While Amazon Prime includes a few A-list horror movies, those that it does I’ve already watched. Since I can’t afford to pay for this habit, I watch what’s free. That brought me to the horror comedy There’s Nothing out There. Written and directed by a twenty-year-old guy, it’s kind of what you might expect. Its main claim to fame, apart from being a low-budget monster flick, is that it anticipates Wes Craven’s classic Scream. The latter is famous for being so self-aware. One of the characters keeps telling the others what happens in horror films and, of course, those things happen. Although There’s Nothing out There is silly, one of the characters does exactly that. In the funniest moment in the movie he looks directly at the camera and says “It’s a distinct possibility” in response to one of the girls asking “So you’re saying we’re in a movie?” Craven didn’t borrow that, but then, Scream is a landmark.
So what’s it about? There are seven young people who head to a cabin in the woods. Actually, it’s a regular house, and quite a nice one at that. The three couples are there for sex but the single guy (Mike) is the horror expert and gets on everyone’s nerves. He’s right, of course, that there is a monster on the loose. A slimy green thing with a huge mouth full of pointy teeth, has fallen from space into the neighborhood and it slimes the guys, digesting them, and tries to mate with thee girls. And if it shoots lasers into your eyes you become its servant, helping out with its mission. The kids are picked off, of course, with Mike surviving along with one of the couples. Before they can stop the monster a plumber also gets eaten.
Horror comedy is a strange genre. It tends to work because there are elements of humor in much of horror. It’s not all blood and gore—the best examples use that sparingly, in any case. And horror comedy doesn’t really frighten since it’s pretty clear that it’s being played for laughs. Sometimes such movies venture into the bad realm—there’s a reason some movies are free on Amazon Prime—but at times they actually have quite a bit to offer. There’s nothing scary about There’s Nothing out There. It’s the kind of movie that tends to grow into a cult classic over the years, however. And while it’s not A-list material, it’s still worth watching for free.
