Slasher: Solstice: 5 Reasons to watch the horror series on Netflix

Slasher is back for another season of mystery, murder and undeniable entertainment. Now that we’ve binged watched it entirely, the horror anthology has a few all-important elements that contribute to its success.

After the second season of Slasher (Slasher: Guilty Party) we realized that it was a true love letter to genre fans by reviving a television structured narrative in a more grounded tale of horror. The third season was released on Netflix last week, and upon binging the eight-episode story, it feels like Slasher is finding its proper stride by delivering a well-paced plot that delivers death in each installment.

Slasher: Solstice takes place in an apartment complex where a man was brutally murdered by a killer in a neon-lit mask known as the Druid. Though nearly every resident could have intervened, there was no help for victim Kit and one year later the Druid embarks on a killing spree. So what makes this different from your traditional horror series?

The season is set within a fast-paced 24 hour period

As mentioned earlier, the series takes place on the one-year anniversary of a gruesome murder and it’s the perfect setting. Anniversaries have always been a big piece of horror storytelling because of the emotional weight they carry, and by crafting it as a one-day event it keeps a healthy pace. Each episode tells a condensed three-hour block, shifting between apartment residents lives and connections to the victim(s).

With this comes faster storytelling, and dispersed, well-balanced flashbacks to shed light on the secrets of each character. After the achievements of Guilty Party, Solstice continued to use some of their best traits for the newest story and raises the stakes. By the finale’s final moments, you realize how quickly the story has moved and told such a larger narrative along the way.

There are several returning faces

One thing worth loving about the Slasher series is the use of former actors similar to the AHS world. For viewers, that means several actors return after wonderful performances to play entirely new roles, while still leaving the option for new faces and talent to contribute to something unique and ensemble based.

Paula Brancati (a favorite from Guilty Party) returns as Violet, a very vain and desensitized blogger. Brancati brings this all too familiar personality to life masterfully and reminds us of a modern Gail Weathers if Gail was a YouTuber on the rise. Her performance along with unconventional narrations have us “liking and subscribing” to more of Violet despite her absence of rationality.

Erik Karpluk returns for Solstice as a character we don’t entirely understand by the end but was an unlikely favorite for her convincingly genuine delivery and sometimes mysterious portrayal as Kalie Greenberg. Jim Watson (who also went through his fair share of brutality in his Slasher stint) is back as a coffee shop owner who is the poster child for hipsters with a mustache. Watson is given a more comedic role in this version of the anthology, and provides a different side to the horror series.

Last but certainly not least, Joanne Vannicola embraced the crazy persona she gifted us with last season but now added a twist of eeriness that keeps you suspecting her role with each scene.

Plenty of new and talented actors

Baraka Rahmani joins the cast of Slasher: Solstice as Saadia Jalalzai, a 17-year-old who is the probably the kindest spirit we’ve seen in the Slasher universe. When we meet Saadia, she’s someone who shows nothing but kindness and compassion to those around her, despite being subjected to constant discrimination by her bigoted classmates. She drastically evolves over the course of the 24 hours and is one of the more morally strong protagonists in recent horror series and films.

Other memorable actors such as Mercedes Morris and Gabriel Darku show depth as siblings and trauma survivors in their own right. Both Darku and Morris give an impressive range in their roles and are crucial to the season’s ultimate triumph as a worthwhile body of work. Beginning as caretakers and showing such drastic struggles with coping is done in two very unique depictions, making the actors two people we’d love to see return for future installments.

The best killer(s) in all three seasons

Slasher has always tried to find ways to continue its trend of avoiding repetition and even down to the killer’s tendencies, this feels much different from the Executioner or Guilty Party. This killer moves quickly and is much more aggressive than what we had seen in either installment beforehand. From the first murder in the present or the first murder on the anniversary, there is an undeniable level of animosity radiating off the killer that means a less likely chance at surviving any encounter.

I don’t want to delve too deep into the spoiler realm, but there are deaths that are meticulously thought out to fit each character. They did use a similar approach for murders in Seasons 1 and 2, however, these deaths are more character specific than enforcing “justice” which opens the door for more gruesome deaths. If there’s one thing that can be said about the Druid it’s that he’s angry, persistent and merciless, making him the best villain from Slasher we’ve had in all three seasons.

A very meta-horror story

The fact that Slasher decided to tackle many topics including racism, discrimination, abuse and sexuality in a modern setting leaves plenty of narrative options. Depending on the character in focus for each episode, there’s an array of individuals that bring their own influences and past that has some episodic appreciation. For being eight episodes, it does have a lot that it hopes to cover, but the thing it does best is serve as an unlikely satirical reference of our society.

From the sheer ignorance of students to the sometimes toxic results of social media, Slasher wants to establish itself in a world very similarly to ours. Because of this take on modern horror, you can feel the influence of slasher staples like Scream 4 in Slasher: Solstice while still paving it’s own way with individuality.

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Slasher: Solstice is available to stream on Netflix now, so prepare yourselves for a solid horror marathon and check it out!

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5 Reasons to watch Slasher: Solstice

By Aedan Juvet | Jun 8, 2019