Scary Stories (from a Dark Allie)

I’m a little less tired today (mostly because I did nothing all day), but I still wanted to watch something good. It’s rare that I see a scary movie on Netflix rated anything above 3 stars, but this one had 4 so I figured I’d give it a try.

Would it be too cliche of me to say that it starts less with a bang than with a whimper? This is my 100th review, so I figure I’m allowed to be a little cliched. Anyway, I can see why it was well rated.

I’m really tired today, so I’m happy to say that this one is mostly an improvement on the original. I’ll keep this short.

This version focuses more on the story and on character development than on exploitation. There are still some disturbing scenes, but this one has an R rating, so it’s not nearly as graphic.

This movie is hard to watch. Not in the normal, almost tongue-in-cheek way I usually say it. There’s nothing wrong with this movie, but the things it depicts…well, there’s a lot wrong there. There’s no need for fancy special effects here, and while there’s not a whole lot of gore, there are several graphic, disturbing scenes.

For a directorial debut, this was quite a statement. If Wes Craven was here for anything, it was to scare as many people as possible.

I realized the other day (probably when I was watching that really awful movie) that it takes a lot more energy for me to sit through and then write about a bad movie than it does for me to sit through and then write about a good movie. So I’ve decided, at least as far as I can help it, and at least on weekdays, to only watch movies that I’m reasonably certain won’t suck or that I’ve seen before and know don’t suck.

I’d never seen this one before (it looks like it was just released last month, so that makes sense), but the poster looked interesting (there’s no saying about not judging a movie by its poster, is there?). Particularly because it featured Sarah Bolger, who’s been in a few scary movies I really liked. I was pretty sure by the opening sequence (and beautifully understated title screen) that I’d made the right decision, and definitely sure when the dramatic irony became clear in the father’s car.

Though the tears on my face may indicate otherwise (or not), I’m really glad I watched this movie tonight. I really liked it.

I still think of Mischa Barton as Marissa Cooper no matter what role she’s playing, which works sometimes more than others. It worked for this one.

If you’ve been struggling to understand what I mean by “understated” when I talk about opening credits, this movie is a great example of opening credits that are not understated. That probably should have been a warning to me, but I kept watching anyway.

I won’t say that watching this movie made me want to carve out my own eyes, but I won’t say that it didn’t, either. You can probably skip this one. Even the brief boob shot isn’t enough to redeem it.

After a few not so great movies, I wanted something I knew I’d like. This was a good choice. While it’s not the most terrifying movie I’ve ever seen, it’s well made and really interesting. Definitely a step above the last few movies I’ve watched.

Besides, it’s got David Hyde Pierce. Okay, that’s an understatement. It stars David Hyde Pierce, and he’s great in it. The rest of the cast was unfamiliar to me, but they all did pretty well.

When I started typing out my notes for this movie, I mistyped and my phone corrected it to “Silent Regret,” which might be a more accurate title for it. It’s pretty bad. It’s not completely unwatchable, but it’s close.

What’s funny is that it’s hard for me to pinpoint what was so bad about it. The story itself was original and interesting, and the twists fitting and equally intriguing. And the cover looked awesome! It should have been scary and it should have been really good, but it felt flat.

I’m not really sure whether this is technically a remake of the other April Fool’s Day or what. It seems perhaps maybe there was an earlier version of the screenplay that was more closely related to the original? I did notice in the opening credits that there were two listed “based on the screenplay by” credits, in addition to the “screenplay by” credit, so I guess there were at least three versions of it.

There are some interesting similarities between this one and the earlier one, though. Both plots center around a group of rich college kids – in particular, the central character to each is a girl with a weird name starting in M (and much like Muffy, I’ve never met a Milan either). Both take place around April Fool’s Day. Both feature handheld camera footage in some way. Both are horror films. Both are a little ridiculous.

I can’t believe it’s almost April already. 2016 has just flown past so far. Anyway, here’s a thematically appropriate, Throwback Thursday, April Fool’s Day movie for you. And it’s not bad. It’s not great either, but it’s not bad.

I thought at first this might be one of the earliest “found footage” horror films ever made, but they moved away from the handheld camera gimmick pretty quickly (for which I’m thankful). It was a cute way to get some character development out of the way, though, and set a silly scene for the rest of the film. And it’s a pretty silly film.

I have a giant soft spot for torture porn movies, and this one fits very nicely into it. It’s nothing groundbreaking or amazing, but it’s got solid acting, great pacing, and a wonderful lack of annoying background music.

Plus I got to watch Brittany Snow get stabbed in the side, so there’s that. Anyway, if you aren’t squeamish and you’re into this kind of thing, I’d definitely recommend this movie. It’s better than many others like it and should keep you entertained throughout.

I’ve been procrastinating everything today, and cutting it close with this post, but here I am! I don’t know about all of you, but the first thing I want to do when I get bad news is to scary myself silly. And I got some pretty bad news today, so I knew I wanted something I’d seen before that was dark and scary but not too…thinky.

This one fulfills all of those needs and then some. I think the first time I saw this was a year or two back when it popped up as a Netflix recommendation. I’d never heard of it before, but was really impressed. It probably helped that I was watching it alone in a dark room at the time, but this movie has a lot going for it.

Butterflies are thematically appropriate for spring, right? In any case, I’m happy to report that I liked this one more than I anticipated…though I admit that could just be because the story actually made sense in this one. Yes, it used flashbacks, but it used them well, and I was able to follow along with the plot and understand what was going on.

And it was scary! The tension builds throughout and things just get creepier and creepier. I love the opening sequence…the way the credits appear on screen is amazing and the background music is really well done. I also like that they used a flashback for the opening sequence – way better than using some moment from later on in the film.