Category: Bumps in the Night

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Blood-n-Guts Box Office Bangs Bumps in the Night Creepy Critters Old vs. New

IT: Chapter Two and the problem with reviews (Mild Spoilers)

Yes, you read that correctly.

I want to talk both about the genius that was It: Chapter Two and the issue with movie reviews – and trust me, the irony is not lost on me. To be perfectly candid, I don’t necessarily consider what I do here to be “reviews”. This started out as a “horror review blog” for a class my freshman year of college, but honestly I view it more as a place for me to gush about the horror movies I love without annoying everyone in my life. It’s an outlet for me to ruminate on horror and the genre and all things surrounding it, and all three people who read any of these posts (hi Dad) get to choose whether they listen to my nonsense.

Film critics are a totally different animal to me. I have never listened to film critics…I don’t even read reviews unless I have already seen the movie and want to hear another perspective. Personally, I think that most people making their living on reviews are jaded and impossible to impress as it is let alone when it comes to a genre that is already extremely polarizing.

Which brings me to It: Chapter Two…

I thought it was brilliant. Do I love the Native American lore being use for a story written by a white man? No. But Stephen King also seemed to have an obsession with using Native American lore/legend/land in his stories. (Let’s not forget that Pet Semetary which also just got a remake is ALL ABOUT A NATIVE AMERICAN PIECE OF LAND). Granted, the 80’s in general had an obsession with using Native American land as a copout *coughcough* Poltergeist *cough*.

BUT aside from the obvious cultural appropriation, and some qualms with how Bev was written which I will get into later, I really have no complaints about the film.

Lets start with the casting:

The detail they put into casting the adult versions of the characters was absolutely mind boggling. I was impressed by the cast when they released the initial photos, but it was nothing compared to seeing them in character.

Bill Hader was definitely a stand out in this film, and it was only enhanced by the fact that Richie is very obviously a closeted gay man and Hader  Granted, I wish they could have given us an actual coming out scene (even if it was just  small moment of admitting it to the Losers) but when diversity in horror is so low when it comes to sexuality I am happy to take any and all we are given.

James McAvoy was also great as Bill, but I’ve never been as head-over-heels for him the way 80% of the female population seems to be so while he was great (because he’s just a great actor) I wasn’t overly excited about him the way a lot of fans were.

Honestly, I was surprised by how much I loved James Ransone as Eddie. I saw Ransone in the Sinister films where he played a deputy (and an ex-deputy in the second one), and I wasn’t sure how confident I was in his acting chops. Partially because I haven’t seen the Sinister films in a long time and partly because he wasn’t memorable enough for me to automatically be excited about his casting. However, the combination of Hader as Richie and Ransone as Eddie was a comedy duo that enhanced the film and didn’t override the horror. Personally, I’d pay to watch a film of just those two actors in those two roles sitting in a room and just bantering for 2 hours. I realize calling Ransone unmemorable is not the kindest, but honestly those movies in general weren’t the most memorable so it wasn’t Ransone’s acting, but the character he played.

The rest of the cast was great and definitely shined, but going person by person seems like a bit of overkill…but let’s talk about Bev.

Bev in the first movie is a firecracker who stands up for herself, is more than just the token girl of the friend group, and actually is her own person. Bev in the second movie is…well..a prop. Granted, years of abuse by both her father and her husband are probably enough to make anyone timid and boring, but the character was just very disappointing as a whole to me. I feel like she existed just to be the object of Bill and Ben’s affection rather than being written as an actual human being. If I recall, it was very much the same thing in the mini-series from the 90’s but worse because Bev had sexual tension with all of the men and not just the two.

BUT I DIGRESS

Aside from the aforementioned issues I had – I really loved it. I think that one of the things people disliked was the CGI (the giant statue chasing Richie, the leper that attacks Eddie, the old woman in Bev’s old apartment). It is the type of thing that we aren’t used to seeing in modern horror. There’s this idea that the less you see if a villain the scarier they are, and in a lot of cases that’s true, however the way that It: Chapter Two was crafted feels like a love letter to horror movies of the 80’s. The terror of Pennywise and all the evil that comes along with him is how along each person is with their fear. Nobody can see the giant statue come to life and chase Richie through the park, but that doesn’t make it any less dangerous to him.

I’m enjoying the shift we’re seeing in horror, and I think we’re entering a new era of horror films. This can also be seen, on a smaller scale, in films like Insidious and The Conjuring. Without spending too much time on films that aren’t It in this post, Insidious was one of the first modern horror movies I remember moving away from the idea that the monster should never be fully seen or in view (the demon at the end of the first film, or the ghost of the mother in the second one who confronts them flat out) and the The Conjuring 2 used the same type of CGi for the Crooked Man.

From someone who does not have a degree in horror or film (whatup English majors), but spends 80% of her time ingesting horror content I think we are on the brink of the newest era of horror. In the early 2000’s slasher films/teen horror had their moment (Saw, Hostel, remakes of House of Wax and Friday the 13th), the 2010’s brought back a lot of haunted house content (Insidious, The Conjuring, Annabel) and I think we are starting to see another shift to horror that confronts the viewer more directly.

Personally, I think that’s very exciting.

I had someone tell me once that classic horror movies didn’t scare them because they “Didn’t know what was scary back then”, and while there are many layers to pull apart and discuss in that sentiment the main thing to talk about is the phases horror has been through. To be fair, horror is a rather new genre compared to genres like drama, comedy, or even fantasy. Gothic literature is really the mother of the modern horror genre, and it is still a genre that doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Films like It and It: Chapter Two are pushing back on people’s understanding of how horror works and what makes a movie scary. Let’s all just be happy that we’re finally getting a break from first person camera and zombie films for now.

My point in telling you what this person said is not to say they’re dumb or make fun of them, but simply to say that we are living in a generation that doesn’t understand or appreciate the classics. Yes Friday the 13th can be cheesy, but watching that arrow go through Kevin Bacon’s throat still gives me nervous tummy! In 20 years (assuming the world hasn’t burned by then) our kids will be telling us that directors working now “didn’t know what was scary”. People disliking it didn’t seem to come from anything more than misunderstanding the genre, and when people don’t like something their automatic response is that it’s bad…but just because you don’t like something doesn’t make it “bad”, it just means it’s not for you!

If you haven’t seen It: Chapter Two yet I highly recommend it. I was extremely excited, and not  disappointed (other than maybe Bev). It is worth the outrageous cost of movie tickets, and I’m honestly just curious what people’s thoughts are on the shift we’re starting to see in modern horror films. If you have any thoughts my email will be down below and you’re welcome to send them to me!

I realize that most of my rambling in this post wasn’t about the movie itself, but honestly I feel like it’s one you just have to see for yourself.

It IMDB

It Wiki

It Trailer

It: Chapter Two IMDB

It: Chapter Two Wiki

It: Chapter Two Trailer 

It (1990) Wiki

Send me your thoughts to wickedlittleblog@gmail.com

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Bumps in the Night Podcast Scares

I Promise: Alice isn’t Dead

img_0130I’m sure everyone that would be interested in a blog such as this has become familiar with the incredible world of Night Vale Presents and all the audio magic they do. Before I was as die hard about podcasts as I am now a friend of mine told me about Welcome to Night Vale because she was sure that I would be obsessed instantly…

This is, unfortunately, the part where I have to admit that I was not instantly obsessed with Welcome to Night Vale. It was delightfully strange, and absurdly weird but it didn’t quite hit the spot I needed out of a podcast at that moment. Shortly after, though, the same friend introduced me to another of Night Vale Presents audio dramas: Alice isn’t Dead.

Now, to say that I was instantly obsessed with Alice Isn’t Dead would be an understatement.

I remember sitting in the passenger seat of her car, listening to the narrators incredible voice, delighted to hear that it was about a lesbian couple, and sufficiently creeped out by the arrival of one of the series several big bads. It was the horror that I was looking for. It gave me a pit in my stomach when I listened to it at night, and I had to be careful of how much I listened to when I was driving.

The basic premise of the show is that the narrator (who remains nameless for nearly all of season one) has completely abandoned her life to become a truck driver and search the country for her wife, Alice, who she had thought was dead. While the narrator is on the road, she encounters a man that isn’t quite a man who she refers to as “The Thistle Man”.  As she makes her away through the United States the narrator begins to encounter unexplainable, and seemingly supernatural, events that become increasingly more life threatening as the show progresses.

With it being a three season series, that’s about all I can explain without giving any spoilers.

But one of the things I can definitely talk about is the incredible lesbian representation within this show. The narrator, played by the incredibly talented Jasika Nicole, is a lesbian truck driver with an anxiety disorder and possibly one of the most amazing voices I have ever heard. It’s a unique show in that Jasika Nicole is the only voice actor throughout the entirety of the first season. The whole thing is delivered through the CB radio in her truck, and all of the conversations are retold by the narrator rather than acted out by multiple voice actors.

I’m accustomed to podcasts like The NoSleep Podcast or The Black Tapes where each part is acted out by a different voice actor, so when I fist started Alice I was surprised to hear only Jasika Nicole’s voice throughout the entire episode. However, as you fall more and more in love with the narrator as a character it because easier to image yourself sitting in the passenger seat of her cab and listening to her retell her stories in real time.

Alice isn’t Dead mixes the delightful absurdity of Welcome to Night Vale with the genuinely terrifying that is more expected from a network such as Shudder. If you’re looking for a whimsical horror story, Alice isn’t Dead is the perfect podcast for you.

But be forewarned, you will absolutely want to binge the entire three seasons in a row.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

*And a quick side note*
The creator of Alice isn’t Dead has also written a novel of the same name that is a stand alone adaptation of the podcast. I have not had the opportunity to read the novel yet, but it is slowly creeping closer to the top of my reading list. Once I have finally sat down and read the entire thing I will update on how the novel compares to the podcast.

Night Vale Presents: Alice isn’t Dead 

Alice isn’t Dead Wiki 

Alice isn’t Dead Novel Alice isn’t Dead Novel 

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Blood-n-Guts Bumps in the Night

Sinister feelings from Sinister

Sinister.jpgI know you’re probably wondering why I’m writing about a movie that’s been out for four years. I saw this movie from director Scott Derrickson in theaters back in 2012, but I was not a fan. This was a time in my life when I was adamantly against horror films that didn’t wrap everything up with a nice little bow at the end.  Yet, when Sinister 2 came out I still insisted on going to see it when it was in theaters.

I thoroughly enjoyed the second one.

The premise of the first Sinister is easy enough to understand. Ellison Oswald, played by Ethan Hawke, is a true crime novelist who moves his family to a home where a family was murdered in their backyard. In the attic Ellison discovers a box of film canisters and an old-school projector.

When he loads the film onto the projector and begins to watch he is confronted with gruesome movies of various family’s elaborate murders. Strange things begin to happen in the Oswald household, and Ellison soon discovers a demonic apparition in the films. When he contacts a demonology professor he is told that this apparition is a pagan deity known as Bughuul: the child eater.

When I first saw this, as I said, I was not pleased with the ending. Once I found out they were making a second film, however, I was much more at ease with the ending of the last one. It didn’t matter than things weren’t wrapped up because they expanded on the story even more.

What do you think about movies that set up for sequels that don’t come out for years? Does it annoy you too?

Sinister Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinister_(film)

Sinister IMDB:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1922777/

Sinister Trailer:

 

Categories
Bumps in the Night

Bewitched by The Witch

The WitchI volleyed back and forth for awhile on whether to try and come up with a clever (or what I think is clever) title for this entry. I didn’t want to detract from the movie at all, and I was worried that a ridiculous title would take away from the seriousness of how much I loved The Witch. But I couldn’t resist and I broke down and I went with a silly title.

But in all seriousness this movie was absolutely fantastic. I knew that critics had been raving about the film and the few people I knew who had seen it absolutely loved it, but I like to form my own opinions about movies. Yes, I realize how ironic it is to have someone writing a movie review blog say that they hate listening to reviewers and critics, but I do. There have been many movies I’ve seen that critics have annihilated and I’ve absolutely adored.

I was on the same page with most reviewers this time though.

The Witch is an incredible combination of actual horror with a psychological thriller. There are so many layers to peel at with this type of film that you will still be thinking about it a week later. Thinking about it right now I am still in complete awe at what directer Robert Eggers and his crew was able to accomplish.

The film opens on a small community of pilgrims in the year 1630. A man is on trial for “prideful conceit” in his small, enclosed Puritan community.  His family is exiled and forced to leave the walled plantation where they have spent their time since they made the journey from England.

William (Ralph Ineson) and Katherine (Kate Dickie) have four children when they are cast out of their community and Katherine is pregnant with a fifth. They build their own farm out at the edge of the woods, and after several months Katherine gives birth to their fifth child, Sam.  One morning when their oldest daughter, Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), is playing peek-a-boo with the baby he is stolen by the witch in the woods.

This starts the spiral of fear and paranoia that is eventually the downfall of this family. Not only is there the actual threat of a very real witch that lives in the woods, but there is the mounting tension within the house since Katherine blames Thomasin for the baby’s disappearance and the paranoia growing around Thomasin’s fraternal twin siblings’ accusations that she is the witch.

It is an incredibly tense ride. You can’t go into this movie expecting it to be a jump-scare-filled terror ride. It is a much deeper type of horror than that. It is the type that chills you to your core and leaves you disturbed for weeks.

It was refreshing to see a movie like this. It felt like a return to classic horror and I loved that. This is definitely a movie that, while I want to watch it a dozen more times, will take some time before I can put myself through it again.

It also gives us a sobering glimpse back into a dark and grim time in our nations history. We tend to forget, or maybe just ignore, how truly horrific the witch trials were. We all know the old saying “truth is stranger than fiction”, but in this case truth was more terrifying than fiction.

What do you think about the intertwining of psychological thriller and actual horror? How do you feel about the horrific time in our history that seems to be sensationalized now?

The Witch Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witch_(2015_film)

The Witch Rotten Tomatoes: 

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_witch_2016/

The Witch Trailer: 

 

Categories
B Calm Bumps in the Night

Forget Me Not will not be forgotten

If you like watching former Disney kids doing the complete opposite of evForget Me Noterything we came to know and love them for, then this movie is for you. OK, OK, so there are only two of them and they are from completely different generations of Disney channel, but it was still intriguing to see people I grew up watching in less than G-rated situations now in R-rated ones. It also really has nothing to do with the plot of this movie at all, and I’ve officially crossed the border into ranting, so I digress.

(I’ll leave you wondering what Disney kids went bad in this movie for a little longer.)

Let me just get this out there right off the bat so there is no confusion over what you may be getting yourself into if you sign up to watch this movie: Forget Me Not is a stereotypical teen horror flick when it comes to the old tropes they use.

Girls in bikinis? Check

Underage drinking? Check

Sexual exploits of minors? Check

Vacations to remote locations that lead to bad news bears? Check (kind of)

You would think that this whole movie would just be something that is overplayed and stale. But despite the utilization of all the cliches in the book, the monotony ends there.  The entire concept that Forget Me Not is built around is an extremely fresh and unique idea that really caught me by surprise.

I watched this particular movie on Amazon Prime, and the synopsis left a lot to be desired, so I was more or less going into it blind.

The premise is this:

Sandy, who is played by Carly Schroeder, aka Melina from Lizzie McGuire, is that girl at their high school.  She is smart and beautiful and has a large and tight knit group of friends that most people are never lucky enough to find in high school.  Her little brother Eli, who is played by Cody Linley, aka Jake from Hannah Montanna (that’s right, ladies, Heartbreak-Jake is playing a dorky little brother and does an amazing job of mixing adorable and awkward), is a boy genius who skipped a grade, is graduating a year early with his big sister and is valedictorian of their class.  Cue-bad boy boyfriend of Sandy who is the son of the town sheriff and has a little sister who needs some serious behavioral therapy, throw in a couple more hot girls and a cheating boyfriend and you’ve got the perfect summer chick flick, right?

Wrong.

The conflict really arises when the group decides to go to a local graveyard and play a game that is very reminiscent of the old gym-class game that we all used to play in school, Ghosts in the Graveyard. A mysterious girl shows up and requests to play with them, stating it is her “favorite game.” The game springs into full effect and results with our mystery character winning. When Sandy runs after her and announces that she is the winner, the girl asks, “Do you remember me?” when Sandy does not tell her yes, her reply is “You will” before diving off a cliff.

Suddenly Sandy’s friends begin to die off (in true teen horror-flick fashion), but there’s a catch: Sandy is the only person who remembers her friends ever even existed after they’ve died.

I will end my own synopsis there before I give too much more of the film away, and I will tell you what I thought about it.

Despite the cliches and tropes they used to try and pull people into this movie, I thoroughly enjoyed it for what it was. I was not going into it expecting to see something amazing or to find my new favorite horror movie, but I was pleasantly surprised by what I did find. It wasn’t as scary as I would have hoped for, but the ghostly apparitions of their dead friends that appear right before another one is killed off were creepy enough to stick with me when I was falling asleep alone in my dorm before my roommate got back. Director Tyler Oliver married the cliches well with the unique premise he and the writers developed.

I think that this is a horror movie that even some of you who don’t enjoy horror movies could get on board with.

What do you think about the utilizations of cliches and overused tropes in the horror movies? Do you think it can work? What movies have you seen that do this well?

Forget Me Not Wiki

Forget Me Not IMDB

Forget Me Not Trailer: 

Categories
B Calm Bumps in the Night

The Diabolical-ly misleading synopsis

I’m going to be completely honest with you and tell you that I decided tdiabolicalo watch this movie because of the fact that the lead actress is Ali Larter, an actress I adore. For those of you who were fans of Heroes back before the failed reboot may know her as Nikki/Jessica/Tracy/a whole other slew of characters or, for those fellow horror buffs out there, as Clear Rivers from the first two Final Destination films. I went into this expecting a poltergeist-fueled horror film with things that go bump in the night and voices coming through the TV.

I did not, however, get what I was expecting at all. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what to even say about this movie. I think my main issue with this movie was that I got something completely different than what I was expecting, so I can’t even judge this with an unbiased view point. As it turned out, this was not a horror film at all, but a science fiction film.

Once I realized that I had actually gotten myself into a sci-fi film, I seriously considered turning off the movie and starting another one, but at that point I had only 20 minutes left in the film and I had committed far too much time to just give up.

The film starts out intense enough with our main character Madison (Larter) waking up to a noise in her house after falling asleep at the dining room table. After checking things out very briefly, she sits back down to continue the work she was doing on her laptop only to be interrupted by a disgustingly gruesome apparition that looks like a combination of a grown-man-sized newborn baby and a burn victim. To me this boded well for this movie.

I was severely mistaken.

We find out that Madison is a single, widowed mother of two who has been trying to figure out what exactly has been terrorizing them for some time now. She has brought in paranormal investigators, priests, clairvoyants and paranormal psychologists, to no avail. It quickly becomes clear that her children are also aware that there is something unnatural going on in their home.

Her son, Jacob (Max Rose), has been in trouble for beating one of his fellow classmates unconscious, and it becomes increasingly clear that Jacob has severe anger issues that he is unable to control.  It is alluded that his father also had problems with rage, and hints at him being abusive to Madison. Jacob has been receiving tutoring–presumably because he was suspended from school for his outburst–and we quickly find out that Madison is romantically involved with his tutor Miguel (Wilmer Calderon).

I will say that when I was still under the impression that this was a horror movie about poltergeists rather than a sci-fi movie about teleportation, I was excited at the prospect of a horror movie actually addressing the theory that poltergeists are not actually ghosts or spirits at all but are a form of negative energy. There are so many possibilities to marry sci-fi and horror with the actual lore of poltergeists. This movie, however, did not quite hit the mark.

If you like sci-fi (which I normally do), it is worth a watch.  The acting was very impressive, and I assume that if you go into it knowing more of what to expect than I did, it is a pretty good movie. For the sake of this blog, however, it was a dud.

What are your opinions on the mixing of sci-fi and horror? Are there any movies you’ve seen that have done it well?