horror movie review

3 Vacation Horror Movies

Vacation! Hurray, right? Who doesn’t love going on vacation? it’s a time to relax, have a good time, and drink fruity drinks on the beach or beside the pool. Traveling to a different country, a different atmosphere, it’s enough to give anyone peace of mind, right?

But….things can go horribly wrong, even on a wonderful vacation. You only have to check out these films to see what could possibly happen.

Aftershock:

A film starring Eli Roth, the mastermind behind the wonderfully gross Cabin Fever. Here, he and his friends take a vacation to Chile, where of course they want to party and drink. All the fun goes to hell, however, when there’s an earthquake and the physical infrastructure of the city falls apart around them.

Not a great movie, but it’s a different enough disaster film to keep you interested. I was brought up on disaster movies like Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, and the (original) Poseidon Adventure that I was able to enjoy this effort with “the young folks”. Get some popcorn and have some fun.

Turistas:

I’ve seen this film titled also as Turistas: Go Home, so don’t be put off if you see either title. Again, a group of young people go on vacation to Brazil on what was supposed be a fun vacation. Instead a bus accident maroons them somewhere and well, bad things happen. Again, the premise is interesting, the setting of the jungles of Brazil is lush and beautiful, and of course some of those friends on vacation don’t make it out alive.

Fun fact: The director of this movie, John Stockwell, played the “best friend” in the movie “Christine” based on a Stephen King novel.

The Ruins:

Ah, The Ruins. One of the creepiest, crawliest movies I’ve ever seen. I might be extra squeamish, but I really can’t watch every scene of the film: some of the sequences are too much for me. Take from that what you will. However, this film, which is based on a book by Scott Smith (who also wrote the book A Simple Plan), centers around, you guessed it, a group of friends on vacation. They leave a perfectly good resort to go into some jungle to see some Mayan ruins. And, well, they got ruined.

Horror Movie Review: Butterfly Kisses

Title: Butterfly Kisses

Genre: Thriller/Horror

Synopsis: (from imdb) A filmmaker discovers a box of video tapes depicting two students’ disturbing film project featuring a local horror legend, The Peeping Tom. As he sets out to prove this story is real and release it as a work of his own, he loses himself and the film crew following him into his project.

Streaming on Amazon Video.

With the introduction of so many streaming services and places to watch movies and other media online, it is difficult to find quality entertainment to watch. This is especially true in the world of the horror move lover: anyone with a good enough camera (including the iPhone 5 camera) and some willing friends/associates can create a film and upload it for viewing. This explains the huge number of simply terrible horror movies one runs into on any given service. Even the so-called “big finance” movies can be failures, no matter how good they look or how pervasive their marketing is. (I’m looking at you The Open House).

On the other hand, if you watch enough movies, as I do, you can sometime find some gems hidden in the coal-dusted rubble. I’m not saying these are diamond, but they’re a lot better than the usual fare found in the horror genre.

For this blog post, I’m going to be writing about Butterfly Kisses, an Amazon Prime offering. Amazon Prime has a LOT of horror movies, and it takes a patient soul (like me) to wade through the chaff to get to the pure grain of the good movies.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know I have preference for found-footage horror. Some like potted meat, I like found footage horror. While I love the genre, found footage can be a serious hit or miss. Basically, some of the worse I’ve seen are like some of the ghost hunting shows on cable, complete with boring parts.

However, every once in a while, I get lucky and find a mediocre to good found footage horror film that doesn’t have a lot of heavy breathing and people asking “what’s that”?

Butterfly Kisses is a found footage horror film resting on an interesting premise: a film within a film. A filmmaker discovers a box of tapes in his home. These tapes depict the project of two film students who were investigating a local urban legend call the Peeping Tom. The bulk of the film is this filmmaker trying to prove that this legend is true while he sifts through the footage the students left behind. There’s two stories running: the filmmaker in the “present time” and the students “in the past”.

All in all, it was a pretty interesting movie. I liked the multiple layers of the film and the subplots which weaved in and out of the narrative. There was very little shaky-cam and a few good jump scares. I actually watched the movie twice to catch all the little details that came into play later.

Certainly, it’s a theme/plot device that’s been addressed before in numerous movies and shows, but the execution in this movie is pretty good. The acting is decent and there are some parts which are actually kind of touching/sad.

Not to wax overly philosophical, but the film also brings up themes of what is real/what is not, and how far one is willing to go for a vision and/or belief.
Give Butterfly Kisses a try. While it’s not a great film, I’ve seen a lot worse.
Grade: B+

Horror Movie Review – The Vault

Title: The Vault

Summary:
Two estranged sisters are forced to rob a bank in order to save their brother. But this is no ordinary bank. (from imdb.com)

Genre: Horror, Thriller

Opinion

To say this was a pleasant surprise is an understatement. I didn’t expect much. I didn’t realize James Franco was in it until halfway through. This means that I kept looking at this guy and thinking that I know him from some movie. Like I said, it was only mid-movie that I said to myself “That’s James Franco! What’s he doing in this movie.”

My silly epiphany aside, The Vault was an interesting movie. It started out as one thing, then after a cliche line, it turned into something else, which I was completely fine with. I won’t go any further with the plot. Suffice it to say, the movie held my attention all the way through. I wasn’t tempted to look away, except for the bloody parts, and the acting was quite good for the genre.

While there is nothing new under the sun for me, having seen a huge amount of movies, I always relax and let the movie entertain me. Unless the movie is completely terrible, I try to let it roll out like the writers meant it to be. By doing this, I tend to enjoy a lot more movies.
Yes. The setup of The Vault has been done many times before. However, the actors were good, the special effects very effective and the back story scary and convincing.

Rating – B

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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.