I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

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Hold Your Breath aka #HoldYourBreath (2012)

I do NOT Twitter. I'm not trashing it, I just don't get it. I tried it for a while but getting bits and pieces of other people's conversation that I didn't understand wasn't worth all the time trying to follow and put together. Plus I don't feel people want to know what I'm doing or thinking every minute of the day. Isn't that what Facebook is for?

This is yet another boring and cheap effort by horror-by-the-pound company The Asylum so right away I knew any extra research I did would be a hell of a lot more entertaining than the movie itself. And I was right. This plays on the urban legend fear that if you drive by a cemetery and don't hold your breath, a wandering spirit can inhabit you. Massive duh. So of course we have seven young people you hope die quick going on a weekend trip and one refuses to hold his breath. Again, massive duh.

See, the moronic backstory is that in 1956 at the Goodchild Sanitarium For The Criminally Insane a nasty killer named Detrich Van Klaus is about to be executed in the electric chair. Now let's stop a moment. A SANITARIUM is going to EXECUTE a criminal. Umm, no. A Sanitarium (or sanatorium or sanitorium) is a place that, in the US at least, at the beginning of the 20th century was used mostly for the long-term care of those with tuberculosis. With some, if you had the money you could get residence at really nice ones that were more like resorts, others, not so lucky. They did NOT execute anyone.

A lunatic asylum (or more nicely put a mental hospital) was for the insane - those who either voluntarily committed themselves and those who were committed either by relatives or the justice system. They did NOT execute anyone either. So major, MAJOR duh from the beginning.

Then we come to the urban legend. I've heard lots of versions of this and it has about the same impact of 'step on a crack break your mother's back'. In other words, it's crap. But because this movie is so incredibly boring I thought I'd print a couple of these just for the hell of it. If you want some old-time death traditions, watch the Panic! At The Disco video 'The Ballad Of Mona Lisa' (Contrary to the popular meme I DO know more PATD songs than I Write Sins Not Tragedies) and it will give you some basic rules (Some reasons according to different sources are in italics:

1. Open A Window: All windows should be opened at the moment of death so the soul may have a speedy journey to the other side.
2. Close It Two Hours Later
3. Stop All Clocks And Cover All Mirrors: Mirrors in the house with a corpse should be covered or the person who sees himself will die next.
4. Bathe The Body (Keeping a white cloth on the face)
5. Lay The Body In White
6. Allow The People To Wail And Lament: Bodies were watched over every minute for 3-4 days after death to prevent a premature burial for someone who might simply be in a coma rather than actually dead.

Some of these are pagan rituals, some are... I dunno, just stupid? The whole point was to, I guess, convince the spirit of the dead person to leave without messing anybody up. I dunno. But anywho, as far as urban legends and death goes, here's just a couple:

• A person must hold their breath when passing a cemetery or they will breathe in the spirit of someone who has recently died. Tuck your thumbs into your fists when passing a cemetery to protect your parents.
• Collecting epitaphs from tombstones is unlucky and will result in losing your memory.
• Being near or in an open grave cures all manner of illness including toothache, boils, and incontinence.

Why am I blathering on and not telling you about the movie? Not much to tell really. They of course get possessed one by one, take a quick trip through the sanitarium (which they keep calling prison, good job guys) and kill each other - too damn slowly. The first one didn't die until 50 minutes in. That's inexcusable for such a boring movie.

The gore is below acceptable for the amount they tried to show - ripped out eyeballs always had the look of marbles and the wounds looked like they were days old; the most they did try was cutting a young lady in half while she was tied to a tree - but they only showed it from far away, to keep the cheapness and fake quality of the special effect hidden I guess.

And what the ever loving hell were they thinking at the end of the movie? I'm not just talking about the ending itself which WAS lame beyond belief but switching vehicles with every scene? Did they think we wouldn't notice? Now I do NOT know cars. I only know this was a Chevrolet Suburban because they had nice product placement and showed the logo several times. But in the getaway scene at the end even I had to pause the movie a couple of times cause - wait a damn minute - the cars were different. 

How did I know? They didn't even have the same damn license plates for crying out loud. Did they really think we wouldn't notice? C'mon folks, how many seconds does it take to change a license plate? I did that myself when I worked at a dealership (which I wouldn't recommend for anyone wanting to keep their sanity) and I can tell you it's a simple, quick procedure.

But as I said I don't know spit about cars so I looked this movie up to see if I was just being a bitch 'cause I had to sit through yet another 'oh gosh a spirit - wait we killed him - wait it's still alive after all' kind of movie. It turns out that during the (brief) getaway scene where they drove out of the cemetery (Which they alternatively called a graveyard - get a freaking dictionary, would you? Graveyards are next to churches...) onto the road they used SIX VEHICLES. Why? They were travelling down a dirt road onto pavement, they weren't traversing the jungles of Africa. Massive, massive duh and an appropriate end to yet another The Asylum abortion.