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...

Before I Go to Sleep – Tight and Entertaining Nicole Kidman Thriller

Runtime: 92 minutes

Release Date: October 31, 2014

Rating: R

Director: Rowan Joffe

Christine (Nicole Kidman) is a woman with a serious problem. Every morning, she wakes up with no memory of who she is or how she got there. Ben (Colin Firth) explains to her that he is her husband. Several years prior, she was in a car accident that left her with serious brain damage and a rare form of amnesia. She learns that they have the same conversation every morning and that she never remembers who he is or his connection to her.

Later in the day, she gets a phone call from Dr. Nash. He tells her that she started coming to him for treatment and that he believed they were close to a breakthrough. The doctor also encourages her to check in her wardrobe for a camera that she hid away. After watching the camera, she learns that she's been recording messages to herself for a long time. Though watching the messages every day does not help her memory, it does let her start working through everything that happened to her in the past.

As she works through her problems, she begins having flashes of what happened. She learns that it wasn't a car accident that caused her brain damage but rather an attack that happened in a hotel. It turns out that the man who attacked her was the same man she was cheating on Ben with and that Ben stayed with her after the affair. As Christine uncovers more information, including the fact that she no longer talks to her best friend and that she had a son, she realizes that there is more going on than she ever realized and that both Ben and Dr. Nash may have a deeper connection to her past than she assumed.

Before I Go to Sleep may not be your typical horror movie, but it's the kind of movie that makes you wonder what you would do in the same situation. How could you possibly cope with waking up every morning with no memories and finding that you're married and living with someone who is basically a complete stranger to you? By the same token, how could you ever live with someone you spent years living with and loving when she has no clue who you are?

Nicole Kidman is pretty good as Christine, but it's starting to become clear that she's had a little too much work done. There are literally moments in the film where her face and eyes do two different things. While her eyes look shocked and even scared, her face appears so frozen that you might wonder, like I did, if she can even move her eyebrows anymore. Colin Firth more than makes up for her though. He's amazing because he essentially plays two completely different characters. While he's her sweet and loving husband who stood by her and supported her for so many years, he later develops this dark and chilling persona that makes you wonder if there's something more going on or something he isn't telling her.

I occasionally like to take a break from straight horror films and throw something like a thriller or a natural disaster flick into the mix. Before I Go was a nice break from my ordinary viewing habits.

Trespass Movie Review – Typical Home Invasion Flick

Length: 91 minutes

Release Date: October 21, 2011

Rating: R

Director: Joel Schumacher

Sarah (Nicole Kidman) is you typical poor rich housewife. She's married to Kyle who works as a diamond broker and has a teenage daughter named Avery too. Kyle is on the road so much that Sarah finds herself spending more and more time home alone. She tells her daughter that she can't go to a party later that night, but the girl sneaks out of the house and goes anyway. That night, three men and a woman break into the house and hold the couple hostage.

The men reveal that they had an inside man working around the house the whole time. Jonah did some work on the house and learned that Kyle likely had a large number of cash and diamonds on hand. He also developed one hell of a crush on Sarah and fantasizes about the two of them running away together. Kyle reveals that despite making a call earlier in the night about a large number of diamonds he needed to sell that he actually has no money at all. He must also reveal to his wife that the diamonds she already owns are fakes.

Kyle claims that he lost so much money during the recession and as they had their large mansion built that he had to sell her precious stones to stay afloat. She's shocked, but so too are the robbers who need to get as much money as possible that same night. When Avery comes home early from the party after a bad encounter with a guy from school, she finds herself caught up in the middle of the robbery. With time ticking away, no one knows who will make it out alive.

I have a tendency to have way too many things in my Netflix list at any given time. I sometimes get it down to around 450 items, but it's usually closer to 475 or higher. While flipping through movies and shows in the middle, I remembered hearing about Trespass and wanting to see it. Now that I have, I probably could have left it there a lot longer.

Here's the thing, as great as Nic Cage is sometimes, he is sometimes really bad. Seeing him as a rich diamond broker is pretty hard to swallow. Seeing him married to a woman like Nicole Kidman makes things even worse. The two of them have so little chemistry that I had a hard time rooting for them to make it out alive. Given that she had way more chemistry with the actor playing Jonah, I actually got to the point where I wanted his story about the two of them having an affair to be true and actually wanted them to run away together.

All the other characters are pretty much the stereotypical characters you expect to see in a movie like this. You have the rough guy who isn't afraid of murdering everyone to save his own ass, the crack whore who just wants her next fix, and the annoying teenage girl who seems to screw up everything over and over again. The characters were so bad that I had a hard time finding anyone I wanted to root for, and I actually didn't really care if the house blew up and killed them all accidentally.

Despite having some big names, Trespass was an incredibly generic movie. There is very little to remember about the movie after seeing it.

Hush Movie Review – Deceptively Thrilling

Runtime: 81 minutes

Release Date: April 8, 2016

Rating: R

Director: Mike Flanagan

Maddie Young is the author of a best selling book who lives alone in the middle of the woods and is deaf. Her nearest neighbor, Sarah, comes over early in the night after reading her book and to talk about how she plans to take a new ASL class and wants her boyfriend John to join her. After Sarah heads home for the night, Maddie settles down and struggles to work on her next book. She also receives a few phone calls from Craig who we learn was her boyfriend up until a year ago.

While cleaning up the mess she made earlier in the night while cooking, Sarah frantically rushes to her door and finding it locked, beats against the door with her hands. When that fails to grab her friend's attention, she tries screaming. An arrow comes out from nowhere, pierces her chest, and she screams some more. An unknown man in a white mask comes out of the woods, attacks Sarah, and brutally murders her in front of the large french doors.

When the man realizes that Maddie cannot hear him, he sneaks into her house and steals her cell phone. She later gets several picture messages from her own phone that show her in various parts of her own home. After finally seeing the man outside, Maddie writes a message on the door that she won't tell anyone what she saw and that she has a boyfriend who will be there soon. In response, the man lifts his mask to reveal his face, tells her that she can now identify him, and claims that he can get inside anytime he wants. Hush then becomes a cat and mouse game between an unknown assailant with a crossbow and a woman just trying to survive the night.

Hush is one of the few movies I've seen recently that actually made me gasp and occasionally scream at my television. It was so dark and twisted that you can't help having some type of response. At one point, the man drags Sarah to the window and uses her beaten and bloody hand to knock on the window. When Maddie sees him, he then uses the dead woman's hand to actually wave to her. What kind of sick fuck does that kind of thing?

The best thing about this movie is that it doesn't do the classic thing of making her deafness become a disability. While she is deaf, it doesn't focus too much on her point of view in terms of making the scenes completely silent, but it does do a great job of actually making us feel for her and wanting her to survive, whether or not she can hear. When not watching horror flicks, I tend to make some girly choices like the television show Switched at Birth. It was amazing to see a film that actually shows ASL and features a strong character who is more than just another deaf girl.

Hush was so interesting that my boyfriend came in halfway through it, sat down to smoke a cigarette, and got so caught up in it that he forget he was supposed to take a shower. It's an incredibly powerful thriller that actually made me put down my phone to focus on seeing what happened next. Everything about this film was just amazing, from the actors to the music to the pacing. It's true proof that you don't need a lot of different sets or even a ton of cash to make a movie that resonates with viewers. This is the best horror film I've seen in a long time and well worth the five stars I gave it.

Hush is currently streaming on Netflix.

Martyrs Remake – Completely Unnecessary

Length: 86 minutes

Release Date: January 22, 2016

Rating: NR

Director: Kevin and Michael Goetz

Martyrs opens with Lucie, a young girl who escapes from an unnamed person and runs for help. The police follow her directions back to a warehouse but find no evidence of anyone there. Lucie then goes to a Catholic orphanage and eventually becomes friends with Anna. Anna is the one she turns to after having a series of nightmares about what she saw during her ordeal. The police later bring in Anna and reveal that they believe Lucie made up the whole thing.

Years later, Lucie is a young woman with a mission. She knocks on the door of a seemingly normal house and blows away the man who answers with a shotgun. Lucie then shoots his wife, asks his son if he knows what they did to him, and kills him too before chasing the man's teenage daughter upstairs and killing her too. Once done, she calls Anna, tells her that she found them, and confesses what she did.

Anna quickly rushes to the house. Though Lucie told her that she found the people who did something bad to her, she thought they would go the police together. What she finds instead are a series of dead bodies that Lucie asks her to help get rid of to make “her” finally stop. Anna discovers that the wife is still alive and tries to help her escape, but Lucie catches them and brutally murders the woman. 

Though Anna doesn't necessarily believe the whole story, she's forced to change her mind after uncovering a hidden series of rooms behind a locked door in the basement. Not only does she find a series of locked rooms, but she also finds a young woman with a similar story to Lucie. Though she promises to help the little girl escape, things change when Eleanor arrives with a group of men who drag the girls back inside. After revealing that Lucie was their martyr years ago, she tells Anna that they want to find someone who will tell them what life is like on the other side. As they begin experimenting on both women, Anna discovers that her friend was telling the truth all along.

When I saw the original Martyrs, I spent most of the movie trying not to look at the screen and squirming because it was so disgusting and disturbing. When we sat down to watch the remake, I warned the boyfriend of that film. Needless to say, neither of us found many scenes in the Martyrs remake very disturbing.

It literally felt like someone tool the original script, decided to dumb it down, took out everything that made that film so unsettling, and then made a remake. That scene where the doctor skins her alive? Yup, it's now a small section of her back removed. Oh, and remember how Lucie kills herself in the original because she can't take her life anymore? Now she survives to the very end with Anna, and the only weird thing that happens to Anna is that they give her electroshock.

This movie was an insult to the original and a movie that didn't need made. It was so different and completely unlike the original that I actually expected to see the cops swoop in, shoot everyone, and save the day in the last scene. Do yourself a favor, skip this one and watch the original.

 

Intruders Movie Review – Beware When You Break Into Someone's Home

Length: 90 minutes

Release Date: January 15, 2016

Rating: R

Director: Adam Schindler

Anna (Beth Riesgraf) suffers from acrophobia and lives alone in her family home with her dying brother Conrad. One night, he asks her to spend some time with him outside, but she can't get over her fears to take even one step outside. Just before he dies, she learns that he set it up so that she can keep the house and will have enough money to survive. Though she dreams of leaving, she knows that will never happen. She does, however, offer Dan, the man who brings them food every day, a large bag of money so that he might get away from their small town.

Though Anna wants to go to his funeral, she can't make it out the front door. Three men, hearing about the money in the house and assuming that she'll be gone, break into the house. One of the men, Perry, seems more dangerous than the rest. When he learns about her phobia, he throws her outside and then later murders her pet bird. While running through the house to get away from the men, Anna accidentally kills the one who attacks her with her own hair pin.

The men originally assume that they'll kill her and take all her money, things turn when they realize that Anna isn't just a normal woman. After killing their friend, she tricks them into the basement, races upstairs, and turns a switch that causes the basement stairs to recede into the wall. Anna the makes it clear that she and her brother had a dark side, which is a side that all those men will discover for themselves.

Every so often, I flip on my XBOX One and watch a bunch of trailers to see new films coming out. That was where I first saw the trailer for Intruders and first realized that it was a movie I had to see. Riesgraf is absolutely amazing as Anna. The only thing I knew her from previously was the television show Leverage, but she's a completely different person here. She kept me interested and entertained, and I couldn't wait to find out more about her deep secret. Martin Starr, who many might know from the under appreciated Freaks and Geeks, is spine tingling as Perry. When he grabs her bird by the neck and grabs a hammer with the other, don't be surprised if you want to shout at him to stop. Rory Culkin also does a pretty good job as Dan and will leave you wondering what connection he has to the other men and whether he'll help those guys or Anna.

The first half of Intruders was so good that I kept shushing my boyfriend and actually told him to leave the room if he couldn't be quiet. That first half does a great job of setting up the rest of the film and has a dark and somewhat unsettling tone. We see just what it looks like for Anna when she tries to leave her house, and we get why she would beg them to let her back inside, even if it means they might kill her.

As good as that first half was, the second half faltered a bit. We learn what happened to Anna and Conrad and why they have a little girl's bedroom set up in the basement with microphones and video feeds capturing everything that happens. It seemingly comes out of let field and might leave you suspending disbelief a little more than you should. I also feel like the film didn't come full circle enough. It doesn't seem like Anna went through enough to get the ending that she did. I really liked Intruders, but I liked the first half a lot more than the second half.

Whisper of Fear Movie Review – AKA Stalkers

Runtime: 90 minutes

Release Date: April 13, 2013

Rating: NR

Director: Mark Tonderai

Time for yet another Lifetime movie review! What can I say? I had to watch what I could before they expired on Netflix.

Diane Harkin is a new to the force police officer. Though the city has a hiring freeze, she apparently had some friends in higher places who helped her land the job, which leaves her less than accepted by her peers. What they don't know is what she changed her name after leaving her abusive ex-husband and took off for a new city with their son in tow.

One of her first cases involves a woman forced off the road by her abusive husband and then shot to death. No one else takes it very serious, even when she shows them proof that the guy stalked her for years. She then takes on a case where a woman named Jane and her current boyfriend are stalked by a woman named Ivy. When Diane learns that Julia from the DA's office didn't file charges, she makes it her personal mission to help Jane in any way possible.

After Ivy continues her stalking, Diane turns to Julia for help. Since this is a Lifetime movie, Julia is currently sleeping with her married boss and believes that he'll help her set up a new task force to bring an end to stalking. He actually goes behind her back and decides to use the funds for that project in a completely new way. As Ivy's stalking intensifies, the two women decide to work together to change the current stalking laws.

As much as I usually love Lifetime movies, this one was way too ridiculous even for me. Jane has a boyfriend who she loves and then has a chance meeting in an elevator with Ivy. After her car won't start, Ivy gives her a ride home. The director tries to show that they have chemistry but it doesn't really work. We then get to see them on their third meeting where they suddenly have so much chemistry that they wind up having sex together.

Ivy somehow has access to all the boyfriend's financial records through her job, so she sets it up so that he loses the loan he already had secured for his new bakery. Can that even happen? The boyfriend goes to Jane, asks her to sign a loan for him, and then storms off and dumps her when she refuses. They then somehow wind up back together without the film explaining what the hell just happened.

It's also pretty ridiculous that this is based on a true story but changes everything about the real story. If I remember correctly, it doesn't even take place in the same city or same state. Drea de Matteo pretty much plays the same character that she does in every film: the hard and tough as nails NY/NJ chick, and Jodi Lynn O'Keefe as Julia practically sleepwalks through the whole film.

The only shining spot is Mena Suvari as Ivy. You can't see her inside the walls and staring at Jane through the vents without feeling at least a minor chill go up your back. Since the rest of the movie is pretty lame, I'm glad I watched it when I had nothing else going on.

The Perfect Guy – The Bad Kind of Lifetime Movie

Runtime: 100 minutes

Release Date: September 11, 2015

Rating: PG-13

Director: David M. Rosenthal

Leah is the type of classic movie character that I hate. Though she has a good job and a good life with her boyfriend of two years Dave, all she can think about is getting married and having babies. After a particular fight, she breaks up with him in the hopes of giving him time to think things over and realize that he wants to marry her and have lots of babies.

While sitting at the bar and waiting for a friend who cancels at the last minute, she meets an irritating businessman who keeps hitting on her. Enter Carter, an attractive man she met in passing at the coffee shop while still with Dave. Carter saves her from a bad situation and seemingly becomes the perfect man overnight. He treats her with respect, loves her cat, loves being around her friends and family, and even wants to make plans with her for the future.

It doesn't take long before he drops the L-bomb and wins over her father, making everyone think he is the perfect guy. That all changes when she sees his dark side. After a man keeps talking to her outside his parked car, Carter suddenly attacks and beats the man senseless. He apologizes and promises that he would never hurt her, but she's had enough and end things. That leads to Carter slowly stalking her, stealing her cat, and basically making her life a living hell while the police do little to stop him.

If you read my plot synopsis of The Perfect Guy and wondered why it sounded familiar, it's because it is literally the same plot of 900 made for television movies released in the 1980s and 1990s. When it ended, I looked at my roommate and said, “didn't we see this movie before,” which prompted him to say it was like a straight up bad Lifetime movie. It literally made no sense why this actually played in theaters and didn't wind up on television instead.

Everything about the movie is a total cliché. Leah is a busy working girl who never quite found the time to settle down and have a family, and Dave is the working guy who isn't quite ready to settle down with her. When she started whining about being 36 and still not being a wife and mother, I seriously wanted to slap her. Does that mean that she expects Dave to marry her and immediately knock her up? She was literally two seconds away from “forgetting” her birth control pills or poking holes in his condoms.

The only redeeming feature is Michael Ealy. I've seen him in a few films, most recently the remake of About Last Night, and I thought he was the standout. He's the perfect combination of sexy and suave in the beginning and dark and creepy later. You actually get why someone would fall in love with him so quickly. He even had a few moments that left me feeling a little squeamish, including when he licked her wineglass to get her lipstick off it and when he literally sucked on her toothbrush. Add to that a scene where he creepily holds her cat while remotely viewing her computer, and it's clear why he's the standout.

The Perfect Guy isn't a horrible movie, but it's one we've all seen many, many, many times before. It sadly lacked all the cheesy fun of a made for Lifetime movie too...

She Made Them Do It – Kind of a Screwy Story

Runtime: 90 minutes

Release Date: February 28, 2013

Rating: NR

Director: Grant Harvey

Sarah is a Purdue University student living in a house with her boyfriend, his friend, and the friend's girlfriend. As the movie begins, she's far from perfect. Not only does she use a lot of cocaine, but she's apparently been selling it with her boyfriend's help on campus. The money she makes goes straight into a box that she plans to take back with her to college. That's the plan until she checks it and finds it empty. Turns out that her male roommate took the money to pay for more drugs.

She Made Them Do It lets us believe that her boyfriend killed the two and that she helped him get rid of the bodies before going on the run. It doesn't take long before they both get caught and wind up in jail. Sarah meets a woman named Jamie who believes in her innocence and promises to help her, but she gets convicted off little evidence and gets 110 years in prison. While things don't necessarily go well for her, she does manage to make some new friends and even learn in the prison library.

When Sarah learns that a corrupt prison guard can help her get comforts of home in exchange for sex, she starts a relationship with him. That relationship ends with him working with Jamie to help her smuggle drugs into prison and later help her escape. She goes on the run with help from some of her former prison pals as a US Marshall follows on her tail.

Here's the thing, I lived in Indiana where this film is set and where the true story happened, and I literally never heard a single thing about it. The film does a good job of telling the story in such a way that you aren't really sure who to believe or know what really happened. While the director portrays Sarah as a sweet and wholesome college student, he also introduces evidence that shows her as anything but wholesome. She apparently threatened a woman who got in her way, might have encouraged her boyfriend to kill their friends before using the gun on them herself, and probably manipulated a lot of people to do everything she wanted them to do.

The problem is that I later went and read more about the actual case and doubt a lot of what the film presents. There is actually very little evidence that she did or had any part in the murders. The police had no evidence except for a letter she supposedly wrote to her boyfriend where she confessed to being there and taking part in the murders. He later said she never wrote it, and one of his cellmates stated multiple times that he forged the letter. There is also a jail house snitch who says she confessed to him, but he actually came forward with similar stories regarding other people.

As a Lifetime movie, She Made Them Do It is a lot better than some of the films I saw on the network over the years. Jenna Dewan Tatum is absolutely amazing and does a good job of making you wonder if she's innocent or guilty. I also have no clue why more people don't crush on her. As a straight women, I'd pick her over her husband any day. While it was an interesting movie, I highly encourage anyone who watches it to go back and read more about the real case after finishing it.

The Falling Movie Review – Weird and Just Plain Strange

Runtime: 102 minutes

Release Date: April 24, 2014

Rating: ?

Director: Carol Morley

The Falling is one of those movies that the roommate and I picked up at Family Video because of the box art and the synopsis on the back. While we got through the whole movie, I can safely say that it's not one I would ever watch again.

Set in the turbulent 1960s, the film tells the story of a young teenage girl named Lydia. She lives alone with her mother, who has a fear of going outside and spends most of her time holed up in her own bedroom. Lydia becomes friends with Abbie. While Lydia is quiet and meek, Abbie is boisterous and out of control. She loves telling her friend about her sexual exploits.

When Abbie dies, Lydia finds herself taking on her former friend's role in school. Though she abstains from sexual intercourse, she does form a strange relationship with her own brother. That leads to her suffering from a fainting spell, but when she faints multiple times, the doctors cannot determine the cause. To make things even worse, the other girls in her new group of friends suddenly begin passing out as well, creating an epidemic in their small town.

The Falling is a strange movie that got some great reviews, but after watching it, I feel like I must have missed something. It literally has an average rating of 7+ out of 10 on some sites, but I have absolutely no clue why. It's an incredibly confusing movie that goes from nothing happening to major information thrown at you in short chunks. I had a hard time following it, and my roommate even fell asleep halfway through and went to bed without finishing it.

We are both fans of a Japanese movie called Stacey about teenage girls who become zombies after having sex, and the plot of this movie made it seem like it might be somewhat similar. It is absolutely nothing like that movie. The Falling is really confusing.

Lydia goes from being this meek and quiet girl to someone who bats her eyelashes at her brother and wonders out loud why he doesn't look at her the same way he did her friend. Then she can't understand why her mother flips out when she finds them going at it in their bed. It also features an incredibly weird and confusing ending that left me wondering what the hell just happened.

If you're looking for an answer as to what happened to the girls and why they suddenly started fainting all over the place, don't look at me. The Falling never bothers to explain that crucial piece of information. It's apparently just something like hysteria, where all the girls want to pass out because the other girls do. I really didn't like the movie, and I really don't want to watch it again.

Dark Places – Read the Book

Runtime: 113 minutes

Release Date: June 18, 2015

Rating: R

Director: Gilles Paquet-Brenner

Libby Day was just as a child when she lost her entire family. Her older brother Ben became the chief suspect and landed in prison for the murders of his mother and two younger sisters. Libby became an overnight sensation for her survival, landing on the covers of magazines and doing television appearances. She even wrote a best selling book and had a group of fans raise donations in the form of $1 million for her.

Years later, Libby is an adult and still trying to recover from the events of that night. After a meeting with her agent, she learns that all the money is nearly gone because she lived off it her entire life without working a single day. She gets a letter from a young man named Lyle who asks her to meet with his group one night. His group attempts to solve mysteries and loves serial killer crimes, and he can pay her for participating.

When Libby attends, she learns that many people believe that he brother is innocent of the crime. Many think it was her estranged POS father, while others think Libby herself is to blame because she named her brother as the killer. As Libby becomes caught up in the mystery surrounding what actually happened that night, she discovers that she knows less about her family than she ever believed.

After reading and watching Gone Girl, I downloaded Dark Places and read it in a single night. It was so good that I couldn't put it down, couldn't stop talking about it, and raved to everyone that it was so much better than Gone Girl. The twists that came at the end kept me gasping page after page, and I spent much of the book trying to figure out what happened. Sadly, Dark Places was nothing like the book.

The book did a great job of making you suspect every single character and keeping you guessing. Once it finally started wrapping up all its loose ends, it was like one amazing new piece of information every page. The movie takes too long to tie up those loose ends. You learn one piece of information, get another boring scene, learn something else, another boring scene, something new. I was so excited for my boyfriend to try and figure out the ending, but it took so long for us to learn everything that it wound up being a let down.

There were multiple things that both my roommate and my boyfriend didn't understand that I had to explain. It was like the screenwriter assumed that everyone who watched Dark Places read the book and would know what was coming. Other things were glossed over so quickly that it took awhile to remember what happened earlier in the movie.

While there was some good acting in the movie, it really didn't compare to Gone Girl. Charlize Theron gave Libby such a cool and calm attitude that it seemed like she didn't give a shit about anything that happened and that she never worried or felt any type of danger. It just gave me a cold feeling that made me want to go back and read the book.

Return to Sender – Pales in Comparison to Gone Girl

Runtime: 95 minutes

Release Date: August 14, 2015

Rating: ?

Director: Fouad Mikati

Miranda is a single woman living in a tiny town who has little friends beyond her dad and some of the other nurses she works with. Though she is a talented cake artist and is in the process of buying a new home, her friends think she needs more in her life and set her up with a nice guy named Kevin. On the day of their blind dates, she hears a knock at the door and assuming that it's Kevin, she lets in the normal and slightly looking cute guy there. He quickly becomes irrational, chases her around her house, throws her down on the island in the kitchen, and rapes her.

The man, who we later learn is named William, runs off, leaving her blind date to come across her battered body. Though they catch William and send him to prison, Miranda finds that she can't get her life back together again. She develops a tremor in her hand that keeps her from decorating cakes and stops her from getting promoted to a better department in work, and she has to pull out of the new house because no one will buy her old house. Her agent even tells her that no one will buy it because of its bad reputation.

Miranda finally decides to take matters into her own hands and take back her life again. She paints her house, installs new shutters, and renovates her kitchen to make her house look brand new again. She also writes William a letter, which he sends back return to sender. After sending him dozens of letters, he finally agrees to see her. They begin writing each other, talking on the phone, and she visits him frequently. When William gets out of prison early, we learn why she formed a connection with a man like him.

You can't watch Return to Sender without comparing it to Gone Girl, but this movie is definitely no Gone Girl. All the elements are there, but it just feels like there's something missing. There are things like how Miranda takes the time to befriend her dad's dog. The dog never liked anyone, especially her, but she eventually spends time feeding it and caring for it. When the dog dies, we're left suspecting her of being the reason for its death even though we have no proof. I'm assuming it was put in there as a way to show what she's capable of but it's just kind of blah.

Nick Nolte plays her dad, and his talent is so under utilized that he's literally billed as Miranda's Father. We see him stumbling around everywhere, falling down all the time, and generally having health problems, but she basically just ignores him. He does have a great scene where he sees William in the hardware store and seriously contemplates attacking him with a bat. Unfortunately, that leads to a scene where he confronts Miranda and she lies right to his face before blowing him off.

While Rosamind Pike as Miranda wasn't the best, Shiloh Fernandez did a great job as William. There was a scene between him and his “roommate” in prison that left all three of us squirming in our seats.

Having loved both the book and movie of Gone Girl, I was looking forward to Return to Sender but, no pun intended, it didn't deliver. By the time it finally reached the point everyone waited for and wanted to see, it glossed right over her revenge.

Stoker Movie Review – "We don't need to be friends. We're family."

Runtime: 99 minutes
Release Date: March 1, 2013
Rating: R
Director: Chan-wook Park


India is a quiet and somewhat creepy young woman. After the death of her father, she meets his brother Charlie. Though her mother, Evelyn, is excited when he announces that he'll stick around and help them out for a bit, India can't help feeling that something is wrong. India feels slightly better when her great aunt Gwendolyn arrives in town, but that doesn't last very long.


After India notices Charlie acting weird, she wonders what he's hiding. We learn what he's hiding when he follows Gwendolyn away from the house and strangles her in a phone booth. India later discovers another body in the freezer in their basement, and while most of us would run for our lives, she seems almost intrigued by her uncle's actions. The more time she spends around her uncle, the more she realizes that he isn't normal and that she might not be normal either.


My regular job is as a freelance writer, and I had a client ask me to write about the best unproduced scripts a few years ago, which led to me hearing about this film. Thinking that it sounded interesting, I kept checking back for more information, and I was pretty excited when I heard it finally became a film, and a film starring Nicole Kidman no less! She's been one of my favorite actresses for years, and I thought that if anyone could pull off the role of a slightly crazy mother like Evelyn, it was her.


Unfortunately, I didn't like Stoker. It's not a bad film by any accounts, but it wasn't anything at all like I anticipated. I knew it would tread more towards the drama side and less towards the horror, but it still wasn't what I expected. The best word that I can think of is plodding. The film just felt like it went on forever. I kept reaching for the remote just to see how much time was left and wondering if it would ever end.


There was something about the script that just left me feeling cold and not in a good way. Though I made it to the end of Stoker, I can't imagine that I'll ever want to sit down and watch it again.

The Call – "You're an operator. You can't do this!"

Runtime: 94 minutes
Release Date: March 15, 2013
Rating: R
Director: Brad Anderson


Jordan Turner (Halle Berry, Gothika) is working as a 911 operator when she receives a call from a young girl. Fearing that someone is in the house, Jordan tells her how to hide and wait for police to arrive. When the call disconnects, Jordan calls back. The ringing phone alerts the killer, who grabs her and drags her out of the house. When Jordan later hears that they found the girl's body, she decides to stop working as an operator.


Several months later, Jordan now works as a trainer to help new workers handle calls. Though she has no plans to step back onto the phone lines, that all changes when a new call comes into the office. Casey is a teenage girl who was kidnapped by the same man who killed the previous girl. The man grabbed her out of a parking lot and tossed her in his trunk. It's up to Jordan to help Casey survive and bring justice for the man's other victims.


The Call is another of those films that I had high hopes for. I've read and heard stories from people working as 911 operators, and I don't think I could ever handle working that job. When I saw the trailer and realized that it was a horror-like film about someone who works in a 911 call center, I thought it would be interesting. While it did have some good moments, it wasn't nearly as good as I hoped.


The first half of the film is great. Jordan comes back to work but she makes it clear that she can't handle her old job. She can train other people and even briefly talk about her experiences, but the idea of sitting down and taking a call fills her with dread. Of course, that all changes when the new call comes into an operator. It seems pretty unrealistic that she would jump up and take back the job after constantly bringing up that she can't handle it.


Then we have to deal with her actually walking away from the job. I'm sure these people go to great lengths every day, but how many of those people do you think would literally get up and go on a frenzied mention to find someone. No one in the movie ever mentions that Jordan would pretty much come back to find her boyfriend/supervisor hating her and her without a job. And let's not get started on the ending. It's so incredibly unrealistic that I haven't heard a single person say that they liked it. I liked The Call when I initially saw it (or at least thought it was an okay film), but after thinking about it, I don't think I'll ever see it again.

While She Was Out Movie Review

Runtime: 88 minutes
Release Date: March 26, 2009
Rating: R
Director: Susan Montford


Della is the type of housewife that you see a dozen times a day and don't think twice about. She can't really handle her children, who seem to run all over her, and she definitely can't handle her abusive husband Kenneth. After yet another fight with him, she decides to go the nearby shopping mall and pick up some things for Christmas. After seeing a car taking up two spots in the crowded parking lot, she leaves a nasty note.


Later, Della comes back to her car and sees the car from before pulling up behind her. In a stupid move, she hops out of her car and confronts the men inside, whom threaten to rape and murder her. When a security guard tries to help, they shoot and kill him. Della races away, but they follow her. After a car accident forces her from her car, she finds herself on the run in the woods with the young men hot on her tail.


I saw a trailer for While She Was Out a few years ago, but I never heard anything about a release date. It was a nice surprise to see the movie sitting on the shelf at my local rental place with a rental price of 50 cents. The movie itself isn't bad and it's even entertaining at times, but it was one of those movies where I spent more time screaming at the television than paying attention to the movie.


It starts with Della leaving the note on the car. We already know that she's doormat and that everyone walks all over her, so why would she feel the need to act out at that moment? Then, when the car comes back, she decides to get out and actually talk to them. Why would she do that? If some random car pulls up next to me in a deserted parking lot, I am taking off as fast as possible. I'm sure as hell not coming out and asking what their deal is. The movie establishes her as a docile doormat, but she suddenly becomes a big and strong woman.


While She Was Out asks viewers to suspend belief for awhile, but it finally gets to the point where you just can't do it anymore. If the movie gave us any reason to show Della's strength, we would understand her motivations. She doesn't think about her children or her husband, and she never explains why she suddenly decides to stand up for herself or where her strength comes from. She just goes from a blank character to a strong character. I can understand that the director wants to show the change that Della goes through, but it seems to happen a little too fast. I wanted to see just a little more character development in this one.

"Side Effects" Movie Review: There are Always Side Effects

Runtime: 106 minutes

Release Date: February 8, 2013

Rating: R

Director: Steven Soderbergh

When Dr. Jonathon Banks (Jude Law, "Contagion") warns his patient Emily (Rooney Mara, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo") that her new medication has side effects, she looks him in the eye before telling him that there are always side effects. While this might be a great opening to the film, the scene actually comes towards the middle.

"Side Effects" actually begins with Emily going through the motions of an ordinary day, though for her, it includes a trip to visit her husband (Channing Tatum) in prison. As the film progresses, we learn that the two once had the perfect marriage, complete with a fancy house and a brand new car for her. When he landed in prison for insider training, she was forced to start her life over again on her own.

Once Martin comes home, Emily begins suffering from extreme depression and anxiety. She goes through the motions of having sex with him without really feeling anything, and she has trouble at work. It all comes to a head when Emily drives her car directly into a brick wall. Dr. Banks treats her at the hospital, and he prescribes her medication while offering to treat her in his office.

Emily has trouble on one medication, getting violently sick at work. Banks prescribes different medications for her, but she suffers side effects every time. He finally contacts her former doctor, Victoria Siebert (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who recommends a new drug that she prescribed for similar patients. The drug changes Emily's life. She initiates sex, has a smile on her face, and generally seems happier. The only problem is that she suffers from sleepwalking, wandering through the apartment, cooking, and doing other things while asleep.

Martin suggests she try something new, but she decides to stick with the medication. She also becomes dependent upon Jonathon, much to the annoyance of his wife Deidre (Vinessa Shaw, "The Hills Have Eyes") who has problems of her own. This all leads up to a shocking event that Emily commits while sleepwalking, which test Jonathon and leave him hanging on by a string.

I wanted to see "Side Effects" from the first time that I saw a trailer, but I assumed that it was one of those films I would watch at the cheapo theater or catch on DVD. Cut to Valentine's Day. Since I picked the restaurant, the boyfriend got to pick the movie. I lobbied hard for "Mama," which really means that I kept pointing out that it started later, which would give us time to hit the concession stand. He instead picks this one, and we actually made it through the concession line in ten minutes.

That said, "Side Effects" is one of those films that's hard to describe. I don't want to ruin things by giving away the ending or even the big "shocking twist" in the middle, which makes it hard to even write a review. I will say that I liked it, but it definitely wasn't the movie that I expected. It starts off as a thriller, but then it becomes something of a crime drama, and honestly, it almost seemed like an extended episode of "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" at times.

It doesn't help that Soderbergh wants to slam us over the head with his views on prescription medication. Yes, drugs are bad, and yes, many people are over medicated. Oh and yes, there are many side effects associated with those drugs, including sleepwalking. Unfortunately, there are also a large number of people who benefit from taking medication. Soderbergh almost seems to think that no one actually needs prescription medications, and that anyone who takes one will have problems.

In one scene, he shows a woman signing up for a test study. Though the doctor tries to talk to her about it, all she cares about is that she gets her medication for free. All right Soderbergh, we get it. Those little moments were sometimes distracting, and I actually found myself rolling my eyes multiple times. Had he just stuck to the thriller aspect, this could have been a much stronger movie.

Movie Review: Sound of My Voice

Runtime: 85 minutes
Rating: R
Release Date: April 27, 2012
Director: Zal Batmanglij

Peter (Christopher Denham) is a teacher working on a project with his girlfriend Lorna (Nicole Vicius). The two heard about a cult that centers on a young woman named Maggie (Brit Marling) who claims that she is from the future, 2054 to be exact. When Sound of My Voice opens, the two have already made a connection with the group. The cult makes them take a shower and change their clothes before blindfolding them and taking them to Maggie.

Maggie tells her followers that the future is a bleak and dark place. She constantly tests them, claiming that they need to be strong to handle what’s coming. She has each member make themselves throw up after feeding them because people in the future have less food. Lorna quickly gets caught up in her story and begins believing that everything Maggie says is the truth, while Peter serves as the voice of reason.

Peter worries about his girlfriend and constantly pushes her with the truth. He points out that Maggie doesn’t give any specifics and cannot verify her claims. When Maggie pushes him about his own home life and his mother in particular, he caves and cries in her arms. He later snaps out of it, telling Lorna that Maggie did the same thing that all cult leaders do. Instead of making any specific claims, she simply asked him questions until she found which buttons to push.

Lorna finds herself on the opposite side when she goes for a hike with one of the cult members. The woman takes her into the middle of nowhere and pulls out a gun before showing her out to shoot. Just as Lorna begins doubting, Peter finds himself caught in Maggie’s trap. When she asks him to kidnap one of the children in his class, the film takes an even darker turn.

I saw a trailer for Sound of My Voice a few months ago and found it fascinating. I left myself a note in my phone to find it when it came out on DVD, but I completely missed it coming out until this week. I decided to add it to the blog because it has a darker theme that kind of fits in the world of horror.

The world of cults is interesting, and this film definitely shows the dark side of things. When one man begins questioning her, she immediately has him banned. His wife/girlfriend watches as he leaves and though he begs her to go with him, she just shakes her head and says that she believes in Maggie. It’s one of those movies that makes you think.

Why do these people believe in her? She tells them that she woke up naked in a bathtub filled with water and was thrown out on the street. One of her followers found her and knew she was from the future because she had an anchor and the number 54 tattooed on her ankle. After a few weeks, she “suddenly” remembered who she was.

The followers believe her no matter what. At one point, she proves that she’s from the future by singing a song from The Cranberries, and only one man has the guts to tell her that it’s a song from the past, which she explains away by saying that it was famous by another artist in her time. They even believe that she can only eat organic foods grown in the garage and that she cannot handle anytime outside because of the toxins in our air, despite the fact that she even admits to wandering the streets on her own after waking in the tub.

It’s hard to explain what makes Sound of My Voice so powerful. It ends on an ambiguous note, leaving it up to the viewer to decide what actually happened. If the proposed sequel comes along, I guess we will get answers to some of our questions.

The Cottage Movie Review

Release Date: 2012
Directed by: Chris Jaymes
Runtime: ?
Rating: R

Michael (Victor Browne) and his wife Chloe (Kristen Dalton, “The Dead Zone”) live in a house with their two teenage daughters and toddler. They two planned to rent out the guest cottage to help pay the mortgage and since it’s been sitting empty, they need to find a renter fast. They find the perfect tenant, but a young woman shows up on the doorstep in tears. She introduces herself as the tenant’s sister Vanessa, and she tells them that her sister tragically died in a car accident.

Their quiet daughter Rose (Alana O’Mara) finds the perfect tenant online. Robert (David Arquette, “Scream”) seems like the right fit. He writes romance novels, loves peace and quiet, and gets along well with the family. Not long after her moves into the cottage, things take a darker turn.

As “The Cottage” unfolds, we learn that Michael was married before and his wife died, leaving him alone with Rose and her older sister Danielle (Morissa O’Mara). Chloe was actually Danielle’s teacher and she started dating their father not long after their mother died. Danielle hates her step-mother to the point where she explodes at a family dinner in front of Robert, making it clear that she thought her father should have mourned her mother more.

Meanwhile, Robert goes from the perfect tenant to a creepy outside practically overnight. Chloe catches him skinny dipping in the family pool one night, and when he sees her, he climbs out of the pool and takes his time walking away. He watches the teen girls just a little too long, and then tells Chloe that she should talk to Danielle about the way she dresses. Arquette is perfectly creepy as he tells the woman that her step-daughter might be a girl but he’s “just a man.”

Things take an even darker turn when Robert stops by Chloe’s friend Annie’s house. After lying to her about why he’s there, she runs inside to answer the phone and he walks right into her house. Though she tells him to leave, he comes back into the house. Robert forces himself on her, which leads to her asking him to leave again. When she threatens to call the police, he attacks her and takes her to his secret hideaway, letting the audience see just what’s going on in his mind.

“The Cottage” is one of those odd little films that you find by accident. When it was over, both myself and my boyfriend thought it was a strange film with a few nice little twists. It also has the type of ending that will leave you with some unanswered questions. How did Robert find out about the cottage? Why did he choose that family from all the other families in the neighborhood?

It also has some nice acting work, particularly from Dalton. I remember her best as Johnny’s love interest Dana on the cancelled-before-its-time “The Dead Zone,” but she looks completely different here. She’s believable as a woman stuck with two teen girls who despise her and the family she could have with her husband and new baby. Arquette also does a nice job of playing the creepy guy with a dark secret.

That is not to say that “The Cottage” doesn’t have its faults. Robert seems to pick his victims at random without any real reason. Annie does nothing to him and even seems attracted to him, but he has no problem getting rid of her early on. One teenager makes the mistake of staring at his girlfriend a little too long, while he picks another for daring to flirt with a teenage girl. While it’s not a film that I will watch again and again, it is an interesting little movie.

The Tall Man Movie Review

Rating: R
Runtime: 106 minutes
Release Date: August 31, 2012
Director: Pascal Laugier

Julia Denning (Jessica Biel, “The A-Team”) is a small town nurse who took over her husband’s practice after his death. Tracy (Samantha Ferris, “Supernatural”) shows up at the clinic with her sick daughter, only to discover her daughter is in labor. Julia later talks to Tracy’s other daughter Jenny (Jodelle Ferland, “Silent Hill”) who no longer speaks. At the end of a long day, she comes home to see her babysitter and son David.

Later that night, Julia wakes to hear noises downstairs. The television blasts a religious program and she finds her babysitter tied up and bleeding in the pantry. As the woman’s eyes grow wide, Julia sees the Tall Man carrying her son out the back door. The Tall Man is part urban legend part real person who locals blame for a rash of missing children in the area. Julia rushes outside, manages to grab the back of the man’s truck, and holds on for dear life. When she finds herself face-to-face with the person who took her child, the movie suddenly goes to another level.

A friend of mine said that “The Tall Man” is like a horror movie for adults. I would agree with that to a point, but I also think that it’s a thinking person’s horror movie. This was completely not what I expected based on the previews. I assumed it would be the typical child kidnapper-dark horror movie. What I got was a movie that kept issuing new twists and turns that would take you to one place and then turns things around and send the plot in a new direction.

There were at least three times in the movie where I was sure that I knew what was going on, only to have something else happen and have things turn again. On a sad note, I made a joke a few minutes into the movie about how it should end and it actually ended that way.

“The Tall Man” is more of a thriller than an actual horror movie, but it still manages to throw a few scares and jump scenes into the mix. The boyfriend loves a good horror film and he picks on me when I jump, but this movie got him twice. I would recommend going into it with a clean slate and no expectations because it’s quite different from what the trailers showed.

Rosewood Lane Movie Review

Rating: R
Runtime: 97 minutes
Release Date: October 14, 2011
Director: Victor Salva

Sonny Blake (Rose McGowan, “Charmed”) is a psychiatrist with her own radio show. After her father dies by falling down the stairs to the basement, she puts his house on the market. Cut to a year later and she decides to move into the house since the housing market is so bad. The first day there, she meets the creepy paper boy Derek (Daniel Ross Owens). He offers her a cheap subscription and warns her that the offer is only good for one week.

Her next door neighbor Fred (Rance Howard) warns her to stay away from the paper boy. He also mentions that her father never said he had a daughter. Sonny admits that they didn’t get along and she even wrote a book about growing up there with her alcoholic father. Not long after, she hears a noise in the basement and finds the paper boy down there. He reminds her about the offer, laughs at her, and runs out her front door. Sonny finds herself trapped in a weird world where the paper boy can do things he shouldn’t, constantly taunts her with nursery rhymes, and seemingly can get into her home no matter what she does. Even Detective Briggs (Ray Wise, “Reaper,” “Twin Peaks”) and her ex-boyfriend/current lover Barrett (Sonny Marinelli) can’t help her.

I actually stumbled upon “Rosewood Lane” accidentally while browsing through Netflix. I love Ray Wise, and I like Rose McGowan, though I liked her a lot better before she started going crazy with the plastic surgery. This movie is actually pretty good and a lot better than some of the recent movies I watched online.

McGowan is completely unbelievable as a counselor though. She works on the radio, but she’s constantly running around in heels and skirts. My boyfriend even made a comment at one point that there’s no way she could run several blocks in over the knee boots. Wise is far more believable as the detective who thinks everything is in her mind.

“Rosewood Lane” actually had a few nice little scares. One scene that sticks out in my mind has McGowan in the basement of her house. As a car passes in front of the house, the headlights illuminate the background, showing the paper boy standing behind her. Even though I knew it was coming, it still made me jump a little.

This isn’t a fantastic movie, but it actually is pretty good. I know a lot of people have a problem with Salvo as a director given his past history, but the man can sure do a lot with a horror film. If you haven’t yet seen it or you keep putting it off, give it a try.