horror movie – Page 2

Horror Movie Review: Final Girl

Title: Final Girl
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Tyler Shields
IMDB Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2124787/

HERE MAY BE SPOILERS

Portions of the movie may or may not be revealed.

Synopsis:

A man teaches a young woman how to become a complete weapon. Later she is approached by a group of sadistic teens who kill blonde women for unknown reasons. The hunting season begins.

For goodness sake.

I knew it was all going wrong when Wes Bentley appeared on my iPad screen. That deadpan expression and that draggy way of talking he has. So, I was eye rolling within the first few minutes of the movie.

Then the training sequences began and I became intrigue. Was she going to be a spy? Was she going to hunt serial killers?

This movie was highly stylized and seemed to take on the characteristics of a play being presented on film, much like Glengary Glen Ross or Oleanna. The staging was stilted and the costumes and sets were very….play like. But I stuck with it.

These four guys in tuxedos are supposed to be serial killers. They take blondes into the forest, give them a head start, then chase and kill them. Apparenlty, no one cares about these girls enough to report them missing – high school girls no less – and there is not one whisper of a police presence in the town.

killers from final girl — Who dry cleans their tuxes after a night out hunting?

Okay, I think, suspending disbelief. No problem, I wanted to see how she was going to fight all these strapping young men and become “FINAL GIRL” (roll credits).

Boy, was I in for a sorry disappointment. The concept was good, but the acting and the sets and the lackluster fight scenes…I couldn’t suspend everything.

I will say this. I did like the style of the movie, the use of color and the bizarre lighting of the forest. The visuals did keep me interested in the end. However, the story didn’t hold enough water for me. The dialogue was rather boring.

I don’t regret watching it, but it left me kind of meh.

Grade: D

Thriller Movie Review: Bound to Vengeance

Title: Bound To Vengeance
Genre: Thriller/Horror
Director: Jose Manuel Cravioto
IMDB Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1230213/

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS.
Do not read this review if you don’t want portions of the movie revealed.

This movie was recommended to me by an author friend of mine. Given that I don’t shy away from the sometimes terrible thriller/horror movies on Netflix (except the ones that are CLEARLY Lifetime movies), I didn’t hesitate to give this one a shot.

Synopsis: A young girl, chained in the basement of a sexual predator, escapes and turns the tables on her captor.

First of all, the protagonist was a young woman, not a young girl. Young girl implies to me a ten year old. Second, after I viewed the movie, I went back to the imdb listing and discovered that two men wrote the screenplay, which didn’t surprise me at all.

One big thing for me with this film: Black woman dies first. WTF? We haven’t got past that yet? Seriously? Enough with this already.

Basically, young woman escapes, then realizes dude has women trapped up all over the place. He tells her, if he dies, they all die since he’s the only one who knows where they are. So, young woman makes the choice to try to rescue all the women.

One complaint I read about the movie was that if she’d just escaped, she’d be all about going to the police. I give the movie a pass, because, her decision to go rescue the other girls hooked me into the movie.

So, like I said previously, she goes to rescue the black woman first, and she dies by accident. The second rescue goes just as badly. But even as stuff went down, I found myself asking “Why are you letting the psycho dude do all the talking? You know these women must be a little nuts…at least TRY to talk some sense into them, don’t just sit back and let him run his mouth.”

These two incidents happened at the beginning of the action and kind set me against the movie. The flashbacks are interesting, but reminded me of Cloverfield. As a woman of a certain age, I was like “why the heck is all this being filmed, how boring”, even as I knew it was being filmed for a payoff at the end. Chekov’s video footage, if you will.

The confrontation with the secondary villain was just strange and not very compelling.

I will say that the main actress played the part to the hilt and she did an excellent job. The issue of sex trafficking and kidnapping is made real without being super obvious. The material itself, however, was not up to par and parts of the movie had me scratching my head.

This could have been much more than it was. I wouldn’t give it a second viewing, but I don’t feel it was a waste of time.

Grade: C

Horror Movie Review – Home Sweet Home

Title: Home Sweet Home
Genre: Thriller/Horror
Trope: A killer in the house
Director: David Morlet (As David Morley)
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2348394
Tagline: Your house, my rules.

I don’t have much to say about this movie. Here’s the plot, according to IMDB:

A young married couple comes home from a date night to discover that they are imprisoned in their own house with a methodical killer inside.

Film opens, you get this set up of a dude going around someone’s house, nailing the windows shut etc. OOOO, boy, you think, he’s going to get a bunch of partying teens in this house and knock ‘em off one by one. Score!!!

Look, I’m no movie snob. I enjoy a good hunt-em-down and kill ‘em flick. But this….this movie was so empty that I could barely make myself finish it.

Basically, it’s what’s on the tin. A young married couple (who didn’t look that young to me) come for a weekend at this house and get trapped inside with a killer.

Whatever message the filmmaker was trying to send, I didn’t get it. The movie was a big yawn for me.
I found some of the victims’ actions strange and inexplicable. I found myself asking why don’t they do this…or that? And why didn’t they do this? (I’m being deliberately vague so as not to give anything away.)

At the end I just sat for a bit, thinking….okaaaaaay, so that’s it?

I will say that the killer’s mask creeped me out to no end and I was watching this in the middle of the day.

Gore: It was rather bloody in parts. Not Jason bloody, but bloody enough. I’d say at least 2 or 3 bottles of Karo Syrup and red food coloring were used. (Do they use corn syrup for blood anymore or am I dating myself?)

Animal Lovers: There is a cat in the movie. He/she is not harmed.

Grade: D
Watch or not to watch?:
I wouldn’t give this a second viewing. Maybe I’m missing some deeper meaning here, but I don’t think so. The movie was devoid of any character to root for or dislike. I found myself glancing away from the screen torn between not wanting to give up on the movie and just turning it off. I should have turned it off – I wouldn’t have missed much.

Horror Movie Review: Annabelle

Title: Annabelle
Genre: Horror
Director: John R. Leonetti
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3322940/
IMDB synopsis: A couple begins to experience terrifying supernatural occurrences involving a vintage doll shortly after their home is invaded by satanic cultists.

By now you know that I am not the strongest of heart when it comes to watching horror movies, but I watch them anyway because apparently I’m an idiot. Also, I like to be scared.
I started Annabelle waaaay early in the morning because I can’t stand possessed doll movies. In the 1970s, I was scared to DEATH of the Magic trailer because of that weird-looking ventriloquist doll. I rewatched that movie a couple of months ago and it’s still kinda scary.

My list of scary movie dolls or doll type things:
Poltergeist (That damn clown!)
Child’s Play (Only the first one)
Magic (see above)
The Puppetmaster (Ugh, I got chills just typing that.)

But I digress, as a woman with a deep fear of scary movie dolls will do.
Given the creepy movie poster, I figured that Annabelle would join the list.

It didn’t.

First of all, I was annoyed at the main character’s name…..Mia. Can we say Mia Farrow from Rosemary’s Baby? Come on folks….of all the names in the world. Anyhoo, our lovely Mia is given the most evil looking doll ever in the history of movies by her super bland doctor husband and of course, she loves it. I’m like…honey, get yourself an American Girl doll please and thank you.

So la dee dee la dee da, strange things begin to happen of course. She has the baby and they are happy for a bit, then ish starts to jump off, as we all knew it would.

Bonus points for cool sixties/seventies clothes, hairstyles and call backs.

Boo points for the Magical Negro trope, where the Black lady is not only knowledgeable about everything that is bothering poor Mia and the whole curse thing, but sacrifices herself via suicide to save the white couple.

Come
On
Now

We’re not through with this trope yet? And the sad part was, I saw it coming twenty miles away. The even sadder part was the writers didn’t even make an effort to make the journey interesting.

I was also ticked Evelyn (the Black woman) owned a bookstore. Who’s going to run it now that she’s dead? Dammit!

Oh, and the doll is REAL and resides in this weird museum that I saw on Mysteries at the Museum. But in real life it’s a Raggedy Ann doll. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse….

Grade: D
Not even entertaining enough to laugh at or have fun with. Annoying cliches. However, there were good jump scares and some blood.
Watch or not to watch?: Watch it if you like, but even chicken-me wasn’t scared. I guess I was just too busy rolling my eyes.

Sidenote: Look how similar the doll is to the dummy from Magic (1978). And yes, that’s Sir Anthony Hopkins.

HERE MAY BE SPOILERS

Portions of the movie may or may not be revealed.

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. Do not read this review if you don’t want portions of the movie revealed.

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS.
Do not read this review if you don’t want portions of the movie revealed.