History of the Occult (2020) l Must-See, Minimalist Horror

I've had this one in queue for a few years now, across a few platforms. I will admit that until last week, I thought this was a documentary. I left it hovered too long on Prime and then the preview played and I realized it was a fictional work. Moved it up due to how intriguing the trailer was.


Plot: You're dropped in the middle of a complicated political plot involving 2 main locations: (1) a TV studio where the TV newsmagazine called "60 Minutes to Midnight" is showing an interview and (2) a hour where journalists associated with the show are coordinating a story against the sitting President. There is a major protest scheduled for midnight, so the "60 minutes to midnight" of the show acts as an extremely effective timer of sorts (really creative). This summary and the trailer should be all you consumer prior to watching.

Review: Extremely effective. It drops you right in, doesn't explain what's going on, and keeps it moving at a quick pace. The movie is only 82 minutes long and nothing is wasted. Now, a lot if not overtly explained, and its intentionally confusing to add to the tension/anxiety that builds during the movie.

I rarely recommend horror movies where you don't have to fully invest without distraction and this is on the higher end of that spectrum. This movie packs an incredible amount of world building into the 82 minutes and a lot of that is by building a skeleton and requiring the viewer to build the body of the movie around it while watching. If you fall behind or miss something, it's likely going to be confusing.

You can really tell that Late Night with the Devil lifted HEAVILY from this movie. This movie has a much better set up and climax. This is the movie LNWTD was supposed to be. LNWTD had better production due to a higher budget, but that's about it.

Genre(s): Cosmic horror, Occult and Demonic Horror, Found Footage (ish), Conspiracy-Thriller.

Availability: Amazon Prime, Kanopy, hoopla, Tubi (ads), Vudu (ads)