IF YOU WANT A MOVIE AND DON'T HAVE A STREAMING SERVICE OR JUST WANT TO TRY SOMETHING OFF THE BEATEN PATH, YOUTUBE IT

Movies On The Cheap (Actually, They're Free):

I love my Netflix. They may not have a ton of good horror movies, but then again there aren't that many really good horror movies being made anymore so they work with what they have. They do mix 'em up about once a month which is nice. My favorite part of Netflix is that I can be doing a ton of other stuff on my computer (typing notes, looking at Facebook, whatever) and Netflix never so much as stutters. It is the best in streaming I have found - and I have a good system. They also have close captioning which is very welcome to my failing ears and those movies where actors insist on mumbling their dialogue. It also tells me what songs they're playing in the background - I've found more than a couple of new favorites from that.

I have tried just about every other streaming service and Netflix has blown them all away. Now you do have to pay a nominal fee to have it (a little more if you also want DVD's sent to your house) but hey, for the money, they are the best. Geez, too bad I don't get endorsement kickbacks from them. Anyway, there are other services, some of them free but you 'pay' in other ways - some have commercials, some don't stream so well if you insist on doing more than one thing at a time, most don't have any close captioning and the selection is... spotty.

So since again I took forever getting to the point, may I make a suggestion if you're bored and want to just try something you might not watch otherwise? Take a tour through YouTube. I have found some rather interesting movies (a lot of them foreign) just puttering around while watching a movie. As you know, when you watch a movie it shows 'suggestions' on the side and sometimes they're a hell of a lot more interesting than what I'm presently watching.

Just a warning - some are rather graphic. I mean more graphic than normal. Also some are just jokes. I liked the one that claimed to be the new Lone Ranger movie - click on it and get an old B&W episode from the old series. Hell, that's better than the movie actually. But yeah, there's not a lot of things that can't be shown there so you do have to have some common sense.

Some are made, not by studios, but by regular joes with a script they wrote, some money they came up with and, of course, friends. These are not genius works of art but some are rather interesting. I'm always amazed by the people who seem to have nothing better to do than sign in to YouTube just so they can swear at the makers of these movies (which can be anywhere from a half hour to movie length) for how "horrible" they are. How good could they be when they're just made for fun or for very VERY little money? 

For example, one I'm watching is, God help me, yet another 'based on actual events' movie with half of it the headache inducing, stomach wrenching hand held camera shots of a house where evil happens. In other words, the usual. The special effects aren't very special, the acting is eager but not great and the plot... meh. BUT this movie was written and made by the same person, who got his friends and about $5,000.00 dollars together to make it. What the hell do the viewers expect, 3D and CGI? Big name stars?

How about giving the independents a break, realize that their efforts come from a good place and most of the time their own savings? The one I'm watching now may be the same-old same-old that Hollywood seems to think is the only kind of horror to sell lately, but hell - for the money and the effort put in this movie, it's pretty impressive. I actually have been paying more attention just for that reason. Hollywood churns out a lot of the same kind of stuff for tons of money and supposedly 'professional' actors and effects. Meh.

So next time you go to YouTube and the movie looks kind of cheesy, the soundtrack isn't crystal clear and the effects are not-so-special, appreciate at least that somebody tried, somebody put their own life on hold just to try to make something a little different. Or, if you can't deal, make your own damned movie and let US rate YOU. See how you like getting foul language shot your way for your efforts.

Okay, I'm putting the soapbox away... carry on.

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20-SOMETHINGS WHO DON'T GATHER IN A REMOTE CABIN IN THE WOODS TO DIE - THEY'RE IN AN AIRPLANE... SO THERE! AND THERE'S A GIANT SQUID!


Altitude (2010) Canada Made For TV

Isn't it weird when you find a film out of nowhere that you've never even heard of and it turns out to be better than some of the newer horror films released in theaters? Especially when you find out it's a Canadian film made for television. Huh. Maybe you United States movie makers should watch and take notes. Nah, they'd just copy the damn thing practically word for word. But I'm telling you, I'll be ripping this apart because hey, that's my job but I did really pay attention because this was different, kind of inventive and for television. A TV movie. Here in the States a TV horror movie usually means they take two ordinary creatures, mesh them together, find some worn out actor or singer from the 80's and boom, a movie.

I'm exaggerating? Okay, here's some titles of some REAL TV movies: Dinocroc, Dinocroc vs Supergator, Dinoshark, Frankenfish, Ghostshark, Hybrid, Komodo vs Cobra, Mansquito, Megapython vs Gateroid,
Piranhaconda, Sharknado, and Sharktopus. So far. I'm sure the SyFy channel has a couple hundred more coming to a cable channel near you - if not, you're lucky.

Prologue to the movie: A woman pilot is taking a family to their destination. The family has a young child who is petrified with fear. The parents try to console him to no avail. He seems to be staring out the window at something - everyone turns to look and there's an airplane coming straight at them and BOOM...

Now we have a group of 20-somethings who are flying to a destination to see Coldplay. That should be an instant death sentence right there. The pilot (in the land of incredible coincidences) is the daughter of the doomed pilot we saw in the prologue. The others are your regular assorted unlikable characters. The pilot has a boyfriend, and also of course one friend she's had for a long time who's always had a crush on her. Natch. So they take off and the camera keeps focusing on a bolt, just to let you know that something is going to happen I guess 'cause they show the same damn picture of the bolt a hundred times.

The boy with the crush on the pilot is Bruce and he is terrified of flying. As a favor of, I dunno, letting him see there's nothing to be scared of, the pilot (Sara) lets him sit up front. We get the usual beer drinking, hand held camera garbage and everybody going nuts every time there's turbulence. And the bolt. That damned bolt. Sara, not the sharpest knife in the drawer decides to further 'help' Bruce by letting him take the controls. Now the DUH factor is on full throttle. He, of course, chokes (small engine humor) and the plane goes into a dive. 

The description for the movie will tell you he takes it into a climb but I know the difference between up and down so... yeah. The other idiots of course scream at both of them which makes things worse and Sara finally takes the controls back to level the plane but the bolt finally comes loose and jams the elevator so the plane just keeps climbing. The what? I don't know small aircraft so: Elevators are flight control surfaces, usually on the tail of an aircraft, which control the altitude. This was funny - when I wiki'd this 'elevator' and got the definition it says it controls the planes' ATTITUDE. I gotta get me one of those and attach it to my hubby.

Suddenly air turbulence gets worse and there's a storm ahead. Sara reveals that not only is she not instrument certified (that means she can only fly when she can physically see the ground), but no one knows that they are going to the concert by plane - Sara had told her father she was driving - he doesn't even know she has a pilot's license. AND they've lost contact with ground control AND the plane won't stop climbing.

Hmm, Snakes On A Plane, Zombies On A Plane, Idiots On A Plane. I see a pattern. Whoops, no sorry, this is something else on a plane. Since we are in the land of incredible coincidences, one of the idiots in the plane is an experienced climber so he believes he can use a rope to get himself to the tail and... what? Stomp on it for a while? Meanwhile they left with only half a tank of gas (?!?) and so in order to conserve fuel they throw out all their stuff. And Sara. Nah, just kidding but hey if I had found out my pilot only half filled the tank before takeoff...

The climber gets to the tail and kicks it a couple of times, apparently dislodging the bolt. But before he can get back A GIANT SQUID COMES OUT OF THE CLOUDS - SOMEBODY CALL THE SYFY CHANNEL! I'm not kidding folks, that's what happens - a giant tentacle reaches out of the clouds and grabs the climber. The person holding the rope is forced to cut it or get yanked out himself.

Bruce, who had been rendered unconscious by the others 'cause he was a major douche, wakes up and confesses his fear comes because his folks died in an airplane crash piloted by, in this land of incredible coincidences, Sara's mother. They tell him of the monster and he thinks a moment, and picks up a comic book that Sara had given him. He collects them. It's one of those old issues of horror tales (this one is made up - called Weird Stories) and it's valuable - that is until the drunk douche rips out a page. 

Now it's junk. He straightens out the ripped page and what do you know? It shows a tentacle coming out of the clouds. Now he's getting the idea of what is going on. It's the why he's puzzled by. Shoot, my worksheet (patent pending) is already out and mostly filled. I was going for an all-casualty type of movie but I had to adjust that a bit...

The drunk douche, after being confronted about cutting the rope and letting the other guys die, argues until ah rats, he's sucked out of the door and we're another douche down. Now we get an explanation, sort of, but it's severely flawed. Bruce tells Sara that when's he's really stressed or scared, what he's thinking of really happens. When he was little he had seen a photo of another airplane on a magazine and, scared to death, brought it to reality where it crashed into them (they don't explain how the hell he could survive the crash) and that's what is happening now - he's causing all the nastiness with the storm, the monster, etc.

Okay, that's... almost interesting but severely flawed. When he was small he was in an airplane and scared and just because he saw another airplane on a magazine he freaked and caused a crash? And as for 'causing' the giant squid... Sara had just given him the comic book as a gift - he hadn't had time to read it yet. So how the hell did he know what the story was about? But... this WAS made for TV and on the cheap and yet it was still better that some big money productions so I can bitch, but not too loudly.

Sara's big idea when she finds out he's a mental maniac is to tell him to just imagine this all never happened. Umm, what? Are we really going to have one of those 'restart' movies where it goes in a loop? Bruce tries but being a douche and a very scared little douche, things get worse and the airplane is out of control. 

So Sara kisses him. Kiss of death? Nah, this time it's the kiss of incredible coincidence, because all of a sudden the storm disappears and so does the giant squid. But Bruce is slow, but not stupid. He figures Sara only kissed him to make him imagine everything normal and so here we go again. But no squid. Sara fights for control of the airplane... and sees up ahead another airplane and they're gonna hit. Guess who's in THAT plane? No, c'mon, guess. Oh, please?

Of course it is the plane from the land of incredible coincidences with Bruce, his parents and Sara's mother. Somehow, Bruce and Sara are able to control the plane enough to make it a narrow miss. Now history has been changed. It reminded me of the Family Guy episode Back To The Pilot when Brian and Stewie go back in time to the very first episode but of course the past (and future) gets all messed up and Stewie finally has to fix it by making sure the first couple to come back goes right back home. He then tells Brian the time line they are in has been erased and so they will disappear too. Brian asks if it will hurt - Stewie says, "A little."

Oh I'm sorry, got off track again. So instead of fading away, the scene just kind of... ends. The next scene is of Sara's mother landing safely with her passengers and meeting up with her family. Sara runs and hugs her mother and is introduced to Bruce. Sara and Bruce say hello to each other and then hold hands, looking up into the sky. We're left to wonder whether they have any memory of what happened.

Okay, this wasn't so great but hey, for a TV movie this was pretty darn good. The acting was irritating, the effects pretty cheap (fog goes a long way in keeping the audience from seeing the studio around the plane prop) and the story flawed but still not a horrible ride.

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A RETRACTION FOR AN ERROR I MADE ON A MOVIE REVIEW BUT THE MOVIE STILL SUCKED SO THIS MATTERS VERY LITTLE

V/H/S 2 (2013) Reviewed October 20, 2013

I had said that V/H/S at least had a little bit of originality but this one followed a formula and kind of messed up the ideas the first one was trying to accomplish. I think. I stand by that, but I made an error. GASP! How could I? Well, it seems the source I was using to watch the film did NOT have the subtitles for the Indonesian segment, Safe Haven, so my review was mostly based on what I have previously seen about cults and some of the description from the wiki page.

Whoops. The movie, which is now streaming on Netflix, DOES have subtitles in this particular segment. So we have the English-speaking (and one translator) crew trying to get a closer look at a cult in Indonesia. Okay so far. They have cameras for the interview, and hidden cameras to get a look inside the facilities. 

The leader, giving an interview in a coffee house, claims that his group is getting ready for paradise. The world is just temporary. So far, pretty normal with all religions - waiting for a better future 'getting closer to the promised gates' - nothing weird yet. But then he explains this is literal - and coming very, very soon. But only his 'family' is allowed in Paradise Gates. The interviewers basically lie and say they just want an unbiased look at his commune - and so we get some scenes of different rooms with strange symbols. There are children in 'class', rooms with strange symbols, and the leader sits at his desk cutting himself. So the weird starts early.

After speaking with one pubescent girl it is apparent that the female 'children' become 'women' when 'the father' has sex with them. That's... not too unusual for a cult either I'm afraid. The Children Of God cult not only condoned and practiced it but required it. The United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors cult did much of the same. Jim Jones of the The People's Temple was a massive pervert. Aaaaand there's a hell of a lot more but I'm starting to depress myself so...

When one of the interviewers, who is pregnant, becomes ill, she is told by a follower that she is blessed and will produce something wonderful. Meanwhile the interview with 'The Father' is becoming heated over the subject of the children being sexually abused. 'The Father' considers it as a 'blessing' for them. It doesn't take a cult for some adults to feel  this way and... ah geez, I liked this segment better without the subtitles.

So this is where the guy with the pregnant girlfriend discovers the baby isn't his but belongs to his best friend. This is their twist to keep you from seeing the other twist but hey, we know something icky is coming. Sure enough as the clock chimes, 'the father' declares that it is now time. And the cool aid is passed around. Duh. Men get guns, some knives, but the kids get poison. One cameraman finds a blood covered room, a body on a table under a sheet soaked in blood. Although pretty much split in half she isn't dead. yet.

As the 'father' delivers his final speech, he takes his box cutter knife and kills the cameraman who stayed with him. The mass suicides begin. The pregnant interviewer is grabbed and taken to a 'delivery' room. The rest was in the previous review and is even grosser the second time. Believe me.

But, when I'm wrong I'm wrong and I'm sorry you had to suffer through this twice.

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REMAKE, REBOOT, REDONE, REMODEL, REACQUAINT, READAPT, READDICT, REAFFIRM - GROOVY


Evil Dead (2013)

Never let it be said that I don't like the works of Sam Raimi. How could you NOT like the Raimi family - Sam who, in his youth, finds a young Bruce Campbell to torture in the Evil Dead series, his brother Ted who I had seen previously (and not known they were related) playing a fake Shemp (that's another term I got to learn - it means someone who doubles in a scene for another actor - kind of like a body double or it could be only the appearance of one limb. 

Ted and Sam

It comes from the time of the Three Stooges when Shemp Howard died in the middle of a shoot (no not on camera sicko) and they needed to finish so they used old footage and spliced in 'fake Shemps' where they needed his presence on the set. And last but certainly not least Ivan (he's older than Sam by three years) who, when he's not practicing Osteopathic Medicine, writes screenplays, most notably the Army Of Darkness - also co-writing the comic book published with my fave company Dark Horse Comics.

Now the hubby doesn't understand what the difference between a remake and a reboot is. A REMAKE is like having a house that needs updating, remodeling. So you replace some appliances update the pipes and electrical wiring to code, maybe add new carpets and furniture. But a REBOOT is saying 'okay this house is salvageable but we gotta gut it' and you take it down almost to the frame and when you're done it's the same house but still somewhat different. 

THAT is what this movie is. You have the elements of Evil Dead (Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell are on the credits as Executive Producers) but the movie is NOT your 1981 Evil Dead. It is your GRANDKID'S Evil Dead. Get used to the creaking noises, 'cause it's you. This is a full review so if you don't want spoilers, watch and then come back and read. And we start:

A girl is running in the woods. She thinks she's gotten away but she's caught (I swear one of the guys that catches her is either Sam or Ted - not in the credits though). They tie her up in a basement. Her father answers her questions sadly - her mother is dead, she, in fact, killed her and she's possessed. She denies it until the evil emerges and consequently is set on fire and shot in the face for good measure. That'll teach her.

So our 'twenty-somethings gathered in a isolated cabin to get slaughtered' are shown and by their names I want them dead but I know that's gonna happen so I relax. There's Mia, David, Eric, Olivia and Natalie. Their purpose for isolating themselves in this place? Mia is a recovering addict. Her brother David is reconnecting with her after leaving her to care for their mother who was committed to an asylum, because apparently there's one in every town in America except mine. The others are just... there to provide bodies for the evil we know is already there.

Now they give a whole lot of references that will be familiar to the original Evil Dead fans, the most famous (and most well known) being the 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 or as Sam calls it 'The Classic' which appears in pretty much every movie he's made. The car was bought new by his father, and how he weaves it in to every movie is kind of funny and kind of sweet. We know it best as Ash's car and see it here, rusted out and sitting on the property by the cabin.

Mia does a mini-ceremony where she dumps the last of her drugs into a deep well (don't worry, no slimy long black haired things climb out) and the friends go into the cabin. Now in this Evil Dead the cabin belongs to Mia and her brother's family - and so are startled when they find the lock broken, the cabin having been used by someone else.

So the long haired dude finds THE BOOK and despite the fact that it is wired shut he cuts it open - and despite the fact that it says LEAVE THIS BOOK ALONE like Alice in Wonderland that's just an invitation for him to not only go through the book but find the words that have been scribbled out and using pencil to shade the letters, reads them out loud. He really should have died first.

So as Mia goes through withdrawal, she's also the first one to get attacked by the forest (interesting rape scene that wasn't as, um, graphic as the original) - so there's no one safe person in the cabin as with the original. If you notice as you watch there are nods to the elements of the other three ED movies: The cabin, the camera in the woods scenes, the 'rape' by the forest, the boiling water (Ash drank boiling water in AoD) the cellar door being bolted but the 'possessed' being able to open it a crack to taunt the others, the fact that the constant rain has washed away their only means of leaving (in ED it was a bridge collapsing) - there's a whole lot of little things and obvious things that make you like this movie despite not having the almighty Bruce be your hero in it.

Mia tries to run off but comes back completely possessed. Oh, in this movie to be 'possessed' not only means the spooky eyes (I'm sure they improved on the nasty contacts the original ED actors had to wear), but their moves become disjointed (lots of cricks and cracks) and of course they have evil voices. After getting hold of the shotgun, she manages to shoot her brother in the shoulder before collapsing. 

Olivia runs to help her and Mia sits over her and gives her the 'Ash' treatment - yup, thanks Sam for telling movie makers it's perfectly okay to shower your actors with gallons of ooky bloody stuff in the name of horror. Mia gets thrown in the cellar. Olivia soon also becomes possessed (with the cricks and cracks) except she gets the added pleasure of pissing herself. Fun. Oh and then she tries to cut her face off. It's an interesting progression from the originals that reflects the escalation of gore in 'modern' horror. But we still have some classic moments:

When Eric is stabbed with a piece of mirror by his now-dead girlfriend Olivia, David takes out the shard, puts pressure on the wound and... gets out the duct tape. If you can't fix it, duct it. That's a lesson for you kiddies. Anywho, Natalie duhs her way into the cellar 'cause she feels sorry for Mia - pretty soon, she doesn't feel anything. That's a joke people. 

No but really, at this point the new movie gets kind of blase' with lines like 'I can smell your filthy soul.' What, is she not so fresh? The 'demon' is called the Taker Of Souls. Oh now THAT'S original. The ToS has to have five to unleash the Abomination. How many teenagers were there? Oh that's convenient. I wonder if Sam cringed any at those particular changes.

But we get some of the same good stuff like one loses a hand (actually her arm just above the elbow) which unfortunately doesn't help, the book won't burn, there's a nail gun (always a fun toy for shooting your friends with over and over and over...), the idiot who started the whole thing tells David he not only has to kill his sister, but cut her up, burn her or bury her alive, his choice. Nice. 

When he can't set her on fire, out comes the chain saw. But nope, he can't do that either so it's burying her alive. After he does that, we get a silly Rube Goldberg contraption for a home made defibrillator (kids don't try this at home) with a car battery, a switch, a couple of syringes and kapow! But car batteries weren't meant to do this kind of idiotic thing so it goes dead and so does she. 

But wait! In typical horror movie style - today's typical style anyway - she lives! He runs into the cabin to get the car keys and a photo or two - massive duh on his part. But then, they're supposed to be 'cause otherwise we wouldn't have the big finish.

Eric, the long haired hippy idiot who started the whole thing by opening the Book of the Dead and reading from it, is now possessed and stabs David in the throat. To save his sister who's still outside he manages to shoot a gas can with a shotgun making the cabin blow up which happens never anywhere. While he's looking for the shotgun we get this weird sound like an air raid siren for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Kaboom. But that is a massive duh because now five people have been killed (the fifth was when Mia's heart stopped when she got buried alive).

The Abomination is coming. How do we know (besides the dead dudes)? Because it starts raining blood. Even with the blowing chunks in one of the girls faces scene, this is really the only overly bloody scene in this movie. Sam used gallons more of gore than this movie did. Oh well. So the Abomination is here and Mia has to deal with it. Yay. So there's a loooong fight sequence and for some reason more air raid siren noises which are more annoying than suspense-building. Finally out comes the chainsaw.

But first... how come they kind of cheaped out on the Abomination? This is supposed to be the BIG BAD WOLF of the movie and it's... another girl. Whaaa? She's evil looking and gross. So was all the rest of them. So what? Couldn't they have at least made up something... weird? They have the technology. They have the money. They apparently didn't have the imagination.

But back to the fight. Through a series of duh moves and more fighting, the car is tipped over and lands on Mia's... hand. Yup, we've had an arm slicing scene (that was one hell of an electric knife), but now - hmm, trapped hand, chainsaw. Chainsaw, trapped hand. What to do, what to do... But Mia is totally hard core. Not being able to reach the chainsaw she rips her hand off just by tugging it out from under the car. That allows her to grab the chainsaw and splits the Abomination in half. The blood rain stops, Mia staggers off, and what they're now calling the Naturom Demonto (What happened to Book Of The Dead?) slams shut.

And I now know I have to watch ALL the credits to the movies 'cause I missed this the first time: Number one, I think this is one of the few movie that has as much or more blood showing in the credits than in the movie itself; Number two, more air sirens. So next time you hear one there's either going to be a tornado, or an Abomination coming at you; Number three, once again the 'fake shemps' are listed; Number four, you get to hear the original tape recording from the first Evil Dead; Number five, if you wait cleeeear to the end of the credits you get a profile of Bruce Campbell who says 'Groovy' then swings his head to look at you.

One last thing - although the movie was supposed to be set in Michigan (as was the original), it was actually filmed in Muriwai Beach, Woodhill Forest, Woodhill, Auckland, New Zealand. Groovy.

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OH GOD NOT ANOTHER 'THE HAUNTING' TYPE MOVIE AND... WAIT A MINUTE, WHAT'S THAT TITLE? REALLY? I MEAN REALLY? YOU'RE NOT KIDDING THE AUDIENCE BECAUSE YOU THINK THEY'RE STUPID, RIGHT? OH MY GOD MY EYES MY EYES MY EYES MY EYES MY EYES MY EYES

The Haunting In Connecticut 2: Ghosts Of Georgia (2013)

You know, I was gonna complain about yet another 'The Haunting' type movie, especially a sequel to one that's only (small) interesting parts were when Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek were shown in their respective parts... but to have a title giving you a supposed sequel then spread that nonsense clear down the eastern seaboard to Georgia... do they honestly think we are that dumb? Yes. Yes they do. AND they insulted us further by throwing out the tag 'Based On A True Story' which simply means that yes, there IS a state of Connecticut and yes, there is also a state of Georgia - although neither state is anywhere near the other. Oh, the 'subject' of the movie, Heidi Wyrick, supposedly existed too. The rest? Pffft...

Now if you wanna waste several hours of your time, you can look up the many books, interviews and TV shows that have already been done on this tired subject (which, may I point out, has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the first movie which sucked as well) and if you wanna believe, go ahead. If you want to save yourself some time and brain cells, stay on this page, I'll make it sweet, short and relatively painless for you.

Supposedly in real life this kid was doomed from the start when she started talking to her invisible friends. Now with other kids, the family knows they grow out of doing that - but not those who 'believe' - they 'know' that their child is special. Uh huh. From another page about this particular, umm, girl: Heidi Wyrick is a gifted psychic with the ability to see and communicate with the spirits of the dead. Since she was eight years old, she has been able to see ghosts. It began in February of 1989 after her parents, Andrew and Lisa Wyrick, moved to Ellerslie when she started seeing the friendly elderly apparition of a man named Gordy who played with her on the property. 

Lisa thought this figment was an invisible friend, but eventually Heidi encountered another spirit named "Con" who appeared at the front door in a t-shirt with blood all over it. When she told her mother, she thought someone was trying to kidnap her. Andrew searched the entire neighborhood for someone who fit the description but came up empty handed. Eventually, Lisa happened to mention Con and Gordy to her sister who had just bought the house next door. As it turned out, a man named James S. Gordy was its former owner. It had once belonged to Catherine Ledford's family, and Lisa got in touch with her. She verified that James had died in 1974. Believe it or don't. I don't.

The movie: The Wyrick family moves into a historic home in the woods. It then borrows from the above paragraph pretty heavily, except it adds that her mother and aunt can do it too - you know - so you don't think it's just a troubled little girl who heard something about the place and decided to have some friends even if no one else could see them. The movie also describes things about the 'underground railroad', thus lending to the BOATS crap. Hey, real girl, real state, real slaves. What more could you ask for?

How about a freaking movie that makes sense? This is only horror in that it takes a simple story, makes it really icky and tries to tell you it's true. Long story short (I know, I know) the 'station master' for that particular choo choo station was a nasty booger of a taxidermist who decided that these running slaves were perfect for making life-like (HAH!) mannequins. Lots of them. 

So the 'ghosts' of those mannequins, plus the good and evil ghosts that little Heidi claims to see makes for a convoluted story of betrayal, nastiness and eventually of course the release of those 'spirits' to continue on their journey. Ick. Sorry, just threw up in my mouth a little. That's all there is to this sorry mess of a movie and you're welcome.

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MUTHA, DON'T WANNA GO TO SCHOOL TODAY - I THINK I'D RATHER GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY AKA YOU CAN'T WIN 'EM ALL


Mama (2013) Spanish-Canadian

One small (very small) advantage of being disabled at home is not going to the theater to watch movies. That sounds... ludicrous I know but the last movie I dragged myself to (the hubby really wanted to see it) was such a chore for little enjoyment and I was sick for days afterward. And we didn't even try to see the 3D version - not because of cost, but because I get really bad headaches trying to reconcile the images with my astigmatized eyes. 

The movie was okay, MIB 3. But it was hard to enjoy it (although Breslin's portrayal of the 'K' character was brilliant) because some idiot parent thought it would be perfectly all right to bring his maybe 6 or 7 year old daughter to a PG-13 movie and because it was packed, she sat beside me while her so-called father sat in the row behind her. 

She did NOT think all the nasties and especially Boris The Animal were in the least way amusing - she was scared to death. My time was spent, therefore, trying to defuse the 'scary' for the poor kid by whispering what I hoped would be funny comments to her to remind her that this was total fiction and didn't the dummies on the screen look really silly? My tactics (I've never had children so I was winging this one) were only partially successful - the whimpering wasn't as bad and I even got a smile out of her, but she still was NOT HAPPY. Nice parenting job, dad. Eh, my parents were kind of the same - I remember being taken to movies like Play Misty For Me and then yelled at for not covering my eyes during the bloody part. DUH.

So my little blog here is mostly made up of the cheap or free older movies from the 50's to... whatever happens to come out on the internet. But the internet it getting faster and movies in theaters are staying for shorter and shorter periods before going to DVD so I am starting to be able to see 'new' movies that you either have just seen or not seen yet. This is not necessarily a good thing. When I take apart a movie, it's usually because of factors we come to expect from older (and cheaper) movies - acting, sets, plot (or lack thereof), etc. But with new movies with multi-multi-million budgets and in 3, 4, 50 D (or IMAX) that cost you up to... ummm, I actually have no idea how much those tickets cost. Anywho, you're spending big bucks and getting very little.

But I thought Mama would be a good bet. One, everyone (to me that means people that talk about movies on the internet) seemed to think it was extremely unsettling and spooky, and besides, it's a Guillermo del Toro movie, right? So it has to be terrific - del Toro doesn't do terrible. Remember when we used to think that way (briefly) about M. Night? And if you just said 'Who?' it proves my point anyway. 

Guillermo del Toro brought us such goodies as The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labrynth (both which I will be reviewing hopefully soon), Hellboy (Hey, I liked it!), While She Was Out (Which I thought I was going to hate - who cares what happens to Kim Basinger? But it was good.), The Hobbit, and this one. Sort of. See, I kind of got suspicious when it said that del Toro proclaimed he was the Executive Producer. You know what that tells me? He gave them either his money or his name or both to promote the film. Ummm, yeah.

So once again I've gone on and on and no movie. There's a reason for that. This. Was. Terrible. I kept hearing how scary, how awfully spooky, how creepy, how... inventive. This is what I saw: Yet another movie full of creaks, fast moving shadows, near-miss encounters with the... thing, the typical man vs. woman - one wants the kids, the other doesn't, and toward the end it degraded to the typical freaking ghost story. With moths. Lots of moths. After Sadako, I had seen enough moths (and still don't understand what they're trying to say with them) for a lifetime. But here's the gist of the thing:

A businessman goes postal and kills his coworkers and wife, inexplicably taking his two young daughters out into the woods for... I have no freaking idea. In movie duh style he drives too fast on snowy roads and crashes down an incline. All are alive and he finds an abandoned cabin. He starts a fire to warm them up and then takes out his gun. Wait - he drives clear out to the woods, rescues them from the wreck, takes them to a cabin and warms them up and NOW he's gonna kill them? The DUH is starting early.

The girls are small - the older one has glasses so he takes them off so she can't see that daddy's gonna put a big hole in her. But before he can do anything we get that fast shadow that grabs him and kills him. The girls are subsequently taken care of by... something. Five years later they are found - walking on all fours, the only word they can really say is 'mama' and are adopted by the psycho's identical twin brother Lucas. It takes a bit but the older child, Victoria, starts to come back to reality after being given back her glasses. She can now see and recognizes her uncle. Lilly however is still little more than an animal, refuses to talk or walk and sleeps on the floor under Victoria's bed.

The uncle is granted custody as long as he, his girlfriend and the girls live in a house with equipment with which a Dr. Dreyfuss, who wants to study the girls, can observe them anytime. It's not long before the creaking doors and fast shadows start. When the girlfriend Annabel sees the shadow, she asks Lucas to check - he gets injured and is now in a coma. So Annabel, who has no maternal instincts, has to care for two difficult children who insist they belong to 'mama' and give both Annabel and Dr. Dreyfuss nothing but attitude. 

Meanwhile, the girls great-aunt wants the two girls badly and will stop at nothing to get them. She suspects they are being abused (In the care of a doctor?) and when she doesn't get what she wants, she lets herself into the house to, I dunno, kidnap them? She too is eliminated by 'mama' who we are shown looks alternately like a regular ghost (that's a dumb couple of words right there) and a horrific looking monster (and the kids love her for it).

Annabel asks the doc to find out about this 'mama' and we get ridiculously stupid backstory: In the 1800's wherever the hell they are living used to have a mental asylum (because apparently there's one on every street corner in the world except where I live) with a psycho mom separated from her baby. It is revealed (slowly) that the mother attacked the nuns running the whacko farm, grabbed the baby, and when cornered, went to a cliff over the ocean and threw them both over. 

She made it to the water - the baby got hung up by its blanket on a branch. I guess it died when it hit the side of the cliff because they later recovered a 'body' and put it in a box in a storage room. Uh huh. So 'mama' doesn't know her kid is dead and considers the two girls to be 'hers' now. Oh and we get moths. Lots and lots of moths. 

Not wanting to do a lot of research 'cause I really didn't care - the bottom line is that most of the time when moths are in horror films they represent 'dark' souls - as opposed to butterflies being 'light' souls. Evil and good? Dunno, don't care. They're just everywhere and it's dumb.

So our 'no happy endings' story has a totally predictable conclusion - 'mama' takes the two girls to the same cliff, this time to get all to die like she wanted the first time. Since Victoria has kind of returned to normal, she rejects 'mama' and certain death and comes back to the couple. Lilly however only knows 'mama' and so both plunge off the cliff. So this is a win-lose situation? Duh. Oh and we get more moths. Lots and lots of moths. 

Now how can such a little girl have a dark soul - 'cause one of them lands on Victoria and she knows that a part of Lilly is still with her. Oh goody. Oh but wait, this moth has bright blue wings so it's okay. I guess. Again, duh.

LATHER, RINSE, REPEAT FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER AND...


Final Destination 5 aka 5nal Destination 3D IMAX (2011)

All I have to do is tell you the title of this one and you already know the movie in your head, whether you've actually seen it or not. You get an impressively progressive tragic accident of some type in the beginning, the one kid/twenty something waking from a horrible 'dream' and fighting his way to get out of the situation while dragging the requisite amount of people with him for the film while the others die, they have the funeral, Tony Todd picks up his paycheck by telling them Death won't be cheated, they die one by one in Rube Goldberg style, and at the end you think phew, one or two made it but nope aaaand scene. This is exactly the same but a whole lot more expensive - for you.They filmed this one in BC so it was cheaper - for them. It was released in 3D and IMAX. Oh goody.

I like watching the beginning because the 'accidents' are pretty impressive - watching them in slow motion makes you appreciate the, umm, absurdity of the thing even more. I then fast forward through the middle and then watch the ending with no surprise whatsoever. This tried to have a tiny bit of a twist at the end which was almost - ALMOST creative.

This installment (and so far it's the latest but certainly not the last, I'm sure) follows the formula like it's supposed to: there's a bus full of employees (not much older than the other FD movies so shut up) heading to a company retreat that every company does absolutely never. They cross a bridge over troubled waters (ha) and a construction crew keeps the traffic slow with some repairs. 

Suddenly there's a snap and a twang and a lot of screams and dying. Then of course the cursed one who had the vision wakes up and makes a total bedlam trying to get himself and everyone else off the bus and bridge - we get our handful that make it while everybody else plunges to their deaths. At the funeral, check in hand, Tony Todd tells him Death has a design. Yeah, and a predictable script and Tony Todd on standby.

This one tried to be quasi-original by having the Rube Goldberg setups NOT be the cause of death, just be there for the hell of it. The deaths are... meh. The bent-in-half gymnast was kind of funny (just because I'm twisted that way) but everybody goes one by one in order just like they're supposed to. The remainder are told (again by Tony Todd, he must have gotten overtime) that if they can get someone else's lifespan, they will be spared. Essentially, if they murder someone, they get his/her life. Nice. So two are the 'good guys' so they don't want to - one is desperate and so he has no problem doing it if he can. He can't.

So the two good ones (coincidentally boyfriend and girlfriend) through no fault of their own gain the life of the desperate one (the other didn't die so didn't need it) and they decide to go off to Paris since he is getting an internship there to become a chef...

They get on the plane going to Paris (Is this sounding familiar to you yet? My worksheet was already filled out by now.) they are disturbed when a group of teenagers get in to a fight on the plane and one is carried out with several others (if you don't get it now I give up on you). The boyfriend asks a flight attendant what the ruckus was about and she tells him a boy had a vision that the plane was going to crash...

The rest? Oh come on people! The punchline is that this is a PREQUEL to the other FD movies and so kablooey, he and his girlfriend literally go down in flames...

A fan's wishful thinking...

Stay for the credits 'cause the FD makers give you a little bonus (probably so you won't be so mad at them about this turkey) - they should have called it 'The Face Of FD Death' 'cause that's what it was - a highlight clip show of some of the nasty deaths from all the FD movies. You're welcome.

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