Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, who wrote the story with Mary Laws and Polly Stenham, The Neon Demon finds Jesse moving from Georgia to Los Angeles, all of sixteen, ready to become a star. She soon takes a shoot with Dean (Karl Glusman), becomes friends with makeup artist Ruby (Jena Malone), as well as two other models, Gigi (Bella Heathcote) and Sarah (Abbey Lee). The girls soon become jealous of her, as her youth — can people tell the difference in these ages? — get her more attention than them.

Of course, Jesse is about to find out about the dirty side of modeling, whether that means being coerced into sex, pressured into cosmetic surgery or having dreams of triangles and men penetrating her mouth with a knife. Afraid after someone breaks in next door, even staying with Ruby is dangerous, as she repeatedly tries to have sex with Jesse, who reveals that she is a virgin. When she’s turned down repeatedly, Ruby goes to her job at a morgue and gets off on a corpse.

Soon, the girls shoved Jesse into a pool and stabbed her repeatedly, consuming her body. It’s not for everyone — Gigi screams, “I need to get her out of me” before slicing her stomach open — as eyeballs are puked up and eaten.

Refn has watched many of the movies you have and then some. Ruby is inspired by Alejandro Jodorowsky. a lipstick called Red Rum. Before making this, Elle Fanning was told to watch Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. A character is named Roberto Sarno. And yet this movie played Cannes, filled with grindhouse imagery. Also, It’s gorgeous. The story doesn’t matter. It just is.

Directed by Jason Winn (Deadly Secrets of a Cam Girl) and written by Dean Loftis and Mary O’Neil (Sinister Surgeon, You Shouldn’t Have Let Me In), Tarot Curse has Tara (Lauren Chanel), Preston (Kamarion Miller), Jordan (Triston Dye), Quinn (Evelyn Kim) and Chloe (Selena Turner) getting fake IDs and going to New Orleans to party. While there, they learn their futures from The Reader (Anna Talakkottur), who — as if you couldn’t guess by the title — curses them with a Final Destination-esque series of deaths.

There’s a character named The Bone Daddy (Mikhail Keize) in this, and I just want to point that out.

This has one major scene going for it: a vending machine that slices the fingers of one of the characters when they attempt to put their hand into it and pull out a stuck candy bar. This has always been one of my big worries, and seeing it in a movie, complete with practical blood and gore, made me yell out loud, which rarely happens anymore. What a shocking scene almost topped by a chandelier to the head later.

While Tarot Curse is very much a by-the-numbers teen curse movie, it is much better than most studio horror these days, and it’s free on Tubi. For its million-dollar budget, the kills look good, the New Orleans scenery is appropriately dark and mysterious, and the movie moves quickly. What more could you ask for?

You can watch this on Tubi.

Directed by Caroline Labrèche (Marry F*** Kill) and written by Catharine Park, this Tubi Original is based on the true story of Viktoria Nasyrova, who in 2016 visited her stylist, Olga Tsvyk and gave her a piece of poisoned cheesecake.

Tsvyk nearly died and came home to find that a lot of her belongings were stolen. She blamed Nasyrova before learning they weren’t the only people looking for her. Herman Weisberg, a former NYPD cop turned PI, had been searching for her online. He did find her by paying attention to her social media images, leading the police to her. When arrested, she had ID cards belonging to Tsvyk. As the women looked similar, they believed she planned to steal her identity.

Weisberg was working for Nadia Ford, a Russian woman who believed that Nasyrova had robbed and murdered her mother in Russia and came to the U.S. to stay on the run from Russian police. It took six years for the case to go to trial and just hours to convict her; Russia may still extradite her for crimes there.

This Tubi Original has Victoria Diamond as Nasyrova and Nastassia Markiewicz as Tsyvk. They don’t look much alike, while the real people could have been related. If you don’t know this story, it has been on several true crime shows, and this is a good way to catch up.

You can watch this on Tubi.

I always wonder when people are going to start blaming Jessica Fletcher for all these murders. By the third regular episode of the series, it happens. When she protests when her book is turned into a slasher movie, Jessica winds up as the prime suspect when the producer is killed.

Season 1, Episode 3: Hooray for Homicide (October 28, 1984)

Tonight on Murder, She Wrote…

One of Jessica’s books is becoming a movie, and she’s not happy about it.

Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury and were they in any exploitation movies?

Claude Atkins returns as local lawman Captain Ethan Cragg.

Crystal is played by Melissa Sue Anderson, who, by 1984, knew all about slashers after appearing in Happy Birthday to Me. She’s probably best known for playing Mary Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie.

Ross is John Astin, once Gomez Adams and also someone who moved into directing, creating episodes of Night Gallery, CHiPS and, yes, Murder, She Wrote.

Marta is Samantha Eggar, who I have discussed so many times that I worry that she may take out a restraining order on me. In case you want to get obsessed, she’s in The Brood and Demonoid.

Allan is James MacArthur, Danny Williams from Hawaii-Five-O.

Elinor is Virginia Mayo, who was a major star in the 1950s, but people like would know her from Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood, Haunted, Castle of Evil and Evil Spirits.

Norman Lester, Esq. is played by Ron Pallilo, who was Arnold Horshack and also appears in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, Skatetown U.S.A. and Snake Eater.

This episode’s cop, Lt. Mike Hernandez, is José Pérez from Short Eyes.

The murdered filmmaker is Jerry Lydecker, who is John Saxon. If you’re reading this site, you know who he is. And if you don’t, man, you have so many great films to watch.

Scott plays Morgan Stevens, the first of three roles on this show. Most people remember him as David Reardon on Fame.

Marty is Lyle Waggoner, Steve Trevor on TV’s Wonder Woman, a Carol Burnett cast member, and someone who was in movies like Surf II, Wizards of the Demon Sword, Dream a Little Evil and Love Me Deadly. He would be in two more Murder, She Wrote shows.

Sunny is Marianne McAndrew from The Bat People!

Wayne Power,  Erik Holland (Maniac Cop), Hank Rolike, Paul Ryan, Barbara Lynn Block, Michael Milhoan, R.J. Adams, Jack Scalici, Lisa Hope Ross and Selby Dessner play smaller roles.

What happens?

Jessica’s book The Corpse Danced at Midnight has been optioned to be made into a movie. She flies out to Hollywood and is informed by her lawyer, Marty Strindberg, that they’re stuck and the film is getting made no matter what. After getting turned away at the studio gate, Jessica makes fast friends with costume designer Marta Quintessa (Samantha Eggar looks as if she brought all her clothes, as usual) and gets on set.

Jerry, the producer, and Eve, the actress, are dating, which never goes well. Yes, 48-year-old John Saxon and 22-year-old Melissa Sue Anderson are hooking up. This is very realistic when it comes to Hollywood. Jessica arrives just in time for the nude scene—the only one in a slasher. Maybe it’s not all realistic.

Jessica and producer Jerry battled it out over his movies, and wow, somehow, he had the budget to create this amazing poster for them.

But let’s give it up to Jessica. When she reads the contract over, she realizes she’s wrong and apologizes. However, it’s too late, as Jerry’s body is dead on the film’s cemetery set. Luckily, despite finding the body, the police don’t investigate Jessica. Maybe it’s because Lieutenant Hernandez is a big fan. He is such a fan that he trusts Jessica to visit Eve and tell her that her boyfriend is deceased.

So yes, while Jessica is a suspect, she gets to run around a lot. This allows us to see the movie being made, and man, I know 1984 had neon, but this movie has so much neon.

I spoke too soon, however, as Lieutenant Hernandez arrests J.B. But when they get to jail, he asks her to investigate everything for the police. There have to be better ways to get someone to help you. Despite being blocked from the set now, Jessica dresses as a tourist and learns that everyone wanted to kill Jerry for one reason or another: Marta is an ex, Eve was cheating on him, Allan had his screenplay rewritten, and if Ross gets to be the producer, his career will get the comeback it needs.

Who did it?

Eve was worried that Jerry would ruin her boyfriend Scott’s career.

Who made it?

Richard A. Colla also made Battlestar Galactica, Fuzz and The Questor Tapes.

Executive story editor Robert Van Scoyk wrote the script.

Some facts…

This episode reveals that the B in J.B. stands for Beatrice.

A poster for an adult movie, Vampire Cheerleaders, also appears in the Simon & Simon episode “The Wrong Stuff.” This is proof that both shows are in the same universe (well, the crossover confirms this).

Does Jessica get some?

This movie starts with Captain Ethan Clegg working on Jessica’s plumbing. No man works on a woman’s sink without trying to work on her more essential plumbing.

Does Jessica dress up and act stupid?

Yes. For the first time, we get Jessica going undercover and acting like a moron. It gets way worse.

Was it any good?

I loved this episode. It features Saxon and Eggar, two of my favorites, and it gets Jessica away from Cabot Cove and trapped in the middle of a mystery, one she’s suspected of. It sets up so many themes the show would return to and become a warm blanket for me.

Give me a reasonable quote:

Marta Quintessa: Sorry to bring this up, but shouldn’t someone tell our star that her star-maker has gone to his Maker?

TV Newsman #1: I’m referring to the scene where the psychotic killer uses a flamethrower on a group of breakdancers.

Marty Strindberg: What do I know about the picture? Well, it’s guaranteed box office magic, that’s all. It’s a combination of Halloween, Porky’s and Flashdance.

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What’s next?

One of my favorite episodes is when Wealthy Denton Langley falls off a horse, dies and leaves most of his estate to his dog, Teddy.

Directed and written by M. Blash, this finds a fire in the woods somewhere in rural Oregon and sisters Angela (Jena Malone) and Emma (Chloë Sevigny) dealing with the death of their mother. In fact, just minutes after she dies in her home, a psychic (Patricia Arquette) calls and informs Emma that her mother will soon rise from the dead. Angela fights her on this, but Emma will not be denied. So the sisters wrap her in a sheet and close the windows in the hope that her soul will remain in the home and go back into her body.

While Angela is trying to do things the normal way—calling the coroner, starting to grieve—Emma is planting flowers in caves, decorating the home with balloons and doing dances that she thinks will help her mother come back.

But is that psychic call really a viral video joke? Is this movie even about death, or is it about navigating life? Do some families ever really get along or are we forced to? Does Angela care more about a new relationship than even dealing with her sister’s refusal to agree that their matriarch is gone?

By the end, this movie wants things in every way possible. The mother could be dead, a ghost, or have returned to life. As for the blaze outside the town just sits there, surrounding everyone but never really intruding. Somewhere between “pretentious trash,” “art film tone poem,” and “drone cinema,” this feels like a movie that some people are going to fill in themselves and fall in love with — you’re reading from one right now — or dismiss because it’s just ridiculous. I kind of love that it takes that swing.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Another winner from director Chris Stokes, who wrote this with Marques Houston; this somehow gets together crypto, affairs and murders into a delectable stew of sex and murder. In short — when crypto moneymaker Nathan Maywood (Tremayne Norris) finds his business losing money — he decides to kill his wife Riley (Drew Sidora), who he thinks is cheating on him, and get the insurance money. Nothing works out right, though.

She seems to be sleeping with his financial advisor, Kevin (Francis Nouvi), whose lousy advice has caused the $250 million dollars Nathan has in the bank to suddenly be worth nothing because no one understands cryptocurrency, and I certainly don’t, so I’m not the person to make sense of it for you. Sorry. But anyway, Nathan decides to get ex-con Jesse (Stephen Barrington) to start sleeping with Riley and eventually kill her.

Jesse falls in love with her, so they hatch a plan where Riley will get her husband back in her bed — instead of between his mistress’ thighs — and as they’re reconnecting, a masked man breaks in who we’d think was Jesse, but no, it’s Kevin, who Nathan shoots and kills. Riley calls the police and claims that her husband has just shot and killed her lover, but what she hasn’t figured out is that he has friends in high places and gets out, visiting her and Jesse in bed where he beats his one-time henchman and now quicker about the head before killing his wife in self-defense.

Where’s the crypto cash? Look, I really have no clue.

Just about everyone in this movie is both gorgeous and horrible. Chris Stokes will make more movies this year than some directors make in their lives, and somehow, he will make so many that I will remember and actually enjoy. Well done.

You can watch this on Tubi.

A serial killer is on the loose, targeting nurses, despite the movie’s title. The hospital, where traveling nurses Drew (Mia Challis) and Jade (Jonetta Kaiser) are working, seems oblivious to the danger and more interested in partying. When their roommate Gigi (Kabby Borders) becomes a victim, Drew and Jade, amidst their busy rounds, embark on a suspenseful journey to unmask the killer.

Directed by Haylie Duff (remember her as Summer in Napoleon Dynamite?) and written by Danielle Dominique Nelson and Mary Risk, this film follows Drew and Jade as they uncover the truth about Dr. Lawrence C. Hartsen (Rob Mayes). Despite the serious theme, the movie’s medical realism has been criticized in many reviews. But let’s be real: You’re watching a Tubi Original called Killer Nurses. It’s not about perfect medical facts; it’s about the thrill of the chase.

Yes, I may have revealed a significant plot twist, and if you were planning to watch this, I apologize. But fear not, it won’t spoil your viewing experience. This low-demand movie is perfect for a lazy afternoon, whether you’re hungover or battling the flu. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the casual viewing experience unless your need for realism overshadows the fun of just watching something.

Also: If you were showing up for nurses as killers, this title is a liar.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Directed by Bingham Bryant and Kyle Molzan, this has a wild concept: Helen (Rosalie Lowe) has been hired to sit in a home and watch CCTV footage of the forest of Maine to ensure that no fires happen. Yet, she can tell when economic shifts will occur when she shifts her focus. She brings in her friend Charlie (Annabelle Lemieux) to reconnect. Still, they have issues when Charlie wonders why so many of the monetary elite keep calling and visiting and demanding that Helen explain to them what the stock market’s future will bring.

Why are there frames in the forest? What’s the deal with the lighthouse keeper Herbert (Tom Lloyd)? Is it way too arty by having so much of Kobo Abe’s The Ark Sakura in it? Is there a ghost in the house? Is one of the girls dating the ex-boyfriend of the other? How about that soundtrack by Keiichi Suzuki?

This is either something you will hate with all of your heart or love in equal opposition. It’s a slow-moving, shot-in Super 16mm movie that has me obsessed. I know exactly who would love this, and I’ll tell them about it, and who will hate it, so I’ll make sure to not inform them. As for me, I’ll probably end up watching it at least two more times. What a strange concept and an even odder way of bringing it to life. There’s a review on IMDB that says, “This is terrible, you should watch it!” I wouldn’t go that far, but you should challenge yourself with it.

You can buy this from Vinegar Syndrome and watch it on Tubi.

Julie (Dominique Toney) is an artist married to Rick (Sterling Sulieman). They’ve been together for a while. Things seem to be at a lull in the bedroom, and when Lottie (Samantha Neyland Trumbo) comes into their lives, it adds some excitement. Yes, before too long, she becomes their unicorn and what should just be for one night ends up turning into a regular thing, even when Rick wants to break things off. She even shows up at Julie’s art class, posing nude, tempting her into getting even more involved.

Get ready for the most all-over-the-place twisty Tubi Original.

Directed by Lindsay Hartley (Romeo and Juliet Killers) and written by Maggie Mock (Fit for Murder), this ends up being more about getting to own a childhood home than destroying a couple and all the friends in their social circle. That means it happens along the way, but everyone is collateral damage.

Yet another movie that says this about three ways: once men have the fantasy, they’re cool with it and seemingly have checked it off their list, while for women, it unlocks a bottomless sapphic need to throw away their lives with psychotic killing machines. Maybe people should be more honest about their open marriages, you know? That’s how you get into being stalked, at least in the world of Tubi Original erotic thrillers.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Alejandro Hidalgo also made The Exorcism of God, which was an intriguing movie. It’s always cool to see new Spanish horror, and it’s great that Tubi is adding movies like this to its Originals.

Aurora (Paulette Hernandez) and her twin brother Martin (Alan Alarcón) have come back home after something happens to their mother, Cleotilde (Lucero Trejo). You know how it is. Never come back home. Never reconnect with your estranged family. But no one listens, and they return to find supernatural horror.

Martin watched their father die when he was a child, so coming home is rough. It doesn’t help that their mother may be fine, but the man who ran errands for her has died in the house. It turns out that she’s slipping into dementia, so they start to look for a home to watch her. However, she thinks that her husband is still alive — her abusive partner that Martin saw die all those years ago — and she may be turning to black magic to make it happen.

This film has an edge and darkness that makes it stand out among the normal Blumhouse-style cash-ins that horror has become today. One terrifying scene has a character waking up to the mother feasting on their toes. It’s also filmed with style; while there are some predictable moments, there’s plenty to enjoy.

You can watch this on Tubi.