Entertainment
Shocking, Unrated Horror Flick No One Saw Will Destroy Your Suburban Dreams
By Robert Scucci
| Published
I was having a really good day before I fired up 2009’s Morris County, a three-part horror anthology written and directed by Matthew Garrett about the darkness hiding just beneath the idyllic sheen of modern suburbia. I didn’t know what to expect going into this low-budget romp through the neighborhood, but I figured it would carry the same “everybody has skeletons in their closet” messaging that most films like this do. American Beauty, The Burbs, Happiness, and countless other films have played with this motif with wildly different results, so I went into Morris County with an open mind.
For a film that looks like it was shot for less than $500 (budget information is not publicly available), Morris County still manages to get under your skin and make you want to take a long shower when it’s over. I live in a pretty modern apartment, but still found that I couldn’t get the water hot enough to shock the final sequence out of my brain.
While I can’t say this is the most groundbreaking film of all time, it works with what it has and proves genuinely upsetting on more than one occasion.
Three Stories From The Same Neighborhood
Morris County has a structure that feels deliberate, though it may be coincidental. The first story focuses on a teenage girl named Ellie (Darcy Miller) who has clearly lost her way. She’s shut out her parents and taken to drinking and drugging. It’s implied that she regularly trades sexual favors with the liquor store employees so she can buy booze as a minor. Ellie meets her friends in the woods, and they party like teens do.
She’s not yet fully aware of how her behavior will catch up with her, but she soon finds out and has to make peace with herself when she realizes how far gone she actually is.
Chapter two moves away from teenage chaos and into adult misery. This section focuses on Noah (Albie Selznick), a Jewish man struggling to reconcile his latent homosexuality with his faith. Making matters worse is his wife’s affair, which she thinks she’s successfully concealing even though he’s fully aware of it.
He takes solo trips to the adult video store and attempts to hook up with male suitors, which lands him in more trouble than he anticipated. Broken, miserable, and convinced he’s stepping further away from God’s light, Noah finds himself staring down his family, the bottom of a bottle, and the barrel of a gun. It plays out exactly how you’d expect.
Now that Morris County has progressed through middle age, the final story moves into the golden years through the eyes of Iris (Alice Cannon). Forced into early retirement because of her age, Iris suddenly feels lost without the routine she followed for her entire adult life.
On her first day of retirement, her husband Elmer (Erik Frandsen) dies while watching TV on the couch. In her profound state of grief, Iris decides to live with Elmer’s rotting corpse and go about her daily routine as if nothing has changed. The first few days are manageable, but as Elmer continues to decompose, it becomes painfully clear that the romance and sense of fulfillment Iris is chasing is just as dead as her husband.
A Horrifying Glimpse At Humanity
While its production values leave quite a bit to be desired, Morris County ultimately does everything it sets out to accomplish. It moves through three phases of life, each one more disturbing than the last, highlighting the uncomfortable truth that growing up, growing old, and dying are rarely graceful experiences.
Everybody is fighting a silent battle, and every so often those battles boil over in the ugliest ways imaginable. From an isolated and angsty teenager barreling through life on hard mode to an elderly woman who refuses to let go of her past and plan her next steps, the film has no trouble getting its point across.
Behind the picket fences and locked front doors, silent suffering hides in the most unassuming places. When people build walls around themselves and let their demons consume them from the inside out, you get exactly what Morris County is showing you.
As of this writing, Morris County is streaming for free on Tubi.
Entertainment
Score up to 64% off at EcoFlow and snag free solar panels with your purchase.
SAVE 64%: Between May 6 and May 17, you can score up to 64% off at EcoFlow and snag free solar panels with your purchase.
Get up to 64% off plus a free solar panel with purchase
I live in an apartment, so I don’t exactly have a “whole home” to back up. But if there’s one thing I hate, it’s losing power. There goes the AC, the internet, the food in the fridge — it’s a total nightmare. If you actually own a house and have been putting off buying a backup power system because it’s pricey, I have some good news.
The DJI Power 1000 Mini portable power station just launched — U.S. availability is pending
Right now, EcoFlow is running a Mother’s Day Sale through May 17 with discounts as high as 64%. They’re also throwing in free hardware to sweeten the deal: All single orders between $600 and $3,000 come with a free 45W solar panel, and orders over $3,000 come with two free 160W solar panels. If you’re looking for something more portable, their RAPID Power Banks are also up to 53% off right now.
Just keep an eye on the countdown clock — it’s for the Flash Sale items that have even better, limited-time price cuts. If you miss the flash window, the standard Mother’s Day and Home Improvement deals (including a $700 installation discount for larger systems) are still valid through mid-May.
Mashable Deals
Here are a few of the best deals I’ve spotted so far:
Entertainment
Maddies Secret trailer reveals John Early as youve never seen him before
Comedian John Early makes his feature directorial debut with Maddie’s Secret, an offbeat homage to melodrama that he wrote and headlines as its eponymous heroine.
As an aspiring food influencer, Maddie Ralph (Early) is passionate about her cuisine. And at first glance, she’s got a picture-perfect life: a loving husband (Eric Rahill), a devoted best friend (Kate Berlant), and a job at a culinary content studio called Gourmaybe. But as the title suggests, there’s a side to Maddie she can’t stomach sharing with her loved ones. And this secret could kill her.
Out of the movie’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall, I cheered Maddie’s Secret, writing in my review for Mashable, “The film is silly and strange, but even amid campy bits, sincere. So, you’ll laugh at its parody elements, but may well be genuinely moved by Early’s commitment to this strange and splendid film.”
I also said “John Early is a better ingénue than Sydney Sweeney,” comparing Maddie’s Secret to another earnest (but less entertaining) TIFF offering, Christy. And I stand by it.
Maddie’s Secret opens in theaters in New York on June 19, and in Los Angeles on June 26.
Entertainment
Pride is almost here! Check out the best dating apps for LGBTQ women.
We know Pride is all year round, but there is something special about the month of June. We’re not there quite yet, but if you want a main squeeze for all the parades and parties, you gotta start looking now. How about on a dating app?
As a lesbian, you probably know all about them. Lesbian Americans (along with bisexual and gay Americans) are far more likely to have ever used dating apps than straight Americans: 51 percent to 28 percent, according to the Pew Research Center.
There are a few reasons why LGBTQ people might turn to online dating more quickly than straight folks. For one, you might live in an area without a thriving LGBTQ community, and in-person dating may be hard. If you don’t know other lesbians to begin with, how can you meet more IRL to date? (Sometimes, lesbian spaces can also be co-opted by The Straights.) Unfortunately, in-person dating may also be less safe, depending on where you live.
Hookup apps for everyone
AdultFriendFinder
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readers’ pick for casual connections
Tinder
—
top pick for finding hookups
Hinge
—
popular choice for regular meetups
Thankfully, we live in a time where we can find people like us with a few swipes. Lesbians are welcome on major dating apps, and there are also niche ones specifically for lesbians and other queer women and people. But which one to choose?
How to find the best dating apps for lesbians
Niche lesbian dating apps aren’t your only option for finding love.
Credit: Stacey Zhu / Mashable
In Mashable’s recommendations below, you’ll find both general dating apps and apps specifically for queer people. As the former appeals to the general population, you’ll find more users in these spaces. The caveat, however, is that when you swipe on other women, you might find those coupled with men who are looking for another woman to have a threesome with (aka unicorn hunters). No judgment here, but that’s probably not what you’re looking for. Then again, people of all types are on dating apps like Tinder and Hinge. You never know who you may come across.
Then there are apps specifically for the community, like HER and Lex. If you yearn for a smaller dating scene, head for these apps. While there’s no “Grindr for lesbians” — we go into why in the FAQ section — these apps are more so like stepping into your neighborhood lesbian bar than an app like Bumble.
You can also try multiple dating apps, as each one below has a free version. You can filter by the gender you identify with and are looking for, and sometimes, as with OkCupid, there are many options to choose from.
Diving into the dating pool isn’t easy, but the water’s fine. Check out our guide below for the full rundown of our recommendations and dating app reviews.
Score up to 64% off at EcoFlow and snag free solar panels with your purchase.
Maddies Secret trailer reveals John Early as youve never seen him before
