Netflix has often had a reputation for being better for TV than movies, but lately has been more than rectifying this. Its library of quality horror and genre entertainment will once again be expanding in August as well, with several new titles being added throughout the month.
First up, 1BR sees a young woman looking for a new start move to Los Angeles and into an apartment complex populated by friendly people who seem to buck the trend of L.A.’s isolationist lifestyle. Soon afterwards, however, her surroundings become increasingly sinister as the true nature of her new neighbors is revealed.
The Jurassic Park movies, meanwhile, might be major blockbuster material, but people being stalked and devoured by rampaging dinosaurs is certainly within the parameters of horror and the original trilogy of films – the iconic first movie, the mediocre follow up Jurassic Park: The Lost World and the surprisingly improved Jurassic Park III – will each be available on Netflix in August.
Elsewhere, The Addams Family is the first big screen outing for the freaky and spooky clan of mysterious freaks, ditching the camp sitcom stylings of the ‘60s TV series for something altogether more sinister and compelling, while The Rain is a Danish TV series taking place in a post-apocalyptic world where most of humanity has been wiped out by a virus carried by precipitation. It follows a group of young adults travelling across Scandinavia in search of the father of two of their number who may have developed a cure.
Though not strictly horror, we’re also getting Nightcrawler next month, which follows a thief turned stringer as he stalks nocturnal L.A. looking for accidents and crimes to record footage of and sell to news outlets, the violence and depravity of his filming increasing with the demand of viewers looking for a vicarious thrill and his tactics for procuring it descending ever further into amorality.
Proving that not every assortment of picks can be classics, Scary Movie 5 is also headed to Netflix and continues the inexplicably successful series of braindead spoofs, this time tediously riffing on the likes of Paranormal Activity, Mama, Sinister, Evil Dead, Insidious and The Cabin in the Woods, but with unbearable monotony bereft of even the tiniest spark of wit.
Project Power, meanwhile, is another one that’s not exactly horror and more of a genre film but is certainly worth a mention. It’s a new Netflix original that follows a vengeful father investigating the spread of a drug that grants its users temporary superpowers who teams up with a police officer and a young dealer to follow the corruption to its source.
Season 5 of Lucifer is also on its way to Netflix and sees the King of Hell return from the underworld when his twin brother, the archangel Michael, begins systematically destroying his life and threatening the people he cares about. And finally, there’s We Summon the Darkness, which features a trio of rock girls travelling across the country for a concert while a series of ritualistic satanic murders has been terrifying the great and good, and soon after the extent of what’s been going on is made brutally clear.
Genre entertainment has been flourishing lately, and with one notable exception, this latest crop shows just how much Netflix is invested in providing it to you.