field for me. I vaguely remember seeing the trailer before the theaters shut down and not being impressed by the title or the portrayal of the story. What I walked away from left me emotional, scared, and somewhat enlightened.

The Night House takes grief and places it front and center, then places weird new rules on the night time that Beth now experiences.

There are moments when this movie feels very much like a home invasion flick and others where it feels straight out of a Paranormal Activity movie. It even feels like a detective thriller at moments. But with all this it never feels cluttered or confused.

The way this movie deals with sadness and curiosity is something that I connected with deeply and I am finding it hard to review because of how perfectly gobsmacked it left me.

If monsters or aliens or raging killers are what scare you, this may not be your thing. But if death, and things that go bump in the night make your hackles rise, this is right up your alley.

Score

10/10

Get 13% Off your order at NightChannels.com when you use code HMT at checkout.

This was an incredibly fun movie that we watched on HBOMAX, and wow, what a ride!

If you want to gain access to the full review, head over to patreon.com/horrormovietalk and sign up for the We All Spoop for Ice Spoop tier. That get’s you access to:

• The Afterpods
• Early Access to all reviews
• The Ability to vote for 1 movie a month for us to watch
• Thank you card loaded with stickers