Now Neon Apocalypse

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You know how Horror Cinema seems to come and go in waves? Waves that end up saying tons about the anxieties of their age? There are the Atomic Age giant monster movies of the 1950s, or the Slashers of the 80s, the J-Horror and Torture Porn of the 2000s. Well I think we need to come up with a new name for the ongoing wave of horror movies we're smack dab in the center of that are attempting to capture the apocalyptic madness of our current moment in time. A little while ago I reviewed The Beach House, which is out this weekend, and briefly compared it to Color Out of Space from earlier this year, and those are two terrific examples of what I'm talking about. And you could toss the creature-feature Underwater with Kristen Stewart onto that pile for a full Lovecraftian trilogy.

Then you should see also Cam, and Daniel Isn't Real, and The Lodge, and Platform, and Gretel & Hansel, and from last year The Girl on the Second Floor and even Midsommar and The Lighthouse -- hell go back even further to something like It Follows, The Neon Demon, The Invitation.

My point is there seems to be a concerted effort at meeting the unholy inexplicability  of our modern moment via a Phantasmagoria of reality-crumbling means in Horror Cinema. Surrealism, neon-saturated hallucinations, the concept of Doubles and oodles of Cronenbergian body-horror... ooh just wait until Brandon Cronenberg's film Possessor (which should hopefully come out later this year) -- that's yet another big one. 

My point is there is most definitely a Major Theme to the Horror Cinema of this period that we'll need to step back and digest in full when we're not, you know, on fire in the middle of this real-life nightmare, and the just-released poster and trailer for what appears to be another one of this ilk, called She Dies Tomorrow, is what got me realizing it today. Written and directed by the modern scream queen Amy Seimetz (actress in flicks like The Sacrament, You're Next, Alien Covenant, the Pet Sematary remake, and many more) She Dies Tomorrow is described thusly:

"After waking up convinced that she is going to die tomorrow, Amy’s carefully mended life begins to unravel. As her delusions of certain death become contagious to those around her, Amy and her friends’ lives spiral out of control in a tantalizing descent into madness."

Kate Lyn Sheil (who acted opposite Seimetz in several of those movies I listed above) plays the lead character of Amy, and she's surrounded by an amazing cast including Jane Adams (!!!) and Chris Messina (!!!) -- also supposedly Seimetz used her paycheck from the Pet Sematary remake to fund this movie of hers, which means something good came out of that truly forgettable thing. The film's playing drive-in theaters on July 31st and then it'l hit VOD on August 7th, and here's that first trailer!