Creepy Carousel

Scary Stuff Reviews

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Movie: Don’t Log Off 2025

Streaming on Tubi

Synopsis: Katy organizes a Zoom surprise party for the birthday of her roommate, Sam. Since it’s 2020 and quarantine time, Katy is bubbling at her parent’s house, her friends are all quarantined at home, and Sam is logging on from her parent’s house. But pretty quickly into the party Sam goes missing from the screen and the group has to remotely band together to figure out where she actually is and how to help her. As more information is uncovered, more friends go missing in the investigation.

Review: Ok, I liked this. I thought the characters were all very well fleshed out and the actors carried them well. If you’re a fan of the video game The Quarry you’ll recognize Abigail as Annie, which was fun for me to see! This is a found footage style movie, where we are seeing everything unfold through Katy’s screen with her video chats, text messages, and emails. I thought the execution was great and kept me glued to the screen. I also appreciated that there were moments that the screen and audio would cut out when people were accessing the Zoom call through their cellphones while investigating. It felt immersive and thorough. I went into this movie with the bar in hell, which is normal for me with found footage movies. I love found footage movies and don’t need them to be high quality to love them, but this one felt really well done. The potential plot hole that I identified early on was even filled in with one line (more on that in the spoiler section). There was one part that was so cheesy that it spiked my lactose intolerance but I’ll forgive it considering the merits of the rest of the movie.

Spoilers, 🐝🐝

I was very curious how the abduction and murder that happened in the very beginning would tie into this cat and mouse game of the Zoom party. I was worried they’d say it was the same killer but we just weren’t privy to him playing a similar cat and mouse game with the first woman. Instead, when Katy confronts the killer with knowing about his previous murder he confirms it saying that it was too easy and he wanted to do something more fun. Which then made me wonder how he knew Sam was having a surprise party, considering Sam didn’t know she was having a surprise party. Was Justin just at her and Katy’s apartment, breaking quarantine to bang and maybe kill, and found this as an unexpected opportunity?

After the third friend went to Katy and Sam’s apartment to look for Sam, I was bored of how repetitive it was. First Sam is missing and sets off the series of events. Then Jake goes to investigate, gets attacked on screen, and goes missing, making people assume this is a prank. Then Becca goes to find them both, gets attacked on screen, and everyone now thinks it’s a three person prank. And it’s not until Annie goes and gets attacked while on screen that they believe bad stuff is happening. Katy is melting down from the beginning, which I liked because at least someone had sense. And Brian quickly starts looking into the video footage and audio from the party to try to figure out how real things are. I’m glad there was a variety in responses to the on screen events so that it didn’t demean the viewer’s awareness of everything. But I think there could have been more deviation of events when each person goes missing.

The ending was hilarious to me. I don’t think the actor who played the killer was very good. When he shuts himself and Katy into the apartment his acting pales in comparison to Katy’s desperate attempt to talk him down. I also thought it was hilarious that Katy tried to play therapist with him and kept saying, ‘we’ll leave you alone,’ while the killer kept saying how he doesn’t want to be alone. That whole scene could have been skipped and went from seeing him locking them in to seeing the group locked out reacting to Katy screaming in anger and fear with a lot of crashing sounds then sirens. Keep the opening of the email with the news page but include a picture of Katy in the hospital as a survivor of the attack. At the very end when everyone gets together for a birthday re-do someone asks how Katy is healing up and she says something like, ‘ah, it’s just a flesh wound,’ while her arm is in a sling or something. Something to show that he still attacked her and she fought him off, getting some injuries, until the police arrived.

And finally, with how Katy was looking at Sam at the end, I was expecting a kiss there. Let them have their moment! Maybe Adam chiming in with a, ‘and they were roommates.’ Come on, after all of that I need Sam to date someone she can trust and who better than Katy?

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Movie: Frazier Park 2017

Streaming on Tubi

Synopsis: Friends Sam and Tyler decide to rent a cabin to film their found footage horror movie before Sam moves away to live with his long distance girlfriend. They are filming both the movie itself and a behind the scenes documentary about making their movie, so we see the uncut combination of footage. They hire an actor, Tom, to round out their line up for the film and the three set out to a rental cabin. Once they arrive, it’s revealed to the viewer that Tom has plans for his own movie, and Sam and Tyler are his pawns.

Review: Despite it being just over an hour, they do pack a punch with this movie. From the moment Tom stealthily picks up the camera to start filming his own style of movie, the tension immediately amps up. It’s a super low budget film and there’s a very big red flag I’ll talk about in spoilers, but overall it really held my attention. Seeing Sam and Tyler bicker thanks to the seeds out doubt Tom sows was interesting to me and I found their acting to be believable. Tom is amazing. There’s two scenes in my brain that gave me goosebumps, Tom was so effin creepy. Not much gore and I don’t recall any cheap jump scares, so I think it would be good for people who are scared of being scared.

Spoiler time

The part that red flagged for me was when the rental listing host clarified that, while there’s no neighbors, the cabin is still about a half mile from town. This made many points difficult for me to suspend my disbelief about. Like when Tyler heads to town to get food and Tom has his scenes with attacking Sam, setting up the camera, and monologue. Or when it’s such a huge deal that the fridge was unplugged and the food went bad. Or that Tom kills Sam outside right in front of the house. Or Tom going for a walk and being missing for hours. There’s so many times that it’s implied that the house is remote and everything is far away, but I’m well aware of how close a half mile is. The distance could have easily just never been mentioned and left our minds to assume that they’re hours away from the next store or house.

I also wish the very end, when Tom wraps up ‘his’ movie, that he had done that immediately after killing Tyler. It would have been more impactful if he was still at the cabin, in costume, bloodied, and not cleaned up with that hat on. I hated the hat. Don’t talk to me about the hat. But the credits where Tom lists himself for every single credit was a nice touch.

They did a great job hammering home how annoying Sam and Jen are. Who FaceTimes on an iPad? Who leaves their phone ringer on (at all but especially while filming a movie)? This was low hanging fruit for Tom to make Sam upset and start fights about. And it worked on me. I was so annoyed every time Sam’s phone rang and wanted to throw the iPad away, myself.

Anyway, I’m off to look up the actor who played Tom and watch everything else he’s been in. His acting was so good.

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Movie: Behind The Sightings 2021

Streaming on Tubi

Synopsis: When Todd and Jessica decide their documentary topic will be the 2016 clown sightings and how they’ve continued in rural areas, they set out to visit a small town where the sightings are many, but the proof is zero. Despite many people claiming to have seen or been stalked by clowns in this town, there’s not a single photo or video to prove it. The two visit the town and speak to various people about the clowns, finding that there seems to be a specific area in the woods that they gather. They also speak to a… clown expert about this. The clown expert reveals that there’s mischievous clowns who like their antics to be caught on camera, and evil clowns who operate in secrecy. He says that these forest clowns are evil and not to be tainted. But of course Todd and Jessica head out to the woods for the fright of their lives.

Review: It’s a pretty silly found footage film with poor acting, poor script, and repetitive scares. I liked the concept and found it a fun watch that didn’t disappoint. I liked the settings and the scares, the clowns appeared to be having a good time and that made me have a good time. Do I recommend it? Yes, especially if you enjoy a low budget horror and were enthralled by the 2016 clown sightings.

Spoilers ahead

I wish there was more fleshed out about the clowns. Are they humans with a taste for blood? Are they other worldly? The expert made them sound like their own entities and I really wish the movie had leaned more into that. But I will concede that they’re probably just a group of murderous humans who dress as clowns to have fun with their victims and hide their identities. It was also pretty obvious, though fun, that Todd lost his wallet while being hunted in the woods because I knew we’d be making it out of the woods and back to their home. The clown doll on their doorstep with his wallet inside it was a nice touch, but forced the clowns out of the forest and into hunting grounds they don’t have control over, which presented a plot hole to me. And the first interviewee that they meet with, the woman who was abducted by them ON CAMERA (which goes against the whole premise of why this town was special) A. Doesn’t get killed by them and B. Later calls the couple to lure them back to the creepy farmhouse to be hunted by clowns. So is she part of the clown club? Was her abduction solely to have her call the couple to lure them out? I wish they hadn’t included the gas station footage of her kidnapping and instead had one of the clowns at the farmhouse do or say something that tipped the viewer off that it was that interviewee. This would have implied that she was always an evil clown and she initially contacted Todd about her run in with the clowns at a park as a way to lure the filmmakers out to silence them before they dug up too much about the killer clown operation they were running in the rural town.

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Movie: Dead Residence 2019

Streaming on Tubi

Synopsis: When Patrick and Debbie randomly decide to flip a house, they buy the first one they see. Despite the house being FULLY recorded by security cameras, which they discuss, the couple never check them when the least weird things happen in the house (like a sandwich goes missing). It’s so hard to write a synopsis for this because it was lacking plot.

Review: This movie was super poorly done. There’s no reason for why the couple video themselves full time, the acting is terrible and the main characters have zero chemistry but definitely force scenes like they do. The couple decide they want to start flipping houses, see one house on a home buying page, call immediately to view it, ask no common home buying questions, and seem to accidentally buy a home. I don’t need horror movies to feel realistic but just falling into buying your first house for flipping is such an unrealistic plot. And the house was listed at 50,000$ USD? There is zero tension, no sound design, and no storyline. I wish I could unwatch it. The two main characters have sex so often in this movie that it seems like the script writer used it as a way to convey that they’re in a relationship.

Now for the spoilers

Their use of the inside security cameras cycling through different rooms in order to show the intruder in their bedroom was poorly executed. Because the intruder never did anything but watch the couple and… sniff Debbie’s feet (?), what could have been a good tension build was wasted.

When Debbie finds her sandwich missing and the chips open, it reads as so unnatural and out of order. She stood in a pile of chips on the floor but didn’t react to them whatsoever or even acknowledge it until after she finds her sandwich missing. When Patrick keeps trying to convince her she forgot she’d finished her sandwich, she just keeps repeating, ‘you know I don’t eat that much,’ when it would have made more sense for her to argue that she knows what she ate.

Every time Patrick is faced with a strange thing, especially when they finally review the thumb drive two days after finding it, he acts so oblivious that it took me out of the story even more. His reactions are consistently so immature and dismissive of Debbie.

And I have to bring up the scene when the neighbors came over, blew smoke into the house as soon as Debbie opened the door, balked that Patrick is Black, then are never heard from in the movie again. I assume it’s supposed to be a misdirection to make the viewer think it’s the neighbors who are breaking in, but it’s poorly done and unnecessary.

In their final days, they attempt to call Bill, the realtor who sold them the house, three times as their concern over their safety rose. BUT THEY NEVER CHECK THE CAMERAS. Just keep trying to call Bill about the history of the house. During the walk through, they make a big deal about being able to check the cameras from their phones, but never use them.

How is Bill selling this house over and over again without being found out? Does he own the house and is legally selling it to these people? But then how is he able to sell the home again once he’s killed the owners he sold it to? Is there no actual sale? He’s somehow faking inspections, loan paperwork, etc? Is he relying on people being naive enough about home buying that they won’t notice when there’s no notary for the final paperwork?

Bill ends Debbie’s life by shooting her, no silencing attempts are made, so how in the world are we shown him meeting with new buyers of the house in the next scene? None of the neighbors, who are immediately next door, heard that? None of the neighbors notice that Bill is selling the house like once a week and sneaking into the house every night? The neighbors noticed and acted on Patrick and Debbie moving in, which tells me they’re likely to notice and act on other weird stuff going on there. Like the house being sold to people all of the time? Why wouldn’t the writer have the couple doing a rental property where the barrier to get into the house is way lower, so fewer plot holes? Why would Bill have ordered himself a personal pan pizza to the house on Patrick and Debbie’s movie in day? Despite being in the attic, he didn’t know they were right below him?

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Movie: We Summon The Darkness (2019)

Streaming on Tubi

Spoilers ahead

Synopsis: In 1988, three young women set out for a metal show. During this time, the news is overwhelmed with reports of Satanic murders all across the nation. The girls arrive at the show, connect with three guys, and after the show they head back to the home of one of the girls. The night quickly takes a dangerous turn when they find themselves fighting to survive the night.

Review: It rode the line between comedy and horror, but didn’t do a good job of either. While the premise of the movie was fairly unique and interesting, the characters were very one dimensional, the script was lacking, and there were only very brief moments of lighting and sound pulling me in. Overall, a snoozer for me. But probably a great, low tension, low gore movie to get introduced into scary movies!

Next stop: spoiler town

It felt like the script and acting never committed. It almost appears like Val and Alexis are more excited about murder itself than they are convinced of it being an act of worship. But they don’t really lean into that enough and instead toe the line between ‘it’s for god’ and ‘I just have bloodlust’ which makes neither concept feel fleshed out. When Beverly turns on the girls to try to stop the murders, her character lacks any emotional response to having to stop her church friends by committing her own violent acts against them. Additionally, I’m left unsatisfied by not getting information on why she was attending this murder if she wasn’t brainwashed. The only character that I felt was fully grasped by the actor was Kovacs, but his character went from drunk horn dog to dying. When the Pastor, Johnny Knoxville, comes on the scene is when I was the most creeped out. He owns the scenes with his quiet menace. I’m glad I watched this movie but I’m so incredibly disappointed by how poorly executed this plot was. I hope it gets remade in the style of John Waters, really camp it up and make it a cult classic.

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Movie: The Lonely Ones (2024)

Currently streaming on Tubi

CW: grief, isolation, death, two jump scares

Spoilers ahead

Synopsis: Sam and JP wake up one morning to find the world outside their front door has gone completely dark. As in, there is no world outside their front door, only darkness.

Throughout the course of this movie, we experience flashbacks of Sam with her now late father. In the present, PJ and Sam struggle through both the uncertainty of their current isolation and their inability to connect with one another whatsoever. As the instability of their relationship becomes more obvious, we find the core of this was due to Sam’s grief. The silence of the world around them, the pervasive darkness, the depths of their personal loneliness, this is the bulk of the tension building. There are moments that show that they’re not truly alone, but what are they sharing this world with? In the last 15 minutes we, the viewer, experience the only visual horror which is immediately followed by a surprising development in their living space and their interactions with one another.

Review:

I found this to be such a slow burn that it never actually became an ember. I think it was miscategorized as horror and thriller. Is there a category for creepy introspective films?

This was beautifully shot and the soundscape was subtle yet powerful. The lighting did a ton of the heavy lifting with making it unsettling. And the acting, holy cow. The acting was so good that I HATED the main characters, which is definitely the point.

Now, here are some questions that I don’t believe act as spoilers. How much food did they have on hand that this never came up in conversation? How were they still getting electric and water? Are they still on some sort of power grid while floating in space? What’s up with Sam’s fish dream?

And spoiler territory has been reached

This movie is a metaphor for how grief isolates you and those you’re closest to. When Sam’s dad died her grief hit her marriage hard, resulting in both her and JP turning on one another and their communication breaking down. The world going dark is an analogy for their lives falling into the black hole of avoided grief and their imploding marriage. Throughout the movie there are sounds and knocks that they both can hear, but plenty of instances that only Sam can directly experience while JP either gets frustrated with her or comforts her, depending on where it lands in the movie. This is a parallel for grief, since there’s only so much of it that others can empathize with while much of grief is deeply personal and unable to be witnessed by those around us.

Early on in the movie, Sam’s anxieties seem like hyper vigilance but as the movie progresses we start to see that her anxieties are justified. That her fears are a reflection of experiences JP can’t share and that we can’t fully witness as the viewer. Again, exactly like grief.

It’s not until they stop avoiding their true feelings (by taking jabs at one another constantly) and have a very transparent conversation about the aftermath of Sam’s dad’s death that we have a truly scary experience that only Sam sees and JP is trying to comfort her while unable to understand what she’s going through. Wow, grief. Followed by the ceiling opening up to a view of the universe. Sam sobs and gets a sweet flashback montage of her father, showing her coming to terms with her grief and looking at her feelings head on. Then they wake up the next morning to find day light for the first time in days, they open their front door to that their apartment main hallway has retuned. This says to me that once you confront your grief, you can learn to live again.

Spoilers are done now

I found the horror to be lacking, the tension to not have enough pay off, the one scare we got was a jump scare, and the grief analogy was too heavy handed for me. I was so bored that when I paused it half way through, I almost turned it off entirely. I was so annoyed that I time checked when the only scary scene happened, just to learn that the only scary stuff happened within that last 15 minutes. I appreciate weird, liminal slow burns, but this didn’t go quite hard enough for me to be invested. Coherence is one of my favorite movies, I think I can be pretty patient!

All that said: I think a lot of people will love this movie and appreciate the cinematography and scenes. I think it’s worth the watch, despite it not being for me.

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Podcast: The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings and Odd Goings On

Episode: Lot 130, The Watcher

CW: imprisonment, surveillance

Spoilers ahead

Synopsis: We play the part of a shopper at the Antiquarium, the shop keeper is presenting us with an oil painting of a well. Along with the painting, he tells us the story of how it came to be.

The story follows Thomas as he responds to a job posting, interviews, is accepted, and what the job entails. He goes to a location 7 days a week for 6 hour long shifts, leaves all of his personal belongings in a locker, changes into a provided uniform, and watches a surveillance camera of a woman. He never sees another person in person, only this woman and, intermittently, the men who come in to forcibly remove her from the room. Thomas is tasked with hitting a green button to take note of odd events and hitting a green button to alert of an emergency. He watches this woman for years.

He notices that the woman, who he calls Rachel, starts painting more frequently but she never does so in an area where he can see the painting itself. One day, she turns four paintings towards the camera, showing 4 scenes with abstract line work in them. The line work subtly reveals a plea for help, and Thomas’s name.

He now is faced with a decision to make: potentially put himself at risk with his mysterious employers whom he still knows nothing about, or attempt to help this woman who he also knows nothing about.

He decides to try to help ‘Rachel.’ One evening after work, he stakes out the office he works surveillance from in hopes of finally seeing another employee. He sees a man enter the building, so Thomas waits hours until the man exits and approaches him at his car. Charles, a surveillance employee of a decade, warns him to keep his head down and not ask questions if he’d like to stay alive. Defeated, Thomas heads back home, forming a plan to sneak his cell phone into the surveillance room to capture evidence he can use to whistle blow this operation. As he unlocks his front door, someone comes up behind him. ‘Rachel’ is there, cool, calm, and collected, introducing herself as Melanie.

And that’s the fucking end of part one.

The Antiquarium included a voicemail portion of they receive recordings from viewers, this time someone calls in that they bought a lantern. This lantern casts shadows of truly disturbing monsters and never shuts off, as the monsters get closer, the caller ends the voicemail with a cut off scream.

Now let’s talk review, 🐝🐝.

Review: I have loved the storytelling of this podcast for years. It lingers on the right aspects, like the narrator’s thoughts and feelings, while spending zero time on the aspects I don’t care about, like specifics about appearances. For the episodes usually being about 30 min, they really shove a lot of storyline into a short time frame. The voice acting is dynamic, the sound design is immersive, and I always find myself lost in the episodes. I started this episode assuming it was going to be a living anomaly game, like that the stuff Thomas saw on screen would become uncanny valley style and twist his mind. It being an imprisonment and surveillance story was less interesting for me and more of a slow burn, so I’m hoping part two will hold my attention better. I found that there was too much acceptance of the weirdness of the job and it soon me out of how off putting this job would be in reality. Because if it was me, getting paid 35 dollars an hour, zero benefits, 7 day a week work, and not being allowed to bring personal items in- including food- raises enough red flags, but add to that watching an imprisoned woman everyday for years? I wish Thomas worried about this more, though the narrator did specifically talk about how he avoided thinking too much about it. I did find it interesting that this story goes into the debate of, ‘would you put yourself at risk for the life of one stranger?’