20 horror flicks streaming on Netflix Canada right now to help get your mind off COVID-19

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      Let's face it: things are gettin' kinda frightening out there with this whole COVID-19 thing. I mean, if you run out of toilet paper and can't wipe your ass, that's some scary stuff!

      But isn't that why man invented the garden hose, or as it's sometimes called, the "redneck bidet"?

      Anyway, to poorly paraphrase FDR, the best way to handle fear is with fear itself. In other words, if you scare yourself silly with a horror movie at home tonight, maybe your fears about not having enough hand sanitizer won't seem so major. Sure we're in a tough spot with the coronovirus right now, but the characters in A Quiet Place--who couldn't even speak without being ripped apart by vicious alien beasties--had it way worse.

      So with that thought in mind, here's 20 fright flicks I previously reviewed that are currently streaming on Netflix Canada. Keep in mind that I've listed them in order from best to worst, so don't bother with the ones near the bottom unless you're really in the mood to suffer.

      Get Out: "I've been reviewing horror movies professionally since 1988...and I can honestly say that [Get Out] is in my top 10 of all time."

      Hereditary: "The wrath of Satan seems pretty tame compared to the suffering that damaged family members can inflict on one another."

      A Quiet Place: "...ultimately A Quiet Place emerges as an effective nightmare-maker for parents that is one of those rarest and most welcome commodities for fright-flick fans: horror with heart."

      Creep: "Duplass's whacked-out performance keeps you fairly riveted to the screen, wondering what crazy s*** Josef's gonna pull next-and how the tormented Aaron will respond."

      Don't Breathe: "Don't Breathe is destined to battle it out with the likes of Green Roomand 10 Cloverfield Lane for the title of Top Hollywood Fright Flick of 2016."

      Paranormal Activity 2: "It's the scariest movie in years."

      The Shallows: "Things go beyond ridiculous when it comes to the shark's vindictive mindset, but they got that way in Jaws too, you may recall, and nobody whined about it much."

      The Call: "The Call does falter near the end when some scary-movie cliches sneak in, but things are just so damn enthralling up until then that its winning sheen remains mostly untarnished."

      Drag Me to Hell: "[Sam Raimi] knows exactly when to administer the shocks, and that precise timing is what makes Drag Me to Hell such a wildly effective exercise in schlocky thrills. It’s easily the best horror flick I’ve seen all year."

      As Above/So Below: "All the crawling over human bones and descending into dark holes and swimming under walls gets a tad monotonous, though, and by the time the truly freaky stuff starts happening you might wonder if it was all worth the wait--not to mention the pounding shaky-cam headache."

      Jigsaw: "Tobin Bell has always been the best thing about the Saw movies—even better than those wicked torture devices. He's an electrifying presence, and his performance, a twist ending, and a final, hilariously over-the-top gore effect make the last half-hour of Jigsaw quite entertaining."

      The Girl With All the Gifts: "The Girl With All the Gifts strives to bring some genuine emotion and tenderness to the zombie genre, but it keeps sabotaging itself with overly saccharine scenes and goofy one-liners."

      The Skeleton Key: "Here, take your worst-director prize from the Joe Bob Briggs Drive-in Movie Awards and don't let us catch you filming Kate Hudson topless, from behind, ever again!"

      Overlord: "The most impressive thing about Overlord—which is otherwise quite wanting as far as the writing and acting goes—is the grisly setpieces created by its devoted team of makeup-FX artists."

      The Strangers: Prey at Night: "The moral of the story is not to take your loved ones for granted, I guess. Love them as much as you can before they get pinned inside a pickup by a chunk of wood in their gut and left at the mercy of an icepick-wielding sicko with a sack over his head."

      Red Riding Hood: "Director Catherine Hardwicke obviously had no qualms about abusing a perfectly good fairy tale in a mindless cash-grab aimed at the same gullible tweens she fleeced with her equally vapid Twilight."

      Legion: "An utterly ludicrous entry in the biblical-horror subgenre."

      Priest: "The good news is that Priest is not nearly as painful to sit through as Legion. But that’s about it for the good news."

      The Cave: "The explorers-as-fodder premise has been done to (multiple) death so many times-culminating in last year's Alien Vs. Predator debacle-that all the nicely shot underwater footage in the world won't keep you from nodding off during this formulaic retread."

      The Unborn: "As soon as The Unborn’s end credits started to roll, a guy seated two rows down from me at the promotional screening declared: 'That sucked!' I couldn’t have said it better myself—unless I’d added 'donkey dicks!' to the assessment."

       

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