Scary Stories (from a Dark Allie)

I liked this movie a lot. I was surprised at how much I liked it. I was surprised at how much I liked both Abigail Breslin and Arnold Schwarzenegger in it, in particular. I’ve seen them both in many things but never really considered either of them great for scary movies.

Then again, this isn’t really a scary movie. It’s a sad movie. It’s a zombie movie. But it’s not really scary, and that’s okay.

Take my rating today with a grain of salt – I think this movie was actually pretty good, I just wasn’t really in the right mood to be impressed by it.

It’s got a good story, a good cast, and good background music. The opening credits aren’t too long or ostentatious and the evil creature is pretty damn scary.

This one was weird. It wasn’t bad, it wasn’t great, it was just weird.

It started off interesting – I really liked how there was no background music during the opening sequence, which definitely had promise. Then the opening credits went on a bit too long and its jump cuts got a bit too distracting. In fact, that’s kind of how I feel about this whole movie. It went on too long and its various twists or jump cuts or scene changes became distracting and even disorienting at times.

I remember being really excited for this when the first trailers came out. I mean, a horror movie with Donald Glover? Yes, please! But then it came and went in theaters (as movies often do for me), and I didn’t watch it until it appeared on Netflix a little while back.

Luckily, I wasn’t disappointed. The first time I watched it or this time. It’s a good, scary movie from start to finish.

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.