If I never hear the name ‘The Grog’ again, it will be too soon. Holding a seance in an abandoned children’s shelter, a group of filmmakers – including in-universe horror legend The Grog, played by Kurt Deimer – rustle up more than they had bargained for when they awaken something terrible from its undead slumber.
This comedy-horror film has a few horror icons of its own in Insidious star Lin Shaye and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Part 2‘s Bill Moseley. Playing the film-inside-the-film’s director and the house’s realtor, Shaye and Moseley will be this low-budget horror’s biggest draw. And, with both genre stars getting a surprisingly generous chunk of screen time, director Paul Boyd certainly gets his money’s worth.
As for the rest of it, Scared to Death offers a reasonable selection of genre fare, ranging from haunted dolls to things that go bump in the night. Which makes it ironic, given the quality of the cast and its obvious love of the haunted house, that Scared to Death is so lacking in… well, scares. The film’s VFX work is solid and some of the visuals are particularly unnerving (especially one involving Lin Shaye and a bed), but between the wooden performances and hit-and-miss writing (take a shot any time someone says ‘The Grog’) the atmosphere simply isn’t there.
SCARED TO DEATH premiered at FrightFest Glasgow on March 8th, 2025.
