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Reviews
Ready or Not (2019)
The Purge Meets Cabin in the Woods
Comedic Horror certainly has it's place. With the same kind of survival humor that came with Cabin in the Woods, comes this movie about a bride who marries into money that hinges on a pact with the devil. A very good mix of gore, suspense, and humor. This movie delivers. In terms of horror, sure it's not there. But it's advertised as comedic horror, and it lives up to it. Very good. The Purge meets Cabin the Woods. Love it.
Apollo 18 (2011)
A lot of Potential but Missed the Mark
The Event Horizon and Alien are the movies that made me fear the vastness of space. Sheer isolation mixed with an alien antagonist is enough to make you empathize with being completely alone, with no support, facing an enemy that you do not know how to handle. Apollo 18 did a fine job of setting up a story in which Apollo astronauts are seen to the moon one last time as a top secret classified mission. Once they land on the moon, things start to get strange. The absolute feeling of being alone transfers, but that is where the horror ends. The rest of the film is filled with cheap cliche's, unbelievable acting, an overuse and abuse of cheap camera tricks, predictable lighting, and a couple predictable attempts at jump scares. Then, to put icing on the cake, the end implies that there is a hint of truth to the movie's premise and that these events are based in fact. Even if that were true, this movie was boring enough that I would not even be interested in hearing the actual theory if there was any such evidence supporting that claim, which there is not.
The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020)
Great Story, Don't Expect Hill House
I really enjoyed this series. I did not know what to expect, but thought it was excellent story telling. It is not for casual viewing, so if you aren't able to play close attention to the details of what happens when the characters get "tucked away" then you will find yourself very confused by the finale. It's not as creepy scary as Hill House (even though it has it's moments) but certainly reaches deep into your emotions. Certainly worth watching, but don't let Hill House be the measure of this story. It is a different story and leaves you feeling very differently by the end.
The Babadook (2014)
A lot of Promise, Almost Delivers
This movie isn't as much about your typical ghosts, monsters, or demons. It's about the grief of a young mother and the long term misunderstanding of her son who have lost their husband and father in a car accident on the day of the son's birth. Long before the antagonist begins to play a role in this story, it is clear that both the mother and son are a bit unhinged from either the loss of a husband, or growing up without a father. The Babadook book suddenly appears on the sons bookshelf, and that is when things start to seem a little off. But going forward with the story the mother takes a dip into madness reminiscent of Jack Torrance in the Shining and the line between delusion and reality become suddenly blurred.
The acting in this movie is fantastic. Totally immersing you in the roles of the mother and son and if anything is completely unnerving it is the completely convincing portrayal of insanity in this movie. The use of sound and light leaves you guessing, and keeps you wondering what is always lurking in the corner.
SPOILER AHEAD
This movie may have deserved 8 stars in my book. However, any time you kill off the dog, you are gonna lose some points in my book. The killing of the dog is foreshadowed early on, as are the deaths of other characters. They killed the dog, but not the rest. I would have preferred the other way around.
Malevolent (2018)
A little bit of everything
This movie had a little bit of everything. Mystery, paranormal, and a touch of gore. It draws you into the the characters and invests you and makes you root for them at times, while taking pleasure in antagonists getting theirs in the end. I thought it was well balanced between scary, and horrifying, but subtly enough that you were able to take a breath between big moments. You'll eventually see behind the curtain, but until then it grabs enough that you want want to look away, even when you do.
Poltergeist (1982)
Understandably Classic, yet outdated
This is a good film. I have been a fan of horror and suspense for a long time, and so I was overdue to watch this one.
I can see why this movie may have been pretty frightening when it was originally made. The story is solid, and the performances from the cast are about as good as they can get from a script that can borderline on the cheesy, at points. But in a world where film has evolved from the use of apparent fake heads, robotic tree arms, and ghostly apparitions that would appear in ghostbusters a couple years later, the scare factor of the major physical events leave a little to be desired. However, to the standard of other scary films that came out in the 80's, the story is vastly original and set apart from the popular 80's blood and gore slasher films, and will likely be one that ends up in my rewatch list going forward. It's considered classic for a reason, because it is. Could it have been better? Sure. Best all time? Nope. Then again, I'm not sure anyone is claiming that it is.
The Haunted (2018)
Lazy, just...lazy
This movie was really disappointing. The trailer has more watchability than the movie itself. Despite the absolute boring and predictable moments of the movie, the twist at the end was very poor and predictable. It really felt like something someone wrote because they wanted to see if they cauldron make a scary story. There are tidbits of story lingering throughout but the "climax" of the story is sloppy at best. Perhaps someone just wanted to make a movie with this twist, but didn't know how to get there, and it shows. Then there is little payoff for the hour you spend trying to get there only to to get a couple minutes of wrap up. There is so much left hanging that I found this movie to be incredibly disappointing. It had what could have been a good foundation, but was left floundering at the end.