Weekend Horror Movie Review #13
Sep. 10th, 2024 07:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adrimettI forgot to write these up yesterday, so you're getting a slightly late set of horror movie reviews this time. At least I watched enough to make it worth a review post. So I'll sit here and listen to gentle ambient music while I write about the horror-filled weekend I just had!
The Black Phone (2021) - In 1978, a mysterious child abductor known as the Grabber roams the streets of Denver. The kidnapped children are never found. And it looks like the same fate may befall young Finney, who is snatched and thrown in a basement. But there's hope to be found in both Finney's sister, who has psychic dreams that may help the police find her brother, and a strange black phone in the Grabber's basement. A phone that doesn't work, except for when the ghosts of the Grabber's past victims show up to help Finney escape. This movie is so good! It's an escape room movie done right, done so phenomenally well that you might not think it's an escape room movie until you've already gotten invested in the story. Honestly one of the best horror movies I've seen in a long time, and that says something! (Trigger warning: domestic abuse, hurting children) (Youtube: trailer)
Cold Moon (2016) - A teenager is killed by a masked man and her body thrown in the river. After a while, the rest of her family is disposed of in a similar manner. The identity of the killer doesn't stay a mystery for long, at least not to the viewer, but the killer's life gets incredibly complicated when he starts to be haunted by the twisted ghosts of his victims. There's some horrifying grotesquerie in this one, which looks cartoonish at first blush but the incongruence makes it all the scarier. I expected this one to be okay, but I didn't expect it to be quite so good. It borders on Southern Gothic, great acting, and a very good supernatural revenge story. Not to the degree that The Black Phone managed, mind you, but still very worth watching. (Youtube: trailer)
Abigail (2024) - A team of criminals are hired to kidnap a rich young girl and hold her hostage for 24 hours, while the mastermind behind the operation extorts her father for millions of dollars. The plan goes awry when it's revealed that the titular Abigail is, in fact, a child-sized bloodthirsty vampire, who is not the least bit intimidated by her situation and happily goes about killing her kidnappers and making them pay for their actions. This was a weekend for supernatural revenge movies, it seems, and I do love a good vampire movie, so Abigail combined two of my interests into one blood-filled story that really hooked me, with some twists that I really enjoyed seeing. My only complaint is that I feel like the person who escaped in the end deserved more than just to escape with her life. Maybe some of the money she was counting on to start rebuilding her life? My head-canon is that Abigail transferred a million dollars into her bank account after all was said and done. (Youtube: trailer)
The Unfamiliar (2020) - A British army doctor returns home after her tour, only to deal with not only the expected and understandable PTSD, but also the growing fear that something supernatural is happening to her family. Her son seems to be leaving hints about what might be going on, but are those events real, or a hallucination, or something more malevolent. This movie was okay. It wasn't bad or anything, but it got a bit cheesy toward the end, after the family takes a trip to Hawaii to get away from all the problems at home. But it wasn't that great either. The acting was fine, the visuals pretty damn good, but characters made some really questionable decisions that can't entirely be explained away with a claim to the supernatural. I'm also not familiar enough with Hawaiian culture or mythology to know whether there were culturally problematic elements here, so if anyone is more knowledgeable in that field, I'd love to know your opinions on this movie. (Youtube: trailer)
Wish Upon (2017) - Clare is gifted a strange Chinese music box that her father found while dumpster-diving, and she learns that it's a magical thing that grants the user 7 wishes. But each wish has a blood price attached to it, so every time Clare makes a wish for an aspect of her life to improve, there's backlash that those around her must endure. Also when she makes her 7th wish, the spirit within the box will claim her soul. Wish Upon was a pretty decent teen horror movie, but nearly everything that happens comes about because apparently, Clare hasn't heard a single "be careful what you wish for" story in her life. Wishing for someone to fall madly in love with you? Wishing for the heights of popularity? Come on, Clare, haven't you heard a single scary story ever? The thing that gets me is that the wish box came with a built-in "wish reversal" aspect that Claire knew almost from the moment she knew she could make wishes on it. Get rid of the box, the wishes reverse. Considering her final wish was essentially to ensure she never encountered the box, only to die quickly because the box took her soul, she could literally have thrown the thing into the river and accomplished the same thing, only she'd have lived. That being said, the acting was good, some of the dialogue was delightfully devious, and I've definitely seen worse teen horror movies. (Trigger warning: suicide) (Youtube: trailer)
DreadOut (2019) - Taking many elements from the DreadOut video game and remixing them, the movie revolves around Linda and a group of friends sneaking into a supposedly haunted abandoned apartment building, only to find the remnants of a cursed ritual, a portal to another realm, and multiple demons and spirits that would like to harm them all. It was pretty far from any sort of faithful adaptation, but the remixed elements worked well for the setting, and it was an interesting take on the story. I have to admit, though, that if I didn't know about the video game already, and that one of the main features involves being able to hurt ghosts with a camera ala Fatal Frame, I'd probably have thought using a cell phone's camera flash to repel ghosts was cheesy as all hell. Some of the plot twists I saw coming, some mythological elements were lost on me (though I'm getting more familiar with Indonesian horror movies so maybe some day I won't need to say that), but overall, a decent movie. (Indonesian, subtitled) (Youtube: trailer)
The Black Phone (2021) - In 1978, a mysterious child abductor known as the Grabber roams the streets of Denver. The kidnapped children are never found. And it looks like the same fate may befall young Finney, who is snatched and thrown in a basement. But there's hope to be found in both Finney's sister, who has psychic dreams that may help the police find her brother, and a strange black phone in the Grabber's basement. A phone that doesn't work, except for when the ghosts of the Grabber's past victims show up to help Finney escape. This movie is so good! It's an escape room movie done right, done so phenomenally well that you might not think it's an escape room movie until you've already gotten invested in the story. Honestly one of the best horror movies I've seen in a long time, and that says something! (Trigger warning: domestic abuse, hurting children) (Youtube: trailer)
Cold Moon (2016) - A teenager is killed by a masked man and her body thrown in the river. After a while, the rest of her family is disposed of in a similar manner. The identity of the killer doesn't stay a mystery for long, at least not to the viewer, but the killer's life gets incredibly complicated when he starts to be haunted by the twisted ghosts of his victims. There's some horrifying grotesquerie in this one, which looks cartoonish at first blush but the incongruence makes it all the scarier. I expected this one to be okay, but I didn't expect it to be quite so good. It borders on Southern Gothic, great acting, and a very good supernatural revenge story. Not to the degree that The Black Phone managed, mind you, but still very worth watching. (Youtube: trailer)
Abigail (2024) - A team of criminals are hired to kidnap a rich young girl and hold her hostage for 24 hours, while the mastermind behind the operation extorts her father for millions of dollars. The plan goes awry when it's revealed that the titular Abigail is, in fact, a child-sized bloodthirsty vampire, who is not the least bit intimidated by her situation and happily goes about killing her kidnappers and making them pay for their actions. This was a weekend for supernatural revenge movies, it seems, and I do love a good vampire movie, so Abigail combined two of my interests into one blood-filled story that really hooked me, with some twists that I really enjoyed seeing. My only complaint is that I feel like the person who escaped in the end deserved more than just to escape with her life. Maybe some of the money she was counting on to start rebuilding her life? My head-canon is that Abigail transferred a million dollars into her bank account after all was said and done. (Youtube: trailer)
The Unfamiliar (2020) - A British army doctor returns home after her tour, only to deal with not only the expected and understandable PTSD, but also the growing fear that something supernatural is happening to her family. Her son seems to be leaving hints about what might be going on, but are those events real, or a hallucination, or something more malevolent. This movie was okay. It wasn't bad or anything, but it got a bit cheesy toward the end, after the family takes a trip to Hawaii to get away from all the problems at home. But it wasn't that great either. The acting was fine, the visuals pretty damn good, but characters made some really questionable decisions that can't entirely be explained away with a claim to the supernatural. I'm also not familiar enough with Hawaiian culture or mythology to know whether there were culturally problematic elements here, so if anyone is more knowledgeable in that field, I'd love to know your opinions on this movie. (Youtube: trailer)
Wish Upon (2017) - Clare is gifted a strange Chinese music box that her father found while dumpster-diving, and she learns that it's a magical thing that grants the user 7 wishes. But each wish has a blood price attached to it, so every time Clare makes a wish for an aspect of her life to improve, there's backlash that those around her must endure. Also when she makes her 7th wish, the spirit within the box will claim her soul. Wish Upon was a pretty decent teen horror movie, but nearly everything that happens comes about because apparently, Clare hasn't heard a single "be careful what you wish for" story in her life. Wishing for someone to fall madly in love with you? Wishing for the heights of popularity? Come on, Clare, haven't you heard a single scary story ever? The thing that gets me is that the wish box came with a built-in "wish reversal" aspect that Claire knew almost from the moment she knew she could make wishes on it. Get rid of the box, the wishes reverse. Considering her final wish was essentially to ensure she never encountered the box, only to die quickly because the box took her soul, she could literally have thrown the thing into the river and accomplished the same thing, only she'd have lived. That being said, the acting was good, some of the dialogue was delightfully devious, and I've definitely seen worse teen horror movies. (Trigger warning: suicide) (Youtube: trailer)
DreadOut (2019) - Taking many elements from the DreadOut video game and remixing them, the movie revolves around Linda and a group of friends sneaking into a supposedly haunted abandoned apartment building, only to find the remnants of a cursed ritual, a portal to another realm, and multiple demons and spirits that would like to harm them all. It was pretty far from any sort of faithful adaptation, but the remixed elements worked well for the setting, and it was an interesting take on the story. I have to admit, though, that if I didn't know about the video game already, and that one of the main features involves being able to hurt ghosts with a camera ala Fatal Frame, I'd probably have thought using a cell phone's camera flash to repel ghosts was cheesy as all hell. Some of the plot twists I saw coming, some mythological elements were lost on me (though I'm getting more familiar with Indonesian horror movies so maybe some day I won't need to say that), but overall, a decent movie. (Indonesian, subtitled) (Youtube: trailer)
no subject
on 2024-09-11 03:16 am (UTC)I think the only other one I've seen was Wish Upon, and that one not for a while.
no subject
on 2024-09-11 10:07 am (UTC)no subject
on 2024-09-14 02:39 am (UTC)