To paraphrase that summertime classic “The Sandlot:” This weather is killin’ me, Smalls. These temps are downright disrespectful, and I’m really, really tired of feeling like a dripping wet swamp witch every day.
With this level of muggy humidity, there’s just no reason good enough to venture out of doors. It’s best to stay inside with the AC blasting, a fan (or three) set to high, a wide variety of refrigerated beverages close at hand – and plenty of spine-tingling summer-themed flicks, like:
1. “The Ritual,” aka why you should never go hiking.
Four lifelong friends go on a hiking trip in Sweden to honor their fifth pal, who died six months earlier in a robbery gone bad. Sounds like a lovely, touching journey of friendship and heartfelt grief, right?
But this memorial vacation quickly turns dark when the quartet begin having unsettling nightmares, waking in the midst of peculiar actions and experiencing inexplicable stigmata. A large presence is stalking them through the trees, and they encounter some very odd people. Soon, they’re completely lost and absolutely terrified, certain of only one thing: they’ve stumbled upon something ancient and very hungry.
Based on Adam Nevill’s novel of the same name, “The Ritual” is rich with spooky Scandinavian atmosphere and features one of the absolutely coolest creature designs I’ve ever seen. If you love your horror spiced with folklore and unique monsters, this is a must-see.
2. “The Burning,” aka why you should never go to summer camp.
Often considered just another “Friday the 13th” copycat, “The Burning” was actually in pre-production months before that better-known slasher became a phenomenon.
Loosely inspired by the New York urban legend of the Cropsey maniac, “The Burning” follows the now stereotypical group of sex-obsessed teen campers as they’re stalked by a badly burned madman armed with gardening shears, seeking revenge for his mutilation at another summer camp years earlier.
I’m going to ruffle some feathers here and say I actually think “The Burning” is just as good as “Friday the 13th,” and deserves a far bigger fanbase.
There’s a killer soundtrack, provided by Rick Wakeman of Yes. Genuinely cringe-inducing gore courtesy of special effects icon Tom Savini. A cast that includes Jason Alexander, Holly Hunter and Fisher Stevens – all in their feature film debuts – and a good balance of characters you can’t wait to see die and characters you sincerely root for. Of all the summer camp-set slashers, “The Burning” is leagues above the rest.
3. “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” aka why you should never go joyriding (and then cover up a hit-and-run).
Built around both Lois Duncan’s classic novel and the Hook Man urban legend, “I Know,” along with “Scream,” helped revitalize the floundering slasher genre in the late 90s.
Thanks to its very pretty, likable cast – a pre-“Buffy” Sarah Michelle Gellar is especially great as the vain, ambitious Helen – we’re invested in what happens to the four teens at the heart of the story, even though they hit a pedestrian while joyriding (uh-oh), decided to dump his body rather than call an ambulance (bad call, dudes) and then pushed him off a dock when he woke up and fought back (extreme yikes).
“I Know” may have been extensively parodied in the following years (see: “Scary Movie”), but it still has several solid chills. That moment when Helen wakes up to find a threat scrawled across her mirror in lipstick? And the killer has chopped off her beloved hair while she slept? Brrr, don’t like that at all. Talk about layers of violation.
4. “Piranha,” aka why you should never go swimming, especially in a lake or river.
So, yeah: this is a blatant “Jaws” rip-off. But Spielberg himself thought the movie was a hoot, and managed to convince Universal Pictures to not file an injunction against it for copyright infringement.
And yeah, it’s more than a little goofy, both intentionally and accidentally. When a movie opens with a pair of teens skinny-dipping in a restricted military pond and being skeletonized in seconds, you know what to expect for the next hour and a half.
Which is mutated piranha created for a secret Vietnam War project (classic evil government stuff) escaping into the local waterways and munching on dozens of swimmers, including several kiddies – “Piranha” has a lot of goofy moments, but it also has some seriously oogy and tense ones, too.
If these movies prove anything, it’s that so-called “summer fun” is both a) highly overrated and b) extremely hazardous to your health. So until the Great Outdoors calms down and becomes a bit more hospitable, I’ll be over here tanning in the light of my TV with a bowl of caramel corn, thank you very much.
• ANGIE BARRY is a contributing columnist for Shaw Media. To suggest future topics for The B-List, which covers topics in pop culture, history and literature, contact her at newsroom@mywebtimes.com.