Satanic Movie Review: What Not To Do in LA

Runtime: 85 minutes

Release Date: July 1, 2016

Rating: R

Director: Jeffrey G. Hunt

Chloe and David are the type of hipster young couple you just love to hate. Elise, Chloe's cousin, and Elise's boyfriend, Seth, agree to go with them to Coachella provided that they can stop and take a tour of murder places in LA on the way. They go to a hotel and check in for the night, specifically choosing to stay in a room where a woman killed herself. The two then take them to the Manson house and some other “special” places before stopping by an occult shop.

The manager of the shop makes it clear that he doesn't want them around. Seth keeps asking to buy stuff that he shouldn't and being a pain, which leads to the guy pulling a knife and chasing them out of the store. They then make the mistake of following him that night and stumbling upon a random sacrifice. Chloe flips out when they see a woman about to be killed and cause a disturbance, which lets them all escape. When they take the young woman, Alice, back to their hotel room, all hell breaks loose.

Let me admit that I probably would not have watched Satanic if I hadn't seen the cover first. I was like, “hey, that looks like Sarah Hyland from Modern Family,” but then it was more, “oh, what the hell would she be doing in some random low budget horror film?” Needless to say, it really is Hyland in the film. After seeing her as the airhead daughter on Modern Family, it wasn't too hard to buy her as a girl on a road trip with friends who just wanted to go to a music festival.

The issue I had with Satanic is that it's one of those horror movies that seems to cater to a much younger audience. Now that I'm in my soon to be late 30s, I'm noticing that a lot of horror flicks, even those with an R rating, are designed for teenagers and college students instead of those of us who grew up on the best generation of horror movies. I could care less about Coachella and in fact, looked up the line up for this year and realized that I only heard of like three bands playing.

It might seem like Elise and Seth are the two that we should root for, but they're extremely annoying. They're the type of rich kids who listen to true crime podcasts and wear black, which somehow make them experts. They're also the ones who refuse to let the other two, including David who literally drove them there in his van, do whatever they want or even go to the festival because they want to run around doing dumb shit in LA.

Speaking of dumb shit in LA, who the fuck thinks it's appropriate to follow some random stranger because he chased you out of his store for being dick heads? If a guy pulled a knife on me, I'm pretty sure I would just leave and never look back. I'm also not entirely sure I would take a random girl I just met back to my hotel room without finding out more than just her first name.

Satanic was an okay flick but definitely not one designed for people my age.

Mercy Movie Review: Kind of a Netflix Original

Runtime: 90 minutes

Release Date: November 22, 016

Rating: NR

Director: Chris Sparling

Mercy tells the story of an older woman who is near death. Her husband sits with her for awhile one day before doing downstairs after hearing a knock on the door. Though a man waits there with a medical bag, the husband makes it clear that they will not be giving his wife what is in the bag. The man gives him the bag anyway as a back up before leaving. We also meet three of the woman's sons, all who have a different reason for coming home.

Brad comes home with his girlfriend, Melissa, to see his mom. He tells her that his mom's husband is actually his step-dad, which makes the two of the other men his step-brothers. Though he introduces his mom to his girlfriend, it's pretty clear that his mom doesn't really understand anything going on around her. There is a slight argument over “the cure” or whatever is in the bag. Melissa doesn't understand why they can't just give it to his mom if it will end her suffering, but he tells her that she just wouldn't get it.

It doesn't take long before we learn that many of the boys came home in the hopes of getting an inheritance. It has something to do with Brad's father and what happened to him. Mom's husband sits his own sons down to explain that the money is now in a trust in his name only and that no one will get a dime until his own death.

When Brad learns of this, he assumes his step-brothers aren't happy. He and his girlfriend see some strange things that night that end with two men outside of the house, and Brad assumes that it's his step-brothers. Brad's brother agrees to sneak outside and go for help, and while I don't want to ruin it for anyone, this does not go as plan. As more and more people come out of nowhere and descend on the house, Brand needs to make a decision to give his mother what is in the case or possibly lose his own life.

You know how you sometimes watch a horror movie and see someone sacrifice their own lives to save a friend while you scream in the background to just get the fuck out? There is a scene in this movie that goes in the completely opposite direction when someone leaves a main character in the hope of saving his own skin. It's actually a little unexpected, especially given the relationship between the two.

Mercy is really somewhat of a shocking film because it has so many twists and turns that you're never quite sure where it might go. It starts out as a film about kids saying goodbye to their mother, then becomes a home invasion film, then transitions into a film about crazy people, and in the end will leave you wondering what the hell you just watched.

As a Netflix “Original” (i.e. a film Netflix just distributed), it's much darker than you might think. After watching the whole thing, I had to pause for a few minutes just to digest it and give it some more thought. It's not the kind of film you watch on date night, unless you're on a date with me, but it's definitely thought provoking.

Dementia Movie Review: Like a Really Good Book You Can't Wait to Finish

Runtime: 90 minutes

Release Date: December 4, 2015

Rating: NR

Director: Mike Testin

Dementia opens with a war scene that shows a young man in the midst of battle before jumping to the present day. George is an older man who enjoys living on his own and playing chess over the phone with his friend Sam. When he hears a commotion outside, he looks out and sees two guys picking on a kid on a bike. He grabs his gun, fires it into the air, scares the bullies off, and then talks with the kid they bullied. The only odd thing is that he mistakenly refers to the kid as his own son.

After suffering a stroke, George also learns that he has dementia. His son, Jerry, and his granddaughter, Shelby, come to stay with him and decide what to do. Though Shelby is interested in learning more about her grandfather, Jerry just wants to put him in a home and move on with his life. He explains that his dad was mean and abusive and that after one particularly bad fight, his mom packed him up and took off. George built the house he lives in with his own two hands in the hopes that they would come back.

Michelle shows up on the doorstep and claims that the hospital sent her to check on George. Jerry then hires her to stay and look after George. It doesn't take long before Michelle begins telling George about things he did that he cannot remember. She claims that he started sleepwalking and leaving the house at night as well as making messes and picking fights with her for no reason. When George tries to fight back, she drugs him and tells his family that he's just exhibiting symptoms of dementia.

One night, George wakes up covered in blood and finds his cat mutilated. Michelle claims that he did it during a fit in the middle of the night, even though he loved that cat. Jerry things it's a little strange, but Shelby thinks it's suspicious and doesn't trust Michelle. When Michelle refuses to let friends visit and even stops Shelby from seeing him, the granddaughter decides to follow her and learn her secrets. George slowly begins having flashbacks to his time in the war and wondering what is real and what is a symptom of his dementia.

I don't say this a lot, but this was an extremely good film. Dementia is kind of like that mystery book that you start reading and have to keep telling yourself not to jump to the end and ruin it for you. I literally wanted to go online and see what happened because I was starting to doubt myself and doubt George too. The director does a really good job of setting things up in a way that makes you wonder if George is actually a reformed bad guy or whether he's still a bad guy at heart and whether Michelle is actually crazy or if she's just trying to help him. It puts you in the head of someone suffering from dementia because you don't know what is real or who you can trust.

Though Dementia got some surprisingly bad reviews online, it is a solid horror movie. The end to this film actually left me with my mouth hanging open as I tried to process everything. You'll never look at older people the same way after watching this one.

The Den: Unfriended Before Unfriended

Runtime: 81 minutes

Release Date: March 14, 2014

Rating: R

Director: Zachary Donahue

Elizabeth is a young woman in college or graduate school, we never learn which, who uses the social networking site The Den to meet people. She presents an idea to a group of people and learns that she received a grant that will let her study the habits of people using the site. Though she does spend a lot of time on The Den, she also makes time to talk with her boyfriend, her sister, and some other people online too.

While celebrating with her best friend, they hop online and use like the site. Like Chatroulette (which I'm sure I spelled wrong), you use your webcam to talk to people and can skip those you don't like. Her friend comes across a woman using the chat feature with a photo of herself, thinks the girl is boring, and skips her. Elizabeth later comes across the woman on her own and has a short conversation with her that ends with the woman asking if they can be friends.

After going to sleep one night, she wakes to find her webcam on and her logged into the site, which she thinks is odd. When her boyfriend comes over to spend the night before heading off on a work trip, her camera records him going down on her and sends it out to everyone on her email list, which leads to her losing her grant. While in the middle of a chat with her boyfriend on his trip, the camera goes fuzzy and he disappears, though we can see that someone actually grabbed him from behind.

Elizabeth comes across the same woman as before, but this time, the woman's webcam comes on. It shows her tied to a chair with duct tape on her mouth. As she watches, a man grabs the woman, pushes her down onto a table, and slits her neck. Elizabeth immediately calls the police, who believe it looks real but are helpless to do anything. As someone keeps cyber stalking her and attacking her friends, Elizabeth must attempt to figure out who is behind everything.

When I wrote a review of Unfriended, I think I said something along the lines of how surprised I was that no one did that before. Guess I was wrong because it seems like The Den came out first. The Den takes place entirely online and only lets us see what happens on computer screens. It's actually pretty interesting to see her talk with someone riding his bike around NYC and making friends with people just hanging out, like you would in real life.

As I watched the film though, I kept thinking that it had to be a prank. As in, Elizabeth would get through everything and find out that her guy friend or her boyfriend did it all to poke fun at the fact that she spent all her time online. Needless to say, that did not happen. The ending of The Den is far from the happy ending that you might want to expect, especially after getting to know Elizabeth so well.

I actually enjoyed The Den quite a bit and found that it was more interesting and entertaining than Unfriended and did a better job of telling a story through computer cameras.

Firstborn Movie Review: Not That Exciting

Runtime: 86 minutes

Release Date: April 13, 2017

Rating: NR?

Director: Nirpal Bhogal

Charlie and James are a young couple in love and living together. Right before heading out for a night of partying, Charlie takes a pregnancy test and learns that she's pregnant. After hitting the pub, they head home and start getting intimate until she begins violently throwing up, which leads to her confessing that not only is she pregnant but that she doesn't want to have the baby. James sweet talks her about how great it would be to have a little “them,” and despite the fact that they clearly cannot take care of themselves, they decide to have the baby anyway.

The first sign we get that something is wrong is when James get upset in the hospital upon learning that Charlie asked his dad to come. He also meets a strange older woman in the hallway who seems to know a little too much about them. When they bring home their baby, Thea, things almost immediately go wrong. James's dad agrees to help them because, as it turns out, he's an expert in the occult. He hints that similar things happened when James was a baby and helps them rid their home of evil spirits. James makes it clear that he doesn't necessarily believe in the supernatural though. One thing made clear to them is that they cannot give Thea toys with faces, including dolls or stuffed animals, because that will invite the evil spirits back.

Things seemingly go pretty well for awhile. Thea does these random little prayer things, and her parents actually take good care of her. All that changes when Thea brings home a doll, which Charlie finds and throws away. Thea is so upset though that Charlie later brings home a different wall. That same night, cups shake in the kitchen, something grabs Charlie in her daughter's room, and James gets attacked. When they turn to James's father again, he recommends that they take Thea to a woman he knows, who is not only the only one who can help them but conveniently the same woman James spoke to in the hospital. Once they meet her though, it becomes clear that she has something else in mind.

Firstborn is definitely not one of the better horror flicks that I've seen lately. Neither Charlie nor James are particularly likable, even at the very beginning. They remind me of those white trash couples who can't be bothered to use condoms and then expect someone else to take care of their kids. While we later see that they're good parents, I can't get past how terrible they were early on.

One of the Firstborn reviews I read said that the film was uneven, which is something I definitely agree with after watching it. The beginning sets up the pregnancy, then we get to see all the strange stuff happening, but once James's dad leaves, the film takes too long to get us back to the weird stuff and spends a little too long introducing us to the now older Thea. The end of the film was a little dull too.

With the description of Firstborn, this should be the type of flick that makes you rethink wanting to have kids some day, but it would up just being another forgettable film.

Firstborn is currently streaming on Netflix.

Don't Breathe Movie Review – Think Twice Before Robbing Someone

Runtime: 88 minutes

Release Date: August 26, 2016

Rating: R

Director: Fede Alvarez

Rocky wants nothing more than to escape the horrors of Detroit and take her little sister to California. As someone with no job and no real goals though, that's pretty hard to do. Luckily, she has her friends Alex and Money. Alex's dad owns a security system, and they steal from some of those clients and fence the goods to make extra cash. When the buyer starts offering them less than they think they deserve, they decide to do one last major haul.

Norman, referred to as the Blind Man, is a veteran and a widow. He lost his daughter after a woman accidentally killed her in a car accident. The Blind Man received a settlement of $300,000 that he supposedly keeps in his house and never uses. With Alex's tech devices, they think they can get in, grab the money, and get out before the old man ever notices they're inside.

Things almost instantly go wrong. Not only does the Blind Man have almost supernatural hearing, but he manages to kill – or nearly kill – one of the three within a few minutes of them entering his house. The other two soldier on in the hopes of finding money only to discover that he kidnapped the woman responsible for his daughter's death and keeps her locked in his basement. When he flips off the power to the house, the two “heroes” must find a way to compete with the Blind Man on his own turf.

Don't Breathe suffers from the same fate as any horror film released during a poor or boring season. It gets such great reviews off the bat that unless you see it within weeks of its opening, there's almost no point in ever seeing it. The hype builds up so much that you expect it to be the best horror film ever. The same thing happened with Insidious and with the more recent It Follows.

The film does have some terrifying moments and some disgusting moments too. When you learn why the Blind Man captured the woman and what he plans to do with Rocky, anyone with a vagina is the audience will wince and maybe even whimper. The scenes set in the basement and other parts of the house when the lights go out are also a little disturbing because you cannot necessarily see the action and because you have no way of knowing what might come next.

My problem might be that Rocky reminds me a little too much of those stereotypical kids that come from a bad home. Though she wants to change her life, she only wants to take the easy way out. Instead of maybe moving away from Detroit with her sister and getting a job, she just wants to rob people and save up the cash to move. Alex isn't any better. His dad seemingly has one of the only good jobs left in the city, but he's perfectly willing to steal from his dad's clients and maybe even ruin his business to help himself.

Worried that maybe I built up Don't Breathe too much in my head, I looked at my boyfriend at the end to get his opinion. “That was weird, not bad, but kind of weird and not that great.” As someone who frequently says similar things about flicks with a budget the size of a high school musical, that's not exactly high praise...

Red State, Good. Tusk, Bad. Yoga Hosers, Middle of the Road.

Runtime: 88 minutes

Release Date: September 2, 2016

Rating: PG-13

Director: Kevin Smith

You know those smug teens that walk around and act like they're hot shit because their daddies just bought them a brand new Mercedes or Range Rover? Apparently the Hollywood equivalent of a brand new car is the chance to star in your own flick. That is the only reason I can imagine anyone casting these two young ladies in starring roles.

Yoga Hosers follows the “adventures” of Colleen M. and Colleen C., two best friends who work in a convenience store owned by Colleen C's dad. They do things like leave stupid notes on the front door about having heavy periods or a UTI to spend more time rehearsing in the stockroom with their 35-year-old drummer. As with most teens, they're also addicted to their phones and never seem to put the devices down, and Colleen M. has a massive crush on Hunter, the heart throb of their school.

After Hunter invites them to his cool party and they get stuck working, they tell him to bring the party to them. He shows up with his best friend and tries to kill Colleen M. because, hey why not make him a random serial killer? Before he can kill her though, a strange little create pops out and kills him. The “Bratzis” as the flick calls them are a combination bratwurst and Nazi bred by a former Nazi to try and take over the world but let out too early. It's up to the two Colleens to defeat the Bratzis with their dope yoga skills.

I'm on the fence about whether Yoga Hosers is just as bad as Tusk or a small step up. At least Tusk had some talented actors. This one has the daughters of Kevin Smith and Johnny Depp playing spoiled teenagers and seemingly struggling with those roles. Neither one is that great of an actor, and it doesn't help that Smith lets them sing multiple times throughout the film. It's distracting and just plain annoying.

Yoga Hosers is the kind of film that will appear really dated in the next few years. It almost felt like Smith wanted to make a “hip” or “cool” film because so many scenes practically shouted, “Hey! Look at me! I understand current slang.” If I heard the word basic one more time, I thought I might scream. There is one scene where they must say it a dozen times or more in just a few minutes.

I'm honestly shocked that people in Canada didn't hate this film. The Canadian jokes never start out subtly. All the jokes are right there in your face and seem more bullying than friendly. From the way they throw in “bout” and “eh” references to the fact that almost every character loves hockey, it's just a little too much.

The only reasons to watch it are for the performances by Tony Hale and Natasha Lyonne. Hale plays Bob, the owner of the shop and Colleen C's dad, while Lyonne is his manager and girlfriend. The two are so funny together that I want to either see a spin off film or a Netflix original show that stars the two of them. They're definitely the highlights of the flick.

As someone who became a huge Kevin Smith fan after seeing Chasing Amy, I'm so disappointed by his last two horror movies. Here's hoping that he does a better job with Moose Jaws, his third and thankfully last film in the Canadian horror trilogy.

Slasher Season 1 Wrap Up

Slasher is one of those shows that wound up in my Netflix queue because it sounded fairly interesting. While similar to the Scream series, Slasher is a so-so take on a similar theme.

The series starts out on Halloween Night in 1988. A man opens the door to a man dressed as an executioner who he assumes is his best friend. When his friend shows up though, both wonder about the other man. After slashing the friend, the executioner brutally kills both the man and his pregnant wife.

Years later, the baby that the executioner actually cut out from the woman, returns to town. Sarah moves back with her husband Dylan to start fresh. Dylan quickly gets to work as the new editor of the local paper, while Sarah makes friends and opens a gallery to display her artwork. We learn that a young woman went missing five years ago and that her mother once owned the space the gallery now occupies.

It doesn't take long before the executioner returns, or at least a reasonable facsimile of him. The executioner starts offing people based on the seven deadly sins. He takes down a nosy neighbor, who it turns out, murdered her husband after learning that he was involved in a pornography ring that included Sarah's mother. He takes out some other not so nice people, including the wife of Sarah's best friend and her partner, who she had an affair with, because they saw the missing girl the night she went missing and did nothing to help her, despite seeing that she was clearly drunk.

Of all the deaths, the best death is a tie between Brenda, Sarah's grandmother, and Justin, the partner/husband of her new gay best friend. Justin does cocaine laced with rat poison and literally convulses and bleeds from every orifice in the middle of a charity fundraiser before dying. Poor Brenda gets a cinder block tied to her ankle and pushed into the water. Well, they were all kind of evil, so I guess they deserved it?

The problem with Slasher is that the creator admittedly drew too much inspiration from American Horror Story. Anyone who watched a full season, let alone all the seasons, knows that Ryan Murphy doesn't know how to edit himself. Slasher suffers from the same problem. There are just too many stories going on at the same time.

Slasher starts out as a show about a girl returning home to the house where her parents both die. She then learns that her mom was an amateur porn star who slept with almost every man in town and that her biological father was the original executioner. We then find out that Dylan was obsessed with the story of her parents before they met and actually sought her out because of her connection to that story.

There's also the missing girl, who it turns out was abducted by a cop in town. Straight out of Room, he kept her locked in his basement with his mentally impaired wife upstairs while he had sex with her and eventually got her pregnant. To make things even worse, Dean McDermott, aka Mr. Tori Spelling, plays the cop.

I really liked the first few episodes of Slasher and looked forward to finding out who the new executioner was and the back stories of each person he murdered. As more stuff came my way though, I started losing interest. Here's hoping if it gets a second season that it focuses on just one story.

The Good Neighbor Movie Review

Runtime: 98 minutes

Release Date: March 13, 2016

Rating: NR

Director: Kasra Farahani

Sean and Ethan are two typical high school students who decide to play a “prank” on their elderly neighbor, Harold. According to Ethan, Harold is a horrible man that formerly beat his wife and eventually killed the poor woman. As the more tech-savvy of the two, Sean agrees to help Ethan set up cameras around Harold's house and to do random things that make it look like the old man's house is haunted.

Though some of their friends are less than thrilled about their plans, Ethan in particular points out that Harold deserves it, if only for what he did to his poor wife. They do things like make the lights in his house turn on and off and the television suddenly come to life. When Harold seems defensive about his basement, the boys even call the cops and report that they heard a woman screaming. The cops investigate and find nothing.

As they ramp up their hauntings, Harold seems to slowly lose his mind. Not only is he defensive of his basement, but he particularly freaks out when he hears a bell ringing. Harold ignores an older woman who shows at his doorstep to see him, and he stops leaving the house like he did in the past.

While all this happens, The Good Neighbor inter-cuts a few scenes of a courtroom battle. We see Ethan's mother, the cop who came to the house, and others. They talk about the body found in the house and whether someone is to blame. It isn't until the last few minutes that we learn who they found in the house as well as the fates of both our main characters.

The Good Neighbor is an interesting film, but it's hard for me to say if I actually liked it that much. James Caan is perfectly cast as Harold the neighbor. It's sometimes hard to believe that the man is as old as he is, so seeing him here was definitely eye-opening. If you ever watched ER, you'll notice one of the main characters from that show popping up as his former wife in flashbacks.

Without ruining anything for those who haven't seen it, this film does a good job of setting up Harold's backstory. Instead of just showing the whole story at once, the director smartly reveals just a little at a time such as his wife crying frequently, why the sound of the bell sets him off, and even how and why he got the cat that the guys see on their cameras.

The most realistic thing about this flick is the teenagers themselves. Far too many films have teenagers talking and acting the way the adult writers expect, but Sean and Ethan, as well as all their friends, actually seem like teenagers. You can believe that the two, especially Sean, would do something this mean and stupid just to have a little fun.

While the courtroom scenes are distracting at times, those scenes add to the overall plot of the film and will keep you invested and wanting to know what happens in the end. Once you learn the connection between Harold and one of the teens, the last scene in the film and some of the other plot details will suddenly make a lot more sense.

The Good Neighbor is currently streaming on Netflix.

Tales of Halloween Movie Review – Anthology at its Best

Runtime: 92 minutes

Release Date: October 16,2015

Rating: R

Director: Lots!

Tales of Halloween is an anthology flick that weaves together 10 different stories that take place over the course of Halloween. Packed with cameos from writers, directors, and actors featured in other horror films, it's entertaining for those who love 70s and 80s slasher and horror films.

Adrienne Barbeau, who any horror fan will remember from films like The Fog, plays a DJ at the beginning of the film. She does a great job of introducing each segment and wrapping up the movie in the end. Her smooth and sultry voice definitely creates a setting that will make you feel like you're back in the glory days of the drive through watching all your favorites.

On first glance, Tales of Halloween seems like one of those movies that only has one or two good stories. When describing it to my roommate, it started telling him about my favorite anthology story, then remembered another one I liked, then another, and wound up telling him to just watch the damn thing. While some stories are definitely stronger than others, there really aren't a lot of bad stories.

The best might be The Ransom of Rusty Rex. Two men decide to kidnap the child of a rich man, one of who is played by Sam Witwer of Being Human, as he goes trick or treating by himself. When they call his father, played by the amazing John Landis, he laughs and tells them to keep the kid. They quickly learn that this little boy is actually a demon and that once he latches on, he never lets go.

Friday the 31^st is a close second. This story opens with a girl dressed as Dorothy running for her life through the woods with a deformed slasher, a la Jason, on her tails. After he catches and kills her though, a space ship appears in the sky, and drops an adorable little claymation alien on the ground. When he denies the alien's wish to trick or treat, the alien takes over the woman's body and chases the killer around. While it may not sound like much, it got the most laughs out of me, especially when the slasher wound up losing his arm and later his head because of his own tools of death.

Trick is probably the one that has the best ending, though it takes awhile to get going. Two couples kick back on Halloween night as they have a few drinks and smoke. A girl dressed up as a witch shows up to trick or treat and then brutally murders the man who answers the front door. Several other kids then show up and chase the adults through the house, killing them one by one. In the end, we learn that the adults had a little fun of their own mutilating and killing children.

I was also a fan of The Night Billy Raised Hell. Billy is stuck trick or treating with his slutty teenage sister and her boyfriend. The boyfriend convinces poor Billy to play a prank on a man living in one specific house. It turns out that the man is actually the Devil, played by the awesome Barry Bostwick, who promises to show Billy some new tricks. They then set out on a night of mischief filled with robbing convenience stores and murdering people. When the cops show up to arrest poor Billy though, it turns out that the Devil left him tied up and stole his costume for one of his minions, leaving Billy to take the wrap.

Keep your eyes peeled for cameos from Lin Shaye, Barbara Crampton, John Savage, and Joe Dante just to name a few. Tales of Halloween is currently streaming on Netflix and is more than a fun way to waste 93 minutes.

Submerged Movie Review – Not for the Claustrophobic

Runtime: 99 minutes

Release Date: November 27, 2015

Rating: NR

Director: Steven C. Miller

You could put Tim Daly in anything and the odds are good that I would probably watch it. In fact, he's the sole reason I watched Private Practice. While I only watched Submerged because of him, it turns out that it wasn't that bad.

The movie follows a young girl, not that young though like college, and her friends. Jessie sneaks away from her dad to spend the weekend with her friends at a lake house. Hank, her father played by the super yummy Tim Daly, sends his best man Matt to pick her up. Matt is both a driver and a bodyguard and played by Jonathon Bennett. I find it strange that most of his know him from Mean Girls but that a whole new generation knows him as a host on Food Network. Odd.

Anyway, it turns out that Hank is worth a lot of money and that there are people willing to do anything to get that money. We know that because people show up in a dark car and attempt to kidnap Jessie. All they actually do though is hit the car hard enough that it crashes over the side of a bridge. When the kids try to escape, our bad guys shoot at them. With Matt in the front seat and the other characters in the back, they need to find a way to work together and hopefully escape before time runs out.

Review for Submerged were absolutely terrible, which I find strange because it was actually pretty entertaining. Yes, most of the characters were those classic stereotypes. We have the poor little rich girl who has everything handed to her on a silver platter and still isn't happy, the douchy frat boy you want to punch in the face, and the girl who cares more about hooking up than anything else. When they actually land in the water though, you'll find yourself caring about what happens to them and even wincing when the bad guys thwart their escape attempts.

Like I said up top, this is not for the claustrophobic. Some of the scenes in this film reminded me of The Descent, especially in regards to Matt. The kids in the backseat actually have room to spread out and move, but he's stuck in the front seat of a limo with a bum leg and almost no space to move. It left me feeling really unsettled and wondering what I would do in a similar situation.

And okay, the movie isn't fantastic. Bennett really doesn't come across as the type of guy you would hire to protect your kids. Even when he's doing ass kicking stuff, you still want to giggle because he looks like a huge dork. And Mario Van Peebles, who yes, is also in this flick, looks like he showed up to make $20 bucks and decided to only do $20 worth of work. Even Daly isn't his usually sparkling best. The end also felt so much like a TV movie that I had to look it up to see if this aired on television first.

So while it did have some flaws, I actually enjoyed it. Submerged may just make you wonder what you would do if trapped in a car with the water rising all around you...

The Dead Room Movie Review – Too Long and Yet Not Long

Runtime: 80 minutes

Release Date: April 8, 2016

Rating: NR?

Director: Jason Sutter

Similar to The Amityville Horror, The Dead Room deals with a haunted house that was so terrifying it forced a family to take up and leave in the middle of the night. In the hopes of finding out what actually happened, three investigators arrive and decide to spend a few days filming the house and looking for signs of ghosts.

Liam is the lead investigator and the one who most doubts the family's stories. After investigating dozens of other cases, he's heard it all and is incredibly cynical. Many of the things they said remind him of things he heard before. Scott is his right hand man and equally doubtful. He even reminds Liam of cases they worked on in the past that people faked. Also along for the ride is Holly who apparently really is psychic. She finds their stories sad and wonders if they ever found any real proof of the paranormal.

On their first day there, they find nothing in the way of evidence. Holly can't sense any presences in the home, nothing shows up on their cameras, and their other feeds detect nothing. Though they do catch some movement on one camera in the middle of the night, Scott convinces them that it was just the wind. They later capture a rocking chair moving on its own, and Holly sees a shadowy figure that no one else can see. In the hopes of finding more evidence, they decide to spend more time there, which causes the paranormal activity to worsen. As furniture flies through the air and the spirit chases them through the house, they must decide if capturing evidence is as important as their own lives.

The Dead Room had a few things going for it, but most notably, the characters. Liam is the type of character who we need more of in horror films. There are so many movies like this that feature characters dead set on the idea that ghosts exist and willing to go overboard to prove it. Liam is much more mellow and pretty much a skeptic. Even when faced with real evidence, he's willing to find other explanations for what he saw. Holly was fairly interesting too, especially when she actually began detecting the presence, and Scott at least kept things entertaining.

If you think I liked the film because I liked the characters, think again. I put it on Netflix the other day to have something to watch while waiting for a food delivery and kept thinking about fast forwarding. It's a slow movie, and not the type of slow burn that I usually like. So much doesn't happening in the first half that you start wondering if there's an actual ghost or if this is one of those movies that ends with someone living in the basement. It was just too slow for me.

The end to The Dead Room was really good and had a nice twist. I just wish that some of those action sequences occurred early on. By the time we learn what's really going on, I was ready to turn it off. The Dead Room just didn't do it for me.

The Last House on Cemetery Lane Movie Review – Crazy, Crazy Writers

Runtime: 82 minutes

Release Date: February 17, 2015

Rating: NR

Director: Andrew Jones

Despite being only 82 minutes long, The Last House on Cemetery Lane felt much, much, much longer to me.

John Davies is a successful screenwriter living in London who grows tired of the hustle and bustle of the city. Remembering the fun times he had in the English countryside as a child, he decides to take a break and move back. He finds the perfect home for rent through a local real estate agent. It overlooks the water, has a large property surrounding it, and comes with two full floors. During their meeting though, he learns that there is actually a tenant on the second floor. As she's blind and never leaves, he doesn't need to worry about her. Though he isn't fond of sharing “his home” with someone else, he agrees to rent it.

On one of his first days, he looks outside and sees a beautiful woman playing on the swingset nearby. After chatting with her, he learns that her name is Cassie and that she lives in the neighborhood. Cassie seems a little nervous about being around the house and reluctantly admits that she heard stories about it before. Though interested in the tales, he's even more interested in her.

The longer that John stays in the house, the more unsettled he feels. It starts out slowly. He thinks he feels someone watching him, he finds things missing, he realizes that things moved to new locations, and he hears noises inside the wall. Like most of us, he blames some of it on the upstairs neighbor. She refuses to answer the door or even talk to him, but the real estate agent assures him that Agnes is harmless. Once John starts researching the house and learning about what happened there over the years, he realizes that there might be an underlying reason for all his weird experiences.

Not to be a downer, but this movie really sucked. It was one of those that made me keep grabbing the remote and checking to see how much time was left and feeling disappointed that I had so much time left to go. It's hard to explain, but it felt more like a movie that told us a story instead of one that showed us a story. It was like: here's John, John writes movies, here's this girl, John likes this girl, here's something strange happening, etc. It felt super disjointed and occasionally seemed like the actors didn't even want to be there, which definitely pulled me out of the story.

As a low budget movie, the special effects were particularly bad. The director should have just skipped the idea of adding special effects and tried to give the film an unsettling feel with things like creaky footsteps in the hallway or dark shadows over his shoulder. It lacked anything really new or even different.

As someone with friends in the industry, I know that you can do a lot with a very limited budget. It seems like the director of this one didn't learn that. I kept waiting for something interesting or entertaining to happen, but it felt more like a play that grudgingly walked us through the story...

Movie Review: Lights Out – Keep the Lights On

Runtime: 81 minutes

Release Date: July 22, 2016

Rating: PG-13

Director: David F. Sandberg

While it isn't really terrifying, I highly recommend watching this one with all the lights out if possible.

A woman working in a mannequin warehouse sees what looks like the shadow of a woman standing in the back room. When she turns the lights off, the woman disappears. She warns her boss, Paul, before leaving for the night. Though Paul doesn't believe her, he sees the woman for himself. She gets closer and closer as the lights go out. Despite trying to make it back to his lit office, the shadowy figure kills him.

We then meet Rebecca and her friends with benefits Bret. Though Bret clearly wants more, she keeps blowing him off because she doesn't believe in forming attachments to other people. We learn why when she gets a call that her half-brother Martin keeps falling asleep in school. It turns out that their mother Sophie suffers from mental illness. When she's on her meds, she's fine, but Rebecca learns that her mom stopped taking her meds and keeps talking about her friend Diana. Every time she stops her meds, she sees Diana. We also find out that Paul was Martin's father and Diana's second husband. Rebecca's father took off when she was a kid and never came back.

After stopping by the house and finding light bulbs missing and lights turned off, Rebecca decides to take her brother home with her. Despite him finally getting a solid night's sleep, a social worker comes to see her and claims that her mother wants him back and that she' fine. Rebecca begins remembering when she saw Diana herself as a child and wonders if the woman really does exist. With the help of Bret, she goes through her stepfather's things to find proof of who Diana was and to uncover a mystery to help both her mother and her brother.

Lights Out really was a pretty good flick. I saw it at the drive-in with both my boyfriend and my roommate, both of whom like horror movies. All three of us had moments where we started laughing nervously and tried to hold a conversation because it meant looking away from the screen. The roommate even took out his phone to suddenly look up something he had to know right then instead of watching it. The people in the next car over actually screamed a few times too.

Let's get it out of the way: Diana is fucking terrifying. She's this shadowy creature that seemingly stands feet above everyone else at times, had long dark hair that hides her face, and can move as quick as a bunny in the dark. Whether it was her running across the floor on her hands and knees or slowly creeping up in the background behind someone, I was about to jump out of my seat.

While the ending is a little cheesy and the explanation of who she is came out of nowhere, I really liked Lights Out because it actually made me a little scared to turn off the lights after watching it.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Movie Review – Read the Book!

Runtime: 108 minutes

Release Date: February 5, 2016

Rating: PG-13

Director: Burr Steers

Anyone who ever took a woman's literature class in college or a course on British literature probably read Pride and Prejudice before. While adding zombies to the story should make things more interesting (and keep me from nodding off), the film version was pretty meh.

Just in case you don't know the story, the writer literally took the original book and added new scenes that involve the Bennett sisters hunting zombies while trying to find husbands and spend time together as a family. All the iconic characters are here, including Mr. Darcy, who actually does do the jump into the pond while fully dressed that so many women love. It's basically a classic British story with elements of love and scenes of zombies thrown in the middle.

The first time I saw a trailer for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, my jaw literally dropped. Though I remember reading the book in college, I also remember finding it so boring that I skipped entire sections and skimmed over pages just to get to the end. Throwing in action sequences and letting the ladies fight zombies at the same time seemed like a great idea. I should also admit here that I absolutely loved Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and got a kick out of the film version. As much as I wanted to like this movie, it just didn't do it for me.

The problem is that it felt like such a departure from the book itself. I kept waiting for scenes that I would recognize from the book, but it felt like the screenwriter and directed wanted to make a movie that focused more on the zombie elements than on the original story. Instead of getting scenes of the girls talking about love, we get scenes of them talking about weapons or sharpening their weapons. There were very few scenes that seemingly came from the book, which leaves me suspicious that the film only features the new elements added to the book.

You can't think about Pride and Prejudice without thinking about Elizabeth and Darcy. Despite the two of them having their share of ups and downs, you know that they'll wind up together in the end. The film spent so much time keeping them apart that I didn't even pick up on a romance vibe. It probably didn't help that the two had absolutely no chemistry together. Darcy came across as just some random guy who happens to kill zombies instead of a romantic lead.

After reading reviews that talked about how funny the film was, I kept waiting for a scene that would make me laugh. Being a huge fan of Monty Python and Hot Fuzz type films, it really didn't deliver any laughs, not even “dead” pan laughs.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was just plain boring and something I can't imagine myself ever watching again.

The Darkness Movie Review – No Bruce, No!

Runtime: 92 minutes

Release Date: May 13, 2016

Rating: PG-13

Director: Greg McLean

I had the chance to see this movie at the drive in earlier this year but was feeling sick and skipped it. I'm kind of glad I only paid a few bucks to rent it.

The Darkenss takes a family of four to the Grand Canyon. There's workaholic Peter, his recovering alcoholic wife Bronny, their typical teenage daughter, and their autistic son Mikey. As they have fun with their friends, the friends' teenage son takes the other two on a hike. Left alone, Mikey stumbles, falls through a hole in the ground, and lands in an underground cavern. He finds weird black rocks that have white symbols across the front and decides to take them home without telling anyone.

This naturally sets off a massive shit storm. Bronny gets irritated at Mikey for constantly leaving the kitchen faucet on, but he tells her that it was his new friend Jenny. He also makes comments about the people on the ceiling. Stephanie, the daughter, sees dark handprints on her bedroom walls, which she assumes is her brother being a pest. Bronny experiences some strange things of her own, including finding her son in the attic and him claiming that Jenny showed him a short cut. They also discover small fires around the house that they believe Mikey set.

As the ghostly activity amps up, everyone starts acting differently. Bronny finds that Stephanie started throwing up everything she ate and keeps jugs of her vomit under the bed. We learn that Peter had an affair, which makes his interactions with the new hot girl at the office a little disturbing. Bronny finally breaks down and has a drink, which leads to her full on falling off the wagon. After talking about their problems with Peter's boss, Peter finally snaps and reveals that he knew she started drinking again and that he just wants her to shut up. With the help of the boss's wife though, they may finally find a solution to their ghostly problems.

The cast of The Darkness is really the best part about the film. Not only do we get Kevin Bacon as Peter and Radha Mitchell as Bronny, but we also get the hillarious Matt Walsh and gorgeous Jennifer Morrison as their best friends at the beginning. Who doesn't love seeing Morrison and Bacon together again after Stir of Echoes? Paul Reiser and Ming-na then turn up as Peter's boss and the boss's wife.

Sadly, the rest of the movie is just eh. The only scene that really got me came when Stephanie was in the kitchen late at night and thought she head something. You expect to see something pop up behind her when she closes the refrigerator door, but it's actually just a flash of something in the microwave as she walks through the room. That scene was done so well that I wonder why the rest was so bad.

And, don't get me started on the ending! It was like someone watched Poltergeist, started writing a movie, and then gave up at the end. It's literally a healing that causes Mikey to go through a ghostly portal as his dad does everything to save him. The very-very end was even worse and felt like some random TV movie ending.

Though The Darkness wasn't the worst film, it felt like a retread of a movie I've seen many, many, many times before.

Movie Review: The Conjuring 2 – Oh God, Not Another One

Runtime: 134 minutes

Release Date: June 10, 2016

Rating: R

Director: James Wan

Nothing will make me believe a “true story” less than a film that starts out with an investigation of the Amityville case. The Conjuring 2 takes us to New York as Ed and Lorraine investigate the “haunted” house. They then do a television interview that causes Ed to lash out at man who doesn't believe in him or his wife. When the man makes a comment about how Lorraine never met a house that wasn't haunted, I laughed my ass off. Ed recently started having visions of a demon, and when Lorraine reveals that she “saw” the same creature kill him, they agree to take a break from ghost hunting.

Too bad that there is another case about to bring them back to the fold. Over in England, a young girl named Janet gets in trouble for smoking on school grounds. Even though she was just holding her friend's cigarette, her mom doesn't want to hear it. Peggy is a single mother of four kids living in a council house and just trying to hold things together since her husband knocked up a woman around the corner and took off. Janet brings home a spirit board that she made with her friend, which seemingly sets off something sinister in the house.

Janet “levitates” in the air at several points. They hear knocking inside the walls, and furniture moves on its own. Janet then begins speaking in a demonic voice. A police officer even sees the furniture move. The family moves in with a friend and calls the church for help. The church then invites the Warrens to spend a weekend in England. Based on what they find, the church will decide what to do next.

Though the Warrens enter with no idea of what to expect, they quickly find that there is something sinister happening in the house. Of course. Despite evidence that Janet and her sister faked a good portion of the poltergeist activity, Ed becomes convinced that he must save the poor family. Lorraine has to keep a watchful eye on him and hope the demon doesn't return.

I have absolutely no belief whatsoever in anything the Warrens ever did. Hearing all the evidence about the Amityville case, it really pisses me off that she still swears it all happened. She's even given interviews and talked about things that others proved didn't happen but still says it did. Reading up on the case about the “true” story in this movie only pissed me off more. Those kids admitted that they made stuff up, people caught them faking stuff on camera, and don't even get me started on the bull shit “levitation” thing. Other also spoke out and claimed that the two only spent a single day in England, but the film version has us believing that Ed swept in like an action hero and saved them all. Gag me.

Despite really not liking The Conjuring, I disliked The Conjuring 2 even more. There was maybe one scene in the film that had me freaking out, which was when the demon nun came at Lorraine through a picture frame. Everything else had the sense of something I saw before. As much as I like James Wan, I wish he would just abandon this franchise and move on.

Lizzie Borden Took an Ax Movie Review – How Did This Inspire a Show??

Runtime: 87 minutes

Release Date: January 25, 2014

Rating: NR

Director: Nick Gomez

Despite my Christina Ricci loving roommate renting this when it first came out on DVD and me having it in my Netflix queue for months, it took a rainy Saturday and the house to myself for me to actually sit down and watch it. All I can say is that I'm shocked this led to Lifetime doing a whole show about Lizzie Borden.

Lizzie Borden Took an Ax wants you to believe that Lizzie was just a young lady with a frisky spirit, or at least in the very beginning. Despite the fact that people in town view both she and her sister as spinsters, Lizzie has a ton of friends and a bit of a teenage attitude. She's not above sneaking out of the house to hang out and drink with her friends, and when she learns that her stepmother cut off her line of credit a a dress shop, she simply steals what she wants.

Oh, and let's not forget that she clearly has an incestuous relationship going on with her father. Despite there being no evidence or even any rumors of insect, she's constantly touching her father in inappropriate ways, bringing up the fact that he always wears the ring she gave him, and acting more like his girlfriend than his daughter. Honestly though, if Stephen McHattie was around me, I'd probably have a hard time keeping my hands to myself too!

After some backstory, we finally cut to the infamous day. Lizzie screams from her father's office and tells the maid that someone killed him. While talking to the police, she mentions her stepmother and how someone should check on her, which leads to the police finding her dead too. Though there is very little evidence in the case, the police arrest her and put her on trial. They dig up things like how she bought rat poison and her family later got sick and how she despised her stepmother, but the jury finds her innocent and sends her home.

Then, in a scene that makes it clear Lifetime considered this a one time thing, Lizzie confesses to her sister that it was her all along! Gasp, the horror!

Lizzie Borden Took an Ax was bad, even for a Lifetime movie. It felt like whoever wrote the film only knew the basics of the story and decided to make up a bunch of stuff to fit what he/she wanted. Christina Ricci, who is usually so much better, plays Lizzie like some teenage girl who wants to rebel against her parents by drinking and hanging out with a guy from the wrong side of the tracks. It doesn't help that Ricci is incredibly skinny in this movie. Seeing all of her bones poking through her skin was the creepiest part of the movie. Clea Duvall, who I also love, was just wasted her. As Lizzie's sister Emma, she does nothing more than stand around in the background, occasionally voice her doubts, and then do nothing.

Lizzie Borden Took an Ax is just another bad made for television movie based off a real story that spent too much time focusing on fictional things than dealing with the actual story. I'd love someone to do a similar story but actually do a good job.

Movie Review: Sweet Home – Don't Go In Old Apartment Buildings

Runtime: 80 minutes

Release Date: May 8, 2015

Rating: NR?

Director: Rafa Martinez

Alicia works for the Spanish government as some type of housing inspector. She's tasked with visiting with an old and deciding if the building he lives in is safe or should be condemned. While checking out the building, she finds an almost hidden apartment. The man tells her that a couple started constructing the apartment and got shut down for doing it illegally. Though the building is safe to live in, she warns him that the owner wants him out and that it might be best to just move.

Finding that hidden apartment turns out to be a stroke of luck. She and her boyfriend Simon want to celebrate their anniversary but agreed to not spend a lot of money. After meeting with him later that night, she takes him to the hidden apartment and tells him that it's their chance to get away and have a romantic time together without worrying about money. Their chance at romance quickly fades as a group of bloodthirsty serial killers quickly descends on them in the middle of the night with the goal of killing them both.

Let's just get this out of the way right now, I didn't like Sweet Home. It started out fine, then started dragging, and by the time it got to the action, I didn't really care. I'm fine with films that start out slow and slowly build up to the action, but this one felt like it just took too long to get going. At one point, I checked the time and it was already 30 minutes into the movie and nothing had really happened. It's also a fairly ridiculous idea for a movie. I don't know about you readers out there, but if my significant other took me to an almost abandoned building for a romantic rendezvous, I think I would just leave. It's also hard to believe that this place could have running water or even electricity.

Despite the first half going so slow, the second half really amped up the action. Once we finally learned about the people in the building and found out that they were following the couple, the story got a lot more interesting. One of the more disturbing scenes came when one character – I won't name any names – dies after being thrown over the side of a staircase and falling several stories. Though you will need to suspend your disbelief when that character manages to stay along for like an hour after that just to pass something along to another character. As gruesome as the original scene was, I had to roll my eyes at that point.

While Sweet Home is a foreign flick, it's Spanish, it only has a few subtitles. Alicia talks to a few people in Spanish, but most of the film uses English. If you're like me and tend to do other things while watching flicks, you'll find that helpful.

Despite having an interesting story surrounding killers stalking a couple trapped in a building, Sweet Home isn't one I would recommend.

They're Watching Movie Review – Bloody and Just Plain Fun

Runtime: 95 minutes

Release Date: March 25, 2016

Rating: NR?

Director: Jay Lender & Micah Write

They're Watching may seriously be my favorite horror movie of the year. I started watching it while playing a game on my phone and quickly realized that there was absolutely no way I could ignore it. It hooked me from the beginning and had me laughing my ass off for much of the film.

We meet Becky and her boyfriend, a professional soccer player, as they search for a place in Moldovia, on the popular house hunting show Home Hunters International. After finding a rundown place in the middle of nowhere, she decides to buy the house and turn it into her dream home. Months later, Greg and Alex, two of the original crew who shot the episode, return with Sarah, a new employee, to see if Becky really transformed the house. They meet up with their producer, Kate, and Vladimir, the only real estate agent in town, to check on her progress.

Alex thinks the whole thing is pretty ridiculous and can't imagine that she did anything. All he really cares about is finding some random chocolate bar, and Greg only cares about potentially hooking up with Sarah. They quickly learn about the legend of a witch who once lived in Becky's house and how people in this tiny little town are still scared of the witch. While shooting b-roll footage around town, they mistakenly wander into a funeral and shoot footage before getting run off. When Sarah shouts their word for witch in the middle of the town's restaurant, people are less than thrilled. All of this is just backstory that leads up to the whole crew getting trapped in Becky's house as bloodthirsty locals wait outside. Are they after the crew for what they did in town, or if there something more sinister happening behind the scenes?

They're Watching really is one of those films that hooks up in from the very beginning. What other movie can you name that literally starts out with a girl getting an ax through the head and then reintroduces her minutes later as a main character? While you know she's going to get it in the end, half the fun is watching the story unfold and waiting to see what happens to her and everyone else.

My favorite was Kris Lemche as Alex. You might remember him as the goth/emo kid from Final Destination 3, which I reviewed not that long ago. While he's still got the whole sarcastic jack ass thing going on, he's easily the standout of the film. One of the best moments comes when the crew is stuck in Becky's house and trying to sleep in shifts. He's stuck listening to Greg and Sarah flirt in another room and finally yells out at them if they're done before mumbling to himself about how he needs to get some sleep. It's hard to explain, but the scene actually made me snort.

And let's not forget the Home Hunters International, which even used a song and cut scenes similar to the real show. You could almost believe that this is a show that would air on HGTV up until the second half. Given that I just watched all episodes on Netflix, it was hysterical.

The last 10 minutes of They're Watching were some of the bloodiest 10 minutes I've seen on screen in a long time. Once the witch makes her appearance, the bloodshed starts and doesn't let up. In addition to a woman getting an ex to the head, we get a man turned into frogs, a guy vaporized into nothing, a guy literally ripped in half, and a guy's face get ripped in half. It was far gorier than anything I've seen in recent times. Between the humor and the gore, I just couldn't get enough. They're Watching is one I would recommend to any horror fan.