Archive for the ‘Haunted house’ Category

Movie: Innkeepers

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012


Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Yaaaawn. Sometimes it’s nice to watch a low-profile, barely known movie because it can lead to a great discovery (Grave Encounters for starters) but this time we definitely have a miss. The cheezy special effects are not even the worst part here, because they’re not that important. But nearly everything else here is utterly hopeless.

Even the story itself is pretty awkward with one of the main characters being lost (in fact it looked more like the actor was lost in what he was about to do). It all falls apart and I think old 60′s horrors were much less crappy than this one. Seriously. If you stumble upon this piece somewhere remember to skip it.

It’s almost like a 60′s movie done quite recently with a little budget and cutting corners everywhere. They aimed for “the shining” atmosphere in some scenes (like the old actress etc) but unfortunately it’s a failed effort :(

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Movie: Don’t be Afraid of the Dark

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012


Rating: ★★★½☆

A fun movie, nothing more, nothing less. Creepy at times

Don’t be afraid of the dark was a little bit surprising. I wasn’t expecting a well executed thing from that, especially after the cheesy trailer. But all in all it’s a pretty good movie, original in the fact that rarely “the monsters from under the bed” are small and strong in numbers. It’s a nice change from one big-bad-guy trying to kill everyone. And the acting is pretty good too. There aren’t many scary moments, just a few loud-noise jumps here and there, but there’s some tension, some mood, and an atmosphere. Nice going! Definitely worth a watch which means a lot in this world of crappy remakes! The story is believable, although without many twists. One of the main characters (the father) seems almost completely unnecessary, but the rest of the cast did the job well. Fun!

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Movie: Wrong Turn 4

Saturday, November 5th, 2011

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

The first "Wrong Turn" movie was something new. It was also pretty decent, entertaining and well made. Due to it's sort-of-success a sequel was made, and then the third installment. Each one was much, much worse than the one before, simply showing us that milking the same idea by uncreative people is as common as it is frustrating. So yeah, when I noticed that there’s a part “4″, this time set during the winter I though “Well ok, I’ll give it a shot”. Hoping for something different I rented the dvd, sat down, opened my beer and pressed play. What followed was 90 minutes of evil horror. Too bad it wasn’t because the movie was any good. It sucked so bad that watching it was more of a horror than the movie itself.

First of all it was way more disgusting than any of the parts before. The “Characters” are so stupid, with badly written dialogue that I actually wanted them to die as soon as possible. Well done – doing characters and plot the way that people hate them. Whoop dee doo.

The plot is a little different than before – now the inbred evil trio of brothers seems to occupy an old mental institution that got abandoned after they broke free 30 years before and killed everyone. And I’m asking here and now – Where IS THE LOGIC? I mean they killed everyone in the hospital (and probably ate them), and why didn’t anyone come? Like the police, army or whatever? No instead they just decided to stay there and live. That’s as dumb as a stick with a rusty nail.

Then we have the forced gruesomeness that is not scary at all, just disgusting as hell. The inbreds are pretty similar to the ones from the previous “wrong turns” which is a good thing for continuity, but it’s hardly “part 4″ when some of them died in the first three parts, and now they suddenly all resurrected. Unless “Bloody Beginnings” mean that they simply moved out of the asylum to the woods later on. But that we can forgive. The rest of the shit they keep serving us here we can’t. Sorry, no dice. This is what’s wrong with the horror movie industry. It’s movies like this, made by completely un-creative people that create the illusion that most horror movies suck. And if you want to see a decent “abandoned mental hospital” movie see “Grave Encounters”. This is a definite waste of time.

Posted in Canibals, Gore, Haunted house, Horror, Psychopath, Torture | No Comments »

Movie: Grave Encounters

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

Rating: ★★★★½

Whoa! An actually scary movie that's jumping on that Blair Witch bandwagon. And it's done so well that watching it at night adds a little nervousness to the room. The scary parts are pretty typical, with evil beings jumping out at you accompanied by a loud noise, but for some reason in this movie it works much better than in others.

It reminds me a little bit of REC – here we also have a camera crew, shooting a scary tv series about haunted houses, but it has it’s distinctive elements too. Can’t really think if I’ve seen anything like this before, and there are many clever additions to the genre. The most important thing – as it is with all horror movies – to watch it at night, with the lights out. It might seem a bit boring at first but when it starts it STARTS. Seriously I’m not easily scared, and here I had a couple of moments of feeling “weird”. Not scared or anything, but weird. I also thought that the movie should be a little bit shorter, but when I got the the end I felt some relief. As if the tension was building up so much that I couldn’t stand it. There are a few glitches here and there – and at one point the tension is removed nearly completely when we realize what’s going to happen. But aside from that it still works.

That pretty much says SOLD on any horror movie. This is creepy, scary, weird and it stays in your head for a little while after watching.

Posted in Curse, Ghosts, Haunted house, Horror, Sci-Fi | No Comments »

Movie : Insidious

Monday, October 3rd, 2011


Rating: ★★★★½

Whoa! Didn’t expect much from this, but it turned out to be one of the best (if not THE best) horror movie I’ve seen this year! James Wan and Leigh Whannel (writer for “Saw”) brought us something that’s both innovative and scary. There aren’t many cliches here, although it’s not completely free of them. Still it wouldn’t be a horror movie with sudden noises and onscreen appearances right? Well here we have a story of a lovely family moving into their dream house. One day their son falls into a deep coma for no apparent reason, and the house starts to manifest itself, as being haunted. Then the story evolves constantly towards an ending that’s maybe a little bit predictable but still satisfying for every true horror fan.

There’s good acting (especially the father), good “bad guys” (one is so memorable that my friends still can’t get him out of their heads!) and decent music. Sure we do have loud noises, but this movie is more about setting the mood than anything. It actually leaves you uneasy after watching, thinking if it’s really possible and remembering the bad guy’s face over and over. Not many movies can do that, especially nowadays, so it’s nice to see that there are still gems made in the USA, that aren’t teen horrors with cheerleaders. If you expect plenty of gore and guts, then it’s not for you. But if you like a moody haunted house/ghost story, then check this out definitely. There might not be a better movie in what’s left of 2011.

Posted in Curse, Family, Ghosts, Haunted house, Horror | No Comments »

Movie : Walled in

Saturday, February 19th, 2011


Rating: ★★★☆☆

This is not a typical horror film. It’s more of a drama with a little bit of horror in it, but it’s engaging and actually good enough to write a few kind words about. It’s a “house” movie, by which I mean it’s similar to “house on the haunted hill” in a way, and even to “The Shining” slightly. There’s an old, creepy house in the middle of nowhere, with a few tenants and a girl from a demolition company comes there for her first big job – to measure where to put the explosives to bring the house down. And of course there are ghosts and weird things happening to her. But somewhere at the moment we think it’s gonna be another “House on the haunted hill” it turns more into a drama film, about love, insanity with the house merely in the background.

It’s not a bad thing actually, that kinda escapes some cliches, except the very ending which is simply terribly cliche. But overall it’s a pretty good movie. And the house itself is plain awesome! The architecture of the place is stunning. Seriously! Beats “The house” and beats the mansion in “The shining”. Too bad it doesn’t beat them as a whole movie, but still worth a watch.

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Movie : Abandoned

Sunday, February 13th, 2011


Rating: ★★★½☆

In soviet russia you don’t go to a horror film. In soviet russia the horror film comes to you. Or stuff like that ;) Well this has a lot of russian cliches and stereotypes, fortunately no bears on unicycles on the streets. But strangely the atmosphere, locations and general mood of this film made me watch it with tension I rarely experienced lately. This thing is actually pretty scary. Mostly because you don’t know what’s going on, but the great locations and pretty good acting make it all fit together. And sure some scary moments are cliche, and sure some plot turns are a bit cliche too. But all in all it doesn’t really matter because it’s the entertainment value that counts. And this is simply a good movie. Not great but pretty good. Oh and this is NOT the movie with Britanny Murphy. The title is the same but those are two different movies.

Definitely scary, and with a very well done visual side. So here’s the plot:

A Russian born American lady in her forties comes to Russia to find out that she inherited a house from her mother. She was put up for adoption so she didn’t really know her mother or the house. She decides to check it out and well, all the horrors start happening. That’s how it works when you have a cursed house, a secluded location on an island with just one bridge and just woods for miles around.

This is pretty rare nowadays, so it’s nice to see something different. Something scary finally. Because frankly last few movies I watched weren’t scary at all. This one works as advertised.

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