10 Cloverfield Lane

I would like to say that first, there are no spoilers in this review. Second, Mary Elizabeth Winstead kicks ass. She is an awesome horror/action movie heroine, and not really one you'd expect from looking at her.

She was in my favorite Final Destination movie (#3) and the remake of The Thing, where she also kicked ass. In 10 Cloverfield Lane, she starts off by leaving her fiancé for reasons that aren't really explained and ends up being run off the road by an unseen vehicle. When she wakes up she is locked in a room with her leg handcuffed to a pipe in typical horror movie fashion. This is a pretty basic beginning, but once John Goodman shows up it's obvious this is not going where you think it is.

Without giving anything away they, along with Emmett (the other guy who is either lucky enough to be in the bunker with them or is just another victim of Goodman but I'm not telling which it is of course) are stuck in the bunker for the better part of the film. It really becomes an engrossing psychological thriller, as you try to figure out if Goodman is just a conspiracy nut or if there really is something outside the bunker to be afraid of. The clues are all there, but they are clues for both possible outcomes and I was never absolutely certain which ending I should expect. Are there aliens or Russians out there waiting to get them, like Goodman insists as he holds them captive and dictates their every move? Or is he making it up to keep Winstead and her buddy Emmett with him?

There has been some complaining about the ending, but I thought it was perfect. It was pretty much what I expected, and I had tried to avoid all spoilers so I wouldn't really know what was going on. I thought it was exciting and scary and well done, and was a logical conclusion to everything else this woman had been through up to that point. Like I always say, it's nice to see a horror movie heroine who doesn't just scream and run around like an idiot. She is scared and unsure but she gets it done. She fights when she needs to and doesn't back down when most people in these kinds of movies would.

As for how this movie links to the first Cloverfield, that's a little hard to explain without spoiling anything. This was enjoyable from beginning to end, and I have to say I have never been more afraid of John Goodman in my life.   

I highly recommend this one, and suggest you see it before you know too much about it.

The Intruders (2015)

Ok, having seen this same ending several times just this year, I'm going to either have to give up and stop watching horror movies, or just resign myself to the Volcano/Dante's Peak effect. Movie ideas really do seem to come in twos or threes like babies, but this ending has been done four times in the last couple years. Twice is forgivable, but four times?

Anyway, I almost didn't watch this one because I made the mistake of reading online reviews and thought I knew how it ended. Then I saw a preview and realized that Donal Logue was in it so I decided to give it a go. He's always good, even in stuff like this that doesn't deserve him. It also turned out that the ending I thought I would see is not the one I got.

It's an ok little mystery, not scary and really geared more toward a younger crowd; the main girl is Miranda Cosgrove, who's ok but not very interesting. We have the obligatory "the main character's mother died recently and said character is on medication so may not be in control of all her faculties" plot device, which will allow us to wonder for the rest of the movie if she is just paranoid/crazy/whatever. The "is she crazy" thing is really overdone and I personally don't like the excuse that they're "just crazy" in any genre of movie. I think a real motive is more interesting. But that's just me. So then she starts seeing and hearing weird things in the house and begins to suspect that the neighbor across the street (played by Tom Sizemore - I know, what?!) was involved in the disappearance of the girl we saw at the very beginning of the film, being murdered in some kind of basement. Main girl makes accusations, gets depressed that no one believes her, does some Scooby Doo investigating and after an hour and twenty minutes of all this wandering around the house and refusing to take her meds, she uncovers the real truth - no spoilers here, but like I said, it is the same ending as at least three other horror films that I'm not going to name. The first time I saw this ending, it fit the movie and wasn't made out to be a big deal. It wasn't a let down because it was original - I hadn't seen it yet so didn't give it much thought. That movie was also really creepy and well done, so even if I didn't like the twist I would have forgiven it. How much you enjoy the movie has to outweigh how clever the ending is because otherwise we would all just fast forward to the last five minutes, right? The next time I saw this ending the whole movie was a blast and I vaguely thought of the first movie with the same twist but they were such different types of horror (one a serious and creepy thriller and the other more of a horror comedy) that it didn't bother me. The third time, it was a let down. Why? Because it sort of made the rest of the movie not make sense. I found an explanation online and felt a little better about it, but when that movie ended, I just sat there thinking that it didn't make sense. Why had all those things happened? Fortunately, the fourth time it feels old and tired but at least it doesn't negate anything that happens before it and makes sense in a way. So I'm ok with it, though I am getting tired of seeing the same things in five different movies. But you know what they say, there's nothing new...

In any case, I'm not really recommending it because the whole thing is a little too slow and boring, and by the time you get to the big reveal you probably won't care anymore. But it's certainly not the most offensive horror movie I've seen lately - please see my review of Suspension (2015) for the winner of that title.

Suspension (2015)

This is one of the 8 Films to Die For, and I usually am pretty forgiving of these films. I've liked most of them, and others that I didn't care for I just shrugged and went on my way. This movie, however, really got on my nerves because it doesn't even try to be original. Horror movies are traditionally overrun with clichés and tropes, and we expect that. But when a film flat out steals every scene and idea contained within it from basically every popular movie that has come before it, I get irritated.

Have you ever seen a horror movie before? Like, any horror movie ever? See if you can pick out the stolen plot devices and twists:

Emily is a high school girl with a traumatic past who is picked on by the kids at school, and after the mean girls dunk her in a toilet and video tape it, you kind of hope that they'll be the first victims of the killing spree you expect to start at any moment. But no, that comes later. Much later. But first, let's watch Emily hang out with her little brother (whose mother doesn't even say goodbye to him when she leaves for work; seems cold right?) and draw her gruesome comic book featuring the story of an escaped serial killer who takes out everyone at a house and nearby farm for no apparent reason. The lighting is different during these scenes, so you always know which scenes are her story and which are really happening, but this takes up a good chunk of the movie and is kind of pointless in the end. Anyway, that's all well and good but then the kids from school show up and the killer goes to work in real life... or does he?

I won't spoil the ending, but I literally had it figured out in the first seven minutes. I gave it the benefit of the doubt, hoping I was wrong and there was something, anything, more creative coming. But no, that's it. The main problem I have with this is not just that the ending isn't good; it's that the whole movie is not very interesting and is just a set up for the twist. It's not fun to watch in the meantime, and that makes it a waste. I'm not even going to bother telling you the rest of my complaints about this movie. Just know going in that you have probably seen this ending at least three times this year, if you watch as many horror movies as I do. Don't get me started on how the genre needs to stop doing the same things over and over. You can talk about tropes and homages and nods but for the most part it's just about a lack of creativity. I can't recommend this one, but as always I encourage you to make up your own mind... just don't waste your time hoping for an original outcome.

The Boy

Ah, the creepy doll movie. Dolls do creep me out, don't know how I ever had any as a child. Probably because I didn't watch any creepy doll movies. But I digress...

So this one has an American woman coming to a mansion in England to work as a nanny to the child of an older British couple. Of course, the child is not a child but a doll. And it is creepy. There's no other word for it. The fact that it looks alive at times and just stares blankly (and at one point seems to move around the house of its own free will) makes it scary all by itself, before any other weird stuff starts happening.

The main girl is of course on the run from a painful past and that's why she came all the way across the pond to baby-sit a doll. Honestly, I'm not sure what purpose this whole side story served, other than giving her a reason to go so far to take a job as a nanny, which doesn't seem to be her chosen profession. Anyway, once you get past these questions, you are faced with a bunch more like: why does the doll need a baby-sitter to begin with, why does she have to blast eerie music through the house to keep said doll happy, why does she have to give it lessons and read to it, etc. And what happens if she doesn't do these things?

Well, like any sane, unsupervised employee would do, she stops following all these rules and throws the doll in its room and goes about her business while the doll's "parents" are out of town on their first vacation in years. Of course, then strange things begin to happen and she can't explain any of it, not even with the help of the local grocer, who is suitably cute and charming, though he thinks she has gone off the deep end when she suggests the doll has a mind of its own.

Then comes the twist. It's not an anger-inducing twist - I tend to get annoyed with a lot of the twists in these movies, either because they've been done to death or because they make no sense. This twist falls into the latter category, even though it didn't make me angry. It made me wonder a few things, though. I can't say the questions that stuck with me because it will ruin the ending for you, but after watching it you will probably ask the same ones. It kind of negates a lot of what went before, and leaves you bewildered at the motivations of some of the characters. Oh and I saw the same ending in two other horror movies in the last couple years. But again, no spoilers.

Overall, I recommend The Boy for its spooky atmosphere, interesting set-up and creepiness. Just don't be too disappointed by the ending; it works in most ways, I just felt it was not explained very well.

Visions

I was surprised by this one. First, I've never heard of it and it has several names in it - Isla Fisher, Jim Parsons, Eva Longoria (who I didn't recognize until she spoke). It's a solid ghost story with a twist that I almost had figured out - but not quite.

Isla Fisher's character and her husband have just moved to a vineyard and are expecting their first child. She was in a car accident the year before - which is always a red flag for idiotic "she was in a coma the whole time and dreamed it" twist. But wait, it gets better.

So they settle in and she makes a new friend at mommy yoga, but soon she begins having hallucinations and thinking she's losing her mind. Her husband and doctor want to put her on anti-depressants, but she thinks the hallucinations are ghosts that inhabit the house. She soon finds out that the previous owner had similar experiences in the house and that does not help her paranoia. It's a good mystery, which I always enjoy.

The twist is not what you expect, and it was well done. I kept going back and forth between thinking that the husband was gaslighting her (see the movie Gaslight for a complete description of this) and waiting for some lame "it was all a dream because she's in a coma" twist. I'm not giving the twist away but the way it all plays out is different from the other tired horror movie endings I've seen in recent years, and didn't make me want to throw stuff at the screen. So that's always good.

I do recommend this one: it has mystery, suspense, some creepy scenes (pay attention during these and maybe you'll guess the twist earlier than I did) and a good, believable ending.