HBO Max Just Got Three Great Horror Movies
It's not uncommon for the many streaming services out there to get all-new content throughout the month, but the very final day of a month is surprising; despite this oddity, HBO Max has picked up three movies for its streaming platform today, and frankly all three of them are great horror movies. Among the films that were added to HBO Max today is the classic found-footage movie The Blair Witch Project (1999), and Rob Zombie's pair of backwoods horror movies House of 1,000 Corpses and its sequel The Devil's Rejects. You can stream them now at HBO Max, let's dig into why they're great below.
Released in the early days of the internet, The Blair Witch Project was one of the last films released that feasible could have tricked audiences into the reality of the situation at hand. The film tells the tale of three film students creating a documentary on a local urban legend only to become lost in the woods and seemingly fall prey to the titular specter. Among its fans are none other than Stephen King. HBO is also home to Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, the quickly developed sequel that was poorly received but has developed a cult following.
Rob Zombie's House of 1,000 Corpses marked the first feature film by the musician and had a troubled path getting to the big screen. Starring Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, and Sheri Moon-Zombie, the backwoods horror movie was inspired by the filmmaker's love for Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Funhouse, and other exploitation films of that nature; it was created as homage to an era of schlock and exploitation that most filmmakers TRYING to deliver on even now never quite achieve, right down to the incomprehensibility of it all. Shot in 2001 the film sat on a shelf for two years before finally being released in 2003. The film is now streaming on HBO Max, watch it if you dare.
Two years after the eventual release of House of 1,000 Corpses came its follow-up, The Devil's Rejects, a depraved and bloody road movie that was, in a total inverse to its predecessor, a commercial success and somewhat of a critical darling. Acclaimed critic Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars at the time of its release, writing in his conclusion: "I don't want to get any e-mail messages from readers complaining that I gave the movie three stars, and so they went to it expecting to have a good time, and it was the sickest and most disgusting movie they've ever seen. My review has accurately described the movie and explained why some of you might appreciate it and most of you will not, and if you decide to go, please don't claim you were uninformed."
This is all to say that these three movies, the interest for most people may be a coin flip, can now be viewed on HBO Max.