Shower Beer Vol XLVII: Stuff We’re Watching

Hey there fellow movie and television fans. If you've ever listened to our podcast you know that the second segment of our show is called our "protein shake" where each bro discusses things that are "in our cup", or what have we watched lately. Well recently I've been watching too much shit to bring up on just the podcast, so with the help of our creative team (Nate Thurmond) we decided to blog about a few of the things we've seen recently that we wanted to discuss that we might have left out. We're naming it after the greatest pre-gaming invention of the 21st century, the shower beer!

Here are the things I've seen lately as well as the link to their IMDB page if you want a little bit more info to see if it's something down your alley. In addition, I write Letterboxd reviews for all the movies I see without any spoilers, but I might go into a bit more detail in this blog than I do over there.

1) Alien vs. Predator - (Hulu) Prepping myself for Predator Badlands and I hadn’t seen this in at least 15 years. I would like to say I’m a huge fan of crossover movies, but I’m having trouble thinking of any that I really enjoy. I think Freddy vs. Jason I liked ironically, but on a rewatch it didn’t hold up very well. I know it’s a pain in the ass for the scripts of these things to both justify how the characters we want to see end up on screen together, and to get them their expeditiously so we’re not sitting through an hour of set up. Here I think the narrative works pretty well to get Alien and Predator in the same room, but damn does it take awhile. As is always the case with these movies we could use much less of the human characters, but the first act does feel like just an Alien movie and it works well enough. Some solid action set pieces, and I do like the setting of being in the arctic the entire time. This is definitely not a big of a turd as you might have been led to believe.

2) The Boy Who Cried Werewolf - (Paramount +) I realized I hadn’t logged in to my Paramount + account in like two months and felt guilty for paying for it so I decided to see what was up. This movie popped up and I recognized Victoria Justice from her Nickelodeon days, and was jonesing for something horror centric as it was around Halloween. What we have here is very akin to Goosebumps, or Are You Afraid of the Dark, both of which is my shit. The brother and sister dynamic is so classic to the a classic DCOM so I know Nickelodeon saw something they liked and hit ctrl + c on it. Brooke Shields is actually in this and plays a kind of important character, although what she’s asked to do performance wise is fucking ridiculous. We get some really good practical wolf scenes, and if I saw this when I was a kid it would’ve freaked me the fuck out. Very solid and fun Halloween movie that might make it’s way into my every other year rotation.

3) R.L. Stine's Pumpkinhead - (Tubi) Speaking of Goosebumps, we have a story here written by R.L. Stine, the GOAT himself. It’s a Tubi original, and while I know most of those are utter dog shit, they have a soft spot in my heart. I’ve seen about four or five of them in the last year and I can’t help but find them frustratingly watchable and entertaining despite a billion warts that we all see. I’ll be straight up here, Pumpkinhead is probably my favorite Halloween themed thing I watched this year. I’ll admit that list is way shorter than it has been in years past, but it still deserves it’s props. The acting is way better than it should be, the monster is fucking badass, and the ending is so ballsy my jaw was on the floor. This is made for teenagers and adults so it doesn’t have to adhere to the rules a kids movie would, and I do appreciate that it went for it in that regard. Highly recommend, and if I’m over hyping it I’m sorry, but I loved it.

4) Christmas Bloody Christmas - (Netflix) Total turd. Shudder has a strong track record in my book and they’ve earned my respect, but nobody bats 1.000 and you can consider this a three pitch strikeout where they swung at a ball a foot outside. You can tell the dialogue is written by someone who thinks they’re so fucking clever, and that manifests itself into the characters in an annoying way. I hated everyone in this movie, and I don’t mean in the way that you hate characters in a slasher movie and relish them getting killed, I mean I just wanted them all to shut the fuck up and the movie ends. The premise is also completely ridiculous, but I could’ve easily looked past that if the movie played like a horror film, and not two actors wanting to put together a highlight reel of snark to show to a studio as an audition for future roles. It also doesn’t have that visual flare I’ve come to expect from Shudder movies, and the grainy look it goes for, especially in the second act is gross. Even if Netflix recommends this to you don’t fall for it!

5) The Long Walk - (Digital rental) I don’t know how Stephen King has time to eat or sleep, let alone see his family with how many fucking stories and books he’s come up with. When I saw the trailer for this it became one of my more anticipated films of 2025 based on premise alone. The post apocalyptic, but not so insane concept is harrowingly close to something that feels like a possibility, and the limited amount of backstory we’re given in the movie does a good job of teasing how we got here, without totally blowing it’s load. The performances are really unbalanced which is the biggest flaw of the movie. Some of the kids on the walk are given some real meaty shit in the script and take it and run with it, while three or four of the more supporting characters really fumble the ball and it takes you out of it. It’s always good to see Mark Hamill in shit, and between this and Life of Chuck he’s had a pretty good year.

6) Scurry - (Digital rental) I can’t even remember what drew me to this movie, but it must’ve been a really positive review I read somewhere. I need to find that person and tell them to never write anything again. I was bored out of my mind watching this, and it made me yell at my screen at least twice “if you don’t have the budget to every show us the fucking monsters…don’t make a monster movie!” Look I get the appeal of hiding the creature to build suspense and a big reveal, but that’s never the intent here and it comes across as equal parts pathetic, equal parts disrespectful to the audience. The two main characters also have some really odd decisions they make and ways they act towards one another that make it even more insufferable because we can’t get away from them with any creatures because the film just refuses to show them to us.

7) The Nightmare Before Christmas - (Disney +) Bryan Banner on our podcast has repeatedly stated that this is a Halloween movie for the better part of a decade. I used to assert that it is a Christmas movie. I now believe that it is firmly the only film to my recollection that is both. You can watch it either time of the year, but this year I watched it just post Halloween. I find this movie visually captivating. The imagery is iconic you can’t deny that even if you’re not a fan. I had always thought Tim Burton directed it, so seeing that he was just credited with story and characters kinda blew my mind. The music sucks ass, but the rest of the movie is so unique and perfectly unsettling that the fact it’s trying to be a musical still can’t take away from it’s awesomeness despite it’s best efforts. If you haven’t seen this in a few years I encourage you to go back and give it a poke.

8) The Strangers: Chapter 2 - (Digital rental) The original Strangers movie is literally the scariest film I’ve ever seen. I remember being in theaters as a teenager and having to cover my eyes because I’m such a huge pussy, and it was the most visceral movie experience of my life at the time. The sequel is a strong horror film as well, and this “reboot” or whatever the fuck it is had me salivating at the possibility of going back to it’s roots. What we have is a trilogy of films that is effectively telling the backstory of the Strangers, which I didn’t think I wanted…but after this movie I’m kinda digging it. This movie starts off with a bang. In the first twenty minutes I was thinking it was going to be the best horror movie of the year. The second act hits a fucking wall, and there is one set piece that takes place out in the woods that really had me rolling my eyes. It does rebound in the final act quite a bit, and there are a few character turns that I didn’t quite see coming. We do have some good kills, and the main protagonist played by Madeleine Petsch is competent and capable and avoids the trope of making any super dumb decisions that have you laughing out loud. The third and final entry will ultimately determine the fate of these movies, but I’m pretty hopeful and excited for it after the first two.

9) Your Host - (Digital rental) Temu version of Saw. I saw that Jackie Earle Haley was involved and he always makes interesting choices so I gave it a poke. This might’ve been interesting 15 years ago, but the whole capturing people and putting them through tortuous games has been done to death (pun intended) and this offers nothing new. It doesn’t even attempt a twist, which I kind of respect. All of the characters are super one dimensional and they overplay all the tropes they’re designed to fill. It does look pretty good, which is usually the case with Shudder originals. There were some interesting games that the Saw franchise would be proud of as well. Ultimately can’t really give this one a rec, but it has it’s moments and if you’re a true horror hound you will have some fun with it.

10) Alien vs Predator: Requiem - (Hulu) I gotta come to the defense of this movie. For years it has been talked about as a steaming pile of shit, and I had so much fucking fun with it so get out of here with that slander. First act it thinks it’s a real movie and I was seeing why people bag on it so much. Once the movie realizes we don’t give a fuck about the teenage drama happening at the high school and we just want to see some carnage, this thing takes off. We have fights in a high school, a gun shop, the sewers, a downtown plaza, and of course the Predators space ship. I think this is better than the first one, and it doesn’t worry about making sense or using logic, it just gives us the Predator and Alien beating the shit out of each other. I have to say I think Predator gets the upper hand here, but Alien gets the award for most ruthless with the execution of chest bursting a fucking eight year old kid. I did not expect the movie to have the balls to do that, so tip of the cap.

-JH