As October nears its end, you’re probably overdoing it on scary movies. Smile 2 and Terrifier 3 are dominating movie theaters nationwide, while streaming services like Max have Salem’s Lot and older titles like the Friday the 13th series to satiate viewers’ demands for bloodshed.
Ye,t October doesn’t have to be all about horror movies. Netflix has plenty of “regular” movies right now, and the the three below in particular are sure to provide a decent night’s entertainment this weekend. If you’re in the mood for movies that are a bit underrated and wacky, then any of these three selections will make you happy.
We also have guides to the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on Max, and the best movies on Disney+.
The Quick and the Dead (1995)
A Western starring Sharon Stone sounds like someone’s idea of a bad joke, but rest assured, that movie exists, it’s called The Quick and the Dead, and it also stars Oscar winners Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, and Leonardo DiCaprio. It was also directed by Sam Raimi, who infuses this rather routine tale of a gunslinger looking for revenge with the same crazy energy he gave to his Evil Dead movies, Drag Me to Hell, and 1990’s Darkman.
Stone stars as The Lady, a mysterious woman who arrives in Redemption (this movie ain’t subtle) to enter a quick-draw contest. She says its for the cash prize, but it’s really a way for her to get to the town’s corrupt mayor, John Herod (Hackman), who has some ties to her shady past. She befriends two other competitors, reformed preacher Cort (Crowe) and the The Kid (DiCaprio), who may or may not be Herod’s son.
Not all of them will make it out alive, and while you can guess where the plot is going from the first 10 minutes, The Quick and the Dead still manages to be good, shlocky fun. Stone is miscast, but the rest of the actors are all spot-on, and Raimi works his camera like his life depended on it.
The Quick and the Dead is streaming on Netflix.
Starship Troopers (1997)
When it was released in 1997, the sci-fi film Starship Troopers was brushed off as an inferior Star Wars clone. Critics and audiences cried foul at the wooden acting, cheesy lines, and gruesome action violence. Yet years later, the film’s reputation has improved, and now, people like the film because of the very flaws that made it a disappointment over 25 years ago.
Directed by Paul Verhoeven, the movie freely adapts Robert A. Heinlein’s influential 1959 sci-fi novel about Earth fighting an alien invasion by hordes of intergalactic bugs. Both the book and the movie focus on Johnny Rico (square-jawed Casper Van Dien), a young recruit who works his way through the ranks and does his civic duty to defend his home planet and kill as many alien bugs as possible.
As an action movie, Starship Troopers kicks some major alien butt, with intense scenes set on Earth, in outer space, and on the bug planet Klendathu that serve as fitting locations for Rico’s fellow recruits to be slaughtered en masse. The film is also a great black comedy, and serves as a withering social satire about the rise and appeal of fascist regimes, especially to eager young lads. If you’d like to know more, well, just watch the movie.
Starship Troopers is streaming on Netflix.
Shadow in the Cloud (2020)
Anyone who remembers the anthology TV series The Twilight Zone probably remembers the episode (or, in the 1983 movie, one of the vignettes) where a passenger on a plane sees a gremlin outside slowly destroying the plane’s wing, jeopardizing everyone on board. Well, take that premise, extend it to around 90 minutes, and set it during World War II, and you’ve got Shadow in the Cloud, a most unusual horror film that got buried in the year COVID-19 wrecked havoc on the world.
Maude Garrett (Chloe Grace Moretz) is assigned to ride an American B-17 bomber with an all-male crew on a top secret mission over the Pacific Ocean. Once in the air, Maude discovers a gremlin slowly destroying the aircraft. The rest of the crew doesn’t believe her, of course, and so it’s up to Maude to fight off the gremlin, prove herself to her fellow pilots, and, oh yeah, fight off Japanese fighter planes who are trying to destroy all of them.
Shadow in the Cloud is streaming on Netflix.