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The best genre – scary movies

The Ouija Experiment (2011)

03/10/2016 · by Joy

What an awful, awful experience this was. What an awful experiment, if you will. The only reason that I even ventured into watching this movie is because I didn’t have enough time to watch my regularly planned “The Shining” night because it’s Teen Mom Monday. Wow, how basic was that sentence?

Anyway, the whole garbage film felt like a high school student’s first attempt at a horror film. The acting was horrible and wooden and apparently “based on true events.” There was nothing to any of the characters, they were all wooden cardboard cutouts of each other. The scares were sad and weak… even though I rarely get scared during films, this was just a laughable, terrible experience had by all (meaning myself and my dog, Toby).

It was a movie TRYING to be scary while also inserting random Internet memes into the dialogue? It was cringeworthy, every little word they said.

I don’t even know what else to say. I am appalled. It had a budget of $1,200 and it’s 200% obvious. I haven’t actually seen anything else that the writer (and director) has written (and directed) but I don’t plan on adding any of them to my “To Watch” list. At least I know who to avoid…

Stranger Things: Season 1 (2016)

18/09/2016 · by Joy

It’s taken me far too long to get this review out.

As soon as I saw the thumbnail for Stranger Things, I knew it was something I wanted to watch. I put it off though, delaying the inevitable end of the season that would come all too soon. But we did it. My boyfriend, David, and I sat down and watched it over a couple of nights, trying to stretch it out for as long as possible.

From the minute it started, I was in love. I was in love with the familiar ’80s movie tropes, I was in love with the Spielberg vibe it was shooting off in my general direction, I was in love with the lovable characters and their hilariously witty (for children) dialogue. Not to mention, the wordmark title looks like the title of Needful Things, and I love me some Stephen King. It is a show that takes a little bit of this and a little bit of that, a little bit of E.T. and a little bit of the X-Files, and sprinkles it together in the most beautiful recipe to create a perfect homage to the ’80s – and I mean, perfect.

Apparently I’m not the only one enthralled with it either, because it’s sitting at 95% on Rottentomatoes and 9.1/10 on IMDb, so while I may be one of the only ones to actually shed tears at the end of the season, I am not unique in my adoration.

Besides all of the stylistic and nostalgic perks it has going for it, the story is also great. It’s compelling and keeps you on your toes. The pacing is great, the setting is wonderful and the characters are phenomenal. You can’t help but to fall in love with the children in the story – the lovable, gap-toothed Dustin, Will the missing child, Mike Wheeler, and of course, Eleven. This is Millie Bobby Brown’s first BIG role and she killed it, knocked it way out of the park. Some of the adult characters were just as easy to fall in love with and when I say adult characters, I’m mostly speaking to Hopper, the police chief who spawned one of my favourite quotes of ever now: “Mornings are for coffee & contemplation.” That quote in itself pretty much sums up the character of Hopper. He’s a police chief in this podunk town where very little happens… until now.

All in all, it’s a great sci-fi/fantasy show that I feel pretty much anyone will at the very least find watchable, but more probably will find it enjoyable and thrilling at times. Give it a watch and you will not be disappointed!

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

05/09/2016 · by Joy

James Wan is becoming one of my favourite directors. First, we had Saw, which you can’t argue became one of the most overdone franchises in horror history, but still grossed $873 million at the box office worldwide. Then he did Dead Silence and that was like, okay we’ll just pretend you didn’t do that. Then came Insidious, which, while not one of my favourites, was a satisfying horror. In 2013, 3 years after Insidious, he hit the motherlode with The Conjuring. With 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, it quickly became one of my favourites (ever) to watch. There’s just something about Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson’s sincere performances and a family with like, a thousand daughters, being tormented by a spirit from the Great Beyond that makes a horror fans’ every hair stand on end… with glee.

Since then, he’s had Insidious: Chapter 2 which I haven’t yet ventured to see, Furious 7, and most recently, The Conjuring 2. So of course, as soon as I heard it was out, I was so excited to see it. I waited (tensely, excitedly… breathlessly) until my favourite movie-watching friends (HI ANH, MEL, JULIE & RHIANNON, MISSING BRANDI & SPECIAL FEATURING KATIE & GREG) were ready and hurriedly rushed over with anticipation.

What I expected was a Conjuring 1-like retelling of the Enfield haunting. What I got was something very much like the first film, but also, so much different. The vibe was just a little different, I think because it’d been done before, it followed the same formula (children experience strange occurrences, parent(s) don’t believe them, something happens and the parent(s) witness it…) but then the formula changed. First of all, all of those usual things happen so fast – we were into the action in like, half an hour, it felt like. Then after those things happened, the family did a thing… a thing I’ve been waiting for a family to do – they fled the house. I mean, they went back near immediately, but still they tried to flee the house for a split second before “coming to their senses” and returning to Hell. I’d be lying if I said that The Conjuring had the same effect – it definitely has lost some of it’s ‘wow’ factor and I think a big part of that is due to the fact that you actually see the ghost’s face so often. It just becomes a little overdone. There’s no mystery. Whereas in the first one, the ghost’s identity is kept a secret until you absolutely MUST know it, in this one, you semi-sort-of know pretty quick off the bat.

For that reason, I didn’t enjoy this movie as much as the first. I still enjoyed it, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t find myself saying, “WOW, what a good horror movie” at the end. My other big criticism is that it felt long – especially during a number of sappy, out of place scenes that I guess were supposed to be… romantic(?) between Ed and Lorraine Warren. I’m sorry, but this is a horror film… horror and romance are two genres that just don’t jive well together at all. I personally could not care less about their weird, ghost-hunting relationship and I super don’t want to imagine what they’re doing after the ghost-hunting is over when they’re not in separate beds any longer. Ew.

While it’s true, there were more jump scares and tense moments than the first, I don’t think they were used as effectively. Maybe for those who are extreeeemely easily scared (Julie), they are, but there are so many and they are so constant throughout the whole film that it gets exhausting after a while.

All-in-all, it was an enjoyable movie and you could tell that Wan put a lot of thought and effort into an elaborate plot that keeps you thinking and guessing from start to finish (well, up until a long scene of Ed and Lorraine embracing to Elvis??? anyway) Had they kept the ghost’s visage a bit more under wraps, I think it would have been that much scarier and that much more successful than the first. I can’t get over that, because seeing a ghost TOO often kills the mood – kills the mystery – kills the scare-factor.

While I felt the first film deserved the 86% it got, I think I’d probably give this film a full 10% less, placing it at 76%, and I’d call it fair.

The Visit (2015)

03/09/2016 · by Joy

I have to say that to begin with, I am not the biggest fan of M. Night Shyamalan’s work. There are very few that I watch and subsequently say, “That was a good movie!” Those few may be The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs, not because I really thought it was technically good, but because I enjoyed it. After that, everything I’ve seen has just been indicative of a downhill spiral. The Village? Lady in the Water? The Happening? Should we even speak of The Last Airbender?? Shyamalan is hit-and-miss, but mostly miss.

So, knowing what I was likely getting into, I lowered my expectations. We quickly meet Becca and Tyler, who are 15 and 13 but speak as if they are actually 40 year old intellectuals. I typically don’t find that too distracting… after all, I am a person who has watched all of Dawson’s Creek at least 3 times over. I can usually set that aside, but it was pretty over the top. Asked what rap is, Becca states, and this is a direct quote: “It’s a form of modern poetry… if you give him a topic, he’ll extemporaneously rhyme on the subject. His stage nom de plume is ‘T-Diamond Stylus.'” Like, are you kidding me? What 30-year-old, let alone a 15-year-old, drops extemporaneously in casual conversation? One can be expected to suspend their disbelief, but not that far over the line. Nope, no way, Shyamalan.

Anyways, these 2 kids are going to meet their estranged grandparents for the first time, sans chaperone. Becca is an aspiring film-maker and thus, we now have a premise for a decently interesting found-footage film. Obviously they get there and something just isn’t quite… right with their new Nana and “Pop-Pop” (yeah… yeah.) At first, they’re perfectly pleasant and normal and kind, but weird things start to happen and things start to go awry before the trademark Shyamalan TWIST occurs and everything slides rapidly into… no.

It could have been a really good film. We were on a really good track with the premise and plot of the film, we really were. But so many things don’t add up, the kids have so many opportunities, and I’m sorry, they’re up against two absolutely ancient old people – you could take ’em! The child actors (Ed Oxenbould and Olivia DeJonge) are wonderful, truly, but it would have been a lot more natural and believable had they spoken like the age group they’re in.

It wasn’t an awful movie, but I wouldn’t give it what it has on Rotten Tomatoes (64%)… maybe a 45% at best. I’m not entirely sure if the comedic effects elicited at times were intentional or not, but they were there, and for the most part, they worked! But on the flip side of the coin, this movie wasn’t scary and it wasn’t all that thrilling either. There’s a jump scare now and then, but that’s about it. So I mean, if you’re down for a movie about pretentious children, a “twist” you can see coming from miles away, and being overcome with frustration at the stupidity of characters that are coming off way more intelligent than anyone I’ve ever met… this is your jam! Go forth!

The Frighteners (1996)

29/08/2016 · by Joy

This past Friday evening was movie night at my friend Mel’s and since Halloween is just around the corner (okay, like 2 months away), we decided to watch a Halloweeny movie. I think it was Rhiannon that chose The Frighteners and I’m pretty appalled with myself to say that I didn’t know what it was. Apparently it was directed by Peter Jackson – like, THE Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Lovely Bones) and starring Michael J. Fox, I feel now like it should be a classic. Reading up on it, I learned that it was (a) a box office flop and (b) received decently on Rotten Tomatoes at 64%.

Watching it, I got definite Beetlejuice and Poltergeist vibes and it was great. I also have to say it started off as one film, took a hard left and turned into an entirely different film altogether. By the end, I was mostly just sitting there saying, “What. The. Fuck!” – in a good way, I assure you!

It’s about an architect named Frank Bannister (played by Michael J. Fox) who semi-sort-of cons people into thinking that he is cleansing their houses of spirits. Semi-sort-of because he does have the ability to see and speak to ghosts, but each haunting is a clever ruse put on by him and his ghost buddies, Cyrus (played by Chi McBride), Stuart (Jim Fyfe), and Judge (John Astin). He charges people money to cleanse their houses and is basically a con artist.

Pretty soon he finds himself at the centre of a bizarre pandemic: People begin dropping like flies, usually after contact with him. He discovers there is a creepy entity, strongly resembling the Grim Reaper, killing people and marking their number in their forehead (but only Frank can see these numbers!)

I don’t want to spoil it because I didn’t see it coming, but it spirals into the most off-the-wall, messed up thing involving a myriad of… interesting characters, including an FBI agent named Milton Dammers who was apparently a victim of the Manson Family in ’69 (played by Jeffrey Combs – Re-Animator).

It was just the strangest, most wonderful thing I’ve ever watched. I thoroughly enjoyed the weirdness and the absolute what-the-fuckery and it was more than just a film – it was an experience. I almost want to add it to my October movie line-up now – I will definitely watch this again in the future. Definitely.

Lovely Molly (2011)

03/07/2016 · by Joy

Lovely Molly is a movie about a recovering drug addict who has the worst support system, including doctors, in the whole universe. That pretty much sums it up accurately, I think. I was prepared for a really great, underrated horror film judging by the reviews that Dreadit consistently seems to give it, but I ended up just… thoroughly disappointed. That said, newcomer Gretchen Lodge was fantastic. It is directed by the director of The Blair Witch Project, which is part of the reason I wanted so badly to watch it.

The movie starts off innocuously enough, but quickly catapults into, I guess, what Sanchez wanted to be a slow-burning thriller? It’s definitely slow. This woman, Molly (who doesn’t turn out to be very lovely after all), and her new husband, Tim, move into Molly’s deceased parents’ house. It is revealed pretty much immediately that something happened in her childhood that was traumatic and it happened in that house, which led me to ask, in the first 15 minutes, if something so terrible happened to her, why did she move willingly back into said house? It is also revealed very soon into the film that she is a recovering drug addict (heroin)… which again led me to ask, why is her family letting her move into a house where traumatic events occurred? So many questions to which you never really receive an answer, except for “her family is really bad at supporting her in her recovery.”

The film is disturbing, with a few scenes going straight for shock factor. I don’t want to spoil anything, but there is gore, there is sexual content, and there are dead animals. That said, this movie was not scary… I know I don’t really get scared by films much anymore, but that said, it’s just not a scary movie. It’s gross… it’s disturbing… it’s more or less a look at repressing memories and one girl’s descent into pure madness. And all throughout, her sister and her newlywed husband go about enabling her – her sister literally comes over and brings pot to smoke with her! Her husband takes her to the doctor’s and the doctor says, “Well, she’s fine physically…” and prescribes her some sleeping pills. When her husband asks, “What if she becomes dangerous?” it is implied that nothing is really said and no solution is offered.

It is a very strange film because it is filmed in an almost found-footage style, but it is not (for the most part) found-footage. There is an excess of shaky cam and POV shots and it’s pretty much Blair Witch but a different story. The characters are illogical and largely unlikeable. The use of “subtle” squealing noises to make you feel uneasy almost gave me vertigo at some points in the movie.

Overall, it was just a highly detestable experience and honestly, I probably won’t ever watch it again.

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

26/06/2016 · by Joy

I have anxiously awaited this film more than probably any of them in the last few months, horror-wise at least. I am a huge fan of John Goodman… he is the best thing that could have happened to Red State, he was great in Flight, and let’s be real, he is like a dad to all of us. I waited though to see what the critics thought (and until it was available to rent on Google Play Movies…) and was so ecstatic to see it was given 90% on Rottentomatoes!

To be fair, you have to kind of go into it NOT expecting it to be related to the 2008 film Cloverfield, because really… it doesn’t. It starts off innocuously enough, introducing us to our main character, Michelle, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead who is fighting with her boyfriend and traveling away from him to… well, it’s never really explained where she was going or why she was leaving. She is playing with her phone while driving (tsk) and ends up getting into a car accident and being knocked unconscious. When she wakes up, she finds herself in a cell somewhere. We are pretty quickly introduced to John Goodman’s character, Howard, who we learn has built a bunker below his farmhouse for protection from fallout of any sort. Then we basically spend the film questioning where we are, what’s going on, and do we trust Howard?

John Goodman is fantastic – he is menacing when he needs to be and yet, he’s warm at times. He’s a very well-rounded character and that’s nice to see. While Michelle is our main character and she is who we are following through the plot, the centre of the film is John Goodman, 100%. In my opinion, Howard is up there with Kathy Bates’ “Annie Wilkes” in Misery (1990). One minute he is sweet and caring and nurturing, and when something triggers his temper, he flies off the handle in a fit of outrage.

This film is really difficult to talk about without spoiling the plot and the major plotpoints, but what I can say is that 10 Cloverfield Lane keeps you on your toes, it keeps you guessing, and it’s atmosphere is dreadful in the best way possible. But despite these amazing points – the first… 5/6ths of the film’s plot, the well-fleshed out characters, the atmosphere – the ending is really a sticking point for me. It is clearly there solely to link the film to the original Cloverfield and it just… doesn’t fit. It would have been a 10/10 had it stuck with it’s original path, had it left you guessing at the end rather than pulling a connection out of its own butt. That being said, I’m still going to buy it for my collection… I will still rewatch it, probably a few times, and it’s definitely in the running for this year’s October horror movie marathon!

Ava’s Possessions (2016)

07/05/2016 · by Joy

One of the new films that is circulation on Reddit.com’s horror subreddit is Ava’s Possessions (2016). When I saw that it was on Netflix, I jumped at the chance to watch it. I was excited even though I knew literally nothing about the film other than it was about Ava and probably her possessions.

My first impression (as in, within the first 5 minutes) was that the soundtrack was bomb. Not even the bomb, just bomb in general. It was so good, I enjoyed it thoroughly… and after those first 5 minutes, it only got better. So if nothing else, you can watch it simply for a great score composed by Sean Lennon (yes, as in John and Yoko’s son).

However, there are many other great reasons to watch it. These include, but are certainly not limited to, someone asking the main character, Ava (Louisa Krause), if being possessed by a demon was anything like being pregnant or the inclusion of Alysia Reiner (Natalie Figueroa/’Fig’ in Orange is the New Black).

Like I said, I didn’t know what to expect going in and what I got was different than anything I’ve personally ever seen before. It was basically the “after-story” of what happens when a movie character gets possessed by a demon. She’s picking up the pieces of her life after a major life crisis and trying to put together what actually happened that week that resulted in the state her life is in presently.

Honestly, I wasn’t enthralled with it and it wasn’t something I’d watch again and again. It’s definitely not on its way to becoming a classic horror film anytime soon, either. But it was fun, creative, and original, and that was enough for me to keep watching. The sideplots were just not that interesting and I can’t help but feel the film would have landed better if they didn’t exist.

If anything convinces you to watch this film, let it be the 12-step satire, “Spirit Possession Anonymous,” because no idea made me smile more in this entire film.

Hush (2016)

10/04/2016 · by Joy

You know when you’re just scrolling through Netflix’s catalogue and you stumble upon something so intriguing, you can’t help but watch it? That’s what happened to me today when I found Hush. “She lives in isolation, a world of silence. It doesn’t mean she’s easy prey. One intruder finds that out the hard way.” The premise is certainly not a complicated one – a woman with hearing loss (Kate Siegel) finds herself being stalked by a killer (John Gallagher, Jr.) with a crossbow in her home in the country.

Both leads are fascinating characters. Siegel is both hard of hearing and mute, due to a bout of meningitis as a teenager. Gallagher is given very little backstory and despite his relatively small stature, he is terrifying and imposing. The cast is extremely small, consisting of the 2 leads, the main character’s neighbour and her husband and finally, the main character’s sister over FaceTime. In addition, the entire movie took place in and around her house.

The story was intriguing and the first half of the movie was spent building up a great deal of tension, which was really effective later on when the film comes to a climax. Despite a few bumps and plot holes along the way that I am having difficulty getting past, I really enjoyed watching this movie… however, the pacing was a bit scatterbrained. At times, it was slow and ambling and then the next scene would be frantic and hard to follow. That’s not necessarily a negative, it just throws you off upon watching.

The film is definitely carried by the two leads, though, as I mentioned before. Their fantastic acting ability created a sense of reality and, at times, panic. Some reviews have been hailing it “one of the best horror films in modern history” but I don’t feel that that is accurate. The only thing I find revolutionary about this film is the fact that it uses very little dialogue, especially from the main character who communicates solely in American Sign Language. Other than that, it was a pretty par-for-the-course thriller… but an entertaining one at that, worth a watch or two!

The Boy (2015)

03/04/2016 · by Joy

One of my favourite things to do is to flip through Netflix’s horror catalogue and pick either something that looks REALLY bad or something that looks like it might actually be good – of course, the good ones are the rarity.

The Boy caught my eye because, at first, I thought that it was the film that was just coming out this year which looks both hilarious and horrendous all at one time. But the description grabbed me and pulled me in ultimately. “Neglected by his heartbroken father and abandoned by his mother, a boy who is fascinated with death drifts toward becoming a future serial killer.” Anyone that knows me, or at least knows my reading habits, knows that I am very interested in serial killers and even now I’m currently 700 pages deep in “Fatal Vision,” the story of Captain Jeffrey MacDonald and his journey through the trials when he was accused and later convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and two young daughters. Being a psychology major, abnormal psychology is a deep-seated interest of mine. Anyway, that’s what drew me to The Boy.

The first thing that needs to be said about this film is that it is a veeeeeryyyyy slow burn. I can definitely see where some critics are coming from (Devan Coggan, for example, from Entertainment Weekly) when they say that the film feels overly long and drags at certain points. It has a really great score, which is something I put a lot of stock into when I watch a film… especially horror films.

While I can’t say I was enthralled throughout the entire film, which is an hour and 45 minutes long and contains many, many, MANY landscape shots of mountains, I was interested. If you’re going into this one looking for a scare, you’re not going to find it. I hesitate to even call it a horror movie simply because it is just not scary. Nobody is going to watch this and go, “Yes, that 9-year-old boy scraping roadkill off the road IS frightening!” I’d label it as more of a thriller than anything. Rainn Wilson, however, I did find off-putting at least. I’ve never seen him in a serious role such as this one and it was an unexpectedly positive surprise.

The first two-thirds of the film are building up to something and the ending is pretty climactic. The last few minutes of the film are, by far, the most chilling in the entire film. All in all, it felt like an “artsy” sort of thriller and it failed to… well, thrill. I was just expecting more to happen the whole time, instead of watching idling silence for the first 70 minutes. I’d still recommend that anyone who considers themselves a fan of the genre give it a watch, but it’s not going to be hailed as a classic anytime soon, that’s for sure.

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