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The original trilogy?…
Or maybe these instead?…
source: MonsterZero NJ
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Spooky flick has a woman named Julia (Louisa Krause from Ava’s Possessions) taking up an overnight security job at a large abandoned building. She is stuck with a bitter and cynical partner, Cooper (Jason Patric of Lost Boys), who is confined to a wheelchair. When on patrol in the lower levels, Julia discovers a doorway to an unmarked, underground section of the building. Hearing noises from within, Julia opens it and discovers a catacomb-like series of rooms and hallways leading to some sort of abandoned hospital or asylum…and she also discovers they may not be alone in the building and she may have just let something out.
Supernatural thriller may not be totally successful with what it sets out to do, but has some spooky moments and imagery and is unsettling enough. It’s atmospherically directed by Eytan Rockaway from Ido Fluk’s script and while a lot of it feels familiar, it is well done and provides some effective chills in the telling of it’s haunted building story. Rockaway makes good use of the location and fills this abandoned building with hallways and tunnels drenched in shadows and shares with the audience the sensation that with any wrong turn, one could easily become lost. The more Julia digs into the past of the building and into it’s lower levels, we discover a tragic story of abandonment and abuse that is prime to evoke restless spirits. We have seen it before, but it still has effect here. It also leads somewhere we are not expecting and it does resonate when we get there. It’s not perfect. It takes a while to get spooky and sometimes all the wandering down dark hallways gets repetitive. Cooper’s initial animosity towards Julia is a bit cliché and starts to get a little annoying, too, till they bond over Julia’s discovery and the ensuing investigation…most of which Cooper is opposed to.
Except for Mark Margolis’ homeless character, it’s pretty much all Krause and Patric and they work well together. With this and Ava’s Possessions, Louisa Krause is proving an actress to watch. Her Julia is obviously someone with her own issues and she is stubborn and yet anxious to do well here. She isn’t willing to compromise her beliefs, or her compassion for others and she and Cooper butt heads on the subject of leaving homeless people out in storms, or investigating behind closed doors when it sounds like someone might need help. This is where Krause gives Julia her stubbornness and her empathetic nature, which make her very likable. Patric comes across as a bit of a jerk, at first, but as we get to know Cooper, the veteran actor gives life to the reasons Cooper is the way he is, as the script reveals those reasons. We come to like Cooper despite our initial introduction to what appears to be a bitter and unhappy man. Good work from the teaming of a veteran actor with a new talent.
In conclusion, this is an entertaining enough supernatural thriller. There are some spooky scenes, an unsettling atmosphere and a really cavernous abandoned building to set those in. There is a slow reveal mystery that may tell a story that is nothing new, but it does come to an affecting and interesting conclusion. There are good performances from it’s small cast and some creepy things that go bump in the night, too. Worth a look as uses it’s familiar elements very well.
-MonsterZero NJ
3 spooks.
Found footage flick has three sisters reuniting at their family lakeside home to mourn the drowning death of their mother with sister June (Lindsay Burdge) documenting it. The aptly named Spirit Lake is said to be bottomless and there is a local legend about The Seven Sisters, who all drowned one night in the lake trying to save each other as they were each in turn dragged under by some force. With some strange occurrences happening while they stay there, the three women start to believe that their mother’s death was possibly not an accident and there might have been something more supernatural involved.
As written and directed by Sarah Adina Smith (Holidays), the film has some spooky moments, but focuses more on the drama between the three siblings, which isn’t anything we haven’t seen before in this kind of indie drama. There is also no real reason for this to be a POV movie and sometimes it works against the more drama intensive narrative. When the film delves into the more supernatural possibilities, it is more interesting and more effective, though it doesn’t do that often. When the three sisters are reminiscing about their mother and revealing inner pain and such, it just becomes another routine indie family drama. An interesting curiosity, with some spooky moments, but nothing that one needs urgently see. Also stars Jennifer Lafleur and Aleksa Palladino as the other sisters, Annie and Isa.
-MonsterZero NJ
Story has a flight to Tokyo, Japan experiencing some very strange and deadly supernatural phenomena. When a passenger dies of a sudden seizure, it seems to unleash a mysterious force that begins to stalk the plane and starts killing the passengers. A group of passengers band together to try to find out what is going on and stop it.
Disappointing flick from Takashi Shimizu, who wrote and directed the 90s J-horror classic The Grudge and it’s very effective sequel. It plays like a 70s B-movie disaster flick complete with a cast of cliché characters played by B-list actors like Leslie Bibb, Amy Smart, Jaime Chung, Johnathon Schaech and Halloween’s ScoutTaylor-Compton as a goth chick. It’s basically a very silly film that gets more and more silly as it goes on and evoked memories of a very similar and equally silly 1973 TV movie called The Horror At 37,000 Feet with William Shatner. It’s not all Shimizu’s fault, as it is written by Craig Rosenberg and not one of his own scripts. Given the Japanese director’s track record for creepiness, though, you’d at least expect it to be somewhat spooky. Let’s not even mention the ludicrous and cliché ending. Had a moment or two, but sadly is another example of a Japanese director working for an American studio on a project that is an insult to their talents. Now we know why this has sat on a shelf for two years.
-MonsterZero NJ
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This is actually a fun anthology the uses the amusing framing story of H.P. Lovecraft (Jeffrey Combs) himself visiting the library of a mysterious sect of monks and sneaking a look at the forbidden book of the title and thus unleashing three stories based on actual works of the author. Now we know where he got his inspiration.
First story, The Drowned, is the best and most Lovecraftian of the three tales. It’s directed by Christophe Gans (Brotherhood of the Wolf) and written by Gans and Brent V. Friedman. It tells the tragic tale of Edward De LaPoer (Bruce Payne) who has recently lost his wife in a terrible drowning accident and now has inherited a run-down, old seaside hotel from a distant uncle. He discovers the original owner of the building Jethro De La Poer (Richard Lynch) also lost his family tragically at sea and used a book called the Necronomicon to resurrect them. Not heeding how horribly Jethro’s story turned out, Edward finds where the book is hidden in the house and plots to resurrect his own lost love. This story is very well acted by Payne and has some of the best SPFX of the anthology in its presentation of resurrected ghouls and Cthulhu-like creatures. It has a nice atmosphere of dread and a great visual look from Gans. As far as evoking Lovecraft, this segment nails it perfectly.
Second story, The Cold, is entertaining, too as it finds nosey and obnoxious reporter Dale Porkel (Dennis Christopher) confronting a woman (Bess Meyer) in an old Boston house as to the whereabouts of the original owner, a Dr. Madden (David Warner). Madden is suspected of being over 100 years old and Porkel claims he can tie him into a series of disappearances unless the woman tells him everything. Be careful what you wish for, as Porkel gets a tale of love, murder and trying to cheat death that is chilling in more ways than one. Another entertaining story, this one directed by the 90s Gamera series’ director Shusuke Kaneko and written by Friedman and Kazunori Ito. This segment combines a tragic love story with a gruesome tale of a scientist trying to cheat death while at the cost of the lives of others. It earns it’s title from the fact that Madden’s cheating of death only works at very low temperatures. The segment is well done, has some very good FX and the cast all perform well, especially David Warner as the ill-fated Madden. Christopher lays it on a little thick but is only in the beginning and end of the segment.
Final story, Whispers is the weakest, but still provides skin-crawling entertainment. It’s written by Brent V. Friedman and Brian Yuzna, who also directed the segment. This tells the story of a cop (Signy Coleman) who is pregnant from her partner Paul (Obba Babatundé). Her overly emotional state while in pursuit of a mysterious suspect called The Butcher, causes an accident that allows the injured Paul to be taken hostage. She pursues them into what appears to be an abandoned building, but soon finds there is an unspeakable and otherworldly horror waiting for her and her unborn child in its depths. Segment is OK but marred by some over-the-top and uneven acting and a story that’s too contemporary to fit in comfortably with the previous old-fashioned tales. What we finally find in its lower levels is gruesome and unnerving and well portrayed by some charming prosthetic effects and Yuzna does have a cinematic style that works well with the subject matter. The story is entertaining, but not as much as what came before and it also lacks the other stories’ charm, though it does have some of the most unsettling visuals.
Obviously, after the final tale, we finish the framing story of H.P. Lovecraft’s search and seizure of the Necronomicon and hint at possible future installments which sadly never happened. The framing segments are fun and also directed by Brian Yuzna and co-written with Brent V. Friedman. This segment has a charming old-fashioned movie serial feel and does get to have a little fun with prosthetic make-up FX in its last act. Too bad the film never took off enough to continue the adventures of Coombs’ H.P. Lovecraft. That might have been fun.
This is, overall, an entertaining movie. The stories may be uneven, but they do capture the flavor of the celebrated horror author’s work and the wraparound story actually involving Lovecraft is charming and fun. The FX throughout are delightful prosthetics, gore, miniatures and rubber creatures with some slightly cheesy visual FX that are all the more fun for it. The cast are fairly solid, except for a few overdone performances, such as in the last story, but are balanced out by the strong work of Payne, Lynch, Warner and the always welcome Jeffrey Combs. A fun and nostalgic anthology that deserves a decent blu-ray release!
-MonsterZero NJ
Rated 3 (out of 4) necronomicons.
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Take Shelter director Jeff Nichols’ film is a science fiction/chase thriller that evokes John Carpenter’s Starman yet, is very much it’s own movie. Alton (Jaeden Lieberher) is a boy with some very unique and unexplainable powers. These powers have earned him a religious cult built around him that believes he can protect them from the coming Judgment Day. As he can receive communications of even the most top secret kind, the government is very interested in him as well. His father Roy (Michael Shannon) and friend Lucas (Joel Edgerton) kidnap Alton from the cult and now flee across country to a place and time the boy insists he must be. With both government agents and cultists in hot pursuit, will they get there in time…or at all?
If you can imagine John Carpenter at his prime teaming with Steven Spielberg in his earlier years than this flick is what you might have gotten. Nichols writes and directs a tale of a mysterious and special boy on the run from those who seek to use his gifts for their own purposes. What makes this work especially well is the emotional depth it’s given being presented from the perspective of a loving father accepting his son for who he is and willing to give his life to see him safe. It’s this emotional core that makes this work beyond the well-executed SPFX sequences of Alton’s powers at work…which are used sparingly, but to full effect. There is certainly suspense and some tense sequences, which are all deftly handled, but it is the film’s sense of wonder and the flesh and blood characters that really draw us in. Even if the Spielbergian finale is a bit more on a Disney level than the more intense and sometimes violent rest of the film, it still works and leaves us effected even after the credits role, as Nichols doesn’t just present it, but shows us some of the effects on those around it. It gives the SPFX filled moment weight…and a sense of wonder. The director/writer takes a familiar tale and really makes it something fresh and fills it with some very three dimensional characters which give it a realism and keeps it grounded, despite the science fiction elements. It’s a really enjoyable film with a heart, as well as, SPFX, action and suspense. There is an effective score by David Wingo and some Dean Cundey-esque cinematography from Adam Stone to add to an already exceptional movie.
The cast couldn’t be better. Michael Shannon again proves he is one of the most gifted actors around as Alton’s caring and self-sacrificing father, Roy. Jaeden Lieberher is enchanting as Alton, who is more than he seems and we really endear to him despite his sometimes dangerous abilities. Joel Edgerton, fresh off The Gift, is again solid as the state trooper who is willing to break the laws he holds dear to help his friend and his son. We also have Kirsten Dunst in a touching role as Alton’s mother who loves him enough to possibly let him go, if it means his safety. Sam Shepard also appears as cult leader, Calvin Meyer and rounding out the leads is Adam Driver as a sympathetic government official who decides to help Alton find what it is he is looking for. A top notch cast that make their characters very real.
A emotionally strong and highly enjoyable thriller about a special boy and the race to keep him safe. Alton is a bit of a mystery at first, but as we journey with him, we slowly learn just how fantastically special he is. The film has a big heart with some tense action and suspense, along with a sense of wonder and some very effective SPFX moments. But unlike the CGI laden big budget FX spectacles of today, this film has a very human center at it’s core, about a parents love for their child and the lengths they will go to see them safe. Great movie that reminded me of John Carpenter in his prime and the earlier works of Steven Spielberg. Highly recommended.
-MonsterZero NJ
Rated 4 (out of 4) Altons.
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Holidays is a horror anthology that presents eight short stories, each based on a holiday and adding some kind of supernatural/horror twist. Each tale is written and directed by different filmmakers with somewhat mixed resluts.
The first is Valentines Day, written and directed by Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch (Starry Eyes) and tells the story of introverted high school girl Maxine (Madeleine Coghlan) who has a crush on her swimming coach (Rick Peters). When she misinterprets a sympathetic Valentine’s Day card from him, she decides to solve her bullying problem and present her object of affection with a special gift, all at the same time. It is an effective story with some very gruesome moments and has a bit of that offbeat, disturbing feel that made Starry Eyes work so well.
Next up is St. Patrick’s Day written and directed by Gary Shore (Dracula Untold). This tells the story of a new little girl (Isolt McCaffrey) at school who gives her teacher (Ruth Bradley) a St. Patrick’s Day wish with disturbing results. This episodes starts out creepy enough, but gets progressively silly till it’s goofy ending.
Next up is Easter written and directed by Nicholas McCarthy (The Pact). This tells a really weird and disturbing tale of a little girl (Ava Acres) who accidentally catches the Easter Bunny (Mark Steger) in the act…but he’s not quite what she expected and there is a disturbing price for being the first child to ever see him. This is a weird episode that unsettlingly combines both the Christian doctrine and traditional bunny folklore of Easter. While not totally successful, it gets extra points for being daring enough to ‘go there’.
The next tale is written and directed by Sarah Adina Smith and is called Mother’s Day. It’s an odd story about a woman (Sophie Traub) who is ‘cursed’ by getting pregnant every time she has sex. She is sent to, of all places, a fertility clinic, to solve her problem, one which turns out to be more than it seems. This episode was really strange, yet a bit unsatisfying as it didn’t seem to go anywhere and had a predictable and cliché shock ending.
Father’s Day is one of the best tales. It is written and directed by FX man Anthony Scott Burns (FX for The Last Exorcism Part II). It tells of a young woman (House of the Devil’s Jocelin Donahue) who receives a recorded message from her long dead father, asking her to meet him at a special place from her childhood. This is a very effective episode that is moody, creepy and heartbreaking, thanks in equal parts to good direction and a very strong performance by Donahue.
The biggest disappointment and worst episode is Kevin Smith’s Halloween. It takes place on Halloween, but has little to do with the holiday as it tells the story of Ian (Harley Mortenstein) the mean owner of a Sex Cam business who has a painful rebellion from three of his employees (Ashley Greene, Olivia Roush and Harley Quinn Smith). It forgoes any attempt at something spooky for more of Smith’s traditional adolescent vulgarity. Boring, crude and has nothing to do with the holiday it represents.
Anthology get’s back on track with Scott Stewart’s (Dark Skies) Christmas. This one tells the tale of a down-on-his-luck dad (Seth Green) who goes to disturbing lengths to get his kid the pair of virtual reality glasses he wants. These glasses, however, reveal a person’s true self and he and his wife (Clare Grant) learn some very unsettling things about each other. This is a fun and chilling episode and Green is entertaining to watch as the desperate dad and Clare Grant is good as the wife with a secret side to her.
Final episode is New Year’s and is is directed by Adam Egypt Mortimer (Some Kind Of Hate) from a script by Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch. It tells the story of a serial killer (Andrew Bowen) who has specific plans for his New Year’s Eve date (Lorenza Izzo) who turns out to have far more in common with him than he realizes. This is a twisted and fun episode with a really entertaining psycho turn by Izzo as Jean. Izzo is showning a talent for these roles, as she was one of the few fun parts of Knock Knock.
Overall, this was a mixed bag, but the good outweighed the bad. There were a few disappointments, especially from Kevin Smith who dropped the ball on delivering something in the Halloween spirit for his tale. We did gets some spooky and effective stories, with the standout being Burn’s Father’s Day which had a sympathetic and strong portrayal from Jocelin Donahue. Definitely worth a watch for the segments that did work and even a couple of the failures had an originality to their telling.
-MonsterZero NJ
3 Christmas trees.
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1. “The Jungle Book” $60.8 Million
2. “The Huntsman: Winter’s War” $20 Million
3. “Barbershop: The Next Cut” $10.8 Million
4. “Zootopia” $6.6 Million
5. “The Boss” $6 Million
6. “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” $5.5 Million
7. “Criminal” $3.1 Million
8. “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2” $2.1 Million
9. “Compadres” $1.35 Million
10. “A Hologram For The King” $1.2 Million
source: Box Office Mojo
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Bizarre story has Rob (Cian Barry) suffering the effects of the accidental death of his girlfriend Nina (Fiona O’Shaughnessy). He’s depressed and has actually and unsuccessfully, attempted suicide. He has trouble moving on and even still hangs out with Nina’s parents (Elizabeth Elvin and David Troughton). Along comes Holly (Abigail Hardingham) who works with Rob at a grocery store and finds his whole mournful state of mind appealing. Holly is training to become an EMT and has a dark side, which sees Rob’s lingering pain as a noble sign of loyalty. They start dating, but each time they attempt to have sex, Nina’s mangled corpse appears to stop them. Holly will do anything to keep Rob, including trying to make their relationship a threesome with the deceased Nina. But Nina wants Rob all to herself and Holly out of the picture. How do you compete with a corpse?
Credit where credit is due, this is an original and offbeat flick from the demented minds of Ben and Chris Blaine. It plays it’s twisted story straight and yet has a dry sense of humor about itself, but sort of overplayed it’s welcome after awhile. Perhaps the story would have served itself better as a short tale in an anthology, as some of it started to get tiresome, such as Rob’s continual inability to deal with what’s happening and the hints of some sort of romantic interest with Nina’s aged mother. Even in a film that is supposed to be a morbid fantasy, it is also hard to believe Holly would so quickly accept the appearance of Nina and put up with it for as long as she does. There are some truly disturbing moments, such as the before mentioned threesome attempt and that Nina’s appearance adds a lot of blood to the love making process and that shows the filmmakers aren’t afraid to push boundaries. Cian Barry is a bit bland, but O’Shaughnessy and Hardingham certainly do good work here. It might be a simple case of the film just not clicking for me, but while I found it interesting, it was never completely satisfying or overly entertaining. Glad I caught it, but in no hurry to watch it again.
-MonsterZero NJ
Story finds troubled Will (Logan Marshall-Green) being invited to an uncomfortable reunion party being thrown by ex-wife Eden (Tammy Blanchard) and her new husband David (Michiel Huisman) and in his former house. The two have been away for a few years and when the party commences it appears they were involved in some possible cult activity in Mexico and may have a suspicious agenda for their guests…or is it all in Will’s mind as the house holds many unpleasant memories for him, that Eden seems to oddly be getting over.
Flick is written by Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay and well directed by Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body), but never grabbed me like it should. While the film tried to build paranoia as to whether Will was imagining a threat from Eden, David and their odd ‘friend’ Pruitt (John Carroll Lynch), it always seemed obvious where this was going from very early on. There was some atmosphere…a purposely uncomfortable one…and the last act did have some impact, despite being exactly how you figured this was going to turn out. Still, it was also hard to get involved when the characters were all self-absorbed yuppies, who are very hard to like or become endeared to. It also was hard to swallow that when things become uncomfortable quite early, that they all didn’t just walk out. Eden and David are weird from moment one and Will shouldn’t have been the only one with alarms going off. Were they all that vapid and dumb? It’s also hard to believe Will would accept an invitation from his ex-wife, in his ex-house to party with she and her new husband in the first place. The movie is well-intentioned and tries hard, but simply doesn’t succeed in making you doubt that this is going to conclude exactly as you think it will and takes you on that journey with people that are hard to like or be concerned about.
-MonsterZero NJ
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Lost After Dark is a homage to 80s horror flicks that takes place in 1984, though it lacks a real 80s feel. The film has a group of Broomfield, Michigan high school kids hijacking a school bus to go to a cabin, for a weekend of partying, that belongs to good girl Adrienne’s (Kendra Leigh Timmins) father. The bus runs out of gas on a secluded stretch of road, stranding the kids in the middle of nowhere. While seeking help, they discover an old house nearby. Unknown to them, the abandoned looking structure is home to a murderous redneck cannibal, who sees the hapless teens as delivery. Will any of them survive the night?
Director Ian Kessner’s throwback horror, that he co-wrote with Bo Randell, has it’s heart in the right place, but never feels like an 80s movie despite the music and clothes. Maybe it was the handheld cameras, which wasn’t a popular filming method back then (save for Sam Raimi’s wild camerawork in Evil Dead), or that the characters just felt more like contemporary teens. Kessner’s direction is also a little too by-the-numbers and the film needed to be a bit livelier, as there was a buoyancy to a lot of the 80s slasher’s that would have helped here. The killer also had no personality, nor was he all that menacing and it would have worked better for him, if the backstory given at the end, came earlier in the form of an urban legend…maybe a story told by one of the kids to spook the others. It would have fit the 80s slasher mold better and set up our villain and given him some character development. The opening flashback to 1977 isn’t quite enough, though works in a more traditional sense, as these films usually had a flashback pre-credit sequence. On the good side, this is still a mildly amusing slasher. There is some really good and plentiful gore with some solid kills. Kessner also plays with our expectations as to who our final girl would be and that made it interesting. The location was spooky and the film was not without some atmosphere. There was also a really gross and fun Lucio Fulci reference, that was cool if you are familiar with his flicks. Not completely successful in it’s attempt, but was watchable and there was some heart in the effort.
Robert Patrick is the only familiar name here, as the tough ex-soldier principal. Though, his being an ex-soldier doesn’t really factor in and just serves to give him a hard-nosed personality. The young cast give their characters their all and while none really stand out, none fail miserably either. The usual stereotypes are present, such as virgin (Timmins), virgin’s best friend (Elise Gatien) princess (Lanie McAuley), rebel (Alexander Calvert), jock (Justin Kelly), tough girl (Eve Harlow), nerd (Jesse Comacho) and the token black character (Stephan James), which are all fine for a homage. While I won’t spoil who our final girl turns out to be, the actress does fine when handed the job. Mark Wiebe plays cannibal redneck Junior Joad, in an obvious fake beard and wig, but his killer lacked menace and wasn’t very physically imposing either. You need a strong villain and a strong final girl to make a slasher really click. Here we got it half right.
Overall, this movie was well intended, but missed the mark. It wasn’t totally unsuccessful as it did entertain, but never felt like an 80s slasher and didn’t connect on some of the things it needed to, to be like one. There are some good kills and gore and the cast all give it their all, so it is worth a look. Even if director/co-writer Ian Kessler didn’t give it the energy it needed and didn’t quite accomplish the 80s feel, there is still some fun to be had.
-MonsterZero NJ
2 and 1/2 glass shards. Will let you find out what that’s about, yourselves.
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