Runtime: 89 minutes
Release Date: July 15, 2014
Rating: R
Director: Jeff Baena
Zach doesn't know quite what to do
with himself after learning that his girlfriend Beth died. While
trying to cope with her passing, he starts spending a lot of time
with her parents Maury and Geenie. They play games, talk about Beth,
and generally just try to be there for each other. When he goes over
to their house one day, he finds the door locked and they won't
answer it even though he can see them. After gaining access to their
home, he discovers that Beth is alive again.
Instead of her parents faking her
death, he learns that Beth actually came back from the dead.
Unfortunately, Beth thinks everything is fine and has no idea that
she died, nor does she know that they actually broke up before her
death. Zach tries to pretend that everything is fine between them,
even as Beth goes off the deep end. She constantly tries to have sex
with him, breaks through walls and exhibits other types of super
strength, and even sets fire to a lifeguard stand at one time. Since
he can't tell anyone that she's back from the dead, he has to find a
way to play nice with his dead girlfriend at the same time that his
own parents attempt to set him up with the pretty girl next door.
Life After Beth is a good movie,
but only after you step back and give it some thought. When we first
watched it, we all sat there for awhile with our WTF faces on. None
of us were particularly fond of it, which was odd because we all love
Aubrey Plaza. I turned all my friends onto Parks and Recreation, and
I think I'm the only person who actually enjoyed the first season.
After a few weeks though, we realized that we were constantly quoting
the movie and bringing up scenes to make each other laugh.
The sad thing is that this is
definitely a Plaza movie, but Plaza really isn't that funny in this
one. The exception are the scenes at the very end when she's strapped
to an oven and trying to walk, but you can see those moments in the
trailer. The real standouts are all the background characters.
Molly Shannon is hysterical as
Beth's mom, especially towards the end when she has no clue what is
going on around here. John C. Reilly is also pretty damn funny as
Beth's dad. Then you have Cheryl Hines and Paul Resier as Zach's
parents. It's always nice to see Reiser pop up in something and
actually get a few good lines.
I was also a big fan of Matthew
Gray Gubler. He plays Zach's older brother who is obsessed with
following the laws and keeping people safe. When he joins the local
group tasked with stopping the zombie invasion, I couldn't stop
laughing. Plus we get a fun little cameo from Gary Marshall when he
comes back from the dead. Even Anna Kendrick turns up as the girl
dating Zach. One of the best moments comes when Zach is trying to
talk about Beth and she gets super confused because she thought his
girlfriend was dead.
Life After Beth is a smart
comedy/horror film, and I think it's the type of movie that requires
multiple viewings.
Runtime: 86 minutes
Release Date: October 17, 2014
Rating: R
Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Jami and Corey are two hot kids at
the local drive-in to see The Town That Dreaded Sundown,
which in a meta twist was based on an actual series of murders that
happened in their town. After making it clear that she isn't into
horror movies, he drives her out to the old lovers lane. Before they
can get too far into it, a man in a sack mask who looks just like the
original killer, shows up. He drags them both out of the car, makes
Jami turn away, and kills Corey. She runs into the woods, and while
he finds her, he lets her go after giving her a warning to pass on.
A
few days pass before the killer strikes again. It's just enough time
for Corey's funeral and for her grandmother to deny that she
remembers the original murders. It's also enough time for Jami to
start her own investigation. The killer next targets a young woman
and her military boyfriend home on leave. After decapitating the
boyfriend and slamming his head against the hotel room window, he
chases her outside and brutally kills her in her own car. The killer
continues on his spree all the while coming back to urge Jami to make
others remember what happened in the past.
The
Town That Dreaded Sundown is a movie that I actually enjoyed. I love
that they did the meta thing. Not only do they set it up that this
was the town where the original was filmed, but they also keep
showing scenes from the original and harkening back to the original.
I think I squealed when the killer brought out the trombone for one
scene, but the friends I watched it with had no clue what was going
on. I also liked seeing Dennis O'Hare. He's been so good in the past
seasons of American Horror Story, especially the first season, that I
loved seeing him here. He plays the son of the original director and
is just the perfect character. He's a little strange, suspicious, and
kind of loveable all at the same time.
Speaking
of people I loved seeing, this movie was a who is who. Addison
Timlin, who was so great as Stormy in Odd Thomas, plays Jami. Gary
Cole pops up as the chief of the small town police department and has
one of the most memorable scenes in the entire film. I don't want to
give it away, but something a little unusual happens while he's
getting a blow job. Edward Herrmann, who I admittedly only know as
the grandfather on Gilmore Girls, turns up as the local pastor who
thinks the killer came back because the town is full of sin. We even
get Anthony Anderson as a Texas Ranger who rolls into town to solve
the mystery. Did I mention Josh Leonard from The Blair Witch Project
is in it too? It's nice to see him in a horror movie rather than that
piece of crap If I Stay I was forced to sit through a few months ago.
The
Town That Dreaded Sundown is my favorite horror movie of the month
and maybe the last few months. The acting was good, and it had some
great death scenes too. There's the two young gay men who get
attacked before they get to their good stuff, a body left chopped
into pieces on the railroad tracks, and a poor little old lady
stabbed/slashed in the throat. What more could you ask for?
Runtime: 90 minutes
Release Date: November 7, 2014
Rating: PG-13
Director: Kevin Greutert
Jessie has everything she could
want, including a hot fiance helping her move into his house. Not
long after leaving her old apartment, a truck comes out of nowhere
and hits her side of the car. She wakes up in the hospital to learn
that she lost both her fiance and her baby and that she broke her
legs so severely that she won't be able to walk for a few months.
A few months later, she learns that
she needs serious help. Her mother died, she has no friends, and the
only person who might help is her father. When she was a baby, her
mom died of cancer and her father gave her to her aunt to raise. She
makes the call, and he surprisingly comes to get her and moves her
into his home in the bayou, even letting her stay in her mother's old
room.
While going through her mom's
dresser, she finds videotapes that her mother left for her. The first
tape shows her mom reading a set of tarot cards to determine her
future. She suddenly gets worried and says that Jessie isn't alone in
the house. The second tape is fairly similar, but in the middle, her
father comes in and sees her. He flips out and breaks the tape before
grabbing her wheelchair and throwing it in the swamp.
After catching her with yet another
tape, her father takes the remaining tapes outside and screams at her
that her mother had brain tumors and didn't know what she was talking
about. As she's stuck in her wheelchair, she can only watch as he
tosses the tapes in a barrel and starts to light the tapes on fire.
Unable to get a fire going, he rushes into his shed, only to see the
door slam and lock behind him as the shed goes up in flames. Jessie
can only watch and listen as her father burns to death.
At his funeral, she encounters her
old high school boyfriend Preston. Before they can form much of a
connection, she sees a black man with a burn on his face, which
causes her to pass out. She wakes up back in her father's home with
Preston watching over her. He offers to get the tapes for her, but
once she watches them, she and Preston both realize that there is
something more unusual happening in her old family home.
Jessabelle looked good from the
trailer, started off with a bang, and ended with one of those scenes
that left us all with a WTF face firmly in place. The ending was so
confusing that I had to go to Wikipedia in the hopes of it making
some sense in my mind. It turns out that the ending involved
something that I never saw in the film. I don't know if it was a cut
scene or a scene that I somehow missed, but once I read it, it
totally made sense.
The ending really was the worst
thing about Jessabelle. The film had some really strong moments. A
girl trapped in a wheelchair stuck in a house in the middle of the
Louisiana bayou, how could that not be creepy? Add in some scenes of
creaking noises upstairs, where she can't go, and a hand trying to
reach through a curtain to touch her face, and I'm on the edge of my
seat. I just wish the ending made more sense.
