Two Sentence Horror Stories Season Two on Netflix

Two Sentence Horror Stories Season Two on Netflix

A Review

By Kami Bryant

I love horror. I love the jump scares. I love the weird and the bizarre. I love the suspense. I love the on the edge of your seat, pee your pants terror. I love screaming at my screen, “Don’t go up the stairs! Run out the door! He is behind you!” I love all of it. “The call is coming from inside the house.” I hear a scary noise, let me go to the creepy basement to investigate. And the stupid girl yelling “Hello?”, as if the killer is going to answer, “Yeah, I’m in here making a sandwich. I will be out to kill you in just a minute.” Two Sentence Horror Stories isn’t that scary, but it is fun and compelling. There is a subreddit for Two Sentence Horror Stories if you are curious. https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoSentenceHorror/

I posted a couple on there for fun when season one of Two Sentence Horror Stories came out. I am now making my way through season two on Netflix. The format of the show is the first sentence of the horror story comes up on the screen, the show that interprets the sentence plays, then at the end of the episode, the second sentence is displayed. I won’t ruin the plot of the episodes for you by giving you the second sentence, but I will give you the first sentence.

Spoilers ahead

***

Be cool, stay in school

The first episode is “Bag Man” and it is very silly, a bit gory but mostly ridiculous. The two sentences are a lot creepier than the actual episode. This is a good one if you like comedy with your horror. The terrifying villain isn’t really that scary and I was spending a lot of time trying to identify the runes drawn on his bare head, you know for research purposes for future demonic events.

I don’t have many friends

Episode two is called “Elliot”. I did like this one because it is about a transgender student and the hate, ignorance, and cruelty that he has to deal with and getting back at his tormentors. I found Elliot to be very sympathetic and I was all for him using magic to get revenge on his abusers. But as we all know that when accepting gifts from witches there is usually a price to pay that said witch didn’t mention in the beginning that is usually for the witch’s benefit and not good for our hero. So, beware of witches offering gifts. Or get it in writing what the price truly is.

Sometimes you just have to grin and bear it

Episode three, “Instinct” was by far my favorite. I loved this one so much! Anika is working on writing a horror novel. She uses gig work to pay the bills since her rent check bounced. Anika has an active imagination being a writer. She notices strange things going on in the house of the man that has paid her to do some painting. It’s probably just her imagination. Or is it? “But like I always say, take some protection, hmm? Just in case you’re wrong. Or right.” The acting in this episode by Sunita Prasad who plays Anika and Leanne Lapp who plays Holly is spot on perfect. This is a great episode. A woman’s intuition is a powerful thing and if a strange dude is making you feel uncomfortable, LEAVE! This episode definitely had me feeling uneasy and uncomfortable. Loved it.

I work so hard

Episode Four is called “Imposter”. This was an interesting story about a man trying to impress the father of his fiancée who is also his boss, that he deserves a seat on the board of the high-profile investment firm where he works. He is about to receive an award, the Coburn Prize. He wants to show the board that he’s not “just some random Asian.” So, to impress the boss, Charles is willing to destroy that Filipino part of himself to fit in. A lot of social commentary on racial stereotypes, but not very scary.

We work ourselves to the bone

Episode five, “Quota” made me kind of sad. It is Christmas and the employees working in a shipping company are trying to exceed the quota. The workers are killing themselves for a company that doesn’t care about them at all. Tina, a black woman filed a complaint about all the rats in the warehouse, but “As long as them suckers ain’t nibbling on product corporate doesn’t care.” Sarah, the black manager needs her bonus. She was promised her bonus by her white boss, but he is now saying that if the workers don’t exceed quota, she won’t get it. She was depending on that bonus! She could lose her house! Lots of sympathetic characters here. There is also a lot of gore.

My sister needs to talk

Episode Six is called “Fix”. Jackson goes to his family’s cabin to check on his sister, Sofia. Her past heroin abuse caused the two of them to become estranged. It is the weekend of the anniversary of their parents’ death. God wants him to forgive her and his boyfriend thinks that he misses her. And then there is a demon. This one was kind of ‘meh’ for me.

I always admired her looks

Episode seven, “Essence” is a social commentary on women spending lots of money at spas and salons to look their best. The VIP treatment really gives the customers “that glow”, but the young girls working on the women’s hands and feet are getting mysteriously sick. This one also had some gory parts but a great, clever ending.

Alone in the morgue, I hear little footsteps

Episode eight, “El Muerto” had me crying like a big baby. A little girl is at a morgue where her mother is working, and she is haunted by a ghost. Laura running from the ghost is definitely scary. This had a really great mother/daughter message, which is why I was crying. Laura is upset that her mother is mad at her. There are some clues in the beginning that give up the twist of the story if you have a keen eye. Little Laura’s cries of “Mama?” are really heart breaking. This one tugs at the heart strings. Alone at night at a morgue with the lights blinking on and off, is pretty creepy. I liked this one.

I swore I woke up

In episode nine, “Ibeji”, a Nigerian American nurse is upset about how her twin sister is treated by the medical system. The white doctor won’t listen to her when she insists that her sister has had a stroke. Her twin, Adaora goes to a hospice where there are only two nurses for a floor of thirty patients! The medical care for the predominantly black patients is severely lacking. “Management just doesn’t care about anything but cutting costs.” This one also had a clever ending and was about the psychic connection between twins. There was a moment where I was screaming at the screen, “Unlock the door!”

I could smell their fear

Episode ten is called “Manifest Destiny”. An indigenous man and his girlfriend are visiting an Old West reenactment for their podcast. The Old West was not kind to indigenous people, so it is probably a good bet that things aren’t going to go as planned. “The Nostalgia’s” podcast exposes people “to such .. positive American history,” says one of the reenactors. Because American history is full of positivity. The dark moments of history that include massacres and the genocide of indigenous people was so “sweetness and light.” Our hero, Jeremy of course is not buying it.

Most of the episodes of season two, have a lot of great social commentary about racial injustice. The big corporations run by white men, who don’t care about their minority workers. The poor stay poor, the rich get rich, and zombies and demons run rampant, or something like that. But in Two Sentence Horror Stories, the little guy or transgender student or Nigerian American nurse or young Asian American nail salon worker can win in the end, and that’s always fun.

I really like this show. I like the creepy and the bizarre. But my favorite Two Sentence Horror Story will always be a conversation between myself and my son who was four years old at the time.

Me: “Monsters don’t exist.”

My four-year-old son: “That’s what they want you to think.”

And cue the scary music!