[Netflix Review] Slasher Season 3: Solstice (2019) ★★★★☆

Saadia dressed up at the Solstice Party in Slasher season 3 Solstice

Slasher: Solstice targets the residents of an apartment building with gory gruesome menace.

The third season of the anthology series Slasher is titled Solstice. Dressed as a modern Druid a serial killer is targeting people from the same apartment building, out for revenge. This third story is even more gruesome than its predecessors. There’s much more blood, more horrible and gruesome kills, more imaginative kills and more deaths. And this time we’re not dealing with just one killer, but more Druids roam the building.

The Druid also addresses social issues, like racism, bigotry, homophobia, but also the hate that is spread through social media, behind which people can hide and say anonymously the most awful things. This is the main motive that sets off the killings, to wreak terrible vengeance upon the selfish, hateful people. It is therefore the most realistic and confronting season.

This third season consists of 8 episodes with each a duration of 44-48 minutes. It has a continuous storyline that plays out during one day from 6 am till 6 am the next morning.

Plot

It’s the last day of school and Saadia and Jen have their finals, while Saadia’s parents go visit her brother, leaving Saadia home alone. It’s the night of the Solstice party and Jen and her brother Connor invite Saadia to come. But it’s also exactly a year ago that Kit Jennings, a resident of their building the Clayborn was brutally murdered and everybody played a crucial part, most importantly they did nothing.

When that morning a neighbor, Frank Dixon is murdered, it’s only the beginning of a series of brutal kills by the Druid who is out for revenge.

Find out who the Druid really is, or are, here.

Why you should watch it

Let’s start by saying that this season is full of sex, a lot of sex, quite explicit and graphic and it is often a bit too much. Although it’s a major part and motive of the plot and kills, it still can distract from far more important things that are going on.

It’s a season with a very diverse group of people. Saadia and her parents are refugees from Afghanistan. Jen and Connor are black and have two lesbian mothers, Justine who’s black and Amber, who’s white. Angel is gay and Hispanic. Kit is bisexual and a sex addict. Amy is asexual and Asian and her partner Xander is a white snob. Dan is a racist and a supporter of white power and his daughter Cassidy is a mean girl and sleeps around a lot. Violet is a blogger who’s terribly selfish, ruthless and very stupid and her husband Joe is secretly gay and cheats on her with Angel. Kaili is a presumptuous do-gooder. Frank is a criminal and beats his wife Kate. Nobody is perfect and everybody is different, although sometimes portrayed a bit too stereotyped and cliched .

But the problem is that because of these differences people are reluctant to help each other, to stand up for each other. By only looking after themselves, causes Kit being murdered and this leads to a far-spread outcome affecting the whole building.

Being sheltered behind closed doors is one problem, but everybody knows who lives behind it. A far more serious problem is the closed doors of social media, from where everyone can anonymously say or show what they want. Hurting people, spreading hate, that provokes more hate and so on. In this season it’s social media that is the cause of the biggest dividing element that drives people away from each other instead of bringing them together.

Fun and ironic is that the killings in the building first drive them further apart, but eventually bring them closer together. Being hunted down together creates a bond when they are fighting for their lives against one common enemy. Even more ironic is that this means that people always seem to need a common enemy to stand together, otherwise they want to live their secluded lives.

Apart from all the excessive sex, it’s a very serious and in-depth season with the most brutal kills that has more to say than just showing the gruesome kills. There’s much more at stake this time. It’s not about a psychopath, or a group of people accidentally killing a girl and then having to pay for their acts and feel the consequences.

Solstice goes further than that. It’s about all of us, about all of our actions. Our words or videos or pics on social media do have consequences and can even damage and hurt people. An act that cannot be easily undone. The internet is relentless and so can the people that make use of it. That makes this season emotionally charged and very intense.

So let’s think, maybe twice, about what you are going to share, before you post something online.

That said, the kills in this season are beyond imagination. They all suit the victims in a most gruesome and creative way, that it almost becomes ironic. It also stays a mystery for a very long time who the killer is, and that is smartly bypassed by a clever plot device.

Fun fact is that this third season is connected to the first season through the Solstice Party, just a fun little nod.

My favorite part

The only ones who were truly innocent are Saadia and Amy and my favorite characters. Luckily Saadia is the main character so we see a lot of her and it’s refreshing to see a muslim girl as a protagonist and portrayed as a very normal girl instead of a supporting stereotyped character. I loved how she developed and grew in just one day, but didn’t lose her values and principles. And her friendly behavior eventually paid off. So being nice does make a difference, even if it doesn’t always feel that way. Without showing it in a sentimental way, it sends out an important message.

Ratings

Rating: ★★★★☆

Gore factor: ★★★★★

Thrill factor: ★★★★☆

Gruesome factor: ★★★★★

Entertainment factor: ★★★★☆

Cast and crew

Slasher: Solstice is created by Aaron Martin. It stars Baraka Rahmani (Saadia Jalalzai), Mercedes Morris (Jen Rijkers), Gabriel Darku (Connor Rijkers), Salvatore Antonio (Angel Lopez), Patrice Goodman (Justine Rijkers), Joanne Vannicola (Amber Ciotti), Dean McDermott (Dan Olenski), Rosie Simon (Amy Chao), Jim Watson (Xander Lemmon), Paula Brancati (Violet Lickers), Ilan Muallem (Joe Lickers), Erin Karpluk (Kaili Greenberg), Genevieve DeGraves (Cassidy Olenski), Paulino Nunes (Frank Dixon), Marie Ward (Kate Dixon), Lisa Berry (Detective Roberta Hanson), Ishan Davé (Detective Pujit Singh) and Robert Cormier (Kit Jennings).

Music: Shawn Pierce. Cinematography: Nick Haight. Production companies: Shaftesbury Films, Super Channel, TVA Group. Original network: Super Channel, Chiller, Netflix.