The Dybbuk Box: The Story of Chris Chambers (2019)

A man buys a box because its supposed to contain a demon and after opening it, he’s surprised by the things that happen. Stupid man. 

After watching dybbuk box openings on YouTube, Chris heads to the dark web to buy one.  He’s heard that real witches can’t sell the boxes so he finds one where the owner says it’s for trade only and not for sale. Inexplicably Chris purchases the box rather than trading for it.

When it arrives, Chris uses an EMF meter to see if it reacts to the box.  EMF supposedly can pick up on spirits and it’s going off any time it gets near the box.  

After he opens the box, the EMF no longer lights up. Chris finds this odd and can’t comprehend why it would happen. It’s like he’s forgotten the entire story of the box and why he was using an EMF meter.  

Soon strange things start happening in his home. A lamp flickers. The temperature control is set on 73, but it’s either freezing or boiling in the house. A ceiling fan falls onto the bed, which provides unintentional hilarity since there are no electrical wires attached to it. A table lamp files off the table. It’s all more annoying stuff, rather than life altering.

Chris repeatedly uses a spirit box to talk to the demon and believes it’s talking back. As in all ghost hunting shows, the words Chris hears in response to his questions sound nothing like the sounds coming out of the spirit box. He’s looking for words that make sense in relation to his questions. He tells us what he hears and at no time did anything sound like what he interpreted.  

I have no idea how many days this is supposed to take place over. I’m not sure if I wasn’t paying close enough attention or they didn’t tell us. Chris starts feeling poorly and nothing is ever resolved.  It purports to be a true story. The characters name and actors name are the same.  But it not much happens and it doesn’t go anywhere other than to tell us Chris went to live with his parent because he felt ill.  

Ridiculous dialogue:

It’s kind of strange that the moment I opened the box this just stopped. (Said about the EMF meter, even though he was told never to open the box because it contained a demon and why would the demon ever stay in the box once it was open)

Wither (2012)

Ida and Albin head to an abandoned cabin with a group of friends. Albin’s father works for the power company so he can turn the power back on for their weekend trip.  Oddly enough they don’t have a key to the house but luckily Albin knows how to pick a lock.

One of the guys decides it would be funny to scare everyone and hoists a girl up through an unlocked window. Instead of positioning herself for a scare, she wanders around the room, finds a candle, and discovers a trap door to the basement.

Unadvisedly she climbs down the ladder into the basement and wanders around. The basement appears to a series of small rooms and when she finds a light on, surprisingly she is not alarmed.  Her fate is sealed when the sound of shuffling doesn’t send her running, but instead prompts her to walk toward the darkness and ask if any one is there. It’s not pretty.

When the group manages to get inside, she’s standing there with a dumb look on her face.  But she never mentions that she went into the basement or that there is a scary creature down there.  Instead she becomes a wet blanket who doesn’t feel good and doesn’t want to do anything.  Later that night she starts bleeding, collapses in the bathroom and the next time we see her, she’s looking sort of dead. Let the carnage begin.

This is essentially a Swedish version of Evil Dead. There’s no back story about what the creature is or how it got there. There’s no incantations or books that start it. It’s literally a creature in the basement of an abandoned house. So if you stay out of the basement, you’ll most likely be okay.  People are way to willing to go into a trap door in the floor of a creepy old house. Sure it’s fun to explore, but trap doors are a sign you should be wary.

One thing that is frustrating is when a man they saw in the woods comes into the house and tells them what is going on, they don’t believe him. While what he says seems ridiculous, they may want to be less skeptical since they just tied up one of their friends who seems insane because she just bit part of another girls face off.  Plus she looks like there’s something seriously wrong with her.  The man says if you get bitten, scratched or blood on you, you’re in trouble.  One of the girls was bitten and another had blood spit on her. But they don’t mention it at all and say they’re fine.

#Follow Me (2019)

Sophie has 2 million followers on YouTube which is surprising after you see her videos.  She asks two friends to fly to America with her and travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco, where she is supposed to do a meet and greet with her fans. 

The annoying threesome present a most unlikeable group. You wouldn’t want to sit near them on a plane or in a restaurant. They repeatedly call each other babe, play it up for the camera, and spend their time looking at themselves through their phones or cameras.  They are all about appearance and projecting an image rather than enjoying the moment or being real.  

Sophie films everything and apologizes to her fans for not posting for a few weeks. Apparently Sophie is famous for doing nothing other than posting a curated life in an attempt to seem relevant. There’s nothing special about Sophie or her friends, but don’t say that to them or they’ll think you’re rude.

They must have money since they’ve rented a house in the Hollywood Hills for one night. The next day when they start driving to San Fran, things get weird. There’s a vaguely threatening note on their car. They get a flat tire and have a run in with a creepy guy at a gas station, who they also see later that night at a restaurant across from their motel. There is also a threatening note left outside their hotel door.  Plus Lisa’s lost phone shows up containing photos and videos of the group at every place they’ve been. So they know someone is following them.

To reach the point where there is a legitimate reason for them to think harm is at hand, you need to watch over an hour of irritating behavior in what is essentially home videos. And when it’s time to protect themselves, they do the stupidest things ever. Even though they are worried about their safety, Lisa steps outside the motel room because she hears noises outside and it’s too dark to see out the windows.  When they find the phone and are alarmed someone is following them, they leave the door open to their room. When they know for sure someone is trying to kill them, they sneak out of the room bu then run screaming at the top of their lungs to the car. Oh my god women, if you want to get away from a killer, don’t scream bloody murder. He’ll know where you are. Lastly they don’t stop  filming. For some reason they think the camera is a lifeline, but calling 911 would have been far more helpful.  We know they have reception because they were looking at their timeline on social media.  

No pay off to who was doing it or why, or how Sophie could ever possibly have 2 million followers. There was nothing interesting about her.

Ridiculous dialogue

This just literally can’t get any worse. (Said right before things literally get so much worse)

Don’t stop filming whatever you do. That camera is our fucking life line. (They should be calling 911 not filming>

The Haunting of the Mary Celeste (2020)

Rachel has a theory to explain the mystery of the Mary Celeste, which was found adrift in 1872 with all of her cargo intact but her crew missing.  Rachel thinks when tectonic plates shift, this causes things to disappear and the crew were pulled into a rift. She just needs a boat that is willing to bring her to the coordinates where she predicts a rift is set to occur.

Captain Tulls and first mate Aldo get Rachel and her two assistants near the location, but then report the engines have failed and they’ll need to evacuate. Not realizing that mechanical things don’t care what she needs, Rachel freaks out and acts like a diva. 

Her assistant Grant ups the tension by helpfully offering to try to repair their engine. Because there’s nothing the crew likes more than  a passenger who thinks he’s more well versed in how to fix their ship. Also Grant brought a doll from the Mary Celeste on board with him. It’s highly unlikely that any mariner would want to carry an object from a cursed ship on their voyage. However it never comes up so perhaps this crew isn’t concerned about that sort of thing.

Rachel’s other assistant is super sassy which begs the question, why is she here? She seems to have no scientific knowledge or skills that would benefit this expedition, such as it is. She doesn’t seem to even want to be there. Here’s hoping she’s the first to go.

The most likable person on the boat is the Captain, even though he appears to have faked the engine trouble to bleed more money from Rachel. Yet Rachel manages to be less likable due to her self absorbed nature and general shenanigans. When they lose power, Rachel turns on the generator, even though they need to save power to ensure they have GPS and radio.  But her theory of the rift is more important than anything else and I hate her.

For a ghost story, this is lacking in story and scares. Richard Roundtree is the best thing about the film, but he doesn’t have much screen time.

The Jack in the Box (2019)

After suffering a tragedy, Casey wants a change of scenery and takes a job at a museum in the UK which seems to have random exhibits rather than one theme. That may explain why they don’t have a lot of visitors.  

Casey has knowledge of history and did previous work as a curator. Thank god because his training consists of someone standing in one spot and pointing in the direction of where the exhibits are located at other points in the building. He is then told he’ll be working on his own the next day to greet visitors and answer their questions. I feel sorry for the visitors.

While looking through a storage room, Casey finds an old jack in the box that he thinks should be on display.  What he doesn’t realize- because who would ever consider this possibility - is the box contains an evil clown that when released will have to kill six victims before becoming trapped back in the box.

Once the clown is released, it waits for it’s chance to spring from the box and take a victim.  Thieves break into the museum? Perfect time for the clown to strike.  Lady alone in the clown room? Casey’s so sleepy he won’t notice that she never came back.

The clown can get out of the box, and it’s bigger than a human. So it’s adept at catching victims, even if they run away.  Casey becomes a suspect due to a murder at the museum after he had an argument with the director.  I’m not sure why this murder was so bloody when the other three murders at the museum were so neat and tidy no one even knew they took place there. 

Casey figures out what is going on, but now the police suspect him of being involved in the disappearances and murders.  Since no one will believe there is a dangerous killer jack in the box on the loose, Casey tries to use his curator skills to find the history of this box and how he might be able to stop it.

The music in this movie is like what you would hear in a melodrama. It seems off for a horror movie, but then again, this takes place in Britain who often make low key horror.   

Garden Tool Massacre (1997)

Charles Scavolini murdered his wife and was sentenced to an asylum. This video is about the last two days of his life after he escaped. Well, that’s what the scrawl says but in reality it’s mostly about college students partying, and once in awhile someone dies. They could have just had police bulletins and news reports explaining that a murderer escaped from the asylum rather than have the opening parts.  It wouldn’t make a difference, other than they needed the opening scenes to pad the film. 

A kid who sleeps in a polo shirt has a party at his house with three other guys. The expected girls never show up.  It’s a really sad party since two of the four don’t like each other and one of them has a personality that consists of wearing a sombrero. The next night there is a less sad party at a different house and both genders attend. 

This was filmed in the UK and we get to see two different people make tea in real time.  The film is mostly padding and often it’s too dark to see what’s going on.  I’m not even sure if this thing had a script.

It truly looks like a bunch of people said, hey we have a VHS camera, let’s make a movie. The best thing about it is the cover artwork.  Definitely shot on video, we’ve got the bad color and occasional VHS artifacts like the frame rolling and fuzziness that old VHS tapes tend to have, especially if they’ve been copied more than once. If you’re a fan of SOV, then you may want to take a chance on this. I’m partly charmed and partly bored by this one.

Scream Park (2012)

 Attendance is dwindling and the park isn’t making money to maintain the the rides. At the end of their shifts, Marty the manager calls a meeting to tell the employees the park will be closing within a few weeks.  

The teens aren’t happy about losing their jobs. But since they were planning to party that night, they convince Marty to let them use the amusement park as a consolation. Marty is a creep since he’s partying with high schoolers and he’s worked at the park fifteen years so he’s got to be at least thirty years old.

One of the teens calls instapunk Roy because he has a fake ID. Roy picks up two bottles of liquor and a six pack. Oh this is going to be one crazy party. 

While looking for someone who missed the meeting, Jennifer and Marty see two strangers in the park and are afraid to approach them.  Probably a good idea since they are murderers meant to kill the employees. The owner has this idea that a murder park would bring in more business. This seems like it should be a surprise twist in the plot but the description of the movie tells us up front this is what’s happening.

The biggest problem is if these teenager hadn’t convinced the manager to let them party in the park, would anyone have died?  They weren’t supposed to be there.  The killers might have gotten one or even two of them as they closed down, but everyone else might have left. One murder does not a murder park make.

Also when Marty shows his true weasel self and runs away while Jennifer is trying to help a wounded coworker, Jennifer yells out “we’re over here Marty.”  Yeah, he knows. You ran from his side to the side of the coworker.  If he’s gone, its because he left.  Plus hiding in a store with glass doors isn’t helpful if the killer saw you go in there. Yes, you can hide behind something, but he still knows you’re there and glass is no match for an ax.

Most amusing dialogue:

I’m going to make my rounds and make sure no dumb ass kid is stuck in the rides somewhere.  

One Night in October (2017)

 

One Night in October is an anthology that is not readily apparent it’s  an anthology until you’re a ways into the movie. There are multiple characters introduced in different places and you keep waiting for the stories to come together, but they don’t.  

Our first story involves a woman named Michelle who’s just moved into a new house. She’s totally into Halloween and goes overboard with generic decorations covering her entire lawn.  A neighbor stops by and has an awkward conversation in which he is overly complimentary about her decorating prowess.

Later that night, there’s a knock on her door. Michelle hasn’t grasped the concept of peepholes yet, so she opens her door to a punch in the face from a masked man.  When she wakes up, she’s zip tied along with her neighbor, which begs the question, why would anyone beat her neighbor up and bring him to her home?

The two robbers explain that they’ve targeted her because she’s a single woman in a big house with nice things so they know she’s got money. This makes no sense. The house appears to be a typical suburban ranch. There’s nothing about it that screams money, especially based on all the discount store decorations she’s put up.  

They threaten to beat her up unless she tells them where she keeps her jewelry, cash and safe.  Again, not  everyone has jewelry, cash or a safe, plus some people are house poor because they spent all their money buying their home. They soon discover that they’ve picked the wrong house to rob because Michelle is not as pathetic as she seems.

The second story is about two couples who go to a cornfield.  When the owner discovers them and asks what they are doing since there are signs and a fence to keep people out, the timid girl gets scared but the entitled girl who shall henceforth be known as Karen gets an attitude because it’s only a cornfield.  She doesn’t seem to grasp the concert of trespassing. The owner tells them to get out.

However instead of leaving, Karen convinces the others to stay. When they stumble across a weird candle, Karen decides to take it, upping her crime from trespassing to theft.  Later that night their truck won’t start and oh my god why are they still at the cornfield. It has been hours since they were  told to leave.  Their solution is to find the woman who told them to leave and ask to use her phone because god damn it, she’d better help them or they aren’t leaving.

Karen and her girlfriend set out to look for the woman and find a barn. Instead of seeing if there is a house nearby, they enter the barn, thus adding breaking and entering to their list of crimes for the day.  As they wander around looking through things, the entitled Karen decides to head out on her own while the timid girl continues to look through the barn.  The timid girl finds an alter and lit candles, but doesn’t grasp this means someone is nearby. She also finds a book that appears to be filled with charcoal drawings. I’m not sure if we were supposed to notice.  Was it was a limitation of the budget or they were purposely going for a homemade book vibe?

Karen  is completely put out when she can’t find the woman or a phone, and walks around shouting that she wants to speak to the manager.  Well, not literally but she gives off that vibe as you watch her sigh, shout angrily, and get aggravated that she’s inconvenienced even though she’s the source of the problem.  Thankfully there is a killer scarecrow on the property.  Unfortunately there is also a story of where the scarecrow came from and you’re going to have to listen to it as things grind to a halt.

The third story is about a woman who meets a man once every three month for five  minutes. She lives for those moments but is finding it hard to be without him.  He won’t violate protocol, but you’re not sure what it is or why these two know each other.  The most difficult part of this story is that it’s hard to tell what emotion the actress is trying to portray.  It’s all blank stares and monotone.  

I thought there was going to be a fourth story with a woman at a bar going to a Halloween party, but she disappears and is never seen again. So her night must have worked out well. This seems to be the only link in the stories as she gets a call from the guy whose car is dead at the cornfield. He says “I need help” before the phone goes dead. Unlike a normal person who would be concerned why their friend needs help, she sighs because she now has to go to the party alone.  And off she wanders never to worry about her dead friend again.

Cringeworthy dialogue:

Hey you went to college. What does this mean?  (While looking at Latin)

Owner- What are you doing here?

Timid girl - I’m sorry. I’ve never seen a cornfield and my girlfriend said she knew one.

Owner - You didn’t see all the signs? You didn’t jump the fence?

Entitled Karen - Hey take it easy. It’s a cornfield, not Fort Knox.

Robber 1 - How do you know she has jewelry?

Robber 2 - Men (scoffing robber lady who shakes her head as if he’s an idiot, but she’s the one who doesn’t realize that not all women own jewelry)

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.

Flight 666 (2018)

 

Flight 666 is the story of ghosts who don’t care if they traumatize a plane full of people to get back at the serial killer who murdered them.  Is there any reason they couldn’t have gotten this guy on the ground? If they can travel in a plane, they sure as hell have powers that could allow them to exact revenge at a time other than when he’s with a large group of innocent people.

There is a storm following the plane, which I guess is of the ghosts making. But then the ghosts themselves start popping up on the wing or in the bathroom.  We’ve got one guy doing a low rent version of William Shatner’s famous Twilight Zone, “There’s a man on the wing of the plane” episode.  There is no comparison.

Then we’ve got a stewardess with bad interpersonal skills, a woman who is hearing messages from the ghosts, a guy who didn’t bring his medication in his carry on eve though it seems to something that will keep him from panicking on an airplane, and an air Marshall who shoves a handful of random pills down the guys throat when he freaks the hell out.

So many ridiculous things and so little space in the plane.  It’s not good.

Ridiculous dialogue:

Listen up! I need everyone to keep their head on their shoulders! - Air Marshall

Air Marshall - Do you have anything to calm him down?

Stewardess - Yes but we’ve never given it to someone.

Pilot 1- Everything okay back there?

Plot 2 — Yeah, Alice was just checking in

What is ridiculous about this is that Pilot 2 didn’t have a headset on so Pilot one could hear both sides of the conversation.

Savageland (2015)

After an entire town is massacred, the lone survivor Francisco Salazar is arrested for the murders.  The police say he killed everyone even though he had his camera and took photos which show others committing the carnage.  

So why is Salazar accused without any real proof? Is it racism? The sheriff is white and Salazar is a Mexican immigrant.  Do they need someone to blame and he’s the only one alive? Is it pressure for a quick arrest? And why does the prosecution and sheriff ignore the roll of film Salazar shot?

The movie is done as if it’s a documentary.  The story is laid out by a narrator who takes us in chronological order to the different locations in town as he spells out what happened. There are maps of the town and a clear path of how the carnage occurred. 

There are interviews with people who knew Salazar and people who are angry at Salazar because they think he killed their family members.  There are photographers who comment on why someone would take photos of this carnage  - you want someone to know what happened.  Plus when you’re behind the camera, you feel indestructible, like nothing can touch you.  And we get to see Salazars photos in order of how they were shot which gives us a feel for things getting more and more out of hand.

This is a nicely done footage movie with an interesting story.  It was so well done that when I started watching it, I wasn’t sure if it was actually a documentary about something that really occurred. I had to google it to confirm if it was real or not.  That’s impressive because usually found footage movies are  obviously not real. It was the way they wove the interviews with the maps and photos. Plus the people seemed real rather than actors playing a role in a film.

The Canadoo (2016)

Five twenty somethings are chosen via email to compete for $50,000 in a reality tv show.  They are told to meet at a dock in a bayou area. Creepy hillbilllies pick them up in their boat and drop them off in the middle of the swamp.  

There is no one waiting to meet in them, not at the dock or where they’re dropped off, but they assume this is part of the show.  There is no food, supplies, or instructions. Just an old camcorder which they assume is to do their point of view shots.  Oddly enough, they ask no questions about how it’s going to be recharged, even though they made fun of one of the kids for bringing an iPod and not having a way to charge it.

It seems like these kids should be more suspicious. But then again, they were duped by an email. They haven’t met anyone or signed a contract.  The five characters are: small town girl who can only talk about her fiancé; weird loner who hopes to use the money to record a demo with his band; guy who lost his scholarship after blowing out his knee; shallow girl who wants to be famous; and arrogant buff guy who wants to be a model.

Thankfully one of them has some knowledge of how to make a fire and what’s safe to eat in nature.  The next morning, the weird loner is gone. Did he wander off? Did something sinister happen? Did he quit because he couldn’t take it?  And why isn’t anyone questioning their situation and how they are to claim that $50,000?

As you do when someone disappears and you’re in a creepy place, they split up to look for him.  People start dying, they find a cabin in the woods which has candles burning in it. They aren’t concerned about who might have been there and who might be coming back.  Then the hillbillies come a-calling.  Oh kids, stop looking for fame and money on reality shows.

Ridiculous dialogue

I used to do landscaping so I’ve had my shares of splinters.

Entity (2012)

Years ago, thirty four bodies were found in Russia and no one knows what happened. Russian Yuri takes a film crew and a psychic to the field where the bodies where found to investigate.  When they find the location, the psychic impresses everyone by asking what the building past the woods is. The building isn’t visible so they feel like they’ve done well in the psychic department.

It’s an abandoned prison which still has electricity, and is free from dust, dirt and cobwebs.  So is this place really abandoned or is it just poor filmmaking?  Our psychic quickly finds a spirit in one of the cells. She can hear the spirit talk, but it’s in Russian. So she asks questions and has the Russian interpret what she says for the spirit. On the surface it’s impressive, but the one flaw is that if the ghost answers only the non-Russian speaking psychic can hear her.  So she’s not going to get any information from that ghost.

Yuri seems to have knowledge of the prison, which makes one wonder why he’s asking them to invesigate. Then David disappears.  I have no idea who David is, uhhh absolutely no idea.  So either I’m not paying enough attention or he’s too boring to remember.

As usual, when people find spirits in abandoned prisons when there have been bodies found nearby, things go horribly wrong. It’s another middle of the road found footage movie. Nothing that interesting, but not the worst thing you’ll ever see either.

Here Comes Hell (2019)

Texan George goes to England to visit Victor who’s just bought an old mansion that used to be owned by an occultist.  Tennis player Freddie brings along his new girlfriend Elizabeth who is not up to the standards of this rich group of friends, especially Victors sister Christine who used to date Freddie.  

The group discuss snooty rich people things until after dinner when Victor announces he has a surprise. They are going to have a psychic hold a seance.  While not everyone is keen on the idea, eventually they start the entertainment which quickly turns into a nightmare.

At ten minutes into this film, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue. It’s based on the old dinner party and haunted house movies of the 1930s and 1940s.  However the contrast of the film makes it seem like a modern color film that’s had the color removed. I don’t now if that’s what they did or if it’s the lighting they chose, but I wasn’t feeling it. Although I did like that they appeared to use rear projection for the driving scenes.   

What made me start watching again was I saw someone refer to the film as Larry Blamire meets Evil Dead, both of which I love.  I didn’t find it as funny as Blamire’s films, but if you can get past the first ten to fifteen minutes of set up, it’s worth a watch.  The 1930s evil dead vibe is an interesting idea and they nailed the tone of the old movies. It’s an interesting combination.

Accident (2018)

After being dropped off at the bus station to catch a ride to a festival, Caroline informs Jess that they are actually catching a ride with a friend. Shortly after the bus leaves, they find out their ride has flaked on them.

Worst friend ever Caroline decides they can hitchhike to the festival.  When Jess is almost hit by a car while standing in the road in the middle of nowhere, the guys in the car offer them a ride.  Carline confirms her potential future serial killer victim status when she says the guys seem harmless and they should accept the ride.  Their lack of cranical functioning continues when they put their duffel bags in the trunk rather than keeping the in the back seat in case they need to make a quick exit.

When they stop at a convenience store for gas and snacks, the girls strip down to their underwear in the restroom. Who does that? I guess it was to dress more attractively for the men in the car, which is crazy since they don’t know anything about them. When Jess starts messing around with one of the guys things go badly. The ensuing chaos leads them to hit a car  on the side of the road and catapult into the air and down the embankment.

This is where thing go off the rails as far as anything making sense. I have no idea why the girls were unable to figure out how to get out of the car. One of the guys is outside. So either a window broke in the crash or he went through it.  Yet the girls are stuck in the car.  The second guy wakes up, pushes open his window and crawls out.  The girls are still stuck inside. They’re as skinny as he is. I thought maybe one girl was supposed to have an injury where she couldn’t walk, but she walks later in the film. So why can’t they get out of the car?

Next the guys argue about whether to help the girls out of the car. They want to get away since the car has a tracking device and someone is going to show up looking for it.  They spend so much time arguing about whether to help the girls that they could have helped them and gotten away.  Just stop arguing about it.

There is a small hole in the windshield. Jess keeps grabbing it with her hands and trying to break off pieces of glass by pulling them towards her. Oh my god woman, why? The window is bowed outwards, and you can generate much more force by kicking your legs into the window than trying to use your tiny hand to pull pieces of broken glass towards you.  And once you’ve pecked the hole a little bigger, don’t try forcing your head through it. It’s jagged glass. 

Also one of the guys has a branch piercing his chest. The stick is literally keeping blood from gushing out of his wound.  The worst thing anyone could do is pull the stick out. And yet his friend does. Gah!

The police in this town are pretty incompetent as well. A guy shows up at the crash site saying he’s from the FBI and he’ll take care of the wreck. The policeman calls dispatch and finds out the FBI say don’t know anything about this.... but he isn’t suspicious at all. Seriously man, you should immediately have your hand on your gun and be eagled eyed. 

I thought the characters  were supposed to be in college, but the description of the movie says teenagers. So these are really old looking teens in a movie that will frustrate you.

Dialogue of note:

I sincerely apologize. I really do, but the sound of your voice is killing us faster.

They Lie Inside Us (2020)

 

A bland dad moves into a supposedly haunted house with his disabled daughter.  While his blandness keeps him from being totally dislikable, he’s definitely not going for dad of the year since he’s brought his disabled daughter to a haunted house and she can’t get up or down stairs on her own.

Dad is a writer but he’s had writers block since something terrible happened. He doesn’t mention what it is, but his dead wife pops up every once in awhile. Is she real? Just a figment of his imagination? And does this have anything to do with his daughter being disabled?

Dad’s hoping living in a haunted house will provide inspiration.  He has a list of movie monsters and when an idea strikes him, he writes a story.  It’s essentially the same story over and over. A woman in a nightgown is chased by a serial killer, a scarecrow or a killer clown, etc.

His daughter spends most of her time alone waiting for her dad to be free to get her upstairs or out the door. But dad is lost in his own head and even on Halloween he leaves her sitting alone downstairs while he writes another one of his stories with varying monsters.  

After watching tons of really low budget movies, this didn’t seem that bad. But there wasn’t anything about it that really drew me in either.  It was an okay way to pass the time but the ending was disappointing.

Epidemic (2018)

 

It’s somebodies birthday today. Michael wants Dana to have a great birthday so he invites his friend whose girlfriend Mandy hates her, a neighbor, and Dana’s estranged father.  Her father is an alcoholic whose wife is a shrew and also hates Dana. 

When her father doesn’t show for the party, Dana is disappointed.  His wife is confused when she calls and he’s not there since he left for the party hours earlier.

The awkward party gets even more awkward once Mandy starts vomiting on people.  Earlier in the day poor unlikable Mandy found a plastic covered hole in the basement wall of their new apartment, ripped through the covering, and crawled in to find a hidden room. Her lack of stealth caused a clear bottle of liquid to break and make her feel ill. So now she’s released some sort of epidemic on our unsuspecting party guests.

When Dana’s father arrives, he finds Dana in hysterics and smacks her. Instead of calling 911 about the dead bodies, he carries Dana out of the apartment and off to a motel. Yeah it makes abolutely no sense, as does most of the movie or the idiot characters in it.  

There is nothing in the movie like the cover. There are no zombies, just people spitting foamy toothpaste and lolling around in the house. The characters make strange decisions. And why are Dana and Mandy dressed up like they’re going to a club when they are at a five person birthday party in someone’s home during the day?

The Entity (2015)

 

Aka La Entidad

A group of college students decide their class project will be about reaction videos. They document themselves watching the people reacting  because it’s one of those films where characters believe they need to film everything.

When Carla recognizes one of the guys in the video, they decide to interview him. But when they go to his home, they find out he’s dead and so are his friends. 

His brother believes the problem started when they went to the old cemetery. He feels like something is after him, even though he only saw part of the video the others watched.

At this point, the group comes up with the brilliant plan of heading to the cemetery to track down the video the dead kids watched, which turns out to be in an archive in the wall of crypts.  As expected in horror movies where people go places they damn well shouldn’t, things go horribly wrong.

This is a Peruvian found footage horror movie.  At times it was a little nausea inducing, but for the most part they did a good job keeping the camera from swinging around. One of the leads looked like a budget Shia LeBeouf which is too bad. 

Manos Returns (2016)

Manos Returns is the sequel to Manos: The Hands of Fate which was made in 1966 and became famous when Mystery Science Theater skewered it.  While the original Manos is delightfully bad and entertaining, the sequel is just bad.  It’s a labor of love done by the actress who played the little girl in the first movie, but it lacks the charm or inadvertent humor of the first one.  

The plot is essentially the same as the original movie. People in a convertible get lost while on vacation and stay at Valley Lodge. Torgo says the master won’t like it if they stay, but the vacationers insist that  it will be fine.  Do lost travelers ever actually ask to stay at someone’s house, and then when they are told the home owner won’t like, they disregard this information and stay anyway? The premise is so bizarre.

As in the first movie, the car is approached by a Sheriff. When they tell him they have reservations at a nearby luxury hotel, he tells them to go into town because there’s nothing like that out here.  They say they’ll keep looking since they already paid for their rooms.  Good god, ask some questions. At a minimum ask him if he’s ever heard of the hotel.  Because either you’re booked at a crappy motel who is using false advertising, or you’re about to be murdered

There’s also a subplot where one of the women just got out of an abusive relationship. She is concerned about how Torgo is treated and tries to alert him to the fact that he is being abused by the people he knows.

This is a very low budget movie. I think they raised money for it on Kickstarter. It’s not very entertaining and would probably only be of interest to those who know of the original Manos. 

Before Someone Gets Hurt (2018)

Tim and his paranormal investigators are hoping to land a gig on a major network and think this investigation is the one that will get them there.They’re heading to a house that has been empty since 1992. Empty of people, but full of furniture and personal belongings. This is explained by saying the last tenants left everything behind. We also learn there have been fourteen murders on the property and people have been crucified.  

They get a permit to film and head over to the home where crew member Billy set up the cameras in advance. The officials at city hall advised them not to go there because people die there. But apparently the crack cleaning staff is exempt since the house that’s been empty for twenty years is spotless. No dust, dirt, cobwebs, or sheets over the furniture. The appliances look modern and there is plenty of toilet paper. Even the bedding seems clean since our team decides to sleep there.

When they ask the location manager how she decided on this location, she says someone sent her a text.  When they look up the mans name, they discover he died in the early 1900s.  No one shall ask about their screening process or why no one had keys to the house they were investigating. Billy found an unlocked door and let himself in.

They send a text asking who the sender really is and the reply is “I am Novum.”  More research reveals this is a cult that’s been around since the 1600s. They believe by killing around 50,000 of the first born of men of the cloth, they can get Lucifer back into heaven. Because benevolent peaceful God just loves letting people into heaven who goes around killing tens of thousands of people.

As is usual in paranormal investigation movies, things go horribly wrong.  The twist ending won’t be surprising for anyone well versed in horror movies.

It was better than I expected, but realize that simply means it’s an okay film.  There’s nothing special or compelling about it. But at least it’s not one of those crappy found footage movies. The best thing about it is the house is kind of interesting.