We Need To Do Something | 2021 Halloween Movies

We Need To Do Something is an independent movie release on September 3, 2021. It was available both in theaters and streaming via video on demand. I was able to buy it on Amazon Prime for about $15. (You can rent it for like $7 if you don’t want to buy it.)

The plot for the movie is simple: A family of 4 gets trapped in their bathroom during a large thunderstorm. That’s it. That’s the whole plot. It’s not a lot to work with.

When I was looking at lists of scary movies released this year, Something sounded like it could be an interesting take on family dynamics. Unfortunately, the movie relies too much on the audience’s imagination. There are ways you can make a movie scary without showing the monster but you have to give us something to go on. All we get is family in-fighting, people describing things they see outside the bathroom, and vague flashbacks that might be the reason everything is happening.

And that is where the main problem lies - we don’t know what is happening. We don’t know how many days have passed since the family got stuck. They start fighting VERY quickly. It’s possible this whole movie takes place in 24 hours and we would never know. We also don’t know what terrible things are outside the door. The family is stuck because a tree fell on their house, blocking the bathroom door. (It occurs to me that every bathroom door that I know opens inward so the family wouldn’t have gotten stuck. Let me know if your bathroom door opens outward.) A couple of the family members, mostly the son and dad, make references to things they see outside the door but we only get a few sounds that don’t really match the descriptions and a bloody tongue. It’s not enough to allow us to decide what is actually outside.

On top of that, the story tries to give us a reason all of this is happening. However, they don’t really show us how the actions caused the consequences. Now, I get that this was filmed during Covid-19 so the cast was kept very small and they were confined to a soundstage. But we needed something more. It could have been a newspaper article talking about some of the events that Melissa (Sierra McCormick), the daughter, says happened. She says that one of her classmates died but her parents know nothing about it? That seems unlikely. As it is, we barely know the outside world exists.

To be honest, Something isn’t worth watching. It’s 97 minutes of boring nothingness. There are better ways to spend your time. Like maybe watching paint dry.

Fear Street Trilogy | 2021 Halloween Movies

Way back in July 2021, Netflix released three separate yet highly entwined movies. Based on the books by R.L. Stine, Fear Street Part 1: 1994 came out on July 2, followed on the 9th by Fear Street Part 2: 1978 and Fear Street Part 3: 1666 on the 16th. Grab a snack because this may be a long review.

All three movies revolve around the same basic plot: Every generation, the town of Shadyside is tormented by a series of brutal murders. During the 1994 massacre, a group of teenagers decide to figure out the cause of the curse and end it once and for all. The second and third movies take us back in time to reveal how the curse started, why it has been able to continue for so long, and who is really responsible for all of the deaths.

Part 1 introduces us to our main characters: Deena (Kiana Madeira), a spitfire lesbian who isn’t afraid to stand up for herself or her loved ones; Sam (Olivia Scott Welch), Deena’s ex-girlfriend who recently moved a town over to Sunnyvale; and Deena’s younger brother, Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr), who spends way too much time studying the horrific events of the town’s past. So, most of the town of Shadyside believes that they are cursed by Sarah Fier, a witch who was executed in 1666. Deena doesn’t believe in the curse but starts to change her mind when Sam has a vision on Sarah and starts attracting previous serial killers…who should be dead. After a LOT more murders, they are led to C. Berman - the only survivor of the Camp Nightwing massacre.

This leads us to Part 2. Here, we pick up Christine “Ziggy” Berman (Sadie Sink as teenage Ziggy, Gillian Jacobs as adult Ziggy) as another main character. Ziggy is a bit of a troublemaker, which leads her to being ostracized by the rest of the campers. She gets accused of stealing and being a witch, which results in some Sunnyvale campers trying to hang her. Two camp counselors intervene and Ziggy is sent off to the nurse. The nurse, the mother of one of the previous serial killers, goes a little crazy and attacks camp counselor Tommy (McCabe Slye), the boyfriend of Ziggy’s older sister, Cindy (Emily Rudd). It turns out that Tommy is the next killer and he goes around murdering everyone. Ziggy and Cindy figure out how to end the curse but they get murdered when they try. Ah, but we know Ziggy survives. She only survives because camp counselor Nick Goode (Ted Sutherland), son of the Sunnyvale sheriff, brings her back to life with CPR. But wait, I thought Ziggy was the only….

Onto Part 3! In 1666, Shadyside and Sunnyvale are one village called Union. Sarah Fier (portrayed by Madeira) lives a rather normal life with her father and brother, though she has an uncanny knack with the family pigs. One night, the village teenagers decide to have a party in the forest. Sarah and Hannah Miller (portrayed by Welch) visit a reclusive widow to gather “special” berries for the party. There, they notice the widow has a book of black magic but they do not take the book. Instead, they go to the party, have fun, get hit on by one of the boys, make fun of him, and go have sex with each other. Needless to say, these events result in them being called witches when the town starts to go downhill. (And by “downhill,” I mean rotting food, tainted water, and murder.)

I don’t want to give too much away but we do end up back in 1994 with Deena and things do get resolved. Though the director has expressed interest in expanding the series. So this might not be the end of our friends.

Both my husband and I loved the series. I thought the acting was phenomenal. Considering a lot of the main cast played dual roles, I think they all handled it well. No cheesiness to be found.

I also thought it was brilliant to have it as a series of movies instead of just one. It gave the plot and the characters time to breathe. I normally hate scary or slasher movies. This is the exception. If you are looking for some good Halloween thrills, Fear Street is where to go.

I write about more than just Christmas movies. Seriously.

For the past three years, I have reviewed Christmas movies. I tend to get so burned out on them that I don’t know what to write about the rest of the year.

In an attempt to fix my Big Time Writer’s Block, I am going to expand the holiday movie reviews this year. Yes, I will still do the Christmas movies. But this time I am going to add Halloween to the schedule. I am going to review Halloween-related movies released in 2021.

Now - the Christmas movies usually have to follow some rules. The big rule is they have to be first released in the year they are being reviewed (no reviewing 2012 movies in 2021). The Halloween movies will follow that same rule. In 2018 and 2019, I only reviewed movies released in December. In 2020, I moved that to every movie released for the Christmas season, which started in November. While I would like to stick to movies released in October, I might not have enough movies to fill the entire month. There are some scary movies that either have already been released or will be released in the next few weeks. So don’t be surprised if you see some September releases in the October reviews.

Another addition is series. There are a few series that have popped up on the Halloween release schedule for 2021. I don’t normally review series as it can take me awhile to power through them. But I think there are a couple of 8-episode series that I could kick out pretty quickly. I haven’t committed myself to watching the series yet. We’ll see how that goes when they actually come out.

I am interested to see how the Halloween movies match up to the Christmas movies. I don’t particularly like slasher films but, then again, I don’t like cheesy love movies either. I really am a glutton for punishment, aren’t I?