Cabin Girl (2023)

After her parents die, Ava is tired of feeling alone so she buys a van and goes on the road.  She starts a vlog as a way to bring people on her journey and avoid her loneliness.  Surprisingly the user name van girl is not already taken. 

When she stops posting, her followers are worried and start vlogging about her being missing. Ava eventually shows up with a head injury and a new home. She tells her followers, “I’ve always wanted to buy a little cabin in the woods,” and proceeds to show them the large house that is neither a cabin nor in the woods.

Ava is addicted to posting about herself and live streams as she bikes around the small town. Her 600,000 followers who were invested in her van life start to turn on her. They didn’t subscribe to hear her talk about her cabin and paranormal stuff. They ask when she’s going back on the road, and Ava says the doctor’s told her not to drive. She’s having hallucinations and some memory loss, so she doesn’t feel up to it. Plus she has her new house to work on.

After stumbling upon a memorial for Hannah Granger near a bridge, she runs into bar owner Trina and asks about Hannah. Rumors are Hannah was a witch and either jumped or was pushed off the bridge to her death.  Ava becomes even more intrigued with the story when she finds out Hannah used to live in the home she just purchased.

After having some weird things happen in her home, Ava thinks Hannah is trying to tell her something and suspects she was murdered.  Trina loans the bar’s ouija board to Ava and tells her not to use it alone.  When mechanic Kellen gives her a ride home after she gets a flat tire, they have some wine and break out  the ouija. When Kellen grabs another bottle, Ava uses it on her own and the board spells out guilty. Ava takes this one word and runs with it. She makes a leap in logic and assumes Hannah is saying someone killed her. 

Over the next day or two, Ava sees someone outside her window, kicks Kellen off her property for trying to fix her van, and has Trina over to do Tarot cards.  Ava thinks the cards will tell her who killed Hannah, but when they don’t and seem to be about her, she tells Trina to read them again. When Trina says that’s not how it works, Ava becomes furious and threatens Trina into leaving.

Ava becomes obsessed with solving Hannah’s murder, even though she still has no proof about what happened. She’s convinced the Granger’s are such a powerful small town family they’ve covered up what really happened.  Ad when the Sheriff turns out to be a Granger, Ava is even more convinced she’s right.

Meanwhile there is a middle aged man in a van who is obsessed with Ava and has tracked her down.  Ava isn’t that bright as she lives streams.Anyone paying attention could get the names of the businesses in town.  She mentions having a stalker previously. Is this the same man? Is it a new stalker? Or is his purpose something different?

Ava is unlikable so you’re more concerned for the characters around her, than for her.  Granted seeing a  middle aged man track a young woman is creepy, but other than one character, Ava comes off poorly or disingenuous in her interactions with the towns folk. Plus her channel was for traveling in a van and now it’s about Hannah, her house and supernatural. Most people aren’t going to enjoy a channel they subscribe to taking a hard 180 degree turn in what they’re posting.

Ridiculous dialogue

You guys are all family to me now.

Trina: The internet can wait.

Ava: It can’t. My subscribers are everything. I can’t let them down.

I’m your like most loyal follower and fan, but like I really miss the old Ava. Like I don’t know who this is or I don’t know where she’s gone but please please old Ava come back.

Jackies Dad [talking into Sheriff Grangers radio]: I need help. Sheriff Granger’s down. We’re at Ava Robbins place, first left off of Burnt Mill Road.

Police Dispatch: Is this a joke?

Live streaming while riding her bike

Ava and the house she bought

I’m concerned about her ergonomics

The bar that just happens to have a ouija board

Well that settles it.Live streaming while
walking or biking looks really stupid

The Lurking Fear (2023)

Mike hosts a tv show and is filming an episode at an abandoned asylum. The producer and crew are outside, while Mike breaks a lock on a door to get in. He’s exploring with a cameraman, sound guy and Andy, a local who is knowledgeable on the history of the asylum.  While in the basement, they hear a noise, the cameraman is knocked out and dragged off.

Meanwhile outside the asylum, Officer Hansen and his partner arrive and tell the producer to get lost because it’s private property. They’re surprised to find out the Sheriff gave them permission to shoot.  Hansen says the building and grounds are dangerous and warns him it’s in his best interest to leave.  

The next day Mike’s fiancé Crystal is panicked because he hasn’t called. She calls the production team, who seems familiar with her calling when she hasn’t heard from Mike. Crystal seems very high maintenance.  

Not satisfied with the answer they provided, Crystal shows up in town and accosts the Sheriff while he’s at a park watching his son perform in a chorus. It’s not clear how Crystal found him or why she’d think this was appropriate.  When the Sheriff tells her to leash her dog, she ignores him and says the dog is “pretty harmless.”

The Sheriff says if Mike is missing, she can go to the police station to file a report. She refuses and demands he bring her to the asylum now. When he says no, she says it will only be an hour. When he refuses to make her the center of his world, she sarcastically says he’s supposed to protect and serve.  She’s getting more unlikable by the minute.

At this point, Crystal flounces off to the asylum on her own, where she repeatedly cried, “Mike! Mike” sounding like a cawing bird.  After finding no access to the building, she wanders across the lawn and promptly falls through the ground into the basement.

After she wakes up, she bumps into some freaks and runs off where she meets up with the Sheriff, Andy and a few more people.  They help her look for Mike, although they did not see anyone chasing her. The rest of the movie is people being chased, murdered, and wouldn’t you know it the old doctor did unethical experiments in the basement  and surprise! the survivors are still in there.

There are two problems with this movie and the biggest is Crystal. She’s not strong or smart and seems to think the world revolves around her.  When she is captured, she’s screaming, crying, panting, gasping and annoying as hell. Also the scene where her cell is unlocked is so confusing. The little kid backs away from the cell, Crystal cries and then a hand unlocks it. Next shot she’s running down a hallway. Whose hand was it? 

The second issue is in the middle of these horrific moments, people provide unnecessary exposition about their pasts when they should be more concerned about their current personal safety.  At one point, the officer tells Crystal the Sheriff was a good man who believed in him.  Later Crystal says she pushed Mike into being the host even though he didn’t want to do it.  Then Mike and Crystal run away but then stop to have an emotional reunion instead of continuing to try to get the hell out of there.

I’m also confused as to what happened to the crew?  There were a ton of people at the asylum when Mike went inside.  Did they leave even though Mike, the cameraman and sound guy never came out again?  If they didn’t leave, then what happened to their campers, vehicles and equipmennt? 

The super clean abandoned asylum with no spider webs

The car would be a good reason to contact the police

Crystal about to find out why you shouldn’t wander
around abandoned buildings by yourself

Polaroid (2019)

Teenaged girl Bird, who works in an antique store, is given a Polariod camera by her friend Tyler who found it at a garage sale.  Bird is excited and tells Tyler it’s the same type of camera used in the 70s by Ansel Adams and Walker Evans. I was hoping Tyler would tell her she was no Ansel Adams, but he just dumbly smiles.

Bird brings the camera to a party and takes a photo of her friends.  There appears to be a strange shadow in back of one of them.  When that person ends up dead, Bird notices the shadow is no longer behind them in the photo. In fact, it moves to other photos once everyone in the first photo is dead. That’s right, we have a haunted camera that kills anyone whose photo is taken.

Bird was already unpopular, and when she tells her friends of her theory about the camera, some of them blame her for putting them at risk. They don’t care that there’s no way she could have known this was an issue.

She starts trying to stop whatever supernatural force is killing everyone and tries to figure out whose camera this is and if they know what is going on. One scene involves her getting into a store by removing a vent on the outside wall. Can you actually get into stores this way? And if so, why wouldn’t this be  considered a security issue?

Another question is if Bird thinks taking a photo with the camera dooms the subject to death, why is she still carrying it around? Damn it woman, lock it in a box to make sure no one else uses it.

When their friends start dying, the police bring her in. They do not believe the story of the evil camera. And why would they? It’s ridiculous.  If only there were some way to prove it to them. Oh wait, there is. Because the photo acts like a voodoo doll and if you set it on fire, the persons clothes starts smoking before they burst into flames. A controlled environment with the ability to put out the fire would show them it’s not an act.

Bloody Mary Returns (2022)

Aka Summoning Bloody Mary 2

A group of con artists who do fake exorcisms, possessions, palm reading and seances decide they can make money doing a video about Bloody Mary. They convince a nurse they know at an asylum to let them see Sara, who was convicted of killing her friends -although Sara insists the murderer was Bloody Mary.

Sara explains Mary was a witch who was burned at the stake and if you call her, she’ll come for you.  The nurse rolls her eyes as Sara speaks, but Lily is excited about the footage they’re getting. When Sara hears they plan to call Mary, she warns them it’s a mistake. But as with most warnings, it is not heeded.

Lily arranges with her roommates to film at their house. The plan is when she calls Bloody Mary, Mel will come in dressed as the witch. Lily, Kasper and Rich will run around the house, doing the shaky cam POV video. Then they’ll put it online claiming Mary is real and rake in the bucks. 

Imagine their surprise when they call Mary, she kills a roommate, and comes after them. Apparently Mary has some sort of powers since the doors and windows of the house won’t open. They’re trapped, which you think would mean they’d die fairy quickly since it’s a small house. But instead Mary goes back into the mirror and later pulls Mel into it.  Lily thinks they can open the portal by calling Mary, then jump through the mirror to get Mel and bring her back.  

The weird thing about this movie is the characters just randomly make up how things work. They’ve done no research on Mary, but Lily keeps coming up with guesses about how this whole Mary curse works.  At one point when trying to figure out how to survive, she says, “there’s one thing we haven’t tried yet.”  I replied, “break the mirror”  and Lily said “An exorcism.” Oh Lily, you’ve barely tried anything.

Questions abound.  Why do they think a curse stops at sunrise? Are they getting witches confused with vampires? Are we supposed to care about characters who make money by conning people?  Why does Mel think witches wear crop tops? And why does no one realize a ghost witch should have a clown white stomach ? Why do they think Mary can only appear in a room with a mirror? Why did they do no research on Mary?  Wouldn’t breaking the mirror remove the portal? And if Mary is trying to kill them, why do they keep splitting up? 

Ridiculous dialogue

Ellen: Run Max run! Ah run Max run! Run Max run! [she trips] Max, help me!

Max: Oh shit!

If we could pull this off, this could be our biggest gig yet.

I don’t understand. How can a ghost trap us?

It’ll be sunrise soon. Maybe the curse will have lift itself off by then.

Our less than likable main characters

Mel forgetting witches didn’t wear crop tops,
and only putting white makeup on her face 

No one tries to break the mirror or cover it to stop
Mary from crawling through it

Mary going for that old King Diamond look

Tahoe Joe (2022)

After seeing several videos of local Sasquatch Tahoe Joe, Dillon and Mike decide to make a documentary about him. The first video they see was shot by Shane Patterson and part of it resembles the famous Patterson Bigfoot film.  The second video was provided by Jaylin, whose dad Toma was dragged out his tent in the night while looking for Tahoe Joe.

Jaylin’s whole focus is finding his dad, but when they go to scout the area, he refuses to leave the car.  Mike says he can stay at his house with his sons until they get back, which is odd.  Mike tells his girlfriend he’s going on a business trip and asks his son to let her know if anything happens to him. Mike’s son thinks he’s an ass.

They hire Shane who shot the footage to guide them to the sight of the video. As they’re getting their gear out of the truck, Mike pulls out a massive gun.  Shane refuses to guide them unless they leave it behind. He also says electronics won’t work in the woods because the government is monitoring everyone who goes in.  Dillon and Mike hope he’s wrong as they ready their cameras, drones, go-pros and phones. When the drone stops working, Dillon says he’s programmed the electronics  to upload to the cloud so they won’t lose any footage. Wouldn’t they need service for that?

After setting up camp, they discover Shane has a gun. When they question him, he says he brought it  since he doesn’t trust them or like them because they act like this is just a big joke. He walks off into the woods to get away from them. Later that night Dillon and Mike find out there really is something in the out there.

There’s not a lot of action in this.  The footage shot by Tomas is tedious and could be completely abandoned since it can be summed up by saying he disappeared while looking for evidence of Tahoe Joe.  Instead we get lots of footage of him repeatedly stating he just arrived somewhere, reading a map, or setting up his tent. We also have to listen to what sounds like him chewing gum or maybe food, which is just gross. Plus the camera swings around too fast which made me slightly motion sick. Overall the acting isn’t the best either.

Ridiculous dialogue

I couldn’t find anything. No evidence.

I am one hundred percent convinced that is Tahoe Joe. No doubt.

After all those years of looking for Tahoe Joe, I finally found his ass.

Crouching in the dark with a light on

Uhh Shane? Are you okay?

Watch as he films himself reading a map

Wearing a go pro at your laptop looks pretty silly

Another Patterson Bigfoot