Crimson Peak (2015)

Crimson Peak
IMDB rate: 6,8
Genre: Ghost
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam
My rate: 5

It's been a long time since I wrote a review. I was a bit burned out from writing I suppose, busy with school and just not interested in writing for a bit. I love horror movies, and I always will, but it's a fact that 90% of horror movies is garbage and I suppose writing about them would be just more or less the same like previous ones. It's not that I didn't watch any horror movies or something, I actually still have a lot of concepts waiting to be written. It's more that I just didn't feel like writing about them I suppose.

Recently I watched the movie Crimson Peak, a movie I was very interested in and happens to be made by the director of an excellent movie: Pan's Labyrinth. Now I must admit that I don't like everything Guillermo del Toro has made. For example, I wasn't much of a fan of Hellboy and Pacific Rim. I also didn't like Don't Be Afraid in the Dark too much. Anyway, the trailer of Crimson Peak was promising and many people seemed to like it so I was glad I was finally able to see it.

To officially start this review I'd like to start with saying that I wasn't a very big fan of Crimson Peak. I was actually rather bored during most parts of it and thought it was kinda predictable. But! By seeing this movie it gave me some new-found inspiration to write a new review again! This is not because I want to burn this movie down with my opinion, not at all. It's more that I find this movie interesting to discuss because it's had some elements that I found interesting or whatever.

Storyline
In the aftermath of a family tragedy, an aspiring author is torn between love for her childhood friend and the temptation of a mysterious outsider. Trying to escape the ghosts of her past, she is swept away to a house that breathes, bleeds - and remembers.

Worldwide Accents
There's a great bunch of actors in Crimson Peak. Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland, Stoker) did in my opinion a decent job portraying Edith. I did think her character could've used some character development. To me it seems like Edith was just a very plain woman, who just happens to be a bit stubborn and curious. I think she should've had more lines to make her character seem more interesting.

Tom Hiddleston's (The Avengers, Thor) character Thomas is kinda opposite of that, since he seemed to get all the character development and all the lines in this entire movie. He's the one talking the most and the entire story seems to be more about Thomas than about Edith. Tom Hiddleston did portray Thomas very well though, he has great looks for the "charming/mysterious" man. And his eyes, oh man his eyes will even make the viewers believe he's totally legit.

Rising star Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty, Mama, Interstellar) I was actually kinda disappointed about. I love her in other movies, she's a great actress with many talents I think. Her role in Crimson Peak as Lucille just wasn't really her thing I suppose. The entire character was just too much, too obvious and just not a suiting character for Chastain. In my opinion Jessica Chastain is an excellent choice for movies such as Interstellar and Zero Dark Thirty. Movies like Mama and Crimson Peak, I think not so much.

I think the casting in Crimson Peak was a bit odd. The beginning of the movie is set in America, where Edith, her father (Jim Beaver) and her friend Alan (Charlie Hunnam) are from. The second half of the movie is set in the UK, where Thomas and Lucille are from. Now the thing I find odd about this, and actually quite a bit annoying as well, are the accents in this movie. They were not performed all too great. Mia Wasikowska, originally from Australia, has to perform an American accent, which in my opinion sounded more British than American. Charlie Hunnam is originally from the UK and has a more British accent as well. Jim Beaver is actually the only one from America and he is also the only one with a believable accent. Tom Hiddleston is from Britain and luckily he had to perform a British accent, which was done great of course. Jessica Chastain on the other hand is from America and her British accent, not so good.

Don't Be Afraid of Mama?
Crimson Peak felt too me as if I was watching Don't Be Afraid of the Dark again, but then like a very early prequel. The house is more or less the same: Big, creepy and haunted. Also the entire vibe was a bit the same, but like I said, just about 100 years earlier. The ghosts looked very lame to be as well. At first it felt as if I was watching a red version of the ghost in Mama, where Guillermo del Toro happens to be a producer off. Coincidence? I think not. Then after a bit it felt as if I was watching at the in-game ghost of the movie Stay Alive. Since it's an in-game ghost it doesn't look very real so now you know how the ghosts in Crimson Peak look. Basically, ghost creation wasn't the strongest point of Crimson Peak.

The scares in the movie were kinda predictable as well. Shadows passing by in the background, silly jump-scares and weird CGI ghosts crawling to Edith (who didn't even looked to surprised about it). Well, I actually think the entire movie was kinda predictable. I'm not going to spoil anything but I don't know why they try to keep that *secret* as some major surprise when they basically revealed it already in the beginning of the movie. The movie just feels a bit empty to be honest. By the way, Am I the only one who thought that stabbing scene was the lamest stabbing scene in movie history?

Visuals
Nope, I wasn't a fan of Crimson Peak. It felt like a gothic romance story where they threw some ghosts in to make it seem horror. The ghosts actually are just some side-story to fill up the story about Edith's misfortune to run into the Sharpe's and thus friend-zoning the good-guy. I must admit that one thing that didn't 'underwhelm' me was the visual aspect of Crimson Peak. With that I mean how incredibly good the locations looked. An amazingly beautiful house, great setting for a gothic romance indeed. Sadly, visuals don't make a movie.

Unfriended (2015)

Unfriended

Alternative name: Cybernatural
IMDB rate: 5.8
Genre: Ghost, Found-footage
Starring: Heather Sossaman, Shelley Hennig, Moses Storm

It's been awhile since I last posted here. Still having difficulties trying to combine school, homework, watch TV shows while traveling in the train, World of Warcraft and writing reviews. Good thing is that I sometimes have to watch movies or play games for school but that's kinda different from the usual stuff I post about. Maybe someday I'll start writing about it here as well, we'll see.

So onto the 2015 horror movie Unfriended! I honestly didn't expect much from Unfriended and well.. it was good I didn't expect much because it was kinda rubbish really. Unfriended is a lot like the movie The Den where the movie is completely recorded with phone and computer cameras. In The Den it's filmed as if it's a documentary of screen-recordings. In Unfriended it's like we're just seeing the same thing that the main character does, so not with screen-recordings.

While video chatting one night, six high school friends receive a Skype message from a classmate who killed herself exactly one year ago. At first they think it's a prank, but when the girl starts revealing the friends' darkest secrets, they realize they are dealing with something out of this world, something that wants them dead.

Like I already mentioned, Unfriended is a lot like The Den because it has similar ways of approaching the set-up of filming. The Den however was a much better movie because it actually contained an interesting story, good build-up of plot and some likable characters. All of this is what lacks in Unfriended really.

Unfriended has literally the worst characters ever. They're all so unlikable and this already when you don't know the clue of the story yet. They're really all a bunch of dicks, no one seems to like each other and they're just very cringeworthy. Worst group of friends I've ever seen. There's really no character depth in any of them since they're all just a bunch of superficial jerks. They all still seem to live at home, yet while everyone is being murdered none of their parents seem to care. Huge plothole or are they really that terrible people that not even their parents care?

The actors are horrible as well. It was like looking at a 10-years old musical through Skype rather than watching some actual actors being terrified of ghost stuff. They were unrealistic and honestly it's not really an acting talent to just scream for 90 minutes.

The story is kinda.. meh... A ghost contacting and hacking people over Skype, it's kinda lame. Also why right at that moment? Why not sooner? You can tell me that this movie contains a beautiful message which is supposed to tell me "Don't be a (cyber) bully", but honestly even if I was I'm not really expecting someone to come back from death to make me kill myself over Skype. Because honestly, that's just bullshit.

Unfriended is in my opinion a rubbish movie that tries to be original with it's Skype approach but it fails miserably at being original. Purely Skyping the entire movie is just boring as hell. The approach is similar to The Den which I'd recommend if you want to watch a good original, somewhat similar, movie. Actors aren't very good, characters are horribly written and the plot is unbelievable.

My rate: 3/10

The Human Centipede III (Final Sequence) (2015)

The Human Centipede III

IMDB rate: 3,2
Genre: Mad Scientist, Comedic
Starring: Dieter Laser, Laurence R. Harvey, Eric Roberts, Bree Olson

The Human Centipede.. what a ride it has been. It started with the first Human Centipede movie which turned out to be the only movie from The Netherlands that I actually somewhat liked. The story was original and it all worked out pretty good I think. The second Human Centipede (The Full Sequence) movie was actually just plain awful. It really was just made to shock and had no interesting value whatsoever. The third movie was an entirely different story though, for some reason it tries to be comedic and tries to make fun of itself. It's not horror at all anymore, it's not shocking, disgusting or anything close to the first two parts. It tries to be funny, but fails at that pretty badly as well.

Bully prison warden Bill Boss, leading a big state prison in the USA, has a lot of problems; his prison statistically has the highest amount of prison riots, medical costs and staff turnover in the country. But foremost he is unable to get the respect he thinks he deserves from his inmates and the state Governor. He constantly fails in experimenting with different ideas for the ideal punishment to get the inmates in line, which drives him, together with the sizzling heat, completely insane. Under threats of termination by the Governor, his loyal right hand man Dwight comes up with a brilliant idea. A revolutionary idea which could change the American prison system for good and save billions of dollars. An idea based on the notorious Human Centipede movies, that will literally and figuratively get the inmates on their knees, creating the ultimate punishment and deterrent for anyone considering a life of crime. Having nothing to lose, Bill and Dwight create a jaw-dropping 500-person prison centipede.

While I thought Dieter Laser performed excellent in the first part, I was annoyed as hell watching him in this movie. Sure, maybe he played his role as lunatic prison boss well, but it was hard to look at that while being annoyed so much. His shouting, screaming and blurting did not make sense most of the time. Sidekick Laurence R Harvey had a role with more lines this movie, but while I hated The Human Centipede II, I thought his silence role was more impressive compared to this cartoon-like performance.

Speaking of cartoon-like, I think the whole movie is comparable with a bad cartoon. Everything happening is over-the-top and doesn't make sense whatsoever. The dialogues are as unimaginative as in a bad cartoon and so are most performances. I think the best word for this movie is immature.

The first Human Centipede was a shocking and refreshing movie in my opinion, I liked it a lot. The second Human Centipede didn't make a whole lot of sense but certainly didn't fail to shock. The third Human Centipede however was boring, unimaginative and not fun to watch at all. It didn't even try to shock which I thought was a shame.

I like shocking movies, they often bring what others couldn't. A human centipede of 500 persons isn't more shocking than the one of 3 persons, or 12 for that matter. It all comes to the same conclusion which is that it's just a chain of people eating each others shit. This movie tries to make fun of itself, but really it's just 2 hours of useless screaming surrounded with... no story at all actually. In my opinion just watch the first movie and avoid the other two, maybe if you're into shocking shit without any story whatsoever watch the second one, but the third one, just a big no.

My rate: 1/10

It Follows (2014)

It Follows

IMDB rate: 7,2
Genre: Survival (?)
Starring: Keir Gilchrist, Maika Monroe, Lili Sepe

It Follows is claimed to be the best horror movie of 2015, so I thought it would be worth it to give this movie a shot. Every year there is one hugely hyped movie such as The Conjuring, Insidious, The Babadook; this year it's It Follows and I heard many good things about it. I think It Follows was a fun movie, it had some scary elements. The story itself was okay, it reminded a bit of the movie Contracted, but the outcomes of those actions were of course very different. It's more the fact that the actions before the outcomes were similar.

For nineteen-year-old Jay, Autumn should be about school, boys and weekends out at the lake. But after a seemingly innocent sexual encounter, she finds herself plagued by strange visions and the inescapable sense that someone, something, is following her. Faced with this burden, Jay and her friends must find a way to escape the horrors, that seem to be only a few steps behind.

This movie is like a throwback to 70's and 80's horror movies, it reminded me a lot of Carpenter's Halloween. This isn't an exact copy of it though, not at all. Halloween is of course a slasher movie about the famous mass murderer Michael Myers, while It Follows is much more a psychological horror movie. The thing they have in common though is that you pay more attention to what's in the background ("is there something in the background?") instead of what's happening at the front row of the movie. It's a refreshing throwback where a movie didn't need to rely on jumpscares and insane sound effects to make things scary.

The funny thing with the storyline is that you keep wondering yourself what you would do to escape the 'follower', you come up with methods like hookers, traveling to the other side of the world and all kinds of things to escape this, but you know that eventually it'll catch up one way or another.

I actually had no idea for once how this movie was going to end. You know she has to get rid of it somehow, but will what she tries work? Will it get her killed eventually? You just don't know and I was actually surprised by the outcome of it.

What I expected from this movie was that it would be too slow-paced. Like when she tries to pass the sickness on with one of her friends, I thought that part would take forever, but it all happened very quickly actually, no hours of doubting the matter. They really did a good job at cutting things short were needed, something you don't see often anymore (hour long build up for very little action).

Impressive acting in this movie. Maika Monroe delivered a great performance as the young Jay. Someone else I noticed was the actor Daniel Zovatto, the was a fine actor, but the most outstanding thing was how much he resembled a young Johnny Depp. I tell you, we'll be seeing this guy in many more to come.

Most outstanding thing though was the way everything was filmed. It was calming to watch in a weird way, because it's a horror movie. It managed to make the background on points more interesting than the things happening on the front row, it was all very subtle. I thought it all gave a great perspective, the way it was filmed is definitely one of the reasons which makes it worth watching this movie.

I thought It Follows was a pretty good movie, I thought it would be one of those overhyped movies that are boring as hell (The Conjuring for example). I wouldn't say that this was a very scary movie, there were not really jumpscares or anything, but the movie did have a great.. chilly feeling over it. I had fun watching this movie and I would definitely recommend watching It Follows!

My rate: 8/10

The Pyramid (2014)

The Pyramid

IMDB rate: 4,7
Genre: Found-Footage, Survival
Starring: Ashley Hinshaw, Denis O'Hare, James Buckley

The Pyramid... well I actually was prepared for this one to be bad. Not only because I read some reviews about it explaining exactly how terrible it was, I actually didn't expect anything else after reading the summary:

A team of U.S. archaeologists unearths an ancient pyramid buried deep beneath the Egyptian desert. As they search the pyramid's depths, they become hopelessly lost in it's dark and endless catacombs. Searching for a way out, they become desperate to seek daylight again. They come to realize that they aren't just trapped, they are being hunted.

Why did I still watch it? First of all, I love stories about Ancient Egypt and the pyramids and stuff, second of all movies like these always give plenty of material to write about, also I haven't seen any horror movies about Ancient Egypt before so I gave this movie a shot!

People call this a found-footage (or mockumentary) movie, but to be honest that's hardly true. The movie starts out as one indeed, but for some reason it fails to keep pursuing that perspective. In fact, one second the movie is filmed with their camera, the next shot however is one from an angle that they couldn't have possibly filmed, and the shot after that turns back to their own camera again. It's kinda annoying after awhile and I think it's one of the biggest flaws in this movie. Just make a choice and choose a perspective, either one would've been fine, but just not both. A movie which combined these two perspectives well was [REC]3, where the beginning was filmed with a hand-camera and then there's a very smooth transition between that and the regular camera. Perhaps that would've been a better choice for The Pyramid as well.

The Pyramid is a very cliche movie actually, every time something was going to happen I just knew that that particular thing would happen in a few seconds. For example (spoiler!) when the tunnel to the pyramid opens, we just knew that something would hurt one or two people. It happened. When the woman started to climb to tunnel, you just knew she was going to be attacked and fall down. It was all way too obvious unfortunately. Another different sort of cliche that bothered me is the 'all men are dumb, but this strong woman will survive' cliche. I don't know but it seems some sort of new hype where this needs to keep happening.

I was actually surprised to see Denis O'Hare (American Horror Story, Dallas Buyers Club) in this movie. He's not a bad actor in my opinion so I based my tiny bit of hopes on him. Unfortunately, even he couldn't make this right again. His acting was fine though compared to the other ones, it was purely how bad the script was that made it all seem so terrible. The characters are very unlikable, their dialogues are unrealistic and everything seemed very staged. Also, the camera-guy only making witty comments is getting a bit boring as well.

This movie reminded me a bit of As Above, So Below, which wasn't such a bad movie actually compared to The Pyramid. I think the Pyramid could've been more enjoyable with a better script and some consistency in the filming style. The idea of the 'monsters' inside the Pyramid aren't too bad, they don't look too bad either, it's just that it gives a weird twist to the story itself. I wouldn't recommend wasting your time on this movie, although it is fun to see a horror movie, found footage style, that includes Ancient Egypt.

My rate: 4/10

Oculus (2014)

Oculus

IMDb rate: 6,5
Genre: Supernatural
Starring: Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, Rory Cochrane

I actually never really paid a lot of attention to Oculus, because it was one of those hyped-up movies that in many cases fail to amaze. I did have it on my to-watch-list for quite some time though and I finally gave it a watch. I had no idea what Oculus was about at that time, never saw a trailer, didn't read the synopsis either, so you can say I started watching the movie with no expectations at all. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised with Oculus in the end. There were a few confusing parts, but overall it was a very good ghost/supernatural movie.

The twenty-one year-old Timothy Allen Russell is discharged from a mental institution by his psychiatric Dr. Graham completely healed from a childhood trauma. His sister Kaylie welcomes him in the parking area and brings him home. Then she tells that they need to destroy an ancient mirror that she has just bought in an auction. The reluctant Tim follows his sister and has fragmented recollections from his childhood, when his mother Marie buys a mirror for the home office of his father Alan. Kaylie and Tim see a woman with their father in his office and the behaviors of Alan and Marie change, ending in a family tragedy. Kaylie blames the mirror and now she wants to destroy it with Tim. Will they succeed?

The story has a very good build-up, during the movie we get to see fragments of their childhood and their trauma with this specific mirror. Because their past is being told during the entire movie it keeps an interesting perspective on the movie, it keeps it interesting to watch. If it would've been told all in once it would make the main story of the present day kinda boring actually, so did was a great thing to keep people curious.

The power of this mirror is that it can make you see things that aren't there, so it's a great psychological horror movie. This gives a huge uneasy feeling because you never know if anything is really happening or if it's just some game the mirror plays. I must admit that when I noticed this was going to be about a haunted mirror I wasn't too excited about it, but honestly Oculus did a great job making it somewhat scary and original.

The acting is pretty good in Oculus. Karen Gillan (Guardians of the Galaxy, Dr. Who) plays Kaylie and I was quite impressed with her. Already saw her once in Guardians of the Galaxy (for which she shaved all her hair off!) and I think she's going to be a big star sometimes. Brenthon Thwaites (Maleficent, The Giver) plays Kylie's younger brother Tim and he did a great job as well. Most impressive though was their father played by Rory Cochrane (Argo), he played his role as uncaring/distant father extremely well, you could almost feel the tension, amazing.

Oculus was a very surprising good movie. Great acting, good tensive scenes and it's just an exciting watch overall. There was just one thing that I did not get which is why they took so long to attack the mirror, because they knew that the longer they would be with it, the crazier things would get. So that's pretty much my only objection to Oculus. I had a great time watching this movie, and I definitely recommend to watch it as well.

My rate: 8/10

Screener: Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story (2015)

Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story

IMDB rate: 5,7
Genre: Mockumentary, survival
Starring: Alexandra Breckenridge, Doug Jones, Chris Marquette

Last week I posted the trailer of the movie Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story (or from now on: Always Watching), the trailer itself looked interesting to me because of the "Slenderman" type of villain in this movie. Perhaps the trailer itself didn't look to great, but I was definitely intrigued by it.

For those who don't know Slenderman, it's a videogame released a couple of years ago where you need to collect drawings or something while being chased by the Slenderman. The Slenderman is a faceless figure in a suit, quite scary looking. I didn't find the game very scary myself, but I definitely did like the Slenderman because of his creepy appearance.

This movie is not officially about Slenderman, it's actually based on a few YouTube short movies of Marble Hornets which I haven't watched myself yet. But well, there is an undeniable resemblance between the movies villain (called The Operator) and Slenderman. Which I like quite a bit.

Here is what Always Watching is about:
On the hunt for an intriguing news story, a small-town news team follows a crew inspecting repossessed houses. Inside a particularly strange house, the news team discovers a box of video tapes inside a locked closet. Sensing a story, they decide to take them back to their studio. From the tapes, they learn that the family who had lived in the house was not pushed out by the banks, but fled the house in fear for their lives. Trying to decode the story, the crew keeps seeing a faceless figure dressed in a dark suit appear in the footage that causes the videotape to scramble. Their fear mounts when this figure, The Operator as he is deemed, starts to appear in their real lives, standing quietly and watching them. Tortured and terrorized, the three crew members must track down the mystery of The Operator before it's too late.

There's actually quite an interesting bunch of actors in this movie. Doug Jones plays The Operator himself, and while his role isn't too big I must say that he is the perfect choice for this type of villain. Doug Jones is mostly known for his "unrecognizable roles", such as The Silver Surfer in Fantastic 4, as the scary creature in Pan's Labyrinth, as Billie the zombie in Hocus Pocus but my favorite role of him is definitely as "The Gentleman" in my favorite Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Hush".

The main character of Always Watching is Chris Marquette, and even though he isn't extremely famous, he played in a few pretty cool movies such as The Girl Next Door and Fanboys. Chris Marquette did a pretty good job with playing the main character I think. A smaller role is for relatively unknown Alexandra Breckenridge who you may have seen in her role as "the sexy maid" in American Horror Story season 1, she also plays a role in the last season of The Walking Dead. Wasn't too crazy about her acting, but maybe her script just wasn't entirely right for her. She was kinda just put as the pretty girl in this movie, but I think she can do better than that.

As I already said, I love the villain in this movie, this Operator guy. He is scary as hell, but honestly I would have loved to have seen more of him. Especially with the magnificent actor Doug Jones portraying him he just deserves a bigger role in the movie. What I also would've loved to see was more of a background story of this Operator guy. What is his purpose, how is he there, what is he and does he have a weakness? Maybe an interesting approach for a sequel ;).

For a found-footage movie it's a pretty decent movie I think, it pretty much follows the standard found-footage movie principle but overall it's done okay. The movie is not specifically scary, but I must admit that because I was watching this movie with headphones on I got quite tensed sometimes. So here's a quick tip: want a more scary experience while watching horror movies alone? Watch it with headphones on :).

Always Watching is quite a decent movie I think, especially for a found-footage movie who have a reputation about being horrible often. I would've liked it better if the Operator was given a bigger role, because he is of course what's most interesting about this movie, the scenes that he was in were pretty cool though. The dialogue was a bit lame at times and there were a two scenes were the one dude was screaming to the other which was pretty annoying, but overall I actually had quite a good time watching this movie.

My rate: 6/10

Honeymoon (2014)

Honeymoon

IMDB rate: 5,6
Genre: Possession
Starring: Rose Leslie, Harry Threadaway

I was actually kinda excited for this movie. The cast was pretty good, the trailer looked awesome and it just seemed like a pretty good movie to me. Unfortunately this was not the case. It actually was a pretty boring movie, it just took way too long for something to happen. After a hour already passed nothing really interesting had happened yet. Sure, there were some mysteries but it was just not tensive at all.

Here is what Honeymoon is about:
Young newlyweds Paul and Bea travel to remote lake country for their honeymoon. Shortly after arriving, Paul finds Bea wandering and disoriented in the middle of the night. As she becomes more distant and her behavior increasingly peculiar, Paul begins to suspect something more sinister than sleepwalking took place in the woods.

The acting was actually pretty decent, Rose Leslie is a cute actress most known for her role as Ygritte in the TV show Game of Thrones (the one who keeps saying "you know nothing Jon Snow!". Harry Threadaway was quite good as well, haven't seen him in many roles besides the few episodes I watched of Penny Dreadful, but I quite liked him. Their chemistry was somewhat convincing, although the romance level in this movie was just too much for me. I saw people complaining that their American accents were horrible, in Harry Threadaway I did not even notice that he was British actually so in my opinion he did a good job. With Rose Leslie though I did not even notice that she was trying an American accent, I just thought her character would be British. Wrong about that one though, so i guess her job on doing a different accent wasn't too great.

The story itself started off good, the mystery of why Bea was one in the night, and what happened to her at that time. I really was curious about what had happened to her, but actually from that moment on the movie became pretty bad. The pacing was too slow, we first get half a hour of romance, sex attempts and stuff like that, then Bea disappears, then she starts acting weird and in the last ten minutes of the movie we somewhat figure out what had happened. The explanation about what happened is not satisfying at all though, it's not complete and it hardly tells what really is going on. And don't read further if you don't want to know this spoiler: but for real, aliens?! Nope, I'm not cool with that at all. Not even sure if they were aliens, but they sure as hell looked a hell of a lot like aliens.

Honeymoon is not a very scary movie, it's not filled with gore or special effects, it's more one of those movies where things are being left to the viewers imagination. In the end there's on scene that's kinda nasty but that's about the only interesting thing that happened. The make-up is quite good I must say, even for a low-budget movie.

Reactions about Honeymoon are pretty mixed, some hated it and some thought it was the best horror movie of the year. Maybe if your into psychological horrors with very slow pacing it might be something for you. Personally I wasn't a big fan of it. The script was pretty bad and there just did not happen a whole lot. I really thought this movie had some potential, but it got kinda messed up with the 'plot-twist' I think. Good acting, good looking make-up, but overall it was a bit a waste of time.

My rate: 5/10

Clown (2014)

Clown

IMDB rate: 5,7
Genre: Clown, Slasher
Starring: Laura Allen, Andy Powers, Peter Stormare

Now this is something I've waited ages for, a decent movie about killer clowns. Ever since I was little I've been scared to death for clowns, but I still hadn't seen a decent movie about clowns. Sure, there is It, but that clown turned out to be an alien spider something, and I didn't really find it scary either. There's Stitches but I honestly thought that was a pretty shitty movie. There is also this awesome clown scene in the movie Amusement, but unfortunately that was only one scene and the rest of the movie turned out shitty anyway.

Here's what Clown is about:
A loving father finds a clown suit for his son's birthday party, only to realize the suit is part of an evil curse that turns its killer into a killer.

Clown is based on a short fan movie that was once made, and people seemed to like it so much Eli Roth decided to turn it into a movie. Oh wait, did I forget to mention Eli Roth produced Clown? I know that many people dislike Eli Roth, but honestly I don't think he's too bad. Perhaps Cabin Fever wasn't the best movie around, but I can't say I hated it butt-loads. Besides, I kinda liked Hostel.

The movie might have a bit of a strange concept of a suit that turns it wearer into a killer, but honestly what else might turn a human into a clown-suit wearing killer? The curse is a nice story for it I think, it's definitely a better story than the standard reason why some characters become mass-murderers. Besides, I was already very happy that there was finally a full clown movie that's actually decent and somewhat scary.

You might've noticed my phrasing there when I said that it was 'decent'. It really is a decent movie, I can't say this is a incredible movie with many new ideas and insights, but it's just a nice and decent slasher. I think this is one of the few slashers in the last couple of years that actually tries to be original and actually somewhat succeeds at that, so that's already quite the head start for Clown.

The make-up is done very well in this movie, at first when the plastic nose is stuck to Kent and his wife rips it off - ouch, that looked quite painful. The transformation of Kent is looking awesome as well, at first he just starts to look a bit messed up, but when his transformation is finally done he is looking very scary I think. Perhaps one of the scariest clowns I have ever seen. The gore is pretty awesome as well, ripped off children bodies, brains splashing around, and lots, lots of blood!

Decent acting, Andy Powers did a fine job as the fucked up clown. Laura Ellen played okay as well, by the way - how much is she looking like Malin Akerman?! I was convinced at first it was Malin Akerman instead of Laura Ellen. Of course there's also a small (tiny) role for Eli Roth as a clown, really only for a second he shows up though.

I thought Clown was a fine and nice movie, it had some great gore and nice looking make-up. The acting was decent and overall I thought this was a nice slasher. I'm also very happy that finally there has been released a good murdering Clown movie because that has been ages since I've seen one. Clown is a hundred times better than Stitches, even though Stitches tries to be funny (and fails at it) and Clown is more a serious type of movie (as far as Clown murdering movies can go serious). Even if you're not a fan of Eli Roth, I suggest giving Clown a watch, I definitely had fun watching it.

My rate: 6,5/10

The Walking Dead: season 5, episode 14: Spend

This review will not be spoiler free!!!

Again, a few episodes behind since the premiere already aired. But only three more reviews to go, so of course I'll finish them.

Glenn, Eugene, Tara, Noah and new guys Aiden and Nicolas are going to a warehouse to get some products for Alexandria. This however goes terribly wrong when annoying Aiden is being a cunt and shoots on a grenade which causes that he dies, Tara got wounded badly and the walkers are being attracted by it.

Aiden seems to still be living though, but he's that badly injured that he won't live anyway, he says that he once left behind other Alexandria mates in a run because he was a coward, and just then Nicolas runs away as well. Glenn chases Nicolas which somehow ends up in Noah and Glenn being stuck with Nicolas in a revolving door. Nicolas is being a cunt again which causes that Noah got taken by the walkers which leads to a nasty death scene. Eugene managed to take Tara outside and distracts the zombies away from the door so Nicolas and Glenn can escape, Nicolas however is being a cunt again and tries to steal the van from Eugene. Glenn stops him and knocks him unconscious.

Meanwhile, Father Gabriel tells to Deanna that the group can't be trusted and he urges her to kick them out. I don't know why though, he really seems to be a dick all out of a sudden. Maggie overhears him though.

Not an extremely good episode, it was mostly interesting because Eugene seemed to become a bit tougher. It was also nice to see Glenn more in an episode again, I really like his character a lot. It was sad that Noah died, but well.. my theory of when one dark skinned guy dies, another one appears might still exist, because didn't we see Morgan in the beginning of this season...?

The Walking Dead: Season 5, episode 13: Forget

This review will not be spoiler free!

Yeah yeah, I am very much behind with my Walking Dead reviews, it's so bad actually that the season premiere already aired... whoops..
But well, I can't just stop reviewing them almost at the end, so of course I'll finish the last three as well :).

Forget wasn't a very exciting episode, but it showed some interesting moments. The 'crew' is invited to a party in Alexandria, and when they attempt you can see how weird it is for them to be in a 'norma' environment again. Some of them are having troubles adjusting to these new circumstances, which isn't too strange. Some of them are
hiding guns outside the walls for times of need.

Because of the party it gave a bit of an opportunity to get to know the new more important characters. But it also showed simple things such as Rick falling for a woman named Jessie who appears to be treated badly by her husband. Carol is the one who acts as if she fits in perfectly in Alexandria and she attempts to become 'invisible' again, but since it's all an act it seems like she's the only one thinking of the consequences of that place. Because we all know, something will happen again.
She also starts threatening a little boy, which shows a very new side of Carol, it was pretty funny though.

Forget wasn't a particularly interesting episode, nothing exciting actually happens, but well it showed some good character development which is also worth something I guess.

The Quiet Ones (2014)

The Quiet Ones

IMDB rate: 5,1
Genre: Possession
Starring: Sam Claflin, Olivia Cooke, Jared Harris

Last year I was actually kinda curious about The Quiet Ones, the trailer seemed nice and there are a few excellent actors starring in it. I had no idea what it was about though. I did not like it a whole lot since it lacked any depth and it was just boring sometimes. Also the words "based on a true story" aren't very scary anymore either since every horror movies seems to add these words to the movie nowadays.

In 1974, in Oxford, Professor Joseph Coupland invites his introspective student Brian McNeil to film his research about the supernatural with his two assistants, Krissi Dalton and Harry Abrams, and the subject Jane Harper. Jane is a young woman with no memory from the past that has been abandoned that believes she is possessed by a doll named Evey that gives telekinetic power to her. She is kept awake in an isolated house with a doll, where Prof. Coupland intends that she puts her evil energy in and then destroy the doll to healing Jane. Strange things happen in the house happen in the house and Brian feels sorry for Jane and he researches her tattoo, learning an evil secret about the past of Jane.

The Quiet Ones was not the movie I hoped it would be, it was boring and quite unoriginal. The worst though about this movie was the HORRIBLE sound mixing. When I had the volume on a normal level, the 'scary' moment where ten times as loud, while I still couldn't hear the people talk. So what to do? Do I turn up the volume to hear the people talk, or do I turn the volume down because of the insanely loud scare effects? Luckily I had subtitles on, so I gave The Quiet Ones a big 'fuck you' and turned the volume down. For real though, the sound differences were unbearable. First sign your movie sucks: the scare effects are only 'scary' because the sound is loud.

It's a shame that something as silly as volume can ruin so much in a movie. Although the sound mixing sucked, the rest wasn't much special either. I think the movie had some potential, especially because the location was awesome. Every time something scary or interesting could happen the opportunity wasn't used fully which lead to... well, a boring movie.

The best part about this movie was the acting, which really wasn't too bad. I like Sam Claflin quite a lot, of course mostly from The Hunger Games movies, but also from Pirates of the Caribbean. Olivia Cooke seems to become a newcomer in horror movies, which I don't mind at all since I quite like her. She also plays in Bates Motel which is one of my favorite TV shows of the moment. Jared Harris performs excellently as well in The Quiet Ones, unfortunately, even his performance couldn't save this movie.

Some part were kinda cool, such as when Jane's hand caught fire. Other moments were quite laughable though. There's even this moment with the worst special effect I've ever seen. The characters are poorly written, there's no development at all. But well, the story is poorly written as well, so what can you expect. At some moments I had no idea what was going on anymore, some stuff just did not make any sense.

The Quiet Ones is a boring movie, which bases it's scares purely on increased sounds. If you're looking for a scary movie, don't go for The Quiet Ones. Great acting, great setting but such a poor story.

My rate: 4/10

The ABC's of Death 2 (2014)

The ABC's of Death 2

IMDB rate: 5,5
Genre: Comedic

Finally time to watch The ABC's of Death 2. Wasn't specifically crazy about the first part but I do like the concept of 26 different segments, each one even more crazy than the one before that. I must say that I liked this movie less than the previous one. In the previous one there were quite a number of segments I liked, from this one there were only two very good segments.
There are 26 segments and I will write a little something about each letter, with my rating given too.

Might not be entirely spoiler free!

A is for Amateur
This one was actually quite funny. First we see an awesome serial killer killing some gang, and it's all going perfectly, but that was just the plan for the killing. Then it's time for the killer to actually get to the job, and everything goes wrong to the point where he dies. Eventually though, his body is found in the air-filtration system which somehow leads to the point where the gang still gets killed.
My rate: 7/10

B is for Badger
Another one that was slightly funny. It's about some camera crew filming a documentary about pollution that killed the badgers. But, instead of dead they rather turned into badger-mutants. Which leads to quite a funny situation.
My rate: 7/10

C is for Capital Punishment
Not bad, it gives a pretty good picture of how wrong a wrong accusation can go. It was a bit too much  exaggerated with the head chopping of though. Not bad, nothing special either.
My rate: 6/10

D is for Deloused 
And we're back to what The ABC's of Death is best known about: it's the 'what the fuck' segments. Deloused is what it starts with, a stop-motion animation about... well I have no fucking clue what it was about. Is was about bugs and an even bigger bug with a huge anus or mouth that sucked up stuff. And then it disappeared into a galaxy of his anus where it got eaten? No seriously, I really had no idea what the hell was going on.
My rate: 3/10

E is for Equilibrium
Best name for this segment would be 'Bro's before ho's'. Nice segment about two guys living in peace together on an island, until the moment a woman arrives. Things are starting to get messy between the guys and well, the woman pretty much forces one to kill the other. Shots fired and..... It was a simple, fresh and nice segment.
My rate: 7/10

F is for Falling
The first one in this movie that was more serious. It was nice though, to have a change from the murdering and weirdness. It was more about a political situation, that turned out different from what I've expected. It was a good segment, with a powerful message and some excellent acting. I liked it.
My rate: 7,5/10

G is for Granddad 
Oh well, this was just.. weird. Nasty as well. Some punk lives with his granddad who has been sleeping inside the same bed with him each night, hearing him complain and masturbate every night. Then he kills him. Really nasty, nothing special either.
My rate: 3/10

H is for Head Games
I'm not a fan of these short movies, the animation is fairly simple and there's not really a story behind the animation. Well, it's of course about something, because when two people kiss everything is becoming weird but I didn't really see something meaningful behind this segment.
My rate: 3/10

I is for Invincible
About a family that's killing a family member because of her in-heritage. This doesn't work very well though, so they continue to try and kill her shamelessly. Of course, a weird segment, but it was somewhat amusing I must admit. The ending was gross though.
My rate: 5/10

J is for Jesus
Powerful segment about homosexuality. It was very short, but interesting I think. Good use of gore and make-up.
My rate: 6,5/10

K is for Knell
Oh I liked this one. Although there was a great missed chance for a jump-scare, it was very well made. I don't have a clue what 'Knell' means, but it definitely was a good segment. Some black liquid is turning everyone is a murderer, which leads to some nice scary scenes. This was a very nice segment.
My rate: 7,5/10

L is for Legacy
Aaaaaand, we're back to the weird! Badly weird I must add, no idea why this segment was included because it's just terrible. It makes no sense whatsoever, and the so-called creature is not even Syfy channel worthy.
My rate: 1/10

M is for Masticate
For the letter 'M' there was a contest where people could say which segment they liked best, and Masticate was chosen for this. I haven't seen the other segments made for 'M' so unfortunately I can't decide if this really was the best choice. Masticate however was shot entirely in slow-motion which was pretty awesome looking, and of course very fitting since it contained a zombie theme. It was quite funny, nothing special though.
My rate: 6,5/10

N is for Nexus
Not a memorable segment, but a good one nevertheless. It's a bit comparable with the movie 'Crash' where all kinds of different people encounter each other because of circumstances. This is of course the short version of it, and it was kinda powerful and interesting. Sad as well.
My rate: 7,5/10

O is for Ochlocracy 
A fresh vision on the zombie genre is always welcome, and this was what Ochlocracy brought us. A woman is being sentenced to death by people who once were zombies. They still slightly are zombies, but vaccinations are bringing them back to conscious. This is a Japanese segment and at first I was afraid this might turn out to be as last 'ABC's of Death' segment 'F is for Fart', but it actually turned out quite decent. Still some weird touches added to it though, but well, what else can we expect....
My rate: 6,5/10

P is for P-P-P-P-Scary!
You would almost think that the letter 'P' is too difficult to actually combine to an actual word because P-P-P-P-Scary really does not make any sense as a title. It's fitting for the story though, since that's not making any sense either. I am convinced this was filmed with a macbook's application called 'Photobooth' because that's how simplistic the effects looked.
My rate: 1/10

Q is for Questionnaire
A man is taking an IQ test on the street and his outcome is positive that his brains are being transferred to a gorilla. Yes, you read that right, to a gorilla. This segment was nothing special, and didn't look very good either.
My rate: 3/10

R is for Roulette
Perhaps my favorite segment of this movie, it's a black and white short about two men and a woman playing russian roulette in a basement. One of the men knows that the next bullet is going to be for him, instead of killing himself he kills the woman, which happens to be his wife. At that moment the door of the basement is broken down and people are storming in (probably nazi's). The man killed his wife to keep her away from the bad guys. Very simple, yet a very powerful segment. Loved it.
My rate: 9/10

S is for Split
Another good segment. It's about a home invasion with a very twisted outcome. It was simple, but brutal as well.
My rate: 8/10

T is for Torture Porn
Torture Porn is a short made by the Soska Sisters, who are known for American Mary. I think this is like the real life version of weird Japanese Hentai, where tentacles take part in some private business. It was not a bad segment though, the woman was treated horribly by the men, and she took some nice revenge ;).
My rate: 6,5/10

U is for Utopia
An interesting segment, about an "ugly" man walking through some sort of futuristic building, when he knocks over a post he is being executed at the spot while being singled out by perfect looking people. When the deed is done, they clap and resume their business. It was a very interesting segment, with a subject that would fit good as well in a full movie. It was good looking and acted quite well.
My rate: 7,5/10

V is for Vacation
Found-footage movie, of course there had to be one of them in ABC's of Death 2. It was pretty well done, not the most interesting subject but it was filmed nicely and the acting was pretty good. Quite a decent segment.
My rate: 6,5/10

W is for Wish
Weird, weirder, weirdest? A more fitting title for this segment I think. Some people liked it, but I was just not a fan of Wish-man and his weird adventures.
My rate: 3/10

X is for Xylophone
A familiar face in the form of Inside's Beatrice Dalle. A very unethical, disturbing segment which could be a sequel to Inside. Shocking it was, pretty awesome though ;D.
My rate: 7/10

Y is for Youth
We're back with the weird! A girl fantasizes about the death of her parents, in very weird ways. Giant penises show up, monsters show up, and all killing her parents very brutally... It was funny because it was just too weird to take this seriously.
My rate: 5/10

Z is for Zygote
Okay, Zygote was bizarre, but it had an interesting touch to it. A woman is left by her husband while she's pregnant, because she's afraid that her baby will leave her as well, she just refuses to give birth. With as result --> 13 years later, a very big "baby" is still in mommy's belly, but the kid really wants to come out. In a very messed up way.... I must say that I liked this one, it was weird but one an interesting level.
My rate: 7,5/10

All together, it was a weird experience once again watching an ABC's of Death movie. This time as well there was booze involved, which really is needed to watch this movie since some things are just really too weird to watch sober. I didn't like it as much as the previous one, with that said, I wasn't a big fan of the first movie either ;p. My favorite segment was Roulette, please let me know yours :D.

Click here for my review of The ABC's of Death!

The Walking Dead: Season 5, episode 12: Remember

This review will not be spoiler free!

The group reaches Alexandria, where they get two big houses and jobs to do. Some people of the group enjoy being there, while other still are suspicious of the place. People of Rick's group are all being interviewed by the leader of Alexandria, Deanna, because she wants to get to know them.

My first thought of Alexandria was that those walls definitely aren't looking very stabile. It also reminded me of a less crowded Woodbury. Overall it's a lot like Woodbury since there's some sort of mayor, there are no weapons allowed and stuff like that. Difference is though that they are a lot more free in Alexandria, for example they can go outside and when they go outside they get guns with them.

It was nice though to see the characters in a new environment, with as big highlight that Rick finally shaves again. It's somewhat nice to see him like this again, I think it resembles a new start for him, since he hasn't shaved since season 1. Carl meets people his age, who are all playing video-games and stuff, Carl seems to feel uncomfortable though which isn't very strange considering all the shit he has been through at that age. I actually expected that he would act all tough and would act as if nothing ever happened, but luckily that did not happen.

The episode wasn't uninteresting I must say. We got to know quite a few new characters, who actually seem to respect the new group even though they are the new guys. It's interesting to get to know their secrets, Alexandria's secrets and how this all will evolve. Something interesting was also when Rick said that if Alexandria didn't work out for them, he would take it from them. I thought this was rather selfish and perhaps something Rick would say, but not where the rest of the group would agree with. I also don't understand why they never tried building another safe place after the prison. They have brains, guns and power to build something, but they rather keep searching for something that's already provided for them.

Still, not the best episode ever, but it's going baby-steps in the right way!

The Walking Dead: Season 5, episode 11: The Distance

This review will not be spoiler free!

In 'The Distance' we get to know what the new guys intentions are, his name is Aaron. He tells that he wants to take the group to a safe zone called Alexandria. But because of the group's history with Woodbury and Terminus Rick is very hesitant. The rest of his group wants to go though, it's up to Rick to make the decision if Aaron can be trusted or not.

It's kind of logical that Rick is hesitant about Alexandria, after all they've been through. But for the sake of his children he should know that eventually they'll need a place where they can stay longer. The last couple of episodes were already building up to this moment, even Michonne was saying they needed a place where they could stay, and she's kinda badass.

It's kinda exciting to see a new location different from the woods where they've been the last couple of episodes, but what if this new location is really safe? The show would become almost a regular show, about people who are in a safe location, where nothing happens. That's not something for a zombie show, so even when things may seem safe for a couple of episodes, something is going to happen that will make them leave again. Which will make them roam the woods.. again.

To be honest, I'm not even sure anymore what to expect from this show that will make it good again. The Walking Dead cycle is going to be endless, searching for a safe place > place found > place isn't really safe > they leave and search for a new safe place. Same with characters, one dies, a new one comes in. Now Aaron seems to have a chance to become a new member of Rick's group, I'm pretty sure that someone of the old members will die. Honestly, 5 to 6 season of zombies are just not that interesting, especially if each season starting from season 3 has 16 episodes in it. It's just becoming a never ending cycle until the moment they find a true safe place that has the cure for the apocalypse. And that moment is still far away I think.

I must say though that I read some reviews about this episodes and they were much more positive compared to the ones of previous episodes. People are saying that the show is going back to the roots of the comic books again, which people seem to like. I haven't read any comic book of The Walking Dead yet, not sure if I ever will either. But I must agree that this episode was at least much more interesting compared to some previous episodes. There were a few somewhat frightening zombie scenes again, while walking in the dark which also lead to an awesome looking zombie kill. It even introduced two new characters that were gay, it's a small addition, but it's something that's at least new to this show.

I would say this was a great episode, because it wasn't. But I sure as hell can say that this episode was a step in the right direction compared to the two previous very shitty episodes.

Frozen (2010)

Frozen

IMDB rate: 6,2
Genre: Survival
Starring: Shawn Ashmore, Emma Bell, Kevin Zegers

No people, this is no review of Disney's Frozen (which I didn't like at all by the way), this review is about Frozen, the horror version. Someone mentioned this movie to me some years ago, and ever since I wanted to watch it. I actually thought this movie wouldn't be very good, that it would be slow paced and that it just wouldn't be very interesting to watch three people being stuck in a ski lift. Luckily, I was wrong. I was even surprised how fast time was flying when watching this movie.

At Mount Holliston, snowboarders Dan Walker (Kevin Zegers), his girlfriend Parker O'Neil (Emma Bell) and his best fried Joe Lynch (Shawn Ashmore) don't have enough money to buy lift tickets. Parker bribes Jason, a lift-worker, with one hundred dollars. When the system is nearing closure, they force Jason to let them have one last pass. However, Jason needs to resolve a problem and his colleague misunderstands his instructions and stops the lift. The trio of skier and snowboarders gets strander on the chairlift near the top of the mountain. When they see that the lights of the ski resort had been turned off, they need to make a choice: leave the chairlift or freeze to death.

As I already said, I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. The beauty of this movie is that there is no real bad guy that's causing all there misfortune, it's purely them versus nature. Nature is this case proves to be a real toughie with his snow storms, freezing cold and his creatures named wolves.

The location of the movie is magnificent, it's even better when you learn that there's no green screen involved and that everything was actually filmed on location. The actors were truly 50 feet in the air on a real mountain. They even found a ski lift which they obviously used to film in. I even read that the official camera guys were too afraid to film from one of the chairs on the ski lift while it was moving, so director Adam Green had to film those scenes.

I was afraid that the movie would become boring after awhile, I mean can things be on a space that small? The movie Buried was even smaller and that one become very boring after awhile. Frozen doesn't become boring though, even when they haven't been stuck for incredibly long they immediately decide to take action. The fact that this turns out wrong kinda sucks, but their intention was good. Spoiler ahead --> I thought it was a pretty cool scene where Dan was stuck on the ground because of this broken legs and when Lynch tried to get to the other side but returned because he saw wolves roaming around Dan. The moment between Parker and Lynch to protect her from seeing him getting killed was very beautiful /end of spoiler.

The acting is quite good in Frozen. I already saw Shawn Ashmore in plenty of movies and he never bores me. It was Emma Bell's first movie and I thought she did a great job. Her acting in the scene where she was worried about her puppy felt real, it actually almost made me tear-up. I'm not a huge fan of Kevin Zegers, but he did a fine job I think.

Frozen was an impressive survival movie, with a beautiful but deadly location. It was filled with terror and horror, even though not the horror you might suspect from a horror movie. This movie felt real, and even more so because of it's ending. Great, surprising movie.

My rate: 7,5/10

The Walking Dead: Season 5, episode 10: Them

This review will not be spoiler free!

I'm giving that warning, but I'm wondering why since there literally did not happen anything this episode. It was super-duper boring. I'm already a few episodes behind on The Walking Dead, mainly because I really can't be bothered to keep-up anymore since it really became a shitty show. I will definitely finish watching this season, perhaps even next season out of curiosity, but I can't get myself to keep up with The Walking Dead reviews anymore after this season because they're just not worth it. I will be doing separate reviews of each episode until the last episode of season 5, but after that I'm afraid I won't be doing that anymore.

So, the episode 'Them' is basically about people grieving about the people they recently lost. But honestly I thought it was difficult to tell they were grieving. Sure they were sad and stuff, but what else can you expect from people in a zombie apocalypse. The most exciting thing that happened was when there were a bunch of water bottles on the road with the text "From a friend" on a paper next to it, later in this episode we meet this friend. With the introduction of this new character it's already predictable what next episode is about, is the new guy good or is he bad?

I remember when people were introduced in the beginning of this show I was actually curious about who they were, what their motives are and if they were a good or bad person. Nowadays the show sucks so much I don't give a shit anymore. This show lacks tension, a good storyline and well.. zombies to be honest. I haven't read the comic book, but I can't imagine that this stuff is still interesting after so many books. With a show like this it can become never ending, it's really what I'm afraid for because it's just them roaming around, searching for a save place, when they find the save place they want to mess it up again and start roaming around again. It's a damn never ending cycle. I think it would be smart for the writers of this show to make clear for themselves how many season they are going to do of The Walking Dead, because last thing I heard was that they were considering to continue this show till at least season 12. I'm sorry but I ain't going to watch this boring stuff 7 more seasons.

I think this episodes highlight is supposed to be that when it stormed and zombies were trying to get into the barn they stayed in, they all worked together to barricade the door. Whoopdifuckin'doo, they have been together for 5 seasons and now we're supposed to get emotional or something because they're working together after a few tough days? Come on AMC, you can do better than that.

Nope, 'Them' was not a good episode, again. Prepare for next weeks episode 'The Distance', where we get to know the new character Aaron and his purpose.

Child's Play 2 (1990)

Child's Play 2

IMDb rate: 5,7

Genre: Slasher, Dolls

Starring: Alex Vincent, Brad Dourif, Christine Elise

If I have to name my favorite slasher franchise I would never go for A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween or Friday the 13th. Nope, my favorite is and will always be the Child's Play franchise. These movies are so damn enjoyable, there's humor, murder, dolls and there's even somewhat of logic in the sequels. I'll have to admit, I haven't seen the third one yet, but I own it on DVD so I'll give it a watch quite soon. For now, here's my review of Child's Play 2. 

Here is what Child's Play 2 is about:
Andy Barclay has been placed in a foster home after the tragic events of the first film, since his mother was committed. In an attempt to save their reputation, the manufacturers of Chucky reconstruct the killer doll, to prove to the public that nothing was wrong with it in the first place. In doing so, they also bring the soul of serial killer Charles Lee Ray back to life. As Chucky tries to locate Andy, the body count rises. Will Andy be able to escape, or will Chucky succeed in possessing his body?

In the first Child's Play movie there was still a bit of a question if Chucky was actually alive or if it was just Andy's imagination. That lead to mysterious scenes where we didn't actually saw the doll do anything because we watched it from Chucky's (or Andy's?!) view. It was interesting but still it lacked some action scenes of the moving doll. Now we figured out that Chucky is very real we finally get some Chucky action scenes. He is getting a lot more screen time and his character has much more time to shine through. This leads to very funny scenes of where Chucky murders another Good Guy doll, buries it and takes it places. When activated to talk he says "Hi! I'm.... Tommy!", which was pretty funny. Because Chucky gets more screen-time it was needed to update his animations, which worked out pretty well I think. He became a lot more scary than he already was, and to be honest, he got me frightened.

What bothers me in most slasher sequels is the fact that when they died, got beheaded, shot in the heart, set on fire or whatever they show up unharmed in every sequel. Without explanation they just appear fit and alive again. After seeing Child's Play I was already wondering how they would going to explain the return of Chucky in Child's Play 2, since he was set on fire and there wasn't much left of him. They actually played it very clever because the makers of the dolls were rebuilding Chucky to check if something was wrong with him, with as main idea to not be sued for any mistakes. It's simple, but so clever. That's also what I like about Bride of Chucky, because he actually looks fucked up there which is pretty logical after all that shit that happened to him. It's also what I enjoy about Curse of Chucky, at first he looks perfect again, which is very questionable after Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky. But then it appears that his perfect looking skin is just make-up and he is still scarred underneath it. I honestly thought it was brilliant and I loved it immensely (also the return of Alex Vincent and Jennifer Tilly, it was fucking awesome).

As before, Andy ends up being in some messed up situations again. Being blamed for everything, and not being believed by anyone. I did feel sorry for poor Andy, he just can't seem to catch a break. But for real, when you take a foster kid in home that's being traumatized by a doll, why the hell would you keep that same looking doll lying around in your house?! Great acting again from Alex Vincent, very convincing little kid. Wasn't specifically crazy about Christine Elise as Kyle though, but her character wasn't very much important anyway. The best thing about Chucky is of course Brad Dourif's voice, Chucky is just unthinkable with that voice. I'm really glad that he's still doing it, because Chucky without Brad Dourif is just not Chucky. A bit like Freddy Krueger without Robert Englund, it's just not really Freddy Krueger (I'm looking at you, A Nightmare on Elm Street remake).

The first Child's Play wasn't necessarily a slasher, with the sequel though, the whole image changed. The body count of Child's Play 2 doubled, the kills became more gruesome and innovative and Chucky doesn't really seem to care anymore who he kills to get to Andy. This did lead to a few awesome/gruesome looking kills though, for example when a technician encounters the eyeball machine of the toy-factory...

Child's Play 2 is a worthy sequel, it follows up perfectly with the first movie and it evolves the character Chucky to a real killer doll. Perhaps it's less scary than the previous movie, but the improvement of doll-animations sure boosts the scare-level a lot. The plot is fun and the death scenes are pretty awesome. Definitely a very entertaining movie.

My rate: 7/10

Psycho (1998)

Psycho

IMDB rate: 4,6

Genre: Serial-Killer

Starring: Vince Vaughn, Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen, William H. Macy

Not too long ago I first watched Psycho, the original one. While I'm often not the biggest fan of 'old' movies, I fell in love with this masterpiece. I decided to watch the original movie after watching a few episodes of Bates Motel (a prequel series of Psycho), and I was honestly so surprised by it. It's funny because  have owned the 1998 version of Psycho on DVD for 2 years or so already but I never felt like watching it. Now I finally made the step and watched the remake of Psycho.

When a movie is being remade, you'll assume it's because it has something new to add, something important that changes the view on a movie. The Psycho remake seems to have missed this point because it's identical to the original in every single way. Even the 'bad' looking stabbing scenes in the bathtub are exactly the same. This movie is purely made to attract a younger generation, because the only difference between the original and the remake is that the original is in black and white and the remake is of course a color movie. Oh, and Vince Vaughn's Norman Bates is masturbating to Anne Heche's character, probably only added because people might not notice that he's 'attracted to her' elsewise.

I think director Gus Van Sant completely missed the point about remakes, much like the director of the Carrie remake, because these two remakes don't add anything new to the movie, they're both just an updated version of the movie that's completely identical beside the slight changes. A good remake is something like The Hills Have Eyes or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, both completely different than the original, and both made a great improvement to that movie.

The first thing you notice when looking information about this movie is that Vince Vaughn plays Norman Bates. One of the best things about the 1960 version of Psycho is of course the brilliant performance of Anthony Perkins. Thinking of Vince Vaughn playing that mysterious, but charming character? I did not feel it. My thoughts about Vince Vaughn being cast was quite right since Vince Vaughn is in no way a charming man, he misses the charms of Anthony Perkins which is what makes Psycho so incredibly good. Great miscasting of Norman Bates.

Other cast members include Viggo Mortensen, Julianne Moore and William H. Macy. I must say that Viggo Mortensen did a good job as Sam Loomis. Julianne Moore and William H. Macy did a nice job as well. Anne Heche plays Marion Crane, one of the main characters of the movie, but she's not the one for the job. She was unbelievable as Marion Crane and her acting was not very good either.

It's somewhat strange to discuss a remake of a movie that's an exact copy of the original. Strangely enough you would think that there shouldn't be much of a difference between the original and the remake. But there really is. Of course, the original is black and white, and there are subtle things to notice with that. For example, at the beginning when Marion didn't do nothing wrong yet her underwear was entirely white. But after she did something bad she wore black underwear. In the color version Marion is just wearing every type of color underwear that's in no way related to the situation.

Fact is, Psycho's remake is entirely unnecessary and I'd advice you to just not watch it. Even when you're not in old black and white movies I would not suggest to go watch this movie because it's just a pathetic attempt at recreating Psycho. It's not a good movie in any way. The bad looking murder scenes were perfectly fitting for the time the movie was made in, when seeing it in a movie made in 1998 you'll just laugh at it, because it really does look ridiculous in a modern movie.

Interested in reading my review of Psycho (1960)? Click here!