Hell Girl (2018)

This movie starts with a bible quote which is one of my top three signs that it’s going to be a bad movie.  Yup, I was right.  While it starts out okay, it tanks the longer it goes on.

Ghost hunters are hired to investigate a camp where there has been ghostly activity.  Their tv show uses special effects to represent supernatural experiences because they’ve never found anything real. So this seems like it’s just going to be another boring investigation.

When they arrive, they see reward posters for a young girl who went missing years earlier.  Soon they see what appears to be the same girl wandering the camp, and strange things start happening.  Where normally this would be where the film gets interesting, this is where it starts to unravel. It’s just not good and I didn’t like it.

The Curse of Hobbes House (2020)

 Jane is living in her crappy car when she gets news that her aunt is dead and the reading of the will is scheduled.  She arrives at her aunts estate to find her sister Jennifer already there with snobby husband Nigel.   She also meets the caretaker and Ms. Saul, who is handling the reading of the will.

Nigel and the sisters are put out that the caretaker is included in the will.  When Ms. Saul has an accident, they try to take her to the hospital in Jane’s car but it breaks down before they even leave the property.

The caretaker insists they get back to the house and starts locking the doors and telling them to keep the lights off. He says the dead rise and try to get in the house at night. Jane scoffs.  The caretaker says  her aunt told him the zombies are the guardians of the house.  Jane scoffs again.

Later when his prediction comes true, the group must decide how to save themselves from the undead horde.  At this point Jane mentions there is a legend about the home. Anyone who lives on the land is it’s servant and whoever dies on the land is its guardian who will rise if the land is under siege, and oh my god why did Jane scoff at the caretaker’s zombie story.

This is more story based than action oriented. It’s better than Zombie Island and there are more zombies, although still not tons of them.

Zombie Island (2019)

A tour group and some thugs are at an island hotel when the dead begin to rise.  It seems they’ve picked the one island with a mad scientist experimenting on the dead.  

The good is that the zombie action starts five minutes into the film.  The bad is that most of the movie is people in the hotel talking about how to deal with the zombies, or getting bogged down in their own emotions. Most of the zombie action is either trying to get in through the door or wandering down the hall. So not a lot of zombie carnage.

It’s not horrible, but it’s not exciting either.  As usual there is a character that puts everyone’s lives in danger and is only out for himself.

Joker Scarecrow (2020)

 

A group of friends goes camping in the woods. They’ve decided to make things interesting by speaking in English all weekend.  They talk about how their English is getting better due to all their practice.

While away from the group, one of the men sees a guy with a burlap bag over his head about fifty feet down the hill. Instead of running away from this creep, he falls over and lays there.  There is no effort at getting up or mounting any defense to an attack from this rambling, creepy, scarecrow headed goon. Eventually he manages to crawl back to camp and tells everyone to run.

The majority of the movie is one woman running away.  She finds a derelict house and spends minutes going from room to room  shouting for help, which is insane since the house is obviously abandoned and there is a killer after her.  

Then she finds a new building which looks like an empty industrial building but is apparently apartments.  There she bangs on a door and convinces someone to call for help. This leads to a hilarious subtitle which says “Hello police, I have a lady here who definitely did not say her family was kidnapped.”  

A year later, we see the same woman hang around in her apartment while some unknown person plays door bell ditch on her.  It’s all fairly tame and the ending isn’t anything unexpected.  The name of the movie refers to the scarecrow handing out jokers, such as the one on the cover.

The movie is Romanian, which is probably the most interesting thing about it.  The acting is stilted, even more so because English is a second language.  There’s no ADR so there’s a lot of ambient noise and sounds cut abruptly as the camera angle changes.

“I have a lady here who definitely did not say her family was kidnapped.”  
This is hard to read because there are two layers of subtitles.
I had the subtitles on in Amazon Prime and then this section of the movie
was in another language which added a subtitle beneath it.

Heidi (2014)

Ryan and his buddy Jack are teenage idiots who think it’s funny to pull pranks and film everything they do. When Ryan is hired to house sit and care for an old ladies bird, they prove to be totally untrustworthy as well as unlikeable.  They find a ladder so they can  go up in her attic to look through her stuff. 

Ryan complains about having to keep the house clean, as if she didn’t hire him to do just that. Jack becomes even less likeable when he says they should sell the stuff in her attic because it’s valuable and she probably has forgotten it’s there since its covered in dust. Not only do they find old comics and toys, they also find a creepy doll whose name is Heidi.

When they get home and review the video they shot, Ryan notices that Heidi moves position from one shot to the next. Jack is not impressed.  However he takes it more seriously when he finds Heidi sitting in his bedroom.  They return the doll to the house.  Soon afterwards the old woman is murdered, and Heidi latches onto them.

Most of the movies is Heidi showing up at their homes, even after they do everything they can to try to get rid of her.  At one point they dump her in the lake, and the doll kills the lake. So this doll will kill anything that lives, not just people. 

There is no back story for the doll. There is really no story to the film either.  The plot could be summed up by saying kids find a doll while house sitting and everyone dies.  The ending juxtaposes news stories about deaths of people who had contact with the doll against Ryan filming his sister’s ballet routine.  It’s not a good choice as the cuts between the two are annoying. Also Ryan is a crap cameraman. She wants to him to film her so she can study her form and he’s doing close ups of her head and shoulders, or just her feet. 

Good found footage movies make you lose yourself in the story and wonder what’s going to happen next.  This falls into the other category where most found footage movies reside.  It’s like watching home movies shot by a friend and you wonder if anything interesting is going to happen and how long it’s going to go on.

Nonsensical song lyrics

I’ve been searching for a long time, like a loser that’s out of control

Dialogue from someone who’s never bought a comic book 

“These are Marvel and DC, all in the original packaging.” (Uhhhh comics didn’t come in packaging. They were just on the shelf in the store.  The plastic bags are used by collectors keep them from getting damaged.)

Central Park (2020)

 

Six friends at a private school head into Central Park to party. Only two of them have personalities, such as they are. Mikey is rethinking his partying after getting caught being high in class. The cool teacher tells him he has potential and gives Mikey his cell number. Then there’s Harold who is dealing with public humiliation when his father is on the front page of all the papers being charged with running a Ponzi scheme, akin to Bernie Madoff. 

The teens decide to go to Central Park to party. I don’t know how much weed and booze they have, but they arrive during daylight and it’s way after dark by the time things start getting weird.  There is someone else in the park and he’s not there to relax or party. He’s got murder on his mind.  

After one of the kids is killed, the others ask why would anyone kill him?  Uh I don’t know. Maybe because you’re in Central Park at night. I don’t even live in New York and I know not to go there at night.  I live in a small city and even here, a park at night is not a place to go, which is actually a really sad comment on society.

There is an intersecting storyline involving the cool teacher going for a bike ride and not coming home.  His wife freaks out and calls... someone. Who is he? Is he her father? Her former boyfriend?  It takes quite a while to figure it out.  He looks old enough to be her dad, but apparently he’s a former flame.  And who calls their ex for a favor after not speaking to them in over a year to ask them to look for your current partner Yes, he’s a cop but holy cow, so awkward. Yah so if you could just come by, pick em up, and then drive me around so maybe I can spot my husband somewhere. Argh!!!

Also if you give your character a skateboard, make sure he can ride it.  All I’m asking for is a minimum of competence.  He just needs to be able to push along without looking awkward and balance once it gets going. It’s such a small thing to ask.  If he can’t do it, then ditch the skateboard, especially when it’s not a plot point later on.  It’s like they had a meeting and said, what is this characters personality?  Oh he rides a skateboard.

And if none of those things are enough to drive you away, prepare to be very confused about the ending.  I have no idea what the ending means. I don’t know what this character is doing, or where he is going, or if he’s even going to drop dead from being shot in the chest.  But he’s walking okay so maybe it’s just a flesh wound, even though the police earlier thought he was dead... the police who shot him... the police who were going to cover up the shooting by saying he attacked one of the kids. Damn it, stop covering stuff up!

Haven’s End (2020)

 

When Atlanta is attacked, Allie calls the hospital to tell them she’s coming in. She’s the best trauma doctor, damn it, and they need her. Not so fast, says the hospital, you know you’re suspended. When they won’t bend to Allie’s will, she throws her phone against the wall. I’m not sure why Allie is suspended, but this burst of anger doesn’t bode well for her temperament as a medical professional.

As she starts to head for the hospital, boyfriend Derek reminds her again of her suspension. Then their neighbor Jesse bursts in saying her military girlfriend said they needed to get out of town. There are attacks in multiple cities across the world and it’s not safe anymore.

Apparently no one else is trying to leave Atlanta because the next thing we see, they are on a rural road with no other cars anywhere.  Allie acts like she’s in charge and directs them to a building where they can get supplies. Jesse wonders why they need supplies, which make one wonder whether she’s been paying attention to anything that’s been going on.

After Jesse is wounded in some questionable shooting from hillbillies trying to get supplies, the group ends up at Allie’s fathers trailer where they find her brother and his girlfriend have been living. The family dynamics show Allie and her brother don’t get along and Allie goes a bit mental while trying to find a clear space to fix Jesse’s wound.

As the group tries to figure out what to do, some strange lights zip around at night, the brothers girlfriend disappears, characters start acting weird, and Allie is overwrought about everything.  The movie constantly reminds us that Allie is a doctor, and if you forget, she’s got a shirt and hat to remind you. Then again they also have Derek wear a shirt that says Army and he’s in the Army. It’s like they’re upped the redundancy level just to make sure we don’t miss the obvious.

This movie is hard to get through. You don’t care about any of the characters.  Allie isn’t a great doctor.  She’s supposed to be the best trauma doctor, but she’s suspended for ignoring a do not resuscitate order.  Also after Jesse disappears and they find her bloody the next day, Allie screams and runs away. She doesn’t check to see if she has a pulse or if there’s anything she can do. She just bolts. Plus when Jesse first gets shots, Allie checks the wound when riding in the car and pronounces the bullet went through and there are no chipped or broken bones. How does she know?  Jesse is fully dressed and leaning on her lap.  I’m fearful that she checked 1800s doctor style and put her unsterilized fingers into the wound to poke around.

Allie is not only a doctor, but she’s also a pain in the ass.When military man Derek says he’s going to sweep the perimeter, Allie insists that she should do it and says, “We made a deal. When the world gets tough, we lean on each other.”  Good god woman, do you have to control everything?  If Derek offered to give medical treatment to someone, are you going to let him?  In a poll, one hundred percent of people would pick a military man over a trauma doctor to check the perimeter and keep them safe.

From a makeup perspective, the over abundance of lip gloss on Allie is not only ridiculous in an apocalyptic situation, but it’s excessive to the point where it often looks like she’s been kissing a pork chop.  

Oh and there are zombies in this movie. Yup, about ten zombies who stroll slowly through the woods. You’d have no trouble getting away from them.  They almost seem like an afterthought since they only show up twice. If you removed them, it woudn’t make a difference. Also don’t expect to see anything else in the movie other than a poorly done light effect that swings through the trailer once.  The movie is mostly the characters arguing and the viewer waiting for some sort of menace to show up.

Ridiculous dialogue:

the conflicting views of Allie on searching for Hanna

1. Allie about Hanna going missing and whether they should search for her - “We don’t know what the fuck is going on. And we have to ask ourselves, do we want to be the kind of people who leave someone out in the woods to possibly die? I don’t want to be that type of person.”
2. Allie to Derek once he agrees to search for Hanna - “Only about as far as you can get in an hour. I want you back before dark with or without Hanna. She’s not worth losing you.”

Academy of Terror (2003)

Aka One of Them

Our movie opens with a woman on Hollywood Boulevard approached by a man wearing a wig and fake teeth. Are we not supposed to know they are fake? I don’t know. She jumps into a taxi, gets dropped off at a cemetery in the middle of nowhere where there may be a bongo player.  And she’s dead.

Meanwhile a group of twenty somethings and a teen are driving somewhere.  They spy a car in a rest area and wonder if they should check it out. Good god no! It’s night and the middle of nowhere. Move along, it could be a murderer.... in fact, it is.

Our group of intrepid youngsters sees something up ahead in the road. Is it fog? Nope, it’s a swarm of locusts. But instead of shutting the windows to keep out the bugs, the group prefers to flail ineffectively until their car crashes. Side note- it looks like someone is throwing buckets of bugs in the windows of the car.

In a soon to be intersecting plot point, we find out that the girl in the opening is Trina who was away at school. When her uncle can’t get in touch with her, he drives to the small town near the school.  There he finds the sheriff at the local diner, is promptly told that Trina is dead and then advised to try the eggs. Oddly enough, her uncle isn’t too overcome with grief to eat. 

Our group of youngsters wakes up after the car crash to find themselves convalescing at the school.  Yes, it would be more helpful to bring accident victims to the hospital, but the staff claims it’s too far away and they have a first aid kit. The few students staying there over school break seem helpful but a bit odd.

Most of the kids are overly concerned about offending their hosts to the point that normal questions about how they ended up there or saying they are going to leave are considered rude.  It’s bizarre behavior.  It’s not like they accepted an invitation and are trying to bail on it. They were carried here in the middle of the night while unconscious.  Later one makes the comment, “I’m not anxious to hike through deliverance country”, and no one bats an eye. Now that’s rude.

It’s not good but there is some amusement at the questionable motivation of the characters.  And for gods sake, if you need to tell someone their niece is dead, take them somewhere private. Don’t just continue eating breakfast in the diner - although he takes it remarkably well so he’s a weirdo as well.

Ridiculous dialogue:

Liz - We have to get out of here.

Jessica - The people I talked to last night were really nice. I’d hate to offend them.

He still won’t talk to me. Not since..... ahem the accident.

I don’t mean to be rude, but do you mind telling us how we got here?

At the risk of offending you, I have some questions about the academy.

You know, this is a pretty good little coffee shop. The eggs are great. Take care.  - The Sheriff after telling Mr. Robinson his niece is dead and giving him instructions on how to drive to the academy to pick up her things.

Get Away (2020)

A group of obnoxious film students go away for the weekend to shoot a horror movie.  Maddie gets a small part at the last minute and is mortified to find she’s sharing a car with her ex Noah and his new girlfriend.  His new girl is a piece of work. She’s one of those women who acts condescending and superior because she has your ex, while simultaneously being so insecure she’s afraid to let your ex talk to you and hangs all over him so that everyone knows he’s taken.

On the way to the cabins, they steal the head of a scarecrow because the director wants to use the burlap sack for her killers mask. The scarecrow is right next to the road which is an odd place for a scarecrow to be, but this does allow them to get a warning from a creepy stranger who owns the straw man.

The first night they are there people start disappearing and at one point someone walks out of the woods wearing the burlap sack as a joke. This is the type of thing that gets people killed. But everyone stands there in fear. Just once I’d like to see a movie where the guy who plays a stupid joke gets attacked by the people who think they’re about to be murdered.

Who is the killer? The creepy caretaker? The woman who’s scarecrow was beheaded? The film students who made fun of them in class? A stranger or someone who came on the trip?  They did an okay job of hiding who it was since it wasn’t until near the end where one persons actions were odd enough that I thought, this isn’t right.

The film students are unnecessarily sarcastic and the directors personality seems to be anger.  She can’t seem to talk without being aggressive and irritated.  There seems to be no reason for it other than to alienate the audience, but we don’t really need that to happen.

There is a professor who is murdered when she goes to check out the location of a shoot after getting a phone call.  She shows up at the abandoned building and keeps yelling for whoever called but no one answers. At one point someone throws a ball towards her so obviously they’re messing with her.  I’d love to have even her go, screw this and then turn around and leave. If someone is messing with you, just leave.

Also the ending was a bit odd. So we’ve got someone filming people being murdered.  How are they going to get away with it? They are on film doing the murdering. I dont know if the end of the film was to reveal that this person was definitely involved in all the murders, or if it was to reveal they won’t get away with it when people see the film because there is their stupid smiling face after shots of the dead teacher.

After Images (2014)

Film students make an offering to ancestors by burning a camera and the next day find a photo in the ashes. If a camera gets a photo, what will a video camera get? They make a paper video camera to burn and wake the next day to find film in the ashes.  Each night they burn different types of cameras and get different types of films.

As these are film students who need to submit a film for class, they decided they will splice together all the films they’ve found to make a feature film.  When one of the guys puts a teaser film up on YouTube, another becomes furious as he claims that is his intellectual property since he made the paper camera that they burned to get that film. 

The group starts fighting about who owns each film because they believe these films are better than anything they could make. They also theorize that when they release the film, they’ll become famous and rich, and can then use the money they get to make their own films. Oh silly kids, if you can’t make films this good, then how is that going to work?

The clip they post for the teaser is called something like sexy Asian in swimming pool. So that’s not going to gauge interest in their horror film.  The people using those search terms aren’t looking for horror clips.  And now they can be disappointed to find this page in their google search.

The students and their film studies are the wrap around for an anthology.  There are four stories:

1. Peeping Tom with a telescope goes to the pool at night hoping to run into the lady he’s been watching. A caretaker tells him the pool is closed because only ghosts swim at night. He ignores the warning.
2. A woman in a high rise takes photos of a person who jumped to her death and then experiences a  haunting
3. People get trapped in an elevator and some of them start freaking out
4. A man who works in a food stall is sad because his wife is missing and everyone keeps going to another stall asking for lady fingers

Dead Trigger (2017)

A group of young stereotypes is picked to join the elite zombie fighting squad known as Dead Triggers. They get into a conflict with another combat team in the rec room who tell them the name of their squad comes from the fact that they aren’t coming back from the mission.  Sadly this proves to be true for most of them since they don’t know how to follow orders and they constantly do stupid things that put them in harms way - such as walking up to a massive zombie while trying to kill it and never once shooting at it’s head. Dude, don’t walk towards zombies. It’s just dumb.

The group heads into a town that is overrun by zombies to try to  rescue scientists who’ve been working on a cure. As expected, the complex has been infiltrated by zombies and our scientists aren’t what they used to be.  But thankfully one is still alive and has access to the cure. Now if only they could be picked up to get them out of there.  Betrayal, conflict, and all roads lead to them being abandoned in town. 

Be prepared for the team to unload round after round into the zombies chests and scream about how it isn’t stopping them. Why do people in zombie movies not know to shoot zombies in the heads? And these kids are even video game players who play zombie games. It makes no sense. And for a zombie movie, they sure are cavalier about the zombies. Even after people keep getting bitten, they’re still not paying much attention to make sure they stay safe.

I’m surprised at how bad the zombies are at moving like zombies.  This movie has Dolph Lundgren so there is some money behind it, but they can’t find anyone who can actually walk like a zombie?  Also in most scenes the zombies are pretty sparse, usually appearing to number between 20-30.  That’s not a lot of zombies for an apocalypse.

The worst thing is that this is one boring zombie movie. But I guess that’s to be expected since it was based on a video game... oh wait, so was Resident Evil. Never mind. They have no excuse.

Ascent to Hell (2014)

 

Real estate agent Kate is asked to show the old Circle Clothing Factory which has been abandoned for years.  Kate arrives on time to meet a team of people working with a celebrity who plans to set up a celebrity fashion line called Quite Contrary Fashion by Mary.  Good god. 

Mary isn’t sure if she can see celebrities coming to this neighborhood, but the engineer and architect talk about how it has good light and good bones. But Mary’s bodyguard Roman says he has a bad feeling about it.

Everything is going well until they go up to the sixth floor which is the only floor that hasn’t been renovated.  There they find a weird old paintings on the wall.  They also find some old shirts and jackets which Mary tries on. Because old clothing that’s been stored in an abandoned warehouse for years would never be dusty or gross.

Too bad nobody realized there was a fire in the factory when it was active and 149 employees lost their lives because the owners locked the doors.  So now the group is stuck on the sixth floor with a non working elevator and a locked stairway. Can they escape? Will they kill each other before the ghost does? Do you care?...No, no you don’t.

Ridiculous dialogue

“I was just kidding around. You don’t have to be such a jerk about it.” - Mary to Roman, after he didn’t laugh when she made fun of him

The Follower ( 20170

David is a cigarette smoking, man-bun wearing, attention seeking, judgement hurling, ghost hunting vlogger.  He’s invited by Carol to investigate activity in her home, with the one stipulation being to stay out of her grandmothers room.  Of course David repeatedly tries to enter granny’s room and Carol gets mad.

Carol has a cute dog that, according to David, looks like he smelled something (no he doesn’t) and looks like he wants to eat him (no he doesn’t). This is just the beginning of David being an unlikeable idiot.

After meeting Carol and getting his cameras set up, David goes to his room and starts relating to his camera as if it’s a person, because you know, nothings more important than his fans.  He dives right in with the comment, “Carol seems completely insane.”  Granted Carol seemed strange, but perhaps that’s because there’s a ghost roaming the halls and her nerves are frazzled.  

As the film goes on, David calls her a nutcase, a schizo, and a lunatic.  He is the worst. He tells his fans, such as they are, he’s going to try to get into the grandmothers room again. Oh man, have some respect. He’s the worst paranormal investigator ever. Not only is he disrespectful, he deems the haunting a fake without ever investigating anything, and assumes Carol is behind any noises or items falling. Basically if it could be paranormal, David says crazy Carol set it up.

When her dog disappears, David goes out to look for it and finds it dead in the woods. Instead of telling her the bad news, he hides it under some leaves and lets her continue to worry about the fate of her pup. Can someone hit this guy in the head with a shovel or something?

Four weeks after he bales on the ghost hunt, he starts experiencing weird things as if he’s being haunted.  A friend recommends an expert who can help him. But when they interact, David accuses him of being a fake and getting info on him from their mutual friend. Uh yes, because that’s the best way to deal with any problem. Just tell the expert they’re a phony.

David thinks everyone is either a fake or pulling a joke on him. Sigh. We should have buried him under leaves with the dog.  Just when you think things can’t get worse, he decides there really is a haunting at Carols house. He says he must go back and help her, and it’s all his fault.  Oh my god dude, you knew her two days. Get over yourself.  He again proves to be a bad investigator because he’s tromping around in a very unstealthy manner while trying to get footage of a man that he thinks may have done something to Carol.

My biggest question is, was David written to be a jerk or was it how the actor chose to play it? Because I can’t believe David would have any fans or that anyone would be desperate enough to ask him to help them. 

Cringeworthy dialogue:

You’re a very lonely woman and I didn’t come here to find love. I came her to find ghosts. So let’s behave like adults and focus on the task at hand, ok? - David, making himself even more unlikeable by being condescending 

I knew there was something going on at that house - David four weeks after declaring that there was nothing going on at the house

Haunting in New England (2016)

 

Aka: American Poltegeist; Provoked

A group of paranormal investigators strike out again while at the Lizzie Borden house. But luckily while on the case, they get a phone call about a suburban family being tormented by evil spirits.  It seems odd that their case manager would call them in the middle of the night while they’re investigating, but maybe they have so few cases, the excitement level was high.

The next day the team heads over to the suburban home and sets up. Unfortunately for this family, the team is a walking soap opera. Lead investigator Paul wants to get back together with his ex, who keeps asking if she can be teamed with someone else. While team member Taylor is a total douche who plays practical jokes, digs through drawers during the investigation, and takes photos of peoples stuff.

After the team gets into a fight, team member Matt is so desperate for anything to happen, he yells at the ghost in an attempt to provoke it.  The others wonder what he’s doing as they pack up and leave the investigation because no one can get along. I’m sure the traumatized family appreciates the lack of professionalism.

At this point, we’ve spent time with this cast of characters and the movie seems to be about Paul.  But that is not the case as the film takes a huge left turn and we go home with Matt, a lesser known and less appealing character.  What the heck, movie? Don’t just introduce us to a bunch of people as if they matter, and then leave them all behind in the dust. 

Matt and his girlfriend Jamie have an uncomfortable relationship with a lot of passive aggressive behavior.  They argue about who left the water on and feel justified in doing things to get back at each other for the supposed transgression.  What makes this worse is that it wasn’t either one. It was the ghost. 

When his girlfriend starts having paranormal experiences in their home, Matt doesn’t believe her. He’s a ghost hunter who is begging to find something to investigate, yet he makes excuses to justify everything she says happened to her. Screw you, Matt.

When Matt finally does realize something paranormal is in the home, a terrified Jamie insist on leaving. But Matt’s all caught up in ghost lust and says she’s overreacting because opportunities like this only come along once in a lifetime.  A very confusing thing for a ghost hunter to say and if true, then no one should ever look for a ghost if they’ve seen one.

As with any ghost hunter who scoffs at the paranormal and then runs insanely into a dangerous haunting, things don’t go well for Matt, Paul, Jamie, or anyone else who gets in this ghosts path.  But we don’t really care if anything happens to them since this isn’t particularly enjoyable due to characters who aren’t very appealing.