The Babadook

(2014) ****

A single mom is doing her best to raise her odd son under difficult circumstances.  The child has behavioral issues including an obsessive fear of monsters. When he finds a picture book called "Mr. Babadook" their lives take yet another turn for the worse.

What I enjoyed most about this movie was the slow build of dread and the great performance by the lead actress.  Without going into spoil-y details, I'm a little mixed about the ending, and would like to discuss once everyone who wants to has seen it. Or maybe I just need to watch it again and make up my own damn mind.

Stag Night

(2008)**1/2

A group of guys just looking to enjoy a good bachelor party get off in the wrong place while taking the subway. They wind up lost in the old tunnels while being pursued by a pack of angry cannibals. Sounds fun right? I thought so, but this film pissed me off in far too many ways for me to give it a good rating. Bad decisions are made one after another, women stand by idly while the men who rescue them fight and ultimately end up dead, the cannibals are more like grunting cavemen who escaped from the Quest for Fire set. On a high note, the film might have been more appropriately titles 101 Ways to Decapitate a Person. I don't think I've ever seen such an elaborate display of decapitations in one single film. This is what earned it the extra half star.

The Babadook

(2014)
Evil Popup book JHorror-styled Aussie Film Thought provoking end

Mr. Jones

(2013)

An amateur documentarian chooses to live in a cabin in the woods for a year. Here he hopes work on his marriage and film a nature documentary although foolishly he hasn't chosen a subject before making this decision. One day his backpack is stolen by a guy who looks like a homeless Sith Lord. He follows him to a nearby cabin that he didn't know existed. After entering the cabin and retrieving his backpack, he discovers that he is standing in the home of Mr. Jones, a critically acclaimed anonymous artist who specializes in creepy wooden sculptures.

At this point I wondered why Scott would enter the cabin with his video camera on. I'm pretty sure that people who live off the grid generally don't want their homes to be broken into and filmed. So it was here where I started thinking that maybe Scott isn't the brightest guy.

He decides to make Mr. Jones the subject of his documentary and flies to New York to interview art curators. Mr. Jones became a sensation in the art world for sending his creations to random recipients. Scott interviews some of the people who received the sculptures and they all describe unpleasant to disturbing events that they experienced after receiving their gifts. One man very soberly warns Scott not to go further with the documentary because of an evil associated with the figures.

So what does he do? He sneaks into the cabin again, explores the basement and discovers the basement's basement, which leads to an elaborate underground labyrinth. On his way out he steals a doll, because he's Scott and he makes poor decisions.

Three and a half Gretchens may be a little generous but that's just the kind of guy I am today. It's a challenge for a movie to create "famous art" but I thought they successfully pulled it off here. The scarecrows or whatever the hell they are elicited a delightfully unsettling visceral response in me. Another plus is that the actual threat that they face is unclear but scary-as-shit nonetheless. Is Mr. Jones your standard homicidal maniac? A supernatural being? Finding out is half the fun.

On the downside there were some annoying "technical difficulties", the bane of found footage films (you know, suddenly there's a glitch in the tape so you're unable to ascertain what just transpired *shudder*). Now that I think about it, Mr. Jones walked that line of a found footage film and an actual movie so seamlessly that I don't even know how to categorize it.

Nude For Satan

 (1974)**(SBIG)

Out for a late night drive, Dr. Benson happens upon a crashed car with an injured woman in it. He scoops her up and stops off at a nearby castle to try and get her some help. Instead he finds a whirlwind of lunacy, naked women and diabolically laughing men. He and his injured companion also discover their evil duplicates are residing amongst the chaos and they must resist the temptations that are offered to them. To be or not to be nude for Satan, that is the question.

 I'm just going to lay here and laugh at you with my bad teeth.

I know some of you have no tolerance for early 70's sexploitation horror and generally I'm not a huge fan either but sometime you just gotta do it. I found each tantalizing encounter to be even more hilarious then the last. In fact, if this is Satan's house it would make a hell of an x rated amusement park attraction.
Here are some of the highlights:

Satan likes to make shadow puppets on boobies.

Patty cake is the best way to honor Satan.

 Oh no! I am caught in Satan's web what shall I do!

Eeeeeeek it's a giant spider! 

No wait...it's a fat turd with pipe cleaner legs!

Pulgasari

1985  **

Welcome to North Korea's first and only kaiju movie!  That's right, North Korea, home to everybody's favorite supervillain dictator, the late Kim Jong-Il.  As a matter of fact, the production of Pulgasari was helmed by a famous South Korean director that Kim Jong-Il had kidnapped and forced to make movies of Kim's choosing.  I swear I am making none of this up.

While this movie does in many ways break from the standard kaiju storyline elements, it replaces them with not-quite-as-interesting heavy-handed Socialist propaganda.  Our story focuses on a long-suffering village of farmers whose informal leader is a venerable old blacksmith.  Imprisoned and starved because he won't make weapons by melting down his neighbor's farming tools, he fashions his last rice ball into a tiny monster statue (a feat which, as a professional fabricator, I found pretty impressive).   When his daughter accidentally drips a little of her blood on the statue, it comes to life and starts eating metal things, and that makes it grow.  Little Pulgasari thwarts a public execution of the local rebel leader, but then he wanders into the woods for a while and leaves the audience to soak in more peasants wailing as the ruling class does various horrible and un-neighborly things.

An hour into the 90 minute movie Pulgasari eats enough of the enemies' swords to grow to proper kaiju size and fight the good fight alongside the farmers' rebellious army.  Despite that he's still kind of a loser.  Sure, the enemy cowers at his approach, but we only ever watch him nail a paltry two buildings and meanwhile he keeps getting his ass handed to him by each fool scheme the generals throw down.  Pulgasari overcomes these setbacks, but each time he's out of commision the good guys take it on the chin, and by the movie's end all but one character important enough to have a name has died while doing the Right Thing.

Pulgasari sounds like a can't-miss So Bad It's Good opportunity, but in this it almost completely fails.  It certainly doesn't help that the propaganda within -- that corrupt and greedy leaders can be overthrown by the will of a strong collective -- was itself the tool of a corrupt and greedy leader who ruled his country with an iron fist.  If anything this movie promotes capitalism, because let's face it: agrarian socialist collectivism is wicked boring.

Unfriended

(2015)

After a humiliating drunken video surfaces online Laura Barnes is bullied relentlessly by her peers until she takes her own life with a gun. One year later a group of 5 friends are skyping together when an online presence claiming to be Laura joins their conversation and begins terrorizing them. From here Unfriended follows the basic slasher formula of picking off teenagers one at a time in reverse order of likeability. Ken, the fat kid with the Hawaiian shirt whom they presumably keep around for comedy relief, dies first. Before exacting deadly revenge against her enemies, Laura’s ghost exposes their dirty teenage secrets and succeeds at playing them against each other. The lessons are quite obvious: 1) Any picture or video taken of you can come back to bite you in the ass and 2) Teenagers are filthy, cruel, backstabbing monsters who need to be monitored at all times.

It’s a fairly enjoyable and creative take on the modern found footage horror movie but I did become mildly irritated by the format. The whole movie takes place on a computer screen and while that does open up new possibilities, it also means that the viewer is subjected to clicking, typing, IM’ing, buffering, downloading, deleting and refreshing pages for an hour and a half. It wears a bit thin but the story is compelling enough to make you need to know how it all ends up.

The Atticus Institute

 (2015)***

This mockumentary spins a refreshing new take on demonic possession. A government run institute investigating psychic abilities happens upon a woman who blows all their tests off the charts. When the scientists realize she is beyond their means they bring the military into it. Of course the military sees this as an opportunity to harness her abilities for use as an ultimate weapon. Testing just seems to piss her off and as a result things go horribly wrong.

Very interesting take on demonic possession to say the least. Well done and captivating. I'm not entirely sure why I'm only giving it three stars, maybe it's just that I wished there had been more "demon" in the possession but in all honesty if it had been more demony it would have zapped the real factor out of it.

Annabelle

(2015) *

It is October 1970.  WASP-y John and Mia live next door to a couple murdered by their daughter and boyfriend, cult members.  This is the time of Charles Manson, after all, and we are reminded of this via television footage.  Spooked by their neighbor’s grisly murders the young couple decides to move into a Roman Polanski-like apartment complex.  Mia collects (creepy as fuck) porcelain dolls and John surprises her with the titular ‘Annabelle’, the ugliest doll no one would ever buy, as an apartment-warming gift.  Shortly thereafter Mia gives birth to Lea and while John is away at work spooky things begin to happen in the apartment.  Mia begins to suspect that Annabelle is up to no good.

Of course a priest is called

What happened to James Wan?  The youngish director started out promisingly with movies like SAW (2004) and Death Sentence (2007) but has quickly devolved into creating crappy b-movies.    Like M. Knight Shyamalan who also enjoyed some early success, it would appear that Wan's early achievements did not portend a future in quality film making (okay, The Visit was good).  Those who know me know that I despise the Insidious franchise (Wan directed parts 1 and 2 of the 3) as well as The Conjuring.  Crappy characters, cheap looking sets, bad acting, and an overall lack of scares appear to be the hallmark of a Wan film.  Annabelle is no different.  For those hoping for a Chucky/Talky Tina doll run a muck chiller you will be immensely disappointed.  The doll has very little to do with the plot (i.e. the devil wants the soul of Lea, YAWN) and literally never blinks.  Instead Annabelle sits in the background looking hideous.  Avoid at all cost. 

Simon King of the Witches

(1971)

This movie came highly recommended to me from a co-worker whom I'm fairly certain practices dark magic in his spare time. (At the very least he's a bright guy who's really into gaming, and knows a thing or two about spells.) He convinced me that this film is a cut above your average early 70's cult-witch-psychedelic boob-fest.

And it's true, this movie strives for more. It follows the trials of Simon, a gifted warlock who lives in a storm drain. People perceive him as either a street magician, a pathetic vagrant, or all around cool guy. Simon's appearance and demeanor is that of a wizened Bee Gee who's seen some serious shit. The actor who plays him (Andrew Prine) carries the film with his deep commitment to the character. After getting arrested for walking in the rain, Simon befriends Turk, a male prostitute who quickly becomes his trusty sidekick.

To clarify - Turk is presented as a male prostitute who primarily services women (as if such a thing ever existed). Turk introduces him to a millionaire playboy who is quite impressed with Simon's magical skizzles. Aware that Simon is uniquely gifted, but has little to show for it, the rich gentleman challenges him to use his powers to "tip the scale". Once a warlock is challenged he must either use his power or lose it. This results in some deaths... It culminates with a psychedelic bug-out sequence after Simon jumps through a mirror.

Truth be told I was slightly bored at first but became intrigued by the end.

The Visit

(2015) ***1/2

Oh ye of little faith abandon not your quest to find a viable M. Night Shyamalan flick for one has been delivered!

 Becca, a budding young documentary film aficionado & her younger brother Tyler are sent off for a week to stay with the grandparents they've never met. All seems to be cozy in their small town country home until nana & pop-pop start acting strange. With mom away on a cruise and seemingly no way out the kids delve deeper into the issues of their grandparents trying to make sense of their bizarre behavior. Interesting and captivating from start to finish. The kids are great, not at all annoying or polished and fake like some child actors can be. The story is revealed at a good pace as each occurrence of strange behavior is explained of by one grandparent or another. Still, there seems to be something that just isn't right. There is a definite "What a twist!" moment in classic M. Night fashion, let's face it if there wasn't one we would all be disappointed. Biddy safe but still packs a good grip with the prospect of terror looming over their heads.

Ha! I drew first blood! Horrorthon!