Tag: Horror

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.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Are you disappointed I didn’t review Valentine’s Day? Me too, a bit, but I just got My Bloody Valentine on Blu-Ray for a whole dollar, so I really really wanted to review it sometime soon. Before we all forget that this remake was even happening.

One thing I remember from the previews for My Bloody Valentine, way back in 2009, is that it really really wanted to sell the whole 3D idea. This came out about 11 months before Avatar, so at that point, no one cared about 3D movies. It was usually that Blue-Red crap, and the RealD stuff hadn’t really expanded that much (Although that is what this movie used). So yeah, I remember thinking, “3D, ew!” because I assumed it would be shit.

Boy, look how far we have come as a society.

That’s right. Killers in grocery stores. That is about three steps away from Nirvana.

The movie takes place in a shitty small mining community. Back in the day, they had a mining collapse that trapped several people inside. Days later, only one of the miners was found alive, Harry Warden, but he was in a coma. This took place on Valentine’s Day. That might be important. Either way, they find out the other miners were killed by a pickaxe and determined Harry killed them to give himself all the available air. He wakes up from his coma a year later, going on a murderous rampage in the hospital and mine (where a teen party is being held) before he is a shot and killed.

But the majority of the movie takes place ten years later…

Tom (Jensen Ackles) has returned to town. His father was the owner of the mine, and he has just died, so he has come back to sell it. He barely survived the attack from Warden ten years prior, the police killing him right before the blow. A mistake of Tom is also reason for the cave in, so the death of the miners was also on his hands. Either way, he left town, vowing to never return, but now he is back.

And guess what, apparently so is Warden.

Tom’s old girlfriend Sarah (Jaime King) is now married to Axel (Kerr Smith), who is the new town Deputy. Too bad he is cheating on her with Megan (Megan Boone).

Needless to say, someone is starting to kill people again, and most of them are related to the events from ten years ago. Whether it be the local cops now retired (Kevin Tighe, Tom Atkins) or teens that were partying in the mines that night. And who is the killer? Someone involved? Or a random townsfolk who is upset that the mine might be sold, ruining business?

Edi Gathegi is also in this, as a deputy.

The main actress has all the qualifications necessary to star in a horror film.

My Bloody Valentine is actually a remake of a 1981 film with the same name. From what I can tell, they have wildly different plots, except for the killers trademark gear and weapons.

I must say, I was surprised at how many ways he could kill someone with a pickaxe/shovel/mining gear. There were several creative ways, and the dude did a good job sticking to the theme.

And hey, technically, by the end, I was still guessing on who the killer actually could be. I don’t hate the answer, it was nicely done and added a unique angle to it all.

That being said, this is probably a shitty movie and you know it. It goes over the top on purpose, and stays near the top, with ridiculous situation and kills that are at least mildly entertaining. The acting is dull, but that is what it was going for.

Adding it all up, it is probably the best Valentine’s Day themed killer movie there is, but being on top doesn’t mean great quality.

I’ve seen some weird movies in my days.

You know it is true, because I go and seek them out. Weird strange movies are like my beer of choice, if I had a beer of choice.

Which is why I was interested in seeing Bad Milo! The plot line is definitely on the weirder side, and it had the potential of being a good horror/comedy, not just a shitty one. So, you know. Hope it delivers, and shit.

You will be grinning like this guy once you get that last subtle joke.

Not gonna lie. I watched this like two weeks ago, and kind of forgot to write the plot outline right away. So I am going to vague it up.

Duncan (Ken Marino) has. Um. Stomach problems.

Like, really big stomach problems. Turns out there might be a polyp or something in his stomach. Not good. But it turns out, his stomach problem has the ability to kill. Just not him. During a very big episode in the bathroom, Duncan passes out. When that happens a big…well, look at the picture. That thing leaves his ass, all evil and shit, and goes and kills someone who was annoying him at that moment. The thing returns, safely crawling back into his ass and he doesn’t know about it.

Yay! What?

Yes, apparently poor Duncan is hosting his own inner demon, that kills for him. Kind of strange.

Also starring Gillian Jacobs as his wife! Stephen Root, Peter Stormare, and Patrick Warburton too, as various characters.

Shit, this movie is a romance. Who saw that coming?

Bad Milo was a very…well…interesting movie.

The concept I can say is unique, even though it is parodying off of some other horror tropes. Not enough ass play in those regular movies though, so this one had to add that element, so that we could all laugh and enjoy it.

The movie is unfortunately really low quality, which I would say negatively affected my viewing. Just a bit too low budget B-movie for me.

Really, it just didn’t do that much for me. That is why I took so long to finally write this review (And going to 5 days a week of course). Even though I like some of the actors involved, it just didn’t feel creative enough for me. Sure, ass monsters that leave and kill people? Creative. But everything else, ehhh.

I am probably just being a negative nancy. I think I gave the movie a fair shot, it just didn’t appease. Oh well. I am sure there will be more shitty movies in the future that I might enjoy.

Because of a freak blizzard, I wasn’t able to see Ride Along and Devil’s Due until the actual day they came out. What!? Madness.

For that reason, I had to find some other devil based horror movie to watch. That also involved shaky cam. That also sucked.

Hey, thank’s a lot The Devil Inside!

That’s a creepy way to tell someone you’d go down on them.

In this totally true story, it is going for a “documentary” format, not just awkward shaky cam. This woman, Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley) supposedly killed three people, including two priest in the 1980s, and it was a big mystery as to why. She was sent to a psychiatric hospital in Rome, and basically forgot about. Except not forgot about by Isabella Rosi (Fernanda Andrade), who is totally her daughter. Couldn’t you tell from the last names?!

So she hires a camera man Michael Schaefer (Ionut Grama) to get to the bottom of it.

Eventually, they go to Rome, and somehow get into a class on exorcisms with a whole bunch of Vatican cardinals and shit? That seems odd, but I guess it works.

There, some people argue about exorcism versus just other psychological disorders. Apparently the Catholic Church doesn’t do many official exorcisms anymore since the mid-90s, because they have to be 100% certain before trying now. So they won’t fix her mom, trapped in a Catholic looney bin. But no fear, she somehow meets two priests who are totally willing to let her know they do exorcisms on the side and will help. Father Ben Rowlings (Simon Quarterman) and Father David Keane (Evan Helmuth).

Then some stuff happens, people die, and a shitty “documentary” was made.

Wait, this bitch was actually in the movie? Pretty sure I missed her.

All the shitty horrors. When did this movie come out? Sometime in the last year and a half? I remember it coming out and I had no desire to see it, but obviously I realized that isn’t the point of my website. Watch everything I can, try to get the underdog or weird movies.

Fuck, I just looked up the stats. It has a reported budget around $1 million, because it is just another shitty exorcism movie. The box office money is apparently $101 million. That is $100 million in profit. Stop it. Stop it right now everyone.

I found no redeeming qualities in this movie. It wasn’t even long enough to get good. Less than 90 minutes, boring story, bad scares, fake messages, dumb ending.

Just. What? And the fact that all the advertising is that nun lady, who I don’t remember actually seeing. It must have a been a quick bullshit scene though.

I will say again, this movie had no redeeming qualities at all for me. It should be burned. Devil’s Due was miles beyond this one.

Stop the presses! This is a found footage horror movie. By that I mean one where all of the footage is created by various characters in the movie, not like, lost and found later. Unfortunately found footage just means hand held cam now. This is all besides the point.

This “found footage” movie, Devil’s Due, doesn’t pretend to be real. It is set in the real world like all movies, but they don’t give us some bullshit premise like based on actual events or using completely unknown actors. But I know the main three actors from this movie! Two of them from really successful TV shows, and the third from a not so successful TV show.

That also means this one might have some sort of acting talent in it, but I am not willing to assume that yet.

Sometimes your baby bump is, err…a really big bump?

Zach (Zach Gilford, from Friday Night Lights) and Samantha (Allison Miller, from Go On) are getting marrieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed.

Yay! Zach’s dad used to video tape everything growing up, recording all of his families vacations and favorite moments so that they would always have it on record. Samantha, on the other hand, doesn’t remember a lot about her past. Her parents died in a car accident when she was still in the womb, so she has been a foster kid all her life. But that doesn’t matter, because she has a family now.

Zach wants to make sure she has memories from here on now, so he decides to do that video taping thing. During the honeymoon, after a late night of being lost in Dominican Republic (because clearly the best place for a Honeymoon), they are taken to a strange underground club, drugged, and impregnated with the spawn of Satan. Yayyyy Satan!

Either way, somehow she is now pregnant despite never missing a birth control ill. Powerful sperm, right Zach? Then begin 9 months of torture, weird behavior, and people dying. Which basically seems like a normal pregnancy. Sam Anderson, from Lost, plays their main priest.

Checking Amniotic fluid? Yeah, that’s a normal pregnancy thing.

I guess I already alluded to this joke, but really, this whole movie could just be considered a metaphor for an actual pregnancy. Everything just playing in the husbands eyes all weird/wrong because he is actually crazy. That isn’t what they were going for, but it still could work.

Yes, this movie is clearly just Rosemary’s Baby done in a different way. Don’t care.

As what is typical in a film like this, the horror doesn’t appear early, it takes awhile to show up, and then builds. So they fill the first half with cheap scares and other bullshit. The number of times the dog barks suddenly in a tense moment (once when the camera just switches to a later moment out of no where) is ridiculous. The fact that there are so many cameras eventually also proves troublesome, only in that some cool scary shit starts to happen, but they still don’t show us the viewers despite the cameras. That is just mean / dumb / lazy. Not sure. Show that woman getting fucked up, damn it.

I’m done talking about the movie. It is however set in North Carolina, just not filmed there. I first thought I saw the name of a newspaper with Raleigh in the title, but it wasn’t the actual name of Raleigh’s newspaper. Then I saw an OBX magnet on their fridge, and NC license plates everywhere. So that is kind of cool. Even if they actually filmed it in Louisiana. Woo, NC horror movies?

Oh Paranormal Activity series, how you disappoint me.

Originally, Paranormal Activity 5 was supposed to come out in October, as the other films had all done the four years previously. The only news about it was that it would star Demi Lovato. But something changed. They weren’t going to continue to give us another film with no more answers and a lot more bullshit. No. We were getting a spinoff.

We were getting Paranormal Activities: The Marked Ones in January, and it has a Hispanic theme to it. Yay spin-offs. Hopefully this one doesn’t have too many scenes where if you blink you will miss the scares, which I found annoying from the first one.

Oh huh, apparently if you blink you might get more than you bargained in your eyes.

This part of the franchise also takes place in the majestic California, in the summer of 2012. Jesse (Andrew Jacobs) just graduated high school and he has his whole life ahead of him. So, perfect time to just continue to live with his grandmother (Renee Victor) in her small apartment complex and not worry about things like jobs. Fuck jobs. Especially when a relative gave him a handheld camera to use, and a gopro, so he can just dick around with his good friend Hector (Jorge Diaz).

Well, beneath their apartment also lies a weird old lady, Anna (Gloria Sandoval), who some claim is a witch. They do end up noticing some strange stuff coming out of her apartment, noises and people, including Oscar (Carlos Pratts), the valedictorian of his high school class. But when she mysteriously dies, from Oscar, that is when stuff gets weird.

First, Jesse wakes up with a weird bite mark on his arm. Next thing he knows, after getting mugged, he is able to throw the muggers far from his body without even trying. Hey. He has basically developed super powers. Anything he really tries to do, works for him. He can’t fall. He can skateboard well. He can do some telepathic shit. Even his (sister? cousin? Not sure?) Marisol (Gabrielle Walsh) is getting involved with the shenanigans.

Then you know. Shit starts getting creepy. Bad stuff happens. Paranormal Activity.

Do you see it? Do you see the paranormalness?

I’d say my biggest beef with this series is its overall lack of direction. Why are they being piss poor at explaining what is going on with the witches and the demons and the possessions? Because they don’t know, and have no game plan. They are just winging it as they go. That is the only explanation that they can make a prologue movie (#3) and not give any real answers, just more confusion, and make a movie about a different family (#4) that just adds more confusion and no coherency.

But…I think…I think more of it is making sense with this movie. Shocking I know. Yes, it does bring more elements. But it introduces one very cool concept to the series, which really shows itself off completely in the ending, which made it a tad bit more wicked in the grand scheme of all the things.

Yes, elements of the film are basically identical to the end of 3 and 4. Bunch of old white ladies mostly wearing black at night. But they changed it enough. They made characters who can fight back a bit, which was exciting to see. The two male leads had fantastic chemistry together, and made the earlier parts more amusing.

Although they definitely fit this spinoff into the main series pretty well with cameos, I think parts of it do contradict other elements of the series. They really don’t know who they want their main villains to be.

This film I wouldn’t classify as super scary overall, but it did have its moments.

Fuck it. I didn’t like really any movie in this series. But this one was okay. I am glad they did the spinoff, this is now my favorite Paranormal Activity. Which sucks, because if I want to buy it, I kind of have to go and get the other 4 or else I won’t have the complete set… Sad times.