OK, I just finished New Year New You and I wanted to get out some thoughts on the Into the Dark horror anthology series so far. I've only watched 5 of them so far--the first 4 and the most recent one. The Body, Flesh & Blood, Pooka, Pooka Lives! and New Year New You.

First off, let me start by saying I am enjoying this series for what it is. It's a very low-stakes horror anthology. I don't expect to find my new favorite movie in here, I am just looking to pass the hour and change with some fun horror and/or thrills, and on that it delivers.

I guess I will go in reverse order. The one I just finished, New Year New You, was ok. It was slow to start, got to be fun once the twist kicked in, and then had a bit of an unsatisfying ending. Honestly, the endings of these have all been a bit weak, with one exception.

Often, a bad ending can really kill a movie for me. But again... I am viewing these as low stakes. The pressure is off. I had fun for probably 45-55 minutes of the hour twenty run time, so I view this as a win.

When I think about horror movies, I often like to reduce them to their core by asking "What's the root fear here?" What's the universal fear that the movie is tapping in on. This one is tricky.

I guess this would go to the idea of bullies and the idea that your childhood bully still has power over you and will never pay for what they did/do to you. Which is more of a psychologically unpleasant thing than a fear.

But I think the ending was a little too winky and kind of undermines anything it really had to say about all that. And, like I said, it took me a while to get into the movie so... yeah, it was fine.

Let's go back to Pooka and Pooka Lives. I am gonna try not to spoil Pooka here, but even talking around it I will probably say too much, so... if you're at all interested in watching these, just go watch Pooka instead of reading this. It's creepy, weird, and interesting.

Without saying WHAT the ending of Pooka is, I will say that it's an ending that does lend itself to a sequel. But its such an interesting movie and has such interesting imagery, that I get why they wanted to. I liked Pooka a lot, and I was intrigued by the idea of a sequel.

But, in all honesty... while it was also "fine" it definitely did not live up to the first...and more importantly, it was so different from the first as to really puzzle me as to what they were intending.

The first Pooka movie is psychological horror. It leans into weird disorienting imagery, keeps you a bit off balance, and the root fear is internal--the fear of losing control of yourself, or of losing touch with reality.

Pooka Lives is a campy monster movie. It is far jokier, gorier, more over the top than disturbing. And the root fear it presents is externalized--that you can completely lose control of the world around you.

It would be like if in the sequel to Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy ran a prison where inmates disappear in the night and are never seen again. I mean... that could be a fine movie, but why is it a sequel to Nightmare on Elm Street?

Honestly, as I say that, I think I would have liked it more as not a sequel. Oh, except that I really REALLY disliked the ending to this one. Probably the worst ending of all five so far. And the first Pooka is the one with the good ending.

The one before that was the thanksgiving one, Flesh and Blood. Pretty straightforward--the core fear is that you don't know the people you love as well as you think you do. I thought there was going to be a twist, but... there wasn't. And that is fine.

The weakness of the ending here was just that the core psychological issue of the film is very quickly resolved at the end, which seemed off to me considering how hard they hit it so often. And then it was gone. But again, it was fine. I watched it, had fun.

That brings us to the first of the series, The Body, about a hitman dragging a corpse around on Halloween Night because he knows he can get away with people thinking it's a gag. A movie I had a fun enough time watching but which gets stupider the more I think about it.

Even in the moment, I was struck by how dumb all the times that innocent people start dragging this dead body around because... why? They think he might be alive? They need to destroy it? None of that holds up to even the most casual glance by logic.

But also... why did the person who took out the hit need the body, anyway? And why do they not mind that it's all effed up by the end of the film? I dunno. And the ending of this one is pretty easy to see, a mile away. Still, I smiled watching it.

But here's the big issue... I have not been able to think of what the root fear is here. And I think the main reason for that is... I don't know who the main character of this movie is. The killer? He is the one we follow from start to finish...

But that can't be right... I mean, if he is the main character, there is no root fear. He's a guy doing a job who is inconvenienced. He is not scared by what's happening, he scares the other people. But... I don't think the bulk of his victims are main character worthy.

That just leaves his "love interest" and... well, her issue is that she's only a little scared, and the best I could give you in the way of root fear for her story is the fear that you will make huge mistakes due to infatuation? I don't think that's it. I don't know.

All right, that's me all caught up. There are fourteen more of these guys, I am not sure I will watch them every day, but I am interested in watching them all.

Oh, maybe I will continue this thread with my thoughts on the other installments. Yeah, I think I will.