Tag: Horror

The Boy? Didn’t I already review this one? About the kid who lived with his dad at a motel stop in the mountains who then was all evil and stuff?

Oh, right right right, that was an indie horror movie, so very few people saw it. So it doesn’t matter that two films came out so close together with the same exact name, because the second one was in a lot of theaters and is thus now more well known. The first The Boy I heard wanted to do sequels too. That could be even more potentially confusing if those sequels become popular.

The good news is that the actual movies have virtually nothing in common.

It’s okay when they beat their kids in this film. It is just a doll!

Greta (Lauren Cohan) needs to get away from her life, so she accepts a job as a nanny in Merrie Old England. She has some stuff she wants to just get away from, and moving to another country for a few months might do the job.

When she gets to the place, she finds it to basically be a mansion and surprised that the tenants are an old couple (Diana Hardcastle, Jim Norton). Like really old. So the fact that they have a kid that needs a nanny seems surprising.

Of course, more surprising is that this kid is actually a porcelain doll. But they say he is unique and have a list of strict rules despite his non-aliveness. And also they are totally leaving like, right away for a vacation. If she has more questions, they have a delivery man, Malcolm (Rupert Evans), who is around from time to time. But as long as she sticks to the rules then everything should be fine.

And you know the doll starts moving around and doing things. Also things go missing. Also Greta gets scared.

Featuring James Russell and Ben Robson as well.

Please don’t make love to the doll. I don’t care what the rules say!

I actually went into The Boy knowing nothing at all. No idea it was about a doll that might be alive. I just assumed a creepy little boy being driven by Satan, like most films about kids. But then hey, a doll. Sure. Doll films haven’t had a good track record recently. After all, did you watch Annabelle? I know you didn’t.

The Boy somehow manages to be a horror film that doesn’t want to do a lot of scary scenes. Outside of the last 20 minutes, it feels like a strange drama. We get the doll being in different places! And items getting moved around. And doors getting locked. But never when our leads are watching him, so it is just odd and never scary.

The ending does a nice job of explaining all of the events of the film, but it doesn’t mean the explanation is worth the first hour or so. It is dull and a bit boring. I am glad that it makes sense, it just isn’t an exciting explanation. It unfortunately doesn’t fully explain why everything happened in the film, which is my biggest question after watching it. Instead we get an open ending to a story that should easily have finished already.

The Boy isn’t great, it is barely a horror, and you instead should watch basically anything else.

Horror anthologies are all of the rage. I probably said that in my last review of a horror anthology, V/H/S: Viral, in October of 2014. Since then there hasn’t really been any horror anthologies. They died really quick.

There was another film called Southbound, but I missed it, so I will just have to wait for the DVD release or around Halloween. Whenever I remember it exists. Other than Southbound, the latest film to match this category is of course Holidays.

Holidays!? Yes, Holidays. A horror anthology with a common theme of several different holidays. Eight to be exact, with a bunch of random directors. That is a low enough number for me to talk about each one quickly!

So many holidays, you probably can’t even guess what this one is about!

For Valentine’s day, we have a little girl (Madeleine Coghlan), who gets teased by a different girl (Savannah Kennick) because she is a bitch. Our first girl also has a crush on her swimming coach (Rick Peters), who just wants her to be happy and not get picked on.

In St. Patrick’s Day, our Irish teacher (Ruth Bradley), wants to make a new girl (Isolt McCaffrey) smile, so that girl puts a curse on her to give birth to a snake.

For Easter, a little girl (Ava Acres) confuses the Bunny with Jesus, but is also told that no one has ever seen the Easter Bunny before for a pretty scary reason.

In Mother’s Day, we learn about a woman (Sophie Traub) who always gets pregnant after sex, regardless of birth control or condom usage. She is 100% fertile and it is ruining her life, so she goes to a middle of nowhere to people who claim that they can help her, when in reality, they want to just force her to stay.

On the other side for Father’s Day, we have a girl (Jocelin Donahue) who thought her dad (Michael Gross) was dead and gone since she was 11, but when she finds a voice recorder with a message on it, she has to go and investigate.

For Halloween (directed by Kevin Smith), we see a dude (Harley Morenstein) operating a small time cam girl operation, where the girls (Ashley Greene, Olivia Roush, Harley Quinn Smith) decide to get even and put him through the same abuse. You know, just worse.

On Christmas, a guy (Seth Green) goes to great lengths to get the latest VR tech for his son, but when the virtual reality starts to show his inner secrets, he and his wife (Clare Grant) have to cope with them.

Finally, on New Year’s Eve, a man (Andrew Bowen) has been killing a woman on each holiday that he has met while online dating, and now he will complete his collection (Lorenza Izzo). He hopes.

What is love? Baby don’t hurt me.

I spent most of my alloted time just going over 1-2 sentence synopsis’ of each short. I figured I could do that with only eight segments, but I may have been wrong.

Like almost every single horror anthology before it, Holidays is definitely hit or miss. The entire thing is less than two hours so overall it is probably worth a late night viewing.

In particular, I liked the Valentine’s Day, Father’s Day and Halloween shorts the most. New Year’s Eve told a decent story as well.

Christmas felt too short, St. Patrick’s Day was mostly weird, and Easter was also incredibly weird (but mostly just short).

Mother’s Day might have been the longest short story, I didn’t really keep track. It had an interesting premise, but I thought it dulled too much in the middle, despite the also pretty good ending.

Now I am ready for the Horror Anthologies to die. I think they are running out of ideas on how to package them together.

Hush little reader, don’t say a word. Because talking to yourself at the computer is not considered normal.

Netflix is becoming quite an amazing place for horror movies. Since it’s number of top tier well known films is constantly dwindling, it has to fill the masses with unheard of sequels and indie films. And there are a lot of indie and B-level horror films out there.

That is of course where I found Hush, a horror movie that sure, is technically just another home invasion story, but with an interesting enough story behind it to keep it fresh.

We like keeping things fresh here at Gorgon Reviews. Fresh, tasty, and full of surprises.

Like suddenly showing up at your house on a Tuesday night!

Maddie (Kate Siegel) is just your average woman. She is living on her own in a cabin in the woods. Not like, super woods, she has neighbors close by. She just wants personal space and is a writer, which explains why she wants to be alone. She is really good at figuring out multiple endings for her books, but has a hard time committing to just one. Oh, and she is deaf and mute. Pneumonia got her when she was 12 and left some damages on her body.

Basically she isn’t your average woman. She is SO CLOSE to finishing her second book too, she just has to commit to and ending. Speaking of endings, her neighbor Sarah (Samantha Sloyan) who came over for a visit totally just died at her door. She was banging on the door, but Maddie couldn’t hear it. Turns out there is some mad man (John Gallagher Jr., yes him) is just traveling around killing people.

And now he has found Maddie, not just an easy kill, but someone he can have fun with. He can cut off the power, slash her tires, so she can’t escape or “call” for help. Not only that, he can sneak around the house and she will have no idea where he is if he breaks a window, or climbs up the stairs or whatever.

But Maddie is smart and properly paranoid. She won’t be an easy kill she refuses.

Also featuring Michael Trucco and Emma Graves.

Not even the stereotypical black lady in the audience could warn her right now.

Hush was different. Hush was unique. Hush even had subtitles.

Thankfully our lead can read lips, so there can be some extra dialogue in the film and not complete silence, but we also get subtitles during sign language portions.

When it comes down the basic elements Hush was scary. On the edge of my seat afraid of what would happen next and how the events would unfold themselves. It is also an extremely simple story. It isn’t bogged down with unnecessary elements, only about 80 minutes long. We have a small cast of characters with only two being important to the story. But there are no wasted moments and everything is building towards the finale, so it is really well written.

Now, I don’t need to know every little thing about a bad guy’s motivations, especially in horror, but our killer does leave me wondering just what is going through his mind. Why is he in those woods, why is he killing? As a viewer, we aren’t privy for this information, seeing most of the film from Maddie’s mind set.

Hush is a very interesting and relatively quick horror to check out and easily one that I can recommend.

The Invitation is the latest Drafthouse Films movie to get a release. And since I live in an area with two Alamo Drafthouses, it feels almost necessary for me to see and review these film releases!

It took over a year for the movie to come out after SXSW festival and it released on only ten screens, but also on Video on Demand like many a horror flick before that. And despite having a city with one of the ten screens, I still watched it in the comfort of my home. Can’t beat that demand service, and the popcorn price at my home is way better.

Going in I knew nothing about the film. But the last dinner party thriller I watched was The Perfect Host, many years ago. And hey, that one was fun, so maybe the dinner party horror/thriller genre would still surprise me.

Hey, stop yelling. This is a damn dinner party. Use harsh whispers instead.

Will (Logan Marshall-Green) is taking his girlfriend, Kira (Emayatzy Corinealdi) to a dinner party. But not just any dinner party. It is being hosted by David (Michiel Huisman) and Eden (Tammy Blanchard), another couple. But Eden is actually Will’s ex-wife and he hasn’t spoken to her in over two years. They had a kid who died tragically, which eventually led to depression, suicide attempts, and divorce.

What fun! David and Eden actually met in a grief group, which is generally not a place to expect to find love.

Other guests are mostly friends of Will and Eden (played by Michelle Krusiec, Mike Doyle, Jordi Vilasuso, Jay Larson, Marieh Delfino). But not everyone was familiar. There was a strange girl, Sadie (Lindsay Burdge) who was extremely free spirited, and a late comer Pruitt (John Carroll Lynch).

Eventually they find out that the point of the party isn’t just food. Eden and David want to talk about their grief and how they overcame it. They found help with a special psychiatrist who talks highly of death and how to accept it and move on. A guy who actively encourages suicide as an option to leave the world, surrounded by friends and family. Whoa now.

Things are getting weird at the party. Will believes that they have joined a cult and want to convert everyone else. Hopefully that is all that they want. And nothing more sinister and deadly.

Yo dude, if you are the good guy you can’t be so creepy sneaking around.

When an independent horror film is called a slow burn, The Invitation might be a text book example of that. For 80% of this film, I would just call it a drama, maybe slightly into thriller territory, but any frightful moment is all just done by people talking and the main character getting worried. It doesn’t cross over until the final 20ish minutes and I can’t say it is entirely worth the wait.

I can handle good character build up, I just would prefer something to keep my interest occasionally throughout the film outside of waiting for the conclusion.

The cast was pretty well acted for the most part. Marshall-Green was a good lead for the film and carried tension on his face throughout it. He felt like a man who was truly hurt and still grieving. I could definitely relate to him (outside of his almost extreme paranoia). The only other person one would recognize is John Carroll Lynch who is always unnerving when he wants to be. The great thing with Lynch is that he also can go and do a nice guy role, what a diverse dude.

The Invitation is a interesting story, well acted, and a great ending. It can just be a bit painful to get through for those with lesser attention spans or people who don’t want to wait too long for some of the scarier bits.

Happy Holidays from the end of March!

I wanted to see Krampus when it came out early in December, but unfortunately there weren’t any prescreenings for the film. Guess they assumed critics would hate it, or not get the point, man.

Either way, I was disappointed, but not disappointed enough to spend money on going to the film. December is busy for awards movies, not comedy horror films!

But the idea of a Krampus movie was very exciting. I haven’t even seen a Christmas horror film since Rare Exports years ago, which was wonderful and you should consider adding it to your Christmas collection.

But this one has scary clowns, so you know it might be more horror than comedy.

It’s Christmas time, yay! We are going to celebrate at the Engel household with their family coming over. Tom (Adam Scott) and Sarah (Toni Collette) have to make sure their house is clean, food cooked and everything decorated for Santa. After all, their kid Max (Emjay Anthony) still believes despite being like 10 or something. Also living in the house is their older daughter Beth (Stefania LaVie Owen) and Omi (Krista Stadler), Tom’s mom. She speaks German!

Anyways, the family eventually comes over. Rednecks. Howard (David Koechner), Dorothy (Conchata Ferrell), and Linda (Allison Tolman) with some dick kids (Queenie Samuel, Lolo Owen) and a baby.

Needless to say, the other boy kids tease poor Max for believing in Santa. They find his letter to Santa and read it outloud, making fun of his wishes for things like his parents to love each other more, and so on. He gets mad and rips up his letter throwing it into the wind! And with that, the power in the whole city goes out. And the winter storm gets a little bit more wintry.

Strange things are afoot. But let’s just cut to the chase. People have ruined Christmas. Krampus is here to punish them.

Damn grandma, you are brave enough to take on the Krampus alone?

When you go into a comedy horror film, you can never really expect a whole lot. They rarely have large budgets and are never really too funny or too scary. Krampus seems to fit the bill like the other ones, with a slightly more impressive budget.

I feel bad for Adam Scott, who often is put into these sort of roles (see Piranha) and lower budget comedies (see Hot Tub Time Machine 2). He is a funny guy who keeps getting stuck in bad to mediocre films.

Krampus at times is a little scary. Toys come to life in a very The Nightmare Before Christmas way. The Krampus itself felt downplayed with most of the work being done by creepy helper demon things. But knowing that even the kids weren’t safe was a nice surprise that a lot of films seem to avoid.

As for the comedy, well, there really wasn’t any. The comedy came from strange things happening, like CGI gingerbread men attacking them. No other real jokes outside of the weird factor, which is the most disappointing aspect of the film.

It did an okay job at the scary parts, but failed when it came to making me chuckle.

According to some people, there is only allowed to be one good horror movie a year. Something that is clearly leagues above the rest in terms of story, production value, acting, and whatever. Last year it was It Follows, the year before that The Babadook. In 2013 we had The Conjuring, and if I can plug my own favorite for 2012, I’d say Sinister.

Without watching The Witch, you can tell it is the type of movie that would love that distinction. Hell, it was a horror movie that played in festivals. That is a rarity.

It also very early in the year, most of the best films have come out in the second half (except for It Follows). All I can really say about 2016 before this movie is that it surely isn’t The Forest and it definitely isn’t The Final Project.

Creepy mood lighting: Perfect for scary hiding witches.

In the early 1600’s, America was a scary place. You lived on the plantation with other settlers, you did what you were told, you survived attacks from the natives, and you struggled to survive. To be banished would be akin to death. But for one family, they accepted banishment. The patriarch, William (Ralph Ineson), was a devoutly Christian man and he was upset with the plantation church. He disagreed with them on the book of God, and so he accepted the banishment because he knew the Lord would provide for his faithful family.

So he took his wife (Kate Dickie), oldest daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), slightly teenager son Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw), and young twins Mercy and Jonas (Ellie Grainger, Lucas Dawson), on a cart into the world to find their new home.

Well after a few months they have a sizable farm. A house, a barn, some sheds. They have grown corn, have some goats and chickens and are surviving. Oh, and the wife gave birth to a baby boy, Samuel. Oh, but the corn crops have developed a rot and most of it isn’t edible. And while Thomasin was playing peek-a-boo with Samuel, Samuel disappeared. They can’t find him and assumed a wolf took him. But maybe it was something sinister? Maybe a witch?

These are only the first of their many problems. Distrust, poorness, hunger. And maybe a witch is causing tiny issues to grow their family apart. Maybe it is all just their own religious fears and puritan values causing the anger. But bad auras are afoot, and no one can save them now.

Also featuring Bathsheba Garnett and Sarah Stephens.

This is a scariest forest than the forest in The Forest.

The Witch was directed and written by Robert Eggers, a man who clearly loves his job. The level of realism in this movie is incredible. From the outfits, to the language, to their principals and actions, everything just seems to make sense. I didn’t find myself shaking my head, wondering why a character did something. No. They all have their reasons and make perfectly logical decisions for their character based on the events unfolding around them. It is fantastic.

You might be wondering if I am actually saying that this is a “horror” movie with great acting, and I totally am. They all sound like they have been speaking that dialect their entire life. Admittedly, the dialogue at times is hard to understand and I don’t pick up every important word. But the point is still made and that point is authentic as fuck.

I wouldn’t describe The Witch as the scariest movie ever, but it is definitely extremely unsettling and it feels downright evil. This is a slow burn horror film. You are frightened because you are living in a Puritan family’s world, facing their real fears and taking on the world as they see it. It is very religious based, and that type of horror can affect someone on the psychological level.

For those who aren’t familiar, one big aspect of the Puritan Christianity is they believed that when they were born, they were pre-selected for Heaven or Hell. Most people were selected for Hell and there is nothing they could do to change their outcome in life. Clearly those meant for Heaven would do great things, and everyone else would have faults and be bad. But they couldn’t help it. So succumbing to your fate and living in constant worry was just some of the many things you would do during this time period.

The witches they show in this film also feel authentic. Eggers based everything on this film on primary sources of the time and it just adds to the downright creepy realism. I should also add the score created great tension with heavy violin play, and allowed the audience to get frightened without any cheap jump scares.

The Witch is hard to watch, frightful, and it is clear that everyone involved put everything they had into it. It is the type of horror film I could see myself watching again and again, just needing a few months or years of downtime in between.

Go home 2016, this is probably the best horror film of the year and one of the best films of the year.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Why not a horror movie? The last time you watched something scary around this holiday was probably My Bloody Valentine, which at least makes sense somewhat thematically.

The Final Project probably picked its release date by throwing a dart at a calendar. It is a low budget, horror film, that is barely opening anywhere, but it is a real movie damn it. It knows it isn’t going to make bank the same weekend that Deadpool and Zoolander 2 comes out. But maybe it just wants to get those people who don’t like laughter or models and just want a good scare.

Not that The Final Project is promising to deliver a good scare. After all, it is another extremely cheaply done, hand held camera, no name actor, horror film that usually end up being pretty bad, but you never know. This might be the one to make money and be good.

Oh hey just a normal looking girl in the dark.

Movie begins with distorted figure, blurred and with a voice filter so his identity can be kept safe. Because he found this footage (making it officially found footage) and wants it out there. Yep.

This is about six students from University of Southern Louisiana in 2009, going to a haunted plantation in Vacherie, LA. It is important to note that there is no University of Southern Louisiana, so the fact that they are going for an actual realistic thing with the intro makes it quite annoying for them to mess up 10 seconds later.

The six students (Teal Haddock, Arin Jones, Sergio Suave, Leonardo Santaiti, Amber Erwin, Evan McLean) are doing this shitty documentary as a project for a class. The class was never explained, but the professor (Robert McCarley) doesn’t care. He assumes it will suck and he will still fail them, so hey, whatever.

Then they drive over there, people tell them to stay away, they don’t, and a whole lot of people die.

Oh shit she isn’t regular anymore!

Remember how they were going for realism? Well early on they made sure it was obvious of that, with the people talking not having their whole face in the frame, or people talking being blurred out.

Then something odd happened. During part of the van ride to the plantation, you can see all six students talking about dumb shit and playing Never Have I Ever. But none of them are holding the camera. There is literally a seventh person there, not talking and not supposed to be there holding the camera.

After a few scenes where this odd thing kept happening, we learn that there is a cameraman/engineer they also brought. Annoyingly, this was never said on camera until they already made it to the house halfway through the film roughly minute 40 of 75 minutes). The aspect of a camera man suddenly, after the first part of the film didn’t have one, just seems like a strange after though. Hell, the intro of the film mentioned that only six people went in to the house. They forgot there was actually seven.

It took 22 minutes before there was a scare. And it was someone screaming at the top of their lungs suddenly from a nightmare. If you like scares that consist of badly done “figures suddenly appearing” in the window, friends playing pranks, and the camera just going out allowing 85% of the very little action to not be in the film, then it is right up your ally.

On the audio front, it was all over the place. I had to constantly change my volume. It went back and forth. I had to lower the volume because it became too loud to understand, and then I couldn’t hear them talk/whisper and had to raise it back up. Very little sound work was done.

There are indie movies, and then there are things you make with your friends in the woods behind your house that you try and forget about years later. You don’t normally publish it and put it in theaters.

Is it over? Is it done? Is it dead?

Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, besides having a lousy title, is supposed to be the last Paranormal Activity film. And it is in 3D! Huh, that is the same thing that Saw: The Final Cut did.

Frankly, I don’t buy it. These films are super easy to make, super cheap, and usually get a nice return on investment. There has to be more in the future, if not a completely “unrelated” plot with more security cameras. You know, just something.

Oh well, let’s hope this one resolves or answers some of the mysteries instead just creating a more confusing mythos.

Oh look the kid actors from Paranormal Activity 3. You know, the one that didn’t answer things and was a bullshit prequel. That’s a good sign.

The film opens up with a flashback to the end of the third film. The girls (Chloe Csengery, Jessica Tyler Brown) are taken my some hidden entity and the old grandma to do fun culty things.

Flash forward to 2013. Emily (Brit Shaw) and Ryan (Chris J. Murray) are living in their house with their little girl, Leila (Ivy George). Well, Mike (Dan Gill) is coming to live with them for a couple weeks after leaving his long term girlfriend. He just needs a break.

So Ryan records it. He likes recording things I guess. Mundane shit like cleaning or decorating for Christmas. And during this, Mike finds a box that has an old weird looking camera in it with some VHS tapes. Weird. The tapes are mostly weird late at night entries of two young girls who seem to be aware they are being seen in the future.

But the weirdest thing is the camera itself. It is custom made and fancy, but also has some weird glimmers and shines when it is recording. Of course you’d think it is because it is 20 years old. But really it is seeing ghosts and Ryan just doesn’t realize it yet.

Until he does, and bad things start to happen and blah blah possessions demons end film.

Also featuring Michael Krawic and Olivia Taylor Dudley.

I don’t feel bad about spoiling the look of the ghost.

I almost sort of wish I could have seen the movie in 3D. Because honestly, I don’t understand the point at all. I don’t see what 3D could have done to enhance the movie, not even its shitty jump scares. I guess it enhanced maybe how much money it made, but that would be it.

This is the worst Paranormal Activity movie. Worse than 3 and 4. This is the truth the franchise is ending out on a shitty note.

First of all, the camera explanations were, by far, the worst they have ever been. The camera work early on was completely random and never justified. Once he found the weird camera? Sure, I can imagine trying to use it. But then to keep using it? To have that all lead up to needing cameras to observe over night? It was nonsensical.

Just like previous films, for the most part they never feel the need to look at the security footage the next day, and if they do, they never do anything about it outside of religious things. They don’t leave the house when things get scary, they are basically just asking for their daughter to get possessed.

Outside of the fact that some scary stuff happens on camera, this is basically nothing like a Paranormal Activity film. There is nothing subtle about the suspense. You see the “ghosts” early and often. Add on the videos of the girls from the past, you get some lame component seemingly try to emulate Sinister or V/H/S. Those videos are technically subdued, but they are also not scary whatsoever.

Ignore this horror. Let the franchise die with dignity. And yes, I am referring to Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones.

The Aokigahara is a real place in Japan at one of the bases of Mt. Fuji. It is a dense “sea of trees” and is very beautiful. And very deadly.

People go to the Aokigahara to kill themselves. It is also nicknamed the Suicide Forest. It is so dense, you can only really hear the forest inside. It is easy to get lost if you go off the main path and there are associations of it with demons and ghosts in Japanese mythology. These demos convince people with sadness to end it all.

Not only that, but since it became known as a place that people go to kill themselves, obviously more people go there to do it. Some do it as a fad, some do it from regular Japanese stress levels. There could be any number of reasons, but now that it is known as a place to do it, well, can’t really stop it.

It is a cool place with a lot of history and a bit spooky. So of course, here is The Forest about white people going to Japan and getting all fucked up from the Aokigahara.

“Spook ghosts? Hello? Spook ghosts? Are you here? I’m losted. Halp pls.”

Jess Price (Natalie Dormer) is missing. She was teaching English in Tokyo, but apparently she went into the Aokigahara forest and hasn’t come out in 2 days. They assume it is suicide. But one person knows that it isn’t true. That is of course Sara Price (Natalie Dormer), her twin sister. The police won’t look for her, so it is up to her to drop everything and go to Tokyo to find her sister.

And well, it is tricky. Jess had suicide attempts in the past as she has always been the darker child. That comes from their youth, when their parents were hit by a drunk driver and Jess saw the bodies while Sara did not. So it wouldn’t be completely out of the question to assume that she did it. But the connection Sara still felt was there, so she assumed her sister was lost and needed help.

She is lucky though. She befriends an Australian journalist who works in Japan, Aiden (Taylor Kinney), and he has done a few stories on the forest. He knows it pretty well, but his friend, Michi (Yukiyoshi Ozawa) knows it even better. Once or twice a week he hikes around the forest, doing a sort of Suicide Watch to help convince people that life is worth it, and they will take her out into the forest to help find Jess. And as a minor role, we have Eoin Macken as Sara’s husband, and Rina Takasaki as creepy girl in the forest.

But in the forest there are Yurei, vengeful spirits, and they will trick people into doing bad things. They will show them things that are not real. They will make them see lies and have them end their lives without them even realizing it. But as long as they stick together they should be good.

Oh fuck.

I am not one who believes in cultural appropriation or anything like that, but I do question the story they chose to tell for this tale. Bringing in a white outsider to tell the story, instead of just, you know, Japanese people feels like a lame attempt to allow dialogue to explain the forest. Having the main person who helps her also be a white guy? Well, that is just down right movie magic convenient. But whatever. That was only a minor annoyance.

The bigger annoyances come from our main character. I am not saying a character has to be likable for us to enjoy a movie, but there has to be a reason for us to care about her story. And she isn’t likable. She is the normal one, but she is brash, arrogant and stubborn. She makes a series of terrible decisions and literally ignores every knowledgeable characters advice about what to do or not to do in the forest. It makes the viewer just want her to die. But the viewer doesn’t want to watch her to die, they just want her to hurry up and die, to end the movie so everyone can go home and do something else with our time.

Related, Kinney plays an Australian living in Tokyo? I am sure his Japanese was fine, but they didn’t even bother giving him any accent. Calling him Australian is extremely pointless in this regard, as he played an American and no one seemed to care.

The Aokigahara is a great place for horror films to take place but this horror movie doesn’t do it justice. It is cheap, the plot is predictable, and the ending ends like all bad horror movies. Erm. Badly.

I feel strange reviewing Goosebumps in the month of December. THAT’S NOT THE RIGHT THEME.

Well, I had to cancel my eventual trip to see Goosebumps in theaters back end of October. Things were crazy. And now things are crazy, but a bit less. So while some people are thinking of Star Wars or Christmas, I can think about scaring little kids.

After all, what are the holidays, if not for scaring little kids?

Back to the film, I read probably 75% of the main Goosebumps books when I was a youthful lad, and I watched every episode of the TV Show. Hell, I’ve been watching the episodes on Netflix slowly for the past two years. It is great to see how shitty the effects are now, but how much they scare the kids. And occasionally you get to see Ryan Gosling out of nowhere, so that was fun.

Needless to say, I was nostalgia-ing pretty hard, so I couldn’t wait to see what weirdness they went with for the new film.

A whole lot of white people. Makes sense.

Zach (Dylan Minnette) and his mom (Amy Ryan) are moving to the best place to be a kid. Discovery Zone! Wait no. He is actually now in Madison, Delaware.

New school, new high school life. And a crazy aunt (Jillian Bell) who is way too energetic also now nearby. What’s not to love?

Oh hey, his neighbor is a teenage girl. That’s a plus. Because he is a boy and boys like girls. Hannah (Odeya Rush) is homeschooled and her dad (Jack Black) is very protective and won’t let Zach interact with her. Fuck.

Let’s cut to the chase. The dad is totally R. L. Stine. Yes the “real one” who wrote all the Goosebumps books. And he has original manuscripts of all of his books in the house locked up. What’s that? If they open it up, the bad creature comes out! Holy fuck, shenanigans! Magic and stuff! And eventually Slappy, the doll is released (also voiced by Jack Black), and he decides he should open all the books around town, burn them so they cannot be recaptured and fuck all the shit up. Because Stine wasn’t letting them wreck things. Fuck that small town up, hard.

Also with Ryan Lee as the weird male friend and Ken Marino as creepy gym teacher.

All these monsters and the scariest one is still the clown.

Okay, without taking off the nostalgia glasses, I can say I was a bit disappointed. Especially when “all” of the books are unleashed upon the town into one big army, my main thought was “Yes! Let’s see all the other bad guys! Even the lame ones!” But no, they added only a handful of villains, with mostly zombie hordes to make it look bigger. So I was disappointed I didn’t get to see more Goosebumps staples. I am mostly shocked I didn’t see a haunted camera and there was only a vague reference to a mask. Bring out the props, damn it!

Nostalgia glasses back off. On its own, the film felt relatively safe. It had a few in jokes for adults more aware of the series that would fly over the heads of new kids. Hell, there was an R. L. Stine cameo that I found incredibly hilarious and well placed. But for the most part, nothing too crazy or unexpected happened. The main character was generic.

There were still a few good scenes though. The abominable snowman in the hockey arena was very tense. The first lawn gnomes attack was great. And I enjoyed the shocker and the werewolf. Slappy makes since as the big bad guy, only in that he has a voice, but he didn’t do enough creepy things on his own.

I will say this. When the first trailer released, I made a guess on a twist that would happen near the end of the film, and I ended up being correct. It is something that avid Goosebump readers might also have figured out before the movie, due to book plot lines and character names. It was just one of those tidbits that just popped in my head, seemingly out of nowhere. So once the twist occurred, it didn’t land too strongly.

As I was saying. Perfect Christmas film.