This month’s It Came From Shudder fare is half trashy tricks and half classy treats, as we delve into mayhem-loving vampires, syrupy slashers, and the animals lurking in (and out) of the woods.
The Best Movies to Stream on Shudder This Month
SKULL: THE MASK
A mask channeling the Pre-Colombian executioner god Anhangá latches onto a crime scene cleaner in modern day Brazil, who begins killing indiscriminately as corrupt cops and criminal occultists scramble to find him.
With its undeniably grindhouse-inspired opening sequence that channels Hellboy and Scanners, you should know that this is going to be that good, good sleazy stuff. Skull: The Mask is a delightful action horror that utilizes its wrestler lead, Riruk Jr. to the fullest and lets his physicality cut loose. Don’t let mixed reviews scare you off from a campy, bloody good time with lots of leathery and over-the-top practical effects.
It’s a valiant low budget effort with lakes of blood, plenty of heart extractions, and multiple scenes where the killer uses his machete tied to intestines like Scorpion’s rope dart from Mortal Kombat. What more can you ask for?
BOAR
Giant feral hogs terrorize an Australian family visiting their unreasonably buff farmer relative. Simple as.
Cut and dry, Boar is the kind of midnight movie you would catch on the Syfy Channel back in the day before they started making quality programming like Chucky (we did sixteen articles on that show, need I say more?). Not to say Boar is low class, but…it’s about an evil pig the size of a Mini Cooper goring people to death. It ain’t highbrow.
It has Bill Moseley and Australia’s strongest man many times over Nathan Jones, the latter of which is surprisingly very charming. What else is Boar offering up? Good practical SFX and a script that doesn’t try too hard to delve into the sentimental or dramatic beyond serving us a creature feature reminiscent of the Ozploitation and Natural Horror subgenres of the 70s.
NEAR DARK
After farmhand Caleb is turned by vampire Mae, her coven tests him to see if he’s worthy of joining their undead ranks—as his father and sister desperately try to find him.
Unlike our previous two entries, Near Dark isn’t easy to categorize.
Is it an earnest romance? A gloomy vampire film? A drama-filled neo-western? It’s everything at once, and a great case for the idea that horror doesn’t have to be terrifying to be great, compelling horror. Kathryn Bigelow’s underlit cinematography paints a perfect landscape of a dire, worn-down Midwest that is sympatico with the film’s theme of decay (even if it wasn’t appreciated enough by critics at the time).
We also have to thank Bill Paxton, whose unforgettable performance as the slimy Severen for laying the groundwork for the particularly tortured American vampire that would spring up in later works such as Buffy, Angel, half the cast of True Blood, and pretty much everyone in Scott Snyder’s American Vampire.
THE COMPANY OF WOLVES
Young Rosaleen finds herself escaping her sister’s gruesome death through 18th century fantasies while weaving stories of werewolves and the heartless men that make them.
Starting March 9th, Shudder sees the arrival of an acclaimed film that’s just as much about bizarre visuals and gothic horror as it is about a young woman trying to run from a troubling reality. The Company of Wolves is an interpolation of Little Red Riding Hood with deep psychological trauma and a period piece flair cooked into it—and it has to be seen to be believed.
This movie caught my eye for its particularly gnarly werewolf transformation scene, ripping apart and regrowing flesh & bone. But what I really came to appreciate was the way the movie plays with light and its gorgeous costume design, not to mention its very harrowing and heavy ending. If you haven’t seen it yet, get ready for frightening visuals and a dishearteningly tragic tale.
Enjoy your horror viewing, and let us know which was your favorite! Stream these movies and more on Shudder today.