Surviving Horror

sinister (2012)

I saw this in the theater when it first came out. It stuck to me like glue. I was creeped out for days. Then, I watched it with a friend the other night and was struck, once again, by just how effective this movie really is.

A true-crime writer, played by Ethan Hawke, moves his family into the home of the family whose brutal murder he is researching. He finds a box of 8mm movies in the attic that may reveal that the murder he is investigating is one of many by a serial killer. He makes bad decision after bad decision all in hopes of another best seller, breaking another big case. Weird and terrifying things start to happen to him and his family, who have no idea what is going on. He eventually redeems himself by fleeing into the night with his family but that doesn't solve their problem the way he hoped it would.

Maybe it was Ethan Hawke, who I may still have a soft spot for after all these years. He's a good actor and he throws himself into the role completely. Or maybe it was those creepy as fuck home movies.  The movie is expertly crafted, relying on light and sound far more than CGI.

Its not a perfect movie though. There is some CG silliness. The very end is sort of dumb. But still, its leaps and bounds better than most of the horror that's coming out these days. 

Surviving Horror Protip: Don't move into houses where brutal mass murders took place. Just don't.

This entry was posted on Fri, 03/15/2013 - 03:40 and is filed under

• review

fright night - 2011

i was not happy to hear they were remaking fright night. i love the original. it was a favorite when i was growing up and to me, its the perfect blend of humor and horror. leave the movies of my childhood alone. and while you're at it get off my lawn!

when i started to hear casting bits, i became more willing to concede that possibly i was just being old and cranky. colin farrell as jerry, toni collette as charlie's mom. DAVID TENNANT! and marti noxon was writing the script. i was suddenly VERY EXCITED. she is one of the most clever, most thoughtful writers in hollywood. episode after episode of buffy would not have been the same without her. 

i wasn't disppointed. it was totally fun. colin farrell's jerry made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. he's menacing, predatory and SO skeevy. the perfect antidote to the sparkly vampires who inhabit the twilight world. charlie's a believably dopey teenager. ed was great. i don't think there are enough words for how much i loved david tennant and toni collette was awesome, as always. it was genuinely scary and still very very funny. some of the special effects were cheesy and a little over the top but really, still a really solid movie. so good i may go see it a second time at the bargain show.

lessons learned: real estate for sale signs can be useful when fighting vampires.

This entry was posted on Tue, 09/27/2011 - 20:37 and is filed under

• review
• vampires

burning bright - 2010

"a thriller centered on a young woman and her autistic little brother who are trapped in a house with a ravenous tiger during a hurricane."  that plot summary sounds ridiculous. really. i had my doubts about this movie even though each and every review I read said that this is a movie that shouldn't work but absolutely does. yeah yeah. whatever. seriously, how could this movie make any sense at all?

i could tell you more about the plot, and it would make more sense but honestly, it would still sound ridiculous. also, it would ruin the fun. 

the 4 main characters in this movie, kelly, her autistic brother tom, their step-dad and the tiger, help effectively build tension from the first time we lay eyes on them. kelly, as she struggles with tom. their step-father, as he purchases the tiger, despite a dire warning from meatloaf. they maintain that tension throughout the movie, especially the pretty pretty tiger.

i spent the tidy hour and 26 minutes of this movie on the edge of my seat. i could not take my eyes off the screen. the tiger was so beautiful and had such pointy teeth. although, if someone gave me a choice between dinner at hannibal lecter's and being locked in a house with this tiger, i think I'd go for dinner at hannibal's. 

yep, kind of awesome in a really terrifying kind of way.

lesson: tigers, bad. pretty but BAD.

This entry was posted on Sun, 02/13/2011 - 08:38 and is filed under

• lions and tigers and bears
• review

the walking dead - ts-19 (1.6)

the season finale of the walking dead felt a lot like lost and that worries me. lost was so bogged down in superfluous plotlines, overarching themes and philosophical discussions that the writers backed themselves into a corner and gave us one of the most infuriating series finales ever. i found this hour of television almost as frustrating. and yet i still can't wait for next fall for the new season to begin.

so, the episode begins with jenner, the sole cdc survivor, letting them in, joking with carl and telling them there's hot water. they all get cleaned up, break bread and have a few drinks. they are all having a good time when shane demands some answers of jenner. and jenner doesn't really have any. later, rick tells jenner in confidence that he knows they're all eventually going to die, he's just trying to hold onto hope. shane confronts lori and attempts to rape her. andrea falls to pieces because she has lost all hope. the group once again confronts jenner and demands answers. the answers he gives are not good. he tells them what he knows, which isn't much. he shows them a mri of an infected woman's death. it was his wife and he was the one who killed her. he's lost hope as well and it seems he has let them in so he doesn't have to die alone. the cdc building has a self destruct mechanism and its been triggered. so, there is a choice to be made - stay and die or run and hold onto hope.

one stays and the rest make a break for it. but how long can they run? will morgan ever find them? and what exactly did jenner tell rick before they left?

its going to be a long ten months.

This entry was posted on Mon, 12/06/2010 - 02:38 and is filed under

• review
• television
• zombie

the walking dead - wildfire (1.5)

there's a long running conversation between my zombie loving loved ones and i. should one of us turn into a zombie, they have permission to kill us. in fact, its an order. we discuss this flippantly because although we are all paranoid enough to believe that someday there will be a zombie plague, really, what are the chances we're going to live to see it? two times in the past 6 months i've been presented with evidence that it wouldn't be quite so easy. a particular death scene in feed by mira grant and the scene above from tonight's episode of the walking dead.

andrea's grief is palpable. she knows what she needs to do. she does. and could she have made it easier on herself? yes. but she needed her sister to hear that she was sorry and that she loved her, regardless of whether or not amy could understand.

glenn understands the importance of burying your dead and insisted upon it. carol goes to town on her dead, abusive husband's body. shane continues to seem dangerous. daryl continues to be a loose cannon. jim reveals that he was bit and rick decides they can't just condemn him. he wants to go to the cdc because he's certain that they should be able to help. and so the majority of the group journeys back to atlanta, despite serious reservations, where they are "saved" by a doctor on the verge of a nervous breakdown played by noah emmerich.

as much as i love this show, and i really do, i have to admit that its uneven. the writing can be so clunky and the dialogue so bad in parts that i have to cling tight to scenes like the one with andrea sitting watch over her not-yet-reanimated sister. the departures from the comic books, while understandable, are disconcerting. and i'm just not sure about how this is all going to turn out.

but i really can't wait to find out.

This entry was posted on Mon, 11/29/2010 - 02:38 and is filed under

• review
• television
• zombies

the walking dead - tell it to the frogs (1.3)

ok, yes, i got a little choked up when carl went running toward his dad. fine. yes. the zombie tv show, based on a comic book that i've read, made me cry a little. fine. let's move on, shall we?

merle's having a nervous breakdown on the roof. rick and friends arrive back at camp, where there seems to be some unrest.  the kids, who are apparently allowed to play alone in the woods, happen upon a zombie feasting on a deer. merle's brother is back from his hunting trip and is PISSED that his brother has been left behind. the women aren't so happy with the "division of labor," they miss their coffee makers and vibrators. ed, true to abusive husband form, is not so happy that his wife seems to have made some friends.

the actor who plays shane gave his acting chops a workout last night, clearly conflicted that his girlfriend's husband, who happens to be his partner, is back. and wait, his partner is back, that's a good thing right? and oh wait, his girlfriend is PISSED as well because shane lied to her about rick being dead, and declares her family "off limits" to him. shane take this out on ed, who, let's face it, deserves it. 

and what seems like moments after rick, lori and carl are reunited, rick's planning to head back to atlanta. he wants to a) rescue merle, b) retrieve his duffel bag of guns and his walkie talkie, so that he can c) warn morgan and his son to stay away from atlanta. no one but merle's crazy brother at camp is thrilled with this plan. what they don't fully understand is that the new world order is still very new to rick. he just woke up to it. he is still operating with the same moral code that he worked with before his coma, and the rest of the world isn't. they don't understand why he would risk his life for a man like merle. to which rick says, "i can't let a man die of thirst." he hasn't lost hope for the world at large. people can still be saved. 

let's back up a minute though, the zombie feasting on the deer. first of all, this doesn't bode well. more will be coming. whoever said that they were running out of food in atlanta and would be leaving the city soon was right. and then they will need to leave their cozy camp. second, did they all need to jump on him like that? couldn't one man with an axe done the job much quicker? oh yeah, that's right, we humans, we're scary sometimes. 

is it next sunday yet?

This entry was posted on Mon, 11/15/2010 - 23:21 and is filed under

• review
• television
• zombies

when discussing what my next project for this blog should be, i suggested out idea of working my way through a director. my friend dave suggested tobe hooper. seemed like a good plan but possibly a challenge, since not all of his movies are readily available. first up...

texas chainsaw massacre (1974)

proof that a movie need not be overly compicated or gory to scare the daylights out of you. sally, her wheelchair-bound brother franklin, and their friends travel to a vandalized graveyard to see if their grandfather's remains are intact. en route, they come upon chainsaw-wielding maniac, leatherface. 

i forget how much this movie scares me. i'm never sure when its over quite what did it to me. was it the sensory overload of the chainsaw, the bizarre cackling and screams? or was it that we've been driving in rural areas, stopped to take a look around and i could imagine this happening? whatever the case may be, i wanted someone to sing soft kitty to me when it was over, despite knowing exactly what i was in for.

the truly bizarre thing about this movie is that when you pick it apart, it doesn't sound all that good. the plot is unremarkable, the characters, the teenagers at least, are also unremarkable. there is some wicked bad acting, except for marilyn burns (sally) - she seems believably traumatized.  but there is also atmosphere, unrelenting terror, and incredible cinematography. and a gruesome scene with a meat hook. 

people may try to do better. they just can't. 

This entry was posted on Sat, 11/13/2010 - 01:32 and is filed under

• director
• review
• slasher
• tobe hooper

the walking dead - guts (1.2)

the second episode of walking dead did not disappoint - from the long aerial shot of the tank, surrounded by zombies in the beginning to glenn's unadulterate joy, flying down the highway. if forced to complain about anything, i'd have to say that this episode was more action driven than character driven, and although i spent most of the episode on the edge of my seat, nothing packed the same sort of emotional wallop of morgan contemplating shooting his wife last week. last week i was emotionally drained. this week, i was a little wired but didn't really have trouble sleeping.

andrew lincoln's performance as rick just keeps getting better. he's heroic but still very human, making numerous mistakes. he's compassionate, reminding everyone that the person they are about the hack apart was human once too. and although he's a clear leader, he also deferred to glenn, who had a well thought out, although unsuccessful, plan. he is a good man and i, for one, cannot wait until they arrive at base camp.

because back at base camp, shane is proving himself to be a winner. jumping lori, his partner's WIFE, in the woods, forbidding amy to try to rescue her sister, he is rick's polar opposite. the conflict between them made for good reading, but will also make for great television, if these first two episodes are any indication.

there were some departures from the comic books - merle, t-bag, jacqui and morales were all new inventions. my suspicion is that other than merle, they are there to up the eventual body count, to dispatch with characters who aren't pivotal in the books. merle, however, i'm guessing we haven't seen the last of him. michael rooker was cast perfectly in the role and although he was a little over the top, he is a walking, breathing example of why its man that we really need to fear.

also worth fearing? a sudden thunderstorm that'll wash the zombie stink right off you. i say ew. and ew again. 

This entry was posted on Tue, 11/09/2010 - 15:20 and is filed under

• review
• television
• zombies

the walking dead  -  days gone by (1.1)

i've read the comic. i've seen scenes from it. i have more than a vague idea of what's going to take place. and yet i was a nervous wreck while watching the walking dead tonight.

andrew lincoln was perfect as rick grimes. he is all i'd hope for and more from one of my most favorite comic book characters. handsome, compasionnate, and more than a little bad ass. morgan and his son were perfect as well. they all broke my heart into a million little pieces.

all while sitting on the edge of my seat, shouting at the television, "don't go there... NO... not the horse!!!" beautifully shot, well written perfect paced and wonderfully cast with lots of scary moments... now this is good horror.

This entry was posted on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 03:57 and is filed under

• october
• review
• zombies

13 ghosts (1960)

this recently showed up on someone's list of favorites and i thought hmmm, i kind of like the tony shalhoub version. and then i thought, have i seen this one? possibly on svengoolie? into the netflix queue it went. and i was not sorry.

a horror movie it is not. scary it is not. maybe it would be if i was 9. but i'm not. but lordy, i had fun!

the zorba family is BROKE. their furniture has all been repossessed and they're in danger of eviction when they receive a letter from a lawyer. their long, lost uncle, plato zorba has died and they've inherited his home, complete with his collection of 13 ghosts.

i don't even think i could begin to describe the awesomeness of this movie. i'll let the preview give you a taste.

awesomesauce all around.

This entry was posted on Sat, 10/30/2010 - 21:22 and is filed under

• october
• review