​I recently watched, You Should Have Left, starring, Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried. Here’s the short synopsis according to IMDB: A former banker, his actress wife, and their spirited daughter book a vacation at an isolated modern home in the Welsh countryside where nothing is quite as it seems. In a nutshell, yes. However, the story itself is a little more complex. The synopsis fails to mention that the banker (Bacon) was acquitted of murder charges back in the day for the death of his previous wife and that the actress (Seyfried) is very busy with movie shoots and always has her nose buried in her cellphone. She has film shoots scheduled for London, so the entire family decides to go together so they can spend more time with one another and end up renting a large house in the Welsh countryside. 

It’s a simple setup and we don’t really need much more than that. Early on we see Bacon’s character struggling with anger issues and confidence issues that stem from the age difference between Bacon and Seyfried. Even during the trailer, my wife was making comments on the age gap (it’s almost double, Seyfried being 34 and Bacon being 61). However, they address the gap in the movie and it is a source of contention. The other source, of course, being Bacon’s past with his wife. Even though he was acquitted of the charges and found innocent, everyone seems to believe he killed his wife (she drowned in the bathtub after overdosing on too many pills).

The other major player in this movie, is the daughter, played by Avery Tillu Essex, and I have to say, she was probably the best actor in this whole production. She’s nine years old, but in the movie, she plays a six-year-old. She nailed it! Wonderfully done!
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Once they get to the house in Wales is when the creepiness gets cranked up. Not to spoil anything, but the crew did an outstanding job with some subtle horror using the background in this film. Ever since watching the movie, Insidious, I have always kept an eye on the background of horror movies. This one didn’t disappoint.
The movie doesn’t waste any time ramping up the horror and creepiness and Bacon begins to descend further and further into his own paranoia, madness, and rage. While there wasn’t anything super original with this movie, I still found it enjoyable and would recommend it to fans of haunted houses or weird horror. Overall, I give the film a 4/5.
 
Now, on to the spoilery section of goodness. 

Still here?

Good.
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So where this movie excels is in the details. The house itself plays an important role. We find out later that supposedly the devil built it to collect souls, and that over years it has taken on different forms. The devil builds it, God destroys it, and the devil builds it over. The house itself is bigger on the inside than the outside, and it can shift its layout at will. This becomes quite disconcerting for the characters when the house decides to trap one or more of them.

We also find out that the house reached out to Bacon’s character. In a nutshell, it emailed itself to them as available for rent and Bacon assumed that his wife wanted it and vice versa. Once it got him, he couldn’t leave.
At one point, Bacon finds out that his wife has been having an affair and has a second phone. He gets angry and kicks her out of the house. That’s when the spectral shit hits the fan. Things get crazy, it takes his daughter and tries to trick him. He eventually gets her back and they take off on foot for the nearby town four miles down the road. However, the road leads them right back to the house (as haunted roads and houses do). Fast-forward a bit, and we find out that Bacon killed his wife and the devil has him and tells him he’s not getting out, but he can let his daughter go if he wants, or she can stay with him for eternity.

The next morning the wife comes back and he loads the daughter up and confesses. After that, he returns to the house to face his punishment.

The movie plays on the shifting floorplan quite well, and also plays with time-shifts. I loved how they portrayed the first time shift as it’s the first night in the house. Bacon leaves his wife upstairs to go turn off all the lights and we get a shot of the camera. He walks all through the house and is kind of amazed at how the doors keep leading to other spots and how big the place is. He ends up finding the laundry room with a creepy polaroid pic on the wall of a shadowy figure. By the time he gets back upstairs, for him it only felt like 10 minutes, but the next shot of the clock shows it was five hours.

Anyway, watch the movie, let me know what you thought. As I mentioned above, the concept isn’t new or original, but I think they did a great job with this one. 

I recently watched the Color Out of Space directed by Richard Stanley and starring Nicholas Cage. Overall, I enjoyed the film and it was nice to see a Lovecraft story get a big-budget movie adaptation. I am interested to see where Stanley takes his next two films (allegedly is he doing the Dunwich Horror next and then a third film all set in the same cinematic universe. The way they phrase that makes me think there will be some connection). While this movie was good, it wasn’t perfect. To summarize, there was some bad writing and dialogue, and some head-scratching moments, but we’ll get into that a little later. Plus, I found Nicholas Cage distracting in this film. He would go into some moments where he was supposed to be going crazy, and boy did he go crazy, but to the point that I was left scratching my head on what he was aiming at.

For those of you not familiar, the Color Out of Space is based on a short story by the same name written by H.P. Lovecraft in 1927 and is about a farm out in the Arkham countryside. A meteorite lands near the farm and begins to change the surrounding flora and fauna. The plants twist and change, and the animals become misshapen beasts and go mad. The people begin to exhibit the same changes as well. The film follows the same premise, but instead the story is set in the present day.

First, let’s hit the pros of this movie. I’m a huge fan of Lovecraftian horror and was excited to see this film. There was some amazing cinematography, especially with the opening shots of the forest and country. They even had a narrator reciting lines from the actual story which added to the tone and atmosphere of the piece. Imagine hearing this while we get some wonderful shots of the forest:

“West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut. There are dark narrow glens where the trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without ever having caught the glint of sunlight.”
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The next great thing was all the nods to Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos. Some serious and others just tongue and cheek. For example, the daughter (Lavinia) was rocking a copy of the Necronomicon, which was fun, but at the same time posed some issues. The news company had an elder sign on their news van.

Some of the effects were cheesy, especially the CGI stuff; however, there were other effects, that I think were practical that reminded me of Evil Dead and those were great. The creature that we see near the end had a very Evil Dead feel.

The story is great and weird, especially as it moves along. I loved Tommy Chong’s character and I think he did an excellent job with it. There’s a creepy scene with Tommy Chong near the end. I don’t want to spoil it though.
Overall, if you like weird, cosmic horror, then check this film out.
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Now, on to the spoilers.

Now, let’s talk about the Necronomicon. If this is indeed set in Lovecraft’s mythical Arkham area, which it is, and there is the Miskatonic University, which there is because there is a surveyor from the university, then I have to believe that the Necronomicon is, in fact, a real thing as well in this world. Which, we find out through the storytelling, it is indeed. However, in Lovecraft’s world, the Necronomicon was an ancient text written by the Mad Arab, Abdul Al-Hazred

Lavinia is seen at the start of the film casting a spell. We’re made to believe that she’s using witchcraft by the way she’s dressed and the words she’s using. We find out through the spell that she’s trying to get rid of her mother’s cancer. Enter the student surveyor from Miskatonic who happens upon her in the woods, mid-spell. He is enthralled with what’s going on and ends up startling her. She quickly tells him that this is private land and he’s trespassing and that he interrupted her ritual. He askes if its type A or B witchcraft (which I’m sorry to say I forgot, I think he asked if it was Gardinian {referring to Gardner who started Wicca} or something else. She asks him which he thinks it is and replies with one and she says wrong. We’re led to believe that it was the other type of witchcraft when in reality she was conducting a ritual from the Necronomicon. This becomes apparent later in the film when she whips the book out and starts casting another spell and carving symbols into her body with a razor blade. We also see that she isn’t as affected as the rest of the family when the fecal matter is hitting the fan, perhaps due to the spells she casts. So with that being said, we can infer that she perhaps caused this whole thing by “summoning” the color creature from out of space.

Now here’s my problem with the whole thing. In Lovecraft’s work, the Necronomicon is a rare text with only a few copies out there in the world. It’s a very dangerous book capable of causing a lot of harm. The copy they showed looked like something you’d buy at a book store, like some sort of novelty. I found it pretty quickly on Amazon. So if this thing is the real deal in the movie, but you can buy it online or at Barnes and Noble then the Lovecraft Cinematic Universe is in big trouble.

​Shortly after the opening scene, the meteorite hits, seeming affecting the seven-year-old son, Jack the most as he can hear a loud buzzing. What kills me is after it lands, they all go outside and start poking the damn thing. I guess they don’t care about possible radiation or whatnot. Cage’s character seems to smell some god awful stink, but no one else does. It doesn’t take long before odd plants start popping up, the animals are acting strange, and the madness increases. 

The flora and fauna continue to change and we start to see that animals are fusing together. At one point we see a crazy llama creature that looks like it could have come out of Carpenter’s The Thing. Then, in one heart-wrenching scene, Jack and the mother get hit by a beam of light and are fused. It’s tough to watch because you can hear the pain in Jack’s cries throughout the whole thing. The mom can’t talk anymore and is only able to make aggravated mewing noises and groans. This combo-creature continues to morph until it becomes this, thing, that crawls around like a crab or spider, devoid of human emotion and purely animalistic. This was the Evil Dead moment for me as this creature looked like something Sam Raimi would have cooked up.

Finally, in one scene we get a glimpse of the creature’s homeworld. Wanna talk cosmic horror? It’s a world of wriggling masses. Loved it. 

​As I mentioned before, this film wasn’t perfect, but it left me wanting more and looking forward to Stanley’s next two films. 

I recently went and saw the movie, Underwater and I have to say, I really enjoyed it. It spoke to me on a Lovecraftian level. First off, here’s the synopsis:

Disaster strikes more than six miles below the ocean surface when water crashes through the walls of a drilling station. Led by their captain, the survivors realize that their only hope is to walk across the seafloor to reach the main part of the facility. But they soon find themselves in a fight for their lives when they come under attack from mysterious and deadly creatures that no one has ever seen.

First off, without getting into any spoilers, let’s go over the good parts of this movie. I am not a huge fan of Kristen Stewart, but in this film she did great. They cast her perfectly for the character she was supposed to play and she did a fine job. Second, I always find T.J. Miller funny, and he didn’t disappoint this time around. He added much needed comic relief to an otherwise tension-packed film. Third, the director, film crew, and writers did a wonderful job utilizing isolation in this film. I’ve always found that horror works best when the characters are isolated from the outside world, and since this movie is set six miles underwater, you really can’t get much more isolated than that. Fourth, they didn’t reveal the monster too fast. Movie monsters do well to stay hidden, showing up only in glimpses or deep shadows. The magic is broken once we get the full reveal. It wasn’t until very late in the film that they showed the monsters in their entirety.
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Now, let’s get into the bad, and there was some bad. For one, this is an underwater research facility. Knowing what I know of government facilities in extreme locations, is space equity. In other words, there won’t be lots of open space. 

This movie opens showing wide hallways and an otherwise empty locker room that is frickin’ huge! No way are they going to go through the time and effort to build such a facility with that much empty space. Second, I had to roll my eyes when we see the peeps getting into their underwater pressure suits and they tell the newbie research assistant (a woman), ‘oh, you got to take off your pants because they won’t fit in the suit.’ At first, I was like, sure, okay whatever. But at one point we see a few of the characters get out of their suit and of course, the women are wearing nothing but sports bras and panties. The dudes…t-shirts and boxers that are baggy as all get-out. If you’re going to make a rule, then stick with it. I can go along with your bullshit rules as long as everyone plays by the same ones. The pants can’t fit…why is that? Too baggy? Then a t-shirt shouldn’t work either. They could have solved this by making them wear some special wetsuit or something like that other than making it about gratuitous skin shots.

There were a couple of other things I liked and disliked, but we’ll get into that in the spoilery section below. Overall though, the pacing was great, the tension was somewhat, and the story was fun. It’s not a deep movie (other than being six miles deep), but it was highly entertaining.

​I give it 4/5 underwater research facilities. 

Still here? Cool beans. We’ll flip the script here and I’ll start with somewhat I didn’t like spoilers. First off, it is way too easy to blow that facility to hell and back. Kristen Stewart only had to pull up a page on a touch a screen and then move some sliders, then we were into a 1 min countdown to self-destruct. No special codes or key cards. Nothing. Just flip to page two and slid the levels and kaboom. What the hell? Second, there were odd things playing in the background, like touristy music or welcome to Roebuck Station audio. This is an underwater mining/drilling facility, not a tourist destination. I can’t imagine that they’d be playing that crap over the speakers. But what do I know? Then, during the end credits we see newspaper clippings stating the company was going to go back and rebuild the facility and start drilling again. START. DRILLING. AGAIN. As if they didn’t’ learn their GD lesson the first time around.

As for the good, and this is where the movie sold it for me, was with the big baddy monster. It was a huge leviathan/kraken looking thing! It was amazing. They showed you the whole creature, but it was well done and near the end and so very worth it. I was instantly thinking Dagon or Cthulhu when I saw that sucker. I love that it was “woken” up by the drilling and came to wreck some souls.
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Super fun show. I totally recommend this movie if you’re into shows like Alien and the like. 

​I recently watched the Netflix Original, In the Tall Grass which was based on a short story written by Stephen King and his son, Joe Hill. After I finished viewing the film, I decided to catch up on the story since I had never read it. In this blog post, I will give a review of both the film and the story, as well as offer some comparisons. We will get into spoilers, but I’ll let you know when those are coming so you can veer away if spoilers aren’t your thang.
 
Let’s dive into the film since I watched it first. The basic premise is that Becky and Cal DeMuth (siblings) are traveling across country on their way to San Diego. Becky is pregnant and she is giving her child up for adoption to a family there. On the way, they stop along the side of the road because Becky gets nauseous and has to throw up. While parked, they hear the voice of a child in the nearby field of tall grass crying for help. They decide to go after the boy and find that getting out of the tall grass is much more than it seems. 

While they are in the field, they eventually meet up with Tobin, a small boy who called them in, his mother, Natalie, and the boy’s father, Ross. The field seems to move things around, making navigation quite difficult. In the center of the field (and quite frankly, the center of everything) is a large standing rock with strange carvings on it.
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I can’t get into much more without spoilers, so I’ll just give you my spoiler-free review on the film. I give it 3.5/5 stars overall. It was a fun premise, it was shot well, and there were some fairly horrifying scenes. Patrick Wilson plays the father of Tobin and does a bang-up job. I like him in almost everything he plays in and he didn’t disappoint in this film. However, it was confusing (more on that below) and I was distracted trying to figure some things out. 

I read the short story hoping it would explain some things, but it didn’t. As I first started reading the short story, I felt as if it were rushing through things too fast and not spending much time with the characters and after reading the first third, I thought the movie was better than the story.
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However, once I finished reading the story, I definitely enjoyed reading it more than I did watching it. It was shorter than the movie (of course) and only took about 20 minutes to read. I can’t tell you how many pages it was, as I read it on my Kindle. However, King and Hill didn’t mess around with the convoluted plot that the film introduced, and instead get right to the root of it all and offer up an extremely horrifying tale. For the short story, I give it a 4/5. There were some very disturbing scenes in the story. I would have given it a full five stars, but I subtracted one mainly because I wanted a little more and I think it could have been made into a novella easily. 

To compare the two, the premise of the story is the same as the movie, and the movie did a good job following the story in the beginning. However, after about 30 minutes, the movie goes off the rails into its own territory and even introduces characters that didn’t appear in the short story. If you like King or Hill’s stories, give the film a watch. I found it enjoyable despite some of the confusion. It’s kind of creepy and has some Lovecraftian/Cosmic vibes.
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Now, let’s get into some nitty-gritty details. WARNING! Spoilers ahead.

Okay, so in the movie, we have Becky and Cal going into the tall grass to look for Tobin. They get separated fairly quickly and the grass doesn’t let them come back together for a while. Meanwhile, Cal finds Tobin, or I should say, Tobin finds Cal. The boy is burying a dead bird and mentions something that the grass doesn’t move dead things and it’s easier to find dead things and all that creepy lore. The statement adds flavor to both the short story and the movie. Although in the short story, Tobin states that the birds stay away and must talk to each other, except the crows, as he finds more crows than any other bird.

Tobin says that to find Becky, Cal will have to follow him to the rock. Once he touches the rock he can see and find her easily because basically the rock knows everything. The same thing happens in the short story.

While Becky is trying to link up with Cal, she runs into Ross, Tobin’s father. He’s acting kind of strange but seems somewhat helpful. Long story short, Ross is linked with the rock and wants to bring Becky and everyone there so they can touch it too. Obviously, Becky doesn’t want to, which I don’t blame her.

Here’s where some confusion sets in. In the movie, we see Tobin touching the rock, which means he should be crazy like Ross. However, later on, Ross acts like Tobin never touched the thing and we gloss over the earlier scene like it was a figment. Also, later on, Becky’s ex-boyfriend, Travis shows up and ends up touching the rock to save her, because apparently once you touch the rock you know all the things, including how to get out of the grass. But instead of going full dark side, he helps her and gets her out. Are we to believe that he fought the influence long enough to save his love? Who knows?
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Small details I suppose, but I kept wondering what the hell was going on? They play with time loops, so perhaps there was a loop where Tobin touched the rock and another one where he doesn’t? I dunno. Anyway, it’s worth a watch, and for sure worth a read. 

I recently saw the movie, Ready or Not and I have to say, it was well done. It lived up to all my expectations from the trailer. The synopsis reads: A bride’s wedding night takes a sinister turn when her eccentric new in-laws force her to take part in a terrifying game. Actress, Samara Weaving plays the main character, Grace. She’s marrying Alex Le Domas who is a member of the Le Domas family which is a rich family who made their living making games dating all the way back to the Civil War. However, it’s much more than just simply making it big with games. The legend says, that one of the Domas ancestors struck a deal with the devil to make it rich. However, to keep their end of the bargain, every new member of the Domas family has to pull a card from this mysterious magic box and play the game the card says. Apparently, most of the time the games are benign like Chess or Old Maid (WTF is Old Maid [inside joke from the movie]). But, if the new family member pulls the Hide & Seek card, then that means they’ll be hiding from the family and if found, will be sacrificed for the devil. The catch is that if the family can’t make the sacrifice by dawn, then the family will all die.

It’s a loose storyline; however, a movie like this doesn’t need a lot of depth. The characters carry this story along anyway. First of all, we have Grace. You find out that she came from the foster system and didn’t have a lot growing up. She’s totally in love with Alex and wants to make a good impression with his family even though she’s convinced that they hate her and think she’s a money-grabbing whore (her words). Grace is pretty funny and very resilient. After the initial shock of what’s going on wears off, she pulls on some serious inner strength and becomes that kick-ass protagonist we all want.

Second, we have her newly acquired husband, Alex. Alex we find out has somewhat left the Domas clan and his mother wants desperately for him to come back into the fold. At the beginning of the movie, Grace and the mother have a chat that could have been heartwarming if you didn’t know what was about to go down. She basically begs Grace to help bring Alex back into the family.

Next, we have Alex’s brother, Daniel. He’s alcoholic and quite disillusioned with the whole family. However, he remains loyal (somewhat) to what they are doing. Daniel is a funny character and portrays a wounded, broken shell-of-a-man well.
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There are a lot of other characters in this tale, most of them are somewhat throw-away, but a few stick out. There is drugged out sister that is hilarious, an in-law brother that is equally funny, but I think the best is the Aunt. She plays this dour, old woman who is hell-bent (see what I did there) on maintaining the status quo with the devil. The crazy thing is, they give her this massive ax that looks comical with her. I mean, how the hell is she supposed to swing that thing, it probably weighs 1/3rd of her body weight!

Throughout the entire movie, you are left questioning whether or not the devil is real, or if the family has all just accepted the legend as fact. We get to see what lengths people will go to in order to survive (both by Grace and the rest of the Domas family as the clock continues to tick).

Overall, this movie was awesome. There are gruesome death scenes; comedic relief (full disclosure, it’s very dark comedy…but come on, you should expect that seeing how this is a story about a family ritualistically hunting down another human), and lots of blood.

Also, the filmmaker did a great job with tension and anticipation. There is a scene (I’ll detail it later in the spoiler section) that had me squirming. You fully know what is going to happen, but it’s in that knowledge that the scene works so well.

I give this movie 4.5/5 dead bodies. If you like campy, funny, horror movies, then go check this one out. You won’t be disappointed.
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Now, on to the spoiler section.

Okay, still here? Cool. Throughout the whole movie, Alex is trying to save Grace. He didn’t want to bring her back and do the wedding there, but he was afraid of the potential curse. At one point in the movie, Alex is talking with his mother on why he left, stating that he realized slitting a goat’s throat in the name of Satan wasn’t a normal thing to do, but that he was starting to feel normal about it. His mother makes a comment at that point that if given the choice between family and a woman he met 18 months ago, he’ll choose family. At that point I kind of figured he would turn Darkside and I was right, even though it was the last moment he decided to turn against Grace.

We ultimately find out that the deal with the devil was real all along. Because they fail to sacrifice Grace by dawn. However, it’s super funny what happens. Because the sun comes up and the Domas family tries to hide from the sun’s light like they are vampires, but nothing happens. Then they all look at one another with an expression of, “Oh shit, we are just psychopaths and this wasn’t real, but we need to do something about her (Grace).” Then, as the Aunt lifts her ax to try and kill Grace, she explodes. Then, one by one all the Domas family explodes in a bloody mess. Kind of funny actually.

As for that tense moment…holy shit! So at one point in the movie, Grace gets shot in the hand and it puts a big honking hole in her palm. She then proceeds to fall down into this pit of dead goats and bodies. Because…yeah, we need a dead body pit. She tries to climb out, but obviously her hand is all fucked up. We then cut to a shot of the edge of the pit, where we see nail sticking out of the wood. You can put two and two together on that one…
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Not much for spoilers here. Go see this movie! 

“There’s something up there. Something that dates way back. Those woods belong to something else.” Jud Crandall uttered those words to Louis Creed in the book. I remember when I first read Pet Sematary back in the early 2000’s (I know, I was late to the party), the fact that there was something out there roaming through the trees stuck with me. I’m a big fan of the strange, unknowable things that lurk in the darkness. At that point in my life, I was reading all sorts of Lovecraftian tales and just wallowing the cosmic dread.

What I like most about the remake of the movie, is the heavy nod to that thing in the woods. It plays a bigger part than the 1989 version. I won’t spoil it here, but the new version even goes so far as to really delve into the motivations of the characters. Like, why would Jud ever in his right mind lead Louis to that burial ground to bury Ellie’s cat, Church? Deep down in his gut, he knew what would happen. Well, this rendition digs into that sour ground and sheds some light.

Fair warning, while this post avoids any major spoilers, it does get into what I consider perhaps minor spoilers if you aren't familiar with the story. Read at your own risk.

The remake does a lot of things very well, but it also falls flat in a number of places. Let me break them down. First and foremost, I think the 2019 version did a great job setting the atmosphere for the story. The first act is very well done, and we learn about all the characters. We get to see the Creeds try and adapt to a rural lifestyle. The road by their house and the trucks are almost a character, a villain lying in the background. This movie knows you have read the book or seen the older film, as it plays off those expectations, at times with a sly grin and wink, and at other times with a devilish smile and crazy eye. I loved those moments in the new film. Secondly, it doesn’t rely on too many jump scares, instead tries to build dread and eeriness.
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Second, let’s talk about Jud. I love Jud as a character and while I missed the accent from the 1989 film, John Lithgow does a fine job portraying him. He’s a likable character that you fall in love with right from the get-go. However, that love starts to turn stonier as the movie moves on, making you question his real motives, or what really happened to his wife. 

So we all know (or you should get from the trailer) that if you bury something in the old burial ground, it comes back…but as the saying implies, sometimes dead is better. It starts off with the Creed’s cat, Church. I felt as if the motivation to bring this version of Church back from the dead isn’t as fully developed as the book or the older movie and this is a problem with the movie, as it kind of rushes through the second act. I think an extra 15-20 minutes added to the film would have lent itself well and given us the few extra scenes or moments needed to fully realize some of the backstory. One thing the film does to redeem itself, is the ramping up the creep factor when they bring the child back from the dead (again, not really a spoiler). Some of the creepiest stuff isn’t the crazy serial killer version of the undead kid, it’s the just-got-back-from-the-woods-what’s-wrong-dad version of the kid.
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Another great point in this film is the expansion of Rachel and her fear of her late sister, Zelda. The original scenes of Zelda in the 1989 version of the film scared the living shit out of me as a kid (yeah, I saw the movie as a young child, probably explains my penchant for horror and scary shit). I think the directors realized that Zelda was scary for a lot of folks and ramped that up to a 10 in this film. 

The ending is different than both book and the 1989 version of the film, and I’m not really a fan of what they did. I read an article where the directors explain their idea behind it all, but I think the film could have been a lot better if they had stuck closer to the source material. I won’t spoil the ending here, but I rolled my eyes more than once.

Overall, was the movie great? No. It wasn’t. It did an excellent job setting things up, then went too fast through the rest of it. It does delve into some material from the book that I found to be great, and as mentioned before, Lithgow does a fine job playing Jud. Overall, I give it maybe 6.5 dead cats out of 10. I enjoyed it and was happy to see it. 

​I recently had the opportunity to watch Jordan Peele's newest horror flick, Us. This movie is a trip! It's creepy, weird, and bizarre. There's a lot to unpack here, but first things first, I'll give a general overview and my thoughts on the film. Then we'll get into the dastardly spoiler territory. 
 
The movie is about a about a woman named Adelaide (played by the awesome Lupita Nyong'o) vacationing at their summer home near Santa Cruz with her family. When Adelaide was younger, she was at the Santa Cruz boardwalk with her parents, wandered off to a mirrored fun-house, and encountered her doppelganger (or a copy of herself). The event traumatized Adelaide as a child and even as an adult she has trouble around big crowds and especially the beach. Lo and behold, the family decides to go to the Santa Cruz beach to meet with some friends. Fast-forward a bit and the family comes face-to-face with twisted copies of themselves later that night and craziness ensues as the doppelganger family invades the home and tries to subdue Adelaide and her family. We find out later that these copies, or Tethered as they are later named, came from underground complexes. This is important. 
 
This movie starts off with some text talking about thousands of miles of subterranean tunnels underneath the continental United States and how many of them have no known use. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the purpose of this statement. Obviously, it means something, but the movie could have pressed forward without it and nothing would have really suffered without it. However, the very next scene we see dozens of rabbits in cages and then a shot of an old television set with a couple of VHS tapes. Playing on the screen is an advertisement for the old Hands Across America charity (this is important and we'll get to it later on). The VHS tapes that stood out to me are C.H.U.D. (Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers) and Nightmare on Elm Street, obviously nods to the 80's horror scene. In fact, throughout the movie, there are other nods to horror movies like Jaws, Wolfman (given the mask that the son is wearing throughout the film), and even a nod to Michael Jackson's Thriller. 
 
There is a common theme among these movies for the most part, and that's terror from within, or from the deep/underground. The Tethered lived underground and spilled forth upon the surface during their attack and take the nation by surprise.  

​You will want to familiarize yourself with the bible verse, Jeremiah 11:11.  Early on Adelaide walks by a man on the boardwalk holding a sigh with Jeremiah 11:11 listed and throughout the whole film I was wondering what it said and how it connected. It pops up again a few times in the movie driving home the point that it's important. For those of you curious, here is what it says: Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them. I have my own thoughts as to what it means in relation to the movie and I believe it's referencing the Tethered coming out from the darkness to destroy the surface dwellers.
 
This movie is layered and I bet there is a lot I missed during this viewing. However, what stuck with me, was the great acting. I loved the dad's sense of humor (played by Winston Duke), plus as I mentioned before, Lupita Nyong'o  nails it. The actors in the movie also play the part of their Tethered, and for the most part, they do a great job at this. 
 
Word of warning, if you are the type who likes to know the whole story and have all the questions answered, then you may be disappointed with the way this movie ends. It doesn't answer everything, and there was a lot of why this or why that still left on the plate. However, I'm the type who likes to fill in my own blanks and come up with my own ideas, so I quite enjoyed it. 

​Now on to some of the bads with the movie. First off, it feels like it's a little long for the story it's giving us. The movie is about two hours in length and I think they could have easily cut 20 minutes of it and still had a great show. In fact, I think they could have cut the entire scene with the friends of the family near the end and it wouldn't have suffered. The only thing that entire sequence showed us, was that the Tethered were violent/homicidal. We get that with other scenes and images from the movie. In fact, that sequence in particular just raises more questions than anything...but we'll get to that in the spoiler section because I can't raise the questions without spoiling things. 
 
There were a number of other questions that came up, but I really can't get into those here. So we'll just end this general review and get into the spoilers and an in-depth analysis of the film. To recap, this is a great movie that I think can appeal to casual moviegoers and those looking for deeper meanings alike. There are some genuinely creepy moments and it really taps into that fear of the unknown. I definitely recommend it.
 
Now, on to the spoilers...if you don't want to know, turn away now! Don't go into the fun house! Run towards the light!

​I warned you!
 
Still here? Your fault now. 
 
Okay, let's dig into this. Spoilers abound. So mentioned above I talked about the Tethered and how they were living underground. That's all fine and dandy. We see that they are copies of people up on the surface and they kind of mimic what's going on up there in a weird, off-kilter way that is disturbing. We find out later from Red (Adelaide's doppelganger) that they exist in part due to a government experiment that was trying to figure out a way to control people. At some point, the government abandoned the experiment and just left these Tethered down there. Red mentions it had something to do with being able to clone the body but not the soul. 
 
Okay, that's all fine and good and I don't really need to know much more than that. The movie isn't about that anyway. The movie, based on my own interpretation, is about this duality. We have the "normal" world living their life above ground, enjoying their freedoms and luxuries, while the Tethered are forced to dwell beneath the surface, living a twisted and mocking version of their counterparts above. Their only source of food is the rabbits, which why we see them in cages at the beginning. I also think the rabbits represent the Tethered in a way, representing experimentation and imprisonment, because when the Tethered finally make their way to the surface, we see that the rabbits are all out of their cages now. 
 
Here's a major spoiler about the ending...we find out that Adelaide is really the Tethered from the underground complex. Basically, she subdued the real Adelaide and dragged her down underground and "tethered" her to one of the beds, then she went back up to the surface and assumed Adelaide's life. Okay, it's a twist, right? Well, it's one that was somewhat apparent as the movie went on, and when it was actually revealed, it just raised more questions. For example, why didn't she just run away from the complex and back to the surface at the first moment she could? Was there something about being down there that kept her under control? She's the only one that can kind of talk (the rest of the Tethered just make odd grunts and animal noises to communicate), but why is it so hard for her to talk? I mean, she looked like she was seven or eight when she was taken. I'm guessing has to do with that control aspect that she mentions later in the movie. Because otherwise, why would she stay down there and basically do the same things that the fake Adelaide (or the real one...not sure at this point) was doing on the surface (i.e. having a family). Nyong'o does a great job playing both roles and does amazing at starting to show little ticks that point to her being originally a Tethered. For example, when she's fighting other Tethered, she starts to get a little more primal, and her mannerisms and noises she makes begin to mirror her attackers.
 
Second, we find out later that the Tethered's goal was to come up, kill their copies, and then form this human chain in the same fashion as the Hands Across America (which is why they are all wearing red jumpsuits). The next question is why? Was it to bring attention to their existence, like the original Hands Across America was supposed to bring attention to homelessness? I don't really need an explanation about that part really, it kind of just adds to the creepiness of it all. However, the only reason I ask is in relation to the part where we see the destruction of the family friends in typical slasher fashion. Because it seems like the goal was to get up there, take out folks, then form the chain. However, the Tethered version of the friends go up there, take out their clones then apparently just kind of mess around for no reason, getting all dressed up in the clothing and make-up of their dead surface dweller versions. This was another reason why I think we could have done without that whole beat. It just muddled everything. We get the fact that the Tethered are killing folks when Adelaide and her family start driving around and see that the whole town is basically turning into an apocalyptic war zone littered with dead bodies. 
 
Those criticisms aside, the movie really is worth seeing. Jordan Peele is doing amazing things with horror, especially weird horror. I can't wait to see what he does with Twilight Zone. 
 
 

​About a month ago I watched a movie called, Resolution. It was released in 2012 by directors Justin Benson (who also wrote the screenplay) and Aaron Moorhead. It starred Peter Cilella and Vinny Curran. In a nutshell, the movie is about a man who receives a videotape of his friend falling further and further down the vortex of drug abuse and decides to help him out. His idea of help is found in the form of traveling out to his buddy's house which is located in the middle of nowhere and handcuffing him to a pipe to make him quit drugs cold turkey. When he gets there, we find out that his friend didn't send him any videotape, and that's when things get strange. 
 

​I watched this movie because of the movie, The Endless, which debuted this year. The Endless looked like a crazy, cosmic horror that was right up my alley, and after a little research I found out Resolution was made by the same directors and was set in the same world. I am glad I watched Resolution, because, while The Endless isn't so much a sequel per se, it is connected, and there are things that happen in both movies that could be confusing if you don't watch both. They complement each other well, and I highly recommend watching both if you like strange horror stories.
 
Word of warning though, if you are the type that needs all the questions answered in a movie, then you best pass on this one. Even after watching both of them there were still questions. 
 
Where these movies excel, is with the uncanny cosmic horror. With Resolution, it's merely hinted at, but The Endless takes that idea, sets it on fire, and runs it down the road parading it like the Olympic torch. 
 
Here's what worked with Resolution: the acting and strange goings-on work on a level that spoke to me. I like my horror weird, creepy, and head-scratchy for the most part, and this movie hits those marks. It was weird, in a good way, with some genuinely creepy moments.
 
Where it begins to fail (although after watching both movies, the failures are actually successes; however, I realize that someone shouldn't have to watch both movies to fully understand something...movies, like books, need to stand on their own two feet) is with the randomness of the weird things happening. It got to the point where I thought that perhaps the writers and directors just compiled as much weird shit as possible and ran with that idea without fully realizing where the destination would be. The ending is strange and left me with more questions than answers.
 
Now, let's circle over to The Endless. There is a scene in Resolution where the protagonist comes across members of a UFO death cult. It's a very short interaction, but one that has bigger impacts with The Endless. Two of the people he met in that interaction are the main protagonists in The Endless. They play as brothers who left the death cult. They receive a strange video of the other members welcoming them back, and long story short, they decide to go back for one day. 

​Much like Resolution, strange things begin to happen once they arrive. The cultists are creepy, but not in the fact that they are psychopaths, but more in the fact that they almost appear normal. They have a couple of outliers in the group, but for the most part, fairly down-to-earth (pun intended).
 
As I mentioned before, where Resolution left you with the idea of cosmic horror, The Endless solidifies it. There's something out in the woods (which isn't a spoiler) that the cultists are worshiping. When the lead cult member is asked by one of the of the brothers, he responds with this (paraphrasing here), "it's something different for everybody. If you want to know what it is, then go find out for yourself." I really liked that notion. 
 
The movie also had a mix of moments. There were a couple of genuine comedic (albeit, dark comedy) moments that stuck out. I won't spoil it here, but one of my favorites was when they gave one of the characters a gun that had been requested. Mixed with that, were some terrifying moments...again, no spoilers, but the tent scene was particularly disturbing, especially when you realize what's going on, and what that character inside the tent is having to live through.
 
On a subtler level, there is an aspect of horror with seeing a difference in reality. The older brother realized that staying with the cult would mean their potential death, which is why he took his younger brother and left so long back. The younger brother only remembered the good things about the cult, and when faced with his not-so-great present quality of life, he wanted to go back. The movie was great with showing the conflict between these two and the decisions they must face as the story pushed forward. 
 
There were a couple of plot holes and head shakes, but for the most part, The Endless was solid. The acting was good, the story was great, and the atmosphere was amazing. I found the ending somewhat ambiguous. I took it one way while my wife saw it differently. It kind of ties back into the quote of, it’s something different for everybody. It touched on all the key points of cosmic horror for me and left me wanting another movie by these two directors. Overall, a great addition to the cosmic horror movies out there, and I consider it a must see if you like horror movies that have a weirdness to them.
 

I saw this hit video on demand a few months back, but I never got around to watching it. It finally came on Amazon Prime so I gave it a try. The Blackwell Ghost is a "documentary" about a independent filmmaker who takes on a project to find out if ghosts are real or not. It's marketed as a real documentary; however, I have my doubts on things. Real or not, it was still entertaining and pretty creepy. Here's the trailer.

The documentary follows a man who says he used to film zombie films but wanted a change of pace. He comes across a YouTube clip of a ghost walking out of a hotel room and decides he wants to look into hauntings. Here is the clip of the ghost coming out of the hotel room. 

He tries to look into that but gets contacted by a guy who claims to live in a haunted house. The dude flies out there to meet the guy who owns the house and we get a bit of backstory on the residence. Basically, legend has it that back in the day the woman who lived there was a little crazy and kidnapped kids, chopped them up, and threw them down a well that was located in the cellar. The guy goes on to say that he experiences supernatural phenomenon almost every day in the way of noises, things moving, and other common haunting stuff. 

Later on, the filmmaker is invited by the owner to come back and spend a few nights in the house while he's away on vacation. The filmmaker takes the man up on his offer and craziness ensues. 

There aren't really any jump scares in this movie/documentary, but where it works is the slow build of tension that is executed in a practical way at the end that still manages to get under your skin. I question the authenticity of the documentary aspect, as some things happen in this that seem a little to coincidental and done for entertainment; however, it didn't detract from the experience. If you like quiet, slow building, ghost stories, check it out. It was only an hour well worth the time.

I finally was able to get out and see the movie, Hereditary, and oh my lord, what a weird and creepy movie. It is unsettling on many levels, and kind of sticks with you after you've seen it for a bit. First off, the trailer didn't do the movie any justice; however, after seeing the flick, I'm not sure how you can effectively cut a trailer for this movie. I'm going to tackle some non-spoilery stuff first, then we'll get into the meat and potatoes of this show.

First, let's talk about the story. On the surface, it's about a family dealing with the death of a mother/grandmother. Digging deeper and peeling away the layers, it's about so much more. This movie is about loss. Loss of family, loss of sanity, and loss of self. 

I have to give some major kudos to actor Toni Collette, she knocked this one out of the park. She shows a wide range of emotion and kept this story moving. Another big shout out to Molly Shapiro who played the daughter to Toni Collette. I think she portrayed having mental issues very well. The trailer made it seem like this movie was going to be about her, and in a way it was. But, as I mentioned before, the trailer is misleading.

Overall, this movie excelled in its creep factor. The way the angles were shot, the music, and the use of light (or lack thereof) all came together and made for some shots that actually sent chills through my body. There were some specific scenes too (which I'll get into in the spoiler section) that stuck with me  after the credits rolled. 

The movie starts out slow, but once it starts moving, it doesn't stop. ​One thing that I enjoyed, was the unreliable POV of Toni Collette's character. She suffers from some issues where you have to question if what she is seeing is real or not. It made me question everything she saw and that was great. I love movies that leave things up to the interpretation of the viewer. 

As for some of the cons of the movie, there are a few things that happen make me question the actions of the main characters...one of those things where they act a certain way and you just roll your eyes. It wasn't anything crazy, but enough to make me raise an eyebrow.

Another issue of the movie is some of it doesn't make sense. I'll get into it a bit in my spoiler section. Overall, these things didn't detract from the experience and if you're into weird, creepy things, then go watch the movie. It's hard to compare it to anything, but the closest thing I can think of is maybe The Witch. They play on the theme of isolation, strange things going on, and overall creepiness. Plus, Utah connection! The movie was filmed in Park City and Salt Lake City. I thought it was looking familiar while I was watching it, then I saw a Utah plate on a vehicle in a scene. 

​Anyway...on to the spoilers!  

Let's get into the spoilers. The trailer sets this movie up to be some sort of supernatural little girl scary movie, and I suppose on some level, yes, that is part of this movie. However, I almost thought this would take a turn much like The Omen or maybe Firestarter where the little girl was going to be the main character of this show and the family was going to be dealing with her powers. But HOLY SHIT, 1/3 of the way into this movie she gets taken out in a gruesome accident that takes her head off. So if you're sensitive to kids dying, don't see this movie. They end up showing her head later on the side of the road all decomposing and covered with ants.

All of sudden this movie took a turn and it started getting even weirder. There were some traditional witchcraft overtones early on that I saw that reminded me of the maiden, mother, and crone. The paganism angle gets heavier and heavier until it comes to an end. You come to find out that the grandmother was part of a coven that was trying summon Paimon who is a duke of hell or a king or hell depending on what source read.

I loved how they weaved mental disorders into actual paranormal happenings. At one point Toni Collette explains to a support group that her mother was crazy and that she had mental issues. She mention that her brother killed himself and blamed the mother stating that she put voices in his head. After seeing the show, we can see that she was trying to plant an evil demon into him. It makes me wonder if her issues stemmed from the same source, or if she actually had some issues. 

Here are some questions I have about the movie that perhaps someone smarter than me can answer. First, was Charlie really Paimon (a duke of hell that the grandmother was trying to summon and that the coven finally successfully summoned)? I don't quite understand how her spirit was connected to the whole thing.

Second, how do you not know that there is a dead body in your attic? That shit would start to stink something bad I would imagine. They make some cursory comment about it during the movie, but come on...I think it would be worse then that. 

Third, the family witnesses some strange seance go down and the next day they just move on like nothing happened. I mean, if I saw things go flying off the table, flames shooting out of candles, and my mom speaking in tongues, I don't know what I would do, but going on about my business like nothing at all was out of the ordinary would not be it.

Anyway, the scene when Toni Collette crawls up the wall and is banging her head against the crawlspace door was creepy as hell. Then when she's cutting her own head off with a wire...oh man, chills. Any time they showed a spirit in the darkness was very well done, especially the scene with the head and the ball (if you've seen it, you'll know what I'm talking about). 

Well worth a watch if you're into creepy stories. I highly recommend it.