Scary Stories (from a Dark Allie)

This is another horror movie remake that tries to be far more disturbing than its predecessor. It succeeds, but only superficially.

I can see why this movie was controversial when it came out. Like The Last House on the Left, it shows a lot of graphic violence and rape. Unlike The Last House on the Left, this movie at least attempts to provide some character development to all sides.

While I certainly wouldn’t call the men sympathetic characters, I appreciated that this movie tried to be about more than just violence and rape.

Well, this was a movie. I don’t want the hour and a half of my life spent watching this back, but I also don’t feel like I gained anything during that time.

Essentially this movie set up an obvious, predictable situation…and then followed through with it. It’s apparently hailed as a “suspenseful” movie but for me the only suspense was when the movie was going to end.

I have to admit, I think part of the reason I rated this at four out of five is because I was surprised at how interesting I found it. It’s based off of a book, and if the adaptation is true to the story at all I think I want to read this book.

Wow. Just…wow. This movie was a disappointment. It’s based on a Stephen King novel I have read – and one I quite liked, at that. But I did not like this movie.

It was boring, it lacked emotion, and it was a poorly paced adaptation of the story. It feels strange to me to rate anything with such a great cast lower than three out of five, but I couldn’t bring myself to go past two out of five for this one.

This one, while also written by Leigh Whannell, just wasn’t quite as good as the first one. It’s more disturbing for the sake of being disturbing, dark for the sake of being dark, and the story just isn’t quite as interesting.

I’ll give it one thing, though – the twist at the very end was pretty good. Not entirely unexpected or unpredictable, but well timed and well placed.

It doesn’t make me hopeful for the next 5 films, though. Well, I guess we’ll see next week!

Funny enough, I didn’t realize that tonight’s movie starred both Anton Yelchin and Imogen Poots – just like last night’s movie. And I’m rating this one four out of five, also like last night’s movie. But aside from those two things, this movie is nothing like last night’s movie.

I’m tired and my clothes smell like Downy so I’ll be quick. Tonight’s movie was better than last night’s movie in practically every way.

Also, it has David Tennant. And of course Anton Yelchin. Watch this movie. Don’t watch the other movie.

I’d never seen this movie before and went in without much in the way of expectations. Luckily that meant I wasn’t too let down when this turned out to be an unremarkably average attempt at horror/comedy.

Let’s just say that The Lost Boys did the same thing way better a couple years later. In fact, all three of those movies did the same thing better than this one.

I knew there was a reason I put off watching this movie for so long. I felt like the story was complete after the second one, and this movie doesn’t do much to convince me otherwise. It’s still an above average scary movie, but only by a little, and probably partially because of how much I liked the first two movies.

It becomes apparent pretty quickly that this is not a James Wan film. It’s actually Leigh Whannell’s directorial debut – which kind of shows. James Wan is a practiced horror movie director whose films are maturing as he is. Leigh Whannell is a practiced horror movie screenwriter who might want to consider sticking to writing (and acting, actually).

I hesitated a little before giving this one a 5 out of 5 because it’s not perfect, but I forgot how awesome the experience is watching the first two movies back to back so it’s mostly earned it. I think the story is incomplete without this movie, so if you liked the first one you’d be doing yourself a favor to watch this one – and an even bigger favor by watching it immediately after watching the first one.

This movie is creepy as hell. I’ve seen it several times and each time it’s still creepy as hell. I’m sure it’s partly because of that creepy song, partly because of the perfectly placed jump scares, and mostly because that demon is one really scary demon.

As promised yesterday, here’s the first of the Summer See Saw Sundays. I like this movie. It basically started an interesting (at least at first) trend in movies, some better than others, and created a new niche in the horror genre.