Editorials
Cancelling ‘Santa Clarita Diet’ Is Still Netflix’s Biggest Mistake
For fans of the show, the cancellation of Santa Clarita Diet was a gut punch. A show about a listless housewife who suddenly finds herself navigating a second life as a zombie, I remember binging it in the weeks following its cancellation. I was curious what all the outrage was about, as a friend tore into a thirty-minute tirade about how unfair it was the day after the news broke. I expected not to be so upset, to be mildly amused as a blood-splattered sitcom burned away the hours of a few weekends. But when I reached that final cliffhanger episode of season 3, having grown incredibly fond of Sheila Hammond and her family, I realized how much of a colossal screw-up that Netflix had made.
I know that a very large contingent of Horror Press readers are themselves artists. You’re writers and musicians; many of you even make really cool games and artwork, and we love that for you! So, walk with me for a second. Imagine you’re working on your next big project. Each of your last creations were commissioned and very well received. Many people are big fans of what you do. And as you’re about to get started on your next piece…
You come in to find someone, taking everything you use to work on your art away.
Your instruments, your recording equipment, your paints, your computer, whatever it might be. It’s all being taken away from you without any sort of notice. It was there one day and gone the next. That might sound like an exaggeration, but that’s what happened to Victor Fresco, showrunner and creator of the wildly popular Netflix horror-comedy Santa Clarita Diet. He was made aware in the middle of an editing session that personnel had come on behalf of Netflix to tear down the sets and take back equipment vital for shooting the series.
It was over in that instant. Season 4 of Santa Clarita Diet was not happening.
Why the Santa Clarita Diet Cancellation Hurt Horror Fans
For fans of the show, the cancellation of Santa Clarita Diet was a gut punch. A show about a listless housewife who suddenly finds herself navigating a second life as a zombie, I remember binging it in the weeks following its cancellation. I was curious what all the outrage was about, as a friend tore into a thirty-minute tirade about how unfair it was the day after the news broke. I expected not to be so upset, to be mildly amused as a blood-splattered sitcom burned away the hours of a few weekends. But when I reached that final cliffhanger episode of season 3, having grown incredibly fond of Sheila Hammond and her family, I realized how much of a colossal screw-up that Netflix had made.
HOW TO KILL A GREAT TELEVISION SHOW IN THREE PARTS
Is Santa Clarita Diet special in terms of cancellation? No. In reality, television has been a fickle world since the day cathode ray tubes started beaming Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone into the heads of millions of Americans. Editor James-Michael and I have even batted around the concept of a series of articles entirely about mourning the many, many canceled horror television shows that never made it out of their premiere seasons.
But the problem is now more than ever, Netflix at large isn’t just stagnating, it’s regressing. Santa Clarita Diet wasn’t just Netflix’s biggest mistake at the time, it’s emblematic of Netflix’s current and most likely future mistakes; its recurring failure to rework how it operates as a company, and its incessant desire to see the line go up. Because the people in charge have decided progress looks more like a statistical analysis program and less like a human mind. And the kicker of all kickers is, it’s not even that good of a program!
The problems are threefold: how Netflix decides how to make consumers watch, how Netflix decides how to pay the people making its shows, and how Netflix prices its services.
THE MACHINE DECIDES, NOT THE VIEWER
The first issue is easy to understand in a world where social media algorithms have become as advanced as they are; Netflix itself as a streaming platform is faltering in predicting and understanding its user’s preferences.
To many people, Netflix’s user interface is just flat-out bad at finding what you want, so much so that many people resort to using an obscure system of URL codes to find the categories they want. Unless you are the ideal customer who is switching between all the most watched shows on Netflix and strictly hopping from Bridgerton to Great British Bake-Off to Wednesday, the UI doesn’t tailor well to things that don’t fit the mold.
Shows like Santa Clarita Diet were the definition of bursting out of the mold with its odd sense of humor, bloody special effects, and the bizarre overarching lore of the series. It combined a sitcom with a plot involving ancient orders, brain spiders, and an ever-expanding cover-up that brings the Hammond family together closer than they ever expected. It was really cute while never sacrificing its oddities to make itself more consumable, and driven by some great performances from leads Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant.
Odd, off-kilter shows that the site doesn’t fit to mass appeal just don’t make it far on the front page of the site. They just aren’t offered as often as other programming, and it’s a funny Catch-22 in that way. If the show isn’t served up to viewers by the algorithm, it can’t find an audience. And if it can’t find an audience, the show isn’t served to viewers by the algorithm. Netflix is letting machines, not humans, decide what humans want to watch. While some algorithms are incredibly impressive, it’s clear that Netflix’s is rudimentary and harmful to the company’s existence.
Netflix’s Contractual Pitfalls Stifle Horror Creativity
Then there is of course what happens to these shows on the backend, the contractual agreements made, and how Netflix pays showrunners and doles out those big budgets.
Fresco explained in interviews following Santa Clarita Diet’s cancellation that the vast majority of contracts are terminated early because, Netflix’s contracts indicate that if a show gets renewed for a fourth season, the payment for the cast and crew generally gets significant increases. The budgets get bigger, and consequently, the stakes get higher for Netflix, who expect to make a massive return on investment.
This generally tracks when you look at all the Netflix horror originals that have bitten the dust. Podcast turned moody atmospheric sci-fi horror Archive 81, and the French gothic supernatural horror Marianne were killed in their first seasons despite showrunners having big plans for them. The Bill Skarsgård led Hemlock Grove was quashed by its third season, and it eventually was wiped entirely from Netflix. And if you really want to push the definition of horror (I do, always), Warrior Nun died on the vine two seasons in, and that was essentially a fantasy horror show about demon hunters. As did The Dark Crystal: Resistance, whose gateway horror and puppetry was simply too cool to live past a first season.
Of course, these were legitimately less known shows for most audiences; but Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which was struck down in its second season, wasn’t. Neither was the very popular Slasher, which in what may be the strongest case for the season 4 death-wall, was popular enough to find a new home on Shudder for its 4th and 5th seasons. But not popular enough for Netflix’s tastes. Because Netflix wants massive hits, and massive hits only.
Stranger Things Sets an Unreachable Bar for Horror
The horror elephant in the room I haven’t mentioned so far is Stranger Things, a show the success of which might actually have been the death knell for most other horror shows to find a long-form home on Netflix. Miniseries like Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass and The Fall of the House of Usher which are limited releases will generally always have a place on Netflix because they are contained to one season, and generally low risk; same goes for the oft forgotten but really weird and really fun show Brand New Cherry Flavor.
But any hopes for more ambitious horror, serialized and ongoing horror stories, won’t make it. Because they’re up against the likes of Stranger Things, a five-season sensation known the world across. That kind of success is the benchmark, it’s the only way creatives can ensure any work they do with Netflix doesn’t go the way of Hemlock Grove and ends up completely erased from the library of shows.
It’s not sink or swim anymore, its fly out of the water or plummet to the bottom of the ocean.
Is NetFlix Even Worth It For Horror Fans Anymore?
That brings me to my final point about Netflix’s continual failure to deliver media many people would be interested in: when you look at the price versus the perceived value, it’s simply not worth having anymore for many people. In a cost-of-living crisis where entertainment is the first thing people are chomping at the bit to axe from their budgets, and in a world where you can find yourself an hour of cheap thrills for free by scouring the net, Netflix seems to be really excited to cut people off from itself by regularly raising prices and getting rid of content.
If you really look at the platforms that are catering to horror television in particular, you find places like Showtime and AMC; which of course includes its subsidiary and Horror Press mainstay, Shudder. Yellowjackets, Interview with a Vampire, the Dexter revival series like New Blood & Original Sin, Boulet Brothers Dragula, and a score of other shows that in yesteryear might have had a home on Netflix are now spread thin across many different platforms.
The Future of Horror on Netflix Looks Bleak
Netflix used to be a Swiss army knife that could cater to the tastes of a lot of different people. And I’m not going to lie and say Netflix is doomed, but I will say it doesn’t feel the same at all, and I definitely don’t have high hopes for good out-there media to survive on it. Now especially, in its eternal and all-consuming quest to have the next Squid Game or Stranger Things grow organically on its platform, it’s made a synthetic nightmare landscape engineered to give audiences something to like rather than figuring out what they actually do like.
Santa Clarita Diet wasn’t the only show to suffer from this change, but it’ll always be the show that convinced me of it; it’ll forever be the one in my heart that made me wake up and walk away from it.
People hate It: Chapter Two. Unlike many horror sequels or poorly reviewed releases that gain popularity in time, the film has seemingly gained more notoriety. Maybe it’s the occasionally goofy CGI, the heavy comedy, or just how overstuffed it is, but everyone is really down and out on it. Still, though, I will defend this movie like a member of the Losers Club defending their Ka-Tet (deep-cut King reference for you constant readers).
But why, though? Objectively, the movie can feel overstuffed. The CGI is a little goofy. Well, despite all this, I believe It: Chapter Two captures the pure essence of the book. It captures the heart, the terror, and metaphors about small town America excellently…even better than the first one.
It: Chapter Two Is the Ultimate Stephen King Movie
Listen…I am a simple man. If you have this much pure Stephen King energy in a movie, I am going to love it. Why King fans did not grasp onto this movie, I do not know, because it is probably the most “Stephen King” Stephen King movie ever.
We have the small, Maine town and characters from the book, yes, but also a fantastic cameo from the big man himself. Seriously, this movie is like Avengers: Endgame for constant readers (even though Castle Rock is technically more of a crossover). The movie has the heart, small-town summer feeling, and aesthetics for a King film to the max. Whether that is a positive or negative depends on the viewer, but constant readers can relish in how set the movie is on capturing King’s Americana.
It: Chapter Two Understands the Stephen King Novel
Yes, the movie is sillier than the first installment. It’s technically less proficient and cleaner than its predecessor. Still, this movie just generally captures both the message and energy of the book. Don’t get me wrong, It (2017) is excellent in that it feels like a haunted house walkthrough. There are lots of different entities Pennywise dresses up as to attack. It’s colorful, fun…but it takes a lot of liberties. This is fine, but It: Chapter 2 painstakingly portrays the deeper undercurrents and plot beats of the novel.
The Horror Beneath It: Chapter Two
It has always been a story about the darkness behind America’s suburban facade. Behind all of the killer clown and creature feature/cosmic fun, it is about how America’s past will always linger, and is always darker than any fictional entity. It: Chapter 2 does not shy away from its portrayal of bigotry, or its bigger messages about racism and America’s past. The first one has elements of it, but really, Chapter 2 feels like it peels back the kid’s-on-bikes stuff to get to the nitty-gritty of the story.
Additionally, the movie gets the casting down perfectly. Not saying It did not have some of the best child performances ever, but finding not only worthy adult counterparts, but book-accurate players would have to be an arduous task. Huge shout-out to the casting team for absolutely nailing this.
Bill Skarsgård Makes Pennywise Even Scarier
The whole cast blows this movie out of the water, but Pennywise in this one steals the show. Skarsgard is rarely anything less than excellent, but he gets his true horror laurel here. He plays the role as sinister as possible, landing some humor but never letting it weigh down the fear factor.
He is a force to be reckoned with. When making something like a killer clown movie in contemporary times, you have to be really careful not to make it just straight-up silly. Art the Clown is, of course, pure nightmare-fuel, but when approaching the horror big top, it can unintentionally end up feeling like a mismarketed Goosebumps episode.
This, though, is not a case like that. Pennywise is nightmarish in this. His voice is more sinister, and he reads as a predatory cosmic entity, and not just another slasher villain. Fun and frightening, Pennywise pulls no punches in bringing the horror in Chapter 2.
It’s not unreasonable to think most American horror fans can probably name only one Mexican horror filmmaker: Guillermo del Toro. Given how many fantastic films he’s made and how successful so many of them have been, it’s easy to see how he became a household name, but he’s far from the only Mexican filmmaker with a taste for the macabre. Rubén Galindo Jr. may be a major telenovela producer now, but in the 1980s he wrote and directed independent genre films in Mexico that likely influenced the kind of filmmaker del Toro would become. Galindo Jr. isn’t some obscure figure in Mexican entertainment, but he’s also not as widely known as he should be in horror circles, despite having many of his genre films available from Vinegar Syndrome.
In celebration of Latin Heritage Month, I wanted to shed a light on Galindo Jr.’s films not just because they are a lot of fun, but also because of how underseen they still are. Galindo Jr.’s early films mark a complete departure from the work he does now, so much so that you’d think it’s different people, but his early career genre films were important and part of a familial legacy of both the Galindos and the Cardonas (the royal families of Mexican genre films).
The Galindo Family Legacy in Mexican Horror
Rubén Galindo Jr., as his name suggests, is the son of Mexican filmmaker Rubén Galindo Aguilar. He first entered the film industry as an actor, but joined his family’s production studio to take on a myriad of roles like set designer, accountant, purchasing manager, and more. His directorial debut in 1969 was for a comedy, Un Amante Anda Suelto, and was the first of 47 films he would direct. While his focus wasn’t explicitly horror, he did direct a couple of films starring Luchador and actor Santo, as well as many Mexican westerns before focusing more on distribution in the 1980s. Coincidentally, around the time his young son, Galindo Jr., would begin his own filmmaking career.
Rubén Galindo Jr.’s Journey Into Mexican Genre Cinema
Galindo Jr. began his filmmaking career by leaving his hometown of Mexico City to attend UCLA, only to return to CDMX in 1983 after graduating with a degree in Film and Television Arts & Sciences. His first film, Cementerio Del Terror, was a huge hit despite being a modest production, and it was the first of many independent horror films Galindo Jr. would take on. While his legacy won’t be built upon the work he did in genre, it certainly started there and evolved beyond the underground and into the mainstream over time.
Cementerio Del Terror (1985): Rubén Galindo Jr.’s Horror Debut
Galindo Jr.’s first film is by far one of his most uneven, but in the same vein, also one of the most entertaining. It starts like so many great horror flicks do: on Halloween, as a group of kids decides to steal a body from the morgue, only to disrupt the ghoulish ghost of a serial killer. While graverobbing isn’t exactly the kind of thing many do for fun, this particular endeavor is in service of a satanic ritual that will go awry, thus leading to all kinds of bloodshed and demonic appearances. There’s a sub-plot involving some premonitions of the killer returning from the dead that go ignored, reasonably so, and where things land is your standard house/cemetery of horrors where the kids are met with all kinds of devious and dastardly demons.
The Horror Influences Behind Cementerio del Terror
With a reported budget of 45-65 million pesos (roughly $275,000-$540,000 US dollars), filming started in 1984, and Galindo Jr. was able to wrangle in well-known Mexican actor Hugo Stiglitz to star in the production. The film was a huge success for Galindo Jr., even if it wasn’t well-received by critics at the time. Galindo Jr.’s influences are apparent in terms of both content and style, as he clearly draws inspiration from John Carpenter’s Halloween and Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead. There’s also a heavy helping of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, even if the ghouls at play here aren’t the zombified kind. It’s truly a smorgasbord kind of horror film that never fully commits to one idea, but knows how to weave them together well enough to be entertaining.
The practical effects may seem ropey by today’s standards, but context and time would dictate that these are quite good considering the circumstances and how much of a trailblazer Galindo Jr. was for making this kind of film at this time in Mexico.
Time has been far kinder to this film than critics were, as it averages a 3.0 on Letterboxd and is the recipient of a now sold-out edition from Vinegar Syndrome. In terms of ranking, this is probably B-Tier for Galindo Jr., which is impressive for a debut feature regardless!
Dimensiones Ocultas (Don’t Panic) and Its Influence
Perhaps the best-known of Galindo Jr.’s early genre films, Don’t Panic is without a doubt his best horror effort, and his most derivative. If Cementerio del Terror was riffing on two horror classics, Dimensiones Ocultas riffs on another. This time, it’s Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street. Following very similar story beats, we follow Michael, who, on his 17th birthday, uses a Ouija board with his friends and accidentally unleashes a demon. This demon isn’t your ordinary run-of-the-mill possession type; no, this demon haunts you in your dreams! Michael sees these murders before they happen and tries to warn his friends, to no avail.
Why Don’t Panic Remains a Mexican Horror Cult Favorite
There’s a lot to love about Dimensiones Ocultas, and it’s not hard to see why it has become Galindo Jr.’s most notable genre film. From the strange kid-print adult-sized pajamas that Michael wears to the incoherent plotting, it’s not a film that’s going to appeal to those who prefer tight technical filmmaking and single-threaded plot lines. The characters are hard to take seriously, in part because so many of the voices are dubbed, and if this all sounds like reasons not to like this film, you’re sorely mistaken.
The Elm Street influence is endearing in how sloppily it is transcribed here, but it’s also distinct enough to not feel like a complete rip-off. The demon, Virgil, doesn’t really look like Freddy, but if you squint your eyes after a few drinks, you’d probably not be able to tell the difference. The death scenes are creative and at the same time comedic, so it’s not a film that is easy to take seriously, which is a good thing.
While there are no budgetary numbers that are verifiable, Dimensiones Ocultas shows more ambition in terms of effects and ideas than Cementerio, while not really showing much evolution in terms of screenwriting. Galindo Jr. does have better command of the pacing here, and this too has received the amazing Vinegar Syndrome treatment like Cementerio, but is also sadly out of print. A-Tier Galindo Jr.
Ladrones de Tumbas (1989) A Unique Mexican Slasher
Shortly after Dimensiones Ocultas, Galindo Jr. was back at it, directing his third horror feature, Ladrones de Tumbas. Learning a bit from both of his former features, Ladrones feels far more consistent both in terms of plotting and execution. It does tread familiar ground that harkens back to Cementerio, as a group of teenage treasure hunters unknowingly awaken a malevolent entity hell-bent (literally) on bringing forth the spawn of Satan. The spirit systematically takes out the teens one by one in clever, slasher-centric ways, and while it does feel familiar, it’s never repeating the same stuff seen in earlier Galindo Jr. joints. The effects feel far more accomplished, and the story is much easier to follow, all things considered.
The Forgotten History of Mexican Horror Filmmakers
There’s even less information about this film’s production out there, which is more of a reminder that there is still a woeful lack of study around Mexican horror filmmakers that has penetrated the mainstream. Even in preparing for this article, it’s quite difficult to find trusted sources- hell, any sources besides Wikipedia and IMDb. What we do know happens after Ladrones is that Galindo Jr. would begin his distinction from horror and start making his way West to more dramatic and widely accepted fare. There is one more film that Galindo Jr. would helm for horror, possibly two if you consider Resucitaré Para Matarlos in 1991, before making his big pivot. And you guessed it: the Vinegar Syndrome release of Ladrones is very much out of print. S-Tier Galindo Jr.
Mutantes Del Año 2000 (1992) Rubén Galindo Jr.’s Sci-Fi Horror Experiment
Mutantes del Año 2000 is easily the worst of Galindo Jr.’s genre efforts, and it’s largely because it’s kind of a silly premise. It’s a story about a teacher going through an ugly divorce during a time in the future where pollution is so bad that everyone wears gas masks, and an ex-husband who has been dumping nuclear waste behind the house, mutating the local rodent population. When a giant mutated rat enters the home, the teacher must fight it to stay alive while she’s warding off both the rat and her ex, who wants to keep his nuclear secret. It’s absurd, and it almost feels like Galindo Jr.’s first foray into the more dramatic side of storytelling.
Not only is this one a bit of a slog to get through, but it also loses some of the fun and charm that Galindo Jr.’s previous films exhibited. While the story is a bit more concise and clear, a positive, the delivery leaves a lot to be desired, even if the world-building is somewhat interesting. It’s hard to know, at least without further research or speaking to Galindo Jr. directly, what caused him to fall out of love with genre, but his lack of conviction is apparent here. You can’t fault someone for wanting a change, but I would be remiss not to wonder what it would’ve been like if Galindo Jr. kept refining his abilities for the sake of scares.
Why Rubén Galindo Jr.’s Mexican Horror Films Deserve More Attention
One of the most challenging parts of writing this kind of article is not having enough sources to tell a fully holistic story. Part of this is due to time, as one can only watch so many special features in such a time, but also that there simply aren’t as many primary sources for Mexican horror history and the filmmakers that contributed to it. The fact that so many can’t name more than one Mexican filmmaker says a lot about the lack of information out there, and so if you’re a filmmaker seeking a new topic for a genre documentary, consider Mexican horror. Not only is it fertile ground, but it’s also got a lineage of talent that is still alive to talk about what it was like, something we are reminded of weekly as announcements of deceased horror stars come across our news feeds.
Rubén Galindo Jr. is just one of many who have made their mark on horror in Mexico, and selfishly, I would love to know more about this than what is available. Running a website and working full-time doesn’t leave a lot of time for much else, but it’s important to both remember and celebrate the legacies of those who came before as trailblazers who are just as worthy of our praise as those who become household names.
For more of Matt Orozco’s work, along with many other great horror articles, head on over to Macabre Daily!
