I think we’ve fully entered our 90s horror era, and I am so here for it. Being a 90s baby myself (reppin’ 1991 — woot woot!) movies that feature this time of horror are true gems. Southern Scares gives this retro timeframe a fun twist with analog footage, PG frights, and a southern-fried ambiance layered over the whole thing. Teased as “Goosebumps meets The Blair Witch Project,” writer/director Paul Rowe delivers on the fear while keeping the scares relatively kid-friendly.
Mystery, horror, and Southern folklore collide in the 1990s when a video store worker discovers chilling secrets found in her missing sister’s documentary series, Southern Scares.
Southern Scares, IMDB
Ellen (Sydney Gowan) is dealing with the trauma of her sister Roberta’s (Emma Gaines) disappearance, spending days wallowing in melancholy at her grandfather’s video store and watching recordings of Roberta’s “Southern Scares” self-produced TV show. As the first-person tapes are woven between Ellen’s perspective, bits of paranormal information begin to leak out about the last few days before she disappeared. Cameron (Talen Hutchinson), Roberta’s camera guy and budding boyfriend, warns Ellen not to watch the tapes; by the time the 9th tape was recorded, Roberta had been going down a spiral of paranormal occurrences, all surrounding Myra (Dee Wallace), and a being called The Stalker. As the tapes play on, Ellen loses herself in the mystery of the ghosts and what they had done to her sister.
Southern Scares serves both Horror Hostessing as well as a mystery riddled with creepy supernatural happenings like ghost children, glitchy media, white-out eyes, and apparitions reaching out to grab you. Surprisingly frightening, these small-time scares didn’t need 10 gallons of blood or grotesque effects to make an impact. It has quiet horror that lurks in the background and inches slowly toward you. But even the non-scare-scares were off-putting; for example, as Roberta’s tapes play, you can see her looking more and more sickly, losing her gaze out into the ether, and becoming so agitated that she faints. Something is obviously happening to her — the worst part is that she can’t help herself, and Ellen refuses to accept the truth.
Which brings me to my next point: the story. Southern Scares is homegrown goodness that, regardless of where you’re from, feels familiar. The atmosphere is just right for the plot, allowing the characters to feel genuine in their search for Roberta and experiences with the darkness surrounding her. The video tapes may be a known horror trope at this point, but at least in Southern Scares, it makes sense. I would have liked the Stalker (and other ghost characters) to have been fleshed out a little more — but perhaps it’s fine leaving it rather vague. It only adds to the mystery of what happened. Plus, the film is overall nice to look at with smooth Ellen-centered shots and VHS scenes that don’t hurt your eyes to look at.
Southern Scares is exactly how Rowe explained it: found footage to feed your tween self. I would say a perfect likening would be to R. L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour. That’s not to say it’s for kids though, as this film succeeds on the scare factor. Southern Scares isn’t some big, dramatic, effect-heavy, blood-soaked, jump-scarey production; it is small-scale with tender moments and subtle spine-tinglers and a few pretty cool gags in there (the “VCR hand” was my favorite). Dressed to the nines in smokey title cards and staticy screen interference, Southern Scares was a ghost tour through a plantation house: heart-wrenching, dark, and leaving a lasting impression.
Southern Scares will be available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, and YouTube Movies on June 16th. For more info, visit them at SouthernScares.com or on Instagram.
