Horror films return in New Year!

Saw the trailer for this and it looks appealing. Plus, it has a certain character making a surprise cameo, one of my favourite characters from Paranormal Activity 2.

October's Horror movie watched List

My list of Horror movies I watched leading up to Halloween.

1. The Devil's Backbone
2. Devil
3. The Ring (remake of Ringu) 
4. The Innkeepers
5. The Grudge (remake of Ju-on)
6. The Conjuring
7. The Hand that Rocked the Cradle
8. The Haunting (remake of 1960s version)
9. Paranorman
10. Curse of Chucky
11. Trick R' Treat
12. Coraline
13. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (remake of 1970s version)
14. Texas Chainsaw  (sequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) 
15. Scream
16. Fright Night (remake of 1980s version) 
17. Drag Me to Hell 
18. Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters 
19. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Carrie Remake

One remake I have really been anticipating is Carrie. Like The Thing the Carrie remake was set to be released back in April/March then the studio decided it would be better fitted to be released in October.  Now the wait is over, how'd I find this new Carrie.

Well, for starters the cast is phenomenal. Julianne Moore makes for a terrifying version of Mrs. White and gives the character an interesting emotional heft. Unlike Piper Laurie's version of Mrs. White, psycho crazy, Julianne's version is less outrageous and more bubbling beneath the surface. Chloe Mortez is solid in the role of Carrie. She doesn't real add anything too new to the character but still overall she does an excellent job at playing the part, she especially is terrific when leaving the prom, acting very crazy/spooky. Judy Greer also stars, I was very excited to see her in this and I love her bit. The coach, thankfully, never hits any of her students and it made me cheer for her more seeing as really she just said some things which weren't nice and could easily be forgiven, at least thats my thinking.

 Story wise the movie delves deeper into Mrs. White. We see how Carrie is born, similar in a way to how Leatherface was born (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning) We, the audience, then see that she does truly love her daughter but becomes truly fearful when she discovers she has some sort of abilities. The visuals here are not terrible. Visual effects wise, nothing is overdone. I loved the prom scene, the deaths were well put together, its what followed after the prom and Carrie's development that bugged me.

For one thing, Carrie seems to only be after people who hurt her, the coach did still hit her (true I said she didn't) I found this to be against character. In the book the character of Carrie started to hate everyone, its what drove her to destroy half the town. We do see some destruction of the town, fire explosions from the sewers, the crushing of asphalt. But no one else dies besides the ones who hurt Carrie. And when she gets home we loose the momentum and things slow to a trudge. I really would

have preferred the book's ending more. The film, in the end, does include the confrontation between Carrie White and Sue Snell (Gabriella Wilde) and then the court room drama that followed. I enjoyed those parts but from the good pace after the prom (Carrie's rage across town) to the slow build of her home's destruction did feel a little underwhelming and the pacing of the scene towards the ending just felt all over the place from slow then suddenly speeding up. It felt rushed.

What I think would have benefited this adaptation is if they followed the book to the t. Including everything from the original ending, to the intercuts of the police interviews. I enjoyed the film, loved the cast, the visuals and the deaths but it was just too short. I like, love, long horror films (The Shining) and if a horror film is not going to be long quicken the pace bait, make for more exciting moments. How the ending could have been fixed is Carrie simply not taking a bath. She seeks her mother out, finds her, they talk, she stabs her after telling her the truth about where and how she was born (her father raped her mother) and then Carrie kills her. Carrie then leaves to head to the place where she was born/created. Doesn't make it, Sue followed. Confrontation. Mental transfer. Truth revealed to Carrie about Sue. Carrie dies. Not in the house caused by her own destruction but by the mere exhaustion of her abilities on her body. Thats what also felt out of place, she seemly was able to do all this and not feel any effects?

While is was defiantly not a disappointment, I did find it to be a better adaptation than the 1970s take, 2013's Carrie will seem like nothing much new. If you know the story and loved the original, it may be best to skip this. I have read the book and own the original but I found I enjoyed the remake more. I just find that with original films done in the 70s/90s that involve teenagers they don't seem to look like teens. Thats one thing they got right with the Carrie remake. The kids in the movie looked like kids, while back then everyone seemed like an adult attending high school.

2013's Carrie is a bit of a retread but it has an excellent cast, terrific visuals and some new little twists.

Insidious - Chapter 2

Halloween is on its way and the first horror movie to be released is James Wan's and Leigh Whannel's sequel to the successful horror film Insidious.

The sequel continues right where the last one left off with the father being possessed by a spirit. What is quite an achievement for this sequel is the budget does not seem to have gone over-board. It is still the same quality as the first film. With horror sequels the budget can go either way, bigger (Exorcist II: The Heretic / Poltergeist II: The Other Side or lower (Mirrors 2 / The hills have Eyes 2). I found though that story wise the film lacked the scares of the original. Which leads me to comparing it to the other spiritual franchise (Poltergeist).

In it's followup the cast of the original film returned, all except one actress who sadly died in a tragic murder with her boyfriend. That is true by the way and yes, scared the hell out of me when I found out.   Only difference is while Poltergeist: The Other Side when extremely over budget James kept the film at  the same tone as the original. There is no cgi used in this. No crazy monsters pop up. It is a good film. But the one similarity (besides the returns of the original cast) is story wise it falls short. Poltergeist 2 delved deeper into its ridiculous mythology about some cultist who has it out for their daughter. It's similar with Chapter 2 of the Insidious franchise. If memory does serve me, the reason behind the monster's creation was because the actor who portrayed the cultist spirit died while filming. So they came up with the whole monster idea to keep the story going.

Back to Insidious, chapter 2 delves into what is haunting Josh, the father of the family who is now possessed. They have temporally moved into his mother's home for the time being but soon a ghost pops up and starts causing trouble. The back story does get quite disturbing. There are some nice twists here and there but the ultimate tension and terror that was in the original film is gone her, mostly. There are two instances in the film where you can't help but laugh out of the ridiculousness of it all. Now as I said no monsters appear in the film but the story does get a bit convoluted. It's not a simple haunting, there's a reason behind it. And the film explains the reasons so much that characters don't get any development, the son who was possessed in the previous film is barely given a chance to explain is issues. I mean what I would have loved is if we saw what went on at the babysitter's or school. Add more character. While the story is interesting and one characters makes a welcome return the film does fall into cliche. The father becomes a raging lunatic (Jack Torrence of The Shining). And even the back story to the spirit in possession of the father's body is beyond disturbing, why would a mother want to make her boy act like a girl. How messed up can you get. I wanted to be scared. And at parts I was. But while the backstory held my interest the present issues were cliched, the moment when the baby sitter decides to drop the kids off back at home but not the baby???? Why keep the baby and not the kids, shouldn't all the kids stay at the baby-sitter's. Thats what I mean by we should have seen what happened at the sitter's. Could of added for more interesting drama.

The follow up is a descent enough follow-up.  In the end both the father and son go to have their memory of the events erased. Which makes no sense to me cause is that not how this whole thing started in the first place. I mean the spirit that was in possession of the father's body did loose it's grasp on reality but other spirits could still, or maybe not. I'm getting ahead of myself, them forgetting means they no longer fly out of their bodies when they dream which then means that the spirits can't possesses their bodies.

As all series go a third is in the works, and like with poltergeist I believe only a small fraction of the original cast will return.

  I wanted to talk about another issue I feel may have meaning to the difference in quality, story wise, to the first film. Me, the first film didn't really scare me, but it had a great sense of atmosphere and it was a simple story with a stellar twist. I feel with James Wan (the director) moving on to bigger projects (The Conjuring, Fast 7) Leigh might of felt he was being left behind, maybe a little jealous. So maybe he wanted to tell his own story here, or ruin it so much that James would not come back. Already, plans are under way for the sequel and only Leigh has signed on again as writer. Yes, James is now going to be busy with Fast 7 and I am going to go see it. But I do wonder if Leigh isn't jealous of James' star going up and his still down there with Jigsaw and the puppets. Just a thought.

On a final note I would say to check this film out, its not bad. The story isn't as simple or scary as the first one but the back story is interesting enough and the actors don't hold back, the performances are really good and strong. And, I actually am excited about a third chapter. I think it should tie the franchise up with the spirit of the first film coming back for Dalton.

I give chapter 2 a 3 1/2 out of 5.

More horror reviews / art / topics / articles Coming soon

I have been meaning to do more on this site, it is hard trying to run 4-5 blogs but fun as well. My next review will be of the upcoming movie Riddick. I'll be doing a movie marathon and post my comments/reviews of the previous Riddick films.

Guess who's baaaack!

You're Next

It's been a while since I have seen a decent horror film, the last great one being The Conjuring. Just last week I saw You're Next, a very interesting take of home invasion horror.

Now there have been many home invasion movies in the past, The Strangers and Panic Room. But what I found You're Next was able to do was add in some tongue and cheek humour, like Wes Craven's Scream.

The story is simple, a family comes together to celebrate the anniversary of the parents marriage. From there we get interactions between the family members up until the big fight at the dinner table and the beginning of the end for the family.

The cast is full of mostly unknowns, which is a good thing cause then no one over shadows anybody but also a little underwhelming because some of the cast are not to great in the acting category. Not so terrible that you would notice but not so great that you grow a liking to the character. The main reason I wanted to check this out, well two reasons actually.

One, Sharni Vinson. She might sound unfamiliar but if you loved the step up franchise you may recognize her from the series first 3D instalment. She has a terrific part in the movie coming into the family with a truly secret past, she was raised in the belief that the world was going to come to an end. So she learned a lot of how to survive through her father as he taught her some very handy skills on making traps and killing pray.

The other reason was the costumes of the bad guys. I am a huge fan of Furry art (anthropomorphic characters) and when I saw the bad guys in the movie wearing wolf and sheep masks, it hooked me immediately.

 What was real good in this film, similar to what conspires in Panic Room, is that the victims start to hunt the hunters eventually culminating in the victim turning into a full blown killer with no remorse.

We come to the final moment when our female heroine comes face to face with the true bad guy. He confesses he does not like killing people but sought to make sure she was not harmed. That is something that can not be avoided seeing as she didn't know and went on to killing the bad guys leading them to decide to kill her off anyways. She then goes off and kills him. He asks why? Her reply, "Why the f$#k not?"

Thus the ending, it is fantastic. The cops finally do arrive only to have something awful happen to them in the end.

The kills in the film were very creative and there was a jump scare or two that made me shoot out of my seat. And I am telling you that made me real impressed with this film.

With a smart script, nifty villains and a heroine who knows how to take out the trash You're Next really nails its title and gives its audience one of the best cheeky horror films since Scream.

4 1/2 out of 5.

You're Next

Review Coming Soon 

The Conjuring 2

My thoughts on James' new film, The Conjuring, is that its one of the few horror movies out their that really gave me the chills. For a follow up I'd love for the filmmakers to take the chance at readapting the Amityville horror story, incorporating the warrens of course. Not sure if it should be based on the actual story, cause really who know's what, if anything, actually happened. And to get out of cliche, some elements may have to be changed in order for it to be more original.

Welcome

Welcome one and all to my new blog of horror. On this blog I will be talking of the latest in horror ranging from music, video games, books, comic books, television serials and movies.