Short Review: After the Dark (2013)

After the Dark

IMDB rate: 5,7

Genre: Fantasy, Drama

I'm sorry, but I just have to write a short review (or rant) about After the Dark. This has to be the most ridiculous and boring movie of 2013. After the Dark, or The Philosophers as it's also called, is about a group of students who follow the class of Philosophy and in this class their teacher gives them the task to think of possible ways to best survive an apocalypse. 

Of course, in this task their options are limited, each students gets their own life with a few limitations. They have to lock themselves up for an entire year (hypothetically) in a bunker where only ten people can survive because of oxygen limitations. They have to think who of these students are the smartest or have the best chance to reproduce/rebuild when they are released after this year. 

Now, I'm sorry to say this but this movie is utter shit. This class of students is really just philosophizing about the things I just mentioned and that's it. So everything they think is just hypothetically speaking, and will never happen. We get to see three different scenario's of these pretend apocalypses and every scenario is just bullshit. Their way of thinking is really stupid, and especially their third scenario is awfully stupid. No they don't want to rebuild the world, they just want to be happy. This has to be the most selfish group of people in movie history. They have hypothetical sex and hypothetical relationship  discussions because one of them is hypothetically gay. You have to bear in mind that they discuss all of these scenario's in class. 

Now, the special effects don't even look that bad. I would even go that far to see that they looked good, but all of that is just wasted with the biggest bullshit story ever made. The acting doesn't make things better because they're just a bunch of terrible actors. But well, what can you expect when Bonnie Wright, a.k.a. the only thing I disliked about the Harry Potter movies, has a role in it.

If one of these apocalypse scenario's actually happened the movie would've been a lot better. The story could be about their life in the bunker or about the life they have when rebuilding stuff, but not this make-believe nonsense. 

American Horror Story: Season 4 poster

I'm sorry but I'm really excited for this season, I wasn't a big fan of the second season and the third season was still not as good as the first one. But I do have really high hopes for this season! Can't wait!

Review: Contracted (2013)

Contracted

IMDB rate: 5,2

Genre: Virus

Contracted is another one of Netflix' brilliant selection of horror movies. I wouldn't necessarily say that Contracted is such a brilliant movie though, to be honest I don't really know what to think of this movie. It was a bit of a weird movie, although interesting as well at moments. It was somewhat original I would say. 

A young girl contracts what she thinks is a sexually-transmitted disease - but is actually something much worse.

I don't think this review will be spoiler-free so beware! 

The movie begins with a short scene in what appears to be a morgue, here we see two legs with a name tag on someones toes, also, it appears that someone is having sex with that body. Normally you don't really pay a lot of attention to these first scenes and you often forget about it very quickly again, but with this movie it's something that you need to keep in mind during the movie, especially since it's not mentioned again after this. 

This movie is over a timespan of three days and in this three days we see a girl get very sick. It's a pretty good build-up I think. The sickness starts small but quickly gets worse. The make-up effects of this illness are pretty impressive I would say, they look very realistic. 

There are a few huge plot holes in this movie though, for example the doctors are just terrible. At first she gets a blood test and she has to wait for the results, that's okay because there doesn't seem to be a whole lot wrong at that time. But after two days she comes back to the doctor and looks just gross and terribly sick, and this point the doctor still says to wait for the test results while she's at a point where she's definitely too sick to be walking on the street again. Why not send her to the hospital immediately? Even when it's not a STD, it still could be something infectious. 

I enjoyed the storyline of this movie, but I was terribly annoyed with the acting. It was HORRIBLE. Najarra Townsend plays the main character Samantha and she's just a terrible actress. This movie would be so much more appreciated if her acting was better. She's definitely not the only terrible actor in this movie, I think I haven't seen a good one to be honest. But well, she's the one that pretty much carries the movie, so if her acting was a bit better I think you wouldn't be as much annoyed with the other horrible actors as well.

The dialogues are pretty dumb as well, Dumb and Dumber seem more clever than this bunch of people. 

SPOILER: I thought the ending was kinda unsuspected, I thought she would just die eventually or get killed because she had nasty sick sex or something. But what appears to happen at the end is that this girl is turning into a zombie. I seriously did not see that one coming.

Contracted is a pretty original movie and I honestly was surprised by the ending. The acting in this movie is terrible though which ruins pretty much the entire movie. The dialogues are horrible and unreal but the make-up is very good. I'm just not really sure what to think of this movie.

My personal rate: 6/10

Review: The Tortured (2010)

The Tortured

IMDB rate: 5,5

Genre: Torture

It was definitely not a big surprise what subject this movie was about. It's really nothing more or less than torturing someone. I must admit that I was a tiny bit surprised by the ending of this movie, but overall I wasn't too impressed with it. 

In Rutland Country, the six year-old Benjamin Landry is kidnapped by a psychopath in the lawn of his house. His father Craig Landry unsuccessfully runs after the truck but the abductor escapes. Sooner the police discovers that John Kozlowski had abducted and killed Benjamin. When the criminal is sentenced to 25 years in prison only, Benjamin's mother Elise Landry presses her husband to kidnap John and torture him. Craig is a doctor and knows exactly how to inflict pain to the psychopath. They succeed to kidnap John from the prison transport, but Craig has an accident and John is hurt. The couple tortures the man until they find the truth about their victim.

The movie pays a lot of attention to the connection between the family members and how the parents are feeling after the murder of their son. I think this is a very important part for a movie in general because often you miss the connection between family members because of bad writing and stuff, but in this movie they really made sure that you knew how the parents felt about this. 

The first third of this movie is mostly flashbacks to their kid and the moment he was kidnapped. I expected that there would be paid a lot more build-up to the moment he was kidnapped, but it literally happens when the movie starts so I thought that was something nice. The second part of the film is about how the parents kidnap the murderer and from there on it's basically just torturing. 

I think the movie would've been better if it was a drama movie and just showed a story about the parents coping with the loss of their child. The beginning is really good, even the part of the kidnapping of the criminal is reasonably good, but when the torturing starts it just becomes slightly boring. The dialogues are getting weird and well, it's really just twenty different ways of torturing a guy. When you're watching the movie it feels like someone took over the movie halfway through and just turned it into a horror themed movie. 

The acting is pretty decent. The parents are being played by Jesse Metcalfe (John Tucker Must Die, Desperate Housewives) and Erika Christensen (Parenthood, Flightplan). They're both OK I think. The criminal is played by horror actor Bill Moseley, not a big part but impressive nonetheless. Their characters were written quite good I think, you know that the mother will blame her husband for losing their son even though it's not his fault, but even she admits after that that she can't help blaming him. I get that, you want to blame someone and he would be the obvious person to blame, their marriage failure after that was shown very quickly, but very effective as well. The dialogues were good until the torturing began, from that moment on the dialogues became kinda lame. 

The runtime is only 79 minutes, but I think that's a good thing. Torturing someone in a basement can only be entertaining for so long. If the movie was longer you will be bored very easily with this movie I think. 

The Tortured is not very original but it's not a bad movie. The acting is good and the plot is nice as well. When the torturing starts it does become a bit boring but there's a small plot twist at the end which did surprise me quite a bit. It was a good plot twist that made the movie slightly better. It's just a movie that I enjoyed watching for one time. 

My personal rate: 6/10

Review: Vile (2011)

Vile

IMDB rate: 5,0

Genre: Torture

The torture genre is quite popular the last few years, and it definitely brought a few good movies along. Think of masterpieces like Martyrs or American Mary, both amazing horror movies that I like a lot. Unfortunately, when something is becoming a hype you might expect a lot of bad movies as well. I think Vile definitely belongs to the latter one.

A group of friends stop to pick up a hitchhiking woman only to end up getting drugged by her with a gas. They awaken to find that vials have been implanted in the base of their skulls - which are of course instantly fatal if they are removed, a grinning professional looking woman informs them on TV screens that they have 22 hours to fill these vials with a specific amount of brain fluid, a fluid that is produced during times of extreme pain. Along with another group of unlucky test subjects and with time ticking away they decide to work together and share the burden of reaching their painful target.

I think the makers of this movie wanted to create something similar like Saw, only they fail terribly at that. It's a bit like the second Saw movie, only everything that's happening is terrible. I think it only reminds me of Saw 2 because there are people locked in a house and they have to do suffer to get something. Now, Saw 2 is not a very good movie but it is definitely a lot better if you compare it to the movie Vile. 

First of all, the acting is horrible. From start to finish, I wasn't convinced for one second by any of them. And well, the movie is about 8/9 people so I wouldn't say that there are not a whole lot of chances to impress, right? Another thing that I was so annoyed about was the sound-mixing of this movie. Because there's a whole lot of torturing going on you might expect a few screams but damn, the sound was mixed so badly that you had to turn to volume way down to not go deaf, and turn it way up again to hear them speak. The choice for background music was terrible too. It was terribly unfitting for the scenes and just seemed kinda random. Perhaps they wanted to create an ironic atmosphere when they played classic music during terrible torturing, but really, it was just one big fail. 

This movie is pretty much filled with plot holes. For example, they obviously needed to create adrenaline for the people who locked them up, that's what's you get when you're in great pain. But you can also produce adrenaline by having sex. There are at least two couples there and they rather try the torture way than the sex way. I'm sorry, but that's kinda messed up since they could've been having a great time while in that house. They really just messed it up for themselves. 

Also, what's the point of trying a new torture method for each person? Why not go with the same one each time? Sure, I get it in the sense of moviemaking, but not in a logical sense. These people want to get it over with and not think of new methods each time I think. 

Of course there is one bitch in this house that is making ignorant comments and is just a pain in the ass to everybody. As you can imagine, I was very glad that the characters thought the same way about her as I did, so they knocked her out pretty fast. Also, when she went too far with being annoying, they tortured her greatly, and I think this might've been the most beautiful moment in this entire movie. But unfortunately, it was also the only good moment. 

The ending was very predictable and just stupid. They walk out of the house but of course this is not where it ends, since one of the people captured is also one of the people who does this to them. Saw 2 much? When that moment is finally over I don't really get why the guy didn't go back for his girlfriend or at least contacted the police or something. It really was a messy and illogical ending. 

Vile is just a terrible movie that's filled with plot holes. It just tries too hard to create something original. It's illogical and predictable, and by the end of the movie you actually just don't care what will happen next. It's brutal on some points, but when something finally happens they often let it to your imagination to figure out what's happening. The only thing that you saw each time was when a fingernail was pulled, well great job for pulling a fake fingernail of that actors finger, those are just not the effects you're waiting for. 

My personal rate: 3/10

Review: The Den (2013)

The Den

IMDB rate: 6,0

Genre: Found-footage, Serial Killer

The Den is a bit of a twist on the found-footage genre, while it is indeed a found footage it isn't the shaky camera kind of movie. The movie is basically a screen recording of a macbook. The main character of this movie is visiting a lot of video chat rooms so when we see her, we see her through the camera in the computer. 

It's kinda funny because when we see things happen on her camera the quality is surprisingly good, while I'm pretty sure that the quality on computers is often not very good. 

I think we've all covered our webcams at least once in our life time because of the thought of possible hackers and well, that's exactly what this movie is about. This girl didn't cover her webcam and well, some pretty nasty videos of her were send around online. What I don't get though, when she finally finds out that people hacked her computer and made her webcam record personal stuff, she still doesn't close her laptop at night, meaning they are still able to watch her. This is kinda annoying especially because she is being threatened and they just know everything she does and when she leaves the house and stuff. It's like she doesn't even prevent that they can stalk her. It is a pretty scary idea though, that these people watch every move she makes, and manipulate her that way. It's a really modern movie that's about things that are actually possible to everyone these days.

The perspective is somewhat refreshing, but also a bit boring after a while. Basically we just watch a computer screen the entire time with sometimes a switch to cellphones. The conversations are all through programs comparable with Facetime and stuff, only this program also gives people the ability to chat with random people around the world, something like Omegle. So when she chats with strangers she obviously sees billions of guys jerking off and even the Nigerian Prince that needs to get rid of his money shows up. It's at least a bit of a different twist on the found footage genre.

I think this movie is comparable with the movie Untraceable. Untraceable is also about people being tortured online only with them the torture gets worse when more people start watching. In this movie it's more that one person pays to see someone get stalked and get murdered eventually I believe, at least, that's what I figured from the ending. Apparently there's a sort of torture porn site where you can subscribe to for 99$ and there you can just watch people get crazy basically...

Sometimes we catch a glimpse of the bad guys and I think their outfit is a bit comparable with Michael Myers and The Strangers, definitely not the least scary guys around. The police is definitely not very realistic in this movie because one moment a 'girl' is texting and literally a few seconds later she's found in the bathtub with her wrists cut, while her phone is still in the kitchen. It's seemed kinda obvious to me that she was laying in the bathtub for quite some time already plus she could not text and cut her wrists that quickly after.

The ending is a bit weird and I still don't really know what the entire purpose of these attacks was. They sell it online or something, but I don't really see the point of killing people for nothing. It's a bit weird. When the girl finally escaped I was kinda hoping for her that she would escape actually, the scene was also very cool because she only had one tiny flashlight and she was in a very dark building. It reminded me a lot of one of those horror games where you only have one shitty flashlight, something like Slenderman or something.

The acting wasn't much special, which is kinda sad because I thought the movie was kinda impressing. It's a very modern approach and somewhat realistic too. There are many logical errors in this movie but well, I did enjoy this movie because it was pretty original. I think you should definitely give this movie a chance.

My personal rate: 7/10

Review: Bag of Bones (2011)

Bag of Bones

IMDB rate: 5,8

Genre: Ghost

Bag of Bones officially is a TV show, but it only has two episodes. I haven't read the book yet, I own it, but it simply didn't seem interesting enough to read. When I read some reviews about this movie I read that the movie was very different from the book, so I'm kinda curious about that difference. I will read it eventually though. 

I think this will be a rather short review, because I just don't have a whole lot to say about it. The episodes are each 80 minutes long but in my opinion things could've been much shorter. It was definitely not necessary to make it last in total for 2 hours and a half hours. I liked watching Bag of Bones but there were a lot of things going on that seemed unnecessary. 

I think it could've easily fitted in a 110 minutes movie. 

The acting is fairly good. I'm normally not a huge fan of Pierce Brosnan but he was quite good in this movie. He seemed a lot more sympathetic compared with his other movies. Normally I'm a big fan of Melissa George, but for the first time I was pretty annoyed with her. Her character was annoying and she didn't act as good as usual. 

I liked watching it, although I wasn't very impressed with it. It wasn't extremely interesting. The story of Sara Tidwell could've been revealed a lot earlier I think, because now she keeps returning as a character and it seems useless for the story. It's as if she's only useful as singer until it's revealed what her role is in this movie. 

I'm sorry this review isn't any longer but I really don't have a whole lot to say about it. I can't compare it with the book, which seems to be the biggest problem that others have with this TV movie. I thought the acting was reasonable, but the movie itself was nothing special. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. 

My personal rate: 6/10

Review: Quarantine 2: Terminal (2011)

Quarantine 2: Terminal

IMDB rate: 5,3

Genre: Zombie

Last week I watched the movie Quarantine. For those who don't know this already, the first Quarantine movie was a remake of the Spanish movie Rec. Honestly, I often like remakes but this remake just sucked. The second part was surprisingly enough a bit better in my opinion though. Mostly because it was nothing like Rec anymore and just took it's own road. It was definitely not a great movie, but I liked a few parts of it.

When you know Quarantine you know what the sequel will be about, which is zombies. The movie starts in an airport and soon is in an airplane. Now, because you know that there will be zombies eventually in that plane you pay attention to everything. The sick pilot for instance, you hate him already for getting in the plane while he is ill. But eventually, he wasn't the one who was sick (at least, not sick enough yet). When the passengers board you know that the movie creators really picked the easiest targets, a child without his parents, a cripple, a fat dude and a pregnant girl. There even was a cat on this plane. There really are only a few strong people on this plane so you just know things will get rough.

I really liked that this movie starts off in a plane, because there's just not a whole lot of places you can hide, so when things started, it was interesting to see these people fight off the zombie in such little room. It was very claustrophobic which gave a great twist to this zombie story. It was actually quite tensive for awhile, and I was very glad when the plane landed. When the plane lands things aren't over yet, because they're being put in quarantine in what I would say was the luggage storage in the airport.

The zombies looked good but they were a bit odd. Like when someone was bitten, they just talked and literally a second later they turned into a zombie and got aggressive. In most movies the people die first before turning, which is a bit more logical if you ask me. Another odd zombie was when the cripple man was bitten (by a rat!), he couldn't walk before, but when he was bitten he suddenly ran around again. I'm not really sure if this is how it's supposed to work...

The acting was kinda rubbish in this movie. Very fake and unbelievable. Mercedes Masöhn plays the main character Jenny, she is supposed to look as a strong leader but fails greatly at this. Her acting was rubbish, but somehow it did fit with how dumb her character was. Josh Cooke plays the pretty boy Henry who is supposed to come with this huge plot twist, even though we knew all along what was going on. I wasn't a fan of his acting either, his eyes were kinda... dead and emotionless through the entire movie. His looks were saying "look at me, I'm pretty and strong and I'll save you all", but his eyes said... well nothing actually. Wasn't convinced by him. The worst of them all was the young kid George, played by Mattie Liptak. Please, stop acting or try harder because this was just rubbish, even the cat was more convincing compared to him. Terrible character as well.

The movie isn't too bad but could've been a lot better. Choosing better actors for example would've made this movie a lot more interesting. The set up is interesting and the story develops quite nicely, but man, those characters are written so terribly bad. And well, when the actors aren't very good, the characters will only seem more terrible. I really liked the part when they were still in the air, it was very tensive and really made a good start for the movie. There were quite a few good scares well. The character development and storyline was what made this movie less good.

My personal rate: 5,5/10

Review: The Frighteners (1996)

The Frighteners 

IMDB rate: 7,2

Genre: Ghost, Comedic

Another Netflix ghost movies! This time it's a bit different though because The Frighteners is also a very funny movie. This movie is from 1996 but when I watched it I could swear it was a lot older. I'm not sure if they made it look older on purpose or if it's not on purpose, but anyway, I thought the movie was a lot older. 

I don't think this will be a very long review, there's not a whole lot to say I think. 

After a car accident in which his wife, Debra, was killed and he was injured, Frank Bannister develops psychic abilities allowing him to see, hear and communicate with ghosts. After losing his wife, he then gave up his job as an architect, letting his unfinished "dream house" sit incomplete for years, and put these skills to use by befriending a few ghosts and getting them to haunt houses in the area to drum up work for his ghostbusting business; Then Frank proceeds to "exorcise" the houses for a fee. But when he discovers that an entity resembling the Grim Reaper is killing people, marking numbers on their forehead beforehand, Frank tries to help the people whom the reaper is after. 

Michael J. Fox plays the role of Frank Bannister, and this is actually his last leading role in a movie. After this he only did very small parts or TV shows. I am a big fan of Michael J. Fox actually, of course, after seeing Back to the Future, who isn't a big fan of him? Great movies. His character are often the same though as when he was Marty McFly. A funny guy whose also clumsy and clever. I like these roles of him, although they do get a bit boring after awhile. Even in Spin City he was this guy. Anyway, no complains on his acting. He did a good job in this movie I thought. I wasn't too crazy about Trini Alvarado, I'm not familiar with her other acting but in The Frighteners she was a bit fake. She just tried a bit too hard. 

The ghosts in this movie aren't very real looking, I think they're quite crappy looking actually. But in a movie like this it doesn't really matter, because it's not seriously meant anyway. I think this movie is much like The Haunted Mansion, it has the same comedic twist and also the same style of ghosts and stuff. I always loved the watch The Haunted Mansion when I was a kid, and I think if I would've seen this movie when I was that age that I would love it as well. The Frighteners is a bit a family horror movie I think, although it does contain a bit more bloody scenes compared with The Haunted Mansion.

Peter Jackson is the director of this movie by the way, I think it's really fun to see his switch from horror movies like Braindead and The Frighteners to big Hollywood movies such as The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (and for some reason he made this crap movie called The Lovely Bones in between).  

The Frighteners is a fun family horror movie. The performance of Michael J. Fox is amazing as usual, he really carries this movie. The special effects weren't too great, the ghost were quite fake looking and a bit over the top ghost like, but I wasn't really bothered with it, because it fits the movie. I definitely liked it. 

My personal rate: 7/10

Review: The Awakening (2011)

The Awakening

IMDB rate: 6,5

Genre: Ghost

Another Netflix title, and another movie that wasn't too bad. Really, when I go to the cinema to watch a horror movie they're almost always shit but the last couple I watched on Netflix were all quite good. The ghost genre isn't really my favorite one to watch, but coincidently I watched a shit load the last couple of days. I didn't really intend to, but well... it happened, so expect a lot more ghost movie reviews the next couple of days. 

So, let's talk about The Awakening! I wasn't really sure what I expected from this movie. I never watched a trailer (not watching trailers is the best protection against high expectations I think) so well, I had no idea what this movie was about. I only read the three sentenced description on Netflix but that still didn't tell me a whole lot about what to expect.

In 1921, England is overwhelmed by the loss and grief of World War I. Hoax exposer Florence Cathcart visits a boarding school to explain sightings of a child ghost. Everything she believes unravels as the 'missing' begin to show themselves. 

What I found very remarkable at the beginning of this movie was how they pictured Rebecca's Hall character. The movie is set in the 1920's and we have a sort of vision about woman from that time, they're often housewives who are neatly dressed and stuff. But this was absolutely not how Rebecca's Hall character was pictured, you immediately saw that she was a strong independent woman. This was most noticable in her clothes, every woman in the movie wore dresses or skirts while she often wore pants. Perhaps a great misinterpretation on my side, but I thought it was notable.

I thought Rebecca Hall was a great choice by the way for the role of Florence Cathcart, I think she's a very cool actress and her roles are always remarkable. The strong woman part that I describer earlier also fitted greatly with her I thought. Dominic West did a good, but not outstanding, job as portraying Robert Mallory. I was a bit weirded out about seeing Imelda Staunton playing a nice role, since I obviously only know her in a role as Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter movie, where she isn't very kind. Obviously, she did a great job playing in this movie as well as in Harry Potter. Another fun face to see was the young Isaac Hempstead Wright, who plays Bran Stark in Game of Thrones. He was very adorable in this movie, I think he's quite a good actor. I'm hoping to see more of him in the future. 

The movie itself is quite standard. Finding the ghost that terrorizes people with someone who doesn't believe in ghosts. Only to find out eventually that she was wrong all the time, because there obviously is a ghost. Some parts are a bit far-fetched in this movie. The end conclusion for example, WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD, I can't imagine that no one else but Maud caught her talking to the little boy. The last scene was a bit weird. I think they wanted to give the impression that she was dead, while they also wanted you to think that she was still alive. They didn't really do this in a very smart way, because it wasn't mysterious at all, and in the end you still know which one it is. 

It isn't a very original movie, but it is a fun movie to watch. It's not filled with plot holes, which is always a nice thing, and the acting is quite good. There aren't really scares in this movie, especially because the ghost has a blurry face. It's not a very scary face. The Awakening is a fun movie, nothing special, but nothing bad either. I say that a lot about the last few Netflix films I watched, I know, but it's just the way it is. I wasn't bored while watching it, although I wasn't impressed with it either. 

My personal rate: 6,5/10

Review: The Possession (2012)

The Possession

IMDB rate: 5,9

Genre: Possession

When I first saw this title on Netflix I expected it to be a bad movie. The last couple of years there are tons of bad possession movies (Devils Due, The Last Exorcism, The Devil Inside) and well, why would this one be any different? I did gave it a chance though, I can't judge a movie by it's cover of course. I must say that I didn't hate this movie, it would never become my favorite movie of all time, but it really wasn't bad. 

The basketball coach Clyde and his wife Stephanie divorced a couple of months ago and their teenage daughter Hannah and the girl Emily live with their mother and spend the weekends with their father. One day, Clyde stops his car in a yard sale and Emily buys an antique carved box and becomes obsessed with it. Emily finds the hidden lock and releases an evil spirit that possesses her. Soon Clyde discovers that Emily has a problem, but his annoying ex-wife and her boyfriend Brett do not pay attention to him and get a restraining order against Clyde. Clyde seeks out Professor McMannis and when he sees the box, he explains that it is a Dibbuk Box, where a spirit is trapped inside. He also explains that the box shouldn't be open; otherwise the person will be possessed by the spirit. 

The title of this movie isn't very original, it will absolutely not be a surprise what this movie will be about. I'm not a big fan of these 'literal' titles, I think they will scare people away very easily since you immediately know what it's about. The link is easily made to crap movie like The Devil Inside and The Last Exorcism. 

Something I noticed about this movie was that they only put attention to important things. There are always a few useless dialogues, they are necessary for every movie, but in this movie they almost mute these conversations. In fact, I only noticed these conversations because I had subtitles turned on. The focus is really on what's important and what isn't. 

The acting is quite good. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a good actor and he played his part as a worried father pretty good. I wasn't a big fan of Kyra Sedgwick, her acting wasn't very realistic, a bit over-the-top. Also, her character was a huge bitch which didn't improve me liking her. Thumbs up for Natasha Calis, who plays the girl Emily, she acted really good. She's cute at moments, but scary as hell when she needs to be. When she kept repeating "daddy, you scare me", it gave me shivers all over. 

The movie is actually quite tensive throughout. There were a few jump scares and the tension is very high in many scenes. The movie is filmed quite dark, which also helps improving the tension. There are quite a few interesting scenes, for example the one with the moth invasion. It's pretty scary. The creature at the end was a bit fake looking though. 

A few things what I didn't like was that people always seem to forget that they have something that's called light. People in horror movies never turn their goddamn lamps on and rather face the thing making noise in the darkness. Annoying as fuck. Also, the thing you saw moving in the MRI looked scary as fuck, but is also unrealistic as hell. And how the fuck do the doctors not see this thing? 

I thought The Possession was a reasonable movie, it's quite realistic and the girl playing Emily plays amazingly. I definitely expected it to be a terrible movie, but it's really an okay movie. Nothing special, but nothing bad either. I definitely had fun watching it. 

My personal rate: 6,5/10

Review: Cockneys vs. Zombies (2012)

Cockneys vs. Zombies

IMDB rate: 5,9

Genre: Zombie, Comedic

I've been seeing this film in cheap movie stores everywhere, and I couldn't help but think that this must be a terrible movie. I did decide to give this movie a watch, and surprisingly enough I quite enjoyed it. It's not a top zombie movie, but it sure is entertaining. 

I love British movies, especially when they're horror. Think of movies like Shaun of the Dead and Lesbian Vampire Killers, they're both incredibly entertaining movies. Now, Cockneys vs. Zombies isn't as good as one of those two, but it's still great fun. That dry humor with the foul language that they use is a very funny combination, throw in some zombies and fun is guaranteed. 

I do think that this movie could've been more attractive with another name. Cockneys vs. Zombies just is a terrible name for a movie. I just expect a terrible movie when I see a title like that. It reminds me of shit movies such as Mega Shark vs. Mega Octopus or stuff like that. But it really is better than the title might make you think. 

The movie gives an interesting perspective I think. You expect that the old people will be useless, but they turn out to be the most badass people of this entire movie. This also results in hilarious chases between an old man and zombies in a very slow speed. Alan Ford really is the star in this movie, I think his role is definitely comparable with his roles in Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

I also love that they immediately know that they're in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, in most zombie movies people act as if they've never seen movies before and have no idea what they're stuck in. In this movie they immediately know what to do, which prevents a lot of useless deaths.

The special effects are good and there's lots of satisfying gore in this movie. The make-up is quite good actually, they look like the nasty buggers from the new Dawn of the Dead, but they have the good old moving pace from Night of the Living Dead. The conversations are hilarious, the characters reactions to the zombies are even more. 

This movie really was entertaining and it was so much more than it's name would suggest. It was fun but also very good. I like it's as if Shaun of the Dead meets Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Good acting, great gore and nice entertainment. 

My personal rate: 7,5/10

Review: Carrie (1976)

Carrie

IMDB rate: 7,4

Genre: Supernatural

I think this might be the first time that I saw the original movie before the remake, or at least, it's the first time I notice it. I haven't seen the remake yet, but I do know that I liked this version a lot. It's quite rare to say something like that in my case, because I often tend to like remakes as well. 

The movie starts of very VERY nude, like BAM boobs and bush everywhere, I think it's to keep the males interested in the movie ;) (not that it needs anything like that). Anyway, I thought it was remarkable because it's not something you see a whole lot in 'older' movies, at least not in large numbers like in Carrie. 

I wasn't familiar with Sissy Spacek before seeing Carrie and I thought she was the perfect choice for playing Carrie. At first they considered Amy Irving (she plays Sue) for the role of Carrie, and I think she definitely would've been a wrong choice as Carrie. I mainly think this because Amy Irving is quite pretty, while Sissy Spacek is a bit odd looking. It wouldn't have been a logical choice. 

I think Sissy Spacek performed amazingly in this movie, I couldn't be more convinced by an actor. The first scene I immediately liked her, her reaction to her first menstruation is just incredibly real looking. 

Another familiar face in this movie is John Travolta, who doesn't play a very big part. It's fun to see him that young, but I just don't like him a whole lot as an actor. But he performed OK in Carrie. 

The longer I think about Carrie, the more I start to like it. I mean, the acting is incredible. Not only by Sissy Spacek, but also by Piper Laurie who plays Carrie's mother. Damn, I wanted to punch that woman so hard because she really was a bit too religious. But I think that says a lot about the performance that she gave, because if I want to punch her, it means she's convincing. Fun fact: Piper Laurie thought Carrie was a comedy movie. 

There were a few things in the movie that I was annoyed about, one of them being the dancing scene at the prom. It takes way too long and the camera spinning around really made me dizzy. Also, the slow-motion is a bit overdone, some parts just take way too long. But I guess this is just a typical 70's way of moviemaking hype. 

I am a big fan of books written by Stephen King and I do own the book Carrie, but I still haven't read it, stupidly enough. I am very curious about it now though, and I think it won't take long for me to pick it up now. I also still need to watch the remake, I'm also very curious about the new take on Carrie. 

I really liked Carrie. I felt so sorry for Carrie this entire movie, brilliant performances of all the actors in it. It's rare that I empathize this much with a character. Also the special effects are pretty good, perhaps the times when things happened the moment was exaggerated (by slow motion for example), but the special effects were definitely not exaggerated. Great movie. 

My personal rate: 9/10

Review: The Returned (2013)

The Returned

IMDB rate: 5,9

Genre: Zombie, Drama

I think that The Returned would be best described with it's not your typical zombie movie. The movie is indeed about zombies, but well, we only saw one active zombie the entire movie and the very little other ones that we saw were all in a flashback. 

Storyline taken from IMDB:

In a world where a deadly zombie virus has infected mankind, a single cure has been found. The cure, a treatment called the "Return Protein" which stays the effects of the virus in it's host. With injections every 36 hours, the "Returned" are able to live as though they were never bit, despite the virus still coursing through their veins. When it is discovered that the protein stock is running low, chaos hits the streets. 

Basically, everyone who once was changing into a zombie was given a second chance by this "Return Protein", meaning the world is pretty much normal, besides the fact that their past is messed up. 

In this movie you hardly notice that it's a movie about zombies, you know that the movie is about them, but without seeing them the movie feels a lot different. The few zombies that are being shown is not to make this movie scary or tensive, they're mostly being shown to describe the happenings of the past or to show the emotions of the characters to the viewers. 

The movie haves a few bloody scenes, but they're definitely not the main point of this movie. 

You would think that the people in this movie would be happy that people have the opportunity to live a reasonably normal life, because I'm quite sure that every person has lost at least on relative to the zombie outbreak. That's definitely not the case. There are protesters everywhere that want to get rid of the Returned, because they think they're ticking time bombs.

In a way this is true, because they do need to get their medicine in time if they don't want to change back. But still, many of these protesters have family who are still alive because of this protein, so they really shouldn't complain. 

A pretty good scene was when a few of these protesters broke into the hospital and killed off every person on the 'Returned' section. They also took all the records of all the Returned persons in that city meaning they knew who was infected. The main character did indeed get involved with one of these bad persons but what I liked specifically about this scene was that we didn't have to watch their entire fight, no we watch it from the moment his girlfriend walked in, two seconds before he manages to kill the intruder. 

The acting is really good. I didn't know any of these actors, but I was quite impressed with them. Kris Holden-Ried plays Alex, who is one of the Returned. His girlfriend Kate is played by Emily Hampshire, she works in the 'Returned section' of the hospital. 

If you're expecting a gory zombie movie then you will be greatly disappointed. I think the movie needs to be approached with an open mind, because even though it could be classified as a zombie movie, you hardly notice anything of the zombie aspect. I do think this is a good movie though, I really had fun watching it because it was very different from what I'm used to. The ending was slightly disappointing, I don't really get what made the director decide to make an ending like this because it would've been much better if it was different. 

My personal rate: 7,5/10

Review: Odd Thomas (2013)

Odd Thomas

Genre: Ghost, Comedic

IMDB rate: 6,8

I finally found a way to access the American Netflix as of yesterday and WOW, what a huge amount of horror movies does it offer! Seriously, in the Dutch version of Netflix we have perhaps 20 movies and it's all movies that I've already seen. But the American version offers so incredibly much interesting (but also a couple very bad) movies. Even the TV shows that it offers are so much more interesting. Anyway, I'm trying to watch a shit-load of horror movies on Netflix, so expect a whole lot of reviews ;). 

I just started with this first movie on the list that I haven't seen yet, which was the movie Odd Thomas. I had no idea what it was about, nor did I do any research for it. I knew the guy on the cover of course, Anton Yelchin, and he plays in quite a few good movies. 

Small-town fry cook Odd Thomas is an ordinary guy with a paranormal secret: he sees dead people, everywhere. When a creepy stranger shows-up with an entourage of ghostly bodachs -predators who feed on pain and portend mass destruction - Odd knows that his town is in serious trouble. Teaming up with his sweetheart Stormy and the local sheriff, Odd plunges into an epic battle of good vs evil to try to stop a disaster of apocalyptic proportions. 

Odd Thomas is an interesting movie I thought. The storyline wasn't very renewing or anything, but it still was a fun watch. It has a slight comedic twist, I think it's a bit comparable with the sarcastic undertone of Warm Bodies. The storyline is quite standard really, a guy who sees ghosts saves people by following ghosts, a slight twist to this are the bodachs. These bodachs are quite awesome looking, a bit solid water like. Their body is almost invisible, like water, but it's also solid. It really looks awesome. 

The acting is very good, I think Anton Yelchin is a very good young actor and I'm very excited to see him in more movies in the future. He plays such a good role in one of my favorite movies, Alpha Dog, and while this movie is completely different, his acting is still very good. Willem Dafoe also plays quite a big role in this movie, I think it's a very different role from what we usually see him in, but that's actually quite nice, this role fitted him well.

The filming is done very nicely, it fastens through unimportant parts and slows down at epic moments. It was a very comfortable way of watching things.

The movie is a bit slow at times, it's sometimes very difficult to keep interested because somehow the point of the movie doesn't come across very clearly. Well, you know the point of the movie of course, but it's difficult to keep focused on it for some reason. There's a whole lot of cheesy romance going on between Odd and Stormy, which might become annoying (or cute, whatever you like).

While the first half is nice, but hard to keep interested to, the second half gets a lot better. It actually became kinda tensive when Odd had to race against the clock to stop the bad guys. I do wish they did more with these bodach creatures though, they were so awesome but hardly had any use for the movie. I mean, Odd probably would have figured things out as well just by his dream, I think.
The ending was pretty sad, and to be honest, a few tears were spilled.

It's a good movie. It's not very scary but it's a fun watch. It's also quite standard but well, it's nice enough to like it. The acting was pretty good and so were the special effects.

My personal rate: 6/10

Review: Haunter (2013)

Haunter

IMDB rate: 5,9

Genre: Ghost

Another Netflix title that seemed kinda interesting. First of all, the subtitles were very annoying so I might have missed a few things. This isn't the fault of the movie of course, it's just a heads up.

A teenager is stuck in a time loop that is not quite the same each time. She must uncover the truth but her actions have consequences for herself and others.

Time loop movies are very hard to make I think, mostly because it's terribly difficult to keep the viewers interested with watching the same thing over and over again. In Haunter we watch the first scene repeat itself over and over again, but sometimes small things were changing. Now, it wasn't really interesting when there were only small changes because the rest of the scene will still be the same. The movie became interesting when the scene changed drastically. The set-up was pretty much the same but the content in it was very different. It became interesting because you were curious about the cause of this change of events.

I was glad when the scene finally changed, but the next scene quickly became the same as usual again, this time I wasn't bored though, because I was interested in what caused the previous change of events. This time loop seems to be a different thing from the hauntings going on at night, but after awhile you figure out that it is connected.

Haunter is definitely not a standard ghost movie, first of all because they are stuck in a time loop and second of all the family we're following are the ghosts. We won't find out why though until the end. It's a bit comparable with Beetlejuice at points, because at first they think they're being haunted while actually it's the other way around.

Abigail Breslin plays a 15 year old girl and for the first time I wasn't very impressed with her. I loved her in a lot of movies but it looked like she was trying a bit too hard in this movie. I liked her in Zombieland and even in Little Miss Sunshine, but I thought she was a bit overacting in this movie. The other actors were only decent as well. Nothing special, but nothing bad either. 

The movie has a pretty dark vibe over it, although you wouldn't expect it at first. There were even a few jump scares, and boy, did they surprise me... Haunter seems to be a mash-up of different movies, such as Amityville Horror, Sixth Sense and Coraline. At some moments it even reminded me of A Nightmare on Elmstreet and The Lovely Bones. It's not a bad mash-up though, it's an interesting concept although you need to keep your attention to it the entire movie. 

The movie might be confusing at moments, but it really is worth a watch. It's not a bad movie. The movie keeps you thinking of what is going on, and I'm pretty sure you'll change your thoughts through the movie. The ending was a bit cheesy but it's still a pretty decent ghost movie.

My personal rate: 6,5/10

Review: Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)

Insidious: Chapter 2

IMDB rate: 6,7

Genre: Ghost, Possession

I finally watched Insidious: Chapter 2 some time ago. I was never really a fan of Insidious, and I don't think I liked Insidious 2 a whole lot. The movie isn't bad or anything, the acting is very good and so are the special effects and stuff. I'm just not very keen on the storyline. I thought it was confusing but perhaps I understood things wrong.

Now excuse me if I'm wrong with a few happenings in the movie, at the point of writing this it has already been quite some time that I watched this movie. I might be wrong with remembering small facts and stuff, so sorry in advance!

First of all, amazing scares as usual. There were a few jump scares, and they were quite good. I do think that the scares are definitely less good compared with Chapter 1, but it's still good enough. The scares in this movie were a lot more obvious and predictable, so that's quite a shame. Still, they weren't bad. The atmosphere wasn't very tensive like other James Wan movies, that's something I definitely missed in this movie. I wasn't a big fan of the movie The Conjuring, but the atmosphere was definitely unsettling enough in that movie.

The acting is very good. I'm not a huge fan of Patrick Wilson, but his acting performances in the Insidious movies are very good. His role got a lot more depth in this movie so that's definitely a good improvement in this movie. His acting skills really showed off great with this type of character. I like Rose Byrne as an actress, but in this movie she was kinda annoying, definitely not her best performance. Another excellent thing in this movie was the younger version of Elise, played by Lindsay Seim, she looked so much like the older Elise (Lin Shaye). Real good casting!

The thing with Insidious that I dislike a lot is the storyline. I just don't like the things happening, it's weird, unreal and just confusing. I thought the first Insidious movie was confusing and I hoped the second chapter would clear things up, but of course, it just made things more confusing.
The parts when the people are in the ghost world are just laughable. It looks terrible and the scares are definitely not scary anymore in this scene.

I think that my opinion about the first Insidious movie is that it was a 'decent' movie, the sequel doesn't live up to it unfortunately. I think these movies start to look a lot like Paranormal Activity, and well, we all know that those movies didn't get better with each part. Of course, there will be another sequel and I'm afraid that it won't be any better than this. The opinions about Insidious Chapter 2 are very combined, some love it, some hate it. I personally am not a fan of these movies. The acting is great, the scares are okay at best but I just really hate the storyline. It's rubbish.

My personal rate: 5,5/10

R.I.P. Robin Williams (1951-2014)

Oh man, sad news today.

Robin Williams died at an age of 63 years old.
I'm truly heartbroken about this, he really was one of my favorite actors while growing up. Playing in amazing movies such as Jumanji, Hook, August Rush and Good Will Hunting. He will truly be missed.

Rest in Peace Robin Williams.

Review: White Noise (2005)

White Noise

IMDB rate: 5,5

Genre: Ghost

I was pretty amazed by the fact that this movie was made already 9 years ago! I was convinced that this movie was perhaps 4 or 5 years old, but my memories fooled me. Does this mean I'm getting older? 

Doesn't mind, a few weeks ago I watched White Noise for perhaps the fifth time. It's strange but when I'm visiting a second hand market and there's somebody who sells DVD's, 9 out of 10 people is selling this DVD. It's strange how many people own this DVD, or actually... it's strange how many people want to get rid of this DVD.

When I first watched this movie I loved it. I thought it was absolutely amazing and even slightly frightening. After seeing it a couple of times it does become a bit boring though, especially the ending is not really good I think. Other than that I think it's especially an interesting movie. It contains very interesting subjects that even has the possibility to be true. The subject is very original and that's probably what keeps me interested in this movie.

First thing that's good about this movie is the acting. Michael Keaton, an amazing actor, plays Jonathan Rivers who just lost his wife. His wife is trying to communicate with him through EVP. His reactions to this are very understandable. At first he's of course hesitant about this EVP stuff, when things start to happen he gets curious and gets dragged into the whole EVP world. His breakdowns are very believable and so are his change of reactions. I was a bit disappointed though by his reactions towards his son, he could've been a bit nicer to him. But of course, this isn't Michael Keaton's fault, it's just the script.

Anna Rivers is played by Chandra West. Since she dies very quickly we don't get to see much of her, besides some vague EVP ghost thing shots, and the things she says are being soft spoken or repeated very often. Can't say much about her acting and stuff since she's hardly in the movie, even though she's the biggest point of interest. Deborah Kara Unger plays Jonathan's new friend Sarah Tate. To be honest, I was incredibly bothered by her bad acting performances. Her face is as emotionless as Kristen Stewart's and her acting wasn't very convincing. She tried too hard.

I thought there were a few reasonable scares in there, especially in the beginning there are some good jump scares that made me jump of the couch even though I saw the movie many times already. The EVP looks cool as well, although I'm not very convinced that this could ever be a real thing (but who knows?).

I think this movie has quite some potential to be scary. Like I already said, there are quite some good scares and you will get automatically uncomfortable because of the subject. It plays with your mind somehow. The beginning is build up exactly right in my opinion, the third half of the film though suddenly goes very quick which causes a lot of confusion for the end part of the film. That was a bit disappointing actually. The writing could've been improved on some points, but overall I think that White Noise is just a decent, perhaps slightly good, horror movie.

My personal rate: 6/10

Review: The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) (2011)

The Human Centipede II

IMDB rate: 3,9

Genre: Mad Scientist, Torture

Click here for The Human Centipede review

If you've read my review about the first Human Centipede, you know that I liked it. It's perhaps the only movie coming from The Netherlands that I truly enjoyed. It's a weird movie, it's disgusting, but it's also original and quite good. As you can imagine I was curious about the sequel, the centipede would be longer so in my opinion that would become even more awesome. But I can only say that I was incredibly wrong. 

The Human Centipede II is a real awful movie. The first movie at least tried to make a believable story, with good effects and reasonable acting. This movie is just bad. It's purely made to shock people, it has absolutely no logic in it at all. 

"Martin is a mentally disturbed loner who lives with his mother in a bleak housing project. He works the night shift as a security guard in an equally grim and foreboding underground parking complex. To escape his dreary existence, Martin loses himself in the fantasy world of the cult horror film The Human Centipede, fetishizing the meticulous surgical skills of the gifted Dr. Heiter, whose knowledge of the human gastrointestinal system inspires Martin to attempt the unthinkable."

The biggest part of this movie is replaying the first movie. This Martin dude is obsessed with it and watches it over and over again, which means, the viewer of the sequel watches it over and over again as well. It's not very refreshing for a movie if it's mostly replaying the first part.

The script was just not good. Martin didn't talk for the entire movie, and the ones who did talk were incredibly unbelievable. The dialogues are unrealistic, random and mostly weird. This was especially when his mother was involved. A weird scene, involving his mother, was when she starts stabbing his bed where she thought he was laying, a second later she's cutting her wrists and another second later she's acting as if it doesn't hurt her but she does get upset because of a weird book under his bed. It really was one of the most random scenes I've ever seen. 

The movie is incredibly slow. I already mentioned that most of it consists of replaying the first part. The other half consists of a not talking nasty main character who is really messed up. I literally waited for a hour for something to happen, there were only 32 minutes left when finally something slightly interesting happened. 

This guy is bashing everyone's heads in and still expects them to be alive, at least one of them should have gained a head trauma which caused them to faint every few minutes I think. 

The Human Centipede II is really just made to shock people. The first part actually had a story and wasn't necessarily made for it's gore and violent, while this movie just loves it that much that it forgets to make a decent story. There are some incredibly visually disturbing images. At one point I think Tom Six forgot that he was making a sequel to The Human Centipede and just continued in making something like A Serbian Film or something. 

It's a shame that this movie is like it is, I think it could've been a reasonable movie. I'm really terrified for the third part after watching this. What I liked about the first movie was that almost every scene was filmed in nicely lighted rooms, giving a real twisted vibe because it showed something sick. This movie is filmed entirely in black and white which should make it feel more scary according to Tom Six, but really it just seems amateurish and lame, fake arthouse-ish. 

There's absolutely nothing to like about this movie. It's gross and just bad. The first half tells about the mad life of this creepy dude whose gathering people, the other half is just a terrible imitation of A Serbian Film. I'm not even sure if I will ever watch the third movie, it can only become more terrible than this movie. Don't waste your time on this.

My personal rate: 1/10

Review: Se7en (1995)

Se7en

IMDB rate: 8,7

Genre: Thriller, Serial Killer

Se7en is one of my all time favorite movies, I've seen it a billion times already and it still gives me goosebumps. Brilliant acting performances by Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, and of course Kevin Spacey. 

Perhaps Se7en isn't a right movie for a horror blog, but I think it's definitely worth writing at least a bit about it. It's very unsettling and it contains some dark images. 

Se7en is inventive and shocking, it's brutal and dark, and it's damn well-written. It has a perfect combination between a visual style that's very dark, amazing acting and some good plot-development. The first time I watched it, I was shocked by this movie, but I also loved it because it was this shocking. It's just incredibly good! Also, very unsettling soundtrack, perfect fitting by this movie.

It starts of like any detective movie: somebody died and they need to find out who did it. When another person dies they figure out that the cases are connected. There are seven sins, and there will be seven punishments, meaning there will still be 5 other murders. 

Now, this is all very standard and still doesn't seem very outstanding (story-wise). But things get really surprising near the end, and that ending makes it 

That Brad Pitt is an amazing actor is already know. His roles in Snatch, Fight Club and Se7en aren't even slightly comparable, but he did amazing jobs in all of them. I think his character in Se7en is very under-appreciated. He's a pissed off guy and seems to have some difficulties with controlling his anger. Thus making his task at the end of the movie very difficult. 

There's not a whole lot more that I can say about this movie. I really loved every bit of it, there's nothing I can think of that bothered me in this movie. Great job David Fincher, you've made a true masterpiece.

My personal rating: 10/10