Rating:
In many ways this is oldschool. And the photo from the posters was pretty haunting too. They captured it perfectly – a little girl but with a dark and evil twist about her. You can’t really say what it is, but you notice that right away. So here’s what it’s about : A family looses their third child at birth and decide they want to adopt. They find a 9 year old girl in an orphanage and are amazed by how smart, articulate and talented she is. So they decide to take her home, and at first all is well. But then things start happening, and the girl is doing everything in her power to stay as a part of the family. Even though the mother is suspecting something is wrong with her. Basically a family thriller with a nice twist at the end. Was expecting some devil child with superpowers, and it turned out to be pretty good. It reminded me in the general atmosphere of things like Rosemary’s Baby and Omen (the first one, not the remake). Just witout the devil in it. Worth a watch, not really scary but made well and it maintains the suspense after the slow start till the very nicely played ending.

Rating:
Sam Raimi is an odd man. And a little crazy, since aside from quite good horror movies he also did spiderman. And that’s a shame a gypsy curse can’t match So yeah, this is a movie about a gypsy curse, a young girl and a devil coming to get her soul. Some exorcisms along the way, and finding the way to beat the beast. Seems pretty shallow doesn’t it ? And pretty cliche at that. But there’s one great thing about that movie and it’s the dark humor. Yes, this in fact is horror + comedy. The horror parts are super-obvious – plenty of sudden noises (the sound really does scare you all the time in this movie, especially at night, in a quiet room). The basic principle of being scary – something jumps out suddenly with a loud noise. And in this movie it’s abused and overused so much it’s scary and funny in the banality of it. + lots of little winks to the viewer from Raimi. He plays with the genre, and the whole “cat side-plot” was a masterpiece. And the dinner talk was also a winner. It’s not supposed to be super-real or scary in the sense of atmospheric and dark. This movie is light, using very basic scare tactics and also some “disgusting” and gross elements to build up the comedy part of it. Totally recommend it, but don’t take it seriously. Think of it as a dissection of cliches and a game between the viewer and the director. He got me. Oh and by the way, the Gypsy woman was also on 90210, now THAT was scary!

Rating:
How many times have we seen a horror with “this movie is based on real events” claim? Blair witch project instantly comes to mind, and well, the fact is they never really are. And I seriously don’t think that all these events have ever happened at all (not even considering the paranormal stuff, I’m talking about the place, the people etc). But aside from that this is quite scary actually. At times it get’s really scary and I’ve noticed an interesting technique of showing the scary guys. Sometimes they show up without a sound, just with a switch of camera angle. And that is quite a novelty + it’s still scary. Maybe even more than the sudden loud sound they overuse so much.
The plot is simple enough, a family moves into an old house that they discover was haunted, and years ago some evil man was doing spiritual experiments (i.e. calling the ghosts) in there. And a sick teenage boy is haunted the most by what’s still in the house. At first I had my doubts, but all in all the movie was quite good actually and I recommend you watch it if you like the ones that are really scary. Of course there’s a mystery and there’s some humor as well. Sure, maybe it was a bit too much sometimes, with scary faces jumping out and about constantly, but it’s a good piece of horror. Seriously.

Rating:
The only good fake documentary I ever say was Cloverfield. I hated the blair witch project. Seriously, it was boring, not scary and plain stupid. So you can imagine that I approached this movie as a skeptic. And actually it’s not that bad. It had some moments, there’s the tense atmosphere and the things happening are not overblown. Not like the ghosts are doing a lot, just little things and that makes it a little more believable and thus scary. But only if the conditions are met. First, you need to watch it either in a theater or at night, with no lights. Second – you need to stop thinking that it’s a hollywood money-scheme. If you start of with either believing it could be true or not caring that it’s false you’ll have a much better experience.

Rating:
Allright. Let’s make it all clear. I think this movie is not a horror. And if it was, it’d be the worst horror I’ve seen, ever. Couldn’t make it without skipping on the DVD player constantly, that’s how cheesy and naive this is.
But why wouldn’t it be. It’s directed to teenage girls and to teenage girls alone. No cool kids with any balls would ever be proud of watching that, liking that, and/or buying the merchandise. Sure, some new teen heroes are created, like Robert Pattinson who being as young as he is, right now not only has a cult following of underage girls, but also has written his biography. What smart can come out of a teenage kid in his biography with just a couple of years being on this planet? Come on. Yes, I should just skip it, deny it’s existence and go about my day. But no, I’m not gonna totally bash it, because I do understand that teenage girls as the craziest fan-group there can be are easily manipulated into liking something. And who can blame them. Wearing a full body makeup, mysterious high school boy, deep feelings, and to spice things up he’s a vampire. Of course a noble one that doesn’t drink blood and stuff. (if he did that’d at least make the character less 2 dimensional) . He falls in love with a human girl, and the teen drama continues. Of course they graduate (that always happens in teen movies) and of course there are both people and vampires who don’t approve of such romance. But guess what – it has been done. Movies about different social classes in the 18th century are all full of such stories. Or to be even more cliche – Romeo and Juliet. Titanic. The list goes on. So some smart lady thought one day, hey let’s make the romeo a vampire, and juliet a human. And they’re not gonna sink on a ship or anything. And of course with proper marketing it worked just like Harry Potter did. Unless you’re 12 years old and have not yet developed any taste in movie art (not just horror, movies in general, since it’s not a horror) DO NOT watch it. It’s a waste of your time.

Rating:
This is actually something a little bit new. Hard to say if it’s a horror really, but some parts certainly point to that direction. A girl is released from a psychiatric ward and tries to live her normal life once again with her dad and his new girlfriend. But she starts snooping around trying to learn about her mother’s death, and together with her sister they unfold a mystery that can come back at them. And with teeth. Plus they learn a lot of stuff about Daddy’s new girlfriend that are odd – especially her past. So the conclusions jump to other conclusions, that jump to pretty weird results at the end. I was going to give this movie a 2.5 but I’ll add another half a star for the ending, because it is pretty well planned out and one of the best endings in this genre as of 2009. Try it, not bad.

Rating:
A few couples, tropical islands and a mystery. Apparently someone is killing people all around the island and anyone can be next. At some point the couples also blame each other for the killings, so this thriller-mystery movie, not really a horror because it’s not scary at all had some good moments. First of all the plot twists are the core of this. Many dialogues lead the viewer to dead ends, and you’d be sure at least three times who the killer is. And this time it’s not the gardener. It’s worth a watch, but not as a horror, which it isn’t. Rather a pretty odd thriller. Too bad there’s not really enough tension between the characters, and it’s not believable. Not for a minute. So not bad but not great either.

Rating:
When I heard that Richard Kelly – author of one of the best movies of all time (Donnie Darko) is making a new thing I was excited. I mean really, really excited. The plot itself was also cool in the mysterious kinda way – A family recieves a package, with an odd push-button device. A day later a man missing half of his face appears at their door, telling them that if they push the button, two things will happen. One – they will receive a million dollars in cash. No tax, no questions. Two – someone in the world, someone they don’t know will die. And they have 24 hours to decide what to do. The plot twists and turns into a weird psychological struggle, but unofrtunately somewhere halfway through it looses all the great atmosphere and all the cool ideas and turns into an oddity that stops being fun to look at. There is supposed to be a deeper meaning to all this, and in the first part of the movie it’s believable that there are some weird forces at work here. But later on I was so struck (ha!) by how terrible the story went. Pretty good acting and really nice scenography were a plus of course. As is casting a typical donnie-darko-style character in the movie (you’ll know when you see him). It’s not a bad movie. It’s just disappointing, because after a great first half we’re served with a shitty second half. Up to you. Oh and it’s not really a horror, at least not in any typical way.

Rating:
the first underworld was a bit novelty at the time. A vampire girl in a latex suit fighting bad guys. Wasn’t scary as this an action / horror themed movie, such as resident evil. Well rise of the lycans pretends to be deeper, darker and all scary, but on that field it fails. Sure it is less mainstream a bit, but it’s definitely still NOT a horror. For an action movie there’ just a bit too much romance and drama added which slows the action down. A solid 2.5 for the visual side, and keeping their darkblue theme across the movie. A solid piece, entertaining perhaps, just not a horror.

Rating:
it’s a fact that americans are not the most creative when it comes to horror. The ring has started a wave of foreign horror remakes, namely japanese and spanish. So what comes out of it? Most of the remakes lack any of the psychological depth the originals have, they have prettier actors (here: Jessica Alba) and are much much easier to understand for us regular, non-spiritual, tradition-less people. Plot is simple, a blind girl undergoes eye transplant to see again, but those eyes have seen something before, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda. Sure, it has some freaky/scary moments but all in all you don’t remember it the next day. It’s too toned down like most remakes are.