It is not a body. Is a person. And she's alive in there, gasping for breath. But to learn his story, we must travel to 1999 Ontario with a man named Dan, who says in a contemporary interview that it all started with a random experience with the Ouija board. "I regret having played," he says. “I wish I hadn’t.” And then the reenactment takes over, introducing us to Past Dan, his girlfriend May, and his housemate Joey.
Prone to partying, the group decides one night to impulsively explore the world of spiritualism. But without one of the Hasbro game boards that everyone had on hand in their childhood, Dan creates his own Ouija out of the lid of a pizza box, complete with a cardboard planchette to roll over the letters. “We call upon the spirit world,” Dan intones in the forced reenactment, “and we welcome any spirit to speak with us.”
Stars: Will O'Donnell, Andrew Buzzeo, Maria Almeida
The jokes and nervous laughter quickly subside as four pairs of index fingers assemble the planchette and spell K-E-L-L-Y. Kelly? As in May's cousin, who recently disappeared after encountering a crowd of homeless people and drug users? And the noises from upstairs lead them to find the kitchen furniture stacked at an impossible angle. "I'm going crazy?" Dan remembers thinking that night. “Is it possible that something on the other side can communicate with us?” Forced to try to contact Kelly again, they return to the Ouija board, at which point Dan vomits muddy river water onto his homemade board.
"I felt like he was losing his mind," Dan says. And as he describes how he becomes increasingly obsessed with finding out what happened to Kelly, Suburban Screams tinges the reenactment with a handful of horror movie tropes: a pale hand reaching out for Dan as he slept, mysterious wet footprints on the floor. and a vision. of a woman, her features covered in theatrical decay. "Help me…"
As Dan's visions continue, they lead him to consider what tangible evidence he could offer the police to solve Kelly's disappearance. But he keeps driving toward the river, hoping to find closure, both for himself and for what he believes is the restless soul of a woman who was taken too soon.
Ultimately, that's what John Carpenter's Suburban Screams feels like: even more fodder for the glut of true crime docuseries material. Initially, the strangest elements of Dan's story have the ability to make his neck tingle. But the set-up of the series, as simple, superficial interviews in the present bounce off reenactments that serve to illustrate history in the past and not much else, channels the kind of documentary material that populates each of its offerings today. transmitter.
While it's impressive that Past Dan was able to create a Ouija board from memory with little more than some cardboard and markers, it's not scary in the least. Combine an already clunky recreation with a bit of horror movie imagery, and never again try to explain independently moving kitchen cabinets or Dan's voluminous river vomit of water, and the feeling Overall, Suburban Screams is that of an average movie. traditional documentary series rather than anything that tries to terrify its audience.
We found ourselves wishing for an on-camera introduction to John Carpenter's own stories, which would have at least provided an additional link to his horror film legacy. As it is, Suburban Screams is a dead end.
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