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I've decided I'm just not up to reviewing all those horror films we watched the other day in depth. So here's just a quick blurb about each of them.
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark - Big-budget remake of an obscure TV movie about a lonely little girl sent to live with her father and his girlfriend who are restoring the house of a famous 19th century illustrator who disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Then she starts hearing noises from the basement... Written and produced by Guilermo Del Toro and as good as you'd expect based on that.
Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil - Hilarious deconstruction of films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, etc. Tucker and Dale are two likeable, good-natured hicks trying to relax at their new vacation home. But a series of misunderstandings and gruesome accidents cause them to be mistaken for backwoods serial killers! Horror comedy is a tricky proposition but this film does it right.
The Caller - Tense, grueling thriller about a woman already fleeing from her violent ex-husband when she begins receiving phone calls from a disturbed woman who becomes obsessed with her. The twist? The calls seem to be coming from the year 1979! Stars Rachelle Lafevre and Stephen Moyer who prove they are entertaining to watch even when not moving at super vampire speed.
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon - Another deconstructing horror comedy. This one is set in a world where Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, and every other horror film slasher you ever heard of are real people terrorizing small towns. Leslie Vernon is out to join their ranks and hires a documentary film crew to chronicle his first killing spree. If you've ever watched a slasher movie and wondered how the bad guy did something this film will explain it. Horror fans will appreciate seeing Kane Hodder in a cameo and Robert Englund in a supporting role... and they're not playing Jason and Freddy despite the fact that they exist!
The Eclipse - Netflix classifies this movie as a supernatural thriller but it's not. It's a mopey, maudlin love story that just happens to have a handful of jump-scares. A widower who works for an Irish literary festival gets stuck acting as a chauffeur for a soft-spoken Englishwoman who writes horror novels and a drunken, narcissistic American literary novelist. It's fun watching Aidan Quinn do his Ernest Hemmingway impression but otherwise it's just a slow, boring film about people so wrapped up in their own problems that supernatural events barely even faze them.
Dreams In The Witch House - Made-for-cable adaptation of one of my favorite H.P. Lovecraft short stories. A physics student moves into a crumbling tenement and discovers his oddly-shaped room might form an intersection between dimensions. Despite some truly awful special effects, the absence of Nyarlathotep, and the addition of a shocking and gratuitous sex scene it actually does a good job of maintaining the original story's atmosphere and remains otherwise true to the plot. Honestly though, in the 40 minutes it takes to watch it you could just read the original story and have a better experience.
On a different note, I don't know what's worse: the fact that an eight year-old accompanied by his father came up to me at work and asked for Grand Theft Auto IV or that he literally said Grand Theft Auto IV. As in he did not know that "IV" means "4" in Roman numerals. I knew what Roman numerals were at that age, mostly because we had a clock in the living room that used them. So instead of asking what's wrong with the kids these days maybe we should be asking what's wrong with the clocks?
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark - Big-budget remake of an obscure TV movie about a lonely little girl sent to live with her father and his girlfriend who are restoring the house of a famous 19th century illustrator who disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Then she starts hearing noises from the basement... Written and produced by Guilermo Del Toro and as good as you'd expect based on that.
Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil - Hilarious deconstruction of films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, etc. Tucker and Dale are two likeable, good-natured hicks trying to relax at their new vacation home. But a series of misunderstandings and gruesome accidents cause them to be mistaken for backwoods serial killers! Horror comedy is a tricky proposition but this film does it right.
The Caller - Tense, grueling thriller about a woman already fleeing from her violent ex-husband when she begins receiving phone calls from a disturbed woman who becomes obsessed with her. The twist? The calls seem to be coming from the year 1979! Stars Rachelle Lafevre and Stephen Moyer who prove they are entertaining to watch even when not moving at super vampire speed.
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon - Another deconstructing horror comedy. This one is set in a world where Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, and every other horror film slasher you ever heard of are real people terrorizing small towns. Leslie Vernon is out to join their ranks and hires a documentary film crew to chronicle his first killing spree. If you've ever watched a slasher movie and wondered how the bad guy did something this film will explain it. Horror fans will appreciate seeing Kane Hodder in a cameo and Robert Englund in a supporting role... and they're not playing Jason and Freddy despite the fact that they exist!
The Eclipse - Netflix classifies this movie as a supernatural thriller but it's not. It's a mopey, maudlin love story that just happens to have a handful of jump-scares. A widower who works for an Irish literary festival gets stuck acting as a chauffeur for a soft-spoken Englishwoman who writes horror novels and a drunken, narcissistic American literary novelist. It's fun watching Aidan Quinn do his Ernest Hemmingway impression but otherwise it's just a slow, boring film about people so wrapped up in their own problems that supernatural events barely even faze them.
Dreams In The Witch House - Made-for-cable adaptation of one of my favorite H.P. Lovecraft short stories. A physics student moves into a crumbling tenement and discovers his oddly-shaped room might form an intersection between dimensions. Despite some truly awful special effects, the absence of Nyarlathotep, and the addition of a shocking and gratuitous sex scene it actually does a good job of maintaining the original story's atmosphere and remains otherwise true to the plot. Honestly though, in the 40 minutes it takes to watch it you could just read the original story and have a better experience.
On a different note, I don't know what's worse: the fact that an eight year-old accompanied by his father came up to me at work and asked for Grand Theft Auto IV or that he literally said Grand Theft Auto IV. As in he did not know that "IV" means "4" in Roman numerals. I knew what Roman numerals were at that age, mostly because we had a clock in the living room that used them. So instead of asking what's wrong with the kids these days maybe we should be asking what's wrong with the clocks?
