Tag: Horror

REVIEW: Poor ending negates potential of ‘Night House’

There are some movies where the execution of an ending can be so integral that it can make or break the feature.

That’s the case with “The Night House,” and not in a good way.

Rebecca Hall plays Beth in this thriller, a high school teacher who recently lost her husband to suicide. Beth is trying to move on from the tragedy, but she continues to reside at the home her husband, Owen (Evan Jonigkeit), built on the lake, which leaves her with constant reminders.

Those reminders begin to manifest as visions for Beth, who begins to see frightening things related to her late husband in the midnight hours. Because of what she sees in the night, she begins looking into whether her husband had a secret life or not.

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REVIEW: Compelling and creepy ‘Candyman’ is a success

Sometimes, modern horror sequels to older properties can be massive disappointments, such as 2013’s “Texas Chainsaw.”

Fortunately, that’s not the case with the new “Candyman,” penned by Jordan Peele.

This film serves as a sequel to the original “Candyman” from 1992. This time around, the protagonist is Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), an artist living in Chicago with his girlfriend Brianna (Teyonah Parris). Finding himself in artist block territory lately, McCoy decides to visit a northern Chicago housing project for inspiration.

While there, he meets a local named William (Colman Domingo), who tells McCoy the legend of the Candyman spirit. The legend ends up being a spark for McCoy who begins making art based on Candyman. However, his spark of creativity ends up reigniting the old Candyman spirit itself.

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REVIEW: ‘Old’ is a middling Shyamalan offering

M. Night Shyamalan is back with another thriller, this time based on a graphic novel.

“Old” is Shyamalan’s adaptation of the novel “Sandcastle.” The film follows several people who’re together on a private beach owned by a resort on a tropical island.

While the cast is large, the movie mainly centers on one family, consisting of Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal), his wife Prisca (Vicky Krieps), and their children Trent (Alex Wolff) and Maddox (Thomasin McKenzie). At first, it seems to be a relaxing getaway, but things turn south fast. After a series of events, the group learns that the area they’re at makes people age at an accelerated rate.

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REVIEW: Avoid the ‘Escape Room’ sequel

This sequel may feature “champions,” but the film itself isn’t a winner.

The movie takes place not long after the first picture, with survivors of the past escape room game Ben (Logan Miller) and Zoey (Taylor Russell) seeking to take down the group responsible for the torture set-ups. Their mission brings them to New York City, where they end up being lured into another escape room set-up.

There, they meet with others who’ve made it through the escape rooms, Brianna (Indya Moore), Nathan (Thomas Cocquerel), Rachel (Holland Roden) and Theo (Carlito Olivero). Having made it out before, the players are more familiar with how the game works, but it doesn’t make it any easier with the rooms continuing to have deadly components.

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REVIEW: ‘Forever Purge’ fails to outshine predecessors

This movie’s characters throw punches at each other while the script throws hamfisted commentary haymakers at the audience.

“The Forever Purge” opens by basically throwing what happened in “The Purge Election Year” out the window, as the New Founding Founders of America were voted back into office and started the annual event again. This time around, the “Purge” saga follows two couples. One is Dylan (Josh Lucas) and his pregnant wife Cassidy (Cassidy Freeman).The other is Adela (Ana de la Reguera) and Juan (Tenoch Huera), with the latter having a job at Dylan’s father’s (Will Patton) ranch.

As what’s become usual, the Purge comes and goes with both families hunkering down. However, the killing doesn’t end there. It soon becomes clear that there’s a coordinated effort by extremists to keep the Purge going for as long as it needs to in order to tear the existing country apart. Now, the two families are forced to work together to survive.

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REVIEW: The Devil went down to ‘Conjuring’ and it wasn’t a good time

The totally not con-artist Warrens are back in another movie about a demonic possession that really happened and wasn’t made up.

Yes, there was a lot of sarcasm in that lede.

The eighth film in the “Conjuring” cinematic universe takes place in 1981 with Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) assisting in an exorcism of a young boy. In the process of the exorcism, the demon possessing the boy is transferred to a man assisting in the situation, Arne (Ruairi O’Connor).

During the altercation, Ed suffers a heart attack and is taken to a hospital. When he recovers, he warns of Arne’s possible possession, but it’s too late. Arne commits murder on his landlord and is arrested by the police. Facing a potential death penalty sentence, the Warrens begin an investigation into the possession to try to prove in court that it was a demon that caused the murder.

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REVIEW: ‘Quiet Place’ sequel suffers from poor character decisions

“The Purge” is a great example of kids screwing things up in the middle of a tense situation. Another example is “28 Weeks Later.” The latest example is “A Quiet Place II.”

After a brief opening scene showing the first day of the alien attack, this sequel picks up immediately after the events of the original 2018 film. With their home in tatters, Evelyn (Emily Blunt) and her newborn baby, as well as her school-age children Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and Marcus (Noah Jupe), are forced to venture out for a new shelter.

Along the way they meet an old friend from their destroyed town, Emmett (Cillian Murphy), though he’s reluctant to help. With the knowledge that her hearing aid is useful against the aliens, though, Regan has a drive in her to find a way to spread the word.

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REVIEW: ‘Spiral’ is a solid renewal for the ‘Saw’ universe

Not sure why the full title of this film was “Spiral: From the Book of Saw” when “Saw” was never a book, but I digress.

Chris Rock stars as Detective Zeke Banks in “Spiral.” A longtime investigator, Zeke doesn’t particularly get along with the rest of the police force and likes to work alone. This is mainly because others in the department are dirty cops.

When a new investigation regarding the death of an officer is launched, though, Zeke reluctantly teams up with a rookie detective, William (Max Minghella). The two soon come to the realization that the officer was killed in some kind of trap, and later learn that the person responsible is a copycat of John Kramer, who was known as the Jigsaw Killer.

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REVIEW: ‘The Unholy’ squanders potential with horror cliches

Here’s a horror movie that actually would have been better off had it not been a horror. At least not such a straightforward one.

“The Unholy” stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Gerry. A disgraced journalist with a history of fabricating stories, Gerry now works as a of paranormal reporter. He travels around to write about UFO sightings and haunting to make some cash. His latest story brings him to a small Massachusetts town, but unfortunately, the supposed subject ends up being dud.

However, as luck would have it, Gerry discovers an interesting artifact near a rural church. Following his discovery, a young girl named Alice (Cricket Brown), who’s been deaf all her life, can suddenly hear and talk perfectly. According to her, she can communicate with the Virgin Mary and begins performing miracle healings. Her miracles begin drawing a lot of positive attention, but while this is happening, Gerry starts to notice sinister signs.

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Halloween Adventures in B-Movie Horror 2020 Part 3

It’s Halloween and my horror review series for this year is ending in a bloody mess.

I’ve continued my journey through low budget B-Movies and, keeping with the rest of the 2020 series, stayed in the 1980s. For this post, I’ve reviewed two slashers and a paranormal horror comedy.

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