Movie Review: SCARED TO DEATH

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: March 17th, 2026 / 09:27 PM

SCARED TO DEATH movie poster | ©2026 Mirror Films

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Lin Shaye, Bill Moseley, Olivier Paris, Victoria Konefal, B.J. Minor, Jade Chynoweth, Kurt Deimer, Rae Dawn Chong, Lucinda Jenney
Writer: Paul Boyd
Director: Paul Boyd
Distributor: Mirror Films
Release Date: March 13, 2026

SCARED TO DEATH is about actors, a director and a production assistant making a movie about a séance in a haunted house who are invited by a medium to have a séance in a haunted house. One need not be psychic to guess where this will go.

It is, however, to the credit of writer/director Paul Boyd that, while SCARED TO DEATH has humor, the movie doesn’t tie itself in knots with the meta-ness of it all. It’s not that this should never be attempted, but it’s extremely hard to pull off.

Indeed, if Boyd didn’t want to play so much with low-budget exploitation titles and artwork – stick around through the closing credits for a gallery of posters for schlocktastic movies that don’t actually exist – SCARED TO DEATH could probably peel off its filmmaking layer and just be about a séance in, well, you know.

SCARED TO DEATH begins with an article from a 1954 Altadena, California (a real place that suffered devastating fires in 2025) newspaper, telling of five orphans who were found literally scared to death. The house’s owner vanished that night and was never seen again.

In the present, aspiring young filmmaker Jasper James (Olivier Paris) is a production assistant on the low-budget horror movie DEAD HOUSE. Taking initiative, Jasper is scouting locations at the house where the five orphans died. The property manager, Felix Crust (Bill Moseley), says the building has been empty for the past seventy years. Furthermore, the place was built on the site of a paupers’ graveyard.

Felix is a part-time medium and also a big fan of one of the actors in DEAD HOUSE, B-movie royalty Gregory “the Grog” Grogstone (Kurt Deimer). Felix offers to hold a séance in this reputedly haunted house at a discount for the film company.

When Jasper returns to set, cantankerous director Max (Lin Shaye) is in the midst of badgering Grog while shooting a promo for the movie. We (and Jasper) are already noticing spooky elements in photos he took at the house. This just makes Jasper more curious.

A few clashes later, Jasper has arranged to shoot behind-the-scenes footage of the séance, with Max, Grog and his castmates Lena (Victoria Konefal) and Johnny (B.J. Minor) participating and crew member Champ (Jade Chynoweth) in tow.

It’s great to see always splendid genre vets Shaye and Moseley getting to play characters they haven’t done lately – Shaye’s Max is an arrogant diva and Moseley’s Felix is a mild-mannered gentleman. Deimer ably slides into Grog’s friendly workaholic.

SCARED TO DEATH also has a superb setting and some good creepy riffs, but they repeat more than is wise. It runs into more serious issues by piling on more mythology than it comfortably handles.

There’s also the matter of the hard-to-live-up-to moniker SCARED TO DEATH. We’re not even sure if the characters are seeing more than what we see. If yes, it seems like whatever it is should at least be implied. If no, then we are all made of much sterner stuff than these people.

Follow us on Twitter at ASSIGNMENT X
Like us on Facebook at ASSIGNMENT X

Article Source: Assignment X
Article: Movie Review: SCARED TO DEATH

Source link

Movie Review: SCARED TO DEATH

Article Source: Assignment X
Article: Movie Review: SCARED TO DEATH

Related

Related Posts:

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Article Source: Assignment XArticle: Movie Review: SCARED TO DEATH

Related

Related Posts:

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Article Source: Assignment X
Article: Movie Review: SCARED TO DEATH