Tag Archives: Horror

From Hell It Came Review

Posted on by
2


With a title like this you are definitely ready for quite the scary film experience. That said, the monster itself takes forever and a day to show up. For the most part this plays out more like a classic drama of sorts. I don’t know, the genre would be hard to pick. I wouldn’t call it an action or adventure but slice of life doesn’t seem quite right either. Well, once the monster shows up then it’s fair to say that this goes into full creature feature territory I suppose.

The movie starts with a tribe getting ready to murder one guy. This guy had been accepting medical treatment from the Americans which is a big no no in the tribe. Before they execute him the guy says he will come back to life and curse them out. In particular there are 3 people he wants revenge on. His wife who lied to cement his death, The Chief who ordered his death, and the Witch Doctor who framed him. The tribe doesn’t believe he will come back but just in case they bury him deep underground. As long as nobody takes him out they should be safe…

We then cut to the scientists who haven’t been having a great time on the island. The natives don’t like them after all so they live in perpetual danger. Additionally, they don’t have a lot of good food here so they have to survive on rations and sub-par coffee. Still, they continue with their quest to heal all the natives from the plague. Two of the scientists decide to trample on the sacred burying grounds because “Who’s afraid of a few superstitions” as the girl says. This gives the dead guy some energy though so he emerges as a small tree stump that is glaring at everybody.

One of the doctors says she absolutely has to save this tree since as a professional she must save all lives. The tree has a heart beat after all. The other doctors are dubious but concede so she uses an experimental drug on it. This allows the monster known as the Tabonga to finally regain his strength. He turns into a tree monster and starts going about getting his revenge on those who wronged him. Can anyone hope to stop him?

Now, it may be easy to make fun of the Tabonga right away since he has a lot of weaknesses. He is exceptionally slow to the point where a small child could probably outrun him for a long while. Then you have the fact that his arms are rather small so he doesn’t have a long reach. The monster’s also not that big so the only thing he has going for him is a good amount of strength. Once he grabs onto you then it’s game over but it’s hard to get to that point.

So I guess part of the fun in the film is seeing how he will actually grab his victims. Naturally one of them trips but see even tripping wouldn’t be enough for this guy to catch you. So naturally the guy trips on a rock so he keeps rocking back and forth as he moans about his head. this allows the Tabonga to catch up to him and finish the job. For another character she got her knife stuck on a tree so she spends a while trying to pull it out without realizing that the Tabonga is there. She basically falls into his arm and then faints which allows him time to finish the embrace.

The Tabonga just isn’t impressive as a serious villain but he can be a fun one. The design is absolutely unique so you won’t be forgetting it anytime soon. I do think he should have appeared a lot sooner though as it takes so long for him to appear at all. I want to say over half the movie finishes without him and it’s a short movie as it is.

As for the human characters, well I won’t save any of the tribesman were that good. The Tabonga’s wife was a traitor from the get go and didn’t seem to have much of a plan. She is promptly betrayed as the cycle goes on and then isn’t even able to finish off her opponent before the Tabonga appears. The witch doctor is certainly on the annoying side as well. He does manage to take the Tabonga down for a bit but you’re just waiting for him to go down. At least there were two islanders who were willing to embrace the science that the Americans brought.

Then you have the main scientists. There are quite a few of them on the island. The main one would be William who doesn’t take the trees seriously. His cures have been working but a lot of people don’t believe them. He steps up when he needs to and works as a reasonable main character. There really isn’t too much to him beyond being a nice guy though. Then you have Dr. Terry who is the one that brings the Tabonga back to life. You can’t really blame her for wanting to save it but I do think the heroes should have kept someone on guard duty at least. We know nothing about living trees so you should take every precaution available.

Clark was another scientist and probably the most rational at times. So there’s a scene where the main characters wake up after their nap and see the lab in ruins. The other doctors immediately jump to the conclusion that the tree must have come to life and smashed the place up. Clark addresses the elephant in the room though and says instead of leaping to such crazy conclusions what if the natives just broke in and wrecked the place?

The crazy thing is that it was the tree that did it of course, but why would that be anyone’s first guess? Clark’s made the most sense by far but everyone pretty much dismisses it. So much for that I guess. Finally you have Mae who nearly dies early on but managed to just make it to safety in time. She talks a whole lot and has a certain sense of bravado that the others can’t match. She apparently had a pretty good business on the island trading jewels and materials for a lot of money. So things have gone well for her but you’re almost surprised she has lasted so long on this island. Her two husbands were evidently not quite as fortunate so the next one better beware.

Overall, From Hell It Came is a fun enough film. You can’t take the living tree all that seriously but that doesn’t bring down the overall movie experience. The writing is pretty solid here and it’s over in the blink of an eye. The execution in the opening scene is a little intense but after that the film is rather tame. The cast of characters hold up well and this is a film that really captures the essence of the creature feature genre. The characters must all gang up to take this guy down or they are finished. We have supernatural elements and even a bit of a mystery as the heroes figure out how to stop him. If you like this genre then this is a good movie to check out. It’s not all that well known but perhaps that will change if it ever gets a sequel.

Overall 7/10

Slender Man Review

Posted on by
2


The Slender Man was definitely a character who got pretty big for a while. Perhaps not as big as Freddy Fazbear but since Slender Man was involved in court proceedings and such he may have gotten more screen time for a while. Naturally the movie came out very late once most of this was already done. It’s not a very impressive horror film though. Slender Man himself doesn’t even get to do anything for the longest time and the film is more about setting up the atmosphere than doing anything with it. Slender Man just doesn’t stick out.

The movie starts with the 4 main girls Katie, Wren, Hallie, and Chloe deciding to have a girls night out to summon Slender Man after hearing that the guys were going to do it. Little did they know the guys decided not to summon him in the end. So the girls watch the tape that summons him and immediately they all feel the fear. Usually after something like that you would expect the characters to just laugh it off or something but they take it deadly serious. You can already tell that the film is going to be rather dramatic the whole time. They figure they will go about their lives as normal except then Katie goes missing a few days later. Can they possibly rescue her from Slender Man or is it already too late?

You feel like it probably is too late at this point since usually you aren’t able to do much against these supernatural creatures but at the same time since a lot of focus is put on trying to bring her back then maybe there is a slight shot. Mainly Wren is the one trying her hardest as she does a lot of research to the point where she basically goes insane and manic over a lack of sleep. She does well in learning about him but also takes far more chances then you would want.

For example, she goes to the message boards that Katie was posting in about Slender Man. The main user there quickly lets her know that Katie is gone and the only way to try and bring her back is to make a deal with Slender Man. As part of this deal she needs to go into the wilderness and blindfold herself in the dead of night along with her friends. Here’s the problem, based on the videos that Katie sent in the chat, this user knows roughly where she lives.

The user would also then know where the forest is so saying that you will go there at night blindfolded is not a great plan. Even if Slender Man isn’t real, the alternative is that this user may have had something to do with her disappearance. If that is the case then you’re pretty much throwing your life away by following his advice. It’s also a shame to see the characters throwing away their prized possessions. Of course if you actually think this could be real then it’s admirable to take these risks to try and save your friend.

Wren is definitely the best character in the movie. She easily takes the most chances and puts in a lot of work to save Katie. Without her the other characters probably wouldn’t have done much of anything. After all, they were doing their best to avoid even thinking about the video. Even when Wren was being up front with them about the nightmares and such they kept trying to act as if it wasn’t happening. They weren’t too convincing about it either.

Slender Man throws in a bunch of jump scares of course but nothing too noteworthy. You have people looking distorted or Katie’s drunk father breaking into the house but for the most part it’s all rather standard like that. You figure Slender Man himself won’t try anything for a while. One scene that was at least visually interesting was when Slender Man started rewriting reality so the library started looking off. He would extend the distance to go anywhere which sort of locks you in a bad spot.

This helps to offset that his design doesn’t look very intimidating. Not only has he skipped leg day for decades but he doesn’t have any real muscle either. He does have one moment where he causes someone’s face to be empty like his which certainly seems like a tough trick to get around since you can’t talk at that point. His actual screen time is so small though. For a film called Slender Man you would expect to see him a little more right? It’s not like we’re ever meant to think he’s not real. It’s clear from the start that he is actually around.

By the end of the film there really isn’t much of a happy ending considering the body count. At the same time, there was never any way the heroes could have defeated him which makes this an exercise in futility. It’s something that particularly happens in horror films a lot that can be annoying. If you write a villain out to be absolutely untouchable then what is even the point? Slender Man has no weaknesses. You can barter with him but that’s about it.

When you remove any chance of even damaging the guy then it’s like the heroes are fighting against an abstract force. At least with films like Friday the 13th and Scream you can see the heroes putting up a fight. You figure they’ll lose in the end anyway but at least it’s close. Although supernatural forces are more interesting to battle with, it’s nullified if the whole journey is pointless.

I’ll give Slender Man the slimmest of credits for at least being fairly tame though. It’s not throwing out gratuitous violence or super gritty deaths at you. There isn’t a lot of crazy language which is usually the norm for these films. All in all it’s a lot tamer than you may think although it’s still quite dark. Slender Man seems to always be going after kids and teens after all which may also mean that he’s nervous about getting adults. That’s pure head canon though since his abilities would suggest that this would be easy as well.

Overall, Slender Man set the tone early when the characters got super disturbed after watching a low quality video about Slender Man. It was just a few images looping at high speeds so it’s hard to see why they were so affected. Apparently they all felt something as Wren would later state but that’s when you knew that the characters were doomed. They were terrified long before they met Slender Man. Katie also seemed to have made a rather iffy choice once we learn more details about what happened with her. She could have at least left the other characters a note or something right? It’s certainly nice that Slender Man got a film I suppose but it’s really just a standard horror film about a group of teens trying to survive for as long as they can against an utterly invincible foe. The characters aren’t particularly likable and there’s just nothing to hook you on the film.

Overall 3/10

Greta Review

Posted on by
Reply

This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

Greta is one of those films where the whole plot is effectively about punishing someone for doing a good deed. It’s certainly a unique premise there although it also serves as a cautionary tale of why you should always do things through anonymous mail or something rather than going to the home of someone you’ve never met before.

The movie starts with introducing us to Frances who finds a handbag on the Subway one day. She decides to take it home and finds an ID in it for a lady named Greta along with a lot of money. Her roommate Erica says they should just spend the money but Frances wants to return it. The lost and found is closed so she goes in person. Greta is really happy to have had this returned and they end up swapping numbers. Before you know it, Frances and Greta are the best of friends. Erica tells Frances to watch out but the lead isn’t worried. Things take a turn when she sees that Greta has many other copies of the same purse with names on them. Could it be that this was a trap?

Not, it’s a horror film so of course Greta is as evil as possible but even if she wasn’t it’s true that Frances didn’t take a great many precautions. For starters, if you’re returning something from the Subway, you definitely should mail it or hand it to the local authorities to sort out. Bringing the purse on her own to a stranger in a house she’s never been to is absolutely not the right way to go about this. Even more I wouldn’t have given my phone number, that’s all you need to find someone’s address although as soon as Greta had the name that was game over as well.

For the record, returning the bag was naturally the right thing to do even if in the film that’s what got Frances. That said, you just need to give it to a third party or mail it anonymously. As Greta begins stalking Frances everywhere there was also one more scene that stood out to me because it didn’t make sense. So Frances knows that Greta is right outside waiting to tail her. She should leave with some of the other employees when it’s closing time right? Instead she is somehow all by herself when she leaves that night. I doubt they would only have one person closing for such a huge restaurant so how did she end up leaving all by herself after everyone else? It just seemed a little iffy to me considering that she knew how much danger she was in the whole time.

Greta the film also makes another misstep when the main villain adopts a dog. I think everyone knows exactly how this will end the instant that it happens and I was wincing over here. The film handles the end as painlessly as possible which is good but it’s absolutely an element that did not need to be in the film. Why throw in animal violence so randomly like this?

Greta also doesn’t make for the most imposing villain since she is quite old after all. It’s hard to see how she is moving so quickly when chasing Erica. Either Erica also has very poor eyesight or Greta is just that agile. At times there is no place to hide when looking around so that’s one of those scenes where it’s there for the scares but doesn’t make sense.

The other scene that’s particularly iffy is when a private agent goes to scout out Greta’s place and she naturally takes him on with ease. She’s literally dancing around the bullets as if she’s a superhuman fighter while he is getting completely embarrassed. Yeah he got drugged but the whole thing was definitely not a good look for him. It’s not surprising though since you know exactly how his character arc will end the instant he appears.

So you can’t really take Greta seriously and since she is really just insane and barely has a motivation there isn’t much to her. Her goal may be to have another daughter on the outside but really from how she’s acting you can tell that’s a hollow goal and she just wants chaos. I wasn’t a big fan of Frances either though. She really should have at least listened to Erica a bit. I also thought she should have done way better against Greta. We see a montage suggesting she was captured for quite a while and played the role of dutiful daughter until she finally made a move. I’d argue she should have attacked sooner.

Still, at least she attacked and got in a rather solid blow. Frances needed to finish the job there or at least put Greta in a state where she would be unable to fight back. Instead Frances gives Greta her back as she wanders around and gets taken out. In a way this is a horror film that harkens back to the old days where the main characters always made a lot of questionable decisions leading to it being known as a trope in the first place.

Erica is easily the best character in the film. She may be a bit harsh at times but she does look out for Frances. She was also ready to square up against Greta if not for a speeding car that arrived at the last minute. She took a lot of risks in the climax of the film as well. Ultimately she was the only character who could actually give Greta a run for her money. Her bravery alone is enough to make her a solid character and I think the film probably would have gone a lot differently if she had been the lead.

Overall, Greta is one of those horror films where you can see all the story beats coming a mile away. Predictability isn’t a bad thing when they’re good story beats but this film is far from it. Greta’s certainly a very deranged villain who has been in the game for quite a while so the whole situation is rather tragic the more you think about it. She doesn’t seem all that strong physically though so I would have liked to have seen Frances make more of an attempt to escape or fight back more throughout the movie. Her friend Erica was definitely great though and we do get one of those classic horror twist endings to set up the sequel. It makes Frances look pretty bad again though. I definitely would not recommend this one and you should keep looking if you want a solid horror thriller.

Overall 2/10

The Skull Review

Posted on by
5


Whenever you have one of these old horror films with Peter Cushing you can expect a lot of drama and tension. He doesn’t scare easily from the villains but they do give it their best. Having a villain be an actual skull is definitely a bold move for sure. It’s not every day you have a skull floating around like this is some kind of Youtube fan video but it works rather well.

The movie starts with a guy running home because he finally got this skull he was going for. He’s so focused on the skull itself that he even tells his friend to go away after she went to the trouble of preparing for his arrival. When he tries melting the skull, it quickly takes him down for the count. It proceeds to mind control another guy to destroy the friend.

In the present, Christopher is competing in an auction with Matthew on a bunch of items. He ends up losing on a batch of evil looking dolls since Matthew overbid for them by a large sum. When asked why, the guy says he has no idea. Ah well, Christopher heads back home to his business of writing about the occult and accepting odd gifts from suspicious characters. This time the guy has brought him a skull belonging to the most dangerous murderer in existence. This could be the break Christopher has been looking for, but will it only bring him doom and despair? Only time will tell.

The film isn’t afraid to get rather crazy as well. At one point, a group of fake police show up and kidnap Christopher. They take him to a church where these guys are having a crazy ceremony and force him to play Russian Roulette several times. Fortunately luck is on his side so Christopher is able to escape and live another day. Things definitely could have been a whole lot worse for him so he should really consider himself fortunate.

Now, he does make some dicey moves like keeping the skull even once he knew it had been stolen. It seems like he’s not very particular about where he gets his objects from so long as it helps is research. So in that respect it’s not like he’s a hero or anything. Still, he is a fun character in large part due to how confident he is. Nothing shakes him in the slightest. Even as he sees multiple dead bodies he keeps it moving.

At one point he even notices that the Skull seems to keep being in a different place but he just rolls with it. The skull stares at him all night and Christopher doesn’t really care. In fact, they even have a staring contest at one point and you could argue that Christopher won that one. Of course, ultimately you get the feeling that he’s probably doomed but at least he put up a good fight.

As for the Skull, well it’s not very scary. You have doubts on if it is even alive for most of the film. It seems like it emits negative aura or something which is why anyone associated with the skull starts going around murdering people. You can make a strong case that this doesn’t have to mean that it’s sentient though, but that it’s cursed. Of course, all the stare downs do give the impression of it being alive of course.

Then by the climax it is clear as the skull is able to fly around with some retro special effects and even summon a book. So, I have to give the film kudos for making one of the most surreal villains of all time. Being unique doesn’t always mean good though. I’ll take most creatures over this guy but as a one time adventure it works well enough.

I would say how effective the film is will really depend on how much you enjoy the suspense. The characters are very slow to do much of anything. The movie is on slow burner mode the whole way through with only a few jump scares to break things up from time to time. The writing is really solid though which helps. It’s why a modern remake would have a hard time matching up to this one. At least here you get the solid dialogue between the characters and everyone talks in a rather distinguished way.

It would have been nice if Matthew had appeared more. A lot of the best scenes in the film are the dialogue scenes between him and Christopher. For example, the auction scene was handled really well. Both of these guys are rich and used to winning. So when it becomes a bit of a challenge none of them back down. They also seem to have a good working relationship when they aren’t competing. It’s part of what makes the climax rather emotional, or at least as emotional as this can get.

You can kind of tell how this film is going to play out from the start though. In these kinds of films where the villain relies on mental hypnosis to take the heroes down, they ultimately never end up standing tall against it. Without fail you can always count on the hero succumbing to the darkness which is unfortunate. Otherwise you can applaud their determination about not believing in such superstitions. It just falls flat once they actually lose to it.

Overall, The Skull is a pretty solid horror film from back in the day. The whole thing is built around a lot of suspense as each scene is played quite dramatically. The score is good with each tune underscoring how scared you’re supposed to be. Even Christopher’s character goes from being absolutely confident to slowly starting to feel some terror as he knows that the Skull cannot be beat. The very final scare scene is almost a bit humorous in how over the top it gets. So next time someone tries to give you a skull that is supposedly haunted and lets you know that it has also been stolen, you should probably stay on the side of the law and refuse it.

Overall 7/10

Escape Room Review

Posted on by
Reply


There are probably less than 10 horror films I’ve ever seen that got a positive score not counting creature features of course. This would be one of the few to make it as it was quite a bit better than I expected. The cast is actually pretty solid which is extremely rare for a modern horror title and the premise is utilized well. You can see the appeal of escape rooms after watching this although I’ve still never tried one.

The movie starts by introducing us to the 6 people who are going to get trapped. First there is the genius Joey who isn’t very good at hanging out with other people. She prefers to keep to herself. Well, one day her professor sends her a cube so that she can try out an escape room to pass the time by. She is supposed to try something challenging over the break as part of her homework so this makes sense. Next up is Jason who is a wealthy investor who probably isn’t using Robinhood so he won’t be frozen out of his sales. He doesn’t really need the $10,000 prize but is doing this for fun and since one of his best investors recommended he try it…the guy can’t say no.

There’s Ben who is at a pretty tough time in his life so he is eager to get some money. It’s all pretty simple to him, win the challenge and get $10,000. It’s similar for Mike who is a truck driver with a big family so he admits the money would be pretty helpful. There’s Danny who just loves escape rooms in general so he is eager to see if this one lives up to the hype. Finally there is Amanda who is the most mysterious of the bunch. We don’t know exactly why she is here beyond the fact that she got invited like the rest.

As you would expect, the 6 characters get stuck inside the room. They must now try to solve each puzzle before the various death traps wipe them out. If they don’t solve the puzzles quickly enough then they will be melted, squashed, and destroyed in short order. The main difficulty here will be working as a team. This is the kind of challenge that is meant to throw some tension in between the members. Survival is often your first instinct after all and all of these characters want to live. Plus they’re strangers so it’s not like they are attached to each other all that much. Can they survive this?

Horror films and survival thrillers usually go by fairly strict logic of over 50% of the cast must die minimum. If you have 10 characters starting off then 5 will due. If you have 6 then at least 3, etc. Part of the intensity here is always figuring out which characters will die and which will live. Of course that’s assuming that at least one lives but it’s extremely rare for everyone to die. That’s usually left for pure slasher films or supernatural entities like the Grudge. For a survival horror like this one you figure at least one would live…right?

Of course I can’t say who lives here. Still, I think what stands out about the film here is that the premise is actually pretty fun. The idea of everyone being stuck in a crazy puzzle house like this and having to escape is a real blast. Each character is tested to their limits and you feel like the puzzles are fair for the most part. You’re actually given opportunities to solve each one if you put your mind to it. I guess at most the only puzzle that seems like it would be a stretch to figure out was the one involving the medical equipment. That one didn’t seem very fair and balanced.

As mentioned, I also thought the characters and writing were pretty good here. Joey is a solid main character and her high intelligence was established early on in the film. She’s able to contribute quite a lot. Now, she does have a cheesy scene at one point in the film where she comes up with a plan. The plan really should not have worked no matter how you slice it since without plot armor that would be game over so even though it was kind of portrayed as she made the right call, I would disagree.

Then you have Jason who is the most confident member of the group. Even when someone dies he is ready to keep on moving. He certainly seems the most uncaring among the group but at the same time you do realize that each second counts here. Several times just 2-3 more seconds would have made the difference in each round. So every time when the characters want to stop and reflect on what just happened and hold a mini funeral in their heads, you can’t blame Jason ducking out of there. You can hardly blame the others for grieving either since it’s hard to just pick up and move out but it’s why Jason was tough.

Mike was another really fun character. He’s having as good as time as he can with this and is clearly a glass half full kind of guy. Mike’s not going to get depressed and he comes in handy with the fishing. He clearly doesn’t take well to be disrespected either so he keeps the others in line. Next up is Amanda who looks really good as well. She started off rather rocky but we gradually learn more about her character. Physically she can hold her own with any of the others as she has a lot of formal combat experience. Amanda’s another likable character here.

Then there’s Danny who loves Escape Rooms and video games as I mentioned. You feel bad for him the whole time because he’s probably the only one aside from Mike having any fun. As he said “I’m playing the funnest game but with the meanest people” which really sums up his experience here. The others are always insulting him or being sarcastic. Yeah, he’s a little slow to realize that this is for real and not just for fun but it is hard to realize that this whole thing is a scam.

The only bad character here would be Ben who is constantly raining on everyone’s parade. He goes into the games with a bad attitude and never gets better from there. Despite this being life or death he is never interested in helping out or doing anything like that. He really needs the money so you’d think he would be more interested in helping out.

Having good characters gives the film a nice dilemma. In a lot of other films you don’t care about which character survives because they’re all bad. Think of a film like “The beast must die” where every character is a cannibal or into evil practices or “I know what you did last summer” where every character was complicit in murdering an innocent guy by the road. You aren’t invested in seeing who survives because they’re all just that bad. Here you’re just waiting for Ben to be defeated but that’s about it.

As the film goes on tensions continue to rise of course so things aren’t very smooth for the characters. I also liked the scenery a lot. In particular the ice level really stands out. A lot of effort was definitely put into the backdrops. The upside down level was another fun one with the phone ringer being a signal for something to happen. Even the opening level modeled after an office building was a blast. The final level’s probably the most boring one since there’s no time to explore with the walls closing in but on the whole this was visually a very impressive film.

Overall, Escape Room was considerably better than I expected. Maybe it’s in part because this is a horror film that doesn’t feel like one. There’s not a bunch of excessive violence for no reason. The film doesn’t revolve around shock value twists. (There are shocking twists for sure but nothing that’s just there to be super insane) The characters are good, the writing is solid, and the visuals are nice. The whole challenge thing is also a really fun gimmick like Tower of God, Phy Brain, or other titles like that where you have to clear a challenge quickly or die. Even for franchises I’m not a big fan of like Hunger Games, I always like that kind of survival aspect when it’s handled well. The film’s ending is also pretty great so this really makes for a complete package. I’m hoping the sequel is able to keep up the momentum since this is a rather high bar to keep up with.

Overall 7/10

The Crawling Eye Review

Posted on by
3


This movie’s definitely a little interesting with the promotion. See, the name of “The Trollenberg Terror” sounds a little more hype to be honest and also doesn’t spoil the final boss too quickly. Although if the poster is the same then it doesn’t matter either way I guess. I decided to do a quick check and the Eye doesn’t appear until the final 17 minutes. Of that time I’d guess its screen time is probably more like 12 minutes or less when you factor in all the planning and the ending after him. To think people said Godzilla didn’t appear much in his films…

The movie starts with showing us a mountain climbing “accident” where one of the climbers quite literally lost his head. A lot of people don’t want to come to Trollenberg anymore and why should they right? Climbers are vanishing left and right and there is rarely even a trace of them. Now, that part was interesting since they explicitly say that people always vanish entirely so I guess the alien monster got sloppy on that one?
We then get our main characters Anne, Sarah, and Alan. Alan is a UN worker who has dealt with the occult before and it didn’t exactly go very well for him the last time. It was a very similar circumstance with clouds showing up and then people going missing. He gradually lets us know more about the last incident but conveniently always waits until events happen. For example, last time he also witnessed zombie survivors who tried to murder everyone but doesn’t tell anyone here until someone is nearly murdered.

Still, while he knows that this is real, he is hesitant to actually make a move due to the fact that last time there was no evidence. Then you have Sarah and her telepathic sister Anne. Anne feels some kind of urge to want to stay in Trollenberg. Unfortunately, she is a telepath who is quite susceptible to the alien’s attacks so she keeps trying to climb the mountain where she will be murdered. Fortunately, each of her attempts are always foiled or things would have gotten pretty dicey for her. I’m glad she is trying hard but you wish she could do better. In general that’s the issue with telepaths at times.

Throughout the movie she keeps on saying things like “Watch out!” “Stop!” and things like that. The problem is that her warnings are never very specific and if you listened to them then the heroes would never make a move against the villains. Additionally, she is trying to fight the enemies on her own so of course when she tries to climb the mountain then it makes the others think it can’t be that dangerous right? Even by the end of the film she just gets choked by one of the villains so her powers never end up helping. Sarah does her best to help Anne but doesn’t end up doing much in the film.

From the main characters I would say Alan is the best one. Put it this way, he didn’t want to try and tell people or the government about what was going on but only because when he did the last time he got burned for it. So at least he tried once and in this film he punches out the villains several times so you have to give him some credit there. He is also the one who comes up with the fire bombs plan which ended up being incredibly effective as well so there’s that.

As for the eye monster…well it doesn’t look great. Like I said, he barely even gets to appear and is defeated almost instantly. I have no doubts that he is actually very tough of course but….you just can’t go down that easily. Aside from the people he took out off screen he basically beat like 2-3 people max. That’s not a very impressive number. The monster’s yell is pretty intense though, it really has quite the voice so you’ll hear it for miles.

Part of the plot here is that the monster can mind control people for a limited time after murdering them. Of course…this only works if it doesn’t rip their heads off like the first guy so again I have to admit that the first scene just seems like it’s just there for shock value. The bodies all vanishing makes a lot more sense for what the villain is going for here. The humans look terrible though as two of them lose to a dead guy with an axe. The first guy you could give the excuse of being caught off guard but the second guy? I don’t think so….

The writing is pretty solid as you would expect for a retro film like this. It builds up the suspense pretty well and this could even feel like a Twilight Zone episode. You see the fog coming over to the mountain although probably due to budget reasons don’t expect to get a clear view of it. You may be reminded of The Fog horror films but just remember that this one came first so it actually had the initial idea. That’s what I like to see, it’s most impressive.

Aside from having low screen time though, the creature should have been buffed a little more though. The main characters should not be able to push it back with a single axe. That just looks pretty bad for it and one stick with some fire at the end of it should not be enough to do much of anything. Nah..I can’t buy that. It’s a giant monster, it should be causing massive damage right? If you ask me that makes the most sense so we should have had it completely crushing the mountain and storming the base. Of course the humans would be a little doomed of course.

Overall, The Crawling Eye is a good creature feature movie. Lets face it though, the movie would be even better if the monster had gotten to appear more of course but as it stands, it still made for a pretty interesting villain. What the film should have done was just reduce the amount of time put into the intro. The dialogue is all pretty compelling but we’re here for the monster. Alternately, extend the run time of the film by around 20 minutes which should cover you pretty well on that avenue and then also get you more time for the hype action.

Overall 7/10

Child’s Play 3 Review

Posted on by
Reply

This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

I gotta say, I was not expecting corporate to return here so that was actually pretty impressive. Once again, they have the most interesting scenes here as the board discusses what to do with the whole Chucky incident. This is the kind of story arc that could really make for an amazing movie. I’d be really interested to see how this plays out. Unfortunately, this only makes up the first few scenes and then they don’t appear again but it’s a good way to set things up. Beyond that, this is more of the same from the second film.

Chucky has returned and once again he wants to take Andy down. He tracks the kid down to a military school. Andy is now 16 so he’s a lot older than he used to be but is still having a tough time of it thanks to how Chucky ruined his life. This school is also quite extreme to the point where the leader of the military squad is an open bully that nobody even tries to stop. Andy gets harassed on a daily basis but at least he’s safe right? His world is about to get rocked one more time.

At this point you definitely have to feel bad for Andy. He’s not only lost his home and his family at this point but now he’s in a school that is shown to be quite awful and Chucky still finds him. If he fights back then people think he’s insane and if he doesn’t then more people end up dying. It would seem that no matter what he does, things end up going sideways regardless. At the end of the day Andy does his best to help out Tyler and do the right thing so this may be his best appearance. He even fought back when Shelton landed a cheap shot on him. The best part is the fact that Andy was actually beating Chucky up throughout the film but got interrupted before he could finish the villain off. Andy wasn’t playing here.

As for Chucky, he may get a lot of wins in the film as he bumps people off but in some ways I would say it was probably his weakest appearance from the three films. If you think about it, he would only attack people when he had an overwhelming advantage and was quick to pretend he was a doll again otherwise. His spell to change bodies also seems to never really work so at this point you feel like he needs to try something else or lock someone in a building before trying it so he doesn’t get interrupted.

As for Whitehurst, he may be the worst character in the film. He completely ignores the fact that someone got murdered right in front of him and then decides not to help to prevent other murders. He allows other people to get left on the spot as a result and doesn’t actually make a move until the very end of the film. That’s not a good way for a character to get into my good graces. He just wouldn’t step up when he was needed and that’s a shame.

As for Tyler, he’s a kid so you can cut him a little more slack with how Chucky was tricking him the whole time. It can actually make sense in some respects since you wouldn’t expect a toy to be evil like that. He was quick with a knife too which was important. Then you’ve got DeSilva who is the main heroine here. She’s pretty good with a gun even if that had no real payoff in the film. Where she really shines is in how she defies the bullies more than the others. She talks back to Shelton and his cronies and is also able to do pushups with ease. As a result nobody can intimidate her so she makes for a strong ally.

Shelton and his crew are definitely quite exaggerated though. I haven’t seen bullies get this much free reign in quite a while. After a while you’ll start to roll your eyes at what these guys are doing. You also know that things probably won’t end well for the main one since they never do in these films. Unfortunately as a result this film has to have the worst script and writing yet. Each character has a sailor’s mouth here including Chucky as they hurl insults at each other. It’s not surprising that the bullies would be spreading this around but why has nobody stopped them yet? This military school is definitely portrayed as being quite corrupt.

As you would expect the film is quite violent as well. The characters all die in rather gruesome ways for getting in Chucky’s way. Just when you think someone’s going to live, you remember that you’re watching a Chucky film and get back to your seat. The film definitely isn’t hiding the fact that these characters are going to be absolutely crushed because each scene lets you know that right away. The barber had been an interesting character but he had death flags from the start. It would have been interesting if he had actually been able to give Chucky a haircut but the odds of that were absolutely astronomical. Chucky just wasn’t going to go for any of this.

Overall, Child’s Play 3 is about on the same level as the second film. If I absolutely had to pick one film over the other….I would probably say this one is a tad better. It’s very close though to be sure. Both are almost identical films as they go for a lot of shock value throughout as each character is murdered in a gruesome way and Chucky keeps surviving his own death to come back for another round. His stamina and durability is absolutely bonkers. At this point he’s seemingly died almost 10 times so that’s quite the feat. We’ll see how he does in the next film and if that one can manage to top this one. I certainly wouldn’t rule it out. I’m ready for a new setting and to see how the next group handles Chucky. Surely more people would be open to the idea of an evil doll or at least banning the good guy brand after a third incident right?

Overall 2/10

Child’s Play 2 Review

Posted on by
Reply

This review is of the TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

Now this is more like what I expected the first Child’s Play film to be like. Unfortunately that is not a good thing though. This film decides to get a lot more violent and dark as it transitions from a classic horror film to more of a slasher. Chucky isn’t playing anymore and he’s just going to go around and murder everybody. It definitely doubles down compared to the first film though so in a way this lets Chucky take more names but a film relying on shock value and over the top violence will ultimately not succeed.

The movie starts with Andy having to move in with his new foster parents. Unfortunately his mother is deemed insane due to the events of the first film which is actually a rather dark ending for her since she is no longer able to protect Andy herself. Everyone figures Andy is just crazy but his new parents are determined to help him out although Phil is rather wary the whole time while Joanne thinks this can work. They are also raising a teenage girl named Kyle who is in her rebellious phase in part because she is always being taken from foster home to foster home so she doesn’t want to drop her guard. What they don’t know is that Chucky has returned from the grave thanks to the company patching him back together. He is now ready to take some names as he dominates the cast.

I have to say the first scenes with the company is probably the most interesting part of the movie though. We see how corporate is dealing with this. As expected, they want to bury the whole Chucky incident entirely. They don’t believe in a living doll or anything like that but it could hurt sales. The CEO is introduced as a very tough character who won’t be putting up with any nonsense. Getting in his way at all is definitely incredibly risky. That said, these guys never stood a chance against Chucky either way. Chucky is able to easily overpower everyone.

See, here’s the thing about Chucky. He’s technically not all that strong. He seems to have the arm strength of a man who’s always injured. He’s certainly not as strong as a grown man given how people overpower him at times but he’s still reasonably tough. The thing is, he doesn’t have much weight though. He weighs the same as an average doll so people are still able to throw him around with ease and that’s the guy’s big weakness. So you’ll notice that in most of his scenes the guy has to rely on getting people with sneak attacks or where they are unaware.

The most embarrassing death for a character would have to be the CEO’s partner. That guy just wasn’t ready for the water gun but at that point he should have quickly ran or attacked since he knew it was fake. Instead he did not make a move until it was too late. It’s a rather vicious scene for the guy but you feel like he could have made some better options to escape. I guess he was in panic mode though which is fairly realistic. Chucky keeps on destroying people in a variety of ways as the film goes on. Each method usually gets more violent than the last so get ready for that.

As for the characters, well Andy is okay I guess. He definitely hasn’t forgotten what happened but there’s just not much he can do since he’s a kid. Either way nobody believes him and it’s not like he is old enough to make his own decisions so he is constantly put in rather dangerous circumstances like when he got tied to the bed. That was definitely a rather close shave for him. Then you have Kyle who does her best to help out near the end. Her character arc is a fairly good one since she was skeptical like the rest of the characters but once she got some concrete proof she was ready to step in.

In these films I don’t blame the characters for being super skeptical because the idea of a talking doll is rather bonkers but it’s good that she moved at the end when needed. The climax certainly goes all out here as it seems like the characters have to keep on murdering Chucky over and over again until he goes down. It’s definitely foreshadowing for the third film since you already know that this guy doesn’t go down easy. So it was a pretty intense climax there but you just know the technician was only there to be bumped off. The instant he appears you know what is going to go down.

Overall, Child’s Play 2 is definitely striving to be a lot more intense than the first film. I dare say that the violence surpasses the original one when it’s only halfway in or something like that. If you’re big on horror films I would say you’re definitely better off with the first one. This one doesn’t exactly go for anything particularly clever or noteworthy. The whole film is really just an excuse to see Chucky murder everyone. Every scene practically yells out who the next victim will be. Really what the film should have done is have more of the corporate scenes. I’m telling you, that’s where the hype part of the story would have been. I’d love to see a film about corporate trying to do damage control on this. You don’t even need Chucky to appear in theory as it’s more of a social film dealing with the fallout of a horror title. Now that’s something that’s never been done before and has a whole ton of potential.

Overall 2/10

Devil Doll Review

Posted on by
Reply


Chucky’s not the only film with an evil doll. I saw The Devil Doll a while back so now it’s time for a film with a very similar name. The other one definitely had a lot more fun with the premise although this one plays it straight with actual shows on the dummy and a lot of ominous music. That said as you watch the film you have to decide if Hugo the dummy is the real threat or if something else is going on.

The film starts by introducing us to the great Vorelli and his dummy Hugo. They are quite famous nowadays with their ventriloquist shows. A local reporter named Mark is assigned to check this guy out and see if his hypnotism is for real. This guy’s not very smart so he brings his girlfriend Marianne to try this out. She ends up getting mind controlled on stage into a great dancer.

Now you may think that’s the end of it at least, but the reporter doesn’t believe it though and decides to push Marianne further by having her invite Vorelli to a party to stay the night. She reluctantly agrees after he keeps on insisting. Will this all turn out to be a huge mistake? One thing’s for sure, this is not going to be just any ole party.

Devil Doll definitely has a lot of ominous music even if it is the same track that plays over and over again. It’s an effective way to build up tension despite how overused it is and shows that the film isn’t playing around. It feels like half of Vorelli’s scenes are him staring into the camera as part of the hypnosis. Again, this makes the reporter look so bad since he knows something is fishy but puts Marianne in a bad position more than once.

I could have done without the mind control gimmick though. An evil doll/ventriloquist is already plenty of plot for any film. Do you also need this angle? Effectively Vorelli uses this to force an affair with Marianne and also enjoys his secretary. It’s definitely one way to show this guy as being a big villain but that’s definitely a plot that should have been removed. Not to mention that you should always be able to overpower mind control with pure willpower. Vorelli’s definitely got to be the worst character and as the movie goes on he hypnotizes people into doing more and more scandalous things.

As for Marianne, she’s okay I suppose but lets Mark push her around too push. She should have definitely said no to inviting Vorelli particularly since everyone is afraid of his hypnotism. It’s basically asking for trouble to have him around. It also would have been nice if she could have resisted he hypnotism or been able to tell someone when he was talking in her mind.

Then you have Hugo who doesn’t do anything for over half the film. That’s a long time with no action considering that the film is in theory based around his character. The thing is, the film’s title is a bit misleading. It should have been called the Hypnotist or something like that instead. That’s really what the film is about. Hugo does does have his own plan at the end and at least defeats someone but it’s more incidental than anything. If this was meant to be a red herring then it was effective.

That said, Hugo himself was not very smart at all. Why even let a hypnotists mess with you and a dummy? The whole thing seemed nefarious from the start so it’s no wonder that things finished the way that they did for him. Even allowing himself to be in a trick when the guy had a huge knife….all so risky. Of course, Vorelli isn’t the sharpest guy either so the tables tend to turn on him very quickly.

The writing for the film on the whole is pretty good with all of the retro dialogue and everything. It always makes for an engaging script but as a whole it couldn’t save this film. This film definitely seemed to be going for a much darker approach than most from this era. The whole hypnosis angle is really just an excuse to basically have Vorelli take advantage of everyone. The fact that Marianne is stuck in mind control for a good portion of the film by Vorelli just makes for a tiresome watch. You’re waiting for Hugo to take him out already.

Of course the reporter despite everything he knows from Hugo’s origin story to how Vorelli is acting like a hypnotist doesn’t suspect anything is up when Marianne says she will marry Vorelli. Why? Shouldn’t he suspect something or at least attack the guy? Instead he just goes to have a drink at the local bar so Hugo has to do all of the work in the climax. No worries, the reporter does return after everything is over. Why did Hugo wait so long before doing anything though? Maybe he’s not particularly powerful but he put up with a whole lot during the movie. All I can think of is perhaps the hypnosis was also working on him which is fairly embarrassing if that’s the case.

Overall, Devil Doll is not a film I would recommend. It’s one of those titles where the villain gets away with a little too much the whole time. Hypnosis can always be a rather dangerous plot element in that sense depending on how far they go with it. In this case it sours the whole experience. At least we did get an action fight scene with the Dummy though. There was a lot of actual back and forth with the characters swinging at each other. While Hugo appears as more of a hero by the end, he did straight up murder the assistant though who at best was an accomplice so there aren’t any real heroes here. Everyone is acting rather nefariously and for their own gains. Even the reporter put his story above Marianne’s safety. With nobody to root for, you almost wish Chucky had been here to put an end to things.

Overall 2/10

Child’s Play Review

Posted on by
2

This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s time to look at a film that’s definitely quite iconic in the horror genre. After all, if you’re big on the whole evil doll thing then you have to have seen Chucky at some point right? Well, it definitely plays it straight with the doll running around and beating everyone up. It’s pretty hard to take seriously most of the time as you would expect it to be but he definitely doesn’t waste time. I feel like he threw the first person out the window within the first 10 minutes of his appearance.

The movie starts with Mike finally chasing down one of the big criminals. He manages to take that guy down but the whole shop ends up getting blown up thanks to a bolt of lightning. Before dying, the criminal quickly threw his essence into the doll and became Chucky. Unfortunately for him, a nearby black market dealer found him and threw the guy in a box. He sells the doll for some decent cash over to Karen who quickly gets him as a belated Birthday gift to Andy. Andy is thrilled but little does he know that he has just gotten one of the most dangerous dolls out there. Will he be okay?

Child’s Play starts out as more of a wholesome family movie. Andy does his best to make a nice breakfast for Karen which definitely didn’t work out well but at least he tried. It’s good she didn’t eat that though or she might have a heart attack from all the sugar and butter. The characters are introduced well although Karen took a big risk leaving her post for the doll. It’s also lucky she had Maggie there to hassle the price down or Karen may have actually paid $100 for the doll. That would have gotten dicey pretty quickly.

Once Chucky appears things change of course. He makes for an intense villain I suppose. Honestly, the doll looks rather sinister from the start so I’m surprised that in the movie it is a best seller. Would people really be lining up outside the door to grab that one. I have some serious doubts on that to be honest…very serious doubts. From the film it seems like he kept most of his strength from being human although he still doesn’t weigh much. I wouldn’t say full strength either since Karen is hold her own against him physically when they fight each other. I can buy into him being able to get Maggie out the window although it’s still a bit of a stretch for me. Some of the scenes with him terrorizing the main characters are more on the embarrassing side though. Just knock the guy around and stop being so scared of him.

The first encounter with Karen and Chucky is one where you feel like she could have absolutely taken him down if she had pressed the advantage. He had no weapon at the time and she had adrenaline on her side. The more time you waste yelling, the more time he is able to recover. Unfortunately the whole cast always seems afraid of him so they keep on backing up until it’s just too late. For the other characters, Maggie was fun. Her screen time was limited but she seemed like a good friend who had Karen’s back.

As far as kids go Andy could be a lot worse. He meant well at least but still had a tendency to falter when the going got tough. I’ll give him credit for the punch combo he landed on Chucky though and also for being able to run in and start the flames. If he could have pinned the whole thing on Chucky from the start that would have been nice like matching the shoe prints but it occurred to him a little too late.

Karen’s a solid heroine. Again, she could have been a little more brave when handling all of this though. She did go into a dark alley to try and find out the truth but without proper self defense that nearly ended up quite badly as well. It’s a good thing Mike was around to try and find out the truth. The gun he brought along was quite handy. I don’t blame him for not believing her about the doll but once the doll was around it’s too bad he couldn’t put up a better fight.

The writing for the film seems reasonable. There’s some good dialogue here and the soundtrack helps to build up the suspenseful scenes. The random supernatural guy who created Chucky was really underwhelming though. The guy simply wasn’t too smart either since he let Chucky get the upper hand so easily. If he had kept his guard up then maybe things would have worked out better for him. Why even create a voodoo doll of yourself? In what scenario would that ever be anything but a crippling weakness? Just something to consider…..

Chucky definitely takes names here although for the most part the film isn’t all that violent. Most of the case you figure is pretty safe from the start although of course when a side character shows up you really know that they’re doomed. Chucky doesn’t go on big murder sprees the way some characters do, but he makes his presence known. So I would say it’s better than the average horror film although I still wouldn’t call it a good movie. There are also a lot of moments where the characters are practically asking to get murdered and get super lucky like Karen putting her head right next to the door where Chucky keeps sending out his knife or Mike staying glued to his seat when Chucky is stabbing at him. Not the smartest folks there.

Overall, Child’s Play is probably a bit better than I thought. I expected it to be a little more excessive with everyone dying left and right as they get stabbed to death kind of like the Leprechaun film. This movie shows a lot more restraint which is always good. I still wouldn’t say it’s the kind of film you’d ever re watch though. While the characters aren’t bad, I wouldn’t say any of them are great either. Next year maybe Andy will be satisfied with a video game instead.

Overall 4/10