Scary Stories (from a Dark Allie)

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.

Here’s another movie I love. I actually like it better than the one I’m watching for my birthday tomorrow, but I needed a pick me up tonight and this is one of my happy movies (yes, really) so here we are.

I haven’t seen this one quite as many times as the Dawn of the Dead remake (of course I’ve had about 8 years longer with that one), but since I first watched it a couple years ago I’ve probably seen it 20 or 30 times. It’s just so…interesting.

As you may have guessed, I love this movie. I saw it in theaters when it came out. Twice. And I almost never see things in theaters. I know it’s not perfect, but I’d be lying to myself (and my readers) if I rated it anything less than 5 out of 5. Today’s viewing confirmed that, of course.

(Spoiler alert. There might be a lot of spoilers for this one.)

Looking at my rating of this film, you might be wondering why I watched it this week after I said I’d be watching some of my favorites. Only 3 out of 5? Well, you’d be mostly right to wonder.

See, the remake of this movie is one of my all-time favorites. I’ve seen it at least 200 hundred times. And since it is a remake, I figured I’d watch it on a Friday so I could use Throwback Thursday for the original. This one. Only (and I hate to admit this) I’d never seen the original before. And to be honest, I wasn’t impressed.

Okay, I’ll admit this movie is much more of a guilty pleasure than a great film. I just find it very fun to watch, so I’ve seen it quite a few times. I’ve even put it on as background noise while working more than once.

It’s not much more than torture porn, but Elisha Cuthbert is so adorable that I can pretty much forgive her anything. And believe me, Jennifer is a character who needs some forgiveness. Despite the character development they try to build throughout the film, Jennifer is not a very sympathetic character. Gary is even less so.

I’m easily distracted, so I often skip foreign movies because I know I don’t pay enough attention to the subtitles to really follow the plot. And dubbed movies, especially dubbed horror movies, are pretty hit or miss (more often on the “miss” side). But this one hits, and it hits hard.

What all that means is that I love this movie. A lot. It’s incredible how effective this movie is. “High tension” is absolutely right. This movie is a thrill ride that just doesn’t let up. The story isn’t entirely original, but the acting, the pacing, and the background music all work together to make this a really scary story.

My birthday is this Sunday, so I figured I’d spend the week leading up to it watching (and writing about) some of my favorite scary movies. Starting with this one. I’ve watched this several times now, and even knowing what’s going to happen I find myself at the edge of my seat every time.

I love Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard, but I was blown away by Isabelle Fuhrman as Esther. In fact, all of the kids in this movie were superbly believable, which just added to the creep factor.

This is one of those movies that I feel like I should like more than I actually do. It’s got all the makings of a good scary movie! A great cast, a good composer, and an original story. But I thought it was only okay.

I’d been talking about John C. Reilly earlier today and saw that he was in this, and I hadn’t seen it since it came out (over 10 years ago now!) so figured it was a reasonable choice. I love Jennifer Connelly and Tim Roth, and I’ve been seeing Dougray Scott in a lot lately, so I figured it wouldn’t be that bad. And it wasn’t that bad or anything. The acting was definitely great, and the music was really well done. And the abandoned apartment and dilapidated complex was pretty creepy.

The good news is, I was right! Contracted makes so much more sense after watching Phase II. I thought this one was a better film overall. In fact, you could probably cut the first movie down to 20 minutes, add it to the beginning of the second, and have a great movie that isn’t too long.

This one didn’t feel slow like the first one at all. In fact, I had to rewind a few times towards the last few minutes because I had to double check to see if it had suddenly turned into an action movie (it had). Similar to the first one, the acting was good in this – except for BJ.