MOVIES THAT ACTUALLY MADE ME CRUMPLE UP MY HORROR WORKSHEET, GET A BLANK PIECE OF PAPER AND START AGAIN

Frailty (2001)

Well I had a lot of fun on the Satellite Of Love last weekend, with the MST3K crew and a lot of really REALLY bad movies. I really have have a lot of catching up to do with this blog. Posting my MST3K quizzes was a whole lot of fun though, even if the only comment I've received so far is from one person telling me that all day Saturday I was calling Mike Nelson 'Dave' (have NO idea where that came from) but if you're brave enough all the posts are still there on my Facebook page at:

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When I first saw this movie I saw 'directed and starring Bill Paxton' and I just about dismissed it. He's not exactly my favorite actor and when they have their own 'projects' the results are rather dismal. But, even as I had my horror movie worksheet (patent pending) filled out, smugly thinking I was done with this one. I then had to almost start over. This is a movie you think is the typical 'religious people are psycho' movie that turns into something else entirely.

We start with a suicide. One brother contacts another, stating 'there's too many' before he shoots himself. Dismal start. The movie moves to a FBI headquarters where Agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe) is arriving for work, wondering what in the world an ambulance is doing outside the building. He must not be that curious, because he goes inside and forgets about it...

He is visited by Fenton Meiks (Matthew McConaughey, again, not a favorite of mine) who tells the agent he knows who the 'God's Hand' serial killer is - it's his brother, Adam. He had taken Adam's body in the ambulance and parked it outside the FBI. He then tells the entire story of the how and the why...

He and Adam lived with their father, a good man who worked hard as a mechanic and made sure his little family stayed together following the death of his wife. One day while at work, he says 'God' came to him and gave him a mission - the world was full of demons and he had to kill them. They looked like people, but that was only a disguise. God gave him a 'list' and from that, the killing was to start.

I had half my worksheet done after that little speech and was thinking 'brain tumor', especially after he had further visions that revealed the sacred 'weapons', a lead pipe, a pair of working gloves, and an ax with 'Otis' on it (which is never explained but the catch phrase of the movie is Only The Innocent Survive so that may be it, I dunno 'cause there are four other catch phrases to this movie). The gloves protect him from the 'evil', the pipe knocks 'em out and the ax... well duh. The younger brother Adam is on board from the start, but Fenton is horrified that his dad is going to start killing people.

Their first 'guest' is a woman. Fenton's father (his name is not given) touches her without the protective glove and 'sees' her sin. He kills her with the ax, assuring his children that God had told him they would not be caught because they were doing His work. Oof. There's a rose garden by their house which becomes the graveyard for the ex-demons. Why no one notices the newly dug graves...

And so it goes. The young one claims he can see the 'sin' too, while Fenton stubbornly insists their father is nutso and won't participate in the murders. When Fenton tells the Sheriff, forcing his father to kill him, he's furious at Fenton because he's never 'killed' before - the Sheriff was NOT a demon and he's racked with guilt over his death.

For his lack of faith, Fenton is locked in a cellar, only being allowed water once a day. After nearly starving to death, he realizes what he has to do - he fakes it. Everything his father and brother 'sees' he 'sees' too - it's the only way to survive. The next 'demon' to be dispatched is given to Fenton to complete. Having no choice, Fenton instead kills his father. Before he can release the 'demon' though, Adam grabs the ax and finishes his father's job. And continues from there up until his suicide.

Agent Doyle, because of all the detail and Fenton's sincerity believes him and goes with him to the rose garden to find the bodies. This is where they made a major plot whoopsie. No FBI agent worth his job is going to go off alone to find the work of a supposed serial killer the agency has been trying to find for years. But if he doesn't the movie falls apart so...

Sure enough, the movie turns on its head and my smug summation goes right out the window. It seems the father DID receive a message from God (according to the movie) and was able to discern people with unforgivable sins, such as murder, child molestation, etc. I wouldn't exactly call those 'demons' but demons certainly had something to do with them acting that way. As soon as they get to the rose garden, it turns out that 'Fenton' is really Adam - and that his brother had been on God's 'list' but his father couldn't bring himself to kill him. Fenton then had become a real serial killer (his belief in God had been totally destroyed) because he just hated everybody.

But just when you figure you've got it straight, they add another twist: The reason Adam had gone to Agent Doyle is that Doyle was on the 'list' for killing his mother - Doyle joins the others in the rose garden.

The rest of the FBI figure that Doyle was killed by the 'God's Hand' serial killer and wrap things up. And those who had met Adam, those who had taped him on the security cameras, cannot recognize him and the tapes blur his face - since they didn't ask his name, they're pretty much done. The last we see of Adam is that he is currently the local Sheriff, and lives with his wife and unborn child.

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FOUR HORRIBLE MOVIES THAT FEATURE URBAN LEGENDS THAT WERE SO RADICALLY CHANGED THEY SHOULD HAVE JUST COME UP WITH ORIGINAL ONES

The Midnight Horror Collection

I've said it before, but if you want to peruse horror films on the cheap and you're running out of options on the internet streaming services, Amazon has collections of movies that don't cost very much. Now of course it being the holiday season, Amazon has already been 'spanked' (and well they should) because at this time of year they decided to change the amount you need to spend in order to get free shipping from $25 to $35. 

Ten dollars may not seem much of a difference, but if you're just looking for cheap movies it might change your mind on who to purchase movies from. If you can get the shipping cheap enough, you might check out eBay - I've gotten movies there for a buck and low shipping rates - depends on what you're looking for.

So this small collection was supposed to be about Urban Legends. If I wanted really REALLY stupid Urban Legends, I'd read my Facebook page. By the way (Shameless plug ahead!) if you use Facebook at all, please check out my horror page at  https://www.facebook.com/dumbandboringmovies  and give it a 'like' pretty pretty please? You'll find updates whenever I put up new movies, movie trivia, quizzes, and assorted horror goodies. Okay, back to business.

I hate YOU and YOU and YOU and YOU and YOU!

The Ridge (2006): Our first horrible offering is supposed to be about an UL about 'The Ridge Runner'. Sorry, but every time they said it in the movie I yelled 'Beep beep!' - which is why my husband doesn't like to watch movies with me. The five people in their 20's were so unlikable, that I not only wished them dead fast, but hoped they were in a lot of pain when they died. They yelled and bitched at each other so horribly you can't help but think, 'Why are you even here? Did you CHOOSE to spend a weekend with people you obviously hate?'

If this were even close, this is where the story would end.

So one tells the others the UL story of 'The Ridge Runner' who supposedly killed a bunch of people years ago. The real story is very, very long but I'll condense it for you: In North Central Idaho is the Clearwater National Forest. The Ridgerunner's true name was William Clyde Morland or Moreland who was born October 1, 1900. When he was 21 he spent time in jail for burglary and larceny in different states, different names. He used about four different names by this time. He was a wanderer and homeless. He wound up in Idaho and people reported thefts, vandalism - he apparently just took whatever he wanted. He was becoming a 'mountain man' in that it took very little provisions in the wilderness for him to survive. His MO when he robbed places was the same - he usually trashed the place.

But he gained sympathy from those living in the vicinity - he was just a little guy trying to survive with nothing. They didn't like that he was filthy and always trashed places he stole from, but was he a threat? Nah. During the winter of 1957 Moreland stole more stuff but hurt/killed no one. He was examined by several doctors who reported that Moreland was suffering from malnutrition and was insane and dangerous. He was committed to the mental hospital. He escaped in 1959 but was quickly re-captured. The last anyone saw him was 1961. Wow. Scary (insert heavy sarcasm here).

So the only part the movie got right was that he trashes houses he robs. That's what they find when they arrive. After that, pure pffffft. They die one by one by a big, voiceless guy in black sweats and a hoody who dispatches them verrrrrrry slowly in the dark. The only half-way interesting factoid was the 'Ridge Runner' was played by a film editor. This was his only acting credit and he probably wants to keep it that way. Oh, and for some reason the blonde guy not only survives but kills TRR and then cries. HE CRIES. Wussy.

Sasquoit's (and Mr. Loomis') pride and joy... 

Mr. Halloween (2007): I had absolutely no expectations for this movie - hey, any film slapped together for $6,000 is gonna be... um... not... good. This is supposed to be a small town with one blinking traffic light. The UL here is 'Hit the red, he will come and you'll be dead.' Was this a real UL? Not really. This was a town project done out of love. See, this very budget conscious film actually featured a real man, Bill Loomis, who in Saquoit DOES have a horror house on Halloween. No, he is not an re-animated corpse. No he does not use the real body parts of kids and teenagers as his 'props'. He is a man nice enough to lend his house (and himself) for this movie to make sort of an UL.

This is part of an actual news story on it: A Sauquoit house has been spooking visitors on Halloween night for 27 years - daring visitors to enter at their own risk and experience zombies, witches, skeletons and more. The tradition began many years ago when Bill Loomis was simply decorating his front porch. Over time, that decorating expanded and began to turn his own house into a haunted house.

Now, he has cleaned out his barn to host a complete haunted house - admission is free. Loomis' love of Halloween and his haunted house brought him and friends to turn it into a movie called Mr. Halloween. "It started out, we made a small movie for my Halloween party, and then the next year make a sequel, and then decided to make a full-length movie," Loomis said.

To read the whole article:

http://www.wktv.com/community/halloween/news/Haunted-house-in-Sauquoit-spooking-visitors-for-more-than-27-years-132823413.html

Mr. Loomis preparing some 'live' entertainment (in the movie)...

The fact that not only was this a first-time project, but that the town got together for it brought this way up on the opinion scale. This movie is as good - or as bad - as many others I've seen with a lot more money and a lot less heart. In the movie any kid (it's gotta be a kid or teenager) who breaks the only traffic light in town will die... but apparently only on Halloween. At the same time, rumors abound that Mr. Loomis (he's playing himself, natch) uses real body parts for his props. So a group of kids set out to do the usual Scooby gang stunt of finding out because... umm... what else is there to do in a small town?

Mr. Loomis receives his 'don't be dead' treatment...

Loomis is a reanimated corpse who, when not arranging his little 'house' sits in a chair with strange tubes running in and out of him and generators chugging away, being cared for by the Sheriff. Oookay. Of course, the horror house IS real and the kids get killed one by one for finding out and being kids. And yes, the Sheriff is in on it, taking care of Loomis' reanimated body.

Low, low budget means any special effects (read blood and guts) are gonna be meh, but for the money they did pretty good. Soundtrack sucked, story was pretty stupid - they stretched it out where one boy was imprisoned a WHOLE YEAR just to die when trying to escape the next year with a new prisoner.

And Loomis is a corpse with clear... stuff in him, but when finally splatted by another Scooby gang, he bleeds all over the place. Whoops. Excellent effort for amateurs, way way WAY too long at 112 minutes.


Bloody Mary (2006): Now THIS one I knew but what this movie does to it makes it just about unrecognizable. Besides being just a bad movie, it takes the icky sticky tale of Bloody Mary (which I was going to shorten to BM for this review but I kept snickering) and twists it into some sort of paranormal/psycho thing that doesn't make any sense and doesn't explain itself.

It also features a small role by Cory Monteith who plays a backstabbing boyfriend who likes to paint in the nude. I had a hundred jokes about this but given his untimely death I'll pass. Watching him die onscreen was also pretty unsettling.

So we know what Bloody Mary is. It has its own wiki page for crying out loud. Again, for the long explanation on where it probably started from, the link is: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Mary_(folklore)



The wiki version of this movie is: The film begins with a group of nurses at a psychiatric hospital daring a fellow nurse, Nicole, to go into the hospital's basement for a game of Bloody Mary. Playing what the others call "The Mirror Game", she releases the vengeful spirit and is snatched away. When Nicole is reported missing, her writer/reporter sister Natalie decides to investigate on her own.

As the film progresses, more people are killed by the spirit of Bloody Mary (Richard Valentine) in gruesome ways while Natalie uncovers clues about the truth behind her sister's disappearance and Mary herself. Near the end, almost all of the main characters are dead except for Natalie, who discovers that Bloody Mary is actually her mother.

Okay stop stop STOP! While I appreciate that they tried to be brief with a bad movie (and snicker that Bloody Mary was a guy) this is really - not it. Mix in with the above some weird stuff about Mary being some kind of spirit you must 'believe in' to, I dunno, not get killed (though many do anyway). Oh and you have to be totally naked in front of the mirror 'cause... umm... 'cause then guys have a reason to watch it.

Also, those that 'serve' her get this disgusting looking skin condition that's never explained and nowhere did I see (and I did pay attention people) that Mary was supposed to be Natalie's mom. That makes absolutely no sense. That would mean Mary was Nicole's mom and so she killed her own daughter but spared the other one? Pffft.

Also the cop helping her is attacked by a doc in gloves and so shoots him. Umm, gun vs. gloves? Is that even... you know what, never mind. There are a hundred Bloody Mary movies or shows out there (even if they call her something else) so... yeah.


Wages Of Sin (2006): We get it, WE GET IT. If you're religious in a horror movie you are also a lunatic, a liar, a murderer, a psychopath and the main plot. Duh. And since the movie has no original thought in it, why should they name it something interesting? Just getting the IMDb (I always check my facts, 'kay?) I found five movies with that name in the first five seconds. Duh again.

This movie had horrible cinematography and the soundtrack wasn't much better. The way they held the camera on things they wanted to make sure we noticed was like getting swatted on the nose with a newspaper. Duh to the third power.

The story isn't any better: Sue, an adopted child, learns that her biological family is all dead and that she has inherited a house. Now it's at this point you need to say 'Sell that sucker - why do you have to go there?' To make a movie. A baaaad movie.

After a store scene where the camera practically knocked a guy in the face so you'd notice that he was walleyed (nice, make fun of a guy's appearance), Sue, her boyfriend and two other victims get to the house which is... not worth the trip. But she wants to 'learn about her past'. Why? There's a reason she was taken and adopted out, leave it alone why don't you.

Nope. The movie slows almost to a stop as we get into soap opera territory. Not kidding. If you've ever watched soap operas (I must admit for a time years ago I was so hooked that when we moved I jumped up and down until the TV was working so I wouldn't miss a day.) you know how the camera work goes: The guy talks, the camera is almost up his nose. The girl talks, cut away to another camera that also is almost up her nose. And on it goes.

Despite the roaring fire and the heat in the house, their breath is clearly visible through most of the movie. So they suffered from cold while making this? Serves 'em right.

The fun (I'm being sarcastic) really steps up a notch when the Ouija board comes out. That's always good for a laugh and a cheap plot device to show how her friends become 'possessed' by... I don't know. The psycho preacher?

The punchline is her father was a psycho preacher (this is not really an UL, there are a billion stories like this), she was a twin, and her mother had the two of them out of wedlock (Gasp!). So apparently along with being a psycho his dingly-dangly didn't work so good? They don't explain this and you don't really care.

The mother and her twin are murdered for their 'sin' and somehow Sue got out, not remembering anything and being adopted out. Uh huh.

Oh and movie-making guys? If you make a horror film and show an abandoned house that somehow still has a working freezer full to the top with meat, we're gonna guess in the first five seconds that it's human. Having the college kids eat it though was fun, thank you.

Oh and the lack of continuity was fun too, thanks. The remaining living kids peel off in their car in pitch dark, only to wind up at the house - in daylight. Frustrated they take off again - in pitch dark and wind up at the house... say it with me... SAY IT... in daylight.

At the end she is the only one out and somehow ends up at a hospital nine months preggers and her doc is... now I really don't have to tell you, do I?

If this WAS an urban legend of some kind and I'm missing the point somehow, let me know - I'll gladly print it. But for now, to me it was just a blanket treatment of every other psycho preacher story that's repeated a thousand times in other horror movies and books.

And fortunately that's all folks and more of my horror worksheets (patent pending) are now in the recycle bin, kind of like this DVD should be...

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BLOODBATH: A TWELVE MOVIE COLLECTION OF HORROR - SO THEY SAY. GET YOUR SEATBELTS ON KIDDIES, THIS IS GOING TO BE A VERY BUMPY RIDE PART EIGHT

Hallowed (2005)

Well last time we had not-so-beautiful fallen angels/cannibals/vampires and this time it's a religious idiot killing in the name of God. Hmm, there's been millions of those, what makes this idiot special? Ohhh, he witnessed his mom get killed when he was little. Hell, if every kid with a traumatic past went nuts and rode their bikes around killing people... my neighbors should lock their doors. <small chuckle>

So we have a kid turned grown idiot named Gabriel who. delivers. his. lines. like. there's. a. period. at. the. end. of. each. word. I haven't seen such a stiff since... uh, let's drop that. 

He also makes hand gestures like you see in those commercials of politicians looking like puppets explaining complex algebra to children. What does that mean? I dunno, it's early, leave me alone. And could his lines get any worse? "Cassie, God is calling you, it's time for you to pick up the receiver." Yikes!

Looked for pictures and all I found was this...

This is as generic a slasher movie as it gets. There's really not any slashing either. We get garden shears (oof), garden thingamajigger (Umm, ouch?)... hmm I'm detecting a pattern here. Maybe he's weeding out the sinners. 

This is, uh, one of them - I think...

Sorry about that, like I said, it's early. Let's see, interesting stuff, interesting stuff, keep the readers happy, don't type while you're thinki--- ahem.

Dum dum dum, got my bible and my garden tools dum dum dum...

This movie, very VERY low budget ($300,00) and in their one and only attempt at being clever, in the scene where Gabriel rides his bikes past the houses, look at the houses - umm, no, that would mean you'd have to watch the movie and believe me it ain't worth it. 

He rides past this one - is that one of them? I can't tell...

BUT the houses he rides past are those used in Halloween - the Doyle house, the Meyers house and the Strode house. How do I know? Duh, errr, pbbbt. I looked on the IMDb 'cause where this movie is concerned I got nothing. I fold.

I believe this one is a chiropractor's office now...

The backstory is embedded so deep into the story (read they did a terrible job at providing any) that although the movie description says he went nuts and was in an institution 'til they released him 20 years later, you'd never know it. And why he targets young pretty things to slash (sorry, to garden tool to death) is anybody's guess. 

This guy's main job was to see how many times
he could fit 'homes' and 'homie' in one sentence...

His main target who is supposed to be 16-18 and apparently has no parents (Too cheap to buy two more actors?) is a blonde with almost as wooden a delivery as his. Her boyfriend (who actually LOOKS like a teenager, unlike the others in the movie) tries to save her but nope, not gonna happen.

Only in a movie could that dork have a hot
girlfriend - no wonder they're sitting in the dark...

And they had the gall to set this up for a sequel as Gabriel is loose and the killings are sure to begin again. Lets hope they wait 20 more years, 'kay? Oh and to that ONE reviewer on the IMDb who went on and on about how wonderful this movie was, how scary, how neat the killer was - your dad Rocky Costanzo called and said stop faking reviews for his movies, it's just embarrassing.

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MOVIES THAT GET BRIEF REVIEWS 'CAUSE, WELL, NOTHING FREAKING HAPPENED

Darkroom aka Dark House (2013)

Do you know how many books, movies, plays, poems have the above title? Way too freaking many, that's how. And I'm talking about BOTH titles. But I guess it really doesn't matter what they called this piece of garbage 'cause it suuuuuuuucked.

In a 'Gee I feel so sorry for you... not' kind of story, we have Michelle (Kaylee DeFer). She's mean and she's mad - especially when she's been drinking. Out with three of her college buddies, her consumption and her temper get all of them kicked out of a bar. She drives them home - well tries to. Somehow in movie-duh style they crash, the car flips over, she's the only one who can crawl out and, movie duh again, the car explodes. So she's responsible for three deaths. She goes to jail. Nah, just kidding, this is a movie. She goes to rehab. After discussing her 'feelings' and faking every bit of it (she was as emotional as a postage stamp) she wants out. She can if she finds a job.

But oh joy she finds one - it starts as an assistant job at this castle that no one owns anywhere ever unless you're bloody royalty (and this is supposed to be New York) but their model for their photo shoot doesn't show up so they fix up Michelle to take her place. Not. She soon finds that the camera equipment is inoperative and is captured and put in a room in the dungeon. Or basement. Whatever. We hear the unsurprising and boring as hell backstory of a religious nutjob of a mother twisting her three children into thinking they have to single-handedly torture the sin out of bad girls. Oh, and kill them afterward.


Aaaaaaand that's about it. The rest of the movie is Ho! Ha ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!

Umm, sorry about that, I watched a lot of cartoons as a kid. You know what? I'm not sorry. The makers of THIS MOVIE should be sorry 'cause I lost minutes of my life I could have used watching those cartoons.


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MOVIES YOU WATCH (AGAIN) BECAUSE YOU'RE LOOKING FORWARD TO THE SEQUEL - GO SOSKA SISTERS!




See No Evil (2006)

If you think this is about the classic 1971 horror film with Mia Farrow, you're reading the wrong blog. That's one of the reasons why I wish these guys would come up with something original - something without 'Paranormal', 'The Haunting Of', 'Of The Dead', 'Conjured' or 'Conjuring', or 'Massacre'. The title to this first outing of the WWE Films company went through several changes and each just made it worse. First it was Eye Scream Man - yeah that's stupid but no one else has used it. Except a villain in a Marvel comic book. Oops, Eye Scream Productions is what the WWE called their company for this movie. Sorry - not.

The next working titles were The Goodnight Man which I thought was the best one but... again it was changed, this time to Goodnight. Still... passable. But since this is a teenager slasher film I guess they went for the lowest common denominator and settled on See No Evil.


This is also professional wrestler Kane's first gig. Umm, as an actor - in the WWE circuit he (Glenn Jacobs) is well known. And before you pass off this seven foot tall, three hundred and change pounds wrestler as just some dumb guy they used for this movie, Jacobs earned a degree in English literature at Northeast Missouri State University where he played both basketball and football. Don't judge him by looks, people, no matter how much he growls.

Anywho, why would I care or even watch this get-them-together-and-kill-them-one-by-one slasher film that follows my horror worksheet (patent pending) to the letter? Well, the first couple times I watched it (you heard me) was because, honestly, I forgot a lot of what it was about. I remember the kids are snotty law breakers, made to work to clean an old hotel being turned into a museum to take time off of their sentences.


I remembered one chick not being killed right away because of her religious tattoos (later, later children) and I remember a HUGE guy dragging these people all over like they were made of paper. That's about it. But the Soska sisters, the Canadian twins and makers of the movies Dead Hooker In A Trunk and American Mary, heard that the WWE were interested in making a sequel and as they loved this film they batted their eyes and bounced up and down... Sorry - they did no such thing. Their thoughts: 



Jennifer Soska: "There are so many beautiful subgenres in the horror genre. We see this not as a slasher but one of those films like a Halloween or A Nightmare on Elm Street where you have this character, Jacob Goodnight, who by every right should be a horror icon, and we’re really going to develop that in this one. I think in the first one there was a bit of missed opportunity to not brand this character to bring it to that level where people can dress up as him for Halloween and have him on a T-shirt and talk about him, so that’s a huge thing that we’re going to be undertaking in this one."

Sylvia Soska: "It’s so funny because after we finished American Mary, you would not believe the meetings that we had with various different studios and various different scripts and they wanted American Mary again. They wanted a medical horror starring Katharine Isabelle in sexy surgeon outfits where she’s doing underground surgery. We had done that. No matter what happened they were like, “Oh, just do it again, do it again.” It was so funny because when we were first selling American Mary nobody wanted it and now everybody’s like oh, we’ll do that again.

One thing I didn't find American Mary has that’s really exciting about the See No Evil project is: scary. I've always wanted to make a film with Jen that is so scary and upsetting, it just keeps you at the edge of your seat while you’re watching it. We’re big Hitchcock fans and he always says it’s the lead up, not the payoff, that really gets under your skin as an audience member. And remember, See No Evil 1 had a lot of payoff, but the lead up, the seduction, wasn't there."

Hmmm? The movie? Well we start with two policeman looking through an abandoned house. They find a woman held captive with her eyes torn out. One policeman is killed, the other loses his arm but still manages to shoot the guy in the head - saving his own life. They find seven bodies with no eyes and I'm starting to think is this an urban telling of Jeepers Creepers (2001)? Fortunately, not even close.

So skip ahead skip ahead and we've got some juvies looking to take time off their sentences. They're in for petty crimes - we're not talking murderers, we're talking lighter crimes idiots. What was a little different (very little) is that instead of the required five or six, we've got eight young 'uns to kill off. Oh goody.

And die they do - they might have lived if they had behaved and stayed where they're supposed to (says the old woman) but hey this is about teen rebellion and them having been caught and in jail shows they don't have a whole lot of smarts anyway. The same police officer who lost his arm and a female officer are 'supervising' this little project that happens in no city anywhere on earth. And they start to die.

You don't see Jacob Goodnight (Kane) except briefly at the start, but soon his huge presence is known (he does not speak, I don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing) as kids disappear, being carried off for those eyeballs he's so fond of. Why? We have to wait quite a while for some backstory to explain the motive behind his bizarre collection.

So sneak sneak, die die, out come the eyeballs, plunk they go in the jars of... something. Lather, rinse, repeat. That's why I saw it a couple of times - the teenagers are pretty unremarkable so except for this huge mountain of a man there's not much to see. Finally we're down to a couple of kids (the two supervisors biting it pretty early in the movie) and the kids discover that the sweet old lady who hired them is actually Jacob's mother (and if you didn't know that the second she showed up I've taught you NOTHING) who tortured him as a kid, telling him his natural urges toward females was sinful and dirty (hey lady you had a kid so...) and that the eyes were the 'window to the soul' so she started the gouging first, plus keeping him in a cage - all in the name of religion. Isn't that special?

Which is why the one girl who has some large religious tattoos is put in a cage instead of being killed outright. But his mother doesn't like that - she wants her dead NOW. The murder and mayhem is varied and almost interesting - anywhere from being 'hooked' to death, to being devoured by wild dogs. And Kane, even though he doesn't say a word, has some really impressive range of looks from mad, to really mad, to sadly mad, to... oh sorry Kane fans. 

Ultimately, as I guess they weren't expecting a sequel, Goodnight is shoved out of a window and even though he holds on to the windowsill he drops when a pipe is impaled into his eye, making a real good hole. Just in case though, they have him fall through a glass atrium and when he hits the ground we get an inside view of his body so we can see his rib break and pierce his heart, killing him. The last scene is of one of the wild dogs, pissing in his eye socket. Brutal.

I'm not dissing this movie at all - hey, I used to watch wrestling all the time, I know how it works - these guys are like ultimate heroes to some. So I will say, truthfully, that this seven foot dude (who I already mentioned is smart) did a great job as the tortured and torturer.

So I can understand and I'm actually looking forward to seeing (small pun) what the Soska sisters have come up with (the sequel is set for 2014) - how Goodnight is resurrected and who his next set of victims (I'm assuming that will include the Soska sisters since they like to act in their own movies) will be. It will still be yet another teenage slasher flick but since it will be a Soska sisters slasher flick that's not such a bad thing, right?

MOVIES THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN GREAT BUT GET MUCKED UP

Shelter aka 6 Souls (2010)

There are movies I'll watch no matter how bleah they look just because of who's in them. The opposite also is true. I'm not saying anything bad about Julianne Moore, it's just that I see her and I just think... well... bleah. And so even though the premise of this movie was almost interesting I really didn't want to give it a shot. But I have seen Jonathan Rhys Meyers in a couple of things and liked it so... It was good - almost. And the 'almost' part wasn't even her fault.

Our basic premise is a psychiatrist who debunks those claiming multiple personalities or other mental disorders in order to escape the scales of justice. In short, she calls BS on killers who 'hear voices' or think they were other people when they killed. Her latest 'interview' ended in her determining the convicted murderer to be sane and so he is executed. So far this is my kind of movie.

On her off-time she spends time with her daughter who is mostly looked after by her brother after the brutal murder of her husband. Her father, also a psychiatrist who is more open to the prospect of split personalities or 'borderline personalities' as they're now popularly referred to kind of tricks her into interviewing a new patient that he doesn't really tell her much about. And that's the problem with this movie. 

Those who should know better don't, those who don't think they do, and a whole lot of DUH gets pushed into this movie to make it into some kind of paranormal mess instead of a psychological thriller. The mess is really REALLY stupid - if they'd stuck to the 'are they nuts or faking it' type of premise it might have been interesting. But instead Julianne Moore is once again stuck in a vehicle where she's the perpetual victim always three steps behind the plot and a loser at every turn.

The patient, who refers to himself as David Bernburg, is a paraplegic. After a short interview with him while her father watches in a two-way mirror (Do people think patients are fooled by those things?) he seems to be... average. Played very well by Jonathan Rhys Meyers, he is the only halfway decent part of this movie but unfortunately you can be the best actor in the world but if the script is a total duh...

After she interviews him she argues with her father that he's nothing special after which her father 'calls' the patient on a phone set on the table (Uh, what?). David answers and her father asks for 'Adam'. David arches his head back with a sickening crunch and when he straightens his head, he answers as Adam - who is colorblind (David wasn't) AND he can walk. 

With a told-you-so attitude her father gives her all the patient's files to see if she can find out the 'secret'. DUH. But at this point the movie still wants you to ponder whether it's mental illness or not, instead of possession 'cause that would be just stupid, right? Right? Sorry, but it was at that point that I fully expected his head to spin around - or spew lots of pea soup.

But since this movie is a dragging 112 minutes long we get a lot of useless sleuthing action where Cara (Julianne Moore) tries to show she is really, really smart. YAWN. No no, she IS smart. YAWN. But they try to puzzle you by showing that others who have had contact with this guy are getting weird boils all over their back - leading up to coughing up dirt and, duh, death. GET A CLUE CARA OK? 

This goes on and on as she eventually finds that David has even more personalities than I have patience for. Why? 'Cause as Cara finds out, his different personalities are from people who are dead - some when he was a kid. And he's getting more of them. Oh, great doctoring skills guys. You're treating him and he's gone from two to six in (checks watch) ah geez this movie has over an hour to go? <sigh>

Oh and conveniently, one of them is now her late husband. Great.

Okay I'm going to give you guys the luxury I didn't have and skip ahead... the personalities are dead 'cause he killed them. Wait you say, some died when he was a kid. Nope. David himself is dead. He is being used as one of the personalities by...

Here's the paranormal garbage that mucked this story up. Conveniently she finds an old codger whose father filmed everything he saw. YAWN. Sorry. This was at the beginning of the 19th century I guess since there are both doctors and moving pictures. And religious nuts. Oh wait, they've been around a lot longer...

Soooo... in this backward community there is a Bible thumper who thinks he's a direct line to God and he (since none of these guys do anything with the Bible except shake it at people) tells them that to inoculate their children against common diseases is an affront to God and a lack of faith (wait, that sounds like a religion I've heard of.... uh, never mind). So his followers don't and the children die like... well, there's not that many of them yet so they die by the, uh, tens?

But this psycho's own children are perfectly healthy. 'Hmm', say the stupid followers, how come? Somehow they find out that when he's not hitting his Bible, their fearless leader is taking his kids to doctors and geez, they're gonna live for a long time... whoops, no they're not, 'cause the outraged people kill them. Sorry. 

As for the jerk who didn't practice what he preached - they drug him to the typical mountain healer woman (I say typical 'cause isn't there always some strange witchy woman living on a mountain who's a healer?) who sucks out his 'soul' and puts it in a jar, then stuffs his mouth with dirt so it can't go back in. Ooookay. That doesn't explain the boils on the back of the afflicted but they DO throw up dirt before dying... I guess.

Cara gets a frantic phone call - they've finally figured out that David is not David - he's actually the Bible thumper who somehow got out of his jar (Hey I get it - he's a genie!) and has been sucking the life out of people to... I dunno... why would he do that exactly? I mean yeah first he's got to get a body but after that... and isn't it awful convenient that one of the people he murdered just happened to be her husband? Out of billions of possible choices?

All I know is this movie is beginning to suck the life out of me. So let's end this, shall we? Cara's father dies, her brother dies, and she catches David/not David who is actually Adam the duh preacher sucking the life out of her daughter. So she does the only logical thing (sarcasm heavy at this point) - she kills Adam as he becomes her daughter. The end.

Whoops, not quite... all of a sudden the sucked out daughter springs back to life and a happy reunion is had by all... uh, by two. Until her daughter starts humming one of the 'soul's' music pieces that he wrote I guess showing that she is now Legion (dum dum DUM!!! Or DUMB!!!). The end.

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