Tag: Horror

Originally, I felt that the ad campaign for The Purge came a bit later than most movies. I didn’t hear about it or see the trailer until Evil Dead, which was in March!

But they really ramped up the ad campaign in the last few weeks, almost to annoyance. Needless to say (because I am a coward), the trailer frightened me, and gave me great hope that this movie would provide scares along with philosophical debates about ethics, morals, and the human spirit.

The year is 2022 and America is a peaceful country! Unemployment is less than 1%, and there is basically no crime. Why? Because we have changed the way America works! Every year, for 12 hours, everything is legal in the United States. Murder, theft, you name it. No police or firefighters will be on duty, everything is fair game. It lets people vent out their frustrations, and become wild animals if they so choose.

A lot of rich people choose to stay inside with fancy security systems. Like James Sandin (Ethan Hawke), a fancy security systems salesman. He has the fanciest securest house on the block, because of his profitable year, so his wife (Lena Headey) and two kids (Max Burkholder, Adelaide Kane) are set!

But once The Purge begins, the son sees a homeless man (Edwin Hodge) running down the street. He noobs it up, opens the door, and lets the homeless man in. This opens an unfortunate can of worms when an unruly mob of masked college students clamor outside of their villa, wanting to get their purge on. The polite leader (Rhys Wakefield) gives them the chance to turn the homeless man in, and they won’t attack the family. But if they wait too long, they will tear down their walls and kill everyone inside. Oh snap.

Looks like we have quite an ethical conundrum on our hands. Can they willingly send out a homeless man to his death? Can James willingly let a man die, if the life of his family is potentially on the line?

I mean, he looks trustworthy, that polite leader. The first thing I noticed about The Purge is that it is almost painfully short. 85 minutes in length! That is usually a warning sign. That means the plot doesn’t last long enough to fill a full movie. Or they realize the idea gets old really quick.

But the length was really appropriate for the plot, and I never felt like it dragged too much. There was some long scenes that were just heavy in suspense, but when you are wandering around your house in the dark, looking for strangers, you aren’t just going to run around every corner.

It was somewhat predictable, with the plotlines, yet equally surprising. I loved watching Ethan Hawke go on a kill streak to save his house. I would have stood up and cheered, if I didn’t respect normal movie watching practices.

It could have delved more into the ethical nature of the entire Purge, but I liked that it used subtle features to tell us the backgrounds of various characters, without outright saying them to our face. I do think they harped on the idea of murder too much, when other laws, like downloading music and stealing a car are just as legal. Time to get the misses some new bling, I say.

The movie is full of jump scares with only a few scenes that made me leave my seat, but I think it still is an interesting addition to the horror genre.

3 out of 4.

Originally on this website I refused to review Horror movies, because I was a coward. That means once I got over it, I had a lot of backlog to catch up on. So if you have been seeing a lot more horror on average, now you know why! Because there is a lot of shit out there, and you need to know which of that shit is good and which of that shit is bad.

With a movie called Chernobyl Diaries, you might be able to figure out which side of the fence it falls on.

Or maybe it falls on top of the fence itself, and falls awkwardly on both sides.

This movie began with the song Alright by Supergrass. You’ve heard it, trust me. I was confused.

But lets run with it. Traveling around Europe can be exciting for people in their early 20s (and well, anyone). Chris (Jesse McCartney) and his girlfriend Natalie (Olivia Dudley) and third friend Amanda (Devin Kelley) are running around Europe, being young and free. They stop in Kiev to visit Chris’ brother, Paul (Jonathan Sadowski), and he likes to live life on the edge.

Paul hears about this “extreme tour” of Pripyat, the abandoned company town which sits in the shadow of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Oh snap. It would be lead by tough guy Uri (Dimitri Diatchenko), with another couple (Nathan Phillips, Ingrid Bolso Berdal) joining them.

But when they get there, they are stopped by the Ukranian military. For some reason, they cannot go into the abandoned city today. Huh. Too bad. What? They will sneak in. Good idea. It is pretty cool place, very eerie. But when the van doesn’t start before dusk when they try to leave, they get nervous. Apparently someone has sabotaged their vehicle. Now they are stranded in an abandon city. Oh boy, what could go wrong?

“Who’s there? Is that you, Fred? Fred, stop being weird.”

I wonder what the survivors of the Chernobyl explosion feel about this movie. Actually, no, I don’t care. If we had to worry about offending people before we made movies, a lot of movies wouldn’t get made. I can’t have that happening.

Dumb kids were being dumb in this movie, and the timing felt off. Their second day in the city seemed incredibly short, I am not sure why it took them so long to do the various things.

But at the same time, making this movie with what they worked at, it was surprisingly okay. There was a variety into the deaths of these poor saps. They weren’t just disappearing off the side of the camera, which well, some did. The ending was a bit expected, but still glad they went that route. It unfortunately opens up room for more of these, but I don’t want to see another one.

You know what? This movie had a bear. A big fucking bear in it. I love bears. Bears should be in more movies. It is not a complete pile of shit. How could it be, it has a bear!

2 out of 4.

Some things in life are timeless.

A lot of those things are classic movie villains. Sure you have your Draculas and your Frankensteins. But in the 80s we were introduced to a new batch. Like Jason! And Freddy Krueger.

So with these franchises already past the point of overabundance, I don’t care if we get a remake. Why the hell not? It couldn’t get worse. They could even change everything about how it got started, and I probably wouldn’t care. Just give me cool deaths or something, maybe real scares, and make him terrifying.

Well, right now he looks like burnt beans. I mean that kid from Even Stevens.

Guess what. In this movie, people are dying in their dreams. There are Nightmares On Elm Street, and they are deadly.

Dean Russell (Kellan Lutz) is flipping his shit at a diner, and it appears that he slits his own throat in a dream like sequence. He is being attacked by a strange man, burnt face, hat, blades on one hand. Oh yes, the Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley) is all up on his life.

So I feel strange talking about the plot outline of this movie. It is fucking A Nightmare On Elm Street. He kills people in dreams, because he died a long time ago for being a pedo. SOmehow magic is involved. Some of the teens begging to die include Katie Cassidy, Kyle Gallner, and Thomas Decker. Rooney Mara gets to be our main lady, so she might survive. We shall see.

Oh, is Freddy a teacher now? There is no joke here.

Wait, did you see the cast listing? Outside of Mara, they have basically Twilighted this series. Maybe the original had some big teen stars too, but they didn’t have Twilight. This one is more obvious.

What really bugged me was the high quality of the camera work. It made the movie seem fake, having it set to ultra HD standards. The 80s movies are gritty, because that was the only quality available, but it also added to the fear. The crisp quality made me actually hate the movie, which I don’t think I ever said before. It just took me out of the moment.

Rehashing the story felt silly the whole time. Another problem? None of the deaths felt particularly creative or anything. The plot to fight back was stupid. The ending was stupid. The movie/remake was stupid.

1 out of 4.

Case 39 is a movie I easily walked by hundreds of times before giving it a chance. Why did I give it a chance now?

Boredom, mostly. The cover is boring. The stars aren’t my favorite. I just never cared about ever seeing it.

That is until I found out that Bradley Cooper was in it. Okay, fine, let’s do this.

Neither of these two people are Bradley Cooper.

Emily Jenkins (Renee Zellweger) is a…social worker! Ah yes, social worker, of course. She is pretty full on her schedule too. She works on child neglect things around the city. In fact, she already has 38 open cases! But her boss makes her add one more. Let’s call it Case 39. Great. Fine.

Well, she goes to the house and finds out it is very strange. Lilith (Jodelle Ferland) is starting to do bad at school and her parents are strange. She is a little bit worried about her safety, so checks in her at night a little bit later and finds her parents trying to burn her alive in an oven. Oh shit! They be crazy! They get locked up and she needs a home. Lillith wants to be adopted by Emily, but that is ridiculous.

Too bad it happens anyways. Weird things start to happen. A few weeks later, another of her cases ended up killing his parents. Whoa. Serious business. But the detectives also find out that before it happened, the kid received a phone call from Emily’s home. We all assume it was Lilith, so she gets some of that psychiatrist talk from Doug (Bradley Cooper!!) to figure out whats up. Then Doug kills himself later. Whoa.

Does Lilith have some power over people to cause them to kill themself? Is she just mentally fucked up and brings dismay to others? Or is she secretly an evil demon in a kid body brought to bring torture to everyone around? It could go either way. Straight demon horror film, or psychological thriller. Also there is a detective to help figure out whats up with Ian McShane.

Put that kid in an oven. Kids love oven.

Spoilers? It is totally a demon. They give some hints that it might not be something supernatural, just a disturbed child. Too bad, we get a demon kid movie. She also goes full demon by the end. It is very confusing at what her actual purpose is in this film. It is very irrational, and I have no idea why she even pretends to be a kid instead of just going on a demon rage.

Unfortunately, this film was pretty boring. The psychological route would have made it better overall, with a lot of people slowly going crazy, and that poor kid being in the middle of it. Misery does breed misery. That would require better writing, but it probably would still only be a 2 at that point. The beginning of the film was interesting, but as soon as the social worker decided to foster a child, that clearly interfered with the job, I lost all hope that the movie would be interesting. Sucks to suck, Case 39.

1 out of 4.

Kids. Listen to me now.

Judging a movie by its cover is bad, we all know that. That is why I have to watch these movies and make sure they are bad, not just assume.

Well, the cover needs to be decent as well to get people interested in it, to give them a chance. The Day‘s cover isn’t too spectacular, but I at least knew some people in it. So why not give it a shot?

Fuck. Let’s do that thing where I show giant pictures to cover up the bad.

Hey. You played an evil chick in that one movie. I wonder if you are evil here too. You do look scurry.

Alright, so this story takes place in a post apocalyptic society. Something happened, people are dead, everything is scarce, and THIS MOVIE IS A LIE. IT IS ALL A LIE.

Google “The Day” and “Film” or something, check out the images. All nice color stuff, like the one above. Even the cover. But fuck you, that is not what the movie looks like in the slightest.

Oh you look quite a bit more sick there, little girl.

Yeah, that’s right. Fucking black and white-ish. Surprise! Didn’t expect that. You know, because it is basically lies in the form of advertising. I will judge it harshly. No, I didn’t think it was color before hand, but the black and white is ugly, and seems to be a last minute addition clearly.

Either way. Not many survivors. So we have a group of people who may or may not know each other. There used to be more, but they died. Now we just have five left. Rick (Dominic Monaghan), Henson (Cory Hardrict), Adam (Shawn Ashmore), Shannon (Shannyn Sossamon), and Mary (Ashley Bell).

Well, they happen upon a small house in the middle of no where, so they investigate. Oh, it has food. Too bad it also is super alarmed. Jokes on them, local cannibal tribes in the area have set up a trap! Now they have to fend off against 20 or more people. Uh oh.

So people die. Some faster than others. Some of them may be big names. If any of them survive by the end, does it really matter? The world is very bleak, after all.

Basically, the movie was shit, and it didn’t even decide to dress up like anything else. It wasn’t that long, but it took forever for the alarm to even go off. I bet this could have worked as a short film, 25 minutes max. It would have been entertaining and got the same point across.

But this movie is just filler. Extreme filler, and violence subdued thanks to the choice of filter. This is why I can’t have nice things. Hell, even the cannibals had no personality. I think I have only seen cannibals in about three movies now. One the most famous cannibal ever. This. And of course, a little musical.

All the personality one could ever imagine.

0 out of 4

I really really am not qualified to review horror films. How are they supposed to be judged? I don’t know. I either tend to love or hate them. Doubt I have any 2 out of 4 horror films. What is average?

Basically, they either creep me out (scare me) or they bore me. Occasionally, I like some for their plot, but those are rare.

For V/H/S, I’d put it in the creepy column.

Her? Well, there is a fine line between hot and creepy apparently.

Alright, I might not actually be sure what the “actual” plot of the movie is. I think its about a group of asshole kids, who fuck shit up, and film it on their cameras for others to see. Also assault women, making “Reality porn”. Not the nicest bunch. Well, these asshole kids get hired to steal a video tape from someone, it is valuable. But maybe the video tape is actually a collection of other fucked up events happening, and potentially haunted itself?

Not actually sure. But the main film is spliced with five short stories (although, they are about as long as the main story too, which is just split up). I can’t even tag any people from them or really describe them without giving away too much. But the titles do a fair enough job on their own!

Tape 56.
Amateur Night.
Second Honeymoon.
Tuesday The 17th.
The Sick Thing That Happened To Emily When She Was Younger.
10/31/98.

You can make your own guesses with some of these. But there is a lot of themes present in the movie. Succubus. Woods. Ghost Hands. Cults. Ex Lovers. Zombies. Aliens. You name it.

I hope you tried to move the mouse in the picture.

Honestly, I found this terrifying. Not just because it involved such old technology (Kids won’t know what V/H/S tapes are!). It was interesting watching a movie about V/H/S tapes on Blu-Ray.

Not every short film is great. I didn’t really like the Emily one, or the main storyline that much. But Amateur Night was a great side story to start the films off right. It really was able to draw you in and then fuck with your mind some at the end, even if the end you saw coming (a little).

I think overall it was creatively done, even if there are things in it you have seen from other movies (as seen in picture 2 and Paranormal Activity 4). Having a different director for each short film keeps it fresh, and potentially interesting to watch multiple times.

3 out of 4

John Dies At The End?

Shit. This is either some existentialist or Buddhist metaphor, or this movie is putting spoilers in the title!

Or maybe it is trolling me. What if John survives at the end, and I am all like “Oh shit, I didn’t see that coming!” and talk wildly about the twist ending. Kind of like when Kenny stopped dying every episode in South Park. Even stranger, I found out this movie was adapted from a book written by a senior editor at Cracked.com.

Ohhhh mannnn. I love cracked! Hell, I used to base my picture subtitles off of their website with hilarious jokes. Unfortunately now, I fill it mostly with all caps and nonsensical expletives, and sometimes just boringly describe the picture (like dry humor) that doesn’t translate well over the internet, and never really make people laugh at all.

HOLY FUCK THIS MAY BE THE CREEPIEST KITTEN DAMN THING I’VE SEEN.

Strange things are afoot in the world. Magic, demons, alternative dimensions, drugs, you name it. But really, maybe things are only strange for a certain select group of people, and the rest get to live their lives ignoring it.

David Wong (Chase Williamson) and his friend John (Rob Mayes) seem to have some sort of handle on the situation. After all, they have defeated demons, and gotten their friends out of trouble, and have seen some terribly messed up shit. But how did it all go down?

Arnie Blondestone (Paul Giamatti) is a reporter interested in this story David has to tell, so the way we see the events in the movie are based off of the descriptions of David, and interceded with conversations between him and the reporter.

Maybe it all began with some drugs? Not normal drugs. Drugs that messed with their perception of time and reality. Knowing what would come in the future, where things came from before, what happened to others, other hard to explain parallel timeline stuff. They even have some ties with Dr. Albert Marconi (Clancy Brown), a guy famous for the paranormal.

I don’t know why I am trying to explain the plot. It is very close to impossible. It also features Glynn Turman and Fabianne Therese.

Oh hey look, its Paul Giamatti smiling. He must be up to something sexy.

I feel like an asshole. I really do. What we have here, with John Dies At The End is one of the most bizarre, crazy, fucked up movies I have ever seen. It is a thrill ride, and there is really no way to predict anything that might happen during it. It will potentially confuse you, and not bother to explain things, just to make sure you are there for the experience and not hard hitting truths.

Yet, despite that, I just couldn’t get in to it.

Maybe because I was rushed when I was watching it, but to me, despite the great things you can say about it, I just didn’t love it in any measurable way.

And it really sucks to feel this way, because I really wanted to like the movie, on the name alone. I didn’t over hype it, I was just generally curious. The film is definitely not for everyone, and might be a bit better if you are also experiencing side effects, but for me, I just couldn’t jump on the fun wagon.

1 out of 4.

The Collection is the sequel to The Collector, a film I can’t say too many people saw. If you are too busy to read that review, it was decent. Guy goes into house to rob it, while another guy (The Collector), is setting up a giant booby trap filled house, to catch strays and torture people with. Bad place, bad time.

I liked the general idea of it, but thought it could have been less torture porn-esque. I am most excited that this film took three years to come out later. I kind of get pissed off at the horror franchises that want to release a movie every year (usually in October). This has the potential to keep up the thriller/survival aspects, with a big game of cat and mouse!

While also exponentially increasing the body count!

Set a few months after the first, we learn now that The Collector is actually a serial murderer, who will go to a place, kill a lot, and take one person at the end, thus the collecting aspect. Which is what happened at the end of the first film! Arkin (Josh Stewart) was captured, and fate left unknown. Unknown until he somehow managed to escape! Oh yes, when the Collector fucked up hundreds of people at a night club, Arkin escaped, but another girl, Elena (Emma Fitzpatrick) was taken in his place. Oh well, as long as he is free.

Just kidding. Turns out Elena is a rich girl, and her father (Christopher McDonald) really wants her back. So he hired a team of mercenaries (including Lee Tergesen and Shannon Kane) to go and capture Arkin, to attempt to find The Collector’s lair, to get his daughter back at all costs.

His lair? Yep. So of course it will be more booby trapped than ever before, not to mention all his past collections might be around too. Did I mention higher body count?

Gets captured, escapes, gets capture. How much does it suck to be that guy?

In a sentence, The Collection takes everything we loved about The Collector and poops on it. That is what I thought at least. We learn that this Collector fellow is a big deal and has been doing it for awhile. Seeing the amount of people in collection later in the film helps prove that point, but it is still an outrageous number for there not to be some national man hunt out for him. Seriously, especially if it is just one city, there would be door to door searches. But eh, most people assume they won’t get killed or collected (and tortured) I guess?

I will say I liked the ending. The post conclusion ending. I was worried it would end the same way as the first, big firey explosion, can’t find his body, oh no, and someone gets grabbed. No, we get a form of revenge and closure. Closure?! Yes, closure. There can’t possibly be another movie to follow up this one.

Either way, the lair itself I thought was just lame. I didn’t like the traps, the deaths, the plot, any of it. I might have given it a 0, if it wasn’t for the last 60 seconds.

Yep, a good ending is at least 25% of the grade! But the rest is skippable. What a bad horror movie.

1 out of 4.

An Evil Dead remake is something that has been talked about for a long time. Heck, theoretically, Evil Dead 2 was a remake of The Evil Dead, in a way. Continuity and all be damned! But everyone knew this was going to happen for the last decade, and like everything kind of involving Sam Raimi, it took its sweet time.

After all, he has mentioned remaking it himself. Or adding a sequel. Or making a movie off the musical (which is fantastic). Just nothing happened with any of that, until now. But this isn’t Raimi’s film, this is someone elses. Can they do what he hoped to accomplish with the first Evil Dead, with a higher budget?

With some more “real actors” too, instead of just his college buddies?

Oh hey look, the movie begins before the actual plot. That is nice. Get your sacrifices on yo.

Much later, we have a cabin in the woods with a work shed. Mmm, work sheds. We have Mia (Jane Levy), out of Michigan St, with her friends, a nurse Olivia (Jessica Lucas), and high school teacher Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci). But they are waiting for her brother, David (Shiloh Fernandez) to get there. That asshat is late. Eventually he shows up with his girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore) and they are ready to start their stay in the family cabin!

But why? It’s old and decrepit. It also smells bad. Well it turns out that Mia is there with her friends and family for one main reason. To quit using hard drugs cold turkey. No matter what, they can’t let her leave, no matter how much she begs and pleads, and makes up excuses. I think you know where this is going.

It turns out the unbearable smell is coming from the basement, which is full of dead animals, burn marks, and a book wrapped up in barb wire and trash bags.

Then you know. Shit goes down.

Including everyone’s favorite Evil Dead cliche, tree rape!

Hey! Do you like blood and gore and outrageous scenes of decapitation and demonized people? Well, hopefully you do, since you are thinking about watching an Evil Dead movie. I think this film has everything that the first film wanted to do, which is great, because it was the goal and all. There is some sick fucking shit in this movie, and I definitely felt uneasy, but hey, that’s the point of this movie.

I love that there is little to no CGI in this movie, and that all the effects are done with make-up work and prosthetics. It makes it feel more real, and thus more gross.

Certain staples in the first and second Evil Dead made it into this film too, but they were not used the same way. I loved that the film was able to keep me guessing as to how all the events would go down. Hell, even the trailer did a good job of not spoiling everything, although it did feature scenes that did not make it into the movie. Probably a good thing in my eyes. They might be in the unrated version of the film, aka the version that originally was given an NC-17. Yikes.

Right now the current rumor for the future of this franchise is between two ideas. This current updated version is probably in the same universe as the beloved 80s version, and will either have a sequel or be a trilogy. If it is just a sequel, there is rumors that there will be an Army of Darkness 2 starring Bruce Campbell, then a 7th movie overall connecting the survivors of this franchise with Bruce in a final final film. I personally doubt we see an Army Of Darkness 2 (see earlier comments on Sam Raimi), so I think they will do the trilogy route then have the 7th connecting film. But hey, we will see. They could make surprise me and make me as giddy as a school girl.

Did I mention this scared the piss out of me?

Don’t forget to watch the entire credits!

3 out of 4.

Again, with the random Redbox rentals, I usually try to find something that might give me a good review. Shitty movies can lead to great reviews, so picking things I’ve never heard of can be amazing. That is what happened with 1313 Cougar Cult. But with The Loved Ones, it looked like a random prom based horror. Could be hilarious accidentally. Not to mention it is foreign. Australia? Heck yes.

I mean, she is cute I guess. Kind of creepy with the power tool.

Prom is a wonderful time for everyone, except maybe those who don’t get dates. Take Lola (Robin McLeavy), she is a nice girl, but a bit lonely. She tries to ask out Brent (Xavier Samuel), but he turns her down. Not for any malicious reason, but because he has a girlfriend Holly (Victoria Thaine). Makes sense, no harm no fowl.

Well, unless you are Lola. She isn’t a fan of that. When Brent is on a self hike in Australia, he finds himself knocked out, and yes, awakening in a house, tied to a chair. Oh joy! Oh hey, he is in a tuxedo now, and Lola is there, in a dress. What in the hell?

Looks like he is indeed going to prom with Lola, and her crazy family, but prom is now going to be inside. Her dad (John Brumpton) is there to help with the festivities, and grandma to be all weirdly lobotomized and awkward. Can Brent escape from the date from hell, before he get tortured to death in this hell house?

It is important to note that not everyone has a bad prom night. His good friend Jamie (Richard Wilson) asks out a hot goth chick Mia (Jessica McNamee) and has the time of his life. She has a missing brother too. Interesting indeed.

This is what you get for not cheating on your long term serious girlfriend.

I know what you are thinking. This film is stupid. Well, thankfully I am here to tell you that it is much better than the plot makes it see.

It is kind of a torture porn, featuring one guy, but some serious fucked shit ends up happening, including that power drill, and a few attempts at escape. But really it is an interesting and kind of unique stuff happens. The ending basically blew my mind, when the secrets of the family and her past issues came to fruition.

But it is also easy to feel uncomfortable during this movie. Lot of screaming, and slow pain. The best pain? Not sure.

I wouldn’t call this a scary horror, jut uncomfortable. But there are also some comedic elements thrown in to break the tension at important points. I will put this under the win column for random foreign Red Box films.

3 out of 4.