For the first time in these daily horror digests, I’ve decided to recommend movies other than the one I watched last night. Read on to find out why.
What I Watched Last Night
Last night’s movie was rather disappointing. It’s titled Spirit Springs, and the story involves a rock band staying at a huge rental house when the lead singer becomes possessed and starts killing and eating people.
The idea sounds fun, and a little fun is all I really wanted or expected. Sadly, aside from some cheesy gore effects that I appreciated on a micro-budget level, the movie had a lot of issues. I don’t really want to get too deep into it because I want to keep this as positive as possible, but there were obvious issues at just about every level. Frankly, there are too many examples to list, and if I tried I’d feel like I was being unnecessarily cruel.
I’ve watched and enjoyed countless movies with numerous technical and creative problems (of which this movie has many of both), but there needs to be something fun to latch onto in movies like that. Satisfyingly gory kills, interesting characters, amusing dialogue, gratuitously trashy elements. Something. Spirit Springs didn’t really have any of that. I watched the whole thing, but I lost interest long before the 50 minute mark when the actual horror started.
So clearly, I don’t recommend Spirit Springs. Instead, I thought I’d recommend a few other horror movies with musicians as characters. Watch any of these instead; streaming links are included.
- Studio 666 (stream on Tubi) – Good music from the Foo Fighters, funny script, fun kills.
- The Backlot Murders (rent on Amazon) – A cheesy, low-budget slasher about a band filming a music video. Filmed at the Universal Studios backlot.
- Paganini Horror (stream on Tubi) – An all-female band shoots a music video in an old house and releases a deadly curse.
Events on This Day
Peter Lorre was born on this day in 1904. With his instantly recognizable voice and expressive features, Lorre was a character actor whose roles were always memorable, and whose presence always elevated whatever production he was in. He’s probably best remembered as an actor in film noir and thrillers, but he was also amazing at comedy. His most famous roles include all-time classics Casablanca (1942), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), and M (1931). Pure horror roles were relatively rare for Peter Lorre, and in my opinion his best horror-related movies happened towards the end of his career. They are the horror-comedies The Raven (1963) and The Comedy of Terrors (1963).
Also born on June 26th, in 1984, is Aubrey Plaza. Aubrey’s horror highlights include Life After Beth (2014) as a lovable zombie, and Child’s Play (2019) as a mother who gives her son a doll with dangerously malfunctioning AI.
Over the years June 26th has provided some incredible horror and horror-adjacent movies. On this day, nunsploitation classic Satánico Pandemonium premiered in Mexico in 1975, the Americanized version of King Kong vs. Godzilla premiered in New York City in 1963, and the low-budget slasher The Prowler began a limited theatrical run in 1981.
Also, a personal favorite episode of Tales from the Crypt, “Korman’s Kalamity,” first aired on June 26th, 1990. That’s the episode in which a comic book artist (played by Harry Anderson) has his drawings come to life, which results in his made-up monsters attacking people throughout town.
In the News
The biggest horror news from yesterday is really more comedy news. Deadline reports that a series inspired by Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein (1974) is nearing a pilot order at FX. No news regarding plot details are available, but Stefani Robinson, Garrett Basch, and Taika Waititi (who all worked on the What We Do in the Shadows series) are all named in creative roles for the show.
That’s it for today. Hopefully tonight’s movie is better.
