Time’s Up, with Hannah Fierman

There is no question horror movies have been ahead of the curve when it comes to calling out bullying. That was what Terror Train was all about (the original and the remake). No points for originality there and this film also alienates potential viewers by equating anti-bullying with “wokeness.” Seriously, who are the biggest crybullies on Twitter? It all goes downhill from there in L.C. Holt’s Time’s Up, which releases Tuesday on VOD.

A bullied high school student committed suicide in Pine Falls, but as the town counts down to the New Year, most of the school’s students and faculty are doing their best to not to deal with it. The exception is Jacqui, a local muckraking journalist, who awkwardly happens to be married to the school guidance counselor, Tony, whose guidance obviously failed the late Brendan. It is super-awkward since their host, Gene the school principal, imposed the code of silence on the faculty.

Jacqui and Tony are about to bail, when Gene and the meathead wrestling coach Cliff go out to investigate a “prankster.” It turns out the party crasher is a slasher-psycho wearing a Father Time mask. According to the production synopsis, Father Time will force them to participate in a horrifying “scavenger hunt.” However, they are really just following a few bloody arrows to the town library.

Creepshow: Skeletons in the Closet & Familiar

Horror fans are a lot like serial killers. They both like to collect. However, you want to be sure you’re not the one being collected. Viewers can see the dark side of the collecting impulse in the latest episode of showrunner Greg Nicotero’s Creepshow, which premieres Thursday on Shudder.

In “Skeletons in the Closet” (written by John Esposito and directed by Nicotero), Lampini’s late father was an avid horror movie prop collector, so he has turned the family collection into a museum on the Hollywood Strip. Just when he is poised to make a splash with an exhibit of actual human skeletons that appeared in classic films (this is a very real phenomenon that happens more often than you would think), his father’s old nemesis “Bateman” (sort of like “Newman!” in Seinfeld) arrives to ask awkward questions of providence. However, that might turn out to be a mistake, given Lampini has an excuse to have a bunch of skeletons lying around.

“Skeletons” is another wonderful loving, yet drolly macabre love letter to horror fandom. Nicotero and Esposito incorporate some very funny visual homages to iconic films, such as Psycho, The Shining, and Jason and the Argonauts. The latter is especially deranged, but somehow it makes perfect sense within the narrative. The great James Remar is terrific as the sleazy Bateman and Valerie Leblanc vamps it up entertainingly (and lives up to the pressure of a Hitchcock-inspired shower scene) as Lampini’s girlfriend, Danielle. Frankly, this is the sort ironic, fan-appreciating story Creepshow does best, along with segments like “Night of the Living Late Show” and “Public Television of the Dead.”

The vibe is more serious (at least by Creepshow standards) throughout “Familiar” (written by Josh Malerman and directed by Joe Lynch), but it is still rather amusing to watch a yuppy lawyers and hipster artist deal with an uncanny stalker. Fortuitously, Jackson’s wife Fawn just happened to drag him in for a reading from Boone the psychic, as a lark, soon after a demonic familiar latched onto him. Boone has advice for dealing with the supernatural parasite—and conveniently, he accepts all major credit cards—but the correct execution will be a tricky matter.

Creepshow: Night of the Living Late Show

Peter Cushing was still mourning his beloved wife when he filmed the Euro monster movie Horror Express, but he soldiered through with the help of his close friend Christopher Lee. It would become a fan favorite, but not exactly a cash-cow, due to a legal oversight relegating it to the public domain. Poor George Romero could commiserate, since a similar fate befell his classic Night of the Living Dead. Perhaps not so coincidentally, clips from both PD films feature prominently in “Night of the Living Late Show,” Creepshow’s second season finale, which premieres tomorrow on Shudder.

Helmed by showrunner Greg Nicotero and written by Dana Gould, “Late Show” is all about horror movie love. Simon is a crazy inventor and vintage horror movie fan, who married well. His father-in-law has yet to warm to him, but he believes his new invention will make him his own fame and fortune. His new VR device literally inserts users into the films of their choice, allowing them to interact with the characters.

For Simon, that means inserting himself into Horror Express, a sentimental favorite, where he soon starts romancing the Countess Petrovski. Inevitably, his wife Renee quickly becomes jealous and suspicious of the time he spends inside the film. Jealousy always leads to bad things in horror anthologies.

SiREN: Lily the Demon Returns

Seriously, the last time a movie bachelor party ended with everyone happy, it probably starred Tom Hanks and Tawny Kitaen. This will be no exception. A demon like Lily (a.k.a. Lilith) is uniquely suited to punish the kind of boorish horndog behavior often witnessed during stag nights. You will remember her and her eerily wide eyes from the “Amateur Night” story arc in the original V/H/S film. Lily is back, so no lecherous men are safe in Gregg Bishop’s SiREN (note the capitalization, trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Jonah felt duty-bound to make his ragingly irresponsible brother Mac his best friend rather than his real best friend Rand. That is how they wound up in a divey strip club on the Redneck Riviera. On a tip from a suspicious fellow patron, Mac drags the stag party to an Eyes Wide Shut-style sex club way out in the sticks. This seems to be more what he had in mind, except maybe too much so. Still, the four dudes probably could have made it out unscathed if Jonah had not decided to play hero.

He is convinced Lily, the peepshow girl, whose song can literally you-know-what with your mind is being held there against her will, as is indeed the case. However, he does not realize she is a demon. Much like the “Howling Man” episode of The Twilight Zone, Jonah and his friends will have to deal with the implications of his actions, but for them it will be far more personal. Mr. Nyx, the flamboyant club proprietor well-versed in the occult is much less forgiving than John Carradine’s Brother Jerome. On the other hand, Lily rather takes a shine to Jonah, in a demons-mate-for-life kind of way.

Frankly, the non-found footage SiREN is not nearly as intense as the constituent anthology film that spawned it. While it lacks the Poe-like concentration of mood and building intensity, the feature is more about attitude and grungy southern-fried exploitation elements. There is also some very strange business having to do with the transference of memories (both as a method of payment at the club and a means of sending Jonah a message he will never forget) that distinguishes SiREN from other seductive succubus films.

SiREN is fortunate to have Hannah Fierman reprising the role of Lily. She is massively fierce, but also weirdly vulnerable. Justin Welborn (Southbound and V/H/S Viral) also has a creepy Paul Williams-from-Hell thing going on as Mr. Nyx that fits right in with the film’s dramatic tone. Brittany S. Hall is sufficiently intriguing and genre-friendly as Ash, the Medusa-haired memory-extracting bartender Ash, she could conceivably takeover the pseudo-franchise. Plus, Chase Williamson (John Dies at the End) and Hayes Mercure make surprisingly compelling average Joes in over their heads.

Fierman is just an electric presence, who powers the film through a swampy mid-section. We have seen most of these elements before, but she is something else. Recommended for fans of Fierman and her V/H/S character, SiREN opens this Friday (12/2) in New York, at the Cinema Village.