Silent House

So I know that the whole "shot in one take" thing is not true, so I wasn't too distracted with figuring out how they did it; I was, however, distracted by how much Elizabeth Olsen looks like her sisters. Aside from that, I watched this movie with the hopes that it would be at least somewhat spooky. I have not seen a movie that actually scared me in so long, I'm willing to settle for being a little spooked. And don't get me wrong, there were a couple of creepy parts, and the fact that it's just one girl wandering around a house that is inhabited by a bad guy who's trying to kill her father gives a sense of isolation and terror that you can identify with, and makes it watchable enough as you wait for something to happen.That's how they get you, building up the suspense while you wait for it to get to the good part.

But as much fun as it is trying to figure out what the heck is going on, in the end I felt the same way I feel about so many of the movies I watch these days... disappointed. I can't say much without spoiling it, but I really feel like Hollywood could do better if they wanted to. Laziness is running rampant in the genre, where the same ending is trotted out over and over again, in the hopes that you've never seen a horror (or any other kind of) movie before. There is so much more that could be done with these types of movies, but they take the easy way out.

Am I recommending this one? I would say it's just OK, one time through. Like I said, it builds suspense and keeps you wondering what's going on until the end, but the payoff is not that exciting.So, watch it if you're looking for a somewhat tense, slightly spooky movie about a girl alone in a big house, but don't expect too much from the ending. Unless you've never seen any other scary movie.

Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil

I'll just come right out and say it... this movie was awesome. I didn't know what this was about at all, but after the first few minutes I was hooked. It's more of a comedy than a horror movie, technically, but it takes all the cliches of horror movies and spins them into an original, funny, violent, ridiculously fun film. The obligatory, attractive college-aged kids head to a remote cabin for some time away from mid-terms and teachers, and of course they run into Tucker and Dale at the convenience store. In these movies there's always some creepy guy at the town store who warns them of the dangers ahead or just stares at them while chewing and spitting tobacco, so as to give the kids the willies; however these guys are just socially awkward, not homicidal. They may be hicks, but they certainly aren't psychotic killers or The Hills Have Eyes-esque mutants. So when the guys rescue one of the kids, her friends jump to the conclusion that they've kidnapped her and are going to start murdering all of them. So they strike first, trying to take the "killers" down before they get them. What follows is ridiculous and would never happen, but it is entertaining. I won't say much more, but just trust me... this movie is awesome.

House on Haunted Hill (1999)

This movie scared me to death when I was younger. I still don't like watching it alone. So creepy. It is based on the old Vincent Price movie, and in fact the production company that made this, Dark Castle, was formed just to remake the old Price horror films (13 Ghosts is my other favorite... review to follow a bit later). A bunch of people get invited to a big, ominous-looking mansion for the birthday party of a rich guy's wife, but the rich guy and his wife both claim they never invited these people. Hmmm... If you don't know what happens next you've obviously never seen this movie and should run out and rent it immediately. You're missing out. Taye Diggs (who should be in more horror movies and less sappy medical dramas on TV) and Ali Larter are two of the guests who end up trapped inside the mansion, which of course was also a mental institution run by a scary doctor at one time. And of course it's haunted. There are so many disturbing images and freaky noises in this haunted house you'll be covering your eyes by the time it's over. Lisa Loeb (the singer) and James Marsters (Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) pop up at the very beginning, and if Geoffry Rush channeling Vincent Price doesn't do it for you, you're much too tough a crowd.. This is one of my all time favorites and I recommend it for the horror fan who likes a bit of polish and a nod to the old days.

The Chernobyl Diaries

So a group of friends decide to take a tour of the city that was home to the workers of Chernobyl. They think it'll be cool to see the abandoned city, and their tour guide (who seems just a tiny bit shady) assures them that it's perfectly fine and safe to go to the city. They get to their destination after the obligatory opening scenes of the friends and the other couple who are also taking the tour, bonding and having a great time.

All is fine until it gets dark, and then all of the tour guide's assurances suddenly mean squat. There are wild animals-and something else?-running around at night, and once they meet up with them, it goes downhill from there... but in a good way. But really, what did they think would happen? I personally wouldn't go somewhere after I've been told "we won't be there long enough to be affected by the radiation." Yikes.

I felt like the buildup was good (I wasn't bored), and there were some jumpy moments. It was also educational; I learned that you should never go inside a nuclear reactor. I thought the ending was a little disappointing, but I wasn't completely pissed off (like at the end of Wicker Man or The Number 23 - yes, I'm still bitter about that). All in all, a fun ride.

Cabin in the Woods

I loved this movie. Pardon me while I gush for a moment. I can't say much without giving everything away, so I will just hit the high points and be as vague as possible.

It stars Chris Hemsworth and Bradley Whitford (one of the high points I mentioned), and is about 5 young friends who go to the cabin of Hemsworth's cousin to have a fun weekend. And then things get weird. I can't say any more. All I will say is that it is not what you expect and you need to see it before you hear too much about it. It's the best movie I've seen in a while, horror or otherwise. At least, I enjoyed it more than pretty much anything I've seen lately. It's funny and scary and gory, and it has an original premise, which is hard to come by these days. Go see it! Just trust me.

Absentia

This one is good. That was what I thought when I had made it about 20 minutes in. I didn't know what it was about when I first started watching it (thank goodness for IMDB), but once I knew what was going on (at least the general plot), it got moving pretty fast. Tricia's husband disappeared without a trace seven years ago, and she is about to have him declared dead in absentia (hence the name), and she is also pregnant with the child of the detective who has been looking for her husband all these years. Her sister Callie comes to stay with her; Callie goes jogging every day, and every time she goes through the tunnel down the street you wait for something to jump out and get her. Great atmosphere in this one, very creepy and just enough things popping out or appearing out of nowhere to keep your guard up.

Callie meets a man in the tunnel who it turns out has also been missing for a long time, and she begins to suspect something is going on. Animals are disappearing from the neighborhood and there have been several break-ins. Then, just after Tricia signs the papers to have him declared dead, her husband shows up. He just comes walking up to the house, looking like hell. Obviously wherever he's been there was no sunshine. Maybe he was lost in Seattle.

I can't tell you much else without giving too much away, except that I would have liked a happier ending (I know, it's a horror movie and I know better). It's low-budget but well done, and better than a lot of movies like this that I've seen. I highly recommend this one.

Dream House

Oh, where to begin... Well, let me just start by warning you: Barbie is not in this movie. (Sorry, I hear dream house, I think Barbie). But seriously, I have to actually warn you, there may be spoilers ahead. I'll try to be as vague as possible but no promises.

This sounded like it might be ok; I like Rachel Weisz and she is usually pretty good. I'm just not sure why she's in this movie. I guess it was the price she had to pay to meet her future husband. So, anyway, this happy family moves into their dream home and they're all very happy until a guy starts lurking outside the windows and scaring the little girls. Then after some more strange happenings Daniel Craig (of the soulful blue eyes) does some digging and wow, when the twist hit I literally said, Really?! And it's downhill from there. There's not much I can say without ruining it, but let's just take a moment to reflect on the horror movie twist. The idea is to shock you and a lot of times the twist is your main reason for seeing the movie (that's how I got suckered into seeing The Happening), but a whole movie that has everything riding on the twist is a bad idea. If it's not well done it's just sad and distracting. And that is this movie. It not only takes a bizarre turn about halfway through, it then gets sad and creepy, and then twists again. I gave up after that.

I thought it was a haunted house movie, but it's really more of a psychological thriller/drama and if you like that sort of thing you might like this. However, if you aren't easily amused you will probably be as irritated as I was. I just kept thinking, I want to write a letter. Just not sure who to send it to. Again, rent only if you can suspend your disbelief a lot longer than I obviously can.

Grave Encounters

Grave Encounters is a spoof of "Ghost Hunter"-type shows, and spends the first half-hour basically making fun of those shows. There are no actors that I recognize in this, but they weren't screamingly bad actors or anything. It is a bit slow to get going, but then it takes off running. First, the good part: there's a lot of running around and screaming; it's like being in a haunted house and running and screaming at every little noise right along with the people in the movie. No, the special effects are not great, but it is creepy and kind of fun. The bad part: my only problem with it was the same problem I have with a lot of these horror movies - the characters are annoying. If I wanted to watch a bunch of people who are trapped in a building sit around and bicker with each other, I would watch oh, I don't know... any reality show on TV. I just found them annoying, especially the girl (why is that? As if we're all whiny and scream at every little thing. Seriously, the women in these movies waste time screaming when they should be running or hitting back. It's insulting). But aside from that, this was, as I said, kind of fun. There were shades of House on Haunted Hill (one of my personal favorites - it scared me to death when I was younger), but that was not a very big part of the story so I can't complain about them stealing from it; in fact, it really felt tacked on at the end. So if you're willing to forgive its flaws and you just want a fun ride, try this one.

The Thing (2011)

Ok, so there's all these people running around in the snow trying to thaw out an alien that crash-landed there. Mary Elizabeth Winstead (from Final Destination 3... my favorite FD) is a scientist; she's actually pretty good in this. I liked the fact that the main person was a woman, taking charge and keeping everyone alive as long as she could. There's the usual build-up of suspense, but I felt like they dove into the scarier bits pretty quickly (so many horror movies drag along because they don't really have much to show you... I mean they like to drag out the suspense as long as possible). The best part of this movie? The creature thing (you know, that Thing) is really creepy. One minute a person is talking to someone, and then they just become this thing. I don't want to spoil too much of it for you, but I thought it was well done. And the suspense is well done, too, with everyone trying to figure out who the Thing is; it doesn't have too much of that thing that a lot of horror movies have, where everyone turns on everyone else and becomes a complete whiny ass. I wasn't irritated by the characters and hoping they would die, as so often happens in these movies. Of course, that's what they're there for, but still. I was a little confused by how the creature worked, but again I don't want to spoil anything. I'm not even usually a fan of creature movies, but this one is very creepy and I enjoyed it so I apparently can make exceptions. Recommended!

Medium Raw

And today, in an act of ridiculous randomness, I am going to review a movie called Medium Raw. It's a low-budget horror flick that I rented from Netflix (where I rent most of my obscure horror movies from) and I have to say I enjoyed this one.

The acting is pretty good, it has some good suspense and a vague back story, and most importantly... the Smoking Man from X-Files! Ok I was a bit of an X-Files fan back in the 90s. I wasn't a crazy weird fan or anything, but I liked it well enough, and I always thought the Smoking Man looked like hell, presumably from smoking too many cigarettes.In case you're wondering, yes, he still looks like hell. But I digress...

So the gist is that a serial killer called "The Wolf" has been locked up in this mental institution that several people have come to visit on a night when the power goes out, releasing all the baddies inside, including the Wolf. For some reason, someone brought a little girl here to hang out, so she's stuck in there too.

I like movies where people are trapped in places with crazy serial killers and have to survive and get out. That's just me. It is rather gory, and at one point there's a scene with a crazy cannibal in the kitchen (no, she's not cooking chicken); what I didn't get about this scene is why the main girl is in the kitchen with this woman and is surrounded by knives and meat cleavers, but it never occurs to her to just knock the woman out and run. Of course, that's all part of the horror experience: frustration and the general feeling of helplessness. Trust me, yelling at the screen does not work. I've tried it. If I ever find myself in one of these situations I'll know exactly what to do... the opposite of what everyone in the movie does.

So this is one I recommend, if you enjoy watching people running around a mental institution in the dark trying to escape a crazy guy... whose costume is awesome by the way; it seems rather impractical for chasing people around, let alone killing them, but whatever. Enjoy!

Paranormal Activity 3

First of all, I should say that I might give away some plot points so stop reading now if you don't want to know anything about this movie. I still remember reading a review in Entertainment Weekly about The Sixth Sense that ruined the ending for me. I was not happy.

There's the obvious camera gimmicks that come with these movies - why do people always conveniently manage to have the camera in the exact spot it needs to be in to catch all the important stuff? It seems unlikely. And the thing about these movies is that once you know there's not a chance it's real, some of the scare is gone. But it is still creepy to watch by yourself, and there are some parts that made me jump a little. It didn't help that the lights started flickering in my living room while I was watching it. It does have its creepy moments, but not enough of them for me to have loved it. Of course, it's hard to find anything that actually scares me anymore (what they say about getting desensitized after a while is true) so I wasn't screaming every three minutes like the people they show watching it in the theater on the commercials (have these people just never seen a horror movie before?).

I didn't really understand the ending; if these are the little girls from the first and second movies, why do they not seem to remember what happened? Seemed memorable. Maybe I just missed something. In short, if you like scary movies and have already seen all the good old haunted house movies you might like this.

Forget Me Not

Forget Me Not is a low-budget teen-slasher flick with a supernatural twist that I thought was rather unique. It has a cast of unknowns (at least I don't think any of them are big names; the cover girl looks like one of the Olson twins but don't get your hopes up). A group of teenagers on graduation weekend pick up a girl that they don't know (or so they think) and hang out in a cemetery (of course), then play a game that's a variation of tag, but with each person who is tagged becoming a "ghost". And that's how the rest of the movie plays out, just like the game. But as each person is killed, they are forgotten by their friends, as if they never existed. I thought this was, as I said, a unique approach, and liked it so much I watched it twice. The special effects are actually decent; the ghosts were creepy at least. I won't say much more because I don't want to give away too much. I think if you like ghost/revenge stories this is one of the better ones I've seen. And it gets points for not having that annoying "twist" at the end that I am so sick of seeing (watch "The Number 23" and you'll know what twist I'm talking about. I can't even count the number of horror movies I've seen with that same ending). This one was just a good, creepy slasher flick. Recommended!

My First Review

I watched Hostel 3 last night, so that is going to be my first review. If you haven't seen the first Hostel, I don't think this will spoil anything for you, but it's been a while since I've seen it so use your own discretion.

I am not a fan of "torture porn" but I enjoyed most of this movie. I admit it, I fast-forwarded past a couple of parts (there were bugs, and any time I see bugs I tend to dream about them so I skipped past it). But there were good parts. There were a few twists; just when you think you know who's who and what's happening, everything switches on you, and I'm a sucker for any movie set in Las Vegas. I love Vegas! Granted, most of this takes place in a shadowy warehouse-type place and you don't see much of the scenery, but I was happy with the little that they did show. There was one character that I thought might not be what they appeared to be, and I was right (no idea why I thought that; they didn't act strange at all. I've just seen a lot of movies and am really good at guessing things like this). The part I enjoy most about horror films is the suspense, the chase, the running-away-from-the-bad-guy-before-he-gets-you-with-that-chainsaw. There was more of this towards the end, but I wouldn't say the earlier parts were boring. Like I said, things twisted around from what you thought was happening and/or expected to happen. I've never understood why anyone would pay for someone to torture and kill - can't they pick up strangers in a bar or lure them to fake parties with spiked mojitos on their own? Or is it just part of being super rich and expecting all the work to be done for you? - but I'm willing to suspend my disbelief. You kind of have to when you watch as many horror movies as I do. The acting was better than a lot of direct-to-dvd movies - I've seen some really low budget movies and am not usually bothered by less than Oscar-worthy acting unless it looks like they could have done better if they were in a coma. As acting goes, this is definitely not the worst I've seen by any means.

In short, I was engrossed in this movie for most of it, I liked it better than the first one and would recommend it to horror fans.

Before my first review...

A word about why I decided to start writing reviews of horror movies (if you're looking for a review of  Twilight or the latest rom-com to hit the Redbox, look elsewhere; I only do horror movies, even though I do love rom-coms): I watch so many horror movies I thought that I might as well start reviewing them to help others who are as obsessed as I am weed through the good, the bad, and the "why did this movie get made?!". A couple of years ago I got into the habit of renting a couple of horror movies to watch on Friday or Saturday night when I didn't have other plans (or couldn't go out because I didn't have a babysitter), and started to look forward to these evenings alone with slashers and serial killers (not to mention vampires and zombies) almost more than going out and being with other human beings. OK, enough about my sad social life.

Why ridiculously random? Because I love these kinds of movies and tend to rent them on a regular basis, so I will be reviewing whatever I happened to rent that week or just something I've seen that still stands out for me. Oh, and I am willing to forgive a lot of things if I enjoyed a movie, so I am not going to be reviewing based on acting performances, character development, or artistic merit. I am a big fan of slasher flicks, zombie flicks, suspense flicks, etc., and I am reviewing based on whether I liked it or not. Plain and simple. If I liked it, you might like it. And if you don't, I just want to say... No refunds.

I have seen just about every horror movie ever made, with the exception of some older ones that I know everyone is going to be mad at me for not watching yet. Give me time; I'll get to them! I will tell you what I liked and didn't like about each film, and will not be waxing poetic or ripping apart certain actors or directors or anyone else for the sake of sounding smarter than everyone else. Also, I am not going to be reviewing only new movies; I watch a lot of films from every decade, and will be writing about whatever I have seen recently or just whatever I feel like reviewing, in the hopes that it will help you find something good to rent on Friday night.

So I hope you enjoy my first review (it's coming up next) and that you'll continue to come back for completely biased and (most likely) wildly unpopular views and reviews of the movies that we all love to hate. And love to love, as in my case. Oh, and feel free to contact me if you have any requests for reviews or just have a question. I still love getting mail as much as I did when I was 8.