My Little Pony: The Princess Promenade (2006)

Well they brought in the cavalry for the newest horror hit. Produced by James Wan, Osgood Perkins, and Atomic Monster, among many others, distributed by powerhouse studio A24, and directed by Kane Parsons, the man who brought us the original Backrooms YouTube series. It would be futile to try to list the entire resume of this coalition.  So, does the resulting product mirror this excessive firepower?

Well, not exactly, but it’s still pretty darn good. To be honest, what I expected going into this film was something akin to A24’s previous horror films, but in yellow this time. Instead, we got a movie that takes the old school approach of trying to creep you out with chilling atmosphere more than anything else. That approach is as ancient as film itself, going back to the Universal monster classics and even farther back to the 1920s German expressionist films. There’s no question that there are parallels between this film and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. But those parallels aren’t just visual, they’re also substantive. Specifically, the underlying current of mental illness that fuels the narrative from behind-the-scenes – or should I say, from the backrooms.