Tag: Horror

Found footage films get a lot of hate. So much that now when any movie is filmed by a character in that movie, that is what it is called regardless of the reason. Most of the time it is a simple style reason. But because The Blair Witch Project was first, that places this silly title on to the genre. Then people get nitpicky, especially if no one finds the footage. I had to note in my review of Into The Storm that just because it was camera, doesn’t mean that it was found footage, but hey, people still raged.

For what it is worth, it looks like As Above, So Below night be a found footage standard horror film too. Found Footage films that are true to the word are annoying, because they usually mean no survivors. Knowing there is no survivors can be annoying. Back in the day, lots of people survived horror films. More and more recently they seem to want to make it one or no survivors.

Oh well. Hopefully based on the setting it is at least full of history?

And hopefully this is the biggest hole in the movie.

I guess it is based on history. History…and magic!

Scarlett (Perdita Weeks) is a young archaeologist and scholar, with several degrees. More than one would expect for someone so young. Her father helped pick out her career path and was big in the field. However, some say he went mad trying to discover the true location of the Philosopher’s Stone. That’s right. They want immortality.

Well, after going to Iran and finding out some Rosetta Stone like artifact that would allow her to decipher a code, she heads back to Paris where the one and only Nicolas Flamel died. Rumor has it that Flamel achieved immortality by being a cool alchemist and discovering the Philosopher’s Stone, which also made him super rich! And since then people have wanted to find him or find the stone to get some of that wealth action.

Scarlett isn’t doing it for money. She is doing it for science. Along with Benji (Edwin Hodge), a man who wants to make a documentary on the search, and her good friend George (Ben Feldman) (who can also translate some stuff for her), they are going to scour Paris looking for it!

But, below Paris? That means the Catacombs! Which have only been partially explored still. It is really easy to get lost down there and lose track of where you are going. Would be scary without a guide to get them to where they need to go. Like Papillon (François Civil) and his two friends (Ali Marhyar, Marion Lambert)! They know those catacombs and the superstitions behind them.

Pro Tip 3: Crawling on bones is probably not bad luck.

For what it is worth, only parts of this movie could be considered found footage. Multiple cameras and people with cameras dying, you are going to have cameras being left behind. So technically someone can find those.

I also thought at times things were pretty scary. Based on the score and framing you can tell when something spooky was about to jump at you, so I might have looked far to the side of the theater, or behind me to make sure no one was about to jump on me in real life. Going to a theater in the slums that is a real fear.

Also, at times the movie felt a bit intelligent. They were doing a lot of smart things, which is good because the two main leads are supposed to be smart characters. So that is nice. A lot of leaps of logic by the end though.

As Above, So Below was a strange movie. It was interesting in that it was unique and felt more like a thriller early on. I had some scares. By the end it was pretty dang crazy and felt harder to follow. Everything they were doing made sense, sure, but as to why it made sense is the bigger question.

Overall, a good use of the “found footage” and an okay movie.

“What in the fuck is this?” You might all be asking yourselves. “You said you don’t do older movies! You lied to us! We trusted you!” Stop talking in unison readers, that is creepy.

This is a special occasion, much like my Milestone Reviews. I am taking part in a Blog-A-Thon with the theme of 1984. Here is a banner I am supposed to use. .

So yeah, a week long blog-a-thon of only movies from 1984, and I picked C.H.U.D. because I am a winner at heart. C.H.U.D. is a movie I had never seen before, but definitely something I had heard a lot before. The first I heard about it was the summer of 2006. That is when Clerks II came out in theaters, I had to drive an hour with my brother to go see it, and we went at the first possible show time at like, 10 am. We were excited. One line stuck out to me as peculiar that they uttered twice. “Hideous Fucking C.H.U.D.”

I didn’t know what a C.H.U.D. was, but I liked it, and began saying it a lot. I obviously looked into it eventually, started seeing the references in tons of other pop culture things and swore one day I would watch it. Like. Seven years ago. Thankfully, the 1984 Blog-A-Thon happened, and I finally had an outlet for my dreams.

Speaking of dreamy.

New York City. Land of the homeless, large sewer systems, subways, and C.H.U.D.s. What is a C.H.U.D.? Good question. It just might stand for Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller. You’d be hard pressed to find a better acronym than that one.

No one sees them either, as they only come out of the sewers at night and bring their prey with them. However, there has been an unusual number of reported missing people cases lately. And police captain Bosch (Christopher Curry) is being told to cover it up. Don’t assume murder, just regular missing people running away. Well, he doesn’t really want to anymore. The numbers are getting too large and he has personal stake in it. His wife went missing too.

When he begins to investigate, a soup kitchen owner, A.J. ‘The Reverend’ Shepherd (Daniel Stern) has also noted that the homeless population has been dwindling, including several patrons he knew who slept underground. In fact, some of them are very scared, resorting to stealing weapons from police to fend for their lives. The Reverand is also a former nuclear physicist, or something. That should be noted, because that is awesome.

On the other side of the street, we have George Cooper (John Heard), a famous photographer who took pictures of the homeless in the sewers before and needs new material. His model girlfriend (Kim Greist) and him also get caught up in this C.H.U.D. nonsense, and it will take all four of them working together to stop the madness, find the root of the problem, and prevent the town from being blown up.

Oh hey, John Goodman is in here too as an unnamed cop. That seems relevant.

Speaking of dreamy…again.

Oh man, B-movies! I almost forgot you existed. After all, in modern times, there really isn’t too many B-movies left.

There is the bullshit that SyFy and The Asylum produce, but I would qualify them as C-Movies. They are intentionally made shitty, and are in fact, too shitty. No passion, no heart, just shit does not necessarily make a good time. Sharknado is terrible. The better B-Movies are the ones that were serious about what they were doing but ended up being shitty and amusing, not realizing that they have become a joke. The fact that C.H.U.D. had script controversy between the two male leads and rewrites means that these people wanted to make a real horror drama film.

But special effects. So bad.

While watching it, I did find myself laughing on more than one occasion. The shittyness of the 80s was fully rampart in this film. But at the same time, it had a decent plot. Corrupt government officials, nuclear waste scares, gray area between right and wrong. It wasn’t badly written. Just the make up.

This may be Daniel Stern’s best role after Home Alone (sorry Bushwhacked/Celtic Pride). Was it worth my time? Arguably. I feel better about using the term C.H.U.D. now, so I got that going for me.

It is currently on Netflix, so if you have a spare afternoon, why not?

Introducing a new genre type to Gorgon Reviews. The Horror Documentary. One part documentary, one part bump in the night, and one part magic.

This is not a genre I could even imagine existed. Sure, maybe documentaries about scary subjects? But this one also has some tense moments in it as well, with looking at places at night, scary images, and of course, scary stories.

Killer Legends wants to talk about four urban legends in particular, discovering why they became popular, where the truth really lies, and why people still talk about them today.

The hosts are Rachel Mills and Joshua Zeman, two nobodies basically. Just the movie makers and inquires.

There were some cameos from some clowns and wolf heads too, of course.

The documentary looks into four urban legends. The Hook, escaped mental patient, going after lovers lane people. The Candy Man, the man who ruined Halloween, and how often your treats have poison and razor blades in them. Then the call from your own place, babysitters getting found and killed while they are watching (or not watching) the kids. And of course, killer clowns. Or at least clowns driving around Chicago neighborhoods in white vans, trying to abduct kids.

Some of these stories you may already know the inspiration behind, because who doesn’t know John Wayne Gacy? But I thought each section was very well researched, if not super editorialized with some awkward and unecessary statements. It put a lot of great info out there, in particular with the Hollyween candy. This is important information, so people can stop living in so much fear. It is the worst hearing about people bemoan about “society these days” and such. All of them just being falsely nostalgic.

Either way, I thought this documentary was informative and every so creepy. Learning about the legend of the hook was the most informative for me, and gave me new movies to look out for in the upcoming future.

Killing Legends is a very new documentary and an exciting one in my book.

In the summer of 2013, there was a horror movie that ended up being surprisingly good. No, not The Conjuring. That was expected to be good and delivered.

I am talking about The Purge, which created its own unique concept for a movie and ran with it. What we got was a house survival type film, with some tense moments and a lot of twists. But more importantly, it created a world with a lot of potential. The Purge was just one families story, but they could set it in any number of settings, with any number of character types, and get completely different films and experiences out of it.

The possibilities are endless. Which is why I was excited to see The Purge: Anarchy, which is set in a city, and looks like it will feature a few different story lines that may intersect. A nice way to do it. Unless this one bombs, I hope they set one in a rural community next. A 500 person city or something. Maybe an island. Or a college campus. Classic settings for horror movies, but these ones have the twist that they involve “normal people” committing the crimes. Or whatever they want to do, as long as it makes me uncomfortable to watch.

Jimmies are definitely getting rustled here.

Set a year after the first film, The Purge: Anarchy gives us a few different groups of people with different reasons for being outside. Like Leo (Frank Grillo) who has a decked out armor car and intentionally went out into the city for some Purge action. He has his reasons. He wants revenge.

Or let’s take Eva (Carmen Ejogo) and her daughter Cali (Zoe Soul). They definitely don’t want to be outside. But thanks to some soldiers invading their complex, taking people into the streets to be prisoners, they really don’t have a choice.

Or even the young couple Liz (Kiele Sanchez) and Shane (Zach Gilford). They had plenty of time to get home, even took the back roads to avoid the busy highways. But when a group of mask men tampered with their vehicle intentionally to leave them stuck in the city, well, they have to learn to flee or fight back as well.

All three groups meet up rather quickly in the film, allowing them safety in numbers to try and survive the twelve hours. Also featuring Michael K. Williams as a resistance leader, trying to get the poor to seize the moment and topple the rich and elite, who he claims use the Purge to secure their own positions in life.

These are the real consequences of P. Diddy‘s Vote or Die campaign.

Not only were my jimmies rustled from the early on pictures, but they literally were rustled almost the entire length of the movie. Let’s say five minutes in or so until the credits rolled. This isn’t disgusting like The Human Centipede is disgusting. It is disgusting on a more primal level, given that these are just regular average people of various ethnicities and backgrounds. That is what really makes these movies. If you don’t accept the movies premise on the basic level, you won’t be able to get into the atmosphere it creates and you probably won’t enjoy it.

I thought the movie was extremely tense. Despite common thought, having guns as a main killing weapon doesn’t turn a horror into an action.

The acting of course isn’t something to be admired. No Oscars will be won by any of it, of course.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie. Obviously. They are setting up bigger and crazier events in the future, pretty nicely. This franchise can have a lot of life left in it. But if you hated the first one, no way you’d enjoy this one.

The first time I saw a trailer for Deliver Us From Evil, it definitely scared me. It was simple and basic, but it did the trick. They made a more plot based trailer eventually, but I never saw it.

It should have been of no surprise that I found the trailer terrifying, because the writer/director of this movie also wrote/directed Sinister from last year, which I loved. He seemed to have a real knack for the build up and tense moments, with the occasional jump scare to poop thine pants.

Basically, I was kind of excited, is what I was getting at, despite my dislike of being scared.

Who actually likes being scared anyways? Who? Who? Who?

The story mostly takes place in the distance past, 2013, with Sergeant Ralph Sarchie (Eric Bana, sporting a pretty accurate to me Bronx native accent) rolling around his turf, stopping bad guys. He has had a rough couple of cases recently, some dead babies, a dude who beat his wife, a lady who threw her baby into a lion pit.

Whoa now. Let’s go back to that. A Jane Crenna (Olivia Horton), mysteriously threw her baby over the side, then the lights went out in the whole park, causing everyone to flee. She was found later in the park, digging holes and singing The Doors very quickly. There was also a mysterious painter (Sean Harris) who was seen at the lion den, but got away, also mysteriously.

Things just are not going Ralph’s way. He is getting angrier at all of these stranger events, affecting his home life with is wife (Olivia Munn) and daughter.

But things don’t really get weird until he starts to see the connections between a few of his weird events and things I didn’t say. Unfortunately, it might even take a priest (Édgar Ramírez).

Also starring Daniel Sauli, as a mean man, and Joel McHale, as a character who is a cocky asshole. But this time the cocky asshole has a slight accent and a bit more relevant character traits than normal. Oh, he is also Ralph’s partner.

Man, that painter really doesn’t understand his job description.

First things first, yes, I did indeed get scared during the movie. There were a lot of jump scares too, a significant amount to say that they might have been a majority of the scares, which is annoying. But some of these came at such random times, just out of no where, that they did shock me. There was also fear in the build up and scene building, as I mentioned above that Sinister had. So despite the jump scares, the fear is real.

The plot? I actually enjoyed the plot. There is obviously an exorcism in this movie. Why else would we have a priest? They kept it mostly fresh and action packed. The fact that this was a sort of crime/mystery + horror movie really got you invested into the plot. Eric Bana was at his best and really flourished during this movie to I thought. Good job Bana. Everyone else? Eh, take it or leave it.

However, there was something incredibly terrible with this movie. Sound Editing/Mixing/Whatever. Holy crap, it was terrible. I feel like a real reviewer using these words, yes. Okay first off, yes, the main character began to hear things that other people could not hear. It was static noise, kids playing most of the time (and the kids playing used a very recognizable sound clip, so it was awkward every time it ran). But the rest of the movie’s sound was all over the place, screams out of nowhere as part of the music basically, despite nothing making the noise. Not just normal movie horror noise. Just very loud, all over the place, disjointed. It took me out of the movie numerous times.

There were a few cheesy moments too. The detective who was watching the exorcism from a distance made snide “OMG” like comments every now and then, un-tensing one of the final important moments of the film. Minor things like that. But mostly the sound editing.

So I don’t think it is as good as Sinister. But it wasn’t also trying to be inspired by a “True story” so that is another good bonus for Sinister over Deliver Us From Evil. Still very watchable.

There comes a time in every movies life when it needs to pick a genre out of a hat and just run with it. Sometimes, they get genres accidentally stuck together when it comes to be their time, so they might get odd combinations like “Thriller Comedy” or “Urban Sci-Fi”. In the case of Stage Fright, it was able to pull out “Horror Musical”. Sure, musicals could be in really any genre. But even the ones with “darker themes” such as Rocky Horror Picture Show or Little Shop of Horrors or Cannibal! The Musical are all just actually musical comedies. I guess the closest we have right now is Repo! The Genetic Opera. But that is all sorts of weird.

So can Stage Fright be the musical that is also truly a horror?

Well, it has a horror musical veteran in this, so why not?

The movie starts with the worldwide premiere of The Haunting of the Opera, which is a fake Phantom of the Opera, obviously. Similar plot and all. It’s star is miss Kylie Swanson (Minnie Driver), who was killed after her opening night wonderful performance. Awkward. She left behind two kids, Buddy (Douglas Smith) and Camilla (Allie MacDonald). They are taken in by Roger (Meat Loaf), the director or producer or something of the original musical and long time friend of Kylie.

Then, ten years later. Roger has started a musical summer camp for kids to grow their talent and put on shows, to teach everyone that musicals are great! Camilla and Buddy are not campers, they just work in the kitchen. But the camp this year is putting on their own Japanese inspired version of The Haunting of the Opera. That is terrible. But Camilla feels strangely allured to it. She wants to audition for the lead role, like her mom did, and truly honor her.

Yadda yadda yadda, other people want the part. We got an annoying director (Brandon Uranowitz), another lead lady (Melanie Leishman), a weird lead actor (Ephraim Ellis), and a head tech guy who likes Camilla (Kent Nolan). Oh, and eventually a killer starts taking out parts of the cast and crew. Shit, again? What’s up with that? Is that musical haunted or something?!

Haunting musicals can make women fall into trance. A modern day snake charmer, really.

Well, turns out this musical, like the others, really isn’t too scary. Nope, but it does half original music and actually a decent number of laughs! Maybe horror musicals are just inherently funny, because it is hard to take it too seriously when people just belt into song?

There actually weren’t too many original songs in this, just a couple, and then a song from the musical that gets song a few times. But the songs that they did make up were very entertaining/clever/funny. So props to them there!

I find it funny that I can’t think of anything really else to say analysis wise. Not really scary, but the gore existed at some points. The killer isn’t a big shocker. But I am just so happy that they tried to do something like this, and it was decently amusing, that hey, it gets a nice grade.

The Quiet Ones is the second horror movie released this month but one that I don’t think was advertised that well.

I saw only the trailer only once the week before it came out. So up til then I knew it was just some random horror movie. Which is how I like it! Let’s not have half of the scary stuff spoiled in the trailer like normal.

But one cool thing is they found a younger Christina Ricci clone.

Alright, this movie takes place in England! Oxford University! In the 1970s. Yes. It has been well noted that cell phones are ruining horror movies, because they have to add in a line about how they have no service where bad things happen. One way around that is to set things in the past.

This story, “inspired by actual events” which means jack shit. It is about Professor Joseph Coupland (Jared Harris), a researcher on abnormal psychology who wants to prove that all the spiritual brouhaha dealing with possessions is baloney. No, he thinks it is simply people with telekinetic powers who have to learn to harness their powers.

So he thinks if he can fix just one person, he can fix all people when the truth is finally revealed.

His patient is one Jane Harper (Olivia Cooke) that he saved from the foster system who believes an Evey is messing with her.

His crew involves two students to help him conduct studies (Rory Fleck-Byrne, Erin Richards), and Brian (Sam Claflin) an audio visual person looking for work.

Also there is a doll. Fuck that doll.

The Quiet Ones goes a lot of places. But one place it doesn’t go is onto my future Blu-Ray rack.

The type of movie allows for some of that fun shaky cam horror stuff, but even more old school, because the 1970’s. We have a classic exorcism like plot, but with “science” instead of exorcism. If I didn’t look it up, I would have assumed this was a James Wan movie based on some of the stuff that occurred.

The film has twists, turns, but unfortunately parts of the plot are so confusing that none of them have any effect. There is a breakthrough moment where Brian sees some of her past files and runs off. It becomes a huge moment, and of course! But we have no idea what he saw. In fact, we never learn. It doesn’t seem relevant at all to what he did.

But yeah, the movie isn’t that great. The fears are all a bunch of jump scares. The ending is a lot of who gives a shit as well.

Just so much about this movie is uninteresting, I don’t think I could suggest it to anyone. Not to mention the title is mentioned just once, and not really relevant to the movie in the slightest. Good times, shitty movie.

It has been a long time since I have seen a horror movie in theaters. Literally, this one coming out in April, is the first one to come out since the first week of January. That film was of course Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, which literally came out on DVD before the next major horror movie in theaters.

It was a slow year, I guess.

So we got Oculus, a horror movie about mirrors. Cool. I hope it isn’t like Mirrors. I never saw it, but I did see a certain scene with Christy Carlson Romano from Mirrors 2. Okay, so scratch that, I hope it is similar to Mirrors 2.

Evil Starbuck? I guess that’s new. Definitely already scared going in.

Oculus is a hard movie to describe. So let’s just say it involves one family.

This family moved into a new house, but don’t worry, the house isn’t haunted. No, the dad (Rory Cochrane) gets a fancy antique mirror, and it starts to get him sorts of angry. There is a definite aura of bad in their house. The mom (Katee Sackoff) is starting to freak out. Needless to say, something bad happens, and the kids (Garrett Ryan, Annalise Basso) survive. The boy has to go to a mental ward.

Now many years later he is 21 (Brenton Thwaites) and his older sister (Karen Gillan) is glad he is back. Because now they can destroy the mirror. They know that the mirror destroyed their lives, so now they finally want to destroy it so that it doesn’t kill anymore. But first, they also want proof to show to the authorities. So they set up a series of cameras and tests to show the demonic powers of the mirror. No, don’t worry, this didn’t become a found footage film. Just a really fucked up one.

A fucked up film usually features a couple child actors, to maximize the fuckery.

Oculus is a strange movie. Did I already say that? Like, really really weird.

It doesn’t tell you the story in order, no. You get to see the story of the kids and their parents, spliced with the kids older and trying to test and experiment with the mirror.

Because of that, sometimes, it is really hard to follow along with the movie. Constant back and forth. Not to mention the whole point of the movie seems to be to confuse the viewer. The mirror shows you what it wants to show you. So every other scene has something not real occurring, meaning you never really know what is going on.

By the end, you know. Oh yes, you will know by sure. And it is kind of fucked up too. The film isn’t particularly gory and there isn’t a huge cast of characters.

So why the low score? Confusion level. It had an interesting storyline, decent characters, some cool stuff happen. But at the same time, I have no idea what was going on through most of it.

Ah, LARPing. An easy subject to make fun of. I have never LARP’d, because actually LARPing involves having a character, having stats abilities and stuff, and doesn’t necessarily involve just hitting people with swords. I have done the thing where I hit people with swords though.

Movies that feature LARPing generally are just overall parodies of them, never really getting the actuality of it all (like anything nerdy in films). Recently I watched Lloyd the Conqueror and it didn’t trash on the subject. Still probably far off, but at least it wasn’t just making fun of it. I imagine this movie, Knights of Badassdom will do the same thing, but with a bigger budget and bigger stars.

There is an obvious joke here, but I will be the bigger man and not make it.

Some friends like to role play and have eventually elevated their play to the next level to involve LARPing. After one of their friends goes down with a paintball injury, Hung (Peter Dinklage) and Eric (Steve Zahn) need another member for their team before the big even this weekend!

Which is where they find Joe (Ryan Kwanten), their old friend, wallowing in misery. His girlfriend (Margarita Levieva) just broke up with him. He used to play D&D with them, but stopped. Using the power of drugs and alcohol, they convince him to join their band for the weekend. The rest of their team includes Lando (Danny Pudi), Gunther (Brett Gipson), and Gwen (Summer Glau).

But early in the weekend, Eric accidentally casts a spell from a book he found that unleashes a succubus upon the festivities. Weee, real demons!

Also featuring Brian Posehn for one scene, and Jimmi Simpson as the Game Master. Nerds, every single one of them.

In case you are curious, yes, the lightning bolt joke makes it here too.

Arguably, this is some sort of “horror comedy” or “black comedy,” I have heard it described as both. The only issue I have with both sides is the comedy element. I remember a couple amusing scenes, maybe, but most of it was sans chuckles. That sucks! I know most of the actors in this. All of them are amusing in their own way and definitely are “nerds” in terms of roles they play normally, so I believe that they are nerdy in real life as well.

But this film is just disappointing. Again, very few laughs. If there were more laughs, I could forgive the mediocre acting or plot or whatever. Kind of cool fight near the end but it isn’t enough to save it. Definitely a passable movie. I can’t even bring myself to describe it more than what I have done already.

I am still atoning for my year and a half of never really doing horror films, but Cheap Thrills is a new one. If you take a quick look at the cast list, you would probably assume it was bad. Most likely you haven’t heard of three of the cast members, and the fourth you will recognize but not for his talent.

I was definitely intrigued by the title and plot line, so I gave this lower budget film a whirl. It is a very simple concept but it can go a lot of places. Kind of like The Purge, I guess.

Cheap Thrills on a cheap set? Checks out.

The story is mostly about one man, Craig (Pat Healy). He has a wife, a kid, and now he is getting kicked out of his home. Evictions suck. But they both lost their job and are having lots of trouble making cash. Not looking too good for their house. So Craig goes out to get a quick drink. There at the bar he meets Vince (Ethan Embry. The main character from Can’t Hardly Wait with a beard), an old high school friend who dropped out and he hasn’t seen in years.

They drink a bit, both of their lives kind of suck for different reasons, but at least there is alcohol right?

But then they meet two strangers: The ever texting and silent Violet (Sara Paxton) and her talkative husband Colin (David Koechner). They are celebrating her birthday and they have wads of cash!

They are looking to have a little fun, so they invite the two “friends” along for the ride. They also start giving out cash like its nothing. In fact, they pay Vince and Craig for them to do some outlandish behavior.

But happens when it starts to escalate? What then? What would Craig do to help protect his family?

This Ethan Embry doesn’t believe in destiny so much.

Living up to its name, Cheap Thrills provides cheap thrills to the characters in the movie and to the viewers watching. Just kidding. The thrills in the movie are anything but cheap, with about 250 thousand dollars overall being up for grabs based on the extremity of the stunt.

With only four characters, three of which are vocal, they actually have to act. The three males all have personalities and we learn about our two friends more and more as the story progresses. Some of the moments were actually quite powerful. They both have needs, and if only one person can win, it can get quite serious.

Not much else I can think to say about this movie, but it took a simple concept and made it really work. Nice job, movie.