Prime Time: Scared Shitless (2024)

The story of a plumber (Don, played by Steven Ogg) and his germophobic son, Sonny (Daniel Doheny), Scared Shitless is the kind of horror comedy you can easily imagine being pretty good when you think about the main elements. It has decent lead cast members (including Chelsea Clark and Marcia Bennett in main roles), it largely keeps all of the action in one location, and there are some decent practical effects bringing the central creature to life. 

Everything starts when Don and Sonny head along to an apartment building for a standard job. Don is trying to get Sonny to conquer his germophobia, and he thinks having him as his apprentice might just help. It turns out that their job isn't actually your usual plumbing job though, not when a creature seems to be moving around some of the pipes. Patricia (Clark) works in the building and wants discretion, but she may end up helping Don and Sonny when they all realise just how big a problem they might have on their hands.

Written by Brandon Cohen, expanding his short from a few years ago, Scared Shitless isn't helped by the fact that it's just a bit too under-written. Cohen has a fun idea at the heart of things, and benefits from the casting, but there's nothing here that's as funny or gruesome as it could be. Director Vivieno Caldinelli does well enough with the material, but what was needed was a much bigger selection of disposable characters and some more moments of bloody mayhem. Or maybe even some excessive amounts of fecal waste.

Ogg is a lot of fun in his role, being amusingly dry and dour for most of the runtime. Doheny plays his part well, being squeamish and jittery without spending every other minute fainting at the sight of anything that could contaminate his safe personal bubble. Clark is very easy to warm to, Bennett is a sweet and lovely resident who you don't want to see come to any harm, and the few other main characters are played by Lorna Wilson, Marty Adams, Donald Tripe, Mark McKinney, and Brynn Godenir. You may think that presents a decent selection of victims, but the film needed more bodies to be put in serious danger.

Undemanding horror comedy fans will find enough to enjoy here, especially when it comes to the presentation of the creature effects, but those who have seen a lot of films in this vein (and I count myself in that demographic) will be disappointed by the lack of creativity and style on display. Everything is okay, but nothing ever becomes more than okay. You can pick something better for your first choice when lining up an evening of viewings. If you're in a good mood then you could pick this as a secondary option. It might turn out to be a decent number two. 

5/10

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Netflix And Chill: Our House (2018)

Science is great. If applied correctly. We could eradicate every major world problem. Alternatively, science can also provide some very unexpected results. It’s never the best day at the lab when you end up accidentally creating ghosts while putting the finishing touches on a device that is supposed to generate electricity from nothing. Unfortunately, that is what happens to Ethan (Thomas Mann), the lead character in Our House.

When we first meet Ethan, he is so busy trying to finish his important experiment that he is unable to spend much time with his parents and siblings. That soon changes when he receives a phone call to inform him that his parents have died in an automobile accident. He now has to be the main carer for Matt (Percy Hynes White) and Becca (Kate Moyer). It's not long until some of them start to sense another presence in the house, which they suspect could be their deceased parents trying to communicate with them. And they seem to grow more powerful when Ethan turns his "failed experiment" back on.

Based on a film that was itself less than a decade old (Ghost From The Machine, by Matt Osterman), Our House is a film with plenty of potential for good atmosphere and scares. To be fair, there are some good moments here and there, and the visual representation of the spirits, as black smoke trying to solidify themselves into a humanoid form, works well. Director Anthony Scott Burns had been honing his craft for a number of years before making this his feature debut (including delivering "Father's Day", one of the better segments in the anthology horror Holidays) and he handles things well enough. He just doesn't seize the opportunity to fill up every space with growing tension and creepiness.

Writer Nathan Parker doesn't help. The central idea is a very easy one to communicate to viewers, freeing everyone up to focus on scares, but he decides to give an equal amount of time to the day-to-day problems that our lead experiences while moving from the role of brother to that of main guardian. I understand why he would want to do that, but it's never as engaging as the developing spookiness. Like many films, this sits in a middle ground. It would either need to be streamlined into a fantastic frightfest, paring down the family drama to something minimal, or the runtime could be expanded slightly to allow more time spent showing the strain and tension affecting everyone while the spirits start to push their way into their plane.

Mann is a decent lead, and both White and Moyer are believable in their respective roles. Nicola Peltz plays Hannah and Robert B. Kennedy is a neighbour named Tom. Both do fine, but they can't overcome the fact that their characters feel superfluous to requirements. The same can be said for Marie, a different neighbour played by Marcia Bennett. I may be wrong, but the film could have been greatly improved if the main characters felt isolated and trapped in their house as things began to get worse and worse.

Although it's perfectly okay for most of the runtime, things are dragged down by an ending that feels horribly rote and unengaging. It's enough to drag the whole thing just below average, and leaves it being something that I wouldn't recommend to others.

4/10

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