Today on VOD: The Nightmare and We Are Still Here
John Squires
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This weekend’s big release is, of course, the Leigh Whannell-directed prequel Insidious Chapter 3 (review), though that’s not the only new horror film now available for mass consumption. In fact, two of this year’s mostly hotly anticipated releases are out today so read on for details!
First up is Room 237 director Rodney Ascher’s The Nightmare (review), which many have touted as being one of the downright scariest movies of the year. The Nightmare is a documentary-horror film exploring the phenomenon of sleep paralysis through the eyes of eight people, and it hits theaters and VOD outlets courtesy of Gravitas Ventures.
The doc’s subjects hail from different backgrounds and walks of life but share eerily similar visions of malevolent, near-human beings that grow increasingly aggressive the longer the sleep paralysis recurs. Are these just random hallucinations or something more? Rational explanations get challenged by the similarities of the “shadow people” multiple subjects describe looming over them.
Ascher, who has first-hand knowledge of sleep paralysis, brings the full intensity of this experience to the screen while maintaining empathy and respect for his subjects. As the film unfolds, distinctions between the documentary and horror genres fade as do easy lines between reality and the imagination.
Hailed by our fearless leader Uncle Creepy as being “an old school spookshow that is NOT to be missed,” Ted Geoghegan’s We Are Still Here (review) also hits theaters and VOD today via Dark Sky Films. The movie stars Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator), Larry Fessenden (You’re Next), Lisa Marie (Ed Wood), and Andrew Sensenig (The Last Exorcism Part 2).
After the death of their college age son, Anne and Paul Sacchetti relocate to the snowswept New England hamlet of Aylesbury, a sleepy village where all is most certainly not as it seems. When strange sounds and eerie feelings convince Anne that her son’s spirit is still with them, they invite an eccentric, New Age couple to help them get to the bottom of the mystery.
They discover that not only are the house’s first residents, the vengeful Dagmar family, still there – but so is an ancient power. A primal darkness slumbers under the old home, waking up every thirty years and demanding the fresh blood of a new family.
An altogether new take on the haunted house genre that deftly mixes human drama and comedy, We Are Still Here is a couple’s terrifying journey through darkness and loss set against the freezing New England winter.
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