Review – Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)

You already know that I absolutely loved the first Paranormal Activity (2009). I saw it when it was still in limited release…it’s kind of a cool story actually. My friend Robin brought it to my attention and we found out that it was playing at the Rosedale AMC in Roseville. Unfortunately, it was only playing at midnight each night. However, being the horror movie junkies that we are, we decided to hit it up on a Wednesday night. So we trucked ourselves out there and got the pants scared off of us. Seriously, I crashed at her place that night and we didn’t sleep. I went to work the next day, and we decided to watch it again the following night (Thursday). I still don’t know if that was an awesome or terrible decision. Either way, we saw it again and it still packed quite the punch even though we knew what was coming. I ended up seeing it a third time a few weeks later once it finally got a wide release.
Anyway, when I saw that a sequel was coming out I was extremely excited. However, I also was a little dismayed because horror movie sequels generally aren’t that great (see “Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows”, “Alien3″, and “Phantasm 3″, to name a few). I was pleasantly surprised though…

Story: Without giving too much away (and most of the info I’m about to give is in the trailer anyway), this one is both prequel and sequel. It kind of wraps around the story of the first one and takes place mainly in Katie’s sister Kristi’s house. Micah, the selfish SOB, even makes a brief few appearances. I like how the plot in PA2 fits nicely with the story from the original film. A.

SFX/Music: There really isn’t much of a soundtrack to this movie, seeing as it is supposed to be ‘found footage’ like the original. That’s okay, though, and works in this case. Some of the sounds during the jump scares (of which there are several, including one in the kitchen that made me jump about ten feet out of my chair) seemed a little over-amplified, which was kind of annoying, but for the most part the sounds were good. Once again, the special effects were mostly minimal…not a whole lot of CGI required. The SFX team did get a  little crazy in my opinion, but it all works out. B+

Overall: I loved this movie. I left the theater feeling a little freaked out, but not as much as I was with the original film. They definitely left it open for a potential third movie, but I honestly think they should leave it at two. Trying to create a franchise out of PA would probably not end well. I give this movie a 9/10. Go see it. Now.

Review: Devil (2010)

So here’s the deal with the month of Dario Argento. I watched half of “Stendhal Syndrome” and had to turn it off because it was making me sick. So instead of watching his movies exclusively for the rest of the month, I’m going to intersperse them with the rest of my Netflix queue. Why, you ask? Because I can.

Anyway, on with the show.

My sister and I went to see Devil tonight. I was more than a little leery of this movie, seeing as M. Night Shayamalan hasn’t had anything good since Signs (okay. I grudgingly admit that I enjoyed The Happening the first time, until I figured out that it was the trees. Ugh). However, I was very, very impressed with what I saw.

The movie was a little short, coming in at about 80 minutes. However, many things made up for that:

1. The opening shots are pretty awesome. I’m not quite sure how they did it…maybe using a helicopter?

2. I really enjoyed the music. Low string ostinato punctuated by what I believe was piano…it took me back to older horror flicks and had a distinctly Jaws flavor to it.

3. The twist was actually decent. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

The basic plot synopsis is as follows (and I’m not spoiling anything. This is all in the trailer). Five people get trapped in an elevator and one of them is the devil. Pretty basic, not all that original, but Shyamalan played on the simplicity by adding in his usual character development (with the cop trying to get them out) as well as the flashback/epiphany scene that we know and hate him for. Honestly, I called the flashback very near the beginning of the movie. I was completely wrong, however, in my guess for who the devil was (I at least picked the correct gender, so there).

Overall, I give Devil an 8.5 out of 10. Go see it and let me know what you think!

Review: Event Horizon (1997)

What do you get when you cross 2001: A Space Odyssey with The Shining? You get Event Horizon.

I know that September is supposed to be the month of Dario Argento, but the first movie hasn’t shown up on the Netflix yet (it should be arriving tomorrow, according to my e-mail) and I wanted to knock a movie or two out of my instant queue.

To get the specifics out of the way, IMDB gives it a 6.3, which is pretty good for the horror genre in general. It stars Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Joely Richardson in the main roles, with a decent supporting cast.

I’ve been meaning to watch this for a while and finally chose it somewhat randomly out of my Netflix queue this evening. I wasn’t expecting much, seeing as it’s a 1990′s-era space horror flick, but I was very impressed. And seriously, what movie starring Morpheus, Dr. Alan Grant, and Julia McNamara* wouldn’t be good?

The plot was somewhat unoriginal: ship goes on a top secret mission and disappears (surprise surprise). Rescue team thinks they have one mission, but the mysterious genius who designed the damned ship (hehe, pun completely intended) goes insane. So plot gets a C.

The special effects were up to par with 1997 standards. They were a little cheesy at first, and in many of the scenes you can clearly tell that the ship’s inside sets aren’t made of metal, but overall they were pretty good. There was a lot more blood and gore than I had expected, which is always a bonus. B+

The acting was pretty all right. Obviously some horror movie commandments were broken (Justin going off by himself, not getting the F*** out once things started getting weird, etc.) but there were a couple of memorable one-liners, “F*** THIS SHIP” by Morpheus being my personal favorite.

Overall, a very satisfying horror movie. I’ll be buying it if I ever run across it on sale. Black Friday, perhaps?

Event Horizon (1997) gets an overall 8 out of 10.

*if you didn’t get the references, it’s The Matrix, Jurassic Park, and Nip/Tuck.

I should change the name of this blog…

…to “I watch stupid horror movies so you don’t have to.”

Don’t even bother with “Dead and Breakfast”. It’s billed as a horror comedy, but it doesn’t excel at either genre. This movie was so terrible that instead of my usual examination of various aspects of the film I’m just going to give a pros and cons list.

Summary: it’s kind of a zombie movie, but lame.

Pros:

The gas station attendant is a country singer and the narrator.

Blood spatter on the camera was a nice touch.

Original-ish way of turning people into zombies.

The perfect response to finding a chainsaw during the zombie apocalypse… “Giddyup”

The drifter was kind of cute.

Cons:

Cheesy violence.

Line-dancing zombies…that then proceed to do the Thriller dance.

It includes the line “I can’t kill anyone. I’m a vegan.”

Nothing really original.

In short, this movie gets a 3/10. I honestly cannot understand why IMDB gives it a 5.7. Avoid it if you can.

Review: Hide and Seek (2005)

So I realize that this is somewhat of an “older” movie, being five years old and all, but I’ve been meaning to watch it for a long time and it finally came up on my Netflix queue. The thing you have to understand is that there are well over 100 movies in my queue (and another 50 or so in my instant queue).

This movie was a lot better than I expected. From the previews I knew it was a psychological thriller, which is awesome because I love those types of movies (seriously. Hannibal Lecter and I would probably be BFFs if I was sure he wasn’t going to eat my liver with some fava beans and a nice chanti).  Add to that the fact that I generally enjoy the acting of both Robert DeNiro and Dakota Fanning and you have what should be a pretty decent movie.

And it was. You’d think that I would have been able to call the twist, but I didn’t really see it coming. There’s not much I can say about the movie and still refrain from giving it away, but I’ll just say that the person you first think is the imaginary friend “Charlie” is not. There you go.

I’m kind of sad that I waited this long to watch “Hide and Seek” but I’m definitely going to buy it if I ever see it on sale somewhere (we all know that I rarely, if ever, pay full price for a movie. I wait until I see it in the $5 bin at Target).

“Hide and Seek” gets an A+. Which means you should definitely go watch it right now.