Beneath the Darkness 2011 5 out of 10 (Spoilers)

Beneath the Darkness 2011  5 out of 10   (SPOILERS)

A group of teenagers in a Texas town decide to investigate the rumors that the towns mortician Ely (played by Dennis Quaid) is haunted.   The movie could have been better if they had played it differently and not given away that Ely was a killer at the beginning of the film.  Unfortunately the film does so the suspense of whether their are ghosts in his house and whether or not he is a bad guy is ruined for the viewer before the kids find out his secret.  The film opens showing Ely killing someone.

What is Ely's secret you ask?   Well the shadows that the kids saw in his house are actually Ely dancing with his dead wife.  The kids break into his house and discover his secret and he kills one of them by pushing him down the stairs.   The death is ruled and accident (with no investigation what so ever),   because Ely is such a great member of the community and an ex football star. 

The third act of the movie findsthe kids trying to prove that his ex wife is still hanging around which leads to another break-in and the more action between them and Ely.   The logic of the characters in the movie is often flawed and when the police find a giant tarp in Ely's backyard they just take his word for it rather than looking underneath it....Seriously??? Great police work.   I thought Dennis Quaid's performance was odd and inconsistent and the story was just too simple to be a great thriller. 

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Crimson Peak 2015 6 out of 10

Crimson Peak 2015  6 out of 10

My interest in watching Crimson Peak was because Guillermo del Toro has for years been wanting to do a new Haunted Mansion movie for Disney.  He has confirmed as recently as April of 2016 that he is still writing a Haunted Mansion movie.   

You can read about that below at Inside the Magic.

http://www.insidethemagic.net/2016/04/guillermo-del-toro-confirms-he-is-still-writing-his-haunted-mansion-movie/

In the meantime he has been busy making non-Disney horror movies giving us a glimpse of what might be seeing if he ever makes that Disney film. 
I the past couple of years he wrote Don't be Afraid of the Dark and wrote and directed Crimson Peak.   

Crimson Peak is a throwback to Horror movies from the past by Hammer Studios or old Vincent Price films, instead of the gross out slasher type flicks that have been popular in recent decades it is a Gothic love/ghost story. 

The Look of the Film     A+
The art direction in Crimson Peak is incredible.  Guillermo del Toro has mastered the look of a big screen haunted house.  Part of the story includes the mining of red clay and this plot point gives the director an amazing color palate to play with.  The red clay in the snow looks like blood and adds to the ominous tone of the film. Visually the film is stunning.  In this way Guillermo's films are much like those of Tim Burton.   Even if you don't like a Tim Burton movie they  tend to look amazing.  The same is true for Guillermo del Toro's films.  He has a unique look and style to his films and Crimson Peak is no different. 

The Cast    B

Crimson Peak has a great cast including Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland), Tom Hiddleston (Loki from the Avengers), and Jessica Chastain (Mad Men).  I think they all did a decent job with the material they were given

The Story    D
The problem I have with Crimson Peak is the story. 
As I mentioned  before it was a throwback to older films -- but so much so that it was extremely predictable.  It didn't feel original. 
It was the old marry some rich person for their money and then have them killed off storyline that I have seen way too many times before.   I was hoping for and expecting some twist -- but that twist never really happened.   The movies setting was so perfect for a Haunted House story --but the ghosts were merely just there to warn the main character played by Mia Wasikowska about the dangers of the place and the ghosts themselves were strange bloody skeletons.   If Guillermo del Toro does ever make a Haunted Mansion film for Disney ----I'm convinced that it will look absolutely amazing......but I worry about his script writing skills.

Here are my thoughts on his story Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

 http://bradgeekness.blogspot.com/2014/11/dont-be-afraid-of-dark-2010-4-out-of-10.html

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The Super, Fantastic, Terrific Podcast #13 In this Podcast we discuss The Entity and what other movies make our Scariest Movie list

In our latest podcast.... (That was recorded a couple of months ago after Halloween---but that was delayed due to technical issues)   We discuss the film The Entity as well as what movies really scare us.   Have a listen and see if you agree or disagree?  Tell us what movies scare you.    There are a couple of odd choices and some stories of working at Blockbuster back in the day.

Here is the link to the Podcast.

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Jason X and other Horror Movies (Jumping the Space Shark)

When your Horror movie franchise runs out of ideas and you take it into space it is time to throw in the towel.

I was at home sick the other day and finally got around to seeing Jason X….a question I’m now questioning.    Jason X or Jason in outer space was a barely watchable film.   Taking Jason the killer from Crystal Lake into space is basically an attempt to drain the last bit of blood out of an already dead franchise.    I guess people finally got the idea to no longer go camping at that Lake after like the 7^th movie.    By the 8th movie  Jason discovered  that there was a river leading out of the lake that could take him to Manhatten.  Then he went to Hell in the 9th film.  
So what was left for a guy that went from being a killer in a mask at a campground to some sort of immortal black ooze from an X-Files episode.  Space of course!   Why not send him to outer space?    A reimagined Jason in Jason X.

Jason X  2001   2 out of 10

The movie starts out with the Crystal Lake facility deciding that since they can’t kill Jason that at least they can freeze him.   Some idiot in the government thinks he is too important to freeze and wants to research him.   This of course goes wrong and he kills a bunch of people.  Then a brave scientist is able to freeze him while getting stuck freezing herself in the process.    Flash forward to the year 2455  - when a space crew of students finds the frozen bodies and brings them aboard their ship.   They unfreeze the girl and treat her wounds with healing nanbots.   Jason defrosts and goes on a predictable killing spree aboard the ship.  

The music in the film was terrible –it added nothing to the film.  The acting was forgettable –the story dull and boring.   The film is basically a parody of its own franchise that forgot to be funny.  
It was just a pointless and cliche.  At one point a female android kicks Jason’s butt and literally shots off his leg, arm and head.   I felt like I was watching King Arthur in the Holy Grail fighting the Black Knight –without the laughs.    After they defeat him they wait for another space ship to rescue them---and the ships nanobots decide to resurrect him as a new space version of Jason. The movie was just dull.  This movie was just incredibly cheesy and not scary at all.   At least in the old movies at the camp ground at the lake you could expect a few startles.  With the whole trapped on a ship scenario all the deaths were just inevitable and with the crappy soundtrack Jason lost whatever was left of his scariness.


Outer Space is where Terrestial Horror Movies go to Die.  Jumping the Space Shark.....(Hey I'm surprised Syfy channel hasn't made that movie yet).  

 Hellraiser: Bloodlines 1996 was one of the first to go to space......
I didn't even see that one and was shocked to see that there have been 5 movies since the first one.  I guess I lost track of Pinhead after the third film which I thought was terrible and only gave a 2 out of 10.

   I did suffer through  Leprechaun 4 : Leprechaun in Space
(I guess I was more of a completionist with this bad horror series)  
  Let's be honest all the Leprechaun movies were  pretty bad and surprisingly after Space he actually had his most successful movies in the Hood of all places.     A Leprechaun in Space --why not?  
This movie franchise makes up a whole new mythology for the character with every single film.   So sending him to Outer Space makes as much sense as anything else in the series.

 Leprechaun 4   1996   4 out of 10
Here is the trailer of Jason X....

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Triangle 2009 6 out of 10

This first poster is pretty lame on the poster scale.....  Definitely wouldn't have convinced me to see it based on this.

Triangle  2009 6 out of 10

Triangle was just plain strange.  To talk about it at all would be to give away most of the plot.   I came across this movie and recorded in on the DVR off of Chiller TV based on the description,  which lead me to believe that it would be something along the lines of a Dead Calm type of movie.  Instead what I got was just a really strange, weird thriller.   It wasn't a great film, but it captured my attention enough that I felt the need to stick around to find out how it would end.   The movies stars Melissa George in the title role of a women that goes on a voyage with a couple of friends and ends up with some strange weather tossing them into the sea until they come across an old cruise ship floating around.  They board the cruise ship with no one on it and the strangeness begins.  They seem to be stuck in some form of weird limbo.   I give the movie some credit for trying something a little new and different with the convoluted storyline,  that may not fully make sense, but was at least interesting in its concept.

It basically plays out like a decent extended Twilight Zone episode with some elements of Momento as well.  

(Spoiler)

I guess the best way to describe it is Groundhog's Day except everything is bad and you can't change the outcome.  The trailer does a pretty good job of setting it up with really ruining it

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Area 407 7 out of 10

Area 407  7 out of 10

The found footage film is now a genre.   The trail was blazed by the overrated and dull Blair Witch project in 1999  3 out of 10  (which was a big financial success--despite sucking)  and later by such films as Paranormal Activity --another  overrated film (that spawned a successful franchise).    This genre got the big budget treatment and good film out of Cloverfield in 2008 where we only got glimpses of the giant Godzilla like monster.   This is a low budget version of that style that was actually pretty interesting for what it was.  It basically follows this 2 teen girls on a plane flight home for the Holidays that goes terrible wrong.   They of course are filming the whole thing which includes a plane crash onto a government test area that happens to have a creature that kills people.   This low budget ---don't show you the creature lost footage worked for me in a way that Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity did not.  The main problem with Blair Witch was not only did they not show you anything --but there was nothing to hear to scare you as well.  Blair Witch 3 out of 10  was so over hyped that when I saw it I almost walked out of the theater it was so bad.  This movie had a good use of sound....something that Blair Witch was lacking.... Maybe it was just the fact that I had never heard of the film when I DVR'd it off of Chiller TV....Maybe if this movie had been hyped like both Blair Witch or Paranormal it would have been a dud as well,  but I was actually surprised by and enjoyed this movie to a certain extent.  I even liked the ending which although it was very predictable---was perfect for the film.

The Mummy's Hand 1940 5 out of 10

The Mummy's Hand  1940  5 out of 10...

This was your typical Mummy movie.  The old school Mummy movies are pretty much all the  same.  A clue leads some treasure hunters  to a lost tomb....A curse is unleashed...the locals run and hide and the those that opened the tomb are menaced by a slow moving and not scary at all monster in bandages.   Until the big budget remake with Brendan Frasier  Mummies just were never scary. They are slow lumbering creatures that sneak up on you out of the dark and either choke you or hammer you with their Mummy wrapped hand until you are dead.   They can easily be outrun and their is generally only one of them.     Mummy movies are like a zombie movie with only one Zombie.......kinda dull.   The best Mummy movies or shows are when they are poking fun at them like in Scooby Doo.  "Coin....coin...coin".   

American Horror House 2012 5 out of 10

American Horror House....2012   5 out of 10

Starring Alessandra Torresani  (Zoe from Caprica)  I knew I recognized her from something .... and Morgan Fairchild

(still looking good). 

The movies title is a cheap attempt at tricking someone into thinking it has something to do with the tv show American Horror Story......It should be called  Just Another Sorority House of Death.

The movie was a typical sorority house with a dark secret.   I could  have sworn that this is a remake of another haunted sorority movie that I saw a couple of years ago.   It had some slight differences , but was mainly the same film.  The sorority girls are pledging of course---a halloween party happens and a bunch of people die.  Some cheesy effects including ghost lighting and a mystical border that surrounds the house and a bunch of bad death scenes are the norm in this so so horror flick. 

Below is a list of Sorority horror movies that AMC has collected....The movie that this seems a rip-off of wasn't on this list

http://movies.amctv.com/movie-guide/sorority-house-horror-movies.php

Haunted High (AKA Ghostquake) 2012 7 out of 10 (so bad it's good)

Haunted High...aka Ghostquake 2012  SO bad its good.

Starring Danny Trejo (well sort of) and featuring Charisma Carpenter....(for about 1 minute).  I decided to watch this movie for Charisma Carpenter since she was one of my favorites from her days on Buffy and Angel and even her guest spots on Veronica Mars.  Well she was only actually in the movie for one scene which didn't end well for her character.  The movie by Active Entertainment was horrible....I mean really bad ---the dialogue was bad....the story was bad.....the acting was terrible especially the super sweaty fat guy with the bowl haircut.   A really cheesy bad horror movie about a demonic ex headmaster of this school gets unleashed from a demonic coin and terrorizes the school with corny lines and silly death scenes.  Still upset over being fooled by Charisma Carpenter's actually not really being a part of the movie....I quickly went to commenting about how bad the film was....then it turned the corner ......The magical corner where a film becomes so bad that it is enjoyable....The scene that crossed the mystical border into SO bad it is good....The dead dissected frog attack.   "What the hell was that?"   "Franken Frogs".... and from there the cheese continued to please.....The music teacher has a cheesy battle with a suit of armor and is crushed by the bleachers...His music student that has the hots for him is tricked by a ghost of him taking a shower and wandering into her death after a cheesy line.   The acting in this movie is Troll 2 level...not sure if that was on purpose or whether this movie was just that bad.

Shutter 2008 7 out of 10

1. Shutter 2008  7 out 10...was a good Japanese style horror movie starring Joshua Jackson.   From the producers of The Ring and The Grudge it had that same creepy vibe to it.   The movies plot follows a newly married couple  as they travel overseas to Japan for his photography job.    An car accident happens and they start seeing these ghostly images in all their photos.   Things are quite what they seem at firs.  I personally partially figured out part of one of the twists of the film fairly early on  (just not the exact details)- yet it didn't ruin the movie for me.  If you liked The Ring and The Grudge you will probably enjoy this film as well.

Here is the trailer for it.

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Cabin in the Woods 9 out of 10: Welcome to the Whedonverse!

The Cabin in the Woods fits perfectly into the Whedonverse.    It skewers the horror genre and its conventions in  a clever and laugh filled fashion.  Like a really fun episode of Buffy or Angel that goes places that the show couldn’t.   It  plays with the classic horror movie genre with a mysterious   quality straight out of the movie The Cube….  but with Buffy style laughs.   It basically serves as a way of explaining all of the horror movies that we have seen over the years…..All of the unexplained decisions that the characters of those horror movies make.  It is like if the Scooby Gang went to a spooky cabin in the woods and left Scooby at home.   Shaggy is definitely there in the form of Fran Kranz (previously from the Dollhouse)  playing the geeky stoner  Marty.   As a fan of  Buffy and Angel I got exactly what I wanted out of this movie going experience.  It meet all of my expectations by creating creepy settings and scary moments and then having great moments of laughter and fun in place of scares.  It captured the horror that it is skewering and then cooked the kabobs and added a little extra sauce.

 The big supposed twist of the movie is technically revealed in the first few minutes of the movie and that really doesn’t matter.   It isn’t a movie that solely relies on a twist at the end like the so-so films of  M Knight.   The twist  is just a fun original idea  that allows us to look at the horror genre in a different way.    The thing I like about Joss Whedon’s stuff is that he teases you and teases you and then pays it off in the end.   On Buffy there would be a season long arch ---a mystery behind the season that you would get a hint of –and then another hint and at the end of the season there would be a payoff and the story would move forward to something else.     Other shows like Twin Peaks ,  X-Files and LOST were masters of the tease (and great at times in their run)  but they all failed in the big payoff.   You need to eventually payoff the audience.   Whedon does and this movie does as well.   They could have easily ended the movie and left it open for dozens of sequels with different scenarios ---but instead the movie has a big payoff at the end.   And I appreciate it.  

Apes, Vampires ,Mad Scientists , White Guys in Chinese Makeup & Charltton Heston kicking ass

Apes, Vampires ,Mad Scientists , White Guys in Chinese Makeup ; Charlton Heston kicking ass

or
Tor Johnson , Bela,   Karloff ,  Price ,   Kicking it old school

Finally got around to diving into my 50 DVD Horror  Classic  movie collection that I bought as a prize for the costume contest that didn’t happen at Halloween……I had planned to do a series of blogs on a similar   titled   Sci-Classics  50 DVD Set for $19---but a majority of the films I watched in that set were crap….So I abandoned the idea……Well After watching about 12 of the Horror movies over the last week and a half I thought I would get back into the movie rating game…..

I guess I will start with  the  So bad it is good  category……Which has revived ----my So bad its good movie night idea…..Which previously featured the amazingly  so bad its good   The Mummy Theme Park  ---One of the best so bad its good movies ever…..(I’ve seen that flick 3 times and love how horrible it is each time)
So we start with  The Beast of Yucca Flats  a  1961  7 out of 10  bad movie classic…..



  a 2  that turns into a 7 because it turns the SO –Bad its good corner…. This movie is just a mess  --but in a good way……The movie has a soundtrack and narration that tries to make its boring visuals of people randomly wandering around in the desert interesting…..It starts with a completely unnecessary shower scene---with an unseen killer---then becomes a movie about a ex-Russian scientist being chased  by KGB agents  which the narration teasing about an important evidence of a Russian moon landing…..This plot is completely dropped after an Atom bomb test that turns that scientist into a radioactive killer wandering aimlessly in the desert played by  Tor Johnson of stumbling around slowly after people in the Plan 9 from Outer Space   (so bad its good classic)   Tor Johnson   --we love you man.  Anyone –nothing exciting really ever happens in this flick –other than people walking around but the rambling narration that tries to save this clunker makes it   SO-Bad its good.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB6IIXCPoAQ

The Maniac  1934   7 out of 10  (so bad it is good) ---Another so bad its good entry   Crazy overacting –makes this short  54 minute movie a quick easy and entertaining watch in my bookhttp://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi380371225/

Next up in the collection  2 Charlie Chan like  movies starring  Boris Karloff
--playing a Chinese Detective  Mr Wong….I love the horribly stereotyped Chan flicks with white guys playing the lead Chinese rules….But other than makeup to make Karloff look Chinese he doesn’t even change the way he talks….   That being said they are both Serviceable Mystery flicks…..Doomed to Die  1940  5 out of 10   and The Fatal Hour   1940 5 out of 10…..Standard Mystery stuff –with and over anxious American  cop trying to arrest  the wrong guy while  Mr Wong solves the cases and finds the real killer and the hot young news reporter trying to get a scoop……..In this case   2 Wongs make an  Alright couple of movies

Next up   “I was like a one man wrecking crew like Charlton Heston in Omega  Man did you see it ?  it was a Beauty”



The Last Man on Earth  1960   6 out of 10  starring …. Vincent Price
I love this dude even in so –so movies…..  Based on Richard Matheson's novel "I Am Legend"  Also the basis  for Omega Man  1971 7 out of 10  and I am Legend    with Will Smith……..This end of the world saga  has Vincent Price Narration which I love..   End of the world Last man on the planet picks can always get a little dull at times ---and of course they are never truly only….I enjoyed this look back at a classic tale….Vincent Price running around and stabbing People turned into Vampires by some Pandemic….Entertaining stuff ….It made me end up watching the Hipper---Charlton Heston  1970’s flick ---which has the  baddies running around in cult robes  (Like Snuggies)….Heston kicks some ass…..
The Last  Man on Earth trailerhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4mYireNvcg

The Omega Man trailerhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-MosmUseSY

From the Last man on Earth we head into 4  films with mad scientists.
The year  1933  gives us The Vampire Bat  6 out of 10 with Fay Wray (of King Kong Fame)   Which tells a tale of  A vampire loose in the town….With Universal Studio backlot sets  and a torch mob –and mad scientist…  Decent  flick…
From the year 1940’s  The Ape  4 out of 10   Starring  Boris Karloff as a scientist  trying to cure Paralysis…..This movie also has an Ape on loose from the circus theme…..and Wild west  posse on the trail of the killer stuff…..I think this tale needed to figure out what it wanted to be….. 1944  Brings us another so-so  Dr. Frankenstein wannabe…..The Monster Maker  3 out of 10  this dull tale of yet another scientist trying to cure something  fell kind of flat ---and amazingly this movie also had an ape in it   And finally –we have  The Corpse Vanishes  1942   5 out of 10  --With Bela Lugosi  --who is fake killing off brides at their wedding and stealing their bodies to make a serum to keep his wife young….and hot on his trail is a stereotypical  news reporter.

The Ape cliphttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk_Ps4q4DZU&feature=PlayList&p=5FEAEB8CC5F07964&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=49

The Vampire Bat  A Glimpse  “Martha get me apples I like”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st1LRNDXxFo

Ok



1939 bring us The Gorilla  7 out of 10   starring the Ritz Brothers  a set of comedy brothers as .Detective  chasing a killer called The Gorilla-  (and of course there is an actual gorilla running around as well)----It’s a standard murder mystery in a house with trap doors and secret passageways flick with the stereotype scared black driver ….”I ain’t going in there”   That kind of stuff….and the detectives all Costello style vaudeville.    This flick made me wonder  What if you did comedy sketch with an affluent all black cast ---with a white guy playing the stereotyped role ….Then it dawned on me  …….Shaggy from Scooby Doo is basically that characer found in the less sensitive  1930 and 1940 movies….
Anyway this film apparently was a comedic remake or influenced by a more serious less entertaining  1932 movie called  A Monster Walks  4 out of 10  which also features a gorilla –a mansion and a killer .  

1933’s  A shriek in the Night –5 out of 10 ---like the Mr Wong movies was more Murder Mystery than Horror movie….. Another out to get the story reporter tell…It was ok but nothing to write about …..Oh I guess I just did.

Finally that brings us to Dementia 13  1963 6 out of 10 Francis Ford Coppolla’s first real flick…More the creepy family in a castle who done it…It had some cool elements and some interesting scenes ….But wasn’t anything really special.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUe_HqotyH8&feature=PlayList&p=5FEAEB8CC5F07964&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=14