Horror | Joy Reviews Movies

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.

Contracted (2013)

28/03/2016 · by Joy

Contracted is a film I’ve been meaning to watch and review for quite some time now. It’s a body horror film about a girl who has casual, presumably unprotected sex with a stranger and begins to experience strange aftereffects, which she assumes are the results of a sexually transmitted disease. Her symptoms get stranger and stranger, starting with a headache and abdominal cramps and escalating quickly into more and more concerning ailments.

From the very beginning of the film, I found the acting very strange. It was not, by any means, believable. It was very stiff and altogether theatrical, and not in a pleasant way. That sad, it’s not a terrible film. It’s interesting (albeit disgusting) to watch the main character’s decline into paranoia and the deterioration of her body. It was more than a little ridiculous for Samantha to go to a doctor presenting with extreme bleeding, a strange rash on her abdomen, abdominal cramping, and a general feeling of malaise, have her tell her doctor that she had an unprotected casual sexual encounter 2 days prior, and have the doctor say “It’s a head cold and a rash” after checking her vitals without even doing an actual exam of any kind. That’s just not a believable situation. There were many situations that ended up similarly.

At many points throughout the film, I found myself severely grossed out and I mean, I’m not usually an easily disgusted person and I’m definitely not squeamish. I’m all for body horror, I’m all for being disgusted at a movie sometimes… but this was just over the top and unnecessary. I get it, the main character is not a nice person… to anyone at pretty much anytime during the movie. She spends the time she’s not looking in the mirror or sitting on or in front of the toilet telling people how much of a lesbian she is or being extremely rude and unpleasant to her mom. She’s turning into the person on the outside that she already has been on the inside – rotten and foul.

The special effects are impressive, though. They may be excessive and over-the-top, but they are cool-looking and they’re clearly where a big chunk of the budget, which I cannot find a number for.

I can’t say I enjoyed watching this movie, but I didn’t leave it saying, “That was an utter waste of my time” but at the same time, I wouldn’t watch it again. It definitely did something new with body horror, making the method of contraction sexual, but the slow decline of the character’s body was nothing new. It was old tricks made several times more disgusting, which isn’t necessarily a bonus – unless you’re into that sort of thing. It was incredibly difficult to sympathize with the main character because she’s not a likeable person in the first place.

The whole film feels like a part 1 and ends up feeling like an unfinished art project, while simultaneously feeling just a tad too long. This one might be worth a watch, but only if you don’t have a weak stomach and you can look past shoddy acting and unlikeable characters. So maybe… maybe this is one to skip.

The Gallows (2015)

19/03/2016 · by Joy

A few months ago… actually, likely closer to a year ago, some friends and I had a movie night, as we have been inclined to do. We watched The Gallows (2015) and I came away thinking it wasn’t that bad – likely due to the screams coming from my friend Julie who was to my left and my other friend Brandi who was to my right (the rest of us don’t get so… involved in our horror films). However, my previous assessment of the film was trash – utterly falsified trash.

My boyfriend, David, and I rented it… from Movie Network (geez, they get a lot of advertising on here from me!) tonight to rewatch it for specific reviewing purposes.

So the premise of The Gallows… it’s based in a high school around our main character, Ryan, who is a bit of an asshole. His friend Reese is a football player who is also playing the lead in the school’s play which is so aptly named, The Gallows. 20 years previously, the school had attempted to put on the same play with horrific results – the character playing Reese’s character, August, accidentally got hung and tragically died. So anyway, Ryan discovers by happy accident that the stage door is broken and doesn’t lock. This discovery spawns Ryan’s bright idea to break into the school that night and trash the set, ruining opening night. Ryan and Reese, along with Ryan’s girlfriend, Cassidy enter the school and run into the other lead cast member, Pfeifer (yeah, that’s her FIRST name… I was appalled too, and not only that, but it’s the ACTRESS’ first name as well!) and find themselves locked in the dark, creepy school unable to escape.

The plot, I think, sounds pretty intriguing on paper, but the more I watched, the angrier I got at the plotholes, the shoddy camerawork, and the terrible acting. I am a huge fan of found-footage films – there are lots that are more worth your time than this one. It really did have potential, but it didn’t quite hit the mark for me. There are so many things wrong with the plot, I don’t even know where to begin. For instance, there is constant repetition of the fact that you cannot, under any circumstances, utter the name of the first victim (Charlie) on stage because it’s bad luck, but they never tell you WHY that’s considered bad luck… and it turns out later that the motives of the “ghost” are revenge-based, so why would saying his name be bad luck? It just doesn’t make much sense.

David and I noticed on many occasions very obvious cut and scene changes… it just seemed amateur in it’s execution. The ghastly figure that sometimes appears behind people in scenes is just sort of ridiculous and not that scary, honestly. The characters are unlikeable to begin with, the writing is awful, and the plot (as I’ve previously mentioned) is full of loopholes and sadness.

The saddest part is that it could have been good and it could have been scary, but it just fell flat due to flaws and technicalities (you know, like writing, acting, and camerawork – all the non-essentials for a film to succeed).

Save your money… save your time… watch something else.