Scary Stories (from a Dark Allie)

This movie was mostly okay. To be honest, I was expecting a little more torture porn, but it was relatively tame. There are a few graphic scenes but nothing over the top or out of place.

The cast was mostly okay. I’d seen a few of the actors in different roles before, but everyone’s character was fairly believable. I did have a problem with the family chemistry though. While the individual characters were fine, as a family I just wasn’t buying it.

I liked this movie a lot. It’s a zombie movie, sort of. (Some spoilers ahead) It’s like this…post zombie apocalypse story of humanity at its worst. And it’s great. The music is well done, the acting is good, and the story is riveting. The pacing is wonderful so the suspense builds and builds and the climactic scenes really pay off.

My only real problem with it was that I kept thinking the guy who played Alex was the guy from Coldplay. Which, all things considered, isn’t the worst possibility?

Yes, another thematically appropriate movie. This one was better than yesterday’s, though. I watched this about a year ago and was surprised at how much I liked it. I think it was because it was a completely different feel than I expected.

I’ve seen Lou Taylor Pucci in a few things before, but he really impressed me in this one. He was so believable and the character development was so well done. And the chemistry between Evan and Louise is incredible. Definitely the right cast for this.

It’s officially the first day of Spring on this side of the world, so I finally watched this one. I’d actually started it on Netflix a couple months back, but stopped when I realized it could be used as a seasonally-appropriate choice a short time later.

But I must have misjudged how much was left of the movie when I stopped it, because I swear there were only about ten minutes I hadn’t already seen. Maybe I was expecting it to get interesting all of a sudden? Maybe I was distracted the first time and didn’t realize how long I’d been watching? It was kind of a letdown to have waited so long for so little.

This is a silly movie. I remember being excited for it when the trailer came out, back when it was still called The Helpers. Maybe that title seemed too bleak for the movie? No Vacancy is such a boring title, and way too close to Vacancy to be original (and actually, I kind of liked Vacancy, I may need to watch that one next now that I think about it).

Anyway, I spent most of the day at the (first ever!) Silicon Valley Comic Con, so I didn’t want to watch anything that would make me think too much. I rented this on Amazon tonight since I figured it would be some good old-fashioned violence and murder, and I was right. And speaking of not thinking, not only did I not have to think while watching this, but it’s clear none of the characters were thinking throughout, well, most of the movie.

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.