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The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

18/04/2017 · by Joy

After hearing nothing but good things about The Autopsy of Jane Doe, my interest was pretty well piqued and I couldn’t resist anymore. I had to watch it. So I rented it digitally on the Google Play store and settled in to enjoy a movie that has been hailed on RottenTomatoes as “nearly flawless” and “chilling,” expecting what everyone’s been describing. I don’t know if I was watching a different film or… maybe I saw, like, the director’s cut or something? I don’t know. I really don’t know. But it was anything but chilling and definitely no masterpiece.

They had a really good premise – a woman is found in a basement of a house where a horrific crime has taken place, buried in the dirt (but surprisingly unsoiled and sans decomposition, like at all). Everyone else in the house is covered in blood and viscera and this woman is there, dead, in the dirt in pristine condition. So what do they do? Take her to the local funeral home where a man and his son perform autopsies for the Sheriff’s office. Everything is going fine until they start to uncover disturbing findings and supernatural happenings are about, including, of course, the death of their cat, Stanley. Let me tell you, the whole “killing the family pet because they don’t want to kill a main character but we need to do something that will unsettle and disturb you” thing is getting reaaaaaaaally old. It doesn’t make me scared, it just makes me feel less sympathy for the owners of these pets because, you know, they leave them outside overnight or they let them wander or something stupid like that. Poor Stanley… we hardly knew ye.

Anywho. I found nearly all of the characters in this film dull and incessantly annoying, especially the son played by Emile Hirsch. Every 2 seconds, he had a question for which the answer was entirely too obvious. This kid has no critical thinking skills, whatsoever. I swear to god, at one point I was like, if he says, “Is that what killed her?” ONE MORE TIME, I will throw the remote at the TV. The father, the actual coroner, was slightly more clued in, but only slightly. These two together, underground, in a coroner’s office that is truly not up to code (I mean, come on, it has one entrance that is a cellar door and an elevator, that’s just ridiculous!)

The reason behind the “haunting” is silly. The acting was poor except for the body of Jane Doe because she literally just laid there and did a damn fine job of it. The effects were super-cool, but that’s really all that kept me going. I didn’t want to keep watching because it just seemed to get dumber and dumber and I felt myself losing IQ points watching this father-son duo bumble around, not entirely sure what they’re supposed to be doing. I was truly disappointed and having read numerous positive reviews for the film, I don’t see what they’re seeing. It was average and lackluster at its best moments and horrendous at its worst moments. I think I’ll pass on owning this one on Bluray, that’s for sure.

The Loved Ones (2009)

26/10/2016 · by Joy

I have anticipated watching this film for a really long time, but trying to get David to watch it has been quite the task. Trying to describe it to him has only furthered his reluctance to sit down with me and actually watch it. When you hear “this is a movie about prom night gone awry” you don’t immediately think “fantastic horror,” those two phrases don’t normally go hand-in-hand. I went into watching The Loved Ones with high expectations. Rotten Tomatoes has given it a certified fresh rating of 98% with an audience score of 74% – those are steep numbers to live up to. I’d have to say, though, it definitely succeeded! I am genuinely and thoroughly impressed!

To be fair, it’s riding a very, verrryyy thin line between gory shock killings and torture porn… I mean very thin. Think more hardcore than Saw but less hardcore than Tokyo Gore Police. …maybe that’s a little broad. Either way, it is not for the faint of heart or the squeamish, there’s a looot of blood spewed and shed. And it’s not without it’s minor issues – the pacing is all over the place and there is some ultra-cheesy dialogue – but the acting is surprisingly wonderful, the main character (Lola) played by Robin McLeavy is surprisingly terrifying in her insanity, and it’s relentlessly brutal.

It is Sean Byrne’s directorial debut and that shocked me when I learned it because it’s very well done technically and it’s well-written and it’s unsettling. I was invested in the “victim” and I was rooting for a safe outcome, which usually I’m pretty against because happy endings are boring and overdone!

All-in-all, this is one that I want to add to my collection pretty much immediately and will probably go on the October movie marathon roster next year.

Emelie (2015)

11/09/2016 · by Joy

Emelie is the movie that encompasses every parent’s nightmare when hiring a babysitter that you don’t reaaaally know all that well. It’s directed by Michael Thelin, who, as far as I can tell, hasn’t directed any movies before now. It stars a bunch of “unrecognizables”, which is one of my favourite things when watching a horror movie. When there’s a recognizable actor, you can’t help but be taken out of the movie just a tad.

Sarah Bolger plays Emelie, a girl fronting as “Anna”, a couple’s go-to babysitter’s best friend. At the very beginning of the film, you learn that “Anna” is not who she says she is as we watch the real Anna, a character we haven’t met – at all, get thrown into a mysterious black car. The new “Anna” shows up at the house, sweet as pie and the parents detect nothing amiss and head out on their much-anticipated date. Before the parents leave, in some pretty obvious foreshadowing, we learn that the children are not allowed to have cell phones until they’re 13. After the parents leave, the kids are put through the ringer… they have to watch the youngest (and only) daughter’s pet hamster get eaten by the oldest son’s snake, they are forced to watch their dad’s amateur sex tape with a woman who is not his wife(?), and then they listen to a bedtime story about a girl who neglectfully kills her infant child and now needs to find a new one, referring to the new child she is on the hunt for as her “Cubby.” Creepy. Very creepy.

Eventually, we learn that this operation is clearly bigger than Emelie alone when the parents get t-boned by an oncoming car on their way home from their date. As Emelie and her mysterious suited man’s death toll rises, the three children are fighting for their lives and Jacob, the oldest, is fighting to keep his younger brother from being kidnapped.

In a disturbing twist of events (to the parents, since we already know this), they are driven home by a cop, but on the drive back the cop gets a radio call letting him know he needs to head back to the crime scene as OH MY GOD, a body was found in the trunk of the car – the body of Anna Coleman.

This movie was tense, I’ll give it that, albeit a little farfetched. If I had children, it would probably make me think twice about who I’m leaving my children with. But come on, if I knew who the girl was, I’d have looked her up on Facebook to confirm her identity before leaving my children with them at the veeeery least!

Overall, a decent thriller (with surprisingly okay child actors) that I probably wouldn’t venture to watch again, at least for a long while!

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.

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!

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.