Allo my fellow movie lovers! Here’s this week’s list o movies:
Stonehearst Asylum
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Stake Land
Horsemen
Silent House
I’ll be taking votes till saturday, the one with the most votes is the one we’ll watch!
I’ll post my email once the film will be decided, so you can send your reviews for me to put together! Can’t wait to get started! 😀
M.
Killer Legends
(2014) Joshua Zeman, Rachel Mills
A bit disappointed in this one. Made by the team who brought us Cropsey (which I’ve wanted to watch for forever, but just haven’t gotten around to it), it promised to be good. But the first thing I noticed was that the man, Joshua, seemed to be more interested in having his face on the camera than his guests. If he wasn’t in a particular frame, he’d actually lean forward so that he was. His feigned sadness was also a little grating, because it was very obviously fake. He’d stand at a murder sight, talk in a mournful voice, shuffle his feet, sigh, etc. The girl, Rachel, also did it, but to a much lesser degree. Joshua’s voice-over voice was also grating, much different from his normal talking voice, and slightly ridiculous.
Now that we’ve got all the bad aside, we can focus on the good. The subject matter was very interesting, the premise being that urban legends always come from some truth. They take four famous legends (The Hook Man, Killer Clowns, The Babysitter Killer, and Deadly Halloween Candy) and dig around to find real life cases that might have been the beginning of these legends. They travel to the towns where the murders happened, talk to the locals, and, if there are any left alive, people who were there when the crime happened. It was quite interesting. Despite the fact that I spent the entire film wanting to punch the guy in the face, I still give it a 7/10, because the content was very interesting. But dude, if ever you read this (which I doubt), here’s a little advice: Unless it’s an autobiography, the audience isn’t interested in seeing you. The focus should be on the subject of the documentary.
This film is currently playing on Netflix US and YouTube. Although I should probably warn you, there are crime scene photos. Pretty graphic too. So if real dead bodies scare the crap out of you, stay far, far away.
M.
Deliver Us From Evil
(2014) Eric Bana, Édgar RamÃrez, Olivia Munn, Sean Harris, Lulu Wilson, Mike Houston, Olivia Horton, Chris Coy, Joel McHale, and Dorian Missick
What a great watch this was! I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy it, since great possession films are few and far between these days, but then I saw Scott Derrickson’s name, and I was already sold. I’ve only seen two of his films (The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Sinister), but they’re both incredible. And, to stay true to form in my eyes, this film was no less awesome. It was more tense than scary, but still incredibly well done. I imagine folks who scare easier than I do will find it much, much more frightening. The story was very interesting, just different enough to stay interesting throughout. It boasts the tagline “Inspired by actual events”, which to me means that there was a cop, his family was abducted by an unsub, and… well that’s it. I’m of the same opinion that Bana’s character has at the beginning: we don’t need demons, humanity does well enough on their own. The acting was mostly all top notch, the two leads were especially good. And the priest was almost disturbingly attractive (except when he was pulling on a cig, ick). So all in all, this was a pretty great piece of film, and gets an 8.5/10.
This film is not currently streaming on Netflix, but it is playing on TMN and On Demand. Enjoy!
M.
The Quiet Ones
(2014) Jared Harris, Sam Claflin, Olivia Cooke, Erin Richards, Rory Fleck-Byrne, and Laurie Calvert
I do love me a good haunting or possession story, so I was really looking forward to this film. So imagine my disappointment when I put this on and discovered it was one of the most boring possession films I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t scary at all, most of the characters are thoroughly unlikable jerks, and it just takes forever to get anywhere. It feels like a (bad) ripoff of Richard Matheson’s Hell House. Jared Harris is usually pretty good, but all I wanted to do is smack him upside the head (with a chair). And the constant smoking… ugh. I know it takes place in the 70’s, and it was a thing, but ugh. Even just seeing it onscreen disgusts me. I stopped the film about 25 minutes before it ended because I was tired and needed a nap, telling myself that I’d finish it some other time. Over a week later, and I still haven’t gotten around to it, nor do I feel the need to. Dull and pointless (and “based on a true story”, yeah right), it barely merits the 3/10 I gave it.
This film is currently streaming on Netflix UK, and is also on YouTube. But don’t say I didn’t warn you :-p
M.
The Dark
(2005) Sean Bean, Maria Bello, Sophie Stuckey, Maurice Roëves, and Abigail Stone
I actually had this one listed as “not interested” on Netflix. With the vague and uninteresting synopsis and the god-awful cover art, I had no intention of watching it. The style of the cover reminded me of those awful, older Italian horror films that some people love, lord knows why. But after reading Vinnie’s review, it actually sounded good, so I decided to go ahead and give it a try. And I have to say, I’m glad I did. It’s a strange little film, to be sure, and it took me a little while to know if I liked it or not, but in the end, I did. The acting is mostly good, except for the beginning of the film. I’m not sure what was going on, but everything for the first 5 minutes or so is awful. Really awful. In fact I almost turned the film off. But once Sean Bean appeared onscreen, it’s like the others realized they had to up their game around him. The basis of the film surrounds an old Welsh legend, something I’d never even heard of before, so it was fun to have no idea what was going on for a long time. It was more tense than scary, though, I’d have liked the fear factor to be upped a little. The ending was surprising and pretty awful. Not awful like bad, but awful as in abysmal. Not many movies these days go all out for such a dark end. It was also a little confusing, and seemed to get lost for a while, but really, that’s the only bad thing I have to say about this film. It gets a very good 7.5/10 from me.
This film is currently streaming on Netflix UK. Enjoy! 🙂
M.
At the Devil’s Door (also known as Home)
(2014) Catalina Sandino Moreno, Naya Rivera, Ashley Rickards, Mark Steger, and Ava Acres
Pleasantly surprised by this one. I was just flipping through Netflix the other night, not sure what to watch, when on a whim, I decided to try this one out. I almost turned it off as soon as it started, but I’m glad I didn’t. The acting was surprisingly good for such an unknown cast and small production, which sadly doesn’t happen much. The story was quite interesting, and every time I thought I had it all figured out, something different happened. That also sadly doesn’t happen often. It’s a little slow at times, but the wait is well worth it, with some nice, creepy things a-happening. It’s not very scary as a whole, but there are some good suspenseful moments nonetheless. All in all, it gets a good 7.5/10 from me.
This film is currently streaming on Netflix. Enjoy! 🙂
M.
The Taking of Deborah Logan
(2014) Jill Larson, Anne Ramsay, Michelle Ang, Ryan Cutrona, Anne Bedian, Brett Gentile, Jeremy DeCarlos, Tonya Bludsworth, and Julianne Taylor
SPOILERS AHEAD
Let me start by stating that I had absolutely no intention of watching this film when I found out it was a found-footage style film. I can count on one hand the number of these films I’ve enjoyed, I just don’t see the appeal. They’re supposed to be more frightening since it’s “more real”, I guess, but really all it is is annoying. The shaky camera, especially when the characters are running (and they always do at some point), is nothing except nausea inducing. You can’t even see what’s happening. It’s a genre that has long over-stayed it’s welcome, and I for one will be happy to see it go away. Alright, so, this film. After reading a few reviews, here and on movie sites, saying how good it was, I decided to go ahead and give it a watch, fully expecting to turn it off halfway. And I have to admit, it was pretty good. Jill Larson turned in a marvelous and rather creepy performance as Deborah, which is good since the rest of the cast is pretty mediocre. It was a little slow in some parts, but it built good suspense, so that was ok. That was the good. Now the bad. The ending left much to be desired. It had everything I mentioned I hated about found footage films, and then some. Running, incoherent yelling, the camera light flicking on and off, the image snowing in and out, tons of static, and it lasted for a good 20 minutes. So that knocked a point off its score. The main film student, Mia, was painfully stupid sometimes, so that knocked off another point. And then there was the whole snake thing, culminating in that moronic head-eating scene, and that squeezed another point off. For a film that had been good and scary, that ending was very much a disappointment. But everything before that was quite impressive, enough that it still manages a score of 7/10.
This film is currently streaming on Netflix and, despite its problems, I still reccomend it. Enjoy!
M.
The Killer Inside Me
(2010) Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Jessica Alba, Ned Beatty, Elias Koteas, Tom Bower, Simon Baker, Brent Briscoe, Liam Aiken, Matthew Maher, and Bill Pullman
I had such high hopes for this one. There were a few really good actors in it, the story was interesting, but damn was this movie boring. It started out well enough, but after a while it just sort of petered out, as if the story got lost in the woods. And some of the characters really had no point, like Elias Koteas’ Joe. What was his point? He did nothing to further the story, nor did anything from his story turn out to be relevant to the plot of the film. He’s just sort of… there, to remind the audience that Lou is full of shit. Bullshit, for the birds, which he repeats no less than 5 times. The story was good though, so maybe I’ll track down the book and see if it’s any better than the film. Quite disappointing, I give this film a very mediocre 5/10.
This film is currently streaming on Netflix. But don’t say I didn’t warn you :-p
M.
My Little Pony: Equestria Girls
(2013) Tara Strong, Ashleigh Ball, Andrea Libman, Tabitha St Germain, Cathy Weseluck, Rebecca Shoichet, Nicole Oliver, Vincent Tong, and Britt McKillip
I never really got into My Little Pony as a kid, so I didn’t even give this film a second glance when it arrived on Netflix some time last year. But my 4 year old son discovered the (new) show on his Netflix about 6 months ago, so we’ve been watching them almost every day. A few episodes are pretty bad, but on the whole it’s a fun show, and the little man loves it, especially Rainbow Dash. After having gone through all 4 seasons twice, I decided to see if he’d be interested in this film. I wasn’t sure, since the plot is about the ponies becoming human girls, I didn’t think he’d be that interested. But he was, very much so, so I put it on. Surprisingly (thankfully), it was actually quite good. Gabriel loved seeing each of the ponies transform into girls, and it was very amusing to watch Twilight Sparkle try to figure out how to behave like a human. Their motto, friendship is magic, is very important in this film, and of course it has a very saccharine ending, but I was expecting that, so it’s ok. There aren’t too many songs, either, which is definitely good. I have a theory about the number of songs in a film (that’s not supposed to be a musical) is directly related to how good or bad a film is (my best example being The Land Before Time and it’s thousand sequels, in which the first film has zero songs except during the credits, and is amazing, compared to the sequels which are 70% song, and suck balls… but I’m babbling again, aren’t I?) All in all, it’s fine family fun, and gets a very good 8/10 from me.
This film is currently streaming on Netflix. Enjoy! 🙂
M.
The Babadook
(2014) Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Daniel Henshall, Barbara West, and Tim Purcell
So, I’d really been looking forward to this film, since I’d heard about it. The trailer was awesome, and I’d heard generally only good things about it. It was really just my own apathy that was stopping me from watching it. I’ve been really bad the last 2-3 years or so, in keeping up with shows and movies. No matter how good it looks, or how much I already like a series, I can’t seem to get myself to care enough to watch. But anyways, I’m babbling again… So I finally got around to watching this last week, and by that time, my expectations for the film were very high, with all the positive reviews I’d heard. Ultimately too high, I think. It wasn’t a bad film, but it was nowhere near as good as I was expecting. It was only 93 minutes long, but it felt like 3 hours. It had a few really good, tense scenes, but it wasn’t quite enough to keep me totally engrossed. I’m also of the idea that less is more when it comes to movie villains, especially ghostly things, and I feel that we saw too much of the creature, and that made it much less scary, and actually a little silly. And that ending… it was one of the more ridiculous things I’ve seen. And don’t get all high and mighty on me, telling me I didn’t get it. I get mental illness, believe me. But that was ridiculous. In the end, it was a good idea that just kinda got lost along the way. It gets a decent 7/10 from me.
This film is not currently on Netflix, nor is there a copy on YouTube. But if you wait a bit, I’m sure it’ll come on soon.
M.
VampirePlacebo * Mel's Entertainment Page 