The One Movie to Avoid at All Costs This Halloween
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There are roughly 47,000—oh, wait, a new Netflix Original just dropped; make that 47,001—TV shows and movies coming out each week. At Obsessed, we consider it our social duty to help you see the best and skip the rest.
We’ve already got a variety of in-depth, exclusive coverage on all of your streaming favorites and new releases, but sometimes what you’re looking for is a simple Do or Don’t. That’s why we created See/Skip, to tell you exactly what our writers think you should See and what you can Skip from the past week’s crowded entertainment landscape.
Skip: Five Nights at Freddy’s
Five Nights at Freddy’s might be based on a horror game about homicidal animatronics that scared the wits out of millions of teens, but the only frightening thing about this adaptation is how damn dull it is. Five nights?! I can’t even manage 110 minutes!
Here’s Coleman Spilde’s take:
“If there’s one frightening thing about Five Nights at Freddy’s—and truly, there may only be one—it’s that a movie nearly a decade in the making could turn out this lifeless. Based on Scott Cawthon’s beloved video game franchise about a collection of murderous animatronics in a run-down pizzeria, Five Nights at Freddy’s (in theaters and streaming on Peacock Oct. 27) provides only a paltry amount of the scares that were present in the original games. Whether or not that’s due to the film being in development since 2015 and switching hands multiple times over is anyone’s guess. But it doesn’t seem to help Freddy’s case, given that the long-awaited film adaptation is a disjointed and toothless affair from the jump.
The ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ Movie Isn’t Worth a Single Evening
The film, which shares most of its narrative DNA with Cawthon’s first game, is an admirable effort considering that the franchise has expanded into a legitimate media empire. There are nine Five Nights at Freddy’s installments in the collection’s main lineup (plus a wealth of spinoffs and unofficial fan-made projects), novels, and every type of merchandise that you could possibly imagine—every generation needs their own tacky licensed gear to stock up on at Hot Topic. That’s a lot of ground to cover, and even more fans to please. Unfortunately for those diehards, the film is constantly burdened by the pressure of its fanbase’s massive expectations, settling for a garbled, conventional piece of horror slop that hits the games’ familiar beats without any of their mounting tension.”
Blake Ritson and Kelli O’Hara in The Gilded Age.
See: The Gilded Age Season 2
The Gilded Age Season 2 continues to prove this is the perfect show for anyone who likes to see esteemed actresses don ostentatious hats. For those who enjoy their shocking HBO-level melodrama with a side of petty, inconsequential chatter: It’s time to feast.
Here’s Kevin Fallon’s take:
“The most thrilling television event of the year is upon. It is perhaps the tensest, most explosive drama we may see, likely to elicit the most tremorous reactions from those who dare to watch. The Gilded Age is returning, and with it, the series’ incendiary question: Who will cross the street?
‘The Gilded Age’ Remains the Most Gloriously Silly Show on TV
There is a certain bliss to a series like The Gilded Age, which returns Sunday for Season 2 on HBO. Like its spiritual prequel Downton Abbey, which was also created by Julian Fellowes, Gilded Age builds a minor soap opera around a central foundation: rich, old-money folk who are aghast at modern interlopers who don’t abide by their traditions. I kid you not, the main concern of the first season was whether or not to attend social functions at the neighbor’s house across the street. Not since Sybil wore pants on Downton has there been such hysteria surrounding matters so trivial-seeming or mundane.”
Kristine Frøseth, Alisha Boe, Josie Totah, Aubri Ibrag and Imogen Waterhouse in The Buccaneers.
See: The Buccaneers
The Buccaneers has the trappings of another drama mentioned just above this, but unfortunately, few of its charms. The series is all set dressing and rote storylines, skimping on any of the unique ideas explored in Edith Wharton’s source novel.
Here’s Fletcher Peters’ take:
“Apple TV+ has, in the past, hit big with modernized period television. Dickinson was an underrated masterpiece, starring Hailee Steinfeld in a sexy, fictionalized adaptation of poet Emily Dickinson with a queer spin on her love life. Alongside Bridgerton, Netflix’s steamy Regency-era drama, Dickinson proved that period pieces could be even more exciting with anachronistic twists, like the use of Ariana Grande songs and raunchy cake sex scenes.
‘The Buccaneers’ Badly Wants to Be ‘Bridgerton’—But Not Badly Enough
With The Buccaneers, an adaptation of Edith Wharton’s final novel, Apple is attempting to double down on this “period but make it contemporary” genre. But Dickinson and Brigerton were able to explore 19th-century American and English women with 2020s twists. The Buccaneers, meanwhile, suffers from culture clash—not just in the characters’ debates about English and American ideals, but also from the show’s incongruous attempts at mashing up the late-1800s and today.”
Heather Graham and Johnathon Schaech in Suitable Flesh.
See: Suitable Flesh
Suitable Flesh is a searing star vehicle for Heather Graham, who leads this mayhem-laced, Lovecraftian thriller with the kind of fearlessness that comes with being a perennially underrated actress with carte blanche to do whatever the hell she wants.
Here’s Nick Schager’s take:
“With Re-Animator, From Beyond and Dagon (among others), the late Stuart Gordon demonstrated a deep love and understanding of H.P. Lovecraft’s unnerving work and in particular its enchanting visions of the wonderful, ancient horrors that lie just outside our realm. That spirit is properly channeled by Suitable Flesh, director Joe Lynch’s adaptation of Lovecraft’s 1937 short story ‘The Thing on the Doorstep’ that’s written by Gordon’s favorite screenwriter Dennis Paoli and co-stars his leading lady Barbara Crampton. An affectionate homage that captures the psychosexual delirium of its genre inspirations, it’s a throwback chiller steeped in blood, kink, and the terrifying thrill of violation.
‘Suitable Flesh’: Heather Graham Finally Gets the Trippy of Her Career
Debuting in theaters and on VOD right in time for Halloween (Oct. 27, to be precise), Suitable Flesh is headlined by an excellent Heather Graham as Dr. Elizabeth Derby, a therapist who’s been locked up in a psych-ward padded room by her best friend Dr. Daniella Upton (Crampton). Elizabeth is panicked about a mysterious man who wants to get her, and to help Daniella better understand her situation, she relays her tale, which is subsequently told in flashback. A successful professional married to unemployed husband Edward (Johnathon Schaech), Elizabeth had her world torn apart by the unexpected arrival at her office of Asa Waite (Judah Lewis), a young man who sought her assistance because of her book-writing expertise on out-of-body experiences. Asa is intensely familiar with this phenomenon, and he soon demonstrates why, convulsing and contorting before Elizabeth’s eyes, after which he temporarily appears to become someone else.”
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