In another year of real-life horrors, we turn to the spooky season to relieve some of the toil and trouble. All of these horror movies have a light edge and usually a satisfying ending. Here are a few of my favorites:
Willy’s Wonderland
If you LOVE the concept of the video game Five Nights at Freddy’s (or have just always been pretty creeped out by the electronics at Chuck E. Cheese) this movie is both creepy and hilarious. Nic Cage plays an unnamed man who finds himself stuck in a small town with four flat tires. The local owner of an abandoned children’s restaurant, complete with animatronics, offers the man the car repairs in exchange for cleaning his abandoned restaurant so they can reopen for business. The only problem here is that the restaurant is populated by multiple serial killer-possessed robots. Our unnamed hero will have to fight them to the death (while also trying to save meddling kids from certain doom) and come out the other side. This film is strangely satisfying to watch, but very gory. Nic Cage is at his absolute finest in this film, which is a really weird thing to say.
Camp Wedding
This was a film I was lucky to review back when it came out in 2019. A bride books her wedding venue on Air BnB at an old camp; one with multiple dark secrets. Will she and the wedding party even make it to the big day? The film is funny, makes fun of a ton of horror movie tropes and is delightful. Oh, and watch out for a Teddy Ruxbin that has been appropriated by a cult.
Ready or Not
A young woman marries into a wealthy family, but soon discovers that every new spouse in the family is forced to play a game. That game unfortunately involves a murderous version of hide-and-seek where she could die. The movie is hilarious and is another one that has a strangely satisfying ending.
Suburban Gothic
The unholy trinity of Matthew Gray Gubler, Ray Wise, and Kat Dennings come together in this movie about a cursed house. Ray Wise is the casually racist patriarch of a family that happens to live in a home haunted by a young woman buried in the yard. When his son comes home from life in the city, he discovers that his previous sightings of the supernatural are still a regular occurrence at home. Oh, and there’s a Jon Waters cameo. The movie isn’t fantastic, but it isn’t written to be. Instead, it just emphasizes how weird MGG and Kat Dennings are.
What We Do In The Shadows
This is the movie that ended up spawning the now three season show on FX. Originally created by Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement, the faux documentary follows four vampires and their afterlives in New Zealand.
