znegative

I know some people would probably strongly disagree with me, but I'm sorry, Scott Derrickson cannot write, nor direct a scary movie. His previous effort, 'Sinister' had me reluctant to start 'Deliver Us From Evil', but with nothing better on my plate, I figured 'what the hell', I believe in second chances after all. Unfortunately, the master of suspense-lacking and stupid scary movies delivered a similar turd in the same fashion as his first successful piece of mainstream, brain rotting, piece of trash-Sinister.

I feel redundant saying this, but once again, with Deliver Us From Evil, we get a film 'inspired' by 'true' events. That's a short way of saying it's about a delusional cop and priest duo who become 'demon hunters', to root out the seed of Satan in the city of sin itself, New York City. Now, the main character, Sarchie, does exist in real life, and truly believes that he is a demon hunter. Is it just me, or is it starting to get really annoying how every time a paranoid or insane person speaks of fighting the paranormal, Hollywood craps out a movie? To be fair, perhaps I didn't go into this film with a very objective lens-I hated this directors previous piece of trash, and I also don't care much for police officers or priests. In addition, the idea of explaining the sin and atrocities that occur in New York City (where I was born and lived up until relatively recently) is the product of satanic influence is just...retarded.

I imagine that the group of people that like this type of horror film, and also consider themselves 'horror buffs', are the same type of people that think Cradle of Filth is the pinnacle of extreme metal music. Ignorant out of choice, this 'herd' is satisfied with anything supposedly 'scary' that is handed to them, and therefor choose NOT to dig a little for the real horror gems out there, like 'Martyrs' .

I watched this movie for free and I still feel cheated-don't waste your time. There are better things to do, like urinating on its cover.

The Quiet Ones is (another) supernatural thriller based (very loosely) on 'real events'. The story centers around an eccentric professor who's life work is to try and extract and isolate a poltergeist, from a haunted/possessed person. In this case, the possessed is an attractive young woman.

Unsurprisingly, the movie is a mixture of conventional film making and 'found-footage'. In the case of The Quiet Ones',our oddball professor (Jared Harris) and his team hire a young film-maker named Ian (Sam Claflin) to document the experiment. Things quickly spiral out of control, as it becomes apparent that the crew is dealing with a malevolent spirit rather than your run of the mill paranormal oddity.

There's really absolutely nothing original about the film aside from a few cool CGI effects, but unlike many of it's other paranormal counterparts (like Insidious or Sinister), The Quiet Ones is thoroughly and surprisingly entertaining. This shocked me because I went into the movie thinking that it was going to suck big time, that I'd have to turn it off after 30 minutes of tom foolery, but I was pleasantly gripped and sucked into the story for all of it's duration. I guess part of what made it stand out from a movie like Sinister is that the story was told through a scientific lens, whereas in other flops like the aforementioned title, The Conjuring 2, and Sinister, the screen writers were simply asking the audience as well as the characters to believe too much. The example that comes to mind is the part in Insidious when the old woman who's some sort of psychic explains that both the son and the father are masters of 'Astral Projection', which Patrick Wilson accepts as a plausible and rational explanation far too soon. If someone came at me like that I'd hit them over the head with a baseball bat!

In conclusion, while nothing really new, or particularly amazing, 'The Quiet Ones' is a decent enough paranormal/horror flick. If you enjoyed the Atticus Institute (which was slightly better IMO), you'll likely dig this one too.

I'd been waiting a while to watch Joshua, and finally got around to it last night, and while it wasn't quite what I expected, I really enjoyed it. I should mention first and fore-most, 'Joshua' is not a horror film or a thriller in the conventional sense, but rather a darkly comic drama, though it certainly borrows from the aforementioned genres. I just want to put that out there so people expecting a film along the lines of 'The Omen' won't be surprised.

The film basically follows the story of two parents, their nine year old son 'Joshua' after the birth of his sister. Joshua is a child prodigy, and as the story goes along, he embarks on a devious agenda to pick off his family members one by one. This doesn't necessarily mean kill them (though it doesn't exclude murder). He shows all the signs of a budding sociopath. The gerbils in his class all died from a mysterious 'fungal disease' explains his teacher at one point, and his pet dies, after Joshua takes him for a walk. His mother is the first to make the connection, and then his father. Eventually, Joshua and his father become adversaries, the father trying to figure a way to save his family from his son, and Joshua, plotting the disintegration of what remains of his family unit.

While it definitely borrows some horror and thriller conventions, the overall tone is more kin with the dark comedy found in '6 Feet Under'. I went into this expecting something totally different, but it was a pleasant change of pace for someone who watches constant horror movies as well as psychological thrillers. While it caught me off guard, I wouldn't have it any other way, and I highly recommend 'Joshua'.

I hadn't heard of 'The Girl Next Door' until a few months ago, but i feel a bit misled, both by it's cover and by some of the reviews I've read. 'The Girl Next Door' is not a horror movie, but instead, a drama that includes some very sadistic moments of torture-porn.

The movie, which is based on a Jack Ketchum novel, which is based on a real life case that took place in the 60's, tells the story of the horrible abuse suffered by a young girl at the hand of her aunt and her cousins, who lock her up in the basement where they physically and sexually abuse her. It's also a story of one of the boys who befriended the girl, but is unable to stop her abuse, and how that regret stick with him.

I imagine that this is the kind of movie that people feel strongly about, regardless of whether they like it or hate it. My issue with the movie was that it just seemed kind of pointless and exploitative, under a veneer of integrity that doesn't actually lack. I agree that stories like these have to be told, but The Girl Next Door lacked taste IMO, which might seem odd coming from someone who thinks 'Martyrs' is one of the greatest modern horror films in the past decade. IDK, that's just me though.

Before anything else, I would like to say for the record, that 'The Atticus Institute' is an entertaining movie, and for what it's worth, I at no point felt tempted to turn it off, like I do with so many of these types of films.

Like Lake Mungo, The Atticus Institute is a faux-documentary including 'found-footage' from a supposed government cover-up over the investigation into military attempts at harnessing paranormal abilities found in a middle age woman who, as it turns out, is probably possessed by some type of malevolent spiritual entity. Asides from the similar film, 'The Quiet Ones', the premise is rather unique, and the documentary interviews are very well acted. Unfortunately, it's the 'found-footage' segments that start to fall flat over the course of the movie, bringing my rating down by a few points.

For the most part 'The Atticus Institute' is convincing in it's attempt at the mockumentary angle. Like I said earlier, the acting during the interviewed sessions is rather good. I also liked the use of still pictures, and some of the earlier found-footage is rather captivating. Unlike most movies of this ilk, 'The Atticus Institute' is rather pleasing to the eye, another quality it shares with it's superior counterpart, 'Lake Mungo'.

The real problem with the film in it's final 30 minutes or so is that it diverges from it's rather interesting and captivating story and takes a turn towards the cliché. If you've seen The Exorcist, and the millions of rip-offs that came afterwards (The Devil Inside, The Rite, The Taking of Deborah Logan etc..), you'll know what I mean. It's really quite a shame because it started off so interesting and then became completely predictable.

Anyway, I don't want to sound too harsh. If I hadn't enjoyed the movie I wouldn't have given it a five start (out of ten) rating. The Atticus Institute is entertaining, and the first half of the film is really quite good. I would overall recommend it as a fun watch, but if you're looking to get your mind blown, look elsewhere or watch Lake Mungo

There seems to be more and more horror and thriller films coming out that involve tests or games. These games usually start off harmless enough, but throughout the course of the movie, test a characters morality or will to survive, at times pitting the two against each other. With a wide net this genre of film would include Fermat's Room, Cube, Exam, Would You Rather, the Saw movies, etc. 13 sins fall into this category as well.

I was initially a little hesitant to watch 13 Sins. It had gotten good reviews, and was free through Prime, but just like I'm starting to get sick of time travel films, I'm also a little bored with this genre as well. However, boredom and lack of options led me to trek forward and give this little thriller a shot.

The story centers around a man with a pregnant wife who loses his job, and receives a phone call inviting him to partake in a game in which he has to complete 13 tasks in order to win a few million dollars. The first task is simple enough, kill a fly. The second, is to eat it. However, as the protagonist dives deeper into the game, it becomes more dangerous and immoral.

I don't really know what to say about this movie, for it wasn't remarkable, but it was definitely entertaining. There's some good laughs as well as some good tension. It didn't bore me, and it offered something a little different for the genre.

I'm not biased to found-footage horror films. Even some of the more out-there ones, like 'Creep' I have enjoyed and appreciated, and I was hoping for a similar film in 'The Den'. While it starts off with an interesting premise, it quickly becomes too unrealistic, and in the end, I turned it off 20 minutes before what I'm sure was a terrible conclusion.

The plot centers around a young grad student who's gotten a grant to study something along the lines of online communication through a web site called 'The Den', where you can video chat with anyone, anywhere in the world. Things turn nasty for her though, when she witnesses a murder during one of these subsequent chats, and soon her loved ones are picked off one by one as she is hunted by this elusive killer.

Despite the low budget, and the fact that the film takes place entirely in a 'Face-Time' like format, I thought the first 1/3 of 'The Den' was pretty creepy, and gave good credence to what I imagine dark internet activity to look like. But when the killer begins to take down her family members and hunt her, it becomes unrealistic, and therefor boring. A more interesting plot IMO would have been centered around a police investigation after the aforementioned murder witnessed by the grad. student. Because these things do happen online, but rarely do these killers become so reckless that they then begin to hunt down others on the same chat. IDK, perhaps I'm cynical and have read too much true-crime books, but I just don't like run- of-the-mill slasher movies, which is what 'The Den' is, only it's packaged in a way to feed on the technological paranoia of millennials.

Like I mentioned before, I did not watch The Den through till the end. It started to seem like too much of a waste of time, so perhaps I missed out on something that would have completely redeemed the film, but I'm betting that I didn't.

I'm running low on my watch list. It seems everything I want to see now is not available for streaming on Amazon or Netflix, and thus, I have started settling for movies that to be quite frank, I would never watch, had I something better to do, or a general purpose in life. Similarly my quest for frightening movies has ended, as it seems that I've seen them all. After watching Grave Encounters last night and suffering not even a flinch, I have replaced the idea of 'scary' with 'entertaining'. If I can watch a movie the whole way through these days, it's an aberration from the norm. To the movie 'Evidence's' credit, it was entertaining, and I'm glad I stuck through till the ending.

The plot circles around a horrific crime scene in which multiple people are murdered and mutilated beyond recognition. We learn from the beginning that there are some survivors, though we are not informed of their identities. Luckily for the police, a tape that documents that groups nightmare is recovered, which (of course) the police must review in order to try and solve the crime.

For fear of spoiling the movie, I'm not going to go more in-depth in regards to it's plot. This is the kind of movie where the less you know, the better. It's a typical 'who dun nit?', and it truly does keep you guessing until the end. I have to admit that about 3/4 into the film, I was starting to get bored. "Here we go again, another ridiculous serial killer movie", I thought to myself. I'm glad I followed through with it though because the plot twist and ending is so outrageous that it actually redeems the rest of the film which was mediocre at best.

Evidence is kind of a hybrid of 'Found-Footage' and conventional cinematography, which I liked. It's definitely one of the best looking in the sub-genre, comparable to 'As Above/So Below' in terms of cinematography. Sure there is some shaky camera moments, but overall the film is shot rather beautifully, which we attribute to the fact that one of the lead characters had conveniently been shooting a documentary before the havoc ensued.

Overall, this is not a great movie, and like I said earlier, if I had something better to do, I probably wouldn't have wasted my time with it. That aside, if you're running low on entertainment, and find yourself sitting around on a rainy day wanting to watch a movie, 'Evidence' does the trick. It's a mystery that for once keeps the viewer guessing until the climactic finale, and it's definitely a fun watch. I'll give it five stars because it exceeded my expectations by a long shot, but at the same time was nothing new or ground breaking.

I've been on the search for a truly frightening movie. For some reason I remember the first few Paranormal Activity films really freaked me out, so naturally I thought 'Grave Encounters' would be more of the same. The fact that this film didn't make me flinch once makes me curious to watch the paranormal movies again, to see if I had just been super stoned at the time.

The premise for Grave Encounters is clever enough. A 'Ghost Busters' type reality show crew shows up at an abandoned mental hospital to report a haunting, without ever believing that anything paranormal could possibly occur. They soon find themselves locked inside the building and menaced by a malevolent spirit.

I'm disappointed to say that throughout the film I was waiting to feel that sense of dread in my chest, hoping for that sense of suspense that has a person want to turn on the lights during a very frightening sequence. But that moment never came. What was frustrating about the whole thing was that I thought the idea and setting were perfect for a good horror movie. Hell, even the actors were convincing (asides from 'Matt'), which leads me to place the blame on the directors, who I hope in the future will be able to truly follow through on creating a scary movie (to their credit, the ALMOST had it here).

Honestly, the whole time I was watching this movie I was thinking back to 'As above, So below', one of the few found-footage films after Paranormal Activity that got it right, and achieved true scares and suspense. Part of what made that film work was the setting and the sense of claustrophobia, and what's so frustrating is that Grave Encounters almost had that too!

Don't get me wrong, it's not a terrible movie. For a 'Found-Footage' piece, it's actually very top notch in terms of quality. If you scare easily, I imagine this one will do the trick. It's certainly better than 'Insidious', which has been labeled as one of the most frightening movies of the decade, though I thought it was laughable. Furthermore, if you did like this, I'd highly recommend watching 'As Above, So Below' which is in a similar vein but done right.

I like Eduardo Sanchez, the director of 'Blaire Witch' and 'Lovely Molly'. Sure, 'Exists' wasn't too good, but of the four movies I've seen of his, 3 were really great.

'Altered' is a sci-fi/thriller/horror hybrid. In a nutshell, it's a movie about a few hillbillies who capture an alien in the woods years after having been abducted and experimented upon by the same extraterrestrial menaces. They bring the captured yet alive E.T back to one of there friends house, where horror and havoc ensue. I'm not going to go too much into what happens from there as that would be giving away the movie, but the plot is simple enough to be interesting without getting convoluted.

The first thing I liked about this movie is that it clearly had a pretty limited budget. IMO, that worked out in Sanchez's favor, for instead of gratuitous use of CGI for effects, we get good old fashioned puppets, costumes and great make-up. It looks like a really good horror movie from the late 80's/early 90's which was a golden age in terms of special effects for the horror and sic-fi genre IMO.

Most of the film takes place in one of two rooms, which creates a sense of claustrophobia and tension. Ridiculous as the premise may sound, it is not a light-hearted or campy movie. There is a constant sense of dread and fear, and the actors do there job without too much backstory to lend towards this effect. I also must commend the make up artist and costume designer. The Alien looks great, probably the best portrayal of an E.T since H.R Giegers' Alien design. The gore is noteworthy as well if you're into that kind of thing. When one of the red-necks becomes infected, it truly is pretty sickening .

Unlike a lot of his other films ('Blaire Witch', 'Exists' and 'Lovely Molly') there is no 'found- footage' angle or use in 'Altered', which is a nice change of pace. I've said it before, so excuse me for being redundant, but while I don't mind the 'found-footage' technique when it's applied in a way that makes sense, it's nice to see a talented director like Sanchez step out of what I imagine might be his comfort zone and achieve with some grace, a traditional movie in terms of cinematography (it looks great btw).

Fans of Sci-FI and Horror will both like this movie. It's kind of sad to think that this one's probably been overlooked, and truth be told, had I not known who directed it, I would never have rented a movie with a cover which screams 'B-MOVIE'!.

My only complaint is that I wish it was a bit longer, but really, everything was quite satisfactory. A nice change of pace for the director of 'Blaire Witch'.

While I wouldn't say that 'Open Water' was a great movie by any means, I found it quite entertaining, and frightening. It was one of the few movies that got the 'Man v. Nature' thriller right. I was hoping 'Backcountry' would be like 'Open Water', but with bears instead of Sharks.

I think the problem with the movie was that the actual confrontation with the bears, while intense and captivating, is really only about 5 minutes long. There's a great 'mauling' scene, but after that, we basically watch a battered city woman run through the forest while sad alternative music plays to her plight in the background. There was definitely some potential here, but it failed to live up to it.

Another fault I found with 'Backcountry' and 'Open Water' was that the characters were pretty unlikable. Granted there is hardly any time in either movie for any rich character development, but being a 'city boy' myself, I kind of resent how my metropolitan counterparts are portrayed in these types of movies, ignorant to their surroundings, obsessed with technology, etc. I guess this character trait is somewhat typical, and granted, for a city boy I have not led a conventional life style; i.e dropped out of college, was homeless for two years, but I still feel like these films make us out to be hopeless morons when faced with the challenges of the great outdoors, and this holds especially true in 'Backcountry'. I despised the characters so much that I was actually pleased when the man was mauled to a horrible gory death by a bear.

To be fair, 'Backcountry' was entertaining enough. With a lot of movies, I'll just turn them off at the 1/2 way or 3/4 mark, but I followed through with Backcountry, mainly because I hoped for an ultimately more worthwhile pay-off than what I ended up with. Not a bad movie to watch for free, but I would be upset if I had payed money to see it.

Is it just me, or do mainstream, Hollywood horror films nowadays suck? I'll start this off by saying it's very possible it's me-after all, I've seen pretty much nothing but rave reviews for movies like Insidious, Sinister, The Conjuring 2 and The Purge, and I've hated them all. In fact, hate is too strong a word for it requires a certain level of passion that I cannot find myself to waste on garbage like this, which I find incredibly boring. (Before ending this paragraph, I will say that I did like the first Conjuring, but I digress...).

The story here is extremely basic and cliché. The eldest male child in a young family falls from a ladder and subsequently into a coma. The mother starts to experience strange anomalies in the house, things out of place, moving chairs, and more of the like...At her wits end she does what any woman desperate for answers would do in a rational world...Seek out the aid of paranormal investigators and psychics! Soon it is discovered that her soon is a master at 'Astral Projection', and is not really in a coma, but rather, trapped in a dangerous dimension where an 'insidious' spirit is attempting to usurp his body. Just so happens his father (Patrick Wilson) was once a master at 'Astral Projection' as well, and in order to save his son, has to travel to the same dark dwelling where malicious spirits lurk, and bring his child back before and inevitable case of possession occurs.

Now, that synopsis could probably prove appropriate for 90% of the supernatural/'horror' films that have come out in the last ten years. I couldn't help while watching it but think, 'My god, I could have written this script when I was 12 years old!'

I initially had become interested in Insidious because so many reviewers made claims that it was perhaps the 'most terrifying film of the decade', and what with a PG-13 rating, I became interested because it obviously had to rely on tactics other than gore to so thoroughly 'frighten' the 'herd'. Maybe the vast majority of the population who watched Insidious aren't really die hard horror fans like myself, but even so, I was fighting to keep myself awake, THAT's how incredibly boring and dull I found this film.

A lot of the positive reviews praise 'Insidious' for its use of 'sound' and 'disturbing imagery'. I suppose there referring to the screeching violins and smiling men and women in corpse paint. I mean, the thing is so cliché that if I were to teach a class on how to make an unoriginal, and boring horror movie, I would choose 'Insidious' and 'Sinister' as first pick candidates to display the finer points of boring the audience with conventional and lame techniques to 'scare' weak minded people.

I guess I shouldn't really be surprised. All the good horror movies seem to be coming out of Spain, France or Britain nowadays, and the few that come out of the United States are indie flicks like 'Dead Girl' or 'Excision'. The days of classics like 'Hellraiser', 'Alien' and 'Event Horizon' are clearly long gone. Hollywood's found out what makes money-cheap thrills and forgettable plots...Oh and apparently Patrick Wilson helps too.

I was really disappointed with this movie. I thought if any director could make the concept of 'Sasquatch' frightening, it would likely be Eduardo Sanchez, the director of 'The Blaire Witch Project', and more recently 'Lovely Molly' and 'Altered' (all movies I highly recommend). After watching 'Exists', and 'Willow Creek' I think the idea of a 'scary' Bigfoot movie is impossible.

If you are a fan of this sub-genre of movie and thought 'Willow Creek' was good (which surprisingly a lot of people seem to be of this opinion) than you'll likely enjoy this one as well. At least in 'Exists' we get to see Bigfoot, and the creature is impressive looking enough.

The problem that plagues 'Exists' is that unlike 'Blaire Witch Project', the whole 'found- footage' angle seems really stretched here. In 'The Blaire Witch' we had students shooting a documentary film, which excused the hand-held POV angle, but in 'Exists' we get a camera- geek who conveniently comes along to stay with some friends at an uncles cabin. Even with today's culture, obsessed with selfies and posting every day routines and conversations on YouTube, it seemed rather forced that this character would not only have a camera for himself, but multiple devices attached to bicycles and from various locations around the cabin.

Sadly, this is one of those movies that makes you understand why some people absolutely can't stand the 'found-footage' genre. I'm not biased one way or another, but one problem that I have with them is that for the most part, we almost always know from the beginning that the characters are going to die, so all we're left to wonder, is 'how' and 'why'? (the only exceptions to this that I can think of are 'The Bay' and 'Lake Mungo' which had a more creative take on the genre).

When I was about 10 or so 'The Blaire Witch Project' came out. I didn't see it until a few years later, but I remember that movie actually scared me. 'Lovely Molly' incorporates similar techniques to produce equal (or almost) creepiness.

Some directors clearly have a vision in there head. Two examples that are obvious that come off the top of my head would be David Lynch, and Guillermo Del Toro. I think after seeing 'Lovely Molly' it's safe to say Eduardo Sanchez is that type of director too.

Unlike most modern horror movies which rely heavily upon special effects, Lovely Molly is a very minimalist film. What makes it creepy is mostly the sound effects, which are great, as well as the atmosphere. I guess what Eduardo Sanchez has that other directors in the genre lack, is restraint. By not revealing much of anything, Sanchez allows our minds to fill in 'what's behind that door' etc.. When we do see the 'spirit', it's barely visible, but it's scary as hell.

I'll admit the only reason I watched this movie was because I heard it was by the same director as 'The Blaire Witch Project'. Before I had heard that, it was just another movie in the 'Paranormal' category on my Amazon Shudder account, and to be quite honest, I usually do not like ghost movies. To my surprise, IMO this movie wasn't so much about some spiritual entity as it was about the impression of abuse left behind on a girl by her dead father, which was a lot creepier to me.

That being said, I wish I had seen this movie before 'Magic Magic', which had similar themes, all though was less a traditional horror movie than 'Lovely Molly' which is why I liked it more. I think I would have rated this one higher if I'd seen it first, but it's still a good movie. If you liked Magic Magic and Anti Christ, you'll probably enjoy this one too. I liked it enough that I'm now going to rent his other movie 'Altered'.

15 minutes into 'Hush' (2008-not to be confused with Mark Flannegans' more recent movie which is good), I thought, huh, this might be interesting! A fighting couple on the free way is overtaken by a truck, and for a mere second the back pops open just long enough for our unlikable protagonist to witness a naked woman imprisoned in a cage. The couple then argues what to do, phones the police, bla bla bla.

At this point the movie still had me interested, but the second 'Zeke' (or whatever the hell his name was) loses his girlfriend to the same kidnapper and then goes on a mission to save her and presumably the other captive woman, I lost interest.

Everything that made 'High Tension' suspenseful and terrifying is lacking in Hush, which is a below-average run of the mill thriller that I turned off with only 20 minutes to go, because in the end, who cares? A best case scenario I imagine would that 'Zeke' would save the day and learn to never take his girlfriend for granted again, a lesson every man learns at one point in his life and then forgets over and over again.

This movie is a waste of time and money. Don't bother.

Dead Girl was another movie I watched for free on my 'Amazon Shudder' subscription. I have to admit, I'm getting real low on my list of movies to watch, and Dead Girl wasn't up at the top. For starters, I'm not a fan of zombie films, which I think this film has been mislabeled as. Secondly, the film doesn't have such good reviews, so I was expecting a below average B- grade exploitation film. Luckily, 'Dead Girl' was actually a real surprise.

The film centers around a group of high school stoners (Ricki, JT and 'Wheeler') who skip school to get drunk in an abandoned mental hospital and come across a girl in the basement who is chained to a table. They soon discover that the girl is not dead, but at the same time, not alive, after JT rapes her and breaks her neck during a struggle. JT fills their friend 'Wheeler' in, and soon the zombie girl becomes their after school sex slave, despite Ricki's protest.

While the subject matter of the movie is quite dark, Dead Girl is actually a very funny movie, and it's not a pointless exploitation movie either. If anything it's a commentary on how women are objectified in horror films, or in media in general.

I would highly recommend this film-in fact it's one of my new favorites. If you enjoyed 'Excision', you'll probably really like this one too.

After watching 'High Tension', which has become my favorite horror movie since 'Kill List' and 'Martyrs' I was really excited to see 'Frontier(s)'. On some horror message boards it was listed up their with the aforementioned titles, so I was expecting it to be incredible. I have to say though, I'm a bit disappointed, because in the end, it just felt like rehashed material that tried to be original by putting it into a political context.

If you've watched 'Deliverance' or 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' this film will come as nothing new to you. It's another case of liberal city slickers (like myself) getting lost in the backwoods, and paying the price for meddling with ignorant red-neck scum. There's a lot of gore and violence in this movie, but what it lacks that 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' was rich in, is atmosphere. There's no room with furniture made of skin and bones, and aside from some Nazi paraphernalia, this film kind of lacks in the macabre department.

Another thing that bothered me was that I felt very unsympathetic towards the characters. Quite honestly they seemed like jerks so I couldn't really get that emotionally invested.

Luckily the ending is good enough. I liked how after escaping her tormentors and taking off in a car, she hears that the current right wing politician has survived an assassination attack and then screams in agony. Ahead of her is either the military or police at a road stop, and she gets out and surrenders herself, realizing that her literal fight against a conservative far-right government is futile, and finally gives up. It would have been kind of cooler if instead she shot them all, because it's kind of depressing that she just turns herself in, but it still made the movie seem like there was some sort of point, other than just showing miserable ways that people can die and bleed.

I just finished watching 'High Tension', and I have to say, I liked it so much that I think I'm going to watch it a second time with my father.

It's kind of difficult to pinpoint exactly what makes 'High Tension' so great. After all, it's essentially just another 'Home Invasion' film with a plot that's very similar to 'Ils' and 'The Strangers'. However, Alexandre Aja really knows how to build up suspense-after all, they don't call the movie 'High Tension' for no reason. If you're like me, a person who's become desensitized to most gory or 'scary' films, than I would definitely recommend this one, because unlike so many other movies with similar plots, 'High Tension' is so incredibly suspenseful that I literally could not relax while watching it in my bed.

The only drawback of the movie in my opinion is the ending-but once I got used to the little plot twist, and accepted it, I actually felt the movie was better for it.

Also, and pardon me for going all over the place about this one, but it's just so god damned good. This movie has your heart pounding right up to the very end. I was so impressed with this movie that I even contemplated watching Aja's remake of 'The Hill Have Eyes', which I saw long ago in theaters and don't recall liking it that much (although I will say I thought the second one was real good).

Another thing that I liked about this movie (as opposed to 'Inside') was that it doesn't just rely on gore to creep the viewer out. In a way it was similar to 'Martyrs' in that sense. When the movie does get violent, it's quite graphic, but nothing ever seems like 'gore for gores sake'. When I was a teenager I was all about watching the most graphic horror films available (I was definitely into 'Ichi The Killer' and the first two collections of the 'Guinea Pig' series). Nowadays though, I don't really care for violence without substance (don't get me wrong, I still love 'Ichi', but in retrospect I found the Guinea Pig Series rather boring). After watching some of the most extreme 'torture-porn' titles, I kind of got to the point where that kind of thing didn't have that much effect on me-I honestly found 'Inside' so boring that I turned it off about 3/4 of the way through, because the gratuitous violence seemed so unnecessary, and that's what I love about movies like 'High Tension', 'Kill List' and 'Martyrs'-sure, they truly are quite violent, but I never felt like the three listed films tried to just rely on the gore for shock value or scares.

If you're looking for a heart-pounding, truly frightening horror movie, then check out 'High Tension', it's one of those rare horror movies that one comes upon every once in a great while that truly achieves what it sets out to do-scare the living crap out of you.

I'm clearly running out of movies to watch on Prime and Shudder, which is why I eventually gave in and decided to settle for A Horrible Way To Die. Before delving further into the review, to be fair, I should state that just a couple hours before watching it, I saw one of the most incredible films I've ever had the pleasure of watching-'Magic Magic'; so 'A Horrible Way To Die' had a lot to live up to.

I had been reading around about this movie for a while. After all, with a title like that, you can't help but wonder what it's all about. I, of course, presumed that AHWTD was just another B-Horror movie belonging to the 'torture-porn' genre, and therefor, most likely a waste of time. But after reading several reviews which hailed the film for it's magnificent writing and acting, I decided to give it a go.

The first thing that I'll say about this movie is that the cinematography is terrible. I mean, really, it's almost unwatchable-maybe the director had some artistic statement in mind (attempting to give the film a feeling of 'visceral reality'?), or if the camera man just didn't have a the ability to stay in focus or to keep a steady hand. Regardless, it didn't work. I'm a man that values aesthetic, and I like movies to look beautiful-and if they don't..Well, I expect there to be a reason for that (for instance, it makes sense that the camera work looks shaky in a movie like 'The Blair Witch Project'). I suppose some might argue that the hand-held shaky camera-work adds a flair of 'grit' to the film, but I would argue that it does not (after all, Bad Leutenant got it's point across while still staying in focus), and instead creates the impression that the cinematographer was relying on a corny gimmick to cover up his lack of talent. There is absolutely no reason that half the film has to be out of focus.

Secondly, I would have to disagree with the assertion that the writing in 'A Horrible Way To Die' is anything above average. In fact, I would say a lot of the dialogue seems forced. It's hard to tell in movies like this if this is the product of the script itself or bad acting, but I'm going to go with the latter. I've seen some of these actors in other films and they were capable enough, and at times their talent does shine through the dull dialogue.

Another thing that annoyed me was the depiction of Alchoholics Anonymous. Having struggled with addiction for many years, I know the format of a 12 Step meeting like the back of my hand. Now do not misinterpret what I'm saying-I am no 'Big Book Thumper', but I am starting to get really annoyed by how all these movies are depicting Alchoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous. To me it just shows sloppiness..After all, how hard would it be to approach a member and just ask, 'Hey, we're making this movie, and a central theme is alcoholism, so do you think you could help us out to accurately depict a 12 Step program?". Clearly that conversation never took place. I almost feel as if they got their impression of 'The Program' from other movies.

Anyway, I have to admit, I only watched 3/4 or the film, because quite frankly, the quality became to abrasive for my taste. I don't mind low-budget films if the film-maker knows how to work within that limited budget (a great example of this is Mark Flannegans' 'Absentia', or the Sci-Fi time travel film 'Primer', supposedly filmed with a $7,000 budget), but that is not the case with 'A Horrible Way to Die', which instead looks at best like an ambitious student film that despite it's efforts, fails.

I will say that for what they were given to work with in terms of the script, the acting was pretty good, and that's probably the movies' one redeeming quality. Still though, I wouldn't waste my time with this one. I see a lot of people making claims like it's a 'hidden gem', and I imagine if you went into the movie with the expectation that it was going to be the the worst film in the history of cinema you might walk away with that point of view, but in to me it was an incredibly mediocre, predictable thriller.

Magic Magic is one of the original and darkest films I have seen in a while. To call it a horror movie wouldn't be quite accurate, but boy is it unsettling.

The story revolves around Alicia, a young woman who comes to Chile to visit her cousin Sarah. Sarah, her boyfriend and her two friends pick Alicia up, and shortly afterwards an emergency forces Sarah to leave Alicia for a few days with her friends. Alicia obviously feels very uncomfortable in this foreign environment, and Sarah's friends are unfriendly and cruel towards her, albeit harmless enough. Alicia's paranoia starts to escalate, until it becomes clear that she is starting to have a psychotic breakdown.

This film really resonated with me, and I imagine anyone who's ever dealt with mental illness or perhaps drug use will be very unnerved by 'Magic Magic'. This movie reminded me of my late teen years when I was smoking a lot of pot and taking psychedelics and the paranoia that plagued me. This film captured that feeling in a gritty and uncompromising manner that had my heart literally pounding. I don't think I've felt this kind of dread from a movie in a long, long time.

I read some other reviews likening 'Magic Magic' to a David Lynch film, and there's some truth to that, but a more appropriate comparison would be to that of 'Repulsion', Polanski's black and white horror masterpiece.

I can't think of one thing wrong with this movie-it's unfortunate there aren't more gems like this out there. If you haven't seen Magic Magic, you're missing out.

I've seen a lot of negative reviews for this movie (as well as positive ones), and I suppose I can see why some people might not like it or find it offensive. After all, it's basically a character study of a serial killer, and in a way it almost asks viewers to be sympathetic towards our protagonist, Kevin Wolfe, who has a serious problem with women.

Going in to the movie I had an idea that Kevin had some issues with females, but what that issue was wasn't clear until at least the halfway mark. Up to that point, we watch what seems on the outside to be a well-meaning albeit awkward man attempt to relate to various women only to be rejected. Something I an most men can relate to at some point in time. It's only later in the film that we start to realize that clearly something is very wrong with Kevin.

Forgetting the Girl is an odd movie because despite the subject matter, it is not at all a horror movie or a thriller, but instead a drama, and almost something of a 'reverse' love story. Don't get me wrong, it's a dark drama for sure, but this isn't your typical game of cat and mouse that you see in movies like Se7en or Along Came A Spider.

The acting and cinematography for this film was beautifully executed. Christopher Denham plays an excellent psychopath, the key being that he seems so perfectly normal, and even nice. Though not for everyone, I really enjoyed this movie, and would highly recommend it if you're into the dark stuff.

In my review for the mediocre found-footage/horror film 'Followed' I talked a bit about my dislike for how serial murderers are often portrayed in cinema. While Se7en was a good thriller, it epitomizes IMO the problem... Serial Killers murder for sex and power, and usually a bit of both. However, fart too often, movies seem to depict them as these brilliant psychopaths whose sole purpose in life is to get into a game of 'cat and mouse' with their equally brilliant adversary, that is, whatever detective Morgan Freedman might be playing in any given film.

What's frightening to me about serial killers is that for the most part they go undetected and often get away with multiple homicides for years. That, and to top it off, they blend in with the outside world very well. That is what Willow Creek gets right-there is a hint of realism here on top of the campy thrills that separates Willow Creek from your average slasher film.

This is one of the few movies that I actually felt a certain sense of dread for our hero's, Jim and Kelly-which is a big thing for me, as it takes a lot more than gore and a loud bump to make me jump.

I would like to also mention that I thought the actors did quite well-not only the killer, but the protagonists as well. I thought Jim was really likable, which is another surprise for this type of movie, which usually has very poor character construction.

Worth the watch.

I know there's a lot of hatred for 'found-footage' horror lately, though it's never really bothered me too much. In fact, I actually enjoy them when they're done right. Unfortunately though, despite the premise, 'Followed' offered nothing new.

The story centers around a couple that are moving from Chicago to San Diego. The boyfriend, David, is filming the trip (of course) because along the way, he plans to propose to his girlfriend Rachel. Meanwhile, in a not-so-subtle fashion, we learn that a serial killer is on the prowl, through various radio and news reports. Sooner rather than later it becomes apparent that they are being followed by, surprise-surprise, the vary same serial killer.

SPOILER:

I will admit that for the first 3/4 of the movie, I did not see the plot twist coming, but to the film-makers discredit, the not-so-subtle news announcements basically give it all away, making the remainder of the movie pretty lackluster. Not only that, but the plot-twist is incredibly stupid in my opinion.

Like many nerds before me, I know a lot about serial killers and psychopaths, and if there is one thing I have learned through the years of rummaging through the now rescinded website CrimeLibrary.com, it's that women are never, sole sexual psychopaths. When women do commit multiple homicides it's usually for revenge, or for financial gain. The few instances when females have been involved in a sex related killing, have all been cases where they were involved with a man who was a murderer, (Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, Karla Hamolka and Paul Bernardo, Fred and Rosemary West, etc). I'm sure there are some exceptions to the rule, but not enough that it makes Followed original, but instead, unrealistic.

In fact, I find the vast majority of serial killer movies to be incredibly annoying because they seem so ill-researched. Serial Killers do not murder people to solve math problems, create artwork or to fulfill some religious revelation. The fact that they murder for sexual reasons is a lot more terrifying to me than all that drab nonsense. I don't know why most film directors get that wrong.

Anyway, enough with that rant.

To conclude my review I will say that Followed is not a terrible movie, but it's uninspired and unoriginal. There are better found-footage films you can get your fix off of out there, like Lake Mungo or The Houses October Built.

Of all the 'Found-Footage' movies I've seen, Lake Mungo is the one that stands out. For one, the whole documentary 'feel' to it is incredibly realistic, and two, like a real documentary, Lake Mungo is actually shot beautifully. Perhaps it should be called a 'faux-documentary' horror film instead.

Every thing about this movie is great, and this is coming from someone who finds most ghost stories rather boring. But Lake Mungo is performed so incredibly that I could imagine many viewers thinking that it was actually a real documentary about a case of possible supernatural activity.

I wouldn't say the movie is scary so much as it is unsettling. Through the acting and careful pacing, Lake Mungo tells a story that for once is believable. There are no flying chairs or bleeding walls here. In fact, I found this movie much more plausible seeming than many documentaries of poltergeists that I've watched.

Truly a gem, worth the 2.99 on Amazon.

This movie was fantastic! A bizarre mesh of fantasy and horror, as well as being incredibly funny, I found myself laughing out loud throughout the movie, as well as being genuinely shocked by some of the horrific imagery.

Truly an original feat.

The film centers around a mysterious man with psychic abilities that enters the local police precinct and exacts justice to both prisoner and officer alike.

Stars Liam Cunningham from Game of Thrones. I highly recommend this movie-especially if you like genre mashups like Evil Dead 2 and You're Next.