Horror Movie Talk

Synopsis

A failing furniture store owner and aspiring architect Clarke is trying to work on himself in therapy when he stumbles upon a hidden portal to a labyrinthian series of rooms. These “backrooms” have an uncanny nature about them. They don’t seem to have any logical floor plans, scale, or use case. They are like a memory of a room, and not a room itself. As Clarke explores deeper he is confronted with a danger within that might consume him if he stays too long.

Review

Backrooms as a concept started as a creepy and tongue in cheek 4chan comment and them was adapted and thrived on youtube as a series of shorts. Now the creator of that series helms a hollywood movie starring oscar nominated actors.

It accomplishes a great feat in bringing a very specific flavor of horror to the masses. Liminal horror. the unsettling feeling of the spaces between spaces.

whereas most horror would focus on the scary, or horrifying, or dread. The word the exemplifies Backrooms is uncanny. It’s the feeling of something being just off enough to capture your attention.

The plot and the characters seem like secondary concerns compared to maintaining the weirdness of the production design, but are just complex enough to give the audience something to latch onto.

The personality flaws and trauma of the protagonists seem like a key to unlocking the secrets of the backrooms. But by the end of the movie, it’s just as ambiguous and dreamlike as the beginning.

It’s hard to list out what works so well in the movie, but I found it uniquely enjoyable and disturbing.

Score

10/10

Synopsis

Passenger is a road trip movie about two love birds who leave the city life for a chance at van living. Already sounds horrifying to me, but to each their own. After witnessing a brutal crash in the middle of nowhere, the couple begin to experience paranormal phenomena that keeps them on their tires. See what I did there? Through utilizing their resources of old van ladies, gym parking lots, and gas station info books they may just survive…the PASSENGER.

Review of Passenger

Coming into this movie right off the back of obsession was a bad look for passenger. I would have loved to judge this movie based on its own merits, but unfortunately I had just watched one of the best horror movies ever made a week prior. But anyways, passenger was truly boring to watch. The stakes of this movie just felt so low. Like, get off the road you two. The monster or demon of the movie just didnt scare me. I think so many horror movies are doing too much with their monsters these days. It is plenty scary to have an old man stare at you in the middle of the night in a parking lot, why are we also making his face look like an ancient demon? Why does he need to have weird glowing eyes and sharp teeth? That to me is just far less scary than a stranger who wont leave you alone. This movie leans heavily on jump scares. This doesnt always have to be a bad thing. I can appreciate a good jump scare. But I just felt like the jumps in this movie were cheap, and undeserved. Yes, a loud noise that comes out of nowhere will startle me, but did I have fun? Not really. There was one single scene that I thought was good, and even that had a needless jump scare shoehorned into it. Anyways, this movie was an hour and a half and it felt like it took up my whole night. I did not enjoy this.

Score 3/10

We are Obsessed with Obsessed, Are you? Listen to our latest episode of Horror Movie Talk as we break down the finer points of this indie horror darling.

Synopsis

Bear is a shy and awkward guy who you could say is “obsessed” with his coworker and long time friend Nikki. Unable to profess his love to her, he looks for a little help from the “one wish willow” which will grant any wish. Upon making his one wish things rapidly change in his relationship with Nikki where the obsession isn’t just one sided. But… he soon realizes that there are unforeseen consequences to having her love, as things take a turn for the worst. 

Review or Obsession

This movie really had me torn on whether I liked it or not. Multiple times I thought “man I hate this movie”. That did improve during my viewing of the film and after but I did find that I was   trying to convince myself that I liked it when the truth is it just wasn’t all that enjoyable for me 

With that said, I did like the concept and respect what they were trying to do, and there were some strong scenes that stood out in a good way 

some of the humor lands but overall it’s just an uncomfortable experience that can get repetitive and honestly isn’t scary

I do think it is worth a watch, there is some interesting social commentary but as a whole it would be a much better short film and frankly just isn’t worth all the hype. 

Score

6/10 

Don’t go anywhere, We’re about to get crackalackin on our review of Misery, one of Stephen Kings most successful and critically acclaimed novel adaptations.

Synopsis

When world class author Paul Sheldon takes a spill he falls under the care of Annie Wilkes, his Nurse. As Paul regains his strength to learn to walk again, he also finds himself learning to love again. Little does he know that Annie Wilkes is his #1 fan. As Annie becomes his muse for his next novel, Annie tries to remain professional and hide her true feelings. From the Director Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally comes the feel good romantic comedy of the 90’s, which asks, why unrequited love can lead to such… Misery.

Review of Misery

Misery is a horror movie that proves you don’t need all the bells and whistles of the genre to be truly terrifying. Sometimes all you need is one truly unhinged person and no escape.

Kathy Bates performance is truly impressive and well deserving of her academy award win. She is convincingly able to portray a cavalcade of mental health disorders at the flip of a switch. Going from Manic fan girl to menacing anger, to unnerving disassociation. James Caan comparatively has light work being nonplussed at Annie’s theatrics.

William Goldman’s adapted screenplay deserves a lot of credit for its tight pacing, the smart addition of a sheriff character, and great dialogue.

Rob Reiner had a lot to prove with this film in expanding his credibility as a director outside of comedy. It undeniably is a great thriller, but my one criticism is that it is often visually uninteresting. It might be intentional, but the over reliance on monologue long closeups felt claustrophobic at times. It’s said that Reiner studied the films of Hitchcock before shooting Misery, but I don’t see anything close to that level of visual storytelling.

Overall, this is a great movie. The tension never lets up and Kathy Bates performance is required viewing.

Score

10/10

Synopsis

Ohm is a writer struggling to let go of his past. In an effort to move on, he travels to Ireland to spread his parents’ ashes. When he checks into the very hotel his mom and dad stayed at on their honeymoon, Ohm learns about the witch said to haunt the building. Some shady business is afoot. But, having some shady business to attend to himself he goes to his bedroom with a rope and a dream. Fiona, an employee at the hotel stops him from committing the ultimate L, and is later discovered to be missing. Ohm sets out to find the woman who saved his life and hopefully return the favor. 

Review of Hokum

Hokum is directed by Damian McCarthy, who also directed both Caveat and Oddity, which are both great movies. Hokum follows suit with the same feel and spooky imagery. If I could describe Damian McCarthy’s style in one word, I would call it unsettling. While I think I like the premise of Caveat and Oddity better than Hokum, the themes were better in this film. At hokum’s core there is a message about self-forgiveness and allowing yourself to heal what is broken within. The main character Ohm, played by Adam Scott, who you may recognize from Krampus (or like Parks and Rec and Severance), is a man who did something terrible and never let himself forget it. He became the villain in his own story and lets that show in the conversations and interactions he has with others. But just like the story he is writing, maybe our character will learn to do something selfless. It’s beautiful, shocking, and unexpected. I will say that I was hoping for a little more out of some plot lines. The witch feels like a subplot that barely makes it into the movie, but maybe I’m just being nitpicky.

Score 9/10

Synopsis

Verónica takes place in 1991 Madrid, Spain, where, during a solar eclipse, a teen girl and her friends decide to try and contact their deceased loved ones using an Ouija board. Unfortunately, things do not go as planned, and one of the girls, Veronica, begins to experience horrifying supernatural events while trying to care for her 3 young siblings. As things ramp up and she becomes more isolated, it is up to her to try to right her wrong.

Review of Veronica

I was super happy when this won the Patreon poll. I saw this movie when it first came out, and it brings a lot of nostalgia for me. I was working on my bachelor’s in Spanish, and it was definitely a hot topic among my classmates. With that nostalgia aside, it’s just a great movie. You get everything that you could want from a possession/haunting film and although there are a lot of horror movie tropes, they are well executed in unique ways. The addition of her 3 young siblings really ups the steaks especially considering that she’s only 15 and is constantly caring for them. The film is well-paced and takes its time, but gives you plenty of scares along the way. I love the design of the apparitions. I feel like you don’t see that a lot. I also like all of the mouth horror. The film also covers themes of isolation, self-doubt, and grief in a beautiful way. The cuts between scenes are well done, and the integration of the true story isn’t too heavy-handed. It’s honestly hard for me to find any big criticisms of this film.

Score: 9/10

Synopsis

After the sudden disappearance of a journalist’s young daughter in Cairo, his family is left shattered. Eight years later, they receive an unexpected call that their daughter has been found, although she is not quite the same. What begins as a moment of overwhelming joy turns into something much more disturbing. As unsettling events begin to unfold, her father and others start to dig into the mystery of her disappearance to find out what really happened to Katie during all those years.

Review of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy

I was really excited going into Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, the intro had me hooked and invested in these characters and the film is beautifully shot, even the gory parts. It does feel more like The Exorcist and Evil dead than a mummy movie but it was a solid attempt at doing something different. The special effects are incredible, I genuinely felt nauseated at certain points and had to look away. Unfortunately this doesn’t make up for an unnecessary 2 hour and 13 minute run time. Parts became repetitive and there were many scenes that were unnecessary or could have been compiled concisely into other scenes.What really lost points for me more than anything was the awful ending that was also way too long and turned almost comical but not in a good way. 

Score

5/10

Synopsis

A single mother and her two teens travel to a rural house inherited from a family member. News reports tell of a serial killer that targets families, killing the parents, and living with and torturing the surviving teen girls. You can guess what happens next. But can you guess what happens AFTER that? Probably not.

Review of Incident in a Ghostland

This is an effective psychological horror that really plays with the audience in some impressive ways. It keeps you guessing exactly what kind of movie is this? Is this a torture porn slasher? Is it a supernatural horror allegory of unprocessed trauma? One thing is certain, this movie is fucking with your expectations.

Incident in a Ghostland is directed by Pascal LAugier, who is probably most known for Martyrs, so the amount of brutality should be adjusted accordingly.

It is a very dark movie, and only lets up briefly. It borders on too uncomfortable to watch and enjoy. However, it’s so darn interesting, that you have to keep watching.

My one complaint is that the production design is cliche,a nd a little too over the top creepy with all the creepy dolls in the house. 

Another shortfall, is that the main antagonists never really get fully fleshed out, and remain kind of 2 dimensional. They feel more like scary video game monsters to avoid versus characters whose motivations are known and can be interacted with.

I can’t say it’s an enjoyable movie, but it is good. I enjoy it on the level that it truly did play with my expectations and perception, which for a grizzled horror movie reviewer counts for a lot.

Score

7/10

Synopsis

In this prequel to the movie Ouija, we are given a family struggling to make a quick buck in the 1960s as spiritual mediums. But they aren’t just any regular spiritual mediums….they are frauds. Which I guess actually just makes them regular old spiritual mediums. But when 9 year old Doris discovers that she can speak to the dead for real using a ouija board the family business starts booming. As Doris’s spiritual talents begin to take on a sinister tone, the question on everyone’s mind becomes “who or what is Doris really talking to?”

Review of Ouija: Origins of Evil

I’ve been giving Ouija: Origins of Evil a hard time lately, because I remembered it being very bad. But then I rewatched it. And its still pretty bad. But not quite as bad as I remembered it being. The movie is directed by Mike Flannagan, a director who has brought us incredible movies and Tv shows such as The Haunting of Hill House, Hush, Gerald’s Game, Oculus, Doctor Sleep, and my personal favorite Midnight Mass. He has thoroughly proven himself to me as a director who can create something scary as well as emotionally impactful. This movie is not that. Its extremely cookie cutter, and doesn’t really even attempt to break the mold of a stereotypical haunted house movie. If you’ve seen any of the conjuring movies, you’ve seen this. If you’ve seen any of the insidious movies, you’ve seen this. If you’ve seen any movie with the words “the haunting of…” in the title, you’ve seen this. I could go on, but you get the picture. What this movie does well is pepper in some truly creepy imagery and a couple fun jump scares, however it fails to do anything outside of the box or make a group of characters worth caring about. Don’t get me wrong, the mother played by Elisabeth Reaser, and the priest played by Henry Thomas were great. But the kids in this movie are awful actors and I truly believe that with my whole heart. 

Score 4/10

Synopsis

The film begins 17 years after the events of The Exorcist and follows the characters Father Dyer and Lieutenant Kinderman who have kindled their friendship from the shared tragedy of losing their friend Father Karras. 

A series of murders in Washington DC copycat the Gemini Killer, who has been dead for 17 years. Kinderman is befuddled that they include Gemini’s trademarks that were never revealed to the public. The investigation leads to a psychiatric ward and a supernatural suspect.

Review of Exorcist III

The Exorcist 3 certainly does a better job of carrying forth the themes and story of the first film, however it never comes close to matching its quality. That being said, it’s a vast improvement over the incomprehensible mess of Exorcist II: The Heretic.

The film is written and directed by William Peter Blatty, the author of the original Exorcist novel. While the writing is good, and the characters and relationships strong, the direction is a mixed bag at best. It’s hard to put a finger on whether it is because of Blatty’s lack of experience, this being only his second film he directed, or because of the studio interference demanding a more direct sequel. The answer is probably both.

The relationship between Dyer and Kinderman is the best part and the heart of the film. The dialogue between them genuinely feels like old friends sharing a laugh and challenging each other’s philosophies. 

Like the Exorcist, the dichotomy of good vs evil, and the nature of man is explored. Like the original, the forces of evil seem to be unhindered, and as such, the tone is oppressive and dark at times.

The standout performance is Brad Dourif as the Gemini Killer. Rarely has Dourif been given the free reign to appear on screen as himself and deliver a truly scene chewing performance that displays his full range. It goes from calm meticulousness to unhinged rage within seconds.

The things that hold back the film from being great are the unrefined visual style, and the obviously wedged in and tonally divergent exorcism in act 3. It goes from a tight and oppressive thriller to a bombastic supernatural bombardment in the last act. 

Score

7/10