This movie perplexed me a lot more than I thought it was going to, because I didn’t think it was going to perplex me at all. The scenes seemed like they were almost surprised by one (1) another, as if they didn’t belong together, like this whole thing was cobbled together on the cutting room floor (and in the dark). The random cutaways to claymation creatures (none of which were the titular Winterbeast) genuinely confounded me. I think this is a movie you need to be on drugs to enjoy and I wasn’t on drugs (or at least not enough of them).
⭐
Trigger Warning Homophobia, Racism
From the movie poster, this seemed like it was going to be a copy/paste of Pumpkinhead which was made four (4) years prior, but this lacked all of the cohesion and any of the charm (AKA Brian Bremer). We haven’t even hit the three (3) minute mark and there has been a clusterfuck of nonsense so tremendous that I seriously considered stopping the film right there and throwing it in the Sunk Cost Fallacy bin (but many people say they love this film, many people who I now want to have a very serious conversation with). I genuinely had no idea what the fuck was going on and the film had only just begun! We are now being greeted by two (2) men, who I’m sure are real stand up gentlemen, as they gawk at a naked woman in a magazine. The magazine, by the way, has many pages stuck together with a mystery substance… Put it DOWN. We learn that a forest ranger has gone missing but the head ranger, Whitman, who had a disturbing dream about his missing coworker, doesn’t seem too concerned. We meet the owner of the Wild Goose Lodge, Mr. Sheldon, who has a very eccentric fashion sense. At random points throughout the movie and with seemingly no relevance to the actual film there are cutaways to claymation creatures (who kill at least one (1) person). A group of rangers and a local store owner (for some reason) are out searching for the missing ranger when they stumble across a shrine with a “dead body” on it. The props in this movie are extremely fake looking, though, so I wasn’t sure if this was supposed to represent a dead person or just a tacky souvenir from the gift shop.
We then learned about a local Native American legend, Chocura, and I was going to say something about this being a movie about Native American folklore that features no Native Americans… But I’m fairly certain that both Pet Sematary movies are perpetrators of the same crime… Not like Stephen King is a stranger to controversy, but… We get another choice line from Whitman, “You don’t think I’m crazy, do ya? But I mean I really dreamt it. But I’m not saying I’m psychic either ‘cause I don’t believe in that stuff.” The movie continues on and the only thing that keeps me going are the interactions between Whitman and Mr. Sheldon, Sheldon is just full of life and verve! He is the best actor and the best thing that happened to this movie. Also, halfway through things we get a zombie? What’s going on? The female ranger killed by the zombie is, I suppose, collected by Mr. Sheldon because he sets her up in his office with ropes (like a marionette puppet). He plays with her goopy neck flap and then slaps her for no reason. She’s already dead! Again, what’s going on? Sheldon then goes totally bonkers, dancing around to creepy music and he puts on an eerie mask. Ranger Whitman and the store owner (again, for no real reason) break into the lodge. They split up and Whitman finds the dead female ranger but he has basically no reaction! The store owner, Charlie, breaks two (2) of the windows on a door to get in… But there are already two (2) panels of the door’s glass missing… Not to mention that the door is MISSING IT’S DOORKNOB, so there was literally no reason to break and enter, he could have just entered. This movie is driving me nuts.
Charlie watches as Mr. Sheldon dances around a bunch of dead bodies in his living room (more crappy props)… But I don’t understand either man’s reaction to what they find? They both stumble upon horrifying scenes with at least one (1) dead body but the most they can muster up is a tiny frown. I’m a little more than a little confused! Also, where is the Winterbeast? And which beast is the Winterbeast? We have seen maybe three (3) or four (4) different creatures but none seemed definitively like they were the titular Winterbeast… Ugh. Some people out there really like this movie and I have a feeling I’m gonna want to have a word with them… A few words, actually, most of them only containing four (4) letters… Whitman wants to show Charlie something but it isn’t the strung up dead body of the female ranger… Are you fucking kidding me? Did that not strike him as odd? As something he should share with the class? They confront Mr. Sheldon after realizing that he has been purposefully summoning Chocura and trying to control it… But which one (1) is Chocura? Also, Sheldon just laughs and then his head catches fire and I guess he fucking dies. THEN WE JUST GO TO THE NEXT SCENE. NOTHING HAPPENS. They both go home and are chatting on the phone about how Whitman sent Stillman (the ranger who wears sunglasses at all times of day) out with a dinky little axe to cut down the shrine which Charlie wants to leave up (for the cash value). Stillman is attacked but does okay for a guy who was thrown by a giant monster! And then we just go on to the next scene like everything is fairly normal whereas if I was just attacked by a monster I would probably be getting the fuck out of town!
Whitman and Stillman go somewhere nondescript and end up “fighting” another creature but while Whitman falls in a hole for what feels like five (5) minutes, Stillman gets his head bitten off by the creature. Also, after all that goofy nonsense and those claymation creatures, the Winterbeast is just a guy in a devil costume. How boring is that? Yeah, he has some accessories and long straggly hair, but I don’t care about any of that, we had all these neat little claymation creatures and then the main guy is just a guy? How bland! I thought that this was going to be like Pumpkinhead and it was… In the way that this movie also blatantly copied off of Alien (and not in a flattering, clever, or entertaining way). We have a chest bursting scene and a mouth within a mouth. Cheap and strange (like the rest of the movie). The last scene is just Whitman and Charlie running around with the devil guy before the devil guy somehow explodes. “Next time we hunt for bears.” They say to each other then have a very hearty and fake laugh. We see a (handwritten) sign saying that the lodge is closed AND THEN THE CREDITS ROLL. This fucking movie.
“It’s funny. When your kids are little, it’s easy to be a parent. They don’t see who you actually are. They just see the good stuff. What you want them to see. But eventually, as they grow up… Parts of yourself that you don’t like become harder and harder to hide.”
A nice, funny, but also slightly sad movie about family, fathers, and ghosts (I’d call myself lucky if I had any one (1) of the three (3)!). Featuring David Harbour of Stranger Things fame and Anthony Mackie of Captain America: The Winter Soldier fame. Probably a good family movie if your kids are old enough to watch a man get murdered, but what do I know? I do not run a family blog.
⭐⭐⭐.5
Our story begins with a family evacuating their home in the middle of the night with the front door left open and a light left on inside, but the door closes itself and the light turns off… A year later that same house was being shown to a family of four (4) who find some charm in the rundown thing because the next thing we know they are moving in. Their youngest son, Kevin, is exploring the enormous attic when he stumbles across a real live (ha) ghost wearing a bowling shirt with the name “Ernest” embroidered on it. After the initial shock, Ernest makes an attempt to genuinely scare Kevin away but it fails and they end up becoming friends. We learn that Ernest cannot talk but he can touch things (though he cannot be touched). Ernest also has no memory of his life, he doesn’t know if he lived or even if he died in this house! Kevin had recorded Ernest on his phone which his older brother, Fulton, borrowed and when he saw the video he showed their dad, Frank (played by Anthony Mackie of Captain America: The Winter Soldier fame). Frank immediately puts the video online because he wants to capitalize off of the ghost (kind of rude, honestly). They also agree they won’t tell the mom (Melanie) but when Frank and Fulton are in the attic looking for Ernest (but only Kevin can coax Ernest out), Melanie walks through Ernest before discovering him and freaking the fuck out. A video of her freak out adds to the lore of Ernest and the general buzz around the house itself, which now has a flock around it of groupies and reporters.
A famous medium (played by Jennifer Coolidge) comes in to interview Ernest and the ghost makes a big stink on air! After terrifying the medium and her entire crew, Kevin befriends his neighbor and schoolmate, Joy, who is very intrigued by Ernest (but who isn’t?). The kids get the idea to take Ernest on a ghost field trip and since Ernest has never attempted to leave the house before he gives it a go. To their surprise (and delight) Ernest is a traveling ghost but they are immediately spotted by the fans outside the house and a silly chase ensues before Ernest just becomes completely invisible (which he could have done the whole time). After a little information gathering the group passes through a park and Ernest has a memory triggered by a little blonde girl who he calls “Junebug.” The little girl (seeing a ghost) is terrified and everyone at the park records Ernest scaring the girl, saying that Ernest is now a monster. There is a government taskforce that has been moving in the background and they are now ready to pounce since Ernest has been caught “being aggressive” towards humans. That night the task force invades the home trying to capture Ernest but our friendly ghost, Kevin, and Joy had already snuck out and, using the information they had gathered through the day they found a connection Ernest had to a man a state or two (2) away. The kids (really teens) were running away to try and jog a ghost’s memory... Sweet, but also crazy! Great timing, though, because it saved Ernest from the task force (for now). We have a great car chase scene which is very fun. Mama Melanie is trapped in her own home but is worried about Kevin so she sneakily gets her phone and is able to find out he is safe. When the female task force agent questions her about it Melanie doubles down on defending her son. We LOVE a protective Mama Bear.
We have a cute but also a kind of weird little romantic motel room scene between Kevin and Joy. It ends with them sleeping in the same bed and their socks are mixed up on the floor together but I don’t think they “slept” together or anything… But it was a little weird though! Why have the clothes on the floor shot with two (2) kids when that usually indicates sex… ANYWAY. The next day they find the man connected to Ernest and find out that Ernest is actually a man named Randy. The old man they are talking to is the real Ernest. Real Ernest tells Kevin (Joy is keeping watch out in the car) that Randy Ernest was married to his sister-in-law (Real Ernest’s wife was there too, by the way, she was just post-stroke and largely unresponsive) and they had a child together, June (Junebug), but June’s mother died in childbirth. Randy Ernest became a drinker after that and one (1) day he dropped June off and (after stealing Real Ernest’s bowling shirt) he took off for good. Real Ernest assumed that Randy Ernest drank himself to death years ago. Kevin couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe that the man/ghost he had been getting to know had been a terrible person, but before he could even process this, the task force arrived. Kevin told Randy Ernest to run, but Randy Ernest tried to protect Kevin (showing just the kind of man he truly is). With special guns, the ghost was captured and taken in by the government. After also being escorted in, Kevin was picked up by his parents and brought back to his newly unhaunted home. Frank had a lovely conversation with his heartbroken son about life and apologized for letting him down. Meanwhile, at an undisclosed government facility, the lady task force agent asked the boss of the task force what they were going to do with Randy Ernest and the boss smuggly responds that they will do whatever the fuck they please with him (I’m paraphrasing) because he’s a spirit with no rights. This didn’t sit well with the lady task force agent and after a few hours of letting Randy Ernest be poked and prodded she busts him out (which is wild because she had to assault/knock out guards to do it which means she is probably going go to prison all for setting a ghost free which is amazing but also wild!).
Randy Ernest is grateful and makes his way back to the house because he remembered that he didn’t give June to Real Ernest and his wife, they stole her from him when they killed him. When Randy Ernest’s blood got on Real Ernest’s bowling shirt he just took it off and put it on the dead man before burying him in the backyard. That night in the kitchen Kevin is held at gunpoint by Real Ernest who fears the boy figured out what happened all those years ago. Frank and Fulton come down with weapons but they are incapacitated almost immediately. Kevin locks his mom away and orders her to call the police (which isn’t a bad idea but now it’s just Kevin and a crazy old man with a gun). We are in the attic, things are stressful, and then Randy Ernest appears! Real Ernest and Randy Ernest grapple before Frank comes and tackles Real Ernest, shoving him out the (beautiful stained glass) window, killing him. Cut to Kevin in an interrogation room being asked where Randy Ernest went. Kevin says he doesn’t know but we cut to them on a waterfront and a blonde woman approaches Randy Ernest. She puts a hand on his face and she is able to touch him (the only person ever able to do so). She pauses for a moment, memories flood back, and she says, “Hi, Daddy.” Junebug got to see her dad again. After she got to spend some time with him, Kevin and Randy Ernest stood alone looking out at the water. They hugged before Randy Ernest started to evaporate into light. It was beautiful and peaceful (Corpse Bride-esque). Kevin went back to stand with his father and June as they watched Randy Ernest, Randy, fade away. We end in the attic, Kevin is with Joy, they are now dating, and the family is moving out of the house. After they walk out of the attic for the last time, the light flickers.
It’s February fourteenth (14th) so I picked a Valentine's Day movie but, frankly, there was no real reason why this was a Valentine’s movie. Yes, the events took place on February fourteenth (14th) and they throw in some heart-paraphernalia, but if you took away the Valentine’s aspect of this film it wouldn’t make a significant difference. This could just as easily have been an Easter Bunny horror flick (like we haven’t seen that before). A ridiculous film mainly due to the fact that just about every single character was useless. I love Jensen Ackles, but I’m not sure if he makes this film worth it.
⭐⭐.5
Trigger Warning PTSD, Sexual Abuse
We are quickly blasted with moving newspaper articles introducing us to the story before the story. Tom, played by Jensen Ackles of Supernatural fame, the mine owner's son, makes a mistake that leads to a bunch of miners getting trapped underground. The only survivor of the incident is a man named Harry but the evidence suggests that Harry murdered his fellow miners (with a pickaxe) so that he could conserve the limited air for himself. Harry had been in a coma for a year to the day of the incident (which randomly took place on Valentine’s day) when he suddenly wakes up and goes on a(nother) killing spree. A bunch of teens/young adults were hanging out at the mines (because I guess that’s what you do when your town has mines) and Tom, oddly enough, attended the event because his girlfriend, Sarah, wanted him to go (and who cares about his dark history there, right?). Friends Axel and Irene were already there when suddenly they are all attacked by Harry who is now decked out in a mining suit, mask, and wielding his signature pickaxe. Harry kills many if not most of the folks hanging around the mines before Sarah, Axel, and Irene are able to drive away, leaving Tom for dead. Luckily, the sheriff arrived just in time to shoot Harry and save Tom. The poor traumatized guy sat there on the ground in shock while the sheriff ran after Harry and we are taken ten (10) years into the future. Axel is the new sheriff in town and he is married to Sarah. Right away, though, we learn that he is cheating on his wife with someone she works with, Megan. Megan has big news for Axel, she’s pregnant (this is slightly random because it never comes up again not in any way, shape, or form)!
Tom has been away for the past decade but is back in town because his father has died and (while he missed the man’s funeral) Tom is here to sell the mine. The townspeople are not happy about Tom being back, especially if he’s going to sell the mine. At a motel that Tom is staying at he crosses paths with Irene who is being secretly recorded by a man who then treats her like a prostitute when she discovers his camera. When Irene tries to confront her abuser, a man in a mining suit and mask emerges with a pickaxe and kills the man who crossed her… But then he goes after her! While Irene is able to hide and even briefly fight back, in the end she’s killed by the mysterious man. The next day Tom visits Sarah at work and they have an awkward conversation. That night Sarah and Axel fight about Tom, Axel telling her to stay away from him, but that very next day when Tom approaches her again she goes off to talk with him. Tom never brings up the fact that he was left for dead, which I think is crazy, especially because Sarah is standing there hurling accusations at Tom about him running away and other bullshit… When she literally ran away and left him for dead? Every character in this movie treats the other characters like trash, it’s wild. The only person who is actually nice is Sarah to Megan, which is just sad. Megan confidently cheating with a man who has not just a wife, but a son, makes both Megan AND Axel scumbags.
Tom decides not to sell the mines, all because Sarah yelled at him and told him not to sell. He needs to discuss this so Tom is now going back to the mines to look for the man he needs to talk to. Somehow, though, while he and the guy escorting him are alone, the killer shows up! He locks Tom in a cage then murders the worker. When the other miners arrive they blame Tom for the death, but Tom was in a cage! Tom is certain that the killer is Harry so Axel takes them all on a field trip to where he believes Harry is buried. The problem is that Harry isn’t there anymore, so, what happened to him? Did someone take him, or did he get up and move on his own? Tom investigates around the mines and finds Axel’s fuck pad. The next day (after another death) Axel puts a security detail on his house but not on Sarah’s work, which is dumb, because that is where the killer ended up going next. Sarah and Megan tried to stay away from him but somehow he was able to get from outside the office door (inside) to the back alley quickly enough to grab and kill Megan. She had it coming for cheating and being shady, but wow, pretty wild. Sarah lets Axel know that she has known for a while about him and Megan… So why was Sarah so nice to Megan? The killer breaks into Sarah and Axel’s house (where their kid is) and the nanny is murdered which is pretty unfair, all she did was her job! The old sheriff was also killed. For some reason Sarah is just trusting to get into a car with a guy she hasn’t talked to in a decade, so when Tom calls and asks her to trust him she just does. It’s genuinely so stupid. Axel calls her because he finds out that Tom has been institutionalized for years and Axel is pretty certain that Tom is the killer now. Sarah tells Tom she wants to get out of the car but he starts to scare her, he tells her Axel is the real killer. Sarah causes a car accident which almost gets them both killed (a dumb move since she has a kid at home).
She runs away from the crash and gets to Axel’s fuck pad and finds evidence that points to Axel being the killer. Then the killer shows up! There is a brief chase that lands us back in the mines (of course) and Sarah is pointing Axel’s gun at Axel. This is when Tom arrives and it becomes less clear who the killer really is, so Axel instructs Sarah to shoot them both. No matter who the killer is, if she shoots both men she is going to be a lot safer than if she leaves them both standing there ready to overtake her at any moment. As soon as Axel suggested she shoot them both I knew he wasn’t the killer. It was then that Tom let slip information that only the killer could have known... Things get a bit trippy here because Harry appears, but he is only visible to Tom… Because apparently Tom has Harry’s spirit inside him. The two (2) men fight and Sarah was pretty fucking useless. She had a gun and knew that Tom was the killer but was too sad to shoot him. Dumb! It got Axel stabbed violently which I’m shocked didn’t kill him. In the end, there is one (1) last bullet and Sarah shoots Tom, the bullet goes through him and hits a container of gas that causes an explosion. Sarah and Axel are rescued from the mine but there is no sign of Tom because when a rescuer stumbled across him, Tom killed the man and took his uniform. Far from the cave he removes his mask and we see Tom, or I guess Harry, alive and well, ready to recover and wreak havoc once more. If only Sarah had just shot him when she had the chance! Stupid.
“And to whatever spirit just threw that cup, please just… Chill.”
A movie that takes place (almost entirely) in a single house (and mostly just a single room) featuring what might be the most annoying woman in the world and a doormat of a man. If I wanted to watch people chatting in a room for over an hour I would have just watched A Man From Earth and had a nice evening. The Séance room/set borders on haunted house decorations and the story drags.
⭐.5
We begin with this, honestly, super sweet intro of a woman communicating with her husband from beyond the veil, but then the spiritualist, Nate, gets this vision of an alien/robot/monster (?) that wants Nate to let it possess him… You get all that? Later Nate calls the thing an ancient gatekeeping entity… But the dude has a face reminiscent of K’Nex… During The Séance a participant breaks the circle which is something you are not allowed to do (see Séance & Seance/Seance: The Summoning) but Nate says it’s okay. Even after finishing the movie I’m not sure if the broken circle had anything to do with the events in the film. After The Séance everyone leaves but the woman who broke the circle, Andy, and she is looking all over the room for hidden strings or other devices. We find out very quickly that Andy is not only a skeptic but a YouTuber (wow). She wants to record Nate but he refuses (and this bit of dialog will happen another twenty (20) or so times during the film) and the discussion begins. Is the entire movie going to take place in this one (1) room? There is so much choreography of the two (2) of them moving around doing different busy work, first (1st) it was Andy searching the room and now it’s Nate putting things away. We are half an hour in (with fifty (50) minutes left) and I’m genuinely concerned we aren’t going to leave The Séance room. After a while we actually do leave the room and stretch out into the hallway and even a room with plants in it… But we are still stuck in this fucking house (and mainly in The Séance room)! Also, the order of events is strange, it appears that Nate wasn’t going to inform Andy that the last person to break the circle died as a direct result, he only tells her after she had overstayed her welcome… And the dialog has them talking in circles which mirrors their activities so the whole thing is making me dizzy.
Andy has been genuinely so insufferable this whole time that I wasn’t sure if I could keep watching the film. Nate is okay, his lines are clearly written by a teenager, but otherwise he’s fine. Andy, however, sucks the life, light, and fun out of any and everything. She asks (demands) Nate to tell her the story of how he went from botanist to spiritualist but she keeps interrupting him and I’m honestly so tired of her and her fucking attitude. Is it supposed to be cute or endearing? She’s a pain in the ass! I have no idea why Nate has let her stay this long and she keeps doing stupid things and now she is doing yet another thing that he is sincerely begging her not to do and it is genuinely pissing me off. I kind of hope Andy dies but I don’t think this is that type of movie. Nate tells her that when he first moved into the house he realized it was haunted so he called his friends for help. They perform the first (1st) Séance in that house and the group decides that Nate should ask the questions… But, why does he think for so long before asking the exact same questions his friend already asked? It’s so stupid! All of this is stupid! Anyway, they do The Séance and, yes, there are ghosts. Which they already knew. Now that Andy has heard that riveting story (and had a glass of wine) she is ready to leave (fucking finally, but also, drinking and driving?). Just after she steps outside she is looking at her phone before storming back in to confront Nate. All night she had been suggesting that he had partners who help him do his “tricks” and she is convinced they help him with his latest. Nate has no idea what she is talking about and neither do we.
Apparently Andy just received a voicemail from her mother, the one (1) she told Nate died ten (10) years prior. Nate swears he had nothing to do with the voicemail but Andy is already storming upstairs to find his “friends.” The upstairs is just sort of a black void with cobwebs, Andy finds a locket and hears a voice. When she comes back downstairs Nate is holding a knife (maybe he will kill her and the movie will end!) which he quickly drops. Andy gets locked in The Séance room and she (of course) thinks that Nate is the culprit. When the door finally opens Nate has the knife again. Andy is now frightened and wants to leave but the weird alien thing knocks Nate out. Andy is now visited by an entire theatre company… I know that all the people with distressed clothing were supposed to be spirits… But between the facepaint and the general vibe they gave off, I wasn’t buying that the house was suddenly filled with full body apparitions. The movie is still going on for some stupid reason, Nate wakes up and they run to the garage and sit in his car. Nate had his car blessed (since he couldn’t get his house blessed). But, oh, no! They don’t have the keys. Does anyone else hate this movie? Back in the house the ghosts are still there and Nate realizes that Andy’s dead mom is actually there too (the locket and the voicemail) and the mom guides them to an open window which they escape through but, oh, no (again)! The window slams down on Nate’s leg! The house won’t let him go until Andy promises that she won’t post about the house on her YouTube channel… Who fucking cares? After about another minute of my time wasted, the house lets Nate go… And after they go to the hospital for Nate’s leg he just goes right back into the haunted house? Because it’s his house so he is just going to go back in… So fucking stupid. We end on Andy making a weird YouTube video for her followers about letting go of anger but the lesson is learned because she believes in ghosts now, so, I’m not sure that it was the powerful ending they thought it would be.
“I think it’s easier to believe almost anything other than that someone we were close to was in pain and we didn’t notice.”
This was an overwhelmingly average, dimly lit, and mildly stressful movie (at least at the end). The twist was rather lame and there were only two (2) unique kills. Overall it’s something to watch if you like a bit of girlpower, catfights, and a budding relationship, but otherwise it’s just okay.
⭐⭐.5
Trigger Warning Suicide, R-Word, Flashing Lights
We open on a dim bathroom (strap on your night-vision goggles, this entire movie is dark) and a gaggle of girls doing what is essentially the Bloody Mary summoning ritual (but theirs is for the Edelvine Ghost). They hear a noise, pull back a curtain, and reveal a bathtub full of (what looks like) blood. A hand reaches out of the tub as the lights go out and one (1) of the girls makes a hasty exit. It is revealed that this was all an elaborate hoax but the girl who ran to her room, Kerrie, screams. When the girls investigate it appears that Kerrie jumped from her window as she was now dead on the pavement below. The new student taking Kerrie’s spot at Edelvine Academy is Camille (she is also living in Kerrie’s old room). Helina is Camille’s first (1st) friend and she greatly helps Camille throughout the film. We also meet Trevor, the headmaster’s son who is the maintenance man for the school. He is just sort of around sometimes. The clique from the start of the movie, led by Alice, starts a fight with Camille who gladly gets physical with Alice. This lands them all in detention which leads to them deciding to pass the time by holding a Seance (and they make a planchette with a phone case and an open lipstick, which is kind of crazy). At first this was going to be another prank by Alice and crew but it seemed like they were actually talking to Kerrie’s spirit! After the Seance, Lenora, a girl from the clique, goes “missing” but the audience knows she was killed in the woods by someone/thing in a mask.
Rosalind, yet another girl from the clique, is taking a shower when she gets killed but this time the killer allows her to be found. Helina checks on Camille to see if she is okay (since Camille was the one (1) who found Rosalind) but it’s clear that Helina is freaked out so Camille invites her in to stay a while. We love a girls girl but this could also be a budding romance. I adore strong friendships, but it would also be super cute if they got together. I’ll be happy either way is the point I’m trying to make. Bethany (another clique member) sees the killer that night but she isn’t attacked. Suspicious? Probably! The next day they hold another Seance, this time trying to contact Rosalind. They reach her super easily… Suspicious? Absolutely! Rosalind tells them that Camille killed her… What? With that information, Yvonne (the final clique member) goes off to practice ballet and gets killed. That night, Camille is in her room and she is talking to the ghost like she knows her (suspicious? FUCK YES!). Camille then sees the ghost IN BED WITH HER so she heads to Helina’s and asks to stay the night. Helina puts a delicate hand on Camille as she falls asleep and Camille places her hand on top so we now know this is going in a romantic direction, very cute! But the cuteness doesn’t last long because Camille hears Alice leaving her dorm in the middle of the night and follows her. Camille isn’t out of the room for more than a minute before the killer sneaks up behind her and knocks her out. Somehow the killer is also in the field across from the dorms though as they knock out Alice too (there is a ghost but it doesn’t seem like the ghost is the killer, the killer seems quite corporeal).
Camille wakes up bound to a chair with Alice in a similar situation still knocked out beside her. There are two (2) people in masks in front of them and immediately upon seeing them (even in their non-descript black outfits and masks) you can tell it’s Bethany and Trevor. Why, though? They take off their masks and (GASP) it’s Bethany and Trevor! Bethany has a total demeanor shift but I’m not entirely sure she’s pulling it off. She isn’t really big bad wolf material (sorry, babe). They explain that they killed everyone (even the original Edelvine Ghost, that was Trevor’s babysitter that he murdered when he was twelve (12)) because not only do they hate everyone but Bethany plagiarized a paper and didn’t want to get caught. You read that right, the premise of this movie and the purpose of all the killing is because of a plagiarized paper! It’s true that she would lose her scholarship if the school finds out she copied, but wow. Someone thought of this as an idea and then someone else told them it was a good idea and then more people made it into a movie and then I watched it! Isn’t that something? Also, Bethany and Trevor are in love! But that is gross because Trevor is old, I think? His age is never explicitly mentioned but Camille references them getting together when Bethany was a freshman as being gross, so I guess he is a creep but I feel I’m missing vital information. It also doesn’t help that most if not all of these actors playing students are straight up adults… File that under things you don’t notice as a kid but as an adult it makes movie watching super distracting.
The big bad plan now is that Bethany and Trevor will kill Alice and then Camille… It will somehow look like Camille killed everyone (then in a few days they kill Helina and make it look like suicide). Camille throws a wrench in their plans though, because Camille isn’t actually Camille. Camille assumed a false identity to get into the prestigious Edelvine Academy because she needed to investigate the death of her dearest and only friend, Kerrie. What appears to be Kerrie’s ghost shows up in Helina’s room and very loosely guides Helina to look out the window and to see the flickering lights of the library basement (where Bethany had Camille). Right as it seemed like Trevor was going to kill Camille (against Bethany’s orders but she wasn’t there) Helina hit him with the weapon Camille gifted her earlier (“If anything scares you, hit it in the skull.”). They attempt to carry the still unconscious Alice out of the basement when Bethany returns with her hammer and knocks Helina out. Bethany and Camille fight and, for a moment, it almost seems like Bethany will win, but Camille cuts her throat with a broken fluorescent tube light. Alice and Helina wake up and escape but Camille stays behind to tie Trevor up but he woke up too. This was very stressful, this entire basement scene was stressful. After it seems (again) like things are not in Camille’s favor, she stabs Trevor in the leg which incapacitates him and, as he tells her that his mother will probably get him a reduced sentence, Camille tips over a heavy cabinet which chops that sick fuckers head off. Cut to Camille in her room, packing her things and finding a stash of pictures Kerrie kept of the two (2) of them. As Camille is leaving, Helina catches her and they talk briefly before Helina asks how she will be able to contact Camille. Camille kisses her and tells Helina that she will find her. As Camille turns to get one (1) last look she sees Kerrie’s spirit waving to her from the window. “Maybe I do believe in ghosts.”
“This is gonna be the best student film of all time.”
This movie absolutely sucked, make no mistake. It’s a low budget horror movie that didn’t work within that budget well. The special effect makeup was oftentimes distracting from the story, to the point where it probably would have been better to go without it in some instances. It’s okay to have limitations! You just have to be aware of them. Same goes for acting, if you don’t have enough range then sometimes it’s best to just stick to what you know (or for them to get new actors)… So much preachy dialog without it actually really saying anything and you can’t just toss in heavy subject matter and hope the movie will suddenly have depth. That isn’t how it works! This was an oddly Christian film while also being the furthest thing I’ve ever seen or heard from Christianity. Incredibly unfortunate (for me to have watched this).
We open on two (2) friends reading a three (3) card Tarot spread. Eva is the spiritualist while Sara is clearly a born-again Christian. They are picked up in a hearse (sweet ride) by their friends Joey and Marcus. Joey (wearing a t-shirt with a bird skull) is giving off mad Sid from Toy Story energy. Marcus works security at the city morgue so they are going there for the night to film a movie/documentary. They all go along with Eva’s spiritual bullshit but when it comes to her claiming to talk to ghosts they are all skeptical, so tonight is about her proving herself to them (but mainly Joey). There is a bet but the stakes are things we (the audience) don’t really know or care about, so let’s get to the spooky stuff, shall we? After a quick tour, including the freezer where Sara almost pokes a dead guy (but Marcus tells her to not to because it has bacteria(?)), they settle in the coffin viewing room to do their Seance. Just like the last movie, the rule is that they cannot let go of each other’s hands. Eva thinks she is sensing a dark energy but Joey says it’s all a bunch of bullshit and breaks the circle which gets Eva low-key attacked, though she is more worried about Joey, who she thinks has the psychic gift as well. Marcus goes to talk to Joey and we find out that Joey is very troubled, he’s cutting again (something he did in his youth) and is hearing voices (which he’s worried is a mental disease). Joey had already gone off on the group before the Seance and told them religion and ghosts were fake but now he is also high on weed and embalming fluid, so… Yeah…
They all meet back up but Joey is still being an insufferable asshole so Eva says that if he really wants proof she will do another Seance. They perform the second Seance, and, OF COURSE, Joey breaks the circle (again), and, OF COURSE, Joey gets possessed… It’s so dumb. He palms Marcus and Eva on the forehead and they both fall to the ground seizing up and foaming at the mouth, then Joey rips his shirt in half. Huh? In what universe was that necessary? He then attempts to rape Sara, before Marcus just sort of “gets better” and pushes Sara out of the way. It is instantly clear that possessed Joey is going to break Marcus’s neck but I’m gobsmacked because we are only half an hour in and there’s still another hour left! So Marcus dies, surprising no one (1) but Sara. Eva finally gets up, decks Joey with a chair which knocks him out, and then girls attempt to escape but the malevolent spirit they summoned has somehow hacked the mainframe… Are you serious? They go and tie Joey up, put Marcus in the freezer, then just wait. Joey wakes up, largely himself, and is pissed off about being bound, he wants to know where Marcus is. The girls finally work up the courage to tell him what happened but it isn’t until Eva retrieves Marcus’s body from the freezer to show Joey that he believes what happened. Joey then allows Eva to hypnotize him in order to try and get the evil spirit out of him.
The evil spirit is very evil and is quite mean to the girls, they try to make him leave but he is content on staying. They switch to Christian bible tactics. Also, the evil spirit that is possessing Joey can still control things from far away? It somehow causes a scalpel to go through Eva’s hand (Sara instantly informs her it’s infected… How would you know what, Sara?) They get the scalpel out, try some Christian prayers over Joey, burn a cross into his chest, and then Sara gets her leg broken somewhere far from Joey, again by the evil spirit’s powers. And it is randomly cutting to possessed Joey just sort of pulsing in his seat but it kind of looks like he is quite literally getting off to the girl's pain (if his hands weren’t bound I might believe it was true). Sara has great screams of pain while Eva sets her broken bones, then they keep trying to help Joey but he unveils a secret… That Sara had either an abortion or a miscarriage. Eva asks why Sara never confided this information in her and Sara says it was in part because she was ashamed and in part because Joey was the father (Eva and Joey had dated briefly, but Sara and Joey were just a one (1) night stand). Eva is so sweet to her friend at this moment which is good because it’s all you can be when a hidden truth like this is revealed. Around this point, though, it felt like the movie just kept happening to me. I don’t know how else to put it. But I was enduring it. The girls came back to Joey (again) but he caused Eva to pass out then he started to lick Sara all over the face which somehow caused her entire face to explode in blood? Eva basically drags Sara out of the room and there are these fake teeth prosthetics on Sara’s cheek to try and make some sort of illusion that we are seeing through her cheek and into her mouth… But it is so clearly on top of her cheek? I just… I’m at a loss here, I would say I am grasping for straws but this movie lost me about thirty (30) minutes in when the first thing that possessed Joey did was rip his shirt in half. I guess we needed some sort of sexuality in this movie and they certainly didn’t have that budget for breasts, hell, the last film we watched only had enough cash for one (1), so, sheesh.
Also, how, and why did Sara’s face explode? I know she was licked, but possessed Joey made Eva pass out (twice) and she’s largely fine. Sara tells Eva that she’s dying and you can die from serious facial trauma but, I am so perplexed as what the fuck is even going on at this point. There’s ten (10) minutes left in this movie, a fair chunk of them have to be dedicated to credits, so, where the fuck are they going with this? And do I actually care? Sara makes Eva promise that she will save Joey, but earlier Eva promised that nothing bad would happen to Sara… And Sara just spat up a bunch of blood and died… So… Yikes. Eva is holding dead Sara, crying, when possessed Joey appears beside her. They end up fighting in the chapel and Eva holds her own!. Dunking his head in the holy water weakens him so much that she is able to choke him out. But this kills Joey… Eva transfers the evil spirit into a rat and then she bites its head off like Ozzy Osbourne did to that bat. The movie ends with Eva stumbling out of the morgue and then we watch a bunch of rats milling around in the basement. Was meant to imply that the evil spirit went into a different rat and that Eva didn’t actually kill it? None of the rats acted in an intelligent or an evil way, though, so it just seemed like they were showing rats for no reason but to waste my time even more. Fuck this movie.
“So my room really is haunted with a real ghost? …She needs to get over it.”
What an innocent seeming film with a surprisingly dark story and a rather sad ending. I found myself a bit shocked at how dark they went with this. I think it would have been better suited if the setting was an apartment building instead of a dorm (as in, if the main players were a bit more mature), but then what would be the excuse for having it so vacant? Much better than I thought it was going to be from the quality of the intro but otherwise still a pretty sub-par film.
We are treated to this really cheap intro with flashing lights, a silly stick figure drawing, and a song with a child repeating, “La.” Over and over. All of these things combined are supposed to be spooky but really I can’t wait for it to end. We meet our main character, Lauren, who is being haunted by a little girl with a bent neck (bent neck lady, bent neck lady, bent neck lady). Lauren wakes from a particularly disturbing nightmare about the little girl choking her. The other girls in Lauren’s dorm make fun of her even though they are all aware of the ghost? They know that there is something that makes the water in the bathroom turn on a few times a week when no one is in there and only Lauren seems to be upset about it... It is randomly Thanksgiving break but Lauren is staying behind in the dorm because of money and family issues, her roommate Alison is staying as well because she wants to be with her boyfriend, and there is also their roommate Melina, but it is never explicitly mentioned why she stayed for the break. The girls pull one (1) over on the pervy security guard (Syd) who they know will try to watch them shower, so Melina showers while Lauren lockpicks Syd’s desk and steals his booze. The best part of this whole scheme is that Syd thinks he’s peeping on the skin of a young woman, but really it was Diego, Alison’s boyfriend!
While enjoying their ill-gotten goods, they disturb the only other student in the twenty (20) story dormitory, Grant. Grant is a grumpy bitch but he grows on you. Later on when Diego and Alison are busy smooching and Melina is listening to music, Lauren goes off on a peace mission with Grant (who she has a crush on). After an awkward exchange she leaves but pauses in the hallway at the broken elevator when it begins to open and close its doors. Grant comes back out to tell Lauren that it’s the ghost of the little girl doing that and Lauren is so glad to hear that someone else knows about her! Next thing we know, we are in Grant’s room and he is giving us an entire history lesson on Cara, the little girl who died in the building. She fell down the elevator shaft. Sad! Cara used to live in Lauren’s room and a man named Spence lived in Grant’s room. Also the first thing Lauren did when she was in Grant’s room was grab a bottle of his pills and ask what they are for. How unhinged is that? I know people do stupid things when they like someone, but sheesh! Grant tells her they keep him from killing himself. Wow! Also, Grant is a hacker. He’s in! After showing Lauren all this stuff, even printing out the article about Cara’s death for Lauren to take, Grant tells her that he won’t tell her friends that the ghost is real. Lauren gets mad and leaves then Grant just sort of looks disgusted with himself.
Lauren tells her friends that Grant believes in the ghost too; he just won’t confirm or deny that to any of them. Diego, who is an out there kind of guy, suggests that they have a Séance. Why? I mean, why not? So they have a Séance and, for no real reason other than to further the plot, they throw Spence’s name into the mix with Cara’s. Suddenly, there is a man that only the audience can see (for now)! Oh, no! We get some weird shirtless Grant shots for no real reason and then very brief, but very bad fake piano playing. Atrocious. More of Lauren trying to flirt with Grant as Grant just tries to explain that he genuinely doesn’t enjoy the outside world. We have some brief nudity (one (1) breast?) before Alison and Diego split and both Alison and Diego (separately) are unpleasantly surprised by who they cross paths with next (Spence). I am getting such strong, “Garbage day!” vibes from Spence. Alison is missing (and Diego asks) but the girls haven’t seen her. Lauren asks Grant to come help them go to the twentieth (20th) floor to look for Alison. When they get up to the twentieth (20th) floor they see weird graffiti and Syd finds them and yells at them. I have no idea how Syd (normally on the first (1st) floor) caught wind of something on floor twenty (20), but let’s call it a plot hole and just hop over it… Syd is attacked by Spence and then they are both gone. Lauren and Melina, alone, do a Ouija board session to try and talk to Cara. The spirit board starts to communicate with them but Melina runs out, afraid. Lauren sees Cara and tries to run away, but Cara just directs her (again) to a spot in the bathroom and Lauren finally understands.
Under the bathroom floor, Lauren finds a tin full of memories belonging to Cara. Lauren is then transported into a flashback of the night that Cara died, Spence was in her room, he took her out and to his room. She was killed there and then he dropped her body down the elevator shaft, making it look like an accidental death. Lauren brings this new information to the group’s attention and Grant reassures them that they are safe because Spence was executed by the state years ago for the murder of five (5) children… But they realized that they summoned Spence with their Séance and tried to get help but instead found all the blood around Syd’s desk but no Syd. They tried to escape but the doors were locked and only Syd had keys. Without warning, Diego started to be flung around the room, Spence was attacking them without them being able to see him! They raced back to a dorm room and hatched a new plan to summon Spence into a physical body… And then kill that physical body. Grant quickly volunteers the parrot Diego is petsitting, but I don’t think Grant was ever informed that there was a bird in Diego’s possession, so that might be a big plot hole (but if you think I’m gonna scrub through the whole movie again to find out, you have another thing coming). Melina expresses concern about the moral implications of killing the animal since she is a vegan but Lauren replies, “We’re not gonna eat it, Melina, we’re just gonna bash its head in once it’s possessed.”
They begin the second Séance and Spence shows up. All they have to do is keep their hands linked so he is forced to possess the parrot… But Spence tricks Diego into dropping the group's hands by throwing a ball at him! Then Diego gets possessed! Seriously? I’m sort of stunned but also mildly impressed because that reflex (to catch something thrown at you) is so ingrained that most people would succumb to the same fate. In my heart of hearts, though, I like to believe I would have just tensed up as the ball smashed me in the fucking face. Me: 1, Ghosts: 0. The newly possessed Diego kills himself, which is wild considering Spence just got a physical body. Wouldn’t he want to keep it and, I don’t know, escape in it? Spence is a little more narrow minded, all he wants to do is kill, but he can also already do that as a ghost… And that’s what happens next when Alison briefly re-appears, badly hurt, before Spence brings her to the basement, somehow sticks her under the elevator and, despite the group’s best efforts, they are unable to free her before the elevator comes down and crushes her. The final three (3) try to find an exit in the basement but instead find Syd, bloody, but still alive. Lauren attempts to help Syd as Spence draws closer, Grant says to leave Syd, he cannot be helped, then Grant heads on. Melina doubles back for Lauren but Melina is grabbed by Spence and in that struggle a strong electrical wire is exposed. Lauren then electrocutes Spence, which puts him down… For a moment.
The girls are angry with Grant for basically leaving them to die but Grant, terrified, tells them that he isn’t a hero. Cara appears as a warning that Spence is still there, so Lauren hides Melina then heads out looking for Spence. Alone, Lauren begins the chant that allows Spence’s spirit to enter a physical host… But Lauren is the only one (1) available! She is going to sacrifice herself (and more than likely throw herself down the elevator shaft). Grant hears Lauren chanting from his room, realizes what she is doing, and decides to be a hero. Grant appears and takes over the chanting so Spence possesses Grant instead of Lauren and, with the last bit of strength Grant had left, the last bit of himself he had left, Grant threw himself down the elevator shaft, killing himself and Spence. Lauren and Melina were able to escape after that and Lauren sought out and found Cara’s living sister (that very next morning). She gave her the box of Cara’s memories (including a diary with notes about how she hid what Spence was doing to her from her mother and sister). We are then treated to a dumb little after credits scene that took away from the bittersweet ending we just received, but instead sets them up for a possible sequel and it isn’t as strong an ending. Whomp, whomp. It was them wheeling Syd out of the building, still alive, but, surprise! Syd is now actually Spence.
Boring, slow, and sad! Seriously, this was just two (2) people making poor decisions and then the movie ends. I can make poor decisions in my own life without wasting an hour and a half. Ugh, this could have easily been a disappointing short film instead of a disappointing movie.
⭐
Trigger Warning Suicide Discussion, Child Abuse, Child Death
Our story begins with talk about paranormal sciences and the unknown (or underknown), we meet a psychic, Junko, who can not only see ghosts but gain information from personal items. She is asked to help with a kidnapping case while her husband, who works for a sound effect studio, is in the woods getting sound samples. The woods her husband, Sato, are in, happen to be the same woods that the kidnapped little girl are in and she is actively running away from her captor. When she happens upon Sato she doesn’t ask for help, she just climbs into his equipment trunk… But here is where the logic of the movie breaks down for me. That case had to have had something inside of it, right? So, why did Sato just lock it back up and throw it in his car when he was going home? He wouldn’t have brought that big of a case if it was empty, right? That doesn’t make any sense! He also doesn’t notice the weight difference when he lugs it in and out of his car. So bizarre! A very thin piece of plot that is vital to the movie working. It is a day or two (2) before Junko touches one (1) of the little girl’s items (that she was given by the police) and she gets the psychic vibe that the girl is in their garage! Sato is ready to call the police, or the hospital, but Junko makes him stop… How ever did this girl get into their possession? I saw how it happened and even I don’t believe it! But the girl is actually alive which is good and now Junko and Sato hatch a plan to make Junko a famous psychic.
When Sato informs Junko that the little girl saw his face, Junko is immediately angry, as if Sato should have known to wear a mask or something (like a criminal)… There is something hilariously absurd about Junko’s rage but I’m also more interested in the safety of the little girl… Can we just get her to a hospital where her parents can meet up with her? This is the second (2nd) movie in a row where the main characters suddenly come into possession of a child and I find that interesting. Junko has a “come to God” revelation about her relationship and living situation but… Now is not the time for that? When they were in the kitchen together and she was whining about him “not letting her dream,” someone whispered for him to stab her. Now, who could that have been? Certainly not me (it was absolutely me). Anyway, the plan is for them to leave the girl’s shoes in an abandoned building. They go, literally just toss the shoes, then Junko calls and tells the police she has cracked the case, her psychic abilities lead her to know the location of the little girl… OR AT LEAST an item of hers. BULLSHIT, lady. In the beginning I really liked Junko but now I’m just worried about the girl. When the fuck is she going to get medical attention?
Sato goes to check on the girl while Junko fields a visitor but the girl isn’t asleep anymore, she is wide awake and clearly wants to leave. Sato does some more smothering. Either that night or the next day the little girl straight up dies and they bury her in the woods, which doesn’t make them murders, just accessories to murder (or maybe they are guilty of manslaughter?). Either way, they let that little girl die and I hope Junko is haunted by her spirit for the rest of her life and afterlife. Fear is no reason not to help someone in need. It didn’t stop the hikers in A Lonely Place To Die but it immediately stopped Junko, and Junko was in the comfort of her own home. Funny how some things pan out. Or maybe not so funny as it is peculiar how some will sacrifice everything for a stranger and others won’t lift a finger. Sato holds her and tells her it’s okay but it isn’t okay, they allowed a child to die because they wanted fame. Plain and simple. “Get haunted, bitch.” I heard myself saying as the little girl’s spirit started to appear in both Junko and Sato’s lives.
At first Sato fights the ghost (physically with a stick), which is wild (and rude). Then Sato blames the LITTLE GIRL for dying, saying it was HER FAULT for sneaking into his trunk… Yeah! How dare she try to escape the man who had kidnapped her in the first place! Let’s gang up on the little dead girl, huh? If you can’t tell, I’m being extremely sarcastic, this is outrageous that he is blaming the child for dying. SHEESH. After fighting the child ghost Sato sets a doppelganger of himself on fire (kill your double). After getting his house blessed, Sato tells the priest that, when it comes to him and his spouse, “No couple is more ordinary.” This is coming from a man who sits in the woods collecting sound samples with the wife who communes with the dead… Also, Junko doesn’t question that Sato is also seeing the little girl’s ghost (even though he isn’t psychic). The police come to their house to ask more questions about the girl, they ask to do a Séance which Junko obliges. She puts on quite a show, “channeling” the little girl’s spirit then telling the police that she (the girl) is somewhere underground, buried. The police catch Junko in her lie, they already found the girl and she is at the morgue. The final nail in the coffin is what Junko holds in her hand, a hair clip that had fallen out of the girl’s hair.
Wow. There were a lot of great lines in this film, it’s sort of a sleeper hit in that regard. Midway through two (2) of the survivors had a discussion that just slapped me in the face. I’m not entirely sure how much danger the participants were actually in but some of the climbing seemed treacherous! A story that sucks you in and (aside from a few tropes) is hard to guess what happens next! I must admit, though, movies like this make travelling to other countries seem pretty scary!
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Trigger Warning Child Death Discussions, Implied Suicide
Three (3) climbers are on a cliff face when one (1) male, Ed, isn’t paying attention and gets caught up in the rope and nearly falls. Things get pretty dangerous for a moment as the other male, Rob, has to quickly repel down to Ed and their last member, Alison, and secure them both. After that adrenaline rush, they meet up with Jenny and Alex before they all head out for the group hike. Jenny packed sandwiches for the day and Ed proclaims that anything is fine except fish, which means the sandwiches are going to be fish, but who makes fish sandwiches to please a group? They joke about being British so that’s why their food is bad, but fish sandwiches on a hike? That’s insane. Who knows how long you’ll be out there? They might start to smell! The movie has barely started and all I can think about is stinky sandwiches! Smoked mackerel and egg… Seriously? Go fuck yourself and pack PB&J’s like an adult. Those nasty sandwiches are the true horror of this film! Ed hears a strange sound in the woods which Alison follows until they find a pipe sticking out of the ground… In the middle of the forest. They quickly identified that someone was buried alive and that the pipe was their only source of air (it was also how the group was able to hear them crying for help). They dig up a box and open it to find a little girl trapped inside, she is terrified, as you would be if you had been trapped underground for an indiscriminate amount of time.
To be entirely honest, I thought this was going in a supernatural direction, I thought they were going to open the box and the little girl (who was just actively talking to them through the pipe) was going to have been long dead, but she was alive! The group makes a plan that involves two (2) of them (Rob and Alison) traversing a dangerous cliff with not exactly enough gear (they weren’t planning on doing any climbing that day so they didn’t bring much with them). I understand that they are trying to save this girl and that they are (intelligently) concerned that whomever put her in the ground is going to be back for her at any time, but perhaps their plan is putting them in too much danger? I mean, Rob and Alison are going to a place called “Devil’s Drop,” which doesn’t exactly instill confidence in me, plus they have no extra rope. While Anna is with the rest of the group, Rob and Alison literally run, which I think is super dangerous too? Maybe I’m just extremely cautious (but I also almost rolled my ankle twice just trying to take my dog for a walk, so perhaps I’m not a fair judge of “danger”). On the first (1st) section of the cliff, Alison has a little trouble reaching but then Rob straight up FALLS TO HIS DEATH. I was shocked, yes, but I also laughed! They killed him off so fast that it was comical! The icing on the cake was Rob’s little lifeless body on the rocks down below, I KNOW it is supposed to be sad but something about it was funny! I showed a third party the scene, someone who wasn’t even watching the movie, and they agreed that Rob’s death was funny, so, therefore, it’s unanimous and I will not feel bad.
Alison is rocked (ha) by Rob’s death and now rocks are hurtling down at her? Almost like someone is throwing them at her. Finally, one (1) hits her and she falls, hitting branches on her way down and then the water below. This is the second (2nd) movie in a row where a character falls off a cliff but miraculously lives. Outstanding. We find out that their rope was cut and that someone was indeed throwing rocks down at Alison. She passes out and has a nightmare about waking up in a box underground (like poor Anna) which is horrifying. Thankfully it’s just a nightmare and Alison wakes up outside… But next to dead Rob. She has to get herself moving and to get back to her friends (which I didn’t realize was an option, I thought that once she was down there she had to continue on to the next town, but she can just double back). We briefly meet guys who we think are going to be the bad guys but then the real bad guys (Sean Harris, Possum and Stephen McCole, Malevolent) come and kill those guys. When Alison finds her friends they are across fast moving water and they can’t hear her when she tries to tell them that Rob was killed. Without warning, Jenny is sniped, killed, and she accidently drags Anna down into the water with her. There is a big chase sequence with the kidnappers (who have snipers but are also very bad shots) and the remaining hikers (plus Anna). Alison ends up having to jump into the water to save Anna which is an entire ordeal in and of itself. In the end, Alison is able to find Anna and revive her.
When Alison, Anna, Ed, and Alex all meet back up, Alex is rocked by the death of his partner, Jenny, and starts to discuss how the kidnappers only really want Anna. I was a little concerned that Alex was going to say they should give Anna up, but instead he sacrifices himself, he has a dummy of Anna in his arms and runs in the opposite direction, distracting the kidnappers and giving Anna, Alison, and Ed a chance to escape. Alex is my fucking hero here. He thinks about Jenny as the kidnappers let him bleed out after shooting him. “You feel that? That’s the price of your nobility. Hurts? Doesn’t it?” The final three (3) have to climb down to keep moving forward so Alison encourages Anna to repel (after Ed had already successfully done so), but this is something Anna had never done before. She is terrified but she is also incredibly brave and (even with the language barrier) she does what Alison asks. They take a short break because Ed is injured but he brings up a good point, what if they interrupted the exchange? What if they ruined Anna’s only real chance at getting returned to her family? “What if we’ve killed her? What if this is all our fault?” But Alison speaks plainly and from her heart, “Could you leave her in the ground?” And the answer is simple, none of them would have been able to. “...If we’ve done the wrong thing then I’ll fucking live with it. Now get up. Find a way.” Meanwhile, the kidnappers casually bring up a story about how one (1) of the kids that they had in the ground was eaten alive by rats that crawled in through the breathing pipe. Are you fucking kidding me? What a vile detail that was added into this movie!
We hear the ransom call and get the dimensions of the box Anna was previously residing in; four (4) by three (3) feet, which is SO SMALL. Alison, Ed, and Anna make it to town and a police station but things don’t feel safe yet. Somewhere else in that same town, one (1) of the kidnappers is attempting to do the handoff while bluffing his way out of not having the girl, the other kidnapper, however, has found the survivors at the police station. After sniping the only officer there, Alison, Ed, and Anna continue to run for their lives while the kidnapper dons a pig/boar mask (SAW much?) and is somehow, after being up on a roof, right behind them. Ed gets seen as a kidnapper by the other people in town who are trying to save Anna, so Ed is subsequently shot, though it’s the real kidnapper who fires the kill shot. Bye, Ed! Alison gets herself and Anna into a stranger’s home but the kidnapper follows. He shoots the homeowner (then his gun either jams or he runs out of bullets), locks the door, then he goes after Alison, he wants to make her pay for making this kidnapping such a headache! As they scuffle the house slowly catches fire and the fight is brought upstairs before Alison appears to be knocked out. The kidnapper closes in on Anna before Alison, who still had fight left in her, pushes the kidnapper out the window! Between her and Alex, I’m in love! Alison then (somehow safely) lowers and drops Anna out the window before truly passing out. We cut to the other kidnapper, he has been kidnapped himself by Anna’s father and it’s implied that he will suffer greatly before dying which is a fate he deserves a million times over. We end with Anna and Alison, safe in an ambulance. Anna says thank you to Alison. While (almost) everyone in the original party did lose their lives saving her, there was no way they could have lived on knowing she was in the ground. This was a sad but in the end an epic journey.
This was excellent and also extremely fun. You went on a journey with the characters and you wanted to go on that journey. I really enjoyed the direction the film went in, it was unique and different from what horror movies often do (and repeat at nauseum). Some of the deaths felt a little easy, almost like the character didn’t really attempt to survive, that is a fault I find with this film, but otherwise it’s a hit.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Trigger Warning Vomit, Flashing Images
To begin we have a military promotion for (the now) Captain Boyd (Guy Pearce, The Woman In Cabin 10 & Prometheus) who captured an enemy headquarters, but Boyd makes a speedy exit on the sight of his rare and bloody steak (his vomiting brings us our stunning title screen). Boyd is sent away to a remote outpost as a reprimand for his cowardly behaviour at the ceremony and during the war, as we later find out the only reason Boyd was able to get behind enemy lines in the first place is because he played dead. That’s right, during a war, while his fellow soldiers and countrymen were dying around him, Boyd decided to lie down on the ground and feign death. Certainly not the most heroic thing ever done... When Boyd arrives at the outpost he is introduced to its inhabitants by Colonel Hart (Jeffrey Jones, Beetlejuice & Sleepy Hollow). There is Private Reich (Neal McDonough, I Know Who Killed Me & The Hitcher), Private Cleaves (David Arquette, Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3, Scream 4, Scream VI, Scream 7 & 8 Legged Freaks), Martha, George, Private Toffler (Jeremy Davies, Helter Skelter, Twister, The Black Phone & Black Phone 2) and Major Knox (Stephen Spinella, Rubber). On perhaps Boyd’s first (1st) night there, a strange visitor, a man who calls himself Colqhoun (Robert Carlyle, 28 Weeks Later), comes to the outpost on the brink of death. Colqhoun tells them all about his and his compatriots' plight, they were attempting to traverse through the area to get to better standings but were trapped by inclement weather. They held up in a cave but after one (1) of them died due to malnourishment the group ate him and things quickly spiralled out of control from there.
Colqhoun warned of an evil Colonel Ives who took a liking to people meat, so much so that he would kill just to get another taste. It came down to Ives, Colqhoun, and one (1) woman, and Colqhoun confesses that, for fear of his life, he fled, leaving the woman alone to fend for herself. Hart and the men at the outpost are pretty united in the front of going to save the woman from Ives and Colqhoun, even in his weakened state, is coming with them since he is their best chance of finding her (alive). They briefly discuss Wendigo lore, which is Native American folklore for a human who consumes another human and transforms into something different. Something other. What I really love here is that they bring up how cannibalism isn’t unique to Native American lore, “White man eats the body of Jesus Christ every Sunday.” I bet that line pissed a few people off. A group consisting of Hart, Reich, George, Toffler, Boyd, and Colqhoun arrived at the cave but what they found inside didn’t quite line up with Colqhoun’s story, in fact, it looked more like Colqhoun had been the one (1) who had eaten the others! In an instant, Colqhoun turns on the men, he kills Hart and George before chasing Toffler through the woods (Toffler had a gun in his hands but threw it down… What a moron!). Boyd and Reich run after them but they are too late to save Toffler. At the top of a cliff they quite literally run into Colqhoun as he stabs Reich who then tumbles off of the cliff.
Boyd evaluates his choices: stay on the cliff with a killer cannibal Wendigo… Or jump. So, Boyd takes a literal leap of faith… And it pays off! But you absolutely have to suspend your disbelief, I mean, Reich just died falling off that same cliff (sure he got stabbed prior to falling, but what are a few semantics between friends?) but Boyd survives? Boyd jumps, falls dozens of feet, begins to hit trees (all of which have branches that mainly serve to cushion his fall/slow him down), when he finally hits the ground he rolls, he even rolls into and over Reich’s body which is wild (and a little funny). Boyd ends up rolling himself into a pit in the ground and Reich’s body falls in with him. That punchy Reich had just a little more life left in him (Heretic much?) which he used to work out some aggression on Boyd before truly dying. Colqhoun admires the height at which Boyd jumped, mighty high! Then he descends the mountain and searches for their corpses (presumably to eat) but misses Boyd in his secret pit. Colqhoun sniffs the air, as if he has keener senses' now that he’s a Wendigo, but he isn’t able to locate Boyd or (the severely bleeding corpse of) Reich just below him. So far, Colqhoun hasn’t shown any special abilities, other than being able to take a point blank shot to the chest and survive. It certainly hurt him, I mean, he was bleeding, but he also got right back up. Not to say that all that wasn’t impressive, but if Colqhoun is truly a Wendigo, wouldn’t you think he would have more abilities or perhaps, transform into a hideous creature? Anyone? Just Me? Ugh. Boyd has a broken leg, which is honestly not that bad considering how he could have straight up died. Also, It looks like Colqhoun is just eating raw human meat by the creek, which is hysterical. I understand that he is a monster that eats people, but he is still largely humanoid, and fire totally exists. I’m amazed he didn’t even try to cook that meat up and have a little BBQ Private Toffler or whomever he was chomping on.
Boyd might not be the bravest person all the time, but he still does brave things. When he infiltrated the enemy camp, he was very brave, even if what came before was cowardly, and now, he is setting his broken leg, and that takes guts. Not everyone would be able to do that on their own. While Boyd takes off Reich’s coat to try and stay warm for the night we hear wolves howling in the distance (Frozen, anyone?). Boyd struggles with his sanity staring at dead Reich’s face while we cut to Colqhoun skipping stones on the water, the juxtaposition is ridiculous. “You’re dead. You’re safe now.” Boyd coos to Reich as he tears into his leg with a knife. Boyd resorts to people eating very quickly, even though he knows it turns you into an inhuman monster… Was he even starving? I know he wasn’t doing well, but I think this is a Dark Knight situation where you either “die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Did you ever think a man with a trick coin was going to teach you a valuable life lesson? No? Well, neither did I. Clearly, eating man meat magically heals broken bones, because Boyd is heavy stepping out of that pit what seems like the next day. This is good because it’s snowing like crazy and he would probably die in there (and this is also good because now Neal McDonough can stop playing a dead man with his eyes stuck open, but good on him for doing that for so long).
Boyd gets back to the outpost, Knox examines his wound but his leg is just better. They bring a new Colonel to the outpost and wouldn’t you know, it’s Colqhoun! But Colqhoun is really Colonel Ives. The Colonel looks right as rain, so when Boyd says Ives is the killer, the man he shot, Ives disrobes and shows the men a chest unmarked by any wounds. Boyd has a casual cannibal fantasy about Cleaves then Ives catches Boyd alone outside. Ives calls him out for eating Reich (because Ives went back and finished him off). He taunts Boyd with blood that he knows Boyd wants to consume, but Boyd resists. That night, Cleaves is found murdered and Boyd is blamed. Martha goes out to get help and while she is away Ives kills Knox. We find out that Colonel Hart is actually still alive, Ives fed him human meat which kept him from dying, Ives wants friends like himself. Hart and Ives encourage Boyd to join them (four letter name club!) to the point where Ives literally stabs Boyd, forcing him to, “Eat or die.” Boyd eats, out of the desire to live or the desire to kill Ives (possibly both), Boyd eats. I guess every time they need Boyd to eat they will inflict semi-fatal harm on him? As if that won’t ever backfire on them? Boyd tells Hart he is going to kill Ives and Hart asks Boyd to kill him too, Hart doesn’t want to live as a monster anymore. Even in dying, the look of disdain that Hart had on his face for Ives, the man that turned him into a cannibal, into a monster, was incredible. The final battle between Ives and Boyd was a little silly, at some point it seemed like Boyd had the advantage but then he threw away the weapon he was using and things sort of went downhill from there. Everything ended as a bit of a wash since Boyd snapped them both in a large animal trap. Ives died first (1st) which gave Boyd permission to die (since then he knew Ives wouldn’t cannibalize his corpse and live on). Martha, who had just returned, peeked in on the whole scene and she straight up peaced out, which I respect the ever-loving shit out of. The only mistake Boyd really made in the end was that he left the stew, full of human meat from Knox, out on the fire, where it was found and Ravenously consumed…
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