Need a new horror movie to stream this weekend? Are you sick of the cold, grey fall now that Halloween is over? Allow Screambox to transport you to the warm and horrifying expanse of an empty desert with an exclusive new release, a hidden gem from a master of horror, and three indie horror hits from the American West.
Bloody Disgusting readers get an exclusive Screambox introductory offer of three months for a total of $6.66. Stream thousands of hours of slashers, thrillers, gore, and more right now.
Killer Rental
When a group of friends rent a vacation home outside Joshua Tree, they discover the Mojave Desert is not quite as empty and isolated as they assumed. Killer Rental is a lurid, sexy, found footage slasher where the interpersonal stakes are raised by alcohol, desperation, and a masked murder methodically eliminating members of the party.
Created by Ben Hausdorff, an indie filmmaker known for his distinct visual style and horror sensibilities, along with Jonathan Kadin, a seasoned Hollywood producer behind 21 Jump Street, Pitch Perfect, and Bad Boys for Life, the filmmaking duo deliver a survive the night slasher that feels tense and of-the-moment.
Special effects artist James McKinnon, renowned for his makeup work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, American Horror Story and Star Trek: Picard, adds gory, visceral details with every bucket of blood used in the film.
Killer Rental made its debut at the 2024 Chicago Horror Film Festival and screened at the 2024 Austin Horror Film Festival, where it was nominated for Best Feature.
Wes Craven’s Mind Ripper
When Wes Craven decided to finally leave Elm Street, he made his way to a secret nuclear bunker hidden out in the desert… but retained his interest in horribly disfigured monsters. Mind Ripper stars Lance Henriksen (Aliens, The Terminator, Pumpkinhead) and Claire Stansfield (The X-Files, Twin Peaks) as government scientists determined to create a superhuman. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t go as planned.
Horror fans have speculated that Mind Ripper was supposed to be the third entry in The Hills Have Eyes franchise. That detail has never been confirmed but stream it this weekend and decide for yourself.
Read our past coverage of Mind Ripper here.
The Outwaters
If you enjoy the “social media obsessives in the Mojave Desert” framing of Killer Rental, do not miss The Outwaters.
This found footage terror follows a foursome of music video creators on a mind bending trip through desert isolation. Our review at the time called it both a “full-blown sensory assault” and “an experimental cosmic nightmare.” Sounds like a pretty good distraction from the fall gloom!
Read our review of The Outwaters here.
Horror In The High Desert
Another formally interesting desert nightmare, Horror in the High Desert uses both mockumentary and found footage storytelling to tell the story of an outdoors enthusiast who has gone missing in the Great Basin Desert of Nevada.
Interviews with loved ones convey a bleak and overpowering sense of dread, much the same way one might feel were they lost in a dangerous and brutal landscape.
Delicate Arch
From Graham Parsons to Homer Simpson, many figures of pop culture have lost their grip on reality out in the desert, and the characters of Delicate Arch are no different.
Perhaps the most experimental of all these listed films, Delicate Arch breaks the fourth wall and implicates the viewer in the terror these college kids are experiencing in the beautiful and dangerous rock fields of Moab, Utah.
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