Horror365

The story of the Blair Witch continues as Heather’s younger brother sets out with a group of close friends searching for some answers to his sisters disappearance.

I don’t understand what people hated so much about this film. I thought it was a pretty good take on the series. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t enjoy it. This long overdue followup built upon the success of the first movie and even managed to ramp things up a notch. Blair Witch was an effective sequel as it offered more insight into the hauntings in the Black Hills.

The acting was well done. I’ve always been a big fan of found footage horror movies and this is among my favorites in the genre. The last half hour was pretty intense and will have you on the edge of your seat.

Officer Jessica Loren has been assigned to wait for a Hazmat team to pick up bio-hazardous waste from a transitioning police station’s armory. Little does Jessica know, the former police station has been haunted by cult leader John Michael Paymon and two of his followers ever since they committed suicide there a year ago to date. Officer Loren is left alone with these ghosts to complete a “terrifying” and dangerous Last Shift.

Oh brother! Jump scares galore in this one and not a one of them work. Also uses every horror cliche known to man. To top things off, the creepy cult theme has been done about a million times over and it is not done even remotely well in Last Shift’s case.

Not only is there absolutely no character development but the acting is horrid. All of the characters lack any real depth making none of them likable or relatable. Officer Loren has got to be one of the dumbest characters I have ever seen. Nobody and I mean nobody would have stayed and protected an abandoned police station with everything that was going on throughout the night. Not believable.

The ending had to be the worst part. It was so dumb and thoughtless and predictable, oh was it predictable!!

A deaf girl is visited by the Virgin Mary and suddenly can speak, hear, and heal the sick. Many flock to be witness to her miracles. As chilling events begin to unfold, questions are raised as to wether this is indeed the work of Mary or is something more sinister at play?

I had high expectations going in and this definitely was not as good as I had hoped. Other than some silly jump scares and cheesy CGI there wasn’t much to work with. The story, initially, is different and the idea of a false Virgin Mary is something that hasn’t been over done but the execution was poor making the film quite bland, predictable, and forgettable.

The last half of the movie was a huge mess. It borrows from every horror movie cliche you could possibly think of. Of course there are the cheap jump scares but we also have moving images on the computer screen and the cracking almost contortionist way the demon walks bending its body and crawling about. All of this has been done to death and left me cringing.

While Sheriff Sheldon and his team are investigating the brutal murder of a family, they are shocked to find the body of a beautiful stranger buried in the basement of the home that does not fit with the crime. Sheldon brings the body of this Jane Doe late at night to coroner Tommy Tilden and his assistant son Austin requesting the cause of death first thing in the am.

Over the course of the strange and stormy night they come to find some terrifying truths about this mystery woman.

This film has a pretty good story and while it’s about a topic that is fairly unique, the horrible acting on Austin Tilden’s part ruins most of the scares.

I do wish that they had gone into more detail on the background of Jane Doe. It’s difficult to say without giving it away but they glossed over something that would have been extremely interesting and added some much needed character development had they dove into the subject.

I loved the soundtrack and the CSI style examination of the body seemed realistic and plausible.

I have no hesitation to say that the beginning of this movie really pulled me in. Brian Cox, the actor who portrayed Tommy Tilden, was very convincing as a small town ME and the mortuary set looked very realistic.

But around halfway through the film things take a bit of a shaky turn. In short, there are some frivolous things that occur that are a bit silly and take away from time that could be spent on the bigger picture, the origins of Jane Doe.

A TV reporter and her cameraman cover the late night shift at a fire station. A call comes in regarding an elderly woman trapped in her house. So begins a long nightmare for all involved as well as a dramatic TV report.

REC is a low-budget zombie flick with little to offer. I don’t understand why this movie got such high ratings. It didn’t impress me at all. Wasn’t even anything original. Honestly by the end of the film I was praying they would just kill the main tv reporter off so I didn’t have to listen to her screeching anymore. She yelled from the beginning of the movie all the way through to the conclusion. The characters do far too much yelling and senseless arguing throughout the film. None of them are likable and I didn’t care who got bitten by the zombies.

The immersive experience of seeing through the eyes of the cameraman is completely destroyed by all the damn hollering and carrying on that these characters do.

Don’t get me started on the damn camera. Even when the cameraman is standing still the darn thing is still wobbling all over the place. It made me nauseous and I’m not even exaggerating.

June of 1991, Madrid. With the recent death of her father and her mother working long hours teenage Veronica must care for her two younger sisters and baby brother.

Wishing to contact her father she decides to play Ouija with two of her friends. The session goes very wrong and something strange happens to Veronica.

Hiding the strange event from her mother Veronica starts to feel off and she senses a strange presence in her home that she believes means harm to her younger siblings.

Following the advice of Sister Narcisa Veronica looks for a way to break the connection with the ghost and save her family.

I had heard glowing reviews about this movie and was excited to experience it for myself. I really wanted to be scared by this film but I wasn’t. It was your average run of the mill possession movie that’s been done a million times before and will be done a million times again. Don’t get me wrong it’s not a bad film, but it does not live up to any of the hype.

But it does work overall. It is something to watch if you like the horror genre just don’t expect anything out of the ordinary. The story has the right mood and the acting was good. It is paced well and the suspense builds over the course of the film.

Father of two girls, Clyde, stops at a yard sale and buys his daughter Em an antique carved box. Em soon becomes oddly obsessed and territorial over the box demanding that no one touch it. Finding the hidden lock on the box, she opens it and releases an evil spirit that possesses her.

Clyde and his ex wife Stephanie realize that something is very wrong with their daughter. Clyde fearing the worst reaches out to a Professor McMannis who explains that his daughters new treasure is a Dibbuk Box that contains a terrifying fiend intent on taking over his daughters body.

I thought this movie was overall pretty good. It was well paced and acted. There was good character development. I empathized with the characters and cared about what happened to Em.

The story was a little cliche. Divorced couple with two kids who they share custody of, there’s a new spouse in the picture etc etc. It had all the makings of your typical troubled teen movie where Em’s behavior could potentially be blamed on her not dealing well with her parents split well. That’s exactly what happens even though something more sinister is at the root of Em’s problems.

My only other gripe is that it was PG-13 horror which I am almost never a fan of. The end product of this rating is usually a bit watered down. I wish that the director and writer would have been able to push the envelope more. I think it would have made for a better more powerful horror film.

I did however like that instead of Christianity the Jewish faith was at the root of the story. It was something out of the norm and made for a good change of pace in this genre.

Spaceship Covenant’s journey to transport colonists to a new solar system is put on pause when a solar flash damages the ship. Mid repair a signal is picked up from an uncharted planet. The captain of Covenant decides to throw away all of the plans that went into their journey and make this the new destination, with disastrous results.

Visually this film is excellent. I wish I could say the same about the rest of the movie. The plot is idiotic. The crew of Covenant is completely bland and unmemorable. There was zero character development and I can’t remember anyone’s name. The one exception to this statement is David. Who was a great character and was well acted by Fassbender.

I thought Prometheus was quite good and I was looking forward to Covenant but it was a huge let down. It was very boring and I couldn’t have cared less what happened to any of the characters. The “twist” at the end you could see coming from a mile away.

Z is a suspense/horror film about a family that finds themselves terrorized by their 8 year old son's imaginary friend.

This movie had a very strong start but completely lost me in the second half. Initially the main actress was quite good and her relationship with her son seemed genuine. The little boy also did quite well with his role. “Z” also looked great.

The beginning, being quite strong, relied mostly on atmosphere and although it has a few jump scares they are not poorly done.

Right around the halfway point things started to take a turn for the worse. It was like I had started watching a completely different movie. This is when it starts to amp up with ridiculous jump scares galore. The characters suddenly devolve into complete idiots and the plot becomes unbelievable. It was all over the place. Downright hard to watch especially the last 20 minutes or so.

Two best friends and their boyfriends vacation in Mexico. The two couples meet a German tourist whose archeologist girlfriend is on a dig with his brother. He invites his new friends to adventure into the jungle to the dig site and they happily agree to a change of pace from their booze filled beach party.

Once they arrive, instead of fun and excitement, the group is held captive at the top of the ruins by the locals. Soon they discover that the locals are the least of their worries as an even greater danger lies in wait. Something sly and cunning is hungry for a taste of human flesh and dinner has just been served.

This film makes the most of the themes of impending death, isolation and hopelessness. It will make you squirm and get under your skin as any good horror should. It was gory, dark and unpleasant. Thankfully it didn’t utilize a lot of jump scares which a lot of the genre tends to use.

While none of the characters are particularly likable the movie itself is so entertaining, the mood gripping and the antagonist different than anything you’ve probably ever seen, it doesn’t really end up mattering that the characters have no depth.

A well acted British horror movie about a group of female friends that go on a caving expedition which takes a bad turn leaving you wondering if any of them will survive to see the light of day again.

This film begins when one of the women, Sarah, loses her husband and child in a horrible car accident. A year after their deaths the group of friends reunite to go on a caving expedition in the United States within the Appalachian Mountains.

The film has a bit of a slow start but is entertaining none the less. From the moment the women arrive at the cave the tension is palpable. I could actually sense the claustrophobia and feel the women’s growing fear of the unknown as they trekked through the cave. There were plenty of jump scares that leave you ready to flinch and in suspense. This movie exuded foreboding and menace.

The lighting is something to be mentioned as most of the movie takes place within the bowels of the cave. Some of it is lit through infra-red camera, green light-sticks, torches and flares. I thought it would be a little confusing at first as pretty much the entirety of this film is in darkness. However, the different kinds of lighting are specific to the group or character that you are watching so it’s easy to differentiate.

My only gripes are that some of the dialogue in the cabin at the beginning comes off a bit silly and the spinning camera angle in a specific scene didn’t really do it any favors.

Leon, an antiques collector, inherits his estranged mother Rosalind’s gothic revival home. Upon his arrival he discovers that she has been living in the shrine of a mysterious cult. His mother’s presence still lingers along with something more threatening and sinister.

This film was dramatic and deeply atmospheric horror in the vein of Sinister & Insidious. I loved the attention to detail! Everything from the eerie setting to the sound effects was very well done. Rosalind’s home was a character all on its own.

While it was incredibly slow paced and much of it without dialogue I was immersed in this film the entire runtime. It was a deeply chilling tale of loss, deep emotion, and suffering. No silly jump scares necessary!

Three young burglars pose as waitstaff at a Malibu dinner party with the intent of robbing the hosts. One of the three is in dire need of funds because his father is being held captive by a strip club owner for gambling debts. In the end, the jokes on them as they get a whole lot more than what they bargained for.

I absolutely LOVED this movie. It is a bit of fun campy horror with a good amount of gore. Typically hack and slash doesn’t have too much of a storyline but Monster Party doesn’t disappoint. The concept is refreshingly original. Well written and well made. There was a good amount of character development which is also unusual in horror flicks.

I won’t lie. I rooted for the bad guys in this one. There were several characters that I genuinely cared what happened to them. (Can’t go into much more than that because it will give a large part of the movie away)

In the year 2093 following clues to the beginning of mankind, archaeologist Elizabeth Shaw and her significant other Charlie, along with a crew, set out on a deep space adventure. On board their starship, Prometheus, the team lands on a empty exomoon. They plan to investigate the existence of an extraterrestrial species called the Engineers. But a horrifying discovery comes to threaten not only the mission but the future of all mankind.

Although sci-fi is one of my least favorite genres, I really liked Prometheus. The cinematography and musical score are Oscar worthy. The acting is top notch and the plot keeps tension at a high level throughout the entire film. It was paced perfectly. Definitely never boring. I can’t think of anything that could have been done to make the movie better.

Don’t Leave Home is about an American artist named Melanie who creates sculptures based on infamous missing person cases. Her most recent piece is based around a priest who is also a painter. He has the misfortune of painting the portrait of a child who ends up disappearing from her home and also from the painting.

The priests caretaker contacts Melanie with an offer to not only buy her most recent work but also to commission her for a new sculpture that will be sold to investors at a private auction for a considerable sum.

Once she arrives she begins to have strange dreams and witness unusual happenings that lead her to believe the offer may not be what it seems. This all adds up to a very unexpected ending that I wasn’t completely satisfied with. It left too much unanswered and wasn’t very clear.

This movie is definitely a slow burn. It’s pacing is not the best and I was quite bored at points. However it was very atmospheric and shot well. Almost otherworldly at points, it created a successful element of dread. The acting was pretty good, it was well cast, and it was refreshing to see the main actress in a horror film not depicted as a damsel in distress.

Mia, a social media influencer, becomes the target of an online terror attack. She must solve a series of “games” to keep her loved ones from being killed. But something much deeper is actually going on.

This movie was just not believable. I actually felt dumber after watching it. I laughed my ass off through this whole entire movie when, I assure you, it was not meant to be comical. I cannot understand why anyone would rate this movie positively. Literally one of the worst horror movies I have ever seen.

Colleen and her two teenage daughters inherit her deceased sisters home. During their first night they are terrorized by two intruders and Colleen must fight to save her daughters lives.

Sixteen years later the younger of the two girls, Beth, is living a perfect life in Los Angeles as a horror writer. Her sister, Vera, has suffered a complete mental break after the attack and cannot cope with what happened. When Beth returns to the family home after a strange phone call from Vera things begin to get very odd indeed.

I went into this movie expecting a mediocre typical horror film. I was very wrong with my initial assumption. The movie has an overall eerie disturbing tone and it pulls you in straight from the get go.

The acting was very good. The script was well written and I genuinely cared about what happened to the two girls. The intruders were unusual and their characters were unique and well crafted. The twist was great! Did not see it coming. In the end the movie is very far off from what was originally presented. (Hopefully that isn’t too much of a spoiler)

Not only was there brutality and violence but it also wove in an element of psychological horror. It takes a lot to effect me because I’ve seen so many horror films but this was harrowing. The kind of movie where you don’t want to watch for fear of what will happen next but at the same time you’re so engrossed you can’t look away.