STRANGE COMFORTS

Scare Package Review (2020)

Director: Various

Straight outta Austin, TX comes the latest Shudder exclusive Horror movie to drop this year, the meta-horror comedy ‘Scare Package’. With a concept from writer Cameron Burns and director Aaron B. Koontz, and a host of other indie film Directors, this 7-ish part anthology touches on classic tropes of our favourite film genre from the VHS era with a lighthearted touch that will no-doubt entertain die-hard fans, but may leave casual viewers underwhelmed with too many unfunny and confusing moments in it’s frenetic free for all of ghosts, ghouls and gore.

Like all anthologies, you need a framing story, and in ‘Scare Package’ it comes in the form of a day at Rad Chad’s Horror Emporium, a sprawling Texas video store lorded over by the titular Chad (Jeremy King), a hyperactive hybrid of Guy Fieri and Joe Bob Briggs who’s new hire Hawn needs a crash course in Horror cliches to handle their obsessive clientele. As Chad rattles off the tropes of horror on a tour of the store, we hop into each Director’s segments, with unfortunately mixed results.

Early segments like “One Time In The Woods” from director Chris McInroy, an uproariously goofy spin on the “melt movie” had us in stitches, and Emily Hagins “Cold Open”, who’s Jon Michael Simpson bookends the movie with a wide-eyed turn as hapless horror villain “Mike Meyers”, landed a lot of laughs with a light touch.

Scare Package - One Time In The Woods

Other segments like the Werewolf support group story “M.I.S.T.,E.R.” and the underwhelming “Girls’ Night Out Of Body” land with a thud at best, with themes that have been done better than in ‘Scare Package’. The remaining segments, including a far-too-long conclusion to the framing story, and the completely baffling Kung-Fu VR battle / ‘Get Out’ possession story “So Much To Do” are only saved by a hail-Mary horror-host cameo so glorious we can’t in good conscience spoil it for you.

With a slow trickle of Horror films in the summer months on Shudder, ‘Scare Package’ offers enough laughs and gore to keep Horror movie fans from switching channels, but sadly it’s inconsistent tone and uneven direction keep this from being a classic in the vein of Tales From The Darkside, Creepshow or VHS. If you’re a dedicated drive-in mutant, we’d say “Check it out”, but for us this is a one time rental.

‘Scare Package’ is streaming now on Shudder.

Biz

Biz

Biz Davis is a producer & writer who's spent 20 years in the world of underground music, events and eventually advertising. His work focuses on obsessives and their obsessions, circular economies and cyberpunk aesthetics.
We need to talk about crabs. Specifically, why nature is seemingly so hell bent on ensuring that on a long enough timeline all creatures will, eventually, become crabs.
You’ve probably wondered where these otherworldly pixel-art images seen across the web are coming from. The answer is the PC-98.
Old school 80s ‘1-bit’ artwork and the imagery of Junji Ito meet head-on in creepy new indie game ‘World Of Horror’, available now.