B rated horror movies are kinda like the chocolate brownie ice cream tub you ate in its entirety when you were home alone on Friday night, sure it was a great idea at first, but once it’s done you’re left nauseous and regretting what you just put yourself through. Here’s a review of four B rated horror movies ranked from best to worst. I watched them, so you wouldn’t have to.

1. “You’re Next”

Director: Adam Wingard

Starring: Sharni Vinson, Nicholas Tucci, Wendy Glenn, AJ Bowen

Genre: Horror/ Thriller

“You’re Next” is the ‘two minute noodles’ of horror movies. Its not amazing but it still gets the job done. Family reunions can suck, add a couple of maniacal killers to the mix and you’re bound to have a crazy good horror, well, at least that’s what’s supposed to happen.“You’re Next” has some good components, serial killers wearing bunny, fox and sheep masks; a rich and dysfunctional  family and random doses of comic relief.  You can even make bets on who will survive, the arrogant older brother, the indie hipster filmmaker boyfriend or the angry goth girlfriend. It’s a great tactic to keep us interested.

So what’s wrong with it? It’s not scary enough. I watched this movie in the middle of the night, by myself (#foreveralone) and my dreams still consisted of Nutella and fields of daisies. The problem with this movie is that there are no good gory bits, what is even more inexcusable is the fake blood in one of the scenes, it’s like the filmmakers realised they were out of fake blood, went to a hot dog stand and got the tomato sauce AND mustard and were like: “yellow blood…yep, this will work.”

I’m a sucker for a good horror movie, and in a lot of ways “You’re Next” satisfied my inner psycho (I am in no way suggesting or implicating myself in any way shape or form with this statement) but if you want a real fright this is not your movie, if  you screamed when the rest of us were dissecting animals in high school biology, however, “You’re Next” may be your cup of tea!

2. “The Signal.”

 Director: William Eubank

 Starring: Brenton Thwaits, Olivia Cooke, Beau Knapp, and Lawrence Fishburne.

 Genre: Sci-fi

 “The Signal” is like science lessons, everything is super cool and interesting, but for some strange reason  when it’s over you’re left with more questions than answers.  “The Signal” see’s three friends going on a  road trip,  they end up liking things, and try to track down a computer hacker in the middle of nowhere (we  can all see this wasn’t the group’s brightest idea).  Things get cray and Nic, our protagonist, wakes up in  this creepy white prison-like hospital. The more questions Nic asks, the less seems to be answered (now  Nic feels how I felt while I watched this movie). All I can tell you is that there are aliens involved, because  what’s a sci-fi movie without the aliens, am I right?!

 The cinematography is beautiful though, there are amazing landscape shots that make you appreciate this  planet.  This, especially when juxtaposed to the clinical man-made prison Nic finds himself in with  Dr.Wallace Damon  (played by Lawrence Fishburne) and his crew isolating him in their weird space suits.

“The Signal’s” slogan is “R U AGITATED?”  Yes, I’m hella agitated, this movie could have been really good, but somewhere along the way the people making the movie forgot to finish the many storylines they picked up.   One can only assume the filmmakers thought they were gonna make a sequel to close the chapters’ this first instalment left open.  Watch this movie only if you have free time, and want to create your own endings and storylines for the characters.

3.“The Scribbler.”

Director: John Suits

Starring: Katie Cassidy, Michelle Trachtenberg, Garret Dillahunt

Genre: Sci-fi

“The Scribbler” reminds me of my teenage years, a big let-down.  Suki (played by Katie Cassidy) suffers from multiple personality disorder, and her douche bag of a doctor makes her go on this experimental electrocution trial to hopefully get her back to hearing no voices in her head.  The problem arises when Suki has a dominant personality, The Scribbler, that may actually be who she really is, and we don’t know if The Scribbler is a good guy or bad guy.

Suki tries to figure this out in her apartment building… shared with a bunch of other mentally disturbed people… with no real supervision.  Yep, this is as realistic as me dating Harry Styles, but hey, it’s a sci-fi, so I won’t judge them on that.  Heck, I won’t even judge them on the extra plot twist of people either committing suicide by jumping from the asylum-like building or that there’s a killer pushing them to their deaths, because who could’ve seen a bunch of mentally ill people killing themselves when left unsupervised (*coughs* Ray Charles?)

On a serious note, I will judge this movie on some of its cinematography, at first you see the panoramic shots and its cool, you get the sense the director wanted us to feel like a patient,  the panning shots make you feel as drained as the people in the asylum.  Problem comes when you’re already drained only 30 minutes into the movie.  The flashbacks aren’t informative and some of the actors tried too hard to seem crazy. If you’re lost at this stage by what exactly this movie’s about don’t worry, that’s how I felt throughout it too.

BUT WAIT!  There is a glimmer of hope!  “The Scribbler” was originally a book, so maybe this is one of those “was a great book, terrible movie,” cases, if you’re still interested, I would suggest reading the book instead, hopefully your imagination will be able to do what this movies wasn’t able to (be good).

4.“It Never Sleeps.”

Director: Matt Mitchell

Starring: Laura Swift, Fabrizo Santino, Cassandra Orhan

Genre: Horror

This was bad.  Like Britney Spears shaving her head melt-down bad.  Joan Bryant is a war veteran suffering  from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) she begins to have visions that blue girl from The Ring (this  movie was super unoriginal)  and the occasional black blob that moves around her bedroom like an awkward  polar bear (I can’t make this stuff up people).  There’s also a “fit” male character that conveniently seems to  be at the right place at the right time when Joan’s horribly edited  visions turn into her midnight  sleepwalking road trips.

The acting is bad, the special effects are bad, the editing is bad, and the story is bad.  The only good thing about  this movie is that it ends.  Though it’s great to support a movie produced outside of the American scope, “It  Never Sleeps” was made in the UK, that does not give this movie the excuse to be bad due to its low budget.  The errors in this movie could’ve been avoided, instead this movie ended up being a hot mess.  Don’t watch  this movie if you still want to retain faith in B-rate movies.  Don’t watch it if you still want to retain faith in movies in general.

Graphics by: Bizani Meyiwa.

Words by Nadine Kutu