Created: 09/10/2022 - Last updated: 03/01/2023
Notes to help me remember what the movies & TV shows I've watched were about. Absolutely full of spoilers. You can also see this list (without the summaries) in my Letterboxd account. Movies and shows marked with a * means this is a rewatch.
Following years media diaries: 2023 / 2024.
I only started to properly keep track of what I'd been watching this year starting in October, so this might not be the most accurate.
Top 5 movies watched in 2022:
Top 5 series watched in 2022:
Favorite movie: Sorry to Bother You Favorite tv show: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, S1
In Avalonia, a land surrounded by an endless wall of mountains, Jaeger Clade is a brave adventurer trying to get on the other side of the mountains to find a miracle that would save Avalonia. He brings his son Searcher along, even though the kid clearly doesn't want to be an explorer, and when Searcher finds a plant that might help Avalonia out, they split ways, with Searcher going back to Avalonia, and Jaeger continuing his search. 25 years later, Avalonia has seen incredible technological changes, all powered by the Pando plant Searcher discovered, until a strange disease starts to kill the plants... The president of Avalonia, Callisto, comes to Searcher to enroll him in an expedition to save Pando, to which he reluctantly agrees. Searcher's son Ethan is much more an explorer than a farmer (even if his father is blind to it), and he sneaks in the expedition, quickly followed by his mother Meridian. As they follow the roots of the Pando through a sinkhole, they end up in a magical subterranean world - mostly pink, with strange creatures and plants everywhere. The group gets separated during the rough landing, and Searcher finds his father, who's been stuck here for the past 25 years, while Ethan befriends "Splat", a funny creature. Finally finding the heart of Pando, they realize it's getting attacked by many creatures, and decide to eradicate the so-called pest. Ethan disagrees and he flees the ship, accidentally ending up... on the other side of the mountain! He realizes that their world is actually a giant creature, and that the subterranean world they were in is its internal organs - with the Pando attacking its heart and endagering their whole world, which explains why its immune system is trying to fight it. When he explains this to Callisto, she refuses to believe it, but Ethan and his family sneak away and help the immune system get rid of the Pando parasite. With the Pando gone, everybody realizes there's a heart underneath, and are relieved that they were able to save their world. The mission goes back to Avalonia, knowing that they will have to find other ways to power their technology now that the Pando is gone... Also Ethan gets a boyfriend, Diazo! This was very lovely! I loved the strange technology and the world, and of course the fact that the main character was a gay teenager with a boyfriend! Better late than never... I guess? Also cool eco-friendly message about how we need to coexist with nature. I would warmly recommend it, 4.5/5!
Cassius "Cash" Green gets a low level job in a telemarketing call center, and after getting the advice that he should use his "white voice" with customers (he's a Black man), he starts to be increasingly successful at his job. Cash and a few friends and colleagues organize a strike because their pay is very low, and when he thinks he's about to get fired for it, he instead gets a promotion and becomes a super caller. Cash goes to the super caller office, which is extremely modern and posh, and where he has to use his white voice at all time. There, he learns that what the super callers sell are weapons and WorryFree employees. WorryFree is a company hiring people for life, making them live in prison-like centers, and is often likened to slavery. Cash is reluctant at first, but accepts when he sees the starting wage. As he gets richer, his relationship with his leftist activist girlfriend deteriorates, especially as he has to cross the picket line to work every morning - until she breaks up with him. One evening, Cash is invited at a party hosted by the WorryFree CEO, and after some racist moments from the hosts and guests, the CEO invites Cash to his office for a talk. Looking for the bathroom, Cash find some horse-men hybrids asking for help and freaks out. The CEO tells him to calm down and explains his plan: he created some horse-men hybrids, named Equisapiens, because they make more efficient workers, and he wants Cash to become one as well to become a fake MLK and keep them in line. Cash says he will consider it, but instead leaks it to the press (which has the effect of people praising the CEO for scientific discovery and WorryFree's stocks to skyrocket) and frees the Equisapiens. He loses his job and goes back to a monetary situation similar to the start of the movie, and is back with his girlfriend... until he realizes that the CEO secretely turned him into an Equisapien as well! In the last scene, Cash and fellow Equisapiens invade the CEO's home. This movie was so good! I knew the writer and director Boots Riley from his political hip-hop band The Coup, so I was really excited to see this movie, and it didn't disappoint! A lot of people seem to consider it very weird and over the top, but honestly I wouldn't think it's so farfetched considering our current capitalism trends... so to me it felt more frighteningly close to a possible future. I hope Riley makes more movies, 4.5/5!
During the covid pandemic, private detective Benoit Blanc is isolating with his husband Philip, and spends most time in his bath, waiting for a new case. He gets invited to the private island of Miles Bron, a tech billionaire, along with some friends of Bron to "solve Bron's muder". Bron is confused by Blanc's arrival, saying he didn't invite him, but that having him here to solve the murder would be quite fun. Bron explains that there will be a murder mystery starting at dinner, and Blanc solves it before it even starts. Bron is quite upset, but Blanc explains he did this on purpose because everybody he invited has a reason to want him dead, and that it seems quite dangerous, but Bron dismisses the warning. While they're having dinner, one of the guests suddenly dies, before the electricity is cut, so everybody suddenly panics. Blanc finds Andi, the ex-professional partner of Bron, who lost everything when all their friends lied to testify against her, and tells her that he almost figured out everything, but he just needs one more information from her... just as she gets shot. Blanc brings everybody inside the house, just before a flashback starts. Andi actually died of suicide a few days prior, but her twin sister Helen is certain it's a murder. Andi had proof that the company's original idea was hers, and she was threatening to publish it just before her death. Helen received Bron's invitation and brought it to Blanc, who decided to disguise Helen into her sister (as her death was not announced yet) and to go together to the island. There, they discovered that everybody had motive to kill Andi, and Helen got shot... but not fatally, so they faked her death so she could continue to investigate in secret. It's revealed that Andi left Bron's business because he wanted to start a new 'green' energy that was extremely dangerous, and everything points to Bron himself being the murderer. During the evening, the guest who latter died saw the news of Andi's death, and because he had seen Bron leave Andi's place in a hurry, he had started to blackmail him to keep the secret, so Bron poisoned him by feeding him pineapple juice, to which he's allergic (in Bron's own glass, thus creating the misdirection that someone wanted to poison him). Helen brings the proof that Andi wanted to reveal to the world, hidden in Bron's office, but Bron immediately burns it, and Blanc realizes that without this they might have the truth, but they don't have any proof to condemn him. Realizing that she won't get any justice, Helen starts to destroy the art in Bron's house, before starting a fire ; because his home runs on his new 'green' energy and it's extremly flamable, the whole house explodes, and Helen even manages to bypass the security for the Mona Lisa Bron had in his home, thus destroying it as well. Bron might never get condemned for the murders, but his new energy just destroyed the Mona Lisa, so it will never be commercialized. On top of this, all his friends who had lied to protect him agree to come clean and help bring him to justice. Ohh I loved this movie! I loved the original Knives Out movie and I was really excited there was a new one! Still very anti rich, still very fun to see Daniel Craig play this funny little detective, and this mystery was very *chef's kiss*. 4.5/5.
Finrod dies fighting Sauron, so his sister Galadriel takes on his quest to find the Dark Lord. When her High-King Gil-galad pronounces the war against Morgoth over and rewards warrior elves with a trip to Valinor, Galadriel jumps her ship last minute to stay in Middle Earth. She is rescued by some humans on a ship wreck, and only herself and a man named Halbrand survive and are rescued by Númenorians. In the Southlands, the elf Arondir is watching over the descendants of Morgoth's allies, and he and a local healer, Bronwyn, discover that there are tunnels under the town and that nearby villages have been destroyed by Orcs, meaning Evil is spreading back again. Arondir is kidnapped by the Orcs and brought to their leader, Adar, an Uruk (an Elf that has been tortured and corrupted by Morgoth), who sends him back to the humans to ask them to surrender. Half of the villagers, led by a fervent Sauron supporter, decide to surrender, while the other half prepares for the Orc's attack. Back in Númenor, Halbrand is revealed to be the long lost King of the Southlands. Galadriel and Halbrand convince Queen Regent Míriel to go help the Southlands, and after seeing a vision of Númenor being destroyed in a palantír, she agrees. Isildur lives in Númenor and decides to join the war effort. The Númenorians arrive to save the Southlanders just as they are surrounded by Adar and his Orcs. Adar is made prisoner and explains that he's killed Sauron, but one of his human supporters sneaks out and breaks a dam, ultimately causing the explosion of the volcano Mount Doom. Many humans are wounded, and the Southlands is now covered by a heavy cloud of ashes, transforming it into Mordor and allowing the Orcs to walk it freely (they can't stand the Sun). Queen Regent Míriel loses her eyesight, and Isildur is presumed dead. Nomad Harfoots discover a mysterious old man with amnesia in the middle of a crater, and start to take care of him. They're not sure if he's good or evil, because he keeps helping them but also sometimes accidentally hurt them. Three witches come to him saying he is Sauron, but he realizes that they're wrong because he's good, and is actually Gandalf. He goes to look for his origin with his closest Harfoot friend Nori. Gil-galad sends the half-Elf Elrond to assist the Elven-smith Celebrimbor, who is planning to build a powerful new forge, hoping to find something that can save the Elves from going extinct, because the Evil spreading is affecting them significantly. Elrond suggests they seek help from the Dwarves, and goes to his friend Prince Durin in Khazad-dûm, who reveals to him that they found a new ore, mithril. The ore seems to repel Evil from the Elves, and Durin tries to convince his father to dig more ore to help the Elves, but his father refuses. Durin still continues to mine in secret, awaking a Blarog (which nobody notices... yet), and when his father finds out, he strips him of his royal title and banishes Elrond. The half-Elf still has a bit of mithril, which he takes to Celebrimbor. At the same time, Galadriel takes an injured Halbrand to the same place in the hopes of healing his battle wounds. Once he recovered, Halbrand starts to help Celebrimbor, and Galadriel grows suspicious of his true motives. When investigating the Southlands royal line, she realizes the last heir of the king died a thousand years ago, meaning Halbrand is not who he says he is. She confronts him and realizes that Halbrand is Sauron; he tries to convince her to form an alliance but she refuses, and he flees. The elves end up making 3 rings with the mithril, in the hopes of warding the Evil affecting them. I quite liked this TV show, and especially the ending plot twists got me really hooked! I understand the hate because it's made by Amazon, because nothing will ever compared to the Peter Jackson movies, because the elves have short hair, and because it doesn't respect the lore perfectly (which the movie trilogy didn't either, btw). But it was really beautiful, the story was interesting and I liked the characters, and the many references to the original movies were also very much appreciated! It gave me a bit of that feeling I have when watching the original movies, and I can only appreciate that. 4.5/5.
Wayne and his friend Garth have a low budget public-access television show named Wayne's World, in which they... make jokes? Other than that, they hang out with their metalhead friends in a local bar, where Wayne falls in love with a singer, and soon starts dating her. Wayne and Garth get contacted by a TV producer who offers them a sponsored slot, but they blow it when they make fun of the sponsor on their first episode and lose the job. The producer also works with Wayne's girlfriend to make her famous, and Wayne and Cassandra have a fall out when she refuses to stop working with the guy who fired him. In the end, Wayne and Garth arrange things so that Cassandra's music gets livestreamed to a famous producer, but he comes to tell them it's not a good time to start with a new artist. Wayne and Garth rewind time and get a better ending where Cassandra gets a deal. This was... abysmal. Ok, so apparently it's a cult movie, and unlike some other shitty cult movies, this one seems to have only above 3 stars ratings on Letterboxd, which is wild to me. I also learnt while checking something to write this summary that the origin of this movie is a Wayne's World SNL sketch, which makes me realize I might lack a bit of context for it. But wow... the humour sucked, the constant objectification of "babes" (accompanied with horny noises and pelvis thrusts simulating a boner) was just sad, and the plot was plain boring. The few nice moments were when the group was singing Bohemian Rhapsody in their car (relatable), and when they met Alice Cooper, but it's really not worth watching this whole thing just for that... 1/5.
Zora transferred to the fancy private school Constance Billard because her half sister, with whom she's been communicating in secret for several years, is there as well. There's a lot of drama as their dads hate each other (Zora's dad "stole" the mum while Julien was just a baby, and Julien's dad forbid Zora's dad to see Zora's birth... and the mum's death), and Zora "steals" Julien's boyfriend. Julien is an influencer and always torn between her authenticity and her brand, and gets in a complicated situation when her father gets accused of sexual assault (she ends up cuting ties with him). In their friend group, couple Aki and Audrey start to have problems when they both develop feelings for Max, but then they figure out that they all like each other and start dating as a triad. Zora's boyfriend Obie cheats on her with Julien, and Julien tells Zora to prevent her from losing her virginity to a cheater. Max's dads are getting a divorce, and none of Max's attemps at getting them back together leads to anything. Audrey's mum is in a rough financial situation and tries to commit suicide. Obie ends up getting a new girlfriend, Grace, and despite Julien trying to take her down, they seem to be a pretty strong couple. Behind all of this, a new anonymous Instagram account named Gossip Girl unveils all the scandals going on in the school and in general in New York's elite. The account is run by teachers Kate and Jordan, and at some point they are almost sabotaged by some other teachers they used as consultants, but they manage to regain control of it. I got obsessed with this TV show when I first watched it about a year ago, mostly on the account of the polyamory story line, and now that I rewatched it, well... still love the polyamory stuff, but the rest is really annoying. These kids have way too much money and are much too obsessed by their online presence, plus the petty drama is exhausting. 3.5/5.
The US army is coming back to Pandora, and Colonel Miles Quaritch, whose mind was transferred into a Na’vi clone, is ready to take his revenge on Jake Sully. Sully’s family has to flee his forest village to protect it, and goes to seek refuge to the water Na’vi, who take him in. Quaritch slaughters whales to bait Sully to come fight him and it works, and the whales help Sully win the fight. Quaritch’s son, who was adopted by Sully, secretly saves Quaritch from dying, and one of Sully’s kids dies. A thousand yikes. The cultural appropriation, racism and misogyny of this movie were absolutely off the charts, topped by some overwhelming pathos moments that just made me feel sick. I wrote a whole rant on the subject, but long story short, big nope for me. It was visually beautiful, sure, but that’s it. 1.5/5.
During WW2, a man lost his son when planes bombed their village. Depressed and drinking, he one night makes a wooden doll, and a spirit takes pity on him and animates to doll so he could be Gepeto’s new son. At first, the old man is afraid, but he soon takes responsibility of the puppet and starts to find joy again. A circus comes to town, and when noticing Pinocchio, the circus owner makes him sign a contract so he would come to work for him. Gepeto wants to take Pinocchio back, but because of the contract, he would have to pay a lot of money to the circus, so Pinocchio decides to stay. At the same time, it’s discovered the puppet can’t die, so the nazi government is also interested in enrolling him in the army. The circus takes Pinocchio for a play in front of Mussolini, but the puppet is getting tired of his master, and decides to insult the dictator instead, which gets him killed. He wakes up in a training camp for fascist youth, which is soon bombed, allowing him to escape. Gepeto got swallowed by a whale while looking for Pinocchio, and the puppet now joins him and they manage to escape together. The puppet dies once again and decides to go back before his time to save Gepeto, which makes him mortal, and he dies… until his cricket/conscience uses his one wish to revive him. They live happily ever after until Pinocchio has to bury each of his friends and family because he can’t die of old age. This movie was so dark, I’m not sure if I didn’t like it or if I just wasn’t in the mood for it when I watched it. Also it was a musical but I disliked all the songs. The fascism background wasn’t challenged enough for my taste, the only thing they did that looked bad was put kids in an army training camp, but that’s it. 3/5.
During an orgy at Roland Voight's mansion, a young man solves a puzzle and is immediately stabbed by it, before chains come out of nowhere and tear him apart. Six years later, recovering addict Riley gets convinced by her boyfriend Trevor to break into an old warehouse, but all they find is a metallic cube. Riley lives at her brother's, Matt, his boyfriend's, Colin, and their roommate's, Nora. When she comes home drunk after the break in, she has a fight with Matt and leaves the flat. Crashing down on a playground, she starts to play with the cube and realizes that it's a puzzle ; when she solves it, she narrowly avoids the blade jumping out of it, but when Matt comes to get her, he hurts himself with it, so the Cenobites come to get him. Riley, Colin and Nora are confused by the sudden disappearance of Matt, and Riley decides to go to Trevor to try and understand what's happening. They find the person who owned the warehouse, but she refuses to tell them what's happening, and when she tries to take the cube from them, she actually stabs herself with it, disappearing soon after. Riley is more and more scared, and uses the name of Roland Voight, mentioned by the woman, to track down his mansion and go there. Reading the notes from Roland, she starts to understand the cube: after 5 sacrifices made with it, you can ask for a gift (Life, Knowledge, Love, Sensation, Resurrection or Power). With already 2 people dead, Riley immediately thinks of using Resurrection to bring her brother back, but doesn’t want to kill people for it. Her friends all come to join her, and while they’re exploring the house, Nora gets attacked and is taken by the Cenobites. It’s revealed that Roland Voight is the one who attacked her with the cube; although he was presumed dead, he asked for the power of Sensation after his sacrifices, hoping for unthinkable pleasures, and instead being in constant pain, with a contraption going through his body and playing with his nerves – revealing that the Cenobite’s idea of pleasure is a bit different from ours. Riley accidentally hurts herself with the cube, but Pinhead tells her that she can choose someone else to sacrifice instead; she refuses, but while defending herself, she stabs one of the Cenobite with the cube and he is taken as sacrifice. The box requires one more sacrifice before granting a wish, so the group decides to try and get one Cenobite inside the house to sacrifice them, but Roland interrupts the plan and stabs Colin before asking for his due gift. It’s then revealed that Roland was the one who paid Trevor from the beginning to get the box and make sacrifices so he could get a wish. The Cenobites tell Roland he can’t give back his gift, but they can switch his Sensation gift to a Power gift – he agrees, and is ecstatic when the device leaves his body, but the joy doesn’t last long as he is slowly transformed to a Cenobite himself. Colin is about to be taken by the Cenobites when Riley comes and negotiates to trade Colin’s life for Trevor’s – as he was using her from the beginning and even caused her brother’s death; the Cenobites agree and Colin is safe, while Trevor’s torture starts. The Cenobites ask Riley what gift she wishes for, but by then she understood that the gifts are all poisoned and that she will never get her brother back in any meaningful way, so she asks for no gift; the Cenobites tell her that’s the gift of Life, to live with regret about the choices she made today. She leaves the cube on the mansion’s floor and leave the place with Colin. I quite liked this movie! It wasn’t mind blowing, but it was good. I was quite upset that the first death was a gay man and that he didn’t get saved, but… at least his boyfriend is alive? And to be fair most people died in this movie, but still. I really liked that we learn much more lore about the Cenobites and the cube in this movie than the original 1987’s Hellraiser movie. 4/5.
Famous pop star Angelina is struggling to stay on top of the trends and is starting to feel old, so when her manager asks her to create a Christmas song to save her career, she panics. When browsing social media, she finds a young fan who recorded herself singing one of her song, and on an impulse, she decides to go say hi to her for some good PR. The fan is very excited, but Angelina starts to worry when she’s told the snow storm outside will prevent her from going back home right away – she has an important gala in a few days, and her new song has to be ready by then. The fan invites her over at their place, and turns out her dad is a music teacher, so Angelina and him start to write a song together. When Angelina manages to go back to New York, she invites the fan and her dad to the gala, where the dad plays the piano for her new song. When he asks Angelina if music is all there is between them, she gets scared, and they go on separate ways. A few days later, on the fan’s Quinceañera, Angelina comes for a surprise visit and tells the father that his feelings are mutual. This was quite painful if I’m being honest… I liked the basic idea of it, but it was just… both too much and too little. The song that is at the center of the plot is pretty bad and has the most basic lyrics, and the over-saturated Christmas decorations is just overwhelming. 2/5.
Local journalist Ángela and her cameraman Pablo are following a team of firemen for a night to see how they live their every day life. The night is pretty boring given they are not called anywhere, until they are called because there’s a problem in a nearby building. They’re not expecting much, but when they get there, they find a woman covered in blood, and she soon violently attacks a policeman who’s also with them. When they want to look for help to save the policeman, they realize some health department has sealed them inside the building, fearing for a contagion of some sort. We learn that one of the resident’s dog, who was at the vet, has become very violent, and they think the same illness is spreading through the building. Soon, every resident gets bitten little by little, with the surviving ones trying to escape the zombies, but being unable to leave the building or to barricade themselves properly due to the strength of the infected. At the end, only Ángela and her cameraman are surviving, and they go lock themselves in the attic’s flat, where they heard nobody has lived in years. There, they find a lot of research about the illness, and an adult zombie who has clearly been locked there for a very long time. She ends up killing both of them. This was a simple but quite good movie! Absolutely full of jump scares, and I got quite irritated at the fact that, in a very realistic way, people are so panicked that they kept screaming at each other… Not so realistic was the government’s immediate and very efficient response to the epidemic, but one can dream. 4/5.
Because of a prophecy saying a Daikini newborn is going to bring her reign to an end, Queen Bavmorda of Nockmaar has decided to check on all the Daikini babies. When the one porting a mark on her arm is found, a nurse smuggles her away to prevent her from being killed. The nurse is eventually killed by the queen’s dogs, but she managed to send the baby floating on the river, where it’s found by Willow, a Nelwyn. Willow’s wife insists they keep the baby, and he accepts as he slowly starts to love her, but soon the queen’s dogs are attacking their village to try and find the baby. The village decides to send the baby back to the Daikinis, so Willow and a few others start an expedition, and give the baby to the first Daikini they find: Madmartigan, who they free from a crow’s cage. As Willow goes back to his village, they see that the baby has been kidnapped by some Brownies, and soon the Brownies kidnap him as well, but he’s rescued by the Fairy Queen Cherlindrea, who tells him the baby is Elora Danan, the foretold Princess of Tir Asleen. She gives Willow a magic wand and sends him to find Fin Raziel, an enchantress. On his way, Willow reunites with Madmartigan, and ends up finding Fin Raziel, but she’s been cursed to look like a possum so she can’t use her magic. She tries to teach Willow how to transform her back, but his lack of self confidence gets in the way. During a battle against the forces of Queen Bavmorda, her daughter Sorsha falls in love with Madmartigan and switches sides, and the army manages to kidnap the baby. At the queen’s castle, she is starting the ritual to cancel the curse of the baby, but Willow manages to interrupt her and ends up defeating her with the help of her allies. Leaving Elora in the care of Madmartigan and Sorsha, Willow returns home to his village and family in triumph, ready to finally become an apprentice sorcerer like he always dreamed of. This movie was quite long but pretty good! It has some aspects that reminded me of Lord of the Rings, but with only practical effects, which has a certain charm. The story was quite good too, I can see why it’s a classic, 4/5.
A high schooler gets a creepy phone call, which gets creepier when she realizes that the person calling is just outside her house... and that he has kidnapped her boyfriend. The caller wants to play a game with her: he asks her questions about horror movies, and if she gets one wrong, her and boyfriend dies. She does end up getting one wrong, and his killed by someone wearing a ghostface costume... While her school is grieving, Sidney Prescott is constantly reminded of the brutal rape and murder of her mother a year ago, especially as Gale Weathers, who covered the case, is coming back to town to investigate the current murder. At night, Sidney receives a threatening phone call and Ghostface tries to kill her, but she manages to escape, and her boyfriend Billy arrives. He's suspected to be Ghostface himself and arrested but soon cleared. Sidney and her friends attend a party where Ghostface shows up and starts to kill them one by one, discreetly at first, then more obviously when there's only a few of them left. After a while, it's revealed that there were two killers, and they were Billy and his friend; they also admit that they were responsible for the rape and murder of Sidney's mother. They don't have any motive except the fact that they think it's fun to terrorize and kill people. Gale and a local police officer, who came to investigate the party, don't manage to help much, and Sidney has to kill the two boys on her own. The three of them, as well as another boy and Sidney's father, whom the two boys wanted to blame the murders on, are the sole survivors of the party. I really liked this movie! I loved the many references to old horror movies and tropes, I found them often accessible but entertaining. Other than that it's a classic slasher, which I enjoy. 4.5/5.
After unleashing piranhas on her little brother’s bullies, Wednesday is expelled from yet another Normie school, so her parents decide to send her to a special Outcast school: Nevermore Academy – where her parents met and fell in love. Her roommate is Wednesday’s complete opposite: full of fluff, love and rainbows, but they end up being friends after all. There’s a monster roaming around Nevermore, and Wednesday wants to investigate it, but despite the help of her psychic visions she keeps making mistakes about it. First she believes her therapist is the one controlling the monster (before she gets killed), then that one of the boys who has a crush on her is the monster (whereas he just has a kind of psychic link with it), etc. In the end, we find out that the monster is a Hyde and Wednesday’s boyfriend Tyler, and that he does the bidding of Laurel, the first Normie teacher at Nevermore, who’s actually the presumed-dead descendant of the town’s founder, a strong anti-Outcast pioneer who was murdered by Wednesday’s ancestor. Laurel kills Nevermore’s director, and then resuscitates her ancestor, but Wednesday and her friends manage to kill him. Tyler, who’s also the sheriff’s son, is taken away in chains. I quite liked this show! It was over-the-top edgy, but in a way that really pleased my little goth heart! Wednesday is the kind of character that would be quite frustrating to interact with ipl, but who’s really charming on TV. What did frustrate me was the fact that absolutely no clue were given to the viewers as to whom were the villains of the show, so we didn’t have much to form theories, and instead had to discover the truth at the same time as Wednesday, which I don’t prefer – I ended up guessing about Laurel by pure luck, so even that didn’t really feel satisfying. 4/5.
Favorite movie: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Favorite tv show: The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself
OJ Haywood and his dad own a ranch where they train horses to star in movies. One day, small objects fall from the sky and OJ's dad dies from a coin penetrating his skull. OJ doesn't really believe the official version saying that some objects fell from a plane, but he doesn't know what happened. He has to sell horses to the nearby western theme part to make ends meet, and there we meet the owner Ricky. Ricky used to be a kid actor, and in one of the shows he stared in, a chimpanzee got wild and killed several actors on set, as he watched from under a table. He has now commodified his trauma by having a secret room full of memorabilia that people pay good money to enter - and when asked about the incident, he talks about the sketch SNL did of it instead. Later, a horse gets wild and when going to look after him, OJ thinks he sees a UFO. He tells his sister, and they decide to get cameras installed to try and get a picture of it. The guy from the shop who comes to help them, Angel, is a fan of UFO so he decides to stick around to help them out. The first time they test the cameras, they shut down (as does every electronic thing) as the UFO approaches, but Angel notices that there's a nearby cloud that never moves, and they deduce that's where the UFO is hiding. Ricky noticed the presence of the alien as well and created a new show where he would feed a horse to the UFO, except when he tries, the UFO eats Ricky and the whole audience instead. Seeing this, OJ deduces that the UFO is not a ship but a predatory creature itself. OJ and his sister Em contact a famous director, Antlers Holst, to try and get him to help them film the UFO, and he accepts after hearing about the theme park incident. Holst brings a non-electrical film camera, and they set up tube men all over the valley to be able to locate the alien (when he approaches, the electricity propelling the tube men dies and they flatten themselves). A paparazzo approaches and, as he's about to kill by the UFO, he keeps begging people to film him and to give him his camera. After having several good shots of the UFO, Holst gets too obsessed by having a perfect shot of it, and ends up being eaten along with his camera. The UFO, which originally looked like a flying saucer, has now unraveled and looks like a kind of giant jellyfish made of textiles. Em, Angel and OJ are still trying to escape the alien, and Em uses a giant inflatable cowboy from the theme park to bait the alien and choke it with it. It works, and Em even manages to get a picture of the alien before its death. Jordan Peele never disappoints! This movie is interesting because you can watch it at a very shallow level and enjoy it as a good alien movie, but then the real point of it is spectacle, and how far people will go for it. From the traumatized kid actor dealing with his trauma by monetizing it, to OJ and Em putting themselves in serious danger because they want to become rich and famous with a UFO picture, to the director dying for his perfect shot and (the most obvious of them all) the paparazzo begging people to film his death... it was everywhere and it was mostly a great balance to that it doesn't feel like a lecture on the dangers of pursuing fame, but you understand that there's a bit more than what is explicitly shown. Also visually this movie was beautiful, I loved the alien and all the night shots. 4.5/5.
Nina is a young woman living with her overbearing and very controlling mother. She's a professional ballerina, and when their director holds a surprise audition for Swan Lake, she's sad to fail it. On the next day, she goes to see him to try and ask for the role again, but he tells her no because she's not wild enough for the black swan part... before he tries to kiss her. She bites him and pushes him away, and that convinces him that she actually has what it takes to be both the white and black swan. She starts training for the part, and is constantly criticized for not being able to let herself go, which is needed for the black swan part. One of her colleagues, Lily, takes her to a bar one night and convinces her to take drugs, before they have sex... except the next day, Lily says that never actually happened. Nina is starting to have more and more hallucinations - of her becoming a swan, of meeting herself in town, of objects moving and mocking her - the pressure of the part clearly impacting her mental health. Lily is friendly to Nina, but the dancer is sure that she's after her role and ready to do anything to get it. When the night of the premiere finally happens, Nina is doing good (except for the fact that she sees herself turn into a swan as she dances) until the intermission, when Lily visits her and tries to kill her. Nina kills Lily and hides her body, going back to give an amazing performance as the black swan now that she found her dark side. During the second intermission... Lily visits her. She realizes that there's no body, and that Nina stabbed herself during yet another hallucination. She finishes the show, and when her character kills herself, the other dancers are able to notice the blood seeping from her wound. She loses consciousness with a smile, happy that her performance was perfect. This movie sure was a lot! The mother was very triggering, and the blur between reality and Nina's hallucination was very uncomfortable because it was difficult to know what was true, and I was constantly stressed that people would realize how out of it she was. Still, it was an amazing movie, and somehow the fact that it made me so uncomfortable is what made it great, 4.5/5.
Camp Crystal Lake has been the place of many tragedies over the years, so much so that the locals have nicknamed it Camp Blood. Despite its bad reputation, the owner has decided to reopen it, and on Friday the 13th - 2 weeks before the kids arrive - he welcomes 6 camp counselors who will help him get the place back into shape. Well, technically he only welcomes 5 of them as Annie, the cook, is murdered on her way by someone who gave her a ride... As the night falls and a storm rages on, each counselor as well as the owner get murdered one by one. At the end of the night, only one of them, Alice, is still alive. She panics, still not knowing who the killer is, when she bumps into a middle aged woman who seemingly just drove to the camp. Initially relieved to get some help, Alice starts to think something is a bit wrong when the woman starts retelling the story of the camp, specifically the fact that a boy drowned there a few years ago. The boy, Jason, was the woman's son, and she thinks he drowned because all the counselors were too distracted by having sex, which is why she's decided to exact revenge on them, preventing at the same time this camp from ever opening again. Alice manages to kill the woman and escapes in a boat, only to be jumped by Jason, coming out suddenly from the lake. The police finds her and she survives, but when asked about the boy, the police says they haven't seen him at all. Alice says it means he's still in the lake... This was very sexual harassment the movie, and I wasn't super into it, although I did love the plot twist about the killer - sure wasn't expecting that one! 3/5.
Needy is an inmate, and tells how she ended up there. She used to live a normal life, she was a bit of a dork and so was her boyfriend Chip, but her best friend Jennifer was a very popular girl. One night, when they were at a concert in a dive bar, a fire started and killed many people - the two girls managed to escape but Jessica, while in shock, was convinced by the band to get into their van. As the town mourns, several high school boys get murdered in very violent ways. Needy starts to suspect Jennifer when she starts to behave very strangely and is several times covered in blood. One night, Jennifer kisses Needy before telling her the truth: on the night of the fire, the band tried to sacrifice her to Satan to become famous, but because she wasn't a virgin, she got possessed and became a sort of vampire. Jennifer keeps going after the guys Needy potentially likes, until she kills Chip. Needy doesn't arrive in time to save him, but she goes after Jennifer and kill her. Because she was bitten but survived, she got some of Jennifer's powers, so she's able to escape the prison to kill the guys from the band. I really liked this movie! I liked the subtle queerness of it, and thought Needy was a great scream queer, and Jennifer an awesome monster. 4.5/5.
A rich ski resort heiress gets in a ski accident as her self absorbed boyfriend proposes to her, and she loses her memory. The charming owner of the equally charming and #authentic ski lodge rescues her and hosts her while she recovers. The lodge is not doing great financially so she tries to help around but is a complete disaster at first (due to having never done anything in her life) but slowly learns how to do things. She also falls in love with the owner, and decides to organize a fundraiser to save the lodge. It goes well, but her father and fiancé find her at that moment, and take her back to the resort. She realizes the never loved her fiancé and leaves him for the lodge owner. The fiancé asks her butler out, her dad is much happier with the new boyfriend, and the lodge is saved - a Christmas miracle! First Christmas movie of the season! It was pretty basic but had some cute moments, 2.5/5.
Nemo lives a perfect live with her dad in a lighthouse, until one day he dies at sea trying to rescue a lost boat. She goes to live with her uncle Phillip, who lives a very boring life and doesn't know what to do with a child - although he does try. At night, Nemo starts to dream of the lighthouse, and there she meets Flip, someone whom her dad always talked about. Flip is a very wild and adventurous man, who's looking for a map leading to wish-giving pearls. Nemo finds the map when she's awake, and she starts to think that the dreams aren't completely made up. She tries to sleep as much as possible, finding Flip every night and looking for the pearls with him - hoping she could see her dad in her dreams with her wish. Nemo and Flip are constantly chased by Agent Green, who's trying to prevent them to alter people's dreams. One day, while she's awake, Philip shows Nemo an old film of him and her dad playing as kids, and she realizes that Philip... is Flip. Devastated by his brother choosing to leave him for a woman (Nemo's mum), Philip decided to stay in the dream realm as Flip for so long that Flip completely forgot who he used to be, and Philip completely lost his wild side and became a completely boring human. Nemo and Flip finally get to the pearls, but Nemo uses her wish to make Flip wake up. She also gets a second wish, and gets to say goodbye to her dad in her dream. As Flip and Philip become one again, he becomes a much better father figure, and Nemo and him start having adventures together! This was a really cute movie! I loved Jason Momoa as Flip, he was so funny, and the horns and fangs were pretty hot ngl. 4/5.
Simon and Wilhelm aren't really talking: Simon is hurt by the fact that Wilhelm didn't come out publicly, and Wilhelm feels like he can't do this to his family. Simon meets a boy who's interested in him and they start to date, but he's clearly still very much in love with Wilhelm. He also learns that it's August who leaked the video, and he wants to report him to the police, but August is Wilhelm's back up in case he doesn't want the throne and Wilhelm feels like reporting him would mean he would have no choice but to become the King, which makes him feel trapped ("Did he just say he would give up the crown for you bro?"). Sara and August start dating in secret, and she warns him that Simon wants to go to the police, so when Simon and Felice learn about it they get really mad at Sara. Wilhelm and Simon can't avoid their feelings for long, and soon declare their love for each other. On the school's jubilee day, Wilhelm starts to make the official speech, but the diverges and admits it was him on the video. I quite love this tv show! The love triangle felt forced and useless, especially as they made zero effort in making us like Simon's new boyfriend, but that was the main negative point of this season. I really hope it gets renewed and we can see the consequences of Wilhelm's coming out! 4.5/5.
The movie starts with T'Challa dying from an unnamed illness and his funeral. A year later, other nations are pressuring and attempting to steal vibranium from Wakanda, believing the nation is weakened by the death of its Black Panther. A CIA ship using a vibranium-detecting machine is attacked when they find some of the precious metal in the sea, and Wakandans soon find out it's a sea-dwelling race led by Namor who executed the attack. Namor kidnaps Shuri and explains that his ancestors were from South America and had to flee colonizers, helped by an herb rich in vibranium ; afraid for the safety of his kingdom, he wants to kill the scientist who created the vibranium-finding machine. The scientist is Riri Williams, who also built an Iron Man-like suit. Nakia comes to rescue Riri and Shuri, and Namor attacks Wakanda in retaliation, killing the Queen. With the help of Namor's vibranium plant, Shuri manages to recreate the heart shaped herb and takes it to see her ancestors. Instead, she sees Killmonger, who tells her she should make the world burn, just like she wants to. She immediately leads an attack on Namor's people, and manages to beat him by dehydrating him, but she comes to her senses before killing him and makes him yield so they can become allies instead. Shuri later learns that T'Challa and Nakia had a son, and he's living with Nakia in Haiti. This wasn't as amazing as the first Black Panther movie, but it was still pretty amazing! I liked how they honored Chadwick Boseman's memory, and Shuri was sooo cool and soooo gender!! I love her, 4.5/5.
Chris Cole is a huge Steel Dragon fan, and even sings in a tribute band as a side gig. One day, just after his band fires him for being too intense, he gets a call from a Steel Dragon member, who invites him to LA! He flies there, and is asked to sing a song for them - not understanding what's happening at first, he soon learns that the heavy metal band is firing its front man and is looking for a new one. He's hired, and suddenly becomes the new front man of his favorite band, and an international rock star! His new name is Izzy, and he starts to live the rock and roll life, slowly distancing himself from his girlfriend, and being constantly on drugs or drunk. He's upset that he doesn't get to write songs or contribute to the band in any way, and the novelty of being a rock star starts to wear off, to the point that he's not sure he wants to stay in the band. One night, during a concert, he sees an impersonator of himself in the front row, and invites him on stage to sing a song together. Seeing the guy knows the concert by heart, he gives him the mike and leaves the stage, offering Steel Dragon a new front man. Chris later starts to write his own music and creates a new small band, and reconnects with his girlfriend. I watched this movie because it was inspired by the story of one of my favorite heavy metal band, Judas Priest, and it was fun to see the similarities: on top of the tribute-band-singer-becomes-frontman, they also made the former frontman quite similar to Rob Halford (both are gay, among other things). The stories weren't very similar apart from that, but it was an alright movie, 3/5.
Mirabel's family is magical: while their abuela was fleeing danger, a candle provided them a safe heaven between high mountains, and gave each children and grand children of the family special powers. That is... until Mirabel arrived, and never got a magical power. When her little cousin gets his power, Mirabel is relieved for him but frustrated at being a family pariah, and she starts having visions of their magical house crumbling... Abuela blames their weakening powers on her, but Mirabel wants to save her family and starts to investigate. She realizes that her uncle Bruno, who left the family years ago, did so because he had an unclear vision about her, and knew she would be blamed for bad things. Little by little, Mirabel gets her sisters to open up about the pressure they feel about being perfect and valued only for their gift, but when she confronts her abuela about this, her grand mother gets angry and the house crumbles for real this time. Mirabel runs away, but her abuela finds her and apologizes, realizing she started to value the encanto more than her family, by fear of losing it. They rebuild their house with the help of the village, and everybody gets their powers back. Amazing movie, beautiful songs, great exploration of familial trauma (despite the Disney-typical irrealistic happy ending), 5/5.
Nathan Byrne is born of a Fairborn witch mother, who killed herself after his birth, and a blood witch father. Not any blood witch, but the most dangerous one, Marcus Edge, who killed many Fairborn, and so Nathan is bullied and isolated by his witch peers. Even his sister, Jessica, hates him for killing their mother. The Fairborn council doesn't know if Nathan will turn out to be a Fairborn or a blood witch, so they test him from his early childhood, but when he finally punches one of his bullies back, he gets taken away. He could be condemned to death for simply being a blood witch, but there's a prophecy that "His own blood with kill the wolf", so the Fairborn decide to train him so he can kill his father. He manages to escape, and with the help of his girlfriend Analyse (a Fairborn) and a newly met blood witch named Gabriel, they run off to Paris. Their goal is to meet another blood witch named Mercury, who can help him by giving some of his family blood, because a witch who doesn't get their blood on their 17th birthday will die. The leaders of the Fairborn have all been killed so Analyse's father, Soul, steps up and decides to do dark forbidden magic, which involves killing his brother and Nathan's grandmother, to get Nathan's powers. Nathan's father was a hearteater, meaning he could eat the hearts of witches to steal their powers, so now Soul has this power as well. As they travel, Nathan and Analyse learn that most things they learnt about blood witches being bad is untrue, and that Fairborn witches aren't always good - for instance, they're the ones who killed Nathan's mother to punish her for falling in love with a blood witch. Nathan, Gabriel and Analyse seek refuge with a group of blood witches, but Soul, Jessica and a group of hunters hunt them and kill many of the group's witches. Jessica gets hungrier for blood as each day passes, not hesitating to kill any of her allies who doesn't completely agree with her cruel ways, and she encourages Soul to consume more and more hearts - thus gaining more powers. Just before Gabriel and Nathan reach Mercury - and as the two boys are developing feelings for each other, Nathan leaves Gabriel to go and save Analyse, who got separated from them, from Soul. Analyse has a very powerful and destructive power, and despite her being Soul's daughter, it looks like he might kill her for her power. They all reunite where the first massacre by Marcus took place, with Soul ready to take on the blood witch, not realizing he became worse than Marcus ever was. Marcus gives Nathan his blood, thus saving him, and when Soul is about to kill Nathan, Analyze kills him, thus fulfilling the misunderstood prophecy - his own blood did kill the wolf. Analyze, Nathan and Gabriel all survive and declare their love for each other. Nice tv show for this kind of teenage supernatural stuff, loved the surprising queerness in this, and the characters, as well as the various plot twists and the classic but always satisfying "the good ones were bad all along". 4/5.
Jennifer Walters is an attorney, but after a night out with her cousin Bruce Banner (aka the Hulk) and a car accident where she's contaminated by his blood, she is able to transform into a hulk as well. She can control it much more than Banner, and is able to switch at will, so she quickly goes back to her life... until a super villain attacks during a trial, and she has to transform. Now that her secret is out, she gets hired by a big law firm and is now in charge of their superhuman division, and expected to be at work as a hulk everyday - or She-Hulk, as the media have named her... She defends the Abomination and sees he's quite reformed, and handles various cases. She struggles with dating... until she meets Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil, another superhero / attorney. A group of incels on a forum has it against her and try to steal her blood, even leaking revenge porn of her, but just when they're about to succeed Jenn breaks the fourth wall and changes her story. Fun and something a bit different for the MCU, sometimes the feminism felt a bit forced but overall it was good and relatable, 4/5.
Favorite movie: Get Out Favorite tv show: Midnight Mass
Coraline's family just moved to a new house, and the little girl is extremely bored because her parents don't take care of her at all, only focusing on their work. They don't make any efforts to play with her or to make good food, and even refuse to garden with her, even though their job is to write about plants. Coraline's new neighbors aren't much better, only talking about themselves and never listening to her. So one night, when she follows a mouse to a small door leading to her Other Parents, she's intrigued. Her Other Parents are different from her regular parents because they have buttons for eyes, but also because they make amazing food, are interested in hearing about her, and love to play with her. Her Other Father made a magical garden for her, and even her Other Neighbours are amazing! She visits them every night, but always wakes up in her own bed, impatient to be back with them. The problems start when the Other Mother tells Coraline she could stay with them forever if she only sewed buttons in her eyes - Coraline gets scared, and wants to leave early, but her Other Mother gets angry and locks her in a small room. There, Coraline meets the ghosts of three other children who were tempted just like her, and ended up trapped after sewing buttons in their eyes. Coraline manages to escape, but realizes that the Other Mother kidnapped her parents, and she goes back. She knows the Other Mother loves games, so she tells her that if she can't find the eyes of the three ghosts as well as her parents, she will stay with the Other Mother forever. Coraline finds the eyes in the garden and at the neighbour's, and the Other Mother looks more and more monstrous as the game progresses. Her parents are located in a snowball, and when Coraline has everything, she thinks she won the game, but the Other Mother tries to entrap her into a spider web to keep her. Coraline manages to escape once more, and locks the door separating the two worlds behind her. Her parents have no memory from the whole ordeal, but Coraline is happy to be back in her normal life. Beautiful stop motion, delightful creepy story, this was great! 4.5/5.
Vampires and Humans have a truce in Los Angeles: the vampires don't kill or drink from unwilling victims, and don't feed at all from certain areas, and the vampire hunters don't kill them, and don't reveal their presence to the general public. Jay is a vampire hunter, and one day he realizes that his whole crew is dead, before his girlfriend gets kidnapped. He asks his little brother Benny to take care of his taxi on that night so he can go "take care of some things", aka hunt the vampires who broke the truce. Benny takes two rich girls who've booked the taxi for the whole night to go from parties to parties, but he soon realizes that they're vampires, and are after his brother (they booked his taxi hoping they could get to him this way). The two girls, Blaine and Zoe, are allied with a vampire named Victor who decided to kill the 5 vampire lords reigning over LA to become the king of the city. Benny can't escape them, and as he develops feelings for Blaine, he ends up saving them from vampire hunters a few time during the night. After killing all the vampire lords, the girls go back to Victor, and Blaine tells him it's too late to save his brother, so he should just save himself. Of course, Benny doesn't listen, and goes to confront Victor; he's quickly subdued, but remote controls the car to crash into the living room dark windows, burning Zoe and Victor with the rising sun. Because he's almost dying, Blaine transforms him into a vampire, and his brother's life is saved (but the brother's girlfriend died). I loved the aesthetic of this movie, very modern times cyberpunk lightning, and the characters were quite charming. Simple and fun, 3.5/5.
Patrick Bateman is a young rich yuppie working on Wall Street. He has a fiancée but they both see other people; he takes very good care of his appearance with a lot of beauty products and exercise; and he tends to get very upset when he sees some of his colleagues are more successful than him (among other things, this is highlighted by how full of rage he gets if someone has business cards a little more fancy than his) or when people don't realize how "important" he is. He regularly hires sex workers and, as we end up finding out, kills them - sometimes later engaging in necrophilia and cannibalism. At some point, he gets very irritated with one of his most successful colleagues who keeps mistaking him for someone else, Paul Allen, and he decides to kill him, before using his apartment as a storage place for corpses. His thirst for murder slowly gets out of control and seeps into his every day life, and one night he just starts shooting various people in the street, before calling his lawyer and admitting everything. On the next day, his lawyer tells him it was a funny joke, but he should have pretended to be someone else, because Bateman is much too soft to be a serial killer. When Bateman insists the murders are true, the lawyer gets impatient and tells him that he had diner with Paul Allen a few days ago, so he can't be dead. When Bateman goes to check his corpses in Paul Allen's place, he finds it completely empty and clean, ready to be sold. There are no proofs that any of the murders were ever real, so he starts doubting reality, and is upset his confession didn't lead to the expected punishment of his crimes. I understand why this is a cult movie but it's not necessarily my type, although I did like the ending, and took it as a commentary that men like Bateman don't often suffer consequences for their actions, no matter how horrific. 3/5.
Kat was orphaned as a child, and ended in juvenile prison after going through the system. Thanks to a "Break the cycle" program, she's sent to a catholic school which happens to be in the town where her parents died. The town has degraded since she was a kid: the brewery her dad owned burnt, and with it many business left, leaving only a ghost town being preyed on by some capitalists wanting to build a private prison. One day, a strange mark appears on Kat's hand, and in her dreams she meets two demons, Wendell and Wild, who explain to her she's a Hell Maiden and that they're her personal demons - she immediately asks them to raise her parents, and they accept to do so if she summons them. The demons' job is to take care of their father's hair with a magical hair cream, and they soon discover they can raise the dead with it. When Kat summons the demons with her friend Raúl (a trans boy), they can't find each other, so the demons decide to test the hair cream on the director of the catholic school, which had been killed by the prison people. It works, and when the priest meets the demons, he hatches a plan: he needs money for his school, the demons need money to build their dream faire, and the prison people are willing to pay a high price to get some councils member resurrected so they can get their votes to approve the prison. The prison people agree, on the condition that no other body be raised in the graveyard, because they're scared the people killed in the brewery fire could be witnesses to the fact that the fire was started on purpose. Raúl steals the cream and raises Kat's parents, and Kat is excited to meet them, but has to save Raúl from the vengeance of the prison people. Kat also has to go through a spiritual trial to learn to forgive herself for the death of her parents, to get out of the pact she accidentally swore with the demons. The father of Wendell and Wild comes to get them and, at first enraged, he calms down when realizing that he sent all his kids away and they never came back. Another teacher at school reveals that he had been the one kidnapping all the children, and reunites them with their father. The father also asks Wendell and Wild to design their dream fair in Hell, for him, and he gives the bad news that the hair cream's lasting effect is limited. Meanwhile, the zombie council has approved the prison project, and the kids have to delay the town's destruction while they raise the witnesses to testify against the prison people for the burning of the brewery. Kat has to say goodbye to her parents again, but she has a glimpse of the future that the town is about to come back alive. Only Jordan Peele to make a heartwarming halloween kid's movie about prison reform. Loved the animation, loved the characters, loved the story, 4.5/5.
The grandmother of a family dies of old age, and the mother seeks help in a grief support group to cope with the fact that she hadn't been in contact with her for a long time and disliked her, although she had been hosting her for a few years in her old age. A few weeks go buy, and the mother insists her son takes her daughter out at a party so she can socialize, but once there the daughter accidentally eats nuts and has an allergic reaction. Her brother drives her to the hospital, but when he swerves to avoid a dead deer while the kid has her head out of the window to try and breathe more easily, he drives too close to a pole and... decapitates the sister. The mother is approached by a woman from her grief support group who wants to teach her how to do a séance to contact her daughter. At first reluctant, the mother is soon convinced she can contact her daughter, and she shows it to her husband and son, who just get extremely freaked out. The mother sees that a sketchbook that had been used during the séance is now filled with images threatening her son, and as the son starts to act strangely (almost as if he was possessed), the mother starts to suspect that her daughter's spirit has become malevolent. She tries to burn the sketchbook, but when it starts to catch fire, so does she, so she takes it off the fire. The mother researches more of the grandmother's old stuff, and soon realizes the mother was a fan of the occult, the leader of a witch coven, and has highlighted book excerpts about raising a prince of hell. The mother then finds a decapitated body in the attic, probably the grandmother's as her tomb had been desecrated. She tries to show her discoveries to her husband and begs him to burn the book, trying to sacrifice herself in the hopes of saving her son, but her husband doesn't believe her at all, and think she's sick and desecrated her mother's tomb herself. She decides to burn the book herself, this time covered in fire starter, but when she does, it's her husband that immediately combust, as she looks on horrified... before getting possessed. The son wakes up to find his father's corpse in front of the fireplace, and sees his possessed mother cut her own throat with a wire, before seeing several naked coven members around the house. He jumps out of the window to escape the madness, and is possessed by the prince of hell, Paimon. He goes to his sister's tree house, where many coven members are waiting for him, bowing down. The corpses of his whole family are also there, bowing down too, and the head of his sister has been crowned and put atop a mannequin. The coven crowns him and chant "Hail Paimon" as he stares blankly ahead. The scariest thing in this movie was when the mother realized her family was getting possessed and her husband didn't believe her. I really liked the particular style of horror in this, very oppressing and twisted, without getting into edgy territory. 4.5/5.
A gay couple is attacked and It finished the job, signaling Its return, so the only Loser who stayed in Derry calls the others about the promise they made 30 years ago. They all meet in a Chinese restaurant where they joke around for a bit, happy to reunite but disturbed by the fact that they forgot everything, until the fortune cookies arrive and monsters pop up from them... They all remember things little by little and after Mike explains he got a ritual to kill It from some local Native Americans, they each go search for an artifact linked to their previous experience with it and face their fears. We also learn that one of them, Stan, killed himself as soon as he got the phonecall. Ritchie faces his secret love for Eddie, Eddie faces his fear of diseases, Bill faces his guilt for letting his little brother die, Mike faces his fear of bullies, Beverly faces her fear of sexual abuse from her dad, and Ben faces his fear of rejection from Beverly - all of their childhood fears get mixed with their adult fears and there's a bit more to them then those, but it's the base. After they retrieved their artifacts, they go in the sewers and face It. They do the ritual, but it doesn't work, and Mike admits that it hadn't worked for the Native Americans, but that he thought it was because they didn't believe in it enough. It takes its true form, half giant alien spider, half clown, and attacks the Losers, killing Eddie. The group realizes the power their beliefs have, and they start to insult It until it is very small and weak; they then rip Its heart out. They go their separate ways; Ben and Beverly together, Bill writing a new book from their story. I know I'm always biased when there's tragic gay love story, but damn I loved this movie! I don't want to say that Pennywise is hot, but he kind of is, I'm sorry. It might have been a bit long but I took breaks to cook in the middle, so it didn't bother me. Loved the gore and the aesthetic of it, 4.5/5.
Seven kids, all so-called losers and bullied by older kids as well as their parents, end up together. One by one, they start having horror visions involving a clown named Pennywise, and when they start telling them to each other, they start having the visions together. One of the kids has had his little brother missing, and is trying to investigate. Another has been learning a lot about the history of the town, and realized something awful happens every 27 years, but everybody quickly forgets about it. Linking their knowledge together, they can trace back the origin of the killings to an old house built on top of a well, so they go in it and from there into the sewers. One of their bullies follows them, but soon falls at the bottom of the well. Pennywise kidnaps one of the kids, and after fighting visions in the house and the sewers, her friends finally find her. Together, they fight It with various weapons, until It retreats in fear and starts decomposing. They exit the sewers and promise to each other to unite and fight it again if It ever comes back. I loved the kids actors in this movie, they were very endearing, especially Richie and Beverly. Because the movie is longer than the 1990s one, it had more space to insist on the fact that the adults are the scariest thing in the It universe, and I appreciated that. 4/5.
After a child is announced missing, a man calls some old friends and tells them that "It" has come back, and they need to come back to their childhood town. One after the other, the friends get flashbacks of what happened during their childhoods 30 years ago. They were seven friends, all some kind of losers, and all bullied by kids older than them. They soon realized they all had horrifying visions of a clown, and that they could see each other's visions but no adult could see them. They linked those visions to the disappearance of the little brother of one of them, and decided to investigate. They went down to the sewers where It lives, and managed to kill It when they realized It only uses fears against them, so by trying to contain their fears and using them against It, they managed to hurt It and It disappeared. They made a promise to come back and finish It if it ever came back. When they come back 30 years later, none of them really remember what happened when they were children, except the one who stayed in the town. They are very hesitant to face It because it seems very dangerous, and the temptation to just leave town is strong. One of their old bullies - who had been attacked by It and survived, before confessing falsely to the murder of all the missing kids - escapes from prison and tries to kill them for It, but after wounding one of them he's killed. Between the wounded one, and another who killed himself as soon as he got the phone call, there's only 5 of the original 7 friends left, but they decide to go on with the plan to kill It. They go back to the sewers and finally face Its true form: a giant spider-looking alien, with hypnotizing lights on Its belly. They fight It and end up dismembering It. I really loved this miniseries / two movies! The way it was made, constantly connecting the past and the present, worked really well, and the story was exciting. 4.5/5.
Ilonka is diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and nine month later is given the news that she's terminal. She chooses to go to Brightcliffe Home hospice, where other terminally ill teenagers go to live their last days. She is soon introduced to the Midnight Club: every night, the kids gather in the library to tell each other scary stories. The Midnight Club is also a pact: whomever dies first should try their hardest to send a sign from the other side. As we hear new scary stories every night, Ilonka does what most new kids do at Brightcliff: she tries all the teas and naturopatic remedies she can get her hands on. She's fascinated by the case of Julia Jayne, a patient with thyroid cancer who survived and was able to leave Brightcliff decades ago. Ilonka steals her patient file and sees many references to an hourglass symbol, as well as directions to find a book in the library. The book is the journal of the daughter of a cult leader who lived in Brightcliff long ago, and who ended up poisoning her community, and in it, Ilonka find a ritual to regain health. In the secret cult basement she also found, she convinces the other kids to do the ritual by sacrificing objects they love to save one of their friends on the brink of death, but it doesn't work and the friend dies. Ilonka learns that one of the kid is healed, and she believes it's herself thanks to the ritual, but turns out it's another girl, and her results started to get better before the ritual took place. Still, Ilonka wants to believe there's a way for her to heal, so she turns to a local pagan lady who reveals herself to be Julia Jayne. Julia convinces Ilonka that they can go to the cult basement and do the ritual to heal her, but when they start, it feels wrong: Julia is at the center of the circle, not Ilonka, and the ritual is different than the one she did before. When Ilonka has to drink a mysterious liquid as part of the ritual, she's unsure what to think, but soon enough they are interrupted by Brightcliff's owner, and the other women participating in the ceremony start to choke - Julia runs away in the confusion. Brightcliff's owner explains to Ilonka that Julia Jayne got lucky and healed in her youth, but thought it was because of the ceremony, but clearly she got sick again, so she tried to do a human sacrifice to heal again, and she never had any intention of healing Ilonka. The owner has an hourglass tattoo as well, hinting at the fact that she's the daughter of the cult leader. The dead friend had a statue which had broken, and the statue is now healed, which the Club considers a definitive proof that there's an afterlife. This hit hard with the ill kids, and I liked that it was built around the stories that they told each other, but after Midnight Mass, it felt a bit weak. 3.5/5.
Scarlett O'Hara is a beautiful girl and has all the boys in Tara courting her, but when she learns that Ashley Wilkes is about to marry his cousin, she becomes sick with jealousy. On the day of their engagement's announcement, she corners Wilkes and tells him she loves him, but is rejected. To make him jealous, she decides to marry his brother right away, but then the Civil War starts and both men go to war. Scarlett's husband dies and she resents having to be in mourning for a man she never cared about. Ashley Wilkes's wife, Melanie, gives birth just when the Northern army is getting close to their town, and they flee in a desolated land, until they come back to Tara, where Scarlett's dad somehow survived, although he's alone because her mother has died and most of their slaves are gone. They slowly rebuild their home, but soon have to pay expensive taxes to the North, which they can't afford. Scarlett's sister was promised to a man who recently became quite rich, so Scarlett lies that her sister has gone to marry someone else, so the man marries her, and she can pay their taxes. When Scarlett is attacked in the woods, several men go to avenge her, and her husband is killed. At the funeral, Rhett Butlet - whos' been interested in Scarlett from the beginning - proposes to her, and she accepts. They have a baby together, but Scarlett is still pining after Ashley Wilkes, and Rhett resents it. He goes on a long trip to London, and when he comes back, Scarlett tells him that she's pregnant from him again, even though she doesn't want it. He wishes her an "accident", just before she falls down the stairs and loses the baby. Melanie's health is bad so when she tries to have another baby, she dies from it, and Scarlett sees this as an opportunity to get Ashley Wilkes back. When Rhett realizes this, he decides to leave Scarlett, and that's when she realizes that he's the one she loved all along, not Ashley, but he's already gone. In conclusion, Scarlett O'Hara only falls in love with men when they escape her, and the background of this whole story is the insistence on how the South used to be so much better before the war and how it's so sad that those poor southerners lost their slaves, and so on. Between the white supremacy propaganda and the normalization of marital abuse, this sure was something. I'm still glad I watched it, because it's very famous, but yeah, it wasn't great. 1.5/5.
Clarice Starling is an FBI trainee, and FBI agent Jack Crawford decides to send her to interview Hannibal Lecter, a cannibal serial killer imprisoned in a maximum security prison, to do a psychological profile. After Lecter told Clarice he's not interested in answering her questions, but he could help in a current serial killer case in exchange of better prison conditions, Crawford reveals it's the true reason he sent Clarice to him in the first place. The current serial killer has been nicknamed Buffalo Bill, and Lecter reveals that he wrongfully believes he's trans (...ok), after which Clarice deduces that he's been killing women to make himself a feminine skin suit. Lecter insists on meeting the congresswoman whose daughter has recently been kidnapped by Buffalo Bill before giving them more clues, but once in front of her, he gives false information and manages to escape his guards. He gave enough clues to Clarice that she's able to investigate some more, and she finally finds the killer. She kills him and saves the Congresswoman's daughter, but Hannibal Lecter is still on the lam. This was interesting and I loved Clarice, but somehow it felt a bit flat after being hyped so much. I was also uncomfortable with the whole "the serial killer thinks he's a transvestite (meh) but actually he's just mentally ill (double meh)". 3.5/5.
Sophie and Agatha are two friends living in a medieval village. Agatha is always called a witch, but Sophie is beautiful like a princess, and dreams of leaving their boring life. When she learns about the School for Good And Evil, she asks the Wishing Tree to be taken there. Her wish is soon granted, but when Agatha tries to make her stay, they're both swept away. Against all odds, Agatha lands in the school of good whereas Sophie lands in the school of evil. The two girls try to explain that there's a mistake - and the students agree, bullying both of them for not looking like they belong in their school - but the schools' directors insist that there's no mistake. Agatha tries to fit in while trying to find a way home, while after a while Sophie decides to embrace the evil side that people insist on putting her in. A long time ago, two brothers (one good, one evil) created the schools, but one day they fought and even though everybody thinks the good one won, it's actually the evil one that did, and he has since then disguised himself as his good brother. Evil hasn't won since this fight, but good has slowly lost its purpose, focusing on shallow things like beauty instead of empathy and true goodness. The evil brother now wants to make Sophie his bride so they can revive the power of evil, and even though she's tempted at first, she is horrified when she sees the true result of their union - everybody else dying, and evil reigning unchallenged forever. When the evil brother tries to kill Agatha, Sophie sacrifices herself and dies in her place, but Agatha kisses her and that brings her back to life. The narrator explains that no love is truer than friendship (um what?!) and they are able to go back home to their village. Meanwhile, the schools of good and evil merge into one school, after they finally realize that nobody is completely good or evil. I liked the base idea, but the movie itself felt cheap (despite the amazing cast) and some scenes that were supposed to be epic were just plain cringe. Also that weird queerbaiting at the end was so weird, this isn't the 90s my dude you can't have two girls kiss and then talk about how friendship is so amazing. Ah, and the antisemitic witchy nose prosthetic wasn't a great look either. 2.5/5.
A doctor and a photographer wake up chained at opposite ends of a decrepit bathroom, the corpse of a man who shot himself between them. The doctor soon understands this is the work of the Jigsaw murderer, someone who puts people he judges ungrateful or liars in complicated situations where they have to either kill others or sacrifice parts of themselves to avoid being killed. Only one person survived him so far, a woman who killed a man to find the key to her killing device in his entrails. We also learn that a cop tried to find Jigsaw, only to have his partner killed, and his obsession consumed him so much that he lost his job. It is implied that Jigsaw is a disabled white man, wanting to make people stop being ungrateful for being alive and able. Jigsaw tells the doctor that he has to kill the photographer to save his wife and daughter. After a few hours trying to escape, time's up and a man who is revealed to be a nurse working with the doctor tries to kill the wife and the daughter, but they manage to escape him. The doctor is desperate because he was on the phone with his wife when he heard gun fires, so he decides to saw his own foot to grab the gun in the middle of the room and shoot the photographer, but the nurse arrives and tells him that he's too late, rules are rules. The photographer isn't dead and he manages to beat the nurse to death, believing him to be the person behind their capture. When the nurse is dead, the photographer finds a tape player in his pocket, and the message playing from it reveals that the nurse was also a victim and just trying to stay alive by obeying Jigsaw's orders. The corpse in the middle of the room stands up, revealing that this was Jigsaw all along, and he asks the photographer if he's now grateful to be alive, as the doctor is trying to look for help before he bleeds to death. I liked the general idea, but the editing was very y2k, there were a lot of plot twists but they weren't done in the best way imo, and the ableism was everywhere. I'm still curious about watching the other movies of this series to see where it goes. 2.5/5.
Carrie is a high school teenager, with an extremely religious and abusive mother, and who is heavily bullied at school. On the day she gets her first periods, she panics because she knows nothing about the phenomena, then gets violently bullied about her ignorance, and when her mother learns about it, she makes her repent because periods are caused by lustful thoughts. Around that time, Carrie realizes that she has telekinesis powers, and her mother says that they come from Satan. The teenagers who bullied Carrie get punished by the school, and one of them tries to help Carrie, by getting her boyfriend to take her to the prom, while the other hatches a plan to humiliate the girl. On the night of prom, she fakes the prom King & Queen ballots so that Carrie and her date win, only to spill a bucket of pig blood on her... Carrie sees red, locks the doors of the ball room, and sets fire to it, killing everybody inside. When she goes home, still covered in pig blood, her mother tells her she was conceived during a drunken rape by her ex husband, before trying to stab her with a knife. Carrie kills her mother instead, crucifying her with kitchen utensils, before collapsing and burning the whole house on them. Later, the sole survivor of the prom - the girl who encouraged her boyfriend to take Carrie to the prom - dreams that she is bringing flowers to Carrie's house, before seeing Carrie's bloody arm grab her from the rubble. She wakes up screaming and is soothed down by her mother, who says they are about to move away from town to help make her get better. I quite liked this one actually, although it was quite slow. The parental abuse was hard to watch though, and so was the bullying. I'm curious to see how the remakes hold up. 3.5/5.
Becca is used to celebrate her birthday - which happens to be on the same day as Halloween - by doing magic rituals with her friends in the forest. They get a special candle from Gilbert, who runs a magic shop from the old Sanderson witches cottage, but when they light it at night, the candle turns into a Black Flame Candle, and they realize they've resurrected the Sanderson sisters. They go to Gilbert for help, but soon realize that he's done that on purpose, because he admires the witches and thinks they were just misunderstood. The witches realize that the descendant of the Reverend who banished them from Salem as kids is the current town's mayor, and they decide to enact their revenge by doing a spell that will give them great power. The kids try to stop them, and Becca realizes that she has magic powers herself, but the Sanderson sisters manage to finish the spell. Becca takes control of Book, and reads the warning for the spell - that the sisters ignored - just as Winnie's two sisters disappear - the price to pay for her great power. Winnie is devastated and asks Becca to reunite them, and Becca does this by making Winnie disappear as well, which the witch is grateful for, because a life without her sisters wouldn't be worth living. This is the perfect kind of sequel: not perfect, but very much in the spirit of the original, which was a kind of cheap, random movie. I loved the new characters and the character development of the old ones. I wish the kids from the previous movie had been there, but you can't have everything! 3.5/5.
In 1693, three sister witches kidnap a little girl to absorb her life and become young again. Her brother tries to save her, but they turn him into an immortal cat. The villagers arrive and condemn the witches to death, but not before they have time to cast a spell enabling them to be resuscitated. 300 years later, Max and his family just moved to Salem, and the teenager is forced to take his little sister trick or treating. In an attempt to impress his crush, Allison, Max decides to go to the old witches house, and once there, he lights the Black Flame Candle, which is rumored to be able to wake the dead if lit up by a virgin. The three witches to rise, and the teenagers flee away with the witches spell book, helped by the immortal cat (who can talk). The witches have only tonight to absorb the life of children and become immortal, but they need their book to do so, so the kids have to hide. After trying to warn their parents unsuccessfully, they decide to burn the witches in the school pottery oven, but it doesn't work. They still manage to escape them (helped by one of the witch's ex, a zombie) for long enough that the witches eventually have to face the sunrise, and explode. The cat-boy is finally able to die and join his family. My favorite halloween classic, I often rewatch it! It's nothing too exceptional but it always puts me in the holiday mood. 3.5.
This story takes place on a small fishermen island, where just over 100 people live. They sent their old priest to a pilgrimage in Jerusalem, and he apparently had fallen quite ill because a younger priest is coming to replace him. The young priest is quickly accepted by the community, and when one day he performs a miracle and a teenager in a wheelchair is able to walk, the church is suddenly packed on a daily basis. People in the village start to get younger and healthier, and everything seems good, except for the fact that one pregnant woman's baby simply disappears without explanation. Little by little, we realize that the young priest is actually the same person as the old priest, but during his trip in Jerusalem, he was attacked by a vampire and thought that was an angel. He brought the "angel" back to the island, and added blood from the angel to the communion wine, slowly turning everybody into vampires. The priest dies and is reborn as a proper vampire, with a craving for blood and unable to get out during the day, but a church lady takes his resurrection as a sign he's the messiah and justifies everything with bible quotes - he killed the town's drunk because that was God's judgment, and it is told that the sun will burn on judgment day; actually, the Bible presents the Rapture as a very violent and horrific event, so it's normal if things look scary and awful. Things culminate at Easter mass, when the priest reveals who he is, and introduces the "angel" to his congregation. He then convinces them to drink rat poison, so that when they die, they are reborn "blessed" (aka as vampires). Many people decide to drink the poison, and as soon as they turn, they start attacking the other people in attendance. Anybody who had the bloody communion before turns into a vampire, but the rest stays dead. The blood thirsty parishioners go in town and start killing everybody, and burn the houses down. Their plan is to spend the night in church and to take their boat to go "convert" the mainland on the next day. A small group made up of the Muslim sheriff, the ex-pregnant woman, her doctor and a few teenagers escape and try to hide. They decide to burn the boats - which have been sabotaged lightly so nobody could escape - so that the vampires wouldn't be able to reach the main land. In a moment of clarity, the priest realizes that what's happening isn't Godly, as people panic after admitting they just killed their mothers, wives and children to quench their thirst - but the church lady is still convinced that this is Godly, and starts abusing her power to decide who gets to live and who doesn't (even though until then she was pretending that God was making the choice). The sheriff - and his son, turned vampire - burn the church, and because the rest of the village has already burnt down, the vampires have nowhere to shelter during the night, and are condemned. The sheriff is shot, and dies while praying with his son on the beach. In the end everybody dies - many humans were killed by thirsty vampires, the few humans resisting ended up getting shot, and all the vampires burnt - except for two teenagers, one of whom was the girl in the wheelchair, who can't feel her legs when all the vampires are dead, but starts smiling, knowing they saved the world. One of the best tv shows I've ever watched! The small clues allowed me to make theories that slowly came true, which was super satisfying. The commentary on organized religion and cults was just amazing. I loved it, 5/5!
A group of monster hunters gather for a hunt, where the winner will be awarded the Bloodstone, a magical artifact providing various magic powers. The Bloodstone is usually passed from heir to heir in the Bloodstone family, but the only descendant, Elsa, has cut ties with her father so she can't inherit it easily when he passes away; instead, she will have to participate to the hunt and fight for her family heirloom. When the hunt begins, it soon appears that Jack, the monster hunter with most kills, is actually here to save the monster, who's his friend! He allies with Elsa to free the monster and give her the stone, but when he grabs the stone to give it to her afterwards, he is paralyzed - a sign that he is himself a monster. The Bloodstone widow puts Elsa and Jack in a cage, and uses the Bloodstone to reveal Jack for what he really is - a werewolf. Jack manages to refrain from attacking Elsa, and instead kills the other monster hunters, the guards and the Bloodstone widow. Elsa gets the stone, and Jack escapes and goes back to his friend. It was a bit weird to watch some Marvel thing completely unrelated to MCU stuff (so far), and on top of that for it to be very different than anything they've done before. It was nice, but not great, 2.5/5.
A group of American researchers stationed in the Antarctica is shocked when some Norwegian researchers from a nearby station pursue and try to kill their dog from an helicopter, ultimately wounding some of the Americans and killing themselves in the process. When checking the Norwegian station, they find it completely empty and destroyed, with some strange carcass having been burnt outside of it. Further North, they find a huge and very ancient spaceship buried in the ice, that the Norwegians were clearly working on excavating. Wondering what happened, they come back to their base, where their dog suddenly transforms into a horrifying monster. They burn him down, but a man with whom he spent some time with is also transforming. The researchers soon realize that this is an extra terrestrial parasite who tries to infect them all, and that if the parasite gets out of this base, it could take over the whole world very quickly. They try to understand who's infected and who's safe, as more and more of them start acting weird, sometimes only from fear. Eventually, as almost everyone is dead, they decide to blow up the whole station to eliminate it. Two men survive, but will die from cold soon enough. At least the world is safe now.
Dani is an American teacher whose fiancé died in an accident moments after she broke up with him. Since then, she can see him every time she looks at mirrors, and she decides to go to the UK to get a change of environment. There, she finds a job as an au pair in charge of two children who lost their parents and their previous au pair, and live in a huge manor. Something strange is going on at the manor but Dani doesn't really understand what. In the end, we realize that a woman who died there centuries ago had been haunting the manor and trapping the souls of everybody dying there along with her. She killed the previous au pair's boyfriend, who in turn killed the previous au pair so they would be together forever. The two ghosts regularly possessed the children, making them behave strangely and even made one of them kill the manor's maid. The maid, unaware that she had died, continued to live on as a ghost for a long time as if everything was normal. When the previous au pair & her boyfriend hatch a plan to possess the children for good, things escalate until the current au pair and one of the kids are almost killed, but the au pair offers her body to the century old ghost and saves them both. Now in love with the gardener, she doesn't know how long she has before the old ghost takes over her. They live together for over 10 years, get a civil union and are happy, but the presence of the ghost becomes too heavy for Dani and she has to go back to the manor to die. Years later, the gardener tells this story to one of the kids as she's about to get married, and the kids have forgotten all about it.
When she was little, Addy saw a girl looking exactly like her, which scared her so much she couldn't speak for weeks afterwards. Now an adult with her own kids, she feels like she's about to meet her double again, when a family shows up in their driveway. At first confused, Addy's family quickly descends into a nightmare as the family starts to attack them, and they all look like them! They manage to kill a few and try to take refuge at their friend's place... only to discover that the friends have been replaced by their own doppelgangers. So they kill those too before trying to run away. They are caught up by Addy's doppelganger Red, who explains that some scientists created the Thetered to try and control people, but it didn't work and they were left to their own devices, living in underground shelters and sewers. After meeting Addy, Red decided to unite the Thetered to go up and kill their counterparts. Inspired by a Hands Across America shirt Addy wore, Red decided to organize the Thetered so that they would hold hands and form a huge line over the country, finally making their presence known. Addy manages to kill Red and escapes with her family. In a final flashback, we see that when she met her alter ego as a child, Red kidnapped her and took her place, which explained why she couldn't speak at first because the Thetered don't know how to speak. In that way, it's actually Red who survived and killed Addy in the end.
Dani, who doesn't know her boyfriend wants to break up with her, is traumatized by the very recent murder-suicide of her sister and parents. When Christian decides to go to Sweden with some friends, he halfheartedly invites her to come with, and she accepts. They go to a small cultish commune where one of their friends grew up, and which is about to celebrate Midsummer. Very quickly, they are shocked as two elder people commit suicide as part of a ceremony, and the friends are torn between wanting to leave and trying to accept that other cultures do things differently. They are told that some friends have left, without having seen them, and more and more of their friends go missing. Dani is crowned May Queen, and her boyfriend is asked if he wants to mate with a girl from the commune - to avoid incest in their small community, they sometimes ask outsiders to join. While Dani is doing her May Queen blessings, Christian is drugged and sleeps with the village girl who put a love spell on him, in a strange ceremony where they are surrounded by other women from the village, all naked and joining in the emotions and sounds of their coupling. Dani sees this and finally lets all her grief out, supported by the village's women who cry and scream with her. Later, when she has to choose between a villager and Christian on whom to sacrifice, she chooses her boyfriend. He is sewn into a bear, and he along the corpses of their friends and two alive villagers, get burnt in a wooden temple. Dani finally smiles.
A man buys a mysterious puzzle box and dies in horrific torture after using it, but is resuscitated when his brother bleeds on the floor of their family house, where he died. His body is barely human though, and he needs blood to rebuild himself, so when his sister in law finds him, he asks for her help. She had an affair with him years ago and it must have been good because she starts killing men for him, even killing her own husband when they start to run out of time. The husband's daughter walks in on them and gets the box and accidentally opens it, but makes a deal with the Cenobites - hellish creatures showing up when the box is open to torture people - to give them back her uncle who escaped from them if they leave her alone. They get the uncle and the wife, and by manipulating the box in certain ways, the daughter is able to get rid of the Cenobites before they get to her. At the end, the house is burning down, but a homeless man gets the puzzle box from the fire before transforming into a dragon skeleton and flying away.
A group of teenagers start to have the same nightmares, all about a man with a burnt face and razor claws. When her friends start to die in their sleep, violently killed by invisible claws, Nancy understands that those were not ordinary dreams. Her mother tells her that Freddy Kruger, the man that Nancy identified as the killer, was a serial killer of children that she and other parents burnt to death years ago. When Nancy is the only one left alive, she takes Freddy's power away by ignoring him and when she wakes up, all her friends are alive again. But when they get to their car, it starts driving on its own as Nancy's mother gets taken by Freddy once more.
Maddie, a deaf and mute woman, lives alone in the countryside. One evening, her neighbour and friend comes knocking at her window, looking scared to death, but despite being very close to said window, Maddie doesn't notice her, and her friend is killed against the window while screaming for help. The killer, realizing that Maddie is deaf, starts to prey on her. The neighbour's boyfriend comes to check the situation but gets killed quickly. After trying to protect herself for a while, Maddie decides to fight back. In the end, her deafness helps her because the killer underestimates how much she's able to perceive with her other senses, and she is able to use her extremely loud fire alarm (made so she can feel the vibrations) against him. She manages to kill him in the end, and survives.
This series is not told chronologically, but this summary will be. The Craig family lived in Hill House for one summer to flip it and resell it, but while they were there, the 5 kids kept complaining about ghosts and scary things. As time passes, the mother seems to lose her mind and the renovation gets more and more difficult, with black mold being discovered in unlikely places, and even an old dead body being found in a wall. One evening, the mother, thinking she's in a dream and needs to die to wake up, decides to poison her kids. The father finds her and prevents it, before taking all the kids away to a motel. When he comes back to find his wife, she's killed herself. Years later, one of the kids keeps seeing the Bent Neck Lady, the ghost she saw most as a kid, and when she goes back to Hill House to try and understand, she enters a fantasy that ultimately makes her hang herself - she was the Bent Neck Lady she saw all along. Trying to deal with the grief of losing a sister, the whole family starts to see more and more ghosts, and they all head to Hill House in search for answers. They each enter fantasies, but the sister saves them all, except the father, who decides to sacrifice himself to save his children and stay with the ghost of his wife.
Left alone for Halloween, DJ spends his time spying on his creepy neighbour Nebbercracker as usual. When his friend Chowder comes by and loses a ball in Nebbercracker's garden, the old man comes out to yell at him before having a heart attack. While he's taken away to the hospital, the two friends investigate the house, but soon discover that it's alive and monstrous. When Nebbercracker comes back from the hospital, he explains that his wife was very afraid of strangers and died in the house, thus... becoming the house. She is becoming too dangerous now, and they all decide to explode her together.
Chris, a Black American man, goes to visit his white girlfriend's family for the first time. He's a bit nervous as it appears that Rose didn't tell her parents that he's Black, but when he arrives they seem very chill with it. Chris is weirded out by the fact that they have Black servants - who act very strangely and... very white - but the father acknowledges that it looks weird and he is appeased. Soon, they have a lot of guests, and things get weird as he recognizes among the guests a Black man who disappeared months ago, and is acting strange as well. As his girlfriend takes him for a walk to try and reassure him that everything is ok, the parents... hold an auction for Chris. Feeling much too uncomfortable, Chris decides to leave, but soon realizes that the whole family - including the girlfriend - is in on this and they capture him, helped by the mother who's a hypnotist. He learns that the man who won the auction will have his brain implanted in Chris's body, Chris's own consciousness being hypnotized away, seeing everything but unable to do anything. Chris understands that that's what happened to the other Black people he met at the parent's house. He manages to escape, killing the whole family and being rescued by his best friend who thought something was off from the start.