I've been a bit poorly as of late, but I've luckily had the best "nurse" looking after me! So, over the past few days, as I haven't really been doing any work, I seem to have watched a few more horror films and as always I thought I would share my opinions of them on here.
I don't know why I seem to be in the mood for so many lately. I think I've got a little sick of the typical rom-coms so I'm trying to watch as many non-rom-com films as I can! Much more interesting! However none of the four I have watched lately have been particularly good...
THE HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET
Firstly, I watched House At The End Of The Street (2012). I had heard mixed reviews of this movie so I wasn't expecting great things, I also couldn't imagine Jennifer Lawrence in a genuinely scary film, but I decided to give it a go. It was as I feared. Completely without fear. No scene was scary, there were no jumps, no eerie build-up, it just seemed to be a rushed together excuse for a horror movie.
The film begins with a family fast asleep (typical horror story scene), whilst a hammer-wielding girl wanders the house's halls. As what can be assumed to be the parents go and investigate the young girl suddenly turns vicious and kills them both, then fleeing from the home into the woods. Jump to 4 years later and for no real explained reason we see Elissa and mother, Sarah move into the house next door to the house where all this happened. As Elissa gets to know the surviving son of the family, she soon realises, the terror is far from over.
The acting was actually surprisingly commendable. With what little script they were provided, it was evident they did the best they could, but with characters with no back story and no depth, it was near enough impossible to feel any empathy for any people involved.
Another issue with the film was that it seemed the writer's thought the big twist at the end was genius. I must admit that I didn't expect it until just before it happened but even when you found out, it really wasn't that shocking nor interesting. House At The End Of The Street is not completely useless but I wouldn't even call it a horror. It's okay to waste a few bored hours but I can certainly say it's not one I would watch again anytime soon.
3.5/10
V/H/S
Next on our agenda was V/H/S. After seeing the promotional material for it, I thought this one would be a real scarer. Not something I'd seen in a while! But it was unfortunately, the worst of the bunch. Worked around 5 short films created by completely different directors, the overall premise of the movie is that a group of young miscreants are hired to burgle a dilapidated house and find a tape. But they don't just find one tape. Whilst there, the gang members start watching the tapes, each displaying something more sinister than the last.
That's if you're a child or have a very low tolerance of horror. All of the videos seemed silly and more like I was watching a BAD remake of Paranormal Activity and that's saying something. Plus, the fact they are all found-footage does grate on your eyeballs after the first 20 minutes.
I've looked at many explanation blogs trying to understand this movie (if there is anything to understand!) but all that people come up with, I just don't agree with. I just think this is a badly made footage film, trying to piece together works that just don't go together, when in reality they could have been pretty interesting stand-alone shorts.
1/10
EXCISION
Now this is an interesting one, I was the most excited about watching this after pondering about whether to get the DVD or not for ages in HMV the other day, but it was almost the most surprising. It was nothing like what I expected. Centring around Pauline (played by 90210's Annalynne McCord), Excision deals with the mental strain of high school, puberty and just being a plain teenage girl.
But as you can see from the image, Pauline may be plain, but she's certainly not ordinary. To escape the pressures of her pushy mother and fatally ill sister, Pauline often slips into a fantasy world of disturbed surgical procedures and blood.
The film is weird. That's a given. With the plot consistently jumping between reality and Pauline's dreamworld, it is hard to decipher what is exactly going on as she seemingly descends further and further into madness. Now, I like weird. When it's done for an artistic sense to emphasise the protagonist's escapism, I feel it can be done beautifully, however this film does seem like some of the scenes are weird for weird's sake (the cooking of the aborted foetus was a little far), which is a shame, because to me, this sounded like it would be a good one.
5/10
And most recently, I watched a slightly older film, Session 9 starring CSI's Horatio himself David Caruso! But he couldn't save this snooze-cruise of a movie, and I'm quite surprised frankly I even watched the whole thing as literally nothing happened throughout the entirety of the movie.
I can't really even review it, it was that boring. So basically, don't watch it. You'll want those 100 minutes back.
2/10
No comments:
Post a Comment