Horror Movie Talk

Synopsis

Incantation is a classic tale of three ghost hunters who travel to a secluded village in order to learn more about their spooky traditions and gather footage for their Youtube channel. However their journey quickly goes from silly to incredibly horrifying. Years later, the curse of the mother Buddha deity still remains.

Review of Incantation

Incantation is one of my favorite horror movies in recent years. Its kind of a hidden gem with no theatrical release. A lot of people in the horror community talk about wanting to find a movie that is actually scary and I really do think that this is it. I don’t want to hype it up too much for those of you who haven’t seen it because I don’t want you to have unrealistic expectations, but when I watched this movie for the first time I had to pause it and turn on the lights because I got too scared. It pulls the viewer into the story making you apart of the nightmare and for that this feels more like an experience than a movie. It wastes no time and gets scary within 5 minutes. If you haven’t checked it out please do yourself a favor and watch Incantation.

Score: 10/10

Synopsis

On a live broadcast during Halloween on sweeps week in 1977, a failing late night talk show starring Jack Delroy (played by David Dastmalchian) interviews a cult survivor supposedly possessed by a demon. The audience is amazed and horrified by the demonstration and Delroy soon finds himself out of his depth. But instead of heeding caution, he doubles down on the bit to save his show from cancellation to disastrous consequence.

Review of Late Night with the Devil

This movie has a great premise. What if you showed Regan from The Exorcist on a talkshow next to obvious fake psychics and debunkers that often appeared on late night. The talk show is a format that everyone is familiar with, and even the guests previous to the possessed little girl should all be recognizable stand ins for real life talk show guests such as Uri Gellar and James Randi.

The biggest setback is that the writing and acting a little too on-the-nose, and it ends up feeling a little cringe. In what could be a super compelling and real-feeling found footage film, the artificiality really pulls you out of the moment and you definitely feel like you are watching a movie. It’s like when you see a movie or show about a stand up comedian, and the actor isn’t able to be convincingly funny but is met with uproarious laughter from the fake audience. It’s a type of uncanny valley that is created when actors aren’t able to match the charisma and timing of a seasoned professional, in this case, talk show host. 

They made the genius move to explain that this is a failing talk show, so Jack Delroy’s wooden presence and indiscernible personality actually sells the “why”.

That being said, this movie does have some good bones. The plot structure and utilization of the talk show format is great. It lends a new backdrop to the horror cliche of demonic possession.

The tension ramps up convincingly, and the inevitable trainwreck that is foreshadowed is satisfying.

I just wish they would have aimed for more realism in the writing and acting.

Score

6/10

Synopsis

• Alien Romulus is about a young woman named Rain, and her Robot Brother Andy are stuck on a slave labor planet that never sees sunlight. On the day they finish their slave sentences and have technically earned their freedom, they are told that another 6 years have randomly been added. This is incredibly devastating for Rain, but not so much for Andy cause he is a robot and has zero emotion the whole movie. Anyways, Rain’s friends convince her and Andy to join them in a dangerous plan to hijack an abandoned ship in their planet’s orbit and use it to travel to a free planet. Upon entering space and eventually the abandoned ship, things start to become more and more eerie. Dead bodies are everywhere, gravity randomly turns off and back on, and the ship is in ruins. The deeper into the ship the group travels, the more Alien they experience, and everyone gets just a bit more Romulus than they were hoping for. 

Review of Alien Romulus

• Alien Romulus is a really good-looking sci-fi with great visuals and a tense atmosphere. The vibes on the ship feel creepy, and there are enough interesting moments to keep me entertained for the most part. My trouble with this movie is that we dont really care about any of the characters except for Rain and Andy, and there are like 5 other characters. The movie drops little hints about these people’s lives like “Oh this person is pregnant” or “This person’s mom was killed by a robot” but it never really explores these things and in the end, I just didn’t care about any of these people. The movie also doesn’t really add anything all that new to the franchise. The ending does have something new which I won’t spoil, and I actually found pretty cool, but for the most part, the movie kept being like “hey! Remember face huggers!” or “hey! Remember the chest-bursting scene from the original! What if we did that again! Cool right?” and that was just starting to get a little boring. The movie is 2 hours long and while I was pretty engaged with it for the first half, the second half dragged a little for me. Its not a terrible movie, but I’m gonna give it a score of 
• Score 5/10

If I had a nickel for every horror movie starring a main cast member of Euphoria released this year, I’d have three nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened thrice. This episode we talk about Cuckoo a new limited release horror movie out now in theaters written and directed by Tilman Singer. Stay tuned whores

Synopsis

This movie is about an American girl dragged along to a resort in the Bavarian Alps. Something seems off about the way that random guests barf all the time, and how time loops back on itself for some reason. I mean, it could drive a person Cuckoo!

Review of Cuckoo

This one has a lot going on in it, and in the best of ways feels like an X-files episode. It’s hard to guess where it’s going. It was really twisty turny. I mean they usually do twisty turny, but this one is REALLY twisty turny. 

Hunter Schafer plays the protagonist Gretchen, the moody teen overcoming a recent tragedy, and she does really well in this. Her performance is helped with some of the most convincing bruise and cut makeup as she is pretty beat up through the majority of the film

The scares are few, but the tension is high. Singer does a good job at maintaining the feeling of being trapped in various ways. First as being a teen dragged along with the family, then as a patient in a hospital, then as a prisoner almost of the resort.

Dan Stevens also is great as the smarmy resort owner bad guy.

It is engaging throughout, but starts to get a little sketchy towards the end where it feels like it has to wedge in all the necessary exposition. I’m still confused about why some stuff happened at the end and felt like there were still some loose ends with explaining the “Cuckoo”, but overall it felt satisfying.

Score

8/10

Synopsis

Trap is a movie that follows Cooper, a seemingly normal dad who takes his daughter, Riley, to her favorite artist’s concert. Once there, Cooper is told that the whole concert is a trap to catch a serial killer who is colloquially called The Butcher. Plot twist (but not a plot twist because it is given in the trailer) is that Cooper is the Butcher, and he needs to find a way to escape the heavily guarded arena without getting caught.

Review

I was very excited for this movie, I thought the trailer looked awesome and M Night has some good hits (The Visit, Signs, obviously The Sixth Sense). After about fifteen minutes of pure concert, I was completely checked out. This movie is boring, it is unfulfilling, the trailer gives away most of the interesting plot. Even though a serial killer trying not to get caught while surrounded by SWAT teams and the FBI is really high stakes, the movie doesn’t make that apparent whatsoever. The classic ending “twist” that M Night always does falls flat in this one, and at that point I was honestly just waiting for it to be over. Josh Hartnett is an impeccable actor, but with this crappy script he didn’t have much to work with, and most of the other actors are not up to his caliber. I didn’t care much for the characters and overall it was just boring. A complete drag. The only character that was redeemable was the vendor played by Jonathan Langdon, his performance solidified by the fun post credit scene. And when Josh Harnett took his shirt off, it gained a point back in my book. I can see this getting mixed reviews, like most of M Night’s films, and I am a part of the dislike club.

Score

3/10

Synopsis

Oddity is a morality tale about why you shouldn’t cross witchy women. When a blind woman’s sister is murdered in a remote country estate, she uses her arcane knowledge and abilities to uncover the true identity of her murderer. 

Review of Oddity

I really liked this movie. It came under the radar and we almost didn’t review it, but I’m glad we did, because I think I actually did like this one better than Longlegs.

The film starts out basically with a prologue of what you see in the trailer, and acts as a really taut short film. A Woman answers the door to a creepy one eyed man that says that she’s not safe inside and needs to let him in. We are given just enough information to make this situation plausible and build dread.

That is a common thread through the film. We are given just enough information to constantly be uneasy and uncertain throughout the whole film. It really is structurally impressive, plot-wise.

There isn’t a ton of character development, but there is a constant stream of revelations and situations that keep the film engaging. 

One criticism may be that there isn’t much of an emotional element in the film, the characters all seem very cold. However, each character has enough of a personality and backstory to make their interactions and decisions interesting.

There are several moments and lines that had me laughing out loud, including the ending. There were also some really effective jumpscares.

On the surface, this movie utilizes a lot of tropes that are crutches for a lot of supernatural horror movies. The spooky dark house. The strange sounds in the darkness. Stretches of tense silence leading up to jump scares. But for some reason, instead of rolling my eyes, I was truly engaged with this movie. I think it’s because all of the reality-based elements seem plausible, and all the supernatural elements seem interesting or novel. 

I think it’s a great movie, and honestly I don’t have any real criticisms or anything that bothered me with it. 

Score 

10/10

Interview with Amber Victoria from The Skeleton Key Odditorium

Bryce: Today, we welcome Amber Victoria, owner and operator of the Skeleton Key Auditorium Museum and Oddity Shop in Portland, Oregon. It’s a retail shop that specializes in oddities, antiques, curiosities, Gothic art, gifts, crystals, tarot cards, dolls, metaphysical items, clothing, and souvenirs. The auditorium is a historical museum designed to provide intrigue and a better understanding of the human experience through exploring the strange, unusual, and gloomy characteristics of our history. It was recently voted as the runner-up for Portland’s Best Museum, just underneath the multi-million dollar Portland Art Museum and OMSI. So, it’s pretty high praise for a museum. Anyways, welcome, Amber Victoria!

Sydney: Welcome!

Amber: Hello. Yay, thank you. Thank you for having me.

Bryce: So, Amber, why don’t you tell us a little bit about how you got started? What’s the story with you and the Skeleton Key?

Amber: Well, it kind of started almost 10 years ago. I’ve always loved old things and was more of a Ren fair kind of person. I was doing immersion events and collected a lot of odd things. Eventually, I started collecting too much stuff, so I began selling items at Curiosities Vintage Mall about nine years ago. It just evolved from there. People really liked my odd things, so I decided to open a brick-and-mortar shop in 2020. And here we are, still doing it.

Bryce: So, when did you open the brick-and-mortar shop?

Amber: I opened it in 2020 on Belmont. It was a small oddity shop, about 600 square feet. When the lease was up, we moved downtown, and I brought my partner along. We decided to open a museum because there was so much knowledge and so many items. People were always asking questions, and we wanted to educate and preserve these items in a fun, interactive space full of oddities.

Bryce: Awesome. When you opened the brick-and-mortar, how much did you have to augment your existing collection to open the store?

Amber: I literally brought everything from my house. I had been planning it for a long time. I would find things and think, “This is going to be the register table,” and it would sit in my garage until the moment was right. The pandemic really pushed me to do it because I was working in the service industry, and we lost that opportunity in 2020. So, I crowdfunded and finally opened up my shop.

Bryce: That’s awesome. It must have been hard to start a business during the pandemic.

Sydney: That’s so exciting.

Amber: It was pretty brave, a bold move, but at that time, you were thinking, “I might just die, so why not?”

Sydney: Yeah, exactly.

Bryce: Nice. So, if someone comes into the shop—actually, my first question is, you said you watched “Oddity” last night. What’s your impression of the movie, and how accurate is it for an oddities dealer?

Amber: I was curious why I was being interviewed for this movie, so I watched it and thought, “I see.” It was a good movie; I kind of figured out the plot early on. The fun part was the psychic character who claimed the items were haunted. I can understand that because these items have been around for hundreds of years, and there’s this law called the law of contamination. When you touch an item, it imprints your energy on it. Sometimes, you pick up an old, macabre piece and feel the sadness. While these items aren’t cursed, they’re definitely kind of haunted in a way.

Bryce: Nice, creepy. Sydney, did you have any questions?

Sydney: Yeah, what’s your favorite piece in either the store or the museum? Also, what’s the most haunted or cursed item, and are they the same?

Amber: I don’t think haunted and cursed are the same. My favorite piece in the museum is a hair wreath from 1883 with the name “Grandma Elizabeth Sorensen” on the back. They used to take a person’s hair and weave it into flowers to make a wreath as a way to honor them after death. It’s a beautiful example of Victorian mourning practices. The most haunted object, in my opinion, is a Civil War-era child’s casket. When I brought it into my home, I had a dream about a little girl with curls holding her stomach, and I realized that might be the energy imprinted on the object. Haunted and cursed objects can affect people differently, depending on their intuition.

Sydney: Interesting.

Bryce: What’s the most common question people ask when they come into the store?

Amber: The most common question is, “What is this place?” Many people don’t know what an oddity is. They ask why we’re selling these little things in jars, and I tell them it’s for fun and preservation.

Bryce: Yeah, give our audience an idea of what kind of items they can find in your store.

Amber: I’m an antique enthusiast, especially when it comes to odd antiques. An oddity is anything with an odd story. For example, a mundane item like a bell becomes an oddity when you attach a macabre story to it. We have items like branding irons, hair jewelry, and salt dishes. They might seem mundane, but with the right story, they become oddities.

Bryce: Nice. Have you always enjoyed creepy stuff, or was there a moment when you started liking it?

Amber: When I was about 11, my best friend and I would rent the goriest movies and watch “Tales from the Crypt” and “Faces of Death.” I’ve always been into it. I was a goth and a witch in my youth, and this is just who I am. It has evolved into this.

Sydney: Hell yeah.

Bryce: What’s your favorite horror movie?

Amber: As an adult, I struggle with anxiety, so I prefer lighter stuff now. But “Killer Clowns from Outer Space” is my favorite. I love clowns.

Sydney: That’s awesome. I’m actually going to Salem, Massachusetts tomorrow. There are some shops there with oddities, and some have a real presence. Do you have taxidermy in your shop, or is it more inanimate items?

Amber: We have taxidermy, including ethically sourced animals from local preservation artists. For example, we have little mice dressed as fairies. We also have a baboon and raccoons. We sell some gimmicky things as part of retail, but we try to keep it authentic. I’m a picker, so I go out a few times a week looking for unique antiques.

Bryce: I saw on your website that you have wet specimens. Do you have formaldehyde snakes and similar items?

Amber: Yes, we do. For example, we have a puppy with gastroschisis in a jar, among other specimens.

Sydney: That’s cool. I used to have a stingray in formaldehyde. It was our pet in college. If I ever move to Portland, I’m working for you because this is so cool.

Amber: It’s a fun space for me. I definitely enjoy curating it.

Bryce: Two questions: Is there any white whale or item you wish you had in the store but haven’t found yet?

Amber: My dream pieces are an 1890 Ouija board, the original William Fuld board, and a first edition of “Dracula.” I’ve seen the Ouija board online for about $2,000, but I want to find it in the wild. The oldest Ouija board I own is from 1907. The first edition “Dracula” is a $28,000 book, but I’m always searching estate sales for it.

Bryce: Nice. I wonder if PALS has ever had a first edition “Dracula.”

Amber: If they did, they would know what they had.

Bryce: And the last question: What’s the strangest thing you’ve come across or had in your shop?

Amber: Everything’s pretty strange, but one standout is a two-headed calf from the 1930s sideshow circuit. A local oddity dealer walked in and sold it to me because he wanted to buy a two-headed kitten.

Sydney: It’s a fair trade. Two-headed calves are cool and rare.

Amber: Yeah, I want kittens too.

Bryce: Where can people find you online, and how can our listeners support you?

Amber: You can visit us at skeletonkeyauditorium.com. We don’t do much retail online because most items are locally sourced, but you can come into the space and explore. The museum is about 2,500 square feet.

Bryce: If you’re in Portland, we’re located at 939 Southwest 10th Avenue, just down the street from the Art Museum. Check out skeletonkeyauditorium.com, and follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Skeleton Key Auditorium. Thank you so much, Amber Victoria, for coming on the show. I’ll definitely visit your store soon.

Amber: We’d love to see you. Thank you for having me.

Sydney: Yeah, thank you. It was nice to meet you. This was really fun.

Amber: Nice to meet you too.

Visit The Skeleton Key Odditorium oddities store and museum in Portland, OR.

Synopsis

Grave Encounters follows a Zak Baggins/Ghost Adventures type crew while they film their first season of the titular show, constantly in search of new scares and not afraid to create their own for movie magic. They go to stay at an abandoned mental hospital in Maryland, where they get locked inside for 8 hours in hopes of getting some good footage and getting the hell out of there. Not expecting to see anything out of the ordinary, they are in for more than they bargained for.

Review of Grave Encounters

This is a very fun movie. There’s plenty of things to laugh at throughout to relieve you from the unexpected jump scares of ghouls and goblins. It’s not as serious and dreadful as something like Paranormal Activity, but it’s not trying to be something like that. They don’t waste much time getting into the nitty gritty of how haunted the asylum really is. The pacing is good and the scares are effective even on a repeat watch. The main problem I have with this movie is that the end drags on for a bit too long, it could have been a little tighter in the beginning and in the end, but the meat in the middle works. All in all, it is a good scary movie, it’s a fun time, but as you watch it multiple times it gets less effective. 

Score

7/10

Synopsis

In Longlegs, the FBI is on a manhunt for a mysterious killer named Longlegs, who somehow convinces whole families to kill each other and themselves. Agent Lee Harker is on the case and she is quickly shown to have psychic powers, or at least half psychic powers which may be useful to the FBI. The details of the murders and the clues left behind are creepy, and Agent Harker must first learn to piece together her past before she can finally piece together this case. 

Review of Longlegs

Longlegs is a long-awaited horror movie that gained interest through vague and ominous marketing, as well as keeping the plot of the movie close to the chest. I had absolutely no idea what this movie was about going in, but I had high expectations simply because so many people were talking about this movie. The movie is very well shot and the atmosphere is creepy the entire time. It has a similar feel to movies like Silence of the Lambs and Seven but is maybe a little slower than both of those movies. Any time Nicholas Cage is on screen I am having a great time. His character feels interesting and is visually scary to look at with his makeup, and his voice gave me chills. My only complaints about this movie was that some of the dialogue felt super cheezy, especially when they are talking about the devil and worshiping satan. I think they could have maybe come up with something a tad more original. In my opinion, worshiping the devil doesn’t really feel scary, it just feels a little bit cringe. The movie was also a little slow and probably could have benefited from a few more scary scenes in the middle of the movie, but other than that it was pretty fun

Score

8/10

Synopsis

Maxxxine follows the titular character as she attempts to leave the porno film industry and enter into mainstream Hollywood. She’s haunted by her past and is traumatized by the events of X that happened 6 years previously where she was the sole survivor of a homicidal elderly couple (spoilers). While struggling with the trauma and the difficulties of navigating Hollywood, several of her friends and acquaintances are murdered by a mysterious figure with black leather gloves. Will she achieve hollywood stardom? Will she be charged for murdering an elderly woman in Texas? Will she foil Dr Claw’s plan to use a missile silo to launch a missile to destroy Metro City? Watch Maxxxine or skip forward to our spoiler section to find out.

Review of Maxxine

Maxxine continues the exploitation genre throwback vibe of X and Pearl, but this one is much less stylized, and frankly, less horror focused. It’s more of a thriller/horror that is about as close as you come to an American Giallo.

Maxine is surrounded by colleagues and acquaintances, but the maximum extent of the character development for them is “gay”. They end up all being disposable fodder for the prototypical faceless Giallo villain.

Maxxxine, as we’ve seen in X is super capable and driven, and it ends up being one of the pitfalls of the movie. She is such a bad bitch that you never really believe she is in danger. Therefore, there isn’t much of an arc in her character or the plot. It ends up being a waiting game to learn whodunnit.

The cast is great, and includes Kevin Bacon doing an impression of Daniel Craig’s Cajun accent. Giancarlo Esposito plays a character that isn’t a rip off of Gus Fring, and there are other actors too.

This film is a tribute to 80s cinema, and as such Ti West limited technology to that of the time period. It doesn’t really seem noticeable in terms of quality of the visuals, but there are some very visceral practical effects that 80s horror fans will love.

It’s an enjoyable movie, and if you liked X and Pearl, this is a good capper, but for me it wasn’t as interesting as those films.

Score

7/10

Synopsis

1408 is a film that follows Mike Enslin, played by John Cusack, a corny horror novelist who specializes in writing about the scariest, spookiest places he’s ever been. Although he spends a lot of time in “haunted” places, he has never seen any paranormal activity and does not believe in ghosts. He then receives a cryptic postcard from the Dolphin Hotel in New York City that states, “Don’t stay in 1408.” Intrigued by this gesture and not at all deterred, he goes against the wishes of the postcard and of the staff of the hotel and books the room, hoping to finally get scared.

Review

This is the ultimate sleeper pick. This movie is not very well known or well talked about in horror movie communities, to my knowledge anyway, and after a second viewing I firmly believe this is one of the best horror movies. The viewer is never bored, stuff happens so quickly and so often in this film that it was extremely difficult to take notes on it because I almost always missed something. The pacing is something to look up to, it keeps you engaged from the moment you turn it on to the moment it ends. It is scary and certainly anxiety inducing. This is a great adaptation of a Stephen King and even if you don’t love Stephen King, you will love this movie if you are a horror fan. There are not many problems with this movie. Sometimes the directing style is a bit dated and the acting can be a little slapstick at times, but it doesn’t fully take away from how good it is. It is definitely not perfect, but it is entertaining and quite dreadful.

Score

8/10