EQUAL OPPORTUNITY DUH REGARDLESS OF RACE, COLOR OR NATIONALITY


Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014)

A major bed malfunction (see next entry) means I haven't had time to get my stuff together enough to get it up here despite having great dictating software now. I don't mind editing it for misspellings and punctuation either - it kind of soothes the Grammar Nazi in me.

I have a duel for worst movie seen this year so far between two very duh movies coming up that I will be reviewing with Miss Mayhem (her knees are shaking but she wants to try, so be nice), but I was being lazy yesterday (4/5) afternoon, so I picked this one out of all the bad movies I have a list of because I figured I could just watch it and not even bother to review it.

When this movie came out, the previews stated that this was a Paranormal Activity movie for Hispanics. I thought that was a pretty racist statement. Nevertheless, I decided to give it a look. You know what? We got ripped off. No, seriously, we all get the short end of the stick on this one. I've sat through PA 1 through 1,000 and they were so incredibly boring with their endless camera pan views through rooms of houses, just to have a brief flurry of activity within the last 10 minutes.

This particular movie not only had a story, it had action, interesting ideas, and a lot better special effects. What the hell? Did these people just make a halfway decent movie, get frustrated because they couldn't find a market for it, and so lumped in with all the other Paranormal Activity movies just to get an audience?

To add insult to injury, they do not consider this movie to be part of the Paranormal Activity series. They call this film a spin-off of the Paranormal Activity movies. What a crock! This used some of the same elements as the other PA movies, such as the basic premise of a coven gathering children, particularly firstborn sons, even though none of the movies have really explained what the hell they are collecting them for, and what the hell they're doing with them.

So. We start with a high school graduation in 2012. We see the class valedictorian Oscar give a speech, and we see a boy named Jesse being congratulated by his family on his graduation day. As it is a prerequisite for any of these handheld camera movies, Jesse is given a video camera for his graduation present.

Jesse, as is a tradition with many cultures, lives in a multi-generation household. His mother died giving birth to him, so he lives in an apartment with his father and his grandmother. Directly below him lives a strange woman named Anna. The whole neighborhood makes fun of her because she is so strange, having visitors at all hours, and keeping her windows covered in newspapers. Through the vent system. Jesse can hear moans, screams, and other things going on which he assumes to be something of a sexual nature.

One day he notices valedictorian Oscar visit Anna. Shortly after, Anna is found murdered and the police have no idea who did it. Pretty much the whole neighborhood saw Oscar leave her apartment and so know that he is most likely the culprit, yet not one of them is willing to speak to the police. Curious because I guess he has nothing better to do, Jesse breaks into Anna's apartment to take a look around. 

Together with his friend Hector, they look around her apartment and discover very strange items. Among those items are things obviously used in black magic rituals, as well as pictures of Jessie himself, one current, one as a child, and even a picture of his mother when she was pregnant with him. Understandably, this freaks them out. But they still keep looking. They open up a closet and find a ton of videotapes. Now if you have watched any of the PA movies, you're probably groaning about now because you know exactly what's going to happen.

In previous movies, in case you haven't wasted your time watching these, you know that on these tapes are pieces of the previous movies because this is just one big puzzle, or at least the filmmakers want you to think so. But fortunately, that is let alone. They find a journal. It seems to be filled with weird and mystical things, so they steal it because the duh stuff cannot happen until they start messing around with the supernatural.

Jesse has a girlfriend who helps him and Hector understand some of what is in the spell book. And of course, then they decide to mess around with it. His girlfriend spray paints the mirror black for some reason – she claims it's because it creates a portal from one world to the next – and the three of them sit around this mirror, chant some weird shit, but nothing happens.

If I went through this movie blow-by-blow would be way too long. So let me try to sum things up as they happen. Jesse finds a bite on his arm for no good reason. He finds Oscar hiding in Anna's apartment - there's a convenient trap door that Oscar pops up and comes out. By now his eyes are two black marks (very easy CGI work, not very impressive), and he grabs Jesse telling him that both are marked and Jesse must kill himself before he hurts someone. Oscar runs off, Jesse chases him, Oscar disappears. As Jesse tries to get help, Oscar apparently has jumped off of the roof of a church onto a car and is now dead.

Jesse suddenly gets weird. Actually, since he's a teenage boy, that's kind of hard to tell. Throughout the movie, unfortunately, there are some things that are very stereotypical and not very enlightened. One of those things is, that in Spanish neighborhoods, it is very dangerous to walk about in because of all the street gangs. I don't think they're any more dangerous than any other neighborhood. Jesse meets up with one of those gangs while with Hector. They want his backpack for whatever reason. Why they don't go after the camera – well, how else are they gonna shoot the rest of the movie?

When two of the tough guys attack Jesse, pummeling him while he's on the ground, all of a sudden one flies into a vending machine that sitting out in the middle of nowhere for some reason, and the other practically goes a block as he flies through the air. Hector asks Jesse what he did and Jesse says he barely touched them. This is the beginning of the 'gee isn't possession fun' part where they show that messing with the supernatural is harmless, and can be beneficial. I'm being sarcastic of course.

At least they didn't have one of those stupid Ouija board scenes where they play with it and then tell each other to stop playing with it after they told each other they have to play with it. No, for this one we get a Simon Says game. When they ask it questions, it will flash green for yes, and red for no. I am not kidding. Jesse continues to show supernatural abilities such as being able to do the 'Smooth Criminal' move better than Michael Jackson and his wires, and blowing up air mattresses with one breath.

As I said, this movie is dissed by it's being referred to as a spin-off rather than as part of the series. Especially since they incorporate this movie into the others. In one scene, Jesse suddenly runs into the black-eyed versions of Katie and Kristi, who of course were abducted in a previous PA movie. Suddenly Jesse sees something extremely scary, but before he can get away it attacks him, knocks him down, and completely possesses them.

At this point, Jesse is becoming violent and mean, because of course I guess one goes with the other, and Oscar tries to find help by contacting a woman named Ali. For some reason, she's the big time expert on demons. And this is getting a lot longer than I planned. So skip ahead, skip ahead - despite Oscar trying to help Jesse, Jesse is kidnapped anyway, by this supposed coven that's been the theme running through all of the PA movies. 

Here they called them 'The Midwives'. Why? I have no freaking idea. The two end up at the house seen in the last PA movie when the grandmother of two girls (already seen earlier) and a boy held her supposed coven meetings. The house is now empty, but just in case, Hector gets help from two more friends. Although they bring a 9mm gun plus a semi-automatic shotgun, they are no match for the women who suddenly come at them in droves.

Despite killing several of them, the coven gets the better of them, and it comes down to Hector all by himself. Jesse, now fully possessed, comes after his former best friend. Hector finds himself in a closet and sees markings of the covens triangular symbol that we have seen through all of these PA movies. Jesse manages to smash his way with his fist into the door and Hector runs. Running away through a doorway, Hector now finds himself in a completely different house. 

This is the house of the two little girls that he is already seen, whose parents have apparently also been taken by demons. Although when we saw the movie they were appeared to have been murdered. I'm getting a bit fuzzy on that. Nevertheless, for whatever reason, as the father tries to attack Hector, the mother kills the father and Hector gets away for some unknown reason. And Jesse is still chasing him. 

The ending is a big letdown. Now we knew from the beginning that Hector was not going to survive so this is not a surprise. However, the ending occurs off camera, which is a bit of a cheat because now we only see this freaking handheld camera shaking everywhere, lots of static interference, Hector screaming, Jesse roaring, and then finally the camera just falls to the ground and everything is quiet. Our last scene is one of the little girls leaning over the camera and pushing the stop button.

Now the reason I decided to do a review of this movie, despite hating the PA series with a passion, was because it had a whole lot more action, and a lot better special effects than all of the PA movies put together. That's what I mean when I said that we got the short end of the stick. 

One particular scene that I was very impressed with, although it did have technical problems, was when Hector, Jesse's grandmother, and his girlfriend tried to exorcise Jesse, but failed. The apartment shakes as if there is an earthquake, the lights go out, and by the time Hector can find the infamous night vision button, we're in total darkness. Hector flashes the camera back and forth, which isn't very exciting, but when he flashes back to the living room, still in night mode, we see the corner of the living room start to suck in on itself, à la Poltergeist. That was pretty cool. 

That particular effect was made even better when all of a sudden the lights come back on, and there is Jesse floating in the air shooting towards them, and destroying the living room by throwing everything around him and then disappearing.

My only problem with this particular effect, although it was the best effect of the movie, was that the lights came back on, but the camera was still able to catch Jesse and the destruction of the living room. The camera was in night vision mode. When the lights came back on, there should have been no picture on that camera at all, just white. But that was a small thing. I say again that this was the best PA movie made thus far, and that I really feel that this should be considered as part of the series and not just dismissed as a spin-off.

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LATHER, RINSE, REPEAT... OH CRAP THAT'S NOT SHAMPOO - IT'S A HAND HELD CAMERA FOOTAGE MOVIE ABOUT STUPID PEOPLE GETTING POSSESSED AND DYING! NO WONDER MY SCALP ITCHES!



Back From Hell aka Ex Inferis or From Hell (2011) Italian

Disclaimer: Nothing on the movie poster actually happens in the movie. Maybe they screwed up and made this poster for another movie and got confused, I dunno. For Americans who insist on making possession movies by the dozen, here's how it usually goes. You gotta be Catholic (sorry - not being discriminatory, the movie makers are), you gotta play around with spirits because it's 'fun', you gotta get possessed, you gotta get a priest for an exorcism, and of course, it's gotta fail. The end.

I guess Italians wanted to mix several types of paranormal movies together because they've been getting a bit behind so here we have our six unlikable people together on holiday going to an abandoned house in the country. What, no insane asylum? Close - it was a monastery (rim shot). A church with a priest living in it by his lonesome is next door. Raise your hands if this sounds really contrived to you. Now put them down 'cause y'all look silly raising your hands at a computer screen (rim shot).

We get the 'found footage' element by the first screen declaring 'Ecclesiastic-Military Commission For Investigation On M Phenomena Original Tape "Zero Manifestation"'. That means... absolutely nothing as far as I'm concerned. If you know, tell me 'cause I got nothing.

The camera footage starts (as it always does) with the car ride. YAWN. The guy usually has a new camera or is such a pest that everyone is constantly swatting at him. Yup, got that here too. We notice that one seems to be an unhappy couple, she being pregnant, he being (according to her) distant and not affectionate. Oh. brother. Is this an obvious set up or what? (Don't answer that, I won't hear you besides I'm finishing up my horror movie worksheet (patent pending).

One guy who apparently asked no questions UNTIL they got there is upset that it was a monastery because it 'blasphemes his religion'. It, uh, what? Pffft, never mind. The house was recommended to the pregnant woman because she was an architect and the Church wants to do a bit of restoration on the place.

It's their first night in this monastery so of course they all do the logical thing in the mashup of every duh movie you've seen in the past couple of years. Out comes the homemade Ouija board - but we also get the duh explanation that Oui is yes in French and Ja is yes in German. Good thing DUH pretty much is covered in all languages. The REAL scoop (since this movie is boring me to tears) is that the board was mass developed when two businessmen decided to make a 'standard' type board and patent it. One named Kennard decided that the name was ancient Egyptian meaning 'good luck'. 

When the production was taken over by a man named William Fuld, he decided to claim HE created the board and that's when the yes-yes name was popularized. He was so sure of himself that if anyone else even tried to make their own he would sue them - right up until his death (you thought I was going to say even after his death, right?). The board became a game for most, and is even mass distributed by Hasbro, which now holds all patents and trademarks (for 3 and up!) although it is sold by different companies under other names. Wow, this movie must be REALLY boring me, I can't even keep to it...

They play around with the thing and we get the obligatory table thumping, are-you-doing-that arguing, and answers they don't want to questions they shouldn't have asked. One always says "I knew we shouldn't have done this." while another says "I'm frightened." Every. Time. In other words, leave the damned thing in the box in the toy section of the store.

One of the guys (the names are different in the Italian and American versions) is the first to go buggy. He disappears and when they finally find him, he's drooling and being stupid. Movie-possessed stupid I mean. So we get an endless amount of dark and heavy breathing, until you want to scream (or just play video games on the side, I mean, really). For an obvious plot point (and a way to know when to watch 'cause something might happen) just listen for the noise distortion from the video camera - in this movie that means the spirits are interfering with it. Since you probably won't be watching this, it's a valueless clue but just in case...

Oh, and of course, the priest living all by his lonesome next to the place indicates that the Church is covering up something and now we have a Scooby team to break the mystery of the forgotten monastery. Grab your scooby snacks 'cause this just keeps getting dumber and dumber... The possessed guy goes nuts and gee whiz, there happens to be the priest, right there, with a rosary and a prayer on the ready... hmm, that's not suspicious or anything... and then the car goes plbbbt. Geez, that was a shock. In other words, my worksheet, I think, needs to become an automated computerized worksheet. That way I can fill in a word or a name here and there and tada! A review! (Patent pending of course.)

The priest attempts an exorcism on the part-time possessed person (apparently this demon takes holidays too) which of course doesn't work and the priest realizes they're in deep shi--- stuff (although it WAS funny to hear the priest say, 'Give us this day our daily breath'... pffft). The next to crack is the pregnant woman and the only flinchworthy scene of the movie, albeit a very brief one. She has gone out into the dark and self-aborted her baby. They find her covered in blood but alive.

Having drugged her and the father-no-more-to-be, the rest of the Scooby gang decide to give the ole' spirit board one more try since it's done them sooo much good up 'til now. And the duh factor rises and I'm really REALLY tired of movies made in the dark. But their little game gets broken up by the priest who tries to play Jesus and condemns them for blaspheming and knocks their little table and board over - only to have something shake the whole building. Uh huh.

Now we get a convoluted story about an angel and the knowledge of the world in a nutshell, as the saying goes. In other words, the movie makers had no freaking idea how to end this movie and it's just going to get longer. The remaining three decide to check exactly what's underneath because, umm, because... I have no idea, 'cause they need to fill up 97 minutes and we've had enough of the building in the dark so now we're going underground in the dark?

So after basically going past all the 'do not pass' stuff and getting into all the 'do not get into' stuff they find Clive Barker's Hellraiser puzzle box. I'm serious. The damned thing (although a bit bigger) is a rip off of his puzzle box. WTH?  The skeptic fudges with it, it glows, he disappears. Good, we're down to two (not counting the injured-but-dammit-they're-still-alive people in beds upstairs. 

The two find themselves outside again somehow and when they get to the building they hear a thump - it's one of the men (don't ask me I can't tell anybody apart in this dumb thing) and he's now dead. Okay NOW there's three left. Oops, sorry, I forgot about the part-time 'possessed' one - he shows up and the chase begins. They find the no-longer-pregnant woman dead of blood loss. How many does that make left that are alive? I've lost count and I don't care.

The half-possessed dude kills the priest with a waaaay too loud crack of his neck. The girl kills the half-possessed dude with a pipe. We've got WWE action going on now folks, now if they'd just turned the damned lights on we could see this but to save money it's happening in the dark which means she's probably whacking a big bag of nuts for all we know.

NOW WE ARE DEFINITELY DOWN TO TWO... I SWEAR THE MOVIE'S ALMOST OVER. We've got the camera man (natch) and the woman, whoever she is. It's the next morning. The car now runs. The two get in and go into town. It's empty, messed up, and a quarantine notice is running on all stations. Why? THEY DON'T FREAKING TELL US. There's stuff in the road like a bathtub and other junk. So they abandon the car and walk down the road. The man abandons his camera but leaves it running so we have our found footage. We hear a squeal and sloooooowly a man with a machete starts to follow them. Aaaaaand scene.

The movie tells us that Claudia and Mark (who?) are still in the quarantine area. Alessandro is still missing (who?). The area undergoing the M Phenomena (the what?) reached an extension of 27 km (where?) and that's it. That's all you get. Geez, I'd have rather had one of them wake up and have the whole thing be a dream than this convoluted story of NOTHING that tells us NOTHING, explains NOTHING and ends with NOTHING. You're welcome.

Oh, just for a laugh here's the summary written by someone for whom English is either a second or third language: Six ex-classmates decide to spend some holidays together. To enjoy a short rest period and some amusement, they rent a manor house in the countryside, upon where to forget the raving madness of the city life. After they get to know the priest living in the adjoining church, the group moves into the house. Very soon, the convivial mood progressively deteriorates, while in the house strange phenomena start to happen, apparently paranormal. The journey turns into a nightmare when Giorgio, one of the mates, starts to have aberrant behaviors, until he shows evident signs of what properly seems a diabolic possession. 

While Alessandro, his best friend, tries to find a scientific and rational explanation to the happenings, the other friends trust in Father Elia, the priest. He feels Giorgio is surely possessed by the devil, and tries to exorcise him. But in the end, all the people will figure out that what is happening goes over their ability to understand, and moreover, their possibility to control.

That didn't make sense to me either, don't worry about it. But it did make me giggle. A little. Wasn't worth the 97 minutes of watching though.

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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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