Hellavator Hotel (2023)

Aka The Elevator; aka Haunted Hotel

Lily arrives for her first shift as the night manager at a hotel. Instead of training on how the hotel works, she’s immediately shown her room which has multiple bunk beds.  You’d assume it’s staff dorm, except the only other staff member we see has a different room. 

The hotel is odd.  The guest rooms also have multiple bunk beds, which seems like a really bad business decision.  The boiler is not in the basement, but on an upper floor.  Then there are the strange permanent residents and a history of guests dying in the hotel.  

Lily is more concerned with investigating the most recent death than in doing her job. She constantly leaves the front desk to look into what happened.  I guess that’s not a big deal since no one seems to stay there. Plus Lily has no training so she has idea how to check someone in or charge them for their room.

There is security footage of the last person who died. She was playing the elevator game so Lily tries to play it too, but caretaker Zack catches her.  We’re told Zack has been the caretaker for ages so you’d think he’d be close to retirement, but he appears to be in his twenties.

While the hotel has 14 floors, they only let guests go to the 7th floor.  Lily’s room has several leaks in the ceiling so I thought she was staying on the top floor, but that’s not the case. Aside from the residents, the only guests we see are some influencers who are staying there due to the deaths in the hotel and are shooting some footage for a video. It does not go well for them. 

This is a slog to get through. It’s slow paced and not much happens.  Lily is mostly expressionless and glassy eyed.  The demon is a man in a rubber suit which was used in other movies by the same filmmaker. 

The name on the title screen does not match the cover

Why does he have a photo of the new manager hidden in his book?

Why does the hotel have bunk beds?

Oh joy,  we’ve got some influencers 

She can only see ghosts through her cell phone

The most inefficient use of space in a diary entry

Brilliant investigating

Rabid (2019)

Rose and her best friend Chelsea, a model, work for abusive fashion designer Gunther. Rose dreams of being a designer but Gunther thinks her work is pedestrian.

Due to her insecurity about the scars on her face (which are barely noticeable), Rose usually skips fashion events. But when Brad asks her to go with him to a party, she accepts. She’s having a great time until she overhears two of Gunther’s models calling her scar face and laughing about how Chelsea convinced Brad to take her tonight. 

Feeling the fool, Rose bolts from the club, gets on her moped and is hit by a car. She wakes up in the hospital with horrific facial injuries. The doctors tell her repairing the injuries could take years, is expensive and she will never look the same. Since heartless Gunther let her go after her accident, Rose has no job and no insurance to pay for the procedures.

When she sees an ad for the Burrows Clinic offering an experimental procedure at no cost, she and Chelsea make an appointment to meet with the doctors. Rose decides to move forward since it is her only hope.  The experimental procedure is flawless and the reconstruction is amazing.  But she reports having odd dreams about biting people and consuming blood, which is  upsetting since she’s a vegetarian.

At one point there is a public health crisis where people are advised to stay home due to a rabies outbreak. But Gunther has a show to do and fashion waits for no one. Who cares if the public is at risk, he needs to show his ugly fashions.  

Since Rose is now beautiful, she’s back on Gunther’s team and is helping with the show. When Chelsea arrives disheveled and stating she was bitten while riding the subway, no one is concerned. Other models seem ill and once again, no one is concerned. People fall down on stage and there is barely registered concern. Since rabies is not fashionable, everyone pretends the health crisis doesn’t exist.  We all know this isn’t going to go well.

This is a remake of a 1970s movie. 

Dialogue from fashion industry insiders

You know you’re pretty now, right? You don’t have to be nice.

Fashion never stops for anybody or anything.

Rose and her hideous scars which make her a fashion outcast

I don’t think I trust the Burrows clinic’s operating staff

The orange faced, be-wigged goon on the left is not a clinic
patient, but renowned fashion designed Gunther

Horror in the Forest (2023)

Redwood Forest is known for a high number of child abductions. Yet people still take their children into the woods to camp.  The police search for the missing, but if they are not found within 48 hours, they are never seen again.

Three paranormal investigators decide to explore the forest. They plan to retrace the steps of one of the recent abduction cases. They’re pointed towards Nelson, whose daughter recently went missing, who believes a witch stole his daughter.  His plan is to call the witch and make an exchange to get his daughter back.  None of the investigators think to ask any questions about what he plans to exchange.

They walk deep into the woods and reach their destination well after dark.  Nelson tells the group he makes the rules and they must follow them. They need to stay inside the circle no matter what happens.  If they leave the circle, they’ll die.

As expected, things do not go the way the investigators think they will. What’s unexpected is Georgie keeps shining the light in her own face in the middle of the pitch black woods, effectively blinding herself and making her whereabouts easy to find for whatever evil happens to be looking for her. 

Be prepared for a lot of this type of shot

Never go into the woods with a stranger

Stop using the light when you’re trying to hide

I’m sure the ghoul in the woods is perfectly safe

St. Patricks Day: The Sluagh Awakens (2022)

After striking it rich in the market, Colin takes his wife on a camping trip. While at a bar, they tell the bartender about their good fortune and their plans to camp.  The bartender warns them not to go camping tonight of all nights, but head back into the city.  Colin laughs in his face. The bartender angrily shows them scars on his arm which he says are from fighting a creature out there.  Colin and his wife laugh at him and the bartender is not amused.

Once outside Colin says the bartender was a dick, but his wife says maybe they should rethink their plans.  Colin isn’t worried since they’re in the middle of nowhere and the townsfolk are uneducated rednecks who suffer from mental illness. Surprisingly that statement does not concern his wife. But since she doesn’t have long to live, I guess she can’t regret it. Colin barely survives the creature attack and spends years blaming others because he didn’t heed the bartenders warning.

Seven years later Tara, her boyfriend Pierce, and sister Olivia head to the same town. Tara is so unpleasant it’s hard to imagine being trapped in a car with her.  They arrive on St Patrick’s Day and visit with Pierce’s uncle, the same man who warned Colin seven years earlier.  The bar is dead since the locals know if you want to party on St. Patrick’s Day you need to leave town.

Colin is also back in town seeking revenge on the creature who murdered his wife. He doesn’t seem prepared though. It’s like he has no real plan and not enough weapons. The kids end up being chased through the woods and take shelter at the house he’s renting for the weekend.  People keep making stupid decisions, such as running outside after getting in a fight. Or when Olivia looks over Pierce’s shoulder with a horrified look on her face, Pierce says “What?”  It never occurs to him it could be one of the creatures they previously escaped from, nor does he think to turn around or move. 

Other than the initial death in the set up, which is over in an instant,  it takes 50 minutes to get to the night of St. Patrck’s and the creatures attacking.

Ridiculous dialogue

Your uncle gave us a pretty half ass warning about it seven years ago. He knew and now my wife’s dead.

 

Has he done research about what could kill the monsters?

Tara is always side eyeing people

The scars that look like a Monster energy drink

Ghost Storm (2012)

When a group of teenagers, including the Sheriffs daughter Daisy, go to the cemetery during a storm, lightning cracks the memorial for the Sabbath Suicide victims.  Smoke comes out of the ground, swirls around one of the teens and turns him into a dead senior citizen.

The teens call the police but the cops don’t believe this corpse is really their friend.  When the victim’s father is brought to the coroners office to identify him, all that’s left is what appears to be ash.

After a policeman turns to ash in his cruiser near the vmemorial, the cops become more concerned and the Sheriff asks the mainland for help.  Before it arrives, paranormal investgator Greg shows up and says no one should show fear because ghosts feed on fear.  The island is full of PKE, aka psycho kinetic energy. Those wronged in this world seek to resolve their issues before going to the next and he feels like they’re seeking revenge.

Meanwhile Daisy and her boyfriend are searching through the church archives because they think it has something to do with the old priest and the Sabbath suicide, which was a group of people that sacrificed themselves - think Jonestown.  Daisy saw a vision in her phone and it turned out to be her great grandfather who she thinks is causing this.

In one of those moments when a character could easily explain something to another but doesn't, Daisy tells her Dad they found a diary in the church archives he needs to read. She gives no context to her plea and her Dad tells her to go home.

The storm of ghosts can get into houses by going under doors, or into cars by going through the vents. At one point, the ghost storm comes up through the drain in the kitchen sink. Daisy drives it away by using a fire extinguisher and then putting a stopper in the drain.  I can’t help but notice it’s a double sink.

Ridiculous dialogue

What you’re saying is we have a storm of spirits?

I know it sounds crazy, but salt water absorbs the dark energy of the spirits.

13 Eerie (2013)

Six college students studying forensic science are brought to an island where they are assigned to investigate a crime scene set up by their professor, Dr. Tomkins.  The students are competing for a prestigious internship, and the professor is known for being tricky in his tests.

Their destination is an old penitentiary known as Eerie Strait, on an island where the government used to experiment on prisoners. The professor sets up crime scenes using real bodies in three different areas, and everyone pairs off to find and investigate a crime scene.

Working with the professor is Larry, who will be chef and chauffeur. When two of three chickens disappear from the grill, Larry asks if someone else in on the island.  The professor can’t be bothered with such nonsense. Neither can he be bothered when one of his students says they’ve found a fourth body.  Nonsense, he says, there are only three bodies.  He’s a condescending jackass who never questions why there would be an additional body on the island. Why does he not trust the students competing for a coveted internship? Shouldn’t their skill level enable them to be able to identify a dead body?

Meanwhile no one is all that concerned about the sludge on barrels, or the lack of any animal sounds. And when the students start saying they saw someone dressed in orange in the woods, the professor tells them to grow up.  It does not go well for our intrepid forensic students.

The man who helped the professor set up told him he’ll be back the next morning because they need to get the bodies back to the morgue. So he’s borrowing bodies? Has anyone been to this island since the penitentiary shut down or the experiments stopped? You’d think someone would know not to go to this island.

The cover reminds me of Jason with his odd sized head as he came out of the water in the first Friday the 13th.

Lochness Horror (2023)

A small group is sent on a rescue mission to find a submarine that disappeared and figure out what happened to it. Part of the group has their own agenda and are hiding the real point of the mission.  While it may have been explained, I’m not clear how the two groups got involved or why they’d not want everyone to know what they were up against. 

There is a lot that doesn’t make sense, partly due to the writing and partly because it’s not exciting enough to hold your attention:

• They threaten to kill Willow when she says she doesn’t want to go down to check the wreckage, yet if they kill her, they’ve lost their diver
• One woman says her role is to take care of Willow but why does she need to be taken care of?
• This same woman starts crying under pressure which doesn’t bode well for Willow or anyone else
• They send Ava to figure out the power issue but have to explain what to look for as she has no idea what she’s doing
• The real mission is to document the Lochness monster, but based on the ship and submarine, they’re in the ocean, not in Loch Ness

There is a siren that wails through a lot of the movie and will drive you nuts. No one is very good at their job. It’s a massive ship, but there are only a few people on board running it. Also can one person really run a submarine? And when they get on the ship, one woman is wearing a crop top, but everyone else is in winter jackets. 

 

Last Amityville Movie (2023)

A YouTuber gets a package in the mail with a doorknob that ends up being from the Amityville house. Bad things start happening because it’s cursed.  That’s pretty much it.

This was made during the pandemic so it’s mostly one guy, and sometimes he’s talking to other people on Zoom. The weirdest thing that happens is he makes fresh baked cookies, but leaves them out on the counter overnight like an animal.

Plague of the Dead (2021)

Shot during the pandemic, it’s various people surviving a zombie apocalypse. Most of it is one person alone at a time filming themselves, or there’s a couple walking in a field.  When outside the empty landscape helps the mood, but ultimately it’s pointless. There’s almost no zombies in it, most of the footage is shot inside and dialogue appears to be improvised. It’s like a guy you worked with asked you to watch a movie he and his friends made. It’d be interesting for them, but not so much for you.

Amityville Backpack (2024)

The movie opens with a kid wearing a backpack. Something undefined happens and he explodes. I have no idea why or how. 

Then we meet Luther, an odd man who wants to ask for a raise. He psyches himself up but his boss, whose personality is his hat, says Luther isn’t any good.

Luther goes to a garage sale and inexplicably finds the exploding backpack. After purchasing it, he spends his drive home talking to the bag as if it’s a pet. This is going to be hard to watch. 

Later Luther calls his potential girlfriend. He’s so off putting it would be hard for him to get a date.  As they talk you can hear whichever of them isn’t in the shot as if it’s on a speaker or in another room nearby. 

And I gave up. It’s just too painful to watch. Luther never shuts up and he’s not interesting or amusing.

Dead Still (2014)

Brandon Davis inherits his grandfather’s estate, which includes an old camera his great grandfather used to do post mortem photography in the 1800s.  The great grandfather had some notoriety with exhibits of his photography and Brandon thinks perhaps using the camera will help him get noticed.

Brandon is estranged from his wife and his son Bobby goes to speech therapy because he doesn’t speak. Brandon doesn’t think anything is wrong with him, but I would argue not speaking when you’re a preteen signifies some issues. 

When he’s booked for a wedding, he brings his great grandfather's camera with him.  Bringing a massive stand up camera to a wedding is not practical. He’s got to bring chemicals, glass plates, and make sure they are not exposed to light or broken after exposure.  Does he have enough plates to make it worth while? How safe are the chemicals to have in a party setting? The care and handling seem excessive to use in this situation.

Weirdo Professor Jay McClaren is writing a book about Brandon’s great grandfather and reveals rumor has it, you’ll die if the camera takes your picture.  When Brandon looks at the pictures from the wedding, the bride and groom look like they’re melting.  He’s confused but thinks it’s a technical issue, not that he has a murderous camera. Because that would be insane.  The other photos from that night also look bad.

Brandon convinces his wife and son to let them take their photo at the old estate in Victorian clothing so it looks like the photos from his ancestors time.  When he later learns the bride and groom are dead, he tries to call his wife to warn her.  But in a typical indirect warning, when he gets her voicemail he asks her to call him, which doesn’t betray the urgency needed if you think someone might die.  Just once it would be nice to hear a message that hits all the points, such as hey this sounds crazy but my assistant died and I think the camera is cursed because the people whose photos I took at the wedding died too. Now I’m afraid for you so please call me as soon as you get this.

It’s not clear how his great grandfather was able to get away with this. Photography in the 1800s was a big deal since only photographers had cameras.  How did no one notice that a little girl went in for a photo and ended up dead?   And we won’t even talk about how Bobby ends up sucked inside the camera where his Dad needs to try to rescue him, and that he can speak in this alternate world.

Ridiculous dialogue

Professor Jay: Oh and Miss Monroe? I would stay away from that camera if I were you.

Ivy: Really. Why is that?

Professor Jay: Because a lot of people tend to die around it. Have a nice day. 

His wife always looks pained

Usually the wedding photographer doesn’t drink while working

All the wedding photos look like this

This is an ungainly set up to take to a wedding

This type of camera would show the photo upside down

He’s too old not to speak

The Madness of Humpty Dumpty (2023)

Bailee needs to relax so she brings her boyfriend Tom to her childhood home which is isolated and peaceful.  She fears she suffers from the same mental illness her mother did. Her worry intensifies when she starts seeing and hearing things after arriving at the house.  Tom is dismissive.

When she can’t find her pills, Tom says he’ll always be there to rescue her and hands her some capsules. Bailee says she takes tablets, but Tom tells her this is her normal medicine.  Is Tom gaslighting her or is she losing it?

When Bailee wants to leave because she doesn’t feel safe, Tom says she can leave if she wants, but he needs to stay to write his novel.  Well that turned quickly from always being there for her. Also it doesn’t make sense for her to leave him alone at her family home.

When Bailee was a kid, she was friends with the boy next door. But when she decided she would rather play with her doll than him, he jumped off a cliff.  His parents blame her for the death.  Tom’s lack of support for her trauma is once again on display as his phone buzzes with calls from his ex. Then she shows up at the house.  How did she find them? And why is Tom annoyed with Bailee for being upset at this unexpected development?

Most of the characters aren’t likeable and there’s not a lot of Humpty Dumpty in this, which is fine since he’s not that interesting. He’s an old life sized doll that spends most of his time sitting around doing nothing.

They didn’t so much bury him, as rest his coffin at the grave

The self incriminating to do list

Tom’s brilliant novel writing

American Horror House (2017)

After their sorority house burns down, the girls move into an old mansion near the campus.  During Halloween Hell Night, the sorority pledges must perform tasks which they say are character building, but it’s really hazing. They’ve never had a Hell Night without at least one pledge dropping out. They sound delightful.

The pledges are asked to steal the spirit from the fraternity. It turns out to be an old, mangy, bear mascot costume.  They are also required to do this in their underwear, which is super creepy.  While three girls distract the frat, a lone girl sneaks into the house to get the suit.

Meanwhile there’s a private eye who is investigating the disappearance of a sorority sister.  When no one answers the front door, he lets himself in and wanders up to the bedrooms on the second floor. This is not a good plan because no one is open up and  to trust a strange man who’s wandered into their home.

The house mother, Ms. Margo, talks to dolls and has the gift of sight. Yet she can’t tell the P.I. where the missing girl has gone. The viewer knows she was dismembered in the violin closet and there’s something odd about this house.

Questions: Why does the sorority have a supply closet full of violins and other instruments? Who is the dead kid walking in the hallway? Why does the background music at one point sound like it was taken  from iMovie?

Ridiculous dialogue

You are on double secret probation.

What does that mean?

Get with the program or get out.

The grim reaper comes calling

Why does the sorority house have a closet of violins?

No one questions why a strange looking
little girl is wandering around the sorority house

Don’t Look Away (2023)

When two men hijack a trailer and open the lone box inside, they unleash an evil mannequin who quickly dispatches them. Their violent deaths scare the truck driver who runs in front of a car driven by Frankie.

The traumatized Frankie goes home to her boyfriend Steve, who is incredibly blasé and not very supportive. He’s too self absorbed with his PhD work to be concerned about her mental well being after her accident. 

After she hitting the driver, Frankie thought she saw a mannequin standing by the side of the road. But then it was gone so she figures it was her imagination. But she keeps catching glimpses of it and  starts to think it’s stalking her.  Her friends don’t believe her, other than one guy who also saw it. 

They discover it’s cursed and if you see it, it will follow you until it kills you. You have to keep staring at it because if you take your eyes off it, it can disappear and reappear somewhere else closer to you.

While the mannequin is creepy, it never moves but just seems to teleport around. The acting is questionable.  Drake is rudimentary at best and Steve has the most awkward pauses in his line reads.  

Wood Witch (2020)

When Ari and Chris gets engaged, they visit her parents, bringing with them newly engaged friends Cari and Jon.  They mention they’re gong hiking, and her mother tells them to stay away from a certain area.  Legend has it there is a witch or demon living there that destroyed a village and all the people there.

Ari is a blogger who thinks she’s a journalist and decides she’s going to investigate this legend. Her research consists of listening to her parents stories and visiting a museum where she asks Mr. Kensington about the legend.  He has an old book about it that’s been passed down through his family. While the others distract him, Ari looks through the book. 

As they walk in the woods, Ari continually says they’re almost at the right spot while they wander aimlessly for hours. The guys are getting tired of this crap, but Ari finally finds the tree she’s looking for and pressures Cari into saying the words to wake the witch.  Surprisingly it works, which sends them running for their lives. The only thing more ridiculous than Ari thinking she’s a journalist is she didn’t bother consider what would happen when the witch woke up.

Ari is so incredibly self absorbed you want to grab Chris by the lapels and scream “Don’t marry her!’  She films everything. She calls herself a journalist, but does no research prior to clomping into the woods. When Chris says constant filming is invasive, she dismisses his feelings.  She inexplicably thinks she can reason with the wood witch, although there is no reason to think she could. Even after the witch kills a jogger, Ari decides she is going back because she has to get the story.  Everything that happens is her fault and I have no sympathy for her.

When she has dinner with her parents, she films it from four camera angles. It’s dinner.  Do they really need to film themselves eating and talking about where they’re going hiking? Dad’s got his phone in front of him filming the entire dinner, even as he’s eating. It’s madness. And who is going to watch this crap? Who is going to cull through hours of the same video of dinner shot from four angles to try to find something interesting?  No one wants to watch mundane interactions, not even the people in them.  

The wood witch resembles Groot when it first appears. I couldn’t understand anything it said so  I had to put on the closed captions. Needless to say, Ari could not reason with it.  

The beginning of the movie says it’s made up of found footage shot by the participants, footage from a TV show called I Survived, and some reenactments. So this explains why there are some shots that do not conform to FF format. The movie begins with the two couples in the car.  Everyone is talking and Ari says “Can you guys be quiet? I’m trying to Vlog.”  There’s multiple cameras shooting while they drive. We’re four minutes in and I already hate them. They are going to have hours and hours of poorly shot, uninteresting garbage footage.

Ridiculous dialogue

Chris: Why? What’s up with all this camera stuff?

Ari: One day you’re going to want to look back on this so I’m thinking how cool.

Chris: I can just remember it.

Ari: Yeah but I mean this is great.

Chris: I don’t need a camera shoved in my face every five seconds.

Chris: It’s invasive.

Ari: It’s not invasive at all…. Seriously? You guys opinions of invasive is ridiculous. This is not invasive.

Ari: I’m a journalist

Chris: Well technically you’re a blogger.

Can you fan out and help us look for a tree? A tree that’s strange looking.

This is amazing. She’s hungry. She’s frustrated. I think she can be reasoned with.

Hey it’s two boring shots at once

How many cameras do you need to film dinner? One

Two

Three

Four.  Their dinner was not that interesting.

Everything must be filmed by multiple people

If no one is supposed to go there, why is there a worn path?

Our four brainiacs

Be prepared to see two shaky cams at once