Scary Stories (from a Dark Allie)

This is another movie I’d tried to watch before but couldn’t really get into. Only this time I really got into it, and was surprised by how much I liked it. I shouldn’t be so surprised, I guess. The cast is solid, and they work really well together. They really feel like a family.

It’s hard to do well with alien abduction stories. It’s hard to find the right balance of science fiction and plausibility to make alien abduction scary rather than campy, but this one does pretty well. There’s definitely a high creep factor throughout this one.

Yes, this is the obvious choice for St. Patrick’s Day, but it works so well! And it’s fitting that St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Thursday this year.

I’d never actually seen this one all the way through, though I caught bits and pieces of it on network television growing up, along with its sequels. Can we all agree this was one of Warwick Davis’s more ridiculous roles? Actually, ridiculous seems an apt word for the whole movie.

This wasn’t what I’d consider John Carpenter’s best work, but it was pretty good. Carpenter knows how to scare without being overly gruesome or graphic, and this mostly works here. There’s a definite creep factor throughout the film, and the 1960s setting, from the outfits the girls wear to the medical treatments being used, serves to amplify this.

Plus the cast is good. Like, really good. I know I’ve mentioned I like Amber Heard before, and she was great as Kristen. The rest of the girls were also great – I’ve recently learned I like Danielle Panabaker a lot. And all of the medical staff were expertly creepy.

I’ve been letting Netflix make many of my movie-watching decisions for me lately, so I decided to give Amazon Prime Instant Video a chance to recommend something good. I’ll admit my expectations were pretty low, as the last time I watched something Amazon recommended to me I couldn’t make it all the way through.

But this one had Angela Bettis in it, so I figured it couldn’t be all bad. And it wasn’t! It had a lot going for it, and it was decently entertaining.

Oh. So this is why they had to cut the ending when they did. So they could make a sequel. I have to admit that I didn’t realize they had released a sequel, despite (or possibly because of?) how much I loved the first film. It felt complete to me, so I never saw any need for a sequel. But I guess it makes sense. Why not try to capitalize on your success?

Of course, from what I can tell, this was ultimately a direct-to-video release, so I guess they didn’t do such a great job capitalizing on it. But it wasn’t all bad. It wasn’t anywhere near as intensely scary and engrossing as the first one, but it was entertaining throughout. And much bloodier (if you can believe that), so if you’re into that kind of thing…

Previously I mentioned that watching Indigenous made me want to watch The Descent again, so that’s exactly what I did tonight. And yep – it’s still a better monster movie than Indigenous. And probably not just because I didn’t need subtitles for it.

The character development in this movie is so strong that I found myself relating to characters who aren’t anything like me. For one thing, I almost certainly wouldn’t wake up at 7am to go rock climbing, even in creepy old caves like the ones in the movie.

I liked this one. Probably more than I should have. I almost rated it at 4 out of 5, but stopped when I realized I really just liked that everyone was so British. I am almost certain that I wouldn’t have liked this movie as much with an American cast.

But they were British, so I think this is a great movie. Okay, accents aside, the cast was pretty good. They were all believable (and British), and I liked that the group had chemistry (and British accents).

I’m surprising even myself by saying this, but I think I like this one just a little bit better than the original. Now don’t get me wrong – I still think the original Carrie is classic horror and shouldn’t be skipped. But this one seemed to flow better. And the payoff seemed…more worth it?

Interestingly, while I was more familiar with some of the actors in this one, Judy Greer is the only one I felt was cast well. Well, that’s not quite true. I think Julianne Moore was excellent as Margaret White, but I didn’t believe her as Chloë Grace Moretz’s mother.

I’ve always liked this movie. I’m sure that’s partly because my mom likes it and partly because I always secretly wanted to discover that I had telekinetic powers. I like this movie despite an unfortunate incident involving me watching this movie and a palmetto bug.

I suppose I also always liked this movie because of John Travolta. Despite the jerk of a character he plays as Billy, I even liked him in this movie. And Sissy Spacek is incredible. Carrie White is such a sympathetic character that I really felt for her every step of the way. Amy Irving helps round out the great cast, with Piper Laurie really shining as Margaret White. 

This movie was mostly okay. It was a monster movie through and through, which is kind of refreshing, but it wasn’t a great monster movie or anything. It was entertaining, though.

The only cast member I recognized was Lindsey McKeon, and I’ll admit I only recognized her by looks, not by name. But the acting wasn’t bad, and the characters were reasonably sympathetic. There were more scenes in Spanish than I was expecting, which isn’t a bad thing, but I found myself having to pay attention to the subtitles more than I had anticipated.

I have to give this one some credit for trying something relatively new. This was a zombie movie crossed with reality TV in a pretty silly way. It’s not an entirely bad effect, but it could have been better.

I’m not sure how I feel about the commercial breaks. I felt like the cigarette ads were in poor taste and the “Coalition to Re-populate America” ads were just boring. I don’t think the commercials added anything to the film. However, the brief info spots were well done – more of those and fewer of the commercials would have been ideal.

This movie kept popping up on Netflix so I figured I’d finally watch it. The cast was definitely appealing – Guy Pearce, Jeffrey Jones, and Robert Carlyle? Yes please!

I’ll admit that for most of this movie, I had no idea where it was going. Normally that wouldn’t be a great thing, but this movie really pulled it off. The story was interesting, and the suspense just kept building and building until it started to get really, really creepy. And then it kept going…

It’s my birthday, and I wasn’t quite sure which movie to watch to celebrate. I settled on this, which seemed fitting for a rainy weekend spent mostly at home. I think it was the right choice, as it’s always provided me a few laughs.

Cabin Fever was the first I’d ever heard of Eli Roth, and what a first impression it was. This has been one of my guilty pleasure movies since I first saw it. I mean, come on, Rider Strong is in it! And the “pancakes” kid! And that ridiculous call back with the rifle in the general store…so good.