Horror Queen

Big deal.

PLOT

Micah and Katie are a young couple in love, though we don’t really see that side of things given that they spend the whole movie barely touching each other. Weird things begin happening, which causes Micah to setup a video camera in their home where they see things moving, lights coming on and hear voices on tape. Katie starts acting weird and doing odd things, but she has no memory of them in the morning. As the ghostly activity starts ramping up, the duo realize that it’s somehow tied to Katie and that there may not be an escape.

TRIVIA

There are two different endings to the movie: one shown during a past screening and one sent out to distributors. Both are substantially different from the ending shown in theaters.

THOUGHTS

When I heard that people walked out of Paranormal Activity, I rolled my eyes. When I saw the movie and kept hearing the same thing over and over (and over again), I started to get a little pissed off. I’d really like to know where the people are who thought it was so scary because they obviously weren’t in my theater. When we left the screening full of people, all we heard were the people grumbling about either feeling ripped off, or just feeling disappointed. I take that back, there were a group of teenagers who said it was the scariest thing they ever saw. I spent the whole movie waiting for something to happen. Given the trailers of Paranormal Activity, I thought something should happen, but I just kept waiting. Oh, is something about to happen? Nope, that’s just the door shutting. Oh, what about now? No, just a picture in the attic. Paranormal Activity was disappointing, in the same way that the Blair Witch Project was disappointing: too much hype and no payoff.

Eh…

PLOT

Mark is a farmer living in South Africa who meets and falls for the beautiful Stacy. The two decide to get married and she abandons her own career to stay with him. The two have a fantastic life together until the day that Mark’s car flips and he dies from the accident. Mark starts appearing to her and tries to convince her that she should commit suicide so they can be together forever. After a botched attempt, she realizes that she’s pregnant. The baby is born and Mark not only keeps appearing, but she begins wondering if he’s haunting her son since the baby does weird things like watching her longingly in the bathtub. Stacy quickly realizes (well not too quickly) that she must put her past behind her to move on.

TRIVIA

Released overseas first before being released in the United States.

THOUGHTS

Originally I planned to say that I didn’t like Ghost Son, but now I’m reconsidering. It’s actually not too bad and it stars two people I like: Laura Herring (who I used to watch on daytime television) and John Hannah. The movie moves at a slow pace, which I’m typically not a fan of and I felt like I was waiting for something big to happen, just based on the description. That something big never really happens. You also have to deal with a fairly low budget and scenes of Hannah sitting by himself and brooding as a ghost, which is almost funny. It’s not great, but far from the worst thing I saw this year.

What can you say about a remake?

PLOT

Nick is a local man, working on a fishing boat and sleeping with Stevie Wayne, the sexy DJ who owns the only radio station that reaches residents of a small island. When his girlfriend Elizabeth comes back to town, he tries to hide his recent actions from her and go back to things as normal. Something isn’t normal though, and the residents discover that when bodies start turning up after a mysterious fog sweeps through town. Elizabeth starts researching the town’s history and discovers the dark truth of the town founders. The founders murdered a ship full of men and kept it hidden, but now the ghosts of those men want their revenge.

TRIVIA

A kind of/sort of remake of the John Carpenter movie The Fog.

THOUGHTS

I never bothered to see this movie because the reviews were so bad, but when I saw it for $2, I couldn’t resist picking it up. Now I’m almost sad that I wasted the time. The only good thing about the movie is Selma Blair as Stevie. She’s so great and Maggie Grace is so bad as Elizabeth that you wonder why anyone would pick her over Stevie. The acting here is pretty bad too, with most actors just sleepwalking through their roles and acting like wooden dolls. I expect to see this in a low-budget, straight to DVD release and not a wide-spread horror movie.

Typical.

PLOT

A girl secretly meets her boyfriend and they talk about how they’re getting married when she turns 18. She tells her father about it and he kills her a few minutes later, declaring that he doesn’t want the darkness to get her. The movie then switches to Molly Hartley, who is 17 and attending a new school. Her psychotic mother stabbed her with scissors and she and her father are trying to put their lives back together while her mom is locked up. She makes friends with another student and even gets a quasai boyfriend Joseph. She starts seeing weird things and hearing things, which makes her think that she’s psychotic like her mom. Slowly she realizes that there is something else going on and it’s all connected to her mom.

TRIVIA

Several of the actors appear on CW shows, with two actresses playing friends on “Beverly Hills 90210”.

THOUGHTS

I can’t believe I sat through this movie, nor can I believe that a friend who borrowed it thought it was “pretty cool”. I thought it was fairly lame and that’s being polite. About the only thing I liked in the movie was the end because it featured the bad buy winning, which unfortunately we don’t see happen a lot. Other than that, I can’t say a whole lot of good things about the movie. The Haunting of Molly Hartley had the feel of a straight to DVD movie, but had a theatrical release.

Forgive the review.

PLOT

A small group of young people visit Stacy Keach in the hospital and ask him questions about an old abandoned prison where he once worked. They’re working on a documentary about the old prison and want to hear his experiences. They then head off to the prison where Jake Busey and a group of ex-cons are on the run from the law. The group has to learn how to work together when they learn that the ghost stories told about the prison weren’t just stories after all.

THOUGHTS

I don’t know what to say about this movie because once again, I don’t remember it. I remember a few bits and pieces about it, but not the whole movie and the sad thing is that I watched it twice. Once a few months ago and then again when I realized that I never wrote a review of it. It’s the same old crappy straight to DVD horror movie with only a few notable scenes. I didn’t get scared and I don’t really remember a whole lot.

The first of many remakes.

PLOT

A college professor jumps off his balcony and kills himself, much to the horror of his girlfriend waiting in bed for him. The movie then jumps to an American woman in Japan who moved there for her boyfriend. She heads to work as a health aide and learns that she’s being sent on her first home visit alone. She arrives and finds the patient by herself and also sees a small boy in the house. The movie then cuts back to two other stories and reveals how they are connected. A young woman was obsessed with the professor and her husband killed her before killing their son for seeing it happen. The next residents of the house were attacked by the ghosts of the house right before the American began working with them. She has to uncover what happened before she becomes the next victim.

TRIVIA

Sarah Michelle Gellar previously starred on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, while Clea Duvall and Jason Behr both starred on different episodes in the first and second season.

THOUGHTS

I never realized just how confusing The Grudge was until I tried to write out the plot and realized that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. With a movie like this, it’s hard to figure out what happened when and which character goes with which storyline. I will admit that the noise made by the woman’s ghost grates on my nerves and when I heard a similar noise on the street, it sent chills down my spine. I guess The Grudge remake wasn’t too bad, though I’ve heard that a lot of people really hated it.

How can you not love this?

PLOT

A perfect suburban family are living the happy suburban life until their little girl Carol Anne calmly tells them one morning that “they’re here”. Immediately weird things happen such as things moving and the kitchen chairs getting stacked on the table. Then young son Robbie is grabbed by a tree outside during a storm and Carl Anne is sucked into the ghostly realm. A parapsychology team investigates the house and discovers that a poltergeist is running loose. Tangia, a medium comes to the house in the hopes of saving Carol Anne and letting the ghosts free. She succeeds, but has she…?

TRIVIA

Poltergeist is set for a remake and will hit theaters on November 24, 2010.

THOUGHTS

Like I said at the top, how can you not love Poltergeist? A friend of mine who doesn’t even like horror movies stopped by just as I put this in, said “ooh, got here just in time” and proceeded to sit and watch the whole movie with me. Plus my dad has seen it more than I have. It’s the type of movie that everyone can like. I can’t even write a real review of it! I’ll just say that it holds up well with time, better than some other movies and that damn clown doll still freaks me out…

Not as good as I remembered.

PLOT

Cyrus, a ghost hunter and his assistant Dennis head off to capture a ghost, but Cyrus is killed during the mission. His nephew Arthur learns he inherited his uncle’s house and heads off to look at it with his kids Kathy and Bobby and nanny. The house has huge glass walls with Latain words on many of them. Dennis arrives dressed as a power worker and when he finds ghosts in the basement, he tells Arthur of the truth. The lawyer showing him the house tells him everything is fine, but then ends up dead when one of the ghosts attacks him downstairs. The ghosts begin attacking the family and Arthur finds a medium named Kalina hiding in the house. The only way to see the ghosts is by using special glasses and when Arthur discovers that his dead wife’s ghost is in the house, he becomes determined to save everyone inside.

TRIVIA

A remake of the 1960 William Castle movie.

THOUGHTS

I know that Thirteen Ghosts isn’t some great horror movie, but I always liked it. It’s fairly cheesy, a little lame and Shannon Elizabeth looks nothing at all like her onscreen dad Tony Shaloub. When I watched it again though, I didn’t like it as much as I did before. This time it seemed a little long and most of the characters were annoying, Elizabeth especially. I kept checking to see how much time was left because I was ready for another movie.

Blah.

PLOT

In 1982 a bloody massacre happened at the house of a local Phoenix man who happened to be a big deal in the local church. Paranormal investigator Carter Sims is called into investigate claims that the house is haunted by the owner who pays her $5,000. She arrives at the house with a reporter Yvette and filmmaker Colin. The first night a woman named Mary arrives and tells the group that the owner wanted her help too. Unfortunately she spouts off Bible verses frequently and seems to be a big fan of the killer. It doesn’t take long for the ghosts to appear and quickly the little group learns that the family was more sinister than their neighbors thought.

TRIVIA

Don’t believe the hype. Though Death of a Ghost Hunter was billed as “based on a true story/events”, it’s all fiction.

THOUGHTS

I’m not really sure what to say about Death of a Ghost Hunter because when I first watched it, I wasn’t too crazy about the movie. Now that it’s been a few days I can safely say that it wasn’t as bad as I originally thought. Most of the characters are your basic, run of the mill horror movie characters and Carter even gets a tad annoying. Plus Mary is a horrible character, especially towards the end when the “twist” happens. It wasn’t the worst movie ever made, but I can say that once was enough for me.

Damn you Netflix!

PLOT

A college student gets a notice in the mail that her school found her housing in an old building off-campus and she arrives to find that four other students got the same letter. On their first night in the house, they find an old clock and one of the girls tells a story about her grandmother telling her that a clock like that was known as a spirit trap. As the kids start getting close to each other, weird things start happening and they all seem to revolve around that clock. Hidden secrets are revealed and it becomes apparent that no one can trust their new roommates.

TRIVIA

The film was set in London, but filmed in Romania.

THOUGHTS

Surprisingly enough, Spirit Trap wasn’t that bad of a movie and it even had a few good parts. I went into it expecting the same crappy straight to DVD horror movie I’ve seen a million times and ended up being pleasantly surprised. I think part of it is because I wasn’t expecting a foreign horror movie when it started playing, which should teach me to read the back of the box or description a little more closely. I will say that the ending felt a little lame and tacked on, but the rest of the movie made up for it.