Horror Movie Reviews

Horror Movie Review – The Open House

Title: The Open House

Genre: Thriller/Horror

Synopsis: (from imdb) A teenager (Dylan Minnette) and his mother (Piercey Dalton) find themselves besieged by threatening forces when they move into a new house.

If you’re a fan of horror movies where “the black guy dies first”, this movie is for you. To begin, let me tell you I watch a LOT of garbage. As a person who watched horror movies, I have accepted and even embraced the fact that not every movie I screen will be good or even palatable. Still, even in the worst of horror movies so far, I’ve been able to not be disgusted by them. Sure, they’ve been dumb, silly and downright terrible, but there was always a little spark of originality or the fact the movie didn’t take itself too seriously which mitigated its terribleness. This is not the case with The Open House.

If, after my dire warning, you still insist on watching this film in a serious way, read no more. I will be spoiling everything I can. All the spoilers. EVERY ONE!

From both the poster and the movie trailer, the film promises a mysterious movie in which a weekly Open House may or may not be inviting in a killer. The film poster, done in bluish-gray “horror movie tones” showed a shadowy figure standing menacingly in a driveway. Both advertisement mediums indicated a good, scary time lorded over by this scary figure.

When I logged on to Netflix to chill out and watch some reruns of The Office, it popped right up on my feed. So, I said, what the heck? Oh, foolish Dahlia. Foolish, foolish, Dahlia.

I should have known something was up when the movie began with a cliche:

Main character suffers a devastating tragedy.
I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: I’ve seen a LOT of movies (not just horror) and I’m pretty good at recognizing foreshadowing when I see it. As I writer, I have also been known to use the technique a bit. That being said, foreshadowing is supposed to be subtle, but when Dad dropped an egg and the movie showed it cracking open, spilling out the yolk and white all over the floor, I knew Dad was a goner. Then, poor old Dad suggests they go get more eggs. I knew right away, old Dad was gonna be cracked open sooner rather than later. Sure enough, Dad was gone in the first 15 minutes of the movie. Bonus cliche points: the main character sees this happen,

Main character has to relocate because of…whatever issues.

Turns out Dad was a deadbeat and didn’t leave any insurance. So Mom and son have to go to live in her sister’s house, which she just so happens to have up for sale. Which brings us to the next cliche.

New location is located in a remote place with spotty cell service.

On their way to the town, the mother is talking on the cell phone in the car. Sounds like she’s trying to straighten out something with the husband’s estate. Why are you chatting on the phone, driving to a strange place IN THE DARK? Either way she’s driving, in the dark and chatting on the phone. Then she gets mad because the phone

cuts out (cue spotty cell service) Suddenly, a mysterious figure appears at the side of the road, causing mom to slam the brakes and holler, “Did I hit him?”

:::::Mouth open:::::: Heffa, did you hear a thump? I’m sorry, but I’ve got to really ding the movie for this. I can’t with this one. There was no thump….why the heck did you think you hit him? I began to think this movie wasn’t going to have any legs. But it did have cliches! Check out the next one.

Explore a creepy basement/attic with a flashlight.

They get to the house. Bring in their stuff. Then the mother disappears somewhere and the boy is in the kitchen by himself. Oh, look there’s a door! It leads to a basement, WHICH HAS NO LIGHT SWITCH. No worries, just pick up this handy flashlight and go right on down! Also, what was up with the maze in the basement? Stone walls? Is this Wolfenstein? No rhyme or reason, just wander around down there until your mother calls for you. The weird thing was, they never discuss how weird the basement was, not even a throw off line. I tell you what, if I lived in a house like that with a creepy basement, I sure would be on the lookout for, well, creepiness.

Weird/creepy neighbors and/or townsfolk

The characters go into a store or something and an older woman comes up to them. “You must be Logan….and you are Naomi”. Ooooo, spooky. They are on alert. How does this woman know their names. “Oh, your sister emailed me with your pictures.” Okay, why didn’t the sister TELL THEM that? Cheap scary moment. Random crazy woman not so crazy…or is she? You’re back and forth with that, movie. And I despise you for it.

Random scares with chords.

Oh, the tangled web we weave when we try to scare. Sigh. The silly jump scares abound. Unfortunately, no cat scares…that at least would have been mildly entertaining.

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Saying “hello” when there’s a weird sound/event.

There’s a scene where Logan, the teenager, is awakened by a honking horn. He gets up, goes to the window and peeks out. There is a car sitting in their driveway, with its lights on bright so he really can’t see anything. He stands there for a while until the car honks its horn. Logan then GOES OUTSIDE (no coat, no shoes) and tries to see who is in the car. What the heck? Then, he goes back to bed and DOES NOT TELL HIS MOTHER. Whaaaa? I dig that they’re kind of estranged because of the father’s death and their poorness, but…..c’mon man!

Not noticing things are out of place/not telling people when weird things happen

You live in a house, an apartment whatever. You know when doors are open and closed, right? Well, these two don’t. The mother goes somewhere in the house, walks past a door. As we watch, the door opens. When she comes back, and walks right past the door, she doesn’t close it, nor does she even seem to register that it’s open in the first place. I just shook my head. By that time in the movie, I was just watching to see what happened.

Kid has a cereal bowl in his room. He goes to do something, and finds his cereal bowl in the living room. Says nothing.

Black guy dies first

So something scary happens, furniture is rearranged when they leave the house. They come back, are shocked, and FINALLY call the police. After trying to keep his mother from even talking to this dude earlier in the movie, Kid invites the only other black guy in the movie besides the cop, Chris, over to, I guess, protect them against the creepy stuff. And also to be the first victim of mysterious killer. Yeah. Bite it, movie, with your oldest cliche in the damn horror movie book.

Note: There are two black men in this movie. One is a red herring and dies first, the other is a police officer and has THREE WORDS to say. This is 2018, right? I thought we were done with the stereotypes and cliches, but I guess not. Bugger off, movie.

As if you didn’t know this already, this movie is not recommended, even for fun. It’s a dud of a movie, and I truly felt I wasted my time watching it. If you want to see the trailer, I’m sure it’s on YouTube. I’ve wasted enough of my life on this movie as it is.

Grade: F-. You are not approved for a mortgage.

Note: There are a few times where I think I say I’m sorry? Well, I’m NOT!!

Horror Movie Review – Exhibit A

Title: Exhibit A

Genre: Thriller/Horror – Found Footage

Synopsis: The timely story of a normal family disintegrating under financial pressure, eventually driven to the unimaginable. We witness the terrifying events unfold through daughter Judith’s video camera, which subsequently becomes Exhibit A.

I watched this movie on the recommendation of Overthinking Horror Films. For some reason, I really enjoy “found footage” horror films and was looking for something that was found footage but wasn’t littered with profanity and super shaky cam. I mean, the jitter cam is fine, but when it’s 80 percent of the movie, it’s more annoying than atmospheric.

I’d seen Exhibit A in my travels through the websites that listed found footage, but never really paused to examine it more closely. First of all, it’s a British film and either I didn’t want to fight with the accents, or the description didn’t grab me. However, since I trust OHF’s taste in films, I took a chance and watched it.

I’ve seen reviews which poo-poo the film or say that it’s over the top. They’ll say the acting was terrible and how could the daughter film all through this. Let me just say this. The film got me by throat and didn’t let go until the end. I even gasped in some parts.

The basic premise is a regular old family of Mom and Dad, and two teens, a girl and a boy. I was a little annoyed when thirty seconds in , the girl filmed herself in the mirror so that we could see who she was. Ugh. However, I stuck with it and while I can’t say I was rewarded for my perseverance, I was served a good film.

The father’s performance was one that stuck with me the most. Early on, I could see something was amiss and the little things just kept piling up. The film became more painful to watch as it went on, not because the performances were bad, but you could see where the train was going. You just wondered where exactly it was going to wreck.

And wreck it did. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more harrowing to an ending in recent years. At one point, I had to look away from the screen to relieve the tension. I just didn’t want to bear witness to it any more. Yes, it’s a movie, but the actors sold the story and I was right there with them.

This is not a gleeful horror film. While it’s stylized up to a point, it’s a little too close to the bone to be laughed at.

Rating: B+ Recommended.

Horror Movie Review: Død Snø

Zombies, oh Zombies. Nazi Zombies. Nazi Zombies who are after their stolen treasure. What could be better?

Title: Død Snø
Genre: Horror – Zombies…Nazi Zombies!!
Director: Tommy Wirkola

How have I not reviewed this movie yet? For goodness sake, I’m slacking off.

Two words: NAZI ZOMBIES

Here is the synopsis according to IMDB:

A ski vacation turns horrific for a group of medical students, as they find themselves confronted by an unimaginable menace: Nazi zombies.

I gave this movie an A. I went into it knowing what I was going to get…a B grade zombie popcorn flick. This movie did not to pretend to be anything more than that. And they succeeded in a grand fashion.

First of all, we have the so-called Ice Monster prologue…a scary chase through the woods set to Edvard Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King, which is awesome stuff in and of itself (spoken like a true band geek, lol), but when included in the movie was just…choice.

Then we have your motley group of med students on vacation in a cabin that is literally in the middle of nowhere, that is lacking….say it with me now….cell service.

What a ride this movie was! It was gross, funny and thoroughly entertaining. I laughed out loud at some parts and covered my eyes at others.

I’d totally watch this again…..at nine in the morning, of course.

Note: Please, I beg of you, watch it in Norwegian with the English subtitles. The dubbed version is distracting. Plus, you get to hear what the actors’ voices really sound like.

Enjoy!
Grade: A

Blogtoberfest – Horror Movie Review – Friend Request

Title: Friend Request

Synopsis: A popular college student graciously accepts a social outcast’s online friend request, but soon finds herself fighting a demonic presence that wants to make her lonely by killing her closest friends.

Genre: Horror

Opinion:

Let’s face it, most of us live online these days, especially those under 30. Between online dating and online classes, people find themselves either at the computer or on their cell phones. People are judged by the number of friends they have on social media or the number of likes they have on a post. Some people pay good money to acquire followers and/or garner even more interest in their online musings.

Okay, you might be saying, it’s a movie review, Dahlia, get to the damn point. All right then. I say all that to say is when we see a post with no likes or a person with a low number of “friends” or “followers”, we assume that means low popularity. And of course, someone with low popularity online is to be pitied and “felt sorry for”

And now we come to the crux of this movie. A popular college student receives a friend request from a girl who doesn’t have any friends. Feeling sorry for her, she “friends” her. The relationship then degenerated into a sort of stalker/stalkee symbiosis, with the popular college student trying to get away from the cloying, smothering of her new “friend”.

::::::::SPOILER ALERT:::::::::::::::SPOILER ALERT::::::::::::::::SPOILER ALERT:::::::::::::::

After cutting off the friendship, the girl commits suicide and posts the video on the popular girl’s social media page. This leads to her losing online friends and then DUN DUN DUN, she begins losing friends in real life….TO MURDER MOST FOUL.

Anyhoo, the rest of the movie invovles her tracking down and trying to eliminate the girl’s ghost, who is apparently causing all the trouble. Will she succeed? You’ll have to watch the movie to find out.

All in all, it wasn’t the best horror movie I’ve seen, but I thought the premise was interesting. It is well-acted and well-shot with some disturbing imagery, but I must say the movie does contain an almost paint by the numbers list of horror cliches, including jump scares with stinger chords. Despite these flaws, it’s moderately intriguing and is a good movie to have on in the background.

Grade: B-

Thriller Movie Review: Kidnap

Kidnap: Every Parent’s Horror Movie

In the US, a child goes missing every 40 seconds. You never think it will happen to you. Until it does. Alone and scared, Karla Dyson (Halle Berry) is unwilling to leave the fate of her son’s life in someone else’s hands. When she catches a glimpse of the abductors speeding away, she decides to fight back. In a heart pounding race against time, Karla begins a high speed pursuit and will stop at nothing to save her son’s life. Written by https://teaser-trailer.com

Remember that time you stepped off to the side in the store to take a kind of important call and you got so engrossed you took your eyes of your child for more than a couple of minutes? Yep. That’ was Halle Berry’s mistake in Kidnap. But boy, does she make up for it, if I may say, in spades.

Berry plays single mother Karla Dyson, who’s set up in the movie is done quite well. She works at a diner in a thankless waitress job, as demonstrated by one snooty patron, and is looking forward to a well deserved break at an amusement park with her son, Frankie. But what should be an idyllic afternoon between mother and son turns into the worst of nightmares, as Frankie is spirited away under his mother’s nose and she’s helpless to stop it.

The film is non-stop action. The moment Frankie is stuffed into that car, Halle Berry goes full tiger mom mode. Without stopping to call the police, she makes an attempt at stopping the kidnapping right away and chases the villain’s car in her minivan. This begins a cat-and-mouse game, which keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire movie.

The story is told from Halle’s point of view and that’s all the insight we need. In such an impossible situation, she knows the police will move too slowly and that it’s up to her to save her son. She digs deep down and finds the strength to chase her son and his kidnappers all the way into the Louisiana countryside.

Halle carries most of the movie, both in talking to herself and screaming in frustration at the kidnappers. As a mother, I felt her pain every step of the way. Not many people want to see a child in danger or hurt, and it was harrowing to see Halle’s near misses at getting Frankie back. Though the villain remains unseen for most of the movie, just the fact they’ve kidnapped a kid launches them into full-on villain status. There are no gray areas in this movie, and Halle is justified in the things she does.

It’s also refreshing to see a woman of color in a lead role in a thriller. Instead of playing the “girlfriend” or the “woman who sits home and frets”, she takes an active role in reclaiming her child. Digging deep for the reserves of power and ingenuity within her, there’s nothing she won’t do to get him back. I simply love how she goes all out in pursuit. No minivan ever has seen such action!!

For steady movie goers – you won’t see anything new in this movie. However, Halle puts a fresh spin on the “child in peril” movie and seriously owns some of the scenes in it. Is it a great movie? Not at all, but it is entertaining, and isn’t that what we go to the movies for?

All in all an effective thriller with great car chases and a heroine you can root for.

[wpdevart_youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-Ht8VRPRvU[/wpdevart_youtube]

SPOILER FOR THOSE SENSITIVE TO CHILDREN IN PERIL

No children were hurt or harmed in the film. There are some scary situations, yes, but no children were harmed.