I recently watched the newest adaptation of Stephen King’s, It, directed by Andy Muschietti. Overall, I enjoyed. It was well done, and while it didn’t completely follow the source material, I think that the changes didn’t hurt the story at all, in fact, in some ways, I would dare say it made the story better. I’ll get into a spoiler section later, but for now this will be spoiler free.

First off, the movie is set in the 80’s, which for me, works. However, I will say this, it gave me a heavy Stranger Things vibe. Mainly because Finn Wolfhard was in it and played the part of Richie Tozier. Plus, on top of that, the town of Derry looked a lot like the town of Hawkins. On the surface, Derry feels like any sleepy town; however, there’s something floating in the background, something that wakes every few decades to feed. I’ve always loved the concept of It and what it does. Speaking of background, this is a movie to pay close attention to the background. There are small things going on that add to the depth and flavor of the movie. For example, keep an eye on the television when Beverly walks through her house. Another great background Easter egg what the name of the pharmacist. In the original made-for-tv movie, the pharmacist's name was Koontz, a nod to Dean Koontz. In this new version, his name is Keene, a nod to Brian Keene, a modern horror author.

There was a part in the movie where the background was creepy as hell, and I have no idea if it was intentional or not. It’s when Ben is in the library, shortly after the librarian gives him a book on the town’s history and tells him he should be outside playing. As he’s looking at the book, the camera pans out so you can see him reading, and it looks like the librarian or someone similar is standing the background grinning at Ben. Watch it and let me know what you think.

I thought that Muschietti did an excellent job with the feel of this iteration of It. The movie gave a nod to the original adaptation while still having its own vibe. There were also times that felt almost like a nod to the Evil Dead franchise, especially the scene with Beverly in the bathroom and with the leper attacking Eddie.

Another great part of the movie (as pointed out by my lovely wife), was the layering of real monsters vs. supernatural monsters. For example, Beverly’s dad and Eddie’s mother are both prime examples of real monsters, people who abuse their children. There are some moments in this film where they are way scarier than Pennywise. The bullies are also frightening, mainly due to the fact that they have been left unchecked (apparently by the power that Pennywise has over the town, making people ignore or look the other way at the bad things happening). Generally, bullies will scare or rough someone up, but I tend to believe that the majority of them would stop short at trying to actually kill someone.

I also liked how Pennywise did his best to separate the kids whenever they were together. I won’t get into details, but it shows how together they were strong, but separate they were easy prey.

The movie had faults though. I thought the editing near the end fell short. At one point one of the kids is suddenly in a different part of the sewers. There was no lead up to it, nor any explanation. A simple edit showing It leading him away would have sufficed.

There was another point in the movie where the kids find the shoe of a missing girl in the sewer…THEN NOTHING EVER COMES FROM THAT! It bugged me for the rest of the film. I mean, it would have been neat to see them take the shoe to the police, and then have the police (obviously under the influence of Pennywise) wave it off like it was nothing, or that they didn’t believe them. It would have added another layer as well as closed that loop.

Another fault was some bad CGI in the beginning of the movie. The opening scene with Georgie is way more brutal than in the made-for-tv show, but part of it was destroyed when Pennywise opens his mouth and his teeth grow. It didn’t look finished and took me out of the story.
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This leads me into another point, seeing the monster. In this movie, and story, we see Pennywise almost right off the bat. On one hand, I suppose it takes away some of the fear of the monster. Monster movies in general work better when the viewer never gets a full view of the creature, as we tend to fill in the blanks ourselves and fear of the unknown is powerful. On the other hand, this isn’t a traditional monster movie, and we need to see Pennywise. I did miss Tim Curry playing Pennywise; however, Bill Skarsgard does an excellent job bringing the dancing clown to life. He did great with the movements and general attitude.

I give it three and a half red floating balloons out of five. Definitely worth a watch.
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Now, on to the spoiler parts…only go forward if you don’t care, or if you’ve seen the movie. You’ve been warned.

I liked Pennywise’s lair much better in this one. The pile of children’s things an all the floating children made a lot more sense than the spider’s lair in the original adaptation. Makes more sense when Pennywise says, “you’ll float too.” Also, I liked how the kids pretty much put the beat down on Pennywise. It works way better than a single slingshot of silver to the head, it also shows how strong the kids are working together.
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That’s about it for spoilers, go see the movie. I can’t wait for the next one.

I want to talk about the movie, It Comes at Night. Released June 9th, 2017 and directed by Trey Edward Shults, the movie is about a family dealing with a post-apocalyptic survival situation. The official synopsis reads as follows:

Secure within a desolate home as an unnatural threat terrorizes the world, the tenuous order a man (Joel Edgerton) has established with his wife and son is put to the ultimate test with the arrival of a desperate family seeking refuge. Despite the best intentions of both families, paranoia and mistrust boil over as the horrors outside creep ever-closer, awakening something hidden and monstrous within the man as he learns that the protection of his family comes at the cost of his soul.

I’ll get into a detailed review which will contain some spoilers a little later. You’re safe to keep reading for now, and I’ll warn you before the spoilers arrive.

First and foremost, I thought this movie was excellent. It’s everything I’ve come to love about slow-burn, psychological thrillers. Even more, it really plays upon the concepts of the unknown as well as trust (or mistrust).
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As the synopsis said, it takes place in a desolate home built deep in the woods. The movie opens with husband and son killing the son’s grandfather because he’s become ill with a horrible disease. The disease is part of the problem plaguing the world, because the family takes precautions to always have gas masks and heavy rubber gloves on whenever they interact with the outside world.

Right off the bat we know a few things. One, there is a horrible disease out there that can kill fairly quickly (days). Two, the disease is highly contagious as we can tell by the way the family interacts with the sickened grandfather. Three, they have to burn the body.

The tension and dread continues to increase as you see the family secure themselves back into the house at night. The windows are all boarded up, and there is only one entrance/exit into the house. With them as well, is a family dog that acts as an alarm whenever anything is near.
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The shit hits the fan when a man breaks into the house looking for supplies. You learn the man was scavenging for his wife and young son who he left at an abandoned house some miles away. They are running out of water and will die soon without any help. Long story short, the two families decide to help one another, and they all join forces in the rural homestead.

What happens next can only be best described as a slow descent into distrust, tension, and desperate acts. The movie begs the questions: how far are you willing to go to save your loved ones; what happens when two men, willing to do anything to save their families collide; and what’s out in the woods? You’ll have to watch to find out.

Here’s a fair warning, this movie doesn’t hand you everything on a silver platter, and it will leave some questions unanswered or up to viewer interpretation. If you’re someone who can’t stand not knowing for sure what happened, then this probably isn’t the movie for you.

I give it a 4/5 stars.
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Now…onto the spoiler section. You’ve been warned.

As I mentioned earlier, this movie doesn’t answer everything. For example, you never know what is out in the woods. It could be more people looking to take what others have amassed, or it could be something even more horrific. The family has a teenage son who is struggling with his identity and his hormones. He is also struggling with disturbing dreams. The dreams in this movie are important, and here is why I think so.

Early on, the boy’s grandfather dies when they drag his body outside, shoot him in the head, then burn the body. The movie never tells you why they burn body, so we are left to wonder if it is to stop the spread of the disease, or if it is to maybe stop the dead from coming back. There’s another scene with the man burning the bodies of a couple of dead highway who he had to kill.
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The boy dreams about his grandfather after his death, and sees him as thing with all-black eyes and a bloody mouth. It could be post-traumatic stress manifesting, or it could be something else. I like to think his dreams are almost prophetic, and here’s why.

At one point, the boy’s dog runs off into the woods chasing after something. We never see what that is. However, that night, the dog returns to the house and is found by the boy’s father in the entry room. The dog looks like it had been gutted and is bleeding out, still alive…so it’s not sick. Something attacked it. He lies to boy, not letting him look at the dog in such a state, and says it’s really sick. The man kills it with a shot to the head and burns the body much in the same manner as the grandfather. Here’s the main reason why I think the boy’s dreams are more than just dreams. Before the dog arrives all tore up, the boy dreams of walking through the woods trying to find his dog. We can hear the dog barking off screen, and as he comes up to it, we hear it start whelping in pain in a violent/horrible manner. We never see what he sees (which, in my opinion, is more effective). Did he dream of what happened?

We also see some of the boy’s drawings, one of which depicts two shadowy figures with black eyes crawling through the woods. I think this hints towards the possibility that the disease changes folks into deadly creatures, and that’s what is out there, hence the reason to burn the bodies.

After the dog incident, there is suspicion that the other family’s child had gotten too close to the dead dog, because when they found the dog, the front door was already open. This raises the suspicion that perhaps the child may be infected, so, as a precaution, the families separate and quarantine themselves into separate rooms until the threat of disease has passed (in this story, the disease can manifest symptoms as early as a day).

At some point the second family tries to leave. We are led to suspect that perhaps the boy is sick. The original family knows they can’t let them go, because the family knows too much about the location of the house, what’s here, plus they are afraid that the family will want to take too much with them. A confrontation ensues resulting in the death of the second family to include the child. The child was only four or five, so it was hard to watch being a father myself. You never see any details, but it was still effective, more so if I’m being totally honest. Yet the movie never confirms whether or not the child had the disease, we never see proof.
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In my opinion, this tactic was way more effective, as it will drive multiple versions of the story depending on who is watching it. There is a lot more going on in this film than I have put down in this review, but if you like slow-burn horror that doesn’t rely on gore and jump scares (there were a couple), then this is the show for you. See it.

I recently watched a film called, Savageland directed by Phil Guidry, Simon Herbert, and David Whelan. The synopsis is: A small border town on the Arizona-Mexico border is wiped out, and suspicion falls on the lone survivor. It’s only 1 hour and 20 minutes long and is filmed to play out like it’s a documentary on the event.
 
It starts out kind of slow and in the typical fashion of a documentary. Overnight, all the residents of the small town are killed or end up missing. The only survivor is an illegal immigrant who is found on the highway alone and covered in the blood several of the townspeople. In the beginning, it seems like a fairly cut-and-dry case; however, the person who “made” the documentary and did the investigating didn’t think so and starts to dig deeper. It’s through this investigation that we find out more, and things start to get creepy, especially when they show the photos the lone survivor had taken.
  
During the investigation, the journalist and his associate, a retired Border Patrol agent, breakdown the crime scene and activity as it occurred according to evidence, police reports, and what they found on a roll of camera film from the survivor. The police story starts to unravel and the photos show some very chilling scenes. Whoever they had taking the pictures and manipulating them for this movie is really talented. They are raw, well-done, and creepy as hell.
 
I’m not going to spoil the movie for anyone, but I highly suggest you go watch it if you like horror movies. There is a great subplot happening throughout, explaining why the survivor went through the town as he did instead of just running away. Just keep in mind that this isn’t a typical movie. You have to watch it with the mindset that it is a documentary or a mockumentary. Overall, I give it 3/5 stars.
 
Pros: The movie is unique with a fun twist and a great use of film. The photos add so much to the story that it’s worth it just for the pictures alone. Couple it with the sub-plot, and some of the other evidence introduced, and it’s a wonderful spectacle to watch.
 
Cons: The conclusion that the journalist comes to at the end as to what he thinks is really happening is kind of lame and unbelievable. With that much evidence put forward, I just can’t get behind his half-assed explanation. Also, I can’t believe the police would be so quick to pin it all on the survivor, there was just too much evidence even without the photos to pass anyone’s giggle check.
 
Overall: Check this movie out and enjoy the ride. 

​If you haven’t seen this plastered everywhere on Netflix, then I don’t know what to say. Spectral released on 9 December 2016 as a Netflix Original movie. It’s directed by Nic Mathieu and stars Clayne Crawford, Emily Mortimer, and James Badge Dale to name a few. The short blurb for the movie according to IMDB is, A sci-fi/thriller story centered on a special-ops team that is dispatched to fight supernatural beings. On the surface, sure; however, the story is obviously deeper than that and a bit different. 

Like my other movie review posts, I’ll get into some spoilers a little later; however, sit back and enjoy this spoiler-free review. First off, this movie is actually pretty dang good. I was impressed with the special effects, the acting, and the story itself. When I watched the trailer I thought, okay, this could really go either way and I expected it to be a hot mess. However, after watching it I can say that it was impressive. Was it the most amazing thing I’ve watched all year? Not at all, but if you like action, sci-fi, or supernatural thrillers then do yourself a favor and watch this.

The blurb is a little misleading. First off, the special-ops team isn’t dispatched to fight supernatural beings. The spec-ops bubbas are already in the country of Moldova fighting against an insurgency for whatever blah-blah reason (doesn’t matter). They are all equipped with a high-tech set of goggles that are supposed to feed them information about their surroundings kind of like a HUD (Heads Up Display) you would see in a first-person shooter video game. As the spec-ops dudes are conducting their operations, they are picking up odd anomalies in their displays, fuzzy images that seem to move of their own accord, which then subsequently attack them, killing the operators instantly upon touch.

The lead engineer of the specialized goggles is called to the front lines to give his opinion on what’s happening. Things go from bad to worse as the “anomalies” become more aggressive and begin to spread throughout the city, attacking friend and foe alike.
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The entire first half of the movie felt very reminiscent of Aliens. You had your specialist (the lead engineer = Sigourney Weaver’s character), your battle-hardened military unit (spec-ops bubbas = Colonial Space Marines), your company rep (in this case a CIA Agent = the Weyland Yutani Company Man), and even armored assault vehicles. They move in, get their ass handed to them, and even run into a Newt equivalent. I halfway expected one of the spec-ops dudes to say that they would have to nuke it from orbit. 

Now don’t get me wrong, this isn't’ a bad thing. I love the movie, Aliens. It’s one of my favorites, so to have something conjure up that feeling was a good thing. Things take a turn as the movie moves forward, even bringing about an interesting twist at the end. Overall, I’d give this movie a 3.5/5.

​Now, onto the spoiler review…

If you haven’t watched this movie yet, please do before delving into this portion of my review. As I mentioned above, it’s a good flick and it deserves a watch.

I enjoyed the twist. Leading all the way up to the climax, the movie feeds you enough information to make you think that the anomalies are really angry spirits of the dead. They even threw in a fun effect of iron slowing them down. It made me think back to different lore I’ve read and seen about spirits being harmed by iron. There is a great scene where the spec-ops team is hiding out in an abandoned factory which is ringed by a line of iron shavings. The anomalies try to move past it, but get stuck and are unable to pass.

Where the movie begins to lose me, is near the end, where the lead engineer guy figures out that the anomalies aren’t spirits, rather some sort of man-made energy (i.e. a man-made weapon…which again harkens back to Aliens because the aliens are supposed to be a weapon that got out of hand). They track down the source of the things and then we get into a montage of the lead engineer and everyone rigging up energy weapons to fight them with “whatever was scavenged at the base.” The weapons he “rigs” up look pretty damn professional, they all look the same, and they all function perfectly. They don’t even test the weapons before they go head-to-head with the energy creatures. I kind of had to roll my eyes at that part and just go along with everything.

Turns out that the anomalies were made as weapons, but it begs the question, how did the opposition plan on utilizing them? It didn’t seem like there was any way to control them on the battlefield. In fact, they broke out and started killing everyone. I get the whole symbolism of creating a super weapon and then dealing with the consequences of your actions…but I can’t imagine that they would have been so careless. Perhaps I missed something.
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I also thought the fact that they had to harvest real people to make each weapon was kind of interesting. In a way, they really were ghosts or spirits. The craziness of the ending aside, it was still a good flick. Check it out if you have a couple hours to spare. 

​I recently had the joy of watching The Arrival at my local movie theater. I had an idea of what it was about and heard good things from trusted sources, so I went in with high hopes and left not disappointed at all. The movie is directed by Denis Villeneuve and stars, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, and Forest Whitaker to name a few.
 
I’m familiar with a couple of Villeneuve’s other movies, like Prisoners and Sicario, both of which I thought were okay flicks. However, from the movies of his that I’ve seen so far, I believe The Arrival is the best. The movie is based on Ted Chiang’s short story, “Story of Your Life.” I want to read the story when I get a chance and see how the movie stacks up to the written page.
 
The basic premise of the movie is that alien spacecraft land in 12 different spots around the globe. With no real way of communicating with the aliens, the United States Military enlists the aid of Louise Banks (Amy Adams) who is a linguistics professor. The tension begins to mount as the world’s nations start to diverge on how to deal with the aliens, also called heptapods because they have seven limbs, bringing to the world to brink of war.
 
This movie, while epic in some proportions is kind of a slow burn (which is good). It’s also one of those movies that you have to pay attention to or you might miss something. I’ll do a spoiler review below (don’t worry, I’ll give ample warning) but know that there’s a fun twist at the end and it’s one of those movies that would be great to watch at least twice. Once to be surprised, and once again to see how everything is connected.
 
Working with Amy Adams, is Jeremy Renner who plays Ian Donnelly, a theoretical physicist. While they clash in some ways, they quickly learn how to work together and form an effective team. The biggest challenge they face, which forms the plot of the story, is that they have to break through the communication barrier before time runs out.
 

As a linguist myself, I got a real kick out of how language was presented in this movie. In one scene that stands out, Forest Whitaker, who plays an Army Colonel, presses Amy Adams to get results and gives her hell for starting out with basics like hello, names and pronouns. Adams comes back with this little gem (I’m paraphrasing because I don’t remember it all exactly): “You want to get to this point: What is your purpose here? First, we have to establish the concept of a question. Then we have to establish ‘you’, and differentiate between the singular ‘you’ and the collective ‘you’ because perhaps they don’t act as individuals. Then we have to get them to understand the concept of what/why, because perhaps they don’t even question things in their culture and the concept of why doesn’t even exist.”
 
There was also a scene where they figure out that the Chinese are trying to break the communication barrier with the aliens by using Mahjong. Adams goes on to explain why this would change the frame of understanding by stating: “Imagine if we used chess. Our whole basis of communication would be based on victory and/or defeat.” It’s the little gems like these that made me smile and goes to show how important language is, and how unique it is to the culture it resides with. It’s also this concept that leads us into the spoiler territory. However, before I delve into the cave, I want to leave this little bit with the non-spoiler crew. If you are interested in aliens, linguistics, or good movies, do yourself a favor and see this show. Heck, even if you’re an H.P. Lovecraft buff, go see it. I’m not the first to point this out, but there are some Lovecraftian themes subtly weaved into this movie. I give it 4 out of 5 heptapods.
 

​Now, into the spoiler realm…as I mentioned above, culture can influence language, and as the movie points out, language can also influence how one views things. As the movie plays out, the scientists/professors are gaining a little bit of ground with communicating with the aliens. Throughout the show, Amy Adams is wracked with flashbacks of her daughter who died of a rare disease that didn’t have a cure. As the movie plays out, we find out that these aren’t flashbacks at all, but flash forwards. Apparently the heptapods don’t see time as we do and as Adams learns more and more of their language, it begins to shape how she interprets time.
 
As the story progresses, the unity of the 12 nations that are interacting with the heptapods begins to collapse. They all get different interpretations of a message from the aliens that reads as: use weapon, or give weapon. This starts the countdown as the 12 different countries try to figure out what it means with China taking an aggressive stance by threatening to take military action. In the twilight hour, Adams finally figures out that she is seeing into the future, realizing that her daughter and the death of her daughter hasn’t occurred yet, also realizing that the father of that child is Renner’s character. It’s about this time that Adams finds out that the “weapon” is their language, which will allow them to see time as they do. The aliens also mention that in 3000 years, they will need humanity’s help, which is why they are bestowing this gift to them.
 
She gets a vision on how to stop the attack on the aliens by calling the Chinese military commander. This is where things get a little hokey for me. One, in her vision, she’s at a dinner gala and meets the Chinese general who basically lays everything out on a plate for her on what she has to do such as, gives her his personal cell number, what his wife told him on his death bed, etc…he seems to know that giving her this information is important. My problem with this, is that how would the Chinese general know to do this? Does he see into the future as well? It just seems a little too convenient to me. Anyway, long story short, she saves the day and they all avoid global warfare…or even planetary warfare (for now…who knows what will happen in 3000 years when the heptapods need their help).
 
At the end, Adams and Renner are hugging and she has the knowledge of what is to come. She basically asks Renner, “If you could see your whole life laid out in front of you, would you change things?” In short, asking if he knew about their unborn daughter and what would happen, would he still choose to give birth to her? It’s a deep question, and really drives home what the movie is about…choice. That question lingered with me on the drive home from the theater. On one hand, you would miss out on ever having had any of those experiences or given life to another human being at all. On the other hand, you know that life is going to be cut short. Thinking to the love and bond I share with my daughters, it’s a heavy question. I know what the answer is.
 
But the real question is…what’s going to happen in 3000 years?

I recently watched the movie, Ouija: Origin of Evil and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It’s not perfect, mind you, but it had a number of interesting elements that spoke to something buried deep down in the dark recesses of my mind. I’ll set the scene first, then we’ll get into the review.
 
The movie is set in the ‘60’s in Los Angeles and centers on a widowed woman and her two daughters. The mother plays as a medium, offering to channel spirits for those willing to pay a price. However, the whole thing is a hoax with the woman enlisting the aid of her two daughters to help with certain effects in order to convince the suckers...er…clients, that what is happening is real.
 
The father died in an apparent car accident and all the family members deal with his death in different ways. The youngest daughter prays to him every night in a conversationalist tone, the mother keeps everything stuffed down deep and withdraws from religion, and the oldest daughter rebels in the most cliché of teen ways: sneaking out, drinking, etc…
 
It’s the oldest daughter's rebellion that leads us to the titular set piece of the story, the Ouija board. While sneaking out one night, her friends play with an Ouija board and nothing happens. The girls get busted and the teen daughter has to take the awkward ride home with the mom and we get some exposition, during which the teen says, hey, you should get an Ouija board for the business.
 
Of course the mother does, otherwise, this would be a fairly lame Ouija board movie with no real Ouija board. This is where things start to get a little interesting. The first time the mom starts using the board the youngest daughter who is upstairs and in a completely different room at the time goes into a trance and begins answering all the questions the mother asks.
 
The movie starts to ramp up and the little girl begins to use the board more and more, even by herself. She begins  to show some true ability and even channels what appears to be the father (however, any horror movie critic worth his/her salt will know that this is utter bullshit).
 
Things ramp when the girl gets more and more addicted to using the board thinking she’s talking to her father. Strange things start happening in the house which I think are included just for bullshit jump scare factor (more on that later). Lo, and behold the girls go to a catholic school, which is where we meet their principal who happens to be a priest. It’s when he comes over that things really pick up and get awesome. I don’t want to spoil it too much, but it has an Evil Dead feel without the campiness.

​First, let’s get through some of the bad points of the film and then I’ll end it with the high points. Jump scares are bullshit. I understand why they are included in horror movies, but they are cheap. This movie was chock full of jump scares, many of which didn’t really do anything to move the plot forward. Second, the movie is somewhat predictable. I pretty much knew when things were going to happen before they would, to include parts that were supposed to be surprises. It could be due to the fact that I’ve been inundated with horror since a young age, but come on, Hollywood, let’s think outside the box. Third, the first 2/3rds of this movie are kind of slow. It takes awhile to really get moving, but when it does, oh man, does it get moving. Fourth, there are some things explained near the end by the priest that feel a little too much like a bad info-dump, and a little too convenient. Apparently, the little girl writes some stuff down while possessed by one of the spirits, and writes it all in Polish (not a spoiler, that part is in the trailer). There just so happens to be a nun at the school that is from Poland and also knows some backstory as to what’s happening. I won’t spoil it, but I did roll my eyes at that part.

​Which brings us to the good points of the film. The last 3rd of the movie is awesome. It’s dark and creepy. They do some things in this movie that talk to the little dark creature in my body that helps me write horror. I even felt like it was an alternate universe me writing an Ouija board movie for a moment. They play around a lot with extra-wide grins and mouths and off-color eyes which are almost a staple of any of my horror stories. I also felt like the writers kind of knew some of the bad cliches that occur (i.e. not sending away other people to try and keep them from danger, not splitting up, etc…) and actually addressed them in the story. At one point the mother is trying to send her older daughter out of the house to keep her safe and the daughter responds by saying, “that’s my sister down there and I’m not leaving her.” Might not be the best explanation or reason, but at least they had a reason to not send her away. Near the end of the movie, keep your eyes on the background. This movie is similar to Insidious where a lot of the creepy stuff happens in the background. I love it when a movie does that because it’s subtle but effective. 

Overall, this was an entertaining movie and worth a watch. I liked a lot of the stylistic elements in the film and it’s one of the better horror movies to come out in a while. Is it amazing? No. But it was good. I give 3 1/2 out of 5 planchettes. 

The Darkness. Where to begin? I guess with the facts, just the facts. (Some minor spoilers ahead) It’s directed by Greg McLean (known for Wolf Creek and Wolf Creek 2) and stars Kevin Bacon and Radha Mitchell. The Darkness is set in present day revolving around a family who comes back from vacation from the Grand Canyon and brings back more than they expected. Their autistic son unwittingly unleashes an ancient evil when he takes some sacred stones from an altar he found while exploring (alone I might add, way to go family). Sounds awesome, right?
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It had a great premise, but it falls apart in its execution. First off, the story is kind of disjointed. Apparently, the kid awakens these ancient spirits that the Anasazi kept at bay. These spirits apparently brought out the darkness in people before stealing kids and taking them back to their plane of existence or something crazy like that. It was never clear on whether or not they were trying to get into our world, or if their main goal was actually kidnapping. Who knows? The parents, played by Bacon and Mitchell are able to easily Google tons of information about what’s going on but still can’t seem to deal with it. Speaking of which, I want to know what kind of super-search engine terms they used, because they were able to pull up a mega-load of info on those demons easily. There was a slight time jump from when they return from vacation to when the actual story picks up. This time, jump wasn’t portrayed very well, which, if it had been might have made up for some of the following grievances I had with the film. 

As previously mentioned, these entities bring about the darkness in humans for some reason, which manifests with the family by having the sister turn bulimic (although from what I could tell, she had always been bulimic, so I’m not sure if the entities had any real hand in that); driving the mother back to drinking after getting on the wagon; and have the husband fight off urges of infidelity. Wait…I thought I they demons were supposed to bring out the darkness? IF that was the case, then shouldn’t have given in to those urges? I have a confused.

On top of it, the acting was phoned in…from a shitty connection…on a broken down payphone. Some of the scenes which were supposed to be serious were laughable. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to snicker when Kevin Bacon tells his wife that he was sorry he had an affair all those years ago. Or was I? Was this film a sleeper comedy? Because if so, brilliant!
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The movie also suffers from a thing I like to call, fucking with people for no reason. Do spirits in scary movies just get off on scaring folks? Because sometimes, if you take out the creepy factor, things that occur in scary movies just don’t make sense. For example, in this film, there is a reoccurring theme where the faucets keep turning on by themselves. I can see how that would be unnerving and scary, but what is exactly happening? Are the ancient Anasazi demons impressed with modern plumbing? Do they keep turning the faucets on in amazement that it’s so easy to get water? Or are they just really thirsty? I don’t get it. 

Now on to some of the good aspects. The story premise is great. I love the ancient evil being kept at bay and finally breaking loose. It’s an idea I use in my own writing and great trope that works well. The demons or entities also looked great. I’m a sucker for Old West and Native American mythos, so it was interesting to see a different take on the subject. The five entities portraying the Raven, Snake, Coyote, Bison, and Wolf had a creepy vibe and a dark aesthetic. I also really enjoyed the angle of the autistic son. It’s invigorating to see more and more stories involving people with mental or physical challenges and how they interact with the world. I thought it was somewhat original to include such a character in a story like this (I know it’s not the first time) and I thought the writers did a good job. I don’t have any experience in my own life with autism, so I don’t know how accurate they portrayed the character, but from an outsider’s perspective, it seemed legit.
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All said and done, this movie kind of reminded me of the movie, Poltergeist (the original one, not the shitty remake). The similarities are kind of shocking.

Overall: 2 out of 5 sacred stones.
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​I recently watched a movie called Black Mountain Side directed by Nick Szostakiwskyj. It was released in January of 2016 in the USA. The description of the movie is what pulled me in to begin with, stating that a group of archaeologists find a structure buried in the ground in Northern Canada that is over ten thousand years old. As they continue to unearth the structure, their communications equipment fail and they find themselves stranded and begin to lose their sanity—very Lovecraftian from the description.
 
The movie was actually pretty interesting from the Lovecraftian standpoint. They bring in an expert who helps them try to identify the culture that built the structure and offer other tidbits of information. As they continue, workers begin to disappear, seeming to walk off the dig site into the Canadian wilderness, which given the location and the time of year basically equates to death sentence. 

​I’ll get into some spoilers later in this, but overall, I really enjoyed the slow pacing and build-up of tension as the team starts to lose their shit. Some of them start seeing and hearing things, while others become violent. For me, the story goes off the rails and loses steam with the ending which wasn’t a complete bummer, but it wasn’t the satisfying end I was hoping for. The acting is a sub-par in some spots, but nothing you wouldn’t expect from this kind of movie. Another thing that was kind of a letdown was the fact that the movie never shows you any of the artifacts they talk about. While not a necessary thing for storytelling, it felt somewhat lazy and probably wouldn’t have been too difficult to manufacture artifacts to show what they were referencing.
 
Overall, it was entertaining and played on some great horror tropes such as isolation, not really explaining or showing things that didn’t need to be shown, and leaving a lot to interpretation. It’s not a perfect movie, but it’s hard these days to nail a perfect movie. I’d recommend it to fans of Lovecraftian horror. It felt like a nod to The Thing. I’d give it three out of five cephalopod bacteria.
 
Keep reading for a spoiler review.

The archeological team finds some symbols and artifacts that point out some sort of deer god that was worshiped by the culture that created the structure. There are also markers around the area that were placed later in the timeline by another (different) indigenous group of peoples. I had the sense that the markers were there to keep people away from the site because it was obvious that people who went near started going nuts. The team surmised that it was some sort of bacteria because one of the first people to lose their shit becomes ill, and starts throwing up some black liquid. They end up having to sever the person’s arm because there’s something moving around underneath the skin. After some tests run by the doctor on site, he determined that the bacteria was causing the cells to reform into tiny cephalopod-like creatures (octopus-squid things). This felt very out of place because there is never another connection to squids or octopi ever again in the movie. It almost felt like was force-feeding some Cthulhu-esque mythos into the movie. Plus, the big baddie manifests as an upright deer that talks to the archeologists, urging them to kill one another for various reasons. So I failed to see how the cephalopod angle was relevant or necessary in the movie. On top of that, no one else ever progresses that far into the disease (in that no one ever shows signs of having things move under their skin). In that aspect the story felt a little jumbled. On a different note, I don’t think they were just going crazy, because they all had visions of the same creature. While it’s possible to have a shared hallucination, I don’t think that was the direction the movie was going. 

​I found the deer god interesting on one hand, because it was a departure from what you would expect a malevolent being to manifest as. I mean, how scary is a deer? On the other hand, I never got a sense of what the deer god wanted. Was its motive just to sow chaos? It had the archaeologists at each other’s throats with deception, manipulation and dark little nudges when it was necessary. It was also obvious that the creature was trapped to the structure, because otherwise it would have left a long time ago. However, at one point the deer god asks one of the people, “what makes you think I’m trapped here?” or something similar.
 
Near the end, there are two team members left. One of them is injured via gunshot wound to the guts. He stays behind while the uninjured team-mate makes a run for it hoping to make it to a nearby reservation (a long shot for sure, but they had run out of options). The guy who stays behind gets it in his head to blow up the structure in the hopes that it will destroy the creature. This idea kind of comes out of left field and didn’t make a ton of sense to me.
 
The other guy ends up stepping on a bear trap on his way to the reservation. End of movie. It didn’t answer any questions, which is okay, but it didn’t even put us on the path to make our own inference as to what happened after the structure was destroyed. There just wasn’t enough throughout the film to give me any idea of what that would do, or if the creature wanted him to destroy it, or not. So in that aspect, the movie failed in my mind. But the build-up to that point was fun, reminding me of The Thing as I mentioned before. Worth a watch from a Redbox or if it comes to Netflix if this type of movie is your thing.

​The Witch has garnered a lot of hype lately with the Master of Horror, Stephen King, saying, “The Witch scared the hell out of me. And it’s a real movie, tense and thought-provoking as well as visceral.” Ever since I saw the trailer last year, I’ve been interested in seeing it. Then with King dropping that bomb on Twitter and other sites giving it rave reviews, it was set in stone, I was going to see it.
I saw it Friday, the day of release in an almost empty theater (I guess movies about witchcraft endorsed by the Church of Satan don’t do well in Utah, go figure). As I watched it, I came to three conclusions: first, it’s well shot; the cinematography is amazing and the visuals are stunning. Director, Robert Eggers did an excellent job in that department. It felt like the family was in a remote part of the wilderness, detached from society and trying to make it on their own. The border of the trees representing the forest, and the savage wilds was great, and I felt like it was a barrier not to be passed. I also thought the wardrobe choices, tools and structures were true to the time-period (at least for an uneducated person like me). On top of that, the acting was superb. Dialogue choices, use of old-school language, and situation were spot on. My hat is off to the two small children, Mercy and Jonas played by Ellie Grainer and Lucas Dawson respectively. They did an amazing job for being so young, and really had a hand in some of the creepier parts of the movie.

​Second, I saw that the real story and the real horror if you will, was not about the witch at all, more about the family and its descent into darkness. Eggers showcases the mindset of the people during this setting, and their reliance on religion over everything. The scariest part of this whole story was that this mindset and belief was real and that people acted in such a manner. There is a statement at the end of the film that a lot of what was depicted was lifted from actual accounts from journals, court documents and witness testimony. To watch a family fall apart under the stress of being banished, and the terrible experience of losing a small child is the true horror of the film. It starts early (in fact the beginning of the movie is the family being banished from the town) and doesn’t let up. Don’t get me wrong though, even though the madness starts early, it definitely puts the creep in creepy. It’s a slow burn throughout the film, building into a crescendo that loses steam at the end (more on that in a minute).

​Before I get into the third part of my observation, I want to leave you spoiler free, because the third part requires me to get into spoilers. Overall, the movie as it is, is good. It isn’t great, it isn’t amazing, and it definitely isn’t terrifying in the traditional sense. If you peel away what we think modern horror should be, and look beneath the skin, you can find the real horror in the family losing its shit and falling apart. Don’t go to this movie expecting tons of gore, jump scares, and crazy special effects, because you’ll be disappointed. However, if you are interested in a period piece with some disturbing story content, beautiful visuals and excellent acting, then by all means go for it. One final note before we get to the third portion, is the music. The music was a little heavy handed on the discordant string instruments. I felt like the director was trying to force unease on me in certain scenes by blasting the score. It didn’t feel right, and I don’t think it fit. More so, it became a distraction as the movie went on. 
​Now, on to the third part of my observations. There be spoilers here, so veer off if you don’t want to be spoiled. 

​Still here? Okay, I warned you. So this part deals with why the movie didn’t work in my opinion. As I mentioned before, the real horror of the story isn’t the witch, but in how the family deals with what the witch does. First off, we have the disappearance of Samuel, the infant. He disappears while the main character, the young Thomasin, played by Anya Taylor-Joy (excellent job by the way) is playing peek-a-boo with the child. This is depicted in the trailer, and is pretty creepy. What ruins this scene, is the following one where we see the witch walking through the woods with the baby. We then see her kill the child and bath in its blood. Creepy, sure, but it felt like it was there more as shock factor and maybe to show us why the witch would steal the kid. However, it would be even creepier if we never see this, if all we saw was the baby missing and never know for sure what happened. In fact, it would be best if the witch scenes were stripped from this movie altogether. Then we have a real thought-provoking piece—is there really a witch, or is the family just going insane under all the stress? In fact, think about it, the scene where the boy, Caleb, is out in the woods by himself and he gets drawn to the witch’s hut, only to be seduced by a voluptuous vixen (the witch) and in-turn possessed. It would work so much better if we just see a scene with him seeing something with horror on his face, then the next time we see him is the scene where’s he naked out in the rain outside of the farmhouse. 

All of the scenes involving the witch were destroyed by actually seeing her. That’s a basic rule of horror; don’t show your monster, because it’s no longer scary at that point. How much cooler would it have been if the scene where Thomasin, Mercy and Jonas were locked in the barn, and instead of seeing the witch near the goat, all we have are the noises of something outside, then next scene is where the barn is destroyed and Thomasin is the only one left? Finally, the ending of all the witches dancing in the woods naked fell really flat and was unnecessary. Eggers could have ended the movie with Black Philip (the billy goat) whispering to Thomasin. We still would have been left with questions, such as did the goat really talk, or was Thomasin just insane at that point because she killed her mother with a knife? Leave us in the dark and let us figure it out for ourselves.