Review: SCARE PACKAGE, Laughing in The Face of Horror Tropes

Chad is the owner of Rad Chad's Horror Emporium, a small video store in a small town. As he trains his new employee Hawn, Chad and uber-customer Sam tell gut-busting, blood-splattered stories to bring him up to speed on the rules of the horror genre. They do not know it yet but this knowledge will have real world applications. It is just what every horror fan wants, to put this vast amount of horror knowledge to work.  

 

Emily Hagins' segment "Cold Open" is just that. Opening the show it is a full on meta experience with some added deconstruction of the horror genre that brings back memories of Behind the Mask. Chris McInroy's segment "One Time In The Woods" is another hilarious and gory entry of a camping trip taking a turn for the worse. Noah Segan throws curve balls with his directorial debut, the segment "M.I.S.T.E.R.", a commentary on toxic masculinity. Anthony Cousins "The Night He Came Back Again! Part IV: The Final Kill" plays with the trope of the slasher killer who just will not die. 

 

The anthology settles into the pocket for a bit while more straight forward segments play out. Courtney and Hillary Andujar's segment "Girls' Night Out Of Body" offers up a helping of post-feminist body horror as a girls' weekend away goes wrong. But for whom? Baron Vaughn also makes his directorial debut with a very cool segment called "So Much To Do". It is a little bit of commentary on spoiler culture with some cool hand to hand stunt work that starts out terribly poignant to recent cultural movements. 

 

The segments "Rad Chad's Horror Emporium" and "Horror Hypothesis" by co-cretors Aaron B. Koontz and Cameron Burns bookend the entire project, bringing the energy back up and offering lots of laughs at common horror tropes, tonnes of gore and and a couple surprises along the way. 

 

Scare Package caters directly to the hardcore horror fan, the horror fan who knows anything and everything there is about the genre. Here in this anthology are the tropiest tropes that ever troped. If you're like Chad and have an unbridled love for the genre there is plenty here for you to laugh and point at. 

 

Even if you're not as dedicated to the genre as Chad, do not worry, there is still a high level of entertainment value here. You do not have to know what every trope is to appreciate what happens in each tale. That's the beauty of Scare Package is that it speaks to horror fans on every level. It's as funny as it is gory, and sometimes that is all that you need. Maybe some of the gags will go over some heads but that's just like any film.  

 

One always goes into a horror anthology film expecting there to be one of two that don't quite cut the mustard. Yet here, even the more serious pair are still good. From start to finish every segment is entertaining, you can see that every director and writer committed to the concept and came trough. 

 

Scare Package delivers laughs and lots of gore for every type of horror fan. 

 

Scare Package starts streaming on Shudder today in the U.S., Canada and the UK.