This Week in Streaming (October 22nd)
Our recommendations to counteract the endless scrolling.
Woman of the Hour (Netflix) America’s twee sweetheart, Anna Kendrick, directs and stars in this true story of an aspiring actress who meets a wanted serial killer while appearing on a 70s dating show. A tense and smart showcase of Kendrick’s wit, it’s a nice lighter option for those hoping to avoid the gore in their seasonal viewing.
Scream Queens (Hulu/Disney+) The most acerbic satire of the Obama age’s waning days never quite got the attention it deserved. But Ryan Murphry’s 2015-2016 horror comedy series about a masked killer stalking a monster of a queen bee (Emma Roberts) and the sorority she presides over on a mediocre liberal arts college campus is as consistently hilarious as it is brutally off-color.
The Serpent and the Rainbow (Peacock) Horror icon Wes Craven spent the 12 years between A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream trying to regain his footing. Still, the most scattershot years of his career also produced flourishes of brilliance such as this late 80s psychodrama about an anthropologist (Bill Pullman) traveling to Haiti to find a powder central to voodoo reituals that could revolutionize anesthesiology. Despite its setting in the waning days of the Duvalier regime, the film confidently avoids the posturing while presenting an immersive view into the nation’s religious life built on some of the 80s’s best practical effects. Not to mention, it features one of the most claustrophobia-inducing scenes of live burial ever put to film.