STREAM WARRIORS is a weekly feature on Daily Grindhouse where a different contributor recommends a few things to check out on streaming services and around the net to watch. The platforms being used are U.S. versions (unless otherwise noted), content availability does change between countries. This week, Samantha Schorsch weighs in with some suggestions.
Hello lovely spookies, and welcome to this portion of Stream Warriors, in which I provide my recommendations for what you should spend your precious free time shoving into your eye- and ear-holes. This is a short list of three, consisting of an absolute must-see, a deep-cut YouTube channel pick, and some wonderfully creepy nostalgia. Let us begin, yes?
Train to Busan (Netflix)
If you still haven’t seen the Korean zombie powerhouse that is Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan, there has never been a better time. The high-octane, tense story of survivors on a long haul train from Seoul to Busan is one of the best horror films of the decade, and one of the best zombie movies, period. The visual effects are fantastic, the cast has excellent chemistry, and if you’re anything like me the bittersweet finale will have you in tears. It’s been a wild year for Korean cinema, and Korean horror cinema is no different, so why not take some of your viewing time to visit or revisit this claustrophobic masterwork?
Honestly, why haven’t you watched it yet? What are you doing here? Go watch it. Watch it now! Who knows when the powers that be at Netflix will take it away from us to put Friends back on! No wait, come back, finish this first, then watch it. While you’re at it, check out the impeccably animated prequel Seoul Station and wait impatiently for the upcoming sequel, The Peninsula.
Darkness Prevails (YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and many more)
One man of many mediums, Brenden Dean, the runner of Darkness Prevails, provides hours of community submitted allegedly true stories, creepypastas, and original short fiction in the style of folkloric horror. The titles and author names of the submitted are always provided, and unlike many TTS robot-narrated curated content, he provides his own extremely relaxing narration to each story. His intonations and sense of dynamic timing make each episode something you could listen to to scare yourself, as background noise when you work from home, or as a sonic sedative as you drift off to sleep in the dark of the night. If you’re more of a streaming-YouTube-videos-on-TV kind of person, his dynamic backgrounds that share the theme of the batch of stories being told also provide pleasing visuals for your spooky needs.
Of course, some prefer to read scary stories instead. If you’re one of these people, you can also find all of the stories on his website, Darknessprevails.org, the same website where the community, and you too, may submit their own stories for consideration. (See also his newest site, darkstories.org!)
In particular, I would recommend the cryptid sighting stories. The sounds he’s able to make to bring the creatures to life are the icing on the cake of an already massive roster of spoken performances.
Unsolved Mysteries (Amazon)
Finishing off with a little nostalgia for your streaming, Amazon Prime has free streaming for an ungodly amount of Unsolved Mysteries ranging from classic episodes, to greatest hits, to follow up episodes for some of the most infamous cases. It’s the kind of feel-good spooky content that you could curl up with a blanket and a quaran-tini and just veg out to, and in this time of extreme stress, what could be a better idea? The theme song is still excellent and weird, the reenactments are campy and hokey (holy shit, the alien abduction stories. Holy. Shit.), and Robert Stack still over-sells his script dialogue like the best daytime soap opera actor. Add in that there are 14 seasons plus extra content worth of Unsolved Mysteries, and this could be the one piece of true crime/ cryptid horror television streaming that may outlast your need for it. Orrr you’re a crazy person like me who keeps it on for 24 hours straight and chews up the content like a fucking buzz saw.
I hope these more deep-cut additions (and one must-see) provide you with endless entertainment and those excellent spine-tingly feelings! Happy haunting!
– Samantha Schorsch.
Tags: Columns, Now Streaming, Stream Warriors
Thanks so much for plugging my Darkness Prevails Podcast! And also thanks for the other recommendations – Train to Busan is a fantastic film.