The Conjuring (2013)

GENERAL INFO:
Director:  James Wan
Studios:  Warner Bros., New Line Cinema
Starring:  Vera Farmiga, Lili Taylor, Patrick Wilson, Ron Livingston
Tagline:  Based on the True Case Files of the Warrens
MPAA Rating:  R
Genre:  horror, thriller, family drama, haunting, possession, exorcism, witch, ghost
Scare score:  A
Rating:  A

Plot overview:  After moving into a historic home in a small Rhode Island town, the Perron family is hoping for an easy transition and a fresh start.  Shortly after moving into the house, however, strange events begin plaguing the family such as the persistent smell of rotting meat, bruises appearing all over wife Carolyn's (Taylor) body, unexplained sounds, and broken objects throughout the house.  Things become worse when husband Roger (Livingston) has to go away for a few days, as both Carolyn and several of her five daughters witness the horrifying presence of various spirits in the house.  Desperate for help as the haunting worsens, the Perrons call acclaimed paranormal investigators Ed Warren (Wilson) who is a demonologist and his clairvoyant wife Lorraine (Farmiga) to help them save their house and family.

Now back before my days writing The Horror Blog, I would have considered going to the movies by myself to be an unthinkable act of social embarrassment.  However, this summer helped me prove my dedication to horror movies as I was compelled not once but twice to go see a horror movie alone during its premiere weekend.  It's not my fault if my friends are too scared; it simply had to be done.  You'd think Horror Buff's friends would have thicker-skin.  Alas, that's not the case.

The Conjuring was the first of these movies (the second was Insidious: Chapter 2 so I mean I can't complain about my choices).  Now of course your opinion of any film is going to be influenced by the environment in which you see it.  Unfortunately for me, instead of going to see this movie, say, late at night, or at a private showing, or even with friends, I saw it by myself at 7:30 on a Saturday evening in a completely full movie theater which had several children and one baby in the audience.  Yes, a baby was carried in after the film already started, at which point the family had to sit in the FIRST ROW.  That instance of bad parenting was probably scarier than the movie itself.  Aside from the general situation, this was a talkative audience (the baby, it should be noted, never made a peep).  I however sat behind this couple that loved discussing every happening in the movie - this included the girlfriend trying to constantly guess what was going to happen next (she was never right.  Not once), and when her boyfriend wouldn't respond she'd just try making out with him.  Otherwise the audience laughed too loudly at all the funny moments in the movie, but they'd also laugh at things that weren't funny, which certainly made it less scary.  At scary (or not scary) parts, this talkative audience would also react with screams or jumps, which makes a movie-going experience more positive.  As several months have passed, though, I'm just re-watching the movie now alone in my apartment to get a better feel for the terror.  PS it's working.

My first reaction when I started seeing trailers for this movie last spring was "I need to see this."  My second reaction, however, was that it all seemed a little too over-the-top.  Here we had James Wan and half his cast from Insidious (which I blogged about a year ago today; where does the time go?) thrown together into trailers which looked like somebody went into a horror movie props room in Hollywood and took everything they could carry.  Like seriously, in a 2 minute trailer alone we saw scary dolls (aka the girlfriend of Billy the Puppet), scary witches, pasty dismembered hands, people covered in sheets, a swarm of crows circling the house, women hanged from trees- the list goes on.  That being said, I went into this movie expecting it to be cliche and misguided.

As per usual, let's start at the very beginning.  "Base on a true story."  You know how I feel about these words.  You know that they turn me into a skeptic and put an almost automatic frown onto my face.  While I still really enjoyed this film, I naturally did lots of research on the Warrens immediately following the movie as I stayed to see if anything funky happened in the credits (nothing did), and the whole Perron case is pretty changed here.  According to real accounts from the Perrons, their house was filled with both friendly and malicious spirits, some of which would play with the children and tuck them in at night.  I guess we missed out on those friendly ghouls as the film opted to stick to the pure terror.

Next up: Annabelle.  The allegedly creepy doll.  I want to know if James Wan designed this little lady like he did Billy, the doll on the bike in the Saw movies, who to be fair I think is a creepy looking dude.  Annabelle isn't looking too well herself, but these two definitely have traits in common which makes me wonder.  The prologue to the movie felt random to me, like a B-feature way to scare people/ set the tone for a totally different plot.  Hours later when Annabelle comes back into the storyline I think I let out an audible, unamused "Ha" to welcome her back.  Needless to say, I hate loud pounding, and the prologue was therefore pretty discomforting as far as the physics-defying doll's display, which then led us into a comfy classroom setting to introduce us to this movie's equivalent to Insidious's Elise, the loving and easy-to-love Warren duo.  Then cue the spectacular title sequence - the font, the script, the yellow on black, the whole look of the title sequence was really fantastic and took us back to the '70s.  It reminded me a bit of the look of The Amityville Horror, which this movie pays homage to due to the involvement of the Warrens in both cases.

*SPOILER ALERT*

I like the scene where we first meet the Perron family because the cameras are already inside the house, making the viewer one with the spirits who eagerly wait inside for their new prey.  Still, we have some pretty slow-moving rising action and introduction to the peculiarities of the house such as a cellar filled with haunted I mean beautiful antiques (omg surprise basement!  Plus square footage on our next refinancing!), a totally ominous tree outback with an old abandoned toy, and clocks that stop in the early hours of the morning.  It isn't until about half an hour into the film that we actually start to get scared by the "clap hands" game between Carolyn and youngest daughter April (Kyla Deaver).  Quick side note- who in their right mind lets their children walk around a completely unfamiliar home blindfolded when it is still covered in unpacked furniture and boxes?  Hello safety hazard.  Immediately following that scare is the invisible but pretty convincingly scary night haunting sequence starring middle daughters Christine (future major celeb Joey King) and Nancy (Hayley McFarland).  Immediately following that scare is Caroyln's big intro into the true terrors of her house - including the scene that we were all perhaps most looking forward to from the trailers.  And then, as if we hadn't been scared enough, remaining daughters Cindy (Mackenzie Foy) and Andrea (Shanley Caswell) are witnesses to a malicious demon.  Like enough already!  This haunting is truly a family affair (minus daddy who is away being a trucker).  After that, the movie slows down again to build up the plot behind the terror and draw us into a false sense of safety as we are readied for the oncoming barrage of horror.

I remember the first time I saw this movie I was caught up by the many transitions between normal life and the hauntings that sometimes distract us from the fluidity of the plot, which I guess it pretty typical of haunting movies with the contrast between night and day.  This time around, though, everything felt much more normal.  The way this film is set up, we get a nice balance of crowd-pleasing scares and plot, both of which keep us content.  The scares in this movie are really great and really scary.  There is an older feeling about them, just your classic scares that you know are coming up, yet they still manage to make you jump.  As far as special effects, this film doesn't depend on them like a lot of modern horror does, but what is does do it does well.  I was constantly surprised by the excellent transitions at the end of the film when Carolyn is possessed- her changing face was so disgusting, and then in a second it would be back to normal.  Cool stuff.

Even though this movie relies on old school scares, and even though it might easily remind us of flicks like Insidious, The Exorcist, and Poltergeist (that brief scene with TV static was not for naught), it really is its own film entirely, and through a strange mixture that's heavy on some cliches, it manages to create an entirely new element.  Mind you, Wan really goes for broke on the whole "sometimes it's not just a house that's haunted" when the Warrens oh so matter-of-factly explain that these dark entities have latched themselves onto the Perrons themselves.  This seems to be a new trend developing in horror, but hey, I'm happy with it.  The ghosts are equally disgusting and frightening (with impeccable timing and makeup), and we have to give a shout out to our main girl Bathsheba who is played by none other than composer Joseph Bishara - who you could tell from the get go with the strings in the opening piece is also the composer of either Insidious film.  Who knew he would make a ghost equally as terrifying as his music?  One concept I ended up liking about this film was the very thing I went in doubting - the seemingly over-the-top use of scary items and motifs.  By the end of the movie, I had come to really appreciate the room in the Warrens' house filled with possessed or otherwise dangerous items.  Not only was Rory's toy a good idea for possible marketing (like either previously mentioned doll), but it was so darn creepy.  Right up until the last second of the film, we were all expecting that music box to show us something horrible.

The acting in this movie is alright.  I didn't really like Lili Taylor in The Haunting, and she's virtually unchanged here.  Her portrayal of a mother possessed is much more convincing than her happy-go-lucky wife and mother.  I like Ron Livingston as a pretty believable American dad, but I liked him better as Lt. Nixon.  You can't win 'em all.  To me, the biggest disappointment was Patrick Wilson who I genuinely liked in the Insidious films.  When it comes to his portrayal of Ed Warren, is he even really acting that well?  I get that these people are intelligent, well-versed, and experienced, but he delivers all of his lines so curtly and coldly as if the things he revealed about demons and paranormal activity were things we should have learned in kindergarten.  On the other hand, I did really enjoy Farmiga's (older sis of Taissa who's our new star in American Horror Story: Coven!) performance as the sincere, kind, and clairvoyant Lorraine.  It's tough when you have a kind of all-powerful character like this, who again is so similar to Insidious' Elise, because they're very easy to like.  Aside from her personality, I thought that Farmiga brought us a very powerful delivery- convincingly showing us her roles as wife, lover, mother, and helper.  As for the 5 daughters, I wasn't convinced that they were actually sisters or a family, but in their various moments in the spotlight they each did a good job.  If you haven't seen the comedy-horror Detention starring Caswell in a role equal in teen angst to that of Andrea, you're in for an impeccably-written treat.  I really didn't like King in the various nighttime sequences when she unconvincingly tried convincing us that she thought her sister was pulling her leg (literally) and passing wind (euphemistically), but by the end when she seemed truly terrified in car she won me back.  To tell you the truth, I thought that Cindy was the one who was going to be possessed because I mean, just watch her throughout the movie- girl is so freaky.  The various scenes of here looking legitimately evil had to be done on purpose as a red herring.  Kyla Deaver as April was simply too young, and while she was a total cutie, her lines sounded, well, like memorized lines.  As for Nancy... uh, E for effort? #middlechild

Final critique:  Ultimately, this movie amounts to scare after scare thrown at us until we can't handle any more.  Naturally, I love that.  To the film's credit, the plot itself is neat, and while I went into this fearing it would be all over the place, everything sort of manages to tie itself together.  After seeing it during its opening weekend this past July, this film immediately shot its way high up on my list of horror favorites, and I would easily recommend it to anybody.  Well- if you scare easily, if you have nightmares after horror movies, or if you have a weak heart, stay away.  This is a truly scary movie for general audiences; it's also well thought out, delivers on its promises, and has heart to boot.

The Invisible Man (1933)

GENERAL INFO:
Director:  James Whale
Studios:  Universal Pictures
Starring:  Claude Rains, Gloria Stuart
Tagline:  H.G. Wells' Fantastic Sensation
MPAA Rating:  Unrated
Genre:  horror, terror, science fiction, mad scientist, classic, Universal Horror, black and white
Scare score:  D-
Rating:  C

Plot overview:  While trying to perfect a chemical concoction causing invisibility, Dr. Jack Griffin (Rains) goes beyond the bounds of scientific ethics and winds up an invisible madman.  As the drugs begin to affect him more and more, Griffin wrecks terror around the English countryside and ultimately coerces his coworker Dr. Kemp (William Harrigan) to assist him in a plot to become the most powerful man in the world.  Before it's too late, Jack's love interest, Flora Cranley (Stuart) and her father, Jack's employer, Dr. Cranley (Henry Travers) will try and bring him back to sanity and save him from his own plot.

This is of course a timeless horror and sci-fi classic with dozens of spin offs and references in popular culture, boosting the Invisible Man to the ranks of Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, the Wolf Man, and the rest of the crew.  I think the interesting this about this fast-moving film is the strange mix of humor, madness, and thrills.  While the innkeepers Mr. (Forrester Harvey) and Mrs. Hall (Una O'Connor) partially drove me insane, especially the latter with her uncanny, shrill voice, they also made the movie a lot lighter, considering the plot.  While all of the title characters of Universal Horrors are indeed monsters, audiences have found likable or forgivable traits in many of them (the Phantom and Frankenstein's monster are just lonely, right?)  On the other hand, here we have Dr. Jack Griffin, who as the mean, rude, and crazed Invisible Man is perhaps one of the most annoying main characters in horror.  The effects of the monocane are pretty obvious here considering what a lunatic this guy's become; too bad Cranley never mentions the drug's other side effects include being a huge bully.  The guy is just so dislikable, we can't help but cheer on the ending - or, uh, hope for a happier one.

The other striking thing to me about this movie is all the big names.  You gotta love a Hollywood classic like this simply because of the familiar faces: the Invisible Man?  Oh, you mean that nice but corrupt guy in Casablanca.  The beautiful, forgiving although naive Flora?  No, no, you mean the elderly Rose Dawson Calvert.  Wasn't she a dish?  And who could forget her dad?  Not a single Christmas is complete for Horror Buff without watching Dr. Cranley portray that lovable angel in It's A Wonderful Life.

As far as supporting characters, both the innkeeper man and his wife can be seen in other horror classics such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Wolf Man (both from 1941) as well as the Frankenstein franchise of the 1930s.  If you pay close enough attention to the extras you'll see a future Academy Award winner, the real-life father of Bill from Kill Bill, as well as other familiar faces from other horror classics of the time.

This movie is a really quick watch, and while you'll find yourself simply hating the Invisible Man himself early in the film (learn some manners), it's a classic that will fit right into your afternoon horror movie marathon.  There is a lot of comedy in this film, from the scenes at the inn to all the bumbling police in their attempt to catch a man they cannot see.  I also did enjoy a lot of the special effects of things being thrown around and knocked over by the invisible doctor.

Final critique:  I don't love this film, but it's a harmless classic that I would easily recommend to viewers.  You could honestly squeeze this into an hour with a bowl of popcorn and someone cute cuddled up next to you on the sofa.  If you're looking for scares, The Invisible Man is certainly not the movie you're looking for, but it is a cultural and cinematic icon (with a really great poster!) that's sure to make you smile.

The Mummy (1932)

GENERAL INFO:
Director:  Karl Freund
Studios:  Universal Studios
Starring:  Boris Karloff, Zita Johann, David Manners
Tagline:  It Comes to Life!
MPAA Rating:  Unrated
Genre:  horror, terror, mummy, thriller, classic, Universal Horror, black and white,
Scare score:  D-
Rating:  B-

Plot overview:  During a tomb excavation in 1921 Egypt, Sir Joseph Whemple (Arthur Byron) and assistant Ralph (Bramwell Fletcher) find the mummy of the priest Imhotep (Karloff) who was mummified alive for his insolence.  After reading aloud the ancient Scroll of Thoth, Ralph accidentally resurrects the wrathful Imhotep who then walks out of his tomb, driving Ralph insane.  The mystery of the missing mummy continues for ten years, when a suspicious Egyptian man named Ardath Bey arrives at the home of Sir Joseph, instructing his son Frank (Manners) where he can find the tomb of the princess Ankh-es-en-amun - who, unbeknownst to Frank was Imhotep's great love.  When this new mummy and her treasures are donated to the Cairo Museum, Ardath Bey sets out to resurrect the princess, who he thinks is living reincarnated as the socialite Helen Grosvenor (Johann).  Will Frank, who is also infatuated with the beautiful Helen, be able to save her from the ancient mummy and his murderous plot?

This is a staple in the horror genre, a classic of classics right up there in the ranks of Dracula, The Wolf Man, and the Frankenstein franchise of the 1930s which also stars Karloff as the monster (aka Horror Buff's prof pic).  Of course most of this has to do with the casting of Karloff, who was a mere year out of his best known role as the aforementioned monster, which means here we're catching him in the early stages of his rise to becoming the king of horror.  Lest we forget the shout out for Edward Van Sloan in the role of Dr. Muller - the doctor who won't be fooled by Ardath Bey's scheming.  As you'll read anywhere, he is a well-known contemporary of Karloff, familiar in his various (but similar) roles as a doctor in Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy.  Typecast, much?

The downside of being a staple of classic horror - even if you are from a beautiful and glamorous time in Hollywood that Horror Buff wishes he had been around for - means that you're probably not scary by today's standards.  Like not one bit.  Such is the curse of classic horror.  Just think, in 80 years, the Saw franchise and Human Centipede 2 (which I will not be blogging about because it frustrated me too much to try and watch) will be considered weak and puritanical!

But just because this movie isn't scary doesn't mean that it's not worth watching.  In fact, the best thing about these classics is that they are quick and easy watches such that you could knock out three in an afternoon for a classic horror movie marathon and still go out at night to rage/ trick or treat/ whatever you're into.  There is nothing better on a lazy fall afternoon/night than watching horror movies.  Trust me.  Having a cool social life is a close 2nd.  Fall activities like pumpkins and apples and fall flavored foods and walking around Central Park are also up there on the list.  Sorry, I'm back in Europe and have none of these things, which makes my Halloween season just a little less fun.

Let's start at the beginning.  The poster for this movie is really beautiful.  I would love to have that framed in my room at some point.  Also, this movie is just plain iconic - like who hasn't seen this image of Karloff as the Mummy, even if they didn't know who he was or what movie this was from?  I can't stress enough how movies like this represent a beautiful, golden age when cinema  and horror movies were filled with romance, shocking audiences for the very first time.  The score of the movie was filled with some nice pieces, though I admit being really surprised to find that the opening number was Tchaikovsky (my favorite piece of his, actually, from the finale of Swan Lake).  Later on, however, we're treated to mystical, sweeping pieces of what Hollywood has made us associate with Egypt and the Middle East - there are very few things I like more in movie scores than romantic music such as this.  Throughout the film, the soundtrack is used as a tool to provide suspense when otherwise nothing is happening on screen.

Acting is alright.  Karloff is a little stiff - ho ho ho - but I think he was just taking his role very seriously.  Which is good of him.  I liked Johann a lot, I thought she had this really exotic beauty going for her, and while she was reminiscent of many other Hollywood actresses at the time, I liked her in this role.  The movie's biggest fault is perhaps all the deleted scenes - there are absolute holes in the plot that might be easy to overlook while watching, but as the movie ends we're aware that something or some things were just missing from the fluidity of the film.  These would have showed us a lot more of Johann's skill, and it also would have developed more crucial chemistry between Karloff and Johann's characters that I really thought was absent from the film.

The set was impressive and romantic, and it really took us away to 1920s/30s as well as ancient Egypt. I think honestly that in this time period, film makers were perhaps not as focused on the horror as they were on simply taking the audience away to another place and time, as well as providing a few thrills along the way.  Something that they definitely do in a good, wholesome, old-fashioned way.

Final critique:  This is a standard horror classic.  The thrills aren't comparable by today's standards - they rely more on sudden shots of piercing, angry eyes, or slow shots of the mummy's burial cloth being dragged off screen.  Still, there is a pretty albeit underdeveloped plot that keeps us pretty entertained throughout the course of this short movie.  Perfectly recommendable for a horror movie marathon, for viewers who can't put up with big scares, or for a lazy October afternoon.  Enjoy.

The Gate (1987)

GENERAL INFO:

Director:  Tibor Takács
Studios:  New Century Entertainment Corporation, Vista Organisation
Starring:  Stephen Dorff, Louis Tripp, Christa Denton
Tagline:  There's a Passageway - A Gate Behind Which the Demons Wait to Take Back What Was Once Theirs - Pray it's Not Too Late
MPAA Rating:  PG-13
Genre:  horror, thriller, demons, teen
Scare score:  F
Rating:  D

Plot overview:  After opening up a gateway to hell in his backyard, preteen Glen (Dorff) will have to rely on the quirkiness of his friend Terry (Tripp) and the love of his older sister Al (Denton) to close the portal and save the earth.

This movie came recommended to me during a discussion about horror movie favorites, so needless to say I was surprised that it turned out to be such a corny, '80s horror flick.  Nonstop claymation is one thing, but then the irritating and bizarre Terry casting his negative influence on the likes of the innocent Glen is different.  And even though I don't hate claymation, those stupid demons got really annoying really fast.  The big demon wasn't what I was expecting either - I mean honestly this whole movie by today's standards is just heavily tainted by the advancements we've made in special effects in the past 25 years.

I found that the movie to be too predictable (like that big rocket? It's final purpose was clear to Horror Buff from the first time we saw it), with no depth whatsoever.  Also, the action of the film rose and fell too often and too suddenly without a clear goal.  It was exhausting to sit through all the times we thought things would go horribly wrong, only to return to boring, scare-less sequences.  The only thing that kept me watching this movie was (a) hoping that it would get better and (b) the fact that Stephen Dorff is so darn cute.  His last name is also humorously appropriate given his stature.  The fun, realistic brother/sister relationship was what kept this movie going - it was like seeing a pure, American family prior to the technological revolution of the '90s and 2000s.  Nowadays forget about this kind of stuff - no more model rockets, Al (called Allie) would be at the mall with those horrid but hot/popular sisters, texting and Tweeting away.  Terry would be a drug addict alone in his basement listen to Zeppelin backwards looking for demonic messages.  Where would that leave our Glen?  I'm afraid to know the answer.

*SPOILER ALERT* (not that anyone cares...)

It's always an interesting concept when a horror movie has only teenage characters (save the killer of course), which we've seen done a million times over and cleverly parodied in Cabin in the Woods (which I watched months ago and still haven't blogged about... who am I?).  When the horror movie is all about younger children though, that's a different and difficult task.  Like nobody is going to die here, check my rules regarding children, and it was only a matter of waiting for the demons to come out of the gate and then waiting for them to get sent back in again.  Nothing too special here.  In fact, aside from effects, I was more disappointed that the role of the big demon was so random both in terms of timing and purpose.  What was his purpose?? Did he have one?  That whole sequence was poorly done (the eyeball in Glen's hand?  Why?), although it was pretty awesome seeing the whole house fall apart like that.  That must have been really cool to film.

In terms of scares, I thought the best thing this movie had to offer was the scene in the basement when a zombie breaks out of the wall.  That took me by surprise.  *Finally, something decent.*

Final critique:  This movie is cute and all, and I certainly didn't hate it, but I wish I hadn't stayed up late to watch it and then went to work tired the next day.  I can understand why a kid might like this movie, and that if you had seen it enough times as a kid you might have fond memories of it later in life, but as far as horror goes these days, this movie is far too stuck in the '80s.

American Horror Story - S3, E1 (2013)

"Bitchcraft"

GENERAL INFO:
Creators:  Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk
Producers:  20th Century Fox
Channel:  FX
Starring:  Taissa Farmiga, Jessica Lange, Emma Roberts, Kathy Bates, Jamie Brewer, Gabourey Sidibe, Sara Paulson, Evan Peters; ft. Frances Conroy, Lily Rabe, Angela Bassett, Denis O'Hare
TV Rating:  MA LSV
Genre:  television, horror, thriller, drama, witches, magic, Voodoo
Scare score:  D
Rating:  A

(Still not sure about what poster I want to use...)

Plot overview:  In the premiere of the anthology's third season, we are introduced to Zoe Benson (Farmiga), a normal teenage girl whose life changes when her boyfriend inexplicably dies while they have sex for the first time.  Her mother then reveals to her that she is a witch and that this gene or "affliction" runs in their family.  She is promptly taken away by a quirky escort (Conroy) to the all-girls, New Orleans finishing school Miss Robichaux's Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies - a safe haven and training ground for young witches - where she is introduced to her fellow students: the vengeful and self-centered but lonely movie starlet Madison Montgomery (Roberts), sassy human voodoo doll Queenie (Sidibe), and the kind, clairvoyant Nan (Bower).  The headmistress is the cautious Cordelia Foxx (Paulson), whose attempt to safely develop (or suppress) the girls' powers is challenged by her newly arrived mother Fiona (Lange), the reigning Supreme of all witches, who tells the girls that if they don't fight, they burn.  While the students struggle with their powers, their relationships, and their identities, Cordelia and Fiona will have to deal with their contrasting views of witchcraft as well as their own familial estrangement, which comes second to Fiona's own obsession with trying to regain youth and vitality, an ordeal that will surely take her to the dark sides of witchcraft and New Orleans Voodoo.

I was blown away by the premiere of AHS: Coven, no more effortlessly drawn back into the dark glamour and creative terror of the anthology than the effort it took me to Google "watch american horror story coven online free".  There is so much to talk about, I'm going to have to try to focus myself here.  First and foremost, we can't ignore that Season 1 took place inside the home, Season 2 a church-run asylum, and now Season 3 a school.  Institutions.  America.  Horror.

What should of course captivate the viewer is the strong acting that is already evident.  While American Horror Story is known for wild, winding plots and of course it's famed smorgasbord of horrible, gory images, with snapshots of sex and death, murder and blood, relationships and dismemberment thrown at us like paint in a Jackson Pollock piece, I have to say that the great acting serves somewhat as an anchor, a harbor of sorts that maintains pace throughout the show's twisting and turning plots while simultaneously taking us into darker places of the human spirit.  I am thrilled to have Taissa Farmiga back this season, and while she expertly plays the marginalized, angsty teenager I see her as someone totally different than Violet from Season 1, who I easily got sick of.  Zoe on the other hand is somebody I want to see more of and learn more about, like a kind, sane soul in this wacky world of witchcraft.  The one thing I didn't like was her blunt, anticlimactic "So I'm a witch" bit in her otherwise well-written opening explanation sequence on the train.

Surrounding her is a cast of extremely diverse, talented women.  I was really pleased with the intricate characters of Madison, Queenie, and Nan, who I also hope to see more of, but by reading various pages about the show I see that not all of them are considered to be main characters this season, so we'll have to see how that plays out.  Also, I'm going to call it now, but I really wouldn't be surprised to see one of these young ladies die throughout the course of the season - okay, okay, I get that with this show (which has been known to kill off the entire cast) that calling this prediction isn't a big deal, but we'll just wait and see.

*SPOILER ALERT*

The dynamic between Delia and Fiona adds a different layer to this show.  I think the most obvious motif we've seen so far this season is femininity and feminine identity: the relationship between mothers and daughters, girls and their boyfriends, girls and their girl friends, and the identity of witches within modern as well as (briefly) 17th and 19th century American society.

But really- where are all the guys at?  I know that we're to expect several love interests, and I highly doubt that Evan Peters in the role of good-hearted frat boy on a scholarship is actually dead.  Let's talk about this really quickly: my first question is what the heck is up with his accent?  He and Lange went all out on the Massachusetts/ Boston accent last season and this time around I'm just not even sure what he's throwing at us.  It is certainly similar in some aspects to last season's accent, but then there is I guess a Louisiana drawl added in?  Or not?  I have never been to New Orleans, so I don't know how they talk, but his accent was just wild.  I know he mentions his mom lives/d in the 9th Ward, so I guess we're made to expect he's a local boy.  Anyway, I love that he and Taissa have been reunited.  That's a beautiful thing about this anthology, how characters come back and relationships and loves can be reincarnated across time and space.  While watching the scene where Violet and Tate - I mean Zoe and Kyle - see each other through the ice luge/ sculpture - it reminded me of Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet and there was just so much romance.  For a girl who will never know 'true' love, we'll have to see where Zoe goes with this one!  My next question is what's up with Spalding (O'Hare), the creepy butler straight out of Scary Movie 2?  There's definitely more to that story.  I'm not convinced that this is the last we'll see of Lily Rabe either.

Lange is very interesting this season.  While I wasn't 100% convinced by her plentiful pop culture references (the words "Facebook," "Twitter," and "Hogwarts" sounded so odd coming out of her mouth - but the last once cracked me up), she was a blast to watch in her various moods: desperate to attain a youth serum, drugged up and dancing, or glamorous queen-of-the-damned leading the young witches on their field trip.  If she's either good or bad this season, it's too soon to tell.  I love that we see these kind, young witches under close watch and protection, but then the devil-may-care attitude of Lange makes us question: what happens when the Supreme isn't focused on the well-being but rather the survival of her kind (with much more selfish motives)?  I'm also forced to question the role of her withdrawn daughter Delia, a woman who seems friendly for now but could be capable of much more.  Anywho, Lange's outfits and scene entrances were expertly done.  Her Mary Todd Lincoln joke had me laughing out loud.  Where will this mother-daughter duo take us?  Only time will tell.

We've known for a while now that the big star of the season was Oscar-winning Kathy Bates, brought to us as an anachronistic Madame LaLaurie who has somehow achieved eternal (or very long) life.  I thought she had the best delivery in the entire episode; she was crazed, unfeeling, and cruel - and yet somehow entirely different from horror hall of fame character Annie in Stephen King's Misery.  We become witnesses to her based-on-real-life horrors (which AHS has taken some liberty with), and considering that her finals years are unaccounted for, it's a fun twist to pretend that she's been around all this time.  I'm extremely excited to see how evil she remains in the present day, as well as her relationship with Fiona.  Same goes for the storyline we'll see involving the passionate, conniving, and sensual Angela Bassett as New Orleans favorite Marie Laveau.  It's little touches like these real-life characters that make American Horror Story American.

The first episode of the season has already provided us with the show's signature touch of a mix between real and fanciful horror: the true accounts of Madame LaLaurie's mutilation of her slaves, human objectification and revenge, Voodoo, self-discovery and fear of who we are/ might become in society, alienation from parents and families, gang rape and drug/ drinking culture in fraternities and universities, fear of being different, mob psychology, and of course witchcraft.  Before I saw the episode I kept reading how grossed out people were after 'the first five minutes,' so needless to say I was pretty uh disappointed?  This episode wasn't scary.  I mean it's tough for an ongoing, broadcasted show to really be scary, but I guess at least it's making horror more mainstream.  Considering that this was a record-breaker in terms of number of viewers for American Horror Story (congrats!), we can at least rest assured that more and more people are getting into the horror genre.

Lastly but not least, I am in love with the musical theme of this show, the simple "la la lala lala" that follows us throughout.  It's so easy, so good. By the end of last season, I was already sick of the pulsating, static sounds of the opening sequence.

Final critique:  Where will this season take us?  We have so far a compelling story about a multitude of female relationships, and I expect to see more strong female characters as the season adds on old favorites like Frances Conroy and Alex Breckenridge as well as new stars like Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole (should we expect more musical numbers this season?)  I can only expect human resurrection, religious persecution, love, hate, and self discovery in the newest edition of this anthology that is easily winning the horror-loving hearts of Americans and viewers worldwide.

The Omen (1976)

Okay, so we're approaching mid-October - acclaimed Month of Horror - and here I am without a single entry.  I've just recently moved abroad again, hence the long period of delay, but that's all soon to change.  After all, it's October.  Soon you'll be sick of me - just kidding, that could never happen.

GENERAL INFO:
Director:  Richard Donner
Studios:  Twentieth Century Fox
Starring:  Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, Harvey Stephens, David Warner, Billie Whitelaw
Tagline:  You Have Been Warned.
MPAA Rating:  R
Genre:  horror, terror, suspense, thriller, devil, spawn of satan, religious occult, family drama
Scare Score:  B
Rating:  A

Plot overview:  After Robert Thorn (Peck), the American Ambassador to Rome, learns that his child died at birth, a quirky priest (Martin Benson) urges him to unofficially adopt another newborn whose mother has just died.  Thorn does this without ever telling his wife, Katherine (Remick).  Beginning with the child Damien's (Stephens) 5th birthday party, terrible events begin plaguing the family including the suicide of his nanny, the appearance of a terribly threatening black dog, and overall inexplicable behavioral problems.  Katherine begins to feeling more uneasy around her 'son' as well as the new, intense nanny Mrs. Baylock (Whitelaw).  After a crazed priest (Patrick Troughton) and a well-researched photographer (Warner) begin contacting the Ambassador with religiously-based theories about Damien, a far greater evil than anyone could have expected begins to take its toll upon the world.

This is simply an excellent example of a classic, scary horror movie.  Throw some big names, a good plot, nightmare-inducing music, two or three scenes that make your blood rate go through the roof, and a general sense of pessimism together, and you are guaranteed a spooky sensation.  In fact, if someone were to casually ask me to recommend some good horror movies to them, I bet you that the original The Omen would be one of the first movies I mention.  Known for it's haunting, award-winning score by Jerry Goldsmith (Poltergeist, The Haunting [which I've seen like three times in the past year and still haven't blogged about], and Magic [which is such a good movie and deserves a blog post soon]) as well as that pesky little Damien who's just so easy to hate, The Omen has been scaring young and old horror fans alike for almost 40 years.

The opening credits are scary.  The Latin chants/ yelling that you don't understand yet you somehow know is about the devil are perfect.  Within the first minute, the tone is set for the entire movie.  Seemingly innocent priests and babies turn into men and boy-creatures gone horribly astray in terrible plots to destroy mankind.  A seemingly cute little kid with baby fat suddenly gains all your hatred and breaks the fourth wall like he's some kind of boss.  Like who do you think you are?  The son of satan?  Oh, wait...

The acting in this moving is pretty good, as in I wasn't distracting by the acting, but it wasn't convincing either.  Here we have Greg Peck - a god among actors and men - but is he really that great here?  Are we too hung up on Atticus to realize that the Ambassador is a completely static character this entire movie?  Robert Thorn: impassive, stern, critical, tough-skinned.  Like sure he loves Katherine, but he is never excited, never happy, and never even really sad.  The only time he gets somewhat expressive is on a street in Israel when he supposedly has this moment of clarity and human compassion, shortly before a somewhat unfounded change of heart.  Like really G-Peck?  What's going on here?

Still I love the guy, so I wasn't too critical.  What I really had a problem with, however, was the family dynamic here.  We various 'families' here, not only within the Thorn family of husband and wife vs. 'son,' but I guess a little healthy rivalry between the Big Man and JC vs. the devil and his widdle baby.  Unfortunately, the Robert/Katherine-Damien dynamic is the least believable "family" I've ever seen.  And I'm not just talking about after Katherine begins to have bad dreams and feelings about Damien and then naturally distrusts him - I mean never once does either parent treat this kid like a normal parent would treat a 5-year-old.  They are so cold!  Does the kid even get kissed once?  His nannies are so much more devoted to him (as they both prove) - quick side note: the birthday party scene is just so good.  Like that nanny calling out to Damien before her big act.  Love it.  - back to the dysfunctional family.  At no point does G-Peck convince me that he is the father of this child - okay, okay, so he's not, but don't you think you'd learn to like the kid?  He never actually does anything bad except throw a temper tantrum before mass and like whoops he accidentally rides his trike (ugh, guess it beat The Shining to it) into mommy.  Like sorry my bad, didn't you learn never to stand atop unstable tables?  But seriously- if you watch this movie and you focus on the family dynamics, you will be disappointed.  Call me crazy, but I consider that bad acting.

*SPOILER ALERT*

Switching to a positive point for this film: I think that David Warner's death is one of the best scenes in horror.  Like from early on we know he's going to die, most likely from decapitation.  I personally was expecting it to happen in the cemetery/ dog scene, but then we get this gem of a slow-mo in Israel.  Nothing can beat that.  But really, considering it was only 1976 and there were effects I didn't criticize- well that's just genial.  Lol I just used an adjective that sounds better in Spanish than in English.

Final Critque:  This is an excellent movie that I would recommend to any audience.  There is a terrifying score, acting, and plot- even if it ultimately centers around politics.  What could be more appropriate for our nations 200th anniversary than a horror movie where the spawn of satan is born into the sea of politics and the eventually the family of the President?  Viva la horror.

September Review

For your consideration:

1.  Awakening (2011): A
2.  Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013): A-
3.  The Possession (2012): B+
4.  An American Haunting (2005): D

Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)

At this point, I have learned how the word "insidious" applies to the plots of both movies.

GENERAL INFO:
Director:  James Wan
Studios:  IM Global, Entertainment One, Blumhouse Productions
Starring:  Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Steve Coulter, Leigh Whannell, Angus Sampson, Barbara Hershey, Lin Shaye
Tagline:  "It Will Take What You Love Most"
MPAA Rating:  PG-13
Genre:  horror, terror, thriller, drama, haunting, ghost, possession, family drama, sequel
Scare score:  B
Rating:  A-

Plot overview:  After the terrifying events of the first film, the Lambert family has moved into husband/ father Josh's (Wilson) childhood home.  When the haunting still does not stop, distrust grows strong between Josh and his wife Renai (Byrne), and tensions continue mounting.  With paranormal investigator Elise (Shaye) now dead following the events of the first movie, Renai and Lorraine (Hershey), Josh's mother, reach out to Carl (Coulter), a fellow medium and old friend of Elise.  Together, the family, Carl, and a team of paranormal investigators - Specs (Whannell) and Tucker (Sampson) - must return to the family's past in order to save its future, traveling through time, space, and The Further in order to do so.

Aptly released on Friday the 13th, we have here the long-awaited sequel to 2011's landmark Insidious.  Wan and Whannell have teamed up again to bring us this film, which picks up directly where the first movie left off.  In fact, as a warning to all viewers, if you have not seen/ do not have any previous knowledge of the first film, that's a much better place to start than this one.  You will most likely not understand any of this movie unless you see Insidious first.

That being said, I was pleasantly surprised with just how much of the first movie is included in this film.  They are very much like two puzzle pieces, with the first one perhaps being written/ shot to set up many sequences of this sequel.  This second one, however, does largely switch from a haunting theme focusing on external terrors to a domestic drama where much of the horror as been internalized.  I said this in my entry on Insidious last fall, and now I can confirm that this movie is very much focused on the family aspect of the Lambert's, with husband and wife now becoming estranged, Dalton (Ty Simpkins) is wide awake, baby Kali (Brynn and Madison Bowie) is growing up, and they have all moved in with grandma Lorraine.  Quick side note as far as the family is concerned: how cute is the other (non-astral-projecting) son Foster (Andrew Astor)?  That kid couldn't be cuter, and he is a talented child actor.  Way to go, kid.  Anywho, there was much less of a barrage of ghosts this time around, and instead we had a huge spike in physical confrontations, domestic violence, and also in dumb humor.  To draw in from fan favorites, in this second film there is much less Poltergeist while allusions to The Shining (daddy problems) and Psycho (mommy problems) become impossible to miss.  The perfect family is deconstructed through various generations, torn apart by loss, separation, and distrust; gender and identity roles become confused, the father is not always the hero and the mother is not always the victim with children saving parents and vice-versa.

What the Insidious movies certainly do right is the soundtrack (Joseph Bishara) and look.  Like yeah I guess the whole eerie violin and strings bit has been done before (Psycho), but it evolves here and the creative team was just not afraid to have that shrill sound up high and then bang the piano way down low.  This creates my favorite "boom" moments, starting with the title sequence of the movie; when they flash that big, red "INSIDIOUS" across the screen there's something truly ominous albeit campy about it.

*SPOILER ALERT*

Where as in the first film the action is centered around the Lambert family and Dalton's coma, this film is split up into multiple, simultaneous story lines with various acts of their own.  These can be described as: physical Josh's situation with him first trying to keep the voices out of his head and later with his attack upon his family; spiritual Josh's situation being first trapped in The Further and then venturing through it (and space and time) to save himself and his family; Specs and Tucker's life post-Elise and their eventual teaming up with Carl; and finally Renai's predicament, her work with Lorraine and Carl, and her protection of her children.

The first big split comes during the exposition after the introduction to the Lambert's current situation when we are suddenly switched to the light-hearted nature of the bumbling comic duo.  On account of Specs being played by screenwriter Leigh Whannell, I couldn't help but dislike some of this stupid humor, which wasn't quite '80s corniness but rather a flat, modern humor.  I can't help but picture Whannell sitting there writing and picturing these stupid jokes, typical of a cliche dumb duo (although both characters are intelligent investigators), and then in reality for audiences we have these two guys who are now 200% more important than they were in the first film, and their strange jokes merely provide an uncertain interlay between scarier sequences.  Admittedly, I did laugh at the "ninja, bear" bit, and I liked both characters very much.  In general, I was not crazy about Whannell's script, which felt very fake and unnatural to me throughout.

At times the splits made the film more confusing; I wasn't sure if a ghost was about to slap Renai unconscious or if Tucker was going to spill jelly doughnut on his shirt or hurt his testicles.  Am I worried about cross-dressing ghosts in The Further or about physical Josh screaming in the mirror and pulling out teeth?  One thing this divided script certainly did was break up the movie into lighter and darker parts, making it seem less scary in general, less serious, and certainly nowhere near as chock-full-of-thrills as the first installment.  Splitting up the movie this way also let many supporting actors step out of their shells and shine a bit more on screen such as our investigating duo, the children, Lorraine, and our new friend Carl.

In general I was surprised about the role of Renai.  In my post on the first film I comment on how she is depicted because while she is certainly strong, intelligent, and relentless in the protection of her family, she is a victim of her family and household situation.  We can assume that she is a stay-at-home mom by choice, which allows her to write music (when not being plagued by demons) which we can assume is her passion.  (How the family is getting enough money for all these great houses on Josh's teacher salary is beyond me).  Still, during the events of these movies (and even in peacetime) we can see her being stuck at home taking care of kids or doing domestic work.  Even the movie poster here shows her actively protecting her family with a domestic weapon, and the engagement ring is still flaunted.  She is by no means passive when it comes to helping Dalton in the first film and protecting all of the children in this one, but in both movies our main protagonist and then main antagonist, respectively, are played by Patrick Wilson.  Renai is a crucial, strong, and easy-to-like character with a strange balance of shock/ naiveté and just enough mother's/wife's intuition.  Also, she is wise from the ending of the first movie to the entity inside of her husband.  In this movie I was honestly very, very surprised at the amount of physical abuse she takes whether it's at the hand of a malicious spirit or her husband, be it a slap to the face or a teapot chucked at her head (my mouth dropped at that point).  It felt almost wrong to me to see so much realistic, domestic violence in this movie.  I mean we're talking about the writer of Saw so I guess it's no surprise- but at the same time in most horror movies we see supernatural, over-the-top gory violence that seems so unreal to us it becomes less realistically scary.  Instead here we see very real, terrible man-on-woman violence.  The distressed spirit possessing Josh doesn't even distinguish here between children and adults, making us fear for the safety of the baby and the children just as much if not more than the lives of Lorraine and Renai.  In this movie, Renai is ignored, isolated, haunted, hit, choked, and then beaten savagely before locking herself in the basement with her children, left to do nothing more than await her fate.  While the fate of the family is in the hands of the existential Josh, and while he must right the spiritual and physical wrongs (with some help), the role of Renai still feels too "victim-y" for me, and I would like to read a feminist review of the film, which in of itself is certainly heavy on psychosexual abuse and material.

The big star here is Patrick Wilson (who always reminds me of Will Arnett so it's hard for me to take him seriously) in a role that juxtaposes him from his hero status in the first film.  With creepy makeup and annoying smiles, physical Josh is easy to hate in this sequel.  The ending of the first movie tips us off that Josh perhaps hasn't returned from The Further, the realm which I believe the creative team really thinks is their trump card here.  I wasn't entirely on that bandwagon after the first movie, but I was so happy to see how the sequel utilized and even interpreted The Further, making it a timeless, spaceless place where entities are both anonymous and personal; a place of memory and forgotten pasts; a place where darkness consumes light.  Was the first film written with the events of the second film in mind?  Or did the team here just really put together the right amount of overlay, lapsing chronology and terror together?  I really loved all of the allusions to the first movie: the terrible banging on the front door, that alarm system going off, the long-haired fiend stalking the house - and now all of it has an explanation.  I could have done without Elise's "So that's what that was all about" moment, but I think she's the cutest thing (as I assume many viewers do as well; a Tangina Barrons type that we feel safe around and want to trust) so she is forgiven for Whannell's script.  Another question I do have about the time-traveling Further sequence is when spiritual Josh returns to young Josh during his first meeting with Elise, why is it that the Bride in Black "lives" in the basement?  Does every home happen to have a red door leading to The Further, visible to only astral projectors? Just wondering if there was any significance there.

Where as in the first movie I thought the sequences in The Further were over the top and even unnecessary, filling up time with suspense and no scares and then cartooning the red demon, I thought The Further really evolved in the sequel: what can't you do when the laws of physics and time no longer apply?  We saw some great visual stuff (the whole movie I thought was tastefully well done in an unsettling way; from the red stained-glass window of the house to the crowded, dark, Victorian rooms to Elise's cluttered reading room in the basement- beautiful and creepy stuff) with great colors, imagery, family issues, distressed souls, torture chambers... the list goes on.  Luckily the creepy rocking horses and dollhouses and bodies covered in sheets all applied to the plot this time without the need for mannequin, '50s families and other unnecessary frights.  Was that drawing young Parker (Tyler Griffin) makes (and is reprimanded for) also drawn by Wan using his left hand?  Looked like the same artist as Dalton's work in the first movie.

I really enjoyed the investigation into the Bride in Black as well as the entire subplot involved there.  I know that the whole forced cross-dressing bit received some laughs from my audience, but I do think it was a creepy and intriguing area to explore considering the psychological condition of old Parker (Tom Fitzpatrick) who I thought was very creepy.  Honestly I think it was great that this freaky old woman turned out to be a man; fun fact: she was played by a male actor in the first film as well.  For me, the abduction and killing of all these young girls in the past (great neighborhood) was really eerie; it employed a further sense of suburban terror.  It was also interesting in comparison that this film focused on two ghosts/ one ghost and one possession rather than the first movie's virtual carnival of souls.  The concept of this possession causing Josh's body to decay was pretty foul, and we enjoyed the strange, Norman Bates-like internal struggle of old Parker inside of Josh.  So many layers of fun.

The last thing really to comment on is the last scene of the movie.  Our dream team (minus Carl?) now seems to be doing regular cases with the spirit of Elise helping ward off malicious, insidious spirits from living humans.  I didn't love her shocked "Oh my God" face with nothing visual on our mere human end- did I miss something, maybe?  Was it a really scary demon only Elise could see?  Because there are rumors that you could heard that red demon making noises (and was he really that hard to defeat the first time around?  Loser.), but I didn't hear anything.  Just seemed like a very big, very obvious set up to a part three that might not happen, and that most likely won't be centered around the Lambert family.

Final critique:  I enjoyed this movie, and I think calling it "Chapter 2" is only appropriate as it is a direct continuation of the first film.  This installment would be very difficult to fully understand without seeing the first one, so go have a back-to-back horror movie night!  There are certainly less scares this time around, but there is more suspense built up in the plot and more (too much) physical violence between characters.  What's interesting to me is that where as in the first film the plot was more focused and the scares were random at time, in this movie the scares are more concentrated but the plot itself is more scattered into the various stories.  I thought the look and feel of this movie was great while the script and acting was on the poor side.  I would still love to see it again should anybody like to spot me $11 for another movie ticket.  Overall, a pretty fulfilling continuation of the events of the first movie.

The Horror Blog Turns 1

One year and fifty-four movies ago, our fearfathers brought forth on this internet, a new blog, conceived in Terror, and dedicated to the proposition that all horror movies are not created equal...

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Hey Horror Fans,

A year ago today I set out on a new cyber adventure, hoping to put all the time I spend/waste watching horror movies to good use.  All my life I have loved horror movies because even though they can be (and usually are) so weird, I love getting my heart rate up and taking the chance that something might actually scare me or gross me out; (un)fortunately, this doesn't happen very often.  Fear is a strange emotion in our world that many nameless souls might experience every day of their short lives, where as others will never know the true meaning of what terror is.  I personally am afraid of nothing more than ill health or unhappiness falling upon my friends and family, but I have to admit that after taking on this blog I keep more of an eye out for psychotic stalkers and malicious ghosts.  It's easy here in the northeast to get caught up in our busy day-to-day lives, experiencing stress from work, pleasure from free time, excitement during the workday, relaxation at night; yet all the strange and many in-between moments fall into a silent, emotionless drone that is our modern life.  Perhaps fear, then, is an older emotion; a shaking, empty feeling that many of us are lucky enough not to have to feel should we allow ourselves to remain confident and brave.  I am one of these people, but I guess that through horror movies I enjoy seeking the chance to actually get scared, to feel more alive and to question our capabilities as humans.  Then again, sometimes it's nice to just laugh at a dumb plot about hydro-sensitive aliens or pea soup-filled possessions, all of which are, of course, based on a true story.

That being said, thanks for visiting the Horror Blog once, or thanks for visiting whenever it suits your fancy.  I truly appreciate being able to document my thoughts on these horror movies and knowing that other people are actually reading (or accidentally visiting the page) from time to time.  Obviously horror movies aren't for everyone, and many times they are the neglected children of Hollywood.  Hopefully you have found this blog if you are one of the few who is able to appreciate the subtle scares and stupidities that make up our beloved genre of film.

Over the course of this next year I will try to blog more often, although I guess my average of about an entry a week isn't as bad as I thought it was.  Until then,

Stay scary,

-Horror Buff

An American Haunting (2005)

GENERAL INFO:
Director:  Courtney Solomon
Studios:  Allan Zeman Productions, Midsummer Films, Remstar Productions
Starring:  Rachel Hurd-Wood, Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek
Tagline:  Possessions Knows No Bounds
MPAA Rating:  PG-13
Genre:  horror, terror, thriller, drama, haunting, possession, surprise ending
Scare score:  D+
Rating:  D

Plot overview:  In present day Tennessee, a mother wakes her daughter from a nightmare, and then gets to reading a long note written by an ancestor.  Back in the early 1800s, the respectable John Bell (Sutherland) loses his good reputation after being accused of breaking church law by means of usury against his scornful neighbor, the supposed witch Kate Batts (Gaye Brown).  Kate then warns Bell to enjoy the health and happiness of his family, specifically his daughter Betsy (Hurd-Wood), while they still can.  Shortly thereafter a series of strange noises, moving objects, and other poltergeist-like behavior begin to both the Bell family.  Worse yet, Betsy begins suffering from night terrors and unexplainable, evil forces in the night, causing her to lose sleep.  As the situation grows worse, mother Lucy Bell (Spacek) and even the schoolteacher Richard Powell (James D'Arcy) try finding logical reasons to the happenings until they can only accept that this haunting has been brought on by some curse.  But is Kate Batts behind the terrible plague, or are sinners simply being brought to justice?

I was really rooting for this movie, but at the end it just didn't deliver.  While watching, I even realized that I had seen this movie or at least parts of it years ago on TV or something; not too memorable I guess.  Not much to say here, but here we go:

The whole movie is set up to appear to be a haunting coming from a curse placed upon the Bell family by the bitter neighbor who is also a witch.  There is some fun American superstition and history built in here - leave it to slaves to know details of how curses work I guess... - but I also found myself questioning some of the activities and items shown to be around in 1817 or whatever year this movie takes place.  What might draw a viewer to this movie is that good, wholesome, frontier setting.  The costumes and sets were interesting, but then the whole period issue really starting affecting the movie in my book.  I think what perhaps most prevents this movie from being scary is the fact that the characters in their bonnets and cravats become almost too cartoonish to really allow any terror to set in.  I liked Sissy Spacek as the mother, but everyone else was too weird, too ridiculous, even.  At times, it truly felt as though even the actors weren't buying it.  I was especially bugged by Sutherland, and I can't tell you why- other than the fact that his hair was really bizarre and if that was a wig/ supposed to be a wig it made him look over the top.  The speech and dialogue became awkward sometimes even when they weren't trying to imitate 19th-century speech/ not doing a good job imitating 19th-century speech.  I kept wanting to be scared, but it was impossible with these kooky settlers running around.

I'm torn about how the ghost/ spirit/ (nothing) was portrayed as we were so often set behind its eyes and allowed to see the happenings in black and white.  Part of me says "okay this is cool" where as the rest (and maybe majority) of me is like "stop trying to do cool effects and focus on actually making the scary scenes scary."  Every incident started becoming the same; I fell asleep at one point and couldn't tell which sequences I had seen and which ones I had not.  How many times can we sit through Betsy's sheets being pulled off, her arms and legs being held to the bed, whispering getting louder, then Betsy being pulled into the air and slapped around, which some tell-tale blood on her nightgown at the end?  Do we ever even seen any sort of spirit or is it always invisible - and then if they've wasted all this time with some 'spirit,' the surprise resolution of the haunting (which I admit I sort of liked) still remains almost frustrating, because what was real and what was not and how did supernatural things occur if everything only came from a suppressed, psychic source?

I really felt that the filmmakers here wanted to get some sort of message across, but in order to do so a lot of the actual happenings of the film were ignored or left unresolved.  This film also relied heavily on horror motifs, repeating images, returning scares that keep us questioning 'why?' without really explaining anything until the end.  The whole, "You brought this upon yourself" bit was good though; I enjoy movies where we are re-shown scenes from a different and revealing angle.

Final critique:  This film isn't very scary although it is filled with plenty of confusing and loud haunting sequences.  The plot can be interesting if you pay enough attention to follow, and the resolution (and ending) do add a kick to an otherwise droll film (droll but with a lot of action... it's confusing).  I guess more so than actually scaring some viewers, the loud and 'violent' haunting scenes might sort of frighten you, if you can understand the difference, or at the very least make you uncomfortable.  I wouldn't really recommend this film, but it's not bad to leave on in the background if you're having a half-hearted scary movie night.

The Possession (2012)

GENERAL INFO:
Director:  Ole Bornedal
Studios:  Ghost House Pictures, North Box Productions
Starring:  Natasha Calis, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Madison Davenport, Kyra Sedgwick
Tagline:  Fear the Demon that Doesn't Fear God.
MPAA Rating:  PG-13
Genre:  horror, thriller, family drama, possession, exorcism, religious occult
Scare score:  B
Rating:  B+

Plot overview:  After buying a strange, antique wooden box from a yard sale, young Emily Brenek (Calis) begins to become obsessed with the item.  As her health, mood, and personality all begin to alter, her recently divorced parents - father Clyde (Morgan) and mother Stephanie (Sedgwick) - grow more concerned although only Clyde realizes that Em's problems might stem from the mysterious box.  After investigating into Jewish folklore, Clyde learns that the box was inhabited by a dybbuk that is now taking over his daughter.

Just in time for the high holidays, I stumbled upon this good picture late last night.  Although I know I've seen bits and pieces of it (or otherwise psychically predicted the fork scene), I had never seen the entire movie.  Let's start at the very beginning:

"Based on a true story."  The 5 words I hate most at the beginning of any horror movie.  The poster proudly displays it, and the opening credits of the movie boast it, too.  The length filmmakers will go through today to say that their movie is based on a true story is really astounding, but I guess it must be worth it in the market.  As far as my research tells me, the "true story" behind The Possession is that the 'dybbuk box' actually exists, has been bought or sold on ebay on at least one occasion, and is now hidden in a secret place because the it gave the various owners nightmares.  Now I'm not going to lie, it's pretty cool that this box exists - a major plus for the movie was this beautiful prop; I especially loved the size and detail.  BUT the fact of the matter is that there never was an Emily, nor a Clyde, nor a Tzadok (Matisyahu).   Looks like I just debunked that dybbuk.

*SPOILER ALERT*

Truth or fantasy aside, I enjoyed the plot once it finally developed.  What we have here is a tale of divorce and how the children are reacting to it.  While the older Hannah (Davenport) has already learned to suck it up and cope with the fact that mommy and daddy aren't friends anymore, Em is still naive and remains hopeful that somehow they will get back together.  Which brings about my theory: the family simply experienced a group hallucination while Emily faked everything in order to mend her broken family - and it worked.

But what I really thought this movie had going for it was the Jewish folklore instead of our typical, washed up Christian possession - and I mean that.  If you've read this blog before you know that Horror Buff pretty much hates all religious possession/ exorcism movies because they are overkill and rarely bring us any new creative or intellectual material.  That being said, I walked into this movie as a skeptic, even though I knew the co-producer here was the versatile Sam Raimi.  From the get go we know that this box is haunted somehow by something, and we realize the victim will be Em (especially when she wears that ring that no one ever mentions and it turns her hand green... like okay Dumbledore).  What we don't expect is that all of the sudden it's not just your average ghost and not even your average demon but a dybbuk - and not just any dybbuk but our dear friend Abyzou, the childbirth demon AND a female (girl power!)  I mean yeah, we've seen dybbuks in I think in The Unborn so this isn't an entirely new concept in modern horror, but it's still a different one which makes way for new plot and a different kind of exorcism.

The acting was fine in this movie.  I didn't think Morgan was really anything special even though there's tons of good stuff written about him online.  He never bothered me and I rather liked him, but in the scene where he pleads to that Jewish council asking them for help I thought he did a really poor job.  Calis was a real pleasure to watch in this demanding role, and I enjoyed her being sweet, normal Em just as much as I did her screaming, angry possessed side.  Davenport in the role of the older, no BS sister Hannah was really talented, and I enjoyed her performance quite a bit.  Together, the girls made convincing sisters.  Then again I don't have a sister, so what do I know?

As far as the haunting/ possession goes, that's where most of this movie's thrills come from.  We have a smorgasbord of creepy happenings like the terrible bugs, the fingers in the back of the throat (ah!), and the eyes rolling backwards or sideways or any which way that was pretty nasty on several occasions.  Seems to me like all these spooks would freak out your general audience.

Final critique:  I'm making this a short entry because Horror Buff needs a nap.  Again, the best thing this movie has going for it is the whole Jewish mysticism bit; for once it isn't satan, it's my dybbuk in a box!  The scares are plentiful and diverse with good effects, which would definitely freak out your typical alone-at-home-in-the-dark viewer.  So go check out this film, which isn't so much "based on a true story" as it is "based on a true box."

The Awakening (2011)

GENERAL INFO:
Director:  Nick Murphy
Studios:  BBC Films, StudioCanal UK, Creative Scotland
Starring:  Rebecca Hall, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West
Tagline:  All the Children Are Gone... Except One.
MPAA Rating:  R
Genre:  foreign film, horror, thriller, drama, ghost, surprise ending
Scare score:  B-
Rating:  A

Plot overview:  In this classic English ghost tale, Florence Cathcart (Hall) is a paranormal investigator who has dedicated her professional life to disproving hoaxes and supernatural cons following the terrible loss of WWI.  After being called to a Rookford boarding school to investigate the death of one student and the possible haunting of another, Florence's logic will be tested as her emotions and memories are challenged by the living and the dead.

I thought this film was so great, but as you know by now I am a sucker for ghost stories.  This is a lovely period piece, basically your classic English ghost tale (which I am a huge fan of), so in my book it was a recipe for success from the beginning.  I have to admit I wasn't blown away by the film, and a few times it had me worried that it was taking some odd or bad turn, but it certainly kept me on the edge of my seat (er, bed) right up until the open (and confusing?) ending.

The setting, indoor and outdoor shots, and cinematography are all beautiful.  The Manderston House was a beautiful backdrop to this ghost story, and the aftermath of WWI was a somber setting - I liked at the beginning when it was called "a time for ghosts."  The entire film had a sort of pale, green lighting, like being underwater or just in the grey English countryside, so wouldn't you know that worked perfectly with the plot.  The interior shots were really great; the furniture and details really beautiful, the tools used by Florence intriguing and spooky, and all the chase scenes through dark, twisting hallways and tunnels made the film more suspenseful.

The characters were really great, too, like characters in a story you might read instead of just a movie you're watching.  I was surprised to see the talented Miss Staunton in the role of Maud, the school matron/ housekeeper I was suspicious about from the beginning.  It drove me wild the entire film as I couldn't place where I knew the young and really talented Hempstead Wright as Tom - after the film I was reminded that he is, of course, Bran Stark in Game of Thrones.  I'm sure we'll see more of him.  I like Rebecca Hall a lot, and I thought she made for a nice character, although her acting job wasn't the greatest thing I've ever seen.  She was, however, certainly appropriate.

The best thing about this film aside from the setting was that the plot kept twisting and turning, even if it was with extra/ unnecessary plot just to throw us off.  Ever since I was little I couldn't really enjoy a horror movie because from the first scene I was already solving who was the killer and how and why, which horror movies almost aways make easily apparent for anybody used to your typical plot.  (One problem with the horror movie industry, I suppose, is that we've seen all this stuff before so what is new and what really grabs our attention?  Today, unfortunately, movie makers - and audiences - have turned to that gore-porn to keep them satisfied.  I'm much happier with a good plot.)   Well as hard as I tried, I overlooked a lot of hints that this movie was - or was not - throwing at us.  To be honest I wasn't paying tons of attention to the film what with dinner and my family about, so I think that if I had watched it in the dark and alone without distractions it would have ranked a higher scare score.

Of course as with any ghost movie we're expecting some sort of plot twist.  I was hoping this wasn't going to pull a The Others (these two movies are like siblings - PS I was supposed to blog about The Others a few months back... sorry), but I really wasn't sure who was going to be dead or alive or sane or crazy or what.  We knew Florence's opinions and logic were going to be tested - we've seen the whole non-believer deal before - but I wasn't ultimately expecting what was revealed to have happened.  It really made for a cool twist ending and a cool plot in general.  This movie played with the blurred lines between the living and the dead, and who is capable of what, and I truly enjoyed that.

Again I admit the ending had me confused, which I'm sure was on purpose as a few things are left open, and I know my opinion although I'm not even 100% I believe in it!  Understandably I'm being confusing, so you'll have to watch the movie for yourself to decide.

Final critique:  I highly, highly recommend this film.  It is enjoyable, and there is so much more to it than jumps and screams, therefore making it a horror film that more general audiences could appreciate.  This is a great gateway film for those viewers who find most horror movies too scary as there is some great suspense but only a few truly scary moments; otherwise there is a lovely English ghost story making up the rest of the plot.  A real gem that I'm glad to have stumbled upon!