Table of Contents
Welcome to the Creepy Catalog daily horror digest. Today’s movie of the day is a sci-fi thriller rather than horror, but I wanted to share my thoughts about it anyway since it’s based on an all-time great story about an alien invasion. As of this writing it is also ranked as the #2 movie on Prime Video. I’m not sure why though, unless lots of people are just curious because the idea of this adaptation is so strange. Read on to find out what I’m talking about!
Movie of the Day
Over the weekend I decided to watch the new War of the Worlds streaming on Prime Video. I’d heard not-good things about it, and I honestly didn’t have high hopes for it when I first saw the trailer last week. But alien invasion movies are often close enough to horror for me to list them in our ongoing tracker, and I’m trying to watch everything listed there. Plus, I enjoy the original War of the Worlds novel, so I want to see any adaptation of it, no matter how far away the adaptation is from the source. War of the Worlds (2025) is extremely far away from the source material. It’s also about as good as I expected (which is not very).
War of the Worlds is a screenlife thriller that sits with William Radford, a domestic terror analyst working for the Department of Homeland Security. Will has many issues. Such as, he apparently spies on his children all the time, to the point that they’re not even surprised when he logs into their phones or computers (and even their refrigerator cameras). One day while Will is at work spying and helping with a raid on a hacker’s hideout, aliens invade Earth. Huge mechanical tripod machines land in every country around the world. They cause destruction, naturally, but they also have another goal that Will and his family will have to come together to figure out.
First of all, the screenlife format doesn’t suit the story being told here. I had a similar issue with the movie Bloat earlier this year. Ideally, a computer-screen movie like this should make dangers feel more immediate. It should feel more dangerous to the viewer, because we should feel like we’re in the story to an extent. It’s very similar to found footage in that way. But here, the alien invasion is far away. It doesn’t feel dangerous to us (or Will), and Will’s creepily thorough spying doesn’t make it seem particularly dangerous for his kids either since we know almost immediately whether or not they’re killed in an attack. For War of the Worlds, the screenlife format adds a layer of separation from us and the story rather than bringing us closer to it. That’s why most movies that use this format successfully focus on smaller scale stories.
Also, this is another screenlife movie that adds non-diegetic sound and uses constant zooms, pans, and crops. I’m sure many people are fine with this, but to me, it’s pointless to use this format if you’re just going to manipulate the visuals and audio in cinematic ways.
Speaking of visuals, the CGI is Syfy Original Movie or The Asylum level of cheesy. I’m fine with that sort of thing in campy movies, but War of the Worlds felt like it was shooting for something more dramatic. It’s also surprising that even the low-res, garbled footage seen through Will’s monitor didn’t help cover many of the shortcomings of the effects. To be fair, some shots look okay. But some are laughable.
As for the story, it’s not great. The film attempts to add drama to the sci-fi action by tying Will’s family drama into the progression of the alien invasion. His relationship with his kids isn’t great ever since his wife died a few years ago. He tries to fix everything by himself, but he learns that he’s a better person when he trusts and confides in his family. It’s a good idea, but everything is played at a surface level. It’s just not very interesting.
Star Rating: 1.5 (very bad)
War of the Worlds makes it look like working as an analyst for the Department of Homeland Security is the easiest job in the world. Unraveling a conspiracy and taking down alien invaders? Simple. Spying on your family? I’m sure it’ll come in handy some day. I don’t recommend this movie, but it’s streaming on Prime Video if you want to watch. The 2005 version of War of the Worlds released by The Asylum is more fun than this (and you can watch it for free on Fandango at Home).
Birthdays
Bernard Rose was born on August 4th, 1960. Bernard directed one of the classics of 1990s horror cinema, Candyman (1992)! He also wrote Candyman, adapting it from the story “The Forbidden” by Clive Barker. Other horror films Bernard has directed since then include Snuff Movie (2005), SX_Tape (2013), and Frankenstein (2015).
Also born on this day, in 1971, is Park Mi-heyon. Horror fans might recognize her best as the mother of Soo-mi and Soo-yeon in A Tale of Two Sisters (2003). She has many credits in both TV and film in an acting career that has spanned three decades. She most recently appeared in Squid Game as the mother of season-one character Kang Sae-byeok, Player 067.
Events on This Day
On August 4th, 2006, The Descent was released in North American theaters. It had been released in the United Kingdom a year prior, making its film festival premiere on August 6th, 2005, and releasing in UK theaters just a few days later. The two releases featured different endings, with the original UK ending being slightly longer (and much better). So if you’re looking to watch the movie for the first time, see if you can find the “Original Unrated Cut.”
White Zombie was also released in theaters on August 4th, in 1932. An earlier version of the film that was about five minutes longer had been screened in New York in June of the same year, but August 4 is when the movie made its regular theatrical release. White Zombie is cited as the first feature film about zombies. It features Bela Lugosi as Murder Legendre, a nefarious man who controls people through the use of voodoo. Murder aids the wealthy owner of a plantation in his attempt to steal another man’s fiancée/wife, but he has more devious plans in mind.
Thanks as always for reading. Tomorrow it’s back to horror movies for the movie of the day. Probably.
