Posts
I have been
watching more and more horror movies on Netflix. I was doing this in preparation for a 30-day
blog challenge for October which would be horror themed because I am a hack and
will do things with seasonal synchronicity to drive appeal. However, I got a real job and have serious
doubt that I will bother with a full complement of 30 entries next month
because I have the ability to prioritize things like a paying career and
promising future.
To make use
of the brain space I would have otherwise wasted by watching these movies I am
instead going to do a couple quick reviews.
Let’s start with the movies that should be avoided, and then tomorrow move onto the movies that are good enough to watch but I could not imagine them
being on anyone’s list of favorites.
---AVOID---
Runtime: 89 minutes
Director: Oz Perkins
Writer: Oz Perkins
I am
disappointed to say that this movie is in the Avoid section. It is a Netflix production, it has a tight
little venue where all the action takes place (the titular house) and a good
actress (Ruth Wilson) serving as the fulcrum for all the narrative action. I would even go so far as to say, “I could
see someone liking this if it is your kind of thing”. All of that middling praise out of the way,
this movie is cosmically boring.
I found
this film punishingly long. There is
maybe enough material to fill out an hour-length episode of “The Twilight Zone”
but this thing is 90+ minutes. Every
scene is stretched past what it needs to be, every action is focused on just a
bit too much, and ultimately the lack of “action” (that is to say evolution of
the status quo driving the story forward and eliciting the interest of the
audience, not explosions or loud noises) keeps me from thinking of this as
anything other than a great big waste of your time, and more importantly mine.
There is no
mystery solving, no exploration, and no relationship material happening. There is no arc. Boring.
Maybe if you liked the movie, “Under the Skin” (which I hated) you might
find the appeal here. Otherwise, I
recommend staying away.
“Demonic” (2015)
Runtime: 83 minutes
Director: Will Canon
Writer: Max La Bella, Will Canon
This movie
has a good gimmick. A detective and psychologist
are investigating what happened to a group of ghost hunters who are all either
dead or missing after having spent the night in a haunted/cursed/notorious
house. The execution of everything feels
weak.
The movie
feels broken, like they had a short film about ghost hunters being killed by
what they were investigating but they had to bring it up to feature
length. The scenes with the Detective
and Psychologist feel like a studio mandated framing device added to make the
original movie (about the ghost hunters) longer and to include some stars for
it, as both Frank Grillo and Maria Bello are slumming it big time in this and
are the only actors of note (hold on, I just looked up the Asian guy, Aaron
Yoo, who is a good character actor and should get more work, I did not
recognize him initially though).
The ghost
hunter group is presented in a mix of found footage and regular camera work,
which again makes the whole thing feel broken, pick one style and go with it
flipping to and away from a gimmick style just makes it weaker. The ghost hunters are also not distinct
enough, there were two thin white guys who blended right together in my mind.
Beyond that
there are lots of little issues, like the house, which is supposed to be
abandoned (I think) having lots of furniture in it, including a big rug
covering up a demonic seal on the floor (call me crazy, but if I were going to
try and flip that house I wouldn’t throw a rug over that, I would sand it off
or paint over it… Not something you want the realtor trying to spin to
potential buyers).
The twist
ending was middling. This is the sort of
boiler plate, hacked out horror movie that you put on in the background at a
party for the people who are more interested in sitting and vegging out instead
of mingling.
“The Black Room” (2017)
Runtime: 91 minutes
Director: Rolfe Kanefsky
Writer: Rolfe Kanefsky
This movie
is trash.
Trash.
I have no
idea what tone they were going for, because this thing oscillates between
unironic gory horror moments, nasty sexual humor, dumb-childish sexual humor,
and unintentional narm. It feels like a
failed parody of the kind of softcore direct to VHS spank material that would
clutter the shelves of a local video rental shop in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Utterly without redeeming feature.
This is the
sort of movie regular access to internet pornography and internet humor should
have killed off for good as it is obsolete and unworthy of the time taken to
manufacture it. This movie should be
avoided entirely. If you want a violent
sexploitation horror movie watch “Species” instead and do not watch this. If you want a movie that cunningly moves
between horror and comedy watch “Cabin in the Woods” and do not watch this.
Do not
watch “The Black Room”.
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