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Canberra Today 16°/19° | Friday, April 26, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Shocks that keep horror shows alive and screaming 

“American Horror Story”… in its tenth season.

Columnist NICK OVERALL heads for the screaming side of horror streaming.

IT’S impressive for any television show to air for more than a decade and remain in fans’ favour, but streaming hit “American Horror Story”, now in its tenth season, continues to stay alive and kicking.

Nick Overall.

Ghosts, crazy clowns, psycho killers, if it bumps in the night, “American Horror Story” has covered it. And with its latest season streaming on Binge, the freak show is diving even more into its macabre ideas.

For those who don’t know, each season of the show centres around a different, self-contained plot with changing characters and a different central theme.

The first season locked viewers inside a classic haunted house, but later instalments have explored creepy cults, witches, true crime and even an ’80s slasher parody.

This constantly shifting format is undoubtedly what’s kept the show so fresh, but with season 10 things have become even more inventive.

The season is split into two parts under the sly title of “Double Feature”, with part one cryptically taking place “by the sea” and the other “by the sand”.

It would certainly seem the writers aren’t running out of ideas anytime soon.

The release of “Double Feature” comes only weeks after Netflix’s horror-movie experiment “The Fear Street Trilogy”, an adaptation of the RL Stine books that were one step up in scares from his far more recognised “Goosebumps” series.

I have vivid memories of the colourful, creepy collection of “Goosebumps” books lining the shelves of my primary school library that were quickly nabbed up by eager students in silent-reading time.

When old enough, they’d graduate from “Goosebumps” to “Fear Street”, with scares more suitable for young adults than kids.

Netflix knows its demographic and has firmly targeted it with “The Fear Street Trilogy”, with three movies based on three different Stine books.

All three films take place in the creepy town of Shadyside, one set in 1999, one in 1978 and one in 1666 that, together, form one cohesive story.

The mix up of time periods allows the show to play with an eclectic dose of homage and influence from classics such as “Scream” and “Friday the 13th” (both on Stan).

Interestingly, all three of the “Fear Street” films were released only one week apart from one another, something not seen before.

These days we’ve got television that makes all episodes available for watching right away, but entire film trilogies watchable pretty much from the get-go? Perhaps it’s a sign that long waits for sequels could one day be a thing of the past.

For those who want even more scares in their streaming, the platform Shudder might take their fancy. For $7 a month viewers will have access to a movie and television library dedicated entirely to the horror genre.

One of the centrepieces is a recently released flick called “The Boy Behind The Door”, a tense cat-and-mouse thriller about two boys and their attempts to escape a hair-raising house and its frightening owner.

I was also very impressed by “It Follows”, an original, contemporary horror movie where the film’s terrorised teenagers are perpetually followed by a stranger until they pass the curse on to someone else. How they pass the curse on is the twist.

For those looking for a thrill elsewhere, though there are heaps of horror flicks stalking the streaming grounds.

Binge has “Get Out”, an Oscar-winning horror-comedy hybrid about a worst-case scenario for a young man meeting his girlfriend’s parents.

I’d also point out Danny Boyle’s 2002 trip-out “28 Days Later” that, almost two decades after its first release, still holds on to a uniquely stylised bite that makes it a stand-out.

Where to stream the bloodthirsty creep-fest? Disney Plus, funnily enough.

Certainly highlights the need for parental controls so that junior isn’t jumping from “Toy Story” over to “28 Days Later”.

Might give him a little more than goosebumps.

 

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Nick Overall

Nick Overall

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