Tag: Simon Delaney

The Conjuring 2

Just three years ago, The Conjuring was a big deal. It was my favorite horror film of the year, which is surprising because it was such a main stream film. For the most part, horror has been dominated with the unique indie horrors running around the last few years.

But that isn’t the only reason it was a big deal. It was also noted that it was rated R, not for gore, violence, nudity, language, or anything else. Just R for being too scary. Now, obviously, there are a lot of problems with the people who rate films. But that is still a rather unique reason to give something an R reason and hasn’t really been done much at all before or since then.

The Conjuring had a lot of hype behind it. So much hype that they didn’t just announce The Conjuring 2, but several spin-off movies, which is why we now have the shit fest that is Annabelle. It’s badness didn’t ruin the doll from the first film thankfully.

There is a lot of pressure on James Wan the director, because he can’t go and make a PG-13 sequel. Nor can he resort to gore just to force the R. He had to try and make something just scary enough without cheap methods to get his rating. And well, going into it, I only know that it received the R for “terror and horror violence.” Good job Wan. I hope I am shaking in my boots.

Nun
Good thing I have a nun fetish, or else this might have terrified me.

Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) are a ghost exercisting (?) power couple, kicking ass and taking names. You know that, you saw the first film. They also helped all of that Amityville stuff, which you will see parts of early on in this film. During that, Lorraine gets a bad vision that shuts her down for awhile, but they still keep chugging along, albeit at a slower pace.

Across the pond, however, in the Enfield borough of London, England, a family is about to have a real bad time. The Hodgson family is a poor family, led by their mom (Frances O’Connor) who is raising four children on her own, because the father has walked out on them for another lady. Jeez. Her oldest are daughters, Margaret (Lauren Esposito) and Janet (Madison Wolfe), and then two sons, Johnny (Patrick McAuley) and Billy (Benjamin Haigh).

Things begin to go bump and clang in the night. Toys play with themselves. At first you assume poor stuttering billy will be the child in danger, but nope, it is Janet, who starts to sleep walk and yell at unseen demons, getting sick and quite violent. Oh shit, demons and a haunted house, again!

And the Warrens are the couple, reluctantly, who will help make things better. Man, it is really hard to kind of hype a haunted house / demon possession plot line. There are a lot of them after all.

The neighbos in London are played by Maria Doyle Kennedy and Simon Delaney. The local ghost expert is Simon McBurney, a different more skeptical ghost expert is Franka Potente (Hey, that’s Lola!), and Bob Adrian plays the main mean ghost guy!

cross
And those pajamas were played by the same cloth that used to used to be a sail on a pirate ship!

James Wan is a really clever dude. He is consistently making better quality horror films than anyone else out there. I don’t even really like the Insidious films, but I recognize the passion and quality that went into them. I mean, he made the first Saw film! What a scary dude!

And he keeps the scares coming in this sequel. This is not like Annabelle. Fuck Annabelle. This is scary, this is well crafted, this has heart.

Horror films tend to start off of slow, a rare scare here and there, with moments in between scares to calm yourself down, usually before a hectic finale. Well, the scares are everywhere in this film. When I found myself in a time between scares to settle, it sometimes had scares of their own, keeping me on my toes. Hell, it had so many scares, I was even afraid to just hold onto my cup for a drink, thinking I’d shriek and spill it.

And when I say this is well crafted, I can’t believe the camera work for what is a mainstream horror film. The first time we see the house, the camera pans around with the family going about their day, zooming in and around rooms, around furniture, up the stairs, everyone feels like a big open house where tons of mischief can take place. The scenes are so well set up it is a delight on the eyes, even when there is something ghastly on the screen. The best scene was between Wilson and the demon, all one nice long shot, with a single focus and a lot of creepy atmosphere.

I was also excited that the polished look of the film didn’t take away from the fright. If something looks too produced, it can take someone out of the film. And in a lot of horrors, they make it look grainier, or extra dark, or whatever. But this movie wants you to see everything and it adds so much to the overall experience.

And sure, yeah, there are jump scares. But these are high quality jump scares. Jump scares you can see coming and have appropriate build up and aren’t completely random just for the cheap thrill. And audio based jump scares as well. The sounds? They will make you squirm.

Despite my rating, it isn’t perfect. I thought a few lines were cringe worthy, and Farmiga wasn’t on her A-Game. Which is a shame, given how excellent she is in Bates Motel.

I think the only reason I wasn’t scared going to sleep after watching this movie, is because I have had a shitty sleep week and couldn’t help but pass out despite glaring at the shadows in my room.

4 out of 4.

Delivery Man

I have failed the movie going public tonight.

Tonight I have seen Delivery Man, but I did not watch Starbuck, the foreign movie that this one is based on. It isn’t super foreign, because it is set in Canada, but it is the French part of Canada. Plus, the director and writer of Starbuck made this version too! Really, it is just some strange re-imaging with a star in the US that people might want to go see.

Vaughn
Well, they might have wanted to see five years ago.
David (Vince Vaughn) is a piece of shit. It sounds harsh, but he really is. The movie makes sure you know that early on, by showing him rack up parking tickets, fail at his job delivering meat, disappoint his family, disappoint his girlfriend, and get turned down for loan applications. He owes some thugs about 80,000, and no way to pay it back.

And there was a screw up a fertility clinic about 20ish years ago. David donated sperm over 600 times in a few years, under the name of Starbuck, and because of its high quality, it was given to and successfully birthed 533 children. Over 100 of them are suing the company and David to determine his identity, believing their right to know their biological father is far more important to his right to privacy. Huh.

Who wants to be known as the guy with 500 kids? Especially when his girlfriend (Cobie Smulders) is pregnant and can’t imagine him ever being a father.

Basically his life is falling apart and he has no idea how to fix it. Maybe he can fix the lives of others? Despite his best interests, and the wishes of his lawyer (Chris Pratt), he decides to check out the profiles of a child, just one at a time, and see if he can help out their life in any way while remaining anonymous.

Clearly a plan that won’t backfire.

His immediate family includes his father (Andrzej Blumenfeld), and two brothers (Simon DelaneyBobby Moynihan) and some of his children are played by Jack ReynorDave Patten, and Britt Robertson.

Robes
Really, if all you want is Chris Pratt in bath robes, then this is the movie for you.
From what the internet tells me, this is actually a scene for scene remake of Starbuck, so I don’t feel too bad not getting to watch the original before this one. The last time I attempted to do something like that was when I watched both Death At A Funerals back to back, and that was just awkward.

Speaking of awkward, that is this movie in a nutshell. It touches on a lot of personal and serious topics, but generally in a strange way given the circumstances of this film. I find it hard to categorize it as a comedy, because although the idea is silly, the jokes are really few and far in between and it gets really dramatic. If you go in expecting a laugh a minute, you will be disappointed.

Vince Vaughn plays a screw up who has his heart in the right place. The reason that sounds familiar is that he always plays those roles, because he is somewhat believable at them. I am not sure how to describe the emotions I felt during this movie, but I can tell you they were there.

I think the movie did far too much disservice early on by making me hate the main character. It was vague on a few important details, like just who was after him for money and why they were surprisingly passive over 7-9 months. The passage of time was very hard to follow, when months would pass for his character without letting the viewer know. Certain problems ended up getting solved too easily and David had a surprising amount of money to give to use for his kids, and gas, and shopping when he owed so much cash in the first place.

I can’t say for certain if this film will stick with me in the long run, but for now it is a decent attempt at trying something new (well, a remake of something new), and I can applaud it for that. It also does a good job of teaching about the potential horrors of sperm bank.

2 out of 4.