Tag: Horror

The ABCs Of Death

Every once in awhile, a new movie concept comes out, and people liked it. In this case, I am talking about V/H/S, which decided to add outdated technology plus short horror films into one. It was an anthology. Made up of five or six smaller horror stories, good ideas that wouldn’t have been good if dragged out over 80-90 minutes. Brilliant!

Shorts are hard to make and require you to do a lot in a short amount of time.

Well, The ABCs Of Death took the idea of a horror anthology and went several steps further. Five to six shorts? Fuck that. Twenty-Six shorts is what people really want.

Yes, in case you didn’t get the gimmick, that is one for every letter of the alphabet.

Stabby Stabby
Like Stab. Or Betrayal. Or Fetish.

This is really a hard series to really describe. After all, I could just tell you what each clip is called, as they each have the alphabetic name/theme going on, but that kind of gives it away. The movie shows you the short and then tells you the name afterwards. The titles themselves kind of give things away and ruin a lot of the surprise.

However, there are sill some awesome titles. Like Hydro-Electric Diffusion, WTF, and Toilet.

Given 26 directors, these range in many different ways. We have one animated short, and a claymation short. Two of the shorts are meta and aware that they are a specific letter / feature the people making the short. I guess both wanted to be original, and bam, now they are not unique.

And the genres range as well. Some of these are entirely humor based, some are going for creepy and weird, some are going for horror, and others? Well, others are just down right disgusting.

Hot Head
And arguably, some people would consider some of these “hot”.

I am talking super disgusting. I am talking I had to pause it after a short and come back to finish the movie an hour later. I just didn’t expect some things to happen. Some people with fucked up imaginations out there is all I really have to say about that.

I definitely think 26 is too many shorts in one package to get a real good feeling about this movie. Because they range so dramatically, you might have a dramatic thriller piece, followed by something completely absurd, followed by a slasher, and it can be exhausting.

However, on the flippy side, because of it is format, it is one of the best movie types ever to let you take breaks if you feel like it and come back days later and not feel like you will forget things. You could watch one a day and you will still get the same basic experience. So that is cool.

I will note that going into it, I didn’t know so much of it would go for strange/humor, I thought this would be a straight horror film like V/H/S. So at least that differentiates it from that series as well. Overall, it is an average film with a bold concept. And also very fucking weird. This is the type of film that may be more enjoyable in a group, with everyone trying to guess what the word theme may be.

2 out of 4.

All Cheerleaders Die

Judging movies by their title is a time honored tradition.

Like All Cheerleaders Die. K. This sounds like a slasher horror. Because it is going for girls, probably has a lot of naked girls, probably a B grade film, and probably excessively gore-y for whatever reason.

Well, turns out I was completely wrong about this movie. Almost every single aspect that I could derive from the title. Still a horror, just not a slasher. High quality feeling film with only some meh special effects. Not really super gore-y. Kind of amusing at points, but no where near the end. And only a little bit of eye candy.

So basically I was wrong. Dead cheerleader wrong.

Girls
Bet you I can’t go through this whole review without a Heroes reference.

Everyone liked Alexis (Felisha Cooper). She was going into the summer of her senior year, ready to take over the cheerleading squad and lead them to victory. But while performing a hard stunt for Maddy’s (Caitlin Stasey) video project, she smacks hard to the ground on the head. And you know. Dies.

This tears everyone up, but not everyone equally. Aka, Tracy (Brooke Butler) is now dating Terry (Tom Williamson). Terry apparently isn’t missing Alexis too much, because they were hardcore dating too. And Tracy was Alexis’ best friend! So Maddy wants to get back at them, because she used to be friends with Alexis a long time ago, and really hates Terry. Her plan is to join the cheerleading squad, destroy it from within, and also ruin Terry’s life while she can.

But that might not be the main plot of the film. Jealousy can be a serious thing, on all accounts. So when Maddy, Tracy, and two other girls (Amanda Grace Cooper, Reanin Johannink) are killed from a traffic accident caused by Terry, shit starts toget serious. Especially when Maddy’s ex girlfriend, Leena (Sianoa Smit-McPhee) is close by when it happens. Since she practices paganism, she attempts to bring them back, and well. It works. Just, they are different now. They are undead. And things are about to get a lot more hectic.

Also featuring more dudes as football dudes. Leigh Parker, Chris Petrovski, Nicholas S. Morrison, and Jordan Wilson.

Green Stones
Who knew Geology could be used for such diabolical purposes?

As I already mentioned, thus spoiling the end of my review, I definitely found this to be a lot better than I thought based on title alone. It has its issues, most movies do. But here is what it had going for it:

An original plot. Interesting characters. Multiple important plot lines. A villain who seemed like a huge dick, but also someone anyone could imagine. Funny at times. Not low budget and not going the easy way out at any point. And characters I could actually care about.

Go figure. I don’t have a lot to say after the fact either. I do hope they try to do more of these and continue the story line. I think the end left that open, or it could have just been their way of saying shit is still weird.

A pretty decent and newer film, perfect for the Halloween season. Watch the cheerleaders, save the world. (Fuck! So close!)

3 out of 4.

Tusk

With Tusk, we have the first “crazy idea” from Kevin Smith‘s SModcast to be made into a movie.

Maybe inspired by The Human Centipede, maybe their own twisted version of a film, who is to say. Personally, if I was to make a Walrus inspired movie, I’d make it off of this very famous Betty Boop episode. But this is just the start for the Smith planned Canadian Horror trilogy. The next film to be Yoga Hosers, and then Moose Jaws, all set in the same universe. Not to be confused with Anti-Claus or Clerks III, very different projects.

Basically just saying that he is pretty busy and he put out Tusk remarkably fast despite all of the projects going on.

Tusk
One would say Smith is masturbating his film credits now.

Wallace Bryton (Justin Long) has a Walrus like name and a walrus like mustache. I don’t know if that is relevant. He is a podcaster as part of the Not-See Party, where Wallace goes around the US and interviews weird people or internet famous people (aka weirder people) and his co-podcaster Teddy Craft (Haley Joel Osment) doesn’t! Apparently they are super famous at this podcasting. No idea where they got this idea for the movie though.

Wallace heads up to Manitoba to interview a kid who cut off his own leg on accident. Sure they made fun of him hardcore, but the kid wanted an interview, so he is going to give them an interview. But when circumstances go wrong up there, he has to find a new guy to interview and stat. Or else he came up to Manitoba for no reason. Yuck. I mean, he left his girlfriend (Genesis Rodriguez) behind too! So he sees an advertisement in a random bathroom, an old man with a lot of interesting stories to tell. He offers a room in his mansion just for someone to listen.

So sure. He could be interesting. He won’t stay in a room, just an interview. But surprise! Howard Howe (Michael Parks) drugs him and keeps him prisoner, lying about things that begin to happen to him and as to why he cannot leave. And I don’t know why I am making this suspenseful. He is going to try and turn Wallace into a fucking Walrus and turn his mind into an animals. Yeah. He will do it too. Just you watch.

Unless, of course, Guy Lapointe (Johnny Depp), a French Canadian Inspector who has been on Howe’s trail for years can help find him first.

Contemplate
Justin Long actually wanted to make a movie based on his Brandon character from Zack and Miri Make A Porno.

Most people know in a movie, as an actor, you never go full Walrus. Well, Tusk went full Walrus and more.

First off, hats off to Mr. Long. He didn’t half ass anything about his character. He gave a 110% and despite the ridiculousness of his role in this movie, he was super hardcore about it. Michael Parks was downright creepy and twisted. Genesis Rodriguez is not someone whose name I really would ever remember, but even she had at least one fantastic scene halfway through, giving her own monologue. JOHNNY FUCKING DEPP IS IN THIS MOVIE. And he was great. You will have a hard ass time recognize him or his voice. It literally may be his most well acted role in years.

And the walrus. Holy shit. The walrus was one of the most disturbing abominations against everything holy that I have ever laid my eyes on. And at the same time, it felt a bit believable. “Believable” being a strange word. It was both horrifying and comedic at the same time, but I think I just had to laugh not knowing what else to do with all of my emotions.

Tusk could have been a train wreck. It could have just been a long joke by a couple of potheads that no one would actually want to watch or see. But it was surprisingly unique and not a low budget shit fest. I am surprised. I really am.

3 out of 4.

As Above, So Below

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?

Holes
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.

Crushing
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.

2 out of 4.

C.H.U.D.

“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. Banner.

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.

Stern
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.

Chuds
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?

2 out of 4.

Killer Legends

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.

Wolf Head
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.

3 out of 4.

The Purge: Anarchy

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.

Unsettled
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.

Kill Or Die
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.

3 out of 4.

Deliver Us From Evil

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.

Owls
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.

Cuts
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.

3 out of 4.

Stage Fright

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?

The Loaf Is Raw
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?!

Trance
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.

3 out of 4.

The Quiet Ones

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.

Ricci
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.

Rage
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.

1 out of 4.